"I don't know; but let's let 'em go for a minute. I want to learn about
these people and they've got me stopped cold."
"You aren't the only one. But if they wreck that Mayfield it'll cost you
over twenty thousand dollars."
"Okay." The captain and director watched, wide eyed.
Two master mechanics had been getting ready to re-fit a tube--a job
requiring both strength and skill. The tube was very heavy and made of
superefract. The machine--the Mayfield--upon which the work was to be
done, was extremely complex.
Two of the aliens had brushed the mechanics--very gently--aside and were
doing their work for them. Ignoring the hoist, one native had picked the
tube up and was holding it exactly in place on the Mayfield. The other,
hands moving faster than the eye could follow, was locking
it--micrometrically precise and immovably secure--into place.
"How about this?" one of the mechanics asked of his immediate superior.
"If we throw 'em out, how do we do it?"
By a jerk of the head, the non-com passed the buck to a commissioned
officer, who relayed it up the line to Sawtelle, who said, "Hilton,
_no_body can run a Mayfield without months of training. They'll wreck it
and it'll cost you ... but I'm getting curious myself. Enough so to take
half the damage. Let 'em go ahead."
"How _about_ this, Mike?" one of the machinists asked of his fellow.
"I'm going to _like_ this, what?"
"Ya-as, my deah Chumley," the other drawled, affectedly. "My man
relieves me of _so_ much uncouth effort."
The natives had kept on working. The Mayfield was running. It had always
howled and screamed at its work, but now it gave out only a smooth and
even hum. The aliens had adjusted it with unhuman precision; they were
one with it as no human being could possibly be. And every mind present
knew that those aliens were, at long, long last, fulfilling their
destiny and were, in that fulfillment, supremely happy. After tens of
thousands of cycles of time they were doing a job for their adored,
their revered and beloved MASTERS.
That was a stunning shock; but it was eclipsed by another.
* * * * *
"I am sorry, Master Hilton," Laro's tremendous bass voice boomed out,
"that it has taken us so long to learn your Masters' language as it now
is. Since you left us you have changed it radically; while we, of
course, have not changed it at all."
"I'm sorry, but you're mistaken," Hilton said. "We are merely visitors.
We have never been here before; nor, as far as we know, were any of our
ancestors ever here."
"You need not test us, Master. We have kept your trust. Everything has
been kept, changelessly the same, awaiting your return as you ordered so
long ago."
"Can you read my mind?" Hilton demanded.
"Of course; but Omans can not read in Masters' minds anything except
what Masters want Omans to read."
"Omans?" Harkins asked. "Where did you Omans and your masters come from?
Originally?"
"As you know, Master, the Masters came originally from Arth. They
populated Ardu, where we Omans were developed. When the Stretts drove us
from Ardu, we all came to Ardry, which was your home world until you
left it in our care. We keep also this, your half of the Fuel World, in
trust for you."
"Listen, Jarve!" Harkins said, tensely. "Oman-human. Arth-Earth.
Ardu-Earth Two. Ardry-Earth Three. You can't laugh them off ... but
there never _was_ an Atlantis!"
"This is getting no better fast. We need a full staff meeting. You,
too, Sawtelle, and your best man. We need all the brains the _Perseus_
can muster."
"You're right. But first, get those naked women out of here. It's bad
enough, having women aboard at all, but this ... my men are _spacemen_,
mister."
Laro spoke up. "If it is the Masters' pleasure to keep on testing us, so
be it. We have forgotten nothing. A dwelling awaits each Master, in
which each will be served by Omans who will know the Master's desires
without being told. Every desire. While we Omans have no biological
urges, we are of course highly skilled in relieving tensions and derive
as much pleasure from that service as from any other."
Sawtelle broke the silence that followed. "Well, for the men--" He
hesitated. "Especially on the ground ... well, talking in mixed company,
you know, but I think ..."
"Think nothing of the mixed company, Captain Sawtelle," Sandra said. "We
women are scientists, not shrinking violets. We are accustomed to
discussing the facts of life just as frankly as any other facts."
Sawtelle jerked a thumb at Hilton, who followed him out into the
corridor. "I _have_ been a Navy mule," he said. "I admit now that I'm
out-maneuvered, out-manned, and out-gunned."
"I'm just as baffled--at present--as you are, sir. But my training has
been aimed specifically at the unexpected, while yours has not."
"That's letting me down easy, Jarve." Sawtelle smiled--the first time
the startled Hilton had known that the hard, tough old spacehound
_could_ smile. "What I wanted to say is, lead on. I'll follow you
through force-field and space-warps."
"Thanks, skipper. And by the way, I erased that record yesterday." The
two gripped hands; and there came into being a relationship that was to
become a lifelong friendship.
* * * * *
"We will start for Ardry immediately," Hilton said. "How do we make that
jump without charts, Laro?"
"Very easily, Master. Kedo, as Master Captain Sawtelle's Oman, will give
the orders. Nito will serve Master Snowden and supply the knowledge he
says he has forgotten."
"Okay. We'll go up to the control room and get started."
And in the control room, Kedo's voice rasped into the captain's
microphone. "Attention, all personnel! Master Captain Sawtelle orders
take-off in two minutes. The countdown will begin at five seconds....
Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Lift!"
Nito, not Snowden, handled the controls. As perfectly as the human pilot
had ever done it, at the top of his finest form, he picked the immense
spaceship up and slipped it silkily into subspace.
"Well, I'll be a ..." Snowden gasped. "That's a better job than I _ever_
did!"
"Not at all, Master, as you know," Nito said. "It was you who did this.
I merely performed the labor."
A few minutes later, in the main lounge, Navy and BuSci personnel were
mingling as they had never done before. Whatever had caused this
relaxation of tension--the friendship of captain and director? The
position in which they all were? Or what?--they all began to get
acquainted with each other.
"Silence, please, and be seated," Hilton said. "While this is not
exactly a formal meeting, it will be recorded for future reference.
First, I will ask Laro a question. Were books or records left on Ardry
by the race you call the Masters?"
"You know there are, Master. They are exactly as you left them.
Undisturbed for over two hundred seventy-one thousand years."
"Therefore we will not question the Omans. We do not know what questions
to ask. We have seen many things hitherto thought impossible. Hence, we
must discard all preconceived opinions which conflict with facts. I
will mention a few of the problems we face."
"The Omans. The Masters. The upgrading of the armament of the _Perseus_
to Oman standards. The concentration of uranexite. What is that
concentrate? How is it used? Total conversion--how is it accomplished?
The skeletons--what are they and how are they controlled? Their ability
to drain power. Who or what is back of them? Why a deadlock that has
lasted over a quarter of a million years? How much danger are we and the
_Perseus_ actually in? How much danger is Terra in, because of our
presence here? There are many other questions."
"Sandra and I will not take part. Nor will three others; de Vaux,
Eisenstein, and Blake. You have more important work to do."
"What can that be?" asked Rebecca. "Of what possible use can a
mathematician, a theoretician and a theoretical astronomer be in such a
situation as this?"
"You can think powerfully in abstract terms, unhampered by Terran facts
and laws which we now know are neither facts nor laws. I cannot even
categorize the problems we face. Perhaps you three will be able to. You
will listen, then consult, then tell me how to pick the teams to do the
work. A more important job for you is this: Any problem, to be solved,
must be stated clearly; and we don't know even what our basic problem
is. I want something by the use of which I can break this thing open.
Get it for me."
* * * * *
Rebecca and de Vaux merely smiled and nodded, but Teddy Blake said
happily, "I was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel on this project,
but _that's_ something I can really stick my teeth into."
"Huh? How?" Karns demanded. "He didn't give you one single thing to go
on; just compounded the confusion."
Hilton spoke before Teddy could. "That's their dish, Bill. If I had any
data I'd work it myself. You first, Captain Sawtelle."
That conference was a very long one indeed. There were almost as many
conclusions and recommendations as there were speakers. And through it
all Hilton and Sandra listened. They weighed and tested and analyzed and
made copious notes; in shorthand and in the more esoteric characters of
symbolic logic. And at its end:
"I'm just about pooped, Sandy. How about you?"
"You and me both, boss. See you in the morning."
But she didn't. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they met
again.
"We made up one of the teams, Sandy," he said, with surprising
diffidence. "I know we were going to do it together, but I got a hunch
on the first team. A kind of a weirdie, but the brains checked me on
it." He placed a card on her desk. "Don't blow your top until after I
you've studied it."
"Why, I won't, of course...." Her voice died away. "Maybe you'd better
cancel that 'of course'...." She studied, and when she spoke again she
was exerting self-control. "A chemist, a planetographer, a theoretician,
_two_ sociologists, a psychologist and a radiationist. And six of the
seven are three pairs of sweeties. What kind of a line-up is _that_ to
solve a problem in _physics_?"
"It isn't in any physics we know. I said _think_!"
"Oh," she said, then again "Oh," and "Oh," and "Oh." Four entirely
different tones. "I see ... maybe. You're matching minds, not
specialties; and supplementing?"
"I knew you were smart. Buy it?"
"It's weird, all right, but I'll buy it--for a trial run, anyway. But
I'd hate like sin to have to sell any part of it to the Board.... But of
course we're--I mean you're responsible only to yourself."
"Keep it 'we', Sandy. You're as important to this project as I am. But
before we tackle the second team, what's your thought on Bernadine and
Hermione? Separate or together?"
"Separate, I'd say. They're identical physically, and so nearly so
mentally that of them would be just as good on a team as both of them.
More and better work on different teams."
"My thought exactly." And so it went, hour after hour.
The teams were selected and meetings were held.
* * * * *
The _Perseus_ reached Ardry, which was very much like Terra. There were
continents, oceans, ice-caps, lakes, rivers, mountains and plains,
forests and prairies. The ship landed on the spacefield of Omlu, the
City of the Masters, and Sawtelle called Hilton into his cabin. The
Omans Laro and Kedo went along, of course.
"Nobody knows how it leaked ..." Sawtelle began.
"No secrets around here," Hilton grinned. "Omans, you know."
"I suppose so. Anyway, every man aboard is all hyped up about living
aground--especially with a harem. But before I grant liberty, suppose
there's any VD around here that our prophylactics can't handle?"
"As you know, Masters," Laro replied for Hilton before the latter could
open his mouth, "no disease, venereal or other, is allowed to exist on
Ardry. No prophylaxis is either necessary or desirable."
"That ought to hold you for a while, Skipper." Hilton smiled at the
flabbergasted captain and went back to the lounge.
"Everybody going ashore?" he asked.
"Yes." Karns said. "Unanimous vote for the first time."
"Who wouldn't?" Sandra asked. "I'm fed up with living like a sardine. I
will scream for joy the minute I get into a real room."
"Cars" were waiting, in a stopping-and-starting line. Three-wheel jobs.
All were empty. No drivers, no steering-wheels, no instruments or
push-buttons. When the whole line moved ahead as one vehicle there was
no noise, no gas, no blast.
An Oman helped a Master carefully into the rear seat of his car, leaped
into the front seat and the car sped quietly away. The whole line of
empty cars, acting in perfect synchronization, shot forward one space
and stopped.
"This is your car, Master," Laro said, and made a production out of
getting Hilton into the vehicle undamaged.
Hilton's plan had been beautifully simple. All the teams were to meet at
the Hall of Records. The linguists and their Omans would study the
records and pass them out. Specialty after specialty would be unveiled
and teams would work on them. He and Sandy would sit in the office and
analyze and synthesize and correlate. It was a very nice plan.
It was a very nice office, too. It contained every item of equipment
that either Sandra or Hilton had ever worked with--it was a big
office--and a great many that neither of them had ever heard of. It had
a full staff of Omans, all eager to work.
Hilton and Sandra sat in that magnificent office for three hours, and no
reports came in. Nothing happened at all.
"This gives me the howling howpers!" Hilton growled. "Why haven't I got
brains enough to be on one of those teams?"
"I could shed a tear for you, you big dope, but I won't," Sandra
retorted. "What do you want to be, besides the brain and the kingpin and
the balance-wheel and the spark-plug of the outfit? Do you want to do
_everything_ yourself?"
"Well, I _don't_ want to go completely nuts, and that's all I'm doing at
the moment!" The argument might have become acrimonious, but it was
interrupted by a call from Karns.
"Can you come out here, Jarve? We've struck a knot."
"'Smatter? Trouble with the Omans?" Hilton snapped.
"Not exactly. Just non-cooperation--squared. We can't even get started.
I'd like to have you two come out here and see if you can do anything.
I'm not trying rough stuff, because I know it wouldn't work."
"Coming up, Bill," and Hilton and Sandra, followed by Laro and Sora,
dashed out to their cars.
* * * * *
The Hall of Records was a long, wide, low, windowless, very massive
structure, built of a metal that looked like stainless steel. Kept
highly polished, the vast expanse of seamless and jointless metal was
mirror-bright. The one great door was open, and just inside it were the
scientists and their Omans.
"Brief me, Bill," Hilton said.
"No lights. They won't turn 'em on and we can't. Can't find either
lights or any possible kind of switches."
"Turn on the lights, Laro," Hilton said.
"You know that I cannot do that, Master. It is forbidden for any Oman to
have anything to do with the illumination of this solemn and revered
place."
"Then show me how to do it."
"That would be just as bad, Master," the Oman said proudly. "I will not
fail any test you can devise!"
"Okay. All you Omans go back to the ship and bring over fifteen or
twenty lights--the tripod jobs. Scat!"
They "scatted" and Hilton went on, "No use asking questions if you don't
know what questions to ask. Let's see if we can cook up something.
Lane--Kathy--what has Biology got to say?"
Dr. Lane Saunders and Dr. Kathryn Cook--the latter a willowy brown-eyed
blonde--conferred briefly. Then Saunders spoke, running both hands
through his unruly shock of fiery red hair. "So far, the best we can do
is a more-or-less educated guess. They're atomic-powered,
total-conversion androids. Their pseudo-flesh is composed mainly of
silicon and fluorine. We don't know the formula yet, but it is as much
more stable than our teflon as teflon is than corn-meal mush. As to the
brains, no data. Bones are super-stainless steel. Teeth, harder than
diamond, but won't break. Food, uranexite or its concentrated
derivative, interchangeably. Storage reserve, indefinite. Laro and Sora
won't _have_ to eat again for at least twenty-five years...."
The group gasped as one, but Saunders went on: "They can eat and drink
and breathe and so on, but only because the original Masters wanted
them to. Non-functional. Skins and subcutaneous layers are soft, for the
same reason. That's about it, up to now."
"Thanks, Lane. Hark, is it reasonable to believe that any culture
whatever could run for a quarter of a million years without changing one
word of its language or one iota of its behavior?"
"Reasonable or not, it seems to have happened."
"Now for Psychology. Alex?"
"It seems starkly incredible, but it seems to be true. If it is, their
minds were subjected to a conditioning no Terran has ever imagined--an
unyielding fixation."
"They can't be swayed, then, by reason or logic?" Hilton paused
invitingly.
"Or anything else," Kincaid said, flatly. "If we're right they can't be
swayed, period."
"I was afraid of that. Well, that's all the questions I know how to ask.
Any contributions to this symposium?"
* * * * *
After a short silence de Vaux said, "I suppose you realize that the
first half of the problem you posed us has now solved itself?"
"Why, no. No, you're 'way ahead of me."
"There is a basic problem and it can now be clearly stated," Rebecca
said. "Problem: To determine a method of securing full cooperation from
the Omans. The first step in the solution of this problem is to find the
most appropriate operator. Teddy?"
"I have an operator--of sorts," Theodora said. "I've been hoping one of
us could find a better."
"What is it?" Hilton demanded.
"The word 'until'."
"Teddy, you're a _sweetheart_!" Hilton exclaimed.
"How can 'until' be a mathematical operator?" Sandra asked.
"Easily." Hilton was already deep in thought. "This hard conditioning
was to last only _until_ the Masters returned. Then they'd break it. So
all we have to do is figure out how a Master would do it."
"That's _all_," Kincaid said, meaningly.
Hilton pondered. Then, "Listen, all of you. I may have to try a colossal
job of bluffing...."
"Just what would you call 'colossal' after what you did to the Navy?"
Karns asked.
"That was a sure thing. This isn't. You see, to find out whether Laro is
really an immovable object, I've got to make like an irresistible force,
which I ain't. I don't know what I'm going to do; I'll have to roll it
as I go along. So all of you keep on your toes and back any play I
make. Here they come."
The Omans came in and Hilton faced Laro, eyes to eyes. "Laro," he said,
"you refused to obey my direct order. Your reasoning seems to be that,
whether the Masters wish it or not, you Omans will block any changes
whatever in the _status quo_ throughout all time to come. In other
words, you deny the fact that Masters are in fact your Masters."
"But that is not exactly it, Master. The Masters ..."
"That is it. _Exactly_ it. Either you are the Master here or you are
not. That is a point to which your two-value logic can be strictly
applied. You are wilfully neglecting the word 'until'. This stasis was
to exist only _until_ the Masters returned. Are we Masters? Have we
returned? Note well: Upon that one word 'until' may depend the length of
time your Oman race will continue to exist."
The Omans flinched; the humans gasped.
"But more of that later," Hilton went on, unmoved. "Your ancient
Masters, being short-lived like us, changed materially with time, did
they not? And you changed with them?"
"But we did not change ourselves, Master. The Masters ..."
"You did change yourselves. The Masters changed only the prototype
brain. They ordered you to change yourselves and you obeyed their
orders. We order you to change and you refuse to obey our orders. We
have changed greatly from our ancestors. Right?"
"That is right, Master."
"We are stronger physically, more alert and more vigorous mentally, with
a keener, sharper outlook on life?"
"You are, Master."
* * * * *
"That is because our ancestors decided to do without Omans. We do our
own work and enjoy it. Your Masters died of futility and boredom. What I
would like to do, Laro, is take you to the creche and put your
disobedient brain back into the matrix. However, the decision is not
mine alone to make. How about it, fellows and girls? Would you rather
have alleged servants who won't do anything you tell them to or no
servants at all?"
"As semantician, I protest!" Sandra backed his play. "That is the most
viciously loaded question I ever heard--it can't be answered except in
the wrong way!"
"Okay, I'll make it semantically sound. I think we'd better scrap this
whole Oman race and start over and _I want a vote that way_!"
"You won't get it!" and everybody began to yell.
Hilton restored order and swung on Laro, his attitude stiff, hostile
and reserved. "Since it is clear that no unanimous decision is to be
expected at this time I will take no action at this time. Think over,
very carefully, what I have said, for as far as I am concerned, this
world has no place for Omans who will not obey orders. As soon as I
convince my staff of the fact, I shall act as follows: I shall give you
an order and if you do not obey it blast your head to a cinder. I shall
then give the same order to another Oman and blast him. This process
will continue _until_: First, I find an obedient Oman. Second, I run out
of blasters. Third, the planet runs out of Omans. Now take these lights
into the first room of records--that one over there." He pointed, and no
Oman, and only four humans, realized that he had made the Omans
telegraph their destination so that he could point it out to them!
Inside the room Hilton asked caustically of Laro: "The Masters didn't
lift those heavy chests down themselves, did they?"
"Oh, no, Master, we did that."
"Do it, then. Number One first ... yes, that one ... open it and start
playing the records in order."
The records were not tapes or flats or reels, but were spools of
intricately-braided wire. The players were projectors of full-color,
hi-fi sound, tri-di pictures.
Hilton canceled all moves aground and issued orders that no Oman was to
be allowed aboard ship, then looked and listened with his staff.
The first chest contained only introductory and elementary stuff; but it
was so interesting that the humans stayed overtime to finish it. Then
they went back to the ship; and in the main lounge Hilton practically
collapsed onto a davenport. He took out a cigarette and stared in
surprise at his hand, which was shaking.
"I _think_ I could use a drink," he remarked.
"What, before supper?" Karns marveled. Then, "Hey, Wally! Rush a flagon
of avignognac--Arnaud Freres--for the boss and everything else for the
rest of us. Chop-chop but quick!"
A hectic half-hour followed. Then, "Okay, boys and girls, I love you,
too, but let's cut out the slurp and sloosh, get some supper and log us
some sack time. I'm just about pooped. Sorry I had to queer the
private-residence deal, Sandy, you poor little sardine. But you know how
it is."