Skylark DuQuesne s-4

by Edward E Smith

  The Skylark of Valeron, on the other hand, was coming in wide open: “Like a tourist,” as Seaton had told Dorothy the plan was to do.

  In the llanzlanate on Llurdiax, therefore, an observer alerted Klazmon, who flew immediately to his master-control panel. He checked the figures the observer had given him, and was as nearly appalled as a Llurd could become. An artificial structure of that size and mass — it was certainly not a natural planetoid — had never even been thought of by any builder of record. He measured its acceleration — the Valeron was still braking down at max and his eyes bulged. That thing, tremendous as it was, had the power-to-mass ratio of a speedster! In spite of its immense size it was actually an intergalactic flyer!

  He launched a probe, as he had done so many times before — but with entirely unexpected results.

  The stranger’s guardian screens were a hundred times as reactive as any known to Llurdan science. He was not allowed time for even the briefest of mental contacts or for any real observation at all. So infinitesimal had been the instant usable time that only one fact was clear. The entities in that mobile monstrosity were — positively — Jelmoids.

  Not true Jelmi, certainly. He knew all about the Jelmi. Those tapes bore unmistakable internal evidence of being true and complete records and there was no hint anywhere in them of anything like this. If not the Jelmi, who? Ah, yes, the Fenachrone, whose fleet… no, Sleemet knew nothing of such a construction… and he was not exactly of the same race… ah, yes, that one much larger ship that had escaped. The probability was high that its one occupant belonged to precisely the same Jelmoid race as did the personnel of this planetoid. The escaped one had reported Klazmon’s cursory investigation as an attack. It was a virtual certainty, therefore, that this was a battleship of that race, heading for Llurdiax to… to what? To investiate merely? No.

  Nor merely to parley. They had made no attempt whatever to communicate. (It did not occur to Klazmon, then or ever, that his own fiercely driven probe could not possibly have been taken for an attempt at communication. He had fully intended to communicate, as soon as he had seized the mind of whoever was in command of the strange spacecraft.) And now, with the stranger’s incredible full-coverage screen in operation, communication was and would remain impossible.

  But he had data sufficient for action. These Jelmoids, like all others he knew, were rabidly anti-social, illogical, unreasoning, unsane and insane. They were — definitely — surplus population.

  So thinking, Llanzlan Klazmon launched his attack.

  As the Skylark entered that enigmatic galaxy, Seaton was not in his home, with only a remote-control helmet with which to work. He was in the control room itself, at the base of the Brain, with the tremendously complex master-control itself surrounding his head.

  Thus he was attuned to and in instantaneous contact with every activated cell of that gigantic Brain. It was ready to receive and to act upon with the transfinite speed of thought any order that Seaton would think. Nor would any such action interfere in any way with the automatics that Seaton had already set up.

  “I’m going to stay here all day,” Seaton said, “and all night tonight, too, if necessary.”

  But he did not have to stay there even all day. In less than four hours the llanzlan drove his probe and Seaton probed practically instantaneously back. And since Seaton’s hyped-up screens were a hundred times faster than the Llurd’s, Seaton “saw” a hundred times as much as Klazmon did. He saw the city Llurdias in all its seat-of-empire pride and glory. He perceived its miles-wide girdle of fortresses. He perceived the llanzlanate; understood its functions and purposes. He entered the Hall of Computation and examined minutely the beings and the machines at work there.

  How could all this be? Because the speed of thought, if not absolutely infinite, is at least transfinite; immeasurable to man. And the Valeron’s inorganic brain and Seaton’s organic one were, absolutely and super-intimately, the two component parts of one incredibly able, efficient and proficient whole.

  Thus, when the alien’s attack was launched in all its fury and almost all of the Valeron’s mighty defensive engines went simultaneously into automatic action, the coded chirpings that the Brain employed to summon human help did not sound: that Brain’s builder, fellow, boss, and perfect complement was already on the job.

  And thus, since no warning had been given, the other Skylarkers were surprised when Seaton called them all down into the control room.

  They were even more surprised when they saw how white and strained his face was.

  “This may become veree unfunny,” he said. “ ’Tsa good thing I muscled her up or we’d be losing some skin and some of our defense. As it is, we’re holding ’em and we’ve got a few megas in reserve. Not enough to be really happy about, but some. And we’re building more, of course. However, that ape down there has undoubtedly got a lot of stuff otherwheres on the planet that he can hook in pretty fast, so whatever we’re going to do we’d better do right now.”

  “They didn’t try to communicate at all?” Crane asked. “Strange for a race of such obviously high attainments.”

  “Not a lick,” Seaton said, flatly. “Just a probe; the hardest and sharpest probe I ever saw. When I blocked it Whammo!”

  “You probed, too, of course,” Dorothy said. “What did you find out? Are they really monstrous, as DuQuesne said, out purely to kill?”

  “Just that. He wasn’t lying a nickel’s worth on that. His Nibs down there had already decided that we were surplus population and should be eliminated, and he set right out to do it. So, unless some of you have some mighty valid reasons not to, I’m going to try my damndest to eliminate him, right now.”

  “We could run, I suppose,” Margaret suggested — but not at all enthusiastically.

  “I doubt it. Not without letting him burn us down to basketball size, like the Chlorans did. He undoubtedly let us get this close on purpose so we couldn’t.”

  Since no one else said anything, Seaton energized everything of offense he had. He tuned it as precisely as he possibly could. He assembled it into the tightest, solidest, hardest beam he could possibly build. Then, involuntarily tensing his muscles and bunching his back, he drove the whole gigantic thing squarely at where he knew the llanzlanate was.

  The Llurd’s outer screen scarcely flickered as it went black in nothing flat of time. The intermediate screen held for eighty-three hundredths of a second. Then the practically irresistible force of that beam met the practically immovable object that was Klazmon’s last line of defense. And as it clawed and bit and tore and smashed in ultrapyrotechnic ferocity, solar-like flares of raw energy erupted from the area of contact and the very ether writhed and seethed and warped under the intolerable stresses of the utterly incomprehensible forces there at grips.

  This went on… and on… and on.

  Even to Seaton, who knew only that he was up against an enemy nearly as potent as the Chlorans, the full import of the enormous struggle of energies then being waged was far from clear. We can wonder now, and ask ourselves what the fate of the universe might have been if the Skylark’s Norlaminian designers had skimped on a course of screens, or overlooked a detail of defense. Surely its consequences would have been cataclysmic! Not only to Seaton and his Skylarker, watching grim-faced as their gauges revealed the enormous flow of destructive forces battling each other to annihilation for countless parsecs in every direction. Not only to the Jelmi, or the Rey-See-Neese, or the Norlaminians, or Earth itself… but to countless generations yet unborn, on planets not yet discovered…

  But they held.

  And after ten endless minutes of such terrible gouts and blasts of destruction as no planet could endure for a moment, Seaton heard a voice speak to him.

  He had never heard it before, but it said in good American English: “Good morning, my friends. Or perhaps, by your clocks, it is good afternoon? I am the Llanzlan Mergon of Jelm, and I perceive that you are under attack by our old acquaintances, the Llurdi.
r />   You, I am sure, are the Seatons and the Cranes, about whom we heard so much on Earth, but whom we were not able to find.”

  Even though the Llurdi had been absolute rulers of all the planets of the Jelmi for many thousands of years, it was easy for them to accept, and to adopt themselves to, the new condition of coexistence with the Realm of the Jelmi on terms of equality. That was the way they were built.

  The llanzlan fed the new data into Computer Prime and issued its findings as a directive. Since this directive was the product of pure logic, that was all there was to it.

  With the Jelmi, however, even with a much simpler and easier agenda, things were distinctly otherwise. Everyone knows how difficult it is to change the political thinking of even a part of any human world. How, then, of the two hundred forty whole planets of the Jelmi? The conservatives did not want any change at all. Not even to independence. The radicals wanted everything changed; but each faction wanted each item changed in a different fashion. And the moderates, as usual, did not agree with either extreme wing on anything.

  And, also as usual, no one faction would play ball with any other. Each would have its own way in setting up the Realm or there would be no Realm — it would pick up its marbles and go home.

  Fortunately, however, the eight hundred best brains of the entire Jelman race were together in one place — in the fully operative base that the Mallidaxian’s dome had now become. Their numbers included the most capable and most highly trained specialists in every field of Jelman endeavor and they all had been living together and working together for many months.

  They knew better than to go off half cocked. They would have to develop a master-plan upon which they could all agree. Unanimously. Nothing less would do. Having developed such a plan they would put it into effect, each person or planetary group upon his or her or their home world. The constitution thus fabricated would be put into effect by reason if possible, by force if necessary. It was not to be amended except by process contained within itself.

  Thus the Constitutional Committee of Eight Hundred was still living in the base and was still hard at work when the Officer of the Day called Mergon — who, after glancing at plates and instruments, called Luloy.

  The ether was showing strains of a magnitude not observed since the Battle for Independence. A Llurd ship was putting out everything he had; fighting full-out against a something — whose battle-screen covered such an immensity of space that Mergon could scarcely believe his instruments.

  Luloy quirked an eyebrow. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  “Nothing,” and Mergon, who could now handle projections through the fourth dimension, launched them. “I’ll keep us invisible while we see what that thing is and how big it really is.”

  They went and saw — and the more they studied the immensity that was the Skylark of Valeron the more they marveled. Finally, in the Valeron’s control room and still invisible, they studied the worldlet’s personnel; the while talking to each other in the flesh at the Mallidaxian’s main panel.

  “Except for the green-skinned couple they are Tellurians,” the girl insisted.

  “Everything about that — that ship, if you can call it a ship — is Tellurian. Just look at those clothes. You never saw anything like that anywhere except on Tellus and you never will.”

  “We never heard anything about anything like that mobile fortress on Tellus, either,” he objected, “and we certainly would have if they’d known anything about it. How could they hide it?”

  “Maybe it’s so new that not too many people know about it yet. Anyway, whatever the truth about that, we heard a lot about Seaton and Crane. Especially Seaton. According to the lore, he’s their principal god’s right-hand man. He can do anything.”

  “Or a devil’s, depending on who you talked, to. But we wrote that off as just that — lore. If not propaganda.”

  “We’ll have to write it back on again. Those two have to be Seaton and Crane — there, the Jelm-sized one with his head in the controller, and that other bean-pole type standing there smoking a… a cigarette, they call it. And that smoking business clinches it. Nobody but Tellurians burn their lungs out with smoke.”

  “Okay.” Mergon thickened their projections up to full visibility and spoke:

  “You must be the Seatons and the Cranes, about whom we heard so much on Earth but whom we were not able to find.”

  Crane the Imperturbable was startled out of his imperturbability when Mergon and Luloy appeared in the Valeron’s control room and Mergon spoke to him in English. But he did not show it — very much! — and realized in a moment what the truth was.

  “We are,” Crane said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. These people would understand the gesture. “I’m M. Reynolds Crane; Doctor Seaton is occupied at the moment. You are of course the people who had the spaceship on the moon. We have come all the way out here in the hope of finding you somewhere in this galaxy.”

  “Oh? Oh, you want the fourth-dimensional device.”

  “Exactly.” Crane then introduced the others, and finally Seaton; who, having assured himself that the Brain could handle the stalemate without him, had disengaged himself from the master controller and had joined the party.

  “That’s right,” Seaton said. “Since nothing like it is known to any science with which we are familiar, we hope to learn about it from you. But that… those monsters… they aren’t, by any chance, friends of yours, are they?”

  Luloy laughed. “No. Not exactly… or maybe they are, after a fashion, now. But the Llurdi were our unquestioned masters for so many thousands of years that they haven’t yet decided to treat us or anyone who looks like us with the courtesy reserved for equals. You see, the llanzlan would have communicated with you in thought after he had investigated you a little.”

  “Yeah.” Seaton’s smile was grim. “With the stiffest, hardest probe he could build? And I’m supposed to sit still for that kind of manhandling?”

  “No.” Mergon took over. “No one but a Llurd could have expected you to. This situation is somewhat unfortunate. Until very recently they have always had overwhelmingly superior power. They never had any effective opposition until we wore them down a little, just recently.” Mergon explained the situation in as few words as possible, concluding, “So this battle, while not due exactly to misunderstanding, is unfortunate.

  What I propose is that Luloy and I visit Klazmon via projection, as we are now visiting you, and explain matters to him as we have explained them to you. I take it you will cease fire if he does?”

  “Of course. We didn’t come here to start a war, or to bother him in any way; just to see you. So I’ll do better than that; I’ll cut my offense right now.”

  He thought at the Brain and the raging inferno above the llanzlanate went suddenly calm and still. “That beam is no pencil of force, believe me. If it should get through it would volatilize his palace and half the city, and that would be unfortunate — hey! He’s quit slugging, too!”

  “Of course,” Mergon said. “As I told you, he is — all Llurdi are — completely and perfectly logical. With their own brand of logic, of course. Insanely logical, to our way of thinking… or perhaps unsanely may be the better word. On the basis of the data he then had it was logical for him to attack you. Your cease-fire was a new datum, one that he cannot as yet evaluate. He has deduced the fact that we Jelmi caused it, but he does not know why you stopped. Hence he has restored the status quo ante, pending our explanation.

  He wants additional data. If our explanation is satisfactory — data sufficient — he’ll probably just let the whole matter drop. If not — if it’s data insufficient — I wouldn’t know. He’ll do whatever he decides is the logical thing to do — which is ’way beyond my guess-point. He might even resume the attack exactly where he left off; although I think he’ll be able to deduce a reason not to.”

  Seaton whistled through his teeth. “Holy… cat!” he said. “If that’s pure logic I’ll take vanilla. B
ut how will you make the approach?”

  “Very easily. If two of you will permit us to bring you over here we will send four working projections into the Llanzlan Klazmon’s study, where I’m sure he’s expecting us. You, Doctor Seaton, and your Dorothy, perhaps?”

  “Not I!” Dorothy declared, shaking her head vigorously. “Uh-uh. Into battle, yes; this, no. If I never see a monster like that it’ll be twenty minutes too soon. You’re it, Martin.”

  “One more thing,” Mergon went on, as Seaton and Crane appeared in the flesh beside him. “Since the Llurdi refuse to learn any language except their own, I must teach you Llurdan,” and he held out two Jelman thought-caps:

  “I prefer my own,” Seaton said, after a very short trial.

  “So will you, I think,” and he sent back for four of the Skylark’s latest models.

  The two Jelmi put two of them on. “Oh, I do indeed!” Luloy exclaimed, and Mergon added, “As was to have been expected, we have much to learn from you, friends.”

  “But listen,” Seaton said. “You gave the ape all the dope on that fourth-dimensional thing. Isn’t he apt to toss a superatomic into our Brain with it?”

  “There’s no possibility whatever of that, either soon or later. Not soon because, since they work slowly and thoroughly, it will be months yet before they have a full-scale machine. Nor later, because the mutual destruction of four hundred eighty-two populated planets — excuse me, four hundred eighty, now — is not logical in any system of logic, however cockeyed that system may be.”

  It took Seaton a fraction of a second to get it, but when he did, it rocked him. “Oh! I hadn’t figured on you coming all the way in. But does he know you will?”

  “He certainly does know it!” Luloy broke in. “Beyond a doubt; or what you call peradventure.”