The Best Of A. E. Van Vogt: Volume 2 Part 18

Not a thinking man, Steve Hanardy; nor a reader. The four books on board were repair manuals. He had thumbed through them a hundred times, but now he got them out and examined them again. Every page was, as he had expected, dully familiar. After a slow hour he used up their possibilities.

Another day, and still he was wide-eyed and unsleeping, but there was a developing restlessness in him, and exhaustion.

As a s.p.a.ceman, Hanardy had received indoctrination in the dangers of sleeplessness. He knew of the mind's tendency to dream while awake, the hallucinatory experiences, the normal effects of the unending strain of wakefulness.

Nothing like that happened.

He did not know that the sleep center in his brain was timelessly depressed and the wake center timelessly stimulated. The former could not turn on, the latter could not turn off. So between them there could be none of the usual interplay with its twilight states.

But he could become more exhausted.

Though he was lying down almost continuously now, he became continually more exhausted.

On the fourth "morning" he had the thought for the first time: this is going to drive me crazy!

Such a fear had never before in his whole life pa.s.sed through his mind. By late afternoon of that day, Hanardy was scared and dizzy and hopeless, in a severe dwindling spiral of decreasing sanity. What he would have done had he remained alone was not at that time brought to a test.

For late on that fourth "day" Pat Ungarn came through the airlock, found him cowering in his bunk and said, "Steve, come with me. It's time we took action."

Hanardy stumbled to his feet. He was actually heading after her when he remembered Sween-Madro's orders to him, and he stopped, "What's the matter?" she demanded.

He mumbled simply, "He told me not to leave my s.h.i.+p. He'll kill me if I do."

The girl was instantly impatient. "Steve, stop this nonsense." Her sharp words were like blows striking his mind. "You haven't any more to lose than we have. So come along!"

And she started back through the airlock. Hanardy stood, stunned and shaking. In a single sentence, spoken in her preemptory fas.h.i.+on, she challenged his manhood by implication, recognized that the dumb love he felt for her made him her slave and so re-established her absolute ascendancy.

Silently, tensely, he shuffled across the metal floor of the airlock and moments later was in the forbidden meteorite.

Feeling doomed.

The girl led the way to what was, in effect, the engine room of the meteorite.

As Steve trailed reluctantly behind her, Professor Ungarn rose up from a chair and came forward, smiling his infinitely tired smile.

His greeting was, "Pat wants to tell you about intelligence. Do you know what your I.Q. is?"

The question barely reached the outer ramparts of Hanardy's attention. Following the girl along one corridor after another, a fearful vision had been in his mind, of Sween-Madro suddenly rounding the next corner and striking him dead. That vision remained, but along with it was a growing wonder: Where was the Dreegh?

The professor snapped, "Steve do you hear me?"

Forced to look at him, Hanardy was able to remember proudly that he belonged in the 55th percentile of the human race, intelligence-wise, and that his I.Q. had been tested at 104.

"The tester told me that I was above average," Hanardy said in a tone of pleasure. Then, apologetic again, he added, "Of course, beside you guys I'm nothing."

The old man said, "On the Klugg I.Q. scale you would probably rate higher than 104. We take into account more factors. Your mechanical ability and spatial relations skill would not be tested correctly by any human I.Q. test that I have examined."

He continued, "Now, Steve, I'm trying to explain this all to you in a great hurry, because some time in the next week you're going to be, in flashes, the most intelligent man in the entire solar system, and there's nothing anybody can do about it except help you use it. I want to prepare you."

Hanardy, who had anxiously stationed himself so that he could keep one eye on the open door--and who kept expecting the mighty Dreegh to walk in on the little conspiratorial group of lesser beings--shook his head hopelessly.

"You don't know what's already happened. I can be killed. Easy. I've got no defenses."

He glumly described his encounter with the Dreegh and told how helpless he had been. "There I was on my knees, begging, until I just happened to say something that made him stop. Boy, he sure didn't think I was unkillable."

Pat came forward, stood in front of him, and grabbed his shoulders with both hands.

"Steve," she said in an urgent voice, "above a certain point of I.Q. mind actually is over matter. A being above that intelligence level cannot be, killed. Not by bullets, nor by any circ.u.mstance involving matter. Now listen: in you is a memory of such an intelligence level. In manhandling you, the Dreegh was trying to see what limited stress would do. He found out. He got the message from the Great Galactic out of you.

"Steve, after that he didn't dare put a bullet into you, or fire a death-level energy beam. Because that would force this memory to the surface!"

In her intense purposefulness she tried to move him with her hands. But that only made Hanardy aware of what a girlish body she had. So little body, so much imperious woman--it startled him for she could barely budge him, let alone shake him.

She said breathlessly, "Don't you see, Steve? You're going to be king! Try to act accordingly."

"Look--" Hanardy began, stolidly.

Rage flashed into her face. Her voice leaped past his interjection. "And if you don't stop all this resistance, in the final issue I'll put a bullet into your brain myself, and then you'll see."

Hanardy gazed into her blue eyes, so abruptly furious. He had a sinking conviction that she would do exactly what she threatened. In alarm, he said, "For Pete's sake, what do you want me to do?"

"Listen to what dad has to say!" she commanded. "And stop looking the other way. You need a high-speed education, and we haven't got much time."

That last seemed like a total understatement to Hanardy. His feeling was that he had no time at all.

Awareness saved him, then. There was the room with its machinery, and the old man and his daughter; and there was he with his mind jumping with the new fear of her threat. Hanardy had a flitting picture of the three of them lost forever inside this remote meteorite that was just one tiny part of Jupiter's colossal family of small, speeding particles of matter--a meaningless universe that visibly had no morality or justice, because it included without a qualm, creatures like the Dreeghs.

As his skittering thought reached that dark depth, it suddenly occurred to Hanardy that Pat couldn't shoot him. She didn't have a gun. He opened his mouth to tell her of her helplessness. Then closed it again.

Because an opportunity might open up for her to obtain a weapon. So the threat remained, receded in time ... but not to be dismissed. Nonetheless, he grew calmer. He still felt compelled, and jittery. But he stayed there and listened, then, to a tiny summary of the story of human intelligence and the attempts that had been made to measure it.

It seemed human intelligence tests were based on a curve where the average was 100. Each test Professor Ungarn had seen revealed an uncertainty about what const.i.tuted an intelligence factor, and what did not. Was the ability to tell left from right important to intelligence? One test included it. Should an individual be able to solve brain twisters? Many testers considered this trait of great importance. And almost all psychologists insisted on a subtle understanding of the meaning of words and many of them. Skill at arithmetic was a universal requirement. Quick observation of a variety of geometric shapes and forms was included. Even a general knowledge of world conditions and history was a requirement in a few tests.

"Now, we Kluggs," continued the professor in his melancholy voice, "have gone a step beyond that."

The words droned on through Hanardy's mind. Kluggs were theory-operating people ... theories based on primary and not secondary abilities. Another race, "higher" than the Kluggs--called the Lennels--operated on Certainty ... a high harmonic of Authority.

"Certainty, with the Lennels," said the old man, "is of course a system and not an open channel. But even so it makes them as powerful as the Dreeghs."

On an I.Q. curve that would include humans, Kluggs, Lennels and Dreeghs, the respective averages would be 100, 220, 380, and 450. The Dreeghs had an open channel on control of physical movement.

"Even a Great Galactic can only move as fast as--he cannot move faster than--a Dreegh," Professor Ungarn commented and explained. "Such open channels are pathways in the individual to a much greater ability than his standard I.Q. permits."

Musical, mathematical, artistic, or any special physical, mental or emotional ability was an open channel that operated outside the normal human, Klugg, or even the Dreegh curve. By definition, a Great Galactic was a person whose I.Q. curve included only open channels.

It had been reported that the open channel curve began at about 80. And, though no one among the lesser races had ever seen anything higher than 3,000--the limits of the s.p.a.ce phenomenon--it was believed that the Great Galactic I.Q. curve ascended by types to about 10,000.

"It is impossible," said the Professor's melancholy voice, "to imagine what kind of an open channel that would be. An example of an 800 open channel is Pat. She can deceive. She can get away with a sleight of hand, a feint, a diversion--"

The old man stopped suddenly. His gaze flicked past Hanardy's right shoulder and fastened on something behind him that Hanardy couldn't see.

6.

The s.p.a.ceman froze with the sudden terrified conviction that the worst had happened, and that the Dreegh Sween-Madro was behind him.

But it couldn't be, lie realized. Professor Ungarn was looking at the control board of the meteorite. There was no door there.

Hanardy allowed himself to turn around. He saw that on the big instrument panel a viewplate had lighted, showing a scene of s.p.a.ce.

It was a familiar part of the starry heavens looking out toward interstellar s.p.a.ce, away from the sun. Near the center of the scene a light was blinking.

Even as Hanardy watched, the viewplate picture s.h.i.+fted slightly, centering exactly on the blinking light.

Behind Hanardy, there was a gasp from the girl, "Dad," she whispered, "is it--?"

Professor Ungarn had walked toward the viewplate, past Hanardy and so into the latter's range of vision. The old man nodded with an air of utter weariness.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is, my dear. The other eight Dreeghs have arrived."

He glanced hopelessly at Hanardy. "My daughter had some kind of idea of using you against Sween-Madro before they got here."

Hanardy said blankly, "Using me?"

The meaning of that brought him with ajar out of his own body exhaustion.

The old man was shrugging. "Whatever the merit of her plan, of course, now it's too late."

He finished dully, "Now we'll learn our fate."

The tableau of dejection held for seconds only. A sound, a high-pitched human voice, broke through the silence and the dark emotion that filled the room.

"How far away are they?" It was the girl's voice, from behind Hanardy, strained but recognizable. "Exactly how long till they get here?"

Hanardy's mind stirred from its thrall as Professor Ungarn said dully, "Less than two hours would be my guess. Notice--"

He thereupon started a technical comment to her about the speed with which the viewplate had centered on the s.h.i.+p, implying--he said--the enormous velocity of its approach.

His explanation was never completed. In the middle of it, the girl uttered a screech and then, to Hanardy's amazement, she raced past him and flung herself, arms flailing, at the old man.

She kept striking at his face then, yelling the most bloodcurdling curses in a furious soprano voice. A long moment went by before Hanardy was able to make out what she was saying: "--You stupid old man! What do you mean, only two hours? Two hours is all we need, d.a.m.n you!"

At that point Hanardy emerged from his surprise. Awkwardly, he jumped over her, grabbed her, pulled her away. "For Pete's sake!" he cried.

The girl tried to turn on him, her struggling body writhing in his grip. But he held her, uttering apologies the while. Finally, she realized that his strength was too much for her. She ceased her efforts, and with an attempt at control said grimly, "Steve, this crazy old fool who is my father has twice now accepted defeat--when it wasn't necessary!"

She broke off, addressed the old man. Her voice went up a whole octave as she said, "Show Steve what you showed me only a few minutes before I went to get him."

Professor Ungarn was white and haggard. "I'm sorry, my dear," he mumbled. He nodded to Hanardy. "I'm sure you can let her go now."

Hanardy released the girl. She stood straightening her clothes, but her eyes still flashed. "Show him, d.a.m.n it," she snapped, "and make it quick."

Professor Ungarn took Hanardy's arm and drew him toward the control board, speaking in apologetic tones. "I failed my daughter. But the truth is I'm over three hundred years old. That's just about it for a Klugg; so I keep forgetting how younger people might feel."

Pat--he went on--was a product of a late-life marriage. Her mother had flatly refused to go along on his a.s.signment as a galactic watcher. In bringing the girl with him, he had hoped to s.h.i.+eld her from the early shock of discovering that she was a member of a servant race. But isolation had not, in fact, saved her feelings. And now, their very remoteness from the safeguarding military strength of a.s.sociated lower-level races had brought a horrifying threat of death from which he had decided there was no escape.

"So it didn't even occur to me to tell her--"

"Show him," the girl's voice came shrilly from the rear, "what you didn't bother to tell me."

Professor Ungarn made a few control adjustments, and there appeared on the viewplate first a picture of a room and then of a bed in one corner with an almost naked man lying on it.

The bed came into full focus, filled the viewplate. Hanardy drew in his breath with a sharp hiss of disbelief. It was the Dreegh.

The man who lay there, seemingly unconscious, bore almost no resemblance to the tall, vital being who had come aboard in the guise of Pat's fiance. The body on the bed was unnaturally thin; the rib cage showed. His face, where it had been full-cheeked, was sunken and hollow.

"They need other people's blood and life energy to survive, and they need it almost continuously," the old man whispered. "That's what I wanted to show you, Steve." Her tone grew scathing, as she continued, "My father didn't let me see that until a few minutes ago. Imagine! Here we are under sentence of death, and on the day, almost on the hour that the other Dreeghs are due to arrive, he finally reveals it--something he had watched developing for days."

The old man shut off the scene on the viewplate and sighed.

"I'm afraid it never occurred to me that a Klugg could challenge a Dreegh. Anyway, I imagine Sween-Madro originally arrived here expecting to use us as a source of blood and life force. And then when you showed all that Great Galactic programming, he changed his mind and decided to wait until the coming of his colleagues. So there he is--at our mercy, Pat thinks."

Hanardy had spent his years of a.s.sociation with this couple deferring to them. So he waited now, patiently, for the scientist to tell him what to do about the opportunity.

The old man said, with a sigh, "Pat thinks if we make a bold attack at this stage, we can kill him."

Hanardy was instantly skeptical, but he had never been able to influence this father and daughter in any way, and he was about to follow the old, withdrawing pattern, when he remembered again that there were no weapons around to make any kind of attack whatsoever.

He pointed out that fact and was still talking when he felt something cold touch his hand.

Startled, he glanced down and back--and saw that the girl was pus.h.i.+ng a metal bar about one and a half feet long, at his palm. Involuntarily, still not thinking, he closed his fingers over it. As soon as he had it firmly in one chunky hand, Hanardy recognized by its feel that it was a special aluminum alloy, hard, light, and tough.

The girl spoke. "And just in case that dumb look on your face means what I think it does," she said, "here are your orders: take that bar, go where the Dreegh is and beat him to death with it."

Hanardy turned slowly, not quite sure that it was he who was being addressed. "Me?" he said. And then, after a long pause, "Hey!"

"And you'd better get started," said the girl, "there isn't much time."

"Hey!" repeated Hanardy, blankly.