The SpaceCom man’s watery blue eyes swept between the pallid man and the teleport-proof safe set in the cabin’s bulkhead.
“Any idea why they’re sending us so deep into Delgart territory?” the ensign fished. “It’s pretty tight lines up this far. Must be something big. Any idea?”
Gunnderson’s eyes came up from their focus on his boot tops, and stared at the spaceman. He idly flipped the harmonica he had requested before blastoff, which he had used to pass away the long hours in inverspace. “No idea. How long have you been at war with the Delgarts?”
“Don’t you even know who your planet’s at war with?”
“I’ve been rural for many years. But aren’t they always at war with someone?”
The ensign looked startled. “Not unless it’s to protect the peace of the galaxies. Earth is a peace-loving …”
Gunnderson cut him off. “Yes, I know. But how long have you been at war with the Delgarts? I thought they were our allies under some Treaty Pact or other?”
The spaceman’s face contorted in a picture of conditioned hatred. “We’ve been after the bastards since they jumped one of our mining planets outside their cluster.” He twisted his lips in open loathing. “We’ll clean the bastards out soon enough! Teach them to jump peaceful Earthmen.”
Gunnderson wished he could shut out the words. He had heard the same story all the way from A Centauri IX and back. Someone had always jumped someone else … someone was always at war with someone else … there were always bastards to be cleaned out … never any peace … never any peace …
The invership whipped past the myriad-odd colors of inverspace, hurtling through that not-space toward the alien cluster. Gunnderson sat in the teleport-proof stateroom, triple-coded loktite, and waited. He had no idea what they wanted of him, why they had tested him, why they had sent him through the preflight checkups, why he was in not-space. But he knew one thing: whatever it was, there was to be no peace for him … ever.
He silently cursed the strange mental power he had. The power to make the molecules of anything speed up tremendously, making them grind against one another, causing combustion. A strange, channeled teleport faculty that was useless for anything but the creation of fire. He damned it soulfully, wishing he had been born deaf, mute, blind, incapable of having to ward off the world.
From the first moment of his life when he had realized his strange power, he had been haunted. No control, no identification, no communication. Cut off. Tagged as an oddie. Not even the pleasures of being an acknowledged psioid, like the mindees, or the invaluable drivers, or the blasters, or the mallaports who could move the atoms of flesh to their design. He was an oddie. A strange breed, and worse: he was a nondirective psioid. Tagged deadly and uncontrollable. He could set the fires, but he could not control them. The molecules were too tiny, too quickly imitative for him to stop the activity once it was started. It had to stop of its own volition … and occasionally it was too long in stopping.
Once he had thought himself normal, once he had thought of leading an ordinary life — of perhaps becoming a musician. But that idea had died a-flaming, as all other normal ideas that had followed it.
First the ostracism, then the hunting, then the arrests and the prison terms, one after another. Now something new — something he could not understand. What did they want with him? It was obviously in connection with the mighty battle being fought between Earth and the Delgarts, but of what use could his unreliable powers be?
Why was he in this most marvelous of the new SpaceCom ships, heading toward the central sun of the enemy cluster? And why should he help Earth in any case?
At that moment the locks popped, the safe broke open, and the clanging of the alarms was heard to the bowels of the invership.
The ensign stopped him as he started to rise, started toward the safe. The ensign thumbed a button on his wrist console.
“Hold it, Mr. Gunnderson. I wasn’t told what was in there, but I was told to keep you away from it until the other two got here.”
Gunnderson slumped back hopelessly on the acceleration bunk. He dropped the harmonica to the metal floor and lowered his head into his hands. “What other two?”
“I don’t know, sir. I wasn’t told.”
The other two were psioids, naturally.
When the mindee and the blaster arrived, they motioned the Ensign to remove the contents of the safe. He walked over nervously, took out the tiny trecorder and the single speak-tip.
“Play it, Ensign,” the mindee directed.
The spaceman thumbed the speak-tip into the hole, and the grating of the blank space at the beginning of the tip filled the room.
“You can leave now, Ensign,” the Mindee said.
After the SpaceCom officer had securely loktited the door, the voice began. Gunnderson recognized it immediately as that of Terrence, head of SpaceCom. The man who had questioned him tirelessly at the Bureau building in Buenos Aires. Terrence, hero of another war, the Earth-Kyben war, now head of SpaceCom. The words were brittle, almost without inflection and to the point, yet they carried a sense of utmost importance:
“Gunnderson,” it began, “we have, as you already know, a job for you. By this time the ship will have reached central point of your trip through inverspace.
“You will arrive in two days Earthtime at a slipout point approximately five hundred million miles from Omalo, the enemy sun. You will be far behind enemy lines, but we are certain you will be able to accomplish your mission safely, that is why you have been given this new ship. It can withstand anything the enemy can throw.
“But we want you to get back for other reasons. You are the most important man in our war effort, Gunnderson, and it’s tied up with your mission.
“We want you to turn the sun Omalo into a supernova.”
Gunnderson, for the first time in thirty-eight years of bleak, gray life, was staggered. The very concept made his stomach churn. Turn another people’s sun into a flaming, gaseous bomb of incalculable power, spreading death into space, burning off the very layers of its being, charring into nothing the planets of the system? Annihilate in one move an entire culture?
Was it possible they thought him mad?
What did they think he was capable of?
Could he direct his mind to such a task?
Could he do it?
Should he do it?
His mind boggled at the possibility. He had never really considered himself as having many ideals. He had set fires in warehouses to get the owners their liability insurance; he had flamed other hobos who had tried to rob him; he had used the unpredictable power of his mind for many things, but this …
This was the murder of a solar system!
He wasn’t in any way sure he could turn a sun supernova. What was there to lead them to think he might be able to do it? Burning a forest and burning a giant red sun were two things fantastically far apart. It was something out of a nightmare. But even if he could …
“In case you find the task unpleasant, Mr. Gunnderson,” the ice-chip voice of the SpaceCom head continued, “we have included in this ship’s complement a mindee and a blaster.”
“Their sole job is to watch and protect you, Mr. Gunnderson. To make certain you are kept in the proper, er, patriotic state of mind. They have been instructed to read you from this moment on, and should you not be willing to carry out your assignment … well, I’m certain you are familiar with a blaster’s capabilities.”
Gunnderson stared at the blank-faced telepath sitting across from him on the other bunk. The man was obviously listening to every thought in Gunnderson’s head. A strange, nervous expression was on the mindee’s face. His glaze turned to the blaster who accompanied him, then back to Gunnderson.
The pyrotic swiveled a glance at the blaster, then swiveled away as quickly.
Blasters were men meant to do one job, one job only, and a certain type of man he became, he had to be, to be successful doing that job. They all looked the same, and
Gunnderson found the look almost terrifying. He had not thought he could be terrified, any more.
“That is your assignment, Gunnderson, and if you have any hesitance, remember they are not human. They are extraterrestrials as unlike you as you are unlike a slug. And remember there’s a war on … you will be saving the lives of many Earthmen by performing this task.
“This is your chance to become respected, Gunnderson.”
“A hero, respected, and for the first time,” he paused, as though not wishing to say what was next, “for the first time — worthy of your world.”
The rasp-rasp-rasp of the silent record filled the stateroom. Gunnderson said nothing. He could hear the phrase whirling, whirling in his head: There’s a war on, There’s a war on. There’s a war on , THERE’S A WAR ON! He stood up and slowly walked to the door.
“Sorry, Mr. Gunnderson,” the mindee said emphatically, “we can’t allow you to leave this room.”
He sat down and lifted the battered mouth organ from where it had fallen. He fingered it for a while, then put it to his lips. He blew, but made no sound.
And he didn’t leave.
They thought he was asleep, The mindee — a cadaverously thin man with hair grayed at the temples and slicked back in strips on top, with a gasping speech and a nervous movement of hand to ear — spoke to the blaster.
“He doesn’t seem to be thinking, John!”
The blaster’s smooth, hard features moved vaguely, in the nearest thing to an expression, and a quirking frown split his ink-line mouth. “Can he do it?”
The mindee rose, ran a hand quickly through the straight, slicked hair.
“Can he do it? No, he shouldn’t be able to do it, but he’s doing it! I can’t figure it out … it’s eerie, uncanny. Either I’ve lost it, or he’s got something new.”
“Trauma barrier?”
“That’s what they told me before I left, that he seemed to be blocked off. But they thought it was only temporary, once he was away from the Bureau buildings he would clear up.
“But he isn’t cleared up.”
The blaster looked concerned. “Maybe it’s you.”
“I didn’t get a master’s rating for nothing, John, and I tell you there isn’t a trauma barrier I can’t at least get something through. If only a snatch of gabble. But there’s nothing … nothing!”
“Maybe it’s you,” the blaster repeated, still concerned.
“Damn it! It’s not me! I can read you, can’t I — your right foot hurts from new boots, you wish you could have the bunk to lie down on, you … oh hell, I can read you — and I can read the captain up front, and I can read the pitmen in the hold, but I can’t read him!
“It’s like hitting a sheet of glass in his head. There should be a reflection or some penetration, but it seems to be opaqued. I didn’t want to say anything when he was awake, of course.”
“Do you think I should twit him a little — wake him up and warn him we’re on to his game?”
The mindee raised a hand to stop the very thought of the blaster. “Great Gods, no!” He gestured wildly, “This Gunnderson’s invaluable. If they found out we’d done anything unauthorized to him, we’d both be tanked.”
Gunnderson lay on his acceleration bunk, feigning sleep, listening to them. It was a new discovery to him, what they were saying. He had always suspected the pyrotic faculty of his mind. It was just too unstable to be a true-bred trait. There had to be side effects, other differences from the norm. He knew he could not read minds; was this now another factor? Impenetrability by mindees? He wondered.
Perhaps the blaster was powerless, too.
It would never clear away his problem — that was something he could do only in his own mind — but it might make his position and final decision safer.
There was only one way to find out. He knew the blaster could not actually harm him severely, by SpaceCom’s orders, but he wouldn’t hesitate blasting off one of the pyrotic’s arms — cauterizing it as it disappeared — to warn him, if the situation seemed desperate enough.
The blaster had seemed to Gunnderson a singularly overzealous man, in any case. It was a terrible risk, but he had to know.
There was only one way to find out, and he took it … finding a startling new vitality in himself … for the first time in over thirty years …
He snapped his legs off the bunk, and lunged across the stateroom, shouldering aside the mindee, and straight-arming the blaster in the mouth. The blaster, surprised by the rapid and completely unexpected movement, had a reflex thought, and one entire bulkhead was washed by bolts of power. They crackled, and the plasteel buckled. His direction had been upset, had been poor, but Gunnderson knew the instant he regained his mental balance, the power would be directed at him.
The bulkhead oxidized, and popped as it was broken, revealing the outer insulating hull of the invership; rivets snapped out of their holes and clattered to the floor.
Gunnderson was at the stateroom door, palming the loktite open — having watched the manner used by the blaster when he had left on several occasions — and putting one foot into the companionway.
Then the blaster struck. His fury rose, and he lost his sense of duty. This man had struck him; he was a psioid … an accepted psioid, not an oddie! His eyes deepened their black immeasurably, and his face strained. His cheekbones rose in a stricture of a grin, and the force materialized.
All around Gunnderson.
He could feel the heat.
He could see his clothes sparking and disappearing.
He could feel his hair charring at the tips.
He could feel the strain of psi power in the air.
But there was no effect on him.
He was safe.
Safe from the power of the blasters.
Then he knew he didn’t have to run.
He turned back to the cabin.
The two psioids were staring at him in open terror.
It was always night in inverspace.
The ship constantly ploughed through a swamp of black, with metal inside, and metal outside, and the cold, unchanging devil-dark beyond the metal. Men hated inverspace — they sometimes took the years-long journey through normal space, to avoid the chilling life of inverspace. For one moment the total black would surround the ship, and the next they would be sifting through a field of changing, flickering, crazy-quilt colors. Then ebony again, then light, then dots, then shafts, then the dark once more. It was ever-changing, like a madman’s dream. But not interestingly changing, so one would wish to watch, as one might watch a kaleidoscope. This was strange, and unnatural, something beyond the powers of the mind, or the abilities of the eye to comprehend. Ports were allowed only in the officer’s country, and those had solid lead shields that would slam down and dog close at the slap of a button. Nothing could be done, for men were men, and space was his eternal enemy. But no man willingly stared back at the deep of inverspace.
In the officer’s country, Alf Gunnderson reached with his sight and his mind into the coal soot that now lay beyond the ship. Since he had proved his invulnerability over the blaster, he had been given the run of the ship. Where could he go? Nowhere that he could not be found. Guards watched the egress ports at all times, so he was still, in effect, a prisoner on the invership. He had managed to secure time alone, however, and so with the captain and his officers locked out of the country, he stood alone, watching.
He stared from the giant quartz window, all shields open, all the darkness flowing in. The cabin was dark, but not half so dark as that darkness that was everywhere.
That darkness deeper than the darkness.
What was he? Was he man or was he machine … to be told he must turn a sun nova? What of the people on that sun’s planets? What of the women and the children … alien or not? What of the people who hated war, and the people who served because they had been told to serve, and the people who wanted to be left alone? What of the men who went into the fields, while their fellow troops dutif
ully sharpened their war knives, and cried? Cried because they were afraid, and they were tired, and they wanted home without death. What of those men?
Was this war one of salvation or liberation or duty as they parroted the phrases of patriotism? Or was this still another of the unending wars for domination, larger holdings, richer worlds? Was this another dupe of the Universe, where men were sent to their deaths so one type of government, no better than another, could rule? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure. He was afraid. He had a power beyond all powers in his hands, and he suddenly found himself not a tramp and a waste, but a man who could demolish a solar system at his own will.
Not even sure he could do it, he considered the possibility, and it terrified him, making his legs turn to ice water, his blood to steam. He was suddenly quite lost, and immersed into a deeper darkness than he had ever known. With no way out.
He spoke to himself, letting his words sound foolish to himself, but sounding them just the same, knowing he had avoided sounding them for much too long:
“Can I do it?”
“Should I? I’ve waited so long, so long, to find a place, and now they tell me I’ve found a place. Is this my final place? Is this what I’ve lived and searched for? I can be a valuable war weapon. I can be the man the men turn to when they want a job done. But what sort of job?”
“Can I do it? Is it more important to me to find peace — even a peace such as this — and to destroy, than to go on with the unrest?”
Alf Gunnderson stared at the night, at the faint tinges of color beginning to form at the edges of his vision, and his mind washed itself in the water of thought. He had discovered much about himself in the past few days. He had discovered many talents, many ideals he had never suspected in himself.
He had discovered he had character, and that he was not a hopeless, oddie hulk, doomed to die wasted. He found he had a future.
If he could make the proper decision.
But what was the proper decision?
“Omalo! Omalo snapout!”
The cry roared through the companionways, bounced down the halls and against the metal hull of the invership, sprayed from the speakers, and deafened the men asleep beside their squawk-boxes.