"I don"t know, sir. I wasn"t told."
The other two were psioids, naturally.
When the Mindee and the Blaster arrived, they motioned the Ensign to remove the contents of the safe.
He walked over nervously, took out the tiny recorder and the single speak-tip.
"Play it, Ensign," the Mindee directed.
The s.p.a.ceman thumbed the speak-tip into the hole, and the grating of the blank s.p.a.ce at the beginning of the tip filled the room.
"You can leave now, Ensign," the Mindee said.
After the s.p.a.ceCom officer had securely lokt.i.ted the door, the voice began. Gunnderson recognized it immediately as that of Terrence, head of s.p.a.ceCom. The man who had questioned him tirelessly at the Bureau building in Buenos Aires. Terrence, hero of another war, the Earth-Kyben war, now head of s.p.a.ceCom. The words were brittle, almost without inflection and to the point, yet they carried a sense of utmost importance: "Gunnderson," it began, "we have, as you already know, a job for you. By this time the ship will have reached central-point of your trip through invers.p.a.ce.
"You will arrive in two days Earthtime at a slip-out point approximately five hundred million miles from Omalo, the enemy sun. You will be far behind enemy lines, but we are certain you will be able to accomplish your mission safely, that is why you have been given this new ship. It can withstand anything the enemy can throw.
"But we want you to get back for other reasons. You are the most important man in our war effort, Gunnderson, and it"s tied up with your mission.
"We want you to turn the sun Omalo into a supernova."
Gunnderson, for the first time in thirty-eight years of bleak, gray life, was staggered. The very concept made his stomach churn. Turn another people"s sun into a flaming, gaseous bomb of incalculable power, spreading death into s.p.a.ce, burning off the very layers of its being, charring into nothing the planets of the system? Annihilate in one move an entire culture?
Was it possible they thought him mad?
What did they think he was capable of?
Could he direct his mind to such a task?Could he do it?
Should he do it?
His mind boggled at the possibility. He had never really considered himself as having many ideals. He had set fires in warehouses to get the owners their liability insurance; he had flamed other hobos who had tried to rob him; he had used the unpredictable power of his mind for many things, but this . . .
This was the murder of a solar system!
He wasn"t in any way sure hecould turn a sun supernova. What was there to lead them to think he might be able to do it? Burning a forest and burning a giant red sun were two things fantastically far apart. It was something out of a nightmare. But even if hecould . . .
"In case you find the task unpleasant, Mr. Gunnderson," the ice-chip voice of the s.p.a.ceCom head continued, "we have included in this ship"s complement, a Mindee and a Blaster.
"Their sole job is to watch and protect you, Mr. Gunnderson. To make certain you are kept in the proper, er,patriotic state of mind. They have been instructed to read you from this moment on, and should you not be willing to carry out your a.s.signment . . . well, I"m certain you are familiar with a Blaster"s capabilities."
Gunnderson stared at the blank-faced telepath sitting across from him on the other bunk. The man was obviously listening to every thought in Gunnderson"s head. A strange, nervous expression was on the Mindee"s face. His gaze turned to the Blaster who accompanied him, then back to Gunnderson.
The pyrotic swiveled a glance at the Blaster, then swiveled away as quickly.
Blasters were men meant to do one job, one job only, and a certain type of man he became, hehad to be, to be successful doing that job. They all looked the same, and Gunnderson found the look almost terrifying. He had not thought he couldbe terrified, any more.
"That is your a.s.signment, Gunnderson, and if you have any hesitance, remember they arenot human.
They are extraterrestrials as unlike you as you are unlike a slug. And remember there"s a war on . . . you will be saving the lives of many Earthmen by performing this task.
"This is your chance to become respected, Gunnderson.
"A hero, respected, and for the first time," he paused, as though not wishing to say what was next, "for the first time - worthy of your world."
The rasp-rasp-rasp of the silent record filled the state-room. Gunnderson said nothing. He could hear the phrase whirling, whirling in his head:There"s a war on, There"s a war on,There"s a war on, THERE"S A WAR ON! He stood up and slowly walked to the door.
"Sorry, Mr. Gunnderson," the Mindee said emphatically, "we can"t allow you to leave this room."
He sat down and lifted the battered mouth organ from where it had fallen. He fingered it for a while, then put it to his lips. He blew, but made no sound.
And he didn"t leave.
They thought he was asleep. The Mindee - a cadaverously thin man with hair grayed at the temples and slicked back in strips on top, with a gasping speech and a nervous movement of hand to ear - spoke tothe Blaster.
"He doesn"t seem to be thinking, John!"
The Blaster"s smooth, hard features moved vaguely, in the nearest thing to an expression, and a quirking frown split his ink-line mouth. "Can he do it?"
The Mindee rose, ran a hand quickly through the straight, slicked hair.
"Can he do it? No, he shouldn"t beable to do it, but he"s doing it! I can"t figure it out . . . it"s eerie, uncanny. Either I"ve lost it, or he"s got something new."
"Trauma-barrier?"
"That"s what they told me before I left, that he seemed to be blocked off. But they thought it was only temporary, once he was away from the Bureau buildings he would clear up.
"But heisn"t cleared up."
The Blaster looked concerned. "Maybe it"s you."
"I didn"t get a Master"s rating for nothing, John, and I tell you there isn"t a trauma-barrier I can"t at least getsomething through. If only a s.n.a.t.c.h of gabble. But there"s nothing . . . nothing!"
"Maybe it"s you," the Blaster repeated, still concerned.
"d.a.m.n it! It"snot me! I can read you, can"t I - your right foot hurts from new boots, you wish you could have the bunk to lie down on, you . . . oh h.e.l.l, I can readyou - and I can read the Captain up front, and I can read the pitmen in the hold, but Ican"t readhim !
"It"s like hitting a sheet of gla.s.s in his head. There should be a reflection or some penetration, but it seems to be opaqued. I didn"t want to say anything when he was awake, of course."
"Do you think I should twit him a little - wake him up and warn him we"re on to his game?"
The Mindee raised a hand to stop the very thought of the Blaster. "Great G.o.ds, no!" He gestured wildly.
"This Gunnderson"s invaluable. If they found out we"d done anything unauthorized to him, we"d both be Tanked."
Gunnderson lay on his acceleration-bunk, feigning sleep, listening to them. It was a new discovery to him, what they were saying. He had always suspected the pyrotic faculty of his mind. It was just too unstable to be a true-bred trait. There had to be side-effects, other differences from the norm. He knewhe could not read minds; was this now another factor? Impenetrability by Mindees? He wondered.
Perhaps the Blaster was powerless, too.
It would never clear away his problem - that was something he could do only in his own mind - but it might make his position and final decision safer.
There was only one way to find out. He knew the Blaster could not actually harm him severely, by s.p.a.ceCom"s orders, but he wouldn"t hesitate blasting off one of the pyrotic"s arms - cauterizing it as it disappeared - to warn him, if the situation seemed desperate enough.
The Blaster had seemed to Gunnderson a singularly overzealous man, in any case. It was a terrible risk, but he had to know.There was only one way to find out, and he took it . . . finding a startling new vitality in himself . . . for the first time in over thirty years . . .
He snapped his legs off the bunk, and lunged across the stateroom, shouldering aside the Mindee, and straight-arming the Blaster in the mouth. The Blaster, surprised by the rapid and completely unexpected movement, had a reflex thought, and one entire bulkhead was washed by bolts of power. They crackled, and the plasteel buckled. His direction had been upset, had been poor, but Gunnderson knew the instant he regained his mental balance, the power would be directed at him.
The bulkhead oxidized, and popped as it was broken, revealing the outer insulating hull of the invership; rivets snapped out of their holes and clattered to the floor.
Gunnderson was at the stateroom door, palming the lokt.i.te open - having watched the manner used by the Blaster when he had left on several occasions - and putting one foot into the companionway.
Then the Blaster struck. His fury rose, and he lost his sense of duty. This man had struck him; he was a psioid . . . an accepted psioid, not an oddie! His eyes deepened their black immeasurably, and his face strained. His cheekbones rose in a stricture of a grin, and theforce materialized.
All around Gunnderson.
He could feel the heat.
He could see his clothes sparking and disappearing.
He could feel his hair charring at the tips.
He could feel the strain of psi power in the air.
But there was no effect on him.
He was safe.
Safe from the power of the Blasters.
Then he knew he didn"t have to run.
He turned back to the cabin.
The two psioids were staring at him in open terror.
It was always night in invers.p.a.ce.
The ship constantly ploughed through a swamp of black, with metal inside, and metal outside, and the cold, unchanging devil-dark beyond the metal. Men hated invers.p.a.ce - they sometimestook the years-long journey through normal s.p.a.ce, to avoid the chilling life of invers.p.a.ce. For one moment the total black would surround the ship, and the next they would be sifting through a field of changing, flickering crazy-quilt colors. Then ebony again, then light, then dots, then shafts, then the dark once more.
It was ever-changing, like a madman"s dream. But not interestingly changing, so one would wish to watch, as one might watch a kaleidoscope. This was strange, and unnatural, something beyond the powers of the mind, or the abilities of the eye to comprehend. Ports were allowed only in the officer"s country, and those had solid lead shields that would slam down and dog closed at the slap of a b.u.t.ton.
Nothing could be done - men were only men, and s.p.a.ce was their eternal enemy. But no man willingly stared back at the deep of invers.p.a.ce.In the officer"s country, Alf Gunnderson reached with his sight and his mind into the coal soot that now lay beyond the ship. Since he had proved his invulnerability over the Blaster, he had been given the run of the ship. Where could he go? Nowhere that he could not be found. Guards watched the egress ports at all times, so he was still, in effect, a prisoner on the invership. He had managed to secure time alone, however, and so with the Captain and his officers locked out of country, he stood alone, watching.
He stared; the giant quartz window, all shields open, all the darkness flowing in. The cabin was dark, but not half so dark as that darkness that was everywhere.
That darkness deeper than the darkness.
What was he? Was he man or was he machine . . . to be told he must turn a sun nova? What of the people on that sun"s planets? What of the women and the children . . . alien or not? What of the people who hated war, and the people who served because they had been told to serve, and the people who wanted to be left alone? What of the men who went into the fields, while their fellow troops dutifully sharpened their war knives, and cried? Cried because they were afraid, and they were tired, and they wanted home without death. What of those men?
Was this war one of salvation or liberation or duty as they parroted the phrases of patriotism? Or was this still another of the unending wars for domination, larger holdings, richer worlds? Was this another dupe of the Universe, where men were sent to their deaths so one type of government, no better than another, could rule? He didn"t know. He wasn"t sure. He was afraid. He had a power beyond all powers in his hands, and he suddenly found himself not a tramp and a waste, but a man who could demolish a solar system at his own will.
Not even sure hecould do it, he considered the possibility, and it terrified him, making his legs turn to ice water, his blood to steam. He was suddenly quite lost, and immersed into a deeper darkness than he had ever known. With no way out.
He spoke to himself, letting his words sound foolish to himself, but sounding them just the same, knowing he had avoided sounding them for much too long: "Can I do it?
"Should I? I"ve waited so long, so long, to find a place, and now they tell me I"ve found a place. Is this my final place? Is this what I"ve lived and searched for? I can be a valuable war weapon. I can be the man the men turn to when they want a job done. But what sort of job?
"Can I do it? Is it more important to me to find peace - even a peace such as this - and to destroy, than to go on with the unrest?"
Alf Gunnderson stared at the night, at the faint tinges of color beginning to form at the edges of his vision, and his mind washed itself in the water of thought. He had discovered much about himself in the past few days. He had discovered many talents, many ideals he had never suspected in himself.
He had discovered he had character, and that he was not a hopeless, oddie hulk, doomed to die wasted.
He found he had a future.
If he could make the proper decision.
But whatwas the proper decision?
"Omalo! Omalo snap-out!"The cry roared through the companionways, bounced down the halls and against the metal hull of the invership, sprayed from the speakers, and deafened the men asleep beside their squawk-boxes.
The ship ploughed through a maze of colors whose hues were unknown, skiiiiittered scud-wise, and popped out, shuddering. There it was. The sun of Delgart. Omalo. Big. And golden. With planets set about like boulders on the edge of the sea. The sea that was s.p.a.ce, and from which this ship had come.
With death in its hold, and death in its tubes, and death, nothing but death.
The Blaster and the Mindee escorted Alf Gunnderson to the bridge. They stood back and let him walk to the huge quartz portal. The portal before which the pyrotic had stood so long, so many hours, gazing so deep into invers.p.a.ce. They left him there, and stood back, because they knew he was safe from them.
No matter how hard they held his arms, no matter how fiercely they shouted at him, he was safe. He was something new. Not just a pyrotic, not just a mind-blocked, not just a Blaster-safe, he was something totally new.
Not a composite, for there had been many of those, with imperfect powers of several psi types. But something new, and something incomprehensible. Psioid+ with a + that might mean anything.
Gunnderson moved forward slowly, his deep shadow squirming out before him, sliding up the console, across the portal shelf, and across the quartz itself. Himself superimposed across the immensity of s.p.a.ce.
The man who was Gunnderson stared into the night that lay without, and at the sun that burned steadily and high in that night. A greater fire raged within him than on that molten surface.
His was a power he could not even begin to estimate, and if he let it be used in this way, this once, it could be turned to this purpose over and over and over again.
Was there any salvation for him?
"You"re supposed to flame that sun, Gunnderson," the slick-haired Mindee said, trying to a.s.sume an authoritative tone, a tone of command, but failing miserably. He knew he was powerless before this man.
They could shoot him, of course, but what would that accomplish?
"What are you going to do, Gunnderson? What do you have in mind?" the Blaster chimed in.
"s.p.a.ceCom wants Omalo fired . . . are you going to do it, or do we have to report you as a traitor?"
"You know what they"ll do to you back on Earth, Gunnderson. You know, don"t you?"