“But Darfla was so concerned, and she seemed to like you, so we took a chance. It seemed to work out, luckily for you.”
Themus looked at the girl. She was staring at him as though a layer of ice covered her. He smiled to himself.
Any amount of ice can be thawed by the proper application of intensive heat.
“We didn’t want you to see him at first,” Deere went on, “because we knew he would dump the cart. But when you showed us you were flexible enough to do the five mad acts, we knew you could take what Boolbak had to say.
“And we let him explain it, instead of us, because he’s one damned fine story-teller. He can hold the interest. He’s a born minstrel and you’d believe him before us.”
“But why did he tell me all that? I thought you wanted it all kept quiet? He hardly knew me and he explained the whole situation, the way it really is. Why?” Themus inquired.
“Why? Because he’s completely out of his mind—and he’s a big-mouth to boot,” Deere stated, “We tolerate Boolbak, but we make sure he keeps away from the Watchers, for the most part. If he does get through, though, it eventually shuttles to Furth and we snap a lid on it. I suppose he was ready to tell you because Darfla brought you to him. He has a soft spot for her.
“What I want to know is, why did Darfla take you off your rounds in the first place?”
Darfla looked up. She had been idly running her toe through the mud near the pool. “I went through his dossier. He was too brilliant for the Corps. His record indicated any number of checkpoints of upper-level intelligence. So I went and found him. He didn’t react as most Stuffs would have, when I applied a few stimuli, such as ruining his dicto-box.”
Themus winced at the memory of the dicto-box.
“But what made you look up his dossier?” demanded Furth.
Darfla hesitated, and a gold blush crept up her cheeks. “I saw him get off the ship from Penares-Base. I—well—I rather liked his appearance. You know.” She looked down again, embarrassed.
Deere made a gun with thumb and forefinger, pointed it at her, “If you don’t stop taking these things into your own hands! There’s a group who looks into things like that. We’d have gotten to him in time.”
Themus rubbed his nose in amazement. “I—I just can’t believe all this. It’s so fantastic. So unreal.”
“No more unreal to believe every man is a single brain with individual thoughts than to believe he’s a member of a group mind with the same thoughts for all.”
He clapped the Watcher on the back.
“Are you prepared to drop your life as a Watcher and become one of us? I think you’ll be quite a find. Your five acts were the maddest we’ve seen in a long time.”
“But I’m not a Crackpot. I’m a Stuffed-Shirt. I’ve always been one.”
“Bosh! You were brought up to think you were one. We’ve shown you there are other ways to think, now use them.”
—Themus considered. He’d never really had anything, as a member of the Kyben race—the rulers of the universe—but a constant unease and a fear of the Mines. These people all seemed so free, so clever, so—so—He was at a loss for words.
“Can you take me out of sight of the Corps ?” he asked.
“Easiest thing in the world,” said Furth, “to make you drop out of sight as Themus, the Watcher, and make you reappear as—let’s say—Gugglefish, the Crackpot Mountebank.”
Themus’ face broke into the first full, unreserved smile he could recall. “It’s a deal, I suppose. I’ve always wanted to live in a madhouse. The only thing that bothers me is Uncle Boolbak. You fool the Stuffs by pretending madness, and well—you consider Boolbak mad, so perhaps—”
He stopped when he saw the perplexed looks that came over the Crackpots’ faces. It wasa germ of thought.
“Welcome home, maniac,” said Deere.
TROJAN HEARSE
The agent flickered, wavered, and disappeared. A smell of ozone filled the War Chamber.
There was a momentary silence, then the plasteel-armored guards fired at the spot. Angry bursts of flame erupted from their rifles and a section of the wall blistered and imploded. Shards of plasteel wall material showered the assembled War Council.
"Imbeciles!" The sharp voice of Lord Fiagore froze the guards in mid-movement. "He's gone, you fools! A personal Orifice — he was gone the moment he touched the button! Out, get out!
The guards paled; in a moment they were gone, and the triple-locked door to the War Chamber was sealed. Then Fiagore turned on his Council. Hatred and a vague desperation clouded his eyes. His voice rang like an anvil: "An agent! Right here in my Council, an agent of Earth!" Lord Fiagore's cheeks blew into a red fury; he beat at the padded arms of his chair. "Who is responsible? Who is the man who checked that — that agent?
Setaspear pushed back his chair at the Lord's right elbow and stood, wearing an almost dedicated air. "Your Mightiness," he said, bowing his head and touching his forehead with two fingers, "it was I who believed the man's story and references. I am the one who put him on the research team for this operation. If punishment is to be meted out — I am the responsible party.
"Fiagore carefully steepled his thin fingers and looked across with dark, brooding eyes.
"If it were not you, Setaspear -" He left the sentence hanging. But everyone there knew the bonds of friendship that bound the two Kyben — bonds that stretched back through many years and many campaigns. Such ties were not easily broken.
Even in such an alarming situation as this.
Lord Fiagore sank back in his chair. His face, mottled by deep pools of shadow, was unreadable, but his voice betrayed his emotion. "What does this do to the situation? ls it as bad as I think?“ He looked quickly toward Setaspear.
The other licked dry lips and leaned forward. "I don't think so, Your Mightiness. It merely means we can't take them entirely by surprise."
Fiagore was silent, as he compared what his War Minister had said with the data he already possessed.
The armada was ready, lined rank on formidable rank before the Orifice. Death in seventy thousand shapes crouched on plasteel treads, waiting for the order that would launch them through the gigantic hoop, into inverspace, materializing them instantly on Earth, far across the galaxy.
"Did he have the complete set of diagrams and specifications?" Lord Fiagore inquired. His voice had steadied.
A dark, fat Kyben near the far end of the long Council table stood. "Yes, Your Omnipotence. He was with the research team bringing them here. He waited till the Supervisor had removed them from the field-proof case, activated his personal Orifice, and took them to wherever the cursed Earthmen had instructed him."
Setaspear touched the War Baron's arm. “I do not believe this will hamper us in the slightest, Your Greatness. What if the Terrans do have the specifications for the Orifice? Even though we have known the principle for many years now, it was only recently that our research teams perfected a full-sized, stable Orifice. It took our engineers three years to design and construct the large one. How can the miserable Earthmen hope to find a defense against it in a mere five weeks?"
"There is no way they can counteract the Orifice? You're certain?"
"Certain, Your Greatness? Of course l’m certain! Our armada has been ready and waiting for six months. The Orifice activated, our fleets will roll into it — disappear here - and suddenly appear on Earth, behind any defenses they might set up, cannons firing, destroying as they come —"
He steepled his fingers once more, speaking quietly. "Interstellar war has never been feasible. Distances were too great. But now - with the Orifice, using inverspace and the field — we can become the mightiest race in the universe! Nothing can stand before us! Let the Earthmen be the first to know this. Steal our plans? Let them! In five weeks, we strike!
“For the Mother World and the Lord!"
The assembled Council members leaped to their feet. Their voices shattered against the walls of the War Chamber:
"For the Mother World and our Lord!"
O-Day came, and the impulse sped from Research Center to the plain where the Orifice stood — a towering, glistening metal hoop, poised on its thin edge, like a portal. Suddenly the power poured into it, activating the field. The center of the hoop grew misty, glowed with a faint pink luminescence.
Commanders tossed sharp glances at their ring-com units, waiting the signal.
When it came, the blast and roar of machines springing to life rolled against the far mountains, smashing toward the sky with a fury of impatience. Dust rolled up in huge clouds as the war-tanks bit deep into the ground, their treads grinding it fine as they would grind fine the soil of planet Earth.
The lead tanks of the fleet positioned themselves carefully, their Commanders directing from transparent plasteel conning bubbles, faces bright with sweat, eyes gleaming with the inner fire of conquest! The fire of destruction!
In the first tank Lord Fiagore nodded to his driver, and the armada plunged into inverspace.
They hadn't needed three years. They hadn't even needed the full five weeks. When the agent flickered into existence in the high command offices, he turned over the plans, and his personal Orifice, and the work was completed in days.
There was only one way to beat the invaders. It had been so obvious, they had overlooked it till it was almost too late.
But they had done the job in time, and now it was set.
The most vital bit of information the agent had learned, perhaps, was the location of the exit spot on Earth where the giant Orifice would expel its deadly horde.
Once they had that, there was no need even to arm the troops.
Fiagore's tank plunged into the misty, wavering pinkness. and everything flashed into negative. Black was white, white was black, and the War Baron knew matter translation was sending them through inverspace.
Then everything snapped back into focus, and Fiagore saw sunlight again in the split-instant before the back end of the tank left the invader's Orifice...
...and the front end entered the defender's Orifice. Set directly in the path of exit, so close there was no way to stop, no way to turn back. No way to go but ahead.
And ahead, the Terran Orifice had been set to exit into the dead airless black of deep space.
THE UNTOUCHABLE ADOLESCENTS
The planet Diamore, hung round and gaudy in the view-plates. As colorfully unchanging as it had been every day for the two weeks since the Wallower had plopped out of inverspace near it.
Captain Luther Shreve started violently as the whine of the Stress-Potential banks died away. They had been a constant noisemaker during the past two weeks; their continual dull rhythm had come to seem companionable. Now the keening discordanancy was ended, and he knew they had finished estimating the planet in the plates.
He sat very still, staring at the energy dials building their reserves back up. The banks had used much extra power.
He sat very still, waiting for them to bring him the plates. He didn't want to see them. He was a full Captain in the Merchant Arm of the Commercial Navy, and he found the tough outer shell of himself that had formed during thirty years in that service suddenly disintegrating. He was afraid of what those plates would say.
The tube glowed behind him and Teller…slightly over weight, slightly florid, slightly balding and a brilliant Psych Officer…stepped off the plate, into the control room.
Teller slumped onto the co-pilot's couch, extended the sheaf of plate readings. Luther Shreve tipped his cap back on his head with a practiced thumb and shuffled the plates in silence.
From time to time his pink tongue washed across his lips. Finally he sighed and rubbed weary fingers across the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes and slowly sank back against the cushions.
With eyes still closed, he voiced the final possibility. "Any room for error?"
He had tried to keep the tenseness from his voice, but it somehow doubled in the faintly resonating confines of the control room.
Teller shook his head. "They tell me no, Luther. I ran the plates up for them, mainly because they were all afraid to be here when you saw the sad news. You terrorize those poor bankroom boys, Luther."
Teller looked across, saw the odd set to Shreve's face, and realized his jibes were annoying the other. He swung his short legs over the side of the couch with a thump, clasped his hands in his lap as though about to recite.
"They have somewhere less than five months. Then the Big Push comes. The eruptions will wipe out nine-tenths of the centers of community."
He leaned across and pulled one sheet from the stack Shreve held. "Here is the position map." He indicated with quick, short jabs of his finger where the first earthquakes would hit, and followed blue lines to their terminuses.
He extended his hands, palms upward, in a movement of futility and sadness.
Shreve sat forward, sharply. He swept the cap from his head with one hand, ran the other through stringy, brown hair. He pursed his lips, muttered, "We've got to do something! It's more than just business potential ruined. There are people down there, Karl! Millions of them. We can't let them die!"
"True," Teller stated simply, looking at his clasped hands. "But," he added, "what about the itinerary? They'll scream bloody blazes back there if you break schedule." He cocked a thumb toward the rear of the ship…toward Earth.
"Karl, I've been pushing one of these cans for MerchArm over thirty years. I'll be thirty-one in August. I've never broken a schedule in my life…but this is…this is something more important than bills of lading and sales curves!" His face had tightened, the character lines about his mouth standing forth.
"We've got to save them, Karl. We've got to help those people down there!"
Teller exhaled heavily. "All right, Luther. It's your choice. But you'd better produce some thing from those natives down there, or MerchArm might get unpleasant."
Shreve nodded, his face sagged into weariness momentarily. Then he straightened and depressed the public-address stud on the couch arm.
His orders were brief and direct.
An hour later, ship-time, the great Wallower fired away with directional rockets, and began to fall toward the multi-colored sphere of Diamore.
High jungle surrounded the ship. Deep-red stringers of climbing vine meshed with the purple and green and blue of exotic tree-forms. From the edge of the dead path the Wallower had burned in settling, the patchwork melange of colored growth reared and spread.
The analyzers were just completing their spore-counts when the Diamoraii burst from the jungle, thundered onto the charred ground of the clearing.
They rode tall on the backs of their mounts, whooping and wailing in a minor key. The outside receivers, which had been left on in various parts of the Wallower, rattled tinnily at the noise. Men clasped hands to their ears and hurried to depress studs to shut out the din. Shreve and Teller whirled from their calculations and stared fascinated at the sight in the plates.
The Diamoraii's huge, loping animals closely resembled Terrestrial giraffes. The beasts were pitch-black and ran with a gait beautifully adapted to the jungle. They came on with a liquid, side-stepping motion. They neatly leaped the twisted tree-trunks, swayed out of the path to avoid a cluster of high-pile blossoms, and trampled to a stop fifty yards in front of the Wallower.
"Stations!" Shreve yelled into the p-a mike. He turned back to the view-plate, staring at the black beasts.
There were twelve of them, each with a depression in its back in which a Diamorai sat, clutching the flanks of the thin, black animal with his knees. Twists of pliant material looped through the beast's noses served both as bridle and reins.
The twelve Diamoraii leaped agilely from their mount's backs, began looking at each other with indecision. They milled about the stomping animals for a minute, then each went to a bulky pouch slung across his beast's back depression. They fumbled in the pouches.
Shreve turned the plates up to higher magnification, whistli
ng through his teeth. "Wheeew! What magnificent creatures! Did you see the way they ran that jungle like broken-field quarterbacks?"
From beside him the agreeing mutter of the pudgy psych officer blended with the busy clicking of the analyzers, totaling their counts.
"Those look to be the people we have to contact, Karl," Shreve added, motioning toward the Diamoraii who were dragging objects from their pouches.
"A young people," Teller mused, his face flushed. "A young and a virile people. Shouldn' have any trouble getting through to them." He turned a plate knob to sharper register.
The Diamoraii had advanced on the ship. They were almost humanoid. Tall…almost six and a half feet each with very long legs and boney, knobbed knees. Their legs seemed to represent almost half their bodies. Wide-shouldered, V-shaped chests; obviously large-lunged. Otherwise, despite the wide-spaced, large-irised eyes, they were almost humanoid,
As Shreve and Teller watched, they each donned a hideous devil-mask.
"Ugh!" Shreve blurted, his face drawing up into a picture of agony. "What ghastly greeting cards those are! If that's a sample of their demonology, I'd hate to see them exorcising one of the poor devils: probably frighten the thing to life!"
Teller was leaning closer to the screen, his small eyes watching the twelve with undisguised fascination. He was talking more to himself than his superior. "Must be religious symbols of some sort. Must have put on their Prayer-day best just to come see us."
Shreve looked at Teller sharply. "You don't suppose they think we're gods or something?"
Shaking his head in annoyance, Teller replied, "No, no, certainly not. You can tell they don't! They haven't prostrated themselves or offered up sacrifices or such, as the typical superstitious aborigine would. No, I'm quit certain they don’t deify us. Probably just insuring that evil spirits don't try to Interfere with their mission…whatever that might be. But," he added, "it doesn't appear to be dangerous, what ever it is."