super-Master and maybe something altogether different. Maybe duplicable in a less
lethal fashion, and maybe not. Veree helpful-I don’t think. But I don’t want to kill
anybody, either . . . especially if it wouldn’t do any good. But we’ve got to do
something!” Hilton scowled in thought for minutes. “But an Oman brain could take it. As
you told us, Tuly, `The brain of the Larry is very, very tough.’ ”
“In a way, sir. Except that the Masters were very careful to make it physically impossible
for any Oman to go very far along that line. It was only their oversight of my one
imperfect brain that enabled me, alone of us all, to do that wrong.”
“Stop thinking it was wrong, Tuly. I’m mighty glad you did. But I wasn’t thinking of any
regular Oman brain . . :’ Hilton’s voice petered out.
“I see, sir. Yes, we can, by using your brain as Guide, reproduce it in an Oman body.
You would then have the powers and most of the qualities of both . . .”
“No, you don’t see, because I’ve got my screen on. Which I will now take off”-he suited
action to word-“since the whole planet’s screened and I have nothing to hide from you.
Teddy Blake and I both thought of that, but we’ll consider it only as the ultimately last
resort. We don’t want to live a million years. And we want our race to keep on
developing. But you folks can replace carbon-based molecules with silicon based ones
just as easily as, and a hell of a lot faster than, mineral water petrifies wood. What can
you do along the line of rebuilding me that way? And if you can do any such conversion,
what would happen? Would I live at all? And if so, how long? How would I live? What
would I live on? All that kind of stuff.”
“Shortly before they left, two of the Masters did some work on that very thing. Tuly and
I converted them, sir.” “Fine–or is it? How did it work out?”
“Perfectly, sir . . . except that they destroyed themselves. It was thought that they
wearied of existence.”
“I don’t wonder. Well, if it comes to that, I can do the same. You can convert me, then.”
“Yes, sir. But before we do it we must do enough preliminary work to be sure that you
will not be harmed in any way. Also, there will be many more changes involved than
simple substitution.”
“Of course. I realize that. Just see what you can do, please, and let me know.”
“We will, sir, and thank you very much.”
Chapter 9
As has been intimated, no Terran can know what researches Larry and Tuly and the
other Oman specialists performed, or how they arrived at the conclusions they reached.
However, in less than a week Larry reported to Hilton.
“It can be done, sir, with complete safety. And you will live even more comfortably than
you do now.”
“How long?”
“The mean will be about five thousand Oman years-you don’t know that an Oman year
is equal to one point two nine three plus Terran years?”
“I didn’t, no. Thanks.”
“The maximum, a little less than six thousand. The minimum, a little over four
thousand. I’m very sorry we had no data upon which to base a closer estimate.”
“Close enough.” He stared at the Oman. “You could also convert my wife?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Well, we might be able to stand it, after we got used to the idea. Minimum, over five
thousand Terran years . . . barring accidents, of course?”
“No, sir. No accidents. Nothing will be able to kill you, except by total destruction of the
brain. And even then, sir, there will be the pattern.”
“I’ll . . . be . . . damned . . :’ Hilton gulped twice. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Your skins will be like ours, energy-absorbers. Your `blood’ will carry charges of
energy instead of oxygen. Thus, you may breathe or not, as you please. Unless you
wish otherwise, we will continue the breathing function. It would scarcely be worthwhile
to alter the automatic mechanisms that now control it. And you will wish at times to
speak. You will still enjoy eating and drinking, although everything ingested will be
eliminated, as at present, as waste.”
“We’d add uranexite to our food, I suppose. Or drink radioactives, or sleep under
cobalt-60 lamps.”
“Yes, sir. Your family life will be normal; your sexual urges and satisfactions the same.
Fertilization and period of gestation unchanged. Your children will mature at the same
ages as they do now”.
“How do you-oh, I see. You wouldn’t change any molecular linkages or configurations in
the genes or chromosomes.” “We could not, sir, even if we wished. Such substitutions
can be made only in exact one-for-one replacements. In the near future you will, of
course, have to control births quite rigorously.”
“We sure would. Let’s see . . . say we want a stationary population of a hundred million
on our planet. Each couple to have two children, a boy and a girl. Born when the
parents are about fifty . . . um-m-m. The gals can have all the children they want, then,
until our population is about a million; then slap on the limit of two kids per couple.
Right?”
“Approximately so, sir. And after conversion you alone will be able to operate with the
full power of your eight, without tiring. You will also, of course, be able to absorb almost
instantaneously all the knowledges and abilities of the old Masters.”
Hilton gulped twice before he could speak. “You wouldn’t be holding anything else
back, would you?”
“Nothing important, sir. Everything else is minor, and probably known to you.”
“I doubt it. How long will the job take, and how much notice will you need?”
“Two days, sir. No notice. Everything is ready.”
Hilton, face somber, thought for minutes. “The more I think of it the less I like it. But it
seems to be a forced put . . . and Temple will blow sky high . . . and have I got the guts
to go it alone, even if she’d let me . . .” He shrugged himself out of the black mood. “I’ll
look her up and let you know, Larry.”
He looked her up and told her everything. Told her bluntly; starkly; drawing the full
picture in jet black, with very little white.
“There it is, sweetheart. The works,” he concluded. “We are not going to have ten
years; we may not have ten months. So-if such a brain as that can be had, do we or do
we not have to have it? I’m putting it squarely up to you.”
Temple’s face, which had been getting paler and paler, was now as nearly colorless as
it could become; the sickly yellow of her skin’s light tan unbacked by any flush of red
blood.
Her whole body was tense and strained.
“There’s a horrible snapper on that question . . . Can’t I do it? Or anybody else except
you?”
“No. Anyway, whose job is it, sweetheart?”
“I know, but . . . but I know just how close Tuly came to killing you. And that wasn’t
anything compared to such a radical transformation as this. I’m afraid it’ll kill you,
darling. And I just simply couldn’t stand it!”
She threw herself into his arms, and he comforted her in the ages-old fashion of man
with maid.
“Steady, hon,” he said, as soon as he could lift her tear streaked face from his
shoulder. “I’ll live through it. I thought you were getting the howling howpers about
having to live for six thousand years and never getting back to Terra except for a Q
strictly T visit now and then.”
She pulled away from him, flung back her wheaten mop and glared. “So that’s what
you thought! What do I care how long I five, or how, or where, as long as it’s with you?
But what makes you think we can possibly live through such a horrible conversion as
that?”
“Larry wouldn’t do it if there was any question whatever. He didn’t say it would be
painless. But he did say I’d live.” “Well, he knows, I guess . . . I hope.” Temple’s natural
fine color began to come back. “But it’s understood that just the second you come out
of the vat, I go right in.”
“I hadn’t ought to let you, of course. But I don’t think I could take it alone.”
That statement required a special type of conference, which consumed some little
time. Eventually, however, Temple answered it in words.
“Of course you couldn’t, sweetheart, and I wouldn’t let you, even if you could.”
There were a few things that had to be done before those two secret conversions could
be made. There was the matter of the wedding, which was now to be in quadruplicate.