E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne (121 page)

But he did not have to stay there even all day. In less than four hours
the Llanzlan drove his probe and Seaton probed practically instantaneously back. And since Seaton’s hyped-up screens were a hundred times faster than the Llurd’s, Seaton ‘saw’ a hundred times as much as Klazmon did. He saw the city Llurdias in all its seat-of-empire pride and glory. He perceived its miles-wide girdle of fortresses. He perceived the llanzlanate; understood its functions and purposes. He entered the Hall of Computation and examined minutely the beings and the machines at work there.

How could all this be? Because the speed of thought, if not absolutely infinite, is at least transfinite; immeasurable to man. And the
Valeron’s
inorganic brain and Seaton’s organic one were, absolutely and super-intimately, the two component parts of one incredibly able, efficient and proficient whole.

Thus, when the alien’s attack was launched in all its fury and almost all of the
Valeron’s
mighty defensive engines went simultaneously into automatic action, the coded chirpings that the Brain employed to summon human help did not sound: that Brain’s builder, fellow, boss, and perfect complement was already on the job.

And thus, since no warning had been given, the other Skylarkers were surprised when Seaton called them all down into the control room.

They were even more surprised when they saw how white and strained his face was.

‘This may become
veree
unfunny,’ he said. ‘’Tsa good thing I muscled her up or we’d be losing some skin and some of our defense. As it is, we’re holding ’em and we’ve got a few megas in reserve. Not enough to be really happy about, but some. And we’re building more, of course.
However
, that ape down there has undoubtedly got a lot of stuff otherwheres on the planet that he can hook in pretty fast, so whatever we’re going to do we’d better do right now.’

‘They didn’t try to communicate at all?’ Crane asked. ‘Strange for a race of such obviously high attainments.’

‘Not a lick,’ Seaton said, flatly. ‘Just a probe; the hardest and sharpest probe I ever saw. When I blocked it –
Whammo!
’

‘You probed, too, of course,’ Dorothy said. ‘What did you find out? Are they really monstrous, as DuQuesne said, out purely to kill?’

‘Just that. He wasn’t lying a nickel’s worth on that. His Nibs down there had already decided that we were surplus population and should be eliminated, and he set right out to do it. So, unless some of you have some mighty valid reasons not to, I’m going to try my damndest to eliminate him, right now.’

‘We
could
run, I suppose,’ Margaret suggested – but not at all enthusiastically.

‘I doubt it. Not without letting him burn us down to basketball
size, like the Chlorans did. He undoubtedly let us get this close on purpose so we couldn’t.’

Since no one else said anything, Seaton energized everything of offense he had. He tuned it as precisely as he possibly could. He assembled it into the tightest, solidest, hardest beam he could possibly build, Then, involuntarily tensing his muscles and hunching his back, he drove the whole gigantic thing squarely at where he knew the llanzlanate was.

The Llurd’s outer screen scarcely flickered as it went black in nothing flat of time. The intermediate screen held for eighty-three hundredths of a second. Then the practically irresistible force of that beam met the practically immovable object that was the Klazmon’s last line of defense. And as it clawed and bit and tore and smashed in ultra-pyrotechnic ferocity, solar-like flares of raw energy erupted from the area of contact and the very ether writhed and seethed and warped under the intolerable stresses of the utterly incomprehensible forces there at grips.

This went on … and on … and on.

Even to Seaton, who knew only that he was up against an enemy nearly as potent as the Chlorans, the full import of the enormous struggle of energies then being waged was far from clear. We can wonder now, and ask ourselves what the fate of the universe might have been if the
Skylark’s
Norlaminian designers had skimped on a course of screens, or overlooked a detail of defense. Surely its consequences would have been cataclysmic! Not only to Seaton and his Skylarkers, watching grim-faced as their gauges revealed the enormous flow of destructive forces battling each other to annihilation for countless parsecs in every direction. Not only to the Jelmi, or the Rey-See-Nees, or the Norlaminians, or Earth itself … but to countless generations yet unborn, on planets not yet discovered …

But they held.

And after ten endless minutes of such terrible gouts and blasts of destruction as no planet could endure for a moment, Seaton heard a voice speak to him.

He had never heard it before, but it said in good American English: ‘Good morning, my friends. Or perhaps, by your clocks, it is good afternoon? I am the Llanzlon Mergon of Jelm, and I perceive that you are under attack by our old acquaintances, the Llurdi. You, I am sure, are the Seatons and the Cranes, about whom we heard so much on Earth, but whom we were not able to find.’

Even though the Llurdi had been absolute rulers of all the planets of the Jelmi for many thousands of years, it was easy for them to accept, and to adapt themselves to, the new condition of coexistence with the Realm of the Jelmi on terms of equality. That was the way they were built.

The Llanzlan fed the new data into Computer Prime and issued its findings as a directive. Since this directive was the product of pure logic,
that was all there was to it.

With the Jelmi, however, even with a much simpler and easier agenda, things were distinctly otherwise. Everyone knows how difficult it is to change the political thinking of even a part of any human world. How, then, of the two hundred forty whole planets of the Jelmi? The conservatives did not want any change at all. Not even to independence. The radicals wanted everything changed; but each faction wanted each item changed in a different fashion. And the moderates, as usual, did not agree with either extreme wing on anything.

And, also as usual, no one faction would play ball with any other. Each would have its own way in setting up the Realm or there would be no Realm – it would pick up its marbles and go home.

Fortunately, however, the eight hundred best brains of the entire Jelman race were together in one place – in the fully operative base that the
Mallidaxian’s
dome had now become. Their numbers included the most capable and most highly trained specialists in every field of Jelman endeavor and they all had been living together and working together for many months.

They knew better than to go off halfcocked. They would have to develop a master-plan upon which they could all agree. Unanimously. Nothing less would do. Having developed such a plan they would put it into effect, each person or planetary group upon his or her or their home world. The constitution thus fabricated would be put into effect by reason if possible, by force if necessary. It was not to be amended except by process contained within itself.

Thus the Constitutional Committee of Eight Hundred was still living in the base and was still hard at work when the Officer of the Day called Mergon – who, after glancing at plates and instruments, called Luloy.

The ether was showing strains of a magnitude not observed since the Battle of Independence. A Llurd ship was putting out everything she had; fighting full-out against a –
something
–whose battle-screen covered such an immensity of space that Mergon could scarcely believe his instruments.

Luloy quirked an eyebrow. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’

‘Nothing,’ and Mergon, who could now handle projections through the fourth dimension, launched them. ‘I’ll keep us invisible while we see what that thing is and how big it really is.’

They went and saw – and the more they studied the immensity that was the
Skylark of Valeron
the more they marveled.

Finally, in the
Valeron’s
control room and still invisible, they studied the worldlet’s personnel; the while talking to each other in the flesh at the
Mallidaxian’s
main panel.

‘Except for the green-skinned couple they
are
Tellurians,’ the girl insisted. ‘Everything about that – that ship, if you can call it a ship – is Tellurian. Just
look
at those clothes. You never saw anything like that
anywhere except on Tellus and you never will.’

‘We never heard anything about anything like that mobile fortress on Tellus, either,’ he objected, ‘and we certainly would have if they’d known anything about it. How could they hide it?’

‘Maybe it’s so new that not too many people know about it yet. Anyway, whatever the truth about that, we heard a lot about Seaton and Crane. Especially Seaton. According to the lore, he’s their principal god’s right-hand man. He can do
anything.
’

‘Or a devil’s depending on who you talked to. But we wrote that off as just that – lore. If not propaganda.’

‘We’ll have to write it back on again. Those two
have
to be Seaton and Crane – there, the Jelm-sized one with his head in the controller, and that other bean-pole type standing there smoking a … a cigarette, they call it. And that smoking business clinches it.
Nobody
but Tellurians burn their lungs out with smoke.’

‘Okay.’ Mergon thickened their projections up to full visibility and spoke:

‘You must be the Seatons and the Cranes, about whom we heard so much on Earth but whom we were not able to find.’

Crane the Imperturbable was startled out of his imperturbability when Mergon and Luloy appeared in the
Valeron’s
control room and Mergon spoke to him in English. But he did not show it – very much! – and realized in a moment what the truth was.

‘We are,’ Crane said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. These people would understand the gesture. ‘I’m M. Reynolds Crane; Dr Seaton is occupied at the moment. You are of course the people who had the spaceship on the moon. We have come all the way out here in the hope of finding you somewhere in this galaxy.’

‘Oh? Oh, you want the fourth-dimensional device.’

‘Exactly.’ Crane then introduced the others, and finally Seaton; who, having assured himself that the Brain could handle the stalemate without him, had disengaged himself from the master controller and had joined the party.

‘That’s right,’ Seaton said. ‘Since nothing like it is known to any science with which we are familiar, we hope to learn about it from you. But that … those monsters … they aren’t, by any chance, friends of yours, are they?’

Luloy laughed. ‘No. Not exactly … or maybe they are, after a fashion, now. But the Llurdi were our unquestioned masters for so many thousands of years that they haven’t yet decided to treat us or anyone who looks like us with the courtesy reserved for equals. You see, the Llanzlan would have communicated with you in thought after he had investigated you a little.’

‘Yeah.’ Seaton’s smile was grim. ‘With the stillest, hardest probe he could build? And I’m supposed to sit still for that kind of manhandling?’

‘No.’ Mergon took over. ‘No one but a Llurd could have expected
you to. This situation is somewhat unfortunate. Until very recently they have always had overwhelmingly superior power. They never had any effective opposition until we wore them down a little, just recently.’ Mergon explained the situation in as few words as possible, concluding, ‘So this battle, while not due exactly to misunderstanding, is unfortunate. What I propose is that Luloy and I visit Klazmon via projection, as we are now visiting you, and explain matters to him as we have explained them to you. I take it you will cease fire if he does?’

‘Of course. We didn’t come here to start a war, or to bother him in any way; just to see you. So I’ll do better than that; I’ll cut my offense right now.’

He thought at the Brain and the raging inferno above the llanzlanate went suddenly calm and still. ‘That beam is
no
pencil of force, believe me. If it should get through it would volatilize his palace and half the city, and that would be unfortunate – hey! He’s quit slugging, too!’

‘Of course,’ Mergon said. ‘As I told you, he is – all Llurdi are – completely and perfectly logical. With their own brand of logic, of course. Insanely logical, to our way of thinking … or perhaps
un
sanely may be the better word. On the basis of the data he then had it was logical for him to attack you. Your ceasefire was a new datum, one that he cannot as yet evaluate. He has deduced the fact that we Jelmi caused it, but he does not know why you stopped. Hence he has restored the
status quo ante
, pending our explanation. He wants additional data. If our explanation is satisfactory – data sufficient – he’ll probably just let the whole matter drop. If not – if it’s data insufficient – I wouldn’t know. He’ll do whatever he decides is the logical thing to do – which is way beyond my guess-point. He might even resume the attack exactly where he left off; although I think he’ll be able to deduce a reason not to.’

Seaton whistled through his teeth. ‘Holy … cat!’ he said. ‘If that’s pure logic I’ll take vanilla. But how will you make the approach?’

‘Very easily. If two of you will permit us to bring you over here we will send four working projections into the Llanzlan Klazmon’s study, where I’m sure he’s expecting us. You, Dr Seaton, and your Dorothy, perhaps?’

‘Not I!’ Dorothy declared, shaking her head vigorously. ‘Uh-uh. Into battle, yes; this, no. If I never see a monster like that it’ll be twenty minutes too soon. You’re it, Martin.’

‘One more thing,’ Mergon went on, as Seaton and Crane appeared in the flesh beside him. ‘Since the Llurdi refuse to learn any language except their own, I must teach you Llurdan,’ and he held out two Jelman thought-caps.

‘I prefer my own,’ Seaton said, after a very short trial. ‘So will you, I think,’ and he sent back for four of the
Skylark’s
latest models.

The two Jelmi put two of them on. ‘Oh, I do indeed!’ Luloy exclaimed, and Mergon added, ‘As was to have been expected, we have much to learn from you, friends.’