Klazmon had been comparing with the Fenachrone and with the chlorine-breathing
amoeboid Chlorans and with DuQuesne himself-it took every iota of DuQuesne’s iron
control to make no sign of the astounding burst of interest he felt; for in one blinding
flash of revealment his entire course of action became pellucidly clear. He knew exactly
where and -what Galaxy DW-427-LU was. He knew how to get Seaton headed toward
that galaxy. He knew how to kill Seaton and all his crew and take over the Skylark of
Valeron. And, best of all, he knew how to cover his tracks!
Completely unsuspicious of any of these thoughts, Seaton went on, “Now we’re ready, I
think, for the fine details of what you found out.”
After giving a precisely detailed report that lasted for twenty minutes, DuQuesne said,
“Now as to location. I have a cylindrical chart-a plug-chart, you might call it of all the
galaxies lying close to the line between the point in space where your stasis-capsule
whiffed out and the First Galaxy. Those four reels there.” He pointed. “But I have no
idea whatever as to where that plug lies in the universe -its universal coordinates. But
since you know where you are and I know how I got here, it can be computed-in time.”
“In practically nothing fiat,” Seaton said. “As fast as you can run your tapes through
your scanner there.” Seaton put his headset back on; DuQuesne followed suit. “They
don’t even have to be in order. When the end of the last tape clears the scanner your
plug will be in our tank.”
And it was: a long, narrow cylinder of yellowish-green haze.
“Nice; very nice indeed.” DuQuesne paid tribute to performance. “I started my trip right
there.” He marked the spot with a tiny purple light. It was a weird sensation, this;
working, with that gigantic brain, in that super-gigantic tank-chart, with only a headset
and at a distance of miles!
“With my artificial gravity set to exact universal north as straight up,” DuQuesne went
on, “I moved along a course as close as possible to the axis of that cylinder to this point
here.” The purple point extended itself into a long line of purple light and stopped.
“Klazmon’s tight beam hit me at that point there, coming in from eighty-seven point four
one eight degrees starboard and three point nine two six degrees universal south.”
DuQuesne’s mind, terrifically hard held for that particular statement, revealed not the
faintest side-band or other indication of what a monstrous lie that was. The figures
themselves were very nearly right; but the fact that the beam had actually come in from
the port and the north made a tremendous difference. The purple line darted off at
almost a right angle to itself and DuQuesne went on without a break:
“You’ll note that there are two galaxies on that line; one about half way out to the rim of
the universe-” this galaxy actually was, in Klazmon’s nomenclature, Galaxy DW-427-
LU-“the other one clear out; right on the rim itself. Under those conditions no reliable
estimate of distance was possible, but if we assume that Klazmon’s power is of the
same order of magnitude as ours it would have to be the first one. However, I’m making
no attempt to defend that assumption.”
“Sure not; but it’s safe enough, I’d say, for a first approximation. So, making that
assumption, that galaxy is where the Realm of the Llurdi is-where the Llurdi and the
Jelmi are. Where the folks that built that big battlewagon on the moon came from.”
“While the data do not prove it, by any means, that would be my best-educated guess.
But my next one-that that’s where they’re going back to–isn’t based on anything
anywhere near that solid. Side-bands only. and not too many or too strong.”
“Yeah, I got some, too. But you’re having first cut at this; go ahead,” Seaton said.
“Okay. First, you have to dig up some kind of an answer to the question of why those
Jelmi came such an ungodly long distance away from home to do what was, after all, a
small job of work. We know that they didn’t do it just for fun. We know that the whole
race of Jelmi is oppressed; we know that those eight hundred rebelled. We’re fairly sure
that Earth alone is, right now, putting out more sixthorder emanation than all the rest of
the First Universe put together.
“Okay. There were some indications that Tammon worked out the theory of that fourth-
dimensional gizmo quite a while back; but they had to come this tremendous distance
to find enough high-order emanation to mask their research and development work
from His Nibs Llanzlan Klazmon the Fifteenth.
“Now. My argument gets pretty tenuous at this point, but isn’t it a fairly safe bet that,
having reduced the theory of said gizmo to practice and having built a ship big enough
to handle it like toothpicks, they’d beat it right back home as fast as they could leg it,
knock the living hell out of the Llurdi-they could, you know, like shooting fish in a well –
and issue a star-spangled Declaration of Independence? It does to me.”
“Check. While I didn’t get there by exactly the same route you did, I arrived at the same
destination. So it’s not only got to be investigated; it’s got to be Number One on the
agenda. Question; who operates? Your baby or mine?”
“You know the answer to that. I’ll have other fish to fry; quite possibly until after you
have the Jelman angle solved.”
“My thought exactly.” Seaton assumed that DuQuesne’s first, most urgent job would be
to build a worldlet of his own; DuQuesne did not correct this thought. Seaton went on,
“The other question, then, is -clo we join forces again. or work independently . . . or
maybe table the question temporarily, until you get yourself organized and we will have
made at least a stab at evaluating what this Llurdan menace actually amounts to?”
“The last . . . I think.” DuQuesne scowled in thought, then his face cleared but at no
time was there the slightest seepage of side-bands to the effect that he, DuQuesne,
would see to it that Seaton would be dead long before that. Or that he, DuQuesne, did
not give a tinker’s damn whether anything was ever done about the Llurdan menace or
not.
The two men discussed less important details for perhaps ten minutes longer; then
DuQuesne took his leave. And, out in deep space again, with his mighty Capital D
again boring a hole through the protesting ether, DuQuesne allowed himself a
contemptuous and highly satisfactory sneer.
Back in their own living room, Seaton asked his wife, “Dottie, did you smell anything the
least bit fishy about that?”
“Not a thing, Dick. I gave it everything I had, and everything about it rang as true as a
silver bell. Did you detect anything?”
“Not a thing-curse it! Even helmet to helmet-as deep as I could go without putting the
screws on and blowing everything higher than up-it was flawless. But you’ve got to
remember the guy’s case-hardened and diamond finished . . . But you’ve also got to
remember that I came to exactly the same conclusions he did-and completely
independently.”
“So every indication is that he is acting decently. He’s been known to, you know.”
“Yeah. It’s possible.” Seaton did not sound at all sold on the possibility. “But I wouldn’t
trust that big black ape as far as I could drop-kick him . . . . I’d like awfully well to know
whether he’s pitching us a curve or not . . . and if he is, what the barb-tailed devil it can
possibly be . . . so what we’ll have to do, pet, is keep our eyes peeled and look a little
bit out all the time.”
And, still scowling and still scanning and re-scanning every tiniest bit of data for flaws,
Seaton set course for Galaxy DW-427-LU, having every reason to believe it the galaxy
in which the Realm of the Llurdi lay. Also, although he did not mention this fact even to
Dorothy, that course “felt right” to some deeply buried, unknown, and impossible sense
in which he did not, could not, and would not believe.
For Seaton did not know that Galaxy DW-427-LU was in fact going to be highly
important to him in a way that he could not foresee; if he had known, would not have
believed; if he had believed, would not have understood.
For at that moment in time, not even Richard Ballinger Seaton knew what forces he had
unleashed with his “cosmic beacon.”
13 DU QUESNE AND SENNLLOY
IN the eyes of Blackie Duquesne, Seaton was forever and helplessly trapped in the
philosophy of the “good guy.” It was difficult for DuQuesne to comprehend why a mind
of as high an order of excellence as Seaton’s-fully the equal of DuQuesne’s own in