was equally efficient at only miles, since its control was purely mental. Therefore
Seaton’s image, solid and visible, materialized in DuQuesne’s inner sanctum to see
DuQuesne standing behind Dorothy’s father and mother, a heavy automatic pistol
pressed into Mrs. Vaneman’s back.
“That’ll be all from you, I think,” DuQuesne sneered. “You can’t touch me without hurting
your beloved parents-in-law and you’re too tender-hearted to do that. If you make the
slightest move toward me all I’ve got to do is to touch the trigger. And I shall do that,
anyway, right now, if you don’t get out of this System and stay out. I am still master of
the situation, you see.”
“You are master of nothing, you murderous baboon!”
Even before Seaton spoke the first word his projection had acted. DuQuesne was fast,
as has been said, but how fast are the fastest of human nervous and muscular reactions
when compared with the speed of thought? DuQuesne’s retina had not yet registered the
fact that Seaton’s image had moved when his pistol was hurled aside and he was
pinioned by forces as irresistible as the cosmic might from which they sprang.
DuQuesne was snatched into the air of the room-was surrounded by a globe of energy-
was jerked out of the building through a welter of crushed and broken masonry and con-
crete and of flailing, flying structural steel-was whipped through atmosphere,
stratosphere, and empty Space into the control room of the Skylark of Valeron. The
enclosing shell of force disappeared and Seaton hurled aside his controlling helmet, for
he knew that wave upon wave of passion, of sheer hate, was rising, battering at the.
very gates of his mind; knew that if he wore that headset one second longer the Brain,
actuated by his own uncontrollable- thoughts, would passionlessly but mercilessly exert
its awful power and blast his foe into nothingness before his eyes.
Thus at long last the two men, physically so like, so unlike mentally, stood face to face;
hard gray eyes staring relentlessly into unyielding eyes of midnight black. Seaton was in
a towering rage; DuQuesne, cold and self-contained as ever, was calmly alert to seize
any possible chance of escape from his present predicament.
“DuQuesne, I’m telling you something,” Seaton gritted through clenched teeth. “Prop
back your ears and listen. You and I are going out in that projector. You are going to
issue ‘cease firing’ orders to all your stations and tell them that you’re all washed up-that
a humane government is taking things over.”
“Or else?”
“Or else I’ll do, here and now, what I’ve been wanting to do to you ever since you shot up
Cane’s place that night, I will scatter your component atoms all the way from here to
Valeron.”
“But, Dick. . .” Dorothy began.
“Don’t butt in, Doti” Stern and cold, Seaton’s voice was one his wife had never before
heard. Never had she seen his face so hard, so bitterly implacable. “Sympathy is all right
in its place, but this is the show-down. The time for dealing tenderly with this piece of
mechanism in human form is past. He has needed killing for a long time, and unless he
toes the mark quick and careful he’ll get it, right here and right now.
“And as for you, DuQuesne,” turning again to the prisoner, “for your own good I’d advise
you to believe that I’m not talking just to make a noise. This isn’t a threat, it’s a promise-
get me?”
“You couldn’t do it, Seaton, you’re too . . .” Their eyes were still locked, but into
DuQuesne’s there had crept a doubt. “Why, I believe you would!” he exclaimed.
“A damned good way to find out is to say no. Yes or no?”
“Yes.” DuQuesne knew when to back down. “You win-temporarily at least,” he could not
help adding.
The projection went out and the required orders were given. Sunlight, moonlight, and
starlight again bathed the world in wonted fashion. DuQuesne sat at ease in a cushioned
chair, smoking Cane’s cigarettes; Seaton stood scowling blackly, hands jammed deep
into pockets, addressing the jury of Norlaminians.
“You see what a jam I’m in?” he complained. “I could be arrested for what I think of that
bird. He ought to be killed, but I can’t do it unless he gives me about half an excuse, and
he’s darn careful not to do that. So what?”
“The man has a really excellent brain, but it is slightly warped,” Drasnik offered. “I do not
believe, however, that it is beyond repair. It may well be that a series of mental
operations might make of him a worth-while member of society.”
“I doubt it.” Seaton still scowled. “He’d never be satisfied unless he was all three rings of
the circus. Being a big shot isn’t enough-he’s got to be the Poo-Bah. He’s naturally
antisocial-he would always be making trouble and would never fit into a really civilized
world. He has got a wonderful brain; but he isn’t human . . . Say, that gives me an idea!”
His corrugated brow smoothed magically, his boiling rage was forgotten.
“Blackie, how would you like to become a pure intellect? A bodiless intelligence,
immaterial and immortal, pursuing pure knowledge and pure power throughout all cosmos
and all time, in company with seven other such entities?”
“What are you trying to do, kid me?” DuQuesne sneered. “I don’t need any sugar coating
on my pills. You are going to take me on a one-way ride-all right, go to it, but don’t lie
about it.”
“No; I mean it. Remember the one we met in the first Skylark? Well, we captured him
and six others, and it’s a very simple matter to dematerialize you so that you can join
them. I’ll bring them in, so that you can talk to them yourself.”
The Intellectuals were brought into the control room, the stasis of time was released, and
DuQuesne-via projection-had a long conversation with One.
“That’s the life!” he exulted. “Better a million times over than any possible life in the flesh-
the ideal existence! Think you can do it without killing me, Seaton?”
“Sure can-I know both the words and the music.”
DuQuesne and the caged Intellectuals poised in the air, Seaton threw a zone around
cage and man, the inner zone of course disappearing as the outer one went on.
DuQuesne’s body disappeared-but not so his intellect.
“That was the first really bad mistake you ever made, Seaton,” the same sneering,
domineering, icily cold DuQuesne informed Seaton’s projection in level thought. “It was
bad because you can’t ever remedy it-you can’t kill me now! And now I will get you-
what’s to hinder me from doing anything I please?”
“I am, bucko,” Seaton informed him cheerfully. “I told you quite a while ago that you’d be
surprised at what I could do, and that still goes as it lays. But I’m surprised at your
rancor and at the survival of your naughty little passions. What d’you make of it, Drasnik?
Is it simply a hangover, or may it be permanent in his case?”
“Not permanent, no,” Drasnik decided. “It is only that he has not yet become accustomed
to his changed state of being. Such emotions are definitely incompatible with pure
mentality and will disappear in a short time.”
“Well, I’m not going to let him think, even for a minute, that I slipped up on his case,”
Seaton declared. “Listen, you! If I hadn’t been dead sure of being able to handle you I
would have killed you instead of dematerializing you. And don’t get too cocky about my
not being able to kill you yet, either, if it comes to that. It shouldn’t be impossible to
calculate a zone in which there would be no free energy whatever, so that you would
starve to death. But don’t worry -I’m not going to do it unless I have to.”
“Just what do you think you are going to do?”
“See that miniature space ship there? I am going to compress you and your new
playmates into this spherical capsule and surround you with a stasis of time. Then I am
going to send you on a trip. As soon as you are out of the galaxy this bar here will throw
in a cosmic-energy drive-not using the power of the bar itself, you understand, but only
employing its normal radiation of energy to direct and to control the energy of space-and
you will depart for scenes unknown with an acceleration of approximately three times ten
to the twelfth centimeters per second per second. You will travel at that acceleration until
this small bar is gone. It will last something more than one hundred thousand million
years; which, as One will assure you, is but a moment.
“Then these large bars, which will still be big enough to do the work, will rotate your
capsule into the fourth dimension. This is desirable, not only to give you additional