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diff --git a/old/66021-0.txt b/old/66021-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 332da0e..0000000 --- a/old/66021-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5083 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Armageddon, 1970, by Geoff St. Reynard - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Armageddon, 1970 - -Author: Geoff St. Reynard - -Release Date: August 9, 2021 [eBook #66021] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMAGEDDON, 1970 *** - - - - - ARMAGEDDON, 1970 - - By Geoff St. Reynard - - As atomic weapons from space laid waste to - Earth's cities, Alan Rackham searched for the - traitors. Was it possible he sought himself? - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy - October 1952 - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -They tried to kill Alan Rackham about an hour after he had seen the -accident. They bungled the job. They shot at him from ambush--with -an ordinary automatic pistol--as he was walking up to his house; and -Brave, who had a sixth sense for danger which never failed him, knocked -Alan over at the very instant of the shot and sprawled across him, a -great solid shield holding him down and protecting him despite his -angry wrigglings. Brave's grenade pistol was in his hand before the -two of them hit ground, and he sent four quick shots at the bushes, -spaced so that the tiny hot fragments tore hell out of thirty yards of -shrubbery. Nobody yelled or groaned. Brave waited a full minute, and -then he rose cautiously, so that Alan could sit up and brush himself -off and swear as he spat out dirt. They went into the house and Alan -reported the assassination attempt to his immediate superior, Dr. -Getty. After that they didn't try again to kill Alan for a long time. - -The accident had been uncanny. It happened in the room where the shells -of the silver-colored disks were fitted together and welded, before -they were sent to the gargantuan baths that half-melted them again to -rechill them into solid masses of metal which nothing short of a direct -hit by a blockbuster would crack. - -A welder, using one of the newly-developed torches that made the old -ones seem like match-flares by comparison, dropped it accidentally. Its -flame licked up and sprayed across the man's right hand. It melted the -protective glove like ice cream on a stove; crisped away the skin and -liquefied the flesh, charred the bones black and left the welder no -more than half a palm and two fingers before he could jerk his hand out -of the terrible blast of fire. - -Alan and Brave were standing about twelve feet off, and there could be -no mistake as to what they saw then. - - * * * * * - -The welder turned off his torch with his left hand; he held the remains -of his right before his face, turned it and stared at it (the blood -coursing in little sluggish streams down the forearm, the charcoal -that had been bone sifting off into the air, the flesh a greasy -yellow-red mass like candle drippings), and he shook his head slowly, -an expression of annoyed mortification on his face. It was as though he -had cut himself while shaving, no more. He was simply piqued, when he -should have been shrieking with horror and unendurable pain. - -Alan and Brave ran to him. "My God, man," said Alan, shaken, "let me -get you to infirmary." - -The welder stood up. "That's all right, Dr. Rackham. I can go myself. -This don't hurt." And then a curious look spread over his face, as if -he had just recollected a lesson taught him long ago. "It don't hurt -_much_," he amended. "I guess it's cauterized so bad I can't feel it -yet. Don't you worry, sir, I can make it." - -He walked away, perfectly steady, carrying the almost destroyed hand -in front of his chest; and Alan was so dumbfounded he let him go. - -The welder never reached the infirmary. No man saw him again, alive or -dead. - -So an hour thereafter someone took a shot at Alan Rackham. Since -Brave had witnessed the accident too, and because neither of them -could account for the shooting except in connection with that strange -accident, it seemed stupid and pointless for an attempt to be made -on Alan's life alone; especially when a grenade pistol, one of those -lean evil handguns developed in 1959, would with one shot have cut an -eight-yard-wide swath in everything before it and eliminated both of -them. But there it was. They shot at Alan with an automatic--the bullet -nicked across his chest and spoiled a blue coat that was practically -new--and then they disappeared. - -Alan's house, which he shared with Brave, was a four-room brick atop -a knoll on the outskirts of the colony. It was a perfect bachelor -establishment; the precipitron kept it free of dust and Brave's innate -neatness overcame Alan's careless disregard of surroundings to the -extent that dirty socks and unpressed trousers were not often to be met -with lying in corners or hanging over the backs of chairs. Brave was a -good everyday cook and Alan occasionally took a couple of hours off to -chef up a New Orleans style banquet for two. The living room was lined -with books and the plastiglassed-in lounging quarters in the rear -held racks of pipes and a well-stocked bar. They were very comfortable -there. It was only a ten-minute walk from Alan's laboratory, and four -minutes' ride from the center of the colony. - -The colony was called Project Star. It was located on Long Island, -protected much as Oak Ridge had been in the '40s and '50s, and Project -Bellona in the early '60s; with electrified fences, and soldiers -carrying the latest weapons, and a ring of grotesque machinery all -around it, comprised of radar detectors and great ack-ack guns -and a number of generators that threw up a kind of primitive, -partly-effective force field. The force field would stop any aircraft -or at least cause it enough trouble to slow it down for the ack-ack. - -Of course the artificial satellite, Albertus (named in honor of Dr. -Einstein), kept a watchful telescope on Project Star. But in that -year of 1970 it seemed to most men that all the caution and secrecy -was overly dramatic. After the collapse of Soviet Russia a decade -before, from internal causes precipitated by the successful fixing -of the American-controlled satellite Albertus in the heavens, and -after the almost Carthaginian peace imposed on Argentina when its -dictator A-bombed London, the world had quieted down considerably. -America was top dog in the nations and her supervision of the science -of other countries left little possibility of successful attack or -even of effective sabotage within the many colonies which worked on -advancements in weapons and other civilized phenomena, and on space -flight. - - * * * * * - -Nearly everyone believed that the purpose of Project Star was to -construct "flying saucers" (the inadequate name had stuck through the -years) for use in reaching out to the other planets. Only the men who -were working there, and a few others in government and in the military -forces, knew that the disks were not intended for extra-terrestrial -flight--there were rocket projects galore for that--but for journeys in -the atmosphere or slightly above it, at speeds incredible even in 1970. -The name Project Star had not been chosen to mislead anyone, but it -had done so and nobody bothered to correct the impression. Secrecy had -become an ingrained national habit in the past thirty-odd years. - -Dr. Alan Rackham was one of the scientists who worked on the problem of -fuel for the disks. He was not a member of the vastly important handful -who headed the colony and came equipped with everything sacred and -untouchable except halos, but he was considered of enough consequence -to rate a house of his own and an assistant who was also an efficient -bodyguard. This was Brave, whose proper name was John Kiwanawatiwa. - -Brave sat down in his own chair, a sturdy specially-built job, while -Alan called Dr. Getty on the visiphone to report the shooting. Brave -never sprawled out or slouched as his superior did. He sat straight, -a red-copper-colored man built to the scale of a Greek statue, about -half again life size. His arms and legs were tough as cable steel, -his chest a brawny barrel. He was a Navajo Indian, but his features -were more nearly those of a Sioux: a great finely-formed crag of a -nose, thin straight lips over white teeth, dark eyes that a hawk might -envy their piercing power, a wolf-trap jaw. His speech was that of an -M.S. of Carlisle and Oxford, except when he spoke with people he did -not know or like; then it became a parody of the nineteenth-century -storybook red man's gutteral discourse. At times, when he went with -Alan to meetings of the hierarchy (a few of whom, including Dr. Getty, -he cordially detested for their bland self-importance), he even wore a -bedraggled chicken feather sticking upright in his black hair, stood -behind Alan with folded arms and a fierce expression and confined his -remarks to "Ugh" and "Waugh." This gave both Alan and himself a great -deal of innocent pleasure. - -For Alan Rackham was also a rebel against stuffiness and conceit. -He was a perfectly normal-looking man, of slightly more than middle -height, thirty-one years old, handsome enough if you liked lean bony -features and unruly brown hair; his muscular development was so -unobtrusive that no one ever guessed he had been a Marine and won -himself a DSC in Argentina. He enjoyed his work at Project Star, for -he had a scientist's inquiring mind; but he liked even more the huge -Indian with whom he lived, the girl in the metallurgy section who wore -his engagement ring, and the book of rather impudent philosophy on -which he worked during his free evenings. - -He also loved a long drink, a thoughtful pipe, an involved practical -joke, and the moody Siamese cat, Unquote. - - * * * * * - -Now he turned from the visiphone, as the image of Dr. Getty faded out -on its screen, and he frowned at Brave. "Son," he said, "why would -anybody take a potshot at me?" - -"What does Doc Pomposity say about it?" rumbled the Indian. - -"Mainly blah, blah, blah." - -"Naturally," nodded Brave. "You know, sagamore, I think it's that -accident. There was something cockeyed about it.... I don't care -how shocked the fellow was, or how quickly the flame seared up and -anesthetized the wound; there should have been plenty of pain in that -hand. And he didn't even yip when it happened. He only looked peeved." - -"Getty says he never got to infirmary. No one has seen him at all." - -"Cockeyed," said Brave again. "The whole thing's a muddle." He stared -at Alan. "Boss, I have an instinct that warns me we're in for trouble." - -"That's an instinct? When I get shot at, this gives you an instinct?" - -"The noble red man has an instinct," said Brave imperturbably, "which -sits in his belly and beats on a tomtom when trouble's coming. I don't -mean ghastly wounds that don't make men cry out, or even lunatics -laying for you thereafter--and there's a connection between the two, -that's sure. But I mean big trouble. There's something in the air. I -can't quite catch it, but it's been there for a long time. Weeks and -months, sirdar." - -"You've been reading the thesaurus again. You know more synonyms for -'master' than Roget. You mean this seriously, Brave? About trouble?" He -had a respect for the Indian's intuition which was based half on his -anthropological knowledge of the weird powers of certain older races, -and half on pure human superstition; at times when Brave made his -predictions, Alan felt as though a gypsy crone had passed by him and -whispered some incantation in his ear. - -"I mean it, Alan. And the damned instinct has never been wrong yet. -It's beating in my guts right now like it did at Campana just before -hell broke loose." - -"Well, batten down the hatches, then," said Alan resignedly, while the -hair on the back of his neck prickled and tried to stand up. "It's got -itself off to a fine start, your trouble. My tailor will never be able -to mend this jacket." - -"Why don't you cook us some oysters Rockefeller and lobster thermidor -and all that Frenchified goop you brew up?" suggested Brave. "If we're -in for afflictions, we may as well meet 'em with pleasantly full -stomachs." - -"Right. While I'm at it, you write a report of the incident--of both of -them--and sign my name. Getty'll never know the difference. He thinks -you haven't mastered Basic English yet." - -"Ugh," said Brave. "Noble red man will inscribe li'l pictures on -birchbark for medicine man, while medicine man raises cain in frozen -food locker. Don't get that sauce too thin this time, patriarch. I -can't bear watery sauce on my lobsters." - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -Next morning, while Alan was still dressing and yawning, and Brave -was clattering skillets in the kitchen, humming the _allegro con -passionato_ movement from "Hard Hearted Hannah the Vamp of Savannah," -the door chimes bonged softly. Brave went to the spywindow, surveyed -the caller, and shifted his grenade pistol to a handier position before -opening the door. A stranger stood on the threshold. - -"Ichabod Crane," said Brave to himself, and aloud, "Yes?" - -"Ah," said the stranger, "you would be the tough egg with the -unpronounceable name. Greetings, chieftain." - -"How," said Brave with a straight face. "You want-um audience with -great sachem?" - -"That I do, Lo." - -"Oh, gad," groaned the Indian, "if I hear that weary old jest once -more I'll burst into tears and die. Come in, comedian. Dr. Rackham's -dressing." - -"Thanks. Forgive me for the godawful gag, friend. I haven't eaten -breakfast yet and an empty stomach plays the devil with my sense of -humor." He rattled over to a chair and sat down. At least, thought -Brave, closing the door, you expected him to rattle. He was the longest -and thinnest bag of bones ever seen on Long Island. Fully six feet -eight, he was lean from the top of his narrow skull, which was covered -by an inch-long mat of straight stiff blond hair, to the soles of his -number twelve feet. If he had any fat in him at all it must have been -a very lonesome blob of fat indeed, well camouflaged and utterly alone -in a wilderness of stringy muscle, meager sinew, and shaving-slender -bones. His green eyes, perpetually half-lidded on either side of a nose -like the prow of a Chinese junk, were humorous and sharp and as bright -as polished emeralds. - -Brave said to himself, Here is a shrewd customer, who isn't one-tenth -the fool he appears to be. - -"You don't have an appointment with Dr. Rackham." - -"No, I don't. A plump little meathead called Getty over at the central -offices said he'd be here, and I popped over on the chance. I want to -inveigle him onto a TV program of mine." - -"Dr. Rackham is a busy man." - -"So is President Blose of the U.S. of A., but _he_ came on the program, -Lo. Pardon me," said the man, "there I go again. It's second nature. I -don't mean to offend, but I was a disk jockey once. Look, friend, my -name is Jim McEldownie. I'm _Worlds of Portent_ McEldownie." - -"I'm _Lashings of Victuals_ Kiwanawatiwa, and my eggs are scorching," -said Brave, going out to the kitchen. "The books are counted, so are -the pipes, and the first editions are booby-trapped. Don't get ideas." - -"Injun, I could grow to love you," said McEldownie. "Listen, seriously, -don't you ever watch TV?" - -"I do not." - -"That explains it. Existing in the dark like this, you wouldn't have -heard of me. I run this klatch, see, called _Worlds of Portent_, onto -which I entice various important and pseudo-important characters, and -there I cajole and browbeat and query till they tell me all sorts of -fascinating lies, and the public laps it up like a bunch of silly -cats." - - * * * * * - -Unquote, the Siamese, rose out of her hygienic playbox and gave him a -frozen glare. He recoiled. "My God," he said, "I seem to be offending -everyone this morning. Forgive me, puss." - -Unquote snarled and collapsed in a boneless pile of beautiful fur. Alan -stuck his head into the room and said, "Where do you classify me?" - -"Huh? Oh, hallo, Doc. You're important. Anybody from Project Star -is important. Whether the same can be said for those officials of -our mighty government who have gasped and babbled and turned blue on -_Portent_, I'm not one to declare. How about it, Doc? Will you appear?" - -"Talking about what? Fuel? That's all I really know." - -"If you can talk for thirteen minutes about it, without violating any -regulations or giving away secrets, I want you. Fuel is hot stuff with -the space-minded John Q." - -"What do you think, Brave? Should we do it?" - -Brave said, "Too much time and no fun, that's how it sounds to me." - -"Oh, I don't know. I've never been on the air." - -"Please," said McEldownie, shuddering like a leafless willow in a high -wind. "The phrase is 'on the space.' Air belongs to that outmoded, -decadent, but apparently deathless medium called radio. There, I've -said it. Have you got any mouth-washing soap?" - -"A positive Hilton Boil," said Brave in the kitchen. "A real yokked-up -comic. Wait till I've fed him and we'll hurl him out." - -"All right," said Alan, "I'll do it. I'm a ham at heart. When do you -want me?" - -"Tomorrow night at eight vacant?" - -"As vacant as--" he was going to say "Dr. Getty's head," but caught -himself in time. The TV man's flippancy was contagious. "Quite vacant. -Give Brave the directions and we'll be there." - -Brave said, "Breakfast is on. There are three plates and food for two. -I hope you eat lightly, Mr. Portent." - -"McEldownie, but call me Jim. I eat like a bird." - -The bird, thought Alan half an hour later, must be a starving turkey -buzzard; he sighed and stood up. "We're due at work, Jim. See you at -eight tomorrow, then?" - -"Seven-fifteen. I have to brief you. Cheers, gentlemen. Apologize to -the cat for me. I insulted it a while back and it's been burning holes -in my neck ever since." He took himself off, still with the illusion of -rattling bonily. Alan and Brave washed up and strolled down to their -laboratory. - -Nothing happened that day or the next, save for a thorough search for -the missing welder, which turned up no trace of him. At seven-fifteen -the two friends walked into the TV studio in Manhattan. - -"Hi," said McEldownie, waving a long hand. "Sit down and let's gurgle -about fuel." They did so. At one point the lean man said, "An idea. -What if Brave were to stand behind you all through the program? It'd -look impressive as hell. Sinister Indian guards scientist even on -national hookup. 'No precaution too elaborate for our men,' says head -of Project Star. How about it?" - -Alan looked at Brave. He would not expose his friend to stupid -ridicule. Brave winked. "Okay," said Alan. "But no gags." - -"Abso-bloody-lutely. Play it for gravity. Show people that there is -danger connected with the business. And I think there is," he added -solemnly. - -Alan stared. "Why do you say that?" - -"I don't mean the TV, I mean your work out on Long Island. You can't -tell me that nobody in the world wishes our country any ill, chum. We -have enemies just as we always have had. Why else the ack-ack and force -screens?" - -Alan did not answer. He thought of Brave's prediction of trouble, and -he was more impressed with this lanky comedian than he had been before -that moment. - - * * * * * - -Thirty seconds before the program time he sat down at the round table -opposite McEldownie, and Brave took up a forbidding posture behind his -chair. - -His host began to speak, and suddenly Alan realized why the tall blond -irrepressible fellow had been trusted with a program of such gravity -as _Worlds of Portent_. As the cameras rolled and the brilliant lights -came on, the jester's motley dropped away from him and was replaced by -a cloak of earnest sobriety. His fantastic appearance heightened the -seriousness; it was as shocking and thought-producing as if a scarecrow -had begun to talk Schopenhauer. - -He knew precisely how much to say; when to sit back and let Alan do a -monologue, and when to interrupt with a pertinent question. He was a -genius at his work. - -And then, perhaps four or five minutes after the telecast had begun, -Alan became aware of two things, each quite extraordinary. First, Brave -had disappeared. Alan glanced back over his shoulder and found the -Indian had vanished. The lights were so bright that his vision did not -extend to the walls of the studio, so he presumed that his friend was -still there somewhere; but he had left the range of the cameras. And -secondly, something was happening to Alan's mind. - -He tried to analyze the trouble, but he could not do it. He could only -touch a few salient points of it; the fact that although he was talking -very learnedly, and with (so far as he could tell) lucidity and vigor, -_he_ was not controlling his tongue in the least. It was almost like -being drunk; there seemed to be a small entity perched on the root -of his tongue who was pulling the strings of speech. But whereas the -drunken entity was malicious and got him into all sorts of rows and -riots, this particular sprite was doing what seemed a fine job for him. -He knew quite well that he himself was not forming or directing the -words he spoke. It was unpleasant, to say the least. - -And there was something else. His mind, freed of necessity to -concentrate on the program, was somewhere off in space, listening -intently ... listening to a voice from without and within, a voice -that inhabited the cold wastes of time and infinity as well as the -bone-bounded sphere of his brain. - -_Listen to me, Alan Rackham_, said the voice. Wordlessly, yet with -words, from the farthest stretches of the galaxies and still existing -in the core of his own intellect, cold as hoarfrost, hot as berserker's -rage, gentle and persuasive as a doting mother, the voice said to him, -_Listen to me_. - - * * * * * - -He would not listen. It was good and evil both together, and if he -listened he would die. Yet it was said he would live. He would live -forever; if time can be measured in terms of endlessness, he would not -die. But he knew he would die. He struggled. The cameras picked up no -hint of the travail. His face was intense and good-humored and his -words were intelligent; and all the while he fought with the voice and -would not listen. He fought it for an hour, and for a month, and till -the end of the world came and beyond, and it spoke to him, fire and ice -in the same words, but without words, and then he began to listen to it. - -At this point six minutes of the telecast had gone by. - -_You are listening now_, said the voice. _You are listening, are you -not?_ - -_I'm listening, God curse you._ - -_I am taking you, Alan Rackham, as a bear takes a lamb, as a man takes -a woman, as a hand takes a glove and the glove takes the hand._ - -_I understand, curse you. Take me._ - -_I am older than your whole race, and wiser than its cumulative wisdom, -and I come from the stars._ - -_Of course, you come from the stars. You are myself, and I understand -you, friend._ - -_Yes, I am yourself, wiser and stronger and older and beyond you in -every way, and I am you. You are my servant, my slave, and myself._ - -_Certainly, master. Why do you tell me things I have always known?_ - -_You are not obeying when you follow me, for you follow yourself, you -who are now me._ - -_You are God, are you not?_ said Alan in his mind. _The Buddhists are -right._ - -_No. Not God. I am the atom and I am the intergalactic void, you and -me and everything right and wrong. Have you learned your lesson?_ - -_It is a lesson I knew in the womb._ - -_Now you are mine_, said the voice, approving without an iota's loss of -the flame and frost of hatred and love blended flawlessly. - -_This is a pleasure beyond pleasure, sensation far above sensation. -This is maelstrom descent and flying into the sun. This is the keenness -of sexual transport to the nth power. I live for you._ - -_Now you have it. Never forget it._ - -_Never!_ swore Alan. - -_Now forget it._ - -_I have forgotten it._ - -_Now what do you have to do for me?_ - -_Whatever it is you wish._ - -_Truly you are mine. Now you have forgotten me._ - -_I have forgotten._ - -_Who am I?_ - -_Who are you?_ asked Alan, perplexed. - -_Truly you have forgotten. What have you to say?_ - -"So the problem of most importance confronting us then was, how can we -carry enough of this fuel to get us to the moon and back? It took us -seven years to solve that one, but as everyone knows, we did. Then Van -Horne discovered the hitherto unknown properties of--" he was talking -blithely, almost by rote, for this was history-book stuff; and there -had never been any sprite guiding his tongue at all, nor any voiceless -voice in the bitterness of the eternal chasm between the stars and -there was no memory anywhere in his consciousness of such things, nor -any lingering discomfortable feeling that he had known a thing now -forgotten.... - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -They were driving out Queens Boulevard toward the colony, and Alan -said, "Why did you leave, Brave? Where'd you go?" - -The great Indian spun the wheel for a curve. "Just back to the wall." - -"Why?" - -"Lights were too bright for my eyes." - -Alan stared at him. "You could out-gaze the sun, you pokerfaced liar, -and you know it. Why did you leave?" - -Brave glanced over at him. "Caliph, I hate to go on sounding like a -spae-wife, or the Witch of Endor. But never in all my life have I had -such a succession of ominous bodings. You'll think I'm turning raven in -my old age--" - -"No, damn it, Brave, I know you can smell danger a mile or a month -away. Go ahead." - -"Quoth the raven, then. I didn't feel happy about standing there. -Before we started, it seemed like a good quiet joke. But when we were -there and the lights came on, and the cameras started, I suddenly had -to step back out of sight. I _had_ to, Alan. A couple of my ghostly -ancestors took me by the scruff and hauled me right away from there." - -"That would have made a nice tableau on TV." - -Brave chuckled deep in his chest. "Running Lizard and Pony Sees-the-Sky -saving John Kiwanawatiwa from the white man's magic ... I laugh, -viceroy, but I swear it felt like that. The old desert-spawned -blood--the blood that doesn't tame down--boiled up under those lights -and cameras. It pulled the civilized flesh and bones away from them. -It whispered that things were wrong, wrong for an Indian and wrong for -his friend." He stepped on the gas viciously and the MG spurted forward -onto the Union Turnpike like a turpentined hound. "Alan, I almost -yanked you up and walked off with you under my arm. I didn't like you -sitting there in the bath of electrical magic." - -"Why didn't you do it?" asked Alan curiously. - -"Oh, hell, boss man. It's one thing to have these primeval urges, and -another to forget all your technical training and scientific knowledge -so completely that you'll follow the impulse. Do you bust a window -every time you'd like to?" - -"Hmm." Alan was ill at ease. It seemed to him for a moment that there -was something to Brave's instinct, and that he should have been -snatched from those lights. Then he said, "I think it's merely that -someone had a shot at me the other day, and you've fretted over that -till you're seeing assassins behind every chair." - -"Maybe. Maybe." Brave rocketed the little car along the dark highway, -across the miles to home, and all the while the tomtoms beat in his -blood and he knew that he should be afraid, that he should be coldly -and sanely afraid of some black hazard soon to come. - - * * * * * - -Don Mariner walked into their laboratory the following afternoon. He -was one of the top engineers on Project Star, a youngish-middle-aged -man running to flab and ever-thinning hair. Ordinarily good-humored, -today he had a long face and a crease between his eyes. Without a word -he spread a sheaf of blueprints and photostats out on a lab table. Alan -and Brave bent over them. Don's stubby finger traced the outline of a -flying disk, then stabbed at the fuel storage tanks and several other -sections of the interior. - -"Look at this, you two. I've had it under my nose for three months and -it never struck me till today. Just look at it. See anything wrong?" - -After a moment Alan said, "The fuel tanks are too big." - -"My God! You ought to be the engineer instead of me. I ought to hire -out for a potato peeler. Three months it took me to see it." - -"What's the point of it?" asked Brave. "If the disks are going to -use hornethylene, they won't need a tenth--not a hundredth that much -storage space, even if they want to circle the earth a dozen times -without landing." - -"Here's another thing," said Don Mariner. "This closet for space suits. -Why? The stratosphere is the highest they're supposed to go, and -there's no need for space suits there. You want a space suit to crawl -around the outside of Albertus, but not to wear in a disk. If there's -trouble outside the shell you will simply land. Now look at these -instruments." He showed them another chart. "Are these instruments for -earth travel?" - -"I don't know. Are they?" - -"They are not. And also they're not the instruments Carey designed for -the disks last year. They're a new set entirely, and some of 'em I -don't understand myself, but I'll tell you this: they're not for earth -travel. They're what you'd want in a space rocket." He looked up, his -gray eyes bleak. "I faced Carey with 'em, and he swears they're his old -design; and Carey doesn't lie in the ordinary course of events. But -they're not, and I know it." - -"What's the point?" asked Alan. The question was almost rhetorical; he -knew the answer. - -"The point is, these disks we're building are supposed to be purely -and simply a faster means of traveling around Terra than any we have -now. But the man in the street, that faceless brainless little cipher, -believes they're for conquering the stars. And by Judas, he's right! -We're building interplanetary disks--_and we're not supposed to know -it_!" - -The three men stared at one another. - -"Who's keeping it from us?" - -"And why?" - -"There are plenty of rocket projects--so what if someone wants to -try a space disk instead? Why would he tell all his scientists and -technicians a pack of lies? There's no need for secrecy, for God's -sake!" - -"But--my gosh," protested Alan, "no one man could keep a thing like -this from all the rest of us. There must be ten or twenty who know. -And details like these, the fuel tanks and instruments, they can't be -hidden from anybody!" - -"So where does it lead us?" - -"Up a narrow, dank, and ill-smelling blind alley," said Brave. - -"Not so bl--" - - * * * * * - -There was a detonation outside the lab; a harsh, clangorous thunderclap -of a sound, like the bursting of a bomb full of wash tubs and -anchor chains. The three men were dashing for the door before the -reverberations had died away. - -A disk had crashed on the airfield. Brave and Alan and Don piled into a -jeep and raced down toward it. - -"I didn't know they had any ready for use," Alan shouted. - -"Oh, yes. They haven't advertised it much, though. And this must be -the first test flight. I didn't know it was coming off today." - -"You'd think we'd all have been invited to the takeoff. Big impressive -show, faithful workers get afternoon off, and all that." - -"Hell," said Don, "if they're keeping the purpose of the things from -us, for no good reason that I can see, they might want to keep the test -flight secret too." - -"How can they keep it secret? It obviously had to take off in plain -sight, and they couldn't shoo everyone indoors. No, I guess they just -didn't give a damn about us. Underlings, unimportant servants, that's -us," said Alan bitterly, with a flash prevision of the terrible idea -that would soon be obsessing him. - -They pulled up beside the wreckage of the disk. There was no danger of -explosion, due to the peculiar properties of hornethylene. The giant -platter, with its raised top like a hot-dish cover and its bubble of -clear crystal beneath, lay crumpled and bent, one-third of its whole -edge accordioned in upon itself. Even as they came up the crystal -bubble inched open; not smoothly, as it should have done, but like a -damp-swollen door creaks away from its frame under heavy pressure. The -pilot thrust his legs out and dropped to the ground. Alan and a dozen -others ran to him. - -"Hi," said he. "Guess I pulped this job up right." - -"Good Lord, man, are you okay?" - -"Not a nick. I just had time to see the ground coming up at me and -bingo, I was sitting there with my eyes popping. Anybody got a drink?" -He was cut to the pattern of all airmen since the days of monoplanes: -tall, narrow of hip and wide of shoulder, lean always-tanned face, a -wry grin on the mouth and horizon-hunger in the eyes. - -Somebody gave him a flask. "Were you alone?" asked Alan. - -"Sure. They can't risk two guys in these things yet. We don't know what -they'll do. This one'll take some going over with a microscope and -tweezers; it's full of bugs. Someone jockey me to the main offices?" - -The crowd dispersed slowly; but Brave, putting an urgent hand on Alan's -arm--it enfolded his biceps and the fingertips met the thumb, for -Brave's hands were as outsize as the rest of him--held him there. "Wait -a minute, risaldar. I want to check something." - -"Another instinct, Brave?" - -"Plain horse sense. And I want to check it before the big boys clamp a -top secret sign on this wreck." - -He reached up and gripped the edge of the crystal bubble. It resisted -him. He set his muscles and tugged with all his incredible strength. -The crushed metal hinges complained and shrieked and parted, and the -great bulbous sheet of plastiquartz fell to the ground, narrowly -missing him as he dodged back. - -"I'll boost you up, and you can give me a hand." - - * * * * * - -Inside the disk, they crouched and went through the tunnel into the -control room. This comprised the entire central portion of the disk; -suspended within the shell, like a small kernel in a large nut, it -was held comparatively steady as the outer husk rocked and rolled -and flipped in its characteristic skipped-rock flight. Alan did not -understand the principle of this near-motionless suspension of the -control room within an erratically weaving hull, although Don Mariner -had tried to explain it to him in patient two-syllable words. It -involved a knowledge of the newest developments in gyroscopics, which -the young fuel expert did not comprehend. Brave had a fairly good -idea of the basic laws involved, but wisely had never tried to beat -it into his friend's head. Alan on fuel, on chemistry, on philosophy, -was superb; Alan on dynamics or any other branch of mechanics was -deplorable. - -They looked around the room. Nearly all the equipment was still in -its place, for the clamps that held it during the astonishing speeds -the disk could maintain in flight had held it still in the shattering -instant of the crash. But the entire control board, the panels of -instruments and the wide mirrors that gave the pilot a view of the -earth and air from every angle, had all been shoved back and broken -when the saucer had struck its nose edge into the ground. - -Brave walked over to the pilot's seat and stood silently surveying the -mess. At last he said, "Alan." - -"Yes?" - -"Look here." - -Alan looked, and started as though he had been stabbed with a -hypodermic needle. "God ..." he said. - -The control board had buckled back against the pilot's chair; something -beyond it, some ponderously heavy piece of machinery in the space -between central room and shell, had knifed through wall and board as -sharp and deadly as the blade of a guillotine. The metal had sliced the -center of the pilot's seat to within six inches of the back. - -No man could have sat there at the moment of the crash, as the pilot -averred he had done. - -He would never have lived. He would have been cut in two.... - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -That night Alan and Brave rode across Project Star to the women's -building, where Alan's fiancee, Win Gilmore had a small apartment. -Win--short for Winifred, and God help the man who called her -_that_--opened the door before the sound of the diacoustic bell had -died away. - -The first thing that struck you about Win was color: she looked as -though she had been put together by a Bergdorf Goodman display artist -with a genius for analogous chromas. Her hair was washed in a pale -aquamarine and dusted over with luminous flecks of mauve; it was -drawn back to the crown and clasped there by an abstract spiral of -silver, from which it fell in darkening waves down her naked back. Her -nylon jersey lounging outfit, cut with almost severe simplicity, was -graduated from pink to a deep violet hue. Her finger and toe nails were -lacquered with phosphorescent sapphire, and the lashes of her blue eyes -were dyed with mascara of the same glowing shade. - -Her skin was a soft golden color, thanks to half an hour a day under -the sun lamps of the colony's gymnasium. - -"How, oh squaw of rainbow brilliance," said Brave, holding up a hand in -grave salute. "I leave this warrior in your keeping, whilst I shuffle -down to the recroom and squander a few bucks on the pinball machines." - -"How, oh mountain that walks. Will you have a slug of Scotch first?" - -"The noble red man, pampering his internal workin's, drinks only rum -this week. No thanks, Win. The gambling fever's got me. See you." - -Alan closed the door behind him and took Win into his arms. He kissed -her, gently at first, then hard, their lips parted, warm on each -other as their bodies warmed, his hands strong and taut on her back; -he smoothed his fingers down the hollow of her spine, ran them up -into her soft hair. She said against his mouth, "You demolish that -toilsomely-wrought thatch, boy, and I'll demolish you." He laughed and -pushed her away and lit a cigarette, stray flecks of mauve from her -hair glittering on his fingers. - -She went to the low cocktail table and picked up an already filled -glass. He took it from her. "Here's atomic dust in yer eye, -Winniefred," he toasted, and drank long and thirstily. - -"Whoa, Nellie. Haven't you drunk anything today?" - -"Only the dregs of woe," he said lightly, and then his lean face -changed and his eyes looked into a remote place which they did not -like. At once she touched his arm. - -"Sit down, Alan." He did so automatically, and she perched -tailor-fashion on the edge of the couch beside him. "What's the matter?" - -"I wish I knew." - -"Just the blues? You been skipping meals? That always makes you -ethereal and moody. I'd as soon have Unquote with a toothache around -the place as you after you've missed your lunch." - -"No, not the blues. Big trouble, sweetheart, that's been exploding -right and left with no rhyme to it. I've thought so much about it in -the last few hours that I doubt if I can even talk about it now." - - * * * * * - -Then, of course, he told her everything: beginning with the welder's -accident and eerie lack of pain, then the shot from the bushes, Brave's -indefinite fears climaxing at the telecast, Don Mariner's discovery -of the undreamt-of potentials of the disks, the crack-up ending the -almost-furtive test flight, and the pilot who lived when he should have -been butchered, Alan brought it all out; and as he listened to his own -words a dreadful idea was born and grew and expanded throughout his -intellect until suddenly he knew that here was his answer, that no -other could be rationally accepted. He sat silently for minutes, while -Win watched him, and gradually the color swept out of his face and he -began to shiver. - -She put the glass into his hand. He drained off the last of the drink, -and she clicked open a deep drawer of the cocktail table and gave him -another, freshly mixed at a touch of her finger on the emerald stud of -the drawer. - -"What is it, Alan? You've seen something in it, some connection between -these events. What is it?" - -He took a shuddering breath through open lips and said, "Yes, I know. I -know what we have to fight." - -"Fight? You mean there are enemies? You can deduce that from--" - -"My God, yes, there are enemies." He turned, to fix her with a glare -like a lunatic's. "Listen, Win. We all have the desire to go out to the -other planets, and to the stars beyond our system. We've built a score -of rocket projects all over the continent because of that desire. It's -no secret, everyone has it. Right?" - -"Sure, darling. Even I want to see--well, Mars, anyway." - -"But here are these disks, too good, too damned good by far, possibly -capable of doing just that; and the government and most of us have -thought they were only for earth travel. Why? Who would want to build -ships for interplanetary, or even for all I know interstellar-space -flight, and keep it hidden from the rest of mankind?" - -"Russia?" she suggested humbly. - -"Oh, nuts. You might as well say Switzerland. No, it's here at home, on -Project Star, and it's a handful or more than a handful of our own top -men. - -"Now the other angle: there are men here who apparently can't be hurt -by ordinary means, who don't feel pain, who can resist the force of -such a weapon as a thousand-pound cutlass-edged juggernaut, and who -only stare quietly when their hands are melted off like butter in a -flame." - -"Yes?" - -"Put the two together, Win. Remember that after I'd seen one evidence -of this lack of pain, I was ambushed. Someone thought I ought to die -before I spread the word around. Who?" - -"Well, who?" - -He drank again and lit a cigarette. The lighter shook in his hand. -"There's only one answer I can see," he said. "Correct me if I'm crazy, -baby. There are mutants among us. We've been anticipating them in -fiction for decades. Now they're here, and they want to reach the stars -before we do, they want to pass unnoticed until they're ready to--to -take over, or whatever their purpose is." - -"Mutants, Alan?" - -"The natural progression from Homo Sapiens. Homo superior. The -supermen." - - * * * * * - -She slid a pointer across its bar two notches and pressed the emerald -button and the table delivered a dry Martini, which she sipped as she -regarded him steadily. At last she said, "Is that the sole possibility, -sweetheart? Isn't it a pretty wild explanation to accept on the -evidence of a couple of queer accidents?" - -"I don't think so," he said gruffly. "No, blast it, I don't think it's -too wild. It's perfectly possible, and it fits the facts." - -"Your Homo superior must be about as fallible as poor old sapiens then, -because he's let his secrets out with a vengeance. I'd think that -anyone smarter than we are would at least simulate pain after his hand -was burnt off." - -"That was a slip-up, yes. But he didn't know anyone was watching." - -"Homo superior must have a low opinion of our intelligence, or he -wouldn't have let those blueprints get into our hands." - -"The progression of the disks' manufacture has come to the point where -he couldn't help it, I suppose. And maybe by now it doesn't matter. -Don's had those fuel tank charts for three months, because it was -necessary that he work on aspects of construction so close to the tanks -that it was impossible to falsify them. But he only saw the instrument -panel plans this morning. As I said, maybe it doesn't matter now. If -the disks are near enough ready to be taking test flights, maybe the -mutants are going to step out in the open." - -"Then why would they shoot at you?" - -"Hell, I don't know. Perhaps they'll publish the purpose of the disks -without mentioning their own roles, as secret designers and builders -and as creatures that can't be hurt. They could say 'security reasons' -and get away with a lot." - -"It's an explanation, all right," said Win. "I don't swallow it, boy, -but it does fit the facts. So do all sorts of other weird theories." - -"Such as?" - -"Ah, you don't want my ideas. They're as mad as your own." She leaned -over the arm of the couch and touched several glowing spots on its -outer surface; at once the illumination of the room cooled and faded. -The forest green walls, complimentary to her own coloring and to the -clothing she wore, appeared to recede and become the dark depths of -a woodland on a moonless night; the furniture seemed to change into -moss-grown stumps and great misshapen rocks. Overhead, the ceiling -turned dusky blue under the play of hidden tint-beams, and miniature -galaxies twinkled and gleamed across its surface, their varying -incandescence giving the illusion of tridimensional infinity. - -Alan set down his glass and looked over at her. She was a shape of -nocturnal secrecy, sinuous darkness against which her nails and -eye-lashes burned with phosphorescent sapphire. Her use of the luminous -lacquer was an artful bit of technique. It made her into a fantastic -mystery which cried out to be solved. Although Alan had seen the -trick before, he could never resist it. It was unbelievable that the -sober girl in a shapeless smock who sweated in the metallurgy lab was -also this Cleopatra, this shadowy temptress; Troy's exquisite Helen, -yearning for love, her strong enchantments designed to make her both -conqueror and conquest. - - * * * * * - -Forgetting the half-smoked cigarette between his fingers, forgetting -the supermen and everything else but his physical craving, he threw -himself down on the wide couch beside her. His hands touched the live -softness of the halter and slid to her back. The sweet strong muscles -glided under his fingers as she lifted her arms to take his face -between her hands. Then his hands went down from flesh to fabric and he -felt her long body pressing tight against him, close as his own skin. - -He opened his eyes and saw the glowing purple of her lashes and in the -thick gloom the dimmed luster of her teeth between the parted lips. He -kissed her and closed his eyes again. He touched her throat, where the -blood throbbed close to the surface in a fast steady rhythm; he found -other pulses and held his fingertips on them until his own caught their -beat and merged with it and the separate throbbings were one. - -It was dark, then very dark, the dark of a sunless sea lapping all -about them, and slowly it grew lighter and he was sitting up to run his -fingers through his unmanageable hair and remember that some time ago -he had been holding a cigarette. - -"Hey," he said, "what happened to my Rocketeer?" - -Win stretched out a lazy arm and brought the lights up once more. "Sure -you didn't put it out?" - -"I swear I didn't. My God, here it is," he said, picking it off the -couch where it had been smashed and its tobacco scattered. "What did I -stub that out on?" - -"Probably the couch. It doesn't matter, it's resistant." - -He looked carefully but could find no place where a cigarette's fire -might have been crushed. He shrugged. "So long as I didn't burn you, -baby." - -"You didn't." She had the automatic table mix them two cocktails. -"There's Brave back from the recroom," she said. - -"Ears like a fennec," he said admiringly. "I didn't hear anything." - -"Watch it, brother. I know what a fennec's ears look like." She went to -open the door for the big Indian. "How'd you do, Brave?" - -"Gambled away a dollar and seventy-five cents in a reckless passion. -Are you ready to go home, sheikh?" - -"Yes, I am. I have a theory I want to talk about." - -"You argue him out of it, Brave," said Win. "He's been working too -hard. He thinks supermen are after him." - -Brave looked at Alan and his fine face grew hard and set. -"Supermen ..." he said. "Mutants. Alan, is that it?" - -"I think that's it." - -"It fits the picture, all right." - -"It explains every instance we've observed." - -"I believe you're on the right track," nodded Brave. "When did you find -it?" - -"While I was telling Win about it. Let's go home and thrash it out, -son. She's a disturbing influence." - -Brave eyed Win up and down with a leer that on anyone else would have -been particularly lewd and lascivious. From the faithful Brave it -was merely what he meant it to be--a piece of mild buffoonery. "You -understate the case, my liege. Yon woman has a plump and supple look; -she wriggles too much, such minxes are dangerous. Let's drag tail." - -"Okay, boys. Go knock your steel-plated skulls together. But remember -that I think you're barking up an impossible tree at an invisible -possum what ain't thar." She swung the door open for them and stood -aside, one arm upraised with the hand on the jamb. - -Alan kissed her a light farewell, and Brave patted her on the head and -said, "Ketch-um sleep, squaw, you look bushed." Then, as Alan turned -away, his glance was caught by a mark on Win's arm. It was a round -blemish, an angry-looking red welt to the edges of which still clung -infinitesimal flakes of gray ash smudged into the skin. He turned away -and walked down the corridor with Brave at his side, and he thought -ferociously of every possibility he could imagine, but his mind always -came back to the same answer. - -It was a burn, just such a small wound as would result, say, from a -cigarette being pressed out against the arm by an oblivious lover. - -And it should have been shockingly painful. - -But Win had not felt it at all.... - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -Alan awoke after an hour of nightmare-ridden sleep. He opened his eyes -and got quietly out of bed and put on his tweed suit and a pair of -loafers, and walked out of the house without disturbing the slumber of -Brave. - -He went down to the main road and walked along it in the moonlight -toward a distant group of buildings. Presently a soldier stepped into -his path. - -"Halt and identify yourself." - -"I am Dr. Alan Rackham of Fuel Research. My security number is -A10C14B44." - -The soldier looked at him a moment and then his eyes glittered. "Pass, -friend," he said, and standing aside he watched Alan go on toward the -buildings. There was a cynical smile on the soldier's mouth. - -Alan came to a squat flatroofed structure like a concrete shed. He -knocked on the door. It opened and he went in. One weak bulb burned in -a lamp. There was a tall man standing there in the shadows. He shook -hands with Alan. - -"Welcome, companion. Just sit down here." - -Alan seated himself on a stool. The other passed along two walls and in -succession a number of vivid lights flared out, bathing Alan in their -burning radiance. He did not blink, but looked steadily and fixedly -ahead. - -_Greetings_, said the voice. - -_Greetings, master._ - -_Are you happy to return to me?_ - -_I have never been away from you._ - -_That is true. Now I have things to tell you. You will not remember -them consciously tomorrow, but you will obey the commands and refuse to -do those things which I tell you are wrong. Understood?_ - -_Understood._ - -_Now first, slave_, said the voice coldly, anger piled on icy anger in -the dripping wordless thoughts: _you have decided that there are aliens -among you. A race of supermen, mutated from your own weak breed._ - -_Yes._ - -_That is untrue. Forget it._ - -_It is forgotten._ - -_Such an idea is foolishness._ - -_It is stupid_, said Alan, believing. - -_There are no aliens. There are neither supermen nor mutants. There -is no thinking race on earth but the genus Homo. The accidents are -unrelated; the welder a victim of shock, the pilot merely lucky._ - -_I see._ - -_The disks are under the supervision of the government, who wished to -keep their purpose secret until now._ - -_Security reasons_, said Alan in blind agreement. - -_There is only you and there is only me, I who am you, you who are me. -And this is our private knowledge and not to be spoken of._ - -_I would die rather than tell of it._ - -_Now you are mine again._ - -_Never anything else, master._ - -_Forget me._ - -_Forgotten._ - -_Go home._ - -_Of course._ - -Alan rose and passed out of the range of the lights, and the tall man -nodded with approval and began to switch off his terrible lamps. - - * * * * * - -Alan woke in the grayness of dawn, cramped and half-chilled from -sleeping in a chair. He stretched and groaned, and got up to brew some -coffee. Brave woke at the clinking of china and came padding out to the -kitchen. - -"Up so early, commodore? You look as if you hadn't slept." - -"I slept, all right, but it didn't do much good. My head's splitting." - -Brave took over the coffee pot. "Any more ideas on the mutant theory?" - -"Oh, hell. I guess I was wrong." - -Brave turned and looked at him. "Why do you say that?" - -"Well, look. The welder might have been suffering from shock. The pilot -was--just lucky. And the business of the disks can be explained by -obtuse government security regulations. And where does that leave our -precious superman notion? Out in the cold and wet." - -Brave shook his great head. "Huh-uh, son. More to it than that. Too -many coincidences spoil the broth; too many queer things happening -isn't right. I think you were on the trail of truth last night." - -"I was talking through my ear," said Alan irritably. - -Brave stared at him. A furrow appeared above the great hawk nose. He -bent and pushed Alan's head back and looked into his friend's eyes. -Alan tried to jerk his head away and Brave held it steady in the grip -of one tough fist. He lifted Alan's lids one after the other and -growled deep in his chest. - -"What the devil, Brave!" - -The Indian stood erect. "By the Great Spirit," he said. "Hypnotized!" - -"What in hell's name are you talking about?" - -"You've been hypnotized. Your pupils are swollen as big as grapes." - -"You're crazy." - -Brave regarded him equably. "Sure, tetrarch. Sure I'm crazy. Did you go -out last night?" - -"You were with me. What's wrong with you? We went to Win's." - -"I mean later, when I was asleep." - -"Certainly not. I did get up and go into the living room, though, and I -fell asleep in a chair." - -"Ah," said Brave. He considered a moment. "Watch the java, will you?" - -Alan nodded. The Indian went out of the kitchen. Alan heard him moving -things about in their little laboratory beside the plastiglassed -lounging quarters. In five minutes he returned. - -"Alan, you trust me, don't you?" - -"My God, do you have to be reassured on that? Ever since we marched -through Argentina together. Since Campana and Buenos Aires and that -hell of Pergamino. I'd trust you if you told me to jump into Lower Bay." - -"Okay. Now do me a favor." He gulped down a cup of scalding coffee. -"Drink up and come with me." - - * * * * * - -Alan drank obediently, and stood and followed Brave into the lab. -In a cleared space stood a pair of machines, looking somewhat like -giant cameras, the lens of one covered by a multicolored disk, that -of the other unshaded; there were plastic charts bolted to the sides, -and dials and several types of indicator, and among all these the -distinctive green and gold seal of the Institute of Psychotherapeutic -and Hypnotherapeutic Research. - -Alan balked. "Hold on, Brave! You aren't going--" - -"You said you trust me. Do it now if never again. Sit down." - -"No!" he shouted. He was not quite sure of his reasons, but he knew he -must not be hypnotized. - -Brave moved to shut him off from the door. "You'll sit there if I have -to knock you out, boss." - -Alan saw he was not joking. He said, "Where did you get the machines, -Brave?" - -"Had 'em around for years. I've always been intrigued by hypnosis, you -know that. In fact you knew I had the machines. Will you sit down?" - -"What are you going to do?" - -"Damn it, you're sparring for time. If you think--" - -Alan swung on him without warning, a lashing buffet that could have -broken a lesser man's neck; Brave took it square on the side of his -jaw and staggered back, shaking his head. Then he caught Alan's coat -as the smaller man leaped for the door. He swept him around by the -coat like a yo-yo on a string, and judging his blow as carefully and -dispassionately as an old champion measures an upstart contender, he -rammed his big fist into Alan's belly just below the ribs. It jolted -Alan back and doubled him over and made him blind with agony. He could -not breathe. There was no air left in his lungs and he could not suck -any into them. He was going to die. He wanted to die. He was dying. - -Brave dropped him, unresisting, into the chair and tied him down with a -few turns of a light rope. "Son," he said, "I know that wasn't you that -socked me, it was whatever creeping louse got to you last night. I'll -apologize later for smacking you ... if you want me to." He went to his -machines and began to turn dials and adjust gauges, and move pointers -on the graduated scales. He tipped Alan's head up and clamped it firmly -in the vise-like apparatus which rose from the chair's back. Alan was -groggy, his breath now hissing in and out between clenched teeth. -Brave went on talking. - -"I could have knocked you out, and it wouldn't have hurt nearly as -much; but I wanted you awake. That pain may help, too. Rob Pope -was saying something the other day about intense pain being an aid -in nullifying the effects of hypnosis, when allied, that is, with -counter-hypnosis. We'll see. Take it easy, pup." - -Your technical training could be a deterrent factor, thought Brave; you -may be able to oppose the mechanical-visual patterns successfully. I -hope not. It doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of time left to us, -and I want you back on my side. - - * * * * * - -He focused the lens of one machine on Alan's half-open eyes and -pressed a button. Light began to flicker across the agonized face, -its color changing from second to second. Brave cut in the other beam -and white light that shifted its form even as the first shifted color -lanced through the blue and red and yellow. Alan shut his eyes, but -immediately opened them again. - -"You can't resist it," said Brave quietly. "You don't want to resist -it. You like the pretty lights." The voice was an important stimulus -too. "Your mind is conditioned to taking orders, isn't it, son? -Somebody's been giving you evil commands. You don't like that. You'd -rather listen to me." The weird patterns of the light beams held -Alan's dull gaze. He was already adrift in a flashing vacuum. Brave's -voice came to him slurred and without sense. Gradually he began to hear -the words. - -"Somebody hypnotized you last night, didn't they, son?" - -"Yes. I think they did." - -"Who did it?" - -"I don't know. A tall man." - -"Do you know his name?" - -"I couldn't see his face very well." - -"What did he tell you?" - -There was a long silence. Then Alan, his face contorted, said, "He -didn't tell me anything. He only put on the lights. They were vivid as -sin. Then there was a voice." - -"What did the voice say? You can tell Brave, son. Good old Brave. You -trust Brave." - -He thought. "I can't tell you," he said. "Not even you. It was a voice. -It was the voice. My voice. I love it." - -"Isn't there anything you can repeat?" - -"Yes. It said I had to forget the superman theory. It explained the -accidents; and the disks. It's all natural. It isn't mutants." - -Brave started to sweat. He pried at Alan's mind, learning almost -everything about the night before. But he did not find out that Alan -had first heard the voice at the telecast, nor did he learn that -the voice and Alan were one, master and slave, but one. The earlier -hypnosis had been too clever. It had struck at the roots of Alan's -soul, becoming religion and truth to him, and he would not deny it or -betray it. - -At last realizing that he had heard all he was going to hear, the -Indian gave Alan certain counter-commands. He repeated them until -Alan squirmed and whimpered under the repetition. Finally Brave was -satisfied. By using the powerful mechanical-visual stimuli, it was -usually easy enough to plant ideas in a subject, and only infinitely -stronger agents could destroy such ideas. Brave hoped that the enemy -did not have stronger agents; but he knew that in the last analysis it -was a timid and unsure hope indeed. - -"About all I can do now," he growled low, "is stick with you as if I -was a cocklebur in your hair. Till they kill me, or we beat 'em." - - * * * * * - -He turned off his machines and brought Alan to full consciousness. He -untied him and led him into the lounging quarters, pushing him down -onto a yielding sofa. "Take it easy for a while. That was quite an -ordeal. I guess you have a belly-ache." He poured two long Scotches. -"Now tell me what you remember." - -Alan thought. "Everything," he said with surprise. "At least I suppose -it's everything." He repeated the substance of what they had both said -in the lab. "Right?" - -"That's it. I told you to remember it all. I wanted to level with -you, chief. We've got a fight on our hands and I can't have you -going around in a daze. You've got to realize what happened to you -last night, so you can buck another attempt like it. By the way, you -couldn't tell me why you went down to that building." - -"I don't know. I haven't any memory of going, or of what happened -there; I simply recall telling you about it. I have a memory of a -memory, I suppose you could say." - -"Strong medicine those dog soldiers are using, by God," said Brave. -"The more I learn about them, the surer I am that they're superior -mutants." - -"I think so too," said Alan. Brave grinned. His therapy had overcome -the former hypnotist's commands. Alan went on. "The big question -was, why have they suddenly appeared among us, why now? I think we -have that answered. It isn't sudden; it may have been happening for -generations. Slip-ups may have occurred as far back as history goes. -One mistake might go unremarked; two might make a man wonder: then he'd -investigate, and be either eliminated (they shot at me, you remember!) -or hypnotized and taken under the control of the mutants." - -"Bright lad! Your own experience bears that out." - -"So the newest big question would be: how do we fight them? Perhaps -we're the first to recognize them and retain our own wills. We can't -let that circumstance go to waste, Brave. We've got to strike at them -for our race's sake." He scowled. "But that leads to this: _do_ we -strike at them?" - -"What do you mean, Alan?" - -"I mean ... well, Brave, would we be in the right to take law into our -own hands and start a murder campaign, say, against them? Suppose we -were fighting good, instead of evil?" - -Brave looked blank. - -"How do we know they're wrong?" Alan continued. "How do we know they're -against us? Perhaps they are the true race of the future, and every man -of intelligence should be on their side. No, this isn't an hypnotically -planted theory: it's something I brooded on last night before I went to -sleep. Where do our loyalties stand? If Homo superior is intelligent -and self-centered, callous toward us, then obviously we fight him fang -and claw. But if he is intelligent and benevolent, as you'd expect from -a higher type of being, then we should ally ourselves with him." - -"He shot at you. Is that benevolence?" - -"I know. We might be wrong. It may have been a simple maniac who did -it. Again, I think the coincidence would be too great; well, perhaps -Homo superior had a good reason for it. We can't judge too deeply on -insufficient evidence." - - * * * * * - -Brave said, "I see what you mean, Alan, and in abstract theory I agree -with it. If the mutants are a good breed, a real improvement on our -own kind, then we owe them the allegiance of intelligent underlings. -But concrete evidence says they're not good. They shoot at you; they -employ the most malefic and vicious kind of hypnotism on you, where a -simple conditioning to the fact of their goodness would have brought -you around to their side just as easily--and with twice the value. They -aren't good. They are villainous." He grimaced. "I can see you hate the -idea. Why? What's on your mind that I don't know about?" - -Alan turned a haunted face to him. "Brave," he said, "Brave, Win's one -of them." - -The Indian said, "No. You're wrong. Not Win." - -"That's what I repeated a couple of hundred times last night. Not Win, -not Win. But I mashed out a cigarette on her arm--accidentally, of -course--and she didn't feel it. It left a hell of a burn. But she never -felt it. She can't feel pain. _She's mutant._" - -Brave laid his hands on his thighs and shook his head and could say -nothing. Alan went on. "Has she been playing with me, then? Or can they -get physical pleasure from us? Or was it her job to watch me for signs -of awareness?" - -"Not that. You've been engaged too long for that." - -"Well, what is the reason? Is it possible that she could actually be -in love with me? Me, a member of a lower species! I've asked myself, -could I fall in love with an orangutan? A fairly bright, good-looking -orangutan? The answer always comes out _no_." - -"Hardly a fair comparison." - -Alan glanced over at the mirror that formed the west wall of the -otherwise plastiglassed-in room. He saw himself haggard, gray in -the face, with bloodshot pouched eyes, and clad in tweeds that had -obviously been slept in. "Hardly fair to the ape," he said, grinning a -little. - -"I can't believe Win is one of them," said Brave stubbornly. - -"And I can't find any other explanation. If I make sure she is, and if -we find they're evil, as we think, then I know what's the first thing -I'll do." He looked his friend in the eyes. "I'll kill her, Brave. I'll -cut her damned lying throat!" - - * * * * * - -Then he stood up. "Enough of that. There are bigger things at stake -than Win right now. I think we may take it as a truism that you and I -can't hinder the superman's plans worth a whoop. Nor could we get to -more than one or two people in authority before we were found out and -stopped. Lord, the very ones we'd naturally go to are probably mutants -themselves! So there's just one thing to be done. Enlist the fellows -we know are all right. There's Don Mariner, for a start. He's plump -and balding and looks ineffective but he's as smart a lad as we have -on the Project. Then there's Rob Pope; he was in the hospital last -month when he cut himself badly on a hot sheet of plastiquartz. He's in -the plastic chemistry section, but he knows a lot about hypnotism and -such-like, so he'd be an asset." - -"Can we trust him just because he cut himself? He might have faked the -pain." - -"Brave, we've got to trust somebody! All we can do is grasp at little -indications of true humanity. Let's see. Who else is there?" - -"Bill Thihling, the rocketjet man. He was at Oxford with me. Rhodes -scholar, prince of a guy, and abnormally sensitive--I've seen him throw -up when a dog was run over. He's no callous mutant." - -"Good deal. That's five of us. Any more?" - -They thought hard. Mentioning names, discarding them as unsure risks, -they ran through all their acquaintances. No more potential allies -could they find till Alan said, "Jim McEldownie!" - -"What do we know about Jim?" - -"That he's uglier than the Duchess in _Alice_. Look at the mutants -we've recognized: the welder, a well-set-up Tarzan type; the pilot, -a clean-cut handsome dog; and Win, a raving belle. Does Jim fit in -with them? My sainted grandmother, no! And if we convince him of our -belief, he might put us on TV to broadcast it to the country. _Worlds -of Portent_ has a huge following, and people believe what they see and -hear on it. Then afterward, if _they_ get us, we won't have wasted what -may be the first and last opportunity men have had to publicize the -presence of the enemy among us." - -Brave went to the visiphone. There was an atmosphere of tense disquiet -in the room now, as though things were about to burst out in violence -and passion at any second. The Indian talked with Don Mariner and Pope -and Thihling, who all agreed to come over within the hour; then he -called McEldownie. Shortly the lanky announcer was looking quizzically -at him from the screen. "How, Lo." He shuddered. "How low can you reach -for a gag? What's up?" - -"Mac, can you get here right away?" - -"Unholy cats--apologies to Unquote--why the rush?" - -"Just say we need a good man in a hurry." - -The other cocked an eyebrow. "I detect the aroma of butter, salve, and -the old oil. Okay, I'll take an air taxi. Heat up any spare steak you -have lying around. I haven't eaten breakfast." - -"Naturally," said Brave, and turned off the visiphone. "There," he said -to Alan, "now all we have to do is convince them." - - * * * * * - -It took two hours to convert the four men to their views. Don Mariner, -because of his own findings, was with them from the first exposition; -Pope was intrigued but skeptical; Thihling was frankly incredulous; and -McEldownie was scornful and astonished by turns. At last the fierce -earnestness of Brave and Alan had its effect, and all of them were on -their feet, pacing up and down, shouting at one another, smacking their -fists into their palms and proposing unworkable plans at random. - -Alan argued with Jim about the telecast. Finally the lean man said, -"All right. I'm wacked. We're all wacked. They'll take away my job, -my license, and my reputation. They'll toss us all in the hatch. -Maybe we'll be lucky and get a room together. We can sit in a ring -and make faces at each other for the next fifty years." He shrugged. -"Nevertheless, we'll do it. We'll do it tonight. If things are coming -to a head, we've got to step high and swift. I'd scheduled the -Secretary of State tonight, but he'll have to wait. I'll go down and -make arrangements. Won't say anything to the sponsors, naturally, or -the staff. They trust me ... they've done it for the last time, I -imagine. Well, I've had five good years on TV. Let's finish it in a -real crackerjack blaze of the well-known glory, gents. Here we go round -the loony bin." - -"You, boy," said Alan fervently, "are okay." - -"I'm a living doll," said McEldownie moodily, and left. - -Bill Thihling, the rocketjet man, a compact sturdy pocketsized fellow -about Brave's age--thirty-six or -seven--said, "Now let's have some -action. Let's _do_ something." - -"First thing we do is swallow some antigues," said Brave, going into -the kitchen for the bottle. Antigues were anti-fatigue tablets, on -which a man could keep fresh and intelligent for seventy-two hours -without sleep. "I have an idea that sleep will be a myth and a vagrant -memory for us before too long." - -"And then," said Don Mariner, "we catch one of the supermen and beat -some truth out of him." - -Alan laughed hollowly, reminding himself of a character out of -_MacBeth_. "Beat it out of him? Torture a being that doesn't feel pain?" - -"Kill him, then," urged Rob Pope. "It's simple bloodthirst, but we've -got to make a beginning. Perhaps it'll make his cousins fret a little. -Bring 'em into the open." - -"We don't even know they can be killed. A thousand-pound 'sword' -couldn't faze the pilot of that disk. What could _we_ do?" - -"We can try! It's no good our arguing back and forth; we haven't any -real data. The only thing to do is kidnap one of _them_, see what makes -him tick, and then do our planning." - -"I'm for that," said Don. "Which one shall we take?" - -"The welder's vanished, and we can't very well torture, or try to -torture, Win Gilmore. Too rough on Alan. Let's have in the pilot of -the wrecked disk." - -"He wouldn't come here if we called him: too suspicious a request," -said Alan. "Kidnapping's the thing." - -"Pope and I can handle that," said Thihling. "Anyone know his name?" - -"Erin Grady," said Don Mariner. "Judas, isn't that a handle!" - -Rob Pope, a big rangy man built in the style of a woodsrunner out of -early America, said, "Ho for Erin Grady, then. And if he tries any of -his damn superman's hypnosis, I'll fling it in his own teeth. I know a -trick or two in that line myself." - -The two of them left the house. Brave began to mix three stiff -highballs, and Don Mariner took out a harmonica and played Bach, -with only a few sour notes per bar. Alan picked up the cat Unquote -and fondled her. But his thoughts were grim. All he could see was a -beautiful girl who he longed to hold in his arms. A beautiful girl with -a cigarette burn on her arm. A girl who felt no pain. Win.... - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -They brought in Erin Grady, dressed in brown civilian clothes and -wearing an expression of curiosity on his lean well-proportioned face -and in eyes that were accustomed to peering into measureless deeps of -the sky. "How'd you get him?" asked Brave. - -"Lied like a trooper," said Pope, and the pilot turned half-angry, -half-amused blue eyes on him. - -Brave gestured to a straight-backed chair. "Please sit there, Mr. -Grady." The pilot did so without question. "Forgive this wire," Brave -went on, looping the heavy coils around the man's chest and arms, "but -we don't think rope would hold you." - -Then the pilot spoke. "Kept telling myself for years that scientists -are all cracked," he said philosophically. "Guess this proves it." - -"Bill," said the Indian to Thihling, "go out and patrol the house. Let -us know if anybody approaches--anybody at all." - -The rocketjet man left them. Brave put Grady's hands flat on the arms -of the chair and lashed them down at wrist and knuckles. Then he stood -back, Alan and Don and Rob a little behind him, and he said gravely, -"Erin Grady, you smashed up a disk yesterday. But you weren't hurt." - -"I was lucky." - -"You sat in the regular pilot's chair as it hit?" - -"Sure, I--" then his eyes narrowed and he shut his mouth. - -"Too late," said Brave grimly. "You gave yourself away. You aren't so -clever as you're supposed to be." - -"Whaddaya mean?" - -"For a superman, you're too slow on the trigger. We got into that disk -before they clamped a security ring around it. We saw what happened to -the chair. No human could have missed being sliced down the brisket by -that juggernaut that came through the control board." - -"You clever, clever little bastards," said Grady venomously. "You'll -be dealt with." For the first time he seemed angered at the wire that -held him. He threw his weight against it, but it held firm. He glared -at each of them, and Rob Pope said, "He's trying hypnotism; watch -yourselves." - -Mariner chuckled. "He can't affect me, I'm too fat. The thought waves -get lost." - -Brave did not even feel the tentative vibrations of the pilot's mind, -but he glanced at Alan and saw that his friend was sweating. "You okay, -guru?" he asked anxiously. - -"He's talking to me." Alan's face cleared. "But I'm not going under. I -believe your treatment did the trick, Brave." - - * * * * * - -The pilot relaxed and deliberately spat on the rug. Brave reached out -an arm like a tree trunk and slapped the tanned cheek, so the head -rocked sideways. "We aren't going to be gentle with you, pal," said -Don. "Face that. We aren't playing for marbles." - -Grady did not speak. Brave took eight strips of light wood, narrow -and about two inches long, from his pocket. Kneeling, he fitted them -neatly under the pilot's well-manicured and rather long nails. The -man flipped them out with a convulsive motion of the fingers; Brave -impassively brought his enormous fist down like a hammer on the back of -the fellow's right hand. Grady shrieked. - -"Do that again and I'll break the other one," said Brave. - -"You red-skinned bastard!" howled Grady, "you did bust it up." - -"I meant to. I wanted to see if you'd be quick enough this time to -simulate pain." - -Had Alan not known better, he would have sworn the pilot was actually -suffering. "What are you talking about? Why in blue hell shouldn't I -feel pain?" - -"Because you're a mutant, and we know you can't. Why can't you, I -wonder," muttered Brave in a conversational tone, fitting the splinters -under the nails again. "Pain is a necessity of life as we know it. It -warns you of danger. A man could be sliced off up to the waist without -noticing it, except for pain. Why would the next higher animal to man -in the scale of evolution have lost the sensation of pain? It doesn't -make sense." - -"That's the first thing you've said that I agree with or understand. It -doesn't make sense. You're all nuts." - -"Come off it," said Alan. "You have given yourself away too often. -Don't go back to the old innocent routine." - -Rob Pope said, "Suppose they can regenerate lost appendages? It isn't -as mad as it sounds. Suppose that welder slipped away and grew himself -a new hand? In the case of such a beast, what good would pain be to -him? It'd be no more than a nuisance. The lack of pain then becomes an -intelligent development--but only then." - -"What devils they must be," said Don, staring at Grady. "Right out of -the swamps of Hell." - -Brave said to the pilot, "Now I'm going to ask you a question. If -you give me a fair answer I'll take out one of these sticks. If you -don't, I'll drive it into you--under the nail it hurts about as bad as -anything can--and light it. It's an old trick and it works wonders as a -tongue-loosener. Here's the question: are you a mutant of our race, a -superman?" - -Grady looked at him for a moment and then he laughed. He was still -laughing when Brave hit the stiff wood with a hammer and sank it -beneath the nail. Then he screamed. - -"You do that real well. It sounds as if that hurt you. Keep it up -if you like; it won't bother me. I'm an Indian, Mr. Grady. I'm as -sensitive and humane as the next guy until I'm up against somebody who -fights unfairly, who's mean and cruel and treacherous; then I turn cold -and I say to myself, how shall I fight this brute? and if torture is -the best answer, I use it without any qualms. That's sense, it seems -to me. Well, I hate your uncanny guts, Mr. Grady, and all your crew: -and there isn't any way to fight you that I can see, so I'll torture -you. And even if I'm nine-tenths certain that you aren't feeling it, -still it eases me a little to hear you whoop and yell. And there's that -tenth of my brain that says maybe you are feeling it. I hope you are. I -really hope you are." - - * * * * * - -He lit the wood: it was synthetic, a very light, hard compound of -fibers that burnt with a quick flame, as hot as the heart of a coal. It -reached the nail and curled it back in two shavings of black char: and -Grady almost shattered his throat with his roaring. - -"Brave," said Alan, "stop it! He does feel it!" - -"You raving maniacs, certainly I feel it!" Grady cried. "Where'd you -get the idea I couldn't? You're all mad!" - -Don Mariner said calmly, "I'll tell you why he doesn't feel it. -Just look at his face." They all did so, uncomprehending. "He isn't -sweating," said Don triumphantly, "and he hasn't even turned pale!" - -Grady turned his head toward the engineer. "Oh, you fat little blob of -stupidity," he said icily. "You stand there with your idiot companions -and your bright little idea that's about as wrong as wrong can get. Of -course I'm not sweating. _I haven't any sweat glands. I haven't any -pores._ And naturally I can't turn pale. This is my natural color. -I'm no damned human chameleon. But I can feel pain, in spite of your -driveling theories. What do you want to know?" He spat again. "I won't -sit here and take this agony for anyone. What the blazes can you do to -us if you do know? You can't touch us. Go on, ask away." - -"Are you mutants?" asked Brave. - -"No." - -"Are you human?" - -"Not as you understand it." - -"Where did you come from?" - -The pilot sneered. "From the ninth planet of a sun unknown to you," he -said. - -Brave glanced back at Alan. "Think he's lying?" - -"I swear I don't know." - -"I'm not lying," said Grady. "Want to know how I got out of that disk -alive? I heard the damn machinery shifting in front of me--oh yes, my -ears are sharper and my sight's better, and I can move a lot faster -than you can--so I spread myself out thin against the back of the seat. -Lucky for me the monster stopped an inch short of my guts. Want to see -how I did it? Will that convince you?" - -Then he did an incredible, a terrible thing to see: he seemed to turn -almost fluid, and though none of his features changed, they withdrew -to the sides; his whole body thinned out and flattened along the chair -back, and he became a caricature of a man run over by a steam roller. -Then he laughed at them. - -Above Rob's gasp and Alan's cry came the shriek of Don Mariner. Then he -had swept Brave aside and fired a grenade pistol almost in the face of -the pilot; and Grady died without a sound. - - * * * * * - -"No recriminations," said Alan. "You can't see a thing like that and -hold your hand. If I'd been armed I'd have done it myself." - -Brave was running his hands over the exposed flesh of the dead pilot. -"This is weird stuff," he said. "It isn't human--well, that's obvious. -It feels vaguely like gutta-percha. It's swelling up slowly. No, by -glory, it's going back into shape again. It's becoming humanoid again." -He looked up. "Notice how that word springs to the mind? Humanoid. He -wasn't human, he told the truth about that. He wasn't even superhuman. -He was alien." - -Don Mariner, still shaking, said, "I'm sorry I shot him. I just went -out of my head at that stunt he pulled. Never been so scared in my -life. I sure fouled up our chances of learning how and whom to fight." - -"'What can you do to us if you do know? You can't touch us.'" That -was Rob Pope musing aloud. "What did he mean by that? That they're so -powerful it doesn't matter now if we know about them?" - -"You could put any interpretation on it," said Alan. - -"Before we theorize any more," said Bill Thihling from the door, -"you'd better know there's an air taxi headed this way. It's a -Manhattan job and I thought it might be McEldownie again, but you never -know. So what do we do with the corpse you birds so casually created?" - -Brave said promptly, "The garbage disposal unit. It'll take care of him -in thirty seconds--and very appropriate too." He hoisted the body of -the pilot out of the chair, after cutting the wires. As he carried it -off to the kitchen and the hidden well that was the disposal unit, Alan -opened a camouflaged wall cupboard and took out the all-vac. Switching -it on, he ran its round nozzle over the gouts and stains of blood on -the rug, the walls, and the chair. It sucked them into itself like an -anteater inhaling a hill of ants, leaving no trace of discoloration. -Whipping it back into its nook, and tossing the long pieces of wire in -after it, he slammed the door and turned round. - -"That's that. We're clean. If it's Mac, we tell him the truth; -otherwise Grady was never here. Right?" - -Bill opened the door. McEldownie was just coming up the walk. - -"Cheers, gang. The eminent statesman is put off. We're set for tonight. -What crimes have you been committing?" - -"Oh, kidnapping and murder," said Alan. The announcer dropped to the -couch. - -"You're jesting, I trust?" - -"In a gnat's eye," said Mariner. "You're just thirty seconds too -late to see the corpse." He told Jim briefly what they had done. -The bony man did not say anything for a few moments, and then, -"Jee-blinking-rusalem! You caught one and pumped him and slew him out -o' hand, all in the time it took me to fly to the studio and back. What -a bunch of thugs. The Black Hand could have taken lessons from you." He -leaned forward as Brave came in. "Well, you seem to have got precious -little out of him before young Donald here got peeved, but let's -coordinate it and see what we have." - -"One, he could do miraculous things with his physical structure," said -the Indian. "It's the first wholly sure thing we've learned since we -saw the welder burn off his hand without flinching." - -"Two," put in Alan, "he said his kind aren't mutants, but aliens from -another system. It may be true. Lord knows. We have only his word." - -"Three, he claimed to feel pain, and if he was faking, he was a class -A actor," said Rob Pope. "I'll tell you why: I was pretty sensitive to -his brain waves, even when he wasn't broadcasting at us. Once I thought -I caught a plea for help to someone unnamed. And every time Brave hurt -him, I felt that he was actually suffering." - -"I felt it too," agreed Alan. - - * * * * * - -Brave, getting out bottles of Scotch and rye, said, "In the minute I -had to examine his skin and flesh, I found he wasn't lying about his -being without pores. The skin was perfectly smooth. It felt rather -like a kind of rubber, though not so much so as to seem inhuman to -a casual touch. And his body assumed the human shape after death, -so it would appear to be the natural form of the beasts." He passed -one bottle to Rob and the other to Mac. The six allies drank deeply. -Through two bottles they discussed the enemy; coming at last to a -sort of half-conclusion, that there were extraterrestrials who could -change their shapes within limits, and there were others, either from -the same strange world or existing as a mutation of Earthmen, who -were impervious to pain. The aliens, Alan and his crew decided, were -susceptible to it. The near-tangible thought waves from the tormented -pilot had been too agonized to deny. - -It was then a little past four in the afternoon. - -"A bit more than three hours before we need to leave for the station," -said Thihling, "if we take one of the colony's air taxis. What say we -relax and loaf and forget for part of those three hours?" - -Alan got up and went sprawling at full length on the deep-napped rug. -"I'm for that. Let's loosen up. Loll around. My God, I'm as strung up -as Captain Kidd." - -"I thought you fell down on purpose," said Rob. "But if you're capable -of turning phrases like that, I guess you're just too drunk to stand." - -Unquote found Alan and sat down with an air of modest ownership in the -small of his back. Brave got out more bottles. "We ought to be drinking -to things," he said. "There should be witty toasts and pledges to fair -maidens. Bumpers should be drained to the memory of gay college days -and friends long gone." - -He passed the rye to McEldownie, who said, "We ought to be sucking this -booze out of old ivy-covered pewter mugs, then, instead of giving each -other our loathsome diseases. More collegiate, y'know." - -The Indian took a healthy gulp of bourbon. He sighed appreciatively -and flipped the bottle through the air and Bill caught it and had it -uncorked and upended in the same motion, dexterous as a conjurer. "Ah," -he said, choking and spluttering, "smooth!" He passed it to Alan, who -nearly upset Unquote in reaching for it; the cat dug her claws into the -rough fabric of his coat, glared at the back of his neck, and spoke -sharply and at some length concerning the irreverence of certain men. - -"Puss, simmer down," said Jim. "Your master drinketh." - -"Now there's a bad word in its context," said Alan gravely. "You know -nothing about cats, Mac, m'boy. Nobody was ever a cat's master. If -Napoleon kept a cat, it bullied him." - -"Napoleon, my illiterate friend, had an intense fear of cats. So -obviously he didn't own one." - -"If Tamerlane had a cat, it bullied him. If Genghis Khan--" - -"You've made your point. Send the alky on its way," said Don. - -"Brave, pass around the old ivy-covered pewter mugs," Alan said -grandly, rolling over and precipitating a furious Unquote to the rug. -"While you're at it, get some old ivy-covered crackers and cheese." - -"I could stomach an old ivy-covered potato chip," murmured Rob Pope. - -"Let's have a little masculine nostalgia," said Bill. "Let's remember -Oxford, Brave." - -Four strictly-American-college men hooted him down. - - * * * * * - -Brave brought glasses and a tray of snacks, and, thoughtfully, a dish -of milk for Unquote. "Here comes old ivy-covered Brave now," said Rob. -The big Indian emptied a fifth of rye into the glasses. Jim picked up -the empty bottle, regarded it like Hamlet with the skull of Yorick, -and said, "Blessed blue ruin, how I love thee. Omar had nothing on -McEldownie." - -"McEldownie the Tentmaker," said Alan. "It has a fine classic ring to -it." - -"I pawned my fine classic ring last week. I was hungry." - -"God," said Bill. "Classic of '58, I presume?" - -They finished the rye and after serious consultation opened a bottle -of Scotch. McEldownie began to talk with a broad Highland accent -and it seemed very funny to everyone. Unquote stalked away to her -playbox in disgust. Brave sat bolt upright, looking like a statue of -copper-colored granite. They all got drunk. - -The announcer stood up and juggled three glasses, then four, and the -others applauded, for he was good at it. "For all your awkward look, -Mac," said Alan, "you're a slilful--skilful old bird." - -"When I juggled before the crowned heads of Europe, they went mad over -me. I often wished I could juggle in front of whole people," he added -wistfully. "Never did. Just heads." - -"Oh, brother," said a woman's voice. They all turned round and looked -toward the door. Win Gilmore stood there, shaking her beautiful blued -coiffure. "This place looks like a shebeen. And you're all fried to the -eyeballs. Ought to be ashamed of yourselves." She dropped her lavender -cloak: she was wearing an amethyst-colored halter and a pleated nylon -skirt of syenite blue, which clung to her legs as she walked toward -them. Alan could see the play of muscles in her thighs where the soft -skirt touched them. Some of the liquor sank away from his brain and he -remembered that this woman was not human. He gritted his teeth and -turned his head away to look at Brave. The Indian was also sobered. He -said, "Well, hello," uncertainly. - -"It makes me mad," said Win, pouring herself a shot of rum. "All this -attractive male virility going to waste. No women to appreciate it. -There ought to be wenches flung picturesquely here and there." - -"You paint a sordid picture, madame," said Rob. "We've been chastely -reliving old school days, knotting old school ties, and reciting the -Boy Scout oath to each other. It's uplifting. It's--" - -"Sophomoric?" - -"Who is this dazzling fluff?" McEldownie asked. - -"Win Gilmore." - -The tall man opened his green eyes wide. "Oho? The super-jade!" - - * * * * * - -Win regarded him without affection. "Who the hell are you, and what the -hell do you mean by that crack?" - -"Your secret is known, harridan," said Jim. He stared into her wide -eyes. "Alan says you can't feel pain. That makes you one of the enemy -in our book. If it weren't for your perfection of form, I myself -would take pleasure in booting you in the left nostril." He let his -gaze wander over her well-stocked amethyst halter. "Alan," he said -critically, "far be it from ol' Mac to question your judgment, but I -doubt this lassie's inhumanity. I really feel we've made another error. -If she isn't human, then I'm a rhinoceros." - -"You look more like a starving stork," Win cried furiously. "Alan, who -is this wretch?" - -"Peace, gal, I'm standing up for you, no matter what it sounds like. -Doc, you can't convince me that a gal with a balcony that'd grace the -Palace Theatre isn't human. I think you're wrong." - -"Of course she's good looking. She's a step above us in the -evolutionary scale, isn't she?" snarled Alan. "Or else she's from some -goddam planet out in the other galaxies." Win looked at him blankly. - -"I think you've jumped to a conclusion when you should have crawled to -it." McEldownie took a step forward and caught Win's eyes with his own. -"I believe you can feel pain," he said. - -"Good Lord, of course I can feel--ouch!" She gave a little scream. The -announcer had pinched her sharply on the naked flesh just below her -halter. Because she had been looking into his eyes, she could not have -seen the casual motion of his hand. - -"There!" said Jim, standing back and bowing with a juggler's flourish. -"What about that, gentlemen?" - -Brave spoke. "Win, he's drunk, so don't hold it against him. But -he's done you--and us--a great service." Raising his voice above her -passionate cursing, he went on. "You know our mutant theory. It's been -changed today but the pain angle still holds good to a degree. Well, -Alan burnt you accidentally with his Rocketeer cigarette last night, -and you didn't feel it; so we have been thinking that you must be one -of them. Evidently you're not. You have our apologies all round." - -She stood silent, taking it in; then she said, "Great heavens above!" -and turned on Alan, who was looking sheepish and incredibly relieved. -"You grunt-brain! Don't you, with all your knowledge, realize that -there are times in a woman's life--yes, and in a man's--when she or he -can be burned, whipped, and kicked in the funny bone, without realizing -it?" - -Alan made a gesture of incomprehension. - -"You moron, what were we doing when you burned me?" - -Brave reached into the encyclopedia of his mind and said, "She's -right, governor. It was first explained in 1952. When one is -sexually stimulated, the increase in blood pressure, the intensified -heart-beats, and the rigidity of all the muscles sometimes combine to -make one totally unaware of pain. The author of the theory was a Dr. -Linsey, or Kinsey, or something like that." He pursed his lips. "I -don't suggest that you were necking, chieftain, but if you were, that -explains it, and we were damned unjust to Win." - -"If you weren't necking, Doc," said Jim, "you're dead, or ought to be." - -Win tossed down her rum. "I'll have more to say on the subject later," -she declared to Alan. "For now, I'm too mad to risk staying here and -breaking up the furniture. I found that burn on my arm after you left. -By then it hurt like hell." She strode over and picked up her cloak. -"Good night, or afternoon, or whatever the everlastingly blasted time -it is," she said between her teeth, and closed the door gently behind -her which made a more effective exit than if she had slammed it and -made the walls quiver. - -"Bless my soul," said Jim mildly, reaching for his glass. "We have -transformed a superwoman into a livid Fury. What a day!" - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -Brave passed around anticohol tablets, those excellent remedies for -drunkenness developed in Japan in 1957; and they all ate them and drank -water and looked at one another and grinned. "That was quite a bat -while it lasted," said Don. - -McEldownie rested his head on the couch and closed his eyes. -Occasionally the tablets would put one to sleep for a short time. Rob -Pope said, "We've had our reaction against all the shocks, and it was a -luxury I think we deserved; but now we've got to plot and plan." - -"The telecast is our first big hope. Let's put our heads together." - -"And produce a sickening thud," said Jim, opening his eyes. "Okay we'll -see what we can do. Or more likely," he said thoughtfully, "what we -can't do." - -The door opened and Win came in, a look of contrition on her face. -They all gaped at her. "Well," she said to Alan, "it's like this. I'm -sorry. I blew my cork. I was insulted. I'm not any more. I know the -strain you've been under and I realize it was an awful coincidence to -happen just when it did. I forgive you and your tame flamingo with the -wandering hands. Can I help?" - -"Take a pew," said Alan relieved beyond words. "We're talking out the -telecast. You can help, sweetheart." - - * * * * * - -When it was time to leave--they had decided to take Rob Pope's station -wagon rather than an air taxi--Brave locked up the house. Both he and -Alan felt they might not be able to come back to it, at least not -soon. Just before he shut the front door, a brown blur shot past him -and landed on Alan's chest. Unquote clung there, claws entangled in -his jacket, great blue eyes begging with false humility to be taken -along. "I nearly forgot you, kitten," he said. He boosted her up to his -shoulder and the eight of them got into the station wagon, which Brave -then wheeled about and sent roaring toward Manhattan. - - * * * * * - -Just before eight they entered the studio. McEldownie said, "How about -you lads waiting in the reception room? If anybody comes raging into -the place for our hides, you can cause 'em a certain amount of trouble -before they get to Doc and me." - -Brave looked reluctant, then agreed. The others trooped out. Jim said, -"You can watch it on the monitor," and locked the door behind them. -"There's an extra precaution. Now for it, Doc. Cross your fingers." - - * * * * * - -The lights came on. - -Alan talked well. Just at first, while McEldownie was giving him a -purposely vague introduction, he felt rather light-headed; this passed -quickly. He had the feeling that something had tried to insert itself -into his thoughts. Whatever it was, it failed, he said thankfully. Mac -finished his introduction. Alan began to speak. - -He gave it to his audience straight and fast, without preamble, lest an -engineer or official with access to the controls should be a mutant or -alien. - -"_Listen to me. There are enemies among us, enemies from another world, -or perhaps sports of our own species. We are all in deadly danger._" - -He spoke coolly and sanely. There could be no mistaking his competence -to talk on the subject, he thought, I sound like an old statesman. And -if that's vanity, let it be. - -After sketching in the incidents which had led to his suspicions, he -told of the disks' unsuspected power, and of the pilot who could expand -his body inhumanly in any direction. He did not mention Grady's death. -He stressed the need for immediate action. "What that action must be, I -don't presume to suggest. There are many men more qualified to tell you -that than I am. But here are ideas...." - -Seek them out, he said. Try to recall incidents, accidents, that made -no sense to you. Try to remember instances of lack of pain. I'm sorry I -can't give you more identifying traits, but that's all we know so far. -Except the lack of pores, the heightened senses. - -There will be trouble. I feel sure there will be bloodshed. Don't -quail, don't despair. We'll beat them. We're essentially a decent race -and from all indications they are devious, malevolent, and evil. - -And we outnumber them, that's pretty certain. - -Don't flinch. Don't hesitate. Seek them out. Capture them, kill them, -but _find them_! - -He was really a little proud of himself as the telecast ended. He even -felt light-headed again, and ascribed it to pride. - -McEldownie clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, boy, if this mess pans -out okay, you and I can take our pick of soft government posts, or -retire on the bounty of a grateful world. Let's see what the gang -thought of it." - -He unlocked the door and opened it. Brave stood on the threshold, his -dark face bewildered; the others crowded behind him, worried, tense. -"Alan," said his friend, "what went wrong?" - -Alan's belly shrank back and sweat broke out on his palms. "What do you -mean, Brave? Didn't it go on the air?" - -"It must have," Jim said. "I was watching a monitor." - -"It went on, all right." Brave sighed. He looked as beaten as an Indian -can ever look. "I should have guessed they wouldn't let you do it. -They'd get to you some way, both of you." - -"For the love of God, Brave, what are you talking about?" cried Alan. -The other rested his hands on the scientist's shoulders. - -"Son," he said quietly, "you talked about fuel. The two of you talked -for fifteen minutes about the newest developments in rocket fuel. You -never said a damned word about the enemy race!" - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -"So now we're all but helpless," said Bill Thihling, wiping his mouth. -They had just finished three enormous platters of curried chicken at -an exotic Bengali restaurant on 49th Street. "Where there's life, et -cetera, but so long as the aliens control our very tongues, what can we -do? Echo answers, Nothing." - -"I blame myself for it," growled Brave. "I should have gone on the -telecast; or Rob, maybe. We can withstand hypnotism, know how to fight -it, while Alan had already had one bad dose of it. It must have been -easy to recapture his mind." - -"What about me?" objected Jim. "I've never been mesmerized before. I -didn't feel a thing, either, or hear voices, nor nothin'." - -"Are you sure you haven't been hypnotized? Alan didn't know it till I -found out under mechanical-visual trance." - -"Gad, maybe I have been, then," murmured Jim uncertainly. - -"_They_ got to Alan and Mac," said Rob. "Had you or I tried it, Brave, -they'd have done something more violent; blasted the station off the -air, killed us. They undoubtedly have their eyes on us, and we can't -get in touch with humanity again. We're on an island surrounded by a -sea of cynical, sneering demons; they won't let us do anything but make -despairing futile signals to the mainland." - -"Brother," said Win, "are we getting poetical in our sorrow! Listen, -I have a feeling we oughtn't to go back to Project Star. They must be -grouping to wipe us out by now. They know us, they're not dumb; they'll -be after us." She bent over the table and all the others did likewise. -"Suppose we go up to Central Park? Sit out there all night, loll on -the sward and talk. We won't be hunted there. And perhaps by morning -some solution will have occurred to us." - -"That's the best thought any of us have had," said Rob Pope. "Fresh -night air! I know this washed and filtered stuff is the best atmosphere -for you, but I crave some real old-fashioned germ-polluted air." - -So they took the station wagon up to the park, and walked onto the -grass that was already spangled with moisture under the moon; on a -knoll surrounded by trees they flung down blankets from the trunk of -the car, and stretched out and tasted the night that was brought to -them on a softly brisk little breeze; and Alan said, "Mother Nature! -You can't beat the old girl. She makes you see sparks of light where -you know there's nothing but the dark." - -They lay there and talked and napped and drank and relaxed through the -night, till dawn rose gray and turned to blue and the sun came up. For -no reason but their physical comfortableness, they all felt good. Even -Unquote was gay and frisked like a kitten. Their fantastic trouble -seemed smaller and further away than it had ever been.... - - * * * * * - -When the first great disk came down on the city, skimming the treetops -of Central Park, heading straight for the Times Square district at -that height and rising only when it seemed certain that it would smash -itself against one or another of the buildings of Manhattan, none of -them could speak for surprise. They stared up, amazed, as the whirling -silver surface caught their eyes with its glancing beams of sun -reflection; and it was incredible to them that the disk should be there -in the bright morning sky. - -It vanished over Brooklyn, tilting on edge and shooting straight up -into emptiness. - -"Well, if this isn't the feeble-minded pinnacle of idiocy," exclaimed -Don Mariner. "A test flight over the city itself! What drooling -sub-human intellect ordered that one?" - -In the distance a muted babbling arose, as the city caught its breath -and began to talk excitedly about the flying saucer, the first (barring -some fugitive glimpses in the '40s and '50s which had never been -properly verified) that New York had seen. - -Then the disk came back. It led a wobbling formation, two sister ships -just behind it and then a gap and three more, all going at a hawk-fast -clip and slanting down out of the eastern sky to zoom over the park -once more in an uncanny, wavering, noiseless line. Jim McEldownie -leaped to his feet, his narrow face, with the green eyes staring out, -a twisted mask of panic terror. Alan was shaken, as much by the lean -man's fear as by the sight of the disks. "Mac, Mac," he shouted, "what -is it?" For he could see nothing to dread that was worse than the thing -they had been living with for the past hours. - -Jim stared after the disappearing ships. "They aren't ours," he said, -his voice gurgling and choking with the fear. "_They aren't ours!_" - -"Of course they are," snapped Brave. He too had risen, and stood -like an age-old oak beside the quavering poplar that was McEldownie. -"Whose would they be?" he reasoned. "Do you suppose any country could -manufacture those things without our men on Albertus spying them out?" - -"I tell you they aren't our ships!" cried Jim, taking the Indian by the -lapels. "I know our designs up and down, and those aren't ours! Tell -him, Mariner." - -"He's right," said Don, white as paper. "The superstructure's all -wrong. And they're bigger, I think, than ours." - -"Don't forget that Homo superior, or his cousins from the space lanes, -may have changed the plans without letting you in on it," said Bill -Thihling bitterly. "Great God! Nobody but a callous, egotistical mutant -or alien, unacquainted with pain and insensitive to our safety, would -fly a squadron of virtually untested disks over a crowded city. This is -misanthropy with a vengeance!" - -Mac groaned. "You bumbling dinkey engines," he said, "can't you get -off that one track? I tell you these things don't come from Project -Star--they don't even come from Earth!" - -Win spoke for the first time. She was still seated, the cat cradled -against her breast. "I think you're right," she said. "I feel it; -you're right. Those aren't human beings in those ships. They're from -black space somewhere. They know we are reaching out for the stars and -they've come to stop us." Her tone was level and wholly undramatic. -"We'd be a menace, rampaging through the systems. They won't let us -begin. Their spies here, Grady and his ilk, have called them down to -stop us." - -Brave and Alan frowned at each other. Each asked the other wordlessly, -Where are these two getting such wild conceptions? What do they -see--what do they _know_, that we don't? - - * * * * * - -The saucers returned, in a different formation this time, like a V -of geese. Geese made of glittering blue-silver metal, round geese -traveling at eight hundred miles an hour. They roared overhead: -soundlessly, yes, but with so swift and terrible a movement that one -could call it nothing but a silent roar. In that instant Alan, staring -upward, felt his convictions dissolve. Mac was right. He did not know -enough about the design of Project Star's disks to say that these -were different; but he knew suddenly that there was an alien _feel_ -to these things, an aura of irrelation, a stupendous pulsation that -pervaded the senses and forced the knowledge on him that here was -nothing terrestrial, nothing human or even superhuman. - -Watching them shoot over, he tried weakly to find an analogy, to anchor -his wits to some concrete remembrance and save them from scattering -in panic. All he could think of was the night when he, aged six or -seven, had wakened to know positively and without question that there -was a ghost in the room with him. Even yet he was sure there had been -a ghost. And this sense of alienness that came from the flying disks -was the same as that he had felt in the night, when the invisible ghost -crouched in a corner and mowed at him. An outsider, said his blood and -viscera to him, a stranger from the cold hells of unknown space. An -alien, said the wisdom drawn out of nowhere by primeval instincts lying -in the murk at the bottom of his soul. - -He moved to Brave and put a hand on one of the mighty arms and saw that -Brave knew it now too. "Grady's kin," said the Indian. No one else -spoke except Unquote, who gave a bizarre Siamese screech of rage. - -Back they came, this time from the direction of Richmond, in a -strung-out dipping line; and out of the crystal bubble in the belly -of the leader there fell a shining golden egg, a tiny thing at this -distance, seen only because the sun caught at it and played along -its surface. It fell slowly, far too slowly for an Earth-hatched egg; -Thihling and Mariner automatically judged its descent at six or eight -feet per second. Either it was full of a light gas, or it had some form -of anti-gravity mechanism attached to it. Leisurely it dropped toward -Manhattan. - -Then the people began to run. - -All the millions who had been taught to act calmly and sanely in an -emergency lost their heads; they were suddenly so many witless chickens -who had caught sight of the axe. With the dropping of the golden egg, -the terror of alien danger had clutched at them all. So they fled. -There was no place to flee to, but they fled. Into subways and out -again, insane with the horror of dying underground. Into buildings, to -know the walls were collapsing on them, to run out once more. And the -egg fell lazily toward them. Now it had passed the spire of the tallest -skyscraper. - - * * * * * - -Up in the park, people were running too. Alan and his group stood -together and watched them helplessly. "Like field mice from an owl," -muttered Rob Pope. They saw a woman dash straight into a tree, carom -off with a cry and go on. An elderly man came up to them, faltered, put -a hand to his chest and pitched over at their feet. Bill turned him -over. He was dead. "Heart attack. Poor devil." - -Alan did not know why none of his friends ran. He repeated a random -line that came into his head: "Stand and fight and see your slain, and -take the bullet in your brain...." - -Or the atomic blast, or the unimaginable projectile from the -inconceivable weapon. - -Then Jim McEldownie yelled, "On your faces, for God's sake!" and Alan -turned from the city and flung himself down and covered his head with -his arms. - -And the world opened up and a mushroom from Hell sprouted over -Manhattan, and the buildings rocked and tottered and crashed to earth. -The sky went black and the great white-yellow cloud, perimetered with -blood-scarlet, arose against it; the universe shook and shattered -and then came together and righted itself and sailed on. The Empire -State was the last of the tall structures to hit ground. Clear at -the northern tip of Central Park they felt that final smashing, a -postscript to a letter from Lucifer. - -From Fulton Street to 53rd, from the North River to Stuyvesant Town, -nothing lived. In that terrible instant of fission, caught where ever -they were, whatever they were doing, working at desks, peering from -windows, running down deserted alleys or pushing madly against the -press of maniac crowds on Broadway and Fifth and Madison, score upon -score of thousands of men and women died; died screaming or weeping -or fighting for breath, praying to their gods or cursing or dumb with -dismay. - -They died in subways, never having known that the silver ships of the -enemy were sailing above their great town. They died asleep in their -hotel rooms, lifting forkfuls of breakfast eggs to their mouths, typing -words on paper, making love, staring at the sky. - -Very few of them wanted to die. Some of them expected to live for many -years. Some of them did not really expect to die at all. Many of them -could accept the fact that death would come for every man in the world -some day ... except themselves; that was incredible and not to be -thought of at all. - -But they all died. - -It came so quick, so quick; and even those who believed the golden egg -to be a bomb never knew when it struck and smashed out at them and -obliterated them, for the quickness was that of death, the swiftest -thing that walks the universe. - -Beyond the huge area of instant perfect destruction, many others -died. Tall buildings collapsed on them, or they fell into the splits -and great fissures that opened in the earth; they were hurled to the -pavements and their brains spilled out, or the noise and the fearful -rush of air got into their heads and tore their cerebra to tatters. -Some of them could not bear the appalling horror of the bomb, and -slit their own throats or put guns into their mouths and pulled the -triggers. Some went so totally mad that their life forces disintegrated -and they died where they stood, of madness and panic and the terrible -knowledge of their impotence. - -Men lived, too: lived blind and wounded and lamed and torn asunder, -lived without minds and minds strangely contorted and warped. No one -who had been in Manhattan that day survived without scars of body and -brain left by the death of the city. - -The golden egg had hatched its chick of death at eight-fifty-three of a -Friday morning in June of 1970. - - * * * * * - -After a while, when the hurricane had dropped away and the earth had -stilled its shaking, Alan sat up and looked toward the heart of the -city. The disks were gone--and so were the people and the buildings, -the life and the fine aspiring skyline of Manhattan. Nothing was left -but a leveled, broken, sawtoothed waste, over which hovered the direful -mushroom cloud. - -Grotesquely, irrelevantly, all his mind could focus on in that moment -of near-insanity was his cat. "Where's Unquote?" he asked harshly. -"Where's little Unquote?" - -The cat spoke furiously above his head. She had flown into a tree -at the blast. He coaxed her down as the others stood and brushed -themselves off and stared at the atomic cloud. At last she bounced -from a crotch of the tree into his arms. She was shivering with terror. - -Bill said urgently, his voice no more than a croak, "Let's make tracks. -Lord knows what scuds of radioactivity will be blowing our way soon, if -that wind didn't bring 'em already." - -"All those people," whispered Win. Now the screams and howls of -survivors could be heard where they stood. "All those poor people." - -"The wagon's liable to be stolen if we don't get to it," said Don. -"Come on. Please." - -There were still men and women running through the park, some shouting -with fear, some white and sick and mute. A couple passed them, their -eyes round and horrified, the man's coat torn and the girl's green -dress ripped off one shoulder. They must have fallen, or been caught in -a fight. There were two men brawling over by the reservoir. - -There seemed to be no balance or reason left in mankind, save for -the seven on the knoll, who clung to their sanity only by conscious -physical effort. - -Now they ran for the station wagon, to find its windows broken, the -upholstery slashed by a knife, the windshield shattered. "Berserk," -said Rob Pope. "They've all gone berserk." - -"It does that to me, too," said Don. "I want to sink my teeth into -something and worry it. I can't touch the enemy and so I want to take -it out on something I _can_ touch." He shrugged. "If you were lost in -Hell, and found a car, and couldn't start it because you didn't have -the key, wouldn't you get sore enough to wreck it? How are the tires?" - -Brave said, "Okay. He was too mad to think of them." He knocked the -remaining shards of windshield from the frame and got in behind the -wheel. They all piled in. He started it and it rolled off northward. - -McEldownie said, "No, Brave. Go down towards town. I want to get to a -radio or TV station. We've got to try to establish contact with the -rest of the world. This may have happened in other cities too." He -leaned forward and put his hand on Brave's shoulder. "I don't think -we need worry about radioactivity," he said. "These are beings from -another planet, obviously much farther advanced than we are. Their -weapons, though producing an apparently atomic cloud, would probably be -without post-explosion danger. They'd have eliminated the radioactive -dust because they'd want to land and take over at once, or at least -quite soon. Let's take a chance. Let's go down toward Times Square." - - * * * * * - -Brave glanced back at him. The argument was specious, as a basis for -action it wouldn't hold water. But Alan said, "I think so too, Brave. -It sounds logical." Win and Don agreed. Brave looked at them. He was -about to argue and then the fatalism of his ancient race seemed to grip -him. They ought to get to a radio station, true; and if the city were -radioactive, what did it matter in the long run? They were only seven -people and a cat; ranged against them on one hand stood the ranks of -shadowy supermen and aliens, on the other the unknown disk-people. The -world was in chaos. He could not dredge up enough ego to believe that -he and Alan and the others would be very important in the ordering -of that chaos. He shucked off his science and his civilized thought -processes and he said, "All right. We'll go down." Stoically, the very -incarnation of his thrice-great grandfather Pony Sees-the-Sky, he -wheeled the car around and sent it hurtling toward Times Square. - -Broadway was a shambles. As far up as Columbus Circle all the windows -were gone, the light standards had been curved by the blast, autos were -overturned and leaking gas and oil. There were cracks in the paving. -Occasional men and women staggered along northward, and bodies lay -in the gutters, across the thresholds. The wreckage of an air taxi -half-blocked the way, corpses spilt halfway out of its doors. - -"How many weapons have we?" asked Mac suddenly. "There's a sporting -goods store. We ought to load up on guns. There's no telling what -maniacs we'll be meeting; and if there's an occupation, we might have -to be guerrillas." He pulled back his coat. "I have a grenade pistol, -for a start." - -Brave had one, and an automatic for longer range work. Don Mariner -carried another grenade pistol. Win had her derringer-sized automatic -in her purse. That was all they had. Brave pulled to the curb. He and -Alan got out. - -The store had lost its windows. Brave stepped through onto the display -ledge and dropped inside. A voice in the gloom said, "Stand right -there, mister." The proprietor, white and tense, leaned over his -counter and held a .45 revolver steadily, its muzzle looking at the -Indian's chest. "One more step and you join them." Brave saw there were -bodies on the floor. - -"I'm no looter, man," he said sharply. "I'll buy guns." - -The fellow considered that. "By God, you sound sane. And you look -like a good man. Everybody's crazy out there. You come back and pick -yourself out something. We're going to need sane men with guns in this -mess." - -"Men are fighting each other," nodded Brave. "The blast drove them -crazy." - -"Can't tell me anything about that. One of those bodies was my brother. -I couldn't let even my brother loose in this hell with a gun, not when -he'd gone out of his head. Tried to kill me for a gun." The face was -drawn and cold. "How about a .30-'06?" he asked. "Stop a grizzly if -you're good enough. Heavy though." - -"I wasn't looking for an air rifle," said Brave. Alan came in through -the window. "He's with me. We have five others outside." - -"You can have guns for 'em all. Sorry I don't have grenade pistols or -flamers. This is a sporting goods store." He handed a .30-'06 across -the counter. "Take this. I'll give you all the ammo I have for it. You -put it to good use when the Russkis come." - -"It wasn't Russians," said Alan, "It was flying saucers." - -"Russkis in flying saucers. They'll be coming on the ground pretty -soon. Didn't I see 'em come in in Germany in the big war? Take these -boxes. Enough ammo to stand a good siege here. Save it all you can. -We're going to be at war a long, long, time." - -Shortly they came out into the morning air, carrying armloads of heavy -rifles, four revolvers, and what seemed half a ton of ammunition. - -The owner had at first refused payment, then taken only the wholesale -cost. At the last minute he had given each of them a long hunting -knife. "You were in Argentina, eh? You can use these. Give 'em -what-for, boys." They had offered to take him with them. "I stick," -he'd said. "This is my store." - - * * * * * - -They looked up and down the street. There were more people now, and the -worst faction was evident--the looters, the sly lurkers who stole from -the dead and exhausted and mad, the bestial men on the prowl for women, -the ones who had gone lunatic and were bent on senseless destruction. A -policeman, his uniform bloody, came toward them as they handed the guns -into the station wagon; suddenly he whipped out his pistol and fired. A -teen-aged boy came flopping and shrieking out of a store window, where -he had been filling his pockets with candy and jacknives and junk. -The cop came abreast of them, his eyes lit with insane anger. Brave -reached out and hit him on the jaw and he fell. "There was no call to -shoot that kid," said Brave. He picked up the pistol and threw it into -a drain. From up and down Broadway came scattered yells and sounds of -gunfire. - -They got into the wagon and Brave drove down to 57th Street. There was -a mob of maddened men who fought each other and ran howling toward -the car when they saw it. "Turn right," said Jim urgently. "There's a -little independent radio station about two blocks away. With luck we -can get in--and out to the rest of the country. Unless that damned bomb -smashed the place." They drew quickly away from the mob, which went -back to fighting among themselves. - -They found the station apparently safe; many of the smaller buildings -here had been protected by the larger from the force of the blast. With -Don left to guard the wagon and guns, they ran into the place. The -elevators had stopped. The men, with Win, trotted up four flights, to -find a door marked with radio call letters. "This is it." - -At the opening of the door three men turned swiftly from their work, -grenade pistols and flamers--flame-throwing handguns--in their fists. -"Hold it," said the lanky Jim urgently. - -"Bless us all," said one of the men, lowering his weapon, "it's -McEldownie! What the hell are you doing in a _radio_ station, Mac?" - -"I'll eat crow for it, but right now I want to get out on the air," he -said. "Can I?" - -"God knows. We've sweat blood over the thing. Our own generators are -okay, but the city's power is off, and the antennae got mashed up some. -Couple of boys up on the roof now, worrying at it. Do you suppose we're -loony for staying here?" he asked. Obviously he valued McEldownie's -opinion. Alan realized for the first time what a reputation the -scarecrow-like announcer had. - -"No. There seems to be no danger of radioactivity; either the bomb -burst in air, or it's a new kind. We've got to get communication -established as soon as possible. You're almost the only sane people -we've seen." - -"Most of our gang went out to try and get home. We're all bachelors -and we figured it was up to us to stay." He ran a hand through his -hair. "Who is it, Mac? Who hit us?" - -"Martians," said Win. - -"Venusians," said Rob Pope. - -"Who are all these guys, Mac?" - -"Scientists from Project Star." The three radio men opened their eyes -respectfully. "Pounce onto it, will you!" roared Mac. "We've got to get -out. We've got to learn what's happened to the world!" - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -"Hi, Mac," said a weary voice. "This is Johnny Gibbons, in Frisco. No, -they haven't been here, but they've hit half the big cities on the -continent. Just heard that Mexico City's flat as a--my brother and his -wife were in Mexico City. Vacation. Get away from it all." - -"Cheers, Mac," said a deep sad voice. "Roscoe Toddy here. They bombed -Chicago. Funny thing: some professors at Northwestern University here -in Evanston turned their detectors on Chicago and couldn't get a whiff -of radioactivity. Must be a new kind of A-bomb, or X-bomb, or GD-bomb -or something." - -"Mac," babbled a voice that verged on screaming lunacy, "Mac, you ought -to see it. There's nothing left at all, not a thing, not a house or a -tree, not a person in the whole place, nothing but waste, waste, Jesus, -death all over, I tell you the universe has gone mad!" They never -learned where this voice came from, or what city was gone. - -"Well, McEldownie, old horse," said a voice, trained to unctuousness -but laced now with intolerable sorrow and strain, "our station was -partly wrecked but we finally got this thing in operating condition. -Pittsburgh is gone, but we're out in East Liberty and didn't take -too much of the blast. It was one bomb, Mac, one lousy big H-bomb or -whichever letter they put on the biggest boom they can make. Mac, I'm -beat to my socks." The voice coughed tightly. "I saw the Cathedral of -Learning go. My God, Mac, what a mighty toppling that was! It folded -in and over and you thought it'd make a hole five miles deep, but it's -lying there now, just a heap of busted stone, and I went to school -there. Dear old Pittsburgh, Alma Mater." - -A dark voice that spoke from far away said, "It was the maddest thing -I ever saw. This golden oval thing fell about as fast as a feather, -and everybody went out of their heads. We all started to run like -mice. Cars were jamming Cahuenga and Sunset and Vine, and people were -scuttling.... I don't know why I wasn't killed. I just don't know." - -"Yes," said a haunted and somber voice, "we ran. We all poured out into -the streets and ran, and fell down and got stepped on and rose and ran -and sweated and had heart attacks and died and lost our breath and -panted and gulped and ran and ran and ran. Fort Worth is a shambles, a -mucked-up mess." - -"No," said a faintly insulted voice, "it wasn't a large bomb, not large -at all. It didn't flatten more than four blocks. I was half a mile off -when it hit but all I got was a skinned knee from falling. Hang it, why -a large bomb on Los Angeles and only a little one on Toronto?" - -"Seattle got it," said a smooth southern voice, "and your town, Mac, -and L.A., and there isn't a peep out of Moscow but who can tell if -they're playing possum? London is smashed; we're getting scraps from -the hinterlands of England but London's had it. Paris is on the air. -Johnny Jill, poor devil, is crying over there now, wanting to know if -Hoboken is okay. We haven't seen the saucers yet in N'Orleans. So ol' -Manhattan got the guts torn out of her? Rough, boy, darned rough. We're -sorry." - -"Austin's gone, gone, I tell you it's all all ALL GONE!" shrieked a -slow-dying voice, and that was all it could say. - -"Listen to this, Mac," urged a girl's voice, sounding strange and -ethereal after the men had spoken so long. "We don't get how they -did it, but those disks have thrown a force screen around every army -encampment and station in the country, perhaps in the world. At Fort -Bragg they mustered and marched out into an invisible wall. They -can't penetrate it. It didn't hurt them, it just stopped them cold. -Someplace in Pennsylvania the National Guard got into trucks and lit -out for New York and ran into one of the walls that piled them up in -heaps. It looks like we're all alone. Nobody's coming to help. We're -all alone." - -"This is London calling," said a cultured, horrified voice. "Hello, -America. Can you hear me? We're not sure were getting across the -Atlantic. We haven't heard anything from you yet. Are you there? Can't -you send us some word? This is the B.B.C. calling. London is gone. -Bombed out completely. This is actually--actually Greenwich. Are you -there? Is all America gone? Oh, this is ghastly, this is the end. Is it -the end of the whole world? Are you there?" - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -Don Mariner, leaning out of the window of the station wagon as the band -emerged, said urgently, "One of them landed. It landed just over there -a way, I don't think more than half a mile. There aren't any others in -sight. This one floated down not half a minute ago." - -"What did I say?" exclaimed McEldownie. "They eliminated radioactive -dust, so they could come right in after a bombing. It's logical." - -"We'll go on foot," said Brave, "though I hate to abandon the car. But -we'll have to go on foot over this rubble, and I take it we _are_ going -to the thing?" - -"We sure are," said Rob Pope. - -"Wait a minute. One of us ought to go with Win in the wagon and try -to make it back to Project Star. She shouldn't be in this ruckus," -protested Alan. - -"You think she'd be better off out there with Lord knows how many -mutants or supermen or aliens?" asked Bill Thihling. "You're not -thinking straight, boy. We've got to stick together. Separate now and -we may never see each other again." - -"Besides, you can't get rid of me," said Win finally. - -Don passed out the heavy sporting rifles, one to each of the men. They -each had a sidearm, Brave two, and he and Alan had the wicked knives of -the shopkeeper. Win had her little automatic for use in emergencies. -Dividing the ammunition, and anchoring Unquote firmly to Alan's left -shoulder with lengths of twine fashioned into harness and leash, they -set off across the street; passed between buildings and across another -street and yet another; and came to the area of near-total destruction. -Here the going was precarious and tricky. Brave stared around them. - -"Looks like Pergamino when we'd finished with it," he said to his -friend. - -A queer dead hush followed them about, muffling their footsteps and -depressing them as though they crept through a graveyard. "That's -what it is," said Alan half-aloud. "The biggest graveyard in the -world." His hands ached to feel the throat of an enemy, to tear out -the jugular, to slay and slay. His world had been struck a fantastic, -unaccountable blow, and it was dead around him and he and his friends -seemed the only living humans from pole to pole. - -They passed on, drifting quietly between broken crags that two -hours before had been office buildings, hearing the echo of their -light foot-falls tossed back by windowless walls and heaps of brick -and stone. One passage was clogged breast-high with corpses. They -went around it, climbing over powdery granite piles that had been a -theater's facade. - - * * * * * - -Then there was the broad plain of ruin, a gargantuan bowl, smoothed -down from its rim to the center, which was some twenty feet below -the original level of the ground. Everything had been smashed here, -buildings and trees and everything that stood upright; in the middle -of the frightful desolated bowl rested one of the great silver disks, -tilted like a gyroscope and balanced on its extreme edge, as though it -leaned at its forty-five-degree angle against an invisible wall. - -"That settles it," said Don. "Our ships can't do that stunt. Look, -it balances like that and the bubble opened up makes an incline to -the ground; fit steps inside the bubble and you have a perfect way of -getting in and out. Our system is much clumsier. How the devil do they -make it balance, though?" - -"They've set up effective force screens around our armies," said Jim. -"If they can do that, certainly they can utilize small editions of the -screen mechanisms to hold up their saucers." - -"Or maybe it's a principle of gyroscopics," added Bill. - -"Well," said Brave, "we're going down there. At least I am. Anybody -wants to stay here, Lord knows I won't blame him." - -"We're all going." - -"Okay. First Alan and Bill and I will walk out. If we aren't shot by -the time we've gone twenty yards, you four come on. We can't plan -anything till we get a look at the brutes in the disk; but as soon as -we do, I'll shout out our next move. Is that all right with everyone? -Or does one of you want to take charge?" - -"You're the chief, Brave," said Rob. "Maybe we outrank you on Project -Star, but in action I'd back you against all of us. I've heard about -you in Argentina." - -"I didn't mean to assume command on the strength of my war record," -said Brave seriously. "I simply figured I had the biggest voice and no -matter what happens you'll probably be able to hear me. Okay, here we -go. Guns at the ready." - -They walked out onto the flattened waste that had been New York. - -Nothing happened. - -When they had been walking for eternity and six days longer, as Alan -judged it, figures appeared below the huge disk, coming down the -inclined steps or plane in the crystal bubble, grouping on the ground. -The Earthmen were then just over an eighth of a mile from the ship. - -The aliens looked human; it was difficult to see differences in their -structure and that of a man; and they wore clothing that glistened -as they moved in the sun. They were setting up three small pieces of -machinery beneath the disk. Alan could not guess what they might be. - -Then the men in the lead, Brave and Bill and Alan, ran into an unseen -wall that knocked them staggering from the force of their own motion. -The aliens had set up a screen around their ship. - -"Here's where I yell out the plan, I guess," said Brave ruefully. "The -plan is to make faces, men. That seems to be the only thing we can do -of a warlike nature. God, a force wall! We might have known." - - * * * * * - -Alan, who had sat down abruptly when he struck it, jarring the -tied-down cat on his shoulder and causing her to sink her claws through -the coat into his skin with anger, stood up and felt the air before his -face. - -"Amazing. Touch this thing, you fellows. It feels like a sheet of hard -rubber. It's perfectly tangible. I can almost feel a grain in the -thing." - -"What scientists they must be!" exclaimed Rob Pope. "This--hey!" he -shouted, startled. "Here's an opening!" - -Then he had walked on across the bowl. Bill Thihling, nearest him, -tried to follow. He found there was no hole there. He skinned his nose -on the force screen. - -"Rob's crazy," he said. "He thinks there ain't no force wall there. So -he walks through it. Only a loon could do it." - -Pope came back. "I heard that. What the hell...? It was here a minute -ago." - -"Can't you get back?" - -"No! The wall's solid again. By Jupiter, they let me come through; they -wanted to see one of us at a time. All right, I'll play their game." He -wheeled and marched straight toward the disk. - -"Oh, Rob, come back!" screamed Win. "They'll do something awful to you!" - -"Too late now," said Alan, taking her arm. "They've caught him in their -cage like a rabbit." - -"A fanged rabbit, anyway," said Don. "He's got his guns." - -Rob walked under the silver ship, into its shadow. The aliens clustered -about him. Beyond the wall of force, the men and the girl held their -breath tensely. - -After a minute or two, "Why," said Jim McEldownie, "they haven't even -taken away his rifle!" - -Shortly Rob turned his face toward them and waved. It was an -encouraging motion. Whatever was happening did not seem hostile. - -"And yet," said Alan to himself, "these are the devils who smashed -Manhattan. They _are_ enemies." Even here, on the sloped plain that -had been a roaring city, it was hard to realize it. He shook himself. -Simply because they had not chopped Rob Pope down immediately, he had -begun to slack off his hatred of them. He was growing tired and stupid. -He reached into his pocket and took out an antigue tablet and swallowed -it. - -Don Mariner, leaning heavily against the invisible wall, was abruptly -shot forward to fall on his belly; the wall had vanished where he -stood. Jim reached the spot an instant later, but the screen was whole. -Don sat up, and his plump face was pale, but his grin was without panic. - -"The Mariners have landed," he said, "and will shortly have the -situation well in hand. Hold tight." He went down to the disk and the -aliens. - - * * * * * - -The waiting grew terrible in its intensity; Bill Thihling took his -pulse and found it like a machine gun, even Brave sweated with anxiety, -his dark fine face taut and frowning. - -He was, as it happened, the next to be admitted to the silver ship's -area. Walking through the hole that opened to him, he thrust an arm -back through it, trying to hold the force away till Alan had had time -to follow him. Roughly, with a sensation of faint burning, the screen -shut down and flung his arm to his side. It was like a sentient animal -leaping from the sky to stand between him and his friend. After a -moment's hesitation he went to the disk. - -Mac came to Alan's side. "Listen, Doc," he said urgently. "Get your -girl over here. The three of us are going through this thing together -when our time comes." - -"How?" And why, thought Alan. Is he scared to walk down over the plain -alone? Why Win and me? How about Bill? - -"I'll show you. Get up against the wall. I'll idle beside you and Win -can stand on the other side. When it opens in front of one of us, the -other two will jump like crickets and we'll go in in lock step. Okay?" - -"They may blast us if we disregard their obvious wishes." He gestured -at the titanic bowl. "They can undoubtedly do it if we peeve them," he -said lightly. - -"We'll take that chance. I have an idea." - -Alan shrugged. What they did seemed unimportant, the activities of a -handful of fleas under a microscope. - -The screen, as it happened, dissolved before Alan. More properly, he -thought, it went up, like a sliding panel under his light-touching -fingers. "Here it is," he said. - -Instantly Mac had stepped behind him, one hand clutching out for Win's -arm, the other around Alan's waist. Alan felt himself propelled through -the doorway as if by a giant's shove; and the three of them stood -inside, the girl looking rather bewildered. - -"My Lord," she said to Mac, "you can move like an express train when -you want to." - -"Now listen," said the announcer. "When we get down there, be on your -toes. Follow my lead. I know what I'm going to do. I'm--we're going to -take over that ship." - -"Jim, you're out of your head." - -"No, I'm not. I know exactly what I'm going to do. We came here to -smack these demons down, didn't we? Well, we will. Just be on your -bloody toes, that's all." - -Then they walked down the gentle slope until they had reached the -shadow of the alien disk. They stopped a few feet from the watching -outlanders. The captive Unquote writhed forward as far as she could on -Alan's shoulder and spat at them. - -They were a strange, a fantastic group, and yet they seemed to be human -beings. Their bodies, much of which was unclothed, were built on the -human scale; they averaged about six feet in height and their chest -and limbs were developed to the same degree as a normally husky man's. -Their foreheads were uniformly high. Their eyes varied in color, only -one having irises of an unearthly hue, a kind of vivid violet. Only in -the arrangement of their features did they differ perceptibly from the -men of Terra: the cheeks were broader, the noses flatter, the eyes more -widely spaced, and the bone structure much less apparent. Somewhere -Alan had seen a man, lately, whose vague memory reminded him of these -fellows. Where...? - -Erin Grady! - - * * * * * - -When the pilot had spread himself out, so to speak, against the back of -the chair, his face had widened, the features had drawn sideways and -perceptibly flattened, so that he had resembled these saucermen. Was -this what he had meant when he said, "You can't touch us. What could -you do anyway?" This holocaust, this ghastly obliterating of New York -and Los Angeles and fifty more great cities? - -Grady had been a spy for them, then; a watcher, landed perhaps from one -of the disks on a dark night.... - -He shook himself. That's romantic hogwash, he said. Everyone on Project -Star had a thorough checking-over, and his history from birth to the -present was recorded in the files. That meant that Grady had been born -here, in the United States. - -Unless the keepers of the files were alien too, in which case a -falsified record would be a simple matter to arrange. - -But if he had been left here in comparatively recent times, say even -four or five years ago, Alan went on, how did he learn our language, -our backgrounds, our habits and customs and all the rest of it, so -well? Are these creatures then so much farther advanced than we, that -they can take on the perfect counterfeit of humanity in so short a -time? He could not quite believe it. Grady had been too human. - -Damn it all, _these_ men looked too human! - -He shrugged mentally, and began to examine their clothing. What there -was of it was metallic, or of cloth that seemed metallic: each one -wore a wide belt of silver filigree, reaching up to the ribs and down -just past the groin; beneath this a material that resembled cloth of -gold, very soft and fine, was wound about the loins. They all wore -sandals, of varying colors, the straps of which appeared to be made -of tinted copper or a like metal. The rest of their outfits were -evidently according to the individual's own taste; some wore arm bands -of glittering orange or yellow gold, some had circlets of shining gray -argent bound about their hair, which in all cases was blond and cut -about shoulder length. The over-all effect was splendidly barbaric, and -about as far as Alan could imagine from the usual picture of visitors -from space. - -"They ought to have broadswords swinging at their thighs," he murmured -to Win. "Or at least be toting horn cups full of mead." - -"Aren't they something!" she said, and then, "are these the devils who -bombed all our world a few hours back? These big good-looking boys? I -can't believe it!" - -One of them bent over a square steel-like box and turned a dial; they -heard Bill Thihling shout in the distance, "Hey, the wall's gone!" and -saw him come running toward them. - -"They're the ones," said Alan, and his mind, occupied till now with the -romantic appearance of the invaders, became filled with hate. - - * * * * * - -Instantly he felt something probing into his thoughts. It was, although -he did not remember it, very like his first experience of hypnosis -during the telecast. All he knew now, however, was that someone was -leafing through his emotions and ideas as if they had been a large -plainly-printed book. It made him furious. He might have done anything, -shouted angrily or struck out at the nearest alien in an access of -physical passion; but it was then that Jim McEldownie made his move. - -"Okay," the lanky man roared, "strike now! Blast 'em! Get into the -ship!" He lifted his rifle and fired it from the hip, and one of the -outlanders spun round and fell, a great bloody cavern torn in his chest. - -Alan did not question Jim's methods, though two minutes before he -would have; he blew the head off the nearest blond saucerman and shot -over the falling body at another. Brave fired too, and Don Mariner; the -others were caught by surprise and only stared wide-eyed. - -An alien drew a silver tube from the back of his filigreed silver -girdle and from its tiny muzzle a gout of scarlet flame flew at Alan. -He felt nothing, thanked his luck that it had missed, and shot the -man through the head. Then he was racing after McEldownie toward the -crystal bubble's inclined plane. - -Up they went into the disk, he and Mac in the lead, Unquote shrieking -murder on his shoulder. Behind them he could hear the others pounding -along, crying out questions or vague threats or battle-cries. - -The ship was much larger than those of Project Star, and more complex -within; the ramp reached to a corridor with three doors. Mac was -dashing for the farthest one; Alan threw his weight against the middle -door. As it burst open his first glimpse was of four outlanders rising, -open-mouthed, from chairs set before a bank of control panels. - -Afterwards he could recall only the thing which flashed through his -mind in that first instant of viewing them: that in the old West it had -been proved time and again that one good man with a repeating rifle -was better than four good men with revolvers. Alan proved it now, not -against guns, but against the small silver tubes that spat flame -balls. The room was a shambles in eight seconds, and Alan turned for -more conquest, to stumble over the body of a man in the corridor. - - * * * * * - -It was Don Mariner, and he had no face. There was a raw bloody burn -from ear to ear, from brow to throat. He had probably died very -quickly. Alan straightened and gripped his gun's stock till the -fingertips splayed out white and flat against it. Old Don, he said, -old plump Don. Not so old, he said, probably no more than forty-two -or -three, but you always thought of him affectionately as Old Don. Now -who will there be to exclaim "By Judas!" when things get tough? - -"Brave!" he bawled out. "Brave, are you safe?" He was hideously afraid -for his great friend. When the copper face peered out of the third -door, he was ill with relief. - -"Had a little dust-up in here," said the Indian. "These boys wanted to -brawl. My God," he said, coming out, "Don's had it." - -"Yes, he's had it." - -"He was a good man. Did we lose anyone else? I think the saucermen are -all through." - -Jim McEldownie joined them. "The big control room's up front there. We -killed seven of 'em there. Rob took a leg burn and he'll walk with a -limp for a while. No more casualties." - -"Those tubes of theirs are frightful. If we hadn't taken them so by -surprise--" - -"They were too careless," said Brave. "Doesn't make sense." - -Rob Pope hobbled out, one arm over Bill's shoulders. "I think I know -why," he said. "When they got me down here, they searched through my -mind. I could feel it plain as a physical touch. They found hate there, -I'll be bound, but it was for the bombing of the city, not a congenital -hatred of outsiders. They found the same in Bill's mind. It relaxed -them and put them off guard." - -"How do you figure that?" asked Win. - -"They were looking for an ingrained enmity toward themselves. It -astonished them when they didn't find it. They're tremendously -telepathic, and I'll wager hypnotic too. I think they do much of their -own communicating by thought waves; at least I didn't hear them speak -once. - -"When they discovered why I was angry, they were stunned. I mean they -were shocked blue. You see, they made a mistake. They realized that as -soon as they'd pried into my mind. They thought we were down here just -waiting to kill them as soon as they landed, and naturally they had to -cripple us before they dared do it. Then they found out their mistake. -They had to kill someone, I'm not sure who, but the bombing of our -cities could have been avoided had they known what we were like." - -"Wait a minute," objected Brave. "Rob, how do you know all this?" - -Pope looked surprised. "Why, they told me. They had just begun to -explain it, hardly got more than a few ideas across, when you and -Mac and Alan busted loose. If I'd known what you were planning I'd -have stopped you. But now we have made a mistake as bad in its way as -theirs." - -"They told you all this?" asked Win blankly. - -"Yes. They talked in my mind. Not in English, but it came out that -way. It was--pictures, I suppose is the nearest thing to it. Emotions -and both abstract and concrete ideas can be transmitted by a good -telepathist; and these boys were the best." He shook his head. "It's -too bad. God knows where it will all end now." - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -They carried the body of Don Mariner down the ramp and laid it on the -rock-hard earth of the desolate bowl. - -Mac, standing next to Alan, said in his ear, "Come aboard again. I want -to show you something." - -Alan turned obediently, although why he should follow Mac's -commands--for it had been a command--he wasn't sure; and Win screamed, -a high hysterical keening that set Unquote to ululating too. The men -all cried out. "What's wrong? What is it?" - -"Look at your head!" she said to Alan, pointing. Even in that somber -moment he could not help laughing. - -"How?" he said. "I'm not built that way." - -"Oh, God," said Bill Thihling. "Alan, you took an awful blast in the -ear. Why didn't you say something about it?" - -"What are you talking about?" he said irritably. "I wasn't hit." He put -a hand up to his right ear. Brave said, "Look out, boss, you'll hurt -it. It's a bad one." - -He fingered the ear. The tip and lobe, and part of the convolutions -of the outer ear, felt like bits of steak which had been burnt in a -searing flame; he looked at his fingers, amazed, and saw black flakes -of skin and powdery, charcoal-like stuff. That must be the flesh, -cooked and carbonized, almost incinerated in the astounding heat of the -little fireball. "They did hit me," he said stupidly, staring at his -fingers. "I never felt it." - -Brave, examining the ear without touching it, said, "You'll lose most -of that ear, son. It's--_you never felt it_?" - -"I can't feel it now. I mean, I have sensation in it, I can feel my -fingers when they touch it, but it doesn't hurt." - -Then, just as comprehension of what he was saying began to dawn on him, -he heard Mac say again, very urgently, "Get aboard the ship. Jump!" And -he jumped. - -He hared it up the ramp, Unquote writhing on his shoulder, and leaped -in through the first door he came to; Mac yelled, "No, this one!" It -was the front control room, the largest of the three; he was out and -into it in a flash, to find Mac already sitting in a chair before the -central panels. "Sit down there," snapped the lanky man, indicating the -next seat. Alan did, half-wondering why, half-knowing that he must. The -great viewplates above the controls, on which was mirrored the earth -and sky on every side of the disk, blinked on; Mac cursed angrily. - -"Why couldn't you have followed me at once? Now the fools have got in." -He was out of the chair and bolting the door of the room before Alan -could open his mouth. Then he was back, touching levers and buttons, -adjusting dials. One of the viewplates showed the crystal bubble -closing; then another came on and they could see the center room. Brave -and Win and the others were there, talking earnestly, although their -voices could not be heard. Suddenly the door to that room swung shut. -Brave hurled his tremendous bulk at it, but it was shut fast. Mac -chuckled. - -"Okay, you damned impetuous idiots. Sit down if you don't want to be -smeared all over the floor." Evidently they could hear him. After a -moment's argument they took seats. Mac pushed over a long lever, like -the joystick of a monoplane, and with a very slight rocking motion the -saucer rose into the air. - - * * * * * - -Mac glanced at Alan. "Buckle that strap around your chest, pal. You'll -need it for the turns." - -"How in the name of everything sane did you learn to operate a disk, -Jim?" he asked. Just then he was less surprised at the man's cavalier -treatment of his friends than at the enormity of this, that McEldownie -could fly an alien disk. - -"Nothing to it," said the other. "I was a pilot originally." He looked -over again. "_That was five hundred years ago_," he said, almost -casually. "Buckle the strap, hang it." - -Alan did so in a daze. He knew that he was not in complete control of -himself, and yet he did not know why. There were a hundred questions -rocketing in his mind and they confused him so that obedience to -McEldownie's commands came automatically. He wondered if he were under -hypnotic influence again; but he did not feel that he was. - -"Oh, you are, chum," said Mac without looking at him. "Not altogether, -you understand; Brave's counter-hypnosis played hell with my plans for -you. Cuss the big so-and-so. I should have killed him when he moved out -of the lamps and out of any possible control. But I wanted him too. I -liked him." - -"Who are you?" breathed Alan.... - -The cold voice spoke in his mind, shattering his questions before they -were asked, shaking what was left of his confidence, forcing him to -quail mentally and physically. - -_Oh, stubborn slave, didn't you know? Didn't you know?_ - -_God, God, perhaps I did._ - -_I am you and you are me..._ - -McEldownie laughed. It was not a cold laugh, not sinister or dramatic. -It was a perfectly healthy expression of mirth. "Alan, I'm sorry. -I'm really sorry, and you won't ever believe that, but it's true. It -surprises me. Living among you for all these years has mellowed ol' -Mac, I guess. I find myself thinking of you as friends, when I used to -regard you as dogs: faithful without knowing it, helpful, indispensable -in many cases, but hardly more than good dogs." He paused a moment, -then went on. "I'm your voice, of course. There's no trick to it when -you know how. A matter of hypnosis plus the lights plus psychology, -plus whatever the power in us is that makes our minds different from -yours. I'm the voice. I wasn't going to admit it, but my plans have -changed for you." - - * * * * * - -He banked the disk around over desolate Manhattan and said, "Takes -a while to get the reflexes working again. I haven't sat behind the -controls since we left home. Your five-times-great grandfather wasn't a -twinkle in his old man's eye when we left home." - -Alan could not speak. He was remembering things he had not been able to -remember, the voice and what it had told him, the night that it called -him from bed to come to the terrible lamps, and-- - -"Yes, it was me, it was all me, Alan. I was the voice in your head at -the telecast, I called you in the night; I worked the lights in the -shed on Project Star. There are plenty of us out there, but I wanted -you for my own personal sidekick. You're smart and a good scientist, -and you'll make a good lieutenant when we go home." The words made no -sense and yet Alan seemed to catch a glimmering of the understanding -that was to come. - -He said, "I guess I ought to exclaim, 'You're mad!' but I know you're -not. You can pilot this thing and you can move faster than a cheetah, -and everything's gone mad this past week and I want to know why. Don't -lie to me, Mac. For the love of God, don't lie to me. One more wrong -theory implanted in my skull and I'll blow my stack for good." - -"I won't lie. I'm all through lying, to you at any rate. The others -can't hear me at the moment, but I suppose I may as well tune them in -too." His homely face, with its great prow of a nose and the half-shut -green eyes, looked a little sad. "I'm afraid they're all going to die, -Alan. Except Win, that is. You see, the speeds at which I'm going to -fly this disk will kill a human being. On the turns, if I get into -dogfights, the 'G' forces will be terrific. You and Win can stand 'em, -because you've been conditioned. Brave and Rob and Bill will be smashed -to jelly under the 'G' impact. I'm sorry. I like Brave and I admire -Rob's intelligence. I'd like to save them. But they got aboard because -you were slow, and now they're done for. I can't land and put 'em out. -Time is precious. I have to maneuver this ship until I know I can do -stunts with her like the ones I did at home. A long time ago, Alan." He -grinned ruefully. "A long time even to me." - -"What do you mean, I was slow getting aboard?" Alan fastened on this -small facet of the affair, frightened of finding out too much of the -truth at once. - -"Man, you can move as fast as I if you try. You've had three long -treatments under the lamps. Your energies are stepped up, if you learn -to use them correctly, your reflexes are as fast as those of the cat on -your shoulder, and you're almost deathless compared to your friends. -Might as well start there," he mused. "They can hear us in the other -room." On the viewplate, Win and Brave nodded. Jim clicked shut a -switch. "Now they can see us. Okay, you four, I'm going to do some -explaining. I can hear you now, but if you start to interrupt I'll -switch you off." - -Brave said, "Alan, are you all right?" - -"He's ginger-peachy," said Mac. "In fact he'll be all right two -hundred years from now. - -"There's no use in explaining the rays to you; it would take hours -and you would scarcely grasp the principle even then. I'll tell you -what they do. They lengthen your life span--my own is about a thousand -years, but Alan's will be nearer four hundred, for I caught him late. -Generations of my ancestors were exposed to them, too; it affects the -genes eventually and we're born long-lived. They quicken your reflexes -through a process of strengthening the nerves and certain cells of -the brain. They also affect the portions of the brain which send and -receive telepathic stimuli. After one treatment it's easy to control a -man over a long distance. - -"The effect of the rays on the muscles is unique. They become almost -rubbery, not loose, you understand, but capable of stretching and -flexing in directions that look uncanny to a non-initiate. That's how -poor Grady escaped being sliced down the middle when he rammed up his -ship. He drew all his muscles to the sides and flattened out like a -plaster on the chair. You couldn't do that; your skeletons are thicker -and more immovable than ours. I'd show you how I can ooze out sideways -and make my ribs about as level as a picket fence--but I'm afraid you -wouldn't like the sight. It must be pretty gruesome to an Earthman." - -"Were the rays in the TV lights?" asked Bill Thihling. - -"That's right. I've caught plenty of fish that way, including President -Blose of the U.S. of A. and nine-tenths of his cabinet. A lot of your -scientists have become unwitting puppets through being seen on _Worlds -of Portent_. Alan got two treatments there and one on Project Star. -Win got her first in the gym of the colony and two more in that shed." -He smiled guilelessly. "You were right about her, of course, in a -way I mean; for she can't feel pain. I caught her mind just before I -pinched her--and very pleasant it was, too, my dear, even if I meant it -impersonally--and told her to simulate pain. She was under my control -every second of that time. When she left, I pretended to go to sleep, -and called her back. I had a feeling I'd need her around. Glad I did. -She and Alan are all the fighting forces I have at the moment." - - * * * * * - -Alan brushed over much of what he wanted to know, to ask, "Can you feel -pain, Mac?" - -"Yes, I can. A man can't give up pain. It's too valuable. We put an -added ingredient into the rays we used on you people of Terra, to -eliminate pain." - -"Why?" - -"I'll get to that. The welder, of course, was a man who had been -treated. One of our boys got rid of him in a vat of molten metal. -Couldn't have an unfinished experiment walking around loose. He -slipped up when he failed to simulate pain. Sometimes we get 'em like -that, too dumb to do the right things even under complete hypnosis. -Win was a different case. She didn't know she'd been burnt by that -cigarette. If she'd seen it, she'd have yipped. She was conditioned to -do it, even to think she felt pain. If you'd known you'd been grazed by -that fireball, Alan, you'd not only have roared, you'd have _thought_ -you felt it." - -"Why don't I think so now?" - -"It's too late for verisimilitude. Your subconscious knows that. It -shrugs its teensy-weensy shoulders and forgets it." - -"Who shot at Alan after the welder incident?" asked Brave. His face was -cold and malignant. - -"One of Getty's men." - -"Doc Pomposity?" - -"That's right. Getty's not fully under control. His unconscious -and natural wish not to kill Alan made him send a man out with an -automatic, rather than a grenade pistol. But he was conditioned enough -to feel that Alan was dangerous to us and he at least made a stab at -assassination. Then before he could do it again, we got to him and told -him we were going to 'convert' you." - -All this while he had been twisting and turning the disk, making -practice runs and dives; the control rooms, floated within the hull and -leveling off no matter what direction the great saucer took, vibrated -slightly and continuously. It was almost like being in the hold of a -sailing ship. - -Rob said, "I suppose the curious construction of your skeletons and -muscular development helps you stand the motion and the acceleration of -the disks?" - -"That's right. Alan and Win can stand it too, especially since they -feel no pain of any sort. But we haven't started going fast yet--I -haven't put it above five hundred. When we hit four thousand--that's -m.p.h.--I'm afraid you'll die, you three." Mac scowled unhappily. "I -hope you realize I don't want to kill you? In the first place, I'd like -to have you on my side, because we both have a score to settle with the -hounds who bombed your cities. I would have slain Mariner out of hand, -slain him as he slew poor Grady when he had him helpless in that chair, -but luckily he got his in the fight. I haven't any wish to kill off -my potential army, but the speed of an air battle will do it. And I'm -going to be in some fights before long." - -Alan, strapped to his chair, was leaning over toward Mac as far as he -could. Now he said, "By heaven, you haven't any pores in your skin!" - -"I was afraid you'd notice that before. I had a fantastic yarn cooked -up to explain it. That's right, pal; Grady and me, and all the rest of -us, haven't any sweat glands or pores or tear ducts. There are other -little differences too, but they don't cut any ice. The differences -notwithstanding, we are human. Not strictly Earthtype human, I suppose, -but human nonetheless." He brooded over his controls, as the disk -roared silently through the sky. "I like you all, too, dammit. I don't -want to kill you. I think I'll chance another ten minutes and set you -down. - -"I must be getting soft in my middle age," he added with a wry smile. -"Chancing the loss of a world for three idiot kids. Oh, well. What the -hell. A gallant gesture will maybe pay off in the long run." - - * * * * * - -There were several minor points that nagged at Alan; he wanted them out -of the way before someone asked the one big question of McEldownie. -"Why didn't Grady control my mind when we tied him up? Why couldn't he -save himself?" - -"Erin Grady was a weak link. We have 'em in our chain, you know. -We're not supermen. He was weak at hypnosis and he couldn't bear -pain. I think he was a throwback to the days when we were altogether -Earth-style humanity. He called to me, though, and I shot back; but I -came just too late. That fool Mariner!" With a savage twist he angled -the disk toward earth. Then he laughed. "I've wanted to compliment -you on your mutant theory, Alan. It was ingenious as the devil and -it accounted for everything you'd seen up to that time. If we could -regenerate parts, the loss of pain wouldn't matter, and we could take -the treatment we're giving you and lose pain and be thankful. But -'tain't so. We're not supermen. It's only our robots--pardon me, our -earthly henchmen--who are immune to pain. Coming in contact with both -kinds of 'aliens' must have confused the very living dickens out of -you." - -"Hold on," said Alan. "I just thought of something. If I'm immune to -pain, why did I feel it so excruciatingly when Brave hit me, when he -wanted to put me under hypnosis? Tell me that was all in my mind...!" - -"It wasn't. You didn't get the pain-destroying rays till your third -treatment, on last night's telecast." - -"Oh. That's it." He patted Unquote on the head; she was getting -restless. Then it became obvious why. "Damn," said Alan, "now I'll have -to have this suit cleaned. Puss, couldn't you have waited a little -longer?" - -Bill asked, "What about the saucers? I mean, they suddenly turned out -to be better than anyone suspected. Why?" - -McEldownie looked grim. "Some saucers had been sighted that we knew -weren't ours. We had a few left from the days when we first came to -Earth, in the late 1700s; we used to fly 'em occasionally to keep our -hands in. But these weren't ours. So we knew we had to speed things -up. Till then we'd been content to go along, giving your scientists -an unobtrusive push now and then, so they'd believe they had done it -all; our time schedule called for intergalactic-space disks about -1984. Well, we knew when the others were seen that we didn't have all -the time in the world, as we'd thought. So we had to jump in feet -first, take a lot of men under our controlling wing, start making -robots--there I go again, that's a bad word for them--making unkillable -soldiers of others, and substitute our own advanced designs for those -in use at that time. We were too late; the damned enemy came down -too fast. But now that I've got one of theirs--and a beauty it is, -too--thanks to your help, I have a fighting chance." - -"Who are the enemy?" It was Win, breathless, leaning forward, her -breast rising and falling rapidly with the emotion and wonder of this -thing. "Who are you going to fight?" - -Mac looked at her in the viewplate. "The men from my planet," he said -quietly. "The men who cast us out, as if we'd been the fallen angels of -Lucifer in your myth, chucked us out of our own world and sent us to -wander in the void." - - * * * * * - -He made the ship do a quick turn, and Alan saw Brave and Rob and Bill -suck in their bellies and grimace. Mac said, "They half-crippled -me then, damn them, and this is the first time I've flown since I -left home. Some of the others have managed to stay a little more in -practice. But by God, I'm still the best hotshot pilot my people ever -produced, and I'm going to prove it today." He glanced up at the -viewplate. "I'm going to let you out, you three. I want Alan and Win; -they're my people now, and in a fight they can be a terrific help, for -they're almost impossible to kill. I'll land now, and you can go. I -oughtn't to do it. But curse you, Injun, I like you." He shot the disk -toward the earth from a height of seven miles. - -Brave said, "We won't get out." - -"Don't be silly. You'll die under the 'G' load when I really get going." - -"Then we'll die. I won't leave Alan with you, nor Win either. You will -let us all out, or kill us." - -"You bloody village idiot. What good will it do you to die?" - -"I can't leave Alan. I saw him through Argentina and I'll see him -through this hell you've put him into. Besides, someone's got to clean -and bandage that ear, or he'll lose the whole thing. It's a bad wound." - -"Not to him it's not. He doesn't feel it. The rays eliminate all danger -of infection, disease--he can't even catch a common cold. His ear will -be okay." - -"Ear, schmear," said Rob Pope. "I stick by my friends too. Maybe all -I can do is die like a squashed mouse, but I _can_ do that. We don't -scuttle for cover, alien." - -"Likewise," said Bill Thihling laconically. - -"Beastly blasted blue-bottomed baboons of knotheaded numbskulls!" -roared McEldownie. "Do you want me to kill you, then?" - -"I want you to let us all go; but if you won't, then Alan's better dead -than living under your influence, like a marionette." - -"He won't die. I tell you! No matter what happens to you, he'll go on -living. He'll be my man." - -"I don't think so," said Brave calmly. "I don't care what sort of -all-powerful rays you put him under, or how you've caught the reins of -his mind. If you kill me, Alan is sooner or later going to kill you. -Live with that, McEldownie, or whatever your right name is. I don't for -a minute believe that you can take as good a man as Alan and murder his -best friend before his eyes and have him lick your boots. Kill me and -you're done, Mac." - -"Damn you, Lo! You're wrong, and you know it." He snarled at the -viewplate. "You absolutely won't get out of the disk if I land it?" - -"No." - -"Then die, you fool," said Mac, the words half-strangled in his throat; -and he sent the ship rocketing through space like a meteor. - - * * * * * - -Alan had felt Mac's mind leave his when Brave started to argue. He -had concentrated furiously then on what he could do to over-power the -alien. Very little of worth had occurred to him; but as a last resort -he had determined on quick physical violence. If he could move as fast -as Mac said he could, there was a chance. - -Now, as the disk shot forward, he sensed Mac reaching out to touch -his brain again, and with all his will he thought of other things, -anything, anything except what he meant to do. He stared at the -viewplate that showed the central room. He could feel almost no -sensation of motion, and Win seemed quite all right. But the three men -were curled in their chairs, gasping, even the mighty Indian writhing -under horrible, painful pressure. - -"For the love of God, Mac!" cried Alan. - -And McEldownie slowed the ship. He turned a sickened, saddened -countenance to Alan. "I can't do it," he said a little pitifully. "I -can't kill that big red devil. I like him too well. I think he knew -that when he made his proposition. I don't care how much it delays me, -I've got to land him. Hear that, Lo?" he said to the viewer. "I'm going -to do it. I'll put your whole precious gang out on land, and find some -of my own boys. Project Star will be the place, if I can get there -without interference. I can load up my crew and a few of the painless -gentry and it'll make a better army than this would have been. But -dammit, I did want my protege Alan with me." - -"Say your dog, rather," suggested Alan bitterly. - -"All right. Didn't you ever love a dog?" - -"Yes." - -"It's the same with me. I can't help feeling your race is inferior, -but I can still be good and sorry to see you die, I can still feel -affection for you." - -"And that makes up for what you have been doing to him and the others?" -asked Bill weakly. - -"Oh, hell!" Mac bit his lip. "You are an impossible breed, you -Earthlings." - -Alan felt his mind withdraw again as he angled the disk around toward -the west. In that instant, shoving aside the already unbuckled strap -from his chest, and drawing the long hunting knife from its sheath -at his side, he pounced out of his chair full upon the alien. Mac's -green eyes flew open as Alan, his movements blurred by his incredible -quickness caught the outlander's chin and dragged it back and with -the other hand pressed the edge of the keen knife against the brown -throat. Then, as he collected his startled thoughts, Alan said briskly, -"Don't do it, Mac. Don't even think about touching my brain, because -it's clear as a bell right now, and the first feeling I have of your -meddling with it, I'm going to drag this knife through your windpipe. -You can't control me without at least half a second's preparation, and -with the reflexes you've given me, that's enough." He glanced up at -the viewer. "Brave, Rob, don't either of you try to tell me anything -telepathically. I know the different sensations I get when I'm being -paged or controlled, and the first whimper of one of 'em sends this -blade into Mac's neck." - - * * * * * - -No one spoke for a moment. Then Mac said, "If you knew how ridiculous -you look, standing there with that whopping carver and with that sick -cat on your shoulder, I really believe you'd give this business up and -bust out laughing." - -"Don't count on it," said Alan levelly. "I'll tell you what, Mac. You -said you were going to let us all go. Maybe you were. But I don't trust -you worth an inflated nickel. You'd have found a way to get Win and me -back. Besides that, we only have your side of the story, and about a -tenth of it, at that. I want to meet some of these birds that bombed -our cities. They told Rob, before you had me murder them, that they had -made a mistake. They had to kill someone but they didn't mean to kill -us. That someone was obviously you. I want to know why. If I let you -and this saucer get out of my hands, and then find that the bombers are -in the right in whatever quarrel they have with you, I'll be sorry the -rest of my life. So you're going to take us to 'em, Mac. We're going -to get the whole story." - -McEldownie laughed. It was a completely mirthless noise. -"Kiwanawatiwa," he said to Brave, "I have you to thank for this mutiny, -you and those hypnosis gimmicks of yours." - -"No, not altogether," said Alan. The knife pressed in a little and the -tall man winced. "It was your admission that you were my voice." My -beloved voice in the depths of space, he thought, almost ruefully. It -was fearful but I loved it. "If you hadn't wanted to brag, you might -have kept control of me." - -"I wasn't bragging. I wanted you as an ally and friend, rather than a -puppet." - -"Robot is the word. You used it a couple of times." - -"Not for you, damn it. I liked you as a fellow human being." - -Something flicked at Alan's mind with feathery tentacles; the knife -drew blood and the feathery searching stopped. "That hurts," objected -Mac. - -"It'll hurt worse. Take us to the nearest disk you know of." - -"How would I know of any?" - -"You can find them. Do it." - -"Don't push me too far," said the other icily. "Remember I'm infinitely -stronger than you." - -"But very susceptible to a sliced-up jugular." - -"I won't wreck five hundred years of plans, even for you!" - -"Not for me," said Alan easily. "For the sake of your throat, Mac old -boy." - -Mac sighed, and turned the ship gently, for fear of the deadly blade in -Alan's remorseless hand, and sent it rocking over the hills inland. - -"I'm a weak link," he said bitterly. "A weak link like poor old Grady. -I didn't know I'd be so afraid to die." - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -They landed gently beside the two great silver disks, and Mac sat back -and said, "Well," proudly, for it was his first landing in half a -millennium. "Now what, Jack the Ripper?" - -"Now we go out and talk to them. First we let the gang out of the -middle room, though." - -Mac flipped a switch. "They can open the door now." - -Brave and the others came to meet them in the corridor. They all had -their rifles at the ready. "Put up the knife, Alan," said Rob Pope. -"He's under control pretty well, I'd say. One phony move or thought and -he's done." - -Mac looked at them all. "I liked you," he said sadly. "I suppose I'll -have to kill you eventually, but I did like you." Then they marched him -down the ramp to the ground. - -Alan and Win and Rob were aware at once of the amazement that ran -through the alien forces like a chinook wind among pines. Alan could -catch the thoughts plainly: _It is he, it is the leader!_ - -"Holy cats," he said, and Unquote stirred feebly but angrily on his -shoulder. "Mac, are you the chief of your bunch?" - -"Yes. Oh, laddie, I'm a prize catch. They'll give you the Iron Cross -for me. Or the Lead Casket." - -The outlanders, duplicates in form and clothing of the men slain by -Alan and the others, clustered around them. Alan wondered if there -were hatred in his brain to be found by these fellows. He did not -actually know himself whether or not he hated them for their bombing. -The destruction of New York had been such a gargantuan thing, such an -incredibly huge blow, that the solution of smaller problems seemed to -have driven it out of his thoughts entirely; perhaps it was a trick of -his subconscious, to prevent his going mad with horror. - -He could hear them--if "hear" was the verb--talking mentally together. -There was no language involved, evidently, for the thoughts were surely -as plain to him as to the aliens themselves. "It's like listening in on -an old-fashioned party line," he told Win. - -"Isn't it! I mean," she added hastily, "I'm not old enough to remember, -but it must be." - -Alan grinned. "As I catch it, they're congratulating each other on -capturing Mac. And by glory, they're thanking us!" - -"They just unfolded my mind like a road map," said Rob, "so they know -about all that we know. What stupendous capacities for absorption their -brains must have! I get the feeling that they just glance through a -kind of card index that's in the back room of my skull, and then they -know how I feel about them, and about chess and women, and what I had -for supper last night." - -"It's not that miraculous," said McEldownie, on whose wrists two of the -aliens in filigreed harness had placed brass manacles connected by a -long chain. "They--and I--touch the centers of emotion, and judge from -them what sort of person you are. Just now they read the records of how -you got the disk, and how you captured me; and they tried to find out -how you reacted to the bombing of New York, but your emotion there was -too obscure." - -"I obscured it myself. I was ashamed of it. Because," said Rob, -wrinkling up his forehead, "although I'm shaken when I think of it, -and feel so sorry that _sorry_ is a mild word, still I can't find any -hatred for your brothers here. I honestly think it was a mistake on -their part; and it must have been based on evidence, so that evidence -was falsified; and only you and your crew could have done that. Ergo, I -don't hate them. I hate you, Mac." - -"You're all wrong." - -"I'll find out before I do anything about it." - - * * * * * - -Half a dozen of the bare-chested blond fellows came to stand before -them. Again, there was no evidence of weapons--but whereas the first -group had been careless after finding no basic hatred in Rob and Bill, -this contingent had carefully studied the intent and the mental content -of each of them. Probably, thought Alan, it was because they had -brought McEldownie, who had been instantly recognized. - -"That's right," said Mac in answer to his thought. "That first bunch -were strangers to me. See the tall bloke with the argent head-band? -That's my uncle, my mother's brother. Half of this lot knew me at home." - -"Mac," said Win, "where _is_ your home?" - -"Erin Grady told you the truth. We come from the ninth planet of a sun -unknown to you." - -"And why did you come?" - -"That's a long yarn--and my uncle says he has something to tell you." -Mac shut his mouth. Tall, bony, homely, dressed in ordinary American -clothes, his beak of a nose and the half-lidded green eyes so familiar -to them all, Alan and the others felt a pang at seeing him silent and -crestfallen among the fantastically clad outlanders. He was one of -them, but he was also McEldownie, the TV announcer, the fellow who made -bad puns and got drunk and ate enormously and suffered with them when -New York died. Even Rob Pope, surer than the rest that Mac was at the -bottom of all the hell unleashed that day, scowled and gave him a sorry -grin. - -"Maybe I'm planting the thought in your minds," Mac said cynically. -None of them had spoken. - -"I'd know if you were, I think," said Rob. "No, it's natural. You were -a good egg." - -"And as good eggs go, I went bad." He shrugged. "I think now that I -didn't need to let you capture me for them. I might have killed Alan on -the spot by touching a single button. Damn you all," he said without -emotion. "I either loved you too well, or I was sick of running and -being a rebel." - -"A rebel against what?" asked Bill Thihling. - -"Stuffiness and authority. I've got to shut up." He hung his head. He -looked very tired and rather older than he had before this hour. - -Then the leader of the aliens spoke to them. The message came in the -curious wordless manner, and each of them put words to it in his own -mind. To Alan it came like this: - -"We are profoundly shocked at our hasty action of this morning. We have -done you incomparable injury where a little more investigation would -have shown us you were not inimical, not working against us, not bad at -all as men go. Our only excuse is that we were direly pressed for time. - -"We investigated certain sections of your planet where activities -showed us some of the rebels from our world were at work; they were -building ships and weapons to return to us, to attack us. We found at -these places, some cities and some isolated deserts, some small towns -and some government projects, that our rebels had taken control of -your people, making them invulnerable with the ray which is known to -us, making them long-lived and incapable of pain and with quickened -reflexes and swifter bodies than before. To investigate this we should -have had weeks. We gave ourselves less than a day. For we knew that our -ships would have been sighted and the rebels would be speeding their -plans. So we found many robot humans, many scientists working with our -exiled people, and we thought that in all these places there must be -millions of potential foemen." - - * * * * * - -The message was charged with emotion; it was impossible to believe that -the man was lying. Indeed, thought Alan, there was no reason why he -should lie. If he could wipe out New York with one small golden egg, he -had no need to make allies of a few puny humans. - -"Again, our sole excuse is the lack of time. We did find many places -where only a portion of those checked were under rebel control. Those -places we did not bomb, trusting that if we struck the large cities and -the projects where disk manufacture was under way, we could mop up the -others with ground fighting." - -I wonder if Project Star is gone, thought Alan. - -"I wonder," echoed Win aloud. Then they turned to each other, -astounded. "Darling," she said after a second, "that's the one thing I -like about this hardening, pain-removing process--now we can talk to -each other without words!" - -"Think what we can do with our mouths while we're talking," he grinned. - -The leader went on. "I may interject here that we took over control -of your artificial satellite some days ago. We did not kill the men -therein, who were not enemies, but control them by simple hypnosis. -They will of course be freed of this as soon as our job is done and a -peace settled on between our worlds." - -Brave looked up at the sky. Albertus, of course, could not be seen -with the naked eye, but he said, "I know a couple of the lads that run -that space station. Good boys. I'd been afraid they were dead. I knew -they wouldn't have let us be smeared like this if they'd been able to -prevent it." - -"Only one city we bombed that we had not personally checked on; that is -the large one over there," and he gestured toward Manhattan. "We could -not send our men on the ground into that place; the entranceways are -too complex, the place is too big, it would have taken too long; and -we could scarcely fly over and drop spies. After earnest consultation -we decided to bomb it. Being the largest concentration of civilized -people in your world, being so close to the major rebel project, we -felt--we _knew_--that it was full of enemies. Our stupidly certain -assumption was wrong. We can never make reparation for that mistake, -we cannot begin to make amends to you. Your only help will be the -knowledge that we will live with the memory of that mistake the rest of -our lives; and they are long, long lives. - -"We are men of good will. We beg you to believe this. We have outlawed -war and our planet lives at peace, prosperous peace. Now we have -committed an intolerable crime against a brother race. We are hurt, in -our way, as much as you have been hurt." - - * * * * * - -Brave had taken Alan's hand in his own and was squeezing it hard; the -scientist thought suddenly that if he were not impervious to pain, his -hand would be aching like fury. Brave said, "Son, I need help," quite -simply and humbly. - -"What is it, Brave?" - -"Alan, these people are good. They look like barbarians, they ride in -twenty-second century vehicles, and they plaster our greatest cities -into the earth. But they're good. He isn't lying." - -"What's the problem, Brave?" - -"I hate them," the Indian said fiercely. "I'd like to have them all -here," he let go Alan's hand and jabbed a great forefinger at his -palm. "I'd smash 'em like lice. I don't want to feel that way. It's -primitive. But strip me of the veneer I've lost these last hours, and -I'm primitive to the core. I'm simple and single-minded. I hate people -who do me harm. I won't go berserk and start in on these gentry, but by -heaven, by the Great Spirit, I'd like to wipe them all out--slaughter -them all! I want to sacrifice them to the ghosts of our dead cities." - -Alan said slowly, "And you don't want to feel that way. Because they're -good, you want to forgive them their mistake. My God, Brave," he cried, -"how can we ever forgive them? We can understand them, but none of us -will ever truly forgive and forget. Do you think because you feel that -way that you are reverting to savagery? Then we're every one of us on -the face of the earth pure howling savages!" - -Brave searched his face. He nodded. "I see. I thought it was just me. I -guess I thought you would be shooting them up if you felt that way too. -Sorry, khedive. Heap sorry make-um dust-up over nothin'." - -Alan smiled grimly. - -Rob said, "If we only knew a little more of the basic story, hang it! -They haven't mentioned where they came from, why they exiled Mac's -boys or why they chased after them, anything about themselves except -that they made a mistake. Holy old boot, we know that." - -The leader put in urgently: "I sense many questions which I would -happily answer if I had the time. But I have just received word that -our forces are massing to attack the disk project to the east of that -large city. I must therefore leave you until the job is done." - -"They're attacking Project Star!" said Win sharply. "Good Lord, Alan, -we've got a hundred friends there!" - -"Yes, and just as innocent people as those who died in Manhattan. They -can't do it." He stepped forward--it was significant that not one alien -tried to stop him--and laid a hand on the leader's bare, brawny arm. -The flesh was almost normal ... but not quite. Alan recalled Brave's -suggestion of the feel of a rubber product. The arm was hairless and -without pores, cool to the touch. He looked up into the leader's face. -It was a good face, though the widened features gave it a somewhat -aboriginal cast. It was a patriarchal face, more that of the ruler of a -tribe than of the leader of a fleet of space disks who must also be an -advanced scientist. The long yellow hair was turning slightly gray over -the temples. - -The man smiled. Yes, he said to Alan without words, I am over nine -hundred years old. - -"He comes from Shangri-la," said Bill Thihling. "He's the High Lama. -Can't kid me." - -Among his captors, the manacled McEldownie threw back his head and -laughed. "That's what we needed," he said, "a good feeble jest. This -meeting was getting dull as hell." - -Alan ignored them. He tried to pierce into the leader's brain with his -eyes, he thought fiercely and as hard as he ever had. - -After three minutes the leader nodded. Alan turned to Brave. "Boy, -we're going with them. We're going to lead the attack on Project Star." - -"If you've got something up your sleeve--" began Rob. - -"Nothing he doesn't know of. You think I'm able to keep my thoughts to -myself? But we can save, or try to save, a lot of our people. Win stays -here, of course. So does Rob, who has a bad leg." The leader started, -gestured to another outlander, who opened one of the numerous cases -on the ground and took out bandages and salves in tins, with which he -began to repair the burn on Pope's leg. "Bill," said Alan, "you want to -come?" - -"Try and dissuade me!" - -"Cheers, then, gal," said Alan lightly, and kissed Win. He turned -and went into the great disk via the bubble's ramp. Brave and Bill -followed him. The leader and five of the others went up, leaving half a -dozen with McEldownie and Win and Rob. Then Alan reappeared, looking -sheepish, came down and handed a weary cat to the girl. "I've been -wearing her on my shoulder for so long she thought she was growing -there." He patted Unquote (who raked up the energy to spit at him) and -disappeared once more. The disk rose silently into the air. - - * * * * * - -Alan learned now that the aliens had a spoken tongue; for they began to -chatter to each other, the sentences brief, the words evidently long -and complex. It sounded a little like Latin, a little like Greek; but -no words were even faintly familiar. - -"What's your plan, Alan?" asked Brave. - -"Not a very complex one, I'm afraid. We're to be allowed to go in -first, the disk having flown low to avoid being sighted, and been -landed behind the hill that overlooks our house. We're to gain entrance -naturally, if possible, or sneak in if the place is too heavily -fortified and suspicious. I think we can walk right in. I'm patently -a 'robot' and you two can be under my charge. Then we have an hour to -contact everyone we can. We tell the fellows who are okay to collect -in the chem lab. We try to persuade the robots to congregate in the -welding room, where they can be captured easily and without bloodshed. -But if we can't tell the difference between robots and aliens, then we -pass along quick. We have to step high and fast, lads. And we can't -separate to do the job, since you two can't check over the thoughts of -the people we meet." - -He stood up. "I'm going to wander around and get to know the boys. -We'll be fighting on their side soon." - -"I hope it's the right side." - -"I think it is." - -He walked over to the nearest group of aliens, who greeted him -courteously. He found that when they spoke aloud he could not read -their thoughts; but when they sensed that he believed them to be -talking about him or about secrets they had from him, they at once went -mute and directed their thought conversation to his brain cells. He sat -down and began to ask questions. He found that he was able to do so now -without strain. - -"Yes," one of them told him, "your powers develop rapidly after the -third exposure to the rays. They come so gradually that you are hardly -aware of them. It's a rapid gradualness, though." - -Alan recalled that it was in the captured disk that he first felt -the tremendous awakened power of his mind to read and feel the -reciprocation of other minds. He nodded. They went on talking. - - * * * * * - -At three-thirty p.m. of the day New York died, the three men walked up -to the gate of Project Star. They carried their heavy rifles openly, -and looked belligerent. It would have been hard to appear otherwise. - -They were challenged by a soldier, who fronted a squad of men with -flamers and grenade pistols. Before Alan could answer, the soldier -said, "Oh, it's Dr. Rackham. Pass in, sir. Where'd you come from?" - -"Manhattan." - -"Cripes! you're lucky to be here." It was the same soldier who had -passed him on the night of his treatment in the shed. He went in to the -colony, Brave and Bill Thihling at his heels. - -At four-twenty-eight p.m. the three of them walked up close to the -same gate. There were nine soldiers on duty. Beyond the fence were the -ack-ack guns, radar detectors, and force field generators, manned by a -number of other soldiers. - -The three put their rifles down on the ground. Then they solemnly began -to dance around in a little circle, unbuttoning their coats as they -did so. The squad stared, moved uneasily a little closer, looked at -their leader for guidance. He shrugged. He was a robotized fellow who -had been made a particular pet by one of the aliens; he knew a great -deal about the scheme of things in the colony--consciously, rather than -unconsciously as most of them did--and was trusted above most of his -fellows. He was not especially bright. - -"They ain't breaking any rules," he said. "You never know what the hell -a scientist is gonna do." - -Brave and Alan and Bill had now divested themselves of their shirts -and were taking off their undershirts. They were still dancing their -lilting small cakewalk. - -"Nuts," said the soldier. "They're nuts. Musta caught some radiation -from that buster." All the men on the ring of huge equipment beyond -the fence were watching them too. It was amusing to see a really mad -scientist, and three were delightful. They whooped and cheered and -laughed. - -Then the saucermen came over the hill. - -It was as though they erupted from the ground, even to Alan and his -henchmen who had been watching for them. And what a sight it was! -Barbarians in every physical trait, from face to naked chest to ornate -girdle and gold loincloth, armed with tiny tubes that hurled fireballs -and with thin blowpipes that shot numbing darts over incredible -distances, they might have been warriors from a forgotten land in a -long-forgotten time. And they came silently, so that they seemed to -approach through the noiseless depths of a dream. But the shriek of a -soldier falling from a gun platform, his face in flames, was not out of -a dream, but a hideous nightmare. - - * * * * * - -The three men pounced on their rifles, threw them up and were firing -methodically even before they had regained the erect position. Alan -and Brave, crack shots who had been used to practice every Sunday -morning on the military range, shot for the heads; Bill, a less certain -marksman, tried for the chests. The brain and heart were the only sure -targets when you fought a man who could feel no pain and could keep -going with half of his body shot away. - -For a brief time it seemed to the soldiers that the scientists were -shooting aliens; then the leader turned and saw where the muzzles -pointed. - -"Get 'em!" he bellowed, and sprayed a charge from a grenade pistol -that went wide of its mark but fanned Bill's cheek with tiny scraps of -hot breeze. Next instant he was down kicking from Bill's slug, and the -guards of the gate were finished. - -The vanguard of the outlanders swept in and across the grounds. They -had concentrated on this single gate, as the others had too open -approaches for safety. There were men from sixteen saucers, over four -hundred of them, and they ran like deer, like cheetahs after deer, like -winds after cheetahs. Mutely, with a kind of ferocious impersonality, -they descended on the colony. - -Men came running out with machine guns and feverishly began to load -them. They were picked off by rifle bullets, by paralyzing ray tubes, -and relays came and were picked off and more came. One gun stuttered -into action momentarily, and the crew went twisting up in the air, -their gun blown apart, their bodies rent by a weapon that even Alan -had not known of. He spotted it finally, a blunderbuss-shaped thing of -silver with a flaring mouth, fired like a bazooka. Another machine gun -blew up. - -Among the buildings there was hand-to-hand combat, automatics against -fire tubes, outlander against rebel outlander in wrestling, heaving -confusion. All the men from the stranger planet fought without -speaking; the robots shouted, like normal men in a battle. Brave was -bawling war whoops and Alan was cursing steadily, as he always did -under fire. Bill Thihling had got himself lost somewhere. - -The leader of Alan's saucer went by, blond hair streaming, blood -dripping down the brown chest. Alan caught a thought: _thanks_. He -knew, from touching Alan's mind in passing, that many of the nonrobot -men and women were gathered in safety, and even a number of the -alien-controlled puppets had been herded into the welding room and -locked in, obedient to Alan's hypnotic order. - - * * * * * - -The Indian and Alan came at last to the end of the ammunition that -had bulged out their trousers' pockets. They clubbed their rifles and -waded into a melee that staggered back and forth between two office -buildings, across the scarlet-stained grass. Then Alan lost his rifle, -and drew his automatic. The range was always short and his hand was -steady as a granite statue's. He was recognizing his foemen at every -turn, and putting away the recognition and thinking, _They are rebels -from the stars, mutineers against a good people, it was their plottings -brought on the smashing of our cities. This is not Dr. Coulterre, -it's a creature eight hundred years old who wanted to make me into a -brainless slave. That isn't Dr. Simms curled up with my bullet in his -belly, it's the slayer of a million New Yorkers as sure as if it had -put its own damned finger on the trip release._ - -He could tell the robots because they yelled, and those he left alone, -because the saucermen were shooting them with numbing rays that did -not kill. It was a humane method as far as it went. Sometimes he had -to blow a robot's brains out, or be slain by him. Then he said, I've -killed a friend. He went looking for more aliens to fight. - -In all the press of bodies Alan and Brave were easiest to see. Brave -was huge and his head was that of a savage buck, the lips writhed -back from teeth athirst for blood; Alan, naked to the waist and -with a white bandage over his right ear, put on by a surgeon in the -saucer, was a figure differing radically from the barbaric saucermen -and the sedately-clothed rebels and robots. They had taken off their -shirts in the dance for a better reason than holding the attention -of the soldiers. Among a hundred men like them they would have been -indistinguishable had they stayed fully clothed. It's simple, he -thought, to tell the good guys from the bad guys; the good guys haven't -got any shirts. - -The two of them made excellent targets. Brave knew he carried a slug in -his leg just next the groin; Alan had no idea whether he had been hit. -Enemies were continually firing at them both. - -Alan was knocked to the turf by a man who leaped on his back and beat -at his head with a pistol butt. Brave swung the rifle, a terrible war -club in his hands, and broke the man's head like a rotten gourd. Alan -got up with the feeling that he should have a headache. But he felt -nothing. - -Then the rebel outlanders gave up. Suddenly, all over the scattered -fields of battle, they had thrown down their weapons and thrust up -their hands above their heads in the universal signal of surrender. -Their robot people followed suit. The saucermen had won. Project Star -was theirs. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -They were back at the temporary base of the disks, sitting on the grass -in the shade of the great ships, the sun just going down behind them. -Brave's slug had been extracted and the wound bandaged with ointments -that eased the pain. Bill Thihling, who had been knocked cold early in -the fight, was sucking on a lozenge that was lessening his headache by -the minute. Alan had not been shot and the beating his head had taken -did not worry him, for pain was forever a stranger. He sat with Unquote -asleep in his lap and Win's hand held tight in his. - -"I don't want to live four hundred years," he said. "I want to die -in the same years that Brave and my friends go. I don't want to be -invulnerable; I want to stick myself with a needle and yell Ouch. I -don't want to move like a hopped-up panther, and know what people are -thinking, and send brainstorms out to sea from my little skull. I want -to be me again." His words were light and half-whimsical, but his -thoughts were black. - -"Same here, baby," said the girl. She put up a hand to adjust her -amethyst halter and his eyes followed it; she laughed. "At least your -baser instincts are still intact, thank God." - -Rob Pope said, "There's a lot they have to explain to us yet. We seem -to have heard the final chapter of a thousand-page book. They haven't -even said who they are, or which system they come from, or what Mac's -gang did that they were exiled for." - -"And by the way," said Win indignantly, "no one's told me yet why they -attacked Project Star on the ground instead of bombing it. Give." - -"Yes, love. They attacked it that way because they didn't want to -damage any of the experimental stuff and the disks. They lost four -disks in space, coming here, and they're overcrowded, besides having -Mac's crew to take home for trial. They need disks. And they're -interested in seeing what advances we may have made on fuel and -instruments, advances that might give them ideas. All quite logical." - -"Sure, sure. Everybody knew but Winnie." - -"Between their numbing rays and our preliminary work, we managed to -save nearly all the normal humans on the colony grounds, and about -seventy per cent of the robots. There are aliens there now, guarding -them and the disks and the whole project." - -The leader came over to them and squatted on the grass, radiating -intelligence and power. "There's quite a man," said Rob in spite of -himself. - -"He is that. I wonder how such advanced people happened to evolve such -barbaric ornaments and clothing?" Win said. - - * * * * * - -The leader smiled. Evidently the blood Alan had seen on his chest had -been someone else's, for he was unhurt. Now he said to their minds, -"The girdles and arm bands are traditional. They go back farther -than the oldest histories, and date perhaps from our original home, -which was on a different planet from our present one. We consider -them attractive, if gaudy and a little unfitted for our sort of -civilization; but it would be unthinkable to change our mode of dress -after so many centuries." - -"And _that_ is the attitude I rebelled against," said Mac aloud, from -his place between two guards. "That's how they look at everything. -Jee-blighted-rusalem, can you blame me?" He stared at his manacled -wrists. "I used to go around the cities in a kind of toga that appealed -to my esthetic sense. My God, I was shunned. I was a pariah. No -armband." - -The leader smiled again. "My nephew exaggerates. Five hundred years -haven't calmed that roiling renegade blood. - -"I know what you are desirous of knowing. I will try to tell you the -story simply and quickly, for I must join my companion ship within -two hours in the island which I see you call England." He glanced at -Brave and Alan. "First I must thank you for your indispensable help in -overcoming the rebels at Project Star." - -"We didn't do much for you." - -"You fought beside us when you hated us for the bombing of your cities; -that implies understanding, if not forgiveness. We appreciate that. You -saved innocent lives; that is the best way to help us. To kill is a -terrible thing to us. We do not do it lightly. To kill innocents, even -in cases of dire necessity, is trebly terrible." - -"Your men went at it as if they were born to it," said Brave. - -"They do not like it, no, but there is a heritage in our blood of -fighting that dates back, as do our clothes, to the times before -history." - -"Pious old fraud," said McEldownie, "you love it, but you won't admit -it to yourselves. It was we rebels who were the honest ones." - -The leader ignored him. "I was about to tell you--" - -Mac said aloud, so that the leader's thought waves were garbled, -"I could hate you two for running amok alongside these sniveling -so-and-sos. You helped kill scores of my companions. You couldn't have -been that sure we were wrong, could you? Damn it, I loved those boys. I -lived with them for a dozen of your match-spark lifetimes." - -"If you speak out of turn again, I shall have you taken into the leaded -room of my disk, where your thoughts and words will be confined to -yourself. I was about to tell you of our history," the leader thought, -looking at Alan's group. "Long, long ago, so long that even we, who -live a thousand years, cannot comprehend what a vast reach of time it -was, we lived on a planet very like your own. The atmosphere must have -been exactly, or nearly exactly, like that of Earth; for you and I have -the same lungs, the same organs, and only differ fundamentally in the -texture of our skins and the flexibility of our skeletons and muscles. - -"Then, for a reason we do not know except by vague and undependable -myth, our ancestors left that planet and went out into space. They were -already superbly advanced scientists, though they did not have the rays -later developed, which gave us our extended life span. They built disks -and journeyed out into the star systems, and eventually found a planet -that could support their life in the way the mother planet had done. -There they settled. The old charts and logs and histories are long -since lost, and this is known only by legend and tradition." - -"What does legend say sent them away from the first planet?" asked Rob -Pope. - -"Several things. Terrible wars, the rise of inimical civilizations -which would have had to be obliterated to insure peace, which -our ancestors did not wish to do--" _bovine feces_, muttered Mac -rudely--"and the sinking of their homeland into the sea." - -"Good grief," said Win, opening her eyes wide, "could that have been -Atlantis? Here on Earth?" - -"The time wouldn't seem to be right," said Bill, "but heaven only -knows, it sounds like it." - -The leader groped in their minds. "You have a legend of just such -a nation here, on this planet," he thought excitedly. "We must -investigate it. This may be our home." He chuckled aloud. "Don't worry, -we wouldn't come back and settle in with you. We are too happy on our -own world. But it would be wonderfully satisfying to know the truth of -our beginnings!" - - * * * * * - -Alan felt himself becoming intellectually agog over this matter, and -resolutely drew away from it. "Please," he said, "your history." - -"Certainly. On the new planet, which we call Tlonis, our race set up a -civilization that has endured for many millennia. Our ancestors found -no intelligent race on that world, by the way, but only low forms of -animal life. The flora is analogous to your own in many ways, as is -natural when two planets are so alike. - -"For all our recorded history we have been a peaceful people, although -in the course of our scientific advancement we have discovered terrible -weapons, which we manufactured and put aside in the always possible -case of invasion from another system. Our own sun system, in which -Tlonis is the ninth planet from the sun, contains no other life at all; -but we recognized the possibilities, and built the weapons to be ready. -We also improved the disks, and discovered the ray of longevity and -that of painlessness. Our astronomy was always our first science, and -there I venture to say we outshine you as your sun does your moon." - -"He's right," said Mac suddenly, looking up. "Tlonis telescopes make -your Giant Eye look like a gnat's. If you had one here, you could see a -candle lighted on the sun." - -"Your turn is coming; be silent. - -"We have always existed in excellent harmony with one another. Wars -are unknown. There is no such thing as territorial expansion, for we -are all one nation, one blood. The government is a form of benevolent -parliamentary rule." - -McEldownie did not venture to interrupt, but his homely face spoke -bookshelves of disdain. - -"Our joys were intellectual, a reveling in rationality, philosophy and -perception of truths, metaphysical reasoning. I am speaking in the past -tense; I should not be. These are the things which have always occupied -us, and always will." - -"Sounds deadly dull," said Rob Pope, and Mac grinned and shook his head -in vigorous agreement. - -The leader went on. "This sounds too placid to you. We are a different -race, remember. It fits our temperaments to a T. - -"But there are members of any society whose tastes run counter to the -norm of that society; in our case, in our time, it was this nephew of -mine and his faction who rebelled. First in dress, as he has said; -then by initiating the custom of hunting and killing the lower forms -of life for sport, a thing unheard of before they originated it. This -was their first serious breach of our laws and customs. From it they -went on--talking against the government, decrying traditions, until at -last their mania to be different intensified and turned to violence. In -short, they mutinied against the established order of things which had -made our race a happy one for untold ages. They wished to substitute -ways of life which would have torn us apart with dissension and strife." - -"We rebelled against complacency, fatheadedness, hidebound slavishness -to tradition, and unutterable dullwitted dullness. You can appreciate -that, for cripe's sake," said Mac. "Picture the way of life he's given -you a briefing on, and tell me you, especially Alan and Brave, wouldn't -have rebelled, even if it meant war, to be allowed the right to live -your own lives." - -Alan and the great Indian looked at each other. The same thought was in -both their minds: it sounded as though Mac and his outlaw crew had been -in the right. - - * * * * * - -The leader directed a thought at them. "You must realize that this -man, my nephew, was not content to share his views with those who -agreed with him. He forced an insurrection on a people who had been -thoroughly happy. There was bloodshed in a race that had known none for -generations. We overcame him and we might have executed him, but it was -repugnant to us. So we gave him space disks and fuel and synthetic food -machines and all else he would need, he and the men who had fought for -him, and we exiled him to space. - -"We knew that somewhere there was a planet which could sustain life. -He had a chance of finding it, a small chance, but a chance. As it -happens, he did find it." - -"After three hundred years of the blackness of the void," said -McEldownie. "It was the mercy of God we did. Otherwise we'd have lived -out our lives in space. Do you see the cruelty that lurks in these -people, which they won't recognize? Killing us would have been kind; -but they sent us to wander among the galaxies." - -"You may tell them briefly what you did then," the leader ordered him. -"Be quick, my time is nearly up." - -Mac stood up and walked back and forth, clinking his chained manacles. -"We found Earth because our detectors told us the atmosphere was the -same as that of our world. It was the only one of its kind we'd come -across in all those centuries, centuries of sweeping through sun system -after sun system. - -"Maybe it's the original home planet our ancestors left, and maybe it -isn't. I've mucked around with that Atlantis theory too. The names are -similar--Atlantis, Tlonis. It isn't important. - -"We landed in the late years of your eighteenth century. Our disks were -seen and you can still find records of the sightings in the books and -periodicals of that time, and of later times when our lads took the -ships out of hiding for practice flights. I never practiced because -it's only in the last forty years my crippling wounds have been really -healed. - -"We more or less took you over. It was reprehensible from your point -of view. Don't hate me for it. We had to make you advance a thousand -years' worth in two hundred. We wanted to go back to Tlonis and--not -conquer it, but make a place for our kind of thinking so we could live -there. It's home, after all. We needed disks and an army. - -"Sure, we kept you in a stew, worked up, always at war, and so on. It -was the only way. You'd always warred before, anyway. Only in times of -war could we advance your knowledge of science and make its rapidity -seem logical. So we controlled governments and laboratories and brains. -If we hadn't, you'd still be in the gunpowder stage, instead of the jet -and electronic stage. We aren't all bad. We aren't pure black. We hurt -you but as little as we could. We used you as you used to use oxen and -horses; but like you loved horses--which often got killed in war, mind -you--we loved you." - -"Stop apologizing, Mac. We understand your point of view," said Alan. -"But we understand this man's, too." - -"Sure, sure. Everybody has a right to his own opinion, even if it's a -stuffy one. - -"Anyhow, in the early '40s we gave you the atom bomb, nuclear fission, -that is. And the radiations of those first bombs went out across the -great spaces, and twelve years later were detected and analyzed on -Tlonis by the astronomers. Uncle's bunch got in an uproar, as we'd -known they would, and piled into ships and started out for Earth. We -couldn't help that; we'd had to give you fission. We figured we had -enough time. We started disk construction and we began to build an -invincible army out of your men, by raying them with the painkilling -and telepathic rays. We miscalculated the time it would take Uncle -to get here. We wanted to meet him in space or bypass him and get to -Tlonis with our gang. Maybe, we thought, he wouldn't have connected -the atomic explosion with us, anyhow. But he did, and knew we were -preparing to invade Tlonis, and he came. - -"His scouting ships reached Earth a few months ago, reported back -to the main fleet, and down he came, to blunder and take things for -granted and make too-hasty decisions, as always; and he murdered more -people through hastiness than we ever would have in our scheme of -things." - - * * * * * - -The leader thought bitterly, "I admit the justice of that. I have said -we are more sorry than we can tell." He gestured at Alan. "Consider -this as you weigh what my nephew has said. There is a false sense of -kinship between you because of the mutual language. He talks while I -must telepath my thoughts to you. Discount that when you judge us, -please." - -Mac said, "That's right. When you sit down to think us over, just -consider the stories, not who told 'em. I believe you'll agree with my -way of thinking, whether you hate me for what I've done or not." He -moved over in front of Brave. "Oh, you great iron-faced ruffian, you -lost me my world, I think. Simply because I liked you too well to kill -you, you and your sidekick here. Believe that or not. I have a real -affection for you." - -It seemed important to the lanky alien. Brave said, "I believe you, -Jim." - -"Thanks, Brave." He grinned. "Will you shake hands with a fallen angel, -or if you prefer with an ambitious devil, John Kiwanawatiwa?" - -Brave stood and took his hand. Alan and Bill, Rob and Win did likewise. -There was something paradoxically touching about the little ceremony. -Then the leader thought at them, "We will take him back for trial, him -and those of his mutineers who are still alive. There are some still -free in your world. With your permission we will stay on Earth until we -have hunted them down. We would also like to study your histories, out -of intellectual curiosity, and exchange scientific knowledge with you. -These things can be arranged with your governments after their members -have been freed from the hypnosis applied by our rebels." - -He paused. "But we owe you this. You are representative of the people -of this world. I give you the right to speak for all of them now. Shall -we leave you? You hate us, will always hate us for what we did out of -blindness and hasty folly. If you say so, you five, then we will get -into our ships and go home." - -Alan was a little staggered. "We can't speak for our country." - -"I am not interested in governments, which are in reality artificial -things. I am interested in the people of this planet, and I think you -five can speak for them." - -Alan did not hesitate. "Then I say, stay till you've found the rebels, -and till you've made your researches. You're right, I believe we'll -hate you. But it would be insane to pack you off and lose all that you -can give us, or have you lose what we may be able to teach you." - -The leader smiled. "Then we will stay." He turned to his men and -gave an order; shortly many of the blond aliens came trooping out of -the disk, carrying machinery. They proceeded to set it up before the -Earthmen. - -The leader told them, "These will be used on all of you who were -tricked or cajoled or forced into the beams of the mutation rays by my -nephew and his cohorts. Please stand quietly." - -Shafts of violet and indigo color shot out of the lenses of the -machines. It took a full ship's complement of men to work all of them. -The lights played across Alan and Win, to a lesser degree on Brave and -the scientists. There was no sensation from them. - -Then Alan said, "Wow! That hurts my ear something fierce." - -Win turned to him. "Your ear hurts, darling?" - -"Like a red-hot iron." - -Brave clamped his hands on his friend's biceps. "Emir! You can feel -pain!" - -"Pain ... my Lord, blessed pain! Oh, how it burns! I've a splitting -headache, too." Alan hit Brave in the chest, laughing, and then -embraced Win. "Baby, I can feel pain! I'm okay!" He kissed her -savagely. She gave a shriek. - -"You bit me, you--Alan, I can feel it too!" - -"Of course," the leader told them. "You are whole again. The effect of -my nephew's rays is dissipated." - -Alan sobered. "One thing. Will I still live four hundred years?" - -"No. That effect is gone too, unfortunately." - -Alan stared around him at his friends. "Thank God," he said quietly. - -Then Rob Pope said, "Look, the bubble of that disk is closing!" - - * * * * * - -It was true. The leader of the outlanders turned and saw it and gave a -loud cry. "He is escaping! You let him out of your sight, you fools!" -he thought angrily. All the gold-and-silver-clad men ran toward the -disk. It rose into the air, flipping its edges impudently. Then it -gathered speed and shot out of sight. - -Brave said, "Jim, old Jim! He's made his break. I kind of thought he -would. He was too restless a spirit to sit calmly under chains and -captivity!" - -The aliens had clustered together and were sending their brain waves -out across the land, signalling other disks in remote spots to find and -pursue the escaping McEldownie. Alan said, "I almost hope he makes it!" - -Then straight across the sky from horizon to horizon a great silver -ship flashed, bright in the rays of the vanished sun against a -darkening lapis lazuli vault, on its way out to sea in the direction of -Africa. The abandoned outlanders were piling into their second disk to -give chase. - -Brave put his arm over Alan's shoulders. "Chief, I hope he makes it -too. Maybe he was Lucifer, fallen and using us as dogs of war to regain -his lost kingdom; or maybe he was really Prometheus, fighting the -stodgy gods to bring fire--the fire of real freedom--to his friends. -By his lights, he was justified in using us to do it. He caused us an -awful throng of troubles in the past two hundred years, but what he -gave us may be worth it in the final estimate. And when he had his goal -in sight he threw it away because he couldn't bring himself to kill us." - -"Prometheus is the word, son. I'd hate to see old Zeus there bring him -back in chains, to be bound to the rock for the vultures." - -Brave looked into the sky where Jim McEldownie had disappeared. He -chuckled deep in his chest. - -"He claimed to be the best hotshot disk pilot in the universe. If he -is, I have a notion he'll get away." He rubbed a hand across his chin -reflectively. "By the Great Spirit!" he shouted, laughing. "I believe -he will!" - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMAGEDDON, 1970 *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Armageddon, 1970</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Geoff St. Reynard</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 9, 2021 [eBook #66021]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMAGEDDON, 1970 ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> - <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>ARMAGEDDON, 1970</h1> - -<h2>By Geoff St. Reynard</h2> - -<p>As atomic weapons from space laid waste to<br /> -Earth's cities, Alan Rackham searched for the<br /> -traitors. Was it possible he sought himself?</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy<br /> -October 1952<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>They tried to kill Alan Rackham about an hour after he had seen the -accident. They bungled the job. They shot at him from ambush—with -an ordinary automatic pistol—as he was walking up to his house; and -Brave, who had a sixth sense for danger which never failed him, knocked -Alan over at the very instant of the shot and sprawled across him, a -great solid shield holding him down and protecting him despite his -angry wrigglings. Brave's grenade pistol was in his hand before the -two of them hit ground, and he sent four quick shots at the bushes, -spaced so that the tiny hot fragments tore hell out of thirty yards of -shrubbery. Nobody yelled or groaned. Brave waited a full minute, and -then he rose cautiously, so that Alan could sit up and brush himself -off and swear as he spat out dirt. They went into the house and Alan -reported the assassination attempt to his immediate superior, Dr. -Getty. After that they didn't try again to kill Alan for a long time.</p> - -<p>The accident had been uncanny. It happened in the room where the shells -of the silver-colored disks were fitted together and welded, before -they were sent to the gargantuan baths that half-melted them again to -rechill them into solid masses of metal which nothing short of a direct -hit by a blockbuster would crack.</p> - -<p>A welder, using one of the newly-developed torches that made the old -ones seem like match-flares by comparison, dropped it accidentally. Its -flame licked up and sprayed across the man's right hand. It melted the -protective glove like ice cream on a stove; crisped away the skin and -liquefied the flesh, charred the bones black and left the welder no -more than half a palm and two fingers before he could jerk his hand out -of the terrible blast of fire.</p> - -<p>Alan and Brave were standing about twelve feet off, and there could be -no mistake as to what they saw then.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The welder turned off his torch with his left hand; he held the remains -of his right before his face, turned it and stared at it (the blood -coursing in little sluggish streams down the forearm, the charcoal -that had been bone sifting off into the air, the flesh a greasy -yellow-red mass like candle drippings), and he shook his head slowly, -an expression of annoyed mortification on his face. It was as though he -had cut himself while shaving, no more. He was simply piqued, when he -should have been shrieking with horror and unendurable pain.</p> - -<p>Alan and Brave ran to him. "My God, man," said Alan, shaken, "let me -get you to infirmary."</p> - -<p>The welder stood up. "That's all right, Dr. Rackham. I can go myself. -This don't hurt." And then a curious look spread over his face, as if -he had just recollected a lesson taught him long ago. "It don't hurt -<i>much</i>," he amended. "I guess it's cauterized so bad I can't feel it -yet. Don't you worry, sir, I can make it."</p> - -<p>He walked away, perfectly steady, carrying the almost destroyed hand -in front of his chest; and Alan was so dumbfounded he let him go.</p> - -<p>The welder never reached the infirmary. No man saw him again, alive or -dead.</p> - -<p>So an hour thereafter someone took a shot at Alan Rackham. Since -Brave had witnessed the accident too, and because neither of them -could account for the shooting except in connection with that strange -accident, it seemed stupid and pointless for an attempt to be made -on Alan's life alone; especially when a grenade pistol, one of those -lean evil handguns developed in 1959, would with one shot have cut an -eight-yard-wide swath in everything before it and eliminated both of -them. But there it was. They shot at Alan with an automatic—the bullet -nicked across his chest and spoiled a blue coat that was practically -new—and then they disappeared.</p> - -<p>Alan's house, which he shared with Brave, was a four-room brick atop -a knoll on the outskirts of the colony. It was a perfect bachelor -establishment; the precipitron kept it free of dust and Brave's innate -neatness overcame Alan's careless disregard of surroundings to the -extent that dirty socks and unpressed trousers were not often to be met -with lying in corners or hanging over the backs of chairs. Brave was a -good everyday cook and Alan occasionally took a couple of hours off to -chef up a New Orleans style banquet for two. The living room was lined -with books and the plastiglassed-in lounging quarters in the rear -held racks of pipes and a well-stocked bar. They were very comfortable -there. It was only a ten-minute walk from Alan's laboratory, and four -minutes' ride from the center of the colony.</p> - -<p>The colony was called Project Star. It was located on Long Island, -protected much as Oak Ridge had been in the '40s and '50s, and Project -Bellona in the early '60s; with electrified fences, and soldiers -carrying the latest weapons, and a ring of grotesque machinery all -around it, comprised of radar detectors and great ack-ack guns -and a number of generators that threw up a kind of primitive, -partly-effective force field. The force field would stop any aircraft -or at least cause it enough trouble to slow it down for the ack-ack.</p> - -<p>Of course the artificial satellite, Albertus (named in honor of Dr. -Einstein), kept a watchful telescope on Project Star. But in that -year of 1970 it seemed to most men that all the caution and secrecy -was overly dramatic. After the collapse of Soviet Russia a decade -before, from internal causes precipitated by the successful fixing -of the American-controlled satellite Albertus in the heavens, and -after the almost Carthaginian peace imposed on Argentina when its -dictator A-bombed London, the world had quieted down considerably. -America was top dog in the nations and her supervision of the science -of other countries left little possibility of successful attack or -even of effective sabotage within the many colonies which worked on -advancements in weapons and other civilized phenomena, and on space -flight.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nearly everyone believed that the purpose of Project Star was to -construct "flying saucers" (the inadequate name had stuck through the -years) for use in reaching out to the other planets. Only the men who -were working there, and a few others in government and in the military -forces, knew that the disks were not intended for extra-terrestrial -flight—there were rocket projects galore for that—but for journeys in -the atmosphere or slightly above it, at speeds incredible even in 1970. -The name Project Star had not been chosen to mislead anyone, but it -had done so and nobody bothered to correct the impression. Secrecy had -become an ingrained national habit in the past thirty-odd years.</p> - -<p>Dr. Alan Rackham was one of the scientists who worked on the problem of -fuel for the disks. He was not a member of the vastly important handful -who headed the colony and came equipped with everything sacred and -untouchable except halos, but he was considered of enough consequence -to rate a house of his own and an assistant who was also an efficient -bodyguard. This was Brave, whose proper name was John Kiwanawatiwa.</p> - -<p>Brave sat down in his own chair, a sturdy specially-built job, while -Alan called Dr. Getty on the visiphone to report the shooting. Brave -never sprawled out or slouched as his superior did. He sat straight, -a red-copper-colored man built to the scale of a Greek statue, about -half again life size. His arms and legs were tough as cable steel, -his chest a brawny barrel. He was a Navajo Indian, but his features -were more nearly those of a Sioux: a great finely-formed crag of a -nose, thin straight lips over white teeth, dark eyes that a hawk might -envy their piercing power, a wolf-trap jaw. His speech was that of an -M.S. of Carlisle and Oxford, except when he spoke with people he did -not know or like; then it became a parody of the nineteenth-century -storybook red man's gutteral discourse. At times, when he went with -Alan to meetings of the hierarchy (a few of whom, including Dr. Getty, -he cordially detested for their bland self-importance), he even wore a -bedraggled chicken feather sticking upright in his black hair, stood -behind Alan with folded arms and a fierce expression and confined his -remarks to "Ugh" and "Waugh." This gave both Alan and himself a great -deal of innocent pleasure.</p> - -<p>For Alan Rackham was also a rebel against stuffiness and conceit. -He was a perfectly normal-looking man, of slightly more than middle -height, thirty-one years old, handsome enough if you liked lean bony -features and unruly brown hair; his muscular development was so -unobtrusive that no one ever guessed he had been a Marine and won -himself a DSC in Argentina. He enjoyed his work at Project Star, for -he had a scientist's inquiring mind; but he liked even more the huge -Indian with whom he lived, the girl in the metallurgy section who wore -his engagement ring, and the book of rather impudent philosophy on -which he worked during his free evenings.</p> - -<p>He also loved a long drink, a thoughtful pipe, an involved practical -joke, and the moody Siamese cat, Unquote.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Now he turned from the visiphone, as the image of Dr. Getty faded out -on its screen, and he frowned at Brave. "Son," he said, "why would -anybody take a potshot at me?"</p> - -<p>"What does Doc Pomposity say about it?" rumbled the Indian.</p> - -<p>"Mainly blah, blah, blah."</p> - -<p>"Naturally," nodded Brave. "You know, sagamore, I think it's that -accident. There was something cockeyed about it.... I don't care -how shocked the fellow was, or how quickly the flame seared up and -anesthetized the wound; there should have been plenty of pain in that -hand. And he didn't even yip when it happened. He only looked peeved."</p> - -<p>"Getty says he never got to infirmary. No one has seen him at all."</p> - -<p>"Cockeyed," said Brave again. "The whole thing's a muddle." He stared -at Alan. "Boss, I have an instinct that warns me we're in for trouble."</p> - -<p>"That's an instinct? When I get shot at, this gives you an instinct?"</p> - -<p>"The noble red man has an instinct," said Brave imperturbably, "which -sits in his belly and beats on a tomtom when trouble's coming. I don't -mean ghastly wounds that don't make men cry out, or even lunatics -laying for you thereafter—and there's a connection between the two, -that's sure. But I mean big trouble. There's something in the air. I -can't quite catch it, but it's been there for a long time. Weeks and -months, sirdar."</p> - -<p>"You've been reading the thesaurus again. You know more synonyms for -'master' than Roget. You mean this seriously, Brave? About trouble?" He -had a respect for the Indian's intuition which was based half on his -anthropological knowledge of the weird powers of certain older races, -and half on pure human superstition; at times when Brave made his -predictions, Alan felt as though a gypsy crone had passed by him and -whispered some incantation in his ear.</p> - -<p>"I mean it, Alan. And the damned instinct has never been wrong yet. -It's beating in my guts right now like it did at Campana just before -hell broke loose."</p> - -<p>"Well, batten down the hatches, then," said Alan resignedly, while the -hair on the back of his neck prickled and tried to stand up. "It's got -itself off to a fine start, your trouble. My tailor will never be able -to mend this jacket."</p> - -<p>"Why don't you cook us some oysters Rockefeller and lobster thermidor -and all that Frenchified goop you brew up?" suggested Brave. "If we're -in for afflictions, we may as well meet 'em with pleasantly full -stomachs."</p> - -<p>"Right. While I'm at it, you write a report of the incident—of both of -them—and sign my name. Getty'll never know the difference. He thinks -you haven't mastered Basic English yet."</p> - -<p>"Ugh," said Brave. "Noble red man will inscribe li'l pictures on -birchbark for medicine man, while medicine man raises cain in frozen -food locker. Don't get that sauce too thin this time, patriarch. I -can't bear watery sauce on my lobsters."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER II</p> - - -<p>Next morning, while Alan was still dressing and yawning, and Brave -was clattering skillets in the kitchen, humming the <i>allegro con -passionato</i> movement from "Hard Hearted Hannah the Vamp of Savannah," -the door chimes bonged softly. Brave went to the spywindow, surveyed -the caller, and shifted his grenade pistol to a handier position before -opening the door. A stranger stood on the threshold.</p> - -<p>"Ichabod Crane," said Brave to himself, and aloud, "Yes?"</p> - -<p>"Ah," said the stranger, "you would be the tough egg with the -unpronounceable name. Greetings, chieftain."</p> - -<p>"How," said Brave with a straight face. "You want-um audience with -great sachem?"</p> - -<p>"That I do, Lo."</p> - -<p>"Oh, gad," groaned the Indian, "if I hear that weary old jest once -more I'll burst into tears and die. Come in, comedian. Dr. Rackham's -dressing."</p> - -<p>"Thanks. Forgive me for the godawful gag, friend. I haven't eaten -breakfast yet and an empty stomach plays the devil with my sense of -humor." He rattled over to a chair and sat down. At least, thought -Brave, closing the door, you expected him to rattle. He was the longest -and thinnest bag of bones ever seen on Long Island. Fully six feet -eight, he was lean from the top of his narrow skull, which was covered -by an inch-long mat of straight stiff blond hair, to the soles of his -number twelve feet. If he had any fat in him at all it must have been -a very lonesome blob of fat indeed, well camouflaged and utterly alone -in a wilderness of stringy muscle, meager sinew, and shaving-slender -bones. His green eyes, perpetually half-lidded on either side of a nose -like the prow of a Chinese junk, were humorous and sharp and as bright -as polished emeralds.</p> - -<p>Brave said to himself, Here is a shrewd customer, who isn't one-tenth -the fool he appears to be.</p> - -<p>"You don't have an appointment with Dr. Rackham."</p> - -<p>"No, I don't. A plump little meathead called Getty over at the central -offices said he'd be here, and I popped over on the chance. I want to -inveigle him onto a TV program of mine."</p> - -<p>"Dr. Rackham is a busy man."</p> - -<p>"So is President Blose of the U.S. of A., but <i>he</i> came on the program, -Lo. Pardon me," said the man, "there I go again. It's second nature. I -don't mean to offend, but I was a disk jockey once. Look, friend, my -name is Jim McEldownie. I'm <i>Worlds of Portent</i> McEldownie."</p> - -<p>"I'm <i>Lashings of Victuals</i> Kiwanawatiwa, and my eggs are scorching," -said Brave, going out to the kitchen. "The books are counted, so are -the pipes, and the first editions are booby-trapped. Don't get ideas."</p> - -<p>"Injun, I could grow to love you," said McEldownie. "Listen, seriously, -don't you ever watch TV?"</p> - -<p>"I do not."</p> - -<p>"That explains it. Existing in the dark like this, you wouldn't have -heard of me. I run this klatch, see, called <i>Worlds of Portent</i>, onto -which I entice various important and pseudo-important characters, and -there I cajole and browbeat and query till they tell me all sorts of -fascinating lies, and the public laps it up like a bunch of silly -cats."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Unquote, the Siamese, rose out of her hygienic playbox and gave him a -frozen glare. He recoiled. "My God," he said, "I seem to be offending -everyone this morning. Forgive me, puss."</p> - -<p>Unquote snarled and collapsed in a boneless pile of beautiful fur. Alan -stuck his head into the room and said, "Where do you classify me?"</p> - -<p>"Huh? Oh, hallo, Doc. You're important. Anybody from Project Star -is important. Whether the same can be said for those officials of -our mighty government who have gasped and babbled and turned blue on -<i>Portent</i>, I'm not one to declare. How about it, Doc? Will you appear?"</p> - -<p>"Talking about what? Fuel? That's all I really know."</p> - -<p>"If you can talk for thirteen minutes about it, without violating any -regulations or giving away secrets, I want you. Fuel is hot stuff with -the space-minded John Q."</p> - -<p>"What do you think, Brave? Should we do it?"</p> - -<p>Brave said, "Too much time and no fun, that's how it sounds to me."</p> - -<p>"Oh, I don't know. I've never been on the air."</p> - -<p>"Please," said McEldownie, shuddering like a leafless willow in a high -wind. "The phrase is 'on the space.' Air belongs to that outmoded, -decadent, but apparently deathless medium called radio. There, I've -said it. Have you got any mouth-washing soap?"</p> - -<p>"A positive Hilton Boil," said Brave in the kitchen. "A real yokked-up -comic. Wait till I've fed him and we'll hurl him out."</p> - -<p>"All right," said Alan, "I'll do it. I'm a ham at heart. When do you -want me?"</p> - -<p>"Tomorrow night at eight vacant?"</p> - -<p>"As vacant as—" he was going to say "Dr. Getty's head," but caught -himself in time. The TV man's flippancy was contagious. "Quite vacant. -Give Brave the directions and we'll be there."</p> - -<p>Brave said, "Breakfast is on. There are three plates and food for two. -I hope you eat lightly, Mr. Portent."</p> - -<p>"McEldownie, but call me Jim. I eat like a bird."</p> - -<p>The bird, thought Alan half an hour later, must be a starving turkey -buzzard; he sighed and stood up. "We're due at work, Jim. See you at -eight tomorrow, then?"</p> - -<p>"Seven-fifteen. I have to brief you. Cheers, gentlemen. Apologize to -the cat for me. I insulted it a while back and it's been burning holes -in my neck ever since." He took himself off, still with the illusion of -rattling bonily. Alan and Brave washed up and strolled down to their -laboratory.</p> - -<p>Nothing happened that day or the next, save for a thorough search for -the missing welder, which turned up no trace of him. At seven-fifteen -the two friends walked into the TV studio in Manhattan.</p> - -<p>"Hi," said McEldownie, waving a long hand. "Sit down and let's gurgle -about fuel." They did so. At one point the lean man said, "An idea. -What if Brave were to stand behind you all through the program? It'd -look impressive as hell. Sinister Indian guards scientist even on -national hookup. 'No precaution too elaborate for our men,' says head -of Project Star. How about it?"</p> - -<p>Alan looked at Brave. He would not expose his friend to stupid -ridicule. Brave winked. "Okay," said Alan. "But no gags."</p> - -<p>"Abso-bloody-lutely. Play it for gravity. Show people that there is -danger connected with the business. And I think there is," he added -solemnly.</p> - -<p>Alan stared. "Why do you say that?"</p> - -<p>"I don't mean the TV, I mean your work out on Long Island. You can't -tell me that nobody in the world wishes our country any ill, chum. We -have enemies just as we always have had. Why else the ack-ack and force -screens?"</p> - -<p>Alan did not answer. He thought of Brave's prediction of trouble, and -he was more impressed with this lanky comedian than he had been before -that moment.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Thirty seconds before the program time he sat down at the round table -opposite McEldownie, and Brave took up a forbidding posture behind his -chair.</p> - -<p>His host began to speak, and suddenly Alan realized why the tall blond -irrepressible fellow had been trusted with a program of such gravity -as <i>Worlds of Portent</i>. As the cameras rolled and the brilliant lights -came on, the jester's motley dropped away from him and was replaced by -a cloak of earnest sobriety. His fantastic appearance heightened the -seriousness; it was as shocking and thought-producing as if a scarecrow -had begun to talk Schopenhauer.</p> - -<p>He knew precisely how much to say; when to sit back and let Alan do a -monologue, and when to interrupt with a pertinent question. He was a -genius at his work.</p> - -<p>And then, perhaps four or five minutes after the telecast had begun, -Alan became aware of two things, each quite extraordinary. First, Brave -had disappeared. Alan glanced back over his shoulder and found the -Indian had vanished. The lights were so bright that his vision did not -extend to the walls of the studio, so he presumed that his friend was -still there somewhere; but he had left the range of the cameras. And -secondly, something was happening to Alan's mind.</p> - -<p>He tried to analyze the trouble, but he could not do it. He could only -touch a few salient points of it; the fact that although he was talking -very learnedly, and with (so far as he could tell) lucidity and vigor, -<i>he</i> was not controlling his tongue in the least. It was almost like -being drunk; there seemed to be a small entity perched on the root -of his tongue who was pulling the strings of speech. But whereas the -drunken entity was malicious and got him into all sorts of rows and -riots, this particular sprite was doing what seemed a fine job for him. -He knew quite well that he himself was not forming or directing the -words he spoke. It was unpleasant, to say the least.</p> - -<p>And there was something else. His mind, freed of necessity to -concentrate on the program, was somewhere off in space, listening -intently ... listening to a voice from without and within, a voice -that inhabited the cold wastes of time and infinity as well as the -bone-bounded sphere of his brain.</p> - -<p><i>Listen to me, Alan Rackham</i>, said the voice. Wordlessly, yet with -words, from the farthest stretches of the galaxies and still existing -in the core of his own intellect, cold as hoarfrost, hot as berserker's -rage, gentle and persuasive as a doting mother, the voice said to him, -<i>Listen to me</i>.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He would not listen. It was good and evil both together, and if he -listened he would die. Yet it was said he would live. He would live -forever; if time can be measured in terms of endlessness, he would not -die. But he knew he would die. He struggled. The cameras picked up no -hint of the travail. His face was intense and good-humored and his -words were intelligent; and all the while he fought with the voice and -would not listen. He fought it for an hour, and for a month, and till -the end of the world came and beyond, and it spoke to him, fire and ice -in the same words, but without words, and then he began to listen to it.</p> - -<p>At this point six minutes of the telecast had gone by.</p> - -<p><i>You are listening now</i>, said the voice. <i>You are listening, are you -not?</i></p> - -<p><i>I'm listening, God curse you.</i></p> - -<p><i>I am taking you, Alan Rackham, as a bear takes a lamb, as a man takes -a woman, as a hand takes a glove and the glove takes the hand.</i></p> - -<p><i>I understand, curse you. Take me.</i></p> - -<p><i>I am older than your whole race, and wiser than its cumulative wisdom, -and I come from the stars.</i></p> - -<p><i>Of course, you come from the stars. You are myself, and I understand -you, friend.</i></p> - -<p><i>Yes, I am yourself, wiser and stronger and older and beyond you in -every way, and I am you. You are my servant, my slave, and myself.</i></p> - -<p><i>Certainly, master. Why do you tell me things I have always known?</i></p> - -<p><i>You are not obeying when you follow me, for you follow yourself, you -who are now me.</i></p> - -<p><i>You are God, are you not?</i> said Alan in his mind. <i>The Buddhists are -right.</i></p> - -<p><i>No. Not God. I am the atom and I am the intergalactic void, you and -me and everything right and wrong. Have you learned your lesson?</i></p> - -<p><i>It is a lesson I knew in the womb.</i></p> - -<p><i>Now you are mine</i>, said the voice, approving without an iota's loss of -the flame and frost of hatred and love blended flawlessly.</p> - -<p><i>This is a pleasure beyond pleasure, sensation far above sensation. -This is maelstrom descent and flying into the sun. This is the keenness -of sexual transport to the nth power. I live for you.</i></p> - -<p><i>Now you have it. Never forget it.</i></p> - -<p><i>Never!</i> swore Alan.</p> - -<p><i>Now forget it.</i></p> - -<p><i>I have forgotten it.</i></p> - -<p><i>Now what do you have to do for me?</i></p> - -<p><i>Whatever it is you wish.</i></p> - -<p><i>Truly you are mine. Now you have forgotten me.</i></p> - -<p><i>I have forgotten.</i></p> - -<p><i>Who am I?</i></p> - -<p><i>Who are you?</i> asked Alan, perplexed.</p> - -<p><i>Truly you have forgotten. What have you to say?</i></p> - -<p>"So the problem of most importance confronting us then was, how can we -carry enough of this fuel to get us to the moon and back? It took us -seven years to solve that one, but as everyone knows, we did. Then Van -Horne discovered the hitherto unknown properties of—" he was talking -blithely, almost by rote, for this was history-book stuff; and there -had never been any sprite guiding his tongue at all, nor any voiceless -voice in the bitterness of the eternal chasm between the stars and -there was no memory anywhere in his consciousness of such things, nor -any lingering discomfortable feeling that he had known a thing now -forgotten....</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER III</p> - - -<p>They were driving out Queens Boulevard toward the colony, and Alan -said, "Why did you leave, Brave? Where'd you go?"</p> - -<p>The great Indian spun the wheel for a curve. "Just back to the wall."</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>"Lights were too bright for my eyes."</p> - -<p>Alan stared at him. "You could out-gaze the sun, you pokerfaced liar, -and you know it. Why did you leave?"</p> - -<p>Brave glanced over at him. "Caliph, I hate to go on sounding like a -spae-wife, or the Witch of Endor. But never in all my life have I had -such a succession of ominous bodings. You'll think I'm turning raven in -my old age—"</p> - -<p>"No, damn it, Brave, I know you can smell danger a mile or a month -away. Go ahead."</p> - -<p>"Quoth the raven, then. I didn't feel happy about standing there. -Before we started, it seemed like a good quiet joke. But when we were -there and the lights came on, and the cameras started, I suddenly had -to step back out of sight. I <i>had</i> to, Alan. A couple of my ghostly -ancestors took me by the scruff and hauled me right away from there."</p> - -<p>"That would have made a nice tableau on TV."</p> - -<p>Brave chuckled deep in his chest. "Running Lizard and Pony Sees-the-Sky -saving John Kiwanawatiwa from the white man's magic ... I laugh, -viceroy, but I swear it felt like that. The old desert-spawned -blood—the blood that doesn't tame down—boiled up under those lights -and cameras. It pulled the civilized flesh and bones away from them. -It whispered that things were wrong, wrong for an Indian and wrong for -his friend." He stepped on the gas viciously and the MG spurted forward -onto the Union Turnpike like a turpentined hound. "Alan, I almost -yanked you up and walked off with you under my arm. I didn't like you -sitting there in the bath of electrical magic."</p> - -<p>"Why didn't you do it?" asked Alan curiously.</p> - -<p>"Oh, hell, boss man. It's one thing to have these primeval urges, and -another to forget all your technical training and scientific knowledge -so completely that you'll follow the impulse. Do you bust a window -every time you'd like to?"</p> - -<p>"Hmm." Alan was ill at ease. It seemed to him for a moment that there -was something to Brave's instinct, and that he should have been -snatched from those lights. Then he said, "I think it's merely that -someone had a shot at me the other day, and you've fretted over that -till you're seeing assassins behind every chair."</p> - -<p>"Maybe. Maybe." Brave rocketed the little car along the dark highway, -across the miles to home, and all the while the tomtoms beat in his -blood and he knew that he should be afraid, that he should be coldly -and sanely afraid of some black hazard soon to come.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Don Mariner walked into their laboratory the following afternoon. He -was one of the top engineers on Project Star, a youngish-middle-aged -man running to flab and ever-thinning hair. Ordinarily good-humored, -today he had a long face and a crease between his eyes. Without a word -he spread a sheaf of blueprints and photostats out on a lab table. Alan -and Brave bent over them. Don's stubby finger traced the outline of a -flying disk, then stabbed at the fuel storage tanks and several other -sections of the interior.</p> - -<p>"Look at this, you two. I've had it under my nose for three months and -it never struck me till today. Just look at it. See anything wrong?"</p> - -<p>After a moment Alan said, "The fuel tanks are too big."</p> - -<p>"My God! You ought to be the engineer instead of me. I ought to hire -out for a potato peeler. Three months it took me to see it."</p> - -<p>"What's the point of it?" asked Brave. "If the disks are going to -use hornethylene, they won't need a tenth—not a hundredth that much -storage space, even if they want to circle the earth a dozen times -without landing."</p> - -<p>"Here's another thing," said Don Mariner. "This closet for space suits. -Why? The stratosphere is the highest they're supposed to go, and -there's no need for space suits there. You want a space suit to crawl -around the outside of Albertus, but not to wear in a disk. If there's -trouble outside the shell you will simply land. Now look at these -instruments." He showed them another chart. "Are these instruments for -earth travel?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. Are they?"</p> - -<p>"They are not. And also they're not the instruments Carey designed for -the disks last year. They're a new set entirely, and some of 'em I -don't understand myself, but I'll tell you this: they're not for earth -travel. They're what you'd want in a space rocket." He looked up, his -gray eyes bleak. "I faced Carey with 'em, and he swears they're his old -design; and Carey doesn't lie in the ordinary course of events. But -they're not, and I know it."</p> - -<p>"What's the point?" asked Alan. The question was almost rhetorical; he -knew the answer.</p> - -<p>"The point is, these disks we're building are supposed to be purely -and simply a faster means of traveling around Terra than any we have -now. But the man in the street, that faceless brainless little cipher, -believes they're for conquering the stars. And by Judas, he's right! -We're building interplanetary disks—<i>and we're not supposed to know -it</i>!"</p> - -<p>The three men stared at one another.</p> - -<p>"Who's keeping it from us?"</p> - -<p>"And why?"</p> - -<p>"There are plenty of rocket projects—so what if someone wants to -try a space disk instead? Why would he tell all his scientists and -technicians a pack of lies? There's no need for secrecy, for God's -sake!"</p> - -<p>"But—my gosh," protested Alan, "no one man could keep a thing like -this from all the rest of us. There must be ten or twenty who know. -And details like these, the fuel tanks and instruments, they can't be -hidden from anybody!"</p> - -<p>"So where does it lead us?"</p> - -<p>"Up a narrow, dank, and ill-smelling blind alley," said Brave.</p> - -<p>"Not so bl—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a detonation outside the lab; a harsh, clangorous thunderclap -of a sound, like the bursting of a bomb full of wash tubs and -anchor chains. The three men were dashing for the door before the -reverberations had died away.</p> - -<p>A disk had crashed on the airfield. Brave and Alan and Don piled into a -jeep and raced down toward it.</p> - -<p>"I didn't know they had any ready for use," Alan shouted.</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes. They haven't advertised it much, though. And this must be -the first test flight. I didn't know it was coming off today."</p> - -<p>"You'd think we'd all have been invited to the takeoff. Big impressive -show, faithful workers get afternoon off, and all that."</p> - -<p>"Hell," said Don, "if they're keeping the purpose of the things from -us, for no good reason that I can see, they might want to keep the test -flight secret too."</p> - -<p>"How can they keep it secret? It obviously had to take off in plain -sight, and they couldn't shoo everyone indoors. No, I guess they just -didn't give a damn about us. Underlings, unimportant servants, that's -us," said Alan bitterly, with a flash prevision of the terrible idea -that would soon be obsessing him.</p> - -<p>They pulled up beside the wreckage of the disk. There was no danger of -explosion, due to the peculiar properties of hornethylene. The giant -platter, with its raised top like a hot-dish cover and its bubble of -clear crystal beneath, lay crumpled and bent, one-third of its whole -edge accordioned in upon itself. Even as they came up the crystal -bubble inched open; not smoothly, as it should have done, but like a -damp-swollen door creaks away from its frame under heavy pressure. The -pilot thrust his legs out and dropped to the ground. Alan and a dozen -others ran to him.</p> - -<p>"Hi," said he. "Guess I pulped this job up right."</p> - -<p>"Good Lord, man, are you okay?"</p> - -<p>"Not a nick. I just had time to see the ground coming up at me and -bingo, I was sitting there with my eyes popping. Anybody got a drink?" -He was cut to the pattern of all airmen since the days of monoplanes: -tall, narrow of hip and wide of shoulder, lean always-tanned face, a -wry grin on the mouth and horizon-hunger in the eyes.</p> - -<p>Somebody gave him a flask. "Were you alone?" asked Alan.</p> - -<p>"Sure. They can't risk two guys in these things yet. We don't know what -they'll do. This one'll take some going over with a microscope and -tweezers; it's full of bugs. Someone jockey me to the main offices?"</p> - -<p>The crowd dispersed slowly; but Brave, putting an urgent hand on Alan's -arm—it enfolded his biceps and the fingertips met the thumb, for -Brave's hands were as outsize as the rest of him—held him there. "Wait -a minute, risaldar. I want to check something."</p> - -<p>"Another instinct, Brave?"</p> - -<p>"Plain horse sense. And I want to check it before the big boys clamp a -top secret sign on this wreck."</p> - -<p>He reached up and gripped the edge of the crystal bubble. It resisted -him. He set his muscles and tugged with all his incredible strength. -The crushed metal hinges complained and shrieked and parted, and the -great bulbous sheet of plastiquartz fell to the ground, narrowly -missing him as he dodged back.</p> - -<p>"I'll boost you up, and you can give me a hand."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Inside the disk, they crouched and went through the tunnel into the -control room. This comprised the entire central portion of the disk; -suspended within the shell, like a small kernel in a large nut, it -was held comparatively steady as the outer husk rocked and rolled -and flipped in its characteristic skipped-rock flight. Alan did not -understand the principle of this near-motionless suspension of the -control room within an erratically weaving hull, although Don Mariner -had tried to explain it to him in patient two-syllable words. It -involved a knowledge of the newest developments in gyroscopics, which -the young fuel expert did not comprehend. Brave had a fairly good -idea of the basic laws involved, but wisely had never tried to beat -it into his friend's head. Alan on fuel, on chemistry, on philosophy, -was superb; Alan on dynamics or any other branch of mechanics was -deplorable.</p> - -<p>They looked around the room. Nearly all the equipment was still in -its place, for the clamps that held it during the astonishing speeds -the disk could maintain in flight had held it still in the shattering -instant of the crash. But the entire control board, the panels of -instruments and the wide mirrors that gave the pilot a view of the -earth and air from every angle, had all been shoved back and broken -when the saucer had struck its nose edge into the ground.</p> - -<p>Brave walked over to the pilot's seat and stood silently surveying the -mess. At last he said, "Alan."</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"Look here."</p> - -<p>Alan looked, and started as though he had been stabbed with a -hypodermic needle. "God ..." he said.</p> - -<p>The control board had buckled back against the pilot's chair; something -beyond it, some ponderously heavy piece of machinery in the space -between central room and shell, had knifed through wall and board as -sharp and deadly as the blade of a guillotine. The metal had sliced the -center of the pilot's seat to within six inches of the back.</p> - -<p>No man could have sat there at the moment of the crash, as the pilot -averred he had done.</p> - -<p>He would never have lived. He would have been cut in two....</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER IV</p> - - -<p>That night Alan and Brave rode across Project Star to the women's -building, where Alan's fiancee, Win Gilmore had a small apartment. -Win—short for Winifred, and God help the man who called her -<i>that</i>—opened the door before the sound of the diacoustic bell had -died away.</p> - -<p>The first thing that struck you about Win was color: she looked as -though she had been put together by a Bergdorf Goodman display artist -with a genius for analogous chromas. Her hair was washed in a pale -aquamarine and dusted over with luminous flecks of mauve; it was -drawn back to the crown and clasped there by an abstract spiral of -silver, from which it fell in darkening waves down her naked back. Her -nylon jersey lounging outfit, cut with almost severe simplicity, was -graduated from pink to a deep violet hue. Her finger and toe nails were -lacquered with phosphorescent sapphire, and the lashes of her blue eyes -were dyed with mascara of the same glowing shade.</p> - -<p>Her skin was a soft golden color, thanks to half an hour a day under -the sun lamps of the colony's gymnasium.</p> - -<p>"How, oh squaw of rainbow brilliance," said Brave, holding up a hand in -grave salute. "I leave this warrior in your keeping, whilst I shuffle -down to the recroom and squander a few bucks on the pinball machines."</p> - -<p>"How, oh mountain that walks. Will you have a slug of Scotch first?"</p> - -<p>"The noble red man, pampering his internal workin's, drinks only rum -this week. No thanks, Win. The gambling fever's got me. See you."</p> - -<p>Alan closed the door behind him and took Win into his arms. He kissed -her, gently at first, then hard, their lips parted, warm on each -other as their bodies warmed, his hands strong and taut on her back; -he smoothed his fingers down the hollow of her spine, ran them up -into her soft hair. She said against his mouth, "You demolish that -toilsomely-wrought thatch, boy, and I'll demolish you." He laughed and -pushed her away and lit a cigarette, stray flecks of mauve from her -hair glittering on his fingers.</p> - -<p>She went to the low cocktail table and picked up an already filled -glass. He took it from her. "Here's atomic dust in yer eye, -Winniefred," he toasted, and drank long and thirstily.</p> - -<p>"Whoa, Nellie. Haven't you drunk anything today?"</p> - -<p>"Only the dregs of woe," he said lightly, and then his lean face -changed and his eyes looked into a remote place which they did not -like. At once she touched his arm.</p> - -<p>"Sit down, Alan." He did so automatically, and she perched -tailor-fashion on the edge of the couch beside him. "What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>"I wish I knew."</p> - -<p>"Just the blues? You been skipping meals? That always makes you -ethereal and moody. I'd as soon have Unquote with a toothache around -the place as you after you've missed your lunch."</p> - -<p>"No, not the blues. Big trouble, sweetheart, that's been exploding -right and left with no rhyme to it. I've thought so much about it in -the last few hours that I doubt if I can even talk about it now."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Then, of course, he told her everything: beginning with the welder's -accident and eerie lack of pain, then the shot from the bushes, Brave's -indefinite fears climaxing at the telecast, Don Mariner's discovery -of the undreamt-of potentials of the disks, the crack-up ending the -almost-furtive test flight, and the pilot who lived when he should have -been butchered, Alan brought it all out; and as he listened to his own -words a dreadful idea was born and grew and expanded throughout his -intellect until suddenly he knew that here was his answer, that no -other could be rationally accepted. He sat silently for minutes, while -Win watched him, and gradually the color swept out of his face and he -began to shiver.</p> - -<p>She put the glass into his hand. He drained off the last of the drink, -and she clicked open a deep drawer of the cocktail table and gave him -another, freshly mixed at a touch of her finger on the emerald stud of -the drawer.</p> - -<p>"What is it, Alan? You've seen something in it, some connection between -these events. What is it?"</p> - -<p>He took a shuddering breath through open lips and said, "Yes, I know. I -know what we have to fight."</p> - -<p>"Fight? You mean there are enemies? You can deduce that from—"</p> - -<p>"My God, yes, there are enemies." He turned, to fix her with a glare -like a lunatic's. "Listen, Win. We all have the desire to go out to the -other planets, and to the stars beyond our system. We've built a score -of rocket projects all over the continent because of that desire. It's -no secret, everyone has it. Right?"</p> - -<p>"Sure, darling. Even I want to see—well, Mars, anyway."</p> - -<p>"But here are these disks, too good, too damned good by far, possibly -capable of doing just that; and the government and most of us have -thought they were only for earth travel. Why? Who would want to build -ships for interplanetary, or even for all I know interstellar-space -flight, and keep it hidden from the rest of mankind?"</p> - -<p>"Russia?" she suggested humbly.</p> - -<p>"Oh, nuts. You might as well say Switzerland. No, it's here at home, on -Project Star, and it's a handful or more than a handful of our own top -men.</p> - -<p>"Now the other angle: there are men here who apparently can't be hurt -by ordinary means, who don't feel pain, who can resist the force of -such a weapon as a thousand-pound cutlass-edged juggernaut, and who -only stare quietly when their hands are melted off like butter in a -flame."</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"Put the two together, Win. Remember that after I'd seen one evidence -of this lack of pain, I was ambushed. Someone thought I ought to die -before I spread the word around. Who?"</p> - -<p>"Well, who?"</p> - -<p>He drank again and lit a cigarette. The lighter shook in his hand. -"There's only one answer I can see," he said. "Correct me if I'm crazy, -baby. There are mutants among us. We've been anticipating them in -fiction for decades. Now they're here, and they want to reach the stars -before we do, they want to pass unnoticed until they're ready to—to -take over, or whatever their purpose is."</p> - -<p>"Mutants, Alan?"</p> - -<p>"The natural progression from Homo Sapiens. Homo superior. The -supermen."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She slid a pointer across its bar two notches and pressed the emerald -button and the table delivered a dry Martini, which she sipped as she -regarded him steadily. At last she said, "Is that the sole possibility, -sweetheart? Isn't it a pretty wild explanation to accept on the -evidence of a couple of queer accidents?"</p> - -<p>"I don't think so," he said gruffly. "No, blast it, I don't think it's -too wild. It's perfectly possible, and it fits the facts."</p> - -<p>"Your Homo superior must be about as fallible as poor old sapiens then, -because he's let his secrets out with a vengeance. I'd think that -anyone smarter than we are would at least simulate pain after his hand -was burnt off."</p> - -<p>"That was a slip-up, yes. But he didn't know anyone was watching."</p> - -<p>"Homo superior must have a low opinion of our intelligence, or he -wouldn't have let those blueprints get into our hands."</p> - -<p>"The progression of the disks' manufacture has come to the point where -he couldn't help it, I suppose. And maybe by now it doesn't matter. -Don's had those fuel tank charts for three months, because it was -necessary that he work on aspects of construction so close to the tanks -that it was impossible to falsify them. But he only saw the instrument -panel plans this morning. As I said, maybe it doesn't matter now. If -the disks are near enough ready to be taking test flights, maybe the -mutants are going to step out in the open."</p> - -<p>"Then why would they shoot at you?"</p> - -<p>"Hell, I don't know. Perhaps they'll publish the purpose of the disks -without mentioning their own roles, as secret designers and builders -and as creatures that can't be hurt. They could say 'security reasons' -and get away with a lot."</p> - -<p>"It's an explanation, all right," said Win. "I don't swallow it, boy, -but it does fit the facts. So do all sorts of other weird theories."</p> - -<p>"Such as?"</p> - -<p>"Ah, you don't want my ideas. They're as mad as your own." She leaned -over the arm of the couch and touched several glowing spots on its -outer surface; at once the illumination of the room cooled and faded. -The forest green walls, complimentary to her own coloring and to the -clothing she wore, appeared to recede and become the dark depths of -a woodland on a moonless night; the furniture seemed to change into -moss-grown stumps and great misshapen rocks. Overhead, the ceiling -turned dusky blue under the play of hidden tint-beams, and miniature -galaxies twinkled and gleamed across its surface, their varying -incandescence giving the illusion of tridimensional infinity.</p> - -<p>Alan set down his glass and looked over at her. She was a shape of -nocturnal secrecy, sinuous darkness against which her nails and -eye-lashes burned with phosphorescent sapphire. Her use of the luminous -lacquer was an artful bit of technique. It made her into a fantastic -mystery which cried out to be solved. Although Alan had seen the -trick before, he could never resist it. It was unbelievable that the -sober girl in a shapeless smock who sweated in the metallurgy lab was -also this Cleopatra, this shadowy temptress; Troy's exquisite Helen, -yearning for love, her strong enchantments designed to make her both -conqueror and conquest.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Forgetting the half-smoked cigarette between his fingers, forgetting -the supermen and everything else but his physical craving, he threw -himself down on the wide couch beside her. His hands touched the live -softness of the halter and slid to her back. The sweet strong muscles -glided under his fingers as she lifted her arms to take his face -between her hands. Then his hands went down from flesh to fabric and he -felt her long body pressing tight against him, close as his own skin.</p> - -<p>He opened his eyes and saw the glowing purple of her lashes and in the -thick gloom the dimmed luster of her teeth between the parted lips. He -kissed her and closed his eyes again. He touched her throat, where the -blood throbbed close to the surface in a fast steady rhythm; he found -other pulses and held his fingertips on them until his own caught their -beat and merged with it and the separate throbbings were one.</p> - -<p>It was dark, then very dark, the dark of a sunless sea lapping all -about them, and slowly it grew lighter and he was sitting up to run his -fingers through his unmanageable hair and remember that some time ago -he had been holding a cigarette.</p> - -<p>"Hey," he said, "what happened to my Rocketeer?"</p> - -<p>Win stretched out a lazy arm and brought the lights up once more. "Sure -you didn't put it out?"</p> - -<p>"I swear I didn't. My God, here it is," he said, picking it off the -couch where it had been smashed and its tobacco scattered. "What did I -stub that out on?"</p> - -<p>"Probably the couch. It doesn't matter, it's resistant."</p> - -<p>He looked carefully but could find no place where a cigarette's fire -might have been crushed. He shrugged. "So long as I didn't burn you, -baby."</p> - -<p>"You didn't." She had the automatic table mix them two cocktails. -"There's Brave back from the recroom," she said.</p> - -<p>"Ears like a fennec," he said admiringly. "I didn't hear anything."</p> - -<p>"Watch it, brother. I know what a fennec's ears look like." She went to -open the door for the big Indian. "How'd you do, Brave?"</p> - -<p>"Gambled away a dollar and seventy-five cents in a reckless passion. -Are you ready to go home, sheikh?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I am. I have a theory I want to talk about."</p> - -<p>"You argue him out of it, Brave," said Win. "He's been working too -hard. He thinks supermen are after him."</p> - -<p>Brave looked at Alan and his fine face grew hard and set. -"Supermen ..." he said. "Mutants. Alan, is that it?"</p> - -<p>"I think that's it."</p> - -<p>"It fits the picture, all right."</p> - -<p>"It explains every instance we've observed."</p> - -<p>"I believe you're on the right track," nodded Brave. "When did you find -it?"</p> - -<p>"While I was telling Win about it. Let's go home and thrash it out, -son. She's a disturbing influence."</p> - -<p>Brave eyed Win up and down with a leer that on anyone else would have -been particularly lewd and lascivious. From the faithful Brave it -was merely what he meant it to be—a piece of mild buffoonery. "You -understate the case, my liege. Yon woman has a plump and supple look; -she wriggles too much, such minxes are dangerous. Let's drag tail."</p> - -<p>"Okay, boys. Go knock your steel-plated skulls together. But remember -that I think you're barking up an impossible tree at an invisible -possum what ain't thar." She swung the door open for them and stood -aside, one arm upraised with the hand on the jamb.</p> - -<p>Alan kissed her a light farewell, and Brave patted her on the head and -said, "Ketch-um sleep, squaw, you look bushed." Then, as Alan turned -away, his glance was caught by a mark on Win's arm. It was a round -blemish, an angry-looking red welt to the edges of which still clung -infinitesimal flakes of gray ash smudged into the skin. He turned away -and walked down the corridor with Brave at his side, and he thought -ferociously of every possibility he could imagine, but his mind always -came back to the same answer.</p> - -<p>It was a burn, just such a small wound as would result, say, from a -cigarette being pressed out against the arm by an oblivious lover.</p> - -<p>And it should have been shockingly painful.</p> - -<p>But Win had not felt it at all....</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER V</p> - - -<p>Alan awoke after an hour of nightmare-ridden sleep. He opened his eyes -and got quietly out of bed and put on his tweed suit and a pair of -loafers, and walked out of the house without disturbing the slumber of -Brave.</p> - -<p>He went down to the main road and walked along it in the moonlight -toward a distant group of buildings. Presently a soldier stepped into -his path.</p> - -<p>"Halt and identify yourself."</p> - -<p>"I am Dr. Alan Rackham of Fuel Research. My security number is -A10C14B44."</p> - -<p>The soldier looked at him a moment and then his eyes glittered. "Pass, -friend," he said, and standing aside he watched Alan go on toward the -buildings. There was a cynical smile on the soldier's mouth.</p> - -<p>Alan came to a squat flatroofed structure like a concrete shed. He -knocked on the door. It opened and he went in. One weak bulb burned in -a lamp. There was a tall man standing there in the shadows. He shook -hands with Alan.</p> - -<p>"Welcome, companion. Just sit down here."</p> - -<p>Alan seated himself on a stool. The other passed along two walls and in -succession a number of vivid lights flared out, bathing Alan in their -burning radiance. He did not blink, but looked steadily and fixedly -ahead.</p> - -<p><i>Greetings</i>, said the voice.</p> - -<p><i>Greetings, master.</i></p> - -<p><i>Are you happy to return to me?</i></p> - -<p><i>I have never been away from you.</i></p> - -<p><i>That is true. Now I have things to tell you. You will not remember -them consciously tomorrow, but you will obey the commands and refuse to -do those things which I tell you are wrong. Understood?</i></p> - -<p><i>Understood.</i></p> - -<p><i>Now first, slave</i>, said the voice coldly, anger piled on icy anger in -the dripping wordless thoughts: <i>you have decided that there are aliens -among you. A race of supermen, mutated from your own weak breed.</i></p> - -<p><i>Yes.</i></p> - -<p><i>That is untrue. Forget it.</i></p> - -<p><i>It is forgotten.</i></p> - -<p><i>Such an idea is foolishness.</i></p> - -<p><i>It is stupid</i>, said Alan, believing.</p> - -<p><i>There are no aliens. There are neither supermen nor mutants. There -is no thinking race on earth but the genus Homo. The accidents are -unrelated; the welder a victim of shock, the pilot merely lucky.</i></p> - -<p><i>I see.</i></p> - -<p><i>The disks are under the supervision of the government, who wished to -keep their purpose secret until now.</i></p> - -<p><i>Security reasons</i>, said Alan in blind agreement.</p> - -<p><i>There is only you and there is only me, I who am you, you who are me. -And this is our private knowledge and not to be spoken of.</i></p> - -<p><i>I would die rather than tell of it.</i></p> - -<p><i>Now you are mine again.</i></p> - -<p><i>Never anything else, master.</i></p> - -<p><i>Forget me.</i></p> - -<p><i>Forgotten.</i></p> - -<p><i>Go home.</i></p> - -<p><i>Of course.</i></p> - -<p>Alan rose and passed out of the range of the lights, and the tall man -nodded with approval and began to switch off his terrible lamps.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan woke in the grayness of dawn, cramped and half-chilled from -sleeping in a chair. He stretched and groaned, and got up to brew some -coffee. Brave woke at the clinking of china and came padding out to the -kitchen.</p> - -<p>"Up so early, commodore? You look as if you hadn't slept."</p> - -<p>"I slept, all right, but it didn't do much good. My head's splitting."</p> - -<p>Brave took over the coffee pot. "Any more ideas on the mutant theory?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, hell. I guess I was wrong."</p> - -<p>Brave turned and looked at him. "Why do you say that?"</p> - -<p>"Well, look. The welder might have been suffering from shock. The pilot -was—just lucky. And the business of the disks can be explained by -obtuse government security regulations. And where does that leave our -precious superman notion? Out in the cold and wet."</p> - -<p>Brave shook his great head. "Huh-uh, son. More to it than that. Too -many coincidences spoil the broth; too many queer things happening -isn't right. I think you were on the trail of truth last night."</p> - -<p>"I was talking through my ear," said Alan irritably.</p> - -<p>Brave stared at him. A furrow appeared above the great hawk nose. He -bent and pushed Alan's head back and looked into his friend's eyes. -Alan tried to jerk his head away and Brave held it steady in the grip -of one tough fist. He lifted Alan's lids one after the other and -growled deep in his chest.</p> - -<p>"What the devil, Brave!"</p> - -<p>The Indian stood erect. "By the Great Spirit," he said. "Hypnotized!"</p> - -<p>"What in hell's name are you talking about?"</p> - -<p>"You've been hypnotized. Your pupils are swollen as big as grapes."</p> - -<p>"You're crazy."</p> - -<p>Brave regarded him equably. "Sure, tetrarch. Sure I'm crazy. Did you go -out last night?"</p> - -<p>"You were with me. What's wrong with you? We went to Win's."</p> - -<p>"I mean later, when I was asleep."</p> - -<p>"Certainly not. I did get up and go into the living room, though, and I -fell asleep in a chair."</p> - -<p>"Ah," said Brave. He considered a moment. "Watch the java, will you?"</p> - -<p>Alan nodded. The Indian went out of the kitchen. Alan heard him moving -things about in their little laboratory beside the plastiglassed -lounging quarters. In five minutes he returned.</p> - -<p>"Alan, you trust me, don't you?"</p> - -<p>"My God, do you have to be reassured on that? Ever since we marched -through Argentina together. Since Campana and Buenos Aires and that -hell of Pergamino. I'd trust you if you told me to jump into Lower Bay."</p> - -<p>"Okay. Now do me a favor." He gulped down a cup of scalding coffee. -"Drink up and come with me."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan drank obediently, and stood and followed Brave into the lab. -In a cleared space stood a pair of machines, looking somewhat like -giant cameras, the lens of one covered by a multicolored disk, that -of the other unshaded; there were plastic charts bolted to the sides, -and dials and several types of indicator, and among all these the -distinctive green and gold seal of the Institute of Psychotherapeutic -and Hypnotherapeutic Research.</p> - -<p>Alan balked. "Hold on, Brave! You aren't going—"</p> - -<p>"You said you trust me. Do it now if never again. Sit down."</p> - -<p>"No!" he shouted. He was not quite sure of his reasons, but he knew he -must not be hypnotized.</p> - -<p>Brave moved to shut him off from the door. "You'll sit there if I have -to knock you out, boss."</p> - -<p>Alan saw he was not joking. He said, "Where did you get the machines, -Brave?"</p> - -<p>"Had 'em around for years. I've always been intrigued by hypnosis, you -know that. In fact you knew I had the machines. Will you sit down?"</p> - -<p>"What are you going to do?"</p> - -<p>"Damn it, you're sparring for time. If you think—"</p> - -<p>Alan swung on him without warning, a lashing buffet that could have -broken a lesser man's neck; Brave took it square on the side of his -jaw and staggered back, shaking his head. Then he caught Alan's coat -as the smaller man leaped for the door. He swept him around by the -coat like a yo-yo on a string, and judging his blow as carefully and -dispassionately as an old champion measures an upstart contender, he -rammed his big fist into Alan's belly just below the ribs. It jolted -Alan back and doubled him over and made him blind with agony. He could -not breathe. There was no air left in his lungs and he could not suck -any into them. He was going to die. He wanted to die. He was dying.</p> - -<p>Brave dropped him, unresisting, into the chair and tied him down with a -few turns of a light rope. "Son," he said, "I know that wasn't you that -socked me, it was whatever creeping louse got to you last night. I'll -apologize later for smacking you ... if you want me to." He went to his -machines and began to turn dials and adjust gauges, and move pointers -on the graduated scales. He tipped Alan's head up and clamped it firmly -in the vise-like apparatus which rose from the chair's back. Alan was -groggy, his breath now hissing in and out between clenched teeth. -Brave went on talking.</p> - -<p>"I could have knocked you out, and it wouldn't have hurt nearly as -much; but I wanted you awake. That pain may help, too. Rob Pope -was saying something the other day about intense pain being an aid -in nullifying the effects of hypnosis, when allied, that is, with -counter-hypnosis. We'll see. Take it easy, pup."</p> - -<p>Your technical training could be a deterrent factor, thought Brave; you -may be able to oppose the mechanical-visual patterns successfully. I -hope not. It doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of time left to us, -and I want you back on my side.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He focused the lens of one machine on Alan's half-open eyes and -pressed a button. Light began to flicker across the agonized face, -its color changing from second to second. Brave cut in the other beam -and white light that shifted its form even as the first shifted color -lanced through the blue and red and yellow. Alan shut his eyes, but -immediately opened them again.</p> - -<p>"You can't resist it," said Brave quietly. "You don't want to resist -it. You like the pretty lights." The voice was an important stimulus -too. "Your mind is conditioned to taking orders, isn't it, son? -Somebody's been giving you evil commands. You don't like that. You'd -rather listen to me." The weird patterns of the light beams held -Alan's dull gaze. He was already adrift in a flashing vacuum. Brave's -voice came to him slurred and without sense. Gradually he began to hear -the words.</p> - -<p>"Somebody hypnotized you last night, didn't they, son?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. I think they did."</p> - -<p>"Who did it?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. A tall man."</p> - -<p>"Do you know his name?"</p> - -<p>"I couldn't see his face very well."</p> - -<p>"What did he tell you?"</p> - -<p>There was a long silence. Then Alan, his face contorted, said, "He -didn't tell me anything. He only put on the lights. They were vivid as -sin. Then there was a voice."</p> - -<p>"What did the voice say? You can tell Brave, son. Good old Brave. You -trust Brave."</p> - -<p>He thought. "I can't tell you," he said. "Not even you. It was a voice. -It was the voice. My voice. I love it."</p> - -<p>"Isn't there anything you can repeat?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. It said I had to forget the superman theory. It explained the -accidents; and the disks. It's all natural. It isn't mutants."</p> - -<p>Brave started to sweat. He pried at Alan's mind, learning almost -everything about the night before. But he did not find out that Alan -had first heard the voice at the telecast, nor did he learn that -the voice and Alan were one, master and slave, but one. The earlier -hypnosis had been too clever. It had struck at the roots of Alan's -soul, becoming religion and truth to him, and he would not deny it or -betray it.</p> - -<p>At last realizing that he had heard all he was going to hear, the -Indian gave Alan certain counter-commands. He repeated them until -Alan squirmed and whimpered under the repetition. Finally Brave was -satisfied. By using the powerful mechanical-visual stimuli, it was -usually easy enough to plant ideas in a subject, and only infinitely -stronger agents could destroy such ideas. Brave hoped that the enemy -did not have stronger agents; but he knew that in the last analysis it -was a timid and unsure hope indeed.</p> - -<p>"About all I can do now," he growled low, "is stick with you as if I -was a cocklebur in your hair. Till they kill me, or we beat 'em."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He turned off his machines and brought Alan to full consciousness. He -untied him and led him into the lounging quarters, pushing him down -onto a yielding sofa. "Take it easy for a while. That was quite an -ordeal. I guess you have a belly-ache." He poured two long Scotches. -"Now tell me what you remember."</p> - -<p>Alan thought. "Everything," he said with surprise. "At least I suppose -it's everything." He repeated the substance of what they had both said -in the lab. "Right?"</p> - -<p>"That's it. I told you to remember it all. I wanted to level with -you, chief. We've got a fight on our hands and I can't have you -going around in a daze. You've got to realize what happened to you -last night, so you can buck another attempt like it. By the way, you -couldn't tell me why you went down to that building."</p> - -<p>"I don't know. I haven't any memory of going, or of what happened -there; I simply recall telling you about it. I have a memory of a -memory, I suppose you could say."</p> - -<p>"Strong medicine those dog soldiers are using, by God," said Brave. -"The more I learn about them, the surer I am that they're superior -mutants."</p> - -<p>"I think so too," said Alan. Brave grinned. His therapy had overcome -the former hypnotist's commands. Alan went on. "The big question -was, why have they suddenly appeared among us, why now? I think we -have that answered. It isn't sudden; it may have been happening for -generations. Slip-ups may have occurred as far back as history goes. -One mistake might go unremarked; two might make a man wonder: then he'd -investigate, and be either eliminated (they shot at me, you remember!) -or hypnotized and taken under the control of the mutants."</p> - -<p>"Bright lad! Your own experience bears that out."</p> - -<p>"So the newest big question would be: how do we fight them? Perhaps -we're the first to recognize them and retain our own wills. We can't -let that circumstance go to waste, Brave. We've got to strike at them -for our race's sake." He scowled. "But that leads to this: <i>do</i> we -strike at them?"</p> - -<p>"What do you mean, Alan?"</p> - -<p>"I mean ... well, Brave, would we be in the right to take law into our -own hands and start a murder campaign, say, against them? Suppose we -were fighting good, instead of evil?"</p> - -<p>Brave looked blank.</p> - -<p>"How do we know they're wrong?" Alan continued. "How do we know they're -against us? Perhaps they are the true race of the future, and every man -of intelligence should be on their side. No, this isn't an hypnotically -planted theory: it's something I brooded on last night before I went to -sleep. Where do our loyalties stand? If Homo superior is intelligent -and self-centered, callous toward us, then obviously we fight him fang -and claw. But if he is intelligent and benevolent, as you'd expect from -a higher type of being, then we should ally ourselves with him."</p> - -<p>"He shot at you. Is that benevolence?"</p> - -<p>"I know. We might be wrong. It may have been a simple maniac who did -it. Again, I think the coincidence would be too great; well, perhaps -Homo superior had a good reason for it. We can't judge too deeply on -insufficient evidence."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Brave said, "I see what you mean, Alan, and in abstract theory I agree -with it. If the mutants are a good breed, a real improvement on our -own kind, then we owe them the allegiance of intelligent underlings. -But concrete evidence says they're not good. They shoot at you; they -employ the most malefic and vicious kind of hypnotism on you, where a -simple conditioning to the fact of their goodness would have brought -you around to their side just as easily—and with twice the value. They -aren't good. They are villainous." He grimaced. "I can see you hate the -idea. Why? What's on your mind that I don't know about?"</p> - -<p>Alan turned a haunted face to him. "Brave," he said, "Brave, Win's one -of them."</p> - -<p>The Indian said, "No. You're wrong. Not Win."</p> - -<p>"That's what I repeated a couple of hundred times last night. Not Win, -not Win. But I mashed out a cigarette on her arm—accidentally, of -course—and she didn't feel it. It left a hell of a burn. But she never -felt it. She can't feel pain. <i>She's mutant.</i>"</p> - -<p>Brave laid his hands on his thighs and shook his head and could say -nothing. Alan went on. "Has she been playing with me, then? Or can they -get physical pleasure from us? Or was it her job to watch me for signs -of awareness?"</p> - -<p>"Not that. You've been engaged too long for that."</p> - -<p>"Well, what is the reason? Is it possible that she could actually be -in love with me? Me, a member of a lower species! I've asked myself, -could I fall in love with an orangutan? A fairly bright, good-looking -orangutan? The answer always comes out <i>no</i>."</p> - -<p>"Hardly a fair comparison."</p> - -<p>Alan glanced over at the mirror that formed the west wall of the -otherwise plastiglassed-in room. He saw himself haggard, gray in -the face, with bloodshot pouched eyes, and clad in tweeds that had -obviously been slept in. "Hardly fair to the ape," he said, grinning a -little.</p> - -<p>"I can't believe Win is one of them," said Brave stubbornly.</p> - -<p>"And I can't find any other explanation. If I make sure she is, and if -we find they're evil, as we think, then I know what's the first thing -I'll do." He looked his friend in the eyes. "I'll kill her, Brave. I'll -cut her damned lying throat!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Then he stood up. "Enough of that. There are bigger things at stake -than Win right now. I think we may take it as a truism that you and I -can't hinder the superman's plans worth a whoop. Nor could we get to -more than one or two people in authority before we were found out and -stopped. Lord, the very ones we'd naturally go to are probably mutants -themselves! So there's just one thing to be done. Enlist the fellows -we know are all right. There's Don Mariner, for a start. He's plump -and balding and looks ineffective but he's as smart a lad as we have -on the Project. Then there's Rob Pope; he was in the hospital last -month when he cut himself badly on a hot sheet of plastiquartz. He's in -the plastic chemistry section, but he knows a lot about hypnotism and -such-like, so he'd be an asset."</p> - -<p>"Can we trust him just because he cut himself? He might have faked the -pain."</p> - -<p>"Brave, we've got to trust somebody! All we can do is grasp at little -indications of true humanity. Let's see. Who else is there?"</p> - -<p>"Bill Thihling, the rocketjet man. He was at Oxford with me. Rhodes -scholar, prince of a guy, and abnormally sensitive—I've seen him throw -up when a dog was run over. He's no callous mutant."</p> - -<p>"Good deal. That's five of us. Any more?"</p> - -<p>They thought hard. Mentioning names, discarding them as unsure risks, -they ran through all their acquaintances. No more potential allies -could they find till Alan said, "Jim McEldownie!"</p> - -<p>"What do we know about Jim?"</p> - -<p>"That he's uglier than the Duchess in <i>Alice</i>. Look at the mutants -we've recognized: the welder, a well-set-up Tarzan type; the pilot, -a clean-cut handsome dog; and Win, a raving belle. Does Jim fit in -with them? My sainted grandmother, no! And if we convince him of our -belief, he might put us on TV to broadcast it to the country. <i>Worlds -of Portent</i> has a huge following, and people believe what they see and -hear on it. Then afterward, if <i>they</i> get us, we won't have wasted what -may be the first and last opportunity men have had to publicize the -presence of the enemy among us."</p> - -<p>Brave went to the visiphone. There was an atmosphere of tense disquiet -in the room now, as though things were about to burst out in violence -and passion at any second. The Indian talked with Don Mariner and Pope -and Thihling, who all agreed to come over within the hour; then he -called McEldownie. Shortly the lanky announcer was looking quizzically -at him from the screen. "How, Lo." He shuddered. "How low can you reach -for a gag? What's up?"</p> - -<p>"Mac, can you get here right away?"</p> - -<p>"Unholy cats—apologies to Unquote—why the rush?"</p> - -<p>"Just say we need a good man in a hurry."</p> - -<p>The other cocked an eyebrow. "I detect the aroma of butter, salve, and -the old oil. Okay, I'll take an air taxi. Heat up any spare steak you -have lying around. I haven't eaten breakfast."</p> - -<p>"Naturally," said Brave, and turned off the visiphone. "There," he said -to Alan, "now all we have to do is convince them."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It took two hours to convert the four men to their views. Don Mariner, -because of his own findings, was with them from the first exposition; -Pope was intrigued but skeptical; Thihling was frankly incredulous; and -McEldownie was scornful and astonished by turns. At last the fierce -earnestness of Brave and Alan had its effect, and all of them were on -their feet, pacing up and down, shouting at one another, smacking their -fists into their palms and proposing unworkable plans at random.</p> - -<p>Alan argued with Jim about the telecast. Finally the lean man said, -"All right. I'm wacked. We're all wacked. They'll take away my job, -my license, and my reputation. They'll toss us all in the hatch. -Maybe we'll be lucky and get a room together. We can sit in a ring -and make faces at each other for the next fifty years." He shrugged. -"Nevertheless, we'll do it. We'll do it tonight. If things are coming -to a head, we've got to step high and swift. I'd scheduled the -Secretary of State tonight, but he'll have to wait. I'll go down and -make arrangements. Won't say anything to the sponsors, naturally, or -the staff. They trust me ... they've done it for the last time, I -imagine. Well, I've had five good years on TV. Let's finish it in a -real crackerjack blaze of the well-known glory, gents. Here we go round -the loony bin."</p> - -<p>"You, boy," said Alan fervently, "are okay."</p> - -<p>"I'm a living doll," said McEldownie moodily, and left.</p> - -<p>Bill Thihling, the rocketjet man, a compact sturdy pocketsized fellow -about Brave's age—thirty-six or -seven—said, "Now let's have some -action. Let's <i>do</i> something."</p> - -<p>"First thing we do is swallow some antigues," said Brave, going into -the kitchen for the bottle. Antigues were anti-fatigue tablets, on -which a man could keep fresh and intelligent for seventy-two hours -without sleep. "I have an idea that sleep will be a myth and a vagrant -memory for us before too long."</p> - -<p>"And then," said Don Mariner, "we catch one of the supermen and beat -some truth out of him."</p> - -<p>Alan laughed hollowly, reminding himself of a character out of -<i>MacBeth</i>. "Beat it out of him? Torture a being that doesn't feel pain?"</p> - -<p>"Kill him, then," urged Rob Pope. "It's simple bloodthirst, but we've -got to make a beginning. Perhaps it'll make his cousins fret a little. -Bring 'em into the open."</p> - -<p>"We don't even know they can be killed. A thousand-pound 'sword' -couldn't faze the pilot of that disk. What could <i>we</i> do?"</p> - -<p>"We can try! It's no good our arguing back and forth; we haven't any -real data. The only thing to do is kidnap one of <i>them</i>, see what makes -him tick, and then do our planning."</p> - -<p>"I'm for that," said Don. "Which one shall we take?"</p> - -<p>"The welder's vanished, and we can't very well torture, or try to -torture, Win Gilmore. Too rough on Alan. Let's have in the pilot of -the wrecked disk."</p> - -<p>"He wouldn't come here if we called him: too suspicious a request," -said Alan. "Kidnapping's the thing."</p> - -<p>"Pope and I can handle that," said Thihling. "Anyone know his name?"</p> - -<p>"Erin Grady," said Don Mariner. "Judas, isn't that a handle!"</p> - -<p>Rob Pope, a big rangy man built in the style of a woodsrunner out of -early America, said, "Ho for Erin Grady, then. And if he tries any of -his damn superman's hypnosis, I'll fling it in his own teeth. I know a -trick or two in that line myself."</p> - -<p>The two of them left the house. Brave began to mix three stiff -highballs, and Don Mariner took out a harmonica and played Bach, -with only a few sour notes per bar. Alan picked up the cat Unquote -and fondled her. But his thoughts were grim. All he could see was a -beautiful girl who he longed to hold in his arms. A beautiful girl with -a cigarette burn on her arm. A girl who felt no pain. Win....</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER VI</p> - - -<p>They brought in Erin Grady, dressed in brown civilian clothes and -wearing an expression of curiosity on his lean well-proportioned face -and in eyes that were accustomed to peering into measureless deeps of -the sky. "How'd you get him?" asked Brave.</p> - -<p>"Lied like a trooper," said Pope, and the pilot turned half-angry, -half-amused blue eyes on him.</p> - -<p>Brave gestured to a straight-backed chair. "Please sit there, Mr. -Grady." The pilot did so without question. "Forgive this wire," Brave -went on, looping the heavy coils around the man's chest and arms, "but -we don't think rope would hold you."</p> - -<p>Then the pilot spoke. "Kept telling myself for years that scientists -are all cracked," he said philosophically. "Guess this proves it."</p> - -<p>"Bill," said the Indian to Thihling, "go out and patrol the house. Let -us know if anybody approaches—anybody at all."</p> - -<p>The rocketjet man left them. Brave put Grady's hands flat on the arms -of the chair and lashed them down at wrist and knuckles. Then he stood -back, Alan and Don and Rob a little behind him, and he said gravely, -"Erin Grady, you smashed up a disk yesterday. But you weren't hurt."</p> - -<p>"I was lucky."</p> - -<p>"You sat in the regular pilot's chair as it hit?"</p> - -<p>"Sure, I—" then his eyes narrowed and he shut his mouth.</p> - -<p>"Too late," said Brave grimly. "You gave yourself away. You aren't so -clever as you're supposed to be."</p> - -<p>"Whaddaya mean?"</p> - -<p>"For a superman, you're too slow on the trigger. We got into that disk -before they clamped a security ring around it. We saw what happened to -the chair. No human could have missed being sliced down the brisket by -that juggernaut that came through the control board."</p> - -<p>"You clever, clever little bastards," said Grady venomously. "You'll -be dealt with." For the first time he seemed angered at the wire that -held him. He threw his weight against it, but it held firm. He glared -at each of them, and Rob Pope said, "He's trying hypnotism; watch -yourselves."</p> - -<p>Mariner chuckled. "He can't affect me, I'm too fat. The thought waves -get lost."</p> - -<p>Brave did not even feel the tentative vibrations of the pilot's mind, -but he glanced at Alan and saw that his friend was sweating. "You okay, -guru?" he asked anxiously.</p> - -<p>"He's talking to me." Alan's face cleared. "But I'm not going under. I -believe your treatment did the trick, Brave."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The pilot relaxed and deliberately spat on the rug. Brave reached out -an arm like a tree trunk and slapped the tanned cheek, so the head -rocked sideways. "We aren't going to be gentle with you, pal," said -Don. "Face that. We aren't playing for marbles."</p> - -<p>Grady did not speak. Brave took eight strips of light wood, narrow -and about two inches long, from his pocket. Kneeling, he fitted them -neatly under the pilot's well-manicured and rather long nails. The -man flipped them out with a convulsive motion of the fingers; Brave -impassively brought his enormous fist down like a hammer on the back of -the fellow's right hand. Grady shrieked.</p> - -<p>"Do that again and I'll break the other one," said Brave.</p> - -<p>"You red-skinned bastard!" howled Grady, "you did bust it up."</p> - -<p>"I meant to. I wanted to see if you'd be quick enough this time to -simulate pain."</p> - -<p>Had Alan not known better, he would have sworn the pilot was actually -suffering. "What are you talking about? Why in blue hell shouldn't I -feel pain?"</p> - -<p>"Because you're a mutant, and we know you can't. Why can't you, I -wonder," muttered Brave in a conversational tone, fitting the splinters -under the nails again. "Pain is a necessity of life as we know it. It -warns you of danger. A man could be sliced off up to the waist without -noticing it, except for pain. Why would the next higher animal to man -in the scale of evolution have lost the sensation of pain? It doesn't -make sense."</p> - -<p>"That's the first thing you've said that I agree with or understand. It -doesn't make sense. You're all nuts."</p> - -<p>"Come off it," said Alan. "You have given yourself away too often. -Don't go back to the old innocent routine."</p> - -<p>Rob Pope said, "Suppose they can regenerate lost appendages? It isn't -as mad as it sounds. Suppose that welder slipped away and grew himself -a new hand? In the case of such a beast, what good would pain be to -him? It'd be no more than a nuisance. The lack of pain then becomes an -intelligent development—but only then."</p> - -<p>"What devils they must be," said Don, staring at Grady. "Right out of -the swamps of Hell."</p> - -<p>Brave said to the pilot, "Now I'm going to ask you a question. If -you give me a fair answer I'll take out one of these sticks. If you -don't, I'll drive it into you—under the nail it hurts about as bad as -anything can—and light it. It's an old trick and it works wonders as a -tongue-loosener. Here's the question: are you a mutant of our race, a -superman?"</p> - -<p>Grady looked at him for a moment and then he laughed. He was still -laughing when Brave hit the stiff wood with a hammer and sank it -beneath the nail. Then he screamed.</p> - -<p>"You do that real well. It sounds as if that hurt you. Keep it up -if you like; it won't bother me. I'm an Indian, Mr. Grady. I'm as -sensitive and humane as the next guy until I'm up against somebody who -fights unfairly, who's mean and cruel and treacherous; then I turn cold -and I say to myself, how shall I fight this brute? and if torture is -the best answer, I use it without any qualms. That's sense, it seems -to me. Well, I hate your uncanny guts, Mr. Grady, and all your crew: -and there isn't any way to fight you that I can see, so I'll torture -you. And even if I'm nine-tenths certain that you aren't feeling it, -still it eases me a little to hear you whoop and yell. And there's that -tenth of my brain that says maybe you are feeling it. I hope you are. I -really hope you are."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He lit the wood: it was synthetic, a very light, hard compound of -fibers that burnt with a quick flame, as hot as the heart of a coal. It -reached the nail and curled it back in two shavings of black char: and -Grady almost shattered his throat with his roaring.</p> - -<p>"Brave," said Alan, "stop it! He does feel it!"</p> - -<p>"You raving maniacs, certainly I feel it!" Grady cried. "Where'd you -get the idea I couldn't? You're all mad!"</p> - -<p>Don Mariner said calmly, "I'll tell you why he doesn't feel it. -Just look at his face." They all did so, uncomprehending. "He isn't -sweating," said Don triumphantly, "and he hasn't even turned pale!"</p> - -<p>Grady turned his head toward the engineer. "Oh, you fat little blob of -stupidity," he said icily. "You stand there with your idiot companions -and your bright little idea that's about as wrong as wrong can get. Of -course I'm not sweating. <i>I haven't any sweat glands. I haven't any -pores.</i> And naturally I can't turn pale. This is my natural color. -I'm no damned human chameleon. But I can feel pain, in spite of your -driveling theories. What do you want to know?" He spat again. "I won't -sit here and take this agony for anyone. What the blazes can you do to -us if you do know? You can't touch us. Go on, ask away."</p> - -<p>"Are you mutants?" asked Brave.</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"Are you human?"</p> - -<p>"Not as you understand it."</p> - -<p>"Where did you come from?"</p> - -<p>The pilot sneered. "From the ninth planet of a sun unknown to you," he -said.</p> - -<p>Brave glanced back at Alan. "Think he's lying?"</p> - -<p>"I swear I don't know."</p> - -<p>"I'm not lying," said Grady. "Want to know how I got out of that disk -alive? I heard the damn machinery shifting in front of me—oh yes, my -ears are sharper and my sight's better, and I can move a lot faster -than you can—so I spread myself out thin against the back of the seat. -Lucky for me the monster stopped an inch short of my guts. Want to see -how I did it? Will that convince you?"</p> - -<p>Then he did an incredible, a terrible thing to see: he seemed to turn -almost fluid, and though none of his features changed, they withdrew -to the sides; his whole body thinned out and flattened along the chair -back, and he became a caricature of a man run over by a steam roller. -Then he laughed at them.</p> - -<p>Above Rob's gasp and Alan's cry came the shriek of Don Mariner. Then he -had swept Brave aside and fired a grenade pistol almost in the face of -the pilot; and Grady died without a sound.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"No recriminations," said Alan. "You can't see a thing like that and -hold your hand. If I'd been armed I'd have done it myself."</p> - -<p>Brave was running his hands over the exposed flesh of the dead pilot. -"This is weird stuff," he said. "It isn't human—well, that's obvious. -It feels vaguely like gutta-percha. It's swelling up slowly. No, by -glory, it's going back into shape again. It's becoming humanoid again." -He looked up. "Notice how that word springs to the mind? Humanoid. He -wasn't human, he told the truth about that. He wasn't even superhuman. -He was alien."</p> - -<p>Don Mariner, still shaking, said, "I'm sorry I shot him. I just went -out of my head at that stunt he pulled. Never been so scared in my -life. I sure fouled up our chances of learning how and whom to fight."</p> - -<p>"'What can you do to us if you do know? You can't touch us.'" That -was Rob Pope musing aloud. "What did he mean by that? That they're so -powerful it doesn't matter now if we know about them?"</p> - -<p>"You could put any interpretation on it," said Alan.</p> - -<p>"Before we theorize any more," said Bill Thihling from the door, -"you'd better know there's an air taxi headed this way. It's a -Manhattan job and I thought it might be McEldownie again, but you never -know. So what do we do with the corpse you birds so casually created?"</p> - -<p>Brave said promptly, "The garbage disposal unit. It'll take care of him -in thirty seconds—and very appropriate too." He hoisted the body of -the pilot out of the chair, after cutting the wires. As he carried it -off to the kitchen and the hidden well that was the disposal unit, Alan -opened a camouflaged wall cupboard and took out the all-vac. Switching -it on, he ran its round nozzle over the gouts and stains of blood on -the rug, the walls, and the chair. It sucked them into itself like an -anteater inhaling a hill of ants, leaving no trace of discoloration. -Whipping it back into its nook, and tossing the long pieces of wire in -after it, he slammed the door and turned round.</p> - -<p>"That's that. We're clean. If it's Mac, we tell him the truth; -otherwise Grady was never here. Right?"</p> - -<p>Bill opened the door. McEldownie was just coming up the walk.</p> - -<p>"Cheers, gang. The eminent statesman is put off. We're set for tonight. -What crimes have you been committing?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, kidnapping and murder," said Alan. The announcer dropped to the -couch.</p> - -<p>"You're jesting, I trust?"</p> - -<p>"In a gnat's eye," said Mariner. "You're just thirty seconds too -late to see the corpse." He told Jim briefly what they had done. -The bony man did not say anything for a few moments, and then, -"Jee-blinking-rusalem! You caught one and pumped him and slew him out -o' hand, all in the time it took me to fly to the studio and back. What -a bunch of thugs. The Black Hand could have taken lessons from you." He -leaned forward as Brave came in. "Well, you seem to have got precious -little out of him before young Donald here got peeved, but let's -coordinate it and see what we have."</p> - -<p>"One, he could do miraculous things with his physical structure," said -the Indian. "It's the first wholly sure thing we've learned since we -saw the welder burn off his hand without flinching."</p> - -<p>"Two," put in Alan, "he said his kind aren't mutants, but aliens from -another system. It may be true. Lord knows. We have only his word."</p> - -<p>"Three, he claimed to feel pain, and if he was faking, he was a class -A actor," said Rob Pope. "I'll tell you why: I was pretty sensitive to -his brain waves, even when he wasn't broadcasting at us. Once I thought -I caught a plea for help to someone unnamed. And every time Brave hurt -him, I felt that he was actually suffering."</p> - -<p>"I felt it too," agreed Alan.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Brave, getting out bottles of Scotch and rye, said, "In the minute I -had to examine his skin and flesh, I found he wasn't lying about his -being without pores. The skin was perfectly smooth. It felt rather -like a kind of rubber, though not so much so as to seem inhuman to -a casual touch. And his body assumed the human shape after death, -so it would appear to be the natural form of the beasts." He passed -one bottle to Rob and the other to Mac. The six allies drank deeply. -Through two bottles they discussed the enemy; coming at last to a -sort of half-conclusion, that there were extraterrestrials who could -change their shapes within limits, and there were others, either from -the same strange world or existing as a mutation of Earthmen, who -were impervious to pain. The aliens, Alan and his crew decided, were -susceptible to it. The near-tangible thought waves from the tormented -pilot had been too agonized to deny.</p> - -<p>It was then a little past four in the afternoon.</p> - -<p>"A bit more than three hours before we need to leave for the station," -said Thihling, "if we take one of the colony's air taxis. What say we -relax and loaf and forget for part of those three hours?"</p> - -<p>Alan got up and went sprawling at full length on the deep-napped rug. -"I'm for that. Let's loosen up. Loll around. My God, I'm as strung up -as Captain Kidd."</p> - -<p>"I thought you fell down on purpose," said Rob. "But if you're capable -of turning phrases like that, I guess you're just too drunk to stand."</p> - -<p>Unquote found Alan and sat down with an air of modest ownership in the -small of his back. Brave got out more bottles. "We ought to be drinking -to things," he said. "There should be witty toasts and pledges to fair -maidens. Bumpers should be drained to the memory of gay college days -and friends long gone."</p> - -<p>He passed the rye to McEldownie, who said, "We ought to be sucking this -booze out of old ivy-covered pewter mugs, then, instead of giving each -other our loathsome diseases. More collegiate, y'know."</p> - -<p>The Indian took a healthy gulp of bourbon. He sighed appreciatively -and flipped the bottle through the air and Bill caught it and had it -uncorked and upended in the same motion, dexterous as a conjurer. "Ah," -he said, choking and spluttering, "smooth!" He passed it to Alan, who -nearly upset Unquote in reaching for it; the cat dug her claws into the -rough fabric of his coat, glared at the back of his neck, and spoke -sharply and at some length concerning the irreverence of certain men.</p> - -<p>"Puss, simmer down," said Jim. "Your master drinketh."</p> - -<p>"Now there's a bad word in its context," said Alan gravely. "You know -nothing about cats, Mac, m'boy. Nobody was ever a cat's master. If -Napoleon kept a cat, it bullied him."</p> - -<p>"Napoleon, my illiterate friend, had an intense fear of cats. So -obviously he didn't own one."</p> - -<p>"If Tamerlane had a cat, it bullied him. If Genghis Khan—"</p> - -<p>"You've made your point. Send the alky on its way," said Don.</p> - -<p>"Brave, pass around the old ivy-covered pewter mugs," Alan said -grandly, rolling over and precipitating a furious Unquote to the rug. -"While you're at it, get some old ivy-covered crackers and cheese."</p> - -<p>"I could stomach an old ivy-covered potato chip," murmured Rob Pope.</p> - -<p>"Let's have a little masculine nostalgia," said Bill. "Let's remember -Oxford, Brave."</p> - -<p>Four strictly-American-college men hooted him down.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Brave brought glasses and a tray of snacks, and, thoughtfully, a dish -of milk for Unquote. "Here comes old ivy-covered Brave now," said Rob. -The big Indian emptied a fifth of rye into the glasses. Jim picked up -the empty bottle, regarded it like Hamlet with the skull of Yorick, -and said, "Blessed blue ruin, how I love thee. Omar had nothing on -McEldownie."</p> - -<p>"McEldownie the Tentmaker," said Alan. "It has a fine classic ring to -it."</p> - -<p>"I pawned my fine classic ring last week. I was hungry."</p> - -<p>"God," said Bill. "Classic of '58, I presume?"</p> - -<p>They finished the rye and after serious consultation opened a bottle -of Scotch. McEldownie began to talk with a broad Highland accent -and it seemed very funny to everyone. Unquote stalked away to her -playbox in disgust. Brave sat bolt upright, looking like a statue of -copper-colored granite. They all got drunk.</p> - -<p>The announcer stood up and juggled three glasses, then four, and the -others applauded, for he was good at it. "For all your awkward look, -Mac," said Alan, "you're a slilful—skilful old bird."</p> - -<p>"When I juggled before the crowned heads of Europe, they went mad over -me. I often wished I could juggle in front of whole people," he added -wistfully. "Never did. Just heads."</p> - -<p>"Oh, brother," said a woman's voice. They all turned round and looked -toward the door. Win Gilmore stood there, shaking her beautiful blued -coiffure. "This place looks like a shebeen. And you're all fried to the -eyeballs. Ought to be ashamed of yourselves." She dropped her lavender -cloak: she was wearing an amethyst-colored halter and a pleated nylon -skirt of syenite blue, which clung to her legs as she walked toward -them. Alan could see the play of muscles in her thighs where the soft -skirt touched them. Some of the liquor sank away from his brain and he -remembered that this woman was not human. He gritted his teeth and -turned his head away to look at Brave. The Indian was also sobered. He -said, "Well, hello," uncertainly.</p> - -<p>"It makes me mad," said Win, pouring herself a shot of rum. "All this -attractive male virility going to waste. No women to appreciate it. -There ought to be wenches flung picturesquely here and there."</p> - -<p>"You paint a sordid picture, madame," said Rob. "We've been chastely -reliving old school days, knotting old school ties, and reciting the -Boy Scout oath to each other. It's uplifting. It's—"</p> - -<p>"Sophomoric?"</p> - -<p>"Who is this dazzling fluff?" McEldownie asked.</p> - -<p>"Win Gilmore."</p> - -<p>The tall man opened his green eyes wide. "Oho? The super-jade!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Win regarded him without affection. "Who the hell are you, and what the -hell do you mean by that crack?"</p> - -<p>"Your secret is known, harridan," said Jim. He stared into her wide -eyes. "Alan says you can't feel pain. That makes you one of the enemy -in our book. If it weren't for your perfection of form, I myself -would take pleasure in booting you in the left nostril." He let his -gaze wander over her well-stocked amethyst halter. "Alan," he said -critically, "far be it from ol' Mac to question your judgment, but I -doubt this lassie's inhumanity. I really feel we've made another error. -If she isn't human, then I'm a rhinoceros."</p> - -<p>"You look more like a starving stork," Win cried furiously. "Alan, who -is this wretch?"</p> - -<p>"Peace, gal, I'm standing up for you, no matter what it sounds like. -Doc, you can't convince me that a gal with a balcony that'd grace the -Palace Theatre isn't human. I think you're wrong."</p> - -<p>"Of course she's good looking. She's a step above us in the -evolutionary scale, isn't she?" snarled Alan. "Or else she's from some -goddam planet out in the other galaxies." Win looked at him blankly.</p> - -<p>"I think you've jumped to a conclusion when you should have crawled to -it." McEldownie took a step forward and caught Win's eyes with his own. -"I believe you can feel pain," he said.</p> - -<p>"Good Lord, of course I can feel—ouch!" She gave a little scream. The -announcer had pinched her sharply on the naked flesh just below her -halter. Because she had been looking into his eyes, she could not have -seen the casual motion of his hand.</p> - -<p>"There!" said Jim, standing back and bowing with a juggler's flourish. -"What about that, gentlemen?"</p> - -<p>Brave spoke. "Win, he's drunk, so don't hold it against him. But -he's done you—and us—a great service." Raising his voice above her -passionate cursing, he went on. "You know our mutant theory. It's been -changed today but the pain angle still holds good to a degree. Well, -Alan burnt you accidentally with his Rocketeer cigarette last night, -and you didn't feel it; so we have been thinking that you must be one -of them. Evidently you're not. You have our apologies all round."</p> - -<p>She stood silent, taking it in; then she said, "Great heavens above!" -and turned on Alan, who was looking sheepish and incredibly relieved. -"You grunt-brain! Don't you, with all your knowledge, realize that -there are times in a woman's life—yes, and in a man's—when she or he -can be burned, whipped, and kicked in the funny bone, without realizing -it?"</p> - -<p>Alan made a gesture of incomprehension.</p> - -<p>"You moron, what were we doing when you burned me?"</p> - -<p>Brave reached into the encyclopedia of his mind and said, "She's -right, governor. It was first explained in 1952. When one is -sexually stimulated, the increase in blood pressure, the intensified -heart-beats, and the rigidity of all the muscles sometimes combine to -make one totally unaware of pain. The author of the theory was a Dr. -Linsey, or Kinsey, or something like that." He pursed his lips. "I -don't suggest that you were necking, chieftain, but if you were, that -explains it, and we were damned unjust to Win."</p> - -<p>"If you weren't necking, Doc," said Jim, "you're dead, or ought to be."</p> - -<p>Win tossed down her rum. "I'll have more to say on the subject later," -she declared to Alan. "For now, I'm too mad to risk staying here and -breaking up the furniture. I found that burn on my arm after you left. -By then it hurt like hell." She strode over and picked up her cloak. -"Good night, or afternoon, or whatever the everlastingly blasted time -it is," she said between her teeth, and closed the door gently behind -her which made a more effective exit than if she had slammed it and -made the walls quiver.</p> - -<p>"Bless my soul," said Jim mildly, reaching for his glass. "We have -transformed a superwoman into a livid Fury. What a day!"</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER VII</p> - - -<p>Brave passed around anticohol tablets, those excellent remedies for -drunkenness developed in Japan in 1957; and they all ate them and drank -water and looked at one another and grinned. "That was quite a bat -while it lasted," said Don.</p> - -<p>McEldownie rested his head on the couch and closed his eyes. -Occasionally the tablets would put one to sleep for a short time. Rob -Pope said, "We've had our reaction against all the shocks, and it was a -luxury I think we deserved; but now we've got to plot and plan."</p> - -<p>"The telecast is our first big hope. Let's put our heads together."</p> - -<p>"And produce a sickening thud," said Jim, opening his eyes. "Okay we'll -see what we can do. Or more likely," he said thoughtfully, "what we -can't do."</p> - -<p>The door opened and Win came in, a look of contrition on her face. -They all gaped at her. "Well," she said to Alan, "it's like this. I'm -sorry. I blew my cork. I was insulted. I'm not any more. I know the -strain you've been under and I realize it was an awful coincidence to -happen just when it did. I forgive you and your tame flamingo with the -wandering hands. Can I help?"</p> - -<p>"Take a pew," said Alan relieved beyond words. "We're talking out the -telecast. You can help, sweetheart."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When it was time to leave—they had decided to take Rob Pope's station -wagon rather than an air taxi—Brave locked up the house. Both he and -Alan felt they might not be able to come back to it, at least not -soon. Just before he shut the front door, a brown blur shot past him -and landed on Alan's chest. Unquote clung there, claws entangled in -his jacket, great blue eyes begging with false humility to be taken -along. "I nearly forgot you, kitten," he said. He boosted her up to his -shoulder and the eight of them got into the station wagon, which Brave -then wheeled about and sent roaring toward Manhattan.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Just before eight they entered the studio. McEldownie said, "How about -you lads waiting in the reception room? If anybody comes raging into -the place for our hides, you can cause 'em a certain amount of trouble -before they get to Doc and me."</p> - -<p>Brave looked reluctant, then agreed. The others trooped out. Jim said, -"You can watch it on the monitor," and locked the door behind them. -"There's an extra precaution. Now for it, Doc. Cross your fingers."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The lights came on.</p> - -<p>Alan talked well. Just at first, while McEldownie was giving him a -purposely vague introduction, he felt rather light-headed; this passed -quickly. He had the feeling that something had tried to insert itself -into his thoughts. Whatever it was, it failed, he said thankfully. Mac -finished his introduction. Alan began to speak.</p> - -<p>He gave it to his audience straight and fast, without preamble, lest an -engineer or official with access to the controls should be a mutant or -alien.</p> - -<p>"<i>Listen to me. There are enemies among us, enemies from another world, -or perhaps sports of our own species. We are all in deadly danger.</i>"</p> - -<p>He spoke coolly and sanely. There could be no mistaking his competence -to talk on the subject, he thought, I sound like an old statesman. And -if that's vanity, let it be.</p> - -<p>After sketching in the incidents which had led to his suspicions, he -told of the disks' unsuspected power, and of the pilot who could expand -his body inhumanly in any direction. He did not mention Grady's death. -He stressed the need for immediate action. "What that action must be, I -don't presume to suggest. There are many men more qualified to tell you -that than I am. But here are ideas...."</p> - -<p>Seek them out, he said. Try to recall incidents, accidents, that made -no sense to you. Try to remember instances of lack of pain. I'm sorry I -can't give you more identifying traits, but that's all we know so far. -Except the lack of pores, the heightened senses.</p> - -<p>There will be trouble. I feel sure there will be bloodshed. Don't -quail, don't despair. We'll beat them. We're essentially a decent race -and from all indications they are devious, malevolent, and evil.</p> - -<p>And we outnumber them, that's pretty certain.</p> - -<p>Don't flinch. Don't hesitate. Seek them out. Capture them, kill them, -but <i>find them</i>!</p> - -<p>He was really a little proud of himself as the telecast ended. He even -felt light-headed again, and ascribed it to pride.</p> - -<p>McEldownie clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, boy, if this mess pans -out okay, you and I can take our pick of soft government posts, or -retire on the bounty of a grateful world. Let's see what the gang -thought of it."</p> - -<p>He unlocked the door and opened it. Brave stood on the threshold, his -dark face bewildered; the others crowded behind him, worried, tense. -"Alan," said his friend, "what went wrong?"</p> - -<p>Alan's belly shrank back and sweat broke out on his palms. "What do you -mean, Brave? Didn't it go on the air?"</p> - -<p>"It must have," Jim said. "I was watching a monitor."</p> - -<p>"It went on, all right." Brave sighed. He looked as beaten as an Indian -can ever look. "I should have guessed they wouldn't let you do it. -They'd get to you some way, both of you."</p> - -<p>"For the love of God, Brave, what are you talking about?" cried Alan. -The other rested his hands on the scientist's shoulders.</p> - -<p>"Son," he said quietly, "you talked about fuel. The two of you talked -for fifteen minutes about the newest developments in rocket fuel. You -never said a damned word about the enemy race!"</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER VIII</p> - - -<p>"So now we're all but helpless," said Bill Thihling, wiping his mouth. -They had just finished three enormous platters of curried chicken at -an exotic Bengali restaurant on 49th Street. "Where there's life, et -cetera, but so long as the aliens control our very tongues, what can we -do? Echo answers, Nothing."</p> - -<p>"I blame myself for it," growled Brave. "I should have gone on the -telecast; or Rob, maybe. We can withstand hypnotism, know how to fight -it, while Alan had already had one bad dose of it. It must have been -easy to recapture his mind."</p> - -<p>"What about me?" objected Jim. "I've never been mesmerized before. I -didn't feel a thing, either, or hear voices, nor nothin'."</p> - -<p>"Are you sure you haven't been hypnotized? Alan didn't know it till I -found out under mechanical-visual trance."</p> - -<p>"Gad, maybe I have been, then," murmured Jim uncertainly.</p> - -<p>"<i>They</i> got to Alan and Mac," said Rob. "Had you or I tried it, Brave, -they'd have done something more violent; blasted the station off the -air, killed us. They undoubtedly have their eyes on us, and we can't -get in touch with humanity again. We're on an island surrounded by a -sea of cynical, sneering demons; they won't let us do anything but make -despairing futile signals to the mainland."</p> - -<p>"Brother," said Win, "are we getting poetical in our sorrow! Listen, -I have a feeling we oughtn't to go back to Project Star. They must be -grouping to wipe us out by now. They know us, they're not dumb; they'll -be after us." She bent over the table and all the others did likewise. -"Suppose we go up to Central Park? Sit out there all night, loll on -the sward and talk. We won't be hunted there. And perhaps by morning -some solution will have occurred to us."</p> - -<p>"That's the best thought any of us have had," said Rob Pope. "Fresh -night air! I know this washed and filtered stuff is the best atmosphere -for you, but I crave some real old-fashioned germ-polluted air."</p> - -<p>So they took the station wagon up to the park, and walked onto the -grass that was already spangled with moisture under the moon; on a -knoll surrounded by trees they flung down blankets from the trunk of -the car, and stretched out and tasted the night that was brought to -them on a softly brisk little breeze; and Alan said, "Mother Nature! -You can't beat the old girl. She makes you see sparks of light where -you know there's nothing but the dark."</p> - -<p>They lay there and talked and napped and drank and relaxed through the -night, till dawn rose gray and turned to blue and the sun came up. For -no reason but their physical comfortableness, they all felt good. Even -Unquote was gay and frisked like a kitten. Their fantastic trouble -seemed smaller and further away than it had ever been....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When the first great disk came down on the city, skimming the treetops -of Central Park, heading straight for the Times Square district at -that height and rising only when it seemed certain that it would smash -itself against one or another of the buildings of Manhattan, none of -them could speak for surprise. They stared up, amazed, as the whirling -silver surface caught their eyes with its glancing beams of sun -reflection; and it was incredible to them that the disk should be there -in the bright morning sky.</p> - -<p>It vanished over Brooklyn, tilting on edge and shooting straight up -into emptiness.</p> - -<p>"Well, if this isn't the feeble-minded pinnacle of idiocy," exclaimed -Don Mariner. "A test flight over the city itself! What drooling -sub-human intellect ordered that one?"</p> - -<p>In the distance a muted babbling arose, as the city caught its breath -and began to talk excitedly about the flying saucer, the first (barring -some fugitive glimpses in the '40s and '50s which had never been -properly verified) that New York had seen.</p> - -<p>Then the disk came back. It led a wobbling formation, two sister ships -just behind it and then a gap and three more, all going at a hawk-fast -clip and slanting down out of the eastern sky to zoom over the park -once more in an uncanny, wavering, noiseless line. Jim McEldownie -leaped to his feet, his narrow face, with the green eyes staring out, -a twisted mask of panic terror. Alan was shaken, as much by the lean -man's fear as by the sight of the disks. "Mac, Mac," he shouted, "what -is it?" For he could see nothing to dread that was worse than the thing -they had been living with for the past hours.</p> - -<p>Jim stared after the disappearing ships. "They aren't ours," he said, -his voice gurgling and choking with the fear. "<i>They aren't ours!</i>"</p> - -<p>"Of course they are," snapped Brave. He too had risen, and stood -like an age-old oak beside the quavering poplar that was McEldownie. -"Whose would they be?" he reasoned. "Do you suppose any country could -manufacture those things without our men on Albertus spying them out?"</p> - -<p>"I tell you they aren't our ships!" cried Jim, taking the Indian by the -lapels. "I know our designs up and down, and those aren't ours! Tell -him, Mariner."</p> - -<p>"He's right," said Don, white as paper. "The superstructure's all -wrong. And they're bigger, I think, than ours."</p> - -<p>"Don't forget that Homo superior, or his cousins from the space lanes, -may have changed the plans without letting you in on it," said Bill -Thihling bitterly. "Great God! Nobody but a callous, egotistical mutant -or alien, unacquainted with pain and insensitive to our safety, would -fly a squadron of virtually untested disks over a crowded city. This is -misanthropy with a vengeance!"</p> - -<p>Mac groaned. "You bumbling dinkey engines," he said, "can't you get -off that one track? I tell you these things don't come from Project -Star—they don't even come from Earth!"</p> - -<p>Win spoke for the first time. She was still seated, the cat cradled -against her breast. "I think you're right," she said. "I feel it; -you're right. Those aren't human beings in those ships. They're from -black space somewhere. They know we are reaching out for the stars and -they've come to stop us." Her tone was level and wholly undramatic. -"We'd be a menace, rampaging through the systems. They won't let us -begin. Their spies here, Grady and his ilk, have called them down to -stop us."</p> - -<p>Brave and Alan frowned at each other. Each asked the other wordlessly, -Where are these two getting such wild conceptions? What do they -see—what do they <i>know</i>, that we don't?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The saucers returned, in a different formation this time, like a V -of geese. Geese made of glittering blue-silver metal, round geese -traveling at eight hundred miles an hour. They roared overhead: -soundlessly, yes, but with so swift and terrible a movement that one -could call it nothing but a silent roar. In that instant Alan, staring -upward, felt his convictions dissolve. Mac was right. He did not know -enough about the design of Project Star's disks to say that these -were different; but he knew suddenly that there was an alien <i>feel</i> -to these things, an aura of irrelation, a stupendous pulsation that -pervaded the senses and forced the knowledge on him that here was -nothing terrestrial, nothing human or even superhuman.</p> - -<p>Watching them shoot over, he tried weakly to find an analogy, to anchor -his wits to some concrete remembrance and save them from scattering -in panic. All he could think of was the night when he, aged six or -seven, had wakened to know positively and without question that there -was a ghost in the room with him. Even yet he was sure there had been -a ghost. And this sense of alienness that came from the flying disks -was the same as that he had felt in the night, when the invisible ghost -crouched in a corner and mowed at him. An outsider, said his blood and -viscera to him, a stranger from the cold hells of unknown space. An -alien, said the wisdom drawn out of nowhere by primeval instincts lying -in the murk at the bottom of his soul.</p> - -<p>He moved to Brave and put a hand on one of the mighty arms and saw that -Brave knew it now too. "Grady's kin," said the Indian. No one else -spoke except Unquote, who gave a bizarre Siamese screech of rage.</p> - -<p>Back they came, this time from the direction of Richmond, in a -strung-out dipping line; and out of the crystal bubble in the belly -of the leader there fell a shining golden egg, a tiny thing at this -distance, seen only because the sun caught at it and played along -its surface. It fell slowly, far too slowly for an Earth-hatched egg; -Thihling and Mariner automatically judged its descent at six or eight -feet per second. Either it was full of a light gas, or it had some form -of anti-gravity mechanism attached to it. Leisurely it dropped toward -Manhattan.</p> - -<p>Then the people began to run.</p> - -<p>All the millions who had been taught to act calmly and sanely in an -emergency lost their heads; they were suddenly so many witless chickens -who had caught sight of the axe. With the dropping of the golden egg, -the terror of alien danger had clutched at them all. So they fled. -There was no place to flee to, but they fled. Into subways and out -again, insane with the horror of dying underground. Into buildings, to -know the walls were collapsing on them, to run out once more. And the -egg fell lazily toward them. Now it had passed the spire of the tallest -skyscraper.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Up in the park, people were running too. Alan and his group stood -together and watched them helplessly. "Like field mice from an owl," -muttered Rob Pope. They saw a woman dash straight into a tree, carom -off with a cry and go on. An elderly man came up to them, faltered, put -a hand to his chest and pitched over at their feet. Bill turned him -over. He was dead. "Heart attack. Poor devil."</p> - -<p>Alan did not know why none of his friends ran. He repeated a random -line that came into his head: "Stand and fight and see your slain, and -take the bullet in your brain...."</p> - -<p>Or the atomic blast, or the unimaginable projectile from the -inconceivable weapon.</p> - -<p>Then Jim McEldownie yelled, "On your faces, for God's sake!" and Alan -turned from the city and flung himself down and covered his head with -his arms.</p> - -<p>And the world opened up and a mushroom from Hell sprouted over -Manhattan, and the buildings rocked and tottered and crashed to earth. -The sky went black and the great white-yellow cloud, perimetered with -blood-scarlet, arose against it; the universe shook and shattered -and then came together and righted itself and sailed on. The Empire -State was the last of the tall structures to hit ground. Clear at -the northern tip of Central Park they felt that final smashing, a -postscript to a letter from Lucifer.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>From Fulton Street to 53rd, from the North River to Stuyvesant Town, -nothing lived. In that terrible instant of fission, caught where ever -they were, whatever they were doing, working at desks, peering from -windows, running down deserted alleys or pushing madly against the -press of maniac crowds on Broadway and Fifth and Madison, score upon -score of thousands of men and women died; died screaming or weeping -or fighting for breath, praying to their gods or cursing or dumb with -dismay.</p> - -<p>They died in subways, never having known that the silver ships of the -enemy were sailing above their great town. They died asleep in their -hotel rooms, lifting forkfuls of breakfast eggs to their mouths, typing -words on paper, making love, staring at the sky.</p> - -<p>Very few of them wanted to die. Some of them expected to live for many -years. Some of them did not really expect to die at all. Many of them -could accept the fact that death would come for every man in the world -some day ... except themselves; that was incredible and not to be -thought of at all.</p> - -<p>But they all died.</p> - -<p>It came so quick, so quick; and even those who believed the golden egg -to be a bomb never knew when it struck and smashed out at them and -obliterated them, for the quickness was that of death, the swiftest -thing that walks the universe.</p> - -<p>Beyond the huge area of instant perfect destruction, many others -died. Tall buildings collapsed on them, or they fell into the splits -and great fissures that opened in the earth; they were hurled to the -pavements and their brains spilled out, or the noise and the fearful -rush of air got into their heads and tore their cerebra to tatters. -Some of them could not bear the appalling horror of the bomb, and -slit their own throats or put guns into their mouths and pulled the -triggers. Some went so totally mad that their life forces disintegrated -and they died where they stood, of madness and panic and the terrible -knowledge of their impotence.</p> - -<p>Men lived, too: lived blind and wounded and lamed and torn asunder, -lived without minds and minds strangely contorted and warped. No one -who had been in Manhattan that day survived without scars of body and -brain left by the death of the city.</p> - -<p>The golden egg had hatched its chick of death at eight-fifty-three of a -Friday morning in June of 1970.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After a while, when the hurricane had dropped away and the earth had -stilled its shaking, Alan sat up and looked toward the heart of the -city. The disks were gone—and so were the people and the buildings, -the life and the fine aspiring skyline of Manhattan. Nothing was left -but a leveled, broken, sawtoothed waste, over which hovered the direful -mushroom cloud.</p> - -<p>Grotesquely, irrelevantly, all his mind could focus on in that moment -of near-insanity was his cat. "Where's Unquote?" he asked harshly. -"Where's little Unquote?"</p> - -<p>The cat spoke furiously above his head. She had flown into a tree -at the blast. He coaxed her down as the others stood and brushed -themselves off and stared at the atomic cloud. At last she bounced -from a crotch of the tree into his arms. She was shivering with terror.</p> - -<p>Bill said urgently, his voice no more than a croak, "Let's make tracks. -Lord knows what scuds of radioactivity will be blowing our way soon, if -that wind didn't bring 'em already."</p> - -<p>"All those people," whispered Win. Now the screams and howls of -survivors could be heard where they stood. "All those poor people."</p> - -<p>"The wagon's liable to be stolen if we don't get to it," said Don. -"Come on. Please."</p> - -<p>There were still men and women running through the park, some shouting -with fear, some white and sick and mute. A couple passed them, their -eyes round and horrified, the man's coat torn and the girl's green -dress ripped off one shoulder. They must have fallen, or been caught in -a fight. There were two men brawling over by the reservoir.</p> - -<p>There seemed to be no balance or reason left in mankind, save for -the seven on the knoll, who clung to their sanity only by conscious -physical effort.</p> - -<p>Now they ran for the station wagon, to find its windows broken, the -upholstery slashed by a knife, the windshield shattered. "Berserk," -said Rob Pope. "They've all gone berserk."</p> - -<p>"It does that to me, too," said Don. "I want to sink my teeth into -something and worry it. I can't touch the enemy and so I want to take -it out on something I <i>can</i> touch." He shrugged. "If you were lost in -Hell, and found a car, and couldn't start it because you didn't have -the key, wouldn't you get sore enough to wreck it? How are the tires?"</p> - -<p>Brave said, "Okay. He was too mad to think of them." He knocked the -remaining shards of windshield from the frame and got in behind the -wheel. They all piled in. He started it and it rolled off northward.</p> - -<p>McEldownie said, "No, Brave. Go down towards town. I want to get to a -radio or TV station. We've got to try to establish contact with the -rest of the world. This may have happened in other cities too." He -leaned forward and put his hand on Brave's shoulder. "I don't think -we need worry about radioactivity," he said. "These are beings from -another planet, obviously much farther advanced than we are. Their -weapons, though producing an apparently atomic cloud, would probably be -without post-explosion danger. They'd have eliminated the radioactive -dust because they'd want to land and take over at once, or at least -quite soon. Let's take a chance. Let's go down toward Times Square."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Brave glanced back at him. The argument was specious, as a basis for -action it wouldn't hold water. But Alan said, "I think so too, Brave. -It sounds logical." Win and Don agreed. Brave looked at them. He was -about to argue and then the fatalism of his ancient race seemed to grip -him. They ought to get to a radio station, true; and if the city were -radioactive, what did it matter in the long run? They were only seven -people and a cat; ranged against them on one hand stood the ranks of -shadowy supermen and aliens, on the other the unknown disk-people. The -world was in chaos. He could not dredge up enough ego to believe that -he and Alan and the others would be very important in the ordering -of that chaos. He shucked off his science and his civilized thought -processes and he said, "All right. We'll go down." Stoically, the very -incarnation of his thrice-great grandfather Pony Sees-the-Sky, he -wheeled the car around and sent it hurtling toward Times Square.</p> - -<p>Broadway was a shambles. As far up as Columbus Circle all the windows -were gone, the light standards had been curved by the blast, autos were -overturned and leaking gas and oil. There were cracks in the paving. -Occasional men and women staggered along northward, and bodies lay -in the gutters, across the thresholds. The wreckage of an air taxi -half-blocked the way, corpses spilt halfway out of its doors.</p> - -<p>"How many weapons have we?" asked Mac suddenly. "There's a sporting -goods store. We ought to load up on guns. There's no telling what -maniacs we'll be meeting; and if there's an occupation, we might have -to be guerrillas." He pulled back his coat. "I have a grenade pistol, -for a start."</p> - -<p>Brave had one, and an automatic for longer range work. Don Mariner -carried another grenade pistol. Win had her derringer-sized automatic -in her purse. That was all they had. Brave pulled to the curb. He and -Alan got out.</p> - -<p>The store had lost its windows. Brave stepped through onto the display -ledge and dropped inside. A voice in the gloom said, "Stand right -there, mister." The proprietor, white and tense, leaned over his -counter and held a .45 revolver steadily, its muzzle looking at the -Indian's chest. "One more step and you join them." Brave saw there were -bodies on the floor.</p> - -<p>"I'm no looter, man," he said sharply. "I'll buy guns."</p> - -<p>The fellow considered that. "By God, you sound sane. And you look -like a good man. Everybody's crazy out there. You come back and pick -yourself out something. We're going to need sane men with guns in this -mess."</p> - -<p>"Men are fighting each other," nodded Brave. "The blast drove them -crazy."</p> - -<p>"Can't tell me anything about that. One of those bodies was my brother. -I couldn't let even my brother loose in this hell with a gun, not when -he'd gone out of his head. Tried to kill me for a gun." The face was -drawn and cold. "How about a .30-'06?" he asked. "Stop a grizzly if -you're good enough. Heavy though."</p> - -<p>"I wasn't looking for an air rifle," said Brave. Alan came in through -the window. "He's with me. We have five others outside."</p> - -<p>"You can have guns for 'em all. Sorry I don't have grenade pistols or -flamers. This is a sporting goods store." He handed a .30-'06 across -the counter. "Take this. I'll give you all the ammo I have for it. You -put it to good use when the Russkis come."</p> - -<p>"It wasn't Russians," said Alan, "It was flying saucers."</p> - -<p>"Russkis in flying saucers. They'll be coming on the ground pretty -soon. Didn't I see 'em come in in Germany in the big war? Take these -boxes. Enough ammo to stand a good siege here. Save it all you can. -We're going to be at war a long, long, time."</p> - -<p>Shortly they came out into the morning air, carrying armloads of heavy -rifles, four revolvers, and what seemed half a ton of ammunition.</p> - -<p>The owner had at first refused payment, then taken only the wholesale -cost. At the last minute he had given each of them a long hunting -knife. "You were in Argentina, eh? You can use these. Give 'em -what-for, boys." They had offered to take him with them. "I stick," -he'd said. "This is my store."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They looked up and down the street. There were more people now, and the -worst faction was evident—the looters, the sly lurkers who stole from -the dead and exhausted and mad, the bestial men on the prowl for women, -the ones who had gone lunatic and were bent on senseless destruction. A -policeman, his uniform bloody, came toward them as they handed the guns -into the station wagon; suddenly he whipped out his pistol and fired. A -teen-aged boy came flopping and shrieking out of a store window, where -he had been filling his pockets with candy and jacknives and junk. -The cop came abreast of them, his eyes lit with insane anger. Brave -reached out and hit him on the jaw and he fell. "There was no call to -shoot that kid," said Brave. He picked up the pistol and threw it into -a drain. From up and down Broadway came scattered yells and sounds of -gunfire.</p> - -<p>They got into the wagon and Brave drove down to 57th Street. There was -a mob of maddened men who fought each other and ran howling toward -the car when they saw it. "Turn right," said Jim urgently. "There's a -little independent radio station about two blocks away. With luck we -can get in—and out to the rest of the country. Unless that damned bomb -smashed the place." They drew quickly away from the mob, which went -back to fighting among themselves.</p> - -<p>They found the station apparently safe; many of the smaller buildings -here had been protected by the larger from the force of the blast. With -Don left to guard the wagon and guns, they ran into the place. The -elevators had stopped. The men, with Win, trotted up four flights, to -find a door marked with radio call letters. "This is it."</p> - -<p>At the opening of the door three men turned swiftly from their work, -grenade pistols and flamers—flame-throwing handguns—in their fists. -"Hold it," said the lanky Jim urgently.</p> - -<p>"Bless us all," said one of the men, lowering his weapon, "it's -McEldownie! What the hell are you doing in a <i>radio</i> station, Mac?"</p> - -<p>"I'll eat crow for it, but right now I want to get out on the air," he -said. "Can I?"</p> - -<p>"God knows. We've sweat blood over the thing. Our own generators are -okay, but the city's power is off, and the antennae got mashed up some. -Couple of boys up on the roof now, worrying at it. Do you suppose we're -loony for staying here?" he asked. Obviously he valued McEldownie's -opinion. Alan realized for the first time what a reputation the -scarecrow-like announcer had.</p> - -<p>"No. There seems to be no danger of radioactivity; either the bomb -burst in air, or it's a new kind. We've got to get communication -established as soon as possible. You're almost the only sane people -we've seen."</p> - -<p>"Most of our gang went out to try and get home. We're all bachelors -and we figured it was up to us to stay." He ran a hand through his -hair. "Who is it, Mac? Who hit us?"</p> - -<p>"Martians," said Win.</p> - -<p>"Venusians," said Rob Pope.</p> - -<p>"Who are all these guys, Mac?"</p> - -<p>"Scientists from Project Star." The three radio men opened their eyes -respectfully. "Pounce onto it, will you!" roared Mac. "We've got to get -out. We've got to learn what's happened to the world!"</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER IX</p> - - -<p>"Hi, Mac," said a weary voice. "This is Johnny Gibbons, in Frisco. No, -they haven't been here, but they've hit half the big cities on the -continent. Just heard that Mexico City's flat as a—my brother and his -wife were in Mexico City. Vacation. Get away from it all."</p> - -<p>"Cheers, Mac," said a deep sad voice. "Roscoe Toddy here. They bombed -Chicago. Funny thing: some professors at Northwestern University here -in Evanston turned their detectors on Chicago and couldn't get a whiff -of radioactivity. Must be a new kind of A-bomb, or X-bomb, or GD-bomb -or something."</p> - -<p>"Mac," babbled a voice that verged on screaming lunacy, "Mac, you ought -to see it. There's nothing left at all, not a thing, not a house or a -tree, not a person in the whole place, nothing but waste, waste, Jesus, -death all over, I tell you the universe has gone mad!" They never -learned where this voice came from, or what city was gone.</p> - -<p>"Well, McEldownie, old horse," said a voice, trained to unctuousness -but laced now with intolerable sorrow and strain, "our station was -partly wrecked but we finally got this thing in operating condition. -Pittsburgh is gone, but we're out in East Liberty and didn't take -too much of the blast. It was one bomb, Mac, one lousy big H-bomb or -whichever letter they put on the biggest boom they can make. Mac, I'm -beat to my socks." The voice coughed tightly. "I saw the Cathedral of -Learning go. My God, Mac, what a mighty toppling that was! It folded -in and over and you thought it'd make a hole five miles deep, but it's -lying there now, just a heap of busted stone, and I went to school -there. Dear old Pittsburgh, Alma Mater."</p> - -<p>A dark voice that spoke from far away said, "It was the maddest thing -I ever saw. This golden oval thing fell about as fast as a feather, -and everybody went out of their heads. We all started to run like -mice. Cars were jamming Cahuenga and Sunset and Vine, and people were -scuttling.... I don't know why I wasn't killed. I just don't know."</p> - -<p>"Yes," said a haunted and somber voice, "we ran. We all poured out into -the streets and ran, and fell down and got stepped on and rose and ran -and sweated and had heart attacks and died and lost our breath and -panted and gulped and ran and ran and ran. Fort Worth is a shambles, a -mucked-up mess."</p> - -<p>"No," said a faintly insulted voice, "it wasn't a large bomb, not large -at all. It didn't flatten more than four blocks. I was half a mile off -when it hit but all I got was a skinned knee from falling. Hang it, why -a large bomb on Los Angeles and only a little one on Toronto?"</p> - -<p>"Seattle got it," said a smooth southern voice, "and your town, Mac, -and L.A., and there isn't a peep out of Moscow but who can tell if -they're playing possum? London is smashed; we're getting scraps from -the hinterlands of England but London's had it. Paris is on the air. -Johnny Jill, poor devil, is crying over there now, wanting to know if -Hoboken is okay. We haven't seen the saucers yet in N'Orleans. So ol' -Manhattan got the guts torn out of her? Rough, boy, darned rough. We're -sorry."</p> - -<p>"Austin's gone, gone, I tell you it's all all ALL GONE!" shrieked a -slow-dying voice, and that was all it could say.</p> - -<p>"Listen to this, Mac," urged a girl's voice, sounding strange and -ethereal after the men had spoken so long. "We don't get how they -did it, but those disks have thrown a force screen around every army -encampment and station in the country, perhaps in the world. At Fort -Bragg they mustered and marched out into an invisible wall. They -can't penetrate it. It didn't hurt them, it just stopped them cold. -Someplace in Pennsylvania the National Guard got into trucks and lit -out for New York and ran into one of the walls that piled them up in -heaps. It looks like we're all alone. Nobody's coming to help. We're -all alone."</p> - -<p>"This is London calling," said a cultured, horrified voice. "Hello, -America. Can you hear me? We're not sure were getting across the -Atlantic. We haven't heard anything from you yet. Are you there? Can't -you send us some word? This is the B.B.C. calling. London is gone. -Bombed out completely. This is actually—actually Greenwich. Are you -there? Is all America gone? Oh, this is ghastly, this is the end. Is it -the end of the whole world? Are you there?"</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER X</p> - - -<p>Don Mariner, leaning out of the window of the station wagon as the band -emerged, said urgently, "One of them landed. It landed just over there -a way, I don't think more than half a mile. There aren't any others in -sight. This one floated down not half a minute ago."</p> - -<p>"What did I say?" exclaimed McEldownie. "They eliminated radioactive -dust, so they could come right in after a bombing. It's logical."</p> - -<p>"We'll go on foot," said Brave, "though I hate to abandon the car. But -we'll have to go on foot over this rubble, and I take it we <i>are</i> going -to the thing?"</p> - -<p>"We sure are," said Rob Pope.</p> - -<p>"Wait a minute. One of us ought to go with Win in the wagon and try -to make it back to Project Star. She shouldn't be in this ruckus," -protested Alan.</p> - -<p>"You think she'd be better off out there with Lord knows how many -mutants or supermen or aliens?" asked Bill Thihling. "You're not -thinking straight, boy. We've got to stick together. Separate now and -we may never see each other again."</p> - -<p>"Besides, you can't get rid of me," said Win finally.</p> - -<p>Don passed out the heavy sporting rifles, one to each of the men. They -each had a sidearm, Brave two, and he and Alan had the wicked knives of -the shopkeeper. Win had her little automatic for use in emergencies. -Dividing the ammunition, and anchoring Unquote firmly to Alan's left -shoulder with lengths of twine fashioned into harness and leash, they -set off across the street; passed between buildings and across another -street and yet another; and came to the area of near-total destruction. -Here the going was precarious and tricky. Brave stared around them.</p> - -<p>"Looks like Pergamino when we'd finished with it," he said to his -friend.</p> - -<p>A queer dead hush followed them about, muffling their footsteps and -depressing them as though they crept through a graveyard. "That's -what it is," said Alan half-aloud. "The biggest graveyard in the -world." His hands ached to feel the throat of an enemy, to tear out -the jugular, to slay and slay. His world had been struck a fantastic, -unaccountable blow, and it was dead around him and he and his friends -seemed the only living humans from pole to pole.</p> - -<p>They passed on, drifting quietly between broken crags that two -hours before had been office buildings, hearing the echo of their -light foot-falls tossed back by windowless walls and heaps of brick -and stone. One passage was clogged breast-high with corpses. They -went around it, climbing over powdery granite piles that had been a -theater's facade.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Then there was the broad plain of ruin, a gargantuan bowl, smoothed -down from its rim to the center, which was some twenty feet below -the original level of the ground. Everything had been smashed here, -buildings and trees and everything that stood upright; in the middle -of the frightful desolated bowl rested one of the great silver disks, -tilted like a gyroscope and balanced on its extreme edge, as though it -leaned at its forty-five-degree angle against an invisible wall.</p> - -<p>"That settles it," said Don. "Our ships can't do that stunt. Look, -it balances like that and the bubble opened up makes an incline to -the ground; fit steps inside the bubble and you have a perfect way of -getting in and out. Our system is much clumsier. How the devil do they -make it balance, though?"</p> - -<p>"They've set up effective force screens around our armies," said Jim. -"If they can do that, certainly they can utilize small editions of the -screen mechanisms to hold up their saucers."</p> - -<p>"Or maybe it's a principle of gyroscopics," added Bill.</p> - -<p>"Well," said Brave, "we're going down there. At least I am. Anybody -wants to stay here, Lord knows I won't blame him."</p> - -<p>"We're all going."</p> - -<p>"Okay. First Alan and Bill and I will walk out. If we aren't shot by -the time we've gone twenty yards, you four come on. We can't plan -anything till we get a look at the brutes in the disk; but as soon as -we do, I'll shout out our next move. Is that all right with everyone? -Or does one of you want to take charge?"</p> - -<p>"You're the chief, Brave," said Rob. "Maybe we outrank you on Project -Star, but in action I'd back you against all of us. I've heard about -you in Argentina."</p> - -<p>"I didn't mean to assume command on the strength of my war record," -said Brave seriously. "I simply figured I had the biggest voice and no -matter what happens you'll probably be able to hear me. Okay, here we -go. Guns at the ready."</p> - -<p>They walked out onto the flattened waste that had been New York.</p> - -<p>Nothing happened.</p> - -<p>When they had been walking for eternity and six days longer, as Alan -judged it, figures appeared below the huge disk, coming down the -inclined steps or plane in the crystal bubble, grouping on the ground. -The Earthmen were then just over an eighth of a mile from the ship.</p> - -<p>The aliens looked human; it was difficult to see differences in their -structure and that of a man; and they wore clothing that glistened -as they moved in the sun. They were setting up three small pieces of -machinery beneath the disk. Alan could not guess what they might be.</p> - -<p>Then the men in the lead, Brave and Bill and Alan, ran into an unseen -wall that knocked them staggering from the force of their own motion. -The aliens had set up a screen around their ship.</p> - -<p>"Here's where I yell out the plan, I guess," said Brave ruefully. "The -plan is to make faces, men. That seems to be the only thing we can do -of a warlike nature. God, a force wall! We might have known."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan, who had sat down abruptly when he struck it, jarring the -tied-down cat on his shoulder and causing her to sink her claws through -the coat into his skin with anger, stood up and felt the air before his -face.</p> - -<p>"Amazing. Touch this thing, you fellows. It feels like a sheet of hard -rubber. It's perfectly tangible. I can almost feel a grain in the -thing."</p> - -<p>"What scientists they must be!" exclaimed Rob Pope. "This—hey!" he -shouted, startled. "Here's an opening!"</p> - -<p>Then he had walked on across the bowl. Bill Thihling, nearest him, -tried to follow. He found there was no hole there. He skinned his nose -on the force screen.</p> - -<p>"Rob's crazy," he said. "He thinks there ain't no force wall there. So -he walks through it. Only a loon could do it."</p> - -<p>Pope came back. "I heard that. What the hell...? It was here a minute -ago."</p> - -<p>"Can't you get back?"</p> - -<p>"No! The wall's solid again. By Jupiter, they let me come through; they -wanted to see one of us at a time. All right, I'll play their game." He -wheeled and marched straight toward the disk.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Rob, come back!" screamed Win. "They'll do something awful to you!"</p> - -<p>"Too late now," said Alan, taking her arm. "They've caught him in their -cage like a rabbit."</p> - -<p>"A fanged rabbit, anyway," said Don. "He's got his guns."</p> - -<p>Rob walked under the silver ship, into its shadow. The aliens clustered -about him. Beyond the wall of force, the men and the girl held their -breath tensely.</p> - -<p>After a minute or two, "Why," said Jim McEldownie, "they haven't even -taken away his rifle!"</p> - -<p>Shortly Rob turned his face toward them and waved. It was an -encouraging motion. Whatever was happening did not seem hostile.</p> - -<p>"And yet," said Alan to himself, "these are the devils who smashed -Manhattan. They <i>are</i> enemies." Even here, on the sloped plain that -had been a roaring city, it was hard to realize it. He shook himself. -Simply because they had not chopped Rob Pope down immediately, he had -begun to slack off his hatred of them. He was growing tired and stupid. -He reached into his pocket and took out an antigue tablet and swallowed -it.</p> - -<p>Don Mariner, leaning heavily against the invisible wall, was abruptly -shot forward to fall on his belly; the wall had vanished where he -stood. Jim reached the spot an instant later, but the screen was whole. -Don sat up, and his plump face was pale, but his grin was without panic.</p> - -<p>"The Mariners have landed," he said, "and will shortly have the -situation well in hand. Hold tight." He went down to the disk and the -aliens.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The waiting grew terrible in its intensity; Bill Thihling took his -pulse and found it like a machine gun, even Brave sweated with anxiety, -his dark fine face taut and frowning.</p> - -<p>He was, as it happened, the next to be admitted to the silver ship's -area. Walking through the hole that opened to him, he thrust an arm -back through it, trying to hold the force away till Alan had had time -to follow him. Roughly, with a sensation of faint burning, the screen -shut down and flung his arm to his side. It was like a sentient animal -leaping from the sky to stand between him and his friend. After a -moment's hesitation he went to the disk.</p> - -<p>Mac came to Alan's side. "Listen, Doc," he said urgently. "Get your -girl over here. The three of us are going through this thing together -when our time comes."</p> - -<p>"How?" And why, thought Alan. Is he scared to walk down over the plain -alone? Why Win and me? How about Bill?</p> - -<p>"I'll show you. Get up against the wall. I'll idle beside you and Win -can stand on the other side. When it opens in front of one of us, the -other two will jump like crickets and we'll go in in lock step. Okay?"</p> - -<p>"They may blast us if we disregard their obvious wishes." He gestured -at the titanic bowl. "They can undoubtedly do it if we peeve them," he -said lightly.</p> - -<p>"We'll take that chance. I have an idea."</p> - -<p>Alan shrugged. What they did seemed unimportant, the activities of a -handful of fleas under a microscope.</p> - -<p>The screen, as it happened, dissolved before Alan. More properly, he -thought, it went up, like a sliding panel under his light-touching -fingers. "Here it is," he said.</p> - -<p>Instantly Mac had stepped behind him, one hand clutching out for Win's -arm, the other around Alan's waist. Alan felt himself propelled through -the doorway as if by a giant's shove; and the three of them stood -inside, the girl looking rather bewildered.</p> - -<p>"My Lord," she said to Mac, "you can move like an express train when -you want to."</p> - -<p>"Now listen," said the announcer. "When we get down there, be on your -toes. Follow my lead. I know what I'm going to do. I'm—we're going to -take over that ship."</p> - -<p>"Jim, you're out of your head."</p> - -<p>"No, I'm not. I know exactly what I'm going to do. We came here to -smack these demons down, didn't we? Well, we will. Just be on your -bloody toes, that's all."</p> - -<p>Then they walked down the gentle slope until they had reached the -shadow of the alien disk. They stopped a few feet from the watching -outlanders. The captive Unquote writhed forward as far as she could on -Alan's shoulder and spat at them.</p> - -<p>They were a strange, a fantastic group, and yet they seemed to be human -beings. Their bodies, much of which was unclothed, were built on the -human scale; they averaged about six feet in height and their chest -and limbs were developed to the same degree as a normally husky man's. -Their foreheads were uniformly high. Their eyes varied in color, only -one having irises of an unearthly hue, a kind of vivid violet. Only in -the arrangement of their features did they differ perceptibly from the -men of Terra: the cheeks were broader, the noses flatter, the eyes more -widely spaced, and the bone structure much less apparent. Somewhere -Alan had seen a man, lately, whose vague memory reminded him of these -fellows. Where...?</p> - -<p>Erin Grady!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When the pilot had spread himself out, so to speak, against the back of -the chair, his face had widened, the features had drawn sideways and -perceptibly flattened, so that he had resembled these saucermen. Was -this what he had meant when he said, "You can't touch us. What could -you do anyway?" This holocaust, this ghastly obliterating of New York -and Los Angeles and fifty more great cities?</p> - -<p>Grady had been a spy for them, then; a watcher, landed perhaps from one -of the disks on a dark night....</p> - -<p>He shook himself. That's romantic hogwash, he said. Everyone on Project -Star had a thorough checking-over, and his history from birth to the -present was recorded in the files. That meant that Grady had been born -here, in the United States.</p> - -<p>Unless the keepers of the files were alien too, in which case a -falsified record would be a simple matter to arrange.</p> - -<p>But if he had been left here in comparatively recent times, say even -four or five years ago, Alan went on, how did he learn our language, -our backgrounds, our habits and customs and all the rest of it, so -well? Are these creatures then so much farther advanced than we, that -they can take on the perfect counterfeit of humanity in so short a -time? He could not quite believe it. Grady had been too human.</p> - -<p>Damn it all, <i>these</i> men looked too human!</p> - -<p>He shrugged mentally, and began to examine their clothing. What there -was of it was metallic, or of cloth that seemed metallic: each one -wore a wide belt of silver filigree, reaching up to the ribs and down -just past the groin; beneath this a material that resembled cloth of -gold, very soft and fine, was wound about the loins. They all wore -sandals, of varying colors, the straps of which appeared to be made -of tinted copper or a like metal. The rest of their outfits were -evidently according to the individual's own taste; some wore arm bands -of glittering orange or yellow gold, some had circlets of shining gray -argent bound about their hair, which in all cases was blond and cut -about shoulder length. The over-all effect was splendidly barbaric, and -about as far as Alan could imagine from the usual picture of visitors -from space.</p> - -<p>"They ought to have broadswords swinging at their thighs," he murmured -to Win. "Or at least be toting horn cups full of mead."</p> - -<p>"Aren't they something!" she said, and then, "are these the devils who -bombed all our world a few hours back? These big good-looking boys? I -can't believe it!"</p> - -<p>One of them bent over a square steel-like box and turned a dial; they -heard Bill Thihling shout in the distance, "Hey, the wall's gone!" and -saw him come running toward them.</p> - -<p>"They're the ones," said Alan, and his mind, occupied till now with the -romantic appearance of the invaders, became filled with hate.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Instantly he felt something probing into his thoughts. It was, although -he did not remember it, very like his first experience of hypnosis -during the telecast. All he knew now, however, was that someone was -leafing through his emotions and ideas as if they had been a large -plainly-printed book. It made him furious. He might have done anything, -shouted angrily or struck out at the nearest alien in an access of -physical passion; but it was then that Jim McEldownie made his move.</p> - -<p>"Okay," the lanky man roared, "strike now! Blast 'em! Get into the -ship!" He lifted his rifle and fired it from the hip, and one of the -outlanders spun round and fell, a great bloody cavern torn in his chest.</p> - -<p>Alan did not question Jim's methods, though two minutes before he -would have; he blew the head off the nearest blond saucerman and shot -over the falling body at another. Brave fired too, and Don Mariner; the -others were caught by surprise and only stared wide-eyed.</p> - -<p>An alien drew a silver tube from the back of his filigreed silver -girdle and from its tiny muzzle a gout of scarlet flame flew at Alan. -He felt nothing, thanked his luck that it had missed, and shot the -man through the head. Then he was racing after McEldownie toward the -crystal bubble's inclined plane.</p> - -<p>Up they went into the disk, he and Mac in the lead, Unquote shrieking -murder on his shoulder. Behind them he could hear the others pounding -along, crying out questions or vague threats or battle-cries.</p> - -<p>The ship was much larger than those of Project Star, and more complex -within; the ramp reached to a corridor with three doors. Mac was -dashing for the farthest one; Alan threw his weight against the middle -door. As it burst open his first glimpse was of four outlanders rising, -open-mouthed, from chairs set before a bank of control panels.</p> - -<p>Afterwards he could recall only the thing which flashed through his -mind in that first instant of viewing them: that in the old West it had -been proved time and again that one good man with a repeating rifle -was better than four good men with revolvers. Alan proved it now, not -against guns, but against the small silver tubes that spat flame -balls. The room was a shambles in eight seconds, and Alan turned for -more conquest, to stumble over the body of a man in the corridor.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was Don Mariner, and he had no face. There was a raw bloody burn -from ear to ear, from brow to throat. He had probably died very -quickly. Alan straightened and gripped his gun's stock till the -fingertips splayed out white and flat against it. Old Don, he said, -old plump Don. Not so old, he said, probably no more than forty-two -or -three, but you always thought of him affectionately as Old Don. Now -who will there be to exclaim "By Judas!" when things get tough?</p> - -<p>"Brave!" he bawled out. "Brave, are you safe?" He was hideously afraid -for his great friend. When the copper face peered out of the third -door, he was ill with relief.</p> - -<p>"Had a little dust-up in here," said the Indian. "These boys wanted to -brawl. My God," he said, coming out, "Don's had it."</p> - -<p>"Yes, he's had it."</p> - -<p>"He was a good man. Did we lose anyone else? I think the saucermen are -all through."</p> - -<p>Jim McEldownie joined them. "The big control room's up front there. We -killed seven of 'em there. Rob took a leg burn and he'll walk with a -limp for a while. No more casualties."</p> - -<p>"Those tubes of theirs are frightful. If we hadn't taken them so by -surprise—"</p> - -<p>"They were too careless," said Brave. "Doesn't make sense."</p> - -<p>Rob Pope hobbled out, one arm over Bill's shoulders. "I think I know -why," he said. "When they got me down here, they searched through my -mind. I could feel it plain as a physical touch. They found hate there, -I'll be bound, but it was for the bombing of the city, not a congenital -hatred of outsiders. They found the same in Bill's mind. It relaxed -them and put them off guard."</p> - -<p>"How do you figure that?" asked Win.</p> - -<p>"They were looking for an ingrained enmity toward themselves. It -astonished them when they didn't find it. They're tremendously -telepathic, and I'll wager hypnotic too. I think they do much of their -own communicating by thought waves; at least I didn't hear them speak -once.</p> - -<p>"When they discovered why I was angry, they were stunned. I mean they -were shocked blue. You see, they made a mistake. They realized that as -soon as they'd pried into my mind. They thought we were down here just -waiting to kill them as soon as they landed, and naturally they had to -cripple us before they dared do it. Then they found out their mistake. -They had to kill someone, I'm not sure who, but the bombing of our -cities could have been avoided had they known what we were like."</p> - -<p>"Wait a minute," objected Brave. "Rob, how do you know all this?"</p> - -<p>Pope looked surprised. "Why, they told me. They had just begun to -explain it, hardly got more than a few ideas across, when you and -Mac and Alan busted loose. If I'd known what you were planning I'd -have stopped you. But now we have made a mistake as bad in its way as -theirs."</p> - -<p>"They told you all this?" asked Win blankly.</p> - -<p>"Yes. They talked in my mind. Not in English, but it came out that -way. It was—pictures, I suppose is the nearest thing to it. Emotions -and both abstract and concrete ideas can be transmitted by a good -telepathist; and these boys were the best." He shook his head. "It's -too bad. God knows where it will all end now."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER XI</p> - - -<p>They carried the body of Don Mariner down the ramp and laid it on the -rock-hard earth of the desolate bowl.</p> - -<p>Mac, standing next to Alan, said in his ear, "Come aboard again. I want -to show you something."</p> - -<p>Alan turned obediently, although why he should follow Mac's -commands—for it had been a command—he wasn't sure; and Win screamed, -a high hysterical keening that set Unquote to ululating too. The men -all cried out. "What's wrong? What is it?"</p> - -<p>"Look at your head!" she said to Alan, pointing. Even in that somber -moment he could not help laughing.</p> - -<p>"How?" he said. "I'm not built that way."</p> - -<p>"Oh, God," said Bill Thihling. "Alan, you took an awful blast in the -ear. Why didn't you say something about it?"</p> - -<p>"What are you talking about?" he said irritably. "I wasn't hit." He put -a hand up to his right ear. Brave said, "Look out, boss, you'll hurt -it. It's a bad one."</p> - -<p>He fingered the ear. The tip and lobe, and part of the convolutions -of the outer ear, felt like bits of steak which had been burnt in a -searing flame; he looked at his fingers, amazed, and saw black flakes -of skin and powdery, charcoal-like stuff. That must be the flesh, -cooked and carbonized, almost incinerated in the astounding heat of the -little fireball. "They did hit me," he said stupidly, staring at his -fingers. "I never felt it."</p> - -<p>Brave, examining the ear without touching it, said, "You'll lose most -of that ear, son. It's—<i>you never felt it</i>?"</p> - -<p>"I can't feel it now. I mean, I have sensation in it, I can feel my -fingers when they touch it, but it doesn't hurt."</p> - -<p>Then, just as comprehension of what he was saying began to dawn on him, -he heard Mac say again, very urgently, "Get aboard the ship. Jump!" And -he jumped.</p> - -<p>He hared it up the ramp, Unquote writhing on his shoulder, and leaped -in through the first door he came to; Mac yelled, "No, this one!" It -was the front control room, the largest of the three; he was out and -into it in a flash, to find Mac already sitting in a chair before the -central panels. "Sit down there," snapped the lanky man, indicating the -next seat. Alan did, half-wondering why, half-knowing that he must. The -great viewplates above the controls, on which was mirrored the earth -and sky on every side of the disk, blinked on; Mac cursed angrily.</p> - -<p>"Why couldn't you have followed me at once? Now the fools have got in." -He was out of the chair and bolting the door of the room before Alan -could open his mouth. Then he was back, touching levers and buttons, -adjusting dials. One of the viewplates showed the crystal bubble -closing; then another came on and they could see the center room. Brave -and Win and the others were there, talking earnestly, although their -voices could not be heard. Suddenly the door to that room swung shut. -Brave hurled his tremendous bulk at it, but it was shut fast. Mac -chuckled.</p> - -<p>"Okay, you damned impetuous idiots. Sit down if you don't want to be -smeared all over the floor." Evidently they could hear him. After a -moment's argument they took seats. Mac pushed over a long lever, like -the joystick of a monoplane, and with a very slight rocking motion the -saucer rose into the air.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mac glanced at Alan. "Buckle that strap around your chest, pal. You'll -need it for the turns."</p> - -<p>"How in the name of everything sane did you learn to operate a disk, -Jim?" he asked. Just then he was less surprised at the man's cavalier -treatment of his friends than at the enormity of this, that McEldownie -could fly an alien disk.</p> - -<p>"Nothing to it," said the other. "I was a pilot originally." He looked -over again. "<i>That was five hundred years ago</i>," he said, almost -casually. "Buckle the strap, hang it."</p> - -<p>Alan did so in a daze. He knew that he was not in complete control of -himself, and yet he did not know why. There were a hundred questions -rocketing in his mind and they confused him so that obedience to -McEldownie's commands came automatically. He wondered if he were under -hypnotic influence again; but he did not feel that he was.</p> - -<p>"Oh, you are, chum," said Mac without looking at him. "Not altogether, -you understand; Brave's counter-hypnosis played hell with my plans for -you. Cuss the big so-and-so. I should have killed him when he moved out -of the lamps and out of any possible control. But I wanted him too. I -liked him."</p> - -<p>"Who are you?" breathed Alan....</p> - -<p>The cold voice spoke in his mind, shattering his questions before they -were asked, shaking what was left of his confidence, forcing him to -quail mentally and physically.</p> - -<p><i>Oh, stubborn slave, didn't you know? Didn't you know?</i></p> - -<p><i>God, God, perhaps I did.</i></p> - -<p><i>I am you and you are me...</i></p> - -<p>McEldownie laughed. It was not a cold laugh, not sinister or dramatic. -It was a perfectly healthy expression of mirth. "Alan, I'm sorry. -I'm really sorry, and you won't ever believe that, but it's true. It -surprises me. Living among you for all these years has mellowed ol' -Mac, I guess. I find myself thinking of you as friends, when I used to -regard you as dogs: faithful without knowing it, helpful, indispensable -in many cases, but hardly more than good dogs." He paused a moment, -then went on. "I'm your voice, of course. There's no trick to it when -you know how. A matter of hypnosis plus the lights plus psychology, -plus whatever the power in us is that makes our minds different from -yours. I'm the voice. I wasn't going to admit it, but my plans have -changed for you."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He banked the disk around over desolate Manhattan and said, "Takes -a while to get the reflexes working again. I haven't sat behind the -controls since we left home. Your five-times-great grandfather wasn't a -twinkle in his old man's eye when we left home."</p> - -<p>Alan could not speak. He was remembering things he had not been able to -remember, the voice and what it had told him, the night that it called -him from bed to come to the terrible lamps, and—</p> - -<p>"Yes, it was me, it was all me, Alan. I was the voice in your head at -the telecast, I called you in the night; I worked the lights in the -shed on Project Star. There are plenty of us out there, but I wanted -you for my own personal sidekick. You're smart and a good scientist, -and you'll make a good lieutenant when we go home." The words made no -sense and yet Alan seemed to catch a glimmering of the understanding -that was to come.</p> - -<p>He said, "I guess I ought to exclaim, 'You're mad!' but I know you're -not. You can pilot this thing and you can move faster than a cheetah, -and everything's gone mad this past week and I want to know why. Don't -lie to me, Mac. For the love of God, don't lie to me. One more wrong -theory implanted in my skull and I'll blow my stack for good."</p> - -<p>"I won't lie. I'm all through lying, to you at any rate. The others -can't hear me at the moment, but I suppose I may as well tune them in -too." His homely face, with its great prow of a nose and the half-shut -green eyes, looked a little sad. "I'm afraid they're all going to die, -Alan. Except Win, that is. You see, the speeds at which I'm going to -fly this disk will kill a human being. On the turns, if I get into -dogfights, the 'G' forces will be terrific. You and Win can stand 'em, -because you've been conditioned. Brave and Rob and Bill will be smashed -to jelly under the 'G' impact. I'm sorry. I like Brave and I admire -Rob's intelligence. I'd like to save them. But they got aboard because -you were slow, and now they're done for. I can't land and put 'em out. -Time is precious. I have to maneuver this ship until I know I can do -stunts with her like the ones I did at home. A long time ago, Alan." He -grinned ruefully. "A long time even to me."</p> - -<p>"What do you mean, I was slow getting aboard?" Alan fastened on this -small facet of the affair, frightened of finding out too much of the -truth at once.</p> - -<p>"Man, you can move as fast as I if you try. You've had three long -treatments under the lamps. Your energies are stepped up, if you learn -to use them correctly, your reflexes are as fast as those of the cat on -your shoulder, and you're almost deathless compared to your friends. -Might as well start there," he mused. "They can hear us in the other -room." On the viewplate, Win and Brave nodded. Jim clicked shut a -switch. "Now they can see us. Okay, you four, I'm going to do some -explaining. I can hear you now, but if you start to interrupt I'll -switch you off."</p> - -<p>Brave said, "Alan, are you all right?"</p> - -<p>"He's ginger-peachy," said Mac. "In fact he'll be all right two -hundred years from now.</p> - -<p>"There's no use in explaining the rays to you; it would take hours -and you would scarcely grasp the principle even then. I'll tell you -what they do. They lengthen your life span—my own is about a thousand -years, but Alan's will be nearer four hundred, for I caught him late. -Generations of my ancestors were exposed to them, too; it affects the -genes eventually and we're born long-lived. They quicken your reflexes -through a process of strengthening the nerves and certain cells of -the brain. They also affect the portions of the brain which send and -receive telepathic stimuli. After one treatment it's easy to control a -man over a long distance.</p> - -<p>"The effect of the rays on the muscles is unique. They become almost -rubbery, not loose, you understand, but capable of stretching and -flexing in directions that look uncanny to a non-initiate. That's how -poor Grady escaped being sliced down the middle when he rammed up his -ship. He drew all his muscles to the sides and flattened out like a -plaster on the chair. You couldn't do that; your skeletons are thicker -and more immovable than ours. I'd show you how I can ooze out sideways -and make my ribs about as level as a picket fence—but I'm afraid you -wouldn't like the sight. It must be pretty gruesome to an Earthman."</p> - -<p>"Were the rays in the TV lights?" asked Bill Thihling.</p> - -<p>"That's right. I've caught plenty of fish that way, including President -Blose of the U.S. of A. and nine-tenths of his cabinet. A lot of your -scientists have become unwitting puppets through being seen on <i>Worlds -of Portent</i>. Alan got two treatments there and one on Project Star. -Win got her first in the gym of the colony and two more in that shed." -He smiled guilelessly. "You were right about her, of course, in a -way I mean; for she can't feel pain. I caught her mind just before I -pinched her—and very pleasant it was, too, my dear, even if I meant it -impersonally—and told her to simulate pain. She was under my control -every second of that time. When she left, I pretended to go to sleep, -and called her back. I had a feeling I'd need her around. Glad I did. -She and Alan are all the fighting forces I have at the moment."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan brushed over much of what he wanted to know, to ask, "Can you feel -pain, Mac?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I can. A man can't give up pain. It's too valuable. We put an -added ingredient into the rays we used on you people of Terra, to -eliminate pain."</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>"I'll get to that. The welder, of course, was a man who had been -treated. One of our boys got rid of him in a vat of molten metal. -Couldn't have an unfinished experiment walking around loose. He -slipped up when he failed to simulate pain. Sometimes we get 'em like -that, too dumb to do the right things even under complete hypnosis. -Win was a different case. She didn't know she'd been burnt by that -cigarette. If she'd seen it, she'd have yipped. She was conditioned to -do it, even to think she felt pain. If you'd known you'd been grazed by -that fireball, Alan, you'd not only have roared, you'd have <i>thought</i> -you felt it."</p> - -<p>"Why don't I think so now?"</p> - -<p>"It's too late for verisimilitude. Your subconscious knows that. It -shrugs its teensy-weensy shoulders and forgets it."</p> - -<p>"Who shot at Alan after the welder incident?" asked Brave. His face was -cold and malignant.</p> - -<p>"One of Getty's men."</p> - -<p>"Doc Pomposity?"</p> - -<p>"That's right. Getty's not fully under control. His unconscious -and natural wish not to kill Alan made him send a man out with an -automatic, rather than a grenade pistol. But he was conditioned enough -to feel that Alan was dangerous to us and he at least made a stab at -assassination. Then before he could do it again, we got to him and told -him we were going to 'convert' you."</p> - -<p>All this while he had been twisting and turning the disk, making -practice runs and dives; the control rooms, floated within the hull and -leveling off no matter what direction the great saucer took, vibrated -slightly and continuously. It was almost like being in the hold of a -sailing ship.</p> - -<p>Rob said, "I suppose the curious construction of your skeletons and -muscular development helps you stand the motion and the acceleration of -the disks?"</p> - -<p>"That's right. Alan and Win can stand it too, especially since they -feel no pain of any sort. But we haven't started going fast yet—I -haven't put it above five hundred. When we hit four thousand—that's -m.p.h.—I'm afraid you'll die, you three." Mac scowled unhappily. "I -hope you realize I don't want to kill you? In the first place, I'd like -to have you on my side, because we both have a score to settle with the -hounds who bombed your cities. I would have slain Mariner out of hand, -slain him as he slew poor Grady when he had him helpless in that chair, -but luckily he got his in the fight. I haven't any wish to kill off -my potential army, but the speed of an air battle will do it. And I'm -going to be in some fights before long."</p> - -<p>Alan, strapped to his chair, was leaning over toward Mac as far as he -could. Now he said, "By heaven, you haven't any pores in your skin!"</p> - -<p>"I was afraid you'd notice that before. I had a fantastic yarn cooked -up to explain it. That's right, pal; Grady and me, and all the rest of -us, haven't any sweat glands or pores or tear ducts. There are other -little differences too, but they don't cut any ice. The differences -notwithstanding, we are human. Not strictly Earthtype human, I suppose, -but human nonetheless." He brooded over his controls, as the disk -roared silently through the sky. "I like you all, too, dammit. I don't -want to kill you. I think I'll chance another ten minutes and set you -down.</p> - -<p>"I must be getting soft in my middle age," he added with a wry smile. -"Chancing the loss of a world for three idiot kids. Oh, well. What the -hell. A gallant gesture will maybe pay off in the long run."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There were several minor points that nagged at Alan; he wanted them out -of the way before someone asked the one big question of McEldownie. -"Why didn't Grady control my mind when we tied him up? Why couldn't he -save himself?"</p> - -<p>"Erin Grady was a weak link. We have 'em in our chain, you know. -We're not supermen. He was weak at hypnosis and he couldn't bear -pain. I think he was a throwback to the days when we were altogether -Earth-style humanity. He called to me, though, and I shot back; but I -came just too late. That fool Mariner!" With a savage twist he angled -the disk toward earth. Then he laughed. "I've wanted to compliment -you on your mutant theory, Alan. It was ingenious as the devil and -it accounted for everything you'd seen up to that time. If we could -regenerate parts, the loss of pain wouldn't matter, and we could take -the treatment we're giving you and lose pain and be thankful. But -'tain't so. We're not supermen. It's only our robots—pardon me, our -earthly henchmen—who are immune to pain. Coming in contact with both -kinds of 'aliens' must have confused the very living dickens out of -you."</p> - -<p>"Hold on," said Alan. "I just thought of something. If I'm immune to -pain, why did I feel it so excruciatingly when Brave hit me, when he -wanted to put me under hypnosis? Tell me that was all in my mind...!"</p> - -<p>"It wasn't. You didn't get the pain-destroying rays till your third -treatment, on last night's telecast."</p> - -<p>"Oh. That's it." He patted Unquote on the head; she was getting -restless. Then it became obvious why. "Damn," said Alan, "now I'll have -to have this suit cleaned. Puss, couldn't you have waited a little -longer?"</p> - -<p>Bill asked, "What about the saucers? I mean, they suddenly turned out -to be better than anyone suspected. Why?"</p> - -<p>McEldownie looked grim. "Some saucers had been sighted that we knew -weren't ours. We had a few left from the days when we first came to -Earth, in the late 1700s; we used to fly 'em occasionally to keep our -hands in. But these weren't ours. So we knew we had to speed things -up. Till then we'd been content to go along, giving your scientists -an unobtrusive push now and then, so they'd believe they had done it -all; our time schedule called for intergalactic-space disks about -1984. Well, we knew when the others were seen that we didn't have all -the time in the world, as we'd thought. So we had to jump in feet -first, take a lot of men under our controlling wing, start making -robots—there I go again, that's a bad word for them—making unkillable -soldiers of others, and substitute our own advanced designs for those -in use at that time. We were too late; the damned enemy came down -too fast. But now that I've got one of theirs—and a beauty it is, -too—thanks to your help, I have a fighting chance."</p> - -<p>"Who are the enemy?" It was Win, breathless, leaning forward, her -breast rising and falling rapidly with the emotion and wonder of this -thing. "Who are you going to fight?"</p> - -<p>Mac looked at her in the viewplate. "The men from my planet," he said -quietly. "The men who cast us out, as if we'd been the fallen angels of -Lucifer in your myth, chucked us out of our own world and sent us to -wander in the void."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He made the ship do a quick turn, and Alan saw Brave and Rob and Bill -suck in their bellies and grimace. Mac said, "They half-crippled -me then, damn them, and this is the first time I've flown since I -left home. Some of the others have managed to stay a little more in -practice. But by God, I'm still the best hotshot pilot my people ever -produced, and I'm going to prove it today." He glanced up at the -viewplate. "I'm going to let you out, you three. I want Alan and Win; -they're my people now, and in a fight they can be a terrific help, for -they're almost impossible to kill. I'll land now, and you can go. I -oughtn't to do it. But curse you, Injun, I like you." He shot the disk -toward the earth from a height of seven miles.</p> - -<p>Brave said, "We won't get out."</p> - -<p>"Don't be silly. You'll die under the 'G' load when I really get going."</p> - -<p>"Then we'll die. I won't leave Alan with you, nor Win either. You will -let us all out, or kill us."</p> - -<p>"You bloody village idiot. What good will it do you to die?"</p> - -<p>"I can't leave Alan. I saw him through Argentina and I'll see him -through this hell you've put him into. Besides, someone's got to clean -and bandage that ear, or he'll lose the whole thing. It's a bad wound."</p> - -<p>"Not to him it's not. He doesn't feel it. The rays eliminate all danger -of infection, disease—he can't even catch a common cold. His ear will -be okay."</p> - -<p>"Ear, schmear," said Rob Pope. "I stick by my friends too. Maybe all -I can do is die like a squashed mouse, but I <i>can</i> do that. We don't -scuttle for cover, alien."</p> - -<p>"Likewise," said Bill Thihling laconically.</p> - -<p>"Beastly blasted blue-bottomed baboons of knotheaded numbskulls!" -roared McEldownie. "Do you want me to kill you, then?"</p> - -<p>"I want you to let us all go; but if you won't, then Alan's better dead -than living under your influence, like a marionette."</p> - -<p>"He won't die. I tell you! No matter what happens to you, he'll go on -living. He'll be my man."</p> - -<p>"I don't think so," said Brave calmly. "I don't care what sort of -all-powerful rays you put him under, or how you've caught the reins of -his mind. If you kill me, Alan is sooner or later going to kill you. -Live with that, McEldownie, or whatever your right name is. I don't for -a minute believe that you can take as good a man as Alan and murder his -best friend before his eyes and have him lick your boots. Kill me and -you're done, Mac."</p> - -<p>"Damn you, Lo! You're wrong, and you know it." He snarled at the -viewplate. "You absolutely won't get out of the disk if I land it?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"Then die, you fool," said Mac, the words half-strangled in his throat; -and he sent the ship rocketing through space like a meteor.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan had felt Mac's mind leave his when Brave started to argue. He -had concentrated furiously then on what he could do to over-power the -alien. Very little of worth had occurred to him; but as a last resort -he had determined on quick physical violence. If he could move as fast -as Mac said he could, there was a chance.</p> - -<p>Now, as the disk shot forward, he sensed Mac reaching out to touch -his brain again, and with all his will he thought of other things, -anything, anything except what he meant to do. He stared at the -viewplate that showed the central room. He could feel almost no -sensation of motion, and Win seemed quite all right. But the three men -were curled in their chairs, gasping, even the mighty Indian writhing -under horrible, painful pressure.</p> - -<p>"For the love of God, Mac!" cried Alan.</p> - -<p>And McEldownie slowed the ship. He turned a sickened, saddened -countenance to Alan. "I can't do it," he said a little pitifully. "I -can't kill that big red devil. I like him too well. I think he knew -that when he made his proposition. I don't care how much it delays me, -I've got to land him. Hear that, Lo?" he said to the viewer. "I'm going -to do it. I'll put your whole precious gang out on land, and find some -of my own boys. Project Star will be the place, if I can get there -without interference. I can load up my crew and a few of the painless -gentry and it'll make a better army than this would have been. But -dammit, I did want my protege Alan with me."</p> - -<p>"Say your dog, rather," suggested Alan bitterly.</p> - -<p>"All right. Didn't you ever love a dog?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"It's the same with me. I can't help feeling your race is inferior, -but I can still be good and sorry to see you die, I can still feel -affection for you."</p> - -<p>"And that makes up for what you have been doing to him and the others?" -asked Bill weakly.</p> - -<p>"Oh, hell!" Mac bit his lip. "You are an impossible breed, you -Earthlings."</p> - -<p>Alan felt his mind withdraw again as he angled the disk around toward -the west. In that instant, shoving aside the already unbuckled strap -from his chest, and drawing the long hunting knife from its sheath -at his side, he pounced out of his chair full upon the alien. Mac's -green eyes flew open as Alan, his movements blurred by his incredible -quickness caught the outlander's chin and dragged it back and with -the other hand pressed the edge of the keen knife against the brown -throat. Then, as he collected his startled thoughts, Alan said briskly, -"Don't do it, Mac. Don't even think about touching my brain, because -it's clear as a bell right now, and the first feeling I have of your -meddling with it, I'm going to drag this knife through your windpipe. -You can't control me without at least half a second's preparation, and -with the reflexes you've given me, that's enough." He glanced up at -the viewer. "Brave, Rob, don't either of you try to tell me anything -telepathically. I know the different sensations I get when I'm being -paged or controlled, and the first whimper of one of 'em sends this -blade into Mac's neck."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>No one spoke for a moment. Then Mac said, "If you knew how ridiculous -you look, standing there with that whopping carver and with that sick -cat on your shoulder, I really believe you'd give this business up and -bust out laughing."</p> - -<p>"Don't count on it," said Alan levelly. "I'll tell you what, Mac. You -said you were going to let us all go. Maybe you were. But I don't trust -you worth an inflated nickel. You'd have found a way to get Win and me -back. Besides that, we only have your side of the story, and about a -tenth of it, at that. I want to meet some of these birds that bombed -our cities. They told Rob, before you had me murder them, that they had -made a mistake. They had to kill someone but they didn't mean to kill -us. That someone was obviously you. I want to know why. If I let you -and this saucer get out of my hands, and then find that the bombers are -in the right in whatever quarrel they have with you, I'll be sorry the -rest of my life. So you're going to take us to 'em, Mac. We're going -to get the whole story."</p> - -<p>McEldownie laughed. It was a completely mirthless noise. -"Kiwanawatiwa," he said to Brave, "I have you to thank for this mutiny, -you and those hypnosis gimmicks of yours."</p> - -<p>"No, not altogether," said Alan. The knife pressed in a little and the -tall man winced. "It was your admission that you were my voice." My -beloved voice in the depths of space, he thought, almost ruefully. It -was fearful but I loved it. "If you hadn't wanted to brag, you might -have kept control of me."</p> - -<p>"I wasn't bragging. I wanted you as an ally and friend, rather than a -puppet."</p> - -<p>"Robot is the word. You used it a couple of times."</p> - -<p>"Not for you, damn it. I liked you as a fellow human being."</p> - -<p>Something flicked at Alan's mind with feathery tentacles; the knife -drew blood and the feathery searching stopped. "That hurts," objected -Mac.</p> - -<p>"It'll hurt worse. Take us to the nearest disk you know of."</p> - -<p>"How would I know of any?"</p> - -<p>"You can find them. Do it."</p> - -<p>"Don't push me too far," said the other icily. "Remember I'm infinitely -stronger than you."</p> - -<p>"But very susceptible to a sliced-up jugular."</p> - -<p>"I won't wreck five hundred years of plans, even for you!"</p> - -<p>"Not for me," said Alan easily. "For the sake of your throat, Mac old -boy."</p> - -<p>Mac sighed, and turned the ship gently, for fear of the deadly blade in -Alan's remorseless hand, and sent it rocking over the hills inland.</p> - -<p>"I'm a weak link," he said bitterly. "A weak link like poor old Grady. -I didn't know I'd be so afraid to die."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER XII</p> - - -<p>They landed gently beside the two great silver disks, and Mac sat back -and said, "Well," proudly, for it was his first landing in half a -millennium. "Now what, Jack the Ripper?"</p> - -<p>"Now we go out and talk to them. First we let the gang out of the -middle room, though."</p> - -<p>Mac flipped a switch. "They can open the door now."</p> - -<p>Brave and the others came to meet them in the corridor. They all had -their rifles at the ready. "Put up the knife, Alan," said Rob Pope. -"He's under control pretty well, I'd say. One phony move or thought and -he's done."</p> - -<p>Mac looked at them all. "I liked you," he said sadly. "I suppose I'll -have to kill you eventually, but I did like you." Then they marched him -down the ramp to the ground.</p> - -<p>Alan and Win and Rob were aware at once of the amazement that ran -through the alien forces like a chinook wind among pines. Alan could -catch the thoughts plainly: <i>It is he, it is the leader!</i></p> - -<p>"Holy cats," he said, and Unquote stirred feebly but angrily on his -shoulder. "Mac, are you the chief of your bunch?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. Oh, laddie, I'm a prize catch. They'll give you the Iron Cross -for me. Or the Lead Casket."</p> - -<p>The outlanders, duplicates in form and clothing of the men slain by -Alan and the others, clustered around them. Alan wondered if there -were hatred in his brain to be found by these fellows. He did not -actually know himself whether or not he hated them for their bombing. -The destruction of New York had been such a gargantuan thing, such an -incredibly huge blow, that the solution of smaller problems seemed to -have driven it out of his thoughts entirely; perhaps it was a trick of -his subconscious, to prevent his going mad with horror.</p> - -<p>He could hear them—if "hear" was the verb—talking mentally together. -There was no language involved, evidently, for the thoughts were surely -as plain to him as to the aliens themselves. "It's like listening in on -an old-fashioned party line," he told Win.</p> - -<p>"Isn't it! I mean," she added hastily, "I'm not old enough to remember, -but it must be."</p> - -<p>Alan grinned. "As I catch it, they're congratulating each other on -capturing Mac. And by glory, they're thanking us!"</p> - -<p>"They just unfolded my mind like a road map," said Rob, "so they know -about all that we know. What stupendous capacities for absorption their -brains must have! I get the feeling that they just glance through a -kind of card index that's in the back room of my skull, and then they -know how I feel about them, and about chess and women, and what I had -for supper last night."</p> - -<p>"It's not that miraculous," said McEldownie, on whose wrists two of the -aliens in filigreed harness had placed brass manacles connected by a -long chain. "They—and I—touch the centers of emotion, and judge from -them what sort of person you are. Just now they read the records of how -you got the disk, and how you captured me; and they tried to find out -how you reacted to the bombing of New York, but your emotion there was -too obscure."</p> - -<p>"I obscured it myself. I was ashamed of it. Because," said Rob, -wrinkling up his forehead, "although I'm shaken when I think of it, -and feel so sorry that <i>sorry</i> is a mild word, still I can't find any -hatred for your brothers here. I honestly think it was a mistake on -their part; and it must have been based on evidence, so that evidence -was falsified; and only you and your crew could have done that. Ergo, I -don't hate them. I hate you, Mac."</p> - -<p>"You're all wrong."</p> - -<p>"I'll find out before I do anything about it."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Half a dozen of the bare-chested blond fellows came to stand before -them. Again, there was no evidence of weapons—but whereas the first -group had been careless after finding no basic hatred in Rob and Bill, -this contingent had carefully studied the intent and the mental content -of each of them. Probably, thought Alan, it was because they had -brought McEldownie, who had been instantly recognized.</p> - -<p>"That's right," said Mac in answer to his thought. "That first bunch -were strangers to me. See the tall bloke with the argent head-band? -That's my uncle, my mother's brother. Half of this lot knew me at home."</p> - -<p>"Mac," said Win, "where <i>is</i> your home?"</p> - -<p>"Erin Grady told you the truth. We come from the ninth planet of a sun -unknown to you."</p> - -<p>"And why did you come?"</p> - -<p>"That's a long yarn—and my uncle says he has something to tell you." -Mac shut his mouth. Tall, bony, homely, dressed in ordinary American -clothes, his beak of a nose and the half-lidded green eyes so familiar -to them all, Alan and the others felt a pang at seeing him silent and -crestfallen among the fantastically clad outlanders. He was one of -them, but he was also McEldownie, the TV announcer, the fellow who made -bad puns and got drunk and ate enormously and suffered with them when -New York died. Even Rob Pope, surer than the rest that Mac was at the -bottom of all the hell unleashed that day, scowled and gave him a sorry -grin.</p> - -<p>"Maybe I'm planting the thought in your minds," Mac said cynically. -None of them had spoken.</p> - -<p>"I'd know if you were, I think," said Rob. "No, it's natural. You were -a good egg."</p> - -<p>"And as good eggs go, I went bad." He shrugged. "I think now that I -didn't need to let you capture me for them. I might have killed Alan on -the spot by touching a single button. Damn you all," he said without -emotion. "I either loved you too well, or I was sick of running and -being a rebel."</p> - -<p>"A rebel against what?" asked Bill Thihling.</p> - -<p>"Stuffiness and authority. I've got to shut up." He hung his head. He -looked very tired and rather older than he had before this hour.</p> - -<p>Then the leader of the aliens spoke to them. The message came in the -curious wordless manner, and each of them put words to it in his own -mind. To Alan it came like this:</p> - -<p>"We are profoundly shocked at our hasty action of this morning. We have -done you incomparable injury where a little more investigation would -have shown us you were not inimical, not working against us, not bad at -all as men go. Our only excuse is that we were direly pressed for time.</p> - -<p>"We investigated certain sections of your planet where activities -showed us some of the rebels from our world were at work; they were -building ships and weapons to return to us, to attack us. We found at -these places, some cities and some isolated deserts, some small towns -and some government projects, that our rebels had taken control of -your people, making them invulnerable with the ray which is known to -us, making them long-lived and incapable of pain and with quickened -reflexes and swifter bodies than before. To investigate this we should -have had weeks. We gave ourselves less than a day. For we knew that our -ships would have been sighted and the rebels would be speeding their -plans. So we found many robot humans, many scientists working with our -exiled people, and we thought that in all these places there must be -millions of potential foemen."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The message was charged with emotion; it was impossible to believe that -the man was lying. Indeed, thought Alan, there was no reason why he -should lie. If he could wipe out New York with one small golden egg, he -had no need to make allies of a few puny humans.</p> - -<p>"Again, our sole excuse is the lack of time. We did find many places -where only a portion of those checked were under rebel control. Those -places we did not bomb, trusting that if we struck the large cities and -the projects where disk manufacture was under way, we could mop up the -others with ground fighting."</p> - -<p>I wonder if Project Star is gone, thought Alan.</p> - -<p>"I wonder," echoed Win aloud. Then they turned to each other, -astounded. "Darling," she said after a second, "that's the one thing I -like about this hardening, pain-removing process—now we can talk to -each other without words!"</p> - -<p>"Think what we can do with our mouths while we're talking," he grinned.</p> - -<p>The leader went on. "I may interject here that we took over control -of your artificial satellite some days ago. We did not kill the men -therein, who were not enemies, but control them by simple hypnosis. -They will of course be freed of this as soon as our job is done and a -peace settled on between our worlds."</p> - -<p>Brave looked up at the sky. Albertus, of course, could not be seen -with the naked eye, but he said, "I know a couple of the lads that run -that space station. Good boys. I'd been afraid they were dead. I knew -they wouldn't have let us be smeared like this if they'd been able to -prevent it."</p> - -<p>"Only one city we bombed that we had not personally checked on; that is -the large one over there," and he gestured toward Manhattan. "We could -not send our men on the ground into that place; the entranceways are -too complex, the place is too big, it would have taken too long; and -we could scarcely fly over and drop spies. After earnest consultation -we decided to bomb it. Being the largest concentration of civilized -people in your world, being so close to the major rebel project, we -felt—we <i>knew</i>—that it was full of enemies. Our stupidly certain -assumption was wrong. We can never make reparation for that mistake, -we cannot begin to make amends to you. Your only help will be the -knowledge that we will live with the memory of that mistake the rest of -our lives; and they are long, long lives.</p> - -<p>"We are men of good will. We beg you to believe this. We have outlawed -war and our planet lives at peace, prosperous peace. Now we have -committed an intolerable crime against a brother race. We are hurt, in -our way, as much as you have been hurt."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Brave had taken Alan's hand in his own and was squeezing it hard; the -scientist thought suddenly that if he were not impervious to pain, his -hand would be aching like fury. Brave said, "Son, I need help," quite -simply and humbly.</p> - -<p>"What is it, Brave?"</p> - -<p>"Alan, these people are good. They look like barbarians, they ride in -twenty-second century vehicles, and they plaster our greatest cities -into the earth. But they're good. He isn't lying."</p> - -<p>"What's the problem, Brave?"</p> - -<p>"I hate them," the Indian said fiercely. "I'd like to have them all -here," he let go Alan's hand and jabbed a great forefinger at his -palm. "I'd smash 'em like lice. I don't want to feel that way. It's -primitive. But strip me of the veneer I've lost these last hours, and -I'm primitive to the core. I'm simple and single-minded. I hate people -who do me harm. I won't go berserk and start in on these gentry, but by -heaven, by the Great Spirit, I'd like to wipe them all out—slaughter -them all! I want to sacrifice them to the ghosts of our dead cities."</p> - -<p>Alan said slowly, "And you don't want to feel that way. Because they're -good, you want to forgive them their mistake. My God, Brave," he cried, -"how can we ever forgive them? We can understand them, but none of us -will ever truly forgive and forget. Do you think because you feel that -way that you are reverting to savagery? Then we're every one of us on -the face of the earth pure howling savages!"</p> - -<p>Brave searched his face. He nodded. "I see. I thought it was just me. I -guess I thought you would be shooting them up if you felt that way too. -Sorry, khedive. Heap sorry make-um dust-up over nothin'."</p> - -<p>Alan smiled grimly.</p> - -<p>Rob said, "If we only knew a little more of the basic story, hang it! -They haven't mentioned where they came from, why they exiled Mac's -boys or why they chased after them, anything about themselves except -that they made a mistake. Holy old boot, we know that."</p> - -<p>The leader put in urgently: "I sense many questions which I would -happily answer if I had the time. But I have just received word that -our forces are massing to attack the disk project to the east of that -large city. I must therefore leave you until the job is done."</p> - -<p>"They're attacking Project Star!" said Win sharply. "Good Lord, Alan, -we've got a hundred friends there!"</p> - -<p>"Yes, and just as innocent people as those who died in Manhattan. They -can't do it." He stepped forward—it was significant that not one alien -tried to stop him—and laid a hand on the leader's bare, brawny arm. -The flesh was almost normal ... but not quite. Alan recalled Brave's -suggestion of the feel of a rubber product. The arm was hairless and -without pores, cool to the touch. He looked up into the leader's face. -It was a good face, though the widened features gave it a somewhat -aboriginal cast. It was a patriarchal face, more that of the ruler of a -tribe than of the leader of a fleet of space disks who must also be an -advanced scientist. The long yellow hair was turning slightly gray over -the temples.</p> - -<p>The man smiled. Yes, he said to Alan without words, I am over nine -hundred years old.</p> - -<p>"He comes from Shangri-la," said Bill Thihling. "He's the High Lama. -Can't kid me."</p> - -<p>Among his captors, the manacled McEldownie threw back his head and -laughed. "That's what we needed," he said, "a good feeble jest. This -meeting was getting dull as hell."</p> - -<p>Alan ignored them. He tried to pierce into the leader's brain with his -eyes, he thought fiercely and as hard as he ever had.</p> - -<p>After three minutes the leader nodded. Alan turned to Brave. "Boy, -we're going with them. We're going to lead the attack on Project Star."</p> - -<p>"If you've got something up your sleeve—" began Rob.</p> - -<p>"Nothing he doesn't know of. You think I'm able to keep my thoughts to -myself? But we can save, or try to save, a lot of our people. Win stays -here, of course. So does Rob, who has a bad leg." The leader started, -gestured to another outlander, who opened one of the numerous cases -on the ground and took out bandages and salves in tins, with which he -began to repair the burn on Pope's leg. "Bill," said Alan, "you want to -come?"</p> - -<p>"Try and dissuade me!"</p> - -<p>"Cheers, then, gal," said Alan lightly, and kissed Win. He turned -and went into the great disk via the bubble's ramp. Brave and Bill -followed him. The leader and five of the others went up, leaving half a -dozen with McEldownie and Win and Rob. Then Alan reappeared, looking -sheepish, came down and handed a weary cat to the girl. "I've been -wearing her on my shoulder for so long she thought she was growing -there." He patted Unquote (who raked up the energy to spit at him) and -disappeared once more. The disk rose silently into the air.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan learned now that the aliens had a spoken tongue; for they began to -chatter to each other, the sentences brief, the words evidently long -and complex. It sounded a little like Latin, a little like Greek; but -no words were even faintly familiar.</p> - -<p>"What's your plan, Alan?" asked Brave.</p> - -<p>"Not a very complex one, I'm afraid. We're to be allowed to go in -first, the disk having flown low to avoid being sighted, and been -landed behind the hill that overlooks our house. We're to gain entrance -naturally, if possible, or sneak in if the place is too heavily -fortified and suspicious. I think we can walk right in. I'm patently -a 'robot' and you two can be under my charge. Then we have an hour to -contact everyone we can. We tell the fellows who are okay to collect -in the chem lab. We try to persuade the robots to congregate in the -welding room, where they can be captured easily and without bloodshed. -But if we can't tell the difference between robots and aliens, then we -pass along quick. We have to step high and fast, lads. And we can't -separate to do the job, since you two can't check over the thoughts of -the people we meet."</p> - -<p>He stood up. "I'm going to wander around and get to know the boys. -We'll be fighting on their side soon."</p> - -<p>"I hope it's the right side."</p> - -<p>"I think it is."</p> - -<p>He walked over to the nearest group of aliens, who greeted him -courteously. He found that when they spoke aloud he could not read -their thoughts; but when they sensed that he believed them to be -talking about him or about secrets they had from him, they at once went -mute and directed their thought conversation to his brain cells. He sat -down and began to ask questions. He found that he was able to do so now -without strain.</p> - -<p>"Yes," one of them told him, "your powers develop rapidly after the -third exposure to the rays. They come so gradually that you are hardly -aware of them. It's a rapid gradualness, though."</p> - -<p>Alan recalled that it was in the captured disk that he first felt -the tremendous awakened power of his mind to read and feel the -reciprocation of other minds. He nodded. They went on talking.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At three-thirty p.m. of the day New York died, the three men walked up -to the gate of Project Star. They carried their heavy rifles openly, -and looked belligerent. It would have been hard to appear otherwise.</p> - -<p>They were challenged by a soldier, who fronted a squad of men with -flamers and grenade pistols. Before Alan could answer, the soldier -said, "Oh, it's Dr. Rackham. Pass in, sir. Where'd you come from?"</p> - -<p>"Manhattan."</p> - -<p>"Cripes! you're lucky to be here." It was the same soldier who had -passed him on the night of his treatment in the shed. He went in to the -colony, Brave and Bill Thihling at his heels.</p> - -<p>At four-twenty-eight p.m. the three of them walked up close to the -same gate. There were nine soldiers on duty. Beyond the fence were the -ack-ack guns, radar detectors, and force field generators, manned by a -number of other soldiers.</p> - -<p>The three put their rifles down on the ground. Then they solemnly began -to dance around in a little circle, unbuttoning their coats as they -did so. The squad stared, moved uneasily a little closer, looked at -their leader for guidance. He shrugged. He was a robotized fellow who -had been made a particular pet by one of the aliens; he knew a great -deal about the scheme of things in the colony—consciously, rather than -unconsciously as most of them did—and was trusted above most of his -fellows. He was not especially bright.</p> - -<p>"They ain't breaking any rules," he said. "You never know what the hell -a scientist is gonna do."</p> - -<p>Brave and Alan and Bill had now divested themselves of their shirts -and were taking off their undershirts. They were still dancing their -lilting small cakewalk.</p> - -<p>"Nuts," said the soldier. "They're nuts. Musta caught some radiation -from that buster." All the men on the ring of huge equipment beyond -the fence were watching them too. It was amusing to see a really mad -scientist, and three were delightful. They whooped and cheered and -laughed.</p> - -<p>Then the saucermen came over the hill.</p> - -<p>It was as though they erupted from the ground, even to Alan and his -henchmen who had been watching for them. And what a sight it was! -Barbarians in every physical trait, from face to naked chest to ornate -girdle and gold loincloth, armed with tiny tubes that hurled fireballs -and with thin blowpipes that shot numbing darts over incredible -distances, they might have been warriors from a forgotten land in a -long-forgotten time. And they came silently, so that they seemed to -approach through the noiseless depths of a dream. But the shriek of a -soldier falling from a gun platform, his face in flames, was not out of -a dream, but a hideous nightmare.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The three men pounced on their rifles, threw them up and were firing -methodically even before they had regained the erect position. Alan -and Brave, crack shots who had been used to practice every Sunday -morning on the military range, shot for the heads; Bill, a less certain -marksman, tried for the chests. The brain and heart were the only sure -targets when you fought a man who could feel no pain and could keep -going with half of his body shot away.</p> - -<p>For a brief time it seemed to the soldiers that the scientists were -shooting aliens; then the leader turned and saw where the muzzles -pointed.</p> - -<p>"Get 'em!" he bellowed, and sprayed a charge from a grenade pistol -that went wide of its mark but fanned Bill's cheek with tiny scraps of -hot breeze. Next instant he was down kicking from Bill's slug, and the -guards of the gate were finished.</p> - -<p>The vanguard of the outlanders swept in and across the grounds. They -had concentrated on this single gate, as the others had too open -approaches for safety. There were men from sixteen saucers, over four -hundred of them, and they ran like deer, like cheetahs after deer, like -winds after cheetahs. Mutely, with a kind of ferocious impersonality, -they descended on the colony.</p> - -<p>Men came running out with machine guns and feverishly began to load -them. They were picked off by rifle bullets, by paralyzing ray tubes, -and relays came and were picked off and more came. One gun stuttered -into action momentarily, and the crew went twisting up in the air, -their gun blown apart, their bodies rent by a weapon that even Alan -had not known of. He spotted it finally, a blunderbuss-shaped thing of -silver with a flaring mouth, fired like a bazooka. Another machine gun -blew up.</p> - -<p>Among the buildings there was hand-to-hand combat, automatics against -fire tubes, outlander against rebel outlander in wrestling, heaving -confusion. All the men from the stranger planet fought without -speaking; the robots shouted, like normal men in a battle. Brave was -bawling war whoops and Alan was cursing steadily, as he always did -under fire. Bill Thihling had got himself lost somewhere.</p> - -<p>The leader of Alan's saucer went by, blond hair streaming, blood -dripping down the brown chest. Alan caught a thought: <i>thanks</i>. He -knew, from touching Alan's mind in passing, that many of the nonrobot -men and women were gathered in safety, and even a number of the -alien-controlled puppets had been herded into the welding room and -locked in, obedient to Alan's hypnotic order.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Indian and Alan came at last to the end of the ammunition that -had bulged out their trousers' pockets. They clubbed their rifles and -waded into a melee that staggered back and forth between two office -buildings, across the scarlet-stained grass. Then Alan lost his rifle, -and drew his automatic. The range was always short and his hand was -steady as a granite statue's. He was recognizing his foemen at every -turn, and putting away the recognition and thinking, <i>They are rebels -from the stars, mutineers against a good people, it was their plottings -brought on the smashing of our cities. This is not Dr. Coulterre, -it's a creature eight hundred years old who wanted to make me into a -brainless slave. That isn't Dr. Simms curled up with my bullet in his -belly, it's the slayer of a million New Yorkers as sure as if it had -put its own damned finger on the trip release.</i></p> - -<p>He could tell the robots because they yelled, and those he left alone, -because the saucermen were shooting them with numbing rays that did -not kill. It was a humane method as far as it went. Sometimes he had -to blow a robot's brains out, or be slain by him. Then he said, I've -killed a friend. He went looking for more aliens to fight.</p> - -<p>In all the press of bodies Alan and Brave were easiest to see. Brave -was huge and his head was that of a savage buck, the lips writhed -back from teeth athirst for blood; Alan, naked to the waist and -with a white bandage over his right ear, put on by a surgeon in the -saucer, was a figure differing radically from the barbaric saucermen -and the sedately-clothed rebels and robots. They had taken off their -shirts in the dance for a better reason than holding the attention -of the soldiers. Among a hundred men like them they would have been -indistinguishable had they stayed fully clothed. It's simple, he -thought, to tell the good guys from the bad guys; the good guys haven't -got any shirts.</p> - -<p>The two of them made excellent targets. Brave knew he carried a slug in -his leg just next the groin; Alan had no idea whether he had been hit. -Enemies were continually firing at them both.</p> - -<p>Alan was knocked to the turf by a man who leaped on his back and beat -at his head with a pistol butt. Brave swung the rifle, a terrible war -club in his hands, and broke the man's head like a rotten gourd. Alan -got up with the feeling that he should have a headache. But he felt -nothing.</p> - -<p>Then the rebel outlanders gave up. Suddenly, all over the scattered -fields of battle, they had thrown down their weapons and thrust up -their hands above their heads in the universal signal of surrender. -Their robot people followed suit. The saucermen had won. Project Star -was theirs.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="ph1">CHAPTER XIII</p> - - -<p>They were back at the temporary base of the disks, sitting on the grass -in the shade of the great ships, the sun just going down behind them. -Brave's slug had been extracted and the wound bandaged with ointments -that eased the pain. Bill Thihling, who had been knocked cold early in -the fight, was sucking on a lozenge that was lessening his headache by -the minute. Alan had not been shot and the beating his head had taken -did not worry him, for pain was forever a stranger. He sat with Unquote -asleep in his lap and Win's hand held tight in his.</p> - -<p>"I don't want to live four hundred years," he said. "I want to die -in the same years that Brave and my friends go. I don't want to be -invulnerable; I want to stick myself with a needle and yell Ouch. I -don't want to move like a hopped-up panther, and know what people are -thinking, and send brainstorms out to sea from my little skull. I want -to be me again." His words were light and half-whimsical, but his -thoughts were black.</p> - -<p>"Same here, baby," said the girl. She put up a hand to adjust her -amethyst halter and his eyes followed it; she laughed. "At least your -baser instincts are still intact, thank God."</p> - -<p>Rob Pope said, "There's a lot they have to explain to us yet. We seem -to have heard the final chapter of a thousand-page book. They haven't -even said who they are, or which system they come from, or what Mac's -gang did that they were exiled for."</p> - -<p>"And by the way," said Win indignantly, "no one's told me yet why they -attacked Project Star on the ground instead of bombing it. Give."</p> - -<p>"Yes, love. They attacked it that way because they didn't want to -damage any of the experimental stuff and the disks. They lost four -disks in space, coming here, and they're overcrowded, besides having -Mac's crew to take home for trial. They need disks. And they're -interested in seeing what advances we may have made on fuel and -instruments, advances that might give them ideas. All quite logical."</p> - -<p>"Sure, sure. Everybody knew but Winnie."</p> - -<p>"Between their numbing rays and our preliminary work, we managed to -save nearly all the normal humans on the colony grounds, and about -seventy per cent of the robots. There are aliens there now, guarding -them and the disks and the whole project."</p> - -<p>The leader came over to them and squatted on the grass, radiating -intelligence and power. "There's quite a man," said Rob in spite of -himself.</p> - -<p>"He is that. I wonder how such advanced people happened to evolve such -barbaric ornaments and clothing?" Win said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The leader smiled. Evidently the blood Alan had seen on his chest had -been someone else's, for he was unhurt. Now he said to their minds, -"The girdles and arm bands are traditional. They go back farther -than the oldest histories, and date perhaps from our original home, -which was on a different planet from our present one. We consider -them attractive, if gaudy and a little unfitted for our sort of -civilization; but it would be unthinkable to change our mode of dress -after so many centuries."</p> - -<p>"And <i>that</i> is the attitude I rebelled against," said Mac aloud, from -his place between two guards. "That's how they look at everything. -Jee-blighted-rusalem, can you blame me?" He stared at his manacled -wrists. "I used to go around the cities in a kind of toga that appealed -to my esthetic sense. My God, I was shunned. I was a pariah. No -armband."</p> - -<p>The leader smiled again. "My nephew exaggerates. Five hundred years -haven't calmed that roiling renegade blood.</p> - -<p>"I know what you are desirous of knowing. I will try to tell you the -story simply and quickly, for I must join my companion ship within -two hours in the island which I see you call England." He glanced at -Brave and Alan. "First I must thank you for your indispensable help in -overcoming the rebels at Project Star."</p> - -<p>"We didn't do much for you."</p> - -<p>"You fought beside us when you hated us for the bombing of your cities; -that implies understanding, if not forgiveness. We appreciate that. You -saved innocent lives; that is the best way to help us. To kill is a -terrible thing to us. We do not do it lightly. To kill innocents, even -in cases of dire necessity, is trebly terrible."</p> - -<p>"Your men went at it as if they were born to it," said Brave.</p> - -<p>"They do not like it, no, but there is a heritage in our blood of -fighting that dates back, as do our clothes, to the times before -history."</p> - -<p>"Pious old fraud," said McEldownie, "you love it, but you won't admit -it to yourselves. It was we rebels who were the honest ones."</p> - -<p>The leader ignored him. "I was about to tell you—"</p> - -<p>Mac said aloud, so that the leader's thought waves were garbled, -"I could hate you two for running amok alongside these sniveling -so-and-sos. You helped kill scores of my companions. You couldn't have -been that sure we were wrong, could you? Damn it, I loved those boys. I -lived with them for a dozen of your match-spark lifetimes."</p> - -<p>"If you speak out of turn again, I shall have you taken into the leaded -room of my disk, where your thoughts and words will be confined to -yourself. I was about to tell you of our history," the leader thought, -looking at Alan's group. "Long, long ago, so long that even we, who -live a thousand years, cannot comprehend what a vast reach of time it -was, we lived on a planet very like your own. The atmosphere must have -been exactly, or nearly exactly, like that of Earth; for you and I have -the same lungs, the same organs, and only differ fundamentally in the -texture of our skins and the flexibility of our skeletons and muscles.</p> - -<p>"Then, for a reason we do not know except by vague and undependable -myth, our ancestors left that planet and went out into space. They were -already superbly advanced scientists, though they did not have the rays -later developed, which gave us our extended life span. They built disks -and journeyed out into the star systems, and eventually found a planet -that could support their life in the way the mother planet had done. -There they settled. The old charts and logs and histories are long -since lost, and this is known only by legend and tradition."</p> - -<p>"What does legend say sent them away from the first planet?" asked Rob -Pope.</p> - -<p>"Several things. Terrible wars, the rise of inimical civilizations -which would have had to be obliterated to insure peace, which -our ancestors did not wish to do—" <i>bovine feces</i>, muttered Mac -rudely—"and the sinking of their homeland into the sea."</p> - -<p>"Good grief," said Win, opening her eyes wide, "could that have been -Atlantis? Here on Earth?"</p> - -<p>"The time wouldn't seem to be right," said Bill, "but heaven only -knows, it sounds like it."</p> - -<p>The leader groped in their minds. "You have a legend of just such -a nation here, on this planet," he thought excitedly. "We must -investigate it. This may be our home." He chuckled aloud. "Don't worry, -we wouldn't come back and settle in with you. We are too happy on our -own world. But it would be wonderfully satisfying to know the truth of -our beginnings!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Alan felt himself becoming intellectually agog over this matter, and -resolutely drew away from it. "Please," he said, "your history."</p> - -<p>"Certainly. On the new planet, which we call Tlonis, our race set up a -civilization that has endured for many millennia. Our ancestors found -no intelligent race on that world, by the way, but only low forms of -animal life. The flora is analogous to your own in many ways, as is -natural when two planets are so alike.</p> - -<p>"For all our recorded history we have been a peaceful people, although -in the course of our scientific advancement we have discovered terrible -weapons, which we manufactured and put aside in the always possible -case of invasion from another system. Our own sun system, in which -Tlonis is the ninth planet from the sun, contains no other life at all; -but we recognized the possibilities, and built the weapons to be ready. -We also improved the disks, and discovered the ray of longevity and -that of painlessness. Our astronomy was always our first science, and -there I venture to say we outshine you as your sun does your moon."</p> - -<p>"He's right," said Mac suddenly, looking up. "Tlonis telescopes make -your Giant Eye look like a gnat's. If you had one here, you could see a -candle lighted on the sun."</p> - -<p>"Your turn is coming; be silent.</p> - -<p>"We have always existed in excellent harmony with one another. Wars -are unknown. There is no such thing as territorial expansion, for we -are all one nation, one blood. The government is a form of benevolent -parliamentary rule."</p> - -<p>McEldownie did not venture to interrupt, but his homely face spoke -bookshelves of disdain.</p> - -<p>"Our joys were intellectual, a reveling in rationality, philosophy and -perception of truths, metaphysical reasoning. I am speaking in the past -tense; I should not be. These are the things which have always occupied -us, and always will."</p> - -<p>"Sounds deadly dull," said Rob Pope, and Mac grinned and shook his head -in vigorous agreement.</p> - -<p>The leader went on. "This sounds too placid to you. We are a different -race, remember. It fits our temperaments to a T.</p> - -<p>"But there are members of any society whose tastes run counter to the -norm of that society; in our case, in our time, it was this nephew of -mine and his faction who rebelled. First in dress, as he has said; -then by initiating the custom of hunting and killing the lower forms -of life for sport, a thing unheard of before they originated it. This -was their first serious breach of our laws and customs. From it they -went on—talking against the government, decrying traditions, until at -last their mania to be different intensified and turned to violence. In -short, they mutinied against the established order of things which had -made our race a happy one for untold ages. They wished to substitute -ways of life which would have torn us apart with dissension and strife."</p> - -<p>"We rebelled against complacency, fatheadedness, hidebound slavishness -to tradition, and unutterable dullwitted dullness. You can appreciate -that, for cripe's sake," said Mac. "Picture the way of life he's given -you a briefing on, and tell me you, especially Alan and Brave, wouldn't -have rebelled, even if it meant war, to be allowed the right to live -your own lives."</p> - -<p>Alan and the great Indian looked at each other. The same thought was in -both their minds: it sounded as though Mac and his outlaw crew had been -in the right.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The leader directed a thought at them. "You must realize that this -man, my nephew, was not content to share his views with those who -agreed with him. He forced an insurrection on a people who had been -thoroughly happy. There was bloodshed in a race that had known none for -generations. We overcame him and we might have executed him, but it was -repugnant to us. So we gave him space disks and fuel and synthetic food -machines and all else he would need, he and the men who had fought for -him, and we exiled him to space.</p> - -<p>"We knew that somewhere there was a planet which could sustain life. -He had a chance of finding it, a small chance, but a chance. As it -happens, he did find it."</p> - -<p>"After three hundred years of the blackness of the void," said -McEldownie. "It was the mercy of God we did. Otherwise we'd have lived -out our lives in space. Do you see the cruelty that lurks in these -people, which they won't recognize? Killing us would have been kind; -but they sent us to wander among the galaxies."</p> - -<p>"You may tell them briefly what you did then," the leader ordered him. -"Be quick, my time is nearly up."</p> - -<p>Mac stood up and walked back and forth, clinking his chained manacles. -"We found Earth because our detectors told us the atmosphere was the -same as that of our world. It was the only one of its kind we'd come -across in all those centuries, centuries of sweeping through sun system -after sun system.</p> - -<p>"Maybe it's the original home planet our ancestors left, and maybe it -isn't. I've mucked around with that Atlantis theory too. The names are -similar—Atlantis, Tlonis. It isn't important.</p> - -<p>"We landed in the late years of your eighteenth century. Our disks were -seen and you can still find records of the sightings in the books and -periodicals of that time, and of later times when our lads took the -ships out of hiding for practice flights. I never practiced because -it's only in the last forty years my crippling wounds have been really -healed.</p> - -<p>"We more or less took you over. It was reprehensible from your point -of view. Don't hate me for it. We had to make you advance a thousand -years' worth in two hundred. We wanted to go back to Tlonis and—not -conquer it, but make a place for our kind of thinking so we could live -there. It's home, after all. We needed disks and an army.</p> - -<p>"Sure, we kept you in a stew, worked up, always at war, and so on. It -was the only way. You'd always warred before, anyway. Only in times of -war could we advance your knowledge of science and make its rapidity -seem logical. So we controlled governments and laboratories and brains. -If we hadn't, you'd still be in the gunpowder stage, instead of the jet -and electronic stage. We aren't all bad. We aren't pure black. We hurt -you but as little as we could. We used you as you used to use oxen and -horses; but like you loved horses—which often got killed in war, mind -you—we loved you."</p> - -<p>"Stop apologizing, Mac. We understand your point of view," said Alan. -"But we understand this man's, too."</p> - -<p>"Sure, sure. Everybody has a right to his own opinion, even if it's a -stuffy one.</p> - -<p>"Anyhow, in the early '40s we gave you the atom bomb, nuclear fission, -that is. And the radiations of those first bombs went out across the -great spaces, and twelve years later were detected and analyzed on -Tlonis by the astronomers. Uncle's bunch got in an uproar, as we'd -known they would, and piled into ships and started out for Earth. We -couldn't help that; we'd had to give you fission. We figured we had -enough time. We started disk construction and we began to build an -invincible army out of your men, by raying them with the painkilling -and telepathic rays. We miscalculated the time it would take Uncle -to get here. We wanted to meet him in space or bypass him and get to -Tlonis with our gang. Maybe, we thought, he wouldn't have connected -the atomic explosion with us, anyhow. But he did, and knew we were -preparing to invade Tlonis, and he came.</p> - -<p>"His scouting ships reached Earth a few months ago, reported back -to the main fleet, and down he came, to blunder and take things for -granted and make too-hasty decisions, as always; and he murdered more -people through hastiness than we ever would have in our scheme of -things."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The leader thought bitterly, "I admit the justice of that. I have said -we are more sorry than we can tell." He gestured at Alan. "Consider -this as you weigh what my nephew has said. There is a false sense of -kinship between you because of the mutual language. He talks while I -must telepath my thoughts to you. Discount that when you judge us, -please."</p> - -<p>Mac said, "That's right. When you sit down to think us over, just -consider the stories, not who told 'em. I believe you'll agree with my -way of thinking, whether you hate me for what I've done or not." He -moved over in front of Brave. "Oh, you great iron-faced ruffian, you -lost me my world, I think. Simply because I liked you too well to kill -you, you and your sidekick here. Believe that or not. I have a real -affection for you."</p> - -<p>It seemed important to the lanky alien. Brave said, "I believe you, -Jim."</p> - -<p>"Thanks, Brave." He grinned. "Will you shake hands with a fallen angel, -or if you prefer with an ambitious devil, John Kiwanawatiwa?"</p> - -<p>Brave stood and took his hand. Alan and Bill, Rob and Win did likewise. -There was something paradoxically touching about the little ceremony. -Then the leader thought at them, "We will take him back for trial, him -and those of his mutineers who are still alive. There are some still -free in your world. With your permission we will stay on Earth until we -have hunted them down. We would also like to study your histories, out -of intellectual curiosity, and exchange scientific knowledge with you. -These things can be arranged with your governments after their members -have been freed from the hypnosis applied by our rebels."</p> - -<p>He paused. "But we owe you this. You are representative of the people -of this world. I give you the right to speak for all of them now. Shall -we leave you? You hate us, will always hate us for what we did out of -blindness and hasty folly. If you say so, you five, then we will get -into our ships and go home."</p> - -<p>Alan was a little staggered. "We can't speak for our country."</p> - -<p>"I am not interested in governments, which are in reality artificial -things. I am interested in the people of this planet, and I think you -five can speak for them."</p> - -<p>Alan did not hesitate. "Then I say, stay till you've found the rebels, -and till you've made your researches. You're right, I believe we'll -hate you. But it would be insane to pack you off and lose all that you -can give us, or have you lose what we may be able to teach you."</p> - -<p>The leader smiled. "Then we will stay." He turned to his men and -gave an order; shortly many of the blond aliens came trooping out of -the disk, carrying machinery. They proceeded to set it up before the -Earthmen.</p> - -<p>The leader told them, "These will be used on all of you who were -tricked or cajoled or forced into the beams of the mutation rays by my -nephew and his cohorts. Please stand quietly."</p> - -<p>Shafts of violet and indigo color shot out of the lenses of the -machines. It took a full ship's complement of men to work all of them. -The lights played across Alan and Win, to a lesser degree on Brave and -the scientists. There was no sensation from them.</p> - -<p>Then Alan said, "Wow! That hurts my ear something fierce."</p> - -<p>Win turned to him. "Your ear hurts, darling?"</p> - -<p>"Like a red-hot iron."</p> - -<p>Brave clamped his hands on his friend's biceps. "Emir! You can feel -pain!"</p> - -<p>"Pain ... my Lord, blessed pain! Oh, how it burns! I've a splitting -headache, too." Alan hit Brave in the chest, laughing, and then -embraced Win. "Baby, I can feel pain! I'm okay!" He kissed her -savagely. She gave a shriek.</p> - -<p>"You bit me, you—Alan, I can feel it too!"</p> - -<p>"Of course," the leader told them. "You are whole again. The effect of -my nephew's rays is dissipated."</p> - -<p>Alan sobered. "One thing. Will I still live four hundred years?"</p> - -<p>"No. That effect is gone too, unfortunately."</p> - -<p>Alan stared around him at his friends. "Thank God," he said quietly.</p> - -<p>Then Rob Pope said, "Look, the bubble of that disk is closing!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was true. The leader of the outlanders turned and saw it and gave a -loud cry. "He is escaping! You let him out of your sight, you fools!" -he thought angrily. All the gold-and-silver-clad men ran toward the -disk. It rose into the air, flipping its edges impudently. Then it -gathered speed and shot out of sight.</p> - -<p>Brave said, "Jim, old Jim! He's made his break. I kind of thought he -would. He was too restless a spirit to sit calmly under chains and -captivity!"</p> - -<p>The aliens had clustered together and were sending their brain waves -out across the land, signalling other disks in remote spots to find and -pursue the escaping McEldownie. Alan said, "I almost hope he makes it!"</p> - -<p>Then straight across the sky from horizon to horizon a great silver -ship flashed, bright in the rays of the vanished sun against a -darkening lapis lazuli vault, on its way out to sea in the direction of -Africa. The abandoned outlanders were piling into their second disk to -give chase.</p> - -<p>Brave put his arm over Alan's shoulders. "Chief, I hope he makes it -too. Maybe he was Lucifer, fallen and using us as dogs of war to regain -his lost kingdom; or maybe he was really Prometheus, fighting the -stodgy gods to bring fire—the fire of real freedom—to his friends. -By his lights, he was justified in using us to do it. He caused us an -awful throng of troubles in the past two hundred years, but what he -gave us may be worth it in the final estimate. And when he had his goal -in sight he threw it away because he couldn't bring himself to kill us."</p> - -<p>"Prometheus is the word, son. I'd hate to see old Zeus there bring him -back in chains, to be bound to the rock for the vultures."</p> - -<p>Brave looked into the sky where Jim McEldownie had disappeared. He -chuckled deep in his chest.</p> - -<p>"He claimed to be the best hotshot disk pilot in the universe. If he -is, I have a notion he'll get away." He rubbed a hand across his chin -reflectively. "By the Great Spirit!" he shouted, laughing. 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