by E. E. Smith
CHAPTER 4
"I think I'll come along with you and bodyguard you, Lola," Belle said,the following morning after breakfast. "Clee's going to be seventhousand miles deep in mathematics and Jim's doing his stuff at theobservatory, and I can't help either of 'em at the moment. You'd do abetter job, wouldn't you, if you could concentrate on it?"
"Of course. Thanks, Belle. But remember, it's already been announced--nodeath. Just hands. I can't really believe that I'll be attacked, butthey seem pretty sure of it."
"I'd like to separate anyone like that from his head instead of hishands, but as it is published so it will be performed."
"How about wearing some kind of half-way-comfortable shoes instead ofthose slippers?" Garlock asked. "That could turn out to be a long, toughbrawl, and your dogs'll be begging for mercy before you get back here."
"Uh-uh. Very comfortable and a perfect fit. Besides, if I have to sufferjust a little bit for good appearance's sake in a matter ofintergalactic amity...."
"A matter of showing off, you mean."
"Why, Clee!" Belle widened her eyes at him. "How you talk! But they'reready, Lola--let's go."
The two girls disappeared from the Main, to appear on the speakers'stand in front of the Capitol Building. President Benton was there, withhis cabinet and certain other personages. General Cordeen and his staff.And many others.
"Oh, Miss Bellamy, too? I'm _very_ glad you are here," Benton said, ashe shook hands cordially with both.
"Thank you. I came along as bodyguard. May I meet your Secret ServiceChief, please?"
"Why, of course. Miss Bellamy, may I present Mr. Avengord?"
"You have the hospital room ready?... Where is it, please?"
"Back of us, in the wing...."
"Just think of it, please, and I will follow your thought.... Ah, yes,there it is. I hope it will not be used. You agree with General Cordeenthat there will be one or more attempts at assassination?"
"I'm very much afraid so. This town is literally riddled with enemyagents, and of course we don't know all of them--especially the bestones. They know that if these meetings go through, they're sunk; sothey're desperate. We've got this whole area covered like dew--we'vearrested sixteen suspects already this morning--but all the advantage istheirs," Avengord finished glumly.
"Not all of it, sir," Belle smiled at him cheerfully. "You have me, andI am a Prime Operator. That is, a wielder of power of no small ability.Oh, you are right. There is an attempt now being prepared."
* * *
While Belle had been greeting and conversing, she had also beenscanning. Her range, her sensitivity, and her power were immenselygreater than Lola's; were probably equal to Garlock's own. She scannedby miles against the scant yards covered by the Secret Service.
"Where?"
"Give me your thought." The Secret Service man did not know what shemeant--telepathy was of course new to him--so she seized his attentionand directed it to a certain window in a building a couple of miles awayon a hill.
"But they couldn't, from there!"
"But they can. They have a quite efficient engine of destruction--a'rifle' is their thought. Large, and long, with a very good telescope onit--with crosshairs. If I scan their minds more precisely you may knowthe weapon.... Ah, they think of it as a 'Buford Mark FortyAnti-Aircraft Rifle'."
"A Buford! My God, they can hit any button on her clothes--get her away,quick!" He tried to jump, but could not move.
"As you were," she directed. "There was another Buford there, andanother over there." She guided his thought. "Two men to each Buford.There are now six handless men in your hospital room. If you will sendmen to those three places you will find the Bufords and the hands. Yoursurgeon will have no difficulty in matching the hands to the men. If anyseek to remove either Bufords or hands before your men get there, I willde-hand them, also."
* * *
To say that the Secret Service man was flabbergasted is to put it verymildly indeed. Cordeen had told him, with much pounding on his desk andin searing, air-blueing language, what to expect-or, rather, to expect_anything_, no matter what and with no limits whatever--but he hadn'tbelieved it then and simply could not believe it now. Goddamn it, suchthings _couldn't_ happen. And this beautiful, beautifully-stacked,half-naked woman--girl, rather, she couldn't be a day overtwenty-five--even if it had been their black-browed, toplofty leader,Captain Garlock himself....
"I am twenty-three of your years old, not twenty-five," she informedhim, coldly, "and I will permit no distinction of sex. In your primitiveculture the women may still be allowing you men to believe in thefallacy of the superiority of the male, but know right now that I can doanything any man ever born can do and do it better."
"Oh, I'm ... I'm sure ... certainly...." Avengord's thought wasincoherent.
"If you want me to work with you you had better start believing rightnow that there are a lot of things you don't know," Belle went onrelentlessly. "Stop believing that just because a thing has not alreadyhappened on this primitive, backward, mudball planet of yours, it can'thappen anywhere or anywhen. You do believe, however, whether you want toor not, things you see with your own eyes?"
"Yes. I can _not_ be hypnotized."
"I'm very glad you believe that much." Avengord did not notice that sheneither confirmed nor denied the truth of his statement. "To that endyou will go now into the hospital room and see the bandaging going on.You will see and hear the news broadcast going out as I prepared it."
He went, and came back a badly shaken man.
"But they're sending it out exactly as it happened!" he protested."They'll all scatter out so fast and so far we'll _never_ catch them!"
"By no means. You see, the amputees didn't believe that they would losetheir hands. Their superiors didn't believe it, either; they assuredeach other and their underlings that it was just capitalistic bluff andnonsense. And since they are all even more materialistic and hideboundand unbelieving than you are, they all are now highly confused--at acomplete loss."
"You can say _that_ again. If I, working with you and having youpounding it into my head, couldn't more than half believe it...."
"So they are now very frightened, as well as confused, and the directorof their whole spy system is now violating rule and precedent by sendingout messengers to summon certain high agents to confer with him in hissecret place."
"If you'll tell me where, I'll get over to my office...."
"No. We'll both be in your office in plenty of time. We'll watch Lolaget started. It will be highly instructive for you to watch a reallycapable Operator at work."
* * *
President Benton had been introduced; had in turn finished introducingLola. The crowd, many thousands strong, was cheering. Lola was steppinginto the carefully marked speaker's place.
"You may disconnect these," she waved a hand at the battery ofmicrophones, "since I do not use speech. Not only do I not know any ofyour various languages, but no one language would suffice. My thoughtwill go to every person on this, your world."
"World?" the President asked in surprise. "Surely not behind theCurtains? They will jam you, I'm afraid."
"My thought, as I shall drive it, will not be stopped," Lola assuredhim. "Since this world has no telepathy, it has no mind-blocks and I cancover the planet as easily as one mind. Nor does it matter whether it beday or night, or whether anyone is awake or asleep. All will receive mymessage. Since you wish a record, the cameras may run, although they areneither necessary nor desirable for me. Everyone will see me in hismind, much better than on the surface of any teevee tube."
"And I was going to have her address _Congress_!" the Presidentwhispered, aside, to General Cordeen.
Then Lola put her whole fine personality into a smile, directedapparently not only at each separate individual within sight, but alsoindividually at every person on the globe; and when Brownie Montandonset out to make a production of a smile,
it had the impact of apile-driver. Then came her smooth, gently-flowing, friendly thought:
"My name, friends of this world Ormolan, is Lola Montandon. Those of youwho are now looking at teevee screens can see my imaged likeness. All ofyou can see me very much better within your own minds.
"I am not here as an invader in any sense, but only as a citizen of theFirst Galaxy of this, our common universe. I have attuned my mind toeach of yours in order to give you a message from the United GalaxianSocieties.
"There are four of us Galaxians in this Exploration Team. As Galaxiansit is our purpose here and our duty here to open your minds to certainbasic truths, to be of help to you in clearing your minds of fallacies,of lies, and of undefensible prejudices; to the end that you will morerapidly become Galaxians yourselves...."
"Okay. This will go on and on. That's enough to give you an idea of whata trained and polished performer can do. What do you think of _them_comfits, Chief?" Belle deliberately knocked the Secret Service man outof his Lola-induced mood.
"Huh? Oh, yes." Avengord was still groggy. "She's phenomenal--good--Idon't mean goody-goody, but sincere and really...."
"Yeah, but don't fall in love with her. Everybody does and it doesn't doany of them a bit of good. That's her specialty and she's _very_ good atit. I told you she's a smooth, smooth worker."
"You can say _that_ again." Avengord did not know that he was repeatinghimself. "But it isn't an act. She means it and it's true."
"Of course she means it and of course it's true. Otherwise even she,with all her training, couldn't sell such a big bill of goods." Then, inanswer to the man's unspoken question, "Yes, we're all different. She'sthe contactor, the spreader of the good old oil, the shining example ofpurity and sweetness and light--in short, the Greaser of the Ways. I'm afighter, myself. Do you think she could actually have de-handed thosemen? Uh-uh. At the last minute she would have weakened and brought themin whole. My job in this operation is to knock hell out of the ones Lolacan't convince, such as those spies you and I are going to interviewpretty quick."
"Even they ought to be convinced. I don't see how anybody could help butbe."
"Uh-uh. It'll bounce off like hailstones off of a tin roof. The onlything to do to that kind of scum is kill them. If you'll give me athought as to where your office is we'll hop over and...."
* * *
Belle and Avengord disappeared from the stand; and, such was Lola'shold, no one on the platform or in the throng even noticed that theywere gone. They materialized in Avengord's private office; he sitting asusual at his desk, she reclining in legs-crossed ease in a big leatherchair.
"... get to work." Belle's thought had not been interrupted by anypassage of time whatever. "What do you want to do first?"
"But I thought you were covering Miss Montandon?"
"I am. Like a blanket. Just as well here as anywhere. I will be, untilshe gets back to the _Pleiades_. What first?"
"Oh. Well, since I don't know what your limits are--if you have any--youmight as well do whatever you think best and I'll watch you do it."
"That's the way to talk. You're going to get a shock when you see whothe Head Man is. George T. Basil."
"_Basil_! I'll say it's a shock!" Avengord steadied, frowned inconcentration. "Could be, though. _He_ would _never_ be suspected--butthey're very good at that."
"Yeah. His name used to be Baslovkowitz. He was trained for years, thenplanted. None of this can be proved, as his record is perfect. Borncitizen, highest standing in business and social circles. Unlimitedentry and top security clearance. Right?"
"Right ... and getting enough evidence, in such cases as that, is pure,unadulterated hell."
"I suppose I could kill him, after we've recorded everything he knows,"Belle suggested.
"No!" He snapped. "Too many people think of us as a strong-arm squadnow. Anyway, I'd rather kill him myself than wish the job off onto--youdon't _like_ killing, do you?"
"That's the understatement of the century. No civilized person does. Ina hot fight, yes; but killing anyone who is helpless to fight back--incold blood--ugh! It makes me sick in my stomach even to think of it."
"With the way you can read minds, we can get evidence enough to sendthem all to jail, and that we'll have to do."
"How about this?" Belle grinned as another solution came to mind. "Fromthose first eight top men, we'll find out a lot of others lower down,and so on, until we have 'em all locked up here. We'll announce thatexactly so many spies and agents--giving names, addresses, and facts, ofcourse--got panicky after Lola's address. They fired up their hiddenplanes and flew back behind the Curtain. Then, when we've scanned theirminds and recorded everything you want, I'll pack them all, very snuglyand carefully, into Sovig's private office. With the world situationwhat it then will be, he won't dare kill them--he simply won't know whatto do when faced with it."
* * *
Avengord agreed happily. He reached out and flipped the switch of hisintercom. "Miss Kimling, come in, please."
The door burst open. "Why, it _is_ you! But you were on the rostrum justa minute.... Oh!" She saw Belle, and backed, eyes wide, toward the doorshe had just entered. "_She_ was there, too, and it's fifteen_miles_...."
"Steady, Fram. I'd like to present you to Prime Operator Belle Bellamy,who is cleaning out the entire Curtain organization for us."
"But how did you...."
"Never mind that. Teleportation. It took her half an hour to pound itinto me, and we can't take time to explain anything now. I'll telleverybody everything I know as soon as I can. In the meantime, don't besurprised at anything that happens, and by that I mean _anything_. Suchas solid people appearing on this carpet--on that spot rightthere--instantaneously. I want you to pay close attention to everythingyour mind receives, put your phenomenal memory into high gear, listen toeverything I record, stop me any time I'm wrong, and be _sure_ I geteverything we need."
"I don't know exactly what you're talking about, sir, but I'll try."
"Frankly, I don't, either--we'll just have to roll it as we go along.We're ready for George T. Basil now, Miss Bellamy--I hope. Don't jump,Fram."
* * *
Basil appeared and Fram jumped. She did not scream, however, and did notrun out of the office. The master spy was a big, self-assured, affluenttype. He had not the slightest idea of how he had been spirited out ofhis ultra-secret sub-basement and into this room; but he knew where hewas and, after one glance at Belle, he knew why. He decided instantlywhat to do about it.
"This is an outrage!" he bellowed, hammering with his fist on Avengord'sdesk. "A stupid, high-handed violation of the rights...."
Belle silenced him and straightened him up.
"High-handed? Yes," she admitted quite seriously. "However, from theGalaxian standpoint, you have no rights at all and you are going to beextremely surprised at just how high-handed I am going to be. I am goingto read your mind to its very bottom--layer by layer, like peeling anonion--and everything you know and everything you think is going down inMr. Avengord's Big Black Book."
Belle linked all four minds together and directed the search, makingsure that no item, however small, was missed. Avengord recorded everypertinent item. Fram Kimling memorized and correlated anddouble-checked.
Soon it was done, and Basil, shouting even louder about this last andworst violation of his rights--those of his own private mind--was ledaway by two men and "put away where he would keep."
"But this _is_ a flagrant violation of law...." Miss Kimling began.
"You can say _that_ again!" her boss gloated. "And if you only knew howtickled I am to do it, after the way they've been kicking _me_ around!
"But I wonder ... are you sure we can get away with it?"
"Certainly," Belle put in. "We Galaxians are doing it, not yourgovernment or your Secret Service. We'll start you clean--but it'll beup to you to keep it clean, and that will be no easy job."
"No, it won't; but we'll do it. Come around again, say in five or sixyears, and see."
"You know, I might take you up on that? Maybe not this same team, butI've got a notion to tape a recommendation for a re-visit, just to seehow you get along. It'd be interesting."
"I wish you would. It might help, too, if everybody thought you'd comeback to check. Suppose you could?"
"I've no idea, really. I'd like to, though, and I'll see what I can do.But let's get on with the job. They're all in what you call the 'tank'now. Which one do you want next?"
The work went on. That evening there was of course a reception; and thena ball. And Belle's feet did hurt when she got back to the _Pleiades_,but of course she would not admit the fact--most especially not toGarlock.
Exactly at the expiration of the stipulated seventy-two hours, theGalaxians began to destroy military atomic plants; and, shortlythereafter, the starship's crew was again ready to go.
And James rammed home the red button that would send them--all fourwondered--_where_?
It turned out to be another Hodell-type world; and, even with thehigh-speed comparator, it took longer to check the charts than it did tomake them.
* * *
The next planet was similar. So was the next, and the next. The timerequired for checking grew longer and longer.
"How about cutting out this checking entirely, Clee?" James asked then."What good does it do? Even if we find a similarity, what could we doabout it? We've got enough stuff now to keep a crew of astronomers busyfor five years making a tank of it."
"Okay. We probably are so far away now, anyway, that the chance offinding a similarity is vanishingly small. Keep on taking the shots,though; they'll prove, I think, that the universe is one whole hell of alot bigger than anybody has ever thought it was. That reminds me--areyou getting anywhere on that N-problem? I'm not."
"I'm getting nowhere, fast. You should have been a math prof in a gradschool, Clee. You could flunk every advanced student you had with thatone. Belle and I together can't feed it to Compy in such shape as to geta definite answer. We think, though, that your guess was right--if weever stabilize anywhere it will probably be relative to Hodell, not toTellus. But the cold fact of how far away we must be by this time justscares the pants off of me."
"You and me both, my ripe and old. We're a _long_ ways from home."
* * *
Jumping went on; and, two or three planets later, they encountered anArpalone Inspector who did not test them for compatibility with thehumanity of his world.
"Do not land," the creature said, mournfully. "This world is dying, andif you leave the protection of your ship, you too will die."
"But _worlds_ don't die, surely?" Garlock protested. "People, yes--butworlds?"
"Worlds die. It is the Dilipic. The humans die, too, of course, but itis the world itself that is attacked, not the people. Some of them, infact, will live through it."
Garlock drove his attention downward and scanned.
"You Arpalones are doing what looks like a mighty good job of fighting.Can't you win?"
"No, it is too late. It was already too late when they first appeared,two days ago. When the Dilipics strike in such small force that none oftheir--agents?--devices?--whatever they are?--can land against ourbeaming, a world can be saved; but such cases are very few."
"But this thought, 'Dilipic'?" Garlock asked, impatiently. "It is merelya symbol--it doesn't _mean_ anything--to me, at least. What are they?Where do they come from?"
"No one knows anything about them," came the surprising answer. "Noteven their physical shape--if they have any. Nor where they come from,or how they do what they do."
"They can't be very common," Garlock pondered. "We have never heard ofthem before."
"Fortunately, they are not," the Inspector agreed. "Scarcely one worldin five hundred is ever attacked by them--this is the first Dilipicinvasion I have seen."
"Oh, you Arpalones don't die with your worlds, then?" Lola asked. Shewas badly shaken. "But I suppose the Arpales do, of course."
"Practically all of the Arpales will die, of course. Most of usArpalones will also die, in the battles now going on. Those of us whosurvive, however, will stay aloft until the rehabilitation fleetarrives, then we will continue our regular work."
"Rehab?" Belle exclaimed. "You mean you can _restore_ planets so badlyruined that all the people die?"
"Oh, yes. It is a long and difficult work, but the planet is alwaysre-peopled."
"Let's go down," Garlock said. "I want to get all of this on tape."
They went down, over what had been one of that world's largest cities.The air, the stratosphere, and all nearby space were full of battlingvessels of all shapes and sizes; ranging from the tremendous globularspaceships of the invaders down to the tiny, one-man jet-fighters of theArpalones.
* * *
The Dilipics were using projectile weapons only--ranging in size,with the size of the vessels, from heavy machine guns up toseventy-five-millimeter quick-firing rifles. They were also launchingthousands of guided missiles of fantastic speed and of tremendousexplosive power.
The Arpalones were not using anything solid at all. Each defendingvessel, depending upon its type and class, carried from four up to ahundred or so burnished-metal reflectors some four feet in diameter;each with a small black device at its optical center and each pouringout a tight beam of highly effective energy. It was at these reflectors,and particularly at these tiny devices, that the small-arms fire wasdirected, and the marksmanship of the Dilipics was very good indeed.However, each projector was oscillating irregularly and eachfighter-plane was taking evasive action; and, since a few bullet-holesin any reflector did not reduce its efficiency very much, and since thecentral mechanisms were so small and were moving so erratically, a goodthree-quarters of the Arpalonian beams were still in action.
* * *
There was no doubt at all that those beams were highly effective.Invisible for the most part, whenever one struck a Dilipic ship or planeeverything in its path flared almost instantly into vapor and the beamglared incandescently, blindingly white or violet or high blue--neveranything lower than blue. Almost everything material, that is; for guns,ammunition, and missiles were not affected. They did not even explode.When whatever fabric it was that supported them was blasted away, allsuch things simply dropped; simply fell through thousands or hundreds ofthousands of feet of air to crash unheeded upon whatever happened to bebelow.
The invading task force was arranged in a whirling, swirling, almostcylindrical cone, more or less like an Earthly tornado. The largestvessels were high above the stratosphere; the smallest fighters werehedge-hoppingly close to ground. Each Dilipic unit seemed madly,suicidally determined that nothing would get through that furious wallto interfere with whatever it was that was coming down from space to theground through--along?--the relatively quiet "eye" of thepseudo-hurricane.
On the other hand, the Arpalones were madly, suicidally determined tobreak through that vortex wall, to get into the "eye," to wreak allpossible damage there. Group after group after group of fivejet-fighters each came driving in; and, occasionally, the combinedblasts of all five made enough of opening in the wall so that the centerfighter could get through. Once inside, each pilot stood his little,stubby-winged craft squarely on her tail, opened his projectors toabsolute maximum of power and of spread, and climbed straight up thespout until he was shot down.
And the Arpalones were winning the battle. Larger and larger gaps werebeing opened in the vortex wall; gaps which it became increasinglydifficult for the Dilipics to fill. More and more Arpalone fighters weregetting inside. They were lasting longer and doing more damage all thetime. The tube was growing narrower and narrower.
All four Galaxians perceived all this in seconds. Garlock weighed outand detonated a terrific matter-conversion bomb in the exact center ofone of the largest vessels of the at
tacking fleet. It had no effect.Then a larger one. Then another, still heavier. Finally, at over ahundred megatons equivalent, he did get results--of a sort. Theinvaders' guns, ammunition, and missiles were blown out of the ship andscattered outward for miles in all directions; but the structure of theDilipic ship itself was not harmed.
Belle had been studying, analyzing, probing the things that were comingdown through that hellish tube.
"Clee!" She drove a thought. "Cut out the monkey-business with thosedamn firecrackers of yours and look here--pure, solid force, like balllightning or our Op field, but entirely different--see if you cananalyze the stuff!"
"Alive?" Garlock asked, as he drove a probe into one of the things--theywere furiously-radiating spheres some seven feet in diameter--and beganto tune to it.
"I don't know--don't think so--if they are, they're a form of life thatno sane human being could even imagine!"
"Let's see what they actually do," Garlock suggested, still trying totune in with the thing, whatever it was, and still following it down.
This particular force-ball happened to hit the top of a six-storybuilding. It was not going very fast--fifteen or twenty miles anhour--but when it struck the roof it did not even slow down. Without anyeffort at all, apparently, it continued downward through the concreteand steel and glass of the building; and everything in its path becamemonstrously, sickeningly, revoltingly changed.
"I simply can't stand any more of this," Lola gasped. "If you don'tmind, I'm going to my room, set all the Gunther blocks it has, and burymy head under a pillow."
"Go ahead, Brownie," James said. "This is too tough for _anybody_ towatch. I'd do the same, except I've got to run these cameras."
Lola disappeared.
* * *
Garlock and Belle kept on studying. Neither had paid any attention atall to either Lola or James.
Instead of the structural material it had once been, the bore that thething had traversed was now full of a sparkling, bubbling, writhing,partly-fluid-partly-viscous, obscenely repulsive mass of somethingunknown and unknowable on Earth; a something which, Garlock nowrecalled, had been thought of by the Arpalone Inspector as "golop."
As that unstoppable globe descended through office after office, itneither sought out people nor avoided them. Walls, doors, windows,ceilings, floors and rugs, office furniture and office personnel; allalike were absorbed into and made a part of that indescribably horridbrew.
Nor did the track of that hellishly wanton globe remain a bore. Instead,it spread. That devil's brew ate into and dissolved everything ittouched like a stream of boiling water being poured into aloosely-heaped pile of granulated sugar. By the time the ravening spherehad reached the second floor, the entire roof of the building was goneand the writhing, racing flood of corruption had flowed down the outerwalls and across the street, engulfing and transforming sidewalks,people, pavement, poles, wires, automobiles, people-anything andeverything it touched.
* * *
The globe went on down, through basement and sub-basement, until itreached solid, natural ground. Then, with its top a few inches below thelevel of natural ground, it came to a full stop and--apparently--didnothing at all. By this time, the ravening flood outside had eaten farinto the lower floors of the buildings across the street, as well asalong all four sides of the block, and tremendous masses of masonry andsteel, their supporting structures devoured, were subsiding, crumbling,and crashing down into the noisome flood of golop--and were beingtransformed almost as fast as they could fall.
One tremendous mass, weighing hundreds or perhaps thousands of tons,toppled almost as a whole; splashing the stuff in all directions forhundreds of yards. Wherever each splash struck, however, a new center ofattack came into being, and the peculiarly disgusting, abhorrentliquidation went on.
"Can you do anything with it, Clee?" Belle demanded.
"Not too much--it's a mess," Garlock replied. "Besides, it wouldn't getus far, I don't think. It'll be more productive to analyze the beams theArpalones are using to break them up, don't you think?"
Then, for twenty solid minutes, the two Prime Operators worked on thoseenigmatic beams.
"We can't assemble _that_ kind of stuff with our minds," Belle decidedthen.
"I'll say we can't," Garlock agreed. "Ten megacycles, and cycling onlytwenty per second." He whistled raucously through his teeth. "My guessis it'd take four months to design and build a generator to put out thatkind of stuff. It's worse than our Op field."
"I'm not sure I could _ever_ design one," Belle said, thoughtfully, "butof course I'm not the engineer you are...." Then, she could not helpadding, "... yet."
"No, and you never will be," he said, flatly.
"No? That's what _you_ think!" Even in such circumstances as those,Belle Bellamy was eager to carry on her warfare with her Project Chief.
"That's _exactly_ what I think--and I'm so close to knowing it for afact that the difference is indetectible."
Belle almost--but not quite--blew up. "Well, what _are_ you going todo?"
"Unless and until I can figure out something effective to do, I'm notgoing to try to do anything. If you, with your vaunted and flauntedbelief in the inherent superiority of the female over the male, can dopeout something useful before I do, I'll eat crow and help you do it. Asfor arguing with you, I'm all done for the moment."
Belle gritted her teeth, flounced away, and plumped herself down into achair. She shut her eyes and put every iota of her mind to work on theproblem of finding something--_anything_--that could be done to helpthis doomed world and to show that big, overbearing jerk of a Garlockthat she was a better man than he was. Which of the two objectivesloomed more important, she herself could not have told, to save herlife.
And Garlock looked around. The air and the sky over the now-vanishedcity were both clear of Dilipic craft. The surviving Arpalone fightersand other small craft were making no attempt to land, anywhere on theworld's surface. Instead, they were flying upward toward, and were beingdrawn one by one into the bowels of, huge Arpalonian space-freighters.When each such vessel was filled to capacity, it flew upward and setitself into a more-or-less-circular orbit around the planet.
Around and around and around the ruined world the _Pleiades_ went;recording, observing, charting. Fifty-eight of those atrocious Dilipicvortices had been driven to ground. Every large land-mass surrounded bylarge bodies of water had been struck once, and only once; from thetremendous area of the largest continent down to the relatively tinyexpanses of the largest islands. One land-mass, one vortex. One only.
"What d'you suppose _that_ means?" James asked. "Afraid of water?"
"Damfino. Could be. Let's check ... mountains, too. Skip us back towhere we started--oceans and mountains both fairly close there."
The city had disappeared long since; for hundreds of almost-level squaremiles there extended a sparkling, seething, writhing expanse of--ofwhat? The edge of that devouring flood had almost reached thefoot-hills, and over that gnawing, dissolving edge the _Pleiades_paused.
* * *
Small lakes and ordinary rivers bothered the golop very little if atall. There was perhaps a slightly increased sparkling, a slightstiffening, a little darkening, some freezing and breaking off of solidblocks; but the thing's forward motion was not noticeably slowed down.It drank a fairly large river and a lake one mile wide by ten miles longwhile the two men watched.
The golop made no attempt to climb either foot-hills or mountains. Itleveled them. It ate into their bases at its own level; the underminedmasses, small and large, collapsed into the foul, corrosive semi-liquidand were consumed. Nor was there much raising of the golop's level, evenwhen the highest mountains were reached and miles-high masses of solidrock broke off and toppled. There was some raising, of course; but thestuff was fluid enough so that its slope was not apparent to the eye.
* * *
Then the _Plei
ades_ went back, over the place where the city had beenand on to what had once been an ocean beach. The original wave ofdegradation had reached that shore long since, had attacked its sandsout into deep water, and there it had been stopped. The corrupt floodwas now being reinforced, however, by an ever-rising tide of materialthat had once been mountains. And the slope, which had not been evennoticeable at the mountains or over the plain, was here very evident.
As the rapidly-flowing golop struck water, the water shivered, came to aweirdly unforgettable cold boil, and exploded into drops and streamersand jagged-edged chunks of something that was neither water nor land; orrock or soil or sand or Satan's unholy brew. Nevertheless, the waterwon. There was _so_ much of it! Each barrel of water that was destroyedwas replaced instantly and enthusiastically; with no lowering of levelor of pressure.
And when water struck the golop, the golop also shivered violently, thensparkled even more violently, then stopped sparkling and turned dark,then froze solid. The frozen surface, however, was neither thick enoughnor strong enough to form an effective wall.
Again and again the wave of golop built up high enough to crack and toshatter that feeble wall; again and again golop and water met inultimately furious, if insensate, battle. Inch by inch the ocean'sshoreline was driven backward toward ocean's depths; but every inch theocean lost was to its tactical advantage, since the advancing front wasby now practically filled with hard, solid, dead blocks of its ownsubstance which it could neither assimilate nor remove from the scene ofconflict.
Hence the wall grew ever thicker and solider; the advance became slowerand slower.
Then, finally, ocean waves of ever-increasing height and violence rolledin against the new-formed shore. What caused those tremendouswaves--earthquakes, perhaps, due to the shifting of the mountains'masses?--no Tellurian ever surely knew. Whatever the cause, however,those waves operated to pin the golop down. Whenever and wherever one ofthose monstrous waves whitecapped in, hurling hundreds of thousands oftons of water inland for hundreds of yards, the battle-front stabilizedthen and there.
All over that world the story was the same. Wherever there was waterenough, the water won. And the total quantity of water in that world'soceans remained practically unchanged.
"Good. A lot of people escaped," James said, expelling a long-heldbreath. "Everybody who lives on or could be flown to all the islandssmaller than the biggest ones ... if they can find enough to eat and ifthe air isn't poisoned."
"Air's okay--so's the water--and they'll get food," Garlock said. "TheArpalones will handle things, including distribution. What I'm thinkingabout is how they're going to rehabilitate it. That, as an engineeringproject, is a feat to end all feats."
"_Brother!_ You can play _that_ in spades!" James agreed. "Except thatit'll take too many months before they can even start the job, I'd liketo stick around and see how they go about it. How does this kind ofstuff fit into that theory you're not admitting is a theory?"
"Not worth a damn. However, it's a datum--and, as I've said before andmay say again, if we can get _enough_ data we can build a theory out ofit."
Then it began to rain. For many minutes the clouds had been pilingup--black, far-flung, thick and high. Immense bolts of lightning flashedand snapped and crackled; thunder crashed and rolled and rumbled; rainfell, and continued to fall, like a cloud-burst in Colorado. And shortlythereafter--first by square feet and then by acres and then by squaremiles--the surface of the golop began to die. To die, that is, if it hadever been even partially alive. At least it stopped sparkling, darkened,and froze into thick skins; which broke up into blocks; which in turnsank--thus exposing an ever-renewed surface to the driving, pelting,relentlessly cascading rain.
"Well, I don't know that there's anything to hold us here any longer,"Garlock said, finally. "Shall we go?"
They went; but it was several days before any of the wanderers reallyfelt like smiling; and Lola did not recover from her depression for overa week.
