"Sometimes," commented Beneker, when Molop had gone, "I think that low-quotient murt talks too much."
"Me, too," agreed Dith, absently.
"Did you have to say that?" Beneker yelped.
"Sh-h-h!" Dith became alert, his antenna vibrating. "Look, Commodore, something comesl"
The something kept on coming, at steady pace, along the dirt road toward the hidden watchers. It was still too far away to discern fine details, but one could tell that it was a higher life-form rather than a mere animal. In the first place, it had come from the village and was proceeding unattended by any master-type, walking alone, casually, confidently, of its own initiative. In the second place, it was clad from feet to neck in artificial coverings, its attire neatly made and close-fitting. Lastly, it was carrying some sort of implement.
Drawing nearer, it revealed itself as a burly biped in dark blue overalls and wearing heavy boots. His arms were shorter and thicker than Neshantan arms but his hands were very similar, each having four fingers and one thumb. His broad, brown-skinned face was marked with a strong blue-black stubble and had unchitinous flexibility. Evidently his skeleton was internal like those of the Neshantan slave-races. The thing he was bearing upon one shoulder could be recognized as an axe—not the huge, half-moon-shaped thing with which the observers were familiar, but still an axe.
"I cannot pick up his mind," whispered Beneker. "Can you?"
"No, Commodore," said Dith, all eyes. "Perhaps he is not employing it at the moment."
"That is unlikely. It is well-nigh impossible to exist with a completely empty mind. Even an idiot's head is full of folly."
"Well, I can't pick up his," admitted Dith.
Beneker mulled it a moment. "He may resemble our slave types. We have never been able to get more than incoherent fragments of thought out of them. They are sensitive receivers but extremely poor projectors. Their neural radiation is almost nil." He brightened considerably. "If this creature is the same type we are indeed in luck."
"Perhaps his mind operates across a different band," Dith suggested.
"If so, he won't get our pictures and we won't be able to deceive him." Beneker crouched lower. "We'll soon see. I am going to try make him take his boots off."
"How?"
"I am putting a stream across the road." His antenna bent toward Dith's. "Quick! Get this picture and duplicate it. Well try it out at double force for a start."
Picking up the other's mental vision, Dith waited for the word of command. Twenty more paces would bring the unwary biped immediately to their front.
"Now!" hissed Beneker.
Together they put an imaginary stream across the road, striving to drive the vision into their victim's mind as vividly and realistically as possible.
The biped took six more steps, stopped, stared at the road. Then he scratched the back of his neck and said something unintelligible. His voice was a low and chesty rumble. Moving cautiously forward to get a closer look, he bent and dipped a finger into what wasn't there. Then he looked at his finger.
"It looks wet," projected Beneker.
"It looks wet," simultaneously drove Dith's mind.
Obviously convinced, the biped turned away from them to trace the flow of the stream down the opposite slope. With the swift finesse of those to whom the aptitude comes naturally, the concealed watchers extended their illusion, taking away trees and bushes, building a waterfall over a ledge of rock, adding a few floating twigs and bits of bark.
Coming back to the middle of the road, the biped considered a moment, made up his mind. His thoughts remained undetectable, though at this short range his brain emitted a rapid series of meaningless pips and pops like the chopped-off peaks of his wave-forms. Evidently he overlapped the Neshantan frequency band by a percentage too small to be useful.
He reached a decision. He did not remove his boots as Beneker intended. Instead, he walked straight ahead, his gait slower and more deliberate than before.
"Wading!" realized Beneker, with triumph. "We made it a little too shallow but we fooled him!"
Though immensely pleased with himself, he kept his full attention on the other, not relaxing for an instant. When Neshantans built a dream they did it properly, a bang-up job in complete detail.
So when the biped came out of the stream his boots looked wet, felt wet and seemed to make sloppy squelching sounds. His feet felt cold and wet. Even the bottoms of his overalls appeared to be stained a darker blue almost to knee-height. Several artistically-placed splashes of dampness showed above the knees, each with its own tiny area of coolness. Natural talents come mighty close to perfection no matter how outlandish by the standards of elsewhere.
Stamping his feet hard, the biped cast a final, slightly puzzled look back at the stream, hefted the axe more comfortably on his shoulder, continued on his way.
"Zimpo!" ejaculated Beneker, not too loudly. "Success!" He patted himself with satisfaction. "How about your unlucky sun now? Doesn't this more than compensate for brain-twisting spiders?"
"One creature is hardly sufficient for a test," said Dith. "There may be special reasons for his susceptibility. He may be the only half-wit in the village, abnormally credulous and with a wave-band peculiarly his own."
"He may be a pornicker in a trance," scoffed Beneker. "Or he may be somebody a spider whistled at. But I say that worked out beautifully. All we need do now is try two or three more by way of confirmation. Then home we go with news of a suitable slave-world."
At that point Molop crawled back. "The guards were awake and jumpy. They came within a hair's breadth of blowing me apart."
"If the hair had been thinner," Beneker assured, "I would have been sorely grieved."
"Me, too," said Molop, fervently.
Beneker gazed prayerfully at the heavens and inquired, "Look, have you ever created the vision of a vast hole filled with flames?"
After some thought, Molop answered, "Yes, many years ago when I wanted a slave to . . ."
"Next time you create it," Beneker interrupted, "kindly do me the favor of jumping into it."
Dith nudged him. "Another one comes."
"Keep low!" warned Beneker, banging the unfortunate Molop's head into the turf. "At this stage we cannot afford to be seen." He looked along the trail.
The newcomer was another of about the same size and build as his predecessor but his clothes were not the same, a wide-brimmed tan hat shaded his face, and his body clothes were in two distinct pieces separated by a belt. To top matters, he was riding on the back of a big, brown, four-legged creature.
"A nice problem," murmured Dith. "If the biped is a slave, what is the quadruped which is carrying him?"
"Your premise is shot to a stink-star," Beneker gave back vulgarly. "The two-legger is not a slave—yet!" He noted that the subject of their interest was coming on fast. "It would be useful to discover whether the lower form can be deceived along with the higher."
"It would be equally useful to discover why they can be deceived when there is so small an overlap."
"I have solved that problem," Beneker informed. "I think that like our slaves they do not use the full capacity of their brains. They employ only a part. Hence, the wave-band on which they think is only a portion of the far wider band to which they are inherently sensitive. We're hitting them across the full width." His voice petered out as he flattened himself still more. Then he added, "That brown creature is swift. Hurry, put the stream across, and let's throw in a little depth this time."
They made the stream complete with eddies and ripples. It was wider than the oncoming horse was long and its depth was sufficient to reach above the animal's knees. Dith noticed a bug on a nearby leaf, copied it mentally and had another bug on a leaf drifting lazily in a tiny backwater. Beneker added a few Neshantan water-plants, vague and shadowy in the bottom so that they would not be noticeably different from whatever water-plants this world possessed.
At a steady jog-trot the rider came on, his attention on the
distant mountains. The hidden Neshantans feared that he was going to go right through their mirage from sheer absent-mindedness when the quadruped slowed of its own accord.
The rider glanced downward, stopped his beast, took off his Stetson and bent forward to peer over the quadruped's neck.
"I'll be damned," he said. Like the other he looked upstream, noted the provided waterfall and added, "This country is sure changing fast."
Shoving his hat back onto his head, the rancher shrugged and urged his mount forward.
The pony immediately went ahead. It had uttered no sound nor displayed any surprise.
Nevertheless, it lifted its legs higher than before and ploughed forward like an animal going through deep water.
Ghost-drops splashed upward complete with mock-glitterings in the sunlight. A little wash widened behind each leg, spreading V-shaped, making phantasmal leaves swirl and bob.
Emerging, the horse emitted a loud snort and broke into its jogtrot. The stream and the waterfall dissolved like swept mist, leaving only the dusty trail.
"By the giant sun of Nellerl" exclaimed Beneker, "It is almost too easy to be true. Think what you like and they too think it."
"Providing it is plausible," Dith qualified. "That is understood, Bugbrain."
"I know," persisted Dith, "but what I meant was that we aren't sufficiently informed about local conditions to tell what is or is not convincing. For instance, I put a little insect on a leaf in that stream. I copied one which was near my face. But supposing that in a moment of forgetfulness I had put a bright red water-skater with button eyes? If there are no such creatures on this world ..."
"The moral of that is not to be forgetful," Beneker reproved. "It would be a mistake to alarm them or arouse their suspicions just now. Let them rest in blissful ignorance until we return in strength to take them over."
He peered up the trail toward the mountains. The rider had gone from sight.
"This path is not frequently used," he commented. "We may have a long wait before we can make another test." He stood up, stretched himself to his full three feet of height, confident in remaining unseen. "You two lie low and keep watch. I'm going back to the ship to make sure the crew is being energetic about the cleaning and overhauling. Don't try any foolish tricks during my absence."
"No, Commodore," promised Dith.
Beneker gave Molop a sardonically inquiring eye and said, "May I assume that goes for you too?"
"Yes, Commodore," said Molop, happy at being in sweet accord.
"I thought it would," remarked Beneker, with unpleasant pleasantness. He slipped away.
Dith sighed and said, "Now he's gone, let's relax. Sometimes I wish I were a slave."
"Why?" inquired Molop.
"A slave has his dreams. They are created for him, custom-built to suit his heart's desires, real enough to be as satisfying as the really real. That makes him contented.
"What dreams can we have? None at all! We can seek refuge only in our own imaginations and that is like pursuing the shadow of a shadow. An illusionary cannot delude himself or be helpfully fooled by other illusionaries. That is a natural law. I wish someone would abolish it." "Why?" asked Molop.
"Because then you could build a dream or two for me." Ignoring the trail, Dith lay flat on his back, meditatively studied the leaves and branches overhead. "You could conjure for my long-starved delectation a certain female with a beautiful gray-green shell whom I once met during a spring feast on Neshanta. All I can do is lug her out of my memory and dump her into my imagination. But if I were a slave, you could make her real for me." He sighed again, long and deeply. "So wonderfully reall"
"Um-m," said Molop, wistfully.
"But a dream-maker is a dream-resister. He cannot be deceived by another's projections. Sad and unfair." Dith yawned, blinking at the sun-gaps between the leaves. "Anything coming?"
Molop had a look at the trail. "No."
"As if I cared." Dith mused awhile. "I still feel that we ought to try another sun. I have forebodings about this one." He closed his eyes and did not bother to roll off his back until he heard Beneker returning.
For sheer lack of a subject to work upon, the three Neshantans were compelled to laze through several time-units. It was high noon before another prospect appeared.
This one came the opposite way from the first two—out of the mountains and toward the village.
Again a biped, he was old, ill-dressed and on foot. Rheumy-eyed and with a ragged beard, he trudged along bearing a bundle hung on a stick.
"The two previous tests were mainly visionary," Beneker whispered. "Let's try out a predominantly tactile job this time. It will give us a worthwhile check on his nervous system."
"What do you propose?" asked Dith.
"Let's afflict him with some gnawers and nibblers. We can't go far wrong with that. If the cosmos has a universal law, it is that the unwashed become bug-ridden."
Scuffle, scuffle went the biped's worn and gaping boots as he mooched along with minimum lift of feet. "Nowl" breathed Beneker.
They projected together, all three of them, each providing his own quota of biters and his own intensity. It was irresistible.
The victim stopped dead in his tracks, waggled his eyebrows, smote himself in ten different places. It didn't do any good. He tried twenty places at twice the speed and greater force. That brought no improvement either. So he became really vigorous about the matter, getting to work on himself in the frantic fashion of one who could do with six pairs of hands, maybe a couple of wooden mallets and a fence to rub against.
Beneker generously increased the supply, sending an imaginary regiment of crawlers down the small of the biped's back. That was the last straw. With amazingly intensified animation, the subject shot off the trail, took refuge behind the opposite bushes and tore off his clothes. That gave the watchers some worthwhile information about alien anatomy.
For some weird reason nobody could understand, the afflicted one resumed his boots before carrying on with his campaign.
In this incongruous attire, he shook his underthings repeatedly, beat them on a rock, gave them close examination. All the time he was muttering deeply in his beard. A few visible crawlers were supplied to lend verisimilitude to the occasion, and these he picked off and pinched between finger and thumb.
Still muttering peevishly, he dressed himself, picked up stick and bundle, again trudged toward the village. His expression was sour rather than puzzled, suggesting that he viewed what had occurred as a familiar condition which somehow had built up to critical mass.
"Here's a chance to check on range," Beneker told the others. "See how far we can get him. Give him a slight itch when I tell you." He let the subject progress some forty steps before he said, "Go!"
They were rewarded with an irritated scratching. Another forty steps and they tried again. The victim raked himself and voiced a few words that seemed to give off sparks.
The third attempt was a flop—the subject had got beyond illu-sionary range.
"About one-twentieth of a linid," Beneker estimated. "H'm! A fair average. He looked a stupid, insensitive type. We should be able to affect a more receptive brain at twice or three times the distance."
He glanced at the sun now beginning to lower westward, then consulted his time-meter.
"We won't be ready to take off before dusk and there is little we can do if we go back to the ship. We might as well sit this out and test any other fauna that comes along. We'll call it a day when the sun does the same."
"That's all right with me," approved Dith, who liked sitting under a bush rather than cleaning a ship. "But, Commodore, I'm getting pretty hungry." Hastily he added, "And so is Molop."
"Yuck, yuck," exclaimed Beneker. "Now that you've mentioned it, I could savage a gallumpat-steak myself. Go and tell Mushab Two to leave his weapon with you while he fetches rations for all of us."
"Yes, Commodore."
Eagerly, Dith sneaked away. In short time there sounded
a loud whump and a tree fell over. Molop opened his mouth but nothing came out.
"Bang goes Dith," remarked Beneker, resigned to that sort of thing. "Those Mushabs never had enough room from the start. One egg—and it has conditioned them for life. I hope the fools have not alarmed the whole village." Parting the leaves, he looked down the trail. He let the leaves fall together and turned his attention back to Molop. "Nothing for it but to try again. Go get the rations."
His expression slightly bemused, Molop got up and made ready to depart. At that point, Dith reappeared, liberally sprinkled with dirt and dragging a weapon.
"The crack-shelled murt popped one at me but he missed by fifty linids."
"Poor shooting," said Beneker. "Has he gone for the food?" "Of course. I told him to hurry." "Good," said Beneker, "Now shut up."
The pay-off came in the early evening with the sun three-quarters of its way down the sky and another couple of time-units to go before dark. Bored by inactivity, Beneker had twice considered giving up the watch and returning to the ship. The tests already carried out were, he felt, sufficient to justify marking this world a free gift to Neshanta.
"Someone coming," informed Dith, who was watching the trail. He waited a moment, counted, "One, two, four of them."
Beneker had a look. The four were halfway from the village. Bipeds, as expected, but there was something queer about this lot.
He continued to look, sensed the queemess increasing as they got nearer. Although he was careful not to reveal it, a trace of unease came over him. There were peculiarities about these arrivals that he could not understand.
In the first place, they were dressed so similarly that it was too much for mere coincidence. Standardized attire suggested some land of uniform and that, in turn, implied officialdom. The dress had a slight resemblance to that worn by the one who'd ridden a quadruped—big hat, colored neck-scarf, two-piece body clothes separated by a belt. Also boots.