Although George Hanlon had become adept at the use of the minds of birds, animals, fish, rodents and insects even at a considerable distance, he could not project his mind to any great length to find and gain control of such a mind, unless he had already used that mind and knew its texture and characteristics, or unless another part of his mind was already at that distant point in another brain.
Thus, in the present instance, he could not project his mind the many miles between his present location and the residence of the Ruler, Elus Amir, and find an animal or bird mind he could take over. He could have done it, that is, with one of the cavals he had at various times handled, but one of them could not get into the palace and the Ruler's suite. Nor could he locate any of the birds he had used out there.
He did, however, project his mind into Inver's caval—the one he had helped heal—and from that vantage point tried to find a bird he could control. But none seemed to be anywhere near the stables.
So, he had to start closer to where he was, and work outward. With time of the essence at the moment, a bird must be used. Just how he was to get a bird into the residence, and more or less keep it inconspicuous and unseen during his survey, was a problem that would have to be tackled when the time came.
Lying on the bed in the little room, therefore, he quested about the nearby neighborhood trees until he found a swift-flying bird he could use. It took but a moment to do so, and to take full and complete control of its mind and body. Then the bird, whose brain now contained as large a portion of Hanlon's mind as he could force into it, was winging at its top speed toward the official residence of Amir, the Ruler.
"The palace is in sight," Hanlon's voice was low but penetrant, after a time. "I'm looking for an open window or door."
The other men watched with amazement and intense curiosity as the young man lay there on the bed, his eyes closed and his face drawn with concentration, as they could see in the dim light of the shaded lamp Hooper had risen and lighted. Both of the other S S men knew much of what Hanlon could thus do, yet watching him do it was a new experience to both, and one that filled them with deepest wonder and a sort of awe.
The silence, even though of only two or three minutes duration, seemed like hours to the waiting watchers, then a jubilant "Ah!" let them know Hanlon had succeeded in the first part of his quest. "Got in through an open window in an upper story ... heck, the door's shut."
Another pause, and then the voice continued, "Here's another. Hah, this one opens into a hallway. Now, which way is Amir's suite?"
They waited with impatience while they knew the bird Hanlon was controlling was seeking the proper portion of the interior of that great building. It seemed long and long before the soft voice spoke again.
"He must have gone to bed—the door is shut. I'll have to get outside and try again, but now that I know where it is I'll see if I can get directly into his room."
Hooper whispered in a tone he thought only Newton could hear. "By the shade of Snyder, but this is spooky. If I didn't know he could really do it, I'd swear it was impossible."
But only a portion of Hanlon's mind was in that distant avian brain. The rest was here in his own body, and heard the comment.
"Yeh," he drawled, "I know it's weird, and even I'm not used to thinking about it yet. Never thought how it would affect others. You don't need to whisper, though. The two parts of my mind are separate and distinct, so that I know what is going on in both ... ah, one of the windows in the bedroom is opened, but only a crack. Maybe I can squeeze ... did it, but I lost a few feathers. But I'm inside now. Let's see. There's a molding quite high up on the wall. It's wide enough so I can roost on that, sideways. Now we'll just have to wait and watch."
"Is Amir all right?" his father asked anxiously.
Hanlon grinned. "The way he's snoring he must be."
But the question reminded Hanlon that the Ruler had been wounded. He made the bird fly down to the bed, and through its eyes saw only a small bandage on one of Amir's arms—luckily for him the Ruler slept with his arms outside the covers. "Must be he got only a slight burn, after all," he said.
"Is there anyone close to his room—or can't you tell?" the admiral asked after a few moments of silence.
"I'll see if I can find out." Hanlon sent his mind questing out from the bird, and soon reported, "There're two men in an adjoining room ... they're guards ... from what I can read of their minds they're not thinking any seditious or murderous thoughts. Just playing a game of some sort while keeping on watch."
"Better keep checking them from time to time, though, hadn't you?" Hooper asked.
"Yeh, it'd be a good idea."
The other men were tired and not well, and despite their efforts to keep awake, dropped off to sleep. Surprisingly, even Hanlon's body and the main portion of his mind also lapsed into the unconsciousness of sleep. But the part in the bird kept awake—and so did the tiny thread of consciousness that connected it with Hanlon.
Some time later, about midnight, Hanlon, through the bird, heard a stirring sound in the anteroom, and investigated. The guard was being changed, and these two newcomers, he found from their minds, were tools of Irad.
Along that thread of thought sped the warning, and Hanlon's body and the balance of his mind came fully awake. He lay there for some time, studying the situation, but nothing seemed to be happening. He was almost back to sleep again—his body, that is—when the bird heard a fumbling at the door of Amir's room, although the sound was softly muted as though the one out there was using the utmost stealth in hopes of not being discovered. Hanlon's mind quickly investigated, and found only one mind there. Evidently the guards had left, for this was a new personality.
Hanlon reached out a hand and shook his father into wakefulness. "Someone's outside, trying to get Amir's door unlocked, or opened," he reported.
Newton called Hooper, who sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes while the admiral explained in swift words.
"The door's locked from the inside, and the key is still in the lock," Hanlon told them. "I made the bird fly down and look ... whoever is at it must be using something like pliers to try to turn the key."
Admiral Newton jumped out of bed, lit the lamp, and commanded Hooper, "Get up and dress. We'll have to rush out there." He turned to Hanlon. "Can you come with us, and still keepen rapportwith your bird?"
"Sure," Hanlon was already throwing off the covers, and getting up. "The fellow, whoever he is, although I would imagine it might be Irad, is having trouble with the key, but he'll probably make it sooner or later."
"D'you suppose we can get out there in time?" Hooper asked.
"We'll certainly try," the admiral grunted, leaning down to fasten his shoes.
"Can you wake the Ruler?" he asked anxiously, a few moments later. "He might have a better chance, if awake."
"Sure," Hanlon said, and a moment later, "the bird flew down and brushed its wingtips across his face. He's awake now ... he's sitting up ... lighting the lamp ... I sent the bird close to him then over to the door ... he's watching it ... now he sees the key turning ... he's jumped out of bed ... running to another door leading out of the room."
The three finished dressing, and now ran from the room and down the stairs. Outside the admiral commanded "Follow me," and ran toward the back of the house. They saw the dim outlines of a shed, and a high-powered, family-sized touring tricycle. They piled into the seats even as the admiral was getting it started.
Swiftly he backed the car out and into the street, and then took off with a full-throated roar from the powerful, souped-up engine.
"Special job the Corps' experts fixed up for me," he explained as the others gasped at the unexpected speed.
Hanlon, through the bird's eyes, was still watching that distant effort to unlock the door, and relaying to the others from time to time what he was seeing.
"Ah, it's unlocked ... it's opening ... but the Ruler is in the other room and has locked that door."
"The old boy's not so dumb," Hooper applauded.
"I'll say he isn't," Hanlon agreed joyfully. "He's plugging the keyhole."
He was silent a moment, then exclaimed, "The intruder's Irad, just as I thought it might be ... he's surprised the Ruler isn't in bed asleep ... he's gone over to try the other door ... he's found it's locked and the keyhole plugged ... he seems to have lost his head—he's pounding on that door, and yelling."
He half-straightened, then slumped down into his seat, and his face strained with concentration. Hooper, in the back seat, leaned forward and started to speak, but Newton restrained him. "Let him alone, Curt—he must be working on something difficult."
Hanlon was beating at the barriers in Adwal Irad's mind, trying to get in, even though he knew he had never been able to do so before. But it was all he could think of to do at the moment, and he had to do something. Besides, it was plain to him now that the man was completely insane—the way Irad was acting and the things he was saying and thinking showed it so clearly. So Hanlon had withdrawn entirely from the bird's mind, and was now working on Irad's with all his power.
The Second-In-Line had drawn his flamegun and was firing at the door, trying to burn out the lock or through the door panels.
Hanlon was almost in a frenzy of desperation. They had to stop this madman someway. He knew his father was pushing his car at its unexpected top speed, and that they would be there in a matter of minutes. But he was afraid that even those minutes might be too late. He did not see how they could possibly get there in time. For the door was beginning to burn from the fierce heat of the flamer.
Hanlon still beat at that barrier in Irad's mind. He seemed to sense somehow that it was weakening, was ... was disintegrating ... was changing horribly under the influence of hatred and the madness the man seemed to feel.
All this time the admiral had been trying to coax even more speed out of his souped-up tricycle, and now in the swiftly-nearing distance they could see the few lights that denoted the residence. Soon they were close enough to see that the gates were closed.
"Those gates strong ones?" Newton asked without turning his head.
"No, mostly ornamental."
"Hang on, then, we're going through. Curt, grab the kid."
Hooper leaned forward, took hold of Hanlon's shoulders with his strong hands, and braced himself against the back of the front seat in which the younger man was sitting.
A couple of guards had run up to the gate at sight and sound of that speeding machine. But they ducked hastily back as they saw it was neither going to stop nor swerve.
There was a rocking jolt, a crash, and the car was past the crumpled gates, careening wildly. The admiral fought the wheel with all his strength. By the time they came close to the steps leading up to the main entrance, he had it under control.
There was a screech of brakes that brought several attendants on the run through the door. The trike slid to a halt, and two of the three men in it jumped out and dashed up the stairs.
"The Ruler's being attacked," the admiral cried imperiously. "One of you show us his rooms."
A servant, half-dazed by sight of those strangers in their peculiar uniforms, and subconsciously controlled by the command in Newton's voice, obeyed.
They raced across the entrance foyer to the great stairs that led to the upper story. Other servants were coming into the hallway, sleepily rubbing their eyes, and most of them only partially dressed. Their wondering eyes followed the racing men in a stupefied way, but none tried to stop the intruders.
"Down here," the servant dashed into a side hallway, and the two secret servicemen pounded after him.
They turned another corner, and the servant slid to a stop. Two guards were standing there, flamers in their hands, menacing a small group of servants.
Newton took it all in with a single glance. From what Hanlon had said he knew the men were Irad's. "Burn those guards!" he snapped the command at Hooper, and the latter's blaster spoke twice—fierce blasts of death that made the flashes of the flameguns seem like candle-flames. The two guards died instantly.
Newton and the servant were already dashing into Amir's bedroom.
Meanwhile, back in the machine where he had stayed, Hanlon was still working on Irad's mind. Now he thought he perceived a minute opening toward one edge of that decomposing barrier. He attacked it with all his mental strength, and it began to crumble a bit faster. Further and further Hanlon dug away at that tottering mentality until there was an orifice completely through the shield. Instantly he pushed his mind through ... down and down, in and into the deeper parts of Irad's thoughts and memories.
And his body stiffened suddenly at what he found.
Newton and the servant pushed on ahead into the bedroom, just in time to see the man, Irad, sink to the floor, writhing in apparent pain.
But even so there was still enough control in the maddened conspirator so that he swung his flamegun and sent a streak of fire flashing toward the intruders.
The servant, not expecting such a thing, and slow of reflexes, caught most of the blast, and died almost instantly. Newton, trained to quick action and always expecting the unexpected, ducked down and away. Even so, an edge of the flame caught him in the shoulder. The sudden, intolerable pain threw him off balance, and he sank to the floor, his uninjured hand grasping the wound, trying to stanch the flow of blood.
George Hanlon was still in the tricycle, his mind a welter of conflicting emotions. He must be nuts—such a thing as he had just discovered was simply not possible.
"But it is," a cold, precise, soundless voice spoke in his mind. "It is not the mind of this Adwal Irad you are now contacting, but that of another, who has been controlling this entity for some time now."
"Who ... who are you, then?" Hanlon gasped.
"I am from another, distant section of this galaxy, here on much the same errand as yourself and your assistants. I am banding together the various inhabited planets in my sector the same as your Federation is doing in yours. This planet is about midway between the two groups. I discovered it some time ago, and after thorough study of it decided to annex it to my oligarchy. But I have failed, and you have won."
"You mean you were responsible for all the opposition we've encountered?" Hanlon asked in surprise.
"That is correct. Working through the mind of this now-dying entity called Adwal Irad, I caused certain things to be done, including the increase in what you call crimes, in hopes they would alienate these people from your Federation's invitation, which was made shortly before I came here to work. It was my plan to make them join with me after denying you, and for certain things promised this Irad in the way of personal power, he more or less agreed—although I had to force him on several occasions."
"So that's why he changed so," Hanlon now knew the answers to many puzzles.
"Yes, there was continual conflict in Irad's mind. It was conditioned to a love and loyalty for his world, and certain ethics of what he considered the fundamentals of right and wrong, that are totally unknown to me. In fact, these people are almost non-understandably different from the races in my oligarchy, but they have many resources I need. Thus the disturbance between what this Irad innately felt and what I forced him to do, drove him insane. Even now his body is dead, and I am keeping his mind alive merely while I converse with you—a thing I have wished to do for long and long. I shall leave now, for my project has failed. I congratulate you on your victory."
There was a moment's hesitation, then the thought came again to Hanlon. "But there is one thing I would like to know before I go."
There was almost a trace of pleading, of indecision in that hitherto coldly logical, precise thought—and Hanlon wondered anew what sort of being this could possibly be with whom he was telepathing. For he could perceive nothing whatever as to the bodily shape or size of this enigmatic stranger.
"Why was I unable to make contact with your mind?" the alien asked, and its thoughts were almost a wail. "I perceive now that you are very young, very immature and inexperienced. I should have been able to read you easily. My abilities must be very small indeed, even though I have always considered myself so competent. Are you of a different race from those others with whom you worked? I know you are not a native of this planet, for your mind texture is far different from theirs, as is your fellows'. Even as yours, in some ways, differs from theirs."
"I honestly do not know the answer," Hanlon thought frankly. "I am of the same race as my companions, but I have some slight additional mental powers not usually found in my people. It may be I have a natural block or barrier in my mind they do not possess."
"It must be so. I could make no contact with you at all, whereas I could penetrate and control easily with the others. It is only now, while we are jointly tenanting this weaker mind, that I can converse with you through its brain—I still cannot do so directly. It is very puzzling ..." and Hanlon felt the withdrawal of that mind.
Irad's body, now that the mind which had been keeping it not-dead, or semi-alive, had slumped to the floor in full death.
Captain George Hanlon jumped from the big tricycle and ran into the residence. None of the guards or servants tried to stop him, so dumb-founded were they by all that had been happening. Knowing the way from his controlling of the bird that had found Amir's rooms, Hanlon was soon there. He did not stop to see what was happening to the others, but ran across the bedroom to that far door, and rapped on it to attract the attention of the Ruler, hiding behind it.
"Everything is safe now, k'nyer," he called through the badly charred panels. "The assassin is dead. You can come out now."
"Is this some new trick?" a voice came thinly.
"No, sire, it is no trick, but the truth. You are safe now."
"Who are you?"
"I'm ..." Hanlon started to give his name, then remembered that the Ruler did not know anything about him. He quickly changed it to, "I'm Ergo Lona, the groom with whom you talked on the ride the other morning."
"Lona? Where did you disappear to—and why?" suspiciously.
"Endar discharged me, but I have been watching over you, just the same. On my honor, k'nyer, you may believe me."
After some further hesitation there was the sound of the padding being removed from the keyhole, the insertion and turning of the key. As the door opened a mere crack, Elus Amir peered cautiously out. But instead of the clothing of a groom or a countryman, he saw the brilliant space-blue and silver of an Inter-Stellar Corps uniform.
He started to pull shut the door, but Hanlon had stuck the toe of his boot in it.
"It's all right, k'nyer. I am Lona, the groom. I am also George Hanlon, a captain in the Terran Inter-Stellar Corps. We discovered that another attempt was being made on your life, and were lucky enough to get here in time to block it."
He took hold of the edge of the door and pulled it open, for the Ruler was so surprised by this revelation that he made no real effort to hold it shut. Amir came slowly, surprisedly into the bedroom, staring keenly at Hanlon.
"You don't look like Lona ... but the voice does seem to be the same. How does it happen the Federation has men here? Were you spying on me?"
"Not on you, sire, but on your enemies," Hanlon said earnestly. "Let me introduce you to Admiral New...."
He had half-turned back as he spoke, and now for the first time saw his father on the floor, a hand clutching his shoulder, from which a great stain of blood was drenching the uniform sleeve.
"Ring for your physician," Hanlon turned and commanded the Ruler. Then, realizing this was no way for him to be addressing a planetary head, he quickly but entreatingly added, "please, k'nyer."
Elus Amir called in one of the servants clustered outside, and commanded curtly, "Get the doctor here, immediately." Then he went over to the two on the floor. "Let me look," he half-pushed Hanlon aside, and stooped to peer closely at that wounded shoulder.
"Help me get him onto the bed," he said after a quick inspection. "I don't think any of the bone is gone—it's just a bad flesh burn."
Tenderly the two men raised the admiral, who protested weakly that he could get up by himself, and lifted him onto the bed. Amir himself began pulling off the admiral's tunic, while Hanlon helped.
By the time the doctor came running in, and took over the dressing of the wound, they had the arm and shoulder bared. But the elder Newton, in spite of his protestations, had fainted from the loss of blood and shock.
Amir sent the assembled servants away, retaining only his dresser, who helped him on with his day clothes.
The doctor worked swiftly, as Hanlon watched anxiously, applying ointments to the burn, and finally bandaging it.
"He's weak from all the blood he lost, and doesn't seem to have been in too good condition anyway," the doctor said at last. "I hope the man is strong enough to pull through."
"Then give him some plasma," Hanlon said frantically. "He needs it."
"I don't know what you mean," the doctor was bewildered by the word, for Hanlon had had to use the Terran word "plasma", not knowing any translation for it.
"A blood transfusion, then, or at least some glucose."
"I don't know anything about those, either ... say, you're not an Estrellan, are you?"
"No, we're Terrans. You mean you folks don't know anything about giving one person's blood to another?"
"Sorry, but I've never heard of such a thing. How is it done?" The doctor was apparently more interested in this new idea than in the admiral's desperate condition.
Hanlon felt faint. He staggered away from the bedside without answering, and went into the anteroom, where Hooper stood talking to Inver and some other officials, who had heard the commotion and had come to see what it was all about.
Hooper saw Hanlon's haggard face, and knew something was wrong. "Were we too late?" he gasped.
"Oh, no, we got Irad and saved Amir, but dad was blasted—shoulder. The doctor has fixed him up as best he can, but dad's in shock, and these backward fools never heard of plasma or blood transfusions."
Hooper jumped forward. "I can give a transfusion. What's your dad's blood type?" he asked as they hurried to the bedside.
"Same as mine," Hanlon was peeling off his coat as he spoke, his eyes lighting with relief.
Hooper rapped quick questions at the doctor, but the latter shook his head. More questions, and more negative answers, then Hooper turned disconsolately to Hanlon. "They don't even have anything I could use to give a transfusion; no hollow needles; not even hypodermics."
The doctor pulled on Hooper's arm. "Please, tell me what you mean by blood transfusions, and plasma. How do you give them? What for? And what did the other man mean when he said he had the same blood type as the wounded man?"
Hanlon went to sit beside his father's bedside, and sank into an apparent mood of despair.
Meanwhile, the Ruler had finished dressing, and with his son, Inver, went over to listen to what Major Hooper was telling the doctor.
"Will you please tell me what all is going on here?" Amir asked so plaintively that the S S man had trouble concealing a grin. But Hooper sobered instantly.
"The Federation's Inter-Stellar Corps, sire," he began his explanation, "found out about the fact that opposition to your desire to accept their invitation was becoming stronger—and dangerous to you and to the peace of your planet. They sent four of us here to study the situation and to protect you if possible. To do that it was necessary for us to disguise ourselves as natives of your world, so we could move about freely and unnoticed. That is why Captain Hanlon worked it so you would notice him, hire him as a servant of some sort here, and he would thus be able to watch over you and conditions in general from close at hand. We had found out that Adwal Irad was at the head of this opposition and crime wave, and that his plans included your death."
"But now you're all in uniform—and your disguises removed."
"Yes, k'nyer. We were planning to come as ourselves tomorrow—or rather, this morning—and seek an audience with you. We knew about the attempt to assassinate you that was made on your daily ride, and so were watching you more carefully than ever. When we saw Irad trying to get into your room, and his men he had planted in your guards keeping back the servants who wished to come to your assistance, we hurried here to help protect you. It was so apparent Irad was determined to complete the killing he failed at the other time."
Elus Amir, Ruler of Estrella, took that startling news with barely a tremor. He motioned them to a seat along the side of the bedroom, to continue his questioning.
The doctor was dismissed, although it was plain he wanted to stay and ask this Terran more about those strange and new methods of treating wounds.
So until dawn the Ruler and his son—now Second-In-Line following the death of Irad—sat talking to Major Hooper about the Federation of Planets, and the benefits Estrella would obtain from joining the other worlds.
"Such things as the advances in medicines in which your doctor is so interested, are but minor matters among the many we can and gladly will tell you if you wish," Hooper said.
The Corpsman was able to convince Amir of the falsity of the rumors and arguments Irad had spread, about how Estrella would lose her sovereignty if she joined, and that Terra would make slaves of her people.
"That is such a damnable thing to say, k'nyer," Hooper was almost angry, but very much in earnest. "You have only to send some trusted advisors to the various planets of the Federation—we will gladly furnish them transportation as we did before—and have them talk to the common people of any or all of our worlds. They will find that while we of Terra were the ones who developed space travel and sent people to colonize the first discovered and habitable planets, that the citizens of each world choose their own form of government, and that many of them are now even stronger than is Terra, the mother world. And there are peoples of several worlds who are natives and not Terrans or their descendants, whom we have not only not enslaved, but are helping to grow culturally so they may some day be advanced enough to join us as full-fledged equal members of the Federation, just as you, with your advanced civilization, were invited to do."
While all this conversation was going on in low tones across the room, George Hanlon sat by the side of his father's bed, almost in a trance, so deep was his concentration.
From what he had learned while breaking past the disintegrating barriers in Adwal Irad's mind, and from the techniques he had learned to apply in his previous excursions into other minds, he now found that, because his father was unconscious rather than merely asleep, he could, in a way, by-pass those barriers and get down into the depths of cell and gland in his father's mind and body, even though he could not fully penetrate the block into the memories, nor control the elder's actions.
Carefully Hanlon studied those depths, aided also by what he had learned in his healing of the caval, and from his intensive studies of human physiology and neurones and allied sciences. Using the totality of his admittedly meager knowledge, yet guided by things no human physician had so far learned, he at last began to trace the pattern of how human cells, tissues and nerves regenerated themselves, and how new blood leucocytes are made in the glands of the lymph and the spleen. He was able to trace the connectors between the minute organisms and the brain that directed their activities.
Then he set himself to the delicate task of activating those functions to begin and hasten the healing process.
Hour after hour he sat there, oblivious to all else taking place around him, his own body lolling almost lifelessly in the big chair while all his mental powers were engaged in the monumental and hitherto unheard-of task to which he had set himself.
The other three men concluded their conference at last, and got up, stretching hugely to pull themselves more awake after their half-night vigil.
Amir called in his servants, and ordered them to prepare and serve breakfast here for himself and his guests. Inver ran back to his own apartment to dress more completely for the day.
Hooper walked over to where Hanlon was sitting. "Asleep?" he half-whispered, doubtful because of the way the young man's body was sprawled in the deep chair.
George Hanlon stirred and sat up, flashing a smile. "You didn't need to whisper, Curt," he said. "I wasn't asleep. Just been helping dad get well."
The major stared at him in amazement. "What d'you mean?"
"You're half a doctor, Curt. Take a look at dad's wound."
Doubtfully, not fully understanding even yet what his companion meant, Hooper removed the bandage. He stared unbelievingly at the wounded shoulder. The deeper portions of that terrible burn were completely regenerated with healthy tissue. There was no sign of inflammation, no scarred tissue or fused flesh as usually shows in a fresh flamegun burn. The upper parts of the injury, too, were already beginning to heal toward the center.
"Why ... why," he was astounded. "That should've taken weeks. I never knew a wound to heal that fast."
"I found out how to speed up the cells and things," Hanlon said simply.
Admiral Newton roused as they talked, perhaps at the touch of Hooper's gentle hands removing the bandage. Now he opened his eyes, and after a moment to realize his surroundings and recall the events of his injuries, smiled at his co-workers.
"Hi, fellows. Everything under control?"
"Yes, sir, all O K," Hooper answered. "I think the Ruler is about ready to sign up."
"Good. Good work. Say, I feel fine. No pain—yet I seem to have a memory of being blasted ... of fainting." He frowned, then shrugged. "Couldn't have been much after all."
"It was very bad, sir," Hooper assured him gravely. "The burn was almost to the bone in your shoulder, and you lost a lot of blood. But now the wound is over half-healed."
"Great John. How long was I out?"
"Only a few hours, dad," Hanlon said.
"Oh, you found the kit, then?"
"What kit?"
"There's a complete emergency medi-surgical kit under the seat in my tricycle."
"Now he tells us," Hooper spread his hands and spoke in mock despair.
"Probably just as well," Hanlon said. "If we'd known about that I might never have felt the necessity of discovering how to heal wounds as I did."
"What're you talking about?" the admiral looked from one to the other in perplexity.
"The kid's too modest to tell you, sir," Hooper broke in, ignoring Hanlon's signal to keep quiet. "I don't pretend to know how he did it, but somehow or other he managed, with his mind, to stimulate and speed up the healing, so that at the rate it's been going, your wound should be all well in another twenty-four hours. I'll bandage it up again, and then, unless you're too weak, you can get up and help us eat breakfast the Ruler is having sent up for us all."
Young Inver, who had returned to the bedroom, was standing there, listening to all this. Now his expressive eyes lighted up, and he touched Hanlon's arm. When the young S S man turned to face him, Inver breathlessly asked, "Was that the way my caval got well so fast?"
Hanlon grinned at him. "I knew it was your favorite mount, and I didn't want to see it destroyed."
He turned quickly back to help his father get up. The admiral found that, while he was still a little shaky, he could stand up without dizziness. The Ruler had sent his uniform jacket out to be cleaned and mended, and this Newton donned. Soon the men were seated about the table the servants had set up, eating the splendid breakfast they brought and served.
Meantime, the five talked about the problem that so much interested them all, and that meant so much to all the peoples of their worlds.
"Our Colonial and Survey Bureaus are constantly seeking throughout space for other planets having intelligent races, and we feel sure yours will not be the last we'll find," Admiral Newton told the Ruler and his son. "It is egotistical and silly to think we Terrans are the only civilized peoples in the universe."
"Chances are we'll find others who are as far ahead of us in intelligence, science and technologies as you Estrellans are ahead of us in ethics," Hanlon added honestly.
Amir and Inver looked up in astonishment at that simple statement. "You ... you actually mean ... honestly ... that you Terrans do not believe you are the highest form of life in the universe?" Inver put their questioning into words.
"Great John, no!" Admiral Newton exploded. "Oh, I suppose," he added more slowly, "that there are some earth people who may still feel that way, but the majority of us do not, especially those who have travelled at all extensively. We used to think that; used to believe, hundreds of years ago, that we were theonlyintelligent life in the cosmos. But we know better now that we're spreading out. I, personally, have been on at least six planets that contain intelligent life that did not stem from Terra, although yours is the highest of the six, and none of the rest are yet at the point where they can be asked to affiliate with the Federation as equal members. But those others are being taught and coached as best we can—and as much as they want to be. In a few more generations they'll probably have reached the point where they will be ready to be seriously considered for equality status with us, as far as Federation membership is concerned."
"Just how do you determine the fitness of a race for membership in your Federation?" Inver leaned forward, his expressive eyes questioning. His father started to rebuke him for his forwardness, but the admiral interrupted.
"No, that's a good question, and we're glad to answer it—just as we're glad to answeranyquestions to which we know the answers. As to this one, we look first for signs of intelligence great enough to enable the people to govern themselves without continual warfare," he said earnestly. "Their knowledge of science and technology is not so important, we feel, although their ability to learn is. Some races will probably never have real need for machines of any sort—races like the plant-men of Algon, where Captain Hanlon was recently instrumental in freeing them from slavery."
He paused a moment to marshal his thoughts. "Then we look to see if they are making a conscious effort to advance in education and learning—no matter along what lines that may be," he continued. "We study their knowledge of and interest in ethical matters—their religion, and their belief in the general concept of right and wrong, of decency and observance of the rights of others. If they have these things, and have, above all, the desire and determination to continue their cultural growth, then we consider them worthy of equal Federation membership."
"And your wonderful people certainly measure up to all of those concepts," Hanlon added sincerely.
The five had finished eating by now, and the Ruler rose. "I will call my advisors together, and discuss this matter with them," he said. "But I can tell you now that I am more than ever disposed to accept your invitation. I could do so this moment," he said with a deprecating smile, "but I like to make sure that the leaders of my people agree with my decisions, as much as possible. I will have a servant show you to my study, where you can discuss your own plans while my ministers, my son and myself talk in the Council Chambers. I will let you know as soon as we reach a definite decision."
"Thank you, k'nyer. We will gladly await your answer," Admiral Newton rose, too, and bowed, as did Hanlon and Hooper.
"And thanks for the fine meal," Hanlon grinned. "I was really hungry."
Inver came up to him and laid his hand on Hanlon's shoulder. "I like you," he said simply but from the heart. "I hope we shall always be friends, and shall meet often through the coming years."
In the little study the three found easy chairs, and Admiral Newton turned first to Major Hooper. "As far as I know now, we'll all be going back when the sneakboat comes in a day or so. I suggest you go back to Simonides and get in touch with the High Command to get your next assignment."
"Right, sir, will do."
"About you, Spence, I want you to come with me and...."
"Excuse me, dad, but if I can have some free time, there is some very important research I want to do, that I think will benefit humanity much more than another detective assignment."
"What's on your mind, son?"
"This new ability I'm beginning to get," Hanlon said seriously. "I've found I can get down to the level of the body cells and glands, with my mind, and I think with more study and research I can learn things no one else has ever known before. But I'll need a lot of help from research doctors and endocrinologists, to tell me things I don't know. I may be all wet, but I have an idea I can, in time, make some very important contributions to medical science—with their help in telling me what to look for, and if it can be arranged so I can have the time to devote to that. I don't mean," he added, flushing with embarrassment, "that I think I'm...."
"You are, whether you think so or not," his father interrupted, eyes gleaming with pride and some amusement. "With those special gifts of yours, you can do things no one else ever hoped to do. Such research would certainly be worthwhile, especially if you can help others learn how to heal wounds as fast as you did mine."
"Speaking of which," Hooper broke in, "I suggest, admiral that you lie down while we're talking. It will be less strain on your body and heart, and you're still weak, even if you won't admit it," he added as he saw a protest forming on Newton's lips.
When Hanlon added his entreaties to Hooper's, the admiral grinned and lay down on a couch there in the study. "Anybody'd think you guys were the head men, not me," he growled, but good-naturedly.
Then he sobered quickly and went back to their discussion. "I'll have to take it up with the Board, of course, but I think they'll agree. I know of nothing definite needing you right at the moment, so they'll probably give you a leave of absence for that research."
"I'd like to go to some other planet than Terra or Simonides," Hanlon said. "One where I'm not known, so I won't have to be watching out for anyone who might recognize me. And if I'm to do the study, I'll want authorization to work at some of their insane asylums, too."
"Why those, in John's name?"
"When I tackled Irad's mind towards the end, I was able to get down inside of it, further than I've ever been in any other person's mind, because he was insane at the last, and his mind was breaking down. There seems to be a block or barrier in every sane person's mind that I can't get through."
"But you got into your father's ..." Hooper looked puzzled.
"In dad's case, Curt, it was only because he was unconscious, rather than asleep or awake, that I could penetrate. Even then, I had to sort of ... well, by-pass the barrier ... to get down deep enough to touch the cells and glands and such things. Of course, with more study and practice, now that I know more about it, I may be able to reach those depths in spite of the block ... oh, heck, I sound like I considered myself a sort of superman," he flushed again, and his eyes implored them not to think him conceited.
"We know you neither are a superman nor think you are," his father assured him quickly. "You have a special gift, and you are trying to use it to benefit others, that's all. Don't be modest—it's really false modesty, in a way. Go ahead with your ideas."
"Well, I'd also like to try working with engineers and technies, to see if it would be possible to rig up some sort of a mechanical method of doing the same thing."
Newton shook his head in puzzled wonder. "You're completely beyond understanding, Spence. I sometimes wonder if you're human ... if you're really the son of Martha and myself."
"Why, no," Hanlon grinned then. "Didn't you know? I'm a changeling the little elves left on your doorstep."
His father and Hooper laughed away the tension. "Could be, at that," the admiral said. "Well, I'll certainly recommend to the Board that they grant you all the time and opportunity you need. If you can get to the bottom of this, and especially if you can teach other doctors how to get at those glands and use them...."
"That'll be the hard part, dad. What I do hope to be able to do is to perhaps find out more exactly how the nerves and cells and glands work, and then doctors would be better able to diagnose and treat various diseases and injuries."
They were interrupted by Inver, who came in to ask certain questions the Ruler and advisors wished to know.
"Would it be possible, or rather, is it something you would permit," he asked, "for us to set up some sort of an advanced school or university here, and have you send us instructors? A place where our best young men and women could go to study the many things we know nothing about?"
"It certainly will be possible, and it is a wonderful idea," Admiral Newton assured him. "And one thing we want to make clear, that you do not yet seem sure of. That is that there is no question of our 'permitting' you to do what you want to do. None whatever, in any way, shape or form. Your government is and will always be completely autonomous—always handled as you people see fit to work it. We never, under any circumstances, try to make other races 'conform' to any standards or regulations they do not wish to make their own. We will give freely of our knowledge, our science and technologies, our beliefs and concepts—but you Estrellans will be the sole and only judge of what you want to accept.
"And we will want to have you send some of your people to our universities, to teach us the advanced things you know that we don't. Your system of ethics, for instance, and the way you have learned to live together so closely and honestly."
After Inver had gone back to the conference, the three men sat about waiting. Newton had almost fallen asleep—Hooper was completely so—when Hanlon stirred.
"I don't know, though," he ruminated aloud. "Maybe there's something else more important than that research at the moment."
"What?" his father roused himself sufficiently to ask.
"That alien being I contacted in Irad's mind."
"What in Snyder's name are you talking about?" Newton raised up in excitement. "What alien?"
"Oh, that's right, I didn't tell you. You're being hurt and my trying to heal you made me forget it." Hanlon explained swiftly about that strange mind and its startling communication.
Admiral Newton swung his feet to the floor, all thoughts of sleep banished.
"And you waited all this time to tell me a thing as important as that?" he demanded incredulously and almost angrily.
"Sorry, dad, I just happened to feel your life was more important at the moment, because the other could wait for a...."
"OK, OK, I'll buy that for now. But we'll have to make other arrangements immediately. We'll have to find out where it came from and whether this other oligarchy or federation or whatever it is, is a menace to us."
"I don't think it is," Hanlon said slowly. "The being's mind was very peculiar, but it appeared to be extremely logical in its thoughts. It said that since it had lost and we have won here, it was withdrawing—and I don't believe it meant temporarily, either. I think it meant it was all through here and...."
"Don't be silly or childish, son," the admiral was intense and forceful. "That one being may have felt that way, but his bosses won't. With two groups of planets so near in space—both with means of space travel—there's bound to be war of some sort, whether actual, ideological or economic remains to be seen. We'll have to hunt them up, and find out what it's all about—and immediately."
Hanlon shook his head. "I'll acknowledge your greater experience, dad, but I still have a feeling you're wrong about this. I believe that other race is entirely different in their way of thinking to ours—that they are coldly logical and not the type to keep on fighting for something they've already lost. But, of course," he shrugged, "it's up to the High Command to decide. I'd still like to get on with that other research."
"I'll put both problems up to the Board," Newton said. "But I bet I know how they'll decide. There's the fact that those beings can read and control all our minds—except yours. It looks like your job, son—yours and no one else's ... although we'll all be behind you in every way we can, of course. Meanwhile," stretching out on the couch again, "until Amir and his advisors want us, I think we'd both better take a nap."
"I am kinda pooped, at that," Hanlon said, and sprawled out in his chair.
The admiral was soon asleep, but only Hanlon's body and part of his mind relaxed. The balance of his mind was inside his father's body again, speeding the healing of that shoulder burn.
Finally Inver came to call the three Terrans into the Council Chamber. His broadly smiling face, and the thoughts Hanlon read from the surface of his mind, told him the decision had been favorable—a fact he signalled to the others at once.
"We are completely convinced now," Elus Amir told them when the Terrans were seated about the conference table, "that our world will be best served by joining your Federation as we were asked to do. If you have the treaty papers at hand, I will gladly sign them. And my son," looking proudly at young Inver, "will sign with me as the next Ruler of Szstruyyah."
"We do not have the proper documents," Admiral Newton said. "But our ship will be here tomorrow night, and it has long-range communicators with which I will immediately get in touch with the Federation Council, who will send accredited ambassadors here at once. They should be here within five days."
"Now that we have made up our minds, we are anxious to affiliate with the other worlds. We feel it is a tremendous honor, being the first non-Terran race asked to join them."
"As it is an honor for us to have such a high-principled peoples joined to us," Admiral Newton said with a courtly bow. "May I suggest, k'nyer and nyers, that when our ambassadors arrive, you ask them for whatever help you desire in the way of teachers, goods or materials. They will gladly explain what we have to offer, and I know they will study you and your people to find the things they will ask for in exchange. Remember always, please, that it is our steadfast policy to teach only what you really want to know, and which you specifically ask for, not what we might 'think you ought to know'."
"That one thing alone," Elus Amir said, deeply moved as were the members of his Council, "would be enough to confirm us in our belief that we will be doing the right thing for our people in joining you."
Amir, his son and the councillors, rose and bowed. The three Terrans had also risen, and saluted punctiliously. Then Newton stepped forward impulsively and held out his hand, which Amir grasped as though he had always used the gesture.
"Welcome to the Federation of Planets, sire," Newton's voice was filled with emotion.
The Ruler silently wrung his hand.
When it was time for the Corpsmen to leave, after some general conversation between them all, the Ruler and his son were again profuse in their gratitude for what the men had done, personally, to save Amir's life, and the peace of their world.
They escorted the three downstairs and out to Newton's tricycle, and stood at Estrellan salute as the Terrans got into their machine.
"Oh, one thing, Lona," the Ruler came forward just as Hanlon was getting in. Amir's eyes were filled with puzzled wonderment. "How did you know Adwal Irad was coming to attack me while I was asleep, locked in my room?"
Hanlon's eyes danced, but he kept his face straight. "We have a saying on Terra, k'nyer, that explains it—'a little bird told me'."
And he bowed again as he entered the machine, and Admiral Newton drove away, leaving behind a more than ever puzzled Ruler of the soon-to-be newest member of the Federation of Planets.
THE END