“Why, certainly, Mr. Seaton. I mean-Doctor Seaton. I’ll call Moe-that’s my agent-and
cancel Vegas, and-”
“Thanks,” grinned Seaton. “You won’t lose anything by it.”
“I’m sure I won’t, judging by . . . but oh, yes, how about those diamonds-if they are?”
“Oh, they are,” the Norlaminian assured her, “and they’re of course yours. Would you
like to have me sell them for you?”
She glanced questioningly at van der Gleiss, who nodded and gave the jewels to the
Observer. Then, “We’d like that very much, sir,” Madlyn said, “and thanks a lot.”
“Okay,” Seaton said then. “Now, how about you, Charley. What kind of a jolt did you get
at one minute of twelve that Friday night?”
“Well, it was the first time I caught Madlyn’s act, and I admit it’s a sockeroo. She has
the wallop of a piledriver, no question of that. But if you mean spirit-message flapdoodle
or psychic poppycock, nothing. I’m not psychic myself-not a trace-and nobody can sell
me that anybody else is, either. That stuff is purely the bunk-it’s strictly for the birds.”
“It isn’t either, Mister Charles K. van der Gleiss!” Madlyn exclaimed. “And you are too
psychic-very strongly so! How else would we be stumbling over each other everywhere
we go? And how else would I possibly get drunk with you?” She spread her hands out
in appeal to the Observer. “Isn’t he psychic?”
“My opinion is that he is unusually sensitive to certain forces, yes,” the Norlaminian
said. “Think carefully, youth. Wasn’t there something more than the mental or esthetic
appreciation of, and the physical-sexual thrill at, the work of a superb exotic dancer?”
“Of course there was!” the man snapped. “But . . but . . . oh, I
don’t know. Now that Madlyn mentions it, there was a sort of a feeling of a message.
But I haven’t got even the foggiest idea of what the goddam thing was!”
“And that,” Seaton said, “is about the best definition of it I’ve ever heard. We haven’t
either.”
12 DU QUESNE AND THE JELMI
DUQUESNE, who had not seen enough of the Skylark of Valeron to realize that it was
an intergalactic spacecraft, had supposed that Seaton and his party were still aboard
Skylark Three, which was of the same size and power as DuQuesne’s own ship, the
Capital D. Therefore, when it became clear just what it was with which the Capital D
was making rendezvous, to say that DuQuesne was surprised is putting it very mildly
indeed.
He had supposed that his vessel was one of the three most powerful
superdreadnoughts of space ever built-but this! This thing was not a spaceship at all! In
every important respect it was a world. It was big enough 4o mount and to power
offensive and defensive armament of full planetary capability . . . and if he knew Seaton
and Crane half as well as he thought he did, that monstrosity could volatilize a world as
easily as it could light a firecracker.
He was second. Again. And such an insignificantly poor second as to he completely out
of the competition.
Something would have to be done about this intolerable situation . . . and finding out
what could be done about it would take precedence over everything else until he did
find out.
He scowled in thought. That worldlet of a spaceship changed everything-radically. He’d
been going to let eager-beaver Seaton grab the ball and run with it while he,
DuQuesne, went on about his own business. But now could he take the risk? Ten to
one-or a hundred to one? =he couldn’t touch that planetoid’s safety screens with
anything he had. But it was worth his while to try . . .
Energizing the lightest possible fifth- and sixth-order webs, he reached out with his
utmost delicacy of touch to feel out the huge globe’s equipment; to find out exactly what
it had.
He found out exactly nothing; and in zero time. At the first, almost imperceptible touch
of DuQuesne’s web the mighty planetoid’s every defense flared instantaneously into
being.
DuQuesne cut his webbing, the defenses vanished, and Seaton said, “No peeking,
DuQuesne. Come inside and you can look around all you please, but from outside it
can’t be done.”
“I see it can’t. How do I get inside?”
“One of your shuttles or small boats. Go neutral as soon as you clear your outer skin
and I’ll bring you in.”
“I’ll do that,”-and as DuQuesne in one of his vessel’s lifeboats traversed the long series
of locks through the worldlet’s tremendously thick shell he kept on wrestling with his
problem.
No, the idea of letting Seaton be the Big Solo Hero was out like the well-known light.
Seaton and his whole party would have to die. And the sooner the better.
He’d known it all along, really; his thinking had slipped, back there, for sure. With that
fireball of a ship-flying base, rather-by the time Seaton got the job done he would be so
big that nothing could ever cut him down to size. For that matter, was there anything
that could be done about Seaton and his planetoid, even at the size they already were?
There was no- vulnerability apparent . . . on the outside, at least. But there had to be
something; some chink or opening; all he had to do was think of it-like the time he and
“Baby Doll” Loring had taken over a fully-manned superdreadnought of the
Fenachrone.
The smart thing to do, the best thing for Marc C. DuQuesne, would be to join Seaton
and work hand in glove with him-for a while. Until he had a bigger, more powerful
worldlet than Seaton did and knew more than all the Skylarkers put together. Then blow
the Skylark of Valeron and everyone and everything in it into impalpable dust and go on
about his own business; letting Civilization worry about itself.
To get away with that, he might have to give his word to act as one of the party, as
before.
He never had broken his word . . . so he wouldn’t give it, this time, unless he had to . . .
but if he had to? If it came to a choice-breaking his word or being Emperor Marc the
First of a galaxy, founder of a dynasty the like of which no civilization had ever seen
before?
Whatever happened, come hell or high water, Seaton and his crew must and would die.
He, DuQuesne, must and would come out on top!
As soon as DuQuesne’s lifeboat was inside the enormous hollow globe that was the
Skylark of Valeron, Seaton brought it to a gentle landing in a dock behind his own home
and walked out to the dock with a thought-helmet on his head and its mate in his hand.
DuQuesne opened his lifeboat’s locks and Seaton joined him in the tiny craft’s main
compartment.
Face to face, neither man spoke in greeting or offered to shake hands; both knew that
there was nothing of friendship between them or ever would be. Nor did DuQuesne
wonder why Seaton was meeting him thus: outside and alone. He knew exactly what
the women, especially Margaret, thought of him; but such trifles had no effect whatever
upon the essence of Marc C. DuQuesne.
Seaton handed DuQuesne the spare headset. DuQuesne put it on and Seaton said in
thought, “This, you’ll notice, is no ordinary mechanical educator; not by seven thousand
rows of Christmas trees. I suppose you know you’re in the Skylark of Valeron. Study it,
and take your time. I’ll give you her prints before you go-if we’re going to have to be
allies again you ought to have something better than your Capital D to work with.”
Seaton thought that this surprise might make DuQuesne’s guard slip for an instant, but
it didn’t. DuQuesne studied the worldlet intensively for over an hour, then took off his
headset and said:
“Nice job, Seaton. Beautiful; especially that tank-chart of the First Universe and that
super-computer brain-some parts of which, I see, this headset enables me to operate.
The rest of it, I suppose, is keyed to and in sync with your own mind? No others need
apply?”
“That’s right. So, with the prints, you’ll have everything you need, I think. But before you
go into detail, I may know a thing that you don’t and that many have a lot of bearing,
one place or another. Have you ever heard of any way of getting into or through the
fourth dimension except by rotation?”
“No. Not even in theory. How sure are you that there is or can be any other way of
doing it?”
“Positive. One that not even the Norlaminians know anything about,” and Seaton gave
DuQuesne the full picture and the full story and all the side-bands of thought of
everything that had happened to Madlyn Mannis and Charles van der Gleiss.
At the sight of Mergon and Luloy-two of the three Jelmi whom the monstrous alien