Jelmi to produce either ideas or young or both was to give the selectees a perfect
illusion of complete freedom, and I recommended that course of action. Since I could
not prove my statement mathematically, my recommendation was rejected. While I still
cannot prove that statement, it is still my considered opinion that it is true; and I now
repeat both statement and recommendation. I will keep on repeating them at every
opportunity as long as this Board wastes time by not accepting them. I remind you that
you have already wasted-lost-over five years.”
“Your statement becomes more probable year by year,” the Llanzlan admitted. “Kalton,
have you anything more to say?”
“Very little. Only that, since Project University has admittedly failed, we should of course
adopt-‘
Kalton was silenced in mid-sentence by a terrific explosion which was followed by a
rumbling crash as half of one wall of the Hall collapsed inward.
A volume of Jelman air rushed in, enveloping a purposeful company of Jelmi in yellow
coveralls and wearing gasmasks. Some of these invaders were shooting pistols; some
were using or throwing knives; but all were covering and protecting eight Jelmi who
were launching bombs at one great installation of sixth-order gear-the computer
complex that was the very nerve center of the entire Realm.
For the Jelmi-who, as has been said, were human to the last decimal of classification-
had been working on fifth- and sixth-order devices purely as a blind; their real effort had
been on first-order effects so old that their use had been all but forgotten.
The Jelman plan was simple: Thirty men and thirty women would destroy the central
complex of the computer system of the entire Realm. Then, if possible, the survivors of
the sixty would join their fellows in taking over an already-selected Llurdan scout cruiser
and taking off at max.
It was quite probable that many or even most of the attacking sixty would die. It was
distinctly possible that they all would. All sixty, however, were perfectly willing to trade
their lives for that particular bank of sixth-order apparatus, in order that seven hundred
forty other Jelmi could escape from Llurdiax and, before control could be re-
established, be beyond their masters’ reach.
Theoretically, the first phase of the operation should have been successful; the Realm’s
nerve center should have been blown to unrecognizable bits. The Jelmi knew exactly
what they were going to do, exactly how they were going to do it and exactly how long it
would take. They knew that they would have the advantage of complete surprise. There
would be, they were sure, half a second or so of the paralysis of shock, followed by at
least one second of utter confusion; which would give them plenty of time.
They were sure it would be as though, during a full formal session of the Supreme
Court, a gang of hoodlums should blast down a wall and come leaping into the
courtroom with Tommy-guns ablaze and with long knives flying and stabbing and
slashing. Grave, stately, and thoughtful, the justices could not possibly react fast
enough to save their lives or their records or whatever else it was that the gangsters
were after.
The Jelmi, however, had never seen any Llurd in emergency action; did not know or
suspect how nearly instantaneous the Llurdan speed of reaction was; did not realize
that a perfectly logical mind can not be surprised by any happening, however unusual
or however outrageous.
Thus:
Yelling, shooting, throwing, stabbing, slashing, the men and women of the Jelmi rushed
into battle; to be met with no paralysis and no confusion and no loss of time whatever-
by buffeting wings, flailing tails, tearing teeth, and hard, highly skilled hands and fists
and feet.
Many machine operators, as agile in the air as bats, met the bombs in midair and
hurled them out into and along the corridor through the already-breached wall, where
they exploded harmlessly. Harmlessly, that is, except for a considerable increase in the
relatively unimportant structural damage already wrought.
Two knives were buried to their hilts in the huge flying muscles of the Llanzlan’s chest.
His left wing hung useless, its bones shattered by bullets. So did his right arm.
Nevertheless, he made it at speed to his consoles-and the battle was over.
Beams of force lashed out, immobilizing the human beings where they stood. Curtains
of force closed in, pressing the Jelmi together into a tightly packed group. An
impermeable membrane of force confined all the Jelman air and whatever Llurdan
atmosphere had been mixed with it.
The Llanzlan, after glancing at his own wounds and at the corps of surgeons already
ministering to his more seriously wounded fellows, resumed his place at the conference
table.
He said, “This meeting will resume. The places of those department heads who died
will be – taken by their first assistants. All department heads are hereby directed to
listen, to note, and to act. Since Project University has failed, it is to be closed out
immediately. All Jelmi-I perceive that none of those present is dead, or even seriously
wounded-will be put aboard the ship in which they intended to leave Llurdiax. They will
be given all the supplies, apparatus, and equipment that they care to requisition and will
be allowed to take off for any destination they please.”
He glanced at the captured Jelmi, imprisoned in their force-bubble of atmosphere. To
them it reeked of methane and halogens, but they stood proudly and coldly listening to
what he said.
He dismissed them from his mind and said. “A recess will now be taken so that those of
us who are wounded may have our wounds dressed. After that we will consider in detail
means of inducing the Jelmi to resume the production of breakthroughs in science.”
3 FREE [?]
SOME hours later, far out in deep space, the ex-Llurdan scout cruiser-now named the
Mallidax, after the most populous Jelman planet of the Realm-bored savagely through
the ether. Its crew of late revolutionaries, still dazed by the fact that they were still alive,
recuperated in their various ways.
In one of the larger, more luxurious cabins Luloy of Mallidax lay prone on a three-
quarter-size-bed, sobbing convulsively, uncontrollably. Her left eye was swollen shut.
The left side of her face and most of her naked body bore livid black and blue bruises-
bruises so brutally severe that the marks of Kalton’s sense-whip punishment, incurred
earlier for insubordination, were almost invisible. A dozen bandages showed white
against the bronzed skin of her neck and shoulders and torso and arms and legs.
“Oh, snap out of it, Lu, please!” Mergon ordered, almost brusquely. He was a burly
youth with crew-cut straw-colored hair; and he, too, showed plenty of evidence of
having been to the wars. He had even more bruises and bandages than she did. “Don’t
claim that you wanted to be a martyr any more than I did. And they can engrave it on a
platinum plaque that I’m damned glad to get out of that fracas alive.”
Stopping her crying by main strength, the girl hauled herself up into a half-sitting
position and glared at the man out of her one good eye.
“You . . . you clod!” she stormed. “It isn’t that at all! And you know it as well as I do. It’s
just that we . . . they . . . he . . . not a single one of them so much as . . . why, we might
just as well have been merely that many mosquitoes-midges-worse, exactly that many
perfectly innocuous saprophytic bacilli.”
“Exactly,” he agreed, sourly, and her glare changed to a look almost of surprise. “That’s
precisely what we were. It’s humiliating, yes. It’s devastating and it’s frustrating. We
tried to hit the Llurdi where it hurt, and they ignored us. Agreed. I don’t like it a bit better
than you do; but caterwauling and being sorry for yourself isn’t going to help matters a-”
“Caterwauling! Being sorry fob myself! If that’s what you think, you can . . .”
“Stop it, Lu!” he broke in sharply, “before I have to spank your fanny to a rosy blister!”
She threw up her head in defiance; then what was almost a smile began to quirk at the
corners of her battered mouth. “You can’t, Merg,” she said, much more quietly than she
had said anything so far. “Look-it’s all red, green, blue, yellow, and black already. That
last panel I bounced off of was no pillow, friend.”
“Llenderllon’s favor, sweetheart!” Bending over, he kissed her gingerly, then drew a
deep breath of relief. “You scared me like I don’t know when I’ve been scared before,”
he admitted. “We need you too much-and I love you too much-to have you go off the
deep end now. Especially now, when for the first time in our lives we’re in position to do
something.”
“Such as what?” Luloy’s tone was more lifeless than skeptical. “How many of our whole