many respects, as DuQuesne himself was prepared to concede-should subscribe to the
philosophy of lending a helping hand, accepting the defeat of an enemy without rancor,
refraining from personal aggrandizement when the way was so easily and temptingly
clear to take over the best part of a universe.
Nevertheless, DuQuesne knew that these traits were part of Seaton’s makeup. He had
counted on them. He had not been disappointed. It would, have been child’s play for
Seaton to have tricked and destroyed him as he entered that monster spaceship
Seaton had somehow acquired. Instead of that, Seaton had made him a free gift of its
equal!
That, however, was not good enough for Blackie DuQuesne. Seeing how far Seaton
had progressed had changed things. He could not accept the status of co-belligerent.
He had to be the victor.
And the one portentous hint he had gleaned from Seaton of the existence of a true
fourth-dimensional system could be the tool that would make him the victor; wherefore
he set out at once to get it.
Since he had misdirected Seaton as to the vector of the course of the Jelmi, sending
him off on what, DuQuesne congratulated himself, was the wildest of wild-goose
chases, DuQuesne need only proceed in the right direction and somehow-anyhow;
DuQuesne was superbly confident that he would find a means-get from them the secret
of what he needed to know. His vessel had power to spare. Therefore he cut in
everything his mighty drives could take, computed a tremendous asymptotic curve into
the line that the Jelmi must have taken, and took out after the intergalactic flyer that had
left Earth’s moon such a short time before.
DuQuesne was aware that force would be an improbably successful means of getting
what he wanted. Guile was equally satisfactory. Accordingly he took off his clothes and
examined himself, front and back and sides, in a full-length mirror.
He would do, he concluded. There would be nothing about his physical person which
would cause him any trouble in his dealings with the Jelmi. Since he always took his
sun-lamp treatments in the raw, his color gradation was right. He was too dark for a
typical Caucasian Tellurian; but that was all right-he wasn’t going to be a Tellurian. He
would, he decided, be a native of some planet whose people went naked . . . the planet
Xylmny, in a galaxy ‘way out on the Rim somewhere . . . yes, he had self-control
enough not to give himself away.
But his cabin wouldn’t stand inspection on a usually naked basis, nor would any other
private room of the ship. All had closets designed unmistakably for clothing and it
wasn’t worth while to rebuild them.
Okay, he’d be a researcher who had visited dozens of planets, and everybody had to
wear some kind of clothing or trappings at some time or other. Protectively at least. And
probably for formality or for decoration.
Wherefore DuQuesne, with a helmet on his head and a half-smile, half-sneer on his
face, let his imagination run riot in filling closet after closet with the utilitarian and the
decorative garmenture of world after purely imaginative world. Then, after transferring
his own Tellurian clothing to an empty closet, he devoted a couple of hours to designing
and constructing the apparel of his equally imaginary native world Xylmny.
In due time a call came in from the spaceship up ahead. “You who are following us
from the direction of the world Tellus: do you speak English?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you following us, Tellurian?”
“I am not a Tellurian. I am from the planet Xylmny; which, while very similar to Tellus,
lies in a distant galaxy.” He told the caller, as well as he could in words, where Xylmny
was. “I am a Seeker, Sevance by name. I have visited many planets very similar to
yours and to Tellus and to my own in my Seeking. Tellus itself had nothing worthy of my
time, but I learned there that you have a certain knowledge as yet unknown to me; that
of operating through the fourth dimension of space instantaneously, without becoming
lost hopelessly therein, as is practically always the case when rotation is employed.
Therefore I of course followed you.”
“Naturally. I would have done the same. I am Savant Tammon of the planet Mallidax-
Llurdiaxorb Three which is our destination. You, then, have had one or more successes
in rotation? Our rotational tests all failed.”
“We had only one success. As a Seeker I will be glad to give you the specifications of
the structures, computers, and forces required for any possibility of success-which is
very slight at best.”
“This meeting is fortunate indeed. Have I your permission to come aboard your vessel,
as such time as we approach each other nearly enough to make the fourth dimensional
transfer feasible?”
“You certainly may, sir. I’ll be very glad indeed to greet you in the flesh. And until that
hour, Savant Tammon, so long and thanks.”
Since Mergon braked the Mallidaxian down hard to help make the approach, and since
the two vessels did not have to be close together even in astronomical terms, it was not
long until Tammon stood facing DuQuesne in the Capital D’s control room.
The aged savant inhaled deeply, flexed his knees, and said, “As I expected, our
environments are very similar. We greet new friends with a four-hand clasp. Is that form
satisfactory?”
“Perfectly; it’s very much like our own,” DuQuesne said; and four hands clasped briefly.
“Would you like to come aboard our vessel now?” Tammon asked.
“The sooner the better,” and they were both in Tammon’s laboratory, where Mergon
and Luloy looked DuQuesne over with interest.
“Seeker Sevance,” Tammon said then, “these are Savant Mergon, my first assistant,
and Savant Luloy, his . . . well, `wife’ would be, I think, the closest possible English
equivalent. You three are to become friends.”
The hand-clasp was six-fold this time, and the two Jelmi said in unison. “I’m happy that
we are to become friends.”
“May our friendship ripen and deepen,” DuQuesne improvised the formula and bowed
over the cluster of hands.
“But Seeker,” Luloy said, as the cluster fell apart, “must all Seekers do their Seeking
alone? I’d go stark raving mad if I had to be alone as long as you must have been.”
“True Seekers, yes. While it is true that any normal man misses the companionship of
his kind, especially that of the opposite sex-” DuQuesne gave Luloy a cool, contained
smile as his glance traversed her superb figure-“even such a master of concentration
as a true Seeker must be can concentrate better, more productively, when absolutely
alone.”
Tammon nodded thoughtfully. “That may well be true. Perhaps I shall try it myself. Now-
we have some little time before dinner. Is there any other matter you would like to
discuss?”
For that question DuQuesne was well prepared. A Seeker, after all, needs something to
be Sought; and as he did not want to appear exclusively interested in something which
even the unsuspicious Jelmi would be aware was a weapon of war, he had selected
another subject about which to inquire. So he said at once:
“A minor one, yes. While I am scarcely even a tyro in biology, I have pondered the
matter of many hundreds probably many millions-of apparently identical and quite
possibly inter-fertile human races spaced so immensely far apart in space that any
possibility of a common ancestry is precluded.”
“Ah!” Tammon’s eyes lit up. “One of my favorite subjects; one upon which I have done
much work. We Jelmi and the Tellurians are very far apart indeed in space, yet cross-
breeding is successful. In vitro, that is, and as far as I could carry the experiment. I can
not synthesize a living placenta. No in vitro trial was made, since we of course could not
abduct a Tellurian woman and not one of our young women cared to bear a child
fathered by any Tellurian male we saw.”
“From what I saw there I don’t blame them,” agreed DuQuesne. It was only the truth of
his feelings about Tellurians-with one important exception. “But doesn’t your success in
vitro necessitate a common ancestry?”
“In a sense, yes; but not in the ordinary sense. It goes back to the unthinkably remote
origin of all life. You can, I suppose, synthesize any non-living substance you please?
Perfectly, down to what is apparently its ultimately fine structure?”
“I see what you mean.” DuQuesne, who had never thought really deeply about that fact,
was hit hard. “Steak, for instance. Perfect in every respect except in that it never has
been alive. No. We can synthesize DNA-RNA complexes, the building blocks of life, but
they are not alive and we can not bring them to life. And, conversely, we cannot
dematerialize living flesh.”
“Precisely. Life may be an extra-dimensional attribute. Its basis may lie in some order
deeper than any now known. Whatever the truth may be, it seems to be known at