thought-helmets, he had taken what of that captain’s knowledge he wanted. He had,
however, handled that horribly unhuman brain very gingerly. He had merely read certain
parts of it, as one reads an encyclopedia; at no time had his mind become en rapport
with that of the monster. In fact, he had said to Crane:
“I’d hate to have much of that brain in my own skullafraid I’d bite myself. I’m just going
to look . . . and when I see something I want I’ll grab it and put it into my own brain.”
DuQuesne, however, in examining a navigating engineer of that monstrous race, had
felt no such revulsion, contrariwise-although possibly not quite consciously-he had
admired certain traits of Fenachrone character so much that he had gone en rapport
with that engineer’s mind practically cell to cell; with the result that he had emerged
from that mental union as nearly a Fenachrone himself as a human being could very
well become.
Wherefore, as DuQuesne in his flying-planetoid-base approached the point of its
course nearest to the planet Llurdiax, he began to feel the thinnest possible tendril of
thought trying to make contact with one of the deepest chambers of his mind. He
stiffened; shutting it off by using automatically an ability that he had not known
consciously that he had. He relaxed; and, all interest now, tuned his mind to that feeler
of thought, began to pull it in, and stopped-and the contact released a flood of
Fenachrone knowledge completely new to him.
A Fenachrone, dying somewhere, wanted . . . wanted what? Not help, exactly. Notice?
Attention? To gave something? DuQuesne was not enough of a Fenachrone to
translate that one thought even approximately, and he was not interested enough to
waste any time on it. It had something to do with the good of the race; that was close
enough.
DuQuesne, frowning a little, sat back in his bucket seat and thought. He had supposed
that the Fenachrone were all dead . . . but it made sense that Seaton couldn’t have
killed all of a space-faring race, at that. But so what? He didn’t care how many
Fenachrone died. But a lot of their stuff was really good, and he certainly hadn’t got it all
yet, by any means; it might be smart to listen to what the dying monster had to say-
especially since he, DuQuesne, was getting pretty close to the home grounds of
Klazmon the Llurd.
Wherefore DuQuesne opened his mental shield: and, since his mind was still tuned
precisely to the questing wave and since the DQ was now practically as close to
Llurdiax as it would get on course 255U, he received a burst of thought that iarred him
to the very teeth.
It is amazing how much information can be carried by a Fenachrone-compressed burst
of thought. It was fortunate for DuQuesne that he had the purely Fenachrone abilities to
decompress it, to spread it out and analyze it, and later, to absorb it fully.
The salient points, however, were pellucidly clear. The dying monster was First Scientist
Fleet Admiral Sleemet; and he and more than four thousand other Fenachrone were
helpless captives of and were being studied to death by Llurdan scientists under the
personal direction of Llanzlan Klazmon.
Realizing instantly what that meant-Klazmon would be out here in seconds with a
probe, if nothing stronger–DuQuesne slammed on full-coverage screens at full power,
thus sealing his entire worldlet bottle-tight against any and every spy-ray, beam, probe,
band, zone of force and/or order of force that he knew anything about. Since this
included everything he had known before this trip began, plus everything he had
learned from Freemind One and from the Jelmi and from Klazmon himself, he was
grimly certain that he was just as safe as though he were in God’s hip pocket from any
possible form of three-dimensional observation or attack.
Cutting in his fourth-dimensional gizmo-how glad he was that he had studied it so long
and so intensively that he knew more about it than its inventors did!-he flipped what he
called its “eye” into the Fenachrone Reservation on distant Llurdiax. He seized
Sleemet, bed and all, in a wrapping of force and deposited the bundle gently on the
floor of the DQ’s control room, practically at his, DuQuesne’s feet. Fenachrone could
breathe Earth air for hours without appreciable damage-they had proved that often
enough and if he decided to keep any of them alive he’d make them some air they liked
better.
Second, he brought over a doctor, complete with kit and instruments and supplies; and
third, the Fenachrone equivalent of a registered nurse.
“You, doctor!” DuQuesne snapped, in Fenachronian. “I don’t know whether this
spineless weakling is too far gone to save or not. Or whether he is worth saving or not.
But since he was actually in charge of your expedition-to-preserve-the-race I will listen
to what he has to say instead of blasting him out of hand. So give him a shot of the
strongest stuff you have-or is he in greater need of food than of stimulant?”
DuQuesne did not know whether the doctor would cooperate with a human being or
not. But he did-whether from lack of spirit of his own or from desire to save his chief,
DuQuesne did not care enough to ask.
“Both,” the doctor said, “but nourishment first, by all means. Intravenous, nurse,
please,” and doctor and nurse went to work with the skill and precision of their highly
trained crafts.
And, somewhat to DuQuesne’s surprise, Sleemet began immediately to rally; and in
three-quarters of an hour he had regained full consciousness.
“You spineless worm!” Duquesne shot at the erstwhile invalid, in true Fenachrone tone
and spirit. “You gutless wonder! You pusillanimous weakling, you sniveling coward! Is it
the act of a noble of the Fenachrone to give up, to yield supinely, to surrender
ignominiously to a fate however malign while a spark of life endures?”
Sleemet was scarcely stirred by this vicious castigation. He raised dull eyes-eyes
shockingly lifeless to anyone who had ever seen the ruby-lighted, flame-shot wells of
vibrant force that normal Fenachrone eyes were-and said lifelessly, “There is a point,
the certainty of death, at which struggle becomes negative instead of positive. It merely
prolongs the agony. Having passed that point, I die.”
“There is no such point, idiot, while life lasts! Do I look like Klazmon of Llurdiax?”
“No, but death is no less certain at your hands than at his.”
“Why should it be, stupid?” and DuQuesne’s sneer was extra-high-voltage stuff, even
for Doctor Mare C. DuQuesne.
Now was the crucial moment. IF he could take all those Fenachrone over, and IF he
could control them after they got back to normal, what a crew they would make! He
stared contemptuously at the ex-admiral and went on:
“Whether or not you and your four thousand die in the near future is up to you. While I
do not have to have a crew, I can use one efficiently for a few weeks. If you choose to
work with me I will, at the end of that time, give you a duplicate of your original
spaceship and will see to it that you are allowed to resume your journey wherever you
wish.”
“Sir, the Fenachrone do not . . :’ the doctor began stiffly.
“Shut up, you poor, dumb clown!” DuQuesne snapped.
“Haven’t you learned anything? That instead of being the strongest race in space you
are one of the weakest? You have one choice merely-cooperate or die. And that is not
yours, but Sleemet’s. Sleemet?”
“But how do I know that if . . .”
“If you have any part of a brain, fool, use it! What matters it to me whether Fenachrone
live or die? I’m not asking you anything; I’m telling you under what conditions I will save
your lives. If you want to argue the matter I’ll put you three-and the bed-back where you
were and be on my way. Which do you prefer?”
Sleemet had learned something. He had been beaten down flat enough so that he
could learn something-and he realized that he had much to learn from any race who
could do what his rescuer had just done.
“We will work with you,” Sleemet said. “You will, I trust, instruct us concerning how you
liberated us three and propose to liberate the others?”
“I can’t. It was fourth-dimensional translation.” DuQuesne lied blandly. “Did you ever try
to explain the color `blue’ to a man born blind? No scientist of your race will be able to
understand either the theory or the mechanics of fourth dimensional translation for
something like eleven hundred thousand of your years.”
24 DU QUESNE AND SLEEMET
EN route to the galaxy in which DuQuesne’s aliens supposedly lived, Dorothy said, “Say
Dick. I forgot to ask you something. What did you ever find out about that thought
business of Kay-Lee’s?”
“Huh?” Seaton was surprised. “What was there to find out? How are you going to