“Stone cold. No background even. Play that on your harmonica!”
Laro nodded, perfectly matter-of-factly, and in Hilton’s mind there formed a picture. It
was not clear, but it showed plainly enough a long line of aliens approaching the
Perseus. Each carried on his or her shoulder a lead container holding two hundred
pounds of Navy Regulation fuel pellets. A standard loading-tube was sealed into place
and every fuel-hold was filled.
This picture, Laro indicated plainly, could become reality any time.
Sawtelle was notified and came on the run. “No fuel is coming aboard without being
tested!” he roared.
“Of course not. But it’ll pass, for all the tea in China. You haven’t had a ten per cent
load of fuel since you were launched. You can fill up or not-the fuel’s here-just as you
say.”
“If they can make Navy standard, of course we want it.” The fuel arrived. Every load
tested well above standard. Every fuel hold was filled to capacity, with no leakage and
no emanation. The natives who had handled the stuff did not go away, but gathered in
the engine-room; and more and more humans trickled in to see what was going on.
Sawtelle stiffened. “What’s going on over there, Hilton?”
“I don’t know; but let’s let ’em go for a minute. I want to learn about these people and
they’ve got me stopped cold.” “You aren’t the only one. But if they wreck that Mayfield
it’ll cost you over twenty thousand dollars.”
“Okay.” The captain and director watched, wide eyed.
Two master mechanics had been getting ready to re-fit a tube–a job requiring both
strength and skill. The tube was very heavy and made of superefract. The machine-the
Mayfield-upon which the work was to be done, was extremely complex.
Two of the aliens had brushed the mechanics-very gently-aside and were doing their
work for them. Ignoring the hoist, one native had picked the tube up and was holding it
exactly in place on the Mayfield. The other, hands moving faster than the eye could
follow, was locking it-micrometrically precise and immovably secure-into place.
“How about this?” one of the mechanics asked of his immediate superior. “If we throw
’em out, how do we do it?”
By a jerk of the head, the non-com passed the buck to a commissioned officer, who
relayed, it up the line to Sawtelle, who said, “Hilton, nobody can run a Mayfield without
months of training. They’ll wreck it and it’ll cost you . . . but I’m getting curious myself.
Enough so to take half the damage. Let ’em go ahead.”
“How about this, Mike?” one of the machinists asked of his fellow. “I’m going to like
this, what?”
“Ya-as, my deah Chumley,” the other drawled, affectedly. “My man relieves me of so
much uncouth effort.”
The natives had kept on working. The Mayfield was running. It had always howled and
screamed at its work, but now it gave out only a smooth and even hum. The aliens had
adjusted it with unhuman precision; they were one with it as no human being could
possibly be. And every mind present knew that those aliens were, at long, long last,
fulfilling their destiny and were, in that fulfillment, supremely happy. After tens of
thousands of cycles of time they were doing a job for their adored, their revered and
beloved MASTERS.
That was a stunning shock; but it was eclipsed by another.
“I am sorry, Master Hilton,” Laro’s tremendous bass voice boomed out, “that it has
taken us so long to learn your Masters’ language as it now is. Since you left us you
have changed it radically; while we, of course, have not changed it at all.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken,” Hilton said. “We are merely visitors. We have never
been here before; nor, as far as we know, were any of our ancestors ever here.”
“You need not test us, Master. We have kept your trust. Everything has been kept,
changelessly the same, awaiting your return as you ordered so long ago.”
“Can you read my mind?” Hilton demanded.
“Of course; but Omans can not read in Masters’ minds anything except what Masters
want Omans to read.”
“Omans?” Harkins asked. “Where did you Omans and your masters come from?
Originally?”
“As you know, Master, the Masters came originally from Arth. They populated Ardu,
where we Omans were developed. When the Stretts drove us from Ardu, we all came
to Ardry, which was your home world until you left it in our care. We keep also this, your
half of the Fuel World, in trust for you.”
“Listen, Jarve!” Harkins said, tensely. “Oman-human. Arth-Earth. Ardu-Earth Two.
Ardry-Earth Three. You can’t laugh them off . . . but there never was an Atlantis!”
“‘This is getting no better fast. We need a full staff meeting. You, too, Sawtelle, and
your best man. We need all the brains the Perseus can muster.”
“You’re right. But first, get those naked women out of here. It’s bad enough, having
women aboard at all, but this . . . my men are spacemen, mister.”
Laro spoke up. “If it is the Masters’ pleasure to keep on testing us, so be it. We have
forgotten nothing. A dwelling awaits each Master, in which each will be served by
Omans who will know the Master’s desires without being told. Every desire. While we
Omans have no biological urges, we are of course highly skilled in relieving tensions
and derive as much pleasure from that service as from any other.”
Sawtelle broke the silence that followed. “Well, for the men-” He hesitated. “Especially
on the ground . . . well, talking in mixed company, you know, but I think . . „ .
“Think nothing of the mixed company, Captain Sawtelle,” Sandra said. “We women are
scientists, not shrinking violets. We are accustomed to discussing the facts of life just
as frankly as any other facts.”
Sawtelle jerked a thumb at Hilton, who followed him out into the corridor. “I have been
a Navy mule,” he said. “I admit now that I’m outmaneuvered, out-manned and out-
gunned.”
“I’m just as baffled-at present-as you are, sir. But my training has been aimed
specifically at the unexpected, while yours has not.”
“That’s letting me down easy, Jarve.” Sawtelle smiled-the first time the startled Hilton
had known that the hard, tough old spacehound could smile. “What I wanted to say is,
lead on. IT follow you through force-field and space-warps.”
“Thanks, skipper. And by the way, I erased that record yesterday.” The two gripped
hands; and there came into being a relationship that was to become a lifelong
friendship.
“We will start for Ardry immediately,” Hilton said. “How do we make that jump without
charts, Laro?”
“Very easily, Master. Kedo, as Master Captain Sawtelle’s Oman, will give the orders.
Nito will serve the Master Snowden and supply the knowledge he says he has
forgotten.”
“Okay. We’ll go up to the control room and get started.” And in the control room,
Kedo’s voice rasped into the captain’s microphone. “Attention, all personnel! Master
Captain Sawtelle orders take-off in two minutes. The count-down will begin in five
seconds . . . Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Lift!”
Nito, not Snowden, handled the controls. As perfectly as the human pilot had ever
done it, at the top of his finest form, he picked the immense spaceship up and slipped it
silkily into subspace.
“Well, I’ll be a . . :’ Snowden gasped. “That’s a better job than I ever did!”
“Not at all, Master, as you know,” Nito said. “It was you who did this. I merely
performed the labor.”
A few minutes later, in the main lounge, Navy and BuSci personnel were mingling as
they had never done before. Whatever had caused this relaxation of tension-the
friendship of captain and director? The position in which they all were? Or what?-they
all began to get acquainted with each other.
“Silence, please, and be seated,” Hilton said. “While this is not exactly a formal
meeting, it will be recorded for future reference. First, I will ask Laro a question. Were
books or records left on Ardry by the race you call the Masters?”
“You know there are, Master. They are exactly as you left them. Undisturbed for over
two hundred seventy-one thousand years.”
“Therefore we will not question the Oman%. We do not know what questions to ask.
We have seen-many things hitherto thought impossible. Hence, we must discard all
preconceived opinions which conflict with facts. I will mention a few of the problems we
face.
“The Omans. The Masters. The upgrading of the armament of the Perseus to Oman
standards. The concentration of uranexite. What is that concentrate? How is it used?
Total conversion-how is it accomplished? The skeletons-what are they and how are
they controlled? Their ability to drain power. Who or what is back of them? Why a
deadlock that has lasted over a quarter of a million years? How much danger are we