Kirk came to with the feeling that his period of unconsciousness had
been momentary. Naia was standing as she had stood before, just beyond
the inner doorway. The mocking smile was still on her face. "Did you
trip?"
Kirk got groggily to his feet. "No, angel. That's the way I always cross
a room." As he came upright his hand reached toward the bulge made by
his shoulder holster. But it didn't get that far.
He had not seen from whence the first blow came but that was not true
with the second. From a tiny opening in the door jamb, a pinpoint of
light appeared. It hung there for a moment. Then it brightened,
expanded, and shot forth as a slim beam. It contained a silvery radiance
and the kick of a Missouri mule. It slammed against Kirk's jaw, but not
quite so hard this time; only hard enough to send him down again amidst
a cloud of shooting stars.
He shook his head and got to his hands and knees. "Wha's 'at? A trained
flashlight?" He began coming up. As soon as he didn't need his right
hand for rising he reached for his gun. The light beam seemed to resent
this. It hit him in the solar plexus this time; a sickening blow that
fed nausea down through his legs. He tightened his stomach against the
agony and began getting up again.
"You see how useless it is?" Naia asked. "Beside us, you Earthlings are
children. Will you stop being foolish, or must I kill you?"
Kirk squinted craftily at the pinpoint of light with one closed eye.
Clever little devil. What the hell! Nude innocents. Tigers on leashes.
Light beams that knocked your teeth out. Paul Cordell with a shaved spot
on his head.
"You got your bag packed for a little trip, baby?"
For a brief moment, genuine fear flamed in Naia's eyes. And in Kirk's
mind: Dumb babe. What's she got to be scared of? They hit you with
nothing and make it stick. Kirk croaked, "Grab your bag, baby. We'll go
find that flying biscuit. We got a date with Arthur Kahler Troy."
He was really cagey this time. When the light beam shot out, he hurled
himself to the side. But he could have saved the effort. A beam came
from the other door jamb and he stepped right into it. That one really
tore his head off.
* * * * *
Somebody was talking. It was a man and he had a deep resonant voice: a
voice full of authority--and censure. "I'm surprised at you Naia. I
never suspected you of having a sadistic streak."
Naia's sullen reply. "Do you think anyone can do the work I do and
remain unmarked?"
"I suppose not. But as I remember it, you asked to serve."
"As a benefit to humanity."
"We won't go into it."
But Naia pressed the point. "I have always followed orders. I placed
myself in possible jeopardy on Earth by clearing Paul Cordell."
"But Paul Cordell was not cleared."
"Not through any fault of mine."
"But why this? What end does torturing this poor unfortunate serve?"
Martin Kirk cautiously opened one eye. It brought to his brain the image
of a large blue globe. A man of fine and commanding appearance stood
within the globe, suspended about a foot from the floor. The globe and
the man gave every indication of having just come through the opaque
glass wall of the room, and as Kirk watched, the man was lowered slowly
to the floor and the globe became a blue mist that spiralled lazily and
was gone.
Kirk opened both eyes now, stirred, and climbed dizzily to his feet.
"You bump into the damndest things around here," he said, "But let's get
down to the important business. My name is Martin Kirk. I'm an American
police officer. One of your subjects committed a murder on American
soil. I hope you aren't going to be difficult about extradition."
The other could not hide his surprise. Nor did he try to. "Amazing," he
murmured. Then, "I am Tamu, the overlord of the galaxy. I wonder if
Naia's cruelty hasn't affected your mind?"
"If you mean I'm nuts, I think maybe you're right. But it wasn't little
Playful here who did it. I've gone through a lot and I don't speak with
any sense of bragging. I've seen more funny things happen than any one
man should see in so short a time. So maybe I am off my rocker. So I'd
like your permission to take my prisoner back to Earth so I can give all
my time to regaining my sanity."
Tamu regarded Kirk with thoughtful eyes. "I think we should have a
talk."
"I would like a talk. I would like nothing better than to chew the fat
with you for hours on end if my jaw didn't hurt so damned much. So I'll
just take my prisoner and go. Do I have to sign a paper or something?"
The overlord's surprise was fast becoming a kind of fascinated awe.
"Kirk, you said?" He pointed to the door leading to the inner room.
"Please go in, sir. There's no use of our standing out here while we
discuss your problem."
The Lieutenant eyed the door frame warily, "I tried getting through
there before but the light got in my eyes!"
"You can trust me."
The police officer stepped cautiously through the opening and on into a
luxuriously furnished room. Tamu, dressed much the same as one of
Earth's better bankers, followed him in and suggested he sit down.
"Why?" Kirk demanded bluntly. "Let's stop kitten-and-micing around, Mr.
Tamu. I'm not comfortable here and I want to leave. With her." He tilted
his head toward the watching, sullen-faced Naia North. "And now."
Tamu said, "Believe me, it will be as easy for you to return to Earth an
hour from now. You seem weary to the point of exhaustion. I ask you
again: sit down and get back some of your strength. Naia will find you
something to eat."
Kirk's stubborn determination to force an immediate showdown wavered. It
had been born largely of fear to begin with, and the thought of relief
for his burning throat was impossible to resist.
"I could use a drink," he admitted.
* * * * *
Tamu gestured and Naia North turned to leave the room. But Kirk leaped
forward to block her off. "Nothing doing! I don't take my eyes off you,
baby. I'll just pass up that drink."
The girl glanced at the overlord and shrugged helplessly. Tamu said,
"Have a girl bring in something. While we're waiting I suggest all three
of us get comfortable."
While Naia was speaking into a tiny screen set into one of the
silk-covered walls, Tamu and the man from Earth sat down across from
each other on a pair of fragile-legged chairs. The overlord leaned back
and sighed. "You've asked my leave to return to Earth and to take Naia
back with you to stand trial for murder. Have you considered that I may
refuse that permission?"
"I don't think I have to consider it," Kirk said promptly.
"You don't?" Tamu was mystified again. "Why not?"
"You tell me you're the overlord. I take that to mean you're in charge.
That means you have laws to govern your people and _that_ means you
believe in laws. One of your subjects has broken the law of my country.
You can't refuse to let her take the consequences any more than if the
situation was reversed."
Tamu was shaking his head and smiling slightly. "I'm afraid you're not
taking into consideration one fact, Mr. Kirk. Naia North broke your law,
as you call it, on express and definite instructions from me."
Martin Kirk made a show of astonishment. "Let me get this straight. You
_ordered_ Professor Gilmore and Juanita Cordell murdered? Is that what
you're telling me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Exactly the reason I suggested we have a talk. To make you see why
they--and others in the same classification--could not be allowed to
live."
"Men like Karney? Kennedy? Blatz?"
Tamu blinked. "My respect for you increases, Martin Kirk."
"Don't let it throw you. I'm a police officer, and police officers are
trained to do the job right."
The overlord crossed his legs and settled deeper into the chair. "Mythox
needs men like you, Martin Kirk. That is why I'm going to give you a
chance for life. For this you must understand: if I wanted it, you would
be dead within seconds."
A chill slid along the stubborn back of the Lieutenant but nothing
showed in his impassive expression and he did not speak.
"But because we do need you, I am going to tell you things no Earthman
knows. I believe that once you understand why Mythox has undertaken to
meddle in the affairs of another world--and I tell you frankly that our
doing so is as abhorrent to us as anything you can imagine--once you
understand our reasons, you will cheerfully, even eagerly, join us."
"And if I don't?"
"You know the answer to that, I'm sure."
* * * * *
A slim fair-haired girl in a pale green toga-like dress entered the room
carrying a tray holding tall glasses of some sparkling blue beverage.
She offered it first to Kirk, then the others. The Lieutenant removed
one of the glasses, waited until Tamu and Naia had done the same, but
not until they had drunk some of the liquid did he tilt his own glass.
The cold tangy liquid hit him like a bombshell--a bombshell on the
pleasant side. He could almost literally feel his strength flow back,
his senses sharpen and the poisons of fatigue and mental strain
disappear.
"I'm listening," he said.
Tamu set his glass on the edge of a nearby table and bent forward, his
manner earnest. "It won't take long, Martin Kirk. Hear me. We of Mythox
are far in advance of the peoples of Earth--both spiritually and
scientifically. Life on our planet materialized in much the same manner
as on your own world, but countless ages before. Almost the same process
of evolution took place; but somewhere along the line humanity on Mythox
managed to reach full development without the flaws of character found
among so many of Earth's inhabitants. When I tell you that we find it
almost impossible to voice an untruth, that taking a human life
willfully for any reason is equally difficult, that crime of any nature
is almost unknown here--then you will see the difference between the two
planets.
"For ages our scientists have observed the events taking place on Earth.
By perfecting a method for changing matter from terrene to
contraterrene, we have managed to bridge the million light years of
space separating our worlds as we saw fit. Thousands of years ago we
could have gained control of your ball of clay and turned mankind into
any pattern we might choose.
"That is not our way, Martin Kirk. Free will is our heritage too--and we
respect it in ourselves, and for that reason must respect it in others.
So long as Earth's peoples confined their more destructive tendencies to
themselves we kept our hands off--even while we failed to understand
such senseless conduct.
"And then one day we witnessed an explosion on Earth's surface--an
explosion different from any of the countless ones before it. That
explosion was the first man-made release of atomic energy--a process we
had known how to bring about for ages, but one we would never use. For
we have learned the secret of limitless power without the transformation
of mass into energy. Your way is the way of destruction, Martin Kirk;
ours is exactly the opposite.
"For the first time, the leaders of Mythox knew the meaning of
fear--fear that, once Earth's scientists had found the secret of nuclear
fission they would go on to the one extreme forbidden throughout the
Universe itself.
"And so we acted. Not in the way your people would have acted were the
situations reversed. For we were still determined that there would be no
intervention on our part in Earth's affairs--and that is still our way,
just as it must always be. But there must be one exception to this rule:
no one on Earth must be allowed to blunder into the extreme I mentioned
a moment ago."
* * * * *
Tamu, overlord of Mythox, paused to drink from his glass and to cast a
speculative glance at the stolid face of Martin Kirk. He might as well
have studied the contours of a brick wall.
"The road to that blunder had been opened the day your learned men first
split the atom. If they persisted down that path, it was bound to follow
that they would attempt the thing we feared: the splitting of hydrogen
atoms--the hydrogen bomb, as you call it.
"We know what that would mean: a chain reaction that would wipe out an
entire galaxy in one blinding flash. _Our galaxy_, Martin Kirk--yours
and mine! Do you have any thought at all on what that means?"
The question was rhetorical; even before Kirk could shake his head, the
overlord pressed on.
"Mythox and Earth are two grains of dust on opposite sides of a
galaxy--a spiral formation of stars and planets 200,000 light years wide
and 20,000 thick. Between us lie countless other worlds, a vast number
of them supporting life--not always, or even often, life as we know it,
but life nonetheless.
"There is not one of those worlds, Martin Kirk, we do not know as
thoroughly as we do our own. Fortunately for our purpose only a relative
few have progressed along a line which can lead to danger for the rest.
Yours is one of those which has--and that is why we of Mythox have taken
a well-masked place in your affairs _so far as they relate to nuclear
physics_.
"Every scientist of your world, male or female, is constantly under the
eye of a Watcher. These Watchers are members of your own races--people
we have enlisted in the fight to save not just their world or mine--but
millions of worlds.
"When a Watcher learns a physicist is close to the one key to success in
his effort to make a hydrogen bomb--an equation that begins: 'Twelve
times zero point seven nine'--we are notified and a killer from our own
people is sent to execute that scientist. Yes, Martin Kirk, we have
those among us--a very few--who are capable of killing on orders and for
cause. Naia, here, is one of them. She was sent to take the lives of
Gregory Gilmore and Juanita Cordell; but she bungled and instead of
their deaths resembling heart failure, they were obviously murdered.
"Alma Dakin tried to cover up the truth by making it appear both
scientists had died at the hands of a jealous husband. She succeeded,
both because of her perjured testimony and the fact that Paul Cordell
insisted on telling the truth. But when we of Mythox learned what had
happened, Naia was sent back to confess the crime. She entered the
laboratory only a few hours before she came to your office; while she
was in the laboratory the second time, the clues you found were put
there.
"Our mistake was in thinking that, once proof was offered clearing
Cordell, the innocent man would be freed. For once more we credited
Earthlings with the same code of ethics we of Mythox adhere to.
"You succeeded in following Naia here. Only a man composed of equal
parts of Earth bulldog and genius could have done so. Martin Kirk, I
offer you a place among us and a lifetime devoted to making sure the
galaxy of which we both are a part does not perish. What say you?"
Several minutes dragged by. The eyes of both Tamu and Naia North were
glued to the grim visage of Homicide Lieutenant Kirk. It was impossible
for either of them to know what thoughts were churning behind that stone
face.
Abruptly he stood up. "I'm a cop. I leave your kind of problem to the
people who are good at it. My people, Tamu. You see, I belong to my
world, not to yours.
"But you've got a solid argument--one I'd be a fool not to consider. Let
me sleep on it. Tomorrow morning we'll talk about it some more; then
I'll give you my answer. Right now I'm too worn out to think in a
straight line."
"Of course." The overlord rose to his feet. "Find Martin Kirk
comfortable quarters, Naia, and leave orders he is not to be disturbed
until he is ready to join us."
On his way down a corridor behind the same slip of a girl who had
brought him his drink, Martin Kirk was thinking: They didn't even frisk
me for a gun!
Martin Kirk went into his apartment and lay for a while looking at the
ceiling. After a time, he got up and went out again.