A. E. Van Vogt - Novel 18 - Mission to the Stars

by Mission to the Stars

  It was.

  All Maltby said was, “Get out of this room. Get out, you fool!”

  Hunston did not move, but some of the color had faded from his cheeks. He said: “The only danger we’ve been able to imagine is if somehow they managed to get a Star Cluster transmitter aboard.” He stared at Maltby. “We haven’t been able as yet to figure out how these transmitters work, but we do know this: There is no liaison between the transmitters of one ship and another. They’re tuned differently, and set. No amount of manipulation can change them, once completed. But YOU must have had opportunity to learn the secret of their operation. Tell me.”

  Tell me! It was clear now that he would have to attack in spite of the anti-light. That meant muscles only, which needed a fractional surprise. Starting to tell might do the trick.

  But what an odd irony that Hunston and his technical experts had correctly reasoned out the exact nature of the danger. And yet now Hunston, standing in front of a man who was wearing a suit of clothes, both the back and front of which were transmitters, did not suspect.

  Maltby said, “Transmitters work in much the same way that the first Dellian robots were made, only they use the original components. The robot constructors took an electronic image of a human being, and constructed what was supposed to be an exact duplicate from organic matter. Something was wrong, of course, because the Dellians never were duplicates of the original human beings, and there were even physical differences. Out of the difference grew the hatred that eventually resulted in the “robot” massacres of fifteen thousand years ago.

  “But never mind that. These matter transmitters reduce the body to an electronic flow, and then rebuild the body with the aid of tissue restoration processes. The process has become as simple as turning on a light and—”

  It was at that point that Maltby launched his attack. The awful fear that Hunston would aim at his feet, arms, or head, ended. Because in that ultimate moment, the man hesitated and like a thousand million men before him, was lost. The In-no gun did flash, as Maltby grabbed at the wrist of the hand that held it. But the fire sprayed harmlessly against the impregnable floor. And then the gun clattered out of the fight.

  “You scoundrel!” Hunston gasped. “You knew I wouldn’t fire on the hereditary leader of the Mixed Men. You traitor—”

  Maltby had known nothing of the kind. And he did not waste time in consideration of it. Hunston’s voice stopped because Maltby had his head in a vicelike grip, and was pulling it towards and into his chest. The surprise of that must have been staggering. For a vital moment Hunston ceased his struggling. During that moment, Maltby stuffed him through the transmitter, seemingly right into his own body.

  Even as the last squirming foot was shoved out of sight, Maltby was tearing at the fasteners of the suit. He rolled the suit down, so that the transmitter surfaces faced one against the other.

  Frantically, he climbed all the way out of the suit and, racing over to the control board, adjusted the anti-light to work for him, and made a dozen other adjustments that he knew about. A minute later, the ship was his.

  There remained the necessity of telling the three groups his decision. And there remained—Gloria.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  THE hearing was held on the tenth day before the captains in session aboard the Star Cluster. There must have been preliminary by-play, because by the time Maltby entered she was already there sitting with stiff face and lips, staring straight ahead. Looking at her, Maltby guessed that she had made a last minute effort to prevent the hearing from taking place, and had failed.

  Maltby sat down in the place indicated by one of the officers, and waited to be called. He was just a little tense, but not unhappy. He expected that he would have to put up a very good argument to win, but the prize was worth all the effort and thought he had already put into the fight, and that he had yet to put into it.

  Out of the comer of one eye, he glanced at the prize— and glanced hastily away again when her own gaze met his squarely, with intermingled sparks and icy gleamings almost leaping from her eyes to his. She stood up, and came over to him.

  “Captain Maltby,” she said in a low tone, “I beg you not to force this issue.”

  “Your excellency,” said Maltby, “you are almost as attractive to me when you are angry as when you are acquiescent.”

  “That is a vulgar remark, and I shall never forgive you for it.” Her tone was hot.

  “I am sorry if you think that I am vulgar,” he said. “This was not always your feeling, as you may recall.”

  A flush touched those handsome cheeks. She said stiffly, “I do not desire to recall what now seems unpleasant to me. If you were a gentleman, you would not force this issue.”

  “I hope,” said Maltby, “that you will continue to regard me as a gentleman in the accepted meaning of the term. But I do not see how this has anything to do with our affection for each other.”

  “No gentleman would try to enforce affection, where it is not reciprocated.”

  Maltby said, “My only desire is to re-establish natural affection that was forcibly altered.”

  She stared at him with fists clenched, almost as if she planned to hit him. She said abruptly: “Oh, you damned space lawyer. I wish—I wish I’d never let you into our libraries.”

  Maltby smiled. “Gloria, my dear,” he said in a confidential tone, “I hear you’re a pretty good space lawyer yourself. I’m going to make a wager with you.”

  “I do not gamble.” Coldly.

  It was such an outrageous statement, after all that had happened, that Maltby was momentarily silenced by the sheer extravagance of it. Then he smiled again, more broadly. “My dear,” he said, “the fact is that you have the knowledge that can win you this case. My wager is that basically you want me to win, and so you won’t remember the particular argument that can win for you.” “No such argument exists,” she said. “We both know the law; and you are deliberately tormenting me with this kind of talk.”

  Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. “Please, Peter,” she begged, “drop this case. Let me go free.”

  Maltby hesitated, startled by the intensity of her appeal. But he had no intention of giving up. This woman had given herself to him without reservations on the planet of S Doradus. If, after being released from the artificial psychological pressure, she still didn’t want him, then she was free. He said earnestly. “My dear, what are you afraid of—yourself? Remember, the choice will be yours afterwards. Right now, you think you’re going to choose me, and at the moment you abhor the idea. Once you’re freed of the artificial psychological pressure you may feel that you do want the marriage to continue.”

  “Never. Don’t you realize I would have the memory of this period, the memory of being forced? Don’t you see that?”

  He did, suddenly. All at once he saw that he had been looking at this affair from the viewpoint of a man. Women were different. They had to feel the need for a marriage partner without any slightest vestige of coercion. It was a startling vision for him, because he had been tense and intent. And still he could not bring himself to say the words that would release her.

  Sitting there, his mind went back over the events of the past ten days. They had been great days for him. For billions of people had come to agreements on the basis of solutions proposed by himself. The swiftest to accept were the Dellians and non-Dellians. When the news was broadcast that the Star Cluster had not been captured by the Mixed Men, and that Earth continued to offer its original guarantees with slight modification, the governments of the Fifty Suns publicly proclaimed agreement.

  Maltby had been a little disappointed in the reaction to what he regarded as sensational news. The information—which he had gathered from the battleship’s library— that the non-Dellians were NOT humanoids or robots by any extension of the word, but descendants of human beings who had helped the original humanoids to escape, seemed to have no effect. He could only wonder if perhaps too many ot
her things held the attention of people. It was reasonable to hope that there would be a long-run favorable reaction. The non-Dellians would feel a greater kinship with other human beings. The Dellians, realizing that human beings had long ago pretended to be robots for the sake of subsequent generations, might well feel that human beings could be worthwhile folk.

  The problem of the Mixed Men had been a little more difficult to resolve. With their volatile leader Hunston a prisoner, the great majority of them seemed to accept the defeat, and agreed to accept Maltby’s solution. In his announcement to the Hidden Cities, he was quite blunt.

  Having chosen war, they were fortunate to be given a status of equality within the government of the Fifty Suns. All the ships of the main galaxy would be warned against their tactics, and for many years Mixed Men would be required to wear identifying marks. However, Dellians would be allowed to marry non-Dellians, and the couple would no longer be forbidden to have children by the cold-pressure system. Since the child resulting from such a union would invariably be a Mixed Man, there would be over a period of many generations an increase in the number of Mixed Men. If this meant that the mutation would gradually dominate by legal and natural developments, Earth was quite prepared to accept the situation. The laws governing such possibilities were liberal and far-seeing. Fundamentally, only aggression was prohibited.

  Remembering all these things, Maltby smiled wryly. All problems were solved but his own. He was still sitting there, undecided when the meeting was called to order.

  Three hours later, after a brief discussion among the judges, Captain Rutgers read the decision. It had been hastily written out, and the officer read it out in a sonorous voice:

  “The law,” he said, “relating to the reintegration of artificially imposed psychological pressure does not apply to Captain Maltby, a non-citizen of Imperial Earth at the time he was conditioned. It does apply to the Lady Gloria, a citizen born.”

  He went on: “Since Captain Maltby has been made permanent agent to Earth for the Fifty Suns, and since this is the Lady Gloria’s last trip into space on a warship, no geographical barriers exist to a continuation of the marriage.”

  He concluded: “It is accordingly ordered that the Lady Gloria be given the necessary treatment to return her to her former condition of loving affection for her husband.”

  Maltby took one quick look at Gloria, saw that there were tears in her eyes, and then he stood up. “Your excellencies,” he said, “I wish to make a request.”

  Captain Rutgers indicated that he had the floor. Maltby was momentarily silent. Finally, swallowing a little, he said: “I wish to free my wife from the necessity of undergoing such treatment—on one condition.”

  “What is the condition?” One of the woman captains asked the question, quickly.

  “The condition,” said Maltby, “is that at a place of my choosing she allow me forty-eight hours to win her back. If at the end of that time she still feels as she does now, I shall ask that execution of the judgment be indefinitely postponed.”

  The woman glanced over at her superior. “That seems fair enough, Gloria.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” said the Grand Captain of the Star Cluster, her color high.

  This time it was Maltby who walked over to her. He bent down, and said in a low voice: “Gloria, this is your second chance. After all, you didn’t take the first one, as I predicted.”

  “There was no first one. The decision that has been arrived at here was inevitable, and you know it.” She avoided his direct gaze; so it seemed to Maltby.

  “It’s a basic law of marriage, older than space travel, as old as human history.”

  She was not avoiding his gaze now. Her eyes stared at him, a dawning understanding in them. “Why, of course,” she said, “How could I have forgotten?”

  She half-rose to her feet, as if she would still present the argument. Slowly, she sank down again. She said: “What makes you think that you and I cannot have children?”

  “No marriage between a human being and a Mixed Man has ever produced a child without artificial aids.” “But with the cold pressure system—”

  “No one can be forced to use it,” said Maltby. He broke off patiently: “Gloria, you can’t escape the fact that this possibility was available to you at any time till the decision was rendered. It’s the oldest, and for periods in history it was the only, permitted reason for breaking up a marriage. No one argues with it. It’s final. And yet, you sat here fighting to get out of our marriage, and didn’t think of it. I regard that as a complete vindication of my feeling that basically you want and need to be married to me. All I want is a chance for us to be alone together, and now I have the right to ask it.”

  She said slowly: “This forty-eight hours that you want us to spend together, where—”

  She stopped, her eyes widening. She breathed heavily. “Why, that’s ridiculous. I refuse to be a party to such a naively romantic notion. Besides, S Doradus is too far out of the way.”

  Over her shoulder, Maltby saw that Lieutenant Neslor had come into the room. He gave her a quick, seeking glance, and found her eyes waiting for his. She inclined her head ever so slightly. Whereupon, Maltby lowered his gaze again upon Gloria. He felt no shame for the deal he had made with the woman psychologist to make her readjustments the moment the judgment was in. This tense, proud young woman needed the feeling of natural affection, needed it more perhaps than anyone else in the ship. It was a fact which Lieutenant Neslor had realized as well as he did; and her cooperation had been immediately available. Knowing that she had already been reconditioned out of her dislike of him—though it would require a little time to take effect—he said:

  “The planet of S Doradus where we were marooned is only eighteen hours from here. We can take a lifeboat, and later rejoin the Star Cluster without interfering with its movements.”

  She said stingingly: “What do you expect me to do there—fall into your arms?”

  “Yes.” His voice was steady. “Yes, I do.”

  THE END