The 19th Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Charles V. De Vet

  Smith nodded. “I see that you are wondering why I’d admit Jeske’s story is true, when it makes me such a villain. That part isn’t true, and I’m certain I can convince you that it isn’t before you leave here. But first I’d like to give my version of the story.

  “First, we Kunklies are not bent on conquest. We do like to spread the benefits of our culture, but the only selfish purpose we have in that is we want a strong league of cooperative worlds. We’ve found hints of a confederation. Off to the center of the galaxy from our worlds, whose races are so completely alien from our own that there is no possibility except strife when our two civilizations mesh. When that time comes we want all the strength possible on our side.”

  “Why have you kept your presence here secret?” Van Horne asked. Smith’s apparent ability to read his mind, plus the peculiarities of his bodily structure, had convinced Van Horne that he must believe Smith and Jeske were actually members of alien races.

  “We have found,” Smith said slowly, “that a race always fears the unfamiliar, and its fears take the form of aggressive action. In our contacts in the past, whenever we revealed our alien origin, at the start, we were always met with hostility. Now we attempt to prove that we are friends before making known who and what we are.”

  “And that is what you have in mind for the Earth?”

  “Yes. As you will remember, we notified your government—acting the part of ordinary Earth men, of course—that we intended to begin the manufacture of a product which would have great repercussions on your mode of living. We did that to give you time to make any plans necessary before the impact hit.”

  “I’m quite aware of that,” Van Horne answered, “and that is a point in your favor. Your invention is supposed to revolutionize transportation, is it not?”

  “Not all transportation, but a large part of it,-’ Smith answered. “Our product, the loco-unit, is quite standard equipment on our worlds. It is a harness, made to fit the legs, that appears as a pliable network of fine metal. Actually it is based on the principal of pulleys and leverage. Using one of our harnesses, a man can walk at the rate of, say, fifteen miles an hour, using considerably less energy than he now uses for strolling. When we reveal who we are, later on, our having given you the benefit of this great invention will be one proof of our amicable intentions.”

  “You expect it to make buses and taxis obsolete, as I understand it,” Van Horne said.

  “We are certain that it will,” Smith replied. “After we get the harnesses into mass-production we are going a bit further and make them equipped with wheels. With one a man can travel longer distances, and faster. When he reaches his destination he merely folds the loco-unit and puts it in a corner in his home—or any other convenient place. Deluxe models will be enclosed. Thus you can see that almost all passenger ground vehicles will be replaced. Carry that through to the industries directly and indirectly connected with the making, fueling, or servicing of your present vehicles, and you will realize what great changes will inevitably have to be made.”

  “Won’t that be likely to disrupt our economy?”

  “Our experience has been that it will not—in any harmful way at least. We will absorb the men thrown out of employment to our factories—at better pay, shorter working hours, and improved working conditions. Your people will benefit in every way.”

  Van Horne sat for a long time reflecting on what the other had told him. Finally he said. “Naturally I’m convinced that you are alien beings. But can you give me any proof that Jeske is lying?”

  “I can give you all you want,” Smith replied confidently. “We’ll use his very arguments to convict him. He said that he and his fellows who escaped our so-called destruction of his world have infiltrated into our home planet population. Yet they can’t read minds, by his own admission. Do you think we’d be unable to ferret them out? It would be like deaf mutes trying to pass themselves off as normal speaking men.

  “And how would the survivors fit into our symbiosis? Do you think we could possibly miss detecting such obviously-different intellects?

  “And a final argument which should convince you. Would a race of over a trillion members—plus equally greater technological development—have to use such subtle means as Jeske suggested to conquer a world of two billion?

  “We could send a horde of spaceships, hover above your world and obliterate you, without danger to ourselves. Or we could offer to accept your surrender—and you would have no choice but to capitulate to the mere threat of aggression from us.”

  “Your version does sound more convincing than Jeske’s,” Van Horne admitted. “But where does he fit in?”

  “Jeske is a member of a small band of malcontents from one of our associate worlds,” Smith answered. “There’s always the lunatic fringe, opposed to any progress; you probably have them on your own world. Now, for your own sake, as well as ours, will you keep this a secret between us?”

  Van Horne nodded.

  * * * *

  That evening after work, Jesker returned to the Majestic and—sometimes using his speed of movement to avoid detection—explored the hotel thoroughly. He never knew when he might have need of an intimate knowledge of his surroundings. He did not make the mistake of underrating the Kunklies; they were well aware that he was still at large, and that he was dangerous to their plans. They would be seeking him every moment.

  He went to bed and lay for hours reviewing everything that had happened, and planned in advance, as well as he could, for any possible contingencies. The next step, he decided, was for him to get Smith alone.

  Shortly after twelve o’clock he heard a light tapping on his door, and a sensation of pleasurable anticipation went through his muscles. He opened the door and a sweet-scented bit of Earthly loveliness slipped into his room. The luscious Lelanne had kept her promise!

  She slipped off her light wrapper, and the body that had launched a thousand wolf-whistles stood poised, and eager. Her eyes were heavy black grapes, her mouth a slice of moist red flesh, and her sooty black hair tangled up his thoughts in her body.

  The rest of the night Jeske tasted joys which were the greatest this world had the power to bestow upon him. And the ardent Lelanne knew that she had met a man who was out of this world!

  Jeske sipped his orange juice slowly the next morning, while he went over his pleasant thoughts of the night before—always careful to keep the Richey—entity element of his mind uppermost. But while his attention seemed all on his drink, his mind, ever alert for danger made its swift, though seemingly casual, survey of the room.

  He passed quickly over the brown-haired girl with the large features who sat across the dining-room from him. But he had noted her carefully in passing. She had been eating here the first meal he’d had at the Majestic. Perhaps that was merely a coincidence. But he never left more to chance than he was compelled to.

  Tentatively he felt for her emotional aura. It came to him, soft, unexcited, but deadly—and directed all toward him.

  Swiftly Jeske went over in his mind what it meant. She was a Kunklie, of course. But was she here merely to watch him? Quite probably Smith had put a watcher on each of his employees, suspecting that he would return. Or had they run him down?

  His scanning gaze passed a man in a blue serge suit—and he knew the answer! Excitement rushed through him and sweat brought a dry stinging to his cheeks. His mind passed quickly from the thought of the weapon in his belt. It was a potent weapon, but it would do little to protect him from a thousand Kunklies.

  He rose to his feet, strolled to the cashier’s cage and paid for his breakfast. Holding himself in close restraint he walked to the hotel’s lobby and bought a morning paper. In one of the lounge-chairs he spied a second man in blue. From all around him and outside the hotel, he sensed the reek of the Kunklies animosity. The sheer power of it was a steady beat coming through the brick and cement of the walls to where he sat.

  As he sat with his eyes on the paper he went over his p
ossible courses, and found himself without a good one. His only chance now, he decided, was to bring Smith to him.

  Jeske lay his paper to one side, stretched his arms above his head, and yawned. He looked at his watch. Rising to his feet he wandered over to a telephone-booth and let himself in.

  He dialed a number and waited a half-minute for an answer.

  “Mr. Van Horne?” he said. “This is Edgar Jeske. Don’t ask any questions—there’s no time. I’m at the Majestic Hotel. I want you to come down here. It’s more than a matter of life or death. When you come in, don’t look for me, try not to even think of me, but go directly to the men’s restroom. And hurry!” Jeske hung up.

  * * * *

  Exactly twelve minutes later Van Horne entered the lobby. He did not pause but walked through to the men’s room. Jeske rose and followed. Once inside he looked quickly around, to make certain that the room was empty, and turned the lock.

  “I estimate that they’ll give us ten minutes to come out before they risk unfavorable attention by coming in after us,” he said.

  “What’s this all about?” Van Horne demanded.

  “In that ten minutes I’ve got to convince you that my story, and not Smith’s, is the true one,” Jeske said. “By now he probably has you believing that I’m a scoundrel, or at best a crackpot. But you’re a logical man, and I believe, a fair one; you should realize that with his ability to read your mind you wouldn’t be too hard to convince. Will you give me the chance to show that he lied?”

  Van Horne caught the urgency in Jeske’s voice, and his obvious sincerity. He was a man who thought and acted fast, when necessity demanded. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Jeske said. “Tell me first what arguments of Smith’s sounded the most convincing.”

  “To be perfectly frank, they all did,” Van Horne replied. “But let’s start with this: He said it would be as impossible for you to hide among his people as it would be for a deaf mute to pass as a normal speaking man among us.”

  “On the face of it that’s true,” Jeske said, speaking rapidly. “But all his people are not able to read minds, nor do they all have symbiosis. There are physiological failures—and biological defectives—there, the same as there are here. If I came to your Earth, took the place of a deaf-mute, assumed his very form and likeness, memorized his complete conscious-pattern and memory—and we have instruments that enable us to do just that—how would you pick me out from the million other deaf mutes on your world?”

  “I’ll buy that,” Van Horne said. “Next, if they intended to conquer us why couldn’t they do it merely by standing off in space and blasting us into oblivion?”

  “They could—with a vast expenditure of resources, and time. And, of course, they’d have the job of repairing the damage after it was over. But why should they choose that in preference to this easier, more insidious manner?”

  “You never did tell me just what their plan of conquest is—according to your version,” Van Horne said.

  Jeske glanced at his watch. Three precious minutes gone. “The first step you know,” he said. “To take over a large part of your transportation, and absorb the resultant unemployed into their factories. Step by step they would carry on the same program, until most of you were working for them. In a relatively short time they would hold key positions throughout your world. Their members would be all around you, reading your minds, watching for signs of unrest, revolt. You couldn’t begin a movement to oppose them without their knowing it; you’d be completely stymied before you realized what was going on.

  “When they had their stranglehold secured they would do a very simple thing: Separate your sexes for one generation, and you would be wiped out. The Kunklies would possess your world without having actually to kill one human being.”

  “It sounds possible,” Van Horne said. “However, I’d have to have more time to think on it before I could decide. Smith also said that they’d only have to convince us of their numerical and technological superiority and we’d realize the futility of resistance and capitulate.”

  “He lied again there.” Jeske glanced at his wristwatch. Three and three-quarters more minutes! “They’ve already made very extensive tests, and they’ve found that you would fight! And that’s what they’re afraid of. Also it brings me to my only hope of defeating them.

  “The Kunklies can’t stand pain. Their symbiosis, at least in the upper, hierarchy level, is so close that every time one of them is exposed to pain, all the others suffer. Throughout the generations they have been battered by almost unceasing pain, until avoiding it has become a psychosis with them. The instinct to avoid it now dominates them as powerfully as your own instinct of survival dominates you; they would much prefer death to any appreciable amount of suffering.

  “They have eliminated the shock of death with drugs, and erected every defense they could devise against any other form of pain. But Smith has made himself vulnerable by coming here. And that is why he fears me. If I can hurt him, every pang he feels will be suffered by every member of the second level here, and of the entire hierarchy back on his home planet.” One more minute, Jeske saw.

  “Smith and his hierarchy have become so dependent upon each other that their wills are not strong, individually. My own mind is comparatively so much more powerful than Smith’s, that by using a method inherent in my race, I could punish him severely, without laying a hand on him—if I could bring him near enough. I had planned to get him alone where I could use this power against him, but now it’s too late and I have to take desperate measures. And that is why I called you. I need your help to get him here. Will you do it, or haven’t I convinced you yet?”

  “I…” Van Horne hesitated. “I honestly don’t know,” he said haltingly.

  “Then I’ve lost, because we haven’t time for any more arguments,” Jeske said. “We’ll have to go out now. I’d advise you to leave immediately—if you can!”

  Chapter 4

  The lobby was empty. Jeske tensed, ready to dash at the first sign of movement. The Kunklies, he realized, had cleared the lobby to give them unrestricted action. From outside the hotel he could feel them waiting.

  Suddenly, a sound that would ordinarily be very commonplace, broke the silence, and Jeske’s taut reflexes responded to it automatically. He moved up a flight of stairs. It was a child’s voice, coming from the writing room off the lobby. “Mother,” the voice called.

  Jeske looked down from the mezzanine as the child came running out into the lobby. He saw Van Horne. “Where’s my mother?” he asked. He was about six years old.

  “I don’t know, little boy,” Van Horne replied. “Come here, and we’ll go look for her.”

  “No,” the boy answered. He started to cry. “I want my mommy,” he said.

  Still crying he ran toward the outside entrance. His body seemed to hesitate, turn half around, and blacken suddenly as it slumped to the floor, a smoking, charred hulk. Van Horne’s face twisted with anger and pity.

  “Get behind the davenport, and lie on the floor!” Jeske called to Van Horne. “They’ll kill you too.” Numbly Van Horne looked up.

  Abruptly, excruciatingly, Jeske realized that he had been caught napping. The scene below, and the effusion of danger from the outside, had blinded him to that close at hand. From his left he caught the Kunklie taint, and he knew that it was too late for him to move now.

  He heard the shot and stiffened to receive the blow. But even as he realized that he was not dead, he remembered that Kunklie weapons were silent; the shot he heard must have come from an Earthgun. Quickly he glanced to his left. A man in a blue serge suit slumped over the rail; down below Van Horne stood with his legs spread and a pistol in his hand.

  “I believe you now,” Van Horne said.

  * * * *

  Down in the basement of the hotel, Jeske knew he had a few minutes to collect his mental resources. His big job now was to stay alive long enough to find Smith. Smith had no way of knowing what Jeske
could do to him, mentally, and he might like to be in on the kill. Jeske prayed that if he came, it would be soon, for his time was running out.

  When he heard the Kunklies on the stairs he went to the coal-chute and opened it silently. He thanked his luck that he had made his survey of the hotel in time to know his way around.

  The coal-chute opened an alley. Jeske shut off the Richey portion of his consciousness and kept his own at a low ebb. They would be following the Rickey-emanations and would lose him for a few minutes.

  He was halfway to the alley entrance before they traced him. From here on he would have to make his decisions on the spur of the moment…

  Jeske moved out into the street. Except for a half-dozen waiting Kunklies, it was empty. He went four quick blocks and found every street the same. Then for the first time he realized how complete was the net the Kunklies had drawn around him. He knew they had spread a webwork that probably extended for a radius of several miles. Too far for him to escape on foot. And somehow they had managed to clear the entire district of aircars. There was not even a ground car in the area; no escape!

  If Smith were anywhere in the vicinity Jeske was unable to identify him. He decided to remain near the Majestic. His best chance of finding Smith would be there.

  Jeske kept his speed just above the rate optic-muscles could follow, but each time he stopped he found at least one Kunklie waiting. He needed a place to hide. Otherwise, he’d be spent in a few more minutes. But where?

  Another minute and his heart began to pound fiercely, he had to take drastic action. He stopped running and shot the Kunklie that waited for him. Moving a few feet each time he shot the next two that appeared, and leaned with his shoulder against an outside wall of the Majestic.

  That gave him only a half-minute of rest before he felt them converging on him again. Move! The word was becoming a nightmare.

  His plan, this far, had been to keep his mind as blank as possible in the hope of throwing off pursuit; but he realized now that they were collected too thick around him. There had to be a better way, he decided. There was; he loosed the Richey-segment of his mind and let it carry on in normal fashion. They’d be able to read every inflection, but beneath its cloak Jeske had time to think and form a new plan.