Venard shivered, uncontrollably. The horrible implication, the
tremendous scope of possibility flooded open, poured fear in Venard's
desperate, groping brain. Having never entered in Solar politics,
having always been withdrawn, unobtrusive, and silent on their dim dark
world, they had been theoretically harmless. But what if they secretly
controlled key figures in the System? Here, in S.S.C., they could have
enslaved the greatest weapons and knowledges of science of the entire
Solar System, and from there--
Vale had stiffened in his arms, fell away from him. She was standing
there coldly watching him with no warmth and no feeling, suddenly an
alien antagonistic being. The others ringed him, silently waiting and
watching.
Venard's semantically-trained mind reacted quickly and efficiently.
The Jovian needed a certain unspecified time to solve the intricacies
of Venard's highly individualized brain patterns. In that uncertain
interim, he had to get the brain of Zharkon I out of S.S.C. to the
waiting Martians. If they were waiting. And, if this Jovian mentality
in a cube controlled S.S.C., there was only one possible action.
Capture the Jovian. With the dark world being in his power, he could
control S.S.C.--that is, until the Jovian familiarized itself with his
brain waves, and all the complex inter-relations of the incredibly
intricate switch-board of his cerebrum.
Nothing could comprehend all the circuits in its entire complexity.
The Jovian power lay in its specialized ability to probe into key
centers and control them. If Venard did control the Jovian, it would be
only until it grasped his individualized peculiarities of rhythm and
circuits. It had taken quite long, seven days, to renew its control
of Vale's big I.Q. even when it had already controlled it once. But
his--how long? Maybe days, hours. Maybe only minutes. He was no complex
cerebral organism.
Anyway, his H-gun suddenly in his hand, he leaped for the Martian who
held the Jovian. Venard had gambled often.
A wave of evil and rather horrid thought struck him along with a snarl
of material resistance from the polyglot of beings who opposed him.
The Jovian knew his purpose; its sycophants were resisting him madly.
Sycophants--the greatest mentalities of the System, pawns of a six-inch
cube!
Venard, too late, tried to avoid the Martian's appendage raking at his
H-gun; but it struck savagely downward and the H-gun fell away under
the whip-like force, clattered across the plastic floor. He buried
a fist in the body sac, and the Martian toppled away. Venard drove
after it, clutching at the Jovian in its tentacles; and he felt it
against his hands. He pulled, strained, swore. The little metallic
Mercurian whined thinly and swirled its filaments at Venard. He pulled
the Jovian under one arm, hugged it against his side, shivering; and
then he grabbed a shocking electrifying handful of the Mercurian and
wrenched savagely. A hot, leadish fluid boiled from the gaping hole as
the Mercurian slumped.
Venard fell away from the Martian, holding the Jovian frantically,
crawled dizzily along the floor as he scrabbled for the H-gun. Two
other figures were diving for it. Vale, and the Neptunian spiderman.
It wasn't really Vale now. It was just a segment of the Jovian's
mind, but it wasn't easy to swing a short solid blow that connected
scientifically with her small delicate jaw so that she slumped
soundless. His hand went on around, gripped the grey furred neck of the
spiderman, twisted it. Mandibles jerked apart, and a poisonous green
juice streamed outward, missed Venard's face by inches.
Then he had the H-gun in his hand; he pressed it against the black
faceless cube. He sent out quick stabbing thought messages and commands
at random. He didn't know whether the H-gun's electri-power unit would
effect the Jovian's shell or not. But he soon found the potentiality.
"Call them off, or I'll destroy you," he kept thinking frantically.
* * * * *
Others had been summoned; a number of weird beings jammed the door into
the operating room. But it was plain that the Jovian was vulnerable
to the H-gun. Its one weapon was thought control. It had no others
at all. Until it could solve the enigmatic intricacies of Venard's
neuro-cerebral circuits, it was helpless. Until then, Venard controlled
S.S.C. Until--then?
The minions of the Jovian were frozen in tense silent waiting;
motivated by a single thought command, they stood taut, watching him
dully.
Already he sensed the dark hate and growing frenzy of the Jovian
rising. Evidently it was figuring out its problem.
Holding the Jovian tightly, the H-gun trained directly on it, Venard
ran out the door while the knot of Solar beings parted before him in a
jerky weaving enslavement. He shuddered. These were superminds--these
wolfish, silently waiting ghouls. Every conceivable size and form that
crawled, hopped, floated and wobbled, every type of Solar intellect
from ingenious plant life to pure energy entities pulsing whitely in
mid-air. All equally helpless to act until the Jovian could act.
The Martian medic had recovered and was tottering blearily on its
four contracting legs. "You," Venard gestured at the Martian, at the
same time jiggling the Jovian suggestively. "Lead me to the body bank
section. I'm after the brain half of Zharkon I. Quick, on the double!
Or I blast your Jovian dictator in a million pieces."
The Martie started down the vaulted hall, with Venard close behind
him. And the rustling progress of all the others followed expectantly.
A sharp, jolting shock rocketed between his temples; the Jovian had
connected with a sneak punch. How long would the Jovian need? It would
be easier to work against time if he knew how much time he had.
They passed massive walls lined with huge, sealed and refrigerated
sterile banks containing spare body parts of every intellectual type of
being among all the Solar Worlds. Bank after bank filled with fantastic
arrays of alien body parts. One bank contained, for example, every
variety of articulation; among these were every kind of human hand.
Doubtless his hand had come from here. Then his reluctant Martie medic
guide paused before one bank especially reserved for the synthetically
developed mass of convoluted tissue known as the double-brain of
Zharkon I, three times larger than a human brain. It boasted two
completely separated brain sections, the thalamic and the cortical. The
lack of ability to integrate these two seats of pure primitive emotion
and pure reason resulted in the variable, unpredictable, unstable
actions of most humans or other intellects. The Zharkon could turn
on either and create desired levels of reaction--almost an ultimate
free agency, or free will set-up. This was one of the first developed
Zharkon double-brains. A thousand years old.
The Martie opened the bank at Venard's command, lifted it out in its
sealed, self-containing unit. The Martie adjusted temperature and
self-feeding gauges that would keep the brain preserved in transit for
an unspecified length of time.
Venard staggered then, and grabbed for support where there was none.
A thick slimy blackness closed in. The damn Jovian! He could feel the
dark, vast depths of its alien mind opening, then merging with his own.
A vaulted abyss of mental perils loomed that were thought-shattering.
He felt himself falling, falling through mental parsecs. White-hot
knives slashed deep into his flashing brain, wrenching, stabbing. He
sobbed for air, staggered through a veiled mist in some strange and
hideous mental land.
There were moaning forces of evil screaming through tortured nerves.
And somehow, he was crawling through this thick, swirling evil mental
land. A red roaring throbbed in his ears. His heart pumped desperately
as he crawled toward something that fought him with all the strength of
fear, black hate, and a massive, evil will. Huge, surrealistic, he saw
his hand before his burning eyes; they were like disembodied parts of
himself. Far out ahead of him, digging, clawing futilely toward some
goal he had to attain. He couldn't remember what it was.
His hands gripped white-hot metal, but he couldn't let go or he would
fall back away from the thing he must reach. Stench of burning flesh
clouded his eyes. Pain rocketed back into his face. He couldn't fight
it! He was losing, failing, sinking back and down. Then his hands
were beating empty space, and he was toppling into a black well with
a bottom of--there was no bottom. With a hopeless, despairing cry, he
writhed frantically, found a jagged edge and hung on, straining, every
nerve screaming, at a scaly wall that shivered, heavily alive.
* * * * *
But his hands were slipping; he knew he would fall into the well. And
once he fell into that blackness, he was gone forever. He was in a
world of thought, and in that world he had no defenses, not against
such a highly specialized entity of thought as the Jovian. Yes--that
was the goal--he was trying to reach the Jovian. That was the symbol.
But he could never reach it. The pain was too great. Pain could kill.
Shock could stop his brain and heart.
"Vale!"
His voice was harsh, despairing. Had he called? Had he sent that wild
cry ringing out toward someone, anyone--?
"Vale!"
But she could not help him now! She was even further down in this black
hell of the Jovian's. She was already lost....
"Vale...."
The voice was weak, now, weak as is the voice of one dying. Black
horror rose about him--
Then, in an abrupt flooding surge of joyous change, the blackness was
blotted out by light.