strain by l. ron hubbard the essence of military success is teamwork--the essence of that is absolute reliability of every man, every unit of the team, under any strain that may be imposed. and the duty of a good general--? [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from astounding science-fiction april 1942. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it was unreasonable, he told himself, to feel no agony of apprehension. he was in the vortex of a time whirlwind and here all stood precariously upon the edge of disaster, but stood quietly, waiting and unbreathing. no man who had survived a crash, survived bullets, survived the paralyzing rays of the guards, had a right to be calm. and it was not like him to be calm; his slender hands and even, delicate features were those of an aristocrat, those of a sensitive thoroughbred whose nerves coursed on the surface, whose health depended upon the quietness of those nerves. they threw him into the domed room, and his space boots rang upon the metal floor, and the glare of savage lights bit into his skull scarcely less than the impact from the eyes of the enemy intelligence officer. the identification papers were pushed across the desk by this guard and the intelligence officer scanned them. "hm-m-m." the brutish, saturnian countenance lighted and became interested. the slitted eyes flicked with satisfaction from one to the other of the two captured officers. "captain forrester de wolf," said the man behind the desk. "which one of you?" he looked steadily at the saturnian and was a little amazed to find himself still calm. "i am he." "ah! then you are flight officer morrison?" the captain's companion was sweating and his voice had a tremor in it. his youthful, not too bright face twitched. "you got no right to do anything to us. we are prisoners of war captured in uniform in line of combat duty! we treat saturnians well enough when we grab them!" this speech or perhaps its undertone of panic was of great satisfaction to the intelligence officer. he stood up with irony in his bearing and shook captain de wolf by the hand. then, less politely but with more interest, bowed slightly to flight officer morrison. the intelligence officer sat down. "ah, yes," he said, looking at the papers. "fortunes of war. you came down into range of the batteries and--well, you came down. you gentlemen don't accuse the saturnians of a lack in knowing the rules of war, i trust." but there was false candor there. "we will give you every courtesy as captured officers: your pay until the end of the war, suitable quarters, servants, good food, access to entertainment and a right to look after your less fortunate enlisted captives." there was no end to the statement. it hung there, waiting for an additional qualification. and then the intelligence officer looked at them quickly, falsely, and said, "of course, that is contingent upon your willingness to give us certain information." flight officer morrison licked overly dry lips. he was young. he had heard many stories about the treatment, even the torture, the saturnians gave their prisoners. and he knew that as a staff officer the saturnians would know his inadvertent possession of the battle plan so all-important to this campaign. morrison flicked a scared glance at his captain and then tried to assume a blustering attitude. captain de wolf spoke calmly--a little surprised at himself that he could be so calm in the knowledge that as aide to general balantine he knew far more than was good to know. "i am afraid," said the captain quietly, "that we know nothing of any use to you." the intelligence officer smiled and read the papers again. "on the contrary, my dear captain, i think you know a great deal. it was not clever of you to wear that staff aiguillette on a reconnaissance patrol. it was not clever of you to suppose that merely because we had never succeeded in forcing down a g-434 such as yours that it could not be done. and it is not at all clever of you to suppose that we have no knowledge of a pending attack, a very broad attack. we have that knowledge. we must know more." his smile was ingratiating. "and you, naturally, will tell us." "you go to hell!" said flight officer morrison, hysteria lurking behind his eyes. "now, now, do not be so hasty, gentlemen," said the intelligence officer. "sit down and smoke a cigarette with me and settle this thing." * * * * * neither officer made a move toward the indicated chairs. through morrison's mind coursed the crude atrocity stories which had been circulated among the troops of earth, stories which concerned earth soldiers lashed to ant hills and honey injected into their wounds, stories which dealt with a courier skinned alive, square inch by square inch, stories about a man staked out, eyelids cut away, to be let go mad in the blaze of mercurian noon. captain de wolf was detached in a dull and disinterested way, standing back some feet from himself and watching the clever young staff captain emotionlessly regard the sly saturnian. the intelligence officer looked from one to the other. he was a good intelligence officer. he knew faces, could feel emotions telepathically, and he knew exactly what information he must get. the flight officer could be broken. it might take several hours and several persuasive instruments, but he could be broken. the staff captain could not be broken, but because he was an intelligent, sensitive man he could be driven to the brink of madness, his mind could be warped and the information could thus be extracted. it was too bad to have to resort to these expedients. it was not exactly a gentlemanly way of conducting a war. but there were necessities which knew no rules, and there was a saturnian general staff which did not now believe in anything resembling humanity. "gentlemen," said the intelligence officer, looking at his cigarette and then at his long, sharp nails, "we have no wish to break your bodies, wreck your minds and discard you. that is useless. you are already beaten. the extraction of information is, with us, a science. i do not threaten. but unless we learn what we wish to learn we must proceed. now, why don't you tell me all about it here and now and save us this uncomfortable and regrettable necessity?" he knew men. he knew earthmen. he knew the temper of an officer of the united states of earth, and he did not expect them to do anything but what they did--stiffen up, become hostile and angry. but this was the first step. this was the implanting of the seed of concern. he knew just how far he could go. he smiled at them. "you," he continued, "are young. women doubtless love you. your lives lay far ahead of you. it is not so bad to be an honored prisoner, truly. why court the possibility of broken bodies, broken minds, warped and twisted spirits? there is nothing worth that. your loyalty lies to yourselves, primarily. a state does not own a man. now, what have you to say?" flight officer morrison glanced at his captain. he looked back at the intelligence officer. "go to hell," he said. * * * * * there were no blankets or bunks in the cell and there was no light save when the guard came, and then there was a blinding torrent of it. the walls sloped toward the center and there was no flat floor but a rounded continuation of the walls. the entire place was built of especially heat-conductive metal and the two prisoners had been stripped of all their clothes. captain de wolf sat in the freezing ink and tried to keep as much of himself as possible from contacting the metal. for some hours a water drop had been falling somewhere on something tinny, and it did not fall with regularity; sometimes there were three splashes in rapid succession and then none for ten seconds, twenty seconds or even for a minute. the body would build itself up to the next drop, would relax only when it had fallen, would build up for the expected interval and then wait, wait, wait and finally slack down in the thought that it would come no longer. suddenly the drop would fall--a very small sound to react so shatteringly upon the nerves. the captain was trying to keep his thoughts in a logical, regulation pattern despite the weariness which assailed him, despite the shock of chill which racked him every time he forgot and relaxed against the metal. how hot was this foul air! how cold was this wall! [illustration: _the walls were icy; the air was baking-hot and sahara-dry and foul. they waited--waited for saturn's inquisitioners--_] "forrester," groped morrison's voice. "hello"--startling himself with the loudness of his tone. "do--is it possible they'll keep us here forever?" "i don't think so," said the captain. "after all, our information won't be any good in any length of time. if you are hoping for action, i think you'll get it." "is ... is this good sense to hold out?" "listen to me," said the captain. "you've been in the service long enough to know that if one man fails he is liable to take the regiment along with him. if we fail, we'll take the entire army. remember that. we can't let general balantine down. we can't let our brother officers down. we can't let the troops down. and we can't let ourselves down. make up your mind to keep your mouth shut and you'll feel better." it sounded, thought the captain, horribly melodramatic. but he continued: "you haven't had the grind of west point. a company, a regiment or an army has no thought of the individual. it cannot have any thought, and the individual, therefore, cannot fail, being a vital part of the larger body. if either of us break now, it would be like a man's heart stopping. we're unlucky enough to be that heart at the moment." "i've heard," said morrison in a gruesome attempt at jocularity, "that getting gutted is comfortable compared to some of the things these saturnians can think up." the captain wished he could believe fully the trite remark he must offer here. "anything they can do to us won't be half of what we'd feel in ourselves if we did talk." "sure," agreed morrison. "sure, i see that." but he had agreed too swiftly. * * * * * the shock of the light was physical and even the captain cowered away from it and threw a hand across his eyes. there was a clatter and a slither and a tray lay in the middle of the cell, having come from an unseen hand at the bottom of the door. morrison squinted at it with a glad grin. there were several little dishes sitting around a big metal cover of the type used to keep food warm. morrison snatched at the cover and whipped it off. and then, cover still raised, he stared. on the platter a cat was lying, agony and appeal in its eyes, crucified to a wooden slab with forks through its paws, cockroaches crawling and eating at its skinned side. the cover dropped with a clatter and was then snatched up. the heavy edge of it came down on the skull of the cat, and with a sound between a sigh and a scream it relaxed, dead. gray-faced morrison put the cover back on the dish. the captain looked at the flight officer and tried to keep his attention upon morrison's reaction and thus avoid the illness which fought upward within him. the light went out and they could feel each other staring into the dark, could feel each other's thoughts. from the captain came the compulsion to silence; from morrison, a struggling but unspoken panic. one sentence ran through captain de wolf's mind, over and over. "he is going to break at the first chance he has. he is going to break at the first chance he has. he is going to break at the first chance he has. he is--" angrily he broke the chain. how could he tell this man what it would mean. himself a point officer, it was hard for him to reach out and understand the reaction of one who had been until recently a civilian pilot. how could he harden in an hour or a day the resolution to loyalty? it was a step ahead, a tribute to de wolf's understanding that he realized the difference between them. he knew how carefully belief in service had been built within himself and he knew how vital was that belief. but how could he make morrison know that fifty thousand earthmen, his friends, the hope of earth, might die if the time and plan of the attack were disclosed? futilely he wished that they had not been at the council which had decided it, that knowledge of it had been necessary for them to do a complete scout of the situation for general balantine. if no word of this came to the saturnians, then this planet might be wholly cleared of the enemy with one lightning blow by space and land. suddenly de wolf discovered that he had been wondering for a long time about his daughter, who had been reported by his wife as having a case of measles. angrily he yanked his mind from such a fatal course. he could not allow himself to be human, to know that people would sorrow if he went. he was part of an army and as part of that army he had no right to personality or self. he was here, he could not fail, he could not let morrison fail! if only that drop would stop falling! it was both relief and agony when the light went on once more. the captain had no conception of the amount of time which had passed, was only conscious of the misery of his body and the determination not to fail. the door swung open and a dark-hooded saturnian infantryman stood there. an officer beyond him beckoned and said, "we want a word with morrison, the flight officer, if you please." * * * * * not until morrison had been gone an hour or more did captain de wolf begin to crumble within. the irregular, loud drop, the continued shocks of a body sweating in the hot air and then touching the icy metal, the fact that morrison-the man was not a regular; he was a civilian less than a year in the service. unlike captain de wolf, he was not a personality molded into a military machine, and a civilian, having earned a personality of his own through the necessity to seek for self, could not be drawn too far down the road of agony without breaking. captain de wolf, sick with physical and nervous discomfort, was ground down further by his fear that morrison would crack. and as time went by and morrison was not returned, de wolf became convinced. surging up at last, he battered at the door. no answer came to him; the lock was steadfast. wildly he turned and beat at the plates of the cell, and not until pain reached his consciousness from his bloodied fists did he realize the danger in which he stood. he himself was cracking. he stilled the will to scream at the dropping water. he carefully took himself in hand and felt the light die in his eyes. he had no hope of escape. the saturnians would be too clever for that. but he could no longer trust himself to wait, and he used his time by examining the whole of this cell. the walls were huge, unyielding plates and there was no window; but, passing back and forth, he repeatedly felt the roughness of a grate underfoot. this he finally investigated, a gesture more than a hope. for this served as the room's only plumbing and was foul and odorous and could lead nowhere save into a sewage pipe. for the space of several loud and shattering drops de wolf stood crouched, loose grate in hand, filled with disbelief. for there was a faint ray of light reflected from somewhere below, and in that light it could be seen that there was room enough to pass through! suddenly crafty, he listened at the door. then, with quick, sure motions, slid into the foul hole and pulled the grate into place over his head. the light, not yet seen, was beckoning to him at the end of a tunnel in which he could just crouch. he crawled in the muck for two hundred feet before he came to the light, and here he stopped, staring upward. the hope in him flickered, waned and nearly vanished in a tidal wave of despair. for the light came from an upper grate fourteen feet above the floor of the tunnel, far out of reach upon a slimy, unflawed wall. he tried to leap for it and fell back, slipping and cruelly banging his head as he dropped. again he took solid hold of himself. he forced his trained mind to think, forced his trained body to obey. he stood a long way back from himself and critically observed his actions and impulses as though he was something besides a man and the man was on parade. he looked farther along the tunnel and fumbled his way away from the light. he was sure he would have another outlet presented to him by fate. he could not be led this far without some recompense. and he felt in the top of the tunnel for a grate which might lead out through an empty cell. the tunnel curved and then a new sound made him fumble before he took another step. there was a drop there, an emptiness which might extend ten feet or a hundred. he had to return or chance it. the water which sluggishly gurgled about his ankles spilled over the soft lip of the hole and dropped soundlessly. suddenly he was filled with sickness and panic and premonition. this foul trap into which he had ventured hemmed him close, imprisoned him, would embrace him for some awesome purpose and never give him up. he forced himself into line. he froze his terror. he dropped blindly over the lip of the hole. he was not shaken, for he had dropped less than six feet and the bottom was soft. he crouched, his emotions clashing, disgust and relief. and then when he looked about him again he felt the mad surge of hope, for there was light ahead! * * * * * floundering and splashing and steadying himself against the walls, he gained the bend and saw the blinding force of daylight. for some little while he could not look directly at it nor could his wits embrace the whole of the promise that light offered. but at last, when his pupils were contracted to normal and his realization distilled into reason, he went forward and looked down. once more his hope died. here was a sheer drop of nearly a hundred feet, a cliff face which offered no slightest hold, greased by the sewage and worn smooth by the water. clinging forlornly to the edge, he scanned the great dome of the military base a mile overhead, scanned the cluster of metal huts on the plain before him, watched far-off dots which were soldiers. there was a roar overhead and he drew back lest he be seen by the small scout plane which cruised beneath the dome. when its sound had faded he again ventured a glance out, looking up to make sure he was not seen from above. and once more hope flared. for the wall above this opening offered grips in the form of projecting stones, and the climb was less than twenty feet! it was difficult to swing out of the opening and grab the first rock. it took courage to so expose himself to the sentries who, though two thousand yards away, could pick him easily off the wall if they noticed him. the rock he grabbed came loose in his hand and he nearly hurtled down the cliff. he crouched, panting, denied, wearied beyond endurance with the sudden shock of it. and then he stood off from himself again and snarled a command to go on and up. the next rock he trusted held, and in a moment he was glued to the face of the sheer wall, making weary muscles respond to orders. why he was tired he did not understand, for he had done no great amount of physical exertion. but rock by rock, as he went up, his energy flooded from him and left him in a hazed realm of semiconsciousness which threatened uncaring surrender. he rested for longer and longer intervals between lifts, and what had been twenty feet seemed to stretch to a tortured infinity. he could not believe that he had come within two feet of the top; but, staring up, he saw that he should believe it. a savage will took hold of him and he reached out for the next handhold. it did not exist. he fumbled and groped across the smooth face above him. he stretched to reach the lip so near him. and then he realized that, near as he was, he could not go farther. already his bleeding hands refused to hold beyond the next few seconds. a foot slipped and in sweating terror he wildly clawed for his hold. his right hand slipped loose. a red haze of strain covered his vision. one foot came free and the tendons of his right arm were stretched to the snapping point. he knew he was going, knew that he would fall, knew that morrison would sell an army to the gods of slaughter--his right hand numbed and lost its grip and he started to fall. * * * * * there was a wrench which tore muscles and nerves, and something was around his wrist. he was not falling. he was dangling over emptiness and something had him from above! they pulled him up over the edge and dropped him in an exhausted, broken huddle upon the gravel of the small plateau. and at last, when he opened his eyes, it was to see the grinning face of the intelligence officer and the stolid guards. "usually," said the intelligence officer, in an offhand voice, "they make it up and over by tearing a grip out of the cliff with their fingernails. you, however, are of a much more delicate nervous structure, it seems. i rather thought you'd fail where you did. one gets to know these things after some practice." captain de wolf lay where they had dropped him. a dull haze of beaten anger clouded his sight and then dropped away from him and left him naked, filthy and alone among his country's enemies. diffidently the guards picked him up and lugged him toward the small buildings. they took him down a corridor and into a large, strange room. glad to be quit of this, they put him in a chair and strapped his wrists down. captain de wolf made no resistance. he did not look up. the intelligence officer walked gracefully back and forth, slowly touring the room. he stopped and lighted a cigarette. "it was really quite useless, that escape of yours," he said. "your friend morrison talked to the limit of his knowledge. he gave us troops, divisions to be used, state of equipment, general battle plan, in fact everything but two small facts which he did not know." he came nearer to de wolf. "he was not able to recall the time of the attack or the assembly point after it had succeeded--if it did succeed. you are to give us that data, for, as a staff officer, you, of course, know. brauls! make ready with no. 4!" captain de wolf tried to rally. he tried to feel rage against morrison. he tried to realize that an army would perish because of this day's work. he could not think, could not feel. they were rolling some kind of machine toward him, and the wriggly thing called brauls was adjusting something on it. "i won't tell you anything," said de wolf leadenly. a dog was pulled out of a cage and placed on a table where it was strapped down. it whimpered and tried to lick at the hand of the soldier who did the work. brauls, face hidden in a hood, worked expertly with a little track. on this was a small car having two high sides and neither back nor front; it ran on a little track which had been widened to accommodate the width of the dog. brauls touched a button and from jets on either side of the car small streams shot forth with sudden ferocity. these jets sprayed water under tremendous hydraulic pressure, jets which would cut wood faster than any saw and which hissed hungrily as they began to roll toward the dog. captain de wolf tried to drop his eyes. he could not. the little car crept up on the dog and then the jets began to carve away, a fraction of an inch at a time--de wolf managed to look away. the shrieks of agony which came from the dog carved through de wolf. "i won't tell you anything," he said. * * * * * they stretched out his arm and fixed the track on either side of it. they started the car toward his outstretched hand. fixedly he watched it coming. to the persuasive drawl of the intelligence officer he said, "i won't tell you anything." * * * * * a few hours later the intelligence officer was making out his report. he stopped after he had written the caption and the date and gazed at his long, sharp fingernails stained with nicotine. then he sighed and resumed his writing. intelligence report base 34d mercury adsama 452 today interrogated two officers captured from earth reconnaissance plane, captain forrester de wolf and flight officer morrison. captain de wolf, under procedure twenty-three escape tactic, revealed nothing. later he was given procedures forty-five, ninety-seven, twenty-one and six. he died without talking. flight officer morrison was taken from the cell to the chamber. he was very combative. procedures forty-five, ninety-seven and six were employed. despite state of subject he was able to get at the automatic of a guard in a moment of carelessness and succeeded in retaining it even after he was shot. rather than risk the divulgence of data, flight officer morrison blew out his brains. the guard is under arrest. from this attempt and the stubbornness of the enemy i conclude that there may be some attack in the making but, as our own scouts have discovered nothing, i do not expect it in this quarter for some time. drau shadma captain, saturnian imperials intelligence * * * * * at headquarters of the third space army, united states of earth, general balantine sat massively at his field desk impatiently going through a sheaf of reports. "belts!" he brayed at an aide. "tell colonel strawn that whether he thinks regulation hold-down belts are useless or not his troops will wear them and parade with them!" "yessir," said the aide timidly. he had a report in his hand and was not very anxious to give it. "well?" said general balantine sharply. "what have you there?" "it's a report, sir. captain de wolf and flight officer morrison are missing on reconnaissance. they are unreported for a day and a half." "morrison? de wolf? oh, yes, de wolf." general balantine was perfectly silent for a moment. then, in an altered tone: "morrison ... morrison. i don't know the man. i ... don't ... know--" he was silent again, so that his abrupt return to activity was the more startling. "post an order for a council of officers. and have another aide appointed to me. dammit, that was a neat plan of attack, too." "you're changing the plan, sir?" general balantine snorted. "they'll wear those hold-down safety belts. i'll change that plan of attack. i don't know--can't know--what the saturnians found out. i don't think de wolf ... but it makes no difference. i'd have to _know_ and that's impossible. there's time to change. post that notice." captain peabody by rog phillips _he carried the monkey of fear on his back for all to see; and until he could shake the beast he knew he would be a captain in name only...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, december 1957. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the gavel rapped sharply, and the murmur of conversation throughout the banquet room drifted into hushed silence. the occasion was the seventy-fifth meeting of retscap, the organization of retired space captains; the place, a banquet room in the empire club on the hundred and sixty-fourth floor of the new empire state building in manhattan; the time, approximately nine thirty in the evening, august 9, 2231 a.d.; those present, the four hundred and eighteen members of retscap--or rather, four hundred and nineteen, including the new member, captain arthur peabody, who had reached his ninety-fifth birthday just two weeks before, and by doing so had been automatically retired from active service and thereby become eligible for membership while still in the prime of life. "quiet everybody," the secretary and master of ceremonies, captain john evers, said good-naturedly, rapping the gavel again. he turned to the new member, sitting next to him. "captain peabody," he said in his loud clear voice, "the time has come for fulfillment of a traditional part of our get-togethers--one we all look forward to with great pleasure and anticipation." there was a subdued clapping of hands, then captain evers cleared his throat loudly and continued. "each of us here has become a member of retscap only after a lifetime of space travel, much of that time as a captain in charge of the destinies of our crews and passengers and ships. inevitably each of us has had some unusual experiences in his time, and we like to talk about them, boring each other to death, no doubt, as we repeat the same stories among ourselves meeting after meeting. so it's always a treat to us to get a new member and by so doing get some fresh stories to listen to. i am about to give you the floor, and what we would like to hear is the one experience you have had which you think is the most unusual, in some way, of your entire career. the floor is now yours, captain arthur peabody!" arthur peabody stood up slowly, a tall man, long legged and short bodied in his seven foot height, his sharply bridged nose and high forehead giving his features the stamp of authority comfortably worn, and waited, a quiet smile on his firm lips, until the applause subsided. then he began his speech. * * * * * the one experience that stands out in my mind more than any other really began about five minutes after i was assigned to my first ship, the _alabama_, when i was given the list of my officers and crew to check over. half way down the list i came to a name, oscar resnick, and suddenly the thrill of being a captain was gone. for two cents, at that moment, i would gladly have become a retired space captain before i started. i was fifty-two years old then, and it had been about thirty years since i last saw resnick. his rating was still spaceman first class, and i knew if he had ever risen higher he had been demoted again, as was inevitable, sooner or later. he was an incurable bully with the worst streak of sadistic cruelty in him i've ever run across. even the sight of his name on that list sent an instinctive fear through me. once, when i was still a space recruit he had whipped me to within an inch of my life and instilled in me the realization that he could do it any time, anywhere. a man like that is slightly mad, or strikes you that way. you stay out of his way if you can, and if you can't you let him have his way, swallow his insults, do anything to avoid the beating you would get if he took the whim. live with that for two years as i had thirty years before, and you never get over it. now i was captain of my first ship and he was to be one of the crew. and i knew in my heart that if he walked up to me and suddenly reached up to scratch his head i would cringe and turn pale. i wouldn't be able to help it. and if that happened it would be the end of me. the crew would think i was yellow--and i was when it came to oscar resnick. oh, he wouldn't do anything that would give me cause to toss him in the brig, nor even anything that would give me cause to fire him--at least a reason that would stand up under a union inquiry if he demanded one, which he would. he would just grin at me knowingly with eyes that told me he thought i was yellow, and hesitate just long enough after an order to make me wonder if he was going to obey--the kind of stuff that could break me down completely, in time. and there would be nothing i could do about it. i made a try to keep him off my crew. the dispatcher admitted resnick had the reputation of being a trouble maker, but if i didn't take him there was likelihood the union would call out the whole crew and ground the ship. then the dispatcher pointed out the fact that the list was short one man, my personal orderly. i hadn't thought about an orderly at all, and hadn't chosen one yet. he gave me the list of available orderlies and i looked it over, most of the names meaning nothing at all to me. suddenly i ran across a name i knew. i didn't know the man, but i had heard of him, and probably all of you have. the name was david markham. he was _the_ david markham all right, the dispatcher said when i asked him--the one who was kicked out of space patrol for abject cowardice. the dispatcher told me the man had been trying for two years to get back into space, the union wouldn't take him, and the only way he could get into service was an orderly to a captain--if any captain took him. the dispatcher suggested two or three other men he knew personally, any one of which i would probably like and decide to keep permanently. but a crazy idea was running around in my head. it was a clutching at straws, but what it amounted to was this: i had a bully on my crew, a man who had my number and knew how to use it. why not balance him out by making my one choice on the crew a man who was the exact opposite, an abject coward? possibly, on some level of thought, i wanted company if resnick showed me up to the crew, someone who couldn't look down on me because of the simple fact that he was the lowest there was. the dispatcher almost cried with happiness over my choice of david markham. it turned out he was sorry for the guy, and felt only a man with real guts would have the courage to sign markham on. he would certainly have been surprised if i had told him the truth. i met markham the next morning at seven o'clock when i returned to the dispatch office at spaceport, new mexico. he was a fine looking fellow, twenty-five, rather short--just over the six foot four minimum of the space patrol, about one ninety mass, blonde, square jaw. i took a liking to him at once--but there was a haunting something at the back of his eyes that never went away even when he was smiling, and he smiled often during the time i knew him, though he never laughed but once--and it was a sound i never want to hear again. but that came much later. i sent him aboard with my bags to get my quarters in order, then steeled myself to check in the crew. you know how it is, you sit at the window and the men come by, one at a time, you introduce yourself, fix his face in your mind, size him up, then call for the next man. finally it was oscar resnick looking through the window at me, his thick shock of sandy red hair glued down, clean-shaven, six foot eight, about two hundred and forty pounds mass, his brown eyes a little too large, his thin lipped mouth a little too small, his teeth a little too long. the minute i saw him the old fear descended. it took him a few seconds to place where he had seen me before. then he recognized me, and i could see memory flowing through his mind as his wide eyes widened even more, and his thin lips pulled back into a knowing grin. "well, _cap'n_ peabody!" he said, rolling the word _cap'n_ with his tongue as though flavoring it with contempt. "it's a small world. fancy...." i could read his thoughts as they flashed across his face. he would play a waiting game, taking his time, but it would be a game to his liking. showing up the yellow streak in a _captain_. suddenly, he was completely respectful, almost too respectful. "it is certainly good to be shipping with you, sir," he said. "that's the proper spirit, resnick," i said. "all right, get aboard. gate seven." after he had gone i checked in the rest of the crew, seeing liking and respect in their eyes, and wondering how quickly it would change to barely concealed contempt, wondering what resnick would do to show me up. like a renegade wolf he would bide his time, staying out of range, until the moment he decided was right, then he would dart in with a swift attack that would tear open my fear of him for all to see--and dart away again to sit and laugh while my soul withered within me. that's all he would do. that's all he would have to do, and he and i both knew it. * * * * * in the days following take-off, i watched the slow build-up with a certainty of knowledge that can only come from personal experience. i knew resnick's methods. a successful bully must be a shrewd psychologist and know how to capitalize on weaknesses. i watched oscar resnick size up this man and that one, and go to work on each. it's a subtle formula he used. wait until you are alone with a man, then trip him when he goes by you, or dig your elbow into his ribs painfully, then claim it was an accident, but in such a way that both he and you know it wasn't an accident yet nobody else will believe it. mock him with your eyes and your smile, dare him to do something about it. what can a man do? he can't go running to the mate with the complaint that you are picking on him. he can't bring the thing into the open by fighting you without striking the first blow and being branded the aggressor in an unprovoked assault, and unless he is a professional fighter your sneering confidence bluffs him out of an open fight at first. gradually you establish a fear reaction in him that would keep him from winning a fight even if, originally, he could have beaten you. when you are the victim of that sort of thing you really have only two courses of action open to you. try to keep out of his way as much as possible, if you have any personal integrity, or kowtow to him, grovel in his presence, sneer with him at his other victims, flatter him, and hope he will direct his sadistic streak elsewhere. soon four or five of the crewmen start hanging around with the bully, admiring him too much, laughing too much at what he says, siding with him against others, and even doing a little minor bullying themselves by ganging up on this or that victim as soon as each has recognized the streak of cowardly sadism in the other which binds them together as human jackals. a man like resnick leaves the strong alone at first; waits until the jackals have gathered around him. when this stage is reached, when anybody who says anything is a yellow stool-pigeon, you find the best man in your crew a hospital case with bleeding nose, bruised face, black eyes, and maybe a couple of broken ribs caved in by someone's shoe. after the doctor gives him first aid you go to the infirmary and ask him who did it. he clamps his lips together and tells you he didn't see who it was. he's lying, and he knows you know he is lying, but can you torture it out of him or punish him for not telling you? no. and there's nothing a captain can do about it. he must have the testimony of the injured party in writing, signed and witnessed, and the code book must be followed specifically in punishing the aggressors; and if the captain does anything at all he is almost certain to be tied up in court at the first port of call by the punished parties. even if the captain has provable justification for putting a man in the brig or fining him or giving him a demotion in assigned type of work, his ship will be delayed by the trial, and the owners will decide they need a captain who knows how to avoid such costly delays. a man like oscar resnick is a social cancer, and i saw the symptoms of his presence on the ship come into being, and grow, and i knew he was too cunning and too shrewd to let them get out of hand. any other captain, knowing all this, would sit back and do nothing, knowing that that was his only safe course consistent with his duty of keeping the ship on schedule. i had to follow this course of action too. but i knew that it was just a prelude, that when resnick sensed the time was ripe for his purposes, he would get at me. it would be subtle and would only take a minute. it would take place in the presence of the crew. it would be something that would catch me unawares, bring the light of fear into my eyes for all the crew to see. that would be enough. the word would go back that captain peabody was yellow. some of the crew would quit the ship at north marsport, telling the union business agent they didn't want to ship with a yellow captain. the business agent would find men refusing to sign on my ship because i was a yellow captain. and inevitably the time would come when i could not keep a full crew. then the owners would dismiss me, and i wouldn't be able to get another berth as captain. i didn't know how to avoid it. it was only a question of time. _when_ would it happen? today? not for six months yet? tomorrow? when? * * * * * david markham proved from the start to be an extremely conscientious orderly. my quarters were kept spotless, i had only to lift my eyebrows and he was there ready to obey. how many hours a day he spent wiping up imaginary dust, rubbing nonexistent detergent off my eating utensils for the nth time before i sat down to eat, polishing my already mirror-bright shoes, and the million and one things i didn't even know about, i'll never know. few orderlies mix with the crew, and he was no exception. most orderlies either have the personality of a spinster to start with or acquire it after a few years. he had none of that, but then he wasn't the type that orderlies are made of. there was a tension in him at all times that was so strong it seemed almost visible--a tension that made each minor chore a matter of life and death to him. it was pitiful to watch, and i usually avoided watching him as much as possible. but a captain may not pick up something he has dropped, or do a lot of things that any ordinary man does for himself but which are the traditional duties of the orderly--if for no other reason than to keep him busy; so by necessity david markham was with me during most of my waking hours. a pattern of speculation about him grew up in one corner of my mind. david markham was the type of man you instinctively like and respect, the type that in the service _should_ have climbed the career ladder to an admiralship by the time he was seventy-five. as the days passed the haunting fear in the depths of his eyes seemed almost to have vanished. if i had not known who he was i would have laughed at the possibility of his being a coward. even knowing who he was, i began to doubt it. i thought a great deal about the circumstances brought out at his court-martial, the testimony that proved he had broken cover and run, then groveled at the feet of his captors, crying and pleading for his life. later the enemy had captured outposts they could not have located without his help, proving that he had spilled his guts to save his skin. that had, of course, been in the fuss on venus with porter's renegades. i didn't see how there could be any doubt of david markham's guilt, even though the more i saw of the man the more unbelievable it seemed. i tried to figure out alternative explanations. i tried to believe them. i _wanted_ to believe. i would catch markham gazing through a viewport into the subdued silver velvet of infinity and at the millions of flashing jewels that are the individually visible suns of our galaxy and the nebulae that are other galaxies, with his tortured soul, for the moment, at peace. i would hesitate, wanting to join him in his quiet mood as i would have joined any other man, then i would steal away, unable somehow to bring myself to create any kind of bond between us. i had, i realized by then, chosen david markham in the hopes that he might become a tidbit i could toss to resnick to pacify him and divert him from me. a cowardly motivation, no matter how you look at it. it had been an impulse i was now ashamed of. it haunted me. because of it i couldn't bring myself to extend to him a judas friendship, which is what i felt it would be. we were forty days out from earth when resnick turned his attention to david markham. i discovered it quite by accident. ten minutes after my regular sleep period had begun the first mate saw fit to inform me that an uncharted meteor swarm was going to intercept us in four hours, and of course it was my responsibility to determine what precautions should be taken. under ordinary circumstances i would merely have rung for my orderly, but i was half asleep and did the more natural thing. i went to the door to his room, next to mine, and opened it without knocking. he had just undressed, getting ready for bed. he stood there, startled at my unexpected entrance. and i saw the ugly purple splotch over his kidneys that could have come only from the blow of a fist. i pretended i hadn't noticed it. i merely told him that there would be emergency duty, and backed out, sliding the door shut. when he came out two minutes later, he gave no indication of whether he thought i had noticed the bruise or not. and for the next few hours i was far too busy to concern myself about it anyway. but i felt as though i had given him that bruise myself, with my own fist, and i was as surely responsible for it as though i had. to make it worse, i realized that despite the guilt i felt i still hoped that resnick would settle for a _famous_ coward, and leave me alone. while i plotted the courses of hundreds of chunks of meteor iron to search out safe holes through the intercepting meteor group my thoughts whispered gleefully, "all you have to do is pretend you don't know anything and maybe resnick will be grateful and leave you alone." later, trying to get some sleep, i tried to think what could be done. could i come right out and ask markham about that bruise? suppose i did, and he told me resnick had done it, and i used that as an excuse to toss resnick in the brig? then the men would throw markham's reputation in my face and claim it was a cowardly lie; and if i didn't release resnick it would mean an official investigation at north marsport--on the first leg of my first command. suppose he told me and i did nothing. then _he_ would know i was afraid of resnick! i didn't sleep much. i didn't get much sleep for several days. coupled with my guilt feeling, my hate for myself, was a growing feeling that striking my orderly was the first step in resnick's plan to get at me, smoke me into the open where he could find an opportunity to expose me. it was obvious how resnick had gotten to markham. it had to be when markham went to the kitchen to bring my meals, and it had to be with the knowledge of the cook, which meant that resnick already ruled the crew openly, behind the scenes. there was no danger of mutiny or any of the claptrap of fiction, of course. resnick was no fool, and had no insane ambitions other than that of feeding his streak of sadism. a few days later i noticed a small spot of blood on the back of markham's shirt. i said nothing, but that evening after i had dismissed him and he had gone to his room i took a small flat metal mirror and slid it under his door just far enough to peek in and watch him undress, and i saw the welts across his back. worse, i saw him crying. he shook with silent sobs while tears streamed from his eyes, and hopelessness and discouragement and friendlessness held possession of him. at that moment i knew with absolute conviction that the court-martial had been right. he was a coward and would never be anything else. but at the same moment, i suddenly understood him. it was something he couldn't help. i lay in the darkness of my own cubicle, a dull anger growing within me, turning me into a slightly irrational being. there was, i suppose, a sort of self-flagellation to it. a psychiatrist would possibly diagnose it as that, anyway. in my own mind i was responsible for everything resnick did to david markham, which meant that by "punishing" resnick i was punishing myself. when you descend to such levels of pure and obsessing emotional thinking, logic gets mixed up quite a bit. i came out of that sleepless sleep period with one thing quite clear in my thoughts. _things couldn't go on the way they were._ oh, sure, i had a sneaking hunch that this frame of mind i was in was what resnick had been angling for. by now i had invested resnick with omniscience so that it seemed perfectly logical that he should know i had spent a sleepless night, that he should know i had seen those welts on markham's back. in my mind's eye i could see him, a sneer on his thin lipped small mouth, while he waited for me to stick my neck out. i could see his muscular arms, covered by freckled skin that covered sleek muscles, dangling at his sides, fingers uncoiled but ready to double into fists--fists that had once beaten _me_ into shuddering unconsciousness, years ago--fists that could do it again while slightly mad brown eyes glittered at me, mocking.... david markham served my breakfast, the perfect orderly, quick to anticipate my wishes, so attuned to my habits by now that he almost seemed to read my thoughts before i was aware of them myself. he seemed to have not a care in the world. a cold shower can cover a multitude of inner tortures with a pink glow of well being.... suddenly the idea came to me. i would talk to oscar resnick. i would plead with him. i would offer him money--my whole salary on this trip. such men have their price. as captain i made five times more than he. i would give it all to him if he would agree to lay off. all i wanted was to get through my first command without trouble, get back to earth on schedule, make a good showing. i was, suddenly, pathetically confident that he would agree. a deal like that would have to be discussed in absolute privacy, however. the slightest inkling of it to the crew-in a panic of haste lest my confidence wane, i skipped my third cup of coffee and hurried to my office. switching the intercom to crews' quarters i said with the crisp tones of command, "mr. resnick, report to the captain's office," repeating it three times as is customary on intercom calls aboard ship. then i made sure the intercom was off, and sat there behind my desk waiting, my heart pounding painfully within my chest, my fingers clenched into white knuckled fists to keep them from trembling. five minutes later there came a polite knock at the door. composing myself as much as possible i said, "come in," in what i hoped was a calm authoritative voice. the door slid open and oscar resnick stood there, his shoulders almost as wide as the door opening, his space-faded sandy hair neatly combed back, his brown eyes darting around the room in a quick survey and just as quickly masking their triumphant glitter as he saw that i was alone, his thin lips which had been in a firm straight line breaking into a satisfied and anticipatory smile. "come in and close the door," i commanded, my voice breaking into nervous uncertainty on the last three words. he stepped inside and closed the door firmly behind him, his eyes never leaving me. when the door was firmly closed he said, "sure, art, old boy." with those four words he took command of the situation. they had been uttered so softly that they could not have sent a whisper over the intercom even if it had been on. he walked toward me until he came to the edge of the desk, then planting his fists on the desk top, he said, "i've been wondering how long it would take for you to call me in for a little talk." he exuded an aura of quiet contemptuous strength as his eyes flicked over me in speculation. "that's right," i said, hearing the nervous squeak in my voice, not sure whether my comment had any relation to what he had said or not. "i want to have a talk with you. things can't go on the way they are!" resnick drew back in pretended surprise. "why, i don't know what you mean, _sir_," he said. "you know perfectly well what i mean," i said, my voice breaking completely. "this is my first command! my whole future hangs on it. what satisfaction could you possibly get from ruining me?" in that moment the past descended upon me completely. once again i was pleading for mercy where there was no mercy, hoping against hope before those soft mad eyes, searching for something that could never be there. "why, _sir_," he said, mockingly, "i don't know what you mean at all. perhaps the stress of your new duties...?" "how much would you take?" i blurted desperately. "how much, to lay off of--david markham--leave me alone...?" "birds of a feather, huh?" he said. his eyes became thoughtful. "every man has his price, i suppose...." a surge of hope coursed through me. maybe we could dicker. maybe it wouldn't cost as much as i was prepared to pay. he scratched his chin slowly, then said, "well--how about your salary for this trip and five thousand dollars?" his thin lips flicked back in a grin. "and a promise on your part that you will sign me on for the next trip--or turn in your captain's papers?" the universe stood still as i saw ruin facing me. there was no way out. no way out at all. i heard myself blurt, "why? why? why?" he leaned over my desk slowly, his fists planted on it once again, until his face was scant inches from mine. he whispered, "because you're yellow. that's why. you never had any business becoming a captain." his hoarse, taunting whisper hung in the silence of the room like the knell of doom. there is a madness beyond madness, of that i am sure. i should have been grovelling in fear, i should have been making a decision to step into an airlock and eject myself into space, a suicide unable to live longer with himself, because what he said was true and i knew it was true beyond any shadow of doubt. instead, i heard myself saying, "all right, resnick. you win." my voice was perfectly calm. it was not me. whatever it was, it was not me, talking. my part of my mind was in a numb stupor, unable to act, unable even to think. i heard my voice say, "it's a deal. you promise to lay off. in return i promise to turn my salary for this trip over to you when we get paid, and to sign you on for the next trip." my voice was perfectly calm, even practical. i felt my lips curve into a calculated and bitter smile of defeat. i heard myself say, "such an agreement can't be put into writing, of course, but--shall we drink on it?" i saw disappointment, disbelief, amazed surprise, cross his lean angular features as i rose from behind my desk. as though in a dream i turned my back on him as i crossed the office to the liquor cabinet, the prerogative of a space captain. i opened it up with unshaking hands. he followed me, came to stand behind me, very close. i lifted out a bottle of scotch, the seal still unbroken, and turned to him. "scotch?" i asked. he hulked over me, his thin lips stretched into a gleeful grin. "sure," he said softly, his lips pasted against his stained teeth. he sensed my sudden movement, a movement i was not conscious of dictating, but he was too slow as the full bottle crashed down on his skull, shattering and sending a shower of alcohol over his uniform and the floor. his eyes did not close, but blanked into unconsciousness as he sagged to the floor. i stood there for a moment, blinking down at his unconscious form, not quite believing what had happened. even in unconsciousness he sent fear icing through my veins. in one mad moment i had ruined it all. when he recovered he would be unforgiving, without mercy. for a minute or two i broke down completely, crying like a baby. then, gradually, a calm settled over me. i turned him over onto his back and pulled his slack arms together. i took off my belt and wrapped it around his wrists until i could fasten the buckle firmly. then i went to my cubicle and brought back a roll of adhesive tape and taped his lips closed, laughing in a low, mad voice that was not my own. i used the rest of the roll of tape to fasten his ankles together. and just as i finished he opened his eyes. it took him a few minutes to organize his thoughts and fix his attention on me, his eyes questioning me. i continued to chuckle under my breath. i was mad, conscious of the fact that i was mad, and beyond caring. "you have nice eyes," i heard myself say. "nice soft brown eyes." i examined his scalp with careful concern for a moment. "good thing," i said. "the bottle broke, so there will be no sign of abrasion that could be proof of anything." i took out a cigarette and lit it with trembling fingers, while he watched me. blowing out a streamer of smoke and jabbing in his direction with my fingers, i said, "i'm learning a few things, resnick. already--i'm learning. i wonder how much it will take to break _you_ down." i pushed his head back and tried to put my thumb against his eyeball. he closed his eyes tightly and i forced his right eye open and pressed the ball of my thumb against the exposed eyeball. "not too much or it will make your eye bloodshot," i said, in hardly more than a whisper. "evidence, you know. who's going to believe that the captain did such a thing? not even the crew! sure, they'll agree with you to keep from being beat up. that is, if you have any stomach for that sort of thing when i get through with you. i'm just beginning, you know." i lifted my thumb from his eye and squeezed his nostrils together, watching the terror build up in him, watching his struggles, watching him grow weaker and weaker, and releasing him at the last moment before he lost consciousness, and watching his chest heave as he sucked in lungsful of air. "i just thought of something," i said to him. "you wouldn't _dare_ retaliate after i let you go. to strike me would be treason, punishable by life imprisonment, wouldn't it? and what would be your defense? that the captain had tortured you? who would believe that? who are your witnesses? see how i have stolen your weapons?" i pried his left eye open and pressed against it with a thumbnail. "a half hour ought to do it," i taunted. "no marks. i have to be very careful so that an examination by the ship's doctor won't show a thing." in ten minutes--or was it ten eternities?--he became a quivering mass of flesh. i did things to him that left him too weak to move. at the end of half an hour i pulled the tape off his mouth and listened to him blubber. i took the tape off his ankles, and the belt off his wrists. i tortured him some more and he took it. "and when i call for you over the intercom," i said, "if you don't come at once i have you for gross insubordination to your captain. and if you so much as touch one member of the crew again i'll call you, boy. i'll call you." finally i let him go. * * * * * after he had gone i trembled like a leaf. slowly a little bit of sanity returned to me, and with it a realization of what i had done. nausea overcame me and i staggered into the washroom and got rid of my breakfast, then returned to my desk. for hours i sat there while my mind picked up the threads of life and began functioning again. there was still the feeling that resnick was omniscient, that he would be able to topple me into disgrace. but with it, gradually, came the realization that he wouldn't, that he couldn't. i had used his own psychological weapons on him, building up in him a fear psychosis that he couldn't successfully fight. i had turned the tables. i couldn't really believe it just yet, but i couldn't disbelieve it either. for the next three days i went about my customary routines with a calm exterior, waiting for the storm to break, but it never did. finally, to test it, i deliberately went on a tour of inspection through the ship, until i came to where resnick was working, along with several others of the crew. as i entered the compartment and saw him look up, i saw the instinctive cringing that he couldn't help. in a flash of inspiration i saw that his sadism was a cover for his own cowardice, a compensation mechanism. i knew then that i had won. after one long silent moment i turned my back on him and left the compartment. as i walked by myself to the central tube and pulled myself up to the captain's deck, for the first time i began to realize what being captain meant. it means a lot of things, of course, but most of all it means facing up to one's command, being in charge. i knew that i would never again be afraid--least of all afraid of oscar resnick. nor would i ever again be afraid of fear. in the future i might be faced with the problem of a bully on my crew again, but i would know how to deal with him--with his own weapons, the ones he used _because he would be most vulnerable to them himself_. when the _alabama_ reached north marsport resnick quit the ship. i was glad to see him go. the rest of the crew remained with me, and i had no more trouble during the five years i commanded the _alabama_. david markham remained with me as my orderly until i retired, and he is still with me. a few years after the incidents of this story i had an opportunity to get him a commission but he turned it down and refused to leave me. sometimes i think he knows what happened in my office that day that i called resnick in, but he has never given any hint whether he does or not. you wonder that i am not ashamed to confess publicly to you that i was a coward? you shouldn't wonder. we are all cowards--or fools. i am not ashamed of the fact that once i was a coward. bravery, in a way, consists in not being afraid of being afraid. just one thing remains in my story. when i reached north marsport on that first leg of my first command, i was a captain. i have been one ever since. proktols of neptune by henry hasse space-rumor had spun wild tales of horror about neptune's almost-legendary race of proktols. but what could rumor know of this hideous reality that faced space-captain janus and his captive crew! [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer 1941. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] commander janus stared in bafflement at the power-board of the patrol ship _wasp_. the deflector needle was still gyrating wildly. that had begun five minutes ago. his lips tightened, and he looked up irritably as the first mate peered inquisitively over his shoulder. "better check up on the course again, devries!" "just did, sir. we're point oh-oh perfect, not the slightest aberrancy." janus swore under his breath. "i just can't figure it! must be some object dead ahead to cause this disturbance, but why doesn't our deflector beam shunt it from us or pivot us around it?" he paced the control room, stopped and looked over at ketrik whose eyes were fixed steadily on the visipanel. "see anything yet?" ketrik merely shook his head, not looking up. that panel magnified their course several times, and ketrik had the sharpest eyes in the patrol. "damned if i like it a bit," janus muttered, staring again at the crazy needle that seemed about to jump its bearings. "devries, tell blake to cut all jets. we'd better go into a drift until we are a little better able to determine what's wrong." devries stepped to the tube and gave the order to blake in the rocket room. a moment later the _wasp_ was in the drift. blake came forward to see what was up. far behind rolled the hideous green ball that was neptune, and immeasurably far ahead somewhere was pluto. devries stepped again to the chart and saw that the hair-line indicator still had pluto right on the nose. "i think i've got something," ketrik spoke from the panel. the men crowded around him, peering into the square of blackness that seemed to swim as ketrik turned the magnifying dial. "i see it!" blake exclaimed. "something ... a meteor? looks like it's drifting right at us." but ketrik shook his head, and his eyes narrowed. "that looks to me like a derelict, and it's my opinion that _we're_ drifting at it." "a spacer?" commander janus asked excitedly. "can you make it out, ketrik? maybe it's perrin! i hope to god it is, it'll save us days!" but the next few minutes revealed that it wasn't perrin's pirate ship. the drifting spacer was much larger, and of different design, with no name or emblem of any kind. and it was solid black, preventing easy detection against the blackness of space. "it's a derelict all right," devries said. "see that ragged gap in the hull near the stern?" he pointed and the others crowded around to look. he was right. in the side of the hull near the stern was a great jagged hole, that looked as though it had been made either by collision with a rogue meteor, or the blast of a space cannon. they watched in silence as the strange craft drifted toward them. there was no sign of life aboard her; no attempts at communication or of establishing her identity. quite obviously the craft was deserted. devries didn't like the looks of it one bit, and said so. it loomed up larger and larger as the tiny _wasp_ was drawn swiftly to it. then with a little shock the _wasp_ clanged against the strange ship's side and clung there. the crew moved for the space-suits. commander janus snapped: "wait a minute!" he stood there frowning, his gray hair bristling. "something funny here. we'd better go slow." his eyes were troubled. "but a derelict, sir," blake said. "space code says we're obliged to board her, examine her log." "don't quote me the space code!" janus snapped. "point is, is she a derelict? maybe you failed to notice we didn't drift to her by natural attraction; we were pulled! someone left on her magniplates. why?" "could have been an accident," blake suggested. janus shook his head. "another thing. her outer lock is open and we landed smack against it. all we've got to do is step over. how extraordinarily convenient." ketrik peered through the turret at the black derelict. "say, you're right!" he grinned, started to quote an ancient nursery rhyme: "walk into my parlor, said the spider--" he stopped suddenly, aware of young ross standing there with eyes aglow and eager. ross was the novice member. the _space-ennui_ had begun to get to him, so janus had ordered him to his cabin to sleep it off. once the _ennui_ gets a grip on a man in the vast outer spaces he's not much good for anything, even though he might be a good spaceman in the inner planets. now janus made up his mind, turned to him. "ross, we're going across. you stand by the controls. keep your eyes open, and your hand on the portable atom-blast." ross showed his disappointment, but obeyed orders. "my hunch may be wrong," janus warned, "but we'd better be careful anyway." the men didn't need his admonition. as they passed out of the _wasp's_ lock and into the other, their hands all hovered around their atom-blasts. and the moment they stepped into the alien spacer they knew janus' hunch hadn't been wrong. looking down a long empty corridor, they saw a barred door; beyond that door was the stern compartment where the gap was in the metal hull. but the rest of the spacer was still air-tight. janus flashed them a look that said, "see?" they threw back their helmets. soundlessly they walked toward the bow, listening intently for any sign of life. they passed some narrow cross-corridors and many doors, all tightly closed. devries, bringing up the rear, glanced behind him occasionally. nothing. nevertheless he shivered. there was a jittery tension in the very air. they came in sight of the navigation room, and stopped suddenly. janus stared at the odd looking controls. "i never saw a spacer like this before!" he whispered. * * * * * the voice behind him didn't whisper, it rang hollowly down the long corridor. "no, i am sure you did not. do not go any farther, please." the four men whirled. it was a mystery where they came from, those dozen fantastic beings behind them. they had heard no steps, no sound of a door opening. devries was nearest. his first startled impression was that they weren't more than semi-human: as tall as a man, but much thinner, with flexible wiry limbs. absurdly large heads, quite hairless and glistening, from which protruded frail antennae. eyes huge, lidless and staring. no perceptible noses. mouths but thin gashes. most striking of all, their entire skin shimmered with a metallic reddish-brown lustre; although the earthmen learned later it was not metallic, but shell-like. ketrik was always reckless. his hand flew to his atom-blast. much faster, the nearest of the creatures raised a flame pistol. the charge passed so close to ketrik's body it scorched his suit. ketrik changed his mind, and the creature said: "that is better." "take it easy," janus warned, still whispering. "we're in their trap now." the creatures had keen hearing. "indeed you are, commander janus," said the one with the flame-pistol, apparently the leader. "and it was so simple it was almost childish. but you earthmen are always so noble, with what you call a space code; always ready to go to the aid of a helpless derelict. or is it merely curiosity? the martians are not so stupid, they never go prying." the insult was lost on janus, who stared. "how do you know my name?" he demanded. the creature spoke perfect english, but the voice was toneless and the words precise, clipped: "that does not matter. it is my business to know certain things." "well, i'm sorry to say i don't know as much about you!" janus eyed the flame-pistol angrily. "kindly state your business with us. we're from the earth patrol, on official--" "yes, i know. in search of one of your race, a pirate, one whom you call perrin. i have heard of this perrin." the creature's facial expression didn't change, but the wide blackness of his staring eyes turned to a momentary angry orange, then back to black. he went on in his cold voice: "i have not introduced myself. i am known as v'naric. if you wish to know more about us i think your friend there can tell you. it would be amusing to hear about us from his lips." the men were amazed as the creature gestured toward devries with the pistol. again the eyes changed color, this time to a soft green which must have signified amusement. had the creature read devries's mind? yes, he knew them, or rather he'd heard something about them; this was the first one he'd actually seen. "we're in a spot now," he said in a low tone to his friends. "those are the proktols, inhabitants of the single moon of neptune! they usually stick pretty close to home, but once they go on the warpath, or rather the space-path, you can bet something's up." "yes, yes, go on," said v'naric in his clipped voice, his eyes still green with amusement. but at that moment the men heard the inner-lock clang shut, and a sudden roar of the rockets. too late, they realized v'naric had held their attention with conversation while a few of his men sneaked off to get the spacer under way. they leaped to the ports and saw the _wasp_ drifting free. they saw something else. a flame leaped from this ship, touched the _wasp_ and lingered there. a circular spot on its silvery hull glowed suddenly red. ross was frantically trying to swing the _wasp_ away. "good lord! ross!" janus sprang toward v'naric and clutched at him. "stop it! one of our men is still aboard back there!" v'naric deliberately turned his back. they saw the thin shell of the _wasp_ burst outward. "you murdering devils!" yelled ketrik, suddenly berserk. he leaped toward v'naric in blind fury, reaching out with his hands. v'naric stepped aside, brought up his flame-pistol and calmly crashed the butt of it down upon ketrik's head. ketrik crumpled. v'naric turned to devries casually, his eyes now black and placid. "you were saying?" devries went numb. he could only barely feel blake's and janus' hands restraining him as he tried to leap forward. but his brain was a searing thing of fire. "i was saying you're a blight on the universe, you damned unholy devils!" he shrieked. "you scum, you spawn of hell, you're unfit to inhabit the same space with decent men! i know what you do! i've heard all about you! if i ever get back to earth i'll bring men out here to blast your filthy planet from the skies!" he shrieked other things, shrieked 'til his throat was raw. when the red mist cleared from before devries' eyes he saw v'naric standing there complacently with his men around him. v'naric opened his gash of a mouth. he uttered four sentences in that emotionless, precise english: "i am really disappointed. you do not half do us justice. we are actually much worse than you paint us. i think you will soon have occasion to realize that." he turned and gestured to his men. they came forward, wrapped their wiry arms around the earthmen and hustled them down a narrow corridor. they thrust them in an empty room, but kept their atom-blasts, which they examined curiously. they dumped the unconscious ketrik in on the floor. the door clanged shut. the earthmen felt a faint vibration in the bare metal walls as rockets thundered, sending the alien spacer surging ahead. * * * * * they managed to revive ketrik after a while. then they all looked questioningly at devries. devries sank down on the floor, bowed his head in his hands and groaned. "lord, what a spot to be in! i guess i let loose with some utter gibberish out there. i don't remember all that i yelled. but you wouldn't blame me if you knew what we're probably in for." "i could make a good guess," blake said, grinning wryly. "no, you couldn't," devries said, so solemnly that blake's grin vanished. "commander janus, i noticed you made a wide sweep away from neptune. i'll bet you've had orders to stay clear of there. am i right?" janus nodded affirmatively, startled. "i thought so. and didn't you wonder why?" "it's not for me to wonder," replied janus. "there are standing orders that neptune's utterly unfit, uninhabitable, no reason to land there." devries nodded grimly. "all right, and now i'll tell you something. neptune's _not_ uninhabitable. at least its moon is not, for these proktols live there, and where they can live earthmen can live. but spacemen usually give neptune a wide beam, at least those who have heard the rumor. i first heard it in a spacerfront dive on mars, a few years ago, from a drunken half-breed martian. he and two companions had been inward-bound from pluto. they set down on neptune's moon for a rocket repair. the proktols got them and hauled them off to their capitol-city. there, before a vast populace, they tortured two of the men horribly. the third martian managed to escape to his ship, and made it back to mars alone." blake was aghast. "these proktols did that? these--these things that have got us now?" "yes," devries nodded. "but why?" "i don't know. the martian who told me this didn't seem to know himself." "bunk!" janus pronounced. "no one tortures men without any reason; not even these proktols." "but maybe they do have a reason!" devries replied. "oh, i'll admit, at first i didn't believe that martian's story myself. i thought it was the effect of the _tsith_ he was drinking, and god knows he needed it, poor devil. but when i looked in his eyes they weren't the kind of eyes i'd ever seen in a martian or anyone else. they were mad eyes, mad with the sight they had looked upon." "you said there were rumors," ketrik spoke up. "i've never even heard of these proktols before, much less any rumors about 'em." devries looked at ketrik. "i told you they stayed close to home. but you know how many men from the inner planets have come out here, never to be heard of again. after that martian's story, i made inquiries; mostly from hardened, independent spacemen. i went about the lowest dives of mars, whispering surreptitiously about 'proktols.' out of a hundred i approached, only three men seemed to know what i was talking about. and two of these turned a funny color, and muttered something, and hurried away from me. their silence was the best eloquence. the third man told me a vague, similar story to that of the martian's." "this torture the proktols seem so fond of," ketrik sneered. "tell us about that." "well, it's--" devries tried to tell them but he couldn't. that mad martian had painted him a picture that rose up now in his brain and flooded it with horror. he was suddenly sick, he couldn't speak and he wished he couldn't think. he simply rolled over and lay there with his face to the wall. the others were suddenly silent. blake spoke a minute later. his voice didn't sound the same. "i wonder where they're taking us?" "there's your answer," janus replied from the port where he was standing. "i can see neptune almost dead ahead from here. and it's growing larger." * * * * * hours later v'naric came in, bringing them a pasty kind of food that didn't taste too bad. apparently nonchalant, but very watchful, he stood just inside the door while they ate. devries watched him in turn. already he had learned much just by observing v'naric's eyes, apparently the proktols' only medium of emotion. black--as his were now--meant calm, orange meant anger, and green meant amusement. when they had finished eating, v'naric started to leave without a word. devries stopped him. "would you mind telling us, now, where you're taking us and why?" he asked, careful not to lose his temper again. he figured it would do no harm, and might do infinite good, to learn as much as possible. v'naric hesitated, surveying him musingly. then he answered indirectly: "have you earthmen ever heard of the sacred temple of dhovril, or of the shining stone?" no, the earthmen had never heard of either. "dhovril," devries repeated, "that is your planet?" "yes." "and this shining stone?" v'naric's eyes became green-tinged, and devries wondered why. "the shining stone is merely a colorful meteoric fragment. many years ago it came flashing through space and landed on dhovril. the inhabitants there are semi-savage, and worship it, believing it a present from the gods. of course to such as we"--he apparently meant himself and his companions--"the shining stone means nothing, but the others are roused to a fanatical fury when it is touched. and when it is stolen...." "so you think we stole it!" janus said. "we never set foot on your planet!" v'naric turned complacent black eyes upon him. "no, commander, i did not say that. because i know you did not steal it." "then why are you holding up?" "you will see soon." ketrik, remembering that blow on the head, was regarding v'naric balefully. and v'naric was standing fairly close to him. now ketrik didn't move, merely turned his head and spat contemptuously in the proktol's face. v'naric's hand leaped to his belt, like a whip lash, and snatched out the flame-pistol. he pressed it hard against ketrik's body before any of the men could move. the swift flood of the angry orange filled his eyes. but he didn't press the button. the orange slowly faded and gave way to a deep purple, as though he were remembering something, then it too faded. he jammed the pistol back in his belt, brought up his hand and slapped ketrik sharply across the mouth. those fingers were long and wiry and shell-like; they left four furrows in ketrik's cheek from which blood oozed. but he stood there stolidly, regarding v'naric with contempt. v'naric turned abruptly and left the room. "you damned fool!" devries snapped. "why did you do that?" "i don't like him," was all ketrik said, as he slowly raised his hand to his cheek. "oh, you don't! well, he's not exactly in love with you now! he would have blasted you then, but he's got something else up his sleeve. i'd hate to be in your shoes." janus said: "we'd all hate to be in our shoes, but it looks like we are. i don't like this shining stone business. must be a pretty important fetish on their world, eh?" blake muttered: "if it was stolen, i'll bet i know who got it. that damned pirate, perrin! you know we had information he was out this way." devries said: "no. i think there's something else behind all this, something more than the shining stone. and i hate to think what." he was still remembering a mad martian's story. * * * * * bells clanged. the vibration of the rockets ceased. through the ports came a weird, green glow as they passed close to the atmosphere of neptune. the spacer swung around that planet, using its gravity as a pivot, then the earthmen saw the single tiny satellite which v'naric had called dhovril. an hour later they were there, slanting down over a terrain of desert and serrated cliffs. the great ball of neptune hung behind, filling half the sky, its glow casting just enough light over the satellite to tinge everything with a greenish grotesquerie. "lord, that gives me the creeps!" blake muttered, peering out. "this little planet must be pretty heavy, though," janus estimated. "gravity seems about right." they passed beyond the cliffs and over a large desert. then, far ahead, they saw the towering stone edifices of a city, gleaming a ghastly skull-white in the green tinged atmosphere. devries turned his face away. he recognized the city from the martian's description. before they quite, reached there, however, blake cried: "look! down there!" far below them, covering a large section of desert, were row after row of blunt-nosed objects, looking like tiny silvery bugs, except they were motionless. but they weren't bugs. they were space-ships. hundreds, perhaps thousands of them in formidable array. ketrik stared, then turned to devries and exclaimed: "hah! thought you said these proktols stuck close to home! off-hand i'd say they've got other ideas now. i wonder what? i don't like the look of that fleet down there!" but now their spacer was gliding in low over the city, settling down into landing cradles. janus turned to his men. "if we see a chance, we'd better make a break for it! i'd like to get at the controls of this ship just once!" "i'd rather get at our atom-blasts!" ketrik snapped. but they had no chance to do either. a score of the proktols, with flame-pistols alert, came to escort them out. as they marched down a wide avenue thousands of the gathered populace gave vent to prolonged shouting, or rather shrilling. it was definitely unfriendly, and somehow fanatical, anticipatory. the earthmen looked at these inhabitants with interest. they seemed to be proktols too, but in several ways were different from v'naric and the others. they were smaller, hardly four feet tall, and frailer if that were possible. and they had no antennae. neither did they wear any raiment that the earthmen could see--evidence of their semi-savagery. but they seemed to respect the larger proktols, for although their shrilling continued, they kept their distance and didn't touch the earthmen. "just listen to those devils!" blake said. "they're waiting, expecting something!" they reached a vast plaza in the center of the city. their captors marched them through the mass of shrilling little coppery devils, and into a building; then up a flight of stairs and into a bare stone room with a single tiny window looking out upon the square below. as the last of the proktols passed out of the room he pressed a key into a slot outside the doorway. a sheet of bluish, crackling flame leaped up from the floor, effectively barring the entrance. * * * * * janus whirled to the window. a louder sound came swelling up from the tiny savages below as they caught sight of him. "shut up, we haven't got your damned shining stone! i wish v'naric would tell 'em so," he added, coming away. "sounds like they want our blood!" devries had a better idea of what they wanted, but he kept still. they hadn't long to wait. v'naric came. he left some of his men outside, shut off the electrical barrier and stepped into the room and turned it on again. he held his flame-pistol ready in his hand. "i am indeed sorry to have kept you waiting," he said with over-emphasized politeness, "but i had to consult with the _lahk-tzor_ as to your disposal. he has waited long. he is anxious to begin." "and who might he be?" asked janus, glaring. v'naric turned serious black eyes upon him. "_lahk-tzor_," he said, obviously seeking the right term, "is our word for what you earthmen might call the greatest one, or the ultimate--or more laterally, perhaps, the brain." "the brain, eh?" ketrik spoke up scornfully. "well, if this brain of yours has half the sense it was born with, it'll think twice before--" v'naric turned on him with suddenly angry eyes, and janus intervened quickly: "just what is this brain, or _lahk-tzor_? and if he's in authority here, why don't you take us to him?" "that is not necessary. he is interested in you, but very impersonally." v'naric's voice was cold. "i have been instructed to allow you to choose among yourselves who will be the one." "the one?" blake whispered to devries. "what does he mean, the one?" "for the ritual," v'naric said, as though they should have known. "and suppose," janus said, "none of us chooses to be the one?" v'naric shrugged in a purely earthian manner and raised the flame-pistol a bit higher. "then it will be a pleasure for me to choose for you." "no, thanks." janus glanced at the others questioningly, hesitated, then took a notebook from his pocket and tore a page into four strips of varying length. devries was watching his friends' faces. either they didn't know what was going to happen or were pretending not to. devries said: "you know what he means by the ritual! it's just his polite word for the torture i was telling you about!" none of them answered, and he knew that they knew. v'naric's emotionless black eyes watched them. they drew, recklessly, and blake held the shortest slip. his face went suddenly pale but he did not say a word. v'naric was disappointed. he stared past blake at ketrik. he said, "i wish it were you," as his eyes tinged with the angry orange again. he glanced around at them, then he went on musingly: "the _lahk-tzor_ need not know, and it can make no difference. yes, it will be you!" he gestured with the flame-pistol. "that's all right with me," said ketrik contemptuously. blake started to protest but ketrik brushed him aside. "it's all right, i know what i'm doing. i defy these devils to do their worst." but he flashed them a look that said, "be ready!" but v'naric watched too closely. as they moved to the doorway he kept the pistol trained. he produced the key that shut off the electrical barrier. they passed outside, and it leaped up again. the three men inside could dimly see through it. and they saw v'naric's eyes turn away for a half-second. ketrik bent and lunged forward in one swift motion, flooring the frail proktol in a vicious tackle. he snatched up the flame-pistol and sprayed it in a semi-circle as other proktols came rushing in. four or five fell with holes burned through their frail bodies. still others came. ketrik's arms flailed. his fist caught one squarely in the middle, and the brittle shell-like skin popped open in a wide gap as a thick colorless fluid oozed out. he hit another in the head, something snapped and the head dangled grotesquely. ketrik's knee came up and another proktol popped open, exuding a viscous stuff. but there had been too many out there waiting. their bodies were frail but their limbs were like steel cables. the men just inside the room could only look on helplessly as ketrik went down, still swinging elbows and knees. a dozen wiry arms lashed him to the floor. v'naric rose to his feet, staggering a little, holding his middle as though he wished to vomit. he snatched a flame-pistol, aimed it, and changed his mind. he gave a staccato command in his own language. "can't blame me for trying!" ketrik sang out to his friends, as he was hurried down the stairs. * * * * * through the window they could see the horde of tiny proktols still gathered in the square below. suddenly the murmuring leaped to a louder clamor. then they saw the reason for it. ketrik was being dragged out into the square, through the throng toward a little dais. from the dais rose a single pillar of stone. they fastened him securely to the pillar. the clamoring subsided a little. those savages were waiting for something--just as the three earthmen were waiting, watching the scene below them. some of the larger proktols brought a huge metal disc, perhaps three feet in diameter. a hole was in the center. they put it over ketrik's head and it rested on his shoulders. "i don't like the looks of that," janus muttered tensely. "what are they going to do?" but they weren't through. next, over ketrik's head they placed a spacious wire cage which clicked into place on the rim of the disc. "my god!" blake said suddenly, staring. "do you suppose they're going to run some kind of voltage through that thing?" "that's a nice pleasant thought!" janus snapped at him. devries turned away from them both. he knew better. "no," he told blake hoarsely. "no, not that. better come away." but they couldn't come away. horror, especially an unknown horror, has a fascination. they saw some of the proktols seemingly in consultation. presently a couple of them hurried away, and all that could be heard from that massed throng was a gentle murmuring as they swayed restlessly, waiting. then in the room behind them they heard the electrical crackling in the doorway cease. v'naric stood before them again, ever watchful with the flame-pistol. "that was a very noble effort on the part of your friend," he said, "but quite useless as you can see. moreover, he killed some of my men, and i do not think he helped the rest of you by that." his eyes glittered. "yes, before the ritual ends this time i think all of you will have participated." "we haven't got your damned shining stone," blake grated through clenched teeth, "and we never even heard of it!" "the shining stone? oh, yes, i had quite forgotten i told you about it; but i neglected to say that it is quite safe. it is always quite safe, even when it is stolen; because, you see--_we_ stole it." "_you_ stole it!" janus repeated. "but didn't you say the stone meant little to such as you?" "only as a means to an end. commander janus, you are a scientific man above all else. for that reason i respect you as much as i despise your stupid friend down there. i shall explain the ritual you are about to witness. first: those little savages think you earthmen stole their shining stone, because we wish them to think that; and you could never convince them otherwise. therefore they must have their revenge. all this is very necessary for a certain reason you will understand shortly." "i'm beginning to already," blake said bitterly. "it's a high-powered racket and we're the fall guys." v'naric looked at him as though he didn't quite understand such english words. a sudden, louder murmur came up from below. "it has begun," v'naric said, nodding toward the window. "if you will observe, please." the men turned back to the window and watched. devries at least half knew what to expect; but he felt the other two tense beside him as they realized the purpose of that cage over ketrik's head. a little door in the side of it was open, and one of the official proktols was thrusting several tiny animals inside. they were sharp-fanged, scaled, almost reptilian. but they had beady little rodent eyes, and the eyes blinked as the animals scurried around the disc under the cage. ketrik's head jerked convulsively at the nearness of them. "little inhabitants of our desert," came v'naric's calm voice across the room behind them. "ordinarily quite tame and harmless. but these are trained for this. they are very hungry." the earthmen's minds were too numbed just then. they didn't feel the full horror until sometime later. they just stood there in terrible fascination, staring down, unable to move; and behind them they could still hear v'naric's cold voice, as though he were a class-room lecturer. he didn't even need to look as he spoke. he knew what was happening. he had seen this many times. "the little creatures are a bit restless now. i imagine the way your friend moves his head frightens them. but they will become used to that presently, and then their work will begin." but something else was happening down there. the crowd had become silent, not even a murmuring. they all seemed to be looking in the same direction, away from the dais where the earthman was fastened. then a path opened up. a procession of the large proktols came through, with something on a movable platform in the midst of them. again v'naric's voice: "i suppose the _lahk-tzor_ is entering now. or the brain as you would undoubtedly call it." "good lord, yes," janus murmured at last, staring. "that's what i'd call it, for that's what it is!" * * * * * the brain was huge, five feet or more across, convoluted and pale but red-streaked. a dome of glass enclosed it. beneath the bulging, pale-pink mass was something that might have been two tiny eyes and the veriest excuse of a chin, but from their distance the earthmen could not be sure. v'naric's voice droned on, beating through their numbed consciousness: "you are wondering about the brain. long ago one of our race, one far ahead of his time, created it. in a period of six months he advanced evolution from a single cell through all its stages to what you see now. the _lahk-tzor_--pardon me--the brain down there is the most advanced evolutionary product yet to exist in this solar system. it slew its creator, but seemed to exhaust all its energy in so doing. for a long, long time it lay dormant. such scientists as there were at the time tried to activate it, for they knew it wasn't dead; but their efforts were clumsy and futile. "then one day it began to pulse and think again, feebly. do you know when, and why? i think you could guess, commander janus. it was the day the shining stone came flashing to land here. that event caused a tremendous religious hysteria among the savages, and it wasn't hard to connect that with the brain's revival; the brain was absorbing the accumulative mental flow that was impacting against it! of course it has long been proven that thought is material just as light is material." of the three, janus alone was beginning to show a gleam of interest as he listened to the toneless words. "i think i see the whole system now," he said bitterly. "periodically you pull this ritual business and get those little savages down there religiously worked up, in order to--" the idea was so ghastly he choked on the words and couldn't go on. "in order to keep the brain mentally activated," v'naric finished for him. "precisely. to those savages it is nothing more than a religious ritual, brought about by the revenge motive. but to us it is a scientific necessity. the brain teaches us much. it was the brain which thought out all our technicalities of space travel and most of our other achievements. by now it realizes we have no intention of letting it die; but periodically its thought-processes seem exhausted. when it feels that happening it informs us. then we must activate it again, through the accumulative mental-hysteria of those thousands of little proktols. it is easy to steal their shining stone, keep it safely in our custody awhile, and bring some hapless spacefarer here for them to vent their hysteria upon. a little complex and a little sardonic, but very necessary." janus, listening, nodded dully. he was remembering the huge fleet of space-ships they had seen waiting out on the desert; but he did not mention them. instead he said: "and right now, what scientific problem is the brain working on?" v'naric seemed proud to talk of the brain, appreciative of janus' scientific interest in it. "we can never quite tell what the brain is thinking," he explained. "it propounds scientific theories to us, we put them to the test, and they are usually practical. but this i know: lately a change has come over it. we are sure it is planning something big. it never used to question us much, but now it is beginning to, about other planets, the solar system, the universe. then it ponders. "you see, it has never been away from here. it is restless now and i think it has ambitions! but we shall learn its plans when it has thought them through. from the astronomical data we have furnished it propounds vast calculations. mathematically it is supreme! and it ponders...." * * * * * now, suddenly, the sound below burst forth into a tremendous surge of unified shrilling. hysteria. that's the word v'naric had used, and this sounded like it! as if something interesting had started to happen. they turned quickly to the window again. yes, something had begun to happen. there was a wide flow of red down ketrik's cheek. the sharp-fanged little beasts under the cage had begun their work, just as v'naric had said they would. another of them darted forward. ketrik's head jerked, but it was useless. another flow of red started down; again came the surge of hysterical sound. no man should have watched that scene long, but they couldn't tell how many minutes they stood there at the window. blake cracked first. he whirled away suddenly toward the doorway. but v'naric had silently gone, and the crackling sheet of flame across the entrance filled the room with a bluish glow. blake stood tottering a moment, horror still in his eyes, a little moan deep in his throat; then he staggered over and flopped into a bunk at the side of the room, turning his face away. janus and devries continued to look, but only for a few minutes more. v'naric had said those vicious little animals were hungry; now, becoming bolder, they darted frequently at ketrik's twisting head only a foot or so away. ketrik didn't utter a sound, but every time another red streak started down they saw his features were contorted. pretty soon they couldn't even see his features. his eyes were shut tight, but once he opened them and twisted his head around and saw the men looking down. he tried to smile, but it was a grimace. he called, "devries, remember what you swore! do it! get back to earth if you can, then bring men out here and blast these devils to the hell where they belong! if you promise somehow to do that, i won't mind this so much. don't watch any more, no telling how long--" ketrik stopped on that word, as his head jerked violently away again. and all the while came the shrillings from the immense, watching throng. the men heard it rise and fall, rise and fall, in regular cadence. they could almost feel the impact of the hate going out, the hate for that earthman who supposedly had violated their sacred stone. those savages didn't wish to tear ketrik limb from limb; they had been trained in _this_, and it was a better revenge, more to their enjoyment. a little apart, carefully guarded, was the huge brain, grotesque and convoluted under its glass dome. janus even thought he could see it pulsing rhythmically as the bursts of sound and thought-force swelled out to it. that tangible force was being absorbed, and gradually the brain was taking on a deeper hue than the pale-pink. savagely the men paced the stone room. they examined the electrical barrier across the door, which was too obviously deadly. "how long does that go on?" janus asked in horror, nodding toward the window. "to the very end, i'm afraid," devries replied. twice more in the following hours he moved to the window, only to look quickly away when he saw the horrible thing was still going on. he couldn't see ketrik moving any more, but the beasts were still at work. and then, it must have been hours later, devries awoke from a fitful sleep. he was conscious that all was silent as a tomb below. he crept to the window and saw that a weird kind of greenish, shadowy nightfall had come over the place. all those savage proktols had gone away, and the brain was gone, and the square below was empty. save for ketrik. he was still there, and the cage was still over his head, but it was empty. thank god, devries thought, it's all over for him. but who will be next? * * * * * when next he awoke it was day again, or what served for day on that shadowy world; and the first thing he saw was blake over at the window. "you fool, come away from there!" devries cried, springing up. "what good is it to watch? it's all over now for ketrik anyway." blake turned to face him, and devries saw a look in his eyes similar to that he had seen in the martian's. "he's alive, still alive!" blake cried. "and it's still going on!" it was then devries heard those sounds of hate surging up again, and knew that the throng had again gathered to watch; but it was blake's voice, and the look in his eyes, that made devries' blood run cold. "and i should have been down there instead of him!" blake said; but the voice didn't sound like his any longer. devries should have watched him closer. he turned to wake janus. blake sprang suddenly past him, toward the doorway. devries made a grab at him and missed. blake leaped straight into that crackling sheet of electrical blueness. but he didn't get through. he seemed to hang suspended in the air for a few seconds; then he crashed to the floor across the doorway, as the electrical flame enveloped and crackled over his body. there was nothing they could do about blake except keep their faces averted from the entrance where his charred body lay. but they couldn't close their ears to the waves of sound that came up from below. it seemed even more suggestive than before. blake's words kept hammering in devries' brain: "he's alive, still alive!" blake had been the last to look out that window. devries hated to think of what he had seen down there. grimly they examined the room again, although they'd done so a hundred times before. two bare stone walls. in the third wall the window, far too narrow, and the adjacent stones solid and unmovable. in the fourth side the doorway, open except for the deadly sheet of blue crackling across it. "that's the only way," devries said, nodding toward it. "i'm sure v'naric will be around here again; when he comes, watch for my nod and we'll make a rush. if we die, at least it won't be the way ketrik did." v'naric did come again. he stared down at blake's charred body and shook his head distressfully as he shut off the flame. he motioned for some of his men to take the body away. "that is too bad," he said. "very wasteful. it leaves only two of you." he nodded to the window. "it will soon be over with your friend down there, and i regret that. the fools have allowed it to progress too rapidly!" janus' attention was more on the flame-pistol than on the words. he glanced quickly at devries, but the latter flashed him a look that said no. v'naric must have seen it. he raised the pistol slightly so that it leveled between them. "you are quite right," he said, "it would not be wise." janus tried to engage him in more conversation, but v'naric seemed to know his purpose. he left, still watching them carefully as he shut off the flame and stepped out and turned it on again. his last words were: "i will leave you to decide between yourselves who will be next. it will be soon." * * * * * janus whirled angrily. "why didn't you take the chance? now we're sunk. we'll probably never have another!" "you're wrong," devries replied. "empty your pockets, quick!" janus stared at him, uncomprehending. "that slot in the doorway!" devries explained. "i watched how v'naric worked that key. i can't hope to duplicate it, but if we have a pocket knife or something--we _might_ make a short circuit! should have thought of that before." already he was searching his own pockets, and janus quickly followed his example. but their hopes waned. neither of them had a knife, and what was worse, they had nothing else that might serve the purpose. devries turned away in despair. "wouldn't you know it! and i always carry a knife--all except this time!" janus was still searching. suddenly he gave a shout as he produced something from an inside pocket. a round, flat metal object. devries saw that it was an ancient half-dollar. he had seen very few of them, and only in museums. "my good luck charm," janus said wistfully. "i've carried it with me ever since my first space flight." devries seized it eagerly. "we'll see how lucky it is!" he examined the narrow slot in the doorway, but its length was considerably less than the diameter of the coin. nor could he tell how deep that slot was. "we've got to get this down to proportion," devries said grimly. "even then it may not work, but we've got to try anything." he began rubbing the edge of the coin against the bare stone, and the rounded edge flattened infinitesimally. "quite a job on our hands; we've got to get this diameter down to less than half!" taking turns, they kept at it, holding the coin in strips of cloth to protect their fingers from the heat of the metal. while one worked the other watched the doorway. occasionally a proktol passed by, but v'naric did not come again. once janus moved to the window and ventured to look down at the brain again, but carefully kept his gaze averted from the spot where ketrik was. now he could distinctly see the huge mass of the brain pulsing with the impact of the thought-force that swelled out to it. and now it was not pale-pink, it was red. it was even more than blood-red, it seemed fiery. he could sense the pulsing power of it, the super-mental force, and it seemed diabolic. here, he knew, was a dangerous thing, a thing that should not exist in this solar system. "do you know what i think?" janus said, turning back to devries who was again working on the coin. "that brain is mad! it's bound to be. god knows how long it's been receiving those proktols' thought-force, living and thriving and planning on it--and that thought-force is hate! v'naric said it's getting ambitions. ambitions for _conquest_, i think. that's all that fleet of space-ships out there can mean!" they worked slowly but steadily with the coin, gradually wearing its diameter down to fit the slot in the doorway. what they feared mostly now was that the proktols would very soon be through with ketrik down there, and one of them would be next. but luck was with them. suddenly, startlingly, that green shadowy nightfall came again. "listen!" devries said. all was silent again in the square below. he rushed to the window and saw the throng dispersing. the brain, on its portable platform, was moving away into one of the buildings. apparently the ritual was over for the day. "we'll have to work fast!" devries exclaimed. "this side of the planet's away from neptune now, but we don't know how long it'll last. this is our last chance!" they worked frantically, risking skinned fingers on the stone wall. about an hour later devries tried the mutilated coin in the slot, for perhaps the twentieth time, and this time it fitted. but would it reach as far as v'naric's key had reached? devries wrapped his fingers carefully with strips of cloth before he tried. for a moment he thought it was useless. the metal touched nothing. clumsily he managed to slide it forward a tiny bit more, and the silver oblong barely touched a hard surface. instantly at the contact there came a sputter of fused metal. the silver became suddenly hot under devries' fingers. sparks leaped out and burnt his hand. but he didn't care. he suppressed a joyous shout as the sheet of electrical flame across the doorway ceased. they sprang through the door and stood a moment in the dim corridor, listening. evidently their tampering had caused no other alarm. they moved swiftly to the stairs leading down into the square. peering down through the greenish dusk, they could see one of the proktols at the bottom of the steps, evidently on guard. devries gestured downward, and janus nodded silently. those steps were solid stone, and they negotiated them silently by all earthly standards, but they had forgotten these creatures had super-sensitive hearing. they weren't over halfway down when the proktol sprang up, whirling to face them. devries acted on sheer instinct. he made the remaining distance through the air in one prodigious leap. the proktol had reached for its flame-pistol, at the same time opening its mouth to sound an alarm. but there was only a shrilling gasp as devries' shoulder caught it in the middle and hurled it backward. devries climbed to his feet, a little dazed. janus took only one look at the proktol and saw that the frail body was snapped in two; quickly he confiscated its flame-pistol. they stood quite still, listening, but there was no alarm. * * * * * in some of the radiating streets they could see the weird glow of many colored lights moving about, but the square seemed empty now in the gloom. they started to move across it, when something caught janus' attention. he stopped. only a little distance away a stone pillar rose from a dais. a dark blur of a figure still sagged there with a wide, wire cage over its head. janus stared through the gloom. he knew it was ketrik, but there was something vaguely wrong, unnatural, about it. something he could not immediately make out. he moved swiftly nearer to find out. devries, knowing what he would see, called a warning. but janus didn't stop. he didn't stop until he came very near, and the full horror of the sight burst suddenly upon his vision. the ritual had gone on to the very end. through the ghastly, greenish dusk all that janus saw was a white gleaming skull upon a still living body. he knew the body lived for he saw it still breathing, faintly, and he saw one of the out-stretched hands twitch. and from somewhere in the throat he heard a horrible little gurgling sound as though the skull were trying to speak. the brain, of course, had not been touched, but janus knew the brain within that skull must now be mad. he could no longer think of the thing as ketrik. in those few seconds that he looked, janus felt his mind slowly slipping away into a chaos of vertiginous horror, but he caught it on the brink. instinctively he raised the flame-pistol, aimed, and made very sure that the thing which had been ketrik no longer lived. devries gave a cry of warning. four or five thin, shadowy figures were leaping from a nearby street. they had probably seen the flash of the flame-pistol. devries tensed. "for lord's sake fire! let 'em have it!" he cried hoarsely to janus, as the creatures bounded nearer in long leaping strides. but janus stood there, swaying a little, still dazed by the sight he had just seen. devries leaped to his side, snatched the flame-pistol just as the proktols came within range. one of them reached for its pistol. at the same time devries let his flash out in a sweeping path. he was about two seconds quicker. the proktols' momentum carried them straight into it, and they crumpled with hardly a sound. devries grasped janus' arm and shook him out of his daze. "that way!" he whispered, indicating a wide street across the square. "it's the way we came in. if we can get out into that desert, we might steal one of those space-ships we saw!" but the delay had been fatal. other proktols had seen the flash, and were hurrying toward them. janus stopped to snatch up a fallen flame-pistol, then they were leaping away across the square. but they didn't get far. now, not dozens, but hordes of proktols were converging on the scene. the entire square seemed to resound with their shrilling cries, bringing others. the earthmen hadn't even time to wonder where they all came from. most of them were the smaller, savage proktols, unarmed; but some of the others with flame-pistols were trying to press through. as the men swept their flaming fire around, the savages fell back in shrilling panic. scores of them were burned down, but more of the creatures kept surging in. the earthmen knew it would be only a matter of seconds before the sheer mass of the creatures overwhelmed them. still they pressed forward, slowly burning a way through. for some foolish reason devries remembered shouting at janus: "these flame-pistols are all right as toys. wish i had an atom-blast!" then the shrilling coppery devils were closing around, clawing. janus brought down some more with a sweeping blast, and devries did the same, but the flame-charges were getting very weak. then the earthmen stared. the savages were no longer pressing around them; they were fleeing away! for no reason at all they saw the space ahead of them open up. they saw a long, clean swath of proktols topple like grain cut down by a mower. those that did not fall fled frantically, shrilling in thin terror at a strangely invisible death. the men couldn't quite understand what had happened, but they took swift advantage of the miracle and darted across the now open square. but the larger proktols weren't so superstitious. a dozen of them, now unimpeded, came leaping to intercept them. but before these proktols could raise their flame-pistols, they toppled too, cut clean in two! all was clear around the men now, and they paused to catch a breath. "what the devil was it, janus? what happened?" "pure luck! i knew that lucky piece of mine couldn't fail!" but just then a figure emerged from the dark shadow of a building, and ran toward them. it was a familiar figure, and it held two atom-blasts, one of which it thrust into devries' hands. "luck nothing!" devries yelled, recognizing him. "it's ross! how did you escape? we thought you died on the _wasp_!" * * * * * "not quite," ross said. "come on, this is no picnic! let's get out of here before those devils stop wondering what an atom-blast is." the men turned and sprinted for the open street ahead of them. but they hadn't taken five steps when devries felt a crushing, numbing weight upon his brain. he staggered, fell to his knees; tried to rise but couldn't. then he fell flat, as a force hit him like a giant invisible hand. agonizingly he wondered why the others didn't help him; then he saw that they too were lying flat, dazed and panting heavily. with a tremendous effort devries twisted his head around and looked across the square. he saw the huge brain under its glass dome. it was pulsing with a fiery, angry red radiance. and devries knew it was the brain's tremendous thought-force that was reaching out and crushing them there. his right hand, still grasping the atom-blast, was doubled under him. desperately he tried to move it--and did--about an inch. it seemed to weigh a ton. with a tremendous effort that took all his strength, devries managed to slide his hand around so the atom-blast was trained on the brain across the square. with his last ounce of strength he pressed the power button and held it there. devries knew his aim was good, but that dome over the brain must have been of tougher substance that he thought. it did not blast, although he held the weapon there for about five seconds, on full power. but the brain must have felt the menace. there came a great surge of anger, and the atom-blast was suddenly torn from devries' hand, as was the one ross held. then the men were jerked to their feet by the same invisible force which had held them prone upon the pavement. the brain, still pulsing angrily, held them there until dozens of the official proktols came and grasped them; not until then did it withdraw its powerful thought-force. janus and devries, with ross accompanying them this time, were hurried back toward that building from which they had just escaped at such pains. now devries saw the huge, green glowing neptune rising swiftly in the heavens, and realized that day was here again. and already the hordes of savage proktols were coming again into the square, to await their ritual, which would undoubtedly continue so long as there were victims. "too bad you had to come here, ross," devries said dully. he was utterly without hope now. they had come very close to escape, and they would have made it, had it not been for that diabolical brain. * * * * * devries was just wondering how he could die, but not the way ketrik had, when they heard a great cry go up from the gathered throng behind them. and it was a cry of fear, or awe. despite the wiry arms that held them, the men twisted around and looked back. coming toward them, low over the city, was a rocket-plane. and it was undeniably an earth type of plane! the proktols holding the three men jabbered excitedly in their own staccato language; then, still holding the men, they hurried to the shelter of the nearest building and crouched there. it sounded very much as if they had seen this rocket-plane before, and feared it! the proktols crowding in the square were trying to flee too; but before they could all disperse, the plane was over them, letting loose a wide swath of death. from the extent of it, the earthmen judged that rocket-plane must carry a portable atom-blast nearly as large as the patrol ships carried! it swept over the square once, veered sharply and came back. this time the atom-blast swept very close to the line of buildings where the men crouched. their captors broke and raced for shelter. but the earthmen were not yet free. as they crouched there, watching their unknown benefactor, they felt the fierce surge of power from the brain again. it alone did not flee. it remained there, on its platform, in the middle of the now deserted square. and if it was angry before, it was raging now, with a crimson, crackling radiance. for it was the brain which was the object of the rocket-plane's attack. a third, fourth, and yet a fifth time the plane came sweeping back over the square. and each time it did so, the earthmen could feel part of the crushing thought-force which the brain hurled upward at it. invisible weapon against invisible weapon. atom-blast versus the brain's super mental-force! and the brain fought tenaciously. such was its power that the rocket-plane was caught in its grip once, veered crazily and was almost buffeted down until an extra burst of the rockets sent it zooming away. the watching earthmen felt that power too, and were sent spinning, bruised and battered, against the building where they crouched. but the plane's atom-blast must have begun to find the range, because soon the brain propelled itself toward the shelter of one of the buildings. it was angry, but it was intelligent. it recognized the danger of that atom-blast. the transparent dome encasing the brain was of very tough material, but it would have soon crumbled under a few direct and powerful blasts. it was not until the brain had withdrawn to safety that the tension eased, and the men dared to leap across the square again, strewn with the ghastly remains of numberless proktols. this time they were not apprehended. the mysterious rocket-plane was speeding away toward the desert, but the destruction had been so terrible that the remaining proktols didn't care or dare to emerge. devries spied one of the atom-blasts that he or ross had dropped. he snatched it up, stopped and looked back speculatively, weighing the weapon in his hand. janus pulled at him. "come on, you don't know when you're lucky!" "yes, but i'd like to take at least one good blast at that brain after the way it slapped and battered us around!" devries stumbled along after them, unwillingly. "have you got the _wasp_?" janus finally managed to ask ross. "i didn't get here through the fourth dimension! it's out on the desert there, just about a mile from here. i had a close call when they turned that flame on the _wasp_. i got to a space-suit just in time. kept their ship in our visipanel long enough to see they were heading back for neptune. took me hours to repair the _wasp_, and hours more to find you." ross very prudently didn't ask about blake or ketrik, and janus was glad of that. * * * * * they reached the _wasp_, and lost little time in blasting out into space. "what about that fleet of space-ships we saw down there?" devries asked. "can't we go down and blast them off the map?" "it would take days," replied commander janus, "and we're lucky to be away from there as it is!" "but--" "haven't you had enough action this trip?" janus snapped. "look," ross said suddenly, pointing down at the tiny satellite they had just left. blasting out into space from that planet was a sleek, black space-ship. janus exclaimed: "that's perrin--i'd recognize his ship anywhere! that must have been his rocket-plane we saw fighting with the brain! and we came out here to get that pirate!" he leaped to the radio, clicked it on. "attention perrin! perrin, in the _princess_! commander janus of earth patrol ship _wasp_ speaking. we now have our long-range blast trained upon you, and you cannot outrun a patrol ship. you will please go into a drift while we come over to board you." a voice replied almost immediately, calm and a little amused: "very well, commander, do not get excited. i was just coming over to you, but if you wish, come to me instead." the rockets of the _princess_ immediately ceased blasting, and the pirate ship drifted just a few hundred miles away. the _wasp_ drew near and made contact. janus spoke again: "our lock is ready. i should prefer that you came across, perrin. no tricks!" a minute later perrin stepped through their lock with his hands held high, mockingly. he was tall, darkly handsome, with a straightforwardness that put commander janus ill at ease. perrin smiled and looked down at his belt. "my pistol, commander? that is customary i believe." janus stepped forward and took it. perrin lowered his hands and said, "that is better. i was going to come over anyway, and see who it was i saved down there. i thought you were earthmen, but i wasn't sure." there was a slight mockery in the words. janus flushed a little as he said: "this is damned awkward, perrin. you did save our lives, but we were sent out here to get you, you're wanted on three planets." "three? i thought it was four," said perrin, still smiling. "but i quite understand, commander, and i ask no favors. as for saving your lives, that was a side issue. i really came to take a crack at that brain. what did you think of our duel?" "interesting," murmured janus. he was still uncomfortable, wavering between his duty and his debt of honor. "yes, wasn't it?" perrin said. "you know, that thing's getting more powerful than i ever thought possible! oh, sure, i've had a couple of other encounters with it. it's too canny to let me get a good crack at it, but how it hates me! i've been hanging around out here to see what it's up to." "then you know about that fleet of space-ships down there," devries spoke up. "what do you think? is that brain going to direct that fleet toward the inner planets by remote control?" "no," replied perrin, reflectively. "that's not too fantastic a thought, but the brain's not that powerful yet. however, those proktols might man the ships. i think that's the plan. did you notice those antennae they have? that's the way the brain contacts them, and it might control them from any distance! another thing: did you notice their flame-pistols? modelled after the ones the martians use, but an improvement. if you men left any atom-blasts there, the brain'll soon find out how they click, and they'll turn out their own. and _they'll_ be an improvement. that entire space fleet will be equipped with them. but that fleet's not quite ready to move yet; they've got to have fuel." "you mean," said devries, "they haven't any?" perrin laughed softly. "they _did_ have. those proktols were mining it on neptune--greenish grained stuff, something like the tynyte we get from the mars mountains. i watched their operations awhile, secretly. it seems to be pretty hard stuff to get out. i waited until they had quite a supply, then i swooped down and blasted it all sky high, together with a few score proktols. that's just one more reason they hate me. but they're still mining, and getting more of the fuel out." janus had been listening to the pirate's words. now he paced the control room, nervously. "that would give us time," he said softly to himself. "we could get back to earth in a week, at full speed." he stopped and looked up. "yes," he said aloud, "we're going back to earth immediately!" "very well, commander janus," said perrin, looking straight at him. "but i trust you will take the _princess_ in tow? i love that ship very much." "not you, perrin! you're not going." "not me, commander? i wonder what you can mean?" the pirate's black eyes were glowing. "perrin, suppose i should get very careless and you suddenly escaped. i wonder where you'd escape to?" perrin glanced out at the glowing ball of neptune. he was smiling again, but it was a grim little smile. "i have a hideout," he said, "which not even those proktols have found yet. i imagine they have a lot more of that fuel mined by now, and i just love for them to hate me." janus glanced at the space-lock, and turned his back. when next he looked he saw the trim, black _princess_ speeding unerringly back toward neptune, a thousand miles away. devries alone was regretful, almost bitter. he weighed the familiar atom-blast in his hand. "and i didn't even get to use this! damn it, janus, you know what that brain's doing, planning. if they keep on with those sacrifices, feeding it that mental force, who knows how far it'll go? it's a potential menace, it oughtn't to be allowed to exist!" "devries, stop gibbering!" once again janus was in his familiar role, commander of the _wasp_ of the earth patrol. "ross! stand by in the rocket room for orders; we're on double duty now." "yes, sir! it's a pleasure, sir." ross hurried away. "devries! start charting our course for earth." "yes sir." devries turned to the charts, disgruntled but obedient. janus took over the controls. but a moment later he turned. "i know it, devries. don't think i'm forgetting what they did to ketrik, and what we promised him. you see, that's why i want to be sure of making a thorough job of it!" "yes sir," devries said again, briskly, and he was satisfied. as the hideous green ball of neptune rolled away behind them he didn't even look back; for he knew they'd be out here again--and soon--with more than a patrol ship and a few atom-blasts. 