On Earth, leaving Stephanie de Marigny’s apartment, DuQuesne went back to the
Capital D and took off on course one hundred seventy-five Universal-that is, five
degrees east of Universal South. He went that way because in that direction lay the
most completely unexplored sector of the First Universe and he did not want company.
Earth and the First Galaxy lay on the edge of the First Quadrant. Llurdiax and its Realm
lay in the Second. So did the Empire of the Chlorans and his own imaginary planet
Xylmny. The second galaxy along that false line, which might also attract Seaton, lay in
the Third. He didn’t want any part of Richard Ballinger and this course was
mathematically the best one to take to get out of and keep out of Seaton’s way.
Therefore he would follow it clear out to the Fourth Quadrant rim of the First Universe.
As the Capital D bored a hole through the protesting ether DuQuesne took time out
from his thinkings to consider women. First, he considered Stephanie de Marigny; with
a new and not at all unpleasant thrill as he did so. He considered Sennlloy and Luloy
and some unattached women of the Jelmi. They all left him completely cold; and he
was intellectually honest enough to know why and to state that “why” to himself. The
Jelmi were so much older than the humanity of Earth that they were out of his class. He
could stand equality-definitely; in fact, that was what he wanted-but he could not live
with and would not try to live with any woman so demonstrably his superior.
But Hunkie-ah, there was a man’s woman! His equal; his perfect equal in every respect;
with a brain to match one of the finest bodies ever built. She didn’t play hard to get, she
was hard to get; but once got she’d stay got. She’d stand at a man’s back ’till his belly
caved in.
Slowed to a crawl, as Universal speed goes, the Capital D entered the outermost galaxy
of the Rim of the Universe and DuQuesne energized his highest-powered projector. He
studied the Tellus-type planets of hundreds of solar systems. Many of these planets
were inhabited, but he did not reveal himself to the humanity of any of them.
He landed on an uninhabited planet and went methodically to work. He bulldozed out
an Area of Work. He set up his batteries of machine tools; coupling an automatic
operator of pure force to each tool as it was set up. Then he started work on the Brain;
which took longer than all the rest of the construction put together. It was an exact
duplicate of that of the Skylark of Valeron; one cubic mile of tightly packed ultra-
miniaturized components; the most tremendous and most tremendously capable super-
computer known to man.
While the structure of the two brains was identical, their fillings were not. As has been
said, there were certain volumes-blocks of cells-in the Valeron’s brain that DuQuesne
had not been able to understand. These blocks he left inoperative-for the time being.
Conversely, DuQuesne either had or wanted powers and qualities and abilities that
Seaton neither had nor wanted; hence certain blocks that were as yet inoperative in
Seaton’s vast fabrication were fully operative in DuQuesne’s.
It is a well-known fact that white-collar men, who sit at desks and whose fellowship with
machines is limited to week-end drives in automobiles, scoff heartily at the idea that any
two machines of the same make and model do or can act differently from each other
except by reason of wear. With increasing knowledge of an acquaintance with
machines, however-especially with mechanisms of the more complex and sophisticated
sorts-this attitude changes markedly. The men and women who operate such machines
swear unanimously that those machines do unquestionably have personalities; each its
unique and peculiar own.
Thus, while the fact can not be explained in logical or “common” sense terms, those
two giants brains were as different in personality as were the two men who built them.
Nor was DuQuesne’s worldlet, which he named the DQ, very much like the Skylark of
Valeron except in shape. It was bigger. Its skin was much thicker and much denser and
much more heavily armed. The individual mechanisms were no larger-the Valeron’s
were the biggest and most powerful that DuQuesne knew how to build-but there were
so many of them that he was pretty sure of being safe from anyone. Even from whoever
it was that had mauled the Valeron so unmercifully-whom he, DuQuesne, did not intend
to approach. Ever.
It was, in fact, his prayerful hope that both mauler and maulee-Seaton himself-would
ultimately emerge from that scufe whittled down to a size where he would not have to
consider them again.
He did not in fact, consider them; nor did he consider the captive Fenachrone in the
pens of Llurdiax; nor the Jelmi; nor-and this, perhaps, was his greatest mistake did he
consider, because he did not know about, a mother and daughter of whose existence
neither he nor any other Tellus-type human being had yet heard.
He simply built himself the most power space vessel he could imagine, armed it,
launched it . . . and set out to recapture the Universe Seaton had once taken away from
him.
The revolution on the planet Ray-See-Nee was over and Richard Seaton, disguised
under the identity of Ky-El Mokak, was ready to take the one tactical move for which all
the effort and struggle on the planet had been only the preliminaries. But first he
needed to know what had happened to his shipmates and friends; he had been busy
enough fighting his own fights and taking his own prisoners to have temporarily lost
sight of them.
Wherefore, in Ray-See-Nee’s palatial Capitol Building, in the Room of State-which,
except` for the absence of an actual throne, was in effect a throne-room-Seaton turned
his prisoner over to a guard and rounded up his own crew, so that they could look each
other over and compare notes.
Sitar, limping badly but with fur coat still glossily immaculate, proudly displayed a left leg
bandaged from the knee all the way up. “A slash from here, clear down to there.” The
Osnomian princess ran a fore-finger along a line six or seven inches long. “And a bullet
right through there. That was the gaudiest fight I was ever in in my whole life!”
Dunark, whose right arm was in a sling, spoke up. “She got that slash saving my life. I’d
just taken this one through the shoulder-” he pointed-“and was paralyzed for a second.
So she kicked her leg up in the way-while she was flipping a gun around to blow this
guy apart, you know so his knife went into her leg instead of my neck.”
“Yes, but go on and tell them about how many times you-” Sitar began.
“Sh-h-h-h,” Dunark said, and she subsided. “Maybe some day we’ll write a book. How
about you, Mart? I notice you’ve been standing up all the time.”
“I’ll be standing up or lying on my face for a while, I guess.”
But that wouldn’t account for the cane,” Seaton objected. “Come clean, guy.”
“One through the hip-thigh, rather, low down-no bones broken.”
Shiro, who had a broken arm, would not talk at first, but they finally got the story out of
him. His last opponent had been just too big and too strong and too well trained to be
easy meat, but Shiro had finally got him with a leg-lock around the neck. “But how
about you, Dick?” Shiro asked. “Whoever wrapped you up must get hospital supplies at
wholesale.”
Seaton grinned. “She had only one patient.” He told his own story, then went on, “Since
we can all walk, let’s go over and see what they’re finding out.”
Ree-Toe Prenk had said that he wanted all thirty-one of the department heads taken
alive if possible; but he had known that it would not be possible. He was surprised and
highly pleased, in fact, that only six of the High Exalteds had been killed or had taken
their own lives.
There is no need to go into the details of that questioning. Seaton took no part in any of
it; nor did any of his group. He did not offer to help and Prenk did not ask him.
Nor is it necessary to describe the operation outside the palace. The rebels had learned
much from their previous failure, and they now had all the arms, ammunition and
supplies they needed. Thus, before sunset that day every known quisling had been shot
and every suspect was under surveillance. Premier Ree-Toe Prenk sat firmly in the
Capitol City’s saddle; and whoever controlled that city always controlled the world.
Hours before control was assured, however, Prenk called Seaton. “About the daily
report to Chloran headquarters that is due in half an hour,” the new Premier said. “I am
wondering if you have any ideas. Our ordinary reports are not dangerous to make,