Frank Riley

“ Hempstead House had been a verity that could not be fitted into any neat cubicle of orthodoxy. New England ministers and spinsters, businessmen and farmers—all of them motivated by a life force that couldn't be duplicated in any laboratory. The same life force was in this tree cave tonight, far away from Earth. It would go with men forever, through all space and time.
It would go with Lucifer Brill, too—to the end of this experience, to whatever new frontiers of science he might live to reach. ”

“ Nina gasped excitedly.
"Oh, Lucifer—if this project can bring the right parents together...."
"Human beings are not white mice!" Lucifer snapped!
"They are on Mendel's Planet!"
Nina seized his hand.
"Think, Lucifer! Our child may be able to see things we have never dreamed of seeing! We will teach him to use his eyes from the very moment of birth—even before!"
Deep anger and resentment stirred within Lucifer, but before he could answer her, a click from the visagraph screen told them they were not alone.
Huth's usually calm voice betrayed his excitement. His dark eyes glowed. ”

“ When would science learn to use genius without being smothered by it? Freud and Einstein had left a vision to their sciences, not a citadel. They had tried to cast a light, not a shadow. Rhine had brought psi into his laboratory to demonstrate its scientific validity. Now, the physicist, the biochemist, the mathematician and, yes, the geneticist—all of them, must take this validity into their own laboratories. The parapsychologist must become the physical scientist; the physical scientist must become the parapsychologist. ”

“ Huth waved a large hand to cut off a protest from Lucifer.
"And what of the phenomena an individual scientist observes and evaluates? He shapes the facts into an hypothesis that may be valid only within his own cubicle. He does not venture outside. A most glaring example is that of your medical diagnostician. He uses the tools of his science brilliantly, then lays them down and becomes a therapeutic nihilist!"
"Specialization has meant progress," Lucifer protested.
"Progress, yes, but progress only to the frontiers of infinity. Will you dare venture into that frontier, Dr. Brill?" ”

“ He took Nina's arm and strode out of the room. Huth followed, without comment.
Out in the corridor, Lucifer confronted him. A sweep of his arm encompassed the long corridor, the room they had just left.
"This—this is a monstrous inhumanity—a terrible perversion of science!"
His voice was flinty with rage. Deep within him, the conscience of his puritan ancestry was revolted.
Huth raised an admonishing hand. "Don't forget your scientific training, Dr. Brill. You can't impose the value judgements of one culture upon the framework of another." ”

“ At the end of the corridor, Lucifer opened a door and found himself staring out into the rain.
Urged on by a growing eagerness to learn as much as he could before he was stopped, he ducked outside and ran across a mossy stretch of courtyard toward a second building.
Rain plastered his hair, and trickled down his neck, but his tunic and leggings seemed waterproof.
The rain was hot and stinging, and the wind surged out of the forest with lashing force. Half-blinded, Lucifer stumbled over some unseen object. He sprawled to his knees. ”

“ That could mean controlled evolution toward psi, Dr. Brill—if Earth science can ever escape the terrible drag of orthodoxy and if the unorthodox can ever learn to avoid the trap of its own dogma."
Nina had been watching Huth with the unblinking intensity that was so characteristic of her in moments of total concentration.
"So we are your nursery!" she exclaimed. "We produce the plants that will bring life back to your own soil!"
Huth came close to one of his rare smiles. "You have admirably reduced the milleniums and mathematics of evolution to a single sentence!" He turned to Lucifer. ”

“ If he follows the living cells to their ultimate sequence of interactions between ions and molecules, biology ends as it began—as applied chemistry and physics!"
Lucifer shifted uneasily.
"From another value judgement," Huth continued, "the orthodoxy of Earth science is a product of its fragmentation. Within each cubicle, isolated from the fertilization of new concepts, the unorthodox all too often and too soon can become rigidly orthodox. This is the circle around which each science seems forever to travel!" ”

“ Lucifer faced him squarely.
"Just what are you interested in? I think we are entitled to an explanation."
Huth hesitated, then nodded.
"Perhaps you are."
When they were settled in Huth's office, he stood by the window and folded his huge, bronzed arms.
"My home planet," he began, "is also in the system of Capella. We are an old race, but neither decadent nor degenerative. Our physical sciences—as you can judge from your presence here—are at least 500 orbits beyond the outermost probings of science on Earth." ”

“ A dream cannot be framed and kept behind glass. It cannot be static. To remain, it must change.
Parapsychology had been the high road. The glorious adventure. It had made the son of a New England minister an explorer on a new frontier. But does a frontier of science have purpose other than to lead to an infinite succession of new frontiers? Had he remained too long on one frontier?
The unorthodox becomes the orthodox. The theory crustifies into the dogma. The method becomes methodology. Was this forever to be the entrapment of science? ”

“ Lucifer saw Nina watching him with surprise.
"This technique is incredible!" he snapped at Huth. "With all the distractions in this room, not to mention the emotional stress of our situation, a true score would have to depend on chance!"
"That is not necessarily so," Huth answered calmly. "The stronger a psi sense may be, the more easily it is brought into use, regardless of external circumstances. You Earth scientists go to incredible lengths to test under laboratory conditions an ability that does not belong in the laboratory." ”

“ In the clearing behind Lucifer, children chattered gleefully.
Lucifer stood by the window and listened in silence as Albert Fetzer made his report.
The Earth people had returned to their quarters. Those whose dwellings had been destroyed or badly damaged were sheltered with friends for the night. Fifty-three of Huth's men and thirty of the women had survived. A score of Goolies had come crawling and whimpering out of the forest. All were put under guard in one of the training buildings. Dr. Thame, his own shoulder smashed, was helping with the injured. ”

“ When they were well down the corridor, Nina burst out triumphantly,
"The first contact! Child has communicated to mother. Message received and answered. Child has used primary sense of communication, rather than learning to rely on secondary!" Nina squared her shoulders proudly. "My baby won't have to cry to tell me that it's hungry or cold or wet and miserable!"
Lucifer's New England conscience prodded him. If indeed there was anything to this psi heredity business, then he had again hurt someone else, unknowingly, but deeply. ”

“ Huth was there, with two of his men. The men ranged about the place with giant strides, going through the living room, the bedroom and out into the rear enclosure. One of the men worked on the visagraph, trying to light it up. He had no success.
Huth stood over Lucifer's couch. "Has anyone been here?" he demanded sternly.
"If there was, he was more quiet and courteous than you have been," snapped Lucifer. "Need I remind you that this has been a most exhausting day, and that to be awakened in this manner—"
"Mrs. Brill received a message, and informed you of it." ”

“ A power greater than any of us can yet conceive," Lucifer answered calmly.
"That may be; but there is the extreme likelihood of its total destruction before you can find out how to use it. I could not prevent this destruction if I tried—once it is known what happened here tonight. My people, too, have a destiny, and they are determined to pursue it."
A great rumble, a mighty rush of air, swept them off their feet. The spaceship rose in a straight vertical line and leveled off some five hundred feet above the clearing. Its prow swung toward the Earth people. ”

“ He sensed the awareness in Nina, though her eyes were hidden in the shadows beyond the wavering circle of torchlight.
"Think of what I learned from Huth—what Albert Fetzer has told you. Every person was brought here because they were psi positives, because they possessed some individual psi talent. Some of you have been ashamed of that talent. Perhaps you tried to hide it back on Earth—because it made you different from other people. But you know something about it. You may have learned more about it—even experimented with it—during your months and years on this planet. ”

“ The frontier itself was finite. But what about the next frontier? And the next? And the next?
Huth could be right, in this at least: Perhaps parapsychology had been too long exploring the unknown of its present frontier. Some must remain behind to develop and consolidate. But others must keep moving on!
To look forever beyond the next horizon! There was the challenge. There was the dream forever bright.
Lucifer thought of his crude experiment with the psi positive children, and he admitted now what he had denied at the time: Not for a decade had he been so excited by any experiment ”

“ Lucifer felt his own stomach twist with the remembered horror, but he held fast to reason. The Goolies were in themselves no danger. It was only their psychological effect. Huth was shrewd. He knew well the Earth framework of prejudice. If they could break up the psi focus, his own men could crash in behind them.
Confirming this line of reason, Huth's men were forming again on the outskirts of the compound.
"Don't let them reach the clearing!" he told Fetzer.
Fetzer waved his signal. Though shaken, the adults, too, responded to reason. They tried to focus. ”

“ I'm not a scientist, Dr. Brill. Maybe I'm not even a very smart guy and maybe I'm just as glad of it, because my feet are on the ground and I know where I want them to go. Sure, this psi stuff could be big, mighty big. Our kids could go a long way with it. I can see that. But I'm a man, not a guinea pig. I happen to go for the woman they teamed me up with, and she feels the same way about me. That's true of most of the folks here. But we're not breeding kids for someone else. We'd rather run our own show. Guess you professors have been away from ordinary people too long to realize that. ”

“ With the briefest of nods, Huth stalked toward the door, where he turned, as if in response to an afterthought.
"Your motivations to progress in orientation will be several, Dr. Brill, but it may be well for you to know that you already have a hostage to the future success of our program." ”

“ Brill. But, as orientation progresses, you will better understand what I mean. Have you ever thought how your science would appear to an extra-terrestrial mind?"
"The concept has never occurred to me," Lucifer snapped, thinking of the grotesque creatures running out of the rain, and the blindfolded child walking alone down the corridor. "We see your science as a great number of cubicles, all operating within one structure, with a minimum amount of inter-communication. Each cubicle is engrossed in a process of infinite abstraction from a body of potential knowledge self-doomed to be finite. ”

“ However, by using the mathematical tools of logic to enclose psi research in a framework of anti-logic, built on the principle that man cannot know, your psychic theorist has alienated the handyman physical scientist who has so much to contribute—but who insists that man must know."
Huth raised himself to his magnificent seven feet of height.
"Let the thoughts germinate, Dr. Brill. This is only your first orientation session. On the whole, we have made good progress."
He handed Lucifer a printed card. ”

“ With Daniel Dunglas Home went the last of your great psi talents!"
"Our card tests have discovered many psi positives," Lucifer interjected heatedly. "You ought to know—you have many of them here now!"
"Psi positives with thwarted, arrested or frustrated talents," replied Huth. "Psi positives who wanted to be 'normal', because that is what society demanded.... Psi positives who were ashamed of their talent and quite willing to have it overlooked! Yes, we have them here ... and, what is more important, we have their less inhibited children!" ”

“ At any rate, you are on the planet Melus, one of the outer planets of the star which your Earth astronomers call Capella, and which they place in the constellation of Auriga."
Lucifer blinked rapidly and rubbed the bristles of his mustache with more than ordinary vigor. Some of his colleagues at Western University had worked on rocket projects. He had always suspected they were fools; now he was sure of it. Why else would they be wasting their time with rockets, while another race was running around the universe, kidnapping positives? ”