hallucinatory influences might be abroad. Simultaneously he set two other parts of his
mind to watch over the one to be victimized; to study and to analyze whatever figments
of obtrusive mentality might be received and entertained.
Then, using all his naturally tremendous sensitivity and reach, all his Arisian
super-training, and the full power of his Lens, he sent his mental receptors out into
space. And then, although the thought is staggeringly incomprehensible to any Tellurian
or near-human mind, he relaxed. For day after day, as the Velan hurtled randomly
through the void, he hung blissfully slack upon his bars, most of his mind a welter of the
indescribable thoughts in which it is a Velantian’s joy to revel.
Suddenly, after an unknown interval of time,, a thought impinged: a thought
under the impact of which Worsel’s long body tightened so convulsively as to pull the
bars a foot out of true. Overlords! The unmistakable, the body-and-mind-paralyzing
hunting call of the Overlords of Delgon!
His crew had not felt it yet, of course; nor would they feel it. If they should, they
would be worse than useless in the conflict to come; for they could not withstand that
baneful influence. Worsel could. Worsel was the only Velantian who could.
“Thought-screens all!” his commanding thought snapped out. Then, even before
the order could be obeyed: “As you were!”
For the impenetrably shielded chamber of his mind told him instantly that this
was no ordinary Delgonian hunting call; or rather, that it was more than that. Much
more.
Mixed with, superimposed upon the overwhelming compulsion which generations
of Velantians had come to know so bitterly and so well, were the very things for which
he had been searching—hallucinations! To shield his crew or, except in the subtlest
possible fashion himself, simply would not do. Overlords everywhere knew that there
was at least one Velantian Lensman who was mentally their master; and, while they
hated this Lensman tremendously, they feared him even more. Therefore, even though
a Velantian was any Overlord’s choicest prey, at the first indication of an ability to
disobey their commands the monsters would cease entirely to radiate; would withdraw
at once every strand of their far-flung mental nets into the fastnesses of their superbly
hidden and indetectably shielded cavern.
Therefore Worsel allowed the inimical influence to take over, not only the total
minds of his crew, but also the unshielded portions of his own. And stealthily, so
insidiously that no mind affected could discern the change, values gradually grew vague
and reality began to alter.
Loyalty dimmed, and esprit de corps. Family ties and pride of race waned into
meaninglessness. All concepts of Civilization, of the Galactic Patrol, degenerated into
strengthless gossamer, into oblivion. And to replace those hitherto mighty motivations
there crept in an overmastering need for, and the exact method of obtainment of,
whatever it was that was each Velantian’s deepest, ‘most primal desire. Each crewman
stared into an individual visiplate whose substance was to him as real and as solid as
the metal of his ship had ever been; each saw upon that plate whatever it was that,
consciously or unconsciously, he wanted most to see. Noble or base, lofty or low,
intellectual or physical, spiritual or carnal, it made no difference to the Overlords.
Whatever each victim wanted most was there.
No figment was, however, even to the Velantians, actual or tangible. It was a
picture on a plate, transmitted from a well-defined point in space. There, upon that
planet, was the actuality, eagerly await; toward and to that planet must the Velan go at
maximum blast. Into that line and at that blast, then, the pilots set their vessel without
orders, and each of the crew saw upon his non-existent plate that she had so been set.
If she had not been, if the pilots had been able to offer any resistance, the crew would
have slaughtered them out of hand. As it was, all was well.
And Worsel, watching the affected portion of his mind accept those hallucinations
as truths and admiring unreservedly the consummate artistry with which the work was
being done, was well content. He knew that only a hard, solidly-driven, individually
probing beam could force him to reveal the fact that a portion of his mind and all of his
bodily controls were being withheld; he knew that unless he made a slip no such
investigation was to be expected. He would not slip.
No human or near-human mind can really understand how the mind of a
Velantian works. A Tellurian can, by dint of training, learn to do two or more unrelated
things simultaneously. But neither is done very well and both must be more or less
routine in nature. To perform any original or difficult operation successfully he must
concentrate on it, and he can concentrate upon only one thing at a time. A Velantian
can and does, however, concentrate upon half-a-dozen totally unrelated things at once;
and, with his multiplicity of arms, hands, and eyes, he can perform simultaneously an
astonishing number of completely independent operations.
The Velantian’s is, however, in no sense such a multiple personality as would
exist if six or eight human heads were mounted upon one body. There is no joint
tenancy about it. There is only one ego permeating all those pseudo-independent
compartments; no contradictory orders are, or ordinarily can be, sent along the bundled
nerves of the spinal cord. While individual in thought and in the control of certain
actions, the mind-compartments are basically, fundamentally, one mind.
Worsel had progressed beyond his fellows. He was different; unique. The
perception of the need of the ability to isolate certain compartments of his mind, to
separate them completely from his real ego, was one of the things which had enabled
him to become the only Second-Stage Lensman of his race.
L2 Worsel, then, held himself aloof and observed appreciatively everything that
went on. More, he did a little hallucinating of his own. Under the Overlords’ compulsion
he was supposed to remain motionless, staring raptly into an imaginary visiplate at an
orgiastic saturnalia of” which no description will be attempted. Therefore, as far as the
occupied portion of his mind and through it the Overlords were concerned, he did so.
Actually, however, his body moved purposefully about, directed solely by his own grim
will; moved to make ready against the time of landing.
For Worsel knew that his opponents were not fools. He knew that they reduced
their risks to the irreducible minimum. He knew that the mighty Velan, with her
prodigious weaponry, would not be permitted to be within extreme range of the cavern,
if the Overlords could possibly prevent it, when that cavern’s location was revealed. His
was the task to see to it that she was not only within range, but was at the very portal.
The speeding space-ship approached the planet . . . went inert . . . matched the
planetary intrinsic . . . landed. Her airlocks opened. Her crew rushed out headlong,
sprang into the air, and arrowed away en masse. Then Worsel, Grand Master of
Hallucinations, went blithely but intensely to work.
Thus, although he stayed at the Velan’s control board instead of joining the
glamored Velantians in their rush over the unfamiliar terrain, and although the huge
vessel lifted lightly into the air and followed them, neither the fiend-possessed part of
Worsel’s mind, nor any of his fellows, nor through them any one of the many Overlords,
knew that either of those two things was happening. To that part of his mind Worsel’s
body was, under full control, flying along upon tireless wings in the midst of the crowd;
to it and to all other Velantians and hence to the Overlords the Velan lay motionless and
deserted upon the rocks far below and behind them. They watched her diminish in the
distance; they saw her vanish beyond the horizon!
This was eminently tricky work, necessitating as it did such nicety of
synchronization with the Delgonians’ own compulsions as to be indetectable even to the
monsters themselves. Worsel was, however, an expert; he went at the job not with any
doubt as to his ability to carry it through, but only with an uncontrollably shivering
physical urge to come to grips with the hereditary enemies of his race.
The flyers shot downward, and as a boulder-camouflaged entrance yawned open
in the mountain’s side Worsel closed up and shot out a widely enveloping zone of
thought-screen. The Overlords’ control vanished. The Velantians, realizing instantly
what had happened, flew madly back to their ship. They jammed through the airlocks,
flashed to their posts. The cavern’s gates had closed by then, but the monsters had no
screen fit to cope with the Velan’s tremendous batteries. Down they went. Barriers,
bastions, and a considerable portion of the mountain’s face flamed away in fiery vapor
or flowed away in molten streams. Through reeking atmosphere, over red-hot debris,
the armored Velantians flew to the attack.