Subspace explorers, p.13
Subspace Explorers, page 13
"You four are using telepathy Train declared. "Uh-huh. It's easy, we'll show you how it goes. Go ahead."
"There's not much to tell. I've had it all my life, but I've never let on about it until now and I've never used it except on the job; I've been afraid to. I read up on psionics, but it's never been demonstrated scientifically and I didn't want the psychs to start with me. So I kept still. I knew you two were witches, of course-even though that is impossible, too-but I wasn't in your class, so I still kept still. Oh, I could see the stuff plainly enough when I knew exactly where to look, but that was all."
"How do you know that was all? You've been fighting the whole concept, haven't you, the same way I was?" "Could be, I guess... maybe I have got something... latent, I mean . ... at that."
"I don't suppose we really need to ask you two, then, if you want to come along with us."
"I'll say you don't-and thanks a million for asking us," Cecily breathed; and Train agreed fervently. He went on, "You have room enough, I suppose? And when's your zero?"
"Plenty. Nineteen hours today was announced, but we can hold it up without hurting anything a bit."
"No need to. That gives us over seven hours and we won't need half that. Except for our bags at the hotel all our stuff's in the shed. We'll be seeing you-let's jet, Curly."
Train called an aircab and they were whisked across the city. Nothing was said until they were in the girl's room. He put both arms around her and looked straight into her eyes; his hard but handsome face strangely tender. "This hasn't been enough, Sess. I asked you once before to marry, me...."
"I'm glad you brought that up, Perce. I was just going to ask you if you still harbored the idea."
There is no need to go into exactly what happened then. After a time, however, he said, "I knew why you wouldn't, before."
"Of course," she replied, soberly. "We would have been at each other's throats half the time-we would have hurt each other unbearably."
"And this changes things completely," he said, just as soberly. "Exploring the universe with those four... as well as the unknown universe of psionics...."
"Oh, wonderful!" she breathed. "Just the thought of it-especially that you're so strongly psionic, too-rocks me. It changes my whole world. And besides," her expression changed completely; she gave him a bright, quick grin, "children, especially such super-children as yours and mine, ought to have two parents. Married. To each other. You know?"
"Children!" Train gasped. "Why, I didn't know... you didn't tell me you were..."
"Of course not, silly. I'm not. I'm talking about the ones we're going to have. Super-children. Half a dozen of 'em."
"Oh." Train gulped. "Okay. But why the 'super'?" "Have you ever scanned Teddy Deston and Babbsy Jones?"
No. Why should I have? Or any other little toddlers?" "They aren't ordinary little toddlers, Perce. Not by seven thousand rows of apple trees. I got a flash once. Just a flash and just once, but I know damn well it was a mind-block. They scare me witless. Babe and Here think they're ordinary babies, too, but Bobby and Bun know very well they aren't. They won't admit it, of course, even to themselves, to say nothing of to each other-Bobby and Bun, I mean, not the kids-so don't ever breathe a word of this to anybody-besides, they'd snatch you bald-headed if you did. So-verbum sap."
"I think you're more than somewhat nuts, presh, but I'll be as verbum sappy as you say. Now, one for the road," which turned out to be several, "and we'll go hunt us up a preacher."
"But we can't!" she wailed. "I forgot-just thought of it. Three days-those blood tests and things!"
"That's right... hut with the physicals we've been taking every ten days-proof enough of perfect health so they'll waive 'em."
"One gets you ten they won't. Did you ever hear of a small-type bureaucrat cutting one inch of his damned red tape?"
"I sure have. All you got to have to push bureacrats around is weight, and we're heavyweights here... it'd be quicker, though, to do it the sneaky way-some starship's chaplain."
"Oh, let's!" She squealed like a schoolgirl. "I know you meant 'sneaky' in its engineering sense, but I don't. She has as much cat blood in her as I have. Maybe more."
"She?" Train raised his eyebrows. "Better break that up into smaller pieces, presh. Grind it a little finer."
"Comet-gas! You know who, and why, Bun. If you don't tell her who the chaplain was or what world he was from-registry, you know-she'll never find out when we were married."
Train laughed "I see, kitten-but I always did like cats, and I don't leak. Okay, little squirt-let's jet."
Long before nineteen hours, then, the Trains and their belongings arrived at the Explorer's dock. Leaving her husband at the freight hoist, Cecily went up in the pas-
senger elevator and looked Bernice up. "Where's our room, Bun?" she asked, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone and without turning a hair.
Bernice started to say something; but, as she saw the heavy, plain, yellow-gold band-Cecily had never worn a ring on either hand-she said instead, "Why, I didn't know you were-when did this happen?"
"Oh, we've been married quite a while. We didn't want it to get out before, of course, but I thought sure you'd guessed."
"I guessed something, but not that. I'm awfully sorry, Curly, really, but..."
"You needn't be, Bun, at all; you had every right to. But I'll tell you one thing right now that I really mean there'll be no more monkey-business for me. Ever."
"Oh, I'm so glad, Curly," and this time the two women did kiss each other. This was the beginning of a friendship that neither had thought would ever be.
At exactly nineteen hours the Explorer cut gravs. No one aboard her knew where they were going. Or what they were looking for. Or how long they would be gone.
When Maynard told Deston that he did not have time to cope with two such trouble-makers as Train and Byrd, he was stating the exact truth; for he was busier than ever he had ever been before. It was a foregone conclusion that the opposition, which included the most corrupt and farthest-left government WestHem had ever known, would not and could not accept its two minor defeats as having decided the issue.
The crucial question was- Would they call one more local, single-business strike-in an industry that could not possibly be automated-before taking the supreme gamble of a general strike?
The Galaxians had been trying for a long time to answer that question. As has been said, GalMet's spy system (officially, it did not exist; actually, it was an invisible division of the Public Relations Department) was very good. So was WarnOil's; and InStell's, by the very nature of things, was better than either. And, long before, Maynard had engineered a deal whereby Stevens Spehn had been put in charge of the combined "Information Services" of the Galactic Federation-and it is needless to say what kind of coverage this new service provided.
Six men now sat at Maynard's conference table. Maynard, as usual, was at its head. Lansing of WarnOil sat at his left. Spehn sat at his right. Next to Spehn was a newcomer to the summit table-Vice-President Guerdon Dann, the Admiral of InStell's far-flung fleet of private police battleships. In full uniform, he was the typical officer of space: big, lean, hard, poised, and thoroughly fit. While older, of course, than a line officer, his stiff, crew-cut red hair was only lightly sprinkled with gray and he did not as yet wear lenses. Side by side, below Lansing, sat two other newcomers, Feodr Ilyowicz and Li Hing Wong, Russian and Chinese directors on the Board.
"Yes, it'll be milk," Spehn was saying. "Impossible to automate, easy to make one hundred percent effective, and of extremely high emotional value."
"Right," Maynard agreed. "How the sobbers will shriek and scream about our starving helpless babies to death by the thousands. Any idea yet as to time?"
"Nothing definite, but it'll be fairly soon and the general strike won't be. They're holding that up while they're looking for our base, and nobody is even close yet to suspecting where Base is. Deissner and Nameless are all steamed up about the vanishing boys and girls and automation, but they're looking for them on a new planet out in space somewhere, not on an island on Galmetia. Are the kids still happy in Siberia?"
"Very much so; the bonuses take care of the isolation angle very nicely. They're making a game of being Siberians. They know it won't be too long and they know why we have to be absolutely sure that a lot of stuff stays hush-hush."
"Good. Next, Dutch Deissner is making independent noises and is getting big ideas. Full partnership, no less." ' "He'll get himself squashed like a bug."
"Maybe, but so far he's been doing most of the squashing and Mister Big is burning like a torch."
"Umm... um... mm." Maynard thought for a moment. "So you think EastHem actually will bomb?" "They're sure to." Spehn glanced across the table at Ilyowicz and Li who both nodded. "Not too long, I think, after the general strike is called-especially when we foul it up. Extra-heavy stuff on all our military installations, and really dirty stuff-one-hundred-percent-lethal nerve gas-on all our biggest cities. Wait a couple of months and take over."
"But retaliation-oh, sure, evacuation of the upper strata, they figure they have too many people, anyway." "Check. They figure on losing millions of peasants and workers. They plan on getting a lot of people away, but I can't get even an inkling as to where. Do either of you fellows have any ideas on that?"
Li shook his head and Ilyowicz said, "No. I do not believe it can be a developed planet; I do not think that such a project could have been carried out so tracelessly. My thought is that it is a temporary hide-out merely, on some distant virgin planet."
"That makes sense," Spehn said. "How are you making out on the subs and the big jets, Guerd?"
"Satisfactory," the admiral replied. "Everybody with half a brain is with us. We'll be ready as soon as those missile-killers come through. How are they doing on them, Mr. Maynard?"
"It took a long time to develop controls rigid enough to stand the gravs, but they're in full production now. You can start picking them up at Base next Thursday morning."
"Fine!" Dann glanced at the two Asiatics. "How are you two doing? Your jobs are tougher than ours." "Different, but easier, if anything," Ilyowicz said, and Li nodded twice. "All really intelligent persons are opposed to government by terrorism. A surprisingly large number of such persons proved to have enough psionic ability so that our so-called mystics could teach them to receive and to transmit thought. Thus we have no cells, no meetings, the absolute minimum of physical contact, and no traceable or detectable communications. Thus, the Nameless One has not now and will not have any suspicion that he and five hundred seventy three of his butchers will die on signal."
The Westerners gasped. East was vastly different from West. "But if you can do that, why... ?" Dann began, but shut himself up. That was their job, not his.
"Right." Maynard approved the unspoken thought. "Well, does that cover it?"
"Not quite-one thing bothers me," Spehn said. "The minute we blockade Earth the whole financial system of the galaxy collapses."
"You tell him, Paul," Maynard said. "You're Deston and Deston."
"Covered like a sucker's bet." Lansing laughed and slapped himself zestfully on the leg. "That's the prize joker of the whole business. GalBank-the First Galaxian Bank of Newmars-opens for business day after tomorrow. Have you got any idea of what a solid-cash basis even one installation like Project Barbizon is? Or especially Rhenia Four, that's bringing in a net profit of a megabuck an hour? And DesDes owns 'em by the dozen. Hell, we could fight an interstellar war out of petty cash and never miss it from the till. Son, if Dutch and Slobski had any idea of how much hard-cash money we've got it'd scare the bastards right out of their pants."
"I see." Spehn thought for a moment. "I never thought of it before, but the way leybyrdite is taking everything over, no ordinary bank could handle it, at that. And May nard, I've studied the material you gave us on your board-of-directors government of the Galactic Federation and I'll vote for it. Nothing else has ever worked, so it's time something different was tried."
"It won't be easy, but I'm pretty sure it can be made to work. After all, there have been quite a few self-cleaning boards of directors that have lasted for generations; showing substantial profits, yet adhering rigorously to the Principle of Enlightened Self-Interest. Examples, the largest firms in existence.
"To succeed, our board must both adhere to that Principle and show a profit-the profit in this case being in terms of the welfare of the human race as a whole. Is there anything else to come before this meeting?"
There was nothing else.
"That's it, then. Round it off neatly, Miss Champion -the adjournment and so forth-as usual."
Chapter 12
HIGHER EDUCATION
Andrew Adams had what was probably the finest mind of any strictly human being of his age. He had a voracious and insatiable appetite for knowledge; his brain was an unfilled and unfillable reservoir. He was without prejudice, inhibition, or bias. He could, and frequently did, toss a laboriously-developed theory or hypothesis of his own down the drain in favor of someone else's anyone else's-that gave even slightly better predictions than did his own.
Being what he was, it was inevitable that when the Destons gave Adams his first real insight into telepathy and, through it, into the unimaginably vast and theretofore almost hermetically sealed universe of psionics, he dropped his old researches in favor of the new. He and his wife studied, more and ever more intensively, the possibilities and potentialities of the mind as the mind. Scholar-like, however, they needed to analyze and digest all the information available having any hearing upon the subject. Therefore, since there was no esoterica of that type in the Procyon's library, they went back to Earth.
The Adams apartment was a fairly large one; five rooms on the sixteenth floor of Grantland Hall in Ann Arbor, overlooking the somewhat crowded but beautifully landscaped campus of the University of Michigan. Their living room was large-seventeen by twenty five feet-but it was the Adams, not the ordinary, concept of a living room. Almost everything in it was designed for books and tapes; everything in it was designed for study.
First, they went through their own library's stores of philosophy, of metaphysics, of paraphysics, of occultism, of spiritualism, of voodooism, of scores of kinds of cultism and even more kinds of crackpotism, from Forteanism up-or down. They studied thousands of words to glean single phrases of truth. Or, more frequently, bits of something that could be developed into truth or into something having to do with truth. Then they exhausted the resources of the University's immense library; after which they requested twenty two exceedingly rare tomes from the Crerar Library of Chicago. This was unusual, since scholars usually came to the Crerar instead of vice-versa, but Adams was Andrew Adams of the College; one of the very biggest of the Big Brains. Wherefore:
It can be arranged, Dr. Adams," Crerar's head librarian told him, as one bibliophile to another. "These are replicas, of course-most of the originals are in Rome-and not one of them has been consulted for over five years. I'm glad to have you study these volumes, if for no other reason than to show that they are not really dead wood."
Thus it came finally about that Andrew and Stella Adams sat opposite each other, holding hands tightly across a small table, staring into each other's eyes and thinking at and with each other in terms and symbols many of which cannot be put into words.
"But it has to be some development or other of Campbell's Fourth Nume," she insisted. "It simply can't be anything else."
"True," he agreed. "However, Campbell had only a glimmering of a few of the-facets? Basics?-of that nume. So let's go over the prime basics again-the takeoff points-the spring-boards-to see if possible where our thinking has been at fault."
"Very well. Fourth Nume, the-Level? Region? Realm?-of belief, of meaning, of ability to manipulate and to understand-of understanding of and manipulation of the phenomena of reality existing in the no-space-no-time continuum of..."
"A moment," Adams broke in. "Non-space-non-time is preferable, I believe. And aren't those symbols contradictory and mutually exclusive?"
"By no means. In the totality of universes it is not only possible but necessary to manipulate both the immaterial and the material aspects of energy without reference to either time or space. Like this-" and her symbology went far beyond language.
"I see. My error. I was fouling it up. Shall we try again?"
"Not yet. We may find more. Non-space-non-time manipulation, then, and also n-s-n-t attributes, phenomena, and being. Most important-the sine qua non-is the ultimate basic sex. Prerequisite, a duplex pole of power; two very-strongly-linked and very powerful poles, one masculine and one feminine..."
"A moment, Stella, I'll have to challenge that nuance of thought. If we are dealing with pure, raw, elemental force-as I think we are-we've been thinking too nicelynicey on that, especially you. The thought should be, I'm pretty sure; neither masculine and feminine nor manly and womanly but starkly male and just as starkly female."
"You're probably right, Andy... you are right. So I'll think starkly female; as starkly so as an alley cat in heat. Shall we .. . no, let's finish checking the list."
They finished checking, and neither could perceive any other sources of error in the nuances of their thoughts. They tried it again, and this time it-whatever it was-clicked. Or rather, the result was not a click, but a sonic boom. Both bodies went rigid for seconds; then each drew a tremendously deep breath; as much from relaxation of tension as from realization of accomplishment. Then, poring over a street map of Calcutta, they went mentally to India; to the home of Mahatma Rajaras Molandru, who was one of the greatest sages then alive and who was also a Fellow of the College of Study.
"Is it permitted, Mahatma, that we converse with you and learn?" the fused minds asked.
