by Earl
“But why not migrate to a stable star and live under domes?” York objected. “You can duplicate any environment, as in the experiment domes. Surely you can duplicate your own.”
“Live under domes?” The alien shook his head. “It would stultify the race, wither it away. It is not a good life. Would your Earth people like it?”
YORK thought back to Earth’s colonization of the other planets. It was a tough existence. Young people aged rapidly. If Earth were to vanish, the remaining Earth race on other planets, in their sealed habitations, would die off through sheer strangulation.
“No, we must migrate to our type of sun,” Vuldane stated. His thought-voice changed. “But this crisis is sharper than all others have been in the past. We have combed our universe from end to end. Only one twenty-two day Cepheid is left, with a family of planets. The Cepheids of adjacent universes, like yours, are out of the question, for your astral laws are different. Our race would wither away as slowly but surely, in an alien universe, as under domes. We do not wish it. Thus that last Cepheid is our remaining Hope. That is the last world possible for us! And now I come to that which affects your people—and the hypno-beasts.”
He eyed York a moment, as though reluctant to go on.
“That Cepheid has a family of ten planets, all inhabited by the hypno-beasts. Somehow their evolution inhibited them and they never became scientific. But they were endowed with the remarkable power of hypnotism. A kind of hypnotism to which our minds are peculiarly vulnerable. So strong did it seem that we doubted whether any minds could stand against it. But we had to find out.
“Thus we roamed our universe—and yours and others—and transplanted bits of inhabited worlds under the domes. We pitted them against the hypno-beasts. Our sole purpose was to find a race that could learn ow to fight the Beasts, while using this universe’s scientific laws.”
The pieces all clicked into place abruptly, in York’s mind, with a stunning impact.
“I see,” he murmured. “A colossal search for a race of creatures parasitic to the hypno-beasts! A race able to resist the hypnotism and conquer the Beasts!”
“In broad detail, just that,” agreed Vuldane. “But for a long time we despaired of results. Most races succumbed to the hypnosis and became slaves of the hypno-beasts within a century or so. These we cast out as abortive cultures and procured new ones. In all, in the period of our long-range experiment, we have tried out more than ten thousand races, culled from seven universes!” The staggering sweep of it overwhelmed York. Vera looked at him sympathetically. She had got over the first shock long before.
York looked at Vuldane, king of a driven, nomad race, in a new light. He and his people had the indomitable courage and never-say-die spirit that could only be admired in any race. York’s thoughts leaped ahead.
“Earth people,” he whispered. “Earth people are the ones!”
VULDANE nodded, and somehow there was infinite regret in his manner.
“Yes, so it has proved. As with the many other races, we installed a thousand of your race in a dome, and pitted them against a control group of the hypno-beasts. One other remarkable, or damnable, attribute the hypno-beasts have. They are almost infinitely adaptable to any environment. They do not breathe oxygen. They absorb life energy from blood, any blood, and no extremes of temperature can stop them.
“We watched your race with avid interest for those two thousand years. We could not leap to conclusions. We used the true scientific method of thorough waiting. We watched as generation by generation your people developed immunity to the hypnotism. At the time you arrived, we had just about decided they were the ones. More, your rapid killing off of the hypno-beasts convinced us completely. Another race has developed immunity, but they do not have the scientific capabilities of yours.”
York knew he was grinning in a ghastly, mirthless way.
“You mean,” he gasped, “that my coming decided you on my race, rather than the other? But I’m a special case. I’m an immortal among our race, and a super-scientist only because of that. You are overestimating—”
Vuldane smiled. “I cannot blame you for pleading in that way, trying to throw us off our decision. We know you are a special case. But you are still a sample of your race. _ The important thing is your race’s capacity for science. We will furnish all the science necessary to destroy the hypno-beasts.”
York pondered.
“You are supreme scientists. Why not simply ray down the beasts, with long-range beams from space, on their planets?”
“Do you think we haven’t tried everything possible?” responded the alien. “We did that long ago. We rayed down all their centers and cities. We tried to cover every square inch of their planets. When we thought we had reduced their numbers to a safe minimum, we built fortresses. The inevitable happened. The Beasts rebred rapidly. They surrounded the fortresses in massed numbers, throwing their combined hypnosis within. Our people fell under the spell, were killed. The Beasts reigned again.
“You do not realize, Anton York, the tremendous power of their hypnosis in quantity. No minds in the universe can withstand it, except two. Those of your race and the non-scientific race.”
“No diseases sowed among them could kill them off?” York queried. “No insect plagues them? Often it’s the little things that conquer the big.”
AGAIN he got a withering smile.
l “Before we used cultures of races, we gathered cultures of germs, worms, insects, crustaceans, plants. More than a million varieties of them. We sowed them among their planets. The hypno-beasts survived everything—everything. They are perhaps the most tenacious form of life in all the universe. Don’t forget we have been trying for twenty centuries. No, Anton York, only intelligence, immune to their hypnotism, will ever wipe them out.”
York shrugged. “I must admit a certain degree of sympathy in your problem. I appoint myself emissary to my world, to tell them of your need for help. How many Earth people do you think you need?”
York saw the stricken look in Vera’s eyes and prepared to hear a gigantic number.
“All of your people!” responded Vuldane softly.
York was past shock. He could only stare, as if turned to stone.
“All of your people,” repeated the alien. “It will not be a simple task, even with Earth people immunity, and our science given to them. The time is short now, before our sun explodes. We must move all your people to the Beasts’ planets, setting them up in fortresses which we will build. Many, perhaps most, of your people will succumb at first, till the following generations develop immunity. Finally they will wax strong, sweep out and conquer the Beasts completely. Then we will sow some disease among your people to kill them, and our new home will be ready for our occupancy.” York’s psychic voice was a deadly hiss. “By what right do you consider it your privilege to destroy my race to save yours?”
“By what right,” returned Vuldane, “do you consider your race more worthy of continuation than mine? We were civilized long before yours. If you think we are merciless in sacrificing an alien race for our benefit, what of your own race? To this day it fights among itself at times. We haven’t had internecine war for half a million years. Tell me, Anton York. Outside of your own personal prejudice, who is to judge whether we are wrong or right, except as necessity drives us?”
York could think of no answer. He knew now what Vera had meant before. It was the old story of Cro-magnon man killing off Neanderthal. White men destroying the redmen of America. Earth people expanding into interplanetary space and the flower people of Ganymede dying out. On a grander scale, this was the same thing. A vigorous, highly civilized, powerful race was grimly holding onto its place in the sun. Could they be blamed?
YORK answered at last. “No. There is no question of right or wrong in any scale of cosmic morals. But here is one thought, Vuldane. My people have millions of years ahead of them. Their sun is stable. You, on the other hand, are a doomed race. You will live another hundred thous
and years in your new system, and then again that Cepheid will explode. Is it worth murdering my race, facing a million-year future, to save yours for one-tenth that? Can you pass into your inevitable oblivion with that on your conscience?”
“A strong point,” nodded Vuldane. “Except for one thing. Our astronomers have measured all the stars. A new Cepheid is being born in a certain star group. It is beginning to pulse slowly. In the slow time-scale of the cosmos, it will not be a full-fledged Cepheid for another hundred thousand years. But if we gain our new breathing spell, as outlined, that Cepheid will be ready for us. And other Cepheids are being born, our astronomers note. Through them, we also have a limitless future ahead of us!” York deflated utterly. He could already picture, in his mind’s eye, the nine planets of his sun, barren and deserted—human life gone. He looked up suddenly.
“All, you say, Vuldane. But there are more than ten billion of my race. Surely you can leave a few thousand behind, to breed our race again.”
Vuldane shook his head, with a combination of pity and ruthlessness.
“No. We dare not leave any of your race. Once they grew strong again, we would only have to destroy them later. Better that your race goes into total oblivion now.”
York could see that point, too. Knowing the crusade spirit of his own people, they would one day swoop down on the Korians, to right an old wrong. There would only be bitter interstellar war. The Korians, for their own sake, would have to guard against that.
AND again it was not a question of right or wrong, or cruelty, or anything in normal terms. This was something above and beyond such meaningless phrases out of Earth’s old law books.
“How much time is there?” he asked dully. “How soon before your Cepheid explodes into a nova?”
“Just a short thousand years. It will take all that time to bring your people, set them up in fortresses, and help them battle the Beasts. And for us to migrate, when that is done. The time is short.”
York drew himself up.
“Only one thing I ask, Vuldane.”
“Yes?”
“Before you begin taking my people, give me a certain time to try to figure out some alternative.”
Vuldane pondered. “The transference should begin immediately. However, it will take a year to complete our first fleet of ships capable of plunging through the space-time wall that separates our two universes. I give you that year, Anton York.”
Suddenly he thrust out his spindly hand. “And good luck!”
CHAPTER X
Conquest of Mind
YORK’S ship sped through the void at a pace that left laggard light far behind. His face was grimly set as he took a course for the planetary system of the hypno-beasts. Vuldane had readily given the data.
“A year, Vera,” York said desolately. “A short year in which to save the human race! I must not sleep for that year. Drugs will keep me going. Somehow there must be a way.”
“What do you except to do among the Beasts?” Vera asked tonelessly.
“Anything,” York stated. “Anything possible.”
In a day they were there. The Cepheid sun was an exact duplicate of the one they had left. Its ten planets were large and widespread, fairly crawling with the hateful hypno-beasts. They had a semi-civilization. They bred whole races of creatures for their blood-food, for their ten planets of loathsome vampirism. Luckily they had no space ships. The whole universe—this and all others—would become theirs. They populated the ten planets simply through the accident of separate, parallel development.
York could feel the powerful beat of their hypnotic force radiating en masse from them. It dragged at his mind as gravity dragged at his ship. Recklessly he power-dived over one planet, spraying down his gamma-sonic rays, cutting a wide swath among them. The hypno-force clutched at him. Twice more he dived recklessly, and barely won free the third time.
“Tony, please! It’s senseless.”
York nodded helplessly.
“I need a long-range projector. We’ll build one. No. We’ll have the Korians build us one.”
The ship sped back the way it had come. Vuldane readily agreed. Almost overnight his technicians turned out a super-projector for York’s ship and back he raced. With this he whipped his ship in a right orbit around one planet and sprayed down the destroying rays in a band ten miles wide, from directly above the surface.
“If this works, Vera,” he said in vague hope, “we’ll have a million more made. And I’ll go to Earth and get a million strong-minded men, and we’ll sweep every planet clean. The Korians weren’t able to get close enough to the planet.”
But gradually he felt the finger of hypnotic force reach for him. His telescope revealed thousands of the massed hypno-beasts below, directing a combined hypno-ray upward at him. He kept up his deadly beam even when he felt the cloying, insidious urge to drop down and yield to the Beasts. Sweat beaded his brow. God, what frightful mental power they had!
He had not watched Vera. Suddenly he noticed her at the locked controls, unhitching them and plunging the ship down. Her movements were jerky, robotlike. She was in a hypnotized trance.
“Vera!”
York left his gun and leaped for her. She turned on him, clawing and scratching. York bit his lip and swung his fist, knocking her cold. He zoomed the ship up, barely in time. His whole body had begun stiffening at the powerful clutch of massed hypnotism from below. He whipped the ship into free space.
“Vera, forgive me,” he muttered when he brought her to with a dash of cold water. “Well, that’s out. The men from Earth would have as little, or less chance than I had.”
“Vuldane said they tried everything,” Vera murmured hopelessly. “Theirs is the only way. Setting Earth people down there, after blasting a space with their super-science. Letting them breed and produce immune generations. A thousand-year job, Tony—and we have only a year. It might as well be a second.”
York did not give up, He thought next of a screen against the hypnotic force. Back at the Korian world, he consulted with Vuldane.
“There is no screen against their hypnosis,” Vuldane stated flatly. “We have tried. You noticed that your mental telepathy barely worked through our energy wall. Yet that energy wall is absolutely transparent to their hypnotic force!”
“Still, I want to try,” ground out York desperately. “I must. Give me one dome as a proving ground, and all the materials I need.”
“Agreed,” nodded Vuldane quickly. “I sympathize with you, York. But I have no hope for you.”
York tried everything in the next few months. He had a group of chained hypno-beasts as control, and set before them shields of various composition. Metal alloys, plastics, radium-coated diamond, and then more subtle walls of electro-magnetic energy, cosmic rays, even a vacuum. In each case, stationing himself with the shield between, their hypnotic force came through undiminished.
Vuldane was right. There was no shield to that demonic mental vibration.
“Tony, please, you must rest,” Vera insisted as he staggered and would have fallen except for her arm. “You haven’t closed your eyes in months.”
But York went on, sleepless, taxing the superb vitality of his immortal body to the utmost.
“There must be a way,” he chanted steadily, as though he were a child reciting a poem.
Vuldane came to visit him at times, and even made suggestions. Admiration for York shone from his alien eyes.
“If anything at all can make me feel a pang of regret over sacrificing your race, it is you, Anton York. A race that produces such as you deserves continuation.” Then, in the next breath he added: “But my race must continue!”
“Vuldane, did you try everything?” York pleaded. “Did you try creating planetary earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions?” The Korian nodded. “Naturally. We nearly disrupted one planet entirely, instituting a planet-wide geological upheaval. For a century the planet seemed clear. Not one hypno-beast appeared. Then suddenly they cropped up again from so
mewhere.”
“An atomic fire, sweeping the whole planet’s surface?” cried York. “How about that?”
“And how would you stop the atomic fire from eating inward, consuming the entire planet to ash?”
“The hypnosis itself,” sighed York. “That’s the angle I must work from. We can’t resist it or shield it. But how about a neutralizing projector?”
Fired with the new idea, York built what was essentially a scrambler, or a device that would spray out static to the hypnotic force. He was able to cast a field around his dozen control beasts and break up their flow of hypnosis into intermittent flashes. Borrowing a super-powerful generator from the Korians, York raced to the other Cepheid.
With the static machine going full blast, he was able to land on one planet. Hypno-beasts began crowding around this invasion of their world.
York sprayed his static around, neutralizing their hypno-force. Then he swept his gun in a circle, whiffing out the monsters like a row of lighted candles.
It was as though he had touched off a hidden spring. A signal must have gone around the planet. Over the horizon marched incredible droves of them. They massed around the ship in such numbers that York’s lethal ray was like a little machine-gun against all the armies of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon combined. Sheer weight of numbers would win out.
“Tony, they’re getting nearer—”
“Yes, but if we had a million scramblers and a million guns, it would work!” York shouted happily. “Simple mathematics.” And then it happened. With a tortured grind, the static machine sputtered and died. Like a tidal wave, the full force of hypnotism struck them, no longer scrambled. Vera passed instantly into a trance. York, with an effort of will that seemed to tear his brain up by the roots, jerked over the engine lever. The ship darted upward at a pace that took them out of the hypnotic range in seconds.