The Glass Eye

Eric Frank Russell

TECHNIQUE was the same as usual and found its justification in the fact that it had never been known to fail. Carefully the two Sagittarians circled the strange world at a distance too great for their own dull metal sphere to be observed. Then they swooped upon a lonely part of its night side, snatched a full-grown sample of its highest life form, bore him into space and picked him to pieces.

The vivisection was performed purely as a matter of caution. It had nothing to do with enmity or fear. The prime motive was to obtain essential information, to convert the unknown into the known, then weighed, estimated and understood.

So Qvord plied the instruments while Eenif coped with the resulting mess. The kidnaped creature exuded enough juice to paint a space sphere vivid red. It made many violent motions at the stoat, and gave forth a lot of sonic vibrations, but quieted down just before it died. Its body liquids were all over Qvord when he finished his task.

The unpleasant job done, they disposed of the remains in the disintegrator and esped them puffing like vapor into the void. Qvord thought his rough preliminary notes into the cerecorder.

"It had several layers of clothing, crude, not comfortable, with primitive fastenings. Its pink, soft-fleshed body had two arms, two legs, all of animal type. No tentacles. No extensible fibers. Its aural organs were two in number, small, immovable but reasonably efficient. The creature's sense of feeling was remarkably acute. It was totally lacking in telepathic power. It was equally devoid of esp, as a poor substitute for which it employed a pair of photosensitive organs similar to those used by the animals of Khar. Its small, inadequate brain relied wholly upon quasi-electro impulses from various organs, especially the visual ones. Beyond question an inferior type of life, easy to master and manipulate."

He switched off. His mind spoke inside Eenif's. "That will do for now. I put the last bit in to please you, the eternal optimist. I'll make a more detailed and accurate report after we have finished with this planet."

"The optimism is no more than contrast with your own everlasting pessimism which, I suppose, is the natural viewpoint of an incurably suspicious mind," commented Eenif.

"Cautious," Qvord corrected.

"All right, call it caution." Eenif gestured toward the metal wall through which both of them could esp the new world in all its glowing colors. "Without waiting for more data, I say this is an easy job. They are merely a gang of primitives depending upon crude, animalistic organs. Indeed, I doubt whether they're worth the bother of looking them over."

"It is precisely the inferior types which most deserve our attention," reproved Qvord. "Heaven preserve us from life forms too hot to handle! Besides, are not the inferior forms provided by bountiful Nature for higher forms to exploit?"

"Oh, yes, undoubtedly," Eenif agreed. "What I mean is that if we are not careful we can waste our valuable time on forms too low to serve any useful purpose. After all, one requires some degree of intelligence even in a slave." He indicated the world floating far beyond the wall. "I don't think so much of these pink bipeds."

"They are not without brains. We have seen their canals, bridges, machines in motion, seagoing vessels, aircraft and many other items indicative of intelligence at least good enough to make them satisfactory servants." Qvord brooded a moment. "If it comes to that, they may have more, far more than is apparent from here. More than seems pleasant in our estimation." "There you go again," jeered Eenif.

"Anyway, the final decision does not rest with us," Qvord went on. "All we have to do is dig up sufficient information to enable the home world to decide whether or not the planet is worth mastering. For the time being let us be satisfied with what we've found. We could expend our lives in search of something better."

"Then let us land without delay. I am impatient."

"It is my turn to stay with the ship," Qvord reminded, "and yours to do the scouting around."

"I know, I know. It suits me fine. Last time, when you did the exploring, I was inexpressibly bored while waiting for your return. Caution, caution, caution. Be careful here, be careful there. You took twice as long as I would have done and went only half as far."

"But got all the necessary data just the same," Qvord riposted.

"Laboriously," topped Eenif. He jiggled his extensible fibers in the Sagittarian equivalent of rubbing one's hands together. "Let me get to work. I'll take the little transmitter we used against the animals of Khar. If it operates as effectively here, my task will be trouble-free."

"It will work' the same, since their visual organs are the same," assured Qvord. "It will jam the impulses running along the nerves from visual organs to brain, blinding them as surely as if the nerves had been severed. They will walk blind in broad daylight, with eyes that see but are unable to tell what they see. They have no esp, as I have recorded. I can guarantee that! You will be perfectly safe within a broadcast sphere of general sightlessness. I doubt whether you need to carry any weapons."

"The transmitter is weighty enough," Eenif agreed. "Why should I load myself like a beast of burden?" Turning, he faced the metal wall, examined the world with his sense of comprehension that bore no resemblance to the lower form's sense of sight. "Dump me as soon as you like; somewhere along the rim of morning so that I can study them while they are active. It won't take me long."

"We'll land at once." Qvord went to the control panel. "Rs member to keep within mental range so that we don't loss: contact. I cannot make notes when you wander out of hearing, as you did on Khar."

"The metal mountain intervened, cutting us off for a few worthless moments. I have told you that dozens of times," Eenif grumbled. "Do not kill yourself with worry, Suspicious One! It won't take me long to gain the measure of these poor simpletons." He dung to a rail as the other swung the sphere out of its orbit and sent it plunging upon the new world. "Judging by that specimen you carved up, taking them in the mass will be easier than plucking fruit."

"It is our business to make certain of that," warned Qvord. He steered for the planet's morning line.

The Sagittarian sphere nestled in a hollow at fair distance from any habitation. A short, shiny antenna stuck from its top and poured out a constant stream of microwaves which lost zip and faded away about one mile from their source. Around the rim of that invisible hemisphere of one mile radius all things with visual organs were near the boundary between light and dark, the dividing line between sight and temporary non-sight.

Casually Qvord esped the few wild creatures entering the potent area. Rabbits and rats got scared, twisted and turned until either they escaped back into seeable regions or struck an unseeable obstruction and knocked themselves out. Birds in full flight swerved wildly, fluttered in aimless circles, sometimes found the light again, other times hit trees and dropped to earth. One snooping dog became lost in the pitiful maze of its own blindness until eventually it resorted to its nose and snuffled its way to the visible world. Qvord felt no sympathy, neither was he amused. He had esped it all before, on Khar. But he made careful note that nothing on this world, winged or legged, appeared to have any real sense of perception—only sight, poor, inefficient sight.

Most of the time he kept mental contact with the exploring Eenif, experiencing things through the medium of Eenif's mind, making detailed record of all that Eenif found. Already the other had been gone six days, and nine spools of data had been filled by the cerecorder. Fitting a tenth spool into the apparatus, he set it ready for reception, then broadcast the thought-ache to which Eenif would respond.

They were in touch immediately. He found Eenif about to enter another town. Two wrecked machines encumbered the street ahead of the prowling Sagittarian, evidently having collided as the approaching transmitter deprived their drivers of sight. Several bipeds were on the sidewalks, some standing with hands to their faces, others slowly feeling their way along walls and windows. A nearby glass-fronted building held a display of this world's merchandise over which shone curious, red-lit letters. Qvord made an exact copy of them as revealed through Eenif's mind:

"Baxter's Hardware"

With lordly indifference, Eenif progressed past the face-hiders and the wall-fumblers. In the next mile only one biped was seen walking with any assurance, this being an old, hairy-faced creature who tapped his way rapidly along with the aid of a white stick.

Eenif telepathed: "I tried to pry into that one to discover the precise function of his white rod, but his mind is completely blank to mine. They are all blank. They must think within a different band."

"No matter," responded Qvord. "It cuts both ways. Our minds similarly will be closed to theirs when—and if—we are their overlords."

"Yes, that is an advantage." Eenif came to the end of the street, reached a small square, stopped. Unhitching his transmitter, he put it on the ground, sighed with relief at the loss of its weight, had a slow, leisurely esp all around. Traffic signals changed color to one side of him. Already he had discovered the purpose of those. No automobiles moved in response. The few within the square were stalled and empty. There were no drivers in evidence. In fact there was not a biped nearer than those farther back along the street. The square was still, silent, strangely devoid of life.

"What is that?" inquired Qvord suddenly. "The queer object ahead and slightly to your right?"

Moving forward, Eenif examined the thing in question. It stood on three legs. It was a large box ornamented with numerous controls, a small, antennalike rod, and fronted with a crystalline port. The box part made ticking noises and revolved slowly but steadily in the horizontal plane. The peculiar little port passed across him four times as he stood there.

"Obviously an instrument of some sort," he commented. The object emitted a sharp dick in response to an undetectable impulse from somewhere unknown. It ceased rotating, came to rest with its little port facing him. "Possibly a temperature or weather recorder."

"Then why has it halted—pointing at you?"

"Oh," said Eenif airily. "Nobody is attending to it. Nobody is attending to anything. They are all sightless."

"Who are sightless? There is nobody in that area!" "What of it?"

"Eenif, do you suppose that this box on three legs might—might not be sightless?"

"Don't be silly," scoffed Eenif, waggling defiant fibers at the box. "Even a child knows how to make instrumental espboosters, but how in the name of Zaxt can any contraption duplicate a sense like sight?"

"I don't know," Qvord confessed. "I haven't the remotest notion. It seems impossible to me. But—but . . ." "But what?" demanded Eenif.

"If it could see," answered Qvord, slowly and thoughtfully, "it might not be in a manner identical with the vision of the creatures who made it. There is every likelihood that it would see in a different, more mechanistic way. In which case—"

"Go on," urged Eenif, openly amused by the other's attitude.

"In which case your transmitter may not be affecting it."

"By the White Sun !" Eenif pretended to be aghast.

"We can make an easy test," Qvord went on, ignoring the other's characteristic reaction, "which will demonstrate positively whether or not it is looking at you—and seeing you."

"Qvord, I think you are the victim of your own lunatic anxiety. One cannot esp without using both sides of the brain.

Similarly, one cannot see without using both visual organs. This gadget, as you know, has not got two of anything. Merely three crude legs and one black box with a shiny little opening, and various metal attachments that . . ."

"You are too dogmatic," interrupted Qvord. "We have never tested a creature with only one visual organ, but I consider it almost certain that such a creature might still see. So might that!"

"And you are too suspicious," Eenif retorted. "Where is the basis for your present leeriness?"

"It stopped. Its small, circular opening faces directly at you. That may be no more than sheer chance—or it may not. Let its test it."

"How?"

"Move round to the side of it," said Qvord.

Obediently, Eenif went to the side. The box gave forth swift ticks, rotated a quarter circle, stopped and stared at him blankly. There was a long silence.

On the edge of the sidewalk the blinding transmitter continued to function. To one side the traffic signals changed color for the benefit of deserted, unmoving automobiles.

Eenif admitted, "That is strange." He moved right around the tripod. The box on its top ticked and followed him. "I don't like it," decided Qvord, after a while.

"Why not? Even supposing that it does see me—which I won't admit—what of it? It is doing nothing about it, nothing at all. I have no objection to being looked at indifferently. Looks don't do any damage. Besides, they'll be able to study plenty of our kind before long."

"I can view what you are viewing," Qvord pointed out.

"Of course you can. We're in contact, aren't we? If you were unable to view through me it would show that something is wrong with your mind, and .. ."

Qvord's mental impulse had the strength of a shout. "So who is viewing through that?"

"Uh?"

"How do we know it is not transmitting what it sees to somewhere beyond range of your transmitter, outside the blind area where everyone can see?"

Sharply Eenif sent back, "You have an overactive imagination. Just because of that episode on Khar, you suspect anything and everything. Your idea that this piece of primitive trash may be seeing and transmitting is stupid on three counts."

"Name them," Qvord challenged.

"Firstly, there is no evidence of it."

"It follows you," reminded Qvord, "almost as if it were watching you."

"That is not satisfactory evidence," said Eenif, dismissing it. "Secondly, there is no point in transmitting a scene to some place outside the blind area if those who witness it must come inside to do something about it. The moment they enter, they are blind! So where does it get them?"

"But listen . . ."

"Thirdly," Eenif continued stubbornly, "if this device is intended to reveal me, it must have been placed in readiness before I arrived. How could they possibly know that I would be here?"

Qvord gave the question much thought before he replied. "You have taken a direct route heading straight for where you are now."

"Most certainly I have. Since telepathic communication embodies no sense of direction, as you are well aware, I must take care not to get lost. What is simpler than to take a direct path along which I can retrace my steps?"

"I know all that," Qvord snapped. "In detailing your motives you are telling me nothing. Have you esped the interior of that box?"

"It was the first thing I did."

"What did you find?"

"Nothing that makes sense," replied Eenif carelessly. "Just a complicated jumble of components from which no reasonable purpose can be deduced."

"That may well be because you tried to analyze the assembly in normal esp terms," Qvord opined. "Because neither you nor I can cope with alien technique or follow it in terms of a sight sense we do not possess." He mulled it over before he added, "I consider it a grave error for you to move in a straight path. Even at the risk of losing direction it would be better if you confused them by zigzagging a bit. That would introduce sufficient of the element of the unexpected to make them impotent."

"Them, them, them," jeered Eenif. He waved his fibers to emphasize the sheer emptiness of the square. "To what pale ghosts are you referring?"

"The ones who—if they've any sense—have marked the path of the blind area upon a map and noted that over the course of six days it has made a straight line. The ones who—if they've any sense—may suspect that the cause of the blindness lies at the precise center of the area." Qvord's mental impulses now had the sharpness of one whose wariness increases with further thought, further examination of the possibilities. "The ones who—if they've any sense—may extend that line to a site suitable for the placing of their trap."

"Look at me," invited Eenif, striking a posture. "Trapped!"

"The ones who—if they've any sense—" Qvord went on inexorably, "will not spring the trap until they have traced the line backward to its origin and dealt with that! They won't want to scare me away by settling with you." In deliberate, ponderous thought-forms, he finished, "Eenif, they want me first!"

"Bah!" declaimed Eenif. "You are like a whimpering child when left alone. You frighten yourself with your own shadow."

With that, he gave the box a contemptuous shove. It crashed to the ground. He both esped and heard its components shatter.

Qvord said solemnly, "Too late."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The shadow already is here—listen!"

Eenif listened through the other's mind and hearing organs. There was an oncoming drone building itself up to a roar.

"It comes on wings through the blindness. Like your innocent box, it has a glass eye. It is remotely controlled. It sees!"

"Take off, you imbecile!" yelled Eenif, his self-assurance vanishing.

"I have. I am up, very far up, and going fast. But the winged thing with the glass eye was high at the start, and I cannot ..." The mind of Qvord cut off as a vast thundering oppressed his ears. Eenif sensed across the distance no more than a fragmentary moment of intense mental strain ending in fiery chaos.

Turning to snatch up his protecting transmitter, Eenif became aware of a biped nearby. His multidirectional esp would have warned him earlier had he not been concentrating upon the troubles of Qvord.

Standing squarely in the middle of the sidewalk, this blind biped was dressed in blue and bore upon his back a small case from which issued incomprehensible noises.

"It has just pushed over the nearest scanner but has not yet noticed the others. We can see it clearly from four directions. It has now turned to recover its apparatus. About twenty yards to your front. Swing your arm a bit. No, no, you're a fraction off the beam. Two or three degrees to the right. That's it! Let her go!"

The sightless newcomer's arcing limb threw a small oval object. The thrower promptly fell flat on his face and hugged the sidewalk.

With the transmitter half-lifted, Eenif esped the oval object one-tenth of a second before its blast shook the street.

An adjacent automobile shed its windshield and windows. Water poured from its radiator, dripped on twisted pieces of apparatus, made thin wet lines between blotches of green goo in which still twitched a multitude of fibers.

Darkness fled as sight sprang into a square mile of Iowa City.