When they explained their plan to Suzuki, he shook his head in wonder
and said, “I’ve heard of Martian telepathy but I never thought I’d be
using it. Do you think it’s safe?”
Rolf said, “We’re following up a telepathic disaster on Mars, induced
by this super-monster you’ve found. But as long as we don’t beam our
thoughts on it, I think we’ll be all right. Besides, operating in
relay, it’s not likely to get both of us.”
_You hope_, Lynne telepathed and received a mental image of fingers
firmly crossed.
A half-hour later, she and Rolf stood again on the frozen atmosphere of
the big satellite. Again Lynne’s nose itched infuriatingly, but this
time she soon forgot her discomfort and she and Rolf linked minds and
began sending to Nampura Depot. Around them, the appalling crescendo of
unearthly thoughts and dreams rolled disturbingly, making concentration
next to impossible.
They tried and failed, then tried again--and again. And, finally, they
got _Nampura Depot, Mars, Fenlay. Who are you?_
_Callisto Mission calling, Marcein and Fenlay. Hello Revere._
They were through--and without being blasted. Rolf gave Lynne’s
telepathic twin brother the message, stating the conditions on the
satellite and asking that rescue ships stand clear until the situation
was remedied. He concluded with, _Relay to E.I.A. Headquarters. And
stand by for further messages._
Signing off, Revere sent a, _Luck, Lynne--and Rolf. We’ll be here,
standing by. Over and out._
They went back to Suzuki’s ship, lest further message sending
cause another blast. There, Lynne telepathed Rolf, _Did you feel
it--something else, something not alien?_
CREHUT, _now that you mention
it._ Rolf turned to Suzuki, said, “Did any of your power instruments
survive the blast, Lieutenant?”
Suzuki looked at one of his technicians, a bearded, copper-skinned man
called MacDougald. Macdougald scratched his head and said, “I don’t see
how--unless the Sodium generator escaped. They buried it pretty deep.
And they must have had it on. And once it’s on, nothing but a flip of
the switch will turn it off for centuries.”
“Why do you ask?” Suzuki wanted to know.
Rolf and Lynne exchanged quick thoughts and Rolf said, “Because both
of us received an impression that this element--this alien force--is
suffering an unbearable irritation, which is amplified whenever any
sort of power is turned on nearby. It’s--well, it reminds us of some
sort of vegetable poisoning that can be stepped up to agony.”
“We’ve got plenty of vegetable poisoning on Callisto, unlikely as it
sounds,” said Suzuki. “The verdant stuff is latent all over the place.
Goldberg nearly died of it.” He nodded toward a red-headed man whose
forearms were swathed in plastibands. “The heat of our operations
restored some of the stuff to virulence.”
“Preventive shots no good?” Lynne asked sympathetically. Goldberg said,
“They worked for the others, but not for me. It’s the worst itch I’ve
ever had.” He winced.
Rolf brought the conversation back on the beam. He said, “This element
you’ve discovered is definitely superhuman mentally and emotionally.
And it can and does kill when irritated. The picture we get is that
here on Callisto it’s been left exposed on the surface and is sensitive
to certain irritations. If your Sodium generator is an irritation, it’s
got to be turned off before any of us can leave or any relief ship can
land safely. Let me see a plan of the generator.”
_What do you mean--here on Callisto?_ Lynne telepathed. _Do you think
it exists anywhere else?_
_I don’t know--and don’t bother me_, was the reply, as Rolf bent over
the blueprint MacDougald produced from a cupboard. He scanned it,
scowling, then flashed a picture to Lynne, showing the generator, where
it was buried, where the switch was that alone could turn it off.
_Lynne, do you feel strong enough to try it?_ he asked silently.
Lynne knew what he meant. On Earth, with its dense atmosphere and
metallic atmosphere vapors telepathy was almost unknown. On Mars, where
the air was thinner and purer, it flourished but other telekinetic
powers were weak and incapable of being controlled. Here on Callisto,
with no atmosphere save what was frozen solid underfoot, there was
just a chance.... Perhaps, if they worked together, they could exert
sufficient psychic power to turn the switch and put the super-entity
out of its misery.
_Why doesn’t it turn the_ FARBISH _thing off itself?_ Lynne telepathed.
_Did you ever hear of any creature, however advanced, removing an alien
object from its own brain?_ was the quick response. And somehow Lynne
knew Rolf was right. It was going to be up to them.
_We’ll have to keep cover behind the revetment_, she replied, _in case
we fumble at first and our friend starts blasting again._
Rolf asked that they be left alone in the compression chamber for a
bit. And there they practiced on small objects--a stencil-recorder, a
gravity-weight, a set of earphones. It was the hardest kind of work
but, even within the metal shell of the ship, they were able at first,
by linking up in the tightest of combinations and willing as one, to
move aimlessly, then to attain control over the objects and move them
about at will, even to lift them briefly from the deck.
Exhausted, they rested, sitting close together on the floor of the
chamber, their backs against the wall. And Rolf said, “We’ve got to do
a lot better before we can risk a real trial. If we’re wrong--or if we
make a mistake....” He let it hang there.
Lynne nodded. Like him, she was too mentally exhausted for telepathy.
She said, “I wish I weren’t telepathic. I wish nobody were telepathic.
Then none of this would have happened.”
He nodded and told her, “I suppose Columbus wished he’d never tried
to cross the Atlantic when his men threatened mutiny. I suppose Henry
Condon felt the same way when his spaceship broke down on the first
trip to the Moon. I _know_ we’ve all felt that way at times on Mars
when things looked bad. But feeling that way isn’t going to save those
poor devils upstairs. And it won’t get us off Callisto.”
“I know,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “Let’s go on up and tell
them we’re making progress.”
As Rolf helped Lynne to her feet, he said, “Actually, you know, we’ve
done amazingly well.”
Lynne lost track of time as she and Rolf slept and practiced, slept
and practiced, sheltered from the wrath of the strange entity beyond
the rock revetment by the metal skin of the E.I.A. ship. At times,
especially when she was tired or distracted, it seemed as if they were
never going to master telekinesis at a distance. Staying in the ship,
they were sorely limited. But they dared not test outside lest their
efforts add to the entity’s irritation and cause it to strike back with
renewed fury.
They did not even dare risk another message to Mars.
Finally, when Lynne found herself able to move objects about in the
control cabin, abetted by Rolf’s mind-power, she said, “Well, what do
you think?”
Rolf nodded and directed a thought at her. _It’s got to be after our
next rest period_, VINRAL. _We can’t just sit here forever._
* * * * *
Upstairs, in the cabin, they worked out final plans with Suzuki. He and
Goldberg and half the crew were to stay put, while MacDougald and the
rest of the E.I.A. survivors were to move to the other expeditionary
ship.
“That way,” Rolf suggested, “your chances of getting one ship back will
be doubled in case something goes wrong.”
“Got you,” said Suzuki matter-of-factly. “Here, have some of the
panktosteak. Cook’s outdone himself on the sauce.”
The atmosphere as they ate what might be their their final meal
together was almost gay. After the long period of inactive
confinement, the E.I.A. men were welcoming the prospect of a change
of condition--even if the change were death. Reading their thoughts,
Lynne felt proud to be a human. She had never quite believed in heroes
before--they had seemed buried so far back in a pre-scientific human
past--yet here she was, with a whole group of them.
Rolf’s thought reached her. _You’re not doing so badly yourself_,
VINRAL--and she turned her face toward the wall as her cheeks grew hot.
To her surprise, she slept, and dreamt she was back on Earth, working
at the brain-station with her teammates. And then Rolf was awakening
her and, after a silent handshake with Suzuki, she was clambering into
a heavy space-suit once more. Then, again, she and Rolf were treading
on frozen atmosphere, the two of them alone this time, moving slowly
along the base of the jagged revetment until they were a good kilometer
away from the other ships. Again Lynne’s nose itched unbearably, and
this time the itching seemed to be spreading, to include other parts of
her body. She had to force herself to ignore it completely.
_Good girl!_ Rolf approved her effort. _Here, I think we’ve gone far
enough. Here goes...._
They stood clear of the gaunt rock wall, against the chance of falling
fragments, and Lynne looked at the twin tall spires of the E.I.A. ships
and at the shorter, stubbier vessel, a half-kilometer beyond them. Then
they put their minds as one on the Sodium generator, lying beneath the
surface of the plain amid the flattened E.I.A. sheds.
They concentrated with all of their newly-awakened telekinetic power
on the switch a few centimeters to the left of the main control panel.
And they thought fiercely. Lynne could feel a gathering storm of alien
irritation. Thoughts of cathedrals were replaced by hideous concepts of
suns exploding into novae, of planets burning to ash.
Then Lynne felt the switch move slightly under the force of the mental
shaft she and Rolf were directing upon it. Instantly, she almost
blacked out under the countering wave of black anguish that threatened
to blanket her thoughts. She wavered, felt for Rolf’s mind, found it.
She drew strength from it, felt it push with hers against the switch,
felt the switch move further, further, then all the way to _off_--just
as a tremendous blast of leviathan outrage knocked her flat on the
frozen atmosphere while the rim of the revetment above was seared and
shattered by an appalling blast of purple power.
Then the mental pressure was gone, and the pulsing retreated to a soft
throb that was almost a purr. There was no gratitude. The entity,
whatever it was, had far outgrown such puerile emotion. But the
physical turmoil its reaction had created was far from over.
Even as Lynne watched, the rock revetment crumbled from the force of
the blow it had received. She felt mounting horror as huge pieces
of rock broke off in a mounting torrent that fell without sound in
the airless void about them. She saw one of the E.I.A. ships struck
and sent toppling on its side, the other’s nose shattered by a grey,
wedgelike piece of stone.
Then she and Rolf were tumbling, leaping toward the ships. It was a
time of terror, though the source of the terror was under control once
more. Frantically, they tugged at the rocks about the toppled ship,
seeking to clear the emergency doorway. _Poor Suzuki! Poor Goldberg!_
she thought and Rolf’s thoughts seconded hers.
“Here--let us use the instruments.” The voice came through the
earphones, not her mind. Shaken, she looked around to see a trio of
space-suited figures behind her, carrying odd-looking instruments. It
was MacDougald and the crew of the other E.I.A. ship.
A half-hour, Mars-time, and they had cut their way into the toppled
ship. Lynne had to fight against being physically sick inside her
spacesuit at what they found. Suzuki and his four-man crew were dead.
The ship had been splintered as she fell and their bodies had burst in
the airlessness.
When the mess had been cleaned up and they were back at the other
E.I.A. ship, MacDougald revealed his Gaelic practicality when he told
them, “You did a good job--you licked it. I’m sorry about Suzuki, but
he knew what the odds were. We all do. I had one of the men look at
your little ship and she’s all right. You’d better be getting the lady
back to Mars, Mr. Marcein.”
“But what about you? This ship of yours is in no shape to take off,”
Rolf protested.
“Thanks to you, help is on the way,” said MacDougald. Then, eyeing
Lynne keenly, “You’d better get the lady off Callisto.”
V
It had never occured to Lynne, in her wildest imaginings during the
trip out to Callisto, that the little spaceship which had brought them,
with its cramped cockpit and utterly inside plumbing, would feel like
home. But once she and Rolf were in it together, on their way back
to Mars, she curled up beside him in the warmth of the tiny cabin,
grateful for the artificial gravity, feeling utterly relaxed, and
basked in the warmth of his thoughts toward her.
_Still sore at me_, VINRAL_?_ he telepathed.
_Of course not, you_ FARBISH _idiot_, she replied silently.
He turned her around on the narrow, curving couch, so that she was
facing him, in his arms, with her face close to his. She thought, _My
husband! Maybe there are more important things than a ceremony._
_You’re so right, my_ VINRAL, came his answering thought. And then,
as a flicker of concern crossed his powerful features, _You’re not
seriously ill, are you_, VINRAL_?_
MARLET, she reproved him fondly, _I never felt better in my life. Just
being alive--and off Callisto!_
_But your face--your arms--they’re all broken out!_
She looked at her arms and it was so. Blisters--ugly, yellowish
blisters--seemed to be rising on her skin even as she watched. She felt
a thrill of panic that made her shudder. And then, as if waiting for a
signal, the itching began. It started on her face, flowed through her
arms, through her body, her legs, her feet.
_Goldberg’s poisoning! You poor_ ZWIRCHY VINRAL_!_ His thought was
clear and alarmed. Somewhere, somehow, on the frozen satellite, she had
picked up the virulent vegetable poison. As she stripped and let Rolf
daub her all over with antiseptic that gave only momentary and partial
relief, an ancient song kept running through her head, a centuries-old
lilt that went, _A fine romance, with no kisses--a fine romance, my
dear, this is...._ And then she thought, _Poor Goldberg, poor Suzuki,
poor...._
Thereafter, until a day before they landed back at Nampura Depot, Lynne
was too sick to remember much of anything. The blisters broke and, with
them, the fever that had made her delirious. But when they came away
they took patches of skin with them, leaving her too miserable to move.
Nor was her misery lessened by recollection that it was she who had
spoiled the honeymoon on the outward voyage through injured vanity at
her provisional husband’s high-handed behavior. As if, when you loved a
man, it made any difference _how_ you got married....
Contact with the infinite, with the immensity of the alien intellect,
had considerably widened her vision--even while Goldberg’s poisoning
had severely limited her sphere of physical action.
Revere came to visit her in the infirmary, which she shared with
a convalescent Rana, and told her, telepathically, _You know, you
and Rolf are both up for E.I.A. gonging. Officially, you violated a
security regulation, but since you saved what was left of Callisto
Mission, they’re going to slip you a citation under the table._
_At the moment, I couldn’t care less_, Lynne replied. _What do you hear
from Lei on Earth?_
Revere’s bride, she learned, was doing fabulously well and a
successful, uninduced twin birth was prophesied by the doctors. Lynne
felt a flash of pride for both of them, as well as a flash of envy. By
the time she and Rolf got around to having babies, she surmised, they’d
both be candidates for the geriatrics bureau. Discouraging thought. But
she kept it from Revere. He was too happy for sadness.
When he had gone, she shared a skinless gasper with the tiny
dark-skinned Rana and asked her about the fatal experiment that had
put her into coma. After all, the necro-recorder could only take down
thoughts over a very limited period of its subject’s mental activity.
Rana told her, talking aloud, since she was still forbidden to
overuse her telepathic qualities. She said, “I know now it was wrong,
of course, but we were filled with the excitement of discovery. I
don’t understand why you and Rolf went to Callisto. We beamed our
relay-thinking right here on Mars, somewhere in the Syrtis Major
prairie, near Woomera Station. At first it was like being in some
incredible temple. It was vast and awe-inspiring and--Lynne, I can’t
really describe it.”
“I know,” said Lynne. “What turned it sour?”
“That,” said the dark girl, “is what I don’t understand. We were
receiving wonderful stuff--sort of soul-healing. But when Juan flicked
on the recorder to take it down it vanished.”
Lynne probed the girl’s thoughts and found she was holding nothing
back. She was heartsick at the tragic result, for her companion, of an
experiment for which she felt herself responsible. Lynne lay back and
did some thinking while the dark girl slept and had reached a number of
conclusions by the time Rolf appeared that afternoon.
He, it seemed, had been terribly busy since their return to the Red
Planet. All sorts of crises had come or were coming to a head. There
had been a localized reappearance of the disembodied aborigines that
had for so long threatened all communications on Mars--and a campaign
had had to be organized to exterminate them.
There had been a squabble over efficiency credits between the
communications crews of New Walla Walla and Cathayville which had had
to be settled. Earth Interplanetary Authority was anxious for Rolf and
Lynne to visit their Rio de Janeiro Headquarters as soon as possible
to discuss the ramifications of the Callisto incident. And the problem
of decreasing moisture in the Martian atmosphere table was becoming
critical.
_Which is why I have not been able to stay here at your side_, VINRAL,
he told Lynne silently. _And now, I must leave you again._
_Oh, Rolf!_ Lynne was desolate. _I have so much to tell you. I think
I’m beginning to understand a little about our--entity._
_Hold it_, VINRAL, was the reply. _Right now, I haven’t even the_
FARBISH _time to give it a thought. It will keep till I get back from
New Samarkand. I’ve got to address a council meeting there tonight._
And he was gone. Resentfully, Lynne thought she might as well have
gotten herself married to the legendary old-fashioned country general
practitioner of nineteenth century America. She eyed her messed-up face
in a hand mirror and wondered when, if ever, she was going to look like
herself again. Goldberg’s poison! Poor Goldberg....
The next day, with Rolf still in New Samarkand, she had the
practitioner patch her up and, with the aid of makeup, managed to
present a passable front to the world. She had made up her mind to
get busy. According to Rana, there might be an entity in the New
Woomera district, and New Woomera Station was where Lynne’s one-time
cabin-mate, Joanna, had her home. And Joanna had invited Lynne to pay
her a visit at the weddings. Lynne managed to get the use of a somewhat
battered runabout and took off from the Depot, shortly before noon.
Mars might be considered a small planet, she thought as she sped
low over its level plains and prairies, but it was a planet of vast
distances. Without oceans, it actually had a far greater land surface
than Earth. And its lack of real mountains added to the illusion of
vastness. It was, she thought, like flying over an ocean of land.
Woomera Station, when she sighted it, looked like a small oblate bit of
green and yellow, around a cluster of red-and-white farm structures,
stuck like a postage stamp in the middle of an immense envelope.
Yet, as she walked from the landing field, she realized as never
before what an imposing plant it was. Here were hundreds of hectares
of hydroponic greenhouses, some five square kilometers in all of lush
grassland for cattle raising, interspersed with long stretches of
barns, barracks and storehouses. Here, wonder of wonders on Mars, was
even a small pond where the pigs, long-staple mutton and musk-oxen
could drink. Truly a man-made oasis, in the midst of desolation.
The pond was Joanna’s special pride and joy. “We just got our atomic
transmuter three months ago,” she said, “and already it is turning the
sand into drinking water for the cattle. Maybe someday, we shall all
have swimming pools on Mars, quite as wonderful as those in Joberg or
Rio on Earth.”
Lynne said, “It’s pretty expensive, isn’t it? And aren’t you afraid
that the water may be radioactive and poisonous?”
The girl’s face fell. She said, “I guess it _is_ expensive. But it’s
better than draining the atmosphere of moisture. And in time, our
scientists will learn to cut the cost drastically.”
Lynne read the sternly suppressed lack of assurance in the girl’s
mind. She had pinned her hopes on the transmuter, which was in truth a
remarkable invention for turning dry mineral matter into water. But,
as an ex-brain team coordinator, Lynne saw clearly that the expense
must outstrip any real benefit which might accrue, except in special
isolated instances. She kept her conclusion to herself, however,
and said, “I’m awfully glad you asked me to visit you, Joanna. I’m
tremendously impressed.”
Joanna got a two-place tracto-scooter and took Lynne on a tour of the
entire project. She admired the plump hogs and flocks of turkeys, the
long-staple sheep and the small, furry musk-oxen, imported to endure
the arctic cold of the Martian winters. She admired the artificial
drinking pond, where the animals clustered to slake their thirst.
Finally she asked, “How do you shield the transmuter?”
Joanna waved toward the northeastern corner of the station. “The
transmuter has its own shield on three sides,” she explained. “We
keep the open side facing away from the station. There are some odd
sort of radioactive deposits out that way but our chief figures a
bit more radiation isn’t going to hurt anything. Come on, I’ll show
you the out-of-bounds markers. The whole area--about fifty square
kilometers--is fenced off. A few years ago, a couple of prospectors
went in there to dig. They were never seen again.”
“Let’s go,” said Lynne a trifle grimly. A distant thrumming inside
her head grew more intense as they neared the northeast corner of the
grazing grounds. She opened her mind a little--and was once more in an
unearthly cathedral, full of dread and love and clamor.
“Let’s go back, Joanna,” she said tightly. Her nerves were singing
like guitar strings and it seemed impossible the black girl shouldn’t
feel it too. But Joanna’s dark face remained amiably impassive. At the
Station proper, Lynne said, “I’d like to talk to your chief.”
* * * * *
Ultimately, to get him to turn off the transmuter, Lynne had to
communicate with Rolf and New Samarkand, and tell him that she had
discovered another deposit of the super-entity on Mars. In the end it
was Agriculture Boss Radchev who ordered the disconnection. The worst
of it was, she could not explain her reasons to Joanna and the Station
chief in terms they were capable of understanding.
All the chief said was, “You know, without the pool, the Station will
perish. We are no longer allowed to draw the water we need from the
atmosphere.”
“You keep that transmuter on much longer, and the whole Station will be
wiped out--just as Callisto Project was wiped out,” Lynne warned. “I’m
not trying to wreck you. I’m trying to save your lives.”
“I wish I’d never asked you to come here!” Joanna cried passionately.
“Why couldn’t you have left us alone?”
Relations remained strained until Rolf and Radchev, a swarthy giant
with an unexpected, and quite startling shock of corn-white hair,
arrived on the scene. A gingerly magnetic-tracer investigation was
conducted over the suspected area until the eroded entrance of the
narrow mine-shaft the prospectors had sunk was located. Then Rolf and
a couple of Station hands, leaving all electronic gadgets turned off,
approached via tracto-scooter and went down the shaft. When they got
back, Rolf nodded.
“It’s sunk a lot deeper under the ground surface here,” he said. “I’m
becoming convinced there’s at least one of them on every stable planet
and satellite. In some frightening, inexplicable fashion, they’re
interrelated--which is why we got sent tracking off to Callisto.”
Radchev said, “You think there’s one on Earth then?”
Rolf nodded. “Probably buried far underground. The more eroded the
area, the closer they lie to the surface. On Callisto, the creature was
actually exposed. Here, it’s buried just under the subsoil.”
“Then why hasn’t one been found on Luna?” Radchev asked. “I thought
Earth’s moon was completely charted for mineral elements.”
Rolf hesitated, but Lynne came up with the answer. “I think it’s
because the creature needs the gaseous elements of an atmosphere to
survive. The atmosphere is thick on Earth, thin here. On Callisto it
lies frozen on the ground. But it’s there. The Moon has none--just as
Deimos and Phobos have none. We know it doesn’t exist on them.”
“I think you’re right,” said Rolf, his face grim. “Somehow, this
mysterious entity has to breathe. I have a hunch that otherwise
it’s nothing more than a sort of super-brain, which has long since
surrendered all other physical properties.”
“Then,” said Redchev, puzzled, “why is it we haven’t stumbled across a
single one of the creatures. This one must have--”
“It has probably been here forever by our measure of time,” Lynne
interrupted eagerly. “Can’t you see, Mr. Radchev, that it hasn’t been
discovered sooner because non-telepathic human mental processes were
too far below its reception or broadcast level to make contact with it?”
The Agriculture boss shook his massive head. “That won’t do, I’m
afraid,” he said. “The coincidence is too steep. Don’t you think
it remarkable to put it mildly that, almost to the moment when
you discover your new life-form telepathically the non-telepathic
E.I.A. should have stumbled into it on Callisto? I tell you--I’m not
convinced.”
“But you will be!” Lynne persisted. “We know it can be irritated by
human physical and mental contact under some conditions, and that
when the irritation is sufficient, it strikes back at its tormentor.
Think of the unexplained blasts and disasters that have killed men and
destroyed their works all through known history. Isn’t it possible,
even probable, that some of those disasters were caused by our new
friend under the stimulation of physical irritation?”
Radchev rumbled like an incipient Krakatoa, then subsided to a
querulous, “But if this is so, how are we going to combat it?”
And Rolf and Lynne, thinking in concert, spoke in unison, “We aren’t
going to try to combat it. We’re going to put it to use.”