race are worth saving, do you think? How many Jelmi of all our worlds can be made to
believe that their present way of life is anything short of perfection?”
“Very few, probably,” Mergon conceded. “As of now. But—?’
He paused, looking around their surroundings. The spaceship, which had once been
one of the Llurdi’s best, might have a few surprises for them. It was a matter for debate
whether the Llurdi might not have put concealed spy devices in the rooms. On balance,
however, Mergon thought not. The Llurdi operated on grander scales than that.
He said, “Luloy, listen. We tried to fight our way to freedom by attacking the Llurdi right
where it hurts, in center of their power. We lost the battle. But we have what we were
fighting for, don’t we? Why do you think they let us go, perfectly free?”
Luloy’s eye brightened a little, but not too much. “That’s plain enough. Since they
couldn’t make us produce either new theories or children in captivity, they’re giving us
what they say is complete freedom, so that we’ll produce both. How stupid do they think
we are? How stupid can they get? If we could have wrecked their long eyes, yes, we
could have got away clean to a planet in some other galaxy, `way out of their range; but
now? If I know anything at all, it’s that they’ll hold a tracer beam-so weak as to be-
practically indetectable, of course-on us forever.”
“I think you’re right,” Mergon said, and paused. Luloy looked at him questioningly and
he went on, “I’m sure you are, but I don’t think it’s us they are aiming at. They’re
probably taking the long view-betting that, with a life-long illusion of freedom, we’ll have
children of our own free will…
Luloy nodded thoughtfully. “And we would,” she said, definitely. “All of us would. For,
after all, if we on this ship all die childless what chance is there that any other Jelmi will
try it again for thousands of years? And our children would have a chance, even if we
never have another.”.
“True. But on the other hand, how many generations will it take for things now known to
be facts to degenerate into myths? To be discredited completely, in spite of the solidest
records we can make as to the truth and the danger?”
Luloy started to gnaw her lip, but winced sharply and stopped the motion. “I see what
you mean. Inevitable. But you don’t seem very downcast about it, so you have an idea.
Tell me, quick!”
“Yes, but I’m just hatching it; I haven’t mentioned it even to Tammon yet, so I don’t
know whether it will work or not. At present a sixth-order breakthrough can’t be hidden
from even a very loose surveillance. Right?”
By now Luloy’s aches and pains were forgotten. Eyes bright, she nodded. “You’re so
right. Do you think one can be? Possibly?, How?”
“By finding a solar system somewhere whose inhabitants know so much more than we
do that the emanations of their sixth-order installations continuously or’ regularly at work
will mask those of any full-scale tests we want to make. There must be some such race,
somewhere in this universe. The Llurdi charted this universe long ago-they call it U-
Prime-and I requisitioned copies of all the tapes. Second: the Llurdi are all strictly
logical. Right?”
“That’s right,” the girl agreed. “Strictly. Insanely, almost, you might say.”
“So my idea is to do something as illogical as possible. They think we’ll head for a new
planet of our own; either in this galaxy or one not too far away. So we won’t. We’ll drive
at absolute max for the center of the universe, with the most sensitive feelers we have
full out for very strong sixth-order emanations. En route, we’ll use every iota of brain-
power aboard this heap in developing some new band of the sixth, being mighty careful
to use so little power that the ship’s emanations will mask it. Having found the hiding
place we want, we’ll tear into developing and building something, not only that the Llurdi
haven’t got, but a thing that by use of which we can bust Llanzlan Klazmon the Fifteenth
loose from his wings and tail-and through which he can’t fight back. So, being
absolutely-stupidly-logical about everything, what would His Supreme Omnipotence do
about it?”
Luloy thought in silence for a few seconds, then tried unsuccessfully to whistle through
battered, swollen lips. “Oh, boy!” she exclaimed, delightedly. “Slug him with a thing like
that-demonstrate superiority-and the battle is over. He’ll concede us everything we
want, full equality, independence, you name it, without a fight-without even an
argument!”
Grinning, Mergon caught her arm and led her out of the room. Throughout the great
hulk of the Llurd spaceship the other battered Jelmi veterans were beginning to stir. To
each of them, Mergon explained his plan and from each came the same response. “Oh,
boy!”
They began at once setting up their work plans.
The first project was to find-somewhere!-a planet generating sufficient sixth-order forces
to screen what they were going to do. In the great vastnesses of the Over universe
there were many such planets. They could have chosen that which was inhabited by
Norlaminian or Dasorian peoples. They could have chosen one of a score which were
comparatively nearby. They, in fact, ultimately chose and set course for the third planet
of a comparatively small G-type star known to its people as Tellus, or Earth.
They could have given many reasons why this particular planet had been selected.
None of these reasons would have included the receipt of the brief pulse of telepathic
communication which none of them, any longer, consciously remembered.
And back on Llurdiax the Llanzlan followed the progress of the fleeing ship of Jelm
rebels with calm perception.
His great bat wings were already mending, even as the scars of the late assault on his
headquarters were already nearly repaired by a host of servo-mechanisms. Deaf to the
noise and commotion of the repairs, heedless of the healing wounds which any human
would have devoted a month in bed to curing, the Llanzlan once again summoned his
department heads and issued his pronouncement:
“War, being purely destructive, is a product of unsanity. The Jelmi are, however,
unsane; many of them are insane. Thus, if allowed to do so, they commit warfare at
unpredictable times and for incomprehensible, indefensible, and/or whimsical reasons.
Nevertheless, since the techniques we have been employing have been proven
ineffective and therefore wrong, they will now be changed. During the tenure of this
directive no more Jelmi will be executed or castrated: in fact, a certain amount of
unsane thinking will not merely be tolerated but encouraged, even though it lead to the
unsanity termed `war’. It should not, however, be permitted to exceed that quantity of
`war’ which would result in the destruction of, let us say, three of their own planets.
“‘This course will entail a risk that we, as the `oppressors’ of the Jelmi, will be attacked
by them. The magnitude of this risk-the probability of such an attack-cannot be
calculated with the data now available. Also, these data are rendered even less
meaningful by the complete unpredictability of the actions of the group of Jelmi
released from study here.
“It is therefore directed that all necessary steps be taken particularly in fifth and sixth-
order devices, that no even theoretically possible-attack on this planet will succeed.
“This meeting will now adjourn.”
It did; and within fifteen minutes heavy construction began–construction that was to go
on at a pace and on a scale and with an intensity of drive theretofore unknown
throughout the Realm’s long history. Whole worldlets were destroyed, scavenged for
their minerals, their ores smelted in giant atomic space-borne foundries and cast and
shaped into complex machines of offense and defense. Delicate networks of radiation
surrounded every Jelm and Llurd world, ready to detect, trace, report and home on any
artifact whatsoever which might approach them. Weapons capable of blasting moons
out of orbit slipped into position in great latticework spheres of defensive
emplacements.
The Llurdi were preparing for anything.
Llurdan computations were never wrong. ‘Computers, however, even Llurdan
computers, are not really smart they can’t rally think. Unlike the human brain, they. can
not arrive at valid conclusions from insufficient data. In fact, they don’t even try to. They
stop working and say in words or by printing or typing or by flashing a light or by ringing
a bell-“DATA INSUFFICIENT”: and then continue to do nothing until they are fed
additional information.
Thus, while the Llanzlan and his mathematicians and logicians fed enough data into
their machines to obtain valid conclusions, there were many facts that no Llurd then
knew. And thus those conclusions, while valid, were woefully incomplete; they did not
cover all of actuality by far.
For, in actuality, there had already begun a chain of events that was to render those