Norlamin.
As the student will be aware, the events in this climactic struggle .between the arch-
enemies, Seaton and DuQuesne, were at this point reaching an area of maximum
tension. It is curious to reflect that the outer symptom of this internal disruptive stress
was, in the case of nearly every major component of the events to come, a
psychological state of either satisfied achievement, or contented decision, or calm
resignation. It is as though each of the major operatives were suffering from a universe-
wide sense of false tranquility. On Ray-See-Nee, the new government felt its problems
were behind it and only a period of solid, rewarding rebuilding lay ahead. (Although
Kay-Lee Barlo had taken certain prudent precautions against this hope being illusory –
as we shall see.) The Chlorans, proud and scornful in their absolute supremacy, had no
hint that Seaton or anyone else was making or even proposed to make any effective
moves against them. The Fenachrone, such few weary survivors as remained of them,
had given themselves over to-not despair, no; but a proud acceptance of the fact that
they were doomed.
There was in fact no tranquility in store for any of them! But they had not yet found that
out.
Meanwhile the Jelmi, for example were just beginning to feel the first itch of new
challenges. In their big new space rover, the Mallidaxian, Savant Tammon was as
nearly perfectly happy as it is possible for a human or humanoid to be. He had made
the greatest breakthrough of his career;
perhaps the greatest breakthrough of all history. Exploring its many ramifications and
determining its many as yet unsuspected possibilities would keep him busy for the rest
of his life. Wherefore he was working fourteen or fifteen hours every day and reveling in
every minute of it. He hummed happily to himself; occasionally he burst into song -in a
voice that was decidedly not of grand-operatic quality.
He had enlarged his private laboratory by tearing out four storerooms adjoining it; and
the whole immense room was stacked to the ceiling with new apparatus and
equipment. He was standing on a narrow catwalk, rubbing his bristly chin with the back
of his hand as he wondered where he could put another two-ton tool, when Mergon and
Luloy came swinging in; hand in hand as usual. Vastly different from Tammon, Mergon
was not at all happy about the status quo.
“Listen, Tamm!” he burst out. “I’ve been yapping at you for a week and a half for a
decision and your time is up as of right now. If you don’t pull your head out of the fourth
dimension and make it right now I’ll do it myself and to hell with you and your authority
as Captain-Commander.”
“Huh? What? Time? Decision? What decision?” It was plain that the old savant had no
idea at all of what his first assistant was so wrought up about.
“You set course for Mallidax and said we were going back to Mallidax. That’s sheer
idiocy and you know it. Of all places in the charted universe we should not go to,
Mallidax is top and prime. We’re too close for comfort already. Even though Klazmon
must have lost us back there in Sol’s system, he certainly picked us up again long ago
and he’d give both wings and all his teeth for half the stuff you have here,” and Mergon
waved both arms indicatively around the jam-packed room.
“Oh?” Tammon gazed owlishly at the pair. “There was some talk . . . but why should I
care where we go? This is the merest trifle, Mergon. Do not bother me with trivia any
more,” and Tammon cut communications with them as definitely as though he had
thrown a switch.
Mergon shrugged his shoulders and Luloy giggled. “You’re it, boy. That’s what you get
for sticking your neck out. All hail our new Captain-Commander!”
“Well, somebody had to. All our necks would have been in slings in another week. So
pass the word, will you, and I’ll skip up to the control room and change course.”
Luloy spread the word; which was received with acclaim. Practically everybody aboard
who was anybody agreed with Sennlloy when she said, “It’s high time somebody took
over and Merg’s undoubtedly the best man for the job. Tammy’s a nice old dear, but
ever since he got bitten by that fourth dimension germ he hasn’t known what month it is
or which way is up or within forty million parsecs of where he it in space.”
“You see, Merg?” Luloy crowed, when it became evident that the shift in command was
heartily approved. “I wouldn’t even dream of ever saying ‘I told you so’, but I said at the
first meeting that you should be Captain commander, and now everybody thinks so,
almost.”
“Yeah, almost,” he agreed; not at all enthusiastically. “Everybody except the half-wits.
Pass the buck. Let George do it. Nobody with a brain firing on three barrels wants the
job.”
“Why, that isn’t so, Merg. You know it isn’t!” she protested, indignantly.
“Well, I don’t want it,” he broke in, “but since Tamm wished it onto me I’ll take a crack at
it.”
The Mallidaxian, swinging wide and braking down, hard, skirted the outermost edge of
the Realm; the edge farthest away from Llurdiax. Mergon did not approach or signal to
any planet of the Jelmi. Instead, he picked out an uninhabited Tellus-type planet four
solar systems away from the Border and landed on it. And there, under cover of the
superdreadnaught’s mighty defensive screens and with Captain-Commander Mergon
tensely, on watch, the engineers and scientists disembarked, set up their high-order
projectors, and went furiously to work building an enormous and enormously powerful
dome.
The work went on uninterruptedly, day after day; for so many days that both Mergon
and Luloy became concerned -the girl very highly so. “Do you suppose we’ve figured
wrong?” she asked.
Mergon frowned. “I can’t be sure, of course, but I don’t think so. Pure logic, remember.
Everything we’ve done has been designed to keep Klazmon guessing. Off balance.
He’s fortified Llurdiax, that’s sure, but we don’t know how heavily and we can’t find out.”
He paused.
“Without using the gizmo, which of course is out,” said Luloy.
“Check. We haven’t sent any spy-rays or anything else. They wouldn’t have got us
anything. But he certainly expected us to try. He’ll think we don’t care . . . which as a
matter of fact, we don’t . . . too much. It’s almost a mathematical certainty that we can
handle anything he can throw at us as of now. But if we give him time enough to build
more really big stuff it’ll be just too bad.”
“And the horrible old monster is probably doing just exactly that,” Luloy said.
“I wouldn’t wonder. But we can finish the dome before he can build enough stuff, and
he can’t let that happen. Especially since we’re not interfering with his prying and
spying, but are treating him with the same contempt he used to treat us. That’ll bother
him no end. Burn him up! Also . . . remember that stuff in the dome that no Llurd can
possibly understand.”
Luloy laughed. “Because it isn’t anything whatever, really, except Llurd-bait? I’m scared
that maybe they will understand it yet-even though I’m sure they won’t.”
“They can’t. Their minds won’t stretch that far in that direction,” Mergon said postively.
“They knew we made a breakthrough, so they’ll know that what they see is only a
fraction of what the thing really is; and that’ll scare ’em. As much as Llurdi can be
scared, that is. Which isn’t very much. So Klazmon will do something before our dome
is finished. As I read the tea-leaves, he’ll have to.”
“But just suppose he doesn’t take the bait?”
“Then we’ll have to take the initiative. I don’t want toit’d weaken our bargaining position
tremendously-but I will if I have to.”
He did not have to. His analysis of the Llurdan mentality and temperament had been
accurate.
Four full days before the scheduled date of completion of the dome, Klazmon’s full
working projection appeared in the Mallidaxian’s control room. Mergon had detected its
coming, but had done nothing to interfere with it. The Llurd quite obviously intended
parley, not violence.
“Hail, brother Ilanzlan, Klazmon of the Llurdi,” Mergon greeted his visitor quietly, but in
the phraseology of one ruler greeting another on the basis of unquestionable equality.
“Is there perhaps some service that 1, Llanzlan Mergon of the Realm of the Jelmi, may
perform for you and thus place you in my debt?”
This, to a human dictator, would have been effrontery intolerable; but Mergon had been
pretty sure that it would have little or no effect, emotionally, upon Klazmon. Nor did it; to
all seeming it had no effect at all. The Llurd merely said, “You wish me to believe that
you Jelmi have made a breakthrough sufficiently important to justify the establishment