I Am Nothing
Astounding Science Fiction – July 1952
(1952)*
Eric Frank Russell

This is pure fiction—but this is also pure fact. Eric Russell wrote all of this story except the letter; that was written by a British child about eight years ago. So it is science fiction for it is truly based on fact.

-

	David Korman rasped, "Send them the ultimatum."

	"Yes, sir, but—"

	"But what?"

	"It may mean war." 

	"What of it?"

	"Nothing, sir." The other sought a way out. "I merely thought—"

	"You are not paid to think," said Korman, acidly. "You are paid only to obey orders."

	"Of course, sir. Most certainly." Gathering his papers he backed away hurriedly. "I shall have the ultimatum forwarded to Lani at once."

	"You better had!" Korman stared across his ornate desk, watched the door close. Then he voiced an emphatic, "Bah!"

	A lickspittle. He was surrounded by lickspittles, cravens, weaklings. On all sides were the spineless ready to jump to his command, eager to fawn upon him. They smiled at him with false smiles, hastened into pseudo-agreement with every word he uttered, gave him exaggerated respect that served to cover their inward fears.

	There was a reason for all this. He, David Korman, was strong. He was strong in the myriad ways that meant full and complete strength. With his broad body, big jowls, bushy brows and hard gray eyes he looked precisely what he was: a creature of measureless power, mental and physical.

	It was good that he should be like this. It was a law of Nature that the weak must give way to the strong. A thoroughly sensible law. Besides, this world of Morcine needed a strong man. Morcine was one world in a cosmos full of potential competitors, all of them born of some misty, long-forgotten planet near a lost sun called Sol. Morcine's duty to itself was to grow strong at the expense of the weak. Follow the natural law.

	His heavy thumb found the button on his desk, pressed it, and he said into the little silver microphone, "Send in Fleet Commander Rogers at once."

	There was a knock at the door and he snapped, "Come in." Then, when Rogers had reached the desk, he informed, "We have sent the ultimatum."

	"Really, sir? Do you suppose they'll accept it?"

	"Doesn't matter whether they do or don't," Korman declared. "In either event we'll get our own way." His gaze upon the other became challenging. "Is the fleet disposed in readiness exactly as ordered?"

	"It is, sir."

	"You are certain of that? You have checked it in person?"

	"Yes, sir."

	"Very well. These are my orders: the fleet will observe the arrival on Lani of the courier bearing our demands. It will allow twenty-four hours for receipt of a satisfactory reply."

	"And if one does not come?"

	"It will attack one minute later in full strength. Its immediate task will be to capture and hold an adequate ground base. Having gained it, reinforcements will be poured in and the territorial conquest of the planet can proceed."

	"I understand, sir." Rogers prepared to leave. "Is there anything more?"

	"Yes," said Korman. "I have one other order. When you are about to seize this base my son's vessel must be the first to land upon it."

	Rogers blinked and protested nervously, "But, sir, as a young lieutenant he commands a small scout bearing twenty men. Surely one of our major battleships should be—"

	"My son lands first!" Standing up, Korman leaned forward over his desk.

	His eyes were cold. "The knowledge that Reed Korman, my only child, was in the forefront of the battle will have an excellent psychological effect upon the ordinary masses here. I give it as my order."

	"What if something happens?" murmured Rogers, aghast, "What if he should become a casualty, perhaps be killed?"

	"That," Korman pointed out, "will enhance the effect."

	"All right, sir." Rogers swallowed and hurried out, his features strained.

	Had the responsibility for Reed Korman's safety been placed upon his own shoulders? Or was that character behind the desk genuine in his opportunist and dreadful fatalism? He did not know. He knew only that Korman could not be judged by ordinary standards.

-

	Blank-faced and precise, the police escort stood around while Korman got out of the huge official car. He gave them his usual austere look-over while the chauffeur waited, his hand holding the door open. Then Korman mounted the steps to his home, heard the car door close at the sixth step. Invariably it was the sixth step, never the filth or seventh.

	Inside, the maid waited on the same corner of the carpet, her hands ready for his hat, gloves and cloak. She was stiff and starched and never looked directly at him. Not once in fourteen years had she met him eye to eye.

	With a disdainful grunt he brushed past her and went into the dining room, took his seat, studied his wife across a long expanse of white cloth filled with silver and crystal.

	She was tall and blond and blue-eyed and once had seemed supremely beautiful. Her willowy slenderness had made him think with pleasure of her moving in his arms with the sinuosity of a snake. Now, her slight curves had gained angularity. Her submissive eyes wore crinkles that were not the marks of laughter.

	"I've had enough of Lani," he announced. "We're precipitating a showdown. An ultimatum has been sent."

	"Yes, David."

	That, was what he had expected her to say. He could have said it for her. It was her trade-mark, so to speak; always had been, always would be.

	Years ago, a quarter of a century back, he had said with becoming politeness, "Mary, I wish to marry you."

	"Yes, David."

	She had not wanted it—not in the sense that he had wanted it. Her family had pushed her into the arrangement and she had gone where shoved. Life was like that: the pushers and the pushed. Mary was of the latter class. The fact had taken the spice out of romance. The conquest had been too easy. Korman insisted on conquest but he liked it big. Not small.

	Later on, when the proper time had come, he had told her, "Mary, I want a son."

	She had arranged it precisely as ordered. No slipups. No presenting him with a fat and impudent daughter by way of hapless obstetrical rebellion. A son, eight pounds, afterward named Reed. He had chosen the name.

	A faint scowl lay over his broad face as he informed, "Almost certainly it means war."

	"Does it, David?"

	It came without vibrancy or emotion. Dull-toned, her pale oval features expressionless, her eyes submissive. Now and again he wondered whether she hated him with a fierce, turbulent hatred so explosive that it had to be held in check at all costs. He could never be sure of that. Of one thing he was certain: she feared him and had from the very first.

	Everyone feared him. Everyone without exception. Those, who did not at first meeting soon learned to do so. He saw to that in one way or another. It was good to be feared. It was an excellent substitute for other emotions one has never had or known.

	When a child he had feared his father long and ardently; also his mother. Both of them so greatly that their passing had come as a vast relief. Now it was his turn. That, too, was a natural law, fair and logical. What is gained from one generation should be passed to the next. What is denied should likewise be denied. Justice.

	"Reed's scoutship has joined the fleet in readiness for action."

	"I know, David."

	His eyebrows lifted. "How do you know?"

	"I received a letter from him a couple of hours ago." She passed it across.

	He was slow to unfold the stiff sheet of paper. He knew what the first two words would be. Getting it open, he found it upside-down, reversed it and looked.

	"Dear Mother."

	That was her revenge.

	"Mary. I want a son."

	So she had given him one—and then taken him away.

	Now there were letters, perhaps two in one week or one in two months according to the ship's location. Always they were written as though addressing both, always they contained formal love to both, formal hope that both were keeping well.

	But always they began, "Dear Mother."

	Never, "Dear Father."

	Revenge!

-

	Zero hour came and went. Morcine was in a fever of excitement and preparation. Nobody knew what was happening far out in space, not even Korman. There was a time-lag due to sheer distance. Beamed signals from the fleet took many hours to come in.

	The first word went straight to Korman's desk where he posed ready to receive it. It said the Lanians had replied with a protest and what they called an appeal to reason. In accordance with instructions the fleet commander had rejected this as unsatisfactory. The attack was on.

	"They plead for reasonableness," he growled. "That means they want us to go soft. Life isn't made for the soft!" He threw a glance forward. "Is it?"

	"No, sir," agreed the messenger with alacrity.

	"Tell Bathurst to put the tape on the air at once."

	"Yes, sir."

	When the other had gone he switched his midget radio and waited. It came in ten minutes, the long, rolling, grandiloquent speech he'd recorded more than a month before. It played on two themes: righteousness and strength, especially strength.

	The alleged causes of the war were elucidated in detail, grimly but without ire. That lack of indignation was a telling touch because it suggested the utter inevitability of the present situation and the fact that the powerful have too much justified self-confidence to emote.

	As for the causes, he listened to them with boredom. Only the strong know there is but one cause of war. All the other multitudinous reasons recorded in the history books were not real reasons at all. They were nothing but plausible pretexts. There was but one root-cause that persisted right back to the dim days of the jungle. When two monkeys want the same banana, that is war.

	Of course, the broadcasting tape wisely refrained from putting the issue so bluntly arid revealingly. Weak stomachs require pap. Red meat is exclusively for the strong. So the great antenna of the world network comported themselves accordingly and catered for the general dietary need.

	After the broadcast had finished on a heartening note about Morcine's overwhelming power, he leaned back in his chair and thought things over. There was no question of bombing Lani into submission from the upper reaches of its atmosphere. All its cities cowered beneath bombproof hemispherical force fields. Even if they had been wide open he would not have ordered their destruction. It is empty victory to win a few mounds of rubble.

	He'd had enough of empty victories. Instinctively, his gray eyes strayed toward the bookcase on which stood the photograph he seldom noticed and then no more than absently. For years it had been there, a subconsciously-observed, taken-for-granted object like the inkpot or radiant heat panel, but less useful than either.

	She wasn't like her picture now. Come to think of it, she hadn't been really like it then. She had given him obedience and fear before he had learned the need for these in lieu of other needs. At that time he had wanted something else that had not been forthcoming. So long as he could remember, to his very earliest years, it had never been forthcoming, not from anyone, never, never, never.

	He jerked his mind back to the subject of Lani. The location of that place and the nature of its defenses determined the pattern of conquest. A ground base must be won, constantly replenished with troops, arms and all auxiliary services. From there the forces of Morcine must expand and, bit by bit, take over all unshielded territory until at last the protected cities stood alone in fateful isolation. The cities would then be permitted to sit under their shields until starved into surrender.

	Acquisition of enemy territory was the essential aim. This meant that despite space-going vessels, force shields and all the other redoubtable gadgets of ultra-modernism, the ordinary foot soldier remained the final arbiter of victory. Machines could assault and. destroy. Only men could take and hold.

	Therefore this was going to be no mere five-minute war. It would run on for a few months, perhaps even a year, with spasms of old style land-fighting as strong points were attacked and defended. There would be bombing perforce limited to road blocks, strategic junctions, enemy assembly and regrouping areas, unshielded but stubborn villages.

	There would be some destruction, some casualties. But it was better that way. Real conquest comes only over real obstacles, not imaginary ones. In her hour of triumph Morcine would be feared. Korman would be feared. The feared are respected and that is proper and decent.

	If one can have nothing more.

-

	Pictorial records in full color and sound came at the end of the month. Their first showing was in the privacy of his own home to a small audience composed of himself, his wife, a group of government officials and assorted brass hats.

	Unhampered by Lanian air defenses, weak from the beginning and now almost wiped out, the long black ships of Morcine dived into the constantly widening base and unloaded great quantities of supplies. Troops moved forward against tough but spasmodic opposition, a growing weight of armored and motorized equipment going with them.

	The recording camera trundled across an enormous bridge with thick girders fantastically distorted and with great gaps temporarily filled in. It took them through seven battered villages which the enemy had either defended or given cause to believe they intended to defend. There were shots of crater-pocked roads, skeletal houses, a blackened barn with a swollen horse lying in a field nearby.

	And an action-take of an assault on a farmhouse. A patrol, suddenly fired on, dug in and radioed back. A monster on huge, noisy tracks answered their call, rumbled laboriously to within four hundred yards of the objective, spat violently and lavishly from its front turret. A great splash of liquid fell on the farmhouse roof, burst into roaring flame. Figures ran out, seeking cover of an adjacent thicket. The sound track emitted rattling noises. The figures fell over, rolled, jerked, lay still.

	The reel ended and Korman said, "I approve it for public exhibition." Getting out of his seat, he frowned around, added, "I have one criticism. My son has taken command of a company of infantry. He is doing a job, like any other man. Why wasn't he featured?"

	"We would not depict him except with your approval, sir," said one.

	"I not only approve—I order it. Make sure that he is shown next time. Not predominantly. Just sufficiently to let the people see for themselves that he is there, sharing the hardships and the risks."

	"Very well, sir."

	They packed up and went away. He strolled restlessly on the thick carpet in front of the electric radiator.

	"Do them good to know Reed is among those present," he insisted.

	"Yes, David." She had taken up some knitting, her needles going click-click.

	"He's my son."

	"Yes, David."

	Stopping his pacing, he chewed his bottom lip with irritation. "Can't you say anything but that?"

	She raised her eyes. "Do you wish me to?"

	"Do I wish!" he echoed. His fists were tight as he resumed his movements to and fro while she returned to her needles.

	What did she know of wishes?

	What does anyone know?

-

	By the end of four months the territorial grip on Lani had grown to one thousand square miles while men and guns continued to pour in. Progress had been slower than expected. There had been minor blunders at high level, a few of the unforeseeable difficulties that invariably crop up when fighting at long range, and resistance had been desperate where least expected. Nevertheless, progress was being made. Though a little postdated, the inevitable remained inevitable.

	Korman came home, heard the car door snap shut at the sixth step. All was as before except that now a part of the populace insisted on assembling to cheer him indoors. The maid waited, took his things. He stumped heavily to the inner room.

	"Reed is being promoted to captain."

	She did not answer.

	Standing squarely before her, he demanded. "Well, aren't you interested?"

	"Of course, David." Putting aside her book, she folded long, thin-fingered hands, looked toward the window.

	"What's the matter with you?"

	"The matter?" The blond eyebrows arched as her eyes came up. "Nothing is the matter with me. Why do you ask?"

	"I can tell." His tones harshened a little. "And I can guess. You don't like Reed being out there. You disapprove of me sending him away from you. You think of him as your son and not mine. You—"

	She faced him calmly. "You're rather tired, David. And worried."

	"I am not tired," he denied with unnecessary loudness. "Neither am I worried. It is the weak who worry."

	"The weak have reason."

	"I haven't."

	"Then you're just plain hungry." She took a seat at the table. "Have something to eat. It will make you feel better."

	Dissatisfied and disgruntled, he got through his evening meal. Mary was holding something back, he knew that with the sureness of one who had lived with her for half his lifetime. But he did not have to force it out of her by autocratic methods. When and only when he had finished eating she surrendered her secret voluntarily. The way in which she did it concealed the blow to come.

	"There has been another letter from Reed."

	"Yes?" He lingered a glass of wine, felt soothed by food but reluctant to show it. "I know he's happy, healthy and in one piece. If anything went wrong, I'd be the first to learn of it."

	"Don't you want to see what he says?" She took it from a little walnut bureau, offered it to him.

	He eyed it without reaching for it. "Oh, I suppose it's all the usual chitchat about the war."

	"I think you ought to read it," she persisted.

	"Do you?" Taking it from her hand he held it unopened, surveyed her curiously. "Why should this particular missive call for my attention? Is it any different from the others? I know without looking that it is addressed to you. Not to me. To you! Never in his life has Reed written a letter specifically to me."

	"He writes to both of us."

	"Then why can't he start with, 'Dear Father and Mother?' "

	"Probably it just hasn't occurred to him that you would feel touchy about it. Besides, it's cumbersome."

	"Nonsense!"

	"Well, you might as well look at it as argue about it unread. You'll have to know sooner or later."

-

	That last remark stimulated him into action. Unfolding it, he grunted as he noted the opening words, then went through ten paragraphs descriptive of war service on another planet. It was the sort of stuff every fighting man sent home. Nothing especial about it. Turning the page, he perused the brief remainder. His face went taut and heightened in color.

	"Better tell you I've become the willing slave of a Lanian girl. Found her in what little was left of the village of Bluelake which had taken a pretty bad beating from our heavies. She was all alone and, as far as I could discover, seemed to be the sole survivor. Mom, she's got nobody. I'm sending her home on the hospital ship Istar. The captain jibbed but dared not refuse a Korman. Please meet her for me and look after her until I get back."

	Flinging it onto the table, he swore lengthily and with vim, finishing, "The young imbecile."

	Saying nothing, Mary sat watching him, her hands clasped together.

	"The eyes of a whole world are on him," he raged. "As a public figure, as the son of his father, he is expected to be an example. And what does he do?"

	She remained silent.

	"Becomes the easy victim of some designing little skirt who is quick to play upon his sympathies. An enemy female!"

	"She must be pretty," said Mary.

	"No Lanians are pretty," he contradicted in what came near to a shout. "Have you taken leave of your senses?"

	"No, David, of course not."

	"Then why make such pointless remarks? One idiot in the family is enough." He punched his right fist several times into the palm of his left hand. "At the very time when anti-Lanian sentiment is at its height I can well imagine the effect on public opinion if it became known that we were harboring a specially favored enemy alien, pampering some painted and powdered huzzy who has dug her claws into Reed. I can see her mincing proudly around, one of the vanquished who became a victor by making use of a dope. Reed must be out of his mind."

	"Reed is twenty-three," she observed.

	"What of it? Are you asserting that there's a specific age at which a man has a right to make a fool of himself?"

	"David, I did not say that."

	"You implied it." More hand-punching. "Reed has shown an unsuspected strain of weakness. It doesn't come from me."

	"No, David, it doesn't."

	He stared at her, seeking what lay unspoken behind that remark. It eluded him. His mind was not her mind. He could not think in her terms. Only in his own.

	"I'll bring this madness to a drastic stop. If Reed lacks strength of character, it is for me to provide it." He found the telephone, remarked as he picked it up, "There are thousands of girls on Morcine. If Reed feels that he must have romance, he can find it at home."

	"He's not home," Mary mentioned. "He is far away."

	"For a few months. A mere nothing." The phone whirred and he barked into it, "Has the Istar left Lani yet?" He held on a while, then racked the instrument and rumbled aggrievedly, "I'd have had her thrown off but it's too late. The Istar departed soon after the mailboat that brought his letter." He made a face and it was not pleasant. "The girl is due here tomorrow. She's got a nerve, a blatant impudence. It reveals her character in advance."

	Facing the big, slow-ticking clock that stood by the wall, he gazed at it as if tomorrow were due any moment. His mind was working on the problem so suddenly dumped in his lap. After a while, he spoke again.

	"That scheming baggage is not going to carve herself a comfortable niche in my home, no matter what Reed thinks of her. I will not have her, see?"

	"I see, David."

	"If he is weak, I am not. So when she arrives I'm going to give her the roughest hour of her life. By the time I've finished she'll be more than glad of passage back to Lani on the next ship. She'll get out in a hurry and for keeps."

	Mary remained quiet.

	"But I'm not going to indulge a sordid domestic fracas in public. I won't allow her even the satisfaction of that. I want you to meet her at the spaceport, phone me immediately she arrives, then bring her to my office. I'll cope with her there."

	"Yes, David."

	"And don't forget to call me beforehand. It will give me time to clear the place and insure some privacy."

	"I will remember," she promised.

-

	It was three-thirty in the following afternoon when the call came through. He shooed out a fleet admiral, two generals and an intelligence service director, hurried through the most urgent of his papers, cleared the desk and mentally prepared himself for the distasteful task to come.

	In short time his intercom squeaked and his secretary's voice announced, "Two people to see you, sir—Mrs. Korman and Miss Tatiana Hurst."

	"Show them in."

	He leaned backward, face suitably severe. Tatiana, he thought. An outlandish name. It was easy to visualize the sort of hoyden who owned it: a flouncy thing, aged beyond her years and with a sharp eye to the main chance. The sort who could make easy meat of someone young, inexperienced and impressionable, like Reed. Doubtless she had supreme confidence that she could butter the old man with equal effectiveness and no trouble whatsoever. Hah, that was her mistake.

	The door opened and they came in and stood before him without speaking. For half a minute he studied them while his mind did sideslips, repeatedly strove to co-ordinate itself, and a dozen expressions came and went in his face. Finally, he arose slowly to his feet, spoke to Mary, his tones frankly bewildered.

	"Well, where is she?"

	"This," informed Mary, with unconcealed and inexplicable satisfaction, "is her."

	He flopped back into his chair, looked incredulously at Miss Tatiana Hurst. She had skinny legs exposed to knee height. Her clothing was much the worse for wear. Her face was a pale, hollow-cheeked oval from which a pair of enormous dark eyes gazed in a non-focusing, introspective manner as if she continually kept watch within her rather than upon things outside. One small white hand held Mary's, the other arm was around a large and brand new teddy-bear gained from a source at which he could guess. Her age was about eight. Certainly no more than eight.

	It was the eyes that got him most, terribly solemn, terribly grave and unwilling to see. There was a coldness in his stomach as he observed them. She was not blind. She could look at him all right—but she looked without really perceiving. The great dark orbs could turn toward him and register the mere essential of his being while all the time they saw only the secret places within herself. It was eerie in the extreme and more than discomforting.

	Watching her fascinatedly, he tried to analyze and define the peculiar quality in those optics. He had expected daring, defiance, impudence, passion, anything of which a predatory female was capable. Here, in these radically altered circumstances, one could expect childish embarrassment, self-consciousness, shyness. But she was not shy, he decided. It was something else. In the end he recognized the elusive factor as absentness. She was here yet somehow not with them. She was somewhere else, deep inside a world of her own.

	Mary chipped in with a sudden, "Well, David?"

	He started at the sound of her voice. Some confusion still cluttered his mind because this culmination differed so greatly from his preconceptions. Mary had enjoyed half an hour in which to accommodate herself to the shock. He had not. It was still fresh and potent.

	"Leave her with me for a few minutes," he suggested. "I'll call you when I've finished."

	Mary went, her manner that of a woman enjoying something deep and personal. An unexpected satisfaction long overdue.

-

	Korman said with unaccustomed mildness, "Come here, Tatiana."

	She moved toward him slowly, each step deliberate and careful, touched the desk, stopped.

	"Round this side, please, near to my chair."

	With the same almost robotic gait she did as instructed, her dark eyes looking expressionlessly to the front. Arriving at his chair, she waited in silence.

	He drew in a deep breath. It seemed to him that her manner was born of a tiny voice insisting, "I must be obedient. I must do as I am told. I can do only what I am told to do."

	So she did it as one compelled to accept those things she had no means of resisting. It was surrender to all demands in order to keep one hidden and precious place intact. There was no other way.

	Rather appalled, he said, "You're able to speak, aren't you?"

	She nodded, slightly and only once.

	"But that isn't speech," he pointed out.

	There was no desire to contradict or provide proof of ability. She accepted his statement as obvious and left it at that. Silent and immensely grave, she clung to her bear and waited for Korman's world to cease troubling her own.

	"Are you glad you're here, or sorry?"

	No reaction. Only inward contemplation. Absentness.

	"Well, are you glad then?"

	A vague half-nod.

	"You are not sorry to be here?"

	An even vaguer shake.

	"Would you rather stay than go back?"

	She looked at him, not so much to see him as to insure that he could see her.

	He rang his bell, said to Mary, "Take her home."

	"Home, David?"

	"That's what I said." He did not like the exaggerated sweetness of her tone. It meant something, but he couldn't discern what.

	The door closed behind the pair of them. His fingers tapped restlessly on the desk as he pictured those eyes. Something small and bitterly cold was in his insides.

-

	During the next couple of weeks his mind seemed to be filled with more problems than ever before. Like most men of his caliber he had the ability to ponder several subjects at once, but not the insight to detect when one was gaining predominance over the others.

	On the first two or three of these days he ignored the pale intruder in his household. Yet he could not deny her presence. She was always there, quiet, obedient, self-effacing, hollow-cheeked and huge-eyed. Often she sat around for long periods without stirring, like a discarded doll.

	When addressed by Mary or one of the maids she remained deaf to inconsequential remarks, responded to direct and imperative questions or orders. She would answer with minimum head movements or hand gestures when these sufficed, spoke monosyllabically in a thin little voice only when speech was unavoidable. During that time Korman did not speak to her at all—but he was compelled to notice her fatalistic acceptance of the fact that she was no part of his complicated life.

	After lunch on the fourth day he caught her alone, bent down to her height and demanded, "Tatiana, what is the matter with you? Are you unhappy here?"

	One brief shake of her head.

	"Then why don't you laugh and play like other—?" He ceased abruptly as Mary entered the room.

	"You two having a private gossip?" she inquired.

	"As if we could," he snapped.

	That same evening he saw the latest pictorial record from the fighting front. It gave him little satisfaction. Indeed, it almost irked him. The zip was missing. Much of the thrill of conquest had mysteriously evaporated from the pictures.

	By the end of the fortnight he'd had more than enough of listening for a voice that seldom spoke and meeting eyes that did not see. It was like living with a ghost—and it could not go on. A man is entitled to a modicum of relaxation in his own home.

	Certainly he could kick her back to Lani as he had threatened to do at the first. That, however, would be admission of defeat. Korman just could not accept defeat at anyone's hands, much less those of a brooding child. She was not going to edge him out of his own home nor persuade him to throw her out. She was a challenge he had to overcome in a way thoroughly satisfactory to himself.

	Summoning his chief scientific adviser to his office, he declaimed with irritation, "Look, I'm saddled with a maladjusted child. My son took a fancy to her and shipped her from Lani. She's getting in my hair. What can be done about it?"

	"Afraid I cannot help much, sir."

	"Why not?"

	"I'm a physicist."

	"Well, can you suggest anyone else?"

	The other thought a bit, said, "There's nobody in my department, sir. But science isn't solely concerned with production of gadgets. You need a specialist in things less tangible." A pause, then, "The hospital authorities might put you on to someone suitable."

	He tried the nearest hospital, got the answer, "A child psychologist is your man."

	"Who's the best on this planet?"

	"Dr. Jager."

	"Contact him for me. I want him at my house this evening, not later than seven o'clock."

-

	Fat, middle-aged and jovial, Jager fell easily into the role of a casual friend who had just dropped in. He chatted a lot of foolishness, included Tatiana in the conversation by throwing odd remarks at her, even held a pretended conversation with her teddy-bear. Twice in an hour she came into his world just long enough to register a fleeting smile—then swiftly she was back in her own.

	At the end of this he hinted that he and Tatiana should be left by themselves. Korman went out, convinced that no progress was being or would be made. In the lounge Mary glanced up from her seat.

	"Who's our visitor, David? Or is it no business of mine?"

	"Some kind of mental specialist. He's examining Tatiana."

	"Really?" Again the sweetness that was bitter.

	"Yes," he rasped. "Really."

	"I didn't think you were interested in her."

	"I am not," he asserted. "But Reed is. Now and again I like to remind myself that Reed is my son."

	She let the subject drop. Korman got on with some official papers until Jager had finished. Then he went back to the room, leaving Mary immersed in her book. He looked around.

	"Where is she?"

	"The maid took her. Said it was her bedtime."

	"Oh." He found a seat, waited to hear more.

	Resting against the edge of a table, Jager explained, "I've a playful little gag for dealing with children who are reluctant to talk. Nine times out of ten it works."

	"What is it?"

	"I persuade them to write. Strangely enough, they'll often do that, especially if I make a game of it. I cajole them into writing a story or essay about anything that created a great impression upon them. The results can be very revealing."

	"And did you—?"

	"A moment, please, Mr. Korman. Before I go further I'd like to impress upon you that children have an inherent ability many authors must envy. They can express themselves with remarkable vividness in simple language, with great economy of words. They create telling effect with what they leave out as much as by what they put in." He eyed Korman speculatively. "You know the circumstances in which your son found this child?"

	"Yes, he told us in a letter."

	"Well, bearing those circumstances in mind I think you'll find this something exceptional in the way of horror stories." He held out a sheet of paper. "She wrote it unaided." He reached for his hat and coat.

	"You're going?" questioned Korman in surprise. "What about your diagnosis? What treatment do you suggest?"

	Dr. Jager paused, hand on door. "Mr. Korman, you are an intelligent person." He indicated the sheet the other was holding. "I think that is all you require."

	Then he departed. Korman eyed the sheet. It was not filled with words as he'd expected. For a story it was mighty short. He read it.

	I am nothing and nobody. My house went bang. My cat was stuck to a wall. I wanted to pull it off. They wouldn't let me. They threw it away.

	The cold thing in the pit of his stomach swelled up. He read it again. And again. He went to the base of the stairs and looked up toward where she was sleeping.

	The enemy whom he had made nothing.

-

	Slumber came hard that night. Usually he could compose his mind and snatch a nap any time, anywhere, at a moment's notice. Now he was strangely restless, unsettled. His brain was stimulated by he knew not what and it insisted on following tortuous paths.

	The frequent waking periods were full of fantastic imaginings wherein he fumbled through, a vast and cloying grayness in which was no sound, no voice, no other being. The dreams were worse, full of writhing landscapes spewing smoky columns, with things howling through the sky, with huge, toadlike monsters crawling on metal tracks, with long lines of dusty men singing an aeons-old and forgotten song.

	"You've left behind a broken doll."

	He awakened early with weary eyes and a tired mind. All morning at the office a multitude of trifling things conspired against him. His ability to concentrate was not up to the mark and several times he had to catch himself on minor errors just made or about to be made. Once or twice he found himself gazing meditatively forward with eyes that did not see to the front but were looking where they had never looked before.

	At three in the afternoon his secretary called on the intercom, "Astroleader Warren would like to see you, sir."

	"Astroleader?" he echoed, wondering whether he had heard aright. "There's no such title."

	"It is a Drakan space-rank."

	"Oh, yes, of course. I can tend to him now."

	He waited with dull anticipation. The Drakans formed a powerful combine of ten planets at great distance from Morcine. They were so far away that contact came seldom. A battleship of theirs had paid a courtesy call about twice in his lifetime. So this occasion was a rare one.

	The visitor entered, a big-built youngster in light-green uniform. Shaking hands with genuine pleasure and great cordiality, he accepted the indicated chair.

	"A surprise, eh, Mr. Korman?"

	"Very."

	"We came in a deuce of a hurry but the trip can't be done in a day. Distance takes time unfortunately."

	"I know."

	"The position is this," explained

	Warren. "Long while back we received a call from Lani relayed by intervening minor planets. They said they were involved in a serious dispute and feared war. They appealed to us to negotiate as disinterested neutrals."

	"Ah, so that's why you've come?"

	"Yes, Mr. Korman. We knew the chance was small of arriving in time. There was nothing for it but to come as fast as we could and hope for the best. The role of peacemaker appeals to those with any claim to be civilized."

	"Does it?" questioned Korman, watching him.

	"It does to us." Leaning forward, Warren met him eye to eye. "We've called at Lani on the way here. They still want peace. They're losing the battle. Therefore we want to know only one thing: Are we too late?"

	That was the leading question: Are we too late? Yes or no? Korman stewed it without realizing that not so long ago his answer would have been prompt and automatic. Today, he thought it over.

	Yes or no? Yes meant military victory, power and fear. No meant— what? Well, no meant a display of reasonableness in lieu of stubbornness. No meant a considerable change of mind. It struck him suddenly that one must possess redoubtable force of character to throw away a long-nursed viewpoint and adopt a new one. It required moral courage. The weak and the faltering could never achieve it.

	"No," he replied slowly. "It is not too late."

	Warren stood up, his face showing that this was not the answer he had expected. "You mean, Mr. Korman—?"

	"Your journey has not been in vain. You may negotiate."

	"On what terms?"

	"The fairest to both sides that you can contrive." He switched his microphone, spoke into it. "Tell Rogers that I order our forces to cease hostilities forthwith. Troops will guard the perimeter of the Lani ground base pending peace negotiations. Citizens of the Drakan Confederation will be permitted unobstructed passage through our lines in either direction."

	"Very well, Mr. Korman."

	Putting the microphone aside, he continued with Warren, "Though far off in mere miles, Lani is near to us as cosmic distances go. It would please me if the Lanians agreed to a union between our planets, with common citizenship, common development of natural resources. But I don't insist upon it. I merely express a wish— knowing that some wishes never come true."

	"The notion will be given serious consideration all the same," assured Warren. He shook hands with boyish enthusiasm. "You're a big man, Mr. Korman."

	"Am I?" He gave a wry smile. "I'm trying to do a bit of growing in another direction. The original one kind of got used up."

	When the other had gone, he tossed a wad of documents into a drawer. Most of them were useless now. Strange how he seemed to be breathing better than ever before, his lungs drawing more fully.

	In the outer office he informed, "It's early yet, but I'm going home. Phone me there if anything urgent comes along."

	The chauffeur closed the car door at the sixth step. A weakling, thought Korman as he went into his home. A lamebrain lacking the strength to haul himself out of a self-created rut. One can stay in a rut too long.

-

	He asked the maid, "Where is my wife?"

	"Slipped out ten minutes ago, sir. She said she'd be back in half an hour."

	"Did she take—"

	"No, sir." The maid glanced toward the lounge.

	Cautiously he entered the lounge, found the child resting on the settee, head back, eyes closed. A radio played softly nearby. He doubted whether she had turned it on of her own accord or was listening to it. More likely someone else had left it running.

	Tiptoeing across the carpet, he cut off the faint music. She opened her eyes, sat upright. Going to the settee, he took the bear from her side and placed it on an arm, positioned himself next to her.

	"Tatiana," he asked with rough gentleness, "why are you nothing?"

	No answer. No change.

	"Is it because you have nobody?"

	Silence.

	"Nobody of your own?" he persisted, feeling a queer kind of desperation. "Not even a kitten?"

	She looked down at her shoes, her big eyes partly shielded under pale lids. There was no other reaction.

	Defeat. Ah, the bitterness of defeat. It set his fingers fumbling with each other, like those of one in great and unbearable trouble. Phrases tumbled through his mind.

	"I am nothing."

	"My cat ... they threw it away."

	His gaze wandered blindly over the room while his mind ran round and round her wall of silence seeking a door it could not rind. Was there no way in, no way at all?

	There was.

	He discovered it quite unwittingly.

	To himself rather than to her he murmured in a bearable undertone, "Since I was very small I have been surrounded by people. All my life there have been lots of people. But none were mine. Not one was really mine. Not one. I, too, am nothing."

	She patted his hand.

	The shock was immense. Startled beyond measure, he glanced down al the first touch, watched her give three or four comforting little dabs and hastily withdraw. There was heavy pulsing in his veins. Something within him rapidly became too big to contain.

	Twisting sidewise, he snatched her onto his lap, put his arms around her, buried his nose in the soft part of her neck, nuzzled behind her ear, ran his big hand through her hair. And all l he time he rocked to and fro with low crooning noises.

	She was weeping. She hadn't been able to weep before. She was weeping, not as a woman does, softly and subdued, but like a child, with great racking sobs that she fought hard to suppress.

	Her arm was around his neck, tightening, clinging and tightening more while he rocked and stroked and called her "Honey"" and uttered silly sounds and wildly extravagant reassurances.

	This was victory.

	Not empty.

	Full.

	Victory over self is completely full.

The End