chlorinebreathing, amoeboid monstrosities inhabiting Galaxy DW427-LU. Those
creatures, however, as far as any Llurd had ever learned, had always confined their
activities to their own galaxy. If, Klazmon thought grimly to himself, those insanely
murderous amoeboids had decided to extend their operations into the Galaxy of the
Llurdi, they would find such extension a very expensive one indeed.
Wherefore, hunched now over a black-filtered visiplate, with slitted eyes narrow and
cat-whiskers stiffly outthrust; with both hands manipulating high-ratio vernier knobs in
infinitesimal arcs; Klazmon shoveled on the coal.
5 COMBAT!
As has been said; the Llurdi were a literal folk. Klazmon’s directive had specified “. . .
that no even theoretically possible attack on this planet will succeed.”
Hence that was precisely what had been built. No conceivable force or combination of
forces, however applied and even at pointblank range, could crack Llurdiax’s utterly
impenetrable shields.
Nor was that all; for Llurdan engineers, as well as Llurdan philosophers, were
thoroughly familiar with the concept that “The best defense is a powerful offense.”
Wherefore Llurdiax’s offensive projectors were designed to smash down any
theoretically possible threat originating anywhere within a distance that light would
require one and three-quarters millions of Tellurian years to traverse.
Under the thrustings and the stabbings, the twistings and the tearings, the wrenchings
and the bludgeonings of those frightful fields of force, seventeen sets of Fenachrone
defensive screens-outer, intermediate, and inner-went successively upward through the
visible spectrum, through the ultra-violet, and into the black of failure; baring the
individual vessel’s last lines of defense, the wall-shields themselves.
Then Klazmon increased the power, gouging and raving at those ultra-stubborn
defenses until those defenses were just barely holding; at which point he relaxed a little,
read his verniers, leaned back in his bucket seat, and took stock.
The marauding spaceships were tremendous things; cigarshaped; flying in hollow-globe
formation with one vessel the flagship, of course-at the exact center; spaced so closely
that their screens had overlapped-overlapped in such fashion that unless and until that
shell of force was broken no attack could be made upon that central ship.
So far, so good. With the overwhelming superiority of ultimate-planetary over any at-all-
probable mobile installations he, Llanzlan Klazmon the Fifteenth, had smashed that
shell completely. He could, he was sure, destroy all those vessels as completely.
But it would not do at all to destroy even one of them without examining both it and its
crew. Klazmon had to know the who and the what arid the wherefore and the how and
the why. Therefore, leaving all of his attacking beams exactly as they were, Klazmon
assembled another gigantic beam-the entire output of one Llurdiaxian fortress-and
hurled it against the tail-section of the flagship.
Wall-shield and tail-section vanished in a few nanoseconds of time; and not only the
tail-section, but also a few hundreds of yards of the flagship’s prodigious length as well,
became a furiously raging fireball; a sphere of violence incredible.
Klazmon drove his projection forward then, through the now unresisting steel wall and
into the control room; where it was met by blasts of force from the hand-weapons of the
Fenachrone officers.
This demonstration, however, lasted for only a second or two. Then those officers,
knowing what it was that was standing there so unconcernedly, abandoned their
physical assault and attacked the invading projection with the full power of the huge,
black, flame-shot wells of hypnotic force that were their eyes. When the mental attack
also failed they merely stood there; glaring a hatred that was actually tangible.
Klazmon immobilized each one of the officers individually with pencils of force and
began to study them intensively. While much shorter and thicker and wider and
immensely stronger than the Jelmi of the Realm, they were definitely Jelmoid in every
important respect . . . yes, the two races had certainly had a common ancestry, and not
too far back. Also, their thinking and conduct were precisely as was to be expected of
any Jelman or Jelmoid race that had been allowed to develop in its unsane and illogical
way for many thousands of years without the many benefits of Llurdan control!
They would of course have thought-exchange gear; any race of their evident
advancement must have . . . ah, yes; over there.
Now-which of these wights would be the admiral? That one wearing the multiplex
scanner would be the pilot; that one facing the banks of dials and gages would be the
prime engineer; those six panels had to be battle panels, so those six monsters had to
be gunnery officers . . . ah!
That one there-off by himself; seated (in spite of the fact that with their short, blocky
legs no Fenachrone had any need, ever, to sit) at a desk that was practically a throne;
facing no gadgetry and wearing consciously an aura of power and authority-that one
would be the one Klazmon wanted.
Klazmon’s projection flashed up to the motionlessly straining admiral. The helmets of
the “mechanical educator” snapped onto the Llurd’s quietly studious head and onto the
head with the contemptuously sneering face-the head of First Scientist Fleet Admiral
Sleemet of the Fenachrone.
That face, however, lost its sneer instantly, for Sleemet-even more overweeningly and
brutally and vaingloriously prideful now than were the lower echelons of his race-had
never imagined the possibility of the existence of such a mind as this monstrous invader
had.
Klazmon’s mind, the product of seventy thousand years of coldly logical evolution, tore
ruthlessly into the mind of the Fenachrone. It bored into and twisted at that straining
mind’s hard-held blocks; it battered and shattered them; it knocked them down flat.
Then Klazmon, omnivorous scholar that he was, set about transferring to his own brain
practically everything that the Fenachrone had ever learned. Klazmon learned, as
Richard Seaton had learned previously, that all Fenachrone have authority and
responsibility were meticulous record-keeper. He learned what had happened to the
civilization of the Fenachrone and to its world, and who had done it and how; he learned
that each and every captain knew exactly the same and had exactly the same records
as did First Scientist Fleet Admiral Sleemet himself; he learned that each vessel, alone
by itself, was thoroughly capable of re-creating the entire Fenachrone civilization and
culture.
A few of the many other thousands of things that Klazmon learned were: That there
were many Jelman and Jelmoid-human and humanoid, that is-races living in what they
called the First Galaxy. That all these races were alike in destructiveness, belligerence
to the point of war-lust, savagery, implacability, vengefulness, intolerance, and
frightfulness generally. Not one of them (by Klazmon’s light!) had any redeeming
features or qualities whatever. That all these races must be destroyed if any worthwhile
civilization were ever to thrive and spread.
There was no word in any language of the Realm of the Llurdi corresponding even
remotely to “genocide.” If there had been, Klazmon would have regarded it an an
etymological curiosity. All those surviving Fenachrone would have to die: no such race
as that had any right whatever to live.
Before being destroyed, however, they would have to be studied with Llurdan
thoroughness; and any and all worthwhile ideas and devices and other artifacts should
be and would be incorporated into the Llurdan-Jelman way of life.
One vessel would be enough, however, to preserve temporarily for the purpose of
study. In fact, what was left of the flagship would be enough.
The now-vanished tail-section had contained nothing new to Llurdan science, the
encyclopedic records were intact, and the flagship’s personnel-males and females,
adults and adolescents and children and babies-were alive and well.
Wherefore sixteen sets of multiplex projectors doubled their drain of power from
Llurdias’ mighty defensive girdle, and all the Fenachrone aboard sixteen
superdreadnoughts died in situ, wherever they happened to be, as those sixteen
vessels became tiny sunlets.
And the Ilanzlan issued orders:
1) The bulk of the Fenachrone flagship was to be brought in to the llanzlanate at full
sixth-order drive.
2) A test section of the llanzlanate was to be converted at once to a completely
authentic Fenachrone environment.
3) Every possible precaution was to be taken that no Fenachrone suffered any ill effects
on the way, during transfer to their new quarters, or while in their new quarters.
Dropping the Fenachrone flagship and its personnel from his mind, Klazmon immersed
himself in thought.
He had learned much. There was much more of menace than he had supposed, in
many galaxies other than Galaxy DW-427-LU . . . especially that so-called First Galaxy .
. . and particularly the Green System or Central System of that galaxy? The green-
skinned Norlaminians-how of them? And how of that system’s overlord, Seaton of
Tellus? That one was, very evidently, a Jelm . . . and, even after making all due
allowance for Sleemet’s bias, he was of a completely uncontrolled and therefore
extremely dangerous type.
And as, evidently, his was a mind of exceeding power, he could very well be a very