The Voyage of the Space Beagle

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

De-gravity rafts operated on the same principle as the anti-acceleration drive. The reaction that occurred in an object when inertia was overcome had been found on examination to be a molecular process but it was not inherent in the structure of matter. An anti-acceleration field shifted electrons in their orbits slightly. This, in turn, created a molecular tension, resulting in a small though all-embracing rearrangement.

Matter so altered, acted as if it were immune to the normal effects of speeding up or slowing down. A ship proceeding on anti-acceleration could stop short in mid-flight, even if it had been travelling at millions of miles a second.

The group attacking Grosvenor’s department merely loaded their weapons on to the long, narrow rafts, climbed aboard themselves, and activated them to a suitable field intensity. Then, using magnetic attraction, they drew themselves forward toward the open door two hundred feet away.

They proceeded about fifty feet, then slowed, came to a full stop, and began to back. Then they stopped again.

Grosvenor, who had been busy at his instrument board, came back and sat down beside the puzzled McCann.

The geologist asked, “What did you do?”

Grosvenor answered without hesitation. “As you saw, they propelled themselves forward by pointing directional magnets at the steel walls ahead. I set up a repeller field, which is nothing new in itself. But actually this version of it is a part of a temperature process more related to the way you and I maintain our body heat than it is to heat physics. Now they’ll have to use jet propulsion, or ordinary screw propellers, or even” — he laughed — “oars.”

McCann, his gaze on the viewing plate, said grimly, “They’re not going to bother. They’re going to turn their heater loose. Better shut the door!”

“Wait!”

McCann swallowed visibly. “But the heat will come in here. We’ll roast.”

Grosvenor shook his head. “I’ve told you; what I did was part of a process involving temperature. Fed new energy, the whole metal environment will seek to maintain its equilibrium on a somewhat lower level. There — look.”

The mobile heat blaster was turning white. It was a white that made McCann curse softly under his breath. “Frost,” he mumbled. “But how….”

As they watched, ice formed on the walls and the floors. The heater gleamed in its frozen casing, and a chill blast of air came through the door. McCann shivered.

“Temperature,” he said vaguely. “A somewhat lower equilibrium.”

Grosvenor stood up. “I think it’s time they went home. After all, I don’t want anything to happen to them.”

He walked to an instrument that stood against one wall of the auditorium room, and sank into a chair in front of a compact keyboard. The keys were small and of different colours. There were twenty-five to a row, and twenty-five rows.

McCann came over and stared down at the instrument.

“What is it?” he asked. “I don’t recall seeing it before.”

With a quick, rippling, almost casual movement, Grosvenor depressed seven of the keys, then reached over and touched a main release switch. There was a clear, yet soft, musical note. Its overtones seemed to stay in the air for several seconds after the basic note had died away.

Grosvenor looked up. “What association did that bring to your mind?”

McCann hesitated. There was an odd expression on his face. “I had a picture of an organ playing in a church. Then that changed, and I was at a political rally where the candidate had provided fast, stimulating music to make everybody happy.” He broke off, and said breathlessly, “So that is how you could win an election.”

“One of the methods.”

McCann was tense. “Man, what terrific power you have.”

Grosvenor said, “It doesn’t affect me.”

“But you’re conditioned. You can’t expect to condition the whole human race.”

“A baby is conditioned when it learns to walk, move its arms, speak. Why not extend the conditioning to hypnotism, chemical responses, the effects of food? It was possible hundreds of years ago. It would prevent a lot of disease, heartache, and the kind of catastrophe that derives from misunderstanding of one’s own body and mind.”

McCann was turning back to the mounted, spindle-shaped instrument. “How does it work?”

“It’s an arrangement of crystals with electrical circuits. You know how electricity can distort certain crystalline structures. By setting up a pattern, an ultrasonic vibration is emitted, which by-passes the ear and directly stimulates the brain. I can play on that the way a musician plays on his instrument, creating emotional moods that strike too deep for any untrained person to resist.”

McCann returned to his chair and sat down. He looked suddenly pale. “You frighten me,” he said in a low voice. “I regard that as unethical. I can’t help it.”

Grosvenor studied him; then, turning, he bent down and made an adjustment on the instrument. He pressed the button. The sound was sadder, sweeter, this time. It had a cloying quality, as if endless vibrations continued to throb in the air around them, though the sound itself was gone. Grosvenor said, “What did you get that time?”

McCann hesitated again, then said suddenly, “I thought of my mother. I had a sudden desire to be back home. I wanted—”

Grosvenor frowned, “That’s too dangerous,” he said. “If I intensified that enough, some of the men might curl up again in the womb position.” He paused. “How about this?”

Rapidly, he set up a new pattern, and then touched the activating switch. He drew a bell-like sound, with a soft, soft tinkling in the distant background.

“I was a baby,” said McCann, “and it was bedtime. Gosh, I’m sleepy.” He seemed not to notice that he had reverted to the present tense. Involuntarily, he yawned.

Grosvenor opened a drawer in a table beside the machine, and took out two plastic headpieces. He handed one to McCann. “Better put that on.”

He slipped the other over his own head, while his companion, with evident reluctance, did the same. McCann said gloomily, “I guess I’m just not made to be Machiavellian. I suppose you’ll try to tell me that meaningless sounds have been used before to evoke emotions and influence people.”

Grosvenor, who had been setting a dial pointer, paused to answer. He said earnestly, “People think a thing ethical or unethical depending on the associations that come to their minds at the moment, or while they’re considering the problem in retrospect. That doesn’t mean that no system of ethics has any validity. I personally subscribe to the principle that our ethical measuring rod should be that which benefits the greatest number, provided that it doesn’t include extermination or torture of, or denial of rights to, individuals who do not conform. Society has to learn to salvage the man who is ill or ignorant.”

He was intent now. “Please note that I have never used this device before. I have never used hypnosis except when Kent invaded my department — though of course I intend to do so now. From the moment the trip began, I could have lured people up here by stimulating them in a dozen unsuspected ways. Why didn’t I? Because the Nexial Foundation laid down a code of ethics for itself and its graduates, which is conditioned right into my system. I can break through that conditioning, but only with great difficulty.”

“Are you breaking through it now?”

“No.”

“It seems to me, then, that it’s pretty elastic.”

“That’s exactly right. When I firmly believe, as I do now, that my actions are justified, there is no internal nervous or emotional problem.”

McCann was silent. Grosvenor went on. “I think you’ve got a picture in your mind of a dictator — myself — taking over a democracy by force. That picture is false, because a ship on a cruise can be run only by quasi-democratic methods. And the greatest difference of all is that at the end of the voyage I can be brought to account.”

McCann sighed. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. He glanced at the plate. Grosvenor followed his gaze, and saw that the space-suited men were trying to propel themselves forward by pushing against the wall. Their hands tended to go right into the walls, but there was some resistance. They were making slow progress. McCann was speaking again. “What are you going to do now?”

“I intend to put them to sleep — like this.” He touched the activating switch.

The bell sound seemed no louder than before. Yet in the corridor the men slumped over.

Grosvenor got up. “That will repeat every ten minutes, and I’ve got resonators spread all through the ship to pick up the vibrations and echo them. Come along.”

“Where are we going?”

“I want to install a circuit breaker in the main electric-switch system of the ship.”

He secured the breaker from the film room, and a moment later was leading the way into the corridor.

Everywhere they went, men lay sleeping. At first McCann marvelled out loud. Then he grew silent and looked troubled. He said finally, “It’s hard to believe that human beings are basically so helpless.”

Grosvenor shook his head. “It’s worse than you think.”

They were in the engine room now, and he crawled on to a lower tier of the electric switchboard. It required less than ten minutes to fit in his circuit breaker. He came down silently, nor did he subsequently explain what he had done or what he intended to do.

“Don’t mention that,” he said to McCann. “If they find out about it, I’ll just have to come down and put in another one.”

“You’re going to wake them now?”

“Yes. As soon as I get back to my rooms. But first I’d like you to help me cart Von Grossen and the others to their bedrooms. I want to make him disgusted with himself.”

“You think they’ll give in?”

“No.”

His estimate was right. And so, at 1000 hours the following day, he pressed home a switch that rechannelled the main electric current through the circuit breaker he had installed.

All over the ship, the constantly burning lights flickered ever so slightly in a Nexial version of the Riim hypnotic pattern. Instantly, without knowing it, every man aboard was deeply hypnotized.

Grosvenor began to play on his emotion-educing machine. He concentrated on thoughts of courage and sacrifice, duty to the race in the face of danger. He even evolved a complex emotional pattern that would stimulate the feeling that time was passing at double, even treble, what had been normal before.

The basis laid, he activated the “General Call” of the ship’s communicator, and gave exact commands. The main instructions stated, he then told the men that each and every one would thereafter respond instantly to a cue word without ever knowing what the cue word was, or remembering it after it was given.

Then he gave them amnesia for the entire hypnotic experience.

He went down to the engine room and removed the circuit breaker.

He returned to his own room, wakened everybody, and called Kent. He said, “I withdraw my ultimatum. I’m ready to give myself up. I’ve suddenly realized that I cannot bring myself to go against the wishes of the other members of the ship. I would like another meeting, at which I will appear in person. Naturally, I intend to urge once more that we wage all-out warfare against the alien intelligence of this galaxy.”

He was not surprised when the ship’s executive, strangely unanimous in their change of heart, agreed that after consideration they could see that the evidence was clear, and that the danger was compellingly urgent.

Acting Director Kent was instructed to pursue the enemy relentlessly, and without regard for the comfort of the members of the ship.

Grosvenor, who had not interfered with the over-all personality of any individual, observed with grim amusement the reluctance with which Kent himself acknowledged that the action should be taken.

The great battle between man and alien was about to begin.