The Martian Way and other Stories Part 13

"Then you know that during resonance, your mind will be on Planet X in the brain of the creature with a thought field identical to yours. That is not the energy-consuming process. In resonance with your mind, we will also place the ma.s.s of the Receiving Station. The method of transferring ma.s.s in that manner was the last phase of the problem to be solved, and it will take all the energy the Race would ordinarily use in a hundred years."

Gan picked up the black cube that was the Receiving Station and looked at it somberly. Three generations before it had been thought impossible to manufacture one with all the required properties in a s.p.a.ce less than twenty cubic yards. They had it now; it was the size of his fist.

Gan said, "The thought field of intelligent brain cells can only follow certain well-defined patterns. All living creatures, on whatever planet they develop, must possess a protein base and an oxygen-water chemistry. If their world is livable for them, it is livable for us."

Theory, thought Gan on a deeper level, always theory. He went on, "This does not mean that the body you find yourself in, its mind and its emotions, may not be completely alien. So we have arranged for three methods of activating the Receiving Station. If you are strong-limbed, you need only exert five hundred pounds of pressure on any face of the cube. If you are delicate-limbed, you need only press a k.n.o.b, which you can reach through this single opening in the cube. If you are no-limbed, if your host body is paralyzed or in any other way helpless, you can activate the Station by mental energy alone. Once the Station is activated, we will have two points of reference, not one, and the Race can be transferred to Planet X by ordinary teleportation."

"That," said Rois "will mean we will use electromagnet energy."

"And so?"

"It will take us ten years to transfer."

"We will not be aware of duration."

"I realize that, sir, but it will mean the Station will remain on Planet X for ten years. What if it is destroyed in the meantime?"

"We have thought of that, too. We have thought of everything. Once the Station is activated, it will generate a para-ma.s.s field. It will move in the direction of gravitational attraction, sliding through ordinary matter, until such time as a continuous medium of relatively high density exerts sufficient friction to stop it. It will take twenty feet of rock to do that. Anything of lower density won't affect it. It will remain twenty feet underground for ten years, at which time a counterfield will bring it to the surface. Then one by one, the Race will appear."

"In that case, why not make the activation of the Station automatic? It has so many automatic attributes already-"

"You haven't thought it through, Roi. We have. Not all spots on the surface of Planet X may be suitable. If the inhabitants are powerful and advanced, you may have to find an un.o.btrusive place for the Station. It won't do for us to appear in a city square. And you will have to be certain that the immediate environment is not dangerous in other ways."

"What other ways, sir?"

"I don't know. The ancient records of the surface record many things we no longer understand. They don't explain because they took those items for granted, but we have been away from the surface for almost a hundred thousand generations and we are puzzled. Our Techs aren't even in agreement on the physical nature of stars, and that is something the records mention and discuss frequently. But what are "storms."

"earthquakes," "volcanoes."

"tornadoes."

"sleet," "landslides."

"floods."

"lightning," and so on? These are all terms which refer to surface phenomena that are dangerous, but we don't know what they are. We don't know how to guard against them. Through your host's mind, you may be able to learn what is needful and take appropriate action."

"How much time will I have, sir?"

"The Resonizer cannot be kept in continuous operation for longer than twelve hours. I would prefer that you complete your job in two. You will return here automatically as soon as the Station is activated. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," said Roi.

Gan led the way to the clouded gla.s.s cabinet. Roi took his seat, arranged his limbs in the appropriate depressions. His vibrissae dipped in mercury for good contact.

Roi said, "What if I find myself in a body on the point of death?"

Gan said as he adjusted the controls, "The thought field is distorted when a person is near death. No normal thought field such as yours would be in resonance." Roi said, "And if it is on the point of accidental death?" Gan said, "We have thought of that, too. We can't guard against it, but the chances of death following so quickly that you have no time to activate the Station mentally are estimated as less than one in twenty trillion, unless the mysterious surface dangers are more deadly than we expect... You have one minute."

For some strange reason, Roi's last thought before translation was of Wenda,

FIVE.

Laura awoke with a sudden start. What happened? She felt as though she had been jabbed with a pin.

The afternoon sun was s.h.i.+ning in her face and its dazzle made her blink. She lowered the shade and simultaneously bent to look at Walter.

She was a little surprised to find his eyes open. This wasn't one of his waking periods. She looked at her wrist watch. No, it wasn't. And it was a good hour before feeding time, too. She followed the demand-feeding system or the "if-you-want-it-holler-and-you'll-get-it" routine, but ordinarily Walter followed the clock quite conscientiously.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Hungry, duckie?"

Walter did not respond at all and Laura was disappointed. She would have liked to have him smile. Actually, she wanted him to laugh and throw his pudgy arms about her neck and nuzzle her and say, "Mommie," but she knew he couldn't do any of that. But he could smile.

She put a light finger to his chin and tapped it a bit. "Goo-goo-goo-goo." He always smiled when you did that But he only blinked at her.

She said, "I hope he isn't sick." She looked at Mrs. Ellis in distress.

Mrs. Ells put down a magazine. "Is anything wrong, my dear?"

"I don't know. Walter just lies there."

"Poor little thing. He's tired, probably."

"Shouldn't he be sleeping, then?"

"He's in strange surroundings. He's probably wondering what it's all about."

She rose, stepped across the aisle, and leaned across Laura to bring her own face close to Walter's. "You're wondering what's going on, you tiny little snook.u.ms. Yes, you are. You're saying, "Where's my nice little crib and all my nice little funnies on the wall paper?'"

Then she made little squeaking sounds at him.

Walter turned his eyes away from his mother and watched Mrs. Ellis somberly.

Mrs. Ellis straightened suddenly and looked pained. She put a hand to her head for a moment and murmured, "Goodness! The queerest pain."

"Do you think he's hungry?" asked Laura.

"Lord," said Mrs. Ellis, the trouble in her face fading, "they let you know when they're hungry soon enough. There's nothing wrong with him. I've had three children, my dear. I know."

"I think I'll ask the stewardess to warm up another bottle."

"Well, if it will make you feel better..."

The stewardess brought the bottle and Laura lifted Walter out of his ba.s.sinette. She said, "You have your bottle and then I'll change you and then--"

She adjusted his head in the crook of her elbow, leaned over to peck him quickly on the cheek, then cradled him close to her body as she brought the bottle to his lips- Walter screamed!

His mouth yawned open, his arms pushed before him with his fingers spread wide, his whole body as stiff and hard as though in tetany, and he screamed. It rang through the whole compartment.

Laura screamed too. She dropped the bottle and it smashed whitely.

Mrs. Ellis jumped up. Half a dozen others did. Mr. Ellis snapped out of a light doze.

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Ellis blankly.

"I don't know. I don't know." Laura was shaking Walter frantically, putting him over her shoulder, patting his back.

"Baby, baby, don't cry. Baby, what's the matter? Baby--"

The stewardess was das.h.i.+ng down the aisle. Her foot came within an inch of the cube that sat beneath Laura's seat.

Walter was thres.h.i.+ng about furiously now, yelling with calliope intensity.

SIX.

Roi's mind flooded with shock. One moment he had been strapped in his chair in contact with the clear mind of Gan; the next (there was no consciousness of separation in time) he was immersed in a medley of strange, barbaric, and broken thought.

He closed his mind completely. It had been open wide to increase the effectiveness of resonance, and the first touch of the alien had been- Not painful-no. Dizzying, nauseating? No, not that, either.

There was no word.

He gathered resilience in the quiet nothingness of mind closure and considered his position. He felt the small touch of the Receiving Station, with which he was in mental liaison. That had come with him. Good!

He ignored his host for the moment. He might need him for drastic operations later, so it would be wise to raise no suspicions for the moment.

He explored. He entered a mind at random and took stock first of the sense impressions that permeated it. The creature was sensitive to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and to vibrations of the air, and, of course, to bodily contact. It possessed localized chemical senses- That was about all. He looked again in astonishment. Not only was there no direct ma.s.s sense, no electro-potential sense, none of the really refined interpreters of the Universe, but there was no mental contact whatever.

The creature's mind was completely isolated.

Then how did they communicate? He looked further. They had a complicated code of controlled air vibrations.

Were they intelligent? Had he chosen a maimed mind? No, they were all like that.

He filtered the group of surrounding minds through his mental tendrils, searching for a Tech, or whatever pa.s.sed for such among these crippled semi-intelligences. He found a mind which thought of itself as a controller of vehicles. A piece of information flooded Roi. He was on an air-borne vehicle.

Then even without mental contact, they could build a rudimentary mechanical civilization. Or were they animals tools of real intelligences elsewhere on the planet? No... Their minds said no.

He plumbed the Tech. What about the immediate environment? Were the bugbears of the ancients to be feared? It was a matter of interpretation. Dangers in the environment existed. Movements of air. Changes of temperature. Water falling in the air, either as liquid or solid. Electrical discharges. There were code vibrations for each phenomenon but that meant nothing. The connection of any of these with the names given to phenomena by the ancestral surface folk was a matter of conjecture.

No matter. Was there danger now? Was there danger here? Was there any cause for fear or uneasiness?

No! The Tech's mind said no.

That was enough. He returned to his host mind and rested a moment, then cautiously expanded...

Nothing!

His host mind was blank. At most, there was a vague sense of warmth, and a dull flicker of undirected response to basic stimuli.

Was his host dying after al? Aphasic? Decerebrate?

He moved quickly to the mind nearest, dredging it for information about his host and finding it His host was an infant of the species.

An infant? A normal infant? And so undeveloped?

He allowed his mind to sink into and coalesce for a moment with what existed in his host. He searched for the motor areas of the brain and found them with difficulty. A cautious stimulus was followed by an erratic motion of his host's extremities. He attempted finer control and failed.

He felt anger. Had they thought of everything after all? Had they thought of intelligences without mental contact? Had they thought of young creatures as completely undeveloped as though they were still in the egg?

It meant, of course, that he could not, in the person of his host, activate the Receiving Station. The muscles and mind were far too weak, far too uncontrolled for any of the three methods outlined by Gan.

He thought intensely. He could scarcely expect to influence much ma.s.s through the imperfect focusing of his host's material brain cells, but what about an indirect influence through an adult's brain? Direct physical influence would be minute; it would amount to the breakdown of the appropriate molecules of adenosine triphosphate and acetylocholine. Thereafter the creature would act on its own.

He hesitated to try this, afraid of failure, then cursed himself for a coward. He entered the closest mind once more. It was a female of the species and it was in the state of temporary inhibition he had noticed in others. It didn't surprise him. Minds as rudimentary as these would need periodic respites.

He considered the mind before him now, fingering mentally the areas that might respond to stimulation. He chose one, stabbed at it, and the conscious areas flooded with life almost simultaneously. Sense impressions poured in and the level of thought rose steeply.

Good!

But not good enough. That was a mere prod, a pinch. It was no order for specific action.

He stirred uncomfortably as emotion cascaded over him. It came from the mind he had just stimulated and was directed, of course, at his host and not at him. Nevertheless, its primitive crudities annoyed him and he closed his mind against the unpleasant warmth of her uncovered feelings.

A second mind centered about his host, and had he been material or had he controlled a satisfactory host, he would have struck out in vexation.

Great caverns, weren't they going to allow him to concentrate on his serious business?

He thrust sharply at the second mind, activating centers of discomfort, and it moved away.

He was pleased. That had been more than a simple, undefined stimulation, and it had worked nicely. He had cleared the mental atmosphere.

He returned to the Tech who controlled the vehicle. He would know the details concerning the surface over which they were pa.s.sing.

Water? He sorted the data quickly.

Water! And more water!