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Contents

THE OUTBREAK OF PEACE

By H. B. FYFE

 

When properly conducted, a diplomatic mission can turn the most smashing of battle-successes into a fabulous Pyrrhic victory.

 

It was a great pity, Space Marshal Wilbur Hennings reflected, as he gazed through the one-way glass of the balcony door, that the local citizens had insisted upon decorating the square before their capitol with the hulk of the first spaceship ever to have landed on Pollux V.

A hundred and fifty years probably seemed impressive to them, amid the explosive spread of Terran colonies and federations. Actually, in the marshal's opinion, it was merely long enough to reveal such symbols as more than antiquated but less than historically precious.

"I presume you plan to have me march past that heap!" he complained, tugging at the extremely "historical" sword that completed the effect of his dazzling white and gold uniform.

Commodore Miller, his aide, stiffened nervously.

"Around to the right of it, sir," he gestured. "As you see, the local military are already keeping the route clear of onlookers. We thought it would be most impressive if your party were to descend the outer stairway from the palace balcony here ... to heighten the importance of--"

"To draw out the pomp and circumstance of opening the conference?"

"Well, sir ... and then across the square to the conference hall of the capitol, outside which you will pause for a few gracious words to the crowd--"

"And that will probably be my last opportunity to enjoy the morning sunlight. Oh, well, it seems much too bright here in any case."

The commodore absently reached out to adjust a fold of his chief's sky-blue sash, and the marshal as absently parried the gesture.

"I shall be hardly less than half an hour crossing the square," he predicted sourly. "With the cheering throngs they have undoubtedly arranged, and the sunlight reflecting from all that imitation marble, it will be no place to collect one's thoughts."

* * * * *

He turned back to the huge chamber constituting the "office" of the suite supplied by his Polluxian hosts. The skeleton staff of men and women remaining occupied chairs and benches along only one wall, since the bulk of the delegation had been sent out to make themselves popular with the local populace.

Hennings presumed the bulk of the local populace to consist of Polluxians assigned to making themselves popular with his Ursan Federation delegation. His people would be listening politely to myriad reasons why the Polluxians had a natural right to occupy all the star systems from here to Castor, a dozen light-years farther from Terra. No one would mention the true motive--their illogical choice in naming themselves the Twin Empire.

"Well, now!" he said crisply. "Once more over the main points of the situation! No, commodore, not the schedule of experts that will accompany me to the table; I rely upon you to have perfected that. But have there been any unforeseen developments in the actual fighting?"

A cluster of aides, mostly in uniform but including a few in discreetly elegant civilian attire, moved forward. Each was somehow followed within arm's reach by an aide of his own, so that the advance presented overtones of a small sortie.

Hennings first nodded to the first, a youngish man whose air suggested technical competence more than the assurance of great authority. The officer placed his brief case upon the glistening surface of a large table and touched a switch on the flap.

"It's as well to be sure, sir," the commodore approved. "Our men have been unable to detect any devices, but the walls may have ears."

"They won't scan through this scrambler, sir," asserted the young officer.

Hennings accepted a seat at the table and looked up to one of the others.

"Mirelli's Star," an older officer reported briskly. "The same situation prevails, with both sides having landed surface troops in force on Mirelli II, Mirelli III, and Mirelli V, the fourth planet being inhabited by a partly civilized, nonhuman race protected under the Terran Convention."

"Recent engagements?"

"No, sir. Maneuvering continues, but actual encounters have declined in frequency. Casualties are modest and evenly matched. General Nilssen on Mirelli III continues to receive Polluxian agents seeking his defection."

"I never thought to ask," murmured Hennings. "Is he really a distant connection of the Polluxian Nilssen family?"

"It is improbable, sir, but they are polite enough to accept the pretense. Of course, he rejects every offer in a very high-minded manner, and seems to be making an adequate impression of chivalry."

He stepped back at Henning's nod, to be replaced by another officer.

"One minor space skirmish in the Agohki system to report, sir. The admiral in command appears to have recouped after the error of two days ago, when that Polluxian detachment was so badly mauled. He arranged the capture of three of our cruisers."

"Was that not a trifle rash?" demanded Hennings.

"Intelligence is inclined to think not, sir. The ships were armed only with weapons listed as general knowledge items. The crews were not only trained in prisoner-of-war tactics, but also well supplied with small luxuries. The Polluxian fleet in that system is known to have been in space for several months, so a friendly effect is anticipated."

Hennings considered the condensed report proffered for his perusal. He noted that the Polluxians had been quite gentlemanly about notifying Ursan headquarters of the capture and of the complete lack of casualties. He also saw that while the message was ostensibly directed to the Federation flagship, it had been beamed in such fashion as to be conveniently intercepted at the secret Ursan Federation headquarters on Agohki VII.

"That was a bit rude of them," he commented. "We have never dragged their secrets into the open."

"On the other hand, sir," the commodore suggested, "it may be an almost sophisticated method of permitting us to enjoy our superior finesse."

"I am just as pleased to have the reminder," said Hennings. "It will serve to alert us all the more when we sit down with them over there."

An elegant civilian, a large man with patient, drooping features, stated that nothing had occurred to change the economic situation. Another reported that unofficial channels of information were holding up as well as could be expected. A uniformed officer summarized the battle situation in two more star systems.

"Those are positions we actually desire to hold, are they not?" Hennings asked. "Is action to be taken there?"

"Plans call for local civilian riots at the height of the conference, sir."

"But ... can we lay no groundwork sooner than that? Sometime in the foreseeable future, at least! Take it up with Propaganda, Blauvelt! It seems to me that the briefing mentioned an indigenous race on one of these planets--"

Blauvelt dropped his eyes momentarily, equivalent in that gathering to a blush of intense embarrassment. Hennings coughed apologetically.

"Well, now, I should not pry into arrangements I must later be able to deny convincingly with a clear conscience. I can only plead, my dear Blauvelt, the tenseness of the past several days."

The officer murmured inaudibly, fumbled with his papers, and edged to the rear rank. Someone, at Commodore Miller's fluttering, obtained a vacuum jug of ice water and a glass for the marshal, but Hennings chose instead to produce a long cigar from a pocket concealed beneath his resplendent collection of medals.

"My apologies to all of you," he said thoughtfully. "I fear that any of you who may expect contact with the local population had better see Dr. Ibn Talal about the hypnosis necessary to counteract my little indiscretion. And now--what remains?"

"Nothing but the prisoner exchange, sir," Commodore Miller announced after collecting the eyes of the principal officers.

Hennings got his cigar going. He listened to confirmation of a previous report that a massive exchange of "sick and wounded" prisoners had been accomplished, and learned that the Ursans now suspected that they had accepted unknowingly about as many secret agents as they had sent the Polluxians.

"Oh, well!" he sighed. "As long as the amenities were preserved! We must be as friendly as possible about that sort of thing, or run the risk of antagonizing them."

Seeing that the commodore was tense with impatience, the marshal rose to his feet. An aide deftly received the cigar for disposal, and the party drifted expectantly toward the balcony doors.

From among that part of the staff which would remain to man headquarters, an officer was dispatched to alert the Polluxian honor guard.

* * * * *

One more touch before the die is cast, thought the marshal, as two young officers opened the balcony doors to admit the blare of trumpets.

Cheers rolled successively across the square, rising like distant waves from somewhere beneath the gigantic banner that draped the capitol opposite with fiery letters spelling out "PEACE CONFERENCE."

With a dramatic gesture, Hennings held up the sheaf of reports they had just reviewed. Smiles disappeared in response to his own serious mien.

"So much for the hostilities!" he snapped. He tossed the reports to the officer who would remain in charge. "Now for the actual war!"

Pivoting on his heel, he led them smartly out to the ornate balcony stairway that curved down into the sea of cheering Polluxians.

THE END

 

 

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Contents

MASTER OF NONE

BY NEIL GOBLE

 

The advantages of specialization are so obvious that, today, we don't even know how to recognize a competent syncretist!

 

Freddy the Fish glanced at the folded newspaper beside him on the bench. A little one-column headline caught his eye:

MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS FROM OUTER SPACE

"Probably from Cygnus," he said.

Freddy mashed a peanut, popped the meat into his mouth, and tossed the shell to the curb in front of his bench. He munched and idly watched two sparrows arguing over the discarded delicacy; the victor flitted to the head of a statue, let go a triumphant dropping onto the marble nose, and hopped to a nearby branch.

"Serves him right," Freddy said. He yawned and rubbed the stubble on his chin. Not yet long enough for scissors, he decided. He pulled his feet up on the bench, twisting in an effort to get comfortable. The sun was in his eyes, so he reclaimed the discarded newspaper and spread it over his face. His eyes momentarily focused on MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS FROM OUTER SPACE, right over his nose.

"Sure, Cygnus," he muttered, and closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep.

When he was awakened, it was by an excited hand shaking his shoulder and a panting, "Freddy! Freddy! Lookit the Extra just came out!"

Freddy slowly sat up, ascertained the identity of the intruder and the fact that the sun was setting, and said, "Good evening, Willy. Please stop rattling that paper in my face."

"But just read it, Freddy," Willy shrieked, waving the paper so frantically that Freddy couldn't make out the big black headline. "'Positive contact from another planet,' the guy was yellin'. They put out an Extra so I snitched one from the boy. Read it to me, huh, Freddy? I'm dyin' o' curious."

"So give it here and I'll read it for you. Quit shakin' it or you'll tear it all up," Freddy snorted.

"Read it to me, huh, Freddy," Willy said, handing over the paper. "I don't know no one else that reads so good."

Freddy studied the headline and the first paragraph silently, then whistled lightly and lowered the paper.

"Y'know, Willy," he said, "the last thing I read before I dropped off a while ago was about these signals. But the funny thing is, I'd just assumed they were from Cygnus."

"What's a Cygnus, Freddy?" Willy asked, still pop-eyed. "A smoke? A dame? Or you mean like from Hunger?"

"Cygnus, my boy," Freddy explained patronizingly, "is a constellation within which there are two colliding galaxies. These colliding galaxies produce the most powerful electromagnetic radiations in the universe--an undecillion watts!"

"What's an undecillion?"

"An undecillion is ten raised to the 36th power," Freddy sighed, fearing that he wasn't getting through to Willy.

"No foolin'? What's a watt ... aw, you're pullin' my leg again, Freddy, talkin' riddles. Where'd ya ever learn to talk that way anyhow!"

"Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma. Picked up a little here, a little there," Freddy said, reflecting on his indiscriminate past.

"Aw, cut it out, Freddy! C'mon, read it to me. Betcha can't! Where'd ya say it was from? Cygnus?"

"Not Cygnus. Ganymede." Freddy cleared his throat and rattled the newspaper authoritatively. "Washington: White House sources declared today that intelligent beings on a Jupiter moon have contacted the United States government. While the contents of the message have been made secret, the White House emphasized the message was friendly."

Freddy continued, "The signals, which were intercepted yesterday, were decoded this morning by a team of government scientists and cryptographers who had been at the task all night. While officials were noncommittal about the nature of the message contained in the signals, they declared, 'We are authorized to state that the received message was friendly and appears to represent a sincere attempt by another race of intelligent beings to contact the people of Earth. A reply message is being formulated.' Officials further explained that the possibility of the signal's being a hoax has been thoroughly investigated and that there is no doubt whatsoever that the message is a genuine interspatial communication from intelligent beings on Ganymede. Ganymede is one of twelve moons of the planet Jupiter, and is larger than the planet Mercury."

Freddy stopped.

"Ain't there any more?" Willy whined.

"The rest of it is about how far away Ganymede is, and its relative density and mass and stuff. You wouldn't be interested, Willy."

"Oh. I guess not." Willy helped himself to a peanut. "What's it mean, Freddy?"

"Nothing much, Willy. Just that there's people somewhere besides here on Earth, and they called us on the phone."

"Whadd'ya know about that!" Willy gasped. "I didn't even know they was other people!" He stared with disbelief at the paper.

"I don't suppose anyone knew."

"How d'ya suppose they knew?" Willy asked. "I mean, that we was here, if we didn't know they was there?"

"I've been wondering about that, Willy. You know that last rocket we shot?"

"From Cape Carnival you mean?"

"Yeh. It was supposed to go into orbit around Jupiter. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe it didn't land on Ganymede; the people there could have examined it, figured out where it came from, and then radioed us on the same frequency the rocket transmitter used. Paper doesn't say that, of course, but it's a reasonable hypothesis."

"Freddy, I think you must be a genius or sumpin'."

Freddy smiled and stretched out to sleep again as Willy wandered off, staring blankly at the newspaper.

* * * * *

Carlton Jones, America's Number One personnel specialist, scowled at the pamphlet on his desk.

SECRET, it said in big red letters across the top and bottom. Special Instructions for Operation Space Case, said the smaller letters across the middle of the top sheet.

"Now I ask you, Dwindle," Jones said to his clerkish aide, "where, in this worldful of specialists, am I going to find someone with a well-rounded education? Much less one who'll take a chance on a flier like this?"

"Gosh, Mr. Jones, I just wouldn't know," Dwindle blinked. "Have you tried looking through your files?"

"Have I tried looking through my files," Jones sighed, looking at the ceiling light. "Dwindle, my files include every gainfully employed person in the United States of America and its possessions. Millions of them. One doesn't just browse through the files looking for things."

"Oh," Dwindle said. "I'm kinda new at this specialty," he explained.

"Yes, Dwindle. However," Jones continued, "one does make IBM runouts to find things."

"Hey, that's great!" Dwindle said, brightening. "Why don't you try making an IBM runout?"

"I did, Dwindle. Please let me finish? Our instructions call for finding a person with a well-rounded education. More specifically, a person who is capable of intelligently discussing and explaining some two dozen major 'fields of knowledge.' Plus, of course, at least a passing acquaintance with some one or two hundred minor fields of knowledge.

"So I set Mathematics into the IBM sorter. Mathematics is one of the major fields of knowledge, you see."

"Yeh," Dwindle acknowledged.

"So I took the few million mathematicians' cards which I got--good mathematicians and bad mathematicians, but at least people who can get their decimals in the right place. I set the IBM sorter for Biology, and ran the mathematicians' cards through. So I got several thousand mathematician-biologists."

"That's pretty sharp!" Dwindle exclaimed with a twinkle. "Whoever thought of that!"

"Please, Dwindle," Jones moaned, pressing his palms to his eyes. "Next I sorted according to Geology. Three hundred cards came through. Three hundred people in America who know their math, biology and geology!"

"That doesn't sound like so many to me," Dwindle said hesitantly, as if wondering what there was to get so excited about.

"And of those three hundred, do you know how many understand, even vaguely, Electronics? Twelve. And of those twelve, guess how many have an adequate background in History and Anthropology? Much less an understanding of eighteen other fields?"

"Not very many, I'll bet," Dwindle replied smartly.

"None! Not even one! I tried running the cards through in every order imaginable. We've bred a race of specialists and there's not a truly educated man among us!"

"Say, you know what I bet? Even if you did find a guy who's like what all you said ..."

"Go ahead, Dwindle."

"... I bet he wouldn't even go up there to Ganymede. I sure wouldn't! I'd be scared to death," Dwindle chattered, waving his finger. "How's he gonna get back, even if he gets there O.K.? Couldn't anyone fool me with a bunch of pretty talk; I know the government doesn't have a rocket that could take off again after it got there. Gotta have launching pads and computers and all that stuff. Government ever think about that?"

Jones held his head in anguish. "Dwindle, why don't you be a good boy and run along to the snack bar for a coffee break? And bring me some aspirin when you come back."

* * * * *

Freddy the Fish, Willy and Oscar Fronk were occupying the same bench, a comradeship made necessary by the overpopulation of the park on such a glorious day. Oscar was surveying the passing girls and scouting for worthwhile cigarette stubs. Willy was admiring a hovering beetle's power of flight, and Freddy was reading a discarded copy of Scientific American.

The beetle landed on Willy's sleeve and promptly located a gaping tear in the fabric, through which bare arm showed. Willy raised his other hand menacingly.

"Don't," Freddy barked, causing Willy to jump with enough force to dislodge the beetle.

"Aw, Freddy," Willy whined, "why dintcha lemme kill it? What good's a stupid bug?"

"That would have been a rather unfortunate kill, Willy, by your bare hand on your bare arm. You must learn to be cognizant of our insect friends and insect enemies."

"So what's he, poison or sumpin'?"

"Unpleasant, at least," Freddy said. "That was a blister beetle; smash it on your arm and you'll grow a nice welt. A member of the Meloidae family."

"You mean bugs have families and all, too?" Willy asked.

"Beetle 'families' are groupings of similar species of insects," Freddy explained. "Not actually kinfolk. For instance, this beetle is related to the Lytta vesicatoria of southern Europe, more commonly known as the--" Freddy glanced out of the corner of his eye at Oscar, hoping to shield the next bit of information from his perverted brain, and whispered the name.

Willy's eyes widened. "Hey, Oscar," he hollered, jumping up. "You hear what Freddy said? That bug I almost swatted's practically a Spanish Fly!"

"Which way'd he go?" Oscar squeaked, allowing his collection of stubs to scatter as he hopped around, looking on and under and behind the bench for the escaping insect.

"Hold it, hold it," Freddy commanded, trying to restore order. "I said it's like it, not IS it. It doesn't have what it takes, so skip it, huh?"

Willy and Oscar sat down again. "Freddy," Willy sighed with adoration, "how'd ya ever get so smart? I mean, bein' a bum and all?"

"I keep telling you guys; I went to nothing but the finest universities. Well, except toward the end, when I was getting desperate, I guess I wasn't so choosy."

"Aw, g'wan now, Freddy. Collitches cost money, and you're as poor as the rest of us. Bummin' for a cuppa coffee, and all the time talking about Yale, and Oxford, and Hah-vad."

"What would you say, Willy, if I told you that once I belonged to the richest family in Mississippi?"

"I'd say Mississippi was a pretty poor state," Willy said, and Oscar giggled.

"I once was Frederik Van Smelt, spoiled son of the wealthy shrimp and oyster scion. And there's nothing as bad, my father said, as spoiled Smelt. He disowned me, of course. I owned six Cadillacs--one right after the other, I wrecked them all. I traveled all over the world and probably counteracted a billion dollars' worth of foreign aid. I was kicked out of the best schools in the world."

"How come if you're so smart you flunked out of all them schools?" Oscar asked.

"Me? Flunked out? I never made less than an A in any course I took during my eight years at war with college. I was expelled from nine schools and barely escaped the highway patrol when I was bootlegging at Oklahoma University!"

"Freddy," Willy said, "you're lyin' like a dog, butcha make it sound s' real!"

* * * * *

Jones squirmed uncomfortably in his seat in the briefing room, phrasing and rephrasing his thoughts. It seemed that no matter which arrangement of words he chose, it still was going to be obvious that he'd flopped. He re-examined his fingernails and selected one which was still long enough to chew.

General Marcher concluded his current appraisal of the situation and began calling on the various individuals with whom certain phases of OPERATION SPACE CASE had been entrusted. Jones groaned as each arose and gave favorable progress reports.

"The pod is completed and has been tested, sir. It will by no means be plush, but it will be sufficiently comfortable even for the long voyage to Ganymede."

"The guidance system is perfected to the extent that we need."

"There are no further deceleration problems to be solved."

"The crash program has been approved for the two-way rocket; it is on the drawing board and current estimates are that the envoy can be brought back in three years."

"Ganymede has replied to our last message; a suitable artificial environment will be available for the envoy."

"Personnel Specialist Jones?"

Carlton gave his chin a final sweaty rub and slowly rose to his feet. "General Marcher, sir," he choked, "I'm ... we're ... experiencing a little difficulty finding a volunteer, so far--"

"Negative perspiration on that count, Jones," the Project Officer interrupted. "The draft has never been abolished; we can grab anyone you put your finger on! Now, who will it be?"

"Sir, it doesn't seem to be that so much as ... well ... sir, has any consideration been given to perhaps sending a delegation rather than a single envoy?"

The general smiled broadly. "Now, that is more like it! I take it you mean you have a number of equally-qualified persons who have expressed an intense desire to go to Ganymede, and there is no way to impartially select one of these men over the others? This is commendable. However, our space limitation clearly precludes sending more than one person. I'm afraid you will just have to make your choice from a hat."

Jones turned a trifle redder. "That's not exactly the problem, either, sir."

The general's smile wilted and became a frozen frown. "Just exactly what are you trying to say, Jones?"

"There's no one who can meet the qualifications, sir," Jones said, feeling sick at his stomach.

"Are you telling me that in the entire United States, there is not one person who has a basic understanding of the twenty-four major fields?"

"I'm afraid that's right, sir."

"See me after the briefing, Jones. I'm certain that the Foremost Personnel Specialist in the United States must have some further ideas on this matter."

Jones sank slowly back into his seat and covered his face with his hands. "I'm a goner," he whispered to himself. "Jones, you can be replaced."

Dwindle, sitting on his left, suddenly punched him vigorously in the ribs. "Say, Mr. Jones," he rattled, "I just thought of a great idea."

"Tell it to the general," Jones moaned. "Maybe then he'll realize what a handicap I've been working under."

* * * * *

"Hi ya, Freddy," Willy said, sitting down on the bench and helping himself to some peanuts. "Workin' a crossword puzzle?"

Freddy pocketed his pencil stub and laid aside the newspaper. "Naw, not this time. Just playing around with one of those 'We're looking for bright young men' ads."

"Freddy! Y'ain't thinkin' a gettin' a JOB?"

"Nothing like that," Freddy laughed. "Just, exercising my mind. Filling out one of those little tests they always have. Helps keep a fella sharp, you know."

"Yeh, I seen the kind. Like what has pictures and you're supposed to find things wrong in the picture like dames with beards and dogs with six feet?"

"Kinda like that, only this one's all written and is a little tougher. You're supposed to send the answers in and whoever has good answers gets to take a tougher test and whoever does good on that test gets the job. Probably selling neckties on the corner or something."

"No kiddin'. That what it says?"

"Just says 'handsome rewards,' but that's probably close to it."

"You gonna send it in?" Willy asked.

"Naw, I just fill 'em out for fun, like I said. Can you imagine me peddling neckties on the corner?"

"Then how d'ya know if you got the right answers?"

"Hell, I know the answers," Freddy bragged. "Like I said, this is just exercise. Mental gymnastics. Like this last one; it was pretty tough compared to most of them. Had some questions about things I hadn't even thought about since college, things I'd forgotten I knew. What good's an education if you forget what things you know?"

"That's why I never bothered," Willy agreed. "'Cause I never could remember things so good."

"No, Willy. You've got it all wrong. I still know it, I just didn't know I know it."

"Aw, Freddy," Willy said unhappily. "You're pullin' my leg again!"

"Suit yourself," Freddy smiled. "Hold down the bench for me, O.K.? I'll be right back."

Willy watched Freddy until he went into the little brick building in the center of the park, and then grabbed Freddy's newspaper and scampered over to Oscar's bench.

"Hey, you know how Freddy's always talkin' big about how much he knows," Willy said breathlessly. "I got an idea how to call his bluff. He filled out one of these tests and says he knows all the answers. Let's send it in and see if he's as smart as he says!"

"Yeh! That's great, Willy!" Then Oscar's face darkened. "Wonder where we can steal a stamp?"

* * * * *

"That was a pretty good idea of mine, about advertising in the paper, wasn't it, Mr. Jones?" Dwindle, America's Number One Personnel Specialist, asked his surly assistant.

"Yes, Dwindle."

Jones stared gloomily out the fourteenth story window into the park, where the local bums were loafing and sleeping and feeding peanuts to the pigeons. He was nauseated with the prospect of having to address his new boss as "Mr. Dwindle," and was toying with the idea of abandoning his specialty completely to join the ranks of the happy, carefree unemployed. He watched as two uniformed policemen approached one of the less wholesome-appearing characters.

"No, I don't suppose I could tolerate being in and out of jail every week on a vagrancy charge," he told himself. But then he smiled bitterly as he thought of the strange parallel between the policemen arresting the bum and other officials, elsewhere in the United States, tapping respectable citizens on the shoulder at this very moment.

"Dwindle, do you really think it was wise to issue warrants to arrest all those persons who scored perfect on the first test? How many did you say there were?"

"Only a hundred or so," Dwindle smiled sweetly. "And besides, they're not being arrested. General Marcher explained to you that they are being drafted into the service of the government. Honestly, sometimes I think you worry too much."

Jones turned back to the window, brooding over Dwindle's transformation. "Maybe so," he sighed, watching the newly-arrested vagrant pointing an accusing finger toward one of the other bums.

* * * * *

Willy strained and twisted, trying to reclaim his arm from the policeman's grip.

"Honest, you guys. I didn't know it was against the law. Aw, I figgered it was against the rules mebbe to send in somebody else's answers, but we wuz only makin' a joke, Oscar 'n' me. Oscar's the one who actual put it in the mailbox and stole the stamp! I bet he's the one you're after!"

"Now calm down, Willy," the beefy policeman coaxed. "No one's broken any law. Nobody's under arrest. We just want to chat a minute with whoever it was filled out that test."

"Yeh, Willy," the second policeman broke in, "if you didn't do it, and I believe you when you say you didn't, then who did?"

"What's it to ya?" Willy asked, his mouth twitching nervously.

The first policeman glanced at the second and then back at Willy. "Well, it's like this, Willy," he said. "Whoever filled out those answers got every one of them right. The people who run the contest want to meet the guy, see? And they asked us to help find him because we know you people better than anyone else does. See? That's all!"

"Yeh," said the second. "That's all. Now who did it?"

Willy stood with his jaw drooping for a moment. "You mean he got ever' last one of 'em right?" he asked. "Freddy was always braggin' about his brains, but me 'n' Oscar figgered he was makin' most of it up."

"Freddy who? Freddy the Fish you mean?"

"Yeh, Freddy." Willy perked up and turned toward Freddy's bench. "Hey, Freddy! Hey, you know that test you took in the newspaper that you didn't know I sent in? You won the contest or sumpin'! Hey, that's great!"

* * * * *

Jones and Dwindle watched the draftees file into the examination room.

"I still don't see how this is going to solve the problem," Jones frowned.

"I believe it will," Dwindle contradicted him. "Specialists in each of the major fields have been consulted, and each provided fifty questions."

"The hardest questions they could think up, I imagine."

"No, not at all. The purpose is to provide comprehensive coverage of each field. And each question is of the type that, if the examinee knows the answer, it can be reasonably assumed that he knows quite a bit in that particular phase of the field. For instance, if he knows what enzyme is associated with the stomach, he probably knows what enzyme is associated with the liver."

"I know one big problem you're going to run into," Jones sulked. "Just like the IBM cards. You're going to find one guy who clobbers the Electronics part of the test but completely busts out in History and everything else."

"I don't think so," Dwindle said. "The preliminary test will have taken care of that. It was designed so that, in order to answer every question right, a person would have to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of all twenty-four major fields."

As Jones was considering whether it would be better to slit his own throat or Dwindle's, General Marcher entered the room and approached.

"Excellent. Excellent," the general declared. "A very distinguished-looking group you've assembled here, Dwindle. Hello, Jones."

"Yes, sir," Dwindle said, "with the possible exception of the seedy chap in the rear."

Jones looked to the rear of the room, and his eyes bugged.

Freddy the Fish, clean-shaven but tattered, was alternately wetting the pencil lead in his mouth and eating peanuts.

"That's the bum who feeds sparrows in the park!" Jones gasped. "How did he get out of jail so quick? I saw a couple of policemen haul him off just a day or so ago."

"This is where they hauled him to," General Marcher said. "It just so happens that he answered every question right on the preliminary examination. He says his name's Freddy Smith, although I doubt that he could prove it."

"He says he never had a father," Dwindle added. "Says his family was too poor."

Jones stared at General Marcher, then stared at Dwindle, then turned and stared at Freddy the Fish, who had just left his seat and was ambling toward the trio.

"Looks like he's throwing in the towel," Jones, said happily. "He's bringing his paper with him."

"Maybe he just wants clarification on a question," Dwindle said.

"I'm all done," Freddy said. "Who gets this?"

"Go ahead, Dwindle," Carlton Jones smirked. "Grade the man's paper. He's all done."

Dwindle smiled uncertainly. "You're allowed all the time you need, Mr. Smith."

"Oh, that's O.K. I'm done."

Dwindle produced his red pencil and the answer sheet which had 1,200 small circles punched in it. He sat down, placed the key over the test paper, and began searching for white spaces showing through.

* * * * *

"That's the last one, sir," Dwindle said six hours later as he added the one hundred twelfth graded test to the neat stack at the left of his desk. He stared through the thousand-plus holes in the answer key as if expecting the holes to shift.

"And still no change in the standings?" General Marcher asked again.

"Mr. Smith still has the best grade," Dwindle answered.

"The percentages again?" the general asked.

"Over all, ninety-six per cent for Mr. Smith," Dwindle said for the fourth time. "His lowest percentage in any one category was eighty per cent. The next highest score was by Dr. Schmelling, who had seventy-eight per cent, but he failed in six categories. The third highest score was by Dr. Ranson, seventy-six per cent, failing in seven categories. The fourth highest score was--"

"Enough. Enough," General Marcher interrupted. "I think we've found our man, don't you, Dwindle?"

"I hope we don't have to use pressure, sir," Dwindle replied.

Jones turned from the window, from which he was observing the bums in the park. "How can you possibly consider such a thing," he blurted, "as to send a penniless, unemployed, dirty, ragged tramp to Ganymede as the United States' Number One emissary?"

"Jones, perhaps I'd best clarify a point or two for you," General Marcher said in measured tones. "We've been searching the nation over, seeking a man who can fulfill our exacting requirements. We have found that man. There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Smith possesses the greatest single store of knowledge about this planet and its people. So far as I'm concerned, which is considerable, it doesn't matter that this man has chosen the way of a philosopher instead of seeking an occupation. It doesn't matter that he lacks the necessary status to be listed on your IBM cards. It doesn't matter that you failed to find this man, because Dwindle succeeded. And, it doesn't matter whether I ever see you again!"

"Yes, sir," Jones said, and picked up his hat and left.

"Now, back to the business at hand, Dwindle. You say these prospects don't know the reasons behind the test?"

"That is correct, sir. I feared there might be some temptation for the prospects to not do their best, if they knew that success might result in their being removed from the face of the Earth."

"Wise. Then I suggest we approach Mr. Smith on the idea, cautiously, to determine his sentiments. If he doesn't want to go, of course, we've got to draft him."

* * * * *

Freddy cracked the peanut, put half in his mouth and tossed the other half to the sparrows.

"I might be going away for a while, Willy," he said, ending a rather long silence.

"You ain't gettin' a job, are ya Freddy?"

"Watch yer language," Oscar scolded.

"Naw, not really a job. At least not the kind you think of. Sort of an all-expense-paid vacation, with a change of scenery."

"Ya ain't had a run-in with the bulls, have ya?" the stricken Willy asked.

"Me? You know me better, Willy. Nothing like that. And I'm not even sure the thing will pan out, but you know all those newspaper stories about messages from another planet?"

"Yeh! Yeh! Ya read it to me!" Willy jabbered excitedly.

"And that test I took that you sent in and the fellas talked to me about?"

"Yeh! Say, I hope that didn't make you trouble, Freddy, 'cuz me 'n' Oscar was just kinda jokin', see, and--"

"It's O.K., Willy. Well, one of the fellas I talked to was General Marcher, who's been mentioned in the newspaper stories in connection with ... here, Willy, take these," he interrupted himself when he saw the two men approaching. "See that new guy at the bench over yonder? Give him these peanuts. I think he'd like to feed my sparrows while I'm gone. Name's Jones, and he'll probably be around for a spell."

Freddy stood up to greet the two arrivals.

"Hello, general," he said, tipping his battered cap. "It's about the trip to Ganymede, I suppose?"

 

 

---

Contents

UNTHINKABLE

By ROG PHILLIPS

 

If Nature suddenly began to behave differently, what we consider obvious and elementary today might become--unthinkable.

 

In the story THE DESPOILERS in the October 1947 Amazing Stories I raised the question, "Is there anything absolutely beyond human comprehension?" In that story I gave humanity a thousand years to give birth to one man who could comprehend the incomprehensible.

The incomprehensible is harder to portray in a story than is merely the unknown. If we denote anything incomprehensible by the symbol X, we can describe what X is to a certain extent by knowing what it is not. We can, gradually, gain a certain insight into what it is by comparing it to what IS comprehensible.

In the last analysis the universe of normalcy is incomprehensible. We have made progress in comprehending it because we have isolated it into small bundles of events that can be dealt with by the human intellect.

We have arrived at certain basic pictures of the behavior of the incomprehensible. We have found a certain stability existing in the picture we have built up. We have searched the heavens and found that stars are made up of the same elements as the Earth--with a few exceptions. And with those exceptions we have brought them into the framework of our picture of the Universe by postulating "dense matter."

We have, slowly, come to the belief that the same laws operate throughout the entire Universe, just as they do here on the Earth. This is the Uniformity Postulate.

In that story THE DESPOILERS the Uniformity Postulate was not denied. The incomprehensible in that story was the mind of a Despoiler. It, to the human mind, was incomprehensible; and to the Despoiler, the human mind was incomprehensible.

Each viewed the Universe differently due to a difference in whatever lies at the foundations of the thinking processes. In other words, uniformity of the principle of thought was denied there.

Both the Despoilers and Man had mechanical civilization and science, but due to their different minds neither could comprehend completely the viewpoint of the other ON THE SAME THING. Each had applied his REASON to the disorder of nature and constructed what to him was a REASONABLE PICTURE.

The type of mentality I attributed to the Despoiler may be impossible. It may be that if the human race eventually reaches out and encounters other intelligent races it will find that the basic principles which result in thought as we know it are the ONLY basic principles that can give rise to thinking intelligence, so that wherever we find civilization we will find creatures that think the same as we do, and have seen the same pattern in nature that we have.

There is another possibility besides the encountering of incomprehensible minds. That is the possibility of encountering incomprehensible "islands" of reality.

One thing we have discovered about nature that makes such "islands" possible--or that makes it possible WE are living in such an "island"--is that matter has a habit of "reacting" to some types of energy patterns, and "totally ignoring" others.

Perhaps you can better understand what I mean by the following analogous position: Kah is an intelligent entity fixed at a certain point. He can only derive a picture of reality from what he sees. He can only see a foot in front of him. In all his existence he has seen only one type of thing--rocks about an inch in diameter. He therefore concludes that all reality is rocks an inch in diameter.

He is unable ever to learn that he is situated at a place where the one-inch rocks leave a screen with seven-eighths-inch holes that let every smaller pebble and all the sand through, and that seven-eighths-inch screen is the catch-all for a higher screen with one-inch holes that kept everything larger from coming through.

His Universe is brought to him by selective screening. He rationalizes what his Universe presents him, and postulates that ALL reality is identical to what he can experience. He can NOT conceive of what is utterly beyond his range of experience and imagination--which is merely the re-arrangement of reality or of thoughts derived from reality.

We are perhaps in much that same position. To be sure, our telescopes bring us data from stars that are so far away the human race will never reach them--but is not our telescope a "screen" that brings us only the one-inch rocks?

There may be and probably is a vast realm of reality co-existent with the reality we know, right around us; but it is "screened" from us. It may be possible that we know less than ten percent of actual reality around us due to the screening of our senses and our instruments that blocks completely, or permits to pass completely, every energy pattern that can't pass through the "holes" of our "screen."

Going back to Kah, the one-inch-rock-universe observer, suppose that in one batch of dirt dumped at the head of the screening system there happened to be no one-inch rocks at all? Or, more closely to the story you are about to read, suppose, with his mind deeply grooved with the tracks of the one-inch rocks, he were to move to a vantage point where there were no one-inch rocks, but larger or smaller ones?

He would immediately find nature behaving according to an utterly strange pattern, BUT he could only sort the incoming sensations according to the neural grooves already built up in his mind! In his mind he could only see one-inch rocks or nothing, and since what he would see would obviously be something, it would either seem nothing to him, or one-inch rocks behaving strangely.

His instruments and his mind would interpret by the old gradations and scales and concepts. His Universe would still be made of nothing but one-inch rocks, to him, but its behavior would be strange.

Perhaps slowly, like a newborn child making sense out of its surroundings, or a foreigner slowly making sense out of our language, he would penetrate to the new reality with his mind. Perhaps in the very process his being would change its structure.

In the end he would be in a unique position. He would have the memories of one Reality, and the experiences of a new one. He would have the language of the old with which to describe the new to his old companions. Could he do it so they would comprehend it?

It would do him no good simply to invent new words to describe something beyond the experience of his old companions. He would have to describe something beyond their experience with words and sentences they had created to describe only what they had gained from their own experience! How could he hope to make them gain a true understanding of it?

He might tell them simply and truthfully everything he experienced--and it might come out utter nonsense! It probably would. Unless he could bring back some of the evidence, either intentionally or unwittingly.

At first that evidence might present a pattern of utter nonsense and contradiction with known thought patterns and concepts. It might present seemingly normal events in nonsense sequences. It might present impossible events in seemingly normal sequences. It might even present disjointed events in sequence.

What it would present would be only what the screen of the senses and the screen of the mind could accept. Underneath would be a perfectly orderly pattern of events of some sort, behaving according to different natural laws in conflict with those we have existed under. Slowly we might penetrate to an understanding of them, but not at first, because at first they would be completely UNTHINKABLE.

In this story, UNTHINKABLE, an attempt has been made to depict such a conflict of nature and human mentality. It is not the ordinary science fiction attempt. It is not new laws working in harmony with old, or new discoveries that fit into the old pattern. It is, if you please, an utterly alien bit of reality in conflict with the old.

The story cannot but be inadequate. It is the froth and foam of the struggle. It is the parts that fit into the words and phrases and sentences. You won't like it at all--unless you have the type of mind that can reach a little way beyond experience. And though what you may "see" may have no counterpart in all reality, if this story serves to expand your mental horizons, it has at least found an excuse for being written.

--ROG PHILLIPS

Dr. Nale Hargrave tossed his spotless grey hat expertly across the six feet of space between him and the coat tree, humming the while a currently popular tune whose only words he could remember were "Feemo fimo fujo, the flumy fwam to fwojo."

His eyes rested self-congratulatingly on the hat after it came to a safe stop, then turned to beam an instant at his receptionist before he continued on to his office.

She smiled after him with an affectionate, indulgent look, gave him as long as it took her to powder her nose and tuck a few stray hairs into place, then pressed the buzzer that signaled to quarantine that the doctor was ready to screen the crew of the U triple S Endore.

The Endore had arrived during the night. Usually crews that had to wait hours before passing through psych raised a big fuss. Quarantine wasn't exactly designed for comfort. A man couldn't be expected to enjoy sitting on a bench and reading a worn-out magazine after looking forward to visiting his old haunts on Earth after months or years in space. His only thought was to get through the red tape and step through the door on the other side of which lay freedom of expression and freedom from space discipline--and girls.

That was the usual result of forced delay in quarantine. The crew of the Endore hadn't let a peep out of them.

Martha Ryan, the receptionist, glanced knowingly at the closed door. She knew that Nale was sitting at his desk, his legs crossed carelessly, his long fingers holding the report on the Endore and the report of the psych observer. He was probably frowning slightly over the unusual behavior of the crew.

She had her own list of names of the crew on the desk before her. Heading the list was the name, Comdr. Hugh Dunnam. Dr. Nale would ordinarily call him first. Next would come any of the crew that the commander reported unbalanced, followed by the rest of the crew.

Sometimes when the psych observer's report was unfavorable to the whole crew he called some crew member at random before calling the top name.

It didn't surprise her, therefore, when the intercom came to life and Dr. Nale's voice pleasantly asked for a name two-thirds of the way down on the list of forty names--Ren Gravenard, spaceman/2d cls.

Martha's pencil followed the list down, making a light check after the name while she dialed quarantine to send in the man.

In her mind's eye she could visualize the lifted eyebrows of the day shift guards as they glanced over the huddled crew. She could see their suddenly changed attitude toward the crew, their new caution as they opened the heavy wire door and led the man out. She could see, too, the worried frown of Comdr. Dunnam, whoever he was, as he realized what that meant--to have a crew member precede him.

She could see, too, Dunnam's probable warning look to spaceman Gravenard to keep mum and play his cards close.

That was the trouble with crews of ships when they thought they might be held up by psych over something. They invariably overplayed their innocence right from the start.

The side door from quarantine opened. Two guards entered, preceding and following the first victim warily. Martha sized Ren Gravenard up closely while her face assumed the careful, welcoming smile that often brought attempts at dating.

Ren Gravenard was no different in appearance than a million like him. He was average in everything including his type of character.

"You are Ren Gravenard?" she asked.

He nodded without speaking.

Martha pressed the button that told Doctor Nale the first one had arrived, got his O.K. signal, and motioned Gravenard and the guards toward the inner door with a sweep of long yellow pencil in perfectly manicured fingers.

As the three passed into the private office she made a slow dash after the spaceman's name preparatory to writing his destination when he came out. It would be "obs" or "O.K."

Then she glanced at her wrist watch. Its hands pointed to six after nine. Two hours and fifty-four minutes later Ren Gravenard had still not come out. And in her two years as receptionist for Dr. Nale Hargrave, Martha Ryan had never known him to spend more than twenty minutes with any subject....

Her manicured nail pressed the buzzer three times to signal she was going to lunch. Giving Dr. Nale a full minute to make any request, without receiving any, she opened the door to the corridor and left.

* * * * *

When she returned an hour later she was surprised to see the door to Dr. Hargrave's inner office open and Dr. John Bemis, the chief of the psych staff, at the desk.

"Come in, Miss Ryan," Dr. Bemis said, accenting his invitation with a wave of his hand.

He waited until she had come in and closed the door behind her before continuing.

"There's something's happened," he said gravely. "I don't know just what, and maybe I don't exactly WANT to know."

Dr. Bemis spread his hands in an all inclusive gesture.

"The universe is a big place," he said. "I suppose we should have expected that sooner or later we'd run into something a little outside normal experience."

He shook his head slowly, looking up at the ceiling as though trying to pierce it and see beyond. When he continued, his voice was sharp and businesslike.

"Tell me exactly what you saw, thought, and felt this morning. Every detail, however unimportant you might think it."

"There's really very little to tell," Martha said, surprised and alarmed. "There was this crew of the Endore in quarantine when I came to work this morning. They were unusual in that they didn't complain about having to wait, indicating a guilt feeling in the crew. Dr. Hargrave asked to see a common spaceman first. That proved he recognized this. The name of the spaceman he saw is Ren Gravenard, who was brought in at a little after nine and was still in there when I left at twelve."

She looked keenly at Dr. Bemis. Something was so radically wrong somewhere that she didn't have the courage to even ask him. She just waited.

"Dr. Hargrave has been taken to observation," he said without warning. "So has the crew of the Endore. I--ah--believe you may take an indefinite leave from the office until further notice. With full pay, of course."

"Dr. Hargrave?" Martha asked, not hearing the last.

"Yes!" Dr. Bemis's voice changed from harsh tenseness to contriteness. "I'm sorry, Miss Ryan, but I feel it inadvisable to discuss it just now. All I can say is that full quarantine measures are now in force as of fifteen minutes ago. There will be no landing or taking off from Earth until it is lifted; and within this area the same quarantine applies."[1]

Martha Ryan hesitated, then turned and left. Dr. Bemis watched her go. After the door closed behind her he did a very peculiar thing. He took a gun out of his coat pocket and shot himself through the head. After that he went to a mirror on the wall, dressed the wounds carefully, wincing at the bite of the alcohol in the raw flesh, and, after drinking several glasses of water, returned to Dr. Hargrave's desk.

* * * * *

He sat there, drumming his fingers on the walnut surface, his eyes closed as if he were listening to something very far away. A buzzer under his desk gave three short buzzes. He reached over and deflected the toggle on the intercom.

"Back already, Martha?" he said cheerily. "Any more left on your list for the Endore?"

Martha checked her list. There had been two left when she went to lunch. They had been checked off, too, while she was gone.

"That's all, Dr. Nale," she said.

"Good," came his voice through the intercom. "Think I'll go out and have something to eat myself."

The click of the intercom was followed at once by the opening of the inner office door. Martha's eyes watched Dr. Nale Hargrave as he walked through the office and out into the corridor.

Her eyes remained on the exit after he had gone, a faint frown creasing the smooth skin above her eyes. She had an IRRATIONAL impression that she had seen Dr. Bemis, the super, instead of Dr. Nale, and with his head bandaged clumsily.

She dismissed this with a pout and took a book out of a drawer to do her afternoon reading.

The buzzer on her desk buzzed a warning. She laid the book flat as the inner office door opened and Dr. Nale escorted Ren Gravenard out into the waiting room.

Martha glanced at her watch. It was ten after nine. Four minutes! She expected the nod from Dr. Nale. Her pencil wrote an O.K. after the dash she had drawn four minutes ago.

"Thank you doctor," Ren Gravenard was saying heartily. The two guards left by the side door back to quarantine.

Dr. Nale went over and bent close to Martha's ear.

"As your psychiatrist," he said pseudo-seriously, "I can advise you that unless you kiss me I am going to feel quite frustrated."

"Oh, that would never do!" Martha laughed, and kissed him.

She jerked back, startled. There was the sound of a shot from the inner office. The door was still open. Martha and Dr. Nale looked through the door, horrified.

Ren Gravenard was standing in the middle of the inner office dropping a flat automatic into his side pocket. There was an ugly wound on either side of his head from a bullet that had passed directly through his brain.

He smiled at them disarmingly, "It's quite all right. You see, it couldn't possibly do me any harm because I'm waiting for the elevator."

"Oh," they said, relieved. They bent and kissed each other again while Ren Gravenard went over to the mirror on the wall and dressed the wounds, wincing from the raw touch of the alcohol on wounded bone and flesh.

The outer door opened and two men came in with a wicker basket.

Dr. Nale pointed over in the corner where one of the guards lay dead.

"What happened to him, Doc?" one of the men asked.

"He got shot through the head," Dr. Hargrave explained. "One of the men off the Endore did it. They're all being taken over to observation. I think I'll have to go over with them. I'm beginning to get an inkling of what's going on, and I'm very much afraid of what I think it is."

The two men set the basket down and lifted the wicker lid. Dr. Bemis came out of the inner office and laid down in the corner. The two men waited until he had settled himself, then lifted him into the basket.

Dr. Hargrave held open the outer door for them. He returned to the desk beside Martha and took a gun out of his coat pocket. He pointed it at her, frowned in indecision, then slowly, with perspiration standing out on his forehead, pulled out the clip and emptied the barrel of the gun.

"Good for you," Martha said. She picked up her book and started reading. Dr. Hargrave put the gun back in his pocket and went to the door.

"Take a few days off starting tomorrow," he said before going out. "I'm going to be slowly going crazy trying to figure this mess out. That's why I insisted to Dr. Bemis that I be confined with the crew of the Endore--just in case."

His heels made loud noises on the marble floor of the corridor. He pushed through the revolving doors to the sidewalk.

There was an argument going on between a small newsboy and an elderly gentlemen type of man.

"I tell you there's only two pennies," the boy insisted.

"There's four," the man insisted just as strongly. "See?"

He pried open the boy's fingers and looked.

"Sorry," he said. "You're right." His hand went into his pocket to make up the deficit.

"Hey! Wait a minute," the boy said. "I was wrong. You gave me two pennies too much."

A small pudgy finger took two of the pennies. The boy glanced at the others to make sure the right number were left.

Nale was close enough to see what happened. He saw the pennies taken from what seemed to be seven or eight in the boy's palm. When the two were taken away there seemed to be a slight blur--and there was only a solitary penny left.

He didn't wait. The paper boy and the customer were still patiently arguing as he climbed into his car and drove away. He drove slowly with his foot close to the brakes.

Although his eyes were warily watching each car on the street, his mind was busy. He was trying to figure out who had been shot.

"It might even have been me!" he thought. And there was no way of knowing.

He drove the car another block. There was doubt growing in his mind. On a sudden impulse he pulled the car over to the curb and stopped the motor. Getting out, he started walking rapidly. There would be three miles of walking before he reached observation, but it would be safer to walk.

A block further he stopped abruptly in surprise. The spaceport observation hospital was just in front of him.

"I should have guessed," he muttered as he pushed through the heavy doors. "The speedometer, of course. Naturally it would go first."

* * * * *

Martha Ryan saw the door close on Dr. Hargrave, then started reading again. She finished the page and turned it over. The first few words of the opposite side of the sheet showed the continuity to be difficult.

Thinking she might have turned two sheets by mistake, she turned back one. It was still wrong. She sighed exasperatedly. She distinctly remembered that she had been on page twenty-five, so the next page should be twenty-six. Since it hadn't been, she would have to look for twenty-six.

She looked through the book, page by page, and it wasn't there. Getting over her exasperation she made a game of it. Finally she developed to the stage where she would open the book at random, note the number of the page, close the book, and then try to find that page she had just seen.

It was a very peculiar book. She found that, (a) she could find any page number she wasn't looking for, and (b) any page number she looked for was not in the book, even though it had been a moment before.

Resting thoughtfully for several minutes on this achievement of deduction she decided to try another experiment. She counted the number of sheets of paper in the book and wrote the number down. It was one hundred twenty-four.

Then she counted them again. There were one hundred eighty-six. She counted them five more times, making seven times she had counted them. She got nine different numbers of sheets in the book. She decided she couldn't get nine different numbers after counting only seven times, and counted the numbers. There were five. She closed her eyes and counted to ten rapidly, then counted them again. There were fourteen.

She held out her hands. She had seven fingers on her right hand and three on her left. She chuckled dryly and thought, "Well, anyway there are ten altogether." She counted them to be sure, and there were thirteen.

Pursing her lips stubbornly she held up two fingers and counted them. There were two. She held them rigid and closed her eyes, counting rapidly to ten. Opening her eyes she looked cautiously at the upraised fingers. There were two.

She raised a third finger to join the other two, and there were five upraised fingers. Not only that, there were seven of them clenched. She closed her eyes and counted to ten quickly, then opened them. There were three upraised fingers. She counted the clenched ones and there were two. Relieved, she checked on the upraised fingers again--and there were seven.

She gave up in disgust. Deciding she ought to go home she stood up and started to cross to the coat tree.

The door to the corridor opened and Ren Gravenard stepped in.

"Hello!" Martha said in surprise. "I thought you were sent to observation."

"I was," Ren said. "That's where I am now, but when there are forty of you, you can sort of get lost in the group and wind up anywhere you want to."

"Well, I'm glad you're here," Martha said dryly. "Maybe you can explain a few things."

Ren grinned crookedly.

"Suppose I do the explaining over something to eat," he said. "I almost stopped and had something on the way over here, but I wanted to wait and eat with you. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," Martha frowned. She was taking a closer look at this spaceman second class. He had a nice way of smiling at her. His eyes had depths she hadn't noticed before.

* * * * *

The illogical thought came to her that maybe now that things didn't behave the way they should, maybe he and his fellow spacemen were the only ones that knew what it was all about.

"All this," Martha waved her hand vaguely. "It must have been caused by something about the Endore, mustn't it?"

Ren nodded, holding the door open for her. They walked along the corridor to the revolving doors, his hand tucked protectively under her arm.

"Is it mental?" Martha asked when they were on the sidewalk.

"No," Ren answered. "But let's wait until we eat. I'm starved to death. If you run into any trouble I'll help you out. You see, I know how to work things."

"Like finding page twenty-six in the book I'm reading?" Martha asked.

"That's simple," Ren said. "All you have to do is look for page twenty-nine and you'll run across page twenty-six right away. Things like that are mental, partly. I mean, you have to have the right attitude to get results you want."

"I don't understand," Martha said.

"Well, it's like this," Ren explained. "If you're looking for page twenty-six it won't be one of the first two pages you look at, regardless of where you open the book. But after you've looked at three of them you've passed the page you want unless you're not looking for it. If you're not looking for it you REACH the right page."

"But why page twenty-nine to find twenty-six?" Martha persisted.

"It has to do with the new arithmetic," Ren said.

"Oh," Martha said dully. "So that's the whole trouble with everything."

"No, that's only part of it," Ren said. "But here's a good place to eat." He guided her through the door.

An hour later Ren lit a cigarette and took a long drag on it, his eyes looking longingly into Martha's. He exhaled the smoke in a long white plume. Then he began talking.

"I don't know whether you read it on the report sheet or not, but the trip of the Endore began from this same spaceport two years ago. The observatory on Pluto had reported a free planet passing within two hundred quadrillion miles of the solar system. The Endore was assigned the task of landing on it, if feasible.

"I had been a member of the crew for only four months when the Endore turned outward from its position just the other side of Mars' orbit."

Ren smiled apologetically.

"I hadn't exactly planned on being a spaceman, second class. I don't know whether you know the system, but whether you do or not, it should suffice to say that I had studied for five years to become a research scientist, and failed. I decided to take out my disappointment by joining up for two years. I planned on making another try at research when I got out.

"Everything went along fine on the trip out. We were a very congenial crew with a fine, human commander. He made it a point to get personally acquainted with every member of the crew eventually. He seemed to take a particular liking to me for some reason. By the time we were half-way out to Metapor, as we found out it was called later, I was an unofficial first mate or something with free run of the pilot room and the instruments.

"I had guessed by now that when I enlisted they looked up my record and passed the word along to Commander Dunnam to sell me on the idea of a career as a spaceman.

"At any rate, I was in an ideal position to see all that went on first hand. We were within three hundred thousand miles of Metapor when we got the first indication of the change in metaphysics. I discovered it myself. I was helping the astrogator get the constants for the planet ..."

* * * * *

"Take a look at the gravy board, Ren," Ford Gratrick, the astrogator said. "What's she say?"

Ren looked at the fine black pointer on the gravity potentiometer. It pointed to a spot just two marks above the number ten on the dial.

"Ten and two tenths," Ren read.

"That can't be right," Ford frowned. "At this distance that would make this baby a super."

He came over and looked himself. While he was looking the pointer moved up to twenty and then down to six tenths.

"Must be out of order," Ford muttered. "Well, this'll give you experience with emergency equipment. Break out the manual gravy dish, Ren."

It was a fine coil spring in a glass tube. Other glass tubes fastened on, to make the length almost ten feet. At one g the spring with its weight would stretch out to the bottom. From there to a ten thousandth of a g the spring rose up to a point half-way.

Ren put it together speedily, placing it in the wall clamps designed to hold it. The glass itself was graduated with the scale of gravity strength. The cylindrical weight at the free end of the spring had a line on it that would coincide with the proper reading.

In practice it vibrated up and down so that it had to be read by estimation of the half-way point of the up and down motion.

Ren and Ford watched the red weight with its black line. It moved slowly and uniformly from the bottom to the top of the scale, from a full g to ten thousandth of a g, and back down again.

Meanwhile the gravity potentiometer (gravy board) was changing its reading constantly and erratically.

Ford licked his lips nervously and said, "Don't know what the old man'll say about this, but it looks like all we can say is that the thing has gravity."

"Why not call him and let him see for himself?" Ren asked.

Ford looked out the viewport at the round object in the distance and shook his head.

"I've got a hunch he knows it already," he said slowly. "The ship is probably on a nonsense track and the automatic tracker is either trying to find out what the law of gravity is, or is exploring for clues to light aberration. One gets you ten he'll give me a buzz in another minute."

He was right. The phone rang almost at once. It was Hugh Dunnam himself, asking for the gravy reading.

"You'll have to see it to believe it," Ford Gratrick said over the phone. "The manual swing is uniform over the whole range. The gravy board can't make up its mind where to settle at. It tries this and that reading."

He listened briefly. "Yes, sir," he said, and hung up. "He wants you in the pilot room, Ren," he added.

Ren started out of the central instrument room through the axis tube.

"Better be careful," Ford shouted after him. "No telling how this gravitation will behave. Don't let it slam you against anything."

Ren heard his words. He had a sudden, crazy thought that it was his own voice, and that he, as he sped along through the ship, was in reality Ford Gratrick. The thought startled him. He promptly forgot it.

There was a frown of concentration on his face. He was trying to visualize a gravity pull whose intensity was not a single-valued pressure but a uniform continuum of pressure values from a minimum to a maximum.

It was like--well, like having an air pressure in a car tire that wasn't thirty pounds or thirty-two pounds, but every value from zero to thirty-five pounds.

It was like transforming the points and intervals on a line to a domain where there had previously been only points!

* * * * *

Hugh Dunnam was waiting for him when he arrived in the pilot room. His iron grey hair was mussed from exasperated hair-pulling. He jabbed a finger in the direction of the automatic pilot without speaking.

Ren saw that it had been cut out. The first mate was controlling the ship manually. The robot mechanism was still turning out its data sheets, however. In five minutes Ren saw that the only consistent detail was the distance of the ship from the planet.

Commander Dunnam watched him silently for several minutes. Finally Ren laid down the data sheets and looked at him with a slow smile.

"Well?" Dunnam asked.

"It reminds me of a kid I knew quite well when I was in grade school," Ren said. "He was an incurable liar, so you could never take anything he said, but always had to figure out the truth yourself and act on it regardless of what he might claim to be the truth."

"You mean the instruments have all become liars?" Hugh Dunnam asked, amazed at the idea.

"No," Ren replied. "I don't think that. I think nature is the liar, in a way. I mean she is according to our standards. We'll have to outguess her, that's all."

"Now you're cooking," Hugh exclaimed. "What would you suggest?"

"We know this planet has gravity," Ren replied. "There's no way of knowing how much or how little. Suppose we kill our tangential speed and just fall in? The gravity will take care of that, regardless of its value or set of values."

"But we'll crash!" Hugh objected.

Ren took one of the report sheets and figured rapidly on its back.

"Unless I'm radically wrong," he said, "our speed of impact will be every speed from zero to a thousand miles a minute. Not only that, no matter how we try to land that will be the set of values for our speed. Naturally the thousand miles a minute will smash us flat, but the zero speed will let us down easy."

"And so?" Hugh asked suspiciously.

"No matter how we go in," Ren smiled, "we'll smash the ship and kill everybody--and we'll land safely."

"Are you crazy?" Hugh snorted.

"I--I'm not quite sure," Ren said seriously. "I think that we've run across a bit of matter that works from different basics than what we are used to. You might call it a different metaphysics. That's what it really amounts to."

A pain of remembrance appeared on his face.

"That's why I didn't get my degree," he said softly. "I insisted that it might be possible there were no absolute rules underlying all reality, but only relative rules that might be changeable. In other words, I questioned the validity of asserting that natural law was universal. They flunked me in stability."

"Yes, I know," Commander Dunnam said sympathetically. "One of the most unjust rules of modern education in the opinion of many, but no way of changing it unless the educators themselves did it. Since they all passed O.K. in stability, they think everyone else should. Maybe they're afraid they would be considered unstable if they wanted to make such a major change."

* * * * *

Ren glanced toward the screen that showed the magnified image of the interstellar wanderer, and back again to the commander.

"Of course," he said, "I'm trying to use ordinary basics transposed onto the basics of this system, which is wrong. Or it may be right. It might be better if we just turned around and went back. There's no way of knowing ahead of time whether we'd be killed on landing or not."

"Look, Ren," the commander said seriously. "I like you. You--you're just about like my son would have been today if he had lived. I'm just a spaceman. I depend on instruments. They don't work here. All of us are just as helpless as if we didn't know the first thing about our trade. We can't go back without landing on this stray planet. If we tried to tell them the reasons, I'd be retired and the whole crew would be stuck on various routine tub runs. Suppose you unofficially take charge. If we get killed--we all expect to end that way in our trade. If we don't, we'll be able to take back something with us to prove what we've run into. Maybe it will vindicate you and make you a reputation. You'll get all the credit I can turn your way."

"Thank you, sir," Ren said, his voice choked with gratitude. In his heart he knew that he would have sold his soul to the devil for this coming experience that had been given him without his asking.

He had spent years preparing for this--years that his teachers had felt were wasted. He had explored all the crazy systems of logic abandoned in the march of progress. He had even devised systems of his own, synthesized from undefined symbols according to strange patterns outside the field of logic.

Yes. He felt that even if the basics of natural law in operation here were purely nonsense laws, he would be able to penetrate to a rational manipulation and control of things. Perhaps he might even set up the pattern operating, and join it in some way with so-called normal science.

Commander Dunnam came to attention, a twinkle in his eyes.

"At your command, sir," he said, saluting.

"Not that," Ren objected. "Let me just play the part of a scientist under your command, whose part it is to advise only."

"No," Hugh Dunnam said. "Until we leave this part of space you're in sole command. Call it what you want--a hunch maybe; but I feel that there is a purpose in things, and it wasn't chance that gave you the type of mind you have and threw you under my command on this trip."

"Very well, sir," Ren said, returning the salute. He smiled. Behind his smile his analytical mind was working rapidly.

"The commander's reactions are not normal," his thoughts said. "They could not be dictated by anything in his past. Therefore they are dictated by something outside him--something on that planet below!"

It was a wild conjecture. The more he thought of it the more certain Ren became that there was some intelligence down there that had already made contact with the minds in the ship.

Strangely, this didn't alarm him. He felt that "it" was friendly. He felt that "it" had plumbed the minds of all on board and chosen him to take over and lead the others.

Eagerly he "listened," but no faintest whisper or flavor of thought came to support his feeling of an alien contact. In spite of this he went ahead with his study of things with a confidence that "something" was watching and would see them through all right.

* * * * *

His eyes turned again to the image of the cold planet below. That image returned his stare blankly, its inscrutable surface devoid of any hint of mystery.

"I'd suggest we keep circling the planet until I have a chance to form a few definite conclusions," Ren said. "If that can't be done I'd suggest we retreat far enough so we can."

"Yes sir," Commander Dunnam said quietly. He repeated the suggestion in the form of an order to the first mate.

Ren studied the image of the planet. He left the pilot room and wandered over the ship aimlessly. He talked to the members of the crew he ran into.

He slept at his usual time. He ate his meals as usual. He stopped talking to the crew and just wandered about, occasionally going to the pilot room and studying the strange sphere of matter.

After three days he ordered the ship dropped to an orbit about five thousand miles from the surface. Almost as soon as the ship reached its new orbit changes began to be noticed.

Ren had the commander issue an order that every crew member was to report all unusual happenings within the ship. Twenty-four hours later he issued an order that each crew member was to write out a brief report of his movements during the past twenty-four hours as he remembered them.

Ren studied these reports. And gradually he was building up a picture that was wilder than the wildest of fantastic imaginative creation.

He and Commander Dunnam had grown very close to each other. Finally Ren broke his long silence and talked to him about what he was discovering. They were in the dining room. Crew members were eating their "evening" meal. They listened as Ren tried to explain.

"I think I've formed a few permanent conclusions about things here," Ren began. "They aren't an EXPLANATION of things, but just a description of the way things are behaving. I'll try to make it clear as I go along."

He chewed his food slowly while trying to think of a good way to begin.

"Take any number, for example," he said. "Take the number five. Back on Earth you can count five apples and say there are five apples. You can count out five eggs and place them in a box, and say there are the same number of eggs as there are apples. There are five of each. Actually that isn't true. There aren't five of either. There is no such thing as the number five. The number is a mental thing, a concept. The apples have a basic property which would more accurately be called a 'fiveness'. The eggs also have a basic property called a 'fiveness', and the fiveness of the eggs and the fiveness of the apples are NOT the same. They are peculiar to each group. The human race invented a concept called the number five, and formulated a theory that all fivenesses belong to a class, called the number five. In nature this theory acted as though it were true. If you have five apples and five eggs you have ten objects. A fiveness placed with another fiveness makes a tenness. So arithmetic merely describes the behavior of a basic property of reality in a consistent manner. Arithmetic is NOT a basic law. It's merely a DESCRIPTION of a basic law.

"That basic doesn't seem to hold where we are now. But there are other basic things that seem to be violated here, too, and will probably be violated even more when and if we land on this planet.

"I've pretty well concluded that number doesn't exist here in the same way it does ordinarily. Take the strength of gravity, for example. Instead of being a single value it is equally a broad range of values, and is all of them at the same time. How that can be I don't know.

* * * * *

"It's the same way with the number of objects. Instead of having five fingers I have three, four, five, six and so on, fingers all at the same time. But my mind can't see that. It can only grasp a single number. My eyes look at my fingers and see the many simultaneous numbers of fingers, but my mind can't grasp that, so it conjures up a single number at random. It RATIONALIZES what it gets, and so we have a real problem--the devising of some method of helping the mind deal with what it can't grasp because it hasn't the equipment to grasp it as it really is.

"There are sixty of us on board--or rather, there WERE sixty. Now there are three, four, and so on, to some number above sixty. The last report handed in by the crew shows eighty-three men on board! I can't prove it, because if I handed you the report sheets you would count more or less than that number.

"So what we must realize is that now there isn't any NUMBER of crew members, but a 'something else' that is different than a number, corresponding to an INTERVAL of numbers. It is real. It's a metaphysical basic for this part of space around this planet.

"It's subtle, too. For example, right now there may be more than one me on this ship, depending on whether there are more than sixty people on board or not. I don't quite understand about that yet. There are a lot of things I don't understand about it. If there is more than one of any person on board, is it a reality, or is it a trick of rationalization of the mind to fit something utterly incomprehensible into at least a semblance of something comprehensible? If it is the latter, then why do the two who are supposedly the same person hand in DIFFERENT reports on what the supposedly one person did, and why do the reports check with other reports?

"I have a theory which might account for part of all this. Our ship and all in it belongs to the universe of the metaphysics we know of and use as the thought process. It is hovering on the borders of a region containing this planet we are to land on--a region operating on other basics. In some way both sets of basics operate in either conflict or compromise. Besides mental confusion there is actual physical confusion.

"But maybe it's better that way. If we make the transition in steps the actual noumenal confusion may guide our minds correctly into a correct understanding of the new basics of this system by the time we land."

Ford Gratrick had come into the dining room unnoticed at the beginning of this. He spoke now.

"Then you claim that the laws of nature are different here than we are accustomed to, and that our minds are not equipped to deal with them?" he asked.

Ren frowned. Not at the words but at something he had not mentioned, about people and identities.

"They are different, yes," Ren returned. "But as to our minds dealing with them--human minds have dealt with things without truly comprehending them since the dawn of time."

"Things that were sane," Ford said.

"These are sane, too," Ren said, studying Ford keenly from hidden eyes. "They're just sane in a different way."

"So is a crazy man," Ford almost sneered openly. "I think we've seen enough to make it obvious we should get away from here while we can."

There was a murmur among the men at the tables that agreed with what Ford had said.

"We may do that," Ren said, ignoring the signs of almost open defiance patent in Ford's tone and manner, and in the men's muttered approval of what he had said. "But we won't until we're sure it's suicide to go down there and land. Don't you realize that we have something here which may be unique in the universe? This space wanderer won't be close enough to the solar system for exploration more than two or three years. Then it will be gone. There may never be another opportunity to study something like it."

"Which is a good thing," Ford snorted. "If you decide to drop the ship any closer to this mad planet you're going to have trouble with the men."

"Meaning you've been talking to them?" Commander Hugh Dunnam asked softly.

"Talking WITH them," Ford Gratrick said, matching Hugh's softness. "Don't try to put me in the position of being a leader of any rebellion that might develop. I'll confess quite frankly, though, that I want no part of landing on this God-forsaken hunk of matter, and a good many of the crew agree on that. It's suicidal. Frankly, sir, I think you must be under some kind of spell to turn your command over to a spaceman second class as you did."

* * * * *

Ren's scalp crawled. This had been exactly what he himself had felt! So others besides him had "felt" that alien contact from below! On impulse he made up his mind.

"Before anyone says something they might regret later," he cut in, "let me say that I've made up my mind that it's too dangerous to land. The effects we experience up here would probably be increased beyond conception down there. Our thought processes are being affected in ways we can't understand. It's possible that if we landed the ship would behave so differently that it would be impossible to get away. So, give me another two days of study in this orbit and then we'll go back to the solar system."

While Ren was talking he had a curious feeling, far back in the depths of his mind. It was as though a section of the bank of a stream had broken off and dropped into the stream.

Irrational. There had been so many such feelings that crept to the borders of consciousness and faded away without meaning anything.

Time! Ren felt that time was all he needed to get to the bottom of it. He compared himself to a newborn babe coming into the world. For the first few months things come and go in meaningless fashion. Slowly the mind makes order out of them. The oft-repeated patterns become clear first, then more obscure ones. Finally the baby is able to understand the apparently senseless sequence of events.

Ren felt that the results would be the same here if he were given half a chance ... but Ford Gratrick was right, too. It concerned more than the mind. It struck at the roots of reality that had been used in the principle of the ship's operation--and there was no way of knowing the ship would operate once it landed.

* * * * *

Ren Gravenard flicked the ashes from the end of his cigarette off the edge of the table onto the floor. Martha's eyes took this in and slowly lost their faraway look.

"I'm trying to make clear, Martha," Ren said gravely, "the emergence into consciousness of the things going on around us. There was no way yet for us to suspect their full activity--their inroads. Things were going on that we simply could not see or sense in any way because we didn't yet have the faculty of grasping them. They made their impression and were lost in a hodge-podge of neural channels already deeply grooved in the normal way, so that when they got close enough to the conscious mind to be sensed, they were distorted beyond any semblance of the true reality."

"I can see that," Martha said, her eyes brooding. "But DID you find a living, intelligent creature or race on Metapor?"

Ren nodded. "I'm coming to that later," he said. "Be patient and let me take things in order. That's the only way you can understand when I tell you about--her."

His eyes studied the glowing coal at the end of the cigarette. He lifted the white cylinder to his lips and sucked in. Dropping the cigarette on the floor and stepping on it, he let the grey smoke seep from his mouth and nostrils.

Traffic sounds came through the window. A murmur of voices drifted over the two as they sat there, quietly.

"I've tried to bring you up to the point where I began to suspect," Ren continued. "I described the feeling I had that was something like watching a large chunk of the bank of a stream break away, starting first as a jagged crack in the turf, with it widening slowly at first, then faster, until the broken chunk becomes a separate THING, dissociated from the bank. It breaks away, drops into the stream--and vanishes; while the bank itself remains, enclosing and containing the rushing stream.

"I didn't realize then what that feeling meant. I had felt it in varied shades before. It rose almost into consciousness, then, like the broken section of the bank itself, it would drop away and dissolve in the swirling stream of mind.

"Sitting there at the table in the ship's dining room, suddenly I suspected what that feeling really sprung from. I got my first inkling of what intervalness instead of numberness really meant.

"For an insane period I was two people, both the same person and yet not a person--and even not two, or even one, but a 'something' that contained in the logical sense all of those, as a class contains the members of the class.

"Remember that I said I was making a little speech, sitting there, that assured Ford Gratrick and the members of the crew present in the room that we weren't going to risk landing, but get away in a couple of days.

"At the same time, while I was talking, I was experiencing this strange feeling. It was quite clear, for a few seconds. I was two Ren Gravenards, saying two different things. The two of me were very close. But while I talked they separated distinctly as the bank of the stream and the chunk are suddenly not one, but two.

"It was not me alone. Every man in that room was doing the same. The ship itself was doing it--and suddenly ..."

* * * * *

"Before anyone says something they might regret," Hugh Dunnam, the commander, said in a quiet warning voice, "get this straight, all of you. This is a government ship. I'm an officer of the Earth Space Fleet and my command is law. I have a right temporarily to promote any member of my crew to complete command of the ship with power equal to mine or even greater than mine. If Ren Gravenard says we go down, we go down even if it seems certain we'll all be killed. You have a choice of certain but honorable death, and equally certain but dishonorable death. Or you have a choice between an uncertain but honorable death if death it is, and certain but dishonorable death as a coward and a traitor. Let's not have any more thoughts of insubordination. You, Ford Gratrick, under a stricter commander, would already be on the way to the brig."

Ford looked at Hugh Dunnam through slitted eyes, his face expressionless. Suddenly he smiled.

"You forget, sir," he said smoothly. "Under a less human commander I would have kept my thoughts to myself."

* * * * *

"I was sitting there, Martha," Ren said. "Trying to grab hold of the strange 'split' in things. It's even more mixed up than I pictured it. I had a feeling of BEING both Hugh Dunnam and myself, and also of being myself on a 'something' drifting apart from all I could see. At the same time there was a feeling of two separate things now existing on the ship. Those two things might be called a composite of each of the two forces that began their existence at that moment--the forces obedient to the commander, and me; and the forces that were to side in with Ford Gratrick."

"In a way numberness in any group depends on the independent unity of each member of the group. Put a thousand drops of water in a glass and you don't have a thousand drops of water but a teaspoon or so of water. It would be impossible to take a drop of water out and definitely say that it was one of the drops you had put in. And if you changed all the water back into drops you might have more or less than the thousand you put in.

"But water is a fluid. A human being is not. In some inexplicable way, however, I was becoming more and more like the drop of water after it is dropped into a large volume of water. I was 'spreading', while all the time seeming to be just my normal self.

"I think I was beginning dimly to see the new metaphysical basics that were to make the whole thing sensible and manipulable. At least, I had already realized that it was different than would be, for example, the difference in operational principle of a gas engine and an electric transformer.

"If you've ever studied any abstract mathematical system you'll be able to understand how the changing of one basic axiom can alter the whole structure almost beyond recognition. Suppose that change in a basic axiom were not a clean change, but that for a time both the axiom and its alternative were to be used interchangeably and unpredictably. You would have results that were double-valued. You would have contradictory results following from whatever you began with until the old axiom got weeded out entirely.

"Perhaps you can see that well enough to understand everything. I hope so, Martha. If you can I can skip the landing. We DID land. We crashed, and we landed safely. We also did something else. I think that when they check the records they'll find that the Endore also came back to Earth and reported that it hadn't actually landed on Metapor. It did all those things--returned over a year ago, landed safely, and was crushed in landing. If you could see HOW it could do all those things--it's like the page in a book; you pass it if you look for it, and find it if you don't look for it.

"It's happening here on Earth right now and will keep on happening until the old basics that contradict the new ones are no longer operating. You see, Martha, we knew that would happen. That's why we came back. The new system is so much more perfect than the old. SHE taught it to us when we landed. Ford Gratrick and his fellow objectors were killed in the ship that crashed. They also were on the ship that came back to Earth. They're alive and they're dead."

Martha's face was a mask of confusion. She was trying to understand and not knowing how. Ren saw this and tried again.

"Suppose we try from this angle," he said patiently. "If a car is going ten miles an hour it will be ten miles farther on at the end of an hour. If it goes twenty miles an hour it will be twenty miles farther on. But suppose it goes both ten miles an hour and twenty miles an hour. At the end of an hour it will be ten miles and twenty miles along, and according to what the Earth is used to it would have to become two cars to do that.

"If it went every speed from zero to twenty miles an hour it would have to become an infinite number of cars, and occupy every position from the starting point to a twenty-mile distance at the end of an hour. That would be the conventional conclusion to the abstract problems. With the new basics it does just that--except that it is still just one car, and yet never was just one car and never will be. It CAN'T be, because there is no such thing, in the new system, as a one thing.

"I myself am not Ren Gravenard, only Ren Gravenard, or anything else that your old ideas can conceive of. You'll see, Martha. The whole world will see soon, just as I did after we had been on Metapor a short while and had gotten the contradictions out of my mind and my structure."

"Then what are you?" Martha asked tensely.

"I'm the crew of the Endore," Ren said softly. "I'm Ren Gravenard here and now because that is the only thing you can accept at present. I'm--Her, the incomprehensible."

A question rose in Martha's mind. She drew back from the question as from the brink of the Abyss, yet felt drawn magnetically toward it. Ren watched and knew what that question would be. She opened her lips.

"Who--am I?" she asked.

"Look at your hands," Ren said.

Martha looked down at her hands resting on the edge of the table. They were large, gnarled, strong--the hands of a man. She flexed them. They were smooth and skillful.

Wonderingly she raised her eyes to look at her companion across the table. Her companion was--herself and she was Ren Gravenard. Anything else would have been--unthinkable.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In 2027 A.D., just seventy-five years after the first space flight, a dangerous disease was brought to Earth which wiped out almost a million lives before a cure was found. Immediately an elaborate quarantine procedure was developed to take care of any possible eventuality. This also included the psych screening routine to check on the sanity and normalcy of returning space crews.

One feature of emergency quarantine was the creation of the spaceport zone, an area with a radius of fifty miles about the spaceport, which during quarantine was to be blocked off with nothing permitted to go either in or out.

For all-out quarantine as in this present case, a temporary planet quarantine was to be imposed, preventing the landing or taking off of any space ship at all.

Other measures would take effect if and when they became necessary, such as national quarantine, continent quarantine, and even harsh measures if they became necessary.--ED.