Part 12 (1/2)

”Well ... it's obvious from the artifacts we brought along.”

E-Lerd's att.i.tude dismissed the questions as being irrelevant. Cemp detected a mind phenomenon in the other that explained the att.i.tude. To s.p.a.ce Silkies, the past was unimportant. Silkies always did certain things, because that was the way they were mentally, emotionally, and physically constructed.

A Silkie didn't have to know from past experience. He simply had to be what was innate in Silkies.

It was, Cemp realized, a basic explanation for much that he had observed. This was why these Silkies had never been trained scientifically. Training was an alien concept in the cosmos of the s.p.a.ce Silkies.

”You mean,” he protested, incredulous, ”you have no idea why you left the last system where you had this interrelations.h.i.+p with the race there? Why not stay forever in some system where you have located yourself?”

”Probably,” said E-Lerd, ”somebody got too close to the secret of the Power. That could not be permitted.”

That was the reason, he continued, why Cemp and other Silkies had to come back into the fold. As Silkies, they might learn about the Power.

The discussion had naturally come around to that urgent subject.

”What,” said Cemp, ”is the Power?”

E-Lerd stated formally that that was a forbidden subject.

Then I shall have to force the secret from you,” said Cemp. There can be no agreement without it.”

E-Lerd replied stiffly that any attempt at force would require him to use the Power as a defense.

Cemp lost patience. ”After your two attempts to kill me,” he telepathed in a steely rage, ”I'll give you thirty seconds--”

”What attempts to kill you?” said E-Lerd, surprised.

At that precise moment, as Cemp was bracing himself to use logic of levels, there was an interruption.

An ”impulse” band--a very low, slow vibration--touched one of the receptors in the forward part of his brain. It operated at mere multiples of the audible sound range directly on his sound-receiving system.

What was new was that the sound acted as a carrier for the accompanying thought. The result was as if a voice spoke clearly and loudly into his ears.

”You win,” said the voice. ”You have forced me. I shall talk to you myself--bypa.s.sing my unknowing servants.”

9.

Cemp identified the incoming thought formation as a direct contact. Accordingly, his brain, which was programmed to respond instantaneously to a mult.i.tude of signals, was triggered into an instant effort to suction more impulses from the sending brain ... and he got a picture. A momentary glimpse, so brief that even after a few seconds it was hard to be sure that it was real and not a figment of fantasy.

Something huge lay in the darkness deep inside the planetoid. It lay there and gave forth with an impression of vast power. It had been withholding itself, watching him with some tiny portion of itself. The larger whole understood the universe and could manipulate ma.s.sive sections of s.p.a.ce-time.

”Say nothing to these others.” Again the statement was a direct contact that sounded like spoken words.

The dismay that had seized on Cemp in the last few moments was on the level of desperation. He had entered the Silkie stronghold in the belief that his human training and Kibmadine knowledge gave him a temporary advantage over the s.p.a.ce Silkies and that if he did not delay, he could win a battle that might resolve the entire threat from these natural Silkies.

Instead, he had come unsuspecting into the lair of a cosmic giant. He thought, appalled, Here is what has been called ”the Power”.

And if the glimpse he had had was real, then it was such a colossal power that all his own ability and strength were as nothing.

He deduced now that this was what had attacked him twice. ”Is that true?” he telepathed on the same band as the incoming thoughts had been on.

”Yes. I admit it.”

”Why?” Cemp flashed the question. ”Why did you do it?”

”So that I would not have to reveal my existence. My fear is always that if other life forms find out about me, they will a.n.a.lyze how to destroy me.”

The direction of the alien thought altered. ”But now, listen; do as follows. ...”

The confession had again stirred Cemp's emotions. The hatred that had been aroused in him had a sustained force deriving from the logic-of-levels stimulation--in this instance the body's response to an attempt at total destruction. Therefore, he had difficulty now restraining additional automatic reactions.

But the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. So, presently he was able, at the request of the monster, to say to E-Lerd and the other Silkies, ”You take a while to think this over. And when the Silkies who have defected arrive from Earth, I'll talk to them. We can then have another discussion.”

It was such a complete change of att.i.tude that the two Silkies showed their surprise. But he saw that to them the change had the look of weakness and that they were relieved.

”I'll be back here in one hour!” he telepathed to E-Lerd. Whereupon he turned and climbed up and out of the courtyard, darting to an opening that led by a roundabout route deeper into the planetoid.

Again the low, slow vibration touched his receptors. ”Come closer!” the creature urged.

Cemp obeyed, on the hard-core principle that either he could defend himself--or he couldn't. Down he went, past a dozen screens, to a barren cave, a chamber that had been carved out of the original meteorite stuff. It was not even lighted. As he entered, the direct thought touched his mind again: ”Now we can talk.”

Cemp had been thinking at furious speed, striving to adjust to a danger so tremendous that he had no way of evaluating it. Yet the Power had revealed itself to him rather than let E-Lerd find out anything. That seemed to be his one hold on it; and he had the tense conviction that even that was true only as long as he was inside the planetoid.

He thought ... Take full advantage!

He telepathed, ”After those attacks, you'll have to give me some straight answers, if you expect to deal with me.”

”What do you want to know?”

”Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want?”

It didn't know who it was. ”I have a name,” it said. ”I am the Glis. There used to be many like me long ago. I don't know what happened to them.”

”But what are you?”

It had no knowledge. An energy life form of unknown origin, traveling from one star system to another, remaining for a while, then leaving.

”But why leave? Why not stay?” sharply.

”The time comes when I have done what I can for a particular system.”

By using its enormous power, it transported large ice-and-air meteorites to airless planets and made them habitable, cleared away dangerous s.p.a.ce debris, altered poisonous atmospheres into nonpoisonous ones. ...

”Presently the job is done, and I realize it's time to go on to explore the infinite cosmos. So I make my pretty picture of the inhabited planets, as you saw, and head for outer s.p.a.ce.”