As has been said, The Hill, which had been to be the Tellurian of the Triplanetary Service and which was now the of the half-organized Solarian Patrol, was—and is—a truncated, alloy-sheathed, honey-combed mountain. But, since beings do not like to live underground, no how or how and air-conditioned the may be, the Reservation spread the of that gray, forbidding, mirror-smooth of metal. Well that Reservation there was a small city; there were hundreds of farms; and, particularly upon this May afternoon, there was a Recreation Park, containing, among other things, of tennis courts.
One of these was three-quarters by stands, from which a of hundred people were a match which to be of some little local importance. Two men sat in a box which had seats for twenty, and the pair who in a way to win in sets the mixed-doubles of the Hill.
"Fine-looking couple, Rod, if I do say so myself, as well as being performers." Solarian Councillor Virgil Samms spoke to his as the courts. "I still think, though, the ought to wear some clothes—those white make her look than usual. I told her so, too, the jade, but she on less and less."
"Of course," Commissioner Roderick K. Kinnison laughed quietly. "What did you expect? She got her and from you, why not your hard-headedness, too? One thing, though, that's all to the good—she's got what it takes to ship that way, and most of 'em haven't. But what I can't is why they don't...." He paused.
"I don't either. Lord we've them at each other hard enough, and Jack Kinnison and Jill Samms would make a pair to to. But if they won't ... but maybe they will yet. They're still youngsters, and they're enough."
If Samms père have been out on the court, however, of in the box, he would have been surprised; for Kinnison, although as to face, was his partner in terms which little of friendliness.
"Listen, you bird-brained, knot-headed, grand-standing half-wit!" he stormed, voice low but intense. "I ought to your out! I've told you a thousand times to watch your own and out of mine! If you had been where you belonged, or taken my signal, Frank couldn't have that thirty-all point; and if Lois hadn't she'd've you flat-footed, a out of position, and it deuce. What do you think you're doing, anyway—playing tennis or how many you can out of control?"
"What do you think?" the girl sneered, sweetly. Her eyes, only a of his own, almost sparks. "And just look at who's trying to tell who how to do what! For your information, Master Pilot John K. Kinnison, I'll tell you that just you can't being 'Killer' Kinnison long to let two good friends of ours a point now and then, or maybe a game, is no why I've got to turn into 'Killer' Samms. And I'll also tell you...."
"You'll tell me nothing, Jill—I'm telling you! Start away points in anything and you'll out some day that you've away too many. I'm not having any of that of game—and as long as you're playing with me you aren't either—or else. If you up this match just once more, the next I will the part of those white of yours—right where the pocket would be if they had any—and it'll a that will make you eat off of the for three days. So watch your step!"
"You lug! I'd like to this over your head! I'll do it, too, and walk off the court, if you don't...."
The blew. Virgilia Samms, all smiles, the base-line and the and of motion. The over the net, it—a service ace. The game on.
And a minutes later, in the room, where Jack Kinnison was while a towel, a man up and him the blades.
"Congratulations, Jack, and so forth. But there's a thing I want to ask you. Confidential, of...?"
"Shoot! Haven't we been out of the same dish for lo, these many moons? Why the all of a sudden, Mase? It isn't in character."
"Well ... it's ... I'm a lip-reader, you know."
"Sure. We all are. What of it?"
"It's only that ... well, I saw what you and Miss Samms said to each other out there, and if that was lovers' small talk I'm a Venerian mud-puppy."
"Lovers! Who the said we were lovers?... Oh, you've been some of dad's balloon-juice. Lovers! Me and that red-headed stinker—that jelly-brained sapadilly? Hardly!"
"Hold it, Jack!" The big officer's voice was edged. "You're off course—a of a long off. That girl has got everything. She's the class of the Reservation—why, she's a regular twelve-nineteen!"
"Huh?" Amazed, Kinnison stopped himself and stared. "You to say you've been her a miss just because...." He had started to say "because you're the best friend I've got in the System," but he did not.
"Well, it would have cheesy, I thought." The other man did not put into words, either, what of them so to be the truth. "But if you haven't got ... if it's O.K. with you, of course...."
"Stand by for five seconds—I'll take you around."
Jack on his uniform, and in a minutes the two officers, in the space-black-and-silver of the Patrol, their way toward the women's rooms.
"... but she's all right, at that ... in most ... I guess." Kinnison was half-apologizing for what he had said. "Outside of being chicken-hearted and pig-headed, she's a good egg. She ... most of the time. But I wouldn't have her, attached, any more than she would have me. It's mutual. You won't for her, either, Mase; you'll want to one of her off and the of her to death with it of a week—but there's nothing like out for yourself."
In a time Miss Samms appeared; less than in the and which were the mode of the moment.
"Hi, Jill! This is Mase—I've told you about him. My boat-mate. Master Electronicist Mason Northrop."
"Yes, I've about you, 'Troncist—a lot." She hands warmly.
"He hasn't been on you, Jill, on he he'd be poaching. Can you that? I him out, though, in order. Told him why, too, so he ought to be against any you can generate."
"Oh, you did? How sweet of you! But how ... oh, those?" She at the powerful binoculars, a part of the of every officer of space.
"Uh-huh." Northrop wriggled, but firm.
"If I'd only been as big and as you are," some six two of and two hundred-odd of hard meat, gristle, and bone, "I'd have him by one ankle, him around my head, and him into the of seats. What's the with him, Mase, is that he was centuries and centuries too late. He should have been an when they the pyramids—flogging they wouldn't step just so. Or yet, one of those people it told about in those old books they up last year—liege lords, or something like that, remember? With the power of life and death—'high, middle, and low justice', that was—over their and their families, serfs, and serving-wenches. Especially serving-wenches! He little, baby-talkers, who to be and brainless—eh, Jack?"
"Ouch! Touché, Jill—but maybe I had it to me, at that. Let's call it off, shall we? I'll be you two, or yon." Kinnison and away.
"Want to know why he's doing such a quick flit?" Jill up at her companion; a bright, quick grin. "Not that he was up. The over there—the one in red. Very can wear such a shade. Dimples Maynard."
"And is she ... er...?"
"Cuddly and baby-talkish? Uh-uh. She's a person. I was just off; so was he. You know that neither of us meant of what we said ... or ... at least...." Her voice died away.
"I don't know I do or not," Northrop replied, but honestly. "That was if there was any. I can't see for the life of me why you two—two of the world's people—should have to tear into each other that way. Do you?"
"I don't know that I of it like that." Jill her lip her teeth. "He's splendid, really, and I like him a lot—usually. We along perfectly most of the time. We don't at all when we're too close together ... and then we about anything and ... say, that that be it? Like charges, each other as the square of the distance? That's about the way it to be."
"Could be, and I'm glad." The man's cleared. "And I'm a of the opposite sign. Let's go!"
And in Virgil Samms' deeply-buried office, Civilization's two men were in conversation.
"... to keep four men of our size nights." Samms' voice was light, but his were and somber. "You can yours, though, in time. They're mostly in one system; a the rest. Languages and are known. But how—how—can legal work efficiently—work at all, for that matter—when a man can a or a can a space-ship and be a hundred parsecs away the is discovered? How can a Tellurian John Law a on a world that nothing of our Patrol, with a language—maybe no language at all—where it takes months to out who and where—if any—the native police officers are? But there must be a way, Rod—there's got to be a way!" Samms his open hand against his desk's top. "And by God I'll it—the Patrol will come out on top!"
"'Crusader' Samms, now and forever!" There was no of in Kinnison's voice or expression, but only and admiration. "And I'll you do. Your Interstellar Patrol, or whatever...."
"Galactic Patrol. I know what the name of it is going to be, if nothing else."
"... is just as good as in the bag, right now. You've done a job so far, Virge. This whole system, Nevia, the on Aldebaran II and other planets, Valeria, as tight as a drum. Funny about Valeria, isn't it...."
There was a moment of silence, then Kinnison on:
"But diamonds are, there go Dutchmen. And Dutch go their men do. And, in of medical advice, Dutch arrive. Although a of the died—three G's is no joke—practically all of the keep on living. Developing and to fit—walking at a year and a old—living normally—they say that the third will be perfectly at home there."
"Which that the animal is more than some had believed, is all. Don't try to side-track me, Rod. You know as well as I do what we're up against; the new that inter-stellar is with it. New vices—drugs—thionite, for instance; we haven't been able to an of an idea as to where that is from. And I don't have to tell you what has done to rates."
"I'll say not—look at the price of Aldebaranian cigars, the only fit to smoke! You've up, then, on the idea that Arisia is the pirates' GHQ?"
"Definitely. It isn't. The are more of it than are. It's out of bounds—absolutely territory, apparently—to everybody, my best included. All we know about it is the name—Arisia—that our planetographers gave it. It is the thing I have experienced. I am going out there myself as soon as I can take the time—not that I to a thing that my best men couldn't touch, but there have been so many different and reports—no two agree on anything in that no one near the planet—that I the need of some first-hand information. Want to come along?"
"Try to keep me from it!"
"But at that, we shouldn't be too surprised," Samms on, thoughtfully. "Just to the surface as we are, we should to peculiar, baffling—even things. Facts, situations, events, and beings for which our one-system not possibly have prepared us. In fact, we already have. If, ten years ago, anyone had told you that such a as the Rigellians existed, what would you have thought? One ship there, you know—once. One hour in any Rigellian city—one minute in a Rigellian automobile—drives a Tellurian insane."
"I see your point." Kinnison nodded. "Probably I would have ordered a examination. And the Palainians are worse. People—if you can call them that—who live on Pluto and like it! Entities so that nobody, as as I know, them. But you don't have to go that from home to a job of the inscrutable. Who, what, and why—and for how long—was Gray Roger? And, not him, is this Bergenholm of yours. And by the way, you did give me the on how come it was the 'Bergenholm', and not the 'Rodebush-Cleveland', that trans-galactic possible and nine-tenths of our headaches. As I the story, Bergenholm wasn't—isn't—even an engineer."
"Didn't I? Thought I did. He wasn't, and isn't. Well, the original Rodebush-Cleveland free drive was a killer, you know...."
"How I know!" Kinnison exclaimed, feelingly.
"They their out and ate their out for months, without it any better. Then, one day, this kid Bergenholm into their shop—big, awkward, over his own feet. He at the thing for a of minutes, then says:
"'Why don't you use of iron and it so it will put out a wave-form like this, with here, and here; of there, and there?' and he a of free-hand, but curves.
"'Why should we?' they at him.
"'Because it will work that way,' he says, and out as as he came in. Can't—or won't—say another word.
"Well in desperation, they it—and it WORKED! And nobody has had a minute's trouble with a Bergenholm since. That's why Rodebush and Cleveland on the name."
"I see; and it points up what I just said. But if he's such a giant, why isn't he results with his own problem, the meteor? Or is he?"
"No ... or at least he wasn't as of last night. But there's a note on my that he wants to see me today—suppose we have him come in now?"
"Fine! I'd like to talk to him, if it's O.K. with you and with him."
The scientist was called in, and was to the Commissioner.
"Go ahead, Doctor Bergenholm," Samms then. "You may talk to of us, just as as though you and I were alone."
"I have, as you already know, been called psychic," Bergenholm began, abruptly. "It is said that I dreams, see visions, voices, and so on. That I on hunches. That I am a genius. Now I very definitely am not a genius—unless my of the meaning of that word is different from that of the of mankind."
Bergenholm paused. Samms and Kinnison looked at each other. The the silence.
"The Councillor and I have just been the that there are a great many we do not know; that with the of our into new fields, the of the has almost a commonplace. We are able, I believe, to with open minds to anything you have to say."
"Very well. But first, know that I am a scientist. As such, I am to observe; to think calmly, clearly, and analytically; to test every hypothesis. I do not at all in the so-called supernatural. This did not come into being, it not continue to be, by the operation of natural and laws. And I immutable, gentlemen. Everything that has happened, that is now, or that is to happen, was, is, and will be with its event and with its event. If I did not that implicitly, I would all in the scientific method. For if one single 'supernatural' event or thing had or it would have an event and would have a series—a succession—of such events; a of which no scientist will or can possible in an universe.
"At the same time, I the that I myself have done things—caused events to occur, if you prefer—that I cannot to you or to any other being in any to our science; and it is about an more inexplicable—call it 'hunch' if you like—that I asked to have a talk with you today."
"But you are in circles," Samms protested. "Or are you trying to set up a paradox?"
"Neither. I am the way for a thing I am to say later on. You know, of course, that any with which a mind is unable to cope; a which it cannot resolve; will that mind—frustration, from reality, and so on. You also will that I must have of my own long anyone else did or could?"
"Ah. I see. Yes, of course." Samms, interested, forward. "Yet your present is adequately, integrated. How you possibly have overcome—reconciled—a so full of conflict?"
"You are, I think, familiar with my parentage?" Samms, as he was, did not it that the big Norwegian answered his question only by one of his own.
"Yes ... oh, I'm to see ... but Commissioner Kinnison has not had to your dossier. Go ahead."
"My father is Dr. Hjalmar Bergenholm. My mother, her marriage, was Dr. Olga Bjornson. Both were, and are, physicists—very good ones. Pioneers, they have been called. They worked, and are still working, in the newest, of the field."
"Oh!" Kinnison exclaimed. "A mutant? Born with second sight—or it is?"
"Not second sight, as history the phenomenon, no. The records do not that any such was to the of any scientific investigator. What I have is something else. Whether or not it will true is an of speculation, but one having nothing to do with the problem now in hand. To return to the subject, I my long since. There is, I am certain, a science of the mind which is as definite, as positive, as of law, as is the science of the physical. While I will make no attempt to prove it to you, I know that such a science exists, and that I was with the ability to at least some of it.
"Now to the of the of the Patrol. That was and is purely physical. The have just as able scientists as we have. What physical science can and synthesize, physical science can and duplicate. There is a point, however, which physical science cannot go. It can neither the of that which I have so called the science of the mind.
"I know, Councillor Samms, what the Triplanetary Service needs; something more than its meteor. I also know that the need will and as the of action of the Patrol expands. Without a symbol, the Solarian Patrol will be more than the Triplanetary Service; and its logical into the Space Patrol, or that larger organization may be called, will be definitely impossible. We need something which will identify any of Civilization, positively and unmistakably, he may be. It must be of duplication, or of imitation, to which end it must kill any who imposture. It must as a its owner and any other intelligence, of high or low degree, so that communication, so much and than physical, will be possible without the learning of language; or us and such as those of Rigel Four or of Palain Seven, of we know to be of high and who must already be with telepathy."
"Are you or have you been, reading my mind?" Samms asked quietly.
"No," Bergenholm flatly. "It is not and has not been necessary. Any man who can think, who has the question, and who has the good of Civilization at heart, must have come to the same conclusions."
"Probably so, at that. But no more issues. You have a of some out, or you would not be here. What is it?"
"It is that you, Solarian Councillor Samms, should go to Arisia as soon as possible."
"Arisia!" Samms exclaimed, and:
"Arisia! Of all the in space, why Arisia? And how can we make the approach? Don't you know that nobody can near that planet?"
Bergenholm his and spread arms wide in a of complete helplessness.
"How do you know—another of your hunches?" Kinnison on. "Or did somebody tell you something? Where did you it?"
"It is not a hunch," the Norwegian replied, positively. "No one told me anything. But I know—as definitely as I know that the of in will water—that the Arisians are very well in that which I have called the science of the mind; that if Virgil Samms goes to Arisia he will obtain the symbol he needs; that he will obtain it otherwise. As to how I know these ... I can't ... I just ... I know it, I tell you!"
Without another word, without permission to leave, Bergenholm around and out. Samms and Kinnison at each other.
"Well?" Kinnison asked, quizzically.
"I'm going. Now. Whether I can be or not, and you think I'm out of or not. I him, every word—and besides, there's the Bergenholm. How about you? Coming?"
"Yes. Can't say that I'm one hundred percent; but, as you say, the Bergenholm is a hard to off. And at minimum rating, it's got to be tried. What are you taking? Not a fleet, probably—the Boise? Or the Chicago?" It was the Commissioner of Public Safety speaking now, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. "The Chicago, I'd say—the and thing in space."
"Recommendation approved. Blast-off; twelve hundred hours tomorrow!"
