Arrangements had to be made so that eight Big Wheels of the Project could all be away
on honeymoon at once.
All these things were done.
Of the conversion operations themselves, nothing more need be said. The
honeymooners, having left ship and town on a Friday afternoon, came back one week
from the following Monday morning. The eight met joyously in Bachelors’ Hall; the girls
kissing each other and the men indiscriminately and enthusiastically; the men
cooperating zestfully.
Temple scarcely blushed at all, she was so engrossed in trying to find out whether or
not anyone was noticing any change. No one seemed to notice anything out of the
ordinary. So, finally, she asked.
“Don’t any of you, really, see anything different?”
The six others all howled at that, and Sandra, between giggles and snorts, said: “No,
precious, it doesn’t show a bit. Did you really think it would?”
Temple blushed furiously and Hilton came instantly to his bride’s rescue. “Chip-chop
the comedy, gang. She and I aren’t human any more. We’re a good jump toward being
Omans. I couldn’t make her believe it doesn’t show.”
That stopped the levity, cold, but none of the six could really believe it. However, after
Hilton had coiled a twentypenny spike into a perfect helix between his fingers, and
especially after he and Temple had each chewed up and swallowed a piece of
uranexite, there were no grounds left for doubt.
“That settles it . . . it tears it,” Karns said then. “Start all over again, Jarve. We’ll listen,
this time.”
Hilton told the long story again, and added: “I had to rework a couple of cells of
Temple’s brain, but now she can read and understand the records as well as I can. So I
thought rd take her place on Team One and let her boss the job on all the other teams.
Okay?”
“So you don’t want to let the rest of us in on it.” Karns’s level stare was a far cry from
the way he had looked at his chief a moment before. “If there’s any one thing in the
universe I never had you figured for, it’s a dog in the manger.”
“Huh? You mean you actually want to be a . . . a . . . hell, we don’t even know what we
are!”
“I do want it, Jarvis. We all do.” This was, of all people, Teddy! “No one in all history
has had more than about fifty years of really productive thinking. And just the idea of
having enough time . . .”
“Hold it, Teddy. Use your brain. The Masters couldn’t take it-they committed suicide.
How do you figure we can do any better?”
“Because we’ll use our brains!” she snapped. “They didn’t. The Omans will serve us;
and that’s all they’ll do.”
“And do you think you’ll be able to raise your children and grandchildren and so on to
do the same? To have guts enough to resist the pull of such an ungodly habit-forming
drug as this Oman service is?”
“I’m sure of it.” She nodded positively. “And we’ll run all applicants through a fine
enough screen to-that is, if we ever consider anybody except our own BuSci people.
And there’s another reason.” She grinned, got up, wriggled out of her coverall, and
posed in bra and panties. “Look. I can keep most of this for five years. Quite a lot of it
for ten. Then comes the struggle. What do you think I’d do for the ability, whenever it
begins to get wrinkly or flabby, to peel the whole thing off and put on a
brand-spanking-new smooth one? You name it, I’ll do it! Besides, Bill and I will both just
simply and cold-bloodedly murder you if you try to keep us out.”
“Okay.” Hilton looked at Temple; she looked at him; both looked at all the others. There
was no revulsion at all. Nothing but eagerness.
Temple took over.
“I’m surprised. We’re both surprised. You see, Jarve didn’t want to do it at all, but he
had to. I not only didn’t want to, I was scared green and yellow at just the idea of it. But I
had to, too, of course. We didn’t think anybody would really want to. We thought we’d
be left here alone. We still will be, I think, when you’ve thought it clear through, Teddy.
You just haven’t realized yet that we aren’t even human any more. We’re simply nothing
but monsters!” Temple’s voice became a wail.
“I’ve said my piece,” Teddy said. “You tell ’em, Bill.”
“Let me say something first,” Kincaid said. “Temple, I’m ashamed of you. This line isn’t
at all your usual straight thinking. What you actually are is homo superior. Bill?”
“I can add one bit to that. I don’t wonder that you were scared silly, Temple. Utterly new
concept and you went into it stone cold. But now we see the finished product and we
like it. In fact, we drool.”
“I’ll say we’re drooling,” Sandra said. “I could do handstands and pinwheels with joy.”
“Let’s see you,” Hilton said. “That we’d all get a kick out of.
“Not now-don’t want to hold this up-but sometime I just will. Bev?”
“I’m for it=and howl And won’t Bernadine be amazed,” Beverly laughed gleefully, “at
her wise-crack about the `race to end all human races’ coming true?”
“I’m in favor of it, too, one hundred per cent,” Poynter said. “Has it occurred to you,
Jarve, that this opens up intergalactic exploration? No supplies to carry and plenty of
time and fuel?”
“No, it hadn’t. You’ve got a point there, Frank. That might take a little of the curse off of
it, at that.”
“When some of our kids get to be twenty years old or so and get married, I’m going to
take a crew of them to Andromeda. We’ll arrange, then, to extend our honeymoons
another week,” Hilton said. “What will our policy be? Keep it dark for a while with just us
eight, or spread it to the rest?”
“Spread it, I’d say,” Kincaid said.
“We can’t keep it secret, anyway,” Teddy argued. “Since Larry and Tuly were in on the
whole deal, every Oman on the planet knows all about it. Somebody is going to ask
questions, and Omans always answer questions and always tell the truth.”
“Questions have already been asked and answered,” Larry said, going to the door and
opening it.
Stella rushed in. “We’ve been hearing the damnedest things!” She kissed everybody,
ending with Hilton, whom she seized by both shoulders. “Is it actually true, boss, that
you can fix me up so I’ll live practically forever and can eat more than eleven calories a
day without getting fat as a pig? Candy, ice cream, cake, pie, eclairs, cream puffs,
French pastries, sugar and gobs of thick cream in my coffee . . . ?”
Half a dozen others, including the van der Moen twins, came in. Beverly emitted a
shriek of joy. “Bernadine! The mother of the race to end all human races!”
“You whistled it, birdie!” Bernadine caroled. “I’m going to have ten or twelve, each one
weirder than all the others. I told you I was a prophet-I’m going to hang out my shingle.
Wholesale and retail prophecy; special rates for large parties.” Her voice was drowned
out in a general clamor.
“Hold it, everybody!” Hilton yelled. “Chip-chop it! Quit it!” Then as the noise subsided,
“If you think I’m going to tell this tall tale over and over again for the next two weeks
you’re all crazy. So shut down the plant and get everybody out here.”
“Not everybody, Jarve!” Temple snapped. “We don’t want scum, and there’s some of
that, even in BuSci.”
“You’re so right. Who, then?”
“The rest of the heads and assistants, of course . . . and all the lab girls and their
husbands and boy-friends. I know they are all okay. That will be enough for now, don’t
you think?”
“I do think”; and the indicated others were sent for and in a few minutes arrived.
The Omans brought chairs and Hilton stood on a table. He spoke for ten minutes.
Then: “Before you decide whether you want to or not, think it over very carefully,
because it’s a one-way street. Fluorine can not be displaced. Once in, you’re stuck for
life. There is no way back. I’ve told you all the drawbacks and disadvantages I know of,
but there may be a lot more that I haven’t thought of yet. So think it over for a few days
and when each of you has definitely made up his or her mind, let me know.” He jumped
down off the table.
His listeners, however, did not need days, or even seconds, to decide. Before Hilton’s
feet hit the floor there was a yell of unanimous approval.
He looked at his wife. “Do you suppose we’re nuts?” “Uh-uh. Not a bit. Alex was right.