"Uh-uh. Not a bit. Alex was right. I'm going to just _love_ it!" She
hugged his elbow ecstatically. "So are you, darling, as soon as you stop
looking at only the black side."
"You know ... you could be right?" For the first time since the
"ghastly" transformation Hilton saw that there really was a bright side
and began to study it. "With most of BuSci--and part of the Navy, and
selectees from Terra--it _will_ be slightly terrific, at that!"
"And that 'habit-forming-drug' objection isn't insuperable, darling,"
Temple said. "If the younger generations start weakening we'll fix the
Omans. I wouldn't want to wipe them out entirely, but ..."
"But how do we settle priority, Doctor Hilton?" a girl called out; a
tall, striking, brunette laboratory technician whose name Hilton needed
a second to recall. "By pulling straws or hair? Or by shooting dice or
each other or what?"
"Thanks, Betty, you've got a point. Sandy Cummings and department heads
first, then assistants. Then you girls, in alphabetical order, each
with her own husband or fiance."
"And my name is Ames. Oh, goody!"
"Larry, please tell them to ..."
"I already have, sir. We are set up to handle four at once."
"Good boy. So scat, all of you, and get back to work--except Sandy,
Bill, Alex, and Teddy. You four go with Larry."
Since the new sense was not peyondix, Hilton had started calling it
"perception" and the others adopted the term as a matter of course.
Hilton could use that sense for what seemed like years--and actually was
whole minutes--at a time without fatigue or strain. He could not,
however, nor could the Omans, give his tremendous power to anyone else.
As he had said, he could do a certain amount of reworking; but the
amount of improvement possible to make depended entirely upon what there
was to work on. Thus, Temple could cover about six hundred light-years.
It developed later that the others of the Big Eight could cover from one
hundred up to four hundred or so. The other department heads and
assistants turned out to be still weaker, and not one of the rank and
file ever became able to cover more than a single planet.
This sense was not exactly telepathy; at least not what Hilton had
always thought telepathy would be. If anything, however, it was more.
It was a lumping together of all five known human senses--and half a
dozen unknown ones called, collectively, "intuition"--into one
super-sense that was all-inclusive and all-informative. If he ever could
learn exactly what it was and exactly what it did and how it did it ...
but he'd better chip-chop the wool-gathering and get back onto the job.
* * * * *
The Stretts had licked the old Masters very easily, and intended to wipe
out the Omans and the humans. They had no doubt at all as to their
ability to do it. Maybe they could. If the Masters hadn't made some
progress that the Omans didn't know about, they probably could. That was
the first thing to find out. As soon as they'd been converted he'd call
in all the experts and they'd go through the Masters' records like a
dose of salts through a hillbilly schoolma'am.
At that point in Hilton's cogitations Sawtelle came in.
He had come down in his gig, to confer with Hilton as to the newly
beefed-up fleet. Instead of being glum and pessimistic and foreboding,
he was chipper and enthusiastic. They had rebuilt a thousand Oman ships.
By combining Oman and Terran science, and adding everything the First
Team had been able to reduce to practise, they had hyped up the power
by a good fifteen per cent. Seven hundred of those ships, and all his
men, were now arrayed in defense around Ardry. Three hundred, manned by
Omans, were around Fuel Bin.
"Why?" Hilton asked. "It's Fuel Bin they've been attacking."
"Uh-uh. Minor objective," the captain demurred, positively. "The real
attack will be here at you; the headquarters and the brains. Then Fuel
Bin will be duck soup. But the thing that pleased me most is the
control. Man, you never imagined such control! No admiral in history
ever had such control of ten ships as I have of seven hundred. Those
Omans spread orders so fast that I don't even finish thinking one and
it's being executed. And no misunderstandings, no slips. For instance,
this last batch--fifteen skeletons. Far out; they're getting cagy. I
just thought 'Box 'em in and slug 'em' and--In! Across! Out! Socko!
Pffft! Just like that and just that fast. None of 'em had time to light
a beam. Nobody before ever even _dreamed_ of such control!"
"That's great, and I like it ... and you're only a captain. How many
ships can Five-Jet Admiral Gordon put into space?"
"That depends on what you call ships. Superdreadnoughts, _Perseus_
class, six. First-line battleships, twenty-nine. Second-line, smaller
and some pretty old, seventy-three. Counting everything armed that will
hold air, something over two hundred."
"I thought it was something like that. How would you like to be Five-Jet
Admiral Sawtelle of the Ardrian Navy?"
"I wouldn't. I'm Terran Navy. But you knew that and you know me.
So--what's on your mind?"
* * * * *
Hilton told him. _I ought to put this on a tape_, he thought to himself,
_and broadcast it every hour on the hour_.
"They took the old Masters like dynamiting fish in a barrel," he
concluded, "and I'm damned afraid they're going to lick us unless we
take a lot of big, fast steps. But the hell of it is that I can't tell
you anything--not one single thing--about any part of it. There's simply
no way at all of getting through to you without making you over into the
same kind of a thing I am."
"Is that bad?" Sawtelle was used to making important decisions fast.
"Let's get at it."
"Huh? Skipper, do you realize just what that means? If you think they'll
let you resign, forget it. They'll crucify you--brand you as a traitor
and God only knows what else."
"Right. How about you and your people?"
"Well, as civilians, it won't be as bad...."
"The hell it won't. Every man and woman that stays here will be posted
forever as the blackest traitors old Terra ever disgraced herself by
spawning."
"You've got a point there, at that. We'll all have to bring our
relatives--the ones we think much of, at least--out here with us."
"Definitely. Now see what you can do about getting me run through your
mill."
By exerting his authority, Hilton got Sawtelle put through the
"Preservatory" in the second batch processed. Then, linking minds with
the captain, he flashed their joint attention to the Hall of Records.
Into the right room; into the right chest; along miles and miles of
braided wire carrying some of the profoundest military secrets of the
ancient Masters.
Then:
"Now you know a little of it," Hilton said. "Maybe a thousandth of what
we'll have to have before we can take the Stretts as they will have to
be taken."
For seconds Sawtelle could not speak. Then: "My ... God. I see what you
mean. You're right. No Omans can ever go to Terra; and no Terrans can
ever come here except to stay forever."
The two then went out into space, to the flagship--which had been
christened the _Orion_--and called in the six commanders.
"What _is_ all this senseless idiocy we've been getting, Jarve?" Elliott
demanded.
Hilton eyed all six with pretended disfavor. "You six guys are the
hardest-headed bunch of skeptics that ever went unhung," he remarked,
dispassionately. "So it wouldn't do any good to tell you anything--yet.
The skipper and I will show you a thing first. Take her away, Skip."
The _Orion_ shot away under interplanetary drive and for several hours
Hilton and Sawtelle worked at re-wiring and practically rebuilding two
devices that no one, Oman or human, had touched since the _Perseus_ had
landed on Ardry.
"What are you ... I don't understand what you are doing, sir," Larry
said. For the first time since Hilton had known him, the Oman's mind was
confused and unsure.
"I know you don't. This is a bit of top-secret Masters' stuff. Maybe,
some day, we'll be able to re-work your brain to take it. But it won't
be for some time."
X
The _Orion_ hung in space, a couple of thousands of miles away from an
asteroid which was perhaps a mile in average diameter. Hilton
straightened up.
"Put Triple X Black filters on your plates and watch that asteroid." The
commanders did so. "Ready?" he asked.
"Ready, sir."
Hilton didn't move a muscle. Nothing actually moved. Nevertheless there
was a motionlessly writhing and crawling distortion of the ship and
everything in it, accompanied by a sensation that simply can not be
described.
It was not like going into or emerging from the sub-ether. It was not
even remotely like space-sickness or sea-sickness or free fall or
anything else that any Terran had ever before experienced.
And the asteroid vanished.
It disappeared into an outrageously incandescent, furiously pyrotechnic,
raveningly expanding atomic fireball that in seconds seemed to fill half
of space.
After ages-long minutes of the most horrifyingly devastating fury any
man there had ever seen, the frightful thing expired and Hilton said:
"_That_ was just a kind of a firecracker. Just a feeble imitation of the
first-stage detonator for what we'll have to have to crack the Stretts'
ground-based screens. If the skipper and I had taken time to take the
ship down to the shops and really work it over we could have put on a
show. Was this enough so you iron-heads are ready to listen with your
ears open and your mouths shut?"
They were. So much so that not even Elliott opened his mouth to say yes.
They merely nodded. Then again--for the last time, he hoped!--Hilton
spoke his piece. The response was prompt and vigorous. Only Sam Bryant,
one of Hilton's staunchest allies, showed any uncertainty at all.
"I've been married only a year and a half, and the baby was due about a
month ago. How sure are you that you can make old Gordon sit still for
us skimming the cream off of Terra to bring out here?"
"Doris Bryant, the cream of Terra!" Elliott gibed. "_How_ modest our
Samuel has become!"
"Well, damn it, she is!" Bryant insisted.
"Okay, she is," Hilton agreed. "But either we get our people or Terra
doesn't get its uranexite. That'll work. In the remote contingency that
it doesn't, there are still tighter screws we can put on. But you missed
the main snapper, Sam. Suppose Doris doesn't want to live for five
thousand years and is allergic to becoming a monster?"
"Huh; you don't need to worry about that." Sam brushed that argument
aside with a wave of his hand. "Show me a girl who doesn't want to stay
young and beautiful forever and I'll square you the circle. Come on.
What's holding us up?"
* * * * *
The _Orion_ hurtled through space back toward Ardry and Hilton, struck
by a sudden thought, turned to the captain.
"Skipper, why wouldn't it be a smart idea to clamp a blockade onto Fuel
Bin? Cut the Stretts' fuel supply?"
"I thought better of you than that, son." Sawtelle shook his head sadly.
"That was the first thing I did."
"Ouch. Maybe you're 'way ahead of me too, then, on the one that we
should move to Fuel Bin, lock, stock and barrel?"
"Never thought of it, no. Maybe you're worth saving, after all. After
conversion, of course.... Yes, there'd be three big advantages."
"Four."
Sawtelle raised his eyebrows.
"One, only one planet to defend. Two, it's self-defending against sneak
landings. Nothing remotely human can land on it except in heavy lead
armor, and even in that can stay healthy for only a few minutes."
"Except in the city. Omlu. That's the weak point and would be the point
of attack."
"Uh-uh. Cut off the decontaminators and in five hours it'll be as hot as
the rest of the planet. Three, there'd be no interstellar supply line
for the Stretts to cut. Four, the environment matches our new physiques
a lot better than any normal planet could."
"That's the one I didn't think about."
"I think I'll take a quick peek at the Stretts--oh-oh; they've screened
their whole planet. Well, we can do that, too, of course."
"How are you going to select and reject personnel? It looks as though
everybody wants to stay. Even the men whose main object in life is to go
aground and get drunk. The Omans do altogether too good a job on them
and there's no such thing as a hangover. I'm glad I'm not in your
boots."
"You may be in it up to the eyeballs, Skipper, so don't chortle too
soon."
Hilton had already devoted much time to the problems of selection; and
he thought of little else all the way back to Ardry. And for several
days afterward he held conferences with small groups and conducted
certain investigations.
* * * * *
Bud Carroll of Sociology and his assistant Sylvia Banister had been
married for weeks. Hilton called them, together with Sawtelle and Bryant
of Navy, into conference with the Big Eight.
"The more I study this thing the less I like it," Hilton said. "With a
civilization having no government, no police, no laws, no medium of
exchange ..."
"No _money_?" Bryant exclaimed. "How's old Gordon going to pay for his
uranexite, then?"
"He gets it free," Hilton replied, flatly. "When anyone can have
anything he wants, merely by wanting it, what good is money? Now,
remembering how long we're going to have to live, what we'll be up
against, that the Masters failed, and so on, it is clear that the prime
basic we have to select for is stability. We twelve have, by
psychodynamic measurement, the highest stability ratings available."
"Are you sure _I_ belong here?" Bryant asked.
"Yes. Here are three lists." Hilton passed papers around. "The list
labeled 'OK' names those I'm sure of--the ones we're converting now and
their wives and whatever on Terra. List 'NG' names the ones I know we
don't want. List 'X'--over thirty percent--are in-betweeners. We have to
make a decision on the 'X' list. So--what I want to know is, who's going
to play God. I'm not. Sandy, are you?"
"Good Heavens, no!" Sandra shuddered. "But I'm afraid I know who will
have to. I'm sorry, Alex, but it'll have to be you four--Psychology and
Sociology."
Six heads nodded and there was a flashing interchange of thought among
the four. Temple licked her lips and nodded, and Kincaid spoke.
"Yes, I'm afraid it's our baby. By leaning very heavily on Temple, we
can do it. Remember, Jarve, what you said about the irresistible force?
We'll need it."
"As I said once before, Mrs. Hilton, I'm very glad you're along,"
Hilton said. "But just how sure are you that even you can stand up under
the load?"
"Alone, I couldn't. But don't underestimate Mrs. Carroll and the Messrs.
Together, and with such a goal, I'm sure we can."
* * * * *
Thus, after four-fifths of his own group and forty-one Navy men had been
converted, Hilton called an evening meeting of all the converts. Larry,
Tuly and Javvy were the only Omans present.
"You all knew, of course, that we were going to move to Fuel Bin
sometime," Hilton began. "I can tell you now that we who are here are
all there are going to be of us. We are all leaving for Fuel Bin
immediately after this meeting. Everything of any importance, including
all of your personal effects, has already been moved. All Omans except
these three, and all Oman ships except the _Orion_, have already gone."
He paused to let the news sink in.
Thoughts flew everywhere. The irrepressible Stella Wing--_now_ Mrs.
Osbert F. Harkins--was the first to give tongue. "What a _wonderful_
job! Why, everybody's here that I really like at all!"
That sentiment was, of course, unanimous. It could not have been
otherwise. Betty, the ex-Ames, called out:
"How did you get their female Omans away from Cecil Calthorpe and the
rest of that chasing, booze-fighting bunch without them blowing the
whole show?"
"Some suasion was necessary," Hilton admitted, with a grin. "Everyone
who isn't here is time-locked into the _Perseus_. Release time eight
hours tomorrow."
"And they'll wake up tomorrow morning with no Omans?" Bernadine tossed
back her silvery mane and laughed. "Nor anything else except the
_Perseus_? In a way, I'm sorry, but ... maybe I've got too much stinker
blood in me, but I'm very glad none of them are here. But I'd like to
ask, Jarvis--or rather, I suppose you have already set up a new Advisory
Board?"
"We have, yes." Hilton read off twelve names.
"Oh, nice. I don't know of any people I'd rather have on it. But what I
want to gripe about is calling our new home world such a horrible name
as 'Fuel Bin,' as though it were a wood-box or a coal-scuttle or
something. And just think of the complexes it would set up in those
super-children we're going to have so many of."
"What would you suggest?" Hilton asked.
"'Ardvor', of course," Hermione said, before her sister could answer.
"We've had 'Arth' and 'Ardu' and 'Ardry' and you--or somebody--started
calling us 'Ardans' to distinguish us converts from the Terrans. So
let's keep up the same line."
There was general laughter at that, but the name was approved.
* * * * *
About midnight the meeting ended and the _Orion_ set out for Ardvor. It
reached it and slanted sharply downward. The whole BuSci staff was in
the lounge, watching the big tri-di.
"Hey! That isn't Omlu!" Stella exclaimed. "It isn't a city at all and it
isn't even in the same place!"
"No, ma'am," Larry said. "Most of you wanted the ocean, but many wanted
a river or the mountains. Therefore we razed Omlu and built your new
city, Ardane, at a place where the ocean, two rivers, and a range of
mountains meet. Strictly speaking, it is not a city, but a place of
pleasant and rewardful living."
The space-ship was coming in, low and fast, from the south. To the left,
the west, there stretched the limitless expanse of ocean. To the right,
mile after mile, were rough, rugged, jagged, partially-timbered
mountains, mass piled upon mass. Immediately below the speeding vessel
was a wide, white-sand beach all of ten miles long.
Slowing rapidly now, the _Orion_ flew along due north.
[Illustration]
"Look! Look! A natatorium!" Beverly shrieked. "I know I wanted a nice
big place to swim in, besides my backyard pool and the ocean, but I
didn't tell anybody to build _that_--I swear I didn't!"
"You didn't have to, pet." Poynter put his arm around her curvaceous
waist and squeezed. "They knew. And I did a little thinking along that
line myself. There's our house, on top of the cliff over the
natatorium--you can almost dive into it off the patio."
"Oh, wonderful!"
Immediately north of the natatorium a tremendous river--named at first
sight the "Whitewater"--rushed through its gorge into the ocean; a river
and gorge strangely reminiscent of the Colorado and its Grand Canyon. On
the south bank of that river, at its very mouth--looking straight up
that tremendous canyon; on a rocky promontory commanding ocean and beach
and mountains--there was a house. At the sight of it Temple hugged
Hilton's arm in ecstasy.
"Yes, that's ours," he assured her. "Just about everything either of us
has ever wanted." The clamor was now so great--everyone was recognizing
his-and-her house and was exclaiming about it--that both Temple and
Hilton fell silent and simply watched the scenery unroll.
Across the turbulent Whitewater and a mile farther north, the mountains
ended as abruptly as though they had been cut off with a cleaver and an
apparently limitless expanse of treeless, grassy prairie began. And
through that prairie, meandering sluggishly to the ocean from the
northeast, came the wide, deep River Placid.
The _Orion_ halted. It began to descend vertically, and only then did
Hilton see the spaceport. It was so vast, and there were so many
spaceships on it, that from any great distance it was actually
invisible! Each six-acre bit of the whole immense expanse of level
prairie between the Placid and the mountains held an Oman
superdreadnought!
* * * * *
The staff paired off and headed for the airlocks. Hilton said: "Temple,
have you any reservations at all, however slight, as to having Dark Lady
as a permanent fixture in your home?"
"Why, of course not--I like her as much as you do. And besides--" she
giggled like a schoolgirl--"even if she _is_ a lot more beautiful than I
am--I've got a few things she never will have ... but there's something
else. I got just a flash of it before you blocked. Spill it, please."
"You'll see in a minute." And she did.
Larry, Dark Lady and Temple's Oman maid Moty were standing beside the
Hilton's car--and so was another Oman, like none ever before seen. Six
feet four; shoulders that would just barely go through a door; muscled
like Atlas and Hercules combined; skin a gleaming, satiny bronze; hair a
rippling mass of lambent flame. Temple came to a full stop and caught
her breath.
"The Prince," she breathed, in awe. "Da Lormi's Prince of Thebes. The
ultimate bronze of all the ages. _You_ did this, Jarve. How did you ever
dig him up out of my schoolgirl crushes?"
All six got into the car, which was equally at home on land or water or
in the air. In less than a minute they were at Hilton House.
The house itself was circular. Its living-room was an immense annulus of
glass from which, by merely moving along its circular length, any
desired view could be had. The pair walked around it once. Then she took
him by the arm and steered him firmly toward one of the bedrooms in the
center.
"This house is just too much to take in all at once," she declared.
"Besides, let's put on our swimsuits and get over to the Nat."
In the room, she closed the door firmly in the faces of the Omans and
grinned. "Maybe, sometime, I'll get used to having somebody besides you
in my bedroom, but I haven't, yet.... Oh, do you itch, too?"
Hilton had peeled to the waist and was scratching vigorously all around
his waistline, under his belt. "Like the very devil," he admitted, and
stared at her. For she, three-quarters stripped, was scratching, too!
"It started the minute we left the _Orion_," he said, thoughtfully. "I
see. These new skins of ours like hard radiation, but don't like to be
smothered while they're enjoying it. By about tomorrow, we'll be a
nudist colony, I think."
"I could stand it, I suppose. What makes you think so?"
"Just what I know about radiation. Frank would be the one to ask. My
hunch is, though, that we're going to be nudists whether we want to or
not. Let's go."
* * * * *
They went in a two-seater, leaving the Omans at home. Three-quarters of
the staff were lolling on the sand or were seated on benches beside the
immense pool. As they watched, Beverly ran out along the line of
springboards; testing each one and selecting the stiffest. She then
climbed up to the top platform--a good twelve feet above the board--and
plummeted down upon the board's heavily padded take-off. Legs and back
bending stubbornly to take the strain, she and the board reached
low-point together, and, still in sync with it, she put every muscle she
had into the effort to hurl herself upward.
She had intended to go up thirty feet. But she had no idea whatever as
to her present strength, or of what that Oman board, in perfect
synchronization with that tremendous strength, would do. Thus, instead
of thirty feet, she went up very nearly two hundred; which of course
spoiled completely her proposed graceful two-and-a-half.
In midair she struggled madly to get into some acceptable position.
Failing, she curled up into a tight ball just before she struck water.
_What_ a splash!
"It won't hurt her--you couldn't hurt her with a club!" Hilton snapped.
He seized Temple's hand as everyone else rushed to the pool's edge.
"Look--Bernadine--that's what I was thinking about."
Temple stopped and looked. The platinum-haired twins had been basking on
the sand, and wherever sand had touched fabric, fabric had disappeared.
Their suits had of course approached the minimum to start with. Now
Bernadine wore only a wisp of nylon perched precariously on one breast
and part of a ribbon that had once been a belt. Discovering the
catastrophe, she shrieked once and leaped into the pool any-which-way,
covering her breasts with her hands and hiding in water up to her neck.
Meanwhile, the involuntarily high diver had come to the surface,
laughing apologetically. Surprised by the hair dangling down over her
eyes, she felt for her cap. It was gone. So was her suit. Naked as a
fish. She swam a couple of easy strokes, then stopped.
"Frank! Oh, Frank!" she called.
"Over here, Bev." Her husband did not quite know whether to laugh or
not.
"Is it the radiation or the water? Or both?"
"Radiation, I think. These new skins of ours don't want to be covered
up. But it probably makes the water a pretty good imitation of a
universal solvent."
"Good-by, clothes!" Beverly rolled over onto her back, fanned water
carefully with her hands, and gazed approvingly at herself. "I don't
itch any more, anyway, so I'm very much in favor of it."
* * * * *
Thus the Ardans came to their new home world and to a life that was to
be more comfortable by far and happier by far than any of them had known
on Earth. There were many other surprises that day, of course; of which
only two will be mentioned here. When they finally left the pool, at
about seventeen hours G.M.T.[2], everybody was ravenously hungry.
[2] Greenwich Mean Time. Ardvor was, always and everywhere, full
daylight. Terran time and calendar were adapted as a matter of course.
"But why _should_ we be?" Stella demanded. "I've been eating everything
in sight, just for fun. But now I'm actually hungry enough to eat a
horse and wagon and chase the driver!"
"Swimming makes everybody hungry," Beverly said, "and I'm awfully glad
_that_ hasn't changed. Why, I wouldn't feel _human_ if I didn't!"
Hilton and Temple went home, and had a long-drawn-out and very wonderful
supper. Prince waited on Temple, Dark Lady on Hilton; Larry and Moty ran
the synthesizers in the kitchen. All four Omans radiated happiness.
Another surprise came when they went to bed. For the bed was a raised
platform of something that looked like concrete and, except for an
uncanny property of molding itself somewhat to the contours of their
bodies, was almost as hard as rock. Nevertheless, it was the most
comfortable bed either of them had ever had. When they were ready to go
to sleep, Temple said:
"Drat it, those Omans _still_ want to come in and sleep with us. In the
room, I mean. And they suffer so. They're simply _radiating_ silent
suffering and oh-so-submissive reproach. Shall we let 'em come in?"
"That's strictly up to you, sweetheart. It always has been."
"I know. I thought they'd quit it sometime, but I guess they never will.
I _still_ want an illusion of privacy at times, even though they know
all about everything that goes on. But we might let 'em in now, just
while we sleep, and throw 'em out again as soon as we wake up in the
morning?"
"You're the boss." Without additional invitation the four Omans came in
and arranged themselves neatly on the floor, on all four sides of the
bed. Temple had barely time to cuddle up against Hilton, and he to put
his arm closely around her, before they both dropped into profound and
dreamless sleep.
* * * * *
At eight hours next morning all the specialists met at the new Hall of
Records.
This building, an exact duplicate of the old one, was located on a mesa
in the foothills southwest of the natatorium, in a luxuriant grove at
sight of which Karns stopped and began to laugh.
"I thought I'd seen everything," he remarked. "But yellow pine, spruce,
tamarack, apples, oaks, palms, oranges, cedars, joshua trees and
_cactus_--just to name a few--all growing on the same quarter-section of
land?"
"Just everything anybody wants, is all," Hilton said. "But are they
really growing? Or just straight synthetics? Lane--Kathy--this is your
dish."
"Not so fast, Jarve; give us a chance, _please_!" Kathryn, now Mrs. Lane
Saunders, pleaded. She shook her spectacular head. "We don't see how any
stable indigenous life can have developed at all, unless ..."
"Unless what? Natural shielding?" Hilton asked, and Kathy eyed her
husband.
"Right," Saunders said. "The earliest life-forms must have developed a
shield before they could evolve and stabilize. Hence, whatever it is
that is in our skins was not a triumph of Masters' science. They took it
from Nature."
"Oh? Oh!" These were two of Sandra's most expressive monosyllables,
followed by a third. "Oh. Could be, at that. But how _could_ ... no,
cancel that."
"You'd better cancel it, Sandy. Give us a couple of months, and _maybe_
we can answer a few elementary questions."
Now inside the Hall, all the teams, from Astronomy to Zoology, went
efficiently to work. Everyone now knew what to look for, how to find
it, and how to study it.
"The First Team doesn't need you now too much, does it, Jarve?" Sawtelle
asked.
"Not particularly. In fact, I was just going to get back onto my own
job."
"Not yet. I want to talk to you," and the two went into a long
discussion of naval affairs.