War Against the Rull

by A. E. van Vogt

  As he crept under the sheets, Diddy grew aware of the faint tremor of the room. Lying there, he felt the quaver of his bed and heard the shudder of the absorbent plastic windows. Below him, the floor creaked ever so faintly in its remote, never ending rapport with the all-pervading vibration.

  He grinned happily, but with a great weariness. He'd never have to wonder about the sound again. It was a miasma of The Yards, a thin smoke of vibration from the masses of buildings and metal and machines that tendriled out from The Way.

  That sound would be with him all his life; for when the ship was finished, a similar, pervasive sound would shake from every metal plate.

  He slept, feeling the pulse of the sound deep inside him, a part of his life.

  20

  Jamieson awakened at his usual hour; and he was in the act of slipping quietly out of bed when he remembered. He turned, looked down at his wife, and shook his head happily. She seemed to be resting well.

  She and the boy should sleep for hours still. He turned and tiptoed into his dressing room. He ate breakfast alone and considered how the night's events might affect the long days ahead. That they would affect it, he was convinced.

  The ezwal had proved itself. To have done so by saving his son was simply the result of his own determination to use every possible means of helping the boy in his sustained period of danger.

  Arrived at his office, Jamieson prepared a report on the night's action. He gave as his final conclusion that what had happened was as important as the completion of the ship itself. He wrote: "The usefulness of mental telepathy as a means of communication with the alien races which now provide so little aid against the common Rull enemy is of course a matter for careful experimentation. But that such a medium of communication exists at all is an outstanding event in the history of the galaxy."

  He had the report duplicated, and he sent it by special messenger to everyone he could think of whose opinion would have influence.

  The first response came that afternoon from a high Armed Forces figure.

  "Were precautions taken to insure that the ezwal did not have mental access to anyone who knew the secrets of Interim Research?" (Interim was a code word meaning Top Secret.) "Is it possible that this particular ezwal should be destroyed as a matter of simple precaution?"

  Jamieson read the message with a feeling that he was dealing with a form of insanity. Which of course he was. He had noticed the extremes to which military secrecy was sometimes carried.

  He saw that the great man's reply had been sent to all the people to whom he had submitted his own report.

  Galvanized, he prepared a reply which established on a basis of data which could be checked that the ezwal had not been near anyone who knew the actual scientific details of Interim Research. He pointed out that though his own knowledge had always been kept at a generalized minimum, the action of the Rull agents, in crossing the barriers, and in their other actions, had indicated a considerable knowledge of the bacterial-warfare methods being used against them; and that rather than condemn the ezwal for the small amount of data which he may have learned from us, we might be well advised to discover what he had learned from the Rull agents.

  That was the one distortion in his reply. He knew from the experience of the giant adult ezwal on Eristan II that ezwals could not read the mind of a Rull. But this was not the moment to present negative information.

  He continued. "It is also worth pointing out that it would require months, possibly years, to create again a circumstance whereby a young and willing ezwal falls into our hands. It is also worth pointing out that future relations with the ezwal race will depend on how meticulously we handle ourselves at present. If they should ever become aware that we actually executed a baby ezwal knowing what we now do, the entire relationship would be instantly jeopardized."

  Jamieson dispatched his reply, with copies to everyone. And since he still had the ezwal under his care, he took the precaution of having it moved to a new location, for the purpose—he wrote in his report—of making absolutely sure that it had no contact with anyone possessing valuable data. The report sheet was filed in his own office, for the record. Satisfied that the ezwal would not now be destroyed by some hasty action taken without his knowledge, he waited for further reactions.

  There were several before the end of the afternoon. With one exception, they were acknowledgments only. The exception was from the individual who had responded earlier. It was a personal note to Jamieson, which read: "My God, man, was that monster you showed us a baby?"

  That was the last attempt to destroy the young ezwal for legal or military reasons. A week went by.

  Jamieson received a memorandum from Computer Division shortly before noon. "Some data is available on your request of the 10th instant, for names of races with which it has been impossible to establish communication."

  He called Caleb Carson, arranged for the two of them to have lunch, with a view of spending part of the afternoon together at Computer Division.

  Carson in the flesh was a lean, lantern-jawed individual who bore a strong resemblance to his famous explorer grandfather. There was a glow about him, an air of suppressed excitement, as if he knew secrets and had had experiences which he could not share with anyone.

  Seated in the "Ship Room" of the government restaurant for executives, Jamieson told young Carson, "My purpose is to take the ezwal on one journey, to an alien planet, myself. I want to have the experience of using him at least once as a communication medium. Then I'd like to turn him over to you."

  Caleb Carson nodded. He looked flushed and eager. He said, "I appreciate this, sir. You're giving me an opportunity to open up entire planets for co-operation with the galactic culture. I haven't operated on that level of things before."

  Jamieson nodded but said nothing. He recalled his own feelings years before when he also had been assigned to a level of operations which involved using his own discretion in dealing with entire planets. It was a little startling to realize that he had now reached the stage where he could sign authorization that would give others the same power.

  ... The power to commandeer spaceships.

  . . . The power to sign agreements that would bind Earth for a

  time.

  ... Power ...

  He recalled his own impression of the men who had given him the right to function at such a level of things. He had thought that they were middle-aged. Was he like that? he wondered. He hadn't thought of it more than fleetingly before.

  They began to discuss such details as how much freedom the ezwal should have for its own and everyone else's good. They finished lunch, took a last look at the ship—which was towering visibly through the transparent walls; and then, as they walked out, Carson said, "Do they actually plan to go to the Rull home planet with that ship?"

  He must have seen, from Jamieson's expression, that he'd said the wrong thing. He sighed. "All right, let's pause at the guardhouse and see if I'm a Rull."

  Jamieson nodded grimly. "And while we're about it," he said, "for your sake I'd better be checked also."

  They went through the procedure in deadly earnest; were presently cleared, though—Jamieson knew—only for the time being.

  In a world of Rull agents, who could mimic human beings, clearance was always a temporary thing. One wrong question, one suspicious action, and the test had to be repeated.

  In a sense, a man need merely touch a Rull suspect to establish his humanness. But since few individuals were capable of dealing with a Rull, the prescribed procedure was to report one's suspicions at once to the authorities. The fact that Carson instantly volunteered to be checked almost of itself established that he was human. But the checkup had to be made just the same.

  On their way down to Computer Division, Carson said briskly, "For the moment, at least, I can speak freely. On what basis is the Computer selecting alien races?"

  Jamieson answered without hesitation. "Sheer alienness plus characteristics that might be useful in
the Rull-human war. I'd like to test the ezwal's mental telepathy in extreme circumstances. We've had only one failure so far."

  He explained about the inability to contact the Rulls, then went on. "Since there's some possibility that the Rulls are actually from another galaxy, I'm guessing blindly that all life in our Milky Way galaxy is somehow related."

  Actually, no one could question such a speculation. Man had discovered myriad facts about life and how it functioned. What life was, or why, was still an unknown that grew more bewildering as the vastness of space was revealed to human beings who manned the far-reaching spaceships and penetrated ever deeper and looked farther into the unfathomable and apparently unending distances of the continuum. In such a universe men could at best make educated guesses. It seemed to Jamieson that he had noticed things about life which justified his own guess.

  "Have you any race in mind?" Carson asked.

  "No. I fed my requirements into the Computer. I'll let it decide."

  They were silent the rest of the way down. A technician led them into a little room, and presently a ticker-tape typewriter began to click loudly. Jamieson looked at the first sentence, whistled softly to himself, and said, "I should have thought of them myself. The Ploians, of course. Who else in all this galaxy?"

  "The Ploians!" said Carson, frowning. "Isn't that just a myth? Are we certain there is a Ploian race?"

  Jamieson was cheerful. "No," we're not. But it's a perfect time to find out." He was excited. He had forgotten about the Ploians. It would certainly be a severe test for the ezwal, and for his own concept that there was a link between races in the same galaxy.

  The specially constructed lifeboat slipped out of the cruiser into space and began to fall toward the planet of Ploia below, on a long, slanting dive. Jamieson kept the power on by remote control, braking the small ship gradually.

  He watched the temperature and speed gauges, as the machine entered the tenuous outer reaches of the atmosphere, and continued applying a brake on its speed. As a result, only the outer walls of the lifeboat heated up.

  It continued to descend at a normal speed through its electrical and electronic robots. It came down to less than forty miles above the surface of the planet falling now at about five thousand feet a minute. At twenty miles, Jamieson slowed it even more—until it was drifting along at less than thirty miles an hour. He was in the act of straightening its flight to a horizontal course when the airlock gauge reacted abnormally.

  The airlock opened. And shut.

  Jamieson waited expectantly.

  Abruptly, the needles on his gauges reacted to a surge of power. Instantly, the lifeboat began an erratic and uncontrollable flight. The speed of its fall increased enormously. It twisted to and fro, as if it were out of control.

  Jamieson touched one after another of his remote-control devices. The lifeboat continued its unstable flight unchecked. Not one of his electronic robots responded to anything he did during the moments that followed.

  Tense but matter-of-fact, Jamieson leaned back to wait. He had expected this to happen. Now that it had there was nothing to do but allow certain conditions to be created by whatever agency had taken over the ship.

  The conditions were achieved automatically as the lifeboat reached a level of twenty thousand feet above the green land below.

  Aboard it, a machine that was not electrical in nature reacted to a barometer reading. As a result, a weighted wheel moved, and all the electrical power aboard the lifeboat shut off. Other purely mechanical devices were activated by the wind stream of a free fall. The airlock locked mechanically. Rockets boiled into fiery life, and presently the lifeboat, operating on nonelectrical machinery, was climbing back toward space.

  Like a bullet in the full fury of its flight, it came shooting up into airless space. Jamieson watched it now through his viewers, with radar. At such distances, it was impossible to determine if whatever had got aboard had managed to resolve the mechanical problem of unlocking the airlock without the use of electric power. He doubted that it had. Accordingly, he had captured a Ploian.

  The original Earth expedition had landed on Ploia approximately a hundred years before. Instantly, it found itself in a nightmare. The metal floor, metal furniture and simple metal objects lying around were suddenly conducting electricity as freely as if they were a part of the electrical system of the ship. Scientifically, it was a fantastically interesting phenomenon.

  To the eighty-one men who were electrocuted in those first deadly moments, the manifestations were of no further interest whatsoever.

  The hundred and forty other crewmen who happened not to be touching metal during those first moments were highly experienced and highly trained. Only twenty-two of them did not realize promptly that they were dealing with electrical phenomena. The twenty-two were later buried, along with the first unlucky group, in a land that was as green and virgin as the most primitive planet ever discovered by man.

  The survivors tried first of all to take back control of their ship. They shut off all power. Reasoning that some kind of life organism had gotten aboard, they began a systematic housecleaning, using chemical sprays. When the entire ship was saturated, they turned on the power. After a moment, it went as wild as before. They tried all their chemical sprays in turn, without result. Boldly, they went outside, connected a hose to water, and set off the ship's sprinkler system. Every cubic inch of space inside was subjected to a pressurized stream.

  That, also, had no effect. Indeed, whatever had come aboard was so sentient that it had observed how they started and stopped the dynamos. During one of the sleep watches, while half the men dozed uneasily, all the electrical machines started simultaneously. They had to cut connections, with power tools before that was brought under control.

  Meanwhile, mirrors were used to contact a companion cruiser which "floated" in an orbit above the atmosphere. The half-mad, terrified crew below was given an analysis of their situation which confirmed their own observations.

  "The aliens," they were advised, "do not seem to be directly inimical to human beings. All deaths appear to be accidental results of their interference with the electrical system of the ship. It may therefore be postulated that a study can be made of this life form, by setting up various combinations of electrical phenomena and watching the reaction. Instruments for this purpose will be devised and will be dropped to you."

  The expedition became scientific. And for six months the phenomena of a strange life form were studied. The end result was not satisfactory, because at no time was contact established, nor was it finally determined that a life form actually existed on the planet.

  At the end of the half year, the companion cruiser dropped several old-style rockets, - which utilized nonelectrical firing mechanisms. And so the survivors of the first expedition to Ploia were rescued.

  Jamieson thought of all this as he used tractor beams to draw his lifeboat into an airlock of his own cruiser. A few moments later the great ship was speeding out into interstellar space.

  There was nothing decisive to do immediately. The ezwal reported the presence of another "mind" but could not pin down any thought other than anxiety and unhappiness.

  The indication that there was something eased Jamieson's own mind considerably. In view of the experience of the first expedition, he had not been able to escape the feeling that he was deluding himself. By identifying a presence, the ezwal was already serving a useful purpose.

  A hundred light-years from Ploia, he disconnected the interstellar drives from all electrical connections. Then he and the ezwal retreated into a part of the ship specially constructed for this journey. It was connected to the main section by motor-driven and hand-operated mechanisms. In it was a second control board. From it, using a specially built mechanical device, Jamieson opened the airlock of the lifeboat and allowed the Ploian to enter the main part of the ship—if that strange being chose to do so.

  The ezwal reported in his swift mental fashion. "I have pictures of
scenes in the main control room. They seem to come from near the ceiling. I have the impression he is sizing up the situation."

  That seemed reasonably decisive. The Ploian's mind could be read. Jamieson could imagine himself in a similar predicament aboard an alien ship. He guessed how wary he would be.

  "Now he's gone into the control board," flashed the ezwal.

  "Into it?" Jamieson asked, startled.

  There was a jerk, and the ship darted off at an angle from its course. The erratic course did not disturb Jamieson. But his new knowledge of the Ploian—gained from the ezwal—made a startling picture of a short-circuited control board. He visualized an amorphous creature creeping and slithering through a mass of wires and instruments, its "body" a bridge for the live power in the numerous relays.

  Even as he had the picture, the ship's course steadied. The great vessel plunged in a line drive through that remote edge of the galaxy.

  The ezwal's thought came. "He selected a direction and has a plan to go in that direction exactly as long as we did, earlier. He knows nothing of faster drives."

  Jamieson shook his head, impressed but pitying. Poor Ploian! Caught in a trap of distance the like of which his race had never seen or even, perhaps, guessed.

  Aloud, he said, presently, "Tell him how great the distance is. Tell him about the difference between the interstellar drive and the drive he's using."

  The ezwal said, "I've told him. All I got back is rage."

  "Keep telling him," said Jamieson steadily.

  Later he said, "Tell him that we have an electrically operated machine through which he and I can talk to each other—once he learns its mechanism."

  Still later, Jamieson instructed, "Ask him what he uses for food."

  And that brought the first reply.

  "He says," reported the ezwal, "that he's dying, and that we're responsible."

  It was telepathy in full. Presently, they had the information that Ploians lived off the magnetic force of their planet, which they converted into a sort of life energy.