thought, as though one were looking through a window into theNipe's nest itself. Only the tremendous depth of focus of the lens whichcaught the picture gave the illusion a sense of unreality.Everything--background and foreground alike--was sharply in focus.
The Nipe moved in slow motion, giving the watchers the eerie feeling thathe was moving through a thicker, heavier medium than air, in a place wherethe gravity was much less than that of Earth.
"Speed the tape up to normal," said Colonel Mannheim to the man who wasoperating the machine. "If there's anything Mr. Stanton wants to look atmore closely, we can run it through again."
As if in obedience to the colonel's command, the Nipe seemed to shakehimself a little and go about his business more briskly, and the air andgravity seemed to revert to those of Earth.
"What's he doing?" Stanton asked. The Nipe was doing something with anodd-looking box that sat on the floor in front of him.
"He's got a screwdriver that he's modified to give it a head with anL-shaped cross-section, and he's wiggling it around inside that hole inthe box. But what he's doing is a secret between God and the Nipe at thispoint," the colonel said glumly.
Stanton glanced away from the screen for a moment to look at the other menwho were there. Some of them were watching the screen, but most of themseemed to be watching Stanton, although they looked away as soon as theysaw his eyes on them.
_Trying to see what kind of a bloke this touted superman is_, Stantonthought. _Well, I can't say I blame 'em._
He brought his attention back to the screen.
So this was the Nipe's hideaway. He wondered if it were furnished in thefashion that a Nipe's living quarters would be furnished on whateverplanet the multilegged horror called home. Probably it had the samesimilarity as Robinson Crusoe's island home had to a middle-classNineteenth Century English home.
There was no furniture at all, as such. Low-slung as he was, the Nipeneeded no tables for his work, and sleeping was a form of metabolic restthat he evidently found unnecessary, although he would sometimes justremain quiet for periods of time ranging from a few minutes to a couple ofhours.
"We had a hard time getting the first cameras in there," the colonel wassaying. "That's why we missed some of the early stages of his work. There!Look at that!"
"That attachment he's making?"
"That's right. Now, it looks as though it's a meter of some kind, but wedon't know whether it's a test instrument or an integral part of themachine he's making. The whole thing might be a test instrument. Afterall, he had to start out from the very beginning--making the tools to makethe tools to make the tools, you know."
* * * * *
"It's not quite as bad as all that," said one of the other men, who hadbeen briefly introduced to Stanton as Fred Meyer. "After all, he had ourtechnology to draw upon. If he'd been wrecked on Earth two or threecenturies ago, he wouldn't have been able to do a thing."
"Granted," the colonel said agreeably, "but it's quite obvious that thereare parts of our technology that are just as alien to him as parts of hisare to us. Remember how he went to all the trouble of building a pentodevacuum tube for a job that could have been done by transistors. Hisknowledge of solid-state physics seems to be about a century and a halfbehind ours."
"Not completely, Colonel," Meyer said. "That gimmick he built lastyear--the one that blinded those people in Bagdad--had five perfectemeralds in it, connected in series with silver wire."
"That's true. Our technologies seem to overlap in some areas, but inothers there's total alienness."
"Which one would you say was ahead of the other?" Stanton asked.
"Hard to say," said Colonel Mannheim, "but I'd put my money on histechnology as encompassing more than ours--at least insofar as thephysical sciences are concerned."
"I agree," said Meyer, "he's got things in that little nest of his that--"He stopped and shook his head slowly, as though he couldn't find words.
"I'll say this," Bart Stanton said musingly, "our friend, the Nipe, hasplenty of guts. And patience." He smiled a little and then amended hisstatement. "From our own point of view, that is."
Colonel Mannheim's face took on a quizzical expression. "How do you mean?I was about to agree with you until you tacked that last phrase on. Whatdoes point of view have to do with it?"
"Everything, I should say," Stanton said. "It all depends on the equipmentan individual has. A man who rushes into a burning building to save alife, wearing nothing but street clothes, has courage. A man who does thesame thing when he's wearing a nullotherm suit is an unknown quantity.There is no way of knowing, from that action alone, whether he has courageor not."
Meyer looked a little dazed. "Pardon me if I seem thick, Mr. Stanton,but.... Are you saying that the Nipe's technological equipment is betterthan ours?"
"Not at all. I'm talking about his personal equipment." He turned again tothe colonel. "Colonel Mannheim, do you think it would require any personalcourage on my part to stand up against you in a face-to-face gunfight?"
The colonel grinned tightly. "I see what you mean. No, it wouldn't."
"On the other hand, if _you_ were to challenge _me_," Bart Stantoncontinued, "would _that_ show courage?"
"Not really. Foolhardiness, stupidity, or insanity--not courage."
"Then neither of us can prove we have guts enough to fight the other. Canwe?"
Colonel Mannheim smiled grimly and said nothing, but Meyer, who evidentlyhad a great deal of respect for the colonel, said: "Now, wait a second!That depends on the circumstances! If Colonel Mannheim, say, knew thatforcing you to shoot him would save someone else's life--someone moreimportant, say, or maybe a _lot_ of people, then--"
Colonel Mannheim laughed. "Meyer, you've just proved Mr. Stanton's point!"
Meyer gaped for a half second, then burst into laughter himself. "Pardonmy point of view, Mr. Stanton! I guess I _am_ a little slow!"
Mannheim said: "Precisely! Whether the Nipe has courage or patience or anyother human feeling depends on his own abilities and on how muchinformation he has. A man can perform any action without fear if he knowsthat it will not hurt him--or if he does _not_ know that it _will_." Heglanced at the screen. The Nipe had settled down into his "sleepingposition"--unmoving, although his baleful violet eyes were still open."Cut that off, Meyer," the colonel said. "There's not much to learn fromthe rest of that tape."
"Have you actually managed to build any of the devices he's constructed?"Stanton asked.
"Some," said Colonel Mannheim. "We have specialists all over the worldstudying the tapes. We have the advantage of being able to watch everystep the Nipe makes, and we know the materials he's using to work with.But, even so, the scientists are baffled by many of them. Can you imaginethe time James Clerk Maxwell would have had trying to build a moderntelevision set from tapes like this?"
"I know exactly how he'd feel," Meyer said glumly.
"You can see, then, why we're depending on you," Mannheim told Stanton.
Stanton merely nodded. The knowledge that he was actually a focal point inhuman history, that the whole future of the human race depended to atremendous extent on him, was a realization that weighed heavily, and, atthe same time, was immensely bracing.
"And now," the colonel said, "I'll turn you over to the psychologydepartment. They'll be able to give you a great deal more information onthe Nipe than I can."
VI
The Nipe squatted, brooding, in his underground nest, waiting for thespecial crystallization process to take place in the sodium-gold alloythat was forming in the reactor.
_How long?_ he wondered. He was not thinking of the crystallizationreaction; he knew the timing of that to the fraction of a second. His darkthoughts were focused inwardly, upon himself.
How long would it be before he would be able to construct the communicatorthat would put him in touch with his own race again? How long before hecould discourse again with reasonable beings? For how much longer would hebe stranded on an insane pla
net, surrounded by degraded, insane beings?
The work was going incredibly slowly. He had known at the beginning thathis knowledge of the basic arts required to build a communicator wasincomplete, but he had not realized just how painfully inadequate it was.Time after time, his instruments had simply refused to function because ofsome basic flaw in their manufacture--some flaw that an expert in thatfield could have pointed out at once. Time after time, equipment had hadto be rebuilt almost from the beginning. And, time after