Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
This, to a human dictator, would have been effrontery intolerable; but Mergon had been pretty sure that it would have little or no effect, emotionally, upon Klazmon. Nor did it; to all seeming it had no effect at all. The Llurd merely said, ‘You wish me to believe that you Jelmi have made a breakthrough sufficiently important to justify the establishment of an independent but coexistent Realm of the Jelmi.’
This was in no sense a question; it was a flat statement. Mergon had been eminently correct in his assumption that he would not have to draw the Llurd a blueprint. Mergon quirked an eyebrow at Luloy, who pressed the button that signaled all the savants in the dome to drop their tools and dash back into the ship.
‘That is correct,’ Mergon said.
Klazmon’s projection remained motionless and silent; both Jelmi could almost perceive the Llurd’s thoughts. And Mergon, who had tracked the Llurd’s thoughts so unerringly so far, was practically certain that he was still on track.
Klazmon did not actually know whether the Jelmi had made a breakthrough or not. The Jelmi intended to make him believe that they had, and that breakthrough was something that made them either invulnerable or invincible, or both. Any of those matters or assumptions could be either true or false. One of them, the question of invulnerability, could be and should be tested without delay. If they were in fact invulnerable, no possible attack could harm them. If they were not invulnerable they were bluffing and lying and should therefore be eliminated.
Wherefore Mergon was not surprised when Klazmon’s projection vanished without having said another word – nor when, an instant after that vanishment, the
Mallidaxian’s
mighty defensive screens flared white.
They did not even pause at the yellow or the yellow-white, but went directly to the blinding white; to the degree of radiance at which the vessel’s spare began automatically to cut in – spare after spare after spare.
After staring in silence for two long minutes, Mergon said, ‘We figured their most probable maximum offense and applied a factor of safety of three – and look at ’em!’
White-faced, Luloy licked her lips. ‘Mighty Llenderllon!’ she cried. ‘How can they
possibly
deliver such an attack way out here?’
Then Mergon picked up his microphone and said, ‘Our screens are still holding and they’re protecting the dome; but we’re going to need a lot more defense. So go back out there, please, and give me everything you can.’
He then sat back and stared tight-jawed at the ever-climbing needles of his meters and at the unchanging blinding-white brilliance of his vessel’s screens.
As the Llurd’s attack mounted to higher and ever higher
plateaus of fury, Mergon slid along his bench to his fourth-dimensional controls and there appeared on the floor beside him a lithium-hydride fusion bomb, armed and ready.
He stared at it, his jaw-muscles tightening into lumps. Luloy stared at the thing, too, and her face became even paler than it had been.
‘But could you, Merg?’ she asked, through stiff lips. ‘I … I mean, you couldn’t possibly … could you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said harshly, scarcely separating locked teeth. ‘I may have to whether I can or not. We had a factor of safety of three. Two point nine of them are in now and the last tenth is starting up. The dome can’t put out more than that.’
‘I know! But if we blow the llanzlanate up, won’t they kill all the Jelmi of all our worlds and start breeding a more tractable race of slaves?’
‘That’s the way I read it. In that case we eight hundred could get away and start a better civilization somewhere out of range.’
She shuddered. ‘In that case would life be worth living?’
‘It’s a tough decision to make … since the alternative could be for us to kill all the Llurdi.’
‘Oh,
no
!’ she cried. ‘But don’t you think, Merg, that he’ll cooperate? They’re absolutely logical, you know.’
‘Maybe. In one way I think so, but I simply can’t see any absolute ruler making such an abject surrender. However, we’ve got to decide right now and we’ll have to stick to our decision – we both know that he can’t be bluffed. If it comes right down to it we can do one of three things, First, commit suicide for one whole eight hundred by not touching the bomb off. Second, wipe them out. Third, let them wipe out all Jelmi except us. What’s your vote?’
‘Llenderllon help me! Put that way, there’s –
oh, look
!’ she screamed, in a miraculously changed tone of voice. ‘The mastermeter! It’s slowing down!
It’s going to stop
!’ She uttered an ear-splitting shriek of pure joy and hurled herself into her husband’s arms.
‘It’s stabilized, for a fact,’ Mergon said, after their emotions had subsided to something approaching normal. ‘He’s throwing everything he’s got at us. We’re holding him, but just barely, so the question is—’
‘One thing first,’ she broke in. ‘My vote. I hate to say it, but we
can’t
let them kill our race.’
He put his arm around her and
squeezed. ‘That’s what I was sure you’d say. The question now is, how long do we let him stew in his own juice before we skip over there and talk peace terms?’
‘
Not
long enough to let him build more generators than we can to fry us with,’ she replied, promptly if a bit unclearly. ‘One day? Half a day? A quarter?’
‘But long enough to let him know he’s licked,’ Mergon said. ‘I’d say one full day would be just about right. So let’s go get us some sleep.’
‘
Sleep
! Llenderllon’s eyeballs! Can you even
think
of such a thing as
sleep
after all
this?
’
‘Certainly I can. So can you – you’re all frazzled out. Come on, girl, we’re hitting the sheets.’
‘Why, I won’t be able to sleep a
wink
until this is all over!’
But she was wrong; in ten minutes, they were both sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
Twelve hours later she came suddenly awake, rolled over toward him, and shook him vigorously by the shoulder. ‘Wake up, you!’
He grumbled something and tried to pull away from her grip.
She shook him again. ‘Wake up, you great big oaf! Suppose that beast Klazmon has got more generators built and our screens are all failing?’
He opened one eye. ‘If they fail, sweet, we won’t know a thing about it.’ He opened the other eye and, three-quarters awake now, went on, ‘Do you think I’m running this ship single-handed? What do you think the other officers are for?’
‘But they aren’t you,’ she declared, with completely feminine illogic where her husband was concerned. ‘So hurry up and get up and we’ll see for ourselves.’
‘Okay, but not ’til after breakfast, if I have to smack you down. So punch us up a gallon of coffee, huh? And a couple slabs of ham and six or eight eggs? Then we’ll go see.’
They ate and went and saw. The screens still flared at the same blinding white, but there were no signs of overloading or of failure. They could, the Third Officer bragged, keep it up for years. Everything was under control.
‘You hope,’ Mergon said – but not to the officer. He said that under his breath and he and Luloy turned away toward their own station.
Much to Mergon’s relief, nothing happened during the rest of the day, and at the end of the twenty-fourth hour he sent the actual bomb and working projections of himself and Luloy into the llanzlanate. Into the Llanzlan’s private study, where Klazmon was hard at work.
It was an immense room, and one in which a good anthropologist could have worked delightedly for weeks. The floor was bare, hard, smooth-polished; fantastically inlaid in metal and colored quartz and turquoise and jade. The pictures – framed mostly in extruded stainless steel
– portrayed scenes (?) and things (?) and events (?) never perceived by any Earthly sense and starkly incomprehensible to any Earthly mind. The furniture was … ‘weird’ is the only possible one-word description. Every detail of the room proclaimed that here was the private retreat of a highly talented and very eminent member of a culture that was old, wide and high.
‘Hail, Llanzlan Klazmon,’ Mergon said quietly, conversationally. ‘You will examine this bomb, please, to make sure that, unlike us two, it is actual and practical.’
The Llurd’s eyes had bulged a little and the tip of his tail had twitched slightly at the apparition. That was all. He picked up an instrument with a binocular eyepiece, peered through it for a couple of seconds, and put it down. ‘It is actual and practical,’ he agreed.
Whatever emotions may have been surging through the Llanzlan’s mind, his control was superb. He did not ask them how they had done it, or why, or any other question. After the event he knew much and could guess more – and he was perhaps the starkest realist of the most starkly realistic race of intelligent beings yet known to live.
‘You realize, of course, that we do not intend to fire it except as the ultimately last resort.’
‘I do now.’
‘Ah, yes. Our conduct throughout has surprised you; especially that we did not counterattack.’
‘If not exactly surprised, at least did not anticipate that Jelmi would or could act with practically Llurdan logic,’ the Llurd conceded.
‘We can. And when we think it best, we do. We suggest that you cut off your attack. We will then put on air-suits and return here in person, to discuss recent developments as reasoning and logical entities should.’
The Llurd was fast on the uptake. He knew that, given time, he could crush this threat; but he knew that he would not have the time. He could see ahead as well as Mergon could to the total destruction of two hundred forty more planets. Wherefore he barked a couple of syllables at a com and the furiously incandescent screens of the
Mallidaxian
went cold and dark.
Jelmi and bomb disappeared. Mergon and Luloy donned gas-tight, self-contained, plastic-helmeted coveralls and reappeared in the Llanzlan’s study. Klazmon seated them courteously in two Jelman easy-chairs – which looked atrociously out of place in that room – and the peace conference, which was to last for days, began.
‘First,’ the Llanzlan said, ‘this breakthrough that you have accomplished. At what stage in the negotiations do you propose to give me the complete technical specifications of it?’
‘Now,’ Mergon said, and a yard-high stack of tapes appeared on the floor beside the Llurd’s desk. It was the entire specs and description
of the fourth-dimensional translator. Nothing was omitted or obscured.
‘Oh? I see. There is, then, much work yet to be done on it. Work that only you Jelmi can do.’
‘That is true, as you will learn from those tapes. Now,’ said Mergon, settling down to the bargaining session, ‘first, we have shown you that Jelmi capable of doing genius-type work cannot be coerced into doing it. Second, the fact is that it is psychologically impossible for us to do such work under coercion. Third, we believe firmly that free and independent Jelmi can coexist with the Llurdi. Fourth, we believe equally firmly that for the best good of both races they should so coexist …’
And at that first day’s end, after supper, Luloy said, ‘Merg, I simply would not have believed it. Ever. I’m not sure I really believe it now. But you know I almost like – I actually
admire
that horrible monster in some ways!’
Seaton called Rovol of Rays, on Norlamin, as soon as he could reach him. He told him the story of what he had done on Ray-See-Nee, and what he hoped to gain by it, in detail, then went on to ask his help on the control of the fourth-dimensional translator. ‘You see, Rovol, at perfect sync it would – theoretically – take zero power. I don’t expect the unattainable ideal, of course’ – he winked at Dorothy – ‘just close enough so we can pack enough stuff into the
Valeron
to handle everything they can throw at us and still have enough left over to fight back with.’
‘Ah, youth, a fascinating problem indeed. I will begin work on it at once, and will call in certain others in whose provinces some aspects of it lie. By the time you arrive here we will perhaps have determined whether or not any solution is at present possible.’
‘What?’ Seaton yelped. ‘Why – I thought – surely’ – he almost stuttered. ‘I thought you’d have it done by then – maybe be sending it out to meet us, even.’
The old Norlaminian’s paternally forbearing sigh was highly expressive. ‘Still the heedless, thoughtless youth, in spite of all our teachings. You have not studied the problem yourself at all.’
‘Well, not very much, I admit.’
‘I advise you to do so. If you devote to it every period of labor between now and your arrival here you may perhaps be able to talk about it intelligently,’ and Rovol cut com.
Dorothy whistled. She didn’t whistle very often, but she could do it very expressively.
‘Yeah,’ Seaton said, ruefully. ‘And the old boy wasn’t kidding, either.’
‘Not having a sense of humor, he can’t kid. He really slapped you on the wrist, friend. But why would it be such a horrible job to sync a few generators in?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’ He went, worked for four solid hours with the Brain, and came back wearing a sheepish
grin. ‘It’s true,’ he reported. ‘I knew it’d be tricky, but I had no idea. You have to work intelligently, manipulably and re-producibly in time units of three times ten to the minus twenty-eighth of a second – the time it takes light to travel a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter.’
‘Hush. You don’t expect me to understand that, do you?’
‘I’ll say I don’t. I don’t expect to even really understand it myself.’
Seaton did not work on the problem every day until arrival, but he worked on it for over a hundred hours – enough so that he began to realize how difficult it was.
The
Skylark of Valeron
entered the Green System, approached Norlamin, and went into orbit around it. The travelers boarded a shuttle, which thereupon began to slide down a landing-beam toward Rovol’s private dock.
The little craft settled gently into a neoprene-lined cup. The visitors disembarked and walked down a short flight of metallic steps, at the foot of which the ancient, white-bearded sage was waiting for them. He greeted them warmly – for a Norlaminian – and led them through the ‘garden’ toward the metal-and-quartz palace that was his home.