Concealment (ss), page 2
“No!” said Grand Captain Laurr.
The second message made her glance across at the orbit board. The board was aglitter with orbit symbols. That wretched old man. disobeying her injunction NOT to prepare any orbits.
Smiling twistedly, she walked .over and studied the shining things, and finally sent an order to Central Engines. She watched as her great ship plunged into night.
After all. she thought, there was such a thing as playing two games at the same time. Counterpoint was older in human relations than it was in music.
The first day she stared down at the outer planet of a blue-white sun. It floated in the darkness below the ship, an airless mass of rock and metal, drab and terrible as any meteorite, a world of primeval canyons and mountains untouched by the leavening breath of life.
Spy rays showed only rock, endless rock, not a sign of movement or of past movement.
There were three other planets, one of them a warm, green world where winds sighed through virgin forests and animals swarmed on the plains.
Not a house showed, nor the erect form of a human being.
Grimly, the woman said into the intership communicator: “Exactly how far can our spy rays penetrate into the ground?”
“A hundred feet.”
“Are there any metals which can simulate a hundred feet of earth?”
“Several, noble lady.”
Dissatisfied, she broke the connection. There was no call that day from Psychology House.
The second day, a giant red sun swam into her impatient ken. Ninety-four planets swung in their great orbits around their massive parent. Two were habitable, but again there was the profusion of wilderness and of animals usually found only on planets untouched by the hand and metal of civilization.
The chief zoological officer reported the fact in his precise voice: “The percentage of animals parallels the mean for worlds not inhabited by intelligent beings.”
The woman snapped: “Has it occurred to you that there may have been a deliberate policy to keep animal life abundant, and laws preventing the tilling of the soil even for pleasure?”
She did not expect, nor did she receive, an answer. And once more there was not a word from Lieutenant Neslor, the chief psychologist.
The third sun was farther away. She had the speed stepped up to twenty light days a minute—and received a shocking reminder as the ship bludgeoned into a small storm. It must have been small because the shuddering of metal had barely begun when it ended.
“There has been some talk,” she said afterward to the thirty captains assembled in the captains’ pool, “that we return to the galaxy and ask for an expedition that will uncover these hidden rascals.
“One of the more whining of the remits that have come to my ears suggests that, after all, we were on our way home when we made our discovery, and that our ten years in the Goud have earned us a rest.”
Her gray eyes flashed; her voice grew icy: “You may be sure that those who sponsor such defeatism are not the ones who would have to make the personal report of failure to his majesty’s government. Therefore, let me assure the faint hearts and the homesick that we shall remain another ten years if it should prove necessary. Tell the officers and crew to act accordingly. That is all.”
Back in the main bridge, she saw that there was still no call from Psychology House. There was a hot remnant of anger and impatience in her, as she dialed the number. But she controlled herself as the distinguished face of Lieutenant Neslor appeared on the plate. She said then:
“What is happening, lieutenant? I am anxiously waiting for further information from the prisoner.”
The woman psychologist shook her head. “Nothing to report.”
“Nothing!” Her amazement was harsh in her voice.
“I have asked twice,” was the answer, “for permission to break his mind. You must have known that I would no* lightly suggest such a drastic step.”
“Oh!” She had known, but the disapproval of the people at home, the necessity for accounting for any amoral: action against individuals, had made refusal an automatic action. Now—Before she could speak, the psychologist went on:
“I have made some attempts to condition him in his sleep, stressing the uselessness of resisting Earth when eventual discovery is sure. But that has only convinced him that his earlier revelations were of no benefit to us”
The leader found her voice: “Do you really mean, lieutenant, that you have mi plan other than violence? Nothing?”
In the astroplate, the image head made a negative movement. The psychologist said simply:
“An 8001. Q. resistance in a 1671. Q. brain is something new’ in my experience.”
The woman felt a great wonder. “1 can’t understand it,” she complained. “1 have a feeling we’ve missed some vital clue. Just like that we run into a weather station in a system of fifty million suns, a station in which there is a human being who, contrary to all the laws of self-preservation, immediately kills himself to prevent himself from falling into our hands.
“The weather station itself is an old model galactic affair, which shows no improvements after fifteen thousand years; and yet the vastness of the time elapsed, the caliber of the brains involved suggest that all the obvious changes should have been made.
“And the man’s name, Watcher, is so typical of the ancient pre-spaceship method of calling names on Earth according to the trade. It is possible that even the sun, where he is watching, is a service heritage of his family. There’s something—depressing—here somewhere that—”
She broke off, frowning: “What is your plan?” After a minute, she nodded. “I see…very well, bring him to one of the bedrooms in the main bridge. And forget that part about making up one of our strong-arm girls to look like me. Ill do everything that’s necessary. Tomorrow. Fine.”
Coldly she sat watching the prisoner’s image in the plate. The man, Watcher, lay in bed, an almost motionless figure, eyes closed, but his face curiously tense. He looked, she thought, like someone discovering that for the first time in four days, the invisible force lines that had bound him had been withdrawn.
Beside her, the woman psychologist hissed*: “He’s still suspicious, and will probably remain so until you partially ease his mind. His general reactions will become more and more concentrated. Every minute that passes will increase his conviction that he will have only one chance to destroy the ship, and that he must be decisively ruthless regardless of risk.
“I have been conditioning him the past ten hours to resistance to us in a very subtle fashion. You will see in a moment…ah-h!”
Watcher was sitting up in bed. He poked a leg from under the sheets, then slid forward, and onto his feet. It was an oddly powerful movement
He stood for a moment, a tall figure in gray pajamas. He had evidently been planning his first actions because, after a swift look at the door, he walked over to a set of drawers built into one wall, tugged at them tentatively, and then jerked them open with an effortless strength, snapping their locks one by one.
Her own gasp was only an echo of the gasp of Lieutenant Neslor.
“Good heavens!” the psychologist said finally. “Don’t ask me to explain how he’s breaking those metal locks. Strength must be a by-product of his Dellian training. Noble lady—”
Her tone was anxious; and the grand captain looked at her. “Yes?”
“Do you think, under the circumstances, you should play such a personal role in his subjection? His strength is obviously such that he can break the body of anyone aboard—”
She was cut off by an imperious gesture. “I cannot,*’ said the Right Honorable Gloria Cecily, “risk some fool making a mistake. I’ll take an antipain pill. Tell me when it is time to go in.”
Watcher felt cold, tense, as he entered the instrument room of the main bridge. He had found his clothes in some locked drawers. He hadn’t known they were there, but the drawers aroused his curiosity. He made the preliminary Dellian extra energy movements; and the locks snapped before his super strength.
Pausing on the threshold, he flicked his gaze through the great domed room. And after a moment his terrible fear that he and his kind were lost, suffered another transfusion of hope. He was actually free.
These people couldn’t have the faintest suspicion of the truth. The great genius, Joseph M. Dell, must be a forgotten man on Earth. Their release of him must have behind it some plan of course but—
“Death,” he thought ferociously, “death to them all, as they had once inflicted death, and would again.”
He was examining ihe bank on bank of control boards when, out of the comer of his eyes, he saw the woman step from Ihe nearby wall.
He looked up; he thought with a savage joy: The leader! They’d have guns protecting her, naturally, but they wouldn’t know that all these days he had been frantically wondering how he could force the use of guns.
Surely to space, they couldn’t be prepared to gather up his component elements again. Their very act of freeing him had showed psychology intentions.
Before he could speak, the woman said, smilingly: “I really shouldn’t let you examine those controls. But we have decided on a different tactic with you. Freedom of the ship, an opportunity to meet the crew. We want to convince you…convince you—”
Something of the bleakness and implacableness of him must have touched her. She faltered, shook herself in transparent self-annoyance, then smiled more firmly, and went on in a persuasive tone:
“We want you to realize that we’re not ogres. We want to end your alarm that we mean harm to your people. You must know, now we have found you exist, that discovery is only a matter of time.
“Earth is not cruel, or dominating, at least not any more. The barest minimum of allegiance is demanded, and that only to the idea of a common unity, the indivisibility of space. It is required, too. that criminal laws be uniform, and that a high minimum wage for workers be maintained. In addition, wars of any kind are absolutely forbidden.
“Except for that, every planet or group of planets, can have its own form of government, trade with whom they please, live their own life. Surely, there is nothing terrible enough in all this to justify the curious attempt at suicide you made when we discovered the weather station.”
He would, he thought, listening to her, break her head first. The best method would be to grab her by the feet, and smash her against the metal wall or floor. Bone would crush easily and the act would serve two vital purposes:
It would be a terrible and salutary warning to the other officers of tlie ship. And it would precipitate upon him the death fire of her guards.
He took a step toward her. And be* gan the faintly visible muscle and nerve movements so necessary to pumping the Dellian body to a pitch of superhuman capability. The woman was saying:
“You stated before that your people have inhabited fifty suns in this space. Why only fifty? In twelve thousand or more years, a population of twelve thousand billion would not be beyond possibility.”
He took another step. And another. Then knew that he must speak if he hoped to keep her unsuspicious for those vital seconds while he inched closer, closer. He said:
“About two thirds of our marriages are childless. It has been very unfortunate, but you sec there are two types of us. and when intermarriage occurs as it does without hindrance—*’
Almost he was near enough; he heard her say: “You mean, a mutation has taken place; and the two don’t mix?”
He didn’t have to answer that. He was ten feet from her; and like a tiger he launched himself across the intervening gap.
The first energy beam ripped through his body too low down to be fatal, but it brought a hot scalding nausea and a dreadful heaviness. He heard the grand captain scream:
“Lieutenant Neslor. what are you doing?”
He had her then. His fingers were grabbing hard at her fending arm, when the second blow struck him high in the ribs and brought the blood frothing into his mouth. In spite of all his will, he felt his hands slipping from the woman. Oh. space, how he would have liked to take her into the realm of death with him.
Once again, the woman screamed: “Lieutenant Neslor, are you mad? Cease fire!”
Just before the third beam burned at him with its indescribable violence, he thought with a final and tremendous sardonicism: “She still didn’t suspect. But somebody did: somebody who at this ultimate moment had guessed the truth.”
“Too late.” he thought, “too late, you fools! Go ahead and hunt. They’ve had warning, time to conceal themselves even more thoroughly. And the Fifty Suns are scattered, scattered among a million stars, among—”
Death caught his thought.
The woman picked herself off the floor, and stood dizzily striving to draw her roughly handled senses back into her brain. She was vaguely aware of Lieutenant Neslor coming through a transmitter, pausing at the dead body of Gis-ser Watcher and rushing toward her.
“Are you all right, my dear? It was so hard firing through an astroplate that—”
“You mad woman!” The grand captain caught her breath. “Do you realize that a body can’t be reconstituted once vital organs have been destroyed. Dissolution or resolution cannot be piecemeal. Well have to go home without—”
She stopped. She saw that the psychologist was staring at her. Lieutenant Neslor said:
“His intention to attack was unmistakable and it was too soon according to my graphs. All the way through, he’s never fitted anything in human psychology.
“At the very last possible moment I remembered Joseph Dell and the massacre of the Dellian supermen fifteen thousand years ago. Fantastic to think that some of them escaped and established a civilization in this remote part of space.
“Do you see now: Dellian—Joseph M. Deli—the inventor of the Dellian perfect robot.”
THE END.
A. E. van Vogt, Concealment (ss)
