E. Everett Evans

“ There is no such thing as opacity; everything is perfectly transparent, yet every molecule of substance is perceptible in its relationship to every other molecule in the cosmos. Senses do not exist. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, sathura, endovix—all are parts of the one great sense of peyondix. I am guiding each of you seven—closer! Tighter! There! Seize it, sir—and when you work the Stretts you must fix it clearly that time does not exist. You must work in millionths of microseconds instead of in minutes, for they have minds of tremendous power. Reality does not exist! ”

“ Thousands of lights artfully concealed accentuated the beauty of those wonderful buildings, and Hanlon caught his breath in pleasure at his first sight of the marvelous square by night. He had thought it wonderful by day—now he admitted without reservation that it was the most magnificent sight he had ever seen.
He finally signalled a ground-cab—New Athens had no slideways—to go to the Bacchus. It was several blocks from the square, but each of the streets he travelled were almost as beautiful. ”

“ Hilton said, coldly. "No one except the very few selectees will know anything about it. Even if it were an unmixed blessing—which it very definitely is not—do you want all humanity thrown into such an uproar as that would cause? Or the quite possible racial inferiority complex it might set up? To say nothing of the question of how much of Terra's best blood do you want to drain off, irreversibly and permanently? No. What we suggest is that you paint the picture so black, using Sawtelle and me and what all humanity has just seen as horrible examples, that nobody would take it as a gift. ”

“ The knowledge that these Guddus of Algon were telepathic rocked George Hanlon back on his heels. That was a thing he had never even imagined. They were such a simple, almost childlike race, that such an ability was farthest from his thoughts.
"If you can talk with your minds?" he asked Geck in wonder, "why do you bother to speak with the voice to each other?"
"Because mind-talk more tiring to we," came the simple explanation. "It take much of we's forces. Us grow weak after much of them." ”

“ Smoothly, with increasing acceleration, the Star Rover lifted upward through the atmosphere on the planet Marci—Carveria Two.
Ever more swiftly it flew, and a special sort of gladness was in each heart at the thought that soon they would be once more speeding toward their home on far distant Terra.
Traveling about the universe, seeing new suns, new planets, new and interesting—even though alien, and sometimes dangerous—forms of life of various kinds, all this was a constant source of interest and delight. ”

“ Why did they make it impossible for the Omans ever, of themselves, to learn their higher science? Why, if they did not want that science to become known, did they leave complete records of it? The majority of us believe that the Masters coded their records in such fashion that the Stretts, even if they conquered the Omans or destroyed them, could never break that code; since it was keyed to the basic difference between the Strett mentality and the human. Thus, they left it deliberately for some human race to find. ”

“ Hanlon was silent a moment, then telepathed again. "There is no need for you all to stay here any longer. Tell all your people to go back to their forests, for they are all free."
Geck turned to the other natives who were crowding close, and Hanlon could see him talking swiftly with that peculiar-looking little triangular-shaped mouth. Soon his mind was suffused with a tremendous wave of joy and ecstasy, and they began dashing out. Hanlon could see them talking to the natives in all the huts, and in moments all the natives except Geck were streaming happily toward the nearby forests. ”

“ Then, linking minds with the captain, he flashed their joint attention to the Hall of Records. Into the right room; into the right chest; along miles and miles of braided wire carrying some of the profoundest military secrets of the ancient Masters.
Then:
"Now you know a little of it," Hilton said. "Maybe a thousandth of what we'll have to have before we can take the Stretts as they will have to be taken."
For seconds Sawtelle could not speak. Then: "My ... God. I see what you mean. You're right. No Omans can ever go to Terra; and no Terrans can ever come here except to stay forever." ”

“ We've nothing to fear. Bohr was entirely on his own. The people of his planetary system—Canopus—are so far advanced they live on a completely co-operative basis, every one instinctively working for the common good of all. Bohr was an atavism—they caught him trying to 'take over' there, and banished him. He came here, for his restless mind and savage urge to dominate others would not let him rest until he was absolute ruler of some world or system—the bigger the better from his viewpoint. ”

“ The awesome blackness of the void seemed alive with millions upon countless millions of tiny, distant, pinpointed lights he knew were giant suns. On and on they stretched, as far as the eye could see—and beyond. In the far, far distance were blotches of light Jon knew were the incredibly distant nebulae—other uncounted billions of suns that made up the far-off galaxies and universes.
He looked overhead, picking out against the backdrop of the nearer suns of our own galaxy—the Milky Way—some of the larger giant suns ... ”

“ Our minds, while independent, are linked or in mesh. Each is helping and instructing the other. Both are working at full power and under free rein at the exploration of brand-new vistas of thought—vistas and expanses which neither of us has ever previously ..."
"Stop, Master, stop!" Laro covered both ears with his hands and pulled his mind away from Hilton's. "You are overloading me!"
"That is quite a load to assimilate all at once," Hilton agreed. "To help you get used to it, stop calling me 'Master'. That's an order. You may call me Jarve or Jarvis or Hilton or whatever, but no more Master." ”

“ It wasn't that he couldn't control her muscles—it was, simply that the muscles were not built to do such things without infinite training.
When it finally became so near "morning" that he knew he had to quit, Hanlon left the kennels and went to bed. He was still amazed, excited and thrilled about this strange and weird ability, but he was also well content with his studies. If a time came when he might wish or need to use animals in his work, he felt capable of managing them. Yet again he realized how much there was to learn; that he must continue practicing and studying at every opportunity. ”

“ Jak cried hotly.
"We're still kids, not men," Jon declared. "Why, there's still so much to learn—and experience to gain—we've barely started growing up."
"You can keep learning back on Terra," their mother said. "As for me, I'm glad we're going to be there a year or more. I want to live in a house again, on land I know."
"Then we'd all better get to bed," their father said with his old-time roguish smile. "Otherwise we'll all be too fagged out to take off for home tomorrow." ”

“ You have let yourself fail on examination questions you did not know, when you could have read the answers in your instructor's mind."
"No, not that, sir," Hanlon shook his head. "I never could read from a mind such specific information as answers to questions or to problems."
"I imagine that will come when you start using your talent maturely," Admiral Rogers shrugged indifferently. "But at the moment I want to talk very seriously about your assignment. First, however, I must have your most solemn oath never to reveal what I am about to tell you, for it is our most carefully-guarded secret." ”

“ You two, and the Doctors Kincaid and Bells and Blake and the it that is I. We six sit and stare into the mind of the Larry, eye to eye. We generate and assemble a tremendous charge of thought-energy, and along my peyondix-beam—something like a carrier wave in this case—we hurl it into the Larry's mind. There is an immense mental bang and the conditioning goes poof. Then I will inculcate into its mind the curiosity and the imagination and the peyondix and we will really be mind-mates. ”

“ Their first measurements of this new planet had shown it to be almost the size of Terra, and they had been delighted to see that there was a moon of considerable size, although not as large as Luna. It was about one hundred and fifty thousand miles out.
"There's a number of large seas or oceans," Jak commented without taking his eyes from his visiplate. "Look at that plant life, though—it evidently coats the whole planet. From here it looks like jungle."
"Lots of lakes and rivers on it, and in those plains we saw." Jon was excited. "It sure looks like a wonderful world where men can live." ”

“ I would train you as you've never guessed it possible for a man to be trained. And then, together, Hanlon, we could rule the Universe!"
But George Hanlon was only half-listening, even to that last, that shocking, that totally unexpected proposition, his real goal. Here was the plot he had been seeking, the plot the Corps needed so desperately to know. Yet his personal crisis was, for the moment, more important if he was ever to be of any further benefit to the Secret Service or the Corps. To use his just-discovered knowledge, something else must come first. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, a constantly and rapidly increasing mass of plutonium—a mass already thousands of times greater than critical, but not allowed to react! That gives a faint and very inadequate picture of what was happening then.
Finally, at perhaps a hundred thousand times critical mass, and still in perfect sync, the Vangs all went off.
The planet Strett became a nova.
"We won! We won!" Temple shrieked, her perception piercing through the hellish murk that was all nearby space. ”

“ The two phrases came simultaneously from Jak and his mother.
"It's not silly, Honey. We merely haven't figured out how to do it yet. But theoretical science knows that there are 'folds' in space. We just haven't learned how to use them yet."
"No," Jak snorted, "and I'll bet you never do."
"And I'll bet they will," Jon blazed. "You just don't realize how wonderful science is—in other lines than your own, I mean. You think it's perfectly natural that medical science has made such tremendous advances in the past couple of centuries. Why shouldn't other branches make just as great strides?" ”

“ He would have to think of himself as a soldier in war, and Rellos an enemy.
Outwardly calm, he shrugged indifferently. "Any guy that can't produce isn't worth keeping," he said. "Any special way you want it done?"
"No ... I think I would like to see how you work. Plan it yourself. But if it isn't done, you had better not let me or my men see you again."
"Fair enough. If I can't do a simple job like that I sure can't be of enough value to you to do myself any real good."
They were silent again, but Hanlon's mind was bleak with what was to come. ”

“ It was a good thing for the race, Hilton had thought at first perception of the things, that the Stretts had bred out of themselves every iota of the finer, higher attributes of life. If they had not done so, the impotence of sheer disgust would have supervened so long since that the race would have been extinct for ages. ”

“ For Tad Carver was one of the real pioneers of deep space. He had been an officer of the first ship to reach the stars—the planets of Sirius.
Deep-space travel was not yet a commonplace thing, although it was becoming so more swiftly with each passing year. Jon knew that there were now regular trips to the planets and some of the moons of his home solar system. One could have a two weeks' vacation trip from Terra to Luna for a thousand credits, or a month's cruise to Mars or Venus for forty hundred. ”

“ And on that distant planet of the Stretts the group of mechs watched with amazed disbelief as light after light after light winked out on their two-miles-long control board. Frantically they relayed orders to the skeletons; orders which did not affect the losses.
"Brain-pans will blacken for this ..." a mental snarl began, to be interrupted by a coldly imperious thought.
"That long-dead unit, so inexplicably reactivated, is approaching the fuel world. It is ignoring the battle. It is heading through our fleet toward the Oman half ... handle it, ten-eighteen!" ”

“ Geck's thoughts and expression were a blank, and it took most of the work-period even to make him understand what Hanlon was trying to ask. When he did finally manage to grasp the thought-concept, his answer was a decided negative.
"No, An-yon, us know nothing about other sun other planet. Before humans come suppose we only intelligent life anywhere. Things you call suns us thought little fires light sky at night. Wonder many night who build. Wonder what is burn where is nothing. Wonder why only one big fire come day. Wonder why big fire die come night." ”

“ Jon took his place and aimed his gun. "Count three and we'll fire together."
Jak knelt and steadied his rifle with one elbow on his extended knee. "One ... two ... three ... fire!"
As the two shots crashed out the creature sprang into the air a couple of feet. A great scream of pain and rage shook the very ground and made the air tremble. It hesitated only a moment, then charged toward the ship at terrific speed.
The boys pumped shots as fast as they could. Both had hit the head, but neither had put out an eye as they had hoped. They kept firing as fast as they could work their guns. ”

“ Larry, Dark Lady and Temple's Oman maid Moty were standing beside the Hilton's car—and so was another Oman, like none ever before seen. Six feet four; shoulders that would just barely go through a door; muscled like Atlas and Hercules combined; skin a gleaming, satiny bronze; hair a rippling mass of lambent flame. ”

“ Philander laughed, yet there was a curious undertone of almost-contempt in his voice. "Why're you so hipped on that subject?"
Hanlon grinned and misquoted, "Life is real, life is earnest, and the gravy is my goal." Then he sobered and said, "'Cause with money you can do anything. When I've made a big pile, then I can go where I want to go, be what I want to be, and make people know I'm somebody." ”

“ Jak tried to calm her.
"I've figured this three times, Mom," Jon said earnestly. "Got the same answer each time, so I know we can do it."
"Well," still doubtfully, "I guess you do know what you are doing, but that seems awfully close." She struggled with herself and finally managed a weak smile. "I promised to let you boys make the decisions. I'll go lie down in my bunk so I won't know what's happening until it's all over." ”

“ Think on, First Lord Ynos."
"We will attack in maximum force and with maximum violence. We will blanket the planet. We will maintain maximum force and violence until most or all of the enemy ships have been destroyed. We will then install planetary drives on Ten and force it into collision orbit with Fuel World, meanwhile exerting extreme precautions that not so much as a spy-beam emerges above the enemy's screen. Then, still maintaining extreme precaution, we will guard both planets until the last possible moment before the collision. Brain, it cannot fail!" ”

“ He turned his attention to the well-dressed, impressive-looking man behind the plasticene desk, nor had his other probings taken more than a few seconds. He noted with interest the round, smooth face, the slightly over-large greenish eyes, the silver hair that seemed finer and silkier than any Hanlon had ever seen on a human being. It was almost like fine fur, he thought suddenly.
Then he got a shock! This man was different ... Hanlon could not touch that mind at all! There was a sort of an ... an alien feeling there he could not quite fathom. ”

“ Then captain and director, in two Oman ships with fifty men and a thousand Omans, leaped the world-girdling ocean to the mining operation of the Stretts. There they found business strictly as usual. The strippers still stripped; the mining mechs still roared and snarled their inchwise ways along their geometrically perfect terraces; the little carriers still skittered busily between the various miners and the storage silos. The fact that there was enough concentrate on hand to last a world for a hundred years made no difference at all to these automatics ”

“ Hanlon jumped to his feet. "Get everyone to work; tell them to act real busy!" he snapped. "You, too!"
He thrust the frequency-transformer into a hole prepared for just such an emergency, grabbed up his shock-rod and stepped closer to the natives. He was standing there, to all appearances strictly on the job of making his charges work, when Philander came crawling up the rise into the pocket where this crew was mining the glossy, lustrous pitch-blank uraninite ore.
"How're things going?" the superintendent greeted Hanlon with at least the appearance of friendliness. ”

“ Larry and Javvy, working nights, deconditioned all the other Omans having any contact with BuSci personnel; then they went on to set up a routine for deconditioning all Omans on both planets.
Assured at last that the Omans would thenceforth work with and really serve human beings instead of insisting upon doing their work for them, Hilton knew that the time had come to let all his BuSci personnel move into their homes aground. Everyone, including himself, was fed up to the gozzel with spaceship life—its jam-packed crowding; its flat, reprocessed air; its limited variety of uninteresting food. ”

“ Hanlon read the swift thoughts racing across the other's mind. He hadn't liked the idea of using his knife, here on this ship. But neither did he dare report back to that feared "boss" that he hadn't succeeded in killing Abrams.
Panek spoke doubtfully. "Yeah, that may be all right, but not when the guy knows you, then you can't get away with a thing like that, not when he knows you."
"Exactly what I'm getting at," Hanlon said eagerly. "Me, I'm the Unknown Quantity. Nobody knows me. I can get to old Abrams and make it all seem natural."
"He ain't easy to fool, no, he ain't." ”

“ You mean you actually want to be a ... a ... hell, we don't even know what we are!"
"I do want it, Jarvis. We all do." This was, of all people, Teddy! "No one in all history has had more than about fifty years of really productive thinking. And just the idea of having enough time ..."
"Hold it, Teddy. Use your brain. The Masters couldn't take it—they committed suicide. How do you figure we can do any better?"
"Because we'll use our brains!" she snapped. "They didn't. The Omans will serve us; and that's all they'll do." ”

“ Hanlon didn't struggle when they bound him firmly in the chair with manacles on hands and feet. He knew it would be useless anyway. He let his body slump into his chair, and again directed his mind through that vent. He must not let them defeat him! He had to survive—to get word—to the Corps!
Then his searching mind contacted another—a weak, primitive one, but a mind. Avidly he fastened onto it, merged with it ... and found himself inside the brain of one of those Simonidean pigeons.
Ah! This is wonderful! Pigeons seldom fly alone. Where you find one you almost always find a number. ”

“ For each Strett missile, within a fraction of a second of emergence, darted toward the nearest Oman missile with an acceleration that made the one-hundred-gravity defenders seem to be standing still.
One to one, missiles crashed into missiles and detonated. There were no solid or liquid end-products. Each of those frightful weapons carried so many megatons-equivalent of atomic concentrate that all nearby space blossomed out into superatomic blasts hundreds of times more violent than the fireballs of lithium-hydride fusion bombs.
For a moment even Hilton was stunned; but only for a moment. ”

“ The admiral winked briefly and with respect at Hanlon before reentering his cab.
But as the young man hurried back to his hotel to clean up, he was heartsick, remembering the many, many months of pleasant companionship with those boys. Especially Dick Trowbridge, who had been his roommate and special chum all through cadet school, and who today had seemed particularly disgusted and vicious in that fight.
Giving up all that had made life so happy and wonderful was more than a fellow could bear, his bitter thoughts ran. ”

“ Then, long after bedtime, Larry and Dark Lady escorted Hilton to his bedroom.
"Do you mind, sir, if we sleep on the floor at the sides of your bed?" Larry asked. "Or must we go out into the hall?"
"Sleep? I didn't know you could sleep."
"It is not essential. However, when round-the-clock work is not necessary, and we have opportunity to sleep near a human being, we derive a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from it. You see, sir, we also serve during sleep." ”

“ Hanlon answered honestly, "but now I understand Simonides has, just as she is the wealthiest planet. Of course, Terra being the original world, was bound to have the best the race could breed in all lines of endeavor. But when so many people migrated to other planets, she gradually lost many of her finest brains. Later, those other planets offered such fabulous wages to men and women with skills and trainings her first inhabitants lacked, that Terra was further drained." ”

“ Hanlon quickly reached out to the dog's mind and impressed on it that it must follow the woman, and always do whatever she told it. The puppy then trotted away, content.
George Hanlon sank into his deck chair. This required a good think—a mighty serious think—he told himself. He would have to work on this as much as on human minds. For if he could control animals—would it work on birds, or insects? Maybe even fish?—then he could get into places he, as a man, could not go. ”

“ Hanlon bowed his head in silent thanks for the tremendous compliment. "I only hope I can justify your faith in me, Geck," he said humbly. "It will be a miracle if I can bring it about, but I certainly intend to keep on trying. It will take some time, you know that. I can't possibly do anything until after I leave here. But if it's humanly possible, I'll bring the fleet here to free you."
"Us know will be hard, that maybeso it never come we be free," the Guddu said. "But us know you are only hope. So us help you all us can. ”

“ Hanlon knew instinctively he would make no friends among them. "I only hope I make no enemies. Why was I, so drastically different from them, chosen as a guard? What's that leader got in his devious mind, anyway?" ”

“ By watching the play as well as studying the man's feelings, facial movements and muscle twitches or tensenesses, Hanlon was soon able to make some remarkably accurate predictions as to what the card was. By checking his deductions with the card when it was shown, he saw he was gradually coming closer and closer to a perfect score of "reading."
The next day Hanlon again sat most of the time in the lounge, his eyes closed, letting his mind soak up all the impressions and vibrations he could. ”

“ Hanlon said. "If you and the top brass picked me for the SS because you thought I could, you'd better release me from it. I can't work in a crowd at all, for there's such a jumble of thought-emanations I can't separate them. Even working with an individual I can only sense something of his feelings. Just as now," he grinned mirthlessly, "you're disappointed because I didn't get any data, and thinking my so-called mind-reading is all a fake."
The admiral almost jumped. "Why, I am not ...," then he looked surprised, and laughed. "By Snyder, I was, too!" ”