"LOOK," said Stella Wing to Beverly Bell. "Over there."
"I've it before. It's disgusting."
"That's a laugh." Stella's tawny-brown twinkled. "You your on that target, too, my sweet, and didn't score any higher than I did."
"I soon out I didn't want him—much too and serious. Frank's a more fun."
The staff had in the lounge, as had the custom, to an hour or so in reading, conversation, dancing, light and drinking. Most of the girls, and many of the men, only soft drinks. Hilton took one drink day of avignognac, a old brandy. So did de Vaux—the two making a of it.
Across the room from Stella and Beverly, Temple Bells was looking up at Hilton and laughing. She took his and, in the now familiar to all, pressed his arm quickly, but in no furtively, against her side. And he, openly, her for a moment in the full of his hand.
"And he isn't a pawer," Stella said, thoughtfully. "He touches any of the of us. She him to do that, her, without him anything about it ... and I wish I how she did it."
"That isn't pawing," Beverly laughed lightly. "It's self-defense. If he didn't her off, God what she'd do. I still say it's disgusting. And the way she with him! She ought to be of herself. He ought to fire her."
"She's been the safety zone, and we've all been her like hawks. In fact, she's the only one of us all who has been alone with him for a minute. No, darling, she isn't playing games. She's playing for keeps, and she's a worker."
"Huh!" Beverly a semi-ladylike snort. "What's so about off man-hunger that way? Any of us do that—if we would."
"Miaouw, miaouw. Who do you think you're kidding, Bev, you hypocrite—me? She has out the biggest she find. She's posted all over it and is it with a pistol. Half your month's salary you all of mine if she doesn't walk him up the center as soon as we to Earth. We can learn a from that girl, darling. And I, for one am going to."
"Uh-uh, she hasn't got a thing I want," Beverly laughed again, still lightly. Her friend's had not her. "And I'd much be a hypocrite, a one, than a ravening, slavering—I can't think of the name for a female wolf, so—wolfess, around with teeth and bared, looking for another kill."
"You do results, I admit." Stella, too, was undisturbed. "We don't to each other, do we, in the of technique?"
AT this point the Hilton-Bells tete-a-tete was by Captain Sawtelle. "Got an hour, Jarve?" he asked. "The commanders, Elliott and Fenway, would like to talk to you."
"Sure I have, Skipper. Be you, Temple," and the two men to the captain's cabin; in which room, with despite the best of the ventilators, six full were heatedly.
"Hi, men," Hilton them.
"Hi, Jarve," from all six, and: "What'll you drink? Still making do with ale?" asked Elliott (Engineering).
"That'll be fine, Steve. Thanks. You having as much trouble as we are?"
"More," the said, glumly. "Want to know what it me of? A of Australian onto a and trying to out how it works. And yet Sam here has got the to that he all about their detectors—and that they aren't nearly as good as ours are."
"And they aren't!" Commander Samuel Bryant (Electronics). "We've six solid looking for something that is not there. All they've got is the Whitworth and that's all it is. Nothing else. Detectors—hell! I tell you I can see by moonlight than the very best they can do. With they've got you couldn't a woman in your own bed!"
"And this has been going on all night," Fenway (Astrogation) said. "So the of us we'd ask you in to help us some into Sam's thick, hard head."
Hilton in while taking a of of his drink. Then, suddenly, his cleared. "Sorry to you, gentlemen, but—at any you to name and in anything from to C-notes—Sam's right."
COMMANDER Samuel and the six other officers as one. When the had for him to be heard, Hilton on: "I'm very to that datum, Sam. It in perfectly with else I know about them."
"How do you that of in with anything?" Sawtelle demanded.
"Strict of the quo," Hilton explained, flatly. "That's all they're in. You said yourself, Skipper, that it was a of a place to have a space-battle, in atmosphere. They attack. They scout. They don't they're or not. If and when attacked, they put up just ships to has arrived. When the has been repulsed, they don't him a foot. They as many ships and Omans as were in the battle—no more and no less—and then go on about their regular business. The Masters owned that of the fuel bin, so the Omans are that half. They will keep on it for and ever. Amen."
"But that's no way to a war!" Three or four men said this, or its equivalent, at once.
"Don't judge them by standards. They aren't human. Our is not expendable. Theirs is—just as as their materiel."
While the Navy men were not convinced, all were Sawtelle. "But the Stretts had sent in a thousand more than they did?" he argued.
"According to the you just helped me develop, it wouldn't have any how many they sent," Hilton replied, thoughtfully. "One or a thousand or a million, the Omans have—must have—enough ships and Omans away, on Fuel World and on Ardry here, to maintain the balance."
"Oh, hell!" Elliott snapped. "If I helped you out any such as that, I'm going onto Tillinghast's for a six-week overhaul—or have him put me into his cell."
"Now that's what I would call a thought," Bryant began.
"Hold it, Sam," Hilton interrupted. "You can test it easily enough, Steve. Just ask your Oman."
"Yeah—and have him say 'Why, of course, Master, but why do you keep on me this way?' He'll ask me that about four times more, the stubborn, single-tracked, skunk, and I'll go nuts. Are you trying to make a Christian out of Laro?"
"It's too soon to say, but I think so." Hilton paused in thought. "He's making progress, but I don't know how much. The of it is that it's up to him to make the next move; I can't. I haven't the idea, it will take days yet or weeks."
"BUT not months or years, you think?" Sawtelle asked.
"No. We think that—but say, speaking of psychologists, is Tillinghast anywhere, Skipper? He's the only one of your big who isn't in with us."
"No. Nowhere at all," Sawtelle said, and Bryant added:
"I don't think he will. He still thinks will apply if he it hard enough. But what did you start to say about Laro?"
"We think the is about due, and that if it doesn't come about thirty days it won't come at all—we'll have to up and start all over again."
"I it does. We're all for you," Sawtelle said. "Especially since Karns's is still years, and he won't be to any in years. By the way, Jarve, I've my team off of that stuff."
"Oh?" Hilton his eyebrows.
"Putting them at something they can do. The is that Poindexter himself and his off it at eighteen hours today."
"I see. I've that they weren't up with our team."
"He says that there's nothing to keep up with, and I'm to agree with him." The old spacehound's voice took on a quarter-deck rasp. "It's a of psionics, and magic. None of it makes any of sense."
"The only trouble with that is that, the may be, it works," Hilton said, quietly.
"But it, how can it work?"
"I don't know. I'm not to be on that team. I can't their reports. However, I know two things. First, they'll it in time. Second, we BuSci people will here until they do. However, I'm still of a through Laro. Anyway, with this thing settled, you'll have to do to keep all your boys out of for the next months."
"Yes, and I'm of it. We'll our on a of these Oman ships and them into distant-warning out in space where they belong. Then we'll at least know what is going on."
"That's a idea, Skipper. Go to it. Anything else we our sacks?"
"One more thing. Our psych, Tillinghast. He's been talking to me and sending me memos, but today he gave me a tape to approve and hand personally to you. So here it is. By the way, I didn't approve it; I it 'Submitted to Director Hilton without recommendation'."
"Thanks." Hilton the sealed canister. "What's the gist? I he wants me to for help already? To admit that we're we're started?"
"YOU it. He with you and Kincaid that the approach is the best one, but your methods are all wrong. Based upon and and with techniques, et cetera. And since he has 'no laboratory aboard', he wants to take a dozen or so Omans to Terra, where he can work on them."
"Wouldn't that be a something?" Hilton a of deep-space expletives. "Not only we start, but have all the top of the Octagon, all the hot-shot politicians of United Worlds, the whole Congress of Science and all the top-bracket of Terra out here up so that nobody learn anything? Not in seven thousand years!"
"That's right. You said a mouthful, Jarve!" Everybody something, and no one with Tillinghast; who was not very popular with his officers.
Sawtelle added, slowly: "If it takes too long, though ... it's the I'm of. Thousands of millions of of it, while we've been it by grams. We Oman ships with to Fuel Bin and our lines. I'm not taking the Perseus back, and we're 'way out of hyper-space radio range. We send one or two men in a torp, though, with the report that we have all the we'll need."
"Yes, but it, Skipper, I want to the whole thing up in a and hand it to 'em on a platter. Not only the fuel, but whole new of science. And we've got of time to do it in. They us for ten years. They aren't going to start about us for at least six or seven; and the fuel isn't going to for about twenty. Expensive, admitted, but not critical. Besides, if you send in a report now, you know who'll come out and all the in sight. Five-Jet Admiral Gordon himself, no less."
"Probably, and I don't to the prospect. However, the that we came out here to look for fuel. We it. We should have reported it the day we it, and we can't put it off much longer."
"I don't agree. I to the to the letter. It says nothing about reporting."
"But it's implicit...."
"NO bearing. Your own Regulations or a directive. The Brass is omnipotent, and infallible. So why don't you have your staff here give an opinion as to the time element?"
"This is not to discussion. It is my own personal responsibility. I'd like to give you all the time you want, Jarve, but ... well, it ... if you must have it, I've always to live up to my oath, but I'm not doing it now."
"I see." Hilton got up, hands into his pockets, sat again. "I hadn't about your personal being involved, but of it is. But, it or not, I'm of humanity's best good, too. So I'll have to talk, though I'm not to—I don't know enough. Are these Omans people or machines?"
A of over the group, but no one spoke.
"I didn't an answer. The will worry about souls, too, but we won't. They have a of we haven't. If they're people, they know a of a more than we do; and calling it or practical magic is it, not any questions. If they're machines, they on to either our science or our technology. In either case, is the word 'unknown' or 'unknowable'? Will any be able to fire an Oman projector? There are a hundred other and much questions, of which have been me to the very middle of my guts. Your oath, Skipper, was for the good of the Service and, through the Service, for the good of all humanity. Right?"
"That's the of it."
"Okay. Based on what little we have learned so about the Omans, here's just one of those scarers, for a snapper. If Omans and Terrans mix freely, what to the entire race?"
MINUTES of almost followed. Then Sawtelle spoke ... slowly, gropingly.
"I to see what you ... that the whole picture. You've this through than any of the of us ... what do you want to do?"
"I don't know. I don't know." Face set and hard, Hilton past Sawtelle's head. "I don't know what we can do. No data. But I have lines of out to some points ... one of which is that some of us will have to on here indefinitely, we want to or not, to keep the under control. In which case we would, of course, for Terra to free fuel—FOB Fuel Bin—but in every other and these would have to be off limits."
"I'm so," Sawtelle said, finally. "Gordon would love that ... but there's nothing he or anyone else can do ... but of this is an view. You to the up, don't you?"
"'Expect' may be a too at the moment. But we're going to try to, me. I this example up to all you that we need time."
"You've me, Jarve." Sawtelle up and his hand. "And that it open for staff discussion. Any comments?"
"You two it like a blanket," Bryant said. "So all I want to say, Jarve, is me in. I'll at your 'til your in."
"Take that from all of us!" "Now we're blasting!" "Power to your elbow, fella!" "Hoch BuSci!" "Seven no and made!" and other in vein.
"Thanks, fellows." Hilton hands all around. "I'm that you were all in on this and that you'll play along with me. Good night, all."
