‘Having made satisfactory contact, I introduce you to Galactic Admiral Garlock. Take over, sir, please.’
Entlore winced, for the probe Garlock used then compared to Lola’s very much as a diamond drill compares to a piece of soft brass pipe.
‘It would mean everything to us,’ Garlock assured him. ‘Our mission is a perfectly friendly one. We will have a friendly visit or none. If you do not care for our friendship, another nation
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will.’
That wouldn’t do, either, of course.’ Entiore paused in thought. ‘It boils down to this: I must either welcome you or destroy you.’
‘You may try.’ Garlock grinned in frankly self-satisfied amusement. ‘However, the best you can do is lithium-hydride fusion missiles in the hundreds-of-megatons range. Firecrackers. Every once in a while a planet has to try a few such things on us before it will believe that we are powerful as well as friendly. Would you like to test our defenses? If so, I will neither take offense nor retaliate.’
Supreme Grand Marshal Entiore was floored. ‘Why … er … not at all. I read in your mind …’ He broke off, to quell an invasion into his own private office. ‘God damn it, keep stillV all four ‘heard’ him yell. ‘I know they ran a search pattern. I know that, too. I know everything about it, I tell you! I’m in full rapport with their Supreme Grand Admiral. There’s only the one ship, they’re friendly, and I’m inviting them to land here on Margon Base. Give that to the Press. Say also that entrance restrictions to Margon Base will not be relaxed at present. Grand Marshal Holson and ComOff Flurnoy, stay here and tune in. The rest of you get out and stay out!’
‘Resume command, please, Miss Montandon,’ Garlock directed, and withdrew his probe from Entlore’s mind.
‘I thank you, Supreme Grand Marshal Entiore, for your welcome,’ Lola sent. Tm sorry that our visits cause so much disturbance, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Our Gunther blocks are down. Would you and your two assistants like to teleport out here to us, and con us down yourselves?’ Lola knew instantly that they could not, and covered deftly for them. ‘But of course you can’t, without knowing a focus spot here in the Main. Shall I teleport you aboard?’
ComOff Flurnoy’s face – she was an attractive, nicely-built redhead wearing throat-mike, earphone, and recorder – turned so pale that a faint line of freckles stood out across the bridge of her nose. She very evidently wanted to scream a protest, but would not Both men, strangely enough, were eager to go. Instantly all three were standing in line on the deep-piled rug of the Main, facing the four Tellurians. Seven bodies came rigidly to attention, seven right hands snapped into two varie-
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ties of formal salute. Standing thus, each party studied the other for a couple of seconds.
There was no doubt at all as to which two of the visitors the two Nargodian men were studying; but neither of them could quite make up his mind as to which of the black-and-white-clad women to study first or most. The redhead’s glance, too, flickered between Belle and Garlock – incredulous envy and equally incredulous admiration.
‘At rest, please, fellow-officers,’ Garlock said.
Lola performed the necessary introductions, adding, ‘We do not, however, use titles aboardship. Mister and Miss are customary and sufficient.’
Behind each row of officers a long davenport appeared; between them a table loaded with food, drinks, cigars, and cigarettes.
‘Help yourselves,’ Garlock invited. ‘We serve neither intoxicants nor drugs, but you should find something there to your taste.’
‘Indeed we shall, and thank you,’ Entiore said. ‘Is there any objection, Mr. Garlock, to Miss Flurnoy transmitting information of this meeting and of this ship to our base?’
‘None whatever. Send as you please, Miss Flurnoy, or as Mr. Entiore directs.’
Tm glad I didn’t quite scare myself out of coming up here,’ the communications officer said. ‘This is the biggest and nicest thrill I ever had. Such a thrill that I don’t know just where to begin.’ She cocked an eyebrow at her commanding officer.
‘As usual. Whatever you think should be sent’ Entiore sent her a steadying thought Then, as the girl settled back with a sandwich in one hand and a tall glass of Chericol hi the other, he went on, to Garlock, ‘She is a very fine and very strong telepath – by our standards, at least.’
‘By galactic standards also.’ Garlock had of course been checking. ‘Accurate, sharp, wide-range, clear-thinking, and fast. Not one of us four could do it any better.’
‘I thank you, Mr. Garlock,’ the girl said, with a blush of pleasure – and with scarcely a perceptible pause in her work.
A tour of the ship followed; and as it progressed, the two Nargodian commanders became more and more confused and dismayed.
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‘But no crew at allT Holson demanded incredulously. ‘How can a thing like this possibly work?’
‘It’s fully Gunthered,’ Lola explained. ‘It works itself. That is, almost all the time. Whenever we land on any planet for the first time, one of us has to control it. Or for any other special job not in its memory banks. When you’re ready for us to land I’ll show you how we do it.’
‘Miss Flurnoy, have they cleared the air over Pylon Six?’
‘Yes, sir. Clearance came through five minutes ago. They are holding it clear for us.’
‘Thank you. Miss Montandon, you may land at your convenience.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Lola took the pilot’s seat. This is the scanner. I pull it over my face and head, so. Since I am always in tune with the field…’
‘What does that mean?’ Entlore asked, dark foreboding in his mind.
‘I was afraid of that. You can’t feel an Operator Field. I’m sorry, sir, but that means that you can’t handle these forces and never will be able to. Certain Gunther areas of your brain are inoperative. On our scale you are a Gunther First…’
‘On ours, I’m an Esper Ten, the highest rating in the world -except for a few theoretical crackpots who… Excuse me, please, I shouldn’t have said that, in view of what I see happening here.”
‘No offense taken, sir. Those who developed the Gunther Drive were crackpots until they got the first starship out into space. But with this scanner on, I think of where I want to look and I can see it. I then think the ship a few miles sidewise – so – and we are now directly over your Pylon Six. I’m starting down, but I won’t go into free fall.’
Apparent weight grew less and less until:
‘This is about enough for you, Miss Flurnoy?’
‘Just,’ the ComOff agreed, with a gulp. ‘One pound less and I’m afraid I’ll upchuck that lovely lunch I just ate.’
‘We’re going fast enough now. Everyone sitting down? Brace yourselves, please; you’ll be about fifty percent overweight for a while.’
As bodies settled deeper into cushions Entlore sent Garlock a thought ‘We three weigh about five hundred pounds. You
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lifted us – instanteously or nearly so, but I’ll pass the question of acceleration for the moment – eleven hundred miles straight up. How did you repeal the Law of Conservation?’
‘We didn’t. We have fusion engines of twenty million horsepower. Our Operator Field, which has a radius of fifteen thousand miles and is charged to an electrogravitic potential of one hundred thousand gunts, stores energy. Its action is not exactly like that of an electrical condenser or of a storage battery, but is more or less analogous to both. Thus, the energy required to lift you three came from the field, but the amount was so small that it did not lower the potential of the field by any measurable amount. Setting this ship down – call it sixty thousand tons for a thousand miles at one gravity – will increase the field’s potential by approximately one-tenth of one gunt. Have you studied paraphysics?”
‘No.’
Garlock smiled – with a touch of condescension. Then I can’t make even a stab at explaining instantaneous translation to you. I’ll just say that there is no acceleration involved, no time lapse. There is no violation of the Law of Conservation, since departure and arrival points are equi-Guntherial. But what I am really interested in is that small group of high espers you mentioned.’
‘Yes, I inferred that from Miss Montandon’s comments.’ Entlore fell silent and Garlock watched his somber thoughts picture Margon Base and his nation’s capital being attacked and destroyed by a fleet of invincible and invulnerable starships like this Pleiades.
‘You are wrong, sir,’ Garlock put in quietly. ‘The Galactic Service has not had, does not and will not have, anything to do with intra-planetary affairs. We have no connection with, and no responsibility to, any world or any group of worlds. We are an arm of the United Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy. Our function is to control space. To forbid, to prevent, to rectify any interplanetary or interstellar aggression. Above all, to prevent, by means of procedures up to and including total destruction of planets if necessary, any attempt whatever to form any multi-world empires.’