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Title: Pattern for Conquest

Author: George O. Smith

Illustrator: Malcolm Kildale

Release date: July 14, 2022 [eBook #68523]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PATTERN FOR CONQUEST ***

Pattern For Conquest

By GEORGE O. SMITH

Illustrated by Kildale

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Astounding Science-Fiction March, April, May 1946.

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

I.

The signal officer leaped from his position and made a vicious grab at the thin paper tape that was snaking from his typer to the master transmitter. It tore just at the entrance slot. The tape-end slid in; disappeared.

The master transmitter growled as the tape-end passed the scanner. Meters slapped up against the overload stop and two of the big rectifier tubes flashed over. Circuit breakers came open with a crash down in the power room, and up in the master modulator room the bell alarms rang, telling of the destruction of one of the tuning guides from overload peak.

The signal officer paid no attention to the damage his action had caused. He grabbed for the telephone and dialed a number.

"I want confirmation of messages forty-eight and forty-nine," he snapped. "What fool let 'em get this far?"

"What happened?" asked the superior officer mildly.

"I got forty-eight on the tape before I came to forty-nine," explained the signal officer. "I grabbed the tape just as it was hitting the master transmitter. The tape-end raised hell, I think. Default alarms are ringing all over the building. But who—?"

"It was my fault—I'll confirm in writing—that forty-eight was not preceded by an official sanction. You were quite correct in stopping them at any cost. As soon as the outfit is on the air again, send 'em both."

"Yeah, but look—"

"Orders, Manley."

"I'll follow 'em," said Signal Officer Manley, "but may I ask why?"

"You may, according to the Book of Regs, but I'm not certain of the reason myself. Frankly, I don't know. I questioned them myself, and got the same blunt answer."

"The whole terran sector has been slaving for years to keep this proposition from happening," grumbled Manley. "For years we have been most careful to stop any possible slipup. Now I find that the first time it ever gets down as far as my position and I leap into the breach like a hero, I'm off the beam and the stuff is on the roger."

"I'll give you a Solar Citation for your efforts," offered the superior ruminatively. "I know what you mean. We've been trying to keep it from happening by mere chance. And all of a sudden comes official orders, not happenstance, but ordering it. Let's both give up."

"The gear is on the air again," said Manley. "I'll carry on, like Pagliacci, roaring madly to our own doom. But first I'm going to have to restring the master. Shoot me a confirm, will you? I don't expect to use it, but it'll look nice in some time capsule as the forerunner of history."

Within a minute messages forty-eight and forty-nine were through the machine, up through the master modulator room and out in space, on their way to Mars and Venus, respectively.

The Little Man looked up at Co-ordinator Kennebec. The head of the Solar Combine looked down with a worried frown. This had been going on for some time. The Little Man had been, in turn, pleading, elated, demanding, mollified, excited, and unhappy because the ruler of the Solar Combine could not understand him fully. He was also unhappy because he could not understand the head man's meaning, either.

The Little Man had three cards in his hand. He was objecting violently, now. He was not angry, just positive of his desire. He put two of the cards on the desk before Kennebec, and agreed, most thoroughly, that these were what he wanted. The third card he tossed derisively, indicating negation. This one was of no use.

Kennebec shrugged. He picked them up and inserted the unwanted card between the other two. He did it with significance, and indicated that there was a reason.

The Little Man shrugged and with significance to his actions, accepted the three. If he could not have the two without the third, he'd take all three.

He saluted in the manner that Kennebec understood to be a characteristic of the Little People's culture. Then he turned and left the office, taking with him the three cards.

As he opened the door, he was almost trampled by Kennebec's daughter, who was entering on a dead run with a bundle of transmitter tape trailing from one hand. Patricia looked down, made a motion of apology to the Little Man, whose head came just even with her hip, and then turned to her father as the Little Man left the scene.

"Dad," she said, "here are press flashes from Mars and Venus. Singly, either one of them pleases me greatly. Simultaneously I can't take it."

"Sorry, Pat. But this isn't a personal proposition."

"But it means trouble."

"Perhaps."

Patricia snorted. "It does mean trouble and you know it. How are you going to avoid it?"

"I'm going to assign Flight Commander Thompson to the task of keeping or combing them out of one another's hair."

"And if and when he's successful," smiled Pat derisively. "I assume that Thompson will be awarded the Solar Citation for bravery and accomplishment far above and beyond the call of flesh?"

"He'll have earned it," smiled Kennebec. "Let's see what the sister worlds have to say."

"Not much—yet. Neither one of them seems to be aware of the other's action—yet. I'll bet the Transplanet Press Association wires will be burning when they all find out."

"TPA is going to suppress any word of dissension," said Kennebec.

"Um-m-m—seems that Terra, as usual, has a bear by the tail. Why couldn't he have picked less dangerously?"

"Knowing nothing of the Little People's culture, I can't say. I don't even understand him most of the time excepting that I have attained the idea that something is very important and must be done immediately. What it is I don't really know, but I gather that it concerns the integrity of a number of stellar races including that of the Little People."

"Sounds like corny dialogue from a bum soap opera," said Patricia. "It's a sorry day for civilization when it must depend upon a deal like this."

"I'm certain that they understand. The Little Man reviewed the records. Given the apparent understanding of mere records that he has—in spite of not being able to understand me or any other Solarian—he must know that we're all playing fireman in a powderhouse. He is going on through with it in spite of what he must certainly know."

"I feel inclined to take a vacation at Lake Stanley or Hawaii until this blows over."

Kennebec laughed. "It won't be that bad, and besides, you're a part of this and no matter where you go, you'll be in it. Might as well give up, Pat. You can't run now."

"I know," answered Patricia wistfully, "but I'd like to keep out of the way of any flying glass."

Stellor Downing was Martian by birth and by six hundred years of Martian-born forebears. His family could trace its line back to the first group of Terran colonists that braved the rigors of Martian life before technology created a Martian world that was reasonably well adapted for human life.

Downing, being of hard nature, cold and calculating, and murderously swift, should probably have been dark and swarthy with beetling brows and a piercing stare.

But Downing lived on Mars, where in spite of the thin atmosphere, Sol's output was low. Downing had light hair, a skin like the baby-soap ads, and pale-blue eyes that looked as innocent.

A lot of people had been fooled—but not Martians.

Stellor Downing's rapid rise up through the ranks of the Solar Guard was legendary on Mars. His swinging gait was more or less known to all theater-going Martians, and the sound of his voice over the radio was familiar. He wore a double modine belt, with one of the nasty weapons on each hip—where they crossed over his stomach, a dull silver medallion held them together.

The medallion was the sharp-shooter's award.

Stellor Downing came on the spaceport escorted by six or seven officials. He talked with them until it was time for take-off. Then they all became more serious.

"We have no idea what this mission is," said one. "But if you do it honor, you'll get that other star."

"That'll make you a Flight Co-ordinator," added another.

"I can't make any promises," said Downing. "I'll do my best."

"Terra must be really in a hole to call on you," laughed a third. "You're by and far the best flight commander in the Guard."

Downing lifted his eyebrow. "I'll admit that I'm not the worst," he said cheerfully. "I hope you're right about the other." He turned to his orderly and gave a sign. The orderly lifted a whistle and blew a shrill note that cut the thin air of Mars.

Three hundred men entered twenty-five ships, and the spaceport was cleared. Radio messages filled the ether, as the ships were checked before take-off. Then as the clamoring of the radio died, a more powerful transmitter in the flight commander's ship gave the order to lift.

The center ship, bearing the red circle of Mars with the five stars ringing it, lifted first, followed by the next concentric ring of ships.

The third ring followed in close formation and then the last. In a great space cone, the flight closed into tighter formation and streaked straight upward and out of sight.

Stellor Downing was on his way to Terra.

Flight Commander Clifford Lane was driven onto Venusport in a cream-colored roadster that was either spotless enamel or mirror-finish chromium as far as the eye could reach. In the car with Cliff Lane were four women whose glitter was no less flagrant than the car's. The slight olive-tint to their skin made their very white teeth flash in the sunshine as they smiled at their passenger.

This was Venus—living at its highest temperature. The car rolled to a stop beside Cliff Lane's command and they all climbed out. It was with a generous display of well-browned skin.

Lane's costume was no less scanty than the women's. The modine over his right hip was chased with silver and engraved, the holster was hand-tooled and studded with five small emeralds.

"What are you going for?" asked one of the women.

"Don't you know?" teased the one beside her. "Cliff is going to Terra to court Patricia Kennebec."

"I think we should kidnap him."

"You'd be sorry," laughed Cliff, waving the official order in front of her.

"Maybe we can bribe him. Tell you what, Cliff, you get this job done and you'll probably get a promotion. If you do, we'll all chip in and get that insignia on your modine holster changed to six full stars. But to do it you'll have to come back to us—single."

Cliff laughed. "And if it takes me more than six months, you'll all be off elsewhere."

"But what's Patricia got that we haven't?" wailed one.

"Him," grinned another.

"No, we've got him—now."

"Any time someone wants something else, you might as well give it to them, because they'll get it one way or another."

"Look, kids," interrupted Lane, "we've been talking this up and down for three hours. Now it's time to take off. Scram, like good little lovelies."

Cliff bade them a proper good-by and herded them back into the car. It started and rolled slowly away amid feminine calls. Its course was erratic, for the driver was handling the car by instinct; her head being turned back over the front seat to watch Lane, too. Had she been on a road instead of a broad, shining expanse of tarmacadam, trouble would have met her more than half-way.

Cliff waved a last good-by and turned to face a group of kine-photographers. "Hi, Hal. Hello, fellers."

"Hey, Cliff, will you wipe your puss or don't you care if Venus sees their Favorite Son in lipstick?"

Lane laughed and wiped. "On me it doesn't look good," he agreed. "What'll you have?"

"We'd like shots of you giving the last order, entering the ship, and then wait until we can get set up on the edge of the field. We want a pan shot of the command hitting the ether."

"O.K. That we can do."

He turned to the group of unit commanders and said, "The usual, fellows. Straight up and away. Hey, Hal, pan the gang, will you? As a hotshot I'm slightly cool if they aren't behind me."

"Great stuff," grinned Hal. The kinephotogs spread out, took their shots, and then closed up for the final order. As the space door clanged shut, they raced for the edge of the field and waited.

With an instantaneous rush, the lead ship, bearing the green triangle of Venus surrounded by the five stars of the flight commander, took off in a slight swirl of airswept dust. Then at a separation of exactly three tenths of a second, the other twenty-four ships leaped into the sky and formed a long spiral in space.

The specks that were lost in the sky were Clifford Lane and his command heading for Terra.

II.

The Little Man had a name. Once in his own tiny spacecraft and surrounded by his cohorts, he was addressed in his own semi-speech, semimental means of communications.

"You have succeeded, Toralen Ki?"

"As best I can."

"Not perfect?" asked Hotang Lu.

"As long as the lack of communications exists, there can be no transfer of real detailed intelligence between the two races. They have no mental power of communication at all, of course, and since we use our mental power when we wish to carry over a plan or abstract thought, we fail when we are confronted as we are now. There are no words in our audible tongue that have the proper semantic meaning."

"But you did succeed in part?"

"I have succeeded so far as gaining their co-operation. They will assign to me or to us, rather, the necessary personnel and material to complete the task."

"Then we have succeeded."

"In a sense. To carry this concept over was most difficult. As long as we have their consent, everything will work out in time."

"You have succeeded in convincing them that the Opposites must be used?"

Toralen Ki smiled. "The Opposites we picked are violent enemies."

"Good!"

"It could be better. I'd hoped that they would be mere opposing personalities. It is not necessary that people of opposite personality be bitter rivals for everything."

"But the greater the opposing forces, the greater the strength of the mental field."

"In this case," said Toralen Ki thoughtfully, "they insist upon including a third party, of equal rank, to act as referee, or mediator. It will be his task to keep the Opposites from fighting one another."

"They were quite concerned?"

"Definitely. It was most difficult to convey to them the fact that the future of their—and all, for that matter—race depends upon absolute co-operation between the mental opposites we have picked."

"Once the suppressor is destroyed, communication with this race will be easy. Then they can be told."

Toralen Ki shook his head. "Fate is like that. To carry out the plan properly, they must co-operate. In order to tell them what they must do, the suppressor must first be destroyed. And were it not for the suppressor in the first place, the mental capability of this race would require no assistance from the like of you and I or any other member of any other race. The Loard-vogh were very brilliant, Hotang Lu. To hurl suppressors of mental energy through the Galaxy was a stroke of genius."

Hotang Lu smiled sourly. "I suppose it is a strange trick of fate to have the fate of the entire Galaxy hanging upon an act of co-operation between two bitter rivals. Especially when the means to explain fully also hangs upon the outcome of their co-operation. I am reminded of an incident in my boyhood. I sought work. I had no experience. They wanted men with experience. In order to get the experience I must work—but they wouldn't put me to work without experience. But it will be easier once the initial step is taken," said Hotang Lu.

"I know it will. It will be so much easier once they understand our motives, at least. Had they proved non-co-operative, we would have been completely stopped. As it is now, we can foresee the proper culmination of all of our plans. We will win, yet!"

"To our ultimate victory," said Hotang Lu, taking a sip from the tall tube before him. Toralen Ki followed the other, echoing the words.

"It is fortunate that they have evolved as far as they have," said Toralen Ki, after the toast. "Dealing with a completely ignorant race is more difficult. These people have a proper evaluation of technical ideas. Therefore they will understand the proper course without having it forced down their collective throats."

"With their already available knowledge of the super drive, it indicates their ability. Have they colonized any of the nearer stellar systems yet?"

"Several. But the urge is not quite universal, yet. Only the adventurers and the malcontents seem to go. They will spread though, if they're not stopped within a reasonable time."

"Time.... Time—" muttered Hotang Lu. "Always time. Must we fight time forever?"

"Fighting time is most difficult when you are behind," remarked Toralen Ki. "When you are ahead, it is no longer a fight."

"We must move swiftly and yet we can do nothing to cause haste. Confound it, must a man always be pinched between the urgency and the impossible?"

"Certainly. It makes one feel the ease of life during the times of no-stress."

"Some day I hope to see a period of no-stress that is longer than one tenth the duration of the trouble before and after it."

"You may," smiled Toralen Ki. "But there will be no after."

"Gloomy thought. I'll forget it, thank you. But to change the gloomy subject, I suggest that we contact Tlembo and let our ruler know that we have, in part, been successful."

"Right. I wish we were artists. So much can be conveyed to others by mere pictures."

Hotang Lu shook his head. "How could you possibly sketch the operation of a suppressor? Perhaps they could do it, for they seem to have advanced the art of thought-conveyance through pictures to a high degree. But recall that no Tlemban ever considered the art a necessary one and so we lack the technique."

"I know."

"After we contact Tlembo, when can we say we are to start?"

"I think they convey something about two days. We await the arrival of the contingents from the other planets."

"More time wasted."

"Think of the eons before this and the eons that will follow. And then think of how utterly minute your two days are. They will arrive, but quickly enough."

Flight Commander Cliff Lane heard the recognition gear tick off, and he whirled to look at the scanning plate. "The devil," he growled.

"Sir?

"What is he doing here?"

"I don't understand, sir."

Cliff smiled wryly. "Sorry. I thought this would be more or less pleasant."

"Isn't it?"

"That trace," he said, pointing to the squiggle on the scanning plate, "happens to be the recognition trace of no one other than Stellor Downing."

"Oh," said the orderly. "I didn't know."

Lane grinned. "Then you're the only one that doesn't. Any of the rest of this outfit know it on sight. Take a good look at it, Timmy, and the next time you see it, do your best to do whatever that is doing, but do it quicker, neater, and with more flourish. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Lane strode into the operations room, and looked over the plotter's shoulder. "What's he doing, Link?"

Lincoln made some calculations on a paper, plunked the keys on his computer for a moment and then came up with an equation. He showed it to Lane with a grimace.

"Landing," said Lane cryptically.

Lincoln nodded.

"Can we beat him in?"

"I think so—if we get the jump on him."

"There are just two landing circles on Mojave that aren't dusty," said Lane. "One of them is not far from the field office building. The other takes a full hour of travel before you can check in. I don't like to walk."

"Right. I'll see what we can do."

"Good."

One-tenth of a light-second away, an aide entered Stellor Downing's cabin. "Recognition, sir," he said. "Flight Commander Lane, from Venus. I thought you'd like to know."

"What's his course?" clipped Downing.

"Mojave."

"Tell the tech to drop interferers. Tell navigator to correct course for blitz-landing, and tell pilot to streak for landing Circle One. Also broadcast crash-warning."

"Right. We're going in if we have to collide to do it, sir?"

"We'll have no collision. Lane wouldn't care to scrape any of his nicely painted little toys."

"On the roger," said the aide, leaving immediately.

Two flights of ships changed course.

Down on Mojave, in the control and operations tower, signal officer Clancey's face popped with beads of cold sweat. He sat down heavily in a chair and:

"Tony! Get me the chief!"

"What's wrong, sir?" asked Tony.

"This desert ain't a big enough landing field to take on Lane and Downing. Not all at once."

"Lane and Downing!" Tony streaked for the telephone. He called, and handed the phone to Clancey, who plugged it into his switchboard, putting it on his own headset so that he could hear both the chief and the operations.

"Chief. Look, this is too hot to handle. Lane and Downing are both heading for Mojave."

"I know."

"Do you?" asked Clancey sarcastically. "They're heading for Mojave. They're racing for Number One. And they're due to arrive within three or four milliseconds of one another!"

"Hell's Rockets!" exploded the chief. "Get 'em on the air and tell 'em they're under orders."

"There isn't any air. One of 'em dropped interferers."

"Official?"

"Unofficial."

"O.K. Record the fact and then go out and watch. It's out of your hands if they can't hear you. As long as you have a record of interference it's not your cookie. It belongs to them."

"Mind if I head for a bomb-shelter?" grinned Clancey.

"Oh, they're both smart. That's one fight that never hit an innocent bystander."

"—yet," added Clancey.

"Well—?"

"It might be the first time I died, too," objected Clancey.

"You don't want to live forever, do you?"

"Wouldn't mind."

"Nuts. There must be something good about dying. Everybody does it."

"But only one; never again."

"Well, play it your way. I sort of wish I could be there to watch, too."

"Just tell mother I died game. So long, chief. I hear music in the air right now, and hell will pop directly."

Like twin, high-velocity jets of water, the two space flights came together, rebounded off of their individual barrier-layers and mingled in a jarring maze of whirling ships. In a shapeless pattern they whirled, and they might have whirled shapelessly all the way to Mojave, except for one item.

From Downing's lead ship there stabbed one of the heavy dymodine beams, its danger area marked with the characteristic heterodyne of light. It thrust a pale green finger into the sky before it, and as it came around, the other ships moved aside. That was the breaker. The flights reformed into twin interlocked spirals that thrust against one another with pressors and tore at one another with tractors in an effort to break up the other's flight.

Lane snapped: "That's a stinking trick."

"He's warning—"

"Oh, nice of him to heterodyne it. I wish I had a roboship. I'd drive it into his beam and tell him that he clipped my men—"

Stellor Downing grinned at his unit commander. "I told you he'd duck," he said loftily.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Nope. I'd drive into it and see if he'd shut it off before I hit it."

"Supposing he didn't shut it off?"

"Don't ask me," said Downing. "If he did, it would be to spare the men with me. If I ducked at the last minute, it would be for the same reason. If we were alone, I wouldn't dive into a beam—but we might try a bit of rivet-cutting."

The unit commander's face whitened a bit. That was an idea he disliked. And yet some day he knew they'd get to it. Just as practically everybody knew it.

The hard ground of Mojave whirled up at them, and the twin spirals flattened out. Like a whirling nebula, they spun, slowing as they dropped.

Clancey groaned from the top of the tower: "There ain't room for fifty ships in Circle One. There ain't room for six ships fighting one another. Holy—"

The spattering of force-beams, tractor and pressor, died as the last hundred feet of altitude closed in. The ships, still wabbling slightly, slowed their spinning around and curved to drop vertically for fifty feet.

The ground shook—

And there was left but one dustless landing circle at Mojave—the other one.

Windows in the control tower cracked, a fuse alarm rang furiously, and somewhere a taut cable snapped, shutting off the fuse alarm for lack of juice. The lights went out all over the Administration Building, and every ceiling dropped a fine shower of plaster freckles.

They landed on empty desks and open chairs.

Seven thousand employees of Mojave were crammed out on the view-area, wiping the dust from their eyes and shaking their heads.

And through the dust, weaving their way between the ships of either command. Cliff Lane and Stellor Downing advanced upon one another.

Out of a cloud of dust came Lane. Downing emerged from the other side and faced the Venusite.

"You fouled me," snarled Downing.

"Who, me?" asked Lane saucily.

"I broadcast a crash-warning."

"You should have done it before you dropped interferers. All I know is that you disputed my course."

"So I did. So what?"

Lane reached for a cigarette. He did it with his left hand, though he knew that Downing wouldn't draw his modines while either hand was occupied. Downing was fair, anyway. "So you didn't get what you wanted—again."

"Neither did you."

"All right. Are you happy? Got to have the best, don't you?" growled Lane. "Can't stand to see anybody take even a toothpick that you can't have two of."

"If you were more than a drug-store cowboy ... brother, what a get-up."

Lane flushed. "My clothing is my own business."

"It's very fetching. Chic, even."

"Shut up, dough-head. I'm not forced to wear an iceman's uniform so people won't think—"

"What's the matter with me?" gritted Downing.

"You might at least put on a clean shirt," drawled Lane, tossing his cigarette at Downing.

"Oh, swish—"

That did it. Lane's right hand streaked for his hip after a warning gesture. Downing's two hands dropped and came up with the twin modines.

Only a microtime film record would ever tell the quicker man. Their weapons came up and forward and the dust of landing Circle One was shocked with a sharp electrical splat.

III.

"And that's your job, Thompson," said Kennebec.

"And that's enough," responded Thompson. He wiped his face.

"Oh, I'll issue the proper orders. They'll receive them—and any trace of insubordination on the part of either of them will be cause for reprimand. Public reprimand."

"But the reason behind all this? I don't understand."

"Nor does anyone else. Look Thompson, the Little Man has a super ship out there on Mojave. It is a real bear-cat. Packed into space smaller than this office is enough stuff to hold off the Guard for a week. That's premise number one.

"Number two. They have some sort of telepathic means of communications.

"Number three. They came here for help. Why, I may never tell you until it's analyzed by the experts. But they came here for help. A machine, bomb, some means of hell and destruction or other must be destroyed. It must be located, too. Using some means of analysis on our card files, voice records, identification quizzes, and so forth, they decided upon Lane and Downing as the mainsprings. They'll have none other. Now why or wherefore isn't for me to decide. If they want Lane and Downing, they'll get Lane and Downing and none others. At the very least, we've got to play their game as long and as well as we can play it. I want to have the Solar Guard equipped as well as that ship is, and this is the way to do it."

"Why don't they go out and destroy this thing themselves?" asked Thompson.

"I wouldn't know. You know as much as I do."

"They may fear the cat race."

"If I had their stuff, I'd fear nothing."

The telephone rang and Kennebec lifted it. He listened and then hung up slowly.

"Your job—" he said. "Lane and Downing are making a running fist fight to see who lands on Circle One. If you go a-screeching fast, you might be able to make it by the time they hit."

"Right—" and Thompson left unceremoniously.

He hit the street, landed in his car, and was a half block away, siren screaming, before he realized that he had a passenger. It was Patricia.

"Huh?" he asked foolishly.

"Well, the engine was running, wasn't it?"

"I didn't notice."

"Fine thing."

"You must have heard."

"Who hasn't. Come on, Billy. A little more soup. I know that pair and they won't waste time."

Thompson poured more power into the car and it increased in speed. The way was cleared for him, though it took some expert driving to cut around and through the traffic, stopped by the demanding throat of the official siren.

Thompson roared up the main road to Mojave, sent the guard-rail gates flying dangerously over the heads of onlookers, and sped out onto the tarmacadam. The dust of the rough landing was just starting to rise as Thompson slid into the outskirts of the circle of ships. His car skidded dangerously on locked wheels, and he used the deceleration of the vehicle to catapult himself forward. He landed running and disappeared into the circling dust.

He could be certain that Lane and Downing would be at the center of this whirling mass.

Lane blinked. Downing shook his head in disbelief. Both recharged their modines and—

"That's about enough!" snapped Thompson, coming through the dust. "You pair of idiots."

They whirled.

"No, you didn't miss, either of you." He waved his own modine. The aperture was wide open. "But I've got a job to do and you aren't going to spoil it on the first try. I'd hate to report to Co-ordinator Kennebec that I'd failed—doubly. And that all there were to his plans were two hardly scarred corpses."

He tossed his weapon on the ground and nursed his hand.

"You're the fool," said Downing. "Don't you know you can't absorb the output of three on one of 'em?"

"I did," snapped Thompson. "Though I'd rather use a baseball bat on both of you."

"We didn't intend to hurt anybody," explained Lane.

"Good. Now that that's over, you might play sweet for a while, doing penance for burning my hand."

"You mean we're going to work together?" asked Lane in disbelief.

"And you're going to act as though you liked it."

"I won't like it," scowled Downing.

"Just make it look good. You've got a job to do, and once it is done you can go rivet-cutting for all I care."

"It's an idea."

"All right. But listen, you pair of fools, Patricia is coming through this haze you kicked up. Take it easy."

"Pat!" it was a duet.

"Yeah, though you should both call her Miss Kennebec after this performance."

"You leave her out of this," snapped Lane.

"After one more statement. You fellows can fight all you want to, but remember, if you're fighting for Pat, just consider how she'd feel to A, if as and when A chilled B to get rid of B's competition. Now let's behave ourselves—and if you're asked, this was a fine shindy; a real interesting whingding."

Clancey saw the four of them emerge from the aura of dust and he held his head. "Look at 'em, chief. It ain't goin' to last. I know it ain't. Mis's Kennebec holding an arm of each of them and Mr. Thompson chatting to all three from behind."

"Clancey, this may be the calm before the storm. But from what I hear, both of them will be a long way from Sol when the tornado winds up. They're heading for the Big Man's office right now. He'll tell 'em."

"I think I get it," said Lane. "He wants us to analyze it. That's why this motion of our heads to the thing."

"You may be right."

"This is a long way from here, though. I don't quite get it."

Kennebec explained his reasons for playing the Little Man's game.

"O.K., chief. I've heard of this cat race," said Downing.

"You have?"

"Only malcontent rumors. Tramps, adventurers, and the like are inclined to take runs like that for the sheer loneliness of it—and the desire to set foot where no man ever stood before. It's about the limit of run with even a Guard ship. I suppose any rumors can be discounted, but I've been given to understand that they are a rather nasty kind of personality."

"Being cats they would be," added Lane.

"Not necessarily," objected Thompson. "We are basic primate-culture, but we don't behave like apes."

"No?" asked Kennebec with a sly smile.

"O.K."

"Now," said Kennebec. "They've chosen you two for the job in spite of our explanations that you are slightly inclined toward dangerous rivalry. Why they insist I do not know. Be that as it may, gentlemen, you have this project. You have twenty-five ships each, all armed to the best of Solar technique. You'll have to play it close to your vest, I gather, since this machine or bomb is at present running through their system. Therefore I order you, officially, to refrain from any competitive action until this project is completed. The Little Man has detectors to locate the thing, you'll each get one of them. Track it down and analyze it. Destroy it after you could reproduce it. Thompson, your only job is to remind this pair of worthies that their prime job is to finish this project."

"It may be not too hard," smiled Thompson. "I won't have any trouble."

"Look, Downing, if this thing is as important as they claim, we're fools not to work together. Right?"

"As corny as it sounds—the fate of races depends—I believe the Little Man. Until this fool project is over, no fight."

"Shake."

Downing made a "wait" gesture. He picked up an ornate dinner candle from the mantelpiece and lit it. He took cigarettes, offered one to Lane, and they shook hands. And they lit their cigarettes in the same candle flame.

And Thompson said to Kennebec: "A pair of showmen."

"And the best flight commanders in the Guard, confound it!"

Stellor Downing, out of his Martian uniform and wearing the dress uniform of Terra, piloted Patricia Kennebec through the tables to a seat. "Stop worrying," he laughed.

"I suppose I should," she admitted.

"Then please do."

"I will. It isn't complimentary to you, is it?"

"I wouldn't worry about that."

"All right. But I still think I'm fostering trouble for both of you."

"By coming out with me tonight? Lane asked—but he was late. He can't object to my making plans first, can he?"

"He admitted that he had only himself to blame."

"Then?"

"But I can't help thinking that I'm the cause—"

"Look, Pat. Analyze us. Cliff is Venusite. His family went to Venus about six hundred years ago—probably on the same ship that mine left for Mars on at about the same time. Lane's impetuous and slightly wildman. I'm more inclined to calculate. Dance?"

"Yes—that was a quick change of subject, Stell. How do you do it?"

"The music just started—and my basic idea in coming here was to dance with you."

"How about ordering? They'll get the stuff while we're dancing."

"Everything's ordered," he smiled. He drew back her chair, offered her an arm, and led her to the dance floor.

Downing's dancing was excellent. He was precise, deft, and graceful despite his size. The orchestra finished the piece, and then with a drum-roll introduction led into the classic "Mars Waltz."

The step was long and slow and though some of the other couples drifted off the floor to await something more springy, they finished the long number with a slight flourish.

Another drum-roll, and: "Ladies and Gentlemen," said the announcer, "that number was in honor of Stellor Downing, number one Flight Commander of the Martian sector of the Solar Guard!"

There was a craning of necks to see the Martian, and Downing politely saluted before he retreated to his table.

"And in this corner ... pardon me, I mean over here, ladies and gentlemen, we have Clifford Lane, the top Flight Commander of the Venus sector!"

The necks swiveled like the spectators at a tennis match and the spotlight caught Cliff, standing at the door with a woman on each arm.

At a word from the manager, four large, square-shouldered men in tuxedos accepted two tables. Base lines for defense—

But Lane merely nodded affably in the bright spotlight. "Thanks, and now, professor, that light is bright. Play, George. The Caramanne if you please."

"But I can't dance the Caramanne," objected the girl on his right.

"And I wouldn't dance it in public," said the girl on his left.

"Well, we all know someone who can and will," laughed Cliff. He led them to Downing's table, shook hands with Stellor and underwent a ten-second grip-trying match. He introduced them all around and then asked: "Downing, may I steal her for a moment? I think she's the only one present that can hang on while I take care of the Caramanne."

"For a moment," said Downing.

The four men in tuxedos blinked and shook their heads. The manager took a quick, very short drink. It was a draft of sheer relief.

The pulse-beating rhythm of the native dance of Venus started with rapid tomtom, and then carried up into the other instruments. With the floor to themselves, Cliff and Patricia covered most of it in the whirling, quick-step.

"A fine specimen of fidelity you'd make," she laughed.

"Well, you were busy. I had to do something."

"You seem to do all right. They're both rather special."

"Know them?"

"Only by nodding acquaintance."

"Well, any time you have time to spare for Cliff Lane, just let me know and I'll toss 'em overboard and come running."

"And in the meantime?"

"And in the meantime, I'm not going to rot."

The dance swung into the finish, which left them both breathing hard. Lane escorted Patricia back to the table, where Downing sat silent. As they came up, a third man approached. Lane seated Patricia and then greeted the new-comer.

"Hi, Billy. Lucky, we've got a girl for you, too."

Thompson breathed out. "Oh," he said surveying the situation. Both situations looked him over and smiled. "Lenore, and Karen, this is Billy Thompson. He's in division."

"Which division?" asked Lenore.

"Subdivision," grinned Thompson. "I'm the guy they got to comb these guys out of each other's hair."

"Poor man," sympathized Karen.

"You gals match for him," laughed Cliff. He tossed a coin.

"Heads!" called Lenore.

"You lose—take him," chuckled Lane.

Lenore put her arm through Thompson's. "Nope," she said brightly, "I win."

The spotlight hit the table. "We might as well finish this," laughed the announcer. "I present the referee ... pardon me, folks, I mean the top man of the Terran sector; Flight Commander Billy Thompson!"

The music started, and all three couples went to dance to a medley of Strauss' waltzes.

IV.

"It was all sort of whirligig, like," explained Patricia. "We didn't get home until along toward the not-so-wee large hours of the morning."

"I know," responded her father dryly. "The whole gang of you were raiding the icebox at five."

"The rest of them left shortly afterward."

"All of them?"

"No, Stellor outsat them and lingered to say goodnight."

"What do you think of Stellor?"

"I've always thought highly of Stellor. He's got everything. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it."

"And Cliff Lane?"

"Cliff is strictly on the impulse."

"I wouldn't say that," objected her father. "After all, both of them got where they are because of their ability."

"Well, Cliff gives the impression that he just thought of it."

"Of what?"

"Of whatever he was going to do next."

"A good thing nobody ever asked you to decide between them."

"It would be difficult."

"Well, it won't be necessary. They're leaving after the next change of watch."

"So soon?"

"The Little Man gave the impression that all of us were fighting for time."

"I see. You do believe that this is important?"

"I can see no other reason for it."

"Um-m-m. Well, I'll be down to see them off."

"All of us will."

"I was worried, last night. I could see a beautiful shindy in the offing."

"And it didn't get bad at all?"

"No," answered Patricia in surprise. "I think Cliff saved the day by showing up with a couple of women. I wouldn't have wanted to sit between the two of them all by myself. That would have been strictly murder. And I wouldn't have wanted to see Stellor off without saying farewell to Cliff. Stellor got here first with the plans—I was strictly a fence. I didn't know what to do. So I did it. And everything turned out fine."

"You can hope that it will always turn out fine. What'll you do if one of them turns to some other woman?"

Patricia laughed wryly. "I'd lose both of them, Dad. Believe me, I would. The other would barge in and set sail for the woman just as sure as I'm a foot high."

"But ... but ... but—"

"I don't really know—nor do I care too much."

"Anticipating me? You mean you don't know which one really wants you and which other is just here for sheer rivalry?"

Patricia nodded. "They don't, either," she said sagely. "It is a good thing that we have time. Time will out, as you've always said. Time will get us the answer. Right now I'm neither worried about time, or even not having my mind made up on a future. I've got a number of years of fun ahead before then."

"Bright girl," laughed Kennebec. "Now let's get going. We want to see them off, don't we?"

Two hours later, seventy-five of the Solar Guard's finest ships arrowed into the sky above Mojave. In the lead, determined by a toss of the coin, was Stellor Downing's command. Thompson's outfit, running to his own taste, encircled the Downing cone at the base in a short cylinder, while bringing up the rear was Cliff Lane's long spiral. An hour out of Mojave, the flight went into superdrive and left the Solar Combine far behind in a matter of minutes.

By the clock, it was weeks later that the Solar Guard's flight dropped down out of superdrive and took a look around. The Little Man, in Thompson's ship, used his own instruments and indicated that the yellow star—it was more than a star at their distance—dead ahead was the one they sought.

"Downing," called Lane. "How's your power reserve?"

"Like yours, probably."

"We'd better find a close-in, hotter-than-the-hinges planet where they won't be populating and charge up, what say?"

"Good idea. Better than the original plan of charging in flight. If it's close in, it'll have ceased revolution, probably. We can hit the twilight zone and rest our feet a bit."

"O.K. I'll put the searchers on it."

"We'd better take it by relays, though. A fleet that's planeted for charging isn't in the most admirable position for attack."

"Reasonable. You charge, Thompson'll guard, and I'll scout around."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," growled Downing. "You and Thompson will both guard."

"Afraid?"

"No, you idiot. I'm jealous as hell. I don't want you to take all the glory."

"And that's probably the truth," laughed Lane.

"Take it or leave it."

Thompson interrupted. "This sounds like the leading edge of a fight. Stop it. We'll play it safe—Downing's way."

"O.K.," assented Lane cheerfully enough.

"Thing that bothers me," muttered Downing, "is the fact that if this bunch have any stuff, we're being recorded on the tapes right now."

"So?"

"And if they're as nasty as the Little Man claims, they'll be here with all of their nastiness."

"All right," snapped Lane. "We've got detectors and analyzers, haven't we?"

"Uh-huh. But we're a long way from home base. What we've got we've got to keep—and use. They can toss the book at us and go home for another library. Follow?"

"Yup. Located a planet yet?"

"Haven't you been paying attention?"

"No. You're in the lead. I'm merely following as best I can."

"Then sharp up. We're heading for the innermost planet now."

"Go ahead—we'll go in to see. Then Lane and I will scout the sky above to keep off the incoming bunch, if any," said Thompson.

It was an armed watch. Downing's flight landed and set up the solar collectors. From the ships there came a group of planet-mounted modines which had little to offer over the turrets in the ships save adding to their numbers.

The other two flights dropped off their planet-mounts, too, since they were of no use a-flight and might even become a detriment if trouble demanded swift maneuver.

Then a regular patrol schedule was set up and alternately Lane and Thompson took to the sky to cover the area. The detectors were overhauled and stepped up to the theoretical limit of their efficiency, and couplers and fire-control systems were hooked in and calibrated.

It took nine days by the clock to get the camp set up, and Downing's flight was almost recharged by the end of that time.

As Thompson's flight went in for re-charge, Downing and Lane discussed the camp.

"I say leave it here," said Lane. "Might be handy."

"When?"

"I don't have any real idea. But we've got one hundred and fifty extra dymodines planet-mounted down there. I say leave it there until we get this problem off our chest."

"Expect trouble?" scoffed Downing.

Lane nodded. "I expect this to end in a running fight with one of the two of us making a blind but accurate stab in the dark and getting that machine the Little Man talks about. If the going gets tough, we can hole out here for some time with the solar collectors running the planet mounts."

"Wonder why the cat race hasn't come up," mused Downing. "It isn't sensible to permit any alien to establish a planethead in your system."

"They might not even know."

"Unlikely."

"Look, though," offered Lane, "we came in sunward, almost scorching our tails. The solar centroid of interference might make any flight detection undistinguishable from background noise."

"Yeah? Remember that we came in over the edge of the sun from somewhere. We were out in space mostly."

"Then you answer it—you asked it!"

The catmen came as Thompson's flight left the camp and Lane's ships dropped into the charging positions. They came in a horde, they came and they swarmed over the two flights that were patrolling.

In a wide circle, the Solarians raced just outside of the camp. The planet mounts covered the sky above, and a veritable arched roof of death-dealing energy covered the twenty-five ships of Lane's flight. The space between the Solar circle and the catman circle was ablaze with energy, and the ether was filled with interference. Even the subether carried its share of crackle, and the orders went on the tone-modulated code instead of voice.

Solid ordnance dropped, and exploded through the crisscrossing of the planet mounts, and the planeted ships ran their charges down instead of up by adding to the fury over their heads. They were sitting ducks and they knew it.

But unlike the sitting duck, these could shoot back. And they took their toll.

Then without apparent reason, the flight of catmen left their whirling circle on a tangent and streaked for space.

Behind them lay nine smoking ships—prey to the Solar Guard.

But they had not gone in vain. There were seven of the Solar Guard that would fly no more—seven ships and a total of one hundred and seventy-five men.

"Whew. They haven't any sense at all," snarled Downing.

"Either that or they value their lives rather poorly."

"Must be. I wouldn't know. But usually a vicious mind doesn't value life too highly."

"I wouldn't be too certain of that."

"All right. I won't belabor the point. I don't know. It just seems—"

The next ten days was under rigid rule. Lane's ships charged, and the last day was spent in replenishing the charges lost in the short but torrid fight.

"Now," said Lane, "what's with this hell-machine that the Little Man mentions?"

"The detectors do not detect," objected Downing.

They confronted the Little Man with the nonoperating detector. He shook his tiny head and worried visibly. He puzzled over it, juggled the circuit controls, and then threw up his hands in bafflement. He spoke to Hotang Lu:

"The field must be so great that the detector is paralyzed."

"It is more than likely. Remember, it was working on Tlembo. It was working on ... on ... I have not the word for their star. Many many light-years away it is good. Close by—it must be paralyzed."

"Then we must make it less sensitive."

"Do you know how?"

"I did once, long ago. But I have forgotten my techniques and my ability lags because of lack of practice."

"And I devoted myself to the arts instead of technology. A revered master at the problem of mental culture; I cannot invade this gadget with tools."

Hotang Lu smiled. "You might try psychoanalyzing it."

"Yes, if it contained but one memory-pattern," laughed Toralen Ki.

"They'd have done better to have sent a plumber and an electrician than we two failures."

"At this point, we must attempt to convey the idea of a search for the master machine."

"It will not be hard. This race will search rather than return home with an incomplete mission. The rivalry that exists between the leaders insures the success of our plan despite any set-back."

Toralen Ki and Hotang Lu faced Lane and Downing. All four shook their heads in complete misunderstanding. Then Hotang Lu sketched a crude diagram of the catmen's star-system. He indicated the master machine and also indicated their search for it and its ultimate destruction.

Lane gritted his teeth. "How big?" he asked aloud, and pointed from the machine to several bits of equipment in the ship.

Toralen Ki said: "Don't know."

Hotang Lu nodded in agreement and tried to convey their ignorance of the size.

"I gather that they've never seen it."

"Chances are if they'd seen it they'd have bopped it themselves," observed Downing.

"Reasonable attitude."

"Well, we have about ten to the twenty-seventh power square miles of blank and utter nothing to curry-comb for a dingus of some sort."

"Blank and utter nothing—hell! I wouldn't mind blank and utter nothing. We could comb it if it weren't for sun, planets, asteroids, meteors, noise-impulses from nowhere-in-particular, just plain hell, and a crew of wild-personalized catmen." Lane paused to take a deep breath. "As it is, the latter is the most complicated of the bunch mentioned. We can't spread out in a space-lattice and comb. We've got to do one of two things. Either we enlist the help—or get freedom of search—of or from the catmen or we comb in a large and armed body."

"That's a nice problem. Either way."

"As has been mentioned before—'Take it or leave it!'"

"Mind explaining how you go about getting chummy with a race that took a swing without asking questions first?"

"That's partly our fault. We just invaded."

"We couldn't spend a few months getting chummy first. We needed power—and bad."

"All right," agreed Lane. "But they didn't know that. And it's all right with me because I'm leery of letting anyone know that I'm vulnerable. Especially people I don't know and therefore cannot trust."

"Have we got what it takes to barge in there and settle down? Can we hold them off until we can make it clear that we don't want their stinking planet?"

"Have we?"

"If we do right now, there'll be a lot of us that stay there for good."

"How many of us are expendable?"

"All of us as long as that dingbat is destroyed."

Lane grimaced. "And how important is it?"

Downing gave an "I don't know" wave of his hands. "We might go looking for trouble, Lane."

"Meaning catch us a single shipload of catmen and let 'em go, well filled with cream and a fine explanation?"

"Might even get a rat or two for them."

"Meaning?"

Downing grinned maliciously. "Guilty conscience?" he taunted. "Forget it, hothead."

"Don't make cracks, Iceberg. O.K., forget it. It's probably the best idea yet. How do we bait a cat trap?"

"Cream—or catnip."

"Very funny," interrupted Thompson. "Exceedingly amusing. You make me laugh, haha," he added in a flat, disgusted tone.

"Shut up," chorused Lane and Downing.

"All right. Then stop making light of this. Bait a cat trap. You'll just have to pirate the planet lanes and catch you one."

"The trouble with you, Thompson, is that you have no sense of humor."

Thompson subsided. He realized that this light banter was a cover-up for a deeper feeling. Deprive them of niggling at one another in a light way and they might take to it in a more serious vein.

"It is agreed, then, that we grab us a boatload of catmen and indoctrinate them with Solarian good will and propaganda."

"It is," said Downing. "Time's a-wasting. Let's grab."

V.

Like a contracting funnel, the Solar Guard closed down on the catman ship. They crowded the catman spacer, forced him into a pocket, and then started to drive him their way.

But unlike a pocketed ship, the catman slashed back. An invisible beam came from somewhere on the craft. It slashed out, closed down upon a midsection of the nearest Solar Guard, and ripped the belly out of the ship. It was both brutal and sickening. One moment the Solarian craft was forcing the catman ship to give space or collide. The next moment the midsection had been gouged away; ripped out as with a vicious claw or a set of cruel, gigantic teeth. The crushed midsection was flung free of the stricken craft and as the ship collapsed over its open belly, and died, the catman slashed at another and another of the Solarians.

"Superdrive!" exploded Lane.

The slashing catman got one more ship before the Solar Guard went into the superdrive and raced away.

"Did you record that?" asked Lane.

"Tried to. The recorder blew."

"So did all of them. Creepers! What a nasty thing to have around."

Thompson said: "One of my techs is repairing a recorder now. He thinks he can give the wave analysis."

"How?"

"He finds that certain of the crystalline structures in the wave recorder are de-crystallized."

"Meaning what?" demanded Lane.

"Meaning that certain frequencies hit the nuclear resonance of the crystalline structures. I'll let you know."

"Let us know quick," said Downing. "If we can analyze it, we can either reproduce it or shield against it."

"Cats at seven o'clock, forty degrees!" exploded the observer in Lane's ship.

"Anywhere else?" demanded Lane.

No answer.

"Fight 'em," snapped Lane.

There were six catmen converging on Lane's command. The rest of the Solar crew flung around and headed for the local fight. Lane's dymodines flashed out and were stopped cold by barriers.

"Crash stations!" ordered Lane. "Prepare for total destruction!"

The six catmen got above Lane's ship and drove him downward with pressors and an occasional light—it must have been very light—touch of the belly-tearing beam. Above the six were the sixty-odd Solarians fighting to get through and fighting a useless battle.

"We can't damage 'em," snarled Lane. "Superdrive—right through 'em!"

He almost made it. His ship rammed up under the stellar drive, came level with the screen of catmen, and almost made it through. But four of them reached forth with the belly-tearing beams and took separate parts of his ship. The warning creak of plates caused the pilot to stop.

Lane's ship was thrust down below again.

"Superdrive—away!"

Lane's ship turned and dropped.

The action was too fast for the Solarian crew, and he left them far behind. But the catmen were right with him all the way.

"Cut it," said Lane in a tired voice. "Let 'em play. Save our strength for later when we can do something."

They went inert. No drive, no sign of fight, no objection.

A side-force hit them, slapping the ship sidewise about fifty feet. It jarred the ship's delicate mechanisms into a short fluster of unreal alarms and ringing signals, but the sturdy stuff was not permanently damaged.

Still no response from Cliff's ship.

They poked him down brutally with a pressor and then jerked him back up again.

More alarms and more nosebleed among the crew.

They caught the ship in force-zones and played catch with it from one catman to the other, poking and thrusting. They ripped off one of the turrets with the snatcher.

Then they stopped. And they waited. Quietly they hung above Lane's ship, watching, watching, watching.

A full, solid, nerve-breaking hour they waited, and the men in Lane's ship waited, wondering.

"Try it!" snapped Lane.

The ship leaped into motion, driving to one side.

Snatchers raced out and caught the fleeing ship, dragged it back, and again they went through the pushing, pulling, tossing program. And then again they stopped with a few, final perfunctory pokes and shoves.

"They're catmen, all right," snarled Lane.

The rest of the Solar Guard came up, and once more they tried to break through the screen to free Lane's ship. Lane shook his head. "Pilot. How long under superdrive before we hit the speed of light?"

"Seven minutes."

"Then drive straight down. I don't think any beam can exceed the speed of light. Once we get up there, they can't reach forward after us, at least."

Lane's ship dropped. And the catmen followed, maintaining their distance with superior balance and accuracy. A minute passed. Two. Three. Four. Five. And then at an even six, a snatcher reached forward and took Lane's ship by the empennage and shook it enough to rend a few seams.

"O.K., cut it," he said wearily. "I wonder what they want of us beside to play cat-and-mouse?"

There were three more sessions of the cat-and-mouse trick, separated by hour intervals. Then the six catmen, their nature satisfied, took hold of Lane's ship in a cluster of snatcher beams. Lane heard the plates give as the fields-of-focus closed down.

He closed his eyes, breathed a short prayer, and waited.

Stellor Downing called Thompson. "Back to One," he said.

"Giving up?"

"Can you think of anything to do?"

"No."

"Well, let's get back where we can plan."

Thompson assented. It was reluctant, however, and a day later, when they landed on One at their camp, he faced Downing. "Sort of solves your problem, doesn't it?"

"Look," snapped Stellor Downing. "I've got a few feelings and a number of nerves. Lane and I were not deeply in love with one another. Yes, it solves a lot of problems, Thompson, but don't taunt me about it, or I'll take a modine to your throat, see?"

"We might have tried again," insisted Thompson.

"We might have tried for a month. We couldn't even touch them. If you're intimating that I gave up quick—?"

"You weren't leaning over backwards."

"Quoting an old, famous fable, 'sometimes it is better to fall flat on your face.'"

"Meaning?"

"We've got whole skins. They were after captives, not meat. They wanted the same thing we do but they got 'em first."

"So?"

"So we take whatever wave analysis we have and try to figure 'em out. If we can reproduce any of that stuff, we'll go back."

"Hm-m-m."

"Look, Thompson, as far as this job is concerned, your job of keeping Lane and myself out of one another's hair is over. One head of hair is gone, see."

"And what do you intend to do about it?"

"I intend to carry on. Now forget about the fact that a personal grudge of mine has been taken out of my hands and let's get on to working out some means of fighting back. Lane is gone. I'm trying not to gloat. But you're not helping. So stop it."

Toralen Ki shook his head in a worried manner. "One is gone."

"A substitute?"

"I fear that any substitute may not be as good."

"Nonsense, Toralen. Were there a better man than either, we'd have selected him; if either had not existed, a lesser man would have sufficed."

"The right kind is so very few," complained Toralen Ki.

"We can find one. We will have to return to their planet to do so, and it will be harder for us—but it can be done. No good general has only one plan of battle."

"But so much depends—Ah well, despair is the product of the inferior intellect. We will, we must carry on."

Hotang Lu opened his large case. "I will contact our superiors immediately and ask their advice."

"Yes," nodded Toralen Ki. "Also ask them if they have the answer to the less-sensitive detector, yet."

Hotang turned the communicator on and waited for it to warm up. His hand dropped into the case and came up with another small instrument of extreme complexity.

"Once the suppressor is destroyed," he said with a smile of contemplation, "we can use this on them."

"And that means success!" breathed Toralen Ki. "From that time on, our plans—"

"Wait, the communicator is operating," said Hotang Lu, waving a hand. He reached for the communicator's controls and started to talk swiftly, pressing his head against the plate above the voice-transmitter.

Flight Commander Thompson handed Downing a sheaf of papers. "There's the wave analysis," he said with pride.

Downing looked them over. "You've got the technical crew. Can we reproduce all or any of it?"

"Only by tearing down a couple of modine directors. The boys can convert the spotting, training, and ranging circuits—they'll use the components—and rebuild the thing to generate barriers. The snatcher is easy. We'll just juggle the main modulating system of a tractor generator. That comes out so simple I feel slightly sick at not having thought of it myself."

"What is its analysis?" asked Downing.

"Couple a force beam with a tractor focus-zone generator. The tractor, you know, operates on the field-of-focus principle. A rough sphere at the end of the beam—anything in that field is drawn. The snatcher merely applies the field-of-focus idea to the side-thrust of a force beam. You raise the power several times and anchor it with a superdrive tube coupled so that the thrust is balanced against a spatial thrust instead of the ship. That tears the guts out of anything."

"I have an idea that you might be able to cut instead of tear if you include some nuclear-resonant frequencies in the field of focus generator."

"Is it necessary?"

"Might be interesting," said Downing. "They tear. If we land on them with something that quickly, precisely, quietly, and almost painlessly slices a sphere out of one of their ships, they may be impressed."

"You have something there. I'm going to tear into some of the planet-mounted jobs. We are now sixty-three ships. I can make one snatcher out of every dymodine that's planet-mounted out here. Shall I?"

"How long?"

"Ten hours each."

"Six hundred and thirty hours. Twenty-six days and six hours."

"We'll make it in twenty days. By the time the boys get to Number Ten or Twelve they'll be working shortcut and on production-line basis and the piece-time will drop."

"Twenty days is long enough, believe me. We'll toss in my gang and Lane's gang, too. They can go to work on the modine directors and make barriers out of 'em if you claim they'll work."

"They'll work."

"Then let's get going. The Little Guys are tearing their hair as it is."

Thompson nodded.

"But look," said Downing, "don't rip up any dymodines ahead. Convert slowly. If the catmen attack, we'll need all we can muster to fight 'em off."

"Right."

"And as for Cliff Lane—he isn't dead until we prove it, see? So far as I know, he might be getting an education in cat-culture right now."

Thompson looked at Downing for a long time, saying nothing. Then he turned and left, still without comment.

Cliff Lane and his ship were herded down to the ground. His ship was surrounded by the six catmen, their beams pointed at him, waiting. For an hour they waited, using all the patience of the feline. It got on the nerves of the humans, and they wanted to do something.

Their trouble was that they didn't quite know what to do.

Cliff, after the full hour had ticked off, said: "I'm thinking of the cat that got a neuropsychosis over mice because one came out of the hole and kicked him in the face."

"Think it's wise?"

"Never was very fond of cats," admitted Lane glumly. "I find them even more obnoxious when I see them employing intelligence. That makes it worse—"

"But just going out—?"

"D'ye want to sit here for months?"

"Think they would?"

"Probably. At least, long enough to have us tearing out each other's hair."

"But—"

"But nothing. Have we got the planet-analysis yet?"

The aide pawed through the delivery basket on Lane's desk and came up with a sheet of paper. He read: "Pressure sixteen point three. Temperature eight-one, humidity thirty-seven. Air: Oxy twenty-one, nitrogen all the rest—with a trace, of course, of CO_2. Pollen count not too bad, bacteria count about normal, but the spore count is zero."

"No spores?"

"Nope."

"Gosh," smiled Lane. "Imagine a world where they can't smother a steak with mushrooms!"

"So what are you going to do?"

"Me? I'm going out there and tell 'em what they're missing. Imagine—no mushrooms!"

"I'm just thinking of what a nice world this would be to do tropical research. I've even seen fungus growing on steel."

"No, you haven't. Bakelite I'll buy, but when the stuff grows on steel it is growing on the dust that has collected. Well, tell the boys in the back room to cover me as I emerge."

Lane undogged the spacelock and the rams pulled it back out of the frame. Riding on the front of the automatic runway, Lane stood in an indolent attitude, the thumb of his right hand hooked over the belt just one-half inch from the butt of his modine. His other hand held a cigarette.

As the runway hit the ground, Lane took a last puff of the cigarette, stepped to the ground and dropped the glowing butt. He crushed it with his heel, and then took five forward steps, looking about himself with open curiosity.

The catman ship directly in front of him opened its spacelock and one of the catmen emerged.

Lane walked forward boldly to inspect this alien creature. He acted as though he were not a prisoner, but a visitor—and it was probably that attitude that saved him from further cat-and-mouse, for the catman seemed unsure of the next move.

The catman was more man than cat, just as the human—in the catman's nomenclature an apeman—the human was more man than ape. He stood erect. His legs were long and excellently muscled. His shoulders were broad and sloping, and his arms were well rounded. The temperature was high—to Lane's liking, being Venusite—and the scanty uniform of the catman matched the shorts, high-laced boots, shoulder straps and cape of the Solarian. The catman's hands were long and spatulate, and the fingernails were as broad as Cliff's. The retractile claws were gone—deleted in a hundred thousand years of evolution. Gone were the fur and the tail and the slitted eyes, and all of the other basic cat-characteristics. The whiskers were gone also, and the ears were no longer mobile, but on each side of the head just as the human's. They were still pointed on top and resembled, or at least reminded Cliff of a cat's ears modified in human mold.

Catman?

Well, there was something distinctly feline about the creature, humanoid though he seemed. He was lithe, and instead of walking forward, he prowled. There was a quick alertness—not visible, but felt—to the catman's every move.

Yes, this creature was definitely of feline evolution.

And Cliff Lane walked forward boldly. He smiled inwardly, gaining confidence from the fact that he was still alive and unharmed. Prisoner he might be, but he was no humble prisoner. He was proud and haughty, and he was not taking any guff.

He strode forward to hasten the first meeting between Primate and Feline on the common ground of civilization.

VI.

The catman's steps faltered. This alien, that had come from some distant star, was definitely primate in evolution. He knew primates—they had primates on Sscantoo, here—and primates were nasty animals. They were filled with curiosity—mass curiosity—that had been the basis for a platitude on Sscantoo: "Curiosity saved a mansee." When you killed or wounded a primate, the woods would fill up with curious, chattering hordes of his fellow-primates. It made life rather dangerous unless you were prepared to fight your way out.

And this curious fellow was none the less a primate in spite of the fact that his face bore the stamp of civilization and he wore clothing. He was curious—even more curious than one of the Sscantovian apes. He walked forward boldly in spite of the fact that he was a prisoner and must know that fact. The catman wondered how bold the primate would have been if his ship had landed of its own free will—or had landed despite the objections of his six ships.

If he were bold now, a prisoner, he would be downright arrogant as a victorious captor.

Linzete, the catman, stopped. He didn't like primates, and the idea of confronting a primate armed with intelligence as well as the natural instincts of the apeman bothered him.

At Linzete's commandatory motion, Cliff Lane stopped. But not until he'd taken a full step beyond the catman's command just to show him. Twenty paces apart they stood, eying one another.

Cliff smiled.

Linzete's eyes glittered.

Cliff shrugged. This was getting nowhere.

Linzete took a step forward, and Cliff stepped forward two steps.

Linzete seemed pleased. This primate, he thought, is no larger nor does he seem stronger than I. I do not believe that he is as quick.

"A move out of you," thought Lane, "and I'll clip you!"

Linzete stooped and picked up a pebble from the ground. He put it on top of another pebble, and then stepped back and to one side by fifty paces. He waved Cliff a waiting motion, and then with a lightning motion Linzete drew his side arm and fired.

The sharp crack of electrical discharge split the air. A dazzling pencil of energy spat forth and the pebble disappeared in a blinding coruscation.

Lane laughed.

Linzete scowled. That sound was very much like the chanting and cachinnation that went on among the primates when they were amused.

Cliff Lane stooped, picked up a pebble and threw it high above Linzete's head. The modine came from Cliff's holster, poised for an instant while it spat energy, and then was thrust back home again. The motion was a flowing swift thing of muscle and timing, and the end-result was the explosion of the pebble in midair.

The flash and the explosive report of tortured air and matter caused Linzete to blink. When his eyes opened again, the primate's weapon was holstered.

Linzete's breath came out in a sharp hiss.

Lane shrugged and remembered the hiss of an annoyed cat.

Sound in the air caused both of them to look up. A small ship was circling the open spot, and it landed not far from Cliff. Clad in spotless white—spotless and seamless white—from toe to fingertip, and an inverted bowl of clear glass or plastic, the catman emerged from his open craft and came forward. On his back was a small tank and valves for air, obviously.

Cliff puzzled for only a moment. The white-clad one lifted a square case from the plane and, coming forward boldly, snapped down a portable set of legs and opened the door in front of Cliff.

From the cabinet he took slides of glass. He took Cliff's hand between his gloved fingers and pressed the human's fingers to the slide. He caught the human's breath on another slide. He made a convulsive motion with his face, and Cliff smiled and coughed on another slide. From the cabinet he took a scalpel and with a deft motion—and before Cliff could act—the doctor took a neat slice out of the small finger of Cliff's left hand. He doused the cut immediately; the substance removed the pain, at any rate.

He took a sample of Cliff's blood, scraped the skin of Cliff's forearm, and clipped off eight or nine of Cliff's crisp black hairs.

Then he closed the cabinet and sealed it. From the plane he took a large spray, and setting it up aground, the doctor proceeded to stand, turn, and generally bathe in the atomizer output. He sprayed the outside of the cabinet with it, and then proceeded to work the ground and air over, spraying in all directions, including the other catman, Linzete. The doctor finished his proceedings by spraying Cliff Lane's ship on the outside, and turning the spray into the spacelock and liberally drenching the runway and entrance of the Solarian vessel.

Cliff nodded understandingly. He didn't even object to being sprayed himself, for the stuff was aromatic though a bit sticky when it started to dry.

The doctor took off.

"Wonder what he'll find," mused Cliff. And then a large white craft landed. It was completely inclosed, and the driver's compartment was set off from the rest.

"The paddy-wagon," grinned Cliff. Clad as the doctor had been, four catmen came from the craft bearing sprays. One of them approached Cliff and motioned for him to follow. Cliff nodded, but turned and called back:

"Let 'em sterilize to their heart's content, fellows. After all, we want their co-operation!"

He entered the large ship as the other three catmen entered the spacelock of Lane's ship and went to work.

Within fifteen minutes, Cliff Lane was residing in a sterile, spotlessly white room. The windows were sealed and the door was air-tight. A portable atmosphere-cleaner purred in one corner, freshening the air and cooling it. From a speaker in the wall there came music—of a sort—and through a double window in the wall Lane and the catmen indulged in mutual inspection.

A large block of paper hung on an easel, and a heavy black crayon lay in the tray. Cliff nodded. Heavy black crayon so that his sketchings could be seen from the distance. He smiled, scowled at the music, and then started to sketch.

The Little People had not been able to convey the reasons for their desires to the humans, but human and catmen were not possessed of any form of telepathy to augment their communications. Cliff was a fair cartoonist, and he progressed well.

The catmen began to understand.

The days sped past, marked only by the clock and the chiming of watch-change bells. Dymodines returned from their mountings on the living rock of the innermost planet, they entered the ships of the combined commands, and were converted, one by one. The machine shops in the bellies of the ships hummed and racketed, and the stockroom stores went down. The scrap pile outside on the airless face of One grew as the dymodines were converted; parts of no use were tossed out.

The catmen did not molest them. Not once during the twenty days of labor was there any report, or any sight of the catmen. If the catmen were using scanners on them, the catman scanner used frequencies never tried by humans, for the detectors gave the spectrum a clear ticket.

Yet the strain was there, and the men worked furiously to convert the dymodines to snatchers, because they knew that until they were finished, they were a group of sitting ducks. Dymodines had been blocked by the catmen—and that left them unarmed.

Then on the twentieth day, Stellor Downing gave the order to lift and head for the fourth planet.

In a close formation, the sixty-three ships arrowed into the sky, hit superdrive, and headed away from the sun.

They arrived above Four and began to look for trouble. They circled the planet twice, took a few tentative stabs at the ground with their improved snatchers, and generally let it be known that they were there and seeking either their fellow or knowledge of his whereabouts.

The recognition detectors flashed Lane's trace, and they put direction-finding equipment into gear. They circled above the field upon which lay Cliff Lane's craft.

There was no sign of human life there. The spacelock was closed, and it could not be known whether from the inside or from the outside. Signals gained no answering flash, but the complete confidence with which they circled this field did get them an answer of sorts.

Beams flashed up, and spattered against the barriers of the flight. A pair of extra heavy battlecraft leaped out of underground slides and drove up into Downing's flight. The heavy beams lashed about, and four of Downing's ships folded over their torn midsections. Then Downing's ship answered fire.

It was not spectacular. The sphere of energy was not visible, nor was it heterodyned. It closed upon the midsection of the heavy battlecraft. It cut, quietly and with lightning swift precision. It moved, swinging on a force beam and taking with it a sphere of the battlecraft's middle—a perfect sphere, mirror-finished on the plates, girders, and equipment that met the surface.

The energy ceased and the perfect sphere dropped toward the planet.

Smoke poured from the gaping hole, and the battlecraft buckled, folded, and exploded like a bomb. Bits of broken ship spread far and wide, and the main mass fell back upon the spaceport.

It lay there, inert, smoke trickling from its shapelessness.

It was a blackened monument to two hundred thousand years of civilization.

The other battlecraft sped on through the flight unscathed. It looped high in the space above Downing's flight and crossed around, looped away and came back on the level against Thompson's group. It drove in through the flight, lashing sidewise at Thompson's ships.

And four of them reached out and sliced four large spheres from the battlecraft. Shredded, the ship died in the air. It disintegrated, and it rained metal parts for fifty square miles—a rain of smoking, shapeless masses of deadly steel.

"More?" snapped Stellor Downing.

Blatantly, the flight landed on the field, covered the other ships, and then waited for a move. As Downing said, "It's their move this time!"

The white ship landed in their midst. From it came Lane and his crew. The crew entered their ship, but Lane remained, waiting for Downing. In the crook of his arm he held a small, white-furred creature, and he stroked it gently with his free hand.

"Just lucky," grunted Downing.

"You talk big," retorted Lane. "But stay back, Downing. You're contaminated."

"Meaning?"

"You're alive with deadly bugs."

"Nuts. So are you."

"No I'm not. I've been sterilized within an inch of my life. Look," he said, holding up the Sscantovian equivalent of a guinea pig.

"Cute—but so what?"

"I've got the catmen scared of all Solarians—and from here on in, I'd hate to be any race that bucks us. Take hold of this animal, just for a moment."

Stellor Downing put his hand on the creature's back. He held it for a moment and then let go. Lane put the little animal on the ground and stood back.

"Well?"

"Wait a minute, will you? Even potassium cyanide takes time to kill—"

The little creature was running around, sniffing the ground and obviously looking for food. For three minutes it searched quietly, and then with a plaintive mew, it sat on its haunches and scratched its back. The plaintive cry became louder—and tufts of hair came from the back where the hind paw was scratching.

The creature scratched furiously—and succeeded in de-hairing its back, in the shape of Stellor Downing's hand!

"What in—?"

"Wait."

Downing looked at his hand in a sort of horror.

The scratching increased, and bits of skin followed the pattern of the bare patch. The plaintive cry became strident in a tiny voice. The little animal stopped scratching, turned over on its back and wriggled in the dirt of the spaceport. It wrenched itself back and forth sharply, and with squeals of pain. Its four feet opened and closed against its stomach, and the whites of its eyes gleamed.

A black patch appeared on the pink of the abdomen, and the paws scratched at the spot. It grew, and the pig cried continuously.

Cliff Lane took out his modine and blasted the suffering pig with a shake of his head.

Both he and Downing were a little sick.

"What—?"

"Fungus. As I gather it, the Solar sector of the Galaxy is alive with a violent evolution of fungus. We live in it, we breathe it, and we—eat it. They cringed in horror at what they found on the microscope slides, and this is the fourth pig I've killed. But I'm completely fungicided now, and I can handle 'em. But you see, Downing, you are alive with fungus spores looking for a place to live. They can't live on you, but what few that do escape the bactericidal action of the skin find it quite easy to go to work on an animal that has never been required to strive for life against fungi."

"Are the whole race like this?"

"No. Not entirely. But they haven't our strength against such—not by a jugful. They're right on the edge of the Solar sector, as I get it. They have some fungi, but it's nothing like the stuff we have on Terra. I think that Sol may be the center—the evolution may well have started there, mutated there, and anything that grows elsewhere may be spore-born on the Arrhenius Theory to the rest of the Galaxy. Brother, we're tough!"

"Well, what have we accomplished besides killing guinea pigs, discovering a set of new weapons, and blasting the guts out of a couple of their best craft?"

Lane smiled. "I've succeeded in carrying over to them the problem of why we're here. They do not understand any more than we do, but they're willing to let us seek out the machine."

"What about blasting their ships?"

"Won't bother them too much. They'll rather enjoy the development of the slicing cut—after all their human appearance, they're still cats. They like to fight silently, and slash quietly, and then to slink away in the night. They're strictly predators, and their evaluation of life is rather low."

"So?"

"You may have to prove your prowess with a bit of fighting, Downing. Personal, I mean."

"Well—"

"And you may not. You've always accused me of being brash, bold, and impulsive. All three of 'em got me across to this gang. I've always accused you of being quiet, shy, and coldly-calculating. They'll like those features, too."

Three white-clad doctors surrounded Downing with their sprays.

"That stuff they have is better than the glook they sprayed me with," remarked Lane. "But it doesn't smell as good and it is inclined to sting a bit. They developed it after making me live in a glass-inclosed laboratory for about two weeks."

Downing submitted to the spray with scratching and shrugging. "Tell me," he clipped, "how're the women?"

"Cats," grinned Lane.

Downing grunted. "Sounds like 'sour grapes' to me."

"Frankly, they ain't bad, Downing. But a guy can't do much when he's living in a laboratory."

Downing laughed. "People who live in glass houses shouldn't."

"Shouldn't what?"

"Shouldn't—period!"

"Well, I intend to return after we get this thing off of our chests. This gang is not human. They aren't the kind you could trust, but they are interesting. It is really something to see their civilization—and to see just how catlike they behave. They never laugh. Their exhibition of amusement is a deep-throated purr. And when one of 'em gets his feet stepped on, he hisses like a couple of cats squaring off on the back fence."

Thompson came up, followed by the spraying doctors. "This is all very fine," he said. "But we've wasted a lot of time. The Little Men are getting quite nervous."

Downing looked at Lane. "I'm sort of glad you turned up," he said flatly. "Especially with permission to hunt that thing."

Lane smiled bitterly. "If I hadn't turned up, Downing, you'd have spent the next fifteen years combing this system for confirmation, wouldn't you?"

"Naturally. Now let's find that machine. I've got a little project of rivet-clipping ahead."

Thompson intervened. "Seems to me that you've both accomplished plenty. Lane here gained the confidence of the catmen and Downing has the fleet equipped with heavy stuff."

"Who?" asked Lane. "I have a hunch that it was your doing, Billy."

"And any confidence-getting he did was strictly fear of our natural environment coming here," returned Stellor Downing.

"All right, break it up."

"We're all to return here as soon as we get the machine destroyed," said Lane. "They want to know what the answer is, just as we do. I have a hunch that finding the machine itself will tell us plenty."

VII.

Toralen Ki turned from the communicator. "Hotang," he called. "They have the answer!"

"Good. Then our time has not been wasted! For now we have the other one back."

"The technicians on Tlembo have just given me full and complete instructions on how to lower the sensitivity of the detector to a proper level."

"Not shielding?" asked Hotang Lu skeptically.

Toralen Ki laughed. "What manner of shielding would stop the suppressor wave? Nothing, I know. Absolutely nothing can deflect or stop it."

Toralen opened the detector case and started to fumble inside. He was not deft, and the tools from the equipment case did not fit his hand. But in an hour he had made the changes suggested by the technicians on Tlembo—but aided finally by one of Thompson's crew of technicians who went to work on the thing with dexterity but complete ignorance of its principles of operation.

Then with the one detector in operation, in Thompson's ship, the flight took off and began to take the last measures necessary to the completion of their task.

Hour after hour they went, out into the space beyond the last planet of the catmen, and out and out, running slowly so that they would neither collide with the machine nor overrun it.

It was a matter of days.

"Dead ahead," said Thompson on the communicator.

"Target?" asked Lane.

"Meteor, it looks like."

"Might be camouflage," suggested Downing. "Remember if it must be destroyed, it is a sign that those who made it knew that it would be against the wishes of somebody."

"Did either of you think that it might be a good thing?"

"You mean the machine might be benign?"

"Yes," answered Thompson.

"That's why you are going to analyze it before we destroy it," said Lane.

"Yes?"

"If we destroy it and discover it is benign, then we can reproduce it. Follow?"

"Excellent idea," said Thompson. "Kennebec thought of that?"

"Kennebec is a smart man," said Lane. "He wanted the stuff in the Little Man's ship—stuff none of us can understand yet. He agreed to come out here and blast the machine. But he considered it likely that the Little Man was making a cat's-paw out of the human race and he wanted to repair any damage done as soon as we found out we'd made a mistake."

"Did you ever think that the interval between destroying this and getting the reproduction in working order might be just time enough?" demanded Thompson.

"Yup. I've figured all of that. But I'm following orders, Billy. I'm going to wreck that thing as soon as you tell me you can reproduce it."

Downing interrupted. "You're going to do it? I am."

"Want to bet?" snapped Lane.

"Cut it," said Thompson.

"Make you a deal," said Lane, ignoring Thompson.

"Go on."

"I order you to stop it," snapped Thompson.

"Go fly a kite," growled Lane. "Look, Downing, I'll fight you for the privilege of destroying that machine."

"Deal. How?"

"When Billy has his pictures and data, we'll take off in our fleeters. The idea will be to see who can blast the thing first—no holds barred, right?"

"It's one way of finding out who's the best flier," agreed Downing.

Toralen Ki looked up at Thompson. Billy smiled. He made motions, conveyed the idea to the Little Man that Downing and Lane were going out to destroy the machine personally.

Toralen Ki fumbled for the meaning and then understood. He agreed vigorously, nodding and smiling.

"The Little Man here says to go ahead," Thompson said, into the communicator. "I'm supposed to be a buffer until this mission is complete—it will be complete when that machine is blasted. Everybody knows that you fellows are going to go rivet-cutting sooner or later—might as well have something to do it over."

"Thanks," said Downing dryly. "And the guy that loses makes a public announcement of his inferiority, see?"

"I'll be listening to you," came Lane's taunting laugh.

"What you'll be hearing is my acceptance," returned Downing.

Thompson left them quibbling and took his crew over to the meteor that carried the machine. It was a real meteor, a huge one almost a half mile in jagged diameter. A well penetrated it, sealed by huge metal doors. They breached the doors and resealed them, once they were inside, to pressurize the cavern.

Then they went to work on the huge machine.

It was bizarre. It was unreal and unearthly. Atomic generators powered it silently, pouring torrents of high power into its apparently senseless circuits. Great silvery crystals twisted and distorted slowly under piezoelectric stress, and sputtered-silver contacts carried off the impulses to other circuits.

Solid metal bars carried some sort of circulatory impulse from place to place—they were reminiscent of wave-guide plumbing but no microwave set-up could function in a system like this.

Then, slowly, the thing appeared to have pattern. Whatever it was, the output of the slowly-distorting crystals was fed in or out of phase through filters and transmission bars to the topmost crystal. It was multi-faceted and obviously not a natural formation. It scintillated and pulsed rapidly, and the facets gleamed against the lights as the crystal throbbed in tune with the feeding currents.

"This," said Thompson, "is going to be reproduced later if for no other reason than just sheer curiosity. Whoever built it is a little ahead of our time and I want to get caught up. Benign or malignant, it must be remade and studied."

Then for hours, Thompson's technicians went over the machine with a fine-tooth comb. Pictures—tridimensional shots, moving pictures, microtime film, and hand sketches. Technicians measured potentials, made pictures of wave shapes from the oscilloscope patterns, and drew endless schematic diagrams. Metallurgists took minute samples of the metals, of the dielectrics, of the crystals themselves, cutting bits out with microscopic modine beams.

Then, as they ran out of things to measure, Thompson took one last look at it. "O.K., fellows," he said, "can you rebuild it?"

"To the last decimal place."

"It's alien," warned Thompson.

"It's still made of metal and crystal."

"O.K." He turned to Toralen Ki and made suggestive motions. He turned off the main feed line, and the atomics thrummed to a stop. Then he suggested that now it was off, why didn't they just take it back to Terra and not bother reproducing it. Toralen Ki shook his head—No. He waved Thompson to come along, and they left the machine in the meteor forever.

"I'm finished," said Thompson, "but wait before you blast. The Little Man seems to want me to confer with him for a moment."

Thompson's ship took off. Toralen Ki emerged from his stateroom with the instrument. He planted it on a table, turned it on, and strapped the plate to his forehead. He offered the other one to Thompson.

Thompson understood. He knew that the Little People had a means of mental communication that augmented their speech. He accepted the plate and strapped it on his own head.

"Now," said Toralen Ki, "I may at last converse with you and your race."

"What is the machine?" asked Thompson.

"The others—they are all right?"

Thompson nodded. "They are destroying the machine. Tell me, what is it?"

Toralen Ki nodded in agreement. "Tell them to destroy it and then to return, for I must speak with them through this, now that the machine is stopped and I may. But destroy it, for the Loard-vogh may have remote control and if they have, it may be started again at any moment."

"Before I blast any alien machine," said Thompson, "I must know what it is. You insist that it be destroyed. How do I know that the machine is not benign?"

"The machine," explained Toralen Ki, "is a device which suppresses the mental activity of all races within its field of radiation. It was built by a ruthless and predatory race to hold down the overall galactic mentality. It must be destroyed, for even though it is not running, full and complete regaining of the mental strength will not be possible until the machine is destroyed because a certain amount of residual power exists in the radiating crystal."

Thompson smiled, nodded, and went to the communicator. "O.K., fellows, have your fun. Blast it!"

Two ships circled Thompson's craft—two tiny ships, both as fleet as a beam of light and as maneuverable as thought. They circled one another, winding away from Thompson's ship in a tight twin-corkscrew spiral.

"Twenty thousand years ago—of your years—this race planned to conquer the Galaxy. They were an old race then, a mad race, with dreams of grandeur. Their numbers were countless, for they were spreading through their own section of the Galaxy like a mobile gas.

"They struck trouble, twenty thousand years ago. They hit a race that fought them—that almost succeeded in holding them to their line. Unfortunately, they were too numerous. They won. And then they decided that it would take many thousands of years of work to conquer the Galaxy. And in those years, younger, lustier races might evolve. Races that by sheer youth and strength might outstrip them. And so they made and sent forth horde upon horde of these suppressors.

"Your race," continued Toralen Ki, "has never been able to use its full mental power. That is because of the suppressor. True, you are a long way from the suppressor, but its power is fearsome and its effect is lasting. It passed through your system thousands of years ago and it held sway over your mental ability to now.

"Your race," said Toralen Ki, "is best equipped to fight the Loard-vogh."

"I don't feel any more intelligent than I did before," objected Thompson.

"No, because you have been under the influence of the suppressor for countless generations. It has become an inherited trait. It will remain an inherited trait until the mentality of the human race is energized, or triggered by a rather powerful wave of mental energy.

"The Loard-vogh will enslave the Galaxy if they are not stopped. Our original home was overrun three thousand years ago, and fourteen times they have caught up with us. Again, Tlembo is being attacked, or perhaps it has not started yet. Fourteen planets named Tlembo lie in our history, and fourteen times have we combed the Galaxy waiting and seeking a race with the proper mental power and technical ability. It would have been useless to energize your minds a thousand years ago, Solarian, for you had not the technical skill to accept it. The shock would have made you all mad. You believe me of superior intellect and knowledge because I have been able to make this machine. I am acknowledged the highest intellect among the Tlembans. I intend to sacrifice my intellect for humanity. The energizing will destroy me."

The meter in Lane's ship read forty. Forty miles per second. Dead ahead was the lacery of the star field, clustered around the tininess of black that was the meteor of the machine. Somewhere in the invisibility of space was Stellor Downing, coming this way.

He knew, because his detector said so.

This was not only a test of operator's skill, but of technical superiority, too. Detectors were not calibrated to the last foot of distance, and he who had the best capability in the art of tuning a detector knew better where the other man was at any time.

But it was also necessary to judge your opponent's error. For a single error would destroy both.

Downing's ship came. It was there and it was gone. Missed by a matter of feet.

And yet not a bead of sweat came. Neither had given ground. Lane grinned inwardly as his ship slowed for the turn. Dead ahead was the sealed door to the machine. He touched the button on his drive-rod, and the dymodine flared forth, boring down the shaft and driving great scintillating clouds of super-heated gases up from the bowels of the meteor. The machine was blasted.

"You stinking opportunist," snarled Downing.

"Mad?"

"That was—"

"One step ahead of you."

"You haven't won—"

"Only succeeded. Now we can fight this out for good. Really want to play, Stellor?"

"I'll run you right into that hole in the meteor," snarled Downing.

The two tiny ships approached on a converging course. Collision course, it was, and somewhere far ahead there was the meteor again. Downing was on the spaceward side, and edging sidewise into Lane's course. Lane was pinched between meteor and Downing; edging outward into Stellor's course and calculated to miss the meteor by several yards—if he did not give.

At fifty miles per second they rocketed forward, approaching one another, and telling each other what was going to happen next.

The communicator in Thompson's ship told the story. Thompson heard it, and Toralen Ki understood it from Thompson's mind.

"They—Stop them!"

"I cannot," replied Thompson, with a smile.

"You must. They are necessary to our plan."

"Plan?"

"I am going to give up my intellect. Lane and Downing are emotional and psychological opposites. In one great burst of mental energy, my intellect will be expended. The shock wave from my mind will energize their minds. Their intellects will merge, making them emotional twins and psychological equals, each with the double power gained by joining with the other. They must willingly submit to this mental combining, for then the wave of energy from their minds in twin transfer will awaken every human in the Solar sector of the Galaxy."

"You're asking them to give up their identities."

"I am. And they must."

"They will never do it."

"You are stalling for time. Order them to cease. If either of them is killed, our plan may fail completely. Both of them are of the highest order of intellect—and of opposite psychology. That is necessary—order them to stop—immediately!"

Thompson laughed.

"I am willing to die for civilization. They should—" Toralen Ki looked at Thompson, and his eyes widened in wonder, fear, and finally horror.

"You are under control—the Loard-vogh!"

Thompson smiled affably. "The Terran known as Billy Thompson left this body when the machine was blasted," he said. "Previously I could but urge and draw him into agreement with me. And you, Toralen Ki, are also necessary to the plan."

Thompson's one hundred and eighty pounds of fine body came forward. Thirty-seven pounds of Little Man shrank back in fear. Not fear of life—but fear for civilization.

And as Thompson's body reached for Toralen Ki, the radiation alarm blared. It registered; dymodines had been fired and simultaneous hits had been made.

Toralen Ki's free hand snapped the power of the telementor over full. Physical weakling though he was, he was aided mentally by the power in the mental transfer machine. He invaded Thompson's mind and fought the Loard-vogh intelligence that he found there.

Waves of mental energy spewed forth, and Hotang Lu came running to aid his friend. Stricken rigid, Thompson almost ceased to breathe; his heart faltered. For Toralen Ki and the alien Loard-vogh were using all of Billy Thompson's mind against each other, trying to drive the other out, calling upon more and more, even to the point of short-circuiting some of the voluntary sectors. It was battle, silent and fierce.

And the waves of mental energy spread in a vast radiation pattern as Toralen Ki and the Loard-vogh fought for the possession of Billy Thompson's mind and body.

VIII.

Lindoo entered the crystal palace proudly. Not for Lindoo was the belly-crawling approach to the mighty Vorgan, Lord of All. Lindoo was not a mere stripling; Lindoo was the head of the Board of Universal Strategy, and Lindoo had not only permission, but orders to enter but quickly, and tell but swiftly, anything that might possibly affect the future plans of the Loard-vogh.

Vorgan lifted a hand to silence the one upon the floor, his wish was conveyed by a man-at-arms, since the one on the floor was flat on his face, as befitted one of the lower caste.

"Urgent?" asked Vorgan.

"Perhaps urgent, but informative at least," explained Lindoo. "Kregar has made full contact with the Susceptible One."

"Susceptible One? Who may that be? Of what importance?"

"His thoughts are confused. His name is not pronounceable from the mixed thought-pattern. He is important. He was sent to maintain order between the Extremes."

"Ah—and Kregar has succeeded?"

"He has. But not without incident."

"Trouble?"

"Some. The Little Men of Tlembo have, in part, been successful. I curse them as you do, Lord of All. Yet the Loard-vogh must prepare and be always prepared for resistance. It is written that smooth sailing is a vain hope. The Little Men have carried out their intent. They have succeeded in harnessing the Extremes together—for a time. They have succeeded in destroying the suppressor—which is why Kregar was able to control the mind of the Susceptible One. Kregar is brilliant, Lord of All. Kregar deserves attention."

"If Kregar earns it, he will get it. I am not unjust, nor has any Loard-vogh been unjust. Tell me—his brilliancy?"

"Kregar learned of the rivalry through the Susceptible One. Through the latter, Kregar was able to set one Extreme against the other, fighting a mad duel to ascertain the better man. The intellectual apex, the Little Man known as Toralen Ki, the key to their future, is now being attacked by the Susceptible One, through Kregar's control."

"Excellent. And the outcome?"

"Obvious. Toralen Ki will die. So will his cohort Hotang Lu. Thus dies those who understand their intellectual limitations and the will to lift others above them. The Extremes, upon whom the Little Men pinned their hopes, will be split forever. One will certainly die—perhaps both."

"It is best. Shall we then attack the Planet of Terror?"

"It will not be necessary. Their possible danger to us is over."

Vorgan smiled, and he looked almost benign. He was a tall man, bearded, with a full head of hair that tufted white in patches. His ancestry? His classification? It is hard to say. He was vertebrate. He was warm-blooded. He was intelligent and he was more than dextrous with his hands. Both hands. He was also dextrous with his mind. The Lord of All had not become Lord of All because of his heritage, his faith in deity, or his sheer ruthlessness. All helped, but the Lord of All was ruler because of his ability to rule.

"I'll witness the final act," he said.

"The reason I came—" nodded Lindoo. "Kregar is working madly, and yet there is interest there. It will be enlightening. For even the Susceptible One is most difficult."

The Loard-vogh at the instrument was sweating profusely. His hands were clenched, and blood ran from the center of the right fist where his fingernails had pierced his palm. His entire frame was tense, and his eyes were half-closed.

Vorgan looked, nodded, and spoke freely to the recorder beside Kregar. The Lord of All knew that the operative was concentrated beyond all physical stimuli. "The details, Neckal?"

"Lord of All, the battle progresses favorably. The Extremes—they are fighting each other. As you entered, the Susceptible One's mind indicated that there might have been a culmination to their feud. Two of their weapons have been discharged in a location that makes us believe that simultaneous death may have taken place. Toralen Ki is fighting for his life—"

Vorgan laughed. "Thirty-odd pounds against six times that mass! Lindoo, your operator has done well."

"Naturally," said Lindoo proudly. He could afford to be proud; he had picked Kregar.

"Yet I feel that we should do something about the Planet of Terror."

"You think—?"

"Sending out another suppressor will do no good."

"You are certain?"

"Not entirely. I just fear them. It is good sense to fear a strong enemy, Lindoo. We, of course, shall conquer, but far better to find them easily beaten than to lose ten billion of Loard-vogh's finest."

"The master plan does not call for invasion of that sector for twenty-four hundred years."

"I should hate to have my ultimate offspring cast slurs at my memory—and perhaps erect a statue to throw excrement at."

"But one cannot cover all dangers—"

"I know. Yet let us wait. It will depend upon Kregar's success."

Neckal spoke: "The battle progresses."

Vorgan frowned. "Why or how can one so small defend himself against one of the Planet of Terror?"

"The Little Man is agile and the Terran is clumsy."

Lindoo nodded. "We may both curse and praise that. If the Terran were less clumsy, he might well be more difficult for Kregar."

"Toralen Ki also has mental amplification."

Kregar's hands opened and closed convulsively. Once they clutched at a space near his belt, but closed as though in futility—what he sought was not there. He reached forward, and only Neckal's quick action in turning Kregar around slightly prevented the Loard-vogh from clutching a delicate adjustment of the instrument through which Kregar worked.

Lindoo smiled. "It is written that a good big man will always conquer a good small man, my Lord of All."

"What lies between the Loard-vogh and the Planet of Terror?"

"Ten thousand light-leagues of space."

"A most dangerous spearhead—is it not?"

"It might be more than dangerous. To fight a war on many fronts is death. To warn a thousand races between the Loard-vogh and Terra might be the balance."

"Then we must hope," said Vorgan. "And only as a last resort will we drive forward."

"Face the fact," smiled Lindoo. "Kregar has—will have soon—the Little Man in his power. The cohort of the Little Man comes next. Dispose of them and the Planet of Terror will never know what it missed, in spite of the destruction of the suppressor. If nothing more than that happens, we are still safe. The Extremes fight one another—or fought one another. One or both of them may be dead. Grant the impossible and assume that Kregar is not successful and that Toralen Ki and Hotang Lu escape. Without the Extremes, releasing the mental torpor of the Planet of Terror will be most difficult.

"Now," continued Lindoo, with a very superior smile, "we grant the complete failure of our plans. All escape. Toralen Ki explains his plan to the Extremes. Have you any idea of sheer rivalry? Then consider your own attitude upon being asked to relinquish your identity to your most bitter rival."

Vorgan nodded. "How simple it would have been to wipe out all Tlembans so many hundreds of years ago instead of permitting those few to escape. I curse Mangare and I think I will erect a statue to his dishonor, that all Loard-vogh may spit at he who was not thorough."

Kregar's muscles tensed, wrapped him in knots, and his head jerked to one side in a spasm of pain. His eyes opened, glazed. They stayed open—wide and glassy.

Slowly he started, and with accelerated motion, he toppled to the floor. His frame went into one spasm, and he curled convulsively over his stomach. Then he stretched out straight and stiff.

"Dead," said Neckal, frantically.

"Dead?" echoed Lindoo.

"What happened?" asked Vorgan in a hollow voice.

"He failed."

"Failed?"

"How?"

"We may never know. But the failure was complete."

The Lord of All scowled. "Lindoo, plan the attack upon the Planet of Terror!"

"Yes, Lord of All. We shall strike Terra as soon as our forces can be deployed. It will take time, but we shall move with high speed."

"A word of caution, Lindoo. If they do not embark upon the Plan of the Little Men, merely hold our spearhead force in everlasting readiness. I dislike this attack, though our numbers permit it. I'd prefer to stay closer to the Master Plan. But—if they change, attack!"

Vorgan returned to his throne room, to ascend his crystal seat. He waved for the serf upon the floor to continue, and the man-at-arms conveyed the Lord of All's desire because the serf still had his face to the floor.

IX.

Hotang Lu came at the call of his fellow. He saw the tableau. Thompson stricken rigid with mental effort, and Toralen Ki, tense and firm, before him. The Little Man's eyes were closed lightly, and his hands were clenched tight. Every muscle was tight in the mental effort, trying to drive the Loard-vogh out of Thompson's mind.

The waves of mental energy spread. Invisible and silent, they were not undetectable, for the men in the ships felt the waves of mental bleakness and strife and knew a deep and unreasoning fear.

Toralen Ki fought—and Hotang Lu stood by. To connect himself into the mental hookup at this point might destroy the balance. To destroy the balance might permit the hated Loard-vogh to enter, and no matter how brief the entry, it would be fatal.

So he waited, alert and ready to snap the transmentor over his head if Toralen Ki failed. He would give the Loard-vogh no chance to get set again; he would strike quickly while the Loard-vogh was still recovering from the headlong success. For in the moment of mental victory, the Loard-vogh's mind would be reeling forward like a man forcing a door that suddenly gives way before him.

Thompson's frame was rigid, his eyes open but glassy and—but they were not vacant. They were ablaze with an unreal light, the conflict in the helpless mind behind the eyes energized them.

But—the machine was destroyed.

And—there were waves of mental energy in the Terran's mind.

The conflict raged, and despite the helplessness of the Terran's mind and control, there was the untouchable subconscious that told him that he must fight for the beliefs he had always held.

His faltering breath strengthened. His rigid muscles freed, slightly, and the creases of sheer pain left his forehead. Still in fog, his mind scanned the mental data. Two forces struggled for control—of his mind. The thought came:

Hurl them out!

But one was—friendly—fighting for him.

The other was alien, inimical.

And with an effort of will, Thompson set his mind against the Loard-vogh, and with the efforts of Toralen Ki and Hotang Lu, plus their mental amplifier, Thompson hurled his weight of mind against the invader.

Thompson was annoyed, confused and not too logical. To his mind, this was sheer pain, caused by the Loard-vogh. He hurled his hatred at the distant alien.

And the pressure of the conflict died. Thompson's body resumed its natural looseness, and the light of reason returned to his eyes. He smiled his usual smile and relaxed, breathing hard, and rubbing his temples with the palms of his hands.

The severe headache was leaving with noticeable rapidity. He faced the Little Men with an attitude of power and great will.

Hotang Lu stood in amazement.

Toralen Ki relaxed slightly also. They still faced one another, Little Man and Terran. But in their attitude was a vague feeling that they were fighting side by side.

And Hotang Lu understood. Toralen Ki intended to excite the minds of Lane and Downing by forcing them, psychological opposites, into mental contact. And he, Toralen Ki, was right now in bitter conflict with his own mental opposite—the Loard-vogh. The mental energies released in Thompson's mind had given the Terran the full and perfect control of his own mental ability.

They opened their eyes, both of them.

"Won," said Thompson, wiping his brow.

Toralen Ki inspected the Terran carefully. "You know, now?"

Billy nodded. "The rest of Terra and Sol must be excited. Wait—I must order Lane and Downing to stop."

The planetoid loomed larger and larger, and Downing crowded Lane closer. On approaching courses, it was becoming evident that the conjunction of courses would occur simultaneously with their arrival at the huge meteor. And yet Downing was the better off, for if he and Lane kept their courses doggedly true, Lane's ship would hit the meteor first. The carom, of course, would drive the flaming remnants of Cliff Lane's craft upward into Stellor Downing's ship, with the resulting injury to the latter.

Downing jacked up the magnification of his course-scanner with a twitch of his free hand. A rounded knoll of rock covered the scanner plate, and the cross-hairs that marked Stellor's course were just above and just to the left of the top of the knoll. A full-power shot with the dymodine in the right place—

And the caroming ship would deflect sidewise instead of straight up!

Stellor Downing trained the dymodine projector until the tiny circle in the course-scanner was still farther to the left of the top of the knoll than his ship's course.

The course-scanner in Cliff Lane's ship told him that he was heading for the knoll of rock. It would be a slicing blow, with Cliff's ship bounding up into Downing's craft. That much he knew.

Unless he did something.

He could drive up into Downing's ship right now. But that would be no solution as to whom was the better man. That would get Terra two corpses, but finely divided ones.

He could swerve.

And give Stellor Downing the right to say that he, Cliff Lane, had been bluffed?

Now if he were Stellor—?

Cliff Lane's dymodine sight was centered on the cross-hair of the scanner. He trained it slightly to the right and down, and then he touched the trigger.

Both dymodines blasted at once. Both beams raved out from positions one above the other, and both beams hit the knoll of rock in slightly different places. The splatter of energy from the coruscation ahead blinded both men, and set up shock-interference in the scanners.

A gout of flaming gas burst from the hit.

And within a few milliseconds of the hit, Cliff Lane arrived, with Stellor Downing almost on top of him.

Downing's ship hit the gout of flaming gas, and the velocity of ship was high. It deflected upward slightly, bending the spine of the little fleeter, rending a few plates, and dazing the Martian.

Lane's ship hit the flaming gas—which was almost homogenous where Lane passed through. The Venusite's nose plates dinged in slightly from the metal-to-gas impact. Right into the hit went Cliff Lane.

And out through the scar on the far side went the Venusite, roaring off in a halo of gases from the explosion.

They snapped radio sets.

"Well?" grinned Cliff saucily.

"Wise, aren't you?" grunted Downing.

"Try it again," advised Cliff. "I'm still spaceworthy."

"I'm buckled, but still capable," snorted Downing. "I'll be around—"

The ringing of the emergency alarm interrupted them. Thompson's voice came through. "Stop—at once!"

"Why?" asked Lane insolently.

"Don't even answer," scorned Downing.

"Stop, you fools. Stop—or Patricia Kennebec may die!"

Downing and Lane came around in tight arcs. As one they met on adjoining courses and raced like madmen for Thompson's command. They magnetted their ships beside the spacelock, breached it with the outside controls, and entered. They sent the door to Thompson's cabin slamming back against the wall and strode in.

"What's all this about Pat Kennebec?"

Thompson smiled. "It was about the only way I could stop that foolishness."

"Look, Billy, you've been interfering—"

"Don't be an idiot, Lane. Frankly I'm sick and tired of that schoolboy bickering of yours. As far as I'm concerned you can both go out and kill one another. But this is bigger than I am and it should be bigger than you are. Your job isn't through. We thought it was, but it is not. You, in fact, are just beginning."

"Quit talking in riddles and tell us what goes on."

"That machine restricted mental energy. It has been restricting mental ability for this entire sector of the Galaxy for twenty thousand years. It has been destroyed. But until the minds of Solarians are excited by a shock wave of mental energy, they will not have the use of their intellects fully and freely. You two are mental and psychological opposites, and the shock excitation of your minds in mental contact will excite the minds of all men." He turned to Toralen Ki and said: "I'm puzzled. There was sufficient mental conflict between you and the Loard-vogh to give me my release. Why hasn't it taken care of these two wildmen?"

"You mean the re-radiation from your mind operating on theirs as their radiation will free the minds of the rest?"

"Right. Why?"

"Lack of sympathetic tuning," explained Toralen Ki. "Your mind is unlike mine, and unlike the Loard-vogh known as Kregar, the one we fought and killed. Yet since you were at the focal point of the mental strife, your mind, untuned as it was, was excited by sheer brute force, so to speak. Selectivity could not keep out such sheer power. But selectivity would and did prevent re-radiation of the mental energy. You, therefore, have been freed, but no one else."

"Too bad," said Thompson critically. "It might have shoved some sense into their thick skulls."

"Hey!" exploded Lane. "He's talking to the Little Guy."

"How come, Billy?"

"You mean talking to him? Well, I was given mental release by a bit of a battle between Toralen Ki, here, and one of the Loard-vogh who was trying to control my mind."

"Give us more. You sound like a synopsis."

Thompson explained.

"Well, but how can you speak with him?"

Billy turned and asked Toralen Ki.

"You're surprised? Just as Lane and Downing will become mental twins, you, Billy Thompson, have gained twinship with my mind. Also that of Kregar, the dead Loard-vogh."

Billy smiled. "Simple enough," he explained to the pair. "After your minds are given release, you'll be able to understand him, too."

Thompson did not explain the twinship idea. Co-operation was one thing to explain, but the concept of accepting one another's personality would have to be given to them by someone who outranked them. Let them wonder—or even better, let them remain in ignorance, on the basis that what they did not know wouldn't harm Terra.

Toralen Ki shook his tiny head and looked puzzled, as well as shamefaced. "I didn't expect this," he said. "The concept of mental struggle between myself and another never occurred to me."

"It saved my neck," grinned Billy.

"And the collective necks of most of the Galaxy. And it is just as well that we didn't energize them, too. The main release for the solar sector must come when they go into the change. Had they gone into the change out here, in Sscantoo, the mental radiation would not have been strong enough to trigger the minds of your fellows near Sol."

Thompson nodded and turned to Lane and Downing. "You two are going to have something to fight—but against, not over. That's been a private fight of yours for years. If you'd like to continue it, you'd better knock off the battle long enough to stop the Loard-vogh cold. Then you can resume personal hostilities and be damned."

"What about this Sscantoo?" asked Lane.

"They have some stuff that'll come in handy in fighting the Loard-vogh," nodded Thompson. "But we're not running off half-cocked. We're heading back to Sol right now, to make plans."

X.

Stellor Downing's hard fist came down on the table with a shattering crash. "I will not!" he said in a powerful tone.

"And I agree," echoed Cliff Lane.

Kennebec smiled patiently. "So far as I know it is the first time you've ever agreed on anything."

"The future—?" pleaded Toralen Ki.

Kennebec nodded at the Tlemban. "He's willing to die. He thinks enough of the future to die for it. You two might sublimate your lives just a little for it."

"Get a couple of others!"

"There are none suitable."

"What a stinking set-up," grunted Lane. "I've got to forget my identity and become a sheer hyphen."

"Look," snapped Downing, "it happens that you're sneering at my personality, remember?"

"I wouldn't have your personality for a gift."

"You couldn't—it's too big for the like of you!"

"All right," said Kennebec. "Stop it."

Toralen Ki said, sorrowfully: "I might have been dishonest, Co-ordinator Kennebec. I should have told them that the mental transformation would prove who was the better man."

"A convincing lie for the benefit of mankind is often better than the disquieting truth," observed Kennebec.

Thompson looked up. "What they need is to have their heads knocked together," he said sourly. "A fine rotten pair."

"Look," started Downing.

"Now listen," grated Lane.

"Shut up!" snapped Thompson. "You've both heard what Toralen Ki said. You know what's heading this way. You are aware of just what can happen on Sol if Sol isn't smart. And you sit there like a pair of flat-headed imbeciles, prating about your own petty fight. Patricia was right. It is a sorry day for civilization when it must depend upon the likes of you. Why don't you get smart? Where is your good sense?"

"You've no right—"

"Shut up!" snapped Thompson. "I have every right in the world and by thunder I'm going to use it! It was funny, for years now, that you two were running all over your respective worlds, crowing like a pair of bantam roosters. The Favorite Son of Mars and the Pride of Venus! A bright pair of grown-up juvenile delinquents! Well, bright boys, civilization still depends on you."

Stellor Downing turned on Thompson and snarled: "No one is asking you to give up your identity. I haven't noticed any passion for anonymity in you, Thompson."

"You won't find any," gritted Thompson. He turned to Toralen Ki and asked: "Is there any way in which I may take either of their places?"

"Mine," offered Stellor Downing.

"Over my corpse!" shouted Cliff Lane.

"That I can arrange," ground Downing at Lane.

Toralen Ki shook his head, part in negation and part in the hopelessness of the situation. "No, on two counts," he said slowly. "One, your mind is not of an extreme nature. Second, your mind is already energized."

"Hm-m-m," mused Thompson. "Energized but still slumbering, I gather. Thanks for the tip, Toralen Ki."

He turned and bore his gaze on the battling pair.

"Listen—and carefully," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I tell you so," he said in a hard voice. "I'm tired—as everyone is—of your foolishness. I'll say no more about it. I've said my last." He opened his eyes slightly, and caught their gaze. He said nothing, but held their eyes as though what they saw must not be lost from sight lest disaster follow. For minutes he held them, and then he said in a quiet, low voice: "You will become mental twins. The battle for supremacy between you will and can become one of sheer mental force. You will each have that which you sneer at in the other. With all factors in the mind, you will struggle. Whichever of you is best fitted for existence under such circumstances will emerge victor. Understand. There will never be a public admission of mediocrity on the part of either one of you, for you will both change toward the one that is victorious. Now if you really want to finish that fight, this is a way to do it."

He turned to Kennebec. "At this point, they'll do it or I'll strap 'em both down—"

Toralen Ki interrupted. "They must enter it willingly."

Thompson looked the pair over. "Shall I call in the Interplanetary Press?"

Downing had been thinking deeply. He looked up and shook his head. "Lane, I'm willing to bet my mind against yours. Put up or shut up."

"Anything you can do I can do better—and faster!"

"Baloney. Toralen Ki can start right now, if the other half isn't afraid."

"Afraid—!"

"Well, are you?" sneered Downing.

"That doesn't even rate an answer. I'll take your mind over."

"Uh-huh. This time we'll have an answer. O.K., Billy. Bring on your devil-gadget and we'll play ball."

Toralen Ki looked about him, his face a mask. Stonily silent, he walked to the greenhouse and looked out over the landscape. He basked in the warm sunshine, and thought how much it reminded him of the bright sunshine of Tlembo. The buildings on the edge of the clearing were vast; Toralen Ki felt dwarfed by them, and he felt all alone and utterly alien in this world of giant beings.

A phonograph was playing somewhere, a piece of Terran music that suited the Tlemban fancy, and Toralen Ki was drinking it in.

The greenhouse was slid open in one section, and mingled with the soft phonograph were the myriad sounds of living. Faintly there came the raucous rattle of a rivet gun, the rumble of a sky train passing overhead on its way to the antipodes. He slid the section shut, closing the sounds of this alien world of monsters from his ears. He pressed a button and the steel shutter closed off the light that was so much like his own Tlemban sunshine.

It seemed wrong that such a familiar sun should shine down upon buildings of such vastness, glint against skycraft of such magnitude, and give warmth and life to a race so huge and so very, very young.

He turned and ran his hand over a bookcase. He touched a favorite volume, but did not remove it from its place. He had not the time.

He ran his hand over the tiny controls of his little craft. It had carried him so many light-leagues of space faithfully and well, following the dictates of his hands on the worn plastic handles.

End of quest!

This was it. He had come to the end of his search, the answer to his desire. This race would carry on where he and his race could not. The flaming torch—

Toralen Ki broke off with a bitter laugh. He was sounding slightly overdramatic to himself.

He faced them. Hotang Lu, who was looking at the blank wall with intent stare, and the Extremes, Lane and Downing, whose huge frames were cramped in the tiny control room.

Even here, they were. He could not escape them—and he admitted that he did not want to escape them. Yet he felt the touch of resentment. Unthinkable light-years from his home, surrounded and overwhelmed on every side with utter bigness—slumbering giants, all of them, awaiting the touch of his mind to awaken them to their rightful place.

It might have been Tlembo's rightful place were it not for sheer size and other natural factors. Why couldn't fate have given Tlembo that gift instead of this race?

But, time went on. And there was so little time—

Toralen Ki went to his desk and took a quick drink from the tall tube, and then inhaled the aroma deeply. It had no smell to Terrans, nor taste, but Toralen Ki loved it for its powers—not too much, Toralen Ki, you have a job to do!

He went over and slipped the headset on.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I did want this last minute—"

He took up the hypo, inserted the needle in the vein of his arm, and pushed the plunger home.

Countless light-years away, Lindoo watched his meters rise higher and higher as he increased the penetration. Ever seeking, ever tuning, Lindoo strove to find another man whose mind was at balance and receptive. Given time—

And with a rush, all meters hit zero. A backlashing surge of power drove Lindoo back from his position. He turned and faced Vorgan.

"As with Kregar—" he started.

"Kregar died," said the Lord of All, ominously.

"Kregar died of mental overload. I received no such punishment. Kregar, recall, was in charge of the mind of the Susceptible One who thought of himself as Tawmpsahn. He was forced out and away, and pursued by Tawmpsahn and the Toralen Ki himself."

"So—?"

"Toralen Ki is dead."

"Good!"

Lindoo shook his head. "He did not die in vain."

Vorgan blinked. "They—?"

"I have failed. I have been trying to find another one to control. Those who may be controlled were in no political position to do any good—I found several others."

Vorgan nodded. "Time was short."

"I did not locate one controllable among those who might have done some good. And now I never will. The Extremes have joined!"

"And the shock wave?"

"Has undone all the good our suppressor did for twenty thousand years."

"Order the attack."

"Yes, Lord of All. The logisticians indicate a short period of mobilization and preparation. The Enilode Sector is being stripped of our men—they're not too hard to handle now—and a tenth of the men in all other sectors not actively fighting are being sent to the spearhead sector. I hate time. It takes so much of it to handle thirty million men and the supplies necessary for their support."

"That," grumbled Vorgan, "and the inoculations. A man undergoing them is a sick Loard-vogh for a week."

"Our initial attack may be some time in coming. But it will be complete, throughout that entire sector. We'll destroy the menace immediately, and from then on, all we'll have to do is to hold that sector against any possible enemy."

"A long and dismal prospect," said Vorgan. "But we must not give them time."

"They will have no time to do more than plan," said Lindoo. "It takes time to put a new skill into practice. We shall conquer them!"

"We shall conquer them," echoed Vorgan, the Lord of All.

"And we shall have to force the catmen, too, Lord of All."

"Why?" thundered the Lord of All.

"Because the catmen of Sscantoo are unsympathetic to all forms of alliance."

"They need never know."

"They will be told. Sol will ask their help."

"But ... I see," agreed Vorgan. "Being against all forms of alliance means that they will form an alliance, temporarily, in order to keep from being included in an everlasting tie. Yes, you are right. We may have to force them. But let us conquer Sol at any cost. And soon."

"As soon as we can prepare."

"Better cut the preparation somewhat. Let the initial attack come before full preparation. Only in that way will we gain time."

"It is a gamble."

"I know it is a gamble," agreed Vorgan. "But one must gamble if the Galaxy is worth the fight."

"I wonder if we could convince the Sscantovians that our interests—No, it would not work. I like not that idea."

"Sscantoo would demand proof. It is far easier to prove that we have been all-conquering than otherwise. An alliance with them could not be made. To do so would require that we give them full confidence. And we cannot control a quarter of a galaxy of Loard-vogh slaves so well that they must not speak. And their weapons are less efficient than ours—we could gain nothing but manpower which we do not need.... No, Lindoo, we must go forward alone as we always have."

Lindoo smiled. "We must be on the everlasting lookout for spies."

"We shall. I wonder if it would not be best to exterminate them completely."

"I could do it alone."

"I know. I wonder. They are a hardy race, though, and ambitious workers. Extermination—"

"Merely eliminates one menace."

"I don't think it would work."

"May I try?"

"May I have your head if you fail?" snarled Vorgan.

"Then I shall not try, Lord of All."

Vorgan nodded cryptically. "Losing faith in your own ability?"

"No. I merely have reason to respect your judgment."

"You are a true diplomat, Lindoo. Someday it will get you into trouble."

"When it does, that is a sign that I am not as good a diplomat as I thought I was."

"Or that someone has exceeded you, Lindoo."

"I might wear out—"

"No. When you fail, Lindoo, it will be because you have confronted yourself with your superior."

"And then?"

"Then the Lord of All will have a new Head of Strategy."

Lindoo laughed. "At that time I shall expect you to need one. Well, I must start preparation. I have much to do."

"You have," nodded Vorgan.

Throughout the lands and planets of the Loard-vogh there started a slow and gradual crawl. The forces of the Loard-vogh began to move slowly, like the rivers of the ocean. They could be felt; slowly and inexorably, though they could not be seen. Throughout a thousand suns the soldiery left their billets in twos and threes. They bade good-by to their temporary homes, kissed their slave-lovers and serf-women farewell and faced new fields. They collected along the frontier, planets full of brawling Loard-vogh that swarmed like the all-consuming locusts. They fought among themselves. They stole and they looted, and they took souvenirs of value. Native women—some of them the intellectual superiors of the Loard-vogh—were not safe on the streets, and the fighting was not without its overwhelming toll of innocent bystanders.

Somehow it was very few of the Loard-vogh that got hurt.

And the planets began to pile deep with equipment. It was a real springboard, this planet frontier. Like a storm cloud collecting electrons, they would pile up to the bursting point and then with a crackle and a flash of lightning, they would hurl themselves across space to blast the focal point.

Terra!

XI.

Cliff Lane and Stellor Downing faced one another. They had spent hours in complete slumber after the incident, and their awakening had been almost simultaneous. They were both in a mental tizzy; they knew that Something Must Be Done but were slightly foggy as to what. Their former animosity seemed gone, or at least secondary to the urgency of the present situation.

They did not ask the usual question upon awakening, they knew that they had been removed from Toralen Ki's ship and hospitalized.

They did not mention Toralen Ki—not openly. But they felt it. Perhaps it was a sort of mental maturity, this Transformation. They kept their counsel until they could discuss it together—and they seemed to know that the other preferred it that way.

They sought the eyes of the people in the room and asked, almost simultaneously: "Can this be explained now?"

Hotang Lu nodded agreeably. He explained the story in full, and completely. As he concluded Hotang Lu smiled again. "Before—you had not the ability to understand, nor had I the ability to express myself in your terms. The Transformation has made it possible for all of us to partly speak in the other's language, and partly convey thoughts."

"That should be helpful."

"You will find it so. No matter which race of whatever sun you visit in the future, you will find that faculty helpful. You will even be able to mingle with the Loard-vogh."

"'Mangle' sounds better," gritted Lane.

"That will come in time."

"Well, let's hit it," said Lane. "What do we do first?"

"First," said Hotang Lu, "is to beware. The Loard-vogh are warned. Knowing their psychology, attack will be imminent."

"Then we'd best prepare to repel boarders?"

"Yes."

"Hotang Lu has the right idea," said Lane. "If they're warned, they'll clip us first."

Kennebec objected. "Why?" he asked. "Why do you expect them to hit us? After all, they're swarming through the galaxy in this direction. If they are that powerful, why should they attack Terra?"

"We constitute a threat," said Downing. "We are a powerful threat, or I miss my guess."

"Terra is a most powerful threat," said Hotang Lu. "Terra, well, it is known to the Loard-vogh as the Planet of Terror."

"Gratifying in a nice, lethal way," smiled Kennebec. "Mind telling us why?"

"Not at all. Terra is the center of the mutation area."

"Meaning what?"

"Sol is one of a vast trinary, astronomically speaking. Or was once. It is now one of an extended binary. You have no reference to this?"

"Not that I know of," said Lane. "And I've been a student of astronomy."

"Well, it is so vast that you may probably not come to the astronomical proof for thousands of years. Sol, however, is one of a binary that used to be a trinary. The third sun was alien—contraterrene. Thirty million years ago it was struck by a stellar wanderer—of terrene matter. The explosion was mighty. It was vast. It scattered particles of the third member far and wide. A great swarm of bits of contraterrene matter range this sector of the Galaxy. They fall into Sol, into Alpha, into Procyon, into Sirius, into the other stars within thirty to forty light-years from Sol. Even Arcturus, forty light-years away, has his small share, and so it goes.

"The resulting radiation from this drift of contraterrene matter falling into the star dispersion of this sector has bathed this entire portion of the Galaxy in hard radiation. Mutation has been rapid, and evolution has taken swift advances."

"Meaning exactly what?" demanded Stellor Downing.

"I can tell you that one," laughed Thompson. "We are tougher than hell."

"Terra's evolution has been vicious and swift," said Hotang Lu. "The natural enemies of life have also evolved rapidly. Clifford Lane destroyed one of the minor animals of Sscantoo by merely holding it—so did Stellor Downing. The things that Terrans live with in peace—or even symbiosis—are feared by the rest of the Galaxy. Insect life—many thousands of kinds of insects. Fungus—a myriad of types, all hardy. I've heard of a mollusk that secretes strontium metal for a shell rather than the usual calcium, and micro-animalcules that thrive in a bath of chemically pure sulphuric acid. Terrans drink a most foul poison—ethanol—for pleasure, and inhale the combustion-products—tar and worse—of a dried weed as a fairly common habit. This habit, by the way, seems to have absolutely no effect upon life or mentality. Terrans go anywhere with immunity, and those who come here must prepare to die."

"You're not dead," objected Lane.

"No, but I expected death. I was prepared. I was innoculated and sterilized and given all sorts of treatments. I irradiate myself daily with the micro-organism killing radiations known to our doctors and scientists. Otherwise I would—well, in your slang terms—grow green hair in an hour.

"In fact," continued Hotang Lu thoughtfully, "Toralen Ki and myself were the last of several expeditions to contact Terra. We sent a first to investigate and sample the upper stratosphere. They did—and they died painfully. But they succeeded in preparing artificial antimeasures against the bacteria and fungus-spores that roam that altitude. The second expedition landed, but took only samples of the surface-atmosphere. They died, learning the secrets of the mutant microlife of Terra. They prepared antimeasures for the third expedition who emerged from the ship, protected against air-borne death, and gave their lives learning how to control the microlife that abounds and is transmitted by contact.

"The fourth expedition came to roam the planet at will, and they died because there had been a mutation in one form of spore in the years between the third expedition and the fourth. The fifth came and were safe.

"Toralen Ki and myself were the fifth expedition."

"Um-m-m, what a nice bunch of little stinkers Terrans must be," smiled Lane.

"Terrans and Venusites," amended Downing.

"Don't be bitter," laughed Lane. "You're tarred with this brush too, you know."

Kennebec smiled. "I'll be afraid of myself from now on."

Hotang Lu looked at Kennebec seriously. "That is your main concern," he said. "You—and all Solarians—have but that to fear."

"What?"

"You need fear only yourselves. All your other enemies fall like the wheat before the scythe. From the most minute to the most gigantic. Micro-organisms that defy your best instruments can not defy your evolution. Giants that defy your imagination can not defy your science. The cold and forbidding planets themselves bow to Terran domination. Lane, born on Venus; a world of violent insect life and rife with micro-organisms is populated by Terrans. Downing was born of Mars. Mars is cold and forbidding. Life cannot survive there. Life cannot, gentlemen. Oh, life in the sense that regeneration and self-sustenance is life, can. After all, Mars is bathed in the same radiation that produces hardy mutations. But Terran life is intelligent. Martian life can not be—"

"See?" chortled Cliff Lane.

Hotang Lu swung upon the Venusite. "Stellor Downing is Terran," he said stoutly. "Venus can not support intelligent life either," he added in a mollifying tone.

"They do," objected Kennebec.

"By support I mean spawn," said Hotang Lu. "To support does not mean to 'be converted to'."

"Oh."

"Terra controls. Terra takes over. Terra is the Planet of Terror. Her minions rule the Galaxy, her mutants are the fear and the death of all. Linzete of Sscantoo capitulated because of two things. One was Lane's ability to carry, without self-destruction, microlife that destroyed their minor animals in a matter of minutes. The other was Downing's ability to read the radiation of their weapons and return in less than a month with an improvement on them. And what is your favorite dish?" he asked Kennebec.

"Filet mignon with mushrooms."

Hotang Lu shivered visibly. "Tender, of course?"

"Tender and very, very rare."

Hotang Lu shivered again.

"Why?"

"What makes a steak tender?" he asked with an air of innocence.

"Brutally speaking, it is a matter of semiputrefication."

"Precisely. You hang it in a warm, smoky, damp place until it 'grows hair'. Then you partially cook it—not really enough to destroy the enzymes—and smother it with one of the most pernicious forms of fungi. It is served hot—a condition that enhances most chemical reactions. And you fall to, eating this deadly mixture with appetite, relish, appreciation, and, by the most holy, you complain bitterly if the tenderness is not right. You object if the micro-organisms have not had their chance to break down the toughness of the meat. About the only disease that Terrans really need fear is the ulcer, which is a case of the adaptable beginning to eat itself, or perhaps carcinoma, where local mutation takes place."

"That makes us feel very good," said Kennebec dryly. "But from what you've told us, we are on the brink of invasion by a super-race that is slowly engulfing the Galaxy."

"The Loard-vogh must be defeated."

"I should think so," remarked Kennebec.

"Our work is through," said Hotang Lu. "Tlembo is surpassed. Sscantoo was one hope of Tlembo, but the catmen are almost at the peak of their evolution, and cannot be increased in mental stature more than twice or thrice. Tlembo reached their mental ultimate ten thousand years ago and were far surpassed by the Loard-vogh. Terra now surpasses the Loard-vogh. But remember, Co-ordinator Kennebec, you have mental ability not real mentality. You have the capability to increase a thousandfold above your present mental stature. But you have not increased in fact."

"I do not follow."

"Your infants have the ability to become the mentally great. Until that ability is exploited, they are mentally lower than the most unintelligent of animals. They cannot even feed themselves without help.

"Terra now has the ability," he continued. "If Terra is to rule the Galaxy—and well she might for her adaptability—she must exploit the latent mental capability."

"And the next plan?" suggested Kennebec.

Thompson looked at Hotang Lu. "What's yours?" he asked.

"You will be the co-ordinator. The Extremes will co-operate in gathering information and you will direct them, and all of Sol, in this effort."

Kennebec frowned. "You must know what you're doing," he said. "But I was under the impression that Lane and Downing—?"

Hotang Lu nodded. "That was the original plan. But due to a rather peculiar set of circumstances out near Sscantoo, Thompson now has the superior mind of all Solarians. You see, he did not achieve twinship with a Terran. He achieved a ... er ... tripletship with Toralen Ki, and the Loard-vogh known as Kregar, who was high in their councils. Since he is aware of the Loard-vogh mind, his decisions can be expected to take into account what they are likely to do."

"One of the main jobs in fighting an alien culture is to try to outguess them," added Thompson. "Having a bit of Loard-vogh psychology for inspection will enable me to handle the outguessing process somewhat better."

"Reasonable," agreed Kennebec. "My job now will be to convince the superior officers of these three that their ability warrants giving orders instead of taking them."

"It should be easy. Their ability will speak for itself. Besides, you may issue statements to the effect that mental activity between these three have placed them—"

"Hotang Lu, a thousand years from now we might. But you told us that all we now have is the mental ability without the training necessary to use it."

"Yes?"

"My small friend, all that means is that men will now be able to use the whole of their minds to indulge in power-grabbing, connivery, and politics."

Hotang Lu smiled. "I know," he said. "The end-product of it all will be that little change is visible. You see, the avaricious of your race will be of greater mental power, true enough. But those of you who try to see that things are run right will have the same increase in mental stature. When I spoke of the human race as a slumbering giant, I meant that all facets of human nature were equally smothered."

"Hm-m-m. I see what you mean. But jealousy isn't good, and if I make a statement to the effect that the minds of these three are superior, every mother's son on all three planets and nine colonies a-stellar will be sharpshooting for them. Ah-hah," he finished, shaking his head.

"Their ability will take hold. Their individual characteristics will show. Let it be known that Lane and Downing are each doubly capable because of the mental twinship. That all Solarians know now. Let it also be known that Toralen Ki and the Loard-vogh Kregar fought the same type of mental battle for Thompson's mind—and that he has the triple ability. Regardless of jealousy, they will come out on top."

"Well," said Thompson, "at this point I think we'd best be thinking about our skins, Cliff, like to scout the catmen again?"

"What for?"

"Take a look at their stuff. That snatcher they had might be the stuff for trouble in a large scale. Might see what they've got, and what you can make of it."

"Think there's any chance we might grab a hunk out of the middle of a sun and hurl it at the enemy?"

"Yes, but it is remote, and wasteful to boot."

"Why?

"Anything you might grab out of any sun would be more difficult than grabbing the planet itself—the one you want to annihilate, I mean. Better do it directly by just taking the planet, stopping it in its orbit, and hurling it to its sun itself. The forces present in a sun would be more difficult to handle. And besides, what would you anchor it to?"

"Space itself," suggested Downing. "With a driver beam."

"You'd end up by warping space. Nope, I can think of easier ways of beating out my brains. But Cliff, if you'll see what they have, we can use it, perhaps. Stellor, any suggestions you'd like to make?"

"Someone better start converting the manufacturers. Hotang Lu's picture isn't at all good, you know. The Loard-vogh have conquered about a quarter of the Galaxy now. Their numbers are legion and they are a conquistadorial outfit at best. They'll fight to the last one, and they outnumber us thousands to one."

"Millions," corrected Hotang Lu.

"Looks futile right there."

"Let's not quit before we're licked," snapped Thompson. "Before they collect Sol in their list, they're going to have to kill each and every Terran."

"Um-m-m—not a bright prospect."

"Makes us as tough as they are," mused Kennebec.

"Tough, but not as nasty," offered Billy. "They want conquest for the sake of conquest. They'll die to the last man fighting for the sake of fighting. We'll die to the last man fighting for peace."

"Right."

"So," offered Downing, "I'll take a scout of the Loard-vogh if you want."

"O.K.," said Thompson. "This is going to keep us all busy for a long time. We'd best relax tonight—tomorrow we can all leave."

"You'll take my crew?" asked Stellor Downing.

"Since spying can't be done with twenty-five ships at your back, I will," agreed Lane.

"You can handle 'em," said Downing. "After all, you do have my ability now."

Lane smiled cheerfully. "O.K. I'll see you later."

"Right," said Downing.

"And keep this under your hat, fellows. Terra has one great secret weapon that the Loard-vogh can never get nor use. It is a weapon that must wait until the time is ripe. It must never be disclosed, until it is in use. Then—it will be too late for the Loard-vogh to stop it."

"What is it?"

"If you don't know, I'll not tell you yet."

"But why tell us at all?"

"The idea of fighting a race that has conquered the Galaxy is staggering. Especially a race that, until lately, has been Terra's mental superior. The knowledge of a secret weapon of definite capability tends to make our battle less foolish. We will win."

XII.

Patricia Kennebec peered out of the window at the screech of brakes on the pavement. Then, to avert open hostility, she ran to the door and out upon the sidewalk.

She faced them, and was slightly baffled to hear them speak:

"Well?" asked Lane.

"You didn't beat me."

"It was a dead heat," smiled Lane.

"We're two minds with but a single thought, these days," Stellor told Patricia. "Every time I find myself thinking of something, I discover that he has been considering the same thing, too."

"You'd better split your personality—and/or your body," suggested Lane. "Or become twins. I can foresee difficulties with the theological and civil authorities if this goes on."

Patricia smiled. "I can't possibly marry you both. Not at the same time, anyway."

"Toss coin?" offered Lane. "We'll take turns—"

"You will not!" stated Patricia. "I'm old-fashioned enough to go into it wanting permanency. I don't really expect it, but I can and will hope. I will not enter marriage with any split in mind. That's ... that's—"

"Sorry," said Cliff. "I was joking."

"Love may be somewhat amusing," she said seriously. "But marriage is no joke. So let's forget it. Oh—look! Here comes Billy!"

Lane and Downing looked, and then whistled.

Patricia squinted at the pair of them, and then took another look at Thompson. "Did you two swap minds—or was he in on it?" she asked with a laugh.

"He wasn't—but why?" asked Lane.

"Billy is pulling your favorite trick," she told Lane. "He's got a glamor-puss on each elbow."

"And he can pick 'em, too!" said Downing approvingly.

Patricia looked at him in puzzlement.

Lane caught the look. "That's my line," he told Stellor.

"So it is. 'And your line shall be my line, and your ideas shall be mine. For whitherso thou goest, there—' and so on, Cliff."

"This is getting bad," smiled Patricia to Billy. "I've often thought that it would be perfect if I could take these two and boil 'em down into one man. Instead, I've got the boiling process done but the outcome is two men both with all of the things I've liked about each—or am I getting involved in my own words?"

"I knew they'd not think of furnishing enough femininity to make a full party," he laughed. "Patricia, smile and be nice to all of us. Kids, Patricia Kennebec. Virginia Thompson, my sister, and Tania Lake, her erstwhile college chum. Gals, the redheaded wildman is Stellor Downing and the dark, sunkissed Adonis is Clifford Lane. Take it from there."

Lane blinked at Virginia. "You're his sister? By adoption, no doubt. No blood relation of Billy could be—" Lane stopped at precisely the right point, and looked just the right amount of confusion. His act went over, and Virginia smiled back. "He talks, too," he said seriously.

Patricia Kennebec looked at Billy. "This has the earmarks of conspiracy," she told him. "What gives?"

"Nothing in particular," he said with a slight smile. "Ginger and Tanny were sitting around the house as usual when I got home this evening, and both of them looked hungry. Seems to me they're always that way—at least as far back as I can remember."

"You mean you've been concealing assets like these?" demanded Downing.

"I'll inspect this conspiracy a little better after I find out how it's working," Patricia whispered to Billy. "You treat them both like sisters."

"Tania has lived next door to us for most of her life," said Billy honestly.

"Hm-m-m—girlhood sweet-heart?"

"Nope. We didn't even scrap over the back fence."

"There's one thing about Billy," said Downing, diverting his attention briefly. "He doesn't ever scrap for anything."

"He never seems to lose anything he wants," offered Tania.

"He doesn't," affirmed Lane. "Trouble is with that kind of guy, he'll never win the Solar Citation. Billy, why in the name of sin don't you make something look hard, just for once."

"I claimed that any man who could spend a couple of months as referee between you two would have a job big enough to win the Solar Citation," said Patricia.

"He made a breeze of it," said Lane, and Downing nodded and added: "Every time we got to the shooting-point, Billy was there with a crisis to solve, a mission to perform, or a detail to handle. And when the rivet-cutting really got going, he thought of the one short statement that stopped us both—cold."

"I still say getting in between you two is bravery above the consideration of personal safety, or even the safety of any individual, for the benefit of mankind. If that doesn't rate a Solar Cit, I don't know what does."

Billy grinned brazenly. "It all comes of one idea," he told them. "And that's the little proposition of making the best of what you know. I—know people. So I can make 'em tick. I'll admit it, I'm brilliant. Now let's forget my obvious touch of genius and go somewhere and try out our own individual superiority against a steak. We'll weigh the remains and the largest leavings is a loser."

From the front steps, Co-ordinator Kennebec called: "A good idea, fellows. I was about to call out the Guard. I was beginning to think that a mass meeting was going on right on the Presidential Grounds."

They waved good-by, and drove off in Billy Thompson's car.

And it was about four o'clock in the morning that Hotang Lu retired after hours of discussion with Kennebec. The co-ordinator of the Solar Combine nodded the Little One to his door, and then decided to raid the presidential icebox. He stopped at the door.

Co-ordinator Kennebec had a large and healthy respect for Patricia's judgment, though she was but a youngster according to his standards and those of his contemporaries. Perhaps the combination of Irish impulsiveness with the Canadian-Scotch horse sense had resulted in something with a better grasp on human nature—or perhaps it was that still-unknown intuition that women all claimed. Anyway, Kennebec had been talking to Hotang Lu with four tenths of an ear cocked to the doorway. He'd wanted to get Pat's side of the details.

He'd missed her, apparently.

For if any icebox were raided, especially the austere icebox of the co-ordinator's presidential home, it would be done en trio.

Kennebec grinned. He hoped they'd leave some for the nominal ruler of the Solar Combine.

The idea of ordering out an aide didn't occur to him; an aide could produce anything at any time, but Kennebec wasn't the type to impose. He'd do his own icebox raiding!

But he was not beyond a bit of diplomatic eavesdropping. He'd thought of Pat's problem, too. Twin minds between the men she preferred impartially. That—and he didn't like to consider it—reduced her selection to the sheer animal. He was not euphemistic, nor blind, and he recognized that men and women will be men and women and that physical attraction was a major factor. But he was of an intelligent race, and he knew also that sheer physical attraction without a simultaneous mating of mind usually resulted in trouble.

He wondered—which of the pair of worthies had the greater physical attraction for his daughter.

So, with no feeling of shame about it, Co-ordinator Kennebec, nominal ruling head of three planets; elected by popular vote; empowered to act by the Solar Combine Congress; commander in chief of all armed forces of three worlds—eavesdropped on his daughter.

"Just a keyhole listener," he thought. "I wonder which—"

"That was a neat piece of business," Pat laughed.

"Was it?" answered her companion.

"It was. And you know it. A neat bit of skullduggery."

The laugh that followed was very masculine—and there was no mistaking the originator.

"May I ask what the idea was?" asked Pat.

Billy Thompson's well-modulated voice answered: "Sure, I'll tell you. Do you want it right off the shoulder or will you take it by degrees?"

"I can take it," said Patricia. Her tone was light, but under-tones of softness were there. "Can you dish it out?"

Kennebec swallowed. Billy Thompson! Whatever he had done, he'd done it well. Kennebec smiled wistfully. Any man who could cut Patricia out of the tight-pack between Lane and Downing was either overly wise or—

"I'm dishing," said Billy. "I've been wondering how it would be to have you all to myself."

"Have you found out yet?" asked Patricia lightly.

"Not yet—it might take a long time."

"It's four o'clock," she told him.

"So what?" he said hotly. "If I get a card to this game, it's going to be a hard-held one."

"You mean that now I'm confronted with the idea of deciding between three of you?"

"Patricia, this is big-league stuff. Sit around and get as egotistical as you want. I don't think you are. I think a lot of your confounded superciliousness is just an act—and I intend to find out!"

"An act, Billy?"

"Pat, I hope it is. How long has your dad been co-ordinator?"

"About seven years."

"And you're twenty-four."

"Been reading my mail?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I can—and often do—read newsprint."

"Oh, you read, too?"

"Shut up," he snapped, "and stop sounding like a character out of a bum play. You know what I'm trying to tell you. You've been the high priestess of this chateau ever since you were seventeen. D'ye know any seventeen-year-old that has any sense?"

"Ah—"

"I know," he grinned cheerfully. "Patricia Kennebec at seventeen."

"I've not been here—"

"No, you've been to college, and stuff like that where people have been kowtowing to you. Well, either you have that glazed-personality for self-protection or I wouldn't have you on a bet!"

"Huh?" asked the girl. And her father swallowed, took a deep but silent breath and wondered what next?

"Wonderful woman," he laughed. "Three of the top men in the Solar Guard chasing after you. Gives you quite a feeling of superiority, doesn't it?"

"I—"

"Don't answer, Pat, you're about as responsible for the antics of that pair of concentric idiots as anything else."

"Look, Billy, Cliff and Stellor at least were honest with me. I knew them before I ever met you. Years and years ago. They fought over me for the junior prom in high school. They ganged up and took me, en trio, to the graduation party from grammar school. And both of those were before dad was mentioned as co-ordinator-possible. That, Billy, was before I became a possible key to the co-ordinator's office. All right. I sound jaded. I'm a stinking little headstrong, egocentric brat that sits around dangling men from a nylon ribbon, playing hearts. Billy—how can YOU prove that YOU don't want something?"

"Huh?"

"How is a nonomniscent human being in my position to know a protestation of affection from a pure and perfect act—the purpose of which to gain something?"

Kennebec, standing in the silver closet, bit his lip. He'd see this thing out, for he wanted to ask Patricia a question. For once in his life, he was not certain of the rightness of his ambition. Patricia would know. Was all ambition foolish? Is this what they meant when they said: Of what use to gain the world if only to lose a soul? Had he in his ambition to give his motherless daughter the best of everything, deprived her of that one thing that no one could do without? To have friends, even lovers, whose protestations of affection were honest; whose need of her was as personal as her need of them? How had she learned, at a tender twenty-four, that there were those who would present false face for position—and take, perhaps, that which—?

Kennebec smiled shyly, in the darkness. She had learned. Apparently it had been hard, but not too hard, that learning.

"Patricia," said Billy. "Patricia, listen to me. I've not known you long, compared to the—wildmen." He laughed shortly, but it was forced and she knew it. So did the man behind the door.

"I've not known you long, Patricia. I did a bit of trickery tonight. I dropped two red herrings across the trail—"

"Make it good," whispered Patricia, "or I'll tell the girls what you called them."

"Basically, I'm honest," said Thompson in a cheerful voice. "I bribed them well. Their known and accepted jobs were to sidetrack the un-heavenly twins. Both Ginger and Tanny swore that nothing short of open seduction would prevent them from leaving the aisle clear for my frontal attack."

"Hm-m-m—so Pat Kennebec was Target for Tonight?"

"Do you dislike me for being honest?"

"Is that honesty a cover for deeper dis—"

"Pat, please. Don't say it."

"Then what shall I say?"

"Tell me—did you like it?"

Patricia looked up at Billy Thompson. "Now I'm asking. Can you take it?"

"I can take it," said Billy. "Tell me to go and jump in the lake, if you want. I did what I did because—"

"Billy, it was rather nice."

"It—?"

"I liked it."

"Ah ... er—"

"Billy?"

"Yes?"

"Best you can do?"

The silence was significant. Kennebec, eavesdropping, swallowed deeply, and left quietly.

"Billy?"

"Patricia?"

"You always call me by my full name?"

"I like to hear it."

"Billy, what do we do now?"

"We do nothing. As far as I'm concerned, Patricia, we've just met. From here on, we do all we can to know one another better."

"I—"

The beer and sandwiches were growing warm.

"—won't be able to know—"

And it was getting later.

"—if you keep my eyes closed all the time."

Billy took a deep breath. "The better to keep you from finding out all about me, my dear."

She held his face back between her hands. "Do you realize?" she asked. The head between her hands shook. "You have really known me for less than ... than six hours. And you're making protestations—"

"You forget," he reminded her carefully, "that I'd been contemplating Patricia Kennebec for a long time. There are some things that are worth waiting for; things that require planning. I didn't know what the score would be at the end of this evening, Patricia, but I wanted so to find out. I've known you for a long time, Patricia. And, remember, little lady, that one need not fight bitterly for what he wants—sometimes it comes better if one bides his time and lets the fighters run themselves out of wind. From here, Patricia, let no man get in my way, lest he get his legs clipped out from under him."

"Supposing that I like him?" said Patricia.

"I'll only be fluffed off once," warned Billy. "There's one thing that I have that few other people have, Patricia. I can't really read minds, but I've discovered, ever since that little battle out there near Sscantoo, that I feel, and deeply, the truth of any man's feelings. But enough of that. We'll have time to quarrel later. Right now, Patricia—"

That night, the old adage died. The head that wore the crown of the Solar Combine slept like a kitten. And the only thing that bothered Co-ordinator Kennebec was that usual irrelevant wonder that crops up in the most trying of circumstances, though this was not trying, as circumstances go. Yet, Kennebec thought, it was like an hysteria almost; the unfunny joke that sends chief mourners off into gales of laughter. Incongruous and irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential.

But why in the name of Sol didn't they go into the living room, and do their necking on the love seat where it belonged instead of sitting on the cook's tall stool in the kitchen?

XIII.

The scene at the proving grounds was a bustle of activity. In the center of the area stood a huge machine with a paraboloid reflector, pointing skyward on gimbals. Supporting the projector was a girdered and trussed platform, with tractor beams on each corner, pointing down to the center of Terra. Vast was the machine; no telescope in the Solar Combine was half as solid as the trunnions and bars that rigidized the setting of the relatively small, ten-foot bowl of the projector.

A line of portable telephone poles, strung with portable wiring, led from the housing below the projector. Off across the proving ground they went to a master-control office almost lost in the horizon and the haze.

But the projector would not be studied from the remote position. That was just a clearing house—a veritable telephone exchange—that fed terrestrial data from all of the research laboratories of Terra to the monster on the proving ground.

Inside the housing was Cliff Lane, directing the technical staff. There, too, was Linzete, the catman, brought back to Terra by Lane's doubly convincing mind. Linzete did not like primates; he avoided them and went out of his way to keep a two-foot clear space between himself and the primates as he moved around in the crowded housing.

The Terrans, warned beforehand, did their best to honor his dislike of them. They respected his preference in contact, though they, at this point, tended to use his mind and his experience as something presented to them. For they—and he—knew that their mental ability exceeded his and he was there only because his experience had been greater than theirs.

Out on the trestles and the catwalks of the machine stood Stellor Downing, directing the final touches of the monstrous mechanical system.

The operator called to Lane: "The sounding-boat is over the Mindanao Deep, sir. Ready and waiting."

"How's the terrestrial laboratory at Washington?"

"Ready for an hour. And Cal Tech has been chewing their fingernails for two hours."

"Call Downing and ask him how long?"

"Calling Stellor Downing—"

"On the roger," answered Downing, grabbing a phone from its rack on a catwalk.

"How much more greasing are you going to give that mecanno set?" asked Cliff.

"Oh, any time you're ready, we are."

"I know but—"

"Until the bell rings, we'll sort of pick curls of dust out of the bearings, put a drop of oil here and there, and see that the stuff is shiny—and as slippery as the devil."

The operator plugged into a ringing line. "Lane," he called after listening, "the crew just dropped the drone."

"Get the detector gang and tell 'em."

The operator unplugged and shoved the plug into another jack. He spoke, and listened for several minutes.

"Detector gang has picked up the drone," he announced to Lane.

"Ring the warning bell!"

The clangor of the warning bell shattered the air. Over the tactac of machinery and the rumble of heavy generators, it fell on waiting ears, and from all parts of the great projector there was a general rush to hit solid ground. A huge ring of men formed a hundred yards from the machine, and Downing entered the housing.

"Can we see better in here or out there?" he asked.

"In here," said Cliff. "The drone won't be within a ten light-sec range when we hit it. The celestial globe, here, has been juggled up to show both drone and projector. It's rough, but the lack of definition won't bother us. We can understand what's happening—and if it happens as we expect, we'll see it go blooey and be able to reconstruct the event. Stick around."

Linzete came and stood beside them. "I think the sawtooth is not of the proper shape," he suggested.

"Perhaps not," agreed Lane. "But to put any sharper break on it will require another high-power driver stage. I'm hoping it will be adequate."

"The recovery time may seem slow," added Downing. "But remember how much distance it controls."

Linzete nodded dubiously. He was not the type to argue. If these gadget-mad Terrans were going to ruin a second-rate ship on the first try, well, they'd find out soon enough. He hoped they had a stock of radio-controlled drones. They'd need them.

They had—and they probably would need them.

"On target!" came the cry.

Above, the platform swung around. The projector bobbled over in its gimbals and centered on something invisible in the blue sky. The tractor beams took hold invisibly and there was a grunting of the bearings as the whole mechanism anchored itself to the core of the planet.

Then the projector jumped perceptibly. It seemed to gather itself together and pounce. Then the system relaxed, apparently, for the tractor beams died and the bearings resumed their freedom.

Down in the housing, the celestial globe showed a small, outdated cruiser. Speed was apparently zero, for the globe and its detecting and scanning circuits was following it, mile for mile and second by second. A range and velocity computed below the globe gave the data: Nine light-sec range, velocity sixty-six MPS.

The cruiser faltered in flight and the scanners almost passed ahead of it. It faltered momentarily—that was during the time that the projector seemed to gather its energy. As the pounce came, something inside of the cruiser exploded very slowly. It expanded the cruiser slightly here and there; a plate blew off; five or six of the greenhouses shattered in puffs of mild fire; and then the cruiser staggered and continued on at a lower velocity.

"Send out the word," called Lane. "General coverage. That was the first shock."

Laboratories marked the time all over Terra. It would take hours for the shock—if any—to reach the antipodes. What Lane was more interested in was the report from Cal Tech, only a few hundred miles away.

"Linzete, you were right," said Lane. "It'll take time, and we'll need it. But—Hey! Fellows! Get the high-power stage rigged and see what can be done about increasing the sharpness of the sawtooth generator."

The period of waiting was filled with activity. The reports started to come in:

"Cal Tech reports very mild shock."

"Washington indicated almost zero—just a trace."

"O.K., we can stand it," said Lane. "How's the target?"

"Circling Terra. Radius seven light-sec. Velocity fifty-three MPS."

The projector was ready when the drone returned. Again the projector gathered itself together, and the pounce was quite visible. Beneath them, the ground shook violently, and the projector and its mighty platforms rattled in the bearings, held as they were by tractors to the core of Terra.

In the celestial sphere, the cruiser faltered again, and then exploded in a wild blast of sheer flame, white and violent. The radiating gases expanded, passed out of the scope of the scanner, and then the scanner fell away from the scene and roamed aimlessly across the sky, showing a mad whirling pattern of uninteresting stars.

"What happened?" asked Linzete.

"Main target blew up completely. Nothing massive to focus on, so the finders and scanners just roam at will. That's it, Stellor."

"Wait until we get the seismographic reports," cautioned the Martian. "Maybe we can blast a ship to bits at two million miles, but so what if California slides into the San Jacinto fault?"

"Well, there'll be no more attempts until the returns are all in from the labs," said Lane. "I'm taking no more chances." He turned to Linzete. "You'll want the plans, of course?"

The Sscantovian nodded. "I will not require the main circuits, of course. The snatcher portion is just an oversized version of our own invention. What I shall need is the details of the compressing sphere. We were content to tear a section out of the ship. You made a precision slicing operation out of it which pleased us greatly. But this problem of taking the spherical cut and actually compressing the matter inside—then releasing it instantly to create an atomic explosion is far beyond me. We can copy it, but no Sscantovian would ever hope to develop it from the facts here unless he had detailed plans. We—could not understand its operation."

"You did understand the main principle, though. You were the one who predicted that the release-time was not fast enough and suggested sharpening the sawtooth generator."

"One may make suggestions without understanding the whole process," purred Linzete. "Your weapon seems to be a success."

"We'll know that when the seismographic reports are all in. Hurling a beam of this kind, doing what we do, may well shake the planet's crust. We hope to extend our range to ten million miles, and we'll know if we can in a few months. If you have any deities, Linzete, you might burn a prayer to 'em."

It was thirty-six hours before the returns were all in. All along the fault-lines of Terra came reports of very mild temblors. Nowhere was there any severe slippage of Terra's crust: the seismographs could find no epicenters, the uncounted tons of rock, under unknown tons of pressure, had slid uniformly, creating a general, little shock.

And Lane grinned. "With little slippages," he said, "we may do away with all severe earthquakes. Releasing the crust-pressures before they build up to a disaster-quantity should help, not hinder. We might continue hitting small targets like this until the distribution of fault-pressures is even all over. Then we can swing the Big Beam."

"What I'm interested in at this point," said Downing, "is the countermeasures group. What if the Loard-vogh get this thing?"

"Billy says that they can't miss getting it eventually. And Billy also says that the countermeasures gang is working on another development. Has something to do with a similar gadget, only the sphere of force can be made to pierce the snatcher—or any other field of force—and remove smaller items inside. Sort of grab the stuff out from the contracting sphere and toss it outside. It might save a lot of the crew, especially since the atomic sphere is necessarily small."

Linzete purred and asked: "Couldn't you compress a whole section of the ship?"

Lane turned. "Billy says we could, but why? Takes that much more power, and the ultimate explosion would do little harm. This way we can grab a hunk the size of a baseball and make quite an atomic blowup out of it. Takes much less power, and the explosion is great."

"I think you'll find," offered Downing, "that it takes just as much power to wreck a ship by crushing it physically as it does to compress a small sphere and then let it explode."

"The atomic explosion takes more," said Lane.

"Then why?"

"Projector-size. We're getting away with swinging a ten-foot bowl around. If we wanted to inclose a whole ship, we'd require a paraboloid about forty times the longest diameter of the ship, just as the ten-foot bowl is forty times the diameter of the compressible sphere. And cutting a section out—well, that's the weapon we had before and decided against because it left a chance for a well-designed ship to lose a section and still carry on, or be repaired. Complete destruction is the only answer."

"In other words, the power input is greater, but the operational power—?"

"The overall power requirements of the atomic sphere projector are about even this way to just crumpling a ship."

"That's what I said," objected Downing.

"I thought you meant just the crushing factor. The difference is made up in the projector elements. Well, that's those. Billy says we can turn this over to the secondary crew, now."

"Then what?"

"I'm going to get six of these made up for each planet. We'll also mount some on the outer planets; and the colonials of Alpha, Procyon, and the rest."

Hotang Lu pounded the table with his little fist. "That weapon might have stopped them!" he snapped. "Why did you stop production?"

"Are you questioning my motives?" asked Thompson quietly.

"Yes!"

"Have you any doubts as to my loyalty?"

"I ... ah ... no."

"And you do not understand my intent?"

"No."

"He's not alone, Billy," put in Kennebec. "What do you intend to do?"

"The use of Terra's secret weapon is critical. It must be employed at exactly the opportune moment, and not one minute before and not one minute after. There must be, for psychological reasons you all know, a certain amount of normal, mine-run fighting before we employ our secret. But I do not want them to be defeated by our might and our weapons. That would be disastrous, for they would return in a few years, and they would return and return, until finally they succeeded in conquering us. We must fight this as I have planned, and when the time is exactly ripe, we shall employ our secret weapon and from that time on, there will be no more carnage, and the Loard-vogh will be conquered."

"When you're dealing with the Loard-vogh, there's no better way to skin a cat than to grab the skin at the neck and pull," scowled Downing. "Choking them to death with cream will not work. I spent three weeks there, remember, and I tell you, Billy, you can not temporize with them!"

Kennebec shook his head at Billy, "I wonder if your practice of getting what you want without fighting for it mightn't be carried too far."

"We are a million million in population," said Billy. "That's counting the Solar Combine plus the colonial outposts. This fight we're facing can not be won in another way. They outnumber us a million to one—think of that! To win, every Solarian must kill one million Loard-vogh! And that," he concluded bitterly, "makes us all come out even!"

"There isn't a man in this sector that wouldn't prefer to die protecting his own than to knuckle under Loard-vogh rule."

"I know—"

"Billy, I can not permit this order to continue," said Kennebec. "We must not permit them to take Terra!"

"Then you're overriding my order?"

"I am—and I pray that the procrastination isn't fatal."

Downing frowned. "Look, Billy, remember this: The Loard-vogh fear us as we are! Otherwise they would not be mobilizing against us. Despite the million-to-one ratio, they fear us and our heredity. We can and will win!"

"We'll win, never fear," said Billy. "But we'll win only if we play it properly."

"And properly means to fight with every weapon that we have."

"Spore bombs?"

"That's but one thing."

"They'll help—only to make the other trillion Loard-vogh mad. Douse a few planets and thousands of others will muster."

Billy Thompson thought for a moment and then answered: "Really, it makes little difference how we fight. We'll win anyway. Go ahead and build your gadgets."

He left, and Hotang Lu nodded. "I pray there is time left. Time to build smaller ones, too, that will fit the ships of the Solar Guard. Time to manufacture the necessary fighting equipment. Time to ... ah, always we are fighting time. I curse the lack of time."

And then the Tlemban added: "I am mystified. In my cosmos, if a secret weapon is worthy of use, it is worthy of use from the time it is discovered. I am puzzled—but then, I do not understand your secret weapon. It sounds foolish to me."

Kennebec spent the next three hours trying to make the Tlemban understand, and finally gave up.

XIV.

Lindoo strode into the presence of Vorgan, Lord of All, and handed an aide a scroll for the record. The Lord of All nodded and said nothing. Nor was there anything to say that had not been said previously. Any further discussion would be merely re-contemplation of ideas. The proof was four months off.

It would take four long months between this day—when Lindoo handed Vorgan's aide the scroll, giving the official date and time of I-second, when the invasion spearhead of the Loard-vogh blasted upward from the locus and headed for Sol—to the time when the first of the advance flight reached the Solar Sector.

Four months of just sheer waiting. Four months which the gadget-mad Terrans would use in preparation after the grand fleet of the Loard-vogh was a-space, and growing flight-weary.

Four months, full of intership bickerings and man-to-man fights because the quarters were too confined.

For the Loard-vogh were a quarrelsome race, and their fighting men trained to viciousness. It is not strange that with four months, cooped up in shells of steel, they should take to fighting among themselves. It was strictly against the regulations, of course, because the Lord of All wanted his fighting men to kill the enemy. Yet a fighting man will fight if he has nothing else to do, and for four long months there would be absolutely nothing to do. The Loard-vogh fighting man knew little else but battle. Trained from youth to be hard, vicious, and ruthless, he knew nothing of the art of killing time. Confinement made him more vicious when released, and the officers overlooked a given percentage of fights among the men. It was better that the ultimate viciousness be great than to have their men soft with other arts.

A goodly supply of other arts among the Loard-vogh would cause less casualties. Had they been mentally and physically trained to carve ivory, play chess, tie knots, or build spacecraft in bottles, their lives would have been less violent, including the madness with which they drove forward their attack.

Forward went the grand fleet. In the lead were the fleet fighter ships, and following them were the second wave craft. Third came the heavy supercraft, the backbone of the grand fleet of the Loard-vogh. A day behind came the mop-up transports, crammed to the space cocks with fighting men, their nerves already on edge after a short day or two of flight.

And bringing up the rear were the myriad upon myriad of supply ships, replacement carriers, machine-shop craft, and even space-going foundries. Heavy ships laden with munitions and generating equipment; craft that could anchor to the sunward side of an inner planet and hurl megawatt after megawatt of power to the fighting ships for their power-coffers. Huge—frameworks—with the equipment exposed to space. Planet docks for the repair of ships damaged in fight.

Forward drove this horde; forward into the Solar Sector. An all-conquering mass.

Silently and invisibly they sped in a long, cylindrical space pattern.

Object, Terra.

Not unmindful of danger, Sol was working furiously. Factories, their dies rusting the yard, were turning out parts for the atomic sphere. Dymodines fairly rattled off of production lines and were installed in the minor ships. Modines, the personal side-arm miniature of the dymodine, came with a rush down the production-line conveyors and slid into wrapping machines; were wrapped against all destructive, natural forces and then were packed in boxes for shipment.

Planet-mounted snatchers came to location by skytrain in parts and were assembled on the spot by skilled technicians.

The vast machines that generated the atomic sphere were being assembled and shipped to the several places. Here they went together, fitted bit by bit by machinists and technical men who worked furiously against time to complete the job before the Loard-vogh came.

They were many years building the original Palomar telescope, but this was war, and the techniques of fabrication had advanced since then. Perhaps the experience gained in that monstrous job—and in other mighty projects, some war-driven, some peace-measures—gave Sol the technical skill she needed. There would be no matter of years, this time. It was a matter of four very short months.

One hundred and twenty days. Just one small third of a year. And there is a saturation point in the manpower curve; just because one man can dig a well in sixty days, it is no sign that sixty men can dig the well in one day. They could, mathematically, but you can't get sixty men with shovels in a three-foot circle either mathematically or physically.

So time bore on relentlessly. Time that for the Loard-vogh seemed endlessly droning by was racing like fury for the laboring Terrans.

For at the same instant that Vorgan was groaning about the four-month wait, Thompson was complaining about the utter impossibility of getting anything done in four months.

What hurt Vorgan's sleep most of all was the fact that he feared that Terra knew of the imminent invasion.

Terra knew, and that spoiled their sleep, too.

But they did not tell Vorgan that they knew. If the Lord of All had known for certain, he would have slept better, for the uncertainty would have been removed.

For four long months, Vorgan's vicious crew of Loard-vogh warriors drove through space, and then they deployed in battle array. Their nerves tautened, and the personal fighting ceased, for the chances of battle with a legal enemy stayed their hands against their fellows.

They knew that they were approaching enemy territory. Their first glimpse of trouble would be a mushrooming blast in the sky—or even several simultaneous explosions.

The first that went up would be a deadly signal that near by, or dead ahead, their hated enemy was making his advance stand. That was the gamble. They each pinned their hopes on being the watcher. Let another ship go up in fire and flame. In this game, where no man could help another, none even considered the idea of wanting death in preference to another. For one man's life was exactly as good as any other man's at this point—for until the initial shock wave hit, neither was doing a thing.

They were on the offensive, the Loard-vogh. They were breaching a system that their leaders feared enough to break the Master Plan and send forth a full grand fleet to take this sector that lay more than a thousand light-years from the frontier of Loard-vogh conquest.

As the Loard-vogh was on the offensive, the first move had been taken—by them. The next move was up to Sol. And that retaliation would take place soon was not doubted by any man.

Fifty light-years from Sol they slowed and alerted. They wondered, those leaders of that invasion, when the blow would fall. Was it wiser to wait until the enemy was alert? To wait until the enemy was waiting for the first detector alarm seemed brash. The Loard-vogh method was to strike like a hidden snake, and beat the enemy to the ground before he knew what was waiting for him.

It made them nervous.

And a psychologist who had studied both the Loard-vogh and the Terran minds from a dispassionate standpoint made the observation that the Loard-vogh might have been better equipped to cope with a slashing surprise attack, but were completely baffled by the obvious foolishness of waiting.

Three days Terran went by, and the secondary waves of Loard-vogh came up, adding to the general confusion. Orders rang through space and the following waves of the grand fleet slowed so that utter confusion would not hamper their action.

Then, eight days after the first arrivals, and still with no attack, the Loard-vogh decided to move in another ten light-years. A star twinkled there. It had been this stellar outpost that the Loard-vogh feared. Their methods of defense would have been to arm every planet of this star with energy enough to reach three light-years into space and crush any oncomer. They were wise. They gave a three-times plus safety factor just because their Lord of All was afraid of Terra.

And they admitted that they, too, feared Terra.

With slow care, the spearhead moved forward. The grand fleet moved in waves once again. Slow, overcautious waves, and they worried all the way. They knew. They knew that it would come any minute now.

But nothing came at five light-years from the star. And at three light-years there was not a sign in their detector systems. A single light-year gave them the same indication, and they swarmed about the star—now a blazing sun, and searched the heavens about them for the sign of enemy activity. They gave the seven planets a wide berth, and would stay away until they were very certain—

So this was the feared and hated Solar Sector? Not even an outpost. Not a scout. Not a sign of activity!

The Loard-vogh took a deep breath and sighed in relief. And while they were letting their breath out, Sol struck—and hard!

XV.

In the long-range scanner, the Loard-vogh fleet were but shapeless blobs. In the past hours, they had become detectable, and now were spreading out as the terrific velocity of the Terran fleet dropped down upon them.

"Now?" asked Downing.

"Better wait another minute," suggested Cliff.

"O.K. The judgment of when is best is tough, sometimes."

"Better we should blitz eight or nine of them for sure than to try and get fifteen but miss all but six. And don't forget that we're in the lead. The boys in back will have more time to spread out and get the outlying ships."

"I'd like to stay running free as long as I can," said Stellor.

"It makes us just that harder to detect when we are not radiating," agreed Lane. "Too bad we can't run right on through this way."

"Yeah, but we've got to use echo-ranging for the ordnance directors. We can't just use their radiation as a means. And if we use echo-ranging, that means squirting out the prime signal. That means detection anyway, and we might as well use power, too."

"What's our speed?"

"Point seven nine light."

"Fast enough," grunted Downing. "O.K., let 'em have it!"

At seventy-nine percent of the speed of light, the free-running ships came to life. The drivers went to work at the same time that the first pulse from the ordnance directors went out. The turrets, already trained by hand, moved only seconds of arc to correct for speed, when the pulse-echo returned with the data. And with the return of the second echo, reducing the error, the projectors belched energy.

In the Loard-vogh, detectors screamed and flared. Turrets, directed at random or stowed for travel, whipped around, the projectors rising in elevation. Defensive equipment went to work—but not soon enough.

For a dymodine crossing a dymodine will stop both, but they must be operating simultaneously. The Terran ships fired first, and they hit.

The sky had been serene. There was the star, blazing as a sun should blaze, the only thing in view against a stellar curtain. The ships of both fleets were black, and minutely invisible against the sky. The planets of this star were as much a part of the stellar backdrop as any planets are, even on Earth, and the appearance was just that of a very distant disk, half-dollar size, blinding white, poised against a vast, never ending wall of twinkling points.

Thirty seconds later, man had passed through—and left his mark.

Dymodines flashed incandescent spots that erupted in flaming gases. Snatchers sliced backbone from the ships of the Loard-vogh and they crumpled; some exploding. Three atomic sphere projectors found their mark and three of the Loard-vogh blasted themselves to bits, leaving only expanding masses and hard radiation—against the sky were moving flecks of death; the Universe was spreckled with novae that spread as they were watched.

Death, silent and unspectacular from a distance, struck.

And the Terran ships were through the Loard-vogh fleet and gone.

But not unscathed. Trailing lines of whispy, incandescent vapor from their intrinsic velocity, nine Terran ships traced their lives across the sky.

"Made it! Call base and tell 'em," said Downing.

The connection was already established. "Thompson? We got twenty-two. Thirteen definites and nine more-than-probables. Seven with light damage. Lost nine."

"Good, Stellor. Now don't try it again. They're wise and they'll clean you out."

"I'd like to take my chance on one more run."

"Don't do it. You'll be cleaned."

"But they'll make a base here."

"They'll make it anyway. How's their numbers?"

"Terrific. They've got everything."

Thompson grunted. "I'm not surprised. After all, they have a quarter of the Galaxy full of them, and even though slave labor isn't the best, a planet full of slaves is better than half a planet of free men if you accept that a slave is fifty percent efficient."

"I'm beginning to see futility ahead," said Lane.

"Well, don't. Terra has a secret weapon that will win for us, you know."

"I know, but you can't swing it yet. It's the waiting and the back-breaking fight that must come first."

"Too bad we can't just let 'em roar in close enough to use it all at once."

"Wouldn't work. We've got to wait until the psychological moment. Then—we'll swing it."

"O.K., now what?"

"Don't toss away any more ships. Not right now. Let the Loard-vogh establish their base," explained Billy. "We can't stop 'em anyway. Let them come on in. I want them close enough so we can get at them without having to go all the way out to get them." He thought a moment. "Tell your boys not to use the atomic sphere any more than necessary. You know why."

"We got a few with it."

"All right," answered Thompson. "At that time it was expedient. We had to dent them to make them cautious."

Lane said: "I don't see why we just don't let 'em roar on in close and then use Plan One on them."

"Wouldn't work that way. They are too numerous. Before Plan One is efficient, we must give them a tough fight. Otherwise they will not understand that we mean business. We'll win only after we convince the Loard-vogh that we are worthy opponents in their own type of fighting. Otherwise they will wipe us out by sheer weight of numbers despite Plan One."

"I know," grumbled Lane. "We've been through all that."

"Well, then you know that Plan One will work only after a certain number of them have reason to fear our arms."

"O.K., Billy, we're coming in."

"No—not yet. Head in for Procyon IV and wait for them there. Give them as good a fight as you can."

Inward swept the grand fleet of the Loard-vogh. The other six planets of Procyon were push-overs; the Loard-vogh hit the planetary defenses, knocked them down by outnumbering them, and landed. The colonial population headed for the hills and hid out. And as the mop-up squads beat the bush, many of them did not come back. Yet it was futility, for Vorgan's vicious minions held the planets eventually.

But on Procyon IV, they had trouble.

The fleet came down in a multiple line and encircled IV. Terran forces fought back.

Up-shooting beams crossed with the Loard-vogh weapons and made the air a seething hell. Snatchers ripped the bellies out of ships, and from the ships there came answering snatchers that gouged spheroidal chunks out of the planet along with the projector crews and hurled them aside.

Nuisance weapons—air torpedoes and space mines—floated freely and exploded, filling the air with flying slabs of metal.

And then forty of the finest made a landing. They forced their way to the defended surface, scoured the ground beneath them with a solid curtain of energy, and scarred the countryside until nothing was left to stop them. They landed, set up a vast circle, and into the center of the circle there poured a constant stream of Loard-vogh transports.

"All right!" barked Lane. "Get the heavies over!"

"Heavies on the way!"

"And bring up the atomic spheres."

Twenty of the atomic sphere projectors came zooming over, suspended on tractors. They dropped on the circle and the tractors anchored them to the solid core of IV.

The paraboloids swung over and gouged pieces out of the center of the Loard-vogh camp and let them blast loose with their atomic fire. The Loard-vogh died like flies under the terrible energy—and like flies they came on, replacing those gone.

The air above the camp was seething. The ground below bubbled molten in spots. The periphery was a raving, solid mass of sheer energy. The bubble between the Loard-vogh forces and the Terrans was shimmering energy that pulsated in and out like the beating of an irregular heart.

And in spite of the utter madness of trying to enter that holocaust, the Loard-vogh poured in. One man made the safety of the inner shields to every hundred that came, and that one in a hundred multiplied, added to those already there, until the shell of murderous energy swelled of its own incompressible contents of Loard-vogh material and men.

The shell expanded, moved outward against the fire. The atomic spheres moved backwards, and as they moved they were silent. The Loard-vogh took advantage of the silence to shove farther. A salient fingered out—

"Cut it!" snapped Downing.

"With what?" asked Hayes, the commander.

"Drive in there—they're cutting off projector seven."

The salient swept out, forcing Terran arms back. It curved around, swept back, and had Number Seven within the loop. The pocket closed and the bitterly contested area was a wide bulge on the edge of a circle.

Another landing took place.

And another, not more than a mile away.

And then across the plains of Planet IV, of Procyon, there rolled endless, countless mile after mile of ground equipment. The heavy portables started to hurl their might as soon as they came in sight, and the Terrans were pinched.

Pinched between an embattled circle and a closing circle. The inner circle expanded, the outer circle contracted.

Downing's ship roared into the concentric fire, its turrets whipping back and forth and spitting sheer energy. Behind him there sped the twenty-four ships of his command. Into the holocaust they drove, piercing the Loard-vogh line momentarily. The hole widened briefly, and then closed down behind them. Englobed, the flight pressed close together and fought outward.

It was stalemate—and yet nine of them dropped as inert, flaming masses.

"Enough!" called Stellor. "Back!"

And his flight formed, was forced apart, and reformed. They drove for the inside again and ran up against a solid wall of ships.

Downing's flight dwindled. Pressing close, the Loard-vogh fired their torrents of energy into Downing's ships at projector-burst range. One by one the ships flamed and went down in a smoke-trailing comet.

"Help?" snapped Lane over the sub-communicator.

"Stay out—" started Downing. He was cut off as his command burst into flaming, violent death.

Thompson's voice came over the interstellar band. "Better retreat now," he said.

Lane answered. Here in the scanning-ship, the torrent of energy and deafening sound was gone, and only peaceful quiet reigned. Save for the constantly swirling fire in the battle plotter globes and the everlasting flicker of pilot lights, there was no evidence of the swift, concentrated hell that went on in the space between spheres that approached one another.

"Downing tried it," he said.

"Get many?"

"Swapped his entire twenty-five for forty-one of the Loard-vogh before they got him."

"Not at all bad," answered Thompson.

"I'd like to try it—?"

"Nope. Better collect Downing and the rest and haul tail for Terra. We're about due for the big show."

"Downing is—"

"Back," answered Stellor, opening the door. "I'm sorry to be late, fellas. They asked me about the fight out there in the hall and I stopped to chat. I didn't know you were on the line, Billy."

"Well, how was the fight?"

"Fierce. I'd hate to get into one like that, for real. Billy, will the personnel snatcher save enough of our men to lick them?"

"Saving every man aboard a doomed ship at the moment of destruction with the individual snatcher globes is a good way of not losing a man," explained Billy. "But it doesn't save materiel. They've got both, in plenty. We'll have to fall back on the secret."

"But when?" asked Lane.

"When the time is ripe. And not one moment before."

Thompson rang off. And then with a concentrated effort, the Solarian forces drove upward in a piercing needle of ships. They broke through, not without loss, and made their escape into the sky. When they landed on Terra, every ship was crammed to discomfort with men from stricken ships—literally snatched from the jaws of death with the personnel snatcher.

In numbers enough to take a whole planet, the Loard-vogh landed on Umbriel and overran it in an hour. Inward they swept to Titan and the Saturnian colonies. Inward they came to overrun Callisto and Ganymede.

Downward they dropped to Phobos and Deimos, where they set up vast projectors and hurled the attack upon Mars. Simultaneously they fell upon Venus—a monstrous horde of ships. Systematically they went through the Evening Star taking area after area, and they held Mars in their grip at the same time that Venus fell to their hordes.

"God—their numbers," groaned Cliff Lane. "I'd hoped that they might find it tough to hold everything and still hurl fresh equipment into Sol."

"They are numberless," said Hotang Lu.

The Loard-vogh swept into Terra.

Terra, the home of man. Terra, the mighty. Terra, defended as few planets were defended against the legions of Vorgan, Lord of All.

Despite the humans on Venus and Mars, they were still colonies compared to the home planet. Knowing that massed energy might hold out, all Solar defenses had been moved to Terra. Let Terra hold out and eventually mankind would recover, expand, and then drive the enemy back.

And when the Loard-vogh came to Terra, they found it defended against them.

Nowhere on Terra was there a place to land in safety. They took dead Luna easily and hurried to set up a long-range beam. Atomic spheres of unheard-of size reached upward from Terra and Luna sparkled with mighty atomic storms. Whole detachments of the Loard-vogh flamed into incandescence as the super-atomics bit fifty-foot spheres out of the face of Luna, compressed the matter itself, and let it explode.

They made a landing in Siberia and the encampment burst with a roar that shook the earth.

Overhead they roared, raining down energy that never reached through the upthrust beams. The cities were fortresses that hurled power into the sky, and though the shattered wrecks of the Loard-vogh dropped like rain, none of them reached Earth in large enough pieces to do any damage. The air took on a metallic smell, and ozone fixed out as the stratosphere shimmered in the grip of a torrent of energy beams that crossed and nullified one another.

Across the face of Terra, the high-power transmission beams hurled energy back and forth. Energy to feed the projectors that fenced with the ships of the Loard-vogh. Beams that ran on sublevel energy and could not be cut.

In the master room, there was a huge globe, wired with multicolored lights. And as the battle swept back and forth over the face of Terra, the lights changed from dark red to violet, depending upon the power drain of that district. Master technicians, making lightning calculations in a mathematical medium adapted for power work, viewed the globe and pressed buttons that hurled relay-impulses across Terra to switch and divert power for the needy locations. Their hope was to maintain a medium red all over instead of bright violet here and almost-black red there.

The Mongolian sector flamed violet after the Siberian attempt was made. Power was switched from Africa, raising the dark continent higher into the red and lowering the dangerous violet of the Mongolian sector. A sortie hit Africa, and the area pulsed briefly into the yellow and died before the technician could hit his button.

North America caught it next, and power came from Antarctica to drive the invaders away. The Mongolian effort stopped and the map died into black. The extra power went into North America and it became a less dangerous color.

And then the Panamanian district flared up. Into the violet it went, and the switches flew to drive power into the isthmus. Spreckled all over the globe were minor flarings, and they all increased as the Panama Zone took more and more power and still crept upward and upward.

It was all very much like a game of chess here in Terra's Master Power Distribution Center. But on Panama, another scene was taking place.

Four thousand of the Loard-vogh dropped to ground, driven by sheer power and as they landed, they anchored themselves to the crust of Terra.

A super-atomic reached over and its sphere of energy clutched—another atomic sphere.

Their inflexible beams strained against one another. Wrestling in subelectronic space, pulling and straining against one another. The crust of Terra groaned and the fault-lines rubbed and heaved. The inflexible beams pulled, trying to up-root the other—and both were anchored to the crust of the planet.

Luckily, the beams broke before the very surface of Terra gave. The backlash shook Terra to the core and the tidal waves lashed out against the shorelines. The ground shook, and the resulting quakes did what the Loard-vogh had not been able to do. The quakes shook earthly damage into the cities of Terra.

The energy continued to pour into the Loard-vogh planethead. The air shimmered and burst away from the hemisphere of terror, and the resulting convections drew fresh air in to be heated to almost-incandescence and driven upward.

Hotang Lu faced Billy Thompson bitterly. "This secret weapon of yours," he demanded, "it was to win for us?"

"It is," said Billy.

"IS? Is it not time that it be used? The Loard-vogh are upon the planet itself. Death looks us in the face."

"It is not yet time."

"Once before you were under their control," said Hotang Lu sharply. "Your actions now—and for the past weeks of terror—lead me to believe you are again."

"I am not."

"And who can prove it?" argued Hotang Lu.

Kennebec shook his head. "He is the one who might prove it—if you cannot trust him, who can be trusted?"

"For this, Toralen Ki died," said Hotang Lu bitterly. "My friend—dead! He died in the hope that this very thing would not happen. He met death quickly, even argued with you for the chance. A friend walked into the valley of the shadow for Terra, and Terra sits by and spits on his life by doing nothing. I would—"

"Stop it," snarled Billy Thompson. "You and your ideas. You simple fools. To think that you believed that one small system could come up ten thousand years of evolution in a year and beat a quarter of the Galaxy! I'm fighting your battle, and yet I curse you all! Have you ever stopped to think that if it were not for you and Toralen Ki, we would not be in this killing battle? To die for an ideal is all right. Toralen Ki died happy, at least! He believed that he had done his part, and no more could he do. Fine! The Loard-vogh would have ignored us for another three thousand years if you had not come here and stirred us up. Now we reap the seed of your foolishness.

"Terra writhes under the energies poured out by more ships than we have men! Gone and lost are our hopes, and our peaceful future. Our secret weapon? Our secret weapon will be successful—and from then on Terra must ever be alert and on guard. Think you the Loard-vogh will bow to us? Our secret weapon must be used from now on, every day, every minute of every day from the time we unleash it to the end of eternity.

"And if you hadn't stirred us to it, peace would reign on Terra for another three thousand years."

Hotang Lu stepped back a pace, but faced the angry Terran firmly. "And your children's children, three thousand years removed would have this fight to make."

"So what? Does that bother me? Can I grow anxious over the certain knowledge that the Universe may end ten to fifty years from now? Who can predict? Perhaps three thousand years more of evolution and science would bring forth a weapon far superior to their best. And if we remained in mental ignorance, well—is the worm unhappy? Does the beetle miss the trappings of civilization? Does the ant know of Earth moving machinery? Does the bee employ electricity?

"So we fight another race's lost battle for them, brought about by them, hurled upon our shoulders by them, and you, their representative, question my motives. The secret weapon will be unleashed in time."

"Be careful lest you cut the line too fine," warned Hotang Lu. "You are my mental superior in capability, but not in training."

"Showing the fallacy of your actions," snapped Thompson. "Had you been wiser, you would have known that the untrained ability to be a genius is less important than a normal man working at high intensity. Question your own judgment, Hotang Lu. And worry—in retrospect!"

XVI.

The Loard-vogh expanded their sphere. And like the attack upon Procyon IV, another globe of Loard-vogh dropped upon the planet. The power distribution center fought against itself and sapped power dangerously to drive off this new invasion.

A third invasion turned the trick. Power distribution failed; fell apart despite attempts to hold the network together.

"Your secret!" screamed Hotang Lu to Thompson.

Billy shook his head. "It is not yet time."

The Tlemban appealed to Kennebec.

The Co-ordinator of the Solar Combine agreed with Billy. "You still do not understand," he told Hotang Lu.

He faced Lane and Downing. "They will conquer us!"

Lane spoke for the pair of them. "You needn't appeal to us. I had partial foresight before—you said so. He had the ability to make lightning plans." He turned to Downing. "Or was it the other way around?"

"No matter," answered Stellor Downing. "Foresight is no good when planning is a part of the psyche. Instinctive and impetuous action do not match well with a planning nature. Since the transformation, we have both been slower—and quite bewildered, most of the time. No, Hotang Lu, all you can get from us is resentment over losing our ability to lead. Now, we no longer decide anything for ourselves. We cannot make up our minds."

Hotang Lu went to Patricia. "And you?"

"I am not a ruling voice."

"Prevail upon them."

"It is not my place. Besides, you do not understand."

"I understand this!" exploded Hotang Lu. "You are invaded. You will be conquered. You will join the slaves of the Loard-vogh. They will strip you from your homes and make you work for them. You will be driven and killed, for they have no compassion. They have no need of frugality in slaves. Terra will die."

"It is not yet time."

"Your judgment is faulty!" shouted Hotang Lu.

He hurled himself from the house and into his tiny spacecraft. He paused for only an instant to view the grave of Toralen Ki on the broad green lawn, and then he drove upward in superdrive. His size and his speed got him through, and Hotang Lu headed for Tlembo—alone and a beaten man.

Lindoo picked up the communicator and spoke to the operator. The connection beamed across the light-years and found Vorgan.

"Lord of All, it is going well."

"Give me the details. I was afraid of their secret weapon."

"Lord of All, the phrase 'secret weapon' is an old Solarian trick. It is meaningless."

"Go on."

"We landed on the isthmus that connects the two areas of land on the Second Hemisphere of Terra. The going was very hard, Vorgan. They drew power out of their sun like a torrent and we caught it all. It was terrible, and it was glorious. Our brave men died like flies—and not even the rock itself could stand against the energy turned loose. But we outnumbered them. We invaded again and again, and divided their power. Now we are screening the sun to run down their power intake. The globe expands, and we are holding most of the southern Land Area. From the northern pole, an invasion circle is spreading to meet the one on the isthmus."

"The other planets?"

"All taken."

"Terra is about through," breathed Vorgan.

"They are."

"I was deeply afraid," admitted Vorgan. "They are a vicious threat."

"Once conquered, though, they will be most useful."

"Yes, indeed. A race with the will to live is far superior to a race with a will like a bunch of cattle. They will rise high."

"Vorgan, you may have my throat for this, but I feel that it is a shame that we could not have them as equals."

"That would never work."

"I know it wouldn't. But it is a shame. I feared the landing here, Vorgan. The place is rife with spores, fungi, and bacterial death. But their weapons scoured the area."

"The fools."

"I know—but we are safe now. Terra is conquered."

"Then as soon as possible, bring me the ones I want."

"Lord of All, you will have them."

The air above Terra grew less turbulent, the energy died. Loard-vogh ships found less opposition as they landed at will on the former Planet of Terror. By hundreds and by thousands they landed—and by thousands they died as they tried to flip back their helmets and breathe the air of Terra. They turned black, they fell down, and the growths of ravaging microscopic life raced and built into horrid green mold and whispy hair as the growths of fungus found absolutely no opposition.

But with better direction, the Loard-vogh roamed the planet without death, though fungus-spores drifted freely. Their suits grew cultures, and the lubricants teemed with growing life—and if the inhabitant stayed too long in the suit, he died as fungi grew in the lubricant and was carried inside of the suit by mere action.

Air-tight to seventy pounds they were, those spacesuits. Seventy pounds inside or outside—and yet the insidious growths slipped inside and killed them.

But their numbers! As they died, so they were replaced. And the roadways thundered to the treads of their portables; the sky roared with the passing of their planes; and the cities echoed and re-echoed to the tramp of their feet. The sky was dark with their light spacers, landing, and the air was roiled mechanically with the landing craft that dropped from the spacecraft in never-ending streams.

Lindoo, arrayed as a conquering hero of the Loard-vogh should, awaited in the grand spacecraft of the Loard-vogh at Panama. The area had been scourged by fire and by sheer energy. Yet the tropical climate seemed to spawn trouble for the Loard-vogh.

Behind a triple sheet of reflectionless glass, Lindoo sat, outwardly triumphant, but inwardly afraid. He hoped that the powerful, color-less antiseptic mixtures between the sheets of glass would keep him safe.

Hurled in to the other side of the room were Kennebec and his daughter. Thompson followed, and Lane and Downing were hurled in lastly. They stood up defiantly.

Kennebec faced Lindoo. "You are the emissary of the Loard-vogh?"

"You know me—and my language?"

"Why not?" asked Kennebec. "Your speech is not difficult."

"No matter. You have this ability with all alien tongues?"

Downing smiled. "I spent one month among your planets, mingling with your people. They did not suspect."

"All alien tongues?" insisted Lindoo.

"Any, and all, can be learned by us in a matter of hours."

"Your race will be useful. Do you now accept defeat?"

"It was forced upon us?"

"Accept it!" exploded Lindoo, "or die!"

"A dead slave is useless," reminded Kennebec.

"And a dead malcontent is no trouble," snapped Lindoo. "Do you accept defeat?"

"As I said, defeat was forced upon us. Yes, we must accept defeat."

"Then broadcast the order to cease firing. Order Terra to drop its arms and submit."

"Will the integrity of our people be preserved?"

"Unconditional surrender does not permit terms."

"I will surrender unconditionally—but I demand the right to be treated as a worthy opponent."

"Your defeat at our hands was inevitable."

"We know that."

"Then why did you fight?"

"Only to gain your respect as an enemy."

Lindoo bowed his head briefly. "You have our respect. You have had our respect enough to cause a major change in the Master Plan. You will not be treated with contempt. There will be no looting, no pillage. Not if you will submit without further fight."

"Your terms I accept."

And Kennebec picked up the communicator and snapped the switch to General Broadcast.

And on Procyon IV, four survivors clustered around a crude, haywired receiver picked up the message. When it was through, they left their hidden cave full of Loard-vogh souvenirs. Openly they walked to the nearest encampment and knocked on the stockade.

And across the Galaxy to Vorgan, Lord of All, went the final word:

"The Solarian Sector is complete. All Solarians are being tested for adaptability, and upon completion will be trans-shipped to the proper situations in the Loard-vogh empire. Terra, Sol, and the entire Mutation Area will be left devoid of life."

Within hours, Lindoo was working on the problem of displacement. He—and all of the Loard-vogh—worked madly to complete this project. For all of them wanted to leave, forever, the former Planet of Terror.

Terra—conquered, completely!

XVII.

Lindoo's return from the Solar Sector was that of a conqueror. There were speeches and parades, and public demonstrations; and the hours wore by interminably. Lindoo knew just how important his victory had been, and yet how obvious had been his chances of winning. Even the Head of Strategy of a proud and tyrannical race could feel within him the seeds of discontent. He suffered the publicity because such propaganda was necessary, and as soon as he could, he sought private audience with Vorgan.

"Hail the conquering hero," greeted Vorgan, as Lindoo entered. The tone was slightly sarcastic.

Lindoo was not hurt. "How many know?" he asked the Lord of All.

"Very few—thanks to a pleased fate."

"But we know," said Lindoo bitterly. "What a victory. A bulldozer crushing an ant hill; a pile driver smashing eggs; an elephant warding off mosquitoes."

"And yet," Vorgan told him, "unlimited freedom would build the ant hill beyond the ability of the bulldozer, and the mosquitoes could smother the elephant if their numbers filled the atmosphere. It was necessary."

Lindoo nodded. "We lost seventeen million of our first-line fighting men. They were bitter opponents."

"Think of what might have happened if they'd expanded for another two thousand years."

"That would be double their scientific history, I think," agreed Lindoo. "They've been expanding on a high order exponential curve. Another two thousand years would have put a barrier across the Galaxy with the Solar Sector at the center, and the Loard-vogh might never complete their plan. We acted rightly, Vorgan. But in spite of seventeen million men lost, and in spite of the danger to our plans, I feel that there is something strictly awry. They are an intelligent race. They must have known their inability to win—yet they fought like demons. We could well afford to lose seventeen million expendables. They could not, yet—?"

"Did they?"

"They must have. Our forces may have been overeager. An attacking force usually loses more than the defending force. Our fighter psychology is more battle-minded than theirs, for our soldiers are trained to think only in terms of battle. But even so, Vorgan, the tacticians and statisticians estimate that we could have lost no more than two to one. And granting that, it means a loss of eight and one half million men lost from the Solar Sector."

Vorgan thought that over. "They could ill afford to lose that many of their prime citizens."

"And knowing that, and knowing that they are of a high order of intelligence, I ask again: Why did they fight?"

"Could it have been sheer desperation?"

"There was calculated strategy in their battle plan. There was a purpose, I tell you. It is obscure to me, but there was a definite plan, and no plan is executed without a purpose."

"Could they have hoped to hold us off?"

"Never. They knew our strength. They knew our plan. They understood our purpose, and they recognized our determination. Does the weakling, knowing all factors, fight against his superior?"

"It might have been the determination—knowing they must lose—to take as many enemies with them as possible."

"The cornered rat technique?"

"It has been done before," observed Vorgan.

Lindoo agreed. "You were not there," he told the Lord of All. "Their plan bore the stamp of a superior strategist who had some purpose in mind. A purpose that required him to fight a losing battle for other reasons than the cornered rat technique. You see, Vorgan, the cornered rat technique presents a rather peculiar psychological problem. It is a suicide-fighter's psychology. And suicide fighters operate in a vastly different manner than a man who is fighting for something beyond the abstract concepts of a victory for his contemporaries and his descendants. Even the most vicious and well-trained of suicide fighters is inferior to a reasonably well trained man wrested from his home and impressed for service. The psychology of the suicide fighter evolves into a seeking-for-death technique, which lessens his survival factor over a man fighting to preserve his integrity—and fighting to get the battle over with so that he can go home and resume his daily life. We know that. That is why the Loard-vogh fighter is supreme. He is no suicide fighter. He is vicious because he has been wrested from his home and family, and his tenure of service depends upon his ability. Since a victorious soldier is mustered out of arms and sent home sooner than a lax one, it urges all men to perform great deeds, act in a superior manner, and to be victorious in the shortest time so that he may return to his daily life. The Terrans are far from suicide fighters, Lord of All. Their theories of warfare are similar to ours. In fact," smiled Lindoo thoughtfully, "every race that offers us a stiff resistance seems to have come to that conclusion."

"Then what was their purpose? Seems to me that they must have been fighting for something."

"I don't know. They will fight if outnumbered, of course. The entire Solar Sector is composed of forms of life with a bitterly high value of survival factor. That, coupled with high intelligence, should indicate that surrender offers the greater number of survivals."

"Perhaps you do not understand their psychology."

Lindoo admitted this. "I have with me their mental leader—the former susceptible Billy Thompson. Perhaps we may get some idea by questioning him."

"Have him brought in," agreed Vorgan.

He pressed a button.

A crack opened in the ceiling, and down from above there dropped a reflection-free sheet of perfect glass. It slid in fitted slides, and sealed off the room into two sections.

The section occupied by Lindoo and his emperor was large and roomy, but the other section was small, a sort of cove, off of the main room. A man-at-arms moved an ornate chair that stopped the descent of the glass, and when the sheet of glass reached the floor, men-at-arms went around the edges and sealed it with a gluey mixture that came from portable pressure-guns. This was done on both sides, and as those on the small side left the room through the tiny square door, one of them snapped a button on the wall. The invisible and soundless atomizer-vents in the ceiling filled the air with a gentle spray of the best bactericide known to the Loard-vogh.

The tiny door opened again, and Billy Thompson entered, leaving his glass case attached to the door frame on the other side.

His nose wrinkled at the smell of the bactericide, but he grinned at the precautions. He, the vanquished, still held sway over their fears.

Thompson advanced and saluted. Then he waited.

"Arrogant, to boot," snapped Vorgan to Lindoo. His voice came to Billy out of the speaker in the ceiling, and Thompson stifled the natural impulse to face the position from which came the voice. He faced Vorgan.

"Not arrogant," he said quietly. "I merely request the respect shown to a vanquished, but adequate adversary."

"Our adversaries are always vanquished," snapped Lindoo. "And they become our slaves."

"A slave you may consider me," nodded Billy. "That I can not change. But the self-respect I have for having been vanquished only after a bitter fight requires me to consider myself more than a voiceless slave. You can not change that."

Vorgan looked at Lindoo. "Was that your reason for fighting?" asked the Lord of All.

"The basic reason for all strife," said Billy, "is to impose your will upon your adversaries."

Vorgan and Lindoo nodded impatiently.

"We fought to impose our will upon you. Our will is that we of the Solar Sector gain your respect, slaves though we must be."

"And you were willing to lose eight and one half million men to gain that respect?"

"Your estimate is wrong. We lost but seven thousand souls—five thousand of which were civilians caught in the backwash and splash-over from our fighting."

"Seven thous—" exploded Vorgan, visibly shaken.

"Seventeen million—" cried Lindoo hoarsely.

"Your losses?" asked Billy of Lindoo.

The Head of Strategy nodded.

"It is deplorable. I am sorry—"

"How dare you!" thundered Vorgan. "How dare you, a slave, to feel sorry for your masters?"

Thompson smiled wanly. "Would I get better treatment if I claimed to be glad of your losses?"

"I'll have your throat—"

"Careful, Lord of All, you are not being fair. I am damned for being sorry and equally damned if I feel glad. Do you prefer my sympathy or my hatred?"

"You brazen, arrogant—"

"Vorgan, I and all of the Solar Sector are at your mercy. We fought you to prove our ability, and to gain your respect. Had we surrendered without a fight, we would have gained your contempt. Also," smiled Thompson, "it is foreign to our psychology to give up easily. But the main reason for fighting was to extract from you a modicum of respect. That we have done."

"You assume—"

"I know. You are puzzled by my temerity, amused by my position, and completely baffled by my purpose. Were it not so, I would be dead instead of here, behind this protecting glass. For otherwise you wouldn't bother with a race so dangerous to your very lives. Am I correct?"

"Assume so. And proceed."

"The thing that makes us dangerous to you is the same thing that will make us useful to you."

"A moment. At this point I can wait no longer," said Lindoo. "Before this bold Terran leads us too far from the subject, I must know: How did you preserve your forces in that bitter fighting where your ships fell like hail?"

"We ran out of ships, not men," smiled Thompson. "We adapted a phase of the snatcher beam to personnel-protection. Each man carried a focal attractor in his clothing. Ship-destruction triggered a fast time-constant multi-driver circuit that inclosed each man in the incompressible spheres of the atomic crusher principle. They were withdrawn from the stricken ship while it was still exploding and brought back safely to a redistributing station where they re-entered the battle in a new ship."

"We'll make a note of that," rumbled Vorgan. Lindoo looked a bit ashamed of himself for not having thought of it before.

"Now, Terran," said Lindoo, "there was talk of a secret weapon. What was it and why was it not used?"

"As a means of destruction," explained Thompson, "nothing of that nature exists. Terra's secret weapon in this case lies within your own minds. We were fighting for survival, and the retention of our integrity. Our secret weapon is the respect we extracted from you in fighting valiantly and losing necessarily. Our secret weapon is our minds and our ability to employ logic and data to a problem and come up with an answer. The personnel snatcher is but one phase of this weapon we possess. You admire it. It is, of course, yours by right of conquest. Other developments will be yours, also. But they would be lost if we had been merely trampled over and our interesting facets ignored by the high councils of the Loard-vogh. You have a horde of problems, Lord of All. A myriad of problems that we of Terra may solve. I offer you the Solar Sector as a research area!"

"You offer?" asked Vorgan, puzzled. "You infer that we have not taken?"

"Permit us our integrity. Sol is our home. Sol is unfit for you, and Terrans are not well liked in your empire because of the living death we carry. Permit us to remain in the Solar Sector and we will be your research area."

"And free to breed discontent?" asked Lindoo.

"Are we fools? Our battle was to impress you with our ability to be recognized as worthy. Another fight would prove our lack of intellectual grasp of the truth. Permit us to live as we were, and you will have all of the benefits of our rather harsh environment to aid you in your plan. Were you of another psychology, I'd offer alliance, but being what you are I can but offer allegiance."

"Offers!" scorned Vorgan impatiently. "We demand."

"You cannot force mental activity," reminded Thompson. "You can drive a slave to fetch and carry, to become agricultural, to be menial. But you can never drive a man into mental activity. The subconscious mind will block. The subconscious mind will divert, and will work against those who drive, and the result will be complete loss of Sol's children and the benefits of a violent heredity. Permit us to remain as we are. Put overseers there, communications offices. We will solve your problems."

Lindoo whispered to Vorgan for a moment. The Lord of All snapped off the communicator, and he and the Head of Strategy spoke for an hour while Billy waited in silence, wondering what they had in mind. Finally Vorgan turned the communicator on again and said:

"Terran, if what you say is true, you are correct in your assumption that Sol will be of value as she is. I offer you a chance to prove it. Sscantoo is against all forms of alliance. Sscantoo will ally herself with any other race temporarily to fight us. The entire Galaxy may spring against us if Sscantoo can not be subdued. We must attack Sscantoo in the due course of time.

"There is one difficulty, however. The Sscantovians are not a gregarious race. Eventually we shall have the same trouble with Sscantoo as we have had with Tlembo. The catmen will seek a worthy adversary, and cause us to attack some sector long before our plan calls for it. Your premature battle was but one in several caused by Tlembo, all of which bring the Loard-vogh out of line and off balance like a runner careening downhill. Numberless though we may seem, we cannot overrun the Galaxy until our numbers permit it. It must be taken slowly and with definite pattern.

"Now, Terran, we can wait one year before we hit Sscantoo. I'll give you that one year, Terran. In that year, you must devise a means of gathering Sscantoo into the Loard-vogh empire. It must be done without battle. It must be done without losing a man—no, that is expecting too much," smiled the Lord of All nastily, "it must be done without losing more than one hundred men! That does not include Sscantovians, of course."

"Within one year," said Billy Thompson, "we will hand you Sscantoo as a willing part of the Loard-vogh empire. It will be done without battle, without losing more than one hundred men in the process. What will happen to the Sscantovians I will not presume to care, but I shall destroy as few as possible. During that year, of course, we will be free to work?"

"I will countermand the order displacing all Solar Persons save a small percentage willing to act as data clerks and research co-ordinators," said Vorgan. "That is my will."

"You will be more than amply repaid," said Thompson. "And one research we will make to provide the Galaxy with adequate protection against visiting Terrans, and protection for those visiting the Solar Sector. That, too, is a promise."

Within an hour, Thompson was on his way back to Terra. A year, he had. And four months would be gone ere he landed on Terra, and another long period of time would pass before he could get to Sscantoo. All in all, Billy felt that he had too little time.

Yet he smiled. For even in defeat, Terra would not lose her integrity. And how bad is slavery when the master prefixes his request with "Please"?

XVIII.

Billy Thompson fretted for four long months in the confines of the returning spacecraft. He was not idle. Daily he spent his time in the communications room, talking and conferring with his laboratory staff on Terra.

The order freeing the Solar Sector of its displacement of peoples took about ten days to clear, and another ten days to settle. It was swift; no Loard-vogh wanted to remain in that section of the Galaxy anyway. And though most of the worlds were cleaning up the shambles of the bitter struggle, the laboratory staff and research organizations went to work with a will. Let the others clean up the mess; it was their job to make the cleaning worth while by coming up with the answer to Billy's problem.

For only the right answer would leave Terrans around to inhabit a cleaned-up Terra.

So Billy fretted because he had to confer by voice alone. It did not matter that the secondary radiation from his subtransmitter, exciting bands in the electromagnetic spectrum near forty megacycles, would not reach Sol for hundreds of years, and that relative to his ship, the beams were hurled out backwards instead of coming forward toward Sol. But the four months were not entirely wasted. By the time that Billy landed, conferred with Kennebec on the future, discussed the major problem with a few Terran scientists, and then took off and finally arrived at the stellar laboratory on VanMaanen's Star's only, God-forsaken planet, they knew several hundred things that would not work.

Hendricks, the chief of staff, smiled wearily as Billy entered the safety dome and flipped back his space helmet.

"Hi, Billy. I hope you have a few new ideas."

"Nope. Not right now. I've been busier than the devil for the past seventy hours."

"So've we, on the last seventeen suggestions. We ran out of ideas when you ran into Terra. Now what?"

Billy grinned. "I'd like to see the quake area."

Hendricks blinked, blanched briefly, and then smiled wanly. "I thought so. Nothing to see, though. We do have a slow-action movie of the debacle. Reminds me of something out of a superthriller, shot in miniature. We had the sphere beam set up in duplex, one taking power out of the star, supplying the other beam which was clutching about five thousand miles of the star's core. The projectors were anchored to the crust of Brimstone, here, and we started pulling. We pulled like a dentist working on an impacted wisdom tooth. Unlike the dentist, the tooth stayed. We broke several beams, each one doing a bit of crust-cracking when the pressure let up. Then we took a big bite and heaved for all we were worth. A slab of crust about seven miles square heaved up, tilted like a poorly-trimmed raft in a heavy sea, and slid sidewise into the semi-plastic inner core of Brimstone."

"I'll bet it was bad, huh?"

"We all got away. The planet heaved and gurgled for a week before it settled down. But Brimstone is less strained than Terra and aside from a few scattered quakes now and then, she's quiet. Made a mess of that district, though. Horrible roaring, clouds of boiling steam, and all the trimmings out of a 'Birth of Terra' animated moving picture."

"Try it with an anchor set in the planet's core?"

"Yeah, but that's too much like anchoring a towline in a cup of custard. Too plastic. We might do it if stars weren't so confounded far apart. Beams get awfully thin on that projection even if we could make it, which I doubt."

"And if we could," said Billy, "we'd have to wait a few years while the beams got to our stars. They propagate at the speed of light, you know."

"Wonder if we could drop a beam from close by, go into superdrive and race for the other star, stretching—"

"What causes the traction?"

"The ... ah ... I see what you mean. It's the fact that the beam itself is ponderable and unyielding. Superdrive or no, the beam would propagate at speed of light and the superdriven ship would either be held back or the beam would break because of the space between excitation pulses. O.K., Billy, how do we jerk a hunk out of a star core?"

"We can't do the Samson Trick," said Billy, "but—"

"Samson Trick?"

"Samson was supposed to have brought the temple down about his ears by taking two of the main pillars and pulling one against the other. Well, we can't pull one star core against another, but why can't we set up a tripod, anchored in the stellar core, and then use that as a base for hauling with another beam? And feed power for the gadget from other stellar intake beams right from the star itself."

"In other words a sort of reflex Samson Trick? You make the star pull itself apart, with the aid of mankind and a few thousand years of technical development. I'll have the boys get to work."

"Did you get any compression?"

Hendricks shook his head.

"That was a vain hope. The stellar core is under hard compression already. O.K., Jim. Oh, Hello, Cliff."

"Hi, Billy. So you sold them a bill of goods?"

"Unless we get results, Lane, it'll be a bill of goods. If we come through, we're not bad off. Where's your sidekick?"

"Stellor? He'll be along directly. But look, Billy, what do you intend to do with this dingcrank when you get it working? Tear the guts out of the Sscantovian System?"

"Nope. Just insurance."

"We'll need it," grinned Lane. "You cut out a large hunk of selling when you ask Linzete and his gang of rugged, predatory individualists to form an alliance with the Loard-vogh."

"Trouble is that 'alliance' isn't the right word. I'm offering the grand and glorious opportunity of becoming willing subjects to the Loard-vogh."

"Huh. Never was a cat that took to being ordered around. Gosh, they're worse than we are. We'll take orders if it will do us any good. But Sscantovians? Phoooo."

"Well," said Billy, "when a lion tamer enters a cage full of cats he gets results. But most of them are well equipped with a revolver, a whip, and a four-legged stool. I'll walk in easily, tell the catmen to be nice, and wave my whip. But the whip has got to be loaded. Linzete wouldn't fall for a bluff. Cats don't. You've got to show 'em the stuff, and then you get your answer. Well, we've a couple of other things to try."

"We aren't licked yet," nodded Lane cheerfully. "But look, Billy, I'm still befuddled by Downing's stinking slow, methodical way of doing things. As I get it, Toralen Ki and Hotang Lu told us that we'd all be increased in mental stature after the Transformation."

"Sure. We are."

"I don't notice anything."

Thompson grinned. "You won't. You never will. No Terran ever will. We'll all go on just the same as we were, apparently. It is a Terran characteristic that a personal change always seems to be an opposite change in the rest. We'll all go on as we are and the rest of the Galaxy will appear to get stupider. The change is and has been—and will continue—to be gradual enough so that you will believe that you've always been possessed of a near-perfect memory. But play chess with your pals, and you find that you are still even because the other guy can lay just as complicated traps as you can with your increased ability to reason. But you see, it is like that old analogy. If the entire Galaxy and everything in it were increased by one hundred times, you would not be able to detect the change. That's because your yardstick changes, too."

"Relativity, speaking," grinned Lane.

"Classification: Pune. Definition: Pun that needs an oxygen tent. Or better, the perpetrator a half-hour immersion in liquid helium." He looked around and saw Stellor Downing, leaning against the door with a half-amused expression on his face. "Hello, Stellor."

"Howdedo. A nice job of selling you did on Vorgan."

"Yeah, and a nice pinch he put me in."

"Maybe you shouldn't have niggled him so far."

"I was a little rough on him," agreed Billy. "But I pushed him right to the limit of my safety. I applied all the traffic will bear. I had to, to show my boldness and to intrigue his fancy, since I knew that in all their victorious twenty thousand years of conquest they had never hit a race that stood up and told him off, face to face."

"You knew what you were doing, as usual," admitted Downing. "But I came to tell you that Hendricks has the tripod beam and the associated junk is set up and ready for the job of jerking the guts out of VanMaanen's Star."

It was not too impressive on the surface. Brimstone was cold and forbidding and airless, the only planet to the runaway star known as VanMaanen's Star. A useless system save for experiments of this nature, but excellently adapted for such.

The solar intake beams were operating efficiently. The torrents of power they would drag out of the star and use to develop the unthinkable pressures necessary to move the core of the star would come into the acceptor tubes. Foot-thick superconductors connected the intake beams to those to be used for the tearing process. And these superconductors were maintained at the temperature of liquid helium by a liquid-cooling system. Liquid helium needed no circulation, since its heat-conducting properties were such that no local heating in a bath of liquid helium is possible. Normal evaporation from the open bath at one side kept the system cold, all the way through to the superconductors.

"Good thing they don't have to use switches or breakers, otherwise I don't know how they'd handle the energy," said Lane. "A sort of grid-controlled intake—swell stuff. Well, fellers, let's get in the control room and see what gives."

Hendricks handed Billy a small chromium-plated case the size of a cigarette pack.

"We're putting personnel snatchers on all of us. If this blows—in fact if the whole planet blows, we all end up a couple of thousand miles in space, all canned up in incompressible spheres. Safety first, I say."

"That's how you saved the gang in the earthquake experiment, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh," admitted Hendricks.

"Well, let's take off. We've got everything nailed down tight."

Hendricks advanced the power. The meters read up, and the anchoring tractors moved slightly in their gimbals and became immobile. The projectors forming the tripod of inflexible beams took up all the remaining slack in the beam system. Not one piece of unprotected matter was left to form a weak link. Beams of sheer energy, efficient to within a fraction of a percent of the ideal one hundred percent, linked the beams invisibly. A system of inflexible energy, driven and maintained by the energy output of a star—driven to rip the core out of the star itself.

The beams thickened as the automatic control advanced in timed steps. Evaporation from the lake of liquid helium increased as the superconductors warmed slightly from the terrible load.

A wrenching—feeling—came to them.

A meter indicated that one of the beams—the sphere beam clutching a five thousand mile sphere of stellar center—indicated a movement of point one seven four inches.

The automatic controller went up another stepless interval, and the wrenched—feeling—increased.

Through the viewport, the small flaming disk of VanMaanen's Star blazed at them. It looked as though it were quite ignorant of the cosmic forces that were tearing at its vitals. There was an air of saucy disregard in its placid, immobile brightness.

The pressure increased.

"At this point we jerked up a slab of Brimstone's hard crust," remarked Hendricks.

But Brimstone was not in the link. Brimstone was not even present. The inflexible tripod of energy would scorn to move with the planet. The control room and the main development housing connected to the high base of the projector network were depending upon the invisible tripod of energy, deep in space. Brimstone was a large moon, a gibbous last quarter, out through one side window.

The automatic control went higher. And as the pressure increased between the limbs of the tripod, even so increased the power intake from the star itself.

Did a star have within it enough energy to cause its own destruction?

They did not find out.

The feeling of a wrenching increased, and then leaped into full being. Nausea, sheer instantaneous torture, a pulsed wave of pain, a shattering sensation of intolerable noise, a blinding light that came though the eyes were closed.

But these things were merely the physical and mental effects caused by—

By what?

There had been no grinding crash. There had been no failure of the beams.

Yet the meters read zero. Both intake and output. Test power and operation perfect registered on the string of indicators.

Nothing wrong—

—but the flaming disk of VanMaanen's Star was gone.

Something had failed, but it hadn't been the equipment.

Something had failed, but it hadn't been the star.

And the station and the control room was drifting aimlessly in space. Inspection showed that no star was close enough to be VanMaanen's Star. There were no stars within a couple of light-years from them. Above their heads, the projectors were idling in their slack gimbals, the tie-beams were off. The solar intake beams were taking in no power. The lake of helium, a twenty-foot open bath on the roof of the housing, was lying quiescent.

The entire assembly and assemblage was as it had been before the initial surge of power, excepting that Brimstone and his bright primary were nowhere to be seen.

XIX.

"Well, what happened?" asked Lane.

"You tell me," Downing said.

"Obviously something gave—but quick," remarked Billy. "The question is: What could give?"

"The star didn't. We weren't on the planet. Whatever gave—we are a long way from where we started, at any rate." Hendricks scratched his head in puzzlement. "You don't suppose we have gone and warped ourselves right out of space, do you?"

"That sounds like a comic book plot. I'm not taking any odds-on bets, though. Have you got an air condenser and a resistance-capacity bridge? Not the kind that compares a standard condenser against the unknown in terms of the resistance ratio arms, but one of the cheap varieties that merely compares the resistance ratio arms against the ratio of resistance versus capacitive reactance."

"Uh-huh."

"Is it calibrated to within an inch of its eyebrows?"

"Yup."

"Well, the dielectric constant of space is calculable. Measure up your air condenser and see if it comes out even. Get the boys to measure the radiation resistance of this space. It should be three hundred and seventy-seven ohms. That is—if we are still in our original space. Also you might get the standing wave ratio on some of the microwave transmission lines. They depend upon the characteristic impedances of space, the permeability and dielectric constant."

"O.K.," smiled Hendricks.

"Why the smile, Jim?"

"I was merely recalling a story like this. The hero proved it by determining that Planck's Constant was not the same as back at home. I was wondering how we'd measure it."

"How did they do it?"

"They didn't say."

"Good thing. Well, I like my method better. By measuring the capacity of an air dielectric condenser, the dielectric constant of space will be evident—but only if it is measured on the resistance type of bridge. Comparing it to a standard condenser would result in both of them shifting at the same time. Whereas the resistance of a metal wouldn't change. That does not depend upon the vector analysis factors of space, whereas capacitive reactance does."

"We might measure the speed of light, too."

"Not until we get this barge to a planet so we can get a decent base line."

"We're not ill-equipped as all that," objected Hendricks. "This barge, as you call it, is fully equipped with drivers."

"Why didn't the snatchers work when we took out after the devil?" asked Lane.

"Nothing blew, in the first place," said Thompson. "And in the second place, if we've warped ourselves out of our original space, the snatchers might have had a tough time focusing on something heading out of space through a warp in the continuum."

"Spectral lines do not mean anything in particular," said Downing, who had been peering through a solar spectrometer at some of the nearer stars. "More proof."

"Well, sure. Among items like having a different set of elements and physical laws, the impedance of space is all tied up in the speed of light, wave length, is a function of that, and so forth. Show me one item lying in the field pertaining to the angular vector-pattern of this space that agrees with that back home and the rest will probably match too, and we'll be back home but displaced by God-knows-what."

"Ralph Welles claims that the radiation resistance of space is about two hundred and seventeen ohms," reported Hendricks. "And Al Forbes reports that the dielectric constant of space here is about twenty micromicrofarads per meter less than back home. And the boys in the microwave group claim that the quarterwave stubs in their pet transmission line demand a new fundamental frequency of operation. O.K., fellows. We started to bust up a sun and busted ourselves right out of space and into another. Well, let's find a nice solid planet somewhere and get there so we have solar power. Then we can start thinking of ways to get back."

"So we couldn't pull the insides out of a sun, even using the sun's own stellar atom factory for power," smiled Thompson, "but we did manage to pull ourselves right out of space. Sort of a case of the sun pulling first, I guess."

"Yeah," agreed Lane plaintively. "But how many different spaces are there in the cosmos?"

"Probably an infinite number infinitesimally separated," answered Downing.

"In which case," returned Lane, "how many spaces did we skip between back home and right here?"

"I doubt that the separation between different space continuums is infinitesimally small," objected Hendricks. "More like a matter of a sort of quanta-separation. If the separation were not reasonably large, the energy necessary to break through would not be so great. I predict that we are in the space next door to our own."

"And if we take hold of another sun and pull—do we go one more space away or back again?"

"I dunno. There isn't a space-theorist among us. I'll tell you one thing, though. By the time we pull ourselves back and forth a few times, we'll know which valve to hold down in order to drive up instead of down."

Billy nodded. "If, as, and when we get back, let's see if we can devise a method of tilting a hunk of stellar center into this space from there. Better, probably, than just jerking it loose."

"Far better," observed Hendricks dryly. "If we can tilt ourselves into a new space whilst pulling on a stellar core, obviously it is easier to warp something into a new space than it is to rip the innards out of a star."

"Is this the point to suggest that we have a brand new galaxy to work on?" suggested Downing.

"Nope. We'll tell the Loard-vogh about it, though, and they may decide to do something about it."

Perhaps never before has a stranger object traversed interstellar space. Not by a stretch of the imagination could any race have designed a spacecraft resembling the squat housing adorned above with the battery of projectors. In the first place, it was all wrong for spacecraft design, being built to sit flat on a planet where the normal gravitic urge was down—or rather normal to the flat bottom. Spacecraft are tall, ovoid shells that travel vertically, parallel to their long axis, and the decking extends from side to side, at right angles to the ship's course. And the projectors should not be all on one side. That would leave the strange craft at the mercy of an attacking enemy from below. Spacecraft armaments consist of one turret in the top, or nose, one similar turret below, and several at discrete intervals about the center of the ship for side protection.

Of infinitely more trouble than the problem of traversing space in superdrive with an engineering project instead of a spacecraft was the decision of which way to go.

Being lost in the depths of interstellar space without a star map and with no idea of their position, and no one to call for a "fix," there was no way of determining which of the stars were the closer. They all stood there, twinkling against their background of stellar curtain, and one looked as close as the next. Brightness was no criterion. Deneb, four hundred light-years from Terra is brighter than Alpha Centaurus, four light-years away.

Yet, with superdrive, they could cross quite a bit of space in a short time. Hitting it off in any direction might bring them to within deciding distance of a star in a short time or it might be that the course went between stars for many hundred light-years.

It was Hendricks who solved the problem. "Get a hemisphere picture—and we'll superdrive for one hour and take another. Superimposing them one a-top the other should give us a reasonable parallax on the nearer stars. One that we could see with the naked eye."

With the fates obviously laughing up their sleeves, the second plate was never exposed. At fifty-one minutes of superdrive, the stellar detector indicated stellar radiation within one quarter light-year.

Planet-locating plates were exposed as the project swept through the star's neighborhood. There was quite an argument as to which of the seven planets to choose, and for no other reason than sentimental reasons—and the fact that the physical constants were right for them—the group finally fixed their desire on the third planet.

The engineering project started to head for Planet III.

"Better name it, Billy," smiled Hendricks. "You found it."

"I found it? O.K.," grinned Thompson, "we'll call it Eureka."

"Eureka III?"

"Too cumbersome. Since we'll possibly not chart the system let's just call the planet Eureka and forget about the stellar classification."

"Well, Eureka it is."

Jack Rhodes opened the door. "Better call it Money," he suggested.

"Why?"

"Because you fellows are going to find out that it is the hardest thing you've ever tried to hold."

"Huh?" asked Hendricks.

"We're right close and there isn't the faintest shred of gravitic field."

"Oh, no. Newton's Law—"

"Is valid right up to the last decimal place. 'Every object in the universe attracts—' and we just ain't a part of this universe."

"Doesn't seem right."

"May be of exceptionally low density."

"Must be zero then," grinned

Rhodes. "And if so, how does it hold itself together?"

"You answer that—it's your question."

"How long before landing?" asked Hendricks.

"Half hour. Look, chief, d'ye suppose we might find it to be contraterrene matter?"

"Um. What do you think, Billy?"

"If the matter here is the same as the matter back home, we'd have a fifty-fifty chance of it being contraterrene. It might even be something that was neither terrene or contraterrene for all we know."

"Interesting possibility. You mean something that is neutrally charged so far as we're concerned, but which in this universe consists of oppositely charged items?"

Billy nodded. "We'll find out."

"It has atmosphere, and the test shell didn't result in a contraterrene indication," called the pilot of the project.

"An atmosphere of what?"

Rhodes grinned. "God-knows-what," he said. "If Stellor can't make head nor tail out of the spectrograph, the chances are that the atomic stuff here might not jibe with ours at all."

"There is really no reason for our planeting at all," said Billy. "But I'm just curious, that's all."

"We'll be there soon."

The project approached the planet, and was forced to drive all the way. By the time that they had matched the angular velocity of the planet's rotation, the project was inverted with respect to the surface—though to the men it seemed as if they were driving up to a ground-surface. It gave them an eerie feeling.

"I can see myself visiting a psychiatrist by the time we get back," grunted Hendricks. "We're landing—upward—and I'm getting the screaming terrors already from that feeling of falling upward into the sky."

"What you're suffering from is the shattering of your basic faith in the solidity of solid ground," remarked Billy. "Well, the project will land upside down, and we'll take hold tight with the anchor-projectors. Long enough, at least, to scrape a sample off of Eureka, here, to take back and analyze."

"If this whole space is made of the same stuff, I can see a minor industry springing up, gathering metal and stuff for gravity-proof gadgets."

"Wonder—probably good for something. Well, we're as close as we can go, all of us standing with our heads pointing at the planet and held to the floor of our project by centrifugal force caused by the planet's rotation. We won't stay long. None of us can stand the mental strain of looking out of the window and seeing solid ground a few feet above our heads and a million million miles of sky to fall down into if we step out of the door. Brrrrr."

"Close the sun proof shutters and don't look," suggested Billy. "I'm taking a nice large bromide to chill off a few screaming nerves and then I am going out and take me a shovelful of that dirt and rock up there. Gosh, it's going to feel funny digging down something that wants to rise. Let's make it quick."

Billy emerged from the lock completely clad in spacesuit. He took air samples, and then, with the catch-knob between his shoulder blades firmly in the focal sphere of a tractor-pressor beam, Billy was shoved up to the surface of the planet. Reaching up over his head, Billy pulled down a few stones and dropped them upward into the bucket he held inverted. They fell upward to the surface of the planet, and the bucket was held by their weight.

They never did know whether there were any Eurekans, but if there were, and the Terrans were watched, it was a strange sight they saw. A sixty-foot rectangular building of steel, one story high, resting upside down with the planet-side to the sky. Projectors dug into the ground, pulled by the anchoring tractors that pulled the upside-down building even tighter to their planet.

From a spacedoor, a pale green beam was fastened to the knob on the creature's back. He was head down, suspended on the beam, and carrying a bucket that must have been filled with antigravity material for the bail was free and the bucket actually hung upward!

The creature was lowered, still head down, to the surface of Eureka. He reached down below his head and lifted a few stones, dropping them into the bucket, which he held right-side up. Naturally the bucket dropped properly enough to the ground.

Working by digging down, Billy filled the bucket and was returned down to the door.

"Cut 'em!" he said hoarsely.

They cut the anchors and the project was thrown from the surface of Eureka by centrifugal force. And as they left Eureka, and headed for the Sun, they held a council and decided that another attempt—blind though it would be—to warp space would be in order.

XX.

"Get every recording gadget we've got on the thing," said Billy. "Maybe we can find out something that will give us a directional trend. And anybody who thinks he won't be struck by lightning if he makes a prayer, go to it. We could use a bit of Divine Assistance."

The detectors were set up and the recorders started. The tripod of anchors set themselves in the star's core. The solar intake beams worked well and the torrents of power increased as the automatic control slid up the scale.

"The stuff may be different," observed Hendricks, "but we can still get power from their stars."

"Darned good thing, too," said Thompson. "I don't know how else we'd swing it."

Again came that feeling of wrenching. And it increased as before.

"Does it feel left-handed or right-handed?" asked Lane nervously.

"I don't know and if I did I wouldn't remember which way it was the last time," grumbled Downing.

And then the warp formed, and there was the impression, just before it snapped-quick, that the stars in that universe were flowing like spots on a watery surface.

And they emerged into a space completely devoid of anything. Not a star, not a speckle in the complete sphere of utter blackness.

"Obviously went the other way again," grunted Lane.

Jack Rhodes looked up from his calculations. "We had a fifty-fifty chance, according to the Law of Probabilities. But tossing one head does not make the next toss any better than fifty-fifty chance for tails. In fact," mused Rhodes, "tossing a hundred coins may bring you forty heads and sixty tails—plus or minus ten percent of the true chance. Tossing a thousand coins may give you four hundred seventy against five hundred thirty—a three percent error. But though the latter is more to the true division, the numerical deviation from zero is only ten in the first case but thirty in the second."

"I hate mathematicians," grunted Downing. "They're all pessimists. So the longer we try the more distant we get, huh?"

"Unless we can get something to upset the Law of Probability."

"And," added Hendricks sourly, "something to pull against. This universe is completely devoid of anything material."

"Let's put that as a matter of our being able to detect it at present. It might be teeming with suns indigenous to this universe and completely invisible to us."

"We're wasting time," said Thompson. "What's with the detectors and recorders?"

"About the only thing I can determine from here is a definite lengthening of the wave length that the puller-sphere propagates on."

"Huh?" asked Billy.

"Definitely."

"When did it lengthen?"

"Its wave length increased on an exponential curve to the time of warp—"

"Well, now we know—I think—how to get back."

"How?"

"Instead of pulling, we'll push."

Hendricks shook his head. "I think I get you, but I'm not too certain. Has to do with the wave length-propagation factor, hasn't it?"

"Sure," grinned Billy. "For a given frequency, and a given velocity of propagation, there will be only one possible wave length to suit the conditions. That, essentially means that a given distance will have a definite number of wave lengths so long as the frequency and speed of propagation is maintained. The puller-sphere we were using is propagated on a tractor beam. The characteristics of a tractor beam are that once established, the number of wave lengths between projector and object remain the same. Then the projector presents a leading signal phase, and the phase of the tractor beam moves toward the projector to bring the two waves into zero phase difference. The projector maintains the leading phase all the time, and thus draws the object. It is just like turning a nut on a threaded rod, sort of. The wave length is analogous to the distance between the threads, and the frequency is the number of threads that pass a point when the rod is moved at the velocity of propagation.

"Now, suppose we consider the threaded rod as being fixed at the far end, and pulling at the projector end with sufficient power to stretch the rod. The frequency happens to be definitely fixed by the primary standard in the control rack. The distance between remains the same by the constants set up in the tripod and puller beams. The wave length-factor, striving to satisfy the demands of the tractor beam, and maintain the correct number of wave lengths as the beam pulls, will cause the wave length to lengthen. But that tends to change the frequency-velocity factors. Result, if I'm getting obscure again, return to the thread analogy. A standard ten thirty-two screw has thirty-two threads per inch. Stretch it evenly, and disregard the distortion, and you have, say twenty-four threads per inch. Our pulling against the sun resulted in a distortion of the wave length-frequency-velocity factor, and we pull ourselves into the next notch in space that fits the increased wave length-frequency-velocity argument.

"So," concluded Billy, "by pushing instead of pulling, we can cram the wave length down again, and warp space in the other direction. Think?"

"I'll buy it—if you can find something to push against," said Hendricks.

"Shucks," grinned Billy. "Shove out your tripod a short distance, but focus them all together. Then shove against that field of focus."

"Said is as good as done," said Hendricks. "Better work, too. Right now it is raining gold coins and we're wearing a pair of boxing gloves."

"And while we're on the way back—I hope—we might consider this: Suppose we take two tractors and face them at one another, hold 'em apart with a trio of pressors, and let the thing go to work. That's providing that we find any use for this subspace stuff. It might—"

The wrenching took place at that point. It was much as before; as far as physical evidence went there was no means of telling whether this again was "up" or "down." There was apparently no drift between universes, for their subspace star was not far away.

"This might not be too good," said Billy nervously. "What happens if we land in the middle of a star?"

"We have a far better chance of landing in the royal middle of intergalactic space," observed Hendricks. "We may have been in that position in the sub-subspace. Well, Billy, it is obvious that you hit the right answer. Shall we take hold of Eureka's sun there and shove?"

"Why bother. Let's be independent."

Rhodes nodded. "The thing is still set up."

"Well, give it the works."

The space warp started again, and again the project was wrenched through the barrier.

"VanMaanen's Star must be that one back there," observed Hendricks. "Hard to say, but we hit it up about that far to get to Eureka."

Rhodes looked up from the sub-radio. "That's them," he said. "And they want to know how in the name of the seven devils we got out here so far in such a short time."

"Short time? Nonsense. They flew in subspace for an hour, it took us a half hour to land on Eureka, and Billy spent another half hour digging pay-dirt. After which we raced off for, say a half hour or maybe an hour before we went into space two. Our stay in space two was about fifteen minutes, and the passage through space one was made in less than a minute. Call it a total of three hours."

Rhodes checked his chronometer. "We've been gone about three hours," he said into the set. The answer came back immediately, for all to hear. "Like the devil. You've been fifteen minutes since you fastened on to the star and were jerked off of VMS I."

"What's your nav-chronometer say?" asked Billy.

"Seventeen-forty-three."

"And we left the scene about seventeen twenty-eight?"

"Approximately."

"Well, chew this over. Our nav-chron says twenty fifty-one."

"Snap on the differential timer," suggested Hendricks.

Microsecond pulse signals crossed space, both ways. The timer started counting. Three hours and twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds went by before the timers stopped. There Hendricks and Thompson went into another conference.

"We have the following observations regarding subspace: One is that the matter is unlike Terrene matter. The other is that there is a differential in time passage. The latter may be quite useful. We'll have the gang check everything possible, of course, and probably even set up a laboratory in the lower spaces. This lack of gravity—has me stopped cold," said Hendricks.

"Excepting for the observation that Newton's Law mentioned every particle in the universe—"

"I don't think Newton was trying to be snobbily semantic," laughed Hendricks. "Besides, his Law is a translation from the Latin, and at that time they weren't even sure of space, let alone subspace and space two, et cetera."

"I've always wondered about the conservation of energy and the problem of how gravitic attraction couples into that. It could be, of course, that the universal attraction comes from the fact that all the universe was once a single body that exploded because of its own mass-warp. Energy driving the mass apart during the formation of the universe—which is still expanding—and because it took work to separate one body from another, the conservation of energy dictates that they undo that work to get them back together. Since our project was not a part of subspace, no expanding work had been done on it, and therefore no potential energy had been stored which would be released by gravity taking place."

Hendricks smiled. "It's as good a theory as the next," he said. "But is it solving the Sscantovian problem?"

"No, but I have an idea that may. We can set up our warping beam and transfer the resultant forces in the same manner as we transmit other energy. We can't jerk the insides out of a star, nor can we compress the matter there. But there is nothing that says that we cannot change the physical constants prevailing in a certain sphere of influence, and thus warp anything within that sphere into subspace."

"Sounds good. So instead of pulling the middle out of a star we'll just rotate the middle into subspace. Well we have our work cut out for us," smiled Hendricks. "I'll get a corps of techs on subspace, and a gang working on the space two. We'll run up a couple of spaces, too, just in case. I'll have a crew go to work on the subspace matter, and we'll eventually have a crew working on admixtures of extra spatial matter with spatial matter. We have enough work for ten lifetimes. Y'know, Billy, I'm going to set a slew of brand new college kids to tinkering with the subspace problem under the direction of a hand-picked crew of elders. They've got a field that isn't over-crowded, anyway."

Billy scratched his head. "Look, Jim, I have an idea. Superdrive is fine stuff for batting around the Solar Sector. A run of fifty light-years, though, is a reasonable jaunt, and Sscantoo is off about a hundred and fifty light-years. Now if this time-difference in subspace is workable, we might be able to get to Sscantoo in jig time."

"I suppose so. But remember that this jig time you speak of is real time to you. To someone in space, you'll make the hop in record time, but to someone on the ship with you, the same time of a spatial trip will ensue."

"It's no great advantage as goes time or power," agreed Billy, "but when you're fighting a time limit, as we are, time in this space is what counts and if we have to go into subspace and study until we are a hundred years old before we find the answer, to come back with only a year gone, that's it. So see what you can do about tacking a warper into a spaceship, will you? And take another swing at the core of VanMaanen's Star. As soon as you have something, drop everything and bring it to Terra. I've got to get back, but quick."

Hotang Lu's return to Tlembo was hailed with silence. It was the silence of defeat, the sympathetic attitude for one who has tried, succeeded in his attempt, and found that his attempt lacked a vital factor. Hotang Lu had done his part. It was Terra that failed. Tlembo had guessed wrong. Yet Tlembo must try again and again until they became successful. The Little People were tenacious. They wanted their liberty, not slavery to the Loard-vogh.

And they would fight to the last Tlemban for it.

Not for Hotang Lu were parades and hordes of people to cheer him on his march up the broad avenue of his home city. He was whisked to the temple of government almost invisibly, yet the mental rapport of all Tlembans told them that Hotang Lu had returned—unsuccessfully.

Indan Ko, their ruler, gave Hotang Lu immediate audience.

"I've mentioned none of our plans," said the ruler, "because I fear interception."

"Plans?" asked Hotang Lu bitterly. "With success in our grasp, they throw it away. What more can we ask?"

"Your tone is that of defeat. We must not admit it, even to ourselves."

"Self-delusion," spat Hotang Lu.

"Not at all. We know a set-back when we see one. But we must not dwell upon it, lest we become single-minded and believe that our cause is doomed."

"Is there a better bet in the Galaxy than Terra?"

"There must be. Terra seemed a best bet. Yet perhaps their survival factor was so great that they prefer slavery to extermination. Is that rational?"

Hotang Lu nodded dumbly.

"We have Sscantoo."

"But they are almost at the pinnacle of their culture," objected the emissary. "We cannot energize their minds."

"Agreed. But they are an ungregarious race. They cling together only because civilization demands tribe-protection. They are fierce fighters. They hate every alien being. They dislike even contact between themselves, yet prefer that to traffic with an alien culture. Go to Sscantoo, Hotang Lu, and convince Linzete that his race is in danger of slavery at the hands of the Loard-vogh. Tell him, if he does not know already, that the Loard-vogh have conquered Terra. Perhaps Linzete knows what Terra's secret weapon is. Was it ever disclosed?"

"The end came too soon. It was never used. Nor—and I cannot understand—did I see anything of its manufacture."

"Linzete has most of Terra's secrets by mutual agreement. Perhaps he has also that secret."

"Again I fight time," growled Hotang Lu. "Time—and I feel, the inevitable."

"I'd suggest a consultation with Norvan Ge, the psychiatrist. He will enable you to conquer that defeatist attitude of yours."

"I shall see him," said Hotang Lu. "I admit that the shock of being plunged all the way from almost-certain victory to utter defeat in a few short minutes has shaken my faith in even myself. I shall see him. Then I shall go to Sscantoo."

"Tell me," said Indan Ko, "what was the Terran attitude?"

"They accepted defeat as the inevitable. Their statement was that they fought to gain the respect of the Loard-vogh only; they did not hope to win. This I cannot understand. If you know that you cannot win, why fight?"

Indan Ko shook his head.

"It is my belief that they are rationalizing. No one accepts defeat. They have forced themselves into the belief that since victory is impossible for them, they must bow to the Loard-vogh or die."

"They may have some deep-seated purpose."

"Name it."

"Visit your psychiatrist," smiled Indan Ko. "Then consider. You were once their mental superior. It is hard to admit inferiority to one that was one time inferior to you. Accept their mental superiority and consider that they may have some plan."

"Plan?" asked Hotang Lu bitterly. "How can they plan? How can they execute any plan? Planning and building is for a free race, without the shackles of an overseer on their people or the restrictions placed upon a servile race. Could they build a modine without the Loard-vogh knowing? Could they hope to instigate a ten thousand year plan of expansion to eventually crowd the Loard-vogh out of the Galaxy?"

"I admit your point. I was hoping against hope. Clutching at straws. Perhaps we should both go to Norvan Ge. Tlembo will stop counting on Terra and fix our hopes on Sscantoo."

"I will be in Sscantoo within seven months. It will take that long in constant flight—and with your permission I shall take Norvan Ge with me. In seven months, the psychiatrist can aid me, and give me the self-confidence necessary to convince Linzete of his danger."

"Seven months," muttered Indan Ko. "And I will wager that Vorgan has his fleet poised for a blow at Sscantoo right now."

"So long as any Tlemban lives," said Hotang Lu, with a momentary return of his determination, "we will never stop hoping and fighting to preserve ourselves and all the Galaxy from the conquering hordes of the Loard-vogh. I curse them, their name, and what they represent."

"I'll join you in that curse."

They lifted the slender tubes, inhaled deeply, and sipped the fluid. Indan Ko waved Hotang Lu farewell. "Go in haste and good fortune," said the ruler of Tlembo—the fourteenth Tlembo since the start of the Loard-vogh conquest.

XXI.

Vorgan scowled at Lindoo. "Dead, you say?"

"Starvation."

"Come now," said Vorgan derisively. "Sezare would hardly die of starvation. Assassination, yes. Overindulgence, without a doubt. Even sheer boredom I will admit. But starvation? Never."

"Deny your own medical corps, then."

"I admit it," snapped Vorgan. "But I am perplexed."

"There were no drugs."

"That I know. But look, Lindoo, Sezare was a fool, a stinking voluptuary if ever a Loard-vogh was. As sector overseer his palace rivaled mine. He carried on with a high hand. I recall my last visit. Frankly, I was slightly abashed. If Sezare had not been profitable, I'd have dropped him. He produced, therefore the lush palace and life he led were none of my business. I am not chicken-hearted, Lindoo, but to select the favorites of the home race as personal servitors to his own idea of sensuality seemed too self-indulgent. Select his choice, certainly. I can understand that." Vorgan's hard eyes softened at the memory. "But the concept that any that served him were then exalted, and must not be touched by a member of the slave race again—that was feudal."

"How did he enforce that?"

"There was seldom a need. Sezare was a voluptuary, almost a sadist. No servitor he ever had lived in health after the year he demanded. Broken in mind and in spirit and in body, they were disposed of as merciful terminations. His final act of vanity was to peacefully end the victim's life, giving the first rest in a year. Starvation, you say?"

"Yes."

"Sezare's palace ran red with wine, and the pillars groaned with the richest food that the sector bore. Overindulgence I will understand. Gout, autointoxication, acute alcoholism, drugs, or anything that comes of living in the lush manner. But starvation—how?"

"He was in complete starvation. He had dropped from three hundred and seven pounds to a scant sixty-three. He had locked himself in his suite and was constantly under the influence of a machine devised by ... by—"

"Oho!" exploded Vorgan. "A machine! Devised by—?"

"A Terran."

"A Terran! Is he here?"

"Yes—he and his machine. Partially destroyed."

"Why?"

"Terror."

"Bring in the Terran. I'll see him. And if he cannot explain to perfection, I'll see him burn!"

The prisoner entered. No glass separated them, for the Terran was sterile. He was forced to his knees, but if terror wracked the man, it was not evident.

"Your name?" thundered Vorgan.

"Edward Lincoln."

"Your trade?"

"Technician. Research co-ordinator for His Exalted Highness, Sezare."

"Sezare died of starvation."

"I know—it was deplorable. I fear that I was his unwitting murderer."

"You admit it?"

"I must. It is true. Had I but known—"

"Explain. Your life depends upon it."

"Sezare the Exalted directed me to devise for him a means of gaining greater sensual stimuli. Apparently the law of diminishing returns—you permit my personal opinions and observations?"

"Proceed. As you will."

Lindoo nodded and whispered: "His observations are a measure of his attitude. It is his attitude that will save or kill him, not his words."

The technician continued. "Sezare had indulged himself in every sensual manner. He was constantly on the search for something new, something more searing, something more thrilling. He directed me to devise some means of satisfying his demand for greater pleasure. That was most difficult, Lord of All, for Sezare had the entire resources of a galactic sector to provide his voluptuous demands.

"I succeeded in devising a machine that would give him dreams as he slept. Then, you see, when asleep he could indulge in his sensuous pleasures. That removed the necessity of stopping his round of pleasure to gain needed sleep; his round of lush living could go on continuously. I requisitioned the finest of artists, writers, and weavers of song to record the pleasures of life from the most fertile imaginations of the sector. Sezare, Lord of All, was imaginative, but not originally so. Soft living had made him lazy in thought, as well, and he preferred that any pleasurable thoughts be provided for him. So in having the most imaginative writers weave his dreams for him, I gave him a sensual pleasure far greater than the flesh was capable of enjoying. The power of the mind is greater than the flesh, Lord of All, and in my ambition to please Sezare, I overdid it."

"Overdid it? How?"

"I overlooked the fact that Sezare might find more pleasure in sleeping and dreaming than he would in waking and doing. He closeted himself with the machine. I ... was nearly destroyed because I breached his chamber and tried to turn the machine off."

"True?" asked Vorgan.

"True," nodded Lindoo.

"He spent all of his time under the influence of the dream machine," said Lincoln plaintively. "He scorned the best efforts of his cooking staff, and he scourged the collectors of his—women. None of them could provide for his pleasure like the machine. He retired to it, and in his strange acceptance of its pleasures, came to feel that sleep, under the machine, was real, whereas life, with its disappointments, must be sleep with bad dreams. Since the dream machine could provide only dream food, Sezare starved—his body starved, but his mind was content."

"Continue."

"Continue? There is no more. I had been trying to turn off the machine for weeks. I was denied, even threatened. Finally imprisoned so that I could not appeal for help. Sezare died, and I was sent here. In terror that some other of the Loard-vogh might fall victim, I have ruined the machine, and I shall die before I rebuild it. It ... is worse ... than the most entangling of drugs."

"Dismissed," said Vorgan dryly. The technician was led away, not guilty.

"Lindoo, what of Sezare's sector?"

"In charge of Sezare's underling, Narolla. Narolla has full control and he is competent. Narolla is not a voluptuary; he has seen too much of the dissolution of Sezare. And, Vorgan, it may be interesting to note that Narolla's productive output has increased."

"Already?"

"Sezare has been on the trail of starvation for weeks. Narolla took charge as of Sezare's withdrawal into dream-seclusion. Regardless of the Terran's act, or motive, the Loard-vogh benefits by the change."

"I agree. That is why I freed him."

"I am beginning to feel that Terrans can be trusted," said Lindoo.

"It all depends. It will not do to trust them too far in spite of their apparent willingness to help. Until we can be sure, we must be wary. Thompson's success in selling an antisocial culture on the proposition of complete co-operation will go a long way—if he succeeds."

"We could, perhaps, harden his job," observed Lindoo. "Suppose we let Sscantoo know that the integrity of Terra depends upon Sscantoo's acceptance of defeat without resistance?"

Vorgan laughed cheerfully. "Terra would not be liked in Sscantoo. No man can do anything but hate another man who is willing to sacrifice a former ally for his own skin. Under the face of that, if Terra can sell her bill of goods, she would certainly be working for her integrity."

"Well?"

"Relax," laughed Vorgan. "I happen to have one tiny bit of information that you have not. Hotang Lu went to Sscantoo as a last resort. He hopes to stir up trouble for us."

"I think you should erect that statue to the dishonor of Mangare. He should have destroyed Tlembo."

"He should have—and I shall have to. It seems to me that the proper plan of action is to find the present Tlembo and get the little men in line before we take on anything else."

Indan Ko, the ruler of the fourteenth Tlembo since the Loard-vogh conquest blinked in amazement as the aide announced the formal visitor. "Thompson, the Terran?" he asked in surprise. "He who spat upon our future? What can he want with me?"

Billy Thompson entered the reception room uncomfortably. Indan Ko's presidential residence was built on a slightly more heroic mold than the normal housing plan of Tlembo, but still it left much to be desired. Tlembans stood an average of thirty-four inches high, and their lives and edifices were built upon that proportion. A Tlemban ceiling proportional to a comfortable ten-foot six Terran ceiling gave five feet three inches of clearance. That missed Billy Thompson's altitude by exactly ten inches. The formal residence of the ruler of Tlembo was of palatial build, with full seven-foot ceilings. It cleared the top of Billy's head by eleven inches.

An excellent building in which to contract claustrophobia.

And so Billy waited in the reception room uncomfortably. A large room to Tlemban thinking, its dimensions were proportionally small, and the thirty by forty feet—Tlemban—shrunk to fifteen by twenty, Terran.

The formal "court" was of more ample proportions. The proscenium arched forty feet high and the entire room was a full hundred feet in diameter. A vast room to Tlemban standards, but not much larger than a very tiny theater to the hulking Terran that had tripped over a table in one of the minute corridors.

Billy had been equally hard on the ceiling fixtures, and the doors had been somewhat of a pinch, too. But he was now in where he could take a full breath without fracturing the plaster on both sides of the room, and he took one, in relief. He felt very much like making a few pleasantries about his difficulties, but he realized that the little man on the dais before him would not appreciate any inference to size.

So Billy merely saluted formally and waited for the tiny monarch to speak first.

"You are Billy Thompson of Terra."

"I am."

"You are the man who directed the Battle for Sol?"

"I am."

"And the man responsible for the destruction of all hope for civilization."

"That I deny."

"You refused to use your secret weapon."

"It is that factor that I am here about," said Billy. "But first I wish to reach an agreement with you."

"An agreement? What agreement can we possibly reach? Tlembo has devoted her life to the job of stopping the Loard-vogh. Terra, when she had victory within her power, threw it away."

"I have come to tell you that Tlembo has failed in her mission in life. That Tlembo will always fail. That Tlembo will be better off if she recognizes that fact and accepts the inevitable."

"Get out!" snapped Indan Ko. "You dare to force yourself into my presence and insult me!"

"Before you make any rash motions," said Billy calmly, "such as having me shot on sight—yes, I perceive the modine-ports in the walls—I wish to warn you and all of Tlembo that primates are gregarious and resent the destruction of one of their band. Kill me and Terra will descend in all of her power. We, who you claim could have been victorious over the Loard-vogh will find little difficulty in wiping Tlembo right out of the universe itself!"

"Providing that you have the support of your fellows—those whom your defeatist practice must have betrayed. Will those you failed now come to your rescue?"

"Hotang Lu is quite familiar with the Terran action," said Billy. "Did he report one single cry—from any Terran—for me to order retaliation?"

"You claim that the entire Solar Sector was in agreement with your surrender-policy?"

"I do."

"Then I understand our defeat. Terra has not the honor nor the willingness to fight for the freedom that is her right."

"Terra retains her integrity."

"At the will of a conquering race."

"We are leaving the subject," said Billy. "I made a statement to the fact that Tlembo has failed and will never be able to do otherwise. You are the one that can not face facts, Indan Ko."

"We shall fight to the last."

"To the last gullible alien," snapped Thompson. "Indan Ko, how can you possibly delude yourself into the belief that you will some day be victorious?"

"Because it is our belief that slavery and conquest are evil. And I define 'evil' as any factor working against the advance of civilization."

"Can you view both sides of a personal question dispassionately?

"I have that belief."

"Then view the Loard-vogh dispassionately. Civilization throughout the Galaxy will be nothing unless the worlds are united. Stellar empires, discreet and belligerent, will result in chaos. Sectors such as Terra controlled would be embattled against sectors such as Sscantoo controls, and there would be a never-ending flurry of pacts and agreements and aggressions between one sector and others, against still others. That is chaos, Indan Ko."

"Perhaps you are right. But is the right to rule because of might a proper answer?"

"No. It is not. But I want you to understand that the Loard-vogh mental strategy is entirely selfish. The only thing that kept the Loard-vogh from sweeping through the Galaxy five thousand years ago, or next year, is the fact that they cannot conquer and hold any system until there are enough of them to control it. They expand through the Galaxy in direct proportion to their birth rate. Since they enslave those systems conquered, and become high lords of creation in their conquered territory, there is nothing for them to do except procreate. The factors that inhibit racial expansion on any democratic world are numerous, but most of them stem from financial insecurity. Since the Loard-vogh have no financial insecurity, and a family with a horde of children are as well educated, well fed, and well clothed as a family with none, why not? Especially when there are slaves to tend and care, feed and provide. The system has its advantages, Indan Ko, which I am pointing out to you. Its disadvantages are also there, too. Those we know. They include lack of personal responsibility and a complete and utter disregard of the rights of another race to live as it wishes to live."

"Granted. But where is this leading us?"

"Merely to the acceptance of the statement that the Galaxy must be united. The Loard-vogh are uniting the Galaxy, and as such are doing the right thing. They are going about it in a rough-shod manner, but it is far swifter than the treaty-join-and-wrangle method. The Galaxy must be united!"

"Go on. I accept that but reject the Loard-vogh as racial saviors."

"My visit with you, Indan Ko, is to impress upon your mind that you are doing harm to the Galaxy."

"A matter of opinion," snapped the little man.

"Perhaps. You've heard my statements to Hotang Lu. Were it not for Tlembo, we would have lived in cheerful ignorance for another three thousand years. Now, because of you, we are awakened, with terrific responsibility, and must forever work like slaves to maintain that which we did not need before. You will continue, you swear. That means that Tlembo will go back and forth through the Galaxy, always hiding, always keeping ahead of the Loard-vogh conquested areas, and always seeking a race of ability, power, and freedom. Again and again you will find them. And again and again you will set them to fighting the Loard-vogh. And yet, to the Loard-vogh, you are nothing more than a gnat, whipping madly about the ears of a mastodon. Annoying but far from dangerous. How do you hope to win with such a plan?"

"We will find a race with sufficient power—"

"And when that race has the sufficient intelligence, that same race will understand the true worth of conquest. Terra was no real menace."

"The Loard-vogh thought so."

"The Loard-vogh were ignorant of our intellect. And," smiled the Terran cheerfully, "they were forced to collect us. Terra, in a long-time fight, could have beaten them."

XXII.

Indan Ko scowled and thought for a moment. This huge Terran that crowded his palace like a giant in a doll's house was not making sense.

"I do not understand."

"Terra is known as the Planet of Terror," said Billy, "because of the evolutionary system caused by the hard radiation in that district. You have seen the viciousness of our fungus, our micro-organisms, of our life itself. Could the Loard-vogh stand up against a bombardment, planet by planet, of fungus-spores so tenacious that they grow on synthetic resins? Stellor Downing held a Sscantovian guinea pig in one hand for a moment and it died a most horrible death within minutes because of fungi that were innocuous to him. In my ship there is a slab of rare cheese. Delicious stuff, and what Terrans call 'quite high' because it is growing a full beard of mold. Could you—or the Loard-vogh—spread it on a slice of bread and eat it with impunity?"

"Definitely not."

"Seventeen million of the Loard-vogh died in the Battle of Sol, and more than half of them perished because Terran spores crept into chinks in their space armor. Chinks so small that they do not permit loss of air in space.

"You see, Indan Ko, the fear of Terra that drove the Loard-vogh frantic was because they thought that Terra would send out myriad after myriad of tiny spacecraft, loaded to the bomb bay doors with minute spore bombs. That we could have done. But we did not."

"That was your secret weapon?"

Billy shook his head. "Terra's secret weapon is her ability to grasp opportunity. Which brings me to the point of this interview. The Loard-vogh have a twenty-thousand year plan of conquest. No race can hope to stop them alone. No race in the course of a year, a hundred years, or even a thousand years could hope to defeat them alone."

"Terra could."

"That is not defeat. That is extermination."

"The Loard-vogh should be exterminated!" thundered Indan Ko. The little man's thunder was slightly high-pitched to the Terran and not at all awe-inspiring. Billy merely smiled.

"It is not for any race to render sterile of life one quarter of the Galaxy. Extermination is not victory. War by proper definition is a measure used to impose your will upon a non-co-operative government. Even the Loard-vogh understand that a dead slave is no good. Extermination may be your will, Tlemban, but you will fail in your conquest. Therefore I ask that you use intelligence. Stop lashing out like a hurt child. Stop shooting at the cliffs of living rock. The way to win is to husband your strength. Roll with the punches. Take them easy. Wait until you are set, and see the proper opening, and then drive forward. Collect allies in your stride, and play the double-game. Use your diplomatic ability."

"You plan a long-time retaliation?"

"Our plans are nebulous at present. Terra fought for one thing alone, and that was to gain the respect of a race that has only contempt for those that bow their heads willingly. Had we invited them in instead of fighting, they would have suspected foul play. We fought hard enough to convince them that we meant business. After all, our planetary heritage is such that we would be out of character if we gave in without a fight. Ergo we fought.

"Tlembo," went on Billy quietly, "has been frantic so long that she has lost perspective. That I claim, and it is deplorable, but not so damaging as to lose hope of repairing. Tlembo has been nicked again and again in her effort to find a savior. Her continued defeats have made her bitter, and ever more determined to win via the crushing defeat route. Consider this, Indan Ko, and then tell me if you think you are right in continuing to bring minor factors to bear against the Loard-vogh."

"And what would you suggest that we do?"

"Go to Vorgan. Ask immunity and audience. Vorgan is not without honor. He will respect your request for immunity. Then tell Vorgan that you fear the strength of his fighting forces, and that you will cease your constant effort to undermine the Loard-vogh. Tell him that Tlembo has certain factors that will enhance the Loard-vogh culture—you and he know what they are, as I do—and offer him those factors in exchange for Tlemban integrity."

"I dislike it."

"Naturally. But look, Indan Ko. You will be taxed terribly. You will be forced into handing over a certain percentage of your wealth. You will work for them, and for little remuneration. Yet your hardships will actually be less than the cost of fighting them. Now you must maintain a fleet, arm your cities against invasion, and always prepare for war. If you submit to the Loard-vogh banner you will be protected by the Loard-vogh, and may Heaven help any race that attacks Tlembo? The income you spend in being a nominal slave will be less than the amount spent in being an armed free-world."

"And eventual conquest?"

"Console yourselves with the certain knowledge that your hardships will all be avenged sometime. Not in your life, perhaps, but in the time of your descendants. Submit to their hard, exacting rules in outward abjection, but keep your mind forever on the future, when it will no longer prevail. And as you go, and as you find other races that are suitable, send their representatives to Terra. Terra will be the master-control of the anti-Loard-vogh combine."

"I shall think it over and discuss it with the Tlemban council. But what of Sscantoo?"

"Linzete must understand, also."

"But Hotang Lu is there now."

"What! Filling Linzete full of the theory of bombing the Loard-vogh with Solar spores?"

Indan Ko nodded.

"Then I must go—and quickly!"

"Your trip will take months," objected Indan Ko. "Meanwhile, Linzete may set his machinery in operation."

"Contact him," said Billy. "And have him smooth it down a bit. My trip will not take months. I'll be there in days."

"Days!"

"Yes. We have a new mode of space travel. It will be yours as soon as you decide to join the Loard-vogh—"

"Terran, it sounds as though you were helping them."

"Naturally it does. Until we are ready to strike, we must aid them completely—and always remember that what we find and give them we will have ourselves. No single weapon won a war, Indan Ko. But if we can match them man for man, we will win because our wits are sharper. Now I must waste no time in getting to Sscantoo."

Billy's exodus from the Tlemban capitol building was more arduous than his entry. This time he was in a hurry, and moving swiftly through corridors too small for him, brushing doll-sized furniture with his mass, and crushing not a few of the smaller and more fragile pieces in his haste—to say nothing of squeezing two doors from their hinges in his passage—they all hampered him. Tlembo was going to pay well for this visit.

Outside, Billy towered above the Tlembans as he strode up the middle of the street, his head not more than a few inches below the trolley wire that fed the street car system. Traffic policemen gave him passage, for he could be seen for blocks. He turned into the spaceport and entered his ship.

He was met by Cliff Lane.

"How'd it go?"

"I think we got him. There'll be no more trouble from that sector."

"Good. Now what?"

"We whip this horse into action and head for Sscantoo. On the triple. Hotang Lu is there, telling Linzete of his danger and urging him to get set for conquest."

"Linzete is going to be a tougher nut to crack," observed Lane. "Well, let's get going. I've a few items to tell about Hendrick's researches in subspace matter."

Thompson's ship rose sharply, plunged into space, and then the distorting beam in the control room started to function.

"Think you can hit Sscantoo?" asked Billy.

"Breeze," smiled the pilot.

"But look, Tony, that's a long way off."

"So's Terra," answered Tony laconically. "We hit Tlembo all right, didn't we?"

"O.K., you're the pilot. Drop me on Sscantoo, and I'll invite you to a drink."

"A deal," grinned Tony. A moment later the pressure was built up, and the ship was wrenched into subspace. Then began the long, long journey to Sscantoo which would take less than a few days in the universe from which they came.

"Now," said Thompson to Lane, "what's with Hendricks and his researches?"

"So far, subspace matter is enigmatic. It does not combine atomically or chemically with normal matter. It shows other physical properties, however. They separated the sample by the ancient method of using the various melting points and specific masses. The stuff has no gravitic attraction, but it has mass, you know, and they used a centrifuge on it. They got two kinds of matter. One we'll call metal for the simple reason that it conducts electricity. The others are nonmetals because they do not conduct electricity. There was a small quantity of a light blue gas that was occluded in the dirt, it boiled off early and they caught it. Well, if nothing else, it will come in handy for surgeon's tools, chemical hardware, and the like, since you can put anything into it and it will not dissolve or go into chemical combinations. I betcha we got something to hold the Universal Solvent."

"Yeah," grinned Billy. "Takes something strictly out of this world to do it, though."

"Since there's no weight to it, the stuff still heads for the roof. The gas, they say, boiled off down, since the vapor pressure and atmospheric brownian movement drove it that way. Good stuff for antibends atmospheres, I'd say. Mix it with twenty percent oxygen and breathe it. It will not dissolve, at least no detectable loss is noticed with the instruments that Hendricks has."

"There's a brand new system of chemistry, nuclear physics, and garden-variety physics out there," said Billy. "We've opened up a new field, or maybe two. Well, we've got several months here. Let's get to work."

Vorgan, Lord of All, smiled in a puzzled manner. "You have my word," he said. "Your immunity is granted. Complete and absolute immunity, with the right to speak as you wish without fear of reprisals. What is the nature of this visit?"

Indan Ko shifted nervously. He felt a great uncomfortable fear of this vast room, that seemed to stretch endlessly. The dais upon which Vorgan sat was like a mountain to the little man, and each step was knee-high to Indan Ko.

"Tlembo is weary," said Indan Ko. "Yet we are bitterly afraid."

"Of what?"

"Slavery."

Vorgan shrugged. "It will come sooner or later."

"Lord of All, may I offer you a bargain?"

"Bargain?" grunted Vorgan.

"Tlembo has been a source of discomfort to you. We have forced you off-balance several times, have caused you to go forth and fight in sectors where you were not ready to enter. We have been instrumental in causing you to change your master plan."

"Right."

"We have never been a real menace to you," went on the little man, "but we have been annoying. Now if I offer you our promise not to stir up any more trouble, will you offer us less than utter and abject slavery?"

Vorgan blinked. The bluntness of the offer was startling to him, and the offer itself was a new facet to the Loard-vogh conquest. He snarled inwardly at Mangare again, cursing the long-dead Lord of All that had permitted the initial escape of the Tlembans. But snarling at a dead man's mistake was not solving this problem, and Vorgan dropped it to consider Indan Ko's startling offer.

Until recently, nothing like this could have come up. Save for three or four times in the past—before Vorgan's time—when Tlembo had created minor riots, the Loard-vogh conquest had been lightning fast and completely unheralded. A sector would be overrun, a star cluster at a time, and no word would go out ahead of their plans. Races fell before their might, and then lived in slavery. A slave has no position, and no right nor ability to offer terms. Therefore terms were a consideration never before handled.

Terms, by themselves, offered a conflict in Vorgan's mind. Bartering and buying among the Loard-vogh was normal, of course, but the concept of terms from an alien race struck a snag, somehow.

Yet Vorgan could see the point. A chance for the Loard-vogh to complete their master plan without the interference of this race of trouble-makers. True, the Loard-vogh must relinquish the right to hold them as absolute slaves. Perhaps a single representative in the Lower Council would suffice. At any rate, giving a little right now might mean less loss for the future. Vorgan groaned at the thought of all the races of the Galaxy asking terms, and getting certain conditions of servitude. Better to give a little to this one race than to go on trying to keep a galaxy full of races satisfied.

No, he thought, not one race. That makes two! Terra had certain advantages asked and offered. But Terra had been defeated, and only her very brilliant ability had won her the right to a certain freedom. And, of course, Terrans were helping the Loard-vogh on a myriad of planets, doing things that the Loard-vogh found difficult, mentally.

But to keep Tlembo from stirring up trouble might well be worth the effort. Tlembans were not the intelligent race that the Terrans were, but—

Vorgan laughed. Let the Terrans have another job. They could possibly use the Tlembans in some way. Let Terra keep Tlembo satisfied and quiet and useful! Terrans were of exceedingly high intelligence, and the results of their researches often required either that the Terrans follow it, or that the Terrans direct a number of Loard-vogh. The latter was not right, politically, and it had been a bother to them all.

To have a large group of Terrans all running down important details seemed better, though Vorgan admitted that it was a waste of good brainpower to have highly trained technicians performing routine research. Tlembans were of a high order of intelligence, though not as high as the Loard-vogh. They might be able to handle the routine experiments and act in tertiary capacities under Terran direction.

An excellent idea.

"Indan Ko, I offer you a brief period of armistice. Permit me to consult the Grand Council. I—"

Lindoo entered, hurriedly. "Lord of All, Borgara's machine is here!"

"Indan Ko, I must see this immediately. Consider the armistice while I am gone, and rest assured that I am about convinced that we can come to terms. I shall return directly."

Vorgan followed Lindoo into the large anteroom that opened on the nave of the reception room. There were six of the Loard-vogh Grand Council there, grouped around a machine of amazing complexity. It was more amazing because it did not appear to make good sense. Vorgan thought that perhaps it would make sense after it started to run.

And the thing that made Vorgan catch his breath was the Terran sitting in the corner with folded arms.

"Well," said Vorgan shortly, "what does it do?"

Lindoo stepped forward and snapped the switch on the base. The Terran leaped to his feet and snapped it off.

"Don't!" he warned.

"That was a rash thing to do," snapped Vorgan.

"I may be rash," admitted the Terran. "But lese-majesty is permissible when a life is in danger."

"Lindoo, give me the details."

"Borgara went crazy."

"Crazy? How?"

"I don't know. But it was tied up in this machine, somehow."

Vorgan turned to the Terran. "Every time we have something out of line going on here, we find Terra mixed in it. What is your name, Terran?"

"Edward Atkins."

"Position, Atkins?"

"Technician."

"And what is this machine?"

"A device I made at Borgara's direction."

"Borgara went crazy. Why?"

"Because he used this machine. I insist that it remain dormant. Otherwise the rest of you will be caught in the same unfortunate trap that befell Borgara the Powerful."

"No doubt deplorable," observed Vorgan dryly.

"Quite. I did his bidding, and he became enmeshed in it."

"I'm not too surprised," snapped Vorgan. "So give me your side of the details. About one more like this and I am going to wipe Terra out."

"Forgive me if I seem to slur a member of your race," said Atkins earnestly, "but Borgara was a bitter tyrant. He held his rule by sheer force and violence. He maintained his productive output by torture. He cared little for pleasure or ease, and he drove the people in his sector unmercifully. On one planet, Borgara set up a rule that any man who did not produce a given amount would find one member of his family entering the Grand Torture Chamber. Torture threats against a person are far less demanding than threats against a member of the immediate family. And, Lord of All, he set the minimum limit slightly above the average output, and kept it rising.

"Borgara found his pleasure in watching people in torture. The trouble was that the more satisfying kind of torture didn't leave a victim alive too long. So Borgara directed me to devise a means of torture that would be most terrible and yet would not kill too soon. I did—and it is this machine."

"Yet it drove Borgara insane."

"Correct. Permit me to remove a few important parts?"

"To demonstrate without danger?"

"Yes."

Atkins stepped forward and removed two tiny wheels and a glistening sphere. "Now start it," he said. "The danger is gone."

Lindoo snapped the switch again. The myriad of levers began to reciprocate. Tiny flashing wheels started to turn, and pencils of light flickered through the facets of the rotating spheres. It was a fascinating machine, utterly fascinating. It increased in speed, and the flickering, flashing, interwoven motion flowed with a noiseless violence. In and out, through and through in a mad pattern went the parts. And as they watched it, the machine lost its mechanical shape, apparently, and became an almost living thing that breathed and was—shapeless. The individual motions became one master writhing.

And the Loard-vogh stared at the machine with horror on their faces. There was sheer and utter horror there, but they could not move away, nor could they speak. They began to writhe a bit, as something in their mental attitude caused the onset of physical pain, and the writhing grew more violent.

Atkins stepped forward and turned the machine off.

Vorgan stormed.

"I thought there was no danger!" he shouted, rubbing a muscle that had cramped.

"No danger," said the Terran with a faint smile. "You see, when I removed these parts I protected myself so that I could turn the machine off before it became really dangerous to you. I wanted you to see and feel for yourselves just what Borgara thought excellent."

"But we were going insane and were aware of it!"

"As a means of torture, can you think of any better?" asked Atkins. "To sit there, watching the machine, knowing that it is driving you insane, and that the machine is causing you physical pain, and that there is nothing that you can do about either—that, Lord of All, is the supreme torture."

"And Borgara got caught, is that it?"

"Unfortunately for Borgara, he used it once too often. He got tired of watching the victim, and watched the machine. Since he was alone in the torture chamber, it—got him. I beg of you, destroy it. I'd not care to be responsible for more trouble."

Lindoo opened a drawer in the chest, took out a high-power modine, and blasted the machine to ribbons. "Atkins, too?"

Vorgan shook his head. "He was only doing what he was told. Borgara's Sector is in good hands, they tell me, and the new overseer has released forty million fighting men that Borgara needed to control his sector. No, I think ... dismissed, Atkins ... that once again the Terrans have done us a favor."

Vorgan returned to Indan Ko. "Tlemban, tell me something. Was Terra behind your decision?"

"Yes," admitted Indan Ko. "Terra pointed out that the Galaxy must be united and that the Loard-vogh were doing just that. Terra does not grant that the means you are using are correct to their ideals, but they admit that you are doing it quickly and efficiently. And they point out that we can never hope to win, ergo we should make the best of defeat. So—"

Vorgan groaned. "Terra—what next?"

And then he straightened his face again, and said: "Your terms are granted. Your instructions are to report to Terra as assistant operators. Your immunity becomes eternal, Indan Ko, and your integrity is maintained as well as it can be when you are taking orders from Terra. And," he smiled, "perhaps it will keep Terra out of my hair."

XXIII.

Billy Thompson faced the catman in spite of Linzete's hiss of disapproval.

"I know of our danger," snapped the ruler of Sscantoo. "Few know it better than I. I was on Terra just before trouble struck, and I know and appreciate the mass against me. And you tell me to submit willingly."

"Might as well," said Billy. "It's inevitable."

"Sscantoo has one chance," said Linzete. "And that is to use Terra's secret weapon."

"You haven't got it," said Billy flatly. "And if you mean spore-bombing, don't be an idiot."

"Idiot?" snarled Linzete. "Better an idiot than a turncoat that is now fighting his conquerors' battles for them. You commanded a certain amount of respect, Thompson. But that debt was canceled on the day that you started to curry favor. Go back and fawn upon the Loard-vogh; do you think that I don't know what's in your mind? You'll willingly sell Sscantoo into slavery in order to gain a little more voice in your plaintive wailing cry to Vorgan."

"I—"

"As you sold Tlembo to the Loard-vogh."

"I've sold no—"

"Where have you been?" snarled Linzete.

"Coming from Tlembo," admitted Billy with a laugh. "And there has been no communication because we have been traveling in subspace. It took us four days to cross space from Tlembo to here. We've been out of touch with the Universe for months, as far as we're concerned. Now if Tlembo is being sold, I don't know about it."

"Hotang Lu left three days ago because he was withdrawn. His statement was that Indan Ko was taking the trip to Vorgan's capitol in order to offer terms of surrender. Explain that!"

"Indan Ko was intelligent enough to understand the implications behind fighting. Look, Linzete, I sold Tlembo a theory of operations. You cannot hope to win alone."

"We can exterminate them."

"And in doing so, render unfit for life a quarter of the Galaxy? That I will not permit. And, Linzete, any extermination you perform will be strictly post-mortem. Granted that you have the ships and the men and the spores all grown or collected and packed into bombs. From a single bombing of a Loard-vogh planet to extermination of life on that planet will be a matter of six months to a year. Meanwhile, the Loard-vogh will have attacked and conquered you. Think Terra didn't think of it? We did and we considered it well. But Linzete, we like to remain alive. We destroyed seventeen million of the first-line fighting men. That was war, and the men were expendable. A nice nasty term. Terra lost seven thousand because Terra does not consider any man really expendable. The situation is about even. But consider their utter hatred and violence to find a single planet bombed into lifelessness ever afterwards by filling it with sheer death-rot."

"I see the point, but if we're to lose, let's lose honorably, die fighting, and take as many with us as we can."

"A poor attitude. You must fight to win and to live, Linzete. War is a means of forcing your will upon an enemy, Linzete. That means there are a number of different kinds of war. War per se is usually the last resort. There are social wars and economic wars, and people do not consider them too violent. But a shooting war gets everybody all worked up.

"There has been a lot of talk about Terra's secret weapon, Linzete. It has been explained again and again. Terra's secret weapon is the intelligence to recognize fact, even though obscured. If you had your choice, Linzete, which would you rather be, the nominal ruler of a sector or the man whose advice is taken on every decision—who, in fact, tells the ruler what to do?"

"Lacking the right to be both acknowledged ruler and factual ruler, I— That is a problem that has never occurred to me."

Billy said, very patiently, "Terra knows. Terra will win this war. Our will—to be imposed upon the Loard-vogh—is that they take their decisions from our advice. As such, we have the rule of the Galaxy. I tell you this because Sscantoo has too much to gain by absolute co-operation with Terra. Eventually the Loard-vogh will be seeking our advice. I have sent them Indan Ko, the ruler of a race that has caused them no end of trouble. Indan Ko will not arrive there for months, yet I can predict that Vorgan and Lindoo will place the Tlembans directly under Terran supervision for divers reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Vorgan will prefer to place under Terra any intelligent race who are more than conquered slaves. Allies, in a sense. That's because the Loard-vogh have never yet experienced any allying. Their past is devoid of practice. So it will be with Sscantoo. You will come under our jurisdiction."

Linzete shrugged. "Win, lose, or draw, Sscantoo seems doomed."

"Nonsense! Sscantoo will reap the benefits of a Galaxy-wide culture. Sscantoo will reap the benefits created by Terra, and without the battle scars that Terra will bear forever. Fight them, and you will die. There is little sense in being dead, Linzete. Never again will the Loard-vogh conquer and enslave. From now on in, they will find their selected victims prepared and allying with them, offering them facts and facets of culture, and sponsored by Terra. Terrans are already high in the councils of the Loard-vogh as technical advisors. They calculate and they advise, and they will advise terms for this system and for that system, and the end-product will be to weld the entire Galaxy into one solid culture.

"Fight them?" laughed Billy. "Why fight them when we can outmaneuver them before the logisticians can cover their first page of trial equations."

"Trouble is," said Linzete, "that Sscantovians are a rather belligerent race, and entirely individualistic. And the Loard-vogh are extreme militarists."

"Sscantoo's job is clear. Sscantovians like isolation and lone-wolfing. That's why I am here pleading with you." Billy pointed out of the overhead dome into the bright sky. "Out there, somewhere, there must be another culture that really needs extermination. More than half of the Galaxy lies out there. Linzete, take your lifetime and your planet's resources and go out and find for me a whipping post to keep the Loard-vogh in fighting trim. It's precious little warfare they'll get at home from now on in."

Linzete purred. "You seem to have solved our problem and theirs all in one plan. Terran, it is a deal."

"Sscantoo will not be sorry," promised Billy.

Linzete nodded, and poured a drink from the carafe at his elbow. "To a united Galaxy," he said. They drank. "Tell me, Billy, what happens when you meet a race that will not listen to reason, having planetary defenses too powerful to attack?"

"We have a means of rotating a five thousand mile sphere of their sun's core into subspace. It makes a violent variable out of it, and forces the race to migrate within a year. During migration, of course, they are helpless and they can be handled with ease."

"Um," swallowed Linzete. "I see."

The color of his face showed that he did see.

Once more the months rolled past. The trip was made to Terra in subspace, to save time, but when Billy arrived, his greeting to Patricia Kennebec was hungry and demanding.

"You'd think it were months," she objected mildly.

"For me it has been," he confessed.

Another month rolled by, and it went with a peculiar time-sense, for it was both violently swift at times, and at other times it dragged like eternity. Both of them would have preferred a quick wedding, but position interfered with the process. But the month ended eventually, and after a solid round of formal affairs punctuated by less formal details, they got the right and the opportunity to take to their spaceship together.

And the four months that followed drove past as swiftly as the light-years logged up on the recorder. Theirs was an ambling passage through prime space; they stopped at four or five intervening systems on their way.

Their arrival at Vorgan's capitol followed the visits from Indan Ko and Linzete. Billy knew, and smiled inwardly. He'd planned it that way.

"Stick around," he told her with a grin. "Females are strictly nom de something-or-other in there at present. I'll be out directly."

He entered and saluted Vorgan. Lindoo was less affable than the Lord of All, who smiled.

"A nice piece of work, Terran," said Vorgan.

"Thank you."

Vorgan turned to Lindoo. "You once told me that you would step down when your master at diplomacy came along," he twitted.

Billy smiled at Lindoo. "I gather that I executed your wishes to perfection," he said.

Lindoo blinked.

Vorgan turned back to the Terran. "His wishes?"

"Certainly. I admit that I took liberties with my orders, but I couldn't know whether settling the Sscantovian affair without losing a man included Tlembo as well, because by the time I took stock, they were allied, and we of Terra always consider that a confederate rates the same treatment as the prime contractor."

"But I do not understand. Did Vorgan issue any orders?"

"I am responsible to him. I am among his advisory staff. He selected me. It was his ability to select me that puts him in the position of ordering me."

"Proceed," said Vorgan.

"Lord of All, a responsible assistant certainly does not require a written order for every act. Not among Terrans, anyway. A good supervisor selects assistants who can anticipate and act upon his wishes. A good assistant can act as his superior would act, and knows his superior's wishes. Therefore I was but anticipating Lindoo's plan, and acting in accordance with my knowledge of his desire."

Lindoo blinked, and the storm cloud of his face cleared. Vorgan smiled slightly. "Keep him," he said. "He will do a lot for you."

Lindoo would require a bit more soothing, Billy knew, but that could come easily and soon enough.

He was dismissed and as he left, Billy smiled inwardly. Let them rule. He and his cohorts would rule the rulers. He had a fairly complete picture right now. They had rid themselves of Sezare the dissolute voluptuary, and Borgara, the tyrant, and there was a sector not too far away where one Terran had convinced the overseer that an experiment in offering the slaves better living quarters and a better future might pay off. It would, for the downtrodden sector against which the model project was stacked knew of the "race" in production and were taking it easy. The model project's output might even be double. And several sectors were combing close to locate intelligent assistants and specialists to aid the Terrans—the research sector. And Terrans in large groups were roaming the galactic front, using their ability to speak and communicate with any race. They could enter any system that used a reasonable facsimile of Terran air for an atmosphere, and disease and death did not touch them. Their arguments were brilliant, and they achieved without fighting that which the Loard-vogh could not do. If the Loard-vogh felt that things were moving too fast, they had but to inspect their birth records. With less fighting, there was less absence of the fighting men—

It would be a long, hard-driven road to travel, but it would lead to a united Galaxy. Meanwhile, Billy would be happy without fretting about his position. He was satisfied to advise Lindoo.

Vorgan, Emperor of the Loard-vogh, Lord of All, and his race fought for the unity of the Galaxy. They still thought they ruled it as they would—

THE END.

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