"I'd not give it," he said simply. And then he turned to her with a cryptic smile. "So my future and the future of Sol are really at stake?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Then you are a threat."
Rhinegallis smiled at him. "Is one a threat that does not permit the child to play with fire?" she said coolly.
"May I point out that I am not a child," he said crossly.
"Ros nile ver tan si vol klys," she said in her own tongue. "And if you know what I said you'd know what you studied last night."
"When a child is deprived of matches, he is told why—in many cases he is shown mildly what happens. So go ahead, Rhinegallis, treat me as a child—and tell me, Rhinegallis, why I must not play with the Lawson Radiation."
"It is dangerous," she replied.
"In my lifetime," he said, "I have been responsible for the direction of many children. I have yet to turn away a curious—honestly curious—child. Mankind is always curious—providing we know why."
"It is dangerous," she repeated.
"Dangerous," he echoed. "Dangerous, Rhinegallis, to whom? You?"
"Mr. Carroll," she said quietly, "you think you have trapped me into an admission. You have not. Tell me, do you honestly think you can take the position of demanding an answer?"
"I think so."
"You cannot. You have not."
"No?" he said with a bitter laugh, "then if your race has no evil intent it could stop a lot of trouble, suspicion and labor by guiding us instead of blocking our efforts. Add to that your own refusal to tell me one thing that would frighten me away. I come up with a rather unhappy answer, Rhinegallis."
The girl turned away and left. Her offer to join him for breakfast was forgotten. Carroll watched her back as she went down the hallway and considered himself lucky. Even considering that their way of life was alien to Terran thinking, no advancing race could ever deny honest curiosity unless it had some ulterior motive. Ergo, they were suppressing the truth about the Lawson Radiation because they were afraid that Terra would find the answer!
From behind him he heard Kingallis chuckling.
"Val tas Winel yep frah?"
Carroll turned angrily. "Sell it to Tin Pan Alley," he snapped. "I've heard worse jangle songs!"
He stamped off angrily to his room.
CHAPTER VI
Proof
Once in his room, Carroll gave way to a period of complete slump, both mental and physical. He just sat there and felt—not thought about—the sheer impossibility of a single man successfully fighting an entire inimical culture.
The more he considered it the more he felt the futility of it all. The fact that he of all the teeming billions of Sol's heritage, was cognizant made it that more hopeless.
Then out of that last, single, hopeless fact James Forrest Carroll took a new hope.
For upon himself and himself alone rested the salvation of mankind! Regardless of what the world might think of him, regardless of life itself, he must carry on!
And when he returned to confront Doctor Pollard he must have visible proof!
The day dragged slowly. As usual, Kingallis did his studying, but found it hopeless because of Carroll's deep funk. Kingallis gave up and left Carroll, which was worse for Carroll because he had all those long hours in which to sit and stew.
Evening came, and with it came more hope.
Whatever it was that Carroll learned it was there and stuck tight. Whether valid or useless it was there. It seemed useful but he could not tell.
For instance there was a concept of a circlet of silvery wire. This was mounted on a small cylindrical slug of metal that enclosed a bimorph crystal. The picture concept showed contour surfaces of force or energy that grew progressively fainter as they retreated from the circlet of wire.
Not magnetism—for Carroll could see no energizing current. Not electrostatic field—for there could be no gradient. The word-concept for the thing was "Selvan thi tan vi son klys vornakal ingra rol vou."
Well—whenever Carroll knew words he would know what the circlet of wire did—and why.
But as he drew the diagram on a sheet of paper and labeled each part with a Terran symbol-system representing the alien sounds Carroll understood one other thing. No book is complete without an index!
Wire recordings of text books are impractical otherwise. An engineer seeking information on the winding, packing fraction of a certain type of wire would not care to wade through four hours of facts. Of course he should know it already, for the facts would be indelibly impressed upon his mind.
But there was the forgetting-factor that comes from disuse of any fact and doubtless this automatic means of education did not forever endow the owner with an eidetic memory of everything—never to be lost no matter how long the facts lie in disuse. But every text book has an index.
And so Carroll sought the laboratory again that night and selected another roll at random. He placed it in the machine and, as he started it, hurled a thought into the machine.
Not words, but mere concept—the abstract idea of listing hurled into the machine and the wire reel sang swiftly through the machine to slow down at a listing.
Useless, of course—there were things like, "Walklin—norva Kin. Fol sa ganna mel zin." Chapter and verse, probably. What Carroll sought was a dictionary.
He tried another reel and found it as mystifying. A third reel came upon a listing that seemed vaguely familiar. Along with the mere words, of course, there were mental pictures.
"Zale," he learned, was a measure of distance equivalent to seventeen thousand times ten to the eighth power times the wavelength of the spectroscopic line ofevaalorg.
Carroll had hit upon a section of physical identities found in most physics texts.
He also learned a large number of physical identities of no consequence. The unit of gravity expressed in the alien terms meant nothing to a man used to dynes and poundals. There was too much left unsaid.
What the elementevaalorgmight be Carroll had no idea, although if he persisted he might hit upon a chemistry text—and it was safe to assume that the Periodic Chart of the atoms would be the same in any of the galaxy.
He smiled. It was like trying to calculate the true size of Noah's Ark by assuming the length of a cubit. When you have finished calculating you have a plus or minus thirty percent.
He was about to select another case when the door opened softly and Rhinegallis entered.
"Why do you try?" she asked. Her voice and her manner were as though she had not walked away from his question of almost eighteen hours ago.
"Why?" he repeated dully.
"Yes why? Why do you insist in the face of the impossible?"
"Because," he said, facing her deliberately, "when I admit defeat James Forrest Carroll dies!"
"You're not suicidal."
"Madness," he said, "is suicide of the mind!"
Rhinegallis nodded and then looked down. He went to her and lifted her face by placing a hand under her chin.
"Rhinegallis," he said softly, "place yourself in my position. You are a prisoner of a culture that is inimical to your own. You are kept alive as a museum piece, a sample of life that refuses to be swayed by your mind-directing machinery. Of all the people of your race, you are the only one that knows and believes.
"Death—or worse—awaits you and yours at the end of some unknown time. You are in the position of being the only one that can do anything at all. Tell me, Rhinegallis, would you sit quietly and accept it?"
"Since I would be unable to do anything alone," replied Rhinegallis, "I would accept fate."
"Then die!" snapped Carroll. "Do nothing? Try nothing? That is stagnation—and stagnation is death!"
"I think Kingallis knows that," said the alien girl with a flash of recognition.
"Oh," said Carroll, crestfallen. "Then Kingallis gives me some old outdated volumes of books to play with, as a willful child is directed to cut old rags instead of the lace curtains. Since I must play games, by all means give me games that will harm no one!
"Mumbletypeg labeled 'dangerous' and celluloid toys made up to resemble fierce knives on the theory that children prefer such toys of the block and rattle nature. Bottles full of colored sand with skull-and-crossbones on them and directions against certain mixtures.
"The amusement-park roller coaster that seems dangerous—in fact someone knows someone who knows of a bad accident on it—but is, in fact, less dangerous than a ride in an automobile through traffic."
Rhinegallis was silent.
"Then what am I to do?" he stormed. "I have no one here of my own kind. Not a single understanding soul to lean upon in a moment of stress. A man alone in an inimical environment—and I am expected to play your tricks for you!"
"You—"
"Am I expected to aid you?"
"No," she said honestly. "Yet in deference to your—"
"Deference!" he laughed scornfully. "Deference? No, Rhinegallis, not deference nor even respect. I am the experimental dog that must be pampered because my life and my mind and my body must be studied. Not deference, Rhinegallis, but the deadly fear of a spreading poison. Isolation."
"I am afraid that I should not have come," she said—but it was more a spoken thought than an attempt to convey anything.
"Then you tell Kingallis that no man will strive forever with no result. The donkey must once in a while get a taste of the carrot."
"What do you want?" she asked softly.
"And if I tell you will I get the truth—or just more runaround?" he asked.
"You are too suspicious," she said softly. "Deference you may not have, really. But you do have respect."
"What manner of respect can you possibly have for me?" he said with an open sneer.
"You are a strong man," replied Rhinegallis. "Your strength is sufficient to penetrate the mental beam. To defy King's attempts to study you, bar my tries at following your reason. Kingallis can point the remote hypnosis beam at me and from it can read my innermost thought.
"Against all resistance the hypnoscope is best—except against James Forrest Carroll. You, Carroll, resent this studying and prying. Know—and feel gratified—that as little as you have learned from my brother he knows less of you!"
"And after defying all to completion the defiance is obliterated," replied Carroll bitterly. "For me—oblivion. For mine—what?"
"It need not be—loneliness," she said in a soft voice.
"Joy in the shadow of the sword?" he said sourly. "Pleasures of the flesh with an alien race that would not even understand my passionate gesture?"
He laughed shortly and roughly.
"Affection is but a prelude to understanding between mates. Tell me," he said with extreme cynicism, "have you laid your egg this year?"
"You—no!" she said quickly. "I was but trying to ease your lot."
He dropped his cynicism instantly. Rhinegallis seemed honestly hurt at his calloused attitude.
"You cannot, Rhinegallis," he said softly. "I am no longer a youth, to whom personal passion and pleasure is the ultimate. I give you a demonstration of affection." He placed both hands upon her shoulders and squeezed gently. He leaned down and kissed her lightly "Not deep, but still a genuine gesture. Do you respond? No, you do not, for your race is utterly alien despite your appearance. Do you then expect me to continue, knowing that you do not even understand why I might derive sensual pleasure from such contact?"
"Even though we be alien," she said, "the fact that you do enjoy contact might give me—"
"Stop rationalizing," he said roughly.
"I'm not," she said. "There is a meeting of minds that far exceeds any crude mating of bodies."
"Then," he said with a queer crooked smile, "let's keep this on a mental basis, huh?"
Rhinegallis nodded quietly. She went to a side cupboard and took out a single reel of wire.
"Here is what you want," she told him. "Swiftly now, for Kingallis must never know."
"A nibble of the carrot," he observed.
"You want a whole meal?" she returned angrily. "Are you devoid of understanding?"
"I am permitted to play with innocuous trifles," he said. "When I discover their ineffectiveness I am invited to seduction. Failing that, I am offered some trifle of value. Tell me, Rhinegallis, how far will you go to lull my mind into inactivity?"
For answer, Rhinegallis turned and left him. Perhaps if Rhinegallis had been one of Sol's children she might have been crying or at least racked with the bitterness that comes of having an honest gesture scorned. Whatever her reaction Carroll shrugged as she left the room and he forgot her as he looked at the single recording.
"I hope," he said, "that this carrot is sweet...."
Carroll came out of the semi-coma produced by the machine with a premonition of danger—not danger to himself, but a vague unrest, as though someone near to him were being threatened. He was alone and he knew at once that Rhinegallis was the only one of the aliens who knew the truth of this night.
Had any of the others come, they would have seen at once that he was working on a volume of importance and would have stopped him. However, as the minutes passed, the feeling of worry ceased and Carroll felt relief.
He attributed the feeling to a situation known as "wandering concern" which is based upon insecurity. He had been in the mental coma for hours, during which time much might have happened. He had succeeded, with Rhine's aid, in delving into the truth about the alien culture.
This placed him in jeopardy for while they laughed behind his back for toying with the useless records, their derision would change to far deeper distrust and hate were he known to have outguessed them. There is nothing more dangerous than turning a man's bitter joke against him.
So for hours Carroll had been both helpless under the machine and also doing that which was forbidden. He was like the small boy who has been swimming and is not certain of his future until he meets his parents and discovers whether they know of his truancy.
Carroll replaced the record. There was no sense in permitting Rhinegallis to be trapped. Besides, this might go on for some time—and if he could he would fight this out to the very bitter end. Who knew what he might learn next.
This night's work had been language. Not that the volume taught him Alien. It was a volume for aliens, to teach them the Terran languages. But by reverse reasoning it also taught Carroll the alien tongue as well as a couple of good Terran tongues he did not know. He was—because he formerly possessed an excellent knowledge of American—now possessed of Russian, Chinese and Spanish, as well as the single alien tongue.
For the record dealt with concepts and then impressed the word-symbol of the idea in all tongues. And ifHombremeansMan, conversely,ManmeansHombre!
Best of all it was a specialized course that dealt with the kind of language scientists and engineers would use, though not exclusively so. Carroll felt cheered. Now he might mingle with them if he wanted to. Stealthily he left the laboratory to return to his room.
CHAPTER VII
Free-for-all
Carroll passed a partly opened door down the corridor, and as he passed, he heard Kingallis utter a single word of dislike at someone unknown. Though it was in the alien tongue Carroll's well-trained mind gave him the translation in terms of real meaning rather than the transliteration of the word in terms of his mother tongue, as is often the case with a language learned after the initial schooling as a child.
Carroll paused instantly, and as he did so, the door opened more, showing both Kingallis and his sister. Kingallis shook his head angrily.
"So you gave him the record," he said flatly.
Rhinegallis was silent. It was obvious to Carroll that there had been accusal and denial previously but that his instant recognition of the alien word had been perfect evidence. Carroll sailed in instantly.
"She's given me nothing," he said sharply. "I just happen to be curious."
Kingallis turned from his sister to face Carroll.
"That is a bald-faced lie," he said.
Carroll's reply was in the alien tongue, a rather harsh alien platitude pertaining to the fact that a guilty man always requires a sucker to account for his own mistakes, whereas an honest man can admit an error.
Kingallis sneered and his eyes became glittery-hard.
"She gave it to you," he said. "This I know." He pointed to the minute temple-electrode—flesh-colored—and the spider-web thin wire that ran to the flat bulge in his coat pocket.
"So?" snapped Carroll. He measured Kingallis deliberately. The alien had a few years to give away, but Carroll had a few pounds to make up the difference. Also Carroll, being slightly older, was more of a competent judge of men.
Though this was not a man-to-man affair Carroll's judgment of the alien might be better than the alien's judgment of him. Furthermore Carroll knew himself to be cool-headed and alert.
"So Rhine has defied our rules," snapped Kingallis.
"And?" inquired Carroll overpolitely.
"Crime—and punishment! She has endangered our very future!"
Carroll smiled. "Seems to me that you have spent a number of years endangering the future of Sol's children," he said cynically. "Perhaps it is time to switch?"
Rhinegallis stood up. "I have as much right as you," she snapped at her brother. "My position is as high as yours. Carroll discovered that he was being tricked. Therefore there was nothing else to do but to regain his confidence."
"Seems to me that Carroll's discovery was entirely due to your inability to cope with him," snapped Kingallis angrily.
Rhinegallis laughed bitterly. "When will you learn," she asked sarcastically, "never to try to play games with your mental superiors?"
Kingallis fumed, "Shut up!" and, turning, back-handed Rhine across the mouth. The girl retreated, her hand to her face, covering the patch that was swiftly growing red. Kingallis followed her across the floor.
Carroll followed Kingallis. He caught the alien by one shoulder and whirled Kingallis, spinning him off balance. As the alien turned, Carroll's fist came across in a short jab that had every pound of weight and every erg of muscle energy behind it. He connected and it sent Kingallis reeling crazily across the room.
Carroll followed, warily. Kingallis recovered and struck out at Carroll, but his mode of fighting was untrained from Terran standards. Carroll opened his right hand and chopped viciously at Kingallis's throat, but caught the alien's arm instead.
The alien yipped from the pain and Carroll followed him close and brought his fist up from under and caught the alien in the pit of the stomach. Kingallis folded over the blow and then unfolded in a series of retching gasps, his arms and legs working to bring him air.
Carroll lifted his foot. He drove it forward, heel-hard, against the alien's temple. The blow crushed the temple electrode into the skull as Kingallis went inert upon the floor.
"Come!" snapped Carroll.
"Come? Where?"
"Out of here!"
"But—?"
"Come along. You don't want to wait for the rest, do you?"
Rhinegallis took a quick look at her brother's inert form.
"Is he...?"
Carroll grunted. "I'm not interested," he said. "Come on—you've got to show me the way out!"
"But I can't do that!"
Carroll advanced upon her. He caught her arm and brought it up behind her. He lifted gently.
"Now," he said, "you're going to show me the way out of here or I'll twist this off, see?"
"But I mustn't," she said.
Carroll smiled sourly.
"Rhine," he said pointedly, "you've lost your home right now. From here on in you are on the outside of your camp. Your best bet is to throw in with me and at least stay alive."
"I'll never help you."
"Fair enough," he said. "For I didn't help you. But this will let you know that Terrans have an attitude known as 'gratitude' which to your alien concept is both foolhardy and decadent. But no Terran, no matter how much he hated his enemy, would abandon to them one of their own that gave him help. We protect our friends, Rhine."
"Then we must hurry," she breathed. "But where can we go?"
"Where?" he echoed cheerfully. "We've got the whole world before us!"
"But you must hide as well," she said simply. "Because my friends will be seeking you in earnest, now."
Carroll nodded as he caught the implication. "I shall return to my friends," he stated flatly, "when I have evidence enough to prove myself. Then your people can go ahead and kill me if they can—but my world will be protected. Until I can convince them, I am the slender reed upon which depends the future of Sol. And," he added bitterly, "against what?"
"That I will never tell you," she said. "But we must hurry!"
It was five days later that Carroll's roadster—stolen from the alien's garage—arrived before a summer home in Wisconsin. Twenty miles from the nearest town of consequence it was set in a woodsy area near one of many small lakes.
"Here," he said happily, "we can hide—and we can live—and we can work!"
Pollard slowly shook hands.
"Carroll again?" asked Majors.
The psychologist nodded wearily. "For some time he has been working quietly, though with deep preoccupation, which I suppose is normal. Whether he has been pondering over the absence of that black limousine and its mythically inimical occupants, I cannot say."
"But what happened this time?"
"He has disappeared!"
Majors blinked. "Just like that?"
Dr. Pollard smiled and nodded. "Just like that!"
Majors thought for a moment. "We can locate him," he said uncertainly.
"No," Pollard said finally. "That will not do. The chances are very high that Carroll may have gone to his summer home."
"Well, let's find out."
"Let him alone. You underestimate the cleverness of the paranoid. He will detect any surveillance. It is my contention that Carroll may have had a glimmer of lucidity—that he may have been partially convinced of his error.
"Majors, there is only one way to cure a paranoid and that is to let him cure himself. Once his own evidence shows the truth, then he will believe. But until that time, all evidence either supports his theory or it is a canard produced by those who want to show him wrong."
"So?"
"So let him be. He can do little harm. In the case of the normal paranoid harboring a persecution complex, it is something tangible against him—wife, neighbor or friend. In that case it is best to do something quickly to protect the innocent. But in Carroll's case it is an intangible—remember the case, Majors?"
"Of course."
"Well, it hasn't changed a bit. Carroll undoubtedly discovered something that his mind refuses to recognize. Therefore this hallucination of the inimical race that is barring Terra from progress.
"What Terra needs more than the man himself is to know what Carroll discovered. I don't know what he's doing nor where he's doing it, but we'll find out—and we'll let him alone."
"Sort of futile, isn't it?" asked Majors.
"It's soul-scarringly futile," said Pollard hopelessly. "He will resent any outside help that does not eagerly agree with him—and then suspect it of chiding tolerance. He can come back only of his own machination. But to probe further at him will drive him only deeper within himself."
Majors nodded. "We'll get young Sally back on the delivery job. At least until James Forrest Carroll reappears again."
Dr. Pollard nodded absently. "And may whatever he is doing bring him to reason!"
James Forrest Carroll sat on a tall stool in front of a workbench in the cellar of the summer home. Before him was a maze of equipment, a pile of written notes and some haywire circuits. He was smoking furiously to the amusement of the girl who sat reading in the single easy chair in the cellar. Finally she put down her book and looked up at him.
"Why did you accuse me of laying eggs?" she asked.
Carroll turned with a smile. "A shot in the dark," he said.
"It's not true," she said. "I'm no—"
Carroll shrugged. "Anthropomorphists have spent a lot of time showing that the humanoid form is best adapted to house intelligence," he said. "The upright carriage, the evolution of the forelegs into facile hands, the placement of the sensory-system in close locale to aid one another.
"The opposing thumb and the ability to lift either a sheet of cigarette paper from the floor or a small anvil from its rest. More and deeper-involved reasons can flow than you can think about."
"Which may all be true," she said pointedly, taking a cigarette from the package and lighting it deftly. She stood up then and rotated swiftly so that her skirt swung out.
"It may all be true," he said. "But not necessarily a matter of exclusive truth. There may be a batch of intelligent octopi and I'll bet that they have ah—er—octopomorphists—sitting around telling the little octopi that their shape is best adapted to house intelligence."
"All of which answers no question," she told him with a smile.
"So you have a humanoid shape to a remarkable degree. This shape is enhanced by the Terran clothing and the Terran cosmetics and, I might add, the Terran surroundings."
"Do go on," she said with grim rumor.
"Your metabolism is not too different," he observed. "At least your digestive system is about as unselective as the Terran. That is normal for any reigning race of a system. Undoubtedly you do have a close approximation of the molecular structure, since I know that your planet is very much like Terra.
"Unfortunately I am not as deeply versed in organic chemistry as I might be or I'd be able to make a few tests. But, Rhine, the idea that two races in the galaxy being so similar in every way that they are cross-fertile is preposterous!"
"Eternity," said Rhinegallis with a murmur, "is that length of time necessary to permit everything to happen at least once."
Carroll grinned. "And that will be the last probability—and furthermore eternity will be sitting on its fundament for ten thousand galactic years after everything else has happened waiting for that little item to show up so it—eternity—can fold up and go home!"
He turned away from her and addressed himself to the equipment again. He worked at it for an hour and then turned to her with a cryptic smile.
"You're a rather dangerous responsibility," he said.
"I know but it was your idea."
"What bothers me," he said thoughtfully, "is whether you will hinder in the end. You will not help now. But will you give me trouble later on?"
"I don't understand."
Carroll thought for a moment before answering. And when he did, it was on another subject.
"I need more information," he said.
"But why might I hinder?"
Carroll smiled widely. "If you don't know," he said, "I'll not be the one to suggest it. But I need information."
"Don't ask me to get it for you."
"I won't. I have little need. I can get it myself!" he said with a deliberate show of independence.
Rhinegallis looked at him steadily. She nodded. "I'm going too," she said.
"No—and why if you deny me help?"
"Because you aided me."
He shook his head. "That was because you were in trouble for having aided me."
"I aided you in the first place because you deserved it," she said softly. "And it does not negate my debt."
"But what do you hope to accomplish? Do you hope to trap me?"
"No."
"Rhine," he said, standing up and stretching, "you do not really understand Terrans. Remember this—I took you out of that concentration camp because I needed your aid in getting free—the guards, the garage attendant, to say nothing of the way home.
"I took you along because you were in danger—because of helping me, regardless of your reasons. Therefore I shall see that you are protected—now, against your own race—later against mine."
"Later?"
"After I unravel this mad pattern."
"You always insist upon some mad pattern," she smiled. "Really, it is very simple."
He looked at her angrily. "Just ignore it and maybe it will leave, huh? Bosh!"
"You can do very little against a phantom," she said.
"And therein lie my feelings," he said harshly. "This is more than honor, more than life itself. I'd have little compunction against killing you if it meant that the truth were to be known."
Rhinegallis shrugged. Her life was forfeit anyway after the run-in with her brother.
"But you said something about wanting more information?"
He nodded. "I'm no doctor," he said. "And my knowledge of the finer points of biochemistry is sadly lacking."
"You—"
"I intend to find some way of telling you aliens from humans," he said quickly. "There must be some way."
She smiled tolerantly though there was a question in her eyes.
"I intend to see that you have a most thorough medical examination," he told her. "There must be visible differences which can be told once they are known. Differences which"—and he nodded at her very human figure with its soft curves—"cannot be simulated by artificial means."
She chuckled. "Even though many of the means of wearing a desirable figure have been invented and used by human beings for many years? Don't blame me for that, Carroll. My figure is mine own."
"Then," he said in a hard tone, "let me see!"
"Call me what you will but I have a normal modesty."
He frowned scornfully. "Have you forgotten that we are of entirely different evolutions?"
Rhinegallis smiled coyly. "You forget," she said, "that to all intents and purposes I am a human being. You nor anyone else will ever get me to say or prove that I am not. That includes acting like one too."
"Let it pass," he said. "My judgment might be faulty. There are excellent doctors, however. If you claim that you intend to act as human as you can you'll have no objection to visiting a doctor."
"Not when necessary," she replied calmly. "But remember, I told you that I would give you no information that would tend to harm."
"And I've told you that when I have evidence that tends to show my correctness I shall not ask for help—I shall take it!"
CHAPTER VIII
Matter Transmission
Using his knowledge of the alien tongue and coupling it to many of the so-called "harmless" records he had been permitted to toy with, Carroll found his work much simpler. There was that business of the circlet of wire mounted on the cylindrical podium in which vibrated a crystal.
He had a whole measure of that science, most of which, he admitted, was ridiculous, and meaningless to any Terran physicist unless he had the key to the art. A complete volume on electronic techniques would be meaningless to any man who knew nothing of electricity.
Most texts are written with considerable elision—electronics texts, for instance, show many circuits but seldom are they entirely complete. They omit the driving force—the source of energizing electricity, the filament supply, and other items which are unnecessary to the trained man.
Since many such items may be ambiguous it makes no difference whether the plate voltage is developed by batteries, rectifier-filter supplies, generators or a vibrator-pack that develops high voltage from a six-volt battery. It is sensible to omit them and merely label the "input" terminal with a symbol.
But couple a text with a complete knowledge of the language, especially a dictionary that is complete in its scientific sense, and you learn of batteries, voltage, generators and the like. You discover that an electron tube has this and that and perhaps why. Using a good sensible knowledge of physics plus ingenuity the science becomes less puzzling.
Similarly James Forrest Carroll was able to reproduce the science of the aliens.
All of this took time, of course—weeks. Weeks of testing and trying and fumbling. As Volta might be baffled by a common transformer where, though the input is shorted together through loops of wire and the output is similarly shorted, yet there is transfer of energy, so Carroll was baffled by the strange and bizarre thing that grew in the cellar of his Wisconsin home.
It was a large circular loop of silver-plated copper tubing. It was mounted on a cylindrical slug of high-permeability alloy which was magnetized to a high charge. The crystal was common enough but its connection made little sense from the Terran point of view. The Ancients used to use crystals for jewelry and would have been bewildered at the modern idea of cutting them in slabs to make standards of frequency.
Finally he surveyed his work with a satisfied smile. He snapped it on and a shining plane of totally reflecting energy filled the circular loop of wire.
"It isn't Lewis," he said. "It's James Forrest Carroll Through The Looking Glass!"
Rhinegallis shook her head. "The proper title is 'Alice Through The Looking Glass'," she told him.
"You have a rather extensive Terran education," he observed.
"Would any Terran be without an education?" she countered.
"Doubtless far superior to any normal person," he grunted, "thanks to that mental educating dingus of yours."
"And partly due to hard work," she said. "Give me some credit."
He smiled wanly. Then he snapped the instrument on and off and looked at the perfect plane with interest.
"Wonder if it might be possible to warp it into a perfect parabola," he said thoughtfully.
"I wouldn't know," she replied, "but it would make a fine telescope, wouldn't it?"
"Whole gear weighs about five pounds." He grinned. "The thousand-inch mirror would be a definite practicality. What we couldn't see with that!"
"Might as well go," she said humorously. "You're like the man who discovered motive power and then used it to yell over great distances with instead of going there."
"So far," he said seriously, "there's little to be gained by this gimmick. I'm like the first man on earth to own a telephone. I've no one to talk to."
"But tell me, what did he do?"
Carroll smiled in a superior fashion. "What I'm going to do to try this out," he said. "I'm going elsewhere with a second model and establish my own line of communication.
"So far as I know the only other ones are in the hands of your people—and normal, happy, serious-minded folk seldom call their enemies on the telephone to pass the time of day. So, Rhine, if you'll stay here—"
"I've no place to go," she told him. "I'll stay. You'll not be long?"
"I've got to build it first," he said. "I've got the parts here but it's not assembled."
"But—"
"It's 'tinkertoy' fashion in a suitcase," he said. "I obviously can't carry a six-foot circle of half-inch copper tubing fastened to a podium of heavy metal through the streets of Ladysmith without trouble. I'm leaving tonight, Rhine. You wait for me here."
"I'll wait," she said with a smile.
Doctor Pollard blinked when Miss Farragut announced James Forrest Carroll.
"By all means," he said, and then sat back to see what Carroll had to offer.
Carroll came to the point at once. "I have proof," he said.
"You have proof," smiled Pollard, "but you leave too many holes in the matrix."
"Meaning?" asked Carroll.
"From time to time," replied Pollard, "men have come forward with the idea that all Sol is being guarded or watched or kept suppressed by some alien culture. Charles Fort said 'Maybe we're Property!' and others have had the same idea.
"This alien culture always is superior of mind and body and capable of furthering any evidence to dispute its being. The discoverer is hunted down and chased but usually eludes the aliens long enough before he is caught to tell the world about it.
"Now," continued the doctor, "aside from the fact that all stories must have some sort of sensible ending your tale misses one vital point that all such tales seem to.
"That is just the simple fact that these omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent beings who have kept the world in ignorance for twenty thousand years have not the intelligence to slay the single discoverer!"
Carroll smiled. "I was not slain because I was useful to them. I've spent weeks with them."
Carroll spent the next hour telling Dr. Pollard of his experiences among the aliens. He omitted only the truth about Rhinegallis.
Pollard's comment in his own shorthand was, "Perfect self-justification."
"Now," said Carroll. "May I show you something that I've stolen from them?"
"Of course."
Carroll opened his suitcase and set the metal podium on the floor. He unrolled the length of silver-plated copper tubing and shaped it into a circle. He fastened the terminals to the podium with thumbscrews. Then he snapped the switch and the shimmering plane appeared.
"Wonderful," said Pollard hollowly. "But what is it?"
Carroll smiled. "You are a hard man to convince," he said. "But now that I have shown you this, I shall show you one of them!"
Carroll stepped into the shimmering plane and disappeared.
Pollard gave a cry of fright and raced around to the other side of the plane but Carroll had gone. Then he shrank from the thing; it was as though the shimmering plane of perfect mirror was beckoning to him. And for one of the few times in his life, Dr. Pollard knew and recognized a psychopathic fear of the Unknown.
Carroll, however, knew the facts. He stepped into the basement of his home with the same motion that had carried him over the podium into the mirror in Pollard's office.
"Now," he told Rhinegallis, "I'm taking Dr. Pollard a live specimen!"
He grabbed Rhinegallis by the wrist and dragged her through the mirror into Pollard's office again.
Carroll grabbed Rhinegallis by the wrist and dragged her through the mirror into Pollard's office.
Carroll grabbed Rhinegallis by the wrist and dragged her through the mirror into Pollard's office.
Carroll grabbed Rhinegallis by the wrist and dragged her through the mirror into Pollard's office.
"Here," he said, "is Rhinegallis, one of the inimical aliens."
Pollard was dumbfounded.
Carroll hurled the girl at Pollard. "I want as complete a medical examination as you can give," he said. "Obviously if she and her race evolved on some distant stellar system, she can not be more than humanoid. Follow?"
Pollard nodded. He faced the girl uncertainly and said, "Do you mind?"
Rhinegallis blazed.
"Of course I mind," she snapped, eyes flashing.
Carroll seated himself indolently on Pollard's desk. "If you are really alien," he observed ironically, "you will most heartily object!"
"I'm Terran," she insisted.
"Then why cavil at proving it?" he urged.
"I don't have to!"
"I'm afraid you do," he said. "Fact of the matter is I'm still holding a rather high position in the Lawson Laboratory. I can—and will—order Dr. Pollard to do it!"
Rhinegallis faced the doctor. "I'll not have it."
Carroll spread his hands out in a self-satisfied gesture. "Q.E.D.," he said. "Aliens will object. True Terrans have nothing to fear."
Rhinegallis turned upon him angrily. "How about you?" she snapped. "Are you willing to have yourself examined?"
"Dr. Pollard knows me," he said simply. "There is no reason for me to go through with this."
"I have friends."
"Aliens!" He turned to Pollard. "You have always disbelieved me," he said. "Had I brought you here by any other means Pollard would have believed that there was nothing to my tale and would have given you at the most a very superficial examination.
"However, after bringing you through the teleport, he is amazed enough to wonder. Pollard, I charge you. Give her as complete an examination as is within your ability and power!"
Pollard turned to Rhinegallis and asked her name.
"I am Rita Galloway," she said. "And I'm Terran!"
"Normally," he said with a half-smile, "no one is expected to go through such an outrageous thing. But do you really mind?"
Rhinegallis paused. "Not really; I have nothing to hide. But like all people I resent any invasion of my privacy. The Constitution stipulates that such shall not be done except with just cause. Not that an innocent man has anything to fear. It is just protection for the integrity of the individual. However, if you insist."
"Thank you," said Pollard. "Into this office, please."
Carroll followed.
"Not you," snapped Pollard.
"I'm watching," Carroll insisted.
"Look," said Pollard testily, "you may give orders to have things done that I do not approve of but you have no right to tell me how to run my life. We'll have none of it!"
"But—"
"Want it done?" demanded Pollard.
"I—"
"Look, Carroll, you can't fire me. You may still hold a responsible position but it is an honorary status. Now, if you want me to go ahead, just sit quietly and wait!"
"I'll wait," said Carroll.
Three hours later, Pollard emerged from the inner office with several sheets of paper. "She is of Anglo-Russian origin and shows the racial characteristics of that mixture.
"Her blood type is Type Three, Rh Negative, Sub-classification three-GH. Temperature, blood-pressure, and heart normal save for a slight murmur. Saliva test perfection itself. Blood count slightly low—normal enough and not near anemia.
"She is, physically, biologically, and emotionally, a specimen of excellent health, female, age twenty four years. Appendix removed five years-odd ago. Unmarried. Spent some time in the tropics but is naturally light complected."
Pollard shuffled the papers as Rhinegallis entered the room.
"In the interim," he continued, "I've had her checked on. The Bureau of Identification confirms her fingerprints and physical characteristics, Social Security Number and blood type. Photo checks despite several years interim.
"Born in Indiana, raised in Chicago on Drexel Avenue. Schooled primarily in Chicago, left college after three years. Father and mother deceased. Now," he said angrily, "is there anything more you need?"
Carroll blinked. "I should have guessed," he replied very slowly.
"Guessed? Guessed what?"
Carroll nodded slowly. "Doctor, forgetting the present situation, what is your opinion on the evolution of an extra-solar race?"
"I'll try to forget the present idea," replied the doctor, "and tell you that so far as I can judge, it would be utterly impossible for any race not our own to have more than a very few superficial items of resemblance to the human. More than likely they would evolve in an entirely different shape, though very necessarily functional."
Carroll nodded. "How about brain surgery?"
"What about it?"
Carroll shunned the doctor at that point. He faced Rhinegallis with a bitter smile. "So you have Terran characteristics. And your offer of affection might have been honest—despite the alien brain inside your skull!"
Rhinegallis gasped. "You accuse me of—"
"Well, there must be some logic in it!"
CHAPTER IX
Court Is Dismissed
Insistently the communicator on Pollard's desk buzzed and Miss Farragut called him. The doctor excused himself and left them alone.
"There must be proof," insisted Carroll.
"There has been plenty of it," she told him.
"There's one thing that your alien brain in a human body will not do," he said. "The rest can be managed. You can falsify records—perhaps you were a natural child of Terran parents—Terran parents with alien brains—as yours is now. I don't know but I'll find out."
"How?"
"Pollard's psychiatric notes," he said explosively. He headed for the examination room and looked around. There, behind the door, was a pile of papers on a small table. To get at them Carroll nudged the door shut. It went closed with a faint thud.
Almost instantly afterwards there came the sounds of many feet in the other room.
Rhinegallis screamed something out of fright and peril. There were the sounds of a scuffle, after which came.... Silence!
Carroll hurled the door open and raced across Pollard's office toward the teleport. As he reached there he saw the last traces of Rhinegallis's feet being dragged over the bottom of the wire circle into the mirror. With a cry of anger, Carroll hurled himself into the teleport just as the office door burst open to admit Pollard and Majors.
Carroll's return passage through the teleport was rough. He bumped someone and his force sent them sprawling. Then he was through and facing Kingallis, who was still reeling backwards.
Carroll plunged forward and caught Kingallis by the throat. The alien twisted out of Carroll's grasp and fought back. Carroll hit him hard and followed it with an insane rush that carried them to the far end of the cellar, where Kingallis tripped on a small box and went down with Carroll on top. Carroll rapped the alien's head against the concrete floor and stunned him.
Kingallis returned almost instantly.
Carroll looked down in his face and snarled, "Now—why?"
"Why?" asked the alien defiantly.
"Yes—why? Why is all this going on?"
"The universe is not big enough to hold us both," snapped Kingallis.
"Then it is true. You and your people have been suppressing our research because you fear that we will be able to beat you. And we will, Kingallis. We will!"
"You won't live long enough," snarled the alien.
Carroll's mind worked rapidly. If nothing else, he had now discovered the truth of why. The alien culture wanted universal conquest. To gain it, they were suppressing all research on the Lawson Radiation, which was their main hope for victory. Instead of fighting to suppress it, they had found it much easier to weasel their way in and fake a report here and line there with a mere handful of men. No science could advance when true discoveries were reported as failures and false data were supplied to send the investigators along blind trails.
But now there was real danger. Since Terra was cognizant of the peril Terra would be destroyed. Destroyed or conquered early—the aliens not waiting for the normal development of their plans of expansion.
Carroll looked around for something to tie Kingallis with. And he saw—
Rhinegallis, supine upon the floor, a wide thick strap constricting her ribs. Her eyes were closed. The pulse in her shapely throat was fluttering weakly.
"You swine!" said Carroll.
Kingallis threw him off, leaped to his feet and raced for the teleport disc. He plunged through as Carroll dropped to the floor on one knee and started to fumble at the heavy strap.
He tore his fingers and he cursed, and he looked wildly for something to cut the thing with. His eyes caught the tinsnips on the bench and he arose to get them as Pollard came through the teleport.
Back in Pollard's office the psychologist looked at the perfection of the silvery plane and shuddered mentally. Then he said, "I don't know what's up, but I'm going—through!"
Majors nodded. He had not seen Carroll using the thing at all. His mind was baffled but not psychopathically afraid of any gadget that made men disappear so quickly.
Pollard stepped gingerly into the circle and came through. It was like walking through a ring. There was neither pain nor strain nor feeling. He might have been stepping over a slight, wide sill. Then he was looking down at Carroll, who was fumbling at the strap. Carroll cut it through as Pollard knelt beside the girl.
Then as Pollard made an instant check of the girl's heart and sighed with relief, Carroll rose and turned on the doctor.
"Now," he said, "are you satisfied?"
"Satisfied?" echoed the doctor.
"They almost got her!" snarled Carroll.
"Oh?"
"The teleport is theirs. They have many of them. They were worried about discovery, so they came and—"
"They did?" asked the doctor sarcastically. He turned to Majors. "I was wrong," he said.
"Wrong?"
Pollard nodded sadly. "I believed that Carroll would not direct his hate towards anything living. I did not anticipate his fastening the embodiment of his hallucination upon a human being!"
Carroll turned to Pollard with a glassy stare. "Just what do you mean?" he asked in a flat voice.
"That was an attempt at sheer wanton murder!" replied the doctor.
Majors looked down at the girl and his face went black with anger.
"Why," he said, "that's Rita Galloway!"
Pollard looked at Majors. "Who?"
"Rita Galloway. The head librarian over at the Scientific Section of the Foundation Library."
"She is Rhinegallis of the aliens," said Carroll quickly.
Pollard shook his head. Majors growled. He started to speak and then closed his lips tightly.
"Go ahead," said Pollard.
"All right," snarled Majors. "It was my fault!"
"Your fault?" exploded Pollard.
"Yes. The day after Carroll took that delivery job from little Sally, he spent the evening in the Library looking up some rather complex stuff. Miss Galloway was called upon quite often, so she said, and came to me because she knew we were interested in Carroll.
"Shut up, Carroll, and sit down before I kill you! I told her the entire score and she said that if Carroll was truly as interested as he seemed she was going to ask for a leave of absence and see that he was helped. He seemed to be interested in her."
"Does helping him include running off to Wisconsin with him?" asked Pollard.
"They had words with her brother Kingston," said Majors. "Seems that her brother was concerned about her reputation, and said as much. Carroll made some remark about there being little in common between them, that no human being would find her interesting from a physical standpoint, just as she would find any normal relationship with any human being completely devoid of satisfaction.
"Kingston Galloway instantly took this to be a slur upon his sister's character and he jumped Carroll—also making it quite plain that he would stand for no more foolishness. Carroll clipped him hard and left, taking Rita with him. I got that from Kingston, who was out loaded for murder."
Pollard nodded. "A complex case of misdirected opinions," he said with a grim smile. "Carroll thoroughly believes that she is alien and as such incapable of forming any true association with a human. He says so and her brother misconstrues his belief into an insult to her character."
Majors turned on Carroll. "This is a matter for the police," he snapped. "Come along!"
Carroll paused, looking down at the girl. Pollard scooped her up across his arms and went through the teleport. By the time that Carroll and Majors followed Doctor Pollard was working over the girl in his laboratory.
Carroll shrugged. "If he fails," he said, indicating Pollard, "we might be able to hold an autopsy."
Majors turned away, sick at heart.
Attorney Barnett rose impressively.
"Your Honor, and Gentlemen of the Court," he said. "We do not deny the allegation. We wish to point out, however, that despite my client's state of mind he has and will be of continued value to civilization.
"Incarceration in a penitentiary will not permit him to continue his research. He should be permitted this outlet. Therefore, for my first witness I call Doctor Harold Pollard."
Pollard was put through the legal ritual and took the stand.
"Pollard, what happened to James Forrest Carroll?"
Pollard cleared his throat. "James Forrest Carroll followed the pattern of several of the top physicists working on the Lawson Radiation," he said. "May I express a pertinent opinion?"
"Objection!" shouted prosecution.
Judge Hawley frowned. "Is the opinion based on the crime?"
"No, your honor. It is pertinent to all such cases."
"Objection overruled."
"May I take exception?" asked Frank Barre, the State's Attorney.
"Let us examine the personal opinion first," replied the judge.
Pollard nodded. "It has been the opinion of the men at the Lawson Laboratory that all of these men have discovered something that has driven them into amnesia. Amnesia, you understand, is the mind's withdrawal from a distasteful reality.
"Of all of them, however, Carroll is the only one who has shown a sign of recovery from a state of complete amnesia pertaining to his work. Carroll returned with an hallucination of a strange alien culture at work to suppress any research."
"I want to establish Doctor Pollard's reputation and ability as a physician, surgeon, and practising psychiatrist," said Barnett.
Frank Barre stood up. "Waived," he said. "Prosecution agrees that Doctor Pollard's training and position are impeccable."
"Thank you," replied Barnett. "Go on, Doctor Pollard."
"In usual cases of paranoia the subject develops a persecution complex. Usually it is directed against his fellow man. In Carroll's case this was fastened upon the mythical race on another star.
"Carroll believes the Lawson Radiation to be the wasted energy from a space drive capable of interstellar travel. This alien race is supposed to be suppressing the research for a reason not quite clear, though Carroll believes—"
"Tell us what you know, Doctor Pollard."
"As with usual cases Carroll went to great pains to produce certified evidence. While preparing the so-called facts, Carroll is in a state of self-hypnosis—hallucination—in which he was actually living with the aliens; and stealing their stuff. When he brings his evidence forward he attributes it to their culture rather than the product of his own brilliant mind."
"And what do you recommend?" asked Barnett.
"Since the Lawson Radiation was the thing that caused his downfall in the first place whatever he found was important. We may have been lax in our efforts to bring Carroll 'back'. Yet, we feel that any measure that will help us to know what it is—is permissible.
"Even attempts at murder?"
Pollard shuddered. "Of course not," he said. "I should have said any legal measure."
"Thank you," replied Barnett. "I'll now call James Forrest Carroll. I want the Court to hear his own story."
"Carroll," said Barnett, once the man was legally installed on the witness stand, "did you try to kill Rita Galloway?"
"No!"
"Did you try to kill a woman you knew as Rhinegallis?"
"No!"
"Then who did try to kill her?"
"Her brother, Kingallis!"
"Do you see this man in the courtroom now?"
"Yes," said Carroll pointing to a man at the witnesses's table. "That is Kingallis."
"We will show later that the witness identified has been known all of his life as Kingston Galloway, and is the brother of the woman." Then Barnett faced Carroll again. "Do you mind talking about this?"
Carroll shook his head as he said, "Not at all. I have been most deeply frustrated. Time after time I have produced evidence to show the truth of the matter. I have gained no one who will believe me."
"You say that Kingallis tried to kill his sister. Why?"
"Because she betrayed him by helping me."
"Your honor, you will recognize the importance of this statement. It—like so many others—is a half truth. It is true and yet the implication is not the same. The fact is, your honor, that Carroll actually has reason to believe that Kingallis came through the teleport to take revenge. This is part of the hallucination."
He turned again to Carroll. "You claim you were held against your will in a building in Virginia?"
"I was."
"Then tell me how it was that you were seen performing your job during the time you claim to have been prisoner—and disappeared at the time you went to Wisconsin with Rita Galloway?"
Carroll smiled. "By the same explanation as the twin Sallys. One, you remember, went into the black car so that the men could read the day's reports and fix those that were informative. The other went into the drugstore for a bite to eat in order to fill in the interim. There was a man made up to resemble me."
"You see, your honor, Carroll believes his hallucination implicitly."
"Obviously."
Barnett faced Carroll. "Prosecution claims that you, yourself, attacked the girl in a state of anger because she proved your beliefs wrong—and in hallucinatory hope that a complete autopsy would prove you correct."
"This is untrue."
"Your inventions—"
"They are not my inventions. They are thefted from the alien library."
"Carroll, you have a brilliant mind."
"I was mentally strong enough to defy their thought machines," replied Carroll.
"And you have an extensive education in physics and science?"
"I have."
"Now tell me, are any of these inventions beyond understanding?"
"Naturally not. They are based upon physical laws that are at present unknown on Terra."
"As—say—electricity was unknown in the days of Galileo?"
"About like that."
"Then, Carroll, it might be possible that you yourself made these discoveries?"
"I might have," admitted Carroll. "But—"
"Under a hallucination? To prove to your own mind that you were stealing something of scientific excellence?"
"There is the matter of the language."
"Irrelevant. It is a tongue no one here understands."
"Kingallis!Vol thes nil kantil res vi pon tere...."
Kingston Galloway blinked as Carroll tongued his syllables, then began to laugh.
"You see," said Barnett, "anyone can mouth meaningless words and call them a language. You can, if you are brilliant, even assign meanings to them. Esperanto, among others, is a manufactured language."
"Yet I claim it true."
"What about your own future?"
"I care nothing for myself, it is only the future of Sol that concerns me."
"Your honor," said Barnett, "There are two things I want to say before I close. One is that James Forrest Carroll is not sane. Therefore he should be committed to an institution. The other is that James Forrest Carroll, for all of his insanity, is still a brilliant physicist.
"He knows something about the Lawson Radiation that men have gone mad for previously, that men have sought for thirty years, that time and money has been spent for. Therefore, in this institution, James Forrest Carroll should be permitted to experiment at his own will.
"For if nothing else he will produce many other marvelous things in an effort to prove that the science of the aliens is far greater than ours."
The judge asked Carroll, "You have a reason for believing all this?"
"I know why. The alien culture wants to conquer the universe. Because we are very close to them in scientific achievement they have cause to fear us.
"The Lawson Radiation is the spilled energy from their interstellar ships and possession of this secret will permit Terra—or any other system—to fight them on their own terms, even to beat them back to their own system. Therefore they are suppressing all research by clever misdirection."
"I see. You seem to have an answer to every angle," mused the judge.
"The trouble is," said Carroll, "that people insist upon judging me in accordance with their own views—which means that they have an answer to my every objection."
"In other words," smiled the judge, "the world is wrong and you are right?"
"Precisely."
"You know what is said about such people?"
Carroll smiled. "They said the same thing about Galileo, Columbus, the Wright brothers, Bell, Edison and Marconi," he said.
"It is often hard to tell," said the judge. "However, there are some good ways."
Carroll faced the judge. "Sentence me," he said in a surly tone. "For only by silencing me can you stop me from seeking you out."
"Me?" asked the judge in surprise.
"Either you are Terran and must therefore do everything to help me unravel this mad pattern or you are really an alien who has succeeded in penetrating to a high place in our civilization—and are therefore interested in seeing that my knowledge of you is not given any recognition."
"But why—"
"It has been said that when the superman arrives, he will be well concealed and will occupy a high place in the world without anybody knowing about it. You may or may not be. Yet by your decision you will prove it to me!"
"I see no reason to defend my opinion against your attack," replied the judge. "However, in view of the circumstances, I hereby direct the jury to return a verdict of 'guilty of criminal assault while in an insane condition' and a sentence of committal to an institution until such a time as you are pronounced sane and rational. Court is dismissed!"
CHAPTER X
Flight from Asylum
James Forrest Carroll was very careful in the days that followed. With meticulous care he watched those about him in the asylum, always wary of showing either too much interest or too much neglect. The other inmates did not bother him particularly nor did they irritate him. Not even the fact that he was committed to an insane asylum caused him to lose heart.