Discord in Scarlet

A. E. VanVogt

IXTL sprawled unmoving in the boundless night. Time paced slowly toward the eternity, and space was fathomlessly black. Across the immensity, vague patches of light gleamed coldly at him. Each, he knew, was a galaxy of blazing stars, shrunk by incredible distance to shining swirls of mist. Life was out there, spawning on the myriad planets that wheeled endlessly around their parent suns. In the same way, life had once crawled out of the primeval mud of ancient Glor, before a cosmic explosion destroyed his own mighty race and flung his body out into the intergalactic deeps.

He lived; that was his personal catastrophe. Having survived the cataclysm, his almost unkillable body maintained itself in a gradually weakening state on the light energy that permeated all space and time. His brain pulsed on and on in the same old, old cycle of thought - thinking: one chance in decfflions that he would ever again find himself in a galactic system. And then an even more infinitesimal chance that he fall on a planet and find a precious guul. A billion billion times that thought had pounded to its unvarying conclusion. It was a part of him now. It was like an endless picture unrolling before his mind’s eye.

Together with those remote wisps of shiningness out there in that gulf of blackness, it made up the world in which he had his existence. He had almost forgotten the far-flung field of sensitivity his body maintained. In past ages that field had been truly vast, but now that his powers were waning, no signals came to him beyond the range of a few light-years.

He expected nothing, and so the first stimulus from the ship scarcely more than touched him. Energy, hardness - matter! The vague sense perception fumbled into his dulled brain. It brought a living pain, like a disused muscle briefly, agonizingly, into action. The pain went away. The thought faded. His brain slid back into its sleep of ages. He lived again in the old world of hopelessness and shining light splotches in a black space. The very idea of energy and matter became a dream that receded. A remote corner of his mind, somehow more alert, watched it go, watched the shadows of forgetfulness reach out with their enveloping folds of mist, striving to engulf the dim consciousness that had flashed into such an anguish of ephemeral existence.

And then once more, stronger, sharper, the message flashed from a remote frontier of his field. His elongated body convulsed in senseless movement. His four arms lashed out, his four legs jackknifed with blind, unreasoning strength.

That was his muscular reaction. His dazed, staring eyes refocused. His stultified vision was galvanized into life. The part of his nervous system that controlled the field took its first unbalancing action.

In a flash of tremendous effort, he withdrew it from the billions of cubic miles from which no signals had come, and concentrated its forces in an attempt to pinpoint the area of greatest stimulation.

Even as he fought to locate it, it moved a vast distance. For the first time, then, he thought of it as a ship flying from one galaxy to another. He bad a moment of awful fear that it would move beyond where he could sense it, and that he would lose contact forever before he could do anything.

He let the field spread out slightly, and felt the shock of impact as once more he received the unmistakable excitation of alien matter and energy. This time he clung to it. What had been his field became a beam of all the energy his weakened body could concentrate. Along that tightly held beam, he drew tremendous bolts of power from the ship. There was more energy - by many millions of times than he could handle. He had to deflect it from himself, had to discharge it into the darkness and the distance. But, like some monstrous leech, he reached out four, five, ten light-years, and drained that great ship of its drive power.

After countless eons of eking out his existence on fragile darts of light energy, he did not even dare to try to handle the colossal power. The vastness of space absorbed the flow as if it had never been. What he did let himself receive shocked the life back into his body. With a savage intensity, he realized the extent of the opportunity. Frantically, he adjusted his atomic structure and drove himself along the beam.

In the far distance, the ship - its drive off but its momentum carrying it forward coasted past him and began to draw farther away. It receded an entire light-year, then two, and then three. In a black despair, IXTL realized it was going to escape in spite of all his efforts. And then … the ship stopped. In mid-flight. One instant, it was coasting along at a velocity of many light-years a day. The next, it was poised in space, all its forward momentum inhibited and transformed. It was still a tremendous distance away, but it was no longer receding.

IXTL could guess what had happened. Those aboard the vessel had become aware of his interference and were deliberately stopping to find out what had happened, and what had caused it. Their method of instantaneous deceleration suggested a very advanced science, though he could not decide just what technique of anti-acceleration they had used. There were several possibilities.

He himself intended to stop by converting his gross velocity into electronic action within his body. Very little energy would be lost in the process. The electrons in each atom would speed up slightly - so slightly - and thus the microscopic speed would be transformed to movement on the microscopic level.

It was on that level that he suddenly sensed the ship was near.

A number of things happened then, following each other too swiftly for thought.

The ship put up an impenetrable energy screen. The concentration of so much energy set off the automatic relays he had established in his body. That stopped him a fraction of a microsecond before he had intended to. In terms of distance, that came to just over thirty miles.

He could see the ship as a point of light in the blackness ahead. Its screen was still up, which meant, in all probability, that those inside could not detect him and that he could no longer hope to get to the ship itself. He assumed that delicate instruments aboard had sensed his approach, identified him as a projectile, and raised the screen as a defense.

IXTL flashed to within yards of the almost invisible barrier. And there, separated from the realization of his hopes, he gazed hungrily at the ship. It was less than fifty yards away, a round, dark-bodied metal monster, studded with row on row of glaring lights, like diamonds. The space ship floated in the velvet-black darkness, glowing like an immense jewel, quiescent but alive, enormously, vitally alive. It brought nostalgic and vivid suggestion of a thousand far-flung planets and of an indomitable, boisterous life that had reached for the stars, and grasped them. And - in spite of present frustration - it brought hope.

Till this instant there had been so many physical things to do that he had only dimly comprehended what it might mean to him if he could get aboard. His mind, grooved through the uncounted ages to ultimate despair, soared up insanely. His legs and arms glistened like tongues of living fire as they writhed and twisted in the light that blazed from the portholes. His mouth, a gash in his caricature of a human head, slavered a white frost that floated away in little frozen globules. His hope grew so big that the thought of it kept dissolving in his mind, and his vision blurred.

Through that blur, he saw a thick vein of light form a circular bulge in the metaffic surface of the ship. The bulge became a huge door that rotated open and tilted to one side. A flood of brilliance spilled out of the opening. There was a pause, and then a dozen two-legged beings came into view. They wore almost transparent armor, and they dragged, or guided, great floating machines.

Swiftly, the machines were concentrated around a small area on the ship’s surface. From a distance, the flames that poured forth seemed small, but their dazzling brightness indicated either enormous heat or else a titanic concentration of other radiation. What was obviously repair work proceeded at an alarming rate.

Frantically, IXTL probed the screen that barred him from the ship, looking for weak spots. He found none. The force was too complex, its coverage too wide, for anything that he could muster against it. He had sensed that at a distance.

Now he faced the reality of it.

The work - IXTL saw they had removed a thick section of the outer wall and replaced it with new material - was finished almost as quickly as it had begun.

The incandescent glare of the welders died spluttering into darkness. Machines were unclamped, floated toward tile opening, down into it, and out of sight. The two-legged beings scrambled after them. The large, curved plain of metal was suddenly as deserted and lifeless as space itself.

The shock of that nearly unseated IXTL’s reason. He couldn’t let them escape him now, when the whole universe was in his grasp - a few short yards away. His arms reached out, as if he would hold the ship by his need alone. His body ached with a slow, rhythmical hurt. His mind spun toward a black, bottomless pit of despair, but poised just before the final plunge. The great door was slowing in its swift rotation. A solitary being squeezed through the ring of light and ran to the area that had been repaired. He picked up something and started back towards the open air lock. He was still some distance from it when he saw IXTL.

He stopped as if he had been struck. Stopped, that is, in a physically unbalanced fashion. In the glow from the portholes, his face was plainly visible through his transparent space suit. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. He seemed to catch himself. His lips began to move rapidly. A minute later, the door was rotating again, outward. It swung open, and a group of the beings came out and looked at IXTL. A discussion must have followed, for their lips moved at uneven intervals, first one individual’s, then another’s. Presently, a large metal-barred cage was floated up out of the air lock. There were two men sitting on it, and they seemed to be steering it under its own power. IXTL guessed that he was to be captured.

Curiously, he had no sense of lift. It was as if a drug was affecting him, dragging him down into an abyss of fatigue. Appalled, he tried to fight the enveloping stupor. He would need all his alertness if his race, which had attained the very threshold of ultimate knowledge, was to live again.

“How in the name of all the hells can anything live in intergalactic space?”

The voice, strained and unrecognizable, came through the communicator of Grosvenor’s space suit as he stood with the others near the air lock. It seemed to him that the question made the little group of men crowd closer together. For him, the proximity of the others was not quite enough. He was too aware of the impalpable yet inconceivable night that coiled about them, pressing down to the very blazing portholes.

Almost for the first time since the voyage had begun, the immensity of that darkness struck home to Grosvenor. He had looked at it so often from inside the ship that he had become indifferent. But now he was suddenly aware that man’s farthest stellar

frontiers were but a pin point in this blackness that reached billions of light-years in every direction.

The voice of Director Morton broke through the scared silence. “Calling Gunlie Lester inside the ship… Gunlie Lester…”

There was a pause; then, “Yes, Director?” Grosvenor recognized the voice of the head of the astronomy department.

“Gunlie,” Morton went on, “here’s something for your astro-mathematical brain.

Will you please give us the ratio of chance that blew out the drivers of the Beagle at the exact point in space where that thing was floating? Take a few hours to work it out.”

The words brought the whole scene into even sharper focus. It was typical of mathematician Morton that he let another man have the limelight in a field in which he himself was a master.

The astronomer laughed, then said in an earnest tone, “I don’t have to do any figuring. One would need a new system of notation to express the chance arithmetically. What you’ve got out there can’t happen, mathematically speaking.

Here we are, a shipload of human beings, stopping for repairs halfway between two galaxies - the first time we’ve ever sent an expedition outside our own island universe.

Here we are, I say, a tiny point intersecting without pre-arrangement exactly the path of another, tinier point. It’s impossible, unless space is saturated with such creatures.”

It seemed to Grosvenor that there was a more likely explanation. The two events could conceivably be in the simple relationship of cause and effect. A huge hole had been burned in the engine-room wall. Torrents of energy had poured out into space.

Now they had stopped to repair the damage. He parted his lips to say as much, and then closed them. There was another factor, the factor of the forces and probabilities involved in that assumption. Just how much power would be needed to drain the output of a pile of a few minutes? Briefly he considered the formula applicable, and shook his head slightly. The figures that came through were so enormous that the hypothesis he had intended to offer seemed automatically ruled out. A thousand coeurls among them couldn’t have handled energy in such quantities, which suggested that machines, not individuals, were involved.

Somebody was saying, “We ought to turn a mobile unit on anything that looks like that.”

The shudder in his voice stirred a like emotion in Grosvenor. The reaction must have run along the communicators, because, when Director Morton spoke, his tone indicated he was trying to throw off the chill of the other man’s words.

Morton said, “A regular blood-red devil spewed out of a nightmare, ugly as sin - and possibly as harmless as our beautiful pussy a few months ago was deadly.

Smith, what do you think?” The gangling biologist was coldly logical. “This thing, as far as I can make it out from here, has arms and legs, a development of purely planetary evolution. If it is intelligent, it will begin to react to the changing environment the moment it is inside the cage. It may be a venerable old sage, meditating in the silence of space where there are no distractions. Or it may be a young murderer, condemned to exile, consumed with desire to get back home and resume life in his own civilization.”

“I wish Korita had come out with us,” said Pennons, the chief engineer, in his quiet, practical fashion. “His analysis of pussy on the cat planet gave us an advance idea of what we had to face and - ”

“Korita speaking, Mr. Pennons.” As usual, the Japanese archeologist’s voice came over the communicators with meticulous clarity. “Like many of the others, I have been listening to what is happening, and I must admit I am impressed by the image I can see of this creature on the vision plate before me. But I’m afraid analysis on the basis of cyclic history would be dangerous at this factless stage. In the case of pussy, we had the barren, almost foodless planet on which he lived, and the architectural realities of the crumbled city: But here we have a being living in space a quarter of a million light-years from the nearest planet, existing apparently without food, and without means of spatial locomotion. I suggest the following: Keep the screen up, except for an opening for the cage to be taken out. When you have your creature actually in the cage, study him - every action, every reaction. Take pictures of his internal organs working in the vacuum of space. Find out everything about him, so that we shall know what we are bringing aboard. Let us avoid killing, or being killed. The greatest precautions are in order.”

“And that,” said Morton, “is sense.”

He began to issue orders. More machines were brought up from inside the ship.

They were set up on a smooth, curving expanse of the outer surface, except for a massive fluorite camera. That was attached to the mobile cage.

Grosvenor listened uneasily while the Director gave final instructions to the men guiding the cage. “Open the door as wide as possible,” Morton was saying, “and drop it over him. Don’t let his hands grab the bars.”

Grosvenor thought, It’s now or never. If I have any objections, I’ve got to offer them. There seemed nothing to say. He could outline his vague doubts. He could carry Gunlie Lester’s comment to its logical conclusion and say that what had happened could not be an accident. He might even suggest that a shipload of the red, devil-like beings was possibly waiting in the distance for their fellow to be picked up.

But the fact was that all the precautions against such eventualities had been taken. If there were a ship, then by opening the protective screen only enough to admit the cage, they were offering a minimum target. The outer skin might be seared, the men on it killed. But the vessel itself would surely be safe.

The enemy would find that his action had served no useful purpose. He would find arrayed against him a formidable armed and armored vessel, manned by members of a race that could pursue a battle to a remorseless conclusion.

Grosvenor reached that point in his speculation, and decided to make no comment. He would hold his doubts in reserve.

Morton was speaking again. “Any final remarks from anyone?”

“Yes.” The new voice belonged to von Grossen. “I’m in favor of making a thorough examination of this thing. To me, thorough means a week, a month.”

“You mean,” said Morton, “we sit here in space while our technical experts study the monster?”

“Of course,” said the physicist.

Morton was silent for several seconds, then he said slowly, “I’ll have to put that up to the others, von Grossen. This is an exploratory expedition. We are equipped to take back specimens by the thousand. As scientists, all is grist for our mill. Everything must be investigated. Yet I feel sure that the objection will be made that if we sit out in space an entire month for each specimen we plan to take aboard, this journey will take five hundred years instead of five or ten. I do not offer that as a personal objection. Obviously, every specimen must be examined and dealt with on its own merits.”

“My point,” said von Grossen, “is let’s think it over.”

Morton asked, “Any other objections?” When none was made, he finished quietly, “All right, boys, go out and get him!”

IXTL waited. His thoughts kept breaking up into kaleidoscopic memories of all the things he had ever known or thought. He had a vision of his home planet, long ago destroyed. The picture brought pride, and a gathering contempt for these two-legged beings who actually expected to capture him. He could remember a time when his race could control the movement of entire sun systems through space. That was before they dispensed with space travel as such and moved on to a quieter existence, building beauty from natural forces in an ecstasy of prolonged creative production.

He watched as the cage was unerringly driven towards him. It passed successfully through an opening in the screen, which closed instantly behind it.

The transition was smoothly made. Even had he wanted to, he could not have taken advantage of the opening in the screen during the brief moment it existed. He had no desire to do so. He must be careful not to make a single hostile move until he was inside the ship.

Slowly, the metal-barred construction floated towards him. Its two operators were wary and alert. One held a weapon of some kind. IXTL sensed that it discharged an atomic missile. It made him respectful, but he also recognized its limitations. It could be used against him out here, but they would not dare employ such a violent energy within the confines of the ship. More sharply, more clearly, that focused his purpose. Get aboard the ship! Get inside! Even as the determination struck deeper, the gaping mouth of the cage closed over him. The metal door snapped noiselessly shut behind him. IXTL reached for the nearest bar, caught it, and held on grimly. He clung there, dizzy from reaction.

For he was safe! His mind expanded with the force of that reality. There was a physical as well as a mental effect. Free electrons discharged in swarms from the chaos of spinning atom systems inside his body, arid frantically sought union with other systems. He was safe after quadrillions of years of despair. Safe on a material body. No matter what else happened, control of the energy source of this power-driven cage forever freed him from his past inability to direct his movements. He would never again be subject only to the pull and equally feeble counterpull of remote galaxies. Henceforth, he could travel in any direction he desired. And that much he had gained from the cage alone.

As he clung to the bars, his prison started to move toward the surface of the ship.

The protective screen parted as they came to it, and closed again behind them.

Close up, the men looked puny. Their need of space suits proved their inability to adapt themselves to environments radically different from their own, which meant that they were physically on a low plane of evolution. It would be unwise, however, to underestimate their scientific achievements. Here were keen brains, capable of creating and using mighty machines. And they had now brought up a number of those machines, evidently with the purpose of studying him. That would reveal his purpose, identify the precious objects concealed within his breast, and expose at least a few of his life processes. He could not allow such an examination to be made.

He saw that several of the beings carried not one but two weapons. The instruments were attached to holsters, which were fitted in with the hand-arm mechanisms of each space suit. One of the weapons was the atomic-missile type with which he had already been threatened. The other had a sparkling, translucent handle. He analyzed it as a vibration gun. The men on the cage were also armed with the latter type of weapon.

As the cage settled into the hastily arranged laboratory, a camera was pushed towards the narrow opening between two of the bars. That was IXTL’s cue. With effortless ease, he jerked himself to the ceiling of the cage. His vision intensified, and became sensitive to very short frequencies. Instantly, he could see the power source of the vibrator as a bright spot well within his reach. One arm, with its eight wirelike fingers, lashed out with indescribable swiftness at the metal, through it; and then he had the vibrator from the holster of one of the men on the cage.

He did not attempt to readjust its atomic structure as he had adjusted his arm. It was important that they should not be able to guess who had fired the weapon.

Straining to maintain his awkward position, he aimed the weapon at the camera and at the group of men behind it. He pressed the trigger. In one continuous movement, IXTL released the vibrator, withdrew his hand, and, by the act, pushed himself to the floor. His immediate fear was gone. The purely molecular energy had resonated through the camera and had affected to some extent most of the equipment in the makeshift laboratory. The sensitive film would be useless; meters would have to be reset, gauges examined, and each machine tested. Possibly the entire lot of paraphernalia would have to be replaced. And best of all, by its very nature, what had happened would have to be regarded as an accident.

Grosvenor heard curses in his communicator, and he guessed, with relief, that the others were fighting, as he was, the stinging vibration that had been only partly stopped by the material of their space suits. His eyes adjusted slowly.

Presently, he could see again the curved metal on which he stood, and beyond that the brief, barren crest of the ship, and the limitless miles of space-dark, fathomless, unthinkable gulfs. He saw, too, a blur among the shadows, the metal cage.

“I’m sorry, Director,” one of the men on the cage apologized. “The vibrator must have fallen out of my belt and discharged.”

Grosvenor said quickly, “Director, that explanation is unlikely in view of the virtual absence of gravity.”

Morton said, “That’s a good point, Grosvenor. Did anybody see anything significant?”

“Maybe I knocked against it, sir, without noticing,” volunteered the man whose weapon had caused the turmoil.

There was a spluttering sound from Smith. The biologist muttered something that sounded like “That erysipelatous, strabismic, steatopygian …” Grosvenor didn’t catch the rest, but he guessed that it was a biologist’s private curse.

Slowly, Smith straightened. “Just a minute,” he mumbled, “and I’ll try to remember what I saw. I was right here in the line of fire - ah, there, my body has stopped throbbing.” His voice became sharp as he went on. “I can’t swear to this, but just before that vibrator shocked me, the creature moved. I have an idea he jumped to the ceiling. I admit it

was too black to see more than a blur, but…” He left the sentence unfinished.

Morton said, “Crane, turn the cage light on, and let’s see what we’ve got here.”

With the others, Grosvenor faced about as a blaze of light showered down upon IXTL crouching at the bottom of ~the cage. And then he stood silent, shocked in spite of himself. The almost metallic red sheen of the creature’s cylindrical body, the eyes like coals of fire, the wirelike fingers and toes, and the overall scarlet hideousness of it startled him.

Through the communicator, Siedel said breathlessly, “He’s probably very handsome - to himself!”

The halfhearted attempt at humor broke the spell of horror. A man said stiffly,

“If life is evolution, and nothing evolves except for use, how can a creature living in space have highly developed legs and arms? Its insides should be interesting. But now the camera’s useless. That vibration would have the effect of distorting the lens, and of

course the film has been ruined. Shall I have another sent up?”

“No - o - o!” Morton sounded doubtful, but he continued in a firmer tone. “We’ve been wasting a lot of time; and, after all, we can recreate vacuum of space conditions inside the ship’s laboratories, and be traveling at top acceleration while we’re doing it.”

“Am I to understand that you are going to ignore my suggestion?” It was von Grossen, the physicist. He went on. “You will recall that I recommended at least a week’s study of this creature before any decision is made about taking him aboard.”

Morton hesitated, then said, “Any other objections?” He sounded concerned.

Grosvenor said, “I don’t think we should jump from the extreme of precaution to no precaution at all.”

Morton said quietly, “Anybody else?” When no one replied, he added, “Smith?”

Smith said, “Obviously, we’re going to take him aboard sooner or later. We mustn’t forget that a creature existing in space is the most extraordinary thing we’ve run across. Even pussy, who was equally at home with oxygen and chlorine, needed warmth of a kind, and would have found the cold and lack of pressure in space deadly. If, as we suspect, this creature’s natural habitat is not space, then we must find out why and how he came to be where he is.”

Morton was frowning. “I can see we’ll have to vote on this. We could enclose the cage in metal that will take a limited amount of the energy that makes up the ship’s outer screen. Would that satisfy you, von Grossen?”

Von Grossen said, “Now we are talking sensibly. But we shall have more arguments before the energy screen is taken down.”

Morton laughed. “Once we’re on our way again, you and the others can discuss the pro and con of that from now till the end of the voyage.” He broke off. “Any other objections? Grosvenor?”

Grosvenor shook his head. “The screen sounds effective to me, sir.” Morton said, “All those against, speak up.” When no one spoke, he directed a command to the men on the cage. “Move that thing over here, so we can start preparing it for energization.”

IXTL felt the faint throb in the metal as the motors started. He saw the bars move.

Then he grew conscious of a sharp, pleasant, tingling sensation. It was a physical activity inside his body, and while it was in progress it hampered the working of his mind. When he could think again, the cage floor was rising above him - and he was lying on the hard surface of the space ship’s outer shell.

With a snarl, he scrambled to his feet as he realized the truth. He had forgotten to readjust the atoms in his body after firing the vibrator. And now he had passed through the metal floor of the cage.

“Good heavens!” Morton’s bass exclamation almost deafened Grosvenor. A scarlet streak of elongated body, IXTL darted across the shadowy reach of the impenetrable metal of the ship’s outer wall to the air lock. He jerked himself down into its dazzling depths. His adjusted body dissolved through the two inner doors. And then he was at one end of a long, gleaming corridor, safe - for the moment. And one fact stood out. In the imminent struggle for control of the ship, he would have one important advantage, aside from his individual superiority. His opponents did not yet know the deadliness of his purpose.

16

IT WAS TWENTY minutes later. Grosvenor sat in one of the auditorium seats in the control room and watched Morton and Captain Leeth consulting together in low tones on one of the tiers leading up to the main section of the instrument board. The room was packed with men. With the exception of guards left in key centers, everybody had been ordered to attend. The military crew and its officers, the heads of science departments and their staffs, the administrative branches, and the various technical men who had no departments - all were either in the room or congregated in the adoining corridors.

A bell clanged. The babble of conversation began to fade. The bell clanged again. All conversation ceased. Captain Leeth came forward. “Gentlemen,” he said, “these problems keep arising, do they not? I am beginning to feel that we military men have not properly appreciated scientists in the past. I thought they lived out their lives in laboratories, far from danger. But it’s beginning to dawn on me that scientists can find trouble where it never existed before.”

He hesitated briefly, then went on in the same dryly humorous tone. “Director Morton and I have agreed that this is not a problem for military forces alone. So long as the creature is at large, every man must be his own policeman. Go armed, go in pairs or groups - the more the better.”

Once more he surveyed his audience, and his manner was grimmer when he continued. “It would be foolish for you to believe that this situation will not involve danger or death for some among us. It may be me. It may be you. Nerve yourself for it.

Accept the possibility. But if it is your destiny to make contact with this immensely dangerous creature, defend yourself to the death. Try to take him with you. Do not suffer, or die, in vain.

“And now” - he turned to Morton - “the Director will guide a discussion regarding the utilization against our enemy of the very considerable scientific knowledge which is aboard this ship. Mr. Morton.”

Morton walked slowly forward. His large and powerful body was dwarfed by the gigantic instrument board behind him, but nevertheless he looked imposing.

The Director’s gray eyes flicked questioningly along the line of faces, pausing at none, apparently simply assessing the collective mood of the men. He began by praising Captain Leeth’s attitude, and then he said, “I have examined my own recollections of what happened, and I think I can say honestly that no one - not even myself - is to blame for the creature’s being aboard. It had been decided, you may remember, to bring him aboard in the confines of a force field. That precaution satisfied our most precise critics, and it was unfortunate that it was not taken in time. The being actually came into the ship under his own power by a method which could not be foreseen.” He stopped. His keen gaze once more swept the room. “Or did anybody have something stronger than a premonition?

Please hold up your hand if you did.”

Grosvenor craned his neck, but no hands were raised. He settled back into his seat, and was a little startled to see that Morton’s gray eyes were fixed on him.

“Mr. Grosvenor,” said Morton, “did the science of Nexialism enable you to predict that this creature could dissolve his body through a wall?”

In a clear voice, Grosvenor said, “It did not.”

“Thank you,” said Morton. He seemed satisfied, for he did not ask anyone else.

Grosvenor had already guessed that the Director was trying to justify his own position. It was a sad commentary on the ship’s politics that he should have felt it necessary. But what particularly interested Grosvenor was that he had appealed to Nexialism as a sort of final authority.

Morton was speaking again. “Siedel,” he said, “give us a psychologically sound picture of what has happened.”

The chief psychologist said, “In setting about to capture this creature, we must first of all straighten our minds about him. He has arms and legs, yet floats in space and remains alive. He allows himself to be caught in a cage, but knows all the time that the cage cannot hold him. Then he slips through the bottom of the cage, which is very silly of him if he does not want us to know he can do it.

There is a reason why intelligent beings make mistakes, a fundamental reason that should make it easy for us to do some shrewd guessing as to where he came from, and, of course, to analyze why he is here. Smith, dissect his biological make-up!”

Smith stood up, lank and grim. “We’ve already discussed the obvious planetary origin of his hands and feet. The ability to live in space, if evolutionary at all, is certainly a remarkable attribute. I suggest that here is a member of a race that has solved the final secrets of biology; and if I knew how we should even begin to start looking for a creature that can escape from us through the nearest wall, my advice would be: Hunt him down, and kill him on sight.”

“Ah…” Kellie, the sociologist, said. He was a bald headed man, fortyish, with large, intelligent eyes. “Ah - any being who could fit himself to live in a vacuum would be lord of the universe. His kind would dwell on every planet, clutter up every galaxy. Swarms of him would be floating in space. Yet we know for a fact that his race does not infest our galactic area. A paradox that is worthy of investigation.”

“I don’t quite understand what you mean, Kellie,” said Morton. “Simply - ah - that a race which has solved the ultimate secrets of biology must be ages in advance of man. It would be highly sympodial, that is, capable of adaptation to any environment.

According to the law of vital dynamics, it would expand to the farthest frontier of the universe, just as man is trying to do.”

“It is a contradiction,” acknowledged Morton, “and would seem to prove that the creature is not a superior being. Korita, what is this thing’s history?”

The Japanese scientist shrugged, but he stood up and said, “I’m afraid I can be of only slight assistance on present evidence. You know the prevailing theory: that life proceeds upward - whatever we mean by upward - by a series of cycles. Each cycle begins with the peasant, who is rooted to his bit of soil. The peasant comes to market; and slowly the market place transforms into a town, with ever less inward’ connection to the earth. Then we have cities and nations, finally the soulless world cities and a devastating struggle for power, a series of frightful wars which sweep men to fellahdom, and so to primitiveness, and on to a new peasanthood. The question is: Is this creature in the peasant part of his particular cycle, or in the big city, megalopolitan era? Or where?”

He stopped. It seemed to Grosvenor that some very sharp pictures had been presented. Civilizations did appear to operate in cycles. Each period of the cycle must in a very rough fashion have its own psychological background.

There were many possible explanations for the phenomenon, of which the old Spenglerian notion of cycles was only one. It was even possible that Korita could foresee the alien’s actions on the basis of the cyclic theory. He had proved in the past that the system was workable and had considerable predictability. At the moment, it had the advantage that it was the only historical approach with techniques that could be applied to a given situation.

Morton’s voice broke the silence. “Korita, in view of our limited knowledge of this creature, what basic traits should we look for, supposing him to be in the big city stage of his culture?”

“He would be a virtually invincible intellect, formidable to the ultimate possible degree. At his own game, he would make no errors of any kind, and he would be defeatable only through circumstances beyond his control. The best example” - Korita was suave - “is the highly trained human being of our own era.”

“But he has already made an error!” von Grossen said in a silken tone, “He very foolishly fell through the bottom of the cage. Is that the kind of thing a peasant would do?”

Morton asked, “Suppose he was in the peasant stage?”

“Then,” Korita replied, “his basic impulses would be much simpler. There would first of all be the desire to reproduce, to have a son, to know that his blood was being carried on. Assuming great fundamental intelligence, this impulse might, in a superior being, take the form of a fanatic drive toward race survival.”

He finished quietly, “And that’s all I will say, on available evidence.” He sat down.

Morton stood stiffly on the tier of the instrument board and looked over his audience of experts. His gaze paused at Grosvenor. He said, “Recently, I have personally come to feel that the science of Nexialism may have a new approach to offer to the solution of problems. Since it is the wholeistic approach to life, carried to the nth degree, it may help us to a quick decision at a time when a quick decision is important. Grosvenor, please give us your views on this alien being.”

Grosvenor stood up briskly. He said, “I can give you a conclusion based on my observations. I could go into a little theory of my own as to how we made contact with this creature - the way the pile was drained of energy, with the result that we had to repair the outer wall of the engine room - and there were a number of significant time intervals - but rather than develop on such backgrounds, I’d like to tell you in the next few minutes how we should kill it”

There was an interruption. Half a dozen men were pushing their way through the group that crowded the doorway. Grosvenor paused, and glanced questioningly at Morton. The Director had turned and was watching Captain Leeth. The captain moved towards the new arrivals, and Grosvenor saw that Pennons, chief engineer of the ship, was one of them.

Captain Leeth said, “Finished, Mr. Pennons?”

The chief engineer nodded. “Yes, sir.” He added in a warning tone, “It is essential that every man be dressed in a rubberite suit and wear rubberite gloves and shoes.”

Captain Leeth explained. “We’ve energized the walls around the bedrooms.

There may be some delay in catching this creature, and we are taking no chances of being murdered in our beds.

We - ” He broke off, asking sharply, “What is it, Mr. Pennons?”

Pennons was staring at a small instrument in his hand. He said slowly, “Are we all here, Captain?”

“Yes, except for the guards in the engine and machine rooms.”

“Then… then something’s caught in the wall of force. Quick, we must surround it!”

17

To IXTL, returning to the upper floors from exploring the lower ones, the shock was devastating, the surprise complete. One moment he was thinking complacently of the metal sections in the hold of the ship, where he would secrete his guuls. The next moment he was caught in the full sparkling, furious center of an energy screen.

His mind went black with agony. Clouds of electrons broke free inside him.

They flashed from system to system, seeking union, only to be violently repelled by atom systems fighting stubbornly to remain stable. During those long, fateful seconds, the wonderfully balanced flexibility of his structure nearly collapsed.

What saved him was that even this dangerous eventuality had been anticipated by the collective genius of his race. In forcing artificial evolution upon his body - and their own - they had taken into account the possibility of a chance encounter with violent radiation. Like lightning, his body adjusted and readjusted, each new-built structure carrying the intolerable load for a fraction of a microsecond. And then he had jerked back from the wall, and was safe.

He concentrated his mind on the immediate potentialities. The defensive wall of force would have an alarm system connected to it. That meant the men would be bearing down on all the adjacent corridors in an organized attempt to corner him. IXTL’s eyes were glowing pools of fire as he realized the opportunity. They would be scattered, and he would be able to catch one of them, investigate him for his guul properties, and use him for his first guul.

There was no time to waste. He darted into the nearest unenergized wall, a tall, gaudy, ungraceful shape. Without pausing, he sped through room after room, keeping roughly parallel to a main corridor. His sensitive eyes followed the blurred figures of the men as they raced by. One, two, three, four, five in this corridor.

The fifth man was some distance behind the others. Comparatively, it was a slight advantage, but it was all IXTL needed. Like a wraith he glided through the wall just ahead of the last man and pounced forth in an irresistible charge. He was a rearing, frightful monstrosity with glaring eyes and ghastly mouth. He reached out with his four fire-colored arms, and with his immense strength clutched the human being. The man squirmed and jerked in one contorted effort; and then he was overwhelmed, and flung to the floor. He lay on his back, and IXTL saw that his mouth opened and shut in an uneven series of movements. Every time it opened, IXTL felt a sharp tingling in his feet. The sensation was not hard to identify. It was the vibrations of a call for help. With a snarl, IXTL pounced forward. With one great hand he smashed at the man’s mouth. The man’s body sagged. But he was still alive and conscious as IXTL plunged two hands into him.

The action seemed to petrify the man. He ceased to struggle. With widened eyes, he watched as the long, thin arms vanished under his shirt and stirred around in his chest. Then, horrified, he stared at the blood-red, cylindrical body that loomed over him.

The inside of the man’s body seemed to be solid flesh. And IXTL’s need was for an open space, or one that could be pressed open, so long as the pressing did not kill his victim. For his purposes, he needed living flesh. Hurry, hurry! His feet registered the vibrations of approaching footsteps. They came from one direction only, but they came swiftly.

In his anxiety, IXTL made the mistake of actually speeding up his investigation.

He hardened his searching fingers momentarily into a state of semisolidity. In that moment, he touched the heart. The man heaved convulsively, shuddered, and slumped into death.

An instant later, IXTL’s probing fingers discovered the stomach and the intestines.

He drew back in a violence of self-criticism. Here was what he wanted; and he had rendered it useless. He straightened slowly, his anger and dismay fading.

For he had not anticipated that these intelligent beings could die so easily. It changed and simplified everything. They were at his mercy, not he at theirs. No need for him to be more than casually cautious in dealing with them.

Two men with drawn vibrators whipped around the nearest corner and slid to a halt at the sight of the apparition that snarled at them across the dead body of their companion. Then, as they came out of their momentary paralysis, IXTL stepped into the nearest wall. One instant he was a blur of scarlet in that brightly lighted corridor, the next he was gone as if he had never been. He felt the transmitted vibration from the weapons as the energy tore futilely at the walls behind him. His plan was quite clear now. He would capture half a dozen men and make guuls of them. Then he could kill all the others, since they would not be necessary to him. That done, he could proceed on to the galaxy towards which the ship was evidently heading and there take control of the first inhabited planet. After that, domination of the entire reachable universe would be a matter of a short time only.

Grosvenor stood in front of a wall communicator with several other men, and watched the image of the group that had gathered around the dead technician.

He would have liked to be on the scene, but it would have taken him several minutes to get there. During that time he would be out of touch. He preferred to watch, and see and hear everything.

Director Morton stood nearest the sending plate, less than three feet from where Dr. Eggert was bending over the dead man. He looked tense. His jaw was clenched. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. Yet the words cut across the silence like a whiplash.

“Well, Doctor?”

Dr. Eggert rose up from his kneeling position beside the body and turned to Morton. The action brought him to face the sending plate. Grosvenor saw that he was frowning.

“Heart failure,” he said.

“Heart failure?”

“All right, all right.” The doctor put up his hands as if to defend himself. “I know his teeth look as if they’ve been smashed back into his brain. And, having examined him many times, I know his heart was perfect. Nevertheless, heart failure is what it looks like to me.”

“I can believe it,” a man said sourly. “When I came around that corner and saw that beast, I nearly had heart failure myself.”

“We’re wasting time.” Grosvenor recognized the voice of von Grossen before he saw the physicist standing between two men on the other side of Morton. The scientist continued. “We can beat this fellow, but not by talking about him and feeling sick every time he makes a move. If I’m next on his list of victims, I want to know that the best damned bunch of scientists in the system are not crying over my fate but instead are putting their brains to the job of avenging my death.”

“You’re right.” That was Smith. “The trouble with us is we’ve been feeling inferior. He’s been on the ship less than an hour, but I can see clearly that some of us are going to get killed. I accept my chance. But let’s get organized for combat.”

Morton said slowly, “Mr. Pennons, here’s a problem. We’ve got about two square miles of floor space in our thirty levels. How long will it take to energize every inch of it?”

Grosvenor could not see the chief engineer. He was not within range of the plate’s curving lens. But the expression on the officer’s face must have been something to witness. His voice, when he responded to Morton, sounded aghast.

He said, “I could sweep the ship, and probably wreck it completely within an hour. I won’t go into details. But uncontrolled energization would kill every living thing aboard.”

Morton’s back was partly to the communicating plate that was transmitting the images and voices of those who stood beside the body of the man who had been killed by IXTL. He said questioningly, “You could feed more energy to those walls, couldn’t you, Mr. Pennons?”

“No - o!” The ship’s engineer sounded reluctant. “The walls couldn’t stand it.

They’d melt.”

“The walls couldn’t stand it!” a man gasped. “Sir, do you realize what you’re making this creature out to be?”

Grosvenor saw that there was consternation in the faces of the men whose images were being transmitted. Korita’s voice cut across the pregnant silence.

He said, “Director, I am watching you on a communicator in the control room.

To the suggestion that we are dealing with a super-being, I want to say this: Let us not forget that he did blunder into the wall of force, and that he recoiled in dismay without penetrating into the sleeping quarters. I use the word `blunder’ deliberately. His action proves once again that he does make mistakes.”

Morton said, “That takes me back to what you said earlier about the psychological characteristics to be expected at the various cyclic stages. Let us suppose he’s a peasant of his cycle.”

Korita’s reply was crisp for one who usually spoke with such care. “The inability to understand the full power of organization. He will think, in all likelihood, that in order to gain control of the ship he need only fight the men who are in it.

Instinctively, he would tend to discount the fact that we are part of a great galactic civilization. The mind of the true peasant is very individualistic, almost anarchic. His desire to reproduce himself is a form of egoism, to have his own blood, particularly, carried on. This creature - if he is in the peasant stage of his development - will very possibly want to have numbers of beings similar to himself to help him with his fight. He likes company, but he doesn’t want interference. Any organized society can dominate a peasant community, because its members never form anything more than a loose union against outsiders.”

“A loose union of those fire-eaters ought to be enough!” a technician commented acidly. “I… aaa - a - a … His words trailed into a yell. His lower jaw sagged open. His eyes, plainly visible to Grosvenor, took on a goggly stare. All the men who could be seen in the plate retreated several feet.

Full into the center of the viewing plate stepped IXTL.

HE STOOD unmoving, forbidding specter from a scarlet hell. His eyes were bright and alert, though he was no longer alarmed. He had sized up these human beings, and he knew, contemptuously, that he could plunge into the nearest wall before any one of them could loose a vibrator on him. He had come for his first guul. By snatching that guul from the center of a group, he would to some extent demoralize everybody aboard.

Grosvenor felt a wave of unreality sweep over him as he watched the scene.

Only a few of the men were within the field of the plate. Von Grossen and two technicians stood nearest IXTL. Morton was just behind von Grossen, and part of the head and body of Smith could be seen near one of the technicians. As a group, they looked like insignificant opponents of the tall, thick, cylindrical monstrosity that towered above them.

It was Morton who broke the silence. Deliberately, he held his hand away from the translucent handle of his vibrator, and said in a steady voice, “Don’t try to draw on him. He can move like a flash. And he wouldn’t be here if he thought we could blast him. Besides, we can’t risk failure. This may be our only chance.”

He continued swiftly, in an urgent tone. “All emergency crews listening in on this get above and below and around this corridor. Bring up the heaviest portables, even some of the semiportables, and burn the walls down. Cut a clear path around this area, and have your beams sweep that space at narrow focus.

Move!”

“Good idea, Director!” Captain Leeth’s face appeared for a moment on Grosvenor’s communicator, superseding the image of IXTL and the others. “We’ll be there if you can hold that hellhound three minutes.” His face withdrew as swiftly as it had come.

Grosvenor deserted his own viewing plate. He had been acutely aware that he was too far from the scene for the kind of precise observation on which a Nexialist was supposed to base his actions. He was not part of any emergency crew, and so his purpose was to join Morton and the other men in the danger area.

As he ran, he passed other communicators, and realized that Korita was giving advice from a distance. “Morton, take this chance, but do not count on success.

Notice that he has appeared once again before we have been able to prepare against him. It

doesn’t matter whether he is pressing us intentionally or accidentally. The result, whatever his motivation, is that we are on the run, scurrying this way and that, futilely. So far, we have not clarified our thoughts.”

Grosvenor had been in an elevator, going down. Now he flung open the door and raced out. “I am convinced,” Korita’s voice continued from the next corridor communicator, “that the vast resources of this ship can defeat any creature - I mean, of course, any single creature - that has ever existed …” If Korita said anything after that, Grosvenor didn’t hear it, He had rounded the corner. And there, ahead, were the men and beyond them IXTL.

He saw that von Grossen had just finished sketching something in his notebook.

As Grosvenor watched with misgivings, von Grossen stepped forward and held the sheet out to IXTL. The creature hesitated, then accepted it. He took one glance at it, and stepped back with a snarl that split his face.

Morton yelled, “What the devil have you done?”

Von Grossen was grinning tensely. “I’ve just shown him how we can defeat him,” he said softly. “I - ”

His words were cut off. Grosvenor, still to the rear, saw the entire incident merely as a spectator. All the others in the group were involved in the crisis.

Morton must have realized what was about to happen. He stepped forward, as if instinctively trying to interpose his big body in front of von Grossen. A hand with long, wirelike fingers knocked the Director against the men behind him. He fell, unbalancing those nearest him. He recovered himself, clawed for his vibrator, and then froze with it in his hand.

As through a distorted glass, Grosvenor saw that the thing was holding von Grossen in two fire-colored arms. The two-hundred-and-twenty-pound physicist squirmed and twisted, vainly. The thin, hard muscles held him as if they were so many manacles.

What prevented Grosvenor from discharging his own vibrator was the impossibility of hitting the creature without also hitting von Grossen. Since the vibrator could not kill a human being but could render him unconscious, the conflict inside him was:

Should he activate the weapon in the hope that IXTL would also be knocked unconscious, or try in a desperate bid to get information from von Grossen? He chose the latter.

He called to the physicist in an urgent voice, “Von Grossen, what did you show him? How can we defeat him?”

Von Grossen heard, because he turned his head. That was all he had time for. At that moment, a mad thing happened. The creature took a running dive and vanished into the wall, still holding the physicist. For an instant, it seemed to Grosvenor that his vision had played a trick on him. But there were only the hard, smooth, gleaming wall and eleven staring, perspiring men, seven of them with drawn weapons, which they fingered helplessly.

“We’re lost!” a man whispered. “If he can adjust our atomic structures and take us with him through solid matter, we can’t fight him.”

Grosvenor saw that Morton was irritated by the remark. It was the irritation of a man who is trying to maintain his balance under trying circumstances. The Director said angrily, “While we’re living, we can fight him!” He strode to the nearest communicator, and asked, “Captain Leeth, what’s the situation?”

There was a delay, then the commander’s head and shoulders came into focus on the plate. “Nothing,” he said succinctly. “Lieutenant Clay thinks he saw a flash of scarlet disappearing through a floor, going down. We can, for the time being, narrow our search down to the lower half of the ship. As for the rest, we were just lining up our units when it happened. You didn’t give us enough time.”

Morton said grimly, “We didn’t have anything to say about it.”

It seemed to the listening Grosvenor that the statement was not strictly true. Von Grossen had hastened his own capture by showing the creature a diagram of how he could be defeated. It was a typically egotistical human action, with little survival value. More than that, it pointed up his own argument against the specialist who acted unilaterally and was incapable of co-operating intelligently with other scientists. Behind what von Grossen had done was an attitude centuries old. That attitude had been good enough during the early days of scientific research. But it had a limited value now that every new development required knowledge and co-ordination of many sciences.

Standing there, Grosvenor questioned that von Grossen had actually evolved a technique for defeating IXTL. He questioned that a successful technique would be limited to the field of a single specialist. Any picture von Grossen had drawn for the creature would probably have been limited to what a physicist would know.

His private thought ended as Morton said, “What I’d like is some theory as to what was drawn on the sheet of paper von Grossen showed the creature.”

Grosvenor waited for someone else to reply. When no one did, he said, “I think I have one, Director.”

Morton hesitated the barest moment, then said, “Go ahead.”

Grosvenor began, “The only way one could gain the attention of an alien would be to show him a universally recognized symbol. Since von Grossen is a physicist, the symbol he would have used suggests itself.”

He paused deliberately and looked around him. He felt as if he were being melodramatic, but it was unavoidable. In spite of Morton’s friendliness, and the Rum incident, he was not recognized as an authority aboard this ship, and so it would be better if the answer would occur spontaneously at this point to several people.

Morton broke the silence. “Come, come, young man. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“An atom,” said Grosvenor.

The faces around him looked blank. “But that doesn’t mean anything,” said Smith. “Why would he show him an atom?”

Grosvenor said, “Not just any atom, of course. I’ll wager that von Grossen drew for the creature a structural representation of the eccentric atom of the metal that makes up the outer shell of the Beagle.”

Morton said, “You’ve got it!”

“Just a minute.” Captain Leeth spoke from the communicator plate. “I confess I’m no physicist, but I’d like to know just what is it that he’s got.”

Morton explained. “Grosvenor means that only two parts of the ship are composed of that incredibly tough material, the outer shell and the engine room.

If you had been with us when we first captured the creature, you would have noticed that when it slipped through the floor of the cage it was stopped short by the hard metal of the outer shell of the ship. It seems clear that it cannot pass through such metal.

The fact that it had to run for the air lock in order to get inside is further proof.

The wonder is that we didn’t all of us think of that right away.”

Captain Leeth said, “If Mr. von Grossen was showing the creature the nature of our defenses, couldn’t it be that he depicted the energy screens we put up in the walls? Isn’t that just as possible as the atom theory?”

Morton turned and glanced questioningly at Grosvenor. The Nexialist said, “The creature had already experienced the energy screen at that time and had survived it.

Von Grossen clearly believed he had something new. Besides, the only way you can show a field of force on paper is with an equation involving arbitrary symbols.”

Captain Leeth said, “This is very welcome reasoning. We have at least one place aboard where we are safe - the engine room - and possibly somewhat lesser protection from the wall screens of our sleeping quarters. I can see why Mr. von Grossen would feel that gave us an advantage. All personnel on this ship will hereafter concentrate only in those areas, except by special permission or command.” He turned to the nearest communicator, repeated the order, and then said, “Heads of departments be prepared to answer questions relating to their specialties.

Necessary duties will probably be assigned to suitably trained individuals. Mr. Grosvenor, consider yourself in this latter category. Dr. Eggert, issue anti-sleep pills where required. No one can go to bed until this beast is dead.”

“Good work, Captain!” Morton said warmly.

Captain Leeth nodded, and disappeared from the communicator plate. In the corridor, a technician said hesitantly, “What about von Grossen?”

Morton said harshly, “The only way we can help von Grossen is by destroying his captor!”

IIn that vast room of vast machines, the men seemed like dwarfs in a hall of giants.

Grosvenor blinked involuntarily at each burst of unearthly blue light that sparkled and coruscated upon the great, glistening sweep of ceiling. And there was a sound that rasped his nerves as much as the light affected his eyes. It was imprisoned in the air itself. A hum of terrifying power, a vague rumble like thunder from beyond the horizon, a quivering reverberation of an inconceivable flow of energy. The drive was on. The ship was accelerating, going ever deeper and faster through the gulf of blackness that separated the spiral galaxy, of which Earth was one tiny, spinning atom, from another galaxy of almost equal size. That was the background to the decisive struggle that was now taking place. The largest, most ambitious exploratory expedition that had ever set out from the solar system was in the gravest danger of its existence. Grosvenor believed that firmly. This was no Coeurl, whose over-stimulated body had survived the murderous wars of the dead race that had performed biological experiments upon the animals of the cat planet. Nor could the danger from the Rum folk be compared. After their first misguided effort at communication, he had controlled every subsequent action in what he had thought of as the struggle between one man and a race.

The scarlet monster was clearly and unmistakably in a class by himself.

Captain Leeth climbed up a metal stairway that led to a small balcony. A moment later Morton joined him and stood looking down at the assembled men.

He held a sheaf of notes in his hand, divided by one interposed finger into two piles. The two men studied the notes, then Morton said, “This is the first breathing spell we’ve had since the creature came aboard less than - incredible as it may seem - less than two hours ago. Captain Leeth and I have been reading the recommendations given us by heads of departments. These recommendations we have roughly divided into two categories. One category, being of a theoretical nature, we will leave till later. The other category, which concerns itself with mechanical plans for cornering our enemy, naturally takes precedence. To begin with, I am sure that we are all anxious to know that plans are afoot to locate and rescue Mr. von Grossen. Mr. Zeller, tell the rest of the men what you have in mind.”

Zeller came forward, a brisk young man in his late thirties. He had succeeded to the headship of the metallurgy department after Breckenridge was killed by Coeurl. He said, “The discovery that the creature cannot penetrate the group of alloys we call resistance metals automatically gave us a clue as to the type of material we would use in building a space suit. My assistant is already working at the suit, and it should be ready in about three hours. For the search, naturally, we’ll use a fluorite camera. If anybody has any suggestions …”

A man said, “Why not make several suits?”

Zeller shook his head. “We have only a very limited amount of material. We could make more, but only by transmutation, which takes time.” He added, “Besides, ours has always been a small department. We’ll be fortunate to get one suit completed in the time I have set.”

There were no more questions. Zeller disappeared into the machine shop adjoining the engine room.

Director Morton raised his hand. When the men had settled again to silence, he said, “For myself, I feel better knowing that, once the suit is built, the creature will have to keep moving von Grossen in order to prevent us from discovering the body.”

“How do you know he’s alive?” someone asked.

“Because the damned thing could have taken the body of the man he killed, but he didn’t. He wants us alive. Smith’s notes have given us a possible clue to his purpose, but they are in category two, and will be discussed later.”

He paused, then went on, “Among the plans put forward for actually destroying the creature, I have here one offered by two technicians of the physics department, and one by Elliott Grosvenor. Captain Leeth and I have discussed these plans with chief engineer Pennons and other experts, and we have decided that Mr. Grosvenor’s idea is too dangerous to human beings, and so will be held as a last resort. We will begin immediately on the other plan unless important objections to it are raised. Several additional suggestions were made, and these have been incorporated. While it is customary to let individuals expound their own ideas, I think time will be saved if I briefly outline the plan as it has finally been approved by the experts.”

“The two physicists” - Morton glanced down at the papers in his hand - “Lomas and Hindley, admit that their plan depends on the creature’s permitting us to make the necessary energy connections. That appears probable on the basis of Mr. Korita’s theory of cyclic history, to the effect that apeasant’ is so concerned with his own blood purposes that he tends to ignore the potentialities of organized opposition. On this basis, under the modified plan of Lomas and Hindley, we are going to energize the seventh and ninth levels - only the floor and not the walls. Our hope is this.

Until now, the creature has made no organized attempt to kill us. Mr. Korita says that, being a peasant, the thing has not yet realized that he must destroy us or we will destroy him. Sooner or later, however, even a peasant will realize that killing us should come first, before anything else. If he doesn’t interfere with our work, then we’ll trap him on the eighth level, between the two energized floors.

There, under circumstances where he won’t be able to get down or up, we’ll search him out with our projectors. As Mr. Grosvenor will realize, this plan is considerably less risky than his own, and therefore should take precedence.”

Grosvenor swallowed hard, hesitated, and then said grimly, “If it’s the amount of risk we’re considering, why don’t we just crowd together here in the engine room and wait for him to develop a method of coming in after us?” He went on earnestly, “Please don’t think I’m trying to push my own ideas. But personally” - he hesitated, then took the plunge - “I consider the plan you outlined as worthless.”

Morton looked genuinely startled. Then he frowned. “Isn’t that rather a sharp judgment?”

Grosvenor said, “I understand the plan as described by you was not the one originally put forward, but a modified version of it. What was taken out?”

“The two physicists,” said the Director, “recommended energizing four levels - seven, eight, nine, and ten.”

For the third time, Grosvenor hesitated. He had no desire to be overcritical. At any moment, if he persisted, they would simply cease asking his opinion. He said finally, “That’s better.”

From behind Morton, Captain Leeth interrupted. “Mr. Pennons, tell the group why it would be inadvisable to energize more than two floors.”

The chief engineer stepped forward. He said with a frown, “The principal reason is that it would take an extra three hours, and we are all agreed that time is of the essence. If time were not a factor, it would be much better to energize the entire ship under a controlled system, walls as well as floors. That way, he couldn’t escape us. But it would require about fifty hours. As I stated previously, uncontrolled energization would be suicide. There’s another factor involved that we discussed purely as human beings. The reason the creature will seek us out will be that he wants more men, so that when he starts down, he’ll have one of us with him. We want that man, whoever he is, to have a chance for life.” His voice grew harsh.

“During the three hours it will take us to put the modified plan into effect, we’ll be helpless against him except for high-powered mobile vibrators and heat projectors. We dare not use anything heavier inside the ship, and those will have to be used with care since they can kill human beings. Naturally, each man is expected to defend himself with his own vibrator.” He stepped back. “Let’s get going!”

Captain Leeth said unhappily, “Not so fast. I want to hear more of Mr. Grosvenor’s objections.”

Grosvenor said, “If we had time, it might be interesting to see how this creature reacts to such energized walls.”

A man said irritably, “I don’t get the argument. Why, if this creature ever gets caught between two energized levels, that’s the end of him. We know he can’t get through.”

“We don’t know anything of the kind,” Grosvenor said firmly. “All we know is that he got into a wall of force, and that he escaped. We assume he didn’t like it.

In fact, it seems clear that he definitely could not remain in such an energy field for any length of time. It is our misfortune, however, that we cannot use a full force screen against him. The walls, as Mr. Pennons pointed out, would melt. My point is, he escaped from what we’ve got.”

Captain Leeth looked disconcerted. “Gentlemen,” he said, “why was this point not brought out at the discussion? it is certainly a valid objection.”

Morton said, “I was in favor of inviting Grosvenor to the discussion, but I was voted down on the basis of a long-standing custom, whereby the man whose plan is under consideration is not present. For the same reason, the two physicists were not invited.”

Siedel cleared his throat. “I don’t think,” he said, “that Mr. Grosvenor realizes what he has just done to us. We have all been assured that the ship’s energy screen is one of man’s greatest scientific achievements. This has given me personally a sense of well-being and security. Now he tells us this being can penetrate it.”

Grosvenor said, “I didn’t say the ship’s screen was vulnerable, Mr. Siedel. In fact, there is reason to believe the enemy could not and cannot get through it.

The reason is that he waited beyond it till we brought him inside it. The floor energization, now being discussed, is a considerably weaker version.”

“Still,” said the psychologist, “don’t you think the experts unconsciously assumed a similarity between the two forms? The rationale would be: If this energization is ineffective, then we are lost. Therefore, it must be effective.”

Captain Leeth broke in wearily. “I’m afraid that Mr. Siedel has accurately analyzed our weakness. I recall now having such a thought.”

From the center of the room, Smith said, “Perhaps we’d better hear Mr. Grosvenor’s alternative plan.”

Captain Leeth glanced at Morton, who hesitated, then said, “He suggested that we divide ourselves into as many groups as there are atomic projectors aboard”

That was as far as he got. A physics technician said in a shocked voice, “Atomic energy - inside a ship!”

The uproar that began then lasted for more than a minute. When it died away, Morton went on as if there had been no interruption.

“We have forty-one such projectors at the moment. If we accepted Mr. Grosvenor’s plan, each one would be manned by a nucleus of military personnel, with the rest of us spread out as bait within sight of one of the projectors. Those manning the projector would be under orders to activate it even if one or more of us is in the line of fire.”

Morton shook his head slightly, and went on. “It is possibly the most effective suggestion that has been put forward. However, the ruthlessness of it shocked us all. The idea of firing at one’s own people, while not new, strikes much deeper than Mr. Grosvenor - I think - realizes. In fairness, though, I must add that there was one other factor that decided the scientists against it. Captain Leeth stipulated that those who acted as bait must be unarmed. To most of us, that was carrying the thing too far. Every man should be entitled to defend himself.” The Director shrugged. “Since there was an alternative plan, we voted for it. I am now personally in favor of Mr. Grosvenor’s idea, but I still object to Captain Leeth’s stipulation.”

At the first mention of the commander’s suggestion, Grosvenor had swung around and stared at the officer. Captain Leeth looked back steadily, almost grimly. After a moment, Grosvenor said aloud in a deliberate tone, “I think you ought to take the risk, Captain.”

The commander acknowledged the words with a slight, formal bow. “Very well,” he said, “I withdraw my stipulation.”

Grosvenor saw that Morton was puzzled by the brief interchange. The Director glanced at him, then at the captain, then back again to Grosvenor. Then a startled look flashed into his heavy-set face. He came down the narrow metal steps and over to Grosvenor. He said in a low tone, “To think that I never realized what he was getting at. He obviously believes that in a crisis …” He stopped, and turned to stare up at Captain Leeth.

Grosvenor said placatingly, “I think he now realizes he made a mistake in bringing up the matter.”

Morton nodded, and said reluctantly, “I suppose, when you come right down to it, he’s right. The impulse to survive, being basic, could supersede all subsequent conditionings. “Still” - he frowned - “we’d better not mention it. I think the scientists would feel insulted, and there’s enough bad feeling aboard.”

He turned and faced the group. “Gentlemen,” he said resonantly, “it seems clear that Mr. Grosvenor has made a case for his plan. All in favor of it, raise their hands.”

To Grosvenor’s intense disappointment, only about half a hundred hands came up. Morton hesitated, then said, “All against, raise theirs.”

This time, just over a dozen hands were raised.

Morton pointed at a man in the front line. “You didn’t put yours up either time.

What seems to be the trouble?”

The man shrugged. “I’m neutral. I don’t know whether I’m for it or against it. I don’t know enough.”

“And you?” Morton indicated another individual.

The man said, “What about secondary radiation?”

Captain Leeth answered that. “We’ll block it off. We’ll seal the entire area.” He broke off. “Director,” he said, “I don’t understand why this delay. The vote was fifty-nine to fourteen in favor of the Grosvenor plan. While my jurisdiction over scientists is limited even during a crisis, I regard that as a decisive vote.”

Morton seemed taken aback. “But,” he protested, “nearly eight hundred men abstained.”

Captain Leeth’s tone was formal. “That was their privilege. It is expected that grown men know their own minds. The whole idea of democracy is based on that supposition. Accordingly, I order that we act at once.”

Morton hesitated, then said slowly, “Well, gentlemen, I am compelled to agree.

I think we’d better get about our business. It’ll take time to set up the atomic projectors, so let’s start energizing levels seven and nine while we’re waiting. As I see it, we might as well combine the two plans, and abandon one or the other depending on the developing situation.”

“Now that,” said a man, with evident relief, “makes sense.”

The suggestion seemed to make sense to a lot of the men. Resentful faces relaxed.

Somebody cheered, and presently the great human mass was flowing out of the huge chamber. Grosvenor turned to Morton.

“That was a stroke of genius,” he said. “I was too set against such limited energization to have thought of such a compromise.”

Morton acknowledged the compliment gravely. “I was holding it in reserve,” he said.

“In dealing with human beings, I’ve noticed there is usually not only a problem to be solved but the matter of tension among those who have to solve it.” He shrugged.

“During danger, hard work. During hard work, relaxation in every practicable form.”

He held out his hand. “Well, good luck, young man. Hope you come through safely.”

As they shook hands, Grosvenor said, “How long will it take to roll out the atomic cannon?”

“About an hour, perhaps a little longer. Meanwhile, we’ll have the big vibrators to protect us …”

The reappearance of the men brought IXTL up to the seventh level with a rush.

For many minutes, he was an abnormal shape that flitted through the wilderness of walls and floors. Twice he was seen, and projectors flashed at him. They were vibrators as different from the hand weapons he had faced so far as life from death. They shattered the walls through which he jumped to escape them. Once, the beam touched one of his feet. The hot shock from the molecular violence of the vibration made him stumble. The foot came back to normal in less than a second, but he had his picture of the limitations of his body against these powerful mobile units.

And still he was not alarmed. Speed, cunning, careful timing and placing of any appearance he made - such precautions would offset the effectiveness of the new weapons. The important thing was:

What were the men doing? Obviously, when they had shut themselves up in the engine room, they had conceived a plan, and they were carrying it out with determination. With glittering, unwinking eyes, IXTL watched the plan take form.

In every corridor, men slaved over furnaces, squat things of dead-black metal.

From a hole in the top of each furnace, a white glare spewed up, blazing forth furiously. IXTL could see that the men were half blinded by the white dazzle of the fire. They wore space armor, but the ordinarily transparent glassite of which it was made was electrically darkened. Yet no light-metal armor could ward off the full effect of that glare. Out of the furnaces rolled long, dully glowing strips of material. As each strip emerged, it was snatched by machine tools, skillfully machined to exact measurements, and slapped onto the metal floors. Not an inch of floor, IXTL noted, escaped being enclosed by the strips. And the moment the hot metal was down, massive refrigerators hugged close to it and drew its heat.

His mind refused at first to accept the result of his observations. His brain persisted in searching for deeper purposes, for a cunning of vast and not easily discernible scope. Presently, he decided that this was all there was. The men were attempting to energize two floors under a system of controls. Later, when they realized that their limited trap was not effective, they would probably try other methods. Just when their defensive system would be dangerous to him, IXTL wasn’t certain. The important thing was that as soon as he did regard it as dangerous, it would be a simple matter to follow the men about and tear loose their energization connections.

Contemptuously, IXTL dismissed the problem from his mind. The men were only playing into his hands, making it easier for him to get the guuls he still needed.

He selected his next victim carefully. He had discovered in the man he had unintentionally killed that the stomach and intestinal tract were suitable for his purposes. Automatically, the men with the largest stomachs were on his list.

He made his preliminary survey, and then launched himself. Before a single projector could be turned towards him, he was gone with the writhing, struggling body. It was simple to adjust his atomic structure the moment he was through a ceiling, and so break his fall to the floor beneath. Swiftly, he let himself dissolve through that floor also, and down to the level below. Into the vast hold of the ship, he half fell, half lowered himself. He could have gone faster, but he had to be careful not to damage the human body.The hold was familiar territory now to the sure-footed tread of his long-toed feet. He had explored the place briefly but thoroughly after he first boarded the ship. And, in handling von Grossen, he had learned the pattern he needed now. Unerringly, he headed across the dim-lit interior toward the far wall. Great packing cases were piled up to the ceiling. He went through them or around them, as it suited him, and presently found himself in a great pipe. The inside was big enough for him to stand up in. It was part of the miles-long system of air conditioning.

His hiding place would have been dark by ordinary light. But to his infrared-sensitive vision, a vague twilight glow suffused the pipe. He saw the body of von Grossen, and laid his new victim beside it. Carefully, then, he inserted one of his wiry hands into his own breast, removed a precious egg, and deposited it into the stomach of the human being.

The man was still struggling, but IXTL waited for what he knew must happen.

Slowly, the body began to stiffen. The muscles grew progressively rigid. In panic, the man squirmed and jerked as he evidently recognized that paralysis was creeping over him.

Remorselessly, IXTL held him down until the chemical action was completed. In the end, the man lay motionless, every muscle rigid. His eyes were open and staring.

There was sweat on his face.

Within hours, the eggs would be hatching inside each man’s stomach. Swiftly, the tiny replicas of himself would eat themselves to full size, Satisfied, IXTL darted up out of the hold. He needed more hatching places for his eggs, more guuls.

By the time he had put a third captive through the process, the men were working on the ninth level. Waves of heat rolled along the corridor. It was an inferno wind. Even the refrigeration unit in each space suit was hard put to it to handle the superheated air.

Men sweated inside their suits. Sick from the heat, stunned by the glare, they labored almost by instinct.

Beside Grosvenor, a man said suddenly, harshly, “Here they come now!”

Grosvenor turned in the direction indicated, and stiffened in spite of himself.

The machine that was rolling towards them under its own power was not big. It was a globular mass with an outer shell of wolfram carbide, and had a nozzle that protruded from the globe. The strictly functional structure was mounted on a universal bearing, which, in its turn, rested on a base of four rubber wheels.

All around Grosvenor, men had ceased work. Their faces pale, they stared at the metal monstrosity. Abruptly, one of them came over to Grosvenor and said angrily, “Damn you, Grove, you’re responsible for this. If I’m due to get irradiated by one of those things, I’d like to punch you one in the nose first.”

“I’ll be right here,” said Grosvenor in a steady voice. “If you get killed, so will I.”

That seemed to take some of the anger out of the other. But there was still violence in his manner and tone, as he said, “What the hell kind of nonsense is this? Surely there must be better plans than to make bait out of human beings.”

Grosvenor said, “There is another thing we can do.”

“What’s that?”

“Commit suicide!” said Grosvenor. And he meant it.

The man glared at him, then turned away muttering something about stupid jokes and moronic jokesters. Grosvenor smiled mirthlessly and went back to work. Almost immediately, he saw that the men had lost their zest for the job.

An electric tension leaped from one individual to another. The slightest untoward action on the part of one person brought the others tautly erect.

They were bait. All over the various levels, man would be reacting to the death fear. No one could be immune, for the will to survive was built-in in the nervous system.

Highly trained military men like Captain Leeth could put on an impassive front, but the tension would be there just under the surface. Similarly, people like Elliott Grosvenor could be grim but determined, convinced of the soundness of a course of action and prepared to take their chance.

“Attention, all personnel!”

Grosvenor jumped with the rest as that voice came out of the nearest communicator. It took a long moment before he recognized it as belonging to the commander of the ship.

Captain Leeth continued. “All projectors are now in position to levels seven, eight and nine. You will be glad to know that I have been discussing the dangers involved with my officers. We make the following recommendations: If you see the creature, don’t wait, don’t look around! Throw yourself instantly to the floor.

All weapon crews - right now - adjust your nozzles to fire at 50 degrees. That gives you all a clearance of one and a half feet. This will not protect you from secondary radiation, but I think we can honestly say that if you hit the floor in time, Dr. Eggert and his staff in the engine room will save your life. In conclusion” - Captain Leeth seemed more at ease, now that his main message had been delivered - “let me assure all ranks that there are no shirkers aboard. With the exception of the doctors and three invalid patients, every individual is in as great danger as you. My officers and I are divided among the various groups. Director Morton is down on the seventh level. Mr. Grosvenor - whose plan this is - is on level nine, and so on. Good luck, gentlemen!”

There was a moment’s silence. Then the leader of the gun crew near Grosvenor called in a friendly voice, “Hey, you fellows! We’ve made the adjustments. You’ll be safe if you can hit the deck in nothing flat.”

Grosvenor called, “Thanks, friend.”

Just for a moment, then, the tension eased. A mathematical-biology technician said, “Grove, butter him up some more with soft talk.”

“I always did love the military,” said another man. In a hoarse aside, he said loud enough for the gun crew to hear, “That ought to hold em off for that extra second I need.”

Grosvenor scarcely heard. Bait, he was thinking again. And no group would know when the moment of danger came for some other group. At the instant of “guncrit” - a modified form of critical mass, in which a small pile developed enormous energy without exploding - a tracer light would leap out of the muzzle. Along it and around it would pour the hard, silent, invisible radiation.

When it was all over, the survivors would notify Captain Leeth on his private band. In due course, the commander would inform the other groups.

“Mr. Grosvenor!”

Instinctively, as the sharp voice sounded, Grosvenor dived for the floor. He struck painfully, but came up almost immediately as he recognized Captain Leeth’s voice. Other men were climbing ruefully to their feet. One man muttered, “Dammit, that wasn’t fair.”

Grosvenor reached the communicator. He kept his gaze warily on the corridor ahead of him, as he said, “Yes, Captain?”

“Will you come down to level seven at once? Central corridor. Approach from nine o’clock.”

“Yes, sir.”

Grosvenor went with a sense of dread. There had been a tone in the captain’s voice. Something was wrong.

He found a nightmare. As he approached, he saw that one of the atomic cannon was lying on its side. Beside it, dead, burned beyond recognition, lay what had been three of the four military crew men of the projector. On the floor beside them, unconscious but still twitching and squirming, all too evidently from a vibrator discharge, was the fourth crew man.

On the far side of the cannon, twenty men lay unconscious or dead, among them Director Morton.

Stretcher-bearers, wearing protective clothing, were dashing in, picking up a victim, and then racing off with him on a loading mule.

The rescue work had clearly been going on for several minutes, so there were probably more unconscious men already being tended in the engine room by Dr. Eggert and his staff.

Grosvenor stopped at a barrier that had been hastily erected at a turn in the corridor. Captain Leeth was there. The commander was pale but calm. In a few minutes, Grosvenor had the story.

IXTL had appeared. A young technician - Captain Leeth did not name him - forgot in panic that safety lay on the floor. As the muzzle of the cannon came up inexorably, the hysterical youngster fired his vibrator at the crew, stunning them all. Apparently, they had hesitated slightly when they saw the technician in their line of fire. The next instant, each crew man was unknowingly contributing his bit to the disaster.

Three of them fell against the cannon, and, instinctively clinging to it, swung it over on its side. It rolled away from them, dragging the fourth man along.

The trouble was he had hold of the activator, and for what must have been nearly a second he pressed it.

His three companions were in the direct line of fire. They died instantly. The cannon finished rolling over on its side, spraying one wall. Morton and his group, though never in the direct line of fire, were caught by the secondary radiation. It was too soon to tell how badly they were injured, but at a conservative estimate they would all be in bed for a year. A few would die.

“We were a little slow,” Captain Leeth confessed. “This apparently happened a few seconds after I finished talking. But it was nearly a minute before somebody who heard the crash of the cannon toppling grew curious and glanced around this corner.” He sighed wearily. “At the very worst, I never expected anything as bad as an entire group being wiped out.”

Grosvenor was silent. This was why, of course, Captain Leeth had wanted the scientists unarmed. In a crisis, a man protected himself. He couldn’t help it. Like an animal, he fought blindly for his life. He tried not to think of Morton, who had realized that the scientists would resist being disarmed and who had thought up the modus operandi that would make the use of atomic energy acceptable to all. He said steadily, “Why did you call me?”

“My feeling is that this failure affects your plan. What do you think?”

Grosvenor nodded reluctantly. “The surprise element is gone,” he said. “He must have come up without suspecting what was waiting for him. Now, he’ll be careful.”

He could picture the scarlet monster poking his head through a wall, surveying a corridor - then boldly coming out beside one of the cannon and snatching one of the crew men. The only adequate precaution would be to set up a second projector to cover the first one. But that was out of the question - there were only forty-one available for the whole ship.

Grosvenor shook his head. Then he said, “Did he get another man?”

“No.”

Once more Grosvenor was silent. Like the others, he could only guess at the creature’s reason for wanting living men. One of those guesses was based on Korita’s theory that the being was in a peasant stage and intent on reproducing himself. That suggested a blood-curdling possibility, and a pressure of need on the part of the creature that would drive him after more human victims.

Captain Leeth said, “As I see it, he’ll be up again. My idea is that we leave the cannon where they are for the time being and finish energizing three levels.

Seven is completed, nine is almost ready, and so we might as well go on to eight. That will give us three floors all together. As far as the possible effectiveness of such a plan goes, we should consider that the creature has now captured three men in addition to von Grossen. In each case, he was seen to take them in what we call a downward direction. I suggest that, as soon as we have energized all three levels, we go to the ninth floor and wait for him. When he capturesone of us, we wait momentarily; and then Mr. Pennons will throw the switch that sets up the force field in the floors. The creature will strike the eighth level, and find it energized.

If he tries to go through, he will find that seven is also energized. If he comes up, he finds nine in the same deadly state. Either way, we force him to make contact with two energized floors.” The commander paused, looked thoughtfully at Grosvenor, and then said, “I know you considered that contact with only one level would not kill him. You were not so positive about two.” He stopped, and waited questioningly.

Grosvenor said, after a moment of hesitation, “I’ll buy that. Actually, we can only guess how it will affect him. Maybe we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.”

He didn’t believe that. But there was another factor in this developing situation: the convictions and hopes that men had. Only an actual event would change the minds of some people. When their ideas were altered by reality, then - and then only - they would be emotionally ready for more drastic solutions.

It seemed to Grosvenor that he was learning slowly but surely how to influence men. It was not enough to have information and knowledge, not enough to be right. Men had to be persuaded and convinced, Sometimes that might take more time than could safely be spared. Sometimes it couldn’t be done at all. And so civilizations crumbled, battles were lost, and ships destroyed because the man or group with the saving ideas would not go through the long drawn-out ritual of convincing others.

If he could help it, that was not going to happen here.

He said, “We can keep the atomic projectors in place till we finish energizing the floors. Then we’ll have to move them. Energization would bring guncrit even without the nozzle being open. They’d blow up.”

As deliberately as that he withdrew the Grosvenor plan from the battle against the enemy.

He struck twice during the hour and three quarters that was needed to do level eight. He had six eggs left, and he intended to use all except two of them.

His only annoyance was that each guul took more time. The defense against him seemed more alert, and the presence of atomic cannon made it necessary for him to go after the men who actually manned the projectors.

Even with that limitation rigidly observed, each escape turned out to be an achievement in timing. Nevertheless, he was not worried. These things had to be done. In due course, he would attend to the men.

When the eighth level was completed, the cannon withdrawn, and everyone on the ninth level, Grosvenor heard Captain Leeth say curtly, “Mr. Pennons, are you ready to use power?”

“Yes, sir.” The engineer’s voice was a dry rasp on the communicators. He finished even more harshly. “Five men gone, and one to go. We’ve been lucky, but there is at least one more to go.”

“Do you hear that, gentlemen? One to go. One of us will be bait whether he likes it or not.” It was a familiar voice, but one that had long been silent. The speaker went on gravely. “This is Gregory Kent. And I’m sorry to have to say that I am speaking to you from the safety of the engine room. Dr. Eggert tells me it’ll be another week before I’m off the invalid list. The reason I am speaking to you now is that Captain Leeth has turned Director Morton’s papers over to me, and so I’d like Kellie to elaborate on the note of his that I have here. It will clear up something very important. It will give us a sharper picture of what we’re facing.

We might as well all know the worst.”

“Ah…” The cracked voice of the sociologist sounded on the communicators.

“Here’s my reasoning. When we discovered the creature, it was floating a quarter of a million light-years from the nearest star system, apparently without means of spatial locomotion. Picture that appalling distance, and then ask yourself how long it would require, relatively, for an object to move it by chance alone. Lester gave me my figures, so I would like him to tell you what he told me.”

“Lester speaking!” The voice of the astronomer sounded surprisingly brisk.

“Most of you know the prevailing theory of the beginnings of the present universe. There is evidence to believe that it came into being as a result of the breakup of an earlier universe several million million years ago. It is believed today that a few million million years hence, our universe will complete its cycle, and blow up in a cataclysmic explosion. The nature of such an explosion can only be surmised.”

He went on, “As for Kellie’s question, I can only offer a picture to you. Let us suppose that the scarlet being was blown out into space when the great explosion occurred.

He would find himself heading out into intergalactic space, with no means of changing his course. Under such circumstances, he could float along forever without coming nearer to a star than a quarter of a million light-years. That is what you wanted, Kellie?”

“Ah, yes. Most of you will recall my mentioning before that it was a paradox that a pure sympodial development, such as this creature is, did not populate the entire universe. The answer to that is, logically, if his race should have controlled the universe, then it did control it. We can see now, however, that they ruled a previous universe, not our present one. Naturally, the creature now intends that his kind shall also dominate our universe. This at least is a plausible theory, if no more.”

Kent said in a placating tone, “I’m sure that all the scientists aboard realize that we are speculating by necessity on matters about which little evidence is as yet available. I think it is a good thing for us to believe that we are confronted with a survivor of the supreme race of a universe. There may be others like him in the same predicament. We can only hope that no other ship ever comes near one.

Biologically, this race could be billions of years ahead of us. Thinking thus, we can feel justified in demanding the utmost contribution in effort and personal sacrifice from every person aboard - ”

The shrill scream of a man interrupted him. “Got me!

Quick! . . ripping me out of my suit - ” The words ended in a gurgle.

Grosvenor said tensely, “That was Dack, chief assistant in the geology department.”

He spoke the identification without thinking. His recognition of voices was now as quick and automatic as that.

Another voice sounded shrilly on the communicators. “He’s going down. I saw him go down!”

“The power,” said a third, calmer voice, “is on.” That was Pennons. Grosvenor found himself staring curiously at his feet. Sparkling, brilliant, beautiful blue fire shimmered there. Little tendrils of the pretty flame reared up hungrily a few inches from his rubberite suit, as if baffled by some invisible force protecting the suit. Now there was no sound. With almost blank mind, he gazed along a corridor that was alive with the unearthly blue fire. Just for a moment, he had the illusion that he was looking not out at it but down into the depths of the ship.

With a rush, his mind came back into focus. And with fascinated eyes he watched the blue ferocity of the energization that was struggling to break through his protected suit.

Pennons spoke again, this time in a whisper. “If the plan worked, we’ve now got that devil on the eighth or seventh levels.”

Captain Leeth commanded efficiently, “All men whose last names begin with the letters A’ to “L,’ follow me to the seventh level! Group `M’ to Z,’ follow Mr.

Pennons to the eighth level! All projector crews remain at their posts! Camera teams, carry on as ordered!”

The men ahead of Grosvenor stopped short at the second corner from the elevators on the seventh level. Grosvenor was among those who went forward and stood staring down at the human body that sprawled on the floor. It was seemingly held to the metal by brilliant fingers of blue fire. Captain Leeth broke the silence. “Pull him loose!” Two men stepped gingerly forward and touched the body. The blue flame leaped at them, as if trying to fight them off. The men jerked, and the unholy bonds yielded.

They carried the body up in an elevator to the unenergized tenth level.

Grosvenor followed with the others, and stood silently by as the body was laid on the floor. The lifeless thing continued to kick for several minutes, discharging torrents of energy, then gradually took on the quietness of death.

“I’m waiting for reports!” Captain Leeth spoke stiffly.

Pennons said after a second’s silence, “The men are spread out over the three levels, according to plan. They’re taking continuous pictures with fluorite cameras. If he’s anywhere around, he’ll be seen. It will take at least thirty more minutes.”

Finally the report came. “Nothing!” Pennons’ tone reflected his dismay.

“Commander, he must have got through safely.”

Somewhere a voice sounded plaintively on the momentarily open circuit of the communicators, “Now what are we going to do?”

It seemed to Grosvenor that the words probably expressed the doubt and anxiety of every person on the Space Beagle.

The silence grew long. The great men of the ship, who were ordinarily so articulate, seemed to have lost their voices. Grosvenor shrank a little from the purpose, the new plan, in his own mind. And then, slowly, he faced up to the reality that now confronted the expedition. But still he waited. For it was not up to him to speak first.

It was chief chemist Kent who finally broke the spell. “It would appear,” he said, “that our enemy can pass through energized walls as easily as through unenergized ones. We can continue to assume that he does not care for the experience, but that his recuperation is so swift that what he feels in one floor has no effect on him by the time he falls through the air to the next one.”

Captain Leeth said, “I should like to hear from Mr. Zeller. Where are you now, sir?”

“Zeller speaking!” The brisk voice of the metallurgist sounded on the communicators. “I’ve finished the resistance suit, Captain. And I’ve started my search at the bottom of the ship.”

“How long would it take to build resistance suits for everybody on the ship?”

Zeller’s reply was slow in coming. “We’d have to set up a production unit,” he said finally. “First we’d have to make the tools to make the tools that would make such suits in quantity from any metal. Simultaneously, we would start one of the hot piles to the task of making resistance metal. As you probably know, it comes out radioactive with a half life of five hours, which is a long time. My guess is that the first suit would roll off the assembly line about two hundred hours from now.”

To Grosvenor, it sounded like a conservative estimate. The difficulty of machining resistance metal could hardly be overstated. Captain Leeth seemed to have been struck into silence by the metallurgist’s words. It was Smith who spoke.

“Then that’s out!” The biologist sounded uncertain. “And since the complete energization would also take too long, we’ve shot our bolt. We’ve got nothing else.”

The usually lazy voice of Gourlay, the communications expert, snapped, “I don’t see why those ways are out. We’re still alive. I suggest we get to work, and do as much as we can as soon as we can.”

“What makes you think,” Smith asked coldly, “that the creature is not capable of smashing down resistance metal? As a superior being, his knowledge of physics probably transcends our own. He might find it comparatively simple to construct a beam that could destroy anything we have. Don’t forget, pussy could pulverize resistance metal. And heaven knows there are plenty of tools available in the various laboratories.”

Gourlay said scornfully, “Are you suggesting that we give up?”

“No!” The biologist was angry. “I want us to use common sense. Let’s not just work blindly towards an unrealizable goal.”

Korita’s voice sounded on the communicators, and ended the verbal duel. “I am inclined to agree with Smith. I say further that we are now dealing with a being who must shortly realize that he cannot allow us time for anything important.

For that and other reasons, I believe the creature would interfere if we attempted to prepare the ship for complete controlled energization.”

Captain Leeth remained silent. From the engine room, Kent’s voice came again.

“What do you think he will do when he begins to understand that it’s dangerous to let us continue organizing against him?”

“He’ll start to kill. I can’t think of any method by which we can stop him, short of retreating into the engine room. And I believe, with Smith, that he will be able to come in there after us, given time.”

“Have you any suggestions?” That was Captain Leeth.

Korita hesitated. “Frankly, no. I would say we mustn’t forget we are dealing with a creature who seems to be in the peasant stage of his particular cycle. To a peasant, his land and his honor, to use a higher level of abstraction - his property and his blood are sacred. He fights blindly against encroachment. Like a plant, he attaches himself to a piece of property, and there he sinks his roots and nourishes his blood.”

Korita hesitated, then said, “That is the generalized picture, gentlemen. At the moment, I have no idea how it should be applied.”

Captain Leeth said, “I seriously can’t see how it can help us. Will each department head consult on his private band with his lower-echelon executives?

Report in five minutes if anybody has come up with a worthwhile idea.”

Grosvenor, who had no assistants in his department, said, “I wonder if I could ask Mr. Korita a few questions while the departmental discussions are in progress.”

Captain Leeth shook his head. “If no one else objects, you have my permission.”

There were no objections, so Grosvenor said, “Mr. Korita, are you available?”

“Who is this?”

“Grosvenor.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Grosvenor. I recognize your voice now. Proceed.”

“You mentioned that the peasant clings with an almost senseless tenacity to his plot of land. If this creature is in the peasant stage of one of his civilizations, could he imagine our feeling differently about our property?”

“I’m sure he could not.”

“He would make his plans in the full conviction that we cannot escape him, since we are cornered aboard this ship?”

“It is a fairly safe assumption on his part. We cannot abandon the ship and survive.”

Grosvenor persisted. “But we are in a cycle where any particular property means little to us? We are not blindly attached to it?”

“I still don’t think I understand what you mean.” Korita sounded puzzled.

“I am,” said Grosvenor steadily, “pursuing your notion to its logical conclusion in this situation.”

Captain Leeth interrupted. “Mr. Grosvenor, I think I am beginning to get the direction of your reasoning. Are you about to offer another plan?”

“Yes.” In spite of himself, his voice trembled slightly.

Captain Leeth sounded taut. “Mr. Grosvenor,” he said, “if I’m anticipating you correctly, your solution shows courage and imagination. I want you to explain it to the others in - ” he hesitated, and glanced at his watch - “as soon as the five minutes are up.”

After a very brief silence, Korita spoke again. “Mr. Grosvenor,” he said, “your reasoning is sound. We can make such a sacrifice without suffering a spiritual collapse. It is the only solution.”

A minute later, Grosvenor gave his analysis to the entire membership of the expeditionary force. When he finished, it was Smith who said in a tone that was scarcely more than a loud whisper, “Grosvenor, you’ve got it! It means sacrificing von Grossen and the others. It means individual sacrifice for every one of us. But

you’re right. Property is not sacred to us. As for von Grossen and the four with him” - his voice grew stern and hard - “I haven’t had a chance to tell you about the notes I gave Morton. He didn’t tell you because I suggested a possible parellel with a certain species of wasp back home on Earth. The thought is so horrible that I think quick death will come as a release to those men.”

“The wasp!” a man gasped. “You’re right, Smith. The sooner they’re dead the better!”

It was Captain Leeth who gave the command. “To the engine room!” he said.

“We - ” A swift, excited voice clamoring into the communicators interrupted him. A long second went by before Grosvenor recognized it as belonging to Zeller, the metallurgist.

“Captain - quick! Send men and projectors down to the hold! I’ve found them in the air-conditioning pipe. The creature’s here, and I’m holding him off with my vibrator. It’s not doing him much damage, so hurry!”

Captain Leeth snapped orders with machine-gun speed as the men swarmed toward the elevators. “All scientists and their staffs proceed to the air locks.

Military personnel take the freight elevators and follow me!” He went on, “We probably won’t be able to corner him or kill him in the hold. But, gentlemen” - his voice became grave and determined - “we’re going to get rid of this monster, and we’re going to do so at any cost. We can no longer consider ourselves.”

IXTL retreated reluctantly as the men carried off his guuls. The first shrinking fear of defeat closed over his mind like the night that brooded beyond the enclosing walls of the ship. His impulse was to dash into their midst and smash them. But those ugly, glittering weapons held back the desperate urge. He retreated with a sense of disaster.

He had lost the initiative. The men would discover his eggs now, and, in destroying them, would destroy his immediate chances of being reinforced by other IXTLs.

His brain spun into a tightening web of purpose. From this moment, he must kill, and kill only. He was astounded that he had thought first of reproduction, with everything else secondary. Already he had wasted valuable time. To kill he must have a weapon that would smash anything. After a moment’s thought, he headed for the nearest laboratory. He felt a burning urgency, unlike anything he had ever known.

As he worked, tall body and intent face bent over the gleaming metal of the mechanism, his sensitive feet grew aware of a difference in the symphony of vibrations that throbbed in discordant melody though the ship.

He paused and straightened. Then he realized what it was. The drive engines were silent. The monster ship of space had halted in its headlong acceleration and was lying quiescent in the black deeps. An indefinable sense of alarm came to IXTL. His long, black, wirelike fingers became flashing things as he made delicate connections deftly and frantically.

Suddenly, he paused again. Stronger than before came the sensation that something was wrong, dangerously, terribly wrong. The muscles of his feet grew taut with straining. And then he knew what it was. He could no longer feel the vibrations of the men. They had left the ship!

IXTL whirled from his almost completed weapon and plunged through the nearest wall.

He knew his doom with a certainty that found hope only in the blackness of space. Through deserted corridors he fled, slavering hate, a scarlet monster from ancient, ancient Glor. The gleaming walls seemed to mock him. The whole world of the great ship, which had promised so much, was now only the place where a hell of energy would break loose at any moment. With relief, he saw an air lock ahead. He flashed through the first section, the second, the third - and then he was out in space. He anticipated that the men would be watching for him to appear, so he set up a violent repulsion between his body and the ship. He had a sensation of increasing lightness as his body darted from the side of the ship out into that black night.

Behind him, the porthole lights were snuffed out and were replaced by an unearthly blue glow. The blue fire flashed out from every square inch of the ship’s immense outer skin. The blue glow faded slowly, almost reluctantly. Long before it died away completely, the potent energy screen came on, blocking him forever from access to the ship. Some of the porthole lights came on again, flickered weakly and then slowly began to brighten. As mighty engines recovered from that devastating flare of energy, the lights already shining grew stronger. Others began to flash on.

IXTL, who had withdrawn several miles, drove himself nearer. He was careful.

Now that he was out in space, they could use atomic cannon on him and destroy him without danger to themselves. He approached to within half a mile of the screen, and there, uneasy, stopped. He saw the first of the lifeboats dart out of the darkness inside the screen into an opening that yawned in the side of the big vessel. Other dark craft followed, whipping down in swift arcs, their shapes blurred against the background of space. They were vaguely visible in the light that glowed steadily again from the lighted portholes. The opening shut, and without warning the ship vanished. One instant it was there, a vast sphere of dark metal.

The next, he was staring through the space where it had been at a spiral - shaped, bright splotch, a galaxy that floated beyond a gulf of a million light-years.

Time dragged drearily towards eternity. IXTL sprawled unmoving and hopeless in the boundless night. He couldn’t help thinking of the young IXTLs, who now would never be born, and of the universe that was lost because of his mistakes.

Grosvenor watched the skillful fingers of the surgeon as the electrified knife cut into the fourth man’s stomach. The last egg was deposited in the bottom of the tall resistance - metal vat. The eggs were round, grayish objects, one of them slightly cracked.

Several men stood by with drawn heat blasters as the crack widened. An ugly, round, scarlet head with tiny, beady eyes and a tiny slit of a mouth poked out.

The head twisted on its short neck and the eyes glittered up at them with hard ferocity.

With a swiftness that almost took them by surprise, the creature reared up and tried to climb out of the vat. The smooth walls defeated it. It slid back and dissolved in the flame that was poured down upon it.

Smith, licking his lips, said, “Suppose he’d got away and dissolved into the nearest wall!”

No one answered that. Grosvenor saw that the men were staring into the vat. The eggs melted reluctantly under the heat from the blasters, but finally burned with a golden light.

“Ah,” said Dr. Eggert; and attention turned to him and to the body of von Grossen, over which he was bending. “His muscles are beginning to relax, and his eyes are open and alive. I imagine he knows what’s going on. It was a form of paralysis induced by the egg, and fading now that the egg is no longer present. Nothing

fundamentally wrong. They’ll be all right shortly. What about the monster?”

Captain Leeth replied, “The men in two lifeboats claim to have seen a flash of red emerge from the main lock just as we swept the ship with uncontrolled energization. It must have been our deadly friend, because we haven’t found his body. However,

Pennons is going around with the camera staff taking pictures with fluoritecameras, and we’ll know for certain in a few hours. Here he is now. Well, Mr. Pennons?”

The engineer strode in briskly and placed a misshapen thing of metal on one of the tables. “Nothing definite to report yet - but I found this in the main physics laboratory. What do you make of it?”

Grosvenor was pushed forward by department heads who drew in around the table for a closer look. He frowned down at the fragile-looking object with its intricate network of wires. There were three distinct tubes that might have been muzzles running into and through three small, round balls that shone with a queer, silvery

light. The light penetrated the table, making it as transparent as glassite. And, strangest of all, the balls absorbed heat like a thermal sponge. Grosvenor reached out toward the nearest ball, and felt his hands stiffen as the heat was drawn from them.

He drew back quickly.

Beside him, Captain Leeth said, “I think we’d better leave this for the physics department to examine. Von Grossen ought to be up and around soon. You say you found it in the laboratory?”

Pennons nodded. And Smith carried on the thought. “It would appear that the creature was working on it when he suspected that something was amiss. He must have realized the truth, for he left the ship. That seems to discount your theory, Korita. You said that, as a true peasant, he couldn’t even imagine what we were going to do.”

The Japanese archeologist smiled faintly through the fatigue that paled his face.

“Mr. Smith,” he said politely, “there is no question but that this one did imagine it. The probable answer is that the peasant category amounted to an analogy.

The red monster was, by all odds, the most superior peasant we have yet encountered.”

Pennons groaned. “I wish we had a few peasant limitations. Do you know that it will take us thee months at least to get this ship properly repaired after those three minutes of uncontrolled energization? For a time I was afraid that …”

His voice trailed off doubtfully.

Captain Leeth said with a grim smile, “I’ll finish that sentence for you, Mr. Pennons. You were afraid the ship would be completely destroyed. I think that most of us realized the risk we were taking when we adopted Mr. Grosvenor’s final plan. We knew that our lifeboats could be given only partial anti-acceleration. So we’d have been stranded here a quarter of a million light-years from home.”

A man said, “I wonder whether, if the scarlet beast had actually taken over this ship, it would have gotten away with its obvious intent to take over the galaxy. After all, man is pretty well established in it - and pretty stubborn, too.”

Smith shook his head. “It dominated once, and it could dominate again. You assume far too readily that man is a paragon of justice, forgetting, apparently, that he has a long and savage history. He has killed other animals not only for meat but for pleasure; he has enslaved his neighbors, murdered his opponents, and obtained the most unholy sadistical joy from the agony of others. It is not impossible that we shall, in the course of our travels, meet other intelligent creatures far more worthy than man to rule the universe.”

“By heaven!” said a man, “no dangerous-looking creature should ever be allowed aboard this ship again. My nerves are all shot; and I’m not so good a man as I was when I first came aboard the Beagle.”

“You speak for us all!” came the voice of Acting Director Kent over the communicator.

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