At the guard-ring the paunchy individual who had first con-signed the arrival to the interrogation center watched the truck jerk to a stop and the trio get out. He came up frowning.

  "So they have let him go?"

  'Yes," said the driver, knowing no better.

  "Whom did he see?"

  "The Great Lord himself."

  The other gave a little jump, viewed Lawson with embar-rassed respect and took some of the authority out of his tones.

  "They didn't say what is to be done about these four casual-ties we've suffered?"

  "Made no mention of them," the driver answered. "Maybe they—"

  Lawson chipped in, "I'll tend to them. Where are they?" "Over there," He indicated a dip to his left. "We couldn't shift them pending instructions."

  "It wouldn't have mattered. They'd have recovered by this time tomorrow, anyway."

  "It isn't fatal then?"

  "Not at all," Lawson assured. "I'll go get them a shot of stuff that will bring them to life in two ticks."

  He went toward the ship. The driver climbed moodily into his truck and headed back to town.

  The creature perched on the rim of the little controlroom's observation-port was the size of Lawson's fist. Long extinct Terran bees would have thought it a giant among their kind. Modern Callistrian ones might have regarded the Terran va-riety as backward pygmies had there been any real conscious-ness of Calli strianism or Terranism or any other form of plane-tary parochialism.

  But at this far advanced stage of development of an entire solar system there had ceased to be an acute awareness of worldly origin, shape or species. A once essential datum in the environment had been discarded and no longer entered intothe computations of anyone. The biped was not mentally biased by his own bipedal form; the insect not obsessed by its insectual condition. They knew themselves for what they were, namely, Solarians and two aspects of one colossal entity that had a thousand other facets elsewhere.

  Indeed, the close-knit relationship between life-forms far apart in shape and size but sharing a titanic oneness in psyche had developed to the point where they could and did hold mental intercourse in a manner not truly telepathic. It was

  "self-thinking," the natural communion between parts of an enormous whole.

  So Lawson had no difficulty in conversing with a creature that had no aural sense adequately attuned to the range of his voice, no tongue with which to speak. The communication came easier than any vocal method, was clear and accurate, left no room for linguistic or semantic boobytraps, no need to explain the meaning of meaning.

  He flopped into the pilot's seat, gazed meditatively through the port and opined,

  "1'm not sanguine about them being rea-sonable."

  "it does not matter," commented the other. "The end will be the same."

  "True, Buzwuz, but unreasonableness means time and trou-ble."

  "Time is endless; trouble another name for fun," declared Buzwuz, being profound. He employed his hind legs to clean the rear part of his velvet jacket.

  Lawson said nothing. His attention shifted to a curiously three-dimensional picture fastened to the side wall. It de-picted four bipeds, one of whom was a swart dwarf, also one dog wearing sun-glasses, six huge bees, a hawklike bird, a tusked monster vaguely resembling a prick-eared elephant, something else like a land-crab with long-fingered hands in lieu of claws, three peculiarly shapeless entities whose radia-tions had fogged part of the sensitive plate, and finally a spider-like creature jauntily adorned with a feathered hat.

  This characteristically Solarian bunch was facing the lens in the stiff, formal attitudes favored by a bygone age and so obviously were waiting for the birdie that they were uncon-sciously comical. He treasured this scene for its element of whimsy, also because there was immense significance in the amusing similarity of pose among creatures so manifestly un-conscious of their differences. It was a picture of unity that is

  strength; unity born of a handful of planets and a double-handful of satellites circling a common sun.

  'Another bee-mind as insidious as part of his own came from somewhere outside the ship, saying, "Want us back yet?" "No hurry."

  "We're zooming around far beyond the city," it went on. "We've shown ourselves within reach of a few of them. They swiped at us without hesitation. And they meant it!" A pause, followed by, "They have instinctive fear of the unfamiliar.

  Reaction-time about one-tenth second. Choice of reaction: that which is swiftest rather than that which is most effective. Grade eight mentalities lacking unity other than that imposed upon them from above."

  "I know." Lawson squirmed out of his seat as a heavy ham-mering sounded on the ship's shell somewhere near the air-lock. "Don't go too far away, though. You may have to come back in a rush."

  Going to the lock, he stood in its rim and looked down at a five-comet officer.

  The caller had an air of irateness tem-pered by apprehension. His eyes kept surveying the area above his head or straining to see past the biped's legs lest something else spring out to the attack.

  "You're not supposed to be here," he informed Lawson. "Aren't I? Why not?"

  "Nobody gave you permission to return."

  "I don't need permission," Lawson told him.

  "You cannot come back without it," the other contradicted. Registering an expression of mock-bafflement, Lawson said, "Then how the deuce did I get here?"

  "I don't know. Someone blundered. That's his worry and not mine."

  "Well, what are you worrying about?" Lawson invited.

  "I've just had a message from the city ordering me to check on whether you are actually here because, if so, you shouldn't be. You ought to be at the interrogation center."

  "Doing what?"

  "Awaiting their final decisions."

  "But they aren't going to make any," said Lawson, with devastating positiveness.

  "It is we who will make the final ones."

  The other didn't like the sound of that. He scowled, watched the sky, kept a wary eye on what little he could see of the ship's interior.

  "I've been instructed to send you to the city at once.""By whom?"

  "Military headquarters."

  "Tell them I'm not going before morning."

  "You've got to go now," insisted the officer.

  "All right. Invite your superiors at headquarters to come and fetch me."

  -

  "They can't do that."

  "I'll say they can't!" agreed Lawson, with hearty emphasis. This was even less to the visitor's taste. He said, "If you

  won't go voluntarily you'll have to be taken by force." "Try it."

  "My troops will receive orders to attack."

  `That's all right with me. You go shoo them along. Orders are orders, aren't they?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "And," Lawson continued firmly, "it's the order-givers and not the order-carry-outers who'll get all the blame, isn't it?" "The blame for what?"

  inquired the officer, very leerily. "You'll find out!"

  The other stewed it a bit. What would be found out, he decided, was anyone's guess, but his own estimate was that it could well be something mighty unpleasant.

  The biped's attitude amounted to a guarantee of that much.

  "I think I'll get in touch again, tell them you refuse to leave this vessel and ask for further instructions," he decided rather lamely.

  "That's the boy," endorsed Lawson, showing hearty approv-al. "You look after yourself and yourself will look after you."

  CHAPTER VII

  THE Great Lord Markhamwit paced up and down the room in the restless manner of one burdened by an unsolvable problem. Every now and again he made a vicious slap at his harness, a sure sign that he was considerably exercised in mind and that his liver was feeling the strain.

  "Well," he snapped at Minister Ganne, "have you been able to devise a satisfactory way out?"

  "No, my lord," admitted Ganne, ruefully.

  "Doubtless you retired and enjoyed a good night's sleep without giving it another thought?"

  "Indeed, no, I—"

  "Never mind the lies. I am well aware that everything is left to me." Going to his desk he employed its plug and tube, asked, "Has the biped started out yet?" Getting a response, he resumed his pacing. "At last he condescends to come and see me. He will be here in half a time-unit."

  "He refused to return yesterday," remarked Ganne, treat-ing disobedience as something completely outside all experi-ence. "He viewed all threats with open disdain and practically invited us to attack his ship."

  "I know. I know." Markhamwit dismissed it with an irri-tated wave of the hand. "If he is a bare-faced bluffer it can be said to his credit that he is a perfect one. There is the real source of all the trouble."

  "In what way, my lord?"

  "Look, we are a powerful life-form, so much so that after we have defeated the Nileans we shall be complete masters of our entire galaxy. Our resources are great, our resourcefulness equally great. We are highly scientific. We have spaceships and formidable weapons of war. To all intents and purposes we have conquered the elements and bent them to our will. That makes us strong, does it not?"

  "Yes, my lord, very strong."

  ".It also makes us weak," growled Markhamwit. "This problem dumped in our laps proves that we are weak in one respect, namely, we have become so conditioned in dealing with concrete things that we don't know how to cope with in-tangibles. We match rival ships with better ships, enemy guns with bigger guns.

  But we are stalled immediately a foe aban-dons all recognized methods of warfare and resorts to what may be no more than a piece of sheer, unparalleled impu-dence."

  "Surely there must be some positive way of checking the truth and—"

  "I can think of fifty ways." Markhamwit ceased his trudg-ing and glared at Gagne as if that worthy were personally responsible for the predicament. "And the beauty of them all is that not one is genuinely workable,"

  "No, my lord?"

  "No! We could check on whether Solarians actually do exist in the next galaxy if our ships could get there, which they can't. And neither can any other ship, according to Yielm. We could make direct contact with the Nileans, call off the war and arrange mutual action against Solarian inter-lopers, but if the whole affair is a Nilean trick they will con-tinue to deceive us to our ultimate downfall. Or we could seize this biped, strap him to an operating table and cut the truth out of him with a scalpel."

  "That ought to be the best way," ventured Ganne, seeing nothing against it.

  "Undoubtedly, if his story is a lot of bluff. But what if it is not?"

  "Ah!" said Ganne, feeling for an itch and pinching deep into his hide.

  The whole position is fantastic," declared Ivfarkhamwit. `"This two-armed creature comes here without any weapons identifiable as such. Not a gun, not a bomb, not a ray-projector. So far as we know there isn't so much as a bow and arrow on his boat. His kind have killed nobody, injured nobody, shed not a drop of blood either now or in our past, yet he claims powers of a kind we hesitate to test."

  "Do you suppose that we are already sterilized and there-fore doomed, like the Elmones?" Ganne asked, plainly uneasy.

  "No, certainly not. If he had done such a thing he would have blasted off during the night because there would be no point in dickering with us any longer."

  "Yes, that's true." Ganne felt vastly relieved without know-ing why.

  Markhamwit continued, "Anyway, he's said nothing what-ever about such methods of dealing with us. We know of them only fictionally, as part of the Solarian Myth. The sole threats he has made are that if we destroy him we shall then have to cope with those winged creatures who will remain here to outbreed us, and that if by some means we succeed in de-stroying them also, we shall still have to face whatever the Combine may bring against us later on. I cannot imagine the true nature of that particular menace except that by our stand-ards it will be unorthodox."

  "Their methods may represent the normal ways of warfare in their own galaxy,"

  Ganne pointed out. "Perhaps they never got around to inventing guns and high explosives."

  "Or perhaps they discarded them a million years ago in favor of techniques less costly and more effective." Markham-wit cast an impatient glance at the time recorder whirring on the wall. "Trickery or not, I have learned a valuable lesson from this incident. I have learned that tactics are more im-portant than instruments, .wits are better than warheads. If we had used our brains a bit more we might have persuaded the Nileans to knock themselves out and save us a lot of bother. All that was needed was a completely original ap-proach."

  "Yes, my lord," agreed Ganne, privately praying that hel would not be commanded to suggest one or two original approaches.

  "What I want to know," Markhamwit went on, bitterly, "and what I must know is whether the Nileans have thought of it first and are egging us on to knock ourselves out. So when this self-professed Solarian arrives I'm going to—"

  He ceased as a knock sounded, the door opened and the captain of the guard showed himself, bowing low.

  "My lord, the alien is here."

  "Show him in."

  Plumping heavily into a chair, Markhamwit tapped rest-less fingers on four arm rests and glowered at the door.

  Entering blithely, Lawson took a scat, smiled at the waiting pair and asked, "Well, does civilization come to these parts or not?"

  It riled the Great Lord, but he ignored the question, con-trolled his temper and said heavily, "Yesterday you returned to your vessel contrary to my wishes."

  "Today your warships are still messing around in free space contrary to ours."

  Lawson heaved a sigh of resignation. "If wishes were fishes we'd never want for food."

  "You appear to forget," informed Markhamwit, "that in this part of the cosmos it is my desires that are fulfilled and not yours!"

  "But you've just complained about yours being ignored," remarked Lawson, pretending surprise.

  Markhamwit licked sharp teeth. "It won't happen again. Certain individuals made the mistake of letting you go un-opposed, without question. They will pay for that.

  We have a way with fools."

  "So have we!"

  "That is something of which I require proof. You are going to provide it." His voice had an authoritative note. "And what is more, you are going to provide it in the way I direct, to my complete satisfaction."

  "How?" inquired Lawson.

  "By bringing the Nilcan high command here to discuss this matter face to face."

  "They won't come."

  "I guessed you'd say that. It was such a certainty that Icould have said it for you."

  Markhamwit displayed satisfac-tion with his own foresight. "They've thought up an impudent bluff. Now they're called upon to support it in person by chancing their precious hides. That is too much. That is taking things too far. So they won't do it."

  He threw a glance at Minister Ganne. "What did I tell you?"

  "I don't see how the Nileans or anyone else can bolster a non-existent trick,"

  offered Lawson, mildly.

  "They could appear before me to argue the problem. That would be convincing so far as I'm concerned."

  "Precisely!"

  Markhamwit frowned. "What d'you mean, precisely?"

  "If it's a stunt of their own contriving why shouldn't they back it to the limit and risk a few lives on it? The war is on and they've got to suffer casualties anyway. If they can dig up volunteers for one dangerous mission they can find them for another."

  "So?"

  "But they won't gamble one life on a setup they suspect to be of your making.

  There's no percentage in it."

  "It is not of my making. You know that."

  "The Nileans don't," said Lawson.

  "You claim to have another ship on their world. What's it there for if not to persuade them?"

  "You're getting your ideas mixed."

  "Am I?" Markhamwit's grip was tight on the arms of his chair. He'd almost had enough of this biped. "In what way?"

  "The vessel is there solely to tell the Nileans to cease clut-tering the space lanes—or else! We're not interested in your meetings, discussions or wars. You can kiss and he friends or fight to the death and it makes not the slightest difference to us one way or the other. All that we're concerned about is that space remains free, preferably by negotiation and mutual agreement. If not, by compulsion."

  "Compulsion?" snapped Markhamwit. "I would give a great deal to learn exactly how much power your kind really does possess. Perhaps little more than iron nerves and wagging tongues."

  "Perhaps," admitted Lawson, irritatingly indifferent.

  "I'll tell you something you don't know," Markhamwit leaned forward, staring at him. "Our first, second, third and fourth battle fleets have dispersed. Temporarily I've taken them out of the war. It's a risk, but worth it."

  "Doesn't alter the situation if they're still chasing around here, there and everywhere."

  "On the contrary it may alter the situation very considerably if we have a fair measure of luck," contradicted Markhamwit, watching him closely. "They have been redirected into a colos-sal hunt. I now have a total of seventeen thousand vessels scouting all cosmic sectors recently settled or explored by Nileans. Know what they are looking for?"

  "I can guess."

  "They're seeking a minor, unimportant, previously unno-ticed planet populated by pink-skinned bipeds with hard faces and gabby mouths. If they find it"—he swept an arm in a wide, expressive arc—"we'll blow them clean out of exist-ence and the Solarian Myth along with them."

  "How nice."

  "We shall also deal with you in suitable manner. And we'll settle with the Nileans once and for all."

  "Dear me," offered Lawson, meditatively. "Do you really expect us to sit around forever while you play hunt the slip-per?"

  For the umpteenth time thwarted by the other's appalling nonchalance, Markhamwit lay back without replying. For a wild moment he toyed with the notion that perhaps the Nileans were infinitely more ingenious than he'd first supposed and were taking him for a sucker by manning their ship with remotely controlled robots.

 

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