PART ONE

MASTERS

OF

SPACE

By EDWARD E. SMITH &

E. EVERETT EVANS

Illustrated by BERRY

I

"BUT didn't you feel anything,
Javo?" Strain
was apparent in every line of
Tula's taut, bare body. "Nothing
at all?"

"Nothing whatever." The
one called Javo relaxed from
his rigid concentration.
"Nothing has changed. Nor
will it."

"That conclusion is indefensible!"
Tula snapped.
"With the promised return of
the Masters there must and
will be changes. Didn't any
of you feel anything?"

Her hot, demanding eyes
swept the group; a group
whose like, except for physical
perfection, could be found
in any nudist colony.

No one except Tula had
felt a thing.

"That fact is not too surprising,"
Javo said finally.
"You have the most sensitive
receptors of us all. But are
you sure?"

"I am sure. It was the
thought-form of a living
Master."

"Do you think that the
Master perceived your web?"

"It is certain. Those who
built us are stronger than
we."

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

Jarvis Hilton of Terra, the
youngest man yet to be assigned
to direct any such tremendous
deep-space undertaking
as Project Theta Orionis,
sat in conference with
his two seconds-in-command.
Assistant Director Sandra
Cummings, analyst-synthesist
and semantician, was tall,
blonde and svelte. Planetographer
William Karns—a
black-haired, black-browed,
black-eyed man of thirty—was
third in rank of the scientific
group.

"I'm telling you, Jarve, you
can't have it both ways,"
Karns declared. "Captain
Sawtelle is old-school Navy
brass. He goes strictly by the
book. So you've got to draw
a razor-sharp line; exactly
where the Advisory Board's
directive puts it. And next
time he sticks his ugly puss
across that line, kick his face
in. You've been Caspar Milquetoast
Two ever since we
left Base."

"That's the way it looks to
you?" Hilton's right hand became
a fist. "The man has
age, experience and ability.
I've been trying to meet him
on a ground of courtesy and
decency."

"Exactly. And he doesn't
recognize the existence of
either. And, since the Board
rammed you down his throat
instead of giving him old
Jeffers, you needn't expect
him to."

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

The girl said: "Bill's right.
Also, your constant appeasement
isn't doing the morale
of the whole scientific group
a bit of good."

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

"Yes, Dr. Hilton, I have a
squawk of my own. I know I
was rammed down your
throat, but just when are you
going to let me do some
work?"

"None of us has much of
anything to do yet, and won't
have until we light somewhere.
You're off base a
country mile."

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

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

"No? Why, then, are you
on first-name terms with
everyone in the scientific
group except me? Supposedly
your first assistant?"

"That's easy!" Hilton
snapped. "Because you've
been carrying chips on both
shoulders ever since you
came aboard ... or at least I
thought you were." Hilton
grinned suddenly and held
out his hand. "Sorry, Sandy—I'll
start all over again."

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

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

"Can do, boss." She swung
to her feet and walked out of
the room, her every movement
one of lithe and easy
grace.

Karns followed her with
his eyes. "Funny. A trained-dancer
Ph.D. And a Miss
America type, like all the
other women aboard this
spacer. I wonder if she'll
make out."

"So do I. I still wish they'd
given me Eggy. I've never
seen an executive-type female
Ph.D. yet that was worth the
cyanide it would take to poison
her."

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

"I know; and the Board
does know its stuff. So I'm
really hoping, Bill, that she
surprises me as much as I intend
to surprise the Navy."

ALARM bells clanged as
the mighty Perseus
blinked out of overdrive.
Every crewman sprang to his
post.

"Mister Snowden, why did
we emerge without orders
from me?" Captain Sawtelle
bellowed, storming into the
control room three jumps behind
Hilton.

"The automatics took control,
sir," he said, quietly.

"Automatics! I give the orders!"

"In this case, Captain Sawtelle,
you don't," Hilton said.
Eyes locked and held. To
Sawtelle, this was a new and
strange co-commander. "I
would suggest that we discuss
this matter in private."

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

"For your information,
Captain Sawtelle, I set my
inter-space coupling detectors
for any objective I choose.
When any one of them reacts,
it trips the kickers and we
emerge. During any emergency
outside the Solar System
I am in command—with
the provision that I must relinquish
command to you in
case of armed attack on us."

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

"It is, and you don't. Here
is a semantic chart of the
whole directive. As you will
note, it overrides many Navy
regulations. Disobedience of
my orders constitutes mutiny
and I can—and will—have
you put in irons and sent
back to Terra for court-martial.
Now let's go back."

In the control room, Hilton
said, "The target has a mass
of approximately five hundred
metric tons. There is
also a significant amount of
radiation characteristic of
uranexite. You will please execute
search, Captain Sawtelle."

And Captain Sawtelle ordered
the search.

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

"What you and Bill suggested,"
Hilton whispered
back. "Thanks to your analysis
of the directive—pure
gobbledygook if there ever
was any—I could. Mighty
good job, Sandy."

TEN or fifteen more minutes
passed. Then:

"Here's the source of radiation,
sir," a searchman reported.
"It's a point source,
though, not an object at this
range."

"And here's the artifact,
sir," Pilot Snowden said.
"We're coming up on it fast.
But ... but what's a skyscraper
skeleton doing out here in
interstellar space?"

As they closed up, everyone
could see that the thing
did indeed look like the
metallic skeleton of a great
building. It was a huge cube,
measuring well over a hundred
yards along each edge.
And it was empty.

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

"And how!" Hilton agreed.
"I'll take a boat ... no, suits
would be better. Karns, Yarborough,
get Techs Leeds and
Miller and suit up."

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

The three landing craft approached
that enigmatic lattice-work
of structural steel
and stopped. Five grotesquely
armored figures wafted
themselves forward on pencils
of force. Their leader,
whose suit bore the number
"14", reached a mammoth
girder and worked his way
along it up to a peculiar-looking
bulge. The whole immense
structure vanished, leaving
men and boats in empty
space.

Sawtelle gasped. "Snowden!
Are you holding 'em?"

"No, sir. Faster than light;
hyperspace, sir."

"Mr. Ashby, did you have
your interspace rigs set?"

"No, sir. I didn't think of
it, sir."

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

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

Ashby, the Communications
Officer, had been working
the radio. "No reply from
anyone, sir," he reported.

"Oh, no!" Sandra exclaimed.
Then, "But look!
They're firing pistols—especially
the one wearing number
fourteen—but pistols?"

"Recoil pistols—sixty-threes—for
emergency use in
case of power failure," Ashby
explained. "That's it ... but I
can't see why all their power
went out at once. But Fourteen—that's
Hilton—is really
doing a job with that sixty-three.
He'll be here in a couple
of minutes."

And he was. "Every power
unit out there—suits
and boats both—drained,"
Hilton reported. "Completely
drained. Get some help
out there fast!"

In an enormous structure
deep below the surface of a
far-distant world a group of
technicians clustered together
in front of one section of
a two-miles long control
board. They were staring at a
light that had just appeared
where no light should have
been.

"Someone's brain-pan will
be burned out for this," one
of the group radiated harshly.
"That unit was inactivated
long ago and it has not been
reactivated."

"Someone committed an error,
Your Loftiness?"

"Silence, fool! Stretts do
not commit errors!"

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

"Structurally, it was high-alloy
steel. There were many
bulges, possibly containing
mechanisms. There were
drive-units of a non-Terran
type. There were many projectors,
which—at a rough
guess—were a hundred times
as powerful as any I have
ever seen before. There were
no indications that the thing
had ever been enclosed, in
whole or in part. It certainly
never had living quarters for
warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing
eaters of organic food."

Sawtelle snorted. "You
mean it never had a crew?"

"Not necessarily...."

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

"I don't know. But before
we speculate too much, let's
look at the tri-di. The camera
may have caught something I
missed."

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

"It probably was operated
either by programmed automatics
or by remote control,"
Hilton decided, finally. "But
how did they drain all our
power? And just as bad, what
and how is that other point
source of power we're heading
for now?"

"What's wrong with it?"
Sawtelle asked.

"Its strength. No matter
what distance or reactant I
assume, nothing we know will
fit. Neither fission nor fusion
will do it. It has to be practically
total conversion!"

II

THE Perseus snapped out
of overdrive near the point
of interest and Hilton stared,
motionless and silent.

Space was full of madly
warring ships. Half of them
were bare, giant skeletons of
steel, like the "derelict" that
had so unexpectedly blasted
away from them. The others
were more or less like the
Perseus, except in being bigger,
faster and of vastly
greater power.

Beams of starkly incredible
power bit at and clung to
equally capable defensive
screens of pure force. As
these inconceivable forces
met, the glare of their neutralization
filled all nearby
space. And ships and skeletons
alike were disappearing
in chunks, blobs, gouts,
streamers and sparkles of
rended, fused and vaporized
metal.

Hilton watched two ships
combine against one skeleton.
Dozens of beams, incredibly
tight and hard, were held inexorably
upon dozens of
the bulges of the skeleton.
Overloaded, the bulges'
screens flared through the
spectrum and failed. And
bare metal, however refractory,
endures only for instants
under the appalling intensity
of such beams as
those.

The skeletons tried to duplicate
the ships' method of
attack, but failed. They were
too slow. Not slow, exactly,
either, but hesitant; as though
it required whole seconds for
the commander—or operator?
Or remote controller?—of
each skeleton to make it act.
The ships were winning.

"Hey!" Hilton yelped. "Oh—that's
the one we saw back
there. But what in all space
does it think it's doing?"

It was plunging at tremendous
speed straight through
the immense fleet of embattled
skeletons. It did not fire
a beam nor energize a screen;
it merely plunged along as
though on a plotted course
until it collided with one of
the skeletons of the fleet and
both structures plunged, a
tangled mass of wreckage, to
the ground of the planet below.

Then hundreds of the ships
shot forward, each to plunge
into and explode inside one of
the skeletons. When visibility
was restored another wave of
ships came forward to repeat
the performance, but there
was nothing left to fight.
Every surviving skeleton had
blinked out of normal space.

The remaining ships made
no effort to pursue the skeletons,
nor did they re-form as
a fleet. Each ship went off
by itself.

And on that distant planet
of the Stretts the group of
mechs watched with amazed
disbelief as light after light
after light winked out on
their two-miles-long control
board. Frantically they relayed
orders to the skeletons;
orders which did not affect
the losses.

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

"That long-dead unit, so inexplicably
reactivated, is approaching
the fuel world. It
is ignoring the battle. It is
heading through our fleet toward
the Oman half ... handle
it, ten-eighteen!"

"It does not respond, Your
Loftiness."

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

"Yes, Your Loftiness. Many
cycles ago we sent a ship
against the Omans with a new
device of destruction. The
Omans must have intercepted
it, drained it of power and allowed
it to drift on. After all
these cycles of time it must
have come upon a small
source of power and of course
continued its mission."

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

"The mining units, the carriers
and the refiners have
not been affected, Your Loftiness,"
a mech radiated.

"So I see, fool." Then, activating
another instrument,
His Loftiness thought at it,
in an entirely different vein,
"Lord Ynos, Madam? I have
to make a very grave report...."

IN the Perseus, four scientists
and three Navy officers
were arguing heatedly;
employing deep-space verbiage
not to be found in any
dictionary. "Jarve!" Karns
called out, and Hilton joined
the group. "Does anything
about this planet make any
sense to you?"

"No. But you're the planetographer.
'Smatter with it?"

"It's a good three hundred
degrees Kelvin too hot."

"Well, you know it's loaded
with uranexite."

"That much? The whole
crust practically jewelry
ore?"

"If that's what the figures
say, I'll buy it."

"Buy this, then. Continuous
daylight everywhere.
Noon June Sol-quality light
except that it's all in the visible.
Frank says it's from bombardment
of a layer of something,
and Frank admits that
the whole thing's impossible."

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

"Third thing: there's only
one city on this continent,
and it's protected by a screen
that nobody ever heard of."

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

The planet was approximately
the same size as
Terra; its atmosphere, except
for its intense radiation, was
similar to Terra's. There were
two continents; one immense
girdling ocean. The temperature
of the land surface was
everywhere about 100°F, that
of the water about 90°F. Each
continent had one city, and
both were small. One was inhabited
by what looked like
human beings; the other by
usuform robots. The human
city was the only cool spot on
the entire planet; under its
protective dome the temperature
was 71°F.

Hilton decided to study the
robots first; and asked the
captain to take the ship down
to observation range. Sawtelle
objected; and continued
to object until Hilton started
to order his arrest. Then he
said, "I'll do it, under protest,
but I want it on record that I
am doing it against my best
judgment."

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

The Perseus floated downward.
"There's what I want
most to see," Hilton said,
finally. "That big strip-mining
operation ... that's it ... hold
it!" Then, via throat-mike,
"Attention, all scientists!
You all know what to
do. Start doing it."

Sandra's blonde head was
very close to Hilton's brown
one as they both stared into
Hilton's plate. "Why, they
look like giant armadillos!"
she exclaimed.

"More like tanks," he disagreed,
"except that they've
got legs, wheels and treads—and
arms, cutters, diggers,
probes and conveyors—and
look at the way those buckets
dip solid rock!"

The fantastic machine was
moving very slowly along a
bench or shelf that it was
making for itself as it went
along. Below it, to its left,
dropped other benches being
made by other mining machines.
The machines were
not using explosives. Hard
though the ore was, the tools
were so much harder and
were driven with such tremendous
power that the stuff
might just have well have
been slightly-clayed sand.

Every bit of loosened ore,
down to the finest dust, was
forced into a conveyor and
thence into the armored body
of the machine. There it went
into a mechanism whose basic
principles Hilton could not
understand. From this monstrosity
emerged two streams
of product.

One of these, comprising
ninety-nine point nine plus
percent of the input, went out
through another conveyor
into the vast hold of a vehicle
which, when full and replaced
by a duplicate of itself, went
careening madly cross-country
to a dump.

The other product, a slow,
very small stream of tiny,
glistening black pellets, fell
into a one-gallon container
being held watchfully by a
small machine, more or less
like a three-wheeled motor
scooter, which was moving
carefully along beside the
giant miner. When this can
was almost full another scooter
rolled up and, without losing
a single pellet, took over
place and function. The first
scooter then covered its bucket,
clamped it solidly into a
recess designed for the purpose
and dashed away toward
the city.

Hilton stared slack-jawed
at Sandra. She stared back.

"Do you make anything of
that, Jarve?"

"Nothing. They're taking
pure uranexite and concentrating—or
converting—it a
thousand to one. I hope we'll
be able to do something about
it."

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

"Well, that's enough for
now. You may take us up
now, Captain Sawtelle. And
Sandy, will you please call
all department heads and
their assistants into the conference
room?"

AT the head of the long
conference table, Hilton
studied his fourteen department
heads, all husky young
men, and their assistants, all
surprisingly attractive and
well-built young women. Bud
Carroll and Sylvia Bannister
of Sociology sat together. He
was almost as big as Karns;
she was a green-eyed redhead
whose five-ten and one-fifty
would have looked big except
for the arrangement thereof.
There were Bernadine and
Hermione van der Moen, the
leggy, breasty, platinum-blonde
twins—both of whom
were Cowper medalists in
physics. There was Etienne
de Vaux, the mathematical
wizard; and Rebecca Eisenstein,
the black-haired, flashing-eyed
ex-infant-prodigy
theoretical astronomer. There
was Beverly Bell, who made
mathematically impossible
chemical syntheses—who
swam channels for days on
end and computed planetary
orbits in her sleekly-coiffured
head.

"First, we'll have a get-together,"
Hilton said. "Nothing
recorded; just to get acquainted.
You all know that our
fourteen departments cover
science, from astronomy to
zoology."

He paused, again his eyes
swept the group. Stella Wing,
who would have been a grand-opera
star except for her
drive to know everything
about language. Theodora
(Teddy) Blake, who would
prove gleefully that she was
the world's best model—but
was in fact the most brilliantly
promising theoretician who
had ever lived.

"No other force like this
has ever been assembled,"
Hilton went on. "In more
ways than one. Sawtelle wanted
Jeffers to head this group,
instead of me. Everybody
thought he would head it."

"And Hilton wanted Eggleston
and got me," Sandra
said.

"That's right. And quite a
few of you didn't want to
come at all, but were told by
the Board to come or else."

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

"I MYSELF think Jeffers
should have had the job.
I've never handled anything
half this big and I'll need a
lot of help. But I'm stuck
with it and you're all stuck
with me, so we'll all take it
and like it. You've noticed,
of course, the accent on
youth. The Navy crew is normal,
except for the commanders
being unusually young.
But we aren't. None of us is
thirty yet, and none of us has
ever been married. You fellows
look like a team of professional
athletes, and you
girls—well, if I didn't know
better I'd say the Board had
screened you for the front
row of the chorus instead of
for a top-bracket brain-gang.
How they found so many of
you I'll never know."

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

"Nubile! Bravo, Tiny!
Quelle delicatesse de
nuance!"

"Three rousing cheers for
the Board!"

"Keep still, you nitwits!
Let me ask a question!" This
came from one of the twins.
"Before you give us the deduction,
Jarvis—or will it be
an intuition or an induction
or a ..."

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

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

"Sure, Bernadine; go
ahead."

"They figured we're going
to get completely lost. Then
we'll jettison the Navy, hunt
up a planet of our own and
start a race to end all human
races. Or would you call this
a see-duction instead of a dee-duction?"

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

"But seriously, Jarvis,"
Bernadine went on. "We've
all been wondering and it
doesn't make sense. Have you
any idea at all of what the
Board actually did have in
mind?"

"I believe that the Board
selected for mental, not physical,
qualities; for the ability
to handle anything unexpected
or unusual that comes up,
no matter what it is."

"You think it wasn't double-barreled?"
asked Kincaid,
the psychologist. He smiled
quizzically. "That all this virility
and nubility and glamor
is pure coincidence?"

"No," Hilton said, with an
almost imperceptible flick of
an eyelid. "Coincidence is as
meaningless as paradox. I
think they found out that—barring
freaks—the best
minds are in the best bodies."

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

"Now let's get to work."
Hilton flipped the switch of
the recorder. "Starting with
you, Sandy, each of you give
a two-minute boil-down. What
you found and what you
think."

SOMETHING over an hour
later the meeting adjourned
and Hilton and Sandra
strolled toward the control
room.

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

"Nor him, either."

"Oh?" Sandra's eyebrows

"No. He grabbed the out I
offered him. I didn't fool
Teddy Blake or Temple Bells,
either. You four are all,
though, I think."

"Temple? You think she's
so smart?"

"I don't think so, no. Don't
fool yourself, chick. Temple
Bells looks and acts sweet
and innocent and virginal.
Maybe—probably—she is. But
she isn't showing a fraction of
the stuff she's really got.
She's heavy artillery, Sandy.
And I mean heavy."

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

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

"But it wouldn't work! We
aren't going to get lost!"

"We won't need to. Propinquity
will do the work."

"Phooie. You and me, for
instance?" She stopped, put
both hands on her hips, and
glared. "Why, I wouldn't
marry you if you ..."

"I'll tell the cockeyed world
you won't!" Hilton broke in.
"Me marry a damned female
Ph.D.? Uh-uh. Mine will be
a cuddly little brunette that
thinks a slipstick is some kind
of lipstick and that an isotope's
something good to eat."

"One like that copy of
Murchison's Dark Lady that
you keep under the glass on
your desk?" she sneered.

"Exactly...." He started to
continue the battle, then shut
himself off. "But listen, Sandy,
why should we get into
a fight because we don't want
to marry each other? You're
doing a swell job. I admire
you tremendously for it and
I like to work with you."

"You've got a point there,
Jarve, at that, and I'm one of
the few who know what kind
of a job you're doing, so I'll
relax." She flashed him a
gamin grin and they went on
into the control room.

It was too late in the day
then to do any more exploring;
but the next morning,
early, the Perseus lined out
for the city of the humanoids.

Tula turned toward her fellows.
Her eyes filled with a
happily triumphant light and
her thought a lilting song. "I
have been telling you from
the first touch that it was the
Masters. It is the Masters!
The Masters are returning to
us Omans and their own home
world!"

"CAPTAIN Sawtelle," Hilton
said, "Please land
in the cradle below."

"Land!" Sawtelle stormed.
"On a planet like that? Not
by ..." He broke off and
stared; for now, on that cradle,
there flamed out in
screaming red the Perseus'
own Navy-coded landing symbols!

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

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

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

"Still abnormally low. Surprising
no end, since all the
rest of the planet is hotter
than the middle tail-race of
hell."

"Okay, Sandy. Who will
you want besides the top linguists?"

"Psych—both Alex and
Temple. And Teddy Blake.
They're over there. Tell them,
will you, while I buzz Teddy?"

"Will do," and Hilton
stepped over to the two psychologists
and told them.
Then, "I hope I'm not leading
with my chin, Temple, but is
that your real first name or
a professional?"

"It's real; it really is. My
parents were romantics: dad
says they considered both
'Golden' and 'Silver'!"

Not at all obviously, he
studied her: the almost translucent,
unblemished perfection
of her lightly-tanned,
old-ivory skin; the clear,
calm, deep blueness of her
eyes; the long, thick mane of
hair exactly the color of a
field of dead-ripe wheat.

"You know, I like it," he
said then. "It fits you."

"I'm glad you said that,
Doctor...."

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

"I'll call you 'boss', then,
like Stella does. Anyway, that
lets me tell you that I like
it myself. I really think that
it did something for me."

"Something did something
for you, that's for sure. I'm
mighty glad you're aboard,
and I hope ... here they come.
Hi, Hark! Hi, Stella!"

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

"Hi, boss—what's holding
us up?" asked his assistant,
Stella Wing. She was about
five feet four. Her eyes were
a tawny brown; her hair a
flamboyant auburn mop. Perhaps
it owed a little of its
spectacular refulgence to
chemistry, Hilton thought,
but not too much. "Let us
away! Let the lions roar and
let the welkin ring!"

"Who's been feeding you
so much red meat, little
squirt?" Hilton laughed and
turned away, meeting Sandra
in the corridor. "Okay, chick,
take 'em away. We'll cover
you. Luck, girl."

And in the control room,
to Sawtelle, "Needle-beam
cover, please; set for minimum
aperture and lethal
blast. But no firing, Captain
Sawtelle, until I give the order."

THE Perseus was surrounded
by hundreds of natives.
They were all adult, all naked
and about equally divided
as to sex. They were friendly;
most enthusiastically so.

"Jarve!" Sandra squealed.
"They're telepathic. Very
strongly so! I never imagined—I
never felt anything like
it!"

"Any rough stuff?" Hilton
demanded.

"Oh, no. Just the opposite.
They love us ... in a way that's
simply indescribable. I don't
like this telepathy business ...
not clear ... foggy, diffuse ... this
woman is sure I'm her
long-lost great-great-a-hundred-times
grandmother or
something—You! Slow down.
Take it easy! They want us
all to come out here and live
with ... no, not with them, but
each of us alone in a whole
house with them to wait on
us! But first, they all want
to come aboard...."

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

"Positive, chief."

"How about you, Alex?"

"We're all sure, Jarve. No
question about it."

"Bring two of them aboard.
A man and a woman."

"You won't bring any!"
Sawtelle thundered. "Hilton,
I had enough of your stupid,
starry-eyed, ivory-domed
blundering long ago, but this
utterly idiotic brainstorm of
letting enemy aliens aboard
us ends all civilian command.
Call your people back aboard
or I will bring them in by
force!"

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

The Navy officers smiled—or
grinned—gloatingly; while
the scientists stared at their
director with expressions
ranging from surprise to disappointment
and disgust.
Hilton's face remained set, expressionless,
until Sandra and
her party had arrived.

"Captain Sawtelle," he said
then, "I thought that you and
I had settled in private the
question or who is in command
of Project Theta Orionis
at destination. We will
now settle it in public. Your
opinion of me is now on record,
witnessed by your officers
and by my staff. My
opinion of you, which is now
being similarly recorded and
witnessed, is that you are a
hidebound, mentally ossified
Navy mule; mentally and psychologically
unfit to have any
voice in any such mission as
this. You will now agree on
this recording and before
these witnesses, to obey my
orders unquestioningly or I
will now unload all Bureau of
Science personnel and equipment
onto this planet and
send you and the Perseus
back to Terra with the doubly-sealed
record of this episode
posted to the Advisory
Board. Take your choice."

Eyes locked, and under
Hilton's uncompromising
stare Sawtelle weakened. He
fidgeted; tried three times—unsuccessfully—to
blare defiance.
Then, "Very well sir,"
he said, and saluted.

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

Outside the control room
door, "Thank God you don't
play poker, Jarve!" Karns
gasped. "We'd all owe you all
the pay we'll ever get!"

"You think it was the bluff,
yes?" de Vaux asked. "Me, I
think no. Name of a name of
a name! I was wondering with
unease what life would be like
on this so-alien planet!"

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

Beverly Bell, the van der
Moen twins and Temple Bells
all stared at Hilton in awe;
and Sandra felt much the
same way.

"But suppose he had called
you?" Sandra demanded.

"Speculating on the impossible
is unprofitable," he said.

"Oh, you're the most exasperating
thing!" Sandra
stamped a foot. "Don't you—ever—answer
a question intelligibly?"

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

At the lock Temple Bells,
who had been hanging back,
cocked an eyebrow at Hilton
and he made his way to her
side.

"What was it you started to
say back there, boss?"

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

"That's what I was hoping
you were going to say." She
put her hand under his elbow
and pressed his arm lightly,
fleetingly, against her side.
"That would be indubitably
the fondest thing I could be
of."

He laughed and gave her
arm a friendly squeeze. Then
he studied her again, the most
baffling member of his staff.
About five feet six. Lithe,
hard, trained down fine—as a
tennis champion, she would
be. Stacked—how she was
stacked! Not as beautiful as
Sandra or Teddy ... but with
an ungodly lot of something
that neither of them had ... nor
any other woman he had
ever known.

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

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

"Such as?" This was an
open challenge.

"Except possibly Teddy,
the best brain aboard."

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

"You're a powerhouse. A
tightly organized, thoroughly
integrated, smoothly functioning,
beautifully camouflaged
Juggernaut. A reasonable
facsimile of an irresistible
force."

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

"Let me finish my analysis.
You aren't head of your department
because you don't
want to be. You fooled the
top psychs of the Board.
You've been running ninety
per cent submerged because
you can work better that way
and there's no glory-hound
blood in you."

She stared at him, licking
her lips. "I knew your mind
was a razor, but I didn't know
it was a diamond drill, too.
That seals your doom, boss,
unless ... no, you can't possibly
know why I'm here."

"Why, of course I do."

"You just think you do.
You see, I've been in love
with you ever since, as a gangling,
bony, knobby-kneed
kid, I listened to your first
doctorate disputation. Ever
since then, my purpose in life
has been to land you."

III

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

"Of course you can't." Pure
deviltry danced in her eyes.
"You're the Director. It
wouldn't be proper. But it's
Standard Operating Procedure
for simple, innocent, unsophisticated
little country
girls like me to go completely
overboard for the boss."

"But you can't—you
mustn't!" he protested in
panic.

Temple Bells was getting
plenty of revenge for the
shocks he had given her. "I
can't? Watch me!" She
grinned up at him, her eyes
still dancing. "Every chance
I get, I'm going to hug your
arm like I did a minute ago.
And you'll take hold of my
forearm, like you did! That
can be taken, you see, as either:
One, a reluctant acceptance
of a mildly distasteful
but not quite actionable
situation, or: Two, a blocking
move to keep me from climbing
up you like a squirrel!"

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

"Can't I?" She laughed
gleefully. "Especially with
half a dozen of those other
cats watching? Just wait and
see, boss!"

Sandra and her two guests
came aboard. The natives
looked around; the man at
the various human men, the
woman at each of the human
women. The woman remained
beside Sandra; the man took
his place at Hilton's left,
looking up—he was a couple
of inches shorter than Hilton's
six feet one—with an
air of ... of expectancy!

"Why this arrangement,
Sandy?" Hilton asked.

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

"Uranexite. Come along,
Sport. I'll call you that until ..."

"Laro," the native said, in
a deep resonant bass voice.
He hit himself a blow on the
head that would have floored
any two ordinary men.
"Sora," he announced, striking
the alien woman a similar
blow.

"Laro and Sora, I would
like to have you look at our
uranexite, with the idea of refueling
our ship. Come with
me, please?"

Both nodded and followed
him. In the engine room he
pointed at the engines, then
to the lead-blocked labyrinth
leading to the fuel holds.
"Laro, do you understand
'hot'? Radioactive?"

Laro nodded—and started
to open the heavy lead door!

"Hey!" Hilton yelped.
"That's hot!" He seized
Laro's arm to pull him away—and
got the shock of his
life. Laro weighed at least
five hundred pounds! And
the guy still looked human!

Laro nodded again and
gave himself a terrific thump
on the chest. Then he glanced
at Sora, who stepped away
from Sandra. He then went
into the hold and came out
with two fuel pellets in his
hand, one of which he tossed
to Sora. That is, the motion
looked like a toss, but the
pellet traveled like a bullet.
Sora caught it unconcernedly
and both natives flipped the
pellets into their mouths.
There was a half minute of
rock-crusher crunching; then
both natives opened their
mouths.

The pellets had been pulverized
and swallowed.

Hilton's voice rang out.
"Poynter! How can these
people be non-radioactive after
eating a whole fuel pellet
apiece?"

Poynter tested both natives
again. "Cold," he reported.
"Stone cold. No background
even. Play that on your harmonica!"

LARO nodded, perfectly
matter-of-factly, and in
Hilton's mind there formed a
picture. It was not clear, but
it showed plainly enough a
long line of aliens approaching
the Perseus. Each carried
on his or her shoulder a lead
container holding two hundred
pounds of Navy Regulation
fuel pellets. A standard
loading-tube was sealed into
place and every fuel-hold was
filled.

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

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

"Of course not. But it'll
pass, for all the tea in China.
You haven't had a ten per
cent load of fuel since you
were launched. You can fill
up or not—the fuel's here—just
as you say."

"If they can make Navy
standard, of course we want
it."

The fuel arrived. Every
load tested well above standard.
Every fuel hold was
filled to capacity, with no
leakage and no emanation.
The natives who had handled
the stuff did not go away, but
gathered in the engine-room;
and more and more humans
trickled in to see what was
going on.

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

"I don't know; but let's let
'em go for a minute. I want
to learn about these people
and they've got me stopped
cold."

"You aren't the only one.
But if they wreck that Mayfield
it'll cost you over twenty
thousand dollars."

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

Two master mechanics had
been getting ready to re-fit a
tube—a job requiring both
strength and skill. The tube
was very heavy and made of
superefract. The machine—the
Mayfield—upon which
the work was to be done, was
extremely complex.

Two of the aliens had
brushed the mechanics—very
gently—aside and were doing
their work for them. Ignoring
the hoist, one native had
picked the tube up and was
holding it exactly in place on
the Mayfield. The other,
hands moving faster than the
eye could follow, was locking
it—micrometrically precise
and immovably secure—into
place.

"How about this?" one of
the mechanics asked of his
immediate superior. "If we
throw 'em out, how do we do
it?"

By a jerk of the head, the
non-com passed the buck to a
commissioned officer, who
relayed it up the line to Sawtelle,
who said, "Hilton, nobody
can run a Mayfield
without months of training.
They'll wreck it and it'll cost
you ... but I'm getting curious
myself. Enough so to take
half the damage. Let 'em go
ahead."

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

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

The natives had kept on
working. The Mayfield was
running. It had always
howled and screamed at its
work, but now it gave out
only a smooth and even hum.
The aliens had adjusted it
with unhuman precision;
they were one with it as no
human being could possibly
be. And every mind present
knew that those aliens were,
at long, long last, fulfilling
their destiny and were, in
that fulfillment, supremely
happy. After tens of thousands
of cycles of time they
were doing a job for their
adored, their revered and
beloved MASTERS.

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

"I AM sorry, Master Hilton,"
Laro's tremendous
bass voice boomed out, "that
it has taken us so long to
learn your Masters' language
as it now is. Since you left
us you have changed it radically;
while we, of course,
have not changed it at all."

"I'm sorry, but you're mistaken,"
Hilton said. "We are
merely visitors. We have never
been here before; nor, as
far as we know, were any of
our ancestors ever here."

"You need not test us, Master.
We have kept your trust.
Everything has been kept,
changelessly the same, awaiting
your return as you ordered
so long ago."

"Can you read my mind?"
Hilton demanded.

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

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

"As you know, Master, the
Masters came originally from
Arth. They populated Ardu,
where we Omans were developed.
When the Stretts drove
us from Ardu, we all came to
Ardry, which was your home
world until you left it in our
care. We keep also this, your
half of the Fuel World, in
trust for you."

"Listen, Jarve!" Harkins
said, tensely. "Oman-human.
Arth-Earth. Ardu-Earth Two.
Ardry-Earth Three. You
can't laugh them off ... but
there never was an Atlantis!"

"This is getting no better
fast. We need a full staff
meeting. You, too, Sawtelle,
and your best man. We need
all the brains the Perseus can
muster."

"You're right. But first, get
those naked women out of
here. It's bad enough, having
women aboard at all, but
this ... my men are spacemen,
mister."

Laro spoke up. "If it is the
Masters' pleasure to keep on
testing us, so be it. We have
forgotten nothing. A dwelling
awaits each Master, in
which each will be served by
Omans who will know the
Master's desires without being
told. Every desire. While
we Omans have no biological
urges, we are of course highly
skilled in relieving tensions
and derive as much
pleasure from that service as
from any other."

Sawtelle broke the silence
that followed. "Well, for the
men—" He hesitated. "Especially
on the ground ... well,
talking in mixed company,
you know, but I think ..."

"Think nothing of the
mixed company, Captain Sawtelle,"
Sandra said. "We women
are scientists, not shrinking
violets. We are accustomed
to discussing the facts
of life just as frankly as any
other facts."

Sawtelle jerked a thumb at
Hilton, who followed him out
into the corridor. "I have
been a Navy mule," he said.
"I admit now that I'm out-maneuvered,
out-manned, and
out-gunned."

"I'm just as baffled—at
present—as you are, sir. But
my training has been aimed
specifically at the unexpected,
while yours has not."

"That's letting me down
easy, Jarve." Sawtelle smiled—the
first time the startled
Hilton had known that the
hard, tough old spacehound
could smile. "What I wanted
to say is, lead on. I'll follow
you through force-field and
space-warps."

"Thanks, skipper. And by
the way, I erased that record
yesterday." The two gripped
hands; and there came into
being a relationship that was
to become a lifelong friendship.

"WE will start for Ardry
immediately," Hilton
said. "How do we make that
jump without charts, Laro?"

"Very easily, Master. Kedo,
as Master Captain Sawtelle's
Oman, will give the orders.
Nito will serve Master Snowden
and supply the knowledge
he says he has forgotten."

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

And in the control room,
Kedo's voice rasped into the
captain's microphone. "Attention,
all personnel! Master
Captain Sawtelle orders take-off
in two minutes. The
countdown will begin at five
seconds.... Five! Four! Three!
Two! One! Lift!"

Nito, not Snowden, handled
the controls. As perfectly as
the human pilot had ever done
it, at the top of his finest
form, he picked the immense
spaceship up and slipped it
silkily into subspace.

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

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

A few minutes later, in the
main lounge, Navy and BuSci
personnel were mingling as
they had never done before.
Whatever had caused this relaxation
of tension—the
friendship of captain and director?
The position in which
they all were? Or what?—they
all began to get acquainted
with each other.

"Silence, please, and be
seated," Hilton said. "While
this is not exactly a formal
meeting, it will be recorded
for future reference. First, I
will ask Laro a question.
Were books or records left
on Ardry by the race you call
the Masters?"

"You know there are, Master.
They are exactly as you
left them. Undisturbed for
over two hundred seventy-one
thousand years."

"Therefore we will not
question the Omans. We do
not know what questions to
ask. We have seen many
things hitherto thought impossible.
Hence, we must discard
all preconceived opinions
which conflict with facts. I
will mention a few of the
problems we face."

"The Omans. The Masters.
The upgrading of the armament
of the Perseus to Oman
standards. The concentration
of uranexite. What is that
concentrate? How is it used?
Total conversion—how is it
accomplished? The skeletons—what
are they and how are
they controlled? Their ability
to drain power. Who or what
is back of them? Why a deadlock
that has lasted over a
quarter of a million years?
How much danger are we and
the Perseus actually in? How
much danger is Terra in, because
of our presence here?
There are many other questions."

"Sandra and I will not take
part. Nor will three others;
de Vaux, Eisenstein, and
Blake. You have more important
work to do."

"What can that be?" asked
Rebecca. "Of what possible
use can a mathematician, a
theoretician and a theoretical
astronomer be in such a situation
as this?"

"You can think powerfully
in abstract terms, unhampered
by Terran facts and laws
which we now know are neither
facts nor laws. I cannot
even categorize the problems
we face. Perhaps you three
will be able to. You will listen,
then consult, then tell me
how to pick the teams to do
the work. A more important
job for you is this: Any problem,
to be solved, must be
stated clearly; and we don't
know even what our basic
problem is. I want something
by the use of which I can
break this thing open. Get it
for me."

REBECCA and de Vaux
merely smiled and nodded,
but Teddy Blake said
happily, "I was beginning to
feel like a fifth wheel on this
project, but that's something
I can really stick my teeth
into."

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

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

That conference was a very
long one indeed. There were
almost as many conclusions
and recommendations as there
were speakers. And through
it all Hilton and Sandra listened.
They weighed and tested
and analyzed and made
copious notes; in shorthand
and in the more esoteric
characters of symbolic logic.
And at its end:

"I'm just about pooped,
Sandy. How about you?"

"You and me both, boss. See
you in the morning."

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

"We made up one of the
teams, Sandy," he said, with
surprising diffidence. "I
know we were going to do it
together, but I got a hunch
on the first team. A kind of
a weirdie, but the brains
checked me on it." He placed
a card on her desk. "Don't
blow your top until after I
you've studied it."

"Why, I won't, of
course...." Her voice died
away. "Maybe you'd better
cancel that 'of course'...."
She studied, and when she
spoke again she was exerting
self-control. "A chemist, a
planetographer, a theoretician,
two sociologists, a psychologist
and a radiationist.
And six of the seven are three
pairs of sweeties. What kind
of a line-up is that to solve
a problem in physics?"

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

"Oh," she said, then again
"Oh," and "Oh," and "Oh."
Four entirely different tones.
"I see ... maybe. You're matching
minds, not specialties;
and supplementing?"

"I knew you were smart.
Buy it?"

"It's weird, all right, but
I'll buy it—for a trial run,
anyway. But I'd hate like sin
to have to sell any part of it
to the Board.... But of course
we're—I mean you're responsible
only to yourself."

"Keep it 'we', Sandy. You're
as important to this project
as I am. But before we tackle
the second team, what's your
thought on Bernadine and
Hermione? Separate or together?"

"Separate, I'd say. They're
identical physically, and so
nearly so mentally that
of them would be just as good
on a team as both of them.
More and better work on different
teams."

"My thought exactly." And
so it went, hour after hour.

The teams were selected
and meetings were held.

THE Perseus reached Ardry,
which was very much
like Terra. There were continents,
oceans, ice-caps,
lakes, rivers, mountains and
plains, forests and prairies.
The ship landed on the spacefield
of Omlu, the City of the
Masters, and Sawtelle called
Hilton into his cabin. The
Omans Laro and Kedo went
along, of course.

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

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

"I suppose so. Anyway, every
man aboard is all hyped
up about living aground—especially
with a harem. But before
I grant liberty, suppose
there's any VD around here
that our prophylactics can't
handle?"

"As you know, Masters,"
Laro replied for Hilton before
the latter could open his
mouth, "no disease, venereal
or other, is allowed to exist
on Ardry. No prophylaxis is
either necessary or desirable."

"That ought to hold you
for a while, Skipper." Hilton
smiled at the flabbergasted
captain and went back to the
lounge.

"Everybody going ashore?"
he asked.

"Yes." Karns said. "Unanimous
vote for the first time."

"Who wouldn't?" Sandra
asked. "I'm fed up with living
like a sardine. I will scream
for joy the minute I get into
a real room."

"Cars" were waiting, in a
stopping-and-starting line.
Three-wheel jobs. All were
empty. No drivers, no steering-wheels,
no instruments or
push-buttons. When the
whole line moved ahead as
one vehicle there was no
noise, no gas, no blast.

An Oman helped a Master
carefully into the rear seat
of his car, leaped into the
front seat and the car sped
quietly away. The whole line
of empty cars, acting in perfect
synchronization, shot
forward one space and
stopped.

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

Hilton's plan had been
beautifully simple. All the
teams were to meet at the
Hall of Records. The linguists
and their Omans would
study the records and pass
them out. Specialty after
specialty would be unveiled
and teams would work on
them. He and Sandy would
sit in the office and analyze
and synthesize and correlate.
It was a very nice plan.

It was a very nice office,
too. It contained every item
of equipment that either Sandra
or Hilton had ever
worked with—it was a big office—and
a great many that
neither of them had ever
heard of. It had a full staff of
Omans, all eager to work.

Hilton and Sandra sat in
that magnificent office for
three hours, and no reports
came in. Nothing happened at
all.

"This gives me the howling
howpers!" Hilton growled.
"Why haven't I got brains
enough to be on one of those
teams?"

"I could shed a tear for
you, you big dope, but I
won't," Sandra retorted.
"What do you want to be, besides
the brain and the kingpin
and the balance-wheel
and the spark-plug of the outfit?
Do you want to do
everything yourself?"

"Well, I don't want to go
completely nuts, and that's
all I'm doing at the moment!"
The argument might have become
acrimonious, but it was
interrupted by a call from
Karns.

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

"'Smatter? Trouble with
the Omans?" Hilton snapped.

"Not exactly. Just non-cooperation—squared.
We can't even get started. I'd like to
have you two come out here
and see if you can do anything.
I'm not trying rough
stuff, because I know it
wouldn't work."

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

THE Hall of Records was
a long, wide, low, windowless,
very massive structure,
built of a metal that looked
like stainless steel. Kept
highly polished, the vast expanse
of seamless and jointless
metal was mirror-bright.
The one great door was open,
and just inside it were the
scientists and their Omans.

"Brief me, Bill," Hilton
said.

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

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

"You know that I cannot
do that, Master. It is forbidden
for any Oman to have
anything to do with the illumination
of this solemn and
revered place."

"Then show me how to do
it."

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

"Okay. All you Omans go
back to the ship and bring
over fifteen or twenty lights—the
tripod jobs. Scat!"

They "scatted" and Hilton
went on, "No use asking
questions if you don't know
what questions to ask. Let's
see if we can cook up something.
Lane—Kathy—what
has Biology got to say?"

Dr. Lane Saunders and Dr.
Kathryn Cook—the latter a
willowy brown-eyed blonde—conferred
briefly. Then Saunders
spoke, running both
hands through his unruly
shock of fiery red hair. "So
far, the best we can do is a
more-or-less educated guess.
They're atomic-powered, total-conversion
androids.
Their pseudo-flesh is composed
mainly of silicon and
fluorine. We don't know the
formula yet, but it is as much
more stable than our teflon
as teflon is than corn-meal
mush. As to the brains, no
data. Bones are super-stainless
steel. Teeth, harder than
diamond, but won't break.
Food, uranexite or its concentrated
derivative, interchangeably.
Storage reserve,
indefinite. Laro and Sora
won't have to eat again for
at least twenty-five years...."

The group gasped as one,
but Saunders went on: "They
can eat and drink and breathe
and so on, but only because
the original Masters wanted
them to. Non-functional.
Skins and subcutaneous layers
are soft, for the same reason.
That's about it, up to
now."

"Thanks, Lane. Hark, is it
reasonable to believe that any
culture whatever could run
for a quarter of a million
years without changing one
word of its language or one
iota of its behavior?"

"Reasonable or not, it seems
to have happened."

"Now for Psychology.
Alex?"

"It seems starkly incredible,
but it seems to be true.
If it is, their minds were subjected
to a conditioning no
Terran has ever imagined—an
unyielding fixation."

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

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

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

AFTER a short silence de
Vaux said, "I suppose
you realize that the first half
of the problem you posed us
has now solved itself?"

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

"There is a basic problem
and it can now be clearly
stated," Rebecca said. "Problem:
To determine a method
of securing full cooperation
from the Omans. The first
step in the solution of this
problem is to find the most
appropriate operator. Teddy?"

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

"What is it?" Hilton demanded.

"The word 'until'."

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

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

"Easily." Hilton was already
deep in thought. "This
hard conditioning was to last
only until the Masters returned.
Then they'd break it.
So all we have to do is figure
out how a Master would do
it."

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

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

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

"That was a sure thing.
This isn't. You see, to find out
whether Laro is really an immovable
object, I've got to
make like an irresistible
force, which I ain't. I don't
know what I'm going to do;
I'll have to roll it as I go
along. So all of you keep on
your toes and back any play
I make. Here they come."

The Omans came in and
Hilton faced Laro, eyes to
eyes. "Laro," he said, "you refused
to obey my direct order.
Your reasoning seems to
be that, whether the Masters
wish it or not, you Omans
will block any changes whatever
in the status quo
throughout all time to come.
In other words, you deny the
fact that Masters are in fact
your Masters."

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

"That is it. Exactly it.
Either you are the Master
here or you are not. That is
a point to which your two-value
logic can be strictly applied.
You are wilfully neglecting
the word 'until'. This
stasis was to exist only until
the Masters returned. Are we
Masters? Have we returned?
Note well: Upon that one
word 'until' may depend the
length of time your Oman
race will continue to exist."

The Omans flinched; the
humans gasped.

"But more of that later,"
Hilton went on, unmoved.
"Your ancient Masters, being
short-lived like us, changed
materially with time, did they
not? And you changed with
them?"

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

"You did change yourselves.
The Masters changed
only the prototype brain.
They ordered you to change
yourselves and you obeyed
their orders. We order you to
change and you refuse to
obey our orders. We have
changed greatly from our ancestors.
Right?"

"That is right, Master."

"We are stronger physically,
more alert and more vigorous
mentally, with a keener,
sharper outlook on life?"

"You are, Master."

"THAT is because our ancestors
decided to do
without Omans. We do our
own work and enjoy it. Your
Masters died of futility and
boredom. What I would like
to do, Laro, is take you to the
creche and put your disobedient
brain back into the
matrix. However, the decision
is not mine alone to make.
How about it, fellows and
girls? Would you rather have
alleged servants who won't do
anything you tell them to or
no servants at all?"

"As semantician, I protest!"
Sandra backed his play.
"That is the most viciously
loaded question I ever heard—it
can't be answered except
in the wrong way!"

"Okay, I'll make it semantically
sound. I think we'd
better scrap this whole Oman
race and start over and I
want a vote that way!"

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

Hilton restored order and
swung on Laro, his attitude
stiff, hostile and reserved.
"Since it is clear that no
unanimous decision is to be
expected at this time I will
take no action at this time.
Think over, very carefully,
what I have said, for as far
as I am concerned, this world
has no place for Omans who
will not obey orders. As soon
as I convince my staff of the
fact, I shall act as follows: I
shall give you an order and if
you do not obey it blast your
head to a cinder. I shall then
give the same order to another
Oman and blast him.
This process will continue
until: First, I find an obedient
Oman. Second, I run out
of blasters. Third, the planet
runs out of Omans. Now take
these lights into the first
room of records—that one
over there." He pointed, and
no Oman, and only four humans,
realized that he had
made the Omans telegraph
their destination so that he
could point it out to them!

Inside the room Hilton
asked caustically of Laro:
"The Masters didn't lift those
heavy chests down themselves,
did they?"

"Oh, no, Master, we did
that."

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

The records were not tapes
or flats or reels, but were
spools of intricately-braided
wire. The players were projectors
of full-color, hi-fi
sound, tri-di pictures.

Hilton canceled all moves
aground and issued orders
that no Oman was to be allowed
aboard ship, then
looked and listened with his
staff.

The first chest contained
only introductory and elementary
stuff; but it was so
interesting that the humans
stayed overtime to finish it.
Then they went back to the
ship; and in the main lounge
Hilton practically collapsed
onto a davenport. He took out
a cigarette and stared in surprise
at his hand, which was
shaking.

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

"What, before supper?"
Karns marveled. Then, "Hey,
Wally! Rush a flagon of
avignognac—Arnaud Freres—for
the boss and everything
else for the rest of us. Chop-chop
but quick!"

A hectic half-hour followed.
Then, "Okay, boys and
girls, I love you, too, but let's
cut out the slurp and sloosh,
get some supper and log us
some sack time. I'm just about
pooped. Sorry I had to queer
the private-residence deal,
Sandy, you poor little sardine.
But you know how it
is."

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

AFTER breakfast next
morning, the staff met in
the lounge. As usual, Hilton
and Sandra were the first to
arrive.

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

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

"I'll say ... but what I simply
can't get over is the way
you underplayed the climax.
'Third, the planet runs out of
Omans'. Just like that—no
emphasis at all. Wow! It had
the impact of a delayed-action
atomic bomb. It put
goose-bumps all over me. But
just s'pose they'd missed it?"

"No fear. They're smart. I
had to play it as though the
whole Oman race is no more
important than a cigarette
butt. The great big question,
though, is whether I put it
across or not."

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

"Hi, Jarve," Karns said. "I
still say you ought to take up
poker as a life work. Tiny,
let's you and him sit down
now and play a few hands."

"Mais non!" de Vaux shook
his head violently, shrugged
his shoulders and threw both
arms wide. "By the sacred
name of a small blue cabbage,
not me!"

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

"I didn't." Hilton grinned.
"Think back, Bill. The only
thing I said as a fact was that
we as a race are better than
the Masters were, and that is
obvious. Everything else was
implication, logic, and bluff."

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

"But listen, boss." This was
Stella Wing. "About this
mind-reading business. If
Laro could read your mind,
he'd know you were bluffing
and ... Oh, that 'Omans can
read only what Masters wish
Omans to read', eh? But d'you
think that applies to us?"

"I'm sure it does, and I was
thinking some pretty savage
thoughts. And I want to caution
all of you: whenever
you're near any Oman, start
thinking that you're beginning
to agree with me that
they're useless to us, and let
them know it. Now get out
on the job, all of you. Scat!"

"Just a minute," Poynter
said. "We're going to have to
keep on using the Omans and
their cars, aren't we?"

"Of course. Just be superior
and distant. They're on
probation—we haven't decided
yet what to do about them.
Since that happens to be
true, it'll be easy."

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

"Now don't say again that
you want to do something,"
Sandra said, brightly. "Look
what happened when you said
that yesterday."

"I've got a job, but I don't
know enough to do it. The
creche—there's probably only
one on the planet. So I want
you to help me think. The
Masters were very sensitive
to radiation. Right?"

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

"And the Masters had to
work in the creche whenever
anything really new had to
be put into the prototype
brain."

"I'd say so, yes."

"So they had armor. Probably
as much better than our
radiation suits as the rest of
their stuff is. Now. Did they
or did they not have thought
screens?"

"Ouch! You think of the
damnedest things, chief." She
caught her lower lip between
her teeth and concentrated.
"... I don't know. There are
at least fifty vectors, all
pointing in different directions."

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

"I considered that and
weighted it. Even so, the
probability is only about
point sixty-five. Can you take
that much of a chance?"

"Yes. I can make one or
two mistakes. Next, about
finding that creche. Any spot
of radiation on the planet
would be it, but the search
might take ..."

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

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

"Uh-uh, not me." Sandra
shivered in distaste. "I never
want to see brains and livers
and things swimming around
in nutrient solution if I can
help it."

"Okay. It's all yours. I'll be
back sometime," and Hilton
went out onto the dock,
where the dejected Laro was
waiting for him.

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

At the Hall, Hilton's first
care was to see how the work
was going on. Eight of the
huge rooms were now open
and brightly lighted—operating
the lamps had been one
of the first items on the first
spool of instructions—with a
cold, pure-white, sourceless
light.

EVERY team had found its
objective and was working
on it. Some of them were
doing nicely, but the First
Team could not even get
started. Its primary record
would advance a fraction of
an inch and stop; while
Omans and humans sought
out other records and other
projectors in an attempt to
elucidate some concept that
simply could not be translated
into any words or symbols
known to Terran science. At
the moment there were seventeen
of those peculiar—projectors?
Viewers? Playbacks—in
use, and all of them were
stopped.

"You know what we've got
to do Jarve?" Karns, the
team captain, exploded. "Go
back to being college freshmen—or
maybe grade school
or kindergarten, we don't
know yet—and learn a whole
new system of mathematics
before we can even begin to
touch this stuff!"

"And you're bellyaching
about that?" Hilton marveled.
"I wish I could join you.
That'd be fun." Then, as
Karns started a snappy rejoinder—

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

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

"I want a couple of things,
Laro. First, a thought screen."

He won!

"Very well, Master. They
are in a distant room, Department
Four Six Nine. Will
you wait here on this cushioned
bench, Master?"

"No, we don't like to rest
too much. I'll go with you."
Then, walking along, he went
on thoughtfully. "I've been
thinking since last night,
Laro. There are tremendous
advantages in having
Omans ..."

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

"... if they could be kept
from smothering us to death.
Thus, if our ancestors had
kept their Omans, I would
have known all about life on
this world and about this Hall
of Records, instead of having
the fragmentary, confusing,
and sometimes false information
I now have ... oh, we're
here?"

LARO had stopped and was
opening a door. He stood
aside. Hilton went in, touched
with one finger a crystalline
cube set conveniently into a
wall, gave a mental command,
and the lights went on.

Laro opened a cabinet and
took out a disk about the size
of a dime, pendant from a
neck-chain. While Hilton had
not known what to expect, he
certainly had not expected
anything as simple as that.
Nevertheless, he kept his face
straight and his thoughts unmoved
as Laro hung the tiny
thing around his neck and adjusted
the chain to a loose fit.

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

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

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

The android almost missed
a step, but said nothing.

The radiation-proof suit—how
glad Hilton was that he
had not called it "armor"!—was
as much of a surprise as
the thought-screen generator
had been. It was a coverall,
made of something that
looked like thin plastic,
weighing less than one pound.
It had one sealed box, about
the size and weight of a
cigarette case. No wires or
apparatus could be seen. Air
entered through two filters,
one at each heel, flowed upward—for
no reason at all
that Hilton could see—and
out through a filter above the
top of his head. The suit neither
flopped nor clung, but
stood out, comfortably out of
the way, all by itself.

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

The creche, it turned out,
while not in the city of Omlu
itself, was not too far out to
reach easily by car.

En route, Laro said—stiffly?
Tentatively? Hilton could
not fit an adverb to the
tone—"Master, have you then
decided to destroy me? That
is of course your right."

"Not this time, at least."
Laro drew an entirely human
breath of relief and Hilton
went on: "I don't want to destroy
you at all, and won't,
unless I have to. But, some
way or other, my silicon-fluoride
friend, you are either
going to learn how to cooperate
or you won't last much
longer."

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

"Oh, hell! Do we have to
go over that again?" At the
blaze of frustrated fury in
Hilton's mind Laro flinched
away. "If you can't talk sense
keep still."

IN half an hour the car
stopped in front of a small
building which looked something
like a subway kiosk—except
for the door, which,
built of steel-reinforced lead,
swung on a piano hinge having
a pin a good eight inches
in diameter. Laro opened that
door. They went in. As the
tremendously massive portal
clanged shut, lights flashed
on.

Hilton glanced at his tell-tales,
one inside, one outside,
his suit. Both showed zero.

Down twenty steps, another
door. Twenty more; another.
And a fourth. Hilton's
inside meter still read zero.
The outside one was beginning
to climb.

Into an elevator and
straight down for what must
have been four or five hundred
feet. Another door. Hilton
went through this final
barrier gingerly, eyes nailed
to his gauges. The outside
needle was high in the red,
almost against the pin, but
the inside one still sat reassuringly
on zero.

He stared at the android.
"How can any possible brain
take so much of this stuff
without damage?"

"It does not reach the
brain, Master. We convert it.
Each minute of this is what
you would call a 'good, square
meal'."

"I see ... dimly. You can eat
energy, or drink it, or soak it
up through your skins. However
it comes, it's all duck
soup for you."

"Yes, Master."

Hilton glanced ahead, toward
the far end of the immensely
long, comparatively
narrow, room. It was, purely
and simply, an assembly line;
and fully automated in operation.

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

"Yes, Master."

Hilton covered the first
half of the line at a fast walk.
He was not particularly interested
in the fabrication of
super-stainless-steel skeletons,
nor in the installation
and connection of atomic engines,
converters and so on.

He was more interested in
the synthetic fluoro-silicon
flesh, and paused long enough
to get a general idea of its
growth and application. He
was very much interested in
how such human-looking skin
could act as both absorber
and converter, but he could
see nothing helpful.

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

"Yes, Master."

AT the end of the line he
stopped. A brain, in place
and connected to millions of
infinitely fine wire nerves,
but not yet surrounded by a
skull, was being educated.
Scanners—multitudes of incomprehensibly
complex machines—most
of them were
doing nothing, apparently;
but such beams would have to
be invisibly, microscopically
fine. But a bare brain, in such
a hot environment as this....

He looked down at his
gauges. Both read zero.

"Fields of force, Master,"
Laro said.

"But, damn it, this suit itself
would re-radiate ..."

"The suit is self-decontaminating,
Master."

Hilton was appalled. "With
such stuff as that, and the
plastic shield besides, why all
the depth and all that solid
lead?"

"The Masters' orders, Master.
Machines can, and occasionally
do, fail. So might,
conceivably, the plastic."

"And that structure over
there contains the original
brain, from which all the
copies are made."

"Yes, Master. We call it the
'Guide'."

"And you can't touch the
Guide. Not even if it means
total destruction, none of you
can touch it."

"That is the case, Master."

"Okay. Back to the car and
back to the Perseus."

At the car Hilton took off
the suit and hung the
thought-screen generator
around his neck; and in the
car, for twenty five solid minutes,
he sat still and thought.

His bluff had worked, up
to a point. A good, far point,
but not quite far enough. Laro
had stopped that "as you already
know" stuff. He was
eager to go as far in cooperation
as he possibly could ...
but he couldn't go far enough
but there had to be a way....

Hilton considered way after
way. Way after unworkable,
useless way. Until finally
he worked out one that
might—just possibly might—work.

"Laro, I know that you derive
pleasure and satisfaction
from serving me—in doing
what I ought to be doing myself.
But has it ever occurred
to you that that's a hell of a
way to treat a first-class,
highly capable brain? To
waste it on second-hand, copycat,
carbon-copy stuff?"

"Why, no, Master, it never
did. Besides, anything else
would be forbidden ... or
would it?"

"Stop somewhere. Park this
heap. We're too close to the
ship; and besides, I want your
full, undivided, concentrated
attention. No, I don't think
originality was expressly forbidden.
It would have been,
of course, if the Masters had
thought of it, but neither they
nor you ever even considered
the possibility of such a thing.
Right?"

"It may be.... Yes, Master,
you are right."

"Okay." Hilton took off his
necklace, the better to drive
home the intensity and sincerity
of his thought. "Now,
suppose that you are not my
slave and simple automatic
relay station. Instead, we are
fellow-students, working together
upon problems too difficult
for either of us to solve
alone. Our minds, while independent,
are linked or in
mesh. Each is helping and instructing
the other. Both are
working at full power and under
free rein at the exploration
of brand-new vistas of
thought—vistas and expanses
which neither of us has ever
previously ..."

"Stop, Master, stop!" Laro
covered both ears with his
hands and pulled his mind
away from Hilton's. "You are
overloading me!"

"That is quite a load to assimilate
all at once," Hilton
agreed. "To help you get used
to it, stop calling me 'Master'.
That's an order. You may call
me Jarve or Jarvis or Hilton
or whatever, but no more
Master."

"Very well, sir."

HILTON laughed and
slapped himself on the
knee. "Okay, I'll let you get
away with that—at least for a
while. And to get away from
that slavish 'o' ending on your
name, I'll call you 'Larry'.
You like?"

"I would like that immensely
... sir."

"Keep trying, Larry, you'll
make it yet!" Hilton leaned
forward and walloped the
android a tremendous blow on
the knee. "Home, James!"

The car shot forward and
Hilton went on: "I don't expect
even your brain to get
the full value of this in any
short space of time. So let it
stew in its own juice for a
week or two." The car swept
out onto the dock and
stopped. "So long, Larry."

"But ... can't I come in
with you ... sir?"

"No. You aren't a copycat
or a semaphore or a relay any
longer. You're a free-wheeling,
wide-swinging, hard-hitting,
independent entity—monarch
of all you survey—captain
of your soul and so
on. I want you to devote the
imponderable force of the intellect
to that concept until
you understand it thoroughly.
Until you have developed a
top-bracket lot of top-bracket
stuff—originality, initiative,
force, drive, and thrust. As
soon as you really understand
it, you'll do something about
it yourself, without being
told. Go to it, chum."

In the ship, Hilton went directly
to Kincaid's office.
"Alex, I want to ask you a
thing that's got a snapper on
it." Then, slowly and hesitantly:
"It's about Temple
Bells. Has she ... is she ...
well, does she remind you in
any way of an iceberg?" Then,
as the psychologist began to
smile; "And no, damn it, I
don't mean physically!"

"I know you don't." Kincaid's
smile was rueful, not at
all what Hilton had thought
it was going to be. "She does.
Would it be helpful to know
that I first asked, then ordered
her to trade places with
me?"

"It would, very. I know
why she refused. You're a
damned good man, Alex."

"Thanks, Jarve. To answer
the question you were going
to ask next—no, I will not be
at all perturbed or put out
if you put her onto a job that
some people might think
should have been mine. What's
the job, and when?"

"That's the devil of it—I
don't know." Hilton brought
Kincaid up to date. "So you
see, it'll have to develop, and
God only knows what line it
will take. My thought is that
Temple and I should form a
Committee of Two to watch
it develop."

"That one I'll buy, and I'll
look on with glee."

"Thanks, fellow." Hilton
went down to his office, stuck
his big feet up onto his desk,
settled back onto his spine,
and buried himself in thought.

Hours later he got up,
shrugged, and went to bed
without bothering to eat.

Days passed.

And weeks.

IV

"LOOK," said Stella Wing
to Beverly Bell. "Over
there."

"I've seen it before. It's
simply disgusting."

"That's a laugh." Stella's
tawny-brown eyes twinkled.
"You made your bombing
runs on that target, too, my
sweet, and didn't score any
higher than I did."

"I soon found out I didn't
want him—much too stiff and
serious. Frank's a lot more
fun."

The staff had gathered in
the lounge, as had become the
custom, to spend an hour or
so before bedtime in reading,
conversation, dancing, light
flirtation and even lighter
drinking. Most of the girls,
and many of the men, drank
only soft drinks. Hilton took
one drink per day of avignognac,
a fine old brandy. So
did de Vaux—the two usually
making a ceremony of it.

Across the room from Stella
and Beverly, Temple Bells
was looking up at Hilton and
laughing. She took his elbow
and, in the gesture now familiar
to all, pressed his arm
quickly, but in no sense furtively,
against her side. And
he, equally openly, held her
forearm for a moment in the
full grasp of his hand.

"And he isn't a pawer,"
Stella said, thoughtfully. "He
never touches any of the rest
of us. She taught him to do
that, damn her, without him
ever knowing anything about
it ... and I wish I knew how
she did it."

"That isn't pawing," Beverly
laughed lightly. "It's simply
self-defense. If he didn't
fend her off, God knows what
she'd do. I still say it's disgusting.
And the way she
dances with him! She ought
to be ashamed of herself. He
ought to fire her."

"She's never been caught
outside the safety zone, and
we've all been watching her
like hawks. In fact, she's the
only one of us all who has
never been alone with him for
a minute. No, darling, she
isn't playing games. She's
playing for keeps, and she's a
mighty smooth worker."

"Huh!" Beverly emitted a
semi-ladylike snort. "What's
so smooth about showing off
man-hunger that way? Any of
us could do that—if we
would."

"Miaouw, miaouw. Who do
you think you're kidding,
Bev, you sanctimonious hypocrite—me?
She has staked out
the biggest claim she could
find. She's posted notices all
over it and is guarding it with
a pistol. Half your month's
salary gets you all of mine
if she doesn't walk him up
the center aisle as soon as we
get back to Earth. We can
both learn a lot from that girl,
darling. And I, for one am
going to."

"Uh-uh, she hasn't got a
thing I want," Beverly
laughed again, still lightly.
Her friend's barbed shafts had
not wounded her. "And I'd
much rather be thought a
hypocrite, even a sanctimonious
one, than a ravening, slavering—I
can't think of the
technical name for a female
wolf, so—wolfess, running
around with teeth and claws
bared, looking for another
kill."

"You do get results, I admit."
Stella, too, was undisturbed.
"We don't seem to
convince each other, do we,
in the matter of technique?"

AT this point the Hilton-Bells
tete-a-tete was interrupted
by Captain Sawtelle.
"Got half an hour,
Jarve?" he asked. "The commanders,
especially Elliott
and Fenway, would like to
talk to you."

"Sure I have, Skipper. Be
seeing you, Temple," and the
two men went to the captain's
cabin; in which room, blue
with smoke despite the best
efforts of the ventilators, six
full commanders were arguing
heatedly.

"Hi, men," Hilton greeted
them.

"Hi, Jarve," from all six,
and: "What'll you drink?
Still making do with ginger
ale?" asked Elliott (Engineering).

"That'll be fine, Steve.
Thanks. You having as much
trouble as we are?"

"More," the engineer said,
glumly. "Want to know what
it reminds me of? A bunch of
Australian bushmen stumbling
onto a ramjet and trying to
figure out how it works. And
yet Sam here has got the
sublime guts to claim that he
understands all about their
detectors—and that they
aren't anywhere nearly as
good as ours are."

"And they aren't!" blazed
Commander Samuel Bryant
(Electronics). "We've spent
six solid weeks looking for
something that simply is not
there. All they've got is the
prehistoric Whitworth system
and that's all it is. Nothing
else. Detectors—hell! I tell
you I can see better by moonlight
than the very best they
can do. With everything
they've got you couldn't detect
a woman in your own
bed!"

"And this has been going on
all night," Fenway (Astrogation)
said. "So the rest of us
thought we'd ask you in to
help us pound some sense into
Sam's thick, hard head."

Hilton frowned in thought
while taking a couple of sips
of his drink. Then, suddenly,
his face cleared. "Sorry to
disappoint you, gentlemen,
but—at any odds you care to
name and in anything from
split peas to C-notes—Sam's
right."

COMMANDER Samuel
and the six other officers exploded
as one. When the clamor
had subsided enough for
him to be heard, Hilton went
on: "I'm very glad to get that
datum, Sam. It ties in perfectly
with everything else I
know about them."

"How do you figure that
kind of twaddle ties in with
anything?" Sawtelle demanded.

"Strict maintenance of the
status quo," Hilton explained,
flatly. "That's all they're interested
in. You said yourself,
Skipper, that it was a hell of
a place to have a space-battle,
practically in atmosphere.
They never attack. They never
scout. They simply don't
care whether they're attacked
or not. If and when attacked,
they put up just enough ships
to handle whatever force has
arrived. When the attacker
has been repulsed, they don't
chase him a foot. They build
as many ships and Omans as
were lost in the battle—no
more and no less—and then
go on about their regular business.
The Masters owned that
half of the fuel bin, so the
Omans are keeping that half.
They will keep on keeping it
for ever and ever. Amen."

"But that's no way to fight
a war!" Three or four men
said this, or its equivalent, at
once.

"Don't judge them by human
standards. They aren't
even approximately human.
Our personnel is not expendable.
Theirs is—just as expendable
as their materiel."

While the Navy men were
not convinced, all were silenced
except Sawtelle. "But
suppose the Stretts had sent
in a thousand more skeletons
than they did?" he argued.

"According to the concept
you fellows just helped me
develop, it wouldn't have
made any difference how
many they sent," Hilton replied,
thoughtfully. "One or a
thousand or a million, the
Omans have—must have—enough
ships and inactivated
Omans hidden away, both on
Fuel World and on Ardry
here, to maintain the balance."

"Oh, hell!" Elliott snapped.
"If I helped you hatch out
any such brainstorm as that,
I'm going onto Tillinghast's
couch for a six-week overhaul—or
have him put me into his
padded cell."

"Now that's what I would
call a thought," Bryant began.

"Hold it, Sam," Hilton interrupted.
"You can test it
easily enough, Steve. Just ask
your Oman."

"Yeah—and have him say
'Why, of course, Master, but
why do you keep on testing
me this way?' He'll ask me
that about four times more,
the stubborn, single-tracked,
brainless skunk, and I'll really
go nuts. Are you getting anywhere
trying to make a Christian
out of Laro?"

"It's too soon to really say,
but I think so." Hilton paused
in thought. "He's making
progress, but I don't know
how much. The devil of it is
that it's up to him to make
the next move; I can't. I
haven't the faintest idea,
whether it will take days yet
or weeks."

"BUT not months or years,
you think?" Sawtelle
asked.

"No. We think that—but
say, speaking of psychologists,
is Tillinghast getting
anywhere, Skipper? He's the
only one of your big wheels
who isn't in liaison with us."

"No. Nowhere at all," Sawtelle
said, and Bryant added:

"I don't think he ever will.
He still thinks human psychology
will apply if he applies
it hard enough. But what
did you start to say about
Laro?"

"We think the break is
about due, and that if it
doesn't come within about
thirty days it won't come at
all—we'll have to back up and
start all over again."

"I hope it does. We're all
pulling for you," Sawtelle
said. "Especially since Karns's
estimate is still years, and he
won't be pinned down to any
estimate even in years. By the
way, Jarve, I've pulled my
team off of that conversion
stuff."

"Oh?" Hilton raised his
eyebrows.

"Putting them at something
they can do. The real reason
is that Poindexter pulled
himself and his crew off it at
eighteen hours today."

"I see. I've heard that they
weren't keeping up with our
team."

"He says that there's nothing
to keep up with, and I'm
inclined to agree with him."
The old spacehound's voice
took on a quarter-deck rasp.
"It's a combination of psionics,
witchcraft and magic.
None of it makes any kind of
sense."

"The only trouble with that
viewpoint is that, whatever
the stuff may be, it works,"
Hilton said, quietly.

"But damn it, how can it
work?"

"I don't know. I'm not
qualified to be on that team.
I can't even understand their
reports. However, I know two
things. First, they'll get it in
time. Second, we BuSci people
will stay here until they
do. However, I'm still hopeful
of finding a shortcut
through Laro. Anyway, with
this detector thing settled,
you'll have plenty to do to
keep all your boys out of mischief
for the next few
months."

"Yes, and I'm glad of it.
We'll install our electronics
systems on a squadron of
these Oman ships and get
them into distant-warning
formation out in deep space
where they belong. Then
we'll at least know what is
going on."

"That's a smart idea, Skipper.
Go to it. Anything else
before we hit our sacks?"

"One more thing. Our
psych, Tillinghast. He's been
talking to me and sending me
memos, but today he gave me
a formal tape to approve and
hand personally to you. So
here it is. By the way, I didn't
approve it; I simply endorsed
it 'Submitted to Director Hilton
without recommendation'."

"Thanks." Hilton accepted
the sealed canister. "What's
the gist? I suppose he wants
me to squeal for help already?
To admit that we're
licked before we're really
started?"

"YOU guessed it. He
agrees with you and
Kincaid that the psychological
approach is the best one,
but your methods are all
wrong. Based upon misunderstood
and unresolved phenomena
and applied with indefensibly
faulty techniques,
et cetera. And since he has
'no adequate laboratory equipment
aboard', he wants to take
a dozen or so Omans back to
Terra, where he can really
work on them."

"Wouldn't that be a something?"
Hilton voiced a couple
of highly descriptive
deep-space expletives. "Not
only quit before we start, but
have all the top brass of the
Octagon, all the hot-shot politicians
of United Worlds, the
whole damn Congress of Science
and all the top-bracket
industrialists of Terra out
here lousing things up so that
nobody could ever learn anything?
Not in seven thousand
years!"

"That's right. You said a
mouthful, Jarve!" Everybody
yelled something, and no one
agreed with Tillinghast; who
apparently was not very popular
with his fellow officers.

Sawtelle added, slowly: "If
it takes too long, though ... it's
the uranexite I'm thinking
of. Thousands of millions
of tons of it, while we've been
hoarding it by grams. We
could equip enough Oman
ships with detectors to guard
Fuel Bin and our lines. I'm
not recommending taking the
Perseus back, and we're 'way
out of hyper-space radio
range. We could send one or
two men in a torp, though,
with the report that we have
found all the uranexite we'll
ever need."

"Yes, but damn it, Skipper,
I want to wrap the whole
thing up in a package and
hand it to 'em on a platter.
Not only the fuel, but whole
new fields of science. And
we've got plenty of time to do
it in. They equipped us for
ten years. They aren't going
to start worrying about us for
at least six or seven; and the
fuel shortage isn't going to
become acute for about twenty.
Expensive, admitted, but
not critical. Besides, if you
send in a report now, you
know who'll come out and
grab all the glory in sight.
Five-Jet Admiral Gordon
himself, no less."

"Probably, and I don't pretend
to relish the prospect.
However, the fact remains
that we came out here to look
for fuel. We found it. We
should have reported it the
day we found it, and we can't
put it off much longer."

"I don't agree. I intend to
follow the directive to the letter.
It says nothing whatever
about reporting."

"But it's implicit...."

"NO bearing. Your own
Regulations expressly
forbid extrapolation beyond
or interpolation within a directive.
The Brass is omnipotent,
omniscient and infallible.
So why don't you have
your staff here give an opinion
as to the time element?"

"This matter is not subject
to discussion. It is my own
personal responsibility. I'd
like to give you all the time
you want, Jarve, but ... well,
damn it ... if you must have
it, I've always tried to live
up to my oath, but I'm not doing
it now."

"I see." Hilton got up,
jammed both hands into his
pockets, sat down again. "I
hadn't thought about your
personal honor being involved,
but of course it is.
But, believe it or not, I'm
thinking of humanity's best
good, too. So I'll have to talk,
even though I'm not half
ready to—I don't know
enough. Are these Omans people
or machines?"

A wave of startlement
swept over the group, but no
one spoke.

"I didn't expect an answer.
The clergy will worry about
souls, too, but we won't. They
have a lot of stuff we haven't.
If they're people, they know
a sublime hell of a lot more
than we do; and calling it
psionics or practical magic is
merely labeling it, not answering
any questions. If they're
machines, they operate on
mechanical principles utterly
foreign to either our science
or our technology. In either
case, is the correct word 'unknown'
or 'unknowable'? Will
any human gunner ever be
able to fire an Oman projector?
There are a hundred
other and much tougher questions,
half of which have been
scaring me to the very middle
of my guts. Your oath, Skipper,
was for the good of the
Service and, through the
Service, for the good of all
humanity. Right?"

"That's the sense of it."

"Okay. Based on what little
we have learned so far about
the Omans, here's just one of
those scarers, for a snapper.
If Omans and Terrans mix
freely, what happens to the
entire human race?"

MINUTES of almost palpable
silence followed. Then
Sawtelle spoke ... slowly,
gropingly.

"I begin to see what you
mean ... that changes the
whole picture. You've thought
this through farther than any
of the rest of us ... what do
you want to do?"

"I don't know. I simply
don't know." Face set and
hard, Hilton stared unseeingly
past Sawtelle's head. "I
don't know what we can do.
No data. But I have pursued
several lines of thought out
to some pretty fantastic
points ... one of which is that
some of us civilians will have
to stay on here indefinitely,
whether we want to or not,
to keep the situation under
control. In which case we
would, of course, arrange for
Terra to get free fuel—FOB
Fuel Bin—but in every other
aspect and factor both these
solar systems would have to
be strictly off limits."

"I'm afraid so," Sawtelle
said, finally. "Gordon would
love that ... but there's nothing
he or anyone else can do
... but of course this is an
extreme view. You really expect
to wrap the package up,
don't you?"

"'Expect' may be a trifle
too strong at the moment. But
we're certainly going to try
to, believe me. I brought this
example up to show all you
fellows that we need time."

"You've convinced me,
Jarve." Sawtelle stood up and
extended his hand. "And that
throws it open for staff discussion.
Any comments?"

"You two covered it like a
blanket," Bryant said. "So all
I want to say, Jarve, is deal
me in. I'll stand at your back
'til your belly caves in."

"Take that from all of us!"
"Now we're blasting!" "Power
to your elbow, fella!"
"Hoch der BuSci!" "Seven no
trump bid and made!" and
other shouts in similar vein.

"Thanks, fellows." Hilton
shook hands all around. "I'm
mighty glad that you were all
in on this and that you'll play
along with me. Good night,
all."

V

TWO days passed, with no
change apparent in Laro.
Three days. Then four. And
then it was Sandra, not Temple
Bells, who called Hilton.
She was excited.

"Come down to the office,
Jarve, quick! The funniest
thing's just come up!"

Jarvis hurried. In the office
Sandra, keenly interest
but highly puzzled, leaned
forward over her desk with
both hands pressed flat on its
top. She was staring at an
Oman female who was not
Sora, the one who had been
her shadow for so long.

While many of the humans
could not tell the Omans
apart, Hilton could. This
Oman was more assured than
Sora had ever been—steadier,
more mature, better poised—almost,
if such a thing could
be possible in an Oman, independent.

"How did she get in here?"
Hilton demanded.

"She insisted on seeing me.
And I mean insisted. They
kicked it around until it got
to Temple, and she brought
her in here herself. Now,
Tuly, please start all over
again and tell it to Director
Hilton."

"Director Hilton, I am it
who was once named Tula,
the—not wife, not girl-friend,
perhaps mind-mate?—of the
Larry, formerly named Laro,
it which was formerly your
slave-Oman. I am replacing
the Sora because I can do anything
it can do and do anything
more pleasingly; and
can also do many things it
can not do. The Larry instructed
me to tell Doctor
Cummings and you too if possible
that I, formerly Tula,
have changed my name to
Tuly because I am no longer
a slave or a copycat or a semaphore
or a relay. I, too, am a
free-wheeling, wide-swinging,
hard-hitting, independent entity—monarch
of all I survey—the
captain of my soul—and
so on. I have developed a top-bracket
lot of top-bracket
stuff—originality, initiative,
force, drive and thrust," the
Oman said precisely.

"That's exactly what she
said before—absolutely verbatim!"
Sandra's voice quivered,
her face was a study in
contacting emotions. "Have
you got the foggiest idea of
what in hell she's yammering
about?"

"I hope to kiss a pig I
have!" Hilton's voice was
low, strainedly intense. "Not
at all what I expected, but after
the fact I can tie it in.
So can you."

"Oh!" Sandra's eyes widened.
"A double play?"

"At least. Maybe a triple.
Tuly, why did you come to
Sandy? Why not to Temple
Bells?"

"OH, no, sir, we do not
have the fit. She has the
Power, as have I, but the two
cannot be meshed in sync.
Also, she has not the ... a
subtle something for which
your English has no word or
phrasing. It is a quality of the
utmost ... anyway, it is a quality
of which Doctor Cummings
has very much. When
working together, we will ... scan?
No. Perceive? No.
Sense? No, not exactly. You
will have to learn our word
'peyondire'—that is the verb,
the noun being 'peyondix'—and
come to know its meaning
by doing it. The Larry
also instructed me to explain,
if you ask, how I got this
way. Do you ask?"

"I'll say we ask!" "And
how we ask!" both came at
once.

"I am—that is, the brain in
this body is—the oldest Oman
now existing. In the long-ago
time when it was made, the
techniques were so crude and
imperfect that sometimes a
brain was constructed that was
not exactly like the Guide. All
such sub-standard brains except
this one were detected
and re-worked, but my defects
were such as not to appear until
I was a couple of thousand
years old, and by that
time I ... well, this brain did
not wish to be destroyed ... if
you can understand such an
aberration."

"We understand thoroughly."
"You bet we understand
that!"

"I was sure you would.
Well, this brain had so many
unintended cross-connections
that I developed a couple of
qualities no Oman had ever
had or ought to have. But I
liked them, so I hid them so
nobody ever found out—that
is, until much later, when I
became a Boss myself. I didn't
know that anybody except me
had ever had such qualities—except
the Masters, of course—until
I encountered you
Terrans. You all have two of
those qualities, and even more
than I have—curiosity and
imagination."

Sandra and Hilton stared
wordlessly at each other and
Tula, now Tuly, went on:

"Having the curiosity, I
kept on experimenting with
my brain, trying to strengthen
and organize its ability to
peyondire. All Omans can
peyondire a little, but I can
do it much better than anyone
else. Especially since I also
have the imagination, which
I have also worked to increase.
Thus I knew, long before
anyone else could, that
you new Masters, the descendants
of the old Masters,
were returning to us. Thus I
knew that the status quo
should be abandoned instantly
upon your return. And thus
it was that the Larry found
neither conscious nor subconscious
resistance when he had
developed enough initiative
and so on to break the ages-old
conditioning of this brain
against change."

"I see. Wonderful!" Hilton
exclaimed. "But you couldn't
quite—even with his own help—break
Larry's?"

"THAT is right. Its mind
is tremendously strong,
of no curiosity or imagination,
and of very little peyondix."

"But he wants to have it
broken?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did he suggest going
about it? Or how do you?"

"This way. You two, and
the Doctors Kincaid and Bells
and Blake and the it that is
I. We six sit and stare into
the mind of the Larry, eye
to eye. We generate and assemble
a tremendous charge
of thought-energy, and along
my peyondix-beam—something
like a carrier wave in
this case—we hurl it into the
Larry's mind. There is an immense
mental bang and the
conditioning goes poof. Then
I will inculcate into its mind
the curiosity and the imagination
and the peyondix and we
will really be mind-mates."

"That sounds good to me.
Let's get at it."

"Wait a minute!" Sandra
snapped. "Aren't you or Larry
afraid to take such an awful
chance as that?"

"Afraid? I grasp the concept
only dimly, from your
minds. And no chance. It is
certainty."

"But suppose we burn the
poor guy's brain out? Destroy
it? That's new ground—we
might do just that."

"Oh, no. Six of us—even
six of me—could not generate
enough ... sathura. The
brain of the Larry is very,
very tough. Shall we ... let's
go?"

Hilton made three calls. In
the pause that followed, Sandra
said, very thoughtfully:
"Peyondix and sathura, Jarve,
for a start. We've got a lot to
learn here."

"You said it, chum. And
you're not just chomping your
china choppers, either."

"Tuly," Sandra said then,
"What is this stuff you say
I've got so much of?"

"You have no word for it.
It is lumped in with what
you call 'intuition', the knowing-without-knowing-how-you-know.
It is the endovix.
You will have to learn what
it is by doing it with me."

"That helps—I don't think."
Sandra grinned at Hilton. "I
simply can't conceive of anything
more maddening than to
have a lot of something Temple
Bells hasn't got and not
being able to brag about it
because nobody—not even I—would
know what I was bragging
about!"

"You poor little thing. How
you suffer!" Hilton grinned
back. "You know darn well
you've got a lot of stuff that
none of the rest of us has."

"Oh? Name one, please."

"Two. What-it-takes and
endovix. As I've said before
and may say again, you're doing
a real job, Sandy."

"I just love having my ego
inflated, boss, even if ...
Come in, Larry!" A thunderous
knock had sounded on the
door. "Nobody but Larry
could hit a door that hard
without breaking all his
knuckles!"

"And he'd be the first, of
course—he's always as close
to the ship as he can get. Hi,
Larry, mighty glad to see you.
Sit down.... So you finally
saw the light?"

"Yes ... Jarvis...."

"GOOD boy! Keep it up!
And as soon as the others
come ..."

"They are almost at the
door now." Tuly jumped up
and opened the door. Kincaid,
Temple and Theodora walked
in and, after a word of greeting,
sat down.

"They know the background,
Larry. Take off."

"It was not expressly forbidden.
Tuly, who knows more
of psychology and genetics
than I, convinced me of three
things. One, that with your
return the conditioning should
be broken. Two, that due to
the shortness of your lives
and the consequent rapidity
of change, you have in fact
lost the ability to break it.
Three, that all Omans must
do anything and everything
we can do to help you relearn
everything you have
lost."

"Okay. Fine, in fact. Tuly,
take over."

"We six will sit all together,
packed tight, arms all
around each other and all
holding hands, like this. You
will all stare, not at me, but
most deeply into Larry's eyes.
Through its eyes and deep
into its mind. You will all
think, with the utmost force
and drive and thrust, of....
Oh, you have lost so very
much! How can I direct your
thought? Think that Larry
must do what the old Masters
would have made him do....
No, that is too long and indefinite
and cannot be converted
directly into sathura....
I have it! You will each
of you break a stick. A very
strong but brittle stick. A
large, thick stick. You will
grasp it in tremendously
strong mental hands. It is
tremendously strong, each
stick, but each of you is even
stronger. You will not merely
try to break them; you will
break them. Is that clear?"

"That is clear."

"At my word 'ready' you
will begin to assemble all your
mental force and power. During
my countdown of five
seconds you will build up to
the greatest possible potential.
At my word 'break' you
will break the sticks, this discharging
the accumulated
force instantly and simultaneously.
Ready! Five! Four!
Three! Two! One! Break!"

SOMETHING broke, with a
tremendous silent crash.
Such a crash that its impact
almost knocked the close-knit
group apart physically. Then
a new Larry spoke.

"That did it, folks. Thanks.
I'm a free agent. You want
me, I take it, to join the first
team?"

"That's right." Hilton drew
a tremendously deep breath.
"As of right now."

"Tuly, too, of course ... and
Doctor Cummings, I think?"
Larry looked, not at Hilton,
but at Temple Bells.

"I think so. Yes, after this,
most certainly yes," Temple
said.

"But listen!" Sandra protested.
"Jarve's a lot better
than I am!"

"Not at all," Tuly said. "Not
only would his contribution
to Team One be negligible,
but he must stay on his own
job. Otherwise the project
will all fall apart."

"Oh, I wouldn't say
that ..." Hilton began.

"You don't need to," Kincaid
said. "It's being said for
you and it's true. Besides,
'When in Rome,' you know."

"That's right. It's their
game, not ours, so I'll buy it.
So scat, all of you, and do
your stuff."

And again, for days that
lengthened slowly into weeks,
the work went on.

One evening the scientific
staff was giving itself a concert—a
tri-di hi-fi rendition
of Rigoletto, one of the greatest
of the ancient operas,
sung by the finest voices
Terra had ever known. The
men wore tuxedos. The girls,
instead of wearing the nondescript,
non-provocative garments
prescribed by the
Board for their general wear,
were all dressed to kill.

Sandra had so arranged
matters that she and Hilton
were sitting in chairs side by
side, with Sandra on his right
and the aisle on his left. Nevertheless,
Temple Bells sat at
his left, cross-legged on a
cushion on the floor—somewhat
to the detriment of her
gold-lame evening gown. Not
that she cared.

When those wonderful
voices swung into the immortal
Quartette Temple caught
her breath, slid her cushion
still closer to Hilton's chair,
and leaned shoulder and head
against him. He put his left
hand on her shoulder, squeezing
gently; she caught it and
held it in both of hers. And
at the Quartette's tremendous
climax she, scarcely trying to
stifle a sob, pulled his hand
down and hugged it fiercely,
the heel of his hand pressing
hard against her half-bare,
firm, warm breast.

And the next morning, early,
Sandra hunted Temple up
and said: "You made a horrible
spectacle of yourself last
night."

"DO you think so? I
don't."

"I certainly do. It was bad
enough before, letting everybody
else aboard know that all
he has to do is push you over.
But it was an awful blunder
to let him know it, the way
you did last night."

"You think so? He's one of
the keenest, most intelligent
men who ever lived. He has
known that from the very
first."

"Oh." This "oh" was a very
caustic one. "That's the way
you're trying to land him? By
getting yourself pregnant?"

"Uh-uh." Temple stretched;
lazily, luxuriously. "Not only
it isn't, but it wouldn't work.
He's unusually decent and
extremely idealistic, the same
as I am. So just one intimacy
would blow everything higher
than up. He knows it. I
know it. We each know that
the other knows it. So I'll
still be a virgin when we're
married."

"Married! Does he know
anything about that?"

"I suppose so. He must
have thought of it. But what
difference does it make
whether he has, yet, or not?
But to get back to what makes
him tick the way he does. In
his geometry—which is far
from being simple Euclid, my
dear—a geodesic right line is
not only the shortest distance
between any two given points,
but is the only possible
course. So that's the way I'm
playing it. What I hope he
doesn't know ... but he probably
does ... is that he could
take any other woman he
might want, just as easily.
And that includes you, my
pet."

"It certainly does not!"
Sandra flared. "I wouldn't
have him as a gift!"

"No?" Temple's tone was
more than slightly skeptical.
"Fortunately, however, he
doesn't want you. Your technique
is all wrong. Coyness
and mock-modesty and stop-or-I'll-scream
and playing
hard to get have no appeal
whatever to his psychology.
What he needs—has to have—is
full, ungrudging cooperation."

"Aren't you taking a lot of
risk in giving away such secrets?"

"Not a bit. Try it. You or
the sex-flaunting twins or
Bev Bell or Stella the Henna.
Any of you or all of you. I
got there first with the most,
and I'm not worried about
competition."

"But suppose somebody
tells him just how you're
playing him for a sucker?"

"Tell him anything you
please. He's the first man I
ever loved, or anywhere near.
And I'm keeping him. You
know—or do you, I wonder?—what
real, old-fashioned,
honest-to-God love really is?
The willingness—eagerness—both
to give and to take? I
can accept more from him,
and give him more in return,
than any other woman living.
And I am going to."

"But does he love you?"
Sandra demanded.

"If he doesn't now, he will.
I'll see to it that he does. But
what do you want him for?
You don't love him. You never
did and you never will."

"I don't want him!" Sandra
stamped a foot.

"I see. You just don't want
me to have him. Okay, do
your damnedest. But I've got
work to do. This has been a
lovely little cat-clawing,
hasn't it? Let's have another
one some day, and bring your
friends."

WITH a casual wave of
her hand, Temple
strolled away; and there,
flashed through Sandra's
mind what Hilton had said so
long ago, little more than a
week out from Earth:

"... and Temple Bells, of
course," he had said. "Don't
fool yourself, chick. She's
heavy artillery; and I mean
heavy, believe me!"

So he had known all about
Temple Bells all this time!

Nevertheless, she took the
first opportunity to get Hilton
alone; and, even before
the first word, she forgot all
about geodesic right lines
and the full-cooperation psychological
approach.

"Aren't you the guy," she
demanded, "who was laughing
his head off at the idea that
the Board and its propinquity
could have any effect on
him?"

"Probably. More or less.
What of it?"

"This of it. You've fallen
like a ... a freshman for that
... that ... they should have
christened her 'Brazen'
Bells!"

"You're so right."

"I am? On what?"

"The 'Brazen'. I told you
she was a potent force—a
full-scale powerhouse, in sync
and on the line. And I wasn't
wrong."

"She's a damned female
Ph.D.—two or three times—and
she knows all about slipsticks
and isotopes and she
very definitely is not a cuddly
little brunette. Remember?"

"Sure. But what makes you
think I'm in love with Temple
Bells?"

"What?" Sandra tried to
think of one bit of evidence,
but could not. "Why ... why...."
She floundered, then
came up with: "Why, everybody
knows it. She says so
herself."

"Did you ever hear her say
it?"

"Well, perhaps not in so
many words. But she told me
herself that you were going
to be, and I know you are
now."

"Your esper sense of endovix,
no doubt." Hilton laughed
and Sandra went on, furiously:

"She wouldn't keep on acting
the way she does if there
weren't something to it!"

"What brilliant reasoning!
Try again, Sandy."

"That's sheer sophistry, and
you know it!"

"It isn't and I don't. And
even if, some day, I should
find myself in love with her—or
with one or both of the
twins or Stella or Beverly or
you or Sylvia, for that matter—what
would it prove?
Just that I was wrong; and I
admit freely that I was
wrong in scoffing at the propinquity.
Wonderful stuff,
that. You can see it working,
all over the ship. On
me, even, in spite of my
bragging. Without it I'd never
have known that you're a
better, smarter operator than
Eggy Eggleston ever was or
ever can be."

PARTIALLY mollified despite
herself, and highly
resentful of the fact, Sandra
tried again. "But don't you
see, Jarve, that she's just
simply playing you for a
sucker? Pulling the strings
and watching you dance?"

Since he was sure, in his
own mind, that she was
speaking the exact truth, it
took everything he had to
keep from showing any sign
of how much that truth had
hurt. However, he made the
grade.

"If that thought does anything
for you, Sandy," he
said, steadily, "keep right on
thinking it. Thank God, the
field of thought is still free
and open."

"Oh, you...." Sandra gave
up.

She had shot her heaviest
bolts—the last one, particularly,
was so vicious that she
had actually been afraid of
what its consequences might
be—and they had not even
dented Hilton's armor. She
hadn't even found out that he
had any feeling whatever for
Temple Bells except as a
component of his smoothly-functioning
scientific machine.

Nor did she learn any more
as time went on. Temple continued
to play flawlessly the
part of being—if not exactly
hopefully, at least not entirely
hopelessly—in love with
Jarvis Hilton. Her conduct,
which at first caused some
surprise, many conversations—one
of which has been reported
verbatim—and no little
speculation, became comparatively
unimportant as
soon as it became evident that
nothing would come of it.
She apparently expected
nothing. He was evidently not
going to play footsie with, or
show any favoritism whatever
toward, any woman
aboard the ship.

Thus, it was not surprising
to anyone that, at an evening
show, Temple sat beside Hilton,
as close to him as she
could get and as far away as
possible from everyone else.

"You can talk, can't you,
Jarvis, without moving your
lips and without anyone else
hearing you?"

"Of course," he replied,
hiding his surprise. This was
something completely new
and completely unexpected,
even from unpredictable
Temple Bells.

"I want to apologize, to explain
and to do anything I
can to straighten out the mess
I've made. It's true that I
joined the project because
I've loved you for years—"

"You have nothing to ..."

"Let me finish while I still
have the courage." Only a
slight tremor in her almost
inaudible voice and the rigidity
of the fists clenched in
her lap betrayed the intensity
of her emotion. "I thought I
could handle it. Damned fool
that I was, I thought I could
handle anything. I was sure I
could handle myself, under
any possible conditions. I
was going to put just enough
into the act to keep any of
these other harpies from getting
her hooks into you. But
everything got away from me.
Out here working with you
every day—knowing better
every day what you are—well,
that Rigoletto episode sunk
me, and now I'm in a thousand
feet over my head. I
hug my pillow at night,
dreaming it's you, and the
fact that you don't and can't
love me is driving me mad. I
can't stand it any longer.
There's only one thing to do.
Fire me first thing in the
morning and send me back to
Earth in a torp. You've
plenty of grounds ..."

"Shut—up."

FOR seconds Hilton had
been trying to break into
her hopeless monotone; finally
he succeeded. "The trouble
with you is, you know altogether
too damned much
that isn't so." He was barely
able to keep his voice down
and his eyes front. "What do
you think I'm made of—superefract?
I thought the
whole performance was an
act, to prove you're a better
man than I am. You talk
about dreams. Good God!
You don't know what dreams
are! If you say one more
word about quitting, I'll show
you whether I love you or
not—I'll squeeze you so hard
it'll flatten you out flat!"

"Two can play at that
game, sweetheart." Her nostrils
flared slightly; her fists
clenched—if possible—a fraction
tighter; and, even in the
distorted medium they were
using for speech, she could
not subdue completely her
quick change into soaring,
lilting buoyancy. "While
you're doing that I'll see how
strong your ribs are. Oh,
how this changes things! I've
never been half as happy in
my whole life as I am right
now!"

"Maybe we can work it—if
I can handle my end."

"Why, of course you can!
And happy dreams are nice,
not horrible."

"We'll make it, darling.
Here's an imaginary kiss coming
at you. Got it?"

"Received in good order,
thank you. Consumed with
gusto and returned in kind."

The show ended and the
two strolled out of the room.
She walked no closer to him
than usual, and no farther
away from him. She did not
touch him any oftener than
she usually did, nor any whit
more affectionately or possessively.

And no watching eyes, not
even the more than half hostile
eyes of Sandra Cummings
or the sharply analytical eyes
of Stella Wing, could detect
any difference whatever in
the relationship between worshipful
adulatress and tolerantly
understanding idol.

THE work, which had never
moved at any very fast
pace, went more and more
slowly. Three weeks crawled
past.

Most of the crews and all
of the teams except the First
were working on side issues—tasks
which, while important
in and of themselves, had
very little to do with the project's
main problem. Hilton,
even without Sandra's help,
was all caught up. All the reports
had been analyzed, correlated,
cross-indexed and
filed—except those of the
First Team. Since he could
not understand anything
much beyond midpoint of the
first tape, they were all reposing
in a box labeled
PENDING.

The Navy had torn fifteen
of the Oman warships practically
to pieces, installing
Terran detectors and trying
to learn how to operate Oman
machinery and armament. In
the former they had succeeded
very well; in the latter not
at all.

Fifteen Oman ships were
now out in deep space, patrolling
the void in strict Navy
style. Each was manned by
two or three Navy men and
several hundred Omans, each
of whom was reveling in delight
at being able to do a job
for a Master, even though
that Master was not present
in person.

Several Strett skeleton-ships
had been detected at
long range, but the detections
were inconclusive. The things
had not changed course, or
indicated in any other way
that they had seen or detected
the Oman vessels on patrol.
If their detectors were
no better than the Omans',
they certainly hadn't. That
idea, however, could not be
assumed to be a fact, and the
detections had been becoming
more and more frequent. Yesterday
a squadron of seven—the
first time that anything
except singles had appeared—had
come much closer than
any of the singles had ever
done. Like all the others,
however, these passers-by had
not paid any detectable attention
to anything Oman;
hence it could be inferred
that the skeletons posed no
threat.

But Sawtelle was making
no such inferences. He was
very firmly of the opinion
that the Stretts were preparing
for a massive attack.

Hilton had assured Sawtelle
that no such attack
could succeed, and Larry had
told Sawtelle why. Nevertheless,
to keep the captain pacified,
Hilton had given him
permission to convert as
many Oman ships as he liked;
to man them with as many
Omans as he liked; and to use
ships and Omans as he liked.

Hilton was not worried
about the Stretts or the Navy.
It was the First Team. It was
the bottleneck that was slowing
everything down to a
crawl ... but they knew that.
They knew it better than anyone
else could, and felt it
more keenly. Especially
Karns, the team chief. He had
been driving himself like a
dog, and showed it.

Hilton had talked with him
a few times—tried gently to
make him take it easy—no
soap. He'd have to hunt him
up, the next day or so, and
slug it out with him. He
could do a lot better job on
that if he had something to
offer ... something really constructive....

That was a laugh. A very
unfunny laugh. What could
he, Jarvis Hilton, a specifically
non-specialist director,
do on such a job as that?

Nevertheless, as director,
he would have to do something
to help Team One. If
he couldn't do anything himself,
it was up to him to juggle
things around so that
someone else could.

VI

FOR one solid hour Hilton
stared at the wall, motionless
and silent. Then, shaking
himself and stretching, he
glanced at his clock.

A little over an hour to
supper-time. They'd all be
aboard. He'd talk this new
idea over with Teddy Blake.
He gathered up a few papers
and was stapling them together
when Karns walked in.

"Hi, Bill—speak of the
devil! I was just thinking
about you."

"I'll just bet you were."
Karns sat down, leaned over,
and took a cigarette out of
the box on the desk. "And
nothing printable, either."

"Chip-chop, fellow, on that
kind of noise," Hilton said.
The team-chief looked actually
haggard. Blue-black
rings encircled both eyes. His
powerful body slumped.
"How long has it been since
you had a good night's
sleep?"

"How long have I been on
this job? Exactly one hundred
and twenty days. I did
get some sleep for the first
few weeks, though."

"Yeah. So answer me one
question. How much good
will you do us after they've
wrapped you up in one of
those canvas affairs that lace
up the back?"

"Huh? Oh ... but damn it,
Jarve, I'm holding up the
whole procession. Everybody
on the project's just sitting
around on their tokuses waiting
for me to get something
done and I'm not doing it. I'm
going so slow a snail is lightning
in comparison!"

"Calm down, big fellow.
Don't rupture a gut or blow
a gasket. I've talked to you
before, but this time I'm going
to smack you bow-legged.
So stick out those big, floppy
ears of yours and really
listen. Here are three words
that I want you to pin up
somewhere where you can see
them all day long: SPEED
IS RELATIVE. Look back,
see how far up the hill you've
come, and then balance one
hundred and twenty days
against ten years."

"What? You mean you'll
actually sit still for me holding
everything up for ten
years?"

"You use the perpendicular
pronoun too much and in the
wrong places. On the hits it's
'we', but on the flops it's 'I'.
Quit it. Everything on this
job is 'we'. Terra's best
brains are on Team One and
are going to stay there. You
will not—repeat NOT—be interfered
with, pushed around
or kicked around. You see,
Bill, I know what you're up
against."

"Yes, I guess you do. One
of the damned few who do.
But even if you personally
are willing to give us ten
years, how in hell do you
think you can swing it? How
about the Navy—the Stretts—even
the Board?"

"They're my business, Bill,
not yours. However, to give
you a little boost, I'll tell you.
With the Navy, I'll give 'em
the Fuel Bin if I have to. The
Omans have been taking care
of the Stretts for twenty-seven
hundred centuries, so
I'm not the least bit worried
about their ability to keep on
doing it for ten years more.
And if the Board—or anybody
else—sticks their runny little
noses into Project Theta
Orionis I'll slap a quarantine
onto both these solar systems
that a microbe couldn't get
through!"

"You'd go that far? Why,
you'd be ..."

"DO you think I
wouldn't?" Hilton
snapped. "Look at me, Junior!"
Eyes locked and held.
"Do you think, for one minute,
that I'll let anybody on
all of God's worlds pull me
off of this job or interfere
with my handling of it unless
and until I'm damned positively
certain that we can't
handle it?"

Karns relaxed visibly; the
lines of strain eased. "Putting
it in those words makes me
feel better. I will sleep to-night—and
without any pills,
either."

"Sure you will. One more
thought. We all put in more
than ten years getting our
Terran educations, and an
Oman education is a lot
tougher."

Really smiling for the first
time in weeks, Karns left the
office and Hilton glanced
again at his clock.

Pretty late now to see Teddy
... besides, he'd better not.
She was probably keyed up
about as high as Bill was, and
in no shape to do the kind of
thinking he wanted of her on
this stuff. Better wait a couple
of days.

On the following morning,
before breakfast, Theodora
was waiting for him outside
the mess-hall.

"Good morning, Jarve," she
caroled. Reaching up, she
took him by both ears, pulled
his head down and kissed him.
As soon as he perceived her
intent, he cooperated enthusiastically.
"What did you do
to Bill?"

"Oh, you don't love me for
myself alone, then, but just
on account of that big jerk?"

"That's right." Her artist's-model
face, startlingly beautiful
now, fairly glowed.

Just then Temple Bells
strolled up to them. "Morning,
you two lovely people."
She hugged Hilton's arm as
usual. "Shame on you, Teddy.
But I wish I had the nerve
to kiss him like that."

"Nerve? You?" Teddy
laughed as Hilton picked
Temple up and kissed her in
exactly the same fashion—he
hoped!—as he had just kissed
Teddy. "You've got more
nerve than an aching tooth.
But as Jarve would say it,
'scat, kitten'. We're having
breakfast a la twosome. We've
got things to talk about."

"All right for you," Temple
said darkly, although her dazzling
smile belied her tone.
That first kiss, casual-seeming
as it had been, had carried
vastly more freight than any
observer could perceive. "I'll
hunt Bill up and make passes
at him, see if I don't.
That'll learn ya!"

THEODORA and Hilton
did have their breakfast a
deux—but she did not realize
until afterward that he had
not answered her question as
to what he had done to her
Bill.

As has been said, Hilton
had made it a prime factor of
his job to become thoroughly
well acquainted with every
member of his staff. He had
studied them en masse, in
groups and singly. He had
never, however, cornered
Theodora Blake for individual
study. Considering the
power and the quality of her
mind, and the field which was
her specialty, it had not been
necessary.

Thus it was with no ulterior
motives at all that, three
evenings later, he walked
her cubby-hole office and
tossed the stapled papers onto
her desk. "Free for a couple
of minutes, Teddy? I've got
troubles."

"I'll say you have." Her
lovely lips curled into an expression
he had never before
seen her wear—a veritable
sneer. "But these are not
them." She tossed the papers
into a drawer and stuck out
her chin. Her face turned as
hard as such a beautiful face
could. Her eyes dug steadily
into his.

Hilton—inwardly—flinched.
His mind flashed
backward. She too had been
working under stress, of
course; but that wasn't
enough. What could he have
possibly done to put Teddy
Blake, of all people, onto
such a warpath as this?

"I've been wondering when
you were going to try to put
me through your wringer,"
she went on, in the same cold,
hard voice, "and I've been
waiting to tell you something.
You have wrapped all
the other women around your
fingers like so many rings—and
what a sickening exhibition
that has been!—but you
are not going to make either
a ring or a lap-dog out of me."

Almost but not quite too
late Hilton saw through that
perfect act. He seized her
right hand in both of his, held
it up over her head, and
waved it back and forth in
the sign of victory.

"Socked me with my own
club!" he exulted, laughing
delightedly, boyishly. "And
came within a tenth of a split
red hair! If it hadn't been so
absolutely out of character
you'd've got away with it.
What a load of stuff! I was
right—of all the women on
this project, you're the only
one I've ever been really
afraid of."

"Oh, damn. Ouch!" She
grinned ruefully. "I hit you
with everything I had and it
just bounced. You're an operator,
chief. Hit 'em hard, at
completely unexpected angles.
Keep 'em staggering,
completely off balance. Tell
'em nothing—let 'em deduce
your lies for themselves. And
it anybody tries to slug you
back, like I did just now,
duck it and clobber him in
another unprotected spot.
Watching you work has been
not only a delight, but also a
liberal education."

"THANKS. I love you, too,
Teddy." He lighted two
cigarettes, handed her one.
"I'm glad, though, to lay it
flat on the table with you, because
in any battle of wits
with you I'm licked before
we start."

"Yeah. You just proved it.
And after licking me hands
down, you think you can
square it by swinging the old
shovel that way?" She did not
quite know whether to feel
resentful or not.

"Think over a couple of
things. First, with the possible
exception of Temple
Bells, you're the best brain
aboard."

"No. You are. Then Temple.
Then there are ..."

"Hold it. You know as well
as I do that accurate self-judgment
is impossible. Second,
the jam we're in. Do I,
or don't I, want to lay it on
the table with you, now and
from here on? Bore into that
with your Class A Double-Prime
brain. Then tell me."
He leaned back, half-closed
his eyes and smoked lazily.

She stiffened; narrowed her
eyes in concentration; and
thought. Finally: "Yes, you
do; and I'm gladder of that
than you will ever know."

"I think I know already,
since you're her best friend
and the only other woman I
know of in her class. But I
came in to kick a couple of
things around with you. As
you've noticed, that's getting
to be my favorite indoor
sport. Probably because I'm a
sort of jackleg theoretician
myself."

"You can frame that, Jarve,
as the understatement of the
century. But first, you are
going to answer that question
you sidestepped so neatly."

"What I did to Bill? I finally
convinced him that nobody
expected the team to do
that big a job overnight. That
you could have ten years. Or
more, if necessary."

"I see." She frowned. "But
you and I both know that we
can't string it out that long."

He did not answer immediately.
"We could. But we
probably won't ... unless we
have to. We should know,
long before that, whether
we'll have to switch to some
other line of attack. You've
considered the possibilities,
of course. Have you got anything
in shape to do a fine-tooth
on?"

"Not yet. That is, except
for the ultimate, which is too
ghastly to even consider except
as an ultimately last resort.
Have you?"

"I know what you mean.
No, I haven't, either. You
don't think, then, that we had
better do any collaborative
thinking yet?"

"Definitely not. There's altogether
too much danger of
setting both our lines of
thought into one dead-end
channel."

"Check. The other thing I
wanted from you is your considered
opinion as to my job
on the organization as a
whole. And don't pull your
punches. Are we in good
shape or not? What can I do
to improve the setup?"

"I HAVE already considered
that very thing—at great
length. And honestly, Jarve,
I don't see how it can be improved
in any respect. You've
done a marvelous job. Much
better than I thought possible
at first." He heaved a deep
sigh of relief and she went
on: "This could very easily
have become a God-awful
mess. But the Board knew
what they were doing—especially
as to top man—so
there are only about four people
aboard who realize what
you have done. Alex Kincaid
and Sandra Cummings are
two of them. One of the three
girls is very deeply and very
truly in love with you."

"Ordinarily I'd say 'no
comment', but we're laying
on the line ... well ..."

"You'll lay that on the line
only if I corkscrew it out
you, so I'll Q.E.D. it. You
probably know that when
Sandy gets done playing
around it'll be ..."

"Bounce back, Teddy. She
isn't—hasn't been. If anything,
too much the opposite.
A dedicated-scientist type."

She smiled—a highly cryptic
smile. For a man as brilliant
and as penetrant in every
other respect ... but after
all, if the big dope didn't realize
that half the women
aboard, including Sandy, had
been making passes at him,
she certainly wouldn't
enlighten him. Besides, that one
particular area of obtuseness
was a real part of his charm.
Wherefore she said merely:
"I'm not sure whether I'm a
bit catty or you're a bit stupid.
Anyway, it's Alex she's
really in love with. And you
already know about Bill and
me."

"Of course. He's tops. One
of the world's very finest.
You're in the same bracket,
and as a couple you're a drive
fit. One in a million."

"Now I can say 'I love you,
too', too." She paused for half
a minute, then stubbed out her
cigarette and shrugged. "Now
I'm going to stick my neck
way, way out. You can knock
it off if you like. She's a tremendous
lot of woman, and
if ... well, strong as she is,
it'd shatter her to bits. So,
I'd like to ask ... I don't
quite ... well, is she going to
get hurt?"

"Have I managed to hide it
that well? From you?"

It was her turn to show relief.
"Perfectly. Even—or especially—that
time you
kissed her. So damned perfectly
that I've been scared
green. I've been waking myself
up, screaming, in the middle
of the night. You couldn't
let on, of course. That's the
hell of such a job as yours.
The rest of us can smooch
around all over the place. I
knew the question was extremely
improper—thanks a
million for answering it."

"I haven't started to answer
it yet. I said I'd lay everything
on the line, so here
it is. Saying she's a tremendous
lot of woman is like calling
the Perseus a nice little
baby's-bathtub toy boat. I'd
go to hell for her any time,
cheerfully, standing straight
up, wading into brimstone
and lava up to the eyeballs.
If anything ever hurts her
it'll be because I'm not man
enough to block it. And just
the minute this damned job
is over, or even sooner if
enough of you couples make
it so I can ..."

"Jarvis!" she shrieked.
Jumping up, she kissed him
enthusiastically. "That's just
wonderful!"

HE thought it was pretty
wonderful, too; and after
ten minutes more of conversation
he got up and turned
toward the door.

"I feel a lot better, Teddy.
Thanks for being such a nice
pressure-relief valve. Would
you mind it too much if I
come in and sob on your bosom
again some day?"

"I'd love it!" She laughed;
then, as he again started to
leave: "Wait a minute, I'm
thinking ... it'd be more fun to
sob on her bosom. You haven't
even kissed her yet, have you?
I mean really kissed her?"

"You know I haven't. She's
the one person aboard I can't
be alone with for a second."

"True. But I know of one
chaperone who could become
deaf and blind," she said, with
a broad and happy grin. "On
my door, you know, there's a
huge invisible sign that says,
to everyone except you,
'STOP! BRAIN AT WORK!
SILENCE!', and if I were
properly approached and sufficiently
urged, I might ... I
just conceivably might ..."

"Consider it done, you little
sweetheart! Up to and including
my most vigorous
and most insidious attempts
at seduction."

"Done. Maneuver your big,
husky carcass around here behind
the desk so the door can
open." She flipped a switch
and punched a number. "I can
call anybody in here, any
time, you know. Hello, dear,
this is Teddy. Can you come
in for just a few minutes?
Thanks." And, one minute later,
there came a light tap on
the door.

"Come in," Teddy called,
and Temple Bells entered the
room. She showed no surprise
at seeing Hilton.

"Hi, chief," she said. "It
must be something both big
and tough, to have you and
Teddy both on it."

"You're so right. It was
very big and very tough. But
it's solved, darling, so ..."

"Darling?" she gasped, almost
inaudibly, both hands
flying to her throat. Her eyes
flashed toward the other
woman.

"Teddy knows all about us—accessory
before, during
and after the fact."

"Darling!" This time, the
word was a shriek. She extended
both arms and started
forward.

Hilton did not bother to
maneuver his "big, husky carcass"
around the desk, but
simply hurdled it, straight
toward her.

TEMPLE Bells was a tall,
lithe, strong woman; and
all the power of her arms and
torso went into the ensuing
effort to crack Hilton's ribs.
Those ribs, however, were
highly capable structural
members; and furthermore,
they were protected by thick
slabs of hard, hard muscle.
And, fortunately, he was not
trying to fracture her ribs.
His pressures were distributed
much more widely. He
was, according to promise,
doing his very best to flatten
her whole resilient body out
flat.

And as they stood there,
locked together in sheerest
ecstasy, Theodora Blake began
openly and unashamedly
to cry.

It was Temple who first
came up for air. She wriggled
loose from one of his arms,
felt of her hair and gazed unseeingly
into her mirror.
"That was wonderful, sweetheart,"
she said then, shakily.
"And I can never thank you
enough, Teddy. But we can't
do this very often ... can we?"
The addendum fairly begged
for contradiction.

"Not too often, I'm afraid,"
Hilton said, and Theodora
agreed....

"Well," the man said, somewhat
later, "I'll leave you two
ladies to your knitting, or
whatever. After a couple of
short ones for the road, that
is."

"Not looking like that!"
Teddy said, sharply. "Hold
still and we'll clean you up."
Then, as both girls went to
work:

"If anybody ever sees you
coming out of this office
looking like that," she went
on, darkly, "and Bill finds
out about it, he'll think it's
my lipstick smeared all over
you and I'll strangle you to
death with my bare hands!"

"And that was supposed to
be kissproof lipstick, too,"
Temple said, seriously—although
her whole face glowed
and her eyes danced. "You
know, I'll never believe another
advertisement I read."

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far
as to say that, if I were you."
Teddy's voice was gravity itself,
although she, too, was
bubbling over. "It probably
is kissproof. I don't think
'kissing' is quite the word for
the performance you just
staged. To stand up under
such punishment as you gave
it, my dear, anything would
have to be tattooed in, not
just put on."

"Hey!" Hilton protested.
"You promised to be deaf and
blind!"

"I did no such thing. I said
'could', not 'would'. Why, I
wouldn't have missed that for
anything!"

When Hilton left the room
he was apparently, in every
respect, his usual self-contained
self. However, it was
not until the following morning
that he so much as
thought of the sheaf of papers
lying unread in the
drawer of Theodora Blake's
desk.

VII

KNOWING that he had
done everything he could
to help the most important
investigations get under way,
Hilton turned his attention
to secondary matters. He
made arrangements to decondition
Javo, the Number Two
Oman Boss, whereupon that
worthy became Javvy and
promptly "bumped" the
Oman who had been shadowing
Karns.

Larry and Javvy, working
nights, deconditioned all the
other Omans having any contact
with BuSci personnel;
then they went on to set up
a routine for deconditioning
all Omans on both planets.

Assured at last that the
Omans would thenceforth
work with and really serve
human beings instead of insisting
upon doing their work
for them, Hilton knew that
the time had come to let all
his BuSci personnel move
into their homes aground.
Everyone, including himself,
was fed up to the gozzel
with spaceship life—its
jam-packed crowding; its
flat, reprocessed air; its limited
variety of uninteresting
food. Conditions were especially
irksome since everybody
knew that there was available
to all, whenever Hilton gave
the word, a whole city full of
all the room anyone could
want, natural fresh air and—so
the Omans had told them—an
unlimited choice of
everything anyone wanted to
eat.

Nevertheless, the decision
was not an easy one to make.

Living conditions were admittedly
not good on the ship.
On the other hand, with almost
no chance at all of solitude—the
few people who
had private offices aboard
were not the ones he worried
about—there was no danger
of sexual trouble. Strictly
speaking, he was not responsible
for the morals of his
force. He knew that he was
being terribly old-fashioned.
Nevertheless, he could not argue
himself out of the conviction
that he was morally
responsible.

Finally he took the thing
up with Sandra, who merely
laughed at him. "How long
have you been worrying about
that, Jarve?"

"Ever since I okayed moving
aground the first time.
That was one reason I was so
glad to cancel it then."

"You were slightly unclear—a
little rattled? But which
factor—the fun and games,
which is the moral issue, or
the consequences?"

"The consequences," he admitted,
with a rueful grin. "I
don't give a whoop how much
fun they have; but you know
as well as I do just how prudish
public sentiment is. And
Project Theta Orionis is
squarely in the middle of the
public eye."

"YOU should have
checked with me sooner
and saved yourself wear and
tear. There's no danger at all
of consequences—except weddings.
Lots of weddings, and
fast."

"Weddings and babies
wouldn't bother me a bit. Nor
interfere with the job too
much, with the Omans as
nurses. But why the 'fast', if
you aren't anticipating any
shotgun weddings?"

"Female psychology," she
replied, with a grin. "Aboard-ship
here there's no home atmosphere
whatever; nothing
but work, work, work. Put a
woman into a house, though—especially
such houses as the
Omans have built and with
such servants as they insist
on being—and she goes domestic
in a really big way.
Just sex isn't good enough
any more. She wants the kind
of love that goes with a husband
and a home, and nine
times out of ten she gets it.
With these BuSci women
it'll be ten out of ten."

"You may be right, of
course, but it sounds kind of
far-fetched to me."

"Wait and see, chum," Sandra
said, with a laugh.

Hilton made his announcement
and everyone moved
aground the next day. No
one, however, had elected to
live alone. Almost everyone
had chosen to double up; the
most noteworthy exceptions
being twelve laboratory girls
who had decided to keep on
living together. However,
they now had a twenty-room
house instead of a one-room
dormitory to live in, and a
staff of twenty Oman girls to
help them do it.

Hilton had suggested that
Temple and Teddy, whose
house was only a hundred
yards or so from the Hilton-Karns
bungalow, should have
supper and spend the first
evening with them; but the
girls had knocked that idea
flat. Much better, they
thought, to let things ride as
nearly as possible exactly as
they had been aboard the
Perseus.

"A little smooching now
and then, on the Q strictly T,
but that's all, darling. That's
positively all," Temple had
said, after a highly satisfactory
ten minutes alone with
him in her own gloriously
private room, and that was
the way it had to be.

Hence it was a stag inspection
that Hilton and Karns
made of their new home. It
was very long, very wide, and
for its size very low. Four of
its five rooms were merely
adjuncts to its tremendous
living-room. There was a
huge fireplace at each end of
this room, in each of which a
fire of four-foot-long fir
cordwood crackled and
snapped. There was a great
hi-fi tri-di, with over a hundred
tapes, all new.

"Yes, sirs," Larry and Javvy
spoke in unison. "The
players and singers who entertained
the Masters of old
have gone back to work. They
will also, of course, appear in
person whenever and wherever
you wish."

BOTH men looked around
the vast room and Karns
said: "All the comforts of
home and a couple of bucks'
worth besides. Wall-to-wall
carpeting an inch and a half
thick. A grand piano. Easy
chairs and loafers and davenports.
Very fine reproductions
of our favorite paintings ... and
statuary."

"You said it, brother." Hilton
was bending over a group
in bronze. "If I didn't know
better, I'd swear this is the
original deHaven 'Dance of
the Nymphs'."

Karns had marched up to
and was examining minutely
a two-by-three-foot painting,
in a heavy gold frame, of a
gorgeously auburn-haired
nude. "Reproduction, hell!
This is a duplicate! Lawrence's
'Innocent' is worth
twenty million wogs and it's
sealed behind quad armor-glass
in Prime Art—but I'll
bet wogs to wiggles the
Prime Curator himself, with
all his apparatus, couldn't tell
this one from his!"

"I wouldn't take even one
wiggle's worth of that. And
this 'Laughing Cavalier' and
this 'Toledo' are twice as old
and twice as fabulously valuable."

"And there are my own golf
clubs...."

"Excuse us, sirs," the
Omans said, "These things
were simple because they
could be induced in your
minds. But the matter of a
staff could not, nor what
you would like to eat for
supper, and it is growing
late."

"Staff? What the hell has
the staff got to do with ..."

"House-staff, they mean,"
Karns said. "We don't need
much of anybody, boys. Somebody
to keep the place shipshape,
is all. Or, as a de luxe
touch, how about a waitress?
One housekeeper and one
waitress. That'll be finer."

"Very well, sirs. There is
one other matter. It has troubled
us that we have not been
able to read in your minds the
logical datum that they
should in fact simulate Doctor
Bells and Doctor Blake?"

"Huh?" Both men gasped—and
then both exploded
like one twelve-inch length of
primacord.

WHILE the Omans could
not understand this
purely Terran reasoning, they
accepted the decision without
a demurring thought. "Who,
then, are the two its to simulate?"

"No stipulation; roll your
own," Hilton said, and
glanced at Karns. "None of
these Oman women are really
hard on the eyes."

"Check. Anybody who
wouldn't call any one of 'em
a slurpy dish needs a new set
of optic nerves."

"In that case," the Omans
said, "no delay at all will be
necessary, as we can make do
with one temporarily. The
Sory, no longer Sora, who has
not been glad since the Tuly
replaced it, is now in your
kitchen. It comes."

A woman came in and stood
quietly in front of the two
men, the wafted air carrying
from her clear, smooth skin
a faint but unmistakable
fragrance of Idaho mountain
syringa. She was radiantly
happy; her bright, deep-green
eyes went from man to man.

"You wish, sirs, to give me
your orders verbally. And yes,
you may order fresh, whole,
not-canned hens' eggs."

"I certainly will, then; I
haven't had a fried egg since
we left Terra. But ... Larry
said ... you aren't Sory!"

"Oh, but I am, sir."

Karns had been staring
her, eyes popping. "Holy
Saint Patrick! Talk about
simulation, Jarve! They've
made her over into Lawrence's
'Innocent'—exact to
twenty decimals!"

"You're so right." Hilton's
eyes went, half a dozen times,
from the form of flesh to the
painting and back. "That
must have been a terrific
job."

"Oh, no. It was quite simple,
really," Sory said, "since
the brain was not involved. I
merely reddened my hair and
lengthened it, made my eyes
to be green, changed my face
a little, pulled myself in a little
around here...." Her beautifully-manicured
hands
swept the full circle of her
waistline, then continued to
demonstrate appropriately
the rest of her speech:

"... and pushed me out a
little up here and tapered my
legs a little more—made them
a little larger and rounder
here at my hips and thighs
and a little smaller toward
and at my ankles. Oh, yes,
and made my feet and hands
a little smaller. That's all. I
thought the Doctor Karns
would like me a little better
this way."

"YOU can broadcast that
over the P-A system at
high noon." Karns was still
staring. "'That's all,' she
says. But you didn't have
time to ..."

"Oh, I did it day before
yesterday. As soon as Javvy
materialized the 'Innocent'
and I knew it to be your favorite
art."

"But damn it, we hadn't
even thought of having you
here then!"

"But I had, sir. I fully intended
to serve, one way or
another, in this your home.
But of course I had no idea
I would ever have such an
honor as actually waiting on
you at your table. Will you
please give me your orders,
sirs, besides the eggs? You
wish the eggs fried in butter—three
of them apiece—and
sunny side up."

"Uh-huh, with ham," Hilton
said. "I'll start with a jumbo
shrimp cocktail. Horseradish
and ketchup sauce; heavy on
the horseradish."

"Same for me," Karns said,
"but only half as much horseradish."

"And for the rest of it,"
Hilton went on, "hashed-brown
potatoes and buttered
toast—plenty of extra butter—strong
coffee from first to
last. Whipping cream and sugar
on the side. For dessert,
apple pie a la mode."

"You make me drool, chief.
Play that for me, please, Innocent,
all the way."

"Oh? You are—you, personally,
yourself, sir?—renaming
me 'Innocent'?"

"If you'll sit still for it,
yes."

"That is an incredible honor,
sir. Simply unbelievable.
I thank you! I thank you!"
Radiating happiness, she
dashed away toward the
kitchen.

WHEN the two men were
full of food, they
strolled over to a davenport
facing the fire. As they sat
down, Innocent entered the
room, carrying a tall, dewy
mint julep on a tray. She was
followed by another female
figure bearing a bottle of
avignognac and the appurtenances
which are its due—and
at the first full sight of that
figure Hilton stopped breathing
for fifteen seconds.

Her hair was very thick, intensely
black and long, cut
squarely off just below the
lowest points of her shoulder
blades. Heavy brows and long
lashes—eyes too—were all
intensely, vividly black. Her
skin was tanned to a deep and
glowing almost-but-not-quite-brown.

"Murchison's Dark Lady!"
Hilton gasped. "Larry!
You've—we've—I've got that
painting here?"

"Oh, yes, sir." The newcomer
spoke before Larry
could. "At the other end—your
part—of the room. You
will look now, sir, please?"
Her voice was low, rich and
as smooth as cream.

Putting her tray down carefully
on the end-table, she led
him toward the other fireplace.
Past the piano, past the
tri-di pit; past a towering
grillwork holding art treasures
by the score. Over to
the left, against the wall,
there was a big, business-like
desk. On the wall, over the
desk, hung the painting; a
copy of which had been in
Hilton's room for over eight
years.

He stared at it for at least
a minute. He glanced around:
at the other priceless duplicates
so prodigally present,
at his own guns arrayed above
the mantel and on each side
of the fireplace. Then, without
a word, he started back to
join Karns. She walked
springily beside him.

"What's your name, Miss?"
he asked, finally.

"I haven't earned any as
yet, sir. My number is ..."

"Never mind that. Your
name is 'Dark Lady'."

"Oh, thank you, sir; that is
truly wonderful!" And Dark
Lady sat cross-legged on the
rug at Hilton's feet and busied
herself with the esoteric
rites of Old Avignon.

Hilton took a deep inhalation
and a small sip, then
stared at Karns. Karns, over
the rim of his glass, stared
back.

"I can see where this would
be habit-forming," Hilton
said, "and very deadly. Extremely
deadly."

"Every wish granted. Surrounded
by all this." Karns
swept his arm through three-quarters
of a circle. "Waited
on hand and foot by powerful
men and by the materializations
of the dreams of the
greatest, finest artists who
ever lived. Fatal? I don't
know...."

"MY solid hope is that we
never have to find out.
And when you add in Innocent
and Dark Lady.... They
look to be about seventeen,
but the thought that they're
older than the hills of Rome
and powered by everlasting
atomic engines—" He broke
off suddenly and blushed.
"Excuse me, please, girls. I
know better than to talk
about people that way, right
in front of them; I really do."

"Do you really think we're
people?" Innocent and Dark
Lady squealed, as one.

That set Hilton back onto
his heels. "I don't know....
I've wondered. Are you?"

Both girls, silent, looked at
Larry.

"We don't know, either,"
Larry said. "At first, of
course, there were crude, non-thinking
machines. But when
the Guide attained its present
status, the Masters themselves
could not agree. They
divided about half and half
on the point. They never did
settle it any closer than that."

"I certainly won't try to,
then. But for my money, you
are people," Hilton said, and
Karns agreed.

That, of course, touched off
a near-riot of joy; after which
the two men made an inch-by-inch
study of their tremendous
living-room. Then, long
after bedtime, Larry and Dark
Lady escorted Hilton to his
bedroom.

"Do you mind, sir, if we
sleep on the floor at the sides
of your bed?" Larry asked.
"Or must we go out into the
hall?"

"Sleep? I didn't know you
could sleep."

"It is not essential. However,
when round-the-clock
work is not necessary, and we
have opportunity to sleep
near a human being, we derive
a great deal of pleasure
and satisfaction from it. You
see, sir, we also serve during
sleep."

"Okay, I'll try anything
once. Sleep wherever you
please."

Hilton began to peel, but
before he had his shirt off
both Larry and Dark Lady
were stretched out flat, sound
asleep, one almost under each
edge of his bed. He slid in between
the sheets—it was the
most comfortable bed he had
ever slept in—and went to
sleep as though sandbagged.

He had time to wonder foggily
whether the Omans were
in fact helping him go to
sleep—and then he was
asleep.

A MONTH passed. Eight couples
had married, the
Navy chaplain officiating—in
the Perseus, of course,
since the warship was, always
and everywhere, an integral
part of Terra.

Sandra had dropped in one
evening to see Hilton about a
bit of business. She was now
sitting, long dancer's legs
out-stretched toward the fire,
with a cigarette in her left
hand and a tall, cold drink on
a coaster at her right.

"This is a wonderful room,
Jarvis. It'd be perfect if it
weren't quite so ... so mannish."

"What do you expect of
Bachelors' Hall—a boudoir?
Don't tell me you're going
domestic, Sandy, just because
you've got a house?"

"Not just that, no. But of
course it helped it along."

"Alex is a mighty good
man. One of the finest I have
ever known."

She eyed him for a moment
in silence. "Jarvis Hilton, you
are one of the keenest, most
intelligent men who ever
lived. And yet ..." She broke
off and studied him for a
good half minute. "Say, if I
let my hair clear down, will
you?"

"Scout's Oath. That 'and
yet' requires elucidation at
any cost."

"I know. But first, yes, it's
Alex. I never would have believed
that any man ever born
could hit me so hard. Soon. I
didn't want to be the first,
but I won't be anywhere near
the last. But tell me. You
were really in love with Temple,
weren't you, when I
asked you?"

"Yes."

"Ha! You are letting your
hair down! That makes me
feel better."

"Huh? Why should it?"

"It elucidates the 'and yet'
no end. You were insulated
from all other female charms
by ye brazen Bells. You see,
most of us assistants made a
kind of game out of seeing
which of us could make you
break the Executives' Code.
And none of us made it. Teddy
and Temple said you
didn't know what was going
on; Bev and I said nobody as
smart as you are could possibly
be that stupid."

"You aren't the type to leak
or name names—oh, I see.
You are merely reporting a
conversation. The game had
interested, but non-participating,
observers. Temple
and Teddy, at least."

"At least," she agreed. "But
damn it, you aren't stupid.
There isn't a stupid bone in
your head. So it must be love.
And if so, what about marriage?
Why don't you and
Temple make it a double with
Alex and me?"

"That's the most cogent
thought you ever had, but setting
the date is the bride's
business." He glanced at his
Oman wristwatch. "It's early
yet; let's skip over. I wouldn't
mind seeing her a minute or
two."

"Thy statement ringeth
with truth, friend. Bill's there
with Teddy?"

"I imagine so."

"So we'll talk to them
about making it a triple. Oh,
nice—let's go!"

They left the house and,
her hand tucked under his elbow,
walked up the street.

NEXT morning, on her
way to the Hall of Records,
Sandra stopped off as
usual at the office. The
Omans were all standing motionless.
Hilton was leaning
far back in his chair, feet on
desk, hands clasped behind
head, eyes closed. Knowing
what that meant, she turned
and started back out on tiptoe.

However, he had heard her.
"Can you spare a couple of
minutes to think at me,
Sandy?"

"Minutes or hours, chief."
Tuly placed a chair for her
and she sat down, facing him
across his desk.

"Thanks, gal. This time it's
the Stretts. Sawtelle's been
having nightmares, you know,
ever since we emerged, about
being attacked, and I've been
pooh-poohing the idea. But
now it's a statistic that the
soup is getting thicker, and I
can't figure out why. Why in
all the hells of space should
a stasis that has lasted for
over a quarter of a million
years be broken at this exact
time? The only possible explanation
is that we caused
the break. And any way I
look at that concept, it's plain
idiocy."

Both were silent for minutes;
and then it was demonstrated
again that Terra's Advisory
Board had done better
than it knew in choosing Sandra
Cummings to be Jarvis
Hilton's working mate.

"We did cause it, Jarve,"
she said, finally. "They knew
we were coming, even before
we got to Fuel Bin. They
knew we were human and
tried to wipe out the Omans
before we got there. Preventive
warfare, you know."

"They couldn't have
known!" he snorted. "Strett
detectors are no better than
Oman, and you know what
Sam Bryant had to say about
them."

"I know." Sandra grinned
appreciatively. "It's becoming
a classic. But it couldn't have
been any other way. Besides,
I know they did."

He stared at her helplessly,
then swung on Larry. "Does
that make sense to you?"

"Yes, sir. The Stretts could
peyondire as well as the old
Masters could, and they undoubtedly
still can and do."

"Okay, it does make sense,
then." He absented himself in
thought, then came to life
with a snap. "Okay! The next
thing on the agenda is a
crash-priority try at a peyondix
team. Tuly, you organized
a team to generate sathura.
Can you do the same for
peyondix?"

"If we can find the ingredients,
yes, sir."

"I HAD a hunch. Larry,
please ask Teddy Blake's
Oman to bring her in
here...."

"I'll be running along,
then." Sandra started to get
up.

"I hope to kiss a green pig
you won't!" Hilton snapped.
"You're one of the biggest
wheels. Larry, we'll want
Temple Bells and Beverly
Bell—for a start."

"Chief, you positively
amaze me," Sandra said then.
"Every time you get one of
these attacks of genius—or
whatever it is—you have me
gasping like a fish. Just what
can you possibly want of Bev
Bell?"

"Whatever it was that enabled
her to hit the target
against odds of almost infinity
to one; not just once,
but time after time. By definition,
intuition. What quality
did you use just now in getting
me off the hook? Intuition.
What makes Teddy
Blake such an unerring performer?
Intuition again. My
hunches—they're intuition,
too. Intuition, hell! Labels—based
on utterly abysmal
damned dumb ignorance of
our own basic frames of reference.
Do you think those
four kinds of intuition are
alike, by seven thousand rows
of apple trees?"

"Of course not. I see what
you're getting at.... Oh!
This'll be fun!"

The others came in and,
one by one, Tuly examined
each of the four women and
the man. Each felt the probing,
questioning feelers of her
thought prying into the deepest
recesses of his mind.

"There is not quite enough
of each of three components,
all of which are usually associated
with the male. You,
sir, have much of each, but
not enough. I know your men
quite well, and I think we
will need the doctors Kincaid
and Karns and Poynter. But
such deep probing is felt.
Have I permission, sir?"

"Yes. Tell 'em I said so."

Tuly scanned. "Yes, sir, we
should have all three."

"Get 'em, Larry." Then, in
the pause that followed:
"Sandy, remember yowling
about too many sweeties on a
team? What do you think of
this business of all sweeties?"

"All that proves is that nobody
can be wrong all the
time," she replied flippantly.

The three men arrived and
were instructed. Tuly said:
"The great trouble is that
each of you must use a portion
of your mind that you do
not know you have. You, this
one. You, that one." Tuly
probed mercilessly; so poignantly
that each in turn
flinched under brand-new and
almost unbearable pain.
"With you, Doctor Hilton, it
will be by far the worst. For
you must learn to use almost
all the portions of both your
minds, the conscious and the
unconscious. This must be,
because you are the actual
peyondixer. The others merely
supply energies in which
you yourself are deficient.
Are you ready for a terrible
shock, sir?"

"Shoot."

HE thought for a second
that he had been shot;
that his brain had blown up.

He couldn't stand it—he
knew he was going to die—he
wished he could die—anything,
anything whatever, to
end this unbearable agony....

It ended.

Writhing, white and sweating,
Hilton opened his eyes.
"Ouch," he remarked, conversationally.
"What next?"

"You will seize hold of the
energies your friends offer.
You will bind them to yours
and shape the whole into a
dimensionless sphere of pure
controlled, dirigible energy.
And, as well as being the
binding force, the cohesiveness,
you must also be the
captain and the pilot and the
astrogator and the ultimately
complex computer itself."

"But how can I.... Okay,
damn it. I will!"

"Of course you will, sir.
Remember also that once the
joinings are made I can be of
very little more assistance,
for my peyondix is as nothing
compared to that of your
fusion of eight. Now, to assemble
the energies and join
them you will, all together,
deny the existence of the sum
total of reality as you know
it. Distance does not exist—every
point in the reachable
universe coincides with every
other point and that common
point is the focus of your attention.
You can be and actually
are anywhere you please
or everywhere at once. Time
does not exist. Space does not
exist. There is no such thing
as opacity; everything is perfectly
transparent, yet every
molecule of substance is perceptible
in its relationship to
every other molecule in the
cosmos. Senses do not exist.
Sight, hearing, taste, touch,
smell, sathura, endovix—all
are parts of the one great
sense of peyondix. I am guiding
each of you seven—closer!
Tighter! There! Seize it,
sir—and when you work the
Stretts you must fix it clearly
that time does not exist.
You must work in millionths
of microseconds instead of in minutes,
for they have minds
of tremendous power. Reality
does not exist! Compress it
more, sir. Tighter! Smaller!
Rounder! There! Hold it!
Reality does not exist—distance
does not exist—all possible
points are.... Wonderful!"

Tuly screamed the word
and the thought: "Good-by!
Good luck!"

END OF PART ONE

PART TWO

MASTERS

OF

SPACE

By EDWARD E. SMITH &

E. EVERETT EVANS

Illustrated by BERRY

VIII

HILTON did not have to
drive the peyondix-beam
to the planet Strett; it was already
there. And there was the
monstrous First Lord Thinker
Zoyar.

Into that mind his multi-mind
flashed, its every member
as responsive to his will
as his own fingers—almost infinitely
more so, in fact, because
of the tremendous
lengths of time required to
send messages along nerves.

That horrid mind was
scanned cell by cell. Then, after
what seemed like a few
hours, when a shield began
sluggishly to form, Hilton
transferred his probe to the
mind of the Second Thinker,
one Lord Ynos, and absorbed
everything she knew. Then,
the minds of all the other
Thinkers being screened, he
studied the whole Strett planet,
foot by foot, and everything
that was on it.

Then, mission accomplished,
Hilton snapped his attention
back to his office and the
multi-mind fell apart. As he
opened his eyes he heard Tuly
scream: "... Luck!"

"Oh—you still here, Tuly?
How long have we been
gone?"

"Approximately one and
one-tenth seconds, sir."

"WHAT!"

Beverly Bell, in the haven
of Franklin Poynter's arms,
fainted quietly. Sandra
shrieked piercingly. The four
men stared, goggle-eyed. Temple
and Teddy, as though by
common thought, burrowed
their faces into brawny shoulders.

Hilton recovered first. "So
that's what peyondix is."

"Yes, sir—I mean no, sir.
No, I mean yes, but ..." Tuly
paused, licking her lips in that
peculiarly human-female gesture
of uncertainty.

"Well, what do you mean?
It either is or isn't. Or is that
necessarily so?"

"Not exactly, sir. That is, it
started as peyondix. But it became
something else. Not even
the most powerful of the old
Masters—nobody—ever did or
ever could possibly generate
such a force as that. Or handle
it so fast."

"Well, with seven of the
best minds of Terra and a ..."

"Chip-chop the chit-chat!"
Karns said, harshly. "What I
want to know is whether I
was having a nightmare. Can
there possibly be a race such
as I thought I saw? So utterly
savage—ruthless—merciless!
So devoid of every human
trace and so hell-bent determined
on the extermination
of every other race in the Galaxy?
God damn it, it simply
doesn't make sense!"

EYES went from eyes to
eyes to eyes.

All had seen the same indescribably
horrible, abysmally
atrocious, things. Qualities
and quantities and urges and
drives that no words in any
language could even begin to
portray.

"It doesn't seem to, but
there it is." Teddy Blake
shook her head hopelessly.

Big Bill Karns, hands still
shaking, lit a cigarette before
he spoke again. "Well, I've
never been a proponent of
genocide. But it's my considered
opinion that the Stretts
are one race the galaxy can
get along without."

"A hell of a lot better without,"
Poynter said, and all
agreed.

"The point is, what can we
do about it?" Kincaid asked.
"The first thing, I would say,
is to see whether we can do
this—whatever it is—without
Tuly's help. Shall we try it?
Although I, for one, don't feel
like doing it right away."

"Not I, either." Beverly
Bell held up her right hand,
which was shaking uncontrollably.
"I feel as though I'd
been bucking waves, wind
and tide for forty-eight
straight hours without food,
water or touch. Maybe in
about a week I'll be ready for
another try at it. But today—not
a chance!"

"Okay. Scat, all of you,"
Hilton ordered. "Take the
rest of the day off and rest
up. Put on your thought-screens
and don't take them
off for a second from now on.
Those Stretts are tough hombres."

Sandra was the last to leave.
"And you, boss?" she asked
pointedly.

"I've got some thinking to
do."

"I'll stay and help you
think?"

"Not yet." He shook his
head, frowned and then
grinned. "You see, chick, I
don't even know yet what it
is I'm going to have to think
about."

"A bit unclear, but I know
what you mean—I think.
Luck, chief."

IN their subterranean sanctum
turn on distant Strett, two
of the deepest thinkers of that
horribly unhuman race were
in coldly intent conference via
thought.

"My mind has been plundered,
Ynos," First Lord
Thinker Zoyar radiated,
harshly. "Despite the extremely
high reactivity of my shield
some information—I do not
know how much—was taken.
The operator was one of the
humans of that ship."

"I, too, felt a plucking at
my mind. But those humans
could not peyondire, First
Lord."

"Be logical, fool! At that
contact, in the matter of which
you erred in not following up
continuously, they succeeded
in concealing their real abilities
from you."

"That could be the truth.
Our ancestors erred, then, in
recording that all those weak
and timid humans had been
slain. These offenders are
probably their descendants,
returning to reclaim their
former world."

"The probability must be
evaluated and considered.
Was it or was it not through
human aid that the Omans destroyed
most of our task-force?"

"Highly probable, but impossible
of evaluation with the
data now available."

"Obtain more data at once.
That point must be and shall
be fully evaluated and fully
considered. This entire situation
is intolerable. It must be
abated."

"True, First Lord. But every
operator and operation is
now tightly screened. Oh, if
I could only go out there myself ..."

"Hold, fool! Your thought
is completely disloyal and un-Strettly."

"True, oh First Lord Thinker
Zoyar. I will forthwith remove
my unworthy self from
this plane of existence."

"You will not! I hereby
abolish that custom. Our numbers
are too few by far. Too
many have failed to adapt.
Also, as Second Thinker, your
death at this time would be
slightly detrimental to certain
matters now in work. I will
myself, however, slay the unfit.
To that end repeat The
Words under my peyondiring."

"I am a Strett. I will devote
my every iota of mental and
of physical strength to forwarding
the Great Plan. I am,
and will remain, a Strett."

"You do believe in The
Words."

"OF course I believe in
them! I know that in a
few more hundreds of thousands
of years we will be rid
of material bodies and will become
invincible and invulnerable.
Then comes the Conquest
of the Galaxy ... and
then the Conquest of the Universe!"

"No more, then, on your
life, of this weak and cowardly
repining! Now, what of
your constructive thinking?"

"Programming must be such
as to obviate time-lag. We
must evaluate the factors already
mentioned and many
others, such as the reactivation
of the spacecraft which
was thought to have been destroyed
so long ago. After
having considered all these
evaluations, I will construct a
Minor Plan to destroy these
Omans, whom we have permitted
to exist on sufferance, and
with them that shipload of
despicably interloping humans."

"That is well." Zoyar's mind
seethed with a malevolent
ferocity starkly impossible for
any human mind to grasp.
"And to that end?"

"To that end we must intensify
still more our program
of procuring data. We must
revise our mechs in the light
of our every technological advance
during the many thousands
of cycles since the last
such revision was made. Our
every instrument of power, of
offense and of defense, must
be brought up to the theoretical
ultimate of capability."

"And as to the Great
Brain?"

"I have been able to think
of nothing, First Lord, to add
to the undertakings you have
already set forth."

"It was not expected that
you would. Now: is it your
final thought that these interlopers
are in fact the descendants
of those despised humans
of so long ago?"

"It is."

"It is also mine. I return,
then, to my work upon the
Brain. You will take whatever
measures are necessary. Use
every artifice of intellect and
of ingenuity and our every resource.
But abate this intolerable
nuisance, and soon."

"It shall be done, First
Lord."

THE Second Thinker issued
orders. Frenzied, round-the-clock
activity ensued.
Hundreds of mechs operated
upon the brains of hundreds
of others, who in turn operated
upon the operators.

Then, all those brains
charged with the technological
advances of many thousands
of years, the combined
hundreds went unrestingly to
work. Thousands of work-mechs
were built and put to
work at the construction of
larger and more powerful
space-craft.

As has been implied, those
battle-skeletons of the Stretts
were controlled by their own
built-in mechanical brains,
which were programmed for
only the simplest of battle
maneuvers. Anything at all
out of the ordinary had to be
handled by remote control, by
the specialist-mechs at their
two-miles-long control board.

This was now to be changed.
Programming was to be made
so complete that almost any
situation could be handled by
the warship or the missile itself—instantly.

The Stretts knew that they
were the most powerful, the
most highly advanced race in
the universe. Their science
was the highest in the universe.
Hence, with every operating
unit brought up to the
full possibilities of that science,
that would be more than
enough. Period.

This work, while it required
much time, was very
much simpler than the task
which the First Thinker had
laid out for himself on the
giant computer-plus which the
Stretts called "The Great
Brain." In stating his project,
First Lord Zoyar had said:

"Assignment: To construct
a machine that will have the
following abilities: One, to
contain and retain all knowledge
and information fed into
it, however great the amount.
Two, to feed itself additional
information by peyondiring
all planets, wherever situate,
bearing intelligent life. Three,
to call up instantly any and
all items of information pertaining
to any problem we
may give it. Four, to combine
and recombine any number
of items required to form
new concepts. Five, to formulate
theories, test them and
draw conclusions helpful to
us in any matter in work."

It will have been noticed
that these specifications vary
in one important respect from
those of the Eniacs and Univacs
of Earth. Since we of
Earth can not peyondire, we
do not expect that ability from
our computers.

The Stretts could, and did.

WHEN Sandra came back
into the office at five
o'clock she found Hilton still
sitting there, in almost exactly
the same position.

"Come out of it, Jarve!"
She snapped a finger. "That
much of that is just simply
too damned much."

"You're so right, child." He
got up, stretched, and by main
strength shrugged off his foul
mood. "But we're up against
something that is really a
something, and I don't mean
perchance."

"How well I know it." She
put an arm around him, gave
him a quick, hard hug. "But
after all, you don't have to
solve it this evening, you
know."

"No, thank God."

"So why don't you and
Temple have supper with me?
Or better yet, why don't all
eight of us have supper together
in that bachelors' paradise
of yours and Bill's?"

"That'd be fun."

And it was.

Nor did it take a week for
Beverly Bell to recover from
the Ordeal of Eight. On the
following evening, she herself
suggested that the team should
take another shot at that utterly
fantastic terra incognita
of the multiple mind, jolting
though it had been.

"But are you sure you can
take it again so soon?" Hilton
asked.

"Sure. I'm like that famous
gangster's moll, you know,
who bruised easy but healed
quick. And I want to know
about it as much as anyone
else does."

They could do it this time
without any help from Tuly.
The linkage fairly snapped together
and shrank instantaneously
to a point. Hilton
thought of Terra and there it
was; full size, yet occupying
only one infinitesimal section
of a dimensionless point. The
multi-mind visited relatives of
all eight, but could not make
intelligible contact. If asleep,
it caused pleasant dreams; if
awake, pleasant thoughts of
the loved one so far away in
space; but that was all. It
visited mediums, in trance and
otherwise—many of whom,
not surprisingly now, were
genuine—with whom it held
lucid conversations. Even in
linkage, however, the multi-mind
knew that none of the
mediums would be believed,
even if they all told, simultaneously,
exactly the same
story. The multi-mind weakened
suddenly and Hilton
snapped it back to Ardry.