10 AN INSIDE JOB AND A NOBLE CRUSADE

It was one of those moments about which it might have been said that the emotional tenor of those present bordered on the abysmally depressed. It might have been said. It could not have been said because where there is hope, there is life, and Jerry, shocked as he was by this disclosure, still had hope, and he sent his agile mind furiously seeking a solution to this apparently insoluble problem. In the matter of seconds he had it.

"Hold on now," he said, snapping his fingers loudly. "I remember something. When we originally left on this trip, we thought we would be away at least a couple of hours, ha-ha, little did we know, and I have memories of Chuck fixing up some sandwiches to take along just in case."

"What kind of sandwiches?" John entreated in hushed tones.

"That's a mystery. I remember he just went out and made them. But knowing old Chuck, now a mental prisoner of those fiends but still a buddy, I know they were one of two kinds. Either garlic salami or cheddar cheese."

"I don't see us building a garlicite projector," John mused. "But if they were cheese and if they weren't eaten – why, we still have a chance. Let's go look in the galley!"

He led the race through the immense ship and skidded to a halt with the others right behind him at the 747's galley. Sally, whom they had not noticed leave, was standing by the counter licking crumbs from her fingers. Before her on the counter was some crunkled wax paper.

"Stale and pretty lousy," she complained, and belched delicately. "But when you consider we have been a week now without food, I guess it wasn't too bad."

"You ate a sandwich?" Jerry rasped, and she nodded in response. "You ate the whole thing?" A nod again, then silence until John spoke up in a strangled voice.

"What kind of sandwich?"

"Cheese. What else would be here? My goodness, I don't know how Chuck ever managed to eat so much of it, it really is kind of nasty. Why are you all looking at me that way and closing in slowly? So, I'm sorry. I didn't save any for you. But I was hungry, I mean. . . ."

Her voice ran down under the glare of the circling eyes, and she took a hesitant step backward.

"Come on, fellows." She smiled falsely. "One little sandwich can't make that much diffecence."

"That little sandwich," John said, speaking for them all,

"contained the only piece of cheddar cheese inside four light-years that could be used to make cheddite, with which we could save the galaxy. Do you realize what you have done?"

"Don't try to pass on the guilt to me," she snorted and fluffed her hair prettily with one hand. "It was just some old cheese, and if we don't save the galaxy, then someone else will. Besides, it is late to do anything about it now."

"No, it's not," John said coldly, unlocking the medical kit from the wall. "As a trained surgeon I can see one solution to our problem if we work quickly before the stomach acids. . . ."

"No!" she screamed when she saw the rubber tubing, and she tried to run but was entangled at once by the many tentacles of Slug-Togath, who held her immobile despite her struggles while the two Earthmen unshipped the stomach pump and went to work.

Good taste forbids depicting what follows, but it suffices to say that a few hours later we find the Pleasantville Eagle winging its way toward the secret underground city of the Garnishee with Jerry at the controls under the guidance of Slug-Togath who overflowed the copilot's seat. Everyone was happy, except Sally who, good little sport that she was, was not feeling too sporty this time, but a couple of miniatures of vodka on a very empty stomach had put her to sleep, and she was sleeping comfortably in the lounge. It was at this moment that John popped into the pilot's compartment waving a test tube joyfully.

"All done, guys. The particles of cheese have all been extracted and cleaned and are in this tube. We now have the raw material for a cheddite projector."

"Raw is the word for it," Jerry mused. "How is Sally taking it all now?"

"The booze helped, and she is sacked out. But, my, what she called me before she dozed off. Where does a sweet little small-town girl whose daddy is president of the college get a vocabulary like that?"

"Evil companions, I guess. All those grunts back from Nam with their grass and filthy language, lousing up our campuses. Though I heard a really good one from this guy. It seems. . . ."

"Prepare to land," Slug-Togath said sharply, turning his body so one of his long-distance eyes could point straight ahead. "We are almost to the secret entrance."

"Secret is the word," Jerry muttered awedly. "There's nothing down there but sandy desert."

"Land now and taxi between those two mounds of rock," was the reply.

He did as instructed, and no sooner had the massive form of the Pleasantville Eagle come to a halt than they felt a sudden dropping motion. The desert here was nothing but a great elevator that lowered them swiftly deep into the ground. As they dropped, they saw the camouflaged roof close over them, and they kept on going down, faster and faster. Finally, they braked to a stop as the immense elevator dropped them into an immense cavern studded with lights above and filled with incomprehensible machinery.

"Ten thousand years ago our forefathers brought forth under this land a refuge for our civilization," Slug-Togath intoned proudly. "While the endless war was fought on the surface, down here in the darkness we preserved our cultural heritage. All our resources since that time have been spent in fighting the war, our industry producing only war machines, our mothers producing only warriors. But we have not forgotten. When our warriors become too old and shot up to fight, many of them retire here and work until they die, preserving this vital heritage. Dusting the books, polishing the glass, that kind of thing."

It was impressive beyond all comprehension. Giant machines of incomprehensible function rose up until they grew dim above. Great wheels, gears, glass envelopes containing incredible devices of unknown operation. And more and more of this, all separated by shelf after shelf of books printed on imperishable sheets of eternium metal.

"Do you have a particle accelerator down here?" Jerry asked.

"Let me consult with the head caretaker," Slug-Togath responded and approached an elderly Garnishee, whose tentacles were all gray and who wore eyepatches on at least half the eyes around his gnarled trunk. This individual waved his tentacles creakily in agreement and led the way down a broad corridor between the exhibits. Though they walked fast, it was a good half hour and they were feeling really pooped before they reached the device in question. Jerry and John took turns carrying Sally, and they were both staggering with exhaustion when they arrived and dropped onto the nearest bench.

"Though we are both crack athletes and in topnotch shape," Jerry said, "there is just one thing. Though we have had a good deal of water to drink, we have had no food, other than a mouthful of grass, in the past week. Sally is in the same shape, although she has at least seen a sandwich go by twice. So the big question is – is there anything we can eat?"

"There might be – but we must be very wary," SlugTogath responded with trepidation. "Our proteins may be poison for you, and so forth. I suggest we take samples of your blood, sputum and krakkis-"

"Krakkis?" Jerry asked.

"Well, not krakkis maybe. I guess maybe only we Garnishee have krakkis. Let's have the other samples, and our topnotch scientists will bring you a report within minutes." Not only did they bring a report within minutes but something even better: a wheeled table covered with a shining metal dome.

"Congratulations!" Slug-Togath reported. "Your vital fluids, other than your krakkis, check out to ten decimal points identical with those of the Garnishee. So what we eat you can eat, though you may not like it."

"What do you eat?" John asked, sniffing the air strongly.

"A simple peasant meal," Slug-Togath said, whipping the metal cover off the table. "Of prifl, torkootchy and korpsk," he intoned, pointing to a thick, medium-rare steak, baked potato, and black-eyed peas.

"I'll have a large prifl with torkootchy," Jerry said, seizing a long-tined fork. "And maybe the korpsk on the side."

He had to move fast to dodge the flying cutlery of his shipmates, and within seconds they were tucking into the banquet and stuffing themselves with yumms and mmmms of approval.

"My regards to the cook," Jerry mumbled without stopping chewing. "He does a great steak."

"He'll be glad to hear that," Slug-Togath rumbled pleasurably. "We have been pretty much vegetarians for years because the war used up most of the Ormoloo, but things are better now. We got a lot of chops and steaks out of the last battle."

The three Earthlings stopped eating for a moment and their eyes bulged as they realized they were eating their former allies, then enemies, now reduced back to their normal role of meat animals.

"It's as if we were fighting a war against Angus cows," Jerry explained, speaking for them all. "We wouldn't let all those steaks go to waste just because they were the enemy. And you know what happens to a bull after a bullfight."

Thus reassured, they dived in with a will and cleaned their plates under the benevolent and multiple eyes of their host. When the last scrap of food had been consumed, both John and Sally crapped out on the spot and began to snore. But not so Jerry, who knew his duty to rescue his comrade, so he staggered to his feet; besides, he had to find the head. It proved to be an interesting cubicle, and he couldn't figure out how anything really worked, but he did his best and emerged ready for work. In a matter of minutes the particle accelerator was fired up and calibrated and the ball of cheddar underwent the barrage that transformed it into a new form of matter. Jerry spared time for only one jubilant gaze before rushing to construct the necessary circuitry to activate the cheddite to generate the kappa radiation. Here the eons-old genius of the Garnishee came into play, and he was shown how to operate an incredible machine that constructed other machines from an outline of their functions drawn on a screen. In a matter of seconds it delivered a stronger, yet miniaturized version of the original cheddite projector – no bigger than an Earth flashlight. In fact, it looked very much like a five-cell flashlight with the cheddite mounted in the evacuated chamber with a glass cover just where the bulb would normally be. It could be mounted in delicate gimbals for distant work and could also be used as a hand weapon whisking anything it was pointed at into the lambda dimension, then depositing the whisked-away object one hundred feet above the surface of the nearby sun. A potent weapon indeed. The other two awoke, groaning, to a demonstration of the device.

"That's half the game." John eructated. "Now the Pleasantville Eagle must be prepared as a space vessel to continue the chase."

"Some work while others sleep!" Jerry chuckled. "Just come and look what the incredible Garnishee have done with their eons-old knowledge."

He led the way back to their plane, which looked superficially the same, though it had been polished to a high gloss. However, major changes had been made in the interior, not all of which were always visible to the naked eye.

"First off," explained Jerry, "the space between the inner and outer skin of the plane has been filled with insulite, which is a better insulater than a vacuum, I have been told. All the exterior windows are of transparent armolite, which is clear as glass and as strong as steel. We won't need oxygen for the engines, though there is now a supply for ourselves, since the fuel tanks are filled with combustite, a fuel a thousand times more powerful than our ordinary jet fuel and which does not need oxygen to burn. This is also used for powerful jets under the tail that may come in handy someday. All batteries have been replaced with ones made of Garnishee capacitite which seem to have unlimited capacity for storing electrical energy. Back here the galley has been expanded into a complete kitchen with hibachi and radar oven, and beyond it a frozen food locker that could feed us for five years if need be. Farther back is a completely outfitted laboratory and machine shop with stockpiles of raw ingredients. In this locker are extra-powerful spacesuits, each almost a small spaceship in itself, one for each of us and – gosh, I hope he uses it one for Chuck as well." He hurried on so they would not hear the huskiness in his voice, but they heard it nevertheless and understood.

"Up here on top, the flight deck has been expanded right back to take over the entire first-class lounge; the bar's a deck below now, to hold all the new equipment and controls. This chair here is for the gunner because remote-controlled gun turrets have been installed in twelve positions and armed with rapid-fire weapons firing pellets filled with destructite, an explosive a thousand times more powerful than gunpowder."

He went on to point out the various controls and other devices far too numerous to mention, though he promised to later, but he did point out and take pride in one set of controls that filled an entire end of the compartment

"I don't know if we will ever need this," he opined, "but the old Eagle has been equipped with a space drive, the same kind that the Lortonoi and everyone else in the galaxy use, the only kind of space drive that cut the mustard until the cheddite projector came down the pike and knocked it into a cocked hat It's called a space warper."

"How does it work?" John queried.

"By warping space. There is a great projector source which projects a beam of energy through a disk of warpite. This produces a new form of radiation that emerges in the form of warpicles, not wavicles, and is sent blasting through space ahead of the ship. What it does is reach out and seize the very fabric of space itself and pull it toward the ship until there is a great bulge in space flattened out before the ship, which then flies through it as the warp is released so that it emerges on the far side of the bulge, which is maybe a light year or so ahead. Clear?"

"Clear!" John articulated. "I wish I had a bit of what you been smoking."

"All right, no need to get shirty; let me give you the example that the Garnishee gave me. Imagine your spaceship as being a needle lying on a rug – you with me so far?"

"The sarcasm we can live without," John huffed. "Get on with it."

"Roger. So, the warpicles reach out and pull on space the rug now – and pull it toward the needle so that a great big bulge of rug is pulled up in front of the needle. Then the needle is pushed through just two thicknesses of rug, and the bulge is pulled flat, and zip! the needle is now a couple of feet away though it only went through two thicknesses of the rug. Simple. You can understand, can't you, Sally?"

"Sure, easy. Do the Garnishee have nice rugs?"

"I hope it works like you say" – John frowned dubiously – "because if it doesn't, we are in for a really rough ride."

"Well, we are just using it as a backup device. We depend upon the cheddite projector for most of the traveling."

"Weare here," Slug-Togath announced, coming into the plane with fifty other Garnishee right behind him.

"Who are we?" Jerry queried surprisedly.

"Myself and fifty volunteers. I have taken a leave of absence from my work as prime minister and will accompany you with these bravest of the brave. Though every able-bodied Garnishee is needed to rebuild the wreckage of our ruined world, we also have a responsibility to the intelligent life in the universe. You have relieved us of the burden of the Lortonoi and ended the millennia-old war, and we feel that we can do no less for the other races of the galaxy who are oppressed by that bloodthirsty and despicable race of mental leeches."

"Well and nobly said," John concurred.

"Not only that," Slug-Togath continued. "We also hate the bastards with a hatred beyond understanding and would greatly like to be in on the kill when they are smeared, bombed, and destroyed."

"Even better reason." Jerry nodded. "They deserve no mercy. We welcome you and your intrepid followers aboard, please tell them to come well armed and bring plenty of ammo, and it will be a pleasure to fight side by side with them in this just war to save the galaxy."

"Let's drink to that," Sally said smilingly as she came down the aisle pushing the bar cart. "To an alliance for victory. Death to the Lortonoi!"

"Death to the Lortonoi!" they cried with one voice and raised their glasses and downed them. That is, the humans drained their glasses. The Garnishee emptied their miniatures of booze into the plastic glasses which they discarded, then ate the bottles since glass acts like an intoxicant with this ancient race.

The engines thundered to life, and the magnificent crusade began.