"You don't have to know anything about psychology of any kind; all you
have to know is a common, ordinary law of species survival. Any race
that takes a weapon into battle without testing it thoroughly, doesn't
survive very long."
Kiffer ran the tips of his fingers across his lower lips. "True; but
maybe they were suicide squads--or maybe they have a hospital ship
following them to pick them up and cure them. After all, Bilford has
this cure of his working pretty well now; if the Enlissa invented this
thing, they probably know how to counter its effects.
"Besides, you didn't think we'd tested the _aJ_ guns thoroughly. And
we're still surviving."
Roysland turned to look at Kiffer, and his face was definitely
sneering. "Kiffer, there are times when your thinking has all the
clarity and lucidness of a hunk of obsidian.
"There's a difference between the lack of testing of the _aJ_ gun
and the Enlissa's not thoroughly testing the mindjammer. There's a
difference between looking for something you could logically expect and
not finding something that you don't even suspect the existence of."
Kiffer nodded. "Sure; I see what you mean. But that simply means
that they don't have any way of shielding the effect--so they have a
hospital ship trailing them."
Roysland lay back again and closed his eyes. "Obsidian," he said. Then,
after a moment, "One: Why do they sacrifice a crew--even if it's only
for a short time? Two: Why don't they use such an efficient weapon
against ships that blast them out of the sky? Three: Why do they come
in at a ship without firing anything at all?
"Until your hypothesis answers all of those questions--and a lot more
besides--it isn't worth a damn."
Kiffer chewed at his upper lip and then looked at his wrist watch. "If
you're going to test that thing in an hour, you'd better call Eckisster
now."
Roysland sighed deeply. "O.K.; I'll call Old Nasty. Give me a minute to
brace myself."
He didn't take the minute; he didn't really need it. He walked over to
the solidiphone and punched in the code numbers. Three seconds later,
General Director Eckisster was sitting in the middle of the room.
"You're ready, eh? All right; go ahead," he said. "Find out what you
can--if anything. I have no further instructions--just don't get
yourself killed while you're working."
The heavy space boot that came from Roysland's hand sailed through the
image just as it was dissolving. Eckisster had cut off without waiting
for Roysland's answer.
"One of these days," Kiffer said, "you're going to be in his office,
and you'll forget it isn't a solidograph image and let go with a boot,
or something, and knock the boss' teeth in."
Roysland shook his head emphatically as he walked over to pick up the
boot. "Nope. If he's actually there in person, I'm going to have a
poisoned needle to jab into him. I'll show him how to needle people!"
* * * * *
The Enlissa weapon was fired at Kandoris at 30:00 hours. Spaceships
posted along the long line of fire between the satellite of Kandoris
VI and the sun itself had sent out instrument-filled drones in the
path of the beam to check the beam frequency. The time required for
the subetheric wave to travel the eight hundred million miles from the
planetary orbit to primary was too short to be measured. As far as the
recording instruments were concerned, the beam was instantaneous.
The projector itself was fired by remote control; there were no
personnel within three miles of the Enlissa projector when it went off.
The resultant recordings were run through the differential analyzers,
and the final graphs were delivered to Kiffer Samm.
After four hours of working with the data, Kiffer made his report to
Roysland.
"It's an odd wave length," he said. "Actually, it's a harmonic of
three different basic frequencies. Look here: the thing is definitely
frequency modulated, but it's a comparatively simple thing." He ran his
finger along the primary recordings. "The thing wouldn't really have
to be run through the differentials; it could be figured out with a
slipdisk.
"The thing that makes it different is the extremely short wave
length. The longest of the three has a wave length of eighty thousand
kilometers, and the shortest is forty-two thousand kilometers. In a
subetheric beam, that's the equivalent of hard X-rays--damned high
frequency."
Roysland looked at the recordings carefully. "Is there any reason why
this particular wave length should have any effect on the human brain?"
Kiffer looked at the graphs for a long time. When he finally looked up,
he said: "I don't know for sure; mind if I call Bilford?"