The answers were soon forthcoming. With a faint hiss from its exhausts the ship settled on the heather within a hundred yards of where he stood. The doubt crossed his mind that it might not be Vargo. What if it was that dangerous man Rolto, up to one of his tricks? He would soon find out, he decided, and raced towards it.

  As he arrived the double doors were opened and against the pale blue glow of the interior of the ship he saw the lean figure of Vargo step forward to look out. Running up he caught him by the hand and shook it warmly, saying : `Vargo. How nice to see you again. This is an unexpected pleasure. But why have you landed? Is something wrong?' Without waiting for an answer, seeing the ship's captain and navigator inside he went on, 'Hello, Gator. Hello, Borron. This is wonderful! We were only talking about you this evening.'

  Vargo stepped down, breathing deeply. 'Excuse me,' he said, in his thin voice. 'This air of yours, to those not accustomed to it, is so rich and heavy that it is like drinking water. It nearly chokes me at the first gulp. My heart beats too fast. Phew!'

  `Take your time and then tell me why you have landed,' requested Rex. 'We did not make the signal.'

  `I landed to see you,' stated Vargo. 'I would have come to the house, the lights of which I could see.'

  `You're not in any trouble, I hope?' said Rex, anxiously.

  `Not exactly trouble, but there is a little difficulty. The work on Mars goes on so fast that we bring more and more people from Mino and Ventos. That means bringing more food for there is not yet enough on Mars to feed them all. We could use more ships, and for that reason the Council is disinclined to leave this one with nothing else to do than watch for your signals.'

  `What you mean is, you are short of ships for what you have to do on Mars and the Council wants this one.'

  For a little while, until the harvest on Mars is ready. You have been away a long time. Every month I was sure we would see your signals. But no. I was beginning to wonder if all was well with you.'

  `The Professor has been busy with his writing,' explained Rex. 'But only today he said he was nearly ready to call you down. It would, I think, have been on the night of the next full moon. But now you are here you might as well come and see him.'

  `Will the ship be safe?'

  `Quite safe. Nobody is likely to be on the moor at this hour of night.'

  `Very well. Perhaps we could then make a definite arrangement.'

  `That should have been done in the first place,' declared Rex. 'It was unreasonable to expect you to hang about indefinitely on the off chance of seeing the signal. The Professor will be delighted to see you.'

  Vargo told Gator where he was going. 'Keep good watch,' he ordered. 'You will see anyone coming from a long way off. If that should happen go away. I will make a signal when it is safe for you to return.'

  Rex led the way to the Castle, chuckling in anticipation of what would happen when he walked in with Vargo.

  He was not disappointed. The expressions on all faces when he threw open the library door and said, 'I've brought a gentleman along to see you,' were all that he had imagined they would be.

  `Did you call him down?' inquired the Professor, suspiciously, looking hard at Rex.

  `No,' denied Rex. 'I was lying on the hill watching Mars when the ship landed beside me. Vargo has brought a message from the Council. He will tell you about it.'

  `Sit down, Vargo, my dear fellow,' invited the Professor, warmly. 'I will send for some refreshment for you. You like our beverage which we call tea, I remember.'

  Thus was the reunion effected.

  2 Vargo counsels caution

  Sipping his tea with relish Vargo explained the purpose of his unexpected visit, after which the Professor gave his reasons for the delay in putting out the landing signal.

  `From what you tell me the work on Mars must be proceeding very well indeed and I am most anxious to see for myself how much progress has been made,' said the Professor. `I may be able to make further suggestions. We could try more experiments with some of our more hardy fruits and vegetables, but I am afraid your cold nights would be too much for most of them — the potato, for instance, which is one of our staple foods. I will think about it. You are no longer troubled by mosquitoes?'

  `There are still a few, but not enough to be dangerous,' answered Vargo. 'Why is it, with so many varieties of insects on Earth, some of them don't get out of hand?'

  `The chief reason is the wonderful balance of nature that has developed here. Birds are largely responsible for keeping insects under control. You must have some. No doubt you had some at one time, but they would be wiped out like nearly every other form of life on Mars when the planet was swept by the devastating blast of the exploding Kraka. The eggs of the mosquitoes, deep in the mud, would escape. They hatched to find their enemies had disappeared. That, I am sure, is the explanation of the swarms which made your original home untenable. We will deal with all your problems in time, but I cannot stay very long on Mars.'

  `Why? What do you want to do? Surely not more exploring? I would have thought you had done enough of that.'

  The Professor smiled apologetically. 'I shall never have done enough.'

  `Your curiosity will one day be the death of you,' warned Vargo, seriously. 'What do you plan to do next?'

  `I was hoping to visit some of the older, the most distant members of our Galaxy, to see how far their civilizations have developed compared with ours, with yours, and perhaps Ando.'

  Vargo looked grave. 'I would not do that if I were you.'

  `Why not?'

  `It would be very dangerous indeed.'

  `We have encountered dangers before.'

  `Not such dangers as you would meet in the section of the older planets, what we call the Second Region.'

  `I would have thought we had experienced every kind of danger possible.'

  `You would be wrong. What you have seen so far was not, I think, altogether unexpected. You were prepared for extraordinary things and you found them, but none was really beyond your comprehension.'

  `Are you suggesting that there are things beyond our understanding?'

  `Yes. Beyond your imagination.'

  `I have an excellent imagination,' claimed the Professor.

  `That may be, but it is limited to an Earthly appreciation of what can happen. I have told you before, the dangers most to be feared are those that are not recognized as such until they happen, and then it may be too late to do anything about it.'

  `Could you be a little more explicit?'

  `Let us put it this way,' said Vargo, with great earnestness. `You know all that has happened on Earth in the brief span of what you call your civilization — a matter of a few hundred sun cycles. With your scientific knowledge you might imagine some of the things that will happen in the next few hundred years — as you call your sun cycles. But would you dare to say, would you dare to predict, what things will be like on Earth in ten thousand years — always supposing that your ill advised inventors do not make a mistake and blow your little world to pieces in the meantime?'

  The Professor hesitated.

  `No, believe me, you can't imagine,' said Vargo.

  `Have you seen these wonders at which you are hinting?' inquired the Professor.

  No,' admitted Vargo. 'But I have heard talk of them. Remember, rumours on Earth are limited to Earthly things.

  With us, because we have the means of moving from world to world, our travellers' tales embrace the Universe.'

  `Now you are exciting my curiosity,' declared the Professor. `Can you give us an example of the sort of thing you have in mind when you speak of perils beyond our understanding? From what do they spring? From natural causes or from men?'

  `From both.'

  `You mean there are men, highly civilized men, who would harm innocent travellers?'

  `Yes. But not necessarily with the intention of harming you. In the case of the people of whom I am thinking, should they injure you, as they might, they would say it was for your own good.'

  `Would they believe that themselves?'

  `Certainly.'

  `Then they must be mad.'

  `They are not mad.'

  `Then they must be bad.'

  `On the contrary they are goodness itself.'

  `Wait a minute, Vargo,' protested Toby. 'What you are saying doesn't make sense.'

  `We are talking of things that do not make sense,' said Vargo, simply.

  `Suppose you tell us about one of them,' suggested the Professor.

  For a moment Vargo did not answer. 'It is not easy to know how to begin.'

  `Are you thinking of one particular planet?' prompted Tiger.

  `I could think of several I would not care to approach,' replied Vargo. 'But let us speak of one, the one we call Lox.'

  `I've never heard of it,' said the Professor.

  `It cannot be seen from Earth, I think. A telescope might find it, but then it would be called by another name.'

  `Is there anything remarkable about it?'

  `Not physically, but it was already old when this little planet which you call Earth was created — or so they say. Through all those millions of years the people of Lox have been striving, as you strive now, to reach the top of the ultimate peak of human endeavour. Think of how far they must be in front of you!'

  `What is this goal that all men try to reach?'

  `Happiness. No man can have more than that. Whether men realize it or not it is that for which, collectively or individually, they are for ever seeking, going their different ways to achieve their ambition. To different men that may mean a different thing, but at the finish it resolves itself into the same desire — happiness.'

  `I agree,' put in the Professor. `Please proceed.'

  `Every man of every race on every world goes his own way to what he believes is the great secret. But with that he is not content. So convinced is he that he is right that he will employ every means to make others believe him. If persuasion fails he may use force. That is why your different nations and different tribes on Earth are always fighting. Thus is it with different worlds, and it follows, naturally, that the older the world the better equipped is it to achieve what it believes to be right. Do you follow me?'

  `Perfectly,' said the Professor, shortly. `There have always been fanatics on Earth who would destroy you for your own good, as they have the impudence to put it. Are you telling us that there are worlds engaged in this preposterous crusade?'

  `Yes.'

  `And Lox is one?'

  `Yes.'

  `Do they use weapons?'

  `I suppose you could call their method a weapon. You have done well in so short a time to reach the hydrogen-bomb, but even that, to a world as old as Lox, would be a primitive device, as dangerous to the user as it is to the people against whom it is employed.'

  `In other words, there are worlds with weapons exceeding these in power?'

  `Exceeding them?' Vargo shook his head sadly. 'Have I not said that there are powers the existence of which you people of Earth have not even begun to suspect?'

  `Then for goodness sake tell us about them,' broke in Tiger, impatiently.

  Vargo met his eyes squarely. 'The people of Lox,' he said slowly and deliberately, 'could will you out of existence.'

  The others stared.

  It was the Professor who broke the silence. 'Could you explain exactly what you mean by willing us out of existence? — as you put it.'

  `It is not as I put it. It is a fact. I warned you that your imagination might be overtaxed. If they took the view that it would be better for you to be mindless, to have no will of your own, you would certainly become so. They would only have to withdraw your mental capacity for you to become devoid of the power of thought. That is the only way I can put it.'

  `How do they do that — by pulling out our brains with a corkscrew?' inquired Tiger, sceptically.

  Vargo did not smile. 'For millions of years the minds of the men of Lox have been developing until they are now so powerful, and so positively charged, that yours are almost negative in comparison. Therefore, if they connect their minds to yours, as they can by the high tension of their superior will, all that is in your mind is drawn into theirs.'

  `What dreadful people they must be,' muttered Rex, aghast. `Why don't they kill people outright and have done with it?'

  `Because they have a profound abhorrence of destroying life in any shape or form. They never kill anything, holding it to be primitive savagery. To them you would be barbarians.'

  `We're nothing of the sort,' protested Rex.

  `What do you do with your worst criminals?' asked Vargo. `In some countries murderers are executed.'

  `That to the Loxians would be unthinkable, although, to be sure, they may have done that a million years ago. Now they would remove the evil from the brain of the man responsible for such a crime. Their one concern is happiness for all, and they have gone a long way towards that — or they think they have, although not everyone would agree. They abolished war long ago. They have also conquered fear and pain, as Earth may if it lasts long enough. They set out to eliminate suffering, and if what I have heard is true they may claim to have succeeded.'

  `How did they eliminate pain?' asked Toby.

  `You would not suffer pain if you were not aware of it, would you?'

  `No.'

  `It distresses you because you feel it.'

  `Of course. Pain is only pain because you can feel it. But we can also relieve pain, by means of drugs. With anaesthetics we can make a person unconscious of anything.'

  `Temporarily. The Loxians will away the cause, so their cure is permanent. Put it this way. Pain doesn't necessarily make you ill, or kill you. It distresses you simply because you are aware of it. Remove that awareness and it can no longer trouble you. The Loxians have achieved that power. They destroy misery wherever they encounter it.' Vargo smiled faintly. 'It is natural to be afraid of death. If you knew you were going to die you would be upset. Remove that fear and you would be happy. It is as simple as that.'

  `But why should the Loxians interfere with us?' asked Rex. We're not unhappy.'

  `Not you, personally. But they might think you make others unhappy.'

  'How?'

  Because of your way of life on Earth. They would see a society in which everyone was trying to outdo the other. Some succeed, wherefore others must fail, and are therefore unhappy. The Loxians would hold that to be wrong.'

  `Stuff and nonsense!' exclaimed the Professor. 'It has always been so and it always will be so. Some people are miserable by nature. Indeed, it has often been said that there are some who find happiness in being miserable. Wherefore it seems to me that if you deprive them of the misery which makes them happy you will defeat your object, for they will then have something to be miserable about — which, as dear old Euclid would say, is reductio ad absurdum. To me the most astonishing thing about all this is, after millions of years people should still be chasing that will-o'-the-wisp, happiness, as if it were a creature to be caught and put in a cage. Vargo, these Loxians are wolves in sheeps' clothing. By professing to do good they are doing evil.'

  `It sounds mighty like one of these dictator rackets to me,' muttered Tiger.

  `Vargo, do you mean that on Lox everyone is equal?' queried Rex.

  `It cannot be otherwise. They are all of one mind. What one feels they all feel. Only their bodies are separate. They claim that theirs is the only state of society that can exist for any length of time without war. They sought happiness, and this is the road they have taken to reach it.'

  `What they have done is produce a race of nonentities,' snorted the Professor. 'Can all these people project this brain-paralysing influence?'

  `That I don't know. It may be born in them or it may be instilled into them when they are children.'

  `Is there any protection against this form of attack?'

  `I cannot answer that. I know that on distant voyages of exploration some of the crews of the Remote Survey Fleet paint their skins, but there is no way of telling whether it succeeds or not. As some have returned perhaps it does.'

  `But some have not returned?'

  `That is so. We don't know what happened to them. Some returned — but let us not talk of that.'

  `Is it some sort of ray that you're afraid of?'

  `Rays and other things.'

  `Rays — and other things.'

  `I always realized there might be danger from rays, those we know and perhaps some we don't know,' stated the Professor.

  `Bearing that in mind I once amused myself by making a sort of defensive armour of thin, overlapping steel plates, with dark glass to protect the eyes. I'll take them with us when we go. They may come in useful.'

  Vargo looked dubious. 'You are still prepared to take risks after what I have told you?'

  `I have no wish to have my brains picked by a pack of misguided cranks, naturally,' stated the Professor, emphatically. 'I will think about it. Let us leave it at that.'

  Vargo got up. 'You would do well to think about it. What I have told you is not the only peril in the spheres of worlds where men learned long ago that the mind can dominate everything. Now I must go. Already I have been here too long. When will you be ready to leave? Tell me that and I will be here to pick you up.'

  The Professor looked at the others. 'Shall we say a week today?'

  They all agreed.

  `Good,' said Vargo. 'Show the signal and I shall know it is safe for me to land.'

  `I'll walk with you as far as the ship,' offered Rex.

  This he did, and having watched the machine disappear into the night sky he returned to find the others discussing what Vargo had told them.

  Toby was saying: 'The business is not as fantastic as Vargo seemed to think. We know something about the power of suggestion. What these Loxians do is, I fancy, an extension of that. If, as he says, they can operate from a distance, which certainly is remarkable, they are people to keep clear of.'

  `I would say,' put in the Professor, 'that what Vargo has claimed for these well-meaning but obviously dangerous peace-seekers, is nothing more than what we call hypnotism carried to the limit of its possibilities. That hypnotism is possible is not to be doubted. It is even practised here, but only in an elementary way, apparently, compared with what can be done by people who have made a long study of it. As used on Lox as a weapon, almost as an invisible projectile, as one might say, it could have more far-reaching effects than an atom bomb. To mutilate a human being is bad enough, but to destroy the brain of a man leaving his body intact is even worse. The thought occurs to me that this horrible practice has something in common with what in certain countries is called voodooism. A witchdoctor, it is said, can take complete control of a man leaving him what is known as a zombie — a man without a brain.'

 

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