Skylark DuQuesne

1. S.O.S.

APPEARANCES are deceiving. A polished chunk of metal that shines like a Christmas-tree ornament may hold — and release — energy to destroy a city. A seed is quite another order of being to the murderous majesty of a toppling tree. A match flame can become a holocaust.

And the chain of events that can unseat the rulers of galaxies can begin in a cozy living room, before a hearth…

Outwardly, the comfortable (if somewhat splendidly furnished) living room of the home of the Richard Ballinger Seatons of Earth presented a peaceful scene. Peaceful? It was sheerly pastoral! Seaton and Dorothy, his spectacularly auburn-haired wife, sat on a davenport, holding hands. A fire of pine logs burned slowly, crackling occasionally and sending sparks against the fine bronze screen of the fireplace. Richard Ballinger Seaton Junior lay on the rug, trying doggedly, silently, and manfully, if unsuccessfully, to wriggle toward those entrancing flames.

Inwardly, however, it was very much otherwise. Dorothy’s normally pleasant — as well as beautiful — face wore a veritable scowl.

The dinner they had just eaten had been over two hours late; wherefore not one single item of it had been fit to feed to a pig. Furthermore, and worse, Dick was not relaxed and was not paying any attention to her at all. He was still wound up tight; was still concentrating on the multitude of messages driving into his brain through the button in his left ear — messages of such urgency of drive that she herself could actually read them, even though she was wearing no apparatus whatever.

She reached up, twitched the button out of his ear, and tossed it onto a table. “Will you please lay off of that stuff for a minute, Dick?” she demanded. “I’m fed up to the eyeballs with this business of you killing yourself with all time work and no time sleep. You never had any such horrible black circles under your eyes before and you’re getting positively scrawny. You’ve got to quit it; Can’t you let somebody else carry some of the load? Delegate some authority?”

“I’m delegating all I possibly can already, Red-Top.” Seaton absently rubbed his ear.

Until Dorothy had flipped it away, the button had been carrying to him a transcription of the taped reports of more than one hundred Planetary Observers from the planet of Norlamin, each with the IQ of an Einstein and the sagacity of an owl. The last report had had to do with plentiful supplies of X metal that had been turned up on a planet of Omicron Eridani, and the decision to dispatch a fleet of cargo-carrying ships to fetch them away.

But he admitted grudgingly to himself that that particular decision had already been made. His wife was a nearer problem. Paying full attention to her now, he put his arm around her and squeezed.

“Converting a whole planet practically all at once to use fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-order stuff is a job of work, believe me. It’s all so new and so tough that not too many people can handle any part of it. It takes brains. And what makes it extra tough is that altogether too many people who are smart enough to learn it are crooks. Shysters — hoodlers — sticky-fingers generally. But I think we’re just about over the hump. I wouldn’t wonder if these Norlaminian ‘Observers’ — snoopers, really — from the Country of Youth will turn out to be the answer to prayer.”

“They’d better,” she said, darkly. “At least, something had better.”

“Besides, if you think I look like the wrath of God, take a good look at Mart sometime. He’s having more grief than I am.”

“I already have; he looks like a refugee from a concentration camp. Peggy was screaming about it this morning, and we’re both going to just simply…”

What the girls intended to do was not revealed, for at that moment there appeared in the air before them the projected simulacra of eight green-skinned, more-or-less-human men; the men with whom they had worked so long; the ablest thinkers of the Central System.

There was majestic Fodan, the Chief of the Five of Norlamin; there was white-bearded Orlon, the First of Astronomy; Rovol, the First of Rays; Astron, the First of Energy; Drasnik, the First of Psychology; Satrazon and Castor, the Firsts of Chemistry and of Mechanism, respectively; and-in some ways not the least-there was that powerhouse of thought Sacner Carfon the two thousand three hundred forty-sixth: the hairless, almost porpoise-like Chief of the Council of the watery planet Dasor. They were not present in the flesh. But their energy projections were as seemingly solid as Seaton’s own tall, lean body.

“We come, Overlord of the System, upon a matter of—” the Chief of the Five began.

“Don’t call me ‘Overlord’. Please.” Seaton broke in, with grim foreboding in his eyes while Dorothy stiffened rigidly in the circle of his arms. Both knew that those masters of thought could scarcely be prevailed upon to leave their own worlds even via projection.

For all eight of them to come this far — almost halfway across the galaxy! — meant that something was very wrong indeed.

“I’ve told you a dozen times, not only I ain’t no Overlord but I don’t want to be and won’t be. I don’t like to play God — I simply have not got what it takes.”

“ ‘Coordinator’, then, which is of course a far better term for all except the more primitive races,” Fodan went imperturbably on. “We have told you, youth, not a dozen times, but once, which should have been sufficient, that your young and vigorous race possesses qualities that our immensely older peoples no longer have. You, as the ablest individual of your race, are uniquely qualified to serve total civilization. Thus, whenever your services become necessary, you will so serve. Your services have again become necessary. Orlon, in whose province the matter primarily lies, will explain.”

Seaton nodded to himself. It was going to be bad, all right, he thought as the First of Astronomy took over.

“You, friend Richard, with some help from us, succeeded in encapsulating a group of malignant immaterial entities, including the disembodied personality of your fellow-scientist Doctor Marc C. DuQuesne, in a stasis of time. This capsule, within which no time whatever could or can elapse, was launched into space with a linear acceleration of approximately three times ten to the twelfth centimeters per second squared. It was designed and powered to travel at that acceleration for something over one hundred thousand million Tellurian years; at the end of which time it was to have been rotated through the fourth dimension into an unknown and unknowable location in normal three-dimensional space.”

“That’s right,” Sexton said. “And it will. It’ll do just exactly that. Those pure-intellectual louses are gone for good; and so is Blackie DuQuesne.”

“You err, youth,” corrected the Norlaminian. “You did not allow us time sufficient to consider and to evaluate all the many factors involved. Rigid analysis and extended computation show that the probability approaches unity that the capsule of stasis will, almost certainly within one Tellurian year of its launching and highly probably in much less time, encounter celestial matter of sufficient density to volatilize its uranium power bars. This event will of course allow the stasis of time to collapse and the imprisoned immaterial entities will be liberated; in precisely the same condition as in the instant of their encapsulation.”

Dorothy Sexton gasped. Even her husband showed that he was shaken. DuQuesne and the Immortals free? But “But it can’t!” he fairly yelled the protest. “It’ll dodge — it’s built to dodge anything that dense!”

“At ordinary — or even extraordinary — velocities, yes,” the ancient sage agreed, unmoved. “Its speed of reaction is great, yes; a rather small fraction of a trillionth of a second. That interval of time, however, while small, is very large indeed relative to zero. Compute for yourself, please, what distance that capsule will in theory traverse during that space of time at the end of only one third of one of your years.”

Sexton strode across the room and uncovered a machine that resembled somewhat a small, unpretentious desk calculator. He picked up a helmet and thought into it briefly; then stared appalled at the figure that appeared on a tape.

( Dorothy Sexton was highly averse to having the appearance of her living room ruined by office equipment. Sexton, however, was living and working under such high tension that he had to have almost instant access to the Valeron’s Brain, at any time of the day or night or wherever he might be. Hence this compromise — inconspicuous machines, each direct-connected to the cubic mile of ultra-miniaturization that was the Brain. E. E. S.)

“My-aunt’s-cat’s-kitten’s-pants-buttons,” he said, slowly. “It’d’ve been smarter, maybe, to’ve put ’em in orbit around a planetless sun… And I don’t suppose there’s a Chinaman’s chance of catching ’em again that same way.”

“No. Those minds are competent,” agreed the Norlaminian. “Only one point is clear. You must again activate the Skylark of Valeron and again wear its sixth-order controller, since we know of no other entity who either — can wear it or should. We eight are here to confer and, on the basis of the few data now available, to plan.”

Sexton scowled in concentration for two long minutes.

It was a measure of the strain that had been working on him that it took that long. As he had said, he was no God, and didn’t want to be. He had not gone looking for either conquest or glory. One thing at a time… but that “one thing” had successively led him across a galaxy, into another dimension, through many a hard and desperate fight against some of the most keen-honed killers of a universe.

His gray eyes hardened. Of all those killers, it was Blackie DuQuesne who posed the greatest threat — to civilization, to Sexton himself, and above all to his wife, Dorothy.

DuQuesne at large was deadly.

“All right,” he snapped at last. “If that’s all that’s in the wood, I suppose that’s the way it’ll have to be carved.”

The Norlaminian merely nodded. He, at least, had had no doubts of how Sexton would react to the challenge. Typically, once Sexton had decided speed became of the essence. “We’ll start moving now,” he barked. “The parameters give us up to a year — maybe — but from this minute we act as though DuQuesne and the Intellectuals are back in circulation right now. So if one of you — Rovol? — will put beams on Mart and Peg and project them over here, we’ll get right at it.”

And Dorothy, her face turning so white that a line of freckles stood boldly out across the bridge of her nose, picked the baby up and clasped him fiercely, protectively to her breast.

M. Reynolds (“Martin” or “Mart”) Crane was tall, slender, imperturbable; his black-haired, ivory-skinned wife Margaret was tall and whistle stacked — she and Dorothy were just about of a size and a shape. In a second or two their full working projections appeared, standing in the middle of the room facing the Sextons — projections so exactly true to life and so solid-seeming as to give no indication whatever that they were not composed of fabric and of flesh and bone and blood.

Sexton stood up and half-bowed to Margaret, but wasted no time in getting down to business. “Hi, Peg — Mart. He briefed you?”

“Up to the moment, yes,” Crane replied.

“You know, then, that some time in the indeterminate but not too distant future all hell is going to be out for noon. Any way I scan it, it looks to me as though, more or less shortly, we’re going to be spurlos versenkt-sunk without a trace.”

“You err, youth.” Drasnik, the First of Psychology of Norlamin, spoke quite sharply, for him. “Your thinking is loose, turbid, confused; inexcusably superficial; completely…”

“But you know what their top man said!” Seaton snapped. “The one they called ‘One’ — and he wasn’t kidding, either, believe me!”

“I do, youth. I know more than that, since they visited us long since. They were not exactly ‘kidding’ you, perhaps, but your several various interpretations of One’s actual words and actions were inconsistent with any and every aspect of the truth. Those words and actions were in all probability designed to elicit such responses and reactions as would enable him to analyze and classify your race. Having done so, the probability approaches unity that you will not again encounter him or any of his group.”

“My — God!” Dorothy, drawing a tremendously deep breath, put Dick the Small back down on the rug and left him to his own devices. “That makes sense… I was scared simply witless.”

“Maybe,” Seaton admitted, “as far as One and the rest of his original gang are concerned. But there’s still DuQuesne. And if Blackie DuQuesne, even as an immaterial pattern of pure sixth-order force, thinks that way about me I’m a Digger Indian.”

“Ah, yes; DuQuesne. One question, please, to clarify my thinking. Can you, do you think, even with the fullest use of all the resources of your Skylark of Valeron, release the intact mind from any body?”

“Of course I… oh, I see what you mean. Just a minute; I think probably I can find out from here.” He went over to his calculator-like instrument, put on a helmet, and stood motionless for a couple of minutes while the great brain of the machine made its computation. Then, wearing a sheepish grin:

“A flat bust. I not only couldn’t, I didn’t,” he reported. cheerfully. “So One not only did the business, but he was good enough to make me know that I was doing it. What an operator!” He sobered, thought intensely, then went on, “So they sucked us in. Played with us.”

“You are now beginning to think clearly, youth,” Drasnik said. “We come now, then, to lesser probabilities. DuQuesne’s mind, of itself, is a mind of power.”

“You can broadcast that to the all-attentive universe,” Seaton said. “Question: how much stuff has he got now? We know he’s got the fifth order down solid. Incarnate, he didn’t know any more than that. However, mind is a pattern of sixth-order force. Knowing what we went through to get the sixth, and that we haven’t got it all yet by seven thousand rows of Christmas trees, the first sub-question asks itself: Can a free mind analyze itself — completely enough to work out and to handle the entire order of force in which it lies?”

“We may assume I think, that One could have given DuQuesne full knowledge of the sixth if he felt like it. The second sub-question, then, is; did he? If those questions aren’t enough to start with I can think of plenty more.”

“They are enough, youth,” Fodan said. “You have pointed out the crux. We will now discuss the matter. Since this first phase lies largely in your province, Drasnik, you will now take over.”

The discussion mounted, and grew, and went on and on. Silently Dorothy slipped away, and the projection of force that was Margaret Crane followed her into the kitchen.

There was no need for Dorothy to prepare coffee and sandwiches for her husband, not by hand; one thought into a controller would have produced any desired amount of any desired comestibles. But she wanted something to do. Both girls knew from experience that a conference of this sort might go on for hours; and Dorothy knew that with food placed before him, Seaton would eat; without it, he would never notice the lack.

She did not, of course, prepare anything for the others.

They were not there. Their bodies were at varying distances — a few miles for Crane and his wife, an unthinkable number of parsecs for the Norlaminians and Sacner Carfon.

The distance between Earth and the Green System was so unthinkably vast that there was no point in trying to express it in numbers of miles, or even parsecs. The central green sun of the cluster that held Norlamin, Osnome and Dasor was visible from Earth, all right — in Earth’s hugest optical telescopes, as a tiny, 20th-magnitude point — but the light that reached Earth had been on its way for tens of thousand of years before Seaton’s ancestors had turned from hunting to agriculture, had taken off their crude skins and begun to build houses, cities, machines and, ultimately, spaceships.

To all of this Dorothy and Peggy Crane were no strangers; they had been themselves in such projections countless times. If they were more than usually silent, it was not because of the astonishing quality of the meeting that was taking place in the Seatons’ living room, but because of the subject of that meeting. Both Dorothy and Peg knew Marc DuQuesne well. Both of them had experienced his cold, impersonal deadliness.

Neither wanted to come close to it again.

Back in the living room, Seaton was saying: “If One gave DuQuesne all of the sixth-order force patterns, he can be anywhere and can do practically anything. So he probably didn’t. On the other hand if One didn’t give him any of it DuQuesne couldn’t get back here in forty lifetimes. So he probably gave him some of it. The drive and the projector, at least. Maybe as much as we have, to equalize us. Maybe One figured he owed the ape that mach. Whatever the truth may be, we’ve got to assume that DuQuesne knows as much as we do about sixth-order forces.” He paused, then corrected himself. “If we’re smart we’ll assume that he knows more than we do. So we’ll have to find somebody else who knows more than we do to learn from. Question how do we go about doing that? Not by just wandering around the galaxy at random, looking; that’s one certain damn sure thing.”

“It is indeed,” the moderator agreed. “Sacner Carfon, you have, I think, a contribution to make at this point?”

“I have?” The Dasorian was surprised at first, but caught on quickly. “Oh — perhaps I have, at that. By using Seaton’s power and that of the Brain on the Fodan-Carfon band of the sixth, it will undoubtedly be possible to broadcast a thought that would affect selected mentalities wherever situate in any galaxy of this universe.”

“But listen!” protested Seaton. “We don’t want to advertise how dumb we are all over space!”

“Of course not. The thought would be very carefully built and highly selective. It would tell who we are, what we have done, and what we intend and hope to do. It would state our abilities and — by inference, and only to those we seek — our lacks; and would invite all qualified persons and entities to get in touch with us.”

Seaton looked abstracted for a moment. He was thinking. The notion of sending out a beacon of thought was probably a good one — had to be a good one — after all, the Norlaminians and Sacner Carfon knew what they were doing. Yet he could see complications. The Fodan-Carfon band of the sixth order was still very new and very experimental. “Can you make it selective?” he demanded. “I don’t mind telling our prospective friends we need help — I don’t want to holler it to our enemies.”

The Dasorian’s deep voice chuckled. “It can not be made selective,” he said. “The message would of necessity be on such a carrier as to be receivable by any intelligent brain. Yet it can be hedged about with such safeguards, limitations and compulsions that no one could or would pay attention to it except those who possess at least some ability, overt or latent, to handle the Fodan-Carfon band.”

Seaton whistled through his teeth. “Wow! And just how are you going to clamp on such controls as those? I don’t see how anything but magic — sheer, unadulterated, pure black magic! — could swing that load.”

“Precisely. Or, rather, imprecisely. It is unfortunate that your term ‘magic’ is so inexcusably loose and carries so many and so deplorable connotations and implications. Shall we design and build the thought we wish to send out?”

The thought was designed and was built; and was launched into space with the inconceivable, the utterly immeasurable velocity of its order of being.

A red-haired stripper called Madlyn Mannis, strutting her stuff in Tampa in Peninsula Florida, felt it and almost got it; but, not being very strongly psychic, shrugged it off and went on about the business of removing the last sequin bedecked trifle of her costume.

And, as close to the dancer as plenteous baksheesh could arrange for, a husky, good-looking young petrochemical engineer named Charles K. van der Gleiss felt a thrill like nothing he had ever felt before — but ascribed it, naturally enough, to the fact that this was the first time he had ever seen Madlyn Mannis dance. And in Washington, D.C. one Doctor Stephanie de Marigny, a nuclear physicist, pricked up her ears, tightened the muscles of her scalp, and tried for two full minutes to think of something she ought to think of but couldn’t.

Out past the Green System the message sped, and past the dust and the incandescent gas that had once been the noisome planet of the Fenachrone. Past worlds where amphibians roared and bellowed; past planets of methane ice where crystalline life brooded sluggishly on its destiny.

In the same infinitesimal instant it reached and passed the Rim Worlds of our galaxy; touching many minds but really affecting none. Farther and farther out, with no decrease whatever in speed, it flew; past the inconceivably tiny, inconceivably fast-moving point that housed the seven greatest, most fearsome minds that the Macrocosmic All had ever spawned — minds that, knowing all about that thought already, ignored it completely.

Immensely farther out, it flashed through the galaxy in which was the solar system of Ray-See-Nee — where, for the first time, it made solid contact with a mind in a body human to the limit of classification. Kay-Lee Barlo, confidential secretary of Department Head Bay-Lay Boyn, stiffened so suddenly that she stuttered into her microphone and had to erase three words from a tape — and in that same instant her mother at home went into deep trance.

And still farther out, in a galaxy lying almost on the universe’s Arbitrary Rim, in the Realm of the Llurdi, the message found a much larger group of receivers. While none of the practically enslaved Jelmi could do much of anything about that weirdly peculiar and inexplicably guarded thought, many of them were very much interested in it; particularly Valkyrie-like Sennlloy, a native of the planet Allondax and the master biologist of all known space; ancient Tammon, the greatest genius of the entire Jelman race; and newlyweds Mergon and Luloy, the Mallidaxian savants.

None of the monstrous Llurdi — not even their most monstrous “director”, Klazmon the Fifteenth — being monstrous — could receive the message in any part. And how well that was! For if those tremendously able aliens could have received that message, could have understood it and acted upon it, how vastly different the history of all humanity would have been!