“I think she’d agree with you there,” Trigger said.
Lyad’s first assignment after Professor Mantelish came out of the dope was to snap him back into trance and explain to him how he had once more been put under hypno control and used for her felonious ends by the First Lady of Tranest. They let him work off his rage while he was still under partial control. Then the Ermetyne woke him up.
He stared at her coldly.
“You are a deceitful woman, Lyad Ermetyne!” he declared. “I don’t wish to see you about any of my labs again! At any time. Under any pretext. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Professor,” Lyad said. “And I’m sorry that I believed it necessary to—”
Mantelish snorted. “Sorry! Necessary! Just to be certain it doesn’t happen again, I shall make up a batch of anti-hypno pills. If I can remember the prescription.”
“I happen,” the Ermetyne ventured, “to know a very good prescription for the purpose, Professor. If you will permit me.”
Mantelish stood up. “I’ll accept no prescriptions from you!” he said icily. He looked at Trigger as he turned to walk out of the cabin. “Or drinks from you either, Trigger Argee!” he growled. “Who in the great spiraling galaxy is there left to trust!”
“Sorry, Professor,” Trigger said meekly.
* * *
In half an hour or so, he calmed down enough to join the others in the lounge, to get the final story on Gess Fayle and the missing king plasmoid from the Ermetyne.
Doctor Gess Fayle, Lyad reported, had died very shortly after stealing the 112-113 unit and leaving the Manon System. And with him had died every man on board the U-League’s transport ship. It might be simplest, she went on, to relate the first series of events from the plasmoid’s point of view.
“Point of view?” Professor Mantelish interrupted. “The plasmoid has awareness then?”
“Oh, yes. That one does.”
“Self-awareness?”
“Definitely.”
“Oho! But then—”
“Professor,” Trigger interrupted politely in turn, “may I get you a drink?”
He glared at her, growled, then grinned. “I’ll shut up,” he said. Lyad went on.
* * *
Doctor Fayle had resumed experimentation with the 112-113 unit almost as soon as he was alone with it; and one of the first things he did was to detach the small 113 section from the main one. The point Doctor Fayle hadn’t adequately considered when he took this step was that 113’s function appeared to be that of a restraining, limiting or counteracting device on its vastly larger partner. The Old Galactics obviously had been aware of dangerous potentialities in their more advanced creations, and had used this means of regulating them. That the method was reliable was indicated by the fact that, in the thirty thousand years since the Old Galactics had vanished, plasmoid 112 had remained restricted to the operations required for the maintenance of Harvest Moon.
But it hadn’t liked being restricted.
And it had been very much aware of the possibilities offered by the new life-forms which lately had intruded on Harvest Moon.
The instant it found itself free, it attempted to take control of the human minds in its environment.
“Mind-level control?” Mantelish exclaimed, looking startled. “Not unheard-of, of course. And we’d been considering . . . But of human minds?”
Lyad nodded. “It can contact human minds,” she said, “though, perhaps rather fortunately, it can project that particular field effect only within a quite limited radius. A little less, the Devagas found later, than five miles.”
Mantelish shook his head, frowning. He turned toward the Commissioner. “Holati,” he said emphatically, “I believe that thing could be dangerous!”
For a moment, they all looked at him. Then the Commissioner cleared his throat. “It’s a possibility, Mantelish,” he admitted. “We will give it thought later.”
“What,” Trigger asked Lyad, “killed the people on the ship?”
The attempt to control them, Lyad said. Doctor Fayle apparently had died as he was leaving the laboratory with the 113 unit. The other men died wherever they were. The ship, running subspace and pilotless, plowed headlong into the next gravitic twister and broke up.
A Devagas ship’s detectors picked up the wreckage three days later. Balmordan was on board the Devagas ship and in charge.
The Devagas, at that time, were at least as plasmoid-hungry as anybody else, and knew they were not likely to see their hunger gratified for several decades. The wreck of a U-League ship in the Manon area decidedly was worth investigating.
If the big plasmoid hadn’t been capable of learning from its mistakes, the Devagas investigating party also would have died. Since it could and did learn, they lived. The searchers discovered human remains and the crushed remnants of the 113 unit in a collapsed section of the ship. Then they discovered the big plasmoid—alive in subspace, undamaged and very conscious of the difficulties it now faced.
It had already initiated its first attempt to solve the difficulties. It was incapable of outward motion and could not change its own structure, but it was no longer alone. It had constructed a small work-plasmoid with visual and manipulating organs, as indifferent to exposure to subspace as its designer. When the boarding party encountered the twain, the working plasmoid apparently was attempting to perform some operation on the frozen and shriveled brain of one of the human cadavers.
Balmordan was a scientist of no mean stature among the Devagas. He did not understand immediately what he saw, but he realized the probable importance of understanding it. He had the plasmoids and their lifeless human research object transferred to the Devagas ship and settled down to observe what they did.
Released, the working plasmoid went back immediately to its task. It completed it. Then Balmordan and, presumably, the plasmoids waited. Nothing happened.
Finally, Balmordan investigated the dead brain. Installed in it he found what appeared to be near-microscopic energy receivers of plasmoid material. There was nothing to indicate what type of energy they were to—or could—receive.
Devagas scientists, when they happened to be of the hierarchy, always had enjoyed one great advantage over most of their colleagues in the Federation. They had no difficulty in obtaining human volunteers to act as subjects for experimental work. Balmordan appointed three of his least valuable crew members as volunteers for the plasmoid’s experiments.
The first of the three died almost immediately. The plasmoid, it turned out, lacked understanding of, among other things, the use and need of anesthetics. Balmordan accordingly assisted obligingly in the second operation. He was delighted when it became apparent that his assistance was being willingly and comprehendingly accepted. This subject did not die immediately. But he did not regain consciousness after the plasmoid devices had been installed; and some hours later he did die, in convulsions.
Number Three was more fortunate. He regained consciousness. He complained of headaches and, after he had slept, of nightmares. The next day he went into shock for a period of several hours. When he came out of it, he reported tremblingly that the big plasmoid was talking to him, though he could not understand what it said.
There were two more test operations, both successful. In all three cases, the headaches and nightmares stopped in about a week. The first subject in the series was beginning to understand the plasmoid. Balmordan listened to his reports. He had his three surviving volunteers given very extensive physical and psychological tests. They seemed to be in fine condition.
Balmordan now had the operation performed on himself. When he woke up, he disposed of his three predecessors. Then he devoted his full attention to learning what the plasmoid was trying to say. In about three weeks it became clear . . .
The plasmoid had established contact with human beings because it needed their help. It needed a base like Harvest Moon from which to operate and on which to provide for its requirements. It did not have the understanding to permit it to construct such a base.
So it made the Devagas a proposition. It would work for them, somewhat as it had worked for the Old Galactics, if—unlike the Old Galactics—they would work for it.
Balmordan, newly become a person of foremost importance, transmitted the offer to the hierarchy in the Hub. With no hesitation it was accepted, but Balmordan was warned not to bring his monster into the Hub area. If it was discovered on a Devagas world, the hierarchy would be faced with the choice between another war with the Federation and submission to more severely restrictive Federation controls. It didn’t care for either alternative; it had lost three wars with the Federated worlds in the past and each time had been reduced in strength.
They contacted Vishni’s Independent Fleet. Vishni’s area was not too far from Balmordan’s ship position, and the Devagas had had previous dealings with him and his men. This time they hired the I-Fleet to become the plasmoid’s temporary caretaker. Within a few weeks it was parked on Luscious, where it devoted itself to the minor creative experimentation which presently was to puzzle Professor Mantelish.