Skylark DuQuesne s-4 Read online

  Although the Chlorans ruled this galaxy, there were oxygen-breathing, warm-blooded races in it too — serfs of the Chlorans of course, but nevertheless occupying their own planets — and it was one such planet that the Brain had finally selected and was now displaying on its monitor.

  The other thing was that the auburn-haired beauty who was Mrs. Richard Ballinger Seaton had been eyeing her husband steadily. At first she had merely looked at him thoughtfully. Then look and mien had become heavily tinged, first with surprise and then with doubt and then with wonder; a wonder that turned into an incredulity that became more and more incredulous. Until finally, unable to hold herself in any longer, she broke in on him.

  “Dick!” she cried. “You wouldn’t! You know you wouldn’t!”

  “I wouldn’t? If not, who… ?” Changing his mind between two words, Seaton cut the rest of the sentence sharply off; shrugged his shoulders; and grinned, somewhat shamefacedly, back at her.

  At this point Crane, who had been looking first at one of them and then at the other, put in: “I realize, Dorothy, that you and Dick don’t need either language or headsets to communicate with each other, but how about the rest of us? What, exactly, is it that you’re not as sure as you’d like to be that he wouldn’t do?”

  Dorothy opened her mouth to reply, but Seaton beat her to it. “What I would do — and will because I’ll have to; because it’s my oyster and nobody else’s — is, after we sneak up as close as we can without touching off any alarms, take a landing craft and go get the data we absolutely have to have in absolutely the only way it can be gotten.”

  “And that’s what I most emphatically do not like!” Dorothy blazed. “Dick Seaton, you are not going to land on an enslaved planet, alone and unarmed and afoot, as an investigating Committee of One! For one thing, we simply don’t have the time! Do we? I mean, poor old Valeron is simply a wreck! We’ve got to go somewhere and—”

  But Seaton was shaking his head. “The Brain can handle that by itself,” he said. “All it needs is time. As a matter of fact, you’ve put your finger on a first-rate reason for my going in, alone. There’s simply not much else we can do until the Valeron is back in shape again.”

  “Not your going in.” Dorothy blazed. “Flatly, positively no.”

  Again Seaton shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say I’m madly in love with the idea myself, but who’s any better qualified? Or as well? Because I know that you, Dottie, aren’t the type to advocate us sitting on our hands and letting them have all the races of humanity, wherever situate. So who?”

  “Me,” Shiro said, promptly if ungrammatically. “Not as good, but good enough. You can tell me what data you want and I can and will get it, just as well as… ”

  “Bounce back, both of you, you’ve struck a rubber fence!” Dunark snapped. “That job’s for Sitar and me.” The green-skinned princess waved her pistol in the air and nodded her head enthusiastically and her warlord went on, “You and I being brain-brothers, Dick, I’d know exactly what you want. And she and I would blast—”

  “Yeah, that’s what I know damn well you’d do.” Seaton broke in, only to be interrupted in turn by Crane — who was not in the habit of interrupting anyone even once, to say nothing of twice.

  “Excuse me, everyone,” he said, “but you’re all wrong, I think. My thought at the moment, Dick, is that your life is altogether too important to the project as a whole to be risked as you propose risking it. As to you others, with all due respect for your abilities, I do not believe that either of you is as well qualified for this kind of an investigation as I am—”

  Margaret leaped to her feet in protest, but Crane went quietly on: ” — in either experience or training. However, we should not decide that point yet — or at all, for that matter. We are all too biased. I therefore suggest, Dick, that we feed the Brain everything, we have and keep on feeding it everything pertinent we can get hold of, until it has enough data to make that decision for us.”

  “That makes sense,” Seaton said, and both Dorothy and Margaret nodded — but both with very evident reservations. “The first time anything has made sense today!”

  17. Ky-El MOKAK THE WILDER

  THE first thing Seaton and Crane had to do, of course, was to figure out how to get back somewhere near Galaxy DW-427-LU, within fourth-order range of that one particular extremely powerful Chloran system, without using enough sixth-order stuff to touch off any alarms — but still enough to make the trip in days instead of in months.

  Some sixth-order emanations could be neutralized by properly phased and properly placed counter-generators; the big question being, how much?

  The answer turned out to be, according to Crane, “Not enough” — but, according to Seaton, “Satisfactory”. At least, it did make the trip not only possible, but feasible. And during the days of that trip each Skylarker worked — with the Brain or with a computer or with pencil and paper or with paint or India ink and a brush, each according to his bent — on the problem of what could be done about the Chlorans.

  They made little headway, if any at all. They did not have enough data. Inescapably, the attitude of each was very strongly affected by what he or she knew about the Chlorans they had already encountered. They were all smart enough to know that this was as indefensible as it was inevitable.

  Thus, while each of them developed a picture completely unlike anyone else’s as to what the truth probably was, none of them was convinced enough of the validity of his theory to defend it vigorously. Thus it was discussion, not argument, that went on throughout the cautious approach to the forbidden territory and the ultra-cautious investigation of the Tellus-type planet the Brain had selected through powerful optical telescopes and by means of third and fourth-order apparatus. Then they fell silent, appalled; for that world was inhabited by highly intelligent human beings and what had been done to it was shocking indeed.

  They had seen what had been done to the planet Valeron. This was worse; much worse. On Valeron the ruins had been recognizable as having once been cities. Even those that had been blown up or slagged down by nuclear energies had shown traces of what they had once been. There had been remnants and fragments of structural members, unfused portions of the largest buildings, recognizable outlines and traces of thoroughfares and so on. But here, where all of the big cities and three-fourths or more of the medium-sized ones had been, there were now only huge sheets of glass.

  Sheets of glass ranging in area from ten or fifteen square miles up to several thousands of square miles, and variously from dozens up to hundreds of feet thick; level sheets of cracked and shattered, almost transparent, vari-colored glass. The people of the remaining cities and towns and villages were human. In fact, they were white Caucasians, as white and as Caucasian as the citizens of Tampa or of Chicago or of Portland, Oregon or of Portland, Maine. Neither Seaton nor Shiro, search as they would, could find any evidence that any Oriental types then lived or ever had lived on that world — to Shiro’s lasting regret. He, at least, was eliminated as a spy.

  “Well, Dottie?” Seaton asked.

  She gnawed her lip. “Well… I suppose we’ll have to do something — but hey!” she exclaimed, voice and expression changing markedly. “How come you think you have to go down there at all to find out what the score is? You’ve snatched people right and left all over the place with ordinary beams and things, long before anybody ever heard of that sixth-order, fourth-dimensional gizmo.”

  Seaton actually blushed. “That’s right, my pet,” he admitted. “Once again you’ve got a point. I’ll pick one out that’s so far away from everybody else that he won’t be missed for a while. Maybe two’d be better.”

  Since it was an easy matter to find isolated specimens of the humanity of that world, it was less than an hour later that two men — one from a town, one found wandering alone in the mountains — were being examined by the Brain.

  And what an examination! Everything in their minds — literally everything, down to the last-l
east-tiniest coded “bit” of every long-chain proteinoid molecule of every convolution of their brains — everything was being transferred to the Valeron’s Great Brain; was being filed away in its practically unfillable memory banks.

  When the transfer was complete, Sitar drew her pistol, very evidently intending to do away with the natives then and there. But Dorothy of course would not stand for that.

  Instead, she herself put them back into a shell of force and ran them through the Valeron’s locks and down into a mountain cave, which she then half-filled with food. “I’d advise you two,” she told them then, in their own language, “to stay put here for a few days and keep out of trouble. If you really want to get yourselves killed, though, that’s all right with me. Go ahead any time.”

  When Dorothy brought her attention back into the control room, the Brain had finished its analysis of the data it had just secured from the natives, had correlated it with all their pertinent data it had in its banks, and was beginning to put out its synthesized report.

  That report came in thought; in diamond-sharp, diamond-clear thought that was not only super-intelligible and super-audible, but also was more starkly visible than any possible tri-di. It gave, as no possible other form of report could give, the entire history of the race to which those two men belonged. It described in detail and at length the Chlorans and the relationship between the two races, and went on to give, in equal detail, the most probable course of near-term events. It told Seaton that he should investigate this planet Ray-See-Nee in person. It told him in fine detail what to wear, where to go, and practically every move to make for the ensuing twenty-four hours.

  At that point the report stopped, and when Seaton demanded more information, the Brain balked. “Data in sufficient,” it thought, and everyone there would have sworn that the Great Brain actually had a consciousness of self as it went on, “This construct — ?” it actually meant “I” — “is not built to guess, but deals only in virtual certainties; that is, with probabilities that approximate unity to twelve or more nines. With additional data, this matter can be explored to a depth quite strictly proportional to the sufficiency of the data. That is all.”

  “That’s the package, Dottie,” Seaton said then. “If we want to reach the Chlorans without them reaching us first, there’s how. That makes it a force, wouldn’t you say?”

  Dorothy wasn’t sure. “For twenty-four hours, I guess,” she agreed, dubiously. “After which time I think I’ll be screaming for you to come back here and feed that monster some more data. So be mighty darn sure to get some.”

  “I’ll try to, that’s for sure. But the really smart thing to do might be to take this wreckage half a dozen galaxies away and put the Brain to work rebuilding her while I’m down there investigating.”

  “D’you think I’ll sit still for that?” Dorothy blazed. “If you do, you’re completely out of your mind!”

  And even Crane did not subscribe to the idea. “Why?” he asked, “just to tear her down again after you’ve found out what we’ll have to have?”

  “That’s so, too.” Seaton thought for a moment, gray eyes narrowed and focused on infinity, translating the imperatives of the Brain into practical measures. Then he nodded. “All right. I admit I’ll feel better about the deal with you people and the Brain standing by.”

  And Seaton, now lean and hard and deeply tanned, sat down in his master controller and began to manufacture the various items he would need; exactly as the Brain told him to make them.

  And next morning, as the sun began to peer over the crest of the high mountain ridge directly below the Skylark of Valeron, Seaton came to ground, hid his tiny landing craft in a cave at the eighteen-thousand-foot level, and hiked the fifteen miles down-mountain to the nearest town.

  He now looked very little indeed like the Doctor Richard B. Seaton of the Rare Metals Laboratory. He was almost gaunt. His skin was burned to a shade consistent with years of exposure to wind and weather. His hair had very evidently been cut — occasionally — with shears by his own hand; his beard had been mowed — equally occasionally with those same shears.

  He wore crudely made, heavy, hobnailed, high-laced boots; a pair of baggy, unsymmetrical breeches of untanned deerskin; and a shapeless, poor-grade-leather coat that had been patched crudely and repeatedly at elbows and shoulders and across the back. He also wore what was left of a hard hat.

  As he strode into the town and along its main street, more than one pair of eyes looked at him and then looked again, for the people of that town were not used to seeing anyone walk purposefully. Nor was the sloppily uniformed guard at the entrance to City Hall. This wight — who couldn’t have been a day over fifteen — opened his eyes, almost straightened up and said:

  “Halt, you. Who’a you? Whatcha want?”

  “Business,” Seaton said, briskly. “To see the mayor, Ree-Toe Prenk.”

  “Awri’; g’wan in,” and the youth relapsed into semistuporous leaning on his ratty-looking rusty rifle.

  It was easy enough to find His Honor’s office, since it was the only one in the building doing any business at all. Seaton paused just inside the doorway and looked around.

  Everything was shabby and neglected. The wall-to-wall carpet was stained and dirty, worn through to the floor, in several places. The divider-rail leaned drunkenly, forward here, backward there. The vacant receptionist’s desk was as battered and scarred as though it had been through a war. The place hadn’t been cleaned for months, and not very thoroughly then.

  And the people in that office were in perfect sync with their surroundings. Half a dozen melancholy-looking people, men and women, sat listlessly on hard, straight-backed chairs; staring glumly, fixedly at nothing; completely disinterested, apparently, in whether they were ever called into the inner office or not.

  And the secretary! She was dressed in what looked like a gunny-sack. She was scrawny. Her unkempt, straight, lank hair was dirty-mouse brown in color. She didn’t look very bright. She was, however, the only secretary in sight, so Seaton strode up to her desk.

  “Miss What’s-your-name!” he snapped. “Can you, without rupturing a blood-vessel, come to life long enough to do half a minute’s work?”

  The girl jumped, started to rise to her feet at her desk, and blushed. “Why, yes… yes, sir, I mean. What can we do for you, Mister — ?”

  “I’m Ky-El Mokak. I want to talk to Hizzonner about turning myself in.”

  That brought her to life fast. “About what?” she cried, and her half-scream was followed instantly by a deeper, louder voice from the intercom.

  His Honor had not been asleep after all. “You what? All right, Fy-Ly, send him in; but be sure he hasn’t got a gun first.”

  “Gun? What would I be doing with a gun?” Seaton patted his pockets, shucked off his dilapidated coat, and made a full turn to show that he was clean. Then, seeing no coat-rack or hangers, he pitched the coat and hat into a corner and strode into the inner office.

  It was, if possible, in even worse shape than the outer one. The man behind the desk was fifty-odd years old; lean and bald. He looked worried, dyspeptic and nervous. He held a hand-weapon — which was not the least bit rusty — in workmanlike fashion in a competent-looking right hand. It was not pointed directly at Seaton’s midsection. It evidently did not have to be.

  “What I’d ought to do right now,” the man said quietly, “is blow your brains out without letting you say a word. You’re another damn rat. A fink — a spy — maybe a revver or an undergrounder, even. You don’t look like any wilder I ever saw brought in.”

  The Brain had not dumped Seaton on a strange and dangerous new planet without providing him with a full “knowledge” of its history, its mores and even its dialects.

  Through the educators Seaton had received enough of RaySee-Nee’s cultural patterns to be able to carry off his role. He knew what His Honor was thinking about; he knew, even, very accurately just how far the man could be pushed, where his real sympathies lay
, and what he could be counted upon to do about it.

  Wherefore Seaton said easily: “Of course I don’t. I’ve got a brain. Those lard-headed chasseurs couldn’t catch me in a thousand years. None of ’em can detect a smell on a skunk. And you won’t shoot me, not with the bind you’re in. You aren’t a damn enough fool to. You wouldn’t shoot a crippled kid on crutches, let alone a full-grown, able-bodied man.”

  Prenk shivered a little, but that was all. “Who says I’m in a bind? What kind of a bind?”

  “I say so,” Seaton said, flatly. “You’re hitting bottom right now. You’re using half-grown kids; girls, even. How many weeks is it going to be before you don’t make quota and your town and everything and everybody in it get turned into a lake of lava?”

  Prenk trembled visibly and his face turned white. “You win,” he said unsteadily, and put his pistol back into the top right-hand drawer of his desk. “Whoever you are, you know the score and aren’t afraid to talk about it. You’d have no papers, of course — on you, at least… Let’s see your arm.”

  “No number.” Seaton rolled up his left sleeve and held his forearm out for examination. “Look close. Scars left by good surgery are fine, but they can’t be made invisible.”

  “I know they can’t.” His Honor looked very closely indeed, then drew a tremendously deep breath of relief. “You are a wilder! You mean to say you’ve been up in the hills ever since the Conquest without getting caught?”

  “That’s right. I told you I’m smart, and the brains of a whole platoon of chasseurs, all concentrated down into one, wouldn’t equip a half-witted duck.”

  “But they’ve got dogs!”

  “Yeah, but they aren’t smart, either. Not very much smarter than the chasseurs are. Hell, I’ve been living on those dogs half the time. Pretty tough, fried or roasted, but boiled long enough they make mighty tasty stew.”

  “Mi-Ko-Ta’s beard! Who are you, really, and what were you, before?”