The Voyage of the Space Beagle

CHAPTER FIVE

To the guard at the entrance of the control bridge, Grosvenor handed his credentials. The man examined them doubtfully.

“I guess it’s all right,” he said finally. “But so far I haven’t admitted anyone in here who’s under forty. How did you rate?”

Grosvenor grinned. “I got in on the ground floor of a new science.”

The guard looked again at the card, and then said as he handed it back, “Nexialism? What’s that?”

“Applied whole-ism,” said Grosvenor, and stepped across the threshold.

When he glanced back a moment later, he saw that the man was gazing after him blankly. Grosvenor smiled, and then put the incident out of his mind. It was the first time he had been on the bridge. He gazed around him with curious eyes, impressed and fascinated. In spite of its compactness, the control board was a massive structure. It was built in a series of great curving tiers. Each arc of metal was two hundred feet long, and a full sweep of steps led steeply from one tier to the next. The instruments could be manipulated from the floor, or, more swiftly, from a jointed control chair that hung from the ceiling at the end of a power-driven, upside-down crane structure.

The lowest level of the room was an auditorium with about a hundred comfortable chairs. They were big enough to hold men wearing space suits, and nearly two dozen men so dressed were already sitting in them. Grosvenor settled himself unobtrusively. A minute later, Morton and Captain Leeth entered from the captain’s private office, which opened from the bridge. The commander sat down. Morton began without preamble.

“We know that of all the machines in the engine room, the most important to the monster was the electric dynamo. He must have worked in a frenzy of terror to get it started before we penetrated the doors. Any comments on that?”

Pennons said, “I’d like to have somebody describe to me just what he did to make those doors impregnable.”

Grosvenor said, “There is a known electronic process by which metals can be temporarily hardened to an enormous degree, but I’ve never heard of it being done without several tons of special equipment, which doesn’t exist on this ship.”

Kent turned to look at him. He said impatiently, “What’s the good of knowing how he did it? If we can’t break through those doors with our atomic disintegrators, that’s the end. He can do as he pleases with this ship.”

Morton was shaking his head. “We’ll have to do some planning, and that’s what we’re here for.” He raised his voice. “Selenski!”

The pilot leaned down from the control chair. His sudden appearance surprised Grosvenor. He hadn’t noticed the man in the chair. “What is it, sir?” Selenski asked.

“Start all the engines!”

Selenski swung his control seat skilfully toward the master switch. Gingerly, he eased the great lever into position. There was a jerk that shook the ship, an audible humming sound, and then for several seconds a shuddering of the floor. The ship steadied, the machines settled down to their work, and the humming faded into a vague vibration.

Presently, Morton said, “I’m going to ask various experts to give their suggestions for fighting pussy. What we need here is a consultation between many different specialized fields and, however interesting theoretical possibilities might be, what we want is the practical approach.”

And that, Grosvenor decided ruefully, effectively disposed of Elliott Grosvenor, Nexialist. It shouldn’t have. What Morton wanted was integration of many sciences, which was what Nexialism was for. He guessed, however, that he would not be one of the experts whose practical advice Morton would be interested in. His guess was correct.

It was two hours later when the Director said in a distracted tone, “I think we’d better take half an hour now to eat and rest. This is the big push we’re coming to. We’ll need everything we’ve got.”

Grosvenor headed for his own department. He was not interested in food and rest. At thirty-one, he could afford to dispense with the occasional meal or a night of sleep. It seemed to him he had half an hour in which to solve the problem of what should be done with the monster that had taken control of the ship.

The trouble with what the scientists had agreed on was that it was not thorough enough. A number of specialists had pooled their knowledge on a fairly superficial level. Each had briefly outlined his ideas to people who were not trained to grasp the wealth of association behind each notion. And so the attack plan lacked unity.

It made Grosvenor uneasy to realize that he, a young man of thirty-one, was probably the only person aboard with the training to see the weaknesses in the plan. For the first time since coming aboard six months before, he had a sharp appreciation of what a tremendous change had taken place in him at the Nexial Foundation. It was not too much to say that all previous education systems were outdated. Grosvenor took no personal credit for the training he had received. He had created none of it. But as a graduate of the Foundation, as a person who had been put aboard the Space Beagle for a specific purpose, he had no alternative but to decide on a definite solution, and then use every available means to convince those in authority.

The trouble was he needed more information. He went after it in the quickest possible fashion. He called up various departments on the communicator.

Mostly, he talked to subordinates. Each time he introduced himself as a department head, and the effect of that was considerable. Junior scientists accepted his identification of himself and were usually very helpful though not always. There was the type of individual who said, “I’ll have to get authority from my superiors.” One department head — Smith — talked to him personally, and gave him all the information he wanted. Another was polite and asked him to call again after the cat was destroyed. Grosvenor contacted the chemistry department last and asked for Kent, taking it for granted — and hoping — that he would not get through. He was all ready to say to the subordinate, “Then you can give me the information I want.” To his annoyance and amazement he was connected with Kent at once.

The chemist chief listened to him with ill-concealed impatience, and abruptly cut him off. “You can obtain the information from here through the usual channels. However, the discoveries made on the cat’s planet will not be available for some months. We have to check and countercheck all our findings.”

Grosvenor persisted. “Mr. Kent, I ask you most earnestly to authorize the immediate release of information regarding the quantitative analysis of the cat-planet atmosphere. It may have an important bearing on the plan decided upon at the meeting. It would be too involved at the moment to explain fully, but I assure you—”

Kent cut him off. “Look, my boy,” and there was a sneer in his tone, “the time is past for academic discussion. You don’t seem to understand that we’re in deadly danger. If anything goes wrong, you and I and the others will be physically attacked. It won’t be an exercise in intellectual gymnastics. And now, please don’t bother me again for ten years.”

There was a click as Kent broke the connection. Grosvenor sat for several seconds, flushing at the insult. Presently, he smiled ruefully, and then made his final calls.

His high-probability chart contained, among other things, check marks in the proper printed spaces showing the amount of volcanic dust in the atmosphere of the planet, the life history of various plant forms as indicated by preliminary studies of their seeds, the type of digestive tracts animals would have to have to eat the particular plants examined and, by extrapolation, what would be the probable ranges of structure and type of the animals who lived off the animals who ate such plants.

Grosvenor worked rapidly, and since he merely put marks on an already printed chart, it was not long before he had his graph. It was an intricate affair. It would not be easy to explain it to someone who was not already familiar with Nexialism. But for him it made a fairly sharp picture. In the emergency it pointed at possibilities and solutions that could not be ignored. So it seemed to Grosvenor.

Under the heading of “General Recommendations,” he wrote, “Any solution adopted should include a safety valve.”

With four copies of the chart, he headed for the mathematics department. There were guards, which was unusual and an obvious protection against the cat. When they refused to let him see Morton, Grosvenor demanded to see one of the Director’s secretaries. A young man emerged finally from another room, politely examined his chart, and said that he would “try to bring it to Director Morton’s attention.”

Grosvenor said in a grim tone, “I’ve been told that kind of thing before. If Director Morton does not see that chart, I shall ask for a Board of Inquiry. There’s something damn funny going on here in connection with the reports I make to the Director’s office, and there’s going to be trouble if there’s any more of it.”

The secretary was five years, older than Grosvenor. He was cool and basically hostile. He bowed, and said with a faintly satirical smile, “The Director is a very busy man. Many departments compete for his attention. Some of them have long histories of achievement, and a prestige that give them precedence over younger sciences and—” he hesitated — “scientists.” He shrugged, “But I shall ask him if he wishes to examine the chart.”

Grosvenor said, “Ask him to read the ‘Recommendations’. There isn’t time for any more.”

The secretary said, “I’ll bring it to his attention.”

Grosvenor headed for Captain Leeth’s quarters. The commander received him and listened to what he had to say. Then he examined the chart. Finally, he shook his head.

“The military,” he said in a formal tone, “has a slightly different approach to these matters. We are prepared to take calculated risks to realize specific goals. Your notion that it would be wiser in the final issue to let this creature escape is quite contrary to my own attitude. Here is an intelligent being that has taken hostile action against an armed ship. That is an intolerable situation. It is my belief that he embarked on such an action knowing the consequences.” He smiled a tight-lipped smile. “The consequences are death.”

It struck Grosvenor that the end result might well be death for people who had inflexible ways of dealing with unusual danger. He parted his lips to protest that he did not intend that the cat should escape. Before he could speak, Captain Leeth climbed to his feet. “I’ll have to ask you to go now,” he said. He spoke to an officer. “Show Mr. Grosvenor the way out.”

Grosvenor said bitterly, “I know the way out.”

Alone in the corridor, he glanced at his watch. It was five minutes to attack time.

Disconsolately, he headed for the bridge. Most of the others were already present as Grosvenor found a seat. A minute later, Director Morton came in with Captain Leeth. And the meeting was called to order.

Nervous and visibly tense, Morton paced back and forth before his audience. His usually sleek black hair was rumpled. The slight pallor of his strong face emphasized rather than detracted from the out-thrust aggressiveness of his jaw. He stopped walking abruptly. His deep voice was crisp to the point of sharpness as he said, “To make sure that our plans are fully co-ordinated, I’m going to ask each expert in turn to outline his part in the over-powering of this creature. Mr. Pennons first!”

Pennons stood up. He was not a big man, yet he looked big, perhaps because of his air of authority. Like the others, his training was specialized, but because of the nature of his field he needed Nexialism far less than anyone else in the room. This man knew engines, and the history of engines. According to his file record — which Grosvenor had examined — he had studied machine development on a hundred planets. There was probably nothing fundamental that he didn’t know about practical engineering. He could have spoken a thousand hours and still only have touched upon his subject.

He said, “We’ve set up a relay in the control room here which will start and stop every engine rhythmically. The trip lever will work a hundred times a second. And the effect will be to create vibrations of many kinds. There is just a possibility that one or more of the machines will shatter, on the same principle as soldiers crossing a bridge in step — you’ve heard that old story, no doubt — but in my opinion there is no real danger of a break from that cause. Our main purpose is simply to interfere with the interference of the creature, and smash through the doors!”

“Gourlay next!” said Morton.

Gourlay climbed lazily to his feet. He looked sleepy, as if he were somewhat bored by the proceedings. Grosvenor suspected that he liked people to think him lackadaisical. His title was chief communications engineer, and his file record chronicled a sustained attempt to acquire knowledge in his chosen field. If his degrees were any evidence, then he had an orthodox educational background second to none. When he finally spoke, he drawled in his unhurried fashion. Grosvenor noticed that his very deliberateness had a soothing effect on the men. Anxious faces relaxed. Bodies leaned back more restfully.

Gourlay said, “We’ve rigged up vibration screens that work on the principle of reflection. Once inside, we’ll use them so that most of the stuff he can send will be reflected right back at him. In addition, we’ve got plenty of spare electric energy that we’ll just feed him from mobile copper cups. There must be a limit to his capacity for handling power with those insulated nerves of his.”

“Selenski!” called Morton.

The chief pilot was standing by the time Grosvenor’s gaze flicked over to him. It was so swiftly done that he seemed to have anticipated Morton’s call. Grosvenor studied him, fascinated. Selenski was a lean-bodied, lean-faced man with startlingly vivid blue eyes. He looked physically strong and capable. According to his file record, he was not a man of great learning. He made up for it in steadiness of nerve, in lightning response to stimuli, and in a capacity for sustained clocklike performance.

He said, “The impression I’ve received of the plan is that it must be cumulative. Just when the creature thinks that he can’t stand any more, another thing happens to add to his trouble and confusion. When the uproar’s at its height, I cut in the anti-acceleration. The Director thinks with Gunlie Lester that this creature will know nothing about anti-acceleration. It’s a development of the science of interstellar flight and wouldn’t have been likely to come about in any other way. We think when the creature feels the first effects of the anti-acceleration — you all remember the caved-in sensation you had the first time it happened to you — it won’t know what to think or do.” He sat down.

Morton said, “Korita next!”

“I can only offer you encouragement,” said the archaeologist, “on the basis of my theory that the monster has all the characteristics of the criminal of the early ages of any civilization. Smith has suggested that his knowledge of science is puzzling. In his opinion, this could mean that we are dealing with an actual inhabitant, and not the descendant of the inhabitants, of the dead city we visited. This would ascribe a virtual immortality to our enemy, a possibility which is partly borne out by his ability to breathe both oxygen and chlorine — or neither. But his immortality in itself would not matter. He comes from a certain age in his civilization; and he has sunk so low that his ideas are mostly memories of that age. In spite of his ability to control energy, he lost his head in the elevator when he first entered the ship. By becoming emotional when Kent offered him food, he placed himself in such a position that he was forced to reveal his special powers against a vibration gun. He bungled the mass murders a few hours ago. As you can see, his record is one of the low cunning of the primitive, egotistical mind, which has little or no understanding of its own body processes in the scientific sense, and scarcely any conception of the vast organization with which it is confronted.

“He is like the ancient German soldier who felt superior to the elderly Roman scholar as an individual, yet the latter was part of a mighty civilization of which the German of that day stood in awe. We have, then, a primitive, and that primitive is now far out in space, completely outside of his natural habitat. I say, let’s go in and win.”

Morton stood up. There was a twisted smile on his heavy face. He said, “According to my previous plan, that pep talk by Korita was to be a preliminary to our attack. However, during the past hour I have received a document from a young man who is aboard this ship representing a science about which I know very little. The fact that he is aboard at all requires that I give weight to his opinions. In his conviction that he had the solution to this problem, he visited not only my quarters but also those of Captain Leeth. The commander and I have accordingly agreed that Mr. Grosvenor will be allowed a few minutes to describe his solution and to convince us that he knows what he is talking about.”

Grosvenor stood up shakily. He. began, “At the Nexial Foundation we teach that behind all the grosser aspects of any science there is an intricate tie-up with other sciences. That is an old notion, of course, but there is a difference between giving lip service to an idea and applying it in practice. At the Foundation we have developed techniques for applying it. In my department I have some of the most remarkable educational machines you have ever seen. I can’t describe them now, but I can tell you how a person trained by those machines and techniques would solve the problem of the cat.

“First, the suggestions so far made have been on a superficial level. They are satisfactory so far as they go. They do not go far enough. Right now, we have enough facts to make a fairly clear-cut picture of pussy’s background. I will enumerate them. About eighteen hundred years ago, the hardy plants of this planet suddenly began to receive less sunlight in certain wave lengths. This was due to the appearance of great quantities of volcanic dust in the atmosphere. Result: Almost overnight, most of the plants died. Yesterday, one of our exploring lifeboats flying around within a hundred miles of the dead city detected several living creatures about the size of a terrestrial deer but apparently more intelligent. They were so wary they couldn’t be captured. They had to be destroyed; and Mr. Smith’s department made a partial analysis. The dead bodies contained potassium in much the same chemical-electrical arrangement as is found in human beings. No other animals were seen. Possibly: This could be at least one of the potassium sources of the cat. In the stomachs of the dead animals the biologists found parts of the plants in various stages of being digested. That seems to be the cycle: vegetation, herbivore, predator. It seems probable that when the plant was destroyed, the animal whose food it was must have died in proportionate numbers. Overnight, pussy’s own food supply was wiped out.”

Grosvenor sent a quick glance over his audience. With one exception everyone present was watching him intently. The exception was Kent. The chief chemist sat with an irritated expression on his face. His attention seemed to be elsewhere.

The Nexialist continued swiftly. “There are many examples in the galaxy of the complete dependency of given life forms on a single type of food. But we have met no other example of the intelligent life form of a planet being so exclusive about diet. It does not seem to have occurred to these creatures to farm their food and, of course, the food of their food. An incredible lack of foresight, you’ll admit. So incredible, indeed, that any explanation which does not take that factor into account would ipso facto, be unsatisfactory.”

Grosvenor paused again, but only for breath. He did not look directly at anyone present. It was impossible to give his evidence for what he was about to say. It would take weeks for each department head to check the facts that involved his particular science. All he could do was give the end conclusion, something which he had not dared to do in his probability chart or in his conversation with Captain Leeth. He finished hurriedly. “The facts are inescapable. Pussy is not one of the builders of that city, nor is he a descendant of the builders. He and his kind were animals experimented on by the builders.

“What happened to the builders? We can only guess. Perhaps they exterminated themselves in an atomic war eighteen hundred years ago. The almost levelled city, the sudden appearance of volcaniclike dust in the atmosphere in such quantities as to obscure the sun for thousands of years, are significant. Emotional man almost succeeded in doing the same thing, so we must not judge this vanished race too harshly. But where does this lead us?”

Once more, Grosvenor took a deep breath and went on quickly. “If he had been a builder, we would by now have had evidence of his full powers and would know precisely what we are up against. Since he is not, we are at the moment dealing with a beast who can have no clear understanding of his powers. Cornered, or even if pressed too hard, he may discover within himself a capacity not yet apparent to him for destroying human beings and controlling machines. We must give him an opportunity to escape. Once outside this ship, he will be at our mercy. That’s all, and thank you for listening to me.”

Morton glanced around the room. “Well, gentlemen, what do you think?”

Kent said sourly, “I never heard such a story in my life. Possibilities. Probabilities. Fantasies. If this is Nexialism, it will have to be presented much better than that before I’ll be interested.”

Smith said gloomily, “I don’t see how we could accept such an explanation without having pussy’s body for examination.”

Chief physicist von Grossen said, “I doubt if even an examination would definitely prove him a beast who has been experimented upon. Mr. Grosvenor’s analysis is distinctly controversial, and will remain so.”

Korita said, “Further exploration of the city might uncover evidence of Mr. Grosvenor’s theory.” He spoke cautiously. “It would not completely disprove the cyclic theory, since such an experimental intelligence would tend to reflect the attitudes and beliefs of those who taught him.”

Chief engineer Pennons said, “One of our lifeboats is in the machine shop right now. It is partly dismantled and occupies the only permanent repair cradle available below. To get a usable lifeboat in to him would require as much effort as the all-out attack we are planning. Of course, if the attack should fail, we might consider sacrificing a lifeboat, though I still don’t know how he could get it out of the ship. We have no air locks down there.”

Morton turned to Grosvenor. “What is your answer to that?”

Grosvenor said, “There is an air lock at the end of the corridor adjoining the engine room. We must give him access to it.”

Captain Leeth stood up. “As I told Mr. Grosvenor when he came to see me, the military mind has a bolder attitude in these matters. We expect casualties. Mr. Pennons expressed my opinion. If our attack fails, we will consider other measures. Thank you, Mr. Grosvenor, for your analysis. But now, let’s get to work!”

It was a command. The exodus began immediately.