1.  The Rat and the Snake
2.  Ersatz Eternal
3.  The Cataaaa
4.  Resurrection
5.  The Barbarian











                              A.E. Van Vogt

                           THE RAT AND THE SNAKE

    Mark Gray's main pleasure in life was feeding rats to his pet python.
He kept the python in a blocked-off room in the  old  house  in  which  he
lived alone. Each mealtime, he would put the rat in a narrow tunnel he had
rigged, At the end of the tunel was an opening. The rat, going thiough the
narrow space into the bright room beyond,  automatically  spring-locked  a
gate across the opening.
     It would then find itself in the room with the python, with no way of
escape.
     Mark liked to listen to its squeaks as it became aware of its danger,
and then he would hear its mad scurring to escape the irresistible  enemy.
Sometimes he watched the exciting scene thiough a plate-glass window,  but
he actually preferred the sound to the fight, conjuring his own delectable
mental pictues, always from the viewpoint of the python.
     During World War Ill, the O.P.A. forgot to put  a  ceiling  price  on
rats. The catching of rats got no  special  priority.  Rat  catchers  were
drafted into the armed forces as readily as the other people.  The  supply
of rats grew less. Mark was soon reduced to catching his own rats; but  he
had to work for a living in the ever-leaner times of war,  so  that  there
were periods of time when the python was fed infrequently.
     Then one day Mark, ever searching, glimpsed some white rats through a
window of an old commercial-style building.
     He peered in eagerly, and though the  room  was  dimly  lighted  with
wartime regulation bulbs, he was able to make out that it was a large room
with hnndreds of cages in it and that each of the cages contained rais.
     He made it to the front of the building at a dead run. In pausing  to
catch his breath, he noticed the words on the doors  CARRON  LABORATORIES,
Research.
     He found himself presently in a dim hallway  of  a  business  office.
Because everybody was clearly working twice as hard because of the war, it
took a little  while  to  attract  the  attention  of  one  of  the  women
employees; and there were other delays such as just  sitting  and  waiting
while it seemed as if he was  the  forgotten  man.  But  after  all  those
minutes he was finally led into the office of a  small,  tight-faced  man,
who was introduced as Erie Plode and who listened to his request  and  the
reason for it.
     When Mark described his poor, starvng python, the small man laughed a
sudden, explosive laughter, But his eyes remained cold. Moments  later  he
curtly rejected the request.
     Whereupon he made a personal thing out of  it.  "And  don't  get  any
ideas," he snarled. "Stay away from our rats. If  we  catch  you  filching
around here, we'll have the law on you."
     Until those words were  spoken,  Mark  hadn't  really  thought  about
becoming a rat-stealing criminal. Except for his  peculiar  love  for  his
python, he was a law-abiding, tax-paying nobody.
     As Mark was leaving, Plode hastily sent a man to  follow  him.  Then,
smiling grimly, he walked into an office that had  printed  on  the  door:
HENRY GARRON, Private.
     "Well, Hank," he said gaily. "I think we've got our subject."
     Carron said, "This had  better  be  good  since  we  can't  even  get
prisoners of war assigned us for the job."
     The remark made Plode frown a little. He had a tendency toward ironic
thoughts, and he had often thought recently, "Good God  they're  going  to
use the process on millions of the unsuspecting  enemy  after  we  get  it
tested, but they won't give us a G.D. so-and-so to try it out  on  because
of some kind of prisoner of war convention."
     Aloud, he said smugly, "I suppose by a stretch of the imagination you
could call him human.'
     "That bad?"
     Plode described Mark and his  hobby,  finished,  "I  suppose  it'a  a
matter of point of view, But I won't feel any guilt,  particularly  if  he
sneaks over tonight and with criminal intent tries to steal  some  of  our
rats." He grinned mirthlessly, "Can you think of anything lower than a rat
stealer?"
     Henry Carron hesitated but only for moments. Millons of  people  were
dead and dying, and a test absolutely had to be made  on  a  human  being.
Because if something went wrong on the battlefield, the effect of surprise
might be lost with who knew what repercussions.
     "One thing sure," he nodded "there'll be no evidence against  us.  So
go ahead."
     It seemed to Mark, as he came stealthily back that night, that  these
people with their thousands of rats would never miss the equivalent of one
rat a week or so, He was especially pleased when he  discovered  that  the
window was unlocked and that the menagerie was  unguarded.  No  doubt,  he
thought good-humoredly, babysitters for rats were in scarce supply because
of the wartime worker shortage.
     The next day he thrilled  again  to  the  familiar  sound  of  a  rat
squeaking in fear of the python. Toward evening his  phone  rang.  It  was
Erie Plode.
     "I warned you," said the small man in a vicious tone. "Now  you  must
pay the penalty."
     Plode felt better for having issued the warning. "Be it  on  his  own
soul," he said sanctimoniously, "if he's there."
     Mark hung up, contemptuous. Let them try to prove anything.
     In his sleep that night he seemed to be suffocating. He woke up,  and
he was not lying on his bed but instead was on a hard floor. He groped for
the light switch but could not find it. Them was  a  bright  rectangle  of
light about twenty feet away. He headed for it.
     Crash! A gate slammed shut behind him as he emerged.
     He was in a vast room, larger than anything he had ever seen. Yet  it
was vaguely familiar. Except for its size it resembled the room  in  which
he kept his python.
     On the floor in front of him, an  object  that  he  had  noticed  and
regarded as some sort of a leathery rug, thicker than he was tall, stirred
and moved toward him.
     Realization came suddenly, horrendously.
     He was the size of a rat. This was the python slithering  across  the
floor with distended jaws.
     Mad squealing as Mark Gray experienced the  ultimate  thrill  of  the
strange method by which  he  had  enjoyed  life  for  so  many  years  ...
Experienced it this one and only time from the viewpoint of the rat.


















                              A.E. Van Vogt

                              ERSATZ ETERNAL

     Grayson removed the irons from the other's wrists and  legs.  "Hart!"
he said sharply.
     The young man on the cot did not stir.  Grayson  hesitated  and  then
deliberately kicked the man. "Damn you, Hart, listen to me! I'm  releasing
you - just in case I don't come back "
     John Hart neither opened his eyes nor showed  any  awareness  of  the
blow he had received. He lay inert; and the only evidence of life  in  him
was that he was limp, not rigid. There was almost no color in his  cheeks.
His black hair was damp and stringy.
     Grayson said earnestly, "Hart, I'm going out  to  look  for  Malkins.
Remember, he left four days ago, intending only  to  be  gone  twenty-four
hours."
     When there was no response, the older man started to turn  away,  but
he hesitated and said, "Hart, if I don't come back, you must realize where
we are, This is a new planet, understand. We've never  been  here  before.
Our ship was wrecked, and the three of us came down  in  a  lifeboat,  and
what we need is fuel. That's what Malkins went out to look  for,  and  now
I'm going out to look for Malkins."
     The figure on the cot remained blank. And Grayson walked  reluctantly
out the door and off toward the hills. He had no particular hope.
     Three men were down on a planet God-only-knew-where - and one ofthose
man was violently insane.
     As he walked along, he glanced around him in  occasional  puzzlement.
The  scenery  was  very  earthlike:  trees,  shrubs,  grass,  and  distant
mountains misted by blue haze. It was still a littie odd  that  when  they
had landed Malkins and he had had the distinct impression that  they  were
coming down onto a barren world without atmosphere and without life.
     A soft breeze touched his cheeks. The scent of  flowers  was  in  the
air. He saw birds flitting among the trees, and once he heard a song  that
was startingly like that of a meadow lark.
     He walked all day and saw no sign  of  Malkins.  Nor  was  there  any
habitation to indicate that the planet had intelligent life.  Just  before
dusk he heard a woman calling his name.
     Grayson turned with a start, and it  was  his  mother,  looking  much
younger than he remembered her in her coffin eight years before. She  came
up, and she said severely, "'Billie, don't forget your rubbers."
     Grayson stared at her with eyes that kept twisting away in disbelief.
Then, deliberately, he walked over and touched her. She caught  his  hand,
and her fingers were warm and lifelike.
     She said, "I want you to go tell your father that dinner is ready."
     Grayson released himself and stepped back and looked  tensely  around
him. The two of them stood on an empty, grassy plain. Far in the  distance
was the gleam of a silvershining river.
     He turned away from her and strode on  into  the  twilight.  When  he
looked back, there was no one in sight. But presently a boy was moving  in
step beside him. Grayson paid no attention  at  first,  but  presently  he
stole a glance at his companion.
     It was himself at the age of fifteen.
     Just  before  the  gathering  night  blotted  out   any   chance   of
recognition, he saw that a second boy was now striding  along  beside  the
first. Himself, aged about eleven.
     Three Bill Graysons, thought Grayson. He began to laugh wildly.
     Then he began to run. When he looked  back,  he  was  alone.  Sobbing
under his breath, he slowed to a walk, and almost  immediately  heard  the
laughter of children in the soft darkness. Familiar sounds, yet the impact
of them was stunning.
     Grayson babbled at them, "All me, at different ages. Get away! I know
you're only hallucinations."
     When he had worn himself out, when there  was  nothing  left  to  his
voice but a harsh whisper, he thought, Only hallucinations? Am I sure?
     He felt unutterably depressed and exhausted. "Hart and me,"  he  said
aloud wearily, " we belong in the same asylum."
     Dawn came, cool; and his hope was that sunrise would bring an end  to
the madness of the night. As the slow  light  lengthened  over  the  land,
Grayson looked around him in bewilderment. He was on a hill, and below him
spread his home town of Calypso, Ohio.
     He stared down at it with unbelieving  eyes,  and  then,  because  it
looked as real as life, he started to run toward it.
     It was Calypso, but as it had been when he was a boy. He  headed  for
his own house. And there he was; he'd know that boy of  ten  anywhere.  He
called out to the youngster, who took one look at him,  turned  away,  and
ran into the house.
     Grayson lay down on the lawn, and covered  his  eyes.  "Someone,"  he
told himself "something is taking pictures out of my mind  and  making  me
see them."
     It seemed to him that if he hoped to remain sane - and alive  -  he'd
have to hold that thought.

     It was the sixth day after Grayson's departure. Aboard the  lifeboat,
John Hart stirred and opened his eyes. "Hungry," he said aloud to  no  one
in particular. He waited he knew not for what and  than  wearily  sat  up,
slipped off the cot, and made his way to the galley. When he had eaten, he
walked to the lock-door, and stood for a long time staring  out  over  the
earthlike scene that spread before him. It made him feel better, vaguely.
     He jumped abruptly down to the ground and began to  walk  toward  the
nearest hilltop. Darkness was falling rapidly but it did not occur to  him
to turn back.
     Soon the ship was lost in the night behind him.
     A girlfriend of his youth was the first to talk to him. She came  out
of the blackness. and they had  a  long  conversation.  In  the  end  they
decided to marry
     The ceremony was immediately completed by a minister who drove up  in
a car and found both families assembled in a beautiful home in the suburbs
of Pittsburgh. The clergyman was an old man whom Hart  had  known  in  his
childhood.
     The young couple went to New York City and to Niagara Falls for their
honeymoon, then headed by aere-taxi for California  to  make  their  home.
Suddenly there were three children, and they owned a hundred-thousand-acre
ranch with a million cattle on it, and there were cowboys who dressed like
movie stars,
     For Grayson, the civilization that sprang into  full-grown  existence
around him on what had  originally  been  a  barren,  airless  planet  had
nightmarish qualities. The people he met had a  life  expectancy  of  less
than seventy years. Children were born in nine months and ten  days  after
conception.
     He buried six generations of one family  that  he  had  founded.  And
then, one day as he was crossing Broadway - in New York City -  the  small
sturdiness, the walk, and the manner of a man  coming  from  the  opposite
direction made him stop short.
     "Henry!" he shouted. "Henry Malkins!"
     "Well, I'll be - Bill Grayson."
     They shook hands, silent afler the first  excited  greeting.  Malkins
spoke first. "There's a bar around the corner."
     During the middle of the second drink John Hart's name came up.
     "A  life  force  seeking   form   used   his   mind'   said   Grayson
matter-of-factly. "It apparently has no expression of its own. It tried to
use me -" He glanced at Malkins questioningly.
     The other man nodded. "And me!" he said,
     "I guess we resisted too hard."
     Malkins wiped the perspiration from his forehead.  "Bill,"  he  said,
"it's all like a dream. I get married and divorced every  forty  years.  I
marry what seems to be a twenty-year-old girl. In a few decades she  looks
five hundred."
     "Do you think it's all in our minds?"
     "No no-nothing like that. I think  all  this  civilization  extsts  -
whatever I mean by existence." Malkins groaned. "Let's not get into  that.
When I read some of the philosophy explaining life, I feel as  if  I'm  on
the edge of an abyss. If only we could get rid of Hart, somehow."
     Grayson was smiling grimly. "So you haven't found out yet?"
     "What do you mean?"
     "Have you got a weapon on you?"
     Silently, Malkius produced a needle-beam projector. Grayson took  it,
pointed it at his own right temple, and pressad the curved firing pin - as
Malkins grabbed at him frantically but too late.
     The thin, white beam seemed to penetrate Grayson's heed. It burned  a
round, black, smoldering hole in the woodwork beyond. Coolly,  the  unhurt
Grayson pointed the triangular muzzle athis companion.
     "Like me to try it on you?" he asked jovially.
     The older man shuddered and grabbed at the weapon. "Give me that!" he
said.
     He calmed presently and asked, "I've noticed that I'm no older. Bill,
what are we going to do?"
     "I think we're being held in reserve," said Grayson.
     He stood up and held out his  hand.  "Well,  Henry,  it's  been  good
seeing you. Suppose we meet here every year from now on and compare notes."
     "But -"
     Grayson smiled a little tautly. "Brace up, my friend. Don't you  see?
This is the biggest thing in the universe. We're going  to  live  forever.
We're possible substitutes if anything goes wrong."
     "But what is it? What's doing it?"
     "Ask me a million years from now. Maybe I'll have an answer."
     He turned and walked out of the bar. He did not look back.












THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
1
THE CATAAAA
By A. E. Van Vogt
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
2
THE CATAAAA
by A. E. Van Vogt
A Little Classic By One Of The Most Brilliant Science-Fiction Writers of Our Day.
Several years ago this startling story appeared in a Los Angeles publication, FANTASY BOOK,
and it immediately created o furor among the local stf faithful. With the resumption of
MARVEL, we thought it should be brought to a larger audience, particularly since its author has
meantime won recognition as one of America's most brilliant science-fiction writers. We think
you'll agree that "The Cataaaa" is a masterpiece.
The cat turned and touched Silkey's face gently.
THE USUAL group was gathering in the bar. Cathy was already pretending she was far gone.
Ted was busy putting on his stupid look. Myra giggled three times the way a musician tunes his
instrument for the evening. Jones was talking to Gord in his positive fashion. Gord said "Glub!"
every few seconds, just as if he was listening. And Morton tried to draw attention to himself by
remaining aloof and intellectual looking far down in his chair.
No one noticed the slight, slim man sitting on a stool before the bar. The man kept glancing at
the group; but just when he joined them, or who invited him, no one had any clear idea. Nor did
it occur to anyone to tell him to go away.
The stranger said, "You were talking about the basic characteristics of human nature--"
Myra giggled, "Is that what we were talking about? I wondered."
The laughter that followed did not deter the newcomer.
"It so happens that I have had an experience which illustrates the point. It began one day when I
was glancing through the newspaper, and I ran across a circus advertisement . . . "
At the top of the ad (he went on) was a large question mark followed by some equally large
exclamation marks. Then:
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
3
WHAT IS IT?
IT'S THE CAT
COME AND SEE THE CAT
THE CAT WILL STARTLE YOU
THE CAT WILL AMAZE YOU
SEE THE CAT AT THE CIRCUS
FREAK SHOW
In smaller letters at the bottom of the ad was the information that the cat was being "shown under
the personal direction of Silkey Travis."
Until that point I had been reading with a vague interest and curiosity. The name made me jump.
"Good lord!" I thought. "It's him. It's Silkey Travis on that card."
I hurried to my desk, and took out a card that had come in the mail two days before. At the time
it had made no sense to me at all. The words written on the back in a fine script seemed pure
gibberish, and the photograph on the front, though familiar, unlocked no real memory. It was of a
man with a haunted look on his face, sitting in a small cage. I now recognized it as being a
likeness of Silkey Travis, not as I had known him fifteen or so years before, but plumper, older,
as he would be now.
I returned to my chair, and sat musing about the past.
Even in those days, his name had fitted Silkey Travis. At high school he organized the bathing
beauty contest, and gave the first prize to his cousin and the second prize to the girl who was the
teacher's pet of most of the teachers. The students' science exhibition, a collection of local
lizards, snakes, insects and a few Indian artifacts was an annual affair, which brought a turnout
of admiring parents. Invariably, it was Silkey who organized it. Plays, holiday shows and other
paraphernalia of school pastimes felt the weight of his guiding hand and circus spirit.
After graduating from high school, I went on to State college to major in biology, and I lost sight
of Silkey for seven years. Then I saw an item in one of the papers to the effect that local boy
Silkey Travis was doing well in the big town, having just purchased a "piece" of a vaudeville
show, and that he also owned a "piece" in a beach concession in New Jersey.
Again, there was silence. And now, here he was, no doubt "piece" owner of the circus freak
show.
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
4
Having solved the mystery of the postcard, so it seemed to me, I felt amused and tolerant. I
wondered if Silkey had sent the card to all his former school companions. I decided not to puzzle
any more about the meaning of the words written on the back. The scheme behind them was all
too obvious.
Sitting there, I had absolutely no intention of going to the circus. I went to bed at my usual hour,
and woke up with a start some hours later to realize that I was not alone. The sensations that
came to me as I lay there have been described by Johnson in his book on morbid fears.
I lived in a quiet neighborhood, and the silence was intense. Presently, I could hear the labored
pounding of my heart. Poisons surged into my stomach; gas formed and leaked up to my mouth
bringing a bitter taste. I had to fight to keep my breath steady.
And still I could see nothing. The dark fears ran their courses, and the first thought came that I
must have had a nightmare. I began to feel ashamed of myself. I mumbled:
"Who's there?"
No answer.
I climbed out of bed, and turned on the light. The room was empty. But still I wasn't satisfied. I
went out into the hall, then I examined the clothes closet and bathroom. Finally, dissatisfied, I
tested the window fastenings--and it was there I received my shock. Painted on the outer side of
the pane of one of the windows were the letters:
"The cat requests that you come to the circus."
I went back to bed so furious that I thought of having Silkey arrested. When I woke up in the
morning the sign was gone from the window.
BY THE TIME breakfast was over, my temper of the night had cooled. I was even able to feel a
pitying amusement at the desperate desire of Silkey to let his old acquaintances know what a big
shot he was. Before starting off to my morning classes at State, I looked under my bedroom
window. I found what looked like footprints, but they were not human, so I decided that Silkey
must have taken care to leave no tracks of his own.
At class, just before noon, one of the students asked me whether there was any good explanation
in biological science for freaks. I gave the usual explanation of variabilities, nutritional
deficiences[sic], diseases, frustration of brain development affecting the shape of the body, and
so on. I finished drily that for further information I would direct him to my old friend, Silkey
Travis, director of freaks at the Pagley-Matterson circus.
The offhand remark caused a sensation. I was informed that a freak at this circus had prompted
the original question. "A strange, cat-like creature," the student said in a hushed voice, "that
examines you with the same interest that you examine it."
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
5
The bell rang at that moment, and I was spared the necessity of making a comment. I remember
thinking, however, that people hadn't changed much. They were still primarily interested in
eccentricity whereas, as a scientist, the processes of normalcy seemed to me far more fascinating.
I still had no intention of going to the circus. But on the way home that afternoon I put my hand
in my breast pocket, and drew out the postcard with the photograph of Silkey on the front. I
turned it over absently, and read again the message that was on it:
"The interspatial problem of delivering mail involves enormous energy problems,
which effect time differentials. Accordingly,
it is possible that this card will arrive before I know who you are. As a precaution
I am sending another one to the circus with your name and address on it, and the
two cards will go out together.
"Do not worry too much about the method of delivery. I simply put an instrument
into a mail box. This precipitates the cards into the box on earth, and they will
then be picked up and delivered in the usual fashion. The precipitator then
dissolves.
The photograph speaks for itself."
It didn't. Which is what began to irritate me again. I jammed the card back into my pocket, halfminded
to phone up Silkey and ask him what the silly thing meant, if anything. I refrained, of
course. It wasn't important enough.
When I got out of bed the next morning, the words, "The cat wants to talk to you!" were
scrawled on the outside of the same window pane. They must have been there a long time.
Because, even as I stared at them, they began to fade. By the time I finished breakfast they were
gone.
I was disturbed now rather than angry. Such persistence on Silkey's part indicated neurotic
overtones in his character. It was possible that I ought to go to his show, and so give him the
petty victory that would lay his ghost, which had now haunted me two nights running. However,
it was not till after lunch that a thought occurred to me that suddenly clinched my intention. I
remembered Virginia.
For two years I had been professor of biology at State. It was an early ambition which, now that I
had realized it, left me at a loose end for the first time in my life. Accordingly, for the first time
in my rather drab existence the mating urge was upon me. Virginia was the girl, and,
unfortunately, she regarded me as a cross between a fossil and a precision brain. I felt sure that
the idea of marrying me had not yet occurred to her.
For some time it had seemed to me that if I could only convince her, without loss of dignity, that
I was a romantic fellow she might be fooled into saying yes. What better method than to pretend
that I still got excited over circuses, and, as a grand climax to the evening I would take her in to
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
6
see Silkey Travis, and hope that my acquaintance with such a character would thrill her exotic
soul.
The first hurdle was bridged when I called her up, and she agreed to go to the circus with me. I
put the best possible face on for the preliminaries, riding the ferris wheel and such juvenilia. But
the moment of the evening for me came when I suggested that we go and see the freaks being
shown by my friend, Silkey Travis.
It really went over. Virginia stopped and looked at me almost accusingly.
"Philip," she said, "you're not trying to pretend that you know a person called Silkey? She drew a
deep breath. "That I have to see."
Silkey came through beautifully. He was not in when we entered, but the ticket taker called into
some rear compartment. And a minute later Silkey came charging into the main freak tent. He
was plump with the plumpness of a well fed shark. His eyes were narrowed as if he had spent the
past fifteen years calculating the best methods of using other people for his own advantage. He
had none of the haunted look of the photograph, but there were ghosts in his face. Ghosts of
greed and easy vices, ghosts of sharp dealing and ruthlessness. He was all that I had hoped for,
and, best of all, he was pathetically glad to see me. His joy had the special quality of the lonely
nomad who is at last looking longingly at the settled side of life. We both overdid the greeting a
little but we were about equally pleased at each other's enthusiasm. The hellos and introductions
over, Silkey grew condescending.
"Brick was in a while ago. Said you were teaching at State. Congrats. Always knew you had it in
you.
I passed over that as quickly as possible. "How about showing us around, Silkey, and telling us
about yourself?"
WE HAD already seen the fat woman and the human skeleton, but Silkey took us back and told
us his life history with them. How he had found them, and helped them to their present fame. He
was a little verbose, so on occasion I had to hurry him along. But finally we came to a small tent
within the tent, over the closed canvas entrance of which was painted simply, "THE CAT". I had
noticed it before, and the chatter of the barker who stood in front of it had already roused my
curiosity:
"The cat . . . come in and see the cat. Folks, this is no ordinary event, but the thrill of a lifetime.
Never before has such an animal as this been seen in a circus. A biological phenomenon that has
amazed scientists all over the country... Folks, this is special. Tickets are twenty-five cents, but if
you're not satisfied you can get your money back. That's right. That's what I said. You get your
money back merely by stepping up and asking for it..."
And so on. However, his ballyhoo was not the most enticing angle. What began to titillate my
nerves was the reaction of the people who went inside. They were allowed to enter in groups,
and there must have been a guide inside, because his barely audible voice would mumble on for
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
7
some minutes, and then it would rise to a hearable level, as he said, "And now, folks, I will draw
aside the curtain and show you--the cat!"
The curtain must have been pulled with a single jerk, on a carefully timed basis. For the word,
cat was scarcely out of his mouth, when the audience reaction would sound:
"Aaaaaa!"
Distinct, unmistakable exhalation of the breaths of a dozen startled people. There would follow
an uncomfortable silence. Then, slowly the people would emerge and hurry to the outer exit. Not
one, that I was aware of, asked for his money back.
There was a little embarrassment at the gate. Silkey started to mumble something about only
owning part of the show, so he couldn't give passes. But I ended that by quickly purchasing the
necessary tickets, and we went inside with the next group.
The animal that sat in an armchair on the dais was about five feet long and quite slender. It had a
cat's head and vestiges of fur. It looked like an exaggerated version of the walkey-talkey animals
in comic books.
At that point resemblance to normalcy ended.
It was alien. It was not a cat at all. I recognized that instantly. The structure was all wrong. It
took me a moment to identify the radical variations.
The head! High foreheaded it was, and not low and receding. The face was smooth and almost
hairless. It had character and strength, and intelligence. The body was well balanced on long,
straight legs. The arms were smooth, ending in short but unmistakable fingers, surmounted by
thin, sharp claws.
But it was the eyes that were really different. They looked normal enough, slightly slanted,
properly lidded, about the same size as the eyes of human beings. But they danced. They shifted
twice, even three times as swiftly as human eyes. Their balanced movement at such a high speed
indicated vision that could read photographically reduced print across a room. What sharp, what
incredibly sharp images that brain must see.
All this I saw within the space of a few seconds. Then the creature moved.
It stood up, not hurriedly, but casually, easily, and yawned and stretched. Finally, it took a step
forward. Brief panic ensued among the women in the audience, that ended as the guide said
quietly:
"It's all right, folks. He frequently comes down and looks us over. He's harmless.
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
8
The crowd stood its ground, as the cat came down the steps from the dais and approached me.
The animal paused in front of me, and peered at me curiously. Then it reached gingerly forward,
opened my coat, and examined the inside breast pocket.
It came up holding the postcard with the picture of Silkey on it. I had brought it along, intending
to ask Silkey about it.
For a long moment the cat examined the card, and then it held it out to Silkey. Silkey looked at
me.
"Okay?" he said.
I nodded. I had a feeling that I was witnessing a drama the motivations of which I did not
understand. I realized that I was watching Silkey intently.
He looked at the picture on the card, and then started to hand it to me. Then he stopped. Jerkily,
he pulled the card back, and stared at the photograph.
"For cripes sake," he gasped. "It's a picture of me."
There was no doubt about his surprise. It was so genuine that it startled me. I said:
"Didn't you send that to me? Didn't you write what's on the back there?"
Silkey did not answer immediately. He turned the card over and glared down at the writing. He
began to shake his head.
"Doesn't make sense," he muttered. "Hmmm, it was mailed in Marstown. That's where we were
three days last week."
He handed it back to me. "Never saw it before in my life. Funny."
His denial was convincing. I held the card in my hand, and looked questioningly at the cat. But it
had already lost interest. As we stood there, watching, it turned and climbed back up to the dais,
and slumped into a chair. It yawned. It closed its eyes.
And that's all that happened. We all left the tent, and Virginia and I said goodbye to Silkey.
Later, on our way home, the episode seemed even more meaningless than when it had happened.
I don't know how long I had been asleep before I wakened. I turned over intending to go right
back to sleep. And then I saw that my bedside light was burning. I sat up with a start.
The cat was sitting in a chair beside the bed, not more than three feet away.
Part Two of
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
9
THERE WAS silence. I couldn't have spoken at the beginning. Slowly, I sat up. Memory came
of what the guide at the show had said... "Harmless!" But I didn't believe that anymore.
Three times now this beast had come here, twice to leave messages. I let my mind run over those
messages, and I quailed " . . . The cat wants to talk to you!" Was it possible that this thing could
talk.
The very inactivity of the animal finally gave me courage. I licked my lips and said:
"Can you talk?"
The cat stirred. It raised an arm in the unhurried fashion of somebody who does not want to
cause alarm. It pointed at the night table beside my bed. I followed the pointing finger and saw
that an instrument was standing under the lamp. The instrument spoke at me:
"I cannot emit human sounds with my own body, but as you can hear this is an excellent
intermediary."
I have to confess that I jumped, that my mind scurried into a deep corner of my head--and only
slowly came out again as the silence continued, and no attempt was made to harm me. I don't
know why I should have assumed that its ability to speak through a mechanical device was a
threat to me. But I had.
I suppose it was really a mental shrinking, my mind unwilling to accept the reality that was here.
Before I could think clearly, the instrument on the table said:
"The problem of conveying thoughts through an electronic device depends on rhythmic
utilization of brain energies."
The statement stirred me. I had read considerable on that subject, beginning with Professor Hans
Berger's report on brain rhythms in 1929. The cat's statements didn't quite fit.
"Isn't the energy potential too small?" I asked. "And besides you have your eyes open. The
rhythms are always interfered with when the eyes are open, and in fact such a large part of the
cortex yields to the visual centers that no rhythm whatever is detectable at such times."
It didn't strike me then, but I think now that I actually distracted the animal from its purpose.
"What measurements have been taken?" it asked. Even through the mind radio, it sounded
interested.
"Photoelectric cells," I said, "have measured as much (or as little, which is really more accurate)
as 50 microvolts of energy, mostly in the active regions of the brain. Do you know what a
microvolt is?"
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
10
The creature nodded. It said after a moment, "I won't tell you what energy my brain develops. It
would probably frighten you, but it isn't all intelligence. I am a student on a tour of the galaxy,
what might be called a postgraduate tour. Now, we have certain rules--" It stopped. "You opened
your mouth. Did you wish to say something?"
I felt dumb, overwhelmed. Then, weakly, "You said galaxy."
That is correct."
"B-but wouldn't that take years?" My brain was reaching out, striving to grasp, to understand.
"My tour will last about a thousand of your years," said the cat.
"You're immortal?"
"Oh, no."
"But--"
There I stopped. I couldn't go on. I sat there, blank-brained, while the creature went on:
"The rules of the fraternity of students require that we tell one person about ourselves before we
leave the planet. And that we take with us a symbolical souvenir of the civilization of the beings
on it. I'm curious to know what you would suggest as a souvenir of earth. It can be anything, so
long as it tells at a glance the dominating character of the race."
The question calmed me. My brain stopped its alternation of mad whirling followed by
blankness. I began to feel distinctly better. I shifted myself into a more comfortable position and
stroked my jaw thoughtfully. I sincerely hoped that I was giving the impression that I was an
intelligent person whose opinion would be worthwhile.
A sense of incredible complication began to seize on me. I had realized it before, but now, with
an actual decision to make, it seemed to me that human beings were really immensely intricate
creatures. How could anybody pick one facet of their nature, and say, "This is man!" Or "This
represents man!" I said slowly:
"A work of art, science, or any useful article--you include those?"
"Anything."
My interest was now at its peak. My whole being accepted the wonderfulness of what had
happened. It seemed tremendously important that the great race that could travel the breadth and
length of the galaxy should have some true representation of man's civilization. It amazed me,
when I finally thought of the answer, that it had taken me so long. But the moment it occurred to
me, I knew I had it.
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
11
"Man," I said, "is primarily a religious animal. From times too remote to be a written record, he
has needed a faith in something. Once, he believed almost entirely in animate gods like rivers,
storms, plants, then his gods became invisible; now they are once more becoming animate. An
economic system, science--whatever it will be, the dominating article of it will be that he
worships it without regard to reason, in other words in a purely religious fashion.
I finished with a quiet satisfaction, "All you need is an image of a man in a durable metal, his
head tilted back, his arms raised to the sky, a rapt expression on his face, and written on the base
of the inscription, 'I believe'."
I saw that the creature was staring at me. "Very interesting," it said at last. "I think you are very
close to it, but you haven't quite got the answer."
It stood up. "But now I want you to come with me."
"Eh?"
"Dress, please."
It was unemotionally said. The fear that had been held deep inside me for minutes came back
like a fire that had reached a new cycle of energy.
I DROVE MY car. The cat sat beside me. The night was cool and refreshing, but dark. A
fraction of a moon peered out occasionally from scurrying clouds, and there were glimpses of
star filtered dark blue sky. The realization that, from somewhere up there, this creature had come
down to our earth dimmed my tenseness. I ventured:
"Your people--have they progressed much further than we to the innermost meaning of truth?"
It sounded drab and precise, a pedagogical rather than a vitally alive question. I added quickly:
"I hope you won't mind answering a few questions."
Again it sounded inadequate. It seemed to me in an abrupt agony of despair that I was muffing
the opportunity of the centuries. Silently, I cursed my professional training that made my every
word sound as dry as dust.
"That card," I said. "You sent that?"
"Yes." The machine on the cat's lap spoke quietly but clearly.
"How did you know my address and my name?"
"I didn't."
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
12
Before I could say anything, the cat went on, "You will understand all that before the night's
over."
"Oh!" The words held me for a second. I could feel the tightness crawling into my stomach. I had
been trying not to think of what was going to happen before this night was over. ". . Questions?"
I croaked. "Will you answer them?"
I parted my lips to start a machine gun patter of queries. And then, I closed them again. What did
I want to know? The vast implications of that reply throttled my voice. Why, oh, why, are human
beings so emotional at the great moments of their lives? I couldn't think, for what seemed an
endless time. And when I finally spoke again, my first question was trite and not at all what I
intended. I said:
"You came in a spaceship?"
The cat looked at one thoughtfully. "No," it replied slowly. "I use the energy in my brain."
"Eh! You came through space in your own body?"
"In a sense. One of these years human beings will make the initial discoveries about the rhythmic
use of energy. It will be a dazzling moment for science."
"We have," I said, "already made certain discoveries about our nervous systems and rhythm."
"The end of that road," was the answer, "is control of the powers of nature. I will say more about
that."
I was silent, but only briefly. The questions were bubbling now. "Is it possible," I asked, "to
develop an atomic powered spaceship?"
"Not in the way you think," said the cat. "An atomic explosion cannot be confined except when it
is drawn out in a series of timed frustrations. And that is an engineering problem, and has very
little to do with creative physics."
"Life," I mumbled, "where did life come from?"
"Electronic accidents occurring in a suitable environment."
I had to stop there. I couldn't help it. "Electronic accidents. What do you mean?"
"The difference between an inorganic and an organic atom is the arrangement of the internal
structure. The hydrocarbon compounds being the most easily affected under certain conditions
are the most common form of life. But now that you have atomic energy you will discover that
life can be created from any element or compound of elements. Be careful. The hydrocarbon is a
weak life structure that could be easily overwhelmed in its present state of development."
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
13
I felt a chill. I could just picture the research that would be going on in government laboratories.
"You mean," I gulped, there are life forms that would be dangerous the moment they are
created?"
Dangerous to man," said the cat. It pointed suddenly. "Turn up that street, and then through a
side entrance into the circus grounds."
I had been wondering tensely where we were going. Strangely, it was a shock to realize the truth.
A few minutes later we entered the dark, silent tent of the freaks. And I knew that the final drama
of the cat on earth was about to be enacted. A tiny light flickered in the shadows. It came nearer,
and I saw that there was a man walking underneath it. It was too dark to recognize him, but the
light grew stronger, and I saw that it had no source. And suddenly I recognized Silkey Travis. He
was sound asleep. He came forward, and stood in front of the cat. He looked unnatural, forlorn,
like a woman caught without her makeup on. One long trembling look I took at him, and then I
stammered:
"What are you gong to do?"
The machine the cat carried did not reply immediately. The cat turned and stared at me
thoughtfully, then it touched Silkey's face, gently, with one finger. Silkey's eyes opened, but he
made no other reaction. I realized that one part of his consciousness had been made aware of
what was happening. I whispered:
"Can he hear?"
The cat nodded.
"Can he think?"
The cat shook its head; and then it said:
"In your analysis of the basic nature of human beings you selected a symptom only. Man is
religious because of a certain characteristic. I'll give you a clue. When an alien arrives on an
inhabited planet, there is usually only one way that he can pass among the intelligent beings on
that planet without being recognized for what he is. When you find that method, you have
attained understanding of the fundamental character of the race."
It was hard for me to think. In the dim emptiness of the freak tent, the great silence of the circus
grounds all around, what was happening seemed unnatural. I was not afraid of the cat. But there
was a fear inside me, as strong as terror, as dark as night. I looked at the unmoving Silkey with
all the lines of his years flabby on his face. And then I stared at the light that hovered above him.
And finally I looked at the cat, and I said:
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
14
"Curiosity. You mean, man's curiosity. His interest in strange objects makes him accept them as
natural when he sees them."
The cat said, "It seems incredible that you, an intelligent man, have never realized the one
character of all human beings." It turned briskly, straightening. "But now, enough of this
conversation. I have fulfilled the basic requirements of my domicile here. I have lived for a
period without being suspected, and I have told one inhabitant that I have been here. It remains
for me to send home a significant artifact of your civilization--and then I can be on my way . . .
elsewhere."
I ventured, shakily, "Surely, the artifact isn't Silkey."
"We seldom," said the cat, "choose actual inhabitants of a planet, but when we do we give them a
compensation designed to balance what we take away. In his case, virtual immortality."
I felt desperate, suddenly. Seconds only remained; and it wasn't that I had any emotion for
Silkey. He stood there like a clod, and even though later he would remember, it didn't matter. It
seemed to me that the cat had discovered some innate secret of human nature which I, as a
biologist, must know.
"For God's sake," I said, "you haven't explained anything yet. What is this basic human
characteristic. And what about the postcard you sent me. And--"
"You have all the clues." The creature started to turn away. "Your inability to comprehend is no
concern of mine. We have a code, we students, that is all."
"But what," I asked desperately "shall I tell the world? Have you no message for humankind,
something--"
The cat was looking at me again. "If you can possibly restrain yourself," it said, "don't tell
anyone anything."
This time, when it moved away, it did not look back. I saw, with a start, that the mist of light
above Silkey's head was expanding, growing. Brighter, vaster, it grew. It began to pulse with a
gentle but unbroken rhythm. Inside its coalescing fire the cat and Silkey were dim forms, like
shadows in a fire.
Abruptly, the shadows faded; and then the mist of light began to dim. Slowly, it sagged to the
ground, and lay for minutes blurring into the darkness.
Of Silkey and the creature there was no sign.
THE GROUP sitting around the table in the bar was briefly silent. Finally, Gord said, "Glub!"
and Jones said in a positive fashion:
"You solved the problem of the postcard, of course?"
THE CATAAAA
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
15
The slim, professorish man nodded. "I think so. The reference in the card to time differentials is
the clue. The card was sent after Silkey was put on exhibition in the school museum of the cat
people, but because of time variations in transmission it arrived before I knew Silkey would be in
town."
Morton came up out of the depths of his chair. "And what about this basic human characteristic,
of which religion is merely an outward expression?"
The stranger made a gesture. "Silkey, exhibiting freaks, was really exhibiting himself. Religion is
self-dramatization before a god. Self-love, narcissism--in our own little way we show ourselves
off . . . and so a strange being could come into our midst unsuspected."
Cathy hiccoughed, and said, "The love interest is what I like. Did you marry Virginia? You are
the professor of biology at State, aren't you?"
The other shook his head. "I was," he said. "I should have followed the cat's advice. But I felt it
was important to tell other people what had happened. I was dismissed after three months, and I
won't tell you what I'm doing now. But I must go on. The world must know about the weakness
that makes us so vulnerable. Virginia? She married a pilot of big air firms. She fell for his line of
self-dramatization."
He stood up. "Well, I guess I'll be on my way. I've got a lot of bars to visit tonight."
When he had gone, Ted paused momentarily in his evening's task of looking stupid. "There," he
said, "is a guy who really has a line. Just imagine. He's going to tell that story about five times
tonight. What a set-up for a fellow who wants to be the center of attention."
Myra giggled. Jones began to talk to Gord in his know-it-all fashion. Gord said, "Glub!" every
few seconds, just as if he was listening. Cathy put her head on the table and snored drunkenly.
And Morton sagged lower and lower in his chair.















RESURRECTION

by A. E. van Vogt

THE GREAT ship poised a quarter of a mile above one of
the cities. Below was a cosmic desolation. As he floated
down in his energy bubble, Enash saw that the buildings
were crumbling with age.
"No signs of war damage!" "The bodiless voice touched his
ears momentarily. Enash turned it out.
On the ground he collapsed his bubble. He found
himself in a walled enclosure overgrown with weeds. Several
skeletons lay in the tail grass beside the rakish building.
They were of long, two-legged, two-armed beings with skulls
in each case mounted at the end of a thin spine. The skele-
tons, all of adults, seemed in excellent preservation, but when
he bent down and touched one, a whole section of it crum-
bled into a fine powder. As he straightened, he saw that
Yoal was floating down nearby. Enash waited until the his-
torian had stepped out of his bubble, then he said:
"Do you think we ought to use our method of reviving the
long dead?"
Yoal was thoughtful. "I have been asking questions of the
various people who have landed, and there is something
wrong here. This planet has no surviving life, not even in-
sect life. We'll have to find out what happened before we
risk any colonization."
Enash said nothing. A soft wind was blowing. It rustled
through a clump of trees nearby. He motioned towards the
trees. Yoal nodded and said, "Yes, the plant life }ias not
been harmed, but plants after all are not affected in the
same way as the active life forms."
There was an interruption. A voice spoke from Yoal's re-
ceiver: "A museum has 'been found at approximately the
centre of the city. A red light has been fixed on the roof."
Enash said, "I'll go with you, Yoal. "There might be
skeletons of animals and of the intelligent being in various
stages of his evolution.  You didn't answer my question.
Are you going to revive these things?"
Yoal said slowly, "I intend to discuss the matter with
the council, but I think there is no doubt. We must know
the cause of this disaster." He waved one sucker vaguely
to take in half the compass. He added as an afterthought,
"We shall proceed cautiously, of course, beginning with an
obviously early development. The absence of the skeletons
of children indicates that the race had developed personal
immortality."
The council came to look at the exhibits. It was, Enash
knew, a formal preliminary only. The decision was made.
There would be revivals. It was more than that. They
were curious. Space was vast, the journeys through it long and
lonely, landing  always  a  stimulating experience,  with its
prospect of new life forms to be seen and studied.
The museum looked ordinary. High-domed ceilings, vast
rooms. Plastic models of strange beasts, many artifactstoo
many to see and comprehend in so short a time. The life
span of a race was imprisoned here in a progressive array
of relics. Enash looked with the others, and was glad when
they came to the line of skeletons and preserved bodies.
He seated himself behind the energy screen, and watched
the biological experts take a preserved body out of a stone
sarcophagus. It was wrapped in windings of cloth, many of
them. The experts did not bother to unravel the rotted
material. Their forceps reached through, pinched a piece of
skullthat was the accepted procedure. Any part of the
skeleton could be used, but the most perfect revivals, the
most complete reconstructions resulted when a certain section
of the skull was used.
Hamar, the chief biologist, explained the choice of body.
"The chemicals used to preserve this mummy show a sketchy
knowledge of chemistry. The carvings on the sarcophagus
indicate a crude and unmechanical culture. In such a civili-
zation there would not be much development of the potential-
ities of the nervous  system.  Our speech experts have been
analysing the recorded voice mechanism which is a part of
each exhibit, and though many languages are involved
evidence that the ancient language spoken at the time the body
was alive has been reproducedthey found no difficulty in
translating the meanings. They have now adapted our uni-
versal speech machine, so that anyone who wishes to need
only speak into his communicator, and so will have his words
translated into the language of the revived person. The re-
verse, naturally, is also true. Ah, I see we are ready for
the first body."
Enash watched intently with the others as the lid was
clamped down on the plastic reconstructor, and the growth
processes were started. He could feel himself becoming tense.
For there was nothing haphazard about what was happen-
ing. In a few minutes a full-grown ancient inhabitant of this
planet would sit up and stare at them. The science involved
was simple and always fully effective.    ~
.... Out of the shadows of smallness, life grows. The
level of beginning and ending, of life andnot life; in that
dim region matter oscillates easily between old and new
habits.  The  habit  of  organic,  or  the  habit  of  inorganic.
Electrons do not have life and un-life values. Atoms form
into molecules, there is a step in the process, one tiny step,
that is of lifeif life begins at all. One step, and then dark-
ness. Or aliveness.
A stone or a living cell. A grain of gold or a blade of
grass, the sands of the sea or the equally numerous ani-
malcules inhabiting the endless fishy watersthe difference is
there in the twilight zone of matter. Each living cell has in it
the whole form. The crab grows a new leg when the old
one is torn from its flesh. Both ends of the planarian worm
elongate, and soon there are two worms, two identities, two
digestive systems each as greedy as the original, each a
whole, unwounded, unharmed by its experience. Each cell
can be the whole. Each cell remembers in detail so intricate
that no totality of words could ever descibe the completeness
achieved.
Butparadoxmemory is not organic. An ordinary wax
record remembers sounds. A wire recorder easily gives up a
duplicate of the voice that spoke into it years before. Mem-
ory is a physiological impression, a mark on matter, a
change in the shape of a molecule, so that when a reaction
is desired the shape emits the same rhythm of response.
Out of the mummy's skull had come the multi-quadrillion
memory shapes from which a response was now being
evoked. As ever, the memory held true.
A man biinked, and opened his eyes.
"It is true, then," he said aloud,  and the words were
translated into the Ganae tongue as he spoke them. "Death
is merely an opening into another lifebut where  are my
attendants?" At the end, his voice took on a complaining
tone.
He sat up, and climbed out of the case, which had auto-
matically opened as he came to life. He saw his captors. He
froze, but only for a moment. He had a pride and a very
special arrogant courage, which served him now. Reluctantly,
he sank to his knees and made obeisance, but doubt must have
been strong in him. "Am I in the presence of the gods of
Egypt?" He climbed to his feet. "What nonsense is this? I
do not bow to nameless demons."
Captain Gorsid said, "Kill him!"
The two-legged monster dissolved, writhing in the beam of
a ray gun.
The second revived man stood up, pale, and trembled
with fear. "My God, I swear I won't touch the stuff again.
Talk about pink elephants"
Yoal was curious. "To what stuff do you refer, revived
one?"
"The old hooch, the poison in the hip pocket flask, the juice
they gave me at that speak . . . my lordie!"
Captain Gorsid looked questioningly at Yoal, "Need we
linger?"
Yoal hesitated. "I am curious." He addressed the man. "If
I were to tell you that we were visitors from another star,
what would be your reaction?"
The man stared at him. He was obviously puzzled, but
the fear was stronger. "Now, look," he said, "I was driving
along, minding my own business. I admit I'd had a shot or
two too many, but it's the liquor they serve these days. I
swear I didn't see the other carand if this is some new idea
of punishing people who drink and drive, well, you've won. I
won't touch another drop as long as I live, so help me."
Yoal said, "He drives a 'car' and thinks nothing of it. Yet
we saw no cars. They didn't even bother to preserve them
in the museums."
Enash noticed that everyone waited for everyone else to
comment. He stirred as he realized the circle of silence
would be complete unless he spoke. He said, "Ask him to
describe the car. How does it work?"
"Now, you're talking," said the man. "Bring on your line
of chalk, and I'll walk it, and ask any questions you please.
I may be so tight that I can't see straight, but I can always
drive. How does it work? You just put her in gear, and step
on the gas."
"Gas," said engineering officer Veed. "The internal com-
bustion engine. That places him."
Captain Gorsid motioned to the guard with the ray gun.
The third man sat up, and looked at them thoughtfully.
"From the stars?" he said finally. "Have you a system, or
was it blind chance?"
The Ganae councillors in that domed room stirred uneasily
in their curved chairs. Enash caught Yoal's eye on him. "The
shock in the historian's eye alarmed the meteorologist. He
thought: "The two-legged one's adjustment to a new situation,
his grasp of realities, was unnormally rapid. No Ganae could
have equalled the swiftness of the reaction."
Hamar, the chief biologist, said, "Speed of thought is not
necessarily a sign of superiority. The slow, careful thinker has
his place in the hierarchy of intellect."
But Enash found himself thinking, it was not the speed;
it was the accuracy of the response. He tried to imagine him-
self being revived from the dead, and understanding instantly
the meaning of the presence of aliens from the stars. He
couldn't have done it.
He forgot his thought, for the man was out of the case. As
Enash watched with the others, he walked briskly over to the
window and looked out. One glance, and then he turned
back.
"Is it all like this?" he asked.
Once again, the speed of his understanding caused a sensa-
tion. It was Yoal who finally replied.
"Yes. Desolation. Death. Ruin. Have you any ideas as to
what happened?"
The man came back and stood in front of the energy
screen that guarded the Ganae. "May I look over the mu-
seum? I have to estimate what age I am in. We had certain
possibilities of destruction when I was last alive, but which
one was realized depends on the time elapsed."
The councillors looked at Captain Gorsid, who hesitated;
then, "Watch him," he said to the guard with the ray gun. He
faced the man. "We understand your aspirations fully. You
would like to seize control of this situation and ensure your
own safety. Let me reassure you. Make no false moves,
and all will be well."
Whether or not the man believed the lie, he gave no sign.
Nor did he show by a glance or a movement that he had seen
the scarred floor where the ray gun had burned his two
predecessors into nothingness. He walked curiously to the
nearest doorway, studied the other guard who waited there
for him, and then, gingerly, stepped through. The first guard
followed him, then came the mobile energy screen, and finally,
~ trailing one another, the councillors.
Enash was the third to pass through the doorway. The
_room contained skeletons and plastic models of animals. The
room beyond that was what, for want of a better term, Enash
called a culture room. It contained the artifacts from a single
period of civilization. It looked very advanced. He had ex-
amined some of the machines when they first passed through
,it,, and had thought: Atomic energy. He was not alone in his
recognition. From behind him. Captain Gorsid said to the
man:
"You are forbidden to touch anything. A false move will be
the signal for the guards to fire."
The man stood at ease in the centre of the room. In spite
of a curious anxiety, Enash had to admire his calmness. He
must have known what his fate would be, but he stood there
thoughtfully, and said finally, deliberately, "I do not need to
go any farther. Perhaps you will be able to judge better than I
of the time that has elapsed since I was born and these ma-
chines were built. I see over there an instrument which, ac-
cording to the sign above it, counts atoms when they explode.
As soon as the proper number have exploded it shuts off the
power automatically, and for just the right length of time to
prevent a chain explosion. In my time we had a thousand
crude devices for limiting the size of an atomic reaction, but
it required two thousand years to develop those devices from
the early beginnings of atomic energy. Can you make a com-
parison?"
The councillors glanced at Veed. The engineering officer
hesitated. At last, reluctantly, he said, "Nine thousand years
ago we had a thousand methods of limiting atomic explosions."
He paused, then even more slowly, "I have never heard of an
instrument that counts out atoms for such a purpose."
"And yet," murmured Shuri, the astronomer, breathlessly,
"the race was destroyed."
There was silence. It ended as Gorsid said to the nearest
guard, "Kill the monster!"
But it was the guard who went down, bursting into flame.
Not just one guard, but the guards! Simultaneously down,
burning with a blue flame. The flame licked at the screen,
recoiled,  and licked  more  furiously,  recoiled  and  burned
brighter. Through a haze of fire, Enash saw that the man
had retreated to the far door, and that the machine that
counted atoms was glowing with a blue intensity.
Captain Gorsid shouted into his communicator, "Guard all
exits with ray guns. Spaceships stand by to kill alien with
heavy guns."
Somebody said, "Mental control. Some kind of mental con-
trol. What have we run into?"
They were retreating. The blue flame was at the ceiling,
struggling to break through the screen. Enash had a last
glimpse of the machine. It must still be counting atoms, for it
was a hellish blue. Enash raced with the others to the room
where the man had been resurrected. There, another energy
screen crashed to their rescue. Safe now, they retreated into
their separate bubbles and whisked through outer doors and
up to the ship. As the great ship soared, an atomic bomb
hurtled down from it. The mushroom of flame blotted out the
museum and the city below.
"But we still don't know why the race died," Yoal whis-
pered into Enash's ear, after the thunder had died from the
heavens behind them.
The pale yellow sun crept over the horizon on the third
morning after the bomb was dropped, the eighth day since the
landing. Enash floated with the others down on a new city.
He had come to argue against any further revival.
"As a meteorologist," he said, "I pronounce this planet safe
for Ganae colonization. I cannot see the need tor taking any
risks. This race has discovered the secrets of its nervous sys-
tem, and we cannot afford"
He was interrupted. Hamar, the biologist, said dryly, "If
they knew so much why didn't they migrate to other star
systems and save themselves?"
"I will concede," said Enash, "that very possibly they had
not discovered our system of locating stars with planetary
families." He looked earnestly around the circle of his friends.
"We have agreed that was a unique accidental discovery.
We were lucky, not clever."
He saw by the expressions on their faces that they were
mentally refuting his arguments. He felt a helpless sense
of imminent catastrophe. For he could see that picture of a
great race facing death. It must have come swiftly, but not so
swiftly that they didn't know about it. There were too many
skeletons in the open, lying in the gardens of magnificent
homes, as if each man and his wife had come out to wait for
the doom of his kind. He tried to picture it for the council, thtit
last day long, long ago, when a race had calmly met its end-
ing. But his visualization failed somehow, for the others shifted
impatiently in the seats that had been set up behind the series
of energy screens, and Captain Gorsid said, "Exactly what
aroused this intense emotional reaction in you, Enash?"
  The question gave Enash pause. He hadn't thought of it as
emotional. He hadn't realized the nature of his obsession, so
subtly had it stolen upon him. Abruptly now, he realized.
"It was the third one," he said slowly. "I saw him through
the haze of energy fire, and he was standing there in the dis-
~ tant doorway watching us curiously, just before we turned to
run. His bravery, his calm, the skilful way he had duped us
it all added up."
"Added up to his death!" said Hamar. And everybody
laughed.
"Come now, Enash," said Vice-captain Mayad good-
humouredly, "you're not going to pretend that this race is
braver than our own, or that, with all the precautions we
have now taken, we need fear one man?"
Enash was silent, feeling foolish. The discovery that he had
had an emotional obsession abashed him. He did not
want to appear unreasonable. He made a final protest, "I
merely wish to point out," he said doggedly, "that this desire
to discover what happened to a dead race does not seem abso-
lutely essential to me."
Captain Gorsid waved at the biologist, "Proceed," he said,
"with the revival."
To Enash, he said, "Do we dare return to Gana, and
recommend mass migrationsand then admit that we did not
actually complete our investigations here? It's impossible, my
friend."
It was the old argument, but reluctantly now Enash ad-
mitted there was something to be said for that point of view.
He forgot that, for the fourth man was stirring.
The man sat up. And vanished.
There was a blank, horrified silence. Then Captain Gor-
sid said harshly, "He can't get out of there. We know that.
He's in there somewhere."
All around Enash, the Ganae were out of their chairs, peer-
ing into the energy shell. The guards stood with ray guns held
limply in their suckers. Out of the comer of his eye, he saw
one of the protective screen technicians beckon to Veed,
who went over. He came back grim. He said, "I'm told the
needles jumped ten points when he first disappeared. That's
on the nucleome level."
"By ancient Ganae!" Shun whispered. "We've run into
what we've always feared."
Gorsid was shouting into the communicator. "Destroy all the
locators on the ship. Destroy them, do you hear!"
He turned with glaring eyes. "Shuri," he bellowed. "They
don't seem to understand. Tell those subordinates of your to
act. All locators and reconstructors must be destroyed."
"Hurry, hurry!" said Shuri weakly.
When that was done they breathed more easily. There were
grim smiles and a tensed satisfaction. "At least," said Vice-
captain Mayad. "he cannot now ever discover Gana. Our great
system of locating suns with planets remains our secret. There
can be no retaliation for" He stopped, said slowly,
"What am I talking about? We haven't done anything. We've
not responsible for the disaster that has befallen the inhabi-
tants of this planet."
But Enash knew what he had meant. The guilt feelings
came to the surface at such moments as thisthe ghosts of
all the races destroyed by the Ganae, the remorseless will
that had been in them, when they first landed, to annihilate
whatever was here. The dark abyss of voiceless hate and ter-
ror that lay behind them; the days on end when they had
mercilessly poured poisonous radiation down upon the unsus-
pecting inhabitants of peaceful planetsall that had been in
Mayad's words.
"I still refuse to believe be has escaped." That was Captain
Gorsid. "He's in there. He's waiting for us to take down our
screens, so he can escape. Well, we won't do it."
There was silence again as they stared expectantly into the
emptiness of the energy shell. The reconstructor rested on
metal supports, a glittering affair. But there 'was nothing else.
Not a flicker of unnatural light or shade. The yellow rays of
the sun bathed the open spaces with a brilliance that left no
room for concealment.
"Guards," said Gorsid, "destroy the reconstructor. I thought
he might come back to examine it, but we can't take a chance
on that."
It burned with a white fury. And Enash, who had hoped
somehow that the deadly energy would force the two-legged
thing into the open, felt his hopes sag within him.
"But where can he have gone?" Yoal whispered.
Enash turned to discuss the matter. In the act of swinging
around, he saw that the monster was standing under a tree a
score of feet to one side, watching them. He must have ar-
rived at that moment, for there was a collective gasp from the
councillors. Everybody drew back. One of the screen techni-
cians, using great presence of mind, jerked up an energy
-screen between the Ganae and the monster. The creature
came forward slowly. He was slim of build, he held his head
well back. His eyes shone as from an inner fire.
He stopped as he came to the screen, reached out and
touched it with his fingers. It flared, blurred with changing
colours. The colours grew brighter, and extended in an intri-
cate pattern all the way from his head to the ground. The
blur cleared. The pattern faded into invisibility. The man was
through the screen.
He laughed, a soft curious sound; then sobered. "When I
first awakened," he said, "I was curious about the situation.
The question was, what should I do with you?"
The words had a fateful ring to Enash on the still morning
air of that planet of the dead. A voice broke the silence, a
voice so strained and unnatural that a moment passed before
he recognized it as belonging to Captain Gorsid.
"Kill him!"
When the blasters ceased their effort, the unkillable thing
remained standing. He walked slowly forward until he was
only a half dozen feet from the nearest Ganae. Enash had a
position well to the rear. The man said slowly:
"Two courses suggest themselves, one based on gratitude
for reviving me, the other based on reality. I know you for
what you are. Yes, know youand that is unfortunate. It is
hard to feel merciful. To begin with," he went on, "let us
suppose you surrender the secret of the locator. Naturally,
now that a system exists, we shall never again be caught as we
were."
Enash had been intent, his mind so alive with the potenti-
alities of the disaster that was here that it seemed impossible
that he could think of anything else. And yet, a part of his
attention was stirred now. "What did happen?" he asked.
The man changed colour. The emotions of that far day thick-
ened his voice. "A nucleonic storm. It swept in from outer
space. It brushed this edge of our galaxy. It was about nine-
ty light-years in diameter, beyond the farthest limit of our
power. There was no escape from it. We had dispensed with
spaceships, and had no time to construct any. Castor, the
only star with planets ever discovered by us, was also in the
path of the storm." He stopped. "The secret?" he said.
Around Enash, the councillors were breathing easier. The
fear of race destruction that had come to them was lifting.
Enash saw with pride that the first shock was over, and they
were not even afraid for themselves.
"Ah," said Yoal softly, "you don't know the secret. In spite
of all your great development, we alone can conquer the
galaxy." He looked at the others, smiling confidently. "Gentle-
men," he said, "our pride in a great Ganae achievement is
justified. I suggest we return to our ship. We have no further
business on this planet."
There was a confused moment while their bubbles formed,
when Enash wondered if the two-legged one would try to stop
their departure. But when he looked back, he saw that the
man was walking in a leisurely fashion along a street.
That was the memory Enash carried with him, as the ship
began to move. That and the fact that the three atomic
bombs they dropped, one after the other, failed to explode.
"We will not," said Captain Gorsid, "give up a planet as
easily as that. I propose another interview with the creature."
They were floating down again into the city, Enash and
Yoal and Veed and the commander. Captain Gorsid's voice
tuned in once more:
".. . As I visualize it"through the mist Enash could see
the transparent glint of the other three bubbles around him
"we jumped to conclusions about this creature, not justified
by the evidence. For instance, when he awakened, he vanished.
Why? Because he was afraid, of course. He wanted to size
up the situation. He didn't believe he was omnipotent."
It was sound logic. Enash found himself taking heart from
it. Suddenly, he was astonished that be had become panicky
so easily. He began to see the danger in a new light. Only
one man alive on a new planet. If they were determined
enough, colonists coud be moved in as if he did not exist.
It had been done before,  he recalled.  On  several planets,
small groups of the original populations had survived the de-
stroying radiation, and taken refuge in remote areas. In al-
most every case, the new colonists gradually hunted them
down. In two instances, however, that Enash remembered,
native races were still holding small sections of their plan-
ets. In each case, it had been found impractical to destroy
them because it would have endangered the Ganae on the
planet. So the survivors were tolerated. One man would not
take up very much room.
When they found him, he was busily sweeping out the
lower floor of a small bungalow. He put the broom aside and
stepped on to the terrace outside. He had put on sandals,
and he wore a loose-fitting robe made of very shiny material.
He eyed them indolently but he said nothing.
It was Captain Gorsid who made the proposition. Enash had
to admire the story he told into the language machine. The
commander was very frank. That approach had been decided
on. He pointed out that the Ganae could not be expected to
revive the dead of this planet. Such altruism would be un-
natural considering that the ever-growing Ganae hordes had a
continual need for new worlds. Each vast new population
increment was a problem that could be solved by one method
only. In this instance, the colonists would gladly respect the
rights of the sole survivor of this world.
It was at this point that the man interrupted. "But what is
the purpose of this endless expansion?" He seemed genuinely
curious. "What will happen when you finally occupy every
planet in this galaxy?"
Captain Gorsid's puzzled eyes met Yoal's, then flashed to
Veed, then Enash. Enash shrugged his torso negatively, and
felt pity for the creature. The man didn't understand, pos-
sibly never could understand. It was the old story of two dif-
ferent viewpoints, the virile and the decadent, the race that
aspired to the stars and the race that declined the call of
destiny.
"Why not," urged the man, "control the breeding cham-
bers?"
"And have the government overthrown!" said Yoal.
He spoke tolerantly, and Enash saw that the others were
smiling at the man's naivete. He felt the intellectual gulf be-
tween them widening. The creature had no comprehension of
the natural life forces that were at work. The man spoke
again:
"Well, if you don't control them, we will control them for
you."
There was silence.
They began to stiffen. Enash felt it in himself, saw the signs
of it in the others. His gaze flicked from face to face, then
back to the creature in the doorway. Not for the first time,
Enash bad the thought that their enemy seemed helpless.
"Why," he decided, "I could put my suckers around him and
crush him."
He wondered if mental control of nucleonic, nuclear, and
gravitonic energies included the ability to defend oneself from
a macrocosmic attack. He had an idea it did. The exhibition
of power two hours before might have had limitations, but if
so, it was not apparent. Strength or weakness could make no
difference. The threat of threats had been made: "If you
don't controlwe will."
The words echoed in Enash's brain, and, as the meaning
penetrated deeper, his aloofness faded. He had always re-
garded himself as a spectator. Even when, earlier, he had ar-
gued against the revival, he had been aware of a detached part
of himself watching the scene rather than being a part of it.
He saw with a sharp clarity that that was why he had finally
yielded to the conviction of the others. Going back beyond
that to remoter days, he saw that he had never quite consid-
ered himself a participant in the seizure of the planets of other
races. He was the one who looked on, and thought of reality,
and speculated on a life that seemed to have no meaning. It
was meaningless no longer. He was caught by a tide of ir-
resistible emotion, and swept along. He felt himself sinking,
merging with the Ganae mass being. All the strength and all
the will of the race surged up in his veins.
He snarled, "Creature, if you have any hopes of reviving
your dead race, abandon them now."
The man looked at him, but said nothing. Enash rushed
on, "If you could destroy us, you would have done so already.
But the truth is that you operate within limitations. Our ship
is so built that no conceivable chain reaction could be started
in it. For every plate of potential unstable material in it there
is a counteracting plate, which prevents the development of a
critical pile. You might be able to set off -explosions in our
engines, but they, too, would be limited, and would merely
start the process for which they are intendedconfined in
their proper space."
He was aware of Yoal touching his arm. "Careful," warned
the historian. "Do not in your just anger give away vital in-
formation."
Enash shook off the restraining sucker. "Let us not be un-
realistic," he said harshly. "This thing has divined most of
our racial secrets, apparently merely by looking at our bodies.
We would be acting childishly if we assumed that he has not
already realized the possibilities of the situation."
"Eruishi" Captain Gorsid's voice was imperative.
As swiftly as it had come, Enash's rage subsided. He
stepped back. "Yes, commander."
"I think I know what you intended to say," said Captain
Gorsid. "I assure you ,1 am in full accord, but I believe also
that I, as the top Ganae official, should deliver the ultimatum."
He turned. His homy body towered above the man. "You
have made the unforgivable threat. You have told us, in effect,
that you will attempt to restrict the vaulting Ganae spirit."
"Not the spirit," said the man.
The commander ignored the interruption. "Accordingly, we
have no alternative. We are assuming that, given time to lo-
cate the materials and develop the tools, you might be able to
build a reconstructor. In our opinion it will be at least two
years before you can complete it, even if you know how. It is
an immensely intricate machine, not easily assembled by the
lone survivor of a race that gave up its machines millennia
before disaster struck.
"You did not have time to build a spaceship. We won't
give you time to build a reconstructor.
"Within a few minutes our ship will start dropping bombs.
It is possible you will be able to prevent explosions in your vi-
cinity. We will start, accordingly, on the other side of the
planet. If you stop us there, then we will assume we need
help. In six months of travelling at top acceleration, we can
reach a point where the nearest Ganae planet would hear our
messages. They will send a fleet so vast that all your powers
of resistance will be overcome. By dropping a hundred or a
thousand bombs every minute, we will succeed in devastating
every city so that not a grain of dust will remain of the skele-
tons of your people.
"That is our plan. So it shall be. Now, do your worst
to us who are at your mercy."
The man shook his head. "I shall do nothingnow!" he
said. He paused, then thoughtfully, "Your reasoning is fairly
accurate. Fairly. Naturally, I am not all powerful, but it seems
to me you have forgotten one little point. I won't tell you
what it is. And now," he said, "good day to you. Get back to
your ship, and be on your way. I have much to do."
Enash had been standing quietly, aware of the fury build-
ing up in him again. Now, with a hiss, he sprang forward,
suckers outstretched. They were almost touching the smooth
fleshwhen something snatched at him.
He was back on the ship.
He had no. memory of movement, no sense of being dazed
or harmed. He was aware of Veed and Yoal and Captain
Goisid standing near him as astonished as he himself. Enash
remained very still, thinking of what the man had said:
"... Forgotten one little point." Forgotten? That meant they
knew. What could it be? He was still pondering about it when
Yoal said:
"We can be reasonably certain our bombs alone will not
work."
They didn't.
Forty light-years out from Earth, Enash was summoned to
the council chambers. Yoal greeted him wanly. "The mon-
ster is aboard."
The thunder of that poured through Enash, and with it
came a sudden comprehension. "That was what he meant we
had forgotten," he said finally, aloud and wonderingly. "That
he can travel through space at will within a limitwhat was
the figure he once usedof ninety light-years."
He sighed. He was not surprised that the Ganae, who had
to use ships, would not have thought immediately of such a
possibility. Slowly, he began to retreat from the reality. Now
that the shock had come, he felt old and weary, a sense of
his mind withdrawing again to its earlier state of aloofness. It
required a few minutes to get the story. A physicist's assistant,
on his way to the storeroom, had caught a glimpse of a man
in a lower corridor. In such a heavily manned ship, the
wonder was that the intruder had escaped earlier observa-
tion. Enash had a thought.
"But after all we are not going all the way to one of our
planets. How does he expect to make use of us to locate it
if we only use the video" be stopped. That was it, of
course. Directional video beams would have' to be used, and
the man would travel in the right direction the instant contact
was made.
Enash saw the decision in the eyes of his companions, the
only possible decision under the circumstances. And yet, it
seemed to him they were missing some vital point. He
walked slowly to the great video plate at one end of the
chamber. There was a picture on it, so sharp, so vivid, so
majestic that the unaccustomed mind would have reeled as
from a stunning blow. Even to him, who knew the scene, there
came a constriction, a sense of unthinkable vastness. It was a
video view of a section of the milky way. Four hundred mil-
lion stars as seen through telescopes that could pick up the
light of a red dwarf at thirty thousand light-years.
The video plate was twenty-five yards in diametera scene
that had no parallel elsewhere in the plenum. Other galaxies
simply did not have that many stars.
  Only one in two hundred thousand of those gloving suns
had planets.
That was the colossal fact that compelled them now to an
irrevocable act. Wearily, Enash looked around him.
"The monster has been very clever," he said quietly. "If we
go ahead, he goes with us, obtains a reconstructor, and re-
' turns by his method to his planet. If we use the directional
beam, he flashes along it, obtains a reconstructor, and again
reaches his planet first. In either event, by the time our fleets
arrived back here, he would have revived enough of his kind
to thwart any attack we could mount."
He shook his torso. The picture was accurate, he felt sure,
but it still seemed incomplete. He said slowly, "We have one
advantage now. Whatever decision we make, there is no lan-
guage machine to enable him to learn what is it. We can carry
out our plans without his knowing what they will be. He knows
that neither he nor we can blow up the ship. That leaves
us one real alternative."
It was Captain Gorsid who broke the silence that followed.
"Well, gentlemen, I see we know our minds. We will set the
engines, blow up the controls, and take him with us."
They looked at each other, race pride in their eyes. Enash
touched suckers with each in turn.
An hour later, when the heat was already considerable,
Enash had the thought that sent him staggering to the com-
municator, to call Shuri, the astronomer. "Shun," he yelled,
"when the monster first awakenedremember Captain Gorsid
had difficulty getting your subordinates to destroy the locators.
We never thought to ask them what the delay was. Ask them
... ask them"
There was a pause, then Shuri's voice came weakly over
the roar of the static. "They. . . couldn't. . . get. . . into the...
room. The door was locked."
Enash sagged to the floor. They had missed more than one
point, he realized. The man had awakened, realized the situa-
tion; and, when he vanished, he had gone to the ship, and
there discovered the secret of the locator and possibly the secret
of the reconstructorif he didn't know it previously. By the
time he reappeared, he already had from them what he
wanted. All the rest must have been designed to lead them
to this act of desperation.
In a few moments, now, he would be leaving the ship,
secure in the knowledge that shortly no alien mind would
know his planet existed. Knowing, too, that his race would
live again, and this time never die.
Enash staggered to his feet, clawed at the roaring com-
municator, and shouted his new understanding into it. There
was no answer. It clattered with the static of uncontrollable
and inconceivable energy. The heat was peeling his armoured
hide as he struggled to the matter transmitter. It flashed at
him with purple flame. Back to the communicator he ran
shouting and screaming.
He was still whimpering into it a few minutes later when
the mighty ship plunged into the heart of a blue-white sun.














                             A.E. Van Vogt

                             THE BARBARIAN

     In his initial address to the Patronate, following  his  return  from
Venus, Tews said among other things, "It is difficult for  us  to  realze,
but Linn is now without formidable enemies anywhere. Our opponents on Mars
and Venus having been decisively defeated by our forces in  the  past  two
decades, we are now in a unique historical position: the sole great  power
in  the  world  of  man.  A  period  of  unlimted   peace   and   creative
reconstruction seems inevitable."
     He retrned to the palace with the cheers of the Patronate ringing  in
his ears, his mood one of thoughtful jubilation.  His  spies  had  already
reported that the patrons gave him a great deal  of  the  credit  for  the
victory on Venus. After all, the war had dragged on for a long time before
his arrival. And then, abruptly,  almost  overnight,  it  had  ended.  The
conclusion  was  that  his  brilliant  leadership  had  made  a   decisive
contribution. It required no astuteness for Tews to  realize  that,  under
such circumstances, he could generously bestow a triumph  on  Jerrin,  and
lose nothing by the other's honors.
     Despite his own words to the Patronate,  he  found  himself,  as  the
peaceful weeks went by, progressively amazed at the reality of what he had
said: no enemies. Nothing to fear. Even yet, it  seemed  hard  to  believe
that the universe belonged to Linn; and that, as the Lord Adviser, he  was
now in his own sphere in a position of power over more subjects  than  any
man had ever been. So it seemed to the dazzled Tews.
     He would be a devoted  leader,  of  course  -  he  reassured  himself
hastily, disowning the momentary pride. He  visualized  great  works  that
would reflect the glory of Linn and the golden age of Tews. The vision was
so  noble  and  inspiring  that  for  long  he  merely  toyed  with  hazy,
magnificent plans and took no concrete action of any kind.
     He was informed presently that Clane had returned from Venus. Shortly
thereafter he received a message from the mutation.
     His Excellency,
     Lord Adviser Tews
     My most honored uncle: I should like to visit you and describe to you
the result of several conversations between my brother Jerrin  and  myself
concerning potential dangers for the empire. They do not seem severe,  but
we are both concerned about the preponderance of slaves as aganst citizens
on Earth, and we are unhappy about our lack of knowledge  of  the  present
situation among the peoples of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
     Since these are the only dangers in  sight,  the  sooner  we  examine
every aspect of the problem the more certain we can be that the destiny of
Linn will be under the control of intelligent action and not  governed  in
future by the necessary opportunism that has been for so many  generations
the main element of government.
                             Your obedient nephew,
                                            Clane
     The letter irritated Tews. It seemed meddlesome, It reminded him that
his control of Linn and of the glorious future he envisaged for the empire
was not complete, that in fact these nephews might urge  compromises  that
would dim the beauty that only he, apparently,  could  see.  Nevertheless,
his reply was diplomatic:
     My dear Clane: It was a pleasure to hear from you, and as soon  as  I
return from the mountans, I shall be happy to receive you and discuss  all
these matters in the most thoroughgoing fashion. I have instructed various
departments to gather data so that when we do get together, we can talk on
the basis of facts. Tews, Lord Adviser
     He actually issued the instructions and actually listened to a  brief
account from an official who was an "expert" concerning conditions on  the
moons of Jupiter and Saturn. They were all inhabited by tribes in  various
stages of barbaric culture. Recent reports  gleaned  from  questioning  of
primitives who came from there and from the  Linnan  traders  who  visited
certain ports of entry indicated that the old game of intrigue and  murder
ainong tribal chieftains seeking ascendancy was still going on.
     Relieved in spite of his previous conviction that the  situation  was
exactly as it was now described, Tews departed on  his  mountain  vacation
with a retinue of three hundred courtiers and five hundred slaves. He  was
still there a month later when a second message arrived from Clane.
     Most gracious Lord Adviser Tews: Your response to my  message  was  a
great relief to me. I wonder if I could  further  impose  upon  your  good
offices and have your department heads determine how many are  still  here
and where they are presently concentrated. The reason for this inquiry  is
that I have discovered that several of my agents on Europa, the great moon
of Jupiter, were suddenly executed about a year ago and that  actually  my
own information from that territory is based upon reports,  all  of  which
are not less than two years old, and those are extremely vague.  It  seems
that about five years ago a new leader  began  to  unify  Europa;  and  my
agents' reports - when I now examine the data they furnished -  grew  less
clear with each month after that. I suspect that I have been victimized by
carefully prepared propaganda. If this be so, the fact that  somebody  was
astute enough to seize my channels of information worries me.
     These are only suspicions, of course but it would seem  advisable  to
have your people make inquiries with the  possibility  in  mind  that  our
present information sources are unreliable.
                                        Your faithful servant, and nephew,
                                                                     Clane

     The reference to the mutation's "agents" reminded  Tews  unpleasantly
that he lived in  a  world  of  spies.  I  suppose,  he  thought  wearily,
propaganda is even now being circulated against  me  because  I  am  on  a
vacation. People cannot possibly realize what great plans my engineers and
I are making for the State on this so-called pleasure trip.
     He wondered if, by releasing a series of public statements about  the
grandiose future, he might successfully head off criticism.
     That irritation lasted for a day, and then  he  read  Clane's  letter
again and decided that an unruffled and diplomatic approach was desirable.
He must ever be in a position to say that  he  invariably  took  the  most
thorough precaution against any eventuality.
     He gave the necessary instructions, advised Clone that he had done so
- and then began to consider seriously the situation that would exist when
Jerrin returued from Venus six  or  eight  months  hence  to  receive  his
triumph. It no longer seemed quite the satisfactory prospect that  it  had
been when he himself had first returned from Venus. These nephews  of  his
tended to interfere in State affairs, and indeed both had the legal  right
to be advisers of the government. Each, according to law,  had  a  Council
vote in Linnan affairs, although neither  could  directly  interfere  with
administration.
     I suppose, Tews grudgingly acknowledged to himself, Clane  is  within
his rights; but what was it mother once said: "It is  an  unwise  man  who
always exercises his rights." He laughed, grimacing.
     That night, just before he  went  to  sleep,  Tews  had  a  flash  of
insight: I'in slipping back into suspicion - the same fears that disturbed
me when I was on Venus. I'in being  influenced  by  this  damnable  palace
atmosphere.
     He felt personally incapable of base  thoughts,  and  accepted  their
presence in others - he told himself - with the greatest  reluctance,  and
then only because of the possible effect on the State.
     His sense of duty - that was  the  real  pressure  on  him,  he  felt
convinced. It compelled him to be aware of,  and  actually  to  look  for,
scheming and plotting, even though he was revolted by any  indications  of
intrigue.
     The realization of his  own  fundamental  integrity  reassured  Tews.
After all, he thought, I may occasonally be misled, but I cannot be  wrong
if I remain constantly on the alert for danger from all sources. And  even
a mutation with scientific knowledge and weapons is a matter  about  which
I, as guardian of the State, must take cognizance.
     He had already given considerable thought to the weapons he had  seen
Clane use on Venus. And during the days  that  followed  he  came  to  the
conclusion that he must  take  action.  He  kept  saying  to  himself  how
reluctant he was to do so, but finally he advised Clane:
     My dear nephew:
     Although you have evidently not felt free to ask for  the  protection
to which your rank and the value of your work entitles you, I am sure  you
will be happy to hear that the State is prepared to  undertake  protection
of the material that you have rescued from the pits of the gods  and  from
other ancient sources.
     The safest place for all this material is at your residence in  Linn.
Accordingly, I am authorizing funds to transport  to  the  city  any  such
equipment that you have at your country estate. A guards unit will  arrive
at the estate within the week with adequate transport, and another  guards
unit is this day taking up guard duty at your town residence.
     The captain of the guard, while of course  responsible  to  me,  will
naturally grant you every facility for carrying on your work.
     It is with pleasure, my dear Clane, that I extend to you this  costly
but earned protection.
     At some time not too far in the future I  should  like  to  have  the
privilege of a personally conducted tour so that I may see for myself what
treasures you have in your collection, with a view to finding further uses
for them for the general welfare.
                                                  With cordial best wishes
                                                        Tews, Lord Adviser

     At least, thought Tews, after he had dispatched the message and given
the necessary orders to the military forces, that will for the present get
the material all in one place. Later, a further more stringent control  is
always possible - not that it will ever be necessary, of course.
     The wise leader simply planned for any contingency. Even the  actions
of his most dearly beloved relatives must be examined objectively.
     He learned presently that Clane had offered no  resistance  and  that
the material had been transported to Linn without incident.
     He was still at the mountain palace of the Linns when a third  letter
arrived from Clane. Though briefly stated, it was a major social document.
The preamble read:

     To our uncle, the Lord Adviser:
     It being the considered opinion of Lords Jertin and Clane Linn that a
dangerous preponderance of slaves exists  in  Linn  and  that  indeed  the
condition of slavery is wholly undesirable  in  a  healthy  State,  it  is
herewith proposed that Lord Adviser Tews during his government lay down as
a guiding rule for future generations the following principles:
     1. All law-abiding human beings are entitled to the free  control  of
their own persons.
     2. Where free control does not now obtain, it shall be  delivered  to
the individual on a rising scale, the  first  two  steps  of  which  shall
become effective immediately.
     3. The first  step  shall  be  that  no  slave  shall  in  future  be
physically punished except by the order of a court.
     4. The second step shall be that the slave's work day  shall  not  in
future exceed ten hours.

     The other steps outlined a method of  gradually  freeing  the  slaves
until after twenty years only incorrigibles would be 'not free,'  and  all
of these would be controlled by the State itself under laws  whereby  each
was dealt with "as an individual."
     Tews read the document with  amazement  and  amusement.  He  recalled
another saying of his mother's: "Don't ever  worry  about  the  idealists.
"The mob will cut their throats at the proper moment."
     His amusement faded rapidly. These boys are really interfering in the
affairs of state in Linn itself, which is only remotely in their province.
As, the summer over, he made preparations to  return  to  the  city,  Tews
scowlingly considered the threat "to the State," which - it seemed to  him
- was building up with alarming speed.
     On the second day after his return to Linn he received another letter
from Clane. This one requested  an  audience  to  discuss  "those  matters
relating to the defense of the empire, about which  your  deparments  have
been gathering information."
     What infuriated Tews about the letter was that the mutation  was  not
even giving him time to settle down after his return. True,  the  work  of
reestablishment did not involve him - but it was a matter of  courtesy  to
the office he held. On that level, Tews decided in an  icy  rage,  Clane's
persistence bore all the earmarks of a deliberate insult.
     He sent a curt note in reply, which stated simply:

     My dear Clane:
     I will advise you as soon as I am free of the more pressing  problems
of administration. Please await word from me.
                                                                      Tews

     He slept that night, confident that he was  at  last  taking  a  firm
stand and that it was about time.
     He awoke to news of disaster.
     The only warning was a steely glinting of metal in the  early-morning
sky. The invaders swooped down on  the  city  of  Linn  in  three  hundred
spaceships. There must have been advance spying, for they landed in  force
at the gates that were heavily guarded and  at  the  main  troop  barracks
inside the city. From each ship debouched two hundred-odd men.
     "Sixty thousand soldiers!"  said  Lord  Adviser  Tews  after  he  had
studied the reports. He issued instructions for the defense of the  palace
and sent a carrier pigeon to the three legions encamped outside the  city,
ordering two of them to attack when  ready.  And  then  he  sat  pale  but
composed, watching the spectacle from a window that  overlooked  the  hazy
vastness of Linn proper.
     Everything was vague and unreal.  Most  of  the  invading  ships  had
disappeared behind large buildings. A few lay in the open, but they looked
dead. It was hard to grasp that vicious fighting was  going  on  in  their
vicinity. At nine o'clock, a messenger arrived from the Lady Lydia:

     DearSon:
     Have you any news? Who is attacking us? Is it a limited assault or an
invasion of the empire. Have you contacted Clane?
                                                                        L.

     The first prisoner was brought in while Tews was  scowling  over  the
unpalatable suggestion that he  seek  the  advice  of  his  relative.  The
mutation was the last person he wanted to see.  The  prisoner,  a  bearded
giant, proudly confessed that he was from Europa,  one  of  the  moons  of
Jupiter, and that he feared neither  man  nor  god.  The  man's  size  and
obvious physical prowess startled Tews. But his naive outlook on life  was
cheering.Subsequent   prisoners   had   similar   physical   and    mental
characteristics. And so, long before noon, Tews had a fairly clear picture
of the situation.
     This was a barbarian invasion from Europa. It was obviously for  loot
only. But unless he acted swiftly, Linn would be divested in a few days of
treasures garnered over the centuries. Bloodthrsty  commands  flowed  from
Tews' lips. Put all prisoners to the sword.  Destroy  their  ships,  their
weapons, their clothing. Leave  not  one  vestige  of  their  presence  to
pollute the eternal city.
     The morning ran its slow course. Tews considered making an inspection
of the city escorted by the palace cavalry. He abandoned the plan when  he
realized it would be impossible for commanders to send him reports  if  he
were on  the  move.  For  the  same  reason  he  could  not  transfer  his
headquarters to a less clearly marked  building.  Just  before  noon,  the
relieving report arrived that two of three camp legions were attacking  in
force at the main gates.
     The news steadied him. He began to think in terms  of  broader,  more
basic information about what had happened. He  remembered  unhappily  that
his departments probably had the information that - spurred by Clane -  he
had asked for months ago. Hastify, he called in several  experts  and  sat
somberly while each of the men in turn told what he had learned.
     There was actually a great deal of data. Europa, the  great  moon  of
Jupiter, had been inhabited from legendary times  by  fiercely  quarreling
tribes. Its vast atmosphere was said to  have  been  created  artificially
with the help of the atom gods by the scientists of the golden  age.  Like
all the artificial atmosphere, it contained a high proportion of the  gas,
teneol, which admitted sunlight but did not allow much heat to escape into
space.
     Starting about five years before, travelers had begun  to  bring  out
reports of a leader named Czinczar who  was  ruthlessly  welding  all  the
hating factions of the planet into one nation. For a while it was  such  a
dangerous territory that traders landed only at specified ports of  entry.
The information they received was that Czinczar's  attempt  at  unfication
had faifed. Contact grew even more vague after that; and it was  clear  to
the listening Tews that the  new  leader  had  actually  succeded  in  his
conquests and that any word to the contrary was  propaganda.  The  cunning
Czinczar had seized outgoing communication sources and confused them while
he consolidated his position among the barbarous forces of the planet.
     Czinczar. The name had a sinister rhythm to it,  a  ring  of  leashed
violence, a harsh, metallic  tintinnabulation.  If  such  a  man  and  his
followers escaped with even a fraction of the portable wealth of Linn, the
inhabited solar system would echo with the exploit. The goverument of Lord
Adviser Tews might tumble like a house of cards.
     Tews had been hesitating.There was a plan in his mind that would work
better if carried out in the dead of night.  But  that  meant  giving  the
attackers precious extra hours for loot.  He  decided  not  to  wait,  but
dispatched a command to the third - still unengaged - camp legion to enter
the tunnel that led into the central palace.
     As a precaution, and with the hope of distracting the  enemy  leader,
he sent a message to Czincxar in the care of a captured barbarian officer.
In it he pointed out the foolishness of an attack that could  only  result
in bloody reprisals on Europa itself and suggested that  there  was  still
time for an honorable withdrawal. There was only one thing wrong with  all
these schemings. Czinczar had concentrated a large force of  his  own  for
the purpose of capturing the Imperial party. And had held back in the hope
that he would learn definitely whether or not the Lord Adviser was  inside
the  palace.  The  released  prisoner,  who   delivered   Tews'   messuge,
established his presence inside.
     The attack in force that followed captured  the  Central  Palace  and
everyone in it, and surprised  the  legionnaires  who  were  beginning  to
emerge from the secret passageway. Czinczar's men poured all  the  oil  in
the large palace tanks into the downward sloping  passageway  and  set  it
afire.
     Thus died an entire legion of men.
     That night a hundred reserve barbarian spaceships landed  behind  the
Linnan soldiers  besieging  the  gates.  And  in  the  morning,  when  the
barbarians inside the city launched an attack, the two  remaining  legions
were cut to pieces.
     Of these events the Lord Adviser Tews knew  nothing.  His  skull  had
been turned over the previous day to Czinczar's favorite goldsmith, to  be
plated with Linnan gold and shaped into a goblet to celebrate the greatest
victory of the century.

     To Lord Clane Linn, going over his accounts on  his  country  estate,
the news of the fall of Linn came as a  special  shock.  With  unimportant
exceptions, all  his  atomic  material  was  in  Liun.  He  dismissed  the
messenger, who had unwisely shouted the news as he entered the door of the
accounting department. And then sat at his desk - and realized that he had
better accept for the time being the figures of his slave  bookkeepers  on
the condition of the estate.
     As he glanced around the room after announcing the  postponement,  it
seemed to him that at least one of the slaves showed  visible  relief.  He
did not delay, but  called  the  man  before  him  instantly.  He  had  an
inexorable system in dealing with slaves, a system inherited from his long
- dead mentor, Joquin, along with the estate itself.
     Integrity, hard work,  loyalty,  and  a  positive  attitude  produced
better conditions, shorter working hours, more freedom  of  action,  after
thirty the right to marry, after forty legal freedom. Laziness  and  other
negative attitudes such as cheating were  punshed  by  a  set  pattern  of
demotions. Short of changing the law of the land, Clane could not  at  the
moment imagine a better system in view of the existence  of  slavery.  And
now, in spite of his personal anxieties, he carried  out  the  precept  of
Joqnin as it applied to  a  situation  where  no  immediate  evidence  was
available. He told the man, Oorag, what had  aroused  his  suspicions  and
asked him if they were justifed. "If you are guilty and confess," he said,
"you will receive only one demotion. If you do not  confess  and  you  are
later proven guilty, there will be three demotions, which  means  physical
labor, as you know."
     The slave, a big man, shrugged and said with a sneer,  "By  the  time
Czinczar is finished with you Linnans, you will be working for me." "Field
labor," said Clane curty, "for three months, ten hours a day."
     It was no time for mercy. An empire under artack did not flinch  from
the harshest acts. Anything that could be construed as weakness  would  be
disastrous.
     As the slave was led out by guards, he shouted a  final  insult  over
his shoulder. "You wretched mutation,"  he  said,  "you'll  be  where  you
belong when Czinczar gets here."
     Clane did  not  answer.  He  considered  it  doubtful  that  the  new
conqueror had been selected by fate to punish all the  evildoers  of  Liun
according to their desserts. It would take too long. He  put  the  thought
out of his mind and walked to the doorway. There he paused and  faced  the
dozen trusted slaves who sat at their various desks.
     "Do nothing rash," he said slowly in a clear voice, "any of  you.  If
you  harbor  emotions  similar  to  those  expressed  by  Oorag,  restrain
yourselves. The fall of one city in a surprise attack is  not  important."
He hesitated. He was, he realized, appealing to their cautious  instincts,
but his reason told him that in a great crisis men did not always consider
all the potentialities.
     "I am aware," he said finally, "there is no great pleasure in being a
slave, though it has advantages - economic security, free craft  training.
But Oorag's wild words are a proof that if young slaves were free to do as
they pleased, they would constitute a jarring, if not revolutionary factor
in the community. It is unfortunately true that people of different  races
can only gradually learn to live together."
     He went out, satisfied that he had done the best possible  under  the
circumstances. He had no doubt whatsoever that here, in this  defiance  of
Oorag, the whole problem of a slave  empire  had  again  shown  itself  in
miniature. If Czinczar were to conquer any important portion of  Earth,  a
slave uprising would follow automatically. There were too many slaves, far
too many for safety, in the Linnan empire.
     Outside, he saw his first refugees. They were coming  down  near  the
main granaries in a variety of colorful skyscooters.  Clane  watched  them
for a moment, trying to picture their departure  from  Linn.  The  amazing
thing was that they had waited till the forenoon of the second day. People
must simply have refused to believe that the city was in  danger,  though,
of course, early fugitives could have fled in other directions. And so not
come near the estate.
     Clane emerged decisively out of his reverie. He called  a  slave  and
dispatched him to the scene of the arrivals with a command to his personal
guards. "Tell these people who have rapid transportation to  keep  moving.
Here, eighty miles from Linn, we shall take care only of the foot-weary."
     Briskly now, he went into  his  official  residence  and  called  the
commanding officer of his  troops.  "I  want  volunteers,  "he  explained,
"particularly men with strong religious beliefs who on this  second  night
after the invasion are prepared to  fly  into  Linn  and  remove  all  the
transportable equipment from my laboratory."
     His plan, as he outlined it finally to  some  forty  volunteers,  was
simplicity itself. In the confusion of taking over a vast  city  it  would
probably be several days before the barbarian army would  actually  occupy
all the important residences. Particularly,  on  there  early  days,  they
might miss a house situated, as his was, behind a barrier of trees.
     If by some unfortunate chance  it  was  afready  occupied,  it  would
probably be so loosely held that bold men could easily kill every alien on
the premises and so accomplish their purpose.
     "I want to impress upon you," Clane went on "the importance  of  this
task. As all of you know, I am a member of the temple  hierarchy.  I  have
been entrusted with sacred god  metals  and  sacred  equipment,  including
material taken from the very homes of the gods. It would be a disaster  if
these precious relics were to  fall  into  unclean  hands,  I,  therefore,
charge you that if you should by some mischance be captured, do not reveal
the real purpose of your presence.  Say  that  you  came  to  rescue  your
owner's private  property.  Even  admit  you  were  foolish  to  sacrifice
yourself for such a reason."
     Mindful of Tews' guard unit, he finished his instructions. "It may be
that Linnan soldiers are guarding the equipment, in which  case  give  the
officer in command this letter."
     He handed the document to the captain of the volunteers.  It  was  an
authorization signed by Clane with the seal of his rank. Since  the  death
of Tews, such an authorization would not be lightly ignored.
     When they had gone out to prepare for the mission,  Clane  dispatched
one of his private spaceships to the nearby city of Goram  and  asked  the
commander there, a friend of his, what kind  of  counteraction  was  being
prepared against the invader. "Are  the  authorities  in  the  cities  and
towns," he asked, "showing that they understand  the  patterns  of  action
required of them in a major emergency? Or must the old law be explained to
them from the beginning?"
     The answer arrived in the shortest  possible  time,  something  under
forty minutes. The general  placed  his  forces  at  Clane's  command  and
advised that he had dispatched messengers to every major city on Earth  in
the name of "his excellency, Lord Clane Linn, ranking survivor on Earth of
the noble Tews, the late Lord Adviser, who perished at  the  head  of  his
troops, defending the city of Linn from the foul  and  murderous  surprise
attack launched by a barbarian horde of beastlike men who seek to  destroy
the fairest civilization that ever existed."
     There was more in the same  vein,  but  it  was  not  the  excess  of
verbiage  that  startled  Clane.  It  was  the  offer   itself   and   the
implications. In his name an army was being organized.
     After rereading the message, he  walked  slowly  to  the  full-length
mirror in the adjoining bathroom and stared at his image. He  was  dressed
in the fairly presentable reading gown of a temple scientist. Like all his
temple  clothing,  the  shoulder  cloth  folds  of  this   concealed   his
"differences" from casual view. An observer would have to be very acute to
see how carefully the cloak was drawn around his  neck,  and  how  it  was
built up to hide the slant of his body from the neck down, and how tightly
the arm ends were tied together at his wrists.
     It would take three months to advise Lord Jerrin on Venus and four to
reach Lord Draid on Mars, both planets being on the far side  of  the  sun
from Earth. It would require almost, but  not  quite,  twice  as  long  to
receive a message from them. Only a member of the ruling family could pos-
sibly win the support of the diversified elements of the  empire.  Of  the
fate of the Lord Adviser's immediate family, there was  as  yet  no  word.
Besides, they were women. Which  left  Lord  Glane,  youngest  brother  of
Jerrin, grandson of the late Lord Leader. For not  less  than  six  months
accordingly he would be the acting Lord Leader of Linn.
     The afternoon of that second day of the invasion  waned  slowly.Great
ships began to arrive, bringing soldiers. By dusk, more  than  a  thousand
men were encamped along the road to the city of Linn and by the riverside.
Darting small craft and the wary full-sized spaceships  floated  overhead,
and foot patrols were out, guarding all approaches to the estate.
     The roads themselves were virtually deserted. It was too soon for the
mobs from  Linn,  which  air-seooter  scouts  reported  were  fleeing  the
captured city by the gates that, at midafternoon, were still open.
     During the last hour before dark, the air patrols reported  that  the
gates were being shut one by one. And that  the  stream  of  refugees  was
dwindling to a trickle near the darkening  city.  All  through  that  last
hour, the sky was free of scooters transporting refugees. It seemed  clear
that the people who could afford the costly machines were  either  already
safe or had waited too long, possibly in the hope of succoring some absent
member of the family.
     At midinght the volunteers deparied on their dangerous mission in ten
scooters and one spaceship. As a first gesture of his new authority  Glane
augmented their forces by adding a hundred soldiers from the regular army.
He watched of those general officers who had had time to arrive.  A  dozen
men climbed to their feet as he  entered.  They  saluted,  then  stood  at
attention.
     Clane stoped short. He  had  intended  to  be  calm,  matter-of-fact,
pretending even to himself  that  what  was  happening  was  natural.  The
feeling wasn't like that. An emotion came, familiar, terrifying. He  could
feel it tingling up the remoter reflexes of his nervous system as of  old,
the beginning of the dangerous  childish  panic,  product  of  his  early,
horrible days as a tormented mutation. The muscles  of  his  face  worked.
Three times he swallowed with difficulty. Then, with a stiff  gesture,  he
returned the salute, And walking hastily to the head of the table, he  sat
down.
     Clane waited till they had seated themselves, then  asked  for  brief
reports as to available troops. He noted down the figures  given  by  each
man for his province and at the end added up the columns.
     "With four provinces still to be heard from," he announced, "we  have
a total of eighteen thousand trained soldiers, six thousand party  trained
reserves and some five hundred thousand able-bodied civilians."
     "Your  excellency,"  said  his  friend  Morkid,  "the  Linnan  empire
maintains normally a standing army of one million men. On Earh by far  the
greatest forces were stationed in or near the city of Linn, and they  have
been annihilated. Some four hundred thousand men are still  on  Venus  and
slightly more than two hundred thousand on Mars."
     Clane, who had been  mentally  adding  up  the  figures  given,  said
quickly, "That doesn't add up to a million men."
     Morkid nodded gravely. "For the first time  in  years,  the  army  is
under strength. The conquest of Venus seemed to  eliminate  all  potential
enemies of Linn, and Lord Adviser  Tews  considered  it  a  good  time  to
economize."
     "I see," said Clane. He felt pale and bloodless, like a man  who  has
suddenly discovered that he cannot walk by himself.

     Lydia climbed heavily out of her sedan chair, conscious  of  how  old
and  unattractive  she  must  seem  to  the  grinning  barbarians  in  the
courtyard. She didn't let it worry her too much. She had been old  a  long
time now, and her image in a mirror no longer shocked her.  The  important
thing was that her request for an interview had been granted  by  Czinczar
after she had, at his insistence, withdrawn the proviso that she be  given
a safe conduct.
     The old woman smiled mirthlessly. She no  longer  valued  highly  the
combination  of  skin  and  bones  that  was  her  body.  But  there   was
exhilaration in the realzation that she was probably going to  her  death.
Despite her age and  some  self-disgust,  she  felt  reluctant  to  accept
oblivion. But Clane had asked her to take  the  risk.  It  vaguely  amazed
Lydia that the idea of the mutation's holding the Lord Leadership did  not
dismay her any more. She had her own private reasons for  believing  Clane
capable. She  walked  slowly  along  the  familiar  hallways  through  the
gleaming arches, and across rooms that glittered with the treasures of the
Linn family. Everywhere were the big, bearded young men who had come  from
far Europa to conquer an empire about which they could only have heard  by
hearsay. Looking at them, she felt justified in all the  pitiless  actions
she had taken in her day. They were, it  seemed  to  the  grim  old  woman
living personifications of the chaos that she had fought against  all  her
life.
     As she entered the throne room, the darker thoughts  faded  from  her
mind.She glanced around with sharp eyes for the mysterious  leader.  There
was no one on or near the throne. Groups of men stood around  talking.  In
one of the groups was a tall, graceful young man, different from  all  the
others in the room. They were bearded. He was clean-shaven.
     He saw her and stopped listening to what one of  his  companions  was
saying, stopped so noticeably that  a  silence  fell  on  the  group.  The
silence communicated itself to other groups. After not more than a minute,
the roomful of man had faced about and was staring  at  her,  waiting  for
their commander to speak.  Lydia  waited,  also,  examining  him  swiftly.
Czinczar was not a handsome man but he  had  an  appearance  of  strength,
always a form of good looks.And yet it  was  not  enough.  This  barbarian
world was full of strong-looking men. Lydia, who had expected  outstanding
qualities, was puzzled.
     His face was sensitive rather than brutal,  which  was  unusual.  But
still not enough to account for the fact that he was absolute lord  of  an
enormous undisciplined horde.
     The great man came forward. "Lady," he said, "you have asked  to  see
me."
     And then she knew his power. In all her long life she had never heard
a baritone voice so resonant, so  wonderfully  beautiful,  so  assured  of
command. It changed him. She realized suddenly that she had been  mistaken
about his looks. She had sought normal clean-cut  handsomeness.  This  man
was beautiful.
     The first fear came to her. A voice like  that,  a  personality  like
that -
     She had a vision of this man persuading the Linnan empire to  do  his
will. Mobs hypnotized. The greatest men bewitched.  She  broke  the  spell
with an effort of will. She said, "You are Czinczar?"
     "I am Czinczar."
     The definite  identification  gave  Lydia  another,  though  briefer,
pause. But this time she recovered more swiftly. And this time, also,  her
recovery was complete. Her eyes narrowed. She stared at the great man with
a developing hostility. "I can see," she said acridly, "that my purpose in
coming to see you is going to fail."
     "Naturally." Czinczar inclined his head, shrugged. He did not ask her
what was her purpose. He seemed incurious. He stood politely, waiting  for
her to finish what she had to say.
     "Until I saw you," said Lydia grimly, "I took it for granted that you
were an astute general. Now I see that vou  consider  yourself  a  man  of
destiny. I can already see you being lowered into your grave."
     There was an angry murmur from the other men in  the  room.  Czinczar
waved them into silence. "Madam," he said, "such remarks are offensive  to
my officers. State your case, and then I will decide what to do with you."
     Lydia nodded, but she noted that he did not say that he was offended.
She sighed inwardly. She had her mental picture now of this  man,  and  it
depressed her. All through known history these natural  leaders  had  been
spewed up by the inarticulate masses. They had a will in them to  rule  or
die.  But  the  fact  that  they  frequently  died  young  made  no  great
difference. Their impact on their times was colossal. Such  a  man  could,
even in his death throes, drag down long-established dynasties  with  him.
Already he had killed the legal ruler of Linn and struck a staggering blow
at the heart of the empire. By a military freak, it was true - but history
accepted such accidents without a qualm.
     Lydia said quietly, "I shall be brief since you are no doubt planning
high policy and further military  campaigns.  I  have  come  here  at  the
request of my grandson, Lord Clane Linn."
     "The mutation!" Czinczar nodded.  His  remark  was  noncommittal,  an
identification, not a comment.
     Lydia felt an inward shock that Czinczar's knowledge  of  the  ruling
faction should extend to Clane, who had  tried  to  keep  himself  in  the
background  of  Linnan  life.  She  dared  not  pause  to   consider   the
potentialities. She continued quietly. "Lord Clane is a temple  scientist,
and, as such, he has for many years been engaged in humanitarian scientifc
experiments. Most of his equipment unfortunately is here in  Linn."  Lydia
shrugged. "It is quite valueless to you and your men, but it  would  be  a
great loss to civilization if it were destroyed or casually removed.  Lord
Clane therefore requests that you permit him to send slaves  to  his  town
house to remove these scientific instruments to  his  country  estate.  In
return -"
     "Yes," echoed Czinczar, "in return -" His tone was  ever  so  faintly
derisive; and Lydia had a sudden realization that he was playing with her.
It was not a possibility that she could pay any attention to.
     "In retrn," she said, "he will pay you in precious metals and  jewels
any reasonable price which you care to name." Having finished, she took  a
deep breath and waited.
     There was a thoughtful expression on the barbarian leader's face.  "I
have heard," he said, "of Lord Clane's experiments with the  so-called"  -
he hesitated - "god metals of Linn. Very curious stories,  some  of  them;
and as soon as I am free from my military duties, I intend to examine this
laboratory with my own eyes. You may tell  your  grandson,"  he  continued
with a tone of finality, "that his little scheme to retrieve the  greatest
treasures in the entire Linnan empire was  hopeless  from  the  beginning.
Five spaceships descended in the first few minutes of the  attack  on  the
estate of Lord Clane to insure that the mysterious weapons there were  not
used against my invading fleet, and I consider it a great misfortune  that
he himself was absent in the country at the time. You may tell him that we
were not caught by surprise by his midnight attempt two days ago to remove
the equipment and that his worst fears as to its fate are  justified."  He
finished, "It is a great relief to know that most of his equipment is safe
in our hands."
     Lydia said nothing. The  phrase,  "You  may  tell  him,"  had  had  a
profound chemical effect on her body.
     She hadn't realzed she was so tense. It seemed to  her  that  if  she
spoke she would reveal her own tremendous personal relief. "You  may  tell
him -" There could be only one interpretation. She was going to be allowed
to depart. Once more she waited.
     Czinczar walked forward until he was standing directly  in  front  of
her. Somethng of his barbarous origin, so carefully suppressed until  now,
came into his manner. A hint of a sneer,  the  contempt  of  a  physically
strong man for decadence, a feeling of genuine basic  superiority  to  the
refinement that was in Lydia.  When  he  spoke,  he  showed  that  he  was
consciously aware that he was granting mercy.
     "Old woman," he said, "I am letting you go because you did me a great
favor when you maneuvered your son, Lord Tews, into the - what did he call
it - Lord Advisership. That move, and that alone, gave  me  the  chance  I
needed to make my attack on the vast Linnan empire." He smiled.  "You  may
depart, bearing that thought in mind."
     For some time, Lydia had condemned the sentimental  action  that  had
brought Tews into supreme power. But it was a different matter to  realize
that, far away in interplanetary space, a man had analyzed the move  as  a
major Linnan disaster. She went out without another word.

     Czinczar slowly climbed the hill leading up to the  low,  ugly  fence
that fronted Lord Clane's town house. He paused at the  fence,  recognized
the temple building material of which it was composed - and then walked on
thoughtfully. With the same narrow-eyed interest a few minutes  later,  he
stared at the gushing fountains of boiling water. He beckoned  finally  to
the engineer who had directed the construction of the spaceships that  had
brought his army to Earth. "How does it work?" he asked.
     The designer examined the base of the fountain. He was in no hurry, a
big fattish man with a reputation for telling jokes so coarse that  strong
men winced with shame. He had already set up house in  one  of  the  great
palaces with three Linnan girls as mistresses and a hundred Linnan men and
women as slaves. He was a happy man, with little personal conceit and very
little pride as yet to restrain his movements. He located the opening into
the fountain and knelt in the dirt like any worker.  In  that,  however,he
was not unique. Czinczar  knelt  beside  him,  little  realizing  how  his
actions shocked the high-born Linnans who belonged to his  personal  slave
retinue. The two men peered into the gloom.  "Temple  building  material,"
said Meewan, the designer.
     Czinczar nodded. They climbed to their feet without further  comment,
for these were matters that they had discussed at length over a period  of
years. At the house, a few minutes later, the leader and his henchman both
lifted the heavy draperies that covered the walls of  a  corridor  leading
into the main laboratory. Like the fence outside, the walls were  warm  as
from some inner heat.
     Temple building material! Once again no comment passed between  them.
They walked on into the laboratory proper; and now  they  looked  at  each
other in amazement.  The  room  had  been  noticeably  enlarged  from  its
original size, although this they did not know. A great section  had  been
torn out of one wall, and the gap, although it was completely  filled  in,
was still rough and unfinished. But that  was  only  the  environment.  On
almost every square yard of the vast new floor were  machines  opaque  and
machines transparent, machines big and small,  some  apparently  complete,
others unmistakably mere fragments.
     For a moment there was a distinct sense of too much to see.  Czinczar
walked forward  speculatively,  glanced  at  several  of  the  transparent
articles with an eye that tried to skim the essentials of shape and  inner
design. At no time during those first moments did he have any intention of
pausing for a detailed examination. And then, out of the corner of his eye
he caught a movement.
     A glow. He bent down and peered into a long, partly transparent metal
case,  roughly  shaped  like  a  coffin,  even  as  to  the  colorful  and
costly-looking lining. The inside, however, curved down to form  a  narrow
channel. Along this channel  rolled  a  ball  of  light.  It  turned  over
sedately, taking approximately one minute to cover the distance to the far
side. With the same lack of haste, it paused, seemed to  meditate  on  its
next action, and then, with immense deliberation began its return journey.
     The very meaningless of the movement fascinated Czinczar. He extended
his hand gingerly to withn an inch of the ball. Nothing happened. He  drew
back and pursed his lips. In spite of his attack on Linn, he was not a man
who took risks. He beckoned toward a guard.  "Bring  a  slave,"  he  said.
Under his direction a former Linnan nobleman, perspiring from every  pore,
extended his finger and touched the moving ball. His finger went in as  if
there were nothing there.
     He drew back, startled. But the inexorable Czinczar was  not  through
with him. Once more the reluctant, though  no  longer  quite  so  fearful,
finger penetrated the moving ball. The ball rolled into  it,  through  it,
beyond it. Czinczar motioned the slave aside  and  stood  looking  at  him
thoughtfully. There must have been something of his purpose in  his  face,
for the man gave a low cry of horror: "Master,  I  understand  nothing  of
what I have seen. Nothing. Nothing."
     "Kill him," said Czinczar.
     He turned, scowling, back to the machine. "There must be,"  he  said,
and there was a stubborn note in his glorious voice, "some reason for  its
movements, for - its existence."
     Half an hour later he was still examining it.

     "If I could only -" thought Clane many times. And knew that he  dared
not. Not yet.
     He had with a certain cynicism permitted the soldiers  sent  by  Lord
Tews to remove his equipment to Linn. This included the prize of  all  his
findings, a ball that rolled to and  fro  in  a  coffinlike  container;  a
discovery of the golden age that had shaken his certainties to the core of
his being.
     Because of the ball of energy he had not hesitated to let  Tews  take
control of the artifacts of that ancient and wonderful culture.
     He need merely go into the presence of the ball and  because  of  his
knowledge of its function could attune himself to it.
     It could then be mentally controlled from a distance; all its strange
power available - for about three days. At some not precisely determinable
time on the third day, it would cease to "come" when he "called" it.
     Then he would have to visit it while it was in its container  and  by
direct contact reestablish rapport.
     It had seemed evident from Tews' action that the Lord Adviser had not
intended to bar him from the equipment. And so the location of the ball in
his own Linnan residence under guard had not mattered.
     He had not despite his anxieties  anticipated  a  major  attack  that
would capture Linn in one swift assault.
     And so the weapon that could end the war was out of his reach, unless
he could somehow get to it by cunning means.
     He did not yet feel that desperate.
     Nor actually were the Linnan forces strong enough to  take  advantage
of a miracle.
     Even as in a kind of mental agony he wondered how he would  get  into
Linn, and into his house, he devoted  himself  to  the  grim  business  of
training an army as it fought.
     There was an old saying in the Linnan army to the effect that, during
his first month, a trainee, if put into battle, caused the  death  of  his
trained companions. During the second  month  he  hindered  retreats  made
necessary by his presence. And during the third month  he  was  just  good
enough to get himself killed in the first engagement.
     Clane, watching a group of trainees after several weeks of  drilling,
experienced all the agony of realizing how true the adage was. Learning to
fire a bow effectively required complex  integration  of  mind  and  body.
In-fighting with swords had to include the capacity for  cooperating  with
companions. And effective spear fighting was an art in itself.
     The plan he outlined that night to the  full  general  staff  was  an
attempt to cover up against the weakness. It was a frank determination  to
use unfit men as first-line defense troops. He  put  in  a  word  for  the
unfit. "Do not overexercise them. Get them  out  into  the  open  air  and
simply teach them the first elements of how to use weapons. First bows and
arrows, then spears, and finally swords."
     After the meeting, long into the night, he examined  reports  on  the
cities of Nouris and Gulf, which had fallen virtually without a fight.  As
the barbarians attacked, the slaves simply  rose  up  and  murdered  their
masters. A supplementary general-staff report recommended  mass  execution
for all able-bodied male slaves.
     The uneasy Clane  dispatched  messengers  to  gather  commercial  and
industrial leaders for a morning conference and then  unhappily  took  the
slave problem to bed with him.
     At  ten  o'clock  he  called  the  meeting  to  order  and  told  the
hundred-odd  assembled  representative  merchants  that   the   army   had
recommended universal death for male slaves.
     His statement caused an immediate uproar.
     One man said, "Your excellency, it is impossible. We  cannot  destroy
so much valuable property."
     With two exceptions, that seemed to be the attitude. Both  exceptions
were young men, one of whom said, "Gentleman, this is a necessary action."
     The other said, "My own feeling is that this crisis makes possible  a
great progressive act - the end of slavery in Linn."
     Both men were shouted down by enraged merchants.
     Clane stepped forward and raised his hand. When he  had  silence,  he
began. "There is no time for half-measures. We must adopt one or the other
of these alternatives."
     There followed a series of conferences  among  groups  of  merchants.
Finally a bland spokesman  said,  "Your  excellency,  the  merchants  here
present favor promising the slaves freedom."
     For a long moment Clane gazed at his grinning audience, then abruptly
turned his back on them and left the room. That afternoon  he  prepared  a
special bulletin:

                         FREEDOM FOR LOYAL SERVANTS
     By order of his excellency, Lord Clane Linn, Leader of  Linn,  temple
scientist, beloved of the Atom Gods themselves, it  is  hereby  commanded,
and so it shall be forevermore:
     GREETINGS to all those good  men  and  women  who  have  quietly  and
efficiently served the empire in atonement for sins of leaders who  rashly
led them into hopeless wars against the god-protected Linnan empire - here
is the chance of complete freedom that you have earned by your actions and
attitudes during the past years.
     The empire has been attacked by a cruel and  barbarous  invader.  His
reign of terror  cannot  but  be  temporary,  for  invincible  forces  are
gathering against him, An army of a million men is on the  way  from  Mars
and Venus, and here on Earth irresistible forces totaling  more  than  two
million men are already organizing for battle.
     The enemy numbers less than sixty thousand soldiers.  To  this  small
army, which gained its initial victory by a surprise and  base  attack,  a
few foolish men and women have rashly attached themselves. All the  women,
unless they are convicted of major crimes,will be spared. For the men  who
have already gone over to the enemy, there is but one hope: Escape immedi-
ately from the barbarian enemy  and  REPORT  TO  THE  CONCENTRATION  CAMPS
listed at the bottom of this proclamation. There will be no guards at  the
camps, but weekly roll calls will  be  made.  And  every  man  whose  name
appears regularly on these rolls will be granted  full  freedom  when  the
enemy is defeated.
     For hardened recalcitrants the penalty is death.
     To those men and women  still  loyally  serving  at  their  appointed
tasks, I, Lord Clane, acting Lord  Leader  of  Linn,  give  the  following
commands:
     All women and children  will  remain  at  their  present  residences,
continuing to serve as in the past. All men report to  their  masters  and
say, "It is my intention to take advantage of the  offer  of  Lord  Clane.
Give me a week's food so that I, too, may report to a concentration camp."
     Having done this, and having received the food, leave at once. DO NOT
DELAY A SINGLE HOUR.
     If for some reason your master is not at home, take the food  and  go
without permission. No one will hinder you  in  your  departure  from  the
city.
     Any man to whom this order applies who is found  lurking  within  any
city or town twenty-four hours after this proclamation is posted  will  be
suspected of treasonable intent.
     The penalty is death.
     Any man who after one week is found within a fiftymile  radius  of  a
city will be suspected of treasonable intent.
     The penalty is death.
     To save yourself, go to a concentration camp and appear regularly for
roll call. If the barbarians attack your camp, scatter  into  the  forests
and hills and hide, or go to another camp. Adequate food rations  will  be
supplied all camps.
     All those of proven loyalty will receive  freedom  when  the  war  is
over. They will immediately have the right to marry. Settlement land  will
be  opened  up.  After  five  years  citizenship  rights,  granted   alien
immigrants, will be available on application.
     This is the end of slavery in the Linnan empire.
     BE WISE - BE SAFE - BE FREE

     It was a document that had its weak points. Before issuing it,  Clane
spent time arguing its merits to a group of doubtful officers - he ignored
the merchants; they were too venal to be considered. He pointed  out  that
it would be impossible to keep secret a general order for mass  execution.
A majority of the slaves would escape,  and  then  they  would  really  be
dangerous. He admitted that the proclamation, though he meant  every  word
of the promise in it, was full of lies. A million slaves in Linn alone had
gone over to Czinczar, many of them trained soldiers. Czinczar  could  use
them to garrison any city he might capture and thus have his own army free
for battle. It was Morkid, sardonic and scathing, who ended  the  argument
late in the afternoon.
     "Gentlemen," he  said,  "you  do  not  seem  to  be  aware  that  our
commander-in-chief has at one stroke cut through  all  our  illusions  and
false hopes, and penetrated straight to the  roots  of  the  situation  in
which we find  ourselves.  What  is  clear  by  the  very  nature  of  our
discussion is that we have no choice." His voice went up. "In this  period
when disaster is so imminent, we are fortunate in having as our  leader  a
genius of the first rank who has already set us on the only military  path
that can lead to victory.
     "Gentlemen" - his voice rang with the tribute  -  "I  give  you  Lord
Clane Linn, acting Lord Leader of Linn."
     The clapping lasted for five minutes.
     Clane watched the battle for Goram from a patrol  craft  that  darted
from strong point to strong point. Enemy squadrons tried again  and  again
to close in on him, but his own machine was faster and more maneuverable.
     The familiar trick of getting above him was tried, an old  device  in
patrol craft and spaceship fighting. But the expected energy  flow  upward
did not take place. His small vessel did not even sag, which was  normally
the minimum reaction when two sources  of  atomic  energy  operated  on  a
gravity line.
     The efforts worried Clane. Czinczar was, of  course,  aware  by  this
time that his enemy knew more about the metals of the gods than he or  his
technicians. But it would be unfortunate if they should conclude from  the
actions of this one ship that Clane himself was inside. He wanted  to  see
this battle. In spite of evening, minute by minute, he saw it.
     The defense was tough, tougher than he had anticipated from the  fact
that four more cities had fallen in the past  four  weeks.  The  untrained
were fighting grimly for their lives. Arrows took a toll of the attackers.
Spears,  awkwardly  but  desperately  manipulated,  inflicted  wounds  and
sometimes death. The sword-fighting stage was the worst. The muscular  and
powerful barbarians, once they penetrated the weapons  that  could  attack
them from a distance, made shortwork of their weaker adversaries.
     The first line was down, devastated, defeated. The secondline  battle
began. Barbarian reserves came forward and were met  by  waves  of  arrows
that darkened the sky - and took their toll when they struck the advancing
groups  of  men.  Hoarse  cries  of  pain,  curses,  the  shrieks  of  the
desperately wounded, the agonized horror of Linnans suddenly cut  off  and
doomed, rose up to the ears of those  in  the  darting  small  craft.  The
defenders strove to stay together. That was part  of  their  instrnctions.
Retreat slowly to the central squares - which were strongly held against a
surprise rear attack.
     Retreat, and at the last minute spaceships would land and rescue  the
hard-pressed, but theoretically still intact army of what  had  once  been
able-bodied civifians. After a month and a half of training they were  too
valuable to sacrifice in a last-ditch fight.
     As it was, their dogged resistance was shaping  the  pattern  of  the
war. Surely, Czinczar, counting his men after each battle, must already be
having his own private doubts,  His  armyas  a  whole,  augmented  by  the
unrepentant among the slaves, was increasing daily.  But  the  larger  the
army grew, the smaller was his chance of controlling it.
     Yet there was no doubt about this battle, or this city, As  the  dark
tide of night slipped in from the east, victory fires began to burn in all
the important streets. The smoke wreathed  into  the  sky,  and  blood-red
flames licked up into the blackness.  The  Linnans  below,  at  this  very
moment enduring the beginning of a barbarian occupation, would not be in a
humor to appreciate that their grudgingly accepted  defeat  represented  a
possible turning point in the war.
     The time had come to decide when and where and under what  conditions
the main Linnan force would be thrown  into  a  decisive  battle  for  the
control of the planet. And there was another decision, also, involving  an
immensely risk attempt to get  near  the  ball  of  light.  Clane  shifted
uneasily and drew his cloak tightly around his thin shoulders.
     He was still considering ways and means when a  message  was  brought
him by a released Linnan nobleman who had been captured by the barbarians.
     The message was a one-sentence question from Czinczar. "Have you ever
wondered, my dear Lord Clane, how the civilization of the golden  age  was
so completely destroyed?"
     It was a problem about which Clane had pondered many  times.  But  it
had never occured to him that the answer might be  known  to  a  barbarian
from a remote moon of Jupiter.
     He questioned the released nobleman,  a  middle-aged  knight  of  the
empire, as to conditions in Linn. The  answers  were  not  pleasant.  Many
slaves had taken revenge on their former masters. Numerous Linnan women of
rank had been reduced to the status of prostitute.
     In questioning the man for any  news  of  his  Linnan  residence,  he
learned that Czinczar had publicly invited temple scientists to take  care
of "certain relics" formerly in the possession of Lord Clane.
     Clane said at that point, "He actually mentioned my name."
     "It was posted," was the reply, and the man shrugged. "I read  it  on
one of my errands out of the palace grounds."
     Long  after  the  interview  was  over,  Clane  considered  that.  He
suspected a trap - and yet Czinczar could not know how immensely  valuable
that sphere was.
     If the barbarian leader had looked into it through a hollow tube,  he
might be startled at what was "inside." But still it would do him no good.
Nevertheless, suppose it was a trap.
     It still made no difference. For his purpose, momentary proximity  to
the ball was all that would be required. Dared he take the chance?
     He was still considering the gamble when  another  released  nobleman
brought a second message from Czinczar:

     I shall like to have a conversation with you and should like to  show
you an object the like of which - I'll wager - you have  never  seen.  Can
you think of a way in which such a meeting could be arranged?

     Lord Clane showed the message to the general staff at its meeting the
following morning. They unanimously forbade such a rendezvous  but  agreed
that it was an opportunity to send  a  formal  message  to  the  barbarian
leader.
     The mutation, who had his own reasons for appearing firm, had already
written the communication. He read it to the assembled officers:

     To the barbarian chieftain, Czinczar:
     Your cowardly attempt to win mercy for your crimes  against  humanity
by a personal appeal to myself is of no avail. Get off  this  planet  with
your barbarous forces. Only immediate compliance can save you  and  Europa
from destruction. Take heed!
                                                                    Clane,
                                                        Acting Lord Leader

     The message was approved and dispatched in the  care  of  a  captured
barbarian officer. Clane began immediately to  complete  preparations  for
launching an attack against the city of Linn.  Such  an  attack  had  been
discussed several times by the staff and had been agreed  on  reluctantly,
as a feint. The generals felt that a landing might confuse  the  defenders
of the city and thus enable the Linnan  army  to  recapture  key  outlying
cities, which would indeed be the real goal. It was  understood  that  the
assault force would withdraw from Linn during the  night  of  the  day  of
attack.
     Clane was content with this. He set out for the city of Linn the  day
before the attack, making the initial  part  of  the  journey  in  an  air
scooter. From this, in a secluded spot, he unloaded a donkey and a cart of
vegetables, and trudged beside it the final twelve miles.
     In his drab work garb of a temple initiate, he was one of many carts;
and at no time was there any problem. So vast was the slave army that held
Linn that Gzinczar's forces had quickly sought to establish a normal  flow
of food from the  surrounding  countryside  into  the  city  to  ward  off
starvation.
     Linnan scouts had long since reported that the gates were open.
     Clane entered without interference from the former slaves who guarded
that particular gate. Once inside, he was even less  conspicuous,  and  no
one questioned his right to go along the street toward his city residence.
He climbed the hill at the trades entrance and was permitted to  take  his
cart through an opening in the low fence by the single  barbarian  soldier
who guarded that section of it.
     Dutifully, as if he were sent on lawful business, he headed  for  the
trades entrance of the house, and he turued the  vegetables  over  to  two
women and said, "Who is in charge today?"
     He was given a barbarian name, "Cleedon!"
     "Where is he?" Clane asked.
     "In the office of course-through  there."  The  older  woman  pointed
along the main hallway, which led through the  large  central  room  where
most of the precious machinery and equipment had been stored.
     As he entered the  great  room,  he  saw  that  there  were  a  dozen
barbarian soldiers  at  the  various  entiances.  He  saw  also  that  the
container with the ball of light was at the center of the chamber.
     ... Misty sphere, vaguely glowing as if from an inner flame,  rolling
to and fro ...
     He could walk by and touch it in passing.
     Without appearing too hurried, he  walked  forward,  put  his  finger
through the flimsy surface of the sphere, and, without pausing,  continued
on toward the office.
     He was sorely tempted, at this point, to take no further chances.  If
he acted at once and seized the house, then he would have control  of  the
box.
     But if he carried through with his original plan  and  then  the  box
were removed so that he could not find it during the three days  that  the
sphere would not be activated - He shuddered and refused to think of  such
an eventuality.
     He had been impressed by  Czinczar's  communications.  The  barbarian
leader had important information  to  give.  Somehow,  somewhere,  he  had
gotten hold of an object so valuable that he had risked his self-esteem in
attempting to establish contact.
     If too hasty action were taken, that knowledge might be lost.
     Even as  he  walked  on  through  the  room,  the  mutation  silently
reaffirmed his purpose. A moment later he entered the office and  informed
the barbarian officer there that he had come for the job of taking care of
the relics of the atom gods.
     The big man stood up and squinted down at him, gave an  almost  naive
start of recognition, and then called two soldiers from the hallway.
     And then he said, "Lord Clane Linn, you are under arrest.'
     To one of the soldiers he commanded, "Get ropes. Tie him up."
     Meekly, the mutation submitted to being bound.

     The moment the news arrved, Czinczar headed for Linn. He was  met  on
the roof of the central palace by Meewan. The big man had a smile  on  his
plump, good-fellow face. "Your theory was right," he said admiringly. "You
thought he would take a chance at the critical period of the invasion.  He
arrived this morning."
     "Tell me exactly how you accepted his  services."  The  golden  voice
spoke softly. The strange face was thoughtful as the other  man  gave  his
detailed account. There seemed no end to his interest. When the story  was
finished, he asked question after question. Each answer seemed  merely  to
stimulate new questions. Meewan said finally, querulously:
     "Your excellency, I have no doubt that our men have put the best face
on the capture to make themselves look good. They claim to  have  captured
him as he entered the building, before  he  could  do  anything  or  touch
anything. Since they're a lax bunch of rascals, I question this. But  what
does it matter? What are you doubtful about?"
     That gave Czinczar pause; he had not realized how tense he was. After
all, he told himself, the situation was simple enough. He  had  issued  an
open invitation for temple scientists to  come  and  take  care  of  "some
god-metal relics" that had fallen into possession of  the  conquerors.  It
was a cleverly worded request, designed to win general approval  from  the
defeated even as it drew the temple scientist to his own undoing, Its only
stipulation, very guardedly worded, was that in return for  the  privilege
of sharing the  "safe-guarding  of  the  relics,"  experiments  should  be
continued as if no war were being waged.
     "The gods," Czinczar had said sanctimoniously in  the  invitation,  "
are above the petty quarrels of mankind."
     Apparently, at least  one  of  its  purposes  was  accomplished.  The
mutation himself had applied for the job. Czinczar meditated cautiously on
tactics. "Bring him here," he said finally. "We can't take  any  risks  of
his having established control over anthing at  his  house.  We  know  too
little and he too much."
     While he waited, he examined the rod of force - which was one of  the
few workable instruments that had been found in the house. He  was  not  a
man who accepted past truths as final. That it had worked a week  ago  did
not mean that it would work  now.  He  tested  it  from  a  great  window,
pointing it at the upper foliage of a nearby tree. No  sound,  no  visible
light spewed forth - but the upper section of the tree crashed down onto a
pathway below. Czinczar experienced the  satisfaction  of  a  logical  man
whose logic had proved correet. It was not an uncommon satisfaction.  From
the early days when he had been a backcountry transcriber of  messages  to
the days of his rise to power, he had taken risks that  seemed  necessary,
no more, no less. Even now he could not be sure that  the  atomic  wizard,
Lord Clane, would not defeat  him  by  some  decisive  wile.  For  several
minutes, he pondered that and then ordered a box brought in from  the  ice
room of the palace. The contents of the box had  come  all  the  way  from
Europa packed in ice. He was indicating to the slaves where to  place  the
box when an officer burst breathlessly into the throne room.
     "Excellency," he cried. "Hundreds of spaceships. It's an attack."
     Standing at the windows a moment later, watching the  ships  settling
down, Czin~ar realized that his hazy  suspicions  had  been  correct.  The
appearance of Clane in the city was part of a planned maneuver that  would
now run its deadly course. It was a  pleasure  to  know  that  Lord  Clane
himself was caught in a trap.
     He wasted no time watching a battle that he could  not  hope  to  see
from the palace in any important detail. Nor did he have the feeling  Tews
had had months earlier that it was necessary for commanders to know  where
he  was  in  the  early  stages  of  the  engagement.  He   issued   quick
instructions, ordering the ice-packed box sent after him, and wrote a note
for Meewan. Then he rode with a strong escort to the headquarters  of  the
reserve army in the middle of the city.
     The reserve contained a barbarian core, but like the main defense  of
the city it was overwhelmingly made up of slaves. Czinczar's  arrival  was
greeted by a roar of excitement. The cheers did not die  down  until  long
afier he had entered the building.
     He talked over the situation with some  of  the  slave  officers  and
found them calm and confident. According to their estimates sixty thousand
Linnan soldiers had landed in the first wave. That that  was  exactly  the
number of barbarians who had originally invaded the city did not  seem  to
occur to the slaves.  But  the  comparison  struck  Czinczar  sharply.  He
wondered if it was designed to have some symbolic meaning. The possibility
made him sardonic. Not symbols but swords spoke the language of victory.
     As the afternoon  dragged  on,  the  Linnan  attack  was  being  held
everywhere. The box, still dripping, was delivered from the  palace  about
three. Since there was no longer any immediate  danger,  Czinczar  sent  a
messenger to Meewan. At three-thirty Meewan came in grinning broailly.  He
was followed by slave Linnans carrying a sedan chair. In the chair,  bound
hand and foot, was the acting Lord Leader  of  Linn.  There  was  complete
silence as the chair was set down, and the slaves withdrew.
     Clane studied  the  barbarian  leader  with  genuine  interest.  Lady
Lydia's opinion of the man had impressed him more than he cared to  admit.
The question was, could  this  strong,  fine-looking  military  genius  be
panicked into thinking that the atom gods existed?  Panicked  now,  during
the next half hour? Fortunately, for the first time in his  career  as  an
atomic scientist, he had behind him the greatest power ever  developed  by
the wizards of  the  fabulous  days  of  the  legends.  He  saw  that  the
impersonal expression on  the  other's  face  was  transforming  into  the
beginning of contempt.
     "By the god pits," said Czinczar in disgust, "you Linnans are all the
same - weaklings every one.
     Clane said nothing. He had looked often with regret into mirrors that
showed him exactly what Czinczar was seeing. A slim, young man with a face
that was white and womanish and ... well, it couldn't be helped.
     Czinczar's face changed again. There was suddenly irony in it. "I  am
speaking," he asked politely, "to Lord Clane Linn?  We  have  not  made  a
mistake?"
     Clane couldn't let the opening pass. "No mistake," he  said  quietly.
"I came into Linn for the sole purpose of talking to you while the  battle
was on. And here I am."
     It must have sounded ridiculous, coming from a man bound as  he  was.
The near guards guffawed, and Meewan  giggled.  Only  Czinczar  showed  no
sign. And his marvelous voice was as steady as steel as he said,  "I  have
not the time to flirt with words, nor the inclination. I can see that  you
are counting on something to save you, and I presume it has  something  to
do with your knowledge of atomic energy."
     He fingered the rod of force suggestively. "So far as I can  see,  we
can kill you in less than a second whenever we desire."
     Clane shook his head. "You are in error. It is quite  impossible  for
you to kill me."
     There was a sound from Meewan. The engnieer came forward. "Czinczar,"
he said darkly, "this man is intolerable. Give me permission to  slap  his
face, and we shall see if his atom gods protect him from indignity."
     Czinczar waved him aside. But he stared down  at  the  prisoner  with
eyes that were abnormally bright. The swiftness  with  which  tension  had
come into the room amazed him. And, incredibly, it was  the  prisoner  who
had seized the advantage - "Impossible to kill me!"  In  one  sentence  he
dared them to make the attempt.
     There was a crinkle of frown in  Czinczar's  forehead.  He  had  been
careful in his handling of Clane as a matter of common sense, not  because
he actually anticipated disaster. But now, quite frankly, he  admitted  to
himself that the man was not reacting normally. The words Clane had spoken
had a ring in them, a conviction  that  could  no  longer  be  ignored.The
purpose of his own invasion of the Linnan empire could be in danger.
     He said urgently, "I have something to show you. No attempt  will  be
made to kill you until you have seen it. For your part, do nothing  hasty,
take no action, whatever  power  you  have,  until  you  have  gased  with
understanding."
     He was aware of Meewan's giving him an astounded glance.
     "Power!" exclaimed the designer and it was like a curse.  "The  power
he has!"
     Czinczar paid no attention. This was  his  own  special  secret,  and
there could be no delay.
     "Guards "he said "bring the box over here." It was soaking  wet  when
they brought it. It left a dirty trail of water on the priceless rug,  and
a pool began to accumulate immediately in the place where it was set down.
There was a delay while sweating men pried off the top. Even the guards at
far doors strained to see the contents. A gasp of horror broke the tension
of waiting.
     What  was  inside  was  about  eight  feet  long.   Its   width   was
indeterminable, for it seemed to have folds  in  its  body  that  gave  an
impression of great size. It had obviously died only a short  time  before
it was packed in ice. It looked fresh, almost alive, there in its case  of
ice, unhuman, staring with sightless eyes at the ornate ceiling.
     "Where did you get it?" Clane asked at last.
     "It was found on one of the moons - within hours after a strange ship
was sighted."
     "How long ago?" The mutation spoke in a steady tone.
     "Two years, Earth time."
     "It would seem that whoever was in the ship  will  have  departed  by
now."
     Czinczar shook his head. "Miners found a  second  body  exactly  like
this on a meteorite in a spacesuit - seven months ago."
     For a long time the mutation gazed down at the creature.  Finally  he
looked, and his eyes met Czinczar's waiting gaze. He said slowly, "What is
your theory?"
     "A  nonhuman  race  of  great   scientific   attainments.   Ruthless,
unfriendly - for there are reports of sudden destruction in outlying areas
of Europa which puzzled me until this body was found ... I tend to  wonder
if this might not be a second visitation to the  solar  system.  I  cannot
give you briefly all the logical relationships I have visualized,  but  my
feeling is that the civilization of the golden age was  destroyed  by  the
first visitation."
     Clane said, "I am glad that you have shown me this, but what is  your
purpose in doing so?
     Czinczar drew a deep breath. And made his second move  to  avert  the
catastrophe suggested by  every  action  and  manner  of  this  unorthodox
prisoner. He said, "It would be a grave error for either of us to  destroy
each other's armies."
     "You are asking for mercy?"
     That was too strong to take. The barbarian  showed  his  teeth  in  a
snarl. "I am asking for common sense," he said.
     "It's impossible" said Clane "The people must have their revenge.  In
victory they will accept nothng less than your death."
     The words brought  an  obscene  curse  from  Meewan.  "Czinczar,"  he
shouted "what is all this nonsense? I have never seen  you  like  this.  I
follow no man who accepts defeat in advance. I'll show you what  we'll  do
with this ... this - " He broke off, "Guards, put a spear into him."
     Nobody moved. The soldiers looked uneasily at  Czinczar,  who  nodded
coolly. "Go right ahead," he said. "If he  can  be  killed,  I'd  like  to
know."
     Still nobody moved. It was apparenfly too mild an order, or something
of the leader's tension had communicated to the men. They looked  at  each
other, and they were standing there  doubtfully  when  Meewan  snatched  a
sword from one of them and turned toward the bound man.
     That was as far as he got. Where he had been was a ball of light.
     "Try," came the voice of Clane "to use the rod of force against  me."
A fateful pause. "Try. It won't kill you."
     Czinczar raised the rod of force and pressed the  activator.  Nothing
happened - Wait! The ball of light was growing brighter.
     Clane's voice split the silence  tantalizingly.  "Do  you  still  not
believe in the gods?"
     "I am astonished," said Czinczar "that you do not fear the spread  of
superstition more than the spread of knowledge. We  so-called  barbarians,
"he said proudly," despise you for your attempt  to  fence  in  the  human
spirit. We are freethinkers, and all your atomic energy will fail  in  the
end to imprison us."
     He shrugged. "As for your control over that ball, I do not pretend to
understand it."
     At last, he had shocked the mutation out of his ice-cold manner. "You
actually," said Clane incredulously, "do not believe in the atom gods?"
     "Guards," shouted Czinczar piercingly, "attack him from every side."
     The ball of light flickered but did not seem to move. There  were  no
guards.
     "Now do you believe?" Clane asked.
     The barbarian looked haggard and old. But he shook his head. "I  have
lost the war," he mumbled. "Only that I recognize. It is up to you to take
up the mantle which has fallen from my shoulders." He broke off. "What  in
the name of your gods is that ball?"
     "It contains the entire sidereal universe." Czinczar  kint  his  brow
and leaned forward as if he were trying to understand.
     "The what universe?" he asked at last.
     "When you  look  inside  through  a  hollow  tube,"  Clane  explained
patiently, "you see stars. It's like a window into space - only it's not a
window. It's the universe itself."
     The barbarian leader looked genuinely bewildered, "This universe?" he
said blankly.
     Clane nodded but made no comment. It hadn't been  easy  to  grasp  so
vast an idea, even with the written explanations that he had found.
     Czinczar shook his head. "You mean the Earth is in there?" He pointed
at the glowing sphere.
     "It's a fourth-dimensional idea," said Clane; and still  he  remained
patient. He could recognize a bemused man when he saw one. It was not  the
moment to press any other point.
     The barbarian narrowed his eyes and said at last, "How can you get  a
large object into  a  smaller  one?"  His  tone  appealed  for  a  logical
explanation.
     Clane  shrugged.  "When  largeness  or  smallness  are  illusions  of
viewpoints, the problem does not exist."
     Czinczar scowled at that and straightened. "I have been assuming," he
said, "that at this point in our relations you would be  speaking  nothing
but truth. Evidently, you are not prepared to tell me anything valid about
your weapon. Naturally, I reject this fanciful story."
     Clane shook his  head  but  said  nothing.  He  had  given  the  only
explanation he had, and it had run up against the other man's  magnificent
realism. Not that he blamed the barbarian. Only gradually had  he  himself
been able to accept the idea that matter and energy  were  different  than
they appeared to the sense perceptions of the body.
     But now it was time to act, to force, to  convince.  The  bonds  fell
from him as if they did not exist. He stood up, and now that  crown  among
all the jewels of the ages rode above his  head  in  a  matchless  perfect
rhythm with his movements.
     Czinczar said  stubbornly,  "It  would  be  a  mistake  to  kill  any
able-bodied man, slave or otherwise."
     Clane said, "The gods demand absolute surrender."
     Czinczar said in fury, "You fool, I am offering you the solar system!
Has this monster in the  box  not  changed  your  mind  in  the  slightest
degree?"
     "It has."
     "But then -"
     "I do not," said Clane, believe in joint-leadership arrangements."
     A pause. Then Czinczar said, "You have  come  far  -  who  once  used
atomic power merely to stay alive."
     "Yes," said Clane, "I have come far."
     Czinczar frowned down at the thing in the box. "The  real  threat  to
Linn is there. Will you promise to try for the Lord Leadership?"
     "I," Clane said, "can promise nothing."
     They looked at each other, two men who almost understood each  other.
It was Czinczar who broke the silence. "I make an absolute surrender,"  he
said and it was a sigh, "to you and you alone, of all my forces -  in  the
belief that you have the courage and common sense to shrik  none  of  your
new duties as Protector of the Solar System. It was a role,"  he  finished
somewhat unnocessarily, suddenly gloomy, "that I originally  intended  for
myself."

     In a well-guarded room in a remote suburb of Linn a  core  of  energy
rolled sedately back and forth along a  narrow  path.  In  all  the  solar
system there was nothing else like that core. It looked  small,  but  that
was an illusion of man's senses. The books that described it and  the  men
who had written the books knew but a part of its secrets.
     They knew that the micro-universe inside it pulsed with  a  multiform
of minus forces. It reacted to cosmic rays and  atomic  energy  like  some
insatiable sponge. No submolecular energy released in its  presence  could
escape it. And the moment it reached its own strange variation of critical
mass it could start a meson chain reaction in anything it touched.
     One weakness it had, and men had seized upon that in their own greedy
fashion. It imitated thought. Or so it seemed. So it seemed.
     The great question that Clane, and before  him  the  ancients,  asked
after observing this remarkable characteristic was: Did this mean that ...
man controlled the universe or that the universe controlled man?