"No, you don't!" said Daryesh grimly. "I'm just as fond of my own
individuality as you are."
The mouth which was theirs twisted wryly in the dark. "Guess we'll just
have to learn to love each other," thought Laird.
The body dropped into slumber. Presently Laird's cells were asleep, his
personality faded into a shadowland of dreams. Daryesh remained awake
a while longer. Sleep--waste of time--the Immortals had never been
plagued by fatigue--
He chuckled to himself. What a web of lies and counterlies he had
woven. If Joana and Laird both knew--
* * * * *
The mind is an intricate thing. It can conceal facts from itself,
make itself forget that which is painful to remember, persuade its
own higher components of whatever the subconscious deems right.
Rationalization, schizophrenia, autohypnosis, they are but pale
indications of the self-deception which the brain practices. And the
training of the Immortals included full neural coordination; they could
consciously utilize the powers latent in themselves. They could by an
act of conscious will stop the heart, or block off pain, or split their
own personalities.
Daryesh had known his ego would be fighting whatever host it found,
and he had made preparations before he was scanned. Only a part of
his mind was in full contact with Laird's. Another section, split off
from the main stream of consciousness by deliberate and controlled
schizophrenia, was thinking its own thoughts and making its own plans.
Self-hypnotized, he automatically reunited his ego at such times as
Laird was not aware, otherwise there was only subconscious contact. In
effect a private compartment of his mind, inaccessible to the Solarian,
was making its own plans.
That destructive switch would have to be installed to satisfy Laird's
waking personality, he thought. But it would never be thrown. For he
had been telling Joana that much of the truth--his own advantage lay
with the Janyards, and he meant to see them through to final victory.
It would be simple enough to get rid of Laird temporarily. Persuade him
that for some reason it was advisable to get dead drunk. Daryesh's more
controlled ego would remain conscious after Laird's had passed out.
Then he could make all arrangements with Joana, who by that time should
be ready to do whatever he wanted.
Psychiatry--yes, Laird's brief idea had been the right one. The methods
of treating schizophrenia could, with some modifications, be applied
to suppressing Daryesh's extra personality. He'd blank out that
Solarian ... permanently.
And after that would come his undying new body, and centuries and
millennia in which he could do what he wanted with this young
civilization.
The demon exorcising the man--He grinned drowsily. Presently he slept.
* * * * *
The ship drove through a night of stars and distance. Time was
meaningless, was the position of the hands on a clock, was
the succession of sleeps and meals, was the slow shift in the
constellations as they gulped the light-years.
On and on, the mighty drone of the second-order drive filling their
bones and their days, the round of work and food and sleep and Joana.
Laird wondered if it would ever end. He wondered if he might not be the
Flying Dutchman, outward bound for eternity, locked in his own skull
with the thing that had possessed him. At such times the only comfort
was in Joana's arms. He drew of the wild young strength of her, and he
and Daryesh were one. But afterward--
We're going to join the Grand Fleet. You heard her, Daryesh. She's
making a triumphal pilgrimage to the gathered power of Janya, bringing
the invincible weapons of Vwyrdda to her admiral.
Why not? She's young and ambitious, she wants glory as much as you do.
What of it?
We have to escape before she gets there. We have to steal a lifeboat
and destroy this ship and all in it soon.
All in it? Joana Rostov, too?
Damn it, we'll kidnap her or something. You know I'm in love with the
girl, you devil. But it's a matter of all Earth. This one cruiser has
enough stuff in it now to wreck a planet. I have parents, brothers,
friends--a civilization. We've got to act!
All right, all right, Laird. But take it easy. We have to get the
energy devices installed first. We'll have to give them enough of a
demonstration to allay their suspicions. Joana's the only one aboard
here who trusts us. None of her officers do.
The body and the double mind labored as the slow days passed, directing
Janyard technicians who could not understand what it was they built.
Laird, drawing on Daryesh's memories, knew what a giant slept in
those coils and tubes and invisible energy-fields. Here were forces
to trigger the great creative powers of the universe and turn them to
destruction--distorted space-time, atoms dissolving into pure energy,
vibrations to upset the stability of force-fields which maintained
order in the cosmos. Laird remembered the ruin of Vwyrdda, and
shuddered.
They got a projector mounted and operating, and Daryesh suggested that
the cruiser halt somewhere that he could prove his words. They picked
a barren planet in an uninhabited system and lay in an orbit fifty
thousand miles out. In an hour Daryesh had turned the facing hemisphere
into a sea of lava.
"If the dis-fields were going," he said absent-mindedly, "I'd pull the
planet into chunks for you."
Laird saw the pale taut faces around him. Sweat was shining on
foreheads, and a couple of men looked sick. Joana forgot her position
enough to come shivering into his arms.
But the visage she lifted in a minute was exultant and eager, with
the thoughtless cruelty of a swooping hawk. "There's an end of Earth,
gentlemen!"
"Nothing they have can stop us," murmured her exec dazedly. "Why, this
one ship, protected by one of those spacewarp screens you spoke of,
sir--this one little ship could sail in and lay the Solar System waste."
* * * * *
Daryesh nodded. It was entirely possible. Not much energy was required,
since the generators of Vwyrdda served only as catalysts releasing
fantastically greater forces. And Sol had none of the defensive science
which had enabled his world to hold out for a while. Yes, it could be
done.
He stiffened with the sudden furious thought of Laird: That's it,
Daryesh! That's the answer.
The thought-stream was his own too, flowing through the same brain, and
indeed it was simple. They could have the whole ship armed and armored
beyond the touch of Janya. And since none of the technicians aboard
understood the machines, and since they were now wholly trusted, they
could install robotcontrols without anyone's knowing.
Then--the massed Grand Fleet of Janya--a flick of the main
switch--man-killing energies would flood the cruiser's interior, and
only corpses would remain aboard. Dead men and the robots that would
open fire on the Fleet. This one ship could ruin all the barbarian
hopes in a few bursts of incredible flame. And the robots could then be
set to destroy her as well, lest by some chance the remaining Janyards
manage to board her.
And we--we can escape in the initial confusion, Daryesh. We can give
orders to the robot to spare the captain's gig, and we can get Joana
aboard and head for Sol! There'll be no one left to pursue!
Slowly, the Vwyrddan's thought made reply: A good plan. Yes, a bold
stroke. We'll do it!
"What's the matter, Daryesh?" Joana's voice was suddenly anxious. "You
look--"
"Just thinking, that's all. Never think, Captain Rostov. Bad for the
brain."
Later, as he kissed her, Laird felt ill at thought of the treachery
he planned. Her friends, her world, her cause--wiped out in a single
shattering blow, and he would have struck it. He wondered if she would
speak to him ever again, once it was over.
Daryesh, the heartless devil, seemed only to find a sardonic amusement
in the situation.
And later, when Laird slept, Daryesh thought that the young man's
scheme was good. Certainly he'd fall in with it. It would keep Laird
busy till they were at the Grand Fleet rendezvous. And after that
it would be too late. The Janyard victory would be sealed. All he,
Daryesh, had to do when the time came was keep away from that master
switch. If Laird tried to reach it their opposed wills would only
result in nullity--which was victory for Janya.
He liked this new civilization. It had a freshness, a vigor and
hopefulness which he could not find in Laird's memories of Earth. It
had a tough-minded purposefulness that would get it far. And being
young and fluid, it would be amenable to such pressures of psychology
and force as he chose to apply.
Vwyrdda, his mind whispered. Vwyrdda, we'll make them over in your
image. You'll live again!
* * * * *
Grand Fleet!
A million capital ships and their auxiliaries lay marshaled at a dim
red dwarf of a sun, massed together and spinning in the same mighty
orbit. Against the incandescent whiteness of stars and the blackness
of the old deeps, armored flanks gleamed like flame as far as eyes
could see, rank after rank, tier upon tier, of titanic sharks swimming
through space--guns and armor and torpedoes and bombs and men to smash
a planet and end a civilization. The sight was too big, imagination
could not make the leap, and the human mind had only a dazed impression
of vastness beyond vision.
This was the great spearhead of Janya, a shining lance poised to drive
through Sol's thin defense lines and roar out of the sky to rain hell
on the seat of empire. They can't really be human any more, thought
Laird sickly. Space and strangeness have changed them too much. No
human being could think of destroying Man's home. Then, fiercely: All
right Daryesh. This is our chance!
Not yet, Laird. Wait a while. Wait till we have a legitimate excuse for
leaving the ship.
Well--come up to the control room with me. I want to stay near that
switch. Lord, Lord, everything that is Man and me depends on us now!
Daryesh agreed with a certain reluctance that faintly puzzled the
part of his mind open to Laird. The other half, crouched deep in his
subconscious, knew the reason: It was waiting the posthypnotic signal,
the key event which would trigger its emergence into the higher
brain-centers.
The ship bore a tangled and unfinished look. All its conventional
armament had been ripped out and the machines of Vwyrdda installed in
its place. A robot brain, half-alive in its complexity, was gunner and
pilot and ruling intelligence of the vessel now, and only the double
mind of one man knew what orders had really been given it. _When the
main switch is thrown, you will flood the ship with ten units of
disrupting radiation. Then, when the captain's gig is well away, you
will destroy this fleet, sparing only that one boat. When no more
ships in operative condition are in range, you will activate the
disintegrators and dissolve this whole vessel and all its contents to
basic energy._
With a certain morbid fascination, Laird looked at that switch. An
ordinary double-throw knife type--Lord of space, could it be possible,
was it logical that all history should depend on the angle it made with
the control panel? He pulled his eyes away, stared out at the swarming
ships and the greater host of the stars, lit a cigaret with shaking
hands, paced and sweated and waited.
Joana came to him, a couple of crewmen marching solemnly behind. Her
eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed and the turret light was like
molten copper in her hair. No woman, thought Laird, had ever been so
lovely, and he was going to destroy that to which she had given her
life.
"Daryesh!" Laughter danced in her voice. "Daryesh, the high
admiral wants to see us in his flagship. He'll probably ask for a
demonstration, and then I think the fleet will start for Sol at once
with us in the van. Daryesh--oh, Daryesh, the war is almost over!"
Now! blazed the thought of Laird, and his hand reached for the main
switch. Now--easily, causally, with a remark about letting the
generators warm up--and then go with her, overpower those guardsmen in
their surprise and head for home!
And Daryesh's mind reunited itself at that signal, and the hand
froze....
No!
_What? But_--
The memory of the suppressed half of Daryesh's mind was open to Laird,
and the triumph of the whole of it, and Laird knew that his defeat was
here.
* * * * *
So simple, so cruelly simple--Daryesh could stop him, lock the body in
a conflict of wills, and that would be enough. For while Laird slept,
while Daryesh's own major ego was unconscious, the trained subconscious
of the Vwyrddan had taken over. It had written, in its self-created
somnambulism, a letter to Joana explaining the whole truth, and had put
it where it would easily be found once they started looking through
his effects in search of an explanation for his paralysis. And the
letter directed, among other things, that Daryesh's body should be
kept under restraint until certain specified methods known to Vwyrddan
psychiatry--drugs, electric waves, hypnosis--had been applied to
eradicate the Laird half of his mind.
Janyard victory was near.
"Daryesh!" Joana's voice seemed to come from immensely far away; her
face swam in a haze and a roar of fainting consciousness. "Daryesh,
what's the matter? Oh, my dear, what's wrong?"
Grimly, the Vwyrddan thought: Give up, Laird. Surrender to me, and you
can keep your ego. I'll destroy that letter. See, my whole mind is open
to you now--you can see that I mean it honestly this time. I'd rather
avoid treatment if possible, and I do owe you something. But surrender
now, or be wiped out of your own brain.
Defeat and ruin--and nothing but slow distorting death as reward for
resistance. Laird's will caved in, his mind too chaotic for clear
thought. Only one dull impulse came: I give up. You win, Daryesh.
The collapsed body picked itself off the floor. Joana was bending
anxiously over him. "Oh, what is it, what's wrong?"
Daryesh collected himself and smiled shakily. "Excitement will do this
to me, now and then. I haven't fully mastered this alien nervous system
yet. I'm all right now. Let's go."
Laird's hand reached out and pulled the switch over.
Daryesh shouted, an animal roar from the throat, and tried to recover
it, and the body toppled again in a stasis of locked wills.
It was like a deliverance from hell, and still it was but the
inevitable logic of events, as Laird's own self reunited. Half of him
still shaking with defeat, half realizing its own victory, he thought
savagely:
None of them noticed me do that. They were paying too much attention
to my face. Or if they did, we've proved to them before that it's only
a harmless regulating switch. And--the lethal radiations are already
flooding us! If you don't cooperate now, Daryesh, I'll hold us here
till we're both dead!
So simple, so simple. Because, sharing Daryesh's memory, Laird had
shared his knowledge of self-deception techniques. He had anticipated,
with the buried half of his mind, that the Vwyrddan might pull some
such trick, and had installed a posthypnotic command of his own. In a
situation like this, when everything looked hopeless, his conscious
mind was to surrender, and then his subconscious would order that the
switch be thrown.
Cooperate, Daryesh! You're as fond of living as I. Cooperate, and let's
get the hell out of here!
Grudgingly, wryly: You win, Laird.
The body rose again, and leaned on Joana's arm, and made its slow way
toward the boat blisters. The undetectable rays of death poured through
them, piling up their cumulative effects. In three minutes, a nervous
system would be ruined.