Just as the full impact of the scene hit Roberts, a powerfully built figure in the shadows near the edge of the pool turned toward him. Wearing a tight, black one-piece garment, with three rows of ribbons at the left chest, and wide belt bearing knife and fusion gun, this figure was plainly the special guide. Roberts, relieved, waited for instructions.
The guide raised one muscular arm, and swept it out across the pool toward the rock face.
“Don’t hesitate. This is a courage test. In you go, and head straight for that rock face!”
Roberts, relieved to have some clear-cut direction, started forward.
Ahead of him, the water seethed.
Roberts fixed his mind on the rock face across the pool, made a rapid estimate of the distance, and then saw with a start that the water was so roiled up that he couldn’t see the bottom.
The voice of the first guide, back at the clearing, came to him: “The problem is simply to climb a rock face twenty-five feet in height, onto the ledge at its top.”
There across the pool was the rock face and the ledge. But considering that these fish were carnivorous, how could he get through them, across a possibly uneven bottom that he couldn’t see, without being eaten up on the way?
Nearby, the special guide called sharply, “Don’t hesitate! Keep moving!”
Roberts hesitated, then with an effort kept going.
In front of him, the steel-gray forms leaped out, their sharp jaws flashing with a knifelike glint.
The guide, his voice approving, shouted, “Good lad! Now, straight for that cliff!”
Roberts’ mind seemed split in halves. Thoughts flashed through his consciousness in a chaotic rush:
“Don’t hesitate! Keep moving!”
“There isn’t much to this final exercise, but you must carry it out successfully to pass the course.”
“Don’t hesitate. This is a courage test. In you go, and head straight for that rock face!”
“The problem is simply to climb a rock face . . .”
“Now, go straight for the cliff!”
“Remember, gentlemen, this is a test in the proper use of courage.”
“Don’t hesitate. This is a courage test . . .”
” . . . A test in the proper use of courage.”
Across the pool, the rock face loomed like a mirage over the water. Ten feet out from shore, a big steel-gray muscular form leaped high and fell back, and the splash briefly uncovered a glistening human rib cage.
Roberts stopped in his tracks.
The special guide whirled, put his hand on Roberts’ shoulder, and said sharply, “Go straight in! Even if you don’t make it, I’ll vouch for your courage. That’s all you need to pass the courage test! Now, move!”
He gave Roberts a push to start him into the pool.
Abruptly the two divided halves of Roberts’ mind came back together again. He ducked free of the pushing hand, pivoted, and smashed his fist into the guide’s muscular midsection.
The guide doubled over, his arms flew out, and he slammed back into some kind of invisible barrier, that recoiled and threw him back toward Roberts. The guide recovered himself, and his hand flashed toward his fusion gun.
Roberts hit him again in the midsection.
The guide went down, and at once came up on one knee, still groping for the fusion gun.
Roberts jerked him to his feet, and knocked him down for the third time.
The guide landed full length on the ground, and Roberts bent to swiftly take the belt, with its knife and gun. He had hardly straightened, when the guide again struggled to get up, and Roberts cracked him over the head with the gun.
The guide sat back down with a grunt, then started up again.
Roberts stepped back, frowning. He held the gun in one hand, and the belt, with holster and sheathed knife, dangled from the other hand. So far, he hadn’t been able to put the special guide down long enough to fasten the belt.
The words of their original guide, back in the clearing, came to him:
“Now, this is not a complicated test. But it has its points, gentlemen, as I think you will agree after it is over.”
Roberts glanced out at the seething pool, and back at the grim-faced special guide, just coming to his feet.
Despite the gun, the guide suddenly rushed him. Roberts landed a terrific kick to the base of the chest.
The guide went down, and this time it looked as if he might stay there a while.
Roberts clasped the belt around his waist, looked at the fish springing from the water, glanced back at the motionless guide, then looked around, spotted a length of fallen branch lying on the ground with most of the twigs rotted off. He picked up the branch and swung it over the pool, the far end dipping into the water.
Instantly, the water exploded in gray forms.
Snap! SNAP! Snap!
The branch lightened in his hand as two-and-a-half feet at the far end disappeared.
Roberts glanced around at the guide, already starting to shake his head dazedly. With his thumb, Roberts felt the end of the stick. It was cut off smooth, as if by a sharp curved blade.
The guide sat up, his eyes focused on Roberts. He came to his feet in one fluid motion.
Roberts aimed the gun at the guide’s head.
The guide’s eyes glinted, and he started forward. His voice had a sharp ring of authority.
“Drop the gun. I’m coming to take it, Mister. Drop it!”
Roberts depressed the fusion gun’s trigger, and the searing pencil of energy sprang out, missing the guide’s head by several inches.
Roberts said flatly, “Halt!”
The guide halted, face stern and eyes intent.
“Now,” said Roberts, “just back up to where you were.”
The guide didn’t budge. “You won’t get away with this!”
Roberts watched him alertly.
“I won’t get away with what?”
“Cowardice! You don’t show the guts to do as you’re told! Now, drop that gun!”
Roberts kept the gun aimed at the guide.
“I was told to climb that rock face. I can’t climb it if I don’t last long enough to get near it. To obey your instructions would guarantee that I wouldn’t do what I am supposed to do.”
“I told you, Mister, that if you showed courage, I’d vouch for you!”
“That’s nice. But that won’t get me up that rock face.”
The guide’s voice came out in a deadly menacing tone.
“Do you question my word?”
“Yes,” said Roberts. “As a matter of fact, I question everything about you. I have a suspicion that somewhere there’s a complicated little network that projects a mass of muscle, an empty head, and a loud voice, with built-in responses, and that’s all there is to you. There’s something about you that fits the Interstellar Patrol like oars on a spaceship. Incidentally, I notice you haven’t stepped back. Back up!”
Glowering, the muscular figure backed up several feet.
“All right,” said Roberts, “turn around.”
“Go to hell.”
Roberts aimed the fusion gun at the guide’s midsection. “Friend, there’s a kind of courage that makes sense, and there’s another kind that’s stupid, even in an illusion. The more I see of you, the more convinced I am that the Patrol would never have let you in. It follows that what you really are is a special kind of highly advanced electronic booby trap. You almost got me into that pool, but not quite. That push was too much. If this were strictly a test of raw courage, I’d have had to go in under my own power.
“I was helping you.”
“That’s the point. That help would spoil the test.”
The guide spoke in a reasonable, persuasive voice. “I could see you weren’t going to make it without help.”
“In that case, I’d have been allowed to fail. What’s the point of a test if you pass those who should fail?”
The guide now looked sympathetic.
“Lad, I knew a little help at the right time would get you over the hurdle. I never thought you’d show a yellow streak this wide. But I’m still willing to overlook all of this, if—”
Roberts shook his head critically. “Among other things, now you’re ignoring the fact that I was given a definite goal, with no set time limit. Why should I have to immediately jump in with the carnivorous fish? I was told to cross that pool and climb up that rock face onto the ledge. That may involve the right use of courage, but instant suicide won’t accomplish the job.”
“Well, now, that about the rock face was only how it was expressed. The thing is to show courage. That’s the test!”
“When you’re ordered to attack, the thing to do is to just rush in quick where the defenses are thickest, eh?”
The guide looked reasonable again.
“What do you gain by delay? Sooner or later, you’ll have to go in. There’s a field of force on all sides of us, overhead, and under the ground surface, that leaves just this space between this edge of the pool and the trees. The only opening in the field is toward the pool. There is no other way out. What do you gain by putting it off? I’ll overlook what you’ve done if—”