Roberts blew out his breath and turned around, to look down a steep stony slope marked with scratches, grooves, and whitely powdered rock, that descended to a gentle slope marked with shallow circular dents a foot or so across. At the base of this slope lay a shiny metallic object about eighteen or twenty inches long, shaped like a cone, with the small end flattened, and the large end gently curved like the outer surface of a sphere. The small end was slotted, and bore several projecting studs. The smoothly polished sides and top reflected the sun in a bright point of light, and gave a distorted image of blue sky, white clouds, straggling green grass, and dark-green forest beyond the fence. The fence itself, fifteen feet high, concrete-based, and topped with electrified barbed wire, reached down both sides of the hill and across the bottom, enclosing Roberts, the cone, the hill, and the cone-shaped hole by the locked gate.
Roberts with a calculating gaze again studied the steep rocky slope. He glanced back at the gate, and the nearby hole. He looked with loathing at the shiny cone lying at the bottom of the slope, and then sucked in a deep breath and started downhill toward the shining chunk of metal. As he slid in the slippery dust, and as the loose bits of splintered rock turned underfoot, he became conscious of a peculiar sensation, like the awareness of the sound of a buzz without the actual buzz itself. He shoved the tail of his lightweight sweat-stained shirt into his worn trousers, slid his small communicator from its scratched belt-case, and snapped it on. The familiar voice of his fellow basic trainee, Hammell, came out angrily.
“You still cooped up?”
“Yes. You?”
“Yes. It just got away again. All the way to the foot of the hill.”
“Same thing here,” said Roberts. There was a lot more he could say, but he kept it bottled up, in the hope that it might generate a little extra horsepower when he needed it.
“This,” said Hammell, his voice exasperated, “is a damned stupid way to finish up a basic training course. We can’t use anything we’ve learned!”
“No,” said Roberts, noncommittally, remembering from just this morning the muscular catlike figure of the guide, as he said cheerfully, “Well, gentlemen, you have now endured nearly all that the basic training course of the Interstellar Patrol has to offer, and are about to pass on as full members of the Patrol. You have one or two little formalities still to go through. First, some advice.
“You realize, men, that many qualities are required of you, and some of them may seem contradictory. Bear in mind that such qualities as personal initiative and the capacity for strict obedience, while certainly capable of total opposition, are not necessarily contradictory. The human body is supplied with muscles so arranged that one set can oppose and frustrate the action of another set. Nevertheless, although there is a wrong way to use them, the body still has to have both sets to function properly. Bear this in mind. A quality may be indispensable, but insufficient by itself. And the necessary additional quality may be its apparent opposite.
“Now, as you know, gentlemen, the Patrol does not like to cram information down anyone’s throat. I have told you enough, I think, so that you can understand the nature of this first little formality you have to go through.
“This, gentlemen, is really a very simple little test.
“Basically, the problem is to get out of an enclosed space. There is a gate in one side of the enclosure. Your problem is merely to open this gate. That’s all there is to it.
“But you must open the gate. Do not, please, try to get over the fence. You will be electrocuted. Do not cut or otherwise create a gap in the fence. This will detonate mines laid inside the enclosure. Trying to dig under the fence will produce the same result.
“Do not, please, waste time and ingenuity seeking to avoid electrocution by vaulting or otherwise crossing the top of this fence without touching the wire. You will be shot down by concealed automatic guns. The idea is not to pass over, under, or through the fence. The idea is to open the gate, and get out that way.
“If there is anyone here who is capable of safely passing out of the enclosure without opening the gate—and we recognize the possibility—then permit me to point out that, while we will not penalize you for doing this, we will, nevertheless, put you back in as often as you get out, until you finally get out our way—namely, by opening the gate.
“You may open the gate in any way that you are capable of opening it; so far as we know, there is only one way for an ordinary human without tools to do it. It will be perfectly obvious to you what I mean when you are inside.
“But, you see, the trick is not just to understand what has to be done. The trick is to do it.
“Each of you must solve this problem separately. However, for purposes of mutual commiseration, you will be allowed to communicate with one another, so long as you are still inside the ‘Coop,’ as it is called, and have not yet solved the problem. We may, at any time, cut off your communication. If you suddenly understand the ‘secret’ and blurt it to some friend before we succeed in cutting you off, we will be irritated, but this will not invalidate the test. The difficulty, as we say, is not merely in finding out what to do, but also in doing it.
“Now, gentlemen, good luck with this simple, though very basic, little test. And may your disposition be as sweet in a few hours as it is right now.”
* * *
Roberts reached the bottom of the hill, and looked down sourly at the shiny cone. His disposition was nowhere near as sweet as it had been a few hours ago.
Hammell’s voice came out in an indrawn gasp from the communicator, and Roberts knew from experience, without extending the communicator’s eyepieces, just what had happened. He said drily, “That’s not the answer.”
Hammell growled, “I thought maybe I could work the thing by hand. But the raised plates in this recess are charged.”
“Correct,” said Roberts, feeling equal exasperation, but keeping his emotions bottled up. He experimentally hefted the shiny cone.
It felt even heavier than the last time. He looked up at the steep final slope of the hill, and frowned with vexation.
“What we’ve got here,” said Hammell angrily, “is a stupid set-up. We can unlock the gate if we can get this so-called key into the hole. But we’ve got no tools whatever, the slope is so steep you can barely stand up on it empty-handed, and the damned ‘key’ feels like it’s made out of lead. What kind of basic training is this? The thing is stupid.”
Roberts shook his head. “It can’t be stupid, because the testers aren’t stupid. It’s supposed to be a test—Well, a test of what?”
“All it is, is a test of muscle and agility.”
Roberts stared at that steep final slope. “That can’t be it. You try to carry the thing up the last part of the slope, and if you slip you half kill yourself.”
“Then what else could it be?”
“A persistence test?” suggested Roberts, doubtfully.
“That’s a thought.”
“But then—”
“Yeah. What about that business to the effect that, ‘if you find the secret, we’ll try to cut you off before you can communicate it.’ What secret is there to a persistence test? You just keep trying.”
“I notice we’re still talking. Nobody has tried to cut us off.”
“So, that isn’t it. I had a bright idea a little while ago for using clothing to make a sling to hold the thing. That isn’t it, either.”
“No,” said Roberts, absently feeling some of the thin worn stuff, frayed almost through by hard wear. “No, we still haven’t hit on it.”
He looked up at the slope and down at the cone.
All he had to do was to get it up that hill, drop it in that cone-shaped hole, and turn it.
But how?
“Well,” said Hammell, “I’m going to try this s.o.b. again.”
They broke the connection and Roberts scowlingly contemplated the situation. For an organization that delighted in advanced technology, it seemed like a very crude problem. But, here it was, and he was stuck with it. And so, now what? He had already tried carrying it to the top. He had also tried rolling it to the top. He had tried alternately carrying it and setting it down. He had tried rolling it up on the inner half of the two-foot wide concrete base of the fence. That time he’d been sure he could make it, since to rest he could cling to the fence with his hands, and meanwhile he could jam the thick end of the cone against the fence with his legs. But, each time, the cone had gotten away and slid and rolled to the bottom, and the frustration had built up till his last try had been a pure brute rush straight up the hill. That had been worst of all. He’d been lucky not to get a broken leg out of that one. Well, what was there left?