by Earl
Nothing in the message would arouse the suspicions of the spy-agents of Tharkya, laymen to science. But two things in it would make a scientist sit bolt upright.
Psychons, first. An unknown science term, but instantly suggestive of a great new discovery. Second, the “L.F.” in the title. Doctor of Galactics, Doctor Philosophy, and Savant of Space-Nautics were bonafide. But “L.F.” meant nothing! Nothing more than a misprint—or, by laughable coincidence, the initials of the Legion of Freedom!
Kaine wondered how many scientists would laugh at this, snort at the “psychons,” and tear up the message. How many others would leap to their feet, heart beating, and take the next liner for Earth?
Kaine didn’t know. He could only go on, from world to world, leaving the cryptic message. Kylar had supplied him with a list of the top-notch scientists on each world.
At times Kaine lost himself in wonder over the strangeness of worlds he had never seen or even heard of.
THE triple-sunned world of sector F-14, for instance. Three giant blazing suns constantly swinging over a nightless planet, causing three sets of shadows. Another world in the heart of a star-cluster, with a hundred thousand flaming stars in its nightly firmament, shedding light strong enough to tan the skin. The world with fifty-three moons, darting overhead like fireflies. One with magnificent rings that stretched as far as the eye could see, like Saturn.
Saturn, of Earth’s system, wasn’t habitable, as were none of the nine planets except Earth. In most planet families, only one, at the most two, favored planets could support life. Those just the right distance from their sun not to be too scorched, or too frigid.
But the varieties of life-forms, within those limits, were endless.
Intelligent minds reposed in animal forms resembling anything conceivable on Earth—dogs, cats, elephants, deer, dinosaurs, insects. Dozens of varieties of each. Dozens of varieties of two-legged upright beings too, similar to man. Gorillas, apes, toothpick limbed scarecrows, manlike beings with four arms, or tentacles, or six eyes.
Some worlds were unique. One was completely covered with water. Its intelligent fish-life lived in floating cities drifting over the planet-wide ocean. Another had atmosphere so dense that its people swam through the air, with finlike hands and feet. Silicic beings, crackling like moving glass statues, moved over one hot world where their scientists considered it an achievement to freeze a thimble of water.
Some life-forms were almost unbelievable. The liquid-life of one world that was little more than thin skins holding liquid that rolled over the planet. Gaseous intelligence, too, encased in egg-shells with cilia-hands. The invisible life of a world where the sharpest eyes could only make out vague forms.
Rock-people, planet-beings metal-boned creatures, amoeba-minds. . . .
There seemed no limit to evolution’s experimentation.
All had civilizations, great or small. All had forms of art, science, culture. And all were dominated by Tharkya. All labored to produce the energon-tax, lest the ruthless overlords purge them.
Kaine felt that kinship with them. All were fellow-minds, despite outward form. All had sent their quota of ships to the great, ill-fated armada.
All had great scientists, who might or might not answer the silent call to arms. If only a fair portion of them responded!
XIV
BY chance, their pick-up ship went through sector N-99. From Sirius, it crossed to Sol. The stars suddenly seemed to fall into place, to Kaine and MacLean. There was the Big Dipper now, and Orion, and all the other constellations that they hadn’t seen for months.
It was “home,” in the galactic sense. The enlarging sun was like the Statue of Liberty, greeting their return from foreign shores. Pluto winged by, like an old landmark, and ringed Saturn, belted Jupiter with its dozen moons, the twinkling asteroids, and red Mars.
And then Earth swam out of the void, a beautiful blue orb.
“There’s no world quite like Earth,” MacLean murmured, loyally. “Not even Dymoor. Good old Earth! Stirs the blood to see it, eh Terry?”
But sight of Earth brought visions of Dymoor, to Kaine. And visions of a girl, on that other Earth. A girl of the might-have-been, if it weren’t for what the Tharkyans had done to her.
Veloa! Her face seemed to shine at him from the Lunar orb, instead of the Man in the Moon. They stood at the corner of Times Square’, after landing, little different from the Times Square prior to the Tharkyan advent. Strolling crowds still passed this busiest corner of Earth.
MacLean promptly called a shoe-shine boy over and had his boots polished, while munching a hot-dog. Tharkya had not penetrated deeply enough to change these little but endearing things typical of Earth and Earth alone.
“Like the old days,” MacLean said, breathing deeply. “Used to stand here when a lad like you, Terry, and watch the people pass. Free people, in those blessed days. Different now, infernally different!” He shook himself, then brightened. “Not so different at that! Look at those girls, Terry lad, coming along. Aren’t they stunners? You can take all your Dymooran girls and—”
“Hush, monster!” ZlkZee stopped him. “His heart is not here.”
Kaine did not deny it. In each passing girl he saw Veloa, maid of another world. Certainly the lightning that had struck him took no account of time or space.
MacLean grunted, as he spied a Tharkyan elbowing through the press. “He would spoil the picture! Ah, if but the day comes when I can step up to a Tharkyan and tell him to get the hell off Earth—”
He was interrupted. An Earthman had passed, then turned, staring in puzzled surprise. Suddenly he gasped in amazement.
“Is it possible—my old buddy at school?
You’re Lon MacLean! Did they revoke your sentence? Read all about you. What are you rigged out like this for—silks, green hair?”
The words had bubbled out of the man, half in awe, half in eager wonder.
Kaine was instantly aware of danger. The Tharkyan, within earshot, swung and approached. The name of Lon MacLean, archtraitor last known to be exiled from the galaxy, must grate on any Tharkyan ear.
Kaine kicked MacLean, who was about to greet the man effusively. “You’re a Dymooran!” he hissed warningly.
MacLean choked. Stiffening, he shook his head. “You are sadly mistaken, sir,” he said in Dymooran accents. “I am from another world, Dymoor—”
“No you aren’t!” blurted the man. “I’d know you anywhere. You’re—”
The Tharkyan was close now. If he heard the name again, anything might happen. Kaine saw the Tharkyan fingering his dis-gun. In another second they’d be exposed, arrested, back in the hands of the enemy. Inquisition, then, and perhaps ruin of the whole new plan.
Kaine’s lightning thoughts were followed up by his lightning fist. He clipped the blundering Earthman on the chin first, lightly. Then the Tharkyan, with all his power. Both went down.
“Come on!” he yelled to his companions. “We can’t go back to the ship. If we’re going to escape, it’s now!”
With the annoying habit of crowds, a group had already congregated. Kaine pushed his way through roughly and led the way down a subway kiosk. Leaping over turnstiles, they pushed into a crowded car just before the doors closed. It cut off pursuit, perhaps by Earth police for disturbing the peace.
THE subway train rumbled away. The passengers moved slightly away from the two seeming Dymoorans, and rather shudderingly from ZlkZee’s spider form. Yet there was no voiced objection. Lately there had been increasing numbers of other-world beings visiting Earth. New York was the cosmopolitan center to which most came.
One undaunted man even struck up a conversation.
“You fellows from Dymoor? My brother-in-law went there for a business trip last month. Says it’s just like Earth. Seeing the sights? Don’t miss the Everest Building, two hundred stories high.”
“We have one on Dymoor,” MacLean answered gravely, “that is five hundred stories high.”
The other tu
rned red and lapsed into stony silence. Most of the other New Yorkers were nose-deep in their newspapers, reading of the latest murder. Affairs of the galaxy to the side, Earth minds still turned to their own peculiar doings.
Shuttling back and forth in the subways thoroughly, to lose all possible pursuers, Kaine breathed easier.
“Danger’s over,” he announced. “But we have to get out of New York before our employers on the census-ship start an organized search. We’ll follow Kylar’s instructions.”
At a public phone booth, he dialed a number.
“Aero-cab service.”
“Can you furnish us a cab to Buenos Aires?” Kaine inquired. “We’re attending the InterWorld Convention there.”
“We’ll have a long-range flyer ready for you when you arrive, sir!”
Emerging to street level, they walked to the cab service’s office. In a few minutes they were climbing into a long, slender winged cigar, equipped with gravity-drive. As the cab-driver shifted gears, shouts arose from outside. Three Tharkyans came running.
“Checking all stations for us,” MacLean cried. “Get going, cabby!”
But the man shook his head. “They want you, for some reason. I can’t go and defy Tharkyans.”
Kaine wasted no time. He shoved the man out bodily and jumped in the driving seat himself. He took-off from the roof station with dis-bolts hissing past. In seconds he was out of range, climbing into the sky at reckless velocity.
“Just in time,” MacLean breathed. “But they’ll be after us with fast police ships. There’s one now! And another—”
They came from all sides, leaping from roof stations.
“I’ll lose them somehow,” Kaine promised grimly.
Daringly, he zoomed into the thickest of air traffic, crossing lanes and piling on speed against all regulations. Deliberately, he circled over New York, darting in and out of traffic, utilizing its craft-filled skies for escape.
One police ship dropped out of the race, bogged behind an impenetrable press of speeding ships. Kaine blessed the uprise of air traffic, that today in 1965 filled a city’s skies with innumerable local fliers.
Dodging, skimming, swooping in and out, up and down, back and forth at breakneck speed, he left the police craft stalled behind masses of fliers. When no police ship was in sight, he shot straight up into clear air and left New York.
MacLean picked himself off the cabin floor. “You’re a demon at any ship’s controls, lad! I’m one mass of bruises.”
“Why didn’t you hang onto something?” ZlkZee said, unwinding his eight limbs from the seat he had clung to like a leech.
TEN hours later, the speedy flier descended over Buenos Aires. Following Kylar’s instructions, they applied at the secluded offices of the InterGalactic Science Society. In minutes, they were leaving again, with an automatic pilot attached.
It took them winging into the interior of South America, over jungle-land not much more explored in 1965 than in 1940. It dropped them beside a mountain lake, ringed by cliffs.
They stepped out. There was no sign of manmade things, only primeval wilderness.
“Auto-pilot must have gone haywire,” MacLean growled. “Dumped us God knows where. Now we are stuck—”
He stopped, gasping. Half the cliff before them seemed to open up. A giant block of stone lowered rumblingly. Two figures stepped out. One ran to the ship and rolled it on. The other was Kylar.
“Welcome!” he greeted. “I saw it was you on a detector plate from inside. If Tharkyans arrived, they would find only the unopened cliff. But aren’t you here early? The census isn’t officially over for three days yet.”
Kaine told their story, as they entered. The great stone rose into place. But almost instantly it lowered again. Kylar stepped out to greet an anthropoid-like being.
“Dr. Zoll of sector M-77,” Kylar said. “One of the galaxy’s most brilliant minds.”
“Psychons, eh?” the scientist boomed. “And ‘L.F.’ ! I caught on right away. But what are these psychons?”
“It will be explained,” Kylar said. “Enter.”
“How many scientists came?” Kaine asked tensely. “Did our plan work?”
For answer, Kylar led the way through rock corridors to an underground amphitheatre. It was a tremendous chamber. The entire floor space was taken up with scientific equipment. And among the tables moved hundreds of beings.
“A thousand of them altogether,” Kylar stated in satisfaction. “The plan worked splendidly. A thousand of the best galactic minds. They’ll solve the secret of psychons in short order. Already, passing around results, they’ve established that the psychon-helmet produces psychons by drawing them from the wearer’s mind.”
Dr. Zoll stood a moment, drinking in the scene. Then, with a sort of eager snort, he ran forward. He joined the melee of scientific bloodhounds on the trail of something stupendously new and great.
“Don’t let them lose themselves in pure research,” Kaine warned. “What we want is practical results. Some sort of psychon-bath such as Ji Tu mentioned. And we want it quick! They’ll question that man who recognized MacLean. Then, forced to believe he returned from exile and death—and we others—they’ll organize a planet-wide hunt. Give them a month’s time and they’ll nose out even this hideaway.”
“Speak to the scientists,” Kylar urged. “There’s an amplifying microphone.”
Kaine stepped to it, announcing himself. His voice rolled through the giant cavern. Heads came up, reluctantly, from their engrossing work. But then a cheer arose from the scientists. No less to them than to laymen, Kaine was a champion of the Legion of Freedom.
“You are scientists,” Kaine resumed. “I know that science cannot be hurried. There must be check and counter-check and many blind allies to retrace. But you must solve the secret of psychons—in a month!”
The Earth term translated to their various time-systems. Heads shook dubiously.
“A month!” Kaine repeated. “After that, this place may be exposed to the Tharkyans. And our last chance to defeat Tharkya will be gone. I believe psychons will win for us. It’s above Tharkyan knowledge. But we must hurry—hurry!”
XV
A MONTH later, a strange machine grew at the center of the laboratory. A circular globe of lead was surrounded by huge beryllium magnets. Beyond that, Kaine could make nothing of it.
“We’ve succeeded to this extent,” Dr. Zoll said. “This is a cyclotron producing psychons. Any mind within the magnet will furnish the psychons. These can be focused, then, into another mind, making it doubly powerful in all thinking processes. A supermind will result, with enough other minds contributing.”
“Good,” Kaine said. “The super-mind must then work out some super-weapon. Anything that will beat the Tharkyans.” The scientist hesitated. “There is only one trouble. The apparatus is crude. The psychon-yielding minds will be damaged. In fact, they will—die!”
Kaine spoke after a long moment. “Shall we go on with it?”
Without exception, the scientists murmured assent. They took pride in what they had fashioned, and did not shirk from its demands. It was a weird experiment. Dr. Zoll was elected the recipient mind. He was the Einstein of the galaxy. He sat in the lead globe, his head under the focus of the cyclotron.
By lot, scientists stepped within the magnet field. A flip of a switch. A surge of humming power. The head shrinking visibly, pouring out its psychons. A body slumping to the floor, carried reverently away. A hundred minds went to the block, first. Formulae showed that many psychons were required to make an effective super-mind.
Dr. Zoll emerged, his pseudo-ape face glowing. His eyes shone, and almost seemed to sparkle as though the mind were crackling and buzzing with energy.
“Let me work now,” he said. “My mind is leaping with new scientific conceptions. There must be eternitrons, too, the basic particles of that thing we call eternity. Projected, they would be a mighty weapon—”
His voice trailed away. He was a
lready among the apparatus, swiftly setting up experimental items. For a day he worked, pausing at times to think with a mind that was probably inventing a whole new system of mathematics as it went along.
Kaine watched nervously. Would it work out as he hoped? Was there time? Would it take even this super-mind weeks and months to devise a weapon to beat the Tharkyans?
Kylar clutched his arm. He had just come from the set contacting them with the outside world.
“Kaine! The Tharkyans have just raided the InterGalactic Science Society’s offices in Buenos Aires. They’ll track down information leading to us!”
“How much time do you think we have?” Kaine demanded.
“Twenty-four hours, at the most!”
“One day!” Kaine groaned. “What can we do in one day?”
The centaur-being stood before him. “There are 900 scientific minds left. If need be, they must all be poured into Dr. Zoll’s brain.”
Other scientists had already started up the cyclotron. Dr. Zoll stepped under the focus. The centaur-man was the first to step under the magnet. The first body to be carried away lifeless. One by one, silently, they lined up and passed under the scythe of mind-draining death.
When nine hundred scientists had gone, Dr. Zoll became excited. “I’m near now! The great weapon is shaping in my mind. Give me more psychons. When the secret clarifies, I’ll let you know.”
Fifty more went, but still no signal.
“What if it isn’t enough?” Kaine groaned. “What if it would take a thousand more minds? What if this is all sheer, senseless slaughter!”
“Take it easy, lad,” MacLean soothed. “It has to be tried, just as the attack of Tharkya had to be tried.”
“All we need is the basic formula for the weapon,” Kylar nodded. “As soon as Dr. Zoll has it, I’ll transmit it via radio to Dymoor. None of us will escape alive from here. But if the formula goes out—we’ve won! Think of it that way—”
MacLean interrupted, with a hoarse cry.