and held in place by a platinum-filigree net, was delving deeper and ever deeper into
the mystery of life.
Any research man worth his salt must not be the type to give up: he must be able to
keep on butting his head against a stone wall indefinitely without hoisting the white flag.
Thus, Tammon developed theory after theory after theory for, and Mergon and Luloy
built model after model after model of, mechanisms to transport material objects from
one place to another in normal space by moving them through the fourth dimension-and
model after model after model failed to work.
They failed unfailingly. Unanimously. Wherefore Mergon had run somewhat low on
enthusiasm when he and Luloy carried the forty-ninth model of the series into
Tammon’s laboratory to be put to the test. While the old savant hooked the device up
into a breadboard layout of gadgetry some fifteen feet long, Mergon somewhat boredly
picked up an empty steel box, dropped six large ball-bearings into it, closed and hasped
its cover, grasped it firmly in his left hand, and placed an empty steel bowl on the
bench.
“Now,” Tammon said, and flipped a switch-and six heavy steel balls clanged into the
bowl out of nowhere.
“Huh?” Mergon’s left hand had jumped upward of its own accord; and, fumbling in his
haste, he opened the box in that hand and stared, jaw actually agape, at its empty
interior.
“Llenderllon’s eyeballs!” Luloy shrieked. “This one works!”
“It does indeed,” a technician agreed, and turned anxiously to Tammon. “But sir,
doesn’t that fact put us into a highly dangerous position? Even though Klazmon can’t
operate a full working projection at this distance, he undoubtedly has had all his
analytical detectors out all this time and this successful demonstration must have
tripped at least some of them.”
“Not a chance,” Mergon said. “He’ll never find these bands-it’d be exactly like trying to
analyze a pattern of fifth- or sixth-order force with a visible-light spectroscope.”
“It probably would be, at that,” the technician agreed, and Luloy said, “But what I’ve
been wondering about all along is, what good is it? What’s it for? Except robbing a bank
or something, maybe.”
“It reduces theory to practice,” Tammon told her. “It gives us priceless data, by the
application of which to already-known concepts we will be able to build mechanisms
and devices to perform operations hitherto deemed impossible. Operations unthought-
of, in fact.”
“Maybe we should be pretty careful about it, though, at that,” Mergon said. “To do very
much real development work, we’ll have to be using a lot of fairly unusual sixth order
stuff that he can detect and analyze. That will make him wonder what we’re up to and
he won’t stop at wondering. He’ll take steps.”
“Big steps,” Luloy agreed.
Tammon nodded. “That is true . . . and we must land somewhere to do any worthwhile
development work, since this ship is not large enough to house the projectors we will
have to have. Also, we are short of certain necessities for such work, notably
neutronium and faidons . . . and the projectors of these ultra-bands will have to be of
tremendous power, range, and scope . . . you are right. We must find a solar system
emanating sixth-order energies. Enough of them, if possible, to mask completely our
own unavoidable emanations. We now have enough new data so that we can increase
tremendously the range, delicacy, and accuracy of our own detectors. See to it,
Mergon, and find a good landing place.”
“Yes, sir!” and Mergon went, with enthusiasm again soaring high, to work.
Rebuilding and re-powering their detector systems did not take very long; but finding
the kind of landing place they needed proved to be something entirely else.
They had more or less assumed that many galaxies would show as much sixth-order
activity as did their own, but that assumption was wrong. In three weeks they found only
three galaxies showing any at all; and not one of the three was emanating as much
sixth-order stuff as their own small vessel was putting out.
After another week or so, however, the savant on watch asked Mergon to come to his
station. “There’s something tremendous up ahead and off to starboard, Merg. That spot
there.” He pointed. “It’s been there for almost half an hour and it hasn’t increased by a
thousandth of what I expected it to. I would have said that at that distance nothing could
possibly register that high.”
“Did you check your circuits?” Mergon asked.
“Of course; everything’s on the green.”
“Main Control!” Mergon snapped into a microphone. “Mergon speaking. Flip one eighty
immediately. Decel max.”
“Flip one eighty,” the speaker said, and the vessel turned rapidly end for end. “. . . ON
the mark and decelerating at max.”
Mergon whirled around and sprinted for Tammon’s laboratory. He yanked the door and
reported, concluding, “It’s apparently emanating thousands of times as much as our
whole galaxy does, so we’d better sneak up on it with care.”
“Can we stop in time or will we have to overshoot and come back to it from the other
side? That may affect course, you know.”
Mergon hadn’t thought of that point, but he soon found out. They couldn’t stop quite in
time, but the overshoot would be a matter of less than a day.
“See to it, Mergon,” Tammon said, and resumed his interrupted studies.
The approach was made. Surprise turned to consternation when it was learned that
practically all of that emanation was coming from one planet instead of a thousand; but
since that condition was even better than any that had been hoped for, they shielded
everything that could be shielded and sneaked up on that extraordinary world-the third
planet of a Type G sun. It had an unusually large satellite . . . and ideal location for their
proposed operation . . . there were two small clusters of dome-shaped structures . . .
abandoned . . . quite recently . . . with advanced technology all such things and
procedures would of course be abandoned . . . and there were bits and pieces of what
looked like wreckage.
Seaton-who had not yet seen at close up any part of the moon!-would have recognized
at a glance the American and the Russian Lunar outposts, and also what was left of
Ranger Seven and of several other American and Russian moon-rockets.
As a matter of fact, the Jelmi could deduce, within fairly narrow limits, what had
happened on Earth’s moon.
But all they cared about was that, since the moon was not inhabited at that time, they
would probably not attract undue attention if they landed on it and, thoroughly and
properly screened, went to work. And Klazmon could not possibly detect them there.
Luna’s mountains are high and steep. Therefore, after the Mallidax had come easily to
ground at the foot of one such mountain, it took only a day for the Mallidan’s mighty
construction-projectors to hollow out and finish off a subLunar base in that mountain’s
depths.
And next day, early, work was begun upon the tremendous new superdreadnought of
the void that was going to be named the Mallidaxian.
10 JELMI ON THE MOON
Miss Madlyn Mannis—nee Gretchen Schneider-stood in the shade of a huge beach
umbrella (perish forbid that any single square inch of that petal-smooth, creamily
flawless epidermis should be exposed to Florida’s fervent sun!) on Clearwater Beach.
She was digging first one set of rednailed toes and then the other, into the soft white
sand, and was gazing pensively out over the wavelets of the Gulf.
She was a tall girl, and beautifully built, with artistically waved artistically red hair; and
every motion she made was made with the lithe grace of the highly trained professional
dancer that she in fact was. She was one of the best exotic dancers in the business. As
a matter of box-office fact, she was actually almost as good as she thought she was.
She was wearing the skimpiest neo-bikini ever seen on Clearwater Beach and was
paying no attention whatever, either to the outraged glares of all the other women in
sight or to the distinctly unoutraged glances of the well built, deeply tanned, and highly
appreciative young man who was standing some twenty feet away.
She was wondering, however, and quite intensely, about the guy. He’d been following
her around for a couple of weeks. Or had he? She’d seen him somewhere every day
but he couldn’t possibly have followed her here. Not only she hadn’t known she was
coming here until just before she started, but she had come by speedboat and had
found him on the beach when she arrived!
And the man was wondering, too. He knew that he hadn’t been following her. Without
hiring an eye, he wouldn’t know how to. And the idea that Madlyn Mannis would be
following him around was ridiculous-it really stunk. But how many times in a row could