Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
‘Oh, Dick, isn’t it
wonderful
!’ Dorothy pressed his arm against her side. ‘It’s so much like Orion’s and yet so different …’
And it was both. The acreage of velvet-short, springy grass was about the same as that upon which they had landed so long before. The imperishable-metal statuary was similar. Here also were the beds of spectacular flowers and the hedges and sculptured masses of gorgeously vari-colored plant life. The tapestry wall, however – composed of millions upon millions of independently moving, flashing, self-luminous jewels of all the colors of the rainbow – ran for a good three hundred yards beside the walk. It was evident that the women of the Rovol had been working on it for hundreds of centuries instead of for mere hundreds of years. Instead of being only form and color, as was the wall of the Orion, it was well along toward portraying the entire history of the Family Rovol.
Rovol wanted to entertain his guests instead of work, but Seaton objected. ‘Shame on you, Rovol. The Period of Labor is just starting, and remember how you fellows used to bat my ears down about there being definite and non-interchangeable times for work and for play and so forth?’
‘That is of course true, youth,’ Rovol agreed, equably enough. ‘I should not have entertained the idea for a moment. My companion will welcome the ladies and show them to your apartments. We will proceed at once to the Area of Experiment,’ and he called an aircar by fingering a stud at his belt.
‘I’ve been studying, as you suggested,’ Seaton said then. ‘Can the thing be solved? The more I worked on it the more dubious I got.’
‘Yes, but the application of its solution will be neither easy
nor simple.’ The aircar settled gently to the walk a few yards ahead of the party and Rovol and Seaton boarded it; Rovol still talking. ‘But you will be delighted to know that, thanks to your gift of the metal of power, what would have been a work of lifetimes can very probably be accomplished in a few mere years.’
Seaton was not delighted. Knowing what Rovol could mean by the word ‘few,’ he was appalled; but there was nothing whatever he could do to speed things up.
He spent a couple of weeks rebuilding the
Skylark of Valeron
– with batteries of offensive and defensive weaponry where single machines had been – then stood around and watched the Norlaminians work. And as day followed day without anything being accomplished he became more and more tense and impatient. He concealed his feelings perfectly, he thought; but he should have known that he could hide nothing from the extremely percipient mind of the girl who was in every respect his other half.
‘Dick, you’ve been jittering like a witch,’ she said one evening, ‘about something I can’t see any reason for. But you have a reason, or you wouldn’t be doing it. So break down and tell me.’
‘I can’t, confound it. I know I’m always in a rush to get a thing done, but not like this. I’m all of a twitter inside. I can’t sleep …’
Dorothy snickered. ‘You can’t? If what you were doing last night wasn’t sleeping it was the most reasonable facsimile thereof I’ve ever seen. Or heard.’
‘Not like I ought to, I mean. Nightmares. Devils all the time sticking me with pitchforks. Do you believe in hunches?’
‘No,’ she said, promptly. ‘I never had any. Not a one.’
‘I never did, either, and if this is one I never want to have another. But it could be a hunch that we ought to be investigating that alien galaxy of DuQuesne’s. Whatever it is, I want to go somewhere and I haven’t the faintest idea where.’
‘Oh? Listen!’ Dorothy’s eyes widened. ‘I’ll bet you’re getting an answer to that message we sent out!’
He shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. Can’t be. Telepathy has got to be something you can understand.’
‘Who besides you ever said it would have to be telepathy? And who knows what telepathy would have to be like? Come on, let’s go tell Martin and Peggy!’
‘Huh?’ he yelped. ‘Tell M. Reynolds Crane, the hardest-boiled skeptic that ever went unhung, that I want to go sky-shooting to hellangone off into the wild blue yonder just because I’ve got an itch that I can’t scratch?’
‘Why not?’ She looked him steadily in the eye. ‘We’re exploring
terra incognita
, Dick. How much do you really know about that mind of yours, the way it is now?’
‘Okay. Maybe they’ll buy it; you did. Let’s go.’
They went; and, a little to Seaton’s surprise, Crane agreed with Dorothy. So did Margaret. Hence three hours later, the big sky-rover was on her way.
Four days out, however, Seaton said, ‘This isn’t the answer, I don’t think. The itch is still there. So what?’
There was silence for a couple of minutes, then Dorothy
chuckled suddenly. Sobering quickly, she said, with a perfectly straight face. ‘I’ll bet it’s that new department head girl-friend of yours, Dick; the pistol-packing mama with the wiggle. She wants to see the big, hold, handsome Earthman again. And if it is, I’ll scratch …’
Seaton jumped almost out of his chair. ‘You’re not kidding half as much as you think you are, pet. That crack took a good scratch at exactly where it itches.’ He put on his remote-control helmet and changed course. ‘And that helps still more.’ He thought for minutes, then shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I’m not getting a thing … not anything more at all. How many of you remember either Ree-Toe Prenk or the girl well enough to picture either of them accurately in your minds?’
They all remembered one or both of the Rayseenians.
‘Okay. This’ll sound silly. It
is
silly, for all the tea in China, but let’s try something. All join hands, picture either or both of them, and think at them as hard as we can. The thought is simply “we’re coming”. Okay?’
More than half sheepishly, they tried it – and it worked. At least Seaton said, ‘Well, it worked, I guess. Anyway, for the first time in weeks, it’s gone. But I didn’t get a thing. Nothing whatever. Not even a hint either that we were being paged or that our reply was being received. Did any of you?’
None of them had.
‘Huh!’ Seaton snorted. ‘If this is telepathy they can keep it – I’ll take Morse’s original telegraph!’
A week or so after the
Skylark of Valeron
left the neighborhood of Ray-See-Nee, that planet’s new government began to have trouble. Ree-Toe Prenk had said and had believed that whoever controlled the capital controlled the world, but that was not true in his case. It had always been true previously because the incoming powers had always been of the same corrupt-to-the-core stripe as those who were ousted – and when corruption has been the way of life for generations it is deep-rooted indeed.
There were, of course, other factors behind the unrest. But neither Prenk nor any other human knew about them – then.
All the district bosses had always gone along with the Big Boss as a matter of course. Not one of them cared a whit who ran the world, as long as his own privileges and perquisites and powers and takes were not affected. Prenk, however, was strictly honest and strictly just. If he should succeed in taking over Ray-See-Nee’s government in full, every crook and boodler on the planet would lose everything he had; possibly even
his life. Thus, while the new Premier held the capital – in a rapidly deteriorating grip – his influence outside that city’s limits varied inversely as about the fourth power of the distance.
This resistance, while actual enough, was in no sense overt. Every order was ostensibly obeyed to the letter; but everything deteriorated at an accelerating rate and Prenk could do nothing whatever about it. Whenever and wherever Prenk was not looking, business went on as usual – gambling, drugs, prostitution, crime and protection – but he could not prove any of it. Neither uniformed police nor detectives could find anything much amiss. They made arrests, but no suspect was ever convicted. The prosecution’s cases were weak. The juries brought in verdicts of ‘innocent’, usually without leaving the box.
Even when, in desperation, Prenk went – supposedly top-secretly – to an outlying city, fully prepared to stage a questioning that would have made Torquemada blush, he did nothing and he learned nothing. Every person on his list had vanished tracelessly and every present incumbent had abundant proof of innocence. Nor did any of them know why they had been promoted so suddenly. They were just lucky, they guessed.
It was indeed baffling. It would have been less so if Prenk had had any notion of the universe-wide stir of mighty events just beginning to bubble – if he had been able, as we are now able, to fit together all these patchwork stories into one nearly Norlaminian fabric of universal history.
But he wasn’t – and, for his peace of mind, perhaps that was just as well!
Premier Ree-Toe Prenk sat at his desk in the Room of State. Kay-Lee Barlo, shapely legs crossed and pistol at hip, sat at his left. Sy-By Takeel, the new Captain-General of the Guard, stood at ease at his right.
‘Whoever is doing this is a smooth, shrewd operator,’ Prenk said. ‘So much so that you two are the only people I can trust. And I don’t suppose either of you will ever be approached. Probably neither of you would be bought even if you offered yourselves ever so deftly for sale.’
‘I wouldn’t be, certainly,’ Takeel said. ‘Captains-General of mercenaries don’t sell out. I wouldn’t answer for any of my lieutenants, though, if there’s loot to be had. There is here, I take it?’
‘Unlimited quantities, apparently. So you, too, are subject to assassination?’
The soldier shrugged. ‘Oh, yes, it’s an occupational hazard How about you, Exalted Barlo? No chance either, I’d say?’
‘None at all. My stand is too well known. Half my people would stab me in the back if they dared to and they all look me in the eye and lie in their Mi-Ko-Ta-cursed teeth. I wish Ky-El Mokak and his people would get back here quick,’ Kay-Lee said wistfully.
‘So do I,’ Prenk said, glumly. ‘But even if we had a sixth-order tightbeamer and could use it, we haven’t the slightest idea of where he came from
or where he went to.’
‘That’s true.’ She nibbled at her lip. ‘But listen. I’m a psychic. It runs in the women of some families, you know, being … well, what most people call witches, kind of. My talent isn’t developed yet, but mother and I together could witch-wish at him to come back here as fast as he can and I’m sure he would.’
The soldier’s face showed quite plainly what he thought of the idea, but Prenk nodded – if more than somewhat dubiously. ‘I’ve heard of that “witch-wishing” business, and that it sometimes works. So go home right now and get at it, Kay-Lee, and give it everything you and your mother both can put out.’
Kay-Lee went home forthwith and went into executive session with her mother; a handsome, black-haired woman of forty-odd. ‘And I have positive identification,’ the girl concluded. ‘His blood was all over the place – positively
quarts
of it – and I saved some just in case.’ And, of course, she had – prudently, wisely and, as it turned out, luckily for all concerned!
The older woman’s face cleared. ‘That’s good. Without a positive, I’m afraid it would be hopeless at what the distance probably is by this time. Run and get the witch-holly, dear, while I fix the incense.’
They each ate seven ritually preserved witch-holly berries and inhaled seven deep drafts of aromatic smoke. While they were waiting for the powerful drugs to take effect, Kay-Lee asked, ‘How much of this rigamarole is chemistry, do you suppose, mother, and how much is just hocus-pocus?’
‘No one knows. Some day, whatever it is that we have will be recognized as having existence and will be really studied. Until then, all we can do is follow the ancient ritual.’
‘I think I’ll talk to Ky-El about it. But listen. Witches with any claim at all to decency simply don’t put geases on people. But what if he’s so far away that we can’t reach him any other way?’
The older woman frowned, then said, ‘In that case, my dear, we’ll never,
never
tell anyone a thing about it.’
As the
Skylark of Valeron
approached Galaxy DW-427-LU, Dorothy said, ‘Dick, I suppose it’s occurred to you more than once that I’m not much of a woman.’
‘You aren’t? I’d say you’d do until the real thing showed
up.’ Seaton, who had been thinking of the problem of synchronization instead of his wife, changed voice instantly when he really looked at her and saw what a black mood she was in. ‘You’re the universe’s best, is all, ace. I knew you were feeling a little low in your mind, but not … listen, sweetheart. What could possibly make you think you aren’t the absolute top?’
She did not answer the question. Instead, ‘What do you think you’re going to get into this time?’
‘Nothing much, I’m sure. Prenk’s probably running out of ammunition. We can make more in five minutes than he can in five years.’
‘I’m sure that isn’t it. You’re going into personal danger again and I’ll be expected to sit up here in the
Skylark
eating my heart out wondering if you’re alive or dead. You don’t see Sitar going through that with Dunark.’
‘Wait up, sweetheart. Mores and customs, remember?’
‘Mores and customs be damned! Do you remember exactly what Sitar said and exactly how she said it? Did it sound like mores and customs to you? Was there any element whatever of suttee in it?’
‘But listen, Dottie –’ He took her gently in his arms.
‘You listen!’ she rushed on. ‘If he dies she doesn’t want to keep on living and she won’t. And she doesn’t care who knows it. Maybe it started that way – society’s sanction – but that was her personal profession of faith. And I feel the same way. If you die I don’t want to keep on living and won’t. So next time I’m going with you.’
Being an American male, he could not accept that without an argument. ‘But there’s Dickie,’ he said.
‘There are also her three children on Osnome. I learned something from her about what the basic, rock-bottom attitude of a woman toward her man ought to be. Even from little Lotus. She’s no bigger than a minute and a half, but what did
she
do? So while we’re having this moment of truth let’s be rock-bottom honest with each other for the first time in our lives instead of mouthing the platitudes of our society. I’m not a story-book mother, Dick. If it ever comes right down to a choice, you know how I’ll decide – and how long it will take!’