“Yes, yes, quite,” Balmore agreed. “We know the law of probability, entropy, and chance. But do you really mean to say that this young woman here actually came into being by—by some law of chance?”
“Eddington, sir, approximates the time for the re-formation of a former mass of atomic aggregates into a prior setup at something like three million years,” Grant answered. “That, though, is purely an arbitrary time: it could be longer, or shorter. What I say is this: The girl has existed somewhere before, and perhaps she died. Her atomic makeup was automatically dispersed, maybe drifted free in the cosmos but—by the law of chance, operating in a way it will yet take us centuries to fully understand—the exact aggregates, down to the last detail, formed again into just the identical pattern of a former instant. This fact, and the terrific electrical interplay in the laboratory—where those atoms at that moment must have been drifting, unresolved—brought about a sudden re-constitution.
“This girl took on a former pattern, even to the last jewel on her dress, and so—lives again! It might never happen again throughout eternity. But it happened this time! The multillionth chance came off! You have to admit, gentlemen, that you might take a deck of cards, shuffle it completely, and yet find it back in the original order when you examined it. It would be a multillionth chance, but it could happen! And it has happened here with this girl…”
There was silence for a moment, the girl watching intently and Grant rather surprised at his own ready grasp of the complicated situation.
“Certainly,” Balmore said presently. “We admit the theory of chance, because we are scientists. But how do you account for the mind of this girl? If she once died, how does it happen that her mind is operating again?”
With knitted brows Grant considered the question carefully before replying.
“I cannot go into the deep issues with my limited knowledge, sir,” he answered. “But I do suggest to you that a mind is disembodied unless it operates through a particular configuration of atoms—a body. No two bodies are the same; hence none but the mind for that body can operate through it. It seems therefore that the mind of Iana operated perfectly through her former body. It became disembodied when her body died, but when the same reassembly appeared her mind automatically operated through that setup again.”
Once more the silence.
Then a derisive laugh burst from one of the members.
“Of all the preposterous theories to explain an unknown girl in a private laboratory, this is the most unique. I’ll see if I can remember it to tell my wife the next time I come home late.”
There was a titter of amusement and Grant looked round at the faces rather desperately. Head was nodding towards head, and it was clear, despite his leaning towards belief, that Balmore was obliged to obey the will of the majority.
After some minutes of whispered conversation he silenced the gathering with his gavel and then stood up slowly.
“I am sorry, Mayson,” he said quietly. “Deeply sorry! But your explanation is not accepted. The Council rules that you be discharged from your position and that this unknown woman be handed over to the Vagrant Commission. Your duties will terminate at midnight tonight. The meeting is now closed.”
Grant stared stupidly, stunned by the edict. Just as the assembly was about to rise the girl herself hurried forward from the dais, waving her hands imperiously.
Everybody paused, and Balmore waited expectantly.
“Wrong!” the girl insisted, and repeated the word several times. “Grant Mayson right! I —I—” She waved a helpless hand as she searched for the right word. “I—prove!” she exclaimed finally.
“So she does talk English after all?” a member observed drily.
“Why not?” Grant demanded. “She is a highly intelligent woman, and I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to find a few words she could understand. She’s been here long enough to have picked up smatterings, anyhow. Give her a chance, I beg you!”
The girl glanced at him anxiously, then back to Balmore.
“Prove!” she repeated urgently, pointing to herself. “First—first learn—er—language.”
“That’s fair enough,” Grant cried. “Get the best linguists in the country and in two weeks she’ll talk better than any of us. You just can’t condemn her, and incidentally me, without a hearing.”
There was a momentary hesitation, and Balmore seized his opportunity.
“That is fair enough, gentlemen,” he said. “That the explanation is strange, even fantastic, does not mean that it should be condemned summarily. At least, as scientists, we should give the unusual every chance to prove itself. Am I right?”
Gradually heads begun to nod, and finally the majority raised their hands in agreement. Grant looked round with a sigh of relief, then hurried forward and caught the girl’s arm.
“Can I make this my own responsibility, sir?” he asked, and Balmore gave a grave nod.
“You can. Miss—er—Iana will remain at her room in the hospital, and there will be special hours allotted for you and the linguists to see her. Upon that decision the Council rests.”
CHAPTER III
IANA DEMONSTRATES
After getting this reprieve, Grant Mayson wasted no time. He summoned language experts from all parts of the country to pour forth their knowledge to the eager, interested girl. Now that she realized something definite was afoot she was desperately anxious to learn—as indeed were the linguists to gain the rudiments of her own odd language.
For a week the exchange went on—for a fortnight. At the end of that time, thanks to a ready brain and every modern invention for expressing phonetics and inflexion, the girl was word perfect. But her mentors were baffled. Her own language was utterly unknown which, if anything, served to strengthen the case for her and Grant.
“Before we go to the Council room again tomorrow morning,” Grant said seriously, paying his nightly visit for the fourteenth time, “can’t you tell me beforehand what this is all about? I mean, I sort of feel entitled to it.”
She smiled gently, laid a delicate hand on his arm.
“Of course you are entitled to it, Grant. But, told in plain, cold words such as I have learned it would not even be credible. To explain in detail I need to use telepathy, the science of the mind. Then, and only then, will you and the other scientists thoroughly understand the truth.”
“Oh!” Grant looked at her beautiful face intently and he frowned a little. “But—but to do as you say would mean the absolute control of the minds of your listeners, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course,” she agreed simply.
Grant got to his feet and began to pace the room slowly.
“You can’t just say that, Iana. I don’t know yet where you come from, but I do know that we at least are limited to the merest outlines of telepathy. It is only with difficulty that we can send a mental message across a gap, and even then we sometimes need electrical amplification. Yet you casually suggest bending many wills to your own. It can’t be done!”
“Yes, Grant, it can,” she answered, quite undisturbed. “I understand telepathy completely. I know I am dealing with a race of people not particularly clever. By that I mean that they do not understand, as yet, the secrets of radiant energy, pure atomic force, ethereal waves, and so on. In fact, so far, you yourself are about the cleverest scientist I have encountered. You are clever, you know,” she added seriously, as he looked at her in surprise. “You worked out everything from those figures I gave you, just by using your imagination. That signifies mental ability of a high order. It’s funny, really.”
“How—funny?”
“You remind me a little of Cal Anrax.” Her voice had become quite wistful now. “He was clever too, and a marvellous scientist. We were to have been what you call married, only— Well, he was a wonderful man with a fine, keen brain. And yet he was so gentle, so fine a ruler. You remind me of him quite a lot, even in appearance.”
Grant looked at her wide grey eyes fixed upon
him, and gave a little cough.
“I’m not so hot, Iana. I’m just a routine scientist with a liking for the unexpected and a gift for solving scientific problems. As for this genius of a Cal Anrax, your marriage, and the reason why it didn’t come off—well, it is what we call double talk. I’ll need the facts before saying anything.”
“And you shall have them, tomorrow,” she promised, and from that moment Grant lived only for the following day.
When he and the girl faced the Council again she simply repeated all that she had told him—that telepathy alone could make matters clear.
“Then what do you suggest?” Balmore asked. “There are two hundred of us here. You do not seriously suggest that you could get the whole two hundred of us in sympathy with your own mind?”
“With so much disbelief, no,” the girl admitted. “What I would like is for six of you who are willing to believe—which includes you, Dr. Balmore—to become willing subjects of my experiment. It will not take long, no more than an hour. But in that period I can make everything clear to you, can outline a history such as you have never dreamed of, and which will add itself to the annals of your own scientific records.”
“You mean here—now?” Balmore asked, wondering. Iana nodded her fair head.
Immediately face bent towards face in consultation; then at length Balmore rose and with four other members stepped down from the highest tier to the centre of the big floor. Grant too moved from his dais and joined the little group.
“Sit down,” the girl invited—and chairs were brought. At her orders the six men made a circle with her in the centre, standing, and looking at each of them in turn.
“I would like the windows covered,” she added, glancing round, so Balmore gave the order and deep gloom fell upon the big hall. To Grant, watching intently, the girl’s figure remained faintly visible as she moved to look at each man closely.
Then, gradually, as she stood before him, at length he felt a strange sensation creeping over him. A lack of interest in his surroundings, deepening into an intense, dreamy lethargy. The girl’s voice floated to him— reedy, faraway.
“What you will shortly experience will be the objective viewpoint of a projected mind—my mind,” she explained. “You will gaze upon scenes and incidents, be a part of them, and yet in no way connected, just as you would watch the unfolding of a play on a telescreen. All that you will see is fact, based upon my own experience, as I know these events happened. The remembrances of my mind will communicate themselves to you and finally—I trust—you will understand…”
She ceased talking and there was a heavy silence. Grant—all the men present indeed—felt their senses slipping. A whirling, impalpable darkness closed in…
*
Evening had settled over the Martian landscape. Over the ruling city of Jaloon with its wilderness of white, delicately tapered buildings, across the fields and grazing land that surrounded it, the sky had the violet tinge of twilight and stars winked through the warm air. Out in the west a single wisp of amethyst cloud traced the sun’s departure.
There was quiet—the deep quiet of a city that has conquered the distraction of noise. Deeply buried power houses made not a sound—the airliners creeping down to their distant bases might have been drifting leaves—the textalian rubber streets absorbed completely the sounds of endless traffic.
As the darkness deepened lights sprang up simultaneously all over the city, steady, white, shadowless lights which threw the buildings into brilliant relief.
Cal Anrax, standing on the balcony at the summit of the city’s controlling building, gave a little sigh. The peace did not delude him in the least. News which he had received only an hour before only made it look all the more deceptive.
He was a tall man, spare and sinewy, the strength of his still young figure revealed by the brief, toga-like costume he wore. Brown, muscular hands gripped the safety rail. His face had something of the keen steadiness of a poised eagle as he looked out over the expanse.
A light footfall disturbed his thoughts and he turned sharply. The brief impatience on his strong face faded into a smile of welcome.
“Iana—dearest. I wondered if you would come.”
“But why not? You sent out a summons for me, didn’t you? You hinted at news of importance.”
“Yes. I am afraid it is all too important.”
Cal Anrax’s eyes studied the girl for a moment—slender, blond, grey-eyed, the soft night wind moulding her white, flowing gown against the smooth curves of her figure. She in her turn stood waiting, anxious.
“I’ve received serious news,” Cal Anrax went on, looking back at the city. “We are on the very verge of war. As you know, it has been hovering like—like some primordial menace for the last two years, and now it has flared into imminent nearness. I dare to think that before dawn invasion will have commenced.”
“Vaxil!” The girl’s lips set bitterly.
“Yes, Vaxil.” Cal Anrax turned back impatiently into the expanse of his controlling office and the girl followed him slowly. “It has been perfectly obvious, Iana, for long enough past that Vaxil has been heading for war. A clever scientist, but not so clever that he cannot see that war only ends in destruction for all. However, the uncomfortable fact remains that he owns half this planet, and we own the other half. We—more by luck than judgment perhaps—have a united, peaceable people behind us. Your father handed over the control of the Western Hemisphere to me on his deathbed, and the people have taken to me kindly…”
Here Anrax paused for a moment, as memories stirred within his mind.
“Our peace, our quiet scientific progress, does not suit Vaxil or the people of the Eastern Hemisphere,” he continued, after a moment. “They have not our sense of restfulness. The spirit of aggression is deep within them. Why? Because Vaxil is not a good psychologist. He invents laws that only irritate his people, under the mistaken impression that he is doing them good. They cast their eyes our way and see peace and progress.
“If, perhaps, they could conquer us and have the whole planet instead of half of it then—they reason—they too could have peace and advancement. So Vaxil has told them, anyway, because he won’t be content with anything less than the entire domination of Alron…
“An hour ago, Iana, I received news over the telepath that a massive armada of air machines and a million land cruisers are ready to move. A robot army of five million is ready too. That can only mean—war.”
“Yes, war,” the girl muttered. “To me it will be a new experience for there has been no war in two centuries, when the subdivision of the two Hemispheres was agreed upon. I’ve only seen the conflict in the records or heard it over the sound recaller. But now— Cal, dearest!”
She caught at his arm suddenly.
“Can’t you make a last appeal to reason? Send out a message to Vaxil and everybody in the Eastern Hemisphere. You are the ruler here, as fine a one and as great a scientist as any that ever lived. I beg of you to try it—as your betrothed, not as your royal adviser. As a woman, my whole soul revolts against this impending, senseless bloodshed.”
Cal’s firm lips broke into a faint smile. He put an arm about the girl’s shoulders and kissed her gently.
“How many women, how many betrothed, have perhaps asked that of a man down the centuries?” he murmured. “I respect your motives, the sweetness of your sex which is revolted by this beastliness. But I am the master of a Hemisphere!” His voice grew stern. “The ruler of ten million happy people—scientists, all of them, with a right to live and challenge all the devils of hell if their progress be threatened.
“I shall make no appeal to reason, Iana. I shall destroy Vaxil and all those who try to attack us. Believe me, this has not caught me unprepared. You see no airplanes, you see no tractors, you see not a thing to prove that our Hemisphere is defended. But it is! For two years I’ve made preparations, so secret I did not even dare to tell you.”
“I should have known,” she said quietly
, smiling. “Just for the moment I thought we were unprepared…What happens now?”
“We go below,” he answered briefly. “My headquarters are duplicated to be the same a mile under the ground as they are here. I can have around me every scientific need for the direction of the battle—every eye and ear of science to see what happens. You must come with me. Alone there, with the fate of millions in my hands, I should feel none too sure. But with you, wife-to-be, I can do anything!”
He took her arm, and without further argument she followed him across the big room to a shield in the wall. Pressure on a button sent it sliding up soundlessly. They stepped into a small elevator and pressure on another button released the compressed air from beneath its floor. Swiftly, without any sensation of falling, they dropped a mile into the earth and stepped out into a huge room—flooded with light—which was an exact replica of the office they had just left.
Behind them, as they walked forward, the tertanex shield went back into place. Hardly had Cal reached the control desk with its seven hundred vital buttons before the intercom radio buzzed for attention.
“Yes?”
A uniformed guard appeared on the tele-plate.
“Evacuation is complete, sir, and all trained scientists have been directed to their positions.”
“Good!” Cal closed a switch and snapped another one urgently as a priority-screen glowed urgently for attention. It was the unemotional face of the Directional Tower Controller which appeared.
“Invasion has been launched from Eastern Hemisphere, sir,” he announced briefly. “First aerial armada due in five minutes.”
“Right!”
Cal Anrax’s blue eyes hardened for a moment and his lean jaw tightened. He spoke briefly into a microphone.
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