That was a stunning shock; but it was eclipsed by another.
"I am sorry, Master Hilton," Laro"s tremendous ba.s.s voice boomed out, "that it has taken us so long to learn your Masters" language as it now is. Since you left us you have changed it radically; while we, of course, have not changed it at all."
"I"m sorry, but you"re mistaken," Hilton said. "We are merely visitors.
We have never been here before; nor, as far as we know, were any of our ancestors ever here."
"You need not test us, Master. We have kept your trust. Everything has been kept, changelessly the same, awaiting your return as you ordered so long ago."
"Can you read my mind?" Hilton demanded.
"Of course; but Omans can not read in Masters" minds anything except what Masters want Omans to read."
"Omans?" Harkins asked. "Where did you Omans and your masters come from?
Originally?"
"As you know, Master, the Masters came originally from Arth. They populated Ardu, where we Omans were developed. When the Stretts drove us from Ardu, we all came to Ardry, which was your home world until you left it in our care. We keep also this, your half of the Fuel World, in trust for you."
"Listen, Jarve!" Harkins said, tensely. "Oman-human. Arth-Earth.
Ardu-Earth Two. Ardry-Earth Three. You can"t laugh them off ... but there never _was_ an Atlantis!"
"This is getting no better fast. We need a full staff meeting. You, too, Sawtelle, and your best man. We need all the brains the _Perseus_ can muster."
"You"re right. But first, get those naked women out of here. It"s bad enough, having women aboard at all, but this ... my men are _s.p.a.cemen_, mister."
Laro spoke up. "If it is the Masters" pleasure to keep on testing us, so be it. We have forgotten nothing. A dwelling awaits each Master, in which each will be served by Omans who will know the Master"s desires without being told. Every desire. While we Omans have no biological urges, we are of course highly skilled in relieving tensions and derive as much pleasure from that service as from any other."
Sawtelle broke the silence that followed. "Well, for the men--" He hesitated. "Especially on the ground ... well, talking in mixed company, you know, but I think ..."
"Think nothing of the mixed company, Captain Sawtelle," Sandra said. "We women are scientists, not shrinking violets. We are accustomed to discussing the facts of life just as frankly as any other facts."
Sawtelle jerked a thumb at Hilton, who followed him out into the corridor. "I _have_ been a Navy mule," he said. "I admit now that I"m out-maneuvered, out-manned, and out-gunned."
"I"m just as baffled--at present--as you are, sir. But my training has been aimed specifically at the unexpected, while yours has not."
"That"s letting me down easy, Jarve." Sawtelle smiled--the first time the startled Hilton had known that the hard, tough old s.p.a.cehound _could_ smile. "What I wanted to say is, lead on. I"ll follow you through force-field and s.p.a.ce-warps."
"Thanks, skipper. And by the way, I erased that record yesterday." The two gripped hands; and there came into being a relationship that was to become a lifelong friendship.
"We will start for Ardry immediately," Hilton said. "How do we make that jump without charts, Laro?"
"Very easily, Master. Kedo, as Master Captain Sawtelle"s Oman, will give the orders. Nito will serve Master Snowden and supply the knowledge he says he has forgotten."
"Okay. We"ll go up to the control room and get started."
And in the control room, Kedo"s voice rasped into the captain"s microphone. "Attention, all personnel! Master Captain Sawtelle orders take-off in two minutes. The countdown will begin at five seconds....
Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Lift!"
Nito, not Snowden, handled the controls. As perfectly as the human pilot had ever done it, at the top of his finest form, he picked the immense s.p.a.ceship up and slipped it silkily into subs.p.a.ce.
"Well, I"ll be a ..." Snowden gasped. "That"s a better job than I _ever_ did!"
"Not at all, Master, as you know," Nito said. "It was you who did this.
I merely performed the labor."
A few minutes later, in the main lounge, Navy and BuSci personnel were mingling as they had never done before. Whatever had caused this relaxation of tension--the friendship of captain and director? The position in which they all were? Or what?--they all began to get acquainted with each other.
"Silence, please, and be seated," Hilton said. "While this is not exactly a formal meeting, it will be recorded for future reference.
First, I will ask Laro a question. Were books or records left on Ardry by the race you call the Masters?"
"You know there are, Master. They are exactly as you left them.
Undisturbed for over two hundred seventy-one thousand years."
"Therefore we will not question the Omans. We do not know what questions to ask. We have seen many things. .h.i.therto thought impossible. Hence, we must discard all preconceived opinions which conflict with facts. I will mention a few of the problems we face."
"The Omans. The Masters. The upgrading of the armament of the _Perseus_ to Oman standards. The concentration of uranexite. What is that concentrate? How is it used? Total conversion--how is it accomplished?
The skeletons--what are they and how are they controlled? Their ability to drain power. Who or what is back of them? Why a deadlock that has lasted over a quarter of a million years? How much danger are we and the _Perseus_ actually in? How much danger is Terra in, because of our presence here? There are many other questions."
"Sandra and I will not take part. Nor will three others; de Vaux, Eisenstein, and Blake. You have more important work to do."
"What can that be?" asked Rebecca. "Of what possible use can a mathematician, a theoretician and a theoretical astronomer be in such a situation as this?"
"You can think powerfully in abstract terms, unhampered by Terran facts and laws which we now know are neither facts nor laws. I cannot even categorize the problems we face. Perhaps you three will be able to. You will listen, then consult, then tell me how to pick the teams to do the work. A more important job for you is this: Any problem, to be solved, must be stated clearly; and we don"t know even what our basic problem is. I want something by the use of which I can break this thing open.
Get it for me."
Rebecca and de Vaux merely smiled and nodded, but Teddy Blake said happily, "I was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel on this project, but _that"s_ something I can really stick my teeth into."
"Huh? How?" Karns demanded. "He didn"t give you one single thing to go on; just compounded the confusion."
Hilton spoke before Teddy could. "That"s their dish, Bill. If I had any data I"d work it myself. You first, Captain Sawtelle."
That conference was a very long one indeed. There were almost as many conclusions and recommendations as there were speakers. And through it all Hilton and Sandra listened. They weighed and tested and a.n.a.lyzed and made copious notes; in shorthand and in the more esoteric characters of symbolic logic. And at its end:
"I"m just about p.o.o.ped, Sandy. How about you?"
"You and me both, boss. See you in the morning."
But she didn"t. It was four o"clock in the afternoon when they met again.
"We made up one of the teams, Sandy," he said, with surprising diffidence. "I know we were going to do it together, but I got a hunch on the first team. A kind of a weirdie, but the brains checked me on it." He placed a card on her desk. "Don"t blow your top until after I you"ve studied it."
"Why, I won"t, of course...." Her voice died away. "Maybe you"d better cancel that "of course"...." She studied, and when she spoke again she was exerting self-control. "A chemist, a planetographer, a theoretician, _two_ sociologists, a psychologist and a radiationist. And six of the seven are three pairs of sweeties. What kind of a line-up is _that_ to solve a problem in _physics_?"