The Sci-Fi Stories - Cyril M. Kornbluth Edition. Cyril M. Kornbluth

his coils. “That wasn’t necessary,” they said almost immediately in the metallic chimes. “We’re coming out for you.” Then they fell silent. But minutes later a craft hove alongside and fastened onto his hull with a sort of sucker arrangement. It was no larger than his own, but somehow sleeker and simpler in its lines.

      They had clamped right over his bulkhead and were hammering on it. He opened up, trusting to luck and logic that their atmosphere was not chlorinous. “Come in,” he called.

      “Thanks,” said the foremost of three ordinary individuals. “My name’s Jackson.”

      “Yeah?” asked Maclure, staring at him hard. He was dressed exactly as Maclure was dressed, and his features were only slightly different.

      Jackson smiled deprecatingly. “You’re right,” he said. “But you can call me Jackson anyway. I’d rather not show you my real shape. Okay?”

      “You should know best,” shrugged the Angel. “Now tell me what’s up.”

      “Gladly,” said Jackson, settling himself in a chair with a curiously loose-jointed gesture. “You’re not very much of a superman, you know.”

      “Pardon the contradiction,” said the Angel ominously, “But I happen to know for a fact that I’m very far above the normal human being.”

      “Intellectually,” said Jackson. “Not emotionally. And that’s very important. You don’t mind my speaking plainly?”

      “Not at all.”

      “Very well. You’re much like an extremely brilliant child. You have a downright genius for mechanics and physical sciences, but your understanding of human relationships is very sub-average. That must be why you were so badly taken in by Mr. Sapphire.”

      “Taken in?” reflected the Angel. “I don’t think he fooled me. I knew that he’d try to get me out of the way—murder or otherwise—as soon as he got what he wanted from me. I trusted myself to take care of him.”

      “Good, but not reasoned far enough. Did it ever strike you that Mr. Sapphire—as you persist in thinking of him—was not a free agent? That he was—ah—grinding somebody else’s axe?”

      “Holy smokes!” yelped Maclure. The strange discrepancies which he had bundled into the back of his mind suddenly resolved themselves into a frightening pattern.

      “Exactly,” smiled Jackson. “You are the key piece in the problem. Both sides must take care of you, for if you are lost the game is at an end. Shall I begin at the beginning?”

      “You’d better,” said the Angel weakly.

      “Very well,” began Jackson. “Our opponents are known to us as the Morlens; we are the Amters. For some thousands of your years there has been an intermittent warfare going on between us. You must take my word for it that it is they who are bent on destroying us and that we act only in self defense. They are situated about nine parsecs away from us, which makes attack a difficult and dangerous undertaking, yet they have not hesitated to risk their entire generations in desperate attempts to wipe us out.

      “Of late there had been little of that; when our spies reported they informed us that an intensive psychological campaign was going on against us. This we could repulse with ease. But we could not very well block their attempts to gain mental domination of Earth and its solar system. They did not, of course, control every individual, but they reached sufficient key-persons like Mr. Sapphire to be nearly masters of your world.”

      “One moment,” interrupted the Angel. “I can assure you that Mr. Sapphire knew that they were at work on him. I also believe that he only pretended submission. His ends were his own.”

      “Perhaps,” Jackson shrugged. “At any rate, what they needed was mechanical and physical genius. And you, Angel Maclure, are the outstanding mechanical and physical genius of the universe. You can solve problems that no other mind could even approach. And the first of such problems was the one of Dead Center, which we have been investigating for many generations.”

      “Investigating?” snapped Angel. “How?”

      “Purely psychological investigations, such as the projection of minds within the region of the Center. This has been actually a desperate race against the Morlens, for we believe that who is master of the Center is master of the universe.”

      “That’s probably true enough,” said Maclure thoughtfully. “And so you make your bid for my support?”

      “We do,” said Jackson somberly.

      “That’s nice,” snapped the Angel viciously. “Now get this and get it straight: I’m not playing anybody’s game but my own, and if helping you out against the damn Morlens helps me out I’ll do it. On those terms—okay?”

      “Okay,” said Jackson gravely. “And you’d better begin helping us out pretty fast, because your benefactor Sapphire either relayed to or had his mind read by the Morlens, and they know the results of your calculations. They know where the Center is and, in a way, how to get there.”

      “Yeah,” jeered the Angel. “Give me a piece of land and some tools and I’ll build you a space-ship that’ll make this thing look like a waterbug for size and speed!”

      “Haw!” laughed Jackson, “More damn fun!”

      CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      Maclure had mostly duplicated the calculating work he had done back on Earth, working speedily and accurately though somehow depressed by the strangeness of the planet on which he had landed. Not yet had he seen the actual shapes of the Amters; they preferred to show themselves as almost replicas of his own face and body. Jackson had become his guide and companion.

      “Look,” said the Angel, glowing with pride. “Something new.” He indicated a little sphere of silvery metal that looked somehow infinitely heavy. It rested ponderously on a concrete table well braced with steel beams, and even that sagged beneath it.

      Jackson inspected the thing. “Weapon?” he asked.

      “Darn tootin’, friend! I found this as a by-product of warp-synthesis. The base is osmium, the heaviest by volume of any natural element. And over that is a film one molecule thick of neutronium itself. How do you like it?”

      “How do you use it?” asked Jackson cautiously.

      “Mix up about a hundred of these things and when you get near enough to an enemy scoot them out into space. And unless they have a damned efficient screen they’ll be riddled by simple contact with the things.”

      “Um,” grunted Jackson. “Child’s play, of course. When does the real job begin?”

      “Any minute now, if you mean the ship. And I have some bad news for you,” Maclure added grimly. “You boys’re supposed to be the prime exponents of hypnotism and telepathy in the galaxy, right?”

      “I think we are,” snapped Jackson.

      “Well, laugh this off: I happened to get curious about the Morlens so I rigged up a projection gimmick that traces interferences of the eighth magnitude. Or, to translate my terms back into yours, a thought detector.”

      “Go on, Angel. I think I know what you found,” said Jackson slowly. “The Morlens—they’re at it?”

      “Right,” said the Angel. “My set-up showed a complete blanketing spy system. The minds of all workers on the calculators were being picked over carefully. In some cases they even substituted Morlen personalities for the workers’ and used their eyes. Naturally the Morlens didn’t try to tap your mind or mine; we would have known it. I did what I could—put up a dome screen of counter-vibrations that seem to shut off our friends. But—what do you think?”

      “You