Before the Universe

I.

"I always smoke Valerons," declared Gaynor. "I have found that for the lift you need when you need it, they have no equal. Unreservedly I recommend them to all dimensional flyers and time-travelers." He gagged slightly and wiped his mouth. "Was that right?" he asked the ad man.

"Okay," said Alec Andrews of Dignam and Bailey, promoters. He disconnected the recording apparatus. "Mr. Gaynor," he declared fervently, "you will hear that every hour, on the hour, over the three major networks. And now ... ah ..." He took a checkbook from his pocket.

"Fifteen gees," said Gaynor happily, flipping a bit of paper between his fingers. "This, my pretty, will net you a fishskin evening gown."

"Yeah," said Jocelyn. "If I can keep you from buying a few more tons of junk for your ruddy lab." Gaynor looked uneasy. "Hola, Clair," he greeted the wilted creature who entered, tripping over a wire. "Hola yourself," muttered Clair disentangling.

"I got it. All of it."

Jocelyn, tall, slim, cameolike, and worried, asked him: "Measles?"

"Nope. Differentiator Compass in six phases—just finished it. Creditors on my heels—needed two ounces of radium. Save me, Pavlik! Save your bosom friend!" He turned as a thundering noise indicated either his creditors or a volcano in eruption. "Here they are!" he groaned, diving under a table. Gaynor and his wife hastily arranged themselves before it as the door burst in.

It was a running argument between a plump little brunette and a crowd of men with grim, purposeful faces. "Gentlemen," she was saying with what dignity she could, "I've already told you that my husband has left suddenly for Canada to see his father. How can you ruthlessly desecrate this home with your yammerings for money— "

"Look, lady," said a hawk-eyed man. "We sold your husband that equipment in good faith. If he don't propose to settle for it now, we're just naturally going to slap a lawsuit on his hide."

"Hold it," interjected Gaynor. "Io, what's the damage?"

The plump woman sighed. "Thirty-five thousand. I told him he didn't need all that radium, Paul. What do we do now?"

Martyr-like, Gaynor unfolded the adman's check and endorsed it to cash. Jocelyn, beside him, took a deep breath and snarled wordlessly. "Here's something on account," he said, tendering it to the hawk-eyed creditor. "Come around for the rest in a week. Okay with you?"

"Okay, mister," said the hawk, handing over a receipt. "If your friend was more like you, us entrepreneurs'd have a lot easier time of it." He bowed out with his allies. Io closed the door and locked it.

"Now, Arthur," she began dangerously, "come out with your hands up!" She stared coldly as her husband, the distrait Clair, emerged from under the table. "Dearest," he began meekly.

"Don't you `dearest' me," she spat. "If she weren't in another dimension and turned into a little leather slug, I'd go home to mother. Now explain youself!"

"Ah—yes," said Clair. "About that money. I'm sorry you had to turn over that check, Paul. But this thing I've finished—absolutely the biggest advance in spaceflight and transplanar navigation since the proto. The perfect check and counter-check on position. It's like the intention of the compass and sextant was to seamanship and earthly navigation."

"Well, what is it?" exploded Jocelyn.

"The Six-Phase Differentiator Compass, Jos. You see it here." He took from his breast pocket a little black thing like a camera or exposure meter. "Allow me to explain:

"This dingus, if I may call it such, is a permanent focus upon whatever it is permanently focused on. It acts like a Geiger counter in that when you approach the thing it was focused on, it ticks or buzzes. And the nearer you get, the louder it buzzes—or ticks. That is the tracer unit. And the other half of the gadget, the really complicated half that took all that radium, is a sort of calculating device. Like a permanent statistical table, but with a difference.

"Inside this case there is a condition of unique stress obtaining under terrific conditions of heat, radiation, bombardment, pressure, torsion, implosion, expansion, everything. And there is in there one little chunk of metal—a cc of lead it happens to be—that is taking all the punishment.

"Geared on to this cc of lead are a number of fairly delicate meters and reaction fingers—one for each dimension in which we navigate, making seven in all. From these meters you get a coordinate reading which will establish your position anywhere in the universe and likewise, if you set the dials for desired coordinates, it works in reverse and you have the processive matricies required. How do you like that?"

"Do you really want to know?" demanded Gaynor.

Clair nodded, eagerly.

"I think it's the craziest mess of balderdash that's ever been dreamed up. I don't see how it can work or why you've been wasting your time and my money on it. Straight?"

Clair wilted. "Okay, Paul," he said. "You'll see." He drifted from the room, moping.

"Now where do you suppose he's going?" asked his wife.

"To get plastered, dear," replied Jocelyn.

"This," said Gaynor, "is a helluva way to make a living." He gestured with distaste at the stage waiting for him, and winced as the thunderous applause beat at his ears.

"Bend over," said Jocelyn.

"What for?" he demanded, bending, then yelped as his wife gave him a hearty kick in the pants. "Now why— " he began injuredly .

"Old stage tradition. Good luck. Now go out and give your little lecture. And make it good, because if you don't, there won't be any more little lectures and the creditors will descend on poor Ionic Intersection like a pack of wolves for what that louse of a husband she has owes them."

"I wish you wouldn't talk that way about Clair," complained Gaynor. "What if he has deserted the girl? Maybe she snores." He strode out onto the platform briskly and held up his hands to quiet the applause. "Thank you," he said into the mike. There was no amplification. He gestured wildly to the soundman who was offstage at his panels. "Hook me up, you nincompoop!"

The last word bellowed out over the loudspeakers. Gaynor winced. "Excuse me, friends," he said, "that was wholly unpremeditated. Anyway, you're here to see the lantern-slides and hear my commentary. Well—let's have Number One, Mr. Projectionist."

A lantern slide flashed onto the screen as the hall darkened. "There you see me and my partner, Art Clair, directly after we received the Nobel Prize. Suffice to say that it took us a week to learn that you can't drink Akvavit, the national potion of Norway, like water, or even gasoline. The best way to handle the stuff is to place a bowl of it at a distance of fifteen feet and lie down in a padded room where you aren't likely to hurt yourself when you advance into the spastic stage of an Akvavit jag. Note the bruises on Mr. Clair's jaw. He thought he was saying 'Thank you' in Norwegian. He wasn't. Next!

"This fetching creature on the screen is Miss Jocelyn Earle, at the time of the picture, a reporter for the Helio. She was given the assignment, one sunshiny day, of investigating the work in progress of those two lovable madcaps, Gaynor and Clair. Fool that she was, she accepted it. She found that the work in progress consisted of a little thing known as the Prototype, whose modest aim was to transmit Art and me to the beginning of the universe. This it did, but with a difference. Jocelyn came too.

"Now you see the Prototype, all forty feet of it. I won't go into the details of construction and theory; suffice to say that it worked, and you see—get it up, Mr. Projectionist!—a porthole view of things as they were about eleven skillion years ago, before the planets, before the stars, before, even, the nebulae. By this time, Art and I were desperately in love with Miss Earle. Despite her obvious physical charms, we discovered on that journey that she was a woman of much brain-capacity, besides cooking up the best dish of beans that side of eternity. Next!

"Observe the pixies. I don't expect you to believe me, but after the Prototype got out into the primordial state before the nebulae, we were chased by, in rapid succession, flying dragons, pixies, and a planet with a mouth. Eggs for the Alimentary Asteroid, as it were.

"Following this unhappy circumstance, we went through some very trying times. The ship drifted for weeks, nearly out of fuel, and almost wholly out of control. Things were in a very sad way until—next!—a greenish sort of glow filled the ship and we found ourselves on the planet of the Gaylens, not much the worse for wear.

"These Gaylens were a charming but absentminded people of a peculiarly lopsided kind of scientific development. They were just about precisely like us, human physically and very nearly so psychologically.

"Comes nova. Mr. Projectionist, will you change that damn slide?" A view of a tropical island flashed onto the screen. "Cut out the horseplay!" Gaynor bawled. The tropical island vanished and a terrific view of a nova sun appeared. "That's better, thanks.

"These Gaylens changed themselves into little leather slugs to live during the nova. This, Art, Jocelyn, and I couldn't stand. So they kindly whipped up for us a spaceship—we couldn't use the Prototype because Jocelyn and a Gaylen girl named Ionic Intersection—the Gaylens name themselves according to their work; this gal had developed something terrific in the way of Ionic Intersections and thus the odd-sounding name for her—had gone off with it by accident—and sent us off to another of their planets. Next!"

A view of sunset over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, appeared. Gaynor muttered a curse. "Bud, if you want me to climb your crow's-nest and break your neck, I'll do it. Let's have that Protean before I hurt you!" The sunset yielded to an immense whale-like creature glancing coyly out of the corner of its seven eyes. "Okay, Mr. Projectionist, I'll see you later.

"That big thing is a Protean, the highest form of life in that or any other universe, I suspect. They live a completely mental existence, and their only wish is not to be bothered by Outsiders. And as such we qualified, for theirs was the planet on which we landed. Anyway they did us a favor—or rather, this particular Protean did—by finding Jocelyn, Ionic Intersection, and the Prototype for us, dragging them back from some Godforsaken corner of creation.

Then he sped us on our merry way with the blessings of his tribe on our heads and the heartfelt wish that we'd come back no more.

"Once out in space and time in the Prototype, we had yet to find our way home. And that, to make a long story short, was by intellectual means. By a kind of mental discipline we were able to preselect our landing place and time. Anyway, my friend Clair had somewhere forgotten that he was madly in love with Miss Earle and had gone overboard for Miss Intersection, a pretty brunette, it turns out. Next!

"Here you see a wedding group. Being captain of the ship, I was empowered to perform marriages, of course. So it was a double wedding. Miss Earle is now Mrs. Gaynor, and Miss Intersection is now Mrs. Clair, much to her regret. Next!

"A scenic shot of our welcoming committee, including the mayor and other notables. Art is holding the key to the city. We tried to hock it, later. No go."

The screen went blank and the house lights on. "To complete the story," said Gaynor gently, "I need only add that two weeks ago Art Clair vanished with the look of liquor in his eyes and has not been seen since. Thank you one and all." He bowed himself from the stage to thunderous applause.

"Nice work," said Jocelyn. "A few more like that and maybe we'll be able to pay off." Ionic Intersection bustled up. "Jos," she said worriedly, extending a note, "what does this say? I think it's from Art. He's been home then gone to the lab. He left the note home, but when I got to the lab he was gone. Everything was messed up."

Gaynor took the note. "Lemme see." He whistled as he read. "Io, your husband's done a very rash thing. Listen:

Dear kids:

In spite of your unflattering opinions I still have reason to suspect that I know more than a little science in my field. In proof whereof I submit that you will find the Six-Phase Integrated Analyser—I like that better than Differential Compass—in my desk drawer. To make a long story short, I've hopped off in Proto, Jr., the little experimental one-man ship.

And I'm going to get myself thoroughly lost in time, space, and dimensions—as much so as is humanly possible. I don't want to be able to get back of my own free will. This, chums, is so you will just have to find me—and to find me you'll have to use the much-derided Analyser. Okay?

Love.

Art.

Gaynor stared about him. "That dope," he said to the world at large. "How do you like that?"

Ionic Intersection was weeping softly. "What are we going to do?" she asked.

"Just wait around, dear," said Jocelyn. "He'll probably come back with a wild tale or two. Right, Paul?"

"Wrong," said her husband incisively. "He meant what he said. We'd better outfit the Prototype for an extended journey. The Proto Jr. doesn't hold enough air, water, and food for more than a few days. And I hope he won't be late. This is what comes of forming an alliance with a ringtailed baboon."

"Don't you say that about my husband!" objected Io. "He just wants to show that his tracer works."

"Yeah. And if it doesn't, I'll be minus a partner and you'll be minus a husband. Come on; we're off!"

II.

The Prototype loomed on the colossal floor of the lab like a big silver fish, slick with oil. Gaynor shuddered. "That baboon— " he muttered incontinently.

"Okay, kids, we're ready for the happy journey. Pile in." He inspected the tracing compass and held it to his ear. "Just barely sounding," he mused worriedly. "It's below the estimated level of perception. I suspect that our mutual friend has kept his promise and is very lost indeed."

He climbed into the ship and sealed the rubber-lipped bulkhead. "Anteros, here we come," he sighed, flinging down the lever of the protolens. There was a soft, slipping moment of transition that they could all recognize so well, and then through the port blinked countless stars in strange configurations. "Now," said Gaynor, "where do you suppose we are?"

"Looks normal," said Jocelyn. "But the constellations are all out of whack, of course. What do we do now?"

Her husband put the tracer to his ear. "The very faintest kind of buzzing. This isn't the time, space, or plane of perception we want. But we'd better look around, anyway." He shot the Prototype at a sun. "We'll level out the curve of trajectory about a million miles from the troposphere," he explained, twiddling with the controls, "and ride on energy. Like a switchback. Only—" the twiddling had become desperate—"we don't seem to be able to level out. In fact, we're about to plunge into that sun!"

"Awk!" gulped Jocelyn. "What'll it be like?"

"Instant annihilation after a brief moment of intense discomfort," replied her husband, abandoning the controls and leaning back in the bucket seat. "Kiss me, sweet."

Jocelyn kissed him clingingly as they drove into the terrible, blazing surface of the sun. Then she looked at him coldly. "Well, when do we die?"

He looked baffled. "A few seconds ago. A glance will show you that we are in the center of a very big star and are even now emerging without any damage to the ship or to us. I submit that the star is cold. And why that should be, I'm damned if I know."

"Yew brat!" snapped a sharp, bitter voice. "Will yew git ter tarnation gone out of my universe or dew I have ter kick ye out?"

"Who's that?" asked Jocelyn.

"Davy Canter, thet's who!" snapped back the irritable voice. "This is my universe and I ain't hankerin' after intruders. Ef'n yew-all want ter see me face ter face, I'm on the seventh planet of thet sun yew jest ran through. And ef'n yer comin', come and ef'n yer gittin', git!"

"Sounds like an invitation," said Gaynor mildly. "Shall we call?" He selected the seventh planet and roared over its surface. The one huge continent that made it up was covered with ruins—and the most godawful ruins that anyone had ever seen anywhere. Periods and styles of architecture were jumbled close together; a Norman tower mouldering chock-by-jowl with a dilapidated super-city of shining concrete and glass met their eyes. Fascinated, they stared, as much at the scene as at the figure of the black-bearded hillbilly, complete with shotgun, standing atop a tower.

"Yew head north," came the voice. "Jest land in a clear bit o' land and I'll be there."

"Okay," said Gaynor helplessly. He landed the ship and opened the port. The wild-eyed backwoodsman confronted him, shotgun raised. "I'm Davy Canter," said the woodsman through his disheveled whiskers. "An' I dont see why folks cain't leave folks alone when they wants ter be alone. Whut do ye want in my universe?"

"Sorry, Mr. Canter," said Gaynor diplomatically. "I'm Paul Gaynor."

The backwoodsman stared at him in glee and cackled cheerfully. "Yew must be the fella that Billikin was always a-cussin' up n' daown," he said. "I'm right pleased ter meet up with yew." He extended his hand and solemnly they shook. Gaynor introduced the ladies and invited Canter in for a smoke and chat.

"Thank ye kindly," said the backwoodsman, who seemed to be warming up to them. "I reckon ye're wondering how come I got myself a universe all my own, hey?"

"Indeed we are," said Jocelyn. "It looks like a good trick."

"I'll begin at the beginnin'," said Canter comfortably. "I was known as the hermit of Razorback Crag back in West Virginia when this here Billikin, who said as haow he wuz a scientist feller, come to my place. He said he'd be gone in a little while ef'n I let him have the run o' the cabin n' creek, and fust of all, he works up a batch o' corn likker thet gits me jest warm with admiration—so I let him stay. All the time he was a-cussin Gaynor and Clair fer fakers and cheats, talkin' like a tetched man.

"He sets him up a lot of machinery on top of the Crag with storage batteries and things and finally says to me: 'Davy,' he says, 'I'm agoin' to fix them two fakers, Gaynor n' Clair. I'm agoin' to build a universe all my own. An' so help me ef'n they ever come traipsin' into it, I'm jes' nacherally agoin' ter shoot them dead fer trespassin'.' Then he pulls a switch an falls doawn daid. I guess it wuz heart failure or somethin'; he wuz as old as the hills. I looks him over 'n' takes a little swig o' thet corn—'n' then I reckon as haow I must have fell agin' another switch because I foun' myself afloatin' in space. So I sez to myself, I wish as haow I wuz on solid graound, and by ganny, I am! Then I sez to myself, I wish they wuz a sun up thar in the sky, and by ganny there is!

"So I bin here two or three years, I reckon, and, fuddlin' araound, buildin' cities and reducin' them agin, puttin' stars in the sky an' takin' them out when I get tired o' them. It's a sort o' lonely life, Mister Gaynor, an' ladies, but I wuz a hermit before Billikin came an' I guess he just sort of expanded my career, you might say."

"Extraordinary!" breathed Jocelyn.

"Thank yew, ma'am," said the hermit, staring at her with unconcealed curiosity. "An' naow, seein' ez haow I've told yew-all my story, mebbe yew can be atellin' me yours?"

"Nothing very much to it, Mr. Canter," said Gaynor. "This other egg, Clair, that Billikin was cursing up and down along with me, got himself lost in a universe of his own, I suspect. Only where it is, we don't know, and he hasn't got air and water enough to last him more than a couple of days. And, unfortunately, his universe probably isn't as convenient as yours, what with providing him with whatever he wishes for."

"Sho is a pity," mused Davy, shaking his head wisely. "Mebbe yew'd better push off, seem' as haow yer friend's stuck. But befo' yo-all git, ah'd mightly like fo' yew ter sample maw corn. Would yew be interested? Ah bin wishin' thet kind thet Billikin cooked up for me fust of all—sho' is fine likker, mister."

"Indeed, I would like some," said Gaynor, interrupting Jocelyn. They exchanged murderous glances. Davy cackled and produced a jug and glasses from his vest pocket. "Try this," he offered, pouring three and one with the authentic backwoods overhand spill.

"Thanks," said Gaynor gulping. "Awk!" he shrilled a second later. "Water!"

Davy was undisturbed. He waved his hand in a vague sweep and there was a firehose in it, whose tube snaked far back into the tumbled horizon. He played the terrific blast upon Gaynor, drenching him thoroughly. "Thet enough?" he asked, vanishing the hose.

Gaynor looked at him without words, wringing out his tie.

"Thanks," said Jocelyn, grinning. She set down her glass untasted, and promptly it vanished. "But now we really must be going."

"Well—seem' ez ye must, ye must," said the hermit. "But it wuz sort of nice fer ye ter drop in on a lonely old man."

"Davy!" shrilled a voice. The voyagers looked through the door. A sweet, round young thing in brightly checked gingham was coming through the forest. "There yew air!" she snapped angrily, shaking her impossibly blond hair. "Consortin' with disreputable people, yew varmint!"

"Aw, Daisy Belle," said Davy wearily. He passed his hand at her and she disappeared. "Funny thing," he said, looking redly sidewise at the voyagers. "Thet there phantasm jest won't stay a-vanished."

"Lonely old man," sneered Jocelyn. "Hah!" She flung the ship into high, slamming the door after the hermit of Razorback Crag.

III.

"Your clothes dried yet, honey?" called Ionic Intersection.

"Lay off the honey," warned Jocelyn, her eyes on the port. "You got yourself a man, even if you did lose him. How about it, Paul?"

"All dry," announced Gaynor, emerging in a suit that needed pressing. "Where are we?"

"By Clair's scale, about halfway from Earth to infinity. And the tracer's making noises like a dowager who's been eating radishes. Listen to the unmannerly creation."

Gaynor put his ear to the sounding-plate of the little plastic box. "Right," he stated grimly, "we're in the neighborhood."

"How about landing?" asked Jocelyn.

Gaynor flipped a coin. "We land. This two-header never fails me; pulls us out of Nowhere into the Wherever."

His wife juggled briefly with the controls. Stars flashed again from the port. The counter's ticking swelled to a roar that filled the cabin. "Emphatic device!" yelled Gaynor through the din. He turned a screw on the case and shut off the counter action. "This is it, I expect."

"It?" Jocelyn dazedly inspected the planet they were nearing. "Give me a look at that thing."

"What's the matter with it? Or maybe you mean that city?"

"Exactly," she assured him, raising her hand to blot out the sight. "It's—awfully—big, wouldn't you say?"

"Few thousand feet high," commented Gaynor airily.. "What's the odds?" He took over the controls and landed the ship.

"Ahg!" muttered Jocelyn to lo. "That extrovert—landing us in the principal square with cars zipping past. Not that I'd mind if the cars were a little smaller than zeppelins. But does he care for my peace of mind? Not that worm. Did I tell you what he did one night last week? There I was ..."

"Look!" yelled Gaynor hastily, turning a little red. "See those ginks? Fifty feet high if they're an inch. What do you suppose they want?"

"I wouldn't even care to guess. Try the counter."

Gaynor turned on the little thing. For the briefest moment it thundered, then went dead. "Blown out," muttered Gaynor. "Either that, or— " He tinkered with it. "Nope," he announced finally, a bead of sweat coming out on his brow. "It's in commission."

"Then why," asked Ionic Intersection plaintively, "doesn't it sound?"

"I know, teacher," said Jocelyn. "It's fulfilled its whole function. It has counted faithfully and well as long as the object on which it was focused—that is to say, your husband's ship, more particularly, the protolens of that ship, obtained. It is now no longer functioning for the direct reason that the lens is no longer in existence. It was completely destroyed a few seconds ago—when the counter stopped sounding."

"But the ship won't run without the lens! And the lens is mounted in solid quartz. How could they destroy the lens without destroying the ship?"

"They couldn't," stated Gaynor succinctly. "Keep calm, kid. If I know your husband, he's not in that ship. With his ship-rat instinct, he deserted it long ago. The pertinacious Pavlik won't fail you just yet. Meanwhile, dry your eyes—we have company. Give a look—out there." Gaynor stared through the port, glassy-eyed. "Giants," he continued strainedly. "Lots of them. Let's get out of here!" He kicked over the booster-pedal and very nearly started the drive-engines—but not before one of the giants had laid a two-ton finger on the ship and grasped it firmly between thumb and forefinger.

"No use busting gears against that thing." Gaynor cut off the motor and relaxed. "Any suggestions, babes?"

"Not one" said Jocelyn. "They seem to be talking—at least, the sky is clear; can't be thunder."

"Whu—what's that?" quavered Io, pointing. The port was completely filled by a colossal jellylike mass that heaved convulsively. The blackish center seemed to be a hole of some kind through which they could look and see a dim cavern shot through with a strata of metallic matter, and honeycombed in its far rear with a curiously regular pattern of hexacombs. "Is it alive?"

"That," said Gaynor gently, "is an eye. And not at all an unusual one—just a big one. It's what yours would look like under a microscope. For God's sake, keep calm."

The eye withdrew and the Prototype clanged hideously with the din of a thousand bells as some colossal sledge crashed against their shell. "That," said Jocelyn as she picked herself from the floor, "could be the inevitable attempt to establish communication with the little creatures so unexpectedly arriving. She lifted a wrench. "They answer, thus." She rained blows on the shell of the ship until their ears rang.

"That's enough," said her husband removing the wrench from her hands. "Now that you've succeeded in denting the hull all out of its streamlines. But maybe it did some good." They could hear the conversation thundering resumed; colossal feet stamped about the ship as it seemed to be surveyed from all angles.

"Awk!" shrilled Io as the Prototype lurched violently. Like peas in a bladder, they were shaken into the stern.

"Io," said Jocelyn sharply. "Would you mind—" she gestured the rest.

"Sorry," replied the brunette, arranging her clothes. "Anyway, your poor dear husband seems to be out." Jocelyn gave her a hard look. "I can take care of him," she retorted, climbing the steeply sloping floor, toward the water tank.

"Jocelyn," complained Gaynor reproachfully, "that wasn't fair—hitting me when I wasn't looking."

"I didn't," said his wife, busily changing the cold compress. "Your fifty-foot friends seem to be taking us for a ride in one of their Fallen Arch Sixes. You've just come to after an interval of about three hours. They keep looking in, and I think they're making dirty jokes." A titanic bellow of laughter rang through the ship. "See what I mean?"

"I don't see the joke," said Gaynor absently, holding his head. "What's Io doing?"

"Admiring the giants. She thinks the one in the middle has the cutest beard." Just then the vague drone of a colossal motor somewhere near them stopped.

"Journey's end, I take it? Or perhaps just a traffic light?"

"First stop thus far," said Jocelyn. The ship lurched again. "Up we go!" she cried gaily. "Better than a roller-coaster."

There was a brief, bumpy transition with admonishing grunts from the giants. "Easy there," warned Jocelyn. "Don't drop it more than two hundred feet—these animals might be delicate. Blunderbore, you dope—keep your end up—what're you doing, hanging on? There we are!" The ship settled and the seasick Gaynor groaned with relief. "Now what?" he asked tremulously.

"Now we get picked out and put on fish hooks, I guess. Think you'll wiggle?"

"Horrid woman!" he snapped, holding his head. And then something suspiciously like a can-opener poked through the shell of the Prototype with a screech of tearing metal. Jerkily it worked its way along the top of the ship, then twisted sidewise and opened a great gap in the frames. "Now we strangle?" worried Jocelyn. The air rushed out for just a moment, then the pressure seemed to equalize.

"Pfui!" sniffed Ionic Intersection. "Sulfur somewhere. But breathable, this air. How do you feel, honey?" She caught a glance from Jocelyn. "Paul, I mean," she amended.

"Okay, I guess—hey!" squawked Gaynor as a pair of forceps reached down into the ship and picked him up by his coat collar, through the colossal rent in the Prototype's hide.

"Write me a post card when you get there, dearest," called Jocelyn. "Oh well," she asided to Io, "easy come; easy go. But still I'd have—hey!" she squawked as the forceps made a return trip.

IV.

"No privacy," complained Gaynor bitterly. "No privacy at all—that's the part I don't like about it. And that damned blue ray they use—insult on injury; Pelion on Ossa! The great lubberly swine implied that they needed a short-wavelength to see us at all. Oh the curs, the skulldruggerers!"

"Shut up," advised Jocelyn. "We seem to be here for some little time under inspection. What comes next I can't possibly imagine. The thing I don't like is that while you can talk yourself out of any given scrape, this presents peculiar difficulties, such as that they can't hear you for small green caterpillars, and even if they could, they couldn't because your voice is too high-pitched. You!" She turned accusingly on Ionic Intersection.

"Your husband has to go running out on us and get himself involved with these stinkers— "

"Now, Jos," said Gaynor placatingly, "the poor child— "

"Child, huh? I've a notion that you weren't as unconscious as you pretended when she landed in your lap. And if she's a child, I'm the gibbering foetus of a monkey's uncle!"

"Look!" said Gaynor hastily. "There comes another one." A colossal eye stared blankly at them, its jelly-like corona quivering horribly, the iris contracting like a paramecium's vacuole under a microscope.

"Nyaa!" taunted Jocelyn, thumbing her nose at the monstrous thing. "Bet you wish you were my size for an hour or two—I'd teach you manners, you colossal slob! Come on in here and fight like a man!" There was an elephantine grunt from the creature's mouth somewhere.

"No," said Jocelyn scornfully. "Not like him—" jerking a thumb at her husband—"I said a man." "Now, Jos, really," began Gaynor.

Ionic Intersection looked up from her corner. "I'm hungry," she wailed.

"Hungry, hah?" asked Mrs. Gaynor. "Room Service!" she bawled. The eye reappeared. "Ah, they're learning. Now for the customary pantomime of starvation." She patted her stomach, pointed to her mouth, slumped to the floor, gestured as if milking a cow and chewed vigorously on nothing. "Think Joe up there will get it?"

"I hope so," worried Gaynor. "I could go for an outside amoeba myself. Which reminds me—do you think these ginks' cellular structure is scaled up like their bodies, or do you suppose their cells are normal size like ours—but much more plentiful?"

"Bah!" spat his wife. "Scientist! Why didn't I marry an international spy? I knew the nicest little anarchist once—full of consonants. I called him Grischa and he called me Alice. Always meant to ask him why, but they shot him before I had the chance. I wish they'd shot you instead. And your half-baked partner! And his blubbering wife!"

A tiny—about twenty feet—section of the netting avove their heads lifted off and an assortment of stuff fell at their fee. "Reaction?" suggested Gaynor.

"Food!" said his wife hungrily. She looked closer. "But what food! Note this object d'excrete—I'll swear its the leg of a ten-foot cockroach." As she spoke, the thing flopped convulsively. "Pavlik," she said coaxingly, averting her eyes, "put the thing away somewhere where I won't be able to see it, huh?"

Gaynor lugged the sticky horror to the netting that enfenced them and poked it through one of the holes. "All gone," he announced. "And the rest of the stuff looks almost appetizing. That is, if you've eaten as many things as I have in my academic career. Snails at the Sorbonne, blutwurst at Heidelberg, Evzones—I think it was Evzones—at the University of Athens— "

"Well, let's try it. What first? The—er—pickled—er things or the fried—they look fried—stuff?"

"Let's try it out first," suggested Gaynor, covertly indicating Ionic Intersection, whose eyes were buried in her handkerchief.

"Of course," murmured Jocelyn, sweetly. With a shudder she picked up something green and lumpy and brought it to the brunette. "Now, dear," she urged, "do try some of this delicious ragout de pferdfleisch avec oeufs des formis."

"Is it nice?" asked Io trustingly.

"Of course," said Jocelyn, watching like an eagle as Io bit into the thing. "How do you feel? I mean, how do you like it, sweet?"

"Delicious," said Io, tightening her clutch on the thing.

"That's all I wanted to know," snapped Jocelyn. "Give it back!" She wrenched it from the brunette, who broke out into a new freshet of tears, and sunk her teeth into the most promising of the green lumps.

"Tsk, tsk, such manners," chided Gaynor, "when there's ample for all. Here, Io," he said gently, bringing the little brunette an assortment of the green stuff.

"Quite full, you goat?" asked Jocelyn of her husband.

"Nearly." He reached for a brownish object; his arm fell halfway. "Can't make it," he observed. "Must be full. What happens now, wife of my heart?"

"Can't imagine," she assured him, studying her lips in the mirror of a compact.

"To hazard a guess," he said, looking up, "that forceps is intimately connected with our immediate futures. Here we go," he called down gaily as it lifted him high into the air.

A moment later, Jocelyn and Io joined him, via forceps. "Where are we?" wailed the brunette, looking around wildly.

"Keep off those coils," warned Gaynor. "Better just stand still. It looks like a twenty foot bowl lined with all kinds of electric junk in it."

He turned on the woman suddenly. "What's that you called me?" he mouthed furiously, working his hands.

"I didn't say anything," protested his wife.

"I didn't either," chimed in Io. "Has he gone crazy?" she asked Jocelyn.

"Hah!" she laughed loudly and vulgarly. "I won't even take that lead." She turned and surveyed her brooding husband. "What!" she squawked suddenly, turning on Io. "If you want my opinion that goes for you, too—double!" The brunette looked bewildered.

"Hold it, girls," said Gaynor. "Io didn't say a thing—I was watching her by—er—coincidence."

"Yeah," said Jocelyn. "You look out for those coincidences. Reno's still doing a roaring trade, I hear. But if Io didn't say it, who did?"

Gaynor pointed upward solemnly.

"Oh Paul, don't be a bore!" his wife exploded. "I didn't know I was married to a religious fanatic!"

"No," said Gaynor hastily, "don't get me wrong. I mean Joe or his friends. This thing, now that I consider it, looks like the well known thought transference-helmet we meet so often. Not being able to make one small enough for us, they put us into one of theirs. Now try opening your minds so maybe something more than subconscious insults from our captors may get through. Ready? Concentrate!"

They wrinkled their brows for a moment; Io giggled and cast a sidewise glance at Gaynor, who uneasily eyed Jocelyn, who gave Io a murderous look. "Heaven help you if I intercept another one like that, husband mine," Mrs. Gaynor warned.

"Must have been wholly subconscious," he replied. "Even I don't know what it was."

"I'd rather not tell you," said Jocelyn, "but your subconscious has a mighty lively imagination."

"Hush," said Gaynor abruptly. "Here it comes!" He squatted on the base of the helmet and shut his eyes tightly, his jaws clenched in an attempt to get over and receive.

"Paul!" said Jocelyn, alarmed.

"Quiet!" he snapped; "this isn't easy."

Thus, to outward appearances, practically in a trance, he remained.

"It must be wonderful to think like that," breathed Io.

"Yeah," agreed Jocelyn. "But all he's doing is getting us out of a jam, your husband's a real thinker—by just hopping off with suicide in his mind, he can get us into the jam. You ought," she continued witheringly, "to be mighty proud of your Art Clair. I just hope he turns up scattered from here to Procyon!"

The brunette did not, as Jocelyn expected, burst into tears again. There was a sort of quiet contempt in her voice when she spoke. "If you had any honesty or decency in your makeup you would remember that Arthur took this trip to force your husband out of his blind stupidity. Arthur's invention was a perfect success—it's you and your husband's fault we're stuck now, not his."

Jocelyn stared at her for a moment. "Blah!" she said. Then, with concern in her eyes, she watched the motionless form of Gaynor.

"God, that was awful!" groaned Gaynor. He relaxed and stretched his limbs. "I wish Art had been here—he was the psychologist of the team, ideally suited for a heavy load like I've been taking on for the last hour or so."

"What happened, Paul?" asked Jocelyn. "You didn't move—I was worried."

"Well," said Gaynor slowly, "it wasn't as awful as it probably looked to Outsiders. The hardest part was getting their thought patterns down clear. You know how hard it is to understand someone from a radically different speech area, even though he speaks what is technically the same language?"

"Yes," his wife nodded.

"Did it seem to come clear in your head suddenly?" asked Ionic Intersection.

"Right—that's how it was with our friends." "Oh," said Jocelyn sarcastically, "so they're our friends, now, huh?"

"Yep. I talked them out of some silly notion they had of popping us into iodoform bottles. They're really not bad guys at all. As they explained it, they're rather hard pressed. It's the usual set-up, that you come on in history after history."

"Crisis?" asked Jocelyn, her eyes brightening. "Wow!"

"Exactly. Democracy against—the other thing. And exceptionally fierce in this case because our friends, the democrats, are far less in number than their enemies. Culturally and technologically they're well balanced. Just a matter of population that keeps them from winning. Our friends thought we were spies from the other side—who happen to be giants, too. They took the poor little Prototype for a deadly bomb—how do you like that?"

"I like it fine," said Jocelyn.

"Did you find out anything about Arthur?" asked Io quietly.

Gaynor hesitated. "I don't want to raise any false hopes," he said slowly, "but they have rumors—only the vaguest kind of rumors—of someone showing up in the enemy ship. From all accounts of the enemy camp, that someone's chances of long survival are none to good. That's all they could tell me."

"Too bad," mused Jocelyn. "Too, too bad. Paul, can you get in touch with them again—can you stand it?"

"No mistaken consideration, jos," he replied. "What do you want me to ask the blighters?"

"I'd like to find out if there's any chance of our getting to see what might be the mutilated corpse of the late and lamented Mr. Clair."

"Let's join forces with them" spoke up Io. "Being small as we are, we can easily look for Arthur and assist them at the same time."

"I say yes—loudly and emphatically," agreed Gaynor. "Now if I can get a little silence around here, I'll go into my trance." He squatted on the floor and shut his eyes, droning: "Calling Joe ... calling Joe ... Gaynor calling Joe ... Come in, Joe ... what kept you?"

V.

Back in the relatively comfortable living quarters of the Prototype, which had been repaired during their absence, the voyagers were trying on their new thought-helmets. "As I understand it," said Gaynor, "one big difference between the good guys and the versa is this helmet business. I doubt very much whether the good guys realize just how much difference that makes. Thus:

"The common, everyday helmets, used by both good guys and bad are two-way, like a telephone circuit. Incoming and outgoing, both. Whereas these things we have, and which Joe and his friend have—albeit on a somewhat larger scale are monodirectional. While wearing these helmets we can receive, but we can't send unless we want to very much. Get it?"

"Then," said Io thoughtfully, "they must have a two-way thought shield, not letting anything either in or out."

"Precisely. Both sides have that of course. And precious little good it is to anybody, either. How's yours, Jos?"

Jocelyn fitted the snug, gleaming little cap on her head with an uneasy smile. "Wow!" she exclaimed, reddening. "It seems to drag things up out of the subconscious—my own subconscious."

"Ah," said Gaynor. "Yes, that's because the things are so small. The theory that Joe's boys have is that the conscious thoughts are sort of long-wave—though millimicrons smaller than anything measurable—and that subconscious thoughts are super short-wavelength. I asked them about the center band, but they didn't have any opinions. Psychoanalysts and installation-engineers dance cheek to cheek, as it were, in this world. You can keep your ucs in line by voluntary means. That'll come to you after a while. Now how is it?"

"Okay. What now?"

"I'll send a test signal—without speaking, of course. You're supposed to catch it and tell me what it is. Ready?" Gaynor, at his wife's nod, frowned and shut his eyes. "That was it," he said at length. "What did you get, if anything?"

"Nothing at all."

"Did you catch anything, Io?" he asked worriedly.

The brunette nodded, and recited:

There was a young fellow named Hannes

Who had the most horrible manners;

He would laugh and he'd laugh

Making gaffe after gaffe,

Spreading tuna-fish on his bananas.

"Exactly," said Gaynor. "But we'll have to try again. I'll send another one, Jos. See if you can get it this time."

She closed her eyes in concentration, then an instant later, recited:

Willis, with a fiendish leer,

Poured hot lead in pappa's ear;

Sister raised a terrible fuss:

"Now you've made him miss his bus!"

"Right," said Gaynor with a sigh of relief. "Io, you seem to be doing all right, but let's see, Jos, if you can send one to me."

His wife leered and shut her eyes. A pause followed. "Well," she said relaxing, "what was it?"

Without comment, he recited:

In the cabin of Gottesman's Proto

Sherlock Holmes met the suave Mr. Moto;

You could tell by their air

They were looking for Clair,

Who had vanished, not leaving a photo.

"You got it," she approved.

"Yeah, but who's this guy Gottesman? Never heard of him."

"Just a guy I know," she replied with an absent smile. "You wouldn't be interested, Paul."

"No doubt. But you'd better not emit any more loose talk about Reno when I happen to glance in Io's direction, my sweet.

"Be that as it may—we have a job to do, sort of. As I told you, the bad guys are under the thumb of some sort of War Council which was established as a special emergency three centuries ago, and hasn't been disbanded since. Because, the theory goes, the emergency still exists. Our job is to spy on these people—hence the helmets. Now, if you'll honor me—?" He crooked a courtly elbow at her; she accepted with a gracious smile, and they stepped from the ship, followed by Ionic Intersection, who had a secretive sort of smile on her face.

"Okay, Joe," Gaynor announced to the colossus towering above them. "We're off!" A tremendous hand gently closed about them, lifting the three of them high into the air. "Paul," said Io tremulously looking down, "you never said a truer word."

The trip had been a dizzy panorama of a colossal countryside glimpsed from the windows of a car of some kind, and views from the pocket of Joe as he wormed through the ever-so-carefully prepared breech-hole in the walls of the bad guys' city. And he had kept up a running commentary of information for their benefit:

"This car operates by a new kind of internal combustion. We reburn water. Something that can't be done on your world, I believe.... That ruin was once a sky-scraping building. This whole area was once one of our cities. We had to retreat in one grand movement on all fronts—they'd developed something new in electrostatic weapons, and manufacture of shields would have taken too long, longer than we had of time, at any rate....

"The crisis, I suppose, is nothing new to travelers such as you. Once—before the war—we had the energy and initiative to spare so that we sent out a few ships such as yours—not protomagnetic, much cruder. Percentage of failure was rather high. And reports of .the returned voyagers were not very en couraging. You see, control was mostly psychological, so the ships were drawn to planets and dimensions whose make-up was most like our own. Highly antithetic, invariably. We should have taken warning—it was too late. Everything seemed to slap down on us all at once. The culminative nastiness of all time seemed to pour out on our heads. Our nation—country—whatever you call it—isn't a natural one. No common language, no common cultural stream, as the dear archaeologists like to say. We're exiles, most of us. And though we can't get together long enough to agree on most things, we're united on the grounds of mutual defense—very nice in one way, but if we happen to win, by some weird fluke, there's going to be one hell of a squabble afterwards about the technique of our government."

"What's the matter with the one you're using now?" suggested Gaynor. "And what is it, by the way?"

"That? just the certain knowledge that if one man does a wrong thing, the rest will go under. That leads to an instinctive rectitude of decision where necessary, and to the toleration of deliberation where that is indicated."

"Virtually an early Wells utopia," murmured Gaynor. The car stopped and they felt themselves being transferred to another pocket of the monster.

"Now," continued the monster, "we're walking right through a wall into the fortalice of our enemies. I'm warning you now to be ready to be deposited on little or no notice. I hope you'll be able to escape in the confusion and get under cover before they pay very cursory attention to the surroundings."

"What confusion?" asked Io.

"Why, this—approaching in the form of several guards, friends. We're very near the council room. We're in it, now— " The abrupt end of the thoughts of their carrier brought sudden shock to the three cowering in the dark of his pocket. They could hear confused roarings and explosions, then a hand yanked them out, none too gently, and they fell far to the floor.

"Come on," snapped Gaynor, "damn our size—can't see a thing!" He yanked Jocelyn and shoved Io under the ledge of a colossal- piece of furniture; they crouched in a passage no more than three feet high to their senses.

"My guess," said Io, "is that Joe is a suicide, practically. He must have known he wouldn't get out of this alive. These people deserve to win, Paul."

Gaynor was still fretting. "Now," he growled, "I know what a fly feels like—can't see more than a couple feet before its proboscis and even then doesn't comprehend what's going on. Jos, it makes me feel stupid and unimportant. Let's all tune in on the War Council. Relax, and open your minds."

"Paul, I can't understand the setup," said Jocelyn worriedly. "Everything's confused. Who's that mind receiving and broadcasting without a thought of his own? I don't get it."

"That mind," said Io thoughtfully, "seems to be an idiot of some kind."

"Of course!" cried Gaynor. "The War Council hasn't got one-way helmets; this is their dodge. The idiot is under some sort of hypnotic control, I'd say offhand."

"Being lice, and double or, if necessary, triplecrossers, they don't trust each other with the two-way helmets. They don't do things the easiest way—by language—hmm, that's rather odd, too."

"Maybe they don't all speak the same language," suggested lo.

"That would explain it. Then this system, even though roundabout, is quick enough. They telepath to the idiot, who telepaths it to the others, and so it goes. Simple in a complicated sort of way. Now maybe you'll be able to follow them."

He relapsed into brooding silence and tuned in. The thin, dry mind-voice of a councillor was discussing something utterly unintelligible in the way of high-order chemistry. All Gaynor got was, in a gloating tone at the very end: "—phenol coefficient of two hundred and ninety-eight, gentlemen!"

A murmur of mental congratulations, then, from another. "How do you produce the poison?"

"Hot poison, corrosive."

"Corrosive, then. How do you make it?"

More alien technical terms, then the second voice. "Thought so. Lovely idea, but not practical yet. Work on it, man—work on it! This is a war of money as well as spraying liquids. If we could wipe them out in one advance with your stuff, it would be okay. Otherwise, it isn't worth the money we'd have to put out for it. But work on it, nonetheless. Phenol coefficient two-nine-eight, you say? Very good...."

Then a sharp mind-voice of command. "Tactically, what is there to report? You—nothing? You—nothing? You?"

"Something, chief. No much, but something. How'd you like to hear that the new air-field's caved in the center?"

"Speak up, rot you! Has it or hasn't it?"

"It has. Somebody's error in Engineering No. Eight, Chief. That ought to affect plans considerably, eh, sir?"

"I'll decide that, young one. And somebody. swings for that error; make a note of it. See who initialed the final plans for the beaming and poured metal."

"Right, Chief. Now—what's the big news, sir? What's the time for it to pop?"

There was something like a pleased smile from the mind-pattern of the commander, they thought. Gaynor concentrated furiously to catch the precious next words. "The advance? In three days. Three days exactly. I shouldn't call it crucial at all—simply the operation on which we've been planning for a full long time. Naturally it will be successful. We shall go now. See that the idea is taken care of, someone. You."

"I'll be back for him in a moment."

There was a tremendous shuffling of feet, and when Gaynor cautiously poked his head out of the shelter, the room was empty except for the idiot, who, face high up, was blank as a dumbbell.

"C'mon out, all," he called, giving Jocelyn a hand. "We can case the joint."

They essayed a little stroll along the baseboard, feeling futile as a jackrabbit. The shuffling of two enormous feet gave a pause; he looked up with some trepidation. "Awk!" he groaned. The idiot, a bright beaming smile of interest on his face, dove two hands like twin Stukas at them. The hands closed about the struggling humans, and they were swooped up and violently deposited in a dark, dismal spot.

"So this," said Jocelyn finally, "is what an idiot's vestpocket is like."

VI.

"Total blank," said Gaynor despairingly. "He doesn't radiate thoughts at all. Just a something like the noise of an electric razor, implying hunger and fatigue."

"Doesn't he have any opinions of us?" asked Jocelyn timidly.

"Not a one. Just picked us up out of some kind of reflex. No intention behind it at all; if lie knew what he was doing, he's already forgotten about it. Oops!" Gaynor started. "They just took off his helmet, I suppose. Anyway the buzzing came to an abrupt end. Here we go!"

They jounced around wildly in the pocket of the idiot as he moved slowly and with great dignity out of the room. The three miniatures were too busy clutching onto the course fabric of the pocket's lining to wonder where they were going, in general. The motion stopped; they heard the gigantic thud of a door closing on an unprecedentedly big scale.

"Locked in, I surmise," mused Gaynor. The pocket dropped like an elevator. "Hmm, he sat down."

"Shall we make a break now?" asked Io.

"Now or never; come on, it's over the top." Taking firm hold of the stuff of the pocket, he climbed carefully, hand over hand, popping his head finally over the pocket's top. Jocelyn and Io appeared beside him.

"Can't get the scale of things here," he complained bitterly. "Can't tell where we are—whether that's a chair or the floor. Anyway— " He let go and fell heavily to the plane below. The great bulk of the idiot's body was beside him like a cliff. From the noises, one hazarded that it was eating—not very daintily. His wife and Ionic Intersection hit the ground beside him.

"Easy does it," he cautioned, clasping a chair leg with every limb he had. Braking carefully, he slid far down to the floor, then picked Jocelyn and Io off the huge trunk as they followed.

"Thanks," said Jocelyn, brushing herself. "What now?"

"Under the door, I suspect," said Gaynor. "We make one very quick run for it. If the dope sees us moving, we're probably through for good."

"For good?"

"Yep," he nodded. "The thing's likely as not to step on us." Abruptly he kissed the two of them. "Now!" he whispered, and they scampered across the floor in a mad spring for the door, hundreds of feet away. The crack beneath it would be ample for escape.

Behind them was a stir and the crash of breaking pottery, like the crack in Krakatoa. "Oh Golly!" moaned Gaynor, catching his wife's arm and hurrying her on.

"Leggo!" she panted. "Keep running—I'll— " What she would have done remained unsaid. Blocking their way were the immense feet of the idiot. They stopped short and stood like statues. "Here it comes," murmured Jocelyn.

The idiot was going through some mighty complicated maneuvers; the sum total of which was to bring his face to the ground, about eight feet away from the miniatures. He was grinning happily.

"Paul," gasped Io, almost hysterically. "Look at his face!"

Gaynor and Jocelyn stared fascinatedly. "No," whispered Jocelyn, "no! It can't be. It just couldn't possibly be!"

"But it is!" said Gaynor. "That thing, idiot or no idiot, fifty feet high or not, is my partner, Arthur Clair!"

Gaynor clasped the little brunette's shoulders. "It's all right, Io, believe me, it's all right!"

"But—Pavlik—my Arthur couldn't be— "

"I always knew he was an idiot," marvelled Jocelyn, "but never in this sense—that is, precisely in this sense. Will he find us, Paul?"

Gaynor shook his head. "I think he'll forget us in short order and get back to his dinner. Then I act and act fast."

"How, Paul?"

"Clair's under hypnotic control. I don't know how he got to that size, Io, but he's very obviously been ordered to forget everything and act as a sounding board for the ginks in the War Council. Now if I can yell loud enough for him to hear me— "

"But what good will that do?" interrupted Mrs. Clair.

"Just this, Io: When Arthur and I were younger, and much foolisher, we were simultaneously addicted to hypnotism and practical joking. My idea of a practical joke at the time was to give Art some pretty silly orders and postsuggestions when he was under.

"He, being fundamentally a bright sort of cuss, had himself immunized to that kind of thing by having a professional give him a very solid conditioning—to come out of any hypnotic states at the mention of—among other things—my name."

"So if he can only hear your name he'll be all right?" asked Io excitedly.

"Yup. And here I go. I see our partner has reverted to type." Clair was licking porridge from the floor, where his bowl had broken.

In one quick scampering run, Gaynor darted out from under the ledge and made it to the idiot's head, with Io close behind him. He bawled out the words: "PAUL GAYNOR!"

The idiot looked at him. "Why, Pavlik," it said with gentle concern. "How on Earth did you get here?"

"Arthur!" sobbed Io running toward him.

With a puzzled look on his face, Clair picked up his wife gently and brought her toward his face. Tenderly he caressed her hair with his fingertips. "What did you three do to yourselves?"

"Look, dope!" yelled Gaynor. "What do you remember last?"

"Oh, I remember everything. Including picking you up. And I have in my mind a complete record of the transactions of the War Council for the week I was used to replace their last idiot, who got a fuse blown somewhere. They had me under a limited kind of control—not really efficient. No oblivifaction coefficient at all. What do we do now?"

"Suppose," shrieked Jocelyn, coming out, "you get us to hell out of here. They won't stop you, will they?"

"Up to a certain point, no. They won't harm me at any rate. I have religious connotations of some kind, I think."

"Arthur—Paul—wait!" said Io. "I have an idea. You and Jocelyn go back to our friends; Art and I will stay here. Paul, you don't suppose these people have any screens against thought helmets, do you?"

"They haven't," said Clair. "What's on your mind, pet?"

"This. They'll be needing Arthur again soon when they start the offensive. And as far as they knew, he'll be as he was before.

"Only, I'll be in Arthur's pocket, relaying everything that comes into his mind to you back in the citadel. While you relay to me the suggestions of their War Council, or whatever they have like it.

"Do you get it, Paul? These birds will be getting orders from their idiot, only it will be our orders! That is—if you can make a screen, dearest."

Clair grinned. "I can."

"That's all very nice," protested Jocelyn, "but how do Paul and I get out of here?"

"The idiot will get you over the wall— or under it— " said Clair. "Before you go, you can send a message to your friends to be waiting. I'll rig up an apparatus so your thoughts won't be interrupted by the wrong people—wow, the things I've learned here, Pavlik!" He picked up the two and put them in his pocket again. "Let's go," he said. "No one pays any attention to the idiot in his time off, and they're too busy to notice what he's doing anyway—unless he yells for help."

And again the three went on a bumpy sort of ride in the pitch blackness of Clair's pocket.

VII.

"It doesn't take you birds any time at all to go to town on a new device once you have the idea," marvelled Gaynor as he fiddled with the dials of the spy-screen several of Joe's friends had constructed. The giants had a screen for their use—the room wasn't long enough for Gaynor to be able to see it all— and a small one had been made for the visitors.

"But it wasn't much of a problem," came the thoughts of the giant Jocelyn had dubbed "Luke." "As soon as you told us about it, it was quite simple. We had all the makings—only thing is, it never occurred to us—or to them, either, apparently."

"What's the program?" asked Jocelyn.

"At the moment, we're getting the layout of their citadel,-and the disposition of their forces. Luke and Oley here (Oley's the blond, sweet) are very busily engaged in making a map of the works—giving all the data we need."

"Their layout seems to be that of a seven-pointed star;" mused Jocelyn. "No encircling rings of fortifications—just points."

"Probably all they need," said Gaynor. "Don't be too sure that there isn't a solid ring of some kind aroung their citadel. Wouldn't be at all surprised if those seven points weren't the terminals for a virtually unpenetrable vibrational barrier."

"But we had no trouble in getting through!"

"Only because they see no point in keeping it up constantly. They probably have some sort of detectors. Don't forget, Joe was discovered and disposed of in virtually no time at all after he got in."

Gaynor plugged in a connection. "Ah, here we are." The screen lit up to show an office where several giants, apparently of high rank in the enemy's forces, were also poring over war maps. As a light on the desk flared, they straightened up and took down what were obviously thought-helmets from a nearby rack."

"We do likewise," said Gaynor suiting his words to action.

"Then?"

"Then the fun begins. It'll work like this: I will be the mental sounding board for our side, little more than an extrapolated dimwit like my partner, Art Clair. As messages from their staff come to him, he shoots them over to me via to and Luke and his friends pick them up. Luke and his friends decide whether the order will go through as is, or whether it'll be changed, and if so, how. In the meantime, Art's screening his mind against intrusion; soon's our misdirection gets to Art, he relays it to whoever it's supposed to go to."

"Sounds frightfully complicated," mused Jocelyn. "And won't those dopes get suspicious—won't it take time?"

Gaynor shook his head. "There's nothing as fast as thought." He made a final adjustment on the helmet. "If they're noticing such things, they may be aware of a slight pause, but it's doubtful that they'll notice—particularly when the fun starts. Which will be soon, now."

"This is all very ducky, husband mine, but what am I supposed to be doing all the time? Am I an orphan?'

"Suggest you watch the screens and keep in contact with our friends—never can tell when you might be able to make a bright suggestion. Matter of fact, you'll have to keep contact if you want to know where to send the spy-beams in order to see what's going on. Oh, it'll be exciting enough for your bloodthirsty tastes, pet. Just think of poor me—I won't know what's happened until it's all over."

"What! Won't you be in on this?"

"Yeah, with my mind a perfect blank."

"Huh," she snorted, "that'll be simple for you!"

Out of the bad guys' citadel came the air fleet, rank after rank of slender, black arrows, floating gracefully upward. In a few moments' time, thought Jocelyn, they would be over and beyond the outlying star-points and into the no-man's land area. But at that precise instant, hell broke loose.

The neat, orderly arrangement of the first rank was suddenly shattered as four shells exploded simultaneously in its midst. Jocelyn gasped, twirled the dials of the screen seeking the source of the deadly fire. In a moment she had found it; a battery in one of the outlying fortresses had turned its guns upon their own air forces.

Misdirection with a vengeance, she thought. It worked beautifully when used upon such a set-up as the enemy had. Their whole training was that of blind obedience to superiors—she guessed what the orders must have been: attack and destroy the air fleet which has become a traitor to the fatherland.

The second wave had come up now, and, sizing up the situation (no doubt through the help of the idiot) quickly spread out, so as to offer the poorest possible target and dove for their attackers. There were no flashes from the great guns—they operated on springs. But their fire was deadly none the less; for all the maneuvering of the slender ships, black arrow after black arrow burst into shattered fragments.

By the time the third wave came up, the first two had been utterly disorganized, a few individual ships, diving toward the batteries and being blown out of the atmosphere. So far, not one hit by the fleet had been made, although several concerted dives had been attempted.

The third wave, it seemed would not be taken off guard. But Jocelyn, looking on and trying to outguess the command, had forgotten the lovely possibilities of misdirection. The third wave did not attack the batteries at all; it hovered high above the citadel then dropped like hawks upon the ascending fourth wave of ships. As if, at a signal, all seven batteries directed their fire toward the citadel itself, raining devastating fire upon the vital sections.

Jocelyn tuned in upon the thought-waves to hear a veritable fury of hysterical commands and countercommands vibrating back and forth. At a sudden hunch, she sought out the room where the central command hung out with the idiot. She was amazed to find a heavy cordon of guards around the room, constantly being reinforced. She looked into the room itself, and rocked with laughter at the sight of Clair, sitting on a stool, drooling, a blank look upon his face. There was a faint bulge in his vest pocket—that would be Ionic Intersection.

The room was apparently soundproof to the nth degree. The central command sat around, a confident smirk upon their faces, watching maps, making marks upon them and nodding approvingly. Jocelyn took a closeup on the map and was amazed to discover that, according to it, the enemy air fleet was now approaching its objectives having smashed through the spheres of Luke's people. For a moment she stared disbelieving, then laughed again as the answer came to her. Of course! These sublime dopes weren't being let in on what was actually happening.

She flashed back to the scene of battle. The entire armada of black ships was now engaged in terrific battle with itself. Each squadron, she observed, had its own particular symbol, which helped. Because each squadron was attacking any and every other squadron.

Meanwhile, mechanized infantry was moving rapidly inward, upon itself. Paying little heed to the struggle in the sky, the infantry from the north side advanced upon, met, and locked in titanic combat with the infantry from the south. Land cruisers riddled each other with deadly fire while the soldiery on foot brought into play the "new weapon," the corroding mist. From little containers they squirted it far ahead of them and waited for the "enemy" to come on. It was the southern infantry that waited; the northern soldiery came forward.

Jocelyn stared for a moment in fascinated horror as the infantry moved into the terrain filled with the deadly corrosive mist, sat with her fists tightly clenched as the mist settled about them and slowly ate them away. There was no escape. The ghastly stuff was all-devouring. One drop upon any part of the clothing was sufficient, unless that bit could be taken off and flung away before it penetrated to the skin. She sat transfixed with the horror of it, then suddenly, switched to another scene. There was death and destruction in the skies, too, but it was swift and comparatively clear and painless.

The final scene came when the door of the central command's office was rudely shoved open, and a squad of soldiers came in. Before the amazed mucky-mucks could protest, they raised pistols and riddled them.

"Stop it!" Jocelyn's thoughts screamed out. "Their power's broken; put an end to the battle!"

"We've done just that," came back Luke's thoughts in answer. But Jocelyn didn't hear him; for the first time since adolescence, she was out cold in a genuine faint.

VIII.

"Do you people have any mass-decreasing stuff?" asked Gaynor, via telepathic helmet.

"No," sadly admitted Luke. "I fear you will have to go back to your universe as you are. Though I don't see what's wrong with Clair's size. I think it's a very distinguished size."

"Yeah," said Jocelyn in disgust. "You would."

The war was definitely over. They'd just finished a conference with emissaries from the former bad guys and a general session whereby arrangements would be made to help the former enemy reconstruct in return for certain processes which could be put to peacetime use was in the offing. Clair and Ionic Intersection had made their exit after the revolution, signalized by the shooting of the central command.

"But what," demanded Io, "caused Arthur to bloat up to his terrific size? I don't understand it."

"Perhaps," mused Clair, "it was because I took a different route to this plane. It's a marvel that the same thing didn't happen to you."

"So help me, partner," said Gaynor, "this is going to be awkward. Awkward as a bandersnatchgoing around the good old USA with a colleague the size of a big house. I don't know what to do about it. And how we can get you back into the Prototype is also beyond me."

"What happened to Proto Jr?" asked Jocelyn. "That went big, too. And unfortunately, I'm afraid it was blown up during the battle because it was right in the former bad guy's city. The counter lost focus when it swelled up, I guess.

"But this is what is known as a spot! Clair big and us normal— "

"Hold on a minute," interrupted Ionic Intersection. "Maybe that's not just so."

"Meaning what?" asked her husband. "Meaning, my dearest, that maybe you're normal and we're small. Ever think of that?"

"Holy smokes!" gargled Gaynor. "You could be right at that." He clipped on his helmet and concentrated heavily.

"Yep," he said at length, "you seem to be right. And what does that dope Oley say but that they have mass-increasing stuff. And why didn't I ask him in the first place?"

"When do we bloat, then?" asked Jocelyn.

"Shortly, Oley says he'll have to get a special power line for the machinery. He can assemble that out of some stuff he has—hold on—what's— "

He felt a weirdly powerful grinding in his every cell, fiber, tendon, thread, and atom. Gaynor was growing. So, he saw, were to and Jocelyn. Finally he stretched. "There, that's better. Much better. Lemme look at you, Jos— " His colossal mate smiled sweetly. "You giant," she said amiably, "I hope lo didn't guess wrong."

"Now," said Gaynor, "all we have to do is give the treatment to the Prototype, then we can scoot." "Oh, you want to go?"

"Of course," said Jocelyn, "you don't think we want to stay here, do you?"

Clair and to exchanged glances. "Io and I are staying," declared Clair, "but there's nothing to keep you two from making it back. Io's hasn't had any real mental exercise between the time we got back to Earth last and when you three landed here. And I must confess that I want to learn a lot more about these people, too.

"So, why not go back and leave us here—we'll call it a honeymoon."

"Come, my pet," said Gaynor gently, taking Jocelyn's arm. "I think they mean they want to be alone."

"You'll come back some day, Art?" asked Gaynor anxiously as the last batch of supplies were stowed away in the Prototype.

Clair nodded. "Sure." He took a familiar device out of his pocket. "Here's a duplicate of the counter. I don't want you and Jos stuck for my debts—you ought to be able to take care of them and yours, and have enough left over for the next few years' ice cream cones on what you get from this. Here are the plans." He tended Gaynor a small, thick envelope.

"Your analyser," he went on, "is set on me and mine on you. I've made a few improvements, on this pair. You can signal me with it, or vice versa. Nothing very complex, but enough so that I'll know if you want to come after me and vice versa.

"So remember, if you're in a tight spot and need me, just send out an SOS on this. I'll do the same if I need you. And if you're just coming my way, but there's no emergency, just send out the work CLAIR in regular morse on the dingus. I'll call GAYNOR in a similar situation for you."

"Good enough," murmured his partner. "So it's cheerio."

"Right. Bye, Paul."

Handshakes and osculations, then the door closed and the Prototype lifted up into the air.

"With the charts that Luke gave them, they ought to manage," mused Clair. "It's too bad in a way—I rather liked Pavlik."

"So did I," agreed lo. "Perhaps his wife will grow up some day. Then I'll be glad to see Jocelyn again."

"Oh—oh," muttered Gaynor at the controls of the Prototype, "there's something familiar about this section of space."

"Yer derv' tootin' they is!" snapped a familiar voice. "Jumpin' Jehosophat, but caint an' old man hav any peace a tall? Hey! What happened ter the pretty gal with the brown hair?"

"She found her husband," explained Gaynor. "Honest, Mr. Canter, we weren't aiming to intrude. We're on our way home now."

"Weeel, reckon as haow yer might as well be sociable sence yer here.' C'mon over 'n' see the new city I built after ye left the last time."

Gaynor followed the hermit's instructions and shot the Prototype in the directions stated. "Paul!" gasped Jocelyn suddenly, pointing a shaking finger, "Look!"

"Ulp!"

Before them stretched a city, but what a city! Huge buildings in the shapes of cones with needle-tips, balanced upon each other, cubes, hexagons, spheres, and every impossible and possible geometric shape. A riot of angles and slopes.

"Take it away," gasped Jocelyn weakly.

"Up here," came the hermit's voice. They looked to see Davy perched on a large sphere rolling along a zigzaggy road atop a tremendously high wall. Beside him sat the yellow-haired girl in the gingham dress they'd seen before.

"Gawd," muttered Gaynor, "I think I need some of that corn likker—without a hose."

"You and me both," agreed his wife. "Mr. Canter," she called, "I thought you were all alone?"

"So'd I," came back the response. "But this consarn phantasm here jest won't stay a'vanished—an' I reckon as haow I don't perticulerly want it ter, anyhaow." He cackled lustily.

"Ye kin tell me all abaout yer trip after we look araound a bit. Haow d'yer like my city. Built it after a pitcher thet thet feller Billikin had with him. Non ob-jec-tive he called it."

"But we object!" gasped Jocelyn. She dashed to the controls and applied full power to the Prototype. "Consarn!" muttered the ex-hermit of Razorback Crag to his yellow-haired consort as the Prototype vanished, "some people jest don't have no manners nohow!"