I’m going to just love it!” She hugged his elbow ecstatically. “So are you, darling, as
soon as you stop looking at only the black side.”
“You know . . . you could be right?” For the first time since the “ghastly” transformation
Hilton saw that there really was a bright side and began to study it. “With most of
BuSci-and part of the Navy, and selectees from Terra-it will be slightly terrific, at that!”
“And that ‘habit-forming-drug’ objection isn’t insuperable, darling,” Temple said. “If the
younger generations start weakening we’ll fix the Omans. I wouldn’t want to wipe them
out entirely, but . . .”
“But how do we settle priority, Doctor Hilton?” a girl called out; a tall, striking, brunette
laboratory technician whose name Hilton needed a second to recall. “By pulling straws
or hair? Or by shooting dice or each other or what?”
“Thanks, Betty, you’ve got a point. Sandy Cummings and department heads first, then
assistants. Then you girls, in alphabetical order, each with her own husband or fiancé.”
“And my name is Ames. Oh, goody!” “Larry, please tell them to . . .”
“I already have, sir. We are set up to handle four at once.” “Good boy. So scat, all of
you, and get back to workexcept Sandy, Bill, Alex and Teddy. You four go with Larry”
Since the new sense was not peyondix, Hilton had started calling it “perception” and the
others adopted the term as a matter of course. Hilton could use that sense for what
seemed like years-and actually was whole minutes-at a time without fatigue or strain.
He could not, however, nor could the Omans, give his tremendous power to anyone
else.
As he had said, he could do a certain amount of reworking; but the amount of
improvement possible to make depended entirely upon what there was to work on.
Thus, Temple could cover about six hundred light-years. It developed later that the
others of the Big Eight could cover from one hundred up to four hundred or so. The
other department heads and assistants turned out to be still weaker, and not one of the
rank and file ever became able to cover more than a single planet.
This sense was not exactly telepathy; at least not what Hilton had always thought
telepathy would be. If anything, however, it was more. It was a lumping together of all
five known human senses-and half a dozen unknown ones called, collectively,
“intuition”-into one super-sense that was all-inclusive and all-informative. If he ever
could learn exactly what it was and exactly what it did and how it did it . . . but he’d
better chip-chop the wool-gathering and get back onto the job.
The Stretts had licked the old Masters very easily, and intended to wipe out the Omans
and the humans. They had no doubt at all as to their ability to do it. Maybe they could. If
the Masters hadn’t made some progress that the Omans didn’t know about, they
probably could. That was the first thing to find out. As soon as they’d been converted
he’d call in all the experts and they’d go through the Masters’ records like a dose of
salts through a hillbilly schoolma’am.
At that point in Hilton’s cogitations Sawtelle came in.. He had come down in his gig, to
confer with Hilton as to the newly beefed-up fleet. Instead of being glum and pessimistic
and foreboding, he was chipper and enthusiastic. They had rebuilt a thousand Oman
ships. By combining Oman and Terran science, and adding everything the First Team
had been able to reduce to practice, they had hyped up the power by a good fifteen per
cent. Seven hundred of those ships, and all his men, were now arrayed in defense
around Ardry. Three hundred, manned by Omans, were around Fuel Bin.
“Why?” Hilton asked. “It’s Fuel Bin they’ve been attacking.”
“Uh-uh. Minor objective,” the captain demurred, positively. “The real attack will be here
at you; the headquarters and the brains. Then Fuel Bin will be duck soup. But the thing
that pleased me most is the control. Man, you never imagined such control! No admiral
in history ever had such control of ten ships as I have of seven hundred. Those Omans
spread orders so fast that I don’t even finish thinking one and it’s being executed. And
no misunderstandings, no slips. For instance, this last batch-fifteen skeletons. Far out;
they’re getting cagy. I just thought ‘Box ’em in and slug ’em’ and-In! Across! Out! Sock!
Pffft! Just like that and just that fast. None of ’em had time to light a beam. Nobody
before ever even dreamed of such control!”
“That’s great, and I like it . . . and you’re only a captain. How many ships can Five-Jet
Admiral Gordon put into space?”
“That depends on what you call ships. Superdreadnoughts, Perseus class, six.
First-line battleships, twenty-nine. Second line, smaller and some pretty old,
seventy-three. Counting everything armed that will hold air, something over two
hundred.”
“I thought it was something like that. How would you like to be Five-Jet Admiral
Sawtelle of the Ardrian Naw?”
“I wouldn’t. I’m Terran Navy. But you knew that and you know me. So-what’s on your
mind?”
Hilton told him. I ought to put this on a tape, he thought to himself, and broadcast it
every hour on the hour.
“They took the old Masters like dynamiting fish in a barrel,” he concluded, “and I’m
damned afraid they’re going to lick us unless we take a lot of big, fast steps. But the hell
of it is that I can’t tell you anything-not one single thing-about any part of it. There’s
simply no way at all of getting through to you without making you over into the same
kind of a thing I am.”
“Is that bad?” Sawtelle was used to making important decisions fast. “Let’s get at it.”
“Huh? Skipper, do you realize just what that means? If you think they’ll let you resign,
forget it. They’ll crucify youbrand you as a traitor and God only knows what else.”
“Right. How about you and your people?” “Well, as civilians, it won’t be as bad . . .”
“The hell it won’t. Every man and woman that stays here will be posted forever as the
blackest traitors old Terra ever disgraced herself by spawning.”
“You’ve got a point there, at that. We’ll all have to bring our relatives-the ones we think
much of, at least-out here with us.”
“Definitely. Now see what you can do about getting me run through your mill.”
By exerting his authority, Hilton got Sawtelle put through the “Preservatory” in the
second batch processed. Then, linking minds with the captain, he flashed their joint
attention to the Hall of Records. Into the right room; into the right chest; along miles and
miles of braided wire carrying some of the profoundest military secrets of the ancient
Masters.
Then:
“Now you know a little of it,” Hilton said. “Maybe a thousandth of what we’ll have to have
before we can take the Stretts as they will have to be taken.”
For seconds Sawtelle could not speak. Then: “My . . . God. I see what you mean.
You’re right. No Omans can ever go to Terra; and no Terrans can ever come here
except to stay forever.”
The two then went out into space, to the flagship-which had been christened the
Orion-and called in the six commanders.
“What is all this senseless idiocy we’ve been getting, Jarve?” Elliott demanded.
Hilton eyed all six with pretended disfavor. “You six guys are the hardest-headed
bunch of skeptics that ever went unhung,” he remarked, dispassionately. “So it wouldn’t
do any good to tell you anything-yet. The skipper and I will show you a thing first. Take
her away, Skip.”
The Orion shot away under interplanetary drive and for several hours Hilton and
Sawtelle worked at re-wiring and practically rebuilding two devices that no one, Oman
or human, had touched since the Perseus had landed on Ardry.
“What are you . . . I don’t understand what you are doing, sir,” Larry said. For the first
time since Hilton had known him, the Oman’s mind was confused and unsure.
“I know you don’t. This is a bit of top-secret Masters’ stuff. Maybe, some day, we’ll be
able to re-work your brain to take it. But it won’t be for some time.”
Chapter 10
The Orion hung in space, a couple of thousands of miles away from an asteroid which
was perhaps a mile in average diameter. Hilton straightened up.
“Put Triple X Black filters on your plates and watch that asteroid.” The commanders did
so. “Ready?” he asked.
“Ready, sir.”
Hilton didn’t move a muscle. Nothing actually moved. Nevertheless there was a
motionless writhing and crawling distortion of the ship and everything in it, accompanied
by a sensation that simply can not be described.
It was not like going into or emerging from the sub-ether. It was not even remotely like