Eternal Frontier by James H. Schmitz & edited by Eric Flint and Guy Gordon -
Baen Books 

Eternal Frontier 

Ape Man, Space Man 

Earth's colonists have spread throughout the cosmos, and have almost dividedinto two separate species. One is the Swimmers, who have adapted to living inzero-gravity, and regard themselves as the next step in evolution, and thosewho prefer to live on the surface of a planet as little better than apes. Thelatter group, the Walkers, are not about to say farewell to the planets theygrew up on, and think the Swimmers are not so much advanced as deranged. 

Crowell, born a Swimmer but now a Walker by choice, is caught in the middle asthe two sides seem headed for war. Then he discovers the true cause of the 
altercation: a hidden alien race moving behind the scenes to provoke a war sothat they can pick up the pieces after the two sides have obliterated eachother. And if Crowell cannot head off the war and convince both sides of the 
existence of the real enemy, both branches of the human race may be headed foruntimely extinction. 

This full-length novel and much more, fill a huge volume from the master ofscience fiction adventure. 

"Much has been made of the 'sense of wonder' that science fiction evokes, andbelieve me, there was nothing to evoke that sense quite like the worlds ofJames Schmitz. . . . Thank you, James Schmitz, wherever you are. And thankyou, Eric Flint and Jim Baen, for bringing his Right Stuff back again."

-- Mercedes Lackey 

"Take my advice and buy TWO copies of this book! You'll want to lend it tofriends and (trust me on this: I have years of experience to back up theobservation) once people get their hands on a Schmitz book, they don't letgo!"

--Janet Kagan, Hugo-winner and author of Uhura's Song 

Cover art by Bob Eggleton 

Trade 

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in thisbook are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purelycoincidental. 

First printing, September 2002 

Distributed by Simon & Schuster1230 Avenue of the Americas 
New York, NY 10020 

Printed in the United States of America 

ISBN: 0-7434-3559-1 

Copyright 2002 by estate of James H. Schmitz 


-Prologue 
Adventures in Time and Space 

James H. Schmitz was one of the finest writers of light-hearted adventurestories in the history of science fiction. His most familiar works, the Huband Vegan Confederacy tales and his novel The Witches of Karres, were almostall of that nature. 

But he wrote a number of other stories which were quite similar, which aremuch less well known -- and, often, simply due to the vagaries of thepublishing industry. To give an example, the opening tale of this volume ("TheBig Terrarium") is as good a story as almost anything Schmitz ever wrote.
Alas, it was published in a magazine called Saturn, which folded after fourissues. So, unlike the stories published in Analog, which were usuallyreissued several times in various anthologies, "The Big Terrarium" vanishedfrom sight. To the best of our knowledge, this anthology is the first time ithas been reissued since it first appeared in that little-known and short-livedmagazine in May of 1957. To one extent or another, the same fate befell manyof the stories in this section of our anthology. 

One of these stories is of particular interest, for anyone familiar with thehistory of science fiction. Schmitz's most famous single work, his novel TheWitches of Karres, was published at the height of his career in 1968. But whatfew people know is that, at the beginning of his career -- in the late 40s,
twenty years earlier -- he wrote a story which served as the prototype for thelater novel. His "trial run," you might call it. 

It's all very complicated . . . 

Schmitz wrote the story "Captives of the Thieve-Star" sometime very early inhis career, and then decided it was unpublishable and set it aside. Theoriginal title of the story was "What Threbus Said." Then, in 1949, hepublished the novelette "The Witches of Karres," which he would later expandinto the novel by that name. Deciding that his earlier story was in factsellable, he hauled it out of the dustbin -- but, of course, having alreadyused the name "Threbus" in "The Witches of Karres," had to change the name ofthe heroine's father and the title "What Threbus Said" to "Captives of theThieve-Star." 

And that's how it all happened, honest. 

That story, "Captives of the Thieve-Star," is included here. We think anyreader will enjoy it for its own sake. But those of you familiar with TheWitches of Karres will also enjoy seeing how Schmitz transmuted theprotagonists of the earlier story into the familiar figures of Captain Pausertand Goth. And will chuckle, perhaps, at seeing the origins of the mysteriousand mighty witches of Karres -- as disreputable a clan of space gypsies as youcould ask for. 

-Chapter 1 
The Big Terrarium 


The third morning Fred Nieheim woke up in the Little Place, he no longer hadto prove to himself that he wasn't dreaming. He knew where he was, all right,
along with the rest of them -- Wilma and Ruby and Howard Cooney and theCobrisol. But knowing it didn't make him any happier. 

He remained lying on his back, gazing moodily out through the bedroom window,
while he wondered how one went about getting back to Earth from here -specifically, 
to the Nieheim farm twenty-two miles south of Richardsville,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A. It wasn't apparently just a matter of finding a way outthrough the very odd sort of barriers that fenced in the area. According tothe Cobrisol, a local creature which appeared to be well-informed, they wouldthen simply be in something known as "Outside," which was nowhere near Earth.
At least, the Cobrisol had never heard of Earth, and still wasn't entirelyconvinced that it existed. 

"Sometimes, Fred," it had hinted gently only last evening while they sattogether on the front porch, watching a rather good production of an Earth-
type sunset above the apple orchard, "sometimes, the memory and other mentalfunctions are deranged by transfer from one Place to another. Don't let itworry you, though. Such effects almost always wear off in time. . . ." 

Fred felt Wilma stir quietly in bed beside him, and he raised himselfcautiously on an elbow to look at her. The bed creaked. 

Ruby went "Chuck-chuck!" sharply from the corner of the bedroom, where sheslept in a basket. She was a middle-aged hen pheasant of belligerent nature,
who regarded herself as the watchdog of the Nieheim farm. Basket and all,
she'd been transferred along with them to the Little Place. 

Fred remained quiet until Ruby stuck her head back under her wing. Wilma wasstill asleep, and only a rounded, smooth shoulder and a mop of yellow hairwere visible at the moment above the blankets. They had been married less thantwo years, and if he and Wilma and Ruby had been set down here alone, hemightn't have minded it so much. The Cobrisol had assured him that oneordinarily received the best of care and attention in the Little Places; andthe Cobrisol itself, though disconcerting in appearance until you got used toit, seemed to be as agreeable a neighbor as anyone could want. 

Unfortunately, there was also Howard Cooney. . . . 
* * * 

Out in the kitchen, precisely as Fred's reflections reached that point, ametallic clatter announced that Howard Cooney was manipulating Wilma's bigiron skillet on the stove again. 

Fred scowled thoughtfully. For a recent acquaintance, Howard certainly wasmaking himself at home with them! He was a tramp who had happened to selectthe night of their transfer to sleep in the shed back of the Nieheimfarmhouse; and so he'd been picked up and brought along, too. Unfortunately,
whoever or whatever had constructed a reasonably accurate duplicate of asection of the Nieheim farm in the Little Place, hadn't bothered to includethe shed. The first night, at Wilma's suggestion, Howard had moved into theliving room. After that, he'd stayed there. 

Fred felt he couldn't reasonably object to the arrangement under thecircumstances, but he suspected that Howard was an untrustworthy character.
He'd already begun to ogle Wilma when he thought nobody was noticing -- and 


there was the disturbing fact that he was considerably bigger and huskier than
Fred. . . . 


He'd better, Fred decided uneasily, work out a method of getting them all back
to Earth before Howard got the wrong kind of ideas.
* * * 


"Morning," Howard Cooney said hospitably, as Fred came into the kitchen. "Sit
down and have some hoot. Where's Wilma?" 


Fred said Wilma was still sleeping. 


"Me," said Howard, "I'm up with the sun! Or what goes for the sun around here.
Know what? I'm going to build a still!" He explained that he'd discovered a
maze of piping under the front porch which wasn't connected to anything and
which he could use for the purpose. 


Fred doubted Howard would have any success with his dubious project, but he
didn't comment on it. The piping wouldn't be missed. The duplicated house
functioned just as well as the house back on Earth had; but it was operated on
different and -- so far -- incomprehensible principles. Hot and cold water ran
out of the proper faucets and vanished down the drains, but neither faucets
nor drains appeared to be connected to anything but the solid walls!
Similarly, the replicas of the electric stove and refrigerator performed their
normal duties -- but Fred had discovered by accident that they worked just as
well when they weren't plugged into the electric outlets. It was all a little
uncanny, and he preferred not to think about it too much. 


He tried a slice of the hoot Howard had been frying. Hoots came in various
flavors, and this one wasn't at all bad -- quite as good as ham, in fact. He
said so. 


"Could have been a famous chef back on Earth if I'd wanted to," Howard
admitted carelessly. "This is last night's hoot, by the way. There weren't any
fresh ones floating around this morning." 


"Howard," said Fred, "I'm trying to think of a way to get us back to Earth -" 


"You are?" Howard looked startled and then frowned. "Look, Buster," he said in
a confidential tone, leaning across the table, "let's face it. We got it soft
here. Once I get the liquor situation straightened out, we'll have everything
we need." 


Fred's mouth opened in surprise. "You don't mean you want to stay here all
your life, do you?" 


Howard eyed him speculatively. "You ought to wise up. You never been in stir,
have you? Well, that's where you are now." 


"It's more like a zoo," said Fred. "And -- " 


"Call it a zoo," the tramp interrupted. "Same principle." He shrugged his
massive shoulders. "Trying to break out is a good way to get killed, see? And
it's likely to make it rough on everyone else. You wouldn't want something
worse than being shut up here to happen to Wilma, would you?" He grinned
amiably at Fred, but the little gray eyes were shrewd and, at the moment, a 



trifle menacing. 

There was just enough sense in what he'd said to make Fred uncertain. Howardseemed to have had some experiences which could be of value now. "What do youthink we ought to do?" he inquired. 

However, at that point, Howard became rather vague. In stir, he said, one hadto take things easy until one had figured out the system. And then one madeuse of the system. The danger was in getting whoever was in charge of theLittle place riled up by thoughtless action. . . . 
* * * 

Going in search of the Cobrisol after breakfast, Fred admitted to himself thathe couldn't quite make out what Howard Cooney was after. The tramp seemed tohave something definite in mind, but apparently he wasn't willing to reveal itat this time. 

At any rate, he'd made it clear that he didn't intend to be helpful aboutgetting them back to Earth. 

He found the Cobrisol coiled up at the head of a sloping section of groundwhich apparently was intended to represent the upper half of the south meadowof the Nieheim farm on Earth. As such, it was a few hundred yards out ofplace, and the grass that grew there wasn't exactly grass either; but Freddidn't pay much attention to such arbitrary rearrangements of his property anymore. 

"Nice day, isn't it?" he remarked, coming up. 

"If you're speaking of the weather, yes!" said the Cobrisol. "Otherwise, I'llreserve my opinion." 

Fred sat down beside it. "Something wrong?" 

The Cobrisol nodded. "Possibly . . ." It was a quite odd-looking creature,
with a snaky, ten-foot body, brick-red in color and with a rubbery feel to it,
and a head that was a little like that of a pig and a little more like that ofan alligator. No arms or legs, but it didn't seem to miss them. When it movedslowly, it extended and contracted itself like an earthworm; when it was in ahurry, it slithered about in sideways loops like a snake. "Take a lookaround," it invited significantly. 

Fred gazed about. There was the usual, vague sort of sun-disk shining throughthe overhead haze, and the morning was pleasantly warm. At the end of themeadow was a huge, vertical something with indefinite borders called a"mirror-barrier," inside which he could see the Cobrisol and himself sittingin the grass, apparently a long distance away, and the duplicated farmhousebehind them. To the left was a rather accurate reproduction of the Nieheimapple orchard -- though the trees were constructed more like firs -- completewith a copy of the orchard section of the Nieheim trout stream. Unfortunately,
no trout appeared to have been transferred. 

Beyond the orchard was a thick, motionless mist which blended into the haze ofthe sky. The mist was another barrier; the Cobrisol called it a "barrier ofconfusion." The first day, Fred had made a determined attempt to walk out ofthe Little Place at that point; it had been a confusing experience, all right!
* * * 


There wasn't much more to the Little Place. Behind the house, the groundsloped uphill into another wall of mist. He could hear Wilma and Howard Cooneytalking in the back garden; and a number of small, circular objects thatlooked as if they might be made of some shiny metal floated about here andthere in the air. The Cobrisol had explained that these were Eyes, throughwhich the goings-on in the Little Place were being observed. Their motionseemed aimless, but Fred hadn't been able to get close enough to one to catchit. 

"Everything looks about the same to me," he admitted at last. 

"Everything?" repeated the Cobrisol. 

Its long toothy jaws and rubbery, throat moved slightly as it spoke, though itwasn't actually pronouncing human words. Neither had Fred been talking in theCobrisol's language, whatever that was. It was a little hard to understand.
They hadn't been suddenly gifted with telepathy; it was just that when youwere set down in a Little Place, you knew what the other intelligent creaturesthere wanted to say. And it sounded as if they were using your kind of speech. 

Fred had given up trying to figure it out. . . . 

"Well, there aren't any hoots in sight this morning," he acknowledged. "Orrobols either," he added, after a brief search of the meadow grass. "HowardCooney mentioned the hoots were gone at breakfast." 

"Very observant of the Cooney person," the Cobrisol stated drily. It andHoward had disliked each other on sight. "Fred, there are a few matters I feelI should discuss with you." 

"Now's a good time for a chat," Fred said agreeably. 

The Cobrisol darted its head about in a series of rapid, snaky motions,
surveying the area. 

"The Eyes," it remarked then, "have assumed an unusual observational patternthis morning. You will note that two are stationed directly above us. Anothercluster has positioned itself above the roof of the house. Early in themorning, an exceptionally large number were gathered among the trees of theorchard. These have now largely transferred themselves to the opposite side ofthe Little Place, near the maze-barrier." 

"I see," said Fred, wondering what it was driving at. 

"The One who maintains this Place is showing a remarkable degree of interestin us today," the Cobrisol concluded. 

Fred nodded. 
* * * 

"Very well," the creature resumed. "Life in a Little Place is usually verysatisfactory. The Ones who maintain them can be regarded as hobbyists who takea benevolent interest in the life-forms they select to inhabit theircreations. Whereas Big Places, of course, are designed for major scientificprojects. . . ." The creature shuddered slightly throughout its length. "I'venever been in one of those, but -- well, I've heard stories! Until this 


morning, Fred, I was inclined to regard us here as exceptionally fortunatelife-forms." 

"Well," Fred said, frowning "I don't quite agree with . . . what do you mean,
'until this morning'?" 

"There are indications that this Place is being maintained, shall we say,
carelessly? Nothing conclusive, as yet, you understand. But indications!" TheCobrisol jerked its head in the direction of the mirror-barrier. "Thatbarrier, for instance, Fred, and one or two others have been permitted to gosoft overnight!" 

"Go soft?" Fred repeated. 

"They're no longer operating as barriers. If we chose to, we could go rightthrough them now -- and be Outside! An almost unheard-of example of slip-shodmaintenance -- " 

Fred brightened. "Well, say!" He got hurriedly to his feet. "Let's try itthen!" He hesitated. "I'll go get Wilma and Ruby first though. I don't like toleave Wilma alone with that Cooney character." 

The Cobrisol hadn't moved. 

"I'm afraid you don't have the picture," it remarked. "You assume that onceyou're outside you'll be able to find your way back to the place you callEarth?" 

"Not exactly," Fred said cautiously. He didn't like to be evasive with theCobrisol, but he wasn't sure it would want them to leave -- and it might be ina position to make their departure more difficult. "We could just step throughand look around a little. . . ." 

"Even if we weren't under observation at the moment," the Cobrisol pointedout, "you wouldn't live very long if you did. No life-form -- as we know life-
forms -- can exist Outside. The barriers are set up to keep us where it'ssafe. That's why it's so irresponsible, of the One -- " 

Fred abandoned the idea of taking Wilma with him. He'd have to make a carefulcheck first. "About how long," he inquired, "could I stand it out there,
safely?" 

"Forget it, Fred!" the creature advised him earnestly. "Unless you knewexactly what to do to get back into the Little Place, you'd be worse than deadas soon as you stepped out there. And you don't." 

"Do you?" Fred challenged it. 

"Yes," said the Cobrisol, "I do. But I won't tell you. Sit down again, Fred." 

Fred sat down thoughtfully. At least, he'd learned a few new facts, and theknowledge might come in handy. 

"A few moments ago," the Cobrisol said, "you made an interesting statement. Itappears that you don't wish to leave Wilma alone with the other human?" 

Fred glanced at it in surprise. "No," he said shortly, "I don't." 


The Cobrisol hesitated. "I don't wish to be tactless," it remarked. "Iunderstand many species have extremely rigid taboos on the subject -- butmight this have something to do with the process of procreation?" 

Fred flushed. He hadn't got quite that far in his thoughts about Wilma andHoward. "In a general sort of way," he admitted. 

The Cobrisol regarded him judiciously. "Wilma is a charming life-form," itstated then, somewhat to Fred's surprise, "whereas the Cooney is as offensiveas he is ignorant. I approve of your attitude, Fred! How do you intend to killhim?" 

Shocked, Fred protested that he didn't intend to kill Howard Cooney. Humanbeings didn't act like that -- or, at least, they weren't supposed to. 

"Ah," said the Cobrisol. "That is unusual." It reflected a moment. "To getback, then, to our previous subject -- " 

"What previous subject?" By now, Fred was getting a little confused by thesudden shifts in the conversation. 

"Hoots and robols," the Cobrisol said tersely. "They don't just fade away andthere were enough around last evening to have kept us all supplied for anotherweek. What may we deduce from their sudden disappearance, Fred?" 

Fred considered. "They got sick and died?" 

"Try again!" the Cobrisol told him encouragingly. "We could still see a deadhoot, couldn't we?" 

"Something ate them," Fred said, a trifle annoyed. 

"Correct! Something," added the Cobrisol, "with a very large appetite -- orelse a number of perhaps less voracious somethings. Something, further, thatwas transferred here during the night, since there was no shortage in the foodsupplies previous to this morning. And, finally -- since it's given no otherindications of its presence -- something with secretive habits!" 

Fred looked around uneasily. "What do you think it is?" 

"Who knows?" The Cobrisol had no shoulders to shrug with, but it employed anodd, jerky motion now which gave the same impression. "A Gramoose? An Icien?
Perhaps even a pack of Bokans. . . ." It indicated the observing Eyes abovethe house with a flick of its snout. "The point is, Fred, that the One appearscurious to see what we shall do in the situation. Taken together with thesoftening of the barriers, this suggests a deplorable -- and, for us, perhapsvery unfortunate -- degree of immaturity in our particular hobbyist!"
* * * 

Feeling his face go pale, Fred got to his feet. "I'm going to go tell Wilma tostay in the house with Ruby," he announced shakily. 

"A wise precaution!" The Cobrisol uncoiled and came slithering along besidehim as, he strode rapidly towards the house. "The situation, incidentally,
does have one slight advantage for you personally." 


"What's that?" Fred inquired. 


"I have noticed that the Cooney individual is considerably larger and more
powerful than you. But you can emphasize to him now that, since we are in a
state of common danger, this is no time to indulge in procreational
disputes. . . ." 


Before Fred could answer, there was a sudden furious squawking from Ruby in
the back garden. An instant later, he heard a breathless shriek from Wilma and
a sort of horrified bellowing from Howard Cooney. He came pounding up to the
front porch just as the house door flew open. Howard dashed out, wild-eyed,
leaped down the porch stairs, almost knocking Fred over, and charged on. 


Fred's impression was that the big man hadn't even seen him. As he scrambled
up on the porch, there was a thud and a startled "Oof!" behind him, as if
Howard had just gone flat on his face, but he didn't look back. Wilma came
darting through the door in Howard's tracks, Ruby tucked firmly under her left
arm and a big iron skillet grasped in her right hand. Her face looked white as
paper under its tan. 


"Run, Fred!" she gasped. "There's something at the back door!" 


"You're mistaken, Wilma," the Cobrisol's voice informed them from the foot of
the stairs. "It's now coming around the house. Up on the front porch,
everyone! You, too, Cooney! No place to run to, you know!" 


"What's coming?" Fred demanded hoarsely. He added to Wilma, "Here, I'll hold
Ruby!" 


Nobody answered immediately. Howard thumped up the steps, closely followed by
the Cobrisol. It struck Fred then that it probably had been a flip of the
Cobrisol's tail that halted Howard; but Howard wasn't complaining. He took up
a stand just behind Wilma, breathing noisily. 


The Cobrisol coiled up on Fred's left. 


"It's an Icien. . . . Well, things could be worse -- listen!" 


Ruby clasped under his left arm, Fred listened. A number of Eyes were bobbing
about excitedly in front of the porch. Suddenly, he heard footsteps. 


They were heavy, slow, slapping steps, as if something were walking through
mud along the side of the house. Fred turned to the edge of the porch where
Howard had been pulling up plankings to find material for his still. A four-
foot piece of heavy pipe lay beside the loose boards, and he picked that up
just as Wilma and Howard uttered a gasp of renewed shock. . . . 


Something -- the Icien -- was standing behind the south end of the porch. 


"Ah!" it said in a deep voice, peering in at the group through the railings.
"Here we all are!" 
* * * 


Fred stared at it speechlessly. It stood on two thick legs, and it had a round
head where a head ought to be. It was at least seven feet tall, and seemed to
be made of moist black leather -- even the round, bulging eyes and the horny
slit of a mouth were black. But the oddest thing about it was that, in 



addition, it appeared to have wrapped a long black cloak tightly arounditself. 

It marched on to the end of the porch and advanced towards the stairs, whereit stopped. 

"Are all the intelligent inhabitants of the Place assembled here?" the inhumanvoice inquired. 

Fred discovered that his knees were shaking uncontrollably. But nobody elseseemed willing to answer. 

"We're all here," he stated, in as steady a voice as he could manage. "What doyou want?" 

The Icien stared directly at him for a long moment. Then it addressed thegroup in general. 

"Let this be understood first! Wherever an Icien goes, an Icien rules!" Itpaused. Fred decided not to dispute the statement just now. Neither did anyoneelse. 

"Splendid!" The Icien sounded somewhat mollified. "Now, as all intelligentbeings know," it went on, in a more conversational tone, "the Law of theLittle Places states that a ruling Icien must never go hungry while anotherlife-form is available to nourish it. . . ." The black cloak around it seemed 
to stir with a slow, writhing motion of its own. "I am hungry!" the Icienadded, simply but pointedly. 

Unconsciously, the humans on the porch had drawn a little closer together. TheCobrisol stayed where it was, motionless and watchful, while the monster'sblack eyes swiveled from one to the other of the petrified little group. 

"The largest one, back there!" it decided shortly. 

And with that, what had looked like a cloak unfolded and snapped out to eitherside of it. For a blurred, horrified second, Fred thought of giant sting-rayson an ocean bottom, of octopi -- of demonish vampires! The broad, blackflipper-arms the creature had held wrapped about it were lined with row on rowof wet-toothed sucker-mouths. From tip to tip, they must have stretched almostfifteen feet. 

Howard Cooney made a faint screeching noise and fainted dead away, collapsinglimply to the porch.. 

"Ah!" rumbled the Icien, with apparent satisfaction. "The rest of you may nowstand back -- " It took a step forward, the arms sweeping around to reach outahead of it. Then it stopped. 

"I said," it repeated, on a note of angry surprise, "that you may now standback!" 

Ruby clacked her beak sharply; there was no other sound. Fred discovered hehad half-raised the piece of pipe, twisting it back from his wrist like a one-
handed batter. Wilma held the big skillet in front of her, grasping itdeterminedly in both hands. Her face wasn't white any more; it was flushed,
and her lips were set. And the Cobrisol's neck was drawn back like that of a 


rattlesnake, its jaws suddenly gaping wide. 

"What is this?" The Icien glanced at some of the Eyes floating nearby, as ifseeking support. "Are you defying the Law?" it demanded. 

No one answered; but Fred realized, in a rush of relief which left him almostweak enough to follow Howard's example, that the monster was licked! Itwithdrew its horrid flippers slowly, letting them trail on the ground, whileit shifted its weight uncertainly from one thick leg to the other. 

And then Ruby burst into a series of raucous, derisive sounds that madeeveryone start nervously, including the Icien. The Cobrisol closed its longjaws with a snap. The Icien snorted, wrapped its flipper-arms back aboutitself, turned and stalked off toward the apple orchard. Its feet were hugeand flat like the flippers of a seal, Fred noticed, which seemed to accountfor the odd, floppy sounds it made with each step. 

At the edge of the trees, it turned again. 

"This matter is not settled!" it rumbled menacingly. "But for the time being,
the stream back here and the trees are my personal area. You will enter it atyour own risk!" 

Its voice and appearance still made Fred's skin crawl. "We'll agree to that,"
he answered hoarsely. "But you'll leave that area again at your own risk!" 

The Icien gave him, a final, silent stare before it moved on into the orchard. 

They began to revive Howard Cooney. . . .
* * * 

Oddly enough, Howard seemed more sullen than grateful when he woke up finallyand realized the Icien was gone. 

"If it hadn't been for my weak heart," he growled, "I'd have clobbered thedevilish creature!" 

"An excellent suggestion," the Cobrisol remarked approvingly. "You'll find itsitting in the trout stream, Cooney. . . ." 

Howard grunted and changed the subject. Within an hour after their encounterwith the new neighbor, all the Eyes had disappeared from the area, indicatingthat whoever was using them didn't expect anything of interest to happen now.
But the hoots and robols were back in normal numbers. 

Apparently, a crisis had been passed. The only thing remarkable about the nextday was that the weather turned hot and dry. The night wasn't much of animprovement, and by noon of the day that followed, it looked as if they werein for a regular Earth-style heat wave. 

Wondering whether this meant that summer was now on the Little Place'scalendar, Fred rigged up a makeshift hammock on the front porch, which seemedto be the coolest spot around the house. While Wilma gratefully napped in thehammock and Ruby drooped in a corner with a pan of water near her half-openbeak, he sat on the front steps putting an edge to their two largest kitchenknives. He'd fastened the knife-handles into longish pieces of piping theafternoon after the Icien showed up; they made quite formidable looking 


weapons. 

But he wished they were all safely back home again. 

Glancing up presently, he discovered the Cobrisol in the meadow, moving slowlytoward the house. Howard Cooney hadn't been in sight for the past two hours,
which was one of the reasons Fred was maintaining informal guard duty untilWilma woke up. There'd been some trouble with Howard the evening before, andhe suspected the tramp was still in a sulky mood, which wouldn't be improvedany by the heat. 

Twice, on its way to the house, the Cobrisol reached up languidly to snap alow-fluttering hoot out of the air; and each time, Fred winced. He'd convincedWilma -- and nearly convinced himself -- that the olive-brown hoots and thepinkish, hopping robols were merely mobile vegetables; but, he still didn'tlike the way they wriggled about hopefully inside the Cobrisol's elasticgullet, as if they were trying to poke their way out again.
* * * 

"Wilma's sleeping," he cautioned the creature, as it came sliding up to thefoot of the stairs. 

"Fine," said the Cobrisol in a low, pensive voice. "I don't imagine you'vemade any progress in your plans to return to Earth?" 

"Well, no. . . . Why?" 

"It's unlikely that there is any way of doing it," the Cobrisol admitted.
"Very unlikely. However, if you think of something, I'd appreciate it if youinvited me to go along." 

Surprised, Fred, said he'd be happy to do that. "I think you'd like it on areal farm," he added, a little doubtfully. 

"Cobrisols are adaptable creatures," it assured him. "But there are limits!"
It glanced indignantly up at their simmering source of heat and lightoverhead. "Do you realize, Fred, that there've been no Eyes around for nearlytwo full days? The One has simply gone away, leaving the temperature on high!
It's inexcusable." 

Fred hadn't considered the possibility that the heat-wave might be due to anoversight on the part of the supervisor. "In that case," he said hopefully,
"he might be back any minute to turn it down, mightn't he?" 

"He might," said the Cobrisol. "Even so, I feel wasted here! But one thing ata time. There's fresh trouble coming up, Fred." 

"If it's from the Icien," Fred remarked, a trifle complacently, "I wouldn'tworry." He held up one of his weapons. "These are Icien spears!" 

The Cobrisol inspected the spears. "Very ingenious," it acknowledged.
"However, am I right in assuming, Fred, that the procreational probleminvolving the Cooney individual has come into the open?" 

Fred reddened again and glanced at the hammock. "Howard did make a pass atWilma after dinner last night," he said then, lowering his voice a triflemore. "I told him off!" He had, as a matter of fact, picked up one of the 


spears he was working on and threatened to run Howard out into the Icienhaunted 
night. Howard had gone white and backed down hurriedly. 

"Ah?" said the Cobrisol. "A pass?" 

Fred explained about passes. 

"The Cooney is certainly easily frightened by the threat of physicaldestruction," the Cobrisol remarked. "But a frightened being is dangerouslyunpredictable!" 

It paused, significantly. 

"What are you driving at?" Fred inquired. 

"An hour or so ago," said the Cobrisol, "I saw Cooney stealing into thatsection of the apple orchard that extends behind the house. I found himpresently engaged in conversation with the Icien" 

"What?" Fred was stunned. "Why, Howard's scared to death of that thing!" heprotested. 

"I believe that fear of it was one of his motivations," the Cobrisol agreed.
"His attitude was a propitiating one. Nevertheless, they have formed analliance. The Cooney is to rule over all humans that are now in this Place orthat may be transferred to it eventually, while he acknowledges the Icien asthe supreme ruler of all beings here, and as his own superior. . . . It wasdecided that, as the first step in this program, Cooney is to devise a meanswhereby the Icien can come upon you unawares, Fred, and eat you!"
* * * 

Fred didn't tell Wilma of Howard's gruesome plotting with the Icien. Shewouldn't be able to conceal her feelings well enough; and the conclusion he'dcome to with the Cobrisol was that Howard must not suspect that they knew whathe had done. Now and then, looking at the man -- who, since his meeting withthe Icien, had assumed a conciliatory and even mildly jovial attitude with theNieheims -- he had to suppress twinges of a feeling akin to horror. It waslike living under the same roof with a ghoul! 

But one had to admit, he thought, that Howard Cooney was being consistent. Hehad figured out the system here, and he intended to make use of it, just as hehad announced he would do. If it hadn't been for the Cobrisol's alertness, heprobably would have gotten away with it. In spite of the heat, Fred shivered. 

After another two days, the meadow and orchard looked as if they had passedthrough an extreme summer's drought on Earth. It didn't get much hotter; itsimply wouldn't cool down again at all, and the Little Place seemed to haveforgotten how to produce rain. In the middle of the third night, Fred waslying awake when the Cobrisol slid its rubbery snout up on the pillow, next tohis ear, and murmured, "Awake, Fred?" 

"Yes," he whispered. It must have come sliding in by the window, though hehadn't heard a sound. 

"The kitchen," it muttered. Then it was gone again. Moving cautiously, Fredmanaged to get out of the bedroom without rousing either Wilma or Ruby andlocked the door quietly behind him. He stood a moment in the almost pitch



black little hallway, grasping the larger of the two Icien spears. In theliving room, Howard snored loudly and normally, as if he hadn't a thing on hisconscience. 

The Cobrisol was waiting beside the door that opened from the kitchen into thegarden. That was the weak spot in the house. The windows were all too high andnarrow for a creature of the Icien's build to enter, the front door was boltedand locked, and at night Fred kept the key under his pillow. But the back doorwas secured only by a bolt which Howard, if he wanted to, could simply slideback to let the monster come inside. . . . 

"The Icien left its pool in the stream a short while ago," the Cobrisolwhispered. "It's prowling about the house now. Do you hear it?" 

Fred did. There wasn't a breath of breeze in the hot, black night outside; andno matter how carefully the Icien might be placing its great, awkward feet,
the back garden was full of rustlings and creakings as it tramped about slowlyin the drying vegetation. Presently, it came up to one of the kitchen windowsand remained still for a while, apparently trying to peer inside. Fredcouldn't even make out its silhouette against the darkness; but after a fewseconds, an oily, alien smell reached his nostrils, and his hair went stiff atthe roots. . . . 

Then it moved off slowly along the side of the house.
* * * 

"Going to wake up Cooney now." The Cobrisol's voice was hardly more than abreath of sound in the dark. 

This was how they had expected it would happen; but now that the moment washere, Fred couldn't believe that Howard was going to go through with the plan.
Aside from everything else, it would be as stupid as forming a partnershipwith a man-eating tiger! There came two faint thumps -- presumably the Icien'sflipper slapping cautiously against the frame of the living room window.
Howard's snoring was cut off by a startled exclamation. Then there was deadsilence. After what seemed a long time, Fred heard the Icien return along theoutside of the house. It stopped in front of the back door and stayed there.
It wasn't until then that he realized Howard already had entered the kitchen.
There was a sound of shallow, rapid breathing hardly six feet away from him. 

For a time, the tramp simply seemed to stand there, as motionless as the Icienoutside the door. Finally, he took a deep, sighing breath, and moved forwardagain. As Cooney's hand touched the door, groping for the bolt, Fred droppedhis spear and flung both arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides anddragging him backwards. 

Howard gasped and went heavily to the floor. Fred guessed that the Cobrisolhad tripped him up and flung itself across his legs, He wasn't trying tostruggle. 

"Be quiet or we'll kill you!" he breathed hastily. Then they waited. Howardkept quiet. 

What the Icien made of the brief commotion inside the kitchen and the 
following silence was anybody's guess. It remained where it was for perhapsanother ten seconds. Then they heard it move unhurriedly off through thegarden and back to the orchard again. 


In the bedroom, Ruby started clucking concernedly. . . . 
* * * 

"Now that his criminal purpose has been amply demonstrated," the Cobrisolargued, "the neat and reasonable solution would be for me to swallow Cooney."
It eyed Howard appraisingly. "I'm quite distensible enough for the purpose, Ithink. If we stun him first, the whole affair will be over, in less than tenminutes -- " 

Howard, lying on the floor, tied hand and foot, burst into horrified sobs. 

"We're not going to hurt you," Fred assured him quickly. He wasn't feeling toosorry for Howard at the moment, but Wilma's face had gone white at theCobrisol's unpleasant suggestion. "But we're not giving you a chance to tryany more tricks on us either. You're really in stir now, Howard!" 

He explained to Wilma that they were going to use the bedroom as a temporaryjail for Howard, since it was the only room in the house with a separate key. 

"I know you were only joking," she told the Cobrisol. "But I wish you wouldn'ttalk about swallowing anybody again!" 

"The jest was in bad taste," the Cobrisol admitted penitently. It winked agreen, unrepentant eye at Fred. "Almost a pun, eh, Fred?" 

In the end, they tied Howard up a little more comfortably and took turnswatching him till morning. Then Fred cleared out the bedroom, nailed heavyboards across the window, leaving slits for air and light, and locked theprisoner inside. 

He'd just finished with that when the Cobrisol called him into the backgarden. 

"The other half of our criminal population is behaving in an odd fashion," thecreature announced. "I wish you'd come along and help me decide why it'sdigging holes in the streambed. . . ." 

"Digging holes?" Fred hesitated. "It doesn't sound dangerous," he pointed out. 

"Anything you don't understand can be dangerous!" the Cobrisol remarkedsententiously. "Better come along, Fred." 

Fred sighed and told Wilma to call him back if Howard showed any inclinationto try to break out of the bedroom. From the edge of the orchard, they heardthe Icien splashing around vigorously in one of the pools of the shrunkenstream; and presently they were lying on top of the bank, peering cautiouslydown at it. Using its feet and flipper-tips, it was making clumsy butpersistent efforts to scoop out a deep hole in the submerged mud. 

"Iciens," whispered the Cobrisol, "are so rarely brought into contact withmore civilized species that not much is known of their habits. Can you suggesta purpose for this activity, Fred?" 

"Think it could be trying to dig its way out of the Little Place?" Fredwhispered back. 


"No. It's not that stupid." 

"Well," Fred whispered, "I read about fish once, or it could have been frogs 


-those are Earth animals -- that dig themselves into the mud of a creekthat's drying out, and sleep there until it fills up with water again." 
The Cobrisol agreed that it was a possibility. "Though it's already dug a
number of holes and covered them again. . . ." 


"Might still be looking for a soft spot," Fred suggested. 


At that moment, they heard Wilma call Fred's name once, in a high, frightened
voice. 
* * * 


Howard Cooney was waiting for them outside the kitchen door. Wilma stood in
front of him, one arm twisted up behind her back, while Howard held the point
of a small steak knife against the side of her neck. The two Icien spears
leaned against the wall beside him. 


"Slow to a walk!" he shouted in a hoarse, ragged voice, as they came in sight. 


They slowed. The Cobrisol gliding beside him, Fred walked stiffly as far as
the center of the garden, where Howard ordered him to stop again. Wilma's chin
was trembling. 


"I'm sorry, Fred!" she gasped suddenly. "I let him trick me!" 


Howard jerked at her wrist. "Keep your mouth shut!" His eyes looked hot and
crazy, and the side of his face kept twitching as he grinned at Fred. 


"I'm in charge now, Buster!" he announced. "See how you like it!" 


"What do you want me to do?" Fred kept his voice carefully even and didn't
look at Wilma. 


"The snake," said Howard, "doesn't come any closer, or this knife goes right
in! Understand?" 


"Certainly, I understand," said the Cobrisol. It began to curl up slowly into
its usual resting position. "And, of course, I shall come no closer, Cooney.
As you say, you're in charge now. . . ." 


Howard ignored it. He jerked his head at the door. "You, Buster -- you go
right through the kitchen and into the bedroom! Go to the other side of the
bedroom and look at the wall. We'll come along behind you, and I'll lock you
in. Get it?" 


Crazy or not, he had it figured out. Walking slowly toward the door, Fred
couldn't think of a thing he could do fast enough to keep that knife from
going through Wilma's throat. And once he was locked in -


Wilma's eyes shifted suddenly past him. "Ruby!" she screamed. "Sic him!" 


Fred was almost as shocked as Howard, as the pheasant, her feathers on end,
came half-running, half-flying past him, went up like a rocket and whirred
straight at Howard's face. 



Howard screeched like a woman, dodged and slashed wildly and futilely at Ruby.
Wilma twisted free of his grasp and threw herself to the ground as Fred flung
himself forwards. 


He went headlong over the Cobrisol, which was darting in from the side with
the same purpose in mind, and rolled almost to Howard's feet. For a moment,
the tramp's white, unshaven face seemed to hang in the air directly above him,
glaring down at him; and light flashed from the edge of the knife. It was
another wild swipe, and it missed Fred by niches. Then Howard had jumped back
into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. 
* * * 


By the time they got around to the front of the house, Cooney was racing down
the meadow like a rabbit, heading for the orchard. He dodged in among the
trees and turned toward the trout stream. 


Fred stopped. "We're not going to follow him there just now!" he panted. He
glanced down at the spear he'd grabbed up before charging off in pursuit, and
wondered briefly what he would have done with it if they'd caught up with
Howard. The Little Place seemed to bring out the more violent side in
everybody's nature. 


"Come on," he said, a little shaken by the thought. "Let's get back to Wilma 


-" 
"A moment, Fred," The Cobrisol had lifted its head off the ground, peeringafter Howard. "Ah!" 

A harsh, furious roar reached them suddenly from the orchard, mingled with ahuman yell of fright and dismay. Howard Cooney came scampering out into themeadow again, glancing back over his shoulder. Close behind him lumbered theblack, clumsy form of the Icien, its flipper-arms outstretched. . . . 

"The confederates," murmured the Cobrisol, "are no longer in complete accord.
As I suspected! Come on, Fred!" 

It darted down into the meadow in its swift, weaving snake-gait. Fred ranafter it, a little surprised by its sudden solicitude for Howard. 

Everything happened very quickly then. 

The Icien, to Fred's relief, stopped near the edge of the orchard when it sawthem coming. The Cobrisol, well ahead of Fred, called suddenly, "Cooney!
Wait!" 

Howard looked round and saw two other deadly enemies hurrying toward him,
apparently cutting off his escape from the Icien. He gave a scream of wildterror, turned and plunged toward the mirror-barrier. 

A warning yell was gathering in Fred's throat, but he didn't have time toutter it. Howard reached the barrier and simply went on into it. Except thatthere wasn't the slightest ripple, he might have vanished in the same waybeneath the surface of a quietly gleaming lake of quicksilver. 

The Cobrisol turned and came gliding back to Fred. 


"The barrier is still soft," it remarked. "Well, that's the end of Cooney." 


Fred stared down at it, a little dazed. He was almost certain now that it had
deliberately chased Howard into the barrier. "Is there anything we can do?"
The Cobrisol curled up comfortably in the rustling dead grass. The green eyes
stared blandly up at him far a moment. 


"No," it said. "There is nothing we can do. But in a while there may be
something to see, and I think you should see it, Fred. Why don't you go back
to Wilma? I'll call you when it happens." 


Fred glanced at the tall, shining thing that had silently swallowed up a man.
It was a very hot morning, but for a moment he felt chilled. 


He turned round and went back to Wilma. 
* * * 


What had occurred, according to Wilma, was that, shortly after Fred left the
house, Howard Cooney began to groan loudly behind the bedroom door. When Wilma
asked him what was wrong, he gasped something about his heart and groaned some
more. Then there was a heavy thump inside the room, as if he'd fallen down;
and, after that, silence. 


Remembering he'd said he had a bad heart, Wilma hurriedly unlocked the door,
without stopping to think. And Howard, of course, was waiting behind the door
and simply grabbed her. 


Wilma looked too remorseful for Fred to make any obvious comments. After all,
he thought, he hadn't married her because of anything very remarkable about
her brains, and Howard was -- or had been -- a pretty good actor. He decided
not to tell her just yet what had happened to Howard; and when he heard the
Cobrisol call him, he went out alone. 


He's trying to get out now," the Cobrisol told him. "Take a good look, Fred.
If you ever go Outside, you'll know why you don't want to get lost there, like
he did!" 
* * * 


Fred stared apprehensively at the barrier which was changing as he looked at
it. Now it no longer reflected the meadow and the house; its strange surface
had became like a sheet of milky glass, stretching up into the artificial sky,
and glowing as if from a pale light behind it. There was also a pattern of
shifting and sliding colors inside it, which now coalesced suddenly into the
vague outlines of Howard Cooney's shape. Only the shape looked about forty
feet tall! It stood half turned away from them, in an attitude as if Howard
were listening or watching. 


"He's got everything aroused out there," said the Cobrisol, "and he's begun to
realize it. . . ." 


Fred's mouth felt suddenly dry. "Listen," he began, "couldn't we -- that is,
couldn't I -- " 


"No," said the Cobrisol. "You couldn't! If you went Outside, you still
couldn't find Cooney. And," it added cryptically, "even if I told you how to
get back, they're alert now and they'd get you before you could escape -- " 



Fred swallowed. "Who are they?" 

"Nobody knows," said the Cobrisol. "There are a number of theories -- ranksuperstition, for the most part --Watch it, Fred! I think they've foundhim. . . ." 

The shape inside the barrier had begun to move jerkily as if it were runningin short sprints, first in one direction, then in another. Its size andproportions also changed constantly, and for a few seconds Howard Cooney'sfear-crazed face filled the whole barrier, his eyes staring out into theLittle Place. 

Then the face vanished, and there were many tiny figures of Cooney scamperingabout in the barrier. 

Then he was no longer scampering, but crawling on hands and knees. 

"They have him now," the Cobrisol whispered. 

There was only a single large figure left, lying face down inside the barrier,
and to Fred it seemed to be slowing melting away. As it dwindled, the oddinner light of the barrier also dimmed, until it suddenly went out. A fewseconds later, the milkiness vanished from it, and it had become a mirror-
barrier again. 

That appeared to be the end of it. 

What actually had happened to Howard Cooney was something the Cobrisol waseither unwilling or unable to explain to Fred. He didn't question it toopersistently. He had an uneasy feeling that he wouldn't really like toknow. . . . 
* * * 

The morning the kitchen faucets stopped delivering water from their unknownsource of supply wasn't noticeably hotter than the preceding few mornings hadbeen. But when Wilma called from the kitchen to complain of the trouble, Fredwas appalled. He didn't dare finish the thought that leaped into his mind; heshut it away, and went hurriedly into the bathroom without replying to Wilma. 

A thin, warm trickle ran from the tub faucet there, and that was all. 

He shut it off at once, afraid of wasting a single drop, and started for thekitchen. Wilma met him in the hall. 

"Fred," she repeated, "the water -- " 

"I know," he said briskly. "We'll take all the pots and pans we have and fillthem with water from the bathtub. It's still running there, but not verystrong. They might turn it on again any moment, of course, but we want to besure. . . ." 

He'd felt he was being quite casual about it, but as he stopped talking,
something flickered in Wilma's eyes; and he knew they were both thinking thesame thought. 

She reached out, suddenly and squeezed his hand. "It's too hot to kiss you,
but I love you, Freddy! Yes, let's fill the pots and pans -- " 


"Or you do that, while I go talk to the Cobrisol," Fred said. He addedreassuringly, "The Cobrisol's had a lot of experience with these Places, youknow. It'll know just what to do." 

What he had in mind, however, when he left Wilma in charge of the pots andpans in the bathroom, picked up a spear and went quietly outdoors, wasn'tconversation with the Cobrisol. There had been no reason to dispute theIcien's appropriation of the entire trout stream; but now a more equitabledistribution of the water rights in the Little Place seemed to be in order.
* * * 

If it hadn't been so breathlessly still, the scene around the house might havebeen an artistic reproduction of the worst section of the Dust Bowl -- or itcould have been one of the upper and milder levels of hell, Fred thought. Helooked around automatically to see if the Eyes had returned -- they hadn't -and 
instead caught sight of the Cobrisol and the Icien down near the mirror-
barrier, at the orchard's edge. 

He stopped short in surprise. So far as he could see at that distance, the twocreatures were engaged in a serious but not unfriendly discussion. There wasabout twenty-five feet of space between them, which was probably as close asthe Cobrisol, fast as it was, cared to get to the Icien. But it was coiled upin apparent unconcern. 

He walked slowly down the dried-out meadow toward them. As he approached, bothturned to look at him. 

"Fred," said the Cobrisol, "the Icien reports there isn't even a drop of moistmud left in the trout stream this morning." 

The Icien stared balefully at Fred and said nothing; but he realized a trucehad been declared to cope with the emergency. Somewhat self-consciously, hegrounded the spear -- it was useless now -- and told them about the kitchenfaucets. "What can we do about it? In this heat -- " 

"In this heat, and without water," the Cobrisol agreed soberly, "none of uswill be alive very many hours from now! Unless -- " 

"Fred!" Wilma's call reached them faintly from the porch. 

He turned, with a sinking feeling in his chest. "Yes?" 

"The -- bathtub -- just -- quit!" Her distant, small face looked white andstrained. 

Suddenly, Fred was extraordinarily thirsty. "It's all right, honey!" heshouted back. "We're going to fix it!" She hesitated a moment, and then wentback into the house. He turned to the other two. "We can fix it, can't we?" hepleaded. 

"There is a way, of course," the Icien rumbled. "But -- " It shrugged itsblack leather shoulders discouragedly. 

"We've been discussing it," said the Cobrisol. "The fact is, Fred, that theonly one who can remedy this situation is yourself. And, undoubtedly, theattempt would involve extreme risk for you personally. . . ." 


Fred guessed it then. "One of us has to go Outside to fix it; and neither of
you can do it. Is that it?" 


The two creatures stared at him. 


"That's it," the Cobrisol agreed reluctantly. "I can't explain, just now, why
it would be impossible for either of us to go Outside but between us we can
tell you exactly what to do there. The risk, of course, is that what happened
to Cooney will also happen to you. But if you make no mistakes -- " 


"He'll panic," the Icien growled darkly. "They all do!" 


"No," said the Cobrisol. "It's been done before, Fred. But not very often." 


Fred sighed and wiped a film of dirty sweat off his forehead with a hand that
shook a little, but not too much. It seemed to him they were making a great
deal of conversation about something that couldn't be helped! 


"Dying of thirst," he pointed out reasonably, "gets to be pretty dangerous,
too! What am I supposed to do?"
* * * 


As soon as he'd stepped Outside, he realized that, though the Cobrisol and the
Icien had warned him of this particular problem, his real difficulty would be
to remember exactly what he was supposed to do. 


Basically, it was very simple --but he didn't want to do it! 


Irrelevant thought-pictures were streaming through his mind. Wilma's white,
tear-stained face as he'd seen it last, just a moment ago -- but that moment
was darting off into the past behind him as if a week passed with every heartbeat 
here. Clusters of bright, flickering memory-scenes of their farm, back
home on Earth, swirled next through his head. . . . The reason for this kind
of disturbance, the two creatures had told him, was that he didn't want to
know what was going on Outside. 


It was too different. Different enough, if he hadn't been warned, to hold him
here shocked and stunned, trying to blind himself mentally to the strangeness
around him, until it was too late -


That thought frightened Fred enough to drive the little escape-pictures out of
his head as if a sudden gust of wind had swept them up and away together. He'd
just recalled that he had very little time here! 


He looked around. 


It wasn't, he thought, really as bad as he'd expected. He got the instant
impression -- partly, at least, because of what he'd been told -- that he was
standing in the middle of the audible thought-currents of a huge mechanical
mind. Not audible, exactly; the currents seemed to be tugging at him or
pulsing rhythmically through and about him, in all directions. Most of them,
as the Cobrisol had explained, appeared to be connected in some way or another
with the upkeep of the Little Place. But there were others, darkly drifting
things or very deep sounds -- it was hard to distinguish really just what they
were most like -- that were completely and terrifyingly incomprehensible to
Fred. . . . 



Some of those were the dangerous ones. He wasn't to give them any attention.
He waited. 
* * * 


The moment none of those dark, monstrous waves seemed to be passing anywhere
near him, he quickly verbalized the first of the three things they had told
him to think here: 


"The Little Place has become too dry for the life-forms in it! There should be
water and rain again in the Little Place!" 


He held the thought, picturing rain coming down in, sheets all over the Little
Place, the trout stream running full again, and water pouring freely from all
the faucets in the house. Then he let the pictures and the thoughts go away
from him. For an instant, there seemed to be a tiny shifting, a brief eddy of
disturbance passing through all the mental flows about him. 


Hurriedly, he formed the second thought: 


"The temperature has become too high for the life-forms in the Little Place!
The temperature must be adjusted to normal living requirements!" 


This time, he'd barely finished the thought before it seemed to be plucked out
of his mind by a sudden agitated swirling in the living currents about him.
Then he had a sense of darkening, and something huge and deadly and invisible
went flowing closely past, trailing behind it a fluttering apparition that
brought a soundless scream of terror into Fred's throat. It was a shape that
looked exactly as Howard Cooney had looked in life, except that it was no
thicker than a sheet of paper! For an instant, as Howard's eyes glared
sightlessly in his direction, he had the impression that somewhere far
overhead Howard had called his name. Then the thing that brought darkness with
it and the fluttering shape were gone. 


The other disturbances continued. In some way, the outside was growing aware
of his presence and beginning to look for him. 


The next order he hadn't discussed with the others, since he was certain they
would have tried to talk him out of giving 


"The life-forms in the Little Place that were taken away from Earth must be
returned unharmed to Earth!" 


Hastily, thinking of the Cobrisol, he added: 


"Including any other life-forms that would like to come along except Iciens!" 


Something like a long crash of thunder went shaking all through him -apparently, 
that last set of instructions had upset the entire Outside! 


Fred didn't bother to think out the final thought. He shouted with all his
strength: "And I should now be standing on the other side of the mirror-
barrier inside the Little Place!" 


Instantly, he was there. Rain was slamming down in sheets all about him, like
an Earthly cloud-burst, as Wilma, laughing and crying, grabbed him by an arm.
Hand in hand, they ran through the soaking meadow toward the house, the 



Cobrisol streaking ahead of them. The Icien was nowhere in sight.
* * * 

I didn't say exactly how much rain and water," Fred admitted. They haddiscovered they couldn't turn the faucets off now! It didn't matter much,
since the surplus water vanished down through the drains as usual. But, twohours after Fred's return to the Little Place, the cloud-burst outdoors wascontinuing in full strength. 

The Cobrisol lay in a corner of the kitchen, its teeth chattering, as if itwere chilled. Wilma had shoved blankets under it and piled more blankets ontop, and they had lit the stove. Actually the temperature had dropped only tothe equivalent of a rather warm, rainy spring day on Earth. 

"I should have cautioned you," the creature remarked, between fits ofchattering, "to limit your order for water. You had no way of knowing thatCobrisols react unfavorably to excessive atmospheric moisture. . . ." 

"This capsulating you mentioned," Wilma inquired concernedly, "does it hurt?" 

"Not at all, Wilma," the Cobrisol assured her. "I shall simply shrivel uprather suddenly -- it's a completely automatic process, you see, and not undermy control -- and form a hard shell around myself. As soon as things dry outsufficiently, the shell splits, and there I am again!" 

Fred had offered to go back Outside and rephrase the order concerning thewater, but he was rather relieved when everyone told him not to be foolish. Atworst, the Cobrisol would simply go dormant for a while, and the disturbancecaused by his visit obviously hadn't settled out yet. 

From time to time, strange lights went gliding about erratically inside themirror-barrier, as if the Little Place's mechanical wardens were persisting intheir search for the intruder. Occasional faint tremors passed through thefoundations of the house, and there were intermittent rumblings in the air,
which might have been simulated Earth-thunder, to accompany the rain. 

"There's a good chance," the Cobrisol explained, "that all this commotion mayreturn the One's attention to the Little Place, in which case we can expectnormal weather conditions to be reestablished promptly. Otherwise -- well, I'msure you agree with me now, Fred, that only an absolute emergency wouldjustify going Outside again." 

And, of course, Fred did agree. He hadn't gone into specific detailsconcerning his experience there, since he knew it would be disturbing toWilma. And neither had he mentioned his order to get them transferred back toEarth -- almost anything seemed justified to get away from a place where yourfuture depended entirely on somebody else's whims -- but he was guiltilycertain that that was the cause of most of the uproar. 

Now and then they looked out from a window to see if the Eyes had reappeared;
but none had. Towards evening, Fred observed the Icien wandering about thelower end of the meadow, trailing its flipper-arms through rivulets of waterand stopping now and then to stare up into the streaming sky, as if it enjoyedgetting thoroughly soaked. Unlike the Cobrisol, it was, of course, an aquaticsort of creature to begin with. 

Just as he went to sleep that eight, Fred almost managed to convince himself 


that when he next woke up, he would discover they were all safely back onEarth. However, when he did awaken, he knew instantly the Outside hadn't actedupon that order. They were still in the Little Place -- and it was rainingharder than ever. 
* * * 

The Cobrisol had elected to sleep in the kitchen, but it wasn't lying on thechair before the stove where they had left it. Fred was wondering where it hadcrawled to, when another thought struck him. Expectantly, he separated theblankets on the chair. 

The shell was lying there, a brown, smooth, egg-shaped shell -- but hardlybigger than a healthy goose-egg. It was difficult to imagine the Cobrisolshrinking itself down to that size; but it couldn't be anything else. Feelingas if he were handling an urn containing the remains of a friend, Fred carriedthe shell carefully into the bedroom and laid it down on the bed. 

"He said it was practically impossible to damage these shells," he remindedWilma. "But it might better not to let Ruby peck at it." 

"I'll watch her," Wilma promised, big-eyed. From the way she kept staring atthe shell, Fred gathered that Wilma, too, felt as if the Cobrisol somehow hadpassed away, even if it was only a temporary arrangement. 

"He'll probably be hatching again pretty soon," he said briskly. "I'll gocheck on the weather now. . . ." 

He opened the front porch door and stopped there, appalled. A sheet of watercovered the entire meadow and lapped up to within forty feet of the house! Inthe orchard, half the trees were submerged. Considering the slope of theground, the water would be at least ten yards deep where it stood against themirror-barrier. And the rain still drummed down furiously upon it. 

He checked his first pulse to call Wilma. News as bad as that could wait alittle. The barrier stood there, placidly mirroring the scene of the flood.
Except for eerie rumbling sounds that still echoed in the upper air, theOutside seemed to be back to normal. 

So, if he swam across now, Fred thought, before it rose any higher -


The order would be a quite simple one: "Reduce rainfall and water-level tomeet the normal requirements of the life-forms within the Little Place." 

And if he did it immediately, Wilma wouldn't have a chance to get all upsetabout it. 

Of course, if he got caught Outside this time -


She and Ruby would be just as badly off one way as the other, he decided. Hewasn't going to get caught! It would only take him a few minutes. . . . 
* * * 

He closed the porch door quietly behind him, stripped hurriedly to his shortsand started down towards the water, mentally rehearsing the order he wouldgive, to fix it firmly in his mind. Intent on that, he almost overlooked theslow, heavy swirling of the water surface to his left as he began to wade out.
A big fish, a section of his mind reported absently, had come up out of deep 


water into the shallows, turned sharply and gone out again -


He stopped short, feeling a sudden burst of icy pricklings all over him. A
fish? There weren't any fish here! 


He turned, slipping and almost stumbling on the submerged grass, and plunged
back toward the higher ground. There was a sudden tremendous splash just
behind him, and a surge of water round his knees. Then he was on solid ground;
he ran on a few yards and slowed, looking back. 


The Icien hadn't tried to follow him out of the water. It stood upright, black
and dripping, in the rain-whipped shallows, probably furious at having missed
its chance at him. 


They stared silently at each other. He might have guessed it, Fred thought,
looking at the great flat flipper-arms. The first time he'd seen it, it had
reminded him of a huge stingray. It was an aquatic creature by choice, and
this flood suited it perfectly. 


And it was intelligent enough to know why he would want to swim back to the
mirror-barrier. 


He thought of the speed with which it had come driving after him, and knew
that even with his spears he didn't have a chance against that kind of
creature in deep water. 


The Icien knew it, too. But it might expect him to make a final desperate
attempt before the water came lapping into the house. . . . 


Fred walked back to the porch and pulled his clothes on again. When he looked
round before going inside, the Icien vanished.
* * * 


Less than three minutes later, Fred stepped quietly out the back door,
carrying his spear. He heard Wilma lock and bolt the door behind him as he
splashed carefully through the big puddles in the garden. Then he was trotting
up the rain-drenched rising ground behind the house towards a wall of misty
nothingness a few hundred yards away. 


He wished the Cobrisol hadn't been obliged to capsulate itself so quickly; he
could have used that knowledgeable creature's advice just now. But it had
mentioned that there were a number of soft spots in the barriers around the
Little Place. All he had to do was to find one that the rising flood hadn't
made inaccessible, step through it, and give one quick order to the huge
mechanical mind that was the outside. 


That was the way he had explained it to Wilma. He had a notion the Icien
wouldn't attempt to stop him outside the water, even if it knew what he was
up, to. Spear in hand and in his own element, he didn't intend to be stopped
by it, anyway. 


He had covered half the distance between the house and the nearest barrier 
when a new inhabitant of the Little Place stood up unhurriedly behind a rock
twenty yards ahead of him, blocking his advance. 


Fred stopped, startled. For a moment, he had thought it was the Icien. But
then he saw it was much closer than he had thought and quite small, hardly 



four feet high; though in every other respect it was very similar to the black
monster. It spread its flipper-arms wide, opened a black gash of a mouth and
snarled at him, fearless and threatening. 


He thought: It's a young one! 


The Icien had started to breed. . . . 


Holding the spear in both hands, Fred walked rapidly towards it. Iciens at any
age appeared to be irreconcilably hostile, and he didn't care to wait until
the big one came along to join the dispute. If it didn't get out of his way -


At the last moment, with a hiss of fury, the Icien cub waddled aside. Fred
stepped cautiously past it and stopped again.
* * * 


An army of the little horrors seemed to be rising up in front of him! They
sprouted into view behind boulders and bushes, and came hurrying in from right
and left. There was a burst of ugly, hoarse Icien voices, which sounded very
much like a summons to their awesome parent. 


For a second or two, Fred was chiefly bewildered. Where had that horde arrived
from so suddenly? Then a memory of the big Icien, scooping out holes in the
mud of the half-dried trout stream, flashed up; it must have been sowing its
brood then, in some strange, unearthly fashion. Obviously their growth rate
simply wasn't that of Earth creatures. 


He half turned and speared the first one as its flipper-tip gripped his leg.
The blade sank into its body, and it snarled hideously, striking at him while
it died. He pulled out the spear and slashed at another which had rushed in
but stopped now, just out of reach. 


Three had moved in behind him, apparently with the intention of cutting off
his retreat to the house. But he was still headed for the barrier. He dodged
to the left and turned uphill again; another line of them confronted him
there! 


As Fred hesitated, he heard Wilma cry out to him. He glanced back and saw. she
had come out of the kitchen, carrying the other spear and that the big Icien
was striding ponderously along the side of the house, on its way up from the
flooded meadow. . . . 


He turned back. 


He had to spear two more of the ugly young before he got down to the garden;
and the second of the two clung howling and dying to the spear-shaft. He
dropped the spear, bundled Wilma into the kitchen and slammed and bolted the
door almost in the big Icien's face. Seconds later, the black pack was roaring
and banging against the outside wall. A flipper slapped and tore at the
window-screen, and he jabbed at it with the tip of Wilma's spear until it
vanished. 
* * * 


Wilma was shouting in his ear. "What?" he yelled dazedly. 


"The Eyes!" she shouted. "They're back!" 



"The Eyes?" Then he saw she was pointing up out the window into the rain. 

More than a dozen of the odd shiny gadgets drifted there in the air. As Fredstared, a huge one -- almost ten feet across -- sailed slowly and majesticallypast the window. The roaring outside the house stopped suddenly, and therewere splashing sounds everywhere from the garden, as if the Icien and itsbrood were departing in great haste. 

But the thundering racket in the upper air was growing louder by the second -and 
changing now in a manner Fred couldn't immediately define. He stoodlistening, and suddenly a wild notion came to him. He turned to Wilma. 

"Quick! Get into the bedroom!" 

"The bedroom?" Shy looked startled. "Why?" 

"Don't ask!" He hustled her down the hall ahead of him. Ruby was screechingher head off behind the closed door. "Grab Ruby -- make her shut up! I'll beright back." 

Recklessly, he tore open the front door and looked out. Young Iciens werestill streaming past on either side of the house, hurrying awkwardly to thewater's edge and plunging in. The big Eye -- or another one like it -- wasstationed in front of the porch now, turning slowly as if anxious to take ineverything. For a moment, it seemed to Fred that it was focusing itselfdirectly on him. . . . 

He closed the door and hurried back into the bedroom. Wilma was sitting on thebed with Ruby in her lap and the shell of the Cobrisol under one hand. He satdown beside her. 

"What do we do now, Fred?" 

"We just wait!" He was trembling with exhaustion and excitement. 

"Those noises -- " she said. 

"Yes?" 

"It sounds to me," Wilma told him wonderingly, "exactly like two people werehaving themselves a big fight next door!" 

"Or up in the attic," Fred nodded. "And it sounds even more like one person isbeing told off good by another one, doesn't it?" 

"By a much bigger one!" Wilma agreed. She was watching him shrewdly. "You knowsomething you haven't told me yet. What's going to happen?" 

"I'm not sure," Fred admitted. "But I think in a minute or two -- " 

The world suddenly went black.
* * * 

It was still black when Fred found he was thinking again. He decided he musthave been unconscious for some while, because he felt stiff all over, Now hewas lying on his back on something hard and lumpy and warm. Wilma's head, hediscovered next, was pillowed on his arm, and she was breathing normally. 


Somewhere near the top of his head, Ruby clucked away irritably as she tendedto do when she was half awake. 

"Wilma?" he whispered. 

"Yes, Fred?" she said sleepily. And then, "Where are we? It's awfully darkhere!" 

He was wondering himself. "It'll probably get light soon," he said soothingly.
Wilma was sitting up, and now she gave an exclamation of surprise. 

"We're outdoors somewhere, Fred! This is grass we're lying on -- " 

"It was magnificently done!" another voice remarked, startlingly close toFred's ear. It was a small, rather squeaky voice, but it seemed familiar. 

"Who was that?" Wilma inquired nervously. 

"I think," said Fred, "it's the Cobrisol." He groped about cautiously andfound the shell lying next to his head. It appeared to be cracked down thelong side, and something was stirring inside it. "Are you uncapsulatingagain?" he inquired. 

"Correct," said the Cobrisol. "But allow me to continue my congratulations,
Fred. You appear to have resolved successfully a situation that had baffledeven a Cobrisol! Need I say more?" 

"I guess not," said Fred. "Thanks -- " 

"Wilma," the Cobrisol resumed, "you seem concerned about this darkness -- " 

"I'm glad you're back, Cobrisol!" she told it. 

"Thank you," said the creature. "As I was about to explain, the appearance ofdarkness about us is a common phenomenon of transfer. Nothing to worry about!
And -- ah!" 

They all cried out together, a chorus of startled and expectant voices. Aroundthem, like black curtains whisking aside, like black smoke dispelled by ablower, the darkness shifted and vanished. Yellow sunlight blazed down onthem, and the two humans threw up their hands to shield their eyes. 

Then they lowered them again. It was, after all, no brighter than was normalfor a clear summer day. They were sitting at the top of a sloping greenmeadow. They looked out over it, blinking. . . . 

"Why!" Wilma said, in a small, awed voice. "Why, Fred! We're home!" 

Then she burst into tears. 

Some hours later, sitting on the front porch of the farm house -- the realfront porch of the real farm house -- Fred remarked, "There's one thing I justdon't get." 

"What's that, Fred?" The Cobrisol lifted its head inquiringly out of thehammock. It was about the size of a healthy rattlesnake by now and accepting asandwich or two from Wilma every half hour. 


Fred hesitated and then told the Cobrisol quietly about the gruesome,
fluttering thing he'd seen Outside that looked like Cooney. 

"There are various theories about what happens to those who get lost Outside,"
the Cobrisol said thoughtfully. "There is no reason to provide you withadditional material for nightmares, so I won't tell you what I think you saw.
But it was the fact that the Icien and I were acquainted with some of thosetheories that made it quite impossible for either of us to do what you did." 

It paused. "Otherwise, everything seems clear enough now. The One whocollected you and Wilma and Ruby and the Cooney was obviously as immature as Isuspected. He had no right to do it. Your interference with the mechanisms ofthe Outside created enough disturbance to attract the attention of a matureOne, who then chastised the offender and returned you to Earth where youbelonged -- "
* * * 

The Cobrisol sniffed the air greedily. "That's another bacon-and-egg sandwichWilma is fixing!" it remarked with appreciation. "Yes, I'm sure I'll like iton Earth, Fred. But your hypothesis that my shell came along by accident ishighly debatable. For one thing, you've noticed, of course, that we haveretained the ability to understand each other's speech-forms -- which, Igather, is not the rule among different species on Earth." 

"Well -- " The fact had escaped Fred's attention till now. "That could be anaccident," he pointed out. "They just forgot to switch it off, or whateverthey do." 

"Possibly," the Cobrisol acknowledged. "I believe, however, that having becomeaware of our cooperative efforts in the Little Place, the mature One decidedto utilize the special talents of a Cobrisol in whatever Project is beingconducted on Earth. Had you thought of going into politics, Fred?" 

Fred chuckled. "No! And I don't blame you for not being able to get rid of thefeeling you're still in some Place or other. But this is Earth and nobody elsehas any Projects here! You'll realize all that, by and by." 

"No doubt," said the Cobrisol. "What's that passing way up high above theapple orchard, Fred?" 

Fred looked, and leaped excitedly out of his chair. "Hey, Wilma! Come quick!"
he shouted. "No -- it's gone now! Boy, they are fast. . . ." 

Then his voice trailed off, and he felt his face go pale, as he turned tostare at the Cobrisol. 

"A flying saucer," he muttered. 

"Oh?" said the Cobrisol. "Is that what they call the Eyes here, Fred?" 

-Chapter 2 
Summer Guests 


All through that Saturday night, rain drummed down mercilessly and
unseasonably on Sweetwater Beach. Thunder pealed and lightning flared. In
between, Mel Armstrong heard the steady boom of the Pacific surf not a block
from his snug little duplex apartment. Mel didn't mind any of it. He was in
bed, slightly smacked and wholly comfortable. He dozed, and now and then woke
up far enough to listen admiringly to the racket. 


At nine a.m., when he opened his eyes once more, he discovered the room was
full of summer sunshine. Beyond his window gleamed a cloudless sky, and only
the occasional gusts of wind indicated there had been anything like a storm
during the night. 


An exceptionally beautiful Sunday morning -- made more beautiful, perhaps, by
the fact that it marked the beginning of Mel Armstrong's annual two-week paid
vacation. Mel was a salesman for Marty's Fine Liquors, a wholesale house. He
was twenty-eight and in fairly good shape, but his job bored him. This
morning, for the first time in months, he was fully aware of that. Perhaps it
was the weather. At any rate, he had a sense, almost a premonition, of new and
exciting events approaching him rapidly. Events that would break down the
boundaries of his present humdrum existence and pitch him into the life of
romantic adventure that, somehow, he seemed to have missed so far . . . 


Recognizing this as a daydream, but unwilling to give it up completely, Mel
breakfasted unhurriedly in his pajamas. Then, struck by a sudden, down-toearth 
suspicion, he stuck his head out of his living room window. 


As he'd guessed, there were other reminders of the storm in the narrow
courtyard before the window. Branches and assorted litter had blown in,
including at least one soggily dismembered Sunday paper. The low rent he paid
for his ground-floor apartment in the Oceanview Courts was based on an
understanding with the proprietor that he and the upstairs occupant of the
duplex would keep the court clean. The other five duplexes that fronted on the
court were bulging with vacationing visitors from the city, which made it a
real chore in summer. 


Unfortunately he couldn't count on his upstairs neighbor, a weird though
rather amiable young character who called herself Maria de Guesgne. Maria went
in for painting abstractions, constructing mobiles, and discussing the works
of Madame Blavatsky. She avoided the indignity of manual toil. 


Mel made himself decent by exchanging his pajamas for swimming trunks. Then he
got a couple of brooms and a hose out of a garage back of the court and went
to work. 
* * * 


He'd cleared the courtyard by the time the first of the seasonal guests began
to show up in their doorways, and went on to inspect another, narrower court
behind his duplex, which was also his responsibility. There he discovered
Maria de Guesgne propped on her elbows on her bedroom window sill, talking
reproachfully to a large gray tomcat that was sitting in the court. Both
turned to look at Mel. 


"Good morning, Mel!" Maria said with unusual animation. She had long black
bangs which emphasized her sallow and undernourished appearance. 


"Morning," Mel replied. "Scat!" he added to the cat, which belonged to
somebody else in the neighborhood but was usually to be found stalking about 



the Oceanview Courts. 


"You shouldn't frighten poor Cat," said Maria. "Mel, would you look into the
bird box?" 
"Bird box?" 
"The one in the climbing rose," said Maria, leaning precariously from the


window to point. "To your left. Cat was trying to get at it." 
The bird box was a white-painted, weather-beaten little house set into a


straggly rose bush that grew out of a square patch of earth beside Mel's
bedroom window. The box was about ten feet above the ground. 
Mel looked up at it. 
"I'm sure I heard little birds peeping in it this morning," Maria explained


sentimentally. 


"No bird in its senses would go into a thing like that," Mel assured her. "I
don't hear anything. And besides -- " 
"Please, Mel! We don't want Cat to get them!" 
Mel groaned, got a wobbly stepladder out of the garage and climbed up. The


gray cat walked over and sat down next to the ladder to watch him. 
He poked at the box and listened. No sound. 
"Can't you open the top and look in?" Maria inquired. 
Holding the box in one hand, Mel tentatively inserted his thumbnail into a


crack under its top and pushed. The weathered wood splintered away easily. 
"Don't break it!" Maria cried. 
Mel put his eye to the crack he'd made. Then he gasped, jerked back, letting


go of the box, teetered wildly a moment and fell over with the stepladder. The


cat fled, spitting. 
"Oh, my!" said Maria, apparently with some enjoyment. "Poor Mel! Are you
hurt?" 


Mel stood up slowly. The bright morning world seemed to be spinning gentlyaround him but it wasn't because of his fall. "Of course not," he said. Hisvoice quavered somewhat. 

"Oh?" said Maria. "Well, then -- are there any little birds in the nest?" 
Mel swallowed hard. "No," he said. He bent over and carefully picked up the


ladder and placed it against the wall. The action made it unnecessary to look
at her. 
"Eggs?" she asked in a hopeful tone. 
"No eggs either! No nothing!" His voice was steady again, but he had to get


rid of Maria. "Well, I'll clean up this court now, I guess. Uh -- maybe you'd 



like to come down and lend a hand?" 

Maria replied promptly that she certainly would like to, but she hadn't hadbreakfast yet; and with that she vanished from the window. 

Mel looked round stealthily. The cat was watching from the door of the garage,
but no one else was in sight. 

Hurriedly he replaced the stepladder under the bird nest and climbed up again.
* * * 

Setting the box carefully down on the table in his living room, he locked theapartment door and closed the Venetian blinds. All this had been done in asort of quiet rush, as if every second counted, which it did in a way. Melwasn't going to believe, even for a moment, that what he thought he'd seen inthat box could be really there; and he couldn't disprove it fast enough tosuit him. But something warned him that he wouldn't want to have any witnessesaround when he did take his second look. 

Then, as he turned from the window, he heard a thin piping cry, a voice astiny as the peeping of a mouse, coming from the table, from the box. 

An instant fright reaction froze him where he stood. The sounds stopped again.
There was a brief, faint rustle, like the stirring of dry parchment, and thenquiet. 

The rustling, he thought, must have been the wings -- he'd been sure they hadwings. Otherwise -


It could all have been an illusion, he told himself. An illusion thattransformed a pair of featherless nestlings into something he still didn'twant to give a name to. Color patterns of jade and pink flashed into hismemory next, however, which made the bird theory shaky. Say a rather smallgreen-and-pink snake then, or a lizard -


Except, of course, for the glassy glitter of the wings. So make it instead,
Mel thought desperately, a pair of big insects, like dragonflies, onlybigger . . . 

He shook his head and moistened his lips. That wouldn't explain that tinyvoice -- and the more he tried to rationalize it all, the more scared he wasgetting. Assume, he took the mental jump, he really had seen the figures oftwo tiny, naked, green-and-pink people in there -- with wings! One didn't haveto drag in the supernatural to explain it. There were things like flyingsaucers, presumably, and probably such beings might exist on other worlds. 

The thought was oddly reassuring. He still felt as if he'd locked himself inthe room with things potentially in the class of tarantulas, but there wasexcitement and wonder coming up now. With a surge of jealous proprietorship,
he realized that he didn't want to share this discovery with anybody else.
Later, perhaps. Right now, it was his big adventure. 

The room was too dim to let him distinguish anything inside the box as he hadoutdoors, and he was still reluctant to get his face too close to it. He gaveit a gingerly rap with his knuckle and waited. No sound. 

He cleared his throat. "Hello?" he said. Immediately, that seemed like an 


idiotic approach. Worse than that, it also brought no reaction. 


For the first time, Mel had a sense of worry for the occupants of the box.
There was no way of guessing how they'd got in there, but they might be sick
or dying. Hurriedly he brought a lamp over to the table and tried to direct
light inside, both through the round hole in its side and through the opening
he'd made in the top. It wasn't very effective and produced no stir within. 


With sudden decision, he shoved one hand into the opening, held the box with
the other and broke off the entire top. And there they were. 


Mel stared at them a long time, his fears fading slowly. They were certainly
alive! One was green, a tiny body of luminous jade, and the other was silkily
human-colored, which was why he had been confused on that point. The wings
could hardly be anything else, though they were very odd-looking, almost like
thin, flexible glass. 


He couldn't force himself to touch them. Instead, he laid a folded clean towel
on the table and tilted the box very slowly over it. A series of careful
tappings and shakings brought the two beings sliding gently out onto the
towel. 


Two delicately formed female figurines, they lay there a moment, unmoving.
Then the green one passed a tiny hand over her forehead in a slow, completely
human gesture, opened slanted golden eyes with startled suddenness and looked
up at Mel. 


He might still have thought he was dreaming, if his attention hadn't been
caught just then by a detail of undream-like realism. The other, the human-
colored one, seemed to be definitely in a family way.
* * * 


They were sitting on the folded bath towel in a square of afternoon sunlight
which came in through the kitchenette window. The window was high enough up so
nobody could look in from outside, and they seemed to want the warmth of the
sun more than anything else. They did not appear to be sick, but they were
still rather languid. It wasn't starvation, apparently. Mel had put bits of a
variety of foods on a napkin before them, and he changed the samples as soon
as his guests indicated they weren't interested. So far, canned sardine was
the only item that had attracted them at all, and they hadn't done much more
than test that. 


Between moments of just marveling at them, assuring himself they were there
and not an illusion, and wondering what they were and where they'd come from,
Mel was beginning to get worried again. For all he knew, they might suddenly
die on the bath towel. 


"Miss Green," he said in a very low voice -- he didn't want to give Maria de
Guesgne any indication he was in the house -- "I wish you could tell me what
you like to eat!" 


Miss Green looked up at him and smiled. She was much more alert and vivacious
than the other one who, perhaps because of her condition, merely sat or lay
there gracefully and let Miss Green wait on her. The relationship seemed to be
about that of an elf princess and her personal attendant, but they were much
too real-seeming creatures to have popped out of a fairy tale -- though their
appearance did arouse recurrent bursts of a feeling of fairy tale unreality, 



which Mel hadn't known since he was ten. But, tiny as they were, Miss Greenand the princess primarily gave him the impression of being quite asfunctional as human beings or, perhaps, as field mice. 

He would have liked to inspect the brittle-seeming wings more closely. Theyseemed to be made up of numerous laminated, very thin sections, and hewondered whether they could fly with them or whether their race had given upor lost that ability. 

But touching them might have affected their present matter-of-fact acceptanceof him, and he didn't want to risk that . . . 

A door banged suddenly in the apartment overhead. A moment later, he heardMaria coming down the hall stairs. 

Mel stood up in sudden alarm. He'd known for some time that his neighbor hadsupplied herself with a key to his apartment, not to pry but with thepractical purpose of borrowing from the little bar in Mel's living room whenshe was out of both money and liquor. She rarely took much, and until now he'dbeen more amused than annoyed.
* * * 

He went hurriedly into the living room, closing the door to the kitchenettebehind him. If Maria knocked, he wouldn't answer. If she decided he was outand came in to steal his liquor, he would pretend to have been asleep in thechair and scare the hell out of her! 

She paused before the apartment door a moment, but then went out into thecourt. 

Mel waited until her footsteps died away, going toward the street. As heopened the door to the kitchenette, something buzzed noisily out of the livingroom past his shoulder -- a big, unlovely looking horsefly. The apartmentscreens didn't fit too well, and the fly probably had been attracted by thesmell of food. 

Startled, he stopped to consider the new problem. There was a flyswatterhanging beside the door, but he didn't want to alarm his guests -- and then,
for the first time, he saw Miss Green's wings unfold! 

She was up on her feet beside the princess, who remained sitting on the towel.
Both of them were following the swift, erratic course of the big fly with moreanimation than they'd shown about anything so far. 

Miss Green gave a sudden piping cry, and the glassy appendages on her backopened out suddenly like twin transparently gleaming fans, and blurred intomotion too swift for Mel to follow. 

Miss Green rose into the air like a tiny human helicopter, hands up before heras if she were praying. 

It wasn't till the horsefly swerved from the kitchenette window and camebuzzing back that Mel guessed her purpose. 

There was a sharper, fiercer drone like a hornet's song as she darted sidewaysinto the insect's path. Mel didn't see her catch it. Its buzzing simplystopped, and then she was dropping gently back to the towel, with the ugly 


black thing between her hands. It looked nearly as big as her head. 


There was an exchange of cheerful piping cries between the two. Miss Green
laughed up at Mel's stupefied face, lifted the motionless fly to her mouth and
neatly bit off its head. 


Mel turned hurriedly and went into the living room. It wasn't, he told
himself, really so very different from human beings eating a chicken. But he
didn't feel up to watching what he knew was going to be a dismemberment and a
feast. 


At any rate, the horsefly had settled the feeding problem. His guests could
take care of themselves. 
* * * 


That night, Miss Green hunted down a few moths. Mel woke up twice with the
sudden sharp drone in his ears that told him she had just made her catch. Both
times, it was a surge of unthinking physical fright that actually roused him.
Awake, and remembering the disproportion in size between himself and the
huntress, his reaction seemed ridiculous; but the second time he found he was
reluctant to go back to sleep until it would appear that Miss Green was done
with her foraging. 


So he lay awake, listening to the occasional faint indications of her
continuing activity within his apartment, and to more familiar sounds without.
A train rattled over a crossing; a police siren gave a sudden halloo and faded
into silence again. For a long time, there was only the whispering passage of
distant cars over wet pavements, and the slow roll and thump of the surf. A
haze of fog beyond the window turned the apartment into a shut-off little
world of its own. 


Miss Green moved about with no more than a whisper of air and the muted pipe
of voices from the top of the kitchenette cupboard to show where she was. Mel
had put a small carton up there, upholstered with the towel and handkerchiefs
and roofed over with his best woolen sweater, to make a temporary home for his
guests. The princess hadn't stirred from it since, but Miss Green remained
busy. 


He started suddenly to find her hovering directly over his bed, vaguely
silhouetted against the pale blur of the window. As he stared, she settled
down and came to rest on the blanket over his chest, effortlessly as a spider
gliding down along its thread. Her wings closed with a faint snap. 


Mel raised his head carefully to squint down along the blanket at her. It was
the first time either of them had made anything resembling a friendly advance
in his direction; he didn't want to commit any blunders. 


"Hello," he said quietly. 


Miss Green didn't reply. She seemed to be looking up at the window,
disregarding him, and he was content to watch her. These strange creatures
seemed to have some of the aloofness of cats in their manner, and they might
be as easily offended. 


She turned presently, walked up over the blanket and perched herself on Mel's
pillow, above his head and somewhat to his right. And there she stayed
silently. Which seemed catlike, too: the granting of a reserved and temporary 



companionship. He would not have been too surprised to hear a tiny purring
from above his ear. Instead, drowsily and lulled in an odd way by Miss Green's
presence, he found himself sinking back into sleep.
* * * 


It wasn't surprising either that his mind should be filled for a time with
vague pictures of her, but when the room about him seemed to have expanded
into something like a faintly luminous fishbowl, he knew he was dreaming.
There were others present. They were going somewhere, and he had a sense of
concern, which had to do either with their destination or with difficulties in
getting there. Then a realization of swift, irrevocable disaster -


There were violent lurchings as the luminosity about him faded swiftly into
blackness. He felt a terrible, energy-draining cold, the wet clutch of death
itself, then something like a soundless explosion about him and anguished
cryings. The motion stopped. 


Blackness faded back to gray, but the cold remained. Icy water was pounding
down on him now, as if he were fighting his way through a vertical current
carrying somebody else. A desperate hunt for refuge and finding it suddenly,
and slipping inside and relaxing into unconsciousness, to wait for the return
of warmth and life . . . 


Mel's eyes opened. The room was beginning to lighten with morning. He turned
his head slowly to look for Miss Green. She was still there, on the pillow
beside his head, watching him; and there was something in her position, in the
unwinking golden eyes, even in her curious fluff of blue-white hair, that
reminded him now less of a cat than a small lizard. 


He didn't doubt that she had somehow enabled him to share the experience that
in part explained their presence here. Without thinking, he asked aloud, "What
happened to the others?" 


She didn't move, but he was aware of a surge of horrified revulsion. Then
before his open eyes for a moment swam a picture of a bleak, rain-beaten
beach . . . and, just above the waterline, in a cluster of harsh voices,
jabbing beaks and beating wings, great gulls were tearing apart a strange
jetsam of tiny bodies too weakened to escape -


A small, plaintive crying came from the kitchenette. The picture faded as Miss
Green soared into the air to attend to her princess.
* * * 


Mel breakfasted in the living room, thoughtfully. He couldn't quite understand
that luminous vehicle of theirs, or why it should have succumbed to the rain
storm of Saturday night, which appeared to be what had happened. But his
guests obviously were confronted with the problem of getting back to wherever
they'd come from -- and he didn't think Miss Green would have confided in him
if he wasn't somehow expected to be helpful in solving the problem. 


There was a thump on the sill outside his bedroom window, followed by an
annoyed meowing. The gray cat that had been spying on the bird box seemed to
suspect he was harboring the refugees. Mel went out into the little courtyard
through the back door of the duplex and chased the animal away. The fog, he
saw, was thinning out quickly; in an hour or so it would be another clear day. 


When he came in, Miss Green fluted a few soft notes, which Mel chose to 



interpret as gratitude, from the top of the cupboard and withdrew from sight
again. 


One couldn't think of them, he decided, as being exactly like any creatures of
Earth. The cold rain had been very nearly deadly to them, if the memory Miss
Green had transmitted to him was accurate -- as destructive as it had been to 
their curious craft. Almost as if it could wash right through them, to drain
vital energies from their bodies, while in the merely foggy air of last night
she had seemed comfortable enough. It indicated different tolerance spans with
more sharply defined limits. 


The thought came into his mind: 


Another planet? 


It seemed possible, even if it left a lot to explain. Mel got up in sudden
excitement and began to walk about the room. He had a conviction of being
right. It struck him he might be involved in an event of enormous historical
significance. 


Then, stopping for a moment before the window, he saw it -


Apparently high in the gray sky overhead, a pale yellow circle moved, much
smaller than the sun, but like the disk of the sun seen ghost-like through
clouds. Instantly, another part of his dream became clear to him.
* * * 


He lost his head. "Miss Green! Come here, quick!" 


A buzz, the swift drone of wings, and she was beside him, perching on his
shoulder. Mel pointed. 


She gave a lamenting little cry of recognition. As if it had been a signal,
the yellow circle darted sideways in a long streaking slant, and vanished.
Miss Green fled to report to the princess, while Mel stayed at the window, and
quickly returned to him again. Evidently she was both excited and distressed,
and he wondered what was wrong. If that apparition of pale light had been one
of their vessels, as her behavior indicated, it seemed probable that its
mission was to hunt for survivors of the lost globe. 


Miss Green seemed either less sure of that, or less confident that the rescue
would be easily effected. Some minutes later, she pointed to a different
section of the sky, where the yellow circle -- or another very like it -- was
now moving slowly about. Presently it vanished again, and when it reappeared
for the second time it was accompanied by two others. 


Meanwhile, Miss Green might have been transmitting some understanding of the
nature of her doubts to Mel, because the ghostly vagrants now gave him an
immediate impression of insubstantiality: not space-spanning luminous globes
but pictured shapes projected on the air. His theory of interplanetary
travelers became suddenly much less probable. 


In the next few moments, the concept he was struggling with abruptly completed
itself in his mind, so abruptly, in fact, that there was no longer any
question that it had originated with Miss Green. The rescue craft Mel thought
he was seeing actually were just that. 



But the pictures in the sky were only signals to possible survivors that help
was approaching. The globes themselves were elsewhere, groping their way
blindly and dangerously through strange dimensions that had nothing to do with
the ones Mel knew. 


And they were still, in some manner his imagination did not even attempt to
clarify, very, very "far away."
* * * 


"I was wondering what you'd done with the bird box," Maria de Guesgne
explained. "It's not there in the bush any more." 


Mel told her annoyedly that the bird box had been damaged by the storm, and so
he'd thrown it into the incinerator. 


"Well," Maria said vaguely, "that's too bad." Her handsome dark eyes were
shifting about his living room meanwhile, not at all vaguely. Mel had left the
apartment door partly open, and she had walked right in on her way to the
market. When she wasn't drinking or working herself up to a bout of creative
painting, which seemed to put her into a tranced sort of condition, Maria was
a highly observant young woman. The question was now how to get her out of the
apartment again before she observed more than he wanted her to. 


"How does it happen you're not at work on Monday afternoon?" she inquired, and
set her shopping bag down on the armchair. 


Keeping one eye on the kitchenette door, Mel explained about his vacation.
Miss Green hadn't been in sight for almost an hour; but he wasn't at all sure
she mightn't come out to inspect the visitor, and the thought of Maria's
probable reactions was unnerving. 


"Two weeks?" Maria repeated chattily. "It'll be fun having you around for two
weeks -- unless you're going off to spend your vacation somewhere else. Are
you?" 


"No," Mel said. "I'm staying here -- " 


And at that moment, Miss Green came in through the kitchenette door. 


At least, Mel assumed it was Miss Green. All he actually saw was a faint blur
of motion. It went through the living room, accompanied by a high-pitched hum,
and vanished behind Maria. 


"Good Lord!" she cried, whirling. "What's that? OH!" The last was a shrill
yelp. "It stung me!"
* * * 


Mel hadn't imagined Miss Green could move so fast. Rising and falling with
furious menace, the sound seemed to come from all points of the room at once,
as Maria darted out of the apartment. Clutching her shopping bag, Mel followed
her out hastily and slammed the door behind them. He caught up with Maria in
the court. 


She was rubbing herself angrily. 


"I'm not coming into that apartment again, Mel Armstrong," she announced,
"until you've had it fumigated! That thing kept stinging me! What was it, 



anyway?" 


"A wasp, I guess." Mel felt weak with relief. She hadn't really seen anything.
"Here's your bag. I'll chase it out." 


Maria stalked off, complaining about screens that didn't even protect people
against giant wasps. 


Mel found the apartment quiet again and went into the kitchenette. Miss Green
was poised on the top edge of the cupboard, a gold-eyed statuette of Victory,
laughing down at him, the laminated wings spread and raised behind her like
iridescent glass fans. Mel looked at her with a trace of uneasiness. She had
some kind of small white bundle in her arms, and he wondered whether it
concealed the weapon with which she'd stung Maria. 


"I don't think you should have done that," he told her. "But she's gone now." 


Looking rather pleased with herself, Miss Green glanced back over her shoulder
and piped a few questioning notes to the princess. There was a soft reply, and
she soared down to the table, folded her wings and knelt to lay the bundle
gently down on it. She beckoned to Mel. 


Mel's eyes popped as she unfolded the bundle. Perhaps he really shouldn't have
been surprised. 


He was harboring four guests now -- the princess had been safely delivered of
twins. 
* * * 


At dusk, Miss Green widened the biggest slit in the bedroom screen a little
more and slipped out to do her own kind of shopping, with a section of one of
Mel's handkerchiefs to serve as a bag. 


Mel left the lights out and stayed at the window. He felt depressed, but
didn't quite know why -- unless it was that so many odd things had happened
since Sunday morning that his mind had given up trying to understand them. 


He wasn't really sure now, for example, whether he was getting occasional
flash-glimpses of those circular luminous vessels plowing through another
dimension somewhere, or whether he was half asleep and imagining it. Usually
it was a momentary glow printed on the dark air at the edge of his vision,
vanishing before he could really look at it. 


He had a feeling they had managed to come a good deal closer during the day.
Then he wondered briefly whether other people had been seeing strange light-
shapes, too, and what they might have thought the glimpses were. 


Spots before their eyes, probably. 


Miss Green was back with a soft hum of wings, on the outer window sill, six
feet from where he sat. She pushed the knotted scrap of cloth through the
screen. There was something inside it now; it caught for a moment on the
wires. Mel started up to help, then checked himself, afraid of feeling some
bug squirming desperately inside; and while he hesitated, she had shoved it
through. She followed it, picked it up again and flew off to the living room.
After a moment she returned with the empty cloth and went out again. 



She made eight such trips in the next hour, while night deepened outside and
then began to lighten as a half-moon shoved over the horizon. Mel must have
dozed off several times; at least, he suddenly found himself coming awake,
with the awareness that something had just landed with a soft thump on the
window sill outside. 


It wasn't Miss Green. He saw a chunky shadow at one corner of the window, and
caught the faintest glint of green eyes peering into the room. It was the cat
from the courtyard. 


In the same moment, he heard the familiar faint hum, and Miss Green appeared
at the opposite end of the sill.
* * * 


Afterward, Mel realized he'd simply sat there, stiffening in groggy, sleep-
dazed horror, as the cat-shadow lengthened and flowed swiftly toward the tiny
humanoid figure. Miss Green seemed to raise both arms over her head. A spark
of brilliant blue glowed from her cupped hands and extended itself in an
almost invisible thread of fire that stabbed against the cat's forehead. The
cat yowled, swung aside and leaped down into the court. 


Mel was on his feet, shaking violently, as Miss Green slipped in through the
screen. He heard Maria open her window upstairs to peer down into the court,
where the cat was making low, angry sounds. Apparently it hadn't been hurt,
but no wonder Maria had suspected that afternoon she'd been stung by a wasp!
Or that Miss Green's insect victims never struggled, once she had caught them! 


He pulled down the shade and stood undecided in the dark, until he heard her
piping call from the living room. It was followed by an impatient buzzing
about the standing lamp in there, and Mel concluded correctly that he was
supposed to turn on the light. 


He discovered her on the living room table, sorting out the plunder she had
brought back. 


It wasn't a pile of electrocuted insects as he had expected, but a puzzlingly
commonplace collection -- little heaps of dry sand from the beach, some small
white pebbles, and a sizable bundle of thin twigs about two inches in length.
Since she was disregarding him, he shifted the lamp over to the table to see
what this human-shaped lightning bug from another dimension was going to do
next. 


That was the way he felt about Miss Green at the moment . . . 


What she did was to transport the twigs in two bundles to the top of the
cupboard, where she left them with the princess. Then she came back and began
to lay out a thin thread of white sand on the dark, polished surface of the
table. 


Mel pulled up his armchair, poured himself a glass of brandy, lit a cigarette
and settled down to watch her. 
* * * 


By the time Miss Green indicated to him that she wanted the light turned out
again, he had finished his second drink and was feeling rather benevolent. She
had used up all her sand, and about a square foot of the table's surface was
covered now with a confusingly intricate maze of lines, into which she had 



placed white pebbles here and there. Some of the lines, Mel noticed, blended
into each other, while others stopped abruptly or curved back on themselves.
As a decorative scheme, it hardly seemed worthwhile. 


"Miss Green," he told her thoughtfully, "I hope it makes sense to you. It
doesn't to me." 


She piped imperiously, pointing: the light! Mel had a moment of annoyance at
the way she was ordering him around in his own apartment. 


"Well," he said, "I'll humor you this time." 


For a moment after he had pulled the switch, he stood beside the table to let
his eyes adjust to the dark. However, they weren't adjusting properly -- a
patch of unquiet phosphorescent glimmering floated disturbingly within his
field of vision, and as the seconds passed, it seemed to be growing stronger. 


Suddenly, Mel swore in amazement and bent down to examine the table. 


"Now what have you done -- ?" he began. 


Miss Green fluted soothingly at him from the dark and fluttered up to his
shoulder. He felt a cool touch against his ear and cheek, and a burst of oddly
pleasant tinglings ran over his scalp. 


"Stop that!" he said, startled. 


Miss Green fluted again, urgently. She was trying to tell him something now,
and suddenly he thought he understood. 


"All right," he said. "I'll look at it. That's what you want me to do, isn't
it?" 


Miss Green flew down to the table again, which indicated agreement. Mel groped
himself back into the chair and leaned forward to study the curiously glowing
design she had created of sand and pebbles. 


He discovered immediately that any attempt to see it clearly merely strained
his vision. Details turned into vaguely distorted, luminous flickerings when
he stared at them and the whole pale, spidery pattern made no more sense than
it had with the light on. She must have some purpose in mind with it, but Mel
couldn't imagine what. 


Meanwhile, Miss Green was making minor adjustments in his position which Mel
accepted without argument, since she seemed to know what she was doing. Small
tugs and pushes told him she wanted his hands placed on the table to either
side of the design. Mel put them there. His head was to be tilted forward just
so. He obliged her again. Then she was back on the table, and the top two-
thirds of the pattern vanished suddenly behind a blur. 


After a moment, he realized she had opened her wings and blotted that part
from his sight.
* * * 


In the darkness, he fastened his puzzled gaze on the remaining section: a
quivering, thinly drawn pattern of blue-white light that faded periodically
almost to the limits of visibility and slowly grew up again to what was, by 



comparison, real brilliance. His head was aching slightly. The pattern seemedto tilt sideways and move upward, as if it were creeping in a slow circleabout some pivot-point. Presently, it turned down again to complete the circleand start on another round. By that time, the motion seemed normal. 

When a tiny shape of light suddenly ran across the design and vanished againas it reached the other side, Mel was only moderately surprised. The figurehad reminded him immediately of Miss Green. After a while, it crossed hisfield of vision in another direction, and then there were two more . . . 

He seemed to be swimming forward, through the pattern, into an area of similartiny figures like living silhouettes of light, and of entrancingly delicatearchitectural designs. It was like a marionette setting of incrediblecraftsmanship, not quite real in the everyday sense, but as convincing as amotion picture which was spreading out, second by second, and beginning toflow about him -


"Hey!" Mel sat up with a start. "You're trying to hypnotize me!" 

Miss Green piped pleadingly. Clearly, she had only been trying to show himsomething. And wasn't it beautiful? Didn't he want to see more? 

Mel hesitated. He was suspicious now, but he was also curious. After all, whatcould she do to him with her tricks? 

Besides, he admitted to himself, the picture had vanished as soon as heshifted his eyes, and it was beautiful, like moving about through a livingillustration of a book of fairy tales. 

He yielded. "All right, I do want to see more." 

This time, the picture grew up out of the design within seconds. Only itwasn't the same picture. It was as if he had turned around and was looking inanother direction, a darker one. 

There were fewer of the little light-shapes; instead, he discovered in thedistance a line of yellow dots that moved jerkily but steadily, like glowingcorks bobbing on dark water. He watched them for a moment without recognition;
then he realized with a thrill of pleasure that he was getting another view ofthe luminous globes he had seen before -- this time an other-dimensional view,
so to speak. 

Suddenly, one of them was right before him! Not a dot or a yellow circle, buta three-foot ball of fire that rushed toward him through the blackness withhissing, sputtering sounds! 

Mel surged up out of the chair with a yelp of fright, and the fireballvanished. 

As he groped about for the light, Miss Green was piping furiously at him fromthe table. 

Then the light came on.
* * * 

She was in a rage. Dancing about on the table, beating the air with her wings,
she waved her arms over her head and shook her tiny fists at him. Mel backed 


off warily. 

"Take it easy!" he warned. He could reach the flyswatter in the kitchenettewith a jump if she started shooting off miniature electric bolts again. 

She might have had the same idea, because she calmed down suddenly, shook herwings together and closed them with a snap. It was like a cat smoothing downits bristling back fur. There was a whistling query from the princess now,
followed by an excited elfin conversation. 

Mel poured himself a drink with a hand that shook slightly, and pretended toignore the disturbance of his guests, while he tried to figure out what hadhappened. 

Supposing, he thought a trifle guiltily, settling down on the couch at a safedistance from the table -- supposing they simply had to have his help at thispoint. The manner in which one of the rescue globes suddenly had seemed toshift close to him suggested it. Was he justified in refusing to go on withit? In the directionless dark through which the globes were driving, theymight have been reacting to his concentrated awareness of them as if it were aradio signal from the human dimensions. And it would explain Miss Green's rageat the sudden interruption of the contact. 

But another thought came to him then, and his guilty feelings vanished in asurge of alarmed indignation. 

Well, and just supposing, he thought, that he hadn't broken the contact. Andthat a three-foot sputtering fireball materialized right inside his livingroom! 

He caught sight of Miss Green eying him speculatively and rather slyly fromthe table. She seemed composed enough now; there was even the faintest ofsmiles on that tiny face. The smile seemed to confirm his suspicions. 

Mel downed his drink and stood up. 

"Miss Green," he told her evenly, choosing his words with care, "I'm sorry todisappoint you, but I don't intend to be the subject of any more of yourexperiments. At least not until I've had time to think about it." 

Her head nodded slightly, as if she were acknowledging his decision. But thesmile remained; in fact, Miss Green had begun to look rather smug. Mel studiedher uneasily. She might be planning to put something else over on him, but heknew how to stop that! 

Before he turned out the light and went to bed, Mel methodically and somewhatgrimly swallowed four more shots of brandy. With that much inside him itwouldn't matter what Miss Green tried, because he wouldn't be able to react toher suggestions till he woke up again in the morning.
* * * 

Actually it was noon before he awoke -- and he might have gone on sleepingthen if somebody hadn't been banging on his apartment door. 

"Wake up, Mel!" he heard Maria de Guesgne shouting hoarsely. "I can hear yousnoring in there!" 


He sat up a little groggily and looked at the clock. His guests weren't in
sight. 


"You awake, Mel?" she demanded. 


"Wait a minute!" he yelled back. "Just woke up and I'm not decent." 


When he opened the door, she had vanished. He was about to close it quietly
and gratefully again, when she called down the stairway. "That you, Mel? Come
on up! I want to show you something." 


He locked the door behind him and went upstairs. Maria received him beamingly
in her living room. She was on one of her rare creative painting sprees, and
this spree, to judge by the spattered appearance of the room and the artist,
was more riotous than usual. A half dozen fair-sized canvases were propped on
newspapers against the wall to dry. They were turned around, to increase the
shock effect on Mel when he would get his first look at them. 


"Ever see a salamander?" Maria inquired with anticipation, spreading a few
more papers on the table. 


Mel admitted he hadn't. He wished she'd given him time to have coffee first.
His comments at these private showings were usually regarded as inadequate
anyway. 


"Well," Maria invited triumphantly, selecting one of the canvases and setting
it abruptly up on the table before him, "take a look at one!" 


Mel gasped and jerked back. "Holy Judas!" he said in a weak voice. 


"Pretty good, eh?" For once, Maria appeared satisfied with his reaction. She
held it away from her and regarded it. "One of my best!" she cried
judiciously. 


About three times life-size, it was a quite recognizable portrait of Miss
Green. 
* * * 


It didn't occur to Maria to offer Mel coffee but he got a cigarette from her.
Fortunately, he wasn't called upon to make any more comments; she chattered
away while she showed him the rest of the series. Mel looked and listened,
still rather shaken. Presently he began to ask questions. 


A salamander, he learned, was a fire elemental. Maria glanced at her fireplace
as she explained this, and Mel noticed she seemed to have had a fire burning
there overnight, which wasn't too unusual for her even in the middle of
summer. Listening to the bang-haired, bright-eyed oddball rattling off
metaphysical details about salamanders, he became aware of a sort of dread
growing up in him. For Miss Green was pictured, wings and arms spread, against
and within furling veils of yellow-white flame . . . 


"Drawn from life?" he inquired, grinning to make it a joke. He pointed at the
picture. 


Without looking directly at her, he saw Maria start at the question. She
stared at him intensely for a moment, and after that she became more reticent. 



It didn't matter because it was all on the canvases. She had seen as much as 
he had and more, and put it down with shocking realism. Seen through somebody
else's eyes, Miss Green's world was still beautiful; but now it was also
frightening. And there was what Maria had said about salamanders. 


"Maria," he said, "what actually happened last night?" 


She looked at him sullenly. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mel." 


"I imagine," he suggested casually, "you were just sitting there in front of
the fire. And then -- " 


"Gosh, Mel, she was beautiful! It's all so beautiful, you know . . ." She
recovered quickly. "I fell asleep and I had a dream, that's all. Why? What
makes you ask?" 


She was beginning to look rather wild-eyed, but he had to find out. "I was
just wondering," he said, "whether they'd left." 


"Why should they leave --Look, you oaf! I called you in to give you the
privilege of looking at my paintings. Now get out. I've got to make a phone
call." 


He stopped at the door, struck by a sudden suspicion. "You're not going to try
to sell them, are you?" 


"Try to sell them!" She laughed hoarsely. "There are circles, Mel Armstrong,
in which a de Guesgne original is understood, shall we say? Circles not
exactly open to the common herd . . . This series," she concluded, rather
prosaically, "will get me two thousand bucks as soon as I let one or two of
the right people have a look at them!"
* * * 


Brewing himself a pot of coffee at last, Mel decided that part of it, if true,
wasn't any of his business. He had always assumed Maria was living on a
monthly check she got from an unidentified source in Chicago, but her
occasional creations might have a well-heeled following at that. As for the
way Miss Green had got in to sit for her portrait -- the upstairs screens
weren't in any better shape than the downstairs ones. The fiery background, of
course, might have been only in Maria's mind. 


There was a scratching on top of the cupboard and whispery voices. Mel ignored
the slight chill that drifted down his spine. Up to that moment, he'd been
hoping secretly that Maria had provided a beacon for the rescue team to home
in on while he slept, and that his guests had been picked up and taken home. 


But Miss Green was peering down at him over the edge of the cupboard. 


"Hi, salamander!" he greeted her politely. "Had a busy night? Too bad it
didn't work." 


Her head withdrew. In the living room Mel stopped to look at the design of
sand and pebbles, which was still on the table. Touching one of the threadlike 
lines, he discovered it was as hard and slick as lacquer. Otherwise the
pattern seemed unremarkable in daylight, but Mel dropped a cloth across it to
keep it out of sight. 



Miss Green fluttered past him to the sill of the bedroom window. He watched
her standing on tiptoe against the screen, apparently peering about at the
sky. After a while, it began to seem ridiculous to let himself become obsessed
by superstitious fears about this tiny and beautiful, almost jewel-like
creature. 


Whatever abilities she might have, she and the princess were only trying to
get home -- and, having seen their home, he couldn't blame them for that. 


He had a return of the fairy-tale nostalgia his glimpse of those eerily
beautiful places had aroused in him the night before, a pleasantly yearning
sensation like an awareness of elfin horns blowing far away to send faint,
exciting echoes, swirling about the commonplace sky of Sweetwater Bay. The
feeling might have been resurrected from his childhood, but it was a strong
and effective one. 


He recalled how bored he'd been with everything before they appeared . . . 


He walked softly through the bedroom and stopped behind Miss Green. She was
making an elaborate pretense of not having noticed his approach, but the
pointed ears that could follow the passage of a moth in the dark were tilted
stiffly backward. Mel actually was opening his mouth to say, "Miss Green, I'll
help you if I can," when it struck him sharply, like a brand-new thought, that
it was an extremely rash promise to make, considering everything that had
happened so far. 


He wondered how the odd impulse ever had come to him. 


In sudden suspicion, he began to trace the last few minutes through again. He
had started with a firm decision not to let his guests involve him in their
plans any more than was healthy for him, if at all -- and the decision had
been transformed, step by step, and mental twist by mental twist, into a
foolish willingness to have them make use of him exactly as they pleased! 


Miss Green, still maliciously pretending to watch the sky, let him think it
all out until it became quite clear what she had done and how she had done it.
And then, as Mel spluttered angrily at this latest interference with his
freedom of thought and action, she turned around and laughed at him.
* * * 


In a way, it cleared the air. The pressure was off. Maria had proved a much
more pliable subject than Mel; the rescuers had their bearings and would
arrive presently. Meanwhile, everybody could relax. 


Mel couldn't help feeling relieved as he grew sure of that. At the same time,
now that the departure was settled, he became aware of a certain amount of
belated regret. Miss Green didn't seem to know the exact hour; she was simply
watching for them well ahead of their arrival. 


Where would they show up? She waved her arms around in an appealingly helpless
gesture at the court outside and the sky. Here, there -- somewhere in the
area. 


It would be a fire globe. At his question, she pointed at the opposite wall of
the court where a picture of one formed itself obligingly, slid along the wall
a few feet, and vanished. Mel was beginning to enjoy all this easy last-minute
communication, when he heard Maria come downstairs and open the door to the 



other court. There was conversation, and several sets of footsteps went up toher apartment and down again. 

Cautioning Miss Green, he took a look around the shutters of the living roomwindow. A small panel truck stood in the court; Maria was supervising thecareful transfer of her paintings into its interior. Apparently she didn'teven intend to let them dry before offering them for sale! 

The truck drove off with Maria inside with her paintings, and Mel discoveredMiss Green doing a little spying of her own from the upper edge of theshutters. Good friends now, they smiled at each other and resumed their guardat the bedroom window. 

The princess joined them around five in the afternoon. Whether she had beeninjured in the accident or weakened by the birth of her babies, Mel couldn'ttell, but Miss Green carried her friend down from the cupboard without visibleeffort, and then went back for a globular basket of tightly woven tiny twigs,
which contained the twins. 

It was a masterfully designed little structure with a single opening about thethickness of a pencil, and heavily lined. Mel had a notion to ask for it as asouvenir, but decided against it. He lifted it carefully to his ear, to listento an almost inaudible squeaking inside, and his expression seemed to causeMiss Green considerable silent amusement. 

All in all, it was much like waiting patiently in pleasant company for thearrival of an overdue train. Then around seven o'clock, when the room wasalready dark, the telephone rang abruptly and returned Mel with a start to theworld of human beings. 

He lifted the receiver, 

"Hello, oaf!" said Maria de Guesgne in what seemed for the moment to be anenormous, booming voice. 

Mel inquired agreeably whether she'd succeeded in selling her paintings. Itwas the first thing that occurred to him. 

"Certainly I sold them!" Maria said. He could tell by now that she wasthoroughly plastered again. "Got a message to give you," she added. 

"From whom?" 

"Maybe from me, ha-ha!" said Maria. She paused a moment, seemed to bemuttering something to herself, and resumed suddenly, "Oaf, are youlistening?" 

Mel said bluntly that he was. If he hung up on her, she would probably ringback. 

"All right," Maria said clearly. "This is the message: 'The fiery ones do nottolerate the endangering of their secrets.' Warning, see? Goo'bye." 

She hung up before he could say anything.
* * * 

Hers had been a chilling sort of intrusion. Mel stood a while in the darkening 


room, trying to gather up the mood Maria had shattered, and discovering hecouldn't quite do it. He realized that all along, like a minor theme, therehad been a trace of fear underlying everything he did, ever since he had firstlooked into that bird box and glimpsed something impossible inside it. He hadbeen covering the fear up; even now he didn't want to admit it, but it wasthere. 

He could quite simply, of course, walk out of the room and out of theapartment, and stay away for a week. He didn't even ever have to come back.
And, strictly speaking, this was the sort of thing that should have happenedto somebody like Maria de Guesgne, not to him. For him, the sensible moveright now would be to go quietly back into the normal world of reality he hadstepped out of a few mornings ago. It was a simple physical act. The door wasover there . . . 

Then Mel looked back at his guests and promptly reversed his decision. Theywere certainly as real as any living creatures he'd ever seen, and he feltthere weren't many human beings who would show up as well as Miss Green haddone in any comparable emergency. His own unconscious fears meant only that hehad run into a new and unpredictable factor in a world that had been becomingincreasingly commonplace for a number of years now. He could see that onceyou'd got settled into the idea of a commonplace world, you might be startledby discoveries that didn't fit that notion -- and he felt now, rather hazily,
that it wasn't such a bad thing to be startled like that. It might wake you upenough to let you start living again yourself. 

He took the receiver off the phone and laid it on the floor, so there wouldn'tbe any more interruptions. If he ran off now before seeing how the adventureended, he knew he would never quit regretting it. 

He went into the bedroom and pulled his chair back up to the window. Theshadowy silhouette that was Miss Green turned and sounded a few fluting notesat him. He had the immediate impression that she was worried. 

What was the matter? 

She pointed. 

Clouds! 
* * * 

The sky was still full of the pastel glowings of the sunset. Here and therewere patches of black cloud, insignificant-looking, like ragged crows swimmingthrough the pale light. 

"Rain," the thought came. "The cold rain -- the killing rain! Another storm!" 

Mel studied the sky uneasily. They might be right. "Your friends are bound toget here first," he assured them, looking confident about it. 

They smiled gratefully at him. He couldn't think of anything he might do tohelp. The princess looked comfortable on the towel he had laid along thescreen, and Miss Green, as usual, looked alert, prepared to handle anythingthat had to be handled. He wondered about asking her to let him see how theglobes were doing, and, instantly, a thought showed clear in his mind: "Try ityourself!" 


That hadn't occurred to Mel before. He settled back comfortably in the chair
and looked through the screen for them. 


Four or five fiery visualizations quivered here and there in the air,
vanished, reappeared, vanished . . . 


Mel stopped looking for them, and there was only the sky. 


"Closer?" he said aloud, rather pleased with himself. It had been easy! 


Miss Green nodded, human fashion, and piped something in reply. Closer, but -


He gathered she couldn't tell from here how close, and that there was trouble
-- a not quite translatable kind of trouble, but almost as if, in their
dimension, they were struggling through the radiant distortions of a storm
that hadn't gathered yet here on Earth. 


He glanced up at the sky again, more anxiously now. The black clouds didn't
seem to have grown any larger.
* * * 


By and by, because he had not had any awareness of going to sleep, Mel was
surprised to find himself waking up. He knew immediately that he had been
asleep a long time, a period of hours. There was grayness around him, the
vague near-light of very early morning, and he had a sense of having been
aroused by a swirling confusion of angry sounds. But all was silent at the
moment. 


Her answer was instantly in his mind. The storm had caused a delay -- but a
great globe was almost here now! 


A curious pause followed. Mel had a sense of hesitation. And then, very
swiftly and faintly, a wisp of thought, which he would have missed if that
pause had not made him alert, showed and vanished on the fringe of his
consciousness. 


"Be careful! Be very careful." 


Miss Green turned back to the window. Beside her now, Mel saw the princess
sitting as if asleep, with one arm across the twig basket and her head resting
on her arm. Before he could frame the puzzled question that was struggling up
in his mind, there was a series of ear-splitting yowls from the court outside.
It startled Mel only for a moment, since it was a familiar sort of racket. The
gray cat didn't tolerate intruding felines in its area, and about once a month
it discovered and evicted one with the same lack of inhibition it was 
evidencing right now. It must have been the threatening squalls which usually
preceded the actual battle that had awakened him. 


The encounter itself was over almost instantly. There were sounds of a
scampering retreat which ended beyond the garage, and, standing up at the
window, Mel saw the gray shape of the winner come gliding back down the court.
The cat stopped below him and seemed to turn up its head. For a moment, he
felt it was staring both at him and at Miss Green, very much like a competent
little tiger in the gusty, gray night; then it made a low, menacing sound and
moved on out of sight. Apparently it hadn't yet forgotten its previous meeting
with Miss Green. 



Mel looked down at her. "Why should I be careful?" 


There was a pause again, and what came then hardly seemed an answer to his
question. The princess was very weak, Miss Green indicated; he might have to
help. 


He was still wondering about that -- and wondering, too, whether he'd really
had something like a warning from her -- when a sudden wavering glare lit up
the room behind them. 


For a moment, he thought the fireball was inside the building. But the light
was pouring in through the living room window; its source was in the opposite
court, out of his line of sight. There was a crackling, hissing sound, and the
light faded. 


Miss Green came darting at him. Mel put his hand up instinctively and felt her
thrust the basket into it. Almost instantly, she had picked up the princess
and was outside the screen -


Then the cat attacked from below in a silent, terrible leap, a long, twisting
shadow in the air, and they seemed to drop out of sight together.
* * * 


Mel was out in the court, staring wildly around. In the swimming grayness
nothing stirred or made sound. A cool, moist wind thrust at his face and
faded. Except for the toy basket of twigs in his hand, he might have been
awakening from a meaningless dream. 


Then a lurid round of light like a big, wavering moon came out over the top of
the building, and a sharp humming sound drove down through the air at him.
Instinctively again, he held out the basket and felt it plucked away. He
thought it was Miss Green, but the shape had come and gone much too swiftly to
be sure of that. 


The light grew brilliant, a solid white -- intolerable -- and he backed
hurriedly into the shelter of the garage, his heart hammering in excitement
and alarm. He heard voices from the other court; a window slammed somewhere.
He couldn't guess what was happening, but he didn't need Miss Green's warning
now. He had an overwhelming urge to keep out of sight until the unearthly
visitor would be gone -


And then, running like a rabbit, the gray cat appeared from behind a box
halfway down the court and came streaking for the garage. Mel watched its
approach with a sort of silent horror, partly because it might be attracting
undesirable attention to him -- and partly because he seemed to know in that
instant exactly what was going to be done to it. 


It wasn't more than twenty feet away when something like a twisting string of
fiery white reached down from above. The animal leaped sideways, blazed and
died. There was a sound very like a gunshot, and the court was instantly dark. 


Mel stayed where he was. For half a minute or so, he was shaking much too
violently to have left his retreat. By the end of that time, he knew better.
It wasn't over yet! 


Pictures forming in the moist, dark air . . . delicate, unstable outlines
sliding through the court, changing as they moved. Elfin castles swayed up out 



of grayness and vanished again. Near the edge of his vision other shapes
showed, more beautiful than human . . . 


Muttering to himself, between terror and delight, Mel closed his eyes as
tightly as he could, which helped for a moment. But then the impressions began
drifting through his mind. The visitors were still nearby, hanging somewhere
outside the limits of human sight in their monstrous fireball, in the windy
sky. They were talking to him in their way. 


Mel asked in his mind what they wanted, and the answer showed immediately. The
table in his living room with the pattern of glassy sand and pebbles Miss
Green had constructed. The pattern was glowing again now under the cloth he
had thrown over it. He was to go in and look at the pattern . . . 


"No!" he said aloud. It was all terror now. 


"Go look at the pattern . . . Go look at the pattern . . ." 


The pictures burst round him in a soundless wild flowering of beauty,
flickering rains of color, a fountain of melting, shifting forms. His mind
drowned in happiness. He was sinking through a warmth of kindness, gratitude
and love . . . 
* * * 


A drift of rain touched his cheek coldly -- and Mel found himself outside the
garage, moving drunkenly toward the apartment door. Then, just for a moment, a
picture of Miss Green printed itself on his mind. 


She seemed to be standing before him, as tall now as he was, motionless, the
strange wings half spread. The golden unhuman eyes were looking past him,
watching something with cold malice and contempt -- and with a concentration
of purpose that made a death's mask of the perfectly chiseled green face. 


In that second, Mel understood the purpose as clearly as if she had told him.
In the next, the image disappeared with a jerky, complete abruptness -


As if somebody were belatedly trying to wipe it out of his memory as well! But
he knew he had seen her somehow -- somewhere -- as she actually was at that
moment. And he knew what she had been watching. Himself, Mel Armstrong,
staggering blindly about in his other-dimension, down in the court! 


He hadn't stayed in the court. He was back in the garage, backed trembling
against a wall. She -- they -- weren't trying to show him gratitude, or reward
him somehow; before they left, they simply wanted to destroy the human being
who had found out about them, and whom they had used. The table and the
pattern were some sort of trap! What he couldn't understand was why they
didn't simply come down in their fireball and kill him as they had the cat. 


They were still pouring their pictures at him, but he knew now how to
counteract that. He stared out through the garage window at the lightening sky
-- looked at, listened to, what was there, filling his mind with Earth shapes
and sounds! 


And he promptly discovered an ally he hadn't been counting on. He hadn't
really been aware of the thumping wind before, and the sketchy pattering of
raindrops, like a sweeping fall of leaves here and there. He hadn't even
heard, beyond the continuous dim roar of surf from the beach, the gathering 



mutter of thunder. 


They couldn't stay here long. The storm was ready to break. They weren't
willing to risk coming out fully into the Earth dimension to hunt him down.
And he didn't have to go to their trap . . . 


Rain spattered louder and closer. The sweat chilled on Mel's body as his
breathing grew quieter. They hadn't left him yet. If he relaxed his eyes -and 
his mind, there was an instant faint recurrence of the swirling unearthly
patterns. But he could keep them out by looking at what was really here. He
only had to wait -


Then the rain came down in a great, rushing tide, and he knew they were gone.
* * * 


For a few seconds, he remained where he was, weak with relief. Over the noise
of the storm, he heard human voices faintly from the other court and from
neighboring houses. That final crash must have awakened everybody -- and
someone had seen the great globe of fire when it first appeared. 


There should be some interesting gossip in the morning! 


Which concerned Mel not at all. After drinking in the sweet certainty of being
still alive and safe, he had become aware of an entirely unexpected emotion,
which was, curiously, a brief but sharp pang of grief at Miss Green's
betrayal. Why, he must have been practically in love with that other-
dimensional, human-shaped rattlesnake! Mulling it over in moody amazement at
himself, it struck Mel suddenly then that one could interpret her final action
somewhat differently, too. 


Because she could have planted that apparently revealing picture of herself
deliberately in his mind, to stop him from stumbling into the trap the others
had set for him. She might have been planning to save him from the beginning
or merely relented at the last moment. There was no way of ever really knowing
now, but Mel found he preferred to believe that Miss Green's intention was
good. 


In the driving rain, he hesitated a moment beside the blackened lump that had
been the cat, but he couldn't force himself to pick it up and remove it. If
someone else found it, it might add to the gossip, but that wasn't any
business of his any more. Everyone knew that lightning did funny, selective
things. So far as he was concerned, the matter was all over. 


He opened the duplex door and stood staring. 


His apartment door was open and the room beyond was dark, as he had left it,
But down the little stairway and out of Maria's upstairs apartment, light
poured in a quiet flood.
* * * 


She must have returned during the night while he was sleeping, probably drunk
as a hoot-owl. The commotion downstairs hadn't been enough to arouse her. But
something else had -- she'd come down following swirling, beautiful, unearthly
pictures, hunting the pattern that would guide her straight into a promised
delight. 


Mel didn't have to reach into the apartment to switch on the light. Lightning 



did funny, selective things, all right, and from where he stood he could smellwhat had happened. They hadn't wasted that final bolt, after all. 

Oddly enough, what was uppermost in his mind in those seconds, while hecontinued to put off seeing what he was going to have to look at very soon,
was the final awareness of how he must have appeared in their eyes: 

A stupid native, barely capable of receiving training and instruction enoughto be a useful servant. Beyond that, they had simply had no interest in him. 

It was Maria they had worried about. The mental impressions he'd picked up inthe court had been directed at her. Miss Green had been obliged to stop himfinally from springing a trap which was set for another. 

For Maria, who might have endangered their leaving. 

-Chapter 3 
Captives of the Thieve-Star 

The celebration of the wedding of Peer and Channok had to be cut a littleshort, because a flock of police-boats from Irrek showed up at detector-rangeabout midway. But it was carried off with a flourish nevertheless. 

The oxygen-bubble in the small mooncrater was filled with colorfulsolidographs, creating the impression of an outdoor banquet hall. The bestbands playing in the Empire that night unwittingly contributed their efforts,
and food and drink were beyond reproach. 

Though somewhat dazed throughout, Channok was startled to discover at onepoint that the thick carpets on which he stood were a genuine pricelessGaifornaab weave -- and no solidographs either! The eighty-four small ships ofthe space-rat tribe -- or voyageurs, as they distinctly preferred to be called-- lined up along the outer edges of the banquet hall looked eerily out ofplace to him; but Peer didn't seem to mind. Her people rarely did go far awayfrom their ships, and the lawless, precarious life they led made that anadvisable practice. 

It would be up to him now, Channok reflected, beaming down on Peer, to educateher into customs and attitudes more fitting for the wife of a regular citizenof the Empire and probable future member of the Imperial Secret Service -


And then, suddenly, the whole ceremony seemed to be over! A bit puzzled by theabruptness with which everybody had begun to pack up and leave, Channok wasstanding beside the ramp of his own ship, the Asteroid -- an honest, licensedtrader -- when Santis strolled over to talk to him. Santis was Peer's father 
and the pint-sized chieftain of the tribe. 

"Didn't tell you before, son," he remarked, "because you were already nervousenough. But as soon as they finish collapsing the bubble, you'll have aboutsix minutes to get your Asteroid aloft and off this moon before the cops from 


Irrek arrive." 

"I heard you, Pop, and everything's packed!" Peer called down from the openlock of the Asteroid. "Come up and kiss me goodby and we'll seal her up!" 

Frowning suspiciously, Channok followed Santis up the ramp. "Why should Iworry about cops?" he inquired, looking down at the two little people whilethey briefly embraced. Peer came about up to his shoulder, though perfectlyformed, and Santis was an inch or two shorter. The tribe didn't run to bulk.
"Nobody's hunting for me." 

"Not yet, son," Santis conceded. He twirled his fierce brown mustache-tipsthoughtfully and glanced at Peer. 

"If you're passing anywhere near Old Nameless, you might cache that specialcargo you're carrying for me there," he told her. "Around the foot of theMound. Too bulky for the ships I've got here! I put a dowser plate in with it,
and I'll come pick it up with a transport sometime in the next four months." 

"Yes, Pop," said Peer. 

"The Fourth Voyageur Fleet will rendezvous at New Gyrnovaan next Terra spring.
If you can talk this big lug into it, try to make it there, daughter!" 

"We'll be there," promised Peer. 

Channok cleared his throat impatiently. Not if he could help it, theywouldn't! 

"Those cops are looking for the missing Crown jewels of Irrek," Santisresumed, looking at him. "After they've opened you up from stem to stern tomake sure you're not hiding them, they might apologize. And again they mightnot." 

"Holy Satellites!" Channok said, stunned. "Did you actually -- " 

"Not I, son. I just master-mind these things. Some of the boys did the job.
There goes the oxygen-bubble! Now will you get going?" 

They got going, Channok speechless for once.
* * * 

Some two months later, he stood in the Asteroid's control room, watching apale blur creep up along the starboard screen. 

"That's not just one ship -- that's at least a hundred," he announcedpresently, somewhat startled. "Looks like they've turned out the entireDardrean war-fleet! Wonder what's up?" 

Peer laid the cargo list she was checking down on the desk and came over tolook at the screen.. 

"Hm," she said. 

"It couldn't possibly have anything to do with us, could it?" he inquired, ona sudden alarming hunch. Being unfamiliar with the dialect used on Dardrea, hehad left most of the bargaining there to her. 


Peer shrugged. She showed the bland, innocent look of a ten-year-old child,
but that was habitual with her. On one occasion she'd been mistaken for his 
daughter, and at times he even had to remind himself that she'd been eighteenand a student at the Imperial Institute of Technology when he first met herthere -- and then unwittingly became Santis' tool in the abstraction of asmall but important section of the IIT's top-secret experimental files! He'dbeen trying to counteract that little brigand's influence on Peer ever since,
but he wasn't too sure of his degree of success so far. 

"We took the Merchants Guild for plenty on our auction," she admitted. 

"Well," Channok frowned, "they'd hardly send a fleet after us for that." 

"And, of course," added Peer, "we got the Duke of Dardrea's fabulous Coronet.
Forgot to mention that. Perfectly legal, though! Some local-crook swiped itand we took it in trade." 

Channok winced. As a matter of fact, fencing was a perfectly legitimatebusiness on Dardrea. But a man who planned to enter the Imperial SecretService, as soon as he could save up the money to pay his way through theAcademy, couldn't afford any stains on his past. Throughout the Empire, theService was renowned in song and story as the one body of men who stood abovethe suspicion of reproach. 

"The Duke won't know it's gone for another week," Peer consoled him. "Anyway,
it looks to me as if those ships are beginning to pull off our course." 

There followed some seconds of tense observation. 

"So they are," Channok acknowledged then. He mopped his forehead. "But I wishyou wouldn't be quite so technical in your interpretation of local laws, Peer!
Those babies are really traveling. Wonder who or what they're chasing?" 

Three days later, as the Asteroid approached the area of the red giant sun ofOld Nameless, where they were going to cache Santis' cargo for him -- hotcargo, probably; and it would be a load off Channok's mind to get rid of it -they 
picked up the trail of the foundering spaceship Ra-Twelve and found partof the answer on board. 

"It seemed to me," Channok remarked, watching the Ra-Twelve, in the viewscreenbefore them, "as if her drives had cut off completely just then. But they'reon again now. What do you think, crew-member Peer?" 

"Let's just follow her a bit," Peer suggested. "I've seen ships act like thatthat were just running out of juice. But this one won't even answer signals." 

"It could be," Channok said hopefully, "a case of fair salvage! You might keepworking the communicators, though . . ." 

However, the Ra-Twelve continued to ignore them while she plodded on towards 


the distant red glare of the Nameless System like a blind, thirsty beastfollowing its nose to a water-hole. Presently, she began a series of quaveringzigzag motions, wandered aimlessly off her course, returned to it again on afew final puffs of invisible energy and at last went drifting off throughspace with her drives now obviously dead. 

The Asteroid continued to follow at a discreet distance like a chunky vulture,
watching. If there was anyone on board the Ra-Twelve, it almost had to be aghost. Her rear lock was wide open, and the hull showed deep scars and marksof some recent space-action. 

"But she wasn't really badly hurt," Channok pointed out. "What do you supposecould have happened to her crew?" 

Peer gave him a nervous grin. "Maybe a space-ghost came on board!" 

"You don't really believe those spooky voyageur stories, do you?" he saidtolerantly. 

"Sure I do -- and so will you some day," Peer promised him. "I'll tell you afew true ones just before your next sleep-period." 

"No, you won't," Channok said firmly. "Aside from space-ghosts, though, thatcrate has a downright creepy look to her. But I suppose I'd better go over andcheck, as soon as she slows down enough so we can latch on. And you're goingto stay on the Asteroid, Peer." 

"In a pig's eye, I am!" Peer said indignantly. And though Channok wished toknow if she had forgotten that he was the Asteroid's skipper, it turned outthat this was one time he'd have to yield. 

"Because, Channy dear," Peer said, her big dark eyes welling slow tears, "I'djust die if something happened to you over there and I was left all alone inspace!" 

"All you'd have to do," Channok said uncomfortably, "is to head the Asteroidfor New Gyrnovaan, and you know it. Well -- you've got to promise to stayright behind me, anyway." 

"Of course," promised Peer, the tears vanishing miraculously. "Santis says awife should always stick with her husband in space, because he might lead herinto a jam, all right, but nothing like the !!****!; !**!! jams she's likelyto run into if she strays around by herself." 

"Whereas Ship's Regulation 66-B says," said Channok with grim satisfaction,
"that crew-member Peer gets her mouth washed out with soap just before thenext sleep-period because of another uncontrolled lapse into vituperousprofanity -- and what was that comment?" 

"That one was under my breath," said Peer, crestfallen, "so it doesn't count."
* * * 

Without making any particular remarks about it, both of them had fastened abrace of guns to their jet-harnesses. At close range -- held thirty feet awayagainst the Asteroid's ring-bumpers by a set of dock grapnels -- the RaTwelve's 
yawning lock looked more than ever like the black mouth of a cavernin which something was lurking for them. 


Channok went over first, propelled by a single squirt of his jets, and landed.
a little heavier than he had intended to. Peer, following instructions to keep
right behind him, came down an instant later in the middle of his back. They
got untangled hurriedly, stood up and started swiveling their helmet beams
about the Ra-Twelve's storage lock. 


It was practically empty. So was the big rack that had held the ship's single
big lifeboat. There were some tools scattered around. They kicked at them
thoughtfully, looked at each other and started forward through an open door up
a dark passageway, switching their lights ahead and from side to side. 


There was a locked door which probably led into the Ra-Twelve's engine
section, and then four cabins, each of which had been used by two men. The
cabins were in considerable disorder, but from what one could tell in a brief
look-around, each of the occupants had found time to pack up about what you
would expect a man to take along when he was planning on a lifeboat trip. So
whatever had happened probably hadn't been entirely unexpected. 


The mess-room, all tidied up, was next; two locked doors were at the back of
it, and also an open entrance to the kitchen and food storage. They glanced
around at everything, briefly, and went on to the control-room. 


It was considerably bigger than the one on the Asteroid and luxuriously
equipped. The pilot's section was in a transparently walled little office by
itself. The instruments showed both Dardrean and Empire markings and
instructions. Channok switched the dead drives off first and then reached out,
quite automatically, for the spot above the control desk where a light button
ought to be -


Light instantly flooded the interior of the Ra-Twelve. 


The intruders jumped a foot. It was as if the ship had suddenly come alive
around them! Then they looked at each other and grinned. 


"Automatic," Channok sighed. 


"Might as well do it the easy way," Peer admitted. She slid the Ophto Needle
she'd half-drawn back into its holster. 
* * * 


The Ra-Twelve had eighteen fully charged drive batteries still untouched. With
some system of automatic power transfer working, she could have gone cruising
along on her course for months to come. However, she hadn't been cruising,
Channok discovered next; the speed controls were set to "Full
Emergency". . . . An empty ship, racing through space till the battery she
was operating on went dead -


He shook his head. And then Peer was tapping his arm. 


"Look what I found! I think it's her log!" 


It was a flat steel box with an illuminated tape at its front end, on which a
date was printed. A line of spidery Dardrean script was engraved on a plate on
the top of the box. 


"Ra-Twelve," Peer translated. "That's her name." 



"So it's a Dardrean ship! But they're using the Empire calendar," Channok
pointed out, "which would make it an Empire crew . . . How do you work this
thing? If it is her log, it might give us an idea of what's happened." 


"Afterwards, Channy! I just found another door leading off the other end of
the control room -- " 


The door opened into a second passage, parallel to the one by which they had
come forward, but only half as long and very dimly lit. Filled with uneasy
speculations, Channok forgot his own instructions and let Peer take the lead. 


"More cabins," her voice said, just as he became aware of the wrecked door-
frame out of which the light was spilling ahead of her. 


A woman had been using that cabin. A woman who had liked beautiful and
expensive things, judging by what was strewn about. It looked, Channok
thought, as if she hadn't had time to finish, her packing. 


"Her spacesuit's gone, though," Peer's voice announced from the interior of a
disordered closet. 


Channok was inspecting the door. This was the first indication that there had
been any violence connected with whatever had happened on the Ra-Twelve. The
door had been locked from without and literally ripped open from within by a
stream of incandescence played on it by a gun held probably not much more than
a foot away. That woman had wanted out in an awful hurry! 


Peer came over to watch him. He couldn't quite read her expression, but he had
a notion she wanted to bawl. 


"Let's take a quick look at the rest of it and get back to the Asteroid," he
suggested, somewhat disturbed himself. "We ought to talk this over." 


The one remaining cabin lay just beyond the point where the passage angled
back into the ship. There was light in that one, too, and the door was half
open. Channok got there first and pushed it open a little farther. Then he
stood frozen in the door-frame for a moment. 


"What's stopping you?" Peer inquired impatiently, poking his ribs from behind. 


He stepped back into the passage, pulled the door shut all the way, scooped
her up and heaved her to his shoulder. His space-boots felt like iron anchors
as he clunk-clunked hastily back through the passages to the derelict's lock.
There was nothing definite to run from any more; but he knew now what had
happened on the Ra-Twelve, and he felt nightmare pacing after him all the way. 


He crossed to the Asteroid's control room lock in a jump, without bothering
with his jets.
* * * 


"Close the outer lock!" he told Peer hoarsely, reaching up for the switch
marked "Decontaminant" above him. 


A fourfold spray of yellowish Killall was misting the trapped air in the lock
about them an instant later. 



"What was it?" Peer's voice came out of the fog. 

"Antibiotic," Channok said, his scalp still crawling. "What you --what 
voyageurs call a lich, I think. I don't know that kind. But it got the guy inthat last cabin." 

The occupant of the last cabin had looked as if somebody had used aparticularly vicious sort of acid gun on him, which somehow had misseddamaging his clothing. To the grisly class of life-forms that produced thateffect, an ordinary spacesuit offered exactly no resistance. 

"A lich can't last more than an hour or so in space, Channy," Peer's voicecame shakily after a pause. "It's a pretty awful way to get it, but that stuffover there must have been dead for a long time now." 

"I know," said Channok. He hesitated and then cut off the Killall spray andstarted the blowers to clear the lock. "I guess I just panicked for a moment.
But I'm going to go over that ship with decontaminant before we do any moreinvestigating. And meanwhile you'd better get in a few hours of sleep." 

"Wouldn't hurt any," Peer agreed. "How do you suppose the lich got on board?" 

He could tell her, that. He'd seen a heavy, steel-framed glassite container ina corner of the cabin, opened. They must have been transporting some virulentform of antibiotic; and there might have been an accident -


Five hours later, they had come to the conclusion that it had been noaccident. Four hours of that time, Channok had been engaged in disinfectingthe Ra-Twelve, even her engine sections. He'd given the one man left on boardspace-burial in one of the Asteroid's steel cargo crates. The crate hadn'tbeen launched very far and presently hung suspended some eighty yards abovethe two ships, visible as a black oblong that obscured the stars behind it. 

It and its contents were one of the reasons Channok was anxious to get donewith the job of salvaging the Ra-Twelve. She was a stream-lined, beautifulship; but after what had happened, he knew he would never be able to work upany liking for her. She seemed to be waiting sullenly and silently for achance to deal with the two humans who had dared come on board her again. 

He sealed her up presently, filled her with a fresh airmix and, having oncemore checked everything he could think of, let Peer come over again for afinal briefing on their run to Old Nameless. 

Peer wandered promptly into the cabin where the dead man had been and therediscovered the wall-safe. 

She called him. He couldn't imagine how he had overlooked it. Perhaps becauseit was so obviously there. It was an ordinary enough safe, from what theycould see of the front of it; and there was a tiny key in its lock. 


They looked at it thoughtfully. 

"You didn't try to open it, did you?" Channok inquired. 

"No," said Peer; "because -- " 

"That's what I was thinking," Channok admitted. 

There had been, they had decided, at least two groups working against eachother in the ship. The dead man had been in charge of the antibiotic. Perhapsthe woman had been on his side, perhaps not. But the eight other men had actedtogether and had controlled the ship. What action or threat of theirs hadcaused the dead man to release his terrible weapon would be hard to discovernow. But he had done it, and the eight men had abandoned the Ra-Twelvepromptly, leaving the woman locked in her cabin 

It looked pretty much as if she had been the one who had switched the drivesto full speed -- before jumping out into space. A pretty tough, desperate lotall around, in Channok's opinion. The Ra-Twelve's log offered the informationthat they had left Dardrea three calendric days earlier, but had been of nofurther help in identifying crew or passengers. That most of them wereprofessional criminals, however, seemed a pretty safe bet -- as Peer hadpointed out, in voyageur terms, amateurs didn't play around with taboo-weaponslike a bottled lich. 

Also, amateurs -- Peer and Channok, for example -- could have sense enough notto blunder into a booby-trap . . . 

"He'd know, of course," Channok said reflectively, "that everybody would bewondering what's hidden in that safe. And it could be anything up to andincluding full instructions on how to set up an artificial culture ofantibiotics. Plenty of governments would pay twenty times what the Ra-Twelveis worth as salvage for that kind of information. But it's nothing we need toknow." 

"Not that bad," Peer agreed. 

"And the guy who opens that wall-safe had better be an armaments expert! Whichwe're not. But now, crew-member Peer, if we want to get Santis' cargo cachedon Old Nameless before I fall asleep, we ought to get started. Idle curiosityis something we can satisfy some other time." 

"Two hours past your sleep-period right now." said Peer, glancing at herwristwatch. "Tsk, tsk! That always makes you so grouchy." 

Half an hour later, they were on their way -- Channok in the Ra-Twelve, Peerin the Asteroid keeping as close to each other as two ships in flight couldsafely get. With the red glare of the Old Nameless sun a trifle off-centerbefore him, Channok settled down in the most comfortable pilot-seat he'd everfound on any ship and decided he could relax a trifle. Peer was obviouslyhaving a wonderful time doing her first solo-piloting job on a ship of theAsteroid's size; and since she'd run and landed the Asteroid any number oftimes under his supervision, he wasn't worried about her ability to handle it.
However, he continued to check in on her over the communicators every fiveminutes or so, and grinned at the brisk, spacemanlike replies he got inreturn. Crew-member Peer was on her best behavior right now! 


By and by, then -- he couldn't have said just when it started -- Channok began
to realize that some very odd things were happening around him -* 
* * 


It appeared that the Thing he had put out for burial in a space-crate hadn't


like the idea of being left alone. So it was following him. 
Channok decided uneasily that it might be best to ignore it. But it kept
coming closer and closer until, finally, the crate was floating just outside
the Ra-Twelve's control room port, spinning slowly like a running-down top. 


The crate stayed shut, but he knew the Thing inside it was watching him. 
"That's my ship," the Thing remarked presently. 
Channok ignored it. 
"And you're all alone," said the Thing. 
"No, I'm not!" said Channok. "Peer's with me." 
"Peer's gone back to Santis," said the Thing. "You're all alone. Except," it


added, "for me." 
"Well, good-bye!" Channok said firmly. There was no point in getting too


chummy with it. He punched the Ra-Twelve's drives down as far as they would
go, and the crate vanished. 
How that ship could travel! Nothing could hope to keep up with him now -


except, Perhaps, that round, red glare of light just behind the Ra-Twelve. 
That was actually overtaking him, and fast. It was coming up like a cosmic


police-ship, with a huge, hollow noise rushing before it. Channok listened
apprehensively. Suddenly, there were words: 
"WHOO-WHOOO!" it howled. "This is the Space Ghost!" 
He shot up out of his chair like a jabbed cat, knocking it over, and glared


around. 
The Ra-Twelve's control room lay brightly lit and silent behind him. 
"Ha-ha!" Peer's chuckle came from the communicator. "That woke you up, I bet!


Was that you that fell over?" 


"Aw-awk!" breathed Channok. Articulation came back to him. "All right,
crewmember Peer! just wait till we get to Old Nameless! I'll fix you good!" 
"Shall I tell you the story now about the Horror Ship from Mizar?" Peer


inquired intrepidly. 
"Go right ahead," Channok challenged, righting his chair and settling back


into it. "You can't scare me with that sort of stuff." He began checking their
position. 
He must have been asleep for quite a while! The Nameless System was less than 



two hours ahead now. He switched on the front screen; and the sun swam up like

a big, glowing coal before him. He began checking for the seventh planet. 
"Well," he reminded the communicator grimly, "you were going to tell me astory." 

The communicator remained silent a moment. 
"I don't think I will, anyway," Peer said then, rather quietly. 
"Why not?" Channok inquired, getting his screen-viewer disentangled from a


meteor-belt in the Nameless System. 


"I made that Space Ghost too good," whispered Peer. "I'm getting scared myselfnow." 
"Aha!" said Channok. "See what behaving like that will get you?" He got Old

Nameless VII into the viewer. 
The communicator remained still. He looked over at it. 
"Of course, there's really nothing to be scared of," he added reassuringly. 
"How do you know?" quavered Peer. "I'm all alone." 
"Nonsense!" Channok said heartily. "I can see the Asteroid right over there on


the screen. You can see me, can't you?" 
"Sure," said Peer. "That's a long way off, though. You couldn't do anything!" 
"It's not safe for two ships to travel much closer together," Channok reminded


her. "We're only two hours from Old Nameless right now -- I'm already focussed


on it." 
"I've been focussed on it for an hour," said Peer. "While you were snoring,"
she added. "Two hours is an awful long time!" 


"Tell you what," suggested Channok. "I'll race you to it. The Ra-Twelve's a


mighty fast boat -- " He checked himself. He'd only dreamed that, after all. 
"Let's go," Peer said briefly.
* * * 


He let Peer stay just ahead of him all the way in, though the streamlinedderelict probably could have flown rings around the Asteroid, at that. Just anhour later, they went around Old Nameless VII twice, braking down, and thencoasted into its atmosphere on their secondary drives. 

"That's the place," Peer's voice said suddenly. "I can see the old Mound in

the plain. In the evening strip, Channy -- that straight-up cliff." 
He set the Ra-Twelve down first, at the base of a mountain that reared upalmost vertically for eighteen thousand feet or so out of a flat, dimly-litstretch of rocky desert land. 

The Asteroid came down in a very neat landing, two hundred yards away. He gotthere on the run, just as the front lock opened. Peer came tumbling out of it 


into his arms and hung on fiercely, while her skipper hugged her. 

"Let that scare be a lesson to you!" he remarked when he set her down. 

"It certainly will," said Peer, still clutching his arm as they started overto the Ra-Twelve. "That old Space Ghost had me going!" 

"Me, too," he confessed; "just for a moment, anyway. Well, let's get busy." 

They went over the Ra-Twelve again from bow to stern, to make sure there wasnothing they would want to take along immediately, and found there wasn't.
They gave the unopened wall-safe a last calculating regard, and decided oncemore that they'd better not. Then they shut off everything, closed the frontlock behind them and safetied it with the dock bolts. 

The plain was darkening when they came out, but the top of the mountain stillglowed with red light. They climbed into the Asteroid, and Channok closed thelock. He started for the control desk then; but Peer beat him to it andanchored herself into the seat of command with hands, knees and feet. Itbecame apparent almost at once that he couldn't get her out of it withoutrunning the risk of pulling off her head. 

"Now look here, crew-member Peer," he said persuasively, "you know good andwell that if these top-heavy cargo crates have one weakness, it's the takeoff." 


"It could be the pilot, too," Peer said meaningly. "I've been studying themanual, and I've watched you do it. It's my turn now." 

He considered her thoughtfully. 

"Suppose you die of old age, all of a sudden?" argued Peer. "Wouldn't want meto sit here alone without knowing even how to take her off, would you?" 

That did it. 

"Go ahead," said Channok with dignity, taking a position back of the chair.
"Go right ahead! This decrepit old man of twenty-eight is going to stand righthere and laugh himself sick!" 

"You'll be sick, all right," promised Peer. "But it won't be from laughing!
I'll read that chapter out of the manual to you sometime." 

She had studied it, too, he decided. She sat perched forward on the edge ofthe chair, alert and cocky, and went through the starting operations withouthitch or hesitation. The Asteroid rumbled beneath them, briefly building uppower . . . 

Channok braced himself -



For the next few seconds, the question seemed to be whether they'd pile intothe plain or the mountain first; and, for another improbable moment, they weredistinctly skidding along upside down. Then Peer got them straightened out,
and they soared up rapidly into the night sky above Old Nameless. 

Channok's hair settled slowly back into place. 

Peer looked around at him, puzzled and rather pale. 

"That's not the way it said in the manual!" she stated. 

Channok whooped. Then he sat down on the floor, bent over and yelled. 

When he got around to wiping the tears from his eyes, Peer was looking down athim disgustedly from the control chair. 

"It wasn't the way it said in the manual!" she repeated firmly. "We're goingto have this old crate overhauled before she'll be safe to fly -- and if youweren't my husband, I'd really let you have it now!" 

He stood up, muttering some sort of apology. 

"I've done some just as bad," he assured her. 

"Hum," said Peer coldly, studying Old Nameless in the screen below them. Itseemed safe to pat her on the head then, but he kept his hand well out ofbiting range. 

"We'd better get back to that mountain and bury the Ra-Twelve before it getstoo dark to find the spot," he suggested. 

"It's still just in sight," said Peer. "You get the guns ready, and I'll runus past it slowly." 

Spaceships being what they were, there wasn't much ceremony about caching theRa-Twelve. Channok got the bow-turret out; and as Peer ran the Asteroid slowlyalong the mountainside a few hundred feet above the Ra-Twelve, he cut a jaggedline into the rock with the gun's twin beams. A few dozen tons of rock camethundering down on the Ra-Twelve. 

They came back from the other side, a little higher up, and he loosened itsome more. This time, it looked as if a sizable section of the mountain weredescending; and when the dust had settled the Ra-Twelve was fifty feet under asloping pile of very natural-looking debris. To get her out again, they'd onlyhave to cut a path down to her lock and start her drives. She'd come out ofthe stuff then, like a trout breaking water . . . 

Satisfied, they went off and got the Asteroid on an orbit around Old Nameless,
not too far out. Peer had assured Channok that Santis' investigations hadproved the planet safe for human beings, so it probably was. But he knew he'dfeel more comfortable if they put in their sleep-periods outside itsatmosphere. Bathed in the dismal light of its giant sun, old Nameless lookedlike a desolate backyard of Hell. It was rocky, sandy, apparently waterlessand lifeless and splotched with pale stretches of dry salt seas. Incongruouslydelicate auroras went crawling about its poles, like lopsided haloes circlinga squat, brooding demon. It wasn't, Channok decided, the kind of planet be 


would have stopped at of his own accord, for any purpose.
* * * 

The cliff against which they had buried the Ra-Twelve was the loftiest sectionof an almost unbroken chain of mountains, surrounding the roughly circularhundred-mile plain, which was littered with beds of boulders and sand-hills,
like a moon crater. What Peer had referred to as the "Mound" lay approximatelyat the center of the plain. It turned out, next morning, to be a heavilyweathered, dome-shaped structure half a mile high and five miles across, whichgave the impression that all but the top tenth of a giant's skull had beenburied in the sand, dented here and there with massive hammers, and sprinkledthickly with rock dust. It was obviously an artifact -- constructed withhundred-foot bricks! As the Asteroid drifted down closer to it, Channok becameinterested. 

"Who built it?" he asked. 

Peer shrugged. She didn't know. "Santis spent a few hours jetting around theedges of it once," she said. "But he wouldn't tell us much; and, afterwards,
he wouldn't let us get nearer than a mile to it. He didn't go back himself,
either -- said it was dangerous to get too close." 

It didn't look dangerous. But fifty thousand years ago, it might have been afortress of some sort. 

"You oughtn't to be flying so low over it, even!" Peer said warningly. "Rightin the middle on top is where it's the most dangerous, Santis said!" 

Channok didn't argue the matter -- they had to get Santis' special cargocached and off their hands first, anyway. He lifted the Asteroid a mile or soand then brought her down a couple of miles beyond the Mound, at the pointPeer had designated. 

They got out of the ship and gazed about the broken, rocky plain. The redlight of the Nameless Sun was spilling across it in what passed for morning onthis world. In it, the black mountain chains rearing about the horizon and thecraggy waves of flat land had the general effect of a bomb-shattered andslowly burning city. Far off to their left, he could see the upper half of thetowering precipice which marked the Ra-Twelve's resting place. 

"How long a time did you say you spent here?" he asked. 

Peer reflected. "About two Terra-months, I guess. I'm not sure, though. Thatwas a long time ago. My youngest brother Dobby wasn't born yet." 

He shook his head. "What a spot for a nice family picnic!" 

"It wasn't a picnic," Peer said. "But my kid brother Wilf and I had a lot offun anyway, just running around and teasing the ghouls. I guess you don'tnotice so much what a place looks like when you're little." 

"Teasing the what?" 

"Ghouls," said Peer carelessly. 

He looked at her suspiciously; but she seemed to be studying the nearbyterrain for a good spot to start digging. 


"And what were Santis and your mother doing?" he inquired. 


"They were looking for some sort of mineral deposit on Old Nameless; I forget
just what. How about that spot -- just under that little overhang? It looks
like good, solid top-rock."
* * * 


Channok agreed it was just the place. He'd got a drilling attachment mounted
to the Asteroid's small all-purpose tractor; and now he went back and ran the
machine down the ramp from the storage lock. He ordered Peer, who wanted to
help, up a rock about twenty feet overhead, where she perched looking like an
indignant elf, out of reach of any stray puffs of the drill-blast. Then he
started running a slanting, narrow tunnel down under the overhang. 


Half an hour later, when he backed the tractor out of the tunnel, pushing a
pile of cooking slag behind him, he saw her standing up on the rock with a
small stungun in her hand. She beckoned to him. 


Channok pulled off his breather-mask, shut off the tractor, and jumped from
the saddle. 


"What is it?" he called anxiously, trotting towards her, while the machine's
clacking and roaring subsided. 


"Some of those ghouls!" Peer called back. "Climb up here and I'll show you."
She didn't seem worried. 


"They've ducked behind those rocks now," she said as he clambered up beside
her; "but they won't stay there long. They're curious, and I think some of
them remember the time we were here before." 


"Are they dangerous?" he inquired, patting his bolstered set of heavy-duty
Reaper guns. 


"No," said Peer. "They look sort of awful, but you mustn't shoot them! If they
get inside of thirty feet I'll hit them in the stomach with a stunner. They
grunt then and run. Santis said that was the right way to teach them not to
get too nosey." 


They waited a moment in silence, scanning the rocks. 


Then Channok started violently. 


"Holy !!**?** Satellites!" he swore, his hair bristling. 


A big, dead-white shape had popped up springily on a rock about fifty feet
away, stared at him for an instant out of eyes like grey glass-platters, and
popped down out of sight again. Awful was right! 


"Aha!" crew-member Peer gloated, grinning. "You shouldn't have said that!
Tonight you've got to let me soap out your mouth!" 


A light dawned gradually. 


"You did it on purpose!" he accused her. "You knew I'd say something like that
the first time I saw one!" 



Peer didn't deny it. 

"It's the soap for you, just the same," she shrugged. "People ought to havesome self-control -- that's what you said. Look, another one now -- no, two!" 

When he came up for lunch, he found about fifty ghouls collected around thearea. By that time he had dug the cache, steel-lined it, disinfected it andinstalled preservatives, a humidifier and a dowser plate. Loading it up wouldtake most of the rest of the day. 

He avoided looking at the local population as much as he could while he ate.
However, the occasional glimpses he got suggested that the Nameless System hadmade a half-hearted and badly botched attempt at developing its own type ofhumanoid inhabitant. They had extremely capable looking jaws, at any rate, andtheir wide, lipless mouths were wreathed in perpetual idiot grins. The mostcompletely disagreeable parts of them, Channok decided, were the enormous,
red-nailed hands and feet. Like fat, white gargoyles, they sat perched aroundthe tops of the rocks in a wide circle and just stared. 

"Sloppy-looking things," he remarked, noticing Peer's observant eyes on him.
"But at least they're not trying to strike up a conversation." 

"They never say anything until you hit them in the stomach with a stunner,"
she informed him. "Then they just grunt and run." 

"Sure they mightn't get mean about that? The smallest of this lot looks plentybig enough to take us both apart." 

Peer laughed. "All of them together wouldn't try it! They're real yellow. Wilfgot mad at a couple of 'em once and ran 'em halfway over to the Mound beforemother caught up with him and stopped him. Wilf had his blood up, that time!" 

"Maybe the ghouls built the Mound." Channok suggested. "Their great-greatancestors, 
anyway." 

"They won't go near it now," Peer said, following his gaze. "They're scared ofthat, too." 

They studied the rugged, ungainly slopes of the huge artifact for a moment.
There was something fascinating about it, Channok thought. Perhaps just itssize. 

"Santis said the plain was the bottom of a sea a while ago," Peer offered. "Soit could have been some sort of sea-things that built it." 

"Any entrances into it?" he asked casually. 

"Just one, right at the top." 


"You know," he said, "I think I'd like to go over and have a look at thatthing before we leave." 

"No!" said Peer, alarmed. "You'd better not. Santis said it was dangerous -and 
there is something there! We saw a light one night." 

"What kind of a light?" 

"Like someone walking around the top of it, near that entrance, with a biglamp in his hand," Peer remembered. "Like he might have been looking forsomething." 

"Sounds a bit like your old friend, the Space Ghost," Channok murmuredsuspiciously. 

"No," Peer grinned. "This was a real light -- and we took off the nextevening. Santis said it might be as well if we moved somewhere else for awhile." 

Channok considered a moment. "Look," he said finally, "we can do it like this.
I'll jet myself over there and stroll around it a bit in daylight; and ifyou're worried, you could hang overhead in the Asteroid with a couple ofturrets out. Just in case someone gets tough." 

"I could, maybe," said Peer, in a tight voice, "but I'm not going to. Ifyou're going to go walking around there, after all Santis said, I'm going tobe walking right behind you." 

"Oh, no, you're not," Channok said. 

"Oh, yes, I am!" said Peer. "You can't make me stay here!" 

He looked at her in surprise. Her eyes were angry, but her lower lip quivered. 

"Hey," he said, startled. "Maybe I'm being a pig!" 

"You sure are!" Peer said, relieved. The lip stopped quivering. "You're notgoing over there, then?" 

"Not if you feel that way about it," Channok said. He paused. "I guess," headmitted awkwardly, "I just didn't like the idea of Santis flitting aroundspace, Holy Aynstyn knows where, and still putting in his two millicreditsworth every so often, through crew-member Peer." 

Peer blew her nose and considered in turn. "Just the same," she concluded,
"when Santis says something like that, it's a lot better if people do it. Is'Holy Aynstyn knows where' a swear-word?" 

"No," said Channok. "Not exactly."
* * * 

He'd finished his lunch and was just going to suggest they run the tractor outof the cache and back the few hundred yards to the Asteroid for the first loadof Santis' cargo, when he noticed that all the ghouls had vanished. 

He called Peer's attention to the fact. 


"Uh-huh," she said in an absent-minded tone. "They do that sometimes . . ." 

Channok looked at her. She was staring at a high boulder a short distanceaway, with a queer, intent expression, as if she were deep in thought aboutsomething: He hoped she wasn't still brooding about their little argument -


Then she glanced at him, gave him a sudden grin, swung herself around and slidnimbly off the rock. 

"Come on down quick!" she said. "I want to show you something before you getback to work. A ghoul-burrow!" 

"A ghoul-burrow?" Channok repeated unenthusiastically. 

"Yes, sure!" said a Peer impatiently. "They're cute! They're all lined withglass or something." She spread her arms wide. "Jump, and I'll catch you!" 

Channok laughed, flopped over on his stomach with his legs over the edge ofthe rock, and slid down in a fair imitation of Peer's nonchalant style ofdescent, spraining his ankle only a little. Well, he hadn't grown up skippingfrom craggy moon to asteroid to heavy-planet to whatnot like she had . . . 

They threaded their way about the rocks to the spot she had been studying. Sheexplained that he'd have to climb into the burrow to get a good idea of whatit was like. 

"Well, look now, Peer!" Channok protested, staring into the big, round holethat slanted downwards under a big boulder -- it did seem to be lined withblack glass or some similar stuff. "That cave's got 'No Trespassing' writtenall over it. Supposing I slide down a half a mile and land in a mess ofghouls?" 

"No, you won't," Peer said hurriedly. "It goes level right away, and they'renever more than thirty feet long. And the ghoul's out -- there's never morethan one to a burrow; and I saw this one pop out and run off just before westarted here. You're not scared, are you? Wilf and I crawled in and out ofhundreds of them!" 

"Well, just for a moment then," said Channok resignedly.
* * * 

He got down on hands and knees and crept into the tunnel. After about sixfeet, he stopped and found he could turn around without too much trouble.
"Peer?" be called back. 

"Yes?" said Peer. 

"How can I see anything here," Channok demanded peevishly, "when it's alldark?" 

"Well, you're in far enough now," said Peer, who had sat down before theentrance of the tunnel and was looking in after him. "And now -- I've got toask you to do something. You know how I always promptly carry out any ordersyou give me, like getting in my full sleep-period and all?" she addedanxiously. 


"No, you do not!" Channok stated flatly, resting on his elbows. "Half the timeI practically have to drag you to the cabin. Anyway, what's that got to dowith -- " 

"It's like this," Peer said desperately. She glanced up for a moment, as ifshe had caught sight of something in the dim red sky overhead. "You've got tostay in there a while, Channy." 

"Eh?" said Channok. 

"When those ghouls pop out of sight in daytime like that, it's because there'sa ship or something coming." 

"Peer, are you crazy? A ship! Who --I'm coming right out!" 

"Stay there, Channy! It's hanging over the Asteroid right now. A big lifeboatwith its guns out -- it must be those men from the Ra-Twelve. They must havehad a tracer of some sort on her." 

"Then get in here quick, Peer!" Channok choked, hauling out one of theReapers. "You know good and well that bunch would kill a woman as soon as aman!" 

"They've already seen me -- I wanted them to," Peer informed him. She wastalking out of the side of her mouth, looking straight ahead of her, away fromthe cave. "I'm not going to be a woman. I'm going to be a dumb little girl,
ordinary size. I can pull that one off any time." 

"But -- " 

"They'll want to ask questions. I think I can get them to send that lifeboataway. We can't fight that, Channy; it's a regular armed launch. Santis saysyou can always get the other side to split its forces, if you're smart aboutit." 

"But how -- " 

"And then, when I yell 'Here we go!' then you pop out. That'll be the rightmoment -- " She stood up suddenly. "We can't talk, any more. They're gettingclose -- " She vanished with that from before the mouth of the burrow. 

"Hold on there!" a voice yelled in the distance a few seconds later, asChannok came crawling clumsily up the glassy floor of the tunnel, hampered bythe Reaper he still clutched in one hand. It seemed to come from up in theair, and it was using the Empire's universal dialect. 

Peer's footsteps stopped abruptly. 

"Who you people?" her voice screeched in shrill alarm. "You cops? I ain't donenothing!" 


"And just look at those guns she's carrying!" the deeper of the two strange
voices commented. "The real stuff, too -- a stunner and an Ophto Needle!
Better get them from her. If it isn't a baby Flauval!" 


"I didn't shoot nobody lately!" Peer said, trembly-voiced. 


"No, and you ain't going to shoot nobody either!" the other strange voice
mimicked her. That one was high-pitched and thin, with a pronounced nasal
twang to it. "Chief, if there're kids with them, it's just a bunch of space-
rats that happened along. It couldn't be Flauval!" 


"I'd say 'it couldn't be Flauval', if we'd found her dead in her cabin," the
deep voice said irritably. "But that door was burned out from inside -- and
somebody ditched the Ra-Twelve on this clod." It sounded as if the discovery
of Peer had interrupted an argument between them. 


"I still can't see how she got out," Nasal-voice Ezeff said sullenly. "She
must have been sleeping in her spacesuit. We were out of the ship thirty
seconds after I slap-welded that lock across her door. She must have felt the
boat leaving and started burning her way out the same instant -- " 


"It doesn't matter how she did it," said the deep voice. Apparently, it
belonged to someone with authority. "If Flauval could think and move fast
enough to switch the drives to Full Emergency and still get alive out of a
ship full of the Yomm, she could cheat space, too! She always did have the
luck of the devil. If we'd had just that minute to spare before leaving, to
make sure -- " 


It paused a moment and resumed gloomily: "That stubborn old maniac of a Koyle
-- 'I'm the Duke's man, sir!' Committing suicide like that -- so no one else
would get control of the Yomm! If we hadn't managed to start the launch's
locators in time . . . Well, I hope I'll never have to sweat out another four
days like the last. And now we still have to find whoever got Koyle's
records." 


"Flauval ain't here," Peer offered at that point, brightly. 


There was a pause. It seemed that the two newcomers must have almost forgotten
their prisoner for a moment.
* * * 


"What was that you said, kid?" Nasal-voice inquired carefully. 


"Those space-rats are all half crazy," the deep voice said contemptuously.
"She doesn't know what we're talking about." 


"Sure I know!" Peer said indignantly. "You was talking about Flauval. It's
Wilf that's the crazy one -- I ain't! And she ain't here. Flauval." 


"She ain't, eh?" Nasal-voice said, with speculative alertness. 


"No, sir," Peer said, timid again. "She's went with the rest of'm." 


Both voices swore together in startled shock. 



"Where are they?" the deep voice demanded. "Hiding on the ship?" 
"No, sir," quavered Peer. "It's just me on the ship, till they come back." 
"You mean," the deep voice said, with strained patience "you're supposed to be


on the ship?" 
"Yes, sir," said Peer. She added in a guilty mutter, "Sleepin' . . ." 
"Where did the others go?" Nasal-voice inquired sharply. 
"But I ain't tired," said Peer. "Well, with the boxes and stuff! What Flauval


wants buried." 
There was another duet of exclamations which Channok, at almost any other


time, would have considered highly unsuitable for Peer's ears. Right now, it
escaped his attention. 
"She's got Koyle's records," stated the deep voice then. 
"What's in those boxes?" Nasal-voice snapped. 
"D-d-don't shake me!" wept Peer. "Papers and stuff -- I don't know. They don't


never tell me nothing," she wailed, "because I'm just a little girl!" 


"Yes, you're just a little girl," said Nasal-voice, exasperated. "You're not
going to get much bigger either." 
"Cut that," said the deep voice. "No sense scaring the kid." 
"Well, you're not figuring on taking them back, are you?" Nasal-voice


inquired. 
"No. Just Flauval. The colonel will be glad to chat with Flauval a bit, now
that she's turned up alive again. Koyle may have told her plenty before we


soured him on her. But there's no point in making the rest of them desperate.
It's easier when they surrender." 
There was a short pause. Then the deep voice addressed Peer with a sort of


amiable gruffness: 


"So they all went off to bury the boxes, but you don't know where they went -is 
that it, little girl?" 
"Oh, sure!" Peer said, anxious to please. "Yes, sir! I know that!" 
"WHERE?" said both voices together, chorusing for the third time. 
"It's that big Mound over there," Peer said; and Channok started nervously.


"It's got a big door on top. No," she added, "I guess you can't see from down
here -- and you can't see from the ship. That's why I came out. To watch
for'm. But you can see it plain from the top of the rocks." 


"That would be the old reservoir or whatever it was we passed back there,"
said the deep voice. 
"That's right," said Peer. "That's just what Flauval called it at lunch! The 



word you said. There was water there oncet, she said. They flew the boxes over
with jets, but they'll be back before it's dark, they said." 


There was a brief silence. 


"Scares me when it's dark, it does," grumbled the idiot-child. 


"Well, that ties it up," the deep voice said, satisfied. "It's the exact kind
of stunt Flauval would try. But she's outsmarted herself, this time."
* * * 


"How do you figure on handling it?" Nasal-voice inquired. 


"Get up on one of those rocks with the kid where you can watch both that
'mound' and the lock of their ship. Yes, I know it's more trouble that way -but 
don't, ah, do anything conclusive about the -- uh -- aforementioned,
before we've corralled the rest. Much more useful while capable of inhaling.
Hostage possibilities. Inducement to surrender." 


"Uh-huh," Nasal-voice said, comprehendingly. 


"Yes, sir!" added Peer. 


There was another short pause. 


"Might as well skip the circumlocutions," the deep voice continued. "Barely
human! I'll send a couple of men through the ship and, if it's empty, I'll
leave one of them in the forward lock where you can see him. That's just in
case anyone slips past us and comes back. The rest of us will go over to the
reservoir in the launch. If the entrance is where she says it is, we've got
them bottled. If it looks right, we'll go in." 


"That'll be only four of you," said Nasal-voice. "No; three -- you're keeping
one at the launch-guns, aren't you?" 


"Yes, of course. Hey, little girl -- how many are with Flauval?" 


"Of us, you mean?" Peer asked. 


"Of what else?" snarled Nasal-voice. 


"Now don't get her so scared she can't talk," the deep voice reproved. "That's
right, little girl -- how many of you?" 


"Well, there's me," sniffled Peer, "and my old man, and my big brother Dobby.
And then there's Wilf -- that's all. But I don't like Wilf!" 


"I don't like Wilf either," agreed Nasal-voice. "Four against three, chief. It
might be safer to bring over the two from the Ra-Twelve first -- no point in
searching her anyway, now that we know where the records are." 


"No," said the deep voice. "Flauval could just happen to decide to come out in
the few minutes we're gone. It's sewed up too neatly right now. We'll have the
heavy guns from the launch and we'll give them a chance to surrender.
Flauval's too intelligent to pass that up -- she never stops hoping. The
chances are there won't be any shooting, till afterwards." 



"Any friends of hers are likely to be tough," Nasal-voice warned. 


"Very tough," said his chief. "Like the kid there! You worry at the wrong
times, my boy. A parcel of space-rats that happened along." He swore again.
"That woman's unbelievable luck! Well, take care of yourself, Ezeff. I'm off.
Keep your eyes open both ways. Just in case -- " 


There was silence for a moment. Then footsteps came crunching over the rocks
towards the ghoul-burrow, and Channok got set. But the footsteps halted a few
yards away. 


"That's the one I was sitting on," Peer volunteered. "Nice, easy one to


climb." 
"Yeah, I never saw a nicer looking rock," Nasal-voice said sourly. "We've got
to climb it, too. I'm not trying any point-landings with jets. Get on up there
then, before I boot you up!" 


There were sounds of scrambling. 
"Don't you move now!" Peer said suddenly. 
"What are you talking about?" demanded Nasal-voice. 
"Durn rock come loose," muttered Peer. "Near flung me off!" 
But Channok, meanwhile, had got the idea and settled back. It was not yet the


Right Moment . . . 
There were more scrambling sounds and some breathless swearing from Ezeff, who


obviously had not spent his formative years in asteroid-hopping either. But at
last all become quiet. 
"And here we are!" Peer's voice floated down clearly. A small chunk of rock


dropped right in front of the burrow's entrance, like a punctuation mark. 
"Sit still, blast you!" said Nasal-voice, badly out of breath. 
A large, dim shadow swept silently over the ground before the ghoul's burrow


just then. That would be the launch, going towards the Mound. A prolonged
silence overhead confirmed the impression. 
"They want to give Flauval a surprise?" Peer inquired meekly at last. 
Rather startlingly, Nasal-voice laughed. 


"They sure do," he agreed. "That's a good one! Yes, sir, they sure do." 
"Flauval's nice, don't you think?" continued Peer conversationally, picking up
courage. 



"Depends a lot on how you look at it," Nasal-voice said dreamily. "She's a
real pretty thing anyhow, that Flauval. Luck of the devil she's had, too. But
it's got to run out sometime." 


There was another silence. Then Peer remarked: 


"Boy, he set that launch down nice! Right quick spang on top of the -- what
the big guy said it was. On the Mound." 


"We've got a good pilot," Nasal-voice agreed. "Flauval's going to get her
surprise in just a minute now." 


"And there they come out of the launch," continued Peer. "One, two, three,
four. All four of them. Marching right down into the Mound." 


"You've got sharp eyes," Nasal-voice acknowledged. "But that's funny!" he
continued worriedly. "One of them was to stay with the guns." 


"And now look at the launch!" cried Peer in a high, bright voice. "Getting
pulled right into the Mound!" 


Nasal-voice was making loud, choking sounds. 


"What was that?" he screamed then. "What's happened? What's that over there?" 


"Let go my arm!" cried Peer. "Don't pull it -- you're pushing me off! Here we
go!"
* * * 


A small avalanche of weathered rock came down before the burrow's mouth as 
Channok shot out through it into the open. He looked up. In what looked like
an inextricable tangle of arms and legs, Peer and Nasal-voice were sliding and
scuffling down the steep side of the rock together. Nasal-voice was trying to
hang on to the rock, but Peer was hanging on to him and jerking like a hooked
fish whenever he got a momentary hold. 


She looked down and saw Channok, put her boots into the small of Nasal-voice's
back, pushed off and landed two yards from Channok on hands and feet. He
flattened himself back against the boulder, while Nasal-voice skidded down the
rest of the way unaided, wisely refraining from triggering his jets. In the
position he was in, they simply would have accelerated his descent to a fatal
degree. 


He arrived more or less on his feet. Peer bounced up and down before him, her
finger pointed, like a small lunatic. 


"Surprise!" she screamed. "Surprise! Like Flauval got! When you locked her in
her cabin and ran off with the launch, so she'd have to jump out into space!" 


"That's right, kid," Nasal-voice panted softly, fumbling for his gun without
taking his eyes off her. He looked somewhat like a white-faced lunatic himself
just then. "Don't get scared, kid! Don't run off! I won't shoot." 


He pulled the gun out suddenly. 


But Channok had taken two soft steps forward by then, and he had only to
swing. The Reaper was clubbed in his right hand, and he brought the butt end 



down on the top of Nasal-voice Ezeff's skull-tight flying cap as if he were
trying to ram a stake through the surface rock of Old Nameless.
* * * 


"What happened over there on the, Mound?" he inquired, in a voice that kept
wanting to quaver. He was hurriedly pulling on Nasal-voice's flight suit 


"Here's his goggles," said Peer, also shakily. "Tell you tonight about the
Mound. But Santis was right!" 


"That's what it sounded like," Channok admitted. He slipped on the goggles.
"Do I look like this Ezeff now?" 


"Not very much," Peer said doubtfully. "You still got that nose and that jaw.
Better hold me close up to your face! I'll put on a good act." 


"All right. As soon as I set you down in the lock, jump past the guard and
yell, or something. If he looks after you, we mightn't have to kill this one."
He held out his arms. "Hop up! We'd better get started before those last two
on the Ra-Twelve decide to come over." 


Peer hopped up. Channok wrapped his right arm carefully around her. They
looked at each other thoughtfully for a moment. 


"All set?" he asked. 


"Sure," said crew-member Peer. She smiled faintly. 


He triggered the jets with his left hand, and they shot upwards. Peer drew a
deep breath. 


"Quit bossing me around all the time, you big lug!" she yelled suddenly. She
reached up for that nose and gave it a good yank. 


"All right," Channok muttered, startled. "You don't have to be so realistic!
He can't even see us yet." 


"Just because you're bigger'n me!" shrieked Peer, as they soared over the top
of the rocks into view of the Asteroid's lock. She hooked a smart right to
Channok's left ear. 


"Cut that out now, Peer," he ordered futilely. 


He was lightly battered all around by the time they reached the Asteroid's
lock, though the act did get them in safely. But then -- whether it was the
nose or the jaw -- the instant he dropped Peer to her feet, the guard stopped
laughing and brought a gun out and up, faster than Channok ever had seen a man
produce one before. However, the Reaper had been ready in his hand all the
time; so, with a safe fraction of a second to spare, it talked first -


The glare of the discharge seemed about fifty times brighter than normal. 


"Hit the floor, Channy!" he heard Peer's shout. 


He hit it without thought, dropping over the dead guard's legs. 


Sound rammed at him enormously, roared on and began banging itself about and 



away among distant mountains. The Asteroid's floor had surged up ponderously,
settled back, quivered a bit and become stable again. 


"An earthquake," Channok muttered, sitting up dazedly, "was exactly all we
needed right now!" 


"That wasn't any earthquake!" said Peer, standing pale-faced above him. "Get
up and look!"
* * * 


Long veils of stuff, presumably solid chunks of mountain, were drifting down
the distant, towering face of the cliff at the foot of which they had buried
the Ra-Twelve. Rising to meet them, its source concealed beyond the horizon of
the plain, was the slow, grey cloud of some super-explosion. 


"I guess," he said slowly, "one of those two must have got curious about
Koyle's wall-safe!" 


"We were pretty smart about that," nodded Peer. 


"We were, for once!" Channok agreed. He was looking around for something to
sit down on quietly when he caught sight of the dead guard again. He started
violently. 


"Almost forgot about him! I guess now I'll have to bury him, and that Ezeff,
the first thing. Maybe this one is carrying something that will show who they
were." 


He found something almost instantly and he was glad then that Peer was still
watching the oily writhings of the cloud across the plain. It was in a flat
steel case he took out of one of the dead man's pockets: the identification
disk of a member of the Imperial Secret Service -


The Service! 


And they would have murdered us, he thought, shocked. They were going to do
it! 


He turned the guard over on his back. A big muscular young man with a look of
sudden purpose and confidence still fixed on his face. It was the same face as
the one on the disk. 


Channok put the disk back in its case and shoved the case into the dead man's
pocket. He stood up, feeling rather sick. Peer turned around from the lock and
regarded him reflectively for a moment. 


"You know, Channy," she stated carefully, "if you can't help it, it doesn't
count." 


He looked back at her. "I guess not," he said -- and suddenly, for a moment,
he could see four men marching one after the other down into the Mound. "Of
course, it doesn't count!" he told her firmly. 



They worked hard at shifting the cargo into the cache, but the Nameless Sunwas beginning to slide down behind the mountains before they were finished.
And by the time Channok had rammed the tunnel full of rocks with the tractorand cemented them into a glassy plug with the drill-blast, and scattered acamouflaging mess of boulders over everything, only a foggy red glow over themountain crests, half obscured by the lingering upper drifts of the explosionof the Ra-Twelve, remained of the day. 

There was no moon, but the sky had come full of stars big and little over theopposite section of the plain; and so there was light enough to make out thedark bump of the Mound in the distance. Every time Channok looked in thatdirection, the low, sinister pile seemed to have edged a little closer; and helooked as often as his work gave him a chance to do it. Santis might have beenright in stating that the Mound wasn't dangerous if you didn't get too closeto it -- but the instant he suspected there might be something going on overthere, Channok was going to hop off the tractor, grab up Peer and get off OldNameless at the best speed he and the Asteroid could produce. 

However, the Mound remained quiet. With everything done, he gave Peer a lastride back to the Asteroid on the tractor, ran it up the ramp into the storagesection and closed the rear lock. Then they discovered they'd left their lunchcontainers lying among the rocks. 

If he'd been alone, Channok would have left them there. But Peer looked somatter-of-fact about it that he detached the tractor's headlight and startedback with her on foot. It was only a couple of hundred yards, and they foundthe containers without any difficulty. The Mound seemed to have moved a littlecloser again, but not too much. He gave it only a casual glance this time. 

"Where are your friends, the ghouls?" he inquired, shining the light aroundthe rocks as they started back. The grisly creatures had put in a few cautiousappearances during the afternoon, but their nerves seemed to have sufferedeven more than his own from all that had happened. 

"The ghouls always hit their burrows at sundown," Peer explained. "They're notlike the story ones." 

"What do they find to eat around here?" Channok inquired. 

"Some sorts of rocks. They've got no real teeth but their mouth is like agrinder inside. Most of the rest of their insides, too, Santis said. I had atame one I used to pitch stones at and he'd snap 'em up. But all that weren'tblue he'd spit out. The blue ones went right down -- you could hear themcrunching for about a foot." 

"What a diet!" Channok commented. Then he stopped short. "Say, Peer! If theybite like that, they could chew right into our cache!" 

"They won't," said Peer. "Come on." 

"How do you know?" Channok asked, following her. 

"They can't bite through a good grade of steel-alloy. And they don't like its 


taste anyhow. Santis said so."
* * * 

Well, it had been Santis this and Santis that for quite a while now! Peer'sfather seemed to be on record with a definite opinion on just abouteverything. And what made him think he knew what a ghoul liked to chew on? 

Perhaps Channok couldn't be blamed too much. He was dog-tired and dirty andhungry. He'd killed his first two men that day, and not in fair fight eitherbut with an assassin's sneak thrusts, from behind and by trickery; and he'dburied them, too. He'd seen the shining ISS disclose itself in action assomething very tarnished and ugly, and a salvaged ship worth a fortune go upin a cloud of writhing grey smoke . . . 

There had been a number of other things -- close shaves that had felt tooclose, mostly. 

At any rate, Channok stated, in flat unequivocal terms, that he didn't wish tohear anything else that Santis had said. Not ever! 

"You're taking the wrong attitude," Peer informed him, frowning. "Santis is avery smart man. He could teach you a lot!" 

"What makes you think I want to learn anything from a space-rat?" Channokinquired, exasperated. 

Peer stopped short. "That was a dirty thing to say!" she said in a low,
furious voice. "I'm not talking to you any more." 

She drew away till there was a space of about six feet between them andmarched on briskly towards the Asteroid, looking straight ahead. 

Channok had to hurry to keep abreast of her. He watched her in the starlightfor a few moments from the corners of his eyes. He probably shouldn't haveused that term -- the half-pint did look good and mad! 

"Tsk! Tsk!" he said, disturbed. 

Peer said nothing. She walked a bit faster. Channok lengthened his strideagain. 

"Who's my nice little girl friend?" he inquired wheedlingly. 

"Shuddup," growled Peer. 

She climbed into the Asteroid ahead of him and disappeared while he sealed thelocks. The control room was dark, but he felt she was around somewhere. Heswitched on the power and the instruments. Familiar dim pools of green andpink gleamings sprang up in quick sequence like witchfire quivering over thecontrol desk. Perhaps it wasn't an exceptionally beautiful sight, but itlooked homelike to Channok. Like fires lighting up on a hearth. 

"Well, let's see you handle this take-off," he invited the shadows around himbriskly. This time there weren't any mountains nearby to worry about. 

"You handle it," Peer said from behind his shoulder. "It's my turn to laugh." 


She did, too, a few minutes later -- loud and long. After he'd got over the
first shock of narrowly missing the Mound, Channok gave a convincing imitation
of a chagrined pilot and indignantly blamed the Asteroid . . . 
* * * 


He'd guided them halfway out of the Nameless System when she came behind the
control chair in the dark, wrapped her arms in a stranglehold around his neck,
and fondly bit his ear. 


"Cut it out," Channok choked. 


"Just the same," stated Peer, loosening her grip a trifle, "you're not so
smart, like Santis is." 
"I'm not, eh?" 
"No," said Peer. "But Santis said you would be some time. 'That Channok's


going to make a real spacer,' he said. 'Just give him a chance to catch on.' " 
"Well," Channok muttered, secretly flattered, "we'll hope he was right." 
"And, anyway," said Peer, "I LOVE you just as much!" 
"Well, that's something, too," Channok admitted. He was beginning to feel very


much better. 
"And guess what I've got here," Peer said tenderly. 
"What?" 
"A nice, soapy cloth. For what you said when you saw the first ghoul. So just


open that big trap right up now, Channy!" 


He couldn't tell in the dark; but it tasted like she'd taken the trouble to
mix something extra foul into the soap lather, too. 
"And after you've stopped spitting bubbles," said crew-member Peer, who was


switching on all lights to observe that part of the business, "I'll tell youwhat I saw on the Mound." 

Channok shuddered. 
"If you don't mind, Peer," he suggested soapily, "let's wait with that till
we're a lightyear or two farther out!" 


-Chapter 4 
Caretaker 

"Tell him," said Commander Lowndes' voice, speaking from the great explorationship stationed on the other side of the world, "that we're recording itofficially as Hulman's Planet. I think that might please him." 

Marder hesitated with his reply. Through the viewport of the parked littlescout flier, he looked out at the vast, shadowy valley before him, at green 


and scarlet swamps, at gleaming dark waters threaded through them. A huge,
blue-wooded wave of mountains rose beyond, the setting sun just touching theircrest. In a quarter of an hour, it would be completely dark. His glanceturned, almost reluctantly, to the substantial but incongruous reality ofHulman's house nearby, its upper story and roof mirrored in the tiny swamplake. 

"No, it wouldn't please him," he said. "Boyce suggested it during our firstvisit with Hulman today. He wants us to record it instead as -- I'll spell it-- C-r-e-s-g-y-t-h. Cresgyth. That's his phonetic interpretation of the namegiven it by the people here." 

"Fair enough," Commander Lowndes agreed, "if that's how he wants it." Heinquired whether Marder had anything to add to the present report. 

"Not now," Marder said. "I'll call you back after we've met his woman." 

"His wife," Lowndes corrected him carefully. "I'm glad it happened to be youand Boyce who found Hulman. You're reliable men; you in particular, Marder. Idon't need to emphasize that Hulman's chance discovery of what appears to bethe first genuine human race ever encountered outside of Earth is of primaryimportance. . . ." He continued to emphasize that obvious fact at some length.
"Boyce might be inclined to hurry through the -- ah, diplomatic overtures," heconcluded. "You'll be careful about that part of it, Marder?" 

"Very careful," Marder promised. 

"On the two continents we've scanned so far, we've found no traces of humaninhabitants, present or past. It's possible that Hulman's acquaintances arethe sole survivors of humanity here. If we frighten the tribe into hiding,
there may never be another contact -- and within a hundred years or less, theymay have become extinct." 

"I understand." 

"Fine. Now, then -- what about these other creatures? What did Hulman have tosay about them?" 

"In the twenty years he's been marooned in this valley, he's had only three orfour actual encounters with them -- rather violent encounters, on his side.
Apparently, they learned to avoid him after that. He seems," Marder addedthoughtfully, "to have an almost psychopathic hatred for them." 

"Not very surprising!" Lowndes' tone was reproving, reminding Marder thatHulman had been, for the past forty years, one of the great, legendary namesof stellar exploration. "Deems' scout reports it bagged a couple of specimensa few hours ago and is bringing them in. The description checks with whatHulman gave you -- a wormlike, blue body with a set of arms, legs, and a head.
Out of water, they appear to wear some kind of clothes, presumably to conservebody moisture." 

Marder agreed that it checked. 

"We've found them remarkably elusive otherwise," Lowndes went on. "There seemsto have been a widespread rudimentary civilization along the seas and majorlake coasts -- amphibious cave-builders is what they were originally. But allthe caves we examined have been deserted for centuries, at least, which 


indicates major migratory movements of the species inland. The seas and lakesare almost completely barren of life above the plankton level." 

There had been, according to Hulman, some kind of planetary catastrophe,
Marder said. Hunger had driven the "snakes," as he called them, out of thegreat lake chains of their origin, up into the valley swamp lands and alongthe river courses, forcing the remnants of the mysterious human race ahead ofthem in their slow migration and gradually reducing the human living area.
Hulman had killed six of the bluish, wormlike creatures in this section of thevalley, in the first few years after he had crashed on the planet; after that,
they had ceased to show up here. But, until now, he had been unable to givethe humans more effective help. 

After Lowndes cut contact, Marder remained sitting in the scout for a time,
gazing out at the vast, darkening valley with troubled, puzzled eyes. Fortwenty-two years after the destruction of his ship, Hulman had lived here,
separated from the humanity of his origin by an enormity of light-years, bythe black abyss of space, but in the company of a woman who was of an alien,
dying race. 

"My wife!" Hulman had said, not defiantly but proudly, in speaking of her. "Icalled her Celia from the start, and she liked the name." 

Hidden somewhere in the shadowed swamps, the woman he'd called Celia waswatching Hulman's great log house until she could overcome her timidity of thevisitors from space. 

"She'll show up some time during the night," Hulman had laughed. "I'm leavingthe doors open for her. I'll talk to her a little first, to reassure her, andyou can meet her then. Meanwhile, why don't you have a look at her picture." 

Years ago, as a boy, Marder had first seen Hulman's early paintings of theouter worlds and, like countless thousands of others before and since, he hadfelt his imagination swell and grow wide with the cosmic grandeur of Hulman'svision of universal life. In the fifty or so paintings he had seen in the loghouse that day, the great sweep of space had dwindled to something apparentlymuch more commonplace. Hulman's imagination seemed to have shrunk tocorrespond to the physical limitations of the valley that confined him.
However, he had retained a characteristic and extraordinary precision oflifelike detail, particularly in regard to the human beings he had found here. 

They were beautiful creatures; but the paintings aroused a revulsion inMarder, in which he recognized a vague flavouring of terror. In the onepainting Hulman showed them of the woman Celia, that effect was particularlypronounced. Marder found it difficult to explain to himself. Boyce seemedinsensitive to it, and there was nothing in Hulman's words or attitude toprovide additional clues. 

Re-entering the house, Marder glanced back with more than a trace ofuneasiness at the swamp from the doors Hulman had left open. After twentyyears, Hulman should know whether danger threatened him from there; but for avisitor on a strange world, "it" and "they" were always present in the unknowndark outside -- fears that usually were imaginary, but sometimes were not. 

Marder smiled a little grimly at his own present apprehensions and went in. 

He found Hulman and Boyce in a cavernous cellar level beneath the house 


itself. It was well lit and showed familiar and reassuring features: powerplants, storage rooms, even a hydroponic garden. The two men stood beside theopening of a deep fresh-water well, twenty feet across, which took up the leftside of the main cellar hall. 

"Sixty feet down, it's ten degrees Celsius," Hulman was stating, with adisarming houseowner's pride. He was a big man, rather heavy now, with asquare-cut brown beard that showed only a few traces of grey. "I got the ideafrom Celia's people. Swamp water's none too healthy here at various seasons,
but the well taps an underground river that's as pure as you could wish -- "
He caught sight of Marder. "Any news?" His face had become suddenly anxious. 

"They're going to wait over there with the ship," Marder said, "a week ormore, if required. We're to follow your judgment in every way in establishingcontact with the Cresgythians." 

"Good!" Hulman was obviously relieved. "We can't do anything till Celia comesin -- and we'll have to be very tactful then. But I'm sure it won't take aweek." 

"What makes them so shy of us?" Boyce inquired. A shadow passed over Hulman'sface. "It's not you," he said. "It's me . . . Or it's an impression I gavethem of the Earth kind of human beings." 

Back upstairs, with the three of them settled comfortably in the big living-
room, he explained. He'd given Boyce and Marder a room together on the topfloor of the house, across a small hall from his own room and that of hiswife. 

"I've never asked Celia much about her people," he said. "There's some kind ofvery strong taboo that keeps her from talking about them. When I tried topress her for details at first, it was almost as if I were committing somesort of gross indecency. But I do know they hate violence, insanity -anything 
unbeautiful! And, you see . . ." 

When his ship crashed into the valley, he was the only man left alive on herout of the original crew of four. "Banning went insane two days before thatand killed Nichols and Dawson," he said, his face drawn and taut, rememberingit again over a period of twenty-two years. He paused. "And so I killedBanning before he could wreck the ship completely." He looked from one to theother of them. "It was unavoidable. But they never understood that, thesepeople of Celia's." 

"How did they find out?" Marder stirred uncomfortably. 

Hulman shrugged. "I was unconscious for about a month and completely blind forsix months afterward. They got me out of the wreck and nursed me back to life,
but as soon as I was out of danger, only Celia would stay with me. She and Iwere alone for weeks before I regained my sight. How did they find out?
They're sensitive in a number of ways. And there were those bodies in theship. They -- withdrew from me," he said with a grimace, "as soon as I nolonger needed their help." 

"Then in all this time," Marder said slowly, "you never were able to gaintheir confidence?" 

Hulman stared at him a moment, apparently weighing the words. "It's not a 


question of confidence," he said finally. "It's a question of -- well, I'mtrying to tell you! I didn't mind being alone with Celia." He grinnedsuddenly, almost boyishly. "The others stayed in a small lake village they hada couple of miles up the valley, across the swamps. Celia went up there everyfew days, but she never brought anyone back with her. I suspected it wassimply because I was an alien. I thought they'd get over that in time. Celiaseemed happy enough, so it wasn't a very acute problem -- " 

He paused a few seconds, frowning. "One day, when she'd slipped away again, Iremembered a pair of field glasses I'd taken off the ship, and I got them andtrained them on the village. That was a very curious experience -- I neverhave found a complete explanation for it. For just one instant, I hadeverything in the clearest possible focus. There were children playing on theplatforms above the water; a few adults standing in the doorway of a house.
And, suddenly, everything blurred!" Hulman gave a short hacking laugh. "Canyou imagine that? They didn't want me to look at them, so they just blurred myvision!" 

"Eh?" Boyce was frowning. 

Marder sat still, startled, feeling the uneasiness growing up in him again. 

Hulman smiled crookedly. "That's all I can tell you. The glasses had a four-
mile range and they were functioning perfectly, but the instant I turned themon the village, the field blurred. I'd never felt so wholeheartedly -- andsuccessfully -- snubbed before." 

Boyce laughed uncomfortably and glanced at Marder. He was still more than alittle in awe of Hulman, of the shining legend miraculously resurrected fromthe black tomb of space; but he, too, Marder decided, had the vague sense ofsomething disturbing and out of order here. Well, so much the better. Therewould be two of them to look out for trouble, if trouble came. 

"I'll admit the trick annoyed me," Hulman said, "as soon as I'd got over myfirst surprise at it. Next day, I announced to Celia that I was going over tothe village. She made no objection, but she followed me at a distance -probably 
to make sure I didn't drown on the way. It's wet going around here.
At last I came over a rise and found myself a hundred yards from the village,
on the land side. Almost immediately, I realized they had abandoned it. Iwalked around it a while and found cooking fires still glowing; but nobody hadwaited to receive me. So I went home, insulted and very sulky -- I wouldn'teven talk to Celia until the next morning!" 

He laughed. "I got over that in a hurry. And then I settled down to buildingus a house of our own, much bigger and better than anything they had in thevillage; and that took up all my time for several months. For that wholeperiod, I ignored our neighbours quite as thoroughly as they had ignored me." 

He grinned at his guests a little shamefacedly. "But you know, I couldn't keepit up then. There was something so curiously happy and peaceful about them,
even if they were giving me the cold shoulder. And the one good look I'd hadof them had showed me they were physically the most beautiful people I'd everseen. One day, when Celia was gone, I made another trip to the village -- withexactly the same results as the first one. So I decided to look around for aless exclusive neighbourhood. 

"I'd got the little flier of my ship repaired enough to take it off the ground 


and set it down again; and I calculated I'd salvaged enough fuel for at leastone twenty-four-hour trip. Celia watched me take off. I flew high over thevillage and could see them down there, ignoring me as usual. Then I flew downthe valley for almost fifty miles before I came across the first colony of theother ones -- the snakes!" 

Marder remembered something Lowndes had said. "Do the snakes live in caves?" 

"No," Hulman said distastefully. "That's what fooled me. It was a village ofsnake houses set into the head of a little lake, almost like the one here. Iset down on the lake, coasted up to the village, climbed up a ladder, and sawthem!" 

He shuddered. "They just stood there, very quietly, watching me from the doorsand windows. What made it worse somehow. was that they wore clothes -- but theclothes didn't cover enough. Those weaving, soft, blue bodies and staringeyes! I backed off down the ladder, with my gun ready, in case they rushed me;
but they never moved . . ." 

He had found eight more colonies of the snakes farther down the valley, but notrace of another tribe of his beautiful humanoids. He flew up the valley then,
high up into the mountains, almost exhausting his fuel; and beside a glacier-
fed mountain lake was a tiny stake village, built into the water. And theywere snakes again. 

"At the time, I didn't know just what to make of it. There was the possibilitythat my village represented an advance troop of human beings into a land ofsnakes. But I suspected -- I felt even then, that it was the other way around;
that it was the snakes that were encroaching on the humans. So I swore tomyself that as long as I lived, at least, human beings were going to hold thissection of the valley undisturbed and in safety. 

"When I came back, I said to Celia -- she was standing at the same spot I'dseen her last, as if she'd never left it -- 'Celia, I must speak to yourpeople. Go tell them I will come again tomorrow and that they must not runaway.' She looked at me silently for a long time, and then she turned and leftin the direction of the village. She came back late at night and crept into myarms and said, 'They have promised to wait for you.' 

"I set out next morning, full of great plans. The snakes lived in widelyscattered settlements, after all. The villagers and I could wipe out thosesettlements one by one, until we'd cleared the land about us. That was thenatural solution, wasn't it? I didn't realize then how different, in someways, Celia's people were from us!" 

Boyce asked uneasily, "What happened?" 

"What happened?" Hulman repeated. "Well, I came over that rise, and there thevillage was. This time I knew they'd stayed at home! Then, not twenty feet offmy path, I saw two of the snakes standing in the bushes, one watching me, theother looking at the village. Each had a kind of chunky crossbow over hisshoulders; and they couldn't be seen from the village . . ." 

He paused and shook his head. "So I shot them both down, before they got overtheir surprise. That was all." He looked from one to the other again. "It wasthe natural thing to do, wasn't it?" 


Boyce nodded uncertainly. Marder said nothing. 

Hulman leaned forward. "But apparently, from the point of view of thevillagers, it wasn't! Because when I was done with the snakes -- one of themtook three shots before it would lie still -- the village was empty again.
When I got back home, I was actually sick with disappointment. And then Idiscovered that Celia was gone." 

"That was a bad three days. But she came back then. And on the morning shecame back, I discovered they'd broken up the village overnight and moved on. Ithink they're not more than ten or twenty miles distant from here, but I nevertried to look them up again." 

Boyce said puzzled, "But I don't see -- " 

"Neither did I," Hulman interrupted, "until it was too late." He gave hisshort bark of laughter again; there was, Marder realized, a sort of suppressedfury in it. "They won't kill their enemies -- they're too polite for that! Sotheir enemies are gradually squeezing them out of existence." 

The three men studied each other in silence for a moment. Then Marder asked 
slowly, "Captain Hulman, what do you expect us to do in this situation?" 

"Kill the snakes!" Hulman said promptly. "As many as we can find. If the humanbeings of this world won't defend themselves we'll have to defend them. Aslong as I've been here, no party of snakes has come past this point of thevalley. A few of them have tried!" His eyes glittered with open hatred. "But Ican't be on guard here forever. It's up to you and the other men on the shipto do the job right!"
* * * 

Though Boyce was sleeping uneasily, Marder hadn't yet shut his eyes. Theuneasiness was in him, too; and in him it was strong enough to offset thefatigue and excitement of the day. Vague night sounds came into the room theyshared, a plaintive, thin calling like the distant cry of a bird. Not toodifferent from the sounds on many other worlds he had known, and, as on allworlds that were new and strange, faintly tinged with the menace that waslargely in the imagination. 

But it was Hulman himself who was the principal cause of Marder's uneasiness. 

The face of the explorer, the rumbling, angry voice, his monomaniacal devotionto the strange humanoids kept recurring in his mind. Nothing Hulman had donepreviously to stimulate the imagination of Earthmen toward the laboriousexploration of space could equal this final accidental achievement: to haveencountered the first other human beings Earthmen had yet discovered in theUniverse. Men had looked out from their world like children staring into agreat, dark, forbidding room. They had found space to be peopled sparsely withintelligent life -- life that was sometimes horrible, sometimes merely odd,
sometimes beautiful in weird, incomprehensible ways. But never enough like Manto be acceptable! 

Hulman's fierce insistence on protecting what seemed to be the dying remnantsof a human race against its own wishes was something Marder could understandwell enough. He did not doubt that Boyce and the others would respondwholeheartedly to that insistence. Here was the proof that human life couldrise spontaneously and endlessly throughout all the galaxies, that the 


Universe was not a darkened room, after all, but one lighted forever by thefires of humanity. 

They had to protect that proof . . . 

Strangely enough, though Boyce was asleep and he awake, it was Boyce who firstseemed aware of motion in the house. Marder heard him breathe and stir 
unquietly, and then come awake and grow still, listening, waiting. He smiledfaintly at the familiar signs, the tense alertness, the silent questioning ofthe strange world about them: "What is it? Who moves?" On many other strange,
dark worlds, he had been among Earthmen as they came awake, asking thatquestion. And he with them. . . . 

He grew aware of it then: there was motion in the house now, beyond the walls.
Gradually, it resolved itself into slow, heavy steps on the carpeted flooring;
and the picture of Hulman leaving his room to peer down the stairs came soconvincingly into his mind that at once he relaxed again. And he was awarethat Boyce was relaxing too. 

Neither of them spoke. After a time, Hulman went back to his room, walkingcarefully so as not to disturb his guests; and the house was still. Presently,
Boyce was sleeping again. Marder tried to pick up the train of thoughts he hadbeen following before the disturbance; but they eluded him now. Fatigue grewup in him like waves of mental darkness, smothering the remnants ofuneasiness; and reluctantly he let himself drift off.
* * * 

The blast that roused him seemed to have gone off almost beside his head. 

He found himself standing in the centre of the room, gun in one hand,
flashbeam in the other. Boyce's wide back was just disappearing through thedoor into the dark hall beyond; and Boyce's shout was in his ears: 

"Hulman! They've got Hulman!" 

Marder halted a fraction of a second, checked by the ridiculous hesitation ofa man who doesn't want to go out into a strange house undressed; then he wasfollowing Boyce. As he plunged down the broad staircase to the lower floor ofHulman's house, a memory flashed into his mind: the guns that Hulman, cut offfrom standard power sources, had manufactured for himself here and shown themearlier in the evening. It had been the report of a missile gun that hadawakened him; one of Hulman's own. 

He lost Boyce's light for a moment when he reached the lower floor, and stoodin indecision until he heard a muffled shouting to his left and remembered thedescent into the cellars. As he reached the door, there was another angryshout from Boyce, and a blaze of pink light from below. Boyce had cut loosewith his gun, so he was in contact with the intruders; and things would haveto be finished very quickly now -- a thermion spray was not designed to be anindoor weapon! 

Marder reached the bottom of the cellar stairs seconds later. 

A hedge of flame to their right, steady, impenetrable and soundless, slantedfrom the wall half around the great well. It cut them off from furtheradvance; presumably it had cornered their antagonists. 


Boyce, dressed in nightshorts, turned a furiously contorted face to him. 

"One of them ducked around the corner over there; it can't get out. It wascarrying Hulman!" 

"Where is Hulman?" 

"Over there -- dead!" 

Marder squinted against the reflected glare of the fire. Something dark layhunched against the wall beyond the well; that was all he could make out. 

"Sure he's dead?" His voice carefully matter-of-fact. 

"Of course!" Boyce said beside him. The hand that held the gun was shaking.
"When it dropped him -- when I snapped a bolt at it -- I saw he'd been shotthrough the head with his own gun!" 

"The natives?" Marder asked, still carefully. 

"No. Something -- those snakes he was afraid of -- some animal. It whippedaround the corner before I saw it very clearly -- " 

His voice had gone dull. Marder glanced at him quickly. Boyce was in a stateof semi-shock, and they had only a few minutes before the fire ate far enoughinto the walls to threaten their retreat upstairs and out of the house. He hadno personal qualms about leaving Hulman's body and Hulman's slayers to roasttogether -- the coincidence of murder on that particular night was somethingone could figure out more conveniently later -- but Boyce might present aproblem. 

A voice addressed them from out of a passage beyond the well. 

"You who were his friends," it said, "will you listen to me?" Marder felt hisscalp crawling. "Who are you?" he called back. 

"He called me his wife." 

Boyce started violently, but Marder waved him to silence. It was a rich,
feminine voice, a trifle plaintive; it was not difficult to fit it mentally tothe painting of Hulman's wife. 

"Why did you kill him?" There was a pause. 

"But I thought you understood," the voice said. "Your medical men would saythat he had been insane for twenty years, as he counted time. They would haveforced him back into sanity. I could not bear the thought that he shouldsuffer that." 

Marder swallowed hard. "Suffer what?" 

"Are you all fools? He was a fool, though I loved him. He could not see behindthe shape of things. So -- here among us -- he saw shapes he could bear tosee. In those moments when sanity came to him and he really saw what was there-- then he killed. Are you all like that?" 

Boyce stared at Marder, his mouth working. "What is she talking about?" he 


whispered hoarsely. "Is the snake with her?" 
"Go upstairs, Boyce! Wait for me outside!" 
"Are you going to kill the snake?" 
"Yes, I'll kill the snake." 
Boyce disappeared up the stairs. 
"The house is burning, but there is some time left," Marder told the voice


then. "Is there any way you can save yourself?" 


"I can leave by the river that flows under the well," the voice said, "if you
do not shoot at me." 
"I won't shoot at you." 
"May I take his body?" 
Marder hesitated. "Yes." 
"And you will all leave with your ship? I loved him, though my people thought


it strange almost beyond their tolerance. They are foolish, too, yet not as
foolish as you are. They saw what was in his mind and not beyond that, and so
they were afraid of him. But he is dead now and there is nothing that your
people and mine could share. We are too different. Will you leave?" 


Marder moistened his lips. "We'll leave," he said, seeing it all now, and glad
he had sent Boyce upstairs. "What did you see beyond what was in his mind?" 


"A brave spirit, though very frightened," the voice said slowly. 
"He ventured far and far and far into the dark of which he was afraid. I loved 
him for that!" It paused. "I am coming now," it added, "and I think you had
better look away." 


Marder did not intend to look away, but at the last moment, when there was
movement at the corner of the passage, he did. He saw only a swift undulating
shadow pass along the wall, pause and stoop quickly, rise again with a bulky
burden clasped to it, glide on and vanish. 


He stood staring at the blank wall until there was a faint splash in the well
far below him. 
* * * 


The great ship was drifting slowly above the night side of the world it was


leaving, when Commander Lowndes joined Marder at the observation port. 
"Boyce will make out all right," he said moodily. "He only guessed part of the
truth, and that bit is being taken from his mind." He studied Marder
thoughtfully. "If you'd looked squarely at the thing, we might have had to
give you the same treatment. Our pickled specimens are pretty damned hideous." 


Marder shrugged. Lowndes sat on the edge of a table. 
"Selective hysterical blindness maintained for twenty-two years -- with his 



own type of artistic hallucinations thrown in! I can't help wishing it hadn'thappened to Hulman." 

"He didn't maintain it throughout," Marder said slowly. "And whenever he sawthem clearly, he killed them . . ." 

"Who wouldn't? I almost feel," Lowndes said, "like getting out of space andstaying out, for good!" 

Which was giving it the ultimate in emphasis. 

"What are you reporting?" Marder asked. 

"That Hulman died here, quite peacefully, about a year before we found him -leaving 
a diary of inspiring courage and devotion to space exploration behindhim. We'll have time enough to work up the diary. That should keep everybodyhappy. Marder," he said suddenly, waving his hand at the observation port, "doyou think there actually are -- well, people out there. Somewhere?" 

Marder looked out at the vast, star-studded, shining black immensity. 

"I hope so," he said. 

"Do you think we'll ever find them?" 

"I don't know," Marder said thoughtfully. "They've never found us." 

-Chapter 5 
One Step Ahead 

PROGRAMMED CORPS LEAVING RIDZIN! 

So the newscast machines roared that morning. Many added grimly: SKANDER WARIMMINENT! 

To well-informed citizens of Ridzin it came as no surprise. For fifteen years,
the Programmed Corps, the mightiest war-machine ever known, had beendeveloping on their world, lending Ridzin a significance unique in theTerrestrial League. Second-rate in most respects, Ridzin had been a logicalbase for the formation of the Corps. No one doubted that the League CentralGovernment on Great Xal would have preferred the Corps to be assembled underits immediate supervision. But the jealousy of other powerful League worldsmade it impossible -- the Corps simply would not have come into being as ajoint effort of the League if Great Xal had insisted on the point. On theother hand, the central government wouldn't have permitted its establishmenton worlds like Hannaret or Lorcia, for example, worlds not too inferior toGreat Xal in military strength and perennially on the verge of open rebellion.
The Programmed Corps -- its awesome manpower and appalling technical equipmentdrawn from all fourteen League worlds -- must bring about, it was agreed bythose in the know, in one direction or another a decisive shift in the balanceof power in the League. 


As it would also bring about a decisive shift in the balance of power between
the Terrestrial League and that despised, remote, alien race called the
Skanders. That, as all League citizens understood -- having been told it
regularly during the past fifteen years -- was the basic and vital reason for
the Programmed Corps' existence. And because its personnel were conditioned to
absolute unquestioning obedience to whomever knew the commands by which to
direct them, the Corps could be brought into being only on a world like
Ridzin, a world which by no stretch of the imagination could be regarded as a
menace to anyone else. 


And now the Programmed Corps -- completed only after fifteen years of
sustained effort, armed, trained, single-minded, irresistable -- was shipping
out! 
* * * 


"The fellow," visiting Inspector General Mark Treffry of Great Xal remarked in
a tone of absorbed interest, as he peered through a window into the compound
several stories below, "is magnificent!" 


Dexter Monte, Treffry's Technical Advisor, standing a prudent dozen steps
farther back in the room, cleared his throat. 


"You really," the Inspector General went on, "should come over here and watch
him! What incredible reaction speed!" 


"I prefer," Dexter Monte said firmly, "not to expose myself at a window while
a Programmed assassin is in the area. If I might suggest -- " 


Treffry chuckled. 


"Don't you trust your own precautions?" he inquired. "The shields, the fields,
the what-not? They've functioned perfectly so far." 


"So far!" Monte repeated meaningfully. 


Treffry grunted. 


"Thinking of poor Ulbrand, I suppose?" 


"Yes." 


"Ah, well," said Treffry. "Ulbrand was no doubt a rather better than average
Technical Advisor. But let's face it, Monte . . . he simply was not in your
class! I'm not surprised they got him -- whoever it is doesn't want us on
Ridzin." He paused, added smugly, "And we have a pretty fair idea of who that
is, don't we?" 


"Yes," Monte said. 


"Now as for you," Treffry went on, "I have complete confidence in your
devices. That fellow down there is in a trap. But he's certainly handling
himself well while we close it! On the average how many do we lose in these
attacks?" 


"Seventeen-point-two men." 


"Well, our present would-be assassin seems to have accounted for at least two 



dozen by now. And -- good heavens!" Treffry went silent a moment, staring downthrough the window. 

"What's going on?" Dexter Monte inquired in an uneasy tone. 

"I'm sure I don't know!" Treffry told him. "There were some odd glitters ofextremely bright light. Almost like the scintillation of a diamond as you turnit." 

"Ah!" Monte said. "The assassin was near it?" 

"He was near it. He's nowhere now. What was it?" 

Joining Treffry at the window, Monte said in great relief, "An adaptation ofthe Welban Vortex. I wasn't sure it would work on a Programmed mind." 

"It worked," Treffry assured him. He gave the Advisor a sidelong glance fullof admiration. "This is the sixteenth or seventeenth such attack we've 
undergone, isn't it?" 

"The twenty-first," Monte said. 

"And always by Programmed Soldiery. They're unbelievable! I'll trust yourtraps while only one of them is involved. But when the entire Programmed Corpsgoes into action -- " The Inspector General shook his head. 

"Yes," Dexter Monte said slowly. "A fearful thought." 

"Clearly, somebody else -- somebody not at all authorized -- knows at least afew of the key commands to their minds," Treffry said. "Well, we'll be rid ofthese problems soon enough. When is the first carrier scheduled to lift?" 

Dexter Monte glanced at his watch. "In sixteen hours, thirty-two minutes andten seconds." 

He looked at Treffry, added, "If you want to hear Governor Vinocur's officialannouncement of the Programmed Corps' departure from the Planet of Ridzin,
he's about to go on the air." 

"By all means," said Treffry. "I think I'll really enjoy hearing our good andloyal friend Vinocur explain the situation to the public." 

Planetary Governor Frank Vinocur was an old-time politician; while his speech,
to which most of the adult population of Ridzin was tuned that morning, was areview of facts with which his listeners had been familiar for over a dozen 
years, he made them sound like news. There were friction points between theTerrestrial League and the alien Skanders. Though widely separated in space,
they had overlapping spheres of influence -- overlapping only slightly so far;
but the situation was bound to become more serious as time went on. Unlike 
other spacefaring aliens men had encountered, the Skanders did not prudentlywithdraw when confronted by the mighty race of Terra -- had, in fact, beenknown on occasion to attack first. They were savage and treacherous enemies,
and showed, in addition, repulsively amebic physical characteristics. 

Space, Governor Vinocur declared, was not large enough for the TerrestrialLeague and such as the Skanders! An eventual showdown with the creatures wasinevitable . . . and, as all knew, it was for this showdown that the 


Programmed Corps had been created. Ridzin could proudly say in this hour ofparting that it had earned its place in history as the home of the Corps. Bythe wise planning of the Central Government on Great Xal, the time to strikeat the Skander vermin -- strike first, strike hard! -- had arrived. TheProgrammed Corps was prepared . . . and victory was certain! 

The speech went over well -- since Ridzin clearly would be remote from thebattle zones. Throughout the day patriotic anti-Skander fervors grew in thepopulation, reaching a high pitch when Governor Vinocur's press attaches letit become known that at the official leave-taking banquet that evening theGovernor would be publicly appointed a Programmed Corps General by theInspector General from Great Xal, Mark Treffry, who had been on Ridzin for thepast year to arrange for the Corps' transfer. And when the last of theautomatic transspace carriers lifted from the planet during the night hours,
General Frank Vinocur would leave with it in the company of the InspectorGeneral, to represent Ridzin and its people at the front in this stirringperiod of history. 

That afternoon cheering crowds lined the routes along which the ProgrammedCorps convoys rolled toward the planet's three Transspace Stations. Theysurrounded the stations themselves where giant carriers, all bearing theinsignia of Great Xal, lay in dense rows like vast steel sausages. Into themmarched the Programmed Corps. Eighteen thousand men with full equipment wereassigned to each carrier; the men would lie in rigid, frozen sleep during thelong spaceflight to Great Xal. One by one, the carriers were loaded and closedtheir locks . . . 

Some of Ridzin's citizens, noting that only the central government appeared tobe involved in the operation, speculated that they might be witnessing adramatic new turn in the Terrestrial League's internal politics. But no publicmention was made of such possibilities and by the time the official banquetbegan the planet was in a festive mood, almost as if the war against theSkanders were already won. Governor Vinocur was duly appointed a General ofthe Programmed Corps while Ridzin followed the event on their tri-di screens;
laudatory speeches were exchanged between him and the Inspector General;
toasts and countertoasts were offered . . . Dexter Monte, the InspectorGeneral's Technical Advisor, created a minor diplomatic flurry when, in fullview of the entire planet, he refused to empty his glass in Ridzin's honor,
explaining that he was not a drinking man, that alcohol had deleteriouseffects on his metabolism. However, he was quickly coaxed into it by MarkTreffry and Governor Vinocur, and thereafter drank dutifully, if sourly, toevery toast proposed.
* * * 

Then the official rituals were over, except for the final scene on the steelloading dock within the maw of the last giant carrier left on the planet,
where Governor Vinocur bade Ridzin farewell. Inspector General Treffry stoodsmiling at his side, Dexter Monte standing a few feet behind the two, belchingevery few seconds and generally showing the effects of having been forced intoparticipating in the toasts. Vinocur spoke briefly into the tri-di cameras,
concluded with a formal salute; then camera crews withdrew, glancing withsilent awe at the huge bulkheads to either side of the dock behind whicheighteen thousand men lay frozen in sleep. As the last of them left thecarrier the loading locks slid shut with a heavy steel boom. The three menstanding on the dock were alone. There was a dim humming in the air as theship computers readied the engines for lift-off and the long flight duringwhich there would be no waking human being to guide them. Treffry looked at 


his watch. 

"Still half an hour," he said. "But we might as well get to our tanks at once.
Feeling any better, Monte?" 

"No," Dexter Monte muttered. "Worse! I'll be more than happy to settle intothat tank. I'm beginning to have some difficulty holding myself together, Ican tell you!" 

Treffry and Vinocur glanced at each other and laughed, more loudly than theremark called for, almost as if each were enjoying a private joke; Monteblinked in brief, bleary surprise at them as he turned to follow them off tothe sleep tanks. 

Five minutes later, Inspector General Mark Treffry heard the sharp click withwhich his sleeping tank sealed itself above him. He switched on the intercomconnecting the three tanks. With no attendants left awake in the carrier, itwas essential that he and his companions monitor one another through the stepsrequired to ensure that they would awaken safely after the trip. GovernorVinocur acknowledged at once, and some seconds later, Dexter Monte alsoreplied. The preparations were carried out, checked, and then Treffry settledback comfortably. He already felt a faint, not unpleasant numbness in legs andarms, which was the anesthetic's first effect. By the time the sleepcoldtouched him, he would not feel anything at all. But his mind was still awakeand active; and the private joke which had made him laugh aloud a short whileago seemed too good now to keep to himself. 

"Vinocur?" he said to the intercom. 

"Yes, Treffry?" Vinocur's voice responded. 

"Before we drop off," Treffry said, "I thought I'd thank you for a highlyenjoyable experience." He could hardly refrain from laughing again. 

"You're referring to your stay on Ridzin?" Vinocur asked politely. "We triedto make it as pleasant as possible, of course." 

"I'm sure you did!" And now Treffry did laugh, huffing and snorting helplesslyfor almost a minute before he was able to stop. He dabbed at his eyes, andsensed that the sleep-heaviness had begun to edge into his hands. 

"Why do you laugh, Treffry?" Vinocur's voice asked. 

That almost set Treffrey off again. But he choked the laughter down. If hekept giving way to it, he would be asleep before he made sure that whateverdreams came to Frank Vinocur during the long trip would not be pleasant ones.
He said, "Let me tell you -- " 

While the Programmed Corps was being forged into a magnificent, automaticallyfunctioning weapon on Ridzin, it became obvious that its completion wasawaited with as much anxiety as eagerness by a number of the worlds of theTerrestrial League. The question, of course, was who in the end would controlit. 

"We didn't try to stop the plotting and bargaining that went on," Treffrysaid. "And we didn't become involved in it. We merely took measures to ensurethat the central government and Great Xal would remain always one step ahead 


of the conspirators." 

"Conspirators?" Vinocur's voice repeated carefully over the intercom. 

"Hannaret and Lorcia from the beginning, naturally!" Treffry told him. "Then,
during the past two years, the governing body of Ridzin. We did ourintelligence work thoroughly. Great Xal held the margin of power, so nothingelse was needed. We could let the thing ripen. 

"My dear fellow, that was what has made the final stages of this game soamusing! The ingenuity! The intricate patterns of deception! War fleets fromLorcia and Hannaret combining suddenly for 'joint maneuvers' in an open threatto Great Xal -- and on Ridzin, in apparent desperation, ineffectual gesturesat sabotage, including a series of attempted assassinations by mysteriouslymalfunctioning Programmed soldiers! They were not intended to succeed, ofcourse; murdering me could not have held up the transfer of the Corps by aday. I imagine poor Ulbrand got killed by accident -- or, more correctly, bythe ineptness of his defenses. 

"And to what end? Why, to divert our attention. Nothing more. To draw us awayfrom the one plan which did, in fact, have a chance to succeed. But that planhas failed, too, Vinocur!" 

Treffry paused a moment. When the intercom remained silent, he went oncomplacently. "The Hannaret warships which were to intercept and halt ourcarriers on their way to Great Xal have been allowed to take up positionmidway on our course. But they will be joined a few days from now by twicetheir number of central government ships. There will be no interception,
Vinocur! 

"And now, with the Programmed Corps to enforce its orders, Great Xal dealsonce and for all with the malcontent worlds! The Terrestrial League will behammered into a unit. That is the corps' only urgent and immediate task. Timeenough later to turn to settling our score with the Skanders. Why we owe thoseobscene aliens some gratitude, as a matter of fact -- if they hadn't been sucha visible threat to the League it would have been impossible to bring theCorps into existence. So now, as I bid you good-night, 'General' Vinocur, Ishall leave it to you to picture for yourself the warm reception awaiting youon Great Xal!" 

There was silence again for a moment. Then Vinocur said, "Treffry?" 

"Yes?" Treffry said, pleased. He had not really expected Vinocur to reply, 

"You omitted mentioning one of our diversion attempts," the intercom told him. 

"I did?" Treffry said. "What was that?" 

"The interception of the carriers, of course. Too many people knew of thatplan. It was almost inevitable that your intelligence would get wind of it." 

Treffry started to speak, checked himself, suddenly chilled. 

"To stay one step ahead in this game," Vinocur's voice told him blandly,
"that, as you've indicated, was the great necessity here. To bedazzle,
mislead, confuse with a variety of elaborate schemes and dodges -- when, allthe time, only some very simple plan, one known to the fewest possible 


planners, could be successful. And that plan has succeeded, Treffry! To this
moment only four men have known about it. You will now be the fifth. 


"The Programmed Corps is not on its way to Great Xal, you see. Instead, the
course of the carriers will take them to transspace stations on Hannaret." 


Impossible, Treffry thought in instant, scornful relief. What was the fellow
attempting to accomplish with such a lie? Only Ulbrand and Monte -


"Ulbrand's death," Vinocur's voice was continuing, "was no accident. He and
Dexter Monte controlled the master programs of the carrier fleet's computers.
We had to get Ulbrand out of the way." 


"Ridiculous!" Treffry realized he had shouted, his voice thick and distorted,
wondered briefly whether it was the anesthetic which made his mouth feel numb
and stiffened now-or fear. "Monte!" he shouted again at the intercom. 


Some seconds passed silently -- as Vinocur, too, waited for Dexter Monte to
respond.
* * * 


"Monte!" Treffry bellowed once more. Slurred, mumbling noises issued from the
speaker then, followed by a heavy belch. 


"I couldn't answer at once," Dexter Monte explained in a weak, complaining
voice. "I had to pull myself together. I don't feel at all well! If you two
hadn't made me swallow those atrocious alcoholic concoctions -- " He muttered 
indistinctly, added, "What is it?" 


"You heard what that fool was saying?" Treffry demanded. 


"You needn't speak so loudly!" Monte protested. "Yes, I heard him." 


"Well?" 


"Oh, I agreed almost a year ago to program the carriers to go to Hannaret when
the time came. Is that what you want to know? It's true enough. They
guaranteed me wealth, power, influence. The usual approach. Including direct
blackmail, I must say! Ulbrand, incidentally, wasn't so stupid. I had to
loosen his defenses to let the assassin get to him." Dexter Monte belched
explosively, groaned in polite dismay. "Excuse me, gentlemen! Your infernal
alcohol . . ." 


Vinocur was laughing now. Treffry's thoughts seemed to whirl in confusion.
Then he remembered something. He snorted. 


"Monte, you're a miserable coward and a monstrous liar!" he stated. "I can
believe they blackmailed you into agreeing to do what they wanted. But you're
safe from them now, so you can give up the pretense! Because of course you
didn't go through with it." 


Vinocur abruptly stopped laughing. "He went through with it," he growled. 


Treffry chuckled. "He couldn't, Vinocur! He simply couldn't! Monte, like every
other key man brought to Ridzin, was put through secret security tests once a
month -- and I supervised that operation -- always. So Monte couldn't have
harbored any real intentions to betray us: No human mind can deceive the 



testing machines . . . eh, Monte?" 

Monte wearily mumbled a sentence or two. 

"What did you say, Monte? Speak up!" 

"I said I agree with you." Dexter Monte's voice was distinct again but quitefaint. He sighed. "No human mind can deceive the testing machines." 

Treffry swallowed with difficulty. The anesthetic definitely was affecting histongue and throat now. "Are you listening, Vinocur?" he demanded. "So theProgrammed Corps isn't going to Hannaret, is it, Monte?" 

"No," Monte said. He added peevishly, "But you gentlemen must excuse me now! Ireally can't keep myself together any longer." 

"Treffry -- " Vinocur's voice had thickened, sounded heavily slurred. 

"Yes?" 

"Ask him -- ask him whether the Programmed Corps is . . . going to Great Xal." 

"What?" 

"We . . . had him on . . . testing machines, too, Treffry!" 

A monstrous thought swam up slowly in Treffry's mind. 

"Monte!" he cried. "Monte!" 

Odd watery whistling noises responded for some seconds from the intercom.
Nothing else. 

Could it be? Could the most awesome weapon ever devised, the irresistableProgrammed Corps, be hurtling now, not toward Great Xal but, out of control,
toward some immensely distant point in space? From which it presently wouldreturn, under new instructions, to wipe out the race which had created it? 

"Monte!" This time, only Treffry's mind formed the word. The sound that camefrom his mouth was a heavy groan -- the cold-sleep process was moving alongits irreversible course. Moaning noises in the intercom indicated Vinocur wasexperiencing similar difficulties. Treffry's thoughts began to swirl in slowand awful confusion, revolving about one fact repeatedly mentioned in thespeeches that day: the Skanders' repulsive amebic quality, their ability toforce themselves out of their basic shape into another of their choosing andto maintain it for an indefinite period . . . 

Perhaps for as long as fifteen or twenty years? Long enough to -


That thought, all thought, faded. The moaning in the intercom went on foralmost another minute. Then it, too, stopped. In a silence which would remainunbroken for many months the great carrier fleet rushed toward itsdestination. 

-Chapter 6 

Left Hand, Right Hand 

JERRY NEWLAND was sitting up on the side of his bunk, frowning at the floor,
when Troy Gordon came quietly into the room and stopped at the entrance towatch him. Not too good, Troy thought after a moment, studying Newland's loosemouth, the slow blinking of the eyes and the slumped immobility of position.
Not too bad either -- not for a man who, in most practical respects, had beendead for the better part of three years and come awake again only the daybefore. 

But the question was whether Newland was going to recover quickly enough nowto be of any use as an ally. 

Troy moved forward a few steps into the room, stopped again as Newland raisedhis head in a sluggish motion to stare at him. For a few seconds, the man'sface remained blank. Then he grinned. A strained, unpleasant-looking grin, buta grin. 

Troy waited. Newland cleared his throat, said, "I . . . I recognized youalmost immediately this time! And . . . I remembered that this same thing hadhappened before." 

Troy grinned, too, guardedly. "My coming into the room this way?" 

Newland nodded. 

"It happened yesterday," Troy said. "What's my name?" 

"Troy Gordon." 

"And yours?" 

"Jerry Franklin Newland." 

"What do you do?" 

"Do? . . . Oh!" Newland drew a deep breath. "I'm courier pilot forthe . . . for the . . ." He stopped, looking first surprised, then dismayed.
Then his face wrinkled up slowly, like that of a child about to cry. 

"That part's gone again, eh?" Troy asked, watching him. 

"Yes. There's some . . . there's . . ." 

"You are -- or you were -- courier pilot for the Cassa Expedition," Troy said.
He thumped his heel on the floor. "That's Cassa One, underneath us. We've beenaway from Earth for three years and eight months." He paused. "Does thathelp?" 

Newland reflected, frowned. "Not much. I . . . it seems to be true when yousay it." He hesitated. "We're prisoners, aren't we?" 

"Uh-huh," he answered, flatly. 

"I had that feeling. And you're hiding me here?" 


"That's right," Troy agreed. 

"Why?" 

"Because nobody else knows you're still alive. It's better if they don't,
right now." 

Newland shook his head, indicated a sign fastened to the ceiling above thebunk in such a way that a man lying in the bunk on his back would catch sightof it as soon as he opened his eyes. "That," he said, "made sense as soon as Isaw it just now! I remembered having read it before and what it meant. Butotherwise everything's still badly blurred."
* * * 

Troy glanced up at the sign. It read: 

RELAX AND TAKE IT EASY, JERRY! YOU WERE IN A BAD SMASHUP, AND YOU'VE JUSTFINISHED A LONG STRETCH IN THE EMERGENCY TANK OF YOUR SHIP. EVERYTHING'S BOUND 
TO SEEM A LITTLE FOGGY, BUT YOU'RE GOING TO BE OKAY. DON'T TRY TO LEAVE THEROOM. IT HAS TO BE KEPT LOCKED, BUT SOMEONE WILL BE ALONG TO SEE YOU IN TWO ORTHREE HOURS AT THE MOST. 

Troy said, "Your memory will start coming back fast enough. You've made a goodstart." He sat down, took his cigarette case from his pocket. "I'll go oversome of the things that have happened with you. That tends to bringthem . . . and other things . . . back to mind. Care to smoke?" 

"Yes, I'd like to smoke." 

Troy tossed the cigarette case over to the bunk, watched the pilot reach forand miss it, then bend forward awkwardly to fumble for it on the floor.
Reflexes still very bad, he thought. But when Newland had the case in hishand, he flicked it open without hesitation, took out a cigarette and closedthe case, then turned it over and pressed the button which snapped on theconcealed light. The day before, he had stared at the case helplessly untilTroy showed him what to do. So his body had begun to recall more of itslearned motion patterns. 

Troy said, "I told you the main parts twice yesterday. Don't let that worryyou . . . you've retained more than most would be likely to do after a quarterof the time you spent in the tank. You weren't in very good shape after thesmash-up, Jerry." 

Newland said wryly, "I can imagine that." He drew on the cigarette, coughed,
then tossed the case back to Troy who caught it and put it in his pocket. 

"Have you got back any recollection at all of what the aliens that caught usare like?" Troy asked. 

Newland shook his head. 

"Well," Troy said, "they're downright cute, in a way. More like big penguinsthan anything else. Short little legs. The heads aren't so cute . . . a 


hammerhead shark would be the closest thing there, which is why we call themHammerheads -- though not when we think some of them might be listening. 

"They don't belong here any more than we do. They came from another systemwhich is a lot closer than Sol but still a long way off. Now, we aren't thefirst Earth people to get to Cassa. There was an Earth survey ship pokingaround the system about twenty years ago, and it seems that the Hammerheadsalso had an expedition here at the time. They spotted our survey ship butweren't spotted themselves, and the survey ship eventually went back to Earthshort two of its men. Those two were supposed to have got lost in the desertson Cassa. Actually, the Hammerheads picked them up . . . Jerry?" 

The pilot's head was beginning to nod. He straightened now and took a puff onthe cigarette, grinning embarrassedly. "S'all right, Troy!" he muttered.
"Seemed to get . . . sort of absent-minded there for a moment." 

Which was, Troy knew, one of the symptoms of the re-awakening period.
Newland's mind had been shut away from reality for a long time, wrapped insoothing, vaguely pleasant dreams while the emergency tank went about thebusiness of repairing his broken body. The habit of unconscious retreat fromhis surroundings could not be immediately discarded, and particularly not whenthe surroundings were as undesirable as those in which Newland now foundhimself. It would be better, Troy thought, to skip some of the uglierdetails . . . and yet he had to tell the man enough to make him willing tocooperate in what would be, at the very least, a desperately dangerousundertaking.
* * * 

He said, "You're still only three-quarters awake, Jerry. We have to expectthat. But the closer you listen and the more information you can absorb, thefaster you'll shake off the cobwebs. And that's important. These Hammerheadsare a tough breed, and we're in a bad spot." 

Newland nodded. "I understand that much. Go ahead." 

"Well," Troy said, "whatever that first Earth survey ship had to report aboutthe Cassa system looked good enough so that the administration put Cassa downfor a major expedition some day. Twenty years later, we got here again -- theinterstellar exploration carrier Atlas with eight hundred men on board. I'mone of her engineers. And we found the Tareegs -- that's what the Hammerheadscall themselves -- waiting for us. Not another bunch of scientists andassistants but a war-party. They'd learned enough from the two survey ship menthey'd caught to figure out we'd be coming back and how to handle us when wegot here. 

"Now get straight on a few things about the Hammerheads, Jerry. Their weaponssystems are as good or better than ours. In other ways, they're behind us.
They've got a fair interstellar drive but can't make the same use of it we do,
because they've still a lot to learn about inertial shielding. They have acouple of robot-directed interstellar drones standing in a hangar a fewhundred yards from here which can hit half the speed of your courier, but noHammerhead or human being could ride 'em up and live. The two big carriersthat brought them to Cassa One are dead-slow boats compared to the Atlas. Andthat's about the best they have at present. 

"Just the same, they're out to get us. War is the best part of living as faras they're concerned, and they're plenty good at it. So far they've only been 


fighting among themselves but they're itching for a chance at another race,
and now we're it. Capturing an Earth expedition in the Cassa System was only
part of the plan to take Earth by surprise." 


Newland blinked, said slowly, "How's that? You'd think that might tip their
hand. We'll be missed, won't we?" 


"Sure we'll be missed," Troy said. "But when? We were to stay here eight
years . . . don't remember that either, eh? The Hammerheads will have all the
time they need to be set for who ever comes looking for us eventually." 


"But would they know that?" 


Troy said bitterly, "They know everything about Earth that our top brass
scientists of the Cassa Expedition were able to tell them. Pearson and Andrews
-- those names mean anything? They were the Expedition Chiefs when we were
captured. One of the first things the Hammerheads did was to have the science
staff and other department heads look on while they tortured those two men to
death. As a result, they've had all the cooperation they could ask for -- more
than any decent human being would think of giving them -- from our present
leadership, the senior scientists Dr. Chris Dexter and Dr. Victor Clingman.
They're a couple of lousy traitors, Jerry, and I'm not sure they're even
capable of realizing it. Clingman's in charge here at the ground base, and he
acts as if he doesn't see anything wrong helping the Hammerheads." 


"Helping the . . ." Vacancy showed for a moment in the pilot's expression; he
frowned uncertainly.
* * * 


"Try to stay awake, Jerry! There're just a few other things you should try to
get nailed down in your memory this time. The Hammerheads are water animals.
They can waddle around on land as long as they keep themselves moist, but they
don't like it. They've got a religion based on a universal struggle between
water and land. Cassa One's nothing but hot desert and rock and big salt beds,
so it's no good to them. And the other two planets in the system have no
oxygen to speak of. 


"Now here's the thing that's hard to swallow. There's a huge lumped-up
asteroid swarm in the system. The Atlas stopped for a few days on the way in
to look around in it. Dexter and Clingman, after we'd been captured
volunteered the information to the Hammerheads that a lot of that stuff was 
solid H2O and that if they wanted Cassa One fixed up the way they'd like it -wet 
-- the Atlas could ferry enough asteroid ice over here in billion-ton
loads to turn most of the surface of the planet into a sea. 


"You understand it wasn't the Hammerheads who had the idea. They don't have
anything resembling the ship power and equipment to handle such a job; it
hadn't even occurred to them that it could be possible. But you can bet they
bought it when it was handed to them. It will give them a base a third of the
way between their own system and Sol. That's what's been going on since we
landed and were grabbed off . . . almost three years ago now. 


"And these last weeks there've been, for the first time since we got here, a
few clouds in the sky. It means the boys on the Atlas have as many of those
mountains of ice riding on orbit as are needed, and they've started shoving
them down into the atmosphere to break up and melt. So we . . . Jerry, wake
up!" 



Troy Gordon paused, watching Newland, then shrugged, stood up and went over to
take the butt of the cigarette from the pilot's slack fingers. Newland had
slid back into catatonic immobility; he offered no resistance as Troy swung
his legs up on the bunk and straightened him out on his back. 


How much would he remember the next time he awoke? Troy didn't know; he had no
medical experience and was working on the basis of remembered scraps of
information about the treatment given men recovering from an experience such
as Newland's. There were people on the ground station who could have told him
what to do, but he hadn't dared ask questions. 


It was chiefly a matter of time now. Or of lack of time. What would happen
when the giant hauling operation was concluded, when the water which had been
carried in from space came creeping across the vast desert plateaus about the
station, was something he didn't know. But it was almost certain that if his
own plans hadn't been carried out by that time, they never would be.
* * * 


"Jerry," he addressed the sleeping pilot softly, "if you've wondered why I'm
risking my neck to bring you back to life and keep you hidden away from the
Hammerheads and Clingman, it's because you're the one man I still can trust in
this lousy expeditionary group. It's because you tried to do something about
the situation on your own. You don't remember it yet, but when the Hammerheads
took over the Atlas you made a break for it in the courier boat. You tried to
get away and warn Earth. They shot you down before you could clear atmosphere;
but then they couldn't find the wreck. They thought it was down in one of the
salt beds and gave up looking for it. 


"But I found it in the desert a couple of months later. You'd dropped through
into the emergency tank and you were still more or less alive. I smuggled the
tank into the station here as soon as I'd rigged up a place where I could keep
it. I can use some help, and you'll be the best possible man for the
job. . . ." 


He stopped, surprised to see that Newland's mouth had begun to work awkwardly
as if he were trying to speak. Then a few words came, slow and slurred, but
indicating that the pilot's mind had not sunk nearly as far from full
wakefulness as during his previous relapses. 


"Wha . . . want me . . . do?" 


Troy didn't answer. Not yet, he thought. Not until Newland was no longer
helpless. Because, in spite of all precautions, he might be discovered here at
any hour; and if that should happen, Troy's secret must still be his own. He
could act without Newland's help if necessary. 


He waited a few seconds longer, while the pilot's face slowly smoothed out
again into comatose blankness. Then Troy turned around quietly and left the
room. 
* * * 


Troy Gordon's personal living quarters were on the lowest of the station's
three underground levels, behind the central power plant and utilities
section. Considerable privacy was their only attraction; and since the
arrangement kept Troy, during his off-duty hours, close to his
responsibilities as the station's maintenance engineer, neither Dr. Clingman 



nor the Hammerheads had objected to it. He was a useful man; and to the
useful, minor privileges could be extended. 


Troy had been able to take advantage of that circumstance. The room in which
Newland was hidden lay behind his own quarters, forming an extension to them.
The entrance to it was concealed, and while a careful search should have
disclosed it, Troy -- so far as he knew -- had as yet given no one a reason to
initiate such a search. The back room was not part of the station's original
design; he had cut it secretly out of the rock. With the equipment at his
disposal, it had been a relatively minor job. 


But it involved a very ugly risk. Discovery would have meant death, and no
easy one. With the exception of the cooperating chief scientists, the
Hammerheads' attitude towards their captives was largely one of watchful
indifference, so long as no one got out of line. But they had taken one
measure which insured that, after a short time, there was very little
inclination left among the prisoners to get out of line knowingly. At
intervals of about a month, whether or not an overt offense had been
committed, one more member of Earth's Cassa Expedition was methodically
tortured to death by the aliens; and a group of his fellows, selected
apparently at random, was obliged to witness the matter while fastened to a
device which allowed them to experience the victim's sensations in modified
form. 


Troy had been included twice in the observing group. He hadn't known whether
it implied a personal warning or not. In the Hammerheads' eyes, he was a
useful servant; it might be that he was also a suspected one.
* * * 


Troy left his rooms, locking the outer door behind him. Moving thirty feet
down the narrow steel-floored passage behind the power plant, he entered one
of the tool rooms, again closing and locking the door as he went through. It
had been a much more difficult and lengthy undertaking to drill a tunnel from
the station's lowest level up to the force-screened Hammerhead hangar outside
than to carve an additional room out of the rock, but it had been completed
months before. The tunnel's hidden station entrance was beneath the tool room 
floor, the other opening out of the polished rock base of the hangar twenty
feet from one of the interstellar drones. The most careful human scrutiny
would hardly have read any significance there into the hairline crack which
formed an irregular oval on the rock; and since Troy hadn't been found out, he
could assume that the Hammerheads' powers of observation were no more acute. 


It had been night in the surrounding desert for some hours by now, but the
hangar was brightly lit -- a very unusual occurrence at such a time. Troy
paused, momentarily disconcerted, studying the scene in the hangar through the
vision screen installed in the tunnel just below the exit. If the Hammerheads
-- there were only Hammerheads -- present -- were initiating some major new
activity in the next day or two, his plans might be, if not ruined, at least
very dangerously delayed. He counted over a hundred of the creatures, mostly
assembled near the far end of the hangar in three orderly groups. A few
officers stood together, somewhat closer to him. 


Troy chewed his lip anxiously, the moisture-conserving suits they wore for
outside duty on Cassa One, which concealed the two sets of swim flippers along
their sides and left the top pair of upper limbs . . . short, sturdy brown
arms with hands larger than human hands, quite as capable and rather
unpleasantly human in appearance . . . free for use. The transparent, 



inverted-triangle helmets were clamped down. As he looked on, one of their bigatmospheric personnel carriers came gliding into sight behind the immobileranks. There were commands, and the Tareegs turned and filed into the vehicle,
moving with the rapid, awkward little waddle which was their method ofprogress on land. A minute or two later, the loaded carrier moved out of thehangar, and the lights in the vast structure slowly faded away.
* * * 

Where were they going? They were carrying the usual weapons, but this was notsome dryland drill. Troy could not remember seeing so large a group leave thestation before. The uneasy conviction returned that the move must be connectedwith the fact that clouds had begun to show in Cassa One's skies, that themile-thick boulders of ice which had been brought across space already werefalling through the atmosphere of the dessicated world. 

One or two more undisturbed days, Troy thought. In that time it would becomeclear whether Newland was going to recover sufficiently to be able to play apart in his plans. Only two sections of the shattered courier ship, theinertial shielding and the autonav, had been needed to transform theHammerheads' interstellar drone twenty feet from the tunnel exit into aspaceship which men could ride and direct. Both those sections had beenrepairable, and everything else Troy had been able to steal or build in thestation. Month after month passed as he brought it all together in the tunnel,
familiarized himself with every necessary detail of the drones' mechanisms andfitted in the new installations . . . first in theory, then in actual fact. Apart of almost every night was spent in the darkened hangar, assembling,
checking and testing one section or another, then disassembling everything andtaking it back down into the tunnel before the moment came when the Tareegwatch-beams would sweep again through the hangar. 

The beam-search was repeated each three hours and twenty-seven minutesthroughout the night. Within that period of time, Troy would have to carry outa final complete assembly, let the drone roar into life and send it flashingup through the force-screen and into space. 

By now, he knew he could do it. And if he had calculated the drone's capacitycorrectly, he would then be less than six months from Earth. The Hammerheadshad nothing they could send after him. 

But once in space, he needed Newland's experience. Everything else would be onboard to get them to Earth, but without a trained pilot the probability ofarriving only on autonav was something Troy couldn't calculate. With a greatdeal of luck, he thought, it still should be possible. Newland's skills, onthe other hand, would give them something considerably better than an evenchance. 

But Newland would have to be recovered first. He was still under the 
ministrations of the emergency tank, embedded now in the wall of the back roombeyond the bunk. The tank had to stay there; no amount of planning had shown away it could be fitted into the drone besides everything else; there simplywas no room left for it. And what Troy had learned made it clear that if helifted into space with Newland before the pilot's behavior was very nearlynormal, he would have a half-dead zombie on his hands before the trip was wellbegun. 

That had been his reason for waiting. But the question was now whether hemightn't already have waited a little too long. 


* * * 


Troy checked his watch. Take a chance and begin the final installation at
once? It would be an hour before the search-beams came back. The interior of 
the ships was inspected at irregular periods; he hadn't been able to establish
any pattern for that. But to leave his equipment in place in the drone for one
day, or two at the most, might not be stretching his luck too far. Then, if
Newland shaped up, there would be that much less delay in leaving, that much
less time to spend in the Tareeg hangar finishing the job at the end. And no
one could tell what new developments the next few days might bring, or how
much time they would find that they had left. . . . 


He twisted the direction dials on the vision screen, swinging it slowly once
more about the darkened hangar. Then he unlocked and shifted the exit switch,
and the irregularly carved section of rock above him moved on its lifting rods
out of the hangar floor. Troy swung up and out behind it, got to his feet and
started over to the drone. 


There was a thin, burring noise close to his ear. 


Troy stopped in mid-stride, his face tight and wary. The noise meant that his
room communicator was being called. Probably some minor technical emergency on
the station, but . . . He counted off twenty seconds, then turned on the relay
mike under his coat collar. Trying to make his voice thick with drowsiness, he
said, "Gordon speaking. Who's it?" 


"Reese," a carefully uninflected voice told him from the speaker. "Dr.
Clingman wants you to come up to his office immediately, Gordon." 


Troy felt a sudden sharp prickling of fear. 


"At this time of night?" he demanded petulantly. "It's the middle of my sleep
period! What's gone wrong now?" 


"I wouldn't know," Reese said. "Our senior scientist" -- he made the two words
sound like a worn, habitual curse -- "didn't go into details."
* * * 


Dr. Victor Clingman was a large, untidy man inclined to plumpness, with
stringy blond hair and protuberant pale eyes. His office adjoined that of the
Tareeg station commandant -- a Low Dsala, in Hammerhead terms -- and it was
permeated from there with a slightly salty, vaguely perfumed moistness. Rank
had its privileges; only the Low Dsala enjoyed the luxury of keeping his
station work quarters damp enough to make the wearing of a suit unnecessary.
The other Hammerheads waddled about the cold, dry halls completely covered,
breathing through humidifiers, and were only occasionally permitted, and then
after much ceremony, to enter an area in their section called the Water Room
and linger there for several hours. 


Troy came into Clingman's office with his tool kit through the double doors
designed to prevent moisture from escaping, shivering slightly as the sudden
clamminess touched his skin. Clingman, engaged as usual in pecking out
something on a writer, shirt sleeves rolled up on his plump arms, ranked piles
of notes on the table beside him, turned a pale, unhealthy-looking face
towards the door. 


"Mister Gordon," he said mildly, dragging the "mister" out a little as was his 



habit. He nodded at the wall to Troy's left. "Our recording mechanisms becameinoperative again . . . and just as I was in the process of noting down somevery interesting fresh clues as to the probable origin of the Tareeg coupsystem. Will you try to attend to it?" 

"Right away," Troy said, his vague fears dispelled. Clingman's recorders werea standard problem; the repair parts for such items were on the Atlas whichhad not come down into atmosphere for almost a year. There probably had beenno reason to feel apprehensive about a night call to the office. It hadhappened on such occasions before.
* * * 

He went to work, glancing over from time to time at the senior scientist whowas frowning down pensively at the writer. Before the Hammerheads executed hispredecessors, Dr. Victor Clingman had been head of the Biology Department onthe Cassa Expedition, and his interest in the subject had not changed, thoughit was now centered exclusively on the life habits of their captors. TheTareegs did not seem to object to his preoccupation with them. Possibly itamused them; though Clingman had told Troy once, rather complacently, that hisresearch already had proved to be of some usefulness to the Tareegs inanswering certain questions they had had about themselves. That might also betrue. On several occasions, at any rate, Troy had found either the Low Dsalaor another Hammerhead officer in Clingman's office, answering the scientist'squestions in high-pitched, reedy voices which always had the suggestion of awhistle in them. All of them apparently had been taught human speech, thoughthey rarely chose to use it. 

Clingman cleared his throat, asked without turning his head, "Did I tell you,
Gordon, that the Tareegs' known history goes back to considerably less than athousand years, by human time reckoning?" 

"Yes, you did, doctor," Troy said. It had become almost impossible for him todo work for Clingman -- and Clingman invariably called on him personally whenhe had some mechanical chore on hand -- without listening to a lengthy,
rambling discourse on the scientist's latest discoveries about the Tareegs. Itwas an indication, he thought, that Clingman had grown increasingly hungry forhuman companionship of any kind. He could hardly fail to know that themajority of the stations' human component was aware he had originated thesuggestion made by the leading scientific group to the Hammerheads concerningthe possibility of turning Cassa One into a Tareeg water world, and that hewas generally despised for it. Troy's noncommittal attitude might have led himto believe that Troy either had not been informed of the fact or happened tobe a man who saw nothing very objectionable in such an act. 

Troy was, as it happened, less certain than some of the others that Clingmanand the men like Dr. Chris Dexter, who had been directing the ice-haulingoperations of the Atlas, had come to a deliberate, cold-blooded agreementamong themselves to save their own skins by offering to help the Hammerheadsagainst mankind. It was perhaps more likely that they had acted in unthinkingpanic, following the gruesome executions the Hammerheads had forced them towitness. That would be more forgivable, if only slightly so. It was difficultto be sure about Clingman in any way. He might be unpardonably guilty in hisown mind and still no less frightened than before -- for who knew, after all,
what the Tareegs ultimately intended with their prisoners? On the other hand,
he might actually have buried all such considerations beneath the absorbed,
objective interest he appeared to take in them.
* * * 


Troy had paid no more attention than he could help at first to Clingman'sscholarly monologues on his favorite theme. His own thoughts avoided theHammerheads as far as possible. But as his personal plans began to develop andthe chance that he might reach Earth grew into something more than a wildlyimprobable hope, he realized that the more he learned about the new enemy, themore valuable an eventual report would be. Thereafter he listened carefully,
memorizing all of Clingman's speculations, and gradually developed some degreeof detached interest of his own in the creatures. They had a curious history,
short though it was, a history of merciless strife on twin water worlds of thesame system in which any records of a common background had been long lost ordestroyed. Then had come the shock of mutual discovery and renewed battling,
now on an interplanetary scale, which ended in a truce of carefully guardedequality between the rival worlds. 

"That situation, it seems possible," Clingman had said once, "may have led tothe legend of the lost home-world of the Tareegs." It was a cautious referenceto the obvious fact that neither Tareeg planet would have been willing toadmit that it might be no more than an ancient colony of its twin. A remoteand glorious ancestral world which had brought both colonies forth as equalswas a much more acceptable theory. "And yet," Clingman went on, "the legendmight well be based in fact. And it may be that we, with our skills, willenable the Tareegs to rediscover that world. . . ." 

It sounded, Troy had thought, with something like amused disgust, as if thescientific brass had prudently worked out a new scheme to preserve itselfafter the Cassa One operation closed out. 

"There also, of course," Clingman continued, blinking his pale eyesreflectively at Troy, "we have the origin of the parallel legend of theTerrible Enemy. What except the conquest of the home-world by a monstrous foecould have caused it to forget its colonies? In that light, it becomes alittle easier to understand the . . . ah, well . . . the . . . cautiousdistrust the Tareegs have shown towards the first intelligent species theyencountered in interstellar space." 

And that sounded like an attempted apology -- not so much for the Tareegs andtheir manner of expressing cautious distrust as for Dr. Victor Clingman'scollaboration with them. But Troy said nothing. By then he was very eager tohear more. 

He did. Almost week by week, something new was added to the Hammerhead datafiled away in his mind. Much of it might be unimportant detail, but Earth'sstrategists could decide that for themselves. The Tareeg coup system Clingmanwas mulling over again tonight had been of significance at least to theprisoners; for it probably was the reason the majority of them were stillalive. The two High Dsalas who, each representing one of the twin worlds, werein joint command of the Tareeg forces here would have gained great honormerely by returning to their system at once with the captured Earthexpedition. But to have stayed instead, silently to have assumed personalresponsibility for the creation of a new world fit for Tareeg use -- thatassured them honor and power beyond belief when the giant task was over andthe announcement went out. . . . 
* * * 

The awareness that Clingman was speaking again broke into Troy's thoughts. 


"Almost everything they do," the scientist observed musingly, "is filled withprofound ceremonial meaning. It was a long while before we really understoodthat. You've heard, I suppose, that cloud formations have appeared on thisside of the planet?" 

Troy was about to answer, then checked himself, frowning down at the cleanlysevered end of the lead he had been tracing. Severed? What . . . 

"Gordon?" 

"Uh . . . why, yes, I've seen them myself, doctor." Troy's mind began to race.
The lead had been deliberately cut, no question of that. But why? He mighthave spent another hour checking over the recording equipment beforediscovering it -


"It means, of course," he heard Clingman saying, "that the dry sea basins ofCassa One gradually are filling with water. Now, we know the vital importanceto the Tareegs of being able to immerse themselves in the -- to them -- sacredfluid, and how severely they have been rationed in that respect here. Onemight have thought that, from the High Dsalas down, all of them would haveplunged eagerly into the first bodies of water to appear on the planet. But,
no . . . so great a thing must not be approached in that manner! A day wasset, months in advance, when it could be calculated that the water level wouldreach a certain point. At that hour, every Tareeg who can be spared fromessential duty will be standing at the shore of the new sea. Andtogether . . . ?" 

Abruptly, the meaning of Clingman's words faded out of Troy's mind. 

The sudden nighttime summons to Clingman's office -- had it been no accidentafter all? Had he done something in the past few hours to arouse suspicion,
and was he being detained here now while his rooms were searched? Troy feltsweat start out on his face. Should he say anything? He hesitated, thenreached quietly into the tool kit. 

" . . . and only then" -- Clingman's voice returned suddenly to hisconsciousness -- "will the word be prepared to go back, and the messengerships filled with the sacred water so that it can be blended at the samemoment with the twin worlds' oceans, to show that Cassa One has become jointlya part of each . . ." 

Messenger ships -- the interstellar drones, of course. And the big troop ofHammerheads which had been taken from the station in the personnel carrierless than an hour ago . . . His hands trembling a little, Troy quickly closedthe recorder, picked up the toolkit. 

Clingman checked himself. "Oh . . . you've finished, Gordon?" He soundedstartled. 

Troy managed to work a grin on his face. "Yes, doctor. Just a broken lead. Andnow, if you'll excuse me. . . ." He started to turn away. 

"Ah, one moment!" Clingman said sharply. "There was . . . I . . . now 
where . . ." He gazed about the table, pushing fretfully at the piles ofnotes. "Oh, yes! Dr. Rojas . . . Room 72. You were on your way up here when heattempted to reach you. Something that needed . . . well, I forget now what hesaid. Would you mind going over there immediately?" 


"Not at all." Troy's heart was pounding. If there had been any doubt he was
being deliberately delayed, it would have vanished now. Dr. Rojas, of course,
would have something waiting that "needed" Troy's attention before he got to
Room 72. A call from Clingman would arrange for it. 


But if they were suspicious of him, why hadn't he been placed under arrest?
They don't want to scare me off, Troy thought. They're not sure, and if I'm up
to something they don't want to scare me off before they know just what it
is . . . 
* * * 


He'd swung around to the hall, mind reaching ahead through the next few
minutes, outlining quickly the immediate steps he would have to take -- and so
he was almost past the Hammerhead before he saw it. The door to the Low
Dsala's offices had opened quietly, and the Low Dsala stood there five feet
away, the horizontally stalked eyes fixed on Troy. 


Troy started involuntarily. He might be very close to death now. To approach a
Hammerhead . . . let alone the station's ranking officer . . . unbidden within
a dozen steps was a dangerous thing for a prisoner to do. The Dsala's left
hand hung beside the ornament-encrusted bolt-gun all the officers carried -and 
those broad torturers' hands could move with flashing speed. But the
creature remained immobile. Troy averted his eyes from it, keeping his face
expressionless, walked on with carefully unhurried steps, conscious of the
Dsala's stare following him. 


It was one of the comparatively few times he had seen a Hammerhead without its
suit. If one knew nothing about them, they would have looked almost comical -there 
was a decided resemblance to the penguins, the clown-birds of Earth, in
the rotund, muscular bodies and the double set of swimming flippers. The odd
head with its thick protruding eyelobes and the small, constantly moving
crimson triangle of the mouth were less funny, as were the dark, human-shaped
hands. Troy felt a chill on his back when he heard the Dsala break into sudden
speech behind him: a high, quick gabble in its own language. Was it expressing
anger? Drawing the door quietly shut, he heard Clingman begin to reply in the
same tongue.
* * * 


Reese looked briefly up from the intercom desk as Troy stopped before it.
"Finished with Clingman?" he asked. 


"Uh-huh," Troy said. "Any other little jobs waiting before I can get back to
sleep?" 


"Not so far," Reese told him sourly. "Pleasant dreams." He returned his
attention to the panels before him. 


So Dr. Rojas, as had seemed almost certain, had put in no call for him. But if
he didn't show up at Room 72, how long before they began to wonder where he
was? Perhaps four or five minutes . . . 


Troy stepped out of the elevator on the maintenance level forty seconds after
leaving Reese, went quickly on into the engine room. One Hammerhead guard
stood watching him from the far end. As a rule, three of them were stationed
here. They were accustomed to Troy's appearances, and he had been careful to
establish as irregular a pattern as was practicable in attending to routine 



chores, so that in an emergency his motions would draw a minimum of attention.
Ignoring the guard now, he carried out a desultory inspection of a set of wall
controls, paused four times to remove four minor sections of machinery and
drop them into his tool kit, and was leaving the big room again a minute and a
half later. 


Out in the passage, he reopened the kit, quickly snapped three of the small
steel parts together. The carrying of firearms naturally was not a privilege
the Tareegs extended to human beings; but the newly assembled device was a
quite functional gun. Troy thumbed three dozen hand-made shells out of the
fourth piece removed from the control equipment, loaded the gun and shoved it
into his pocket. 


The door to his quarters was locked, and there were no immediate signs inside
that an inspection might have been carried out during his absence. Troy moved
over to the rarely used intercom view-screen, changed some settings behind it,
and switched it on. The hidden back room appeared in the screen, and -- in
spite of his near-certainty about Clingman's purpose in detaining him -- Troy
felt his face whiten slowly with shock. 


Jerry Newland was no longer lying on his bunk, was nowhere in the room. A
gaping opening in the wall behind the bunk showed where the emergency tank
Troy had brought in from the crashed courier ship had been installed. So they
not only had the pilot in their hands -- they already were aware of his
identity and of the condition he was in. 


Troy felt a surge of physical sickness. Left to himself, Newland would have
died in the desert without regaining consciousness as the tank's independent
power source began to fail. Troy had saved him from that; but very probably it
was the Tareeg death the pilot faced now. Troy switched off the screen,
started back to the door, fighting down his nausea. Self-blame was a luxury
for which he had no time. He couldn't help Newland, and there was not an
instant to lose. Within a few hours, he could still be in space and take his
chances alone at getting the warning to Earth. 


But first the search for him must be directed away from the Tareeg hangar. And
that, very fortunately, was an action for which he had long been thoroughly
prepared. . . .
* * * 


The Hammerhead guard at the station's ground-level exit also had been reduced
to one soldier. And here the appearance of the maintenance engineer's
groundcar on its way to one of the automatic installations out in the desert
was as familiar an occurrence as Troy's irregular inspection visits in the
engine room. The guard watched him roll past without moving and without
indication of interest. Troy glanced at his watch as the exit closed behind
him. Not quite six minutes since he'd left Clingman's office . . . they should
already have begun to check on his whereabouts, and the fact that he alone of
all the humans at the station had access to a groundcar would then be one of
the first things to come to their minds. 


He slowed the car near a tiny inspection door in the outer wall of the
station, cut its lights, jumped out and watched it roll on, picking up speed
as it swerved away to the east and rushed down into the dark desert. Months
before he had installed the automatic guidance devices which would keep the
car hurrying steadily eastwards now, changing direction only to avoid
impassable obstacles. It might be that, at a time of such importance to the 



Tareegs, they would not attempt to follow the car. If a flier did discover itfrom the air, the vehicle would be destroyed . . . and it was rigged todisintegrate with sufficient violence then to conceal the fact that it hadlacked a driver. 
* * * 

Troy opened the inspection door, then stopped for a moment, staring back atthe Tareeg hangar beyond the station. Light had been glowing through itsscreens again when he came out; now the hazy translucence of the screens wasdrawing sideways and up from the great entrance rectangle. Another of the bigpersonnel carriers nosed slowly out, moved up into the air and vanishedagainst the night sky. If it was loaded as close to capacity as the one he hadwatched from inside the tunnel, almost two thirds of the Hammerhead force atthe station had gone by now to attend the rites at Cassa One's new sea. 

He waited while the force screen restored itself over the entrance. 
Immediately afterwards, the lights in the hangar turned dim and faded away.
Troy climbed in through the inspection door, locked it and started back downto the maintenance level. 

With a little luck, he thought, he might even be able to work undisturbed nowinside the interstellar drone he had selected for his escape. He would have tobe back in the tunnel when the search-beams came through again . . . hesuspected they might be quite sensitive enough to detect the presence of aliving being inside one of the ships. But the Hammerheads themselves might notshow up again until he was prepared to leave. And then it wouldn't matter. Ifthey did appear -- well, he would get some warning from the fact that thehangar lights would begin to come on first. Not very much warning, but itmight be enough. 

The passage leading past his quarters was empty and quiet. Troy remainedbehind a corner for a minute or two listening. If Dr. Rojas had reported hisfailure to arrive at Room 72, the Tareegs must also have learned by now thathe had left the station, and the last place they would think of hunting forhim was here. But somebody -- Hammerhead or human stooge -- might be in hisrooms, making a second and more thorough investigation there.
* * * 

Everything remained still. Troy came quietly out into the passage, went downit to the tool room next to his quarters, opened the door, taking the gun fromhis pocket, and slipped inside. With the door locked, he stood still a moment,
then turned on the lights. 

A glance around showed that nobody was lurking for him here. He darkened theroom again, crossed it, removed the floor section over the tunnel entrance andslipped down into the tunnel. Working by touch, he pulled the floor sectionback across the opening, snapped it into place and started up the familiarnarrow passage he had cut through the desert rock. 

He couldn't have said exactly what warned him. It might have been the tinyclick of a black-light beam going on. But he knew suddenly that somethingalive and breathing stood farther up the passage waiting for him, and the guncame quickly from his pocket again. 

His forehead was struck with almost paralyzing force. Stungun . . . theywanted him alive. Troy found himself on his knees, dizzy and sick, while avoice yelled at him. Human, he thought, with a blaze of hatred beyond anything 


he'd ever felt for the Tareegs. Traitor human! The gun, still somehow in his
hand, snarled its answer. 


Then the stungun found him again, in three quick, hammering blows, and
consciousness was gone.
* * * 


There came presently an extended period of foggy, groping thoughts
interspersed with sleep and vivid nightmares. After a time, Troy was aware
that he was in a section of the sick bay on the Atlas, and that the great
carrier was in interstellar flight. So the operation on Cassa One was over. 


He wondered how long he had been knocked out. Days perhaps. It was the shrill,
rapid-fire voice of a Tareeg which had first jolted him back into partial
awareness. For confused seconds, Troy thought the creature was addressing him;
then came the click of a speaker and the sounds ended, and he realized he had
heard the Tareeg's voice over the ship's intercom system. A little later, it
occurred to him that it had been using its own language and therefore could
not have been speaking to him. 


During that first muddled period, Troy knew now and then that he was still
almost completely paralyzed. Gradually, very gradually, his mind began to
clear and the intervals of sleep which always ended with terrifying nightmares
grew shorter. Simultaneously he found he was acquiring a limited ability to
move. And that, too, increased. It might have been three or four hours after
his first awakening before he began to plan what he might do. He had made a
number of observations. There were three other men in this section with him. 
All seemed to be unconscious. He thought the one lying the bed next to his own
was Newland, but the room was dim and he had been careful to avoid motions
which might have been observed, so he wasn't certain. There was a single human
attendant in the small room beyond the open doorspace opposite his bed. Troy
didn't recall the man's face. He was in the uniform of a medical corpsman; but
whatever else the fellow might be, he was here primarily in the role of a
guard because he had a gun fastened to his belt. It classed him as a human
being whose subservience to the Hammerheads was not in question. Twice, when
the man in the bed at the far end of the room had begun to groan and move
about, the guard came in and did something that left the restless one quiet
again. Troy couldn't see what he used, but the probability was that it had
been a drug administered with a hypodermic spray. 


Getting his hands on the gun, Troy decided, shouldn't be too difficult if he
made no mistakes. His life was forfeit, and to lie and wait until the Tareeg
inquisitors were ready for him wasn't to his taste. Neither . . . though
somewhat preferable . . . was personal suicide. A ship, even as great a ship
as the Atlas, had certain vulnerabilities in interstellar flight -- and who
knew them better than one of the ship's own engineers? The prime nerve centers
were the bridge and the sections immediately surrounding it. It might be, Troy
thought, it just might be that the Hammerheads never would bring their prize
in to the twin worlds to have its treasures of technological information pried
out of it. And that in itself would be a major gain for Earth.
* * * 


He turned various possibilities over in his mind with the detachment of a man
who has acknowledged the inevitable fact of his own death. And he felt his
strength flowing back into him. 


The guard in the other room presently heard renewed groans and the slurred 



muttering of a half-conscious man. As he came in through the doorspace with
the drug spray he walked into Troy's fist. It didn't quite put him to sleep,
but the spray did thirty seconds later, and shortly he was resting, carefully
bound and gagged since Troy didn't know how long the drug would retain its
effect, in the back of large clothes locker. 


The man in the next bed was Newland. He seemed uninjured but was unconscious,
presumably drugged like the other two. Troy left the section in the corpsman's
uniform, the gun concealed in his pocket. It was improbable that the guard's
authority to carry it extended beyond the sick bay area. In another pocket -it 
might come in handy -- was the refilled drug spray. 


He was two decks closer to the bridge section when it struck him how deserted
the Atlas seemed. Of course, he had avoided areas where he would be likely to
run into sizable groups of either men or Tareegs. But he had seen only six
humans so far, only two of the Hammerheads. These last had come out of a
cross-passage ahead of him and vanished into another, two men following
quietly behind, the high-pitched alien voices continuing to make a thin,
complaining clamor in the otherwise empty hall seconds after they had
disappeared. And the thought came to Troy: suppose most of the ship's
complement was down in the sleepers? 


It wasn't impossible. The Atlas must still be provisioned for years to come,
but an excellent way to avoid human mutiny on the approach to the Hammerhead
worlds would be to put any captives not needed for essential duty to sleep.
And the Atlas hadn't been built for the convenience of water-creatures. To 
control a human skeleton crew would require a correspondingly small number of
Tareegs. Most of their force, he thought, very well might be making the return
in their own vessels. 
* * * 


The reflection literally stopped Troy in his tracks. Because that could change
everything he'd had in mind, opened up possibilities he hadn't thought
existed . . . including the one, still remote though it might be, of returning
the Atlas to Earth. Perhaps the men now in charge of the ship would be almost
as unwilling to allow that to happen as the Hammerheads; they had too much to
answer for. But if the situation he had imagined did exist, his thoughts raced
on . . . why then . . . 


Troy's mind swam briefly with a wild premonition of triumph. There were ways
in which it might be done! But because of that, there was also now the sudden
need for much more caution than he had intended to use. What he needed first 
was somebody who could tell him exactly how things stood on board -preferably 
somebody in a position of authority who could be persuaded or
forced to fall in then with Troy's subsequent moves.
* * * 


The bridge deck was as quiet as the others. On the old Atlas, most of this
area had been officers' country, reserved for the expedition heads and top
ship personnel; and presumably that arrangement had been changed only by the
addition of Tareeg commanders and guards. Troy kept to the maintenance
passages, encountered no one but presently found unused crew quarters and
exchanged the corpsman uniform there for less conspicuous shipboard clothes.
This would make a satisfactory temporary base of operations. And now to get
the information he wanted. . . . 


The voice was coming out of the only door open on the dim hall. There were six 



staterooms on either side, and Troy remembered that the room beyond the opendoor had been occupied by Dr. Clingman on the trip out from Earth. The voice 


-preoccupied, mild, a little tired -- was unmistakably Dr. Victor Clingman's. 
Was he alone? Troy thought so. He couldn't make out the words, but it was amonologue, not a conversation. He had the impression of Clingman dictatinganother rambling dissertation on Tareeg ways into a recorder; and theconviction came to him, not for the first time, that the man was in someessential manner no longer sane, that he had come to believe that hisobservations on these deadly enemies some day really could be compiled into anorderly and valuable addition to human knowledge. 

Sane or not, he was a frightened man, the perfect quarry for Troy's presentpurpose. With a gun on him, he would talk. And once having assisted Troy toany degree, he would be too terrified of Tareeg reprisals to do anything butswitch sides again and go along with Troy, hoping that thereby the worst -once 
more -- could be avoided. The worst for Victor Clingman. It would beimpossible, Troy thought, to trust Clingman, but he could make very good useof him in spite of that. 

He came quietly along the passage, his attention as much on the closed doorsabout him as on the one which was open. The guard's gun unfortunately wasn't anoiseless type, but he had wrapped a small cushion around its muzzle andacross it, which should muffle reports satisfactorily if it came to that.
Words became distinguishable. 

"It is not a parasite in the ordinary sense," Clingman's tired voice said. "Itis a weapon. It kills and moves on. A biological weapon limited to attack onespecies: the enemy. It is insidious. There is no warning and no defense.
Unconsciousness and death occur painlessly within an hour after contact, andthe victim has not realized he is being destroyed. The radius of infectionmoves out indetectably and with incredible swiftness. And yet there was amethod of containing this agent. That knowledge, however, is now lost." 

"As an achievement of the Tareeg genius for warfare, the weapon seems matched-- in some respects surpassed -- only by the one used to counteract it. And inthat, obviously, there were serious faults. They . . ." 

The man, Troy decided, was quite close, perhaps twelve feet to the right sideof the door. He glanced back along the silent hall, slipped the cover from thegun -- with Clingman, he would only need to show it -- then came into the roomin two quick strides, turning to the right and drawing the door shut behindhim. 
* * * 

There was no one in sight. The voice continued: " . . . desperate, with notime to complete essential testing. A terrible gamble, but one whichinevitably . . ." The meaning faded from Troy's mind as he discovered thewall-speaker from which the words were coming. His eyes darted across the roomto a comfortable chair drawn up beside a table, to a familiar picture ofuntidily arrayed piles of notes on the table, a thread of smoke still risingfrom a cigarette in the tray among them. Clingman had been in the room withinminutes, listening to one of his previous recordings as he worked. Troy'sglance shifted to a closed door on his right. Bedroom and bath of the suitelay behind it. Clingman might be there. He might also . . . Troy reached back,
quietly opened the door to the hall again, moved on and slipped out of sightbehind an ornamental screen on the other side of the speaker. 


Clingman could have left his quarters for some reason. In any event, it wasobvious that he had intended to return to the room very shortly. If he broughtsomeone with him, the situation might be more difficult. But hardly toodifficult to be handled. 

Troy worked the improvised silencer back over the gun muzzle, senses strainingto catch either the opening of the door on his right or the sound of anapproach down the hall. 

"So it was possible," he heard the wall-speaker say, "to reconstruct, inalmost every essential detail, what the concluding situation must have been onthe world where the Tareeg species had its origin. The attacking section wassafely screened, presumably by a form of energy barrier, against the deadlyagent it had released. The section under attack had no defense against anagent so nearly indestructible that it subsequently survived for over athousand years in its inert, frozen condition without losing effectiveness inthe least -- " 

Troy thought: What . . . WHAT HAD IT SAID? 

He stepped out from behind the screen as the door on his right opened. Dr.
Clingman stood in the door, mouth open, eyes bulging in surprise and alarm atthe gun in Troy's hand. Then his gaze shifted to Troy's face, and hisexpression slowly changed. 

"Mister Gordon," he murmured, smiling very cautiously, "you are really themost difficult man to keep stopped!" 

Troy pointed a shaking finger at the speaker. "That!" he cried. "That . . . itsaid a thousand years in the ice!" 

Clingman nodded. "Yes." His eyes returned, still rather warily, to the gun.
"And I'm rather glad, you know, you happened to catch that particular partbefore I appeared." 

Troy was staring at him. "That was their lost home world -- the one you'vekept talking about. That great asteroid cloud here. . . ." 

"No, not here." Clingman came forward more confidently into the room, and Troysaw now that the left side of the scientist's face and head was covered with 
medical plastic. "The Cassa system is a long way behind us, Gordon," Clingmansaid. "We've been on our way back to Earth for more than two days." 

"To Earth," Troy muttered. "And I . . ." 

Clingman jabbed a stubby finger down on a control switch at the table, and thewall-speaker went silent. "It will be easier to tell you directly," he said.
"You've already grasped the essential fact -- our Tareeg captors, for the mostpart, are dead. They were killed, with some careful assistance from the men incharge of this expedition, by a weapon developed approximately twelvecenturies ago on their ancestral world. A world which still circles today,
though in a rather badly disintegrated condition, about the Cassa sun. 

"But let's be seated, if you will. You gave me a very unpleasant fright justnow." Dr. Clingman touched the side of his face. "I had an ear shot offrecently by a man who didn't wait to have the situation explained to him. His 


aim, fortunately, was imperfect. And there is still a minor war in progress onthe Atlas. Oh, nothing to worry about now -- it's almost over. I heard lessthan twenty minutes ago that the last of the Tareeg guards on board hadsurrendered. About fifty of them have become our prisoners. Then there is arather large group of armed men in spacesuits in one section of the ship withwhom we have been unable to communicate. They regard us as traitors to therace, Dr. Dexter and myself in particular. But we have worked out a system oflight signals which should tell them enough to make them willing to parley." 

He settled himself carefully into the big chair, turning a white, fatiguedface back to Troy. "That," he said, waving his pudgy hand at the wall-speaker,
"is a talk I made up to explain what actually has happened to the main body ofthe mutineers. They comprised a large majority of the crew and of theexpedition members, of course, but fortunately we were able to gas most ofthem into unconsciousness almost at once, so that no further lives have beenlost. We have begun to arouse them again in small groups who are toldimmediately that the space ice we were bringing in to Cassa One carried acomponent which has resulted in the destruction of the Tareeg force, and whoare then given as much additional information as is needed to answer theirgeneral questions and convince them that we are still qualified to command theCassa Expedition. I believe that in a few more days normal conditions on theship will have been restored." 

Clingman glanced over at the smoldering cigarette in the tray, stubbed it outand lit another. "We had been aware for some time of your plan to escape backto Earth in one of the Tareeg drones," he said. "It was an audacious andingenious scheme which might very well have succeeded. We decided to let yougo ahead with it, since it was by no means certain until the very last daythat our own plans would be an unqualified success. On the other hand, wecouldn't let you leave too early because the Tareegs certainly would havetaken the Atlas to the twin world then without completing the Cassa Oneoperation. And we didn't care to let you in on our secret, for reasons I'msure you understand." 

Troy nodded. "If they'd got on to me, I might have spilled that, too." 

"Exactly," Clingman said. "There was no question of your loyalty ordetermination but the Tareegs' methods of persuasion might cause the moststubborn man to tell more than he should. So no one who was not essential to 
the work was given any information whatever. Dr. Rojas applied certain medicalmeasures which prevented Mr. Newland from recovering prematurely . . .
prematurely from our point of view, that is. It did not keep you fromcompleting your other preparations but ensured that you would not actuallyleave unless we believed the move had become necessary, as a last resort." 

Troy shook his head. He'd been working against some thing there had been noway of knowing about. "Was that Rojas waiting for me in the tunnel?" 

"Yes. At that point, we knew we would win, and it had become safe enough totell you. Unfortunately, you believed it was a trap." 

Troy chewed his lip. "On that home world of the Tareegs when the two factionswere fighting -- the losing side did something which blasted the whole planetapart?" 

"Not exactly," Clingman said. "The appearance of it is rather that the homeworld came apart in an almost gentle manner, section separating from section. 


How that could be done is something no one on Earth had worked out at the timewe left. The original survey group brought back samples of the asteroid swarmfor analysis. A good deal was learned from them." 

He paused, frowning at his cigarette, said slowly, "The twin worlds havedeveloped a new scientific Tareeg caste which was considered -- or considereditself -- too valuable to be risked on the interstellar expedition to theCassa system. I think that was a very fortunate circumstance for us. Evenbefore we left Earth, even when it was believed they were all dead, what hadbeen deduced of the Tareeg genius for destruction was more than a littledisturbing. The apparent purpose of that last defensive action on the homeworld was to strip the surface oceans from the hostile sections of the planet.
Obviously, the process got out of hand; the entire planet was broken upinstead. But one can't really doubt that -- given more time -- they would havelearned to master the weapon. 

"The killing agent developed by the opposing side evidently had been verythoroughly mastered. And again we can't say how they did it. It can bedescribed as a large protein molecule, but its properties can be imagined onlyas arising out of a very complex organization, theoretically impossible atthat level of life. It is confined to water, but its method of dispersionwithin that medium is not understood at all. At one instant, it is here; atthe next, it apparently will have moved to a point perhaps several hundredmiles away. It is life which has no existence, and cannot exist, except as aweapon. Unlike a parasite, its purpose is simply to kill, quickly andefficiently, and go on at once to another victim. Having exhausted the storeof victims -- a short process, obviously, even in an area of planetarydimensions -- it dies of something like starvation within days. 

"That, of course, was as practical a limitation to those employing it as theone that it attacks only Tareegs. They did not want to be barred indefinitelyfrom an area which had been cleansed of their enemies, and neither did theywant food animals in that area to be destroyed. They . . ." 

His voice trailed off, and Troy stirred restlessly. Dr. Clingman was slumpedfarther down in his chair now, and the pale, protruding eyes had begun toblink drowsily. He seemed about to go to sleep. Troy said, "If the thingkilled the Tareegs on Cassa One inside an hour after they'd gone into the sea,
then they couldn't have had the time to start the interstellar drones backtowards the twin worlds." 

Clingman's head turned to him again. "No," Clingman said. "Of course not." 

"And even," Troy went on, "if they had been able to ship a couple of loads ofinfected water back, it would have been harmless long before it reached theirworlds." 

Clingman nodded. "Quite harmless. As harmless as the new ocean on Cassa Onewould be by this time to Tareegs who entered it." He paused. "We'd thought,
Gordon . . . as you might be thinking now . . . of sending the drones backinstead with a load of asteroid ice containing the inert agent. That, ofcourse, would not have reduced its effectiveness. Nevertheless, the schemewouldn't have worked." 

"Why not?" Troy asked. 

"Because the drones, in the Tareeg view, were sacred messengers. They could be 


used only to announce in a certain prescribed manner that the Tareeginterstellar expeditionary force had discovered a water planet and takenpossession of it, again with the required ceremony, for the twin worlds. Thetransmission of lumps of interplanetary ice would never have fitted thatpicture, would, in fact, have been an immediate warning that something verymuch out of order had occurred. 

"That Tareeg insistence on exact ritualistic procedure -- essentially adefensive measure in their dealings with one another -- also happened to delayour own plans here very badly. Except for it, we would have been ready atleast a year ago to flood Cassa One and entrap our captors." 

Troy repeated, stunned, "You would have been ready . . ." 

"Yes, but consider what might have resulted from that overhasty action. TheCassa system is much more readily accessible from the twin worlds than it isfrom Earth, and if we made some mistake with the drones, or if the Tareegsbegan to suspect for any other reason that their expeditionary force had metwith disaster, they would be certain to establish themselves at once in a verystrong manner here, leaving Earth confronted with a dangerously talented andimplacable new enemy. No, we had to retain the appearance of helplessnessuntil we had acquired an exact understanding of the manner in which the water-
message must be prepared, and had discovered some substitute for the freezingeffect on the lethal agent. That took an extra year." 

Troy said carefully, "And during that year, as you knew would happen, anotherdozen or so men died very slow and painful deaths on the Tareeg executionbenches. Any one of those men might have been you or I . . ." 

"That is quite true," Clingman said. "But it was something that could not beavoided. In that time, we did learn the necessary ritual and we did find anumbing catalyst which will hold the protein agent inert until it loses itseffect by being sufficiently diluted again. So now the drones have beendispatched. Long before this ship reaches Earth again, the agent will havebeen introduced to the twin worlds, and except for the specimens we carry onboard, the Tareeg species will be extinct. It may not be a pleasant thing tohave a pair of ghost worlds forever a little on our conscience -- but one doesnot have to fight uncertain wars with ghosts." 

Troy studied him in silence for some seconds. 

"And I thought you were soft," he said at last. "I thought you were weak andsoft. . . ." 

-Chapter 7 
Homo Excelsior 

In many of Schmitz's stories, especially his Telzey stories and the Agent ofVega quartet, the protagonists are people with extraordinary powers. Still,
they are not supermen, and their powers and abilities are simply incorporatedinto "normal" societies rather than determining them. Unlike many other SFauthors of his day -- A.E. Van Vogt comes immediately to mind -- Schmitz does 


not seem to have been particularly fascinated by the theme of what kind ofsocieties "Homo Excelsior" might produce. 

There are a few exceptions, however, and we've collected them together in thissection of the anthology. 

-Chapter 8 
The Ties of Earth 

The Hawkes residence lay in a back area of Beverly Hills, south of Wilshireand west of La Brea. It was a big house for that neighborhood, a corner houseset back from the street on both sides and screened by trellises, walls andthe flanks of a large garage. 

"That's the number," Jean Bohart said, "but don't stop. Drive on at least ablock . . ." 

Alan Commager pointed out that there was a parking space right in front of thehouse. 

"I know," Jean agreed nervously, "but if we park there, somebody inside thehouse would notice us and that would spoil the main purpose of our trip." 

"You mean," said Commager as he drove on obediently, "they'll fold the blackaltar out of sight, drop the remains of the sacrificed virgin through a trapdoor and hose out the blood, while we're stumbling across the dichondra? Ithought we were expected." 

"We're not expected till ten thirty," Jean said. "Ira didn't exactly make apoint of it, but he mentioned they'd be doing other work till shortly afterten." 

"Then I come on with the dice, eh? By the way, I didn't bring any along. Wouldthese Guides keep sordid little items like that around?" 

"It isn't going to be a crap game, silly," Jean informed him. "I told you Irathinks these people can tell whether you were just lucky last week or whetheryou've developed some sort of special ability. They'll test you -- somehow." 

Commager looked down at her curiously. Jean was a slim blonde who could lookcrisp as chilled lettuce after an afternoon of smashing tennis matchesfollowed by an hour of diving practice off the high board. She wasn'tintellectually inclined, but, understandably, Ira Bohart had never seemed tomind that. Neither did Commager. However, she seemed disturbed now. 

"Are you beginning to get interested in that sort of thing yourself?" heinquired lightly. 


"No," she said. "I'm just worried about that husband of mine. Honestly, Alan,
this is as bad a metaphysical binge as he's ever been on! And some of thoseexercises he was showing me yesterday sort of scared me. If they do somethinglike that tonight, I'd like to know what you think of it." 

"It's just somebody else on the trail of the Bohart stocks and bonds, Jeannie.
Ira will get disillusioned again before any harm is done. You know that." 

"That's what I keep telling myself," Jean agreed unhappily. "But this time -" 


Commager shook his head, parked the car and let her out, a block and a halffrom the Hawkes home. "Did you try any of those exercises yourself?" 

"I'm not that loony," Jean said briefly. "Anyway, Ira advised me not to." 

They walked back to the house in brooding silence. Between them, they'd seenIra through a bout of Buddhism and successive experiences with threepsychological fringe groups, in relentless pursuit of some form of control ofthe Higher Mind. After each such period, he would revert for a while todespondent normalcy. 

Four years ago, it had seemed rather amusing to Commager, because then it hadbeen Lona Commager and Ira Bohart who went questing after the Inexpressibletogether, while Alan Commager and Jean Bohart went sea-fishing or skin-divingoff Catalina. But then Lona had died and the Inexpressible stopped being asource of amusement. Sometimes Ira bored Commager to death these days. But hestill liked Jean. 
* * * 

"Why pick on me to expose these rascals anyway?" he asked as they came insight of the house. "I may have surprised the boys at Las Vegas last week, butI couldn't tell a psychic phenomenon from a ringing in my ears." 

She patted his arm. "That may be true, but you do intimidate people," sheexplained. 

"Shucks!" Commager said modestly. It was true, though; he did. "So I'm to sitthere and glare at them?" 

"That's the idea. Just let them know you see through their little tricks andI'll bet they lose interest in Ira before the evening's out. Of course, youdon't have to put it on too thick . . ." 

Their host, Herbert Hawkes, for one, didn't look like a man who'd be easy tointimidate. He was as big as Commager himself and about the same age; an ex-
football player, it turned out. He and Commager exchanged crushing hand-gripsand soft smiles, as big men will, and released each other with mutual respect. 

Ira, who didn't seem any more gaunt and haggard than usual, had appeared alittle startled by their entry, possibly because they were early, but morelikely, Commager thought, because of a girl who had coiled herself becominglyon the couch very close to Ira. 

At first glance, this siren seemed no more than seventeen -- a slender, brown-
skinned creature in an afternoon dress the exact shade of her skin -- but bythe time they were being introduced, Commager had added twelve years to her 


probable age. 

She was Ruth MacDonald, she told him, secretary of the Parapsychological Groupof Long Beach. Had he heard of it? He said it sounded familiar, which wasuntrue, but it seemed to please Miss MacDonald. 

The only other person present, a fifty-odd, graying teddy-bear of a man withvery thick eyebrows, announced he was the Reverend Wilson Knox, president ofthe Temple of Antique Christianity. The Reverend, Commager realized, waspretty well plastered, though there was no liquor in sight. 

Their interests might be unusual, but they hardly seemed sinister. Commagerwas practically certain he could identify Herbert Hawkes as the owner of oneof the biggest downtown automobile agencies -- which made him an unlikely sortof man to be a member of a group called the Guides. It was Hawkes' own affair,
but it promised to make the evening more interesting than Commager hadexpected. 

"Were we interrupting anything?" he inquired, looking around benevolently. 

Ira cleared his throat. "Well, as a matter of fact, Alan, we were conducting aseries of experiments with me as the guinea pig at the moment. Ratherinteresting actually -- " He seemed a trifle nervous. 

Commager avoided Jean's glance. "Why not just continue?" 

"We can't," the Reverend Knox informed him solemnly. "Our high priestess wascalled to the telephone a few minutes ago. We must wait until she returns." 

Ira explained hurriedly, "Mr. Knox is talking about Paylar. She's connectedwith the new group I'm interested in, the Guides. I suppose Jean told youabout that?" 

"A little." Commager waved his hand around. "But I thought you people were theGuides." 

Hawkes smiled. 

Wilson Knox looked startled. "Goodness, no, Mr. Commager! Though as a matterof fact -- " he glanced somewhat warily at his two companions -- "if someonehere were a Guide, that person would be the only one who knew it! And, ofcourse, Paylar. That's right, isn't it, Ruth?" 

Miss MacDonald nodded and looked bored. 

Jean said to Ira, "All I really told Alan was that some friends of yours wouldlike to experiment with -- well, whatever you think he was using in that crapgame last week." She smiled brightly at the group. "Mr. Commager actually woneleven hundred dollars in fifteen minutes of playing!" 

"Ah, anybody could if they kept the dice for fifteen minutes," Commager saidairily. "Question of mind over matter, you know." 

"Eleven hundred dollars? Phenomenal!" Wilson Knox came wide awake. "And may Iask, sir, whether you employ your powers as a professional gambler?" 

Commager replied no, that professionally he was a collector, importer, 


wholesaler and retailer of tropical fish. Which was, as it happened, thetruth, but the Reverend looked suspicious. 

A door opened then and two other people came in. One was a handsome thoughsullen-faced young man whose white-blond hair had been trimmed into a butchhaircut. He was deeply tanned, wore a tee-shirt, white slacks, sneakers andlooked generally as if he would be at home on Muscle Beach. 

The other one had to be Paylar: a genuine Guide or, at least, a directconnection to them. She was downright cute in a slender, dark way. She mightbe in her early twenties . . . 

But for a moment, as Commager stood up to be introduced, he had the confusedimpression that jungles and deserts and auroras mirrored in ice-flows had comewalking into the room with her. 

Well, well, he thought. Along with Hawkes, here was another real personality. 

They didn't continue with the experiments on Ira. Wilson Knox reportedCommager's feat in Las Vegas to Paylar, who seemed to know all about it, andthen went bumbling on into a series of anecdotes about other dice manipulatorshe had known or heard about. 

Except for the Boharts, the others listened with varying expressions of politeboredom. But Ira seemed genuinely fascinated by the subject and kept glancingat Commager, to see how he was taking it. Jean became argumentative. 

"Nobody can really prove that anyone has such abilities," she stateddecisively. "Ira's been working around with this sort of thing for years andhe's never shown me anything that couldn't have been a coincidence!" 

Ira grinned apologetically. Wilson Knox sent a quick glance toward Paylar, whohad settled herself in an armchair to Commager's left. The Reverend, Commagerthought, seemed both miffed and curiously apprehensive. 

Commager's own interest in the group became suddenly more lively. 

"There are people in this world today, my dear young lady," Wilson Knox wastelling Jean, "who control the Secret Powers of the Universe!" 

Jean sighed. "When Ira tells me something like that, I always want to know whywe don't hear what these mysterious people are doing." 

Wilson Knox glanced at Paylar again. And this time, Commager decided, therewas no question about it: the odd little man seemed genuinely alarmed. Thebushy eyebrows were working in unconcealed agitation. 

"We must consider," he told Jean helplessly, "that such people may have theirown reasons for not revealing their abilities." 

"Hm," sniffed Jean. 

Commager laughed. "Mrs. Bohart has a point there, you know," he said toPaylar. "I understand the Guides imply they can, at any rate, train people todevelop extrasensory abilities. Would you say they can produce some tangibleproof for that claim?" 


"Sometimes," she said. "With some people." She looked a little tired of thesubject, as if it were something she had heard discussed often, as sheprobably had, so Commager was surprised when she added in the same tone, "Icould, I think, produce such proofs very easily for you, Mr. Commager. To yourown satisfaction, at least." 

As she turned to look at him, her dark elfin face sober and confident,
Commager was aware of a sudden stillness in the room. Wilson Knox started whatseemed to be a protesting gesture and subsided again. And Jean was frowning,
as if she had just discovered an unexpected uncertainty in herself. 

"It's a fair offer," Commager acknowledged. "If you're suggesting anexperiment, I'll be glad to cooperate." 

For a moment, he saw something almost like compassion in the serious youngface that studied him. Then Paylar turned to the others. "Would you arrangethe lighting in the usual way? Mr. Commager, I should like you to sit here." 

It was what they had come here for, Commager thought. Hawkes and the blondyoung man, whose name was Lex Barthold, went about the room adjusting thelights. Commager had a strong impression that Jean now would just as soon keepthe experiment from being carried out, if she could think of a good enoughreason. 

But the experiment would be a flop anyway. No such half-mystical parlor gameshad worked on Commager since Lona had died. 

In Commager's tropical fish store on Wilshire Boulevard, there were displaytanks that were laid out with the casual stateliness of an English park andothers that had the formal delicacy of a Chinese garden or that appeared tocopy, in fantastic miniature detail, sections of some dreamland salt-waterreef. These were the designs of two artistically minded girls who managed thestore for Commager and they were often expensively duplicated by artiststhemselves in the homes of the shop's less talented patrons. 

But the tanks that most interested Commager were the big ones in the back ofthe store, partitioned off from the plate-glass windows and the displays thatfaced the boulevard. Here fish and plants were bred, raised and stockedwithout regard for art, and the effect, when you sat down to watch them for awhile, was that of being in the center of a secret, green-lit jungle out ofwhich God knew what might presently come soaring, wriggling or crawling atyou. 

It wasn't a bad way, in Commager's opinion, to pass a few hours at night, whenyou didn't happen to be in a mood either for sleep or human company. In hiscase, that might happen once or twice a week, or perhaps less than once amonth. When it happened more often, it was time to get organized for another 


one of those trips that would wind up at some warm and improbable point on the
big globe of Earth, where people were waiting to help Commager fill his
transport tanks with brightly colored little water-creatures -- which, rather
surprisingly, provided him with a very good income. 


It was a pattern he had followed for most of the second half of his thirty-
four years, the only two interruptions having been the second world war and
the nineteen months he'd been married to Lona. 


It was odd, he thought, that he'd never found anything more important to do
with his life than that, but the personal games he could watch people play
didn't seem to be even as interesting as the one he'd chosen for himself. 


Also, he went on thinking half-seriously, if you got right down to it,
probably all the important elements of life were contained right inside the
big tank he was observing at the moment, so that if he could really understand
what was going on in there, brightly and stealthily among the green underwater
thickets, he might know all that could be known about the entire Universe. 


Considered in that light, the tank became as fascinating as a stage play in a
foreign language, in which the actors wore the bright masks of magic and
played games that weren't so very unlike those being played by human beings.
But any real understanding of the purpose of the play, human or otherwise,
always had seemed a little beyond Commager's reach.
* * * 


He yawned and shifted position in the chair he had pulled up for himself.
Perhaps he was simply a bit more stupid than most. But there was a fretting
feeling that this game playing, whether on a large scale or a small one, never
really led to much, beyond some more of the same. There was, he conceded, a
good deal of satisfaction in it for a time, but in the long run, the returns
started to diminish. 


It seemed that things -- in some way Commager couldn't quite fathom -- should
have been arranged differently. 


A car passing on the street outside sent a whisper of sound along the edge of
his consciousness. With that came the awareness that it had been some time 
since he'd last heard a car go by and he found himself wondering suddenly what
time of night it was. 


He glanced at his wristwatch. Three-thirty. A little startled, he tried to
compute how long he had been sitting there. 


Then it struck him in a surge of panic that he couldn't remember coming to the
store at all! 


But, of course, his memory told him, you went with Jean to that house . . . 


And Paylar had asked him to sit down and . . . 


What kind of stunt had she pulled on him? 


The blackness of terror burst into his consciousness as soon as his thoughts
carried him that far -- and it wiped out memory. He tried again: 


A black explosion. He pushed at it and it retreated a little. 



It had been between ten and eleven o'clock. Five hours or so ago. What was the
last specific thing he could remember?
* * * 


He had been sitting in a chair, his eyes closed, a little amused, a little
bored. It had been going on for some time. Paylar, a quiet voice off to his
left, was asking him a series of odd questions. 


PAYLAR: But where are you, Mr. Commager? 


COMMAGER: (tapping his forehead): Right here! Inside my head. 


PAYLAR: Could you be more specific about that? 


COMMAGER (laughing): I'm somewhere between my ears. Or somewhere back of my
eyes. 


PAYLAR: How far do you seem to be from the right side of your head? Do you
sense the exact distance? 


Commager discovered he could sense the exact distance. As a point of
awareness, he seemed to be located an inch inside the right side of his skull.
Simultaneously, though, he noticed that his left ear was less than an inch and
a half away from the same spot -- which gave him briefly an odd impression of
the general shape of his head! 


But he realized then that his attention was shifting around in there, rapidly
and imperceptibly. His ears seemed to be now above him, now below and, for a
moment, the top of his skull seemed to have moved at least a yard away. 


He laughed. "How am I doing?" 


Paylar didn't answer. Instead, she asked him to imagine that he was looking at
the wall in front of him. 


After a while, that wasn't too difficult; Commager seemed to be seeing the
wall clearly enough, with a standing lamp in either corner, where Hawkes had
placed them. Next, the voice told him to imagine that the same wall now was
only a few inches in front of his face -- and then that it suddenly had moved
six feet behind him. It gave him an odd feeling of having passed straight
through the wall in the moment of shifting it. 


"Put it twenty feet in front of you again," she said. "And now twenty feet
behind you." 


Again the sensation of shifting in space, as if he were swinging back and
forth, past and through the wall. Commager had become alert and curious now. 


On the third swing, he went straight into the blackness . . . with panic
howling around him! After that, everything was blotted out.
* * * 


He couldn't, Commager discovered, close the gap any farther now. Somewhere
near eleven o'clock in the evening, he'd gone into that mental blackout with
its peculiarly unpleasant side-effects. His next memory might have been twenty
minutes ago, when he found himself staring into the miniature underwater 



forest of the fish tank in his store. 

He could phone the Bohart apartment, he thought, and find out what actuallyhad happened. Immediately, then, he became aware of an immense reluctance tocarry out that notion and he grimaced irritably. It was no time to worry aboutwhat the Boharts might think, but he could imagine Jean's sleepy voice,
annoyedly asking who was calling at this hour. 

And he'd say, "Well, look, I've lost my memory, I'm afraid. A piece of itanyway -- " 

He shook his head. They'd gone there to show up the Guides, after all! He'dhave to work this out by himself. As if in response to his line of thought,
the office telephone, up in the front of the store, began ringing sharply. 

The unexpected sound jolted Commager into a set of chills. He sat therestiffly, while the ring was repeated four times; and then, because there wasreally no reason not to answer it, no matter how improbable it was thatsomeone would be calling the store at this time of night, he got up andstarted toward the telephone down the long aisle of back-store tanks. Here andthere, one of the tanks was illuminated by overhead lights, like the onebefore which he'd been sitting. 

At the corner, where he turned from the aisle into the office, something layin his path. 

He almost stepped on it. He stopped in shock. 

It was a slender woman, lying half on her side, half on her face, in a rumpleddress and something like a short white fur jacket. 

Her loose hair hid her face. 

The telephone kept on shrilling. 

Commager dropped to one knee beside the woman, touched her and knew she wasdead, turned her over by the shoulders and felt a stickiness on his hands.
There was a slanting cut across her throat, black in the shadows. 

"Well," a voice inside Commager's head said with insane calm, "if it isn'tMiss MacDonald!" He felt no pity for her at the moment and no real alarm, onlya vast amazement. 

He realized that the telephone had stopped ringing and clusters of thoughtburst suddenly and coherently into his awareness again. Somebody apparentlythought he was here, at three-thirty in the morning -- the same somebody mightalso suspect that Miss MacDonald was here and even in what condition. And thephone could have been dialed quite deliberately at that moment to bringCommager out of the hypnotized or doped trance, or whatever it was thatsomebody knew he was trapped in. 

In which case, they might be wanting him to discover Ruth MacDonald's body atabout this time. 

It would be better, he thought, not to get tangled up just now in wonderingwhy anyone should want that to happen; or even whether, just possibly, it hadbeen he himself who had cut Miss MacDonald's brown throat. 


What mattered was that, at this instant, somebody was expecting him to react
as reasonably as a shocked and stunned man could react in such a situation. 


The only really reasonable course of action open to him was to call the police
promptly -- wherefore, if his curiously calm assumption was correct, he would
be primarily expected to do just that. It would be much less reasonable,
though still not too unlikely, to carry that ghastly little body far off
somewhere and lose it. 


Or he could just walk out of here and leave Miss MacDonald on the floor, to be
discovered by the store's staff in the morning. That would be a stupid thing
to do, but still something that might be expected of a sufficiently dazed and
frightened man. 


So he wouldn't do any of those things! The hunch was strong in him that the
best way to react just now was in a manner unreasonable beyond all
calculation. 
* * * 


He shoved Ruth MacDonald's body aside and flicked on his cigarette lighter. On
the floor were gummily smeared spots, but she had bled to death somewhere else
before she had been dropped here. 


Commager's hands and clothes were clean, so it was very improbable that he had
carried her in. The sensible thing, he thought, would be to clean up the few
stains on the floor before he left, removing any obvious evidence that Miss
MacDonald had been in the store at all. 


Wherefore, he didn't bother to do it. 


Nor did he waste time wondering whether a half dozen tanks in the back part of
the store had been lit when he came in here or not. There was a variety of
possible reasons why someone might have left a light on over some of them. 


He picked up the slender stiffening body on the floor and carried it to the
front door. 


The door was unlocked and his Hudson was at the curb. He shifted Miss 
MacDonald to one arm, locked the store door behind him, then placed her in the
back seat of the car. 


Even Wilshire Boulevard was a lonely street at this hour, but he saw several
sets of headlights coming toward him as he got into the car and started it. As
far as he could make out, there hadn't been any blood spilled around inside
the Hudson, either. 


Twelve minutes later, he drove past the corner house he'd visited with Jean
Bohart some time before ten in the evening. There was a light on in one of the
rooms upstairs, which distinguished Herbert Hawkes's home from any other house
in sight. A few blocks away, a dog began to bark. 


Dogs might be a problem, he thought.
* * * 


Commager parked the car a few hundred feet away and sat still for perhaps a
minute, listening. The dog stopped barking. Headlights crossed an intersection 



a few blocks ahead of him. 

He got out, lifted Miss MacDonald's body out of the car and walked unhurriedlyback to the corner house and over the stepping stones of the dichondra lawn tothe side of the house. Here was a trellis, with a gate in it, half open. 

Commager eased his burden sideways through the gate. In the half-light ofearly morning, he set Ruth MacDonald down under a bush -- which partlyconcealed her -- in about the same position in which he'd found her. He had amoment of pity to spare for her now. 

But there was motion inside the house. Commager looked at the door that openedinto this side garden. A vague sequence of motions; somebody walking quietly 


-but without any suggestion of stealth -- was coming closer to the door.
Commager stepped quietly up to the wall beside the door and flattened himselfagainst the wall. 
A key clicked in the lock. The door swung open. A big shape sauntered out. 

Commager's fist was cocked and he struck hard, slanting upward, for the sideof the neck and the jaw . . . 

He laid Herbert Hawkes down beside the body of Ruth MacDonald, one big armdraped across her shoulders. 

Let the Guides figure that one out, he thought wearily. Not that theywouldn't, of course, but he was going to continue to react unreasonably. 

Twenty minutes later, he was in his apartment and sound asleep. 

The bedside phone buzzed waspishly. Commager hung for a moment between twolevels of awareness. The blazing excitement of the fight was over, but hestill hated to relinquish the wild, cold, clear loneliness of the blue -


The thin droning continued to ram at his eardrums. His eyes opened and he satup, reaching for the telephone as he glanced at the clock beside it. 8:15. 

"Alan? I think it worked! Ira had breakfast and drove off to the office,
wrapped in deep thought. You were terrific, simply terrific! Just sittingthere like a stone wall -- " 

Commager blinked, trying to catch up with her. Jean Bohart had an athlete'shealthy contempt for lie-a-beds and felt no compunction about jolting them outof their torpor. She probably assumed he'd been up and around for the past twohours. 

Then his waking memories suddenly flooded back. He sucked in a shocked breath. 


"Eh?" She sounded startled. 

"I didn't say anything," he managed. "Go ahead -- " 

He wouldn't, he realized presently, have to ask Jean any leading questions.
There was a nervous tension in her that, on occasion, found its outlet in aburst of one-way conversation and this was such an occasion. The Boharts hadleft the Hawkes home shortly before twelve, Ira apparently depressed by thenegative results of the evening. The Reverend Knox had made a phone callsomewhat earlier and had been picked up within a few minutes by an elderlywoman who, in Jean's phrasing, looked like a French bulldog. 

"I think he was glad to get out of there!" she added. 

Commager didn't comment on that. He himself had stayed on with the others.
Ruth MacDonald, in Jean's opinion, was making a pretty definite play for himby that time, while Paylar -- "What's her last name, anyway?" -- had becomewithdrawn to the point of rudeness after Commager's spectacular lack ofreaction to her psychological games. 

"I think she knew just what we were doing by then!" Jean's voice heldconsiderable satisfaction. "So did that Hawkes character. Did you know he'sthe Herbert Hawkes who owned the Hawkes Chrysler Agency on Figueroa? Well,
there's something interesting about that -- " 

Hawkes had sold out his business about eight months before and it wasgenerally known that his reason had been an imminent nervous breakdown. "Whatdo you make of that, Alan?" 

Offhand, Commager admitted, he didn't know what to make of it. 

Well, Jean interrupted, she was convinced Hawkes had gone the way Ira wouldhave gone if they hadn't stopped him. "Those Guides have him hypnotized orsomething!" She laughed nervously. "Does it sound as if I'm getting toodramatic about it?" 

"No," he said, recalling his last glimpse of Hawkes and his horrid littlecompanion much too vividly. "He doesn't strike me as acting like a man who'sbeen hypnotized, though. Not that I know much about that sort of thing." 

Jean was silent, thinking. "Did anything in particular develop between you andMacDonald?" she asked suddenly. There was a strange sharpness in her tone. 

Commager felt himself whiten. "No," he said, "I just went home by and by." Hetried for a teasing note. "Were you worrying about it?" 

"She's poison, that's all!" Jean said sharply.
* * * 

After she hung up, Commager showered, shaved, dressed and breakfasted, withvery little awareness of what he was doing. He was in a frame of mind hedidn't entirely understand himself; under a flow of decidedly unpleasantspeculations was a layer of tingling, almost physical elation which, when hestopped to consider it, appeared a less than intelligent response to hispresent situation. But the realization didn't seem to affect the feeling. 


The feeling vanished abruptly when he dumped the clothes he'd been wearing thenight before out of the laundry bag into which he had stuffed them, along withthe blanket on which he'd laid Ruth MacDonald's body in the car. 

He had handled her with some caution and he couldn't discover marks on any ofthose articles now that seemed likely to incriminate him. But he had no doubtthat a more competent investigation could reveal them. 

The odd thing was that he still couldn't get himself to worry about such aninvestigation. He had no logical basis for his belief that unless he himselfannounced the murder of the secretary of the Parapsychological Group of LongBeach, nobody else was going to take that step. He couldn't even disprove thathe hadn't, somewhere along the line last night, dropped into sheer criminallunacy. 

But, so far, nobody had come pounding at his door to accuse him of murder. AndCommager retained the irrationally obstinate conviction that nobody would. 

He had an equally strong conviction that he had become the target of therelentless hostility of a group of people, of whose existence he hadn't knownuntil the day before -- and that he wouldn't know why until he discovered thereason for his loss of conscious memory in a period during which he had, toJean Bohart's discerning eyes, showed no noticeable change in behavior. 

And, Commager decided finally, he'd better not let the lack of satisfactoryconscious evidence for either certainty affect his actions just now.
* * * 

He made two appointments by telephone and left the apartment an hour afterhe'd been wakened. A few minutes later, he was at the store, which would openfor business at ten o'clock. 

Commager unlocked the door and strolled inside. The store's staff had gotthere at nine and the floors, he noticed, had been thoroughly mopped. Nobodyinquired whether he'd been in during the night, so it seemed he had guessedright in leaving the lights on over the big tanks. 

He drove into Los Angeles then, to keep his first appointment, at Dr. Henry L.
Warbutt's Psychology Center. 

Henry was a stout, white-haired, energetic little man with the dark melancholyeyes of one of the great apes. "Thirty minutes for free is all I can spare,
even for orphans," he informed Commager. "But you're welcome to that, so comein and sit down, boy! Cup of tea, eh? What do you hear from the Boharts?" 

Commager declined the tea, which was likely to be some nasty kind of disguisedhealth-brew, and stated that the Boharts, when last heard from, had been doingfine. It wasn't his first visit to the Center. Both of his parents had beendead before he was twelve and Henry, who was a relative on his father's side,
had been his legal guardian until he came of age. 

"I want to find out what you know about a new local organization called theGuides," Commager explained. "They're on the metaphysical side, I'd say, butthey seen to be doing some therapy work. They're not listed in the telephonebook." 

Henry looked slightly disturbed. "If you mean the Guides I'm thinking of, 


they're not so new. How did you hear about them? Is Ira messing around withthat outfit now?" 

Commager told him briefly of last night's earlier events, presenting JeanBohart's version of his own role in them, as if that were the way he recalledit himself. 

Henry became interested at that point. "Do you remember just what thoseexercises were that the woman put you through?" 

When Commager had described them, he nodded. "They got those gimmicks fromanother group. I've used them myself now and then. Not on cash clients, ofcourse, just as an experiment." 

"The idea is to divert your attention away from your body-ego, if you knowwhat I mean. No? Well, then -- " 

He made a steeple of his hands and scowled at his fingertips. "Metaphysically,
it's sometimes used as a method to get you out of your physical body." Hewaved his hands vaguely around. "Off you go into the astral plane orsomething." He grinned. "Understand now?" 

"More or less," Commager said doubtfully. "Did you ever see it happen?" 

"Eh? Oh, no! With me, they usually just go to sleep. Or else they get boredand won't react at all, about like you did. There's no therapeutic value in itthat I know of. But probably no harm, either." 

"Would you say whether there's any harm in the Guides?" 

"Well," said Henry thoughtfully, "they're certainly one of the moreinteresting groups of our local psychological fauna. Personally, I wouldn't goout of my way to antagonize them. Of course, Ira's such a damn fool, youprobably had to do something pretty obvious to discourage him. Fifteen ortwenty years ago, the Guides were working principally with drugs, as far as Icould make out at the time. I don't know whether this is the same organizationor not, but just lately -- the last year or so -- I've been hearing gossipabout them again." 

"What kind of gossip?" 

"Well, you know a good many of the people who come into this Center fortherapy are interested in metaphysics in one way or another," Henry explained.
"Some of them have been telling me lately that the Guides are the latest thingin a True Group. And a True Group, in their language, means chiefly that thepeople in it have some honest-to-goodness supernatural abilities and powers." 

He grimaced unhappily. "Another characteristic is that nobody else knowsexactly who belongs to a True Group. In that way, your acquaintances seem tobe living up to the legend." 

Commager said he'd been under the impression that the Guides dealt inparapsychology. 

Henry nodded. "Well, they'd use that, too, of course! Depending on the classof client -- " He hesitated briefly. "By and large, I'd say the Guides were avery good outfit for fairly normal citizens like you and the Boharts to stay 


away from." 

He'd also heard of the Reverend Wilson Knox and of the Temple of AntiqueChristianity, though not favorably. 

"Knox has a crummy little sect back in one of the Hollywood canyons. They goin for Greek paganism. Strictly a screwball group." He didn't know anything ofthe Parapsychological Group of Long Beach. "You can't keep up with all ofthem." 

Julius Savage was a lanky, sun-browned hypnotist who'd sometimes gone spear-
fishing with Commager. On one such occasion -- the last, if Julius hadanything to say about it -- Commager had been obliged to haul him half-drownedout of a kelp bed and thump him back into consciousness. Which made him theright man right now. 

He clasped his hands behind his head, rocked himself back from his desk andlooked first interested and then highly dubious, while Commager went ontalking. 

"You're about as lousy a hypnotic subject as I am myself, Alan!" Juliusprotested finally. "I tried to put you under twice, remember? Anyway, howabout sending you to my tame M.D. for a checkup first? Amnesia isn't anythingto -- No?" He considered. "Well, how long ago did this happen?" 

The fact that it had happened only the night before reassured him somewhat. Sopresently Commager was sitting in an armchair being informed that his eyelidswere getting heavier and heavier. 

An hour later, Julius said discouragedly, "This isn't getting us anywhere andI've got another appointment at two o'clock! How bad do you want thatinformation, Alan?" 

"It's a matter of life and death!" 

"Oh, hell!" said Julius. He went out of the room and came back with a smallbottle, partly filled with a slightly oily, aromatic liquid. "I don't use thisoften, but -- by the way, with the possible exception of last night, didanyone else ever try to hypnotize you?" 

"Ira Bohart did, the first time I met him," Commager recalled. "It was at aparty. No results." 

"We'll make it two spoonfuls," Julius decided.
* * * 

Ten minutes later, Commager got into the blackness. The next time he 


consciously opened his eyes, it was past three in the afternoon. Julius,
looking pale and exhausted, stood at the desk watching him. He'd loosened histie and hung his jacket over the back of a chair. His hair was disheveled. 

"Brother!" he remarked. "Well, we got something, Alan. I'll play parts of itback to you." He jerked his head at a gently burbling percolator on a mantel.
"Cup of coffee there for you. Better have some." 

Commager sipped black coffee, yawned, and took note of the time. Too much ofthe day already was past, he thought uneasily; he wondered what the Guides hadbeen doing meanwhile. "What happened to your appointments?" 

"Canceled them," Julius said, fiddling with the tape recorder. "They'll keep."
He glanced around at Commager. "Here's the first thing we got.
Chronologically, it seems to fit in at the end of the period you can'tremember. Symbolism, but I'm curious. We'll try it first." 

Commager listened. After a while, there were pricklings of memory. When Juliusstopped the recorder, he remarked, "I had a dream this morning that seems totie in with that." 

"Ah?" Julius looked professionally cautious. "Well, let's hear about it." 

Commager hesitated. The dream seemed irrelevant and rather childish, like afairy tale. He'd been flying around in a great open space, he began at last.
And he'd been wondering why nobody else was up there with him, but he hadn'tfelt particularly concerned about it. Then a hawk came swooping at him, tryingto knock him out of the air. 

There was a long leash attached to the hawk's leg and Commager noticed that,
far down below, a number of people were holding the leash and watching thebattle. "That explained why there wasn't anyone else around, you see. Whenanyone tried it, they simply sent a hawk up after him." 

"Hm!" said Julius. "Recognize the people?" 

"No -- " Commager checked himself and laughed. "Of course, it just struck me!
Hawkes was the name of one of the people I met last night! That explains thedream!" 

Julius nodded doubtfully. "Possibly. How did it continue?"
* * * 

As Commager recalled it, there hadn't been much more to it. He couldn't damagethe hawk and the hawk couldn't bring him down; finally it disappeared. Thenhe'd been up there alone . . . and then he'd been wakened by the telephone. 

Julius tapped the desk with the eraser end of a pencil, looking thoughtful.
"Well -- " he sighed. He turned to the recorder. "Let's try another part ofthis now, Alan. The central part. Incidentally, we didn't get into what youwere actually doing last night. These are your subjective impressions and theyaren't necessarily an immediately recognizable reflection of real events, pastor present. You understand that?" 

Commager said he did. But he felt a stab of sharp apprehension. He wasreasonably certain that whatever Julius heard or guessed in his officeremained a private matter. But his own line of action had been based on the 


solid personal conviction that, whatever had happened last night, it hadn'tbeen he who had killed Ruth MacDonald. 

In view of the hypnotist's careful and almost formal phrasing, Commager was,
for a few moments at least, not quite so sure about that. 

There were a bad few moments . . . 

Then the recorder was turning again.
* * * 

"What do you make of it?" Julius asked. "It will help me formulate my ownopinion." 

Commager shrugged. He still felt shaken, after the intermittent waves ofgrief, rage and remorse that had pounded through him while a section of thetape rewound itself again -- with a vividness and immediacy that dazed him,
but still seemed rather unaccountable. After all, that had been over and donewith almost four years ago! 

"It's fairly obvious to me," he said reluctantly. At least his voice soundedsteady enough. "A few months before my wife died, I'd begun to get interestedin the ESP experiments she was playing around with. You remember Lona wasalmost as bad that way as Ira Bohart." 

He managed a brief, careful grin. "It annoyed me at first, but, of course, Ididn't let her know. I thought she'd drop it soon enough. When she didn't, Idecided I'd experiment on the quiet by myself. Actually, I was afterinformation I could use to convince Lona she was wasting her time with thatsort of thing -- and then she'd have more time to spare for the kind of funand games I was interested in." 

Julius smiled faintly and nodded. 

"I started making lists of coincidences," Commager explained. "Occasions whenI'd tell myself Lona would be home at six, say, and she'd actually show upabout that time. Or I'd decide what dress she'd select to wear next morning -" 


"Predictions, generally?" Julius drew a precise little circle on the deskblotter with his pencil and studied it critically. 

"Yes. Or I'd put the idea into her head that she wanted to talk about someparticular thing with me -- and sometimes she would!" Commager smiled. "I wasalso, you see, keeping a list of the times these little experiments didn'twork out, and they often didn't, at first. So that, when I told Lona about itfinally, it would be obvious that the coincidences had been just that." 

He hesitated. "I still think they were just that. But one day, it struck meI'd accumulated too many coincidences lately. It shook me." 

"Did it stop your experimentation?" Julius remained intent on his art work. 

"A few days later, it did," Commager said. He discovered suddenly that he wassweating. "Lona phoned me that afternoon that she was driving down to thebeach to pick me up. After she hung up, I had a sudden positive feeling thatif she drove her car that afternoon, she'd get killed! I almost called her 


back. But I decided I wasn't going to turn into another Ira Bohart. As ofthen, I was quitting all this ESP business and so was Lona! When she gotthere, I'd tell her -- " 

The sweat was running down his face now. "Well, you know that part of it. Lonahad a heart attack while driving, the doctors thought, and crashed and gotkilled." He paused again, because his voice had begun to shake. "I don't knowwhy that got on there" -- he nodded at the recorder -- "except that night wasthe first time since that I felt, even for a minute, that something might begoing on that couldn't be explained in a perfectly normal way!" 

"That," inquired Julius, "was while you were going through that peculiar setof exercises you were describing, wasn't it? Alan, how long ago has it been,
exactly, since your wife died?" 

"Not quite four years." Commager drove back a surge of impatience. "I supposeI've felt guilty enough about it ever since. But right now, Julius, I'minterested in finding out why I lost a few hours of memory last night and howto restore them. Are we getting any closer to that?" 

"I think we are. Can you be at this office at 10 a.m. two days from tomorrow?
That's Thursday morning." 

"Why should I come here then?" 

Julius shrugged. "Because that's the earliest appointment I could make for youwith Dr. Ciardi. I phoned him just before you woke up. He's a friend of mineand an excellent psychiatrist, Alan. We do a lot of work together." 

Commager said in angry amazement, "Damn you, Julius! I told you I didn't wantanyone else to know about this!" 

"I know," Julius admitted unhappily. "We've been fairly good friends for abouteight years now, haven't we? We've been in and out of each other's homes andmet each other's acquaintances, right?" 

Commager's fingertips drummed on his right knee. He was still furious. "Sowhat?" 

"So hell, Alan! What you were telling me just now never happened! Your wifewasn't killed in an auto accident four years ago because, four years ago, youdidn't have a wife! To the best of my knowledge, you've never been married!" 

Commager had a rather early dinner at Tilford's. A mirror lined the entirewall on the opposite side of the room; now and then, he glanced at himself.
For a sort of lunatic, he thought, the big, sun-tanned man sitting therelooked remarkably calm and healthy. 


He was still amazed, above all, at the apparent instantaneousness with whichhe had realized that what Julius had blurted out was true. He could pictureLona in a hundred different ways, very vividly, but he couldn't actuallyrecall having ever mentioned her to anybody else. And he couldn't now remembera single time when he and she and any other person had been together. 

It was almost as if the entire episode of Lona had been a story somebody hadtold him, illustrated out of his own imaginings. And now, in a few hours, thestory was beginning to fade out. Specific scenes had dropped almost beyond thereach of memory. The image of Lona herself started to blur.
* * * 

His immediate reaction had been an odd mixture of shocked self-disgust andprofound relief, threaded with the feeling that actually he'd always known,
without being consciously aware of it, that there wasn't any real Lona. 

Even the emotions he'd felt while listening to the tape recorder were a partof the fabrication; almost at the instant of realization, they began to breakaway from him. Like the sudden shattering of a hard shell of alien matter,
Commager thought, which he'd been dragging around, rather like a hermit-crab,
under the pretense that it was a natural part of himself. The self-disgustbecame even more pronounced at that comparison. 

But whatever his original motives had been for imposing that monstrousconstruction upon his mind, Commager couldn't see any further connectionbetween it and the events of the past night. 

Apparently he had thrust himself into a period of amnesia to avoid the fullimpact of an artificial set of emotions. In that period, there had been a veryreal and very unpleasant occurrence -- a murder. 

His main reason now for remaining convinced that he hadn't been the murdererwas that the evening papers carried no indication that the body of RuthMacDonald had been found. 

Which certainly indicated guilt on the part of those who must have found her. 

He could afford to wait until Thursday, Commager decided, to go digging afterthe causes of his delusion under Dr. Ciardi's guidance. But he probablycouldn't afford to wait at all to find out what the Guides -- he still had to 
assume it was the Guides -- were preparing for him next. 

And perhaps the best way to find out would be, quite simply, to ask. 

He finished his dinner, walked up the street to a telephone booth and dialedthe number of Herbert Hawkes's home. A man's voice informed him presently thatit was the Hawkes residence, Lex Barthold speaking. 

That, Commager recalled, was the name of the blond young man who had been anuntalkative member of the party last night. He gave his own name and said hewas trying to contact Miss Paylar -- a piece of information which produced asilence of several seconds at the other end. But when Barthold spoke again, hesounded unshaken. 

"Paylar isn't in at the moment. Shall I take your message, Mr. Commager?" 


Commager said no, he'd try again, and hung up. Now that, he reflected, walkingback to his car, seemed to be an interesting sort of household! 

For the first time since leaving Julius's office, he wasn't too displeasedwith himself. If he saw Paylar alone, he might, as far as appearances went, betaking an interest in the well-being of Ira Bohart or, reasonably enough, inPaylar herself. 

And things could start developing from that point. 

Of course, she might avoid letting him see her alone. In any case, his callwould give them something new to consider. 

He drove to the beach and turned south toward San Diego. A half hour later, heparked before the cabin where, among bulkier items of fishing gear, he kept a45-caliber revolver. He put that in the glove compartment of the car andstarted back to town. 
* * * 

The telephone rang a few minutes after he reached his apartment. 

"I've called you twice in the last hour," Paylar said. "I understand you wantto speak to me." 

"I do," said Commager. "Do you happen to have the evening free?" 

She laughed. "I've arranged to have it free. You can meet me at your aquariumstore, Mr. Commager." 

"Eh?" he said stupidly. 

"At your store." Her voice still sounded amused. "You see, I may have abusiness proposition for you." 

Then the line went dead. 

Commager swore and hung up. When he turned into Wilshire Boulevard not verymany minutes later, he saw a long gray car, vague under the street lights,
move away from the curb a hundred feet or so beyond his store and drive off.
There was no sign of Paylar. 

He parked and followed the car thoughtfully with his eyes. Then he got out.
The store was locked, the interior dark. But in back of the office, behind thepartition, was a shimmering of light. 

He thought of the gun in his car. There had been one murder. It seemed alittle early for another one. 

He unlocked the door and locked it again behind him. This time, there were nobodies lying around the aisles. But at the back of the store, standing beforea lighted fish tank and looking into it, Paylar was waiting for him. 

He didn't ask her how she got in. It seemed a theatrical gesture, a boastingindication that his affairs could be easily invaded from without. Aside fromthat, the darkened store undoubtedly was a nice place for an ambush. Commagerwondered briefly why he didn't feel more concerned about that and realizedthen that he was enormously angry. An ambush might have been a relief. 


"Did you find out much about us today?" Paylar asked. 

"Not enough," he admitted. "Perhaps you can tell me more." 

"That's why I'm here." 

Commager looked at her skeptically. She was wearing a black sweater and slacks
that appeared wine-colored in the inadequate light from the big tank. A small,
finely shaped body and a small, vivid face. The mouth smiled soberly; black
eyes gleamed like an animal's as she turned her head toward him. 


"We're an organization," she said, "that operates against the development of
parapsychological abilities in human beings . . ." 


Oddly enough, it made sense and he found himself believing her. Then he
laughed. "Do you object to my winning a crap game?" 


Paylar said seriously, "We don't object to that. But you're not stopping
there, Mr. Commager." 


Again there was an instant of inner agreement; an elation and anxiety.
Commager hesitated, startled by his reaction. He said, "I'm not aware of any
ambition along that line." 


She shook her head. "I don't think you're being quite truthful. But it doesn't
really matter how aware you are of it just now. The last twenty-four hours
have indicated clearly that you can't be checked by any ordinary methods." She
frowned. "The possibility had been foreseen -- and so we hit you with
everything that was immediately available, Mr. Commager. I was sure it was
enough." 


Commager felt a little bewildered. "Enough for what?" 


"Why, almost anybody else would have done something sensible -- and then
refused to ever budge out of the everyday world again, even in his thoughts.
Instead, you turned around and started to smoke us out -- which, incidentally,
saved you for the moment from an even more unnerving experience!"
* * * 


Commager stared at her, appalled. That final comment had no present meaning
for him, but she obviously was speaking about a murder of which she, at the
very least, had known at the time. She considered it mildly amusing that it
had back-fired on them! 


He said harshly, "I'd enjoy breaking your neck. But I suspect that you're a
little crazy." 


She shrugged, smiling. "The trouble is that you're not going to go on thinking
that, Mr. Commager. If you did, we could safely disregard you." 


He looked down at his hands. "So what are you going to do?" 


"There are others who say you can be stopped. It's certain you won't like
their methods, though I'm not entirely sure they will be effective. I came
here tonight to offer you an alternative." 



"Go ahead and offer it." 

"You can join us," she said. 

Commager gave a short laugh of sheer astonishment. "Now why should I want todo that?" 

"In the end," Paylar said soberly, "you may have very little choice. Butthere's another reason. You've been trying, all your life, to bring yourabilities into your consciousness and under your control." 

He shook his head. "If you mean wild talents, I haven't done anything of thesort." 

"Unfortunately," she said, "you won't remain unaware of that trend in yourselfvery much longer. And, if you cooperate with us, we can and will help you todo just that. But we can't let you continue by yourself, without safeguards.
You're too likely to be successful, you see. Those wild talents can becomeextremely wild!" 

"You know," he said, almost good-humoredly, "I think you really believe whatyou say. But as far as I'm concerned, you're a group of criminal lunaticswithout any more secret ability than I have myself." 

"That," Paylar replied undisturbed, "is precisely what we're afraid of. Forthe time being, though, we can use our abilities in ways that you cannot. Whathappened while you were doing those exercises last night, Mr. Commager?" 

He looked at her and then away. "I got rather bored." 

Paylar laughed. "You're lying! Exercises of that kind provide very convincingillusions, and very little else, for people who are hungry for illusion. Butsince you have an ability, it took no more than a word to bring it intoaction. That was when we knew you had to be stopped. However, I'm afraidyou're still turning down my offer." 

"You read my mind that time, lady! I'd turn you over to the police, too, if Ithought it would do any good." 

"It wouldn't," she assured him. Her head tilted a moment, with soft grace,
into an attitude of listening. "I think my car is coming back for me. I'llleave that offer open, Mr. Commager -- in case you survive long enough now toaccept it." 

He grinned. "You shouldn't frighten me like that." 

"I've frightened you a little, but not nearly enough. But there is more thanone way to shake a man to his senses -- or out of them -- so perhaps we canstill change your mind. Would you let me out the front door now?" 

Lights slid over the ceiling above her as she spoke, and the long gray car,
its engine throbbing, stood at the curb when they came out. Paylar turned atthe car door. 

"You know where I'm staying," she said, looking up at him, "if you want tofind me." 


Commager nodded. 


She smiled and then the door opened for her and light briefly filled the
interior of the car. 


Seconds later, he stood staring after it as it fled down the street. She'd
been right about there being more than one way of shaking a man out of his
senses. 


The driver of the car -- the very much alive driver -- had been Ruth
MacDonald! 
* * * 


Under what wasn't quite a full moon tonight, the Bay would have looked
artificial if it hadn't been so huge. A savage, wild place, incongruous in
this area with the slow thump and swirl and thunder of the tide. 


A mile to the south was a cluster of cottages down near the water's edge.
Commager's cabin was as close as anything could have been built to the flank
of the big northern drop-off. He could look down at the sharp turn of the
highway below him or out at the Bay. Nobody yet had tried to build on the
rocky rises of ground behind him. 


Without ordinary distractions, it was a good place for a few hours of
painstaking reorientation. He wasn't exactly frightened, Commager told
himself. But when he had recognized Ruth MacDonald, a wave of unreason inside
him had seemed to rise to meet and merge with the greater wave of unreason
rolling in from a shadow-world without. For that moment, the rules of reality
had flickered out of existence. 


An instant later, he'd had them solidly re-established. He was now simply a
man who knew something had happened that he couldn't begin to explain
rationally. It was a much more acceptable situation, since it included the
obvious explanation of irrationality. 


On Thursday morning, he could tell Dr. Ciardi, "Look, Doc, I'm having
hallucinations. The last one was a honey. I thought I was carrying a dead
woman all over town! What do we do about it?" 


And they'd do whatever was done in such circumstances and it would be a sane,
normal, active life for Alan Commager forever after -- with a woman more or
less like Jean Bohart to live it with, which would keep out the shadowy Lonas.
With everything, in fact, that didn't fit into that kind of life, that
belonged to the shadow-worlds, as completely obliterated and forgotten as they
could become. 


Commager wondered what made that picture look so unsatisfactory.
* * * 


It struck him suddenly that, according to Paylar, this was exactly how the
Guides had expected him to react as soon as her little games had steered him
into a bout of amnesia and hallucinations. They'd wanted, she'd said, in
approximately those words, to put him in a frame of mind that would make him
refuse to ever budge out of the safe, everyday world again, even in his
thoughts. 


Commager grimaced. But they'd become convinced then that he wasn't going to do 



it! 

He might do it all the same, he thought. But the reason it couldn't be acompletely satisfactory solution was growing clear. One couldn't discount theprobability that there was a little more to the shadow-worlds than lunacy andshadow. Perhaps only a very little more and perhaps not. But if he avoidedlooking at what was there, he would never find out. 

And then he realized that he wasn't going to avoid looking at it, hadn'treally been seriously considering it. He swore at himself, because avoidancedid seem still the simple and rational solution, providing one could besatisfied with it. 

He couldn't be satisfied with it and that was that. He could see now that if 
an organization such as Paylar had described the Guides to be existed, and ifit were composed, at least in part, of people who really had developed anunderstanding and working knowledge of the possibilities of psi, it would bein a uniquely favorable position to control and check the development ofsimilar abilities in others. 

Its connections and its influence would be primarily with the psychologicalfringe groups here and with their analogs elsewhere; and the people who weredrawn to such groups would be those who were dissatisfied with or incompetentin normal lines of activity, and had become abnormally interested incompensating for their lack of other achievement by investigating the shadowy,
vague, ego-bolstering promise of psi. 

And people frightened by the threat of total war, driven into a search forpsychic refuge by the prospect of physical destruction. 

In either case, because they were uncertain, less than normally capablepeople, they could be controlled without too much difficulty -- and carefullydiverted then, in groups or as individuals, from the thing they were seekingand might stumble upon. 

The exercises she'd demonstrated to him, Paylar had said, were designedprimarily to provide convincing illusions for those who were hungry forillusion. 

She and her associates, Commager realized, might feel it was necessary. Theymight know just enough to be afraid of what such knowledge could lead to. Ifit were possible to encourage a pair of dice to bounce and spin in just theright pattern to win for you, it might, for example, also be possible to senda few buildings bouncing and spinning through a city! Of course, nobody everseemed to have done it, but that might be due precisely to the existence ofsome controlling agency, such as the Guides claimed to be. 

For a while, Commager regarded the possibility of accepting Paylar'sinvitation to join her group -- and, a few seconds later, he knew he wasn'tgoing to do that either. 

However determined he might be to proceed with a painstaking and thoroughinvestigation of this field of possibilities now, there was still a feeling ofsomething completely preposterous about the entire business. 

He could accept the fact that he had been shaken up mentally to the pointwhere he might qualify without too much difficulty for the nearest insane 


asylum. But he wasn't ready to admit to anybody just yet that he, a grown man,
was taking the matter of psi very seriously. 

It was something you could try out for yourself, just as an experiment, behindlocked doors and with the windows shaded. 

So Commager locked the front door to his cabin and tried it out. 

The telegram which had been shoved under his apartment door during the nightgave a Hollywood telephone number and urgently requested him to call it. Itwas signed by Elaine Lovelock. So far as Commager could remember, Elaine wasno one he knew. When he dialed the number, nobody answered. 

He'd try to reach her again before he left for the store, he decided. It waseight-thirty now; he'd just got in from the Bay. The chances were somebody'sdeluxe fifty-gallon tropical fish tank had started to leak on the living roomcarpet, and it hadn't occurred to them immediately that this was what pailsand pots were for. 

He sat down to write a few notes on last night's experiment. 

Nothing very striking had happened; he suspected he'd simply fallen asleepafter the first forty minutes or so. But if he kept notes, something like arecognizable pattern might develop. 

Item: The "Lona complex" hadn't bothered him much. It was beginning to feellike something that had happened to somebody else a long time ago. So perhapsthe emotions connected with it hadn't been triggered by Paylar's exercises, asJulius seemed to assume. Or else, since he no longer believed in it, it was onits way out as a complex -- he hoped. 

Item: With his eyes closed, he could imagine very easily that he was lookingthrough the wall of the room into another section of the cabin; also that hehad moved there in person, as a form of awareness. In fact, he had roamedhappily all around the Bay area for about ten minutes. For the present, thatproved only that he had a much more vivid imagination than he'd thought -though 
whoever created Lona could be assumed to have considerable hiddentalent along that line! 

Item: When he'd tried to "read" specific pages of a closed book lying on atable near him, he had failed completely. 

Item: He had run suddenly -- he might have been asleep by then -- intosuccessive waves of unexplained panic, which brought him upright in his chairwith his pulse hammering wildly. 

Item: The panic had faded out of reach the instant he began to investigate it 


and he hadn't been able to recall it. 

Item: Either shortly before or after that event, he'd had for a while thesensation of being the target of stealthy and malevolent observation. He hadmade an attempt to "locate" the observer and gained the impression that theother one unhurriedly withdrew. 

Item: Briefly, he'd had a feeling of floating up near the ceiling of the room,
watching his own body sitting in the armchair with its eyes closed. This hadrocked him hard enough to awaken him again and he had concluded theexperiments. 

Item: After waking up, he hadn't found or imagined he'd found Ruth MacDonaldor anybody else lying around the cabin, murdered or otherwise. He'd checked. 

And that about summed it up, Commager decided. Not very positive results, buthe was determined to continue the experiments. 

He suspected Julius would feel very dubious about all this; but Julius wasn'tgoing to be informed. 

He himself was in a remarkably cheerful mood this morning.
* * * 

Mrs. Lovelock had a magnificent, musical voice, rather deep for a woman. 

"I'm so glad you called again, Mr. Commager," she said. "I was away on anunavoidable errand. Dr. Knox needs to see you immediately. How soon can you behere?" 

"Dr. Knox?" Commager repeated. "Do you mean the Reverend Wilson Knox?" 

"That is correct. Do you have the address of our Temple?" 

Commager said he didn't. There was no immediate reason to add that he hadn'tthe slightest intention of going there, either. "What did he want to see meabout?" 

Mrs. Lovelock hesitated. "I couldn't explain it satisfactorily by telephone,
Mr. Commager." A trace of anxiety came into her voice. "But it's quiteurgent!" 

Commager said he was sorry; he had a very full business day ahead of him -which 
was true -- so, unless he could get some indication of what this was allabout -


The melodious voice told him quaveringly, "Dr. Knox had a serious heart attacklast night. He needs your help!" 

Commager scowled. She sounded as off-beat as the rest of them and he had anurgent impulse to hang up. 

He said instead, "I don't quite see how I could be of much help under thosecircumstances. I'm not a doctor, you know." 

"I do know that, Mr. Commager," Mrs. Lovelock replied. "I also know that youhaven't been acquainted with Dr. Knox for more than a few days. But I assure 


you that you may be saving a human life by coming out here immediately! And
that is all I can tell you now -- " 


She stopped short, sounding as if she were about to burst into tears. 


What she said didn't make sense. Also Commager hadn't liked the Reverend Knox,
quite aside from the company he kept. But he could, he supposed resignedly,
afford to waste a few more hours now. 


"What was that address?" he asked, trying not to sound too ungracious about
it. 
* * * 


On the way over, he had time to wonder whether this mightn't be part of some
new little game the Guides wanted to play with him. He was inclined to
discount Paylar's threats -- psychologically, he suspected, they'd already
tried everything they could do to him -- and they didn't look like people who
would resort readily to physical violence, though Hawkes could be an exception
there. 


When Commager came in sight of the Temple of Antique Christianity, physical
violence suddenly looked a little more likely. He stopped a moment to consider
the place. 


It was in a back canyon beyond Laurel; the last quarter-mile had been a
private road. A tall iron gate blocked the road at this point, opening into a
walled court with a small building to the right. A sign over a door in the
building indicated that this was the office. 


Some distance back, looming over the walls of the court and a few intervening
trees, was another structure, an old white building in the Spanish style, the
size of a small hotel. 


It looked like the right kind of setting for the kind of screwball cult Henry
Warbutt had described. Depending on who was around, it also looked like a
rather good place for murder or mayhem. 


Should he just stroll in carelessly like a big, brave, athletic man? Or should
he be a dirty coward and get his revolver out of the glove compartment? It was
bound to make an unsightly bulge in any of his jacket pockets -


He decided to be a dirty coward.
* * * 


The gate was locked, but the lock clicked open a few seconds after Commager
pushed a buzzer button beside it. The only visible way into the area was
through the office door, so he went inside. 


A pallid young man and a dark, intense-looking young woman sat at desks across
the room from the door. The young man told Commager he was expected and went
to a side door of the office with him, from where he pointed to an entrance
into the big building, on the other end of what he called the grove. 


"Mrs. Lovelock is waiting for you there," he said and went back to his desk. 


The grove had the reflective and well-preserved air of a section of an
exclusive cemetery, with just enough trees growing around to justify its name. 



There was a large, square lawn in the center, and a large, chaste bronzestatue stood at each corner of the lawn, gazing upon it. 

Back among trees to the left was a flat, raised platform, apparently facedwith gray and black marble, but otherwise featureless. Commager had just gonepast this when he realized that somebody had been watching him from the top ofthe platform as he passed. 

That, at any rate, was the feeling he got. He hadn't actually seen anyone, andwhen he looked back, there was nobody there. But the feeling not only had beena definite and certain one -- it resumed the instant he started walking onagain. This time, he didn't look back. 

Before he'd gone a dozen more steps, he knew, too, just when he'd experiencedthat exact sensation before. It was the previous night, while he was doing hisparapsychological experiments at the Bay and had suddenly felt that he wasunder secret and unfriendly scrutiny. 

He laughed at himself, but the impression remained a remarkably vivid one. Andbefore he reached the entrance to the main building which the young man in theoffice had indicated to him, he had time for the thought that playing with theimagination, as he was doing, might leave one eventually on very shaky ground. 

Then he was there, looking into a long hallway, and Mrs. Lovelock's fine, deepvoice greeted him before he caught sight of her. 

"I'm so glad you could come, Mr. Commager!" she said. 

She was standing in the door of a room that opened on the hall to the left,
and Commager was a trifle startled by her appearance. He had expected a largehandsome woman of about thirty, to match the voice. But Mrs. Lovelock was notonly huge; she was shockingly ugly and probably almost twice the age he'destimated. She wore a white uniform, so Commager asked whether she was WilsonKnox's nurse. 

"I've been a registered nurse for nearly forty years, Mr. Commager," thebeautiful voice told him. "At present, I'm attending Dr. Knox. Would you comein here, please?" 

He followed her into the room and she closed the door behind them. Her big,
gray face, Commager decided, looked both worried and very angry. 

"The reason I wasn't more open with you over the telephone," she told him,
"was that I was certain you wouldn't have taken the trouble to drive out hereif I had been. And I couldn't have blamed you! Won't you sit down, please?" 

Commager took a chair and said he was afraid he didn't understand. 

Mrs. Lovelock nodded. "I shall give you the facts. Dr. Knox had a very severeheart attack at around two o'clock this morning. I have been a member of hiscongregation for twenty-four years, and I arrived with a doctor shortlyafterward. Dr. Knox is resting comfortably now, but he is very anxious to seeyou. I must let him tell you why, Mr. Commager. But I should like to prepareyou for what you will hear -- " 

Mrs. Lovelock stared gloomily at the carpet for a moment and then her facetwisted briefly into a grimace of pure rage. 


"Wilson -- Dr. Knox -- is a harmless old fool!" she told Commager savagely.
"This Antique Christianity he worked out never hurt anybody. They prayed toPan and they had their dances and chants. And there was the Oracle and he readout of the Book of Pan . . ." 

"I don't know anything about Dr. Knox's activities," Commager said, not toopolitely. 

She had thick, reddened, capable hands and they were locked together now onher lap, the fingers twisting slowly against one another, as if she weretrying to break something between them. 

"I was the Oracle, you see," she explained. "I knew it was foolish, but I'dsit up there on the dais in the smoke, with a veil over my head, and I'd saywhatever I happened to think of. But this year, Wilson brought in that RuthMacDonald -- you know her, he said." 

"I've met the lady," Commager admitted. "I wouldn't say I know her." 

"She became the Oracle! And then she began to change everything! I told Wilsonhe was quite right to resist that. There are things, Mr. Commager, that a goodChristian simply must not do!" 

Which, Commager felt, was a remarkable statement, under the circumstances.
Mrs. Lovelock came ponderously to her feet. 

"Dr. Knox will tell you what remains to be told," she added rather primly.
"And, of course, you cannot stay too long. Will you follow me now, please?"
* * * 

The Reverend didn't look as if he were in too bad a condition, Commagerthought when he saw him first. He was lying in a hospital bed which had beenraised high enough to let him gaze down at the grove out of a window of hissecond-story room. 

After he'd talked a few moments, Commager felt the man was delirious and hethought briefly of calling back Mrs. Lovelock or the other nurse who had beenwith Wilson Knox when they came in. But those two undoubtedly had been able tojudge for themselves whether they should remain with the Reverend or not. 

"Why should they want to kill you?" Commager asked. Knox had been speaking ofthe Guides and then had started to weep; now he blew his nose on a piece oftissue and made a groping motion for Commager's hand, which Commager withdrewin time. 

"It was merely a matter of business as far as I was concerned, Mr. Commager. Icertainly had no intention of blocking any activities of the Guides. In fact,
I should prefer not to know about them. But when Miss MacDonald, who wasemployed by the Temple, upset our members, I protested to her, sir! Isn't thatunderstandable?" 

"Entirely," Commager agreed carefully. "What did Miss MacDonald do to upsetthem?" 

"She predicted two of the congregation would die before the end of the year,"
Wilson Knox said shakily. "It caused a great deal of alarm. Many of our 


wealthier clients withdrew from the Temple at once. It is a considerablefinancial loss!" 

The Reverend appeared rational enough on that point. Commager inquired, "IsMiss MacDonald one of the Guides, Dr. Knox?" 

"It's not for me to say." Knox gave him a suddenly wary look. "When she spoketo me by telephone last night, I asked whether I had offended anyone. I was,
of course, greatly distressed!" His expression changed back to one of profoundself-pity. "But she repeated only that it had become necessary for me to diethis week and hung up." 

It seemed an odd way at that for the Temple's new Oracle to have phrased herprediction, Commager thought. He regarded Dr. Knox without much sympathy. "Sonow you want me to simply tell her not to hurt you, eh?" 

"It would be better, Mr. Commager," Knox suggested, "if you addressed yourselfdirectly to the young woman called Paylar." He reached for his visitor's handagain. "I place myself under your protection, sir. I know you won't refuseit!" 

Which was almost precisely what he had said as soon as the nurses left theroom, and the reason Commager had believed the patient was in a state ofdelirium. Now it seemed more probable that he was merely badly mistaken. 

Commager decided not to ask why it would be better to speak to Paylar. At anydirect question concerning the Guides, the Reverend became evasive. He saidinstead, "What made you decide I could protect you, Dr. Knox?" 

Knox looked downright crafty. "I have made no inquiries about you, sir, and Ido not intend to. I am a simple man whose life has been devoted to providing ameasure of beauty and solace for his fellow human beings. In a modest way, ofcourse. I have never pried into the Greater Mysteries!" 

He seemed to expect approval for that, so Commager nodded gravely. 

"I speak only of what I saw," Wilson Knox continued. "On Sunday night, I sawthem attempt to bring you directly under their sway. Forgive me for saying,
sir, that they do not do this with an ordinary person! I also saw them failand I knew they were frightened. Nevertheless, you were not destroyed." 

He tapped Commager's hand significantly. "That, sir, was enough for me. I donot attempt to pry -- I have merely placed myself under your protection!" 

A man with Secret Powers, a man who could tell the Guides to go jump in thePacific, might take a passing interest in the gimmicks of an organization likethe Temple of Antique Christianity. So on his way out through the grove, 


Commager had turned aside to get a closer look at the dais. 

He assumed, at least, that the gray and black marble platform was what Mrs.
Lovelock had referred to as the seat of the Oracle, since nothing else aroundseemed suitable for the purpose. 

Standing before it, he pictured her sitting up there in the night, veiled, avast, featureless bulk, announcing whatever came into her mind in thatstunning voice, and he could see that Wilson Knox's congregation might wellhave listened in pop-eyed fascination. Ruth MacDonald couldn't have beennearly as impressive. 

Perhaps that was why she had started passing out death sentences.
* * * 

Down on Sunset, he parked his car at the curb and remained in it, watching thetraffic, while he tried to digest the information he had received -- if youcould call it information. 

Wilson Knox and Mrs. Lovelock appeared to be people who had fabricated so muchfantastic garbage for the clients of the Temple that they had no judgment leftto resist the fabrications of others. 

Commager's parting from Mrs. Lovelock had given him the impression that thehuge woman also was sullenly afraid, though she hid it much better than theReverend had. It could be simply that she felt her own position in the Templewould be lost if Knox died; but he thought that in her case, too, it was amore personal fear, of the Guides, or even of himself -


And he'd practically promised both of them to put in a word with Paylar toprotect that revolting little man! 

However, the Reverend's heart attack, at least, probably had been a realenough thing. And if Ruth MacDonald actually had telephoned a prediction ofdeath to him earlier in the night, there was some cause for intervention. Thepractice of frightening people into their graves was something that anyonecould reasonably insist should be stopped. 

And that, of course, brought up the question of how he expected to stop it. 

And the question, once more, of just what that odd group of people -- whoindicated they were the Guides or associated with them -- was after. 

Ruth MacDonald's activities concerning the Temple of Antique Christianityhardly seemed to lie on the lofty, idealistic level he'd been almost willingto ascribe to them in theory, even if he disliked their methods. She was abrassy, modern young witch, Commager thought, using the old witchcraft toolsof fear and suggestion out of equally old motives of material gain andprestige. 

But one couldn't account for Hawkes as simply as that, because Hawkes had hadmoney and prestige. 

Commager knew least of all about Paylar, except for the young man called LexBarthold, whose connection with the others wasn't clear. The impression ofPaylar was still mainly that she had a physical personality that would be hardto match if you liked them slender, dark and mysterious, and with a self



assurance that wasn't aggressive like Ruth MacDonald's, but that might be a
great deal more difficult to crack. Among the three he'd had to deal with, she
seemed to be the leader, though that wasn't necessarily true. 


He found himself walking slowly down the street toward a phone booth. 


Let's make a game of it, he thought. Assume that what Paylar had said and what
the Reverend had suspected was true -- at least in the Guides' own opinion -that 
he had turned out to be exceptionally tough material for their
psychological gimmicks. That he had, in fact, abilities he didn't yet know
about himself, but which, even in a latent state, were sufficient to have got
the Opposition all hot and worried! 


Even if the Guides only believed that -- if they, like Knox and his
mountainous registered nurse, had played around so long on the fringes of
reality that they were as badly confused now as the people they'd been
misleading -- his intervention should still be effective. Particularly if he
informed Mrs. Lovelock, with the proper degree of impressiveness, that he'd
passed on the word. 


A little play-acting didn't seem too much effort to put out to save a human
life. Even a life like Wilson Knox's . . . 


This time, it was Paylar who answered the telephone. 


"You've disappointed me a little, Mr. Commager," she said. "When I first heard
your voice, I was certain you were going to invite me out to dine and dance." 


Commager assured her that this had been his primary purpose -- and as soon as
he'd said it, he began to wonder whether it wasn't true. But business came
first, he added. 


"Well, as to the business," Paylar told him demurely, "I'm not necessarily in
control of Ruth's activities, you know. I hadn't been informed that the
Reverend Knox was ill." She paused a moment. "I'll tell Ruth she isn't to
frighten your friend again. Will that be satisfactory, Mr. Commager?" 


"Why, yes, it is," Commager said and found himself flushing. Somehow, in her
easy acceptance of his intervention, she'd managed to make him feel like a
child whose fanciful notions were being humored by an adult. He put the idea
aside, to be investigated later. "Now about where to have dinner -- " 


Paylar said she'd prefer to let him surprise her. "But I have a condition,"
she added pleasantly. "There'll be no shop-talk tonight!" 


Putting him on the defensive again, Commager thought ruefully. He told her
shop-talk had been far from his mind and would eight o'clock be about right? 


It would be about right, she agreed. And then, arriving at the store finally,
some fifteen minutes later, he found Jean Bohart waiting in his office. 


"Hi, Alan," she greeted him gloomily. "You're taking me to lunch. Okay?" 


In one way and another, Commager felt, Tuesday simply didn't look like a good
day for business.
* * * 



"I'm in a mood today," Jean announced. She picked without enthusiasm at agrapefruit and watercress salad. "But you're not talking to me, either!" 

"I was thinking," Commager said, "that I was glad you didn't look like acertain lady I met this morning. What's the mood about?" 

She hesitated. "I'm making my mind up about something. I'll tell you tomorrow.
Who was the lady? Someone I know?" 

"I doubt it. A Mrs. Lovelock." 

"I don't know any Lovelocks. What's the matter with her looks?" 

"Fat," Commager explained. 

"Well," Jean said glumly, "I'm not that." 

She was, in fact, in spite of her downcast expression, a model of crispattractiveness as usual. A white sharkskin suit, with a lavender veil gatheredlightly at her throat, plus a trim white hat to one side of a blonde head -neat, 
alert and healthy-looking as an airline hostess, Commager thoughtapprovingly. 

Jean mightn't care for the comparison, though, so he didn't tell her. And hewasn't going to press her about the mood, At the rare moments that she becamereserved, probing made her sullen. Probably something to do with Ira again. 

"I called off the Taylors for tomorrow," she told him suddenly, with sometraces of embarrassment, "so we could talk. You don't mind, do you?" 

"Of course not," Commager said hesitantly. Then it struck him suddenly: they'dhad a date for an all-day fishing party Wednesday, Jean and he and the Taylorcouple. He'd forgotten completely! 

"That's all right then," Jean said, looking down at her plate. She stillseemed curiously shy and Commager realized that this was no ordinary problem.
"Will you sleep at your cabin tonight?" 

"Sure," he said, concerned -- he was very fond of Jean. His sleeping at thecabin was the usual arrangement on such occasions; he'd have everything readythere for the day before anyone else arrived and then they'd be off to anearly start. 

"I'll be there tomorrow at eight," said Jean. She gave him a quick, unhappysmile. "I love you, Alan -- you never ask questions when you shouldn't!"
* * * 

So he had two dates at eight now, twelve hours apart. If it hadn't been forthe attendant problems, Commager decided, his social life might have lookedexceptionally well-rounded at the moment to almost anybody. 

But he didn't seem to be doing a very good job of keeping clear of attendantproblems. It had struck him for the first time, while they were lunching, thatJean Bohart might easily have been the prototype of the figment of Lona. Therewere obvious general similarities, and the dissimilarities might have been hisown expression of the real-life fact that Jean was Ira's wife. 


But he felt himself moving into a mentally foggy area at that point. There had
been occasional light love-making between them, too light to really count; but
Jean certainly had remained emotionally absorbed with Ira, though she tended
to regard him superficially with a kind of fond exasperation. 


Commager didn't really know how he felt about Jean, except that he liked her
more than any one else he could think of. There was a warning awareness that
if he tried to push any deeper into that particular fog right now, he might
get himself emotionally snagged again. 


It didn't seem advisable to become emotionally snagged. There were still too
many other doubtful issues floating around. 


One of the other issues resolved itself -- in a way -- very shortly, with the
ringing of the office telephone. 


It was Elaine Lovelock once more. 


"Mr. Commager," she said, "about the matter we were discussing -- " 


He began to tell her he had spoken to Paylar, but she interrupted him: "Dr.
Knox died an hour ago!"
* * * 


Some thirty minutes later, the first hot jolt of pain drove down from the
center of Commager's throat to a point under the end of his breast-bone. 


If it hadn't been so damned pat, he thought, he might have yelled for a
doctor. The sensations were thoroughly convincing. 


There was a section at the back of the store devoted to the experimental
breeding of fish that were priced high enough to make such domestic
arrangements worthwhile and exceptionally delicate in their requirements for
propagation. The section had a door that could be locked, to avoid
disturbances. Commager went in and locked it. 


In the swampy, hot-house atmosphere, he leaned against one of the tank racks,
breathing carefully. The pain was still there, much less substantial than it
had been in the first few moments, but still a vertical, hard cramping inside
his chest. It had shocked him -- it did yet -- but he was not nearly so much
alarmed as angry. 


The anger raged against himself -- he was doing this! The suggestion to do it
might have been implanted, but the response wasn't an enemy from outside, a
phantom-tiger pressing cold, steely claws down through his chest. It was a
self-generated thing that used his own muscles, his own nerves, his own brain


It tightened suddenly again. Steel-hard, chilling pain, along with a bitter,
black, strangling nausea in his throat. "I'm doing it!" he thought. 


The clamping agony was part of himself; he had created it, structured it, was
holding it there now.
* * * 


And so he relaxed it again. Not easily, because the other side of himself, the
hidden, unaware, responsive side was being stubborn about this! It knew it was 



supposed to die now, and it did its determined best. 

But degree by degree, he relaxed the cramping, the tightness, and thensuddenly felt it dissolve completely. 

Commager stood, his legs spread apart, swaying a little drunkenly. Sweat ranfrom his body. His head remained cocked to the right as if listening, sensing,
while he breathed in long, harsh gasps that slowed gradually. 

It was gone. 

And now, he thought, let's really test this thing! Let's produce it again. 

That wasn't easy either, because he kept cringing in fear of its return. 

But he produced it. 

And, this time, it wasn't too hard to let it go, let it dissolve again. 

He brought it up briefly once more, a single sharp stab -- and washed it away. 

And that, he thought, was enough of that kind of game. He'd proved his point! 

He stripped off his shirt and hosed cold water over his head and shoulders andarms. He dabbed himself with a towel, put his wet shirt back on, combed hishair and went back to the office. 

Sitting there, he thought of an old gag about a moronic wrestler who,
practicing holds and grips all by himself, broke off his left foot andremarked admiringly, "Jeez, boss, nobody but me could have done that to me,
huh?" 

Which more or less covered what had happened. And now that he had made thatquite clear, it seemed safe to wonder whether just possibly there mightn'thave been some direct, immediate prompting from outside -- something that toldhim to go ahead and break himself apart, just as the wrestler had done. 

Though there needn't have been anything as direct as a telepathic suggestion.
It could also have been done, quite as purposefully, by inducing the disturbedleaders of the Temple of Antique Christianity to bring their plight to hisattention. By letting him become thoroughly aware of the shadowy,
superstitious possibilities in the situation, opening his mind to them andtheir implications -- and then hammering the suggestion home with the simple,
indisputable fact of Wilson Knox's death. 

If someone was clever enough to know Alan Commager a little better than he'dknown himself so far -- and had motive enough not to mind killing somebodyelse in order to soften him up -- it could have been done in just that way.
And Paylar had told him openly that the motive existed. 

Commager decided that that was how it had been done; though now he didn't mindconsidering the possibility of a telepathic suggestion either. They might trysomething else, but he was quite sure that the kind of trick they had tried -whichever 
way it had been done -- wouldn't work at all another time. Theyneeded his cooperation for that, and he wasn't giving them any. 

And still, aside from the fact that Wilson Knox had been threatened, nothing 


at all had occurred openly. 


The anger in him remained. He couldn't bring himself to feel really sorry for
Knox, or for Elaine Lovelock either. They were destructive mental parasites
who'd had the bad luck to run into what might be simply a more efficient
parasite of the same breed. In spite of their protests, they hadn't been any
less ruthless with the people they controlled. 


He could recognize that. But the anger stayed with him, a smoldering and
dangerous thing, a little ugly. Basically, Commager knew, he was still angry
with himself. For reasons still unknown, he had developed an area of soft rot
in his thoughts and emotions; and he was reasonably convinced that, without
that much to start on, the proddings and nibblings of -- parasites -- couldn't
have had any effect. To have reduced himself to the level of becoming
vulnerable to them seemed an intolerably indecent failing, like a filthy
disease. 


But anger, however honestly directed where it belongs, wants to strike
outward. 
* * * 


For a parasite or whatever else she might be, Paylar looked flatteringly
beautiful in a sheath of silver and black -- and he didn't get a significant
word out of her all evening. 


Commager hadn't tried to talk shop, but he had expected that she would.
However, in that respect, it might have been simply another interesting,
enjoyable but not too extraordinary night out. 


In other respects, it wasn't. He didn't forget at any time that here was
someone who probably shared the responsibility for what he was now rather
certain had been a deliberate murder. In retrospect, her promise to tell Ruth
MacDonald not to frighten Knox any more hadn't meant anything, since Knox by
then had been as good as dead. 


The odd thing -- made much odder, of course, by the other probability that he
himself had been the actual target of that killing -- was that, as far as
Paylar was concerned, he seemed unable to feel any convincing moral
indignation about the event. It was puzzling enough so that, under and around
their pleasant but unimportant conversation, he was mainly engaged in hunting
for the cause of that lack of feeling. 


Her physical attractiveness seemed involved in it somehow. Not as a
justification for murder; he wasn't even so sure this evening that he liked
Paylar physically. He felt the attraction, but there was also a trace of
something not very far from revulsion in his involuntary response to it. It
wasn't too obvious; but she might have almost an excess of quiet vitality, a
warmth and slender, soft earthiness that seemed almost more animal than human. 


That thought-line collapsed suddenly. Rather, it struck Commager, as if he'd
been about to become aware of something he wasn't yet prepared to see. 


He suddenly laughed, and Paylar's short black eyebrows lifted questioningly. 


"I just worked something out, Mabel!" he explained. He'd asked her earlier
what her full name was, and she had told him gravely it was Mabel Jones, and
that she used Paylar for business purposes only. He didn't believe her, but, 



for the evening, they had settled cosily on Mabel and Alan. 

"The thing that's different about you," he went on, "is that you don't have asoul. So, of course, you don't have a human conscience either." He considereda moment. It seemed, at any rate, to reflect almost exactly how he felt abouther. A cat, say, was attractive, pleasant to see and to touch; and one didn'tblame a cat for the squawking bird it had killed that afternoon. One didn'tfairly blame a cat either if, to avenge some mysterious offense, it lashed outwith a taloned paw at oneself. He developed the notion to Paylar as well as hecould without violating the rule against shop-talk. 

The cat-woman seemed neither amused nor annoyed at his description of her. Shelistened attentively and then said, "You could still join us, Alan -- " 

"Lady," said Commager, astonished, "there are any number of less disagreeablesuggestions you could have made at this hour!" He added, "Leaving outeverything else, I don't like the company you keep." 

Paylar shrugged naked tanned shoulders. Then her gaze went past him and frozebriefly. 

"What's the matter?" he inquired. 

She looked back at him with a rueful smile. "I'm afraid you're going to see alittle more of my company now," she remarked. "What time of night is it,
Alan?" 

Commager checked. It was just past midnight, he told her, so it wasn'tsurprising that this and that should have started crawling out of thewoodwork. He turned his head. 

"Hello, Oracle!" he said cordially. "What do you see in the tea leaves forme?" 

Ruth MacDonald looked a little out of place here in a neat gray business suit.
For a moment, she had also looked uncomfortably like a resurrected corpse toCommager, but she was alive enough. 

She glanced at him. "I see your death," she said unsmilingly. 

Commager told her that she appeared to be in a rut, but wouldn't she sit downand have a drink? The ice-faced young siren didn't share Paylar's immunity inhis mind -- she made his flesh crawl; she was something that should be steppedon! 

Paylar stood up. "You're fools," she said to Ruth MacDonald without passion.
She turned to Commager. "Alan, I should have told you I intended to drive backwith Ruth -- " 

It was a lie, he thought, but he didn't mind. The expression of implacablehostility on Ruth MacDonald's face had been gratifying -- Paylar's friendswere becoming really unhappy about him! 

The gray car stood almost at the far end of the dark parking lot where he hadleft his own. He walked them up to it and wished them both good night withsome solemnity. "You, too, Miss MacDonald!" he said, which gained him anotherbrief glance and nothing more. Then he stepped aside to let them back out. 


* * * 

When he stopped moving, there was no particular psychic ability required toguess what was pushing against the back of his spine. "We're taking the nextcar," Herbert Hawkes' voice announced gently behind him. "And I'm sure we cancount on you to act reasonably this time, Mr. Commager." 

It was rather neat, at that. The gray car was moving slowly away, racing itsengine. If there had been anyone in sight at the moment -- but there wasn't -a 
back-fire wouldn't have created any particular excitement. 

"I'm a reasonable man," Commager said meekly. "Good evening, Mr. Barthold. I'mto take one of the back seats, I suppose?" 

"That's what we had in mind," Hawkes admitted. 

They might or might not be amateurs at this kind of thing, but they didn'tseem to be making any obvious mistakes. Lex Barthold was driving, and Commagersat in the seat behind him. Hawkes sat beside Barthold, half-turned towardCommager. The gun he held pointed at Commager's chest lay along the top of theback-rest. From outside, if anyone happened to glance in, it would look as ifthe two of them were engaged in conversation. 

Commager thought wistfully of his own gun, stacked uselessly away in his car.
This was what came of starting to think in terms of modern witchcraft! Oneoverlooked the simple solutions. 

"I was wondering," he suggested, "what would happen if we passed a patrol-
car." 

Hawkes shrugged very slightly. "You might try praying that we do, Commager!" 

Whether the possibility was bothering him or not, the big man didn't lookhappy. And there was a set tension about the way Lex Barthold drove whichindicated an equal lack of enjoyment there. Witchcraft addicts themselves,
they might feel that physical mayhem, if that was what they werecontemplating, was a little out of their normal lines of activity. 

Otherwise, they had brawn enough for almost any kind of mayhem, and while oneneedn't assume immediately that the trip was to wind up with outright murder,
their attitude wasn't reassuring. 

Meanwhile, he had been fascinated by the discovery that Hawkes sported alarge, discolored bruise at the exact points of his neck and jaw whereCommager had thought his fist had landed early Monday morning. Those"hallucinations" hadn't been entirely illusory, after all! 

However, that made it a little harder again to understand what actually couldhave happened that night. Commager's thoughts started darting off after ratherimprobable explanations, such as the possibility of Ruth MacDonald's having atwin sister or a close double who had been sacrificed then -- much as Knox had 
been -- as part of the plot to drive Alan Commager out of his mind or into hisgrave. He shook his head. It just didn't seem very likely. 

The one thing he could be sure of right now was that Hawkes, who mightn't bethe most genial of men at best, hadn't appreciated that sneak punch. 


They didn't pass any patrol-cars . . . 

He killed Herbert Hawkes not a quarter of a mile away from his own Baysidecabin. The location wasn't accidental. Once they were past the point ofpossible interference, with the last fifty yards of a twisting, precipitousgoat-path down to the Bay behind Commager and a gun still in front of him,
Hawkes took time out to explain. 

"We're counting on your being found," he said, "and this is your own backyard,
so to speak. You've gone fishing now and then from that spot down there,
Commager. Tonight, being a little liquored up, you decided to go for a swim.
Or you slipped and fell from all the way up here and died instantly." 

Commager looked at the gun. "With a couple of bullets in me?" 

"I don't think it will come to that." Both of them, in spite of Hawkes's blandanalysis of the situation, were still as nervous, Commager suspected, as acouple of cats in a strange cellar. "But if it does -- well, you ran into acouple of rough characters out here, and they shot you and threw you in! Ofcourse, we'd prefer to avoid that kind of complication." 

He paused as if expecting some comment. They both stood about eight feet away,
looking at Commager. 

The Moon was low over the Bay, but it was big, and there was plenty of lightfor close-range shooting. This was a lumpy shelf of rock, not more than twentyby twenty feet, long and wide; the path dropped off to the right of it toanother smaller shelf and ended presently at the water's edge, where there wasa wet patch of sand when the tide was out. 

The only way up from here was the path they'd come down by, and the two stoodin front of that. He couldn't read Barthold's expression just now, but Hawkeswas savagely tense -- a big man physically confident of himself, mentallyprepared for murder, but still oddly unsure and -- expectant! 

The explanation struck Commager suddenly: they were wondering whether hewasn't going to produce some witchcraft trick of his own in this emergency. Itwas such an odd shifting of their original roles that it startled a snort ofrather hysterical mirth from him; and Hawkes, in the process of handing thegun to Barthold, tried to jerk it back, and then Commager moved. 

He didn't move toward Hawkes but toward Barthold, who seemed to have a betterhold on the gun. They might have thought he was after it, too, because Hawkeslet go and swung too hastily at him, as Barthold took a step back. Commagerslammed a fist into Barthold's body, swung him around between Hawkes andhimself, and struck hard again. The gun didn't even go off. 


He had no more time then for Barthold, because Hawkes rammed into him withdisconcerting solidness and speed. In an instant, it was like fighting ababoon, all nails and muscles and smashing fists and feet. The top of Hawkes'sskull butted his mouth like a rock. Commager hit him in the back of the neck,
was free for a moment and hit again. Hawkes stepped back, straighteningslightly, and Commager followed and struck once more, in the side. Then Hawkesdisappeared. 

It was as sudden as that. Realization that he was stumbling on the edge of therock shelf himself came together with a glimpse of the thundering whitecommotion of surf almost vertically beneath him -- a good hundred and fiftyfeet down. 

With a terrible trembling still in his muscles, he scrambled six feet back onthe shelf and glared wildly around for Lex Barthold. But his mind refused toturn away from the thought of how shockingly close he had come to going overwith Hawkes; so a number of seconds passed before he grasped the fact thatBarthold also was nowhere in sight.
* * * 

Commager's breathing had slowed gradually, while he stared warily up the trailto the left. The noise of the water would have covered any sounds of eitherstealthy withdrawal or approach; but since Barthold seemed to have preferredto take himself and the gun out of the fight, it was unlikely he would beback. 

On the other hand, there were a number of points on that path where he couldwait for Commager to come within easy range, while he remained out ofimmediate physical reach himself. 

To the right, the trail led down. Commager glanced in that direction againand, this time, saw the gun where it had dropped into the loose shale of theshelf. 

Lex Barthold was lying on his back among the boulders of the next shelf down,
his legs higher than his head, the upper part of his body twisted slightly toone side. He had fallen only nine feet or so, but he wasn't moving. Theylooked at each other for a moment; then Commager safetied the gun and put itin his pocket. He went on down. 

"Hawkes went over the edge," he said, still rather dazed. "What happened toyou?" 

Barthold grunted. "Broke my back." He cursed Commager briefly. "But you're adead man, too, Commager." 

"Neither of us is dead yet," Commager told him. He felt physically heavy, coldand tired. He hesitated and added, "I'm going to go and get help for you." 

Barthold shook his head slowly. "You won't get back up there alive. We've madesure of you this time . . ." He sounded matter-of-factly certain of it, and ifhe felt any concern about what would happen now to himself, there was no traceof it in his voice. 

Commager stared down at him for a moment wondering, and then looked around. 

Surf crashed rhythmically below them; the Moon seemed to be sliding fast 


through clouds far out over the Bay. Overhead, the broken, sloping cliffsmight conceal anything or anybody. The feeling came strongly to him then thatin this savage and lonely place anything could happen without affecting thehuman world at all or being noticed by it. 

The night-lit earth seemed to shift slowly and giddily about him and thensteadied again, as if he had, just then, drifted far beyond the boundaries ofthe reality he knew and were now somewhere else, in an area that followed lawsof its own, if it followed any laws at all. 

When he looked at Barthold again, he no longer felt the paradoxical humandesire to find help for a man who had tried to kill him and whom he had nearlykilled. He could talk in Barthold's own terms. 

He bent over him. "What makes you so sure your friends have got me?" 

Barthold gave him a mocking glance, but he didn't answer. 

They weren't certain, Commager thought, straightening up. They were justhoping again! That something was preparing against him was an impression he'dgained himself, almost like the physical sensation of a hostile stirring andshifting in the air and the rocks about him, a secretive gathering of power.
But they weren't certain! 

"I think," he said slowly, "that I'll walk away from here when I feel likeit." He paused, and added deliberately, "You people might last longer if youdidn't try to play rough, Barthold. Except, of course, with someone likeWilson Knox." 

Barthold spoke with difficulty. "The reason you're still alive is that Paylarand I were the only ones who would believe you were a natural of the new mind.
The first one here in twenty-three years -- " His breath seemed to catch; hisface twisted into a grimace of pain. "But tonight they all know that ordinarycontrols won't work on you, Commager! That's what makes it too late for you." 

Commager hesitated. He said gently, "When did you and Paylar discover I was anatural of the new mind?" 

"Sunday night, of course!" Barthold was plainly anxious now to keep him here.
He hurried on, "The mistake was made five years ago. You should have beendestroyed then, before you had learned anything, not placed under control!" 

Commager's eyes widened slightly. Until that statement, he had given only afraction of conscious attention to what Barthold was saying, the greater partof his mind alert to catch those wispy, not-quite-physical indications thatsomething unhealthy was brewing nearby in the night. But five years ago! 

"Paylar made me an offer to join your group," he pointed out. "Wouldn't thathave been satisfactory?" 

Barthold stared up at him. His mouth worked, but for a few seconds he made noaudible reply. 

"Don't wait!" he said with startling, savage intensity. "Now, or . . ." Thewords thickened and slurred into angry, incomprehensible mutterings. Theeyelids closed. 


Commager bent down and prodded Barthold's shoulder with a forefinger. The manmight be dying -- those last words hadn't sounded as if they were addressed tohim -- but there were things he had to know now. "What are you, Barthold?
Aren't you a natural, too?" 

Barthold's eyes opened and rolled toward him, but remained unpleasantlyunfocused. "Old mind -- " the thick voice mumbled. And then clearly, "You're afool, Commager! You didn't really know anything! If the others -- " 

The eyes closed again. 

Old mind . . . That still told him nothing. "Are the others of the old mind?" 

Barthold grinned tiredly. "Why don't you ask Hawkes?" 

There was a sound behind Commager like the sloshing of water in the bottom ofa boat. Then he had spun around and was on his feet, his hair bristling.
* * * 

Hawkes stood swaying in the moonlight, twenty feet away. Water ran from hisclothes to the rocks among which he stood. Water had smeared his hair downover his face. And the left side of his head looked horribly flattened. 

He took a step forward, and then came on in a swaying rush. 

For a long instant of time, Commager only stared. Hawkes was dead; quiteobviously, even now as he moved, he was dead -- so he hadn't come climbingback up the rocks out of the sweeping tug of the waves! He -


He was gone. 

Commager walked over to the point where he had seen Hawkes. The rocks weredry. He went back to Barthold, his lips still stiff with horror. 

"Tell me what this was!" he said hoarsely. "Or I'll kill you now!" 

Barthold was still grinning, his eyes open and wickedly alert. "A picture Ilet you look at -- but, you see, you learn too fast! You're a natural. Youwouldn't believe a picture now, and the old mind couldn't do anything else toyou. But there are others working for us -- and now -- " 

There was a rumbling and a grinding and a rushing sound overhead. Commagerleaped back, his eyes darting up. He heard Lex Barthold screaming. 

The whole upper cliff-side was moving, sliding downward. A gray-black,
turning, almost vertical wave of broken rock dropping toward them . . . 


"People like us," Jean Bohart remarked, with an air of moody discovery, "are
really pretty lucky!" 


Commager went "Hm?" drowsily. Then he lifted his head to look at her. She
stood beside the Sweet Susan's lashed wheel, shaded blue eyes gazing at him
from under the brim of her yachting cap, hands clasped behind her. "What
brought that to mind?" he inquired. 


"I was thinking about my troubles," she said. "Then I started thinking they
weren't really so bad! Comparatively -- " 


She was keeping her voice light. Commager sat up from where he'd stretched
himself out beside the cabin, gathering his thoughts back out of the aimless
diffusion of sleep. "Ready to talk about your troubles now?" 


Jean shook her head. "Not yet." She frowned. "There's something about them I
want to figure out by myself first -- and I'm not quite done." The frown
vanished. "If you've finished your nap, you might look around and see what a
grand morning it is! That's what I meant by being lucky." 


They were off Dana Point, he saw, so he'd slept a full hour since Jean had
taken them out of the Newport Beach harbor. The Sweet Susan was running
smoothly southward, through the Pacific's long smooth swells. Now that he was
sitting up, the wind streamed cool about his head and neck and shoulders. 


He said, "Yes, I guess we're lucky." 


Jean grinned. "And since I've got you awake, I'll catch a nap myself! Not that
I spent the night boozing and brawling." 


Commager smiled at her. "Any time you feel like putting in a night like that,
give me a ring." 


Superficially, in her white slacks and thin sweater, Jean Bohart looked fresh
as a daisy; only the tautness about her mouth and a controlled rigidity in the
way she stood suggested that the "trouble" might be close to a complete
emotional disaster. 


He'd thought earlier that he would have liked to get out of this jaunt if he
could; now he felt guilty and a little alarmed.
* * * 


He moved over near the wheel while she lay down on the bench, pulling a pillow
under her head and settling back with the cap-brim down over her eyes. He
could tell that the muscles of the slim straight body weren't actually going
to relax. But she would pretend now to be asleep and Commager let his thoughts
shift away from Jean, promising himself to give her his full attention as soon
as she was ready to talk. 


There were a few problems of his own to be considered, though at the moment he
had the sense of a truce, a lull. Last night, he had shaken the Guides badly;
he had killed two of their members. But there were at least three left, and he
hadn't crippled their power to act. 


The truce, if it was that, was due in part to their fear of his reaction and 



in part to an entirely different kind of restraint -- a restraint which hebelieved was self-imposed. 

The reason he believed it was that he was now aware of being under a similarrestraint himself. He thought he knew why it was an inescapable limitation,
but impersonally he could agree with Paylar's opinion that, from the Guides'point of view, he should have been destroyed as soon as they became aware ofhim. 

Left to himself -- if in curiosity he had begun to investigate psi -- he wouldhave discovered the limitation quickly enough and abided by it. Even so, itappeared to permit an enormously extended range of effective activity. AndBarthold had implied a conflict between an "old mind" and a "new mind." 

It sounded like an esoteric classification of varying degrees of human psipotential -- an ascendant individual "new mind" threatening the entrenched andexperienced but more limited older group, which compensated for its limitationby bringing functioning members of the "new mind" under its control orrepressing or diverting their developing abilities. 

He, apparently, was a "natural of the new mind." He couldn't be permanentlycontrolled. To the older group he represented an intolerable threat.
* * * 

Some one, last night, had thrown a few thousand tons of stone at him! And hehad deflected that missile from its course. Not by very much, but just enoughto keep it clear of the frantically scrambling figure of himself, scuttling upthe cliff path like a scared beetle. 

He had done it -- how? 

Trying to restructure the action, Commager knew that the process itself hadn'tbeen a conscious one. But it had been symbolized in his awareness by a clusterof pictures that took in the whole event simultaneously. 

A visualization of himself and the long thundering of the rocks, the sidewarddistortion of their line of fall, and a final picture again of himself as hereached the top of the cliff unharmed. 

It had all been there, in a momentary, timeless swirling of possibilitiesagainst the background of rock and shadow, the tilted, turning sky andmoonlight glittering on racing waters. 

Then, in an instant, the pattern had been set, decided on; and the eventsolidified into reality with the final thudding crash. Barthold lay buriedunder the rocks and perhaps, down in the water, the body of Hawkes also hadbeen caught and covered. 

He hadn't tried to save Barthold. Instead, automatically, he had flung outanother kind of awareness, a flashing search for the mind that had struck athim. And he had been prepared, in a way he couldn't have described now, tostrike back. 

He "found" three of them; the one who had acted and two who merely observed.
Almost, not quite, he knew where they were. But they were alert. It was as ifsomething, barely glimpsed, had been flicked out of his sight, leaving alifeless black emptiness for him to grope through if he chose. 


Commager didn't choose to do any blind groping. He wasn't sure enough ofhimself for that. 

The limitation that he -- and, apparently, they -- didn't dare to violate hadto do with the preservation of appearances. It was a line of thought he didn'twant to follow too far just now. But it seemed that the reality he knew andlived in was a framework of appearances, tough and durable normally butcapable of being distorted into possibly chaotic variations. 

The penalty seemed to be that to the degree one distorted the framework, heremained distorted himself. The smooth flow of appearances was quickly reestablished, 
but the miracle-worker found himself left somehow outside.
Commager suspected that he stayed outside. 

He suspected also that a really significant distortion of appearances wouldthrust the life and mind that caused it so far out that, for all practicalpurposes, it ceased to exist. 

He wasn't tempted to test the theory. Its apparent proof was that reality, byand large, did remain intact, while those who played around too consistentlywith even minor infringements notoriously failed to thrive. 

To let a pair of dice briefly defy the laws of chance probably did no harm toanyone, but when you aimed and launched the side of a cliff as a missile ofmurder, you were very careful that the result was a rock-slide and not amiracle! 

You didn't -- ever -- disturb the world of reality . . . 
* * * 

What he had to fear from them, if they broke the truce, was the ambush, thething done secretly under the appearance of a natural series of events. Itleft an unpleasantly large number of possibilities open, but until somethingnew happened, he couldn't know that they weren't ready to call it a draw. Sofar, his spontaneous reactions had been entirely effective; the obvious damagewas all on the other side. 

But since the damage wasn't all obvious, he had no present intention offorcing a showdown. "Natural" or not, he might be either not quite good enoughat that kind of game, or much too good. 

But meanwhile -- Commager looked thoughtfully at Jean Bohart. She had fallenasleep finally, but she wasn't sleeping comfortably. Her mouth movedfretfully, and she made small whimpering sounds from time to time, almost likea puppy that is dreaming badly. If he'd become a miracle-worker on a smallscale, Commager thought, if he'd already pushed himself to some degree beyondthe normal limits of reality, he might as well get some use out of what hecouldn't undo. 

Looking at her, it wasn't too difficult to imagine the rigidities and tensionsthat kept Jean from finding any real physical rest. Nor -- a step farther -was 
it hard to get a picture of her emotional disturbances shaping themselvesinto a scurrying and shifting dream-torment. 

Carefully, Commager took hold of the two concepts. He waited until he could nolonger be quite sure whether it was he or Jean who was really experiencing 


these things; and then, as he had done yesterday with the pain in his ownbody, he let dreams and tensions ebb away and cease to be. 

In spite of everything else that had happened, he was still amazed, a fewmoments later, to realize that his experiment in therapy had been a completesuccess. 

Clear blue bowl of the sky above. Black-blue choppy water of the Pacific allabout. 

The Sweet Susan drifted, throttled down and almost stationary. Near the kelpbeds two miles to the south, eight other boats gradually changed theirrelative positions. In the north-east, toward which the Sweet Susan slowlymoved, the dark jaws of the Bay opened out, still too far off to make out thescars of last night's rock-slide. 

Jean had slept steadily for over an hour, and Commager had two lines trailingunder superficial observation. Not even a mackerel had taken any interest sofar, which probably wasn't due to the sinister influence of the Guides, but tothe fact that the deep drop outside the Bay simply wasn't a very good fishingarea. 

Unconcerned about that, he'd been sitting there for some while, in a drowsy,
sun-bright daydream composed of an awareness of physical well-being, his oddcertainty that the truce still held, and enjoyment of the coincidence that theSun was getting hotter to the exact degree that the breeze got brisker incompensation. For the hour, under such circumstances, the life of anunambitious, healthy animal seemed to be about as much as anybody reasonablycould ask for. 

He came out of it with a sort of frightened start. He had heard Jean stirringon the bench behind him. Now she yawned, just audibly, and sat up, and he knewshe was looking at him. 

Commager couldn't have said what kept him from turning his head. There was amomentary questioning alarm in him, which stiffened into cold watchfulness asJean got up and went into the cabin. There had been another little shift inthe values of reality while he was off-guard, he thought. Something was ashade wrong again, a shade otherwise than it had been an hour or so ago. Buthe didn't yet know what it was.
* * * 

In a minute or so Jean came out again, and he guessed she'd changed into herswimsuit. He heard her come up behind him, and then a pair of smooth arms werelaid lightly across his shoulders and a voice, from a point a little above andbehind his head, inquired, "Had any luck, Alan? The Sun got a bit too hot forme." 


It shocked him completely because it was Lona who touched him and spoke. 


It was also, of course, Jean Bohart -- and there was no longer any question
that she'd served as the model for his imaginary woman. It had been out of
just such scraps of illusion as this -- voice sounds and touches, distorted
seconds in time -- that he'd built up that self-deception. 


How he had been reached in the first place to get him started on the
construction was something he couldn't yet recall, but the purpose was also
completely obvious. 


Five years ago, Lex Barthold had said, they'd taken him under control. 


To divert a mind from a direction you didn't want it to follow, you gave it a
delusion to stare at. 


You drenched the delusion in violently unpleasant emotions, which kept the
mind from any closer investigation of the disturbance -


Apparently, they'd expected the treatment to be effective for the rest of his
lifetime. But when Ira reported on the minor sensation Commager had created in
a Las Vegas club, they'd come alert to the fact that his developing psi
abilities hadn't been permanently stunted. And then a majority of them had
been afraid to attempt to kill a "natural." 


Unconsciously, he'd resisted the next maneuver -- drastic as it had been -- to
throw him into a delusive tizzy. 


Then he'd begun to strike back at them. 


It wasn't really surprising, he thought, that they'd become a little
desperate. And they might have known of that dice game before Ira told them
about it. Ira had been their means of contacting him directly. 


As Jean had been the means of keeping the primary delusion reinforced and
alive. 
* * * 


"No luck, so far!" he told her, somewhat carefully. The momentary shock of
recognition had faded, but some of the feeling he'd wasted on the delusion
seemed to have transferred itself back to the model now! It didn't really
surprise him, and it wasn't an unpleasant sensation; but, for a moment, at
least, he didn't want it to show in his voice. "Did you get caught up on your
sleep?" 


It might have showed in his voice, because she moved away from him and leaned
over the side of the boat, looking at the lines. "Uh-huh," she said casually.
"I feel fine now. Better than I have in a long time, as a matter of fact." 


Commager regarded her speculatively. The easy grace of her body confirmed what
she said; the tensions were gone. He patted himself mentally on the back.
Commager the Healer! 


"Alan?" 


"Yes?" he said. 



"I'm leaving Ira." Her face flushed a little. "To be more exact about it,
Ira's leaving me! For that MacDonald woman you met Sunday!" 

Commager said softly that he'd be damned. His thoughts were racing as she wenton, "He told me yesterday morning. It jolted my vanity, all right! But thefunny thing is, you know, that as soon as I got over that, I found I actuallydidn't care. It was really a relief. Isn't that funny?" 

He didn't think it was funny. It was a little too pat. 

"For five years," she said, turning to face him, "I thought I loved that guy.
And now I find I never did!" She shook her head. "I don't get it, Alan. Howcan anyone be so crazy?" 

"What are you going to do?" he asked. 

She stared at him for a moment, looking appealing, hurt and lovely. If he puthis hand out to her now, she'd be in his arms. 

"I'm going to Florida for a few months. Ira can settle it any way he wantsto." 

So that was the way it had been, Commager thought in astounded fury. He wasthe one they'd wanted to hold down, but it wasn't only his life they'd twistedand distorted to do it. They'd used Jean just as ruthlessly. And, perhaps, Ira

For five years, he could have had his imaginary woman. She'd been within his
reach in reality. 


And, now that delusions were not working so well any more, they threw the
reality at him! 


Only now it was a little too late. He'd changed too far to be able to accept
their gift. 


"Jean," he said. 


"Yes, Alan?" 


"You're going to stop thinking for a while now," he told her gently. "You're
going to just stand there for a while and not be aware of anything that
happens." 


A puzzled frown formed on her face as he started to speak, but it smoothed out
again, and then she went on looking placidly at him. Perhaps her eyes had
dulled a trifle. 
* * * 


This time, it didn't surprise Commager at all. Out beyond the Sweet Susan, he
saw something like a faint haze beginning to shape itself over the moving
surface of the water. He grinned a little. 


Slowly and deliberately, he framed the cold thought in his mind: Do what you
can for yourselves! The truce is over! 



Their response was an instantaneous one. A long swell rose up behind the SweetSusan, lifted the boat, passing beneath it, and dropped it again. The SweetSusan was still rising as Commager picked up Jean Bohart and set her downbeside the bench near the wheel; and it slapped down in a smash of spray as hecut the lashings of the wheel with the emergency knife and pulled out thethrottle. 

He glanced around. The haze was a thick fog about them, brilliant whiteagainst the blue of the sky overhead, while they ran through its wet, grayshade. The boat shuddered sideways behind the big swell, water roiling aboutit. Suddenly, with a kind of horror, Commager understood what was there. 

He had seen pictures of it, or rather of a part of it, cast up on the coastyears before: a house-sized chunk of rotten, oddly coarse-grained flesh,
hurriedly disposed of and never identified. The drifted remnant of a namelessphenomenon of the Pacific deeps. 

The phenomenon itself was underneath them now! 

Still too far down to have done more than briefly convulse the surface as itturned, it was rising toward the boat. A thing of icy, incredible pressures,
it was disrupted and dying as it rose, incapable of understanding the impulsethat had forced it from the dark ocean up toward the coast hours before. Butit was certain that, in the bright glare above it, it would find and destroythe cause of its pain. 

So it came up with blind, hideous swiftness; and Commager discovered thatrushing bulk could not be simply turned away from them as he had turned therocks. It was driven by its own sick and terrible purpose. Neither could hereach the minds that guided it. This time, they were alertly on guard. 

With seconds to spare then, he turned the boat. 

In the fog to their left, the sea opened in a thundering series of crashes andsettled again. Water smashed into the boat as it danced and drove raggedlyaway, and before it had gone very far it was lifted once more on a thrust ofwater from below. 

The thing from the sea had followed, and it was terribly close! So close thatthe flickering dull glow of a mind as primitive as the monstrous body itselfrose up in Commager's awareness. 

He caught at it. 

What he drove into the glow was like an insistence on its destruction. Itseemed to blaze up in brief, white fury and then went black . . . 

The Sweet Susan drove on through a curiously disturbed sea, surrounded bydissipating wisps of what might or might not have been an ordinary patch offog. Probably, no one on any of the distant fishing boats even noticed thatminor phenomenon. 

A half-mile away, the water roiled once more; and that was all. The Pacifichad gone back to its normal behavior. 


It was sunset on the Bay, and Paylar was talking, at least most of the time.
Sometimes Commager listened and sometimes he didn't. 


It was a fairy-tale situation, he thought, somewhat amused at himself. Because
he could feel the mood of it very strongly, a childlike one, a mood of
enchantment around him and of terror along the fringes of the enchantment.
Terror that was in part past, and in part still to come. 


Far below the slope where they sat, sun-fires gleamed in the dark, moving
waters, like fire shining out of the heart of a black jewel. Down there, as
was not inappropriate near the end of a fairy tale, two of the bad ones lay
dead and buried, unless one of them had been taken away by the water. 


Much farther out, miles out, the body of a defeated dragon bumped slowly along
the sea-bottom, back to the deeps, nibbled at, tugged at, pulled and turned by
armies of hungry fish. 


A blonde and beautiful princess was halfway to the far land of flowers called
Florida by now, flying through the night skies, and released at last from an
evil enchantment. She might still wonder at how oddly she'd acted the past few
years, but she'd begun to look forward to new and exciting activities -- and
she was rapidly forgetting Alan Commager in the process. 


It had been the only way to arrange it, because this was a trap of magic Jean
had no business being in, and she'd been in it only because of him. He'd got
himself the other one, the dark, beautiful, wicked witch, to keep company
instead. 


So Paylar talked of magical things, and he listened, pleasantly fascinated and
willing for an hour to believe anything she told him. Earth turned under them,
vast and ponderous, away from the Sun and into the night, a big, convincing
stage background to what she was talking about.
* * * 


All Earth life, she said, was a single entity, growing and developing from
this great globe, and its conscious thinking processes went on mainly in that
part of it that was human. Which was fine, she explained, while all humans
were still Old Mind, as they had been at first, because they were aware of
Earth and cared for it, knowing they were a part of it, and that it all
belonged together. But then New Mind humans came along, as a natural
development. They could think a little better than the others, but they were
no longer aware of being a part of Earth life and didn't care about anything
much but themselves, since they considered themselves to be individuals. 


It didn't matter too much. They were still influenced by the purpose and
patterns of Earth life, and had practically no conscious defenses against what
seemed to them to be obscure motivations of their own. And there were always
enough Old Mind people around who knew what was going on to direct the rather
directionless New Minders patiently back to the old patterns, so that in the 



long run things tended to keep moving along much as they always had done. 

It began to matter when New Minders developed a conscious interest in what wasnow called psi. That was an Earth life ability which had its purpose inkeeping the patterns intact; and only the New Mind, which had intelligencewithout responsibility, was capable of using psi individualistically anddestructively. 

In most periods of time, the New Mind was kept from investigating psiseriously by its superstitious dread of phenomena it couldn't rationalize. Butwhen it did get interested -


In the Old Mind, adherence to the Earth life pattern was so complete thatdangerous psi abilities simply didn't develop. 

"So you see," she said, "we need New Mind psi to control New Mind psi."
* * * 

Commager said he'd come to understand that finally. And also that they wereable to keep control of the people they used by the fact that psi abilitiestended to be as deadly to their possessor as to anyone else, when employedwithout careful restraint. "At best, I imagine there's a high turnover rate inthe New Mind section of an organization like the Guides." 

"There is," she agreed coolly. "Particularly since we select the ones that arepotentially the most dangerous as recruits. The ones most hungry for power.
Ruth, for example, is not likely to live out another year." 

Privately and thoughtfully, Commager confirmed that opinion. "Doesn't thatunusual mortality attract attention?" he inquired. It seemed a littletactless, but he added, "What about Hawkes and Barthold, for example? Aren'tthey going to be officially missed?" 

"Hawkes was known to be nearly psychopathic," Paylar replied. "whateverhappened to him will surprise no one officially. And no one but ourselves knewanything about Lex." 

She had showed, Commager thought, an appalling indifference to the fate of herlate companions. He studied her for a moment with interested distaste. "Youknow," he remarked then, "I don't feel any very strong urges for power myself.
How does that fit in with your story?" 

She shrugged. "A natural is always unpredictable. You have a blend of Old Mindand New Mind qualities, Alan, that might have made you extremely useful to us.
But since you didn't choose to be useful, we can't take a chance on you." 

He let that pass. "Where do people like you and Barthold come from?" heinquired curiously. "How did you get involved in this kind of thing?"
* * * 

She herself came, she said, from a mountain village in northern Italy. Itsname was as unimportant as her own. As for the role she was playing, in partshe'd been instructed in it, and in part she'd known instinctively what shehad to do. She smiled at him. "But none of that is going to concern you verymuch longer, Alan!" 

She sounded unpleasantly certain about it. Although he thought he could 


foretell quite precisely what was going to happen tonight, Commager felt alittle shaken. He suggested, "What would happen if people like myself werejust left to do as they pleased?" 

"Earth would go insane," she said calmly. The extravagance of the statementjolted him again, but he could see the analogue. The Old Mind was full offears, too -- the fear of chaos. 

"That offer you made me to become one of the Guides -- was that a trap, or wasit meant sincerely?" 

Her face abruptly became cautious and alert. "It was meant sincerely." 

"How could you have trusted me?" 

She said evasively, "There was a great deal you could have learned from us.
You have discovered some of the things you can do by yourself, but you realizethe dangers of uninstructed experimentation." 

He looked at her, remembering the limitations of Old Mind and that, because ofthem, there couldn't be any real compromise. He didn't doubt they would haveshowed him what was safe to do and of use to them; but the only circumstancesunder which they really could trust him would be to have him so befuddled thathe'd be almost completely dependent on their assistance and advice. So theywould also have showed him things that were very much less than safe -- forhim. 

He thought that Herbert Hawkes had followed that road almost to the end beforehe died, and that Ruth MacDonald was rather far advanced on it by now. Thosetwo had been merely greedy and power-hungry people, utilizing talents whichwere more expensive than they'd been allowed to guess. Lex and Paylar had beenthe only leaders among the ones he'd met of that group. 

He didn't bother to repeat his question; but Paylar said suddenly, "Why didyou bring me out here this evening, Alan?" 

"I thought I might find what was left of the Guides at Hawkes' place,"
Commager said. "I was a little annoyed, frankly, both because of somethingthat happened today, and because of something that was done a while ago tosomebody else. I was going to tell you to stop playing games around me andpeople I happen to like -- or else!" 

He grinned at her. "Of course, I realized you weren't going to risk a showdownright in the middle of town. It could get a little too spectacular. But sinceyou were conveniently waiting alone there for me, I brought you out here." 

"Supposing," Paylar said, "that we don't choose to accept a showdown hereeither?" 

"Lady," he told her, "if it looks as if nothing is going to be settled, thereare experiments I can start on with you that should have you yelling veryquickly for help to any Guides remaining in the area. As I figure it, you see,
a New Mind natural might be able to control an Old Mind expert very much asyou intended to control me." 

She went a little white. "That could be true. But you can't hope to survive ashowdown, Alan!" 


He spread his hands. "Why not? Logically, at least, I don't think there are
very many of you left." He was almost certain he knew of one who hadn't openly
played a part as yet, but he didn't intend to mention that name at the moment.
"It wouldn't take more than a handful of developed New Mind psis to control an
area like this. And you wouldn't want more than a handful around or you
couldn't be sure of controlling them." 


She nodded. "That's also true, of course. But you're still at a hopeless
disadvantage, Alan. We -- the Old Mind knows exactly how this situation can be
resolved in our favor, if we're prepared to lose a few more of our controlled
psis . . ." 


"The psis mightn't feel quite so calm about it," Commager pointed out. He
hesitated. "Though I suppose you might have them believing by now that I'm out
to eat them!" 


"They've been led to consider you a deadly threat to their existence," Paylar
agreed with a touch of complacency. "They'll take any risk that's required,
particular since they won't understand the full extent of the risk. And that
isn't all, Alan. You're not the first New Mind natural we've dealt with, you
know. If anything goes seriously wrong in this area, Old Mind all over the
Earth will be aware of it." 
* * * 


He frowned doubtfully at her, because he'd been wondering about that. And then
he let the thought come deliberately into the foreground of his consciousness
that he would prefer to reach an agreement, if it could be done. The Guides'
ability to grasp what was going on in his mind seemed to be a very hazy one;
but in a moment, though Paylar's expression didn't change, he was certain she
had picked up that intentional piece of information. 


She said, with a slow smile, "How much do you remember of your parents, Alan?" 


He stared at her in surprise. "Not very much. They both died when I was young.
Why?" 


She persisted, "Do you recall your mother at all?" 


"No," he admitted warily. "She divorced my father about two years after I was
born. I stayed with him and never saw her again. I understand she died about
three years later." 


"And your father?" she asked him insistently. 


Commager gestured patiently toward the Bay. "My father drowned out there on a
fishing trip when I was eleven. I remember him well enough, actually.
Afterward I was raised by a guardian. Do you mind telling me what these
questions are about?" 


"Your father," she said, "was of the Old Mind, Alan. So he must have known
what you might develop into almost since your birth."
* * * 


Oddly enough, he found, he was immediately willing to accept that as valid
information. "Why didn't he do something about his shocking little offspring?"
he inquired. 



"Apparently," Paylar said calmly, "he did. If he hadn't died, your specialabilities might have been blocked away so completely that they would neverhave come to your attention -- or brought you to our attention. As it was,
what he did to check you was simply not sufficient." 

Commager considered the possibility, and again it seemed that that was whathad occurred. It was too long ago to arouse any particular emotion in him. Hesaid absently, watching her, "What's all this supposed to prove, Paylar?" 

"That we're not trying to control you out of malice. It seems as necessary tous now as it did to your father then." 

He shrugged. "That makes no difference, you know. If more control is all youhave to offer, I'm afraid we'll go right on disagreeing." 

Paylar nodded. Then she just sat there, apparently unconcerned, apparentlysatisfied with what had been said and with things as they were, until Commageradded suddenly, "I get the notion that you've just informed your little palsit's time for direct action. Correct?" 

"Two of them are on their way here." She gave him her slight smile. "When theyarrive, we'll see what occurs, Alan. Would you like me to show you somepictures meanwhile?" 

"Pictures?" He stared at her and laughed. He was baffled and, for the moment,
furious. He could, as she must realize and as he had once threatened to do,
break her slim neck in one hand. The indications were that he could break her 
mind as easily if he exerted himself in that direction. But she seemedcompletely unconcerned about either possibility. 

Her smile widened. "I caught that," she remarked. "You were reallybroadcasting, Alan! You won't try to hurt me -- you're really incapable of it-- unless you become very frightened. And you're almost sure you can handleall three of us anyway, so you're not yet afraid . . ." 

And in that, for once, she might have given him more information than sheknew. Because he had sensed there had been three of them involved, twoactively and one as an observer, in the last two attempts against him. Paylar,
he guessed, had been the observer -- supervisor might be the better term. 

If those three were the only Guides that remained active locally, she wasquite right: he was convinced he could handle them. And if, as seemed likely,
they were going to leave him no choice about it, he would. 

What Old Mind elsewhere might think or do would be another matter then. Hewasn't at all sure that he couldn't handle that problem also. Another piece ofinformation Paylar had given him in the last minute or so was that suddenflares of emotion made him "legible" to those who had her own level ofability. 

He would avoid such emotional outbursts in future. 

"What kind of pictures did you intend to show me?" he inquired. 

"You think I'm trying to trap you," she accused him. 


"Aren't you?" Commager asked, surprised. 

"Of course. But only by showing you what Earth-life really is like -- whilethere is still time." 

"Well," he said agreeably, "go ahead . . ."
* * * 

So he sat there in the dark between sunset and moonrise and watched pictures,
though that wasn't quite what they were. At first, it seemed as if time wereflowing around him; the Moon would be overhead briefly and gone again, whilethe planes of the ground nearby shifted and changed. That, he thought, was toget him used to the process, condition him a little. The trickeries would comenext. 

But when they came, they weren't really trickery. He was simply, Commagerdecided, being shown life as Old Mind knew it and as, in a way, it was; thoughhe himself had never thought to take quite so dramatic and vivid a view of it.
Laughing and crying, thundering and singing, Earth life drifted past interrors and delights, flows of brightness and piercing sound and of blackestsilence and night. 

At last, through all that tumult of light and fragrance and emotion, he beganto grow aware of what to Old Mind, at least, was primarily there: the driving,
powerful, unconscious but tremendous purpose. Earth dying and living, near-
eternal . . . 

In his mind, he found himself agreeing that it was a true picture of life anda good one. 

He was a traitor to that life, Old Mind whispered to him. Earth needed him andhad created him to help hold back the night and the cold forever! But thetiny, individual selfishness of the New Mind broke away from the flow of lifeand denied it. 

So, in the end, all would die together -


The flow slowed. Into it crept the cold and the dark -- a chill awareness ofthe approaching frozen and meaningless immobility of chaos. 

It wasn't till then that Commager reached out carefully and altered thepictures a trifle. It had been a good show, he thought, though overlydramatic; and Paylar had timed the paralyzing emergence of chaos very nicely.
The two for whom he'd been waiting had just reached the turnoff from thehighway. 

The headlights of the car glided swiftly down the Bay Road, as he brought his 


awareness back hurriedly to his immediate surroundings to check on thephysical condition of his companion. She sat upright a few feet away from him,
her legs crossed under her, her hands dropped laxly into her lap, while theblack animal eyes stared in blind horror at the frozen picture of chaos. 

She would keep, he decided. And he wasn't really worried about the othertwo . . . Ira Bohart and Ruth MacDonald. 

He reached out for them, and as they flashed savagely back at him, he drewaway, out of time, into the space that was open to New Mind only, where theywould have to follow if they wanted to touch him. 

They followed instantly, with a furious lust for destruction which wasn'tunexpected but which shocked him nevertheless. They came like daggers ofthought, completely reckless, and if they succeeded in touching him in thesame way he had touched the sea-thing, the struggle would be over in aninstant. 

It became obvious immediately that he could prevent them from doing it, which-- since he was a stronger, more fully developed specimen of their own class 


-was only to be expected. What concerned him was their utter lack ofconsideration for their own survival. The car they were in hadn't stoppedmoving; in less than half a minute now it would be approaching the sharp curveabove the Bay. 
He had counted on the driver's attention being forced away from himmomentarily, either to stop the car or to manipulate it safely around thecurve; in that instant, he would bring the other one under his control ascompletely as he had trapped Paylar, and he would then be free to deal at hisleisure with the driver. 
* * * 

Individually, any one of the Guides was weaker than a New Mind natural; it hadlooked as simple as that. He wanted to save what was left of the group, tooperate through them very much as Old Mind had been doing, but with a verydifferent purpose. 

The two who attacked should be withdrawing by now, dismayed at not havingfound him paralyzed by Paylar's "pictures," as they must have expected. Theymight be waiting for her to come to their assistance in some other manner, notknowing that she was no longer even aware of the struggle. However, withinseconds the need of controlling the car would become urgent enough to settlethe issue -


In an instant, he felt himself drawn down, blinded and smothered, in the graspof a completely new antagonist! It was not so much the awareness of powerimmensely beyond that of the Guides that stunned him; it was a certainty thatthis new contact was a basically horrible and intolerable thing. In thefractional moment of time that everything in him was straining simply toescape from it, the New Minders drove through their attack. 

Pain was exploding everywhere through his being, as he wrenched himself free.
Death had moved suddenly very close! Because the third opponent wasn't Paylar,
never had been Paylar. He had miscalculated -- and so there had been one he'doverlooked. 

Now they had met, he knew he wasn't capable of handling this third opponent 


and the two New Minders together. 

Then without warning the New Minders vanished out of his awareness, like twingleams of light switched off. Seconds later, from somewhere far out on theedge of his consciousness, as if someone else were thinking it, theexplanation came: The car! They weren't able to stop the car! 

With that, the last of them drove at him again; and for a moment he was sweptdown into its surging emotions, into a black wave of rage and terror, heavyand clinging. But he was not unprepared for it now, and he struck at thecenter of its life with deadly purpose, his own terrors driving him. Somethinglike a long, thin screaming rose in his mind . . . 

In that moment, complete understanding came. 

As in a dream scene, he was looking down into the yard of the Temple ofAntique Christianity. It was night-time now; and on the dais he'd investigatedthe day before, a bulky, shapeless figure twisted and shook under a robelikecloth which covered it completely. 

The screaming ended abruptly, and the shape lay still. 

Commager sat up dizzily. He discovered first that he was incredibly drenchedwith sweat, and that Paylar still sat in an unchanged position, as she staredat the thing he'd set before her mind to fix her attention. Down on the BayRoad, there was a faint shouting. 

He stood up shakily and walked forward till he could look down to the pointwhere the road curved sharply to the left to parallel the Bay. The shoutinghad come from there. A few people were moving about, two of them withflashlights. Intermittently, in their beams, he could see the white, smashedguard railings. 

A brief, violent shuddering overcame him, and he went back to where Paylarsat, trying to organize his thoughts. The reason for her confident expectanceof his defeat was obvious now. 

The unsuspected opponent -- the gross shape that had kicked about and died onthe dais, the woman he'd known as Mrs. Lovelock -- had been another New Mindnatural. Or, rather, what had become of a New Mind natural after what probablyhad been decades of Old Mind control. But that part wasn't the worst of it. 

I met her and talked to her! he thought in a flash of grief and horror. But Icouldn't guess -


He drove the thought from his mind. If he wanted to go on living -- and herealized with a flicker almost of surprise that he very much did -- he had 


other work to complete tonight. A kind of work that he'd considered in advanceas carefully as the rest of it -


And this time, he thought grimly, he'd better not discover later that he'dmiscalculated any details. 

He sat down and rolled over on his side in the exact place and position inwhich he'd been lying before. Almost the last thing he saw was the suddenjerky motion of Paylar's body, as he dissolved the visual fixation he'd caughther attention in. Then, as she turned her head quickly to look at him, heclosed his eyes.
* * * 

When Commager's mind resumed conscious control of his body, there was a cloudysky overhead and a cool gray wetness in the air. Paylar stood nearby, lookingthoughtfully down at him. He looked back at her without speaking. Theterrifying conviction of final failure settled slowly and dismally on him. 

"You can wake up fully now," she told him. "It's nearly morning." 

He nodded and sat up. 

"What I shall tell you," her voice went on, "are things you will comprehendand know to be true. But consciously you will forget them again as soon as Itell you to forget. You understand?" 

Commager nodded again. 

"Very well," she said. "Somewhere inside you something is listening to what Iam saying; and I'm really speaking now to that part of you -- inside. Here andtonight, Alan, you very nearly won, though of course you could not have won inthe final issue. But you must understand now, consciously and unconsciously,
that you have been completely defeated! Otherwise, you would not stopstruggling until you had destroyed yourself -- as thoroughly as another onevery like yourself, whom you met tonight, did years ago!" 

She paused. "You know, of course, that the New Mind natural you killed tonightwas your mother. We counted on the shock of that discovery to paralyze youemotionally, if all else failed. When it happened, for the few seconds duringwhich the shock was completely effective, I was released by others of the OldMind from the trap in which you had caught me." 

She smiled. "That was a clever trap, Alan! Though if it hadn't been so clever,
we might not have needed to sacrifice your mother. In those few seconds, yousee, I planted a single, simple compulsion into your mind -- that when youpretended afterward to become unconscious -- as it appeared you were planningto do to deceive the Old Mind -- your consciousness actually would blank out."
* * * 

He tried to remember. Something like that had occurred. He had intended to actas if the struggle with the New Minders had exhausted him to the point whereit was possible for Paylar to take him under complete control, since only inthat way could he be safe from continuing Old Mind hostility. But then -


He had no awareness of what had happened in the hours that followed till now. 

"You see?" Paylar nodded. There was a trace of compassion, almost of regret, 


in her expression. "Believe me, Alan, never in our knowledge has a functioning
human mind been so completely trapped as you are now. I have been working
steadily on you for the past six hours, and even now it would be impossible
for you to detect the manner in which you are limited. But within minutes, you
will simply forget the fact that any limitations have been imposed on you, and
so you will remain free of the internal conflicts that destroyed your mother." 


She paused. "And here is a final proof for you, Alan, of why this was
necessary for us. You recalled that your father drowned in this Bay when you
were a child. But as yet you seem to have blocked out of your memory the exact
manner in which he died -- " 


Her voice changed, grew cold and impersonal. "Let that memory come up now,
Alan!" 
* * * 


The memory came. With it came memory of the shocking conflict of emotion that
had caused him to bury the events of that day long ago. But it aroused no
emotional response in him now. It had been a member of an alien, hostile
species he had compelled to thrust itself down into the water, until the air
exploded from its lungs and it sank away and drowned . . . of the same hostile
species as the one talking to him now. 


"Yes," she said. "You drowned him, Alan, when you first became aware of the
mental controls he had imposed on you. And then you forced yourself to forget,
because your human conditioning made the memory intolerable. But you aren't
truly human, you see. You are an evolutionary mistake that might destroy the
life of all Earth if left unchecked!" 


She concluded, "It has taken all these years to trap you again, under
conditions that would permit us to impose controls that no living mind, even
in theory, could break. But the efforts and the risks have been well
worthwhile to Old Mind. For, you see, we can use your abilities now to make
sure there will be no trouble from others of your kind for many years to come.
And we can, as the need arises, direct you to condition others of your kind
exactly as you have been conditioned . . . But now" -- a flat, impersonal
command drove at him again through her voice -- "forget what I have told you!
All of it!" 


And, consciously, the mind of Commager forgot.
* * * 


He had done, he thought, as he watched his body stand up and follow the woman
up the path to his cabin, a superbly complete job of it. 


What identity might be remained an intriguing problem for future research,
though perhaps not one that he himself would solve. For practical purposes, at
any rate, the identity of Alan Commager was no longer absorbed by the
consciousness that rose from and operated through his brain and body. 


And that was the only kind of consciousness Old Mind knew about. He was hidden
from Paylar's species now because he had gone, and would remain permanently,
beyond the limits of their understanding. 


He directed an order to the body's mind, and the body stumbled obediently, not
knowing why it had stumbled. Paylar turned and caught its arm, almost
solicitously, steadying it. 



"You'll feel all right again after a few hours rest, Alan," she told itsoothingly. 

Species as alien almost as a cat or a slender, pretty monkey, but with talentsand purposes of her own, Paylar was, he thought, an excellent specimen of thesecond highest development of Earth evolution. 

He reached very carefully now through the controls he had imposed on herconsciousness to the core of her being, and explained gently to her what hehad done. 

For a few seconds, he encountered terror and resistance, but resignation camethen, and finally understanding and a kind of contentment. 

She would help him faithfully against Old Mind now, though she would never beaware of doing it. 

And that, he thought, was really all for the moment. The next step, thedevelopment of New Mind psi in others, was an unhurried, long-term project. Inall the area within his range, Old Mind control had stifled or distortedwhatever promise originally had been present. 

But the abilities were ever-recurring. And here and there, as he became awareof them now, their possessors would be contacted, carefully instructed andshielded against Old Mind spies. Until they had developed sufficiently to takecare of themselves and of others. Until there were enough of them. 

Enough to step into the role for which they had been evolved -- and which thelower mind had been utterly unable to comprehend. To act as the matured newconsciousness of the giant Earth life organism. 

-Chapter 9 
Spacemaster 

The dream was receding. 

Haddan knew it was receding because he had insisted to himself it was a dream,
a very vivid experience but untrue -- a delusion which he should not attemptto retain. And he was forgetting the dream now as he woke up. There was afinal memory of rain-swept greenery, long peals of thunder and then, at thevery end, the sound of Auris weeping wildly nearby. For a moment, Haddanhesitated, wanting to return to her. But she was part of the delusion. . . . 

He came awake. 

He was sitting alone in a room, at a table which projected like a wide shelfout of the blank wall before him. The wall was of some faintly gleamingmaterial and in it Haddan could see his own dim reflection. 

His mind seemed to recoil for an instant at that point, unwilling toacknowledge the bitter reality of being on the Spacemaster ship, of having 


become again a prisoner of the cynical overlords and debasers of mankind. AndAuris and the others with him -- detected in the act of violating the basicSpacemaster law. 

He should find out soon enough what the penalty was for that. It seemed veryimprobable that he had simply fallen asleep and escaped into dreamsimmediately after the capture; he must have been drugged. And now Spacemasterhad brought him awake. They intended to question him, of course. He hadidentified himself as the leader of the group, the man responsible for theconstruction of the spaceship which had secretly left the City of Liot twoyears before. It was the truth, and his statement might make things easier forthe others. 

But why was he sitting here alone? Was he being watched? The table on whichhis hands rested was bare and of the same material as the wall, satiny to thetouch. Aside from the table and his chair, the room was unfurnished. Behindhim, perhaps twenty feet away, was another blank wall. To right and left, atapproximately the same distance where the walls began to curve smoothlytowards each other, the space between ceiling and floor was filled by curtainsof curling haze through which light and color moved in restless ripples. Thestuff looked almost completely insubstantial, but Haddan realized he could notsee into it. In spite of its lack of furnishing, the room gave the impressionof cool elegance. And it was silent. There was not a whisper of sound excepthis own breathing. 

They might be testing him, his nerve, his reactions. But he was gainingnothing by continuing to sit here. 

Haddan attempted to shift the chair back and found it immovable, attempted toget out of it and instantly felt his body grow impossibly heavy. Some trick ofgravity . . . they intended him to stay where he was. He settled back into thechair, felt his normal weight gradually return. 

Perhaps two minutes later, a wave of light came gliding through the section ofwall before him, suddenly enough to be startling. Then the wall vanished atthat point. The table at which Haddan sat now extended on without visiblesupport beyond the partition, a flat, square slab of dull-gleaming greymaterial, at the other side of which, with his eyes on Haddan, sat a man in agreen and red uniform. 

Haddan looked back without speaking. In his lifetime he had seen only a fewdozen members of Spacemaster -- all the others in the City of Liot, and mostof those on various occasions before he became an adult. They showed apronounced racial similarity: stocky, strong figures and broad, heavy-bonedfaces with slightly tilted grey eyes. This one, whose name was Vinence, hadasked Haddan a half-dozen questions in an emotionless voice when they had beentaken aboard the capturing Spacemaster vessel. What happened afterwards Haddandid not remember clearly, but it seemed to him now that it couldn't have beenmany more minutes before he had fallen asleep. Nor could he remember what thequestions had been or how he had answered them. There was no reason to doubtthat the Spacemaster had used some drug on him. 

Vinence appeared in no hurry to speak at the moment. He continued to studyHaddan thoughtfully. Haddan let his gaze shift about the other section of thepartly divided big room. It was almost a mirror image of this one; but thewall on the far side was lined from floor to ceiling with what night have beenindividual cabinets, and the table section before the Spacemaster was covered 


with rows of small colored geometrical figures. 

Vinence's flat voice asked suddenly, "What did you dream about, Haddan?" 

That might not be as pointless a question as it seemed -- and there was noimmediate reason to be too truthful. Haddan shook his head. "I don't remember 
any dreams." 

"I think you lie," Vinence told him after a pause, but almost as if he didn'tcare greatly whether Haddan was lying or not. The grey eyes retained theirlook of cool speculation. "There were certain records on your ship," he wenton, "which you destroyed with other material when we paralyzed the drive andhalted the ship. Those records -- I refer now to the ones dealing with thesins of Spacemaster -- have since been restored. I found them interestingreading." 

Haddan felt the blood drain slowly from his face. To have been caught whileescaping from Spacemaster bondage might be one thing. To have planned, as heand Auris had, to provide proof of the evil Spacemaster was for human beingswherever they could be found, and to work towards Spacemaster's destruction -perhaps 
not in their own lifetimes or even in the next century or two, but intime -- that was quite another. He did not know whether Spacemaster actuallywas capable of restoring material objects which had been recently destroyed;
but it seemed at least possible. They knew many things they had kept theirsubject cities from learning. Vinence might also have gained the knowledge ofthe records from Auris or himself while they were drugged. It would come,
Haddan thought, to much the same thing in the end. 

He said nothing. He watched Vinence's tanned hand move just above the table onhis right and saw a rectangle of pale light appear in the surface of the tablewith the motion. Vinence's eyes shifted to the lighted area and remained therefor some seconds. Haddan gained the impression that the Spacemaster wasreading. Then Vinence looked back at him. 

"Do you happen to know," Vinence asked, "when the City of Liot was built andstationed in orbit around the Liot Sun?" 

"No," Haddan said. "There were no records of that period available." 

Vinence said, "The records should still be in the city, though they would bedifficult to find by now. Liot was built almost three thousand years ago. Itwas partly destroyed a number of times in inter-city wars, but the structureremains essentially intact today . . . one of the largest cities ever to beset into space." 

Liot's inhabitants, Haddan thought, had not done as well with the passing oftime as their city. And for that Spacemaster must be charged. 

"The treaty between Spacemaster and the Eighty-two Cities," Vinence continued,
almost as if he had caught the thought, "has been in effect a little less thanfour centuries. Under its terms the cities engaged themselves not to buildspace vessels either for war or peace, and to destroy the ones they had.
Spacemaster in turn assumed the responsibility of providing means of transitand trade among the cities and elsewhere as required." 

"I've seen a copy of the treaty," Haddan said drily. "It didn't look like oneof the cities would have signed too willingly." 


Vinence nodded. "Spacemaster encountered very considerable opposition to theterms during the first few decades. Nevertheless, the terms were enforced, andopposition eventually died away. But not entirely. From time to time duringthe next generations some group or other would attempt to regain the means ofindependent space travel, either openly or furtively. The necessary measureswould then be taken, and the attempt would subside. 

"Of late, matters have been very quiet. Prior to the current case -- yours -it 
had been nearly a hundred and fifty years since the construction ofspacecraft was last initiated in the City of Liot. On that occasion it wasalso a secret action and was partly successful. One small ship was completedand was launched unobserved from the city, carrying two members of theconspiracy. They had old star charts in their possession which were to guidethem to the one world in this section of our galaxy reported to have naturalconditions suitable for human life without the elaborate precautions ofdoming. Human settlers were, in fact, supposed to have lived there in thatmanner during one period of the distant past. 

"In spite of their lack of experience, the two travelers succeeded in reachingtheir goal. They returned to the City of Liot several years later with theword that there was such a planet and that human beings still existed on it,
though their number was small and they had retrogressed to a condition ofalmost unbelievably primitive savagery. 

"The conspirators . . . several hundred in number . . . now hurried throughtheir plans to complete the construction of a ship large enough to carry themand the equipment they would need to establish the nucleus of a new humancivilization on this world. In that, they did not succeed. Spacemaster gotwind of the affair, and the group committed mass suicide by barricading itselfin a deserted building complex in Liot and detonating a bomb whichdisintegrated the complex. It was falsely assumed at the time that the shipthey had been building and the material they had accumulated was destroyedwith them. The ship and the other items actually were sealed away in anothersection of the city and remained undiscovered until a few years ago. 

"Which brings us to you, Haddan. . . . The manner in which you became aware ofthe existence of this ship and of its original purpose is not important at themoment. You did learn of these things. You banded together with othermalcontents, secretly finished the construction of the ship and eventually setforth on the voyage your predecessors failed to make. And you were apprehendedtwo years later in the process of preparing for planetfall. . . ." 

Vinence paused, glanced again at the glowing rectangle in the table surfaceand waved his hand across it. As the light faded out, he went on, "That, Ibelieve, is essentially the picture presented by this case. Do you agree?" Hisvoice and expression were still impassive. 

Haddan remained silent for some seconds. There was a thickness of rage in histhroat which would have made it almost impossible for him to speak. In itsfactual details, Vinence's account of what had occurred was correct. But itwas very far from complete. And it was the Spacemaster's cynical omission ofthe circumstances which had driven two groups of people a century and a halfapart to make the same desperate effort to escape from Liot that seemedappalling. Vinence and his kind were fully aware of what had been done to thecities. It had been a deliberate, completely planned thing. Long ago,
Spacemaster must have suspected a competitor for power in Liot and her sister 


giants in this area of space. It had isolated them from one another first,
then proceeded to break them down individually. In Liot, Spacemaster hadassumed control step by step, over the decades, of all the great city'sfunctions. In Haddan's lifetime, the process had long been completed. OnlySpacemaster had any understanding now even of the vast machine complexes whichpowered and sustained Liot; and only it retained access to the city sectionswhere the machinery was housed. When one began to look about and check, asHaddan had done, it became clear that not even the shadow of self-governmenthad been left. 

But that was not the real crime. The crime had been committed in a much more 
immediate manner against the city's inhabitants . . . but so quietly that itbecame noticeable only when one obtained, as Haddan again had done, anunderstanding of the differences between the population now and that of fiveor six generations ago -


He told Vinence, his voice held carefully even, "I can't agree that you'vepresented the significant part of the picture." 

"No?" Variance said. "You believe that the emphasis should be placed onSpacemaster's misdeeds?" 

Haddan looked at him, feeling the thickening in his throat again and his handshungry to close on the throat of the unreachable man across the table.
Misdeeds! When in a city, which could be calculated to have been built tocontain fifteen million people, twenty thousand remained -- twenty thousand atthe most; more accurate figures were simply no longer available. And when thelife-span average in Liot now did not appear to be even eighteenyears. . . . When three out of four of the lingering descendants of the city'sbuilders slouched past with slack-jawed, foolish faces and empty eyes -


Of what specific "misdeed" had Spacemaster been guilty there? He hadn't beenable to find out; and neither -- much better informed in such matters thanHaddan -- had Auris. They had wanted to know, to complete the record ofhumanity's case against Spacemaster. But too few others had been capable ofgiving any assistance. Whole fields of knowledge had faded from men's minds;
and, in any event, that one area of knowledge might always have beenSpacemaster's secret. There had not been enough time to make sure. But thecondition of the people of Liot showed in itself that an enormity of some kindhad been practiced on them, and Haddan and Auris had corroborating evidencefor that. 

Vinence's voice reached Haddan again. "I was referring to the fact that therestored records contain a number of interesting speculations aboutSpacemaster and its activities. These records were, I believe, compiled byyourself?" 

Haddan nodded. "They were." 

"They were designed to be brought eventually to the attention of galactichumanity?" 

Haddan hesitated, said, "Yes, that was their purpose." 

The tilted cool eyes considered him for a moment. "I should like," Vinencesaid slowly, "to hear by what reasoning you arrived at your conclusions. Imight say that nothing you tell me now could affect in any way the measures 


that will be taken in regard to yourself and your companions. That is asettled thing." He paused, shrugged, added almost casually. "Some of you willlose all memory of the past. The others will live out the rest of their liveswithout ever quite awakening again from a not too unpleasant dream. We are notinhumane, you see. We simply do what is necessary. As these measures are." 

Haddan stared at him helplessly. He felt cold. He had expected death forhimself, though perhaps not for the others. He had, after all, been theringleader. Without him, none of them would have left Liot. He had tried notto think of Auris. 

But this was Spacemaster's way. Not outright death, but the slow quenching ofthe mind, the slow decay of the body. As they had done, in a somewhatdifferent manner, in Liot. 

"You must," Vinence said, "have made certain observations. Or perhaps Dr.
Auris. . . ." 

Haddan, suddenly, found himself speaking. The words came out quietly, icily,
though there was fury behind them. It was, of course, quite pointless. Vinenceknew what had happened, and he was not a man to be ruffled by a victim'saccusations. But there was some satisfaction still in letting him know thatSpacemaster had not been as successful as it believed in concealing the factthat it was engaged in systematic genetic destruction. 

Some came to suspect it, though by that time there was very little they coulddo -- except to avoid for themselves such obvious traps as the marvelousautomatic medical centers Spacemaster began to install throughout the city --

Vinence interrupted almost irritably. "Nearly two hundred years ago the numberof capable human physicians in Liot dropped to the point where thoseinstallations became necessary, Haddan. It was only one of the many stepstaken during the period of the treaty to maintain life in the cities as wellas was possible." 

Only one of the many steps, no doubt, Haddan agreed. But hardly with thepurpose of maintaining life. Accurate records must have been difficult to findin Liot even then, but there was some reason to speculate whether it mightn'tbe often the strongest and most intelligent who were reported to havesuccumbed in the Spacemaster centers. . . . 

"You think they were killed there?" Vinence said. 

"Or removed from the city." 

"To further weaken the strain . . . yes, I see." Vinence spoke thoughtfully,
as if this were a possibility he had considered for the first time. "How didyou learn about things which happened so long ago, Haddan?" 

"From a message left by one of the original designers of the ship we used,"
Haddan said. 

"You discovered this message in what way?" 

Haddan said, "Not by accident. The man committed suicide with the others sothat Spacemaster would not learn that the ship hadn't been destroyed. I'm hislineal descendant. He arranged to make the information about the ship 


available again, provided the message eventually came into the hands ofsomebody who could understand it. The supposition was that such a person wouldthen also be capable of acting on the information." 

"The message was coded?" 

"Of course." 

"I find it curious," Vinence said, "that you didn't come to our attentionbefore this." 

Haddan shrugged. "My more immediate ancestors have followed the familytradition of staying out of your medical centers. I assume that's why thestrain continued as long as it did. I've also observed thattradition . . . and the other one of not applying for passage out of Liot on aSpacemaster ship." 

"You feel that's another of our traps?" 

"I've discovered no evidence," Haddan said, "that anyone who met the physicalrequirements for space flight and was accepted for passage later returned toLiot." 

"I see. It appears that you were remarkably busy in a number of areas duringthe years before you left the city. And I suppose you formed an acquaintancewith Dr. Auris in order to confirm your ancestor's suspicions about proceduresin our medical centers?" 

Haddan had hoped to keep Spacemaster's interest away from Auris, but therecords revealed very clearly the role she had played. He said, "Yes, Iobtained some additional information in that manner." 

Vinence nodded. "She is another unusual member of your generation," he said.
"She applied for medical training while still almost a child -- the firstvolunteer to appear in the centers for that purpose in a decade. She wanted tohelp the city . . . but you know about that. She was given instruction -- " 

"Carefully limited instruction," Haddan said. 

"Yes, carefully limited. We were making a study of Dr. Auris. It seems that onyour instigation she began to study us as well. When she disappeared, it wasassumed she had died somewhere in the city. Haddan, you accuse us of thegenetic destruction of the space civilization of the Eighty-two Cities. Whatbenefit do you think Spacemaster derived from the act?" 

It was a question Haddan had often asked himself, and he believed he knew theanswer. But there was an undefinable vague uneasiness in his mind now when hesaid, "The cities were threatening to dispute that space mastery of yours. Atthe time they were forced to accept your treaty terms, they may not have beentoo far away from being your equals. But you still had certain technologicaladvantages, so you broke them first. Then, not feeling strong enough tocontrol them indefinitely simply by forbidding them to practice space flight,
you decided on a program of deliberate, gradual extermination." 

"And why," Vinence asked, "select that slow, almost interminable method? Theeffortless solution to such a problem would have been to open the cities tospace." 


"It would not have been a safe solution for Spacemaster," Haddan said, "ifgalactic mankind learned of the outrage." He hesitated, the sense ofuneasiness stronger. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of recalling somevery disturbing thing he had known once and forgotten about, and he felt sweatsuddenly in the palms of his hands. Then those sensations faded. Vinence wasstill watching him, expression unchanged; and Haddan continued uncertainly,
"You preferred to murder the cities in a manner which might, if necessary, beattributed to a natural process . . . something for which you could not beheld responsible. You . . ." 

He did not see Vinence move, but with that he was suddenly plunged intocomplete darkness. The Spacemaster and everything else had vanished. Haddanattempted automatically to surge up out of his chair but felt intolerableheaviness dragging him back. He waited, breathing with difficulty as theheaviness eased off again, for what would happen next. 

Vinence spoke then, the voice coming now out of the dark above Haddan perhapstwenty feet off and a little to his right. 

"The ship is moving, Haddan. We're returning to the planet at which you wereintercepted -- " 

And abruptly there was light. 

Not the light which previously had been in the room, but the rich, bright glowof a living world swimming under its sun. All the walls of the double room,
the floor and ceiling, seemed to form a single continuous window through whichthe brightness poured. Haddan couldn't see Vinence, but there was a blurred,
greyish area up towards the right which might be an energy block behind whichthe Spacemaster sat. And this, Haddan thought, could very well be -- it hadn'toccurred to him before -- the control room of the ship. 

The ship was stationary in atmosphere, well down. They must have been just offthe planet to have arrived here in that nearly instantaneous manner, but themaneuver was still one which would have been flatly impossible to the spacevessel so painstakingly completed in Liot. Haddan could make out forestedhills below, lush dark-green rises about which three broad rivers curved, rainclouds scudding above them. Far to the left was the hazy expanse of a sea. Thearea seemed to be in the tropical zone, very similar in appearance to the onewhere he and Auris had come down in a small boat to decide where their shipshould land. As it had done then, the scene brought a sudden, almostunbearable hunger to Haddan's throat, a sense of homecoming which, for aninstant, drove out everything else. 

"Rather different from the parks of the City of Liot," Vinence's voicecommented. "More so than you knew, Haddan. Our tests of those you had on boardshow that the majority would not have lived long on an undomed world. You andDr. Auris are fortunate in that respect. Many of the others are fortunate thatSpacemaster found them before they could be seriously attacked by theinfections you brought back to the ship with you. . . ." 

Not so fortunate, Haddan thought; otherwise the statement might be true. Itwas one of the incalculable risks everyone in the group had taken knowinglyand willingly. They had not been able to foretell either, what the impact ofspaceflight on genetically weakened bodies might be; and nine men and fourwomen of the eighty-five who left Liot died during the first quarter of the 


two-year voyage. And the irony was that they had taken such chances notknowing that Spacemaster regarded the world towards which they were fleeing asanother of its possessions. If they had been able to land, and enoughsurvived, it was still unlikely they would have escaped detection long enoughto even begin to carry out their further plans. 

"And now we shall look through the instruments at what might have been yournew neighbors here," Vinence's voice went on. "An exceptionally large troopremains as a rule in this immediate area. . . . Yes, down at the bend in thenorthern river. . . . You see the cluster of golden sparks above the trees,
Haddan? Its density indicates the presence of the troop, each sparkrepresenting one living human being." 

Haddan's glance moved up the largest of the rivers, stopped at a fireflypattern of tiny, brilliant lights in the air on both sides of one of thebends. They would be invisible of course to the naked eye -- a convenientmethod for Spacemaster to keep check on the scattered inhabitants of thisplanet and, if desired, even to conduct a head count. No, Haddan thought, heand the others from Liot couldn't have remained undiscovered here long. 

The fireflies vanished; then the scene outside the ship darkened suddenly,
becoming a blur of green and gold. As the blur cleared, Haddan saw that thedevices Vinence was operating had produced a close-up view of the area of theriver bend at ground level, and of fifty or sixty of the human "troop." It wasa convincing illusion -- he might have been sitting among them -- and morethan a view. His ears recorded babble of shrill calls from a group of childrenat the edge of the water; two women were shouting back and forth across theriver. After a few seconds, Haddan realized there were also tactilesensations . . . a sense of warmth, of moving air; and, very faintly, odors ofvegetation and water. 

His gaze shifted about the group. They were not, he thought, remarkablyhandsome people, though there was a great deal of individual variance in that.
All -- even the bathing children -- looked dirty; almost all were naked. Theyappeared to be chiefly engaged in grubbing around in reeds and thickets foredible substances, vegetable and animal. Only a few of the faces nearest himgave the impression of calculating intelligence. But there was, with very fewexceptions, an air of alertness and robust energy about them which no group ofcorresponding size in Liot would have suggested. And the number of bothgrizzled oldsters and small children was startling. There had been no healthyold people in Liot. 

It was a group which could have been retaught many things long forgotten here,
Haddan thought, and which should have learned them quickly. The plan had notbeen a hopeless one in that respect; the possibility of developing a newcivilization on this world had existed. And that made it the more strange thatno civilization did exist here, that the descendants of the old-time settlershad regressed instead to this manner of living . . . almost exactly, exceptfor the dexterous use of pieces of wood and rock in their varied pursuit ofmeals, the manner of a troop of animals. Vinence might have used the termcontemptuously; but it was a correct one. 

Spacemaster's work again? It very easily might be, Haddan decided, and itprobably was. Why else should there be so few of these people on a world whichobviously could have supported a far denser human population -- even one whichhad lost every scrap of technological understanding. Yes, Spacemaster, almostcertainly. A somewhat different form of degradation here, perhaps brought 


about for an entirely different purpose. But it had been done deliberately -


"Galactic humanity," Vinence's voice said from above him. "You're looking at apart of it here, you know, Haddan! As large a part, as a matter of fact, asyou're likely to find in any one place on this world . . . and studying themat close range now, do you think Spacemaster would be really concerned aboutanything you could tell these people? It might be interesting to watch youtrying to describe the City of Liot to them in the vocabulary of grunts whichtheir use of speech amounts to. 

"But, of course, you knew that. You understood it would take generations tobring about any significant change here, and that you and your companionscould only begin the process. But this is one small, badly stunted twig on thegreat tree of mankind. You were planning to get word to the others. The numberof them alone would make them unconquerable now. Only fourteen thousand yearsago, they were still confined to a single planet not very different from thisone. But then they drove out into the galaxy, established great civilizationson a thousand new worlds, scattered the self-sustaining giant cities throughspace. . . . That's the humanity Spacemaster would have to fear, isn't it, ifit learned what we did to the Eighty-two Cities?" 

"Or," Haddan said, "if it learned what you've done to this world! That alonewould damn you -- and in the end it will. You won't escape mankind's judgmentfor ever." 

There was silence for some seconds, even the muted sounds of human activity atthe river dwindling into nothing. Then Vinence spoke again. 

"There's a very curious fact here, Haddan. You -- and you're far from uniquein it -- have hypnotized yourself into believing certain facts aboutSpacemaster. By doing it, you were able to ignore another possible explanationfor the way things have gone in Liot, though there are indications that it hasnever been very far from your awareness. Perhaps one can't blame you for thecontinuous self-deception, but it must end now. And I think that essentiallyyou do want to know the true reason for what will be done with you and yourfriends." 

The words seemed to just miss making sense. A queer, sharp surge of panicbegan to arise in Haddan. He heard himself blurt out thickly, "What are youtalking about?" 

There was no answer. Instead, complete darkness closed about him again. Haddanwaited, his thoughts whirling, shifting drunkenly as if in shock. What hadVinence just said? He seemed unable to remember it clearly. What self-
deception? 

He realized that Vinence was speaking again. 

"It took two years to cover the distance between Liot and the world we justleft," the voice said. "But we are not called Spacemaster for nothing, sodon't be too surprised now. What you will see is as real as it appears." 

The thick darkness was lifting from the double room as he spoke, and throughthe surrounding endless window of walls and ceiling and floor the stars ofspace shone in. On Haddan's left was the harsh yellow-white glare of a nearbysun; and dead ahead, reflecting the glare like a blazing jewel, were thefaceted walls of Liot. He recognized the city instantly, though he had seen 


this outside view before only in the instant after a long unused small lockopened to let out their ship. Then the drive immediately had hurled them awayfrom the Liot Sun with almost the speed of light. 

The city blurred now, reshaped itself, closer. The Spacemaster ship wasgliding in towards a huge opened entry lock. Another blur, and it hung in thelock's mouth. 

"What do you see, Haddan?" 

He stared down the brilliantly lit, starkly empty lock. At the far end, a mileaway, was another vast, gaping circle. Beyond it, more light. . . . 

The thought came suddenly, numbing as death: 

"The city is empty!" 

Haddan didn't know he had said it. But he heard Vinence reply. 

"Yes, empty . . . open to space. Liot was the last of the Eighty-two. It'sbeen lifeless for nearly a year. And now" -- the voice was flat andexpressionless again -- "we'll go to the worlds and cities of the galacticmankind on which you based your hopes. I think you've begun to understandconsciously what we will find there." 

And, in that instant, he had.
* * * 

Perhaps only hours later, Haddan stood at a window of a great globularstructure floating less than half a mile above the surface of a world calledClell. A sense of heavy, almost paralyzing physical shock hadn't yet drainedcompletely from his body. But his thoughts were clear again. 

He had seen the dead worlds, the dead space cities of galactic mankind -enough 
of them; too many. Clell still lived, in a fashion. The glassy roofs ofthe flat, wide buildings stretching towards the horizon across the pleasantplain below Haddan sheltered eighty thousand human beings . . . the greaterpart of what was left of the proud species of Man. Clell was the next to lastworld he would see, and the last he would see while he still retained theknowledge of who and what he was. 

Spacemaster's plans for his personal future in themselves were notdistressing. They would take away his memories, but he would be living on thegreen world far away from Clell where there was thunder and rain, perhaps as amember of the band he had watched on the river's banks -- not the most 
handsome of people on the whole, and somewhat soiled, but not unhappy. InVinence's phrasing, he would have become a neoprimitive, one tiny, temporary,
individual factor in Spacemaster's gigantic, centuries-spanning plan to obtainsurvival for the human race. And Auris would be there, though Haddan wouldn'tbe able to remember her, or she him. He recalled his feelings when he hadlooked down on that world and during the few hours he walked about on it, andhe knew the other Haddan would be contented enough in his new existence. Hecertainly preferred that prospect to the drugged, comforting fantasies whichwould be the final life experience of the human majority on Clell . . . themajority which could not be employed in the plan. 

But it was not what he wanted. And the immediate question was how far 


Spacemaster could be trusted. 

Haddan's gaze shifted back to the table behind him. It was littered with maps,
charts, masses of other informative material, much of it incomprehensible.
But, added to what he had been shown from Vinence's incredible ship, there hadbeen enough he understood to present the story of the genetic collapse of Man-- or Spacemaster's version of it. 

It was not too implausible. The death seed of multitudinous abnormal genes hadbeen planted in the race before it set out to explore and inhabit the galaxy,
and with the expansion their rate of development increased. For another longtime, improving medical skills maintained the appearance of a balance; it hadbecome very much less easy for civilized Man to die even under a heavy geneticburden. But since he continued to give short shrift to any governmentaudacious enough to make the attempt of regulating his breeding preferences,
that burden also continued to grow. 

A point regularly came where medical knowledge, great as it might be, wassuddenly shown to be no longer capable of the human repair work needed now tokeep some specific civilization on its feet. The lethal genes, the innumerableminor mutations, had established at last a subnormal population, chronicallysick and beginning to decrease rapidly in numbers. Spacemaster's chartsindicated that this period, once entered, was not prolonged. When there weresimply not enough healthy minds and bodies left to attend to the requirementsof existence, the final descent became catastrophically swift and wasirreversible. On Liot, Haddan had been living through the last years of such aperiod, modified only by Spacemaster's intervention. 

Spacemaster, with its supermachines and superscience, had come into existenceas an organization almost too late to act as more than humanity's undertakers.
Liot had been the last of all islands of galactic civilization. In less thanfifteen centuries, the race had gone everywhere from its peak of achievementand expansion to near-extinction. Spacemaster believed it could still berebuilt from its remnants, but that the rebuilding required surgicalruthlessness and long-continued supervision. 

That was the story Haddan had been given . . . and why, he thought, shouldthey bother to lie to him? But there were puzzling features, and questionsleft unanswered. What was Spacemaster? Some superior genetic strain which hadpossessed the self-discipline and foresight to eliminate any threateningweaknesses in its ranks and to remain apart from deteriorated groups? Then whyshould they have undertaken the stupendous task of attempting to recreate thehuman race from the survivors of the foundering civilizations? Theythemselves, at an incomparable level of technological achievement, were thenew humanity. 

The reflection had raised eerie possibilities. There was the fact that hefound it impossible to feel at ease in Vinence's presence. Something in theSpacemaster's appearance, the manner in which he moved, sent constant alertsignals to Haddan's brain . . . a difference there, not too obvious butprofoundly disturbing. It was as if his senses would not accept that Vinencewas another human being, and the thought had come that perhaps on one of thedying worlds a race of robots had been brought into existence and given thetask of saving mankind -- that Vinence and his fellows were still attemptingto carry out the task, with mechanical perseverance, mechanical lack of realinterest and, actually, without too much intelligence. 


Because Spacemaster's plan . . . or as much of it as Haddan had been allowedto see . . . contained obvious elements of sheer, senseless futility. . . . 

Or Vinence might be, if not a robot, a member of a genuine alien species, onemasquerading as human beings, and with very different designs on the survivorsof humanity than Haddan had been told. There was the world Tayun to which heand Auris and such others of the Liot group as would not be retained on Clellwere destined to go. It would be the last group Spacemaster could add to itssparse human breeding stock on Tayun. It had kept the City of Liot functioningfor a year after Haddan's departure. Then it became obvious that there wouldbe no more viable births in the city, that the last drop of genetic usefulnesshad been drained from the shrunken population. The survivors were transferredto Clell, and the city left open to space but intact . . . because eventuallyhuman beings should return to lay claim to it again.
* * * 

That, Vinence said, was Spacemaster's purpose. For centuries it had drawnthose who still seemed sufficiently sound out of the subnormal groups underits attention and moved them to Tayun, which of all known worlds came closestto matching the conditions which had existed on primitive Earth. Not too easya world for human beings to live on without the tools and conveniences ofcivilization, and not too difficult. Which was exactly as it should be forSpacemaster's purpose. Tayun was the laboratory in which, over the course ofgenerations, any concealed inherited weaknesses were to be worked verythoroughly out of the transplanted human strains. Throughout the longprobationary period, they were therefore to have only their natural endowmentto see them through the problems they encountered. This was the reason thattransferred adults were not allowed to retain the memories of their previouslife. Haddan, Auris and the rest would be left in the vicinity of some largegroup which could be counted on not to take too unamiable an attitude towardsbefuddled strangers. Since they were physically and mentally well above thepresent average on Tayun, it should not take them long to overcome theirinitial handicaps among the group's members. If their memories were leftintact, it would be too difficult for them to avoid the temptation ofintroducing minor innovations to make life more easy for themselves and theothers. 

"It isn't intended that life should become more easy there for quite a fewcenturies," Vinence said, "except as the strain improves its natural abilityto meet the conditions around it . . ." 

He acknowledged that for a while it had appeared that the Spacemasterexperiment on Tayun was too drastic and would fail. Diseases, shifts ofclimate, animal enemies, and their own latent genetic liabilities seemed to bekilling the "neoprimitives" off faster than they could be brought in. Butduring the past sixty years, their number had first stabilized, and then hadbegun to increase detectably. The first crisis was over. 

It all looked quite logical, so far. Haddan knew little of genetics asSpacemaster understood it; it had been among Liot's "lost" sciences. He waswilling to accept that there were no effective gentler alternatives to lettinga species cleanse itself in a world-wide natural framework of the individualswho lacked essential qualifications to survive. And having seen theneoprimitives of Tayun for himself, he had not been greatly surprised byVinence's explanation. 

But the further steps of Spacemaster's plan were -- when one stopped to give 


them any thought at all -- completely and unbelievably insane. . . . 

Hearing a door open and close behind him, Haddan turned and saw Vinence comeacross the room. 

He stood silently, watching the stocky, strong-looking figure, the bland,
impassive face with the tilted grey eyes. Every Spacemaster he had seen so farlooked very much like Vinence. What was the wrongness about them? He couldn'thave said exactly. Perhaps it was a hint of unevenness in the motion, thesuggestion of a marionette propelled along by expert hands holding invisiblestrings. The smooth features and coolly calculating eyes . . . was this arobot? Haddan felt aversion, the concealed ripple of horror, crawl again overhis skin. 

Vinence stopped at the other side of the table, glancing at the materialsscattered about it. He pulled out a chair and sat down. 

"Did you get much out of this?" he asked Haddan. 

"Not too much." 

"It's a large subject," Vinence acknowledged. He stared thoughtfully atHaddan, added, "Our business on Clell has been concluded. Besides Dr. Aurisand yourself, four of your group chose Tayun. The others will remain here." 

Haddan said incredulously, "Only four preferred Tayun?" 

Vinence shrugged. "That's a very high average, Haddan. I did not expect somany. In the terminal generations of a culture like Liot almost nothing isleft of the motivation to survive as a species. There were three of you ofwhom we felt nearly certain; but the majority of your group were intellectualrebels who faced the risks of leaving Liot without undue qualms largelybecause they have always been a little detached from living realities. Forthem there could be no compensation in beginning life again as a memorylesssavage. The dreams of Clell held much more interest." 

He added, "There was a time when Spacemaster might have taken another dozenfrom that particular group for Tayun, without their consent. The tests rate atleast that many as qualified. But no combination of tests shows everyessential. We learned that when we went only by them and our own judgment, andnothing else, we ended almost invariably by having weakened the Tayun strain." 

"And what," Haddan asked, "are you going to accomplish finally bystrengthening it?" 

Something flickered for an instant in the Spacemaster's eyes. Then hisexpression changed slowly, became mocking, watchful, perhaps menacing; and thecertainty grew in Haddan that his question had not come as a surprise. 

Vinence said, "That is a curious thing to ask at this late moment." He noddedat the table before him. "Are you disagreeing with some of the conclusions youfound there?" 

Haddan looked at him. Why argue really? He would not change Spacemaster'splans . . . except perhaps unfavorably as regards to himself. Vinence'sattitude of expectancy suggested he might be on the verge of entering aprepared trap. His reaction to the information allowed him, to the things he 


had been shown and told -- without apparent good reason so far -- could be thefactor which determined what they did in his case. And it was quite possiblethat they preferred to exclude too questioning an attitude from man's newgenetic pattern. 

Why not accept Tayun? For him as an entity, there certainly would becompensations for becoming absorbed by the living racial strain. At the veryleast, it was better than to spend the rest of his days in the sterile dream-
halls of Clell -


He heard himself say, "It was a logical question. The charts show what you'vetold me. Eventually Tayun Man is to be allowed to develop his owncivilization. During that period, he should be a trifle hardier physically, atrifle more mentally competent, than the species was perhaps twenty thousandyears ago. Serious genetic defects will have been burned out. But in everyessential it will be the same species. Spacemaster will have provided mankindwith a fresh start. That's what it amounts to, isn't it?" 

Vinence nodded. "Very nearly." 

Haddan said "Your helpfulness does go a little further, of course. Theredevelopment of civilization when it begins will not be haphazard. Man willautomatically come across prepared information in some concealed form or otherat the moment he can best put it to use. So this second time he should advancevery rapidly. But will some super-organization like Spacemaster still be incontrol of him then?" 

"Hardly," Vinence said. "And not at all after they begin to spread through thegalaxy again. That would be not only undesirable but impossible. We've learnedthat much." 

"Then it seems," Haddan said, "that Spacemaster is committing an act oflunacy. If there's to be nothing but a fresh start, the whole cycle should berepeating itself a few thousand years from now. They'll have made the samemistakes and again be well advanced in the process of self-destruction.
There's no reason to expect anything else -- and of course you're aware ofthat. But unless you already know how to keep it from occurring . . ." 

Vinence shook his head. "We don't." He hesitated. "There is a vast difference 
between restoring the health of a species and attempting to change its naturalattitudes in any significant manner. The last is an enormously complex processwhich contains a much greater likelihood of doing harm than good. I'm engagedmyself in Spacemaster's investigations of possible means to prevent renewedracial suicide, and have been for a long time. We are not at all certain thateven a theoretical solution can be found." The tone was bland, the grey eyesstill fixed unblinkingly on Haddan. 

Haddan said doggedly, "A solution will have to be found, or the plan is almostmeaningless. And until it is found, Spacemaster is wasting anyone like Dr.
Auris or myself on Tayun . . . anyone capable of independent abstractthinking, which certainly isn't a vital requirement in Tayun Man at present.
The strain can get along without our kind for a while. You should be puttingevery functioning mind you can reach to use in looking for the answers youdon't have. That should be our assignment in Spacemaster's plan. Anything elseis indefensible." 

Vinence was silent for some moments. Then he shrugged, said, "There is one 


thing wrong with that assumption, Haddan. I mentioned that there are
complexities in such a project. They are much greater than you realize.
Certainly neither you nor Dr. Auris are stupid -- but your individual
remaining life expectancies are less than fifty years. You would be dead
before you could learn half of what you would need to know to begin to be
useful to us in such work. There is simply too much to be understood." 


Haddan stared at him. "But you were capable of understanding it?" 


"Yes, I was." 


"Then what -- " 


Haddan's voice died in his throat. Vinence had raised his hands to his face,
cupping the sides off his jaw in his palms, fingers pressed vertically along
the cheeks. The hands seemed to make a slight tugging motion; then they lifted
the Spacemaster's head from the sturdy neck and placed it unhurriedly upright
on the table, a little to one side.
* * * 


Haddan felt incapable of breathing or moving. He stared in a fascination of
repugnance at the head, at the eyes -- still fixed on him -- at the grey,
glistening, jellylike surface of the sectioned neck. Then the head's mouth
moved. 


"The Spacemaster's body," Vinence's voice said, with no change in tone or
inflection -- it seemed to be still coming out of the head -- "is an
interesting biological machine, Haddan. As a matter of fact, it represents a
partial solution to the problem we were discussing, though not a very
satisfactory one. There are pronounced disadvantages. This body, for example,
couldn't exist for minutes if exposed to the open air of even so gentle a
world as Clell. If you happened to touch me, I would die almost at once. And
if you hadn't been enclosed in a screen of filtering energies since the
instant we met, there would have been the same regrettable result. The
'Spacemasters' you may have seen in the City of Liot were manipulated
automatons -- displayed occasionally to produce some specific effect on the
population. A Spacemaster body can tolerate very few of the realities of life
as you know them. It experiences almost everything through instruments, at
second hand. It uses no food, cannot sleep, cannot reproduce its kind. 


"But we are human, and have had wholly human bodies. What you see is the
result of a fusion with something which is nearly, but not quite, another form
of life, and with the non-living instrumentation which allows us to move, see,
sustain normal gravity and -- as you notice -- to speak at considerable
length. Nevertheless, we remember what human realities were like, and at times
we miss them excruciatingly. We experience remorse, frustration, the sense of
failure; and we are often too vividly aware of the artificial monstrosities we
have become. As I said, there are disadvantages to this kind of living. 


"The other side of the matter is that the Spacemaster body lives for a very
long while, though eventually it does wear out along with its human component.
So there's time to learn and understand some of those very complicated matters
one must know in order to do what is necessary . . . which is what Spacemaster
has been doing for the past two thousand years." 


Haddan said hoarsely, "How long have you . . ." 



"Not quite half that period. It was roughly nine hundred years ago that Ifaced the same choice as you do today. I'm a little shopworn by now, though ithardly shows yet." 

Vinence's hands reached down, lifted the head, replaced it on the neck,
twisted deftly, quickly and withdrew. "This may seem an overly dramaticdemonstration," the Spacemaster went on, "but it has its uses. More than oneapparent candidate has lost all interest in further discussion around thispoint." 

Haddan drew in a deep breath, asked, "You're offering me a body of that kind?" 

"Why else would we be talking about it?" 

Something stirred in the back of Haddan's mind -- a soft confusion of lightand color, whispering rain, and Auris's sweetly intelligent face. Then it allfaded. 

He said, "I accept, of course." 

"Of course you do," Vinence agreed. "There's been almost no question of that.
But we've learned to wait until a potential recruit sees the need formembership and demands it, as his right, before we reveal the conditions. Inthe past, too many who were persuaded to become Spacemasters on the basis ofour judgment of their qualifications eventually found it was a burden they nolonger wanted to carry. And it's so very easy for any of us to step out on apleasant planet, and breathe its air and die. 

"But you've made your choice. We won't lose you. Neither are we afraid oflosing Dr. Auris, who made the same decisions some hours before you." 

In spite of everything, that came as a shock. After a moment, Haddan asked,
"Then when . . . do we begin?" 

Vinence said, "There are no formalities. You'll be inoculated at once. Therewill be a few uncomfortable months then until the fusion is complete. Butafterwards . . . we build better bodies now than this one of mine . . . youshould both have a full twelve hundred years ahead of you to work onSpacemaster's great problem, and Man's. And who knows? That may be the periodin which the answer is finally found." 

-Chapter 10 
The Altruist 

"I put them right there!" Colonel Olaf Magrumssen said aloud. 

He was referring to his office scissors, with which he wanted to cut somestring. The string, designed for official use, was almost unbreakably tough,
and Colonel Magrumssen had wrapped one end of it around a package containing aset of reports of the Department of Metallurgy, which was to be dispatchedimmediately. The other end of the string led through a hole in the wall to anautomatic feeder spool somewhere behind the wall, and the scissors should havebeen on a small desk immediately under the point where the string emerged,
because that was where the colonel always left them. Just now, however, they 


weren't there. 


There wasn't anything else on the desk that they might have slipped behind;
they weren't lying on the floor, and the desk had no drawers into which he
could have put them by mistake. They were simply and inexplicably gone. 


"Damn!" he said, holding the package in both hands and looking about
helplessly. He was all alone in the Inner Sanctum which separated his
residential quarters from the general office area of the Department of
Metallurgy. The Sanctum, constructed along the lines of a bank vault,
contained Metallurgy's secret files and a few simple devices connected with an
automatic transportation system between Metallurgy and various other
government departments. There was nothing around that would be useful in the
present emergency. 


"Miss Eaton!" the colonel bellowed, in some exasperation. 


Miss Eaton appeared in the doorway a minute later, looking slightly anxious
and slightly resentful, which was her normal expression. Otherwise, she was a
very satisfactory secretary and general assistant to the colonel. 


"Your scissors, Miss Eaton!" he ordered, holding up his package. "Kindly cut
this string!"
* * * 


Miss Eaton's gaze went past him to the desk, and her expression became more
definitely resentful. 


"Yes, sir," she said. She stepped up and, with a small pair of scissors
attached by a decorative chain to her belt, cut the string. 


"Thank you," said the colonel. "That will be all." 


"There's a Notice of Transfer regarding Charles E. Watterly lying on your
desk," Miss Eaton said. "You were to pass on it early this morning." 


"I know." The colonel frowned. "You might get out Watterly's record for me,
Miss Eaton." 


"It's attached to the Notice of Transfer," Miss Eaton told him. She went out
without waiting for a reply. 


The colonel dropped the package into a depository that would dispatch it to
its destination untouched by human hands, and turned to leave the Inner
Sanctum. Still irritated by the disappearance, he glanced back at the desk. 


And there the scissors were, just where he remembered having left them! 


The colonel stopped short. "Eh?" he inquired incredulously, of no one in
particular. 


A long-forgotten childhood memory came chidingly into his mind . . . 


"Lying right there!" a ghostly voice of the past was addressing him again. "If
it were a snake," the voice added severely, rubbing the lesson in, "it would
bite you!" 



The colonel picked up the scissors rather gingerly, as if they might bite him,
at that. He looked surprised and alert now, all distracting annoyancesforgotten. 

Colonel Magrumssen was a logical man. Now that he thought back, there was nosignificant doubt in his mind that, the evening before, he had left thosescissors on that desk. Nor that, after opening the Sanctum and sealing thepackage this morning, he had discovered they were gone. 

Nor, of course, finally, that they now had returned again. 

Those were facts. Another fact was that, aside from himself, nobody but MissEaton had entered the Inner Sanctum meanwhile -- and she hadn't come anywherenear the desk. 

Touching a sticky spot on one of the blades of the scissors, the coloneldabbed at it and noticed something attractively familiar about the pale browngumminess on his finger. 

He put the finger to his mouth. Why, certainly, he told himself -- it's justtaffy. 

His mind paused a moment. Just taffy! it repeated. 

Now wait a minute, the colonel thought helplessly. 

One could put it this way, he decided: at some time last night or thismorning, an Unseen Agency had borrowed his scissors for the apparent purposeof cutting taffy with them, and then had brought his scissors back . . . 
* * * 

Perhaps it was the complete improbability of that explanation which made himwant to accept it immediately. In the humdrum, hard-working decades followingEarth's Hunger Years, Colonel Magrumssen had become a hobbyist of theMysterious, and this was the most mysterious-looking occurrence he'd yet runinto personally. He'd been trained in espionage during the last counterrevolution, 
and while the lack of further revolutions ultimately had placedhim in an executive position in Metallurgy, his interests still lay ininvestigating the unexplained, the unpredictable, in human behavior, andelsewhere. 

As a logical man, however, he realized he'd have to put in his customary day'swork in Metallurgy before he could investigate the unusual behavior of a pairof office scissors. 

He locked the double doors of the Inner Sanctum behind him -- locked them,
perhaps, with exceptional attention to the fact that they were being locked -and 
went into the outer offices, to decide on Charles E. Watterly's Notice ofTransfer. 

The Department of Metallurgy, this section of which was under Colonel OlafMagrumssen's supervision, was as smoothly operating an organization as anygovernment coordinator could want to see. So was every other majororganization -- the simple reason being that employees who couldn't meet thestiff requirements of governmental employment were dropped quietly andpromptly into the worldwide labor pool known as Civilian General Duty. OnceCGD swallowed you, it was rather difficult to get out again; and life at those 


levels was definitely unattractive. 

Charles E. Watterly's standing in Metallurgy was borderline at best, thecolonel decided after going briefly over his record -- a rather incredibleseries of preposterous mistakes, blunders, slip-ups and oversights. Watterly'simmediate superior had made up a Notice of Transfer as a matter of course andsent it along to the colonel's desk to be signed. Signing it would sendCharles E. Watterly automatically to Civilian General Duty. 

The colonel was a tolerant man. He didn't care a particular hang how theDepartment of Metallurgy fared, providing his own position wasn't threatened.
But even colonels who failed to keep their subordinates in line could wind updoing Civilian General Duty. 

He could afford to give the unfortunate Watterly one more chance, the coloneldecided. A man who could operate so consistently against his own interestsshould be worth studying for a while! And since Watterly's superior had passedthe buck by making out the Notice of Transfer, the colonel summoned Miss Eatonand instructed her to have Watterly placed on his personal staff, onprobation. 

Miss Eaton made no comment. The airtight organization which was beginning tohaul humanity, uncomfortably and sometimes brutally enough, out of thecatastrophic decline of the Hunger Years did not encourage comment on one'ssuperior's decisions. 

"Mr. John Brownson of Statistics is here to see you," she announced.
* * * 

"The two per cent Normal Loss," John Brownson, a personal assistant of theMinister of Statistics, informed Colonel Magrumssen presently, "has shownstriking variations of late, locally. That's the situation in a nutshell. Thecheck we're conducting in your department is of a purely routine nature." 

He was relieved to hear that, the colonel said drily. What did Statistics makeof these variations? 

Brownson looked surprised. 

"We've made nothing of them as yet," he admitted. "In time, we hope, somebodywill." He paused and looked almost embarrassed. "Now in your department, wehave localized one area of deviation so far. It happens to be the cafeteria." 

The colonel stared. "The cafeteria?" 

"The cafeteria," Brownson continued, flushing a trifle, "shows currently asteady point three increase over Normal Loss. Processed foodstuffs, of course,
are so universally affected by the loss that almost any dispersal point can beused conveniently to check deviations. Similar changes are reported elsewherein the capital area, indicating the possible development of a localtrend . . ." 

"Trend to what?" the colonel demanded. 

Brownson shrugged thoughtfully. He wasn't, he pointed out, an analyst; he onlyproduced the statistics. 


"Well, never mind," said the colonel. "Our poor little cafeteria, eh? Let meknow if anything else turns up, will you?" 

Now that was an odd thing, he reflected, still idly, while he gazed afterBrownson's retreating back. When you got right down to it, nobody actuallyseemed to know why there should be a two per cent untraceable loss in theannual manipulations of Earth's commodities! People like Brownson obviouslysaw nothing remarkable in it. To them, Normal Loss had the status of a naturallaw, and that was that. 

Why, he realized, his reaction hovering somewhere between amusement andindignation, he'd been fooled into accepting that general viewpoint himself!
He'd let himself be tricked into accepting a "natural law" which involved anelement of the completely illogical, the inexplicable. 

The colonel felt a flush of familiar excitement. Look, he thought, this couldbe -- why, this is big! Let's look at the facts! 

He did. And with that, almost instantly, a breathtakingly improbable butcompletely convincing explanation was there in his mind. 

Furthermore, it tied in perfectly with the temporary disappearance of hisoffice scissors that morning! 

Colonel Magrumssen conceded, however, with something like awed delight at hisown cleverness, that it was going to be a little difficult to prove anything.
* * * 

The problem suddenly had become too intriguing to put off entirely tillevening, so the colonel sent Miss Eaton out to buy a bag of the best availabletaffy. And he himself made a trip to his private library in his livingquarters and returned with a couple of books which had nothing to do with hisofficial duties. 

He proceeded to study them until Miss Eaton returned with the taffy, which heput in a drawer of his desk. Then, tapping the last page of the text he hadbeen studying -- the chapter was titled "Negative Hallucinations" -- hereviewed the tentative conclusions he'd formed so far. 

The common starting point in the investigation of any unusual occurrence wasto assume that nothing just occurred; that everything had a cause. The nextstep being, of course, the assumption that anything that happened was part ofa greater pattern of events; and that if one got to see enough of it, thegreater pattern generally made sense. 

The mysterious disappearance and reappearance of his office scissors certainlyseemed unusual enough. But when one tied it in with humanity's casualacceptance of the fact that some two per cent of Earth's processed commoditiesdisappeared tracelessly every year, one might be getting a glimpse of apossible major pattern. 

The colonel glanced back over a paragraph he had marked in "NegativeHallucinations": 

Negative hallucinations are comprehensive in the sense that they also negatethe sensory registration of any facts that would contradict them. Install in ahypnotic subject the conviction that there is no one but himself in the room; 


he will demonstrate that he does not permit himself to realize that he cannot
see when another person present places both hands over his eyes . . . 


Assuming that it wasn't too logical of humanity to take Normal Loss for
granted, one could conclude that humanity as a whole might be suffering from a
very comprehensive negative hallucination -- in which case, it wouldn't, of
course, be permitting itself to wonder about Normal Loss. 


It was a rather large assumption to make, the colonel admitted; but he might
be in a position to test it now. 


For one then could assume also that there was somebody around, some Unseen
Agency, who was benefiting both by Normal Loss and by humanity's willingness
to accept Normal Loss without further investigation. 


An outfit who operated as smoothly as that shouldn't really have bungled
matters by returning his scissors under such suspicious circumstances. But
even that sort of outfit might be handicapped by occasional members who
weren't quite up to par. Somebody, say, who was roughly the equivalent of a
Charles E. Watterly. 


The notion satisfied the colonel. He unlocked a desk drawer which contained a 
few items of personal interest to him. A gun, for one thing -- in case life
eventually turned out to be just a little too boring, or some higher-up
decided some day that Colonel Magrumssen was ripe for a transfer and CGD. A
methodical man should be prepared for any eventuality. 


Beside the gun, carefully wrapped, was a small crystal globe, a souvenir from
a vacation trip he'd made to Africa some years before. There had been a brief
personal romance involved with the trip and the globe; but that part of it no
longer interested the colonel very much. 


The thing about the globe right now was that, when one pressed down a little
button set into its base, it demonstrated a gradual succession of tiny
landscapes full of the African sunlight and with minute animals and people
walking about in it. All very lifelike and arranged in such a manner that one
seemed to be making a slow trip about the continent. It was an enormously
expensive little gadget, but it might now be worth the price he'd paid for it. 


The colonel wrapped the globe back up and set it on the desk next to the bag
of taffy. Then he went about finishing up the day's official business,
somewhat amazed at the fact that he seemed to be accepting his own
preposterous theory as a simple truth -- that invisible beings walked the
Earth, lived among men and filched their sustenance from Man's meager living
supplies . . . 


But he hadn't, he found, the slightest desire to warn humanity against its
parasites. That had nothing to do with the fact that nobody would believe him
anyway. So far, he rather approved of the methods employed by the Unseen
Agency. 


By the time the next twenty-four hours were over, he also might have a fair
idea of its purpose. 


He laughed. The whole business was really outrageous. And he realized that,
for some reason, that was just what delighted him about it.
* * * 



He was sitting in his study, shortly after nine o'clock that evening, when he
had the first indication that his plans were beginning to work out. 


Up till then, he had remained in a curiously relaxed frame of mind. Having
accepted the apparent fact of the Unseen Agency's existence, the question was
whether its mysterious powers went so far that it actually could read his
thoughts and know what he intended to do before he got around to doing it. If
it could, his tricks obviously weren't going to get him anywhere. If it
couldn't, he should get results -- eventually. He felt he lost nothing by
trying. 


He was aware of no particular surprise then when things began to happen. It
was as if he had expected them to happen in just that way. 


He had pushed away the papers he was working on and leaned back to yawn and
stretch for a moment. As if by accident, his gaze went to the mantel above the
study's electronic fireplace, where he had placed the little crystal globe
showing Africa's scenic wonders. He had left it switched to the picture of a
burned brown desert, across which a troop of lean, pale antelopes trotted
slowly toward a distant grove of palm trees. 


From where he sat, he could see that the crystal no longer showed the desert
view. Instead, Kilimanjaro's snow-covered peak was visible in it, reflecting
the pink light of an infinitesimal morning sun. 


The colonel frowned slightly, permitting a vague sense of disturbance -- an
awareness of something being not quite as it should be -- to pass through his
mind. Presumably, that awareness would reflect itself to some degree in his
expression and might be noticed there by a sufficiently alert observer. 


He dismissed the feeling and turned back to his papers. 


What he caught in that moment, from the corner of his eye, couldn't exactly be
described as motion. It was hardly more than a mental effect, a fleeting
impression of shifting shadows, light and lines, as if something had alighted
for an instant on the farthest edge of his vision and been withdrawn again. 


The colonel didn't look up. A chill film of sweat covered the backs of his
hands and his forehead. That was the only indication he gave, even to himself,
of feeling any excitement. Without moving his eyes, he could tell that the
gleaming crystal globe had vanished from its place on the mantel.
* * * 


How did they do it? In some way, they were cutting off the links of awareness
that existed between all rational human beings. They were broadcasting the
impression that they, and the things they touched, and the traces of their
activities did not exist. Once the mind accepted that, it would refuse to
acknowledge any contradictory evidence offered by its senses of reasoning
powers. 


He'd started out by assuming that there was something there, so the effect of
the negative hallucination was weakened in him. Every new advance in
understanding he made now should continue to weaken it -- and there was one
moment when the Unseen Agency's concrete reality must manifest itself in a
manner which his mind, at this point, couldn't refuse to accept. That was the
instant in which it was manipulating some very concrete item, such as the 



crystal globe, in and out of visibility. 

It was obvious, at any rate, that the Agency couldn't read his thoughts. He'dtricked it, precisely as he'd set out to do, into making a hurried attempt toresolve his apparently half-formed suspicion that someone might have beenplaying with the globe behind his back. It showed a certain innocence of mind.
But, presumably, people who had such unusual powers mightn't be accustomed tothe sort of devious maneuvering and conscious control of emotion and thoughtwhich was required to survive at an acceptable level in the colonel's everydayworld. 

He became aware suddenly of the fact that the crystal globe had been returnedto its place on the mantel. For that same instant, he was aware also of achild-shape, definitely a girl, standing on tiptoe before the mantel, stillreaching up toward the globe -- and then fading quickly, soundlessly, beyondthe reach of his senses again. 

That was considerably more than enough -


He'd been thinking of some super-powered moron, of the Charles E. Watterlytype, not a child! But it made even better sense this way, and it took only afew seconds of flexibility to adapt his plans to include the new factor.
* * * 

The colonel took two white cards and a lead pencil out of a drawer of the deskat which he was working. He unhurriedly printed three words on the first cardand five on the second. Putting the cards into his pocket, he finally lookedup at the globe 

As he expected, it showed the scene he'd last been studying himself -- browndesert, the grove of palms and the antelopes. 

He gazed at it for a moment, as if absently accepting this correction of theUnseen Agency's lapse as any good hypnotic subject should. And then, stillcasually, he took the bag of fresh taffy he'd had Miss Eaton buy thatafternoon out of the desk drawer. He opened it, opening his mindsimultaneously to the conviction that the child-shape would come now to thisnew bait. 

Almost instantly, he realized, with a sense of sheer delight, that she wasthere! 

At any rate, there was an eagerness, an innocent greed, swirling like a gusty,
soundless little wind of emotion about him, barely checked now by thenecessity of remaining unseen. He took out a piece of the taffy and popped itsolemnly into his mouth, and the greed turned into a shivering young rage offrustration, and a plea, and a prayer: Oh, make him look away! Just once! 

The colonel put the paper bag into his pocket, walked deliberately to themantel and propped one of the two cards up against the globe. 

There was a fresh upsurge of interest, and then an almost physically violentburst of other emotions behind him. 

For the three words on the card read: 

I SAW YOU! 


Whistling soundlessly, the colonel waited a moment and replaced that card withthe next one. He scratched his jaw and, as an apparent second thought,
produced three pieces of taffy from his pocket, which he arranged into anartistic little pyramid in front of the card. He turned and walked back to hisdesk. 

When he looked around from there, the card was gone. 

So were the three pieces of taffy. 

He waited patiently for over a minute. Something white fluttered momentarilybefore the globe on the mantel and the card had reappeared. For a momentagain, too, the child became visible, looking at him still half in alarm, butalso half in laughter now, and then vanished once more. 

Reading what was written on the card, the colonel knew he'd won the firstround anyway. His reaction wasn't the feeling of alert, cautious triumph he'dexpected, but a curious, rather unaccountable happiness. 

The five words he'd printed on the card had been: 

DON'T WORRY -- I WON'T TELL 

That message was crossed out now with pencil. Underneath it, two single wordshad been printed in a ragged slope, as if someone had been writing veryhurriedly: 

THANK YOU! 
* * * 

By two o'clock that night, the colonel was still wide awake, though he hadfollowed his methodical pattern of living by going to bed at midnight, asusual. Whatever the Unseen Agency's reaction might be, it wouldn't be bound byany conventional restrictions. 

There was the chance, of course, that they would decide it was necessary todestroy him. Since he couldn't protect himself successfully against invisibleopponents, the colonel wasn't taking any measures along that line. He'daccepted the chance in bringing himself to their attention. 

They also might decide simply to ignore him. He couldn't, he conceded, do muchabout it if they did. Everyday humanity had its own abrupt methods of dealingwith anyone who tried to dispel its illusions, and he, for one, knew enoughnot to make any such attempt. But the Unseen Agency should have curiosityenough to find out how much he actually knew and what he intended to do aboutit. . . . 

His eyes opened slowly. The luminous dial of the clock beside his bedindicated it was three-thirty. He had fallen asleep finally; and now therewere -- presences -- in his room. 

After his first involuntary start, the colonel was careful not to move. Thechannels of awareness that had warned of the arrival of the Unseen Agencyseemed to be approximately the same he had used unwittingly in sensing theemotions of the child earlier that night. Under the circumstances, he mightregard theirs as more reliable than his eyes or ears. 


Apparently encouraged by his acceptance of the fact, his mind reportedpromptly that the child herself was among those present -- and that there wasa new quality of stillness and expectancy about her now, as if this were avery important event to her, too. 

Of the others, the colonel grew aware more gradually. But as he did, hediscovered the same sense of waiting expectancy about them, almost as if theywere trying to tell him that the next move actually was up to him, not them.
In the instant he formed that conclusion, his feeling of their generalpresence seemed to resolve itself into the recognition of a number of distinctpersonalities who were presenting themselves to him, one by one. 

The first was a grave, aged kindliness, but with a bubble of humor in it -almost, 
he thought, surprised, like somebody's grandmother. 

Two and Three seemed to be masculine, darker, thoughtfully judging. 

And, finally, there was Four, who appeared to come into the room only now, asif summoned from a distance to see what her friends had found -- a personalityas clear and light as the child's, but an adult intelligence nevertheless.
Four joined the others, observant and waiting. 

Waiting for what? 

That, the colonel gathered, was for him to experience in himself andunderstand. His awareness of their existence had been enough to attract theirattention to him. Moving and living securely beyond the apparent realities ofcivilization, as if it were so much stage scenery which had hypnotized thesenses of all ordinary human beings, they seemed ready to welcome andencourage any discoverer, without fear or hostility, as one of themselves. 

He could sense dimly the quality of their strange ability, and the motivesthat had created it. The ruthless mechanical rigidity of the human societythat had developed out of the Hunger Years had been the forcing factor. Thesecurious rebels must have felt a terrible necessity to escape from it to havefound and developed in their own minds a means of bypassing society socompletely -- the means being, essentially, so perfect a control of theoutgoing radiations of thought and emotion that they created no slightesttelltale ripple in the ocean of the subconscious human mind and left anegative impression there instead. 

But they were not hiding from anyone who followed the same path they hadtaken. 

There was a sudden unwillingness in him to go any further in that direction atthe moment. Full understanding might lie in the very near future; but it wasstill in the future. 

As if they had accepted that, too, he could sense that the members of theUnseen Agency were withdrawing from him and the room. Four was last to go;
lingering a moment after the others had left, as if looking back at him; alight, clear presence as definite as spoken words or the touch of a hand. 

A moment after she had left, the colonel realized, with something of a shock,
that for the first time in his adult life, he had fallen in love. . . . 
* * * 


First thing he did next morning was to have himself measured for a new uniformof the kind he'd always avoided -- the full uniform of his rank, white andgold, and with the extra little flourishes, the special unauthorized richnessof cloth that only a colonel-and-up could afford or get away with. It was thesort of gesture, he felt, that Four might appreciate. And he had a reason forwanting to stay away from Metallurgy that morning for the four hours or so itmight take to complete the suit. 

He was in the position of a strategist who, having made an important gain, cantake time out to consolidate it and consider his next moves. He preferred todo that beyond the range of any too observant eyes -- and mind. 

That Four and her kind should be content to live -- well, like mice, actually-- behind the scenery of the world, subsisting on the crumbs of civilization,
was ridiculous. They seemed to have no real understanding of their powers, andof the uses to which they could be put. 

It was the most curious sort of paradox. 

The colonel found a park bench and settled down to investigate the problemspresented by the paradox. 

He was, he decided, a practical man. As such, he'd remained occluded, tillnow, to their solution of the problems of a society with which he wasbasically no more contented than they had been. But he had adjustedeffectively to the requirements of that society, while they had withdrawn fromit in the completest possible fashion this side of suicide. 

To put it somewhat differently, he had learned how to influence and manipulateothers to gain for himself a position comfortably near the top. They hadlearned how to avoid being manipulated. 

But if a man could do that -- without losing the will to employ his powersintelligently! 

The colonel checked the surge of excitement which arose from that line ofreflection, almost guiltily. The structure of society might be -- and was -more 
than ripe for an overhauling. But he was quite certain that Four's peoplewould not be willing to follow his reasoning just yet. Their whole philosophyof living was oriented in the opposite direction of ultimate withdrawal. 

But give me time, he thought, Just give me time! 

Four showed herself to him that afternoon. 

He'd returned to his office -- the white-and-gold uniform had created anoticeable stir in the department -- and instructed Miss Eaton to send someoneout for a lunch tray from the cafeteria. 

A little later, he suddenly realized that Four was standing in the door of theoffice behind him. He knew then that, for some reason, he had expected her tocome. 

He was careful not to look around, but he sensed that she both approved of thewhite uniform and was laughing at him for having put it on to impress her. Thecolonel's ears reddened slightly. He straightened his shoulders, though, and 


went on working. 

Next, the child-shape slipped by before his desk, an almost visibility. Heglanced up at it, and it smiled and disappeared as abruptly as if it had gonethrough a door in mid-air and closed the door behind it. A moment later Fourstood just beyond the desk, looking down at the colonel, no less substantialthan the material of the desk itself. 

He stared up at her, unable to speak, aware only of a slow, strong gladnesswelling up in him. 

Then Four vanished -


Someone had opened the door of the office behind him. 

"Your lunch, sir," the familiar voice of Charles E. Watterly mutteredapologetically. 

The colonel let his breath out slowly. But it didn't matter too much, hesupposed. Four would be back. 

"Thank you, Watterly," he said, with some restraint. "Set it down, please." 

Watterly's angular shape appeared beside him and suddenly seemed to teeteruncertainly. The colonel moved an instant too late. The coffee pot lay on itsside in the brown puddle that filled the lunch tray on the desk. The rest ofthe contents were about evenly distributed over the desk, the carpet, and thewhite uniform. 

On his feet, flushed and angry, the colonel looked at Watterly. 

"I'm sorry, sir!" Watterly had fallen back a step. 

Now, this was interesting, the colonel decided, studying him carefully. Thiswas the familiar startled white face, its slack mouth twisted into an equallyfamiliar, frightened grin. But why hadn't he ever before noticed theincredible, cold, hidden malice staring at him out of those pale blue eyes? 

Not a bungler. A hater. The airtight organization of society kept itsuppressed so well that he had almost forgotten how the underdogs of the worldcould hate! 

He let the rage in him ebb away. 

Anger was pointless. It was the compliment one paid an equal. To withdrawbeyond the reach of human malice, as Four and the rest of them had done, was abetter way -- for the weak. For those who were not, the simplest and mosteffective way was to dispose of the malicious by whichever methods werehandiest, and forget about them.
* * * 

At seven in the evening, Miss Eaton looked in at the colonel's central officeand inquired whether he would need her any more that day. 

"No, thank you, Miss Eaton," said the colonel, without looking up. "A fewmatters I want to finish by myself. Good night." 


There was silence for a moment. Then Miss Eaton's voice blurted suddenly,
"Sometimes it's much better to finish such matters in the morning, sir!" 

The colonel glanced up in surprise. Coming from Miss Eaton, the remark seemedout of character. But she looked slightly resentful, slightly anxious, asalways, and not as if she attributed any importance to her words. 

"Well, Miss Eaton," the colonel said genially, while he wondered whether ithad been a coincidence, "I just happen to prefer not to wait till tomorrow." 

Miss Eaton nodded, as though agreeing that, in that case, there was no more tobe said. He listened to her heels clicking away through the glass-enclosedaisles of the general offices, and then the lights went out there, and ColonelMagrumssen was sitting alone at his desk. 

It was odd about Miss Eaton. He was almost certain now it had been no 
coincidence. Her personality which, for a number of years, he'd felt heunderstood better than one got to understand most people, had revealed itselfin a single sentence to be an entirely different sort of personality -- awoman, in fact, about whom he knew exactly nothing! At any other time, theimplications would have fascinated him. Tonight, of course, it made nodifference any more. 

His gaze returned reflectively to a copy of the Notice of Transfer by whichCharles E. Watterly had been removed from Metallurgy some hours before, to bereturned to the substratum of Earth's underdogs, where he obviously belonged. 

It had seemed the logical thing to do, the colonel realized with a feeling ofbaffled resentment. What did one more third-rate human life among a fewbillions matter? 

But it seemed his unseen acquaintances believed it did matter, very much.
Somewhere deep in his mind, ever since he had signed the Transfer, a cold,
dead area had been growing which told him, as clearly as if they had announcedit in so many words, that he wouldn't be able to contact them again. 

Notices of Transfer weren't revocable, but he felt, too, that it wouldn't havedone him much good if they had been. One committed the unforgivable sin, andthat was that. 

He had pushed Watterly back down where he belonged. And he was no longeracceptable. 

There was one question he would have liked answered, the colonel decided, ashe went on methodically about the business of cleaning up his department'stop-level affairs for his successor. 

What, actually, was the unforgivable sin? 

A half hour later, he decided he wasn't able to find the answer. Somethinginvolved with Christian charity, or the lack of it, apparently. He had sinnedin degrading Watterly. Civilization similarly had sinned on a very large scaleagainst the major part of humanity. And so they had withdrawn themselves bothfrom civilization and from him. 

He shook his head. He might still be misjudging their motives -- because itstill didn't seem quite right! 


On the proper form and in a neat, clear hand, he filled out his resignationfrom Metallurgy and from life, to make it easy for the investigators. Hefrowned at the line headed REASONS GIVEN and decided to leave it blank. 

He laid down the pen and picked up the gun and squinted down its barreldistastefully. And then somebody who now appeared to be sitting in the chairon the other side of his desk remarked: 

"That mightn't be required, you know."
* * * 

The colonel put the gun down and folded his hands on the desk. "Well, JohnBrownson!" he said, politely surprised. "You're one of them, too?" 

The assistant to the Minister of Statistics shrugged. 

"In a sense," he admitted. "In about the same way that you're one of them." 

The colonel thought that over and acknowledged that he didn't quite follow. 

"It's very simple," Brownson assured him, "once you understand the basic factthat we're all basically altruists -- you and I and every other human being onEarth." 

"All altruists, eh?" the colonel repeated doubtfully. 

"Not, of course, always consciously. But each of us seems to knowinstinctively that he or she is also, to some extent, an irrational andtherefore potentially dangerous animal. The race is developing mentally andemotionally, but it hasn't developed as far as would be desirable as yet." 

"That, at any rate, seems to be a fact," the colonel conceded. 

"So there is a conflict between our altruism and our irrationality. To solveit, we -- each of us -- limit ourselves. We do not let our understanding andabilities develop beyond the point at which we can trust ourselves not to usethem against humanity. Once you accept that, everything else is self-
explanatory." 

Now how could Brownson hope to defend such a statement, the colonel protestedafter an astonished pause, after taking a look at history? Or, for thatmatter, at some of the more outstanding public personalities in theirimmediate environment? 

But the assistant to the Minister of Statistics waved the objection aside. 

"Growth isn't always a comfortable process," he said. "Even the Hunger Yearsand our present social structure might be regarded as forcing factors. The menwho appear primarily responsible for this stage of mankind's development maynot consciously look on themselves as altruists, but basically, as I said,
that is the only standard by which we do judge our activities -- andourselves! Now, as for you -- " 

"Yes?" said the colonel. "As for me?" 

"Well, you're a rather remarkable man, Colonel Magrumssen. You certainly gave 


every indication of being prepared to expand your understanding to a very
unusual degree -- which was why," John Brownson added, somewhat
apologetically, "I first directed your attention to the possible implications
of Normal Loss. Afterward, you appear to have fooled much more careful judges
of human nature than I am. Though, of course," he concluded, "you may not
really have fooled them. It's not always easy to follow their reasoning." 


"Since you're being so informative," the colonel said bluntly, "I'd like to
know just who and what those people are." 


"They're obviously people who can and do trust themselves very far," Brownson
said evasively. "A class or two above me, I'm afraid. I don't know much about
them otherwise, and I'd just as soon not. You're a bolder man than I am,
Colonel. In particular, I don't know anything about the specific group with
which you became acquainted." 


"We didn't stay acquainted very long." 


"Well, you wouldn't," Brownson agreed, studying him curiously. "Still, it was
an unusual achievement." 
* * * 


The colonel said nothing for a moment. He was experiencing again a hot
resentment and what he realized might be a rather childish degree of hurt, and
also the feeling that something splendidly worthwhile had become irretrievably
lost to him through a single mistake. But, for some reason, the feeling was
much less disturbing now. 


"The way it seemed to me," he said finally, "was that they were willing to
accept me as an equal -- whatever class they're in -- until I fired Watterly.
That wasn't it, then?" 


"No, it wasn't. They were merely acknowledging that you had accepted yourself
as being in that class, at least temporarily. That seems to be the only real
requirement." 


"If I knew instinctively that I couldn't meet that requirement, on a
completely altruistic basis," the colonel said carefully, "why did I accept
myself as being in their class even temporarily?" 


John Brownson glanced reluctantly at the gun on the desk. For a moment, the
colonel was puzzled. Then he grinned apologetically. 


"Well, yes, that might explain it," he admitted. "I believe I've had it in
mind for some time. Life had begun to look pretty uninteresting." He poked
frowningly at the gun. "So it was just a matter of satisfying my curiosity -first?" 


"I wouldn't know what your exact motive was," Brownson said cautiously. "But I
presume it went beyond simple curiosity." 


"Well, supposing now," said the colonel, tapping the gun, "that on considering
what you've told me, I decided to change my mind." 


Brownson smiled. "If you change your decision, you'll do it for good and
sufficient reasons. I'd be very happy -- and, incidentally, there's no need to
blame yourself for Watterly. Watterly knew he couldn't trust himself in any 



position above Civilian General Duty. If you hadn't had him sent back there,
he would have found someone else to do it. Self-judgment works at all levels." 

"I wasn't worrying much about Watterly," the colonel said. He reflected amoment. "What actually induced you to come here to talk to me?" 

"Well," said Brownson carefully, "there was one who expressed an opinion aboutyou so strongly that it couldn't be ignored. I was sent to make sure you hadthe fullest possible understanding of what you were doing." 

The colonel stared. "Who expressed an opinion about me?' 

"Your Miss Eaton." 
* * * 

"Miss Eaton?" The colonel almost laughed. For a moment, he'd had a wild,
irrational hope that Four had showed concern about him. But Four hardly wouldhave been obliged to go to John Brownson for help. 

"Miss Eaton," Brownson smiled wryly, "has a wider range of understanding thanmost, but not enough courage to do anything about what she knows. The bravestthing she ever did was to speak to you as she did tonight. After that, shedidn't know what else to do, so -- well, she prayed. At any rate, it seemed tobe a prayer to her." 

"For me?" 

"Yes, for you." 

"Think of that!" said the colonel, astonished. "That was why you came?" 

"That's it." 

The colonel thought about Miss Eaton for a moment, and then of what acompletely fascinating, interesting world it was -- if one could only becomereally aware of it. It seemed unreasonable that people should be goingthorough life in blind, uneasy dissatisfaction, never quite realizing what wasgoing on around and behind them. . . . 

Of course, a good percentage of them might drop dead in sheer fright if theyever got a sudden inkling of what was there. For one thing, quite enough powerto extinguish nine-tenths of the human life on Earth between one second andthe next. 

And the thought of that power and various perhaps not too rationalmanipulations of it, he reflected truthfully, might have been the reallyfascinating part of it all to him. 

"Well, thank you, Brownson," he said. 

There was no answer. 
* * * 

When the colonel looked up, the chair on the other side of the desk was empty.
Brownson seemed to have realized that he'd done the best he could. The others,
being wiser, would have known all along there was nothing to be done. Hisself-judgment stood. 


"Damn saints!" the colonel said, grinning. The trouble was that he still likedthem. 

Trying not to think of Four again, he picked up the gun and then a finalthought came to him. He laid it down long enough to write neatly and clearlybehind REASONS GIVEN on the resignation form: IF IT WERE A SNAKE, IT WOULDBITE YOU! 

A slim hand moved the gun away and a light voice laughed, at the inscrutablemessage he had written. Then his own hand was taken and he smiled back atFour, while the room stayed substantial and he did not. 

It was remarkable how easily and completely one could retreat from the world,
clear to the point of invisibility. There had always been people like that,
people who could lose themselves in a crowd or be totally unnoticeable at aparty. They just hadn't carried their self-effacement far enough. Probably thepressure of reality hadn't been as savage as it was now, to compel bothextremes of assertion and withdrawal. 

Normal Loss would rise an infinitesimal amount, the colonel thought withamusement -- he'd have to live, too. The world wouldn't know why, of course. 

The devil with this world. He had his own to go to, and a woman of his own togo with. 

"You didn't really think I was going to kill myself, did you?" he asked Four,
feeling the need to make her understand and respect him. "It was only a trickto get your attention." 

"As if you had to," she laughed tenderly. 

-Chapter 11 
Oneness 

Menesee felt excitement surge like a living tide about him as he came with theother directors into the vast Tribunal Hall. Sixty years ago, inexcusablecarelessness had deprived Earth of its first chance to obtain a trueinterstellar drive. Now, within a few hours, Earth, or more specifically, theupper echelons of that great political organization called the Machine whichhad controlled the affairs of Earth for the past century and a half, shouldlearn enough of the secrets of the drive to insure that it would soon be intheir possession. 

Menesee entered his box between those of Directors Cornelius and Ojeda,
immediately to the right of the Spokesman's Platform and with an excellentview of the prisoner. When Administrator Bradshaw and Spokesman Dorn had takentheir places on the platform, Menesee seated himself, drawing the transcriptof the day's proceedings towards him. However, instead of glancing over it atonce, he spent some seconds in a study of the prisoner. 

The fellow appeared to be still young. He was a magnificent physical specimen,
tall and strongly muscled, easily surpassing in this respect any of the hard-
trained directors present. His face showed alert intelligence, giving no 


indication of the fact that for two of the three days since his capture he hadbeen drugged and subjected to constant hypnotic suggestion. He had given hisname as Rainbolt, acknowledged freely that he was a member of the group ofmalcontent deserters known in the records of the Machine as the Mars Convicts,
but described himself as being a "Missionary of Oneness" whose purpose was tobring the benefits of some of the principles of "Oneness" to Earth. He hadrefused to state whether he had any understanding of the stardrive by the useof which the Mars Convicts had made their mass escape from the penalsettlements of the Fourth Planet sixty years before, though the driveobviously had been employed in bringing him out of the depths of interstellarspace to the Solar System and Earth. At the moment, while the significance ofthe bank of torture instruments on his right could hardly have escaped him,
his expression was serious but not detectably concerned. 

"Here is an interesting point!" Director Ojeda's voice said on Menesee'sright. 

Menesee glanced over at him. Ojeda was tapping the transcript with a finger. 

"This Rainbolt," he said, "hasn't slept since he was captured! He states,
furthermore, that he has never slept since he became an adult -- " 

Menesee frowned slightly, failing to see any great significance in the fact.
That the fellow belonged to some curious cult which had developed among theMars Convicts following their flight from the Solar System was already known.
Earth's science had methods of inducing permanent sleeplessness but knew, too,
that in most instances the condition eventually gave rise to very serious sideeffects which more than offset any advantages to be gained from it. 

He picked up his transcript, indicating that he did not wish to be drawn intoconversation. His eyes scanned quickly over the pages. Most of it wasinformation he already had. Rainbolt's ship had been detected four daysearlier, probing the outermost of the multiple globes of force screens whichhad enclosed Earth for fifty years as a defense both against faster-than-lightmissiles and Mars Convict spies. The ship was alone. A procedure had beenplanned for such an event, and it was now followed. The ship was permitted topenetrate the first two screens which were closed again behind it. 

Rainbolt's ship, for all its incredible speed, was then a prisoner.
Unhurriedly, it was worked closer to Earth until it came within range of giantscanners. For an instant, a large section of its interior was visible to theinstruments of the watchers on Earth; then the picture blurred and vanishedagain. Presumably automatic anti-scanning devices had gone into action. 

The photographed view was disappointing in that it revealed no details of theengines or their instruments. It did show, however, that the ship had beendesigned for the use of one man, and that it was neither armored nor armed.
Its hull was therefore bathed with paralytics, which in theory should haveleft the pilot helpless, and ships of the Machine were then sent up to tow theinterstellar captive down to Earth. 

At that point, the procedure collapsed. The ship was in atmosphere when anescape capsule was suddenly ejected from it, which later was found to containRainbolt, alert and obviously not affected by the paralysis beams. A momentlater, the ship itself became a cloud of swiftly dissipating hot gas. 

The partial failure of the capture might have been unavoidable in any case. 


But the manner in which it occurred still reflected very poorly, Menesee
thought, on the thoroughness with which the plans had been prepared. The
directors who had been in charge of the operation would not be dealt with
lightly -


He became aware suddenly that the proceedings of the day had begun and hastily
put down the transcript.
* * * 


Spokesman Dorn, the Machine's executive officer, sitting beside Administrator
Bradshaw at a transparent desk on the raised platform to Menesee's left, had
enclosed the area about the prisoner with a sound block and was giving a brief
verbal resume of the background of the situation. Few of the directors in the
Tribunal Hall would have needed such information; but the matter was being
carried on the Grand Assembly Circuit, and in hundreds of auditoriums on Earth
the first and second echelons of the officials of the Machine had gathered to
witness the interrogation of the Mars Convict spy. 


The penal settlements on Mars had been established almost a century earlier,
for the dual purpose of mining the mineral riches of the Fourth Planet and of
utilizing the talents of political dissidents with a scientific background too
valuable to be wasted, in research and experimental work considered either too
dangerous to be conducted on Earth or requiring more space than could easily
be made available there. One of these projects had been precisely the
development of more efficient spacedrives to do away with the costly and
tedious maneuverings required for travel even among the inner planets. 


Work of such importance, of course, was supposed to be carried out only under
close guard and under the direct supervision of reliable upper-echelon
scientists of the Machine. Even allowing for criminal negligence, the fact
that the Mars Convicts were able to develop and test their stardrive under
such circumstances without being detected suggested that it could not be a
complicated device. They did, at any rate, develop it, armed themselves and
the miners of the other penal settlements and overwhelmed their guards in a
surprise attack. When the next ship arrived from Earth, two giant ore carriers
and a number of smaller guard ships had been outfitted with the drive, and the
Mars Convicts had disappeared in them. Their speed was such that only the
faintest and briefest of disturbances had been registered on the tracking
screens of space stations near Mars, the cause of which remained unsuspected
until the news came out. 


Anything which could have thrown any light on the nature of the drive
naturally had been destroyed by the deserters before they left; and the few
Machine scientists who had survived the fighting were unable to provide
information though they were questioned intensively for several years before
being executed. What it added up to was that some eighteen thousand sworn
enemies of the Machine had disappeared into space, equipped with an instrument
of unknown type which plainly could be turned into one of the deadliest of all
known weapons. 


The superb organization of the Machine swung into action instantly to meet the
threat, though the situation became complicated by the fact that rumors of the
manner in which the Mars Convicts had disappeared filtered out to the
politically dissatisfied on Earth and set off an unprecedented series of local
uprisings which took over a decade to quell. In spite of such difficulties,
the planet's economy was geared over to the new task; and presently defenses
were devised and being constructed which would stop missiles arriving at 



speeds greater than that of light. Simultaneously, the greatest researchproject in history had begun to investigate the possibilities of eitherduplicating the fantastic drive some scientific minds on Mars had come upon -chiefly, 
it was concluded, by an improbable stroke of good luck -- or ofmatching its effects through a different approach. Since it had beendemonstrated that it could be done, there was no question that in time thetrained men of the Machine would achieve their goal. Then the armed might ofthe Machine would move into space to take control of any colony established bythe Mars Convicts and their descendants. 

That was the basic plan. The task of developing a stardrive remained a hugeone because of the complete lack of information about the direction organizedresearch should take. That difficulty would be overcome easily only by asecond unpredictable twist of fortune -- unless one of the Mars Convicts' FTLships ventured close enough to Earth to be captured. 

The last had now happened. The ship had been destroyed before it could beinvestigated, so that advantage was again lost. The ship's pilot, however,
remained in their hands. The fact that he disclaimed having informationpertinent to the drive meant nothing. So far as he knew, he might very well bespeaking the truth. But he had piloted a ship that employed the stardrive, wasfamiliar with instruments which controlled it, had been schooled in their use.
A detailed investigation of his memories could not fail to provide literallyhundreds of meaningful clues. And the Machine's scientists, in theirsuperficially still fruitless search for the nature of the drive, had, infact, covered basic possibilities with such comprehensive thoroughness that afew indisputably valid clues would show them now what it must be.
* * * 

The prisoner, still demonstrating an extraordinary degree of obliviousness towhat lay in store for him, appeared to welcome the opportunity to be heard bythe directors of the Machine. Menesee, leaning back in his chair, studied theman thoughtfully, giving only partial attention to what was said. This was thestandard opening stage of a Tribunal interrogation, an underplayed exchange ofquestions and answers. Innocuous as it seemed, it was part of a procedurewhich had become refined almost to an unvarying ritual -- a ritual ofbeautiful and terrible precision which never failed to achieve its goals.
Every man watching and listening in the Machine's auditoriums across the worldwas familiar with the swift processes by which a normal human being wastransformed into a babbling puppet, his every significant thought becomingavailable for the upper echelons to regard and evaluate. 

They would, of course, use torture. It was part of the interlocking mechanismsof interrogation, no more to be omitted than the preliminary conditioning bydrug and hypnosis. Menesee was not unduly squeamish, but he felt some reliefthat it would not be the crude instruments ranked beside the prisoner whichwould be used. They were reserved as a rule for offending members of theorganization, providing a salutary warning for any others who might be temptedto act against the interests of the Machine or fail culpably in their duties.
This prisoner, as an individual, meant nothing to the Machine. He was simply asource of valuable information. Therefore, only direct nerve stimulation wouldbe employed, in the manipulation of which Spokesman Dorn was a master. 

So far the Spokesman had restricted himself to asking the prisoner questions,
his voice and manner gravely courteous. To Menesee's surprised interest, hehad just inquired whether two men of the last Earth ship to visit Mars, whohad disappeared there, might not have been captured by Mars Convicts operating 


secretly within the Solar System. 

"Yes, sir," Rainbolt replied readily, "they were. I'm happy to say thatthey're still alive and well." 

Menesee recalled the incident now. After the mass escape of the Mars Convictsthe penal settlements had been closed down and the mining operationsabandoned. To guard the desert planet against FTL raiders as Earth was guardedwas technically infeasible. But twice each decade a patrol ship went there tolook for signs that the Mars Convicts had returned. The last of these patrolshad been conducted two years before. The missing men were believed to havebeen inspecting a deserted settlement in a ground vehicle when they vanished,
but no trace of them or the vehicle could be discovered. 

Administrator Bradshaw, seated to the spokesman's left, leaned forward as ifto speak, but then sat back again. Menesee thought that Rainbolt's bluntadmission had angered him. Bradshaw, white-haired and huge in build, had beenfor many years the nominal head of the Machine; but in practice the powers ofthe administrator were less than those of the spokesman, and it would havebeen a breach of protocol for Bradshaw to intervene in the interrogation. 

Dorn appeared to have noticed nothing. He went on. "What was the reason forcapturing these men?" 

"It was necessary," Rainbolt explained, "to find out what the conditions onEarth were like at present. At the time we didn't want to risk discovery bycoming too close to Earth itself. And your two men were able to tell us all weneeded to know." 

"What was that?" the spokesman asked. 

Rainbolt was silent a moment, then said, "You see, sir, most of the past sixtyyears have been spent in finding new worlds on which human beings can livewithout encountering too many difficulties. But then -- " 

Dorn interrupted quietly, "You found such worlds?" 

"Yes, sir, we did," Rainbolt said. "We're established, in about equal numbers,
on planets of three star systems. Of course, I'm not allowed to give you moreprecise information on that at present." 

"Quite understandable," the spokesman agreed dryly. 

Menesee was conscious of a stir of intense interest among the listeningdirectors in the hall. This was news, indeed! Mingled with the interest wassurprised amusement at the prisoner's artless assumption that he had anychoice about what he would or would not tell. 

"But now that we're established," Rainbolt went on, apparently unaware of thesensation he had created, "our next immediate concern is to resume contactwith Earth. Naturally, we can't do that freely while your Machine remains inpolitical control of the planet. We found out from the two captured men thatit still is in control. We'd hoped that after sixty years government in such aform would have become obsolete here." 

Menesee heard an astonished murmuring from the director boxes on his right,
and felt himself that the fellow's impudent last remark might well have been 


answered by a pulse of nerve stimulation. Spokesman Dorn, however, repliedcalmly that the Machine happened to be indispensable to Earth. A planetaryeconomy, and one on the verge of becoming an interplanetary and eveninterstellar economy, was simply too intricate and precariously balanced astructure to maintain itself without the assistance of a very tightlyorganized governing class. 

"If the Machine were to vanish today," he explained, "Earth would approach astate of complete chaos before the month was out. In a year, a billion humanbeings would be starving to death. There would be fighting . . . wars -- " Heshrugged. "You name it. No, my friend, the Machine is here to stay. And theMars Convicts may as well resign themselves to the fact." 

Rainbolt replied earnestly that he was not too well informed in economics,
that not being his field. However, he had been told and believed that whilethe situation described by the spokesman would be true today, it should nottake many years to train the populations of Earth to run their affairs quiteas efficiently as the Machine had done, and without loss of personal andpolitical liberties. 

At any rate, the Mars Convicts and their descendants did not intend to give upthe independence they had acquired. On the other hand, they had two vitalreasons for wanting to come to an agreement with Earth. One was that theymight waste centuries in attempting to accomplish by themselves what theycould now do immediately if Earth's vast resources were made available tothem. And the other, of course, was the obvious fact that Earth would notremain indefinitely without a stardrive of its own. If an unfriendlygovernment was in control when it obtained one, the Mars Convicts would beforced either to abandon their newly settled planets and retreat farther intothe galaxy or submit to Earth's superior strength. 

Meanwhile, however, they had developed the principles of Oneness. Oneness wasin essence a philosophy; but it had many practical applications; and it was insuch practical applications that he, Rainbolt, was a trained specialist. Hehad, therefore, been dispatched to Earth to introduce the principles, whichwould in time bring about the orderly disintegration of the system of theMachine, to be followed by the establishment of an Earth government with whichthe Mars Convicts could deal without detriment to themselves. 

Menesee had listened with a sense of growing angry incredulity. The fellowcouldn't be as much of a fool as he seemed! Therefore, he had devised thishoax after he realized he would be captured, to cover up his real purposewhich could only be that of a spy. Menesee saw that Administrator Bradshaw wassaying something in a low voice to the spokesman, his face stony. Dorn glancedover at him, then looked back at the prisoner and said impassively, "So thegoal of your missionary work here is the disintegration of the Machine?" 

Rainbolt nodded, with an air almost of eagerness. "Yes, sir, it is! And if Iwill now be permitted to -- " 

"I am afraid you will be permitted to do nothing," Spokesman Dorn said dryly,
"except, of course, to answer the number of questions we intend to ask you." 

"But, sir I -- " 

Rainbolt checked himself, looking startled. The spokesman's hand had movedvery slightly on the desk before him, and Rainbolt had just had his first 


experience with direct nerve stimulation. He stood kneading his right handwith his left, staring up at the spokesman, mouth half open. 

Menesee smiled in grim amusement. It would have been a low-level pulse, ofcourse; but even a low-level pulse, arriving unexpectedly, was a veryunpleasant surprise. He had foreseen the spokesman's action; had, in fact,
felt a sympathetic imaginary twinge in his own right hand as the pulse reachedthe prisoner. 

Rainbolt swallowed, said in a changed voice, "Sir, we heard from the twocaptured men that the Machine has retained its practice of torture duringinterrogations. It isn't necessary to convince me that you are serious aboutthis. Do the questions you referred to have to do with the stardrive?" 

The spokesman nodded. "Of course." 

Rainbolt said stubbornly, "Then, sir, it can do you no good at all to tortureme. I simply don't have such information. We do plan to make the stardrivefreely available to Earth. But not while Earth is ruled by the organization ofthe Machine." 

This time, Menesee did not observe the motion of the spokesman's hand. Insteadhe saw Rainbolt jerk violently to the right. At the same moment, a blast ofintense, fiery, almost unbearable pain shot up his own arm. As he grasped hisarm, sweat spurting out on his face, he heard screams from the box on his leftand realized it was Director Cornelius who screamed. 

There were answering screams from around the hall. 

Then the pain suddenly subsided.
* * * 

Menesee stared about, breathing raggedly. The pain-reaction had been severeenough to affect his vision; the great hall looked momentarily darker than itshould have been. And although the actual pain had ended, the muscles of hisright arm and shoulder were still trying to cramp into knots. 

There was no more screaming. From the right came Director Ojeda's gaspingvoice. "What happened? Did something go wrong with the stimulating devices? Wemight all have been killed -- !" 

Menesee didn't reply. Wherever he looked, he saw faces whitened with shock.
Apparently everyone in the Tribunal Hall, from the administrator and SpokesmanDorn on down to the directors' attendants and the two guards flanking theprisoner's area, had felt the same thing. Here and there, men who hadcollapsed were struggling awkwardly back to their feet. He heard a hoarsewhisper behind him. "Sir, Director Cornelius appears to have fainted!" 

Menesee glanced around, saw Cornelius' attendant behind the box, thenCornelius himself, slumped forward, face down and motionless, sprawling halfacross his table. "Let him lie there and keep quiet, fool!" Menesee orderedthe man sharply. He returned his attention to the center of the hall asSpokesman Dorn announced in a voice which held more of an edge than was normalbut had lost none of its strength and steadiness, "Before any moves aresuggested, I shall tell you what has been done. 

"The Tribunal Hall has been sealed and further events in it will be monitored 


from without. No one will be able to leave until the matter with which we are 
now concerned here has been settled to the satisfaction of the Machine. 


"Next, any of you who believe that an instrument failure was involved in the
experience we shared can disabuse themselves. The same effect was reported
immediately from two other auditoriums on the Great Circuit, and it is quite
possible that it was repeated in all of them." 


Rainbolt, grimacing and massaging his right arm vigorously, nodded. "It was
repeated in all of them, sir!" 


The spokesman ignored him, went on. "The Tribunal Hall has, therefore, been
cut out of the Grand Assembly Circuit. How circuit energies could have been
employed to transmit such physical sensations is not clear. But they will not
be used in that manner again." 


Menesee felt a flash of admiration. His own thoughts had been turning in the
same direction, but he couldn't have approached Spokesman Dorn's decisive
speed of action. 


Dorn turned his attention now to Rainbolt. "What happened," he said,
"apparently was caused by yourself." 


Rainbolt nodded. "Yes, sir. It was. It was an application of Oneness. At
present, I'm acting as a focal point of Oneness. Until that condition is
changed, whatever I experience here will be simultaneously experienced by
yourselves." 


Menesee thought that the effects of the Machine's discipline became splendidly
apparent at that point. No one stirred in the great hall though it must have
been obvious to every man present that Rainbolt's words might have doomed them
along with himself. 


Rainbolt went on, addressing Spokesman Dorn. 


"There is only one mistake in your reasoning, sir. The demonstrated effect of
Oneness is not carried by the energies of the Grand Assembly Circuit, though I
made use of those energies in establishing an initial connection with the
other auditoriums and the people in them. 


"You see, sir, we learned from the two men captured on Mars about your
practice of having the two highest echelons of your organization attend
significant hearings in the Tribunal Hall through the Assembly Circuit. Our
plan was based on that. We knew that if anything was to be accomplished with
the Oneness principles on Earth, it would have to be through a situation in
which they could be applied simultaneously to the entire leadership of the
Machine. That has now been done, and the fact that you had the Tribunal Hall
taken out of the Assembly Circuit did not change the Oneness contact. It
remains in full effect." 


Spokesman Dorn stared at him for an instant, said, "We can test the truth of
that statement immediately, of course; and we shall!" His hand moved on the
desk. 
* * * 


Menesee felt pain surge through his left arm. It was not nearly as acute a
sensation as the previous pulse had been, but it lasted longer -- a good ten 



seconds. Menesee let his breath out carefully as it again ebbed away. 

He heard the spokesman saying, "Rainbolt's claim appears to be verified. I'vereceived a report that the pulse was being experienced in one of theauditoriums . . . and, yes . . . now in several." 

Rainbolt nodded. "It was a valid claim, believe me, sir!" he said earnestly.
"The applications of our principles have been very thoroughly explored, andthe effects are invariable. Naturally, our stratagem would have been uselessif I'd been able to maintain contact only long enough to provide you with ademonstration of Oneness. Such a contact can be broken again, of course. Butuntil I act deliberately to break it, it maintains itself automatically. 

"To make that clear, I should explain that distance, direction and interveningshielding materials do not change the strength of the contact. Distance atleast does not until it is extended to approximately fifty thousand miles." 

"And what happens then?" the spokesman asked, watching him. 

"At that point," Rainbolt acknowledged, "Oneness contacts do become tenuousand begin to dissolve." He added, almost apologetically, "However, that offersyou no practical solution to your problem." 

"Why not?" Dorn asked. He smiled faintly. "Why shouldn't we simply lock youinto a spaceship and direct the ship through the defense fields and out intothe solar system on automatic control?" 

"I sincerely hope you don't try it, sir! Experiments in dissolving contacts inthat manner have been invariably fatal to all connected individuals." 

The spokesman hesitated. "You and every member of the Machine with whom youare now in contact would die together if that were done?" 

"Yes, sir. That is certainly what the results of those experiments show." 

Administrator Bradshaw, who had been staring coldly at Rainbolt, asked in ahard, flat voice, "If you do nothing to break the contact, how long will thissituation continue?" 

Rainbolt looked at him. "Indefinitely, sir," he said. "There is nothing I needto do about it. It is a static condition." 

"In that case," Bradshaw said icily, "this should serve to break the contactthrough you!" 

As his hand came up, leveling a gun, Menesee was half out of his chair, handsraised in alarmed protest. "Stop him!" Menesee shouted. 

But Administrator Bradshaw already was sagging sideways over the armrest ofhis chair, head lolling backwards. The gun slid from his hand, dropped to theplatform. 

"Director Menesee," Dorn said coolly from beside Bradshaw, "I thank you foryour intended warning! Since the administrator and the spokesman are the onlypersons permitted to bear arms in the Tribunal Hall, I was naturally preparedto paralyze Administrator Bradshaw if he showed intentions of resorting tothoughtless action." He looked down at Rainbolt. "Are Director Menesee and I 


correct in assuming that if you died violently the persons with whom you are
in contact would again suffer the same experience?" 


"Yes, sir," Rainbolt said. "That is implicit in the principles of Oneness." He
shrugged. "Under most circumstances, it is a very undesirable effect. But here
we have made use of it -- " 
* * * 


"The situation," Spokesman Dorn told the directors in the Tribunal Hall some
minutes later, "is then this. There has been nothing haphazard about the Mars
Convicts' plan to coerce us into accepting their terms. Considering the
probable quality of the type of minds which developed both the stardrive and
the extraordinary 'philosophy' we have encountered today, that could be taken
for granted from the start. We cannot kill their emissary here, or subject him
to serious pain or injury, since we would pay a completely disproportionate
penalty in doing it. 


"However, that doesn't mean that we should surrender to the Mars Convicts. In
fact, for all their cleverness, they appear to be acting out of something very
close to desperation. They have gained no essential advantage through their
trick, and we must assume they made the mistake of underestimating us. This
gentleman they sent to Earth has been given thorough physical examinations.
They show him to be in excellent health. He is also younger by many years than
most of us. 


"So he will be confined to quarters where he will be comfortable and provided
with whatever he wishes . . . but where he will not be provided with any way
of doing harm to himself. And then, I believe, we can simply forget about him.
He will receive the best of attention, including medical care. Under such
circumstances, we can expect his natural life span to exceed our own. 


"Meanwhile, we shall continue our program of developing our own spacedrive. As
the Mars Convicts themselves foresee, we'll gain it eventually and will then
be more than a match for them. Until then the defense fields around Earth will 
remain closed. No ship will leave Earth and no ship will be admitted to it.
And in the long run we will win." 


The spokesman paused, added, "If there are no other suggestions, this man will
now be conducted to the hospital of the Machine where he is to be detained for
the remainder of his days." 


Across the hall from Menesee, a figure arose deliberately in one of the boxes.
A heavy voice said, "Spokesman Dorn, I very definitely do have a suggestion." 


Dorn looked over, nodded warily. "Go ahead, Director Squires!" 


Menesee grimaced in distaste. He had no liking for Squires, a harsh, arrogant
man, notorious for his relentless persecution of any director or officer who,
in Squires' opinion, had become slack in his duties to the Machine. But he had
a large following in the upper echelons, and his words carried weight. 


Squires folded his arms, said unhurriedly as if savoring each word, "As you
pointed out, Spokesman Dorn, we cannot hurt the person of this prisoner. His
immediate accomplices also remain beyond our reach at present. However, our
hands are not -- as you seem to imply -- so completely tied that we cannot
strike back at these rascals at once. There are camps on Earth filled with
people of the same political stripe -- potential supporters of the Mars 



Convicts who would be in fullest sympathy with their goals if they learned of
them. 


"I suggest that these people serve now as an object lesson to show the Mars
Convicts the full measure of our determination to submit to no threats of 
force! Let this prisoner and the other convicts who doubtless are lurking in
nearby space beyond Earth's defense fields know that for every day their
obscene threat against the high officers of the Machine continues, hundreds of
malcontents who would welcome them on Earth will be painfully executed! Let
them -- " 


Pain doubled Menesee abruptly over the table before him. A savage, compressing
pain, very different from the fiery touch of the nerve stimulators, which held
him immobile, unable to cry out or draw breath. 


It relaxed almost as instantaneously as it had come on. Menesee slumped back
in his chair, shaken and choking, fighting down bitter nausea. His eyes
refocused painfully on Rainbolt, gray-faced but on his feet, in the prisoner's
area. 


"You will find," Rainbolt was saying, "that Director Squires is dead. And so,
I'm very much afraid, is every other member of the upper echelons whose heart
was in no better condition than his. This was a demonstration I had not 
intended to give you. But since it has been given, it should serve as a
reminder that while it is true we could not force you directly to do as we
wish, there are things we are resolved not to tolerate." 


Ojeda was whispering shakily near Menesee, "He controls his body to the extent
that he was able to bring on a heart attack in himself and project it to all
of us! He counted on his own superb physical condition to pull him through it
unharmed. That is why he didn't seem frightened when the administrator
threatened him with a gun. Even if the spokesman hadn't acted, that gun never
would have been fired. 


"Menesee, no precautions we could take will stop that monster from killing us
all whenever he finally chooses -- simply by committing suicide through an act
of will!" 


Spokesman Dorn's voice seemed to answer Ojeda. 


"Director Squires," Dorn's voice said, still thinned by pain but oddly
triumphant, "became a victim of his own pointless vindictiveness. It was a
mistake which, I am certain, no member of the Machine will care to repeat. 


"Otherwise, this incident has merely served to confirm that the Mars Convicts
operate under definite limitations. They could kill us but can't afford to do
it. If they are to thrive in space, they need Earth and Earth's resources.
They are aware that if the Machine's leadership dies, Earth will lapse into
utter anarchy and turn its tremendous weapons upon itself. 


"The Mars Convicts could gain nothing from a ruined and depopulated planet.
Therefore, the situation as it stands remains a draw. We shall devote every
effort to turn it into a victory for us. The agreement we come to eventually
with the Mars Convicts will be on our terms -- and there is still essentially
nothing they or this man, with all his powers, can do to prevent it."
* * * 



The Missionary of Oneness swung his bronzed, well-muscled legs over the sideof the hammock and sat up. With an expression of great interest, he watchedSpokesman Dorn coming across the sun room towards him from the entrancecorridor of his hospital suite. It was the first visit he'd had from anymember of the organization of the Machine in the two years he had beenconfined here. 

For Spokesman Dorn it had been, to judge by his appearance, a strenuous twoyears. He had lost weight and there were dark smudges of fatigue under hiseyes. At the moment, however, his face appeared relaxed. It might have beenthe relaxation a man feels who has been emptied out by a hard stint of work,
but knows he has accomplished everything that could possibly have been done. 

Dorn came to a stop a dozen feet from the hammock. For some seconds, the twomen regarded each other without speaking. 

"On my way here," Dorn remarked then, "I was wondering whether you mightn'talready know what I've come to tell you." 

Rainbolt shook his head. 

"No," he said. "I think I could guess what it is -- I pick up generalizedimpressions from outside -- but I don't really know." 

Spokesman Dorn considered that a moment, chewing his lower lip reflectively.
Then he shrugged. 

"So actual mind-reading doesn't happen to be one of your talents," he said. "Iwas rather sure of that, though others had a different opinion. Of course,
considering what you are able to do, it wouldn't really make much difference. 

"Well . . . this morning we sent out a general call by space radio to any MarsConvict ships which might be in the Solar System to come in. The call wasanswered. Earth's defense fields have been shut down, and the first FTL shipswill land within an hour." 

"For what purpose?" Rainbolt said curiously. 

"There's a strong popular feeling," Spokesman Dorn said, "that your colleaguesshould take part in deciding what pattern Earth's permanent form of governmentwill take. In recent months we've handled things in a rather provisional andhaphazard manner, but the situation is straightened out well enough now topermit giving attention to such legalistic details. Incidentally, you willnaturally be free to leave when I do. Transportation is available for you ifyou wish to welcome your friends at the spaceport." 

"Thank you," said Rainbolt. "I believe I will." 

Spokesman Dorn shrugged. "What could we do?" he said, almost disinterestedly.
"You never slept. In the beginning you were drugged a number of times, as youprobably know, but we soon discovered that drugging you seemed to make nodifference at all." 

"It doesn't," Rainbolt agreed. 

"Day after day," Dorn went on, "we'd find thoughts and inclinations cominginto our minds we'd never wanted there. It was an eerie experience -- though 


personally I found it even more disconcerting to awaken in the morning anddiscover that my attitudes had changed in some particular or other, and as arule changed irrevocably." 

Rainbolt said, "In a sense, those weren't really your attitudes, you know.
They were results of the conditioning of the Machine. It was the conditioningI was undermining." 

"Perhaps it was that," Dorn said. "It seems to make very little differencenow." He paused, frowned. "When the first talk of initiating changes began inthe councils, there were numerous executions. I know now that we were badlyfrightened men. Then those of us who had ordered the executions foundthemselves wanting similar changes. Presently we had a majority, and thechanges began to be brought about. Reforms, you would call them -- and reformsI suppose they actually were. There was considerable general disturbance, ofcourse, but we retained the organization to keep that within reasonablebounds." 

"We expected that you would," Rainbolt said. 

"It hasn't really been too bad," Spokesman Dorn said reflectively. "It wassimply an extraordinary amount of work to change the structure of things thathad been imposed on Earth by the Machine for the past century and a half. Andthe curious part of it is, you know, that now it's done we don't even feelresentment! We actually wouldn't want to go back to what we had before. You'veobtained an incredible hold on our minds and frankly I expect that when atlast you do relinquish your control, we'll commit suicide or go mad." 

Rainbolt shook his head. "There's been just one mistake in what you've said,"
he remarked. 

Spokesman Dorn looked at him with tired eyes. "What's that?" he asked. 

"I said I was undermining the conditioning of the Machine. I did -- and afterthat I did nothing. You people simply have been doing what most of you alwayswould have preferred to do, Spokesman. I relinquished control of the last ofyou over six months ago." 

-Chapter 12 
Dark Visions 

As a general rule, Schmitz wrote stories which were basically lighthearted,
and often humorous. Every single story in his Hub universe, or the Agent ofVega stories, or his novel Witches of Karres -- in short, his best known work-- is of that nature. Whatever perils and dangers his heroes (or, more often,
heroines) experience, the ending is always what can be called a "happy" one.
Most of the stories are cheerful in tone, and even the ones which have asterner theme (such as "Attitudes") still display an optimistic confidencethat The Right Will Prevail. 

But he did occasionally write stories with a much darker hue. Some of them,
such as "We Don't Want Any Trouble," are downright chilling. We've collected 


these in one place, and given this section of the volume the title "DarkVisions." It seems an appropriate one. . . . 

Tales of alien invasions that succeed, a psi story that is also a horrorstory, a cold look at the real likelihood of a man changing his life if he hadthe chance, and a grim tale of an experiment gone wrong. 

Have fun. 

-Chapter 13 
We Don't Want Any Trouble 

"Well, that wasn't a very long interview, was it?" asked the professor's wife.
She'd discovered the professor looking out of the living room window whenshe'd come home from shopping just now. "I wasn't counting on having dinnerbefore nine," she said, setting her bundles down on the couch. "I'll get at itright away." 

"No hurry about dinner," the professor replied without turning his head. "Ididn't expect we'd be through there before eight myself." 

He had clasped his hands on his back and was swaying slowly, backward andforward on his feet, staring out at the street. It was a favorite pose of his,
and she never had discovered whether it indicated deep thought or justdaydreaming. At the moment, she suspected uncomfortably it was very deepthought, indeed. She took off her hat. 

"I suppose you could call it an interview," she said uneasily. "I mean youactually talked with it, didn't you?" 

"Oh, yes, we talked with it," he nodded. "Some of the others did, anyway." 

"Imagine talking with something like that! It really is from another world,
Clive?" She laughed uneasily, watching the back of his head with frightenedeyes. "But, of course, you can't violate the security rules, can you? Youcan't tell me anything about it at all. . . ." 

He shrugged, turning around. "There'll be a newscast at six o'clock. In tenminutes. Wherever there's a radio or television set on Earth, everybody willhear what we found out in that interview. Perhaps not quite everything, butalmost everything." 

"Oh?" she said in a surprised, small voice. She looked at him in silence for amoment, her eyes growing more frightened. "Why would they do a thing likethat?" 

"Well," said the professor, "it seemed like the right thing to do. The bestthing, at any rate. There may be some panic, of course." He turned back to thewindow and gazed out on the street, as if something there were holding hisattention. He looked thoughtful and abstracted, she decided. But then a betterword came to her, and it was "resigned." 


"Clive," she said, almost desperately, "what happened?" 


He frowned absently at her and walked to the radio. It began to make faint,
humming noises as the professor adjusted dials unhurriedly. The humming didn't
vary much. 


"They've cleared the networks, I imagine," he remarked. 


The sentence went on repeating itself in his wife's mind, with no particular
significance at first. But then a meaning came into it and grew and swelled
swiftly, until she felt her head would burst with it. They've cleared the
networks. All over the world this evening, they've cleared the networks. Until
the newscast comes on at six o'clock . . . 


"As to what happened," she heard her husband's voice saying, "that's a little
difficult to understand or explain. Even now. It was certainly amazing -- " He
interrupted himself. "Do you remember Milt Caldwell, dear?" 


"Milt Caldwell?" She searched her mind blankly. "No," she said, shaking her
head. 


"A rather well-known anthropologist," the professor informed her, with an air
of faint reproach. "Milt got himself lost in the approximate center of the
Australian deserts some two years ago. Only we have been told he didn't get
lost. They picked him up -- " 


"They?" she said. "You mean there's more than one?" 


"Well, there would be more than one, wouldn't there?" he asked reasonably.
"That explains, at any rate, how they learned to speak English. It made it
seem a little more reasonable, anyhow," he added, "when it told us that. Seven
minutes to six . . ." 


"What?" she said faintly. 


"Seven minutes to six," the professor repeated. "Sit down, dear. I believe I
can tell you, in seven minutes, approximately what occurred. . . ."
* * * 


The Visitor from Outside sat in its cage, its large gray hands slackly
clasping the bars. Its attitudes and motions, the professor had noted in the
two minutes since he had entered the room with the other men, approximated
those of a rather heavily built ape. Reporters had called it "the Toad from
Mars," on the basis of the first descriptions they'd had of it -- the flabby
shape and loose, warty skin made that a vaguely adequate identification. The
round, horny head almost could have been that of a lizard. 


With a zoologist's fascination in a completely new genus, the professor
catalogued these contradicting physical details in his mind. Yet something
somewhat like this might have been evolved on Earth, if Earth had chosen to
let the big amphibians of its Carboniferous Period go on evolving. 


That this creature used human speech was the only almost-impossible feature. 


It had spoken as they came in. "What do you wish to know?" it asked. The
horny, toothed jaws moved, and a broad yellow tongue became momentarily
visible, forming the words. It was a throaty, deliberate "human" voice. 



For a period of several seconds, the human beings seemed to be shocked intosilence by it, though they had known the creature had this ability.
Hesitantly, then, the questioning began. 

The professor remained near the back of the room, watching. For a while, thequestions and replies he heard seemed to carry no meaning to him. Abruptly herealized that his thoughts were fogged over with a heavy, cold, physical dreadof this alien animal. He told himself that under such circumstances fear was 
not an entirely irrational emotion, and his understanding of it seemed tolighten its effects a little. 

But the scene remained unreal to him, like a badly lit stage on which thecreature in its glittering steel cage stood out in sharp focus, while thehumans were shadow-shapes stirring restlessly against a darkened background. 

"This won't do!" he addressed himself, almost querulously, through the fear.
"I'm here to observe, to conclude, to report -- I was selected as a man theycould trust to think and act rationally!" 

He turned his attention deliberately away from the cage and what it contained,
and he directed it on the other human beings, to most of whom he had beenintroduced only a few minutes before. A young, alert-looking Intelligencemajor, who was in some way in charge of this investigation; a sleepy-eyedgeneral; a very pretty captain acting as stenographer, whom the major hadintroduced as his fiancee. The handful of other scientists looked for the most 
part like brisk business executives, while the two Important Personagesrepresenting the government looked like elderly professors. 

He almost smiled. They were real enough. This was a human world. He returnedhis attention again to the solitary intruder in it. 

"Why shouldn't I object?" the impossible voice was saying with a note of lazygood humor. "You've caged me like -- a wild animal! And you haven't eveninformed me of the nature of the charges against me. Trespassing, perhaps -eh?" 


The wide mouth seemed to grin as the Thing turned its head, looking them overone by one with bright black eyes. The grin was meaningless; it was the waythe lipless jaws set when the mouth was closed. But it gave expression to thepleased malice the professor sensed in the voice and words. 

The voice simply did not go with that squat animal shape. 

Fear surged up in him again. He found himself shaking. 

If it looks at me now, he realized in sudden panic, I might start to scream! 

One of the men nearest the cage was saying something in low, even tones. Thecaptain flipped over a page of her shorthand pad and went on writing, herblonde head tilted to one side. She was a little pale, but intent on her work.
He had a moment of bitter envy for their courage and self-control. But they'reinsensitive, he tried to tell himself; they don't know Nature and the laws ofNature. They can't feel as I do how wrong all this is! 

Then the black eyes swung around and looked at him. 


Instantly, his mind stretched taut with blank, wordless terror. He did notmove, but afterward he knew he did not faint only because he would have lookedridiculous before the others, and particularly in the presence of a youngwoman. He heard the young Intelligence officer speaking sharply; the eyes lefthim unhurriedly, and it was all over. 

"You indicate," the creature's voice was addressing the major, "that you canforce me to reveal matters I do not choose to reveal at this time. However,
you are mistaken. For one thing, a body of this type does not react to any ofyour drugs." 

"It will react to pain!" the major said, his voice thin and angry. 

Amazed by the words, the professor realized for the first time that he was notthe only one in whom this being's presence had aroused primitive, irrationalfears. The other men had stirred restlessly at the major's threat, but theymade no protest. 

The Thing remained silent for a moment, looking at the major. 

"This body will react to pain," it said then, "only when I choose to let itfeel pain. Some of you here know the effectiveness of hypnotic blocks againstpain. My methods are not those of hypnosis, but they are considerably moreeffective. I repeat, then, that for me there is no pain, unless I choose toexperience it." 

"Do you choose to experience the destruction of your body's tissues?" themajor inquired, a little shrilly. 

The captain looked up at him quickly from the chair where she sat, but theprofessor could not see her expression. Nobody else moved. 

The Thing, still staring at the major, almost shrugged. 

"And do you choose to experience death?" the major cried, his face flushedwith excitement. 

In a flash of insight, the professor understood why no one was interfering.
Each in his own way, they had felt what he was feeling: that here wassomething so outrageously strange and new that no amount of experience, norank, could guide a human being in determining how to deal with it. The majorwas dealing with it -- in however awkward a fashion. With no other solution tooffer, they were, for the moment, unable or unwilling to stop him. 

The Thing then said slowly and flatly, "Death is an experience I shall neverhave at your hands. That is a warning. I shall respond to no more of yourthreats. I shall answer no more questions. 

"Instead, I shall tell you what will occur now. I shall inform my companionsthat you are as we judged you to be -- foolish, limited, incapable of harmingthe least of us. Your world and civilization are of very moderate interest.
But they are a novelty which many will wish to view for themselves. We shallcome here and leave here, as we please. If you attempt to interfere again withany of us, it will be to your own regret." 

"Will it?" the major shouted, shaking. "Will it now?" 


The professor jerked violently at the quick successive reports of a gun in theyoung officer's hand. Then there was a struggling knot of figures around themajor, and another man's voice was shouting hoarsely, "You fool! You damnedhysterical fool!" 

The captain had dropped her notebook and clasped her hands to her face. For aninstant, the professor heard her crying, "Jack! Jack! Stop -- don't -- " 

But he was looking at the thing that had fallen on its back in the cage, withthe top of its skull shot away and a dark-brown liquid staining the cage floorabout its shoulders. 

What he felt was an irrational satisfaction, a warm glow of pride in themajor's action. It was as if he had killed the Thing himself. 

For that moment, he was happy.
* * * 

Because he stood far back in the room, he saw what happened then before theothers did. 

One of the Personages and two of the scientists were moving excitedly aboutthe cage, staring down at the Thing. The others had grouped around the chairinto which they had forced the major. Under the babble of confused, angryvoices, he could sense the undercurrent of almost joyful relief he felthimself. 

The captain stood up and began to take off her clothes. 

She did it quickly and quietly. It was at this moment, the professor thought,
staring at her in renewed terror, that the height of insanity appeared to havebeen achieved in this room. He wished fervently that he could keep that senseof insanity wrapped around him forevermore, like a protective cloak. It was aterrible thing to be rational! With oddly detached curiosity, he also wonderedwhat would happen in a few seconds when the others discovered what he alreadyknew. 

The babbling voices of the group that had overpowered the major went suddenlystill. The three men at the cage turned startled faces toward the stillness.
The girl straightened up and stood smiling at them. 

The major began screaming her name. 

There was another brief struggling confusion about the chair in which theywere holding him. The screaming grew muffled as if somebody had clapped a handover his mouth. 

"I warned you," the professor heard the girl say clearly, "that there was nodeath. Not for us." 

Somebody shouted something at her, like a despairing question. Rigid withfear, his own blood a swirling roar in his ears, the professor did notunderstand the words. But he understood her reply. 

"It could have been any of you, of course," she nodded. "But I just happenedto like this body." 


After that, there was one more shot.
* * * 

The professor turned off the radio. For a time, he continued to gaze out thewindow. 

"Well, they know it now!" he said. "The world knows it now. Whether theybelieve it or not --At any rate . . ." His voice trailed off. The livingroom had darkened and he had a notion to switch on the lights, but decidedagainst it. The evening gloom provided an illusion of security. 

He looked down at the pale oval of his wife's face, almost featureless in theshadows. 

"It won't be too bad," he explained, "if not too many of them come. Of course,
we don't know how many there are of them, actually. Billions, perhaps. But ifnone of our people try to make trouble -- the aliens simply don't want anytrouble." 

He paused a moment. The death of the young Intelligence major had not beenmentioned in the broadcast. Considering the issues involved, it was not, ofcourse, a very important event and officially would be recorded as a suicide.
In actual fact, the major had succeeded in wresting a gun from one of the menholding him. Another man had shot him promptly without waiting to see what heintended to do with it. 

At all costs now, every rational human being must try to prevent trouble withthe Visitors from Outside. 

He felt his face twitch suddenly into an uncontrollable grimace of horror. 

"But there's no way of being absolutely sure, of course," he heard his voicetell the silently gathering night about him, "that they won't decide they justhappen to like our kind of bodies." 

-Chapter 14 
Just Curious 

Roy Litton's apartment was on the eighteenth floor of the Torrell Arms. It wasa pleasant place which cost him thirty-two thousand dollars a year. The livingroom had a wide veranda which served in season as a sun deck. Far below was a 
great park. Beyond the park, drawn back to a respectful distance from theTorrell Arms, was the rest of the city. 

"May I inquire," Roy Litton said to his visitor, "from whom you learned aboutme?" 

The visitor's name was Jean Merriam. She was a slender, expensive brunette,
about twenty-seven. She took a card from her handbag and slid it across thetable to Litton. "Will that serve as an introduction?" she asked. 

Litton studied the words scribbled on the card and smiled. "Yes," he said,
"that's quite satisfactory. I know the lady's handwriting well. In what waycan I help you?" 


"I represent an organization," Jean said, "which does discreet investigativework." 

"You're detectives?" 

She shrugged, smiled. "We don't refer to ourselves as detectives, but that'sthe general idea. Conceivably your talents could be very useful to us. I'mhere to find out whether you're willing to put them at our disposal from timeto time. If you are, I have a test assignment for you. You don't mind, doyou?" 

Litton rubbed his chin. "You've been told what my standard fee is?" 

Jean Merriam opened the handbag again, took out a check, and gave it to him.
Litton read it carefully, nodded. "Yes," he said, and laid the check on thetable beside him. "Ten thousand dollars. You're in the habit of paying suchsums out of your personal account?" 

"The sum was put in my account yesterday for this purpose." 

"Then what do you, or your organization, want me to do?" 

"I've been given a description of how you operate, Mr. Litton, but we don'tknow how accurate the description is. Before we retain you, I'd like you totell me exactly what you do." 

Litton smiled. "I'm willing to tell you as much as I know." 

She nodded. "Very well. I'll decide on the basis of what you say whether ornot your services might be worth ten thousand dollars to the organization.
Once I offer you the assignment and you accept it, we're committed. The checkwill be yours when the assignment is completed." 

"Who will judge when it has been completed?" 

"You will," said Jean. "Naturally there will be no further assignments ifwe're not satisfied with the results of this one. As I said, this is a test.
We're gambling. If you're as good as I've been assured you are, the gambleshould pay off. Fair enough?" 

Litton nodded. "Fair enough, Miss Merriam." He leaned back in his chair.
"Well, then -- I sometimes call myself a 'sensor' because the word describesmy experiences better than any other word I can think of. I'm not specificallya mind reader. I can't predict the future. I don't have second sight. Butunder certain conditions, I turn into a long-range sensing device with alimited application. I have no theoretical explanation for it. I can only saywhat happens. 

"I work through contact objects; that is, material items which have had adirect and extensive physical connection with the persons I investigate. Afrequently worn garment is the obvious example. Eyeglasses would be excellent.
I once was able to use an automobile which the subject had driven daily forabout ten months. Through some such object I seem to become, for a time whichvaries between approximately three and five minutes, the person in question."
Litton smiled. "Naturally I remain here physically, but my awareness iselsewhere. 


"Let me emphasize that during this contact period I am -- or seem to be -- theother person. I am not conscious of Roy Litton or of what Roy Litton is doing.
I have never heard of him and know nothing of his sensing ability. I am theother person, aware only of what he is aware of, doing what he is doing,
thinking what he is thinking. If, meanwhile, you were to speak to the bodysitting here, touch it, even cause it severe pain -- which has been doneexperimentally -- I wouldn't know it. When the time is up, the contact fadesand I am back. Then I know who I am and can recall my experience and report onit. Essentially, that's the process." 

Jean Merriam asked, "To what extent do you control the process?" 

"I can initiate it or not initiate it. I'm never drawn out of myself unless Iintend to be drawn out of myself. That's the extent of my control. Once itbegins, the process continues by itself and concludes itself. I have no way ofaffecting its course." 

Jean said reflectively, "I don't wish to alarm you, Mr. Litton. But mightn'tyou be running the risk of remaining permanently lost in somebody else'spersonality . . . unable to return to your own?" 

Litton laughed. "No. I know definitely that can't happen, though I don't knowwhy. The process simply can't maintain itself for much more than five minutes.
On the other hand, it's rarely terminated in less than three." 

"You say that during the time of contact you think what the other personthinks and are aware of what he's aware?" 

"That's correct." 

"Only that? If we employed you to investigate someone in this manner, weusually would need quite specific information. Wouldn't we have to beextremely fortunate if the person happened to think of that particular matterin the short time you shared his mind?" 

"No," said Litton. "Conscious thoughts quite normally have thousands oframifications and shadings the thinker doesn't know about. When the contactdissolves, I retain his impressions and it is primarily these ramificationsand shadings I then investigate. It is something like developing a vast numberof photographic prints. Usually the information my clients want can be foundin those impressions in sufficient detail." 

"What if it can't be found?" 

"Then I make a second contact. On only one occasion, so far, have I beenobliged to make three separate contacts with a subject to satisfy the client'srequirements. There is no fee for additional contacts." 

Jean Merriam considered a moment. "Very well," she said. She brought a smallbox from the handbag, opened it, and took out a ring, which she handed toLitton. "The person in whom the organization is interested," she said, "waswearing this ring until four weeks ago. Since then it's been in a safe. Thesafe was opened yesterday and the ring taken from it and placed in this box.
Would you consider it a suitable contact object?" 

Litton held the ring in his palm an instant before replying. "Eminently 


suitable!" he said then. 

"You can tell by touching such objects?" 

"As a rule. If I get no impression, it's a waste of time to proceed. If I geta negative impression, I refuse to proceed." 

"A negative impression?" 

Litton shrugged. "A feeling of something that repels me. I can't describe itmore definitely." 

"Does it mean that the personality connected with the object is a repellentone?" 

"Not necessarily. I've merged with some quite definitely repellentpersonalities in the course of this work. That doesn't disturb me. The feelingI speak of is a different one." 

"It frightens you?" 

"Perhaps." He smiled. "However, in this case there is no such feeling. Haveyou decided to offer me the assignment?" 

"Yes, I have," Jean Merriam said. "Now then, I've been told nothing about theperson connected with the ring. Since very few men could get it on, and veryfew children would wear a ring of such value, I assume the owner is a woman -but 
I don't know even that. The reason I've been told nothing is to make sureI'll give you no clues, inadvertently or otherwise." She smiled. "Even if youwere a mind reader, you see, you could get no significant information from me.
We want to be certain of the authenticity of your talent." 

"I understand," Litton said. "But you must know what kind of information yourorganization wants to gain from the contact?" 

Jean nodded. "Yes, of course. We want you to identify the subject by name andtell us where she can be found. The description of the locality should bespecific. We also want to learn as much as we can about the subject'sbackground, her present activities and interests, and any people with whom sheis closely involved. The more details you can give us about such people, thebetter. In general, that's all. Does it seem like too difficult anassignment?" 

"Not at all," Litton said. "In fact, I'm surprised you want no more. Is thatkind of information really worth ten thousand dollars to you?" 

"I've been told," Jean said, "that if we get it within the next twenty-fourhours, it will be worth a great deal more than ten thousand dollars." 

"I see." Litton settled comfortably in the chair, placed his clasped handsaround the ring on the table, enclosing it. "Then, if you like, Miss Merriam,
I'll now make the contact." 

"No special preparations?" she inquired, watching him. 

"Not in this case." Litton nodded toward a heavily curtained alcove in thewall on his left. "That's what I call my withdrawal room. When I feel there's 


reason to expect difficulties in making a contact, I go in there. Observerscan be disturbing under such circumstances. Otherwise, no preparations arenecessary." 

"What kind of difficulties could you encounter?" Jean asked. 

"Mainly, the pull of personalities other than the one I want. A contact objectmay be valid, but contaminated by associations with other people. Then it's amatter of defining and following the strongest attraction, which is almostalways that of the proper owner and our subject. Incidentally, it would beadvantageous if you were prepared to record my report." 

Jean tapped the handbag. "I'm recording our entire conversation, Mr. Litton." 

He didn't seem surprised. "Very many of my clients do," he remarked. "Verywell, then, let's begin . . ." 

"How long did it take him to dream up this stuff?" Nick Garland asked. 

"Four minutes and thirty-two seconds," Jean Merriam said. 

Garland shook his head incredulously. He took the transcript she'd made of herrecorded visit to Roy Litton's apartment from the desk and leafed through itagain. Jean watched him, her face expressionless. Garland was a big gray-
haired bear of a man, coldly irritable at present -- potentially dangerous. 

He laid the papers down, drummed his fingers on the desk. "I still don't wantto believe it," he said, "but I guess I'll have to. He hangs on to CarylChase's ring for a few minutes, then he can tell you enough about her to fillfive typed, single-spaced pages . . . That's what happened?" 

Jean nodded. "Yes, that's what happened. He kept pouring out details about thewoman as if he'd known her intimately half her life. He didn't hesitate aboutanything. My impression was that he wasn't guessing about anything. He seemedto know." 

Garland grunted. "Max thinks he knew." He looked up at the man standing to theleft of the desk. "Fill Jean in, Max. How accurate is Litton?" 

Max Jewett said, "On every point we can check out, he's completely accurate." 

"What are the points you can check out?" Jean asked. 

"The ring belongs to Caryl Chase. She's thirty-two. She's Phil Chase's wife,
currently estranged. She's registered at the Hotel Arve, Geneva, Switzerland,
having an uneasy off-and-on affair with one William Haskell, British ski nut.
He's jealous, and they fight a lot. Caryl suspects Phil has detectives lookingfor her, which he does. Her daughter Ellie is hidden away with friends ofCaryl's parents in London. Litton's right about the ring. Caryl got it fromher grandmother on her twenty-first birthday and had worn it regularly since.
When she ran out on Phil last month, she took it off and left it in her roomsafe. Litton's statement, that leaving it was a symbolic break with her pastlife, makes sense." Jewett shrugged. "That's about it. Her psychoanalyst mightbe able to check out some of the rest of what you got on tape. We don't havethat kind of information." 

Garland growled, "We don't need it. We got enough for now." 


Jean exchanged a glance with Jewett. "You feel Litton's genuine, Mr. Garland?" 

"He's genuine. Only Max and I knew we were going to test him on Caryl. If hecouldn't do what he says he does, you wouldn't have got the tape. There's noother way he could know those things about her." Garland's face twisted into asour grimace. "I thought Max had lost his marbles when he told me it lookedlike Phleger had got his information from some kind of swami. But that's howit happened. Frank Phleger got Litton to tap my mind something like two orthree months ago. He'd need that much time to get set to make his first move." 

"How much have you lost?" Jean asked. 

He grunted. "Four, five million. I can't say definitely yet. That's not whatbothers me." His mouth clamped shut, a pinched angry line. His eyes shiftedbleakly down to the desk, grew remote, lost focus. 

Jean Merriam watched him silently. Inside that big skull was storedinformation which seemed sometimes equal to the intelligence files of acentral bank. Nick Garland's brain was a strategic computer, a legal library.
He was a multimillionaire, a brutal genius, a solitary and cunning king beastin the financial jungle -- a jungle he allowed to become barely aware heexisted. Behind his secretiveness he remained an unassailable shadow. In the 
six years Jean had been working for him she'd never before seen him suffer asetback; but if they were right about Litton, this was more than a setback.
Garland's mind had been opened, his plans analyzed, his strengths andweaknesses assessed by another solitary king beast -- a lesser one, but onewho knew exactly how to make the greatest possible use of the information thusgained -- and who had begun to do it. So Jean waited and wondered. 

"Jean," Garland said at last. His gaze hadn't shifted from the desk. 

"Yes?" 

"Did Litton buy your story about representing something like a detectiveagency?" 

"He didn't seem to question it," Jean said. "My impression was that he doesn'tparticularly care who employs him, or for what purpose." 

"He'll look into anyone's mind for a price?" It was said like a bitter curse. 

"Yes . . . his price. What are you going to do?" 

Garland's shoulders shifted irritably. "Max is trying to get a line onPhleger." 

Jean glanced questioningly at Jewett. Jewett told her, "Nobody seems to haveany idea where Frank Phleger's been for the past three weeks. We assume hedropped out of sight to avoid possible repercussions. The indications are thatwe're getting rather close to him." 

"I see," Jean said uncomfortably. The king beasts avoided rough play as amatter of policy, usually avoided conflict among themselves, but when they metin a duel there were no rules. 

"Give that part of it three days," Garland's voice said. She looked around, 


found him watching her with a trace of what might be irony, back at any ratefrom whatever brooding trance he'd been sunk in. "Jean, call Litton sometimetomorrow." 

"All right." 

"Tell him the boss of your detective organization wants an appointment withhim. Ten o'clock, three days from now." 

She nodded, said carefully, "Litton could become extremely valuable to you,
Mr. Garland." 

"He could," Garland agreed. "Anyway, I want to watch the swami perform. We'llgive him another assignment." 

"Am I to accompany you?" 

"You'll be there, Jean. So will Max." 

"I keep having the most curiously definite impression," Roy Litton observed,
"that I've met you before." 

"You have," Garland said amiably. 

Litton frowned, shook his head. "It's odd I should have forgotten theoccasion!" 

"The name's Nick Garland," Garland told him. 

Still frowning, Litton stared at him across the table. Then abruptly his facepaled. Jean Merriam, watching from behind her employer, saw Litton's eyesshift to her, from her to Max Jewett, and return at last, hesitantly, toGarland's face. Garland nodded wryly. 

"I was what you call one of your subjects, Mr. Litton," he said. "I can't giveyou the exact date, but it should have been between two and three months ago.
You remember now?" 

Litton shook his head. "No. After such an interval it would be impossible tobe definite about it, in any case. I keep no notes and the details of acontact very quickly grow blurred to me." His voice was guarded; he kept hiseyes on Garland's. "Still, you seemed familiar to me at once as a person. Andyour name seems familiar. It's quite possible that you have been, in fact, acontact subject." 

"I was," Garland said. "We know that. That's why we're here." 

Litton cleared his throat. "Then the story Miss Merriam told me at her firstvisit wasn't true." 

"Not entirely," Garland admitted. "She wasn't representing a detective outfit.
She represented me. Otherwise, she told the truth. She was sent here to findout if you could do what we'd heard you could do. We learned that you could.
Mr. Litton, you've cost me a great deal of money. But I'm not too concernedabout that now, because, with your assistance, I'll make it back. And I'llmake a great deal more besides. You begin to get the picture?" 


Relief and wariness mingled for an instant in Litton's expression. "Yes, Ibelieve I do." 

"You'll get paid your regular fees, of course," Garland told him. "The factis, Mr. Litton, you don't charge enough. What you offer is worth more than tenthousand a shot. What you gave Frank Phleger was worth enormously more." 

"Frank Phleger?" Litton said. 

"The client who paid you to poke around in my mind. No doubt he wouldn't haveused his real name. It doesn't matter. Let's get on to your first realassignment for me. Regular terms. This one isn't a test. It's to bring upinformation I don't have and couldn't get otherwise. All right?" 

Litton nodded, smiled. "You have a suitable contact object?" 

"We brought something that should do," Garland said. "Max, give Mr. Litton thebelt." 

Jean Merriam looked back toward Jewett. Garland hadn't told her what Litton's 
assignment was to be, had given her no specific instructions, but she'dalready turned on the recorder in her handbag. Jewett was taking a largeplastic envelope from the briefcase he'd laid beside his chair. He came overto the table, put the envelope before Litton, and returned to his place. 

"Can you tell me specifically what you want to know concerning this subject?"
Litton asked. 

"To start with," Garland said, "just give us whatever you can get. I'minterested in general information." 

Litton nodded, opened the plastic envelope, and took out a man's leather beltwith a broad silver buckle. Almost immediately an expression of distasteshowed in his face. He put the belt on the table, looked over at Garland. 

"Mr. Garland," he said, "Miss Merriam may have told you that on occasion I'moffered a contact object I can't use. Unfortunately, this belt is such anobject." 

"What do you mean?" Garland asked. "Why can't you use it?" 

"I don't know. It may be something about the belt itself, and it may be theperson connected with it." Litton brushed the belt with his fingers. "I simplyhave a very unpleasant feeling about this object. It repels me." He smiledapologetically. "I'm afraid I must refuse to work with it." 

"Well, now," Garland said, "I don't like to hear that. You've cost me a lot,
you know. I'm willing to overlook it, but I do expect you to be cooperative inreturn." 

Litton glanced at him, swallowed uneasily. "I understand -- and I assure youyou'll find me cooperative. If you'll give me some other assignment, I assureyou -- " 

"No," Garland said. "No, right now I want information about this particularperson, not somebody else. It's too bad if you don't much like to work withthe belt, but that's your problem. We went to a lot of trouble to get the belt 


for you. Let me state this quite clearly, Mr. Litton. You owe me theinformation, and I think you'd better get it now." 

His voice remained even, but the menace in the words was undisguised. The kingbeast was stepping out from cover, and Jean's palms were suddenly wet. She sawLitton's face whiten. 

"I suppose I do owe it to you," Litton said after a moment. He hesitatedagain. "But this isn't going to be easy." 

Garland snorted. "You're getting ten thousand dollars for a few minutes'work!" 

"That isn't it. I . . ." Litton shook his head helplessly, got to his feet. Heindicated the curtained alcove at the side of the room. "I'll go in there. Atbest, this will be a difficult contact to attempt. I can't be additionallydistracted by knowing that three people are staring at me." 

"You'll get the information?" Garland asked. 

Litton looked at him, said sullenly, "I always get the information." He pickedup the belt, went to the alcove, and disappeared through the curtains. 

Garland turned toward Jean Merriam. "Start timing him," he said. 

She nodded, checked her watch. The room went silent, and immediately Jean felta heavy oppression settle on her. It was almost as if the air had begun todarken around them. Frightened, she thought, Nick hates that freak . . . Hashe decided to kill him? 

She pushed the question away and narrowed her attention to the almostinaudible ticking of the tiny expensive watch. After a while she realized thatGarland was looking at her again. She met his eyes, whispered, "Three minutesand ten seconds." He nodded. 

There was a sound from within the alcove. It was not particularly loud, but inthe stillness it was startling enough to send a new gush of fright throughJean. She told herself some minor piece of furniture, a chair, a small sidetable, had fallen over, been knocked over on the carpeting. She was trying tothink of some reason why Litton should have knocked over a chair in there whenthe curtains before the alcove were pushed apart. Litton moved slowly out intothe room. 

He stopped a few feet from the alcove. He appeared dazed, half-stunned, like aman who'd been slugged hard in the head and wasn't sure what had happened. Hismouth worked silently, his lips writhing in slow, stiff contortions as iftrying to shape words that couldn't be pronounced. Abruptly he startedforward. Jean thought for a moment he was returning to the table, but he wentpast it, pace quickening, on past Garland and herself without glancing ateither of them. By then he was almost running, swaying from side to side inlong staggering steps, and she realized he was hurrying toward the Frenchdoors which stood open on the wide veranda overlooking the park. NeitherGarland nor Jewett moved from their chairs, and Jean, unable to speak, twistedaround to look after Litton as they were doing. She saw him run across theveranda, strike the hip-high railing without checking, and go on over.
* * * 


The limousine moved away from the Torrell Arms through the sunlit park, Jewettat the wheel, Garland and Jean Merriam in the back seat. There was no sirenwail behind them, no indication of disturbance, nothing to suggest that anyoneelse was aware that a few minutes ago a man had dropped into the neatlytrimmed park shrubbery from the eighteenth floor of the great apartment hotel. 

"You could have made use of him," Jean said. "He could have been of more valueto you than anyone else in the world. But you intended to kill him from thestart, didn't you?" 

Garland didn't reply for a moment. Then he said, "I could have made use ofhim, sure. So could anyone else with ten thousand dollars to spare, or someway to put pressure on him. I don't need somebody like Litton to stay on top.
And I don't like the rules changed. When Phleger found Litton, he startedchanging them. It could happen again. Litton had to be taken out." 

"Max could have handled that," Jean said. Her hands had begun to trembleagain; she twisted them tightly together around the strap of the handbag.
"What did you do to get Litton to kill himself?" 

Garland shook his head. "I didn't intend him to kill himself. Max was to take 
care of him afterward." 

"You did something to him." 

Garland drew a long sighing breath. "I was just curious," he said. "There'ssomething I wonder about now and then. I thought Litton might be able to tellme, so I gave him the assignment." 

"What assignment? He became someone else for three minutes. What happened tohim?" 

Garland's head turned slowly toward her. She noticed for the first time thathis face was almost colorless. "That was Frank Phleger's belt," he said.
"Max's boys caught up with him last night. Phleger's been dead for the lasteight hours." 

-Chapter 15 
Would You? 

After dinner Markus Menzies suggested he might show Geoffrey about the chalet.
Geoffrey agreed. The place had belonged previously to some Liechtenstein, andMarcus had bought it five years ago. What a man like Menzies could want withan expensive antique in the heart of the Alps, Geoffrey couldn't imagine. Itwasn't the proximity of the ski slopes which had drawn Geoffrey into the areafor the season. Markus always had looked on sporting activities involvingphysical exertion or risk as an occupation for lunatics. And he was an old mannow. Though, Geoffrey reminded himself, only fifteen years his senior. 

And what, for that matter, had induced Markus to invite him here for dinnertonight? It had been eight years since they last met, considerably longer thanthat since they'd had any significant dealings with each other. There'd been atime, of course, when Markus Menzies and Geoffrey Bryant had made a greatteam . . . in aircraft, in textiles, in shipping, in one thing and another, 


legitimate for the most part, occasionally not quite so legitimate. They'dboth made their pile in the process; and then they'd split up. Markus went onto become extremely wealthy; Geoffrey remained as wealthy as he wanted to beor saw any use in being. It made sense to start to enjoy what he had ratherthan continue maneuvering for more. He wasn't married, had no intention ofgetting married, had no dependents of any kind. The world waited to be savoredat leisure. 

He'd accepted the telephoned invitation to dinner mainly out of curiosity.
Markus wasn't prone to nostalgic sentimentality; he should have something inmind, and it might be interesting to find out what it was. But nothing wassaid over dinner to give Geoffrey a definite clue. The talk ranged widely butcomfortably. Markus had acquired a variety of hobbies; the chalet might be oneof them. He seemed completely relaxed, which meant nothing. If he had apurpose, it would show when he intended it to show, not before. 

"I had quite a start the other day," he was remarking. "I was coming throughthe village, and there was a tall slender woman who . . . well, for an instantI actually believed I was looking, over a space of not more than twenty feet,
at Eileen Howard." 

After a moment Geoffrey said soberly, "I've made similar mistakes more thanonce." 

Markus glanced across the table at him. Briefly his face looked worn andtired, more so than his age indicated. "Not at all like seeing a ghost," hesaid, as if to himself. "A compellingly vivid impression of Eileen as she wasthen. All life, warmth!" He shook his head. "Immediately afterwards, I wasunable to understand what could have given me the idea. There was some generalresemblance, of course." His voice trailed off. 

Something in a motion or gesture could be enough, Geoffrey thought. Theglimpse of a finely drawn profile, the inflection in a laugh. It hadn'thappened to him in some time. They'd both wanted Eileen; probably they'd bothloved her. And because of that, between them in their maneuverings, theyshared in a way the responsibility for her accidental death. They'd nevertalked about it, rarely mentioned Eileen again. But the other's presence soonbecame a growing irritation. It was a relief when their informal partnershipended. 

It might have been simply that chance incident in the village which causedMarkus to extend his invitation, some sudden urge to speak of Eileen. But hedid not seem to want to pursue the subject farther. Geoffrey was glad of it. 

The talk shifted to impersonal things. It was after the brandy that Markussuggested a tour of the chalet. For a while they moved unhurriedly about thebig hall downstairs, along corridors, in and out of rooms. Markus had takenthe house with its furnishings and left most of those untouched. Landscapesand portraits shared the walls with formidably antlered and horned heads.
Markus kept up a line of talk about the chalet's history and the affairs ofprevious owners. Geoffrey found himself getting bored. 

"Where's the mysterious chair you mentioned?" he asked. 

Markus nodded towards the stairway. "Upstairs." He smiled. "I was saving itfor the last. Would you like to see it now?" 


Geoffrey said he would, hoping that would end the tour. He followed his hostup a narrow flight of stairs to the third floor of the chalet. Markus stoppedbefore a door, took out a key. Geoffrey looked at him curiously. "You keep theroom locked?" 

"Some of the servants know the story," Markus said. "They have a superstitiousfeeling about the chair. I think they're a little afraid of it. So the roomremains locked mainly for their peace of mind." He opened the door, switchedon overhead lights. "There it is." 

The room was not large and the chair dominated it. It stood on a low dais,
evidently constructed for the purpose. A sizable chair of smoothly polishedwood, rather heavily built but in lines of flowing grace. The carvings wererestrained, barely more than indicated, except for an animal head at the endof each broad armrest. The heads lifted out from the chair, pointing into theroom. They were oblong and flattened, somewhat like the heads of lizards orsnakes. 

Well, it's a chair, Geoffrey thought. He realized Markus was watching him.
"Markus," he said, "do you expect me to be impressed?" 

Markus smiled. "Why not? You're looking at a mystery. Do you recognize theperiod?" 

Geoffrey shook his head. "Period furniture isn't one of my interests." 

"The chair is at least two hundred years old," Markus said. "Records show itwas acquired that long ago. They don't show from whom it was acquired. But itbelongs to no definable period." 

He moved towards the chair, Geoffrey following him. "What would you call thatwood?" Markus asked. 

Geoffrey shrugged. "Oak, possibly." Markus stroked a finger along the armrest.
"Touch it," he suggested. 

Geoffrey laid the palm of his hand on the chair, moved it tentatively back andforth, frowned, and pressed down with his fingers. 

"That's very odd! " he said. 

"What impression do you get?" 

"A smoothness, almost like velvet. Not only that. I had the feeling it wassoft, that it was giving a little under my touch. But it obviously is quitesolid." 

He drew his hand away, looked at Markus with increased interest. "What wasthat story again? That anyone who sits in this chair can change his pastlife?" 

"That's it. One sits in the chair. One places his hands" -- Markus nodded atthe armrests -- "on those carved heads -- " 

" -- and makes a wish, eh?" Geoffrey concluded. 

"No. Not a wish. One is then able, quite literally, to edit the events in his 


past. Say you made a wrong decision twenty years ago. You can now undo thatmistake, and remake the decision. Lost opportunities can be regained, and yourlife up to the present will have been changed correspondingly. Anything can bechanged. Anything. That's the story." 

Geoffrey smiled uncomfortably. "You sound almost as if you believed it!" 
"Perhaps I do." 
Now this was getting eerie. Geoffrey stared at his host. Had Markus gone out


of his mind? "You've tried it?" he asked. 
"Should I want to change my life? I have my health, my hobbies, my money." 
"Isn't there anything you'd like to have done differently?" 
Markus said slowly, "I'm not sure there is." 
"How did the people who are supposed to have used the chair make out?"


Geoffrey asked, smiling to indicate he wasn't taking this seriously. 


Markus shook his head. "Whoever has tried it evidently preferred not to put
the fact on record. Would you?" 
"Probably not." Geoffrey laughed. "Well, it's a good story, Markus. And


perhaps I'm a little sorry it isn't true. Because there might be things in mylife I would prefer to be otherwise. That wood -- it must be wood -- iscertainly odd! I can't imagine what kind of treatment was given it to producethat effect." 

"Put your hand on one of the reptile heads," Markus said. 

Geoffrey looked at him, then cupped his palm over the carved head nearest him.
"Now what?" he asked. 
"Leave it there a moment." 
Geoffrey shrugged mentally, let his hand rest on the wood. After some seconds


his expression changed. Perhaps a minute later, he removed his hand. "This is
very curious!" he remarked. 


"What did you experience?" Markus asked. 
"Something like a current of energy. It built up gradually, then held at a
steady level. Almost electric. But not at all unpleasant. I gather you've felt
it." 


"Yes, I've felt it." 


"While I was sensing this," Geoffrey said. "I found myself beginning to
believe that I could change the past. If I wanted to." 
"If you'd like to experiment," Markus told him, "the chair is yours." 
"How does it work?" 
"The way it's been described," said Markus, "you will be in contact with your 



past as long as you are seated in the chair and keep your hands on the carved
heads. You'll begin to remember past events in all detail and find yourself a
part of them again. And if you wish to change them then, turn them into
something other than you recall as having happened, you'll be able to do it.
When you're ready to stop the process, simply lift your hands from the heads.
That's all there is to it. . . ." 
* * * 


So Geoffrey sat in the chair. He gave Markus, standing near the center of the
room, watching him, a final probing glance. Then he clasped his hands firmly
about the snakelike or lizardlike heads. 


For a few seconds there was nothing. Then came the sense of flowing power,
faint and far away, but growing stronger as if he were being drawn towards it,
until it seemed all about him and streaming through him. 


Like a great recording tape unreeling in all his senses, the past burst in. 


It was a swift blur of impressions at first. Glimpses of color and motion, the
ghostly murmuring of voices, flicks of smell and taste, a sense of shifting
physically, a jerking in the muscles. It all rushed past him, or he was
rushing, being rushed, through it. There remained some awareness of the room
dimly about, of the motionless shadowy shape of Markus Menzies. Emotions began
to wash through Geoffrey, a hurrying tide of anxieties, grief, furious anger,
high delight, changing from moment to moment. . . . 


And then, somewhere in darkness, it all stopped. As if he'd touched a button
or switch on a machine, bringing it to a standstill. The awareness arose that
he could control this. 


At that point he was caught midway between apprehension -- because of the
strangeness of the experience -- and fascinated interest. Something in him
kept insisting that his sensations had been simply sensations, without further
significance. That the chair, whatever strange machine the chair might be, was
stirring up memories and drawing on them to produce such effects, and that
there was nothing else to it, no preternatural connection at all with the
realities of the past. But there was also the growing sense of power, of
almost godlike power, and of being in control of what occurred here. 


So all right, he thought, let's try it out. Let's select some occasion when
something went wrong, some very minor thing for a start, and see if I can edit
out the mistakes I made. 


And he found such an occasion. 


And then another, and another -


Until presently he discovered he was sitting in the chair again. His hands
were still closed on the carved heads, but the feeling of the flow of power
was gone. Markus Menzies stood staring at him, his face set and tense. 


Geoffrey pushed himself rather stiffly to his feet and stepped down from the
dais. 


"Well?" Markus said harshly. "What happened?" 


Geoffrey shook his head. "Oh, I was back there all right," he said. "At least, 



that was my impression." He smiled carefully. "This is some kind of trickery,
I think, Markus. But very clever trickery." 

"It's no trick, you fool! Did you change anything?" 

"No, I didn't change anything. Though I admit I was tempted. Oh, yes! Stronglytempted -- " To Geoffrey's surprise, his voice shook for an instant. "Inparticular," he went on, "in that series of events which ended, as you recall,
in Eileen's death." 

Markus's face was white now. "You were there -- and you did nothing?" 

"I changed nothing," Geoffrey said irritably. "I felt I could do it. I believenow that feeling was part of the deception. But if it wasn't deception, if itwould have been possible, then I think I was wise not to make the attempt." 

"You wouldn't save Eileen?" 

"Markus. Eileen is dead. Quite dead. How could she be made alive again? Andassuming she still were alive, had never died, the recent years would not havebeen at all what they were. That was a consideration. I realized during thisthat I've been very fortunate. The decisions I made, right and wrong, broughtme safely to this point in life and into not unfavorable circumstances. Inretrospect I know now that the odds were against that, though day by day, as Ilived it, I never was fully conscious of them. Think of the countlessopportunities each of us is given to turn unawares into the wrong path, theless satisfactory path, even the fatal path . . . no, I don't care to gambledeliberately against those odds, to place what I am and have now at stakeagain. And if I had acted in any way, that's what I would have done. To forcechange on the past, even in one minor aspect, might alter all the subsequentpast in unforeseeable ways. That very well could be disastrous." 

Markus said, with intense bitterness, "You're a coward!" 

"Aren't you?" Geoffrey asked. 

"Yes. I am," Markus said. "I once sat in that chair as you have done." 

"I was sure you had," Geoffrey said. "And I don't blame you entirely fortrying to get me to do something for which you didn't have the courage. But todo it was quite out of the question. Perhaps I might have modified the pastwithout affecting the present external world in any noticeable way. Even thatwould have brought an element of intolerable uncertainty into my personalexistence. As things are, I believe I understand the world and its realitieswell enough. My life has been based on the feeling of understanding it andbeing able to deal with it. I want to retain the feeling. And I would havelost it if I had attempted to change the past and succeeded. If I knew thatwas possible, I could never be sure of the reality of anything about me again.
The world would have become as insubstantial and meaningless as a madman'sdream. 

"I don't want that. I couldn't live that way. So I won't put your device tothe test. If I haven't proved that it can do what it is supposed to do, I cancontinue to believe that it's impossible. I prefer to believe it." He added,
after a moment, "And so, I think, do you." 

Markus shrugged heavily. "Did you have the feeling that this was the one 


opportunity you would be given -- that if you didn't change the past now, youwouldn't have another chance?" 

"Yes, I had that feeling," Gregory said. "It was part of the temptation." Helooked over at the dais, and his gaze stayed for a moment on the carvedanimalic heads lifting silently into the room. "It doesn't matter," he said,
"whether it was a valid feeling or not. Because nothing would induce me to sitin that chair again." 

He started out of the room. Markus followed and locked the door behind them. 
As they went down the stairs, Geoffrey said, "I imagine that was your purposein inviting me here tonight." 

"Of course it was," Markus said. 

"When did you have the experience?" 

"Shortly after I bought this place. Almost five years ago." 

"Have you ever tried to repeat it?" 

Markus shook his head. 

-Chapter 16 
These Are the Arts 

"Now the Seven Deadly Arts are: Music, Literature, Painting, Sculpture,
Architecture, Dancing, Acting. The Mercy of God has luckily purified theseonce pagan inventions, and transformed them into saving instruments of grace.
Yet it behooves us to examine with the utmost diligence the possible sourcesof evil latent in each and every one of these arts. Then we shall considersome of the special forms of sin that may develop from them. St. Chrysostomwarned the faithful . . ."

 -- the preacher, in Huneker's "Visionaries" 

Hugh Grover was sitting in the TV room of an old but spacious and luxuriouslyequipped bomb shelter located in a forested section of the rambling Groverestate. The shelter had been constructed by Hugh's grandfather sixty yearsearlier and, while never actually used as a place of refuge, had been kept ingood condition by various members of the Grover family, who retained a strongtouch of foresight and prudence in their habits even through the easygoingearly decades of the Twenty-first Century. The entrance to the shelter wascamouflaged, and only the Grover household and their intimates were informedof its existence and whereabouts. 

Hugh, now a man of forty and the last living member of the family, looked verythoughtful and puzzled as he switched off the TV set and audiophile attachmentand closed up a bull-roarer recording he had placed on the table beside him.
He pushed away the tall mirror he had set up so he could watch the screenwithout looking at it directly, and climbed out of his chair. He had intendedmirror and recording to be precautionary devices, but they had turned out to 


be superfluous. He had seen and heard nothing of the Galcom Craze. 

It was possible that the World Government -- wonder of wonders! -- had heededhis warnings, or perhaps somebody else's, and banned the stuff completely. Inthe past few hours, Hugh had dialed every major station on earth. From none ofthem had the improbably beautiful face of a Galcom Teacher looked out at him;
no Galcom symbol appeared suddenly in the screen. Nor had the audiophileprograms produced any of those curious little cross-ripples of sound whichwere not openly connected with Galcom, but which Hugh had considered to bedefinitely one of its devices. 

The absence of these items in itself was, of course, all to the good. But itseemed odd that, in addition, there hadn't been the slightest mention ofGalcom during the hours Hugh listened and watched. He was the reverse of a TVaddict, but he felt it improbable that what had started as the biggest TVCraze of recent years could simply have dropped from the public's interestagain during the two weeks he was living in the bomb shelter. It seemed muchmore likely that the lack of reference to it was due to an official taboo. 

He had predicted that the embittered settlers of Mars Territory would carryout a space attack on Earth after first softening up the population throughthe Galcom Craze. Did this deliberate lack of mention of the Craze suggestthat certain elements of the danger still existed? Hugh Grover could think ofno other reason for it. 

He frowned, his finger moving toward a button to summon his secretary, AndyBritton, who shared the shelter with him and was at present asleep in anothersection. Then he checked himself. Andy made a good listener when Hugh feltlike airing his thoughts, but it might be better to ponder this curioussituation by himself first.
* * * 

It had been through Andy Britton that Hugh first learned of the Galcom Craze.
They had come in by Atlantic rocket from the Jura Mountains that evening witha box of newly uncovered Bronze Age artifacts to add to Hugh's private museum.
The Grover residence was on the fringes of the little village of Antoinette,
three miles upriver from the bomb shelter, in the direction of the sizabletown of South Valley. Hugh unpacked while Andy drove into Antoinette to buydinner supplies. He came back laughing. 

"A new advertising craze has started up," he said. "This one might interestyou, Hugh!" 

"Why should it?" Hugh asked. 

"Symbols," Andy told him. "Primitive meditation brought up to date on TV!
Practically every big station seems to be involved. They have overlappingSymbol Hours around the clock. You can't guess who's doing all this, so I'lltell you. It's the first representatives of the Galactic Community to reachthe Solar System. How about that?" 

Hugh grunted and asked him what he thought he was talking about. Galcom, itappeared, was short for Galactic Community. The representatives were inhumanlybeautiful women or inhumanly handsome men. They were referred to as TheTeachers. Their mission was to facilitate the adoption of Earth into theCommunity by instructing its inhabitants in a New Method of Thought andCommunication, which would enable them to exchange ideas with other Galcom 


entities, and also one another, with the greatest of ease and speed. The NewMethod could be acquired by devoting a little study daily to the GalcomSymbols being presented on purchased TV time. 

It was, of course, a promotion hoax of some sort. After the World SupremeCourt established that to question publicly the truthfulness of statementsmade through an advertising medium was to act in restriction of trade, andhence illegal, the way had been open for the staging of truly colossalattention-getting tricks. Throughout his life, Hugh Grover had been vaguelyaware of a constant succession of TV Crazes of varying magnitude. When hethought of them at all, he concluded that in the comfortable world-widesuburbanity of the period people grew increasingly hungry for sensations ofeven the most idiotic variety. And since no corner of Earth was without itsquota of TV sets, a really big Craze could command virtually universalattention. As a rule, they built up for a month or two, while the moresophisticated speculated on who was behind it this time and what actually wasto be promoted, and the less sophisticated -- time after time, apparently -took 
the gag at face value and very seriously. Andy reported that the smartmoney had begun to settle on Mars Territory as the Galcom sponsor within thefirst week and that the Craze was expected to resolve itself eventually as arenewed bid for Unlimited Free Water from Earth for the Territory. 

"They seem to have hooked an unusual percentage of Believers this time," Andysaid -- Believers being, of course, the people who again had bought the gag.
He had run into five or six persons in Antoinette who assured him with someexcitement that the Galactic Community really existed, that this Craze was noCraze at all but a perfectly sincere and earnest attempt to help Earth raiseitself to Galcom's lofty standards. Two of Andy's informants by now hadachieved moments of direct mental communication with a Galcom Teacher, anexperience described as enthralling and spiritually satisfying. 

Hugh felt mildly disgusted, as he not infrequently was with the ways of thesociety in which he found himself. But since the study of symbolism and itsuse by primitive societies was in fact one of his most intensively cultivatedhobbies, he was curious enough to turn on the TV set after dinner. 

Immediately, he found himself face to face with one of the Galcom Teachers. 

This one was female, and there could be no disputing the flawless and -figuratively, 
at least -- the unearthly quality of her loveliness. Womenirritated Hugh Grover as a rule, and he tended to avoid their company; but theTeacher's impact was not lost on him. He had been staring at her for almosttwenty seconds before he discovered that the melodious voice was repeatingsome of the things Andy had told him. The arts the station's viewers werebeing taught here, she said, were not designed to make them worthy ofmembership in the Galactic Community, as some appeared to have assumed. No -they 
were worthy indeed, and the intention was only to dissolve the barriersof linguistic difference, to do away with the awkwardness of spoken wordswhich led so often and easily to misunderstandings. Words were not necessarywhen mind could speak to mind. And now, if the viewers would give theirrelaxed attention to the Galcom symbols they would be shown, they would findtheir minds begin to open out gently and softly . . . like beautifulflowers. . . . 

In spite of this sweetly fluted lunacy, Hugh did not turn off the TV. He wasstill staring in fascination at the exquisite creature in the screen when shesuddenly faded from view and he was looking instead at a Galcom symbol. 


In almost the same instant, the screen went blank. 

It took Hugh some seconds to realize that he himself had shut off the set. Hewas not in the least tempted to turn it on again. He had been badly startled.
At the moment the symbol appeared, there had been a distinct sensation as ifsomething were tugging at his thoughts . . . and then something else insidehim went tight, closed up; and the sensation ended. 

Once before, he'd had a very similar experience. A psychiatrist had attemptedto hypnotize him; and while Hugh, consciously, had been completely willing tolet it happen, the attempt ended in absolute failure. At that time, too, therehad been, as Hugh floated along mentally, his attention only half on themedical man's words, a sudden awareness of shutting off their effect andremaining closed to it, of having become impenetrable now and secure. Andthere was nothing that Hugh -- consciously again -- could do about it. Hecould not be hypnotized. 

And what could that mean here? Brief as his glimpse of the Galcom symbol hadbeen, he could recall it distinctly -- a pale-blue, glowing, rather intricatedesign of markings which reminded Hugh of nothing so much as some of theideographic characters used in the written Chinese language of past centuries.
In itself, there was nothing sinister or alarming about its appearance. ButHugh could remember very vividly the feeling of something pulling at histhoughts. . . . 

Hugh Grover continued to sit before the dead set for a while, becomingincreasingly disturbed. At last, he got up and put a call through to the homeof an acquaintance in the East who was an advertising executive. 

The acquaintance confirmed Andy Britton's report on the Galcom Craze. It was abig thing, a very big thing. After only a few days, it was beginning to edgeinto the top popularity spot. In his opinion, it was likely to develop intothe most successful TV spectacular of the past twenty years. Yes, MarsTerritory definitely was backing it. The acquaintance couldn't yet see justhow the Territory planned to tie in its perennial demand for Earth water, butthat certainly would turn out to be the angle. Hugh presumably had becomeinterested in the program because of its use of symbols? One heard that thereappeared to be a very deft adaptation of neo-Jungian techniques involved. Whatwas Hugh's opinion? 

Hugh replied cautiously that he hadn't yet seen a Galcom program, but that itseemed possible. What effect did the symbols produce on the viewers? 

"They're euphoric," the acquaintance said. It was difficult to be morespecific because of wide variations in individual response. It was a reallyremarkable approach, a unique accomplishment. Yes, he understood there'd beennegative reactions but in such an insignificant number that they could notaffect the progress of the Craze in any way . . . Oh, perhaps point five percent. There were always cranks and alarmists who objected to genuineinnovations in the programs. 

After Hugh hung up, he did some more intensive thinking. He was now thoroughlyconcerned, but there were reasons to be cautious about any action he took.
Officially, he could be fitted very well into his acquaintance'sclassification of cranks and alarmists. He was known to be a wealthy eccentric-- wealthy enough to get away with a degree of eccentricity which a man of 


moderate means could hardly have afforded. He was an amateur scientist. Evenhis friends regarded his preoccupation with things of the past, things of themind, as somewhat morbid. And there had been a period ten years before, afteran ill-fated attempt at marriage, when he suffered a quite serious nervousbreakdown and required extensive psychiatric treatment. 

He had developed a considerable degree of self-awareness over the years. Heknew that his interests and studies reflected his mental organization . . . anorganization in which conscious and unconscious processes which in most menwere kept much more neatly distinct tended to merge to an uncomfortabledegree. He knew also that he had, in consequence, developed defensivereactions which the ordinary person simply did not have, and ordinarily had noneed for. He could not be hypnotized. Drugs which were supposed to reduceresistance to hypnosis merely raised his own level. And he could not beaffected by the Galcom symbols. But neither of those things would be true forthe vast majority of Earth's population. 

He had made a careful study of the connections between specific sensoryimpressions and mental effects. Form, color, motion -- these things heldunique meanings for the unconscious mind and aroused responses of which theconscious man might not be in the least aware. 

His mind had produced an instantaneous, violent reaction to his first glimpseof a Galcom symbol. It had sealed itself away from something it regarded as avery dangerous threat. 

What would the same impression be doing to the mind of the average man, whichhad never needed to learn such stringent measures of defense? 

In Hugh Grover's opinion, it could plunge the possessor of that mind -- afternot too many encounters -- into a state of psychotic helplessness. 

And who would be interested in doing such a thing to the people of Earth? 

Precisely Mars Territory, of course.
* * * 

He had been on Mars some years before. Except for World Government officials,
whose duties held them there, not many Earth citizens visited the Territory.
It held no attractions for tourists. Hugh Grover's interest was drawn byreports that excavations had begun again in some of the ruins of theaboriginal Martian culture scattered sparsely about the Territory. Earlierarchaeological efforts had produced insignificant results; the ruins were overa quarter of a million years old and usually buried, and there was no evidencethat the native race had advanced beyond the level of walled villages beforeit died out. But Hugh decided he would like to visit some of the new digs inperson. 

It had been a frustrating experience which gave him a very different pictureof the Territorial settlers and in particular of their ruling group than hehad obtained on Earth. They were a hard, sullen breed of men, rulers of abarren empire with the potential of a great industrial development -- adevelopment still stalled by Earth's refusal to supply Mars Territory with therequired amounts of water. Hugh thought he understood the reason for that.
Martian technology, spurred by necessity, was at least on a par with Earth's.
Given unlimited water it would forge ahead. And once it was sufficientlyahead, complacent suburban Earth would be virtually at the mercy of a society 


which had learned again to fight and work relentlessly for what it wanted. It
was hardly surprising that the World Government was reluctant to go to
enormous expense to help bring such a situation about. 


But it made Earth's citizens very unpopular on Mars. Hugh's attempts to obtain
permission to visit the ruins of the prehistoric culture continued to run into
unaccountable difficulties and delays, and the local Earth officials at last
advised him quietly to give the matter up. If he did succeed in getting into
the Territorial backlands, they could not be responsible for his safety there. 


At the time, Hugh had thought he was confronting simple malice. But there was
another explanation. If an aboriginal symbol science had existed on Mars in
the distant past, Territorial scientists might have been studying its
principles in order to learn how to adapt them to produce effects on the human
mind. In other words, the tools of the Galcom Craze were being
prepared . . . and, naturally, an Earthman would not have been a welcome
visitor. It was quite likely, Hugh decided, that he wouldn't have gotten out
of Mars Territory alive if he had been too persistent in his efforts. 


One could conclude further that Mars Territory was now at war with Earth. 


The Galcom symbols would -- in the opinion of the Territorials, at least -determine 
the issue. The derangement of the mental structure of the great
majority of Earth's population could be far advanced before any outer evidence
of general psychosis appeared. Then the Territorial space attack would be
launched. 


Mars Territory, Hugh thought, was making a mistake. Earth's material
advantages would still be too great for them and in the end Earth would win
out. But for the private citizens who retained their sanity, the interim
period would be extremely unpleasant and dangerous. 


Partway through his reflections, he had pressed the audiophile button on the
TV set without giving the action much consideration, and the familiar muted
flows of classical music were accompanying his thoughts. Now, suddenly, he sat
bolt upright. There had been a subtle intrusion in the music, an odd, quick,
light, up-and-down rippling, like the crossing of two threads of sound, which
was not a proper part of the piece to which he was listening. 


Almost with that thought came an internal reaction very similar to what Hugh
experienced at his glimpse of the Galcom symbol -- a sense of something
pulling, tugging gently at his mind, a dreamlike distortion; then the quick,
solid block of mental resistance which shut the feeling off. Hugh reached out
hastily and turned off the audiophile. 


So they were not limited to visual channels in their attack on Earth's minds!
Men like himself who ignored TV presentations could still be approached along
other routes. 
* * * 


That decided him. This was no speculation but quite real, quite serious
personal danger. He realized now that he had been getting sleepy for the past
few minutes -- and he could not be sure he had not heard that curious cross-
ripple of sound several times before it penetrated into his awareness. When
the attack was insidious enough, his subconscious watchdogs might be much less
dependable than he had believed. 



The important thing then was to look out for himself. Hugh was aware that hehad no overwhelming or all-inclusive fondness for his fellow men; on thewhole, they were there, and he could tolerate them. A few, like Andy Britton,
he rather liked, when they weren't being irritating. Nevertheless, hisdecision now to take Andy to the old Grover bomb shelter with him was dueprimarily to the fact that Andy was a very capable young man whose assistanceduring the possibly trying period ahead might be invaluable. 

As for the others, he would try to warn them in time to avert or modify theapproaching disaster; but it would have to be done in a manner which could notaffect his own safety. Though Mars Territory looked like the responsible agentfor what was happening, it must have allies on Earth in positions where theycould deal with interference . . . and with those who interfered. Hugh spentan hour outlining his conclusions about the Galcom Craze in every detail. Hethen made approximately fifty copies of the message and addressed them tovarious members of the government, to news agencies, and to a number ofimportant people whose background indicated that they might give seriousthought to such a warning. He was careful to mention nothing that could serveto identify him and left the messages unsigned. Andy Britton was dispatched toSouth Valley to drop them into the mailing system there. After the secretaryreturned, Hugh told him what he believed was occurring and what his planswere. 

Andy kept his face carefully expressionless, but it was plain what his owntheory was -- old Hugh had cracked up at last. However, he had a highly paidjob, and if Hugh wanted them to sit out the next few weeks in a bomb shelter,
that would clearly be all right with Andy Britton. Before dawn, allpreparations had been made. They closed up the town house in Antoinette again,
and installed themselves unobtrusively in the forest shelter down the river. 

The next two weeks passed -- to all appearances -- uneventfully. Andy Brittondutifully avoided the shelter's TV room, and he and Hugh took turns observingthe air traffic above the river and the road gliders passing along the highwayfrom the shelter lookout panel. There were no signs of disturbance of anykind. Andy, an active individual by nature, began to show some degree ofrestiveness but made no attempts to argue Hugh out of his ideas. 

Hugh saw no reason to rush matters. For the time being, he had secured himselffrom the Galcom attack, both as to possible personal effects and the dangersthat could arise from a demented populace. His warning might or might not beheeded. Others might see the threat and take steps to end it. Whatever was tooccur, he had withdrawn to a position where he could wait events out with thegreatest degree of safety. 

He began to give his attention to methods whereby he could -- without exposinghimself -- regain a more complete contact with the outer world than simpleobservation from the shelter provided. Out of this came eventually thearrangement in the TV room with the mirror and the bull-roarer recording. TheGalcom symbols, judging from the sample he had seen, were asymmetricaldesigns. If the specific visual image produced by them brought about someeffect on the mind, the effect should be nullified by a reversal of the image.
Hence the mirror through which he could observe the TV screen without lookingdirectly at it. He was cancelling out the Gorgon's head. The bull-roarerrecording was to smother Galcom's audible form of attack, the drowsiness-
producing cross-ripplings of light sound. The switch which started therecording would be in Hugh's left hand whenever he turned on the set, histhumb pressed down on its release. At any loss of alertness, he would let go 


automatically. The election of a bull-roarer with its own ritual implicationshadn't been necessary for this purpose; but the notion pleased Hugh and -- thesubconscious being the suggestible and superstitious entity it was -- a littledeliberate counter-magic should strengthen the effect of sheer noise. 

In spite of these supporting devices, Hugh had intended to proceed veryprudently with his investigation. He couldn't be sure they would actually givehim more protection than his own resources could provide. He hadn't forgottenthe disconcerting feeling of having been caught off guard by a barelyperceptible sound pattern, and there might, after all, be more Galcom tricksthan the two he had encountered. The lack of anything in the least abnormalthen in the TV programs he scanned through was rather disconcerting in itself.
Something, obviously, had happened -- must have happened. The Galcom programhadn't vanished without cause. 

The appearance of it was that Galcom had been banned from the networks byWorld Government edict. The entire business of symbol trickery and its effectsmight have been turned over meanwhile to some scientific group for orderlyinvestigation. Mars Territory could have been put under an embargo. And it wasconceivable that Territorial raiders were known or suspected to be in space;
and that while the Earth fleets hunted for them, the whole affair was beingtoned down deliberately in the networks to avoid a panic. There was, afterall, no effective way of protecting the population from space attack except bystopping a raider before he got too close. 

The appearance of it then was a little mystifying, not necessarily alarming.
It concurred with the undisturbed look of the countryside traffic outside theshelter. 

But those reflections did not at all change Hugh's feeling about thesituation. The feeling told him with increasing clarity that there was somehidden menace in the lack of mention about Galcom. That the silence covered a 
waiting trap. And that specifically he -- Hugh Grover -- was being threatened. 

He could acknowledge that, theoretically, that presented the picture of aparanoid personality. But the hunch was too strong to be ignored. He didn'tintend to ignore it. He could lose nothing -- except for strengthening Andy'snotions about his loss of mental competence, which was hardly important -- byacting on the assumption that the hunch was correct. If it was correct, ifthere was a trap waiting outside, the trap could be sprung. Not by him, but byAndy Britton. 

Hugh rubbed his chin thoughtfully. There was another place in the northernAndes which could be turned into at least as secure a hide-out as Grandfather 
Grover's bomb shelter. In some respects -- the nearest neighbors would be manymiles away -- it should be a more dependable one. He could get there overnightwith one of the pair of jet rigs hanging in the shelter storeroom. For thesake of obtaining definite information, which would either confirm or disprovehis suspicions, he could, therefore, risk losing the bomb shelter. 

And he could -- though he hoped nothing would happen to Andy -- risk losingAndy. 

Andy Britton was in the kitchen section, having breakfast. He looked up ratherblearily when Hugh came in. His red hair was still uncombed and he hadobviously just come awake. 


"Mind coming along to the TV room a moment?" Hugh asked. "I've foundsomething, but I'm not quite sure what it means." 

"What have you found?" 

"I'd sooner let you see for yourself." 

In the TV room, Andy looked at the mirror and recording with controlleddistaste, asked, "Want me to use those?" 

"It can't do any harm," Hugh said. "Here -- I'll hold the switch for the bull-
roarer myself. Now go ahead." 

Andy studied his face quizzically, then turned on the TV set and clicked in astation at random. He watched the screen through the mirror, looked over atHugh again. 

"Try another one," Hugh suggested. 

Ten minutes later, Andy, face very thoughtful, switched off the set, asked,
"Same thing everywhere?" 

"I've been going down through the list these last three hours," Hugh said. "Idon't believe I missed a station of any significance. I didn't hear a wordabout the Galcom Craze. Odd, isn't it?" 

Andy agreed it was very odd indeed. 

"What do you make of it?" Hugh asked. 

Andy's lips quirked. "Isn't it obvious? Everyone in the world -- except youand I, of course -- has learned by now how to communicate with the alien racesof the Galactic Community. Last Monday, the Solar System was elevated to fullmembership. Why keep the thing going after that?" He pondered a moment, added,
"I owe you an apology, of course, Hugh." 

"Why?" 

"I thought you were tottering, and I guess I showed it. Now it looks as if youwere right. Something stopped the Craze in midswing. And only our good oldpaternal World Government could have done it." 

"The Craze couldn't have simply run itself out . . . naturally?" 

Andy shook his head. "I followed a lot of them when I was still young andfoolish. That Galcom deal was good for another six weeks. It didn't run outnaturally. It was stopped. And unless there was something mighty wrong aboutthose symbols -- just like you said -- it wouldn't have been stopped." Hegrinned suddenly, his face lightening. "Know something? When we walk out ofhere now -- when they find out who it was that shot off those warning messagesall over the world two weeks ago -- I'll be a hero's secretary!" 

Hugh hesitated, said, "I'm not so sure about that, Andy." 

"Huh?" The grin faded from Andy's face, was replaced by a cautious "Now what?"
expression. He asked, "What do you mean, Hugh?" 


Hugh said, "I don't want to seem unduly apprehensive." He indicated the TV
screen. "But what we saw there does suggest something like a conspiracy to
me." 


"A conspiracy?" 


"Exactly. I told you I was sitting here for three hours checking through the
various stations. Why in all that time did no one even mention the late Galcom
Craze?" 


"I wouldn't know," Andy said with a trace of exasperation. "But the obvious
way to find out is to get out of here and start asking questions. We can't
spend the rest of our lives lurking in a bomb shelter, Hugh." 


Hugh smiled. "I don't intend to, believe me. But I do think we should be a
little careful about asking questions." He considered, went on, "As a first
step, let's wheel out the flitter and look things over from the air for a
while." 


Andy said with strained patience, "That isn't going to tell us what happened
to the Galcom Craze. Now suppose I put the midget road glider in the back of
the flitter and -- " 


"Why not?" Hugh looked at his watch. "It'll be getting dark in a few hours. If
it seems safe to let you do a little reconnoitering on foot around South
Valley, that would be the time to start out."
* * * 


Shortly after sunset, Hugh brought the flitter down to a quiet stretch of the
road leading from Antoinette to South Valley. Andy swung the glider out of the
flitter's rear compartment, straightened it, and climbed into the saddle. He
grinned at Hugh, said, "I'll be careful . . . don't worry! See you at the bomb
shelter early in the morning." 


Hugh nodded. "I'll wait for you inside." 


He watched the road glider disappear around the bend toward South Valley, and
took the flitter up again. From the air, nothing out of the ordinary appeared
to have occurred, or to be occurring, in the South Valley district. In
Antoinette and the other towns and villages over which they had passed, people
plainly were going about their everyday activities with no suggestion of an
emergency or of disturbances. But Hugh did not intend to change any part of
his plans. His instincts still smelled a trap. 


By nightfall, he had locked each section of the bomb shelter individually,
then left it, locking the camouflaged entrance behind him. Carrying one of the
jet rigs and a knapsack of camping equipment, and with a heavy automatic
pistol fastened to his belt, he moved uphill through the trees surrounding the
shelter until he reached a point some three hundred yards away, from where he
could watch both the approaches from the river road half a mile below and the
air above the forest. Here he took out a pair of powerful night glasses, laid
his other equipment beside a tree, and settled down to wait. 


If Andy showed up unaccompanied in the morning, he would be there to receive
him and find out what had happened during the past two weeks. But if Andy did
not come alone, or if the shelter was approached by others in the interval,
Hugh would vanish quietly among the big trees behind him. Once over the crest 



of the hill, he would be in the thick timber of a government preserve. He wasan expert outdoorsman and felt no concern about his ability to remain out ofsight there. Before the next morning, the jet rig would have carried him tohis new retreat while any searchers would still be engaged in attempting toopen the last locked sections of the bomb shelter where he was supposed to be. 

Any searchers. . . . Hugh admitted to himself that he could find no rationalanswer to the question of who should be searching for him or what theirpurpose might be. His hunch didn't tell him that. What it told him was to stayready to run if he wanted to survive. 

He intended to do just that.
* * * 

Andy Britton appeared riding the road glider along the route from Antoinettearound nine in the morning. Hugh watched him approach through the glasses.
Nothing had happened during the night. Near morning, when he began to feeltraces of drowsiness, he had taken wake-up pills and come alert again. 

The glider could not be used in the rough natural terrain of the estategrounds. Hugh saw Andy bring it to a stop near the edge of the estate, push itout of sight among some bushes and start up toward the shelter. They hadagreed that he should come on foot, rather than have Hugh bring the flitterdown to the road to pick him up. Hugh remained where he was, continuing toscan the sky, the road in both directions and the woods below him as Andy cameclimbing higher, disappearing for minutes at a time among the trees, thenemerging into open ground again. 

There was no one with him, following him, or watching him from the air. Hughstood up finally, settled knapsack and jet rig over his shoulders, and starteddownhill toward the shelter, still careful to remain out of sight himself. 

He was standing concealed among the bushes above the shelter entrance whenAndy appeared directly below him. 

"Up here, Andy!" Hugh said. 

Andy stopped in his tracks, stood peering about, as if in bewilderment. 

Hugh repeated, "Up here. Right above you . . . see me? That's right. Now comeon up." 

Watching the secretary scramble awkwardly through the shrubbery toward him,
Hugh felt a sharp thrill of renewed apprehension, for Andy was stumbling likea man who was either drunk or on the very edge of exhaustion. Then, as he camecloser, Hugh could see that his face was pale and drawn. A dazed face, Hughtold himself . . . a shocked face. Caution! 

He said sharply, the sense of danger pounding through him, "That's closeenough to talk! Stop there." 

Andy stopped obediently twelve feet away, stood staring at Hugh, then at theknapsack and jet rig Hugh had let slide to the ground, and at the pistolbelted to Hugh's side. A look of growing comprehension came into his face. 

"Yes," Hugh said coldly, "I'm ready to move out if necessary. Is it?" 


Andy seemed to be struggling for words. Then he said, his voice thick andharsh, "I don't think that will do any good, Hugh. You were wrong, you know." 

"About what?" 

"Mars Territory. They weren't behind the Galcom Craze. . . ." His voicefaltered. 

"Go ahead. Then who was behind it?" 

"Hugh, don't you see? The Galcom Teachers were aliens. They took over MarsTerritory two months ago, before they ever showed up on Earth." 

Staring at Andy's sweating, anguished face, Hugh felt a dryness come into histhroat. He asked, "Are you trying to tell me there is such a thing as theGalactic Community -- that those Teachers were its missionaries, just as theyclaimed to be?" 

Andy shook his head. "No. It's worse than that. It's a lot worse than that.
You were right about the symbols. They were doing things to people's mindsthrough them. But it wasn't to teach us how to communicate with others. It'salmost the other way around." 

"The other . . . try to make sense, Andy!" 

"I'm trying to. Those Teachers are the servants or slaves of another race.
They were sent here because they can be made to look and sound like humans.
The others are telepaths and the way they handle their servants is bytelepathic orders. They're in control of whole planets, whole races. Theycouldn't ordinarily have got control of Earth because there were hardly anyhuman beings with enough telepathic sensitivity to receive their orders andrespond to them. So that's what was to be done through the Galcom Craze andthe symbols . . . soften us up mentally to the point where we could understandthe master race's orders." 

"And it succeeded?" 

"Of course it succeeded. They're already here. They arrived on Earth almost aweek ago." 

"Then why . . . ?" 

"Why does everything look so peaceful?" Andy asked bitterly. "Why shouldn'tit? When they give a human an order, the human obeys. He can't help it. Theydon't want our economy to break down. They don't want panics and anarchy. Thisis a valuable planet and their property. Everybody's been told to keep on withtheir regular activities, just as if nothing had happened. So that's exactlywhat they do. 

"But they can tell you what's happened if you start asking them questions. Oh,
Lord, can they tell you about it!" Andy's face wrinkled up and tears ran downhis cheeks. "They've started taking people away in their ships now. Oursurplus population, they say. Nobody knows what happens to . . ." 

Hugh said, shocked, "But they couldn't have got control of everybody. Not soeasily! Not so fast!" 


"No, not everybody. There were the people like ourselves who just hadn'twatched the programs. And what they call 'immunes' -- anyone who doesn't reactto a telepathic command and won't respond to conditioning. What's thedifference? There weren't enough of either. The immunes are being rounded upand killed. The others get the treatment." 

Take Andy or leave him? Andy could still be very useful. . . . 

"Andy," he said, "we'll have to act quickly. If we stay here until they geteverything organized, we won't be able to move without being spotted. Here arethe shelter keys . . . catch them! That's right. Now get in there and get outyour jet rig. We'll lock up the shelter and leave at once." 

Andy nodded. "And then, Hugh?" 

"There's another place I know of. Down south, up in the mountains. Nobody elsearound for miles. . . . We'll be safe there a long time. It's stocked up foryears." Hugh bent for knapsack and rig, added, "After we get there, we'll see.
It's quite probable that I'm an immune myself. We may locate others. I . . ." 

There was a sudden noise behind him. Hugh turned sharply. Andy stood four feetaway, the small gun in his hand pointing straight at Hugh's head. 

"You are an immune, Hugh," he said, chokingly. "But I'm not -- I'm not!" 

The tears poured down his face as he pulled the trigger. 

-Chapter 17 
Clean Slate 

Dr. Eileen Randall put the telephone down, said to George Hair, "It will stillbe a few minutes, I'm afraid, Mr. Hair." She smiled ruefully. "It's veryembarrassing that the Director of ACCED should have to let his own employer,
the government's Administrator of Education, wait to see him! But Dr. Curticedidn't know you were coming until an hour ago, of course." 

"I quite understand, Dr. Randall," George Hair said politely. Eileen Randall,
he thought, was not in the least embarrassed by the situation; and it was notthe first time he had waited here to see Curtice. But her attitude interested 
him. She was belligerently loyal to Curtice, and her manner toward himself, onthe other occasions they had met, had been one of cool hostility. 

Today, there was an air of excitement about her, and something else which haddrawn Hair's attention immediately. She was a lean, attractive, black-hairedwoman in her thirties, normally quiet, certainly not given to coy ruefulnesswith visitors. But he would have said that during the fifteen minutes he hadbeen here, Dr. Randall had been playing a game with him, at least from herpoint of view. Back of it was a new level of self-assurance. She felt, hedecided, somewhat contemptuous of him today. 

It meant the ACCED group believed they had gained some very significantadvantage against him. . . . 

"What did you think of the dog?" she asked, smiling. 


"An amazing animal!" Hair said. "I would not have believed such a performance
was possible. I'm taking it for granted, of course, that the uncanny
intelligence it demonstrated in carrying out your instructions is again a
result of combined SELAM and ACCED techniques. . . . Or perhaps Dr. Curtice
has developed an entirely new educational approach?" 


"New in the extent to which selective amnesia was carried in the dog, Mr.
Hair," Dr. Randall told him. "In this case, the memory impressions of every
experience it had had since its birth were deleted from its brain before
retraining began. The training methods otherwise were exactly the ones we have
used on dogs for the past six years. The results, as you saw, go far beyond
anything we have accomplished with animals before, due to the preliminary
complete amnesia." 


"Indeed?" Hair said. "I'm sure I've had the impression from Dr. Curtice that
it was impossible to induce a complete and permanent amnesia by the use of
instruments without actually destroying brain tissue." 


Dr. Randall gave him a look of gleeful malice. "It was impossible until early
this year, Mr. Hair! That's when Dr. Curtice made the first full-scale tests
of several new instruments he's had under development for some time. It's
quite possible now." She put her hand out to the telephone. "Should I call the
main laboratory again? Of course, they will let us know as soon as he . . ." 


"Of course," George Hair said. "No, no need to call them again, Dr. Randall."
He smiled. "And it isn't really necessary, you know, for you to entertain me
while I'm waiting, although I appreciate your having taken the time for it. If
there's something else you should be doing, please don't let the fact that I'm
here interfere with your work."
* * * 


This was, George Hair told himself, looking out of the fourth-story window of
the ACCED Building at the river below, a bad situation. A very bad situation. 


It was clear that Curtice intended to use the complete amnesia approach on
human subjects next, and Eileen Randall would not have spoken and behaved as
she had if the ACCED group weren't already certain they had Wirt Sebert's
backing for their plan -- possibly even Mallory's. 


And he would have to voice his unequivocal opposition to it. He could not do
anything else. ACCED had never served any useful purpose but that of a
political tool and the purpose had been achieved at an inexcusable expense in
distorted lives. When applied to human beings, it was a failure, a complete
failure. And now the fact could no longer be covered up by new developments
and accomplishments with dogs. 


Politically, of course, a promising new development in the program, if it
could be presented in a convincing manner, was almost required now. It would
be a very poor time to acknowledge failure openly. Governor Wingfield had been
using rumors about ACCED as another means of weakening the Administration's
position and creating a general demand for new elections; and this year, for
the first time in the fifteen years since the Takeover, the demand might grow
too strong to be ignored. A public admission that the ACCED program had not
produced, and could not produce, the results which had been expected of it
might make the difference, as Wingfield understood very well. 



ACCED -- accelerated education -- had been Wirt Sebert's idea to begin with.
Or rather, many ideas for it had been around, but they had never beensystematized, coordinated, or applied on a large scale; and Sebert had orderedall that done. After the Takeover, the need for a major evolution of theeducational system was obvious. The working details of Earth's civilizationhad become so complex that not enough people were able to understand them wellenough to avoid continuous breakdowns. Immediate changes in simplifyingorganization, in centralizing communication had been made, which had helped.
But they could not be expected to remedy matters indefinitely. What was neededin the long run was an army of highly trained men and women capable ofgrasping the multifactored problems of civilization as they arose, capable ofintelligent interaction and of making the best possible use of one another'sskills and knowledge. 

ACCED was to have been the answer to that. Find the way, Wirt Sebert had said,
to determine exactly what information was needed, what was essential, and thenfind the way to hammer it into young brains by the hundreds of thousands.
Nothing less would do. 

So ACCED came into being. It was a project that caught the public'simagination. For three years, a succession of people headed it. Then RichardCurtice was brought in, a man selected personally by Sebert; and Curticequickly took charge. 

At that time, indications of weakness in the overall ACCED approach alreadywere apparent to those conducting the project. George Hair didn't know aboutthem then. He was still Secretary of Finance -- in his own mind and that ofthe public the second man of the Big Four, directly behind President Mallory.
True, Wirt Sebert was Secretary of State, but Hair was the theorist, the manwho had masterminded the Takeover which Mallory, Sebert, and Wingfield, men ofaction, had carried out. He was fully occupied with other matters, and ACCEDwas Sebert's concern. 

Sebert, no doubt, had been aware of the difficulties. ACCED, in the form whichhad been settled on for the project, was based on the principle of reward andpunishment; but reward and punishment were expressed by subtle emotionalconditions of which the subject was barely conscious. Combined with this was arepetitive cramming technique, continuing without interruptions through sleepand waking periods. With few exceptions, the subjects were college and highschool students, and the ACCED process was expected to accomplish the purposefor which it had been devised in them within four to five years.
* * * 

Throughout the first two years, extraordinary results of the process werereported regularly. They were still being reported during the third year, butno mention was made of the severe personality problems which had begun todevelop among the subjects first exposed to ACCED. 

It was at this point that Dr. Curtice was brought into the project, on WirtSebert's instructions. Curtice was then in his late thirties, a man with abrilliant reputation as a psychiatric engineer. Within a year, he was ACCED'sdirector, had selected his own staff, and was engaged in the series ofmodifications in the project which, for the following decade, would keep thefact that ACCED was essentially a failure from becoming general knowledge.
SELAM was Curtice's development, had preceded his appointment to ACCED. Heapplied the selective amnesia machines immediately to the treatment of thewaves of emotional problems arising among ACCED's first host of recruits. In 


this, as George Hair learned later, SELAM was fairly effective, but at the
expense of erasing so much of the ACCED-impressed information that the purpose
of the project was lost. 


Dr. Curtice and his colleagues had decided meanwhile that the principal source
of the troubles with ACCED was that the adolescent and post-adolescent
subjects first chosen for it already had established their individual
personality patterns to a degree which limited the type of information which
could be imposed on them by enforced learning processes without creating a
destructive conflict. The maximum age level for the initiation of the ACCED
approach therefore was reduced to twelve years; and within six months, the new
phase of the project was underway on that basis, and on a greatly extended
scale. 


Simultaneously, Curtice had introduced a third phase -- the transfer of
infants shortly after their birth to ACCED nurseries where training by
selected technicians could be begun under conditions which were free of
distorting influences of any kind. The last presently was announced as the
most promising aspect of the ACCED project, the one which eventually would
produce an integrated class of specialists capable of conducting the world's
economic affairs with the faultless dependability of a machine. 


The implication that the earlier phases were to be regarded as preliminary
experiments attracted little immediate attention and was absorbed gradually
and almost unnoticed by the public.
* * * 


It was during the seventh year of the ACCED project that George Hair's
personal and political fortunes took a turn for which he was not in the least
prepared. There had been a period of sharp conflict within the Administration,
President Mallory and the Secretary of State opposing Oliver Wingfield, the
perennial Vice President. Hair recognized the situation as the power struggle
it essentially was. While his sympathies were largely with Mallory, he had
attempted to mediate between the two groups without taking sides. But the men
of action were not listening to Hair, the theorist, now. Eventually Wingfield
was ousted from the government, though he had too strong and well-organized a
following to be ousted from public life. 


And shortly afterwards, Mallory explained privately to George Hair that his
failure to throw in his full influence against Wingfield had created so much
hostility for him, particularly in Sebert's group, that it was impossible to
retain him as Secretary of Finance. Mallory made it clear that he still liked
Hair as a person but agreed with Sebert that he should play no further major
role in the Administration. 


It was a bad shock to Hair. Unlike Wingfield and the others, he had developed
no personal organization to support him. He had, he realized now, taken it for
granted that his continuing value as an overall planner was so obvious to
Mallory and Wirt Sebert that nothing else could be needed to secure his
position beside them. For a time, he considered retiring into private life;
but in the end, he accepted the position of Administrator of Education offered
him by Mallory, which included among other matters responsibility for the
ACCED Project. 


Hair's first encounter with Dr. Curtice left him more impressed by ACCED's
director than he had expected to be. He was aware that the project had been
much less successful than was generally assumed to be the case, and his mental 



image of Curtice had been that of a glib operator who was willing to useappearances in place of facts to strengthen his position. But Curticeobviously had an immense enthusiasm for what he was doing, radiated self-
assurance and confidence in ACCED's final success to a degree which wasdifficult to resist. There was nothing in his manner to suggest that heresented Hair's appointment as his superior; it was the attitude of EileenRandall and, to a less extent, that of Dr. Longdon, Curtice's two chiefassistants, which made it clear from the start that Hair was, in fact,
resented. 

There were also indications that Wirt Sebert was not pleased with theappointment; and Hair suspected there had been a touch of friendly malice inMallory's move -- a reminder to Sebert that Mallory, although he had agreed toHair's ouster from Finance, was still the Big Man of the original Big Four.
Hair himself had enough stubbornness in him to ignore Sebert's continuingantagonism and the lack of cooperation he could expect from Sebert's protégésin ACCED. He had been somewhat startled when his first survey of the newsituation in which he found himself showed that other activities of the 
Department of Education were of no significance except as they pertained tothe ACCED project. Dr. Curtice evidently had been running the Department verymuch as he pleased in recent years. It seemed time, George Hair thought, toestablish whether ACCED was worth anywhere near the support it was gettingfrom the government. 

The Project was now in its seventh year. The initial experiment involving highschool and college age groups was no longer mentioned and had almost droppedfrom the public mind. Hair's check brought him the information that aconsiderable number of the original subjects were still undergoing remedialpsychiatric treatment at ACCED institutions. The others had merged back intothe population. It was clear that the ACCED process had not had a singlelasting success in that group. 

Hair visited a number of the ACCED-run schools next where the process had beenin use for the past three years. The age level here varied between ten andthirteen. He was shown records which indicated the ACCED students were far in 
advance of those to whom standard educational methods had been applied. Thetechnicians assured him that, unlike their older predecessors, the presentsubjects were showing no undesirable emotional reactions to the process. Hairdid not attempt to argue with the data given by their instruments. But he sawthe children and did not like what he saw. They looked and acted, he thought,
like small, worried grown-ups. 

His inspection of two of the nursery schools was made against Dr. Randall'scoldly bitter opposition: the appearance of a stranger among ACCED's youngestexperimental subjects was unscheduled and would therefore create, adisturbance; nobody had been allowed there before. But Hair was quietlyinsistent. It turned into a somewhat eerie experience. The students werebetween two and four years old and physically looked healthy enough. Theywere, however, remarkably quiet. They seemed, Hair thought, slower thanchildren at that age should be, though as a bachelor he admittedly hadn't hadmuch chance to study children that age. 

Then one of the taciturn attendants conducting him through the school caughthis eye and indicated a chubby three-year-old squatting in a cubicle byhimself, apparently assembling a miniature television set. Hair watched inamazement until the assembly was completed, tested, and found satisfactory;
whereupon the small mechanic lay down beside the instrument and went to sleep. 


They had another trump card waiting for him. This was a girl, perhaps a yearolder, who informed Hair she understood he had been Secretary of Finance andwished to ask him some questions. The questions were extremely pertinent ones,
and Hair found himself involved in a twenty-minute defense of the financialpolicies he had pursued during the twelve years he held the office. Then hisinquisitor thanked him for his time and wandered off.
* * * 

One could not object to ACCED as an experiment, George Hair concluded. Anapproach capable of producing such remarkable results was worth pursuing,
within sensible limitations. The trouble with ACCED was chiefly that it wasneither regarded nor handled as a limited experiment. Curtice and hisassistants seemed completely indifferent to the fact that by now the processeshad been applied to well over fifty thousand cases, only a handful of whichhad been under their immediate supervision. The number was increasingannually; and if the second and third groups were to show delayed negativeresponses similar to those of the first, the damage might not become apparentfor several more years but would then be enormously more significant than thedevelopment of a relatively few precocious geniuses. 

Hair took his figures to Mallory, pointed out the political dangers of failureif ACCED was continued on its present scale, recommended cutting it backsharply to the level of a controlled experiment until Curtice's group was ableto show that the current stages of their work would not bog down in the sametype of problems as the first had done. This would release department fundsfor the investigation of other approaches to the educational problem whichcould be brought into development if it appeared eventually that ACCED had tobe written off. 

Mallory heard him out, then shook his head. 

"I've been aware of what you've told me, George," he said. "The trouble isthat neither you nor I have the background to understand fully what Curtice isup to. But the man has a fantastic mind. There's nobody in his field toapproach him today. He feels he needs the kind of wide, generalexperimentation he's getting through ACCED and his work with SELAM to producethe information he's after. I've seen some of the results of both, and I'mbetting on him!" 

He added thoughtfully, "If you're right in suspecting that the approach has aninherent weakness in it which will make it ultimately unusable, it'll show upwithin another few years. Time enough then to decide what to do. But until wedo have proof that it isn't going to work, let's let the thing ride." 

He grinned, added again, "Incidentally, I'll appreciate being kept informed onwhat's going on in the department. ACCED is Wirt's baby, of course, butthere's no reason it should be his baby exclusively. . . ." 

Which made Hair's role clear. Mallory was curious about Sebert's interest inACCED, had wanted a dependable observer who would be associated closely enoughwith the project to detect any significant developments there. Hair was now ina position to do just that. But he was not to interfere with Curtice becausethat would defeat Mallory's purpose. 

Hair accepted the situation. He could not act against Sebert's wishes unlesshe had Mallory's authority behind him; and if Mallory had decided to wait 


until it was certain Curtice had failed, his role must remain that of aninvestigator. In time, the evidence would present itself. The reports he wasreceiving from the ACCED Building could not be considered reliable, but he wasinstalling his own observers at key points in the project; and if that did notincrease his popularity with Curtice and his colleagues, it would insure, Hairthought, that not too much of what was done escaped his attention. Inaddition, there was an obvious pattern to the manner in which the variousproject activities were stressed or underemphasized which should serve toguide him now.
* * * 

The emphasis during the next two years shifted increasingly to SELAM. Afterthe first wave of acute psychoneurotic disturbances had subsided, Curtice'sselective amnesia machines had played a limited role in the ACCED projectitself; but they had been used experimentally in a variety of other ways.
SELAM, when it was effective, produced a release of specific tensions bydeleting related portions of the established neural circuitry and therebymodifying the overall pattern of the brain's activity. It had a record ofsuccessful applications in psychiatric work, the relief of psychosomaticproblems, some forms of senility, in the rehabilitation of criminals, andfinally in animal experiments where the machines could be used to theirfullest scope. The present limiting factor, according to Curtice, lay in thedifficulty and the length of time required to train a sufficient number ofoperators up to the necessary level of understanding and skill in handling themachines. Most of SELAM's more spectacular successes had, in fact, beenachieved by himself and a handful of his immediate associates. 

The story was now that this problem was being overcome, that a corps of SELAMexperts soon would be available to serve the public in various ways, and thatthe average citizen could expect a number of direct benefits for himself,
including perhaps that of a virtual rejuvenation, in the foreseeable future.
George Hair did not give much attention to these claims. They were, hethought, another distraction; meanwhile, ACCED could receive correspondinglyless publicity. And ACCED, as a matter of fact, if it had not yet encountereda renewed serious setback, was, at least, being slowed down deliberately inorder to avoid one. A number of the teen-age schools had quietly closed, thestudents having been transferred to country camps where the emphasis was onsports and recreation, while accelerated education had been reduced to a fewhours a day. Curtice admitted privately that certain general danger signalshad been noted and that a pause in the overall program was indicated until thedifficulties had been analyzed and dealt with. He did not appear undulyconcerned. 

It was during the third year following Hair's attempt to persuade Mallory tohave ACCED cut back at once to the level of experimental research that OliverWingfield launched his first public attacks on the project. Wingfield was thencampaigning for the governorship he was to win with startling ease a fewmonths later, while continuing his crusade for the general elections he hopedwould move him into the top spot in the Administration. The detailed nature ofhis charges against ACCED made it evident that he had informants among theproject personnel. 

It put George Hair in a difficult position. If it was a choice betweensupporting Wingfield and supporting Mallory, he much preferred to supportMallory. This was due less to his remaining feelings of friendship for Mallorythan to the fact that Oliver Wingfield's policies had always had an aspect ofangry destructiveness about them. As one of the Big Four, he had been 


sufficiently held in check; his pugnacity and drive had made him extremely
useful then. If he was allowed to supplant Mallory, however, he would be a
dangerous man. 


In all reason, Hair thought, they should have closed out ACCED before this.
The political damage would have been insignificant if the matter was handled
carefully. To do it now, under Wingfield's savage criticism, would be a much
more serious matter. The government would appear to have retreated under
pressure, and Wingfield's cause would be advanced. But he was not sure the
step could be delayed much longer. 


Then he had his first reports of six-year-old and seven-year-old psychotics in
several of the nursery schools. They were unofficial reports coming from his
own observers; and the observers were not entirely certain of their facts; the
local school staffs had acted immediately to remove the affected children, so
that the seriousness of their condition could not be ascertained. It looked 
bad enough; it was, in fact, what Hair had expected and, recently, had feared.
But he told himself that these might be isolated cases, that there might not
be many more of them. If that turned out to be true, the matter conceivably
could be ignored until the political climate again became more favorable to
the government. 


Unless, of course, Oliver Wingfield heard of it. . . . 


Wingfield apparently didn't hear of it. His attacks during the next few weeks
were directed primarily at the camps for ACCED's teen-age subjects. Curtice's
group had volunteered no information on the incidents to Hair; and Hair did
not press them for it. For a while, there was a lull in the reports of his
observers. 


Then the reports began to come in again; and suddenly it was no longer a
question of isolated incidents. An epidemic of insanity was erupting in the
ACCED nursery schools, and Hair knew he could wait no longer.
* * * 


He had come to the ACCED Building expecting to find Curtice and his associates
evasive, defensive, perhaps attempting to explain away what could no longer be
explained away. That they might have the gall even now to think that giving
the project another shift would avert the storm of public criticism due to
burst over ACCED as soon as Wingfield's informants learned of the swiftly
rising number of psychotic children in the nursery schools would never have
occurred to him if he had not been warned by Eileen Randall's manner. Even so,
he felt shocked and amazed. 


The ACCED group might delude itself to that extent, he thought. But Wirt
Sebert must be standing behind them in this. And how could Sebert show such
incredibly bad judgment? Further, at so critical a time, Sebert would have
conferred with Mallory before committing himself to giving Curtice further
support, and Mallory must have agreed to it. 


He could not believe that of Philip Mallory. Unless . . . 


George Hair stood frowning out of the window of the ACCED Building at the
river curving through the valley below. Unless, he thought, Curtice had, this
time, come up with a genuine breakthrough, something indisputable and of great
and exciting significance, something that could not be challenged. Because
that might still do it, stifle Wingfield's declamations and dim the picture of 



lunatic children in the public's mind. The public forgot so easily again. 

"Mr. Hair," Eileen Randall's voice purred from the doorway. 

Hair turned. Her mouth curved into a condescending smile. 

"Will you come with me, please? They're waiting to see you now. . . ." 

A hundred feet down the hallway, she opened the door to Curtice's big officefor him. As Hair stepped inside, he was barely able to suppress a start ofsurprise. Beside Curtice and Dr. Longdon, there was a third man in the officewhose presence, for a moment, seemed completely incongruous. 

"Good morning, Felix," Hair said. "I didn't expect to find you here." 

Felix Austin, Chief Justice and President Mallory's right-hand man for thepast five years, smiled briefly. He was tall and sparse, in his late fifties,
almost exactly Hair's age. 

"As a matter of fact, George," he said, "I hadn't expected to meet you todayeither. But I happened to be in the building, and when I heard you wanted tospeak to Dr. Curtice, I thought I might sit in on the discussion. If you'drather I'd leave, I shall do it at once, of course." 

Hair shook his head. "No, you're quite welcome to stay." He took a seat, laidthe briefcase he had brought with him on his knees. Eileen Randall sat downacross the room from him, not far from Curtice. 

Hair's fingers were trembling, though not enough to be noticed by anyone buthimself, as he opened the briefcase and drew out three copies of a resume madeup from the reports of his ACCED observers during the past six weeks. Austin'spresence, of course, was not a coincidence; and he wasn't expected to believethat it was. He was being told that he should not count on Mallory backing himagainst Curtice today. He had suspected it, but the fact still dumbfounded himbecause he could not see Mallory's motive. He looked at Eileen Randall. 

"Dr. Randall," he said, "I have here three copies of a paper I should like thegroup to see. Please give one each to Dr. Curtice and the Chief Justice.
Perhaps you and Dr. Longdon will be willing to share the third." 

Eileen Randall hesitated an instant, then stood up, came over and took thepapers from him. Austin cleared his throat. 

"We're to read this immediately, George?" he asked. 

"Please do," Hair said.
* * * 

He watched them while they read. Austin frowned thoughtfully; Curtice seemedcompletely uninterested. Longdon and Eileen Randall exchanged occasionalglances. Curtice finished first, waited until the others put down theircopies. 

He said then, "These figures are remarkably accurate, Mr. Hair. Of course,
we've known you had good men working for you. The current incidence is perhapsa trifle higher than shown." He looked over at Dr. Longdon. "About eight percent, wouldn't you say, Bill?" 


"Approximately," Longdon agreed. 

"We understand and appreciate your concern, Mr. Hair," Curtice went on withapparent sincerity. "But as it happens" -- his forefinger tapped the resume -"
this is not a matter which need give any of us concern, although you were notin a position to know it. The situation was anticipated. We have been surealmost from the beginning that immature brains would not be able to absorb thevast volume of information forced on them by ACCED indefinitely, and that thefinal result would be the acute stress and confusion expressed in thesefigures." 

"You were sure of it almost from the beginning?" Hair repeated. 

"I became convinced of it personally within a few months after I was broughtinto the project," Curtice said. 

George Hair stared at him. "Then, in Heaven's name, why -- if you were certainof eventual failure -- did you continue with these monstrous experiments foryears?" 

"Because," Curtice said patiently, "they were producing a great deal ofinformation -- information we absolutely needed to have, absolutely needed totest in practice." 

"For what purpose?" Hair demanded. He looked over at Austin. "Felix, you'reinformed of what these people have been doing?" 

Austin nodded. "Yes, I am, George." His voice and face were expressionless. 

"Then supposing you. . . ." 

"No, let Dr. Curtice tell it, George. He can answer your questions better thanI can." 

It appeared, Hair thought, that Austin was deferring deliberately to Curtice,
to make it clear that Curtice was now to be considered the equal of either ofthem. 

"We needed the information," Curtice continued, as if there had been nointerruption, "for a purpose it would not have been advisable to make publicat the time. It would have made much of the research we were planningvirtually impossible, particularly since we had no way of proving, even toourselves, that what we wanted to do could be accomplished. Even today, lessthan two dozen people are fully informed of the plan. 

"Our purpose, Mr. Hair, was and is the creation of a genuine superman -- a,
man who will be physically and mentally as fully developed as his geneticstructure permits. I have had this goal in mind for many years -- it has beenthe aim of all my experiments with SELAM. When ACCED was formed, I saw thepossibilities of incorporating its methods into my own projects. I went toSecretary Sebert and informed him of my plans. That was why I was madeDirector of the ACCED project. All ACCED's activities since that day have beendesigned solely to supply us with further information." 

"And how," Hair asked, making no attempt to keep the incredulous distaste hefelt out of his voice, "do you propose to go about creating your superman?" 


Curtice said, "An adult brain, and only an adult brain, has the structuralcapacity to assimilate the information supplied by the accelerated educationalprocesses as it streams in. A child's brain is not yet structured to storemore than a limited amount of information at a time. It is developing tooslowly to meet our purpose. 

"But, as the first experiments with ACCED showed, an adult brain, even thebrain of a young adult, already has accumulated so much distorted informationthat the swift, orderly inflow of ACCED data again produces disastrousconflicts and disturbances. Hence the work with SELAM techniques during theseyears. We know now that a brain fully developed and mature, but with allmemory, all residual traces of the life experiences which brought about itsdevelopment removed from it, can be taught everything ACCED can teach, perhapsvastly more it will be able to absorb and utilize the new informationcompletely."
* * * 

There was a long pause. Then Hair said, "And that is the story you will tellthe public? That you can delete all a man's present memories, subject him tothe ACCED processes, and finally emerge with a new man, an ACCED-trainedsuperman -- who happens to have been the goal of the project all along?" 

"Essentially that," Curtice said. 

Hair shook his head. "Dr. Curtice," he said, "I don't believe that story!
Oliver Wingfield won't believe it. And, this time finally, the public won'tbelieve it. You're just looking for another lease of time to continue yourexperiments." 

Curtice smiled without rancor, glanced at Austin. 

"Felix," he said, "perhaps you'd better talk to him, after all." 

Austin cleared his throat. 

"It's true enough, George," he said. "Dr. Curtice has proof that he can doexactly as he says." 

Hair looked back at Curtice. 

"Does that mean," he asked, "that you actually have produced such a superman?" 

"No," Curtice said. He laughed, apparently with genuine amusement now. "Andwith very good reason! We know we can remove all memory traces from a humanbrain and leave that brain in undamaged condition and in extremely goodworking order. We have done it with subjects in their seventieth year of lifeas well as with subjects in their fifth year of life, and with no greaterbasic difficulty. We also have applied modified ACCED methods to the fiveyear-
old subjects and found they absorbed information at the normal rate of anewly born infant -- much too slowly, as I have explained, for our purpose.
but we have not applied ACCED methods of instruction to the adult memorylesssubjects. We want supermen, but we want them to be supermen of our selection.
That's the next and the all-important stage of the project." 

"Then," George Hair said flatly, "I still do not believe you, and the publicwill not believe you. Your story will be put down as another bluff." 


Curtice smiled faintly again. 


"Will it?" he asked. "If the Director of ACCED becomes the first subject to
undergo the total process?" 


Hair's mouth dropped open. "You are to be. . . ." 


"And if," Curtice went on, "Chief Justice Felix Austin has volunteered to be
the second subject?" 


Hair looked in bewilderment from one to the other of them. 


"Felix, is this true?" 


"I fully intend to be the second subject," Austin told him seriously. "This is
a big thing, George -- a very big thing! The third and fourth subjects,
incidentally, following Dr. Curtice and myself by approximately two years,
will be President Mallory and Secretary Sebert. . . ."
* * * 


George Hair sat in his study, watching the public reaction indicator edge up
above the seventy-two mark on the positive side of the scale. Two hours
before, just after the official announcement of the government's Rejuvenation
Program was made, the indicator had hovered around forty. The response had
been a swift and favorable one, though no more favorable than Hair had
expected. 


It was a little over five weeks since his meeting with Curtice and Felix
Austin in the ACCED Building. Mallory's and Sebert's publicity staffs had been
in full action throughout that time, operating indirectly except for an
occasional, carefully vague release which no more than hinted at a momentous
development to come. The planted rumors were far more direct. "Rejuvenation"
was a fully established concept in the public mind days before the actual
announcement; the missing details, however, were the sensational and
unexpected ones -- precisely the explosive touch required to swing the
skeptical and merely curious over to instant support of the official program. 


Curtice's goal of the ACCED-trained mental superman was being played down at
present; it was less tangible, of far less direct interest, than the
observable response of an aging body to the complete SELAM process. Hair had
seen the seventy-year-old subjects of whom Curtice had told him. They were old
men still, but old men from whom the physical and emotional tensions of a
lifetime had been drained together with the memory traces of a lifetime. The
relaxed, sleeping bodies had fleshed out again, become strong and smooth-
skinned, presenting the appearance of young maturity. They gave credibility to
Curtice's claim, based on comparable work with animals, that SELAM now offered
humanity a life extension of at least sixty healthy years. 


The public had seen those same rejuvenated bodies in the tridi screens today.
It had listened while Curtice explained the developments in his SELAM machines
which had brought about the miracle, and watched him walk smiling into the
laboratory where he was to become the first human being to whom the combined
SELAM and ACCED techniques would be fully applied. 


Those were compelling arguments. The superman theme had been barely introduced
but would grow in significance as the implications of Felix Austin following 



Curtice within a few months, and Mallory and Sebert following Austin withintwo years, were considered. What the leaders wanted for themselves, the publicwanted. Unofficially, the word already was out that when the President andSecretary received the Rejuvenation treatment, a hundred deserving citizenswould receive it with them, that SELAM and ACCED would become available to allwhose personal records qualified them for the processes as quickly as Dr.
Curtice's intricate machines could be duplicated and technicians trained intheir use. 

There was no question, George Hair thought, that the bait was being swallowed.
And the thought appalled him. On the one occasion he'd spoken with PhilipMallory during the past weeks, he had brought up the subject of loss ofindividuality, of personality, by the SELAM process and in the subsequentperiod when, within a year and a half, a new mentality would be created bymachines in the emptied, receptive brain, perhaps a vastly more efficientmentality but nevertheless. . . . 

And Mallory had looked at him shrewdly, and laughed. 

"The old Phil will be there again, George -- don't worry!" he'd said. "I'm notsuddenly rushing into this thing, you know. We can't talk about everythingDick Curtice has done with SELAM, but I've seen enough of his half-way jobs togo ahead." He gave Hair a conspiratorial dig with his elbow. "If Curticeweren't as far along as he is, Wingfield would have had our skins beforesummer! That's part of it. The other part of it is that I'm sixty-four andSebert's sixty-six. You're fifty-eight yourself. We can all use somefreshening up if we're to stay on top of the pile. . . ." 

That had been the lure for Mallory. If it hadn't been for the pressures beingbuilt up by Wingfield, Hair thought, Mallory need have felt no concern aboutremaining on top for another twenty years. But he'd seen the developing threatand prepared quietly to more than match it with a bold, overwhelming move ofhis own. A new Big Four was in the making, a Big Four of supermen, withCurtice in Hair's position as thinker and theorist, Felix Austin inWingfield's, while Mallory and Sebert remained the central two, the leaders.
Hair had no illusions about his own prospects in the new era. As Administratorof Education, he had remained a popular, almost legendary figure; but it wasclear now that it had been a popularity skillfully maintained by Mallory'spublicity machine to give ACCED additional respectability in the transitionperiod ahead. Thereafter, the legend would be allowed to fade away, and hewith it. 

He didn't, Hair decided, really want it otherwise. He did not share Mallory'swill to stay on top at all costs . . . definitely not at the cost of allowinghis personality to be dissolved in Curtice's Rejuvenation process, even if theopportunity were offered him, although he was already quite certain it wouldnot be offered. The new ruling group would have no further need of him. 

He could resign now; but it would be awkward and change nothing. The psychoticchildren in ACCED's nursery schools were no longer an issue. They had beenmentioned, casually, as a detail of the experiments, now concluded, which hadbeen required to produce Rejuvenation, with the additional note that theirrehabilitation would be undertaken promptly. The statement had aroused fewcomments . . . He might as well, George Hair told himself finally, watch thething through to the end.
* * * 


During the next three months, he found himself involved frequently in the
publicity connected with the Rejuvenation program, although he refused
interviews and maintained the role of a detached spectator. Oliver Wingfield,
stunned into silence no more than a few days, shifted his attack from ACCED to
the new government program, lashed out savagely at Hair from time to time as
one of the planners of what he described as an attempt to foist the rule of
robot minds on normal men. Hair, not too sure he wasn't in some agreement with
Wingfield on the latter point, held his peace; but Mallory's publicity experts
happily took up the battle. 


Despite Wingfield's best efforts, the Rejuvenation program retained its high
level of popularity. The successful conclusion of the SELAM phase of the
process on Richard Curtice was announced by Dr. Langdon. For the next sixty
days, Curtice would be kept asleep to permit physical regeneration to be well
advanced before ACCED was introduced by degrees to the case. Tridi strips
taken at ten-day intervals showed the gradual transformation of a middle-aged
scientist in moderately good condition to a firm-muscled athlete apparently in
his early twenties. Attention began to shift to Felix Austin as the next to
take the step, six weeks after Curtice's ACCED training had begun; and the
continuing denunciations by Wingfield and his followers acquired a note of
raging hysteria. 


Three months and ten days after Curtice had submitted himself to his SELAM
machines, George Hair came back to the ACCED Building, now the center of the
new Rejuvenation complex. He was not at all sure why he should be there, but
Longdon had called him that morning, told him there had been a very important
development and asked him to come as soon as he possibly could. There had been
a degree of urgency in the man's voice which had made it difficult to refuse.
Hair was conducted to a part of the building he had not seen before and into a
room where Longdon was waiting for him. 


Longdon's appearance underlined the urgency Hair had sensed in his voice when
he called. His eyes were anxious; his face looked drawn and tired. He said,
"Mr. Hair, thank you very much for coming so promptly! Dr. Randall and I are
faced with a very serious problem here which I could not discuss on the
telephone. It's possible that you will be able -- and willing -- to help us.
Let me show you what the trouble is." 


He opened a door to another room, motioned to Hair to enter, and followed him
inside, leaving the door open. 


Hair recognized this room immediately. He had seen it several times in the
tridi screen during demonstrations of the changes being brought about in
Curtice's physical condition by SELAM. As he had been then, Curtice was lying
now on a sunken bed in a twelve by twelve foot depression in the floor, his
tanned, muscular body clothed only in white trunks. His face was turned toward
the door by which they had entered and his eyes were half opened. Then, as
they came toward him, his right hand lifted, made a slow, waving motion
through the air, dropped to his side again. 


"Our subject is exceptionally responsive today!" Dr. Longdon commented, an odd
note of savage irony in his voice. 


Hair looked quickly at him, frowning, asked, "What is the problem you wanted
to discuss?" 
* * * 



Longdon nodded at the figure sprawled across the sunken bed. 

"There is the problem!" he said. "Mr. Hair, as you know, our calculations showthat an adult brain, freed completely by SELAM techniques of the clutter ofmemories it has stored away, can absorb the entire volume of ACCED informationwithin a period of less than two years. At the end of that time, in otherwords, we again would have a functioning adult, and one functioning in a farmore integrated manner, far more efficiently, than is possible to the normallyeducated human being, and on the basis now of a vastly greater fund ofaccurate information than a normal human mind can acquire in alifetime. . . ." 

"I know, of course, that that was your goal," Hair said. "Apparently,
something has gone wrong with it." 

"Very decidedly!" Longdon said. "This is the forty-third day since we began touse ACCED training methods on Curtice. In child subjects -- children whosememories were completely erased by SELAM at the age of five -- forty-threedays of modified ACCED produced a vocabulary equivalent to that of an averagetwo-year-old. Curtice, in the same length of time, has acquired no vocabularyat all. Spoken words have no more meaning to him today than when we started." 

A door had opened and closed quietly behind Hair while Longdon was speaking.
He guessed that Eileen Randall had come into the room but did not look around.
He was increasingly puzzled by Longdon's attitude. Curtice's failure todevelop speech might be a very serious problem -- might, in fact, bethreatening the entire Rejuvenation program. But he did not see what it had todo with him, or how they expected him to help them. 

He asked, "Have you discovered what the difficulty is?" 

"Yes," Longdon said, "we know now what the difficulty is." He hesitated,
scowling absently down at Curtice for a few seconds, went on. "A child, Mr.
Hair, a young child, wants to learn. Not long after birth, it enters a phasewhere learning might appear to be almost its primary motivation. Later inlife, it may retain the drive to learn or it may lose it. It has been assumedthat this depended on whether its life experiences were of a nature toencourage the learning urge, or to suppress and eventually to stifle it. 

"Now it appears that this is only partly true. Later life experiences mayindeed foster and even create a learning urge of their own. But the naturaldrive, the innate drive, apparently is present only for a comparatively shorttime in childhood. It is not, in itself, a permanent motivation in man. 

"Dr. Curtice's biological age is nearly fifty years. Before SELAM wiped theeffects of his life experiences from him, he was, of course, a man intenselyinterested in learning, intensely curious. But his curiosity and interest werebased on the experiences he has lost, and were lost with them. And he isdecades past the age where the innate drive to learn could still motivate him. 

"We can teach him almost nothing because he is inherently uninterested inlearning anything. We have used every conceivable method to stimulate interestand curiosity in him. Intense pleasure or severe pain will producecorresponding reactions, but when the sensations end, he appears to forgetthem quickly again. 

"There is, however, a barely detachable learning curve, which can be 


projected. In twenty years, by the consistent use of brutally drastic methods,
we should be able to train Dr. Curtice's brain to the point where he couldcomprehend very simple instructions. By that time, of course, the trainingprocess itself would have produced such severe physical and emotional stressesthat the rejuvenating effect of SELAM would have been lost, and he would beshowing -- at the very least -- his actual physical age." 

Dr. Longdon shrugged, spread his hands, concluded, "So at best, Mr. Hair, wemight wind up eventually with a very stupid, very dull old man of seventy.
* * * 

Eileen Randall's voice said harshly behind Hair, "Mr. Hair, it is not nearlyas hopeless as that! Not nearly!" 

She went on vehemently, as he turned to look at her. "We simply need time!
Time to understand what really has happened here . . . to decide what must be 
done about it. If Richard weren't helpless, he would tell us what to do! Hewould never -- " Her voice broke suddenly. 

Longdon said patiently, giving Hair an apologetic glance, "Eileen, you knowwe've gone endlessly over all calculations, tried everything! We. . . ." 

"We have not!" Eileen Randall began to weep. 

George Hair looked in something like irritated amazement from one to the otherof them. He said carefully, "This is, of course, a very serious matter, but Iam hardly qualified to assist you in it. It's no secret to you that myconnection with the program has been and is a purely figurative one. The onlysuggestion I can make is that President Mallory should be informed immediatelyof the problems you've encountered here." 

Longdon said tonelessly, "President Mallory is aware of the problem, Mr.
Hair." 

"What?" Hair said sharply. "When was he told?" 

"Over a month ago. As soon as it became evident that Dr. Curtice was notresponding normally to the ACCED approach for dememorized subjects." Longdoncleared his throat. "President Mallory's instructions were to maintainabsolute secrecy while we looked for a solution. Now, however. . . ." Heshrugged. 

Over a month ago . . . Hair's mind seemed to check for an instant at thewords; then his thoughts were racing as Longdon went on. For more than a monthafter Mallory and Sebert had realized that the Rejuvenation program might endin humiliating public failure before it had well begun, the build-up hadcontinued, Oliver Wingfield and his adherent were being scientifically needledinto a crescendo of baffled rage, and Felix Austin -- yes, only five days fromnow, Chief Justice Austin was scheduled to undergo the SELAM techniques whichevidently had destroyed Curtice! Hair felt a sudden chill prickling the backof his neck. . . . 

"Mr. Hair, you must help us!" Eileen Randall was staring desperately at him,
tears streaming down her face. 

"There's no way I could help you, Dr. Randall." 


"But you can -- you must! They'll murder Richard if you don't! They've said
so! You -- your influence with President Mallory -- his old friend. . . ." The
words drowned in a choked wailing.
* * * 


Hair felt his breath shorten. Curtice had to die, of course -- die plausibly
and conveniently so that his condition need never be revealed. But Mallory and
Sebert weren't stupid enough to think that Curtice's death alone would be
sufficient. 


"It isn't necessary!" Eileen Randall was babbling shrilly again. "Even -- even
if the program has to end, we could take him away quietly, take care of him
somewhere. They could say he was dead -- no one would ever know! We. . . ."
She clapped her hands to her face, turned and ran from the room, making
muffled, squalling sounds. 


"I should see she's taken care of, Mr. Hair," Longdon said shakily. "If you'll
excuse me a minute. . . ." He started for the door. 


"Dr. Longdon!" 


Longdon stopped, looked back. "Yes?" 


"Who suggested to you that I should use my influence with President Mallory on
Curtice's behalf?" 


Longdon's eyes flickered. "Chief Justice Austin." 


"I see," Hair said. "When did he suggest it?" 


"This morning," Longdon told him, with a brief, frightened grimace. "He was
here shortly before I called you. I could not avoid acknowledging that Dr.
Curtice's case was hopeless. The Chief Justice advised us then that only your
personal appeal to President Mallory could save Curtice's life, that we should
attempt to get in touch with you immediately . . ." 


He hurried out of the room. Hair stood staring after him a moment, then
turned, glanced at the mindless thing on the sunken bed, went quickly over to
the other door through which he and Longdon had entered. There had been, he
recalled, a telephone in the outer room. 


He dialed the number of his office, waited, listening to the soft purr on the
line. Then, suddenly, the line went dead. 


That was that, Hair told himself. He replaced the receiver, went over to the
window and looked out at the newly erected buildings of the Rejuvenation
complex. His thoughts seemed to be moving sluggishly. Perhaps it was fear; but
perhaps it simply had been too long a time since he had been involved in an
operation of this kind. After the Takeover, it no longer had seemed necessary;
and he had a feeling that what was going on now was somehow unreal. 


But it was real enough. Mallory, the man of action, the practical man who
intended to remain on top, hadn't forgotten the lessons of the past. He might
have been betting on Curtice's genius, but he had been preparing for years to
hedge on the bet if necessary. Perhaps he'd never expected ACCED or the
Rejuvenation program to come to anything. Either way, he could turn the
projects to his advantage in the end. 



Hair's gaze shifted for a moment to the sky above the buildings. It would comefrom there in all likelihood, and in an instant of ravening fury theRejuvenation complex would be obliterated. The buildings, the personnel, themachines, the records, anything that would have left the slightest possibilityof beginning the program again . . . and George Hair, the thinker, thetheorist, the living legend, whom Mallory had not forgiven for failing tothrow in his influence openly against Wingfield in their first struggle forcontrol. 

Wingfield would be blamed for it, and they could make it stick. Wingfield wasfinished. . . . 

Hair turned at a sound behind him. Longdon had come into the room. 

"Mr. Hair," he said, grinning apologetically, "you must forgive Eileen! Shehas always been in love with Curtice, of course. If she is only allowed totake care of him, she will be satisfied. I hope you can persuade PresidentMallory to leave her that much. . . ." 

Hair looked at Longdon's anxious eyes. Longdon hadn't grasped everything, ofcourse, but he had grasped enough to be aware that not only Curtice's life wasin danger. 

For an instant, Hair wondered how Longdon would react if he were told thatcommunications from the building to the world outside already were beingintercepted, and that therefore neither of them -- nor anyone else within halfa mile of where they stood -- could have more than a very few minutes still tolive. 

But although he had never liked Longdon in the least, that seemed a pointlesscruelty now. 

"I'll see what I can do, Dr. Longdon," he agreed. 

-Chapter 18 
Time for Crime 

We've separated out those of Schmitz's stories with a specific crime theme andhave put them in here. Among these half dozen stories are the three storieswhich Schmitz wrote that have no science fiction element at all, but arepurely "crime fiction." (Although, even there, the longest of the stories -"
Crime Buff" -- has a vaguely fantastical feeling about it, at least in thenature of the peculiar family which lies at the center of the tale.) But we'vealso included three others which, though technically SF, could also bedescribed as crime stories with a twist. 

With Schmitz, the distinction is somewhat artificial anyway. A large number ofSchmitz's stories focused on crime, including some of his very best Hubstories -- such as "The Searcher," to give just one example. For that matter,
the first and longest story in "Homo Excelsior," "The Ties of Earth," is hardboiled 
enough that we considered including it here and giving this section thealternate title "Schmitz Noir." "The Ties of Earth" is probably the closestscience fiction has ever come to the spirit which infuses the writings of the 


great crime novelist Raymond Chandler. And "Just Curious," of course, is asmuch of a crime story as it is a psi horror story. 

Still, making fine distinctions is part of what editors do, and so we puttogether the six stories which we think, taken as a whole, give the spectrumof Schmitz's approach to mixing crime and speculative fiction. In fact, thetitle of the section itself ("Time for Crime") was determined by one of thestories, which, in a whimsical manner, posits the idea that stealing timeitself might someday be a crime. 

-Chapter 19 
Crime Buff 

Jeff Clary stood halfway down the forested hillside at the edge of a shortdrop-off, studying the house on the cleared land below. It was a large two-
story house with a wing; Jeff thought it might contain as many as twenty-fiveto thirty rooms. There was an old-fashioned, moneyed look about it, and thelawns around it seemed well-tended. It could have been an exclusive sanitarium 
as easily as a private residence. So far, there'd been no way to decide what,
exactly, it was. In the time he'd been watching it, Jeff hadn't caught sightof a human being or noticed indications of current human activity. 

What had riveted his attention at first glimpse wasn't so much the houseitself as the gleaming blue and white airplane which stood some two hundredyards to the left of it. A small white structure next to the plane should beits hangar. The plane was pointed up a closely mowed field. It seemed a rathershort runway even for so small a plane, but he didn't know much aboutairplanes. Specifically -- importantly at the moment -- he didn't know how tofly one. 

That summed up the situation. 

A large number of people were engaged today in searching for Jeff Clary, butthe blue and white plane could take him where he wanted to go in a few hours,
safely, unnoticeably. He needed someone to handle it. 

That someone might be in the house. If not, there should be one or more carsin the garage adjoining the house on the right. A car would be less desirablethan the plane, but vastly superior to hiking on foot into the opencountryside. If he could get to the city without being stopped, he'd havegained a new head start on the searchers. If he got there with a substantialstake as well, his chances of shaking them off for good would be considerablybetter than even. 

Jeff scratched the dense bristles on his chin. There was a gun tucked into hisbelt, but he'd used the last bullet in it eight hours ago. A hunting knife wasfastened to the belt's other side. A knife and a gun -- even an empty guncould get him a hostage to start with. He'd take it from there. 

Shade trees and shrubbery grew up close to the sides of the building. Itshouldn't be difficult to get inside before he was noticed. If it turned outthere were dogs around, he'd come up openly -- a footsore sportsman who'd got 


lost and spent half the night stumbling around in the rain-wet hills. As soonas anyone let him get close enough to start talking, he'd be as close as heneeded to be. 

He sent a last sweeping look around and started downhill, keeping to the coverof the trees. His feet hurt. The boots he wore were too small for him, as werethe rest of his fishing clothes. Those items had belonged recently to anotherman who had no present use for them. 

He reached the side of the house minutes later. No dogs had bayed an alarm,
and he'd been only momentarily in sight of a few front windows of thebuilding. He'd begun to doubt seriously that there was anybody home, but twoof the upper-floor windows were open. If all the occupants had left, theyshould have remembered to close the windows on a day of uncertain weather likethis. 

He moved quickly over to a side door. Taking the empty gun from his belt, heturned the heavy brass doorknob cautiously. The door was unlocked. Jeff pushedit open a few inches, peering into the short passage beyond. 

A moment later, he was inside with the door closed again. He walked softlyalong the tiled passageway, listening. Still no sound. The passage ended at alarge, dimly lit central hall across from a stairwell. There were severalrooms on either side of the hall, and most of the doors were open. What hecould see of the furnishings seemed to match the outer appearance of the house-- old-fashioned, expensive, well cared for. 

As he stood, briefly undecided, he heard sounds at last, from upstairs. Jeffslipped back into the passage, watching the head of the stairway. Nobody wentby there, but after a few seconds the footsteps stopped. Then music suddenlywas audible. A TV or radio set had been switched on. 

That simplified matters. 

Jeff moved across the hall and up the stairs, then followed the music along asecond-floor passage to the right. Daylight and the music spilled into thepassage through an open doorway. He stopped beside the door a moment,
listening. He heard only the music. Cautiously he looked in. 

A girl stood at one of the bedroom's two windows, looking out, back turned toJeff; a dark-haired slender girl of medium height, wearing candy-striped jeanswith a white blouse. A portable TV set stood on a side table. 

Jeff came soundlessly into the room, gun pointed at the girl, and drew thedoor shut behind him. There was a faint click as it closed. The girl turned. 

"Don't make a sound," Jeff said softly. "I'd rather not hurt you. Understand?" 

She stood motionless at sight of him. Now she swallowed, nodded, blue eyeswide. She looked younger than he'd expected, a smooth-featured teenager. Thereshouldn't be any trouble with her. He went to the TV, keeping the gun pointedat the girl, turned the set off. 

"Come over here," he told her. "Away from the window. I want to talk to you." 

She nodded again, came warily toward him, eyes shifting between his face andthe gun. 


"Be very good, and I won't have to use it," Jeff said. "Who else is in the


house?" 
"Nobody right now." Her voice was unexpectedly steady. "They'll be coming in
later, during the afternoon." 


"Who'll be coming in?" 
She shrugged. "Some of my family. There's to be a meeting tonight. I don't
know just who it'll be this time -- probably seven or eight of them." She
glanced at the watch on her wrist, added, "Tracy should be back in around an


hour and a half -- about two o'clock. The others won't begin to show up before
five." 
"So Tracy should be back by two, eh? Who's Tracy?" 
"Tracy Nichols. Sort of my cousin by marriage." 
"You and she live here?" 
The girl shook her head. "Nobody lives here permanently now. My Uncle George


owns the place. At least, I think it's his property. It's used for meetings
and so on." 


"Who looks after it?" 
"Mr. and Mrs. Wells are the caretakers. They left yesterday after they got
everything set up, and they won't be back till tomorrow night when we're gone
again." 


"Why did they clear out?" 


"They always do. The family doesn't want other people around when they have a
meeting." 
Jeff grunted. "You got secrets?" 
The girl smiled. "Oh, there's a lot of talk about business and so on. You


never know what's going to come up." 
"Uh-huh. What's your name?" 
"Brooke Cameron." 
"Where do you live?" 
"Place called Renfrew College. Two hundred miles from here. You're Jeff Clary,


aren't you?" 
She'd added the question with no slightest change in inflection, and Jeff was


jolted into momentary silence. Watching him, she nodded slowly, as if
satisfied. 
"Take away the beard -- yes, that's who you are, of course!" Interest was


kindling in her face. "Pictures of you were shown in the newscasts, you know.
But you were supposed to be heading north." 


Jeff had heard as much on a car radio ten hours ago. 

"Pretty sharp, the way you walked out of that maximum security spot," BrookeCameron went on. "They said it's only happened once before there." 

"Maybe you talk a little too much," he told her. "If you know who I am, youshould have sense enough not to play games." 

Brooke shrugged. "I'm not playing a game. Of course, you might kill me, but Iwouldn't be any use to you then. I'd like to help you." 

"I bet you would." 

"Really! I'm a sort of crime buff, and you're a very interesting criminal.
That's not all, either!" Brooke smiled engagingly. "So, first, what do youneed here? The plane's your best chance out, and it got a full tank thismorning. Can you handle it?" 

"No," Jeff said after a moment. "Can you?" 

"Afraid not. They didn't want to let me learn how for another two years. ButTracy's flown it sometimes. She took it out today to get it gassed. You'llhave to wait till she gets back." 

"I could take your car," Jeff remarked, watching her. 

"No car here now, Jeff. Tracy brought me in with her early this morning andwent on to the city to pick up some stuff she ordered. Either way you want togo, you'll have to stay till she gets back. The only thing you'd find in thegarage is an old bicycle, and that's probably got flat tires. You can go lookfor yourself." 

"I might do that." Jeff studied her curiously. "You'd like to help me, eh?"
She nodded. "Well, let's try you. This should be good hunting country. Anyguns in the house?" 

"Not sporting guns," Brooke said promptly. "But there could be a loadedrevolver in Uncle George's desk. He usually keeps one there. His room's downthe hall." Her gaze flicked over the gun in Jeff's hand. "Ammunition, too,"
she said. "But it won't fit the gun you have." 

Jeff grunted. "You're wondering whether this one's empty?" 

"Well, it might be." Her blue eyes regarded him steadily. "You put two bulletsin the guard you shot, and you wouldn't have found any spare shells on him.
There was more shooting, and then they must have been pushing you pretty hardfor a time. If this isn't a gun the couple you kidnapped happened to have intheir car, it could very well be empty." 

Jeff grinned briefly. "Are you wondering now where that couple is?" 

Brooke shook her head. "No, not much. I mean you're here by yourself, and Idon't think you'd let them get away from you." She shrugged. "Let's go look inUncle George's desk." 

The revolver was in a desk drawer, a beautiful shop-new .38. Brooke looked on 


silently while Jeff checked it and dropped half a dozen spare shells into ajacket pocket. 

"So now you have that," she remarked. "You want to shave and clean up next, oreat? A ham was sent in for dinner." 

"What makes you think I want to do either?" Jeff asked dryly. 

She shrugged. "We can go sit in a south room upstairs, of course," she said.
"You can watch the road from there and wait for Tracy to drive up. But that'llbe a while. She'll call, anyway, to let me know when she's ready to startback." 

Jeff laughed. "That's convenient, isn't it? I'll try the ham." 

He hadn't realized until he began to eat how ravenous he was. Then heconcentrated savagely on the food, almost forgetting Brooke sitting acrossfrom him at the kitchen table. When he'd finished and looked over at her, hesaw the worn brown wallet she'd laid on the table. Jeff stared at it, eyeswidening. 

"How -- " 

"I'm quite a good pickpocket," Brooke said absently. She frowned at thewallet. "Told you I'm a crime buff -- and I don't just read about it." Shetouched one of three irregular dark stains on the wallet with a finger, lookedat Jeff and pushed the wallet across the table to him. "I got it while we weregoing to Uncle George's room. So Mr. and Mrs. Rambow didn't get away, didthey?" 

"No, they didn't get away," Jeff said harshly. He hadn't noticed her brushingagainst him or touching him in any manner as they went along the passage, andthe thought of her doing it without letting him catch her made him uneasy.
"And they shouldn't have tried," he went on. "Their car got smashed up enoughwhile they were about it that I couldn't use it anymore. It's down in a nicedeep gully back in the hills where it isn't likely to be found very soon, andthey're inside. Now you know." 

Brooke brushed back her hair. "I really knew anyway," she said. "You have asort of record, Jeff." 

Anger faded into curiosity. "Aren't you scared?" 

"Oh, yes, a little. But I'm useful to you -- and I'm not trying to get away." 

"I'd like to know what you are trying to do," Jeff admitted. "Whatever it is,
there'd better be no more tricks like that." 

"There won't be," Brooke said. 

"All right." Jeff tugged at the shoulder of his jacket. "Are there clothes inthis spooky house that could fit me?" 

Brooke nodded. "Uncle Jason's just about your build. He's got a room upstairs,
too. Let's go see." 

Jeff stood up. "What kind of place is this?" be asked irritably. "A home away 


from home for any of you who happens to feel like it?" 

"I guess it's used like that sometimes," Brooke said. "I don't know everythingthe family does." 

Uncle Jason's room was at the south end of the house. It was equipped sparselyand with the neat impersonality of a hotel room. Several suits hung in plasticsheaths in the closet and two pairs of shoes stood in a plastic box on thecloset shelf. The shoes would be a bit large for Jeff, but a relief after thecramping boots he'd been wearing. He decided any of the suits should fit wellenough, and he found an electric shaver. He peered out a window. No vehiclewas in sight, and anyone coming could be spotted minutes away. All goodenough. 

He hauled a straight-backed chair away from a table, turned it facing thewindow. "Come here and sit down," he told Brooke. She'd been watching himsilently as he moved about, not stirring herself from the position she'd takenup near the passage door. 

She came over now. "You want me to watch the road?" 

"Just sit down." 

She settled herself in the chair. Jeff said, "Now put your arms behind you."
He fished a piece of rope out of a pocket. 

"You don't have to do that," she said quickly. 

"I'll be busy for a while," Jeff said. "I don't want to worry about you." 

Brooke sighed, clasped her hands together behind the chair. Jeff looked downat her a moment. Brooke Cameron bothered him. The way she was acting didn'tmake sense. It wasn't just the matter of the wallet, though that had beenstartling. He'd suspected at first that she was trying to set a trap for himwhile pretending to be helpful, but he didn't see what she could attempt todo, and it didn't seem to fit in with telling him where he could find a loadedgun. Perhaps she was hoping help would arrive. He didn't feel too concernedabout that possibility. He'd be ready for them. 

He could put an abrupt end to anything she might have in mind by slipping therope around her slender neck; but that would be stupid. If some unexpectedtrouble arose before he got out of here, a live hostage would be an immediateadvantage, and he might still find her useful in other ways. 

He fastened her wrists together, drawing the rope tight enough to make ithurt. She wriggled her shoulders a little but didn't complain. He knotted theend of the rope about a chair rung below the seat, grinned at her. "That'llkeep you safe!" 

He washed his hands and face, shaved carefully and put on Uncle Jason's suitand shoes, interrupting what he was doing several times to come back to thewindow and study the empty road. When he'd finished, he went downstairs andfound a door that opened into the garage. There was a bicycle there, as she'dsaid, and no car, though the garage had space enough for three of them. Jeffreturned to the top floor. 

Brooke looked around as he came into the room. 


"I suppose you'll be going to Mexico," she remarked. 

His eyes narrowed. At it again -- and she happened to be right. "Sounds like agood first stop, doesn't it?" he said. 

She studied him. "You'll need a good paper man to fix you up once you're downthere." 

Jeff laughed shortly. "I know where to find a good paper man down there." 

"You do? Got the kind of money he's going to want?" 

"Not yet." There wasn't much more than a hundred dollars in the stained brownwallet. "Any suggestions?" he asked. 

"Twenty-eight thousand in cash," Brooke said. "I keep telling you I want tohelp." 

He stiffened. "Twenty-eight -- where?" 

She jerked her elbows impatiently. "Get me untied and I'll show you. It'sdownstairs." He didn't believe her. He felt an angry flush rising in hischeeks. If it was a lie, she'd be sorry! But he released her. 

She got up from the chair, rubbing her bruised wrists, said, "Come along. Haveto get keys from my room," and went ahead of him into the passage. 

Jeff followed watchfully, close on her heels, looked on as she took two keysfrom a purse. They went back to the stairway, down it to the central hall onthe ground floor. Brooke used the larger of the keys to open a closet behind asection of the hall's polished oak paneling. A sizable black suitcase stoodinside. Brooke nodded at the suitcase. 

"The money's in there." She offered Jeff the other key. "You'll have to unlockit." 

Jeff shook his head. 

"We'll take it to your Uncle Jason's room before we look at the money," hetold her. "I'll let you carry it." 

"Sure," Brooke said agreeably. "I carried it in here." 

She picked up the suitcase, shut the closet, and walked ahead of Jeff to thestairs. The way she handled the suitcase indicated there was something inside,
but something that wasn't very heavy. It could be twenty-eight thousanddollars, but a variety of rather improbable speculations kept crossing Jeff'smind as he followed her upstairs. Was the thing rigged? Would somethingunpleasant have happened if he'd unlocked it just now? He shook his head. Itwasn't at all like him to engage in nervous fantasies. 

Nevertheless, he found himself moving a few steps back from the suitcase whenhe told Brooke to put it on the carpet and open it. She knelt beside it andunlocked it, and nothing remarkable occurred. She opened the suitcase and Jeffsaw folds of furry green material. "What's that?" he asked. 


"My cape. Dyed muskrat. The money's under the clothes." Brooke took out thegreen cape, laid it on the floor, added several other items while Jeff watchedher motions closely. 

"There's the money," she said finally. 

Jeff nodded. "All right. Take it out and put it on the table." 

Brooke glanced over at him with a quick grin. "Don't trust me yet, do you?" 

"Not much," Jeff agreed. 

"You should. That's my money I'm letting you have." 

"Your money, eh?" 

"Well -- sort of. I stole it." 

"That I can believe," Jeff said. "Get it up on the table." 

Brooke took six slender stacks of bills from the suitcase, laid them side byside on the table and moved back. "Count it!" she invited, then looked on asJeff riffled slowly through the stacks. 

"Where did you steal it?" he asked. 

"Man named Harold Brownlee -- city councilman. He has a home in the suburbs.
The money was in his den safe. I picked it up two nights ago." 

"Just like that, huh?" 

"No, not just like that," she said. "It was worked out pretty carefully.
Twenty-five thousand was bribe money on a land development racket. I don'tknow about the rest -- probably just a little something Brownlee wanted tohave on hand, like people do. We knew when the bribe payoff was to be andwhere he keeps that kind of cash between his trips out of town to get itdeposited." 

"How did you know?" Jeff put the last bundle down. It was twenty-eightthousand dollars and a little more. 

She shrugged. "Family intelligence. How? They don't let me in on that kind ofthing yet. But they did let me do the Brownlee job by myself -- well, almostby myself. Tracy insisted on being a lookout at the country club where theBrownlees were that night. She'd have let me know if they started home beforeI finished." Brooke added with a trace of resentment, "It wasn't necessary. Ifthey had come back early, they wouldn't have seen me." 

Jeff was staring at her. An hour ago, he would have considered it a crazystory. Now he simply wasn't so sure. He was about to speak when he heard atiny sound, like the tinkle of distant fairy chimes. "What was that?" he askedsharply. 

"Just Tracy," said Brooke. "She wants to talk. I guess she's ready to starthome." She tapped her wristwatch. "Two-way transmitter," she explained. "Tracyhas one just like it. You want me to talk to her?" 


Startled, Jeff hesitated. The chimes tinkled faintly again. Now it was clearthat Brooke's little watch was producing the sound. 

"Go ahead," he told her. He added, "You'd better remember what not to say." 

Brooke smiled. "Don't worry! You'll have to stand close if you want to hearTracy. They're made so you can talk privately." She slid a fingernail under ajeweled knob of the watch, lifting it a scant millimeter, gave it a twist.
"Tracy?" she said, holding the watch a few inches from her ear. Jeff movedover to her. 

"I'll be on my way back in just a few minutes," the watch whispered. "Havethere been any calls?" 

"No," Brooke said. "Didn't know you were expecting any." Her own voice was lowbut not a whisper. 

"I'm not really expecting one," the ghostly little voice said from the watch.
"But I remembered Ricardo wasn't sure he could make it tonight. He said he'dphone the house early if he couldn't come, so we'd be able to get someone elseto give us a quorum." 

Brooke winked at Jeff, said, "Well, he hasn't called yet, so he'll probablyshow up." 

"Right. See you soon. 'Bye." 

" 'Bye," said Brooke. She pushed down the knob, told Jeff, "That switches itoff again." 

"Uh-huh." Jeff scratched his chin. "How long will it take Tracy to get herenow?" 

"Forty minutes probably. Not much more. It's a good road most of the way, andshe drives fast." 

"How old is she?" 

"Twenty-four. Seven years eight months older than I am. Why?" 

"Just wondering." Jeff held out his hand, "Let's see that thing." 

"The two-way? Sure." Brooke slipped the instrument off her wrist, gave it tohim. "Be careful with it," she cautioned. "It's mighty expensive." 

"It should be!" Jeff turned it about in his fingers, studying it. A stylishlittle woman's wristwatch, and it was running. There was nothing at all toindicate it could be anything other than that, but he'd heard it in action.
"Yes, very expensive!" he said thoughtfully. He placed the watch on the tablebeside the bills. "That sounds like a peculiar family you've got," heremarked. "You really weren't lying about the Brownlee job?" 

Brooke smiled. "Take a look at what's inside the cape," she said. "That's myprowling outfit, or most of it." 

Jeff laid the dyed muskrat cape on one end of the table, opened it, fur sidedown. There were a number of zippered pockets in the lining. Jeff located 


variously shaped objects in some of the pockets by touch, took them out and


regarded them. 
"Earphone," he said. "So this matchbox-sized gadget it's connected to should
be another radio?" 


Brooke nodded. "Local police calls." 
"Yes, handy. And a fancy glass cutter. The two keys?" 
"Duplicates of the ones Brownlee had for his den safe." 
"Which made that part of it simple, didn't it?" Jeff remarked. "And a pocket


flash could be useful, of course. Why the cigarette case, if that's what it
is?" 


"Open it," Brooke told him. 
He pressed the snap of the case, looked at the long-tipped narrow cigarettes
clasped inside, a brand he didn't know. "Imports?" he asked. 


"Uh-huh." 
Jeff sniffed at the cigarettes. "Anything special about them?" 
"Just their length. They taste lousy." Brooke put out her hand. "There's a


back section, you see. Let me -- " 
"Just tell me what to do," Jeff said. 
Opening the hidden inner section of the case turned out to be a more


complicated operation than switching the wristwatch over to its transmitter
function, even under Brooke's guidance, but after some fumbling Jeff
accomplished it. He pursed his lips, considered a silk-packed row of thin
metal rods, in silence for a moment. 


"Picks," he said then. "You any good at using them?" 


"Pretty good, I think," Brooke said. "I should be able to open almost any
ordinary lock with one or another of those." 
"Look kind of light." 
"Not too light, Jeff. That's beryllium -- harder than steel." 
"I suppose you know it can be worth ten years just to be found with a set of


picks like those on you?" 
"That's why it's a cigarette case," Brooke told him. 
Jeff shook his head. "Where did you get all these things?" 
"They were custom-made. For me." 
Jeff snapped both sections of the cigarette case shut and put it down. "None


of it really makes any sense!" he remarked. "Your people must have money." 



"Plenty," Brooke agreed. 

"Then why do you play around with stuff like this? Are you nuts who do it forkicks?" 

"It's not for kicks," Brooke said. "It's training. The Brownlee job the othernight was a test. It's a way of finding out if I can qualify for the fancythings the family does -- that some of them do, anyway." 

"And what do they do?" Jeff asked. 

"I don't know that yet, so I can't tell you. The family operates on a theory." 

"Okay. Let's hear the theory -- " 

"If you decide to stay legal," Brooke said, "you give away too much advantageto people who don't care whether they do or not. But if you do things thataren't legal, you can get yourself and others into trouble. It takes a knackto be able to do it and keep on getting away with it. So it's only those whoshow they have the knack who get into the nonlegal side of the family. Theothers don't break laws and don't ask questions, so there's nothing they canspill. The family keeps getting richer, but everything looks legitimate. Andmost of it is." 

Jeff shook his head again. "Just who is this family?" 

"Oh, the Camerons and the Achtels and some Wylers and a few on the Nicholsside. There could be others I don't know about." Brooke added, "The Wylers andNichols are kind of new, but the Camerons and Achtels have been workingtogether a long time." 

Jeff grunted. "Supposing you'd got caught at the Brownlee house?" 

She shrugged. "That would have been it for me. Nothing much would havehappened. The family's got pull here and there, and I'd have been a fool richkid playing cops and robbers. But I'd never have got near a nonlegal operationafter that. I'd have proved I didn't have the knack." 

"What if it was just bad luck?" 

"They've got no use for someone who has bad luck. It's too risky." 

Jeff nodded. He watched her a moment, head tipped quizzically to the side.
"Now, something else." He smiled. "Why are you pretending you want to helpme?" 

"I do want to help you." Brooke frowned. "After all, how likely is it you'dhave come across the cash if I hadn't told you?" 

"Then what do you figure on getting out of it?" 

"You're to take me to Mexico with you." 

"You're out of your mind!" Jeff was honestly startled. "From what you've beentelling me, you have it made here." 

"You think so." Brooke turned to the suitcase. "There's something you haven't 


seen yet." 

"Hold it right there," Jeff said. "What's that something?" 

"You can keep your gun pointed at me while I'm getting it out," she told him,
half scornfully. "I picked up more than money at the Brownlee place." 

He made no further move to check her then but kept close watch as she opened aside section of the suitcase and brought out a small leather bag. She loosenedthe bag's drawstrings and shook its contents out on the table. "What do youthink of those?" she demanded. 

Jeff looked at the tumbled, shining little pile and moistened his lips. "Nicestuff -- if it's genuine." 

"If it's genuine!" Brooke's eyes flashed. She reached for a string of pearls,
swung it back and forth before his face. "If you knew pearls, you wouldn't becalling that just 'nice stuff!' You need someone like me, Jeff. For one thing,
I do know pearls. They were in the safe with the money, and there was a verygood reason for that." 

She dropped the pearls back on the other jewelry. "But you know what wouldhave happened if you hadn't come along today? The meeting at the house tonightwas supposed to be about me. A quorum of the active side of the family wasgoing to review the Brownlee job and decide if I was maybe good enough to goon to something a little bigger than I've been allowed to do so far. The jobwasn't much for sure -- I just went in and did what I was supposed to do -but 
I did everything right; there's nothing they can fault me on. 

"So probably I'd pass. And then?" She waved her hand at the table. "I wouldn'tsee any of that again! Oh, sure, a third of what the haul's worth would becredited to my family account. When I'm twenty-one, I'll finally have a littlesomething to say about that account. The rings and the watch and those lovelypearls and the rest of it would leave the house with Ricardo Achtel -- he runsa jewelry firm for the family, imports, exports, manufacture. And they'ddecide I could move up a notch. You know what that would mean?" She laughed.
"I'd be working out with a lousy circus for a couple of years at least!" 

Jeff blinked. "A circus?" 

Brooke nodded. "Right! We've got one in Europe. It's a small circus, butputting in a hitch there while you're young is family tradition for activemembers. It goes back for generations." She grimaced. "There're all kinds ofthings you can learn at the circus that will be useful later on, they tellyou." 

Jeff grinned warily. "Well, there might be." 

Brooke tossed her head. "I don't need all that discipline. I don't want to bethinking about the family in everything I do. They're so cautious! Now, you'resomebody who doesn't mind cutting corners fast when it's necessary. We'd be ateam, Jeff!" 

Jeff felt a touch of amazed merriment. "What about Tracy?" he asked. 

"What about her? She takes us there; we ditch her. I sort of like Tracy, butshe's sold on the family. She won't make trouble for us afterward, and neither 


will the others. They're too careful for that. They know the kind of trouble I


could make for them. You have a place to go to down there?" 
Jeff nodded. "Uh-huh. Friendly old pot rancher, fifty miles from the border.
Nice quiet place. You know, I've been thinking, Brooke." 


"Yes?" she said eagerly. 
"You've got these cute miniaturized gadgets. A cigarette case that isn't


really one, and a watch that's something else besides." Jeff picked up the
pencil flash he'd discovered in Brooke's cape. "This looks custom-built, too." 
Her eyes might have flickered for an instant. "It is," she said. "It's the


best." 
"The best what, aside from being a light?" 
"Well -- nothing. I want a light I can rely on, naturally." 
"Uh-huh. But it's thicker at this end than it really needs to be, isn't it? As


if something might be built in there." Jeff fingered the pencil flash. "And
this little hole, you'll notice, points wherever you point the light. I don't
see how the thing can be opened either." 


"Opening it is a little tricky," Brooke said. "If you'll let -- " 
"No, don't bother." Jeff smiled. "Here's where you switch on the light -


fine! So it is a flashlight. What does this ring do?" He turned the flash up,
pointing it at Brooke's face. 
"Twist it to the left, and it dims the beam," Brooke said, watching him. 
"To the right?" 
"That brightens it, of course. And -- " Her breath caught. "Don't twist it too


far, Jeff." 
"Why not?" 
"Well, don't point it at me then." She smiled quickly. "I'll explain." 
"Sure, explain." Jeff lowered the flashlight. 
Brooke was still smiling. "I didn't really know about you. You can see that." 
"Uh-huh. I understand." 
"So I didn't want to tell you about it yet. It's a tranquilizer gun." 
Jeff raised his brows. "Doesn't look much like one." 
"Family specialty. You couldn't buy that kind of tranquilizer anywhere. I


don't know what it is, of course, but we might be able to have it analyzed." 
"Maybe we could," Jeff said. "What's its range?" 
"You're not supposed to try to use it over thirty feet. Indoors, that's likely 



to be as much range as you'll want." 

"You've used it?" 

"No," Brooke said. "I saw it used once, but it's only for a real emergency.
The family doesn't want it to get out that someone makes a gun like that." 

"What was the effect?" 

Brooke grimaced. "Worked so fast it scared me! The man didn't even know he'dbeen hit, and he didn't move for another two hours. But it won't kill anyone,
and there isn't supposed to be much aftereffect. It's a little hollow needle." 

Jeff nodded thoughtfully. "Very interesting. It seems we now have theexplanation for your generous offer to finance me." 

Brooke looked startled. "I told you -- " 

"You told me a lot of things. I'll even believe some of them -- that this is agun, for example. It's what you were working to get your hand on right fromthe start, wasn't it?" 

Brooke said reluctantly, "I would have felt better if I'd had it. You see -- " 

"I know. You just weren't sure you could trust me. All right, obviously Ican't be sure I can trust you either." Jeff raised the pencil flash, pointingit at her. "So why don't I see for myself what that little hollow needle doesafter it hits?" 

Brooke shook her head. "You don't want to do that, Jeff." 

"Why not?" 

"Tracy's sort of slippery. If I'm awake and in the plane with you two, she'llbe a lot easier to handle. I can keep her conned. Whether you believe it ornot, I do want to go to Mexico with you." 

Jeff grinned and dropped the pencil flash into a coat pocket. 

"And you're getting your wish!" he told her. "Go sit down in your chair." 

He tied Brooke's hands behind the chair back, secured the rope to a rung,
testing all knots carefully. Then he checked the time and said, "Keep yourmonth shut from now on unless I ask you something." 

Brooke nodded silently. Her expression indicated she might be frightened atlast, and she might have reason for it. Jeff went to the window, studied thevalley road. Nothing to be seen there yet. Rain clouds drifted over the lowercountryside though the sky remained clear above the house. There was a distantroll of thunder. Jeff left the room, returned with a silk scarf. He laid thescarf on the table, restored the bundled bills, the jewelry and Brooke'sburglary equipment to the suitcase, except for the pencil flash, which stayedin his pocket along with the two-way watch. He covered the assortment in thesuitcase with Brooke's cape, thinking there still might be stuff concealed init that he hadn't discovered. If so, it could wait. He closed and locked thesuitcase, pocketed the key. The clothes and boots he'd been wearing went intothe closet from which he'd taken Uncle Jason's suit and shoes. 


He returned to the window, stood looking out. He felt a little tense, justenough to keep him keyed up, which he didn't mind. He was always at his bestwhen keyed up. He knew exactly what he was going to do, and it was unlikelythat anything could go wrong. Even if Brooke happened to have lied aboutTracy's ability to fly a plane, it wouldn't affect his plans seriously. He'dleave the two of them here, dead and stowed away where they shouldn't be foundat once, and go off in Tracy's car. A few hours' start was all he needed now.
The plane would be preferable, of course. If the two disappeared with him, hecould work out a way to put heat on their precious family. 

He'd been tempted to wait, to let that crew of cautious wealthy practitionersof crime start drifting in during the afternoon, nail them down as theyarrived, and then see what he could make out of the overall situation, butthat might be crowding his luck. He'd got a great deal more than he'd expectedto get at the house, and he liked the way the setup looked now. 

He inquired presently, "What color is Tracy's car?" 

Brooke's tongue tip moistened her lips. "Red," she said. "Cherry red. Sportscar. Is she coming?" 

"In sight," Jeff said. "Still a few minutes away." He went to the table,
picked up the silk scarf. "Let's make sure everything stays very quiet in herewhen she shows up!" He wrapped the scarf tightly around Brooke's mouth andjaw, knotted it behind her head and came back to the window. 

He stood away from it a little, though there was no real chance the sharpestof eyes could have spotted him from the road. Tracy, he decided, did drivefast -- and expertly. The little red car was flicked around curves,
accelerated again on the straight stretches. By the time the sound of theengine grew audible on the breeze, he could make out a few details about thedriver: a woman, all right -- goggled, bright green scarf covering her head,
strands of blonde hair whipping out back of the scarf. She was coming to thehouse because there was nowhere else to go; the road stopped here. Satisfied,
Jeff left the room, went unhurriedly downstairs. 

He'd made up his mind a while ago about the place where he'd wait for Tracy,
and he was there a minute later. A side door opened on the garden near theangle formed by the house with the garage. The angle was landscaped with thickdark-green bushes, providing perfect cover. For the moment, he remained nearthe door. The chances were that Tracy would come directly to the garage; andif she did, he'd have the gun on her as soon as she stepped out of the car.
If, instead, she drove around to the front entrance of the building, he'd slipback into the house through the side door and catch her inside. The rest wouldbe simple. It shouldn't take long to make her realize what she had to do forher own sake and Brooke's, that Jeff didn't really need either of them, andthat if she didn't follow his orders, exactly, he'd shoot them both and leavewith her car. 

From his point of concealment, he watched the car turn up the driveway fromthe road. The section of driveway leading to the garage curved out of sightbehind a stand of ornamental pines sixty yards away. The car swung into it,
vanished behind the trees. There was a momentary squeal of brakes. 

Jeff frowned, listening, Uncle George's .38 in his hand. He heard the purringthrob of the engine, but the car obviously had stopped. It shouldn't make much 


difference if Tracy left it there; she still had to come to the house. But itwasn't the way Jeff had planned it, and he didn't like that. 

He gauged the distance to the pines. He could reach them in a quick sprint andfind out what she was doing. However, he didn't favor that idea either. If shehad the car in motion again before he got there and caught sight of him in theopen, he could have a real problem. Undecided, Jeff began to edge through thebushes toward the front of the garage. 

He heard a sound then, a slight creaking, which he might have missed if hisears hadn't been straining for indications of what was delaying Tracy. Heturned his head, and something stung the side of his neck. He swung around,
startled, felt himself stumbling oddly as his gaze swept up along the side ofthe house. 

A window screen in a second-floor room above him was being quietly closed.
Jeff jerked up the revolver. He was falling backward by then, and he fired twoshots, wildly, spitefully, at the blurring blue of the sky before he was lyingon the ground, the gun somehow no longer in his hand. He had a stunnedthought: that Brooke couldn't possibly have done it, that he had hertranquilizing gadget in his coat. And besides -* 
* * 

He didn't finish the second thought. Tracy was standing next to him, holding agun of her own, when Brooke came out through the side door. 

"Well!" Tracy said. "So now I know why you were giving me the high sign fromthe window." She glanced down at Jeff's face, back at Brooke. "Tranquilizer?" 

"No," Brooke said reluctantly. "He spotted that while we were talking and tookit." 

"So it was Last Resort, eh?" 

"Yes." 

Tracy grimaced. "Suspected it, by the way he looks." She shook her head.
"Well, Brooke -- curare. You know, the rules. You may have quite a bit ofexplaining to do." 

"I can explain it." 

"Yes? Start with me!" Tracy invited. "A sort of rehearsal. Let's see how itwill stand up." 

"You know who that is? Was, I guess." 

Tracy looked at Jeff again. "No. I should?" 

"Jeff Clary." 

Tracy blinked. "Clary? The escaped convict they're hunting for? You're sure?" 

"I'm sure," Brooke said. "They've been broadcasting his picture and Irecognized him as soon as he turned up in the house. Anyway, he admitted it.
He's killed three people in the past twenty-four hours, and he had plans foryou and me after you'd flown him across the border." 


"Now, that doesn't start the explanation off too badly," Tracy conceded.
"Still -- " 

Brooke said, "He had to go anyway." 

"Probably. But not at your discretion. If you had to let him take your sleepy-
bye kit, what about mine? You know where I keep it. The bag's upstairs in mycloset at present." 

"I thought of that," Brooke said, "but I didn't think I'd have time to huntaround for the bag. He had me gagged and tied to a chair, and he stayed rightthere in the room with me until you were almost driving in. Last Resort wasquicker. I grabbed it." 

"Um!" Tracy tapped her nose tip reflectively. "Well, that really should do it!
They can't give you too much of an argument." She smiled. "So the big badconvict ties you to a chair? Angelique the Eleven-Year-Old Escape Artist.
Remember the howl you raised when they sent you off to the circus thatsummer?" She looked at the gun in her hand. "Might as well put this away, andwe'll start tidying up." 

"Hadn't you better use the gun first?" Brooke said. 

"Huh?" Tracy looked thoughtful. "Yes!" she said then. "Good thinking, Brooke!
They should prefer to let Clary be found if the coroner doesn't have reason topoke around too closely. We'll take away the reason." 

She pointed the gun at a spot between Jeff's eyebrows.
* * * 

There had been assorted activities in the house in the latter part of theafternoon and the early part of the evening, but around ten o'clock thingswere quiet again. The rain, after holding off to the south most of the day,
had moved in finally, and there was a gentle steady pattering against theclosed windows in Tracy's room. For the past half hour, Brooke and Tracy hadbeen playing double slap solitaire at a small table. Neither was displayingher usual fierce concentration on the game. 

Tracy lifted her head suddenly, glanced at Brooke. "I think the reportingcommittee's coming!" 

Brooke listened. Footsteps were audible in the passage. "Well, it's a relief,"
she muttered. "They've been discussing it long enough." 

She put down her card pack and went to the door. 

"Here we are, George!" she called. "Tracy's room." 

She came back and looked on as the tuxedoed committee filed in. GeorgeCameron, president of Renfrew College and scholarly authority on the PunicWars, entered first; then Ricardo Achtel, who handled Baldwin Gems, Importsand Exports, among other things. Finally came Jason Cameron, best known insome circles as big-game hunter and mountaineer. Three big guns of the family.
All gave her reassuring smiles, which struck Brooke as a bad sign. She drew adeep breath. 


"What's the verdict?" she asked. 

"Let's not look on it as a verdict, Brooke," said George Cameron. "Sit down;
we'll have to talk about it." He glanced around, noted the absence of freechairs. "Mind if we use your bed, Tracy?" 

"Not at all," Tracy told him. 

George and Jason sat down on the bed. Ricardo Achtel leaned against the wall,
hands shoved into his trousers pockets. "There was a special news report someten minutes ago," George remarked. "I don't believe you caught it?" 

Brooke shook her head. 

George said, "They've found the unfortunate Rambow couple in their car. Eachhad been shot from behind almost at contact range -- a deliberate execution.
Clary afterward ran the damaged vehicle off the road, as he told you. Ahighway patrol happened to notice smashed bushes, investigated and discoveredthe wreck and the bodies in a ravine." 

"How far from where Clary was found?" Tracy asked. 

"Less than four miles. We worked out his probable backtrail closely enough,"
George said. "And that should wind it up. The theory that Clary tried tokidnap another motorist, who was lucky or alert enough to shoot first, and mayhave sufficient reason for not wanting to identify himself, is regarded assubstantiated. Either of the two bullets found in Clary's body should havecaused almost instant death. Police will try to trace the gun. The usualthing." 

There was a short pause. "All right, and now what about me?" Brooke asked.
"I've flunked?" 

"Not at all," George said. "On the whole, you did very well. You were dealingwith a killer and stalled him off until you could create an opportunity to endthe threat to yourself and Tracy. Naturally, we approve." 

"Naturally," Tracy agreed dryly. 

"However," said Jason Cameron, "there was a rather serious breach of secrecy." 

"I've tried to explain that," Brooke told him. "I had to do something to keepClary working to outfigure me. I couldn't think of a good enough set of lieson the spot. He didn't seem exactly stupid. So I told him the truth, or mostlythe truth, which made it easy." 

George scratched his jaw. "Yes, but there you are, Brooke! In doing it, youtook a chance. Mind you, no one's blaming you. If there's any fault, it's inthose responsible for your progress -- which certainly must include myself.
But as far as you knew, there was a possibility, however slight, that thepolice would trace Clary to the house and take him alive. We could havehandled the resulting problem, but some harm might have been done. Further, inbeing frank with Clary, you made killing him almost a necessity -- thusreducing your options, which is never desirable." 

Jason nodded. "There's a definite streak of candor in you, Brooke. It's beennoticed. Your immediate inclination is to tell the truth." 


"Not," observed Ricardo Achtel, "that there's anything essentially wrong withthat." 

"No, of course not," George agreed. "However, one can also argue in favor offacile dissimulation. Those who don't seem born with the ability -- I had agood deal of early difficulty in the area myself -- must acquire it bypractice. It's felt you fall short on that point, Brooke." 

"In other words," Brooke said, "I didn't flunk out, but I didn't get upgradedtonight either?" 

"Not formally," George told her. "We believe you need more time. The matterwill be brought up again at your next birthday." 

"Seven months," said Brooke. She looked discouraged. 

"They'll pass quickly enough for you," George assured her. 

"In a sense, you see," Jason remarked, "circumstances did upgrade you today bypresenting you with a difficult and serious problem, which you solvedsatisfactorily though in a less than optimum manner. It seems mainly aquestion of letting your experience catch up." 

George nodded. "Exactly! So you'll continue your formal education at Renfrew,
but you'll also start going to drama school." 

"Drama school?" Brooke said, surprised. 

"Ours. The training you receive there won't precisely parallel that givenother students, but you should find it interesting. Tracy went through theprocess a few years ago." 

Brooke looked over at Tracy. 

"Uh-huh, so I did," Tracy said slowly. She shook her head. "Poor Brooke!" 

-Chapter 20 
Ham Sandwich 

There was no one standing or sitting around the tastefully furnished entryhall of the Institute of Insight when Wallace Cavender walked into it. He wasalmost half an hour late for the regular Sunday night meeting of advancedstudents; and even Mavis Greenfield, Dr. Ormond's secretary, who always stayedfor a while at her desk in the hall to sign in the stragglers, haddisappeared. However, she had left the attendance book lying open on the deskwith a pen placed invitingly beside it. 

Wallace Cavender dutifully entered his name in the book. The distant deepvoice of Dr. Aloys Ormond was dimly audible, coming from the direction of thelecture room, and Cavender followed its faint reverberations down a narrowcorridor until he reached a closed door. He eased the door open and slippedunobtrusively into the back of the lecture room. 


As usual, most of the thirty-odd advanced students present had seatedthemselves on the right side of the room where they were somewhat closer tothe speaker. Cavender started towards the almost vacant rows of chairs on theleft, smiling apologetically at Dr. Ormond who, as the door opened, hadglanced up without interrupting his talk. Three other faces turned towardsCavender from across the room. Reuben Jeffries, a heavyset man with a thinfringe of black hair circling an otherwise bald scalp, nodded soberly andlooked away again. Mavis Greenfield, a few rows farther up, produced a smileand a reproachful little headshake; during the coffee break she wouldcarefully explain to Cavender once more that students too tardy to take in Dr.
Al's introductory lecture missed the most valuable part of these meetings. 

From old Mrs. Folsom, in the front row on the right, Cavender's belatedarrival drew a more definite rebuke. She stared at him for half a dozen 
seconds with a coldly severe frown, mouth puckered in disapproval, beforereturning her attention to Dr. Ormond. 

Cavender sat down in the first chair he came to and let himself go comfortablylimp. He was dead-tired, had even hesitated over coming to the Institute ofInsight tonight. But it wouldn't do to skip the meeting. A number of hisfellow students, notably Mrs. Folsom, already regarded him as a black sheep;
and if enough of them complained to Dr. Ormond that Cavender's laxnessthreatened to retard the overall advance of the group towards the goal ofTotal Insight, Ormond might decide to exclude him from further study. At aguess, Cavender thought cynically, it would have happened by now if theconfidential report the Institute had obtained on his financial status hadbeen less impressive. A healthy bank balance wasn't an absolute requirementfor membership, but it helped . . . it helped! All but a handful of theadvanced students were in the upper income brackets. 

Cavender let his gaze shift unobtrusively about the group while some almostautomatic part of his mind began to pick up the thread of Dr. Al's discourse.
After a dozen or so sentences, he realized that the evening's theme was therelationship between subjective and objective reality, as understood in thelight of Total Insight. It was a well-worn subject; Dr. Al repeated himself agreat deal. Most of the audience nevertheless was following his words withintent interest, many taking notes and frowning in concentration. As MavisGreenfield liked to express it, quoting the doctor himself, the idea youdidn't pick up when it was first presented might come clear to you the fifthor sixth time around. Cavender suspected, however, that as far as he wasconcerned much of the theory of Total Insight was doomed to remain foreverobscure. 

He settled his attention on the only two students on this side of the roomwith him. Dexter Jones and Perrie Rochelle were sitting side by side in front-
row chairs -- the same chairs they usually occupied during these meetings.
They were exceptions to the general run of the group in a number of ways.
Younger, for one thing; Dexter was twenty-nine and Perrie twenty-three whilethe group averaged out at around forty-five, which happened to be Cavender'sage. Neither was blessed with worldly riches; in fact, it was questionablewhether the Rochelle girl, who described herself as a commercial artist, evenhad a bank account. Dexter Jones, a grade-school teacher, did have one but wasable to keep it barely high enough to cover his rent and car payment checks.
Their value to the Institute was of a different kind. Both possessed esotericmental talents, rather modest ones, to be sure, but still very interesting, sothat on occasion they could state accurately what was contained in a sealedenvelope, or give a recognizable description of the photograph of a loved one 


hidden in another student's wallet. This provided the group with encouragingevidence that such abilities were, indeed, no fable and somewhere along thedifficult road to Total Insight might be attained by all. 

In addition, Perrie and Dexter were volunteers for what Dr. Aloys Ormondreferred to cryptically as "very advanced experimentation." The group at largehad not been told the exact nature of these experiments, but the implicationwas that they were mental exercises of such power that Dr. Al did not wishother advanced students to try them, until the brave pioneer work being doneby Perrie and Dexter was concluded and he had evaluated the results . . . 
* * * 

"Headaches, Dr. Al," said Perrie Rochelle. "Sometimes quite bad headaches -- "
She hesitated. She was a thin, pale girl with untidy arranged brown hair whovacillated between periods of vivacious alertness and activity and somewhatshorter periods of blank-faced withdrawal. "And then," she went on, "there aretimes during the day when I get to feeling sort of confused and not quite surewhether I'm asleep or awake . . . you know?" 

Dr. Ormond nodded, gazing at her reflectively from the little lectern on whichhe leaned. His composed smile indicated that he was not in the least surprisedor disturbed by her report on the results of the week's experiments -- thatthey were, in fact, precisely the results he had expected. "I'll speak to youabout it later, Perrie," he told her gently. "Dexter . . . what experienceshave you had?" 

Dexter Jones cleared his throat. He was a serious young man who appeared atmeetings conservatively and neatly dressed and shaved to the quick, and rarelyspoke unless spoken to. 

"Well, nothing very dramatic, Dr. Al," he said diffidently. "I did have a fewnightmares during the week. But I'm not sure there's any connection betweenthem and, uh, what you were having us do." 

Dr. Ormond stroked his chin and regarded Dexter with benevolence. "Aconnection seems quite possible, Dexter. Let's assume it exists. What can youtell us about those nightmares?" 

Dexter said he was afraid he couldn't actually tell them anything. By the timehe was fully awake he'd had only a very vague impression of what thenightmares were about, and the only part he could remember clearly now wasthat they had been quite alarming. 

Old Mrs. Folsom, who was more than a little jealous of the special positionenjoyed by Dexter and Perrie, broke in eagerly at that point to tell about anightmare she'd had during the week and which she could remember fully; andCavender's attention drifted away from the talk. Mrs. Folsom was an old boreat best, but a very wealthy old bore, which was why Dr. Ormond usually let herramble on a while before steering the conversation back to the business of theevening. But Cavender didn't have to pretend to listen. 

From his vantage point behind most of the group, he let his gaze and thoughtswander from one to the other of them again. For the majority of the advancedstudents, he reflected, the Institute of Insight wasn't really too healthy aplace. But it offered compensations. Middle-aged or past it on the average,
financially secure, vaguely disappointed in life, they'd found in Dr. Al afriendly and eloquent guide to lead them into the fascinating worlds of their 


own minds. And Dr. Al was good at it. He had borrowed as heavily from yoga and
western mysticism as from various orthodox and unorthodox psychological
disciplines, and composed his own system, almost his own cosmology. His
exercises would have made conservative psychiatrists shudder, but he was
clever enough to avoid getting his flock into too serious mental difficulties.
If some of them suffered a bit now and then, it made the quest of Total
Insight and the thought that they were progressing towards that goal more real
and convincing. And meeting after meeting Dr. Al came up with some intriguing
new twist or device, some fresh experience to keep their interest level high. 


"Always bear in mind," he was saying earnestly at the moment, "that an advance
made by any member of the group benefits the group as a whole. Thus, because
of the work done by our young pioneers this week I see indications tonight
that the group is ready to attempt a new experiment . . . an experiment at a
level I frankly admit I hadn't anticipated you would achieve for at least
another two months." 


Dr. Ormond paused significantly, the pause underlining his words. There was an
expectant stirring among the students. 


"But I must caution you!" he went on. "We cannot, of course, be certain that
the experiment will succeed . . . in fact, it would be a very remarkable thing
if it did succeed at a first attempt. But if it should, you will have had a
rather startling experience! You will have seen a thing generally considered
to be impossible!" 


He smiled reassuringly, stepping down from the lectern. "Naturally, there will
be no danger. You know me well enough to realize that I never permit the group
or individuals to attempt what lies beyond their capability."
* * * 


Cavender stifled a yawn, blinked water from his eyes, watching Ormond walk
over to a small polished table on the left side of the room in front of the
rows of chairs. On it Mavis Greenfield had placed a number of enigmatic
articles, some of which would be employed as props in one manner or another
during the evening's work. The most prominent item was a small suitcase in red
alligator hide. Dr. Ormond, however, passed up the suitcase, took a small flat
wooden plate from the table and returned to the center of the room. 


"On this," he said, holding up the plate, "there rests at this moment the air
of this planet and nothing else. But in a minute or two -- for each of you, in
his or her world of subjective reality -- something else will appear on it." 


The students nodded comprehendingly. So far, the experiment was on familiar
ground. Dr. Ormond gave them all a good-humored wink. 


"To emphasize," he went on, "that we deal here with practical, down-to-earth,
real matters . . . not some mystical nonsense . . . to emphasize that, let us
say that the object each of you will visualize on this plate will be -- a ham
sandwich!" 


There were appreciative chuckles. But Cavender felt a twinge of annoyance. At
the moment, when along with fighting off fatigue he'd been trying to forget
that he hadn't eaten since noon, Dr. Al's choice looked like an unfortunate
one. Cavender happened to be very fond of ham. 


"Now here," Ormond continued, putting the plate down, "is where this 



experiment begins to differ from anything we have done before. For all of uswill try to imagine -- to visualize as being on this plate -- the same hamsandwich. And so there will be no conflict in our projections, let's decidefirst on just what ingredients we want to put into it." He smiled. "We'll makethis the finest ham sandwich our collective imagination can produce!" 

There were more chuckles. Cavender cursed under his breath, his mouthbeginning to water. Suggestions came promptly. 

"Mustard?" Dr. Ormond said. "Of course -- Not too sharp though, Eleanor?" Hesmiled at Mrs. Folsom. "I agree! A light touch of delicate salad mustard.
Crisp lettuce . . . finely chopped gherkins. Very well!" 

"Put it all on rye," Cavender said helplessly. "Toasted rye." 

"Toasted rye?" Ormond smiled at him, looked around. "Any objections? No?
Toasted rye it shall be, Wally. And I believe that completes our selection." 

He paused, his face turning serious. "Now as to that word of caution I gaveyou. For three minutes each of you will visualize the object we have chosen onthe plate I will be holding up before me. You will do this with your eyesopen, and to each of you, in your own subjective reality, the object willbecome, as you know, more or less clearly discernible. 

"But let me tell you this. Do not be too surprised if at the end of that time,
when the exercise is over, the object remains visible to you . . . does notdisappear!" 

There was silence for a moment. Then renewed chuckles, but slightly nervousones, and not too many. 

Dr. Ormond said sternly, "I am serious about that! The possibility, though itmay be small tonight, is there. You have learned that, by the laws of Insight,
any image of subjective reality, if it can be endowed with all the attributesof objective reality by its human creator, must spontaneously become an imagein objective reality! 

"In this case, our collective ham sandwich, if it were perfectly visualized,
could not only be seen by you but felt, its weight and the texture of each ofits ingredients perceived, their appetizing fragrance savored" -- Cavendergroaned mentally -- "and more: if one of you were to eat this sandwich, hewould find it exactly as nourishing as any produced by the more ordinarymethods of objective reality. 

"There are people in the world today," Dr. Ormond concluded, speaking veryearnestly now, "Who can do this! There always have been people who could dothis. And you are following in their footsteps, being trained in even moreadvanced skills. I am aware to a greater extent than any of you of the latentpower that is developing -- has developed -- in this group. Tonight, for thefirst time, that power will be focused, drawn down to a pinpoint, toaccomplish one task. 

"Again, I do not say that at the end of our exercise a ham sandwich will lieon this plate. Frankly, I don't expect it. But I suggest very strongly thatyou don't let it surprise or startle you too much if we find it here!" 

There was dead stillness when he finished speaking. Cavender had a sense that 


the lecture room had come alive with eerie little chills. Dr. Ormond lifted 
the plate solemnly up before him, holding it between the fingertips of bothhands. 

"Now, if you will direct your attention here . . . no, Eleanor, with your eyesopen! 

"Let us begin . . ."
* * * 

Cavender sighed, straightened up in his chair, eyes fixed obediently on thewooden plate, and banned ham sandwiches and every other kind of food firmlyfrom his thoughts. There was no point in working his appetite up any furtherwhen he couldn't satisfy it, and he would have to be on guard a little againstsimply falling asleep during the next three minutes. The cloudiness ofcomplete fatigue wasn't too far away. At the edge of his vision, he was awareof his fellow students across the room, arranged in suddenly motionless rowslike staring zombies. His eyelids began to feel leaden. 

The three minutes dragged on, came to an end. Ormond slowly lowered his hands.
Cavender drew a long breath of relief. The wooden plate, he noted, with nosurprise, was still empty. 

"You may stop visualizing," Ormond announced. 

There was concerted sighing, a creaking of chairs. The students came out oftheir semi-trances, blinked, smiled, settled into more comfortable positions,
waiting for Dr. Al's comments. 

"No miracles this time!" Ormond began briskly. He smiled. 

Mrs. Folsom said, "Dr. Al -- " 

He looked over at her. "Yes, Eleanor?" 

Eleanor Folsom hesitated, shook her head. "No," she said. "Go on. I'm sorry Iinterrupted." 

"That's all right." Dr. Al gave her a warm smile. It had been, he continued, asuccessful exercise, a very promising first attempt, in spite of the lack ofan immediate materialization, which, of course, had been only a remotepossibility to start with. He had no fault to find with the quality of thegroup's effort. He had sensed it . . . as they, too, presently would be ableto sense it . . . as a smooth flow of directed energy. With a little morepractice . . . one of these days . . . 

Cavender stifled one yawn, concealed another which didn't allow itself to bestifled behind a casually raised hand. He watched Ormond move over to the proptable, put the wooden plate down beside the red suitcase without interruptinghis encouraging summary of the exercise, hesitate, then pick up somethingelse, something which looked like a flexible copper trident, and start back tothe center of the room with it. 

Mrs. Folsom's voice said shrilly, "Dr. Al -- !" 

Ormond looked patient. 


"Yes, Eleanor? What is it?" 

"Just now," Mrs. Folsom said, her voice still holding the shrill note, "just amoment ago, on the plate over there, I'm certain . . . I'm almost certain I 
saw the ham sandwich!" 

She added breathlessly, "And that's what I was going to say before, Dr. Al!
Right after you told us to stop visualizing I thought I saw the sandwich onthe plate! But it was only for a moment and I wasn't sure. But now I'm sure,
almost sure, that I saw it again on the plate on the table!" 

The old woman was pointing a trembling finger towards the table. Her cheeksshowed spots of hectic red. In the rows behind her, the students looked at oneanother, shook their heads in resignation, some obviously suppressingamusement. Others looked annoyed. They were all familiar with Eleanor Folsom'stendency to produce such little sensations during the meetings. If the eveningdidn't promise to bring enough excitement, Eleanor always could be counted onto take a hand in events. 

Cavender felt less certain about it. This time, Mrs. Folsom sounded genuinelyexcited. And if she actually believed she'd seen something materialize, shemight be fairly close to getting one of those little heart attacks she kepteveryone informed about.
* * * 

Dr. Al could have had the same thought. He glanced back at the prop table,
asked gravely, "You don't see it there now, do you, Eleanor?" 

Mrs. Folsom shook her head. "No. No, of course not. It disappeared again. Itwas only there for a second. But I'm sure I saw it!" 

"Now this is very interesting," Ormond said seriously. "Has anyone elseobserved anything at all unusual during the last few minutes?" 

There was a murmured chorus of dissent, but Cavender noticed that theexpressions of amusement and annoyance had vanished. Dr. Al had changed thetune, and the students were listening intently. He turned back to Mrs. Folsom. 

"Let us consider the possibilities here, Eleanor," he said. "For one thing,
you should be congratulated in any case, because your experience shows thatyour visualization was clear and true throughout our exercise. If it hadn'tbeen, nothing like this could have occurred. 

"But precisely what was the experience? There we are, as of this moment, onuncertain ground. You saw something. That no one else saw the same thing mightmean simply that no one else happened to be looking at the plate at thoseparticular instants in time. I, for example, certainly gave it no furtherattention after the exercise was over. You may then have observed a genuinematerialization!" 

Mrs. Folsom nodded vigorously. "Yes, I -- " 

"But," Ormond went on, "under the circumstances, the scientific attitude wemaintain at this Institute demands that we leave the question open. For now.
Because you might also, you understand, have projected -- for yourself only -a 
vivid momentary impression of the image you had created during our exerciseand were still holding in your mind." 


Mrs. Folsom looked doubtful. The flush of excitement began to leave her face. 

"Why . . . well, yes, I suppose so," she acknowledged unwillingly. 

"Of course," Ormond said. "So tonight we shall leave it at that. The next timewe engage in a similar exercise . . . well, who knows?" He gave her areassuring smile. "I must say, Eleanor, that this is a very encouragingindication of the progress you have made!" He glanced over the group,
gathering their attention, and raised the trident-like device he had takenfrom the table. 

"And now for our second experiment this evening -- " 

Looking disappointed and somewhat confused, Eleanor Folsom settled back in herchair. Cavender also settled back, his gaze shifting sleepily to the remainingitems on the prop table. He was frowning a little. It wasn't his business, butif the old woman had started to hypnotize herself into having hallucinations,
Dr. Al had better turn to a different type of meeting exercises. And thatprobably was exactly what Ormond would do; he seemed very much aware of dangersignals. Cavender wondered vaguely what the red suitcase on the tablecontained. 

There was a blurry shimmer on the wooden plate beside the suitcase. Thensomething thickened there suddenly as if drawing itself together out of theair. Perrie Rochelle, sitting only ten feet back from the table, uttered ayelp -- somewhere between surprise and alarm. Dexter Jones, beside her,
abruptly pushed back his chair, made a loud, incoherent exclamation of somekind. 

Cavender had started upright, heart hammering. The thing that had appeared onthe wooden plate vanished again. 

But it had remained visible there for a full two seconds. And there was no 
question at all of what it had been. 

For several minutes, something resembling pandemonium swirled about the wallsof the lecture room of the Institute of Insight. The red suitcase hadconcealed the wooden plate on the prop table from the eyes of most of thestudents sitting on the right side of the room, but a number of those whocould see it felt they had caught a glimpse of something. Of just what theyweren't sure at first, or perhaps they preferred not to say. 

Perrie and Dexter, however, after getting over their first shock, had no suchdoubts. Perrie, voice vibrant with excitement, answered the questions flung ather from across the room, giving a detailed description of the ham sandwichwhich had appeared out of nowhere on the polished little table and stayedthere for an incredible instant before it vanished. Dexter Jones, his usuallyimpassive face glowing and animated, laughing, confirmed the description onevery point. 

On the opposite side of the room, Eleanor Folsom, surrounded by her own groupof questioners, was also having her hour of triumph, in the warmth of which atrace of bitterness that her first report of the phenomenon had been shruggedoff by everyone -- even, in a way, by Dr. Al -- gradually dissolved. 

Dr. Al himself, Cavender thought, remained remarkably quiet at first, though 


in the excitement this wasn't generally noticed. He might even have turned alittle pale. However, before things began to slow down he had himself well inhand again. Calling the group to a semblance of order, he began smilingly toask specific questions. The witnesses on the right side of the room seemedsomewhat more certain now of what they had observed. 

Dr. Ormond looked over at Cavender. 

"And you, Wally?" he asked. "You were sitting rather far back, to be sure -- " 

Cavender smiled and shrugged. 

"Sorry, Dr. Al. I just wasn't looking in that direction at the moment. Thefirst suggestion I had that anything unusual was going on was when Perrie letout that wild squawk." 

There was general laughter. Perrie grinned and flushed. 

"Well, I'd have liked to hear your squawk," she told Cavender, "if you'd seena miracle happen right before your nose!" 

"Not a miracle, Perrie," Ormond said gently. "We must remember that. We areworking here with natural forces which produce natural phenomena.
Insufficiently understood phenomena, perhaps, but never miraculous ones. Now,
how closely did this materialization appear to conform to the subjective groupimage we had decided on for our exercise?" 

"Well. I could only see it, of course, Dr. Al. But as far as I saw it, it wasexactly what we'd . . . no, wait!" Perrie frowned, wrinkling her nose. "Therewas something added!" She giggled. "At least, I don't remember anyone sayingwe should imagine the sandwich wrapped in a paper napkin!" 

Across the room, a woman's voice said breathlessly, "Oh! A green paper napkin,
Perrie?" 

Perrie looked around, surprised. "Yes, it was, Mavis." 

Mavis Greenfield hesitated, said with a nervous little laugh, "I suppose I didthat. I added a green napkin after we started the exercise." Her voicequavered for an instant. "I thought the image looked neater that way." Shelooked appealingly at the students around her. "This is really incredible,
isn't it " 

They gave her vague smiles. They were plainly still floating on a cloud ofcollective achievement -- if they hadn't created that sandwich, there couldhave been nothing to see! 

It seemed to Cavender that Dr. Ormond's face showed a flicker of strain when 
he heard Mavis' explanation. But he couldn't be sure because the expression -if 
it had been there -- was smoothed away at once. Ormond cleared his throat,
said firmly and somewhat chidingly, "No, not incredible, Mavis! Although -- " 

He turned on his smile. "My friends, I must admit that you have surprised me!
Very pleasantly, of course. But what happened here is something I consideredto be only a very remote possibility tonight. You are truly more advanced thanI'd realized. 


"For note this. If even one of you had been lagging behind the others, ifthere had been any unevenness in the concentration each gave to the exercisetonight, this materialization simply could not have occurred. And that factforces me now to a very important decision." 

He went over to the prop table, took the suitcase from it. "Mavis," he saidgravely, "you may put away these other devices. We will have no further needfor them in this group. Dexter, move the table to the center of the room forme, please." 

He waited while his instructions were hastily carried out, then laid thesuitcase on the table, drew up a chair and sat down. The buzz of excitedconversation among the students hushed. They stared at him in anticipatorysilence. It appeared that the evening's surprises were not yet over -- andthey were ready for anything now!
* * * 

"There is a point," Dr. Ormond began in a solemn voice, riveting their eagerattention on him, "a point in the orderly advance towards Total Insight atwhich further progress becomes greatly simplified and accelerated, because thestudent has now developed the capability to augment his personal efforts bythe use of certain instruments." 

Cavender thoughtfully reached inside his coat, brought out a cigarette case,
opened it and slowly put a cigarette to his lips. About to flick on a lighter,
he saw Reuben Jeffries watching him with an expression of disapproval fromacross the aisle. Jeffries shook his head, indicated the NO SMOKING sign onthe wall. Cavender nodded, smiling a rueful apology for his absent-mindedness,
and returned the cigarette to its case. He shoved his hands into his trouserspockets, slouched back in the chair. 

"I have told you," Ormond was saying, "that the contributions many of you sogenerously made to the Institute were needed for and being absorbed by vitalresearch. Tonight I had intended to give you a first inkling of what thatresearch was accomplishing." He tapped the suitcase on the table before him.
"In there is an instrument of the kind I have mentioned. The beneficial forces 
of the Cosmos are harnessed by it, flow through it. And I believe I can saythat my efforts in recent months have produced the most effective such deviceever seen . . ." 

"Dr. Al," Mrs. Folsom interrupted firmly, "I think you should let them knowhow the instrument cured my heart condition." 

Faces shifted towards her, then back to Dr. Al. The middle-aged majority ofthe students pricked their ears. For each of them, conscious of the years ofincreasingly uncertain health to come, Mrs. Folsom's words contained apersonal implication, one that hit home. But in spite of the vindication ofher claim to have seen a materialized ham sandwich, they weren't quite readyto trust her about this. 

Dr. Ormond's face was grave. 

"Eleanor," he said reprovingly, "that was letting the cat out of the bag,
wasn't it? I hadn't intended to discuss that part of the matter just yet." 

He hesitated, frowning, tapping the table top lightly with his knuckles. Mrs.
Folsom looked unabashed. She had produced another sensation and knew it. 


"Since it was mentioned," Ormond said with deliberation at last, "it would beunfair not to tell you, at least in brief, the facts to which Eleanor wasalluding. Very well then -- Eleanor has served during the past several weeksas the subject of certain experiments connected with this instrument. Shereports that after her first use of it, her periodically recurring heartproblem ceased to trouble her." 

Mrs. Folsom smiled, nodded vigorously. "I have not," she announced, "had onesingle touch of pain or dizziness in all this time!" 

"But one should, of course," Dr. Ormond added objectively, "hesitate to usethe word 'cure' under such circumstances." 

In the front row someone asked, "Dr. Al, will the instrument heal . . . well,
other physical conditions?" 

Ormond looked at the speaker with dignity. "John, the instrument does, and issupposed to do, one thing. Providing, as I've said, that the student workingwith it has attained a certain minimum level of Insight, it greatlyaccelerates his progress towards Total Insight. Very greatly! 

"Now, as I have implied before: as one approaches the goal of Total Insight,
the ailments and diseases which commonly afflict humanity simply disappear.
Unfortunately, I am not yet free to show you proof for this, although I havethe proof and believe it will not be long before it can be revealed at leastto the members of this group. For this reason, I have preferred not to say toomuch on the point . . . Yes, Reuben? You have a question?" 

"Two questions, Dr. Al," Reuben Jeffries said. "First, is it your opinion thatour group has now reached the minimum level of Insight that makes it possibleto work with those instruments?" 

Ormond nodded emphatically. "Yes, it has. After tonight's occurrence there isno further question about that." 

"Then," Jeffries said, "my second question is simply -- when do we start?" 

There was laughter, a scattering of applause. Ormond smiled, said, "Anexcellent question, Reuben! The answer is that a number of you will startimmediately. 

"A limited quantity of the instruments -- fifteen, I believe -- are availablenow on the premises, stored in my office. Within a few weeks I will haveenough on hand to supply as many of you as wish to speed up their progress bythis method. Since the group's contributions paid my research expenses, Icannot in justice ask more from you individually now than the actual cost inmaterial and labor for each instrument. The figure . . . I have itsomewhere . . . oh, yes!" Ormond pulled a notebook from his pocket, consultedit, looked up and said, mildly, "Twelve hundred dollars will be adequate, Ithink." 

Cavender's lips twitched sardonically. Three or four of the group might haveflinched inwardly at the price tag, but on the whole they were simply too wellheeled to give such a detail another thought. Checkbooks were coming hurriedlyinto sight all around the lecture room. Reuben Jeffries, unfolding his,
announced, "Dr. Al, I'm taking one of the fifteen." 


Half the students turned indignantly to stare at him. "Now wait a minute,
Reuben!" someone said. "That isn't fair! It's obvious there aren't enough to
go around." 


Jeffries smiled at him. "That's why I spoke up, Warren!" He appealed to
Ormond. "How about it, Dr. Al?" 


Ormond observed judiciously, "It seems fair enough to me. Eleanor, of course,
is retaining the instrument with which she has been working. As for the rest
of you -- first come, first served, you know! If others would like to have
Mavis put down their names . . ."
* * * 


There was a brief hubbub as this suggestion was acted on. Mavis, Dexter Jones
and Perrie Rochelle then went to the office to get the instruments, while Dr.
Ormond consoled the students who had found themselves left out. It would be 
merely a matter of days before the new instruments began to come in . . . and
yes, they could leave their checks in advance. When he suggested tactfully
that financial arrangements could be made if necessary, the less affluent also
brightened up. 


Fifteen identical red alligator-hide suitcases appeared and were lined up
beside Ormond's table. He announced that a preliminary demonstration with the
instrument would be made as soon as those on hand had been distributed. Mavis 
Greenfield, standing beside him, began to read off the names she had taken
down. 


Reuben Jeffries was the fifth to come up to the table, hand Ormond his check
and receive a suitcase from the secretary. Then Cavender got unhurriedly to
his feet. 


"Dr. Ormond," he said, loudly enough to center the attention of everyone in
the room on him, "may I have the floor for a moment?" 


Ormond appeared surprised, then startled. His glance went up to Reuben
Jeffries, still standing stolidly beside him, and his face slowly whitened. 


"Why . . . well, yes, Wally." His voice seemed unsteady. "What's on your
mind?" 


Cavender faced the right side of the room and the questioning faces turned
towards him. 


"My name, as you know," he told the advanced students, "is Wallace Cavender.
What you haven't known so far is that I am a police detective, rank of
lieutenant, currently attached to the police force of this city and in
temporary charge of its bunco squad." 


He shifted his gaze towards the front of the room. Ormond's eyes met his for a
moment, then dropped. 


"Dr. Ormond," Cavender said, "you're under arrest. The immediate charge, let's
say, is practicing medicine without a license. Don't worry about whether we
can make it stick or not. We'll have three or four others worked up by the
time we get you downtown." 



For a moment, there was a shocked, frozen stillness in the lecture room. Dr.
Ormond's hand began to move out quietly towards the checks lying on the table
before him. Reuben Jeffries' big hand got there first. 


"I'll take care of these for now, Dr. Al," Jeffries said with a friendly
smile. "The lieutenant thinks he wants them." 
* * * 


Not much more than thirty minutes later, Cavender unlocked the door to Dr.
Ormond's private office, went inside, leaving the door open behind him, and
sat down at Ormond's desk. He rubbed his aching eyes, yawned, lit a cigarette,
looked about in vain for an ashtray, finally emptied a small dish of paper
clips on the desk and placed the dish conveniently close to him. 


There had been an indignant uproar about Dr. Al's arrest for a while, but it
ended abruptly when uniformed policemen appeared in the two exit doors and the
sobering thought struck the students that any publicity given the matter could
make them look personally ridiculous and do damage to their business and
social standing. 


Cavender had calmed their fears. It was conceivable, he said, that the
district attorney's office would wish to confer with some of them privately,
in connection with charges to be brought against William Fitzgerald Grady -which, 
so far as the police had been able to establish, was Dr. Ormond's real
name. However, their association with the Institute of Insight would not be
made public, and any proceedings would be carried out with the discretion that
could be fully expected by blameless citizens of their status in the
community. 


They were fortunate, Cavender went on, in another respect. Probably none of
them had been aware of just how much Grady had milked from the group chiefly
through quiet private contributions and donations during the two years he was
running the Institute. The sum came to better than two hundred thousand
dollars. Grady naturally had wasted none of this in "research" and he was not
a spendthrift in other ways. Cavender was, therefore, happy to say that around
two thirds of this money was known to be still intact in various bank
accounts, and that it would be restored eventually to the generous but misled
donors. 


Dr. Al's ex-students were beginning to look both chastened and very much
relieved. Cavender briefly covered a few more points to eliminate remaining
doubts. He touched on Grady's early record as a confidence man and
blackmailer, mentioned the two terms he had spent in prison and the fact that
for the last eighteen years he had confined himself to operations like the
Institute of Insight where risks were less. The profits, if anything, had been
higher because Grady had learned that it paid off, in the long run, to deal
exclusively with wealthy citizens and he was endowed with the kind of
personality needed to overcome the caution natural to that class. As for the
unusual experiences about which some of them might be now thinking, these,
Cavender concluded, should be considered in the light of the fact that Grady
had made his living at one time as a stage magician and hypnotist, working
effectively both with and without trained accomplices. 


The lecture had gone over very well, as he'd known it would. The ex-students
left for their homes, a subdued and shaken group, grateful for having been
rescued from an evil man's toils. Even Mrs. Folsom, who had announced at one
point that she believed she had a heart attack coming on, recovered 



sufficiently to thank Cavender and assure him that in future she would take
her problems only to a reliable physician.
* * * 


Footsteps were coming down the short hall from the back of the building. Then
Reuben Jeffries' voice said, "Go into the office. The lieutenant's waiting for
you there." 


Cavender stubbed out his cigarette as Dexter Jones, Perrie Rochelle and Mavis
Greenfield filed into the office. Jeffries closed the door behind them from 
the hall and went off. 


"Sit down," Cavender said, lighting a fresh cigarette. 


They selected chairs and settled down stiffly, facing him. All three looked
anxious and pale; and Perrie's face was tear-stained. 


Cavender said, "I suppose you've been wondering why I had Sergeant Jeffries
tell you three to stay behind." 


Perrie began, her eyes and voice rather wild, "Mr. Cavender . . . Lieutenant 
Cavender . . ." 


"Either will do," Cavender said. 


"Mr. Cavender, I swear you're wrong! We didn't have anything to do with Dr.
Al's . . . Mr. Grady's cheating those people! At least, I didn't. I swear it!" 


"I didn't say you had anything to do with it, Perrie," Cavender remarked.
"Personally I think none of you had anything to do with it. Not voluntarily,
at any rate." 


He could almost feel them go limp with relief. He waited. After a second or
two, Perrie's eyes got the wild look back. "But . . ." 


"Yes?" Cavender asked. 


Perrie glanced at Dexter Jones, at Mavis. 


"But then what did happen?" she asked bewilderedly, of the other two as much
as of Cavender. "Mr. Cavender, I saw something appear on that plate! I know it
did. It was a sandwich. It looked perfectly natural. I don't think it could
have possibly been something Mr. Grady did with mirrors. And how could it have
had the paper napkin Mavis had just been thinking about wrapped around it,
unless . . ." 


"Unless it actually was a materialization of a mental image you'd created
between you?" Cavender said. "Now settle back and relax, Perrie. There's a
more reasonable explanation for what happened tonight than that." 


He waited a moment, went on. "Grady's one real interest is money and since
none of you have any to speak of, his interest in you was that you could help
him get it. Perrie and Dexter showed some genuine talent to start with, in the
line of guessing what card somebody was thinking about and the like. It's not
too unusual an ability, and in itself it wasn't too useful to Grady. 


"But he worked on your interest in the subject. All the other students, the 



paying students, had to lose was a sizable amount of cash . . . with theexception of Mrs. Folsom who's been the next thing to a flip for years anyway.
She was in danger. And you three stood a good chance of letting Grady wreckyour lives. I said he's a competent hypnotist. He is. Also a completelyruthless one." 

He looked at Mavis. "As far as I know, Mavis, you haven't ever demonstratedthat you have any interesting extrasensory talents like Dexter's and Perrie's.
Rather the contrary. Right?" 

She nodded, her eyes huge. 

"I've always tested negative. Way down negative. That's why I was reallyrather shocked when that . . . Of course, I've always been fascinated by suchthings. And he insisted it would show up in me sometime." 

"And," Cavender said, "several times a week you had special little trainingsessions with him, just as his two star pupils here did, to help it show up.
You were another perfect stooge, from Grady's point of view. Well, what itamounts to is that Grady was preparing to make his big final killing off thisgroup before he disappeared from the city. He would have collected close tothirty thousand dollars tonight, and probably twice as much again within thenext month or so before any of the students began to suspect seriously thatDr. Al's instruments could be the meaningless contraptions they are. 

"You three have been hypnotically conditioned to a fare-you-well, in thoselittle private sessions you've had with him. During the past week you were setup for the role you were to play tonight. When you got your cue -- at a guessit was Mrs. Folsom's claim that she'd seen the ham sandwich materialize youstarted seeing, saying, acting, and thinking exactly as you'd been told tosee, say, act, and think. There's no more mystery about it than that. And inmy opinion you're three extremely fortunate young people in that we were readyto move in on Grady when we were."
* * * 

There was silence for a moment. Then Perrie Rochelle said hesitantly, "ThenMrs. Folsom . . ." 

"Mrs. Folsom," Cavender said, "has also enjoyed the benefits of many privatesessions with Grady. She, of course, was additionally paying very handsomelyfor them. Tonight, she reported seeing what she'd been told to report seeing,
to set off the hypnotic chain reaction." 

"But," Perrie said, "she said her heart attacks stopped after she startedusing the instrument. I really don't see how that could have been just herimagination?" 

"Very easily," Cavender said. "I've talked with her physician. Mrs. Folsombelongs to a not uncommon type of people whose tickers are as sound as yoursor mine, but who are convinced they have a serious heart ailment and can dishup symptoms impressive enough to fool anyone but an informed professional.
They can stop dishing them up just as readily if they think they've beencured." He smiled faintly. "You look as if you might be finally convinced,
Perrie." 

She nodded. "I . . . yes, I guess so. I guess I am." 


"All right," Cavender said. He stood up. "You three can run along then. Youwon't be officially involved in this matter, and no one's going to bother you.
If you want to go on playing around with E.S.P. and so forth, that's yourbusiness. But I trust that in future you'll have the good sense to keep awayfrom characters like Grady. Periods of confusion, chronic nightmares -- evenchronic headaches -- are a good sign you're asking for bad trouble in thatarea." 

They thanked him, started out of the office in obvious relief. At the door,
Perrie Rochelle hesitated, looked back. 

"Mr. Cavender . . ." 

"Yes?" 

"You don't think I . . . I need . . ." 

"Psychiatric help? No. But I understand," Cavender said, "that you have asister in Maine who's been wanting you to spend the summer with her. I thinkthat's a fine idea! A month or two of sun and salt water is exactly what youcan use to drive the last of this nonsense out of your mind again. So goodnight to the three of you, and good luck!"
* * * 

Cavender snapped the top of the squat little thermos flask back in place andrestored it to the glove compartment of Jeffries' car. He brushed a few crumbsfrom the knees of his trousers and settled back in the seat, discovering he nolonger felt nearly as tired and washed out as he had been an hour ago in thelecture room. A few cups of coffee and a little nourishment could do wondersfor a man, even at the tail end of a week of hard work. 

The last light in the Institute building across the street went out andCavender heard the click of the front door. The bulky figure of DetectiveSergeant Reuben Jeffries stood silhouetted for a moment in the street lightson the entrance steps. Then Jeffries came down the steps and crossed thestreet to the car. 

"All done?" Cavender asked. 

"All done," Jeffries said through the window. He opened the door, easedhimself in behind the wheel and closed the door. 

"They took Grady away by the back entrance," he told Cavender. "The records inhis files . . . he wasn't keeping much, of course . . . and the stuff in the 
safe and those instruments went along with him. He was very co-operative. He'shad a real scare." 

Cavender grunted. "He'll get over it." 

Jeffries hesitated, said, "I'm something of a Johnny-come-lately in this lineof work, you know. I'd be interested in hearing how it's handled from hereon." 

"In this case it will be pretty well standard procedure," Cavender said.
"Tomorrow around noon I'll have Grady brought in to see me. I'll be in a curtand bitter mood -- the frustrated honest cop. I'll tell him he's in luck. TheD.A.'s office has informed me that because of the important names involved in 


this fraud case, and because all but around forty thousand dollars of themoney he collected in this town have been recovered, they've decided not toprosecute. He'll have till midnight to clear out. If he ever shows up again,
he gets the book." 

"Why leave him the forty thousand?" Jeffries asked. "I understood they knowdarn well where it's stashed." 

Cavender shrugged. "The man's put in two years of work, Reuben. If we cleanhim, he might get discouraged enough to get out of the racket and trysomething else. As it is, he'll have something like the Institute of Insightgoing again in another city three months from now. In an area that hasn't beencropped over recently. He's good in that line . . . one of the best, in fact." 

Jeffries thoughtfully started the car, pulled out from the curb. Halfway downthe block, he remarked, "You gave me the go-ahead sign with the cigaretteright after the Greenfield girl claimed she'd put the paper napkin into thatimage. Does that mean you finally came to a decision about her?" 

"Uh-huh." 

Jeffries glanced over at him, asked, "Is there any secret about how you'reable to spot them?" 

"No . . . except that I don't know. If I could describe to anyone how to goabout it, we might have our work cut in half. But I can't, and neither can anyother spotter. It's simply a long, tedious process of staying in contact withpeople you have some reason to suspect of being the genuine article. If theyare, you know it eventually. But if it weren't that men with Grady's type ofpersonality attract them somehow from ten miles around, we'd have no practicalmeans at present of screening prospects out of the general population. Youcan't distinguish one of them from anyone else if he's just walking past youon the street." 

Jeffries brought the car to a halt at a stop light. 

"That's about the way I'd heard it," he acknowledged. "What about negativespotting? Is there a chance there might be an undiscovered latent left amongour recent fellow students?" 

"No chance at all," Cavender said. "The process works both ways. If theyaren't, you also know it eventually -- and I was sure of everyone butGreenfield over three weeks ago. She's got as tough a set of obscuringdefenses as I've ever worked against. But after the jolt she got tonight, shecame through clear immediately." 

The light changed and the car started up. Jeffries asked, "You feel both ofthem can be rehabilitated?" 

"Definitely," Cavender said. "Another three months of Grady's pseudo-yogamight have ruined them for good. But give them around a year to settle out andthey'll be all right. Then they'll get the call. It's been worth the trouble.
Jones is good medium grade -- and that Greenfield! She'll be a powerhousebefore she's half developed. Easily the most promising prospect I've comeacross in six years." 

"You're just as certain about Perrie Rochelle?" 


"Uh-huh. Proto-psi -- fairly typical. She's developed as far as she ever will.
It would be a complete waste of time to call her. You can't train something
that just isn't there." 


Jeffries grunted. "Never make a mistake, eh?" 


Cavender yawned, smiled. "Never have yet, Reuben! Not in that area." 


"How did you explain the sandwich to them -- and Greenfield's napkin? They
couldn't have bought your stage magic idea." 


"No. Told them those were Dr. Al's posthypnotic suggestions. It's the other
standard rationalization." 
* * * 


They drove on in silence for a while. Then Jeffries cleared his throat. 


"Incidentally," he said. "I should apologize for the slip with the sandwich,
even though it turned out to our advantage. I can't quite explain it. I was
thinking of other matters at the moment, and I suppose I . . ." 


Cavender, who had been gazing drowsily through the windshield, shook his head. 


"As you say, it turned out very well, Reuben. Aside from putting the first
crack in Mavis Greenfield's defenses, it shook up Dr. Al to the point where he
decided to collect as much as he could tonight, cash the checks, and clear
out. So he set himself up for the pinch. We probably gained as much as three
or four weeks on both counts." 


Jeffries nodded. "I realize that. But . . ." 


"Well, you'd have no reason to blame yourself for the slip in any case,"
Cavender went on. "The fact is I'd been so confoundedly busy all afternoon and
evening, I forgot to take time out for dinner. When that sandwich was being
described in those mouth-watering terms, I realize I was really ravenous. At
the same time I was fighting off sleep. Between the two, I went completely off
guard for a moment, and it simply happened!" 


He grinned. "As described, by the way, it was a terrific sandwich. That group
had real imagination!" He hesitated, then put out his hand, palm up, before
him. "As a matter of fact, just talking about it again seems to be putting me
in a mood for seconds . . ." 


Something shimmered for an instant in the dim air. Wrapped in its green tissue
napkin, a second ham sandwich appeared. 


-Chapter 21 
Where the Time Went 

This began in the office of John D. Carew, of the John D. Carew LiteraryAgency, New York City. Present in the room were John D. Carew and George Belk,
one of his authors. 


"George," Carew was saying, "please don't misunderstand me. When -- ratherlong ago -- I saw the first samples of your work, I was delighted. I toldmyself you might grow in time to be one of our most valuable properties. Istill believe you retain that potential. But having represented you for overeight years, I begin to feel concerned. Your overall output remainsregrettably slight." 

George Belk sighed. "I know it." 

"I can place almost anything you write," Carew went on, "for relatively goodmoney. But over the years checks have been few and far between. You must befeeling the financial pinch from time to time." 

"I get by," George said, looking despondent. "But barely." 

Carew clucked in a sympathetic way. "If you'd like to confide in me, George -what 
seems to be your problem? " 

George sighed again. "I wish I could define the problem! I can't. The effectis simply that I don't seem to have time to get more writing done." 

Carew's eyebrows lifted for a moment "You are engaged in other work? Perhapsin intensive social activities?" 

"No! Neither. I write full time. Of course I have chores to take care of 
around the house. I go shopping. And I try to reserve half an hour a day forphysical exercise." 

Carew nodded. "The last is commendable! One should keep fit. But is that allyou do? Besides writing? " 

"Yes," George said. "That's all." 

"Then you must, in fact, be putting in a great deal of worktime during anaverage day. . . ." 

"No, I don't," George said. "Let me try to explain it to you -- though, as Isaid, I can't explain it myself. You may not believe this, but I'm amethodical and orderly man. I keep files and records. So I can't help noticingthat I manage to waste an incredible amount of time." 

"In what way?" 

George scowled. "That's what I'd like to know! Take my half-hour of exercisein the morning. Nine to nine-thirty is the period I set aside for it. I shaveat eight, right after breakfast. Then I drag some mats out into the livingroom and pull back the furniture. By then it's nine o'clock." 

Carew looked very thoughtful., "Shaving and dragging out some mats and pullingback a few pieces of furniture consumes a full hour?" 

"It doesn't seem reasonable, does it?" George said. "Well, that's part of whatI mean. A small part . . . So then it's nine o'clock and I exercise. I timethat -- thirty minutes exactly. 

"But before I've got dressed again and straightened out the living room and amready to go shopping, it's usually close to eleven." 


Carew grunted and stroked his chin. "When do you actually get to work?" 
George looked embarrassed. "Well, around one-fifteen." 
"You shop for two hours?" 
"Yes, somehow it comes to that. I have to go to several stores. No one store


ever seems to carry everything you want." 
"I see. Then you work through the afternoon?" 
"In principle. I may put in a short break now and then." 
"Doing what?" Carew asked. 
"Oh, I might have a snack and then of course I have to wash the dishes again.


Oh I'll tidy up a room that's beginning to look too messy. That kind of
thing." 
"Umm. And in the evening?" 


"Ordinarily I'm working. I take in an occasional TV show." 
Carew leaned back in his chair. "And what is your average daily output under
those circumstances?" 


George hung his head. "Roughly -- five hundred words." 


Carew just blinked at him in silence.
* * * 
"That's the incredible part of it!" George said explosively. "Because I've


timed myself on occasion. When I have, I've found I can turn out a page of
perfectly usable material in around twenty minutes." He leaned forward,
slammed his fist on the desk. "I tell you, sometimes I think this is going to
drive me crazy! Where does the rest of my time go?" 


"I'm not sure," said Carew, pulling open a desk drawer. "But it's possible
that there is a solution to your problem. Yes, quite possible!" 


"What kind of solution?" George asked hopefully. 
Carew fished about in the drawer, took out a business card and slid it across
the desk to George. "When you get home," he said, "call this number and get
yourself an appointment. I'll have talked with their office meanwhile." 


George read the card. The name on it was William W. Gordon, M.D. 


"Now wait a minute!" he said suspiciously. "This Dr. Gordon doesn't happen to
be a psychiatrist, does he?" 
"No," said Carew. "Dr. Gordon is not a psychiatrist. He has medical and


psychological degrees, but he isn't in general practice. He does research
work." 
"And just how is he supposed to research me?" George asked in a somewhat 



belligerent tone. 

"He isn't going to research you George. He's going to research your problem." 

"Well, I don't know," George muttered. He stared uneasily at the card, turningit around in his fingers. 

"George," said Carew, "you exhibit the not uncommon fear of your ilk that if aheadshrinker ever got his hooks on you, you'd be in for a fast trip to thefunny farm. Let me assure you that you run no risk of that in doing as Isuggest. Let me assure you further that I know of several cases in which aproblem quite similar to yours was solved by Dr. Gordon to the applicants'great satisfaction." 

"Could you give me a few names?" George said warily. 

"I could, but I don't intend to," Carew told him.
* * * 

Dr. Gordon was a big warm fuzzy man who seemed reluctant to voice even themost general sort of opinion about George's problem. "First, Mr. Belk," hesaid, "we must establish precisely what the nature of the trouble is. Onlythen can we begin to think in terms of corrective procedures." 

George had to be satisfied with that. He sat rigid in a chair while Dr. Gordonfitted a mesh of metal bands about his skull and tightened them down gentlywith large stubby fingers. 

"What's that for?" George asked 

"It should give me some information about this and that going on inside yourhead." 

George cleared his throat. "Carew told me you weren't a psychiatrist." 

"I'm not," Dr. Gordon said, "though I started out in that direction. Think ofme as an electronics specialist and don't worry about your mittful of neurosesand compulsions. I couldn't care less about them. Now, let's see how well youcan let yourself relax for the next five minutes. 

The five minutes passed eventually, and George was told he could stoprelaxing. He twisted around in the chair and saw Dr. Gordon place someinstruments into a drawer in his desk. He was frowning pensively. 

"What did you find out, Doctor?" George asked. 

Dr. Gordon looked up and stopped frowning. "Oh, about what I expected." Hecame over and began to remove the metal mesh from around George's head. 

"Is it . . . serious?" asked George. 

"Well, definitely it's something we must follow up. Now, Mr. Belk, I need yourcooperation for the next step. It will hardly inconvenience you at all." 

Dr. Gordon then turned to a wall closet and took from it a device which looked 
like one of the more expensive kinds of camera except that it had no lens andnothing visibly on it which would be twisted or pressed. "We'll put this in a 


case," Dr. Gordon said, placing the instrument in a case as he spoke, "and
you'll set it up in your house for the next two days. You say you're not
married. Do you have many visitors?" 


"Very few nowadays," said George. 


"You live alone?" 


"Yes. Except for some cats." 


"Cats don't count," said Dr. Gordon. "Very well. Set up this instrument -- you
can leave it in the case -- somewhere near the center of your house. This is
Tuesday. Between now and ten a.m. Friday, I'd like you to note down the
occasions when somebody besides yourself is in the house or even comes to the
door. The mailman, as an example. If you happen to forget, it won't matter too
much. But try to remember. Note the time anybody arrives and the length of
time he stays around. I'll see you again Friday at ten. Bring the instrument
back with you." 


Hesitantly George took the instrument case. "This is all rather mystifying!"
he remarked uncomfortably. 


"I'm sure it must seem that way to you," said Dr. Gordon. "But remember, Mr.
Belk, that we live in a rapidly evolving scientific age!" He gave George a
brief smile and a reassuring clap on the shoulder. "Put your trust in advanced
electronics!" 
* * * 


During the next two days George forgot half the time that he had Dr. Gordon's
device in the house. When he first got home with it, he'd taken it out of the
case and looked it over carefully. That told him nothing. There were no
settings, no concealed switches in it. He put it back in the case on a small
table which stood approximately in the center of the house. He called John
Carew, told him what Dr. Gordon had said and described the mysterious
instrument. "Is that his usual procedure?" 


Carew said he had no idea what Dr. Gordon's usual procedure was. However they
could assume he knew what he was doing, and George should go along with
instructions. 


That part was easy. Only the mailman came to the house on Wednesday and
Thursday, and George dutifully noted the time of day. Otherwise he went about
his normal activities, still wondering now and then at the way time seemed to
be slipping through his grasp. In spite of Carew's assurances, he found
himself unable to develop much faith in the effectiveness of Dr. Gordon's
approach. 


At quarter to eleven on Friday morning his telephone rang. He picked up the
receiver, 


"Hello, Mr. Belk," Dr. Gordon's voice said. "It appears we've forgotten our
appointment, heh?" 


Abashed, George admitted that he had indeed forgotten it. "And I don't know
how it happened," he said. "I definitely planned to be at your office by ten
o'clock. It seems to me I was looking at my watch just a moment ago, and it
was then barely past nine." 



"I'm not surprised," Dr. Gordon said cryptically. "I'll see you as soon as youcan make it here. Bring along the drainometer." 

"The what?" asked George. 

"The gadget," said Dr. Gordon, and hung up. 

On reflection George decided that knowing the device was called a drainometerdidn't really tell him much. He took it from its place on the table and setoff, feeling unhappy and badly confused. At the office Dr. Gordon ushered himinto a side room, provided him with some magazines to leaf around in, anddisappeared with the drainometer. Some fifteen minutes later he came back intothe room, closed the door, and stood staring at George. 

"This is as bad a case as I've come across," he observed, shaking his head.
"Worse even than I'd suspected." 

"As bad a case of what?" George asked, alarmed. 

"Of time drainage!" Dr. Gordon pulled a chair out from behind a table and satdown. "I'll explain the situation to you as well as I can, Mr. Belk, and Ibelieve you'll see why it was necessary for me to remain silent until now."
* * * 

He steepled his fingers. "I won't attempt to go into the math of this," hesaid. "For one reason, because I suspect that scientific math is not yourforte." 

"No, it isn't," George agreed. 

"Then let me tell you in a more general way about time. There are two distinctkinds of time. There is TIME -- time in capitals, so to speak -- which is thetime through which the world about all of us progresses. And then there issubjective, or individual, lower case time." 

George nodded interestedly. "Einstein's theories have to do with that, don'tthey?" 

"Not really. The science of time units is a different development. Picture toyourself that everybody generates and has available for his use a personalsupply of time units or particles. Say, roughly, that for every fifty years ofreal time, or TIME, everybody generates and uses up fifty million timeparticles. 

"When this process is operating normally, the individual is synchronal inTIME. He feeds out his time particles in a steady uniform stream which keepshim comfortably abreast of the passage of TIME in the world. However, problemsmay arise. You, for example, Mr. Belk, do not have as solid a contact with theflow of your time particles as you might have -- we can assume that somethingin you withdraws to some extent from the outside world and TIME. As a resultyou're a natural time particle waster. At present there isn't much we can doabout that condition. On the other hand, it's hardly a serious matter. I'destimate that you normally lose about one time particle in twenty -- not asignificant percentage." 

"I'm not sure I'm following all this," George admitted. 


"It's not necessary for you to grasp it all," Dr. Gordon assured him. "Isimply want you to have the general picture. Now look at another aspect of thematter. People, as you know, have widely varying feelings about the value oftime. Some never get enough of it. They have many things to do and many morethings they'd like to do and simply can't get around to doing. If they couldsqueeze forty-eight full hours into a single workday, they'd be delighted. 

"And then there are people who have, as we say, time on their hands. Oftenvery heavily on their hands. It is a commodity for which they can find no realuse. If it were possible, they would be glad to be relieved of a large part ofit. 

"And nowadays it is possible. That's the point here. There are methods wherebya portion of the flow of one individual's time particles can be diverted fromhim and integrated into the flow of another person's time particles. Thesecond person now has subjectively more time available to him than he hadbefore, and the first person has subjectively less. It is an insidiousprocess: the loser in this transaction has no way of grasping what hashappened. If he is a man who places no value on time and has time to spare inthat sense, he may not even notice that anything has happened. He may feelquite comfortable -- and less bored -- within the time particle flow left athis disposal. 

"But when the victim is a busy man, a man who needs his time, it is adifferent matter. Again, of course, he doesn't understand the situation. Hesimply is aware that it seems to take him forever to get anything done. Hefeels that the minutes and hours are slipping through his fingers, as in factthey are."
* * * 

George stared at the doctor in shocked dismay. "That's what's been happeningto me?" he asked. 

That's what's been happening to you, Mr. Belk." 

"But," George cried, outraged, "this has been going on for years! 

"Evidently." 

"What can I do to stop it? You said -- " 

"I indicated that your problem could be solved, Mr. Belk," said, Dr. Gordon.
"And indeed it will be. You see, this situation is so fraught with unethicalpossibilities that an organization exists which is dedicated to policing thetransfer of subjective time among individuals. Such transactions may be quitelegitimate. As I explained, a good many people have more time than they knowwhat to do with, they have surplus time which is a nuisance to them. Peoplewho need additional time are allowed to draw it from such individuals,
providing suitable compensation is made. Since our organization operates withas much secrecy as possible, the donor frequently doesn't know there has beena transaction. But always he must be compensated. An unexpected stroke of goodfortune comes his way; he may find a better job, more suitable to hisunenergetic nature, suddenly open to him, and so forth. Both parties havebenefitted." 

"But why the secrecy?" George asked. "If everybody knew -- " 


"If everybody were aware of this, Mr. Belk, the situation might get completely
out of hand. As I said, the process of extracting time particles from somebody
else is very simple, once it is understood. We want no more people to know
about it than we can help." 


"I see." George hesitated. "Then you -- this organization -- will keep whoever
has been stealing my time from doing it again?"
* * * 


Dr. Gordon smiled. "We can do better than that. Much better. The drainometer 
recordings indicate that at various periods during the past two days as much
as nine out of ten of your time particles have been surreptitiously diverted.
This is a blatant crime. The fact that you are, as I previously indicated,
inherently somewhat careless with your time has made you an easy victim. But
now compensation must be made by those who took advantage of this. When you
leave here, you will carry another instrument with you. The next attempt to
tap the flow of your time particles will give us a direct line to the
perpetrator. In all likelihood. we shall find then that you have been preyed
upon not by one individual but by a criminal gang." 


"A gang?" George repeated. 


"Exactly. As I pointed out, Mr. Belk, time is a commodity. It has value. For
some it has great value. Among such people there always will be a number who
do not care whether the commodity they want can be obtained legally or
ethically, provided only they get it. And there always will be criminal
elements willing to supply the commodity for a price. We're constantly on the
lookout for indications of such a situation." 


"And you can make them compensate for what they've done?" 


"Yes, we can," said Dr. Gordon. "The organization has very effective means of
dealing with such criminals and those who benefit unethically by their crimes.
We shall establish exactly how much time was diverted from you and by whom
during the past years, and to the last particle this time will be drained from
the guilty parties involved and restored. Not in a lump sum, so to speak. But
you will have established a time credit with the organization, on which you
can draw as your requirements or wishes dictate. In other words, if you should
like to operate for a while on the basis of a fully usable forty-eight-hour
working day, or even a hundred-hour day, you will be able to do it." 


George was silent a moment. "I hardly know how to thank the organization -and 
you, sir!" he said then. "There must be some way I can repay you." 


Dr. Gordon cleared his throat. "Well, as a matter of fact, it is customary to
charge a fee. The fee goes not to me but to the organization. As I say, time
is a commodity. We all can use it. Would a fee of say ten per cent of the time
you will regain seem fair to you?" 


"Eminently fair!" George declared.
* * * 


He called John Carew next day to tell him of the outcome of the matter. 


"Exactly as I thought!" Carew said with evident satisfaction. 



"So you knew all about this time drain stuff, eh?" said, George. 

"I should," Carew's voice told him. "Quite a long while ago I found myself ina pickle not unlike yours. Somebody steered me to the organization, and theyadjusted the matter very satisfactorily. In fact, I'll still put in anoccasional fifty hours day, though I found, as I believe you will, that afully available ordinary workday is quite enough in the long run." 

"I expect you're right," George agreed. "For a few months though I intend toreally live it up on my time account!" 

"Fine," said John Carew. "In that case, I'll look forward to getting a newnovel from you within . . . oh, let's say the next two weeks." 

And he got it. 

-Chapter 22 
An Incident on Route 12 

Phil Garfield was thirty miles south of the little town of Redmon on RouteTwelve when he was startled by a series of sharp, clanking noises. They camefrom under the Packard's hood. 

The car immediately began to lose speed. Garfield jammed down the accelerator,
had a sense of sick helplessness at the complete lack of response from themotor. The Packard rolled on, getting rid of its momentum, and came to a stop. 

Phil Garfield swore shakily. He checked his watch, switched off the headlightsand climbed out into the dark road. A delay of even half an hour here might bedisastrous. It was past midnight, and he had another hundred and ten miles tocover to reach the small private airfield where Madge waited for him and thethirty thousand dollars in the suitcase on the Packard's front seat. 

If he didn't make it before daylight . . . 

He thought of the bank guard. The man had made a clumsy play at being a hero,
and that had set off the fool woman who'd run screaming into their line offire. One dead. Perhaps two. Garfield hadn't stopped to look at an eveningpaper. 

But he knew they were hunting for him. 

He glanced up and down the road. No other headlights in sight at the moment,
no light from a building showing on the forested hills. He reached back intothe car and brought out the suitcase, his gun, a big flashlight and the box ofshells which had been standing beside the suitcase. He broke the box open,
shoved a handful of shells and the .38 into his coat pocket, then tooksuitcase and flashlight over to the shoulder of the road and set them down. 

There was no point in groping about under the Packard's hood. When it came tomechanics, Phil Garfield was a moron and well aware of it. The car was uselessto him now . . . except as bait. 

But as bait it might be very useful. 


Should he leave it standing where it was? No, Garfield decided. To anybodydriving past it would merely suggest a necking party, or a drunk sleeping offhis load before continuing home. He might have to wait an hour or more beforesomeone decided to stop. He didn't have the time. He reached in through thewindow, hauled the top of the steering wheel towards him and put his weightagainst the rear window frame. 

The Packard began to move slowly backwards at a slant across the road. In aminute or two he had it in position. Not blocking the road entirely, whichwould arouse immediate suspicion, but angled across it, lights out, empty,
both front doors open and inviting a passerby's investigation. 

Garfield carried the suitcase and flashlight across the right-hand shoulder ofthe road and moved up among the trees and undergrowth of the slope above theshoulder. Placing the suitcase between the bushes, he brought out the .38,
clicked the safety off and stood waiting. 

Some ten minutes later, a set of headlights appeared speeding up Route Twelvefrom the direction of Redmon. Phil Garfield went down on one knee before he 
came within range of the lights. Now he was completely concealed by thevegetation. 

The car slowed as it approached, braking nearly to a stop sixty feet from thestalled Packard. There were several people inside it; Garfield heard voices,
then a woman's loud laugh. The driver tapped his horn inquiringly twice, movedthe car slowly forward. As the headlights went past him, Garfield got to hisfeet among the bushes, took a step down towards the road, raising the gun. 

Then he caught the distant gleam of a second set of headlights approachingfrom Redmon. He swore under his breath and dropped back out of sight. The carbelow him reached the Packard, edged cautiously around it, rolled on with asudden roar of acceleration. 
* * * 

The second car stopped when still a hundred yards away, the Packard caught inthe motionless glare of its lights. Garfield heard the steady purring of apowerful motor. 

For almost a minute, nothing else happened. Then the car came gliding smoothlyon, stopped again no more than thirty feet to Garfield's left. He could see itnow through the screening bushes -- a big job, a long, low four-door sedan.
The motor continued to purr. After a moment, a door on the far side of the caropened and slammed shut. 

A man walked quickly out into the beam of the headlights and started towardsthe Packard. 

Phil Garfield rose from his crouching position, the .38 in his right hand,
flashlight in his left. If the driver was alone, the thing was now cinched!
But if there was somebody else in the car, somebody capable of fast, decisiveaction, a slip in the next ten seconds might cost him the sedan, and quiteprobably his freedom and life. Garfield lined up the .38's sights steadily onthe center of the approaching man's head. He let his breath out slowly as thefellow came level with him in the road and squeezed off one shot. 

Instantly he went bounding down the slope to the road. The bullet had flung 


the man sideways to the pavement. Garfield darted past him to the left,
crossed the beam of the headlights, and was in darkness again on the far sideof the road, snapping on his flashlight as he sprinted up to the car. 

The motor hummed quietly on. The flashlight showed the seats empty. Garfielddropped the light, jerked both doors open in turn, gun pointing into the car'sinterior. Then he stood still for a moment, weak and almost dizzy with relief. 

There was no one inside. The sedan was his. 

The man he had shot through the head lay face down on the road, his hat flunga dozen feet away from him. Route Twelve still stretched out in dark silenceto east and west. There should be time enough to clean up the job beforeanyone else carne along. Garfield brought the suitcase down and put it on thefront seat of the sedan, then started back to get his victim off the road andout of sight. He scaled the man's hat into the bushes, bent down, grasped theankles and started to haul him towards the left side of the road where the 
ground dropped off sharply beyond the shoulder. 

The body made a high, squealing sound and began to writhe violently.
* * * 

Shocked, Garfield dropped the legs and hurriedly took the gun from his pocket,
moving back a step. The squealing noise rose in intensity as the wounded manquickly flopped over twice like a struggling fish, arms and legs sawing aboutwith startling energy. Garfield clicked off the safety, pumped three shotsinto his victim's back. 

The grisly squeals ended abruptly. The body continued to jerk for anothersecond or two, then lay still. 

Garfield shoved the gun back into his pocket. The unexpected interruption hadunnerved him; his hands shook as he reached down again for the stranger'sankles. Then he jerked his hands back, and straightened up, staring. 

From the side of the man's chest, a few inches below the right arm, somethinglike a thick black stick, three feet long, protruded now through the materialof the coat. 

It shone, gleaming wetly, in the light from the car. Even in that firstuncomprehending instant, something in its appearance brought a surge of sickdisgust to Garfield's throat. Then the stick bent slowly halfway down itslength, forming a sharp angle, and its tip opened into what could have beenthree blunt, black claws which scrabbled clumsily against the pavement. Veryfaintly, the squealing began again, and the body's back arched up as ifanother stick-like arm were pushing desperately against the ground beneath it. 

Garfield acted in a blur of horror. He emptied the .38 into the thing at hisfeet almost without realizing he was doing it. Then, dropping the gun, heseized one of the ankles, ran backwards to the shoulder of the road, draggingthe body behind him. 

In the darkness at the edge of the shoulder, he let go of it, stepped aroundto the other side and with two frantically savage kicks sent the body plungingover the shoulder and down the steep slope beyond. He heard it crash throughthe bushes for some seconds, then stop. He turned, and ran back to the sedan,
scooping up his gun as he went past. He scrambled into the driver's seat and 


slammed the door shut behind him. 

His hands shook violently on the steering wheel as he pressed down theaccelerator. The motor roared into life and the big car surged forward. Heedged it past the Packard, cursing aloud in horrified shock, jammed down theaccelerator and went flashing up Route Twelve, darkness racing beside andbehind him. 
* * * 

What had it been? Something that wore what seemed to be a man's body like asuit of clothes, moving the body as a man moves, driving a man'scar . . . roach-armed, roach-legged itself! 

Garfield drew a long, shuddering breath. Then, as he slowed for a curve, therewas a spark of reddish light in the rear-view mirror. 

He stared at the spark for an instant, braked the car to a stop, rolled downthe window and looked back. 

Far behind him along Route Twelve, a fire burned. Approximately at the pointwhere the Packard had stalled out, where something had gone rolling off theroad into the bushes. 

Something, Garfield added mentally, that found fiery automatic destructionwhen death came to it, so that its secrets would remain unrevealed. 

But for him the fire meant the end of a nightmare. He rolled the window up,
took out a cigarette, lit it, and pressed the accelerator . . . 

In incredulous fright, he felt the nose of the car tilt upwards, headlightssweeping up from the road into the trees. 

Then the headlights winked out. Beyond the windshield, dark tree branchesfloated down towards him, the night sky beyond. He reached frantically for thedoor handle. 

A steel wrench clamped silently about each of his arms, drawing them inagainst his sides, immobilizing them there. Garfield gasped, looked up at themirror and saw a pair of faintly gleaming red eyes watching him from the rearof the car. Two of the things . . . the second one stood behind him out ofsight, holding him. They'd been in what had seemed to be the trunkcompartment. And they had come out. 

The eyes in the mirror vanished. A moist, black roach-arm reached over theback of the seat beside Garfield, picked up the cigarette he had dropped,
extinguished it with rather horribly human motions, then took up Garfield'sgun and drew back out of sight. 

He expected a shot, but none came. 

One doesn't fire a bullet through the suit one intends to wear . . . 

It wasn't until that thought occurred to him that tough Phil Garfield began toscream. He was still screaming minutes later when, beyond the windshield, thespaceship floated into view among the stars. 


-Chapter 23 
Swift Completion 

Beginning with Monday of that week, George Redfern -- a healthy, athletic, but
thwarted and frustrated young man -- had been trying to maneuver his wife into
a situation which would leave him an unimplicated widower. There was nothing
haphazard about George's efforts. His preparations had been thorough; he had
worked out not one scheme but several, including alternate steps he might take
if, through no fault of his own, something should threaten to go wrong. 


Now, around noon on Friday, George stood at the top of the flight of stairs in
the Redfern's suburban residence, moodily watching Martha Redfern adjust a
silk scarf about her shapely neck before a mirror in the entry hall below.
None of his plans, somehow, appeared to be getting anywhere. Was his wife
simply enjoying a remarkable run of good luck, or had she actually gained an
inkling of what was in his mind? 


"George?" Martha said abruptly without turning her gaze from the mirror. 


George gave an involuntary start. He hadn't realized she knew he was watching.
"Yes?" he replied. 


Martha took some envelopes from the mirror stand and held them up. 


"I'm afraid I forgot to stamp these," she told him. "The stamps are in the top
left-hand corner of my desk in the study, George. I'll need six. Be waiting
for you down by the car, dear." 


She slipped the letters into her purse and went through the French doors to
the terrace. Silently obedient, George started along the upstairs hall to the
study. Martha was a member of the State Legislature, now running for her
second term; the study resembled an elegantly equipped business office, and
Martha used it as her office when she was at home. This morning, her
secretary, Joanne Brown, had not been in, and she had taken care of her mail
herself. A portable typewriter and a wire basket with carbon copies of the
letters she had written, stood on her desk. Catching sight of the letters,
George glanced back towards the hall, then picked the letters up to look them
over. 


The one on top was addressed to a Mr. Donald H. Spurgeon -- Martha's Uncle Don
-- of Spurgeon & Sanders, Attorneys at Law. It was marked PERSONAL. George
read the first two sentences and felt the blood drain suddenly from his face.
He gulped, and sat dizzily down at the desk, clutching the letter in his hand.
Then, after inhaling deeply several times to compose himself, he smoothed the
letter out, and hastily read through it, his feeling of incredulous shock
increasing as he approached the end. It read:
* * * 


Dear Uncle Don: 


This letter is intended only for your confidential information. I am convinced
that George has given up hope of getting his hands on any appreciable part of
my money while I am alive, so he is now planning to do away with me. He would
then be free to devote his attention to Cynthia Haley, of whom he has, I am
sure, become enamored. 



With elections coming up in a few weeks, you will readily see how awkward it
would be for me to make an open issue of the matter. In this district,
George's social background and personal good looks represent important assets.
I cannot afford to give them up, particularly not during the present difficult
campaign. 


I foresee no great difficulty, however, in dealing with the situation on a
personal level, and intend to take no other steps at this time. If, on the
other hand, George should happen to succeed in his schemes, I want him to be
punished. In the event of my death, this letter will open the question of his
guilt. No more should be required. His motivations will be easy to establish;
and, in any case, as you will agree, George has not the character to face a
determined investigator for five minutes without going into a state of panic
and convicting himself. 


I intend to drive to the beach this evening -- leaving George at home -- and
shall spend the weekend at the Hamilton Hotel to rest up for the final
campaign flurries. If you wish, you can reach me at the hotel by telephone in
the morning. 


Your affectionate niece,
MARTHA 
* * * 


George sat staring at the damning missive in complete consternation. It was
immediately clear that Martha had sent him back after the stamps with the
purpose of having him read it. Once that letter was in the mails to Uncle
Donald Spurgeon -- a dry-voiced, cold-eyed individual whom George found
frightening even under ordinary circumstances -- he wouldn't dare to lift a
finger against her. And that, of course, was exactly what Martha meant when
she wrote of 'handling the situation on a personal level.' 


George's mind went racing through the few possibilities left open to him. If
he could prevent Martha from mailing the letter . . . one of his schemes for 
her disposal involved that simple but effective instrument, a homemade sap.
The sap was in his coat pocket; and the area about the garage was screened by
hedges and trees from neighbors and passersby. So, assuming Martha was waiting
by the car as she'd said. . . . 


George puckered his lips thoughtfully. It was a possibility -- nothing he
could count on; but if Martha gave him the chance to rap her on the head in
the next two or three minutes, he could proceed from there directly to the
Alternate Plan 4 or 5. However, he was certain that she would now be very much
on her guard against some desperate move on his part until she knew that the
letter actually had been mailed, and that George was also aware of that. The
confounded little gun she'd started carrying around during the week was almost
certainly inside her purse at the moment. And even discounting the gun, a
single feminine scream arising from the Redfern garden would be
ruinous. . . . No, if a good opening presented itself, he would be prepared to
make instant use of it; but that was all he dared to do. 


Then there was something else he might be able to do. . . . 


George quickly rolled an envelope into the typewriter, put Martha's return
address on it, and addressed it to Donald H. Spurgeon. After a moment's
reflection added PERSONAL in the lower left-hand corner, where Martha would 



have placed it, brought out a blank piece of letter paper, folded it, shovedit into the envelope and sealed the envelope. 

That wasn't too bad, he thought. It would be preferable, of course, if noletter at all arrived in Uncle Don's office. But if, after Martha's death,
George reluctantly admitted to having noticed signs of increasing mental andemotional instability in his wife during the past few months, her mailing of aletter with no message on it would provide corroborating evidence. Again, itwas questionable whether Martha would give him a chance to switch the letterfor the one in her purse. But again, too, if the opportunity came, he would beready for it. 

George scratched his head, hesitating. But he could think of absolutelynothing else which might be done at the moment, and if he delayed here anylonger, it would only increase Martha's suspicious alertness. 

He pulled open the stamp drawer, reached into it, then paused for a moment.
His eyes narrowed briefly. 

Right there in the drawer, he realized, was a method of keeping Martha'sletter from reaching Uncle Don even after it was mailed. Here was a way ofcanceling her attempt to insure herself against getting murdered, withoutletting her know it had happened . . . 

George began to feel a little better.
* * * 

He was obliged to discard the first, and simplest, method of circumventing hiswife's precautions when he was still thirty feet from the garage. 

From beyond a thick hedge, he heard Martha speak animatedly; then there was aburst of laughter. George stopped for an instant, listening intently. He mighthave expected something like this. At least two other women were there withher. Her secretary, Joanne Brown . . . and . . . yes! Cynthia. The delectableCynthia Haley. Martha must have invited both of them to accompany her on anafternoon shopping trip. And -- deliberately, of course -- she had refrainedfrom telling George about the arrangement. 

His suspicions were confirmed by the glance Martha gave him as he came aroundthe hedge. It was bright with malicious amusement. 

"Found it?" she asked, the twist of her mouth telling him that she wasn'treferring to the stamp drawer. 

"Uh-huh," George said blandly. "Six stamps . . . wasn't that what you said?"
He gave the two other ladies his most boyishly winning grin, received twosmiles in return. A timid one, accompanied by a faint blush, from JoanneBrown. A lazy, openly 'my-you're-handsome' sort of smile from the lovelyCynthia. Martha took the half-dozen letters from her purse and held them outto him. 

She said, "If you'll put the stamps on like a good boy, we'll mail them on theway." 

Their eyes met for an instant, then George shrugged with a trace of irritationand took the letters. 


He heard the women settle themselves into the back of the car while he put a
stamp on each of the envelopes. Try the switch with the fake letter? No;
Martha probably was watching. The other method was safer anyway. She'd played
right into his hand again by trying to show him that he was still under her
thumb, that he'd better learn to like it. George finished stamping the letters
and walked around to the driver's seat with them. 


Martha said from the rear of the car, "I'll hold the letters while you're
driving, dear." 


He handed them back to her, the envelope addressed to Donald H. Spurgeon on
top, then got in and started the motor. There was silence in the rear seat for
a few seconds as he backed the car expertly into the turnaround, reversed
direction and swung out into the driveway. George realized he was perspiring.
Any instant now, he would hear Martha begin, her voice taut, "But, George,
dear boy, you've . . ." 


Instead, he heard her purse snap shut, the letters safely inside. George let
his breath out carefully. Cynthia Haley inquired whether either of the others
had been to Restow's, and wasn't it divinely . . . 


The chatter went on. George took out a cigarette and lit it. So far, so good!
It had been a smart move not to attempt to switch the letters. Martha very
likely would have noticed it when she took the envelopes back. 


Three blocks from the business district, she pointed out a mailbox and handed
him the letters through the car window. At the mailbox, George paused and
flicked a glance back at the car. Martha was watching him, an openly mocking
look on her face. He deposited the letters, walked back to the car, his
expression wooden. 


He dropped the three women off at Martha's bank, drove around the corner and
pulled in to the curb. Martha's car, the one she planned to use tonight, was
in a garage a few blocks away; it had been picked up during the morning, for a
check-up. Probably, George realized now, Martha had also wanted to prevent him
from gimmicking the sedan in some manner before she set out. Of course this
had been one of the possible methods of disposal on his agenda. 


George scratched it mentally from the list. Martha was to stop by for the car
in the evening, after she finished her shopping, and drive it home. There
wouldn't be time to do a sufficiently careful job of gimmicking on it. He
hadn't liked this idea much, anyway. An accident actually mightn't be
difficult to arrange; but he had not been able to work out anything to make
sure -- or even to make it very probable -- that the accident would be fatal
to the sedan's occupants. 


The sap in his pocket began to look like the best idea again. . . . 


George moved the car back out into traffic, and drove home slowly through the
warm summer afternoon, chain-smoking and thinking.
* * * 


His introductory move, last Monday evening, had been to report a prowler on
the grounds. The move had backfired because Martha, normally not easy to
alarm, had begun locking her bedroom door each night. Now that George thought
of it, she had also seen to it that her husband would have no opportunity to
obtain a duplicate key to the bedroom during the days that followed. This 



afternoon was the first time he'd found himself alone in the house since 
Monday. 

As it happened, that particular precaution of Martha's had made no realdifference -- except for knocking out the murder-by-prowler scheme whichGeorge originally had favored. He'd been in possession of a duplicate key toMartha's bedroom for the past two months. The fact now gave him an advantagewhich she didn't know about or considered. He let himself into the bedroom and 
looked around. 

The little gun Martha had been keeping at her bedside this week, supposedly asprotection against the prowler, wasn't in sight. He'd been right in assumingshe had it with her. A partly packed suitcase lay beside the bed; another one,
empty, stood against the wall. Martha's little bedroom bar was locked. She'dprobably have a few drinks before leaving; that, at any rate, had beenMartha's practice at the beginning of any long drive since George had knownher. She was an excellent driver, and alcohol didn't affect her reactionsperceptibly, but in drawing up his plans George had given the habit someconsideration. 

He peered into Martha's handsome adjoining bathroom, came back to the bedroom,
and went over to the large built-in dress closet. Sliding one of the closetdoors back, he glanced towards the vanity on the far side of the room,
clicking his tongue reflectively against his teeth. 

Martha would be back, she had stated, around six. It was a warm day. One ofthe first things she'd do would be to have herself some bourbon on the rocks,
and then climb into the shower. 

George nodded, pulled the closet door shut and left the bedroom, locking thedoor behind him. He went downstairs, whistling softly, and on into the rumpusroom in the basement where he kept a variety of body-building equipment. Onlya few minor preparations were required to see Alternate Plan 4 ready to roll. 

He heard Martha's car come along the driveway at twenty minutes past six, andopened the door to the terrace for her when she walked up through the garden,
carrying an assortment of paper bags. Martha went directly to her bedroom andlocked the door behind her with a sharp, decisive click. She was making itplain, George realized, that there would be no more polite pretense about thesituation in the Redfern house unless there was somebody around to impress.
* * * 

He stood at the far end of the upstairs hall for a minute or two, listening.
Then he removed his shoes and came quietly down the hall to his wife's room. 

He could hear her moving around, pulling out drawers; then came the click of asuitcase lock. Paper rustled for a while; then there was a short silencefollowed by the clink of ice cubes into a glass and the brief burbling of abottle. The wall closet's door opened next; hangers were slid about inside it.
Presently the second suitcase snapped shut, and there was another short periodof relative inactivity while Martha started on her second drink and lit acigarette. Finally George heard her go into the bathroom. 

The shower began to roar. When he heard Martha close the stall behind her,
George brought out his key, opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. Helooked quickly around. 


The vanity lights were on, but she'd turned off the overhead light. The two
packed suitcases stood at the foot of the bed. The purse Martha had been
carrying lay on the bed, and a linen suit was laid out next to it. George
pulled the door shut, went over to the purse. The gun was inside. 


He slipped the gun into his pocket, and was behind the door of the closet when
Martha came out of the bedroom. He heard her move about, fitting herself into
her underclothes. Then she poured a third drink and settled down before the
vanity mirror, humming to herself. 


George gave her a minute or two, then came on stocking feet out of the closet.
She was in her slip, putting on lipstick, her eyes intent on the mirror. 


Six feet away from her, George said quietly, "You know, I'm afraid those
letters I mailed for you will be returned to us." 


Martha's whole body had jerked violently at the first sound of his voice. It
must have had a shattering effect on her to discover her husband inexplicably
inside her locked room, and George couldn't be sure whether she actually
grasped what he said. Martha came half out of her chair like a cat, obviously
with the idea of grabbing the gun from her purse; then, recognizing that
George stood between her and the bed, she reached out quickly for a small pair
of scissors on the vanity. In the mirror, George saw her mouth open wide as
she sucked her breath in to scream. He stepped forward and brought the sap
down with a solid swing. 


It wasn't until Martha was lying face down on the carpet and he'd made certain
she was dead that George realized just how intensely he had disliked his wife.
Breathing a little heavily, he checked his watch . . . five minutes to seven,
and getting dark enough now to put Alternate Plan 4 into immediate action. 


He carried the two suitcases downstairs, placed them against the wall in the
dark entry hall, then went on through the door opening into the dining room.
He felt steady enough, but he could do with a drink -- just one -- himself. He
brought out brandy, was filling a glass when the terrace doorbell rang. 


George, starting almost as wildly as Martha had done, splashed brandy on the
table. He set the bottle down with a shaking hand, stood dead still for an
instant, staring towards the hall. Then he moved stealthily to a corner window
and peered out on the terrace. 


Joanne Brown stood under the doorlight; as George looked, the secretary was
putting out her hand to ring the bell again. The ring came, a polite, brief
little tinkle. George's glance shifted to the overnight bag and portable
typewriter case standing beside her; and suddenly he understood. Martha had
intended to take Joanne to the beach with her, and the girl had come over in
her own car. If she'd come a few minutes later, and he'd already left with
Martha's body when she arrived . . . sweat started out on George's face as he
realized the narrowness of his escape. 


Then he straightened his tie, put on the boyish smile, and went to open the
French doors for little Joanne Brown. 
* * * 


By seven-thirty, George had Martha's sedan rolling up into the hills west of
town towards a place he had selected a month before as a possible setting for
her untimely end. The road was a winding, two lane affair which both he and 



Martha used occasionally as a shortcut to the coast highway; it permitted fastdriving in some sections, but eventually it turned into a steep, hill-hugginggrade which saw little traffic. 

George was busy going over the details of his plan in his mind, so histhoughts turned only occasionally to the two bodies under the blankets in theback of the car. Joanne Brown's unexpected appearance, as much as it hadstartled him, actually had been a break for which he could be thankful. A manwho proposes to kill his wife does not deliberately select a time which makesit necessary to kill his wife's secretary as well. Suspicion was even lesslikely to touch him now. In fact, with proper handling of the concluding stepsof Alternate Plan 4, the whole thing looked simply perfect. 

Coming around a curve, he saw the lights of traffic flowing along the highwayacross the valley towards which the hill road presently started turning down.
Two miles beyond the top of the grade, a dirt path came winding down the hillfrom the left. George stopped the car and looked about to make sure no one wasapproaching; then he switched off his headlights and backed the sedancarefully a hundred feet up the dirt path. 

He put on the hand brake, climbed out and went around to the rear of the carwhere he opened the trunk and brought out the bicycle which ordinarily formedpart of an exercise stand in the basement rumpus room of the Redfern home.
With tonight's use for it in mind, George had purchased a few accessories forthe vehicle. 

Strapped across the bicycle's carrier rack was a canvas roll. George quicklyopened the roll, took out a pair of soiled tennis shoes and a beaked cap. Heput these articles on, slipped out of his suit and shirt, and stood attired inshorts and a worn T-shirt. Wrapping his street clothes and shoes into theroll, he strapped it across the rack and wheeled the bicycle into the busheswhere it was out of sight. 

A minute or two later, he had moved Martha's body into the right front seat ofthe car. He trotted down to the point where the dirt path opened into the hillroad and glanced about. Still no headlights coming from either direction.
George hurried back to the sedan and got in for the final maneuver which hehad been rehearsing so carefully in his mind. 

On the opposite side of the road, for around a quarter-mile, the hillsidedropped off vertically three or four hundred feet to the woods in the valley.
George turned on the headlights, shifted the sedan into third gear andreleased the hand brake. As the car began to roll forward, he switched on theignition and pressed the starter button. 

The car picked up speed rapidly, coming down the path. George turned it intothe road, and let it roll on a hundred feet along the grade. Then, hearthammering with excitement, he opened the door on his left, rose half out ofthe seat, gave the steering wheel a violent wrench to the right, and dove outthrough the door as the sedan veered towards the low fence guarding the dropto the valley. 

He hit the pavement, arms, head and legs tucked in expertly, in a tumbler'sroll. There was a crash behind him, a long screech of metal on rock. For aheart-stopping instant, George thought the car's momentum hadn't been enoughto take it through the fence. But then the screeching ended, and after somemoments there came other crashing noises, far below him . . . two, three, four 


in rapid succession, and then ominous silence. Shaken but triumphant, Georgeclimbed to his feet. The hill road lay dark and quiet, twenty feet of theguard fence torn away. Without waiting to look down at the wreck, he sprintedback to the dirt path, pulled the bicycle out of the bushes and began shovingit up the path towards the top of the hill. 

He was trembling violently with excitement, but he knew he was safe.
Apparently the wreck hadn't caught fire. But if it had, and attractedattention immediately, it would have taken at least an hour to get to it inthe valley. As it was, it might easily be morning before someone reported ashattered guard fence on the hill road, or stopped to investigate, 

In any event, in considerably less than an hour an anonymous cyclist wouldslip quietly through the back garden gate of the Redfern residence. Thebicycle, cleaned and freed of such incongruous attachments as a lamp and acarrier rack, would be back in the exercise stand. And George Redfern, inpajamas and dressing gown, would be having a quiet drink before retiring,
prepared to express adequate shock and grief if the telephone rang to informhim of a terrible accident in the hills which had snuffed out the lives of his 
wife and her unfortunate secretary. 

Every detail, George thought jubilantly, played safely, just as he had plannedit! Nothing, nothing at all, that could even begin to direct the finger ofsuspicion at Martha Redfern's husband. . . . 

In the Redfern residence the telephone remained quiet all night.
* * * 

Shortly before nine o'clock in the morning, the mailman came walking upthrough the garden towards George's front door. George came out on the porchand gave the man a boyishly happy grin. 

"Morning," he observed. "Wonderful day!" 

The mailman grunted and fished a small pack of letters out of his bag. "Lookslike someone made a mistake here!" he said. 

"Eh?" George took the letters, looked at the RETURNED FOR INSUFFICIENT POSTAGEstamp on the top one, shook his head irritatedly. "My wife's stupid secretaryagain! She . . ." He shuffled through the envelopes, said suddenly in a tightvoice, "I believe -- yes, I'm sure it was six letters Mrs. Redfern asked me tomail for her." 

The mailman looked at him blankly. 

George cleared his throat. "Only four, however, have come back." 

The mailman shrugged, shifting bag on his shoulder. "So she stuck a four-centstamp on the others like she should've." 

"No! I . . ." 

"Well, them letters just slipped through, then," the mailman explainedpatiently. "They'll collect the two cents at the other end. . . ." He checkedhimself, staring at George's face. "Why, you look pale!" he said, surprised.
"Nothing that important about them two letters, is there?" 


"No, no, not at all!" George attempted to smile, felt his mouth twitch into alopsided grimace. "I was just wondering . . . that is, I . . ." His voicefaded out. 

"You ain't sick, are you, Mr. Redfern?" the mailman asked. "Maybe I should getyou a glass of water?" 

George didn't answer. Across the mailman's shoulder, he watched a police carturn quietly into the driveway. It came rolling on towards the house. Thepale, implacable face staring at him out of the car's rear window belonged toMartha's Uncle Don Spurgeon. 

A series of brilliantly clear pictures flashed for an instant through George'smind . . . Martha's letter arriving with the morning mail in the offices ofSpurgeon & Sanders, with two cents to collect on it. Uncle Don calling theHamilton Hotel immediately, hearing that Mrs. Redfern had not checked in and,
alarmed, notifying the police, who had just finished establishing the identityof the two dead occupants of a savagely smashed automobile in the hills. 

Cynthia Haley, who could testify it was George who had put the two-cent stampson Martha's letters. 

The mailman standing right here, wondering about Mr. Redfern's extraordinaryreaction to the fact that two of the letters had not been returned. . . . 

"Mr. Redfern," the mailman's voice was saying, "why, you're shaking all overnow! Mr. Redfern?" 

The police came to a stop. 

-Chapter 24 
Faddist 

He had promised Elaine that he would tend her garden organically. And he kepthis word. 

Elaine's half-acre fruit and vegetable garden, Herman Broadbent told himselfwith a touch of somberness rather unusual in him, had never looked quite solush, so deep-green-healthy, as it did today. Even the blood orange tree sheused to worry about was responding nobly, with fruits and flowers, to thepainstaking organic gardening methods in which his wife had schooled him, andformed a fitting centerpiece for the whole garden. It would have made Elainevery happy to see it. 

With the edge of his fork, Herman broke a piece from the whipped-cream sconeon the plate before him, and transferred it to his mouth. He was a plump,
white-haired man, tanned and rosy-cheeked. Holding the morsel on his tonguefor a moment, he half closed his eyes, appreciating the delicate combinationof flaky pastry and almost ethereal cream, before closing his teeth slowlydown on it. Munching, he let his gaze move over the other items on the porchtable . . . cinnamon rolls and jam tarts, grouped about a majestic chocolatebuttercream cake. 

Elaine, Herman Broadbent admitted to himself with a rueful little smile, would 


not have been happy to see anything like that in her home! When he thought ofhis wife, as he often did when sitting on the back porch these pleasant summerevenings, Herman would concede only one fault in Elaine. She had been a healthfood faddist and had tried very hard, throughout their nineteen years ofmarried life, to turn Herman into one. 

Herman, a French pastry and whipped cream man by nature, had gone along withher notions, in part because he was fond of Elaine, and in part because shewas twice as strong-willed as he was. In time, he became habituated to wheatgerm, yeast, desiccated liver, vegetarian beefsteaks, sunflower seeds, royaljelly, squawbush tea, and the long, long roster of nutritious growths, fromapricots to zucchini squash, all exuberantly healthful, positively burstingwith minerals and vitamins, which Elaine produced with relentless enthusiasmin her organic garden. 

He grew used to this diet; but he never entirely forgot the devitalizing,
unnatural, overprocessed goodies he had doted on before running into Elaine.
Once, in their eighth year of marriage, as Herman recalled it now, he made themistake of bringing a box of quite plain Vanilla Treats back from the marketwith him. Elaine had gone absolutely white. Without a word, she emptied theTreats into the garbage can, then wheeled on Herman. 

"Are you trying to dig your grave with your teeth, Herman Broadbent?" shecried. "You know you like the wonderful, nutty flavor of homemade Brewer'sYeast cookies much better than that poisonous trash!" 

Herman knew no such thing. But neither did he lapse again -- except, onoccasion, in his dreams. Nevertheless Elaine remained distrustful. When, inthe nineteenth year of their marriage, she was invited to address the annualconvention of the Association of Organic Garden Growers in Idaho, shehesitated, torn between delight at the prospect of being among kindred spiritsfor a whole week and a suspicion that Herman might go berserk in her absence.
Finally, she exacted two solemn pledges from him. One, to take faithful careof the garden while she was gone; and the other, not to deviate by so much asa nibble from the list of menus she drew up for him. 

Herman promised. Next afternoon, Elaine, having packed her bags and informedthe neighbors of the honor awaiting her, drove off to the railway station. 

Four days later, a telegram arrived from the Association asking why Mrs.
Broadbent had not appeared to address them. Herman notified the police, and aninvestigation was instituted which led to nothing. Somewhere between therailroad station and Idaho, Elaine seemed to have vanished into thin air. Inthe eight months since that day, no trace of her ever had been reported.
* * * 

He could say with full honesty, Herman reflected, gazing out on the garden,
that he had kept the first of the two pledges. Two hours each afternoon, hetoiled away in the garden, removing each intruding sprout of a weed as itappeared, spreading compost heap material about, spading, watering, and in thefullness of time harvesting each crop and shoving it carefully down thegarbage disposal unit he'd installed in the kitchen sink. Elaine couldn't havefound a word of fault with the garden's condition. 

The other promise, of course, he hadn't kept. Not a single healthful,
genuinely nourishing bite had he let pass his teeth since waving goodby toElaine from the front porch. For almost an hour after she left, he had held 


out while half-buried memories came crowding into his mind . . . hot apple
strudels and shortcakes, pecan rolls and tarts . . . everything topped by
snowdrifts of icing, by airy clouds of whipped cream. Finally, his mouth
watering unbearably, Herman realized that the bakeries would soon be closed.
His pledge forgotten, he rushed out. . . . 


What had possessed Elaine that fateful day to make her change her mind? Was it
intuition? Some telepathic warning? Or just the sudden realization that she
was testing her husband beyond his power to resist? Herman would never know.
Lost in an orgiastic rapture, he had been in the kitchen, slicing off his
fourth piece of lemon chiffon cake, with the bread knife, when the door to the
porch opened. Appalled, he stared at his wife framed against the darkening
garden beyond. 


Wordlessly Elaine had pulled the garbage can out from under the sink and begun
sweeping the remaining components of Herman's unrestrained feast into it.
Still clutching the bread knife, he watched her in stunned silence. Having
cleared the table, Elaine shoved the garbage can back under the sink, stood
staring stonily out the window, arms folded over her chest. 


"I saw you from the garden," she said heavily. "It was . . . 
disgusting . . . incredible! And after all these years! I shall never be able
to trust you out of my sight again, Herman Broadbent!" 


Herman had looked at her back, many things rushing through his
mind . . . yeast and steamed kale, sunflower seeds and wheat germ. Years and
years of it still to come; for on such a diet he might well live to be over a
hundred. And never, never in all that time, even one more spoonful of whipped
cream! 


Against that, there was the fact that he was really quite fond of Elaine. 


One cannot have everything, Herman understood then. The time comes when one
must decide. 


Rather regretfully, but purposefully, he made his decision.
* * * 


So Elaine was gone, but her garden remained. He would tend it faithfully as
long as he stayed here. And he would stay here all the rest of his days. 


It would never do if, during his lifetime, some unsentimental new tenant
decided to uproot Elaine's magnificently blooming, organically nourished blood
orange tree. 


-Chapter 25 
The Eternal Frontiers 

James Schmitz wrote only four novels in his career. Two of them, Legacy andThe Demon Breed, were issued earlier in this series as part of the completeHub stories. (Legacy as part of volume 3, Trigger & Friends; The Demon Breedas the concluding story in volume 4, The Hub: Dangerous Territory.) The 


longest and best-known of his novels, The Witches of Karres, will be publishedas the seventh and final volume in the Baen reissue. 

Here is the fourth. 

The two spaceskiffs appeared out of thick cloud cover behind them, not muchmore than five miles away. Ilken spotted them in the car screens an instantbefore Crowell did, said quickly, "Looks like we're being jumped!" 

For a moment, watching the skiffs hurtling toward them, Crowell didn't believeit was an attack, though Ragnor training took over as automatically with himas it did with Ilken. She was slipping into the shielded seat of the gun inthe center of the aircar as he turned the car's nose down, sent it racingtoward the patchy dark green of the Kulkoor forest below. His finger pressed astud and his seat's shield closed about him. "In place!" her voice said.
Another stud jammed down. The canopy unfolded abruptly above, snapped downinto the walls. 

Ready for action. 

The skiffs had halved the distance between them by then, and Crowell saw theyweren't aircars as he'd assumed at first glance. They were cutting speedsharply -- space vehicles weren't normally designed for treetop levelmaneuverings, and forest growth swayed barely twenty feet below as he broughtthe car out of its dive. But he couldn't outrun them. It was a question ofwhat kind of stuff they carried. There was no longer any question about theirintentions. 

The car's guns brrumpped out the short heavy stuttering of a triple defensivecharge. Yellow shimmering abruptly veiled the rear screen. Lights blazedthrough the shimmer and ragged roars of sound shook the car. Spray torps.
Neatly blocked. 

Then a final flare of light to the left, too far off target to be in line withthe filtering fields -- and, barely audible, the momentary hard hiss of sprayagainst plastic and metal. Crowell looked back quickly at Ilken. She grinnedreassuringly through the gun shield. "Lousy shot!" her voice commented. 

That, however, was precisely what had made it dangerous. Crowell was checkingthe controls, slowing the car, turning it into a wide circle. No immediateevidence of significant damage. They'd been at the limit of the torp'seffective range. He said, "They may get the idea and start bracketing us.
Where are they now?" 

"Looping overhead. Be back in thirty seconds." 

"Can you take them?" 

"If they come in a bit closer this pass. You playing cripple?" 

"Yes. Let's finish it before they change tactics." 


Crowell heeled the car half over. "I'm watching the trees, not them. Give medirections." 

"More to the left," Ilken's voice told him. "They're coming. Man, they arefast! Still more to the left -- steady! Just drift . . . That's it!" 

The gun erupted on the last word. 

"Got them!" She half sang it. 

Crowell heard explosion, righted the car and whipped it up above the wall ofwaving greenery toward which it had been sliding. He looked around. One skiffwas a ball of boiling smoke. The other -- Ilken swore furiously. "Only singedhim!" The gun swiveled after the plunging vehicle. 

"Hold it!" 

"Why? 

"It's out of action. The pilot may still -- there he goes!" 

A bulky object, man-shaped, dwarfed by distance, had been ejected by thecrippled skiff, began its own drift to earth as the skiff smashed slantinginto the forest. The figure turned over, dropped more quickly toward thetrees. 

"He's alive!" Ilken's voice said thinly. 

"I want him alive, you bloodthirsty Mailliard!" The aircar was hurtling towardthe descending figure. "We have to find out who they are." 

"You'll find out -- if you catch him! He's going to make it down." Her voicewas chilled with self-disgust. 

The figure did make it down into the trees before they reached it. But,
Crowell thought, that was strictly a temporary escape. The trees formed adetached small wood, a ragged oval of dense growth surrounded by open rockyground. The skiff pilot was somewhere within the growth. Crowell brought thecar to a halt above the center of the wood, inquired, "Didn't bring along acommunicator, did you?" 

"No." There was abrupt alertness in Ilken's voice. "Something wrong with thecar comm?" 

"Dead. Got hit evidently. I've been trying to raise the Base." 

She said nothing. It could cause new problems. There was a spaceship around,
which had sent the skiffs down to do a job. The ship might be carrying otherskiffs, and if the people aboard realized the first attempt had failed, theother skiffs might soon appear. But the probability was that the ship wouldleave quickly and quietly. For all its crew knew, Crowell already was incommunication with the Base, had reported the attack, commandeeredreinforcements, alerted the Star Union sentinel ship. If the raider was aboveatmosphere, the sentinel ship should have it in its instruments -


"Let's get our man!" he said. He unsnapped the energy carbine beside the 


driver's seat, stood up. "Set me down on the other side of the trees, then getback up here . . ." He broke off. "You're hurt! Why didn't you -- " 

"Been hurt worse." Ilken had slipped out from behind the gun shield. Redwetness. She'd slit the left leg of her bush outfit from hip to knee, slappedtwo broad strips of sealing plastic to the side of her thigh. 

"How bad is it?" He spoke almost brusquely, knowing she'd gone Mailliard onhim. Any indication of anxiety here would be bad form. As it was, the shortblack brows above her pale eyes lifted slightly at the question. But she said,
"Just my legs." She touched the plastic. "That's the two worst cuts. There'snothing that can't wait." 

A ring of whiteness showed about her mouth; aside from that, her expressionrevealed only a trace of impatience. Crowell had never fully understood theMailliard ability to push pain and shock to the edges of awareness as long ascircumstances required it. But he did feel somewhat reassured. The skiff pilotalmost certainly was a Star Union swimmer -- picking him up, gettingindisputable evidence that this had been a swimmer plot could be vitallyimportant. It shouldn't take many minutes to do it. He asked, "Can youoperate?" 

"Yes." She proved it by walking past him, settling herself in the driver'sseat. Her motions gave no evidence of discomfort. "That man's in a supportsuit, isn't he?" she said. 

"That's what it looked like." 

"He's probably armed." 

"Handgun at most. They wouldn't have expected to have to get out of theirskiffs." 

"You want to drive him out of the trees?" 

"Or get him to surrender," Crowell said. "If he bolts, try to pin him down inthe open with the car. Don't kill him unless it looks like he's going to makeit into one of the big forest patches." 

Ilken nodded. "All right. You think he's a swimmer?" 

"I'm almost sure he is." 

"Supposing he's a Galestral? We're in their area. Might be something here theydon't want us to stumble across." 

"There just might be," Crowell agreed. "But then they wouldn't try to hit uswhile we are in their area. It would turn suspicion directly on them -- whichis what the swimmers would like." 

"Yes, you're right." 

Ilken set the car in motion. They circled the growth once, not far above thetreetops. If the pilot sighted them, it should discourage him from attemptingto cross open ground. Then the car dipped quickly to the edge of the wood.
Crowell swung down, carbine in hand, and Ilken took the car up again to assumea watch position. 


Crowell slipped in among the trees. He was reasonably certain that what they'dseen ejected from the skiff was an undamaged standard support suit. If so, theman inside was subject to no gravity pull. The suit was a one-man vehicle,
fairly maneuverable. It could move at a respectable speed in the open, but inheavy growth like this its propulsion devices were almost useless. The pilotmight be physically unharmed, but if he was a swimmer, his emotional conditionshould be less satisfactory. The odds were it was the first time he'd foundhimself on a planet without a gravity-shielded dome about him, at the bottomof a moving ocean of atmosphere, hiding in a tangle of restlessly stirringalien life. The suit sensors provided him with sight and sound, but what theyhad to report was unfamiliar. And he must expect that this shifting, uneasyenvironment concealed a hunter or hunters. He shouldn't feel much confidence 
in his position. It might very well be possible to get him to surrender. 

Some half a dozen leggy quadrupeds, slate-gray in color, stepped out of denseundergrowth into Crowell's path and stood for a startled moment, staring athim. They might already have been alarmed by the noise and light flashes ofthe nearby air battle -- and they could serve a purpose here! Crowell sprangsuddenly forward, throwing up his arms. The herd wheeled about with squeals offright and pounded off through the brush. 

Crowell stood still again, wondering what the skiff pilot had made of theabrupt commotion. Then he stepped back behind a tree trunk. 

The support suit was coming into view. Any doubts he might have had about theidentity of the attackers would have been discarded now. This was how a suitednull-g swimmer moved on a planet's surface in places where his propulsiondevices weren't usable. The legs tiptoed along through the brush, bulky torsoswaying this way and that. The man inside wasn't walking but pushing himselfforward and lifting briefly into the air with each step. His free hand reachedahead, grasping at whatever was available to help pull the body along. Theother hand wasn't free because it held a gun. 

The big rounded head section contained no viewplate, but the swimmer couldkeep simultaneous watch on the area about and above him through a set ofscreens inside. This was as close as Crowell was likely to get to his quarrywithout being seen. He leveled the carbine, stepped out from behind the tree,
said sharply, "Drop the gun! Stay where you are!" 

The swimmer twisted about -- not at all awkwardly or uncertainly now, but in aswift powerful motion that brought the suit's legs off the ground, swung himaround to point head on, lying flat in the air, toward Crowell. The handgunwas firing as he moved, ejecting a thirty-foot needle of blue-white radiancewhich swept in toward Crowell from the right, scything through the growth. Noneed for careful aim from the swimmer's point of view . . . as the knife of 
fire flashed through the space where Crowell stood, Crowell would die. 

It was standard practice with that type of weapon, simple and fast. Against agun already aimed, it wasn't fast enough. Crowell squeezed the carbine'strigger briefly. The support suit jerked backward and the handgun's beamwinked out. The suit began to turn, was caught by the undergrowth and slidslowly down through it to the ground. 

Crowell came walking forward, eyes on the suit, chewing his lip. He'd sightedat the man's shoulder, but he'd seen the suit turn sideways as he fired. Onlyslightly, but too far! The bolt had ripped on into the torso. The pilot almost 


certainly was dead. 

He picked up the handgun and pocketed it, then leaned the carbine against ashrub, and unfastened the head section of the support suit. As he turned thesection back, the pilot's head sagged to the side. The eyes were half closed.
Crowell found no trace of throat pulse. He looked at the angle at which thebeam had seared into the suit and the body within, shook his head and sealedthe suit again. He moved back out of the trees the way he had come, towing thenearly weightless suit behind him. 

The car settled to the ground. Ilken's tanned face looked out at him. "He'sdead?" 

"Quite dead. Couldn't help it. We'll take the body back to Base." 

"Star Union type suit," she remarked, looking at it. "A swimmer?" 

"Definitely. For the record, I want the null-g characteristics established bythe medical department." 

Ilken said, "There's an aircar upstairs watching us." 

Startled, Crowell glanced up, saw only cloudy sky. "Not another of theirskiffs?" 

"Aircar. I had it in the screen. Not one from the Base, so it should be theGalestrals'." She pointed suddenly. "Up there!" 

Crowell gazed in the indicated direction, saw a pale speck drift out fromamong cloud veils. They'd been less than fifty miles from the Galestral surveyteam's ship position when the attack began. "I'll try to wave them down," hesaid. 

"Think you can trust them?" 

He shrugged. "About as much as we can trust anyone on Kulkoor at present.
We've no quarrel with the Galestral Company, so far. If I can use theircommunicator to contact the Base, it'll save us a good deal of time." 

He lifted the support suit and its contents into the back section of the car,
moved thirty steps away, sealed his coat pockets, took off the coat and beganswinging it back and forth through the air. Perhaps a minute passed. The carabove was moving very slowly but seemed to be continuing on its course. "Whatmakes you think they're watching us?" Crowell asked. 

"'They're circling. What else would they be looking at?" Ilken added, "They'restarting down now -- they've seen you!" 

Crowell continued to wave the coat until it became obvious that the aircar 
was, in fact, descending toward them. Then he slipped the coat on, fastenedit. "They may have caught the shooting from a distance," he said. 

"Probably did," Ilken agreed. 

He looked over at her. "Legs bothering you?" 

"Not as much as they will be." 


"We want to get attention for them as soon as we can." 

Ilken, eyes on the approaching aircar, remarked, "Legs might have become aproblem if we'd had to walk back to Base -- or even the fifty miles to theGalestral ship. But we'd probably have made it, either way." 

"We'd -- what are you talking about?" 

She nodded at the console. "Power section took a hit. Gauge shows two minutesflight left -- and it's dropping." 

Crowell swore. "Why didn't you tell me before?" 

"No sense worrying you with it until we found out whether the Galestrals wouldcome down for us. You know, I'm looking forward to this! Always did want tomeet a Galestral . . ." 

-Chapter 26 
Crowell had seen a Cencom tape identifying the three people in the aircarwhich presently settled to the ground a dozen yards from him. They were thefull complement of the Galestral heavy metals survey team on Kulkoor, and -supposedly, 
at least -- three fourths of the entire current Galestralrepresentation on the planet. Their names were Grant Gage, Ned Brock, JillHastings. They might range in age between Ilken and himself. When they steppedout of the car, each had one of the light Suesvant rifles of Galestral slungfrom the shoulder. 

Crowell explained the situation briefly. They didn't seem surprised; no doubtthey were well briefed on the political rivalries and tensions between theswimmer and walker factions of the Star Union. Grant Gage said they'd pickedup energy bursts on a survey instrument from thirty-five miles away and cometo investigate. They'd seen nothing of the aerial fight and hadn't realizedCrowell was in trouble until they saw him waving at them in the ground screen. 

Jill Hastings broke in. "You say Lieutenant Tegeler was hurt by torpspray . . ." 

"Yes," Crowell said. He'd told Ilken to wait in the car. "She feels the damageisn't too significant, but I want to get our medical department hereimmediately to make sure." 

"You're over two hours from your Base," Jill pointed out. "We can have her onour ship in ten minutes and start doing something about the spray." 

Crowell studied her. Slender, blond, intelligent face, reflective blue eyes.
Looking very competent in her bush outfit. However, torp spray injuries weremessy things to handle -


Grant Gage said, "Jill's our surgeon, and a good one, Captain Witter. Theship's equipped for emergencies of that kind." 


Crowell nodded. "I appreciate the offer! Let's see what Lieutenant Tegelerthinks." 

Ilken thought it was a fine idea. She smiled at Jill. "Stuff's beginning to besomething of a nuisance." 

They completed arrangements quickly. Crowell used the Galestral car'scommunicator to contact the Base. Dr. Bates would come out at once. A 
technical crew was to collect all available evidence of the skiff attack, andguncars were to accompany the group in case of attempted interference. 

Captain Bymer, of the sentinel ship, could not be reached immediately by theBase comm office. Crowell thought he might be in pursuit of the raider, said,
"Get me in contact with him as soon as you can." 

Guy Hansen next -


Hansen's voice said dryly from the communicator, "We've had some trouble here,
too, Witter. The aerial surveillance system is inoperative." 

"Inoperative in what way?" 

"I haven't been able to determine either the cause or the extent of the damageas yet. But in view of your experience, sabotage seems a definitepossibility." 

"When did it happen?" 

"About an hour ago." 

That did make sabotage a definite possibility. Hansen was still in the processof establishing an aerial surveillance pattern about Kulkoor; at present,
there would have been very little chance that the skiff attack on Crowell'scar could be recorded by one of the system's units. But the people behind theattack wouldn't know that. 

Crowell spoke last with Herrick, his security deputy. "We're not slappingsecrecy on this," he said, "because I want you to watch for reactions. Nowthey've tried to hit me and missed, somebody might like to do away withevidence. The Public Servant Betheny and her two swimmer attendants areconfined to her quarters. Take any steps necessary to make sure they staythere, regardless of what Betheny or others have to say about it. You have theauthority under Cencom Seal." 

"Yes, sir!" said Herrick cheerfully. "The Public Servant is to be allowed theuse of a communicator?" 

"Definitely. Let her get her sympathizers lined up. It will make it easier tohandle them by the time I get back to Base. If there's any actual troublebefore then, take care of it on the spot. You're my personal representative asof now." 

Crowell switched off the communicator, climbed out of the car. The surveyteam, standing outside with Ilken, had been listening with unconcealedinterest. 

"Many thanks," he said to Grant Gage. "That's started things rolling. Now if 


you'd care to get the patient to your ship -- " 

Gage asked, "You're not coming with us?" 

"No," Crowell said. "I'll be sitting at the gun in our car until the Basegroup gets here. I'm not entirely sure we're finished here with whoever sentdown those skiffs." 

Gage nodded. "I believe I'll stay with you, Captain Witter." He smiledbriefly. "The Galestral Company has an obvious interest in seeing that yourevidence remains intact. Ned can take Lieutenant Tegeler and Jill to the shipand come back with the car." 
* * * 

Ilken Tegeler lay stretched out, facedown, on a white surgical shelf in asmall brightly lit cabin of the Galestral ship. Her clothing, slashed here andthere by spent spray where it wasn't blood-soaked, was being cleaned andrepaired elsewhere on the ship, and Jill Hastings was at work getting the torpspray particles back out of her. The nozzle of a shiny container behind theshelf adhered to the pit of Ilken's left elbow. What she got from it was afeeling of warmth spreading in a slow flow through her arm and on through herbody. Actually, it was feeding something into her to act as a substitute forthe blood she was losing. She'd lost plenty already, and was likely to lose agood deal more before Jill was done. The torp needles had struck deep here andthere. Most of them were tiny, not easy to locate, and not at all easy toremove. 

But she felt perfectly comfortable. More than comfortable. They had amarvelous sort of anesthetic, which couldn't really be called an anesthetic,
since there was no insensitivity or numbness. What she felt, as Jill'sinstruments searched out the torp fragments, dug and sucked delicately atthem, was a continuing series of soothing pleasure pulses. She decided herbrain was recording pain, probably rather severe pain, but was being trickedinto identifying it as something else. 

"People could learn to like being cut to pieces this way!" she remarkedpresently. 

"As a matter of fact," Jill said, "people have learned to like it. Thepleasure effect can be stepped up considerably. You have to be careful withthe stuff." 

Ilken frowned. "Mighty foolish people!" 

"Yes. Very foolish." 

"That was on Galestral?" 

"Yes. I don't believe the drug's in use anywhere else." 

Ilken was silent a moment. "Number of things I'd like to know," she said then.
"Distract you to talk?" 

"Not at all. But try not to move." 

Ilken said, "There're legends about you Galestrals on backwoods planets likeRagnor. The way I used to hear it told when I was a child, all Galestrals 


stood ten feet tall -- and there weren't any stupid ones." 
Jill chuckled gently. "Too bad it's not true! I've known remarkably stupid


Galestrals. And physically we average smaller than the Star Union's walker
citizens -- not to mention advanced swimmer types." 
"It's because Galestral's near g and a half that you've cut down on size?" 
"Uh-huh. Adaptation. The process seems to have leveled off in the past few


generations." 
"Noticed the way you people move at around norm-g here," Ilken remarked. "Real


light and easy, like you didn't know how to stumble! You've been to the space
cities?" 
"No," Jill said. "I've worked with the Company's exploration and survey teams


since I finished training. I've never been in Star Union territory." 
"That rifle you carry -- it's a Suesvant?" 
"Yes." 
"Same model they use against the superbeasts?" 
"The very same." Jill's voice smiled. "Does it seem too light for that?" 
"Just by looking at it, I'd have said so. More like something for small game,


up to people. I've heard the Suesvants have an awful punch." 


"They do, when that's what you need. But they can be used on small game, too,
without tearing it up. It depends on the type of shell you select." 
"Hm! Any secrets about the construction?" 
Jill said there wasn't really -- rifles of the general Suesvant type had been


manufactured off and on in the Star Union. But they'd never become popularexcept on Galestral, where personal weapons of exceptional effectiveness hadbeen a survival requirement until fairly recent times. If they were any good,
they were complicated precision instruments, and very expensive. "The mainpoint, though, is the amount of practice it takes to learn how to handle aSuesvant so that in an emergency you make the right moves automatically," shesaid. "It would be quite easy to make the wrong move with a Suesvant whenthere's no time to think about it." 

"Because of the different kinds of shells?" 

"Mostly. I limit myself to five standard types as a rule. But there are over a
hundred to choose from for specific purposes." 
"You've been in the . . . what do they call those places on Galestral?" 
"The wildlands? Yes. I spent four months in them near the end of my training


period. A sort of graduation test." 
"And you've stopped superbeasts with the Suesvant?" 
"A few. Most of them won't go up against humans anymore. But you can't ever be 



sure in their territories. Some will be watching you and pretending theyaren't, while they lay traps and wait for you to get careless. The Companyfeels that in four months you'll be tested enough to qualify for the SpaceExploration Corps. So I graduated . . . My turn now -- when did you leaveRagnor?" 

"Eh? Oh, a little more than half a year ago," Ilken said. "Captain Witter gota discharge from the Rangers, and I got one with him. We went to Halcolm. Hewas born there. First space city I'd seen -- first anything I'd seen at thattime except Ragnor." 

"What did you think of it?" 

"Halcolm was interesting, all right, but I wouldn't want to stay there muchlonger than we did. It's a mixed city, and the swimmers have been gettingcontrol of it. There's a big null-g section, and most of the rest of the cityis quarter-g. You get warned when you come to a norm-g area, so nobody wandersin by accident and hurts himself! Most of Halcolm's walkers couldn't stand ontheir feet under norm-g. They get exercised in a box during their sleepperiods, so they'll stay healthy." 

"I've heard about that. The sleepex." 

"Yes. And maybe they are healthy," Ilken said, "though they looked prettyflabby to me. But they mostly like quarter-g because it seems like less work,
and they don't mind eating medicated food to make up for it because they can'ttaste the medication. The swimmers, anyway, exercise. I was taught null-ggymnastics while I was there. That is great!" 

"Who taught you?" 

"Captain Witter. He was born a swimmer." 

Jill said, "He doesn't give one that impression." 

"No. He got into a g-training program when he was eleven, to show he could bea norm-g walker if he felt like it. Still the walker type basically, so hemade it, and became a walker then finally, politically. But all his relativesare swimmers, some of them pretty high up in the Swimmer League. I guess theythink Captain Witter's a little odd, though he gets along with them allright." 

"What do you think of the swimmers generally?" 

"When they're not shooting at me?" Ilken asked dryly. "Well -- I don't mindthem being what they are. It's their business. But I wouldn't like to see themget the upper hand in the Star Union. They'd want to turn everybody intoswimmers, and if you didn't want to be one, there aren't many places to gothat seem worth going to." 

"Two ways of life, with diverging technologies and diverging types of adaptivebody chemistry," Jill's voice said thoughtfully. "Eventually, there should betwo species. I've been told we already have them. Maintaining mixedpopulations in the space cities must be getting increasingly awkward for bothsides. I can see why the swimmers want to settle it their way." 

"So can I," Ilken said. "But I don't want that to be my way. They push it at 


you like it's a religion. We'd visit some of Captain Witter's people orswimmer friends and they'd hear I was a Mailliard of Ragnor, and pretty soonthen one or the other would be explaining to me how Man started out as theprimitive Earth walker and became spaceman who brought the Star Union intoexistence and was evolving now as the swimmer into homo universalis, who wasthe highest form of life ever known and would still go on evolving. 

"But a planet walker who insisted on remaining a walker obviously couldn'tevolve into anything. His or her descendants would still simply be walkerprimitives. I couldn't even get angry about it because they really were tryingto make me see the light and welcome me into the fold. Freed of the ancestralgravitational bonds, is how they liked to put it. Captain Witter never arguedwith them, so I didn't either. I'd just smile nicely. Guess they decided Imust be sort of dense!" 

Jill laughed. 

"But I couldn't stand living even as a walker in one of the norm-g cities,"
Ilken said. "Big as they are and even when you can look out through the wallsand see the stars, they're still spaceships, and you're inside. From what I'veheard of Galestral, you wouldn't think Ragnor was much of a world to bragabout, but we were outside there, with the whole galaxy around us. Swimmersdon't know what the feeling is like, being a planet walker! They're alwaysinside something. Was that why the people who settled Galestral left the StarUnion -- to get away from the space cities?" 

"In part," Jill's voice told her. "They seem to have had something like areligious drive, too, but it was to be back on the surface of a terroid world.
And in part they wanted to be independent of Cencom and Star Union politics -not 
just away from the swimmers." 

"Well, they made it. No one else around here now is really independent ofCencom." 

"No, it seems nobody is." 

There was a pause in the talk for some minutes after that. Jill's instrumentsremained busy. Ilken, ignoring them -- ignoring also the feelings of pleasurethey produced, which now seemed somewhat indecent -- was thinking. She wasinclined to like this helpful and friendly-seeming Galestral woman; but theGalestrals might be enemies. Not her enemies directly, but enemies of the StarUnion. Therefore, here on Kulkoor, of Crowell Witter. Therefore again, herown. 

No harm in fishing a little farther . . . 

Ilken said, "Cencom records say it was you and Grant Gage who discovered thatghost mining camp in the mountains everybody's puzzled about." 

"That's right. We did find it." 

"Been back there lately?" 

"No, not for some while. Why?" 

"It's where we were headed when the swimmer skiffs jumped us. Captain Witterthought we might run across your man Farquhar there." 


Silence for a moment. Then Jill's voice said, "It might be as good a place asany to look for Farquhar. But I doubt he'll be found if he doesn't choose tobe found. He doesn't tell even us where he goes or what he's doing." 

"Thought you three were supposed to be helping him look for . . . whatever itis he's looking for." 

"That's what we thought," Jill said dryly. "Our instructions say we're hisback-up team. If he asks for any kind of assistance in solving the so-calledKulkoor Problem, we're to give it to him. Technically, we're under his ordersin that respect. So far, he hasn't asked for assistance. In fact, he's impliedthat at best we'd be in his way. I've seen him twice since he reached Kulkoor.
He's conducting the investigation for the Company strictly on his own." 

"That's all right with the Company?" 

"Evidently. Farquhar's supposed to be the best biota analyst alive -- and hedoes have a remarkable record in the Exploration Corps." 

"Record for doing what?" 

"For noticing things nobody else happened to notice. He's got his own mobilelaboratory, his own supply of message drones, reports directly to theGalestral Company. He lets us know periodically that he's still alive.
Otherwise, he ignores us as much as he can. Apparently he's working on atheory he doesn't want to discuss." 

"Do you three have a theory?" Ilken asked. 

"About why there was a mysteriously abandoned mining camp on Kulkoor a yearbefore legitimate mining operations were to begin?" 

"Yes." 

"Well," Jill said, "it's not hard to guess why the miners came. Presumably awildcat outfit from some terroid settlement heard of the Kulkoor find and was 
trying to make off with a fortune in ore while they had the opportunity. Thequestion is how and why the men disappeared. We've done some theorizing aboutthat like everyone else. There's always the possibility, of course, that thecamp is a fake." 

"Set up so someone would find it?" 

"Yes." 

"What for?" 

"Conceivably," Jill's voice said amiably, "to justify measures the Star Unionwould like to take on Kulkoor." 

"And Cencom," said Ilken, "seems to think the Galestral Company might have setup the camp. For the same general reason." 

"Well, if Cencom isn't responsible, it could suspect that. It's logical." 

"Um! What's another of your theories?" 


"We haven't come up with anything that looks good. But there's an animal herethat could make it seem a man had disappeared without trace. It's a flyinganimal." 

"We saw some big flying things along the coast on the way out from the Base,"
Ilken said. 

"That type seems mainly a carrion eater. But there's an inland species,
probably related, that's strictly a hunter, and a powerful one. We've seen ita number of times in the mountain forests around the camp area. If a flock ofthose creatures had staged a surprise raid on the camp, they'd be physicallycapable of cleaning it out in a matter of moments. But it would take a levelof intelligence Kulkoor's fauna doesn't appear to have reached. The fliershunt individually and in pairs, not in flocks." 

"Still doesn't sound like the worst theory to me," Ilken observed drowsily.
"You mentioned it to Farquhar?" 

"We dictated it to the communicator in his air cruiser. There was no sign hewas listening, but it was recorded. We picked up his recorded reply a few dayslater. He thanked us for the suggestion -- and said he felt we made anexcellent heavy metals survey team." 

Ilken said, "Guess I see now why he hasn't answered either to the comm callsCaptain Witter's been sending him since we landed here four days ago. Oddthing about your other theory, you know! Swimmer League could have had themining camp set up to push Cencom in their direction -- null-g domes for theKulkoor operations. Or Cencom could have done it. Captain Witter and Iwouldn't have to know about that." 

"No, you wouldn't." 

Ilken yawned, slowly and luxuriously. "On the other hand," she said,
"Galestral people could have set it up, and you three wouldn't have to knowit . . . Farquhar might." 

Jill's voice said something that faded out curiously. Ilken then had aprolonged sense of drifting gently away from everything here without beingeither inclined or able to do anything about it. 

-Chapter 27 
Some time later -- Ilken couldn't have said whether it was a long time or ashort one -- she became aware again of being in the Galestral ship's brightlittle sick bay, having torp spray pleasurably excised from her, while a shinycontainer behind the surgical shelf gently pumped its blood substitute intoher arm. There was something else going on. Jill was asking questions, and shewas replying to them. 

Ilken felt a touch of grim amusement. The new drug affecting her now was inkeeping with her other experiences here -- beautifully efficient! She wantedto answer the questions; she enjoyed answering them; and she wasn't even able 


to remember what it could be like to feel opposed to answering them. 

But it didn't make any difference. Crowell might have had secrets to spillunder such circumstances; she didn't have any. There was nothing of realsignificance the Galestrals could learn through her . . . and actually Jilldidn't seem to be digging for secrets, at least not at the moment. She wasasking questions about the Ragnor Campaign. In particular, about Crowell's andIlken's part in the final stages of it. 

"Well, when Captain Witter went to Cencom and sold them on his plan," Ilkenheard herself saying, "we'd been long beaten but didn't know it. There wereonly around forty-two thousand Mailliards left on Ragnor. The year we wipedout the Star Union's swimmer dome colony, there'd been easily five times thatmany. We didn't know the losses we'd taken. You didn't use a communicator muchin those years because the Rangers had learned to zero in on them fast. So wethought there were a lot more of the groups still around but out of contact.
At that stage, the Rangers could have finished us off in another six months ifthey'd pushed it. But they were holding back." 

"Why?" 

"Politics. After the Ragnor Campaign began, Cencom was able to build up itswalker ground forces to over ten times what it'd had until then. We'd showedthat swimmer troops weren't good at taking or holding planet territory, and aslong as Mailliards were fighting on Ragnor, Cencom had a fine official reasonto keep adding to its walker strength. We weren't to be wiped out too quickly.
Of course, we didn't know that either. We could count, and what we saw wasthat it still usually cost the Star Union two to three dead Rangers to chalkup one dead Mailliard. We figured we weren't doing badly." 

"How did Captain Witter change it?" 

"He'd got the facts on Ragnor, and he didn't mind talking about them. He hadproof. It wasn't the kind of story Cencom liked to have spread around the StarUnion. And if he could get the Mailliards to become Star Union citizens,
Cencom would have a new ready-made ground strike force of planet walkers bornand bred at norm-g plus. Cencom saw it, particularly since enough Star Unionpeople had begun to worry about you Galestrals by then to keep up the pressurefor increasing walker strength. So when Captain Witter came back to Ragnor, hewas still a Ranger officer, but he was also a Cencom investigator withinstructions to bring the Ragnor Campaign to a negotiated end -- and with theCencom Seal to back him up, however he wanted to go about it. 

"Of course, he still had to convince the Mailliards then, and that wasn'teasy. We -- my group -- heard one day that a Ranger captain had got aMailliard group to give up without a fight not fifty miles from us. Everyonefigured it was some new Ranger trick, and Captain Witter became a prime sneak-
hunter target. I was sixteen by then and my group's best sneak-hunter, so Iwent out to collect his head myself. Came pretty close to doing it, too -closer 
than anyone else before or after. But I got caught and -- " 

Ilken checked, blinked a few times, glanced around. The blood substitutecontainer had been detached from her arm, and Jill Hastings sat in a chair afew feet away looking at her. 

"Stuff's worn off, Jill," Ilken said. 


"Has it?" said Jill. 

"Yes. Just noticed I don't have to go on telling you any more." 

Jill smiled, stood up. "All right. The drug does have a quite transitoryeffect. And the patch-up surgery's finished. I'll go get your clothes."
* * * 

Half a dozen aircars and a transport from the Star Union Base reached the areaof the attack some two hours after Crowell's call; and the Galestrals tooktheir leave. Crowell had the on-the-spot technical investigation he'd wantedcarried out, supervised by Guy Hansen. His damaged car, the wrecked spaceskiffand its dead pilot were then loaded on the transport. Within forty minutes,
the Star Union group was on its way back to the Base. 

It had become evident by that time that Crowell's instructions to Herrick hadcaused considerable disturbance among Base personnel. Dr. John Sutton, theexpedition's director and scientific head, called twice to protest against thehighhanded and insulting restriction of Public Servant Betheny of Varien toher quarters. He said he intended to record an official complaint with Cencom.
Crowell told him he would be given an opportunity to do just that within thenext few hours. Meanwhile, the Public Servant would remain under guard. 

Crowell was driving one of the Base cars, Hansen beside him, Ilken and Dr.
Bates in the rear of the car. After Dr. Sutton's second call, Crowell said toHansen, "You've known Betheny for a number of years, haven't you?" 

Hansen nodded. "I knew her rather well for a while." Born in Varien, newestand greatest of the Star Union's all-swimmer cities, Guy Hansen, like Crowell,
had made an early decision to develop the capabilities of a norm-g walker.
He'd been active nonetheless for a number of years in the Swimmer League.
Cencom records listed him as being now politically uncommitted. It provednothing in itself, but in the few days Crowell had been on Kulkoor, he'ddecided Hansen was one of three men on the Base he'd trust completely in anemergency. Dr. Bates was another. Herrick, a veteran of the Ragnor Campaignand commander of the Base's small security force, was the third. 

Crowell said, "When I was sent here to check into the problems the Base hasbeen having, the League put heavy pressure on Cencom to allow Betheny to comeout simultaneously. The argument was that the League's interests must also beofficially represented on Kulkoor. I thought it a little odd at the time thatthey'd risk one of their leaders in what's regarded as an unpredictable andpotentially dangerous situation." 

Hansen glanced over at him. "Perhaps you're beginning to see why." 

"Perhaps I am. She's been here four days and seems to have three fourths ofour walker personnel eating out of her hand. Is arranging murders anotherspecialty of hers?" 

Hansen shrugged. "I never enjoyed the League leadership's confidence enough toanswer that. But Betheny is homo universalis with a vengeance. In other words,
completely ruthless when the League's interests are involved -- and gettingthe domes contract on the Kulkoor project should be the League's biggestcurrent goal. She'd hardly be here otherwise." 

"Why not?" 


"She detests being on or anywhere near the surface of a planet. I know thatabout her." 

Crowell grunted. "So that's why she brought her private psychiatristalong . . ." He added, "Once I was out of the way, along with LieutenantTegeler -- and probably with any evidence of the attack also safely out of theway -- Betheny would have had authority at the Base as the ranking Star Unionofficial on Kulkoor." 

"Only for as much time as it would take Cencom to get another representativeequipped with the Cencom Seal out here," Hansen remarked. 

"Four weeks, more or less," said Crowell. "Completely ruthless -- it's a safeguess that enough would have happened in that time to buy the League its domescontract." 

Hansen looked uneasy. "What, actually, could Betheny do?" 

"I'm thinking of a number of things I could be doing in that position."
Crowell shrugged. "Further unexplained disappearances. More and increasinglyserious problems with the quick-growth crops and food animals. A limitednumber of virus fatalities at the Base. It could be carried further, but toomuch wouldn't really be necessary. Cencom would be suspicious, of course, butby then it wouldn't have much choice. Betheny has Public Servant immunity, andthere'd be no time for lengthy investigations." 

Hansen said, "If it isn't a secret, what's the deadline for the decision onwhether Kulkoor mining is to be carried out by walker outfits or under swimmerdomes?" 

"There's no secret as far as I'm concerned," Crowell said. "Eight weeks shouldbe the limit, if operations are to start as agreed on by the end of the year.
There's no reason to think the Galestral Company won't be ready to beginmining at that time. So Cencom can't wait. If there's any remaining doubtabout the feasibility of walker operations, it will decide for the domes." 

Hansen nodded. "I can see Betheny's motivation," he said. "But it seems to meshe'd need more help than she'd get from the ship that brought her here ifshe's to do what you think she has in mind." 

"She would," Crowell agreed. "So we'll assume the help's already here.
Otherwise, having me killed wouldn't have made much sense. She took a longerchance than she should have, in any case, in trying to have it done in thatparticular manner." 

Hansen said reflectively, "It may not have looked that way to her, or to heradvisers. I'm no combat specialist -- but logically those skiffs should havefinished your car on the first pass, shouldn't they?" 

"Ordinarily, two armed spaceskiffs will slap down a guncar, yes." The standardguncar, Crowell thought. As Cencom investigator on Ragnor, where some of hissincerest enemies had worn the Star Union's Ranger uniform, he'd taken theprecaution of flying a car with nonstandard armament for four years. For threeand a half of those years, Ilken had been his gunner. The car they'd usedtoday was of the same type. The odds hadn't been what they seemed. 


The Base comm office presently connected Captain Bymer of the sentinel shipwith Crowell. Bymer had reported previously that the sentinel's automaticscanning devices had recorded no traces of another space vessel at the time ofthe attack by the skiffs. In the meantime, he'd carried out a search run aboutKulkoor, with equally negative results. The raider evidently had withdrawnbeyond scanning range after losing contact with the skiffs. The sentinel shipnow had resumed its orbital station above the Star Union Base. It would remain 
alerted for immediate action. 

When Crowell's airborne cavalcade arrived at the Base, he found a delegationwaiting for him, headed by Dr. John Sutton, who came forward as soon asCrowell stepped down from the car. The rest of the group remained where theywere, expressions indicating varying degrees of disapproval. 

"Captain Witter," Dr. Sutton said, "we realize you have reason enough to bedisturbed by the murderous attack on you. But such a matter hardly calls forhasty decisions! We suggest that you join us in my office, where the situationcan be discussed and due consideration given to the measures that should betaken." 

"Who is we, Dr. Sutton?" Crowell asked. 

"Why -- " Dr. Sutton looked surprised, glanced back at his companions. "Why,
my senior department heads over there, of course!" 

"Of course," said Crowell. "Well, it's an excellent suggestion! If you and theother gentlemen will go to the office, we -- that's Dr. Bates, Mr. Hansen,
Lieutenant Tegeler and I -- will meet you there presently. There's somebusiness to be taken care of first." 

Dr. Sutton frowned. Crowell jerked his head up at the open car lock in theguard screens. "Six vehicles are lining up out there," he observed, "and in afew moments they'll start coming down exactly where you and your colleaguesare standing." 

The scientific body withdrew, looking disgruntled. The transport moved downthrough the lock, followed by the guncars. Herrick had appeared, and Crowellstarted issuing instructions. Hansen went to the mapping office. Dr. Bates hadthe skiff pilot's body taken to his laboratory. With Herrick in charge of theother work, Crowell turned to Ilken. "What's Bates' medical opinion on yourlegs?" 

She grinned briefly. "Spray's been cleaned out. That part's all right. I'm tostay off them the next few days." 

"Are you going to do it?" 

"Not likely!" 

"All right. Let's get to our quarters and pick up some equipment. Then we'llpay Betheny a visit." 

They set off. There was a trace of stiffness in Ilken's walk. The advice givenher by Dr. Bates was probably good. But there might be critical developmentsin the following hours, and if Ilken felt able to operate, Crowell wanted herbeside him. 


She said, "Think there's something wrong on Bymer's ship, don't you?" 

"Bound to be," Crowell agreed. "We were tracked after we left the Base thismorning. Those skiffs didn't come flying around the curve of the planet tolook for us -- they were dropped into atmosphere directly overhead. So theswimmer ship was showing in Bymer's scanners. He's lying to us, or somebodyelse has edited the scan tapes and lied to him. After things get straightenedout enough around here, we'll go up in the shuttle and check. Until then, wewon't mention that matter. What did you think of Jill Hastings, by the way?" 

Ilken shrugged. "She's plenty smart. Otherwise, I'm not at all sure." 

Crowell nodded. "About the impression I had of the three of them. I'd verymuch like to know exactly what Farquhar is doing on Kulkoor . . . Biotaanalyst!" He scratched his jaw. "Well, we'd better not discount the Galestralsin anything that goes on here -- even if there are only four of them on theplanet." 

"We don't know that's all there are," Ilken said. 

"No, we don't." 

-Chapter 28 
The short entry passage into the almost globular structure which enclosed theliving quarters of Betheny of Varien on the Star Union Base was subject to thepull of Kulkoor's gravity. Betheny and her swimmer attendants came through itonly in skim bubbles. Guide rods for the use of visitors hung from the walls.
Crowell and Ilken equipped themselves with one as they came in. 

They'd made some minor adjustments for the null-g visit. Loose clothing hadbeen discarded, shirts tucked under belts. Ilken's dark hair was drawn into atight smooth coil at the back of her head. The pair of Mailliard tarsh knivesnormally carried inside her jacket was fastened to her belt, one on each side. 

At the end of the passage, gravity ended. So did any similarity to a norm-gresidential dwelling. The structure had been brought along, collapsed, on theswimmer ship which carried Betheny to Kulkoor. Expanded, the globe took upeight times as much space as the quarters assigned to Crowell on the Base.
Within, all earlier architectural rules had been swept aside by a designintended only to serve null-g's needs and pleasures. The curving walls of thesection beyond the passage glowed softly; furnishings swam in barely visiblespider webbing. It was a functional arrangement which had sweep and beauty. AsCrowell and Ilken moved into the section on a guide current, day brightnessgrew up in it. Air stirred with cool freshness, and there was a blending ofbackground sounds, barely noticeable until one began listening for them, whichimpressed the mind as the sounds of life. 

It was a familiar pattern to Crowell; his childhood had been spent in suchsurroundings. He hadn't known then what it meant, but in time he'd feltsomething vaguely oppressive about it. Later he'd understood. Swimmer art,
functional art in particular, was highly advanced. Through it the swimmercreated, very skillfully, the illusion of his own universe, one he could take 


with him wherever he went. What had oppressed Crowell had been the almostunconscious sense of being barred by the illusion from the realities of theuniverse. 

Having found his way out of the illusion, he no longer had such feelings aboutit. He'd drifted with Ilken toward the center of the section. In relationshipto each other, they'd remained vertical, moving forward together on the entrycurrent until it blended into other guide currents in the section. There weretwo round exits, a large one in front of them, another overhead, both veiledby the rippling tints of sight and sound barriers. They'd announced themselvesfrom outside the structure, and the announcement had been acknowledged by Dr.
Torres, one of Betheny's two companions. But Betheny appeared now in no hurryto receive them. 

It was Dr. Torres who came in by the round opening over their heads some twominutes later. Crowell and Ilken shifted position to face her. Thepsychiatrist was a swimmer giant of the intermediate stage, aging but lithe,
with the magnetic good looks and compelling personality almost characteristicof her type. She wore swimmer attire, a thin copper tunic which left herstrong brown arms and legs uncovered. As she approached, the section's lightgleamed for an instant from the bronze designs on her skull, depilated orperhaps hairless from birth. 

"Captain Witter, Lieutenant Tegeler," she said. "Betheny will join us in amoment. Perhaps you'd like to tell me the reason for your visit." 

"Dr. Sutton would refer to it as the situation," Crowell said. 

"The situation? We were informed that an attempt was made to kill you somehours ago." 

"It was." 

Dr. Torres nodded. "Would you care to tell me about it in detail?" 

"I'm sure you've already been told about it in as much detail as isnecessary," Crowell said. "Betheny has made friends here." 

"So she has." The psychiatrist's fine dark eyes regarded Crowell with thebarest suggestion of mockery. "Captain Witter, you're acting under CencomSeal, which at present gives you a certain degree of authority. But perhaps Ishould caution you not to become too zealous in your use of it. You seem tohave formed a mental connection between the Public Servant's presence on theBase and the attack on you. I need hardly remind you that if you shouldviolate the Public Servant's immunity in any way because of such suspicions,
you'd be guilty of a capital crime." 

"You needn't remind me," Crowell agreed. "And now, since I'm sure Betheny ofVarien is listening to what's being said, perhaps she'll join us -- or shouldwe join her?" 

Betheny's finely chiseled features suggested a curious blend of arrogance andoutgoing warmth. On level ground, she would have stood four inches taller thanCrowell. Her shoulders were wider; her weight might be almost twice his. Forall her size, she remained a superbly feminine being -- the currentculmination of homo universalis, beautiful, maternal, infinitely appealing. Itwas a good part of the strength of the Swimmer League that its leaders were 


such parent figures, benevolent and magnificent. They were admired, desired,
trusted. Even dedicated walkers surrendered to the attraction. And it had 
been, Crowell thought, a calculated move to send Betheny rather than a malecounterpart to Kulkoor. The Star Union expedition's department heads were men. 

He sensed the attraction himself when Betheny appeared, dressed as she wouldbe when she went out among walkers, in a silver suit and helmet. She wasaccompanied by a young woman with short brown hair, an intermediate swimmertype like Dr. Torres -- a bodyguard, carrying a sidearm. 

Crowell said, addressing Betheny, "I have some reason to believe that there'sa League conspiracy to defeat the purpose of the Star Union's expedition onKulkoor. The immunities of a Public Servant will be respected if possible, butI can't allow you to interfere with an investigation of that possibility." 

"How would you prevent it?" Betheny said. 

"I've considered having the three of you put temporarily under sedation." 

The bodyguard glanced at Betheny. Betheny shook her head. 

"We have no intention of interfering with your investigation, Captain Witter,"
she said. 

"Very well," Crowell said. "In that case, you'll remain with me whileLieutenant Tegeler goes over your quarters." 

Betheny smiled. "What will she be looking for?" 

"Evidence of the conspiracy," Crowell said.
* * * 

When Crowell and Ilken arrived at Dr. Sutton's office, Dr. Sutton turnedimmediately to Crowell. He appeared again to be acting as spokesman for thegroup, to which Hansen and Dr. Bates had added themselves. 

"The opinion's been expressed by several here," Dr. Sutton told Crowell, "thatthe incident this morning was staged by Galestrals, with the purpose ofheightening the distrust which divides some of our Star Union citizens in thecritical area of Kulkoor. Dr. Bates informs us that the man you shot showsnull-g swimmer modifications. There is, of course, the possibility that theGalestrals have developed a swimmer type." 

"Yes," Crowell agreed, "that does seem possible." 

Dr. Sutton glanced at the others. 

"They also could have obtained Star Union equipment to divert suspicion fromthemselves if the operation failed." 

Crowell nodded. "Or they could have manufactured identical equipment. Why not?
Mr. Hansen, have you told these gentlemen about the damage done to thesurveillance instruments?" 

"No," Hansen said. "I thought I should wait until this discussion gotstarted." 


"Please do it now." 

Hansen said to the group, "A few of you have been aware that the aerialmapping system being established on the Base can be used as a form ofcontinuous planetary surveillance. It would be random and incomplete, but itshould disclose any significant violations of the Santrask Agreement, whichwas its purpose. 

"A few hours ago -- shortly before the attack on Captain Witter's aircar -the 
system became inoperative. We've established meanwhile that the damage wascaused by miniaturized destructive devices, activated from outside the mappingsection." 

"And perhaps from outside the Base?" said Dr. Sutton who was listeningclosely. 

Hansen shrugged. "That's possible. At any rate, it was sabotage -- and thedevices must have been installed by some trained member of our personnel." 

"You're suggesting," one of the other men said, "that the surveillance systemwas put out of action to keep the details of the attack on Captain Witter frombeing recorded by an aerial unit. Would that have happened if the system hadbeen operating?" 

"Only by a rather unlikely coincidence," Hansen said. "Naturally, thesaboteurs may not have realized that they'd run a smaller risk of arousingsuspicion by leaving the system intact." 

Dr. Sutton said, "All that might seem to prove is that there is, in fact, atleast one saboteur on the Base. I'm not sure I consider it proved! But let'sconcede the point. The question remains then whether the agency behind thesabotage is the Swimmer League or the Galestral Company. Men can be bought,
and I'm sure no one here assumes that some Star Union citizens couldn't be 
induced to turn traitor." 

"That would be a thoughtless assumption, to say the least," Crowell agreed.
"However, one might have expected a Galestral agent to do a more permanent jobon the surveillance system -- Mr. Hansen expects to have it back in operationin less than a week." He placed one of two boxed instruments he'd brought intothe office on a table and opened it. "In any case," he went on, "if there'ssomeone like that around, it won't be long before we establish the fact." 

Dr. Sutton eyed the instrument. "What do you have there?" 

"An interrogator," Crowell told him. "Developed originally for the RagnorRangers. Truthful information was often quite difficult to get by any othermeans from Mailliard prisoners. This device produced it regularly. There'snothing about it to fight because it doesn't seem to do anything." 

"You intend to question the Base personnel?" 

"Of course." Crowell smiled at the group. "Beginning with the assembled headsof the major departments here! After clearing you, we'll work down through theranks. It's a short process. We'll have put everyone through it in less thanthree hours." 

They'd stiffened. Then Hansen laughed. "The logical step! Start with me." 


Crowell turned to Dr. Sutton. "What's behind that door?" 

"My secretary's office." 

"Is she occupying it at the moment?" 

"No." 

"Then I'll check you out there, one at a time. Now we must bear in mind thepossibility that a hired Galestral spy or a League conspirator is a member ofthis group. You've observed that Lieutenant Tegeler and I are armed. We'llkeep our weapons on hand throughout the interrogation. Lieutenant Tegeler willremain in this office to watch the group while I question you individually." 

Dr. Sutton's color had heightened. "That hardly seems necessary!" 

This time, he found no support among his fellows. Fifteen minutes later,
Crowell came out of the side office with the last of them and announced, "Allright -- everyone in this room has proved to be free of evil intentions. Wecan now start going through your departments. With your permission, Dr.
Sutton, I'll continue to use your offices for it." 

Dr. Sutton said, "I don't understand how that device operates. It pronounced afew dozen words at random. Nothing else happened. And yet you seem confidentthat I'm innocent in the matter." 

"The words weren't pronounced at random," Crowell said, "and the instrumentwas interpreting your reactions to them. All it really showed was that none ofyou is involved in a conspiracy to pervert the legitimate activities of theBase. But that's all we need to know at the moment." He opened the second casehe'd brought in. "Here's something else. No doubt most of you can see what itis." 

"A transmitter, of course," said Hansen. He frowned. 

"You recognize the type?" asked Crowell. 

"Yes." Hansen picked up the transmitter, turned it around, set it back again.
"An extremely powerful transmitter!" He looked at Crowell. "Why are youshowing it to us?" 

"It's powerful enough," said Crowell, "to push a call halfway through theKulkoor System. It's well enough shielded to make its use undetectable toanyone but the receiver. I'm showing it to you because Lieutenant Tegelerremoved it from its place of concealment in the Public Servant's quarters justbefore we came here." 

There was an abrupt disturbed murmur of voices. One of the men asked, "Exactlywhat are you suggesting, Captain Witter?" 

"Draw your own conclusions. Betheny's immunity covers her personal attendants.
I can't interrogate those three. But I hardly feel it's necessary. And, Dr.
Sutton, I think we can agree it's most unlikely that the Public Servant willturn out to be a Galestral agent?" 

Dr. Sutton shook his head, cleared his throat. "I'm beginning to think this is 


a very bad business!" 

"Perhaps it is," said Crowell. "Now let's start running the departmentsthrough the quiz. I'm putting you all on your honor not to mention the purposeof the check to anyone." He looked at Ilken. "Tell Herrick to station twoguards in the office. Somebody might suspect what we're doing anyway andbecome a little desperate." 

-Chapter 29 
There was no trouble in Dr. Sutton's office, but somebody did becomedesperate. Herrick got a call from a storehouse clerk about unusual activityin the area. Supply Chief Willis, assisted by a man identified as Merriman, anaerial surveyor, was engaged in dumping unopened cases into the disposal; andWillis had ordered other storehouse personnel out of the structure. Herrickwent there hurriedly with two security men. They met the two on the way out,
and Willis and Merriman retreated into the disposal room. When Herrick's groupforced its way through the door, the two stood before the activated disposalscreen. Merriman was white-faced. Willis was grinning. 

"Merriman would have surrendered," Herrick reported to Crowell. "But he didn'tget the chance. Willis shoved him into the screen, then waved his hand at usand walked into the screen himself. We didn't have time to stop him." 

There'd been two brief flashes of light, and the men were gone. Considerablespeculation followed as to what Willis had been getting rid of, and why he'dpreferred to murder an associate and kill himself to letting either beinterrogated. Dr. Bates suggested that some of the cases might have containedbiological agents. Experimental food crops and livestock, brought in todetermine whether major projects on Kulkoor could become partly self-
supporting, had been seriously affected by toxins of bacterial type, whichhadn't yet been located in native life forms. The carriers could have beendeveloped elsewhere, released here, to give further weight to arguments infavor of establishing a complete system of swimmer domes on Kulkoor.
Laboratory-created diseases could have been scheduled to strike personnelnext. Willis was in a position to conceal the fact that such materials hadbeen delivered to the Base; and Merriman could have distributed them outsidewhile appearing to be going about his work. 

Crowell wasn't giving much attention to theories. Having started the initialinvestigation, it was essential to carry it through as quickly as possible,
identify those involved in the conspiracy and get them out of action. Detailsand proof could wait. By mid-afternoon, he'd finished checking out allpersonnel on the Base and those flown in from outlying stations for thepurpose. He wound up with eight prisoners -- fewer than he'd expected. Thecrew of the sentinel ship remained to be investigated. There'd been nocommunication between ship and Base in the interval. 

Ilken inquired, "Be legal to take Betheny and those other two up to the shipand freeze them?" 

"It should be legal in the circumstances," Crowell said. "I could call itanother form of detention. But I'll keep her down here. If she has other moves 


to make, I'd rather she makes them as soon as possible. The ship might become
our lifeline. I wouldn't feel easy about having Betheny on it even in a frozen
state." 


"Think somebody might decide to let her wake up?" 


Crowell shrugged. "You saw the effect she's had on our Base administration in
the few days she's been around. She's here because she carries an overcharge
of the universalis appeal. We'd better not take chances with it." 


He appointed Hansen to act as Cencom's representative in his absence,
contacted Captain Bymer and told him to send down the landing shuttle to take
material evidence of the attack by the spaceskiffs on board for storage. He
didn't mention that he and Ilken also would arrive on the shuttle. 
* * * 


The body of the spaceskiff pilot was taken to the sentinel ship's freezer and
placed in a compartment. Leaving the section with Captain Bymer and Ilken,
Crowell said, "Captain, there's a chance that some members of your crew have
notions about taking over the ship. We've brought the means of identifying
them with us. How would you suggest going about it without tipping them off?" 


Bymer studied him a moment, said, "Let's go to the instrument room." 


They went there, and Bymer dismissed the two men on duty. After they'd left,
he said coldly, "The instrument room controls the ship, and I've now sealed
it. Please tell me specifically what you suspect." 


"Since we talked last," Crowell said, "we've uncovered evidence of a swimmer
conspiracy on the Base. It's not a minor matter -- the Public Servant is
involved. We've nabbed the conspirators and cleared the rest of the Base
personnel. You'll understand that we must start here by clearing you." 


Captain Bymer's face reddened slowly. He said, "I have no objection to that." 


Ilken took the interrogator out of its case and placed it on a table. 


"Thank you, Captain," Crowell said presently. "You're not a swimmer
conspirator -- but you certainly have people on board who are. Your area
scanners were in operation at the time my car was attacked by the spaceskiffs,
weren't they?" 


"They're in continuous automatic operation while we're at station," Bymer
acknowledged. He hesitated. "You feel the ship that dispatched the skiffs
should have been recorded?" 


"Yes." Crowell described the details which made it seem the ship must have
been in space approximately above the point of ambush. Bymer nodded. His
expression was now grim. "After your call, I checked the tapes supposedly
covering that time period," he said. "They showed nothing. But tapes can be
replaced. Lieutenant Jones was monitoring the scanning devices at the time. He
was alone in the instrument room:" 


"Who assigned him to the duty?" 


"First Officer Henderson." Bymer added, "Henderson's served with me for over
four years." 



"Well," Crowell said, "we'd better start with those two." 

Lieutenant Alfred Jones was an apple-cheeked young man whose face remainedrespectfully puzzled as he listened to the disconnected string of words comingfrom a small instrument. The instrument disclosed to Crowell that the 
lieutenant reacted strongly to eight of those words. Without looking up,
Crowell observed, "Good enough!" 

Lieutenant Jones closed his eyes and slumped down on the table between them.
Standing eight feet behind Jones, Captain Bymer shut off a small device andput it in his pocket. Together, he and Crowell carried the unconscious youngman into an adjoining room and left him lying on the floor. 

Summoned to the instrument room, First Officer Henderson strolled in smilingand pointing a gun at Bymer and Crowell. Then he dropped the gun with a gasp,
looked down white-faced at the Mailliard tarsh transfixing his wrist, andfainted. 

"Under the circumstances," Crowell remarked, as Ilken came forward from thedoor of the other room, "we'd better check out the ship's surgeon next . . ." 

There were no further problems. The Second Engineer and two of the remainingmembers of Captain Bymer's crew reacted positively to the swimmer test. They,
the First Officer and Lieutenant Jones went into the personnel freezer. So didthe eight prisoners Crowell then had brought up from the Base in the shuttle. 

"There's a strong probability," he said to Bymer, "that a swimmer group ishidden out somewhere on Kulkoor, waiting for instructions from Betheny.
Without her cooperation, we're not likely to locate them until they make amove. But if we can put the swimmer ship out of commission, the planetside'sgroup's activities will be sharply restricted. What do you think of ourchances of finding the ship?" 

Captain Bymer said, "You're assuming it's remained in the Kulkoor System?" Thecomputer technicians had restructured the scanning tape sections LieutenantJones had deleted from the record. The raider, clearly visible for a fulltwenty-five minutes before vanishing behind the curve of the planet, had beenidentified as the vessel which brought Betheny and her retinue to Kulkoor fourdays before. 

"Definitely," said Crowell. "Getting Lieutenant Tegeler and myself killed wassimply to be one step in an overall plan designed to put the Swimmer League ineffective control of the Kulkoor Project. Whatever that plan was, the ship hasa role in it. They've no way of knowing yet that we've taken countermeasuresand have Betheny isolated, so they're somewhere within maximum transmitterrange, ready to pick up orders. But that's still a great deal of space to gohunting around in at random." 

Captain Bymer blinked reflectively. 

"We shouldn't have to hunt for them at random . . ." 

He explained. The swimmer ship wasn't likely to be drifting in open spacewhile it waited. The Kulkoor System was a dirty one -- masses of debriscircling the sun between and beyond the four planets. The edges of such ameteoric cloud were the place to look for the raider; and there were a number 


of large ones currently not far from Kulkoor. They could use the shipcomputers to determine the most promising spots to start looking. 

Crowell got in touch with Guy Hansen on the Base. "We'll have a better chanceto sneak up on them if we maintain transmitter silence," he said. "It may takea couple of days. You needn't mention why we're maintaining silence. Call usonly if you think there's a genuine emergency building up. We'll respond then,
and be available shortly thereafter." 

-Chapter 30 
Grant Gage switched off the message drone transcriber, leaned back in hischair, flipped on ship intercom. "Jill?" 

"I'm in here," Jill's voice announced from the adjoining communicator room. 

"Oh! Didn't hear you go in. What date was it that Farquhar last contacted us?" 

"Eight planet days ago. Check it against the Galestral calendar." 

Grant's gaze shifted to the console calendars. "Getting a response?" 

"The usual kind. His truck's recording the call. Farquhar either isn't athome, or doesn't want to talk. I said one of the Zuron cameras haddisappeared, and asked him to call back if he was interested in hearing thedetails." She'd come to the door as she spoke. Grant regarded her a moment.
Survey Technician Second Class. Multilevel training. Four-year veteran of theGalestral Space Exploration Corps at age twenty-two. Three completed outworldtours. Jill Hastings. One of Galestral's more valuable employee-shareholders. 

"I've finished the standard reports," he said. He tapped the intercom switch.
"Ned?" 

The intercom grunted. "About done." 

"Got a report we can feed the drone?" 

"Doing that now. Be there in three-four minutes." 

Intercom off again. Grant said to Jill, "How about shaping up breakfast forthree?" 

"We're going back out?" 

"Uh-huh. I want to make a run inland, up to the area of the ghost camp. Ifit's my lucky day, there'll be neither fog nor rain on the hills and we'llfind and bag one of those big birds." 

Jill set her face in prim lines, recited in a good-girl voice, "Company ordersstate clearly that at present we are to concern ourselves with the quoteKulkoor Problem unquote only to the extent we are instructed to do so by BiotaAnalyst First Class Frank Farquhar! We have received no -- " 


"I'm aware of it. And the Biota Analyst may have good reasons for his games,
but I'm beginning to get tired of them. Company orders don't say we can't gohunting. Go rustle up the grub, woman! You and Ned can catch up on sleep onthe way." 

Jill got busy in the mess. She heard Ned Brock come along the passagepresently, on his way to the drone room. Her thoughts remained preoccupiedwith Frank Farquhar. Almost all they knew about him was what they'd learnedsince his arrival on Kulkoor, and that was chiefly that he was a loner bypreference. He might find it an asset in his line of work, but he carried itto irritating extremes. He'd landed with his own supplies and equipment -- asmall aircar, an airtruck with a laboratory, a drone receiver and supply ofmessage drones. His reports went separately to Galestral. It probably would betwo days before they heard from him next; and the chances were it would benothing but a recorded message then. He was supposed to check in with hisback-up team every ten planet days, solely to let them know he was stillaround. So far, he'd done it. If two weeks went by without word from him andthey couldn't make contact with him, they were to assume he'd run afoul of theKulkoor Problem and was dead or disabled. They'd notify Galestral of the factand start seeing what they could do about the problem themselves. If theyfailed in turn to solve it, the Galestral Company would take both failuresinto account in selecting the personnel who were to form its new front line onKulkoor. 

In the meantime, they ran routine checks, adjusted and repositioned surveyinstruments, stood by to carry out the occasional instructions Farquhar hadfor them, and maintained the security precautions called for by ConditionAbnormal. The last meant that their ship was stationed six hundred feet in theair, moored by magnetic beam to Kulkoor's surface. They left the ship andreturned to it by aircar, and their Suesvant rifles went wherever they went. 

Until this morning, that had been all.
* * * 

That morning, coming back from a dawn check of the survey devices, Ned andJill discovered that one of the Zuron cameras set up in the vicinity of thehovering spaceship was gone. The Zurons, stilt-mounted twenty feet above theground, swiveled toward, focused on and took pictures of any moving objectmore than six inches in diameter which came within a two-hundred-yard range. Alarge variety of Kulkoor fauna had been catalogued in this manner; but lessthan a dozen species turned out to be of interest to Farquhar, for whosebenefit the cameras were being operated. During the past weeks, the surveyteam had collected a sample of each of those species for him; he'd be pickingthem up when he got around to it. He hadn't said why he was interested; andwhatever the assorted animals had in common remained obscure to the team. 

The missing camera introduced a new factor. The shaft supporting it had beensnapped off near the upper end, and the broken section had vanished with thecamera. The Zurons were protected by deterrent energy fields which discouragedlarge animals from running into the stilts and smaller ones from climbingthem. Until now, they'd been effective. Ned Brock went over the surroundingground with a tracker and picked up no indication that anything had come nearthe stilt during the night. 

But something could have come flying up to it -- something powerful enough tobreak the metal shaft -- something which then hadn't simply let the Zuron fallto the ground but had carried it away. 


They'd come across only one life form on Kulkoor that might be capable ofdoing both; and that was the big winged forest hunter who also -- justpossibly -- could be responsible for the fact that there was a mysteriouslyabandoned mining camp on Kulkoor. It hadn't been observed so far down in theplains, but there was nothing to keep it from going there. 

"Let's assume for now that's what it was," said Grant. "The question is why itdid it." 

That, indeed, was the question. It could have been an accident. A simple-
witted predator, coming into the Zuron's range and catching the camera'smotion as it swung toward it, might attack instinctively, wrench the Zuron offand carry it away, simply because it hadn't realized that what it graspedwasn't edible. 

Ned Brock said, "That's how it almost has to have happened. But I keepthinking -- " 

"Ned, it's what we're all thinking," said Jill. 

On Galestral, it wouldn't have been considered an accident. Too many of theindigenous life forms there, whipped back eventually out of the sections ofthe planet men wanted for themselves, had been intelligent enough tounderstand that man's instruments were his allies. Such a creature,
approaching stealthily at night for a closer look at the floating ship andcoming across the Zuron, might have broken the camera away and disposed of itto keep its presence from being reported, even though it couldn't know how thereport would be made. 

Until now, the only thing which might hint that any of Kulkoor's native lifehad reached that level of intelligence was whatever had occurred at the miningcamp on the mountain slopes, months before. Jill could understand why Grantwanted to examine a specimen of the big flier they'd seen moving with shadowyquickness through the nearby forests. 

A special report on the loss of the Zuron, and the circumstances under whichit had been lost, was added to the contents of the message drone. Ned hadcalculated the degree of force required to snap the camera shaft; the figureshould raise a few eyebrows on Galestral. The team kept its speculations toitself. Speculation in that area remained Farquhar's business at present. 

They dispatched the drone, had their breakfast, set out.
* * * 

Ned had taken Grant at his word and stretched out in the back of the car to 
catch up on sack time lost by the dawn patrol. Jill, not at all sleepy, tookthe seat behind Grant, Suesvant lying across her knees. Her thoughts roamed,
tinged with discontent. 

Galestral, the Galestral Company, and the Star Union . . . the onlysignificant powers in this galactic region. Perhaps equal powers effectively,
though Galestral maintained a stable population of thirty-two million people,
while the Star Union's citizens numbered over half a billion -- but half a 
billion scattered widely in space cities and mobile asteroid bases, dividedfurther by political manipulations and walker and swimmer factions. Now thatthe Galestral Company had begun to move back into space, there'd been the risk 


of a serious clash of interests with the Star Union. 

The Santrask Agreement, set up eight years before, had been designed tominimize that risk. It regulated the exploitation of uncolonized and unclaimedworlds for the benefit of any human government willing to abide by its terms.
The discovery of a profusion of heavy metal pockets on Kulkoor had been thefirst significant test of the Agreement. Their value was immense and estimatesof the value kept being increased as surveys continued. If it hadn't beenimmense, the exploitation of Kulkoor couldn't have been considered. It layalmost at the rim of explored space, as distant from the closest Star Unionbases as from Galestral, still farther from most of the scattered colonyworlds of the minor Santrask powers. Even message drones took weeks to reachit. Ferrying in and maintaining equipment for large-scale mining operationswould be a project which should strain the resources of the Galestral Companyand the Star Union. The lesser Santrask signatories couldn't begin toundertake such projects. The Star Union would act as their agent on Kulkoor. 

And now the operations had been stalled before they began. Kulkoor hadpresented the human intruders with a riddle . . . 

Superficially, it mightn't seem too significant. Grant and Jill had been amongthe first survey teams assigned to Kulkoor. Starting out on an uncharted areaone morning, they'd spotted mining machinery and a space shuttle on a forestedmountain slope below. Legitimate mining work wasn't scheduled to begin formore than another year. They'd notified other teams, dropped down toinvestigate. 

Some surface mining had been done in the area. The shuttle was partly loadedwith ore. But nobody was in sight; and the machines evidently hadn't been usedrecently. It wasn't until they'd landed that they discovered the camp, set upamong trees nearby and concealed from the sky by a camouflage effect. The camparea was silent, appeared deserted, but they waited until another Galestralcar was circling overhead before they approached it, Suesvants held fire-
ready. 

Jill could recall the growing eeriness of that experience. Brown forest mold,
small clumps of dry vegetation, dead branches littered the camp, carried in bygusts of wind. A few small animals scuttled away from them. Nothing elsestirred. They saw what should be the control shack some fifty yards from thepoint they'd entered. They went up to it, moving warily. The shack had nowindows, and its door was closed. While Jill covered him from twelve feetaway, Grant touched the door handle, shifted it cautiously. Unlocked. Holdingthe Suesvant in one hand, he threw the door back. 

The interior of the shack was brightly lit and obviously unoccupied. Theydidn't enter immediately. From the door, their gaze shifted about the room.
Office of the camp boss. Control panel along one wall. Glassy shimmer of adust and small-vermin screen across the doorspace. The normal degree ofdisorder . . . From the appearance of it, whoever had worked here might havestepped out of the place ten minutes ago. Jill's skin was prickling; shewasn't sure why. 

Grant went in, opened the camouflage field switch. Pools of pale sunlightappeared suddenly in the camp area between the trees. A third aircar hadarrived by then. Its crew joined Grant and Jill, and they went through therest of the camp. There was no one, living or dead, in the shelters, nothingto indicate that the eruption of some local plague had driven away the men. 


Nor was there anything to suggest violence or a planned departure. The camplooked normal except for the degree of disturbance which could be accountedfor by prowling animals, wind and rain. The machinery was set up to work. Theminers' personal belongings lay about in the shelters; it was possible tocalculate from them that there had been forty-three men quartered here. Lightand heating systems were functioning, and most of the force screens designedto keep vermin out of the shelters were powered. The camouflage field wasnearly exhausted. 

What had become of the men? The shuttle had been their only link with the orecarrier which had brought them to Kulkoor but presumably had come no closerthan the flow of meteorite clouds nearest the planet where it would have beenalmost safe from chance detection. And the shuttle stood here, as enigmatic asthe rest of it. Where had they gone? Why had they gone? 

The questions remained unanswered. Biotracker readings indicated there hadbeen no human beings in the camp area for at least a month before Grant andJill arrived. The ore carrier presumably had left when the shuttle failed toreturn from the planet. Nothing was found to show from where it had come. Theshuttle and most of the other machinery were Star Union manufacture, decadesold. They could have been picked up almost anywhere. Personal belongingsprovided no clues. A ragtag outfit, probably from some regressed walkercolony, which had got wind of the Kulkoor bonanza and considered it worth thelong haul to slip in and load up what it could before authorized miningoperations began and the planet came under a degree of surveillance which madeprivate projects impossible. 

That was the appearance of it. 

It could have been a deliberate mystification. It could have been a number ofother things, which might or might not turn out to have wider significance. Inany case, every effort must be made to explain what had happened before majoroperations on Kulkoor were started. The Galestral Company and Cencom wereagreed on that. They went about their efforts to obtain the explanation indifferent ways. 

The Galestral Company proceeded by the book, by the disciplined rulesestablished in the conquest of its own planet. It left three observers and ascout ship stationed on Kulkoor, hauled off its other personnel. Grant Gageand Jill Hastings were two of the observers. They were selected for the jobbecause, of the people then on Kulkoor, they were, by their record, the bestqualified to handle it. Because there was, also by their record, a streak ofthe nonconformist in both of them, they were joined by Ned Brock, almost asqualified and by nature a Company man, a stabilizing influence in the team.
They were skilled, highly trained people; they weren't to stick out theirnecks in this matter. A specialist would be sent to do that. The GalestralCompany was frugal in the use of human resources. Those it used wereexpendable when the purpose was worth the price, but they weren't expended ifcalculation could prevent it. 

Cencom, with less direct experience in dealing with abnormal planetaryconditions, set up a test project staffed with a hundred and fifty people, tosubject Kulkoor to overall analysis during a planned ten-month period. Theproblem, if it existed, should be brought to light somewhere along the line.
The peril, if it arose, would be met by conventional means; the Base wasprotected by defensive and offensive armament. The sentinel ship, stationed insynchronous orbit above the Base, was equipped to evacuate all personnel as a 


last resort. 

The Star Union project was now beginning its third month. A mapping crew oftwo had been lost with their aircar. The indications were that they'dattempted to fly through a violent storm in mountainous country. No trace ofcar or crew had been found; but no one seemed inclined to blame the KulkoorProblem for the disappearance. An occasional accident of that kind could beexpected. 

There'd been no other losses. 

Jill sighed. The Star Union, by its own lights, was also going by the book onKulkoor. And the book was getting old. Throughout its two hundred and sixty-
three years of existence, Cencom, the tunneled planetoid, still the mostformidable space fortress known, had been the Star Union's strategic center.
The Galestral Company wasn't much younger. 

Between them, they'd grown to dominate the area. You were a Star Union citizen-- walker or swimmer; essentially space-oriented, space-housed, in eithercase. Or you were a working shareholder of the Galestral Company. Galestralwas as magnificent a world as Earth ever could have been, but it was the onlyworld like that around. Ragnor never had been able to support as much as halfa million Mailliards; and the Mailliards had been regressing technologicallyfor decades before they tangled with the Star Union. Scores of colonies onother worlds led a marginal existence, or dropped below it and failed.
Kulkoor, though four fifths of its land surface was cold desert, might havemade a better man home than almost all of them. 

But that was the way it was at present. Men had moved away from Earth, comethis far. Planets that weren't fit for human habitation remained inexhaustible 
sources of raw material. Motion had stopped; it was time for organization, forconsolidation. The Star Union was formed; and presently the Galestral Companysplit away from the Star Union, conquered the almost unconquerable nativeterrors of Galestral, and held the planet against all human comers until nomore felt tempted to come. 

Consolidation continued. It became stagnation, Jill thought. There'd been nochange in basic ship design in three hundred years. The ships were good -- butonly that. They didn't have the range to go unsupported out of this sterilearea, far enough to leave the Star Union and the Galestral Company behind. 

Far enough to break the strings. 

-Chapter 31 
It took almost two days to locate the swimmer ship. As Captain Bymer hadpredicted, it was skimming the fringes of a dense meteor cloud when spotted.
It might have spotted the sentinel simultaneously. It edged into the hurtlingspace avalanche, vanished from instrument detection. It didn't reappear. 

Bymer said, "If he tries to cut through that sludge, he's had it! He won'ttry." 


"So where is he?" said Crowell. 

"He's put down somewhere -- some big rock near the point of entry. He'll comeout eventually. But if we wait for that, we may lose him." 

"Then let's not wait." Crowell was beginning to like Captain Bymer. 

They found the swimmer presently, sitting at the bottom of a deep raggedcrevice in one of the larger meteorite chunks. When they signaled it, it droveup from the crevice, guns blazing. The action lasted barely twenty seconds.
Then the swimmer was hulled, silenced and blinded, spinning through space.
Captain Bymer held fire. A string of spacesuited figures spurted from thewreck. They made no attempt to escape; there was nowhere to go. 

An hour later, a fresh load of prisoners was in the personnel freezer, and thesentinel ship was on its way back to Kulkoor. They hadn't tried to board theswimmer. With its power dead, it was being chewed up by the drift before thelast survivor of its crew had been brought into the sentinel.
* * * 

Crowell had intended to interrogate some of the captured swimmers at lengthbefore returning to the Base. But when he got in contact with Guy Hansen tolet him know the period of communicator silence was over, Hansen said, "Ithink you'd better come down as soon as you can, Crowell." 

"Why?" Crowell asked. 

"For one thing, you'll have an opportunity to meet that mysterious Galestralbiota analyst. Farquhar's spending the night at Station Three." 

"Good enough!" Crowell said. "We'll be there as quickly as Captain Bymer canget us back. Anything else?" 

"Yes. The Zoology Department's lost a man. Alex Hays. We found his body todaysome five miles north of Station Three. He'd been killed by an animal -apparently 
a previously unrecorded species he was trying to collect. That,
incidentally, is what brought Farquhar to view." 

"How did Farquhar hear about it?" 

Hansen said dryly, "It turns out that one person on the Base with whom he'sbeen in fairly regular communicator contact is Dr. Freemont of Zoology.
They've been exchanging information on Kulkoor fauna for the past month. Itdidn't occur to Freemont to mention it until now. He called Farquhar after thebody was found, and Farquhar showed up at the Station some five hours later." 

"He wants to look for the animal?" Crowell said. 

"I'd assume it. He didn't tell Freemont his purpose. 

"Do you know what general type of animal it's supposed to be?" 

"A large fur-covered biped. Hays' initial report referred to it as a humanoidgiant." 

"A -- when did he make that initial report?" 


"Four planet days ago." 


"And Dr. Freemont and the Zoology Department didn't think that was worth
mentioning either?" 


"It seems," said Hansen, "that the Zoology Department didn't take Alex Hays'
story seriously."
* * * 


"One might have called Alex a romantic, Captain Witter," Dr. Freemont was
saying defensively a few hours later. "To put it more bluntly, he was an
overly imaginative young man, and he let the characteristic interfere with his
work. Zoology is understaffed, and on more than one previous occasion valuable
department time was wasted in trying to follow up unsubstantiated reports made
by him." 


Crowell nodded. "I understand. Just what did he report on this occasion -- and
did he leave notes?" 


"We've found no notes. But he did talk a good deal about his experience. Today
I checked what he'd told me against what he'd told others, and found that his
story was, in fact, rather consistent." 


"You're inclined to believe it now?" 


"I'm more inclined to believe it than I was. It's possible, after all, that
the planet's fauna has developed a biped form, or, at any rate, a large animal
which occasionally stands, even walks, on its hind legs. If so, it must be an
exceedingly rare species, or it should have been sighted before. Hays was in
an aircar, making a routine fauna count, when he saw it. He said he had the
impression of looking down at a creature like the mythical ogres of Earth."
Dr. Freemont's mouth quirked in distaste. "I took the time to question him
about it. More factually then, he claimed it was a biped, with long straight
legs, but massive and apelike in the upper part of the body. Its arms were
long and heavy. It was apparently very large for that type of structure -Hays 
estimated it as eight feet in height, with a weight of well over five
hundred pounds. It was furred, brown-black in color. Its head was relatively
large, with pointed ears or earlike appendages. There were no weapons or other
artifacts -- in other words, no indications of more than animal intelligence." 


Dr. Freemont reflected a moment. "I believe that sums up the description." 


"It seems a quite specific one," Crowell said. 


"Yes -- perhaps more so than one should expect. Alex Hays evidently did see
something. I'm not convinced that what he saw would match his description of
it too closely." 


"Why do you think that?" 


The zoologist shrugged. "Hays said the creature moved quickly. He had it
briefly in view at the edge of a stand of forest, saw it again some seconds
later as it passed through an opening among the trees. He continued to circle
above the forest for over an hour but saw no more of it. I feel he may have
used his imagination to supply more than those glimpses actually showed him.
He tried to persuade me to have Zoology organize a search for the biped, and
collect it. I turned him down. I did call Gerson, who's in charge at Station 



Three, to check on the story. Gerson has worked together with Hays, and hesimply laughed. He assured me there'd never been any indication of such acreature in that area, and, of course, Station Three has gone over the entirevicinity rather thoroughly. Hays asked to be relieved of his regular duties sohe could hunt the creature by himself, and I refused." 

"So he went after it without authorization?" Crowell said. 

"Yes. In part, I'm afraid, because his colleagues had been making something ofa joke of the Hays Ogre. I didn't learn until this morning that he'd left theBase yesterday after checking out an aircar. He'd forged my signature on thepermit. When he didn't reply to communicator calls, I informed Mr. Hansen thathe was missing and might be in trouble." 

Crowell looked over at Hansen. Hansen said, "Herrick and I went out in twocars to look for Hays. We found his car within half an hour. It was standingin the open in the general area where he'd reported seeing the biped. What wasleft of his body was under some bushes a hundred yards away. Part of it hadbeen devoured. His energy carbine lay thirty feet from the body. It was almostfully charged but set to fire, and something like a fifteen-second burst hadbeen fired from it. Apparently Hays missed." 

"Apparently?" said Crowell. 

Hansen said, "There were heavy rainstorms in that section during the night.
They left no tracks, nothing at all to show what kind of creature killed Hays.
We made a search of the surrounding ground, thinking it might have been hurtbadly enough by the carbine to go into hiding nearby. We found nothing. Theplace is on the edge of a dense stretch of forest which extends up into themountains, and to look further for it seemed useless." 

Dr. Freemont remarked, "The condition of Hays' body, incidentally, is no proofthat the killer was carnivorous. There are a number of scavenger species inthe northern forests which quickly dispose of anything dead or dying." 

"Was Hays a reasonably good shot?" Crowell asked. 

"I would say so. He liked hunting and brought in many specimens for thedepartment during our first weeks of operation on Kulkoor." 

"I was thinking," Crowell said, "that it isn't really easy to miss somethingbig that's coming at you with an energy carbine. He should have had it in hissights for most of those fifteen seconds." 

"Unless he panicked," Hansen said. 

"Yes, that's possible. What about Farquhar, Doctor? Did he comment in any wayon what had happened?" 

"He said only that he'd like to find out more about the creature Hays hadencountered, and asked me to arrange to have him stay over at Station Threetonight." 

"You know he did show up there?" 

"Yes, an hour or two after sundown. At the moment, I'm not sure of the exacttime. Dan Gerson called me to say Farquhar had arrived." 


Hansen said, "Would you like me to call the Station now and put you in touchwith Farquhar"" 

Crowell shook his head, looked at his watch. "He may have reasons for notwanting to be in touch with me. The night's almost over anyway. LieutenantTegeler and I will fly out to the Station immediately and try to catchFarquhar before he wakes up."
* * * 

It was barely first light when Crowell's repaired car came drifting downtoward Station Three. The Station was a low wide structure, built against andpartly into a rocky slope, two hundred feet below a dark line of forest alongthe crest of the slope. Ilken, watching the ground screen, said, "Two carsparked down there. Only one belongs to the Station. So Farquhar's stillaround." 

Crowell didn't comment. Mists half veiled the slopes; he hadn't been able todistinguish the cars. A moment later, Ilken frowned. "There's -- " Her voicepaused; then she said, "Hold the car, Crowell!" 

He checked their descent, looked quickly over at her. "Something wrong?" 

"Hard to make out." She was adjusting the screen, nodded suddenly. "Take alook!" Her tone was flat. 

The two cars were shadowy in the screen, but Crowell could make them out.
There was something oddly distorted about their positions and outlines. Hestared. "You'd think they'd been hit by a rock slide!" 

"They've been smashed," Ilken agreed. "Smashed up bad!" They exchanged aglance, and she got to her feet, moved over to the gun and slipped intoposition there. Crowell was tapping out a number on the communicator. After amoment, he said, "Herrick? We're hanging above Station Three. See if you canraise them on Base comm in there. If there's no response, get out here fastwith a couple of armed cars!" 

-Chapter 32 
"Captain Witter," the voice of the Base comm operator said, "the threeGalestral people have just arrived. They asked Dr. Bates to show them thebodies, and they're with him now. Mr. Hansen will come out to Station Threewith them." 

"Thanks," Crowell said. "I'll be waiting." 

He switched off his wrist transmitter and glanced down the slope at StationThree. The smashed entry door was visible at this angle; and though he wasupwind of the Station now, the stench of death still seemed to be in hisnostrils. A shadow drifted over the rocks, and he looked up at his car movingslowly fifty feet above. It was a flat platform at present, its canopycollapsed. Ilken was at the gun, and Bill Tabor, one of the Base's caroperators, at the controls. Their attention was on the forest at the top of 


the slope. Two other armed cars hung in the sky a quarter-mile up, scopes
scanning the area. Crowell's hand brushed the gun holster on his hip, obeying
a half-conscious need to make sure the weapon was there, though by itself it
shouldn't be much protection if whatever had ravaged Station Three during the
night chose to return. 


Fifteen minutes later, the Galestral car settled to the ground farther up the
slope. Hansen climbed out first, followed by the three members of the survey
team. "I've told them the circumstances about Hays," Hansen said as they
approached. 


Crowell nodded, looking at the Galestrals. Their Suesvant rifles were slung
across their backs; bandoliers crossed their chests. They'd been informed
earlier that Frank Farquhar had disappeared and evidently hadn't been in the
Station when it was attacked. "We'll show you what it's like in there,"
Crowell said. "Then we can compare conclusions."
* * * 


The three went matter-of-factly about their examination of the interior
shambles of Station Three, faces showing sober alertness but almost nothing in
the way of emotion. Crowell and Hansen, who had gone over the Station in
detail before, looked on. Things had been left as they'd been found, except
that the bodies of the four technicians who'd staffed the Station had been 
removed. Patches of stickily dried blood covered sections of the floor;
insect-like creatures crawled and flew about the patches. The smells of
violent death hung in the air. 


Apparently, only one killer had come in. Two well-defined footprints showed on
the smeared floor of the main room. They weren't unlike the impressions a
naked human foot might have left, though larger and proportionately broader.
Both were of the same foot -- a foot sixteen inches long from the end of the
heel to the most advanced of the four thick toe marks, six and a half inches
across at the widest point. The kind of foot required to support the giant
frame which had raised and swung a great rock, over three hundred pounds at an
estimate, to drive the entry door back into the Station. The rock still lay
across the door's shattered sections. 


Smeared dark patterns of other footprints, very much smaller ones, were
visible near the entrance, crossing through the short hall into the main area.
They appeared to be those of scavenging animals which had come into the
Station later at night, after the killer had left. Furnishings and equipment
in the main room were knocked about and smashed. Two heavy-charge shock guns
hung untouched on the wall near the entrance. 


Ned Brock picked up a packed knapsack from behind an overturned table and
placed it on a chair. 


"Farquhar's," he commented. He added after a moment, "So he just picked up his
Suesvant and walked out . . ." 


In the adjoining instrument room, the picture was much the same. One of the
two station chronometers had been shattered. Crowell pointed it out, said,
"It's indicating sixteen hours eight minutes Base Time. Which fixes the time
of the attack at approximately three hours after nightfall. They were still at
work here." He nodded at a handgun on the floor. "That's been identified as
Dan Gerson's. Gerson was the man who was dictating a report into the recorder
in this room at the moment of the attack." 



Grant Gage asked, "Has the gun been fired?" 


"Yes," Crowell said. "We found it with its trigger locked down and its charge
expended. There's still a measurable radiation residue in the room. His body
was lying a few yards away from it." 


"The others were killed in the main room?" 


"Two of them were. Ray Cross and Edwin Raines." Crowell nodded at a shattered
doorframe across the room. "The fourth, Wilma Howard, died in the sleeping
section beyond that door." 


Grant said, "Could we hear the recording of the attack?" 


The recorder into which Gerson was dictating hadn't been damaged in the
violent action in the room and was still running when Crowell, Ilken and
Herrick came into the Station in the morning. As a result, they had an audible
record of the attack and of the night hours that followed. 


The significant section wasn't long. Biologist Gerson's voice was interrupted
by the explosively abrupt shattering of the entrance door. He exclaimed
something, the words drowned out by snarling roars, human yells, thudding
noises. The roars swelled up, ended suddenly with the rest of the racket.
Then, after some seconds, came a splintering crash which marked the
destruction of the sleeping section door. The beast's snarls rose again,
subsided. The last of its victims had died. Vague sounds continued to come
from the machine -- an intermittent deep rumbling, a wet slapping.
Occasionally a piece of equipment crashed. The noises produced unpleasantly
vivid impressions of the intruder prowling about, making a deliberate search
for hidden survivors, pausing from time to time to tear at one of the bodies
again. At last the Station grew quiet. It had gone. 


Crowell shut off the recorder, said, "All four died within less than two
minutes. I had the tapes scanned for the rest of the night. There's nothing to
indicate that the creature came back to the Station. It broke up the two
aircars with rocks, as you saw, and then apparently went away." 


He added, "Unless there's something else you want to check here, shall we go
outside and try to determine what this means, and what should be done about
it?" 
* * * 


Everything indicated that the attacker was a creature of the type described by
Alex Hays. In fact, it could very well have been the one he'd reported seeing
and which probably had killed him not many miles from this point. It might
have been watching Station Three from concealment for some time. It had known
enough, at any rate, to select the entry door as its point of assault. 


And it had -- must have -- some degree of immunity to energy weapons. Crowell
said, "I've heard that a number of Galestral's superbeasts can absorb heavy
charges without being stopped." 


The three nodded. Grant said, "There are species which generate energy blasts
for attack or defense. Others developed a corresponding tolerance for them.
But nothing's been found on Kulkoor to explain why this biped should have the
ability." 



"No," Crowell said. "Of course, we may be finding the explanation before we'redone. In any case, the biped does seem to have it. Going by the Galestralanimals, could a creature like that stand up against guncar fire?" 

Grant shook his head. "Not for a significant length of time -- if you couldget it to face a guncar." 

"That might be a problem," Crowell conceded. 

Ned Brock said, "A point that puzzles me is that there's a standard forcescreen control panel in the Station's entrance hall. The rock couldn't havedamaged the door if the Station screen had been on. Why should it have beenswitched off -- particularly when someone had been killed in the area two daysbefore?" 

And that was, as a matter of fact, a rather delicate point. Crowell said, "Wehave no explanation. The outlying stations have instructions to maintainprotective screening except when personnel enters or leaves. The rule seems tohave been violated here last night." 

Grant said after a moment, "The screen can be opened from outside theStation?" 

"Yes," Crowell said. "That's a necessary provision. But you have to know thecoded key for an individual screen to do it." 

Hansen added, "That's only one of several unexplained details. What do youmake of Farquhar's interest in the biped and the fact that he wasn't in theStation when the thing showed up?" 

"I could make a guess about that," Grant said. "He may already have been awarethere was such a life form around. His immediate response to the informationhe got from your Base suggests it. And he may have attached some specialsignificance to that life form." 

Hansen said dryly, "Meaning he considered it a possible clue to the KulkoorMystery?" 

"Or the Kulkoor Problem, as the Galestral Company calls it. Yes, he may have.
Farquhar wouldn't have asked permission to make Station Three his temporaryquarters for any minor reason. I'll carry that farther. The Station's areascanners are turned off. But Farquhar may have been using them before he left.
He might have caught a glimpse of the biped prowling about, and gone out afterit without telling the Station staff what he'd seen or what he intended. Itwould be in keeping with the way he preferred to operate -- strictly byhimself." 

Grant added, "We can assume the biped ambushed and killed him before itattacked the Station." 

-Chapter 33 

Heavy rains had fallen in the area again overnight, and any visible tracksaround Station Three had been washed away before morning. But the Galestralshad brought along a device with which they expected to be able to follow bothFarquhar's trail and that of the biped. Jill Hastings explained it briefly toCrowell while Ned Brock registered the biped's pattern on it in the main room.
"He's screening out all but the strongest readings here and discarding theones connected with human beings and nonliving materials," she said. "Thebiped's scent will be the most definite one left. Once it's registered, it canbe picked up again anywhere. So can biped trails then as a class. Farquhar'sindividual pattern already is on record in the biotracker." 

Guy Hansen had been flown back to the Star Union Base meanwhile, to keep aneye on developments in Crowell's continuing absence. There had been a momentof barely perceptible hesitation on the Galestrals' part when Crowell said hewould accompany them on foot in their search for Farquhar. But they didn'targue the matter. He'd decided to carry one of the shock guns which had beenpart of Station Three's defensive equipment. Even for a man of his strength,
they were awkwardly heavy weapons; and they had neither the sustained chargeof energy guns or much range. But at close quarters their jolt supposedlywould put almost anything that walked at least temporarily out of action. 

Ned Brock's biotracker picked up Farquhar's trail readily outside the Stationentrance. They set off up the slope. Ilken and the Base operator would attemptto accompany the ground party in Crowell's car, keeping close to the forestroof. Half a mile up, the crew of a second guncar was to scan the wider areafor indications of anything that might be of significance, while anotheroperator would follow with the Galestral car, his job being chiefly to keepthe vehicle aloft and ready for use. 

The invisible spoor led to the forest, turned there into a narrow game trail.
It was more open under the trees than Crowell had expected. The thick canopieswere frequently interlaced, but around the trunks the undergrowth was sparse.
There were signs of minor life, small voice sounds near and far, suddenscuttlings, and bursts of whirring flight. The Galestrals moved silently,
rather like searching hounds, Crowell thought -- Ned Brock in the lead withthe biotracker, Crowell some twenty-five feet behind him, and the other two onCrowell's right and left. After a few minutes, Crowell realized this was aformation into which he'd been quietly fitted, and that the purpose of theformation, however much it shifted because of the growth through which theypassed, was to ensure that Ned Brock was covered at all times by the Suesvantof one of the others, while he himself remained covered by both. He felt amomentary flush of annoyance at the last, told himself to forget it. Personnelof the Galestral Space Exploration Corps reportedly received a lengthyconditioning among the formidable denizens of their planet's wildlands. Hiscompanions had some reason to regard him as an amateur in this business. 

Ned Brock checked abruptly, slid the tracking device into a pocket. Crowell,
stopping almost as abruptly, brought up the shock gun. Grant and the girl wereimmobile. A wide thicket of denser growth lay ahead and to the left, someforty feet away, a matted gray-green tangle, sodden from the rains. Crowellwatched it, wondering what they had noticed. Ned had raised his Suesvant, andJill was drawing off to the left, edging in toward the thicket. She stopped;
and Ned was in motion, closing up on the growth from the right, while Grantcame past Crowell. Crowell had a momentary impulse to join that stealthyadvance, and again told himself to forget it; they were moving with absolutestillness, in a manner beyond his ability here -- if he stirred, he mightspoil their game. And if something did break from the thicket, he could get 


into the action from where he stood. 


Moist coolness touched the back of his neck. Wind shift-blowing now toward the
thicket. The Galestrals stood still. 


Then the tops of the thicket shook; there were crashings inside the
vegetation. Crowell had a glimpse of a large chunky body scuttling on four
short legs away from the thicket on the far side of Jill. It was followed by
another. In moments, both beasts had disappeared in the forest. 


Crowell let his breath out with a sigh. 


He realized he was drawing approving glances from the Galestrals as they
resumed formation; and he felt curiously pleased.
* * * 


Some ten minutes later, they found Farquhar's Suesvant rifle. Ned Brock again
was leading the way, along an animal trail which followed a small stream. The
forest was relatively open here, and Crowell had occasional glimpses of his
car moving overhead. Evidently they were registering in the scanners
frequently enough to be followed without difficulty. On the far side of the
stream a steep bank rose to a height of around twenty to twenty-five feet
above them; and Crowell was aware that Grant and Jill were giving the upper
edge of the bank a good deal of attention. 


Ned said quietly, "Here's where it got him!" 


Farquhar's body wasn't there. But that this was in fact the place where he'd
been killed became quickly obvious. Rocks had been the biped's weapon again -two 
large rocks hurled with what must have been remarkable accuracy from the
top of the bank beyond the stream. Deep marks in the side of the bank showed
where the creature had come sliding down then to finish off Farquhar if he
hadn't been killed outright. It had left its footprints in the mud. The
Suesvant lay nearby, barrel twisted and action smashed. 


Ned cast about with the biotracker, and the story grew clear. Having drawn
Farquhar here and killed him, the biped had gone to Station Three, done its
work and returned to this point by another route to pick up Farquhar's body
and carry it off. 


They set out again. Crowell felt renewed tensions growing in him. The biped
might not be far away, though it had been almost ten hours since it passed
through here. This seemed to be its territory; they could come on it at any
time. Ned lifted the tracker now and then, moved it along the bushes they were
passing and checked the readings. Crowell realized he was picking up scent
traces left by the biped or Farquhar's body where they had brushed against the
growth. Then Ned glanced back, announced, "Open ground ahead!" 


The trees thinned out. They emerged on a shallow rocky plateau leading to a
wide, rushing stream. Ahead and to the left, on the far side of the stream,
rose forested mountain slopes. On the right was a glacier lake, deep cold
blue, perhaps two miles across. 


"It headed straight for the stream," Ned said.
* * * 


And in the stream the trail was lost. The biotracker couldn't pick up scent 



traces half a day old from a swiftly moving body of water. The car crews hadnothing to report. For the next hour, Ned Brock moved up and down both sidesof the stream, covered by two car guns. But the tracker's readings showedneither human nor biped traces. 

To the west, the stream poured out of a narrow mountain gorge, crowded withluxuriant vegetation. To the east, it emptied into the quiet lake. "What doyou think's happened?" Crowell asked Grant Gage. They were by themselves atthe moment, standing at the edge of the stream. 

Grant shrugged. "The thing's either followed the water back into the mountainsor into the lake. If it wasn't attempting to cover its trail, it may benaturally amphibious. It may have carried Farquhar's body on with it or buriedit under rocks in the stream." 

"In either case," said Crowell, "we're not very likely to recover the bodynow." 

"No, we're not." 

"You'll abandon the search?" 

"No," Grant said, "we won't abandon the search." 

Crowell was silent a moment, said, "If the particular biped we were followingis located and killed eventually, its body may show indications that it'sstopped previous radiation charges. That would prove it was in fact a bipedwhich attacked Station Three and probably killed Hays before that. But we canalready say as much. What else could be proved by continuing the hunt?" 

"I don't know," said Grant. He rubbed his jaw reflectively. "We tried tocontact you two days ago. 

"I know. I was off-planet and out of communication at the time, getting theswimmer ship rounded up. We managed to do that. I came back early this morningbecause I'd been told Farquhar was in Station Three. So I went there to talkto him before he'd disappear again." 

"Yes, I understand. The reason we were trying to contact you is that wethought we might have got a clue to the Kulkoor Mystery." 

"What was that?" Crowell asked. 

Grant told him about the vanished Zuron camera and their speculations.
Mountain mists had covered the areas where the big fliers had been observedpreviously; they hadn't so far been able to kill and examine one. "If it wasone of those creatures which broke off the camera, and if it was donedeliberately," he said, "we've had, within a few days, demonstrations ofcalculated hostility against human beings by two different Kulkoor species." 

Crowell was frowning. "A biped couldn't have taken the camera?" 

"Not unless it was walking on air. Ned went over the surrounding areathoroughly with the biotracker. Whatever took the camera left no trace ofitself." 

"The biped certainly has given evidence of considerable intelligence," Crowell 


remarked. 

"Yes. Perhaps at the level of the primitive human savage. Perhaps more thanthat." 

"And if your flier is at a similar level of intelligence -- " 

"Then we seem to have a biologically unstable situation on Kulkoor," Grantsaid. "One of the two should be the planet's dominant species by now -- and arelatively and obviously numerous one. The other should be extinct, or nearlyso. Particularly here, where the fertile land forms something like a linkedchain of large islands around the equatorial zone, surrounded by desert.
There's no room for two competing intelligent species, unless there'ssomething like an instinctive alliance or truce between them." 

"As I understand there was among some of the more advanced native life formson Galestral," Crowell said. 

"Something like that. On Galestral it was hardly a truce since they preyed onone another. But they did maintain a balance and apparently had been doing itfor a very long time. And they united against the human intruder." 

"You think that might be happening here?" 

"It could explain what's happened so far," Grant said. "Kulkoor's intelligentlife may be trying to frighten us off, get rid of us, without revealing toomuch about itself." 

Crowell said slowly, "If that's the case, it could delay large-scaleoperations for quite a while." 

"Yes, it could," Grant said. "Here's how the situation will look to theGalestral Company. Before we left the ship, we sent off a drone to reportFarquhar's disappearance and the general circumstances under which itoccurred. We'll report now that we have evidence of his death. We've told youthat we're stationed here as Farquhar's backup team. The fact that he didn'tchoose to make use of us in his work, and refused to give us any informationabout it, doesn't change that. We'll pick up where he left off -- and, ofcourse, we have new material to work on now. We'll report at regular intervalsto the Company, which appears to be as much in the dark about any actualprogress made by Farquhar as we are. So long as it seems that we might be ableto solve the problem, the Company will wait. If we stop reporting, or if theyhear from you that we've failed, they'll make their next move." 

Crowell said, "Meaning they'll send out somebody else?" 

"Yes. Who'll be sent and what the new group will be equipped to do issomething I can't say." 

"By failing you mean that the three of you will have been killed -- " 

"Yes. Since we don't know what we're up against, that's certainly apossibility." 

"How will I know you've failed, and how would I get word to the GalestralCompany about it?" 


"We'll be in contact with you. If the contact is broken and you're unable to
reestablish it, you can assume failure. We'll leave a message drone, set to
Company coordinates, at your Base. Tell them as much as you can and dispatch
it." 


Crowell was silent a moment. "The Base setup is mainly a defensive one," he
said then. "But I'd like to take a more active part in this. I'll have this
general area and the one around the mining campsite kept under aerial
surveillance. Can you think of anything else?" 


"Not at present," Grant told him. "We'll be trying to find the biped, and a
small hunting party is more likely to be successful in that than a large one.
We don't want to drive the thing into hiding." 


"Yes, I see." Crowell felt dissatisfied. Grant added, "The dangers of the
situation aren't all here, of course. Kulkoor has become too valuable a prize.
If the matter isn't cleared up quickly, there'll be new suspicions raised." 


"No doubt there will be," Crowell agreed. "But there's no reason so far to
start thinking in terms of a superbeast that might have been imported from
Galestral." 


"Not yet," said Grant. "There's no Galestral superbeast that matches the
description of the biped. But that could be difficult to prove." 


"Are there any that could account for the missing camera?" 


"Several." Grant hesitated. "Captain Witter, we're aware that though you
represent Cencom here, you haven't always found yourself in accord with
Cencom's policies." 


Crowell smiled briefly. "Lieutenant Tegeler told me your sick bay is equipped
with a very effective truth drug." 


"Yes, it's a dependable one. We're Galestral Company shareholders and we work
for the Company. But that also doesn't mean that we'd necessarily be in
agreement with specific Company policies -- or informed of them." 


Crowell nodded. "Not when the stakes are large enough. I realize that. We'd
better not tie ourselves down to any one theory . . ."
* * * 


"And now," Ned Brock said as the survey team's car started back to their ship,
"what will be the procedure? If the thing wanted to lose trackers, it picked a
good place for it. It could go upstream or down. If it's at home in the water,
the lake was less than half a mile away. If it likes the rocks, it had the
mountains right there. Trying to pick up its trail again could turn into a
long chore." 


"So we won't try to pick up its trail," said Grant. "It was first seen in
daylight -- it's diurnal when it feels like it. When we get back, let's look
around by car generally. We still might get a glimpse of the thing or another
of its kind today. If we don't, we'll change tactics. Judging by what we know
of it now, this is a creature which waits and watches quietly until it has the
advantage. Then it goes in to kill. It doesn't bluster or bluff." 


Ned said, "I see . . . and we know its general territory." 



"And that it hates aircars," Jill added. She nodded. "If we make a nuisance ofourselves around the territory long enough, it should start looking for anopportunity to get to us." 

They sent a drone report to the Galestral Company from the ship, returned tothe Star Union Base with another drone for Crowell's use, if required, and, bymid-afternoon of the planet day, were back above the stream where the trailhad been lost. They moved downstream and on along the fringes of the lake. Forthe most part, the lake walls were steep and rocky, but here and there forestgrowth spread to the water's edge. They saw assorted forms of animal life butnothing resembling a great brown biped. 

Presently they came back, moved up the stream past the point where the biped'strail had entered the water. A mile on, the stream cascaded out of a deepnarrow gorge in the mountain. The car slipped into the gorge. Luxuriantvegetation crowded the walls on both sides. Spray misted the air. There wereendless hiding places here for even quite large creatures, and a man on footwould find difficult going. They lifted out of the gorge finally. The carcircled above the area enclosing Station Three, the stream, the flanks of themountains. 

"All right, let's start being obnoxious," Grant said. "We'll be thorough aboutit! Then we'll give the thing -- or things -- an opening." 

They went on shift from then on, one handling the car, one watching thescanners, one sleeping or resting. The car drifted about, almost aimlessly. Itfloated along open ground, hung close above the tops of trees, sometimes nosedin below the forest canopy for a few hundred yards. Repeatedly it visited thegorge, the edge of the lake, circled slowly about Station Three. Now and thenthey saw a Star Union aircar moving through the sky above them. 

The day wore on. 

-Chapter 34 
"What are you going to do?" Ilken asked Crowell. 

He grunted. "Assume the worst." 

"Why?" 

"The thing smells. The picture's wrong! I don't like coincidences." 

Her pale eyes studied him. "You don't think Farquhar's dead?" 

"Oh, he's dead," Crowell said sourly. "That part -- but I'd like to know whyhe's dead!" He added, "Something's being wound up tight here. I want to haveall the room possible to move in when it's set off." 

"You haven't got much of a story yet to sell the people." 

"I'll sell them on it." 


Crowell had Station Three sealed, its force screen locked from without, beforereturning to the Star Union Base. On the Base, he called the department headsto a meeting in Dr. Sutton's office. 

They came eagerly, anxious to learn the details of what had occurred. 

Crowell told them. It had been shown that an intelligent, dangerous life formexisted on Kulkoor. Within three days, six human beings had been killed,
apparently by a single specimen which had planned its attacks carefully andhad demonstrated at least partial immunity to portable energy weapons. 

"So far, we can't say what other qualities it has," he said. "The Galestralsurvey team is at present attempting to locate the biped which attackedStation Three and kill it for analysis. They're better equipped for that jobthan we are." 

"In what way?" said one of the men. 

"They have a sophisticated tracking instrument. They've been trained to huntthe most dangerous kinds of game known. And I believe most of you are awarethat the Suesvant rifles they use as personal weapons were designedspecifically to deal with superbeasts." 

There was an uneasy stir. Dr. Sutton said, "You're not implying that thisbiped animal -- dangerous as it evidently is -- can be classed with some ofthe Galestral monsters?" 

"No, I'm not implying it," Crowell said. "But until we know how it's to beclassed, we'll act as if there were a species of superbeasts confronting us onKulkoor. That involves giving the Galestral team all the support we can -chiefly 
by getting our guncars freed for action. It involves further puttingthis Base immediately on emergency status. The work parties operating off-Basetoday already are being recalled, and I want each of you to see to it at oncethat the outlying stations connected with your departments are closed down andthe personnel returned to the Base before nightfall." 

There were startled protests. Important work was being carried on in thestations. Much of it couldn't be transferred to the Base. Vital projects wouldbe ruined if they didn't get continuous direct attention. So drastic a measurehardly seemed indicated -- the stations were well-protected structures and thepersonnel now had been alerted to the possibility of danger. 

Crowell listened briefly before he said, "Gentlemen, please keep one thing inmind! This Base -- the entire Kulkoor Expedition -- is itself an experimentalCencom project. Your scientific work is of great importance. I'd be the lastto deny it. But the primary purpose of the Cencom project is to determinewhether operations on Kulkoor can be carried out through semi-open bases suchas this. It's by far the most economical approach. But you wouldn't be herenow if there hadn't already been some question as to whether it's possible.
You're drawing risk pay with good reason. Cencom wants to see if something'sgoing to happen to you. If something does, it will be necessary to considerother methods." 

"We're quite aware of being technically expendable, Captain Witter," Dr.
Sutton said stiffly. 


"Fine," Crowell said. "And if that turns out to be more than a technicality,
I'm here, among other things, to try to keep casualties to a minimum. That
again must override other considerations. It's quite possible that the next
few days will bring proof that the biped is not an abnormally dangerous
creature and that standard precautions will be all that's necessary to prevent
a recurrence of what happened last night at Station Three. In that case, the
stations will be reopened and the general work program resumed. But at present
you'll regard yourselves as part of a defensive military operation. I'll allow
no deviations from it. Anyone who refuses to go along will be frozen and sent
back to Cencom on the next supply ship." 


Dr. Sutton said, "We'll have to follow your instructions. But you show more
confidence in the Galestrals than some of us feel. I think that's an aspect of
the matter that requires further discussion." 


Crowell nodded. "I agree. There'll be another meeting later in the day at
which it will be discussed. We'll assemble again after you've carried out your
orders." 
* * * 


Herrick already had put the Base on alert status. The defense screens were
closed, guards stationed at the locks. The rotary gun towers which could sweep
the surrounding area with devastating thoroughness were manned. A majority of
Dr. Sutton's scientists might remain unhappy about the interruption of pet
projects, but Crowell didn't much care. He dispatched a message drone to
Administrator Ogilvy on Cencom, to report what had happened, what he was doing
and intended to do, then checked to make sure the evacuation of the stations
had begun and would be completed before dark. The departments evidently were
cooperating, though grudgingly. The experimental ranch animals could shift for
themselves in the enclosed areas set up for them for as much as several weeks. 


Crowell said to Ilken, "Let's pay a call on Betheny." 


"About the swimmer bunch that's on Kulkoor somewhere?" Ilken said. 


"Yes. Now we've knocked out the ship, I'm less concerned about them. But I'd
sooner have them out of the way." 


"I can't see Betheny obliging you about that," Ilken said. 


She was right. Betheny said, not too pleasantly, that she didn't know what
Crowell was talking about. 


Crowell shrugged. "You've been told what's going on," he said. "It's a
situation that could work to the advantage of the Swimmer League as much as to
Cencom's. Why not take your chances on it? Your men on Kulkoor can't do you
much good now. I'll bring your transmitter here, and you can contact them and
tell them to come in peaceably. There's no point in trying to fake up a menace
on the planet when we seem to have one on hand that's real." 


"As to that," said Betheny, "I may have a great deal to say presently. But not
now, and not to you." 


"You'll get your chance to do all the talking you want to in the next few
hours," Crowell told her. 


They left Betheny's null-g installation, went to Herrick's office. Herrick 



looked around from his desk as Crowell drew the door shut behind them. 


"Herrick," Crowell said, "how many of our personnel would be required to
maintain and, if necessary, fight the Base?" 


Herrick didn't blink an eye. "Forty-eight," he said. "I've listed their
names." 
* * * 


Captain Bymer's voice said from the communicator, "A total evacuation of the
Kulkoor Base would, of course, require the services of a supply ship. The next
one due -- " 


Crowell interrupted. "I'm talking about an emergency evacuation of personnel
only. Some two thirds or possibly all of them. How long would it take you to
shuttle between a hundred and a hundred and fifty people up to the sentinel
and start feeding them into the freezers?" 


There was a moment's silence. 


"Perhaps four hours, once preparations for it have been made," Bymer said
then. 


"How much time do you need for the preparations?" 


"That's a seventy-five-hour process, Captain Witter." 


"How about cutting it to twenty hours?" 


"A technical impossibility! We'd overload the standard life support systems
and paralyze the ship." 


"All right," Crowell said. "How much can you shave from those seventy-five
hours?" 


Another pause, a longer one, before Bymer's voice told him, "Conceivably the
period might be reduced to forty hours before commencing to load. I can't
recommend that unless there is a valid and pressing emergency." 


Crowell looked at his watch, said, "I don't know that there'll be an
emergency. But start preparations now, on the forty-hour schedule -- and don't
consider it a drill! As far as the Base is concerned, that's what it will be
at present." 


"For the record, Captain Witter," Bymer said, "these instructions have been
given me under Cencom Seal?" 


"They have."
* * * 


There were startled expressions when Betheny of Varien, in the saddle of a
null-g bubble and escorted by Crowell and Ilken, came into Dr. Sutton's office
to attend the second meeting of the expedition's leaders. 


Crowell said, "The Public Servant remains under security arrest. But a number
of you have indicated that, as the representative of the Swimmer League on
Kulkoor, she should have the opportunity to express her opinion on the current 



situation. That seems reasonable. Dr. Sutton, at the end of our previousmeeting you mentioned that there were aspects connected with the Galestralsurvey team which needed further discussion. Would you care to develop thatthought now?" 

"Yes," Dr. Sutton said. "I was referring to the fact that you seemed to placecomplete trust in the motivations of the Galestral Company as far as Kulkooris concerned." 

Several people began to speak at once, but Betheny's voice cut coolly throughthose of the others. "We certainly must consider the possibility," she said,
"that the murder of Star Union people is in fact part of a continuingGalestral plan to mystify and discourage Cencom until Galestral is left ineffective control of Kulkoor." 

It crystallized what had been the essence of a number of rumors on the Basethat day. Crowell asked Dr. Sutton, "Is that what you had in mind?" 

Dr. Sutton glanced uncertainly at Betheny. "I wouldn't have put it in sodefinite a manner," he said. "But -- yes. I feel it is at least a possibilitywhich must be taken into account now in what we plan and do." 

"Let me tell you, Captain Witter," Betheny said, "what Dr. Sutton and I and agood many other people in this room and on this Base really think. It's thatthe Galestral Farquhar's purpose in joining the staff at Station Three lastnight was not necessarily the hunting of a killer beast as he implied. 

"He may as easily have directed the beast to attack our personnel andconcealed himself, pretending to be one of its victims, in order to strengthenthe effect of the occurrence on us, and through us on Cencom." 

Complete silence for a moment. Crowell said thoughtfully, "A domesticatedsuperbeast, imported to Kulkoor by the Galestrals, eh?" 

Betheny said, "Let Dr. Freemont tell you whether that would be impossible." 

The zoologist looked startled. Crowell said, "Let's assume it isn'timpossible. What I'd like to ask Dr. Freemont is whether he knows of aGalestral superbeast resembling in the least the giant biped described by AlexHays." 

Dr. Freemont shook his head. "No -- but, of course, only a relative handful ofStar Union scientists has had an opportunity to study Galestral fauna atfirsthand. Most of the information we have about it was supplied by theGalestrals themselves." 

"Precisely. And note, please," Betheny said to the group at large, "that itwould make no real difference if Captain Witter's Galestral friends could showus what they say is Farquhar's body or an executed biped. Nobody here knowswhat Farquhar looks like. The staff of Station Three, who could tell us, aredead. And Galestral could afford the loss of one of its monster pets to throwus off guard." 

Crowell said mildly, "It will be only a matter of a few days before our newlyinstalled surveillance equipment is operational again. If what happened atStation Three last night was part of a larger Galestral plot -- in otherwords, if there are Galestral men, equipment, or superbeasts, in significant 


numbers on Kulkoor -- the fact should soon become apparent. Mr. Hansen canassure you this. And if only one superbeast was smuggled in to commit a fewmurders, it's difficult to see much sense to it. We might already be able tostate what the facts are if the surveillance equipment hadn't been sabotaged." 

Eyes shifted questioningly again to Betheny. She smiled. "Let's not be naive,"
she said. "Major political goals are involved here. The Swimmer League hasgood reason to regard Captain Witter and his Mailliard assistant asunscrupulous enemies. They are, incidentally, no longer attached to the RagnorRangers. They're mercenaries. Cencom hired them to act against Leagueinterests on Kulkoor. But their loyalty even to Cencom can't be taken forgranted. The Galestral Company is a liberal paymaster. I believe we shouldregard Captain Witter's willingness to work hand in hand with the so-calledGalestral survey team in solving the problem of what happened at Station Threewith some skepticism. I believe also we might be safer here today if he andLieutenant Tegeler had in fact been eliminated." 

Crowell shrugged. "It's true that Lieutenant Tegeler and I retain our Rangerrank only by Cencom's courtesy, and that we're now independent specialists whowere hired by Cencom to do a job on Kulkoor," he acknowledged. "I don't mindadmitting that we're being paid highly to do it, and I have no strong personalobjection to being called a mercenary because of that. As to whether we'realso in Galestral's pay, there's obviously no point in denying such anaccusation. If we were Galestral agents, we'd hardly admit it." 

Betheny, he thought, had now shot her bolt. She had, in fact, doneapproximately what he'd brought her to the meeting to do. And there was amomentary flicker in her eyes as he spoke which indicated she'd begun tosuspect it. 

"Let's look instead at the wider implications here," he went on. "There may besomething on Kulkoor, whether it's Galestral superbeasts or a Kulkoorphenomenon, from which we have no real protection unless we remain behindenergy screens. At the moment, we're simply trying to find out whether that'strue. It's quite possible that in a day or two we may be able to establishthat it isn't true. 

"But if it is true, we're as useless on a base of this kind, as far as anyactual utilization of the planet goes, as if we were lying in our sentinelship's personnel freezer. Cencom won't consider ferrying in vast numbers ofground fighters to develop and maintain a foothold on this planet. Many of youmust be aware of the enormous expense of the limited Ragnor Campaign. You'llrealize that when it comes to Kulkoor, the logistics problems would beprohibitive. That's aside from the fact that the Star Union simply doesn'thave enough ground fighters on hand to deal with either an invasion force ofGalestrals or some local superfauna. 

"What Cencom would be forced to do is to resort to the dome system on Kulkoor.
Expensive enough in itself but feasible. The domes, of course, for reasons ofefficiency, would be the newest class of null-g domes, swimmer staffed. Ourjob is now to find out whether that's necessary. If the biped type of creatureturns out to be a minor menace, one that can be handled within the presentframework of operations, it won't be necessary." 

He concluded, "So regardless of inconveniences and the disruption of projectsit involves, I'm asking for your full cooperation these next few days to helpdetermine what the nature of the problem is and to find a means of dealing 


with it." 

-Chapter 35 
Through the evening and the moonless Kulkoor night, the Galestrals' aircar hadcontinued to prowl. Its searchlight fingered the ground here and there, heldsometimes on startled beast shapes staring up at unaccustomed brightness. 

Toward morning, the car became almost stationary, drifting slowly back andforth along a rocky slope, rarely more than twenty feet from the ground.
They'd made it clear, very clear, that they were in the area. It had beenimpossible to remain unaware of them. And now, if there was something aroundthat resented their presence, had been watching from cover with anger andsuspicion, it was time to give the watcher an opportunity to put an end to thenuisance. 

The car lifted, floated over the crest of the slope, dropped into a grassyvalley behind it. 

They'd selected their site at first light an hour ago -- the open bowl of thevalley. On the far side was a broad belt of forest; and beyond the forest wasthe area into which they'd followed the biped the day before, the stream whereits trail had ended between mountain and lake. On this side rose overhangingcliffs. 

The aircar stood in the approximate center of the valley. It was their primarybait. Jill Hastings leaned against a slanted rock beneath the massiveoverhang, Suesvant resting on the rock and pointed into the valley through thefoliage of a lopped-off tree branch which concealed her. She was secondarybait and hunter both. The Suesvant controlled the valley bowl. If the thingthey hunted came to investigate the aircar, it would have to move out ofcover. They expected the car to draw it from hiding, though perhaps not forsome hours. If it had been watching, it knew where they'd descended. 

It might suspect the humans weren't in the grounded aircar but somewherenearby. So it might stalk about the wooded fringes of the valley, searchingfirst for them. Jill's view to left and right was limited by the curve of thecliff; but those approaches were covered respectively by the Suesvants ofGrant and Ned, sitting in trees. She was in danger only if the biped could dowhat none of the great beasts of Galestral could -- absorb all the variedforms of violent death the Suesvant could spit out in fractions of a second,
and still keep coming. They didn't believe it could. And if it could, thenGrant and Ned, each dependent now only on his own senses to warn him of thecreature's approach through the forest growth, were taking a greater risk thanshe. 

So: a trap, doubly baited, with a good probability that in one way or theother, it would be sprung. The rest was a matter of waiting. The biped hadshown it was good at the waiting game. So were they. 

The minutes crept along. The morning brightened slowly, darkened again asblack rain clouds massed overhead. There was a sudden heavy downpour,
intermittent spatterings thereafter. Thunder rumbled along the mountains. 


Jill's gaze moved methodically along the far sides of the valley. Now and thenshe used the gun scope to study some area in magnified detail. Considerableanimal life was astir; between rainfalls the air seemed full of small voices.
Occasionally she saw more sizable creatures in the valley and along theforest's edge. Two long-legged striped brutes prowled about the car forseveral minutes, studying it with silent suspicion from every angle beforemoving off. 

She had a clump of bushes directly across the valley from her in the scopewhen, quite suddenly, she was looking at a head. That was all she could see ofthe creature; the head had been raised cautiously out of the vegetation topeer into the valley. It was a big dark head with a short muzzle, silveryeyes, pointed black ears. A shivering went down her back. Anything with a headthat size was too heavy to be supported by the undergrowth. The creature wasstanding on the ground . . . and it stood well above the height of a man. 

That section of the forest's edge was out of the others' range of vision. Jillpressed the alert button on her wrist transmitter. Immediately her skintingled twice under the transmitter band. All right -- the men wereinformed . . . 

Now, patience. She could fire at the head, but if it didn't belong to what shewas almost certain it belonged, that would spoil the whole plan. She made aminute adjustment to the Suesvant's sight. Ready, now. 

The head sank back into the growth and disappeared. Jill lifted her eyes abovethe scope, waited. A minute passed, another. Then something moved slowly intoview under the trees, a hundred feet from the place where she'd seen the head.
At once, she had it back in the scope -- and that was it. The biped. TheKulkoor Beast. Bulky overall build; weight perhaps approaching a quarter of aton. Black-brown color with moss-green markings. The animal head -- nothinghumanoid or apelike about that head -- was set on a short thick neck. Oddlyirregular ridgings, like deformities, on the great chest . . . 

And while all this was registering, there was the slow, growing pressure ofher finger on the trigger, cross-hairs centered on the thing's ridged uppertorso. Then a great whip cracked, and the Suesvant had struck across thevalley. Confined, the tremendous recoil would have lifted Jill from the rock,
flung her back against the cliff with bone-breaking force. But the mechanismsdispersed it; what she felt, half consciously, was a momentary push on theshoulder. As the biped staggered back -- only staggered back? -- she placed asecond bullet a dozen inches below the first, a third one below that. By then,
the creature was turning sideways, stumbling, jaws stretched open; and shepumped a fourth shot at the head. An explosive, that one; there was a spout ofwhite fire as it struck. Then the biped was out of sight in the vegetation. 

"It went down," she announced unsteadily, fingers automatically flicking fournew shells into the chamber. "Can't see it now. Hit it four times, but -- " 

"Just where was it?" Grant's voice from the transmitter. 

Jill described the location. The Suesvant was pointed across the rock again,
and her eyes kept scanning the forest. So far, the bipeds had appeared to besolitary hunters. But the maneuvers with the aircar might have drawn more thanone to the area. However, nothing seemed to be stirring. The four reports hadbrought an outburst of startled animal sounds from the valley. That was fadingnow. 


Jill concluded, "That creature is unbelievable! The first two penetrants only
seemed to jolt it. It was the third one that started it down." 


Silence for a moment. Grant said, "No signs of activity now?" 


"None." 


"We'll come down. Ned?" 


"On my way," said Ned Brock. 


Jill waited. Several minutes passed. Then Grant's voice told her, "We're in
the open, Jill. Come on out." 


She saw them as she walked out from under the overhang. They were moving down
into the valley from either side. She pointed to the place where the biped had
disappeared, and they angled toward it, Suesvants held ready. Jill went on as
far as the aircar, waited there. Ned and Grant joined up, edged into the
undergrowth and were gone from sight. After some seconds, Ned's voice said,
"Jill?" 


"Yes? 


"You hit it all right. Heavy blood spoor . . . But it didn't stay down. It's
gone." 


She said incredulously, "The explosive took it in the head -- I saw it! It
wasn't hauled off by others?" 


"One set of tracks," his voice said. "Only one. But it may not get far. We'll
follow. You get in the car and cut across the forest. Find out if Witter's got
a guncar in the area that might help intercept." 


She took a last look around, swung into the car and ripped it up out of the
valley. She felt heavy with disappointment and apprehension. To be tracking
something that had picked itself up off the ground after being hammered by a
Suesvant wasn't pleasant work in forest growth! But the bipeds weren't
invulnerable; she'd proved that much. As for herself, she'd be waiting with
the car between forest and stream, to catch it in the open if it tried to
retreat along its former route. It seemed reasonable to expect it would do
that, if its strength didn't ebb out before it got that far. 


She turned on the communicator, signaled the Star Union Base, and asked to be
connected with Crowell. 
* * * 


The biped didn't appear in the open. 


It vanished in the forest. The blood trail led to a narrow creek, deep and
swift-moving. There it ended. They couldn't have been many minutes behind it,
and if it had turned upstream, Ned's biotracker should have registered traces
of its blood in the water. There were no such traces; so they checked both
banks, then turned down the creek, again working back and forth across it to
search both banks for an emerging spoor. There was none. Their previous
experience in tracking the creature indicated it might be an expert swimmer,
and there were deep pools in the creek, too deep to be probed visually in the 



dim forest light, and possibly caves under the rocky banks into which it couldhave withdrawn. But, again, there should have been traces of blood and scentin the water at such places, and the tracker registered none. 

It was awkward time-consuming work. But eventually they came to the pointwhere the forest ended and the creek ran into the stream which led down to the 
lake. Jill had long since been waiting there, the car hovering above a shallowsection of the creek where the biped couldn't have passed without being seenby her. Three hundred feet away, Crowell's guncar, crewed by Crowell andIlken, hung in the air. 

The cars came down. Grant and Ned reported their experience. It remainedunexplained. They hadn't passed overhanging tree branches strong enough to letso large a creature clamber up out of the water without touching the banks.
"My best guess is," said Ned finally, "that it holed up in some deep tunnelunder the creek banks -- up above the waterline. Then the creek could havecarried away any indications of it before we got that far." He looked atCrowell. "The main point, aside from knowing that the things can be hurt andbrought down, is that the biped Jill wounded isn't the one that broke intoStation Three and carried off Farquhar. The tracker shows they were of thesame species but distinct individuals." 

Crowell said, "So there should be at least one living biped still in thearea?" 

"That's what we think," Grant said. "And if the wounded one doesn't die, itisn't going to stay holed up indefinitely. Our trick isn't likely to workagain around here, so we'll pull out for the rest of the day to let thingssettle down. We'll come back early in the morning and start working throughthe forest on foot. If we don't hit fresh spoor, there should be old trailsthe tracker can pick up, and under the trees they'll be less washed out by therain. They might lead us to where one of the bipeds is hiding out, or drawanother attack." 

Crowell nodded. "By morning I can have most of the Base's guncars cleared ofother duties and stationed around this part of the country. They'll keep watchon the open areas." 

They discussed it further. A joint operation could be successful now. If thebiotracker indicated points where a biped might be holed up, the heavy energybeams of the guncars could blast through forest cover, soil and rock, to forcethe creature to view. With luck, they'd have their specimen tomorrow. 

They got back into the cars and left. Crowell was having the stations clearedsystematically of records and other significant and movable project materialduring the day, for storage or use on the Base. The survey team would returnto its ship.
* * * 

The Galestral aircar was still an hour's flight away from the ship when itsignaled an alert from the ship computer. Something that wasn't a recordedspecies of the local fauna was skirting the ship's defense perimeter. "Bettercheck!" said Grant quickly. 

Jill slid into her seat at the communicator console. The alert was no longerbeing indicated. She cut in a report order, said after a moment, "UnidentifiedDisturbance . . . Now it's recording again . . . 


Ned said, "Some of Captain Witter's planetbound swimmer friends? We might beon their schedule." 

It seemed the most likely explanation, but it remained puzzling. The shipscanners could identify an aircar almost as far as they could sense one. Butthe report tape kept reiterating that the disturbance was of unidentifiablenature. They had the impression of something moving about the defense zone,
touching it and withdrawing again. The alert indicator went on and off. 

Then, perhaps five minutes later, the tape registered a brief blast of shiparmament. After that, there were no more alerts, and the report tape showedCondition Normal. 

Ned shook his head. "Wouldn't stay warned off! We may never know who it was." 

They continued toward the ship at high speed, saw it presently suspended abovethe plain ahead. The aircar's scanners were in action, but there was nothingto suggest the presence of intruders in the area. Grant took the car severaltimes in a wide circle about the ship, then said, "Check condition, Jill." 

Jill said after a moment, "Condition Normal. I'm calling for ultimate sensorscan." 

"Good idea." 

"Condition Normal," Jill said presently again. "If there was something around,
it isn't around now, Grant." 

"If there was something around?" 

"Systems failures aren't unheard of." 

"No," Grant acknowledged. "But they haven't happened to us before. And itwouldn't be the best time for problems of that kind to develop." He turned thecar in toward the ship. "Well, we'll soon find out!" He tapped the recognitionsignal. 

"Acknowledged," Jill said. 

The aircar drove on another three hundred yards toward the ship. 

And a glare of brilliant blue light suddenly appeared about the ship,
englobing it -- its projected defense screens. 

Grant whipped the car about, almost end for end, sped back from the defenseperimeter. The light winked out. 

"Unidentified Disturbance!" Jill read from the report tape, an instant later.
"That was us!" 

"Must have been." Systems failure? The faces of all three had paled. At normalapproach speed, they should have triggered ship armament. Grant said, "Let'srepeat the procedure . . ." 

They did. The results were the same. The ship recognized the aircar's signal,
but prepared to attack when the car came up to the defense perimeter. For the 


computer mind in there, they remained an Unidentified Disturbance. 

"See if you can find out what the problem is," Grant said. 

Jill shook her head, ran through the standard checks twice. "As far as I cantell from here, there is no problem," she said then. She thought a moment,
added, "Let's try riding in on continuous recognition signal. If it's forcedto keep acknowledging, that may cancel its alerting sequence." 

They moved in slowly. The defense screens came on. Jill said, "At this point,
it refuses to acknowledge. The sequences do cancel each other! Pull back andtry again, Grant." 

On the fifth attempt it worked. The defense screens remained off, and the shipcontinued to acknowledge the aircar's approach as a non-hostile one. Grantchecked the car on the safe side of the attack zone, said, voice absent,
"Continue standard procedure!" 

Jill cut the recognition signal. The ship stopped acknowledging. Nothing elsehappened. She gave the "Lock Open" order, said, "It confirms." Her voice was alittle shaky. 

Grant nodded, said, "Lock's opening! Well, hold your breath, people!
Everything looks all right, and we can't expect it to give us a directinvitation." 

He edged into the attack zone, turned the car toward the open lock. 

-Chapter 36 
The Star Union Base looked almost normal that night. Many of the sectionsremained lit after the official work period had been over for some hours.
Round-the-clock operations were nothing unusual, and Dr. Sutton had told thedepartment heads to set up new schedules to keep the people who'd beenwithdrawn from the stations and other outposts usefully occupied. 

In the recreation area Crowell noted considerable serious drinking going on.
He wasn't surprised. For more than two thirds of the expedition's members, thesurface of any planet remained starkly alien territory. They were norm-gwalkers, had been trained for the work they were doing, but they'd been bornand raised in enclosures. Vast enclosures sometimes, but always and obviouslylimited. Under the open sky, consciously or not, they felt exposed. 

Cencom, Crowell thought, had put the expedition force together precisely withthat in mind. It was testing Kulkoor. Not with seasoned planeteers, becausethere weren't enough seasoned planeteers in the Star Union to man the majoroperations planned here. It was testing Kulkoor with the approximate level ofwalker manpower it would have available for planetwide mining work. And if itseemed that level of manpower couldn't take whatever strains Kulkoor mightimpose, Cencom would resort, however reluctantly, to the use of swimmer domes.
The move would involve major concessions to the Swimmer League, but Cencomwould pay the price to retain overall control of the Kulkoor operations. 


Meanwhile he'd have a growing case of general nerves on his hands if itcouldn't be quickly proved that the bipeds, at least, weren't more than acontainable local problem. He'd let it be known that one of the creatures hadbeen seriously wounded by the Galestral survey team that morning, and that theBase guncars were to take part in a continuing intensive hunt tomorrow. Hewasn't sure how much good that information had done. Evacuation of most of thepersonnel to the sentinel ship's freezer bay, simply to get them out of theway for the time being, might become the best solution. He'd decide on thatwhen he heard from Captain Bymer that preparations for the process had beenconcluded. It wasn't a solution Cencom would like at this point -- they'dprefer to test the expedition to the point of emotional disintegration. Butthey hadn't specifically told Crowell that; and they'd put him in charge. Thedecision was his. Cencom would have to buy it. 

The morale of the defense team, at any rate, seemed well above norm. AsHerrick had put it, they were men trained to fight and they now had at leastthe illusion that there was something outside the Base to fight. The energycannons were connected to the defense screen mechanisms, permitting them tofire through the screens in any direction. Search beams swept about inchanging patterns, illuminating the landscape beyond the uncertain glimmeringof the screens. Technically it was a drill. If it also served to remind thepersonnel of the Base's formidable armament, so much the better. 

Crowell went to his quarters, had been asleep about an hour when the intercombuzzer alerted him. He switched on, acknowledged. 

"Captain Witter," said Dr. Bates' voice, "would you come to my officeimmediately?" 

"What's happened?" 

"We've had a . . . well, a disturbance. A case of acute hysteria. There's achance the hysteria might spread. I think you'd better hear at firsthand whatit's about." 

"Yes, I'd better do that. I'll be there." 

When Crowell arrived with Ilken in Dr. Bates' office, they found Herrick,
Hansen and Dr. Sutton already present. Another door opened as they came in,
and Dr. Kimberley, Bates' assistant, appeared in it. 

"The patient's asleep," Kimberley said. He looked at Crowell. "Under sedation.
Of course, she can be aroused again if you want to speak to her." 

"I don't at the moment," Crowell said. "Just tell me what's happened." 

Dr. Bates said, "The patient is Nancy Watson, a biotechnician. She was a closefriend of Wilma Howard, the young woman who was killed in Station Three." 

Crowell nodded. 

"Nancy has been terribly upset by Wilma's death," Dr. Bates said. "We had herunder treatment for a while yesterday, but she wanted to go back to work then,
and I let her do it. It seemed good therapy. What I'm trying to emphasize isthat she's been under severe emotional stress. Well -- a short while ago, shewas coming through one of the south area passages." 


"Corridor Forty-eight," said Herrick. "It is, or was, almost unlit. There wasno one with her." 

"All right," Crowell said. "She was coming alone through a dark corridor.
And?" 

"She thinks she saw ghosts," said Dr. Bates. 

Crowell stared at him. "Ghosts?" he repeated. "The ghosts of Wilma Howard andthe others killed in Station Three?" 

Dr. Bates frowned. "No," he said. "Though that's what one might have expectedin the circumstances." 

"Then whose ghosts?" 

"No one she knew. The ghosts of three men. According to Nancy, they were threeof the men who disappeared from that mysterious mining camp." 

Crowell grunted. "Did she give any details?" 

"Yes," Dr. Bates said. "She said she was coming along the corridor and sawthree men standing together, staring in her direction as if waiting for her tocome up. She couldn't make them out clearly at first, so she kept walkingtoward them until she realized suddenly that they weren't people of the Baseat all but, in her terms, ghosts -- three dead men. She turned, screaming, andran back the way she'd come." 

Herrick said, "I happened to be in the area and heard the commotion. I andsome others investigated the corridor at once. There was no one there or inthe structures behind it." 

"Dr. Bates," Crowell said, "when you called me, you indicated we might behaving to deal with more than one case of hysteria." 

"I'm afraid that's quite possible," Dr. Bates said. 

Hansen said, "Nancy was audible all over that section, Crowell. At least twodozen people heard her directly. What she was screaming about was that thecreatures which killed Alex Hays and the staff of Station Three weredevils . . . that this was their world and we shouldn't have come here. And 
that you'd made the matter worse by letting the Galestrals shoot one of them.
So they'd showed her ghosts of earlier victims as a sign they were going tokill all of us now." Hansen shrugged. "We got her quieted as quickly aspossible, but I could see she'd been getting reactions from at least some ofthose who were listening." 

Dr. Bates nodded. "Symptoms of agoraphobic disturbance have been frequenthere, though so far they haven't significantly affected the efficiency of theexpedition. Sleep problems, general tensions . . . that kind of thing.
Usually the patient didn't know what really was bothering him. If the bipedshadn't appeared, that's all it might have amounted to. But now the patternwill be reinforced by the feeling that the world around us has become activelyhostile. We should expect further trouble and -- " 

He checked himself as the intercom buzzer sounded. A voice inquired, "IsCaptain Witter in the Medical Section?" 


Dr. Bates turned to his desk, pressed the intercom button. "Yes, he is." 

"We have a message for him from the Public Servant Betheny of Varien. Shewould like to see him in her quarters as soon as possible. The matter isurgent." 

Crowell glanced at Ilken, said, "Witter speaking. Tell the Public Servant I'llbe there in a few minutes." Dr. Bates released the response button, andCrowell went on, looking at Dr. Sutton, "I've told Captain Bymer to ready theemergency sections of the ship's personnel freezer for occupancy. Some timeearly tomorrow, he should be prepared to process large groups through on halfan hour's notice. You might let it be known in the departments that those whowant to go into freeze on the ship will be able to do it then. That shouldtake off a good deal of pressure. If required, we will, in fact, evacuate allpersonnel except for the combat and security teams and maintenance crews untilthings have been straightened out down here." 

He added, "Dr. Sutton, I don't like to interfere with your Base projects tothat extent, but it seems preferable to taking chances with a general panic." 

Dr. Sutton smiled wryly. "I find myself in agreement with you!" 

"And, Herrick," Crowell went on, "light up the Base for the rest of the night,
except for personal quarters. No more dim corridors or darkened work areas.
Don't overload your men, but you might keep a few patrols circulating." 

Herrick nodded, started for the door. 

"Guy," Crowell said, "what's the soonest you can get the surveillanceequipment back in action?" 

Hansen shrugged. 

"If I forget about sleeping -- day after tomorrow."
* * * 

"Captain Witter," said Betheny, "I've decided it can serve no good purpose tocontinue my attempts to modify Cencom's plans for the Kulkoor operation. I'mabandoning them completely. And I wish to be transferred at once from thesequarters to the sentinel ship, to remain there until arrangements can be madeto return me to Varien." 

The main room of the null-g structure blazed bright with lights. Betheny's twoattendants had drifted out through a section exit when Crowell and Ilken camein and took guide rods from the wall of the entrance hall. The two had closedthe exit behind them. Betheny wanted this discussion to be private. 

Crowell said, "What brought you to that decision?" 

"Does it matter?" 

"It might matter." He was watching her expression. So, off to one side of thesupport web, holding her position with a slow fanning motion of the guide rod,
was Ilken. "You have a group of followers out there," Crowell remarked, "whohaven't received instructions from you for a while." 


"What difference could that make?" 

"I'm wondering whether one of your instructions to them might have been tolaunch a strike at the Base at a specified time. The understanding being, ofcourse, that at that time you wouldn't be on the Base." 

Betheny's face worked. "They've been given no such instructions!" she said.
"Nor are they equipped to carry out a strike against the Base. Since I'mending the operation here, I'm willing to tell them to come in and surrender.
Will that be satisfactory?" 

"I couldn't be sure they'd all surrendered, could I?" 

She hesitated. "You have your interrogation instrument. It will show you I'mtelling the truth. I waive immunity." 

"I'll want that on record." Crowell glanced toward Ilken. She nodded, wasalready in motion, diving toward the entrance hall. After a moment, they heardthe entry door close behind her. Crowell looked about the quiet, brilliantlylit area, back at Betheny. 

"What are you afraid of?" he asked. 

"Afraid?" She shook her head. "I simply wish to be -- " 

"You're frightened to death." But he was puzzled. He knew some of Betheny'ssympathizers on the Base were still keeping her informed of outside events. Itwas quite possible she'd already heard of Nancy Watson's hysterical report ofan encounter with ghosts. What seemed unlikely was that Betheny of Varienwould allow such a story to drive her off the Base or change her plans in anyway -- unless she had reason to see some significance in it which wasn'tobvious to Crowell. 

She said, "Your statement is impertinent, Captain Witter! And you're exceedingyour authority." 

Crowell shook his head. "If I decide it's in Cencom's interest to keep you onthe Base, you stay." 

"No!" Betheny said shakily. "I must be transferred to the ship." 

"Then give me a reason." 

She moved her head from side to side. "My mind tells me the planet beast washere. I know it's impossible. But if I'm forced to remain on the surface ofKulkoor, I'll lose my sanity." 

There was a chill for an instant along Crowell's spine. "The planet beast?" 

She stared at him. "The creature which killed the people in the Station. Oranother like it." 

"Just what happened?" Crowell said. 

She'd been asleep in her darkened rest section, and had come awake at somesound which she couldn't now describe. It wasn't a loud sound. Then she saw 
something large near the wall of the section. It was vague, shadowy. But in a 


general way it was manlike except for its great size. It seemed to be watchingher. Then it gradually faded away. For a minute or two after she no longercould see it, she still sensed it nearby, still watching her. She remained toofrightened to move or make a sound. Then, abruptly, she knew it was gone, andcalled her bodyguard and Dr. Torres. They'd been unaware of any disturbance. 

Ilken returned in the middle of the account. Betheny seemed hardly to noticeher or the instruments she carried. Crowell got the immunity waiver recorded,
let Betheny go on talking, asked occasional questions. Ilken's face remainedimpassive as she watched the interrogator's readings. Betheny might have had avivid nightmare, but she was telling Crowell no more than she believed to betrue. 

He said at last, "All right, you'll get transferred. Now call in your group." 

Betheny took the transmitter Ilken handed her, carefully adjusted thesettings, turned the switch. 

They waited.
* * * 

"Did you ever," Crowell asked Ilken, "get a feeling that you're about todiscover you're out of your depth?" 

"Now and then," Ilken acknowledged. "Is that how you're feeling?" 

"I'm not sure." They'd called Dr. Bates to Betheny's quarters, had her and hertwo attendants drugged and placed in an enclosed null-g carrier of the MedicalSection, in which they'd be transferred to the sentinel ship as soon asCaptain Bymer's shuttle arrived for them. Bymer then would have the threeprocessed immediately into a freezer. He believed now he might be able to meetCrowell's forty-hour schedule on evacuation preparations. He'd report on thatas soon as all checks had been completed. Crowell hadn't yet told anyone thatBetheny's group on Kulkoor, eighteen men, seemed to have disappeared. Atleast, they'd been given their code signal for fifteen minutes withoutresponding, though the transmitter indicated the signal was being recorded.
Betheny had been in near-shock by then. 

"You going to start evacuation when Bymer's set for it?" Ilken asked. 

"We'll clear out the people we don't need here and who want to go tomorrow,
yes. Volunteers can stay -- so far, it doesn't seem there'll be many ofthose!" Crowell scratched his scalp, scowling. "There's simply been nothingconcrete enough to justify an overall evacuation. We can't very well let theexpedition get run out of Kulkoor by ghosts!" 

Ilken observed that ghosts were as good a reason as she could think of to getrun out of Kulkoor or any place else. Mailliards had a lively respect for thesupernatural. "What about Betheny's men vanishing like that?" 

Crowell shrugged. "We don't know they've vanished. We only know that thetransmitter didn't raise them. And since she doesn't know where they've beenhiding, we can't check on it physically . . . Let's go find Herrick, makesure he has the freezer candidates ready to move out in groups as soon asBymer gives the word and starts running down shuttles for them. Then we'lltighten things up some more, get set for anything we can think of or imagine,
and wait for developments." 


Later in the night then, about an hour before dawn, there was a development.
* * * 

Herrick had left a guard posted at a small side lock in the energy screen. Apassing patrol noticed the guard wasn't at his station, and informed Herrick.
It was established presently that the man was nowhere on the Base. 

The aircars were accounted for, and the overhead aircar lock hadn't been usedduring the night. Which left two possible ways in which the guard could haveleft the Base. One, voluntarily or otherwise, was through the disposal unit.
The other was through the lock he'd been set to watch. It couldn't be employedas a means of entry until it was released by the tower controls. But a mancould cycle out through it. There was no trace of the guard outside, and notracks showed on the rocky ground surrounding the Base. The sentries in thetowers, behind their shifting searchlights, had seen nothing of significancein the area. 

"But he might have left that way," Crowell told Grant Gage by communicator.
"If he did, he went somewhere. Can you give us a hand with your biotracker?" 

"We'll be there as soon as we can," Grant's voice told him. "We were about tostart out, as it happens." 

"Among the Galestral superbeasts," Crowell went on, "is there something thatcould affect humans mentally -- give them hallucinations, produce irrationalbehavior, insanity?" 

Grant said hesitantly, "A number of those species have been known to producemental effects of various kinds in human beings." 

"Mental effects that might explain our reported ghostly visitations -- orinduce a man to walk off the Base at night?" 

"It seems possible. The processes aren't well understood." 

"What's the defense against that kind of thing?" 

"Generally," said Grant, "killing the responsible creature. There are drugsthat give partial protection. And some people simply aren't affected." Headded, "We've had a problem of our own. Our ship can't be considered whollydependable at present." He described their difficulties in attempting to comeon board the day before. "Jill and I were up half the night trying todetermine what's wrong. The trouble is that nothing seems to be wrong. If ithadn't been for that, we'd have been on our way an hour ago. But we'll leavefor your Base within the next ten minutes now." 

Captain Bymer called to report that processing preparations on the sentinelship definitely would be completed in not much more than an hour. Herrick hadnotified the people who were to maintain the Base. Others were being organizedinto evacuation groups. There were no protests from department heads; and veryfew expedition members had decided on their own to remain planetside. 

Crowell sent off another drone to Cencom, reporting the current state ofaffairs on Kulkoor. 


-Chapter 37 
Captain Bymer's voice said from the communicator, "The reason for the delay isa malfunction in the ship lock to the shuttle launching deck. The lock won'topen. Our engineers have been working on it for the past half hour. It can'tbe too serious a difficulty. I'll call you as soon as a shuttle is ready tostart down." 

"We'll wait for the call," Crowell said. 

He turned off the communicator, grimaced at Ilken. "Let's say nothing aboutthat at present. They're edgy enough here!" 

There was fear on the Base that morning, something that went beyonduneasiness, and was strengthened, if anything, by the fact that no one seemedwilling to voice it now. Evacuation personnel were gathered in their varioussections. Herrick had designated the sequence in which the groups were toleave. The Base's guncars had been withdrawn to the side of their area toleave room for the shuttles. Defense teams had taken up positions; the lockswere under guard. There was nothing to do but wait. 

Fifteen minutes passed before another call came from the ship. "Yes?" Crowellsaid. 

Captain Bymer's voice was strained. "I have no explanation for this," he said.
"It's just been reported to me that there has been an explosion in the shuttlelaunch section." 

Crowell glanced quickly at Ilken, said, "What's the damage?" 

"Captain Witter, we don't know. The shuttle lock remains jammed. But theexplosion appears to have been a fairly heavy one. I'm afraid we won't -- " 

He broke off. There was a spluttering sound in the communicator. 

"Captain Bymer?" 

"A second explosion," Bymer's voice said thinly. "This one apparently in theengine room. I -- " 

The communicator went dead. 

Crowell and Ilken stared at each other. The shock in her face was replacedquickly by a cold set expression. "Another coincidence?" she said. 

"Hardly! But what -- " 

"Crowell, something got the ship! Something wasn't going to let the Base beevacuated. It'll be after the Base next!" 

He nodded. "Come on! We'll get off a drone to Cencom -- let them know whatthey'll be up against when they come back to Kulkoor. May not be much timeleft -- " 


As they turned toward the door of the communicator room, there was the thud ofexplosion. The flooring shook. They ran out the door. Black smoke poured upfrom the far end of the Base. 

Crowell caught Ilken by the arm. 

"The drone storage area!" he said harshly. "They've started to show their hand-- and now they don't want us to be sending messages to Cencom. Go back -call 
the Galestrals! Tell them the Base is under attack and they're to lifttheir ship off the planet while they can!" 

Ilken turned back toward the computer room. Light blasted inside it. The shockof the explosion sent her stumbling backward toward Crowell, arms lifted toshield her face. As he caught and steadied her, screaming began all about theBase. 
* * * 

Kulkoor flowed by below the survey team's aircar. Flat tableland here,
sparkling with pools formed by the recent rains. The mountains were glidingup, great snow-capped ranges enclosing chilled glacier lakes. To the southbeyond the mountains lay the area of the Star Union Base. 

Jill Hastings' gaze roved ceaselessly, methodically, over what was in view.
Her fingers on the scanner scales adjusted magnification automatically. Herthoughts followed their own somber and apprehensive courses, which in no waydiminished the effectiveness of her watch. If the scanners should pass oversomething that called for further attention, she'd be aware of it instantly.
That ability was as practiced and reflexive as adjusting the instruments. 

They'd dispatched a drone to the Galestral Company just before leaving theship. It contained the information Crowell had given Grant by communicator,
the fact that he had decided on a partial evacuation of the Star Union Base.
It contained a detailed report on the unexplained malfunctioning of the team'sship computer. There'd been nothing, absolutely nothing, to show why the shiphad failed to recognize their aircar as a non-hostile object afteracknowledging their recognition signal. When they'd played back the scannertapes, there'd again been nothing to explain the ship's use of defensive andoffensive armament which they'd recorded previously in the aircar. 

They'd moved the ship forty miles to the west then, left it stationed twomiles above the ground. They'd entered its new location in the drone message,
and the recognition signals by which it might be approached and boarded, withcaution. They'd added finally that they were leaving for the Star Union Baseto see what they could do there, dispatched the drone, and left. 

All that, of course, was in case somebody else would be sent along by theGalestral Company presently to pick up the Kulkoor Problem at the point wherethey'd failed to solve it. 

Failure had begun to seem quite possible. 

Jill bent over the ground scanners, shutting the voices of her companions fromher mind. Like most of those born on Galestral, she had few illusions aboutman's absolute superiority in the scheme of things. Their world had been anobject lesson. Life was unpredictable; its possible final expressions seemedbeyond all estimation. Man was a competitor who had remained in the listsuntil now. It could not be said safely that he was, or would be, anything 


else. 

It seemed there might be a major competitor on Kulkoor. Was it the biped, thegreat brown-black ogre of this world, with its appearance of savage cunningand near-indestructibility? 

Or something else -- something that so far had manifested itself onlyindirectly? 

They came speeding presently down the southern slopes of the mountains. Thecar crossed the area where they had ambushed the biped, and Jill saw theabandoned structure of Station Three to the left below. 

"Grant!" she exclaimed suddenly. "There's somebody down there!" 

"What? Where?" 

"At the Station. I saw him just a moment . . . there he is again!" She twisteda dial. Her breath caught sharply. 

"What is it?" 

Jill, face quite white now, said in a low, strained voice, "Keep moving -- butslowly! It can't be, of course . . . but that's Farquhar standing down therebeside the Station. Frank Farquhar!" 

"It can't be Farquhar," Grant said. "What is it? Are you having troublekeeping it clear in the viewer?" 

"Yes," said Jill. The impossible figure down there seemed to blur slightlyfrom moment to moment, then solidify again. It wasn't a matter of adjustingthe scanners; the rocky ground around it remained unblurred. 

She heard Ned Brock say, "Looks like somebody's playing ghost . . . Same sortof game as last night on the Base?" 

"Probably," said Grant. "Let's start down." 

Jill looked around at him. "That's what we're supposed to do!" 

"Of course it's what we're supposed to do. But this -- whatever it is -- isKulkoor showing its face. We'll take a look." 

Jill didn't answer, kept her attention on the figure at the Station as theaircar swung about, went gliding down. Ned was at the communicator, signalingthe Star Union Base to let Crowell know what they'd come across. Base commhadn't responded so far. Something, Jill thought, had seen their car comingback over the mountains on the route they'd taken before. Something that knewit was their car, knew they were connected with Farquhar, knew it was they whohad shot down and tried to collect a biped. 

So an image of Farquhar had been produced near Station Three. Something knewthey would see it, would come to it. It was a trap, but she didn't say thataloud. Grant and Ned knew it, too. And Grant was right; it was necessary tofind out what this was. 

The thought came again then: that mankind could not expect to win every round, 


and might already have lost this one. 

Grant checked the aircar four hundred yards from the image, fairly close tothe ground. To the left, the forest line lifted above the car, not much morethan two hundred feet away. Ned had shut off the communicator, was crouchedwith his Suesvant at the opened car door, attention on the forest. If therewere watchers nearby, they should be there. The only place of concealment onthe rocky slopes below was the Station; and the Station supposedly had beensealed inside its force screen. 

Grant was keeping a more general watch on the area. His hands remained on thecar controls, ready to swing the car into full acceleration in any direction.
The nose of the car was pointed at Farquhar's image, and Jill's attention wason that, as it showed in the scanners. 

It appeared to be there not much more than twenty feet from her. Jill hadexperienced an increasing sense of revulsion as they moved down toward it fromthe sky. Most of that feeling was gone now; she was trying to define what thisthing, this simulacrum of a dead man, one she'd known slightly in life, mightbe. It wasn't a perfect likeness; there were minor discrepancies and it didn'thave the appearance of life, might be intended not to have it. There was nomotion. The expression was frozen. The eyes seemed blind. 

She reported tonelessly, "The figure appears to touch the ground only with onefoot. If it had any weight, it should topple over in that position." 

"You can't make out anything else about it?" 

"Not a thing." 

"Ned?" 

"Nothing stirring in the shrubbery," Ned said briefly. 

"I'll move in closer," said Grant. 

Jill sighed softly. They meant to spring the trap. Perhaps it couldn't beavoided. The image, its mere presence, whatever its nature, already had made anumber of things joltingly clear. 

Her eyes remained on the viewer, but she was aware of the slope starting tomove past on the left as the car slid slowly forward. Perhaps a minute passed.
The image of Farquhar came steadily closer in the viewer. Suddenly, itvanished. 

"It's gone, Grant!" 

"I saw." He'd checked the car as Jill spoke. She switched the scanners to awider view of the slope. They remained silent then, waiting. The disappearanceof the image should have some meaning. 

There was a sound about them. Not at all loud, but steady. It hung like ashivering in the air, neither grew nor faded. 

"You hear that?" Grant asked. 

Ned grunted. "You get a feeling that something's pulling at you?" 


"Yes. An odd . . . Jill?" 


Jill didn't reply. Grant swung around in the seat, felt the blood drain from
his face, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Jill!" 


In the seat behind him was a shape. It showed Jill's outlines, but they were a
hazy gray, almost smokily unsubstantial. At his shout, the face seemed to turn
toward him, her features still faintly discernible. He heard Ned's shocked
gasp. Then the shape moved, turned solid, color flowing into it; and she was
there again, blinking, startled. 


"Grant . . . what -- " 


"Just hang on! Stay here! Watch her, Ned!" Grant slapped in acceleration,
swung the car around in a sharp arc, and upward.
* * * 


"You were fading out like a ghost!" he said a minute later, face still white.
"What happened to you?" 


The car was circling half a mile above the Station and south of it. The image
of Farquhar was again in sight down there. Apparently, it became invisible if
the viewer moved close enough, reappeared as he withdrew. 


Jill shook her head. "I'm not sure! There was a kind of fog. I mean a literal
kind of fog. It was getting thicker. I seemed to be moving into it. Your
voices began to go away. Then I heard you yell -- and I was back." 


"Why didn't you do something?" 


She shrugged helplessly. "Do what? I wasn't worried. I don't know why. I was
aware of what was happening, but it didn't seem very real. More like a dream." 


"The trap mechanism," Grant said after a moment. "It almost got you. And if we
hadn't seen you going, it should have got us. We were feeling a pull -- " 


"It fits in with other things," Ned said. 


It did. The trails of the two bipeds they'd tracked had appeared to end in
water. "They got picked up," Ned said, "by -- well, whatever this is!" 


Grant nodded. "They can focus the effect on some given spot. The second biped
was hurt -- he yelled for help, and they lifted him out of the creek just
ahead of us." As a man had vanished without trace from the Star Union Base 
during the night. 


"And the ghosts, human and biped, they saw on the Base earlier," Grant went
on. "It works both ways. A form of transportation. You fade out here; you fade
in there. Hold the effect before you're all the way there, and you'll look
like a ghost. As Jill did, sitting here." 


"And defense screens are giving Witter's Base no protection at all," Ned
added. 


"Not a bit," Grant agreed. "Now -- what will they do next?" 



Jill said soberly, "They must be ready to come in for the kill! They've beentrying to scare humans off the planet. They tried it first by pretending to beanimals -- " 

Cunning, savage animals, striking without warning, unharmed by human weapons,
vanishing mysteriously when trailed. If the Star Union expedition's lossescould be piled up to an intolerable extent, until the survivors fled in panic,
humans might decide not to come back to so ferociously inhospitable a world. 

"But then Jill shot one of them," Grant said. "Body screens. They'd turn anordinary energy beam, but the Suesvant punched through. He may have been badlyhurt, perhaps dying, when they got him back. That ended the invulnerablesuperbeast myth -- so, last night, they switched to supernatural effects.
They'd already set that up by cleaning out the mining camp and letting itstand there to be found." 

"If they planned to scare us off the planet, they must have reason to thinkour minds work pretty much like theirs," said Ned. "There's a civilizationhere. Underground? In mountain caves?" 

Grant said, "Perhaps only while there are humans around. There may not be toomany of them, but it has to be a pretty advanced civilization in somerespects. Could they have gimmicked our ship yesterday?" 

Ned said after a pause, "No need to assume that at present." 

Jill said, "I think Farquhar figured it out! He'd been trying to work out away to communicate with them. That's why he left Station Three. But they don'tcare about communicating. What do we do now? They saw us coming, set up a trapon the route we've used before. They must know we three had a connection withFarquhar. The trap hasn't worked, and maybe they already know it hasn'tworked." 

Ned said, "The Base still isn't responding to our signal." 

There was silence for a moment. Jill said, "You're thinking there might be aproblem on our ship again? The communicator linkup was operational an hourago. We can find out quickly by going on to the Base . . ." 

"And you two are going there," Grant said. "We have to let Witter know aboutthis at once, so he can get out the information." 

"What about you?" said Jill. 

Grant tapped his viewer, said, "There's a machine down there, according to ourmetal scanners. Check it for yourself, Ned. I have it pinpointed. About ahundred and fifty yards from their Farquhar image. Copper, steel, other items.
About eighteen by twelve inches across the top. We'll assume it's the imageprojector." 

"What do you want to do?" Jill asked sharply. 

"We'll go down, and I'll get out under cover. Then you two leave for the Base.
After you're gone, I'll put a bullet in their machine. That should bring oneof them here to find out what's happened. I'll be waiting for him." 

"Grant, don't do it!" Jill said. "At least, let's stay together!" 


"I'd rather we could stay together. There isn't time. They seem to know almost
everything there is to know about us, and we still know next to nothing about
them. Anything I learn here may be vital. When I'm in the clear, I'll call you
by transmitter. Don't try to contact me before I do. You might give away my
position." 


"Jill, he's right," Ned said, as she was about to reply. 


"I suppose so," Jill agreed forlornly. She didn't add that she had a strong
conviction she wouldn't see Grant again. 


The car turned down, made a wide, wary circle about the Farquhar image, paused
above the forest, then slipped down among the trees. If there were watchers
about, the idea was to create the impression the Galestrals were searching the
forest for them. The car rose back up through the canopy some minutes later,
lifted into the air, and sped off in the direction of the Star Union Base.
Grant was no longer in it.
* * * 


"Where's Gage?" Crowell asked. 


"He's busy," said Ned. 


"On your ship?" 


"No. Trying to ambush a biped." 


Crowell made a snorting sound. "He could do that here!" 


"You've been under siege obviously," Ned said. 


"We're still under siege," Crowell told him. "There's a lull right now. Five
minutes ago we had some action. They'll be back. We've lost something more
than forty people here on the Base. It's hard to keep track. And they got to
our sentinel ship. A few of them could have gone up there on the shuttle
yesterday. No one would have spotted them." 


"What happened?" 


"The ship blew up a short while ago. I was talking to Bymer at the time. He
reported two preliminary explosions but couldn't give any details." 


The Base's guncars were dispersed and grounded in the installation's central
open square. The guns were manned. Ned saw Ilken at one of them. She gave no
notice to him or to Jill, still in the Galestral car which hovered beside
Crowell and Ned. Her eyes shifted about in quick, flicking glances; her hands
stayed on the handles of the gun. Several dozen men, armed with a variety of
weapons ranging from energy handguns to semi-portables, were stationed along
the edges of the square. Some six or seven held shock guns, as did Crowell. 


The rest of the Star Union personnel was present but not armed. They were
scattered about the square between the guncars, sitting down, singly or in
small groups. Some lay facedown, but Ned saw none that looked injured. There
was hardly any movement. 


"How did you lose your people?" he said. 



Crowell jerked his head at the nearest building. 

"Around a dozen are lying behind that," he said. "What's left of them. Wedidn't get them out here in time. They were blasted with some kind of fire.
The crew in the south tower saw the biped that did it. They cut loose on him,
knocked in the side of the building. But he'd simply disappeared . . . And therest of the people we've lost have also disappeared. There's a kind of sound 


-" 
"We've heard it," said Ned. "They nearly got Jill that way." 

"You look around, and another three or four seem to be gone, eh? Fadeout . . . Well, we've fixed that -- probably!" 

"How?" 

"Figured the sound might have something to do with the fading," Crowell said.
"When it starts now, we cut in with the siren. Haven't lost anyone since. Thisdefense arrangement" -- he indicated the area around them -- "is to stalltheir other approach. We've got everybody out here, covered by the guns. Theguns cover one another. When the things start to materialize in the air, theyget chopped with a short-beam blast and vanish again. They don't get time touse their weapons." 

"They haven't tried materializing elsewhere on the Base and attacking fromthere?" Ned asked. 

"Not after the first time. We got three as they came out. Killed them, Ithink; but the bodies had faded along with their weapons before we could reachthem. They could try it again, but apparently they don't intend to get hurt.
Of course, they don't have to take losses." Crowell indicated the north end ofthe Base. "One explosion back there! Just one. Placed exactly where it wouldcut through our last contact to Cencom -- inside the safe-storage sectionwhere the navigational units of the message drones were kept. Nothingsalvageable left." 

He shook his head. "You get the picture. They could blow up the whole Base anytime they like. There's nothing we could do to stop it. But they don't want itthat way. They want to clean it out almost as neatly as they cleaned out themining camp. When investigators arrive, there'll be a new mystery, a muchbigger one. What happened? What hit the Base? Where did the sentinel ship go?
All our reports mentioned so far were problems with a bipedal animal -- andhallucinations. Beautifully timed! You know, it could work. It should drivethe Cencom computers crazy." He added, "If you can still get to your ship,
you'd better do it, get off the planet. That's the only sure way anybodyoutside is going to find out what's really happened." 

"We don't know if we can still get to the ship," Ned said. He looked over atJill. "Want me along?" 

She shook her head quickly. "I'll travel light! As soon as I'm clear of theBase, I'll jettison everything I can, including spare fuel blocks. Might makeit to the ship in thirty minutes then. They can use you here. I'll get a droneoff, come back with the ship. Luck, Ned!" 

"Luck, Jill! If Grant calls, we'll go get him with one of these cars." 


She nodded, gave them both a small scared smile, slammed the car door shut.
The car soared quickly back toward the open overhead lock, disappeared beyondthe bluish glimmer of the screens. 

"She shouldn't bring your ship here," Crowell said disapprovingly. 

"She should," said Ned. "It's a damn good ship, and it fights itself. I wasnever trained to handle them, but Jill was. The bipeds may get more of anargument than they're counting on." 

-Chapter 38 
Grant Gage stood, back against a tree trunk, shoulder-deep in shrubbery, bigrocks to his right and left. A natural blind, just beyond the triggering rangeof the bipeds' projection trap. The device which controlled the projection waseighty yards away, down the slope on the left. It wasn't visible, wouldn'thave been visible if he'd been next to it. They'd camouflaged it in somemanner: But he had its position fixed mentally -- two feet out from the tip ofa patch of dark-yellow growth. He could put an explosive into it from where hestood. 

Which he would do if whoever had set up the device didn't return within thenext ten minutes to pick it up, now that its usefulness must appear to beover. That would be preferable. But Jill and Ned should have reached the Base,
and Crowell Witter's message to Cencom might be about on its way. No reason todelay more than another ten minutes before giving them a prod by knocking outtheir machine. 

Perhaps three of those ten minutes had passed then before he sawsomething . . . a haziness forming gradually above a flat, sloping boulder,
twenty yards from the device, on the far side of it. Motionless, Grantwatched. The haze could be only one thing, though as yet it had norecognizable shape or definite outline. It was like an upright patch of grayfog which stirred and shifted but stayed where it was. It was large enough toenclose a biped. Jill had said that, in the moment when she almostdisappeared, sight and sound seemed to blur out in a kind of fog. The bipedscontrolled the process. There was one there now -- though also not quite there-- on that slab of rock, peering out through its subjective fog at theobjective details of the slope, possibly to make quite sure there was no humanenemy near the device. They'd shown they were suspicious and cautiouscreatures in spite of their demonstrated ferocity. 

The haze faded gradually again, vanished completely. Grant passed his tonguealong his lips, wondering. He hadn't stirred; it didn't seem likely he couldhave been detected here. But he wasn't certain -


Something stirred on his left, close to the front line of trees. He shiftedonly his eyes. For an instant, he saw the biped -- if it was the same one. Noghost shape now, at any rate, but quite substantial, standing in profile ahundred feet away, looking down the slope. An impressive creature, manlike inthe way it stood and held itself. But the head was as Jill had described it,
something like that of a short-faced bear or pig, except for the large pointed 


ears. 

The figure blurred and disappeared at once. And that, Grant thought, had beenno coincidence. If the biped had been merely conducting a preliminary surveyof the area, it should have remained in sight longer. It might be trying todraw a reaction from him. It either suspected or knew he was here, perhapseven exactly where he was. They could have instruments which scanned throughthe shielding fog. He'd seen no instruments, but there'd been a kind of beltaround the furred torso. Aside from that, the lack of visible trappings mighthave made it seem still an animal. 

Perhaps a second or two had passed in these reflections. Grant's attention wasnow chiefly on the area at his right. So he saw the biped reappear. Abruptlyin sight, some fifty feet away and slightly below him on the slope, facedtoward him, half crouched, one great furred arm extended, giant hand holding aglassy tube pointed at the thicket where he stood -


Grant pitched sideways through the shrubs, down over the rock to his left,
flattened out. 

Fire exploded the thicket beyond the rock, surged furiously up the tree trunkagainst which Grant had been standing, flowed out down the slope. 

A furnace of heat closed about him. He thrust himself forward, saw, throughblazing vegetation, the biped still crouched on the slope, staring at thethicket, weapon held watchfully pointed. Grant rolled sideways, bringing theSuesvant around and forward in the motion, sighted and triggered. The secondshot crowded the first, the third the second, reports merging into a howl ofsound. The biped staggered backward along the slope, the glassy weapon arcinghigh through the air above it. Grant pumped three more shots into the bighead, saw the creature strike the ground and begin to blur, got to his feetand leaped across the burning shrubbery. 

The biped vanished. Then, as Grant stood still in a shock of disappointment,
it reappeared -- sprawled out in midair, a few yards above the ground, and adozen feet from where it had last been. It fell heavily, struck the slope,
vanished again -- and reappeared again, almost in its previous position. Nowit lay still. 

Grant flicked a fresh set of shells into the Suesvant, watching the biped,
then started downhill toward it. The fire's explosive fury had spent itself;
it was making no more headway in the wet vegetation. His left hand went to thewrist transmitter on his right. He looked down, swore softly and fervently. 

The face of the little device was crushed, mashed into uselessness againstsome rock surface in his dive for safety. No way now to contact the others.
* * * 

A few things became obvious almost at once. The biped wore a kind of vest,
made of a material which so closely matched its own shaggy hide in appearancethat Grant became aware of it only as he began to investigate the fallencreature. The vest ended at the broad belt he'd seen when the biped firstappeared. There were sealed pockets in it, and he could feel various devicesin the pockets. 

The next discovery wasn't unexpected. The biped's skin was no natural armor;
it was enclosed in a personal energy field. Grant prodded here and there at 


the giant, found the protective field seemed to cover everything but the handsand feet. Vest and belt were fastened over it. The field yielded slightly to asteady push but could not be depressed enough to touch the flesh immediatelybeneath. Obviously it couldn't hamper either the wearer's breathing or hismotions, but it seemed almost impervious to forces from without. All Grant'sbullets had pierced it; but the body within could have experienced only afraction of the Suesvant's monstrous jolting effect. Still, that had beenenough to kill. 

Grant found what turned out to be the field switch on the side of the belt,
fumbled at the fastening, got it unlocked, and pulled the switch down. Thefield went off; and the fur vest, which had seemed to be seamless, openedalong the center of the chest. Grant pulled it free of the belt and stareddown at the cause of the lumpy deformity of the chest area in these creatures. 

They were four-armed. The second pair of arms was set forward on the chestand, while sinewy and well muscled, was much smaller and relatively shorterthan the principal pair, in fact barely the size of the arms of an averageadult human male. The hands had long, thin, deft-looking fingers. In spite ofits bulk, the biped should have been capable of doing very delicate work. Thesecondary arms had been carried folded on the chest; and one of the hands wasclosed on something. Grant lifted the arm, and the hand unfolded in the limpsubmission of death, releasing the object. 

Grant picked it up without immediate interest, still staring at the deadbiped. 

Six-limbed . . . The dominant pseudo-mammalian fauna of Kulkoor, to which thebipeds had appeared to belong, was four-limbed. He was looking at theexplanation of the Kulkoor Mystery. 

No hidden civilization here! The bipeds weren't part of the native life.
They'd come from another world, almost certainly for the same reason men hadcome -- to work the planet's heavy metal deposits. They hadn't been here long,
or evidence of their mining operations would have been detected. They had aconcealed base somewhere; but there might be no more of them on Kulkoor atpresent than there were humans. 

And they'd been trying to drive away a competitive civilized species withoutrevealing what they were . . . 

However technologically advanced they might be, they must feel vulnerablehere. 

Grant looked down at the object that had been clasped in the biped's hand.
Apparently, it had been of value to the biped -- it might be of value to him.
About three inches long, gray, smooth, pear-shaped with a shallow indentationat the narrow end, rather heavy for its size. A personal amulet, without othersignificance? Creatures which tried to play on superstition in others shouldhave their own share of it. 

He glanced at the lifelessly open hand of the biped. The thick end of the graypear had been enclosed by the palm. He laid it in his own palm. At its touch,
he felt a faint tingling which immediately faded. And now his interest hadincreased sharply. The thing was powered -- powered for some purpose. 

He looked at the hand again. It seemed to him that the ball of one of the 


fingers had been clasped against the top of the pear, pressed into theindentation. He placed his own finger in that position. The tingling resumedbriefly, faded again. 

His vision misted over. 

He blinked, shook his head -- and realization came suddenly of what washappening. He almost dropped the gray object, then, instead, lifted his fingeraway from the tip. At once, the foggily dimming air about him cleared again. 

Grant sucked in a quick breath, looked at the biped. So he was holding one oftheir transportation devices! He was quite sure now that when he first saw it,
the biped's finger had still been clamped over the indented tip. But that hadproduced no effect on the device. While shortly before, immediately afterbeing shot, the giant had twice vanished for an instant. Consciously or not,
Grant thought, it had been trying to escape back to wherever it had come from,
and hadn't quite made it. It was dying then. Dead, it was solidly here. 

The device needed contact with a living body in order to function. 

Did it need the direction of a living mind to tell it where to go? 

-Chapter 39 
Jill had spent most of the racing drive back to the ship checking on itsoperating condition as exhaustively as she could from the car. She discoverednothing wrong with it. Condition was normal. Ultimate sensor scan reported thevicinity clear of suspicious objects. 

The aircar's scanners showed the same innocuous picture as she approached theship. She slowed, gave the recognition code, read the ship's acknowledgment onthe tape, set the code on continuous repetition, and moved up to the defenseperimeter. 

The ship's screens remained off. Everything seemed all right. She bit her lip,
gave the signal for the entry lock to open for the car, saw it opening in theviewplate. 

The car slid forward into the defense zone. 

The world seemed to dim, almost imperceptibly. Jill grew aware of a sound. 

It hung about her like the half-heard vibration of a bell, a shuddering in theair. Dreaminess settled on her. Then came jarring fright. 

"No!" 

The dreaminess was gone. But the aircar was growing vague, fading out in agray haze. She tried to wrench herself back into its reality, knew she wasfailing, reached out automatically for the hazy Suesvant on the car door. Foran instant, she seemed to touch nothing; then the stock grew firm and coolagainst her palm, and she snatched the rifle to her. The car controls -



She was no longer in the car. She saw its shadow shape ahead of her in adarkening fog, moving toward the ship. And the ship expanded suddenly into aball of yellow fire. An explosion which had no sound for Jill. The shadow carvanished in the fire, and the fog closed all around.
* * * 

She was in nothingness. But she was real. The Suesvant she held had remainedreal with her. 

Otherwise -- no sight, no sound. The fog was no fog but the absence of otherrealities. It had no substance, no temperature. Nothing. 

But she was there. She could look down and see herself as if by daylight,
hands gripping the rifle. Her lungs breathed, ignoring the fact that logicallythey should find nothing to breathe. She cleared her throat, heard the sound. 

In its way, it began to make sense. If the bipeds used this as a form oftransportation, the process itself mustn't hurt her, was nothing to fear.
Danger wouldn't develop until it released her again. 

A little time passed. Then the fog seemed to be thinning. Jill had waited forthat. She pressed the alert button on her wrist transmitter. "Ned?" 

No response. Light of sorts appeared gradually about her. 

She was within something now. A structure. A long hall with metal walls.
Nothing else to be seen. It was like looking through water. She was in motion,
drifting along the hall, then slanting toward one of the walls. She touchedthe wall without sensing the touch, went through it -


And was in a vast room. Again there was the metal gleam of enclosing walls,
great sleek engines below, moving shapes vaguely seen in the distance beyondthe engines. Sound reached her here, the surging hum of power. She turned overand over like a tumbling leaf, was swirled down toward the central engine andinto it. Light blazed briefly through her closed lids; furious energiesquivered about her . . . then she was out of that incredible hell, unhurt,
untouched. Moving on. More swiftly. A biped appeared suddenly ahead, standingon a catwalk, staring at her. He raised a big arm as if startled by herapproach and trying to ward her off. Four-armed? Was he four-armed? Shecouldn't be certain in a momentary blurred glance. As she swung up theSuesvant, she'd passed through him, gone on through another wall. 

A ghost. Moving through sections of the subterranean Kulkoor civilizationthey'd theorized? It didn't seem so. What she saw here suggested a vital,
powerful technology, one that stood openly and boldly on its world, preparedto face any intruder -- not the remnants of an advanced but failing culturewhich must skulk spitefully underground when visitors arrived from the stars.
She began to get glimpses of other bipeds. Sometimes they seemed briefly awareof her, sometimes not. Four-armed they were. Why had she failed to notice sosignificant a detail about the one she'd shot? She had the impression thatmost of these were smaller, slighter creatures than the giants they'd stalked,
though unmistakably of the same species. 

Which, of course, could no longer be considered a Kulkoor species . . . Hadshe been transferred to a different world? It seemed possible. At the moment,
perhaps almost anything would have seemed possible. 


Abruptly the fog grew dense again. For moments only. When it began to fade,
Jill knew what the aimless drifting had been about. A temporary delay onlybecause they'd been busy with other matters. Other prisoners. 

For here was an execution chamber. 
* * * 

It was a small room compared with most of the rest she'd passed through, longand low-ceilinged. Something like a great ventilator grille stretchedoverhead. One of the big bipeds stood at the far end of the room, looking inher direction. He held a short tubular device in one hand. Against the side ofthe room was a pile of contorted charred objects. Jill looked at them once anddidn't look again. 

Did the executioner recognize the Suesvant as a weapon which might bedangerous to him? With her first understanding of where she was, why she washere, Jill had let the rifle down at her side, holding it loosely in one hand,
as she stared at the watching biped. 

He turned his head; she heard a muted bellowing. The fog thinned farther; shefelt a lurch, stood suddenly on the hard flooring of the room, smelled thestench of burned flesh the air rushing through the chamber hadn't yet carriedoff. The biped was leveling his fire tube. 

The Suesvant was leveled much faster. The executioner didn't wear a bodyscreen. He was dead as two slugs smashed him back against the wall. 

Now what? Jill thought. 

In answer, the fog enclosed her again. Again, things went swirling past,
vaguely glimpsed. She was back in the immaterial half-world. The chamber hadvanished instantly, but now a landscape was emerging about her, below her. Awraith of a landscape, pale, without color. Nevertheless, she recognized theformation of those shadowy mountain ranges at once and knew she was onKulkoor. When she looked down, there was a lake below her -- far down, atleast two thousand feet. The glacier lake which formed the northern border ofthe area where they'd tracked two bipeds and she'd shot one. She looked in thedirection from which she seemed to have come. There, within the shadow bulk ofa mountain ridge, lay a shape, a huge oblong shape, tapering to a point at oneend. 

A ship, Jill thought. A gigantic spaceship, lying within the mountain. Four-
arms had come to Kulkoor from a world of a distant star . . . 

As she stared at the ship, its outlines faded. The mountains about her, thelake below, began to acquire color and solidity. For an instant, there was thebrush of cold wind, a flash of brilliant daylight. She reached quickly for thealert button of the wrist transmitter, pressed it. She'd been returned to theworld of reality, to die there. A two-thousand-foot drop to the lake would bea simple way to dispose of an unexpectedly recalcitrant prisoner. 

But there might be time . . . 

Somewhere then, somebody's mind changed; and the fog enclosed her again.
* * * 

And this then was the control deck of the great ship. It could be nothing 


else. It was correspondingly huge, about a fifth of it filled with instrumentbanks, arranged before a curving viewscreen along wall and ceiling. The wallon the left showed what seemed to be outlines of the layered decks of theship, about forty, their shifting light and color patterns signalinginformation to the control deck. A relative few of the instruments were 
manned. In all, around thirty bipeds were in sight, two of them the gianttype. The others weren't of much more than human height. With their lighterbuild, their weight might be barely a fourth that of the giants. 

Jill had been stopped near the center of the deck. A number of bipeds stoodabout, staring at her. The fog effect seemed very slight, but she knew she wasstill separated from them. Her feet seemed to be touching the floor, but whenshe took a step forward, her position on the deck didn't change. She held theSuesvant ready for use. The two big bipeds were armed. The others weren't. 

Within a minute, the reason she was here was made apparent. The entire wall onthe right side of the control deck became a viewscreen. Through it, Jill waslooking into another room, as high-ceilinged as this one, though less wide. Adozen of the smaller bipeds stood and moved about there. Behind them was aspecimen of a third biped variety -- one which shrank the mighty ogres intoinsignificance. Seated human fashion in a great chair, it had the bulk of oneof Earth's dinosaurs. Standing, it would have topped twenty-five feet. 

She'd been brought here to be looked over by this four-armed entity -- Ship'sCaptain, Being in Charge, sitting in a command room before a set ofinstruments designed for its proportions. Did it ever leave the room?
Probably. Much of the ship was shaped for hugeness. It was the Suesvant theywere interested in, of course. She'd demonstrated again what it could do, inexecuting their executioner. They wanted the weapon for study. The Being inCharge eyed her a long minute from the screen; then its voice boomed briefly.
The viewscreen went blank, became again a wall of the control deck. Her fatehad been decided. 

The control deck faded from sight.
* * * 

Grant picked up the dead biped's heat weapon. It was heavy; he needed bothhands to hold it and aim it at the body above him on the slope. He thumbeddown the stud, and the body and the ground about it blazed furiously. When thebiped's fellows came searching for it, they should find something of a mysteryto brood about, for a change. Grant shut off the device, clipped its end tohis belt. It was an awkward weight; but the thing could be useful again. Hepicked up the fur vest he'd pulled off the body. Its sealed pockets werecrammed with a variety of articles which might be investigated in detail atanother time. Two of them, however, were gray pear-shaped instruments of thekind the biped had been holding in its hand. Emergency spares. It wouldn'thave cared to find itself suddenly without a working device of that typeavailable to it. 

Their personal transportation method. Grant didn't know what limitations theremight be on its effective range, but that information wasn't important now.
He'd found out what he needed to know. The brain supplied directions; the grayinstrument did what it did. You visualized the place you wanted to be, oryou'd find yourself simply floating in the fogs of nowhere as your finger camedown into the instrument's hollowed tip, closed contact. But visualize theplace, and you went there. You emerged quickly or slowly, as you chose. Or youdidn't emerge at all, remained just within nowhere, a ghost, a near



invisibility, peering out into a shadow world. 


A very practical device. He'd tested it during the past few minutes, had made
a number of longer shifts back and forth across the slope. Ready now for a
purposeful jump . . . He hung the biped's vest over his left arm, took the
gray instrument in his right hand, closed contact. 


Fog swept in, thinned. He halted the process mentally. He was inside a room,
vaguely defined but recognizable. It was in the Medical Section of the Star
Union Base; he and Jill and Ned had been taken there to see the bodies of the
people killed in Station Three. No one around at present. Grant came out of
the fringes of nowhere into the room . . . 


Into a storm of sound! Siren blaring in the air, sinking to an angry whine.
Thud of energy bolts. A Suesvant's flat hard crack -* 
* * 


"Jill was to bring the ship here," Ned said, wiping sweat from his face. "They
may have got her." 


"What makes you think so?" 


"Grant, I'm not saying they have! I don't know! I had an alert signal from her
not more than ten minutes ago. I couldn't acknowledge. The bipeds were trying
to break through -- forcing it. They're getting impatient. I tried to contact
Jill first chance I got. I've kept the alert button down. She hasn't replied." 


"Ten minutes . . . how long can you hold out here?" 


Crowell said, "They'll finish it any time they quit worrying about what it
costs. Four car guns and the north turret left. At the present level of
attack, we might last half an hour or more." 


"One of you come along," Grant told them. "I have two spares of that space
jumping gadget. We can do something with that." 


"Your job," Ned said to Crowell. He looked at Grant, tapped the Suesvant.
"This could make an additional quarter hour's difference here. You go after
Jill." 


Crowell and Grant ran across the square, past the living and dead, almost
ignored by the Base's diminished survivors. Only a few faces -- pale, sweat-
streaked, shocked -- turned to look after them. In the room in the Medical
Section, Grant took the biped's two spares from the fur vest, handed one to
Crowell, snapped the heat weapon back on his belt. 


"I'll see about Jill as soon as you know how to use it," he said. "Here's what
you do -- "
* * * 


When Grant went back into the nowhere fog, visualizing the Galestral ship's
control room, nothing happened immediately. Then the fog darkened. A rumbling
earthquake sensation began, building up quickly in violence. Grant had an
awareness of imminent, ultimate danger. His mind snatched at another
visualization. For a moment, that seemed to alter nothing. Then the rumbling
faded. The fog thinned, vanished. The dangling fire weapon slapped heavily
against his thigh. Grant slipped the transporting device into his pocket, 



looked quickly around. 

He stood under the overhang of a great cliff, fallen boulders about him, arounded shallow valley below, mountains lifting above the forest beyond thevalley. 

This was the point where they'd left Jill stationed when they prepared toambush the biped. He'd needed a place to which he could retreat safely; andhis mind had produced this picture, brought him here. It seemed a good choice.
A familiar area, free at the moment of bipeds, screened from the observationof bipeds. Animals were in view in the valley, browsing undisturbed. Thecliffs and the tumbled boulders concealed him. 

He should have gone to their ship's control room. He had a strong convictionthat instead he'd nearly been projected into a final nothingness. The controlroom no longer existed. Their ship no longer existed. He was being drawn intononexistence when he'd veered away to this other place . . . 

Ghost biped, prowling about the ship's defense perimeter as their aircarapproached. It could look into the ship's opening lock. It could projectitself later into the lock. From then on, an unseen presence movedoccasionally about the ship. The ship had become alien property. When thealiens no longer had a use for it, it was destroyed. 

And Jill -


He couldn't think of Jill as dead, as nonexistent. The bipeds took captives,
had tried to take her captive earlier today. 

Grant slipped his hand back into his pocket, closed it about the transportingdevice. He brought Jill's face into his mind, pictured it a few feet from hisown. He kept the picture there as he pressed his finger into the indentationat the tip of the instrument. 

Fog condensed, thinned. 

The first thing he saw then wasn't Jill. It was the round black muzzle of aSuesvant pointed at him. The Suesvant was jerked aside. 

"Grant!" A thin whisper. 

Small bare cube of a room with seamless metal walls and nothing that lookedlike a door. Jill was staring at him, eyes huge in a chalk-white face. 

-Chapter 40 
Grant hadn't known it was going to work, but he thought it should work. Itdid. He'd simply picked Jill up instantly and visualized the overhang abovethe valley. The transporting instrument took them there. He set her down, tookthe biped's second spare from his pocket. Jill learned how to use it. 

Then she talked. 


"Inside a mountain?" Grant said. 


"But outside our space." Jill added, "It must work along the same general
lines as their transporters, on a huge scale. If we were standing by the lake,
I could show you the mountain." 


"They've got other prisoners," said Grant then. 


She shook her head. "We won't have to consider that." Before being left in the
exitless cell, she'd been shifted to another part of the ship, a large
laboratory devoted to the study of the human enemy. The enemy had been
thoroughly studied. Something floated in a transparent container. Most of its
organs were suspended in the container beside it but still connected to it.
The extracted heart beat steadily away, and the thing might be conscious
because its eyes turned to Jill when she appeared in the laboratory, and
remained fixed on her. There was a large number of other study subjects. 


Jill evidently was destined for the laboratory after they got the Suesvant
from her without harming her. The three bipeds on duty there looked her over
in her semi-material state for a minute or two; then one of them waved a hand
and she was shifted off to the cell. "They experimented with the first human
group they picked up," she said. "What's left of them isn't salvageable. The
people transported in from the Star Union Base were killed on arrival. A
simple way to dispose of them." 


"Then that's it," Grant said. "You go ahead. I'll come in beside you." 


They unslung the Suesvants. Jill took the alien instrument in her left hand.
She vanished. 
* * * 


The ship's great control deck appeared before Grant. Jill was standing four
feet to his right. 


The wide door space behind them was empty. They moved farther apart. The wall
on the right was a wall at present, not a viewscreen. Two big-armed bipeds
stood halfway between them and the instrument section, watching a scattering
of smaller bipeds at work. One of the smaller ones was moving along the rows
of consoles, but it didn't look around. No one had seen them appear. No biped
as yet -- unless they'd happened to check Jill's cell in the last few minutes
-- should have reason to suspect that a human had obtained some of their
transportation devices, had found out how to use them. 


They fired together. The big bipeds were hurled forward, struck the floor
ponderously, already dead. On the ship, they'd had no reason to wear body
screens. Until now. 


Grant gave no attention to the smaller bipeds. They were Jill's business.
Except for the first one, the shells he'd be using here were explosives and
incendiaries. Their targets were the instrument banks. 


He fired as quickly as he ever had in his life. A continuous crashing moved
along the stands; flames and smoke erupted. Biped voices howled briefly
through the commotion, went silent. Jill stopped firing. She stood half-turned
to Grant, gaze sweeping the deck. Then she flicked the Suesvant up suddenly,
firing past Grant toward the entry. A few seconds later, she fired again. 



Grant didn't turn. That was still Jill's department unless she indicated sheneeded help. He continued his work of demolition. There were secondaryexplosions at the end of the control deck, other sounds. One of the vastship's nerve centers was being shredded. How effectively, he couldn't tell. 

Then Jill lifted her hand, shouted his name. They hadn't known how long itwould take others in the ship to become aware of the destruction being wreakedon the control deck and to alert defenders; but staging a final fight here wasno part of their plan. Time to move -


The first shift was a short one, to the far side of the deck, beyond thecontrol stands. Looking back toward the entrance, Grant saw four big bipedforms on the floor, one struggling to rise. Weapons lay about them. 

"The last one had a body screen!" 

"Did he transport in?" 

Jill shook her head. "Came in from the hall with the others!" 

So the counterattack wasn't organized yet. But it couldn't be long in coming.
Grant slung the Suesvant over his shoulder, took the biped heat weapon fromhis belt. At close range, it should complete the wreckage caused by the rifle. 

It did. Great gouts of white fire crashed through the stands. There wererenewed explosions and arcing energy bolts about the consoles. Through theracket, Grant heard Jill's shout again, glanced quickly over at her, sawCrowell standing beside her, a heavy shock gun in his hands. Jill caughtCrowell's arm, said something, yelled to Grant, "Three just transported in -other 
side of the deck! Witter can follow us." 

She was gone. Grant snapped the fire weapon back on his belt, took theSuesvant in his left hand, the transporter in his right. 

Fog washed in, cleared away. Jill there, on his left -- and Crowellmaterializing abruptly a few steps to the right. The gigantic biped Jill haddescribed, arms like shaggy brown tree trunks braced against the table beforeit, was leaning forward, attention on a screen from which rose a blurredgabbling. The guns lashed out together. 

It was like assaulting a god, an animal deity. 

The huge body staggered. The head, swinging toward the intruders, wasinstantly blinded. The giant took a swaying step and began turning. An armflailed, smashed into the screen. The great biped kept turning, falling, wentdown. 

"Let's go -- " And Jill was gone again.
* * * 

Four more vulnerable points struck, briefly, ruinously. Surprise still ontheir side -- no other armed bipeds had appeared to dispute their presence,
prevent what they were doing. Then a sixth shift; and Crowell said, "Whyhere?" Jill had guided them to a narrow gallery above a wide hallway. Theyheard biped voice sounds, though no biped was in sight. 

Jill said, "They won't look for us here." 


"But there's nothing to -- " 


"When that engine went, I felt something else! The ship might be beginning to
go." 


"The ship?" Crowell said. "This is a ship?" 


Jill nodded. "A very big one. But we may have hurt it enough. That was like a
series of explosions on the decks beneath us -- or some distance away." 


Grant said, "We'd better be sure! I didn't notice anything." They looked at
one another a moment, faces pale and taut. Grant asked Crowell, "How did you
find us?" 


Crowell grunted. "Mental fix on your Suesvant. Easy to visualize! Where it
was, you'd be. You seemed to have an idea on how we could use their gadgets.
You did. But shouldn't we -- " 


He broke off. A biped had materialized in the hall beneath them. It lifted its
great arms in the air, uttered blaring cries, turning this way and that. Other
voices responded. A group of aliens ran past. Somewhere not far off, an
intercom cut in. What they heard then might have been the voice of the giant
they had brought down -- a huge ululating; mournful noise. It ended abruptly. 


Now the hall below suddenly filled with the alien creatures. They seemed to be
pouring out of other passages, went streaming by in both directions, milling
aimlessly, squalling, clasping their heads. 


The gallery swayed. The tumult below swelled up. Jill caught her breath.
"Stronger now!" she said. "But that's what it felt like!" 


There was a distant thudding of explosion. Shrieks rose from the hall. Crowell
said shortly, "They seem to believe the ship's going!" 


Another explosion came, heavier or more close than the previous one. Grant
said, "All right. Let's get out!" He looked at Crowell. "We'll meet you at the
Base. Jill and I have one more stop to make." 


"Huh?" 


"Frank Farquhar's aircruiser," said Grant. "We can go to it now wherever he
hid it. He had a store of message drones there."
* * * 


The alien ship went five minutes later. There might have been frantic work on
board to contain the chain of destructive reactions surging through it. If so,
they were unsuccessful. The remaining defenders of the Star Union Base saw a
sheet of brilliant purple light leap from the northern mountain ranges to the
sky. Kulkoor's surface shuddered. Presently there came the faraway thunderings
of a great explosion. 


Grant and Jill had returned by then with the sack of drones they'd scooped up
in Farquhar's cruiser. The Base remained on alert. The biped group attacking
it apparently had been recalled to the stricken ship; but others could have
been left on Kulkoor. Survivors might seek revenge. 



Then Grant made a discovery. He'd decided to transport back to the cruiser andfly it in to the Base. Farquhar could have had records of deductions he'd madeabout the bipeds. Grant found that the transporting instrument would no longertransport him. It did nothing, seemed dead. They tried out the other twodevices and had the same experience with them. Evidently they'd been poweredby the ship and wouldn't operate now it was gone. 

That ended any concern about bipeds who might still be around. If they were,
they had no more mobility now than that provided by their legs. They couldn'tbecome a problem. A guncar sent to check reported that the whole hump ofmountain inside which the great ship had been concealed had vanished with it. 

So then it was time at last to count the dead and missing. There were almostno wounded. Where biped weapons had struck, they'd killed. 

It was a long, long list of names.
* * * 

"Most of the stuff may not be too important," Crowell remarked late thatnight. He was in his office with Ilken and the Galestrals, and the assortmentof articles which had been found in the furred biped vest were spread out on atable. They'd been going over them together. "I'm hardly much of a physicist,
but I doubt any very significant new discoveries will be made when specialiststake the things apart." 

There were thoughtful nods. Ned said, "That seems probable. Nothing tooexciting there." 

"These, of course," Crowell went on, touching one of the three lifelesstransporters lying aside from the rest, "should be a different matter . . ." 

"Quite different!" Ned agreed again, dryly. 

Crowell regarded his companions. They gazed reflectively back at him. Jill,
relaxed in a chair, knees crossed, seemed unaware of the Suesvant laidcasually across her lap. Grant's and Ned's rifles were slung as casually fromtheir shoulders. Of course, Galestrals reputedly rarely were seen separatedfrom their deadly pets. Ilken's pale eyes were alert and she carried her braceof tarsh knives well forward on her belt. But there was nothing really unusualabout that either. 

Crowell tilted back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. 

"One thing we do know about the bipeds," he observed, "is that they came along way to reach Kulkoor. A civilization like theirs couldn't exist in anarea touched by our exploration ships without being noticed. It's reasonableto assume they wouldn't have come that far on a mining operation unless therange and efficiency of their warp drive makes anything we've developed lookpathetic." 

"That does seem a quite reasonable assumption," Jill told him. 

"You think so, too, eh?" Crowell brought his chair forward, nudged thetransporters. "Would you say the warp drive and these gadgets should operateon the same basic principles?" 

Jill nodded. "Uh-huh. Except for range, they must do much the same thing. And 


range might depend mainly on controllable power." 

Crowell remarked to Grant, "You took the transporters from the biped youkilled. Technically, they're yours, you know -- spoils of war!" 

Grant smiled briefly. "Except for another technicality! I'm an employee-
shareholder of the Galestral Company and obtained those items on a Companyassignment. That makes them Company property." 

Crowell grunted. "What do you think the Company will do with them?" 

Jill said judiciously, "Well, to begin with, of course, it will clamp oncomplete secrecy. Then try to work out the principles. Apply them to shipdrives. Build a few ships. Keep on improving the drives." 

"What kind of ships?" 

She studied him, shrugged. "Battlewagons, with at least the mass the bipedshad here. If they happen to come back in force, the Galestral Company willwant to be ready for them." 

"Cencom would figure it like that," Crowell agreed. "And Cencom will bebreaking its neck to get at those principles!" 

"I imagine it will," Jill said. "If a warp drive is developed, the Companywon't want it to become generally available within any foreseeable time. It'lllimit its use to support its own overall policies. 

Ned said mildly, "The drive's existence in itself would force those policiesto change, Jill!" 

"In three, four decades, yes. It needn't change them basically then." 

"Captain Witter," Grant said, "what would Cencom do if it had possession ofthe transporters?" 

"Oh, about the same!" Crowell leaned back in his chair again. "Just about thesame thing. Try to develop the warp drive and keep control of it. As long aspossible. If Star Union citizens could warp away out of contact whenever theyfelt like it, what would become of Cencom's authority?" 

"Then isn't this a somewhat theoretical discussion?" Ned asked him. "Of the 
two, naturally, I'd prefer the Galestral Company to wind up with thetransporters. Everyone left alive on the Base knows we have them. Unlessthey're destroyed -- which would make no sense at all -- who actually does getcontrol of them should depend primarily on whose relief expedition manages toget here first. That could turn into a rather close race!" 

"It won't matter who wins it," Crowell said, "if we send the transporters offby message drone tonight." 

No one spoke for a few seconds. "One to the Company, one to Cencom?" Ned saidthen. "And let both know it's been done? It would put them in another raceagainst each other -- but it should avoid any head-on trouble." He added, "Butit still won't make the warp drive available to individual Star Union citizensor Galestral employees. You won't have affected that." 


"They'd keep it from us by tacit agreement," Crowell acknowledged. "So a thirddrone and the third transporter go simultaneously to the headquarters of theSwimmer League on Varien. A three-way race then -- one the swimmers shouldwin. They have the newest and most sophisticated technology, but so far theyhaven't had a drive good enough to make their mobile cities independent of theStar Union and Cencom. They'll work hard to get it. When they have it, they'llstart moving out. And they have the same motive for wanting a warp drive tobecome generally available that Cencom and your Company have for not wantingit. It will break up the present systems of control. Everything becomes fluidagain; and Cencom and the Company have to go along with a new situation. Theswimmers will broadcast those principles as soon as they know what they are!"
Crowell looked around the group. "Well?" 

Ned Brock shook his head. "Everything becomes fluid again . . . If I acted as 
a Company man should about this, I'd simply find myself outvoted. I won'tbother to do it. Let's set the drones up to go out!" 

-Chapter 41 
Afterword 

by Eric Flint 

And . . . that's it. 

Well, not quite. There is still one more story to go, in this reissue of thecomplete writings of James H. Schmitz. That, of course, is The Witches ofKarres. We will be reissuing that novel a few months from now, as the seventhand final volume of the Baen edition. 

But leaving aside The Witches of Karres, and the one (and only) collaborationSchmitz ever wrote -- "Operation Alpha," with A.E. Van Vogt -- the publicationof this volume puts every story James Schmitz ever wrote back in print. Andthis is the first time, ever, that they've all been in print simultaneously. 

I began this project almost three years ago, as the culmination of what hadbeen a lifelong daydream to see James H. Schmitz restored to the place Ibelieve he deserves in SF's roster of great writers. The fact that he fellalmost completely out of print for so many years after his death in 1981 was,
in my opinion, the single most outstanding "injustice" of this sort in thescience fiction genre. (Though by no means the only one -- there are manyother fine writers who have suffered the same fate.) 

It was my hope -- and certainly my intention and goal -- that with this Baenedition the so-called historical verdict might be overturned. Of course, Idoubt if it will happen again that everything James Schmitz wrote will be inprint at any one time. But if this edition revitalizes his reputation, andgains him a generation of new fans, that'll be enough. Sooner or later, asthey always do, this edition will also start fading away into the used bookstores. But . . . someone, perhaps Baen Books itself, will do another editionof some kind. Someone always does, with those few authors who gain a permanentplace in SF's pantheon. 

Was I successful in my aim? 


I don't know, and I never will. These things can only be measured in decades,
not years. I'm fifty-five years old, and (sad to say, but there it is) I won'tlive long enough to find out. 

So be it. For me, the project is now over, and that's sufficient. There is asatisfaction in doing a job as well as you can, whether or not you ever learnits final result. Just as there is a satisfaction in paying a debt forwardbecause you can't pay it back to the man, now long gone, who did so much tointroduce a teenage boy named Eric Flint to the joys of science fiction. 

That was forty years ago. If, forty years from now, something of James H.
Schmitz is still in print, somebody can wake up my ghost and give me the goodnews. 

How? 

I don't know. Ask Telzey. Or Pilch. Or track down Trigger and see if her on-
and-off husband, Heslet Quillan, has run into another odd monster-that-isn't.
Maybe they'll understand how to talk to a ghost. 

If all else fails, consult the witches of Karres. 

That might be a bit difficult, I admit. Forty years from now, they'll probablyhave moved their planet again. 

-Chapter 42 
James H. Schmitz Chronography 

by Guy GordonGreenface Aug 1943 Unknown 5Agent of Vega Jul 1949 Astounding 5The Witches ofKarres Dec 1949 Astounding *The Truth About Cushgar Nov 1950 Astounding 5TheSecond Night of Summer Dec 1950 Galaxy 5Space Fear (aka The Illusionists) Mar1951 Astounding 5Captives of the Thieve Star May 1951 Planet Stories 6The Endof the Line Jul 1951 Astounding 5The Altruist Sep 1952 Galaxy 6We Don't WantAny Trouble Jun 1953 Galaxy 6Caretaker Jul 1953 Galaxy 6The Vampirate (akaBlood of Nalakia) Dec 1953 SF Plus 1Grandpa Feb 1955 Astounding 4The Ties ofEarth Nov 1955 Galaxy (2-part serial) 6Sour Note on Palayata Nov 1956Astounding 3The Big Terrarium May 1957 Saturn 6Harvest Time Sep 1958Astounding 3Summer Guests Sep 1959 IF 6Gone Fishing May 1961 Analog 5LionLoose . . . Oct 1961 Analog 3The Star Hyacinths (aka The Tangled Web) Dec1961 Amazing 1A Tale of Two Clocks (aka Legacy) 1962 SFBC/Torquil 3An Incidenton Route 12 Jan 1962 IF 6Swift Completion Mar 1962 Alfred Hitchcock's 6NoviceJun 1962 Analog 1The Other Likeness Jul 1962 Analog 4Rogue Psi Aug 1962Amazing 5Watch the Sky Aug 1962 Analog 5These Are the Arts Sep 1962 F&SF 6TheWinds of Time Sep 1962 Analog 4Left Hand, Right Hand Nov 1962 Amazing 6Beaconto Elsewhere Apr 1963 Amazing 5Oneness May 1963 Analog 6Ham Sandwich Jun 1963Analog 6Undercurrents May 1964 Analog (2-part serial) 1Clean Slate Sep 1964Amazing 6The Machmen Sep 1964 Analog 4Spacemaster 1965 New Writings in SF 3 6ANice Day for Screaming Jan 1965 Analog 4Planet of Forgetting (aka Forget It)
Feb 1965 Galaxy 3 The Pork Chop Tree Feb 1965 Analog 2! Balanced Ecology Mar1965 Analog 4Goblin Night Apr 1965 Analog 1Trouble Tide May 1965 Analog4Research Alpha Jul 1965 IF § Sleep No More Aug 1965 Analog 1The Witches ofKarres 1966 Chilton 7Faddist Jan 1966 Bizarre Mystery 6The Searcher Feb 1966Analog 4The Tuvela (aka The Demon Breed) Sep 1968 Analog (2-part serial) 


4Where the Time Went Nov 1968 IF 6The Custodians Dec 1968 Analog 5Just CuriousDec 1968 Alfred Hitchcock's 6Attitudes Feb 1969 F&SF 4Would You? Dec 1969 
Fantastic 6Resident Witch May 1970 Analog 2Compulsion Jun 1970 Analog 2TheTelzey Toy (aka Ti's Toys) Jan 1971 Analog 2Company Planet May 1971 Analog2Glory Day Jun 1971 Analog 2Poltergeist Jul 1971 Analog 1The Lion Game Aug1971 Analog (2-part serial) 1Child of the Gods Mar 1972 Analog 2The SymbiotesSep 1972 Analog 2The Eternal Frontiers 1973 G.P Putnam's Sons 6Crime Buff Aug1973 Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine 6One Step Ahead Apr 1974 IF 6Aura ofImmortality Jun 1974 IF 3 

Notes: 

* The original 1949 "The Witches of Karres" novelette became the first twochapters of the 1966 novel of the same name. 
"Forget It" (Vol. 3) is a slightly modified version of "Planet ofForgetting." 
! "The Pork Chop Tree" appears in Vol. 2 as the prologue to "Compulsion." 
§ "Research Alpha" was written in collaboration with A.E. Van Vogt, and is notreprinted in these volumes. It can be found in the collection "More ThanSuperhuman." 

"Volume" refers to the volumes of the current Baen edition. By title, asfollows: 
1) Telzey Amberdon 
2) T 'n T: Telzey & Trigger 
3) Trigger & Friends 
4) The Hub: Dangerous Territory 
5) Agent of Vega & Other Stories 
6) Eternal Frontier 
7) The Witches of Karres (forthcoming) 

THE END 

For more great books visit 
http://www.webscription.net/