Skylark DuQuesne

24. DUQUESNE AND SLEEMET

EN route to the galaxy in which DuQuesne’s aliens supposedly lived, Dorothy said, “Say Dick. I forgot to ask you something. What did you ever find out about that thought business of Kay-Lee’s?”

“Huh?” Seaton was surprised. “What was there to find out? How are you going to explain the mechanism of thought — by unscrewing the inscrutable? She said, and I quote, “We didn’t feel that we were quite reaching you,” unquote. So it was she and Ree-Toe Prenk. Obviously. Holding hands or something — across a Ouija board or some other focusing device, probably. Staring into each other’s eyes to link minds and direct the thought.”

“But they did hit you with something,” she insisted, “and it bothers me. They can do it and we can’t.”

“No sweat, pet. That isn’t a circumstance to what you do every time you think at a controller to order up a meal or whatever. How do you do that? Different people, different abilities, is all. Anyway, Earth mediums have done that kind of thing for ages. If you’re really interested, you can take some time off and learn it, next time we’re on Ray-See-Nee. But for right now, my red-headed beauty, we’ve got something besides that kind of monkey-business to worry about.”

“That’s right, we have,” and Dorothy forgot the minor matter in thinking of the major.

“Those aliens. Have you and Martin figured out a modus operandi?”

“More or less. Go in openly, like tourists, but with everything we’ve got not only on the trips but hyped up to as nearly absolutely instantaneous reactivity as the Brain can possibly get it.”

Both DuQuesne’s DQ and Seaton’s Skylark of Valeron were within range of Llurdiax.

DuQuesne, however, as has been said, was covering up as tightly as he could.

Everything that could be muzzled or muffled was muzzled or muffled, and he was traveling comparatively slowly, so as to put out the minimum of detectable high-order emanation. Furthermore, his screens were shoved out to such a tremendous distance, and were being varied so rapidly and so radically in shape, that no real pattern existed to be read. The DQ was not indetectable, of course, but it would have taken a great deal of highly specialized observation and analysis to find her.

The Skylark of Valeron, on the other hand, was coming in wide open: “Like a tourist,” as Seaton had told Dorothy the plan was to do.

In the llanzlanate on Llurdiax, therefore, an observer alerted Klazmon, who flew immediately to his master-control panel. He checked the figures the observer had given him, and was as nearly appalled as a Llurd could become. An artificial structure of that size and mass — it was certainly not a natural planetoid — had never even been thought of by any builder of record. He measured its acceleration — the Valeron was still braking down at max and his eyes bulged. That thing, tremendous as it was, had the power-to-mass ratio of a speedster! In spite of its immense size it was actually an intergalactic flyer!

He launched a probe, as he had done so many times before — but with entirely unexpected results.

The stranger’s guardian screens were a hundred times as reactive as any known to Llurdan science. He was not allowed time for even the briefest of mental contacts or for any real observation at all. So infinitesimal had been the instant usable time that only one fact was clear. The entities in that mobile monstrosity were — positively — Jelmoids.

Not true Jelmi, certainly. He knew all about the Jelmi. Those tapes bore unmistakable internal evidence of being true and complete records and there was no hint anywhere in them of anything like this. If not the Jelmi, who? Ah, yes, the Fenachrone, whose fleet… no, Sleemet knew nothing of such a construction… and he was not exactly of the same race… ah, yes, that one much larger ship that had escaped. The probability was high that its one occupant belonged to precisely the same Jelmoid race as did the personnel of this planetoid. The escaped one had reported Klazmon’s cursory investigation as an attack. It was a virtual certainty, therefore, that this was a battleship of that race, heading for Llurdiax to… to what? To investiate merely? No.

Nor merely to parley. They had made no attempt whatever to communicate. (It did not occur to Klazmon, then or ever, that his own fiercely driven probe could not possibly have been taken for an attempt at communication. He had fully intended to communicate, as soon as he had seized the mind of whoever was in command of the strange spacecraft.) And now, with the stranger’s incredible full-coverage screen in operation, communication was and would remain impossible.

But he had data sufficient for action. These Jelmoids, like all others he knew, were rabidly anti-social, illogical, unreasoning, unsane and insane. They were — definitely — surplus population.

So thinking, Llanzlan Klazmon launched his attack.

As the Skylark entered that enigmatic galaxy, Seaton was not in his home, with only a remote-control helmet with which to work. He was in the control room itself, at the base of the Brain, with the tremendously complex master-control itself surrounding his head.

Thus he was attuned to and in instantaneous contact with every activated cell of that gigantic Brain. It was ready to receive and to act upon with the transfinite speed of thought any order that Seaton would think. Nor would any such action interfere in any way with the automatics that Seaton had already set up.

“I’m going to stay here all day,” Seaton said, “and all night tonight, too, if necessary.”

But he did not have to stay there even all day. In less than four hours the llanzlan drove his probe and Seaton probed practically instantaneously back. And since Seaton’s hyped-up screens were a hundred times faster than the Llurd’s, Seaton “saw” a hundred times as much as Klazmon did. He saw the city Llurdias in all its seat-of-empire pride and glory. He perceived its miles-wide girdle of fortresses. He perceived the llanzlanate; understood its functions and purposes. He entered the Hall of Computation and examined minutely the beings and the machines at work there.

How could all this be? Because the speed of thought, if not absolutely infinite, is at least transfinite; immeasurable to man. And the Valeron’s inorganic brain and Seaton’s organic one were, absolutely and super-intimately, the two component parts of one incredibly able, efficient and proficient whole.

Thus, when the alien’s attack was launched in all its fury and almost all of the Valeron’s mighty defensive engines went simultaneously into automatic action, the coded chirpings that the Brain employed to summon human help did not sound: that Brain’s builder, fellow, boss, and perfect complement was already on the job.

And thus, since no warning had been given, the other Skylarkers were surprised when Seaton called them all down into the control room.

They were even more surprised when they saw how white and strained his face was.

“This may become veree unfunny,” he said. “ ’Tsa good thing I muscled her up or we’d be losing some skin and some of our defense. As it is, we’re holding ’em and we’ve got a few megas in reserve. Not enough to be really happy about, but some. And we’re building more, of course. However, that ape down there has undoubtedly got a lot of stuff otherwheres on the planet that he can hook in pretty fast, so whatever we’re going to do we’d better do right now.”

“They didn’t try to communicate at all?” Crane asked. “Strange for a race of such obviously high attainments.”

“Not a lick,” Seaton said, flatly. “Just a probe; the hardest and sharpest probe I ever saw. When I blocked it Whammo!”

“You probed, too, of course,” Dorothy said. “What did you find out? Are they really monstrous, as DuQuesne said, out purely to kill?”

“Just that. He wasn’t lying a nickel’s worth on that. His Nibs down there had already decided that we were surplus population and should be eliminated, and he set right out to do it. So, unless some of you have some mighty valid reasons not to, I’m going to try my damndest to eliminate him, right now.”

“We could run, I suppose,” Margaret suggested — but not at all enthusiastically.

“I doubt it. Not without letting him burn us down to basketball size, like the Chlorans did. He undoubtedly let us get this close on purpose so we couldn’t.”

Since no one else said anything, Seaton energized everything of offense he had. He tuned it as precisely as he possibly could. He assembled it into the tightest, solidest, hardest beam he could possibly build. Then, involuntarily tensing his muscles and bunching his back, he drove the whole gigantic thing squarely at where he knew the llanzlanate was.

The Llurd’s outer screen scarcely flickered as it went black in nothing flat of time. The intermediate screen held for eighty-three hundredths of a second. Then the practically irresistible force of that beam met the practically immovable object that was Klazmon’s last line of defense. And as it clawed and bit and tore and smashed in ultrapyrotechnic ferocity, solar-like flares of raw energy erupted from the area of contact and the very ether writhed and seethed and warped under the intolerable stresses of the utterly incomprehensible forces there at grips.

This went on… and on… and on.

Even to Seaton, who knew only that he was up against an enemy nearly as potent as the Chlorans, the full import of the enormous struggle of energies then being waged was far from clear. We can wonder now, and ask ourselves what the fate of the universe might have been if the Skylark’s Norlaminian designers had skimped on a course of screens, or overlooked a detail of defense. Surely its consequences would have been cataclysmic! Not only to Seaton and his Skylarker, watching grim-faced as their gauges revealed the enormous flow of destructive forces battling each other to annihilation for countless parsecs in every direction. Not only to the Jelmi, or the Rey-See-Neese, or the Norlaminians, or Earth itself… but to countless generations yet unborn, on planets not yet discovered…

But they held.

And after ten endless minutes of such terrible gouts and blasts of destruction as no planet could endure for a moment, Seaton heard a voice speak to him.

He had never heard it before, but it said in good American English: “Good morning, my friends. Or perhaps, by your clocks, it is good afternoon? I am the Llanzlan Mergon of Jelm, and I perceive that you are under attack by our old acquaintances, the Llurdi.

You, I am sure, are the Seatons and the Cranes, about whom we heard so much on Earth, but whom we were not able to find.”

Even though the Llurdi had been absolute rulers of all the planets of the Jelmi for many thousands of years, it was easy for them to accept, and to adopt themselves to, the new condition of coexistence with the Realm of the Jelmi on terms of equality. That was the way they were built.

The llanzlan fed the new data into Computer Prime and issued its findings as a directive. Since this directive was the product of pure logic, that was all there was to it.

With the Jelmi, however, even with a much simpler and easier agenda, things were distinctly otherwise. Everyone knows how difficult it is to change the political thinking of even a part of any human world. How, then, of the two hundred forty whole planets of the Jelmi? The conservatives did not want any change at all. Not even to independence. The radicals wanted everything changed; but each faction wanted each item changed in a different fashion. And the moderates, as usual, did not agree with either extreme wing on anything.

And, also as usual, no one faction would play ball with any other. Each would have its own way in setting up the Realm or there would be no Realm — it would pick up its marbles and go home.

Fortunately, however, the eight hundred best brains of the entire Jelman race were together in one place — in the fully operative base that the Mallidaxian’s dome had now become. Their numbers included the most capable and most highly trained specialists in every field of Jelman endeavor and they all had been living together and working together for many months.

They knew better than to go off half cocked. They would have to develop a master-plan upon which they could all agree. Unanimously. Nothing less would do. Having developed such a plan they would put it into effect, each person or planetary group upon his or her or their home world. The constitution thus fabricated would be put into effect by reason if possible, by force if necessary. It was not to be amended except by process contained within itself.

Thus the Constitutional Committee of Eight Hundred was still living in the base and was still hard at work when the Officer of the Day called Mergon — who, after glancing at plates and instruments, called Luloy.

The ether was showing strains of a magnitude not observed since the Battle for Independence. A Llurd ship was putting out everything he had; fighting full-out against a something — whose battle-screen covered such an immensity of space that Mergon could scarcely believe his instruments.

Luloy quirked an eyebrow. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

“Nothing,” and Mergon, who could now handle projections through the fourth dimension, launched them. “I’ll keep us invisible while we see what that thing is and how big it really is.”

They went and saw — and the more they studied the immensity that was the Skylark of Valeron the more they marveled. Finally, in the Valeron’s control room and still invisible, they studied the worldlet’s personnel; the while talking to each other in the flesh at the Mallidaxian’s main panel.

“Except for the green-skinned couple they are Tellurians,” the girl insisted.

“Everything about that — that ship, if you can call it a ship — is Tellurian. Just look at those clothes. You never saw anything like that anywhere except on Tellus and you never will.”

“We never heard anything about anything like that mobile fortress on Tellus, either,” he objected, “and we certainly would have if they’d known anything about it. How could they hide it?”

“Maybe it’s so new that not too many people know about it yet. Anyway, whatever the truth about that, we heard a lot about Seaton and Crane. Especially Seaton. According to the lore, he’s their principal god’s right-hand man. He can do anything.”

“Or a devil’s, depending on who you talked, to. But we wrote that off as just that — lore. If not propaganda.”

“We’ll have to write it back on again. Those two have to be Seaton and Crane — there, the Jelm-sized one with his head in the controller, and that other bean-pole type standing there smoking a… a cigarette, they call it. And that smoking business clinches it. Nobody but Tellurians burn their lungs out with smoke.”

“Okay.” Mergon thickened their projections up to full visibility and spoke:

“You must be the Seatons and the Cranes, about whom we heard so much on Earth but whom we were not able to find.”

Crane the Imperturbable was startled out of his imperturbability when Mergon and Luloy appeared in the Valeron’s control room and Mergon spoke to him in English. But he did not show it — very much! — and realized in a moment what the truth was.

“We are,” Crane said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. These people would understand the gesture. “I’m M. Reynolds Crane; Doctor Seaton is occupied at the moment. You are of course the people who had the spaceship on the moon. We have come all the way out here in the hope of finding you somewhere in this galaxy.”

“Oh? Oh, you want the fourth-dimensional device.”

“Exactly.” Crane then introduced the others, and finally Seaton; who, having assured himself that the Brain could handle the stalemate without him, had disengaged himself from the master controller and had joined the party.

“That’s right,” Seaton said. “Since nothing like it is known to any science with which we are familiar, we hope to learn about it from you. But that… those monsters… they aren’t, by any chance, friends of yours, are they?”

Luloy laughed. “No. Not exactly… or maybe they are, after a fashion, now. But the Llurdi were our unquestioned masters for so many thousands of years that they haven’t yet decided to treat us or anyone who looks like us with the courtesy reserved for equals. You see, the llanzlan would have communicated with you in thought after he had investigated you a little.”

“Yeah.” Seaton’s smile was grim. “With the stiffest, hardest probe he could build? And I’m supposed to sit still for that kind of manhandling?”

“No.” Mergon took over. “No one but a Llurd could have expected you to. This situation is somewhat unfortunate. Until very recently they have always had overwhelmingly superior power. They never had any effective opposition until we wore them down a little, just recently.” Mergon explained the situation in as few words as possible, concluding, “So this battle, while not due exactly to misunderstanding, is unfortunate.

What I propose is that Luloy and I visit Klazmon via projection, as we are now visiting you, and explain matters to him as we have explained them to you. I take it you will cease fire if he does?”

“Of course. We didn’t come here to start a war, or to bother him in any way; just to see you. So I’ll do better than that; I’ll cut my offense right now.”

He thought at the Brain and the raging inferno above the llanzlanate went suddenly calm and still. “That beam is no pencil of force, believe me. If it should get through it would volatilize his palace and half the city, and that would be unfortunate — hey! He’s quit slugging, too!”

“Of course,” Mergon said. “As I told you, he is — all Llurdi are — completely and perfectly logical. With their own brand of logic, of course. Insanely logical, to our way of thinking… or perhaps unsanely may be the better word. On the basis of the data he then had it was logical for him to attack you. Your cease-fire was a new datum, one that he cannot as yet evaluate. He has deduced the fact that we Jelmi caused it, but he does not know why you stopped. Hence he has restored the status quo ante, pending our explanation.

He wants additional data. If our explanation is satisfactory — data sufficient — he’ll probably just let the whole matter drop. If not — if it’s data insufficient — I wouldn’t know. He’ll do whatever he decides is the logical thing to do — which is ’way beyond my guess-point. He might even resume the attack exactly where he left off; although I think he’ll be able to deduce a reason not to.”

Seaton whistled through his teeth. “Holy… cat!” he said. “If that’s pure logic I’ll take vanilla. But how will you make the approach?”

“Very easily. If two of you will permit us to bring you over here we will send four working projections into the Llanzlan Klazmon’s study, where I’m sure he’s expecting us. You, Doctor Seaton, and your Dorothy, perhaps?”

“Not I!” Dorothy declared, shaking her head vigorously. “Uh-uh. Into battle, yes; this, no. If I never see a monster like that it’ll be twenty minutes too soon. You’re it, Martin.”

“One more thing,” Mergon went on, as Seaton and Crane appeared in the flesh beside him. “Since the Llurdi refuse to learn any language except their own, I must teach you Llurdan,” and he held out two Jelman thought-caps:

“I prefer my own,” Seaton said, after a very short trial.

“So will you, I think,” and he sent back for four of the Skylark’s latest models.

The two Jelmi put two of them on. “Oh, I do indeed!” Luloy exclaimed, and Mergon added, “As was to have been expected, we have much to learn from you, friends.”

“But listen,” Seaton said. “You gave the ape all the dope on that fourth-dimensional thing. Isn’t he apt to toss a superatomic into our Brain with it?”

“There’s no possibility whatever of that, either soon or later. Not soon because, since they work slowly and thoroughly, it will be months yet before they have a full-scale machine. Nor later, because the mutual destruction of four hundred eighty-two populated planets — excuse me, four hundred eighty, now — is not logical in any system of logic, however cockeyed that system may be.”

It took Seaton a fraction of a second to get it, but when he did, it rocked him. “Oh! I hadn’t figured on you coming all the way in. But does he know you will?”

“He certainly does know it!” Luloy broke in. “Beyond a doubt; or what you call peradventure.”

“Oh,” Seaton said again. “And that’s why he isn’t going to resume hostilities with ordinary weapons, either? Thanks, you two, a million. We appreciate it. Okay; we’re ready, I guess.”

The four projections appeared in front of the llanzlan’s desk. He was expecting them.

“Well?” he asked.

Mergon began to explain, but Seaton cut him off. Mergon could not possibly feel equal to Klazmon in a face-to-face; Seaton could and did.

“I can explain us better than you can, friend Mergon,” he said. Then, to the Llurd, “We came here to visit the human beings whom you call the Jelmi. We did not have, have not now, and do not expect to have any interest whatever in you Llurdi or in anything Llurdan. Our purpose is to promote intergalactic commerce and interhuman friendship.

The various human races have different abilities and different artifacts and different knowledges — many of each of which are of benefit to other human races.

“You made an unprovoked attack on us. Know now, Llanzlan Klazmon, that I do not permit invasion, either mental or physical, by any entity — man, beast, god, devil or Llurd — of this or of any other galaxy. Although I can imagine few subjects upon which you and I could converse profitably, if you wish to talk to me as one intelligent and logical entity to another I will so converse. But I repeat — I will not permit invasion.

“If you wish to resume battle on that account that is your right and your privilege. You will note, however, that our attack was metered precisely to a point just below your maximum capability of resistance. Know now that if you force us to destroy your city and perhaps your world it will not have been the first city or the first world we have been forced to destroy; nor, with a probability of point nine nine nine, will it have been the last. Do you want peace with us or war?”

“Peace. Data sufficient,” Klazmon said immediately. “I have recorded the fact that there is at least one Jelmoid race other than the Jelmi themselves of which some representatives are both able and willing to employ almost Llurdan logic,” and he switched his attention from the projections to the tape he had been studying — cutting communications as effectively as though he had removed himself to another world.

Back in the Mallidaxian, while Luloy stared at Seaton almost in awe, Mergon said, “That was a beautiful job, Doctor Seaton. Perfect! Much better than I could have done. You used flawless Llurdan logic.”

“Thanks to the ace in the hole you gave me with your briefing, I could do it. I’d hate to have to run a bluff on that ape. What’s next on the agenda, Savant Mergon?”

“Make it ‘Merg’, please; and I’ll call you ‘Dick’. Now that this is settled, why don’t you put your fortress-planetoid on automatic and let us bring you all here, so that our peoples may become friends in person and may begin work upon tasks of mutual interest?”

“That’s a thought, friend; that really is a thought,” Seaton said, and it was done forthwith.

Aboard the Mallidaxian, Seaton cut the social amenities as short as he courteously could; then went with inseparable Mergon and Luloy to Tammon’s laboratory. That fourth dimensional gizmo was what he was interested in. With his single-mindedness that was all he was interested in, at the moment, of the entire Jelman culture. All four donned Skylark thought-helmets and Seaton set out to learn everything there was to be known about that eight million cubic feet of esoteric apparatus. And Mergon, who didn’t know much of anything about recent developments, was eager to catch up.

Seaton did not learn all about the fourth-dimensional device in one day, nor in one week; but when he had it all filed away in the Brain he asked, “Is that all you have of it?”

He did not mean to be insulting; he was only greatly surprised.

The old savant bristled and Seaton apologized hastily. “I didn’t mean to belittle your achievement in any sense, sir. It’s probably the greatest breakthrough ever made. But it doesn’t seem to be complete.”

“Of course it isn’t complete!” Tammon snapped. “I’ve been working on it only—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Seaton broke in. “The concept is incomplete. In several ways. For instance, if fourth dimensional translation is used as a weapon, you have no defense against it.”

“Of course there’s no defense against it!” Tammon defended his brain-child like a tigress defending her young. “By the very nature of things there can’t be any defense against it!”

At that, politeness went by the board. “You’re wrong,” Seaton said, flatly. “By the very nature of things there has to be. All nature is built on a system of checks and balances.

Doing a job so terrifically big and so brand new, I doubt if anybody could get the whole thing at once. Let’s go over the theory again, together, with a microscope, to see if we can’t add something to it somewhere?”

Tammon agreed, but reluctantly. Deep down in his own mind he did not believe that any other mind could improve upon any particular of his work. As the review progressed, however, he became more and more enthusiastic. As well he might; for the mathematics section of Richard Seaton’s multi-compartmented mind contained, indexed and cross-index, all the work done by countless grand masters of the subject during half a million years.

Luloy started to pull her helmet off, but Mergon stopped her with a direct thought. “I’m lost, too, sweet, but keep on listening. We can get bits here and there — and we’ll probably never have the chance again to watch two such minds at work.”

“Hold it!” Seaton snapped, half an hour later. “Back up — there! This integral here. Limits zero to pi over two. You’re limiting the thing to a large but definitely limited volume of your generalized N-dimensional space. I think it should be between zero and infinity — and while we’re at it let’s scrap half of the third determinant in that no-space-no-time complex. Let’s see what happens if we substitute the gamma function here and the chi there and the xi there and the omicron down there in the corner.”

“But why?” the old savant protested. “I don’t see any possible reason for any of it.”

Seaton grinned. “There isn’t any — any more than there was for your original brainstorm. If there had been the Norlaminian would have worked this whole shebang out a hundred thousand years ago. It’s nothing but a hunch, but it’s strong enough so I want to follow it up — okay? Fine then, integrating that, we get…”

Five hours later, Tammon took his helmet off and stared at Seaton with wonder in his eyes. “Do you realize just what you’ve done, young man? You have made a break through at least equal to my own. Opened up a whole vast new field — a field parallel to my own, perhaps, but in no sense the same.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Merely an enlargement. All I did was follow a hunch.”

“An intuition,” Tammon corrected him. “What else, pray, makes breakthroughs?”

And Luloy, on the way out of the laboratory hand in hand with Mergon, said, “I had no idea that Tellus ever did or ever could produce anybody like him. He is their god’s fair-haired child, for a fact. Sennlloy will have to know about this, Merg.”

“She will indeed — I was sure you’d think of that.”

And as soon as Dorothy could get Seaton alone that evening she stared at him with a variety of emotions playing over her face. As though she had never seen him before; or as though she were getting acquainted with him all over again. “I’ve been talking to Sennlloy,” she announced. “Or, rather, she’s been talking to me. She didn’t lose much time, did she?”

Seaton blushed to the roots of his hair. “I’ll say she didn’t. Not any. She knocked me for a block-long row of ash cans.”

“Uh-huh. Me, too — and how! She told me you said I’d blow my red top and I just about did, until she explained. She’s quite a gal, isn’t she? And what a shape! You know, I’m awfully glad I’m not too bad in that shape department myself, or I’d die of mortification looking at them? But Dick — don’t you suppose there are any people in this whole cockeyed universe except us and the Rayseenians who don’t run around naked all the time?”

“I wouldn’t know; but what has all that got to do with the price of hasheesh in Istanbul?”

“It ties in. She must have thought I was some kind of an idiot child, but she didn’t show it. She couldn’t really understand my taboos, she said, since they were not in her own heredity, but she could accept them as facts in mine and work within their limitations.”

Dorothy blushed, but went on, “I’d be the only Prime Operator — and so forth. You know about the ‘and so forth’. Anyway, before she got done she actually made me feel ashamed of myself! They really need your genes, Dick. You didn’t let on, did you, that DuQuesne’s a Tellurian, too?”

“I’ll say I didn’t! The less they think that ape and I came from the same world, the better I’ll like it.”

“You and me both. Well, she didn’t actually say so, but when she found out what kind of genes you have she decided to pour every one of DuQuesne’s right down the drain.”

“Could be.” Seaton didn’t agree with that conclusion at all, but he was too smart to argue the point.

At breakfast the following morning Seaton said, “You chirped it, birdie, about their thinking us some kind of idiot children. Besides, the First Principle and Prime Tenet of all diplomacy has always been, ‘When in Rome be a Roman candle’. So I think we’d all better peel to the raw as of now. You and I had better, whether the rest do or not. Check?”

“Check — but I think they will. We’re horribly conspicuous, dressed. People look at us as though we were things that had escaped from a zoo. And all the Green System people have always thought we were more than somewhat loco in the coco for covering up so much. We’ll get used to it easily enough — look at the nudists. So lead on, my bold and valiant — I follow thee to the bitter end of all my raiment.”

“I knew you would, ace. Let’s go spread the gospel.”

When they approached the Cranes and the Japanese on the subject, Margaret threw back her black-thatched head and laughed. “We must be psychic — we were going to spring the same thing on you. And after all, actually, how much do our bathing suits hide? Yours or mine either one? And we have it to show, too — so here goes! The last one undressed is Stinker of the Day!” She began to unzip, then paused and looked at Lotus.

The Nisei girl shrugged. “We all should, of course, I won’t like it and I positively know I’ll never get used to it, but if you two do I will too if it kills me.”

“’At-a-girl, Lambie!” Margaret put her arm around the beautifully formed little body and squeezed. “But you just wait — you’ll have it really made. None of them ever saw anything like you before, you gorgeous little doll, you. With your size and build you’ll be the absolute Queen of the May!”