Masters of Space

  IX

  As has been intimated, no Terran can know what researches Larry and Tulyand the other Oman specialists performed, or how they arrived at theconclusions they reached. However, in less than a week Larry reported toHilton.

  "It can be done, sir, with complete safety. And you will live even morecomfortably than you do now."

  "How long?"

  "The mean will be about five thousand Oman years--you don't know that anOman year is equal to one point two nine three plus Terran years?"

  "I didn't, no. Thanks."

  "The maximum, a little less than six thousand. The minimum, a littleover four thousand. I'm very sorry we had no data upon which to base acloser estimate."

  "Close enough." He stared at the Oman. "You could also convert my wife?"

  "Of course, sir."

  "Well, we might be able to stand it, after we got used to the idea.Minimum, over five thousand Terran years ... barring accidents, ofcourse?"

  "No, sir. No accidents. Nothing will be able to kill you, except bytotal destruction of the brain. And even then, sir, there will be thepattern."

  "I'll ... be ... damned...." Hilton gulped twice. "Okay, go ahead."

  "Your skins will be like ours, energy-absorbers. Your 'blood' will carrycharges of energy instead of oxygen. Thus, you may breathe or not, asyou please. Unless you wish otherwise, we will continue the breathingfunction. It would scarcely be worth while to alter the automaticmechanisms that now control it. And you will wish at times to speak. Youwill still enjoy eating and drinking, although everything ingested willbe eliminated, as at present, as waste."

  "We'd add uranexite to our food, I suppose. Or drink radioactives, orsleep under cobalt-60 lamps."

  "Yes, sir. Your family life will be normal; your sexual urges andsatisfactions the same. Fertilization and period of gestation unchanged.Your children will mature at the same ages as they do now."

  "How do you--oh, I see. You wouldn't change any molecular linkages orconfigurations in the genes or chromosomes."

  "We could not, sir, even if we wished. Such substitutions can be madeonly in exact one-for-one replacements. In the near future you will, ofcourse, have to control births quite rigorously."

  "We sure would. Let's see ... say we want a stationary population of ahundred million on our planet. Each couple to have two children, a boyand a girl. Born when the parents are about fifty ... um-m-m. The galscan have all the children they want, then, until our population is abouta million; then slap on the limit of two kids per couple. Right?"

  "Approximately so, sir. And after conversion you alone will be able tooperate with the full power of your eight, without tiring. You willalso, of course, be able to absorb almost instantaneously all theknowledges and abilities of the old Masters."

  Hilton gulped twice before he could speak. "You wouldn't be holdinganything else back, would you?"

  "Nothing important, sir. Everything else is minor, and probably known toyou."

  "I doubt it. How long will the job take, and how much notice will youneed?"

  "Two days, sir. No notice. Everything is ready."

  Hilton, face somber, thought for minutes. "The more I think of it theless I like it. But it seems to be a forced put ... and Temple will blowsky high ... and _have_ I got the guts to go it alone, even if she'd letme...." He shrugged himself out of the black mood. "I'll look her up andlet you know, Larry."

  * * * * *

  He looked her up and told her everything. Told her bluntly; starkly;drawing the full picture in jet black, with very little white.

  "There it is, sweetheart. The works," he concluded. "We are not going tohave ten years; we may not have ten months. So--if such a brain as thatcan be had, do we or do we not have to have it? I'm putting it squarelyup to you."

  Temple's face, which had been getting paler and paler, was now as nearlycolorless as it could become; the sickly yellow of her skin's light tanunbacked by any flush of red blood.

  Her whole body was tense and strained.

  "There's a horrible snapper on that question.... Can't _I_ do it? Or_anybody_ else except you?"

  "No. Anyway, whose job is it, sweetheart?"

  "I know, but ... but I know just how close Tuly came to killing you. Andthat wasn't _anything_ compared to such a radical transformation asthis. I'm afraid it'll kill you, darling. And I just simply couldn't_stand_ it!"

  She threw herself into his arms, and he comforted her in the ages-oldfashion of man with maid.

  "Steady, hon," he said, as soon as he could lift her tear-streaked facefrom his shoulder. "I'll live through it. I thought you were getting thehowling howpers about having to live for six thousand years and nevergetting back to Terra except for a Q strictly T visit now and then."

  She pulled away from him, flung back her wheaten mop and glared. "So_that's_ what you thought! What do I care how long I live, or how, orwhere, as long as it's with you? But what makes you think we canpossibly live through such a horrible conversion as that?"

  "Larry wouldn't do it if there was any question whatever. He didn't sayit would be painless. But he did say I'd live."

  "Well, he knows, I guess ... I hope." Temple's natural fine color beganto come back. "But it's understood that just the second you come out ofthe vat, I go right in."

  "I hadn't ought to let you, of course. But I don't think I could take italone."

  That statement required a special type of conference, which consumedsome little time. Eventually, however, Temple answered it in words.

  "Of course you couldn't, sweetheart, and I wouldn't let you, even if youcould."

  There were a few things that had to be done before those two secretconversions could be made. There was the matter of the wedding, whichwas now to be in quadruplicate. Arrangements had to be made so thateight Big Wheels of the Project could all be away on honeymoon at once.

  All these things were done.

  * * * * *

  Of the conversion operations themselves, nothing more need be said. Thehoneymooners, having left ship and town on a Friday afternoon, came backone week from the following Monday[1] morning. The eight met joyously inBachelors' Hall; the girls kissing each other and the menindiscriminately and enthusiastically; the men cooperating zestfully.

  [1] While it took some time to recompute the exact Ardrian calendar,Terran day names and Terran weeks were used from the first. The Omansmanufactured watches, clocks, and chronometers which divided the Ardrianday into twenty-four Ardrian hours, with minutes and seconds as usual.

  Temple scarcely blushed at all, she was so engrossed in trying to findout whether or not anyone was noticing any change. No one seemed tonotice anything out of the ordinary. So, finally, she asked.

  "Don't _any_ of you, really, see anything different?"

  The six others all howled at that, and Sandra, between giggles andsnorts, said: "No, precious, it doesn't show a bit. Did you really thinkit would?"

  Temple blushed furiously and Hilton came instantly to his bride'srescue. "Chip-chop the comedy, gang. She and I aren't human any more.We're a good jump toward being Omans. I couldn't make her believe itdoesn't show."

  That stopped the levity, cold, but none of the six could really believeit. However, after Hilton had coiled a twenty-penny spike into a perfecthelix between his fingers, and especially after he and Temple had eachchewed up and swallowed a piece of uranexite, there were no grounds leftfor doubt.

  "That settles it ... it _tears_ it," Karns said then. "Start all overagain, Jarve. We'll listen, this time."

  Hilton told the long story again, and added: "I had to re-work a coupleof cells of Temple's brain, but now she can read and understand therecords as well as I can. So I thought I'd take her place on Team Oneand let her boss the job on all the other teams. Okay?"

  "So you don't want to let the rest of us in on it." Karns's level starewas a far cry from the way he had looked at his chief a moment before."If there's any one thing in the univers
e I never had _you_ figured for,it's a dog in the manger."

  "Huh? You mean you actually _want_ to be a ... a ... hell, we don't evenknow _what_ we are!"

  "I do want it, Jarvis. We all do." This was, of all people, Teddy! "Noone in all history has had more than about fifty years of reallyproductive thinking. And just the idea of having enough time ..."

  "Hold it, Teddy. Use your brain. The Masters couldn't take it--theycommitted suicide. How do you figure we can do any better?"

  "Because we'll _use_ our brains!" she snapped. "They didn't. The Omanswill serve us; and that's _all_ they'll do."

  "And do you think you'll be able to raise your children andgrandchildren and so on to do the same? To have guts enough to resistthe pull of such an ungodly habit-forming drug as this Oman service is?"

  * * * * *

  "I'm sure of it." She nodded positively. "And we'll run all applicantsthrough a fine enough screen to--that is, if we ever consider anybodyexcept our own BuSci people. And there's another reason." She grinned,got up, wriggled out of her coverall, and posed in bra and panties."Look. I can keep most of this for five years. Quite a lot of it forten. Then comes the struggle. What do _you_ think I'd do for theability, whenever it begins to get wrinkly or flabby, to peel the wholething off and put on a brand-spanking-new smooth one? You name it, I'lldo it! Besides, Bill and I will _both_ just simply and cold-bloodedlymurder you if you try to keep us out."

  "Okay." Hilton looked at Temple; she looked at him; both looked at allthe others. There was no revulsion at all. Nothing but eagerness.

  Temple took over.

  "I'm surprised. We're both surprised. You see, Jarve didn't want to doit at all, but he had to. I not only didn't want to, I was scared greenand yellow at just the idea of it. But I had to, too, of course. Wedidn't think anybody would really want to. We thought we'd be left herealone. We still will be, I think, when you've thought it clear through,Teddy. You just haven't realized yet that we aren't even human any more.We're simply nothing but _monsters_!" Temple's voice became a wail.

  "I've said my piece," Teddy said. "You tell 'em, Bill."

  "Let me say something first," Kincaid said. "Temple, I'm ashamed of you.This line isn't at all your usual straight thinking. What you actuallyare is _homo superior_. Bill?"

  "I can add one bit to that. I don't wonder that you were scared silly,Temple. Utterly new concept and you went into it stone cold. But now wesee the finished product and we like it. In fact, we drool."

  "I'll say we're drooling," Sandra said. "I could do handstands andpinwheels with joy."

  "Let's see you," Hilton said. "That we'd all get a kick out of."

  "Not now--don't want to hold this up--but sometime I just will. Bev?"

  "I'm for it--and _how_! And won't Bernadine be amazed," Beverly laughedgleefully, "at her wise-crack about the 'race to end all human races'coming true?"

  "I'm in favor of it, too, one hundred per cent," Poynter said. "Has itoccurred to you, Jarve, that this opens up intergalactic exploration? Nosupplies to carry and plenty of time and fuel?"

  "No, it hadn't. You've got a point there, Frank. That might take alittle of the curse off of it, at that."

  "When some of our kids get to be twenty years old or so and get married,I'm going to take a crew of them to Andromeda. We'll arrange, then, toextend our honeymoons another week," Hilton said. "What will our policybe? Keep it dark for a while with just us eight, or spread it to therest?"

  "Spread it, I'd say," Kincaid said.

  "We can't keep it secret, anyway," Teddy argued. "Since Larry and Tulywere in on the whole deal, every Oman on the planet knows all about it.Somebody is going to ask questions, and Omans always answer questionsand always tell the truth."

  * * * * *

  "Questions have already been asked and answered," Larry said, going tothe door and opening it.

  Stella rushed in. "We've been hearing the _damnedest_ things!" Shekissed everybody, ending with Hilton, whom she seized by both shoulders."Is it actually true, boss, that you can fix me up so I'll livepractically forever and can eat more than eleven calories a day withoutgetting fat as a pig? Candy, ice cream, cake, pie, eclairs, cream puffs,French pastries, sugar and gobs of thick cream in my coffee...?"

  Half a dozen others, including the van der Moen twins, came in. Beverlyemitted a shriek of joy. "Bernadine! The mother of the race to end allhuman races!"

  "You whistled it, birdie!" Bernadine caroled. "I'm going to have ten ortwelve, each one weirder than all the others. I told you I was aprophet--I'm going to hang out my shingle. Wholesale and retailprophecy; special rates for large parties." Her voice was drowned outin a general clamor.

  "Hold it, everybody!" Hilton yelled. "Chip-chop it! _Quit_ it!" Then, asthe noise subsided, "If you think I'm going to tell this tall tale overand over again for the next two weeks you're all crazy. So shut down theplant and get everybody out here."

  "Not _everybody_, Jarve!" Temple snapped. "We don't want scum, andthere's some of that, even in BuSci."

  "You're so right. Who, then?"

  "The rest of the heads and assistants, of course ... and all the labgirls and their husbands and boy-friends. I know they are all okay. Thatwill be enough for now, don't you think?"

  "I do think;" and the indicated others were sent for; and in a fewminutes arrived.

  The Omans brought chairs and Hilton stood on a table. He spoke for tenminutes. Then: "Before you decide whether you want to or not, think itover very carefully, because it's a one-way street. Fluorine can not bedisplaced. Once in, you're stuck for life. _There is no way back._ I'vetold you all the drawbacks and disadvantages I know of, but there may bea lot more that I haven't thought of yet. So think it over for a fewdays and when each of you has definitely made up his or her mind, let meknow." He jumped down off the table.

  * * * * *

  His listeners, however, did not need days, or even seconds, to decide.Before Hilton's feet hit the floor there was a yell of unanimousapproval.

  He looked at his wife. "Do you suppose _we're_ nuts?"

  "Uh-uh. Not a bit. Alex was right. I'm going to just _love_ it!" Shehugged his elbow ecstatically. "So are you, darling, as soon as you stoplooking at only the black side."

  "You know ... you could be right?" For the first time since the"ghastly" transformation Hilton saw that there really was a bright sideand began to study it. "With most of BuSci--and part of the Navy, andselectees from Terra--it _will_ be slightly terrific, at that!"

  "And that 'habit-forming-drug' objection isn't insuperable, darling,"Temple said. "If the younger generations start weakening we'll fix theOmans. I wouldn't want to wipe them out entirely, but ..."

  "But how do we settle priority, Doctor Hilton?" a girl called out; atall, striking, brunette laboratory technician whose name Hilton neededa second to recall. "By pulling straws or hair? Or by shooting dice oreach other or what?"

  "Thanks, Betty, you've got a point. Sandy Cummings and department headsfirst, then assistants. Then you girls, in alphabetical order, eachwith her own husband or fiance."

  "And my name is Ames. Oh, goody!"

  "Larry, please tell them to ..."

  "I already have, sir. We are set up to handle four at once."

  "Good boy. So scat, all of you, and get back to work--except Sandy,Bill, Alex, and Teddy. You four go with Larry."

  Since the new sense was not peyondix, Hilton had started calling it"perception" and the others adopted the term as a matter of course.Hilton could use that sense for what seemed like years--and actually waswhole minutes--at a time without fatigue or strain. He could not,however, nor could the Omans, give his tremendous power to anyone else.

  As he had said, he could do a certain amount of reworking; but theamount of improvement possible to make depended entirely upon what therewas to work on. Thus, Temple could cover about six hundred light-years.It developed later that the others of the Big Eight could cove
r from onehundred up to four hundred or so. The other department heads andassistants turned out to be still weaker, and not one of the rank andfile ever became able to cover more than a single planet.

  This sense was not exactly telepathy; at least not what Hilton hadalways thought telepathy would be. If anything, however, it was more.It was a lumping together of all five known human senses--and half adozen unknown ones called, collectively, "intuition"--into onesuper-sense that was all-inclusive and all-informative. If he ever couldlearn exactly what it was and exactly what it did and how it did it ...but he'd better chip-chop the wool-gathering and get back onto the job.

  * * * * *

  The Stretts had licked the old Masters very easily, and intended to wipeout the Omans and the humans. They had no doubt at all as to theirability to do it. Maybe they could. If the Masters hadn't made someprogress that the Omans didn't know about, they probably could. That wasthe first thing to find out. As soon as they'd been converted he'd callin all the experts and they'd go through the Masters' records like adose of salts through a hillbilly schoolma'am.

  At that point in Hilton's cogitations Sawtelle came in.

  He had come down in his gig, to confer with Hilton as to the newlybeefed-up fleet. Instead of being glum and pessimistic and foreboding,he was chipper and enthusiastic. They had rebuilt a thousand Oman ships.By combining Oman and Terran science, and adding everything the FirstTeam had been able to reduce to practise, they had hyped up the powerby a good fifteen per cent. Seven hundred of those ships, and all hismen, were now arrayed in defense around Ardry. Three hundred, manned byOmans, were around Fuel Bin.

  "Why?" Hilton asked. "It's Fuel Bin they've been attacking."

  "Uh-uh. Minor objective," the captain demurred, positively. "The realattack will be here at you; the headquarters and the brains. Then FuelBin will be duck soup. But the thing that pleased me most is thecontrol. Man, you never imagined such control! No admiral in historyever had such control of ten ships as I have of seven hundred. ThoseOmans spread orders so fast that I don't even finish thinking one andit's being executed. And no misunderstandings, no slips. For instance,this last batch--fifteen skeletons. Far out; they're getting cagy. Ijust thought 'Box 'em in and slug 'em' and--In! Across! Out! Socko!Pffft! Just like that and just that fast. None of 'em had time to lighta beam. Nobody before ever even _dreamed_ of such control!"

  "That's great, and I like it ... and you're only a captain. How manyships can Five-Jet Admiral Gordon put into space?"

  "That depends on what you call ships. Superdreadnoughts, _Perseus_class, six. First-line battleships, twenty-nine. Second-line, smallerand some pretty old, seventy-three. Counting everything armed that willhold air, something over two hundred."

  "I thought it was something like that. How would you like to be Five-JetAdmiral Sawtelle of the Ardrian Navy?"

  "I wouldn't. I'm Terran Navy. But you knew that and you know me.So--what's on your mind?"

  * * * * *

  Hilton told him. _I ought to put this on a tape_, he thought to himself,_and broadcast it every hour on the hour_.

  "They took the old Masters like dynamiting fish in a barrel," heconcluded, "and I'm damned afraid they're going to lick us unless wetake a lot of big, fast steps. But the hell of it is that I can't tellyou anything--not one single thing--about any part of it. There's simplyno way at all of getting through to you without making you over into thesame kind of a thing I am."

  "Is that bad?" Sawtelle was used to making important decisions fast."Let's get at it."

  "Huh? Skipper, do you realize just what that means? If you think they'lllet you resign, forget it. They'll crucify you--brand you as a traitorand God only knows what else."

  "Right. How about you and your people?"

  "Well, as civilians, it won't be as bad...."

  "The hell it won't. Every man and woman that stays here will be postedforever as the blackest traitors old Terra ever disgraced herself byspawning."

  "You've got a point there, at that. We'll all have to bring ourrelatives--the ones we think much of, at least--out here with us."

  "Definitely. Now see what you can do about getting me run through yourmill."

  By exerting his authority, Hilton got Sawtelle put through the"Preservatory" in the second batch processed. Then, linking minds withthe captain, he flashed their joint attention to the Hall of Records.Into the right room; into the right chest; along miles and miles ofbraided wire carrying some of the profoundest military secrets of theancient Masters.

  Then:

  "Now you know a little of it," Hilton said. "Maybe a thousandth of whatwe'll have to have before we can take the Stretts as they will have tobe taken."

  For seconds Sawtelle could not speak. Then: "My ... God. I see what youmean. You're right. No Omans can ever go to Terra; and no Terrans canever come here except to stay forever."

  The two then went out into space, to the flagship--which had beenchristened the _Orion_--and called in the six commanders.

  "What _is_ all this senseless idiocy we've been getting, Jarve?" Elliottdemanded.

  Hilton eyed all six with pretended disfavor. "You six guys are thehardest-headed bunch of skeptics that ever went unhung," he remarked,dispassionately. "So it wouldn't do any good to tell you anything--yet.The skipper and I will show you a thing first. Take her away, Skip."

  The _Orion_ shot away under interplanetary drive and for several hoursHilton and Sawtelle worked at re-wiring and practically rebuilding twodevices that no one, Oman or human, had touched since the _Perseus_ hadlanded on Ardry.

  "What are you ... I don't understand what you are doing, sir," Larrysaid. For the first time since Hilton had known him, the Oman's mind wasconfused and unsure.

  "I know you don't. This is a bit of top-secret Masters' stuff. Maybe,some day, we'll be able to re-work your brain to take it. But it won'tbe for some time."