"I think I'll come along with you and bodyguard you, Lola," Belle said, the following morning after breakfast. "Clee's going to be seven thousand miles deep in mathematics and Jim's doing his stuff at the observatory, and I can't help either of 'em at the moment. You'd do a better job, wouldn't you, if you could concentrate on it?"
"Of course. Thanks, Belle. But remember, it's already been announced—no death. Just hands. I can't really believe that I'll be attacked, but they seem pretty sure of it."
"I'd like to separate anyone like that from his head instead of his hands, but as it is published so it will be performed."
"How about wearing some kind of half-way-comfortable shoes instead of those slippers?" Garlock asked. "That could turn out to be a long, tough brawl, and your dogs'll be begging for mercy before you get back here."
"Uh-uh. Very comfortable and a perfect fit. Besides, if I have to suffer just a little bit for good appearance's sake in a matter of intergalactic amity...."
"A matter of showing off, you mean."
"Why, Clee!" Belle widened her eyes at him. "How you talk! But they're ready, Lola—let's go."
The two girls disappeared from the Main, to appear on the speakers' stand in front of the Capitol Building. President Benton was there, with his cabinet and certain other personages. General Cordeen and his staff. And many others.
"Oh, Miss Bellamy, too? I'mveryglad you are here," Benton said, as he shook hands cordially with both.
"Thank you. I came along as bodyguard. May I meet your Secret Service Chief, please?"
"Why, of course. Miss Bellamy, may I present Mr. Avengord?"
"You have the hospital room ready?... Where is it, please?"
"Back of us, in the wing...."
"Just think of it, please, and I will follow your thought.... Ah, yes, there it is. I hope it will not be used. You agree with General Cordeen that there will be one or more attempts at assassination?"
"I'm very much afraid so. This town is literally riddled with enemy agents, and of course we don't know all of them—especially the best ones. They know that if these meetings go through, they're sunk; so they're desperate. We've got this whole area covered like dew—we've arrested sixteen suspects already this morning—but all the advantage is theirs," Avengord finished glumly.
"Not all of it, sir," Belle smiled at him cheerfully. "You have me, and I am a Prime Operator. That is, a wielder of power of no small ability. Oh, you are right. There is an attempt now being prepared."
While Belle had been greeting and conversing, she had also been scanning. Her range, her sensitivity, and her power were immensely greater than Lola's; were probably equal to Garlock's own. She scanned by miles against the scant yards covered by the Secret Service.
"Where?"
"Give me your thought." The Secret Service man did not know what she meant—telepathy was of course new to him—so she seized his attention and directed it to a certain window in a building a couple of miles away on a hill.
"But they couldn't, from there!"
"But they can. They have a quite efficient engine of destruction—a 'rifle' is their thought. Large, and long, with a very good telescope on it—with crosshairs. If I scan their minds more precisely you may know the weapon.... Ah, they think of it as a 'Buford Mark Forty Anti-Aircraft Rifle'."
"A Buford! My God, they can hit any button on her clothes—get her away, quick!" He tried to jump, but could not move.
"As you were," she directed. "There was another Buford there, and another over there." She guided his thought. "Two men to each Buford. There are now six handless men in your hospital room. If you will send men to those three places you will find the Bufords and the hands. Your surgeon will have no difficulty in matching the hands to the men. If any seek to remove either Bufords or hands before your men get there, I will de-hand them, also."
To say that the Secret Service man was flabbergasted is to put it very mildly indeed. Cordeen had told him, with much pounding on his desk and in searing, air-blueing language, what to expect-or, rather, to expectanything, no matter what and with no limits whatever—but he hadn't believed it then and simply could not believe it now. Goddamn it, such thingscouldn'thappen. And this beautiful, beautifully-stacked, half-naked woman—girl, rather, she couldn't be a day over twenty-five—even if it had been their black-browed, toplofty leader, Captain Garlock himself....
"I am twenty-three of your years old, not twenty-five," she informed him, coldly, "and I will permit no distinction of sex. In your primitive culture the women may still be allowing you men to believe in the fallacy of the superiority of the male, but know right now that I can do anything any man ever born can do and do it better."
"Oh, I'm ... I'm sure ... certainly...." Avengord's thought was incoherent.
"If you want me to work with you you had better start believing right now that there are a lot of things you don't know," Belle went on relentlessly. "Stop believing that just because a thing has not already happened on this primitive, backward, mudball planet of yours, it can't happen anywhere or anywhen. You do believe, however, whether you want to or not, things you see with your own eyes?"
"Yes. I cannotbe hypnotized."
"I'm very glad you believe that much." Avengord did not notice that she neither confirmed nor denied the truth of his statement. "To that end you will go now into the hospital room and see the bandaging going on. You will see and hear the news broadcast going out as I prepared it."
He went, and came back a badly shaken man.
"But they're sending it out exactly as it happened!" he protested. "They'll all scatter out so fast and so far we'llnevercatch them!"
"By no means. You see, the amputees didn't believe that they would lose their hands. Their superiors didn't believe it, either; they assured each other and their underlings that it was just capitalistic bluff and nonsense. And since they are all even more materialistic and hidebound and unbelieving than you are, they all are now highly confused—at a complete loss."
"You can saythatagain. If I, working with you and having you pounding it into my head, couldn't more than half believe it...."
"So they are now very frightened, as well as confused, and the director of their whole spy system is now violating rule and precedent by sending out messengers to summon certain high agents to confer with him in his secret place."
"If you'll tell me where, I'll get over to my office...."
"No. We'll both be in your office in plenty of time. We'll watch Lola get started. It will be highly instructive for you to watch a really capable Operator at work."
President Benton had been introduced; had in turn finished introducing Lola. The crowd, many thousands strong, was cheering. Lola was stepping into the carefully marked speaker's place.
"You may disconnect these," she waved a hand at the battery of microphones, "since I do not use speech. Not only do I not know any of your various languages, but no one language would suffice. My thought will go to every person on this, your world."
"World?" the President asked in surprise. "Surely not behind the Curtains? They will jam you, I'm afraid."
"My thought, as I shall drive it, will not be stopped," Lola assured him. "Since this world has no telepathy, it has no mind-blocks and I can cover the planet as easily as one mind. Nor does it matter whether it be day or night, or whether anyone is awake or asleep. All will receive my message. Since you wish a record, the cameras may run, although they are neither necessary nor desirable for me. Everyone will see me in his mind, much better than on the surface of any teevee tube."
"And I was going to have her addressCongress!" the President whispered, aside, to General Cordeen.
Then Lola put her whole fine personality into a smile, directed apparently not only at each separate individual within sight, but also individually at every person on the globe; and when Brownie Montandon set out to make a production of a smile, it had the impact of a pile-driver. Then came her smooth, gently-flowing, friendly thought:
"My name, friends of this world Ormolan, is Lola Montandon. Those of you who are now looking at teevee screens can see my imaged likeness. All of you can see me very much better within your own minds.
"I am not here as an invader in any sense, but only as a citizen of the First Galaxy of this, our common universe. I have attuned my mind to each of yours in order to give you a message from the United Galaxian Societies.
"There are four of us Galaxians in this Exploration Team. As Galaxians it is our purpose here and our duty here to open your minds to certain basic truths, to be of help to you in clearing your minds of fallacies, of lies, and of undefensible prejudices; to the end that you will more rapidly become Galaxians yourselves...."
"Okay. This will go on and on. That's enough to give you an idea of what a trained and polished performer can do. What do you think ofthemcomfits, Chief?" Belle deliberately knocked the Secret Service man out of his Lola-induced mood.
"Huh? Oh, yes." Avengord was still groggy. "She's phenomenal—good—I don't mean goody-goody, but sincere and really...."
"Yeah, but don't fall in love with her. Everybody does and it doesn't do any of them a bit of good. That's her specialty and she'sverygood at it. I told you she's a smooth, smooth worker."
"You can saythatagain." Avengord did not know that he was repeating himself. "But it isn't an act. She means it and it's true."
"Of course she means it and of course it's true. Otherwise even she, with all her training, couldn't sell such a big bill of goods." Then, in answer to the man's unspoken question, "Yes, we're all different. She's the contactor, the spreader of the good old oil, the shining example of purity and sweetness and light—in short, the Greaser of the Ways. I'm a fighter, myself. Do you think she could actually have de-handed those men? Uh-uh. At the last minute she would have weakened and brought them in whole. My job in this operation is to knock hell out of the ones Lola can't convince, such as those spies you and I are going to interview pretty quick."
"Even they ought to be convinced. I don't see how anybody could help but be."
"Uh-uh. It'll bounce off like hailstones off of a tin roof. The only thing to do to that kind of scum is kill them. If you'll give me a thought as to where your office is we'll hop over and...."
Belle and Avengord disappeared from the stand; and, such was Lola's hold, no one on the platform or in the throng even noticed that they were gone. They materialized in Avengord's private office; he sitting as usual at his desk, she reclining in legs-crossed ease in a big leather chair.
"... get to work." Belle's thought had not been interrupted by any passage of time whatever. "What do you want to do first?"
"But I thought you were covering Miss Montandon?"
"I am. Like a blanket. Just as well here as anywhere. I will be, until she gets back to thePleiades. What first?"
"Oh. Well, since I don't know what your limits are—if you have any—you might as well do whatever you think best and I'll watch you do it."
"That's the way to talk. You're going to get a shock when you see who the Head Man is. George T. Basil."
"Basil! I'll say it's a shock!" Avengord steadied, frowned in concentration. "Could be, though.Hewouldneverbe suspected—but they're very good at that."
"Yeah. His name used to be Baslovkowitz. He was trained for years, then planted. None of this can be proved, as his record is perfect. Born citizen, highest standing in business and social circles. Unlimited entry and top security clearance. Right?"
"Right ... and getting enough evidence, in such cases as that, is pure, unadulterated hell."
"I suppose I could kill him, after we've recorded everything he knows," Belle suggested.
"No!" He snapped. "Too many people think of us as a strong-arm squad now. Anyway, I'd rather kill him myself than wish the job off onto—you don'tlikekilling, do you?"
"That's the understatement of the century. No civilized person does. In a hot fight, yes; but killing anyone who is helpless to fight back—in cold blood—ugh! It makes me sick in my stomach even to think of it."
"With the way you can read minds, we can get evidence enough to send them all to jail, and that we'll have to do."
"How about this?" Belle grinned as another solution came to mind. "From those first eight top men, we'll find out a lot of others lower down, and so on, until we have 'em all locked up here. We'll announce that exactly so many spies and agents—giving names, addresses, and facts, of course—got panicky after Lola's address. They fired up their hidden planes and flew back behind the Curtain. Then, when we've scanned their minds and recorded everything you want, I'll pack them all, very snugly and carefully, into Sovig's private office. With the world situation what it then will be, he won't dare kill them—he simply won't know what to do when faced with it."
Avengord agreed happily. He reached out and flipped the switch of his intercom. "Miss Kimling, come in, please."
The door burst open. "Why, itisyou! But you were on the rostrum just a minute.... Oh!" She saw Belle, and backed, eyes wide, toward the door she had just entered. "Shewas there, too, and it's fifteenmiles...."
"Steady, Fram. I'd like to present you to Prime Operator Belle Bellamy, who is cleaning out the entire Curtain organization for us."
"But how did you...."
"Never mind that. Teleportation. It took her half an hour to pound it into me, and we can't take time to explain anything now. I'll tell everybody everything I know as soon as I can. In the meantime, don't be surprised at anything that happens, and by that I meananything. Such as solid people appearing on this carpet—on that spot right there—instantaneously. I want you to pay close attention to everything your mind receives, put your phenomenal memory into high gear, listen to everything I record, stop me any time I'm wrong, and besureI get everything we need."
"I don't know exactly what you're talking about, sir, but I'll try."
"Frankly, I don't, either—we'll just have to roll it as we go along. We're ready for George T. Basil now, Miss Bellamy—I hope. Don't jump, Fram."
Basil appeared and Fram jumped. She did not scream, however, and did not run out of the office. The master spy was a big, self-assured, affluent type. He had not the slightest idea of how he had been spirited out of his ultra-secret sub-basement and into this room; but he knew where he was and, after one glance at Belle, he knew why. He decided instantly what to do about it.
"This is an outrage!" he bellowed, hammering with his fist on Avengord's desk. "A stupid, high-handed violation of the rights...."
Belle silenced him and straightened him up.
"High-handed? Yes," she admitted quite seriously. "However, from the Galaxian standpoint, you have no rights at all and you are going to be extremely surprised at just how high-handed I am going to be. I am going to read your mind to its very bottom—layer by layer, like peeling an onion—and everything you know and everything you think is going down in Mr. Avengord's Big Black Book."
Belle linked all four minds together and directed the search, making sure that no item, however small, was missed. Avengord recorded every pertinent item. Fram Kimling memorized and correlated and double-checked.
Soon it was done, and Basil, shouting even louder about this last and worst violation of his rights—those of his own private mind—was led away by two men and "put away where he would keep."
"But thisisa flagrant violation of law...." Miss Kimling began.
"You can saythatagain!" her boss gloated. "And if you only knew how tickled I am to do it, after the way they've been kickingmearound!
"But I wonder ... are you sure we can get away with it?"
"Certainly," Belle put in. "We Galaxians are doing it, not your government or your Secret Service. We'll start you clean—but it'll be up to you to keep it clean, and that will be no easy job."
"No, it won't; but we'll do it. Come around again, say in five or six years, and see."
"You know, I might take you up on that? Maybe not this same team, but I've got a notion to tape a recommendation for a re-visit, just to see how you get along. It'd be interesting."
"I wish you would. It might help, too, if everybody thought you'd come back to check. Suppose you could?"
"I've no idea, really. I'd like to, though, and I'll see what I can do. But let's get on with the job. They're all in what you call the 'tank' now. Which one do you want next?"
The work went on. That evening there was of course a reception; and then a ball. And Belle's feet did hurt when she got back to thePleiades, but of course she would not admit the fact—most especially not to Garlock.
Exactly at the expiration of the stipulated seventy-two hours, the Galaxians began to destroy military atomic plants; and, shortly thereafter, the starship's crew was again ready to go.
And James rammed home the red button that would send them—all four wondered—where?
It turned out to be another Hodell-type world; and, even with the high-speed comparator, it took longer to check the charts than it did to make them.
The next planet was similar. So was the next, and the next. The time required for checking grew longer and longer.
"How about cutting out this checking entirely, Clee?" James asked then. "What good does it do? Even if we find a similarity, what could we do about it? We've got enough stuff now to keep a crew of astronomers busy for five years making a tank of it."
"Okay. We probably are so far away now, anyway, that the chance of finding a similarity is vanishingly small. Keep on taking the shots, though; they'll prove, I think, that the universe is one whole hell of a lot bigger than anybody has ever thought it was. That reminds me—are you getting anywhere on that N-problem? I'm not."
"I'm getting nowhere, fast. You should have been a math prof in a grad school, Clee. You could flunk every advanced student you had with that one. Belle and I together can't feed it to Compy in such shape as to get a definite answer. We think, though, that your guess was right—if we ever stabilize anywhere it will probably be relative to Hodell, not to Tellus. But the cold fact of how far away we must be by this time just scares the pants off of me."
"You and me both, my ripe and old. We're alongways from home."
Jumping went on; and, two or three planets later, they encountered an Arpalone Inspector who did not test them for compatibility with the humanity of his world.
"Do not land," the creature said, mournfully. "This world is dying, and if you leave the protection of your ship, you too will die."
"Butworldsdon't die, surely?" Garlock protested. "People, yes—but worlds?"
"Worlds die. It is the Dilipic. The humans die, too, of course, but it is the world itself that is attacked, not the people. Some of them, in fact, will live through it."
Garlock drove his attention downward and scanned.
"You Arpalones are doing what looks like a mighty good job of fighting. Can't you win?"
"No, it is too late. It was already too late when they first appeared, two days ago. When the Dilipics strike in such small force that none of their—agents?—devices?—whatever they are?—can land against our beaming, a world can be saved; but such cases are very few."
"But this thought, 'Dilipic'?" Garlock asked, impatiently. "It is merely a symbol—it doesn'tmeananything—to me, at least. What are they? Where do they come from?"
"No one knows anything about them," came the surprising answer. "Not even their physical shape—if they have any. Nor where they come from, or how they do what they do."
"They can't be very common," Garlock pondered. "We have never heard of them before."
"Fortunately, they are not," the Inspector agreed. "Scarcely one world in five hundred is ever attacked by them—this is the first Dilipic invasion I have seen."
"Oh, you Arpalones don't die with your worlds, then?" Lola asked. She was badly shaken. "But I suppose the Arpales do, of course."
"Practically all of the Arpales will die, of course. Most of us Arpalones will also die, in the battles now going on. Those of us who survive, however, will stay aloft until the rehabilitation fleet arrives, then we will continue our regular work."
"Rehab?" Belle exclaimed. "You mean you canrestoreplanets so badly ruined that all the people die?"
"Oh, yes. It is a long and difficult work, but the planet is always re-peopled."
"Let's go down," Garlock said. "I want to get all of this on tape."
They went down, over what had been one of that world's largest cities. The air, the stratosphere, and all nearby space were full of battling vessels of all shapes and sizes; ranging from the tremendous globular spaceships of the invaders down to the tiny, one-man jet-fighters of the Arpalones.
The Dilipics were using projectile weapons only—ranging in size, with the size of the vessels, from heavy machine guns up to seventy-five-millimeter quick-firing rifles. They were also launching thousands of guided missiles of fantastic speed and of tremendous explosive power.
The Arpalones were not using anything solid at all. Each defending vessel, depending upon its type and class, carried from four up to a hundred or so burnished-metal reflectors some four feet in diameter; each with a small black device at its optical center and each pouring out a tight beam of highly effective energy. It was at these reflectors, and particularly at these tiny devices, that the small-arms fire was directed, and the marksmanship of the Dilipics was very good indeed. However, each projector was oscillating irregularly and each fighter-plane was taking evasive action; and, since a few bullet-holes in any reflector did not reduce its efficiency very much, and since the central mechanisms were so small and were moving so erratically, a good three-quarters of the Arpalonian beams were still in action.
There was no doubt at all that those beams were highly effective. Invisible for the most part, whenever one struck a Dilipic ship or plane everything in its path flared almost instantly into vapor and the beam glared incandescently, blindingly white or violet or high blue—never anything lower than blue. Almost everything material, that is; for guns, ammunition, and missiles were not affected. They did not even explode. When whatever fabric it was that supported them was blasted away, all such things simply dropped; simply fell through thousands or hundreds of thousands of feet of air to crash unheeded upon whatever happened to be below.
The invading task force was arranged in a whirling, swirling, almost cylindrical cone, more or less like an Earthly tornado. The largest vessels were high above the stratosphere; the smallest fighters were hedge-hoppingly close to ground. Each Dilipic unit seemed madly, suicidally determined that nothing would get through that furious wall to interfere with whatever it was that was coming down from space to the ground through—along?—the relatively quiet "eye" of the pseudo-hurricane.
On the other hand, the Arpalones were madly, suicidally determined to break through that vortex wall, to get into the "eye," to wreak all possible damage there. Group after group after group of five jet-fighters each came driving in; and, occasionally, the combined blasts of all five made enough of opening in the wall so that the center fighter could get through. Once inside, each pilot stood his little, stubby-winged craft squarely on her tail, opened his projectors to absolute maximum of power and of spread, and climbed straight up the spout until he was shot down.
And the Arpalones were winning the battle. Larger and larger gaps were being opened in the vortex wall; gaps which it became increasingly difficult for the Dilipics to fill. More and more Arpalone fighters were getting inside. They were lasting longer and doing more damage all the time. The tube was growing narrower and narrower.
All four Galaxians perceived all this in seconds. Garlock weighed out and detonated a terrific matter-conversion bomb in the exact center of one of the largest vessels of the attacking fleet. It had no effect. Then a larger one. Then another, still heavier. Finally, at over a hundred megatons equivalent, he did get results—of a sort. The invaders' guns, ammunition, and missiles were blown out of the ship and scattered outward for miles in all directions; but the structure of the Dilipic ship itself was not harmed.
Belle had been studying, analyzing, probing the things that were coming down through that hellish tube.
"Clee!" She drove a thought. "Cut out the monkey-business with those damn firecrackers of yours and look here—pure, solid force, like ball lightning or our Op field, but entirely different—see if you can analyze the stuff!"
"Alive?" Garlock asked, as he drove a probe into one of the things—they were furiously-radiating spheres some seven feet in diameter—and began to tune to it.
"I don't know—don't think so—if they are, they're a form of life that no sane human being could even imagine!"
"Let's see what they actually do," Garlock suggested, still trying to tune in with the thing, whatever it was, and still following it down.
This particular force-ball happened to hit the top of a six-story building. It was not going very fast—fifteen or twenty miles an hour—but when it struck the roof it did not even slow down. Without any effort at all, apparently, it continued downward through the concrete and steel and glass of the building; and everything in its path became monstrously, sickeningly, revoltingly changed.
"I simply can't stand any more of this," Lola gasped. "If you don't mind, I'm going to my room, set all the Gunther blocks it has, and bury my head under a pillow."
"Go ahead, Brownie," James said. "This is too tough foranybodyto watch. I'd do the same, except I've got to run these cameras."
Lola disappeared.
Garlock and Belle kept on studying. Neither had paid any attention at all to either Lola or James.
Instead of the structural material it had once been, the bore that the thing had traversed was now full of a sparkling, bubbling, writhing, partly-fluid-partly-viscous, obscenely repulsive mass of something unknown and unknowable on Earth; a something which, Garlock now recalled, had been thought of by the Arpalone Inspector as "golop."
As that unstoppable globe descended through office after office, it neither sought out people nor avoided them. Walls, doors, windows, ceilings, floors and rugs, office furniture and office personnel; all alike were absorbed into and made a part of that indescribably horrid brew.
Nor did the track of that hellishly wanton globe remain a bore. Instead, it spread. That devil's brew ate into and dissolved everything it touched like a stream of boiling water being poured into a loosely-heaped pile of granulated sugar. By the time the ravening sphere had reached the second floor, the entire roof of the building was gone and the writhing, racing flood of corruption had flowed down the outer walls and across the street, engulfing and transforming sidewalks, people, pavement, poles, wires, automobiles, people-anything and everything it touched.
The globe went on down, through basement and sub-basement, until it reached solid, natural ground. Then, with its top a few inches below the level of natural ground, it came to a full stop and—apparently—did nothing at all. By this time, the ravening flood outside had eaten far into the lower floors of the buildings across the street, as well as along all four sides of the block, and tremendous masses of masonry and steel, their supporting structures devoured, were subsiding, crumbling, and crashing down into the noisome flood of golop—and were being transformed almost as fast as they could fall.
One tremendous mass, weighing hundreds or perhaps thousands of tons, toppled almost as a whole; splashing the stuff in all directions for hundreds of yards. Wherever each splash struck, however, a new center of attack came into being, and the peculiarly disgusting, abhorrent liquidation went on.
"Can you do anything with it, Clee?" Belle demanded.
"Not too much—it's a mess," Garlock replied. "Besides, it wouldn't get us far, I don't think. It'll be more productive to analyze the beams the Arpalones are using to break them up, don't you think?"
Then, for twenty solid minutes, the two Prime Operators worked on those enigmatic beams.
"We can't assemblethatkind of stuff with our minds," Belle decided then.
"I'll say we can't," Garlock agreed. "Ten megacycles, and cycling only twenty per second." He whistled raucously through his teeth. "My guess is it'd take four months to design and build a generator to put out that kind of stuff. It's worse than our Op field."
"I'm not sure I couldeverdesign one," Belle said, thoughtfully, "but of course I'm not the engineer you are...." Then, she could not help adding, "... yet."
"No, and you never will be," he said, flatly.
"No? That's whatyouthink!" Even in such circumstances as those, Belle Bellamy was eager to carry on her warfare with her Project Chief.
"That'sexactlywhat I think—and I'm so close to knowing it for a fact that the difference is indetectible."
Belle almost—but not quite—blew up. "Well, whatareyou going to do?"
"Unless and until I can figure out something effective to do, I'm not going to try to do anything. If you, with your vaunted and flaunted belief in the inherent superiority of the female over the male, can dope out something useful before I do, I'll eat crow and help you do it. As for arguing with you, I'm all done for the moment."
Belle gritted her teeth, flounced away, and plumped herself down into a chair. She shut her eyes and put every iota of her mind to work on the problem of finding something—anything—that could be done to help this doomed world and to show that big, overbearing jerk of a Garlock that she was a better man than he was. Which of the two objectives loomed more important, she herself could not have told, to save her life.
And Garlock looked around. The air and the sky over the now-vanished city were both clear of Dilipic craft. The surviving Arpalone fighters and other small craft were making no attempt to land, anywhere on the world's surface. Instead, they were flying upward toward, and were being drawn one by one into the bowels of, huge Arpalonian space-freighters. When each such vessel was filled to capacity, it flew upward and set itself into a more-or-less-circular orbit around the planet.
Around and around and around the ruined world thePleiadeswent; recording, observing, charting. Fifty-eight of those atrocious Dilipic vortices had been driven to ground. Every large land-mass surrounded by large bodies of water had been struck once, and only once; from the tremendous area of the largest continent down to the relatively tiny expanses of the largest islands. One land-mass, one vortex. One only.
"What d'you supposethatmeans?" James asked. "Afraid of water?"
"Damfino. Could be. Let's check ... mountains, too. Skip us back to where we started—oceans and mountains both fairly close there."
The city had disappeared long since; for hundreds of almost-level square miles there extended a sparkling, seething, writhing expanse of—of what? The edge of that devouring flood had almost reached the foot-hills, and over that gnawing, dissolving edge thePleiadespaused.
Small lakes and ordinary rivers bothered the golop very little if at all. There was perhaps a slightly increased sparkling, a slight stiffening, a little darkening, some freezing and breaking off of solid blocks; but the thing's forward motion was not noticeably slowed down. It drank a fairly large river and a lake one mile wide by ten miles long while the two men watched.
The golop made no attempt to climb either foot-hills or mountains. It leveled them. It ate into their bases at its own level; the undermined masses, small and large, collapsed into the foul, corrosive semi-liquid and were consumed. Nor was there much raising of the golop's level, even when the highest mountains were reached and miles-high masses of solid rock broke off and toppled. There was some raising, of course; but the stuff was fluid enough so that its slope was not apparent to the eye.
Then thePleiadeswent back, over the place where the city had been and on to what had once been an ocean beach. The original wave of degradation had reached that shore long since, had attacked its sands out into deep water, and there it had been stopped. The corrupt flood was now being reinforced, however, by an ever-rising tide of material that had once been mountains. And the slope, which had not been even noticeable at the mountains or over the plain, was here very evident.
As the rapidly-flowing golop struck water, the water shivered, came to a weirdly unforgettable cold boil, and exploded into drops and streamers and jagged-edged chunks of something that was neither water nor land; or rock or soil or sand or Satan's unholy brew. Nevertheless, the water won. There wassomuch of it! Each barrel of water that was destroyed was replaced instantly and enthusiastically; with no lowering of level or of pressure.
And when water struck the golop, the golop also shivered violently, then sparkled even more violently, then stopped sparkling and turned dark, then froze solid. The frozen surface, however, was neither thick enough nor strong enough to form an effective wall.
Again and again the wave of golop built up high enough to crack and to shatter that feeble wall; again and again golop and water met in ultimately furious, if insensate, battle. Inch by inch the ocean's shoreline was driven backward toward ocean's depths; but every inch the ocean lost was to its tactical advantage, since the advancing front was by now practically filled with hard, solid, dead blocks of its own substance which it could neither assimilate nor remove from the scene of conflict.
Hence the wall grew ever thicker and solider; the advance became slower and slower.
Then, finally, ocean waves of ever-increasing height and violence rolled in against the new-formed shore. What caused those tremendous waves—earthquakes, perhaps, due to the shifting of the mountains' masses?—no Tellurian ever surely knew. Whatever the cause, however, those waves operated to pin the golop down. Whenever and wherever one of those monstrous waves whitecapped in, hurling hundreds of thousands of tons of water inland for hundreds of yards, the battle-front stabilized then and there.
All over that world the story was the same. Wherever there was water enough, the water won. And the total quantity of water in that world's oceans remained practically unchanged.
"Good. A lot of people escaped," James said, expelling a long-held breath. "Everybody who lives on or could be flown to all the islands smaller than the biggest ones ... if they can find enough to eat and if the air isn't poisoned."
"Air's okay—so's the water—and they'll get food," Garlock said. "The Arpalones will handle things, including distribution. What I'm thinking about is how they're going to rehabilitate it. That, as an engineering project, is a feat to end all feats."
"Brother!You can playthatin spades!" James agreed. "Except that it'll take too many months before they can even start the job, I'd like to stick around and see how they go about it. How does this kind of stuff fit into that theory you're not admitting is a theory?"
"Not worth a damn. However, it's a datum—and, as I've said before and may say again, if we can getenoughdata we can build a theory out of it."
Then it began to rain. For many minutes the clouds had been piling up—black, far-flung, thick and high. Immense bolts of lightning flashed and snapped and crackled; thunder crashed and rolled and rumbled; rain fell, and continued to fall, like a cloud-burst in Colorado. And shortly thereafter—first by square feet and then by acres and then by square miles—the surface of the golop began to die. To die, that is, if it had ever been even partially alive. At least it stopped sparkling, darkened, and froze into thick skins; which broke up into blocks; which in turn sank—thus exposing an ever-renewed surface to the driving, pelting, relentlessly cascading rain.
"Well, I don't know that there's anything to hold us here any longer," Garlock said, finally. "Shall we go?"
They went; but it was several days before any of the wanderers really felt like smiling; and Lola did not recover from her depression for over a week.
Supper was over, but the four were still at the table, sipping coffee and smoking. During a pause in the casual conversation, James suddenly straightened up.
"I want an official decision, Clee," he said, abruptly. "While we're out of touch with United Worlds you, as captain of the ship and director of the project, are Boss, with a capital B. The Lord of Justice, High and Low. The Works. Check?"
"On paper, yes; with my decisions subject to appeal and/or review when we get back to Base. In practice, I didn't expect to have to make any very gravid rulings."
"I never thought you'd have to, either, but Belle fed me one with a bone in it, so...."
"Just a minute. How official do you want it? Full formal, screens down and recorded?"
"Not unless we have to. Let's explore it first. As of right now, are we under the Code or not?"
"Of course we are."
"Not necessarily," Belle put in, sharply. "Not slavishly to the letter. We're so far away and our chance of getting back is so slight that it should be interpreted in the light of common sense."
Garlock stared at Belle and she stared back, her eyes as clear and innocent as a baby's.
"The Code is neither long enough nor complicated enough to require interpretation," Garlock stated, finally. "It either applies in full and exactly or not at all. My ruling is that the Code applies, strictly, until I declare the state of Ultimate Contingency. Are you ready, Belle, to abandon the project, find an uninhabited Tellurian world, and begin to populate it?"
"Well, not quite, perhaps."
"Yes or no, please."
"No."
"We are under the Code, then. Go ahead, Jim."
"I broke pairing with Belle and she refused to confirm."
"Certainly I refused. He had no reason to break with me."
"I had plenty of reason!" James snapped. "I'm fed up to here—" he drew his right forefinger across his forehead, "—with making so-called love to a woman who can never think of anything except cutting another man's throat. She's a heartless conniver."
"You both know that reasons are unnecessary and are not discussed in public," Garlock said, flatly. "Now as to confirmation of a break. In simple pairing there is no marriage, no registration, no declaration of intent or of permanence. Thus, legally or logically, there is no obligation. Morally, however, there is always some obligation. Hence, as a matter of urbanity, in cases where no injury exists except as concerns chastity, the Code calls for agreement without rancor. If either party persists in refusal to confirm, and cannot show injury, that party's behavior is declared inurbane. Confirmation is declared and the offending party is ignored."
"Just how would you go about ignoring Prime Operator Belle Bellamy?"
"You've got a point there, Jim. However, she hasn't persisted very long in her refusal. As a matter of information, Belle, why did you take Jim in the first place?"
"I didn't." She shrugged her shoulders. "It was pure chance. You saw me flip the tenth-piece."
"Am I to ignore the fact that you are one of the best telekineticists living?"
"I don'thaveto control things unless I want to!" She stamped her foot. "Can't you conceive of me flipping a coin honestly?"
"No. However, since this is not a screens-down inquiry, I'll give you—orally, at least—the benefit of the doubt. The next step, I presume, is for Lola to break with me. Lola?"
"Well ... I hate to say this, Clee.... I thought that mutual consent would be better, but...." Lola paused, flushing in embarrassment.
"She feels," James said, steadily, "as I do, that there should be much more to the sexual relation than merely releasing the biological tensions of two pieces of human machinery. That's hardly civilized."
"I confirm, Lola, of course," Garlock said; then went on, partly thinking aloud, partly addressing the group at large. "Ha. Reasons again, and very well put—not off the cuff. Evasions. Flat lies. Something very unfunny here—as queer as a nine-credit bill. In sum, indefensible actions based upon unwarranted conclusions drawn from erroneous assumptions. The pattern is not clear ... but I won't order screens down until I have to ... if the reason had come from Belle...."
"Me?" Belle flared. "Why from me?"
"... instead of Jim...." Ignoring Belle's interruption, Garlock frowned in thought. After a minute or so his face cleared.
"Jim," he said, sharply, "have you been consciously aware of Belle's manipulation?"
"Why, no, of course not. Shecouldn't!"
"That'sreallya brainstorm, Clee," Belle sneered. "You'd better turn yourself in for an overhaul."
"Nice scheme, Belle," Garlock said. "I underestimated—at least, didn't consider carefully enough—your power; and overestimated your ethics and urbanity."
"What are you talking about, Chief?" James asked. "You lost me ten parsecs back."
"Just this. Belle is behind this whole operation; working under a perfectly beautiful smokescreen."
"I'm afraid the boss is cracking up, kids," Belle said. "Listen to him, if you like, but use your own judgment."
"But nobody could make Jim and me really love each other," Lola argued, "and we really do. It's real love."
"Admitted," Garlock said. "But she could have helped it along; and she's all set to take every possible advantage of the situation thus created."
"I still don't see it," James objected. "Why, she wouldn't even confirm our break. She hasn't yet."
"She would have, at the exactly correct psychological moment; after holding out long enough to put you both under obligation to her. There would have, also, been certain strings attached. Her plan was, after switching the pairings...."
"I wouldn't pair with you," Belle broke in viciously, "if you were the only man left in the macrocosmic universe!"
"Part of the smokescreen," Garlock explained. "The re-pairings would give her two lines of attack on me, to be used simultaneously. First, to work on me in bed...."
"See?" Belle interrupted. "He doesn't think I've got any heart at all."
"Oh, you may have one, but it's no softer than your head, and that could scratch a diamond. Second, to work on you two, with no holds barred, to form a three-unit team against me. Her charges that I am losing my grip made a very smart opening lead."
"Do you think I'dlether work on me?" James demanded.
"She's a Prime—you wouldn't know anything about it. However, nothing will happen. Nor am I going to let her confuse the real issue. Belle, you are either inside the Code or a free agent outside it. Which?"
"I have made my position clear."
"To me, yes. To Jim and Lola, decidedly unclear."
"Unclear, then. You cannotcoerce me!"
"If you follow the Code, no. If you don't, I can and will. If you make any kind of a pass at Jim James from now on, I'll lock you into your room with a Gunther block."
"You wouldn't dare!" she breathed. "Besides, you couldn't, not to another prime."
"Don't bet on it," he advised.
After a full minute of silence Garlock's attitude changed suddenly to his usual one of casual friendliness. "Why not let this one drop right here, Belle? I can marry them, with all the official trimmings. Why not let 'em really enjoy their honeymoon?"
"Why not?" Belle's manner changed to match Garlock's and she smiled warmly. "I confirm, Jim. You two are really serious, aren't you? Marriage, declarations, registration, and everything? I wish—I sincerely and really wish you—every happiness possible."
"We reallyareserious," James said, putting his arm around Lola's waist. "And you won't ... won't interfere?"
"Not a bit. I couldn't, now, even if I wanted to." Belle grinned wryly. "You see, you kids missed the main feature of the show, since you can't know exactly what a Prime Operator is. Especially you can't know what Cleander Simmsworth Garlock really is—he's an out-and-out tiger on wheels. The three of us could have smacked him bow-legged, but of course all chance of that blew up just now. So if you two want to take the big jump you can do it with my blessing as well as Clee's. I'll clear the table."
That small chore taken care of—a quick folding-up of everything into the tablecloth and a heave into the chute did it—Belle set up the recorder.
"Are you both fully certain that you want the full treatment?" Garlock asked.
Both were certain, and Garlock read the brief but solemn marriage lines.
As the newlyweds left the room, Belle turned to Garlock with a quizzical smile. "Are you going to ask me to pair with you, Clee?"
"I certainly am." He grinned back at her. "I owe you that much revenge, at least. But seriously, I'd like it immensely and we fit like Grace and Poise. Look at that mirror. Did you ever see a better-matched couple? Will you give me a try, Belle?"
"I will not," she said, emphatically. I'll take back what I said a while ago—if you were really the only man left, I would—but as it is, the answer is a definite, resounding, and final 'No'."
"'Definite' and 'resounding,' yes. 'Final,' I won't accept. I'll wait."
"You'll wait a long time, Buster. My door will be locked from now on. Good night, Doctor Garlock, I'm going to bed."
"So am I." He walked with her along the corridor to their rooms, the doors of which were opposite each other. "In view of the Code, locking your door is a meaningless gesture. Mine will remain unlocked. I invite you to come in whenever you like, and assure you formally that no such entry will be regarded as an invasion of privacy."
Without a word she went into her room and closed the door with a firmness just short of violence. Her lock clicked sharply.
The next morning, after breakfast, James followed Garlock into his room and shut the door.
"Clee, I want to tell you.... I don't want to get sloppy but...."
"Want to lep it?"
"Hell, no!"
"It's about Brownie, then."
"Uh-huh. I've always liked you immensely. Admired you. Hero, sort of...."
"Yeah. I quote. 'Harder than Pharaoh's heart.' 'Colder than frozen helium,' and all the rest. But this thing about Brownie...." He reached out; two hard hands met in a crushing grip. "How could you possibly lay off? Just the strain, if nothing else."
"A little strain doesn't hurt a man unless he lets it. I've done without for months at a stretch, with it running around loose on all sides of me."
"But she's so ... she's goteverything!"
"There speaketh the ensorcelled bridegroom. For my taste, she hasn't. She told you, I suppose, when explaining a certain fact, that I told her she wasn't my type?"
"Yes, but...."
"She still isn't. She's a very fine person, with a very fine personality. She is one of the two most nearly perfect young women of her race. Her face is beautiful. Her body is an artist's dream. Her mind is one of the very best. Besides all that, she's a very good egg and a mighty tasty dish. But put yourself in my place.
"Here's this paragon we have just described. She has extremely high ideals and she's a virgin; never really aroused. Also, she's so full of this sickening crap they've been pouring into us—propaganda, rocket-oil, prop-wash, and psychological gobbledygook—that it's running out of her ears. She's so stuffed with it that she's going to pair with you, ideals and virginity be damned, even if it kills her; even though she's shaking, clear down to her shoes—scared yellow. Also, she is and always will be scared half to death of you—she thinks you're some kind of robot. She's a starry-eyed, soft-headed sissy. A sapadilla. A sucker for a smooth line of balloon-juice and flapdoodle. No spine; no bottom. A gutless doll-baby. Strictly a pet—you could no more love her, ever, than you could a half-grown kitten...."
"That's ahellof a picture!" James broke in savagely. "Even with your cold-blooded reputation."
"People in love can't be objective, is all. If I saw her through the same set of filters you do, I'd be in love with her, too. So let's see if you can use your brain instead of your outraged sensibilities to answer a hypothetical question. If the foregoing were true, what wouldyoudo, Junior?"
"I'd pass, I guess. I'd have to, if I wanted to look at myself in the mirror next morning. But that's such anungodlycockeyed picture, Clee.... But if that's actually your picture of Brownie—and you're no part of a liar—just what kind of a woman could you love? If any?"
"Belle."
"Belle! BelleBellamy? Hell's flaming furies! That iceberg? That egomaniac? That Jezebel? She's the hardest-boiled babe that ever went unhung."
"Right, on all counts. Also she's crooked and treacherous. She's a ground-and-lofty liar by instinct and training. I could add a lot more. But she's got brains, ability, and guts—guts enough to supply the Women's Army Corps. She's got the spine and the bottom and the drive. So just imagine her thawed out and really shoveling on the coal—blasting wide open on all forty torches. Back to back with you when you're surrounded; she wouldn't cave and she wouldn't give. Or wing and wing—holding the beam come hell or space-warps. Roll that one around on your tongue, Jim, and give your taste-buds a treat."
"Well, maybe ... if I've got that much imagination ... that's a tough blueprint to read. I can't quite visualize the finished article. However, you're as hard as she is—even harder. You've got more of what it takes. Maybeyoucan make a Christian out of her. If so, you might have something; but I'm damned if I can see exactly what. Whatever it turned out to be, I wouldn't care for any part of it. You could have it all."
"Exactly; and you can have your Brownie."
"I'm beginning to see. I didn't think you had anything like that in your chilled-steel carcass. And I want to apolo...."
"Don't do it, boy. If the time ever comes whenyougo so soft on me as to quit laying it on the line and start sifting out your language...." Garlock paused. For one of the very few times in his life, he was at a loss for words. He thrust his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. "Hell, I don't want to get maudlin, either ... so ... well, how many men, do you think, could have gone the route with me on this hellish job without killing me or me killing them?"
"Oh, that's not...."
"Lay it on the line, Jim. I know what I am. Just one. You. One man in six thousand million. Okay; how many women could live with me for a year without going crazy?"
"Lots of 'em; but, being masochists, they'd probably driveyounuts. And you can't stand 'stupidity'; which, by definition, letseverybodyout. Nope, it's a tough order to fill."
"Check. She'd have to be strong enough and hard enough not to be afraid of me, by any trace. Able and eager to stand up to me and slug it out. To pin my ears back flat against my skull whenever she thinks I'm off the beam. Do it with skill and precision and nicety, with power and control; yet without doing herself any damage and without changing her basic feeling for me. In short, a female Jim James Nine."
"Huh? Hell's blowtorches! You thinkI'mlike Belle Bellamy?"
"Not by nine thousand megacycles. Like Belle Bellamy could be and should be. Like I hope she will be. I'd have to give, too, of course—maybe we can make Christians out of each other. It's quite a dream, I admit, but it'll be Belle or nobody. But I'm not used to slopping over this way—let's go."
"I'm glad you did, big fellow—once in a lifetime is good for the soul. I'd say you were in love with her right now—except that if you were, you couldn't possibly dissect her like a specimen on the table, the way you've just been doing. Are you or aren't you?"
"I'll be damned if I know. You and Brownie believe that the poets' concept of love is valid. In fact, you make a case for its validity. I never have, and don't now ... but under certain conditions ... I simply don't know. Ask me again sometime; say in about a month?"
"That's the surest thing you know. Oh,brother! Thisis a thing I'm going to watch with my eyes out on stalks!"
For the next week, Belle locked her door every night. For another few nights, she did not lock it. Then, one night, she left it ajar. The following evening, the two again walked together to their doors.
"I left my door open last night."
"I know you did."
"Well?"
"And have you scream to high heaven that I opened it? And put me on a tape for willful inurbanity? For deliberate intersexual invasion of privacy?"
"Blast and damn! You know perfectly well, Clee Garlock, I wouldn't pull such a dirty, lousy trick as that."
"Maybe I should apologize, then, but as a matter of fact I have no idea whatever as to what you wouldn't do." He stared at her, his face hard in thought. "As you probably know, I have had very little to do with women. That little has always been on a logical level. You are such a completely new experience that I can't figure out what makes you tick."
"So you're afraid of me," she sneered. "Is that it?"
"Close enough."
"And I suppose it's you that cartoonist what's-his-name is using as a model for 'Timorous Timmy'?"
"Since you've guessed it, yes."
"You ... youweasel!" She took three quick steps up the corridor, then back. "You say my logic is cockeyed. What system are you using now?"
"I'm trying to develop one to match yours."
"Oh ... I invited that one, I guess, since I know you aren't afraid of God, man, woman, or devil ... and you're big enough so you don't have to be proving it all the time." She laughed suddenly, her face softening markedly. "Listen, you big lug. Why don't you ever knock me into an outside loop? If I were you and you were me, I'd've busted me loose from my front teeth long ago."
"I'm not sure whether I know better or am afraid to. Anyway, I'm not rocking any boat so far from shore."
"Says you. You're wonderful, Clee—simply priceless. Do you know you're the only man I ever met that I couldn't make fall for me like a rock falling down a cliff? And that the falling is altogether too apt to be the other way?"
"The first, I have suspected. The second is chemically-pure rocket-oil."
"Ihopeit is.... I wish I could be as certain of it as you are.... You see, Clee, I really expected you to come in, last night, and there reallywasn'tany bone in it. Surely, you don't think I'm going toinviteyou into my room, do you?"
"I can't see why not. However, since no valid system of logic seems to apply, I accept your decision as a fact. By the same reasoning—however invalid—if I ask you again you will again refuse. So all that's left, I guess, is for me to drag you into my room by force."
He put his left arm around her and applied a tiny pressure against her side; under which she began to move slowly toward his door.
"You admit that you're using force?" she asked. Her face was unreadable; her mental block was at its fullest force. "That I'm being coerced? Definitely?"
"Definitely," he agreed. "At least ten dynes of sheer brute force. Not enough to affect a tape, but enough, I hope, to affect you. If it isn't, I'll use more."
"Oh, ten dynes is enough. Just so it's force."
She raised her face toward his and threw both arms around his neck. His right arm went into action with his left, and Cleander Garlock forgot all about dynes and tapes.
After a time she disengaged one arm; reached out; opened his door. He gathered her up and, lips still locked to lips, carried her over the threshold.
A few jumps later they met their first really old Arpalone. This Inspector was so old that his skin, instead of the usual bright, clear cobalt blue, was dull and tending toward gray. The old fellow was strangely garrulous, for a Guardian; he wanted them to pause a while and gossip.
"Yes, I am lonesome," he admitted. "It has been a long time since I exchanged thoughts with anyone. You see, nobody has visited this planet—Groobe, its name is—since almost all our humanity was killed, a few periods ago...."
"Killed? How?" Garlock asked sharply. "Not Dilipic?"
"Oh, you have seen them? I never have, myself. No, nothing nearly that bad. Merely the Ozobes. The world itself was scarcely harmed at all. Rehabilitation will be a simple matter, so there's no real reason why some of those Engineers...."
"The beast!" Lola shot a tight-beam thought at her husband. "Who cares anything about the rock and dirt of aplanet? It's the people that count and his are dead and he's perfectlycomplaisantabout it—justlonesome!"
"Don't let it throw you, pet," James soothed. "He's an Arpalone, you know; not a sociological anthropologist."
"... shouldn't come out here and spend a few hours once in a while, but they don't. Too busy with their own business, they say. But while you are physically human, mentally you are not. You're all too ... too ... I can't put my thought exactly on it, but ... more as though you were human fighters, if such a thing could be possible."
"We are fighters. Where we come from, most human beings are fighters."
"Oh? I never heard of such a thing. Where can you be from?"
This took much explanation, since the Arpalone had never heard of inter-galactic travel. "You are willing, then, to fight side by side with us Arpalones against the enemies of humanity? You have actually done so, at times, and won?"
"We certainly have."
"I am glad. I am expecting a call for help any time now. Will you please give me enough of your mental pattern, Doctor Garlock, so that I can call you in case of need? Thank you."
"What makes you think you're going to get an S.O.S. so soon? Where from?"
"Because these Ozobe invasions come in cycles, years apart, but there are always several planets attacked at very nearly the same time. We were the first, this time; so there will be one or two others very shortly."
"Do they always ... kill all the people?" Lola asked.
"Oh, no. Scarcely half of the time. Depends on how many fighters the planet has, and how much outside help can get there soon enough."
"Your call could come from any of the other solar systems in this neighborhood, then?" Garlock asked.
"Yes. There are fifteen inhabited planets within about six light-years of us, and we form a close-knit group."
"What are these Ozobes?"
"Animals. Warm-blooded, but egg-layers, not mammals. Like this," and the Inspector spread in their minds a picture of a creature somewhat like the flying tigers of Hodell, except that the color was black, shading off to iridescent green at the extremities. Also, it was armed with a short and heavy, but very sharp, sting.
"They say that they come from space, but I don't believe it," the old fellow went on. "What would a warm-blood be doing out in space? Besides, they couldn't find anybody to lay their eggs in out there. No, sir, I think they live right here on Groobe somewhere, maybe holed up in caves or something for ten or thirteen years ... but that wouldn't make sense, either, would it? I just don't know...."
Garlock finally broke away from the lonesome Inspector and thePleiadesstarted down.
"That's the most utterlyhorriblething I ever heard of in my life!" Lola burst out. "Like wasps—only worse—peoplearen't bugs! Why don't all the planets get together and develop something to kill every Ozobe in every system of the group?"
"That one has got too many bones in it for me to answer," James said.
"I'm going to get hold of that Engineer as soon as we land," Lola said, darkly, "and stick a pin into him."
They found the Engineering Office easily enough, in a snug camp well outside a large city. They grounded the starship and went out on foot; enjoying contact with solid ground. The Head Engineer was an Arpalone, too—Engineers were not a separate race, but dwellers on a planet of extremely high technology—but he did know anything about space-drives. His specialty was rehabilitation; he was top boss of a rehab crew....
Then Lola pushed Garlock aside. Yes, the Ozobes came from space. He was sure of it. Yes, they laid eggs in human bodies. Yes, they probably stayed alive quite a while—or might, except for the rehab crew. No, he didn'tknowwhat would hatch out—he'd never let one live that long, but what the hell elsecouldhatch except Ozobes? No, not one. Not one single damn one. If just one ever did, on any world where he bossed the job, he'd lose his job as boss and go to the mines for half a year....
"Ridiculous!" Lola snapped. "If Ozobes hatched, they couldn't possibly have come from space. If theydidcome from space, the adult form would have to be something able to get back into space, some way or other.Thatis simple elementary biology. Don't you see that?"
He didn't see it. He didn't give a damn, either. It was none of his business; he was a rehab man.
Lola ran back to the ship in disgust.
"Something else is even more ridiculous, andisyour business," James told the Head Engineer. "Garlock and I are both engineers—top ones. We know definitely that a one-hundred-percent clean-up on such a job as this—millions—simply can't be done. Ever. Under any conditions. Are you lying in your teeth or are you dumb enough to believe it yourself?"
"Neither one," the Engineer insisted, stubbornly. "I've wondered, myself, at how I could get 'em all, but I always do—every time so far. That's why they give me the big job. I'm good at it."
"Oh—Lola's right, Jim," Garlock said. "It's the adult form that hatches; something so different they don't even recognize it. Something able to get into space. Enough survivors to produce the next generation."
"Sure. I'll tell Brownie—she'll be tickled."
"She'll be more than tickled—she'll want to hunt up somebody around here with three brain cells working and give 'em an earful." Then, to the Engineer, "Do you know how they rehab a planet that's been leveled flat by the golop?"
"You'veseenone? I never have, but of course I've studied it. Slow, but not too difficult. After killing, the stuff weathers down in a few years—wonderful soil it makes—what makes it slow is that you have to wait fifty or a hundred years for the mountains to get built up again and for the earthquakes to quit...."
"Excuse me, please—I've got a call—we have to leave, right now."
The call was from the Inspector. The nearest planet, Clamer, was being invaded by the Ozobes and needed all the help they could get.
In seconds thePleiadeswas at the Port of Entry.
"Where is this Clamer?" Garlock asked.
The Inspector pointed a thought; all four followed it.
"Let's go, Jim. Maybe...."
"Just a minute!" Lola snapped. She was breathing hard, her eyes were almost shooting sparks as she turned to the old Arpalone and drove a thought so forcibly that he winced.
"Do you so-called 'Guardians of Humanity' care at all about the humanity you're supposed to be protecting?" she demanded viciously, the thought boring in and twisting, "or are you just loafing on the job and doing as little as you possibly can without getting fired?"
Belle and Garlock looked at each other and grinned. James was surprised and shocked. This woman blowing her top was no Brownie Montandon any of them knew.
"We do everything we possibly can," the Inspector was not only shocked, but injured and abused. "If there's any one possible thing we haven't done, even the tiniest...."
"There's plenty!" she snapped. "Plain, dumb stupidity, then, it must be. There must besomebodyaround here who has been at least exposed to elementary biology! You should have exterminated these Ozobe vermin ages ago. All you have to do is find out what its life cycle is. How many stages and what they are. How the adults get into space and where they go," and she went on, in flashing thoughts, to explain in full detail.
"Are you smart enough to understand that?"