As has been said, The Hill, which had been built to be the Tellurian
headquarters of the Triplanetary Service and which was now the
headquarters of the half-organized Solarian Patrol, was--and is--a
truncated, alloy-sheathed, honey-combed mountain. But, since human
beings do not like to live eternally underground, no matter how
beautifully lighted or how carefully and comfortably air-conditioned
the dungeon may be, the Reservation spread far beyond the foot of
that gray, forbidding, mirror-smooth cone of metal. Well outside that
farflung Reservation there was a small city; there were hundreds
of highly productive farms; and, particularly upon this bright May
afternoon, there was a Recreation Park, containing, among other things,
dozens of tennis courts.
One of these courts was three-quarters enclosed by stands, from which
a couple of hundred people were watching a match which seemed to be of
some little local importance. Two men sat in a box which had seats for
twenty, and watched admiringly the pair who seemed in a fair way to win
in straight sets the mixed-doubles championship of the Hill.
"Fine-looking couple, Rod, if I do say so myself, as well as being
smooth performers." Solarian Councillor Virgil Samms spoke to his
companion as the opponents changed courts. "I still think, though, the
young hussy ought to wear some clothes--those white nylon shorts make
her look nakeder even than usual. I told her so, too, the jade, but she
keeps on wearing less and less."
"Of course," Commissioner Roderick K. Kinnison laughed quietly. "What
did you expect? She got her hair and eyes from you, why not your
hard-headedness, too? One thing, though, that's all to the good--she's
got what it takes to strip ship that way, and most of 'em haven't. But
what I can't understand is why they don't...." He paused.
"I don't either. Lord knows we've thrown them at each other hard
enough, and Jack Kinnison and Jill Samms would certainly make a pair to
draw to. But if they won't ... but maybe they will yet. They're still
youngsters, and they're friendly enough."
If Samms père could have been out on the court, however, instead of in
the box, he would have been surprised; for young Kinnison, although
smiling enough as to face, was addressing his gorgeous partner in terms
which carried little indeed of friendliness.
"Listen, you bird-brained, knot-headed, grand-standing half-wit!" he
stormed, voice low but bitterly intense. "I ought to beat your alleged
brains out! I've told you a thousand times to watch your own territory
and _stay out of mine_! If you had been where you belonged, or even
taken my signal, Frank couldn't have made that thirty-all point; and
if Lois hadn't netted she'd've caught you flat-footed, a kilometer
out of position, and made it deuce. What do you think you're doing,
anyway--playing tennis or seeing how many innocent bystanders you can
bring down out of control?"
"What do _you_ think?" the girl sneered, sweetly. Her tawny eyes, only
a couple of inches below his own, almost emitted sparks. "And just
look at who's trying to tell who how to do what! For your information,
Master Pilot John K. Kinnison, I'll tell you that just because you
can't quit being 'Killer' Kinnison even long enough to let two good
friends of ours get a point now and then, or maybe even a game, is no
reason why I've got to turn into 'Killer' Samms. And I'll also tell
you...."
"You'll tell me nothing, Jill--I'm telling _you_! Start giving away
points in anything and you'll find out some day that you've given away
too many. I'm not having any of that kind of game--and as long as
you're playing with me you aren't either--or else. If you louse up this
match just once more, the next ball I serve will hit the tightest part
of those fancy white shorts of yours--right where the hip pocket would
be if they had any--and it'll raise a welt that will make you eat off
of the mantel for three days. So watch your step!"
"You insufferable lug! I'd like to smash this racket over your head!
I'll do it, too, and walk off the court, if you don't...."
The whistle blew. Virgilia Samms, all smiles, toed the base-line and
became the personification and embodiment of smoothly flowing motion.
The ball whizzed over the net, barely clearing it--a sizzling service
ace. The game went on.
And a few minutes later, in the shower room, where Jack Kinnison was
caroling lustily while plying a towel, a huge young man strode up and
slapped him ringingly between the shoulder blades.
"Congratulations, Jack, and so forth. But there's a thing I want to ask
you. Confidential, sort of...?"
"Shoot! Haven't we been eating out of the same dish for lo, these many
moons? Why the diffidence all of a sudden, Mase? It isn't in character."
"Well ... it's ... I'm a lip-reader, you know."
"Sure. We all are. What of it?"
"It's only that ... well, I saw what you and Miss Samms said to each
other out there, and if that was lovers' small talk I'm a Venerian
mud-puppy."
"_Lovers!_ Who the hell ever said we were lovers?... Oh, you've been
inhaling some of dad's balloon-juice. _Lovers!_ Me and that red-headed
stinker--that jelly-brained sapadilly? _Hardly!_"
"Hold it, Jack!" The big officer's voice was slightly edged.
"You're off course--a hell of a long flit off. That girl has got
everything. She's the class of the Reservation--why, she's a regular
twelve-nineteen!"
"Huh?" Amazed, young Kinnison stopped drying himself and stared. "You
mean to say you've been giving her a miss just because...." He had
started to say "because you're the best friend I've got in the System,"
but he did not.
"Well, it would have smelled slightly cheesy, I thought." The other
man did not put into words, either, what both of them so deeply knew
to be the truth. "But if you haven't got ... if it's O.K. with you, of
course...."
"Stand by for five seconds--I'll take you around."
Jack threw on his uniform, and in a few minutes the two young officers,
immaculate in the space-black-and-silver of the Patrol, made their way
toward the women's dressing rooms.
"... but she's all right, at that ... in most ways ... I guess."
Kinnison was half-apologizing for what he had said. "Outside of being
chicken-hearted and pig-headed, she's a good egg. She really
qualifies ... most of the time. But I wouldn't have her, bonus
attached, any more than she would have me. It's strictly mutual. You
won't fall for her, either, Mase; you'll want to pull one of her legs
off and beat the rest of her to death with it inside of a week--but
there's nothing like finding things out for yourself."
In a short time Miss Samms appeared; dressed somewhat less revealingly
than before in the blouse and kilts which were the mode of the moment.
"Hi, Jill! This is Mase--I've told you about him. My boat-mate. Master
Electronicist Mason Northrop."
"Yes, I've heard about you, 'Troncist--a lot." She shook hands warmly.
"He hasn't been putting tracers on you, Jill, on accounta he figured
he'd be poaching. Can you feature that? I straightened him out, though,
in short order. Told him why, too, so he ought to be insulated against
any voltage you can generate."
"Oh, you did? How sweet of you! But how ... oh, those?" She gestured at
the powerful prism binoculars, a part of the uniform of every officer
of space.
"Uh-huh." Northrop wriggled, but held firm.
"If I'd only been as big and husky as you are," surveying admiringly
some six feet two of altitude and two hundred-odd pounds of hard
meat, gristle, and bone, "I'd have grabbed him by one ankle, whirled
him around my head, and flung him into the fifteenth row of seats.
What's the matter with him, Mase, is that he was born centuries and
centuries too late. He should have been an overseer when they built
the pyramids--flogging slaves because they wouldn't step just so. Or
better yet, one of those people it told about in those funny old books
they dug up last year--liege lords, or something like that, remember?
With the power of life and death--'high, middle, and low justice',
whatever that was--over their vassals and their families, serfs, and
serving-wenches. _Especially_ serving-wenches! He likes little, cuddly
baby-talkers, who pretend to be utterly spineless and completely
brainless--eh, Jack?"
"Ouch! Touché, Jill--but maybe I had it coming to me, at that. Let's
call it off, shall we? I'll be seeing you two, hither or yon." Kinnison
turned and hurried away.
"Want to know why he's doing such a quick flit?" Jill grinned up at her
companion; a bright, quick grin. "Not that he was giving up. The blonde
over there--the one in rocket red. Very few blondes can wear such a
violent shade. Dimples Maynard."
"And is she ... er...?"
"Cuddly and baby-talkish? Uh-uh. She's a grand person. I was just
popping off; so was he. You know that neither of us really meant half
of what we said ... or ... at least...." Her voice died away.
"I don't know whether I do or not," Northrop replied, awkwardly but
honestly. "That was savage stuff if there ever was any. I can't see for
the life of me why you two--two of the world's finest people--should
have to tear into each other that way. Do you?"
"I don't know that I ever thought of it like that." Jill caught her
lower lip between her teeth. "He's splendid, really, and I like him a
lot--usually. We get along perfectly most of the time. We don't fight
at all except when we're too close together ... and then we fight about
anything and everything ... say, suppose that that could be it? Like
charges, repelling each other inversely as the square of the distance?
That's about the way it seems to be."
"Could be, and I'm glad." The man's face cleared. "And I'm a charge of
the opposite sign. Let's go!"
* * * * *
And in Virgil Samms' deeply-buried office, Civilization's two strongest
men were deep in conversation.
"... troubles enough to keep four men of our size awake nights."
Samms' voice was light, but his eyes were moody and somber. "You can
probably whip yours, though, in time. They're mostly in one solar
system; a short flit covers the rest. Languages and customs are known.
But how--_how_--can legal processes work efficiently--work at all,
for that matter--when a man can commit a murder or a pirate can loot
a space-ship and be a hundred parsecs away before the crime is even
discovered? How can a Tellurian John Law find a criminal on a strange
world that knows nothing whatever of our Patrol, with a completely
alien language--maybe no language at all--where it takes months even
to find out who and where--if any--the native police officers are? But
there must be a way, Rod--there's _got_ to be a way!" Samms slammed his
open hand resoundingly against his desk's bare top. "And by God I'll
find it--the Patrol _will_ come out on top!"
"'Crusader' Samms, now and forever!" There was no trace of mockery in
Kinnison's voice or expression, but only friendship and admiration.
"And I'll bet you do. Your Interstellar Patrol, or whatever...."
"Galactic Patrol. I know what the name of it is going to be, if nothing
else."
"... is just as good as in the bag, right now. You've done a job so
far, Virge. This whole system, Nevia, the colonies on Aldebaran II and
other planets, even Valeria, as tight as a drum. Funny about Valeria,
isn't it...."
There was a moment of silence, then Kinnison went on:
"But wherever diamonds are, there go Dutchmen. And Dutch women
go wherever their men do. And, in spite of medical advice, Dutch
babies arrive. Although a lot of the adults died--three G's is no
joke--practically all of the babies keep on living. Developing
bones and muscles to fit--walking at a year and a half old--living
normally--they say that the third generation will be perfectly at home
there."
"Which shows that the human animal is more adaptable than some ranking
medicos had believed, is all. Don't try to side-track me, Rod. You
know as well as I do what we're up against; the new headaches that
inter-stellar commerce is bringing with it. New vices--drugs--thionite,
for instance; we haven't been able to get an inkling of an idea as to
where that stuff is coming from. And I don't have to tell you what
piracy has done to insurance rates."
"I'll say not--look at the price of Aldebaranian cigars, the only kind
fit to smoke! You've given up, then, on the idea that Arisia is the
pirates' GHQ?"
"Definitely. It isn't. The pirates are even more afraid of it than
tramp spacemen are. It's out of bounds--absolutely forbidden territory,
apparently--to everybody, my best operatives included. All we know
about it is the name--Arisia--that our planetographers gave it. It is
the first completely incomprehensible thing I have ever experienced. I
am going out there myself as soon as I can take the time--not that I
expect to crack a thing that my best men couldn't touch, but there have
been so many different and conflicting reports--no two stories agree on
anything except in that no one could get anywhere near the planet--that
I feel the need of some first-hand information. Want to come along?"
"Try to keep me from it!"
"But at that, we shouldn't be too surprised," Samms went on,
thoughtfully. "Just beginning to scratch the surface as we are,
we should expect to encounter peculiar, baffling--even completely
inexplicable things. Facts, situations, events, and beings for which
our one-system experience could not possibly have prepared us. In fact,
we already have. If, ten years ago, anyone had told you that such a
race as the Rigellians existed, what would you have thought? One ship
went there, you know--once. One hour in any Rigellian city--one minute
in a Rigellian automobile--drives a Tellurian insane."
"I see your point." Kinnison nodded. "Probably I would have ordered
a mental examination. And the Palainians are even worse. People--if
you can call them that--who live on Pluto and _like_ it! Entities so
alien that nobody, as far as I know, understands them. But you don't
have to go even that far from home to locate a job of unscrewing the
inscrutable. Who, what, and why--and for how long--was Gray Roger? And,
not far behind him, is this young Bergenholm of yours. And by the way,
you never did give me the lowdown on how come it was the 'Bergenholm',
and not the 'Rodebush-Cleveland', that made trans-galactic commerce
possible and caused nine-tenths of our headaches. As I get the story,
Bergenholm wasn't--isn't--even an engineer."
"Didn't I? Thought I did. He wasn't, and isn't. Well, the original
Rodebush-Cleveland free drive was a killer, you know...."
"_How_ I know!" Kinnison exclaimed, feelingly.
"They beat their brains out and ate their hearts out for months,
without getting it any better. Then, one day, this kid Bergenholm
ambles into their shop--big, awkward, stumbling over his own feet. He
gazes innocently at the thing for a couple of minutes, then says:
"'Why don't you use uranium instead of iron and rewind it so it will
put out a wave-form like this, with humps here, and here; instead of
there, and there?' and he draws a couple of free-hand, but really
beautiful curves.
"'Why should we?' they squawk at him.
"'Because it will work that way,' he says, and ambles out as
unconcernedly as he came in. Can't--or won't--say another word.
"Well in sheer desperation, they tried it--and it WORKED! And nobody
has ever had a minute's trouble with a Bergenholm since. That's why
Rodebush and Cleveland both insisted on the name."
"I see; and it points up what I just said. But if he's such a mental
giant, why isn't he getting results with his own problem, the meteor?
Or is he?"
"No ... or at least he wasn't as of last night. But there's a note on
my pad that he wants to see me sometime today--suppose we have him come
in now?"
"Fine! I'd like to talk to him, if it's O.K. with you and with him."
The young scientist was called in, and was introduced to the
Commissioner.
"Go ahead, Doctor Bergenholm," Samms suggested then. "You may talk to
both of us, just as freely as though you and I were alone."
"I have, as you already know, been called psychic," Bergenholm began,
abruptly. "It is said that I dream dreams, see visions, hear voices,
and so on. That I operate on hunches. That I am a genius. Now I very
definitely am _not_ a genius--unless my understanding of the meaning of
that word is different from that of the rest of mankind."
Bergenholm paused. Samms and Kinnison looked at each other. The latter
broke the short silence.
"The Councillor and I have just been discussing the fact that there
are a great many things we do not know; that with the extension of our
activities into new fields, the occurrence of the impossible has become
almost a commonplace. We are able, I believe, to listen with open minds
to anything you have to say."
"Very well. But first, please know that I am a scientist. As such, I
am trained to observe; to think calmly, clearly, and analytically;
to test every hypothesis. I do not believe at all in the so-called
supernatural. This universe did not come into being, it does not
continue to be, except by the operation of natural and immutable laws.
And I mean _immutable_, gentlemen. Everything that has ever happened,
that is happening now, or that ever is to happen, was, is, and will
be statistically connected with its predecessor event and with its
successor event. If I did not believe that implicitly, I would lose
all faith in the scientific method. For if one single 'supernatural'
event or thing had ever occurred or existed it would have constituted
an entirely unpredictable event and would have initiated a series--a
succession--of such events; a state of things which no scientist will
or can believe possible in an orderly universe.
"At the same time, I recognize the fact that I myself have done
things--caused events to occur, if you prefer--that I cannot explain to
you or to any other human being in any symbology known to our science;
and it is about an even more inexplicable--call it 'hunch' if you
like--that I asked to have a talk with you today."
"But you are arguing in circles," Samms protested. "Or are you trying
to set up a paradox?"
"Neither. I am merely clearing the way for a somewhat startling thing I
am to say later on. You know, of course, that any situation with which
a mind is unable to cope; a really serious dilemma which it cannot
resolve; will destroy that mind--frustration, escape from reality, and
so on. You also will realize that I must have become cognizant of my
own peculiarities long before anyone else did or could?"
"Ah. I see. Yes, of course." Samms, intensely interested, leaned
forward. "Yet your present personality is adequately, splendidly
integrated. How could you possibly have overcome--reconciled--a
situation so full of conflict?"
"You are, I think, familiar with my parentage?" Samms, keen as he was,
did not consider it noteworthy that the big Norwegian answered his
question only by asking one of his own.
"Yes ... oh, I'm beginning to see ... but Commissioner Kinnison has not
had access to your dossier. Go ahead."
"My father is Dr. Hjalmar Bergenholm. My mother, before her marriage,
was Dr. Olga Bjornson. Both were, and are, nuclear physicists--very
good ones. Pioneers, they have been called. They worked, and are still
working, in the newest, outermost fringes of the field."
"Oh!" Kinnison exclaimed. "A mutant? Born with second sight--or
whatever it is?"
"Not second sight, as history describes the phenomenon, no. The
records do not show that any such faculty was ever demonstrated to the
satisfaction of any competent scientific investigator. What I have is
something else. Whether or not it will breed true is an interesting
topic of speculation, but one having nothing to do with the problem now
in hand. To return to the subject, I resolved my dilemma long since.
There is, I am absolutely certain, a science of the mind which is as
definite, as positive, as immutable of law, as is the science of the
physical. While I will make no attempt to prove it to you, I _know_
that such a science exists, and that I was born with the ability to
perceive at least some elements of it.
"Now to the matter of the meteor of the Patrol. That emblem was and is
purely physical. The pirates have just as able scientists as we have.
What physical science can devise and synthesize, physical science can
analyze and duplicate. There is a point, however, beyond which physical
science cannot go. It can neither analyze nor imitate the tangible
products of that which I have so loosely called the science of the mind.
"I know, Councillor Samms, what the Triplanetary Service needs;
something vastly more than its meteor. I also know that the need will
become greater and greater as the sphere of action of the Patrol
expands. Without a really efficient symbol, the Solarian Patrol will
be hampered even more than the Triplanetary Service; and its logical
extension into the Space Patrol, or whatever that larger organization
may be called, will be definitely impossible. We need something which
will identify any representative of Civilization, positively and
unmistakably, wherever he may be. It must be impossible of duplication,
or even of imitation, to which end it must kill any unauthorized entity
who attempts imposture. It must operate as a telepath between its owner
and any other living intelligence, of however high or low degree, so
that mental communication, so much clearer and faster than physical,
will be possible without the laborious learning of language; or between
us and such peoples as those of Rigel Four or of Palain Seven, both
of whom we know to be of high intelligence and who must already be
conversant with telepathy."
"Are you or have you been, reading my mind?" Samms asked quietly.
"No," Bergenholm replied flatly. "It is not and has not been necessary.
Any man who can think, who has really considered the question, and
who has the good of Civilization at heart, must have come to the same
conclusions."
"Probably so, at that. But no more side issues. You have a solution of
some kind worked out, or you would not be here. What is it?"
"It is that you, Solarian Councillor Samms, should go to Arisia as soon
as possible."
"Arisia!" Samms exclaimed, and:
"Arisia! Of all the hells in space, why Arisia? And how can we make the
approach? Don't you know that _nobody_ can get anywhere near that damn
planet?"
Bergenholm shrugged his shoulders and spread both arms wide in a
pantomime of complete helplessness.
"How do you know--another of your hunches?" Kinnison went on. "Or did
somebody tell you something? _Where_ did you get it?"
"It is not a hunch," the Norwegian replied, positively. "No one told me
anything. But I _know_--as definitely as I know that the combustion of
hydrogen in oxygen will yield water--that the Arisians are very well
versed in that which I have called the science of the mind; that if
Virgil Samms goes to Arisia he will obtain the symbol he needs; that he
will never obtain it otherwise. As to _how_ I know these things ... I
can't ... I just ... I _know_ it, I tell you!"
Without another word, without asking permission to leave, Bergenholm
whirled around and hurried out. Samms and Kinnison stared at each other.
"Well?" Kinnison asked, quizzically.
"I'm going. Now. Whether I can be spared or not, and whether you think
I'm out of control or not. I believe him, every word--and besides,
there's the Bergenholm. How about you? Coming?"
"Yes. Can't say that I'm sold one hundred percent; but, as you say, the
Bergenholm is a hard fact to shrug off. And at minimum rating, it's got
to be tried. What are you taking? Not a fleet, probably--the _Boise_?
Or the _Chicago_?" It was the Commissioner of Public Safety speaking
now, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. "The _Chicago_, I'd
say--the fastest and strongest thing in space."
"Recommendation approved. Blast-off; twelve hundred hours tomorrow!"