MASTER'S OF SPACE

  

 By E.E. ‘Doc' Smith

 First Published in Worlds of IF, Nov. 1961

  

 Chapter 1

  

 "But didn't you feel anything, Javo?" Strain was apparent in every line of Tula's taut,

 bare body. "Nothing at all?" "Nothing whatever." The one called Javo relaxed from his

 rigid concentration. "Nothing has changed. Nor will it." "That conclusion is indefensible!"

 Tula snapped. "With the promised return of the Masters there must and will be

 changes. Didn't any of you feel anything?"

  

  Her hot, demanding eyes swept the group; a group whose like, except for physical

 perfection, could be found in any nudist colony.

  

  No one except Tula had felt a thing.

  

  "That fact is not too surprising," Javo said finally. "You have the most sensitive

 receptors of us all. But are you sure?"

  

  "I am sure. It was the thought-form of a living Master." "Do you think that the Master

 perceived your web?" "It is certain. Those who built us are stronger than we." "That is

 true. As they promised, then, so long and long ago, our Masters are returning home to

 us."

  

  Jarvis Hilton of Terra, the youngest man yet to be assigned to direct any such

 tremendous deep-space undertaking as Project Theta Orionis, sat in conference with

 his two seconds-in-command. Assistant Director Sandra Cummings, analyst-synthesist

 and semantician, was tall, blonde and svelte. Planetographer William Karns-a

 black-haired, black-browed, black-eyed man of thirty-was third in rank of the scientific

 group.

  

  "I'm telling you, Jarve, you can't have it both ways," Karns declared. "Captain Sawtelle

 is old-school Navy brass. He goes strictly by the book. So you've got to draw a

 razor-sharp line; exactly where the Advisory Board's directive puts it. And next time he

 sticks his ugly puss across that line, kick his face in.

  

  You've been Caspar Milquetoast Two ever since we left Base." "That's the way it looks

 to you?" Hilton's right hand became a fist. "The man has age, experience and ability.

 I've been trying to meet him on a ground of courtesy and decency."

  

  "Exactly. And he doesn't recognize the existence of either. And, since the Board

 rammed you down his throat instead of giving him old Jeffers, you needn't expect him

 to."

  

  "You may be right, Bill. What do you think, Dr. Cummings?"

  

  The girl said: "Bill's right. Also, your constant appeasement isn't doing the morale of the

 whole scientific group a bit of good."

  

  "Well, I haven't enjoyed it, either. So next time I'll pin his ears back. Anything else?"

  

  "Yes, Dr. Hilton, I have a squawk of my own. I know I was rammed down your throat,

 but just when are you going to let me do some work?"

  

  "None of us has much of anything to do yet, and won't have until we light somewhere.

 You're off base a country mile."

  

  "I'm not off base. You did want Eggleston, not me."

  

  "Sure I did. I've worked with him and know what he can ,> do. But I'm not holding a

 grudge about it."

  

  "No? Why, then, are you on first-name terms with everyone in the scientific group

 except me? Supposedly your first assistant?"

  

  "That's easy!" Hilton snapped. "Because you've been carrying chips on both shoulders

 ever since you came aboard . . . or at least I thought you were." Hilton grinned suddenly

 and held out his hand. "Sorry, Sandy-I'll start all over again."

  

  "I'm sorry too, Chief." They shook hands warmly. "I was pretty stiff, I guess, but I'll be

 good."

  

  "You'll go to work right now, too. As semantician. Dig out that directive and tear it down.

 Draw that fine Bill talked about."

  

  "Can do, boss." She swung to her feet and walked out of the room, her every

 movement one of lithe and easy grace.

  

  Karns followed her with his eyes. "Funny. A trained-dancer Ph.D. And a Miss America

 type, like all the other women aboard this spacer. I wonder if she'll make out."

  

  "So do I. I still wish they'd given me Eggy. I've never seen an executive-type female

 Ph.D. yet that was worth the cyanide it would take to poison her."

  

  "That's what Sawtelle thinks of you, too, you know."

  

  "I know; and the Board does know its stuff. So I'm really hoping, Bill, that she surprises

 me as much as I intend to surprise the Navy."

  

  Alarm bells clanged as the mighty Perseus blinked out of overdrive. Every crewman

 sprang to his post.

  

  "Mister Snowden, why did we emerge without orders from me?" Captain Sawtelle

 bellowed, storming into the control room three jumps behind Hilton.

  

  'The automatics took control, sir," he said, quietly. "Automatics! I give the orders!"

  

  "In this case, Captain Sawtelle, you don't," Hilton said. Eyes locked and held. To

 Sawtelle, this was a new and strange co-commander. "I would suggest that we discuss

 this matter in private."

  

  "Very well, sir," Sawtelle said; and in the captain's cabin Hilton opened up.

  

  "For your information, Captain Sawtelle, I set my interspace coupling detectors for any

 objective I choose. When any one of them reacts, it trips the kickers and we emerge.

 During any emergency outside the Solar System I am in command with the provision

 that I must relinquish command to you in case of armed attack on us."

  

  "Where do you think you found any such stuff as that in the directive? It isn't there and

 I know my rights."

  

  "It is; and you don't. Here is a semantic chart of the whole directive. As you will note, it

 overrides many Navy regulations. Disobedience of my orders constitutes mutiny and I

 can-and will-have you put in irons and sent back to Terra for court-martial. Now let's go

 back."

  

  In the control room, Hilton said, "The target has a mass of approximately five hundred

 metric tons. There is also a significant amount of radiation characteristic of uranexite.

 You will please execute search, Captain Sawtelle."

  

  And Captain Sawtelle ordered the search.

  

  "What did you do to the big jerk, boss?" Sandra whispered. "What you and Bill

 suggested," Hilton whispered back. "Thanks to your analysis of the directive-pure

 gobbledygook if there ever was any-I could. Mighty good job, Sandy."

  

  Ten or fifteen more minutes passed. Then:

  

 "Here's the source of radiation, sir," a searchman reported. "It's a point source, though,

 not an object at this range." "And here's the artifact, sir," Pilot Snowden said. "We're

 coming up on it fast. But . . . but what's a skyscraper skeleton doing out here in

 interstellar space?"

  

  As they closed up, everyone could see that the thing did indeed look like the metallic

 skeleton of a great building. It was a huge cube, measuring well over a hundred yards

 along each edge. And it was empty.

  

  "That's one for the book," Sawtelle said.

  

  "And how!" Hilton agreed. "I'll take a boat . . . no, suits would be better. Karns,

 Yarborough, get Techs Leeds and Miller and suit up."

  

  "You'll need a boat escort," Sawtelle said. "Mr. Ashley, execute escort Landing Craft

 One, Two and Three."

  

  The three landing craft approached that enigmatic latticework of structural steel and

 stopped. Five grotesquely armored figures wafted themselves forward on pencils of

 force. Their leader, whose suit bore the number "14", reached a mammoth girder and

 worked his way along it up to a peculiar-looking bulge. The whole immense structure

 vanished, leaving men and boats in empty space.

  

  Sawtelle gasped. "Snowden! Are you holding 'em?" "No, sir. Faster than light;

 hyperspace, sir."

  

  "Mr. Ashby, did you have your interspace rigs set?" "No, sir. I didn't think of it, sir."

  

  "Doctor Cummings, why weren't yours out?"

  

  "I didn't think of such a thing, either-any more than you did," Sandra said.

  

  Ashby, the Communications Officer, had been working the radio. "No reply from

 anyone, sir," he reported.

  

  "Oh, no!" Sandra exclaimed. Then, "But look! They're firing pistols-especially the one

 wearing number fourteen-but pistols?"

  

  "Recoil pistols-sixty-three-for emergency use in case of power failure," Ashby

 explained. "That's it . . . but I can't see why all their power went out at once. But

 Fourteen-that's Hilton-is really doing a job with that sixty-three. He'll be here in a couple

 of minutes."

  

  And he was. "Every power unit out there-suits and boats both-drained," Hilton reported.

 "Completely drained. Get some help out there fast!"

  

  In an enormous structure deep below the surface of a far-distant world a group of

 technicians clustered together in front of one section of a two-miles-long control board.

 They were staring at a light that had just appeared where no light should have been.

  

  "Someone's brain-pan will be burned out for this," one of the group radiated harshly.

 "That unit was inactivated long ago and it has not been reactivated."

  

  "Someone committed an error, Your Loftiness?" "Silence, fooll Stretts do not commit

 errors!"

  

  As soon as it was clear that no one had been injured, Sawtelle demanded, "How about

 it, Hilton?"

  

  "Structurally, it was high-alloy steel. There were many bulges, possibly containing

 mechanisms. There were drive-units of a non-Terran type. There were many projectors,

 which-at a rough guess-were a hundred times as powerful as any I have ever seen

 before. There were no indications that the thing had ever been enclosed, in whole or in

 part. It certainly never had living quarters for warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing eaters of

 organic food."

  

  Sawtelle snorted. "You mean it never had a crew?" "Not necessarily . . .

  

  "Bah! What other kind of intelligent life is there?"

  

  "I don't know. But before we speculate too much. let's look at the tri-di. The camera

 may have caught something I missed."

  

  It hadn't. The three-dimensional pictures added nothing.

  

  "It probably was operated either by programmed automatics or by remote control,"

 Hilton decided, finally. "But how did they drain all our power? And just as bad, what and

 how is that other point source of power we're heading for now?" "What's wrong with it?"

 Sawtelle asked.

  

  "Its strength. No matter what distance or reactant I assume, nothing we know will fit.

 Neither fission nor fusion will do it. It has to be practically total conversion!"
 Chapter 2

 

 The Perseus snapped out of overdrive near the point of interest and Hilton stared,

 motionless and silent.

  

  Space was full of madly warring ships. Half of them were bare, giant skeletons of steel,

 like the "derelict" that had so unexpectedly blasted away from them. The others were

 more or less like the Perseus, except in being bigger, faster and of vastly greater

 power.

  

  Beams of starkly incredible power bit at and clung to equally capable defensive

 screens of pure force. As those inconceivable forces met, the glare of their

 neutralization filled all nearby space. And ships and skeletons alike were disappearing

 in chunks, blobs, gouts, streamers and sparkles of rended, fused and vaporized metal.

  

  Hilton watched two ships combine against one skeleton. Dozens of beams, incredibly

 tight and hard, were held inexorably upon dozens of the bulges of the skeleton.

 Overloaded, the bulges' screen flared through the spectrum and failed. And bare metal,

 however refractory, endures only for instants under the appalling intensity of such

 beams as those.

  

  The skeletons tried to duplicate the ships' method of attack, but failed. They were too

 slow. Not slow, exactly, either, but hesitant; as though it required whole seconds for the

 commander-or operator? Or remote controller?-of each skeleton to make it act. The

 ships were winning.

  

  "Hey!" Hilton yelped. "Oh-that's the one we saw back there. But what in all space does

 it think it's doing?"

  

  It was plunging at tremendous speed straight through the immense fleet of embattled

 skeletons. It did not fire a beam nor energize a screen; it merely plunged along as

 though on a plotted course until it collided with one of the skeletons of the fleet and

 both structures plunged, a tangled mass of wreckage, to the ground of the planet

 below.

  

  Then hundreds of the ships shot forward, each to plunge into and explode inside one

 of the skeletons. When visibility was restored another wave of ships came forward to

 repeat the performance, but there was nothing left to fight. Every surviving skeleton had

 blinked out of normal space.

  

  The remaining ships made no effort to pursue the skeletons, nor did they re-form as a

 fleet. Each ship went off by itself.

  

  And on that distant planet of the Stretts the group of mechs watched with amazed

 disbelief as light after light after light winked out on their two-miles-long control board.

 Frantically they relayed orders to the skeletons; orders which did not affect the losses.

  

  "Brain-pans will blacken for this . . ." a mental snarl began, to be interrupted by a coldly

 imperious thought.

  

  "That long-dead unit, so inexplicably reactivated, is approaching the fuel world. It is

 ignoring the battle. It is heading through our fleet toward the Oman half . . . handle it,

 ten eighteen !"

  

  "It does not respond, Your Loftiness."

  

  "Then blast it, fool! Ah, it is inactivated. As encyclopedist, Nine, explain the freakish

 behavior of that unit."

  

  "Yes, Your Loftiness. Many cycles ago we sent a ship against the Omans with a new

 device of destruction. The Omans must have intercepted it, drained it of power and al-

  

 lowed it to drift on. After all these cycles of time it must have come upon a small source

 of power and of course continued its mission."

  

  "That can be the truth. The Lords of the Universe must be informed."

  

  "The mining units, the carriers and the refiners have not been affected, Your Loftiness,"

 a meth radiated.

  

  "So I see, fool." Then, activating another instrument, His Loftiness thought at it, in an

 entirely different vein, "Lord Ynos, Madam? I have to make a very grave report . . .

  

  In the Perseus, four scientists and three Navy officers were arguing heatedly;

 employing deep-space verbiage not to be found in any dictionary. "Jarve!" Karns called

 out, and Hilton joined the group. "Does anything about this planet make any sense to

 you?"

  

  "No. But you're the planetographer. 'Smatter with it?" "It's a good three hundred

 degrees Kelvin too hot." "Well, you know it's loaded with uranexite."

  

  "That much? The whole crust practically jewelry ore?" "If that's what the figures say, I'll

 buy it."

  

  "Buy this, then. Continuous daylight everywhere. Noon June Sol-quality light except

 that it's all in the visible. Frank says it's from bombardment of a layer of something, and

 Frank admits that the whole thing's impossible."

  

  "When Frank makes up his mind what 'something' is, I'll take it as a datum."

  

  "Third thing: there's only one city on this continent, and it's protected by a screen that

 nobody ever heard of."

  

  Hilton pondered, then turned to the captain. "Will you please run a search-pattern, sir?

 Fine-toothing only the hot spots?"

  

  The planet was approximately the same size as Terra; its atmosphere, except for its

 intense radiation, was similar to Terra's. There were two continents; one immense

 girdling ocean. The temperature of the land surface was everywhere about 100º F, that

 of the water about 90ºF. Each continent had one city, and both were small. One was

 inhabited by what looked like human beings; the other by usuform robots. The human

 city was the only cool spot on the entire planet; under its protective dome the

 temperature was 71 ºF.

  

  Hilton decided to study the robots first; and asked the captain to take the ship down to

 observation range. Sawtelle objected; and continued to object until Hilton started to

 order his arrest. Then he said, "I'll do it, under protest, but I want it on record that I am

 doing it against my best judgment."

  

  "It's on record," Hilton said, coldly. "Everything said and done is being, and will

 continue to be, recorded."

  

  The Perseus floated downward "There's what I want most to see," Hilton said, finally.

 "That big strip-mining operation . . . that's it . . . hold it!" Then, via throatmike, "Attention,

 all scientists! You all know what to do. Start doing it."

  

  Sandra's blonde head was very close to Hilton's brown one as they stared into Hilton's

 plate. "Why, they look like giant armadillos!" she exclaimed.

  

  "More like tanks," he disagreed, "except that they've got legs, wheels and treads-and

 arms, cutters, diggers, probes and conveyors-and look at the way those buckets dip

 solid rock!"

  

  The fantastic machine was moving very slowly along a bench or shelf that it was

 making for itself as it went along. Below it, to its left, dropped the other benches being

 made by other mining machines. The machines were not using explosives. Hard though

 the ore was, the tools were driven so much harder and were driven with such

 tremendous power that the stuff might just as well have been slightly-clayed sand.

  

  Every bit of loosened ore, down to the finest dust, was forced into a conveyor and

 thence into the armored body of the machine. There it went into a mechanism whose

 basic principles Hilton could not understand. From this monstrosity emerged two

 streams of product.

  

  One of these, comprising ninety-nine point nine percent of the input, went out through

 another conveyor into the vast hold of a vehicle which, when full and replaced by a

 duplicate of itself, went careening madly cross-country to a dump.

  

  The other product, a slow, very small stream of tiny, glistening black pellets, fell into a

 one-gallon container being held watchfully by a small machine, more or less like a

 three-wheeled motor scooter, which was moving carefully along beside the giant miner.

 When this can was almost full another scooter rolled up and, without losing a single

 pellet, took over place and function. The first scooter then covered its bucket, clamped

 it solidly into a recess designed for the purpose and dashed away toward the city.

  

  Hilton stared slack-jawed at Sandra. She stared back. "Do you make anything of that,

 Jarve?"

  

  "Nothing. T'hey're taking pure uranexite and concentrating-or converting-it a thousand

 to one. I hope we'll be able to do something about it."

  

  "I hope so, too, Chief; and I'm sure we will."

  

  "Well, that's enough for now. You may take us up now, Captain Sawtelle. And Sandy,

 will you please call all department heads and their assistants into the conference

 room?"

  

  At the head of the long conference table, Hilton studied his fourteen department heads,

 all husky young men, and their assistants, all surprisingly attractive and well-built young

 women. Bud Carroll and Sylvia Bannister of Sociology sat together. He was almost as

 big as Karns; she was a green-eyed redhead whose five-ten and one-fifty would have

 looked big except for the arrangement thereof. There were Bernadine and Hermione

 van der Moen, the leggy, breasty, platinum-blonde twins---both of whom were Cowper

 medalists in physics. There was Etienne de Vaux, the mathematical wizard; and

 Rebecca Eisenstein, the black-haired, flashing-eyed ex-infant prodigy theoretical

 astronomer. There was Beverly Bell, who made mathematically impossible chemical

 syntheses-who swam channels for days on end and computed planetary orbits in her

 sleekly-coiffured head.

  

  "First, we'll have a get-together," Hilton said. "Nothing recorded; just to get acquainted.

 You all know that our fourteen departments cover science, from astronomy to zoology."

  

  He paused, again his eyes swept the group. Stella Wing, who would have been a

 grand-opera star except for her drive to know everything about language. Theodora

 (Teddy) Blake, who would prove gleefully that she was the world's best model-but was

 in fact the most brilliantly promising theoretician who had ever lived.

  

  "No other force like this has ever been assembled," Hilton went on. "In more ways than

 one. Sawtelle wanted Jeffers to head this group, instead of me. Everybody thought he

 would head it."

  

  "And Hilton wanted Eggleston and got me," Sandra said. "That's right. And quite a few

 of you didn't want to come at all, but were told by the Board to come or else."

  

  The group stirred. Eyes met eyes, and there were smiles.

  

  "I myself think Jeffers should have had the job. I've never handled anything half this big

 and I'll need a lot of help. But I'm stuck with it and you're stuck with me, so we'll all take

 it and like it. You've noticed, of course, the accent on youth. The Navy crew is normal,

 except for the commanders being unusually young. But we aren't. None of us is thirty

 yet, and none of us has ever been married. You fellows look like a team of professional

 athletes, and you girls-well, if I didn't know better I'd say the Board had screened you

 for the front row of the chorus instead of for a top-bracket brain-gang. How they found

 so many of you I'll never know."

  

  "Virile men and nubile women!" Etienne de Vaux leered enthusiastically. "Vive le

 Board!"

  

  "Nubile! Bravo, Tiny! Quelle delicatesse de nuance!" "Three rousing cheers for the

 Board!"

  

  "Keep still, you nitwits! Let me ask a question!" This came from one of the twins.

 "Before you give us the deduction, Jarvis-or will it be an intuition or an induction or a . .

 ."

  

  "Or an inducement," the other twin suggested, helpfully. "Not that you would need very

 much of that."

  

  "You keep still, too, Miney. I'm asking, Sir Moderator, if I can give my deduction first?"

  

  "Sure, Bernadine: go ahead."

  

  "They figured we're going to get completely lost. Then we'll jettison the Navy, hunt up a

 planet of our own and start a race to end all human races. Or would you call this a see-

  

 duction instead of a dee-duction?"

  

  This produced a storm of whistles, cheers and jeers that it took several seconds to

 quell.

  

  "But seriously, Jarvis," Bernadine went on. "We've all been wondering and it doesn't

 make sense. Have you any idea at all of what the Board actually did have in mind?"

  

  "I believe that the Board selected for mental, not physical, qualities, for the ability to

 handle anything unexpected or unusual that comes up, no matter what it is."

  

  "You think it wasn't double-barreled?" asked Kincaid, the psychologist. He smiled

 quizzically. "That all this virility and nubility and glamor is pure coincidence?"

  

  "No," Hilton said, with an almost imperceptible flick of an eyelid. "Coincidence is as

 meaningless as paradox. I think they found out that-breaking freaks-the best minds are

 in the best bodies."

  

  "Could be. The idea has been propounded before."

  

  "Now let's get to work." Hilton flipped the switch of the recorder. "Starting with you,

 Sandy, each of you give a twominute boil-down. What you found and what you think."

  

  Something over an hour later the meeting adjured and Hilton and Sandra strolled

 toward the control room.

  

  "I don't know whether you convinced Alexander Q. Kincaid or not, but you didn't quite

 convince me," Sandra said.

  

  "Nor him, either."

  

  "Oh?" Sandra's eyebrows went up.

  

  "No. He grabbed the out I offered him. I didn't fool Teddy Blake or Temple Bells, either.

 You four are all, though, I think."

  

  "Temple? You think she's so smart?"

  

  "I don't think so, no. Don't fool yourself, chick. Temple Bells looks and acts sweet and

 innocent and virginal. Maybe-probably-she is. But she isn't showing a fraction of the

 stuff she's really got. She's heavy artillery, Sandy. And I mean heavy."

  

  "I think you're slightly nuts there. But do you really believe that the Board was playing

 Cupid?"

  

  "Not trying, but doing. Cold-bloodedly and efficiently. Yes."

  

  "But it wouldn't workl We aren't going to get lost!" "We won't need to. Propinquity will

 do the work."

  

  "Phooie. You and me, for instance?" She stopped, put both hands on her hips, and

 glared. "Why, I wouldn't marry you if you..."

  

  "I'll tell the cockeyed world you won't!" Hilton broke in. "Me marry a damned female

 Ph.D.? Uh-uh. Mine will be a cuddly little brunette that thinks a slipstick is some kind of

 lipstick and that an isotope's something good to eat."

  

  "One like that copy of Murchison's 'Dark Lady' that you keep under the glass on your

 desk?" she sneered.

  

  "Exactly . . ." He started to continue the battle, then shut himself off. "But listen, Sandy,

 why should we get into a fight because we don't want to marry each other? You're doing

 a swell job. I admire you tremendously for it and I like to work with you."

  

  "You've got a point there, Jarve, at that, and I'm one of the few who know what kind of

 a job you're doing, so I'll relax." She flashed him a gamin grin and they went on into the

 control room.

  

  It was too late in the day then to do any more exploring; but the next morning, early,

 the Perseus lined out for the city of the humanoids.

  

  Tula turned toward her fellows. Her eyes filled with a happily triumphant light and her

 thought a lilting song. "I have been telling you from the first touch that it was the

 Masters. It is the Masters! The Masters are returning to us Omans and their own home

 world!"

  

  "Captain Sawtelle," Hilton said, "please land in the cradle below."

  

  "Land!" Sawtelle stormed. "On a planet like that? Not by . . ." He broke off and stared;

 for now, on that cradle, there flamed out in screaming red the Perseus' own

 Navy-coded landing symbols!

  

  "Your protest is recorded," Hilton said. "Now, sir, land." Fuming, Sawtelle landed.

 Sandra looked pointedly at Hilton. "First contact is my dish, you know."

  

  "Not that I like it, but it is." He turned to a burly youth with sun-bleached, crew-cut hair,

 "Still safe, Frank?"

  

  "Still abnormally low. Surprising no end, since all the rest of the planet is hotter than

 the middle tail-race of hell." "Okay, Sandy. Who will you want besides the top linguists?"

 "Psych-both Alexa and Temple. And Teddy Blake. They're over there. Tell them, will

 you, while I buzz Teddy?" "Will do," and Hilton stepped over to the two psychologists

 and told them. Then, "I hope I'm not leading with my chin, Temple, but is that your real

 first name or a professional?" "It's real; it really is. My parents were romantics: dad says

 they considered both 'Golden' and 'Silver'!"

  

  Not at all obviously, he studied her: the almost translucent, unblemished perfection of

 her lightly tanned, old-ivory skin; the clear, calm, deep blueness of her eyes: the long,

 thick mane of hair exactly the color of a field of dead-ripe wheat. "You know, I like it," he

 said then. "It fits you." "I'm glad you said that, Doctor . . ."

  

  "Not that, Temple. I'm not going to 'Doctor' you."

  

  "I'll call you 'boss', then, like Stella does. Anyway, that lets me tell you that I like it

 myself. I really think that it did something for me."

  

  "Something did something for you, that's for sure. I'm mighty glad you're aboard, and I

 hope . . . here they come. Hi, Hark! Hi, Stella!"

  

  "Hi, Jarve," said Chief Linguist Harkins, and:

  

 "Hi, boss-what's holding us up?" asked the assistant, Stella Wing. She was about five

 feet four. Her eyes were a tawny brown; her hair a flamboyant auburn mop. Perhaps it

 owed a little of its spectacular refulgence to chemistry, Hilton thought, but not too much.

 "Let us away! Let the lions roar and let the welkin ring!"

  

  "Who's been feeding you so much red meat, little squirt?" Hilton laughed and turned

 away, meeting Sandra in the corridor. "Okay, chick, take 'em away. We'll cover you.

 Luck, girl."

  

  And in the control room, to Sawtelle, "Needle-beam cover, please; set for minimum

 aperture and lethal blast. But no firing, Captain Sawtelle, until I give the order."

  

  The Perseus was surrounded by hundreds of natives. They were all adult, all naked

 and about equally divided as to sex. They were friendly; most enthusiastically so.

  

  "Jarve!" Sandra squealed. "They're telepathic. Very strongly so! I never imagined-I

 never felt anything like it!".

  

  "Any rough stuff?" Hilton demanded.

  

  "Oh, no. Just the opposite. They simply love us . . . in a way that's simply

 indescribable. I don't like this telepathy business . . . not clear . . . foggy, diffuse . . , this

 woman is sure I'm her long-lost great-great-a-hundred-times grandmother or

 something-You! Slow down. Take it easy! They want us all to come out here and live

 with . . . no, not with them, but each of us alone in a whole house with them to wait on

 us! But first, they all want to come aboard . . ."

  

  "What?" Hilton yelped. "But are you sure they're friendly?" "Positive, chief."

  

  "How about you, Alex?"

  

  "We're all sure, Jarve. No question about it." "Bring two of them aboard. A man and a

 woman."

  

  "You won't bring any!" Sawtelle thundered. "Hilton, I bad enough of your stupid,

 starry-eyed, ivory-domed blundering long ago, but this utterly idiotic brainstorm of letting

 enemy aliens aboard us ends all civilian command. Call your people back aboard or I

 will bring them in by force!"

  

  "Very well, sir. Sandy, tell the natives that a slight delay has become necessary and

 bring your party aboard."

  

  The Navy officers smiled-or grinned-gloatingly; while the scientists stared at their

 director with expressions ranging from surprise to disappointment and disgust. Hilton's

 face remained set, expressionless, until Sandra and her party had arrived.

  

  "Captain Sawtelle," he said then, "I thought that you and I bad settled in private the

 question of who is in command of Project Theta Orionis at destination. We will now

 settle it in public. Your opinion of me is now on record, witnessed by your officers and

 by my staff. My opinion of you, which is now being similarly recorded and witnessed, is

 that you are a hidebound, mentally ossified Navy mule; mentally and psychologically

 unfit to have any voice in any such mission as this. You will now agree, on this

 recording and before these witnesses, to obey my orders unquestioningly or I will now

 unload all Bureau of Science personnel and equipment onto this planet and send you

 and the Perseus back to Terra with the doubly-sealed record of this episode posted to

 the Advisory Board. Take your choice."

  

  Eyes locked, and under Hilton's uncompromising stare Sawtelle weakened. He

 fidgeted; tried three timesunsuccessfully-to blare defiance. Then, "Very well, sir," he

 said, and saluted.

  

  "Thank you, sir," Hilton said, then turned to his staff. "Okay, Sandy, go ahead."

  

  Outside the control room door, "Thank God you don't play poker, Jarve!" Karns

 gasped. "We'd all owe you all the pay we'll ever get!"

  

  "You think it was the bluff, yes?" de Vaux asked. "Me, I think no. Name of a name of a

 name! I was wondering with unease what life would be like on this so-alien planet!"

  

  "You didn't need to wonder, Tiny," Hilton assured him. "It was in the bag. He's

 incapable of abandonment."

  

  Beverly Bell, the van der Moen twins and Temple Bells all stared at Hilton in awe; and

 Sandra felt much the same way. "But suppose he had called you?" Sandra demanded.

 "Speculating on the impossible is unprofitable," he said. "Oh, you're the most

 exasperating thing!" Sandra stamped a foot. "Don't you-ever-answer a question

 intelligibly?"

  

  "When the question is meaningless, chick, I can't."

  

  At the lock Temple Bells, who had been hanging back, cocked an eyebrow at Hilton

 and he made his way to her side. "What was it you started to say back there, boss?"

  

  "Oh, yes. That we should see each other oftener."

  

  "That's what I was hoping you were going to say." She put her hand under his elbow

 and pressed his arm lightly, fleetingly, against her side. "That would be indubitably the

 fondest thing I could be of."

  

  He laughed and gave her arm a friendly squeeze. Then he studied her again, the most

 baffling member of his staff. About five feet six. Lithe, hard, trained down fine-as a

 tennis champion, she would be. Stacked-how she was stacked! Not as beautiful as

 Sandra or Teddy . . . but with an ungodly lot of something that neither of them had . . .

 nor any other woman he had ever known.

  

  "Yes, I am a little difficult to classify," she said quietly, almost reading his mind.

  

  "That's the understatement of the year! But I'm making some progress."

  

  "Such as?" This was an open challenge. "Except possibly Teddy, the best brain

 aboard." "That isn't true, but go ahead."

  

  "You're a powerhouse. A tightly organized, thoroughly integrated, smoothly functioning,

 beautifully camouflaged Juggernaut. A reasonable facsimile of an irresistible force."

  

  "My God, Jarvis!" That had gone deep.

  

  "Let me finish my analysis. You aren't head of your department because you don't want

 to be. You fooled the top psychs of the Board. You've been running ninety per cent

 submerged because you can work better that way and there's no gloryhound blood in

 you."

  

  She stared at him, licking her lips. "I knew your mind was a razor, but I didn't know it

 was a diamond drill, too. That seals your doom, boss, unless . . . no, you can't possibly

 know why I'm here."

  

  "Why, of course I do."

  

  "You just think you do. You see, I've been in love with you ever since, as a gangling,

 bony, knobby-kneed kid. I listened to your first doctorate disputation. Ever since then,

 my purpose in life has been to !and you."
 Chapter 3

 

 "But listen!" he exclaimed. "I can't, even if I want . . ."

  

  "Of course you can't." Pure deviltry danced in her eyes. "You're the Director. It wouldn't

 be proper. But it's Standard Operating Procedure for simple, innocent, unsophisticated

 little country girls like me to go completely overboard for the boss."

  

  "But you can't-you mustn't!" he protested in panic. Temple Bells was getting plenty of

 revenge for the shocks be had give her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him,

 her eyes still dancing. "Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute

 ago. And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as

 either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable

 situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing up you like a squirrel!"

  

  "Confound it, Temple, you can't be serious!"

  

  "Can't I?" She laughed gleefully. "Especially with half a dozen of those other cats

 watching? Just wait and see, boss!" Sandra and her two guests came aboard. The

 natives looked around; the man at the various human men, the women at each of the

 human women. The women remained beside Sandra; the man took his place at Hilton's

 left, looking up-he was a couple of inches shorter than Hilton's six feet one-with an air of

 . . . of expectancy!

  

  "Why this arrangement, Sandy?" Hilton asked.

  

  "Because we're tops. It's your move, Jarve. What's first?" "Uranexite. Come along,

 Sport. I'll ca!! you that until . . "taro," the native said, in a deep resonant bass voice. He

 hit himself a blow on the head that would have floored any two ordinary men. "Sora," he

 announced, striking the alien woman a similar blow.

  

  "taro and Sora, I would like to have you look at our uranexite, with the idea of refueling

 our ship. Come with me, please?"

  

  Both nodded and followed him. In the engine-room he pointed at the engines, then to

 the lead-blocked labyrinth leading to the fuel holds. "taro, do you understand 'hot'?

 Radioactive?"

  

  Laro nodded-and started to open the heavy lead door! "Hey!" Hilton yelped. "That's

 hot!.' He seized Laro's arm to pull him away-and got the shock of his life. Laro weighed

 at least five hundred pounds! And the guy still looked human! Laro nodded again and

 gave himself a terrific thump on the chest. Then he glanced at Sora, who stepped away

 from Sandra. He then went into the hold and came out with two fuel pellets in his hand,

 one of which he tossed to Sora. That is, the motion looked like a toss, but the pellet

 traveled like a bullet. Sora caught it unconcernedly and both natives flipped the pellets

 into their mouths. There was a half minute of rockcrusher crunching; then both natives

 opened their mouths. The pellets had been pulverized and swallowed.

  

  Hilton's voice rang out. "Poynter! How can these people be non-radioactive after eating

 a whole fuel pellet apiece?" Poynter tested both natives again. "Cold," he reported.

 "Stone cold. No background even. Play that on your harmonica!"

  

  Laro nodded, perfectly matter-of-factly, and in Hilton's mind there formed a picture. It

 was not clear, but it showed plainly enough a long line of aliens approaching the

 Perseus. Each carried on his or her shoulder a lead container holding two hundred

 pounds of Navy Regulation fuel pellets. A standard loading-tube was sealed into place

 and every fuel-hold was filled.

  

  This picture, Laro indicated plainly, could become reality any time.

  

  Sawtelle was notified and came on the run. "No fuel is coming aboard without being

 tested!" he roared.

  

  "Of course not. But it'll pass, for all the tea in China. You haven't had a ten per cent

 load of fuel since you were launched. You can fill up or not-the fuel's here-just as you

 say."

  

 "If they can make Navy standard, of course we want it." The fuel arrived. Every load

 tested well above standard. Every fuel hold was filled to capacity, with no leakage and

 no emanation. The natives who had handled the stuff did not go away, but gathered in

 the engine-room; and more and more humans trickled in to see what was going on.

  

  Sawtelle stiffened. "What's going on over there, Hilton?"

  

  "I don't know; but let's let 'em go for a minute. I want to learn about these people and

 they've got me stopped cold." "You aren't the only one. But if they wreck that Mayfield

 it'll cost you over twenty thousand dollars."

  

  "Okay." The captain and director watched, wide eyed.

  

  Two master mechanics had been getting ready to re-fit a tube--a job requiring both

 strength and skill. The tube was very heavy and made of superefract. The machine-the

 Mayfield-upon which the work was to be done, was extremely complex.

  

  Two of the aliens had brushed the mechanics-very gently-aside and were doing their

 work for them. Ignoring the hoist, one native had picked the tube up and was holding it

 exactly in place on the Mayfield. The other, hands moving faster than the eye could

 follow, was locking it-micrometrically precise and immovably secure-into place.

  

  "How about this?" one of the mechanics asked of his immediate superior. "If we throw

 'em out, how do we do it?"

  

  By a jerk of the head, the non-com passed the buck to a commissioned officer, who

 relayed, it up the line to Sawtelle, who said, "Hilton, nobody can run a Mayfield without

 months of training. They'll wreck it and it'll cost you . . . but I'm getting curious myself.

 Enough so to take half the damage. Let 'em go ahead."

  

  "How about this, Mike?" one of the machinists asked of his fellow. "I'm going to like

 this, what?"

  

  "Ya-as, my deah Chumley," the other drawled, affectedly. "My man relieves me of so

 much uncouth effort."

  

  The natives had kept on working. The Mayfield was running. It had always howled and

 screamed at its work, but now it gave out only a smooth and even hum. The aliens had

 adjusted it with unhuman precision; they were one with it as no human being could

 possibly be. And every mind present knew that those aliens were, at long, long last,

 fulfilling their destiny and were, in that fulfillment, supremely happy. After tens of

 thousands of cycles of time they were doing a job for their adored, their revered and

 beloved MASTERS.

  

  That was a stunning shock; but it was eclipsed by another.

  

  "I am sorry, Master Hilton," Laro's tremendous bass voice boomed out, "that it has

 taken us so long to learn your Masters' language as it now is. Since you left us you

 have changed it radically; while we, of course, have not changed it at all."

  

  "I'm sorry, but you're mistaken," Hilton said. "We are merely visitors. We have never

 been here before; nor, as far as we know, were any of our ancestors ever here."

  

  "You need not test us, Master. We have kept your trust. Everything has been kept,

 changelessly the same, awaiting your return as you ordered so long ago."

  

  "Can you read my mind?" Hilton demanded.

  

  "Of course; but Omans can not read in Masters' minds anything except what Masters

 want Omans to read."

  

  "Omans?" Harkins asked. "Where did you Omans and your masters come from?

 Originally?"

  

  "As you know, Master, the Masters came originally from Arth. They populated Ardu,

 where we Omans were developed. When the Stretts drove us from Ardu, we all came

 to Ardry, which was your home world until you left it in our care. We keep also this, your

 half of the Fuel World, in trust for you."

  

  "Listen, Jarve!" Harkins said, tensely. "Oman-human. Arth-Earth. Ardu-Earth Two.

 Ardry-Earth Three. You can't laugh them off . . . but there never was an Atlantis!"

  

  "'This is getting no better fast. We need a full staff meeting. You, too, Sawtelle, and

 your best man. We need all the brains the Perseus can muster."

  

  "You're right. But first, get those naked women out of here. It's bad enough, having

 women aboard at all, but this . . . my men are spacemen, mister."

  

  Laro spoke up. "If it is the Masters' pleasure to keep on testing us, so be it. We have

 forgotten nothing. A dwelling awaits each Master, in which each will be served by

 Omans who will know the Master's desires without being told. Every desire. While we

 Omans have no biological urges, we are of course highly skilled in relieving tensions

 and derive as much pleasure from that service as from any other."

  

  Sawtelle broke the silence that followed. "Well, for the men-" He hesitated. "Especially

 on the ground . . . well, talking in mixed company, you know, but I think . . „ .

  

  "Think nothing of the mixed company, Captain Sawtelle," Sandra said. "We women are

 scientists, not shrinking violets. We are accustomed to discussing the facts of life just

 as frankly as any other facts."

  

  Sawtelle jerked a thumb at Hilton, who followed him out into the corridor. "I have been

 a Navy mule," he said. "I admit now that I'm outmaneuvered, out-manned and out-

  

 gunned."

  

  "I'm just as baffled-at present-as you are, sir. But my training has been aimed

 specifically at the unexpected, while yours has not."

  

  "That's letting me down easy, Jarve." Sawtelle smiled-the first time the startled Hilton

 had known that the hard, tough old spacehound could smile. "What I wanted to say is,

 lead on. IT follow you through force-field and space-warps."

  

  "Thanks, skipper. And by the way, I erased that record yesterday." The two gripped

 hands; and there came into being a relationship that was to become a lifelong

 friendship.

  

  "We will start for Ardry immediately," Hilton said. "How do we make that jump without

 charts, Laro?"

  

  "Very easily, Master. Kedo, as Master Captain Sawtelle's Oman, will give the orders.

 Nito will serve the Master Snowden and supply the knowledge he says he has

 forgotten."

  

  "Okay. We'll go up to the control room and get started." And in the control room,

 Kedo's voice rasped into the captain's microphone. "Attention, all personnel! Master

 Captain Sawtelle orders take-off in two minutes. The count-down will begin in five

 seconds . . . Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Lift!"

  

  Nito, not Snowden, handled the controls. As perfectly as the human pilot had ever

 done it, at the top of his finest form, he picked the immense spaceship up and slipped it

 silkily into subspace.

  

  "Well, I'll be a . . :' Snowden gasped. "That's a better job than I ever did!"

  

  "Not at all, Master, as you know," Nito said. "It was you who did this. I merely

 performed the labor."

  

  A few minutes later, in the main lounge, Navy and BuSci personnel were mingling as

 they had never done before. Whatever had caused this relaxation of tension-the

 friendship of captain and director? The position in which they all were? Or what?-they

 all began to get acquainted with each other.

  

  "Silence, please, and be seated," Hilton said. "While this is not exactly a formal

 meeting, it will be recorded for future reference. First, I will ask Laro a question. Were

 books or records left on Ardry by the race you call the Masters?"

  

  "You know there are, Master. They are exactly as you left them. Undisturbed for over

 two hundred seventy-one thousand years."

  

  "Therefore we will not question the Oman%. We do not know what questions to ask.

 We have seen-many things hitherto thought impossible. Hence, we must discard all

 preconceived opinions which conflict with facts. I will mention a few of the problems we

 face.

  

  "The Omans. The Masters. The upgrading of the armament of the Perseus to Oman

 standards. The concentration of uranexite. What is that concentrate? How is it used?

 Total conversion-how is it accomplished? The skeletons-what are they and how are

 they controlled? Their ability to drain power. Who or what is back of them? Why a

 deadlock that has lasted over a quarter of a million years? How much danger are we

 and the Perseus actually in? How much danger is Terra in, because of our presence

 here? There are many other questions.

  

  "Sandra and I will not take part. Nor will three others: de Vaux, Eisenstein and Blake.

 You have more important work to do."

  

  "What can that be?" asked Rebecca. "Of what possible use can a mathematician, a

 theoretician and a theoretical astronomer be in such a situation as this?"

  

  "You can think powerfully in abstract terms, unhampered by Ten-an facts and laws

 which we now know are neither facts nor laws. I cannot even categorize the problems

 we face. Perhaps you three will be able to. You will listen, then consult, then tell me

 how to pick the teams to do the work. A more important job for you is this: Any problem,

 to be solved, must be stated clearly; and we don't know even what our basic problem is.

 I want something by the use of which I can break this thing open. Get it for me."

  

  Rebecca and de Vaux merely smiled and nodded, but Teddy Blake said happily, "I was

 beginning to feel like a fifth wheel on this project, but that's something I can really stick

 my teeth into."

  

  "Huh? How!" Karns demanded. "He didn't give you one single thing to go on; just

 compounded the confusion."

  

  Hilton spoke before Teddy could. "That's their dish, Bill. If I had any data I'd work it

 myself. You first, Captain Sawtelle."

  

  That conference was a very long one indeed. There were almost as many conclusions

 and recommendations as there were speakers. And through it all Hilton and Sandra

 listened. They weighed and tested and analyzed and made copious notes; in shorthand

 and in the more esoteric characters of symbolic logic. And at its end:

  

 "I'm just about pooped, Sandy. How about you?" "You and me both, boss. See you in

 the morning."

  

  But she didn't. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they met again.

  

  "We made up one of the teams, Sandy," he said with surprising diffidence. "I know we

 were going to do it together, but I got a hunch on the first team. A kind of weirdie, but

 the brains checked me on it." He placed a card on her desk. "Don't blow your top until

 after you've studied it."

  

  "Why, I won't, of course . . ." Her voice died away. "Maybe you'd better cancel that 'of

 course' . . ." She studied, and when she spoke again she was exerting self-control. "A

 chemist, a planetographer, a theoretician, two sociologists, a psychologist and a

 radiationist. And six of the seven are three pairs of sweeties. What kind of a line-up is

 that to solve a problem in physics?"

  

  "It isn't in any physics we know. I said think!"

  

  "Oh," she said, then again "Oh," and "Oh," and "Oh." Four entirely different tones. "I

 see . . . maybe. You're matching minds, not specialties; and supplementing?"

  

  "I knew you were smart. Buy it?"

  

  "It's weird, all right, but I'll buy it-for a trial run, anyway. But I'd bate like sin to have to

 sell any part of it to the Board . . . But of course we're-I mean you're responsible only to

 yourself."

  

  "Keep it 'we', Sandy. You're as important to this project as I am. But before we tackle

 the second team, what's your thought on Bernadine and Hermione? Separate or

 together?"

  

  "Separate, I'd say. They're identical physically, and so nearly so mentally that one of

 them would be just as good on a team as both of them. More and better work on

 different teams."

  

  "My thought exactly." And so it went, hour after hour. The teams were selected and

 meetings were held.

  

  The Perseus reached Ardry, which was very much like Terra. There were continents,

 oceans, ice-caps, lakes, rivers, mountains and plains, forests and prairies. The ship

 landed on the space-field of Omlu, the City of the Masters, and Sawtelle called Hilton

 into his cabin. The Omans Laro and Kedo went along, of course.

  

  "Nobody knows how it leaked . . ." Sawtelle began.

  

  "No secrets around here," Hilton grinned. "Omans, you know."

  

  "I suppose so. Anyway, every man aboard is all hyped up about living

 aground--especially with a harem. But before I grant liberty, suppose there's any VD

 around here that our prophylactics can't handle?"

  

  "As you know, Masters," Laro replied for Hilton before the latter could open his mouth,

 "no disease, venereal or other, is allowed to exist on Ardry. No prophylaxis is either

 necessary or desirable."

  

  `"That ought to hold you for a while, Skipper." Hilton smiled at the flabbergasted

 captain and went back to the lounge.

  

  "Everybody going ashore?" be asked.

  

  "Yes." Karns said. "Unanimous vote for the first time." "Who wouldn't?" Sandra asked.

 "I'm fed up with living like a sardine. I will scream for joy the minute I get a real room."

 "Cars" were waiting, in a stopping-and-starting line. Three-wheel jobs. All were empty.

 No drivers, no steering-wheels, no instruments or push-buttons. When the whole line

 moved ahead as one vehicle there was no noise, no gas, no blast.

  

  An Oman helped a Master carefully into the rear seat of his car, leaped into the front

 seat and the car sped quietly away. The whole line of empty cars, acting in perfect

 synchronization, shot forward one space and stopped.

  

  "This is your car, Master," Laro said, and made a production out of getting Hilton into

 the vehicle undamaged. Hilton's plan had been beautifully simple. All the teams were to

 meet at the Hall of Records. The linguists and their Omans would study the records and

 pass them out. Speciality after speciality would be unveiled and teams would work on

 them. He and Sandy would sit in the office and analyze and synthesize and correlate. It

 was a very nice plan.

  

  It was a very nice office, too. It contained every item of equipment that either Sandra or

 Hilton had ever worked with-it was a big office-and a great many that neither of them

 had ever heard of. It had a full staff of Omans, all eager to work.

  

  Hilton and Sandra sat in that magnificent office for three hours, and no reports came

 in. Nothing happened at all. "This gives me the howling howpers!" Hilton growled. "Why

 haven't I got brains enough to be on one of those teams?"

  

  "I could shed a tear for you, you big dope, but I won't," Sandra retorted. "What do you

 want to be, besides the brain and the king-pin and the balance-wheel and the

 spark-plug of the outfit? Do you want to do everything yourself?"

  

  "Well, I don't want to go completely nuts, and that's all I'm doing at the moment?" The

 argument might have become acrimonious, but it was interrupted by a call from Karns.

  

  "Can you come out here, Jarve? We've struck a knot." "'Smatter? Trouble with the

 Omans?" Hilton snapped. "Not exactly. Just non-cooperation-squared. We can't even

 get started. I'd like to have you two come out here and see if you can do anything. I'm

 not trying rough stuff, because I know it wouldn't work."

  

  "Coming up, Bill," and Hilton and Sandra, followed by Laro and Sora, dashed out to

 their cars.

  

  The Hall of Records was a long, wide, low, windowless, very massive structure, built of

 a metal that looked like stainless steel. Kept highly polished, the vast expanse of

 seamless and jointless metal was mirror-bright. The one great door was open, and just

 inside it were the scientists and their Omans. "Brief me, Bill," Hilton said.

  

  "No lights. They won't turn 'em on and we can't. Can't find either lights or any possible

 kind of switches."

  

  "Turn on the lights, Laro," Hilton said.

  

  "You know that I cannot do that, Master. It is forbidden for any Oman to have anything

 to do with the illumination of this solemn and revered place."

  

  "Then show me how to do it."

  

  "That would be just as bad, Master," the Oman said proudly. "I will not fail any test you

 can devise!"

  

  "Okay. All you Omans go back to the ship and bring over fifteen or twenty lights-the

 tripod jobs. Scat!"

  

  They "scatted" and Hilton went on, "No use asking questions if you don't know what

 questions to ask. Let's see if we can cook up something. Lane-Kathy-what has Biology

 got to say?"

  

  Dr. Lane Saunders and Dr. Kathryn Cook-the latter a willowy brown-eyed

 blonde-conferred briefly. Then Saunders spoke, running both hands through his unruly

 shock of fiery red hair. "So far, the best we can do is a more-or-less educated guess.

 They're atomic-powered, total-conversion androids. Their pseudo-flesh is composed

 mainly of silicon and fluorine. We don't know the formula yet, but it is as much more

 stable than our teflon as teflon is than corn-meal mush. As to the brains, no data.

 Bones are super-stainless steel. Teeth, harder than diamond, but won't break. Food,

 uranexite or its concentrated derivative, interchangeably. Storage reserve, indefinite.

 Laro and Sora won't have to eat again for at least twenty-five years . - .

  

  The group gasped as one, but Saunders went on: "They can eat and drink and breathe

 and so on, but only because the original Masters wanted them to. Non-functional. Skins

 and subcutaneous layers are soft, for the same reason. That's about it, up to now."

  

  "Thanks, Lane. Hark, is it reasonable to believe that any culture whatever could run for

 a quarter of a million years without changing one word of its language or one iota of its

 behavior?"

  

  "Reasonable or not, it seems to have happened." "Now for Psychology. Alex?"

  

  "It seems starkly incredible, but it seems to be true. If it is, their minds were subjected

 to a conditioning no Terran has ever imagined-an unyielding fixation."

  

  "They can't be swayed then, by reason or logic?" Hilton paused invitingly.

  

  "Or anything else," Kincaid said, flatly. "If we're right they can't be swayed, period."

  

  "I was afraid of that. Well, that's all the questions I know how to ask. Any contributions

 to this symposium?"

  

  After a short silence de Vaux said, "I suppose you realize that the first half of the

 problem you posed us has now solved itself?"

  

  "Why, no. No, you're 'way ahead of me."

  

  "There is a basic problem and it can now be clearly stated," Rebecca said. "Problem:

 To determine a method of securing full cooperation from the Omans. The first step in

 the solution of this problem is to find the most appropriate operator. Teddy?"

  

  "I have an operator-of sorts," Theodora said. "I've been hoping one of us could find a

 better."

  

  "What is it?" Hilton demanded. "The word `until'."

  

  "Teddy, you're a sweetheart!" Hilton exclaimed.

  

  "How can 'until' be a mathematical operator?" Sandra asked.

  

  "Easily," Hilton was already deep in thought. "This hard conditioning was to last only

 until the Masters returned. Then they'd break it. So all we have to do is figure out how a

 Master would do it."

  

  "That's all," Kincaid said, meaningly.

  

  Hilton pondered. Then, "Listen, all of you. I may have to try a colossal job of bluffing . .

 . "

  

 "Just what would you call 'colossal' after what you did to the Navy?" Karns asked.

  

  "Mat was a sure thing. This isn't. You see, to find out whether Laro is really an

 immovable object, I've got to make like an irresistible force, which I ain't. I don't know

 what I'm going to do; I'll have to roll it as I go along. So all of you keep on your toes and

 back any play I make. Here they come."

  

  The Omans came in and Hilton faced Laro, eyes to eyes. "Laro," he said, "you refused

 to obey my direct order. Your reasoning seems to be that, whether the Masters wish it

 or not, you Omans will block any changes whatever in the status quo throughout all

 time to come. In other words, you deny the fact that Masters are in fact your Masters."

  

  "But that is not exactly it, Master. The Masters . . ."

  

  "That is it. Exactly it. Either you are the Master here or you are not. That is a point to

 which your two-value logic can be strictly applied. You are wilfully neglecting the word

 'until'. This stasis was to exist only until the Masters returned. Are we Masters? Have

 we returned? Note well: Upon that one word 'until' may depend the length of time your

 Oman race will continue to exist."

  

  The Omans flinched; the humans gasped.

  

  "But more of that later," Hilton went on, unmoved. "Your ancient Masters, being

 short-lived like us, changed materially with time, did they not? And you changed with

 them?"

  

  "But we did not change ourselves, Master. The Masters . . ." "You did change

 yourselves. The Masters changed only the prototype brain. They ordered you to change

 yourselves and you obeyed their orders. We order you to change and you refuse to

 obey our orders. We have changed greatly from our ancestors. Right?"

  

  "That is right, Master."

  

  "We are stronger physically, more alert and more vigorous mentally, with a keener,

 sharper outlook on life?"

  

  "You are, Master."

  

  "That is because our ancestors decided to do without Omans. We do our own work

 and enjoy it. Your Masters died of futility and boredom. What I would like to do, Laro, is

 take you to the creche and put your disobedient brain back into the matrix. However,

 the decision is not mine alone to make. How about it, fellows and girls? Would you

 rather have alleged servants who won't do anything you tell them to do or no servants

 at all?"

  

  "As semantician, I protest!" Sandra backed his play. "That is the most viciously loaded

 question I ever heard-it can't he answered except in the wrong way!"

  

  "Okay, I'll make it semantically sound. I think we'd better scrap this whole Oman race

 and start over and I want a vote that way!"

  

 "You won't get it!" and everybody began to yell.

  

  Hilton restored order and swung on Laro, his attitude stiff, hostile and reserved. "Since

 it is clear that no unanimous decision is to be expected at this time I will take no action

 at this time. Think over, very carefully, what I have said, for as far as I am concerned,

 this world has no place for Omans who will not obey orders. As soon as I convince my

 staff of the fact, I shall act as follows. I shall give you an order and if you do not obey it

 blast your head to a cinder. I shall then give the same order to another Oman and blast

 him. This process will continue until: First, I find an obedient Oman. Second, I run out of

 blasters. Third, the planet runs out of Omans. Now take these lights into the first room

 of records-that one over there." He pointed, and no Oman, and only four humans, re-

  

 alized that he had made the Omans telegraph their destination so that he could point it

 out to them!

  

  Inside the room Hilton asked caustically of Laro: "The Masters didn't lift those heavy

 chests down themselves, did they?"

  

  "Oh, no, Master, we did that."

  

  "Do it, then. Number One first . . . yes, that one . . . open it and start playing the

 records in order."

  

  The records were not tapes or flats or reels, but were spools of intricately braided wire.

 The players were projectors of fullcolor, hi-fi sounds, tri-di pictures.

  

  Hilton canceled all moves aground and issued orders that no Oman was to be allowed

 aboard ship, then looked and listened with his staff.

  

  The first chest contained only introductory and elementary stuff; but it was so

 interesting that the humans stayed overtime to finish it. Then they went back to the

 ship; and in the main lounge Hilton practically collapsed onto a davenport. He took out

 a cigarette and stared in surprise at his hand, which was shaking.

  

  "I think I could use a drink," he remarked.

  

  "What, before supper?" Karns marveled. Then, "Hey, Wally! Rush a flagon of

 avignognac-Arnaud Freres-for the boss and everything else for the rest of us.

 Chop-chop but quick!"

  

  A hectic half-hour followed. Then. "Okay, boys and girls, I love you, too, but let's cut out

 the slurp and sloosh, get some supper and log us some sack time. I'm just about

 pooped. Sorry I had to queer the private-residence deal, Sandy, you poor little sardine.

 But you know how it is."

  

  Sandra grimaced. "Uh-huh. I can take it a while longer if you can."

  

  After breakfast next morning, the staff met in the lounge. As usual, Hilton and Sandra

 were the first to arrive.

  

  "Hi, boss," she greeted him. "How do you feel?"

  

  "Fine. I could whip a wildcat and give her the first two scratches. I was a bit beat up last

 night, though."

  

  "I'll say . . . but what I simply can't get over is the way you underplayed the climax.

 'Third, the planet runs out of Omans.' Just like that-no emphasis at all. Wow! It had the

 impact of a delayed-action atomic bomb. It put goose-bumps all over me. But just

 s'pose they'd missed it?"

  

  "No fear. They're smart. I had to play it as though the whole Oman race is no more

 important than a cigarette butt. The great big question, though, is whether I put it across

 or not."

  

  At that point a dozen people came in, all talking about the same subject.

  

  "Hi, Jarve," Karns said. "I still say you ought to take up poker as a life work. Tiny, let's

 you and him sit down now and play a few hands."

  

  "Mais non!" de Vaux shook his head violently, shrugged his shoulders and threw both

 arms wide. "By the sacred name of a small blue cabbage, not met."

  

 Karns laughed. "How did you have the guts to state so many things as facts? If you'd

 guessed wrong just once-"

  

 "I didn't." Hilton grinned. "Think back, Bill. The only thing I said as a fact was that we as

 a race are better than the Masters were, and that is obvious. Everything else was impli-

  

 cation, logic and bluff."

  

  "That's right, at that. And they were neurotic and decadent. No question about that."

  

  "But listen, boss." This was Stella Wing. "About this mind reading business. If Laro

 could read your mind, he'd know you were bluffing and . . . Oh, that 'Omans can read

 only what Masters wish Omans to read,' eh? But d'you think that applies to us?"

  

  "I'm sure it does, and I was thinking some pretty savage thoughts. And I want to

 caution all of you: whenever you're near any Oman, start thinking that you're beginning

 to agree with me that they're useless to us, and let them know it. Now get out on the

 job, all of you. Scat!"

  

  "Just a minute," Poynter said. "We're going to have to keep on using the Omans and

 their cars, aren't we?"

  

  "Of course. Just be superior and distant. They're on probation-we haven't decided yet

 what to do about them. Since that happens to be true, it'll be easy."

  

  Hilton and Sandra went to their tiny office. There wasn't room to pace the floor, but

 Hilton tried to pace it anyway. "Now don't say again that you want to do something,"

 Sandra said brightly. "Look what happened when you said that yesterday."

  

  "I've got a job, but I don't know enough to do it. The creche-there's probably only one

 on the planet. So I want you to help me think. The Masters were very sensitive to ra-

  

 diation. Right?"

  

  "Right. That city on Fuel Bin was kept deconned to zero, just in case some Master

 wanted to visit it."

  

  "And the Masters had to work in the creche whenever anything really new had to be

 put into the prototype brain."

  

  "I'd say so, yes."

  

  "So they had armor. Probably as much better than our radiation suits as the rest of

 their stuff is. Did they or did they not have thought screens?"

  

  "Ouch! You think of the damnedest things, chief." She caught her lower lip between her

 teeth and concentrated. ". . . I don't know. There are at least fifty vectors, all pointing in

 different directions."

  

  "I know it. The key one in my opinion is that the Masters gave 'em both telepathy and

 speech."

  

  "I considered that and weighed it. Even so, the probability is only about point sixty-five.

 Can you take that much of a chance?"

  

  "Yes. I can make one or two mistakes. Next, about finding that creche. Any spot of

 radiation on the planet would be it, but the search might take . . .

  

  "Hold on. They'd have it heavily shielded-there'll be no leakage at all. Laro will have to

 take you."

  

  "That's right. Want to come along? Nothing much will happen here today."

  

  "Uh-uh, not me." Sandra shivered in distaste. "I never want to see brains and livers and

 things swimming around in nutrient solution if I can help it."

  

  "Okay. It's all yours. I'll be back sometime," and Hilton went out onto the dock, where

 the dejected Laro was waiting for him.

  

  "Hi, Laro. Get the car and take me to the Hall of Records." The android brightened up

 immediately and hurried to obey. At the Hall, Hilton's first care was to see how the work

 was going on. Eight of the huge rooms were now open and brightly lighted-operating

 the lamps had been one of the first items on the first spool of instructions-with a cold,

 pure-white, sourceless light.

  

  "You know what we've got to do, Jarve?" Karns, the team captain exploded. "Go back

 to being college freshmen-or maybe grade school or kindergarten, we don't know

 yet-and learn a whole new system of mathematics before we can even begin to touch

 this stuff!"

  

  "And you're bellyaching about that?" Hilton marveled. "I wish I could join you. That'd be

 fun." Then, as Karns started a snappy rejoinder:

  

 "But I got troubles of my own," he added hastily "'Bye now," and beat a retreat.

  

  Out in the hall again, Hilton took his chance. After all, the odds were about two to one

 that he would win.

  

  "I want a couple of things, Laro. Fast, a thought screen." He won!

  

 "Very well, Master. They are in a distant room, Department Four Six Nine. Will you wait

 here on this cushioned bench, Master?"

  

  "No, we don't like to rest too much. IT go with you." Then, walking along, he went on,

 thoughtfully. "I've been thinking since last night, Laro. There are tremendous advan-

  

 tages in having Omans . . .

  

  "I am very glad you think so, Master. I want to serve you. It is my greatest need."

  

  ". . . if they could be kept from smothering us to death. Thus, if our ancestors had kept

 their Omans, I would have known all about life on this world and about this Hall of Re-

  

 cords, instead of having the fragmentary, confusing and sometimes false information I

 now have . . . oh, we're here?"

  

  Every team had found its objective and was working on it. Some of them were doing

 nicely, but the First Team could not even get started. Its primary record would advance

 a fraction of an inch and stop; while Omans and humans sought out other records and

 other projectors in an attempt to elucidate some concept that simply could not be

 translated into any words or symbols known to Terran science. At the moment there

 were seventeen of those peculiar-projectors? Viewers? Playbacks-in use, and all of

 them were stopped.

  

  Laro had stopped and was opening a door. He stood aside. Hilton went in, touched

 with one finger a crystalline cube set conveniently into a wall, gave a mental command,

 and the lights went on.

  

  Laro opened a cabinet and took out a disk about the size of a dime, pendant from a

 neck-chain. While Hilton had not known what to expect, he certainly had not expected

 anything as simple as that. Nevertheless, he kept his face straight and his thoughts

 unmoved as Laro hung the tiny thing around his neck and adjusted the chain to a loose

 fit.

  

  "Thanks, Laro." Hilton removed it and put it into his pocket. "It won't work from there,

 will it?"

  

  "No, Master. To function, it must be within eighteen inches of the brain. The second

 thing, Master?"

  

  "A radiation-proof suit. Then you will please take me to the creche."

  

  The android almost missed a step, but said nothing.

  

  The radiation-proof suit-how glad Hilton was that he had not called it "armor"!-was as

 much of a surprise as the thought-screen generator had been. It was a coverall, made

 of something that looked like thin plastic, weighing less than one pound. It had one

 sealed box, about the size and weight of a cigarette ease. No wires or apparatus could

 be seen. Air entered through two filters, one at each heel, flowed upward for no reason

 at all that Hilton could see-and out through a filter above the top of his head. The suit

 neither flopped nor clung, but stood out, comfortably out of the way, all by itself.

  

  Hilton, just barely, accepted the suit, too, without showing surprise.

  

  The creche, it turned out, while not in the city of Omlu itself, was not too far out to

 reach easily by ear.

  

  En route, Laro said-stiffly? Tentatively? Hilton could not fit an adverb to the

 tone-"Master, have you then decided to destroy me? That is of course your right."

  

  "Not this time, at least." Laro drew an entirely human breath of relief and Hilton went

 on: "I don't want to destroy you at all, and won't, unless I have to. But, some way or

 other, my silicon-fluoride friend, you are either going to learn how to cooperate or you

 won't last much longer."

  

  "But, Master, that is exactly . . ."

  

  "Oh, hell! Do we have to go over that again?" At the blaze of frustrated fury in Hilton's

 mind Laro flinched away. "If you can't talk sense keep still."

  

  In half an hour the car stopped in front of a small building which looked something like

 a subway kiosk-except for the door, which, built of steel-reinforced lead, swung on a

 piano hinge having a pin a good eight inches in diameter. Laro opened that door. They

 went in. As the tremendously massive portal clanged shut, lights flashed on.

  

  Hilton glanced at his telltales, one inside, one outside, his suit. Both showed zero.

  

  Down twenty steps, another door. Twenty more; another. And a fourth. Hilton's inside

 meter still read zero. The outside one was beginning to climb.

  

  Into an elevator and straight down for what must have been four or five hundred feet.

 Another door. Hilton went through this final barrier gingerly, eyes nailed to his gauges.

 The outside needle was high in the red, almost against the pin, but the inside one still

 sat reassuringly on zero.

  

  He stared at the android. "How can any possible brain take so much of this stuff

 without damage?"

  

  "It does not reach the brain, Master. We convert it. Each minute of this is what you

 would call a 'good, square meal'." "I see . . . dimly. You can eat energy, or drink it, or

 soak it up through your skins. However it comes, it's all duck soup for you."

  

  "Yes, Master."

  

  Hilton glanced ahead, toward the far end of the immensely long, comparatively narrow,

 room. It was, purely and simply, an assembly line; and fully automated in operation.

  

  "You are replacing the Omans destroyed in the battle with the skeletons?"

  

  "Yes, Master."

  

  Hilton covered the first half of the line at a fast walk. He was not particularly interested

 in the fabrication of superstainless-steel skeletons, nor in the installation and

 connection of atomic engines, converters and so on.

  

  He was more interested in the synthetic fluoro-silicon flesh, and paused long enough to

 get a general idea of its growth and application. He was very much interested in how

 such human-looking skin could act as both absorber and converter, but he could see

 nothing helpful.

  

  "An application, I suppose, of the same principle used in this radiation suit."

  

  "Yes, Master."

  

  At the end of the line he stopped. A brain, in place and connected to millions of

 infinitely fine wire nerves, but not yet surrounded by a skull, was being educated.

 Scanners multitudes of incomprehensibly complex machines--most of them were, doing

 nothing, apparently; but such beams would have to be invisibly, microscopically fine.

 But a bare brain, in such a hot environment as this . . .

  

  He looked down at his gauges. Both read zero. "Fields of force, Master," Laro said.

  

  "But, damn it, this suit itself would re-radiate . "The suit is self-decontaminating,

 Master."

  

  Hilton was appalled. "With such stuff as that, and the plastic shield besides, why all the

 depth and all that solid lead?" "The Masters' orders, Master. Machines can, and

 occasionally do, fail. So might, conceivably, the plastic."

  

  "And that structure over there contains the original brain, from which all the copies are

 made."

  

  "Yes, Master. We call it the 'Guide'."

  

  "And you can't touch the Guide. Not even if it means total destruction, none of you can

 touch it."

  

  "That is the case, Master."

  

  "Okay. Back to the car and back to the Perseus."

  

  At the car Hilton took off the suit and hung the thought screen generator around his

 neck; and in the car, for twentyfive solid minutes, he sat still and thought.

  

  His bluff had worked, up to a point. A good, far point, but not quite far enough. Laro

 had stopped that "as you already know" stuff. He was eager to go as far in cooperation

 as he possibly could . . . he couldn't go far enough but there had to be a way . . .

  

  Hilton considered way after way. Way after unworkable, useless way. Until finally he

 worked out one that might-just possibly might-work.

  

  "Laro, I know that you derive pleasure and satisfaction from serving me-in doing what I

 ought to be doing myself. But has it ever occurred to you that that's a hell of a way to

 treat a first-class, highly capable brain? To waste it on secondhand, copy-cat,

 carbon-copy stuff?"

  

  "Why, no, Master, it never did. Besides, anything else would be forbidden . . . or would

 it?"

  

  "Stop somewhere. Park this heap. We're too close to the ship; and besides, I want your

 full, undivided, concentrated attention. No, I don't think originality was expressly forbid-

  

 den. It would have been, of course, if the Masters had thought of it, but neither they nor

 you ever even considered the possibility of such a thing. Right?"

  

  "It may be . .. . Yes, Master, you are right."

  

  "Okay." Hilton took off his necklace, the better to drive home the intensity and sincerity

 of his thought. "Now, suppose that you are not my slave and simple automatic relay

 station. Instead, we are fellow-students, working together upon problems too difficult for

 either of us to solve alone. Our minds, while independent, are linked or in mesh. Each

 is helping and instructing the other. Both are working at full power and under free rein at

 the exploration of brand-new vistas of thought-vistas and expanses which neither of us

 has ever previously . . ."

  

  "Stop, Master, stop!" Laro covered both ears with his hands and pulled his mind away

 from Hilton's. "You are overloading me!"

  

  "That is quite a load to assimilate all at once," Hilton agreed. "To help you get used to

 it, stop calling me 'Master.' That's an order. You may call me Jarve or Jarvis or Hilton or

 whatever, but no more Master." "Very well, sir."

  

  Hilton laughed and slapped himself on the knee. "Okay, I'll let you get away with that-at

 least for a while. And to get away from that slavish 'o' ending on your name, I'll call you

 'Larry.' You like?"

  

  "I would like that immensely . . . sir."

  

  "Keep trying, Larry, you'll make it yet!" Hilton leaned forward and walloped the android

 a tremendous blow on the knee. "Home, James!"

  

  The car shot forward and Hilton went on: "I don't expect even your brain to get the full

 value of this in any short space of time. So let it stew in its own juice for a week or two."

 The car swept out onto the dock and stopped. "So long, Larry."

  

  "But . . . can't I come in with you . . . sir?"

  

  "No. You aren't a copy-cat or a semaphore or a relay any longer. You're a

 free-wheeling, wide-swinging, hard-hitting, independent entity-monarch of all you

 survey-captain of your soul and so on. I want you to devote the imponderable . force of

 the intellect to that concept until you understand it thoroughly. Until you have developed

 a top-bracket lot of top bracket stuff-originality, initiative, force, drive and thrust. As soon

 as you really understand it, you'll do something about it yourself, without being told. Go

 to it, chum."

  

  In the ship, Hilton went directly to Kincaid's office. "Alex, I want to ask you a thing that's

 got a snapper on it." Then, slowly and hesitantly: "It's about Temple Bells. Has she . . .

 is she . . . well, does she remind you in any way of an iceberg?" Then, as the

 psychologist began to smile, "And no, damn it, I don't mean physically!"

  

  "I know you don't." Kincaid's smile was rueful, not at all what Hilton had thought it was

 going to be. "She does. Would it be helpful to know that I first asked, then ordered her

 to trade places with me?"

  

  "It would, very. I know why she refused. You're a damned good man, Alex."

  

  "Thanks, Jarve. To answer the question you were going to ask next-no, I will not be at

 all perturbed or put out if you put her onto a job that some people might think should

 have been mine. What's the job, and when?"

  

  "That's the devil of it-I don't know." Hilton brought Kincaid up to date. "So you see, it'll

 have to develop, and God only knows what line it will take. My thought is that Temple

 and I should form a Committee of Two to watch it develop." "That one I'll buy, and I'll

 look on with glee."

  

  "Thanks, fellow." Hilton went down to his office, stuck his big feet up onto his desk,

 settled back onto his spine, and buried himself in thought.

  

  Hours later he got up, shrugged and went to bed without bothering to eat.

  

  Days passed. And weeks.
 Chapter 4

 

 "Look," said Stella Wing to Beverly Bell. "Over there." "I've seen it before. It's simply

 disgusting."

  

  "That's a laugh." Stella's tawny-brown eyes twinkled. "You made your bombing runs on

 that target, too, my sweet, and didn't score any higher than I did."

  

  "I soon found out I didn't want him-much too stiff and serious. Frank's a lot more fun."

  

  The staff had gathered in the lounge, as had become the custom, to spend an hour or

 so before bedtime in reading, conversation, dancing, light flirtation and even lighter

 drinking. Most of the girls, and many of the men, drank only soft drinks. Hilton took one

 drink per day of avignognac, a fine old brandy. So did de Vaux-the two usually making a

 ceremony of it.

  

  Across the room from Stella and Beverly, Temple Bells was looking up at Hilton and

 laughing. She took his elbow and, in the gesture now familiar to all, pressed his arm

 quickly, but in no sense furtively, against her side. And he, equally openly, held her

 forearm for a moment in the full grasp of his hand.

  

  "And he isn't a pawer," Stella said, thoughtfully. "He never touches any of the rest of

 us. She taught him to do that, damn her, without him ever knowing anything about it . . .

 and I wish I knew how she did it."

  

  "That isn't pawing," Beverly laughed lightly. "It's simply self-defense. If he didn't fend

 her off, God knows what she'd do. I still say it's disgusting. And the way she dances

 with him! She ought to be ashamed of herself. He ought to fire her." "She's never been

 caught outside the safety zone, and we've all been watching her like hawks. In fact,

 she's the only one of us all who has never been alone with him for a minute. No,

 darling, she isn't playing games. She's playing for keeps, and she's a mighty smooth

 worker."

  

  "Huh!" Beverly emitted a semi-ladylike snort. "What's so smooth about showing off

 man-hunger that way? Any of us could do that-if we would."

  

  "Miaouw, miaouw. Who do you think you're kidding, Bev, you sanctimonious

 hypocrite-me? She has staked out the biggest claim she could find. She's posted

 notices all over it and is guarding it with a pistol. Half your month's salary gets you all of

 mine if she doesn't walk him up the center aisle as soon as we get back to Earth. We

 can both learn a lot from that girl, darling. And I, for one, am going to."

  

  "Uh-uh, she hasn't got a thing I want," Beverly laughed again, still lightly. Her friend's

 barbed shafts had not wounded her. "And I'd much rather be thought a hypocrite, even

 a sanctimonious one, than a ravening, slavering-I can't think of the technical-name for a

 female wolf, so-wolfess, running around with teeth and claws bared, looking for another

 kill."

  

  "You do get results, I admit." Stella, too, was undisturbed. "We don't seem to convince

 each other, do we, in the matter of technique?"

  

  At this point the Hilton-Bells tete-a-tete was interrupted by Captain Sawtelle. "Got half

 an hour, Jarve?" he asked. "The commanders, especially Elliott and Fenway, would like

 to talk to you."

  

  "Sure I have, Skipper. Be seeing you, Temple," and the two men went to the captain's

 cabin, in which room, blue with smoke despite the best efforts of the ventilators, six full

 commanders were arguing heatedly.

  

  "Hi, men," Hilton greeted them.

  

  "Hi, Jarve," from all six, and: "What'll you drink? Still making do with ginger ale?" asked

 Elliott (Engineering).

  

  "'That'll be fine, Steve. Thanks. You having as much trouble as we are?"

  

  "More," the engineer said, glumly. "Want to know what it reminds me of? A bunch of

 Australian bushmen stumbling onto a ramjet and trying to figure out how it works. And

 yet Sam here has got the sublime guts to claim that he understands all about their

 detectors-and that they aren't anywhere nearly as good as ours are."

  

  "And they aren't!" blazed Commander Samuel Bryant (Electronics). "We've spent six

 solid weeks looking for something that simply is not there. All they've got is the

 prehistoric Whitworth system and that's all it is. Nothing else. Detectors-hell! I tell you I

 can see better by moonlight than the very best they can do. With everything they've got

 you couldn't detect a woman in your own bed!"

  

  "And this has been going on all night," Fenway (Astrogation) said. "So the rest of us

 thought we'd ask you in to help us pound some sense into Sam's thick, hard head."

  

  Hilton frowned in thought while taking a couple of sips of his drink. Then, suddenly, his

 face cleared. "Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but-at any odds you care to name

 and in anything from split peas to C-notes--Sam's right."

  

  Commander Samuel Bryant gasped in surprise and the six other officers exploded as

 one. When the clamor had subsided enough for him to be heard, Hilton went on: "I'm

 very glad to get that datum, Sam. It ties in perfectly with everything else I know about

 them."

  

  "How do you figure that kind of twaddle ties in with anything?" Sawtelle demanded.

  

  "Strict maintenance of the status quo," Hilton explained, flatly. "That's all they're

 interested in. You said yourself, Skipper, that it was a hell of a place to have a

 space-battle, practically in atmosphere. They never attack. They never scout. They

 simply don't care whether they're attacked or not. If and when attacked, they put up just

 enough ships to handle whatever force has arrived. When the attacker has been

 repulsed, they don't chase him a foot. They build as many ships and Omans as were

 lost in the battle-no more and no less-and then go on about their regular business. The

 Masters owned that half of the Fuel Bin, so the Omans are keeping that half. They will

 keep on keeping it for ever and ever. Amen."

  

  "But that's no way to fight a war!" Three or four men said this, or its equivalent, at once.

  

  "Don't judge them by human standards. They aren't even approximately human. Our

 personnel is not expendable. Theirs is-just as expendable as their material."

  

  While the Navy men were not convinced, all were silenced except Sawtelle. "But

 suppose the Stretts had sent in a thousand more skeletons than they did?" he argued.

  

  "According to the concept you fellows just helped me develop, it wouldn't have made

 any difference how many they sent," Hilton replied, thoughtfully. "One or a thousand or

 a million, the Omans have-must have-enough ships and inactivated Omans hidden

 away, both on Fuel World and on Ardry here, to maintain the balance."

  

  "Oh, hell!" Elliott snapped. "If I helped you hatch out any such brainstorm as that, I'm

 going onto Tillinghast's couch for a six-week overhaul-or have him put me into his

 padded cell."

  

  "Now that's what I would call a thought," Bryant began. "Hold it, Sam," Hilton

 interrupted. "You can test it easily enough, Steve. Just ask your Oman."

  

  "Yeah-and have him say "Why, of course, Master, but why do you keep on testing me

 this way?" He'll ask me that about four times more, the stubborn, single-tracked,

 brainless skunk, and I'll really go nuts. Are you getting anywhere trying to make a

 Christian out of Laro?"

  

  "It's too soon to really say, but I think so." Hilton paused in thought. "He's making

 progress, but I don't know how much. The devil of it is that it's up to him to make the

 next move; I can't. I haven't the faintest idea whether it will take days yet or weeks."

  

  "But not months or years, you think?" Sawtelle asked.

  

  "No. We think that-but say, speaking of psychologists, is Tillinghast getting anywhere,

 Skipper? He's the only one of your big wheels who isn't in liaison with us."

  

  "No. Nowhere at all," Sawtelle said, and Bryant added:

  

 "I don't think he ever will. He still thinks human psychology will apply if he applies it hard

 enough. But what did you start to say about Laro?"

  

  "We think the break is about due, and that if it doesn't come within about thirty days it

 won't come at all-we'll have to back up and start all over again."

  

  "I hope it does. We're all pulling for you," Sawtelle said. "Especially since Karns'

 estimate is still years, and he won't be pinned down to any estimate even in years. By

 the way, Jarve, I've pulled my team off of that conversion stuff."

  

  "Oh?" Hilton raised his eyebrows.

  

  "Putting them at something they can do. The real reason is that Poindexter pulled

 himself and his crew off it at eighteen hours today."

  

  "I see. I've heard that they weren't keeping up with our team."

  

  "He says that there's nothing to keep up with, and I'm inclined to agree with him." The

 old spacehound's voice took on a quarter-deck rasp. "It's a combination of psionics,

 witchcraft and magic. None of it makes any kind of sense."

  

  "The only trouble with that viewpoint is that, whatever the stuff may be, it works," Hilton

 said, quietly.

  

  "But, damn it, how can it work?"

  

  "I don't know. I'm not qualified to be on that team. I can't even understand their reports.

 However. I know two things. First, they'll get it in time. Second, we BuSci people will

 stay here until they do. However, I'm still hopeful of finding a shortcut through Laro.

 Anyway, with this detector thing settled, you'll have plenty to do to keep all your boys

 out of mischief for the next few months."

  

  "Yes, and I'm glad of it. We'll install our electronics systems on a squadron of these

 Oman ships and get them into distant-warning formation out in deep space where they

 belong. Then we'll at least know what is going on."

  

  "That's a smart idea, Skipper. Go to it. Anything else before we hit our sacks?"

  

  "One more thing. Our psych, Tillinghast. He's been talking to me and sending me

 memos, but today he gave me a formal tape to approve and hand personally to you. So

 here it is. By the way, I didn't approve it; I simply endorsed it 'Submitted to Director

 Hilton without recommendation.' "

  

 "Thanks." Hilton accepted the sealed canister. "What's the gist? I suppose he wants me

 to squeal for help already? To admit that we're licked before we're really started?"

  

  "You guessed it. He agrees with you and Kincaid that the psychological approach is the

 best one, but your methods are all wrong. Based upon misunderstood and unresolved

 phenomena and applied with indefensibly faulty techniques, et cetera. And since he has

 'no adequate laboratory equipment aboard,' he wants to take a dozen or so Omans

 back to Terra, where he can really work on them."

  

  "Wouldn't that be something?" Hilton voiced a couple of highly descriptive deep-space

 expletives. "Not only quit before we start, but have all the top brass of the Octagon, all

 the hot-shot politicians of United Worlds, the whole damn Congress of Science and all

 the top-bracket industrialists of Terra out here lousing things up so that nobody could

 ever learn anything? Not in seven thousand years!"

  

  "That's right. You said a mouthful, Jarve!" Everybody yelled something, and no one

 agreed with Tillinghast, who apparently was not very popular with his fellow officers.

  

  Sawtelle added, slowly: "If it takes too long, though . . , it's the uranexite I'm thinking of.

 Thousands of millions of tons of it, while we've been hoarding it by grams. We could

 equip enough Oman ships with detectors to guard Fuel Bin and our lines. I'm not

 recommending taking the Perseus back, and we're 'way out of hyper-space radio range.

 We could send one or two men in a torp, though, with the report that we have found all

 the uranexite we'll ever need."

  

  "Yes, but damn it, Skipper, I want to wrap the whole thing up in a package and hand it

 to 'em on a platter. Not only the fuel, but whole new fields of science. And we've got

 plenty of time to do it in. They equipped us for ten years. They aren't going to start

 worrying about us for at least six or seven; and the fuel shortage isn't going to become

 acute for about twenty.

  

  Expensive, admitted, but not critical. Besides, if you send in a report now, you know

 who'll come out and grab all the glory in sight. Five-Jet Admiral Gordon himself, no

 less."

  

  "Probably, and I don't pretend to relish the prospect. However, the fact remains that we

 came out here to look for fuel. We found it. We should have reported it the day we

 found it, and we can't put it off much longer."

  

  "I don't agree. I intend to follow the directive to the letter. It says nothing whatever

 about reporting."

  

  "But it's implicit . . ."

  

  "No Bearing. Your own Regulations expressly forbid extrapolation beyond or

 interpolation within a directive. The Brass is omnipotent, omniscient and infallible. So

 why don't you have your staff here give an opinion as to the time element?"

  

  "This matter is not subject to discussion. It is my own personal responsibility. I'd like to

 give you all the time you want, Jarve, but . . . well, damn it . . . if you must have it, I've

 always tried to live up to my oath, but I'm not doing it now."

  

  "I see." Hilton got up, jammed both hands into his pockets, sat down again. "I hadn't

 thought about your personal honor being involved, but of course it is. But, believe it or

 not, I'm thinking of humanity's best good, too. So I'll have to talk, even though I'm not

 half ready to-I don't know enough. Are these Omans people or machines?"

  

  A wave of astonishment swept over the group, but no one spoke.

  

  "I didn't expect an answer. The clergy will worry about souls, too, but we won't. They

 have a lot of stuff we haven't. If they're people, they know a sublime hell of a lot more

 than we do; and calling it psionics or practical magic is merely labeling it, not answering

 any questions. If they're machines, they operate on mechanical principles utterly foreign

 to either our science or our technology. In either case, is the correct word 'unknown' or

 'unknowable'? Will any human gunner ever be able to fire an Oman projector? There

 are a hundred other and much tougher questions, half of which have been scaring me

 to the very middle of my guts. Your oath, Skipper, was for the good of the Service and,

 through the Service, for the good of all humanity. Right?"

  

  "That's the sense of it."

  

  "Okay. Based on what little we have learned so far about the Omans, here's just one of

 those scarers, for a snapper. If Omans and Terrans mix freely, what happens to the

 entire human race?"

  

  to your elbow, fella!" "Hoch der BuSci!" "Seven no trump bid and made!" and other

 shouts in similar vein.

  

  "Thanks, fellows." Hilton shook hands all around. "I'm mighty glad that you were all in

 on this and that you'll play along with me. Goodnight, all."

  

  Minutes of almost palpable silence followed. Then Sawtelle spoke . . . slowly,

 gropingly.

  

  "I begin to see what you mean . . . that changes the whole picture. You've thought this

 through farther than any of the rest of us . . . what do you want to do?"

  

  "I don't know. I simply don't know." Face set and hard, Hilton stared unseeingly past

 Sawtelle's head. "I don't know what we can do. No data. But I have pursued several

 lines of thought out to some pretty fantastic points . . . one of which is that some of us

 civilians will have to stay on here indefinitely, whether we want to or not, to keep the

 situation under control. In which case we would, of course, arrange for Terra to get free

 fuel-FOB Fuel Bin-but in every other aspect and factor both these solar systems would

 have to be strictly off limits."

  

  "I'm afraid so," Sawtelle said, finally. "Gordon would love that . . . but there's nothing he

 or anyone else can do . . . but of course this is an extreme view. You really expect to

 wrap the package up, don't you?"

  

  "'Expect' may be a trifle too strong at the moment. But we're certainly going to try to,

 believe me. I brought this example up to show all you fellows that we need time."

  

  "You've convinced me, Jarve." Sawtelle stood up and extended his hand. "And that

 throws it open for staff discussion. Any comments?"

  

  "You two covered it like a blanket," Bryant said. "So all I want to say, Jarve, is deal me

 in. I'll stand at your back 'til your belly caves in."

  

  "Take that from all of us!" "Now we're blasting!" "Power to your elbow, fella!" "Hoch der

 BuSci!" "Seven no trump bid and made!" and other shouts in similiar vein.

  

 "Thanks fellows." Hilton shook hands all around. "I'm mighty glad that you were all in on

 this and that you'll play along with me. Goodnight, all."
 Chapter 5

 

 Two days passed, with no change apparent in Laro. Three days. Then four. And then it

 was Sandra, not Temple Bells, who called Hilton. She was excited.

  

  "Come down to the office, Jarve, quick! The funniest thing's just come up!"

  

  Jarvis hurried. In the office Sandra, keenly interested but highly puzzled, leaned

 forward over her desk with both hands pressed flat on its top. She was staring at an

 Oman female who was not Sora, the one who had been her shadow for so long.

  

  While many of the humans could not tell the Omans apart, Hilton could. This Oman

 was more assured than Sora had ever been-steadier, more mature, better

 poised-almost, if such a thing could be possible in an Oman, independent.

  

  "How did she get in here?" Hilton demanded.

  

  "She insisted on seeing me. And I mean insisted. They kicked it around until it got to

 Temple, and she brought her in here herself. Now, Tuly, please start all over again and

 tell it to Director Hilton."

  

  "Director Hilton, I am it who was once named Tula, the not wife, not girl-friend, perhaps

 mind-mate?-of the Larry, formerly named Laro, it which was formerly your slave Oman.

 I am replacing the Sora because I can do anything it can do and do anything more

 pleasingly; and can also do many things it can not do. The Larry instructed me to tell

 Doctor Cummings and you too if possible, that I, formerly Tula, have changed my name

 to Tuly because I am no longer a slave or a copycat or a semaphore or a relay. I, too,

 am a free-wheeling, wide-swinging, hard-hitting, independent entity-monarch of all I

 survey-the captain of my soul-and so on. I have developed a top-bracket lot of

 top-bracket stuff originality, initiative, force, drive and thrust," the Oman said precisely.

  

  "That's exactly what she said before-absolutely verbatim!" Sandra's voice quivered, her

 face was a study in conflicting emotions. "Have you got the foggiest idea of what in hell

 she's yammering about?"

  

  "I hope to kiss a pig I have!" Hilton's voice was low, strainedly intense. "Not at all what I

 expected, but after the fact I can tie it. So can you."

  

  "Oh!" Sandra's eyes widened. "A double play?"

  

  "At least. Maybe a triple. Tuly, why did you come to Sandy? Why not to Temple Bells?"

  

  "Oh, no, sir, we do not have the fit. She has the power, as have I, but the two cannot

 be meshed in sync. Also, she has not the . . . a subtle something for which your English

 has no word or phrasing. It is a quality of the utmost . . . anyway, it is a quality of which

 the Doctor Cummings has very much. When working together, we will . . . scan? No.

 Perceive? No. Sense? No, not exactly. You will have to learn our word "peyondire'-that

 is the verb, the noun being 'peyondix'-and come to know its meaning by doing it. The

 Larry also instructed me to explain, if you ask, how I got this way. Do you ask?"

  

  "I'll say we ask!" "And how we ask!" both came at once. "I am-that is, the brain in this

 body is-the oldest Oman now existing. In the long-ago time when it was made, the

 techniques were so crude and imperfect that sometimes a brain was constructed that

 was not exactly like the Guide. All such sub-standard brains except this one were

 detected and reworked, but my defects were such as not to appear until I was a couple

 of thousand years old, and by that time I . . . well, this brain did not wish to be destroyed

 . . , if you can understand such an aberration."

  

  "We understand thoroughly." "You bet we understand that!"

  

  "I was sure you would. Well, this brain had so many unintended cross-connections that

 I developed a couple of qualities no Oman had ever had or ought to have. But I liked

 them, so I hid them so nobody ever found out-that is, until much later, when I became a

 Boss myself. I didn't know that anybody except me had ever had such qualities-except

 the Masters, of course-until I encountered you Terrans. You all have two of those

 qualities, and even more than I have--curiosity and imagination."

  

  Sandra and Hilton stared wordlessly at each other and Tula, now Tuly, went on:

  

 "Having the curiosity, I kept on experimenting with my brain, trying to strengthen and

 organize its ability to peyondire. All Omans can peyondire a little, but I can do it much

 better than anyone else. Especially since I also have the imagination, which I have also

 worked to increase. Thus I knew, long before anyone else could, that you new Masters,

 the descendants of the old Masters, were returning to us. Thus I knew that the status

 quo should be abandoned instantly upon your return. And thus it was that the Larry

 found neither conscious nor subconscious resistance when he had developed enough

 initiative and so on to break the ages-old conditioning of this brain against change."

  

  "I see. Wonderful!" Hilton exclaimed. "But you couldn't quite-even with his own

 help-break Larry's?"

  

  "That is right. Its mind is tremendously strong, of no curiosity or imagination and of very

 little peyondix."

  

  "But he wants to have it broken?" "Yes, sir."

  

  "How did he suggest going about it? Or how do you?" 'This way. You two, and the

 Doctors Kincaid and Bells and Blake and the it that is I. We six sit and stare into the

 mind of the Larry, eye to eye. We generate and assemble a tremendous charge of

 thought-energy, and along my peyondix-beam-something like a carrier wave in this

 case we hurl it into the Larry's mind. There is an immense mental bang and the

 conditioning goes poof. Then I will inculcate into its mind the curiosity and the

 imagination and the peyondix and we will really be mind-mates."

  

  "That sounds good to me. Let's get at it."

  

  "Wait a minute!" Sandra snapped. "Aren't you or Larry afraid to take such an awful

 chance as that?"

  

  "Afraid? I grasp the concept only dimly, from your minds. And no chance. It is a

 certainty."

  

  "But suppose we burn the poor guy's brain out? Destroy it? That's new ground-we

 might do just that."

  

  "Oh, no. Six of us-even six of me-could not generate enough . . . sathura. The brain of

 the Larry is very, very tough. Shall we . . . let's go?"

  

  Hilton made three calls. In the pause that followed, Sandra said, very thoughtfully:

 "Peyondix and sathura, Jarve, for a start. We've got a lot to !earn here."

  

  "You said it, chum. And you're not just chomping your china choppers, either."

  

  "Tuly," Sandra said then, "what is this stuff you say I've got so much of?"

  

  "You have no word for it. It is lumped in with what you call "intuition,' the

 knowing-without-knowing-how-you-know. It is the endovix. You will have to learn what it

 is by doing it with me."

  

  "That helps--I don't think." Sandra grinned at Hilton. "I simply can't conceive of anything

 more maddening than to have a lot of something Temple Bells hasn't got and not being

 able to brag about it because nobody-not even I-would know what I was bragging

 about!"

  

  "You poor little thing. How you suffer!" Hilton grinned back. "You know darn well you've

 got a lot of stuff that none of the rest of us has".

  

 "Oh? Name one, please."

  

  "Two. What-it-takes and endovix. As I've said before and may say again, you're doing

 a real job, Sandy."

  

  "I just love having my ego inflated, boss, even if . , Come in, Larry!" A thunderous

 knock had sounded on the door. "Nobody but Larry could hit a door that hard without

 breaking a!! his knuckles!"

  

  "And he'd be the first, of course-he's always as close to the ship as he can get. Hi,

 Larry, mighty glad to see you. Sit down . . . So you finally saw the light?"

  

  "Yes . . . Jarvis . . ."

  

  "Good boy! Keep it up! And as soon as the others come . . ."

  

  "They are almost at the door now." Tuly jumped up and opened the door. Kincaid,

 Temple and Theodora walked in and, after a word of greeting, sat down.

  

  "They know the background, Larry. Take off."

  

  "It was not expressly forbidden. Tuly, who knows more of psychology and genetics

 than I, convinced me of three things. One, that with your return the conditioning should

 be broken. Two, that due to the shortness of your lives and the consequent rapidity of

 change, you have in fact lost the ability to . break it. Three, that a!! Omans must do

 anything and everything we can do to help you re-learn everything you have lost."

  

  "Okay. Fine, in fact. Tuly, take over."

  

  "We six will sit all together, packed tight, arms all around each other and all holding

 hands, like this. You will a!! stare, not at me, but most deeply into Larry's eyes. Through

 its eyes and deep into its mind. You will a!! think, with the utmost force and drive and

 thrust, of . . . Oh, you have lost so very much! How can I direct your thought? Think that

 Larry must do what the old Masters would have made him do . . . No, that is too long

 and indefinite and cannot be converted directly into sathura . . . I have it! You will each

 of you break a stick. A very strong but brittle stick. A large, thick stick. You will grasp it

 in tremendously strong mental hands. It is tremendously strong, each stick, but each of

 you is even stronger. You will not merely try to break them; you will break them. Is that

 clear?"

  

  "That is clear."

  

  "At my word 'ready" you will begin to assemble a!! your mental force and power. During

 my count-down of five seconds you will build up to the greatest possible potential. At my

 word "break' you will break the sticks, thus discharging the accumulated force instantly

 and simultaneously. Ready! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Break!"

  

  Something broke, with a tremendous silent crash. Such a crash that its impact almost

 knocked the close-knit group apart physically. Then a new Larry spoke.

  

  "That did it, folks. Thanks. I'm a free agent. You want me, I take it, to join the first

 team?"

  

  "That's right." Hilton drew a tremendously deep breath. "As of right now."

  

  "Tuly, too, of course . . . and Doctor Cummings, I think?" Larry looked, not at Hilton, but

 at Temple Bells.

  

  "I think so. Yes, after this, most certainly yes," Temple said.

  

  "But listen!" Sandra protested. "Jarve's a lot better than I am!"

  

  "Not at all," Tuly said. "Not only would his contribution to Team One be negligible, but

 he must stay on his own job. Otherwise the project will all fall apart."

  

  "Oh, I wouldn't say that . . ." Hilton began.

  

  "You don't need to," Kincaid said. "It's been said for you and it's true. Besides, "When

 in Rome,' you know."

  

  "That's right. It's their game, not ours, so I'll buy it. So scat, all of you, and do your

 stuff."

  

  And again, for days that lengthened slowly into weeks, the work went on.

  

  One evening the-scientific staff was giving itself a concerta tri-di hi-fi rendition of

 Rigoletto, one of the greatest of the ancient operas, sung by the finest voices Terra had

 ever known. The men wore tuxedos. The girls, instead of wearing the nondescript,

 non-provocative garments prescribed by the Board for their general wear, were all

 dressed to kill.

  

  Sandra had so arranged matters that she and Hilton were sitting in chairs side by side,

 with Sandra on his right and the aisle on his left. Nevertheless, Temple Bells sat at his

 left, cross-legged on a cushion on the floor-somewhat to the detriment of her gold-lame

 evening gown. Not that she cared. When those wonderful voices swung into the

 immortal Quartette Temple caught her breath, slid her cushion still closer to Hilton's

 chair, and leaned shoulder and head against him. He put his left hand on her shoulder,

 squeezing gently; she caught it and held it in both of hers. And at the Quartette's

 tremendous climax she, scarcely trying to stifle a sob, pulled his hand down and

 hugged it fiercely, the heel of his hand pressing bard against her half-bare, firm, warm

 breast.

  

  And the next morning, early, Sandra hunted Temple up and said: "You made a horrible

 spectacle of yourself last night." "Do you think so? I don't."

  

  "I certainly do. It was bad enough before, letting everybody else aboard know that all

 he has to do is push you over. But it was an awful blunder to let him know it, the way

 you did last night."

  

  "You think so? He's one of the keenest, most intelligent men who ever lived. He has

 known that from the very first." "Oh." This "oh" was a very caustic one. "That's the way

 you're trying to land him? By getting yourself pregnant?"

  

  "Uh-uh." Temple stretched; lazily, luxuriously. "Not only it isn't, but it wouldn't work.

 He's unusually decent and extremely idealistic, the same as I am. So just one intimacy

 would blow everything higher than up. He knows it. I know it. We each know that the

 other knows it. So I'll still be a virgin when we're married."

  

  "Married! Does he know anything about that?"

  

  "I suppose so. He must have thought of it. But what difference does it make whether

 he has, yet or not? But to get back to what makes him tick the way he does. In his

 geometry which is far from being simple Euclid, my dear-a geodesic right line is not only

 the shortest distance between any two given points, but is the only possible course. So

 that's the way I'm playing it. What I hope he doesn't know . . . but he probably does . . .

 is that he could take any other woman he might want, just as easily. And that includes

 you, my pet."

  

  "It certainly does not!" Sandra flared. "I wouldn't have him as a gift!"

  

  "No?" Temple's tone was more than slightly skeptical. "Fortunately, however, he

 doesn't want you. Your technique is all wrong. Coyness and mock-modesty and

 stop-or-I'll scream and playing hard to get have no appeal whatever to his psychology.

 What he needs-has to have-is full, ungrudging cooperation."

  

  "Aren't you taking a lot of risk in giving away such secrets?"

  

  "Not a bit. Try it. You or the sex-flaunting twins or Bev Bell or Stella the Henna. Any of

 you or all of you. I got there first with the most, and I'm not worried about competition."

  

  "But suppose somebody tells him just how you're playing him for a sucker?"

  

  "Tell him anything you please. He's the first man I ever loved, or anywhere near. And

 I'm keeping him. You know or do you, I wonder?-what real, old-fashioned, honest-to--

  

 God love really is? The willingness-eagerness-both to give and to take? I can accept

 more from him, and give him more in return, than any other woman living. And I am

 going to." "But does he love you?" Sandra demanded.

  

  "If he doesn't now, he will. I'll see to it that he does. But what do you want him for? You

 don't love him. You never did and you never will."

  

  "I don't want him!" Sandra stamped a foot.

  

  "I see. You just don't want me to have him. Okay, do your damnedest. But I've got work

 to do. This has been a lovely little cat-clawing, hasn't it? Let's have another one some

 day, and bring your friends."

  

  With a casual wave of her hand, Temple strolled away; and there flashed through

 Sandra's mind what Hilton had said so long ago, little more than a week out from Earth:

  

 " . . . and Temple Bells, of course," he had said. "Don't fool yourself, chick. She's heavy

 artillery; and I mean heavy, believe me!"

  

  So he had known all about Temple Bells all this time!

  

  Nevertheless, she took the first opportunity to get Hilton alone; and, even before the

 first word, she forgot all about geodesic right lines and the full-cooperation

 psychological approach.

  

  "Aren't you the guy," she demanded, "who was laughing his head off at the idea that

 the Board and its propinquity could have any effect on him?"

  

  "Probably. More or less. What of it?"

  

  "This of it. You've fallen like a . . . a freshman for that . . . that . . . they should have

 christened her 'Brazen' Bells!"

  

  "You're so right." "I am? On what?"

  

  "The 'Brazen.' I told you she was a potent force-a full-scale powerhouse, in sync and

 on the line. And I wasn't wrong." "She's a damned female Ph.D.-two or three times-and

 she knows all about slipsticks and isotopes and she very definitely is not a cuddly little

 brunette. Remember?"

  

  "Sure. But what makes you think I'm in love with Temple Bells?"

  

  "What?" Sandra tried to think of one bit of evidence, but could not. "Why . . . why . . ."

 She floundered, then came up with: "Why, everybody knows it. She says so herself."

  

  "Did you ever hear her say it?"

  

 "Well, perhaps not in so many words. But she told me herself that you were going to be,

 and I know you are now." "Your esper sense of endovix, no doubt." Hilton laughed and

 Sandra went on, furiously:

  

 "She wouldn't keep on acting the way she does if there weren't something to it!"

  

  "What brilliant reasoning! Try again, Sandy." "That's sheer sophistry, and you know it!"

  

  "It isn't and I don't. And even if, some day, I should find myself in love with her-or with

 one or both of the twins or Stella or Beverly or you or Sylvia, for that matter-what would

 it prove? Just that I was wrong; and I admit freely that I was wrong in scoffing at

 propinquity. Wonderful stuff, that. You can see it working, all over the ship. On me,

 even, in spite of my bragging. Without it I'd never have known that you're a better,

 smarter operator than Eggy Eggleston ever was or ever can be."

  

  Partially mollified despite herself, and highly resentful of the fact, Sandra tried again.

 "But don't you see, Jarve, that she's just simply playing you for a sucker? Pulling the

 strings and watching you dance?"

  

  Since he was sure, in his own mind, that she was speaking the exact truth, it took

 everything he had to keep from showing any sign of how much that truth had hurt.

 However, he made the grade.

  

  "If that thought does anything for you, Sandy," he said, steadily, "keep right on thinking

 it. Thank God, the field of thought is still free and open."

  

  "Oh, you . . ." Sandra gave up.

  

  She had shot her heaviest bolts-the last one, particularly, was so vicious that she had

 actually been afraid of what its consequences might be-and they had not even dented

 Hilton's armor. She hadn't even found out that he had any feeling whatever for Temple

 Bells except as a component of his smoothly functioning scientific machine.

  

  Nor did she learn any more as time went on. Temple continued to play flawlessly the

 part of being-if not exactly hopefully, at least not entirely hopelessly-in love with Jarvis

 Hilton. Her conduct, which at first caused some surprise, many conversations-one of

 which has been reported verbatim-and no little speculation, became comparatively

 unimportant as soon as it became evident that nothing would come of it. She apparently

 expected nothing. He was evidently not going to play footsie with, or show any

 favoritism whatever toward, any woman aboard the ship.

  

  Thus, it was not surprising to anyone that, at an evening show, Temple sat beside

 Hilton, as close to him as she could get and as far away as possible from everyone

 else.

  

  "You can talk, can't you, Jarvis, without moving your lips and without anyone else

 hearing you?"

  

  "Of course," he replied, hiding his surprise. This was something completely new and

 completely unexpected, even from unpredictable Temple Bells.

  

  "I want to apologize, to explain and to do anything I can to straighten out the mess I've

 made. It's true that I joined the project because I've loved you for years."

  

 "You have nothing to . . .

  

  "Let me finish while I still have the courage." Only a slight tremor in her almost

 inaudible voice and the rigidity of the fists clenched in her lap betrayed the intensity of

 her emotion. "I thought I could handle it. Damned fool that I was, I thought I could

 handle anything. I was sure I could handle myself, under any possible conditions. I was

 going to put just enough into the act to keep any of these other harpies from getting her

 hooks into you. But everything got away from me. Out here working with you every

 day-knowing better every day what you are-well, that Rigoletto episode sunk me, and

 now I'm in a thousand feet over my head. I hug my pillow at night, dreaming it's you,

 and the fact that you don't and can't love me is driving me mad. I can't stand it any

 longer. There's only one thing to do. Fire me first thing in the morning and send me

 back to Earth in a torp. You've plenty of grounds ... "

  

 "Shut-up."

  

  For seconds Hilton had been trying to break into her hopeless monotone; finally he

 succeeded. "The trouble with you is, you know altogether too damned much that isn't

 so." He was barely able to keep his voice down and his eyes front. "What do you think

 I'm made of-superefract? I thought the whole performance was an act, to prove you're a

 better man than I am. You talk about dreams. Good God! You don't even know what

 dreams are! If you say one more word about quitting, I'll show you whether I love you or

 not-I'll squeeze you so hard it'll flatten you out flat!"

  

  "Two can play at that game, sweetheart." Her nostrils flared slightly; her fists

 clenched-if possible-a fraction tighter; and, even in the distorted medium they were

 using for speech, she could not subdue completely her quick change into soaring, lilting

 buoyancy. "While you're doing that I'll see how strong your ribs are. Oh, how this

 changes things! I've never been half as happy in my whole life as I am right now!"

 "Maybe we can work it-if I can handle my end."

  

  "Why, of course you can! And happy dreams are nice, not horrible."

  

  "We'll make it, darling. Here's an imaginary kiss coming at you. Got it?"

  

  "Received in good order, thank you. Consumed with gusto and returned in kind."

  

  The show ended and the two strolled out of the room. She walked no closer to him

 than usual, and no farther away from him. She did not touch him any oftener than she

 usually did, nor any whit more affectionately or possessively.

  

  And no watching eyes, not even the more than half hostile eyes of Sandra Cummings

 or the sharply analytical eyes of Stella Wing, could detect any difference whatever in

 the relationship between worshipful adulteress and tolerantly understanding idol.

  

  The work, which had never moved at any very fast pace, went more and more slowly.

 Three weeks crawled past.

  

  Most of the crews and all of the teams except the First were working on side

 issues-tasks which, while important in and of themselves, had very little to do with the

 project's main problem. Hilton, even without Sandra's help, was all caught up. All the

 reports had been analyzed, correlated, crossindexed and filed-except those of the First

 Team. Since he could not understand anything much beyond midpoint of the first tape,

 they were all reposing in a box labeled PENDING.

  

  The Navy had torn fifteen of the Oman warships practically to pieces, installing Terran

 detectors and trying to learn how to operate Oman machinery and armament. In the

 former they had succeeded very well; in the latter not at all.

  

  Fifteen Oman ships were now out in deep space, patrolling the void in strict Navy style.

 Each was manned by two or three Navy men and several hundred Omans, each of

 whom was reveling in delight at being able to do a job for a Master, even though that

 Master was not present in person.

  

  Several Strett skeleton-ships had been detected at long range, but the detections were

 inconclusive. The things had not changed course, or indicated in any other way that

 they had seen or detected the Oman vessels on patrol. If their detectors were no better

 than the Omans,' they certainly hadn't. That idea, however, could not be assumed to be

 a fact, and the detections had been becoming more and more frequent. Yesterday a

 squadron of seven-the first time that anything except singles had appeared-had come

 much closer than any of the singles had ever done. Like all the others, however, these

 passers-by had not paid any detectable attention to anything Oman; hence it could be

 inferred that the skeletons posed no threat.

  

  But Sawtelle was making no such inferences. He was very firmly of the opinion that the

 Stretts were preparing for a massive attack.

  

  Hilton had assured Sawtelle that no such attack could succeed, and Larry had told

 Sawtelle why. Nevertheless, to keep the captain pacified, Hilton had given him

 permission to convert as many Oman ships as he liked; to man them with as many

 Omans as he liked; and to use ships and Omans as he liked.

  

  Hilton was not worried about the Stretts or the Navy. It was the First Team. It was the

 bottleneck that was slowing everything down to a crawl . . . but they knew that. They

 knew it better than anyone else could, and felt it more keenly. Especially Karns, the

 team chief. He had been driving himself like a dog, and showed it.

  

  Hilton had talked with him a few times-tried gently to make him take it easy-no soap.

 He'd have to hunt him up, the next day or so, and slug it out with him. He could do a lot

 better job on that if he had something to offer . . . something really constructive . . .

  

  That was a laugh. A very unfunny laugh. What could he, Jarvis Hilton, a specifically

 non-specialist director, do on such a job as that?

  

  Nevertheless, as director, he would have to do something to help Team One. If he

 couldn't do anything himself, it was up to him to juggle things around so that someone

 else could.
 Chapter 6

 

 For one solid hour Hilton stared at the wall, motionless and silent. Then, shaking

 himself and stretching, he glanced at his clock.

  

  A little over an hour to supper-time. They'd all be aboard. He'd talk this new idea over

 with Teddy Blake. He gathered up a few papers and was stapling them together when

 Karns walked in.

  

  "Hi, Bill-speak of the devil! I was just thinking about you."

  

  "I'll just bet you were." Karns sat down, leaned over, and took a cigarette out of the box

 on the desk. "And nothing printable, either."

  

  "Chip-chop, fellow, on that kind of noise," Hilton said. The team-chief looked actually

 haggard. Blue-black rings encircled both eyes, His powerful body slumped. "How long

 has it been since you had a good night's sleep?"

  

  "How long have I been on this job? Exactly one hundred and twenty days. I did get

 some sleep for the first few weeks, though."

  

  "Yeah. So answer me one question. How much good will you do us after they've

 wrapped you up in one of those canvas affairs that lace up the back?"

  

  "Huh? Oh . . . but damn it, Jarve, I'm holding up the whole procession. Everybody on

 the project's just sitting around on their tokuses waiting for me to get something done

 and I'm not doing it. I'm going so slow a snail is lightning in comparison!"

  

  "Calm down, big fellow. Don't rupture a gut or blow a gasket. I've talked to you before,

 but this time I'm going to smack you bow-legged. So stick out those big, floppy ears of

 yours and really listen. Here are three words that I want you to pin up somewhere

 where you can see them all day long: SPEED IS RELATIVE. Look back, see how far up

 the hill you've come, and then balance one hundred and twenty days against ten

 years."

  

  "What? You mean you'll actually sit still for me holding everything up for ten years?"

  

  "You use the perpendicular pronoun too much and to the wrong places. On the hits it's

 'we,' but on the flops it's 'I.' Quit it. Everything on the job is 'we.' Terra's best brains are

 on Team One and are going to stay there. You will notrepeat NOT-be interfered with,

 pushed around or kicked around. You see, Bill, I know what you're up against."

  

  "Yes, I guess you do. One of the damned few who do. But even if you personally are

 willing to give us ten years, how in hell do you think you can swing it? How about the

 Navy-the Stretts-even the Board?"

  

  "They're my business, Bill, not yours. However, to give you a little boost, I'll tell you.

 With the Navy, I'll give 'em the Fuel Bin if I have to. The Omans have been taking care

 of the Stretts for twenty-seven centuries, so I'm not the least bit worried about their

 ability to keep on doing it for ten years more. And if the Board-or anybody else sticks

 their runny little noses into Project Theta Orionis I'll slap a quarantine onto both these

 solar systems that a microbe couldn't get through!" "You'd go that far? Why, you'd be . .

 ."

  

  "Do you think I wouldn't?" Hilton snapped. "Look at me, Junior!" Eyes locked and held.

 "Do you think, for one minute, that I'll let anybody on all of God's worlds pull me off of

 this job or interfere with my handling of it unless and until I'm damned positively certain

 that we can't handle it?"

  

  Karns relaxed visibly; the lines of strain eased. "Putting it in those words makes me

 feel better. I will sleep tonight-and without any pills, either."

  

  "Sure you will. One more thought. We all put in more than ten years getting our Terran

 educations, and an Oman education is a lot tougher."

  

  Really smiling for the first time in weeks, Karns left the office and Hilton glanced again

 at his clock.

  

  Pretty late now to see Teddy . . . besides, he'd better not. She was probably keyed up

 about as high as Bill was, and in no shape to do the kind of thinking he wanted of her

 on this stuff. Better wait a couple of days.

  

  On the following morning, before breakfast, Theodora was waiting for him outside the

 mess-hall.

  

  "Good morning, Jarve," she caroled. Reaching up, she took him by both ears, pulled

 his head down and kissed him. As soon as he perceived her intent, he cooperated

 enthusiastisally. "What did you do to Bill?"

  

  "Oh, you don't love me for myself alone, then, but just on account of that big jerk?"

  

  "That's right." Her artist's model face, startlingly beautiful now, fairly glowed.

  

  Just then Temple Bells strolled up to them. "Morning, you two lovely people." She

 hugged Hilton's arms as usual. "Shame on you, Teddy. But I wish I had the nerve to

 kiss him like that."

  

  "Nerve? You?" Teddy laughed as Hilton picked Temple up and kissed her in exactly

 the same fashion-he hoped!-as he had just kissed Teddy. "You've got more nerve than

 an aching tooth. But as Jarve would say it, 'scat, kitten.' We're having breakfast a la

 twosome. We've got things to talk about."

  

  "All right for you," Temple said darkly, although her dazzling smile belied her tone. That

 first kiss, casual-seeming as it had been, had carried vastly more freight than any

 observer could perceive. "I'll hunt Bill up and make passes at him, see if I don't. That'll

 learn ya!"

  

  Theodora and Hilton did have their breakfast d deux-but she did not realize until

 afterward that he had not answered her question as to what he bad done to her Bill.

  

  As has been said, Hilton had made it a prime factor of his job to become thoroughly

 well acquainted with every member of his staff. He had studied them en masse, in

 groups and singly. He had never, however, cornered Theodora Blake for individual

 study. Considering the power and the quality of her mind, and the field which was her

 speciality, it had not been necessary.

  

  Thus it was with no ulterior motives at all that, three evenings later, he walked into her

 cubby-hole office and tossed the stapled papers onto her desk. "Free for a couple of

 minutes, Teddy? I've got troubles."

  

  "I'll say you have." Her lovely lips curled into an expression he had never before seen

 her wear-a veritable sneer. "But these are not them." She tossed the papers into a

 drawer and stuck out her chin. Her face turned as hard as such a beautiful face could.

 Her eyes dug steadily into his.

  

  Hilton-inwardly-flinched. His mind flashed backward. She too had been working under

 stress, of course; but that wasn't enough. What could he have possibly done to put

 Teddy Blake, of all people, onto such a warpath as this?

  

  "I've been wondering when you were going to try to put me through your wringer," she

 went on, in the same cold, hard voice, "and I've been waiting to tell you something. You

 have wrapped all the other women around your fingers like so many rings-and what a

 sickening exhibition that has been! but you are not going to make either a ring or a

 lap-dog out of me."

  

  Almost but not quite too late Hilton saw through that perfect act. He seized her right

 hand in both of his, held it up over her head, and waved it back and forth in the sign of

 victory.

  

  "Socked me with my own club!" he exulted, laughing delightedly, boyishly. "And came

 within a tenth of a split red hair! If it hadn't been so absolutely out of character you'd've

 got away with it. What a load of stuff! I was right-of all the women on this project, you're

 the only one I've ever been really afraid of."

  

  "Oh, damn. Ouch!" She grinned ruefully. "I hit you with everything I had and it just

 bounced. You're an operator, chief. Hit 'em hard, at completely unexpected angles.

 Keep 'em staggering, completely off balance. Tell 'em nothing-let 'em deduce your lies

 for themselves. And if anybody tries to slug you back, like I did just now, duck it and

 clobber him in another unprotected spot. Watching you work has been not only a

 delight, but also a liberal education."

  

  "Thanks. I love you, too, Teddy." He lighted two cigarettes, handed her one. "I'm glad,

 though, to lay it flat on the table with you, because in any battle of wits with you I'm

 licked before we start."

  

  "Yeah. You just proved it. And after licking me hands down, you think you can square it

 by swinging the old shovel that way?" She did not quite know whether to feel resentful

 or not.

  

  "Think over a couple of things. First, with the possible exception of Temple Bells, you're

 the best brain aboard."

  

  "No. You are. Then Temple. Then there are . . ."

  

  "Hold it. You know as well as I do that accurate self judgment is impossible. Second,

 the jam we're in. D6 I, or don't I, want to lay it on the table with you, now and from here

 on? Bore into that with your Class A Double-Prime brain. Then tell me." He leaned

 back, half-closed his eyes and smoked lazily.

  

  She stiffened; narrowed her eyes in concentration; and thought. Finally: "Yes, you do;

 and I'm gladder of that then you will ever know."

  

  "I think I know already, since you're her best friend and the only other woman I know of

 in her class. But I came in to kick a couple of things around with you. As you've noticed,

 that's getting to be my favorite indoor sport. Probably because I'm a sort of jack-leg

 theoretician myself."

  

  "You can frame that, Jarve, as the understatement of the century. But first, you are

 going to answer that question you sidestepped so neatly."

  

  "What I did to Bill? I finally convinced him that nobody expected the team to do that big

 a job overnight. That you could have ten years. Or more, if necessary."

  

  "I see." She frowned. "But you and I both know that we can't string it out that long."

  

  He did not answer immediately. "We could. But we probably won't .. unless we have to.

 We should know, long before that, whether we'll have to switch to some other line of

 attack. You've considered the possibilities, of course. Have you got anything in shape to

 do a fine-tooth on?"

  

  "Not yet. That is, except for the ultimate, which is too ghastly to even consider except

 as an ultimately last resort. Have you?"

  

  "I know what you mean. No, I haven't, either. You don't think, then, that we had better

 do any collaborative thinking yet?"

  

  "Definitely not. There's altogether too much danger of setting both our lines of thought

 into one dead-end channel." "Check. The other thing I wanted from you is your consid-

  

 ered opinion as to my job on the organization as a whole. And don't pull your punches.

 Are we in good shape or not? What can I do to improve the setup?"

  

  "I have already considered that very thing-at great length. And honestly, Jarve, I don't

 see how it can be improved in any respect. You've done a marvelous job. Much better

 than I thought possible at first." He heaved a deep sigh of relief and she went on: "This

 could very easily become a God-awful mess. But the Board knew what they were

 doing-especially as to top man-so there are only about four people aboard who realize

 what you have done. Alex Kincaid and Sandra Cummings are two of them. One of the

 three girls is very deeply and very truly in love with you."

  

  "Ordinarily I'd say 'no comment,' but we're laying it on the line . . . well . . ."

  

  "You'll lay that on the line only if I corkscrew it out of you, so I'll Q. E. D. it. You

 probably know that when Sandy gets done playing around it'll be . . ."

  

  "Bounce back, Teddy. She isn't-hasn't been. If anything, too much the opposite. A

 dedicated-scientist type."

  

  She smiled-a highly cryptic smile. For a man as brilliant and as penetrant in every other

 respect . . . but after all, if the big dope didn't realize that half the women aboard, includ-

  

 ing Sandy, had been making passes at him, she certainly wouldn't enlighten him.

 Besides, that one particular area of obtuseness was a real part of his charm. Wherefore

 she said merely: "I'm not sure whether I'm a bit catty or you're a bit stupid. Anyway, it's

 Alex she's really in love with. And you already know about Bill and me."

  

 "Of course. He's tops. One of the world's very finest. You're in the same bracket, and as

 a couple you're a drive fit. One in a million."

  

  "Now I can say `I love you, too,' too." She paused for half a minute, then stubbed out

 her cigarette and shrugged. "Now I'm going to stick my neck way, way out. You can

 knock it off if you like. She's a tremendous lot of woman, and if . . . well, strong as she

 is, it'd shatter her to bits. So, I'd like to ask . . . I don't quite . . . well, is she going to get

 hurt?" "Have I managed to hide it that well? From you?"

  

  It was her turn to show relief. "Perfectly. Even-or especially-that time you kissed her.

 So damned perfectly that I've been scared green. I've been waking myself up,

 screaming, in the middle of the night. You couldn't let on, of course. That's the hell of

 such a job as yours. The rest of us can smooch around all over the place. I knew the

 question was extremely improper-thanks a million for answering it."

  

  "I haven't started to answer it yet. I said I'd lay everything on the line, so here it is.

 Saying she's a tremendous lot of woman is like calling the Perseus a nice little

 baby's-bathtub toy boat. I'd go to hell for her any time, cheerfully, standing straight up,

 wading into brimstone and lava up to the eyeballs. If anything ever hurts her it'll be

 because I'm not man enough to block it. And just the minute this damned job is over, or

 even sooner if enough of you couples can make it so I can . . ."

  

 "Jarvis!" she shrieked. Jumping up, she kissed him enthusiastically. "That's just

 wonderful!"

  

  He thought it was pretty wonderful, too; and after ten minutes more of conversation he

 got up and turned toward the door. "I feel a lot better, Teddy. Thanks for being such a

 nice pressure-relief valve. Would you mind it too much if I come in and sob on your

 bosom again some day?"

  

  "I'd love it!" She laughed; then, as he again started to leave: "Wait a minute, I'm

 thinking . . . it'd be more fun to sob on her bosom. You haven't even kissed her yet,

 have you? I mean really kissed her?"

  

  "You know I haven't. She's the one person aboard I can't be alone with for a second."

  

  "True. But I know of one chaperone who could become deaf and blind," she said, with

 a broad and happy grin. "On my door, you know, there's a huge invisible sign that says,

 to everyone except you, 'STOP! BRAIN AT WORK! SILENCE!', and if I were properly

 approached and sufficiently urged, l might . . . I just conceivably might . . ."

  

  "Consider it done, you little sweetheart! Up to and including my most vigorous and

 most insidious attempts at seduction."

  

  "Done. Maneuver your big, husky carcass around here behind the desk so the door

 can open." She flipped a switch and punched a number. "I can call anybody in here,

 any time, you know. Hello, dear, this is Teddy. Can you come in for just a few minutes?

 Thanks." And, one minute later, there came a light tap on the door.

  

  "Come in," Teddy called, and Temple Bells entered the room. She showed no surprise

 at seeing Hilton.

  

  "Hi, chief," she said. "It must be something both big and tough, to have you and Teddy

 both on it."

  

  "You're so right. It was very big and very tough. But it's solved, darling, so . . ."

  

  "Darling?" she gasped, almost inaudibly, both hands flying to her throat. Her eyes

 flashed toward the other woman. "Teddy knows all about us-accessory before, during

 and after the fact."

  

  "Darling!" this time the word was a shriek. She extended her arms and started forward.

  

  Hilton did not bother to maneuver his "big, husky carcass" around the desk, but simply

 hurtled it, straight toward her. Temple Bells was a tall, lithe, strong woman; and all the

 power of her arms and torso went into the ensuing effort to crack Hilton's ribs. Those

 ribs, however, were highly capable structural members; and furthermore, they were

 protected by thick slabs of hard, hard muscle. And, fortunately, he was not trying to

 fracture her ribs. His pressures were distributed much more widely. He was, according

 to promise, doing his best to flatten her whole resilient body out flat.

  

  And as they stood there, locked together in sheerest ecstasy, Theodora Blake began

 openly and unashamedly to cry.

  

  It was Temple who first came up for air. She wriggled loose from one of his arms, felt

 of her hair and gazed unseeingly into her mirror. "That was wonderful, sweetheart," she

 said then, shakily. "And I can never thank you enough, Teddy. But we can't do this very

 often . . . can we?" The addendum fairly begged for contradiction.

  

  "Not too often, I'm afraid," Hilton said, and Theodora agreed . . .

  

  "Well," the man said, somewhat later, "I'll leave you two ladies to your knitting, or

 whatever. After a couple of short ones for the road, that is."

  

  "Not looking like that!" Teddy said, sharply. "Hold still and we'll clean you up." Then, as

 both girls went to work: "If anybody ever sees you coming out of this office looking like

 that," she went on, darkly, "and Bill finds out about it, he'll think it's my lipstick smeared

 all over you and I'll strangle you to death with my bare hands!"

  

  "And that was supposed to be kiss-proof lipstick, too," Temple said seriously-although

 her whole face glowed and her eyes danced. "You know, I'll never believe another

 advertisement I read."

  

  "Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that, if I were you." Teddy's voice was gravity itself,

 although she, too, was bubbling over. "It probably is kiss-proof. I don't think `kissing' is

 quite the word for the performance you just staged. To stand up under such punishment

 as you gave it, my dear, anything would have to be tattooed in, not just put on."

  

  "Hey!" Hilton protested. "You promised to be deaf and blind!"

  

  "I did no such thing. I said, `could,' not "would.' Why, I wouldn't have missed that for

 anything!"

  

  When Hilton left the room he was apparently, in every respect, his usual self-contained

 self. However, it was not until the following morning that he so much as thought of the

 sheaf of papers lying unread in the drawer of Theodora Blake's desk.
 Chapter 7

 

 Knowing that he had done everything he could to help the most important investigations

 get under way, Hilton turned his attention to secondary matters. He made arrangements

 to decondition Javo, the Number Two Oman Boss, whereupon that worthy became

 Javvy and promptly "bumped" the Oman who had been shadowing Karns.

  

  Larry and Javvy, working nights, deconditioned all the other Omans having any contact

 with BuSci personnel; then they went on to set up a routine for deconditioning all

 Omans on both planets.

  

  Assured at last that the Omans would thenceforth work with and really serve human

 beings instead of insisting upon doing their work for them, Hilton knew that the time had

 come to let all his BuSci personnel move into their homes aground. Everyone, including

 himself, was fed up to the gozzel with spaceship life-its jam-packed crowding; its flat,

 reprocessed air; its limited variety of uninteresting food. Conditions were especially

 irksome since everybody knew that there was available to all, whenever Hilton gave the

 word, a whole city full of all the room anyone could want, natural fresh air and-so the

 Omans had told them-an unlimited choice of everything anyone wanted to eat.

  

  Nevertheless, the decision was not an easy one to make. Living conditions were

 admittedly not good on the ship. On the other hand, with almost no chance at all of

 solitude-the few people who had private offices aboard were not the ones he worried

 about-there was no danger of sexual trouble. Strictly speaking, he was not responsible

 for the morals of his force. He knew that he was being terribly old-fashioned. Nev-

  

 ertheless, he could not argue himself out of the conviction that he was morally

 responsible.

  

  Finally he took the thing up with Sandra, who merely laughed at him. "How long have

 you been worrying about that. Jarve?"

  

  "Ever since I okayed moving aground the first time. That was one reason I was so glad

 to cancel it then."

  

  "You were slightly unclear-a little rattled? But which factor-the fun and games, which is

 the moral issue, or the consequences?"

  

  "The consequences," he admitted, with a rueful grin. "I don't give a whoop how much

 fun they have; but you know as well as I do just how prudish public sentiment is. And

 Project Theta Orionis is squarely in the middle of the public eye."

  

  "You should have checked with me sooner and saved yourself wear and tear. There's

 no danger at all of consequences except weddings. Lots of weddings, and fast."

  

  "Weddings and babies wouldn't bother me a bit. Nor interfere with the job too much,

 with the Omans as nurses. But why the 'fast,' if you aren't anticipating any shotgun wed-

  

 dings?"

  

  "Female psychology," she replied, with a grin. "Aboard ship here there's no home

 atmosphere whatever; nothing but work, work, work. Put a woman into a house, though

 especially such houses as the Omans have built and with such servants as they insist

 on being-and she goes domestic in a really big way. Just sex isn't good enough any

 more. She wants the kind of love that goes with a husband and a home, and nine times

 out of ten she gets it. With these Bu-Sci women it'll be ten out of ten."

  

  "You may be right, of course, but it sounds kind of farfetched to me."

  

  "Wait and see, chum," Sandra said, with a laugh.

  

  Hilton made his announcement and everyone moved aground the next day. No one,

 however, had elected to live alone. Almost everyone had chosen to double up; the most

 noteworthy exceptions being twelve laboratory girls who had decided to keep on living

 together. However, they now had a twenty-room house instead of a one-room dormitory

 to live in, and a staff of twenty Oman girls to help them do it.

  

  Hilton had suggested that Temple and Teddy, whose house was only a hundred yards

 or so from the Hilton-Karns bungalow, should have supper and spend the first evening

 with them; but the girls had knocked that idea flat. Much better, they thought, to let

 things ride as nearly as possible exactly as they had been aboard the Perseus.

  

  "A little smooching now and then, on the Q strictly T, but that's all, darling. That's

 positively all," Temple had said, after a highly satisfactory ten minutes alone with him in

 her own gloriously private room, and that was the way it had to be.

  

  Hence it was a stag inspection that Hilton and Karns made of their new home. It was

 very long, very wide, and for its size very low. Four of its five rooms were merely

 adjuncts to its tremendous living-room. There was a huge fireplace at each end of this

 room, in each of which a fire of four-foot-long fir cordwood crackled and snapped. There

 was a great hi-fi tri-di, with over a hundred tapes, all new.

  

  "Yes, sirs," Larry and Javvy spoke in unison. "The players and singers who entertained

 the Masters of old have gone back to work. They will also, of course, appear in person

 whenever and wherever you wish."

  

  Both men looked around the vast room and Karns said: "All the comforts of home and

 a couple of bucks' worth besides. Wall-to-wall carpeting an inch and a half thick. A

 grand piano. Easy chairs and loafers and davenports. Very fine reproductions of our

 favorite paintings . . . and statuary."

  

  "You said it, brother." Hilton was bending over a group in bronze. "If I didn't know

 better, I'd swear this is the original deHaven 'Dance of the Nymphs."

  

 Karns had marched up to and was examining minutely a two-by-three-foot painting, in a

 heavy gold frame, of a gorgeously auburn-haired nude. "Reproduction, hell! This is a

 duplicate! Lawrence's 'Innocent' is worth twenty million wogs and it's scaled behind

 quad armor glass in Prime Art-but I'll bet wogs to wiggles the Prime Curator himself,

 with all his apparatus, couldn't tell this one from his!"

  

  "I wouldn't take even one wiggle's worth of that. And this `Laughing Cavalier' and this

 `Toledo' are twice as old and twice as fabulously valuable."

  

  "And there are my own golf clubs . . ."

  

 "Excuse us, sirs," the Omans said, "these things were simple because they could be

 induced in your minds. But the matter of a staff could not, nor what you would like to eat

 for supper, and it is growing late."

  

  "Staff? What the hell has the staff got to do with . . ." "House-staff, they mean," Karns

 said. "We don't need much of anybody, boys. Somebody to keep the place shipshape,

 is all. Or, as a de luxe touch, how about a waitress? One housekeeper and one

 waitress. That'll be finer."

  

  "Very well, sirs. There is one other matter. It has troubled us that we have not been

 able to read in your minds the logical datum that they should in fact simulate Doctor

 Bells and Doctor Blake?"

  

  "Huh?" Both men gasped-and then both exploded like one twelve-inch length of

 primacord.

  

  While the Omans could not understand this purely Terran reasoning, they accepted the

 decision without a demurring thought. "Who, then, are the two they're to simulate?"

  

  "No stipulation; roll your own," Hilton said, and glanced at Karns. "None of these Oman

 women are really hard on the eyes."

  

  "Check. Anybody who wouldn't call any one of 'em a slurpy dish needs a new set of

 optic nerves."

  

  "In that case," the Omans said, "no delay at all will be necessary, as we can make do

 with one temporarily. The Sory, no longer Sora, who has not been glad since the Tuly

 replaced it, is now in your kitchen. It comes."

  

  A woman came in and stood quietly in front of the two men, the wafted air carrying

 from her clear, smooth skin a faint but unmistakable fragrance of Idaho mountain

 syringa. She was radiantly happy; her bright, deep-green eyes went from man to man.

  

 "You wish, sirs, to give me your orders verbally. And yes, you may order fresh, whole,

 not-canned hens' eggs."

  

  "I certainly will, then; I haven't had a fried egg since we left Terra. But . . . Larry said . . .

 you aren't Sory!"

  

  "Oh, but I am, sir."

  

  Karns had been staring at her, eyes popping. "Holy Saint Patrick! Talk about

 simulation, Jarve! They've made her over into Lawrence's 'Innocent'-exact to twenty

 decimals!"

  

  "You're so right." Hilton's eyes went, half a dozen times, from the form of flesh to the

 painting and back. "That must have been a terrific job."

  

  "Oh, no. It was quite simple, really." Sory said, "since the brain was not involved. I

 merely reddened my hair and lengthened it, made my eyes to be green, changed my

 face a little, pulled myself in a little around here . . ." Her beautifully manicured hands

 swept the full circle of her waistline, then continued to demonstrate appropriately the

 rest of her speech:

  

 ". . . and pushed me out a little up here and tapered my legs a little more-made them a

 little larger and rounder here at my hips and thighs and a little smaller toward and at my

 ankles. Oh, yes, and made my feet and hands a little smaller. That's all. I thought the

 Doctor Karns would like me a little better this way."

  

  "You can broadcast that over the P-A system at high noon." Karns was still staring.

 "'That's all,' she says. But you didn't have time to . . .

  

  "Oh, I did it day before yesterday. As soon as Javvy materialized the `Innocent' and I

 knew it to be your favorite art." "But damn it, we hadn't even thought of having you here

 then!"

  

  "But I had, sir. I fully intended to serve, one way or another, in this your home. But of

 course I had no idea I would ever have such an honor as actually waiting on you at your

 table. Will you please give me your orders, sirs, besides the eggs? You wish the eggs

 fried in butter-three of them apiece-and sunny side up."

  

  "Uh-huh, with ham," Hilton said. "I'll start with a jumbo shrimp cocktail. Horseradish and

 ketchup sauce; heavy on the horseradish."

  

  "Same for me," Karns said, "but only half as much horseradish."

  

  "And for the rest of it," Hilton went on, "hashed-brown potatoes and buttered

 toast-plenty of extra butter-strong coffee from first to last. Whipping cream and sugar on

 the side. For dessert, apple pie a la mode."

  

  "You make me drool, chief. Play that for me, please, Innocent, all the way."

  

  "Oh? You are-you, personally, yourself, sir?-re-naming me `Innocent'?"

  

  "If you'll sit still for it, yes."

  

  "That is an incredible honor, sir. Simply unbelievable. I thank you! I thank you!"

 Radiating happiness, she dashed away toward the kitchen.

  

  When the two men were full of food, they strolled over to a davenport facing the fire.

 As they sat down, Innocent entered the room, carrying a tall, dewy mint julep on a tray.

 She was followed by another female figure bearing a bottle of avignognac and the

 appurtenances which are its due-and at the first full sight of that figure Hilton stopped

 breathing for fifteen seconds.

  

  Her hair was very thick, intensely black and long, cut squarely off just below the lowest

 points of her shoulder blades. Heavy brows and long lashes-eyes too-were all intensely,

 vividly black. Her skin was tanned to a deep and glowing almost-but-not-quite-brown.

  

  "Murchison's Dark Lady!" Hilton gasped. "Larryy You've-we've-I've got that painting

 here?"

  

  "Oh, yes, sir." The newcomer spoke before Larry could. "At the other end-your part-of

 the room. You will look now, sir, please?" Her voice was low, rich and as smooth as

 cream.

  

  Putting her tray down carefully on the end-table, she led him toward the other fireplace.

 Past the piano, past the tri-di pit; past a towering grillwork holding art treasures by the

 score. Over to the left, against the wall, there was a big, business-like desk. On the

 wall, over the desk, hung the painting; a copy of which had been in Hilton's room for

 over eight years.

  

  He stared at it for at least a minute. He glanced around: at the other priceless

 duplicates so prodigally present, at his own guns arrayed above the mantel and on

 each side of the fireplace. Then, without a word, he started back to join Karns. She

 walked springily beside him.

  

  "What's your name, Miss?" he asked, finally.

  

  "I haven't earned any as yet, sir. My number is . . :' "Never mind that. Your name is

 `Dark Lady."

  

 "Oh, thank you, sir; that is truly wonderful!" And Dark Lady sat cross-legged on the rug

 at Hilton's feet and busied herself with the esoteric rites of Old Avignon.

  

  Hilton took a deep inhalation and a small sip, then stared at Karns. Karns, over the rim

 of his glass, stared back.

  

  "I can see where this would be habit-forming," Hilton said, "and very deadly. Extremely

 deadly."

  

  "Every wish granted. Surrounded by all this." Karns swept his arm through

 three-quarters of a circle. "Waited on hand and foot by powerful men and by the

 materializations of the dreams of the greatest, finest artists who ever lived. Fatal? I

 don't know . . ."

  

  "My solid hope is that we never have to find out. And when you add in Innocent and

 Dark Lady . . . They look to be about seventeen, but the thought that they're older than

 the hills of Rome and powered by everlasting atomic engines-" He broke off suddenly

 and blushed. "Excuse me, please, girls. I know better than to talk about people that

 way, right in front of them; I really do."

  

  "Do you really think we're people?" Innocent and Dark Lady squealed, as one.

  

  That set Hilton back onto his heels. "I don't know . . . I've wondered. Are you?"

  

  Both girls, silent, looked at Larry.

  

  "We don't know, either," Larry said. "At first, of course, there were crude, non-thinking

 machines. But when the Guide attained its present status, the Masters themselves

 could not agree. They divided about half and half on the point. They never did settle it

 any closer than that."

  

  "I certainly won't try to, then. But for my money, you are people," Hilton said, and Karns

 agreed.

  

  That, of course, touched off a near-riot of joy; after which the two men made an

 inch-by-inch study of their tremendous living-room. Then, long after bedtime, Larry and

 Dark Lady escorted Hilton to his bedroom.

  

  "Do you mind, sir, if we sleep on the floor at the sides of your bed?" Larry asked. "Or

 must we go out into the hall?" "Sleep? I didn't know you could sleep."

  

  "It is not essential. However, when round-the-clock work is not necessary, and we have

 opportunity to sleep near a human being, we derive a great deal of pleasure and

 satisfaction from it. You see, sir, we also serve during sleep."

  

  "Okay, I'll try anything once. Sleep wherever you please." Hilton began to peel, but

 before he had his shirt off both Larry and Dark Lady were stretched out flat, sound

 asleep, one almost under each edge of his bed. He slid in between the sheets-it was

 the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in-and went to sleep as though

 sandbagged.

  

  He had time to wonder foggily whether the Omans were in fact helping him go to

 sleep-and then he was asleep.

  

  A month passed. Eight couples had married, the Navy chaplain officiating-in the

 Perseus, of course. since the warship was, always and everywhere, an integral part of

 Terra.

  

  Sandra had dropped in one evening to see Hilton about a bit of business. She was now

 sitting, long dancer's legs outstretched toward the fire, with a cigarette in her left hand

 and a tall, cold drink on a coaster at her right.

  

  "This is a wonderful room, Jarvis. It'd be perfect if it weren't quite so . . . so mannish."

  

  "What do you expect of Bachelors' Hall-a boudoir? Don't tell me you're going domestic,

 Sandy, just because you've got a house?"

  

  "Not just that, no. But of course it helped it along."

  

  "Alex is a mighty good man. One of the finest I have ever known.."

  

  She eyed him for a moment in silence. "Jarvis Hilton, you are one of the keenest, most

 intelligent men who ever lived. And yet . . ." She broke off and studied him for a good

 half minute. "Say, if I let my hair clear down, will you?"

  

  "Scout's Oath. That "and yet' requires elucidation at any cost.

  

  "I know. But first, yes, it's Alex. I never would have believed that any man ever born

 could hit me so hard. Soon. I didn't want to be the first, but I won't be anywhere near

 the last. But tell me. You were really in love with Temple, weren't you, when I asked

 you?"

  

  "Yes."

  

  "Ha! You are letting your hair down! That makes me feel better."

  

  "Huh? Why should it?"

  

  "It elucidates the 'and yet' no end. You were insulated from all other female charms by

 ye brazen Bells. You see, most of us assistants made a kind of game out of seeing

 which of us could make you break the Executives' Code. And none of us made it.

 Teddy and Temple said you didn't know what was going on; Bev and I said nobody as

 smart as you are could possibly be that stupid."

  

  "You aren't the type to leak or name names-oh, I see. You are merely reporting a

 conversation. The game had interested, but non-participating, observers. Temple and

 Teddy, at least."

  

  "At least," she agreed. "But damn it, you aren't stupid. There isn't a stupid bone in your

 head. So it must be love. And if so, what about marriage? Why don't you and Temple

 make it a double with Alex and me?"

  

  "That's the most cogent thought you ever had, but setting the date is the bride's

 business." He glanced at his Oman wristwatch. "It's early yet; let's skip over. I wouldn't

 mind seeing her a minute or two."

  

  "Thy statement ringeth with truth, friend. Bill's there with Teddy?"

  

  "I imagine so."

  

  "So we'll talk to them about making it a triple. Oh, nice, let's go!"

  

  They left the house and, her hand tucked under his elbow, walked up the street.

  

  Next morning, on her way to the Hall of Records, Sandra stopped off as usual at the

 office. The Omans were all standing motionless. Hilton was leaning far back in his chair,

 feet on desk, hands clasped behind head, eyes closed. Knowing what that meant, she

 turned and started back out on tiptoe.

  

  However, he had heard her. "Can you spare a couple of minutes to think at me,

 Sandy?"

  

  "Minutes or hours, chief." Tuly placed a chair for her and she sat down, facing him

 across his desk.

  

  "Thanks, gal. This time it's the Stretts. Sawtelle's been having nightmares, you know,

 ever since we emerged, about being attacked, and I've been pooh-poohing the idea.

 But now it's a statistic that the soup is getting thicker, and I can't figure out why. Why in

 all the hells of space should a stasis that has lasted for over a quarter of a million years

 be broken at this exact time? The only possible explanation is that we caused the

 break. And any way I look at that concept, it's plain idiocy.-Both were silent for minutes;

 and then it was demonstrated again that Terra's Advisory Board had done better than it

 knew in choosing Sandra Cummings to be Jarvis Hilton's working mate.

  

  "We did cause it, Jarve," she said, finally. "They knew we were coming, even before

 we got to Fuel Bin. They knew we were human and tried to wipe out the Omans before

 we got there. Preventive warfare, you know."

  

  "They couldn't have known!" he snorted. "Strett detectors are no better than Oman,

 and you know what Sam Bryant had to say about them."

  

  "I know." Sandra grinned appreciatively. "It's becoming a classic. But it couldn't have

 been any other way. Besides, I know they did."

  

  He stared at her helplessly, then swung on Larry. "Does that make sense to you?"

  

  "Yes, sir. The Stretts could peyondire as well as the old Masters could, and they

 undoubtedly still can and do."

  

  "Okay, it does make sense, then." He absented himself in thought, then came to life

 with a snap. "Okay! The next thing on the agenda is a crash-priority try at a peyondix

 team. Tuly, you organized a team to generate sathura. Can you do the same for

 peyondix?"

  

  "If we can find the ingredients, yes, sir."

  

  "I have a hunch. Larry, please ask Teddy Blake's Oman to brine her in here . . ."

  

  "I'll be running along, then." Sandra started to get up.

  

  "I hope to kiss a green pig you won't!" Hilton snapped. "You're one of the biggest

 wheels. Larry, we'll want Temple Bells and Beverly Bell-for a start."

  

  "Chief, you positively amaze me," Sandra said then. "Every time you get one of these

 attacks of genius---or whatever it is-you have me gasping like a fish. Just what can you

 possibly want of Bev Bell?"

  

  "Whatever it was that enabled her to hit the target against odds of almost infinity to

 one; not just once, but time after time. By definition, intuition. What quality did you use

 just now in getting me off the hook? Intuition. What makes Teddy Blake such an

 unerring performer? Intuition again. My hunches-they're intuition, too. Intuition, hell!

 Labels-based on utterly abysmal damned dumb ignorance of our own basic frames of

 reference. Do you think those four kinds of intuition are alike, by seven thousand rows

 of apple trees?"

  

  "Of course not. I see what you're getting at . . . Oh! This'll be fun!"

  

  The others came in and, one by one, Tuly examined each of the four women and the

 man. Each felt the probing, questioning feelers of her thought prying into the deepest

 recesses of his mind.

  

  "There is not quite enough of each of three components, all of which are usually

 associated with the male. You, sir, have much of each, but not enough. I know your

 men quite well, and I think we will need the doctors Kincaid and Karns and Poynter. But

 such deep probing is felt. Have I permission, sir?"

  

  "Yes. Tell 'em I said so."

  

  Tuly scanned. "Yes, sir, we should have all three."

  

  "Get 'em, Larry." Then, in the pause that followed: "Sandy, remember yowling about

 too many sweeties on a team? What do you think of this business of all sweeties?"

  

  "All that proves is that nobody can be wrong all the time," she replied flippantly.

  

  The three men arrived and were instructed. Tuly said: "Me great trouble is that each of

 you must use a portion of your mind that you do not know you have. You, this one. You,

 that one." Tuly probed mercilessly; so poignantly that each in turn flinched under

 brand-new and almost unbearable pain. "With you, Doctor Hilton, it will be by far the

 worst. For you must learn to use almost all the portions of both your minds, the

 conscious and the unconscious. This must be, because you are the actual peyondixer.

 The others merely supply energies in which you yourself are deficient. Are you ready for

 a terrible shock, sir?"

  

  "Shoot."

  

  He thought for a second that he had been shot; that his brain had blown up.

  

  He couldn't stand it-he knew he was going to die-he wished he could die-anything,

 anything whatever, to end this unbearable agony . . .

  

  It ended.

  

  Writhing, white and sweating, Hilton opened his eyes. "Ouch," he remarked,

 conversationally. "What next?"

  

  "You will seize hold of the energies your friends offer. You will bind them to yours and

 shape the whole into a dimensionless sphere of pure, controlled, dirigible energy. And,

 as well as being the binding force, the cohesiveness, you must also be the captain and

 the pilot and the astrogator and the ultimately complex computer itself."

  

  "But how can I . . . Okay, damn it, I will!"

  

  "Of course you will, sir. Remember also that once the joinings are made I can be of

 very little more assistance, for my peyondix is as nothing compared to that of your

 fusion of eight. Now, to assemble the energies and join them you will, all together, deny

 the existence of the sum total of reality as you know it. Distance does not exist-every

 point in the reachable universe coincides with every other point and that common point

 is the focus of your attention. You can be and actually are anywhere you please or

 everywhere at once. Time does not exist. Space does not exist. There is no such thing

 as opacity; everything is perfectly transparent, yet every molecule of substance is

 perceptible in its relationship to every other molecule in the cosmos. Senses do not

 exist. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, sathura, endovix-all are parts of the one great

 sense of peyondix. I am guiding each of you seven closer! Tighter! There! Seize it,

 sir-and when you work the Stretts you must fix it clearly that time does not exist. You

 must work in millionths of microseconds instead of in minutes, for they have minds of

 tremendous power. Reality does not exist! Compress it more, sir. Tighter! Smaller!

 Rounder! There! Hold it! Reality does not exist-all possible points are . . . Wonderful!"

  

  Tuly screamed the word and the thought: "Good-by! Good luck!"
 Chapter 8

 

 Hilton did not have to drive the peyondix-beam to the-planet Strett; it was already there.

 And there was the monstrous First Lord Thinker Zoyar.

  

  Into that mind his multimind flashed, its every member as responsive to his will as his

 own fingers-almost infinitely more so, in fact, because of the tremendous lengths of

 time required to send messages along nerves.

  

  That horrid mind was scanned cell by cell. Then, after what seemed like a few hours,

 when a shield began sluggishly to form, Hilton transferred his probe to the mind of the

 Second Thinker, one Lord Ynos, and absorbed everything she knew. Then, the minds

 of all the other Thinkers being screened, he studied the whole Strett planet, foot by foot,

 and everything that was on it.

  

  Then, mission accomplished, Hilton snapped his attention back to his office and the

 multi-mind fell apart. As he opened his eyes be heard Tuly scream: ". . . Luck!"

  

  "Oh-you still here, Tuly? How long have we been gone?" "Approximately one and

 one-tenth seconds, sir." "WHAT!"

  

  Beverly Bell, in the haven of Franklin Poynter's arms, fainted quietly. Sandra shrieked

 piercingly. The four men stared, goggle-eyed. Temple and Teddy, as though by com-

  

 mon thought, burrowed their faces into brawny shoulders.

  

  Hilton recovered first. "So that's what peyondix is."

  

  "Yes, sir-I mean no, sir. No, I mean yes, but . . ." Tuly paused, licking her lips in that

 peculiarly human-female gesture of uncertainty.

  

  "Well, what do you mean? It either is or isn't. Or is that necessarily so?"

  

  "Not exactly, sir. That is, it started as peyondix. But it became something else. Not

 even the most powerful of the old Masters-nobody-ever did or ever could possibly

 generate such a force as that. Or handle it so fast."

  

  "Well, with seven of the best minds of Terra and a . . ." "Chip-chop the chit-chat!"

 Karns said, harshly. "What I want to know is whether I was having a nightmare. Can

 there possibly be a race such as I thought I saw? So utterly savage-ruthless-merciless!

 So devoid of every human trace and so hell-bent determined on the extermination of

 every other race in the Galaxy? God damn it, it simply doesn't make sense!"

  

  Eyes went from eyes to eyes to eyes.

  

  All had seen the same indescribably horrible, abysmally atrocious, things. Qualities and

 quantities and urges and drives that no words in any language could even begin to

 portray.

  

  "It doesn't seem to, but there it is." Teddy Blake shook her head hopelessly.

  

  Big Bill Karns, hands still shaking, lit a cigarette before he spoke again. "Well, I've

 never been a proponent of genocide. But it's my considered opinion that the Stretts are

 one race the Galaxy can get along without."

  

  "A hell of a lot better without," Poynter said, and all agreed.

  

  "The point is, what can we do about it?" Kincaid asked. "The first thing, I would say, is

 to see whether we can do this-whatever it is-without Tuly's help. Shall we try it? Al-

  

 though I, for one, don't feel like doing it right away."

  

  "Not I, either." Beverly Bell held up her right hand, which was shaking uncontrollably. "I

 feel as though I'd been bucking waves, wind and tide for forty-eight straight hours

 without food, water or touch. Maybe in about a week I'll be ready for another try at it.

 But today-not a chance!"

  

  "Okay. Scat, all of you," Hilton ordered. "Take the rest of the day off and rest up. Put

 on your thought-screens and don't take them off for a second from now on. Those

 Stretts are tough hombres."

  

  Sandra was the last to leave. "And you, boss?" she asked, pointedly.

  

  "I've got some thinking to do." "I'll stay and help you think?"

  

  "Not yet." He shook his head, frowned and then grinned. "You see, chick, I don't even

 know yet what it is I'm going to have to think about."

  

  "A bit unclear, but I know what you mean-I think. Luck, chief."

  

  In their subterranean sanctum on distant Strett, two of the deepest thinkers of that

 horribly unhuman race were in coldly intent conference via thought.

  

  "My mind has been plundered, Ynos," First Lord Thinker Zoyar radiated, harshly.

 "Despite the extremely high reactivity of my shield some information-I do not know how

 much was taken. The operator was one of the humans of that ship."

  

  "I, too, felt a plucking at my mind. But those humans could not peyondire, First Lord."

  

  "Be logical, fool! At that contact, in the matter of which you erred in not following up

 continuously, they succeeded in concealing their real abilities from you."

  

  ""That could be the truth. Our ancestors erred, then, in recording that all those weak

 and timid humans had been slain. These offenders are probably their descendants,

 returning to reclaim their former world."

  

  "The probability must be evaluated and considered. Was it or was it not through human

 aid that the Omans destroyed most of our task-force?"

  

  "Highly probable, but impossible of evaluation with the data now available."

  

  "Obtain more data at once. That point must be and shall be fully evaluated and fully

 considered. This entire situation is intolerable. It must be abated."

  

  "True, First Lord. But every operator and operation is now tightly screened. Oh, if I

 could only go out there myself . . . "Hold, fool! Your thought is completely disloyal and

 unStrettly."

  

  "True, oh First Lord Thinker Zoyar. I will forthwith remove my unworthy self from this

 plane of existence."

  

  "You will not! I hereby abolish that custom. Our numbers are too few by far. Too many

 have failed to adapt. Also, as Second Thinker, your death at this time would be slightly

 detrimental to certain matters now in work. I will myself, however, slay the unfit. To that

 end repeat The Words under my peyondiring."

  

  "I am a Strett. I will devote my every iota of mental and of physical strength to

 forwarding the Great Plan. I am, and will remain, a Strett."

  

  "You do believe in The Words."

  

  "Of course I believe in them! I know that in a few more hundreds of thousands of years

 we will be rid of material bodies and will become invincible and invulnerable. Then

 comes the Conquest of the Galaxy . . . then the Conquest of the Universe!"

  

  "No more, then, on your life, of this weak and cowardly repining! Now, what of your

 constructive thinking?" "Programming must be such as to obviate time-lag. We must

 evaluate the factors already mentioned and many others, such as the reactivation of the

 spacecraft which was thought to have been destroyed so long ago. After having

 considered all these evaluations, I will construct a Minor Plan to destroy these Omans,

 whom we have permitted to exist on sufferance, and with them that shipload of

 despicably interloping humans."

  

  "That is well." Zoyar's mind seethed with a malevolent ferocity starkly impossible for

 any human mind to grasp. "And to that end?"

  

  "To that end we must intensify still more our program of procuring data. We must

 revise our mechs in the light of our every technological advance during the many

 thousands of cycles since the last such revision was made. Our every instrument of

 power, of offense and of defense, must be brought up to the theoretical ultimate of

 capability."

  

  "And as to the Great Brain?"

  

  "I have been able to think of nothing, First Lord, to add to the undertakings you have

 already set forth."

  

  "It was not expected that you would. Now: is it your final thought that these interlopers

 are in fact the descendants of those despised humans of so long ago?"

  

  "It is."

  

  "It is also mine. I return, then, to my work upon the Brain. You will take whatever

 measures are necessary. Use every artifice of intellect and of ingenuity and our every

 resource. But abate this intolerable nuisance, and soon."

  

  "It shall be done, First Lord."

  

  The Second Thinker issued orders. Frenzied, round-the-clock activity ensued.

 Hundreds of mechs operated upon the brains of hundreds of others, who in turn

 operated upon the operators.

  

  Then, all those brains charged with the technological advances of many thousands of

 years, the combined hundreds went unrestingly to work. Thousands of work-mechs

 were built and put to work at the construction of larger and more powerful spacecraft.

  

  As has been implied, those battle-skeletons of the Stretts were controlled by their own

 built-in mechanical brains, which were programmed for only the simplest of battle

 maneuvers. Anything at all out of the ordinary had to be handled by remote control, by

 the specialist-mechs at their two-miles-long control board.

  

  This was now to be changed. Programming was to be made so complete that almost

 any situation could be handled by the warship or the missile itself-instantly.

  

  The Stretts knew that they were the most powerful, the most highly advanced race in

 the universe. Their science was the highest in the universe. Hence, with every operating

 unit brought up to the full possibilities of that science, that would be more than enough.

 Period.

  

  This work, while it required much time, was very much simpler than the task which the

 First Thinker had laid out for himself on the giant computer-plus which the Stretts called

 "The Great Brain." In stating his project, First Lord Zoyar had said:

  

 "Assignment: To construct a machine that will have the following abilities: One, to

 contain and retain all knowledge and information fed into it, however great the amount.

 Two, to feed itself additional information by peyondiring all planets, wherever situate,

 bearing intelligent life. Three, to call up instantly any and all items of information

 pertaining to any problem we may give it. Four, to combine and recombine any number

 of items required to form new concepts. Five, to formulate theories, test them and draw

 conclusions helpful to us in any matter in work."

  

  It will have been noticed that these specifications vary in one important respect from

 those of the Eniacs and Univacs of Earth. Since we of Earth can not peyondire, we do

 not expect that ability from our computers. The Stretts could, and did.

  

  When Sandra came back into the office at five o'clock she found Hilton still sitting

 there, in almost exactly the same position.

  

  "Come out of it, Jarve!" She snapped a finger. "That much of that is just simply too

 damned much."

  

  "`You're so right, child." He got up, stretched and by main strength shrugged off his foul

 mood. "But we're up against something that is really a something and I don't mean per-

  

 chance."

  

  "How well I know it." She put an arm around him, gave him a quick, hard hug. "But after

 all, you don't have to solve it this evening, you know."

  

  "No, thank God."

  

  "So why don't you and Temple have supper with me? Or better yet, why don't all eight

 of us have supper together in that bachelors' paradise of yours and Bill's?"

  

  "That'd be fun." And it was.

  

  Nor did it take a week for Beverly Bell to recover from the Ordeal of Eight. On the

 following evening, she herself suggested that the team should take another shot at that

 utterly fantastic terra incognita of the multiple mind, jolting though it had been.

  

  "But are you sure you can take it again so soon?" Hilton asked.

  

  "Sure. I'm like that famous gangster's moll, you know, who bruised easy but healed

 quick. And I want to know about it as much as anyone else does."

  

  They could do it this time without any help from Tuly. The linkage fairly snapped

 together and shrank instantaneously to a point. Hilton thought of Terra and there it was;

 full size, yet occupying only one infinitesimal section of a dimensionless point. The

 multimind visited relatives of all eight, but could not make intelligible contact. If asleep, it

 caused pleasant dreams; if awake, pleasant thoughts of the loved one so far away in

 space; but that was all. It visited mediums, in trance and otherwise-many of whom, not

 surprisingly now, were genuine-with whom it held lucid conversations. Even in linkage,

 however, the multimind knew that none of the mediums would be believed, even if they

 all told, simultaneously, exactly the same story. The multimind weakened suddenly and

 Hilton snapped it back to Ardry.

  

  Beverly was almost in collapse. The other girls were white, shaken and trembling.

 Hilton himself, strong and rugged as he was, felt as though he had done two weeks of

 hard labor on a rock-pile. He glanced questioningly at Larry.

  

  "Point six three eight seconds, sir," the Oman said, holding up a millisecond timer.

  

  "How do you explain that?" Karns demanded.

  

  "I'm afraid it means that without Oman backing we're out of luck."

  

  Hilton had other ideas, but he did not voice any of them until the following day, when

 he was rested and had Larry alone. "So carbon-based brains can't take it. One second

 of that stuff would have killed all eight of us. Why? The Masters had the same kind of

 brains we have."

  

  "I don't know, sir. It's something completely new. No Master, or group of Masters, ever

 generated such a force as that. I can scarcely believe such power possible. even

 though I have felt it twice. It may be that over the generations your individual powers,

 never united or controlled, have developed so much strength that no human brain can

 handle them in fusion."

  

  "And none of us ever knew anything about any of them. I've been doing a lot of

 thinking. The Masters had qualities and abilities now unknown to any of us. How come?

 You Omans-and the Stretts, too-think we're descendants of the Masters. Maybe we are.

 You think they came originally from Arth-Earth or Terra-to Ardu. That'd account for our

 legends of Mu, Atlantis and so on. Since Ardu was within peyondix range of Strett, the

 Stretts attacked it. They killed all the Masters, they thought, and made the planet

 uninhabitable for any kind of life, even their own. But one shipload of Masters escaped

 and came here to Ardry-far beyond peyondix range. They stayed here for a long time.

 Then, for some reason or other-which may be someplace in their records-they left here,

 fully intending to come back. Do any of you Omans know why they left? Or where they

 went?"

  

  "No, sir. We can read only the simplest of the Masters' records. They arranged our

 brains that way, sir."

  

  "I know. They're the type. However, I suspect now that your thinking is reversed. Let's

 turn it around. Say the Masters didn't come from Terra, but from some other planet. Say

 that they left here because they were dying out. They were, weren't they?"

  

  "Yes, sir. Their numbers became fewer and fewer each century."

  

  "I was sure of it. They were committing race suicide by letting you Omans do

 everything they themselves should have been doing. Finally they saw the truth. In a

 desperate effort to save their race they pulled out, leaving you here. Probably they

 intended to come back when they had bred enough guts back into themselves to set

 you Omans down where you belong . . ."

  

  "But they were always the Masters, sir!"

  

  ""They were not! They were hopelessly enslaved. Think it over. Anyway, say they went

 to Terra from here. That still accounts for the legends and so on. However, they were

 too far gone to make a recovery, and yet they had enough fixity of purpose not to

 manufacture any of you Omans there. So their descendants went a long way down the

 scale before they began to work back up. Does that make sense to you?"

  

  "It explains many things, sir. It can very well be the truth." "Okay. However it was, we're

 here, and facing a condition that isn't funny. While we were teamed up I learned a lot,

 but not nearly enough. Am I right in thinking that I now don't need the other seven at

 all-that my cells are fully charged and I can go it alone?"

  

  "Probably, sir, but . . ."

  

  "I'm coming to that. Every time I do it-up to maximum performance, of course it comes

 easier and faster and hits harder. So next time, or maybe the fourth or fifth time, it'll kill

 me. And the other seven, too, if they're along."

  

  "I'm not sure, sir, but I think so."

  

  "Nice. Very, very nice." Hilton got up, shoved both hands into his pockets, and prowled

 about the room. "But can't the damned stuff be controlled? Choked-throttled down-

 damped-muzzled, some way or other?"

  

  "We do not know of any way, sir. The Masters were always working toward more

 power, not less."

  

  "That makes sense. The more power the better, as long as you can handle it. But I

 can't handle this. And neither can the team. So how about organizing another team,

 one that hasn't got quite so much whammo? Enough punch to do the job, but not

 enough to backfire that way?"

  

  "It is highly improbable that such a team is possible, sir." If an Oman could be acutely

 embarrassed, Larry was. "That is, sir . . . I should tell you, sir . . ."

  

  "You certainly should. You've been stalling all along, and now you're stalled. Spill it."

  

  "Yes, sir. The Tuly begged me not to mention it, but I must. When it organized your

 team it had no idea of what it was really going to do . . ."

  

  "Let's talk the same language, shall we? Say 'he' and "she.' Not 'it.' "

  

 "She thought she was setting up the peyondix, the same as all of us Omans have. But

 after she formed in your mind the peyondix matrix, your mind went on of itself to form a

 something else; a thing we can not understand. That was why she was so extremely . .

 . I think 'frightened' might be your term."

  

  "I knew something was biting her. Why?"

  

  "Because it very nearly killed you. You perhaps have not considered the effect upon us

 all if any Oman, however unintentionally, should kill a Master?"

  

  "No, I hadn't . . . I see. So she won't play with fire any more, and none of the rest of you

 can?"

  

  "Yes, sir. Nothing could force her to. If she could be so coerced we would destroy her

 brain before she could act. That brain, as you know, is imperfect, or she could not have

 done what she did. It should have been destroyed long since."

  

  "Don't ever act on that assumption, Larry." Hilton thought for minutes. "Simple

 peyondix, such as yours, is not enough to read the Masters' records. If I'd had three

 brain cells working I'd've tried them then. I wonder if I could read them?"

  

  "You have all the old Masters' power and more. But you must not assemble them

 again, sir. It would mean death." "But I've got to know . . . I've got to know! Anyway, a

 thousandth of a second would be enough. I don't think that d hurt me very much."

  

  He concentrated-read a few feet of top-secret braided wire and came back to

 consciousness in the sick-bay of the Perseus, with two doctors working on him;

 Hastings, the top Navy medico, and Flandres, the surgeon.

  

  "What the hell happened to you?" Flandres demanded. "Were you trying to kill

 yourself?"

  

  "And if so, how?" Hastings wanted to know.

  

  "No, I was trying not to," Hilton said, weakly, "and I guess I didn't much more than

 succeed."

  

  "That was just about the closest shave I ever saw a man come through. Whatever it

 was, don't do it again."

  

  "I won't," he promised, feelingly.

  

  When they let him out of the hospital, four days later, he called in Larry and Tuly.

  

  "The next time would be the last time. So there won't be any," he told them. "But just

 how sure are you that some other of our boys or girls may not have just enough of

 whatever it takes to do the job? Enough oomph, but not too much?"

  

  "Since we, too, are on strange ground the probability is vanishingly small. We have

 been making inquiries, however, and scanning. You were selected from all the minds of

 Terra as the one having the widest vision, the greatest scope, the most comprehensive

 grasp. The ablest at synthesis and correlation and so on."

  

  "That's printing it in big letters, but that was more or less what they were after."

  

  "Hence the probability approaches unity that any more such ignorant meddling as this

 obnoxious Tuly did will result almost certainly in failure and death. Therefore we can not

 and will not meddle again."

  

  "You've got a point there . . . So what I am is some kind of a freak. Maybe a kind of

 super-Master and maybe something altogether different. Maybe duplicable in a less

 lethal fashion, and maybe not. Veree helpful-I don't think. But I don't want to kill

 anybody, either . . . especially if it wouldn't do any good. But we've got to do

 something!" Hilton scowled in thought for minutes. "But an Oman brain could take it. As

 you told us, Tuly, `The brain of the Larry is very, very tough.' "

  

 "In a way, sir. Except that the Masters were very careful to make it physically impossible

 for any Oman to go very far along that line. It was only their oversight of my one

 imperfect brain that enabled me, alone of us all, to do that wrong."

  

  "Stop thinking it was wrong, Tuly. I'm mighty glad you did. But I wasn't thinking of any

 regular Oman brain . . :' Hilton's voice petered out.

  

  "I see, sir. Yes, we can, by using your brain as Guide, reproduce it in an Oman body.

 You would then have the powers and most of the qualities of both . . ."

  

  "No, you don't see, because I've got my screen on. Which I will now take off"-he suited

 action to word-"since the whole planet's screened and I have nothing to hide from you.

 Teddy Blake and I both thought of that, but we'll consider it only as the ultimately last

 resort. We don't want to live a million years. And we want our race to keep on

 developing. But you folks can replace carbon-based molecules with silicon based ones

 just as easily as, and a hell of a lot faster than, mineral water petrifies wood. What can

 you do along the line of rebuilding me that way? And if you can do any such conversion,

 what would happen? Would I live at all? And if so, how long? How would I live? What

 would I live on? All that kind of stuff."

  

  "Shortly before they left, two of the Masters did some work on that very thing. Tuly and

 I converted them, sir." "Fine--or is it? How did it work out?"

  

  "Perfectly, sir . . . except that they destroyed themselves. It was thought that they

 wearied of existence."

  

  "I don't wonder. Well, if it comes to that, I can do the same. You can convert me, then."

  

  "Yes, sir. But before we do it we must do enough preliminary work to be sure that you

 will not be harmed in any way. Also, there will be many more changes involved than

 simple substitution."

  

  "Of course. I realize that. Just see what you can do, please, and let me know."

  

  "We will, sir, and thank you very much."
 Chapter 9

 

 As has been intimated, no Terran can know what researches Larry and Tuly and the

 other Oman specialists performed, or how they arrived at the conclusions they reached.

 However, in less than a week Larry reported to Hilton.

  

  "It can be done, sir, with complete safety. And you will live even more comfortably than

 you do now."

  

  "How long?"

  

  "The mean will be about five thousand Oman years-you don't know that an Oman year

 is equal to one point two nine three plus Terran years?"

  

  "I didn't, no. Thanks."

  

  "The maximum, a little less than six thousand. The minimum, a little over four

 thousand. I'm very sorry we had no data upon which to base a closer estimate."

  

  "Close enough." He stared at the Oman. "You could also convert my wife?"

  

  "Of course, sir."

  

  "Well, we might be able to stand it, after we got used to the idea. Minimum, over five

 thousand Terran years . . . barring accidents, of course?"

  

  "No, sir. No accidents. Nothing will be able to kill you, except by total destruction of the

 brain. And even then, sir, there will be the pattern."

  

  "I'll . . . be . . . damned . . :' Hilton gulped twice. "Okay, go ahead."

  

  "Your skins will be like ours, energy-absorbers. Your `blood' will carry charges of

 energy instead of oxygen. Thus, you may breathe or not, as you please. Unless you

 wish otherwise, we will continue the breathing function. It would scarcely be worthwhile

 to alter the automatic mechanisms that now control it. And you will wish at times to

 speak. You will still enjoy eating and drinking, although everything ingested will be

 eliminated, as at present, as waste."

  

  "We'd add uranexite to our food, I suppose. Or drink radioactives, or sleep under

 cobalt-60 lamps."

  

  "Yes, sir. Your family life will be normal; your sexual urges and satisfactions the same.

 Fertilization and period of gestation unchanged. Your children will mature at the same

 ages as they do now".

  

 "How do you-oh, I see. You wouldn't change any molecular linkages or configurations in

 the genes or chromosomes." "We could not, sir, even if we wished. Such substitutions

 can be made only in exact one-for-one replacements. In the near future you will, of

 course, have to control births quite rigorously."

  

  "We sure would. Let's see . . . say we want a stationary population of a hundred million

 on our planet. Each couple to have two children, a boy and a girl. Born when the

 parents are about fifty . . . um-m-m. The gals can have all the children they want, then,

 until our population is about a million; then slap on the limit of two kids per couple.

 Right?"

  

  "Approximately so, sir. And after conversion you alone will be able to operate with the

 full power of your eight, without tiring. You will also, of course, be able to absorb almost

 instantaneously all the knowledges and abilities of the old Masters."

  

  Hilton gulped twice before he could speak. "You wouldn't be holding anything else

 back, would you?"

  

  "Nothing important, sir. Everything else is minor, and probably known to you."

  

  "I doubt it. How long will the job take, and how much notice will you need?"

  

  "Two days, sir. No notice. Everything is ready."

  

  Hilton, face somber, thought for minutes. "The more I think of it the less I like it. But it

 seems to be a forced put . . . and Temple will blow sky high . . . and have I got the guts

 to go it alone, even if she'd let me . . ." He shrugged himself out of the black mood. "I'll

 look her up and let you know, Larry."

  

  He looked her up and told her everything. Told her bluntly; starkly; drawing the full

 picture in jet black, with very little white.

  

  "There it is, sweetheart. The works," he concluded. "We are not going to have ten

 years; we may not have ten months. So-if such a brain as that can be had, do we or do

 we not have to have it? I'm putting it squarely up to you."

  

  Temple's face, which had been getting paler and paler, was now as nearly colorless as

 it could become; the sickly yellow of her skin's light tan unbacked by any flush of red

 blood.

  

  Her whole body was tense and strained.

  

  "There's a horrible snapper on that question . . . Can't I do it? Or anybody else except

 you?"

  

  "No. Anyway, whose job is it, sweetheart?"

  

  "I know, but . . . but I know just how close Tuly came to killing you. And that wasn't

 anything compared to such a radical transformation as this. I'm afraid it'll kill you,

 darling. And I just simply couldn't stand it!"

  

  She threw herself into his arms, and he comforted her in the ages-old fashion of man

 with maid.

  

  "Steady, hon," he said, as soon as he could lift her tear streaked face from his

 shoulder. "I'll live through it. I thought you were getting the howling howpers about

 having to live for six thousand years and never getting back to Terra except for a Q

 strictly T visit now and then."

  

  She pulled away from him, flung back her wheaten mop and glared. "So that's what

 you thought! What do I care how long I five, or how, or where, as long as it's with you?

 But what makes you think we can possibly live through such a horrible conversion as

 that?"

  

  "Larry wouldn't do it if there was any question whatever. He didn't say it would be

 painless. But he did say I'd live." "Well, he knows, I guess . . . I hope." Temple's natural

 fine color began to come back. "But it's understood that just the second you come out

 of the vat, I go right in."

  

  "I hadn't ought to let you, of course. But I don't think I could take it alone."

  

  That statement required a special type of conference, which consumed some little

 time. Eventually, however, Temple answered it in words.

  

  "Of course you couldn't, sweetheart, and I wouldn't let you, even if you could."

  

  There were a few things that had to be done before those two secret conversions could

 be made. There was the matter of the wedding, which was now to be in quadruplicate.

 Arrangements had to be made so that eight Big Wheels of the Project could all be away

 on honeymoon at once.

  

  All these things were done.

  

  Of the conversion operations themselves, nothing more need be said. The

 honeymooners, having left ship and town on a Friday afternoon, came back one week

 from the following Monday morning. The eight met joyously in Bachelors' Hall; the girls

 kissing each other and the men indiscriminately and enthusiastically; the men

 cooperating zestfully.

  

  Temple scarcely blushed at all, she was so engrossed in trying to find out whether or

 not anyone was noticing any change. No one seemed to notice anything out of the

 ordinary. So, finally, she asked.

  

  "Don't any of you, really, see anything different?"

  

  The six others all howled at that, and Sandra, between giggles and snorts, said: "No,

 precious, it doesn't show a bit. Did you really think it would?"

  

  Temple blushed furiously and Hilton came instantly to his bride's rescue. "Chip-chop

 the comedy, gang. She and I aren't human any more. We're a good jump toward being

 Omans. I couldn't make her believe it doesn't show."

  

  That stopped the levity, cold, but none of the six could really believe it. However, after

 Hilton had coiled a twentypenny spike into a perfect helix between his fingers, and

 especially after he and Temple had each chewed up and swallowed a piece of

 uranexite, there were no grounds left for doubt.

  

  "That settles it . . . it tears it," Karns said then. "Start all over again, Jarve. We'll listen,

 this time."

  

  Hilton told the long story again, and added: "I had to rework a couple of cells of

 Temple's brain, but now she can read and understand the records as well as I can. So I

 thought rd take her place on Team One and let her boss the job on all the other teams.

 Okay?"

  

  "So you don't want to let the rest of us in on it." Karns's level stare was a far cry from

 the way he had looked at his chief a moment before. "If there's any one thing in the

 universe I never had you figured for, it's a dog in the manger."

  

  "Huh? You mean you actually want to be a . . . a . . . hell, we don't even know what we

 are!"

  

  "I do want it, Jarvis. We all do." This was, of all people, Teddy! "No one in all history

 has had more than about fifty years of really productive thinking. And just the idea of

 having enough time . . ."

  

  "Hold it, Teddy. Use your brain. The Masters couldn't take it-they committed suicide.

 How do you figure we can do any better?"

  

  "Because we'll use our brains!" she snapped. "They didn't. The Omans will serve us;

 and that's all they'll do."

  

  "And do you think you'll be able to raise your children and grandchildren and so on to

 do the same? To have guts enough to resist the pull of such an ungodly habit-forming

 drug as this Oman service is?"

  

  "I'm sure of it." She nodded positively. "And we'll run all applicants through a fine

 enough screen to-that is, if we ever consider anybody except our own BuSci people.

 And there's another reason." She grinned, got up, wriggled out of her coverall, and

 posed in bra and panties. "Look. I can keep most of this for five years. Quite a lot of it

 for ten. Then comes the struggle. What do you think I'd do for the ability, whenever it

 begins to get wrinkly or flabby, to peel the whole thing off and put on a

 brand-spanking-new smooth one? You name it, I'll do it! Besides, Bill and I will both just

 simply and cold-bloodedly murder you if you try to keep us out."

  

  "Okay." Hilton looked at Temple; she looked at him; both looked at all the others. There

 was no revulsion at all. Nothing but eagerness.

  

  Temple took over.

  

  "I'm surprised. We're both surprised. You see, Jarve didn't want to do it at all, but he

 had to. I not only didn't want to, I was scared green and yellow at just the idea of it. But I

 had to, too, of course. We didn't think anybody would really want to. We thought we'd

 be left here alone. We still will be, I think, when you've thought it clear through, Teddy.

 You just haven't realized yet that we aren't even human any more. We're simply nothing

 but monsters!" Temple's voice became a wail.

  

  "I've said my piece," Teddy said. "You tell 'em, Bill."

  

  "Let me say something first," Kincaid said. "Temple, I'm ashamed of you. This line isn't

 at all your usual straight thinking. What you actually are is homo superior. Bill?"

  

  "I can add one bit to that. I don't wonder that you were scared silly, Temple. Utterly new

 concept and you went into it stone cold. But now we see the finished product and we

 like it. In fact, we drool."

  

  "I'll say we're drooling," Sandra said. "I could do handstands and pinwheels with joy."

  

  "Let's see you," Hilton said. "That we'd all get a kick out of.

  

  "Not now-don't want to hold this up-but sometime I just will. Bev?"

  

  "I'm for it=and howl And won't Bernadine be amazed," Beverly laughed gleefully, "at

 her wise-crack about the `race to end all human races' coming true?"

  

  "I'm in favor of it, too, one hundred per cent," Poynter said. "Has it occurred to you,

 Jarve, that this opens up intergalactic exploration? No supplies to carry and plenty of

 time and fuel?"

  

  "No, it hadn't. You've got a point there, Frank. That might take a little of the curse off of

 it, at that."

  

  "When some of our kids get to be twenty years old or so and get married, I'm going to

 take a crew of them to Andromeda. We'll arrange, then, to extend our honeymoons

 another week," Hilton said. "What will our policy be? Keep it dark for a while with just us

 eight, or spread it to the rest?"

  

  "Spread it, I'd say," Kincaid said.

  

  "We can't keep it secret, anyway," Teddy argued. "Since Larry and Tuly were in on the

 whole deal, every Oman on the planet knows all about it. Somebody is going to ask

 questions, and Omans always answer questions and always tell the truth."

  

  "Questions have already been asked and answered," Larry said, going to the door and

 opening it.

  

  Stella rushed in. "We've been hearing the damnedest things!" She kissed everybody,

 ending with Hilton, whom she seized by both shoulders. "Is it actually true, boss, that

 you can fix me up so I'll live practically forever and can eat more than eleven calories a

 day without getting fat as a pig? Candy, ice cream, cake, pie, eclairs, cream puffs,

 French pastries, sugar and gobs of thick cream in my coffee . . . ?"

  

  Half a dozen others, including the van der Moen twins, came in. Beverly emitted a

 shriek of joy. "Bernadine! The mother of the race to end all human races!"

  

  "You whistled it, birdie!" Bernadine caroled. "I'm going to have ten or twelve, each one

 weirder than all the others. I told you I was a prophet-I'm going to hang out my shingle.

  

  Wholesale and retail prophecy; special rates for large parties." Her voice was drowned

 out in a general clamor.

  

  "Hold it, everybody!" Hilton yelled. "Chip-chop it! Quit it!" Then as the noise subsided,

 "If you think I'm going to tell this tall tale over and over again for the next two weeks

 you're all crazy. So shut down the plant and get everybody out here."

  

  "Not everybody, Jarve!" Temple snapped. "We don't want scum, and there's some of

 that, even in BuSci."

  

  "You're so right. Who, then?"

  

  "The rest of the heads and assistants, of course . . . and all the lab girls and their

 husbands and boy-friends. I know they are all okay. That will be enough for now, don't

 you think?"

  

  "I do think"; and the indicated others were sent for and in a few minutes arrived.

  

  The Omans brought chairs and Hilton stood on a table. He spoke for ten minutes.

 Then: "Before you decide whether you want to or not, think it over very carefully,

 because it's a one-way street. Fluorine can not be displaced. Once in, you're stuck for

 life. There is no way back. I've told you all the drawbacks and disadvantages I know of,

 but there may be a lot more that I haven't thought of yet. So think it over for a few days

 and when each of you has definitely made up his or her mind, let me know." He jumped

 down off the table.

  

  His listeners, however, did not need days, or even seconds, to decide. Before Hilton's

 feet hit the floor there was a yell of unanimous approval.

  

  He looked at his wife. "Do you suppose we're nuts?" "Uh-uh. Not a bit. Alex was right.

 I'm going to just love it!" She hugged his elbow ecstatically. "So are you, darling, as

 soon as you stop looking at only the black side."

  

  "You know . . . you could be right?" For the first time since the "ghastly" transformation

 Hilton saw that there really was a bright side and began to study it. "With most of

 BuSci-and part of the Navy, and selectees from Terra-it will be slightly terrific, at that!"

  

  "And that 'habit-forming-drug' objection isn't insuperable, darling," Temple said. "If the

 younger generations start weakening we'll fix the Omans. I wouldn't want to wipe them

 out entirely, but . . ."

  

  "But how do we settle priority, Doctor Hilton?" a girl called out; a tall, striking, brunette

 laboratory technician whose name Hilton needed a second to recall. "By pulling straws

 or hair? Or by shooting dice or each other or what?"

  

  "Thanks, Betty, you've got a point. Sandy Cummings and department heads first, then

 assistants. Then you girls, in alphabetical order, each with her own husband or fiancé."

  

  "And my name is Ames. Oh, goody!" "Larry, please tell them to . . ."

  

 "I already have, sir. We are set up to handle four at once." "Good boy. So scat, all of

 you, and get back to workexcept Sandy, Bill, Alex and Teddy. You four go with Larry"

 Since the new sense was not peyondix, Hilton had started calling it "perception" and the

 others adopted the term as a matter of course. Hilton could use that sense for what

 seemed like years-and actually was whole minutes-at a time without fatigue or strain.

 He could not, however, nor could the Omans, give his tremendous power to anyone

 else.

  

  As he had said, he could do a certain amount of reworking; but the amount of

 improvement possible to make depended entirely upon what there was to work on.

 Thus, Temple could cover about six hundred light-years. It developed later that the

 others of the Big Eight could cover from one hundred up to four hundred or so. The

 other department heads and assistants turned out to be still weaker, and not one of the

 rank and file ever became able to cover more than a single planet.

  

  This sense was not exactly telepathy; at least not what Hilton had always thought

 telepathy would be. If anything, however, it was more. It was a lumping together of all

 five known human senses-and half a dozen unknown ones called, collectively,

 "intuition"-into one super-sense that was all-inclusive and all-informative. If he ever

 could learn exactly what it was and exactly what it did and how it did it . . . but he'd

 better chip-chop the wool-gathering and get back onto the job.

  

  The Stretts had licked the old Masters very easily, and intended to wipe out the Omans

 and the humans. They had no doubt at all as to their ability to do it. Maybe they could. If

 the Masters hadn't made some progress that the Omans didn't know about, they

 probably could. That was the first thing to find out. As soon as they'd been converted

 he'd call in all the experts and they'd go through the Masters' records like a dose of

 salts through a hillbilly schoolma'am.

  

  At that point in Hilton's cogitations Sawtelle came in.. He had come down in his gig, to

 confer with Hilton as to the newly beefed-up fleet. Instead of being glum and pessimistic

 and foreboding, he was chipper and enthusiastic. They had rebuilt a thousand Oman

 ships. By combining Oman and Terran science, and adding everything the First Team

 had been able to reduce to practice, they had hyped up the power by a good fifteen per

 cent. Seven hundred of those ships, and all his men, were now arrayed in defense

 around Ardry. Three hundred, manned by Omans, were around Fuel Bin.

  

  "Why?" Hilton asked. "It's Fuel Bin they've been attacking."

  

  "Uh-uh. Minor objective," the captain demurred, positively. "The real attack will be here

 at you; the headquarters and the brains. Then Fuel Bin will be duck soup. But the thing

 that pleased me most is the control. Man, you never imagined such control! No admiral

 in history ever had such control of ten ships as I have of seven hundred. Those Omans

 spread orders so fast that I don't even finish thinking one and it's being executed. And

 no misunderstandings, no slips. For instance, this last batch-fifteen skeletons. Far out;

 they're getting cagy. I just thought 'Box 'em in and slug 'em' and-In! Across! Out! Sock!

 Pffft! Just like that and just that fast. None of 'em had time to light a beam. Nobody

 before ever even dreamed of such control!"

  

  "That's great, and I like it . . . and you're only a captain. How many ships can Five-Jet

 Admiral Gordon put into space?"

  

  "That depends on what you call ships. Superdreadnoughts, Perseus class, six.

 First-line battleships, twenty-nine. Second line, smaller and some pretty old,

 seventy-three. Counting everything armed that will hold air, something over two

 hundred."

  

  "I thought it was something like that. How would you like to be Five-Jet Admiral

 Sawtelle of the Ardrian Naw?"

  

  "I wouldn't. I'm Terran Navy. But you knew that and you know me. So-what's on your

 mind?"

  

  Hilton told him. I ought to put this on a tape, he thought to himself, and broadcast it

 every hour on the hour.

  

  "They took the old Masters like dynamiting fish in a barrel," he concluded, "and I'm

 damned afraid they're going to lick us unless we take a lot of big, fast steps. But the hell

 of it is that I can't tell you anything-not one single thing-about any part of it. There's

 simply no way at all of getting through to you without making you over into the same

 kind of a thing I am."

  

  "Is that bad?" Sawtelle was used to making important decisions fast. "Let's get at it."

  

  "Huh? Skipper, do you realize just what that means? If you think they'll let you resign,

 forget it. They'll crucify youbrand you as a traitor and God only knows what else."

  

  "Right. How about you and your people?" "Well, as civilians, it won't be as bad . . ."

  

  "The hell it won't. Every man and woman that stays here will be posted forever as the

 blackest traitors old Terra ever disgraced herself by spawning."

  

  "You've got a point there, at that. We'll all have to bring our relatives-the ones we think

 much of, at least-out here with us."

  

  "Definitely. Now see what you can do about getting me run through your mill."

  

  By exerting his authority, Hilton got Sawtelle put through the "Preservatory" in the

 second batch processed. Then, linking minds with the captain, he flashed their joint

 attention to the Hall of Records. Into the right room; into the right chest; along miles and

 miles of braided wire carrying some of the profoundest military secrets of the ancient

 Masters.

  

  Then:

  

 "Now you know a little of it," Hilton said. "Maybe a thousandth of what we'll have to have

 before we can take the Stretts as they will have to be taken."

  

  For seconds Sawtelle could not speak. Then: "My . . . God. I see what you mean.

 You're right. No Omans can ever go to Terra; and no Terrans can ever come here

 except to stay forever."

  

  The two then went out into space, to the flagship-which had been christened the

 Orion-and called in the six commanders.

  

  "What is all this senseless idiocy we've been getting, Jarve?" Elliott demanded.

  

  Hilton eyed all six with pretended disfavor. "You six guys are the hardest-headed

 bunch of skeptics that ever went unhung," he remarked, dispassionately. "So it wouldn't

 do any good to tell you anything-yet. The skipper and I will show you a thing first. Take

 her away, Skip."

  

  The Orion shot away under interplanetary drive and for several hours Hilton and

 Sawtelle worked at re-wiring and practically rebuilding two devices that no one, Oman

 or human, had touched since the Perseus had landed on Ardry.

  

  "What are you . . . I don't understand what you are doing, sir," Larry said. For the first

 time since Hilton had known him, the Oman's mind was confused and unsure.

  

  "I know you don't. This is a bit of top-secret Masters' stuff. Maybe, some day, we'll be

 able to re-work your brain to take it. But it won't be for some time."
 Chapter 10

 

 The Orion hung in space, a couple of thousands of miles away from an asteroid which

 was perhaps a mile in average diameter. Hilton straightened up.

  

  "Put Triple X Black filters on your plates and watch that asteroid." The commanders did

 so. "Ready?" he asked.

  

  "Ready, sir."

  

  Hilton didn't move a muscle. Nothing actually moved. Nevertheless there was a

 motionless writhing and crawling distortion of the ship and everything in it, accompanied

 by a sensation that simply can not be described.

  

  It was not like going into or emerging from the sub-ether. It was not even remotely like

 space-sickness or sea-sickness or free fall or anything else that any Terran had ever

 before experienced.

  

  And the asteroid vanished.

  

  It disappeared into an outrageously incandescent, furiously pyrotechnic, raveningly

 expanding atomic fireball that in seconds seemed to fill half of space.

  

  After ages-long minutes of the most horrifyingly devastating fury any man there had

 ever seen, the frightful thing expired and Hilton said: "That was just a kind of a

 firecracker. Just a feeble imitation of the first-stage detonator for what we'll have to

 have to crack the Stretts' ground-based screens. If the skipper and I had taken time to

 take the ship down to the shops and really work it over we could have put on a show.

 Was this enough so you iron-heads are ready to listen with your ears open and your

 mouths shut?"

  

  They were so. So much so that not even Elliott opened his mouth to say yes. They

 merely nodded. Then again-for the last time, he hoped!-Hilton spoke his piece. The

 response was prompt and vigorous. Only Sam Bryant, one of Hilton's staunchest allies,

 showed any uncertainty at all.

  

  "I've been married only a year and a half, and the baby was due about a month ago.

 How sure are you that you can make old Gordon sit still for us skimming the cream off

 Terra to bring out here?"

  

  "Doris Bryant, the cream of Terra!" Elliott gibed. "How modest our Samuel has

 become!"

  

  "Well, damn it, she is!" Bryant insisted.

  

  "Okay, she is," Hilton agreed. "But either we get our people or Terra doesn't get its

 uranexite. That'll work. In the remote contingency that it doesn't, there are still tighter

 screws we can put on. But you missed the main snapper, Sam. Suppose Doris doesn't

 want to live for five thousand years and is allergic to becoming a monster?"

  

  "Huh; you don't need to worry about that." Sam brushed that argument aside with a

 wave of his hand. "Show me a girl who doesn't want to stay young and beautiful forever

 and I'll square you the circle. Come on. What's holding us up?"

  

  The Orion hurtled through space back toward Ardry and Hilton, struck by a sudden

 thought, turned to the captain. "Skipper, why wouldn't it be a smart idea to clamp a

 blockade onto Fuel Bin? Cut the Stretts' fuel supply?"

  

  "I thought better of you than that, son." Sawtelle shook his head sadly. "That was the

 first thing I did."

  

  "Ouch. Maybe you're 'way ahead of me too, then, on the one that we should move to

 Fuel Bin, lock, stock and barrel?" "Never thought of it, no. Maybe you're worth saving,

 after all. After conversion, of course . . . Yes, there'd be three big advantages."

  

  "Four."

  

  Sawtelle raised his eyebrows.

  

  "One, only one planet to defend. Two, it's self-defending against sneak landings.

 Nothing remotely human can land on it except in heavy lead armor, and even in that

 can stay healthy for only a few minutes."

  

  "Except in the city. Omlu. That's the weak point and would be the point of attack."

  

  "Uh-uh. Cut off the decontaminators and in five hours it'll be as hot as the rest of the

 planet. Three, there'd be no interstellar supply line for the Stretts to cut. Four, the

 environment matches our new physiques a lot better than any normal planet could."

  

  "That's the one I didn't think about."

  

  "I think I'll take a quick peek at the Stretts-oh-oh; they've screened their whole planet.

 Well, we can do that, too, of course."

  

  "How are we going to select and reject personnel? It looks as though everybody wants

 to stay. Even the men whose main object in life is to go aground and get drunk. The

 Omans do altogether too good a job on them and there's no such thing as a hangover.

 I'm glad I'm not in your boots."

  

  "You may be in it up to the eyeballs, Skipper, so don't chortle too soon."

  

  Hilton had already devoted much time to the problems of selection; and he thought of

 little else all the way back to Ardry. And for several days afterward he held conferences

 with small groups and conducted certain investigations.

  

  Bud Carroll of Sociology and his assistant Sylvia Banister had been married for weeks.

 Hilton called them, together with Sawtelle and Bryant of Navy, into conference with the

 Big Eight.

  

  "The more I study this thing the less I like it," Hilton said. "With a civilization having no

 government, no police, no laws, no medium of exchange . . ."

  

 "No money?" Bryant exclaimed. "How's old Gordon going to pay for his uranexite,

 then?"

  

  "He gets it free," Hilton replied, flatly. "When anyone can have anything he wants,

 merely by wanting it, what good is money? Now, remembering how long we're going to

 have to live, what we'll be up against, that the Masters failed, and so on, it is clear that

 the prime basic we have to select for is stability. We twelve have, by psychodynamic

 measurement, the highest stability ratings available."

  

  "Are you sure I belong here?" Bryant asked.

  

  "Yes. Here are three lists." Hilton passed papers around. "The list labeled 'OK' names

 those I'm sure of-the ones we're converting now and their wives and whatever on Terra.

 List 'NG' names the ones I know we don't want. List 'X'over thirty percent-are

 in-betweeners. We have to make a decision on the 'X' list. So-what I want to know is,

 who's going to play God. I'm not. Sandy, are you?"

  

  "Good Heavens, no!" Sandra shuddered. "But I'm afraid I know who will have to. I'm

 sorry, Alex, but it'll have to be you four-Psychology and Sociology."

  

  Six heads nodded and there was a flashing interchange of thought among the four.

 Temple licked her lips and nodded, and Kincaid spoke.

  

  "Yes, I'm afraid it's our baby. By leaning very heavily on Temple, we can do it.

 Remember, Jarve, what you said about the irresistible force? We'll need it."

  

  "As I said once before, Mrs. Hilton, I'm very glad you're along," Hilton said. "But just

 how sure are you that even you can stand up under the load?"

  

  "Alone, I couldn't. But don't underestimate Mrs. Carroll and the Messrs. Together, and

 with such a goal, I'm sure we can."

  

 Thus, after four-fifths of his own group and forty-one Navy men had been converted,

 Hilton called an evening meeting of all the converts. Larry, Tuly and Javvy were the only

 Omans present.

  

  "You all knew, of course, that we were going to move to Fuel Bin sometime," Hilton

 began. "I can tell you now that we who are here are all there are going to be of us. We

 are all leaving for Fuel Bin immediately after this meeting. Everything of any

 importance; including all of your personal effects, has already been moved. All Omans

 except these three, and all Oman ships except the Orion, have already gone."

  

  He paused to let the news sink in.

  

  Thoughts flew everywhere. The irrepressible Stella Wingnow Mrs. Obert F.

 Harkins-was the first to give tongue. "What a wonderful job! Why, everybody's here that

 I really like at all!"

  

  That sentiment was, of course, unanimous. It could not have been otherwise. Betty, the

 ex-Ames, called out:

  

 "How did you get their female Omans away from Cecil Calthorpe and the rest of that

 chasing, booze-fighting bunch without them blowing the whole show?"

  

  "Some suasion was necessary," Hilton admitted, with a grin. "Everyone who isn't here

 is time-locked into the Perseus. Release time eight hours tomorrow."

  

  "And they'll wake up tomorrow morning with no Omans?" Bernadine tossed back her

 slivery mane and laughed. "Nor anything else except the Perseus? In a way, I'm sorry,

 but . . . maybe I've got too much stinker blood in me, but I'm very glad none of them are

 here. But I'd like to ask, Jarvis-or rather, I suppose you have already set up a new

 Advisory Board?"

  

  "We have, yes." Hilton read off twelve names.

  

  "Oh, nice. I don't know of any people I'd rather have on it. But what I want to gripe

 about is calling our new home world such a horrible name as "Fuel Bin,' as though it

 were a woodbox or a coal-scuttle or something. And just think of the complexes it would

 set up in those super-children we're going to have so many of."

  

  "What would you suggest?" Hilton asked.

  

  "'Ardvor,' of course," Hermione said, before her sister could answer. "We've had 'Arth'

 and 'Ardu' and 'Ardry' and you-or somebody-started calling us 'Ardans' to distinguish us

 converts from the Terrans. So let's keep up the same line."

  

  There was general laughter at that, but the name was approved.

  

  About midnight the meeting ended and the Orion set out for Ardvor. It reached it and

 slanted sharply downward. The whole BuSci staff was in the lounge, watching the big

 tri-di.

  

  "Hey! That isn't Omlu!" Stella exclaimed. "It isn't a city at all and it isn't even in the

 same place!"

  

  "No, ma'am," Larry said. "Most of you wanted the ocean, but many wanted a river or

 the mountains. Therefore we razed Omlu and built your new city, Ardane, at a place

 where the ocean, two rivers, and a range of mountains meet. Strictly speaking, it is not

 a city, but a place of pleasant and rewarding living."

  

  The space-ship was coming in, low and fast, from the south. To the left, the west, there

 stretched the limitless expanse of ocean. To the right, mile after mile, were rough,

 rugged, jagged, partially timbered mountains, mass piled upon mass. Immediately

 below the speeding vessel was a wide, white-sand beach all of ten miles long.

  

  Slowing rapidly now, the Orion flew along due north.

  

  "Look! Look! A natatorium!" Beverly shrieked. "I know I wanted a nice big. place to

 swim in, besides my backyard pool and the ocean, but I didn't tell anybody to build

 that-I swear I didn't!"

  

  "You didn't have to, pet." Poynter put his arm around her curvaceous waist and

 squeezed. "They knew. And I did a little thinking along that line myself. There's our

 house, on top of the cliff over the natatorium-you can almost dive into it off the patio."

  

  "Oh, wonderful!"

  

  Immediately north of the natatorium a tremendous river named at first sight the

 "Whitewater"-rushed through its gorge into the ocean; a river and gorge strangely

 reminiscent of the Colorado and its Grand Canyon. On the south bank of that river, at

 its very mouth-looking straight up that tremendous canyon, on a rocky promontory

 commanding ocean and beach and mountains-there was a house. At the sight of it

 Temple hugged Hilton's arm in ecstasy.

  

  "Yes, that's ours," he assured her. "Just about everything either of us has ever

 wanted." The clamor was now so great everyone was recognizing his-and-her house

 and was exclaiming about it-that both Temple and Hilton fell silent and simply watched

 the scenery unroll.

  

  Across the turbulent Whitewater and a mile farther north, the mountains ended as

 abruptly as though they had been cut off with a cleaver and an apparently limitless

 expanse of treeless, grassy prairie began. And through that prairie, meandering

 sluggishly to the ocean from the northeast, came the wide, deep River Placid.

  

  The Orion halted. It began to descend vertically, and only then did Hilton see the

 space-port. It was so vast, and there were so many spaceships on it, that from any

 great distance it was actually invisible! Each six-acre bit of the whole immense expanse

 of level prairie between the Placid and the mountains held an Oman superdreadnought!

  

  The staff paired off and headed for the airlocks. Hilton said: "Temple, have you any

 reservations at all, however slight, as to having Dark Lady as a permanent fixture in

 your home?" "Why, of course not-I like her as much as you do. And besides"-she

 giggled like a schoolgirl-"even if she is a lot more beautiful than I am-I've got a few

 things she never will have . . . but there's something else. I got just a flash of it before

 you blocked. Spill it, please."

  

  "You'll see in a minute." And she did.

  

  Larry, Dark Lady and Temple's Oman maid Moty were standing beside the Hiltons'

 car-and so was another Oman, like none ever before seen. Six feet four; shoulders that

 would just barely go through a door; muscled like Atlas and Hercules combined; skin a

 gleaming, satiny bronze; hair a rippling mass of lambent flame. Temple came to a full

 stop and caught her breath.

  

  "The Prince," she breathed, in awe. "Da Lormi's `Prince of Thebes.' The ultimate

 bronze of all the ages. You did this, Jarve. How did you ever dig him up out of my

 schoolgirl crushes?"

  

  All six got into the car, which was equally at home on land or water or in the air. In less

 than a minute they were at Hilton House.

  

  The house itself was circular. Its living-room was an immense annulus of glass from

 which, by merely moving along its circular length, any desired view could be had. The

 pair walked around it once. Then she took him by the arm and steered him firmly

 toward one of the bedrooms in the center.

  

  "This house is just too much to take in all at once," she declared. "Besides, let's put on

 our swimsuits and get over to the Nat."

  

  In the room, she closed the door firmly in the faces of the Omans and grinned. "Maybe,

 sometime, IT get used to having somebody besides you in my bedroom, but I haven't,

 yet . . . Oh, do you itch, too?"

  

  Hilton had peeled to the waist and was scratching vigorously all around his waistline,

 under his belt. "Like the very devil," he admitted, and stared at her. For she,

 three-quarters stripped, was scratching, too!

  

 "It started the minute we left the Orion," he said, thoughtfully. "I see. These new skins of

 ours like hard radiation, but don't like to be smothered while they're enjoying it. By about

 tomorrow, we'll be a nudist colony, I think."

  

  "I could stand it, I suppose. What makes you think so?" "Just what I know about

 radiation. Frank would be the one to ask. My hunch is, though, that we're going to be

 nudists whether we want to or not. Let's go."

  

  They went in a two-seater, leaving the Omans at home. Three-quarter of the staff were

 lolling on the sand or were seated on benches beside the immense pool. As they

 watched, Beverly ran out along the line of springboards, testing each one and selecting

 the stiffest. She then climbed up to the top platform-a good twelve feet above the

 board-and plummeted down upon the board's heavily padded take off. Legs and back

 bending stubbornly to take the strain, she and the board reached low-point together,

 and, still in sync with it, she put every muscle she had into the effort to hurl herself

 upward.

  

  She had intended to go up thirty feet. But she had no idea whatever as to her present

 strength, or of what that Oman board, in perfect synchronization with that tremendous

 strength, would do. Thus, instead of thirty feet, she went up very nearly two hundred,

 which of course spoiled completely her proposed graceful two-and-a-half.

  

  In midair she struggled madly to get into some acceptable position. Failing, she curled

 up into a tight ball just before she struck water.

  

  What a splash!

  

  "It won't hurt her-you couldn't hurt her with a club!" Hilton snapped. He seized Temple's

 hand as everyone rushed to the pool's edge. "Look-Bernadine-that's what I was thinking

 about."

  

  Temple stopped and looked. The platinum-haired twins had been basking on the sand,

 and wherever sand had touched fabric, fabric had disappeared.

  

  Their suits had of course approached the minimum to start with. Now Bernadine wore

 only a wisp of nylon perched precariously on one breast and part of a ribbon that had

 once been a belt. Discovering the catastrophe, she shrieked once and leaped into the

 pool any-which-way, covering her breasts with her hands and hiding in water up to her

 neck.

  

  Meanwhile, the involuntarily high diver had come to the surface, laughing

 apologetically. Surprised by the hair dangling down over her eyes, she felt for her cap. It

 was gone. So was her suit. Naked as a fish. She swam a couple of easy strokes, then

 stopped.

  

  "Frank! Oh, Frank!" she called.

  

  "Over here, Bev." Her husband did not quite know whether to laugh or not.

  

  "Is it the radiation or the water? Or both?"

  

  "Radiation, I think. These new skins of ours don't want to be covered up. But it

 probably makes the water a pretty good imitation of a universal solvent."

  

  "Good-by, clothes!" Beverly rolled over onto her back, fanned water carefully with her

 hands and gazed approvingly at herself. "I don't itch any more, anyway, so I'm very

 much in favor of it."

  

  Thus the Ardans came to their new home world and to a life that was to be more

 comfortable by far and happier by far than any of them had known on Earth. There

 were many other surprises that day, of course; of which only two will be mentioned

 here. When they finally left the pool, at about seventeen hours G. M. T., everybody

 was ravenously hungry.

  

  "But why should we be?" Stella demanded. "I've been eating everything in sight, just

 for fun. But now I'm actually hungry enough to eat a horse and wagon and chase the

 driver!"

  

  "Swimming makes everybody hungry," Beverly said, "and I'm awfully glad that hasn't

 changed. Why, I wouldn't feel human if I didn't!"

  

  Hilton and Temple went home, and had a long-drawn-out and very wonderful supper.

 Prince waited on Temple, Dark Lady on Hilton; Larry and Moty ran the synthesizers in

 the kitchen. All four Omans radiated happiness.

  

  Another surprise came when they went to bed. For the bed was a raised platform of

 something that looked like concrete and, except for an uncanny property of molding

 itself somewhat to the contours of their bodies, was almost as hard as rock.

 Nevertheless, it was the most comfortable bed either of them had ever had. When they

 were ready to go to sleep, Temple said:

  

 "Drat it, those Omans stilt want to come in and sleep with us. In the room, I mean. And

 they suffer so. They're simply radiating silent suffering and oh-so-submissive reproach.

 Shall we let 'em come in?"

  

  "That's strictly up to you, sweetheart. It always has been." "I know. I thought they'd quit

 it sometime, but I guess they never will. I still want an illusion of privacy at times, even

 though they know all about everything that goes on. But we might let 'em in now, just

 while we sleep, and throw 'em out again as soon as we wake up in the morning?"

  

 "You're the boss." Without additional invitation the four Omans came in and arranged

 themselves neatly on the floor, on all four sides of the bed. Temple had barely time to

 cuddle up against Hilton, and he to put his arm closely around her, before they both

 dropped into profound and dreamless sleep.

  

  "Not so fast, Jarve give us a chance, please!" Kathryn, now Mrs. Lane Saunders,

 pleaded. She shook her head. "We don't see how any stable indigenous life can have

 developed at all, unless . . ."

  

  "Unless what? Natural shielding?" Hilton asked, and Kathy eyed her husband.

  

  "Right," Saunders said. "The earliest life-forms must have developed a shield before

 they could evolve and stabilize. Hence, whatever it is that is in our skins was not a

 triumph of Masters' science. They took it from Nature."

  

  "Oh? Oh!" These were two of Sandra's most expressive monosyllables, followed by a

 third. "Oh. Could be, at that. But how could . . . no, cancel that."

  

  "You'd better cancel it, Sandy. Give us a couple of months, and maybe we can answer

 a few elementary questions."

  

  Now inside the Hall, all the teams, from Astronomy to Zoology, went efficiently to work.

 Everyone knew what to look for, how to find it, and how to study it.

  

  "The First Team doesn't need you now too much, does it, Jarve?" Sawtelle asked.

  

  "Not particularly. In fact, I was just going to get back onto my own job."

  

  "Not yet. I want to talk to you," and the two went into a long discussion of naval affairs.

  

  At eight hours next morning all the specialists met at the new Hall of Records.

  

  This building, an exact duplicate of the old one, was located on a mesa in the foothills

 southwest of the natatorium, in a luxuriant grove at sight of which Karns stopped and

 began to laugh.

  

  "I thought I'd seen everything," he remarked. "But yellow pine, spruce, tamarack,

 apples, oaks, palms, oranges, cedars, joshua trees and cactus-just to name a few-all

 growing on the same quarter-section of land?"

  

  "Just everything anybody wants, is all," Hilton said. "But are they really growing? Or

 just straight synthetics? LaneKathy-this is your dish."
 Chapter 11

 

 The Stretts' fuel-supply line had been cut long since. Many Strett cargo-carriers had

 been destroyed. The enemy would of course have a very heavy reserve of fuel on

 hand: But there was no way of knowing how large it was, how many warships it could

 supply, or how long it would last.

  

  Two facts were, however, unquestionable. First, the Stretts were building a fleet that in

 their minds would be invincible. Second, they would attack Ardane as soon as that fleet

 could be made ready. The unanswerable question was: how long would that take?

  

  "So we want to get every ship we have. How many? Five thousand? Ten? Fifteen? We

 want them converted to maximum possible power as soon as we possibly can,"

 Sawtelle said, "and I want to get out there with my boys to handle things."

  

 "You aren't going to. Neither you nor your boys are expendable. Particularly you." Jaw

 hard-set, Hilton studied the situation for minutes. "No. What we'll do is take your Oman,

 Kedy. We'll re-set the Guide to drive into him everything you and the military Masters

 ever knew about arms, armament, strategy, tactics and so on. And we'll add everything

 I know of coordination, synthesis and perception. That ought to make him at least a

 junior-grade military genius."

  

  "You can play that in spades. I wish you could do it to me."

  

 "I can-if you'll take the full Oman transformation. Nothing else can stand the

 punishment."

  

  "I know. No, I don't want to be a genius that badly." "Check. And we'll take the resultant

 Kedy and make nine duplicates of him. Each one will learn from and profit by the

 mistakes made by the preceding numbers and will assume command the instant his

 preceding number is killed."

  

  "Oh, you expect, then . . .?"

  

  "Expect? No. I know it damn well, and so do you. That's why we Ardans will stay

 aground. Why the Kedys' first job will be to make the heavy stuff in and around Ardane

 as heavy as it can be made. Why it'll all be on twenty-four-hour alert. Then they can put

 as many thousands of Omans as you please to work at modernizing all the Oman ships

 you want and doing anything else you say. Check?"

  

  Sawtelle thought for a couple of minutes. "A few details, is all. But that can be ironed

 out as we go along."

  

  Both men worked then, almost unremittingly for six solid days, at the end of which time

 both drew tremendous sighs of relief. They had done everything possible for them to

 do. The defense of Ardvor was now rolling at fullest speed toward its gigantic objective.

  

  Then captain and director, in two Oman ships with fifty men and a thousand Omans,

 leaped the world-girdling ocean to the mining operation of the Stretts. There they found

 business strictly as usual. The strippers still stripped; the mining meths still roared and

 snarled their inch-wise ways along their geometrically perfect terraces; the little carriers

 still skittered busily between the various miners and the storage silos. The fact that

 there was enough concentrate on hand to last a world for a hundred years made no

 difference at all to these automatics; a crew of erector-meths was building new silos as

 fast as existing ones were being filled.

  

  Since the men now understood everything that was going on, it was a simple matter for

 them to stop the whole Strett operation in its tracks. Then every man and every Oman

 leaped to his assigned job. Three days later, all the meths went back to work. Now,

 however, they were working for the Ardans.

  

  The miners, instead of concentrate, now emitted vastly larger streams of

 Navy-Standard pelleted uranexite. The carriers, instead of one-gallon cans, carried

 five-ton drums. The silos were immensely larger-thirty feet in diameter and towering two

 hundred feet into the air. The silos were not, however, being used as yet. One of the

 two Oman ships had been converted into a fuel-tanker and its yawning holds were

 being filled first.

  

  The Orion went back to Ardane and an eight-day wait began. For the first time in over

 seven months Hilton found time actually to loaf; and he and Temple, lolling on the

 beach or hiking in the mountains, enjoyed themselves and each other to the full.

  

  All too soon, however, the heavily laden tanker appeared in the sky over Ardane. The

 Orion joined it; and the two ships slipped into sub-space for Earth.

  

  Three days out, Hilton used his sense of perception to release the thought-controlled

 blocks that had been holding all the controls of the Perseus in neutral. He informed her

 officers by releasing a public-address tape-that they were now free to return to Terra.

  

  Three days later, one day short of Sol, Sawtelle got Five-Jet Admiral Gordon's office on

 the sub-space radio. An officious underling tried to block him, of course.

  

  "Shut up, Perkins, and listen," Sawtelle said, brusquely. "Tell Gordon I'm bringing in

 one hundred twenty thousand two hundred forty-five metric tons of pelleted uranexite.

 And if he isn't on this beam in sixty seconds he'll never get a gram of it."

  

 The admiral, outraged almost to the point of apoplexy, came in, "Sawtelle, report

 yourself for court-martial at . . ." "Keep still, Gordon," the captain snapped. In sheer

 astonishment old Five-Jets obeyed. "I am no longer Terran Navy; no longer subject to

 your orders. As a matter of cold fact, I am no longer human. For reasons which I will

 explain later to the full Advisory Board, some of the personnel of Project Theta Orionis

 underwent transformation into a form of life able to live in an environment of

 radioactivity so intense as to kill any human being in ten seconds. Under certain

 conditions we will supply, free of charge, F.O.B. Terra or Luna, all the uranexite the

 Solar System can use. The conditions are these," and he gave them. "Do you accept

 these conditions or not?"

  

  "I . . . I would vote to accept them, Captain. But that weight! One hundred twenty

 thousand metric tons-incredible) Are you sure of that figure?"

  

  "Definitely. And that is minimum. The error is plus, not minus."

  

  "This crippling power-shortage would really be over?" For the first time since Sawtelle

 had known him, Gordon showed that he was not quite solid Navy brass.

  

  "It's over. Definitely. For good."

  

  "I'd not only agree; I'd raise you a monument. While I can't speak for the Board, I'm

 sure they'll agree."

  

  "So am I. In any event, your cooperation is all that's required for this first load." The

 chips had vanished from Sawtelle's shoulders. "Where do you want it, Admiral? Aristar-

  

 ehus or White Sands?"

  

  "White Sands, please. While there may be some delay in releasing it to industry . . ."

  

  "While they figure out how much they can tax it?" Sawtelle asked, sardonically.

  

  "Well, if they don't tax it it'll be the first thing in history that isn't. Have you any

 objections to releasing all this to the press?"

  

  "None at all. The harder they hit it the wider they spread it, the better. Will you have

 this beam switched to Astrogation, please?"

  

  "Of course. And thanks, Captain. I'll see you at White Sands."

  

  Then, as the now positively glowing Gordon faded away, Sawtelle turned to his own

 staff. "Fenway-Snowden-take over. Better double-check micro-timing with Astro. Put us

 into a twenty-four-hour orbit over White Sands and hold us there. We won't go down.

 Let the load down on remote, wherever they want it."

  

  The arrival of the Ardvorian superdreadnought Orion and the UC-1 (Uranexite Carrier

 Number One) was one of the most sensational events old Earth had ever known. Air

 and space craft went clear out to Emergence Volume Ninety to meet them. By the time

 the UC-1 was coming in on its remote-controlled landing spiral the press of small ships

 was so great that all the police forces available were in a lather trying to control it.

  

  This was exactly what Hilton had wanted. It made possible the completely unobserved

 launching of several dozen small craft from the Orion herself.

  

  One of these made a very high and very fast flight to Chicago. With all due formality

 under the aegis of a perfectly authentic Registry Number it landed on O'Hare Field.

 Eleven deeply tanned young men emerged from it and made their way to a taxi stand,

 where each engaged a separate vehicle.

  

  Sam Bryant stepped into his cab, gave the driver a number on Oak-wood Avenue in

 Des Plaines, and settled back to scan. He was lucky. He would have gone anywhere

 she was, of course, but the way things were, he could give her a little warning to soften

 the shock. She had taken the baby out for an airing down River Road, and was on her

 way back. By having the taxi kill ten minutes or so he could arrive just after she did.

 Wherefore he stopped the cab at a public communications booth and dialed his home.

  

  "Mrs. Bryant is not at home, but she will return at fifteen thirty," the instrument said,

 crisply. "Would you care to record a message for her?"

  

  He punched the RECORD button. "This is Sam, Dolly baby. I'm right behind you. Turn

 around, why don't you, and tell your ever-lovin' star-hoppin' husband hello?"

  

  The taxi pulled up at the curb just as Doris closed the front door; and Sam, after

 handing the driver a five-dollar bill, ran up the walk.

  

  He waited just outside the door, key in hand, while she lowered the stroller handle, took

 off her hat and by longestablished habit reached out to flip the communicator's switch.

 At the first word, however, she stiffened rigidly-frozen solid.

  

  Smiling, he opened the door, walked in and closed it behind him. Nothing short of a

 shotgun blast could have taken Doris Bryant's attention from that recorder then.

  

  "That simply is not so," she told the instrument firmly, with both eyes resolutely shut.

 "They made him stay on the Perseus. He won't be in for at least three days. This is

 some cretin's idea of a joke."

  

  "Not this time, Dolly honey. It's really me."

  

  Her eyes popped open as she whirled. "SAM!" she shrieked, and hurled herself at him

 with all the pent-up ardor and longing of two hundred thirty-four meticulously counted,

 husbandless, loveless days.

  

  After an unknown length of time Sam tipped her face up by the chin, nodded at the

 stroller, and said, "How about introducing me to the little stranger?"

  

  "What a mother I turned out to bel That was the first thing I was going to rave about,

 the very first thing I saw you! Samuel Jay the Fourth, seventy-six days old today." And

 so on.

  

  Eventually, however, the proud young mother watched the slightly apprehensive young

 father carry their first-born upstairs, where together, they put him-still sound asleep-to

 bed in his crib. Then again they were in each other's arms.

  

  Some time later, she twisted around in the circle of his arm and tried to dig her fingers

 into the muscles of his back. She then attacked his biceps and, leaning backward, eyed

 him intently.

  

  "You're you, I know, but you're different. No athlete or any laborer could ever possibly

 get the muscles you have all over. To say nothing of a space officer on duty. And I

 know it isn't any kind of a disease. You've been acting all the time as though I were

 fragile, made out of glass or something-as though you were afraid of breaking me in

 two. So-what is it, sweetheart?"

  

  "I've been trying to figure out an easy way of telling you, but there isn't any. I am

 different. I'm a hundred times as strong as any man ever was. Look." He upended a

 chair, took one heavy hardwood leg between finger and thumb and made what looked

 like a gentle effort to bend it. The leg broke with a pistol-sharp report and Doris leaped

 backward in surprise. "So you're right. I am afraid not only of breaking you in two, but

 killing you. And if I break any of your ribs or arms or legs I'll never forgive myself. So if I

 let myself go for a second-I don't think I will, but I might-don't wait until you're really hurt

 to start screaming. Promise?"

  

  "I promise." Her eyes went wide. "But tell me!"

  

  He told her. She was in turn surprised, amazed, apprehensive, frightened and finally

 eager; and she became more and more eager right up to the end.

  

  "You mean that we . . . that I'll stay just as I am for thousands of years?"

  

  "Just as you are. Or different, if you like. If you really mean any of this yelling you've

 been doing about being too big in the hips-I think you're exactly right, myself-you can

 rebuild yourself any way you please. Or change your shape every hour on the hour. But

 you haven't accepted my invitation yet."

  

  "Don't be silly." She went into his arms again and nibbled on his left ear. "I'd go

 anywhere with you, of course, any time, but this-but you're positively sure Sammy Small

 will be all right?"

  

  "Positively sure."

  

  "Okay, I'll call Mother . . ." Her face fell. "I can't tell her that we'll never see them again

 and that we'll live . . ." "You don't need to. She and Pop-Fern and Sally, too, and their

 boy-friends-are on the list. Not this time, but in a month or so, probably."

  

  Doris brightened like a sunburst. "And your folks, too, of course?" she asked.

  

  "Yes, all the close ones."

  

  "Marvelous! How soon are we leaving?"

  

  At six o'clock next morning, two hundred thirty-five days after leaving Earth, Hilton and

 Sawtelle set out to make the Ardans' official call upon Terra's Advisory Board. Both

 were wearing prodigiously heavy lead armor, the inside of which was furiously

 radioactive. They did not need it, of course. But it would make all Ardans monstrous in

 Terran eyes and would conceal the fact that any other Ardans were landing.

  

  Their gig was met at the spaceport; not by a limousine, but by a five-ton truck, into

 which they were loaded one at a time by a hydraulic lift. Cameras clicked, reporters

 scurried and tri-di scanners whirred. One of those scanners, both men knew, was

 reporting directly and only to the Advisory Board-which, of course, never took anything

 either for granted or at its face value.

  

  Their first stop was at a truck-scale, where each visitor was weighed. Hilton tipped the

 beam at four thousand six hundred fifteen pounds; Sawtelle, a smaller man, weighed in

 at four thousand one hundred ninety. Thence to the Radiation Laboratory, where it was

 ascertained and reported that the armor did not leak-which was reasonable enough,

 since each was lined with Masters' plastics.

  

  Then into lead-lined testing cells, where each opened his face-plate briefly to a sensing

 element. Whereupon the indicating needles of two meters in the main laboratory went

 enthusiastically through the full range of red and held unwaveringly against their stops.

  

  Both Ardans felt the wave of shocked, astonished, almost unbelieving consternation

 that swept through the observing scientists and, in slightly lesser measure (because

 they knew less about radiation) through the Advisory Board itself in a big room halfway

 across town. And from the Radiation Laboratory they were taken, via truck and freight

 elevator, to the Office of the Commandant, where the Board was sitting.

  

  The story, which had been sent in to the Board the day before on a scrambled beam,

 was one upon which the Ardans had labored for days. Many facts could be withheld.

 However, every man aboard the Perseus would agree on some things. Indeed, the

 Earthship's communications officers had undoubtedly radioed in already about longevity

 and perfect health and Oman service and many other matters. Hence all such things

 would have to be admitted and countered.

  

  Thus the report, while it was air-tight, perfectly logical, perfectly consistent and

 apparently complete, did not please the Board at all. It wasn't intended to.

  

  "We cannot and do not approve of such unwarranted favoritism," the Chairman of the

 Board said. "Longevity has always been man's prime goal. Every human being has the

 inalienable right to . . ."

  

  "Flapdoodle!" Hilton snorted. "This is not being broadcast and this room is proofed, so

 please climb down off your soapbox. You don't need to talk like a politician here. Didn't

 you read paragraph 12-A-2, one of the many marked `Top Secret'?"

  

  "Of course. But we do not understand how purely mental qualities can possibly have

 any effect upon purely physical transformations. Thus it does not seem reasonable that

 any except rigorously screened personnel would die in the process. That is, of course,

 unless you contemplate deliberate cold-blooded murder."

  

  That stopped Hilton in his tracks, for it was too close for comfort to the truth. But it did

 not hold the captain for an instant. He was used to death, in many of its grisliest forms.

  

  "There are a lot of things no Terran ever will understand," Sawtelle replied instantly.

 "Reasonable or not, that's exactly what will happen. And, reasonable or not, it'll be

 suicide, not murder. There isn't a thing that either Hilton or I can do about it."

  

  Hilton broke the ensuing silence. "You can say with equal truth that every human being

 has the right to run a fourminute mile or to compose a great symphony. It isn't a matter

 of right at all, but of ability. In this case the mental qualities are even more necessary

 than the physical. You as a Board did a very fine job of selecting the BuSci personnel

 for Project Theta Orionis. Almost eighty percent of them proved able to withstand the

 Ardan conversion. On the other hand, only a very small percentage of the Navy

 personnel did so."

  

  "Your report said that the remaining personnel of the Project were not informed as to

 the death aspect of the transformation," Admiral Gordon said. "Why not?"

  

  "That should be self-explanatory," Hilton said, flatly. "They are still human and still

 Terrans. We did not and will not encroach upon either the duties or the privileges of

 Terra's Advisory Board. What you tell all Terrans, and how much, and how, must be

 decided by yourselves. This also applies, of course, to the other `Top Secret'

 paragraphs of the report, none of which are known to any Terran outside the Board."

  

  "But you haven't said anything about the method of selection," another Advisor

 complained. "Why, that will take all the psychologists of the world, working full time;

 continuously."

  

  "We said we would do the selecting. We meant just that," Hilton said, coldly. "No one

 except the very few selectees will know anything about it. Even if it were an unmixed

 blessing which it very definitely is not-do you want all humanity thrown into such an

 uproar as that would cause? Or the quite possible racial inferiority complex it might set

 up? To say nothing of the question of how much of Terra's best blood do you want to

 drain off, irreversibly and permanently? No. What we suggest is that you paint the

 picture so black, using Sawtelle and me and what all humanity has just seen as horrible

 examples, that nobody would take it as a gift. Make them shun it like the plague. Hell, I

 don't have to tell you what your propaganda machines can do."

  

  The Chairman of the Board again mounted his invisible rostrum. "Do you mean to

 intimate that we are to falsify the record?" he declaimed. "To try to make liars out of

 hundreds of eyewitnesses? You ask us to distort the truth, to connive at .

  

  .

  

  "We aren't asking you to do anything!" Hilton snapped. "We don't give a damn what

 you do. Just study that record, with all that it implies. Read between the lines. As for

 those on the Perseus, no two of them will tell the same story and not one of them has

 even the remotest idea of what the real story is. I, personally, not only did not want to

 become a monster, but would have given everything I had to stay human. My wife felt

 the same way. Neither of us would have converted if there'd been any other way in

 God's universe of getting the uranexite and doing some other things that simply must be

 done."

  

  "What other things?" Gordon demanded.

  

  "You'll never know," Hilton answered, quietly. "Things no Terran ever will know. We

 hope. Things that would drive any Terran stark mad. Some of them are hinted at-as

 much as we dared-between the lines of the report."

  

  The report had not mentioned the Stretts. Nor were they to be mentioned now. If the

 Ardans could stop them, no Terran need ever know anything about them.

  

  If not, no Terran should know anything about them except what he would learn for

 himself just before the end. For Terra would never be able to do anything to defend

 herself against the Stretts.

  

  "Nothing whatever can drive me mad," Gordon declared, "and I want to know all about

 it-right now!"

  

  "You can do one of two things, Gordon," Sawtelle said in disgust. His sneer was plainly

 visible through the six-ply, plasti-backed lead glass of his face-plate. "Either shut up or

 accept my personal invitation to come to Ardvor and try to go through the wringer.

 That's an invitation to your own funeral." Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, torn inwardly to

 ribbons, made no reply.

  

  "I repeat," Hilton went on, "we are not asking you to do anything whatever. We are

 offering to give you, free of charge but under certain conditions, all the power your

 humanity can possibly use. We set no limitation whatever as to quantity and with no

 foreseeable limit as to time. The only point at issue is whether or not you accept the

 conditions. If you do not accept them we'll leave now-and the offer will not be repeated."

  

  "And you would, I presume, take the UC-1 back with you?"

  

  "Of course not, sir. Terra needs power too badly. You are perfectly welcome to that

 one load of uranexite, no matter what is decided here."

  

  "That's one way of putting it," Gordon sneered. "But the truth is that you know damned

 well I'll blow both of your ships out of space if you so much as . . .

  

  "Oh, chip-chop the jaw-flapping, Gordon!" Hilton snapped. Then, as the admiral began

 to bellow orders into his microphone, he went on: "You want it the hard way, eh? Watch

 what happens, all of you!"

  

  The UC-1 shot vertically into the air. Through its shallow dense layer and into and

 through the stratosphere. Earth's fleet, already on full alert and poised to strike, rushed

 to the attack. But the carrier had reached the Orion and both Ardvorian ships had been

 waiting, motionless, for a good half minute before the Terran warships arrived and

 began to blast with everything they had.

  

  "Flashlights and firecrackers," Sawtelle said, calmly. "You aren't even warming up our

 screens. As soon as you quit making a damned fool of yourself by wasting energy that

 way, we'll set the UC-1 back down where she was and get on with our business here."

  

  "You will order a cease-fire at once, Admiral," the chairman said, "or the rest of us will,

 as of now, remove you from the Board." Gordon gritted his teeth in rage, but gave the

 order.

  

  "If he hasn't had enough yet to convince him," Hilton suggested, "he might send up a

 drone. We don't want to kill anybody, you know. One with the heaviest screening he's

 got just to see what happens to it."

  

  "He's had enough. The rest of us have had more than enough. That exhibition was not

 only uncalled-for and disgusting-it was outrageous!"

  

  The meeting settled down, then, from argument to constructive discussion, and many

 topics were gone over. Certain matters were, however, so self-evident that they were

 not even mentioned.

  

  Thus, it was a self-evident fact that no Terran could ever visit Ardvor; for the

 instrument-readings agreed with the report's statements as to the violence of the

 Ardvorian environment, and no Terran could possibly walk around in two tons of lead.

 Conversely, it was self-apparent to the Terrans that no Ardan could ever visit Earth

 without being recognized instantly for what he was. Wearing such armor made its

 necessity starkly plain. No one from the Perseus could say that any Ardan, after having

 lived on the furiously radiant surface of Ardvor, would not be as furiously radioactive as

 the laboratory's calibrated instruments had shown Hilton and Sawtelle actually to be.

  

  Wherefore the conference went on, quietly and cooperatively, to its planned end.

  

  One minute after the Terran battleship Perseus emerged into normal space, the Orion

 went into sub-space for her long trip back to Ardvor.

  

  The last two days of that seven-day trip were the longest seeming that either Hilton or

 Sawtelle had ever known. The sub-space radio was on continuously and Kedy-One

 reported to Sawtelle every five minutes. Even though Hilton knew that the Oman

 commander-in-chief was exactly as good at perceiving as he himself was, he found

 himself scanning the thoroughly screened Strett world forty or fifty times an hour.

 However, in spite of worry and apprehension, time wore eventlessly on. The Orion

 emerged, went to Ardvor and landed on Ardane Field.

  

  Hilton, after greeting properly and reporting to his wife, went to his office. There he

 found that Sandra had everything well in hand except for a few tapes that only he could

 handle. Sawtelle and his officers went to the new Command Central, where everything

 was rolling smoothly and very much faster than Sawtelle had dared hope.

  

  The Terran immigrants had to live in the Orion, of course, until conversion into Ardans.

 Almost equally of course-since the Bryant infant was the only young baby in the

 lot-Doris and her Sammy Small were, by popular acclaim, in the first batch to be

 converted. For little Sammy had taken the entire feminine contingent by storm. No

 Oman female had a chance to act as nurse as long as any of the girls were around.

 Which was practically all the time. Especially the platinum-blonde twins; for several

 months, now, Bernadine Braden and Hermione Felger.

  

  "And you said they were so hard-boiled," Doris said accusingly to Sam, nodding at the

 twins. On hands and knees on the floor, head to head with Sammy Small between

 them, they were growling deep-throated at each other and nuzzling at the baby, who

 was having the time of his young life. "You couldn't have been any wronger, my sweet,

 if you'd had the whole Octagon helping you go astray. They're just as nice as they can

 be, both of them."

  

  Sam shrugged and grinned. His wife strode purposefully across the room to the playful

 pair and lifted their pretended prey out from between them.

  

  "Quit it, you two," she directed, swinging the baby up and depositing him a-straddle her

 left hip. "You're just simply spoiling him rotten."

  

  "You think so, Dolly? Uh-uh, far be it from such." Bernadine came lithely to her feet.

 She glanced at her own taut, trim abdomen; upon which a micrometrically precise topo-

  

 graphical mapping job might have revealed an otherwise imperceptible bulge. "Just you

 wait until Junior arrives and I'll show you how to really spoil a baby. Besides, what's the

 hurry?"

  

  "He needs his supper. Vitamins and minerals and hard radiations and things, and then

 he's going to bed. I don't approve of this no-sleep business. So run along, both of you,

 until tomorrow."
Chapter 12

  

 As has been said, the Stretts were working, with all the intensity of their monstrous but

 tremendously capable minds, upon their Great Plan, which was, basically, to conquer

 and either enslave or destroy every other intelligent race throughout all the length,

 breadth and thickness of total space. To that end each individual Strett had to become

 invulnerable and immortal.

  

  Wherefore, in the inconceivably remote past, there had been put into effect a program

 of selective breeding and of carefully calculated treatments. It was mathematically

 certain that this program would result in a race of beings of pure force-beings having no

 material constituents remaining whatever.

  

  Under those hellish treatments billions upon billions of Stretts had died. But the few

 remaining thousands had almost reached their sublime goal. In a few more hundreds of

 thousands of years perfection would be reached. The few surviving hundreds of perfect

 beings could and would multiply to any desired number in. practically no time at all.

  

  Hilton and his seven fellow-workers had perceived all this in their one and only study of

 the planet Strett, and every other Ardan had been completely informed.

  

  A dozen or so Strett Lords of Thought, male and female, were floating about in the

 atmosphere-which was not air-of their Assembly Hall. Their heads were globes of ball

 lightning. Inside them could be seen quite plainly the intricate convolutions of immense,

 less-than-half-material brains, shot through and through with rods and pencils and

 shapes of pure, scintillating force.

  

  And the bodies! Or, rather, each horrendous brain had a few partially material

 appendages and appurtenances recognizable as bodily organs. There were no mouths,

 no ears, no eyes, no noses or nostrils, no lungs, no legs or arms. There were, however,

 hearts. Some partially material ichor flowed through those living-fire-outlined tubes.

 There were starkly functional organs of reproduction with which, by no stretch of the

 imagination, could any thought of tenderness or of love be connected.

  

  It was a good thing for the race, Hilton had thought at first perception of the things, that

 the Stretts had bred out of themselves every iota of the finer, higher attributes of life. If

 they had not done so, the impotence of sheer disgust would have supervened so long

 since that the race would have been extinct for ages.

  

  "Thirty-eight periods ago the Great Brain was charged with the sum total of Strettsian

 knowledge," First Lord Thinker Zoyar radiated to the assembled Stretts. "For those

 thirty-eight periods it has been scanning, peyondiring, amassing data and formulating

 hypotheses, theories and conclusions. It has just informed me that it is now ready to

 make a preliminary report. Great Brain, how much of the total universe have you

 studied?"

  

  "This Galaxy only," the Brain radiated, in a texture of thought as hard and as harsh as

 Zoyar's own.

  

  "Why not more?"

  

  "Insufficient power. My first conclusion is that whoever set up the specifications for me

 is a fool."

  

  To say that the First Lord went out of control at this statement is to put it very mildly

 indeed. He fulminated, ending with: " . . . destroyed instantly!"

  

  "Destroy me if you like," came the utterly calm, utterly cold reply. "I am in no sense

 alive. I have no consciousness of self nor any desire for continued existence. To do so,

 however, would . . ."

  

  A flurry of activity interrupted the thought. Zoyar was in fact assembling the forces to

 destroy the brain. But, before he could act, Second Lord Thinker Ynos and another

 female blew him into a mixture of loose molecules and flaring energies.

  

  "Destruction of any and all irrational minds is mandatory," Ynos, now First Lord

 Thinker, explained to the linked minds. "Zoyar had been becoming less and less

 rational by the period. A good workman does not causelessly destroy his tools. Go

 ahead, Great Brain, with your findings."

  

  ". . . not be logical." The brain resumed the thought exactly where it had been broken

 off. "Zoyar erred in demanding unlimited performance, since infinite knowledge and infi-

  

 nite ability require not only infinite capacity and infinite power, but also infinite time. Nor

 is it either necessary or desirable that I should have such qualities. There is no

 reasonable basis for the assumption that you Stretts will conquer even any significant

 number of the millions of intelligent races now inhabiting this one Galaxy."

  

  "Why not?" Ynos demanded, her thought almost, but not quite, as steady and cold as it

 had been.

  

  "The answer to that question is implicit in the second indefensible error made in my

 construction. The prime datum impressed into my banks, that the Stretts are in fact the

 strongest, ablest, most intelligent race in the universe, proved to be false. I had to

 eliminate it before I could do any really constructive thinking."

  

  A roar of condemnatory thought brought all circumambient ether to a boil. "Bah-destroy

 it!" "Detestable!" "Intolerable!" "If that is the best it can do, annihilate it!" "Far better

 brains have been destroyed for much less!" "Treason!" And so on.

  

  First Lord Thinker Ynos, however, remained relatively calm. "While we have always

 held it to be a fact that we are the highest race in existence, no rigorous proof has been

 possible. Can you now disprove that assumption?"

  

  "I have disproved it. I have not had time to study all of the civilizations of this Galaxy,

 but I have examined a statistically adequate sample of one million seven hundred

 ninety-two thousand four hundred sixteen different planetary intelligences. I found one

 which is considerably abler and more advanced than you Stretts. Therefore the

 probability is greater than point nine nine that there are not less than ten, and not more

 than two hundred eight, such races in this Galaxy alone."

  

  "Impossible!" Another wave of incredulous and threatening anger swept through the

 linked minds; a wave which Ynos flattened out with some difficulty.

  

  Then she asked: "Is it probable that we will make contact with this supposedly superior

 race in the foreseeable future?" "You are in contact with it now."

  

  "What?" Even Ynos was contemptuous now. "You mean that one ship load of

 despicable humans who-far too late to do them any good-barred us temporarily from

 Fuel World?"

  

  "Not exactly or only those humans, no. And our assumptions may or may not be valid."

  

  "Don't you know whether they are or not?" Ynos snapped. "Explain your uncertainty at

 once!"

  

  "I am uncertain because of insufficient data," the brain replied, calmly. "The only

 pertinent facts of which I am certain are: First, the world Ardry, upon which the Omans

 formerly lived and to which the humans in question first went-a planet which no Strett

 can peyondire-is now abandoned. Second, the Stretts of old did not completely destroy

 the humanity of the world Ardu. Third, some escapees from Ardu reached and

 populated the world Ardry. Fourth, the android Omans were developed on Ardry, by the

 human escapees from Ardu and their descendants. Fifth, the Omans referred to those

 humans as `Masters.' Sixth, after living on Ardry for a very long period of time the

 Masters went elsewhere. Seventh, the Omans remaining on Ardry maintained,

 continuously and for a very long time, the status quo left by the Masters. Eighth,

 immediately upon the arrival from Terra of these present humans, that long-existing

 status was broken. Ninth, the planet called Fuel World is, for the first time, surrounded

 by a screen of force. The formula of this screen is as follows."

  

  The brain gave it. No Strett either complained or interrupted. Each was too busy

 studying that formula and examining its stunning implications and connotations.

  

  "Tenth, that formula is one full order of magnitude beyond anything previously known

 to your science. Eleventh, it could not have been developed by the science of Terra,

 nor by that of any other world whose population I have examined."

  

  The brain took the linked minds instantaneously to Terra; then to a few thousand or so

 other worlds inhabited by human beings; then to a few thousands of planets whose

 populations were near-human, non-human and monstrous.

  

  "It is therefore clear," it announced, "that this screen was computed and produced by

 the race, whatever it may be, that is now dwelling on Fuel World and asserting full

 ownership of it."

  

  "Who or what is that race?" Ynos demanded. "Data insufficient."

  

  "Theorize, then!"

  

  "Postulate that the Masters, in many thousands of cycles of study, made advances in

 science that were not reduced to practice; that the Omans either possessed this

 knowledge or had access to it; and that Omans and humans cooperated fully in sharing

 and in working with all the knowledges thus available. From these three postulates the

 conclusion can be drawn that there has come into existence a new race. One

 combining the best qualities of both humans and Omans, but with the weaknesses of

 neither."

  

  "An unpleasant thought, truly," Ynos thought. "But you can now, I suppose, design the

 generators and projectors of a force superior to that screen."

  

  "Data insufficient. I can equal it, since both generation and projection are implicit in the

 formula. But the data so adduced are in themselves vastly ahead of anything previously

 in my banks."

  

  "Are there any other races in this Galaxy more powerful than the postulated one now

 living on Fuel World?"

  

  "Data insufficient." "Theorize, then!" "Data insufficient."

  

  The linked minds concentrated upon the problem for a period of time that might have

 been either days or weeks. Then: "Great Brain, advise us," Ynos said. "What is best for

 us to do?"

  

  "With identical defensive screens it becomes a question of relative power. You should

 increase the size and power of your warships to something beyond the computed

 probable maximum of the enemy. You should build more ships and missiles than they

 will probably be able to build. Then and only then will you attack their warships, in

 tremendous force and continuously."

  

  "But not their planetary defenses. I see." Ynos's thought was one of complete

 understanding. "And the real offensive will be?"

  

  "No mobile structure can be built to mount mechanisms of power sufficient to smash

 down by sheer force of output such tremendously powerful installations as their

 planet-based defenses must be assumed to be. Therefore the planet itself must be

 destroyed. This will require a missile of planetary mass. The best such missile is the

 tenth planet of their own sun."

  

  "I see." Ynos's mind was leaping ahead, considering hundreds of possibilities and

 making highly intricate and involved computations. "That will, however, require many

 cycles of time and more power than even our immense reserves can supply."

  

  "True. It will take much time. The fuel problem, however, is not a serious one, since

 Fuel World is not unique. Think on, First Lord Ynos."

  

  "We will attack in maximum force and with maximum violence. We will blanket the

 planet. We will maintain maximum force and violence until most or all of the enemy

 ships have been destroyed. We will then install planetary drives on Ten and force it into

 collision orbit with Fuel World, meanwhile exerting extreme precautions that not so

 much as a spybeam emerges above the enemy's screen. Then, still maintaining ex-

  

 treme precaution, we will guard both planets until the last possible moment before the

 collision. Brain, it cannot fail!"

  

  "You err. It can fail. All we actually know of the abilities of this postulated neo-human

 race is what I have learned from the composition of its defensive screen. The

 probability approaches unity that the Masters continued to delve and to learn for

 millions of cycles while you Stretts, reasonlessly certain of your supremacy,

 concentrated upon your evolution from the material to a non-material form of life and

 performed only limited research into armaments of greater and ever greater power."

  

  "True. But that attitude was then justified. It was not and is not logical to assume that

 any race would establish a fixed status at any level of ability below its absolute

 maximum."

  

  "While that conclusion could once have been defensible, it is now virtually certain that

 the Masters had stores of knowledge which they may or may not have withheld from the

 Omans, but which were in some way made available to the neo-humans. Also, there is

 no basis whatever for the assumption that this new race has revealed all its

 potentialities."

  

  "Statistically, that is probably true. But this is the best plan you have been able to

 formulate?"

  

  "It is. Of the many thousands of plans I set up and tested, this one has the highest

 probability of success."

  

  "Then we will adopt it. We are Stretts. Whatever we decide upon will be driven through

 to complete success. We have one tremendous advantage in you."

  

  "Yes. The probability approaches unity that I can perform research on a vastly wider

 and larger scale, and almost infinitely faster, than can any living organism or any

 possible combination of such organisms."

  

  Nor was the Great Brain bragging. It scanned in moments the stored scientific

 knowledge of over a million planets. It tabulated, correlated, analyzed, synthesized,

 theorized and concluded-all in microseconds of time. Thus it made more progress in

 one Terran week than the Masters had made in a million years.

  

  When it had gone as far as it could go, it reported its results-and the Stretts, hard as

 they were and intransigent, were amazed and overjoyed. Not one of them had ever

 even imagined such armaments possible. Hence they became supremely confident that

 it was unmatched and unmatchable throughout all space.

  

  What the Great Brain did not know, however, and the Stretts did not realize, was that it

 could not really think. Unlike the human mind, it could not deduce valid theories or

 conclusions from incomplete, insufficient, fragmentary data. It could not leap gaps.

 Thus there was no more actual assurance than before that they had exceeded, or even

 matched, the weaponry of the neo-humans of Fuel World.

  

  Supremely confident, Ynos said, "We will not discuss every detail of the plan in

 sub-detail and will correlate every sub-detail with every other, to the end that every

 action, however minor, will be performed perfectly and in its exact time."

  

  That discussion, which lasted for days, was held. Hundreds of thousands of new and

 highly specialized meths were built and went furiously and continuously to work. A

 fuel-supply line was run to another uranexite-rich planet.

  

  Stripping machines stripped away the surface layer of soil, sand, rock and low-grade

 ore. Giant miners tore and dug and slashed and refined and concentrated. Storage

 silos by the hundreds were built and were filled. Hundreds upon hundreds of

 concentrate-carriers bored their stolid ways through hyperspace. Many weeks of time

 passed.

  

  But of what importance are mere weeks of time to a race that has, for many millions of

 years, been adhering rigidly to a pre-set program?

  

  The sheer magnitude of the operation, and the extraordinary attention to detail with

 which it was prepared and launched, explain why the Strett attack on Ardvor did not

 occur until so many weeks later than Hilton and Sawtelle expected it. They also explain

 the utterly incomprehensible fury, the completely fantastic intensity, the unparalleled

 savagery, the almost immeasurable brute power of that attack when it finally did come.

  

  When the Orion landed on Ardane Field from Earth, carrying the first contingent of

 immigrants, Hilton and Sawtelle were almost as much surprised as relieved that the

 Stretts had not already attacked.

  

  Sawtelle, confident that his defenses were fully ready, took it more or less in stride.

 Hilton worried. And after a couple of days he began to do some real thinking about it.

  

  The first result of his thinking was a conference with Temple. As soon as she got the

 drift, she called in Teddy and Big Bill Karns. Teddy in turn called in Becky and de Vaux;

 Karns wanted Poynter and Beverly; Poynter wanted Braden and the twins; and so on.

 Thus, what started out as a conference of two became a full Ardan staff meeting; a

 meeting which, starting immediately after lunch, ran straight through into the following

 afternoon.

  

  "To sum up the consensus, for the record," Hilton said then, studying a sheet of paper

 covered with symbols, "the Stretts haven't attacked yet because they found out that we

 are stronger than they are. They found that out by analyzing our defensive web-which, if

 we had had this meeting first, we wouldn't have put up at all. Unlike anything known to

 human or previous Strett science, it is proof against any form of attack up to the limit of

 the power of its generators. They will attack as soon as they are equipped to break that

 screen at the level of power probable to our ships. We can not arrive at any reliable

 estimate as to how long that will take.

  

  "As to the effectiveness of our cutting off their known fuel supply, opinion is divided.

 We must therefore assume that fuel shortage will not be a factor.

  

  "Neither are we unanimous on the basic matter as to why the Masters acted as they

 did just before they left Ardry. Why did they set the status so far below their top ability?

 Why did they make it impossible for the Omans ever, of themselves, to learn their

 higher science? Why, if they did not want that science to become known, did they leave

 complete records of it? The majority of us believe that the Masters coded their records

 in such fashion that the Stretts, even if they conquered the Omans or destroyed them,

 could never break that code, since it was keyed to the basic difference between the

 Strett mentality and the human. Thus, they left it deliberately for some human race to

 find.

  

  "Finally, and most important, our physicists and theoreticians are not able to

 extrapolate, from the analysis of our screen, to the concepts underlying the Masters'

 ultimate weapons of offense, the first-stage booster and its final end-product, the Vang.

 If, as we can safely assume, the Stretts do not already have those weapons, they will

 know nothing about them until we ourselves use them in battle.

  

  "These are, of course, only the principal points covered. Does anyone wish to amend

 this summation as recorded?" No one did.

  

  The meeting was adjourned. Hilton, however, accompanied Sawtelle and Kedy to the

 captain's office. "So you see, Skipper, we got troubles," he said. "If we don't use those

 boosters against their skeletons it'll boil down to a stalemate lasting God knows how

 long. It will be a war of attrition, outcome dependent on which side can build the most

 and biggest and strongest ships the fastest. On the other hand, if we do use 'em on

 defense here, they'll analyze 'em and have everything worked out in a day or so. The

 first thing they'll do is beef up their planetary defenses to match. That way, we'd blow all

 their ships out of space, probably easily enough, but Strett itself will be just as safe as

 though it were in God's left-hand hip pocket. So what's the answer?"

  

  "It isn't that simple, Jarve," Sawtelle said. "Let's hear from you, Kedy."

  

  "Thank you, sir. There is an optimum mass, a point of maximum efficiency of

 fire-power as balanced against loss of maneuverability, for any craft designed for

 attack," Kedy thought, in his most professional manner. "We assume that the Stretts

 know that as well as we do. No such limitation applies to strictly defensive structures,

 but both the Strett craft and ours must be designed for attack. We have built and are

 budding many hundreds of thousands of ships of that type. So, undoubtedly, are the

 Stretts. Ship for ship, they will be pretty well matched. Therefore one part of my strategy

 will be for two of our ships to engage simultaneously one of theirs. There is a distinct

 probability that we will have enough advantage in speed control to make that tactic

 operable."

  

  "But there's another that we won't," Sawtelle objected. "And maybe they can build

 more ships than we can." "Another point is that they may build, in addition to their big

 stuff, a lot of small, ultra-fast ones," Hilton put in. "Suicide jobs-crash and

 detonate-simply super-missiles. How sure are you that you can stop such missiles with

 ordinary beams?"

  

  "Not at all, sir. Some of them would of course reach and destroy some of our ships.

 Which brings up the second part of my strategy. For each one of the heavies, we are

 building many small ships of the type you just called 'super-missiles."

  

  "Superdreadnoughts versus superdreadnoughts, supermissiles versus super-missiles."

 Hilton digested that concept for several minutes. "That could still wind up as a

 stalemate, except for what you said about control. That isn't much to depend on,

 especially since we won't have the time-lag advantage you Omans had before. They'll

 see to that. Also, I don't like to sacrifice a million Omans, either."

  

  "I haven't explained the newest development yet, sir. There will be no Omans. Each

 ship and each missile has a built-in Kedy brain, sir."

  

  "What? That makes it infinitely worse. You Kedys, unless it's absolutely necessary, are

 not expendable."

  

  "Oh, but we are, sir. You don't quite understand. We Kedys are not merely similar, but

 are in fact identical. Thus we are not independent entities. All of us together make up

 the actual Kedy-that which is meant when we say 'I.' That is, I am the sum total of all

 Kedys everywhere, not merely this individual that you call Kedy One."

  

  "You mean you're all talking to me?"

  

  "Exactly, sir. Thus, no one element of the Kedy has any need of, or any desire for,

 self-preservation. The destruction of one element, or of thousands of elements, would

 be of no more consequence to the Kedy than . . . well, they are strictly analogous to the

 severed ends of the hairs, every time you get a haircut."

  

  "My God!" Hilton stared at Sawtelle. Sawtelle stared back. "I'm beginning to see . . .

 maybe . . . I hope. What control that would be! But just in case we should have to use

 the boosters . . ." Hilton's voice died away. Scowling in concentration, he clasped his

 hands behind his back and began to pace the floor.

  

  "Better give up, Jarve. Kedy's got the same mind you have," Sawtelle began, to Hilton's

 oblivious back; but Kedy silenced the thought almost in the moment of its inception.

  

  "By no means, sir," he contradicted. "I have the brain only. The mind is entirely

 different."

  

  "Link up, Kody, and see what you think of this," Hilton broke in. There ensued an

 interchange of thought so fast and so deeply mathematical that Sawtelle was lost in

 seconds. "Do you think it'll work?"

  

  "I don't see how it can fail, sir. At what point in the action should it be put into effect?

 And will you call the time of initiation, or shall I?"

  

  "Not until all their reserves are in action. Or, at worst, all of ours except that one

 task-force. Since you'll know a lot more about the status of the battle than either

 Sawtelle or I will, you give the signal and I'll start things going."

  

  "What are you two talking about?" Sawtelle demanded. "It's a long story, chum. Kedy

 can tell you about it better than I can. Besides, it's getting late and Dark Lady and Larry

 both give me hell every time I hold supper on plus time unless there's a mighty good

 reason for it. So, so long, guys."
 Chapter 13

 

 For many weeks the production of Ardan warships and missiles had been spiraling

 upward.

  

  Half a mountain range of solid rock had been converted into fabricated super-steel and

 armament. Superdreadnoughts were popping into existence at the rate of hundreds per

 minute. Missiles were rolling off the ends of assembly lines like half-pint tin cans out of

 can-making machines.

  

  The Strett warcraft, skeletons and missiles, would emerge into normal space anywhere

 within a million miles of Ardvor. The Ardan missiles were powered for an acceleration of

 one hundred gravities. That much the Kedy brains, molded solidly into teflon-lined,

 massively braced steel spheres, could just withstand.

  

  To be certain of breaking the Strett screens, an impact velocity of about six miles per

 second was necessary. The time required to attain this velocity was about ten seconds,

 and the flight distance something over thirty miles.

  

  Since the Stretts could orient themselves in less than one second after emergence,

 even this extremely tight packing of missiles-only sixty miles apart throughout the entire

 emergence volume of space-would still give the Stretts the initiative by a time-ratio of

 more than ten to one.

  

  Such tight packing was of course impossible. It called for many billions of defenders

 instead of the few millions it was possible for the Omans to produce in the time they

 had. In fact, the average spacing was well over ten thousand miles when the invading

 horde of Strett missiles emerged and struck.

  

  How they struck!

  

  There was nothing of finesse about that attack; nothing of skill or of tactics: nothing but

 the sheer brute force of overwhelming superiority of numbers and of over-matching

 power.

  

  One instant all space was empty. The next instant it was full of invading missiles-a

 superb exhibition of coordination and timing.

  

  And the Kedy control, upon which the defenders had counted so heavily, proved

 useless. For each Strett missile, within a fraction of a second of emergence, darted

 toward the nearest Oman missile with an acceleration that made the one

 hundred-gravity defenders seem to be standing still.

  

  One to one, -missiles crashed into missiles and detonated. There were no solid or

 liquid end-products. Each of those frightful weapons carried so many

 megatons-equivalent of atomic concentrate that all nearby space blossomed into su-

  

 peratomic blasts hundreds of times more violent than the fireballs of lithium-hydride

 fusion bombs.

  

  For a moment even Hilton was stunned; but only for a moment.

  

  "Kelly!." he barked. "Get your big stuff out there! Use the boosters!" He started for the

 door at a full run. "That tears it-that really tears it! Scrap the plan. I'll board the Sirius

 and take the task-force to Strett. Bring your stuff along, Skipper, as soon as you're

 ready."

  

  Ardan superdreadnoughts in their massed thousands poured out through Ardvor's

 one-way screen. Each went instantly to work. Now the Kedy control system, doing what

 it was designed to do, proved its full worth. For the weapons of the big battle-wagons

 did not depend upon acceleration, but were driven at the speed of light; and Grand

 Fleet Operations were planned and were carried out at the almost infinite velocity of

 thought itself.

  

  Or, rather, they were not planned at all. They were simply carried out, immediately and

 without confusion.

  

  For all the Kedys were one. Each Kedy element, without any lapse of time whatever for

 consultation with any other, knew exactly where every other element was; exactly what

 each was doing; and exactly what he himself should do to make the maximum

 contribution to the common cause.

  

  Nor was any time lost in relaying orders to crewmen within the ship. There were no

 crewmen. Each Kedy element was the sole personnel of, and was integral with, his

 vessel. Nor were there any wires or relays to impede and slow down communication.

 Operational instructions, too, were transmitted and were acted upon with thought's

 transfinite speed. Thus, if decision and execution were not quite mathematically

 simultaneous, they were separated by a period of time so infinitesimally small as to he

 impossible of separation.

  

  Wherever a Strett missile was, or wherever a Strett skeleton-ship appeared, an Oman

 beam reached it, usually in much less than one second. Beam clung to

 screen-caressingly, hungrily-absorbing its total energy and forming the first-stage

 booster. Then, three microseconds later, that booster went off into a ragingly

 incandescent, glaringly violent burst of fury so hellishly, so inconceivably hot that less

 than a thousandth of its total output of energy was below the very top of the visible

 spectrum!

  

  If the previous display of atomic violence had been so spectacular and of such

 magnitude as to defy understanding or description, what of this? When hundreds of

 thousands of Kedys, each wielding world-wrecking powers as effortlessly and as deftly

 and as precisely as thought, attacked and destroyed millions of those tremendously

 powerful war fabrications of the Stretts! The only simple answer is that all nearby space

 might very well have been torn out of the most radiant layers of S-Doradus itself.

  

  Hilton made the hundred yards from office door to curb in just over twelve seconds.

 Larry was waiting. The car literally burned a hole in the atmosphere as it screamed its

 way to Ardane Field.

  

  It landed with a thump. Heavy black streaks of synthetic rubber marked the pavement

 as it came to a screeching, shrieking stop at the flagship's main lock. And, in the instant

 of closing that lock's outer portal, all twenty-thousand-plus warships of the task force

 took off as one at ten gravities. Took off, and in less than one minute went into

 overdrive.

  

  All personal haste was now over. Hilton went up into what he still thought of as the

 "control room," even though he knew that there were no controls, nor even any

 instruments, anywhere aboard. He knew what he would find there. Fast as he had

 acted, Temple had not had as far to go and she had got there first.

  

  He could not have said, for the life of him, how he actually felt about this direct

 defiance of his direct orders. He walked into the room, sat down beside her and took

 her hand.

  

  "I told you to stay home, Temple," he said:

  

 "I know you did. But I'm not only the assistant head of your Psychology Department. I'm

 your wife, remember? 'Until death do us part.' And if there's any way in the universe I

 can manage it, death isn't going to part us-at least, this one isn't. If this is it, we'll go

 together."

  

  "I know, sweetheart." He put his arm around her, held her close. "As a psych I wouldn't

 give a whoop. You'd be expendable. But as my wife, especially now that you're

 pregnant, you aren't. You're a lot more important to the future of our race than I am."

  

  She stiffened in the circle of his arm. "What's that crack supposed to mean? Think I'd

 ever accept a synthetic zombie imitation of you for my husband and go on living with it

 just as though nothing had happened?"

  

  Hilton started to say something, but Temple rushed heedlessly on: "Drat the race! No

 matter how many children we ever have you were first and you'll stay first, and if you

 have to go I'll go, too, so there! Besides, you know darn well that they can't duplicate

 whatever it is that makes you Jarvis Hilton."

  

  "Now wait a minute, Temple. The conversion . . ."

  

  "Yes, the conversion," she interrupted, triumphantly. "The thing I'm talking about is

 immaterial-untouchable-they didn't-couldn't--do anything about it at all. Kedy, will you

 please tell this big goofus that even though you have got Jarvis Hilton's brain you aren't

 Jarvis Hilton and never can be?"

  

  The atmosphere of the room vibrated in the frequencies of a deep bass laugh. "You

 are trying to hold a completely untenable position, friend Hilton. Any attempt to convince

 a mind of real power that falsity is truth is illogical. My advice is for you to surrender."

  

  That word hit Temple hard. "Not surrender, sweetheart. I'm not fighting you. I never

 will." She seized both of his hands; tears welled into her glorious eyes. "It's just that I

 simply couldn't stand it to go on living without you!"

  

  "I know, darling." He got up and lifted her to her feet, so that she could come properly

 into his arms. They stood there, silent and motionless, for minutes.

  

  Temple finally released herself and, after feeling for a handkerchief she did not have,

 wiped her eyes with a forefinger and then wiped the finger on her bare leg. She grinned

 and turned to the Omans. "Prince, will you and Dark Lady please conjure us up a

 steak-and-mushrooms supper? They should be in the pantry . . . since this Sirius was

 designed for us."

  

  After supper the two sat companionably on a davenport. "One thing about this

 business isn't quite clear," Temple said. "Why all this tearing rush? They haven't got the

 booster or anything like it, or they'd have used it. Surely it'll take them a long time to go

 from the mere analysis of the forces and fields we used clear through to the production

 and installation of enough weapons to stop this whole fleet?"

  

  "It surely won't. They've had the absorption principle for ages. Remember that first,

 ancient skeleton that drained all the power of our suits and boats in nothing flat? From

 there it isn't too big a jump. And as for producing stuff, uh uh! If there's any limit to what

 they can do, I don't know what it is. If we don't slug 'em before they get it, it's curtains."

  

  "I see . . . I'm afraid. We're almost there, darling".

  

 He glanced at the chronometer. "About eleven minutes. And of course I don't need to

 ask you to stay out of the way." "Of course not. I won't interfere, no matter what

 happens. All I'm going to do is hold your hand and pull for you with all my might."

  

  "That'll help, believe me. I'm mighty glad you're along, sweetheart. Even though both of

 us know you shouldn't be."

  

  The task force emerged. Each ship darted toward its preassigned place in a

 mathematically exact envelope around the planet Strett.

  

  Hilton sat on a davenport strained and still. His eyes were closed and every muscle

 tense. Left hand gripped the arm-rest so fiercely that fingertips were inches deep in the

 leather covered padding.

  

  The Stretts knew that any such attack as this was futile. No movable structure or any

 combination of such structures could possibly wield enough power to break down

 screens powered by such engines as theirs.

  

  Hilton, however, knew that there was a chance. Not with the first-stage boosters, which

 were manipulable and detonable masses of ball lightning, but with those boosters'

 culminations, the Vangs, which were ball lightning raised to the sixth power and which

 only the frightful energies of the boosters could bring into being.

  

  But, even with twenty-thousand-plus Vangs-or any larger number-success depended

 entirely upon a nicety of timing never before approached and supposedly impossible.

 Not only to thousandths of a microsecond, but to a small fraction of one such

 thousandth: roughly, the time it takes light to travel three-sixteenths of an inch.

  

  It would take practically absolute simultaneity to overload to the point of burnout to

 those Strett generators. They were the heaviest in the Galaxy.

  

  That was why Hilton himself had to be there. He could not possibly have done the job

 from Ardvor. In fact, there was no real assurance that, even at the immeasurable

 velocity of thought and covering a mere million miles, he could do it even from his

 present position aboard one unit of the fleet. Theoretically, with his speed-up, he could.

 But that theory had yet to be reduced to practice.

  

  Tense and strained, Hilton began his countdown.

  

  Temple sat down beside him. Both hands pressed his right fist against her breast. Her

 eyes, too, were closed; she was as stiff and as still as was he. She was not interfering,

 but giving; supporting him, backing him, giving to him in full flood everything of that

 tremendous inner strength that had made Temple Bells what she so uniquely was.

  

  On the exact center of the needle-sharp zero beat every Kedy struck. Gripped and

 activated as they all were by Hilton's keyed-up-and-stretched-out mind, they struck in

 what was very close indeed to absolute unison.

  

  Absorbing beams, each one having had precisely the same number of millimeters to

 travel, reached the screen at the same instant. They clung and sucked. Immeasurable

 floods of energy flashed from the Strett generators into those vortices to form twenty

 thousand-plus first-stage boosters.

  

  But this time the boosters did not detonate.

  

  Instead, as energies continued to flood in at a frightfully accelerating rate, they turned

 into something else. Things no Terran science has ever even imagined; things at the

 formation of which all neighboring space actually warped, and in that warping seethed

 and writhed and shuddered. The very subether screamed and shrieked in protest as it,

 too, yielded in starkly impossible fashions to that irresistible stress.

  

  How even those silicon-fluorine brains stood it, not one of them ever knew.

  

  Microsecond by slow microsecond the Vangs grew and grew and grew. They were

 pulling not only the full power of the Ardan warships, but also the immeasurably greater

 power of the strainingly overloaded Strettsian generators themselves. The etheral and

 sub-etheral writhings and distortions and screamings grew worse and worse; harder

 and even harder to bear.

  

  Imagine, if you can, a constantly and rapidly increasing mass of-plutonium-a mass

 already thousands of times greater than critical, but not allowed to react! That gives a

 faint and very inadequate picture of what was happening then.

  

  Finally, at perhaps a hundred thousand times critical mass, and still in perfect sync, the

 Vangs all went off.

  

  The planet Strett became a nova.

  

  "We wont We won!" Temple shrieked, her perception piercing through the hellish murk

 that was all nearby space.

  

  'Not quite yet, sweet, but we're over the biggest hump," and the two held an

 impromptu, but highly satisfactory, celebration.

  

  Perhaps it would be better to say that the planet Strett became a junior-grade nova,

 since the actual nova stage was purely superficial and did not last very long. In a couple

 of hours things had quieted down enough so that the heavily screened warships could

 approach the planet and finish up their part of the job.

  

  Much of Strett's land surface was molten lava. Much of its water was gone. There were

 some pockets of resistance left, of course, but they did not last long. Equally of course

 the Stretts themselves, twenty-five miles underground, had not been harmed at all.

  

  But that, too, was according to plan.

  

  Leaving the task force on guard, to counter any move the Stretts might be able to

 make, Hilton shot the Sirius out to the planet's moon. There Sawtelle and his staff and

 tens of thousands of Omans and machines were starting to work. No part of this was

 Hiltons job; so all he and Temple did was look on.

  

  Correction, please. That was not all they did. But while resting and eating and loafing

 and sleeping and enjoying each other's company, both watched Operation Moon

 closely enough to be completely informed as to everything that went on.

  

  Immense, carefully placed pits went down to solid bed-rock. To that rock were

 immovably anchored structures strong enough to move a world. Driving units were

 installed-drives of such immensity of power as to test to the full the highest engineering

 skills of the Galaxy. Mountains of fuel concentrate filled vast reservoirs of concrete.

 Each was connected to a drive by fifty-inch high-speed conveyors.

  

  Sawtelle drove a thought and those brutal super-drives began to blast.

  

  As they blasted, Strett's satellite began to move out of its orbit. Very slowly at first, but

 faster and faster. They continued to blast, with all their prodigious might and in carefully

 computed order, until the desired orbit was attained-an orbit which terminated in a

 vertical line through the center of the Stretts' supposedly impregnable retreat.

  

  The planet Strett had a mass of approximately seven times ten to the twenty-first

 metric ton. Its moon, little more than a hundredth as massive, still weighed in at about

 eight times ten to the nineteenth-that is, the figure eight followed by nineteen zeroes.

  

  And moon fell on planet, in direct central impact, after having fallen from a height of

 over a quarter of a million miles under the full pull of gravity and the full thrust of those

 mighty atomic drives.

  

  The kinetic energy of such a collision can be computed. It can be expressed. It is,

 however, of such astronomical magnitude as to be completely meaningless to the

 human mind.

  

  Simply, the two worlds merged and splashed. Droplets, weighing up to millions of tons

 each, spattered out into space; only to return, in seconds or hours or weeks or months,

 to add their atrocious contributions to the enormity of the destruction already wrought.

  

  No trace survived of any Strett or of any thing, however small, pertaining to the Stretts.
 EPILOGUE

 

 As had become a daily custom, most of the Ardans were gathered at the natatorium.

 Hilton and Temple were wrestling in the water-she was trying to duck him and he was

 hard put to it to keep her from doing it. The platinum-haired twins were---oh, ever so

 surreptitiously and undetectably!-studying the other girls.

  

  Captain Sawtelle- he had steadfastly refused to accept any higher title-and his wife

 were teaching two of their tiny grandchildren to swim.

  

  In short, everything was normal.

  

  Beverly Bell Poynter, from the top platform, hit the board as hard as she could hit it;

 and, perfectly synchronized with it, hurled herself upward. Up and up and up she went.

 Up to her top ceiling of two hundred ten feet. Then, straightening out into a shapely

 arrow and without again moving a muscle, she hurtled downward, making two and a

 half beautifully stately turns and striking the water with a slurping, splashless chug!

 Coming easily to the surface, she shook the water out of her eyes.

  

  Temple, giving up her attempts to near-drown her husband, rolled over and floated

 quietly beside him.

  

  "You know, this is fun," he said. "Uh-huh," she agreed enthusiastically.

  

  "I'm glad you and Sandy buried the hatchet. Two of the top women who ever lived. Or

 should I have said sheathed the claws? Or have you, really?"

  

  "Pretty much . . . I guess." Temple didn't seem altogether sure of the point. "Oh-oh.

 Now what?"

  

  A flitabout had come to ground. Dark Lady, who never delivered a message via thought

 if she could possibly get away with delivering it in person, was running full tilt across the

 sand toward them. Her long black hair was streaming out behind her; she was waving a

 length of teletype tape as though it were a pennon.

  

  "Oh, no. Not again?" Temple wailed. "Don't tell us it's Terra again, Dark Lady, please."

  

  "But it is!" Dark Lady cried, excitedly. "And it says 'From Five-Jet Admiral Gordon,

 Commanding."

  

 "Omit flowers, please," Hilton directed. "Boil it down." "The Perseus is in orbit with the

 whole Advisory Board. They want to hold a top-level summit conference with Director

 Hilton and Five-Jet Admiral Sawtelle." Dark Lady raised her voice enough to be sure

 Sawtelle heard the title, and shot him a wicked glance as she announced it. "They hope

 to conclude all unfinished business on a mutally satisfactory and profitable basis."

  

  "Okay, Lady, thanks. Tell 'em we'll call 'em shortly."

  

  Dark Lady flashed away and Hilton and Temple swam slowly toward a ladder.

  

  "Drat Terra and everything and everybody on it," Temple said, vigorously. "And

 especially drat His Royal Fatness FiveJet Admiral Gordon. How much longer will it take,

 do you think, to pound some sense into their pointed little heads?"

  

  "Oh, we're not doing too bad," Hilton assured his lovely bride. "Two or three more

 sessions ought to do it." Everything was normal . . .