“Billions, I suppose.”
“And there are billions of human beings on billions of planets; each having red blood cells identical, as far as we know, with yours and mine. Also white cells. Also, sometimes, various kinds of pathogenic micro-organisms, such as staphs, streps, viruses, spiros, and so on.
“Okay. My thought is that the Lemarts, Ozobes, and the like are analogous to disease-producing organisms. We saw the full range of effects—from none at all up to death itself.”
“But they—the Ozobes and so on—died, too.”
* * * *
“How long do disease germs live in a human body after they’ve killed it?”
“But that horrible Dilipic—the golop. They don’t seem to fit.”
“Try that on for size as cancer. Also, the Arpalones typed us before they’d let us land on any planet. Why didn’t we blast them out of the way and land anyway?”
“Why, we didn’t want to. It wasn’t worth while.”
“We couldn’t. Psychic block. And if we had, we would have died. Different blood-types don’t mix.”
“So you and I are merely two red cells in the bloodstream of a super-dooper-galactic super-monster? Phooie!” she jeered. “That chestnut was propounded a thousand years ago. Are you trying to take me for a ride on that old sawhorse?”
“That’s the attitude I had at first. So now we’re ready for the chart.” He pointed to a group of symbols. “We start with symbolic logic; manipulating like so to get this.” There was a long mathematical dissertation; a mind-to-mind, rigorous, point-by-point proof.
“Q. E. D.” Garlock concluded.
“I see your math, and if I believed half of it I’d be scared witless. Those few pieces fit, but they’re scattered around in vast areas of blankness and you’re jumping around like the Swiss miss leaping from Alp to Alp. And how about our own galaxy, the most important piece of all? It’s different, and we’re different, mentally. That wrecks your whole theory.”
“No. I told you I need a lot more data. Also, beyond a certain point the analogy appears to get looser.”
“Appears to! It’s as loose as a goose!”
“Think a minute. Is it actually loose, or are we getting up into concepts that no human mind can grasp? That might be the case, you know.”
“Oh.… You’re quite a salesman, Clee, but I’m still not buying.”
“Our galaxy is a bit of specialized tissue—part of a ganglion, maybe. Over here, see? I’ll have to leave it dangling until we find some more like it.”
“I see. But anyway, you haven’t a tenth’s worth of real material on that whole sheet. Feed everything you have there into a computer and it’d just laugh at you.”
“Sure it would. The great advantage of the human brain is its ability to arrive at valid conclusions from incomplete data. For instance, what would your computer do with the figures you shot at me the day we started out? ‘Thirty-nine, twenty-two, thirty-nine. Five seven. One thirty-five.’ Yet they’re completely informative.”
“To anyone interested in that kind of figures, yes.”
“Which includes practically all adults. Then take the figure three point one four one five nine. Compy would still be baffled; but, unlike the first set, most people would be, too.”
“Yes. Perhaps two out of ten would get your message.”
“Now take something really new, like the original work on gravitation or relativity. No possible computer would be of any use. That takes a brain!”
“The brain of a Newton or an Einstein, yes.” Belle thought for a minute, then grinned at him impishly. “Now watch the brain of a Bellamy perform. Get into high gear, brain.… I wish I knew something about biochemical embryology; but I read somewhere that ova are sterile, so our galaxy is an ovum. Therefore our super-galooper is a gal—which incontrovertible fact accounts for and explains rigorously the long-known truth that women always have been, are now, and always will be vastly superior to men in every quality, aspect, and.…”
“Hold it!” Garlock snapped. His face hardened into intense concentration. Then: “Do you think you’re kidding, Belle?”
“Why, of course I’m kidding, you big.…”
“Look here, then.” He picked up a pencil and filled in blank after blank after blank. “I’m making one unjustifiable assumption—that thePleiades is the first intergalactic starship. The super-being is a female, and she is just becoming pregnant.…”
“Flapdoodle! There are no blood cells in a sperm, and I don’t think there are any in an ovum.”
“I didn’t mention either sperm or ovum. The analogy is so loose here that it holds only in the broadest, most general terms. The actual process of reproduction is unknowable. But wherever we went, we changed things. Not only by what we actually did, but also as a catalyst—no.…”
“No, not a catalyst. A hormone.”
“Exactly. Each of these changes would cause others, and so on. An infinite series. Calling the first three terms alpha, beta, and gamma, we operate like this.…” Garlock’s pencil was flying now. “Following me?”
“On your tail.” Belle was breathing hard; as the blank spaces became fewer and fewer her face began to turn white.
“From this we get that…and that makes the whole bracket tie into the same conclusion I had before. So, except for that one assumption, it’s solid.”
* * * *
“My Lord, Clee!” Belle studied the chart. “I mentioned Newton and Einstein…add to that ‘the brain of a Garlock, better than either.’” Then, seeing his reaction, “You’re blushing. I didn’t think.…”
“Cut the comedy. You know I couldn’t carry either of their hats to a dog-fight.”
“And I would never have believed that you are basically modest.”
“I said cut out the kidding, Belle.”
“I’m deadly serious. A brain that could do that,” she waved at the chart, “…well, even I am not enough of a heel to belittle one of the most tremendous intuitions ever achieved by man. Not that I like it. It’s horrible. It denies mankind everything that made him come up from the slime—everything that made him man.”
* * * *
“Not at all. Nothing is changed, in man’s own frame of reference. It merely takes our thinking one step farther. That step, of course, isn’t easy.”
“That is the understatement of all time. What it will do, though, is set up an inferiority complex that would wipe out the whole human race.”
“There might be some slight tendency. Also, since my basic assumption can’t be justified, the whole thing may be fallacious. So I’m not going to publish it.” He glanced at the chart and it vanished.
“Clee!” Belle stared, almost goggle-eyed. “With your name? The tremendous splash… I see. You’re really grown up.”
“Not all the way, probably; but pretty nearly—I hope.”
“But some of the…not exactly corollaries, but.…” Belle’s face, which had regained some of its color, began again to pale.
“Which one of the many?”
“The most shattering one, to me, concerns intelligence. If it is true that our vaunted mentality is only that of one blood cell compared to that of a whole brain…and that intelligence is banked, level upon level…well, it’s simply mind-wrecking. I’ve been trying madly not to think of that concept, at all, but I can’t put it off much longer.”
“Now’s as good a time as any. I’ll hold your hand.”
“You’d better hold more of me than that, I think.”
“I’ll do even that, in a good cause.” He put his arms around her; held her close. “Go ahead. Face it. All the way down and all the way up. You’ve got what it takes. You’ll come back sane and it’ll never bother you again.”
She closed her eyes, put her head on his shoulder. Her every muscle went tense.
Neither of them ever knew how long they stood there, close-clasped and motionless in silence; but finally her muscles loosened. She lifted her head; raised her brimming eyes.
<
br /> “All the way down?” he asked.
“To almost a geometrical point.”
“And all the way up?”
“I touched the fringe of infinity.”
“Intelligence all the way?”
“All the way. I couldn’t understand any of them, of course, but I looked each one squarely in the eye.”
“Good girl. And you’re still sane.”
“As much so as ever…more so, maybe.” She disengaged herself, sat down on the bed, lighted a cigarette, and smoked half of it. Then she stood up. “Clee, if anything in the whole universe ever knocked hell out of anything, that did out of me. I’m going to do something that will take about ten minutes. Will you wait right here?”
“Of course. Take all the time you want.”
* * * *
When she came back Garlock leaped to his feet and stared speechlessly. He could not even whistle. Belle’s hair was now its natural deep, rich chestnut, her lipstick was red, her nails were bare, and she wore a white shirt and an almost-knee-length crimson skirt.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” she said, quietly. “I’m going to be a plain, ordinary brownette. I’m going to marry you as soon as we land; registered permanent family. I’m going to have six kids and spoil them rotten. In short, I have grown up—partly up, at least—too.”
“Plain?” he managed, finally. “Ordinary? You? Yes—like a super-nova going off under a man’s feet!” With a visible effort, Garlock pulled himself together. “I don’t need to tell you what a surprise this is, and can’t tell you what it means to me. But you never have said you love me. Hadn’t you better?”
“I’m afraid to. Our next kiss will be different. I’d spoil all this nice new make-up.” She tried to grin in her old-time fashion, but failed. She sobered, then, and went on with a completely new intensity. “Listen, Clee. I’m all done—forever—lying and pretending to you. I love you so much that…well, there simply aren’t any thoughts. And when I think of how I acted, it hurts—Lord, how it hurts! I don’t see how you can love me at all. It’d take a miracle.”
“Miracles happen, then.” He put both arms around her, very gently. “For the first time in my life I’m cutting my screens to zero. Come in.”
“What?” For a moment she was unable to believe the thought. Then, cutting her own shield, she went fully into his mind. “Oh, I didn’t dare hope you could possibly feel.… Oh, this is wonderful, Clee—simply wonderful!”
As the two fully-opened minds met and joined she threw both arms around him and their embrace tightened as though their bodies were trying to become as nearly one as were their minds. Finally she pulled herself away and put up a solid block.
“What a mess!” she said, shakily. “Lipstick all over you.”
“Why words, sweetheart? That was perfect.”
“Oh, it was…but wide open, with such a mind as yours.…” she paused, then came back to normal almost with a snap. “…but say; I’ll bet that’s what Therea and Alsyne were doing. That ‘fusion’ thing. We’ll practise it tonight.”
He pondered briefly. “Sure it was.”
“But he said they learned it from us. How could he have, when we.… Oh, we did, of course, in moments of high stress…but we didn’t actuallyknow it.…” She paused.
“We wouldn’t admit it, you mean, even to ourselves.”
“Maybe; and of course it never occurred to us—callow youngsters we were then, weren’t we?—that it could be done for more than a microsecond at a time. Or that two people could ever, possibly, live that way.”
“Or what a life it would be. So let’s chop this and get back to you and me.”
“Uh-huh, let’s,” she agreed, but in a severely practical tone. “You’ve got lipstick even on your shirt. So change it and I’ll go put on a new face and bring over some stuff and clean you up.”
While she cleaned, she talked. “I told you our next kiss would be different, but I had no idea…wow! That will be as much different, too, I’m sure.… Hm-h-h-nh?” Again she pressed herself against him; this time in a somewhat different fashion.
“Stop that, you little devil, or I’ll.…” His arms came up of themselves, but he forced them back down. “…No, I won’t. We’ll save that for tonight, too.”
“I’ll behave myself!” She laughed, pure joy in voice, eyes, and smile. “I bet myself you wouldn’t and I won! You’re tall, solid gold, Clee darling—the absolute top.”
“Thanks, sweetheart. I wish that were true,” he said, soberly. “But I can’t help wondering if two such hellions as you and I are can make a go of marriage—no, cancel that. We’ll do it—all we have to figure out is how.”
“I know what you mean. Not at first—it’ll be purely wonderful then. After five years, say, when the glamor has worn off and I’ve had three of our six children and two of them are in bed with the epizootic and I’m all frazzled out and you’re strung up tight as a bowstring with overwork and.…”
“Hold it! Uh-uh. No. If we can live together six months—or even six weeks—without killing each other, we’ll have it made. It’s at first that it’ll be rugged. No matter how rugged it gets, though, we’ll know one thing for certain sure. We couldn’t live apart. That’ll give us enough leverage. Check?”
“And double check.” She giggled sunnily. “I’ll take care of any and all situations, whatever they are, that arise in the first six months. You’ll be responsible for the next sixty years. That’s a perfectly fair and equitable division of responsibility. Now kiss me and we’ll go.”
* * * *
When Garlock cut the Gunther blocks, however, James’ thought came instantly in. “Been trying to get you for twenty minutes,” and in a couple of seconds he brought Garlock and Belle up to date. “So Fatso’s been waiting in Evans’ office. He’s throwing fits all over the place and Evans and Macey are going quietly mad.”
“He’ll have to wait,” Garlock decided instantly. “No matter how many fits he has, no such decision is going to be made until there’s enough of a Galactic Council to make it.”
“Well, you’ll have to tell him that yourself. In person.”
“I’ll do just that, and tell him so he’ll stay told.”
“Okay, but shake a.…”
Belle and Garlock ’ported out into the Main, arms around each other like a couple of college freshmen.
“…leg-g—ug—gug.…” James gurgled.
“Belle!” Lola shrieked. “Why—Belle—Bellamy!”
“What goes on here?” James demanded.
“Nothing much,” Garlock replied, although he blushed almost as deeply as Belle did. “We just decided to quit fighting, is all. Cut the rope, Junior, and let the old bucket drop.”
TARRANO THE CONQUEROR, by Ray Cummings [Part 1]
To Hugo Gernsback, scientist, author and publisher, whose constant efforts in behalf of scientific fiction have contributed so largely to its present popularity, this tale is gratefully dedicated.
CHAPTER I
The New Murders
I was standing fairly close to the President of the Anglo-Saxon Republic when the first of the new murders was committed. The President fell almost at my feet. I was quite certain then that the Venus man at my elbow was the murderer. I don’t know why, call it intuition if you will. The Venus man did not make a move; he merely stood beside me in the press of the throng, seemingly as absorbed as all of us in what the President was saying.
It was late afternoon. The sun was setting behind the cliffs across the river. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand people within sight of the President, listening raptly to his words. It was at Park Sixty, and I was standing on the Tenth Level.1 The crowd packed all twelve of the levels; the park was black with people. The President stood on a balcony of the park tower. He was no more than a few hundred feet above me, well within direct earshot. Around him on all sides were the electric megaphones which carried his voice to all parts of the audience. Behind me, a thousand feet overhead, the ma
in aerials were scattering it throughout the city, I suppose five million people were listening to the voice of the President at that moment. He had just said that we must remain friendly with Venus; that in our enlightened age controversies were inevitable, but that they should be settled with sober thought—around the council table. This talk of war was ridiculous. He was denouncing the public news-broadcasters; moulders of public opinion, who every day—every hour—must offer a new sensation to their millions of subscribers.
He had reached this point when without warning his body pitched forward. The balcony rail caught it; and it hung there inert. The slanting rays of the sun fell full upon the ruffled white shirt; white, but turning pink, then red, with the crimson stain welling out from beneath.
For an instant the crowd was stunned into silence. Then a murmur arose, and swelled into shouts of horror. A surge of people swept me forward. I could not see clearly what was happening on the balcony. The form of the murdered President was hanging there against the rail; a score of government officials were rushing toward it; but the body, toppling over the low support, came hurtling downward into the crowd, quite near me; but I could not reach it—the throng was too dense.
The shouts everywhere were deafening. I was shoved along the Tenth Level by the press of people coming up the stairway. Shouts, excited questions; the wail of children almost trampled under foot; the screams of women. And over it all, the electrically magnified voice of the traffic director-general in the peak of the main tower roaring his orders to the crowd.
It was a panic until the traffic-directors descended upon us. We were pushed up on the moving sidewalks. North or south, whichever direction came handiest, we were herded upon the sidewalks and whirled away. With a hundred other spectators near me I was shoved to a sidewalk moving south along the Tenth Level. It was going some four miles an hour. But they would not let me stay there. From behind, the crowd was shoving; and from one parallel strip of moving pavement to the other I was pushed along—until at last I reached the seats of the forty mile an hour inside section.
The scene at Park Sixty was far out of direct sight and hearing. The park there had already been cleared of spectators, I knew; and they were doubtless bearing the President’s body away.
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