The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith

composedly, “nor have I need of one. For the remainder of my life—which is now to be measured in a few of your hours—this tent is my only . . .”

      “No ship!” vanBuskirk broke in. “I hope we won’t have to stay on this Noshabkeming-forgotten planet forever—and I’m not very keen on going much further in that lifeboat, either.”

      “We may not have to do either of those things,” Kinnison reassured his sergeant. “Worsel comes of a long-lived tribe, and the fact that he thinks his enemies are going to get him in a few hours doesn’t make it true, by any means—there are three of us to reckon with now. Also, when we need a space-ship we’ll get one, if we have to build it. Now, let’s find out what this is all about. Worsel, start at the beginning and don’t skip a thing. Between us we can surely find a way out, for all of us.”

      Then the Velantian told his story. There was much repetition, much roundabout thinking, as some of the concepts were so bizarre as to defy transmission, but finally the Patrolmen had a fairly complete picture of the situation then obtaining within that strange solar system.

      The inhabitants of Delgon were bad, being characterized by a type and a depth of depravity impossible for a human mind to visualize. Not only were the Delgonians enemies of the Velantians in the ordinary sense of the word; not only were they pirates and robbers; not only were they their masters, taking them both as slaves and as food-cattle; but there was something more, something deeper and worse, something only partially transmissible from mind to mind—a horribly and repulsively Saturnalian type of mental and intellectual, as well as biological, parasitism. This relationship had gone on for ages, and during those ages rebellion was impossible, as any Velantian capable of leading such a movement disappeared before he could make any headway at all.

      Finally, however, a thought-screen had been devised, behind which Velantia developed a high science of her own. The students of this science lived with but one purpose in life, to free Velantia from the tyranny of the Overlords of Delgon. Each student, as he reached the zenith of his mental power, went to Delgon, to study and if possible to destroy the tyrants. And after disembarking upon the soil of that dread planet no Velantian, whether student or scientist or private adventurer, had ever returned to Velantia.

      “But why don’t you lay a complaint against them before the Council?” demanded vanBuskirk. “They’d straighten things out in a hurry.”

      “We have not heretofore known, save by the most unreliable and roundabout reports, that such an organization as your Galactic Patrol really exists,” the Velantian replied, obliquely. “Nevertheless, many years since, we launched a space-ship toward its nearest reputed base. However, since that trip requires three normal lifetimes, with deadly peril in every moment, it will be a miracle if the ship ever completes it. Furthermore, even if the ship should reach its destination, our complaint will probably not even be considered because we have not a single shred of real evidence with which to support it. No living Velantian has even seen a Delgonian, nor can anyone testify to the truth of anything I have told you. While we believe that that is the true condition of affairs, our belief is based, not upon evidence admissible in a court of law, but upon deductions from occasional thoughts radiated from this planet. Nor were these thoughts alike in tenor .”

      “Skip that for a minute—we’ll take the picture as correct,” Kinnison broke in. “Nothing you have said so far shows any necessity for you to die in the next few hours.”

      “The only object in life for a trained Velantian is to liberate his planet from the horrors of subjection to Delgon. Many such have come here, but not one has found a workable idea; not one has either returned to or even communicated with Velantia after starting work here. I am a Velantian. I am here. Soon I shall open that door and get in touch with the enemy. Since better men than I am have failed, I do not expect to succeed. Nor shall I return to my native planet. As soon as I start to work the Delgonians will command me to come to them. In spite of myself I will obey that command, and very shortly thereafter I shall die, in what fashion I do not know.”

      “Snap out of it, Worsel!” Kinnison ordered, bruskly. “That’s the rankest kind of defeatism, and you know it. Nobody ever got to the first check-station on that kind of fuel.”

      “You are talking about something now about which you know nothing whatever.” For the first time Worsel’s thoughts showed passion. “Your thoughts are idle—ignorant—vain. You know nothing whatever of the mental power of the Delgonians.”

      “Maybe not—I make no claim to being a mental giant—but I do know that mental power alone cannot overcome a definitely and positively opposed will. An Arisian could probably break my will, but I’ll stake my life that no other mentality in the known Universe can do it!”

      “You think so, Earthling?” and a seething sphere of mental force encompassed the Tellurian’s brain. Kinnison’s senses reeled at the terrific impact, but he shook off the attack and smiled.

      “Come again, Worsel. That one jarred me to the heels, but it didn’t quite ring the bell.”

      “You flatter me,” the Velantian declared in surprise. “I could scarcely touch your mind—could not penetrate even its outermost defenses, and I exerted all my force. But that fact gives me hope. My mind is of course inferior to theirs, but since I could not influence you at all, even in direct contact and at full power, you may be able to resist the minds of the Delgonians. Are you willing to hazard the stake you mentioned a moment ago? Or rather, I ask you, by the Lens you wear, so to hazard it—with the liberty of an entire people dependent upon the outcome.”

      “Why not? The spools come first, of course—but without you our spools would both be buried now inside the cliff of the Catlats. Fix it so your people will find these spools and carry on with them in case we fail, and I’m your man. There—now tell me what we’re apt to be up against, and then let loose your dogs.”

      “That I cannot do. I know only that they will direct against us mental forces such as you have never even imagined—I cannot forewarn you in any respect whatever as to what forms those forces may appear to assume. I know, however, that I shall succumb to the first bolt of force. Therefore bind me with these chains before I open the shield. Physically I am extremely strong, as you know; therefore be sure to put on enough chains so that I cannot possibly break free, for if I can break away I shall undoubtedly kill both of you.”

      “How come all these things here, ready to hand?” asked vanBuskirk, as the two Patrolmen so loaded the passive Velantian with chains, manacles, hand-cuffs, leg-irons and straps that he could not move even his tail.

      “It has been tried before, many times,” Worsel replied bleakly, “but the rescuers, being Velantians, also succumbed to the force and took off the irons. Now I caution you, with all the power of my mind—no matter what you see, no matter what I may command you or beg of you, no matter how urgently you yourself may wish to do so—DO NOT LIBERATE ME UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES unless and until things appear exactly as they do now and that door is shut. Know fully and ponder well the fact that if you release me while that door is open it will be because you have yielded to Delgonian force; and that not only will all three of us die, lingeringly and horribly; but also and worse, that our deaths will not have been of any benefit to civilization. Do you understand? Are you ready?”

      “I understand—I am ready,” thought Kinnison and vanBuskirk as one.

      “Open that door.”

      Kinnison did so. For a few minutes nothing happened. Then three-dimensional pictures began to form before their eyes—pictures which they knew existed only in their own minds, yet which were composed of such solid substance that they obscured from vision everything else in the material world. At first hazy and indistinct, the scene—for it was in no sense now a picture—became clear and sharp. And, piling horror upon horror, sound was added to sight. And directly before their eyes, blotting out completely even the solid metal of the wall only a few feet distant from them, the two outlanders saw and heard something which can be represented only vaguely by imagining Dante’s Inferno an actuality and raised to the Nth power!

      In a dull and gloomy cavern there lay, sat, and