The Voyage of the Space Beagle

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was about an hour after the meeting when Grosvenor received a call on his communicator from McCann.

“I’d like to come up,” said the geologist.

Grosvenor was cheerful. “Come along.”

McCann looked doubtful. “I’m assuming you have the corridor booby-trapped.”

“We-e-l-11, yes, I suppose you could call it that,” Grosvenor agreed, “but you’ll not be troubled.”

“Suppose I came with the secret intention of assassinating you?”

“Here in my rooms,” said Grosvenor with a positiveness which he hoped would impress any listeners-in, “you couldn’t even kill me with a club.”

McCann hesitated, then said, “I’ll be right up!” He broke the connection.

He must have been very near, for it was less than a minute later that the hidden corridor detectors began to report his approach. Presently, his head and shoulders flashed across a communicator plate, and a relay switch closed into position. Since it was part of an automatic defence process, Grosvenor deactivated it manually.

A few seconds later, McCann came through the open door. He paused on the threshold and then came forward shaking his head.

“I was worried there. Despite your reassurance, I had the feeling that batteries of weapons were pointing at me. And yet I saw nothing.” He looked searchingly into Grosvenor’s face. “Are you pulling a bluff?”

Grosvenor said slowly, “I’m a little worried myself. Don, you’ve shaken my faith in your integrity. I honestly didn’t expect you to come up here carrying a bomb.”

McCann looked blank. “But I’m not. If your instruments show any such—” He stopped. He took off his coat. He began to search himself. Suddenly, his movements slowed. His face was pale as he brought up a wafer-thin grey object about two inches long. “What is it?” he asked.

“A stabilized plutonium alloy.”

“Atomic!”

“No, it’s not radioactive, not as it is. But it can be dissolved into a radioactive gas by the beam from a high-frequency transmitter. The gas would give us both radiation burns.”

“Grove, I swear to you that I knew nothing of this.”

“Did you tell anyone you were coming?”

“Naturally. This whole part of the ship is blocked off.”

“In other words, you had to get permission?”

“Yes. From Kent.”

Grosvenor hesitated, then said, “I want you to think hard about this. At any time during the interview with Kent did you feel that the room was hot?”

“W-why, yes. I remember now. I had the feeling that I was going to suffocate.”

“How long did that last?”

“A second or so.”

“Hmmm, that means you were out probably ten minutes.”

“Out?” McCann was scowling. “Well, I’ll be damned. That little wretch drugged me.”

“I could probably find out for sure just how much of a dose you were given.” Grosvenor spoke deliberately. “A blood test would do it.”

“I wish you’d make it. That would prove—”

Grosvenor shook his head. “It would only prove that you actually underwent such an experience. It wouldn’t prove that you didn’t do so willingly. Far more convincing to me is the fact that no man in his right senses would permit plutonium alloy Pua-72 to be dissolved in his presence. According to my automatic nullifiers, they’ve been trying to dissolve it now for at least a minute.”

McCann was white. “Grove, I’m through with that vulture. I admit I was in a state of conflict, and I agreed to report to him the result of my conversation with you — but I intended to warn you that I had to make such a report.”

Grosvenor smiled. “It’s all right, Don. I believe you. Sit down.”

“What about this?” McCann held out the small metal “bomb.”

Grosvenor took it and carried it to the little vault he had for his radioactive material. He came back and seated himself. He said, “I imagine there’ll be an attack. The only way Kent could justify to the others what he’s done is to make sure that we are rescued in time for us to be given medical treatment for radioactive bums.”

He finished. “We can watch it in that plate.”

The attack registered first on several electronic detectors of the electric-eye type. Faint lights flashed on a wall instrument board, and a buzzer sounded.

They saw the attackers presently as images on the large plate above the instruments. About a dozen men in space suits rounded a distant corner and approached along the corridor. Grosvenor recognized von Grossen and two of his assistants from the physics department, four chemists, of whom two were from the biochemistry division, three of Gourlay’s communications experts, and two weapon officers. Three soldiers brought up the rear, riding, respectively, a mobile vibrator, a mobile heat gun, and a large gas-bomb dispenser.

McCann stirred uneasily. “Isn’t there another entrance to this place?”

Grosvenor nodded. “It’s guarded.”

“What about down and up?” McCann indicated the floor and the ceiling.

“There’s a storeroom above, and a motion-picture theatre below. Both are taken care of.”

They fell silent. Then, as the group of men in the corridor stopped, McCann said, “I’m surprised to see von Grossen out there. I think he admires you.”

Grosvenor said, “I stung him when I called him and the others amateurs. He’s come to see for himself what I can do.”

Out in the corridor, the group of attackers seemed to be consulting. Grosvenor went on. “What, specifically, brought you up here?”

McCann’s gaze was on the plate. “I wanted you to know you were not completely alone. Several executives asked me to tell you they were with you.” He broke off distractedly. “Let’s not talk now, not while that’s going on.”

“Now is as good a time as any.”

McCann seemed not to hear. “I don’t see how you’re going to stop them,” he said uneasily. “They’ve got enough power out there to burn down your walls.”

Grosvenor made no comment, and McCann faced him. “I’ve got to be frank with you,” he said. “I’m in a state of conflict. I feel sure you’re right. But your tactics are too unethical for me.” He appeared unaware that he had turned his attention from the viewing plate.

Grosvenor said, “There’s only one other possible tactic, and that is to run for election against Kent. Since he’s only Acting Director, and was not himself elected, I could probably force an election within about a month.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because,” said Grosvenor with a shudder, “I’m afraid. The thing — out there — is practically starving to death. At any time it’s liable to make a try for another galaxy, and it might very well go for ours. We can’t wait a month.”

“And yet,” McCann pointed out, “your plan is to drive it from this galaxy, and you’ve estimated that will take a whole year.”

“Have you ever tried to snatch food from a carnivore?” Grosvenor asked. “It tries to hold on to it, doesn’t it? It will even fight for it. My idea is that when this being realizes we’re trying to drive him off, he’ll hang on as long as he can to what he’s got.”

“I see.” McCann nodded. “Besides, you’ll have to admit your chance of winning an election on your platform is pretty close to zero.”

Grosvenor shook his head vigorously. “I’d win. You may not believe that on my say-so. But the fact is that people who are wrapped up in pleasure, excitement, or ambition are easily controlled. I didn’t devise the tactics I’d use. They’ve been around for centuries. But historical attempts to analyse them just didn’t get at the roots of the process. Until recently the relation of physiology to psychology was on a fairly theoretical basis. Nexial training reduced it to definite techniques.”

McCann was silent, studying him. He said finally, “What kind of future do you envisage for man? Do you expect us all to become Nexialists?”

“On board this ship it’s a necessity. For the race as a whole, it’s still impractical. In the long run, however, there can be no excuse for any individual not knowing what it is possible for him to know. Why shouldn’t he? Why should he stand under the sky of his planet and look up at it with the stupid eyes of superstition and ignorance, deciding vital issues on the basis of somebody’s fooling him? The smashed civilizations of Earth’s antiquity are evidence of what happens to a man’s descendants when he reacts blindly to situations, or if he depends on authoritarian doctrines.”

He shrugged. “At the moment a lesser goal is possible. We must make men sceptical. The shrewd though illiterate peasant who has to be shown concrete evidence is the spiritual forebear of the scientist. On every level of understanding, the sceptic partly makes up for his lack of specific knowledge by his attitude of ‘Show me! I’ve got an open mind, but what you say cannot by itself convince me.’”

McCann was thoughtful. “You Nexialists, are going to break through the cyclic-history pattern, is that what you have in mind?”

Grosvenor hesitated, then said, “I confess I was not too conscious of its importance till I met Korita. I’ve been impressed. I imagine the theory can stand a great deal of revision. Such words as ‘race’ and ‘blood’ are particularly meaningless, but the general pattern seems to fit the facts.”

McCann had returned his attention to the attackers. He said, puzzled, “They seem to be taking a long time getting started. You’d think they’d have made their plans before they came this far.”

Grosvenor said nothing. McCann glanced at him sharply, “Just a moment,” he said. “They haven’t run up against your defences, have they?”

When Grosvenor still made no reply, McCann jumped to his feet, walked nearer to the plate, and peered into it at close range. He stared intently at two men who were down on their knees.

“But what are they doing?” he asked helplessly. “What is stopping them?”

Grosvenor hesitated, then explained, “They’re trying to keep from falling through the floor.” Despite his effort to remain calm, excitement put a tremor into his voice.

The other didn’t realize that what he was doing was new to him. He had had the knowledge, of course, for a long time. But this was practical application. He was taking action that had never been taken before, anywhere, in quite the same way. He had used phenomena from many sciences, improvising to fit his purpose and to suit the exact environment in which he was operating.

It was working — as he had expected it would. His understanding, so sharp, so broadly based, left little room for error.

But the physical reality exhilarated him in spite of his pre-knowledge.

McCann came back and sat down. “Will the floor actually collapse?”

Grosvenor shook his head. “You’re not getting it. The floor is unchanged. They are sinking into it. If they proceed much farther, they’ll fall through.” He laughed in sudden glee. “I’d like to have a good look at Gourlay’s face when his assistants report the phenomenon. This is his ‘balloon’, teleportation, hyperspace notion, with an idea added from oil geology and two techniques of plant chemistry.”

“What’s the geology notion?” McCann began. He stopped. “Well, I’ll be damned. You mean the way to get oil these days without drilling. We just create a condition on the surface to which all oil in the vicinity has to come.” He frowned. “But, just a minute. There’s a factor that—”

“There are a dozen factors, my friend,” said Grosvenor. He went on soberly, “I repeat, this is laboratory stuff. A lot of things work at close quarters on very little power.”

McCann said, “Why didn’t you use a little of this trickery against pussy and the scarlet monster?”

“I’ve told you. I’ve rigged this situation. I worked through many a sleep hour installing my equipment, something which I never had a chance to do against our alien enemies. Believe me, if I had had control of the ship, we wouldn’t have lost so many lives in either of those incidents.”

“Why didn’t you take control?”

“It was too late. There wasn’t time. Besides, this ship was built several years before there was a Nexial Foundation. We were lucky to get a department aboard.”

McCann said presently, “I don’t see how you’re going to take over the ship tomorrow, since that’ll involve coming out of your laboratory.” He stopped and stared at the plate. Then he said breathlessly, “They’ve brought up de-gravity rafts. They’re going to float over your floor.”

Grosvenor made no reply. He had already seen.