THE Perseus out of near the point of and Hilton stared, and silent.
Space was full of ships. Half of them were bare, of steel, like the "derelict" that had so away from them. The others were more or less like the Perseus, in being bigger, and of power.
Beams of power at and to screens of pure force. As these met, the of their all space. And ships and were in chunks, blobs, gouts, and of rended, and metal.
Hilton two ships against one skeleton. Dozens of beams, tight and hard, were upon of the of the skeleton. Overloaded, the bulges' screens through the and failed. And metal, refractory, only for under the of such as those.
The to the ships' method of attack, but failed. They were too slow. Not slow, exactly, either, but hesitant; as though it whole for the commander—or operator? Or controller?—of each to make it act. The ships were winning.
"Hey!" Hilton yelped. "Oh—that's the one we saw there. But what in all space it think it's doing?"
It was at speed through the of skeletons. It did not fire a a screen; it along as though on a plotted until it with one of the of the and plunged, a of wreckage, to the ground of the below.
Then hundreds of the ships forward, each to into and one of the skeletons. When was another of ships came to repeat the performance, but there was nothing left to fight. Every had out of normal space.
The ships no to the skeletons, did they re-form as a fleet. Each ship off by itself.
And on that of the Stretts the group of with as light after light after light out on their two-miles-long board. Frantically they orders to the skeletons; orders which did not affect the losses.
"Brain-pans will for this ..." a began, to be by a thought.
"That long-dead unit, so reactivated, is the fuel world. It is the battle. It is through our toward the Oman ... it, ten-eighteen!"
"It not respond, Your Loftiness."
"Then blast it, fool! Ah, it is inactivated. As encyclopedist, Nine, the of that unit."
"Yes, Your Loftiness. Many ago we sent a ship against the Omans with a new device of destruction. The Omans must have it, it of power and allowed it to on. After all these of time it must have come upon a small of power and of its mission."
"That can be the truth. The Lords of the Universe must be informed."
"The units, the and the have not been affected, Your Loftiness," a radiated.
"So I see, fool." Then, another instrument, His Loftiness at it, in an different vein, "Lord Ynos, Madam? I have to make a very report...."
IN the Perseus, four scientists and three Navy officers were heatedly; deep-space not to be in any dictionary. "Jarve!" Karns called out, and Hilton joined the group. "Does anything about this make any to you?"
"No. But you're the planetographer. 'Smatter with it?"
"It's a good three hundred Kelvin too hot."
"Well, you know it's with uranexite."
"That much? The whole jewelry ore?"
"If that's what the say, I'll it."
"Buy this, then. Continuous everywhere. Noon June Sol-quality light that it's all in the visible. Frank says it's from of a of something, and Frank that the whole thing's impossible."
"When Frank makes up his mind what 'something' is, I'll take it as a datum."
"Third thing: there's only one city on this continent, and it's protected by a screen that nobody of."
Hilton pondered, then to the captain. "Will you a search-pattern, sir? Fine-toothing only the spots?"
The was the same size as Terra; its atmosphere, for its radiation, was to Terra's. There were two continents; one ocean. The temperature of the land surface was about 100°F, that of the water about 90°F. Each had one city, and were small. One was by what looked like beings; the other by robots. The city was the only spot on the entire planet; under its the temperature was 71°F.
Hilton to study the first; and asked the captain to take the ship to range. Sawtelle objected; and to object until Hilton started to order his arrest. Then he said, "I'll do it, under protest, but I want it on record that I am doing it against my best judgment."
"It's on record," Hilton said, coldly. "Everything said and done is being, and will continue to be, recorded."
The Perseus downward. "There's what I want most to see," Hilton said, finally. "That big strip-mining operation ... that's it ... it!" Then, throat-mike, "Attention, all scientists! You all know what to do. Start doing it."
Sandra's was very close to Hilton's one as they into Hilton's plate. "Why, they look like armadillos!" she exclaimed.
"More like tanks," he disagreed, "except that they've got legs, and treads—and arms, cutters, diggers, and conveyors—and look at the way those solid rock!"
The machine was moving very slowly along a bench or that it was making for itself as it along. Below it, to its left, other benches being by other machines. The were not using explosives. Hard though the was, the were so much and were with such power that the might just have well have been slightly-clayed sand.
Every of ore, to the dust, was into a and into the of the machine. There it into a Hilton not understand. From this two of product.
One of these, ninety-nine point nine plus of the input, out through another into the of a vehicle which, when full and replaced by a of itself, cross-country to a dump.
The other product, a slow, very small of tiny, black pellets, into a one-gallon being by a small machine, more or less like a three-wheeled scooter, which was moving along the miner. When this can was almost full another rolled up and, without a single pellet, took over place and function. The then its bucket, it into a designed for the purpose and away toward the city.
Hilton slack-jawed at Sandra. She back.
"Do you make anything of that, Jarve?"
"Nothing. They're taking pure and concentrating—or converting—it a thousand to one. I we'll be able to do something about it."
"I so, too, Chief; and I'm sure we will."
"Well, that's for now. You may take us up now, Captain Sawtelle. And Sandy, will you call all and their into the room?"
AT the of the long table, Hilton his fourteen heads, all men, and their assistants, all and well-built women. Bud Carroll and Sylvia Bannister of Sociology sat together. He was almost as big as Karns; she was a green-eyed five-ten and one-fifty would have looked big for the thereof. There were Bernadine and Hermione Moen, the leggy, breasty, platinum-blonde twins—both of were Cowper in physics. There was Etienne de Vaux, the mathematical wizard; and Rebecca Eisenstein, the black-haired, flashing-eyed ex-infant-prodigy astronomer. There was Beverly Bell, who chemical syntheses—who for days on end and in her sleekly-coiffured head.
"First, we'll have a get-together," Hilton said. "Nothing recorded; just to acquainted. You all know that our fourteen science, from to zoology."
He paused, again his the group. Stella Wing, who would have been a grand-opera star for her drive to know about language. Theodora (Teddy) Blake, who would prove that she was the world's best model—but was in the most promising who had lived.
"No other like this has been assembled," Hilton on. "In more than one. Sawtelle wanted Jeffers to this group, of me. Everybody he would it."
"And Hilton wanted Eggleston and got me," Sandra said.
"That's right. And a of you didn't want to come at all, but were told by the Board to come or else."
The group stirred. Eyes met eyes, and there were smiles.
"IMYSELF think Jeffers should have had the job. I've anything this big and I'll need a of help. But I'm with it and you're all with me, so we'll all take it and like it. You've noticed, of course, the on youth. The Navy is normal, for the being young. But we aren't. None of us is thirty yet, and none of us has been married. You look like a team of professional athletes, and you girls—well, if I didn't know I'd say the Board had screened you for the of the of for a top-bracket brain-gang. How they so many of you I'll know."
"Virile men and women!" Etienne de Vaux enthusiastically. "Vive le Board!"
"Nubile! Bravo, Tiny! Quelle de nuance!"
"Three for the Board!"
"Keep still, you nitwits! Let me ask a question!" This came from one of the twins. "Before you give us the deduction, Jarvis—or will it be an or an or a ..."
"Or an inducement," the other suggested, helpfully. "Not that you would need very much of that."
"You keep still, too, Miney. I'm asking, Sir Moderator, if I can give my first?"
"Sure, Bernadine; go ahead."
"They we're going to lost. Then we'll the Navy, up a of our own and start a to end all races. Or would you call this a see-duction of a dee-duction?"
This produced a of whistles, and that it took to quell.
"But seriously, Jarvis," Bernadine on. "We've all been and it doesn't make sense. Have you any idea at all of what the Board actually did have in mind?"
"I that the Board for mental, not physical, qualities; for the ability to anything or that comes up, no what it is."
"You think it wasn't double-barreled?" asked Kincaid, the psychologist. He quizzically. "That all this and and is pure coincidence?"
"No," Hilton said, with an almost of an eyelid. "Coincidence is as meaningless as paradox. I think they out that—barring freaks—the best minds are in the best bodies."
"Could be. The idea has been before."
"Now let's to work." Hilton the of the recorder. "Starting with you, Sandy, each of you give a two-minute boil-down. What you and what you think."
SOMETHING over an hour later the meeting and Hilton and Sandra toward the room.
"I don't know you Alexander Q. Kincaid or not, but you didn't me," Sandra said.
"Nor him, either."
"Oh?" Sandra's eyebrows
"No. He the out I offered him. I didn't Teddy Blake or Temple Bells, either. You four are all, though, I think."
"Temple? You think she's so smart?"
"I don't think so, no. Don't yourself, chick. Temple Bells looks and sweet and and virginal. Maybe—probably—she is. But she isn't a of the she's got. She's artillery, Sandy. And I heavy."
"I think you're nuts there. But do you that the Board was playing Cupid?"
"Not trying, but doing. Cold-bloodedly and efficiently. Yes."
"But it wouldn't work! We aren't going to lost!"
"We won't need to. Propinquity will do the work."
"Phooie. You and me, for instance?" She stopped, put hands on her hips, and glared. "Why, I wouldn't you if you ..."
"I'll tell the world you won't!" Hilton in. "Me a female Ph.D.? Uh-uh. Mine will be a little that thinks a is some of and that an isotope's something good to eat."
"One like that copy of Murchison's Dark Lady that you keep under the on your desk?" she sneered.
"Exactly...." He started to continue the battle, then himself off. "But listen, Sandy, why should we into a we don't want to each other? You're doing a job. I you for it and I like to work with you."
"You've got a point there, Jarve, at that, and I'm one of the who know what of a job you're doing, so I'll relax." She him a and they on into the room.
It was too late in the day then to do any more exploring; but the next morning, early, the Perseus out for the city of the humanoids.
Tula toward her fellows. Her with a light and her a song. "I have been telling you from the touch that it was the Masters. It is the Masters! The Masters are returning to us Omans and their own home world!"
"CAPTAIN Sawtelle," Hilton said, "Please land in the below."
"Land!" Sawtelle stormed. "On a like that? Not by ..." He off and stared; for now, on that cradle, there out in red the Perseus' own Navy-coded landing symbols!
"Your is recorded," Hilton said. "Now, sir, land."
Fuming, Sawtelle landed. Sandra looked at Hilton. "First is my dish, you know."
"Not that I like it, but it is." He to a with sun-bleached, crew-cut hair, "Still safe, Frank?"
"Still low. Surprising no end, since all the of the is than the middle tail-race of hell."
"Okay, Sandy. Who will you want the top linguists?"
"Psych—both Alex and Temple. And Teddy Blake. They're over there. Tell them, will you, while I Teddy?"
"Will do," and Hilton over to the two and told them. Then, "I I'm not leading with my chin, Temple, but is that your name or a professional?"
"It's real; it is. My were romantics: says they 'Golden' and 'Silver'!"
Not at all obviously, he her: the almost translucent, perfection of her lightly-tanned, old-ivory skin; the clear, calm, of her eyes; the long, thick of the color of a of dead-ripe wheat.
"You know, I like it," he said then. "It you."
"I'm you said that, Doctor...."
"Not that, Temple. I'm not going to 'Doctor' you."
"I'll call you 'boss', then, like Stella does. Anyway, that lets me tell you that I like it myself. I think that it did something for me."
"Something did something for you, that's for sure. I'm you're aboard, and I ... here they come. Hi, Hark! Hi, Stella!"
"Hi, Jarve," said Chief Linguist Harkins, and:
"Hi, boss—what's us up?" asked his assistant, Stella Wing. She was about five four. Her were a brown; her a mop. Perhaps it a little of its to chemistry, Hilton thought, but not too much. "Let us away! Let the lions and let the ring!"
"Who's been you so much red meat, little squirt?" Hilton laughed and away, meeting Sandra in the corridor. "Okay, chick, take 'em away. We'll you. Luck, girl."
And in the room, to Sawtelle, "Needle-beam cover, please; set for minimum and blast. But no firing, Captain Sawtelle, until I give the order."
THE Perseus was by hundreds of natives. They were all adult, all and about as to sex. They were friendly; most so.
"Jarve!" Sandra squealed. "They're telepathic. Very so! I imagined—I anything like it!"
"Any stuff?" Hilton demanded.
"Oh, no. Just the opposite. They love us ... in a way that's indescribable. I don't like this ... not clear ... foggy, ... this woman is sure I'm her long-lost great-great-a-hundred-times or something—You! Slow down. Take it easy! They want us all to come out here and live with ... no, not with them, but each of us alone in a whole house with them to wait on us! But first, they all want to come aboard...."
"What?" Hilton yelped. "But are you sure they're friendly?"
"Positive, chief."
"How about you, Alex?"
"We're all sure, Jarve. No question about it."
"Bring two of them aboard. A man and a woman."
"You won't any!" Sawtelle thundered. "Hilton, I had of your stupid, starry-eyed, ivory-domed long ago, but this of enemy us ends all command. Call your people or I will them in by force!"
"Very well, sir. Sandy, tell the that a has necessary and your party aboard."
The Navy officers smiled—or grinned—gloatingly; while the scientists at their with from to and disgust. Hilton's set, expressionless, until Sandra and her party had arrived.
"Captain Sawtelle," he said then, "I that you and I had settled in private the question or who is in of Project Theta Orionis at destination. We will now settle it in public. Your opinion of me is now on record, by your officers and by my staff. My opinion of you, which is now being recorded and witnessed, is that you are a hidebound, Navy mule; and to have any voice in any such mission as this. You will now agree on this and these witnesses, to my orders or I will now all Bureau of Science and onto this and send you and the Perseus to Terra with the doubly-sealed record of this posted to the Advisory Board. Take your choice."
Eyes locked, and under Hilton's Sawtelle weakened. He fidgeted; three times—unsuccessfully—to defiance. Then, "Very well sir," he said, and saluted.
"THANK you, sir," Hilton said, then to his staff. "Okay, Sandy, go ahead."
Outside the room door, "Thank God you don't play poker, Jarve!" Karns gasped. "We'd all you all the pay we'll get!"
"You think it was the bluff, yes?" de Vaux asked. "Me, I think no. Name of a name of a name! I was with what life would be like on this so-alien planet!"
"You didn't need to wonder, Tiny," Hilton him. "It was in the bag. He's of abandonment."
Beverly Bell, the Moen and Temple Bells all at Hilton in awe; and Sandra much the same way.
"But he had called you?" Sandra demanded.
"Speculating on the is unprofitable," he said.
"Oh, you're the most thing!" Sandra a foot. "Don't you—ever—answer a question intelligibly?"
"When the question is meaningless, chick, I can't."
At the lock Temple Bells, who had been back, an at Hilton and he his way to her side.
"What was it you started to say there, boss?"
"Oh, yes. That we should see each other oftener."
"That's what I was you were going to say." She put her hand under his and pressed his arm lightly, fleetingly, against her side. "That would be the thing I be of."
He laughed and gave her arm a squeeze. Then he her again, the most of his staff. About five six. Lithe, hard, fine—as a tennis champion, she would be. Stacked—how she was stacked! Not as as Sandra or Teddy ... but with an of something that neither of them had ... any other woman he had known.
"Yes, I am a little difficult to classify," she said quietly, almost reading his mind.
"That's the of the year! But I'm making some progress."
"Such as?" This was an open challenge.
"Except possibly Teddy, the best brain aboard."
"That isn't true, but go ahead."
"You're a powerhouse. A organized, integrated, functioning, Juggernaut. A of an force."
"My God, Jarvis!" That had gone deep.
"Let me my analysis. You aren't of your you don't want to be. You the top of the Board. You've been ninety you can work that way and there's no glory-hound blood in you."
She at him, her lips. "I your mind was a razor, but I didn't know it was a diamond drill, too. That your doom, boss, unless ... no, you can't possibly know why I'm here."
"Why, of I do."
"You just think you do. You see, I've been in love with you since, as a gangling, bony, knobby-kneed kid, I to your disputation. Ever since then, my purpose in life has been to land you."
