E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne (124 page)

Seaton could not hold the projections anywhere near any planet; could not hold them even inside a solar system. Even with the vernier controls locked and Seaton’s hands resolutely off, the point of view jumped erratically about in fantastic leaps of hundreds of billions of miles. Not even the huge – and reinforced – mass of the
Skylark of Valeron
could hold them steady. They swept dizzily into the chromospheres of suns, out into the cold dark of interstellar vacuum, through tenuous gas clouds and past orbiting planets. In theory – if theory meant anything in this unexplored area – the fourth-dimensional ‘gizmo’ should have been able to lock steadily
on a target. In practice, they could hardly find a target to lock onto. All eight of the Skylarkers were synced in at once to the master controls, but their best efforts could not keep them even inside a solar system, much less give them the rock-steady fix that would have permitted them to spy on enemy activity.

And the magnitude of error grew. In a minute they were swinging in huge arcs of a parsec or more. In another minute the swings had become so enormous and so random that they could not measure them. Their speed was immense; they swung dizzyingly toward a cepheid variable and it winked at them like a traffic blinker, spun past a flare star and watched its great gouts of flame leap out and fall back.

Five minutes of this insane cavorting made half the party seasick, and they pulled out of projection and returned, gasping and staggering, to the welcome stability of the
Skylark
. Seaton stuck it out for half an hour. Then he pushed the ‘cancel’ button.

‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ he growled. ‘Every time we wiggle a finger or a fly lights on a table it changes the shape of the whole ship. Oh, for something really
rigid
to build with!’ (The eternal complaint of the precise worker in any field!) ‘But we each saw
something
. We’ll report in turn.’

Seaton gave a brief description of his own observations. He had seen something, no more than a flicker, but clearly big and Chloran-made. Dunark had spotted what sounded like the same planet-sized mass, but in the system of a G-3 star, as nearly as he could tell; Seaton’s had been an F.

The others had seen nothing. Seaton nodded. ‘Okay. There are at least two solar systems having fortified Chloran planets, with one more probable. Ideas, anybody?’

Crane broke the ensuing silence. ‘I can’t come up with anything constructive. Just the opposite. There’s something basically wrong here, Dick. As I understand the Tammon-Seaton Theory, the operators involved here are all in the no-space-no-time field, so that distance does not enter. Hence it is possible in theory, and should be in practice, to place a bomb anywhere in all total space as accurately and as easily as you can touch the end of your nose with the tip of your finger.’

Dorothy whistled, Dunark looked shocked, and the others looked blank. Seaton scowled and said, ‘Yeah … But with all points in total space coexistent – Gunther’s Universe – how are you going to pick any given one out? What kind of an operator would it take? There’s a hole, Mart, in either the theory or in the reduction …’ He paused, frowning in thought.

‘Or both,’ Crane said.

‘Or both,’ Seaton agreed. ‘Okay, let’s skip down and find it.’

They went down and worked with the Brain all the rest of the day; but they did not find the hole. Nor did they find it the next day,
or the next. Then Seaton began to pace the floor.

‘So, in all probability, another breakthrough is required,’ Crane said. ‘And I can’t help you on that; I’m not the genius type.’

‘Neither am I!’ Seaton snorted. ‘In my book one flash-in-the-pan hunch does
not
make a genius … But here’s another angle, fella. If this thing
can
be worked out it’ll be so much better than that synchronization idea that it isn’t funny. Also, it might not take years to work out. Don’t you think it’ll be worthwhile, Mart, to spend a few days seeing if we can set it up as a problem? See if we can take it out of the pure brainstorm category before we spring it on Rovol?’

‘I do indeed,’ and Seaton and Crane both went down to the control room and got into their master controllers.

However, before that task was finished there was a surprise for Richard Seaton.

‘DuQuesne calling Seaton reply …’

Since Seaton’s head was inside his master controller, no speaker sounded. Since everything pertaining to DuQuesne was on file in the Brain’s memory banks, there was no delay whatever in making the proper connections: Seaton cut in before the first send of the message; short as it was, was completed.

‘What the
hell
, DuQuesne!’ his thought blazed out. ‘I didn’t think even you would have the sublime guts to call on me again!’

‘Save it, Seaton. This is important. Do you know how many solar systems of Chlorans there are in that galaxy where your
Skylark of Valeron
got burned out?’

Seaton paused for one microsecond. Then, cautiously:

‘No idea. Hundreds, maybe. Or, in view of this – thousands?’

‘You aren’t even warm. My apparatus put one hundred forty-nine million three hundred nineteen thousand two hundred ninety-seven of them into my tank before my scanners went out. And they hadn’t covered a quarter of the galaxy yet.’

‘Je—’ Seaton began, but shut himself up. Dorothy was listening in. ‘But to be able to use a sixth-order analsynth
that
long you must have had a little more … okay, gimme the dope.’

DuQuesne told his story, including his superpowered
DQ
and his Fenachrone crew, concluding, ‘We knocked out over fifteen thousand of them before I had to run. But of course that
wasn’t a drop in the proverbial bucket. Worse, I doubt like the devil if any mobile base possible to build can ever get that close to them again. Apparently they sync in just enough stuff – no matter how much it takes – to cope with the maximum observed threat.’

‘Could be. But how come
you
are interested? I know damn well what
you
want.’

‘Not any more you don’t,’ snapped DuQuesne’s thought. ‘With every two-bit Tom, Dick, and Harry of a race in all space having atomic energy already, what’s the chance of a monopoly? So what good is Earth or anything else in the First Galaxy? I’ve changed my plans – you and Crane can both live forever, as far as I’m concerned.’

Seaton absorbed and filed that statement – guardedly. He only said:

‘So what? Why should you give a whoop about the Chlorans? Don’t tell me you’re altruistic all of a sudden.’

‘You apparently don’t see the point. Listen – the Fenachrone
talked
about mastering the cosmos. That race of Chlorans is quietly and unobtrusively doing it. It may be too late to stop them; and I didn’t help matters a bit by making them double or quadruple their synchronized output. You and I are, as far as we know, humanity’s ablest operators. Each of us has stuff the other lacks. If you and I together can’t stop them it can’t – as of now – be done. What do you say?’

Seaton pondered. What was DuQuesne’s angle this time? Or was the ape actually on the up and up? It did make sense, though – even though he was a louse and a heel and a case-hardened egomaniac, if it came down to a choice of which was going to be wiped out, those monsters or humanity … sure he would …

‘Okay, Blackie. You give your word!’

‘I give my word to act as one of your party until this Chloran thing is settled, one way or the other.’

A few days later, the ultra-fast speedster that Seaton had left on Ray-See-Nee hailed the
Valeron
, matched velocities with her, and was drawn aboard. Three women disembarked; one of whom was Kay-Lee Barlo. She introduced her black-haired mother, Madame Barlo; who, with the added poise and maturity of her extra twenty-odd years, was even better-looking than her daughter. She in turn introduced her mother, Grand Dame Barlo, who did not have a single white hair in her thick brown thatch and who did not look more than half as old as she must in reality have been.

‘But, listen,’ Seaton said. ‘You couldn’t use any sixth-order stuff at first, so you must have been on the way for weeks. What happened? Trouble with the Chlorans?’

He had been talking to Kay-Lee, but her mother, who was very evidently the head of the party, answered him.

‘Oh, no. That is, they’ve tripled the quotas’ – Seaton shot a glance at Crane.
That
tied in! – ‘but with the new machinery that did
not bother us at all. No. We learned many weeks ago that you would have need of us, so we came.’

‘Huh?’ Seaton demanded, inelegantly. ‘What need?’

‘We do not surely know. All we know is that it is written upon the Scroll that a time of need will come, and soon. All Ray-See-Nee is enormously and eternally in your debt: we are here to repay a tiny portion of that debt.’

‘Can’t you tell me more about it than that?’

‘A little; not much. We received your original message, but at that time there was nothing to connect it with you as Ky-El Mokak. In studying it we encountered something unknown upon Ray-See-Nee that increased a hundredfold our range and scope and strength: three
male
poles of power of tremendous magnitude, men who, we found out later, you already know. They are Drasnik and Fodan of the planet Norlamin and Sacner Carfon of Dasor. With three such pairs of poles of power – three is the one perfect number, you know – it was a simple matter to locate those interested in your message, to develop the powers that had been latent in such people as yourself –’

‘What
?’ Seaton yelped. That was all he could get out.

‘– and Dr DuQuesne and others, yes,’ Madame Barlo went on smoothly. ‘You were, of course, not aware you possessed them.’

‘That’s putting it mildly, ace,’ said Seaton. ‘You mean
I
am … I hate to use the word … well, “psychic”?’

‘The word is of no importance,’ said the woman impatiently. ‘Use any word you like. The fact is that you do have this power; we have developed it … and we now propose to put it to use.’

Seaton’s reply to that has not been recorded for posterity. Perhaps it is well. Let it only be said that even twenty-four hours later he was no more than half-convinced … but it was the half that was convinced that was governing his actions.

One of the data that helped convince him was the fact that Madame Barlo and her daughter had not merely located these ‘poles of power’ – they had summoned them to the
Skylark
! They had not waited for Seaton’s concurrence; before Seaton even knew what they were up to, all the named individuals from three galaxies and a dozen planets were on the way.

A shipload of Norlaminians and Dasorians – including the three pre-eminent ‘male poles of power’ – was the contingent first to arrive. Then came Tammon and Sennlloy and Mergon and Luloy and half a hundred other Jelmi; bringing with them three Tellurians: Madlyn Mannis, the red-haired stripper; Dr Stephanie de Marigny of the Rare Metals Laboratory; and Charles K. van der Gleiss, petrochemical engineer T-8. And last, but by less than an hour, came Marc C. Duquesne in person.

‘Hi, Hunkie,’ he said, shaking hands
cordially. ‘A little out of your regular orbit? Like me?’

‘More than a little, Blackie – like you.’ She showed two deep dimples in a wide and friendly smile. ‘And if you have any idea of what I’m here for I’d be delighted to have you tell me what it is.’

‘I scarcely know what I’m here for myself,’ and DuQuesne turned to the others; nodding at them as though he had left them only minutes before. He was no whit embarrassed or ill at ease; nor conscious of any resentment or ill-will directed at him. He was actually as unconcerned as, and bore himself very much like, a world-renowned specialist called into consultation on an unusually difficult case.

Before the situation could become strained, the three Rayseenian women came into the big conference room and approached the conference table – a table forty feet long and three feet wide.

Their faces were white; their eyes were wide and staring. All three were doped to the ears. ‘Doctor Seaton,’ Madame Barlo said, ‘you will cover the top of this table with one large sheet of paper, please?’

Seaton donned his helmet and a sheet of drafting paper covered exactly the table’s top, adhering to it as though glued down.

‘You mean to say, doc, you’re going along with this magic flummery?’ one of the Jelmi asked.

‘I certainly am,’ Seaton said. ‘You will leave the room until this test is over. So will everyone else with a mind closed to what these women are trying to do.’ The scoffer and two other Jelmi walked toward the door and Seaton quirked an eyebrow at DuQuesne.

‘I’m staying,’ that worthy said. ‘I can’t say that I’m a hundred per cent sold; but I’m interested enough to give it a solid try.’

The two older women stationed themselves, one at each end of the table; Kay-Lee stood at her mother’s right, holding in her hand a red-ink ballpoint at least a foot long.

Majestic Fodan, the Chief of the Five of Norlamin, stood behind Madame Barlo, but did not touch her; Drasnik and Sacner Carfon stood similarly behind Grand Dame Barlo and Kay-Lee. Each of the three women rubbed a drop of something (it was actually Seaton’s citrated blood) between thumb and forefinger and Madame Barlo said:

‘You will all look fixedly at any one of the six of us and think of our success with everything that in you lies. Help us with all your might to succeed; give us your total mental strength. Kay-Lee, daughter, the time is … now!’

Reaching across the end of the table, Kay-Lee began to write a column eighteen inches wide; the height of which was to be the thirty-six-inch width of the table. When she got to the middle of the fourth line, however, a man gasped in astonishment and the pen’s point stopped. This Jelm, a mathematician, had let his eyes slip from the operator to
the paper – and what he saw was high –
very
high! – math! Mathematics of a complexity that none of those women, by any possible stretch of the imagination, could know anything about!

‘Quit peeking!’ Seaton snarled. ‘You’re lousing up the whole deal! Concentrate! Think, dammit, THINK!’