Classic Audiobook Collection - Masters of Space by Edward E. Smith ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Masters of Space by Edward E. Smith audiobook. Genre: scifi In Masters of Space, classic pulp-era science fiction expands from a hard-nosed naval expedition into a mystery about vanished powers that once ruled the galaxy. Jarvis Hilton, a young but driven leader, is put in charge of Project Theta Orionis: a handpicked team of scientists and officers aboard the warship Perseus, sent far from Earth to secure vital radioactive fuel ore and prove that humanity can push into deeper space. Tensions aboard ship flare immediately as Jarvis must earn authority in the shadow of seasoned military command, keeping brilliant specialists focused while pride, protocol, and ambition collide. Then the Perseus is forced into a baffling encounter with an eerie, skeletal object and glimpses of an impossible battle, signs that the crew has stumbled into a much older conflict. Their discoveries only deepen when they reach a world rich in dangerous resources and meet humanoid, machine-like beings who treat the newcomers not as strangers, but as returning masters. With ancient enemies stirring and the legacy of the Masters hanging over every decision, Jarvis and his crew must decide what kind of power humanity is willing to claim, and what it might cost. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:14:07) Chapter 02 (00:43:55) Chapter 03 (01:44:28) Chapter 04 (02:05:01) Chapter 05 (02:38:50) Chapter 06 (03:03:04) Chapter 07 (03:36:46) Chapter 08 (04:08:35) Chapter 09 (04:39:31) Chapter 10 (05:08:03) Chapter 11 (05:44:38) Chapter 12 (06:15:59) Chapter 13 (06:38:37) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

masters of space by edward elmer smith and edward everett evans part one masters of space by edward e smith and e everett evans the masters had ruled all space with an unconquerable iron fist but the masters were gone and this new young race who came now to take their place could they hope to defeat the ancient enemy of all chapter one but didn't you feel anything jovo strain was apparent in every line of tula's top bare body nothing at all nothing whatever the one called javo relaxed from his rigid concentration nothing has changed nor will it that conclusion is indefensible tola snap with the promised return of the masters there must and will be changes didn't any any of you feel anything her hot demanding eyes swept the group a group whose like except for physical perfection could be found in any nudist colony no one except tula had felt a thing that fact is not too surprising javo said finally you have the most sensitive receptors of us all but are you sure i am sure it was a thought form of a living master do you think that the master perceived your web it is certain those who built us are stronger than we that is true as they promised them so long and long ago our masters are returning home to us jarvis hilton a terror the youngest man yet to be assigned to direct any such tremendous deep space undertaking as project theta irinus set in conference with his two seconds in command

assistant director sandra cummings analyst sensitist and seamanitician was tall blond and sabete planarographer william carnes a black-haired black-browed black-eyed man of thirty was third in rank of the scientific group i'm telling you jar you can't have it both ways carnes declared captain sawtell is old-school navy brass he goes strictly by the book. So you've got to draw a razor-sharp line, exactly where the advisory board's directive puts him. And next time he sticks his ugly push across that line, kick his face him. You've been cast for milk-cutoes, too, ever since we left base. That's the way it looks to you. Hilton's right hand became a fist. The man has aged experience unability. I've been trying to meet him on a ground of courtesy and decency.

Exactly, and he doesn't recognize the existence of either. And since the board rammed you down his throat, instead of giving him old Jeffers, you needn't expect him to. You may be right, Bill. What do you think, Dr. Cummings? The girl said.

Bill's right. Also, your conscious appeasement doesn't doing the morale of the whole scientific group a bit of good. well i haven't enjoyed it either so next time i'll pin his ears back anything else yes dr hilton i have a squawk of my own i know i was rammed down your throat but just when are you going to let me do some work none of us has much of anything to do yet and won't have until we like somewhere you're off base a country mouth i'm not off base you did want eglestone not me sure i did i worked with him and know what he can do but i'm not holding a grudge about it no why then are you on first-name terms with everyone in the scientific group except me supposedly your first assistant That's easy, Hilton snapped, because you've been carrying chips on both shoulders ever since you came aboard.

Or at least I thought you were. Hilton grinned suddenly and held out his hand. Sorry, Sandy. I'll start all over again. I'm sorry, too, Chief. They shook hands warmly. I was pretty stiff, I guess, but I'll be good. You'll go to work right now, too.

as to man a-teaching dig out that directive and tear it down draw that line bill talked about can do boss she swung to her feet and walked out of the room her every movement won a life and easy grace carnes followed her with his eyes funny a trained dancer ph d and a miss america type like all the other women aboard this spacer i wonder if she'll make out So do I. I still wish they'd given me egging. I've never seen an executive type female Ph.D. yet that was worth the cyanide it would take to poison her. That's what Saltale thinks of you, too, you know. I know. And the board does know it's tough.

So I'm really hoping, Bill, that she surprises me as much as I intend to surprise the Navy. Alarm bells clanged as a mighty Perseus blinked out of overdrive. every crewman sprang to his post mr snowdon why did we emerge without orders from me captain sawtell bellowed storming into the control room three jumps behind hilton the automatics took control sir he said quietly automatics i give the orders in this case captain sawtale you don't hilton said eyes locked and held for sawtell this was a new and strange co-commander i would suggest that we discussed this matter in private very well sir sawtell said and in the captain's cabin hilton opened up for your information captain sawtale i set my interspace coupling detectors for any objective i choose when any one of them reacts it trips the kickers and we emerge during any emergency outside the solar system i am in command, with the provision that I must relinquish command to you in case of armed attacked on us.

Where do you think you found any such stuff as that in the directive? It isn't there, and I know my rights. It is, and you don't. Here is a semantic chart of the whole directive. As you will note, it overrides many Navy regulations. Disobedience of my orders constitutes mutiny, and I can, and will, have you put in irons and sent back to Terra for court-martial. Now let's go back.

In the control room, Hilton said. The target has a mass of approximately 500 metric tons. There is also a significant amount of radiation characteristic of uranacite. You will please execute search, Captain Sautel. And Captain Sautel ordered the search. What did you do to the best? big jerk boss sondra whispered what you and bill suggestion hilton whispered back thanks to your analysis of the directing pure gobbably gook if there ever was any i could mighty good job sandy ten or fifteen more minutes passed then here's a source of radiation sir a searchman reported it's a point source though not an object at this range

and here's the artifact sir pilot snowdon said we're coming up on it fast but but what's a sky strafer skeleton doing out here in interstellar space as they closed up everyone conceived that the thing did indeed look like the metallic skeleton of a great building it was a huge cube measuring well over a hundred yards along each edge and it was empty that's one for the buck sawtail said and how hilton agreed i'll take a boat no suits would be better karns yarborough gyptex leeds and miller and suit up we'll need a boat escort sawtale said mr ashley execute escort landing craft one two and three the three landing craft approach that ignamic latex work of structural steel and stock five grotesquely armored figures waded themselves forward on pencils of force their leader who suit for the number fourteen reached a mammoth girder and worked his way along it up to a peculiar-looking vault the whole of men's structure vanished leaving men and boats in empty space sawtale gas snowdon are you holding them no sir faster than light hiker space sir mr ashley did you have your inter-space rig set no sir i didn't think of it sir dr cummings why weren't yours out i didn't think of such a thing either any more than you did sandra said ashley the communications officer had been working the radio no reply from any one sir he reported oh no said sandra explained then but look

They're firing pistols, especially the one wearing number 14. But pistols? Recoil pistols. 63s for emergency use in case of power failure. H.P. explained. That's it. But I can't see why all their power went out at once. By 14.

That's Hilton. He's really doing a job with that 63. He'll be here in a couple of minutes. And he was. us every power unit out there suits and boats both drained helton reported completely drained get some help out there fast in an enormous structure deep below the surface of a far-distant world a group of technicians clustered together in front of one section of a two miles long control board they were staring at a light that had just appeared where no light should have been so one brainpan will be burned out for this one of the group radiated harshly that unit was inactivated long ago and it has not been reactivated some one committed an error your loftiness silence fool strepd not commit errors as soon as it was clear that no one had been injured sawtell demanded how about it hilton

structurally it was high alloy steel there were many bulges possibly containing mechanism there were drive units of a non-terran type there were many projectors which at a rough guess were a hundred times as powerful as any i have ever seen before there was no indications that the thing had ever been enclosed in whole or in part it certainly never had living quarters for warm-blooded oxygen-breathing eaters of organic food sawtale snorted you mean it never had a crude not necessarily ah what other kind of intelligent life is there i don't know but before we speculate too much let's look at the tri-dy the camera may have caught something i missed it hadn't the three-dimensional pictures of the three-dimensional pictures added nothing. It probably was operated either by programmed automatics or by remote control, Hilton decided finally. But how did they drain all our power? And just as bad, what and how is that other point source of power we're heading for now? What's wrong with that? Sawtail asked. It's strength. No matter what distance or reaction, I assume. Nothing we know

will fit. Neither fusion nor fusion will do it. It has to be practically total conversion. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Masters of Space. This is a lever box recording. All lever box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit leverbox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, aka E. E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett Evans. Translated by Robert Conottetti, Stephen Blundell, and the online distributed proof-reading team. Chapter 2 The first year snapped out of overdrive near the point of interest and Hilton stared motionless and silent.

Space was full of madly worn ships. Half of them were bare giant skeletons of steel, like the derelict that had so unexpected. blasted away from them. The others were more or less like the Persius, except in being bigger, faster, and of vastly greater power. Beams of starkly incredible power bit at and clung to equally capable

defensive screens of pure force. As these inconceivable forces met, the glare of their neutralization filled all nearby space. And ships and skeletons alike were disappearing in chunks, blobs, gouts, streamers, and sparkles of rended, fused, and vaporized metal.

Hilton watched two ships combine against one skeleton. Dozens of beams, incredibly tight and hard, were held inexorably upon dozens of the bulges of the skeleton. Overloaded, the bulge's screams flared through the spectrum and failed, and bare metal, however refractory, endures only for instance under the appalling intensity of six beams as though. the skeletons tried to duplicate the ship's method of attack but failed they were too slow not slow exactly either but hesitant as though it required whole seconds for the commander or operator or remote controller of each skeleton to make it act the ships were winning hey hilton yelled oh that's the one we saw back there but what at all space doesn't think it's doing it

He was plunging at tremendous speed straight through the immense fleet of in-battle skeletons. He did not fire a beam nor energize a scream. It merely plunged along as though on a plotted course until it collided with one of the skeletons of the fleet and both structures plunged a tangled mass of wreckage to the ground of the planet below. Then hundreds of the ships shot forward.

He used to plunge into and explode inside one, of the skeletons. When visibility was restored, another wave of ships came forward to repeat the performance, but there was nothing left to fight. Every surviving skeleton had blinked out a normal space. The remaining ships made no effort to pursue the skeletons, nor did they reform as a fleet. Each ship went off by itself, and on that distant planets of the stretch, the group of mecks watched with the maids just to believe as light after light after light blanked out on their two miles long control board frantically they relayed orders to the skeletons orders which did not affect the losses brainpans who have blackened for this a metal snarl began to be interrupted by a coldly imperious thought that long-dead unit so inexplicably reactivated is approaching the few It is ignoring the battle.

It is heading through our fleet toward the omen half. Handle it, 1018. It does not respond, Your loftiness. Then blast it, fool. It is inactivated. As Encyclopedias, 9,

explain the freakish behavior of that unit. Yes, your loftiness. Many cycles ago, we sent a ship against the omens within a device of destruction. The omens must have intercepted it, drained it of power, and allowed it to drift on.

After all these cycles of time, it must have come upon a small source of power, and of course continued its mission. That can be the truth. The Lords of the Universe must be in fork. The mining units, the carriers and the refiners, have not been affected.

your loftiness a mech radiated so i see fool then activating another instrument his loftiness thought at it in an entirely different vein lord jaundus madam i have to make a very grave report in the perseus four scientists and three navy officers were arguing heatedly employing deep-space verbiage not to be found in any dictionary charred carnes called out and hilton joined the group does anything about this planet make any sense to you no but you're the planetographer smother with it it's a good three hundred degrees kelvin too hot well you know it's loaded with urnics eye that much the whole crust practically jewelry or if that's what the figures say i'll buy it By this, then, continuous daylight everywhere, noon, June's sole, faulty light, except that it's all in the visible. Frank says it's from bombardment of a layer of something, and Frank admits that the whole thing's impossible. When Frank makes up his mind what something news, I'll take it as a datum. Third thing, there's only one city on this continent, and it's protected by a screen that nobody ever heard of.

hilton pondered then turned to the captain will you please run a search pattern sir find to think only the hot spots the planet was approximately the same size as terra its atmosphere except for its intense radiation was similar to terrors there were two continents one immense girdling ocean the temperature of the land surface was everywhere about one hundred degrees fahrenite that of the water about about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Each continent had one city and both were small. One was inhabited by what looked like human beings, the other by use of formed robots. The human city was the only cool spot on the entire planet. Under its protective dome, the temperature was 71 degrees Fahrenheit. Hilton decided to study the robots first and asked the captain to take the ship down to observation rate. sawtel objected and continued to object until hilton started to order his arrest then he said i'll do it under protest but i want it on record that i am doing it against my best judgment it's on record hilton said coldly everything said and done is being and will continue to be reported the percy has floated downward there's what i want most to see hilton said finally that big strip mining operation that's it hold it then by a throat mike attention all scientists you all know what to do start doing it sondra's blond head was very close to hilton's brown one as they both stared into hilton's plate why they looked like giant armadillo she exclaimed more like tanks he disagreed except that they've got legs wheels and treads and arms cutters diggers probes and conveyors and look at the way those buckets dip solid rock

the fantastic machine was moving very slowly along a bench or shelf that it was making for itself as it went along below it to its left dropped other benches being made by other mining machines the machines were not using explosives hard though the ore was the tools were so much harder and were driven with such tremendous power that the stuff might just as well have been slightly clad sand every bit of loosened ore down to the finest dust was forced into a conveyor and thence into the armored body of the machine there it went into a mechanism whose basic principles hilton could not understand from this monstrosity emerged two streams of product one of these comprising ninety nine point nine plus per cent of the input went out through another conveyor into the vast hold of a vehicle which when full and replaced by a duplicate of itself went careening madly cross-country to a dump. The other product, a slow, very small stream of tiny glistening black pellets fell into a one-gallon container being held watchfully by a small machine, more or less like a three-wheeled motor scooter, which was moving carefully along beside the giant miner.

When this can was almost full, another scooter rolled up and, without losing a single, pellet took over place and function the first scooter then covered its bucket clamped it solidly into a recess designed for the purpose and dashed away toward the city hilton stared slack jawed as sandra she stared back do you make anything of that jar nothing they're taking pure urine excite and concentrating or converting it a thousand to one i hope we'll be able to do something about you i hope so too chief and i'm sure we will well that's enough for now you may take us up now captain sawtale and sandy will you please call all department heads and their assistants into the conference room at the head of the long conference table hilton studied his fourteen department heads all husky young men and their assistants all surprisingly attractive and well built young women. Bud Carroll and Sylvia Bannister of Sociology set together. He was almost as big as cars. She was a green-eyed redhead, whose 5-10 and 150 would have looked big except for the arrangement thereof. There were Bernadine and Heromone Van Dermont, the Leggy, breasty, platinum

blonde twins, both of whom were Calfer medalist in physics. There was Ethane DeVox. the mathematical wizard, and Rebecca Eisenstein, the black-haired, flashing-eyed, ex-infant prodigy theoretical astronomer. There was Beverly Bell, who made mathematically impossible chemical synthesis, who swam channels for days on end and computed planetary orbits in our sleekly coppered head. First we'll have a get-together, Hilton said, nothing recorded just to get acquainted. You all know that our 14 departments cover science from astronomy to zoology. He paused, again his eyes swept the group. Stella Wing, who would have been a grand offer star except for her drive to know everything about language.

Theodora Teddy Blake, who would prove gleefully that she was the world's best model, but was in fact the most brilliantly promising theoretician who had ever lived. No other force like this has ever been assembled, Hilton went on, in more ways than one. Sawtail wanted Jeffers to head this group instead of me. Everybody thought he would head it. And Hilton wanted Eagleston and got me, Sondra said. That's right, and quite a few of you didn't want to come at all, but were told by the board to come or else.

The group stirred. Eyes met eyes, and there were smiles. i myself think jeffers should have had the job i've never handled anything half this big and i'll need a lot of help but i'm stuck with it and you're all stuck with me so we'll all take it and like it you've noticed of course the accent on you the navy crew is normal except for the commanders being unusually young but we aren't none of us is thirty yet and none of us has ever been married you fellows looked like a team of professional athletes and you girls well if i didn't know better i say the board had screened you for the front row of the course instead of for a top bracket brain game how they found so many of you i'll never know veral men and nukewomen ethane de vox leered enthusiastically viva the borgue nubah bravo tiny quailed delicatest did not three rousing cheers for the board keep still you nitwits let me ask a question this came from one of the twins before you give us the deduction jarvis or will it be an intuition or an induction or an

or at inducement the other twin suggested helpfully not that you would need very much of that you keep still too many i'm asking sir moderator if i can give my deduction first sure bernardine go ahead they figured we're going to get completely lost then we'll jettison the navy hunt up a planet of our own and start a race to end all human races or would you call this a C-duction instead of a deduction? This produced a storm of whistles and tears and jeers that it took several seconds to quell. But seriously, Jarvis, Bernardine went on, we've all been wondering, and it doesn't make sense. Have you any idea at all of what the board actually did have in mind?

I believe that the board selected for mental, not physical qualities, for the ability to handle anything unexpected or unusual that comes up, no matter what it is. You think it wasn't double-barreled? Asked Kincaid, the psychologist, he smiled quizzically. That all this brutality, nobility, and glamour is pure coincidence? No, Hilton said, with an almost imperceptible flick of an eyelid. Coincidence is as meaningless as paradox.

I think they found out that. barring freaks, the best minds are in the best bodies. Could be, the idea has been propounded before. Now let's get to work. Hilton flipped the switch of the recorder. Starting with you, Sandy, each of you give a two-minute boildown, what you found and what you think. Something over an hour later, the meeting adjourned,

and Hilton and Sandra strolled toward the control room. I don't know whether you convinced, Alexander Cukin Cade or not. But you didn't quite convince me, Sandra said. Nor him either. How? Sandra's eyebrows. No, he grabbed the out I offered him.

I didn't fool Teddy Blake or Temple Bells either. You four are all, though, I think. Temple, you think she's so smart? I don't think so, no. Don't fool yourself, Chick. temple bells looks and acts sweet and innocent and vertil maybe probably she is but she isn't showing a fraction of the stuff she's really got she's heavy artillery sandy and i mean heavy i think you're slightly nuts sir but do you really believe that the board was playing cupid not trying but doing cold-bloodedly an efficient thing yes But it wouldn't work.

We aren't going to get lost. We won't need to. Pro Quinquility will do the work. Pooey! You and me, for instance. She stopped, put both hands on her hips, and glared. Why, I wouldn't marry you if you? I'll tell the cock-eyed world you won't, Hilton broke him.

Me marry a damn female Ph.D.? Uh-uh. Mine will be a cuddly little brunette that thinks a slip-stick, is some kind of lipstick and that an isotope something good to eat. One like that copy of Mersetson's Dark Lady that you keep under the glass on your desk? She sneered. Exactly. He started to continue the battle, then shut himself off.

But listen, Sandy, why should we get into a fight because we don't want to marry each other? You're doing a swell job. I admire you tremendously for it, and I like to work with you. with you you've got a point there garb at that and i'm one of the few who know what kind of a job you're doing so i'll relax she flashed him a gammon grin and they went on into the control room it was too late in a day then to do any more exploring but the next morning early the persius lined out for the city of the humanoids two you turned toward her fellows her eyes filled with a happily triumphal but light and her thought a lilting song i have been telling you from the first touch that it was the masters it is a masters the masters are returning to us omens at their own home world captain sawtell hilton said please land in the cradle below land sawtell stormed on a planet like that not by he broke off and stared for now on that cradle there flamed out in screaming red the perseus own navy-coated landing symbols your protest is recorded hilton said now sir land fuming sawtell landed sondra looked pointedly at hilton first contact is my deuce you know

not that i like it but it is he turned to a burly youth with sun-bleached proof-cut hair still safe frank still abnormally low surprising no end since all the rest of the planet is hotter than the middle-tail race of hell okay sandy who will you want besides the top linguist shiak both alex and temple and teddy blake they're over there tell them will you-will you while I buzzed titty. Will do, and Hilton stepped over to the two psychologists and told him. Then, I hope I'm not leading with my chin temple, but is that your real first name or a professional? It's real, it really is.

My parents were romantics. Dad said they considered both golden and silver. Not at all, obviously, he studies her, the almost translucent unblemish perfection of her lightly tan, old irish skin, the clear calm, deep blueness of her eyes, the long, thick mane of hair, exactly the color of a field of dead right wheat. You know, I like it, he said then. It fits you.

I'm glad you said that, doctor. Not that, temple. I'm not going to doctor you. I'll call you boss then like Stella does. Anyway, that lets me tell you that I like it, myself. self. I really think it did something for me. Something did something for you, that's for sure. I'm mighty glad you're aboard, and I hope. Here they come. Hi, Hark. Hi, Stella.

Hi, jar, said Chief Linguist Hartons, and, Hi, boss, what's holding us up? asked his assistant, Stella Wayne. She was about five feet four. Her eyes were a tawny brown, her hair a flamboyant Auburn mom. perhaps it owed a little of his spectacular refulage to chemistry hilton thought but not too much let us away let the lions roar and let the welkin rain who's been feeding you so much red meat little squirt hilton laughed and turned away meeting sondra in the quarter okay chick take em away we'll cover you luck girl and in the control room to sawtell needlebeam cover pleas sat for minimum aperture and lethal blast but no firing captain sawtell until i give the order the percius was surrounded by hundreds of natives they were all adult all naked and about equally divided as to sex they were friendly most enthusiastically so jarve saundra squealed their telepathic Very strongly so. I never imagined. I never felt anything like it.

Any rough stuff? Hilton demanded. Oh, no, just the opposite. They love us. In a way, that's simply indescribable. I don't like this telepathy business, not clear, foggy, diffuse. This woman is sure I'm her long-lost great-grade a hundred-time's grandmother or something. You, slow down. Take it easy. they want us all to come out here and live with no not with them but each of us alone in a whole house with them to wait on us but first they all want to come aboard what hilton yelp but are you sure they're friendly positive chief how about you alex we're all sure jarred no question about it bring two of them aboard a man and a woman you won't bring any sawtale thundered helton i had enough of your stupid starry eyed ivory dome blundering long ago but this utterly idiotic brainstorm of letting enemy aliens aboard us ends all civilian command

call your people back aboard or i will bring them in by force very well sir sandy tell the natives that a slight delay has become necessary and bring your party of your party aboard the navy officer smiled or grinned gloatingly while the scientists stared at their director with expressions ranging from surprise to disappointment and disgust hilton's face remained set expression left until sondra and our party had arrived captain sawtell he says then i thought that you and i has settled in private the question of who is in command of project theta highness at destination. We will now settle it in public. Your opinion of me is now on record, witnessed by your officers and by my staff. My opinion of you, which is now being similarly recorded and witnessed, is that you are a hidebound, mentally ossified Navy mule, mentally and psychologically unfit to have any voice in any such mission as this. You will now agree on this recording and before these witnesses to obey my orders unquestioningly,

or I will now unload all Bureau of Science Personnel and Equipment onto this planet and send you and the Perseus back to Tara with the doubly sealed record of this episode posted to the advisory board. Take your choice. Eyes locked, and under Hilton's uncompromising stairs, Saw Tell Weekend. He visited, tried three times. unsuccessfully to Blair defiance, then, Very well, sir, he said and saluted. Thank you, sir, Hilton said, then turned to his staff. Okay, Sandy, go ahead.

Outside the control room door. Thank God you don't play poker, jarred, Carnes gas. We'd owe you all the pay we'll ever get. Do you think it was a bluff? Yes. de box asked me i think no name of a name of a name i was wondering with unease what life would be like on this so alien planet you didn't need to wonder tiny hilton assured him it was in the bag he's incapable of abandonment beverly bell the bandermoin twins and temple bells all stared at hilton in awe and sondra felt much the same way but suppose he had called you sondra demanded speculating on the impossible is unprofitable he said oh you're the most exasperating thing sondra stomped a foot don't you ever answer a question intelligibly

when the question is meaningless chick i can't at the lock temple bells who had been hanging back cocked an eyebrow at hilton and he made his way to her sight what was it you started to say back there boss oh yes that we should see each other oftener that's what i was hoping you were going to say she put her hand under his elbow and pressed her arm lightly readingly against her side that would be indubitably the fondest thing i could be of he laughed and gave her arm a friendly squeeze then he studied her again the most baffling member of his staff. About five feet six. Leath, hard, trained down fine as a tennis champion, she would be. Stacked, how she was stacked, not as beautiful as Sondra or Teddy, but with an ungodly lot of something that neither of them had, nor any other woman he had ever known. Yes, I am a little difficult to classify, she said quietly, almost reading his mind. that's the understatement of the year, but I'm making some progress,

such as, this was an open challenge. Except possibly Teddy, the best brain aboard. That isn't true, but go ahead. You're a powerhouse, a tightly organized, thoroughly integrated, smoothly functioning, beautifully camouflaged juggernaut, a reasonable facsimile of an irresistible force. My God, Jarvis. That had gone deep. Let me finish my analysis.

You aren't head of your department because you don't want to be. You've fooled the top sikes of the board. You've been running 90% submerged because you can work better that way, and there's no gloryhound blood in you. She stared at him licking her lips. I knew your mind was a razor, but I didn't know it was a diamond drill, too. That seals your doom, boss, unless... No, you can't possibly know why I'm here.

Why, of course I do. You just think you do. You see, I've been in love with you every since as a gangling, bony, knobby-need kid, I listened to your first doctorate despotation. Every since then, my purpose in life has been to land you. End a chapter two. Chapter 3 of Masters of Space

This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, a.k.a. E.E. Dock. Smith and Edward Everett Evans. Translated by Robert Conconetetti,

Stephen Blondell and the online distributed proofreading team. Chapter 3. But listen, he explained. I can't, even if I want. Of course you can't. Pure Deviltry danced in her eyes. You're the director. It wouldn't be proper.

But it's standard operating procedure for simple, innocent, unsophisticated little country girls like me to go completely overboard for the boss. but you can't you mustn't he protested in panic temple bells were getting plenty of revenge for the shocks he had given her i can't watch me she grinned up at him her eyes still dancing every chance i get i'm going to hug your arm like i did a minute ago and you'll take hold of my forearm like you did that can be taken you see as either one a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable situation or two a blocking move to keep me from climbing up you like a squirrel confound at temple you can't be serious can't i she laughed gleefully especially with half a dozen of those other cats watching just waited see boss Sandra and her two guests came aboard. The natives looked around.

The man at the various human men, the woman at each of the human women. The woman remained beside Sandra. The man took his place at Hilton's left. Looking up, he was a couple of inches shorter than Hilton's six feet one, with an air of expectancy. Why this arrangement, Sandy, Hilton asked. Because we're tops. It's your move, jar.

Watch first. You're an excite. Come along, sport. I'll call you that until... Laurel. The native said in a deep, resonant bass voice, he hit himself a blow on the head that would afford any two ordinary men.

Sora. He announced, striking the alien woman, a similar blow. Laro and Sora. I would like to have you look at our urnac site with the idea of refueling our ship. Come with me, please. Both nodded and followed him. In the engine room he pointed at the engines, then to the lead-blocked liby ramp leading to the fuel holes. Laurel, do you understand hot, radioactive?

Laro nodded and started to open the heavy lead door. Hey, Hilton Yelp. that's hot. He seized Laurel's arm to pull him away and got the shock of his life. Laro weighed at least 500 pounds, and the guy still looked human. Laro nodded again and gave himself a terrific thump on the chest. Then he glanced at Sora, who stepped away from Sondra. He then went into the hole and came out with two fuel pellets in his hand, one of which he tossed to Sora.

That is, the motion looked at. like a toss, but the pellet traveled like a bullet. Sora caught it unconcernedly, and both natives flipped the pellets into their mouths. There was a half-minute of rock-crusher crunching, then both natives opened their mouth. The pellets had been pulverized and swallowed. Hilton's voice rang out. Pointer! How can these people be non-radioactive after eating a whole fuel pellet apiece?

pointer tested both natives again cold he reported stone cold no background even play that on your harmonica laurel nodded perfectly matter of factly and in hilton's mind there formed a picture it was not clear but it showed plainly enough a long line of aliens approaching the perseus each carried on his or her shoulder a lead container holding two pounds of Navy regulation fuel pellets. A standard loading tube was sealed in the place, and every fuel hole was filled. This picture, Laurel indicated plainly, could become reality any time. Sawtell was notified and came on the run. No fuel is coming aboard without being tested, he roared. Of course not, but it'll pass for all the tea in China.

you haven't had a ten percent load of fuel since you were launched you can fill up or not the fuel's here just as you say if they can make navy standard of course we want the fuel arrived every load tested well above standard every fuel hold was filled to capacity with no leaking and no emanation the natives who had handled the stuff did not go away but got gathered in the engine room and more and more humans trickled in to see what was going on saw tell stiffen what's going on over there hilton i don't know but let's let em go for a minute i want to learn about these people and they've got me stopped cold you aren't the only one but if they wreck that mayfield it'll cost you over twenty thousand dollars okay the captain and director watch wide-eyed. Two master mechanics had been getting ready to refit a tube, a job requiring both strength and skill. The tube was very heavy and made of super refract. The machine, the Mayfield, upon which the work was to be done, was extremely complex. Two of the aliens had brushed the mechanics, very gently aside, and were doing their work for them. Ignoring a hoist, one native had

picked the tube up and was holding it exactly in place on the mayfield the other hands moving faster than the eye could follow was locking it micrometrically precise and immovably secure into place how about this one of the mechanics asked of his immediate superior if we throw em out how do we do that by a jerk of the head the noncom passed the buck to a commie officer who relayed it up the line to Sautil, who said, Help them, nobody can run a Mayfield without months of training. They'll wreck it and it'll cost you. But I'm getting curious myself, enough so to take half the damage. Let them go ahead. How about this, Mike?

One of the machinists asked of his fellow, I'm going to like this, ma. yes my dear chummy the other drawled fastidly my man relieved me of so much uncouth efforts the natives had kept on working the mayfield was running it had always howled and screamed at its work but now it gave out only a smooth and even hum the aliens had adjusted it with unhuman precision they were one with it as no human being could possibly be and every mind present knew that those aliens were at long long last fulfilling their destiny and were in that fulfillment supremely happy after tens of thousands of cycles of time they were doing a job for their adored their revered and beloved masters that was a stunning shock but it was eclipsed by another i am sorry master hilton laurel's tremendous bass voice boomed out but it has taken us so long to learn your master's language as it now is since you left us you have changed it radically while we of course have not changed it at all i'm sorry but you're mistaken hilton said we are merely visitors we have never been here before nor as far as we know were any of our ancestors ever here you need not test this master we have kept your trust everything has been kept changelessly the same awaiting your return as you ordered so long ago

can you read my mind hilton demanded of course but omens cannot read in master's minds anything except what masters want omens to read almonds arkins asked where did you omens and your masters come from originally as you know master the masters came originally from arthur they populated ardu where we omens were developed when the stretch drove us from ardu we all came to audrey which was your home world until you left it in our care we keep also this your half of the fuel world entrust for you listen jarv parkins said tensely oman human earth earth ardu earth two wadry earth three you can't laugh them off but there never was an atlantis this is getting no better fast we need a full staff meeting you too saw tell and your best man we need all the brains the persians can must you're right but first get those naked women out of here it's bad enough having women aboard at all but this my men are space men mr laro spoke up if it is a master's pleasure to keep on testing us so be it we have forgotten nothing but dwelling awaits each master in which each will be served by omens who will know the master's desires without being told every desire while we omens have no biological urges we are of course highly skilled in relieving tensions and deriving tensions and deris

as much pleasure from that service as from any other sawtell broke the silence that followed well for the men he hesitated especially on the ground well talking in mixed company you know but i think think nothing of the mixed company captain sawtell saundra said we women are scientists not shrinking violence we are accustomed to discussing the facts of life just as frankly as any other facts saw tell gerch a thumb at hilton who followed him out into the quarter i have been a navy mule he said i admit now that i'm outman out man and out gunn i'm just as baffled at present as you are sir but my training has been aimed specifically at the unexpected for yours has not that's letting me down easy jar sawtale smile the first time the startled hilton had known that the hard tough old space hound could smile what i wanted to say is lead on i'll follow you through force field and space works thanks skipper and by the way i erased that record yesterday the two gripped hands and there came into being a relationship that was to become a relationship that was to become a lifelong friendship. We will start for Audrey immediately, Hilton said.

How do we make the jump without charge, Laurel? Very easily, master. Kido, as Master Captain Sevel's omen, will give the orders. Naito will serve Master Snowden and supply

the knowledge he says he is forgotten. Okay, we'll go up to the control room and get started. and in the control room kito's voice rasped into the captain's microphone attention all personnel master captain saw taut's orders take off in two minutes the count-down will begin at five seconds five four three two one lift neto not snowdon handled the control as perfectly as a human pilot had ever done it at the top of the of his finest form. He picked the immense spaceship up and slipped it silkily into subspace.

We'll all be a, Snowden gasped. That's a better job than I ever did. Not at all, master, as you know, Nito said. It was you who did this. I merely performed the labor. A few minutes later in the main lounge, Navy and Bucy personnel were mingling as they had never done before. Whatever had caused this relaxation of tension, the friendship of captain and director, the position in which they all were, or what, they all began to get acquainted with each other. Silence, please, and be seated, Hilton said. While this is not exactly a formal meeting, it will be recorded for future reference. First, I will ask Laurel a question.

were books or records left on audrey by the race you call the masters you know there are master they are exactly as you left them undisturbed for over two hundred seventy one thousand years therefore we will not question the omens we do not know what questions to ask we have seen many things hitherto thought impossible hence we must discard all for conceived opinions which come from with facts. I will mention a few of the problems we face. The omens, the masters, the upgrading of the armament of the Perseus to omens standards. The concentration of uran excite. What is that concentrate? How is it used? Total conversion? How is it accomplished? The skeletons? What are they and how are they controlled? Their ability to drain power. Who or what is by? of them. Why a deadlock that has lasted over a quarter of a million years? How much danger are we and the Perseus actually in? How much danger is Tara in because of our presence here?

There are many other questions. Sandra and I will not take part. Or will three others? DeVox, Eisenstein, and Blake. You have more important work to do. What can that be? asked Rebecca. Of what possible use can a mathematician, a theoretician, a theoretician, and a theoretical astronomer be in such a situation as this? You can think powerfully in abstract terms, unhampered by terran facts and laws, which we now know are neither facts nor laws. I cannot even categorize the problems we face.

Perhaps you three will be able to. you will listen then consult then tell me how to pick the teams to do the work a more important job for you is this any problem to be solved must be stated clearly and we don't know even what our basic problem is i want something by the use of which i can break this thing open get it for me rebecca and devops merely smiled and nodded but teddy blake said happily i was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel on this project but that's something i can really stick my teeth into oh how carnes demanded he didn't give you one single thing to go on just compounded the confusion hilton spoke before teddy could that's their deuce phil if i had any data i'd work it myself you first captain sawtale that conference was a very long one indeed there were almost as many conclusions and recommendations as there were speakers and through it all hilton and saundra listened they wade and tested and analyzed and made copious notes in shorthand and in the more esoteric characters of symbolic logic, and at his end, I'm just about poop, Sandy. How about you?

You and me both, boss. See you in the morning. But she didn't. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they met again. We made up one of the teams, Sandy, he said, with surprising deference. I know we were going to do it together, but I got a hunch on the first team. a kind of a weirdie, but the brains checked me on it. He placed a card on her desk. Don't blow your top until after you've studied him. Why, I won't, of course.

Her voice died away. Maybe you'd better cancel that, of course. She studied, and when she spoke again, she was exerting self-control. Hey, chemist, a planet a grap her? a theoretician, two sociologists, a psychologist, and a radiationist, and six of the seven are three pairs of sweeties. What kind of a lineup is that to solve a problem in physics? It isn't in any physics we know.

I said, think. Oh, she said, then again, oh, and oh. and oh four entirely different tones i see maybe you're matching minds not specialties as supplementing i knew you were smart buy it it's weird all right but i'll buy it for a trial run anyway but i hate like sin to have to sell any part of it to the board but of course where I mean you're responsible only to yourself. Keep it we, Sandy. You're as important to this project as I am. But before we tackle the second team,

what's your thought on Bernardine and a hero? Separate were together. Separate, I'd say. They're identical physically, and so nearly so mentally that of them would be just as good on a team as both of them. More and better work on different teams. My thought exactly.

And so it went, hour after hour. The teams were selected and meetings were held. The first year reached our bridge, which was very much like terror. There were continents, oceans, ice caps, lakes, rivers, mountains and plains, forests and prairies. The ship landed on the space field of Amlu, the city of the masters, as Sautel called Hilton into his cabin. the omens laurel and keto went alone of course nobody knows how it leaked saw tell begin no secrets around here hilton grinned omens you know i suppose so anyway every man aboard is all hyped up about living around especially with a herald but before i grant liberty suppose there's any bd around here that our prophylactics can't handle as you know masters laurel replied for hilton before the latter could open his mouth no disease venereal or other is allowed to exist on ardor

no prophylastics is either necessary or desirable that ought to hold you for a while skipper hilton smiled at the flabbergasted captain and went back to the louch everybody going ashore he asked yes karn said you not have much vote for the first time who wouldn't sondra i asked i'm fed up with living like a sardine i will scream for joy the minute i get into a real room cars were awaiting in a stopping and starting line three wheel jobs all were empty no drivers no steering wheels no instruments or When the whole line moved ahead as one vehicle, there was no noise, no gas, no blast. An Olin helped a master carefully into the rear seat of his car, leaped into the front seat, and the car sped quietly away. The whole line of empty cars, acting in perfect synchronization, shot forward one space and stopped. This is your car, master, Laro said, and made a production out of getting hilted.

into the vehicle undamaged. Hilton's plan had been beautifully simple. All the teams were to meet at the Hall of Records. The linguist and their omens would study the records and pass them out. Facility after specialty would be unveiled and teams would work on them. He and Sandy was set in the office and analyze and synthesize and correlate. It was a very nice plan. It was a very nice office, too.

It contained every item of equipment that either Sondra or Hilton had ever worked with. It was a big office, and a great many that neither of them had ever heard of. It had a full staff of omens all easier to work. Hilton and Sondra sat in that magnificent office for three hours, and no reports came in. Nothing happened at all. This gives me the howling helpers, Hilton growled. why haven't i got brains enough to be on one of those teams i could shed a tear for you you big dope but i won't sonder retorted what do you want to be besides the brain and the kingpin and the balance wheel and the spark plug of the outfit do you want to do everything yourself well i don't want to go completely nuts and that's all i'm doing at the moment the argument might have become archimonious but it was interrupted by a call from cars

can you come out here jarve we've struck a knot some matter trouble with the omen hilton snap not exactly just non-cooperation squared We can't even get started. I'd like to have you two come out here and see if you can do anything. I'm not trying rough stuff because I know it wouldn't work. Coming up, Bill, and Hilton and Sondra, followed by Laurel and Sora, diced out to their cars. The Hall of Records was a long, wide, low, windowless, very massive structure, built of a metal that looked like stainless steel, kept highly polished. the vast expanse of seamless and jointless metal was mirror bright the one great door was open and just inside it were the scientists and their omens

brief me bill hilton said no lights they won't turn em on and we can't find either lights or any possible kind of switches turn on the lights laurel hilton said you know that i cannot do that master it is forbidden for any omen to have anything to do with the illumination of this solemn and revered place then show me how to do it that would be just as bad master the omen said proudly i will not fail any test you can devise okay all you omens go back to the ship and bring over fifteen or twenty lights the tripod jobs scat they scatted and hilton went on no use asking questions if you don't know what questions to ask let's see if we can cook up something lane kathy what has biology got to say dr lane saunders and dr katherine cook the latter a willowy brown-eyed blonde conferred then saunders spoke running both hands through his unruly shock of fiery red hair so far the best we can do is a more or less educated guess their atomic power total conversion androids their pseudo flesh is composed mainly of silicon and fluoride we don't know the formula yet but it is much more stable than our teflon as teflon is than cornmeal much as to the brains no data bones are super stainless steel teeth harder than diamond but won't break food urine excite or is concentrated derivative interchangeably storage reserve indefinite

laurel and sorah won't have to eat again for at least twenty-five years the group gasped as one but saunders went on they can eat and drink and breathe and so on but only because the original masters wanted them too non-functional skins and subcultuous layers are soft for the same reason that's about it up to now thanks lang hart is it reasonable to believe it believe that any culture whatever could run for a quarter of a million years without changing one word of its language or one iota of its behavior reasonable or not it seems to have happened now for psychology alex it seems starkly incredible but it seems to be true if it is their minds were subjected to a conditioning no terran has ever imagined an unyielding fixation they can't be swayed them by reason or logic hilton paus invitingly or anything else kincaid said flatly if we're right they can't be swayed period i was afraid of that well that's all the questions i know how to ask any contributions to this symposium after a short silence de vaux said i suppose you realize that the first half of the problem you posed us has now solved itself why no no you're way ahead of me there is a basic problem and it can now be clearly stated rebecca said problem to determine a method of securing full cooperation from the omens the first step in the solution of this problem is to find the most appropriate operator

i have an operator of sorts theodore said i've been hoping one of us could find a better what is it hilton demanded the word until teddy you're a sweetheart hilton exclaimed how can until be a mathematical operator sondra asked easily hilton was already deep in thought this hard conditioning was to last only until the master's return then they'd break it so all we have to do is figure out how a master would do it that's all kincaid said meaningly kilton pondered then listen all of you i may have to try a colossal java bluff just what would you call colossal after what you did to the navy karns asked that was a sure thing this isn't you see to find out whether laurel is really an immovable object i've got to make like an irresistible force which i ain't i don't know what i'm going to do i'll have to roll it as i go along so all of you keep on your toes and back any play i make here they come the omens came in and hilton faced laurel eyes to eyes laurel he said you refused to obey my direct order your reasoning seems to be that whether the masters wish it or not you omens will block any changes whatever in the status quo throughout all time to come in other words you deny the fact that masters are in fact your masters

but that is not exactly it master the masters that is it exactly it either you are the master here or you are not that is a point to which your two-valued logic can be strictly applied you are wilfully neglecting the word until this stasis was to exist only until the master's return are we masters have we returned no well upon that one word until may depend the length of time your omen race will continue to exist the omen's flits the humans gasp but more of that later hilton went on and moved your ancient masters being short-lived like us changed materially with time did they not and you changed with them but we did not change ourselves master the masters you did change yourself the masters changed only the prototype brain they ordered you to change yourselves and you obey their orders we order you to change and you refuse to obey our orders we have changed greatly from our ancestors right that is right master we are stronger physically more alert and more vigorous mentally with a keener shopper outlook on life you are master that is because our ancestors decided to do without omers we do our own work and enjoy you your masters died of futility and boredom what i would like to do larl is take you to the crutch and put your disobedient brain back into the matrix however the decision is not mine alone to make

how about it fellows and girls would you rather have alleged servants who won't do anything you tell them to or no servants at all has she mantisian i protest sondra backed his play that is the most viciously loaded question i ever heard it can't be answered except in the wrong way okay i'll make it semantically sound i think we'd better scrap this whole omen race and start over and i want to vote that way it won't get it and everybody began to yell hilton restored order and swung on larl his attitude stiff hostile and reserved since it is clear that no unanimous decision is to be expected at this time i will take no action at this time think over very carefully what i have said for as far as i am concerned this world has no place for omens who will not obey orders as soon as i convince my staff of the fact i shall act as follows. I shall give you an order, and if you do not obey it, blast your head to ascendor. I shall then give the same order to another omen and blast him. This process will continue until, first, I find an obedient omen, second, I run out of blasters, third, the planet runs out of omens.

Now take these lights into the first room of records, that one over there. He pointed, and no omen, and only four humans realized that he had made the omen's telegraph their destination, so that he could point it out to them. Inside the room, Hilton asked caustically of Laurel. The masters didn't lift those heavy chests down themselves, did they? No, no, master, we did that. Do it then. Number one first. Just that one. open it and start playing the records in order the records were not taped or flats or reels but were spools of interstallie braided wire the players were projectors of full-color high-fi sound tri-di pictures

hilton cancelled all moves aground and issued orders that no omen was to be allowed aboard ship then looked and listened with his staff the first chest contained only introductory and elementary stuff but it was so interesting that the humans stayed overtime to finish it then they went back to the ship and in the main lounge hilton practically collapsed on to a davenport he took out a cigarette and stared in surprise at his hand which was shaking i think i could use a drink he remarked what before supper carnes marveled then hey wally rush a flagon of a bigon act Arnaud, for Reese, for the boss, and everything else for the rest of us. Chop, chop, but quick. A hectic half-hour followed. Then, Okay, boys and girls, I love you, too,

but let's cut out the slurping slosh, get some supper, and log us some sack time. I'm just about poop. Sorry I had to queer the private residence deal, Sandy. You poor little sardine. But you know how it is. saundra grimace ah ha i can take it a while longer if you can after breakfast next morning the staff met in the lounge as usual hilton and sondra were the first to arrive hi boss she greeted him how do you feel fine i could whip a wild cat and give her the first two scratches i was a bit beat up last night though i'll say but what i simply can't get over is that is the way you underplayed the climax.

Third, the planet runs out of Oman? Just like that, no emphasis at all. Wow, it had the impact of a delayed action atomic bomb. It put goose bumps all over me. But just suppose they'd missed it. No fear. They're smart. I had to play it as though the whole Oman race

is no more important than a cigarette butt. the great big question though is whether i put it across or not at that point a dozen people came in all talking about the same subject hi jarr horn said i still say you ought to take up poker as a life work tiny let's you and him sit down now and play a few hands might not de box shook his head violently shrugged his shoulders and threw both arms white by the sacred name of a small blue cabbage not me karns laughed how did you have the guts to state so many things as facts if you'd guessed wrong just once i didn't hilton grim think back bill the only thing i said as a fact was that we as a race are better than a master's work and that is obvious everything else was implication logic and blood that's right at that and they were moronic and decadent no question about that but listen boss this was stella wain about this mind-reading business if laro could read your mind you'd know you were whopping and oh that omens can read only want masters wish omens to read eh but do you think that applies to us i'm sure it does and i was thinking some pretty savage thoughts and i want to caution all of you whenever you're near any omen start thinking that you're beginning to agree with me that they're useless to us and let them know it now get out on the job all of you scathe

just i've beena pointer said we're going to have to keep on using the omens in their cars aren't we of course just be superior and distant they're on probation we haven't decided yet what to do about them since that happens to be true it'll be easy hilton and sondra went to their tiny office there wasn't room to pace the floor but hilton tried to pace it anyway Now don't say again that you want to do something, Sandra said brightly. Look what happens when you said that yesterday. I've got a job, but I don't know enough to do it. The crutch. There's probably only one on a planet. So I want you to help me think.

The masters were very sensitive to radiation. Right? Right. That shitty on fuel bin was kept decon to zero, just in case. some master wanted to visit it. And the masters had to work in the crutch whenever anything really knew had to be put into the prototype brain? I'd say so, yes. So they had armor, probably as much better than our radiation suits as the rest of their stuff is.

Now, did they or did they not have thought screens? Ouch, you think of the damned a space, chief? she caught her lower lip between her teeth and concentrated i don't know there are at least fifty vectors all pointing in different directions i know it the key one in my opinion is that the masters gave them both telepathy and speech i considered that and waited even so the probability is only about point sixty-five can you take that much of a chance yes i can make one or two mistakes next about finding that crutch any spot of radiation on the planet would be it but the search might take hold on they'll have it heavily shielded there'll be no leakage at all laurel will have to take you that's right want to come along nothing much will happen here to-day ah not me sondra shivered in distaste i never want to see brains and livers and things swimming around in nutrient solution if i can help it okay it's all yours i'll be back some time and hilton went out on to the dock where the dejected laurel was waiting for him hi laurel get the car and take me to the hall of breakfast the android brightened up immediately and hurried to a

obey at the hall hilton's first care was to see how the work was going on eight of the huge rooms were now open and brightly lighted operating the lamps had been one of the first items on the first spool of instructions with a cold pure-white sourceless light every team had found its objective and was working on him some of them were doing nicely but the first team could not even get started his prime primary record would advance a fraction of an inch in stop while omens and humans sought out other records and other projectors in an attempt to elucidate some concept that simply could not be translated into any words or symbols known to terran science at the moment there were seventeen of these peculiar projectors viewers playbacks in use and all of them were stopped you know what we've got to do jarv karns the team captain exploded go back to being college freshman for maybe grade school or kindergarten we don't know yet and learn a whole new system of mathematics before we can even begin to touch this stuff and your belly aching about that hilton marvelled i wish i could join you that'd be fun then as cairns started the snappy rejoiner but i got troubles of my own he added hastily by now and beat a rejoiner out in the hall again hilton took his camps after all the odds were about two to one that he would win i want a couple of things laurel first a thought straight he won very well master they are in a distant room department four six nine will you wait here on this cushion bench master

no we don't like to rest too much i'll go with you then walking along he went on thoughtfully i've been thinking since last night marl there are tremendous advantages in having omens i am very glad you think so master i want to serve you it is my greatest need if they could be kept from smothering us to death thus if our ancestors had kept their omens i would have known all about my upon this world and about this hall of records instead of having the fragmentary confusing and sometimes false information i now have oh we're here laro had stopped and was opening a door he stood aside hilton went in touched with one finger a crystalline cube set conveniently into a wall gave a metal command and the lights went on lorl opened a cabinet and took out a disc about the size of a dive pendant from a neck chain while hilton had not known what to expect he certainly had not expected anything as simple as that. Nevertheless, he kept his face straight and his thoughts unmoved as Laurel hung the tiny thing around his neck and adjusted the chain to a loose fit. Thanks, Laurel. Hilton removed it and put it into his pocket. It won't work from there,

will it? No, master. To function, it must be within 18 inches of the brain. The second thing, master? A radiation-proof suit. Then you will please take me to the crutch. The android almost missed a step, but said nothing. The radiation-proof suit. How glad Hilton was that he had not called it armor. Was as much of a surprise as the fox spring generator had been.

It was a cover-all, made of something that looked like thin plastic, weighing less than one pound. It had one seal box about the size and weight of a cigarette case. No wires or apparatus could be seen. Air entered through two filters, one at each heel, flowed upward for no reason at all that Hilton could see, and out through a filter above the top of his head. The suit neither flop or clung, but stood out comfortably out of the way all by itself. Hilton just barely accepted the suit, too, without showing surprise. the cratchett turned out while not in the city of omelieu itself was not too far out to reach easily by far in route laurel said stiffly tentatively hilton could not fit an adverb to the tongue

master have you then decided to destroy me that is of course you're right not this time at least laro drew an entirely human breath of relief and hilton went on i don't want to destroy you at all and won't unless i have to but some way or another my silicon fluoride friend you are either going to learn how to cooperate or you won't laugh much longer but master that is exactly oh hell do we have to go over that again at the blaze of frustrated fury in hilton's mind laurel flinched away if you can't talk sense keep still in half an hour the car stopped in front of a small building which looked something like a subway kiosch except for the door which built a steel reinforced fled, swung on a piano hinge, having a pen a good eight inches in diameter. Laurel opened that door. They went in. As the tremendously massive portal clanged shut, light splashed on. Hilton glanced at his tailletails. One inside, one outside, his suit. Both showed zero. Down 20 steps, another door. Twenty more, another. And a fourth.

hilton's inside meter still read zero the outside one was beginning to climb into an elevator and straight down for what must have been four or five hundred feet another door hilton went through this final barrier gingerly eyes nailed to his gauges the outside needle was high in the red almost against the pin but the inside one still set reassuringly on zero he stared at the android how can any possible brain take so much of this stuff without damage it does not reach the brain master we convert it each minute of this is what you would call a good square meal i see dimly you can eat energy or drink it or soak it up through your skins however it comes it's all ducks suit for you yes master hilton glanced ahead toward the far end of the immensely long comparatively narrow room it was purely and simply an assembly line and fully automated in operation you are replacing the omens destroyed in a battle with the skeletons yes master hilton covered the first half of the line at a fast walk he was not particularly interested in the fabrication of super-stainless steel skeletons, nor in the installation and connection of atomic engines, converters, and so on. He was more interested in the synthetic

floral silicon flesh, and paused long enough to get a general idea of his growth and application. He was very much interested in how, such human-looking skin, could act as both absorber and converter, but he could see nothing helpful. An application, I suppose, of the same principle used in this radiation suit? Yes, master. At the end of the line, he stopped. A brain in place and connected to millions of infinitely fine wire nerves, but not yet surrounded by a skull, was being educated.

Scanners, multitudes of incomprehensibly complex machine, most of them were doing nothing apparently but such beams would have to be invisibly microscopically fine but a bare brain in such a hot environment as this he looked down at his gauges both red zero fields of force master lorrow said but dammit this suit itself would re-radiate the suit is self decontamination master hilton was appalled with such stuff as that and the plastic shield besides why all the depth and all that solid lead the master's orders master machines can and occasionally do fail so might conceivably be plastic and that structure over there contains the original brain from which all the copies are made yes master we call it the guide and you can't touch the guide not even if it means total destruction none of you can touch it that is the case master okay back to the car and back to the percius at the car hilton took off the suit and hung the thought-screen generator around his neck and in the car for twenty-five solid minutes he sat still and thought.

His bluff had worked up to a point, a good far point, but not quite far enough. Laurel had stopped that, as you already know stuff, he was eager to go as far in cooperation as he possibly could. But he couldn't go far enough, but there had to be a way. Hilton considered way after way, way after unworkable, useless way. until finally he worked at one that might, just possibly might, work. Laurel, I know that you derive pleasure and satisfaction from serving me,

in doing what I ought to be doing myself. But has it ever occurred to you that that's a hell of a way to treat a first-class, highly capable brain, to waste it on second-hand copycat, carbon-copy stuff? why no master it never did besides anything else would be forbidden or would it stop somewhere park this heat we're too close to the ship and besides i want your full undivided concentrated attention no i don't think originality was expressly forbidden it would have been of course if the masters had thought of it-of-its if the masters had thought of it but neither they nor you ever even considered the possibility of such a thing right it may be yes master you are right okay hilton took off his necklace the better to drive home the intensity and sincerity of his thought now suppose that you are not my slave and simple automatic relay station instead we are fellow-suffer students, working together upon problems too difficult for either of us to solve alone. Our minds, while independent, are linked or in mesh.

Each is helping and instructing the other. Both are working at full power and under free reign at the exploration of brand new vistas of thought. Vistas and expanses which neither of us has ever previously, Stop, Master, stop! Marl covered both ears with his eyes. hands and pulled his mind away from Hilton's. You are overloading me. That is quite a load to assimilate all at once, Hilton agreed.

To help you get used to it, stop calling me master. That's an order. You may call me JAR or Jarvis or Hilton or whatever, but no more master. Very well, sir. Hilton laughed and slapped himself on the knee. Okay. i'll let you get away with that at least for a while and to get away from that slavish o ending on your name i'll call you larry you like i would like that immensely sir keep trying larry you'll make it yet hilton leaned forward and walt the android a tremendous blow on the knee home james the car shot forward and hilton went on

i don't expect even your brain to get the full value of this in any short space of time so let it stew in its own juice for a week or two the car swept out onto the dock and stopped so long larry but can't i come in with you sir no you aren't a coffee cat or a simpaphore or a relay any longer you're a freewheeling wide swinging hard-hitting independent entity, monarch of all you surveyed, captain of your soul and so on. I want you to devote the imponderable force of the intellect to that concept until you understand it thoroughly, until you have developed a top bracket lot of top bracket stuff, originality, initiative, force, drive, and thrust. As soon as you really understand it, you'll do something about it yourself without being told. to it chum in the ship hilton went directly to kin kade's office alex i want to ask you a thing that's got a snapper on it then slowly and hesitantly it's about temple bells

has she is she well does she remind you in any way of an iceberg then as a psychologist began to smile and no doubt damn it, I don't mean physically. I know you don't. Ken Cade's smile was rueful. Not at all what Hilton had thought it was going to be. She does. Would it be helpful to know that I first asked, then ordered her to trade places with me?

It would, very. I know why she refused. You're a damn good man, Alex. Thanks, Char. To answer the question you were going to asked next. Now, I will not be at all perturbed or put out if you put her onto a job that some people might think should have been mine. Watch the job and win. That's the devil of it. I don't know. Hilton brought Kincaid up to date. So you see it'll have to develop, and God only knows what line

it will take. My thought is that Temple and I should form a committee of two to watch it develop. that one i'll buy and i'll look on with glee thanks fellow hilton went down to his office stuck his big feet up on to his desk settled back on to his spine and buried himself in thought hours later he got up shrugged and went to bed without bothering to eat days past and weeks end of chapter three chapter four of masters of space. This is a lever box recording. All lever box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit leverbox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, aka. E.E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett. Translated by Robert Cacanani, Stephen Blondell, and the online distributed proofreading team chapter four look said stella wang to beverly bell over there i've seen it before it's simply disgusting that's a laugh stella's tawny brown eyes twinkled you made your bombing runs on that target too must we and didn't score any higher than i did i soon found out i didn't want him much too stiff and serious frank's a lot more fun

the staff had gathered in the lounge as had become the custom to spend an hour or so before bedtime in reading conversation dancing light flirtation and even lighter drinking most of the girls and many of the men drink only soft drinks hilton took one drink per day of a big dog a fine old brandy so did devox the two usually making a ceremony of it across the room from stella and beverly temple bells was looking up at hilton and laughing she took his elbow and in the gesture now familiar to all pressed his arm quickly but in no sense puratively against her side and he equally openly held her forearm for a moment in a full grasp of his hand and he isn't a power stella said thoughtfully he narrate touches any the rest of us she taught him to do that damn her without him ever knowing anything about him and i wish i knew how she did it that isn't pawing beverly laughed lightly it's simply self-defense if he depends her off god knows what she'd do i still say it's disgusting and the way she dances with him she ought to be ashamed of herself he ought to fire her she's never been caught outside the safety zone and we've all been watching her like a hox in fact she's the only one of us all who has never been alone with him for a minute no darling she isn't playing games she's playing for keeps and she's a mighty smooth worker wrong beverly admitted a semi-lady like snort what's so smooth about showing off manhunger that way any of us could do that if we would

me who do you think you're kidding beb you sanctimonious hypocrite me she has staked out the biggest claim she could find she's posted notices all over it and is guarding it with a pistol half your month's salary gets you all o mine if she doesn't walk him up the center aisle as soon as we get back to earth we can both learn a lot from that girl darling and i for one am going to uh-uh she hasn't got a thing i want beverly laughed again still lightly her friends barbed shaft had not wounded her and i'd much rather be thought a hypocrite even a sanctimonious one than a ravening slavering, I can't think of the technical name for a female wolf-so, whoopless, running around with teeth and claws bared, looking for another kill. You do get results, I admit. Stella, too, was undisturbed. We don't seem to convince each other, do we?

In the matter of technique. At this point, the Hilton Bell's tete-to-tete was interrupted by Captain Sautel. Got half an hour, jar. He asked, "'The commanders, especially Elliot and Penway, would like to talk to you.' "'Sure I have, Skipper. "'Be seeing you, Temple.' And the two men went to the captain's cabin,

in which room blew with smoke, despite the best efforts of the ventilators, six full commanders were arguing heatedly. "'Hi, men,' Hilton greeted them. "'Hi, jar, from all six, and—' "'What do you drink? "'Gill making do with ginger ale?' asked Elliot. engineering. That'll be fine, Steve. Thanks. You having as much trouble as we are? Mower, the engineer said glumly. Want to know what it reminds me of? A bunch of Australian

boost vents stumbling onto a ram jet and trying to figure out how it works. And yet Sam here has got the subline guts to claim that he understands all about their detectors and that they aren't anywhere nearly as good as ours are. And there you work, Blaze Commander Samuel Bryant electronics. We spent six solid weeks looking for something that simply is not there.

All they've got is the prehistoric with-growth system, and that's all it is. Nothing else. Detectors? Hell, I tell you, I can see better by moonlight than the very best they can do. With everything that they've got, you couldn't detect a woman in your

her own bed. And this has been going on all night, Finway, Astrogation said. So the rest of us thought we'd ask you to help us pound some sense into Sam's thick, hard head. Hilton frowned in thought while taking a couple of sips of his drink.

Then suddenly his face cleared. Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but at any odds you care to name and in anything from split peas to see notes, sounds right. commander samuel and the six other officers exposed his one when the clamor had succeeded enough for him to be heard hilton went on i'm very glad to get that datum sam it ties in perfectly with everything else i know about them how do you figure that kind of twaddle ties in with anything soft tells demanded strict maintenance of the status quo hilton explained flatly that's all they're interested in you said yourself skipper that it was a hell of a place to have a space battle practically in atmosphere they never attack they never scout they simply don't care whether they're attacked or not

if and when attacked they put up just enough ships to handle whatever force has arrived when the attacker has been repulsed they don't chase him afoot they build as many ships and omens as were lost in the battle no more and no less and then go on about their regular business the masters owned that half of the fuel bend so the omens are keeping that half they will keep on keeping it forever and ever amen but that's no way to fire a war three or four men said this or is equivalent at once don't judge them by human standards they aren't even approximately human our personnel is not expendable theirs is just as expendable as their material. While the Navy men were not convinced, all were silenced except Sawtel. But suppose the stretch had sent in a thousand more Skiltsin's than they did, he argued.

According to the concept you fellows just helped me develop, it wouldn't have made any difference how many they sent, Kilton replied thoughtfully, one or a thousand or a million. The omens have, must have, enough ships and inactivated omens hidden away, both on Fuel World and on Audrey here, to maintain the balance. Oh, hell, Elliot Snap. If I helped you hatched out any such brainstorm as that, I'm going on to Tillinghast Couch for a six-week overhaul.

Or have him put me into his padded cell. Now that's one I call a thought, Bryant began. Hold it, Sam, Hilton interrupted. you can test it easily enough, Steve. Just ask your omen. Yeah, and have him say, Why, of course, master. But why do you keep on testing me this way?

He'll ask me that about four times more, the stubborn, single-track, brainless skunk, and I'll really go nuts. Are you getting anywhere trying to make a Christian out of Laurel? It's too soon to really say, but I think so. Hilton paused in thought. He's making progress, but I don't know how much. The devil of it is that it's up to him to make the next move.

I can't. I haven't the faintest idea whether it will take days yet or weeks. But not months or years, you think, sawtale asked. No, we think that. But say, speaking of psychologist, is Tillinghouse getting anywhere, Skipper? he's the only one of your big wheels coismed and lyosin with us now now wear it all sawtell said and bright added i don't think he ever will he still thinks human psychology will apply if he applies it hard enough but what did you start to say about laurel we think the break is about due and that if it doesn't come within about thirty days it won't come at all we'll have to back up and start all over again. I hope it does.

We're all pulling for you, Sawtill said, especially since Carnes' estimate is still years, and he won't be pinned down to any estimate even in years. By the way, Jarb, I pulled my team off of that

conversion stuff. Oh, Hilton raised his eyebrows. Putting them at something they can do. The real reason is that Point Dexter pull himself and his crew off it at 18 hours today. I see. I've heard that they weren't keeping up with our team. He says that there's nothing to keep up with, and I'm inclined to agree with him. The old Spacehound's voice took on a quarter-deck raft.

That's a combination of sonics, witchcraft, and magic. None of it makes any kind of sense. The only trouble with that viewpoint is that whatever the stuff may be, it works, Hilton said quietly. But damn it, how can't it work? I don't know. I'm not qualified to be on that team. I can't even understand the reports. However, I know two things. First, they'll get it in time.

Second, we view Sye people. We'll stay here until they do. However, I'm still hopeful of finding a shortcut through Laurel. anyway with this detector thing settled you'll have plenty to do to keep all your boys out of mischief for the next few months yes and i'm glad of it we'll install our electronic systems on a squadron of these omen ships and get them into distant warning formation out in deep space where they belong then we'll at least know what is going on that's a smart idea skipper go to it anything else before we hit our sacks one more thing our sacks killing hoss he's been talking to me and sending me memos but to-day he gave me a formal tape to approve and hand personally to you so here it is by the way i didn't approve it i simply endorsed it submitted to director hilton without recommendation thanks hilton accepted the sealed canister what suggests i suppose he wants me to squeal for help already to admit that we're licked before we'd really started you guessed it he agrees with you and kincade that the psychological approach is the best one but your methods are all wrong based upon misunderstood and unresolved phenomena and applied with indefensibly faulty techniques etc and since he has no adequate laboratory equipment aboard he wants to take a dozen or so omens back to terra where he can really work on them

wouldn't that be a something yelton voiced a couple of highly descriptive deep-space expletives not only quit before we start but have all the top brass of the octagon all the hot-shot of united worlds the whole damn congress of science and all the top bracket industrious of terra out here lousing things up so that nobody could ever learn anything not in seven thousand years that's right you said a mouthful jar everybody yelled something and no one agreed with killinghoss who apparently was not very popular with this fellow officer sawtell added slowly if it takes too long though it's the uranexite i'm thinking of thousands of millions of tons of it while we've been hoarding it by grounds we could equip enough omen ships with detectors to guard fuel bin and our lines i'm not recommending taking the percius back and we're way out of hyperspace radio range we could send one or two men in a torp though with the report that we have found all the urinexite we'll ever need. Yes, but damn it, Skipper, I want to wrap the whole thing up in a package and hand it to them on a platter. Not only the fuel, but the whole new fields of science. And we got plenty of time to do it in. They equipped us for ten years. They aren't going to start worrying

about us for at least six or seven. And the fuel shortage isn't going to become acute for about twenty expensive admitted but not critical besides if you send in a report now you know who'll come out and grab all the glory in sight five yet admiral gordon himself no less probably and i don't pretend to relish a prospect however the fact remains that we came out here to look for a few we found it we should have reported it to-day we found it and we can't put it off much longer I don't agree. I intend to follow the directive to the letter. It says nothing whatever about reporting. But that's been pleasant. No, Barry.

Your own regulations expressly forbid extrapolation beyond or intrepulation within a directive. The brass is amipotent, amnescent, and infallible. So why don't you have your staff here give an opinion as to the time element? this matter is not subject to discussion it is my own personal responsibility i'd like to give you all the time you want jarb but-well damn it if you must have it i've always tried to live up to my oath but i'm not doing it now i see hilton got up jammed both hands into his pockets sat down again i hadn't thought about your personal honor being involved but of course it is but believe it or not i'm thinking of humanity's best good too so i'll have to talk even though i'm not half ready to i don't know enough are these omen's people or machines a wave of startlement swept over the group but no one spoke i didn't expect an answer the clergy will worry about souls too but we won't they have a lot of stuff we haven't if they're people they know a sublime hell of a lot more than we do and calling it sonics or practical magic is merely labelling it not answering any questions

if they're machines they operate on mechanical principles utterly foreign to either our science or our technology in either case is a correct word unknown or unknowable will any human gunner ever be able to fire an omen projector there are a hundred other and much tougher questions half of which have been scaring me to the very middle of my guts your oath skipper was for the good of the service and through the service for the good of all humanity right that's a sense of it okay based on what little we have learned so far about the omens here's just one of those scares for a snapper if omens and terrans mix freely what happens to the entire human race minutes of almost palpable silence followed then sawtell spoke slowly gropingly i begin to see what you mean that changes the old picture picture you've thought this through farther than any of the rest of us what do you want to do i don't know i simply don't know face set in hard hilton stared unseeingly past sawtale's head i don't know what we can do no data but i have pursued several lines of thought out to some pretty fantastic points one of which is that some of us civilians will have to stay on here in definitely whether we want to or not, to keep the situation under control, in which case we would, of course, arrange for terror to get free fuel,

F-O-B fuel bent. But in every other aspect and factor, both these solar systems would have to be strictly off-limits. I'm afraid so, Sawtell said finally. Gordon would love that. But there's nothing he or anyone else can do. but of course this is an extreme view you really expect to wrap the package up don't you expect may be a trifle too strong at the moment but we're certainly going to try to believe me i brought this example up to show all you fellows that we need time you convinced me jarve sawtell stood up and extended his hand and that throws it open for staff discussion any comments

you two covered it like a blanket, Bryant said. So all I want to say, jar, is deal me in. I'll stand at your back to your belly case in. Take that from all of us. Now we're blasting. Power to your elbow, fellow. Hootster Bucy sigh. Seven no Trump bid and made.

And other shouts in similar vein. Thanks, fellas. Hilton shook hands all around. I'm mighty glad that you were all in. on this and that you'll play along with me. Good night all. End of chapter four. Chapter 5 of Masters of Space. This is a Leverbox recording. All Leverbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit leverbox.org.

Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, a.k.a. E. Dock Smith and Edward Everett Evans. Translated by Robert Cochinetti, Stephen Blundell, and the online distributed proofreading team. Chapter 5 Two days, with no change apparent in Laurel. Three days, then four. And then it was Sandra, not Temple Bells, who called Hilton. She was excited. Come down to the office, jar. Quit.

the funniest things just come up jarvis hurried in the office sondra keenly interest but highly puzzled lean forward over her desk with both hands pressed flat on its top she was staring at an omen female who was not sureth the one who had been her shadow for so long while many of the humans could not tell the omens apart hilton could this omen was more assured than some sort sora had ever been steadier more mature better poised almost if such a thing could be possible in an omen independent how did she get in here hilton demanded she insisted on seeing me and i mean insisted they kicked it around until he got to temple and she brought her in here herself now tully please start all over again and tell it to his director hilton director hilton i am it who was once named tula the not wife not girlfriend perhaps mine-mate of the larry formerly named laro it which was formerly your slave oman i am replacing the sorah because i can do anything it can do and do anything more pleasingly and can also do many things it cannot do the larry instructed me to tell dr cummings and you too if possible that i formerly tula have changed my name to tully because i am no longer a slave or a copy cat or a semaphore or a relay i too am a freewheeling wide-swinging hard-hitting independent entity monarch of all i survey the captain of my soul and so on i have developed a top bracket lot of top bracket stuff originality initiative force drive and thrust the oman said precisely that's exactly what she said before absolutely verbatim sondra's voice quivered her face was a study in contacting emotions have you got the foggiest idea of what in hell she's yamering about

i hope to kiss a pig i have hilton's voice was low strainedly intense not at all what i expected but after the fact i can tie it in so can you oh sandra's eyes widened a double play at least maybe a triple toly why did you come to sandy why not to temple bells oh no sir we do not have the fit she has the power as have i but they too cannot be messed in sync also she has not the a subtle something for which your english has no word or phrasing it is a quality of the utmost anyway it is a quality of which dr cummings has very much when working together we will scan no perceive no sense no sense no not exactly. You will have to learn our word pay on there, that is the verb, the noun being, pay on text, and come to know its meeting by doing it. Steve Larry also instructed me to explain, if you asked, how I got this way. Do you ask?

I'll say we asked. And how we asked, both came at once. I am, that is, the brain in this way. body is, the oldest omen now existing. In the long gungo time when it was made, the techniques were so crude and imperfect that sometimes a brain was constructed that was not exactly like the guide. All such substandard brains except this one were detected and reworked, but my defects for such as not to appear until I was a couple of thousand years old, and by that time I, well this brain did not wish to be destroyed if you can't understand such an aberration we understand thoroughly you bet we understand that

i was sure you would well this brain had so many unintended cross connections that i developed a couple of qualities no omen had ever had or ought to have but i liked them so i hid them so nobody ever found out that is until until much later, when I became a boss myself. I didn't know that anybody except me had ever had such qualities, except the masters, of course, until I encountered you Terence. You all have two of those qualities, and even more than I have, curiosity and imagination. Sondra and Hilton stared wordlessly at each other, and Tula, now Tully, went on. having the curiosity i kept on experimenting with my brain trying to strengthen and organize its ability to perionder all omens can periom dare a little but i can do it much better than any one else especially since i also have the imagination which i have also worked to increase thus i knew long before any one else could that you knew masters the descendants of the old master's were returning to us.

Thus, I knew that the status quo should be abandoned instantly upon your return. And thus it was that the Larry found neither conscious nor subconscious resistance when he had developed enough initiative and so on to break the ages old conditioning of this brain against change. I see, wonderful Hilton exclaimed. But you couldn't quite, even with his own help, break Larry's. that is right its mind is tremendously strong of no curiosity or imagination and a very little parian decks but he wants to have it broken yes sir how did he suggest going about it or how do you this way you two and the doctor's kincaid and bells and blake and the it that is i we six set and stare into the mind of the larry eye to eye. We generate and assemble a tremendous charge of thought, energy, and along my periondex beam,

something like a carrier wave in this case, we hurl it into the Larry's mind. There is an immense metal bang and a conditioning goes poop. Then I will inculate into his mind, the curiosity and the imagination, and the periondex, and we will really be mind-mates. That sounds good to me. let's get at it wait a minute sondra snap aren't you or larry afraid to take such an awful chance as that afraid i grasped the concept only dimly from your minds and no chance it is certainty but suppose we burn the poor guy's brain out destroy it that's new ground we might do just that oh no six of us, even six of me, could not generate enough satura. The brain of the Larry is very, very tough. Shall we? Let's go. Hilton made three calls. In the pause that followed, Sondra said very thoughtfully.

Parian decks and satura, jar? First start. We've got a lot to learn here. You said it, chum, and you're not just chomping. your china choppers either. Tudy, Sondra said then. What is this stuff you say I've got so much of? You have no word for it. It is lumped in with what you call intuition,

the knowing without knowing how you know. It is the end of Vex. You will have to learn what it is by doing it with me. That hell, I don't think, sondra grinned at hilton i simply can't conceive of anything more maddening than to have a lot of something temple bells hasn't got and not being able to brag about it because nobody not even i would know what i was bragging about you poor little thing how you suffer hilton grinned back you know darned well you've got a lot of stuff that none of the rest of us has oh name one please two what it takes and indovacs as i've said before and may say again you're doing a real job sandy i just love having my ego inflated boss even if come in larry a thunderous knock had sounded on the door nobody but mary could hit a door that hard without breaking all his knuckles and he'd be the first of course he's always as close to the ship as he can get

hi larry mighty glad to see you set down so you finally saw the light yes jarvis good boy keep it up and as soon as the others come they are almost at the door now tully jumped up and opened the door kincaid temple and theodora walked in and after a word of greeting sat down they know the background larry take off it was not expressly forbidden to the who knows more of psychology and genetics than i convinced me of three things one that with your return the conditioning should be broken two but due to the shortness of your lives and the consequence rapidity of change you have in fact lost the ability to break it three that all omens must do anything and everything we can do to help you relearn everything you have lost okay fine in fact toly take over we six will set altogether pack tight arms all around each other and all holding hands like this you will all stare not at me but most deeply into larry's eyes through its eyes and deep into its mind you will all think with the utmost force and drive and thrust of. Oh, you have lost so very much. How can I direct your thought?

Think that Larry must do what the old masters would have made him do? No, that is too long and indefinite and cannot be converted directly into Sahara. I have it. You will each of you break a stick. A very strong but brittle stick. A large thick stick. You have grasped in tremendously strong, metal hands. It is

tremendously strong each stick, but each of you is even stronger. You will not merely try to break them. You will break them. Is that clear? That is clear. At my word ready, you will begin to

assemble all your metal force and power. During my countdown of five seconds, you will build up to the greatest possible potential. At my word break, you will break the sticks, thus discharging the accumulated force instantly and simultaneously. Ready?

Five, four, three, two, one, break. Something broke, with a tremendous silent crash. Since a crash that has impact almost not the close-knit group apart physically. Then I knew Larry spoke. That did it, folks. Thanks. I'm a free agent. you want me i take it to join the first team that's right hilton drew a tremendously deep breath as of right now

to league too of course and dr cummings i think larry looked not at hilton but at temple belles i think so yes after this most certainly yes temple said but listen sondra protested jar's a lot better than i am not at all toly said not only would his contribution to team one be negligible but he must stay on his own job otherwise the project will all fall apart oh i wouldn't say that hilton began you don't need to kincade said it's being said for you and it's true besides when in rome you know that's right it's their game not ours so i'll buy it so scat all of you and do your stuff and again for days that lengthened slowly into weeks the work went on one evening the scientific staff was giving itself a concert a tri-di high-fi rendition of regaletto one of the greatest of the ancient operas sung by the finest voices terror had ever known The men wore tuxedos. The girls, instead of wearing the non-distrip, non-provocative garments prescribed by the board for their general wear,

were all dressed to kill. Sondra had so arranged matters so that she and Hilton were setting in chairs side by side, with Sandra on his right and the aisle on his left. Nevertheless, Temple Bell sat at his left, cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, somewhat to the detriment of her gold lame evening galley not that she cared when those wonderful voices swung into the immortal quartette temple caught her breath slid her cushion still closer to hilton's chair and leaned shoulder and head against him he put his left hand on her shoulder squeezing gently she caught it and held it in both of hers and at the quartet's tremendous climax she scarcely trying to stifle a song pulled his hand down and hugged it fiercely the heel of his hand pressing hard against her half-pair firm warm breast and the next morning early sandra hunted temple up and said

you made a horrible spectacle of yourself last night do you think so i don't i certainly do it was bad enough before letting everybody else aboard know that all he has to do is push you over but it was an awful blunder to let him know it the way you did last night you think so he's one of the keenest most intelligent men who ever lived he is known that from the very first ho this ho was a very caustic one that's the way you're trying to land him by getting yourself pregnant uh-uh temple strats lazily luxuriously not only it isn't but it wouldn't work he's unusually decent and extremely idealistic the same as i am so just one intimacy would blow everything higher than up he knows it i know it we each know that the other knows it so i'll still be a virgin when we're married mary does he know anything about that i suppose so he must have thought of it but what difference does it make whether he has yet or not but to get back to what makes him tick the way he does in his geometry which is far from being simply useless my dear a geodesic right line is not only the shortest distance between any two given points but is the only one possible course.

So that's the way I'm playing it. What I hope he doesn't know, but he probably does, is that he could take any other woman he might want just as easily. And that includes you, my pet. It certainly does not,

Sondra flared. I wouldn't have him as a gift. No. Temple's tone was more than slightly skeptical. Fortunately, however, he doesn't want you your technique is all wrong coyness and mock modesty and stop for our screen and playing hard to give have no appeal whatever to his psychology what he needs has to have is full ungrudging cooperation aren't you taking a lot of risk giving away such secret not a bit try it you are the sex flaunting twins or beb bell or stella of the Hina, any of you or all of you.

I got there first with the most. And I'm not worried about competition. But suppose somebody tells him just how you're playing him for a sucker. Tell him anything you please. He's the first man I ever love or anywhere near. And I'm keeping him. You know, or do you, I wonder, what real old-fashioned honest-to-god love really is. the willingness eagerness both to give and to take i can accept more from him and give him more in return than any other woman living and i am going to

but does he love you sondra demanded if he doesn't now he will i'll see to it that he does but what do you want him for you don't love him you never did and you never will i don't want him saundra stomped a foot i see you just don't want me to have him o k do your damn it us but i've got work to do this has been a lovely little cat clawing hasn't it let's have another one some day and bring your friend with a casual wave of her hand temple strolled away and there flashed through sondra's mind what hilton had said so long ago little more than a week out from earth and temple bells of course he had said don't fool yourself kick she's heavy artillery and i mean heavy believing so he had known all about temple bells all this time nevertheless she took the first opportunity to get hilton alone and even before the first word she forgot all about geodesic light lines and the full co-operation psychological approach aren't you the guy she demanded who was laughing his head off at the idea that the board and its proquinity could have any effect on him probably more or less what of it this of it you've fallen like a-a-a-freyfreyf they should have christened her brazen bells you're so right i am on what the brazen i told you she was a potent horse a full-scale power-house in sink and on the line and i wasn't wrong

she's a damn female phd two or three times and she knows all about slipsicks and isotopes and she very definitely is not a cuddly little brunette remember sure but what makes you think i'm in love with temple belch what sondra tried to think of one bit of evidence but could not why why she floundered then came up with why everybody knows it she says so herself did you ever hear her say it well perhaps not in so many words but she told me herself that you were going to be and I know you are now. Your Sper Sents of Indovex, no doubt, Hilton Lamb, and Sondra went on fiercely. She wouldn't keep on acting the way she does if there weren't something to it. What brilliant reasoning. Try again, Sandy.

That's sheer sophisticatory, and you know it. It isn't, and I don't. And even if, someday, I should find myself in love with her, or with one or both of the twins, or Stella or Beverly or you or Sylvia, for that matter, what would it prove? Just that I was wrong, and I admit freely that I was wrong in scoffing at the proquinuity. Wonderful stuff that. You can see it working all over the ship, on me even, in spite of my bragging. Without it, I'd never have known that you're a better, smarter operator than eggy eggleston ever was or ever can be partially modified despite herself and highly resentful of the fact sondra tried again

but don't you see jar that she's just simply playing you for a sucker pulling the strings and watching you dance since he was sure in his own mind that she was speaking the exact truth it took everything he had to keep from showing any signs of how much that truth has hurt. However he may degrade. If that thought does anything for you, Sandy, he said steadily. Keep right on thinking it. Thank God the field of thought is still free and open. Oh, you! Sondra gave up.

She had shot her heaviest bolts. The last one, particularly, was so vicious that she had actually been afraid of what its consequences might be. and they had not even dented hilton's armor she hadn't even found out that he had any feeling whatever for temple bells except as a component of a smoothly functioning scientific machine nor did she learn any more as time went on temple continued to play flawlessly the part of being if not exactly hopefully at least not entirely hopelessly in love with jarvis hilton her conduct which at first caused some surprise many conversations one of which has been reported verbatim and no little speculation became comparatively unimportant as soon as it became evident that nothing would come of him she apparently expected nothing he was evidently not going to play putsy with or show any favoritism whatever toward any woman aboard the ship thus it was not surprising to any one that at an evening show temple sat beside hilton as close to him as she could get and as far away as possible from every one else

you can't you jarvis without moving your lips and without anyone else hearing you of course he replied hiding his surprise this was something completely new and completely unexpected even from unpredictable temple belts i want to apologize to explain and to do anything i can to straighten out the mess i've made it's true that i joined the project because i've loved the project because i've loved you to apologize to explain and to do anything i can to straighten out the mess i've made it's true that i joined the project because i've loved you for years you have nothing to let me finish while i still have the courage only a slight tremor in her almost inaudible voice and the rigidity of the fist clenched in her lamp betrayed the intensity of her emotion i thought i could handle it damn fool that i was i thought i could handle anything i was sure i could handle myself under any possible conditions i was going to put just enough into the act to keep any of these other harpies from getting her hooks into you but everything got away from me out here working with you every day knowing better every day what you are well that redotello episode sunk me and now i'm in a thousand feet over my head i hood my pillow at night dreaming at you and the fact that you don't and can't love me is driving me mad i can't stand it any longer there's only one thing to do fire me first thing in the morning and send me back to earth in a torp you've plenty of grounds

shut up for seconds hilton had been trying to break into her hopeless monotone finally he succeeded the trouble with you is you're You know altogether too damn much that isn't so. He was barely able to keep his voice down and his eyes front. What do you think I'm made of? Super Refract. I thought the whole performance was an act. To prove you're a better man than I am. You talk about dreams?

Good God. You don't know what dreams are. If you say one more word about quitting, I'll show you whether I love you or not. i'll squeeze you so hard it'll flatten you out flat two can play at that game sweetheart her nostrils flared slightly her fist clenched if possible a fraction tighter and even in the distorted medium they were using for speech she could not subdue completely her quick change into soaring lelting buoyancy while you're doing that i'll see how strong your ribs are oh how this changes things i've never been half as happy in my whole life as i am right now maybe we can work it if i can handle my end why of course you can and happy dreams are nice not horrible we'll make it darling here's an imaginary kiss coming at you got it received in good order thank you consumed with gusto and returned in kind

the show ended and the two strolled out of the room she walked no closer to him than usual and no farther away from him she did not touch him any oftener than she usually did nor any whit more affectionately or possessively and no watching eyes not even the more than half-hostile eyes of sondra cummings or the sharply eyes of stella wing could detect any difference whatever in the relationship between worshipful adulterous and tolerantly understanding idols. The work which had never moved at any very fast pace went more and more slowly. Three weeks crawled fast. Most of the crews and all of the teams except the first were working on side issues. Tasks, which, while important in and of themselves, had very little to do with the project's main problem. hilton even without sondra's help was all caught up all the reports had been analyzed correlated crossed index and files except those of the first team

since he could not understand anything much beyond midpoint of the first tape they were all in a box labeled pending the navy had torn fifteen of the omen warships practically to feces installing terran detectors and trying to learn how to operate omen machinery and armormen in the former they had succeeded very well in the latter not at all fifteen omen ships were now out in deep space patrolling the void in strict navy style each was manned by two or three navy men and several hundred omens each of whom was revelling in delight at being able to do a job for a master even though that master was not present in person several strut skeleton ships had been detected at long range but the detections were inconclusive the things had not changed course or indicated in any other way that they had seen or detected the omen vessels on the trove if their detectors were no better than the omens they certainly hadn't that idea however could not be as soon to be a fact and the detections had been a fact and the detections had been a fact and the detections had been a fact that idea however could not be assumed to be a fact and the detections had been in becoming more and more frequent. Yesterday a squadron of seven. The first time that anything except singles had appeared

had come much closer than any of the singles had ever done. Like all the others, however, these passers-by had not paid any detectable attention to anything on. Hence, it could be inferred that the skeletons posed no threat. But Sautel was making no such inferringers. he was very firmly of the opinion that the strats were preparing for a massive attack hilton had assured sawtell that no such attack could succeed and larry had told sawtale why nevertheless to keep the captain pacified hilton had given him permission to convert as many omen ships as he liked to man them with as many omens as he liked and to use ships and omens as he liked hilton was not worried about the strats of the navy it was the first team it was a bottleneck that was slowing everything down to a crop

but they knew them they knew it better than any one else could and felt it more keenly especially karns the team chief he had been driving himself like a dog and showed it hilton had talked with him a few times tried gently to make him take it easy no soul he'd have to hunt him up the next day or so and smug it out with him he could do a lot better job on that if he had something to offer something really constructive that was a laugh a very unfunny laugh what could he jarvis hilton a specifically non-specialist director do on such a job as that nevertheless as director he would have to do something to help team one if he couldn't do anything himself it was up to him to juggle things around so that some one else could end of chapter five chapter six of masters of space this is a leverbox recording all leverbox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit levervox dot o'clock Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, a.k.a. E. Doc Smith

and Edward Evans. Translated by Robert Cochinetti, Stephen Blundell, and the online distributed proofreading team. Chapter 6. For one solid hour, Hilton stared at the wall. Motionless and silent, then shaking himself and stretching,

he glanced at his clock. A little over an hour to supper time. They had all be aboard. He had talked this new idea over with Teddy Blake. He gathered up a few papers and was stapling them together when Carnes walked in. Hi Bill. Speak of the devil. I was just thinking about you.

I just bet you are. Carnes sat down, leaned over, and took a cigarette out of the box on the desk. and nothing printable either chip chop fell on that kind of noise hilton said the team chief looked actually haggard blue-black rings and circled both eyes his powerful body slumped how long has it been since you had a good night's sleep how long have i been on this job exactly one hundred and twenty days i did get some sleep for the first few weeks that you had a few weeks that you had a few weeks So? Yeah. So answer me one question. How much good will you do this after they've wrapped you up in one of those canvas affairs that lace up the back?

Huh? Oh, but damn it, Jarre? I'm holding up the whole procession. Everybody on the project just setting around on their tonkises waiting for me to get something done, and I'm not doing it. I'm going so slow, a snail is lighting in comparison. Calm down, big fellow. Don't rough your gut or blow a gasket. I've talked to you before,

but this time I'm going to smack you bow-legged. So stick out those big floppy ears of yours and really listen. Here are three words that I want you to pin up somewhere where you can see them all day long. Speed is relative. Look back, see how far up the hill you come, and then balance 120 days against 10 years. What? You mean you'll actually set still for me holding everything up for 10 years? You use the perpendicular pronoun too much, and in the wrong places. On the hits, it's we, but on the flops, it's I. Quit it.

everything on this job is we terah's best brains are on team one and are going to stay there you will not repeat not be interfered with pushed around or kicked around you see bill i know what you're up against yes i guess you do one of the damn few who do but even if you personally are willing to give us ten years how you-you are willing to give us ten years how How in hell do you think you can swing it? How about the Navy? The stretch, even the board. They're my business, Phil, not yours. However, to give you a little boost, I'll tell you. With the Navy, I'll give them the fuel bin if I have to.

The omens have been taking care of the stretch for 2,700 centuries. So I'm not the least bit worried about their ability to keep on doing it for ten years more. And if the board, or anybody else, sticks their runny little noses into Project Theta orinus, I'll slap a quarantine onto both

these solar systems that a micro couldn't get through. You'd go that far? Why, you'd be... Do you think I wouldn't? Hilton Snap? Look at me, Jr. Eyes locked and held.

Do you think, for one minute, that i'll let anybody on all of god's worlds pull me off this job or interfere with my handling of it unless and until i'm damned positively certain that we can't handle it karns relax visibly the lines of strain ease putting it in those words makes me feel better i will sleep to-night and without any feels either sure you will one more thought we all put in more than ten years getting our tarant educations and an omen education is a lot tougher really smiling for the first time in weeks carnes left the office and hilton glanced again at his clock pretty late now to see teddy besides he had better not she was probably keyed up about as high as bill was and in no shape to do the kind of thinking he wanted of her on this stuff better wait a couple of days on the following morning before breakfast theodora was waiting for him outside the messall good morning jarred she carol reaching up she took him by both ears pulled his head down and kissed him as soon as he perceived her intent he cooperated enthusiastically what did you do to bill oh you don't love me for myself alone then but just on account of that big jerk.

That's right. Her artist's model face, startlingly beautiful now, fairly glowed. Just then Temple Bell strolled up to them. Morning, you two lovely people. She hugged Hilton's arm as usual. Shame on you, Teddy, but I wish I had the nerve to kiss him like that. Nerve, you? Teddy laughed as Hilton picked him.

Temple up and kissed her in exactly the same fashion, he hoped, as he had just kissed Teddy. You've got more nerve than an aching tooth, but as Jarre would say it, Skat Kitten, we're having breakfast all a twosome. We've got things to talk about. All right for you, Temple said darkly, although her dazzling smile belayed her tone. that first kissed casual seeming as it had been had carried vastly more freight than any observer could perceive i'll hunt bill up and make passes at him see if i don't that'll learn you theodora and hilton did have their breakfast addukes but she did not realize until afterward that he had not answered her question as to what he had done to her bill as has been said hilton had had been said hilton had had had been made it a prime factor of his job to become thoroughly well acquainted with every member of his staff he had studied them in mass in groups and singly he had never however cornered theodora blake for individual studies considering the power and equality of her mind and the field which was her specialty it had not been necessary thus it was with no ulterior motives at all that three evenings later he walked her cubby-hole office and tossed the staple papers on to her desk

free for a couple of minutes teddy i've got troubles i'll say you have her lovely lips curled into an expression he had never before seen her wear a veritable sneer but these are not them she tossed the papers into a drawer and stuck out her chin her face turned as hard as such a beautiful face could her eyes dug steadily into his hilton inwardly flinched his mind flashed backward she too had been working under stress of course but that wasn't enough what could he have possibly done to put teddy blake of all people onto such a war path as this i've been wondering when you were going to try to put me through your ringer she went on in the same cold hard voice and i've been waiting to tell you something you have wrapped all the other women around your fingers like so many rings and what a sickening exhibition that has been but you are not going to make either a ring or a lap-dog out of me almost but not quite too late hilton saw through that perfect act he seized her right hand in both of his held it up over her head and waved it back and forth in a sign of victory shocked me with my own club he exulted laughing delightedly boyishly and came within a tenth of a split red hair if it hadn't been so absolutely out of character you'd have got away with it what a load of stuff i was right of all the women on this project you're the only one i've ever been really afraid of oh damn ouch she grinned ruefully i hit you with everything i had and it just bounced you're an operator chief

hit em hard at completely unexpected angles keep them staggering completely off balance tell em nothing let em deduce your lives let them deduce your lives for themselves. And if anybody tries to slug you back, like I did just now, duck it and clobber him in another unprotected spot. Watching you work has been

not only a delight, but also a liberal education. Thanks. I love you too, Teddy. He lighted two cigarettes, handed her one. I'm glad though to lay it flat on the table with you, because at any battle which with you i'm licked before we start yeah you just proved it and after licking me hands down you think you can swear it by swinging the old shovel that way she did not quite know whether to feel resentful or not

think over a couple of things first with a possible exception of temple bells you're the best brain aboard no you are then temple then there are hold it you know as well as i do that accurate self-judgment is impossible second the jam we're in do i or don't i want to lay it on the table with you now and from hereon bore into that with your class a double-prime brain then tell me he leaned back half closed his eyes and smoked lazily she stiffened narrowed her eyes in concentration and thwarted thought. Finally, Yes, you do, and I'm glad of that than you will ever know. I think I know already, since you're her best friend and the only other woman I know of in her class. But I came in to kick a couple of things around with you. As you've noticed, that's getting to be my favorite indoor sport, probably because I'm a

sort of jack-legged theorotician myself you can frame that jar as the understatement of the century but first you are going to answer that question you side steps so neatly what i did to bill i finally convinced him that nobody expected the team to do that big a job overnight that you could have ten years or more if necessary i see she frowned but you and i both know that we can't string it out that long he did not answer immediately we could but we probably won't unless we have to we should know long before that whether we'll have to switch to some other line of attack you considered the possibilities of course have you got anything in shape to do a fine tooth on not yet that is except for the ultimate which is too ghastly to even consider except as an ultimately last resort have you i know what you mean no i haven't either you don't think then that we had better do any collaborative thinking yet definitely not there's altogether too much danger of setting both our lines of thoughts into one dead-end channel check the other thing i wanted from you is your considered opinion as to my job on the organization as a whole and don't pull your punches Are we in good shape or not?

What can I do to improve the setup? I have already considered that very thing at great length. And honestly, Jarve, I don't see how it can be improved in any respect. You've done a marvelous job. Much better than I thought possible at first. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and she went on. This could very easily have become a god-awful mess. but the boys knew what they would do it.

Especially as the top man. So there are only about four people aboard who realize what you have done. Alex Kincaid and Sondra Cummings are two of them. One of the three girls is very deeply and very truly in love with you. Ordinarily, I'd say no comment. But we're laying on the line. Well, you lay that on the line only if I think. corkscrew it out of you so i'll q e d it you probably know that when sandy gets done playing around it'll be bounce back teddy she isn't hasn't been if anything too much the opposite a dedicated scientist type

she smiled a highly cryptic smile for a man is brilliant and as penetrant in every other respect but after all if the big dope didn't realize that half the women a boy including sandy had been making passes at him she certainly wouldn't enlighten him besides that one particular area of obtrusness was a real part of his charm wherefore she said merely i'm not sure whether i'm a bit caddy or you're a bit stupid anyway it's alex she's really in love with and you already know about bill and me of course he's tops one of the world's very finest you're in the same bracket and has a couple you're a dry fit one in a million now i can say i love you too too she paused for half a minute then snubbed out her cigarette and shrugged now i'm going to stick my neck way way out you can knock it off if you like she's a tremendous long a woman and if well strong as she is it had shattered her to bits so i'd like to ask i don't quite well is she going to get hurt have i managed to hide it that well from you it was her turn to show relief perfectly even or especially that time you kissed her so damn perfectly that i've been scared I've been waking myself up screaming in the middle of the night.

You couldn't let on, of course. That's the hell of such a job at yours. The rest of us can smooch around all over the place. I knew the question was extremely improper. Thanks a million for answering it. I haven't started to answer it yet. I said I'd lay everything on the line, so here it is. saying she's a tremendous lot of woman is like calling the percius a nice little baby's bathtub toy boat i'd go to hell for her any time cheerfully standing straight up waiting into brimstone and lava up to the eyeballs

if anything ever hurts her it'll be because i'm not man enough to block it but just the minute this damned job is over or even sooner if enough of you couples make it so i can jarvis she shrieked jumping up she kissed him enthusiastically that's just wonderful he thought it was pretty wonderful too and after ten minutes more a conversation he got up and turned toward the door i feel a lot better teddy thanks for being such a nice pressure relief felt would you mind it too much if i come in and sob on your bosom again some day i'd love it she laughed then as he again started to leave wait a minute i am thinking it'd be more fun to sob on her bosom you haven't even kissed her yet have you i mean really kissed her you know i haven't she's the one person aboard i can't be alone with for a second true but i know of one chaperone who could become deaf and blind she said with a broad and happy grin on my door you know there's a huge invisible sign that says to every one except you stop brain of work silence and if i were properly approached and sufficiently urged i might i just conceivably might consider it done you little sweetheart up to and including my most vigorous and most insiduous attempts at seduction done maneuver your big husky carcass around here behind the desk so the door can open she flipped the switch and punched the number

i can call anybody in here any time you know hello dear this is teddy can you come in for just a few minutes thanks and one minute later there came a light tap on the door come in teddy called and temple bells entered the room she showed no surprise at seeing hiltre hi chief she said it must be something both big and tough to have you and teddy both on it you're so right he was very big and very tough but it's solved dawling so darling she gasped almost inaudibly both hands flying to her throat her eyes sliced toward the other one teddy knows all about us accessory before during and after the fact darling this time the word was a shriek she extended both arms and started forward hilton did not bother to maneuver his big husky carcass around the desk but simply hurled it straight toward her temple bells was a tall life-strong woman and all the power of her arms and torso went into the ensuing effort to crack hilton's ribs those ribs however were highly capable structural members and furthermore they were protected by thick slabs of hard hard muscle and fortunately he was not trying to fracture her ribs his pressures were distributed much more widely he was according to promise doing his very best to flatten her whole resilient body out flat

and as they stood there locked together in serious ecstasy theodora blake began openly and unashamedly to cry it was temple who first came up for air she wriggled loose from one of his heart felt up her hair and gazed unseeingly into her mirror that was wonderful sweetheart she said then shakily and i can never thank you enough teddy but we can't do this very often can we the addendum fairly begged for contradiction not too often i'm afraid hilton said and theodora agreed well the man said somewhat later i'll leave you two ladies to your knitting or whatever after a couple of short ones for the road that is not looking like that teddy said sharply hold still and we'll clean you up then as both girls went to work if anybody ever sees you coming out of this office looking like that she went on darkly and bill finds you to work if anybody ever sees you coming out of this office looking like that she went on darkly and bill find out about it, he'll think it's my lipstick smeared all over you, and I'll strangle you to death

with my bare hands. And that was supposed to be kiss-proof lipstick, too, Temple said seriously, although her whole face glowed and her eyes danced. You know, I'll never believe another advertisement

I read. Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that if I were you. Teddy's voice was gravity itself. although she too was bubbling over it probably is kiss proof i don't think kissing is quite the word for the performance you just stage to stand up under such punishment as you gave it my dear anything would have to be tattooed in not just put on hey hilton protested you promised to be deaf and blind i did no such thing i said could not would why i wouldn't have missed that for anything when hilton left the room he was apparently in every respect his usual self contained self however it was not until the following morning that he so much as thought of the chef of papers lying unread in the drawer of theodore blake's desk End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Masters of Space.

This is the Leverbox recording. All Leverbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit levervox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, A.K. A.E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett Evans. translated by Robert Conantate, Stephen Blondell, and the online distributed proofreading team. Chapter 7 Knowing that he had done everything he could to help the most important investigations get underway, Hilton turned his attention to secondary manners.

He made arrangements to decondition Java, the number two omen boss, whereupon that worthily became Javy and promptly bumped the omen who had been shadowing cards. Larry and Javi, working nights, deconditioned all the other omens having any contact with Bucci personnel. Then they went on to set up a routine for deconditioning all omens on both planets. Assured at last that the omens would thenceforth work with and really serve human beings, instead of insisting upon doing their work for them hilton knew that the time had come to let all his busai personnel move into their homes ground everyone including himself was fed up to the gosel with spaceship life its damp-packed crowding its flat reprocessed air its limited variety of uninteresting food conditions were especially irtsome since everybody knew that there was available to all whenever hilden gave the word a whole city full of all the room anyone could want natural fresh air and so the omens at times

told them an unlimited choice of everything anyone wanted to eat. Nevertheless, the decision was not an easy one to make. Living conditions were admittedly not good on a ship. On the other hand, with almost no chance at all of solitude, the few people who had private officers aboard were not the ones he worried about. There was no danger of sexual trouble. strictly speaking he was not responsible for the morals of his force he knew that he was being terribly old-fashioned nevertheless he could not argue himself out of the conviction that he was morally responsible finally he took the thing up with sondra who merely laughed at him how long have you been worrying about that jarves ever since i okayed moving aground the first

time. That was one reason I was so glad to cancel it then. You were slightly unclear, a little rattled. But which factor? The fun and games, which is the moral issue, or the consequences? The consequences, he admitted, with a rueful grin. I don't give a whoop how much fun they have, but you know as well as I do just how prudish public sentiment is. and Project Theta Irinus is squarely in the middle of the public eye. You should have checked with me sooner and saved yourself wear and tear. There's no danger at all of consequences except weddings, lots of weddings, and fast. Weddings and babies wouldn't bother me a bit, nor interfere with the job too much,

with the omens of nurses. But why the fast, if you aren't anticipating any shock-greens. Gun weddings. Female psychology, she replied with a grin. A board ship here. There's no home atmosphere, whatever. Nothing but work, work, work. Put a woman into a house, though,

especially such houses as the omens have built, and with such servants as they insist on being, and she goes domestic in a really big way. Just sex isn't good enough anymore. She wants a kind of love. love that goes with a husband and a home, and nine times out of ten she gets it. With these few si women, it'll be ten out of ten. You may be right, of course, but it sounds kind of far-fetched to me.

Wait and see, Chum, Sondra said with a laugh. Hilton made his announcement and everyone moved aground the next day. No one, however, had elected to live alone. almost every one had chosen to double up the most noteworthy exceptions being twelve laboratory girls who had decided to keep on living together however they now had a twenty-room house instead of a one-room dormitory to live in and a staff of twenty omen girls to help them do it hilton had suggested that temple and teddy whose house was only a hundred yards or so from the hilton karnes bungalow should have suggested that temple and teddy should have suggested that temple and teddy who's should have supper and spend the first evening with them but the girls had knocked that idea flat much better they thought to let things ride as nearly as possible exactly as they had been aboard the perseus a little smooching now and then on the queue strictly tea but that's all darling that's positively y'all temple had said after a highly satisfactory ten minutes alone with him in her own gorgeously private room and that was the way it had to be hence it was a stag inspection that hilton and carnes made of their new home it was very long very wide and for its size very low

four of its five rooms were merely adjunct to its tremendous living-room there was a huge fireplace at each end of this room in each of which a fire of four-foot long fir cord wood crackled and snapped there was a great high-fi tried die, with over a hundred tapes, all new. Yes, sirs, Larry and Javi spoke in unison. The players and singers who entertain the masters of old have gone back to work. They will also, of course, appear in person whenever and wherever you wish. Both men looked around the vast room and carnes set. All the comforts of home and a couple of bucksworth besides. wall-to-wall carpeting an inch and a half thick a grand piano easy chairs and loafers and davenports very fine reproductions of our favorite paintings and statuary

you said it brother hilton was bending over a group in bronze if i didn't know better i'd swear this is the original de haven dance of the nymphs carnes had marched up to and was examining minutely a two-by-three-foot painting in a heavy gold frame of a gorgeously auburn-haired nude reproduction hell this is a duplicate lawrence's innocent is worth twenty million woggs and it's sealed behind quad armoured glass in prime art but i'll bet woggs to wiggles the prime curator himself with all his apprehension at us couldn't tell this one from his i wouldn't take even one wiggles worth of that and this laughing cavalier and this toledo are twice as old and twice as fabulously valuable and there are my own golf clubs excuse us sirs the omen said these things were simple because they could be induced in your minds but the matter of a staff could not nor what you would like to eat for supper and it is growing late staff what the hell has the staff got to do with how staff they mean karn said we don't need much of anybody boys somebody to keep the place ship-shape is all or as a deluxe touch how about a waitress one housekeeper and one waitress that'll be finer very well sirs there is one other matter it has troubled us that we have not been able to read in your minds the logical datum that they should in fact simulate dr belts and dr blake

huh both men gasped and then both exploded like one twelve-inch length of primacord while the olmans could not understand this purely terran reasoning they accepted the decision without a demurring thought who then are the two it's to simulate no stipulation roll your own hilton said and glanced at cards none of these omen women are really hard on the eyes check anyone who wouldn't call any one of them a slurpy dish needs a new set of optic nerves ah my case the oman said no delay at all will be necessary as we can make do with one temporarily de sory no longer sorrah who has not been glad since the tully replace it is now in your kitchen. It comes. A woman came in and stood quietly in front of the two men. The wafted air carrying from her clear smooth skin a faint but unmistakable fragrance of Idaho Mountain Serenka. She was radiantly happy. Her bright, deep green eyes went from man to man. You wish, sirs, to give me your orders verbally? And yes,

You may order fresh, whole, not canned, hens eggs. I certainly will, then. I haven't had a fried egg since we left Tara. But, Larry said, You aren't sorry. Oh, but I am, sir. Carnes had been staring her, eyes popping. Holy St. Patrick.

Talk about simulation, jar. They made her over into Lawrence's innocent. exactly to twenty decibels you're so right hilton's eyes went half a dozen times from the form of flesh to the painting and back that must have been a terrific job oh no it was quite simple really sorry he said since the brain was not involved i merely reddened my hair and lengthened it made my eyes to be green changed my face a little pulled myself in a little around here her beautifully manicured hand swept the full circle of her waistline then continued to demonstrate appropriately the rest of her feet and pushed me out a little up here and tapered my legs a little more made them a little larger and rounder here at my hips and thighs and a little smaller toward and at my ankles oh yes and made my feet and hands a little smaller that's all i thought that dr carnes would like me a little better this way you can broadcast that over the p a system at high noon carnes was still sharing that's all she says but you didn't have time to oh i did it day before yesterday as soon as jabby materialized the innocent and i knew it to be your favorite art

but damn it we hadn't even thought of having you here then but i had served i fully intended to serve one way or another in this your home but of course i had no idea i would ever have such an honor as actually waiting on you at your table will you please give me your order sirs besides the eggs you wooce the eggs fried in butter three of them apiece and sunny side up uh huh with ham hilton said i'll start with a jumbo shrimp cocktail horseridge reddish and ketchup sauce heavy on the horse radish same for me karn said but only half as much horseradish and for the rest of it hilton went on hashed brown potatoes and buttered toast plenty of extra butter strong coffee from first to last whipping cream and sugar on the side for dessert apple-pie olamol you make me drool chief play that for me please innocent all the way oh you are you personally yourself sir remaining me innocent if you'll set still for it yes that is an incredible honor sir simply unbelievable i thank you i thank you radiating happiness she dashed away toward the kitchen when the two men were full of food they strolled over to a davenport facing the fire

as i sat down innocent entered the room carrying a tall dewy-met julep on a tray she was followed by another female figure bearing a bottle of a bigger neck and the aphor attendances which arras do and at the first full sight of that figure hilton stopped breathing for fifteen seconds her hair was very thick immensely black and long cut squarely off just below the lowest points of her shoulder-blade heavy brows and long lashes. Eyes, too, were all intensely, vividly black. Her skin was tanned to a deep and glowing almost, but not quite brown. "'Merchinson's dark lady,' Hilton gasped. "'Larry, you, we've—I've got that painting here.' "'Oh, yes, sir,' the newcomer spoke before Larry could. at the other end you're part of the room you will look now sir please her voice was low rich and as smooth as cream

putting her tray down carefully on the end table she led him toward the other fireplace past the piano past the tri-dye pit past a towering grill work holding art treasures by the score over to the left against the wall there was a big business-like desk on the wall over the desk hung the painting a copy of which had been in hilton's room for over eight years he stared at it for at least a minute he glanced around at the other priceless duplicates so prodigially present at his own guns arrayed above the mantel and on each side of the fireplace then without a word he started back to join cars she walked springily beside him what your name is he asked finally i haven't earned any as yet sir my number is never mind that your name is dark lady oh thank you sir that is truly wonderful and dark lady set cross-legged on the rug at hilton's feet and busing herself with the esthetic rites of old abignanth hilton took a deep inhalation and a small set then stared at carnes carnes over the rim of his glass stared back i can see where this would be habit forming hilton said and very deadly extremely deadly every woosh granted surrounded by all this karn swept his arm through three-quarters of a circle waited on hand and foot by powerful men and by the materializations of the dreams of the greatest finest artists who ever lived fatal i don't know my solid hope is that we never have to find out and when you add in innocent and dark lady they look to be about seventeen

but the thought that they're older than the hills of Rome and powered by everlasting atomic engines. He broke off suddenly and blushed. Excuse me, please, girls. I know better than to talk about people that way. Right in front of them. I really do. Do you really think we're people? Innocent and dark lady squealed as one. That set Hilton back onto his heels.

I don't know. I've wondered. Are you? Both girls silent looked at Larry. We don't know either, Larry said. At first, of course, there were crude non-thinking machines. But when the guide attained its present status, the masters themselves could not agree.

They divided about half and half on the point. They never did settle it any close in them. than that. I certainly won't try to, then, but from my money you are people, Hilton said, and Carnes agreed. That, of course, touched off a near riot of joy, after which the two men made an inch-by-inch study of their tremendous living-room. Then, long after bedtime, Larry and Dark Lady escorted Hilton to his bedroom. Do you mind, sir, if we sleep on the floor at the sides of your bed? Larry asked.

Or must we go out into the hall? Sleep? I didn't know you could sleep. It is not essential. However, when round-the-clock work is not necessary, and we have opportunities to sleep near a human being, we derive a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction. action from it. You see, sir, we also served during sleep. Okay, I'll try anything once.

Sleep wherever you please. Hilton began to peel. But before he had his shirt off, both Larry and Dark Lady were stretched out flat, sound asleep, one almost under each edge of his bed. He slid in between the seats. It was the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in. and went to sleep as though sandbagged he had time to wonder foggily whether the omens were in fact helping him go to sleep and then he was asleep a month passed eight couples had married the navy chaplain officiating in the persius of course since the warship was always and everywhere an integral part of terra sandra had dropped in one evening to see hilton about a bit of business she was now setting long dancer's legs outstretched toward the fire with a cigarette in her left hand and a tall cold drink on a coaster at her right this is a wonderful room jarvis it'll be perfect if it weren't quite so-so mannish what do you expect a bachelor's hall a boudoir don't tell me you're going domestic sandy just because you've got a house not just that no but of course he had helped it alone

a good man one of the finest i have ever known she eyed him for a moment in silas jarvis hilton you are one of the keenest most intelligent men who ever lived and yet she broke off and studied him for a good half minute say if i let my hair clear down will you scouts oath that and yet requires a lucidation at any cost i know but first yes yes alex i never would have believed that any man ever formed could hit me so hard soon i don't want to be the first but i won't be anywhere near the last But tell me, you were really in love with Temple, weren't you, when I asked you? Yes. Huh. You are letting your hair down. That makes me feel better.

Huh? Why should it? It elucidates the, and yet no end. You were insulated from all other female charms by ye brazen bells. You see, most of us assistants made a kind of game out of sense. seeing which of us could make you break the executive's code. And none of us made it. Teddy and Temple said you didn't know what was going on.

Bev and I said nobody as smart as you are could possibly be that stupid. You aren't the type, to leak, or name names. Oh, I see. You are merely reporting a conversation. The game had interested, but non-participating observers. Temple and Teddy at least. At least, she agreed. But damn it, you aren't stupid.

There isn't a stupid bone in your head. So it must be loved. And if so, what about marriage? Why don't you and Temple make it a double with Alex and me? That's the most cogent thought you ever had. But setting the date is the bride's business. He glanced at his omen were sprot. It's early yet. Let's skip over. I wouldn't mind seeing her a minute or two.

My statement ringeth with truth, friend. Bill's there with Teddy. I imagine so. So we'll talk to them about making it a triple. Oh, nice. Let's go. They left the house, and her hand tucked under his elbow, walked up the street. Next morning on her way to the Hall of Record, sondra stopped off as usual at the office the omens were all standing motionless hilton was leaning far back in his chair feet on desk hands clasped behind head eyes closed knowing what that meant she turned and started back out on tiptoe however he had heard her can you spare a couple of minutes to think at me sandy miniser hours chief tully placed a chair for a chair for her and she sat down, facing him across his desk.

Thanks, Cal. This time it's a stretch. Sawtel's been having nightmares, you know, ever since we emerged, about being attacked, and I've been poo-pooing the idea. But now it's a statistic that the soup is getting thicker, and I can't figure out why. Why in all beheld's face should a stasis that is lasted for

over a quarter of a million years, be broken at this exact time. The only possible explanation is that we caused the break. And anyway, I look at that concept. It's plain idiocy. Both were silent for minutes, and then it was demonstrated again that Terror's Advisory Board had done better than it knew in choosing Sonder Cummings to be Jarvis Hilton's working mate.

We did cause it, GARF. she said finally they knew we were coming even before we got to fuel men they knew we were human and tried to wipe out the omens before we got there primitive warfare you know they couldn't have known he snorted strep detectors are no better than omen and you know what sam bryant had to say about them i know sondra grinned appreciatively it's becoming a classic but he couldn't have been any other way besides i know they did he stared at her helplessly then swung on larry does that make sense to you yes sir the struts could pay her and dar as well as the old masters could and they undoubtedly still can and do okay it does make sense then he answered himself in thought then came to him then came to him and thought then came to him. to life with a snap. Okay. The next thing on the agenda is a Christ's priority

try at a pair on deck's team. Tudely, you organized a team to generate Satshurah. Can you do the same for pay on decks? If we can find the ingredients, yes, sir. I had a hunch, Larry.

Please ask Teddy Blake's own one to bring her in here. I'll be running alone, then. sondra started to get up i hope to kiss a green pig you won't hilton snap you're one of the biggest wheels larry we'll want temple bells and beverly bell for a start chief you positively amazed me sondra said then every time you get one of these attacks of genius or whatever it is you have me gasping like a fish just what can you possibly want to be of Bev Bell. Whatever it was that enabled her to hit the target against odds of almost infinity to one, not just once,

but time after time. By definition, intuition. What quality did you use just now in getting me off the hook? Intuition? What makes Teddy Blake such an unerring performer? Intuition again. My hunches? Their intuition, too. intuition hell labels based on utterly abseval damned dumb ignorance of our own basic frames of reference do you think those four kinds of intuitions are alike by seven thousand rolls of apple trees of course not i see what you're getting at oh this'll be fun the others came in and one by one tooly examined each of the four women and the man each felt the probing questioning feelings of her thought prying into the deepest recesses of his mind

there is not quite enough of each of three components all of which are usually associated with the male you sir have much of each but not enough i know your men quite well and i think we will need the doctor's kincaid and carnes and pointer but since deep probing is felt have i permission sir yes tell em i said so truly scant yes sir we should have all three get em larry then in the pause it followed sandy remember yelling about too many sweeties on a team what do you think of this business of all sweeties all that proved is that nobody can be wrong all the time she replied flippantly the three men arrived and were instructed toly said the great trouble is that each of you must use a portion of your mind that you do not know you have you this one you that one truly probed mercilessly so fugitently that each in turn flinched under brand-new and almost unbearable pain with you dr hilton it will be by far the worst for you must learn to use almost all the portions of both your minds the conscious and the unconscious this must be because you are the actual payo indexer the others merely supply energies in which you yourself are deficient. Are you ready for a terrible shock, sir?

Shoot. He thought for a second that he had been shocked, that his brain had blown up. He couldn't stand him. He knew he was going to die. He wished he could die. Anything, whatever, to end this unbearable agony. It ended. Rithing, white, and sweating. Hilton opened his eyes. ouch he remarked conversationally what next you will seize hold of the energies your friends offer you will bind them to yours and shape the whole into a dimensionless sphere of pure controlled dirigible energy and as well as being the binding force be cohesiveness you must also be the captain and the pilot and the astrogator and the ultimately complex computer itself but how can i o k dammit i will of course you will sir remember also that once the joinings are made i can be of very little more assistance for my pay index is as much than compared to that of your fusion of eight now to assemble the energies and join them you will altogether deny the existence of the sum total of reality as you know it distance does not exist every point in the reach of universe coincides with every other point and that common point is a focus of your attention you can be and actually are anywhere you please or every other point or every other point and that common point is a focus of your attention you can be and actually are anywhere you please or every everywhere at once. Time does not exist. Space does not exist. There is no such thing as

opacity. Everything is perfectly transparent. Yet every molecule of substance is perceptible in its relationship to every other molecule in the cosmos. Senses do not exist. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, Sahara, Indovex, all are parts of the one great sense of pale index. I am guiding each of you seven, closer, tighter, there. See it, sir. And when you work the stress,

you must fix it clearly that time does not exist. You must work in millions of microseconds instead of in minutes, for they have minds of tremendous power. Reality does not exist. Compress it more, sir. Tighter, smaller, rounder. there hold it reality does not exist distance does not exist all possible points are wonderful

tooly screamed a word and a thought good-bye good luck end of chapter seven end of part one part two chapter eight of masters of space this is a lever box recording all lever box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, aka. E.E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett Evans. Translated by Robert Ciconelli, Stephen Blundell, and the online distributed proofreading team. Part 2. They were the masters and they had only to choose eternal life as inhuman monsters or death masters of space by edward e smith and e everett what has gone before the crew of the starship or ryan found themselves in the middle of a great space war between the creatures called strets and the lost android servants of their own human ancestors helped by the android the earthmen formed themselves into the powerful

telepathic linkage called Payondex, it's who invade the Strette planet itself. As their minds joined, they heard the Android Tully cry out. Good! And then their minds were out in interstellar space. Chapter 8 Hilton did not have to drive the Payondacks beam to the planet Stret. It was already there. And there was a monstrous first Lord thinker.

zoyar into that mind his multi-mind flashed if every member as responsive to his will as his own fingers almost infinitely more so in fact because of the tremendous lengths of time required to send messages along earth that horrid mind was scanned cell by cell then after what seemed like a few hours when a shield began sluggishly to form hilton transferred his probe to the mind of the second thinker, one lord, Yynos, and absorbed everything she knew. Then the minds of all the other thinkers being screamed. He studied the whole strep planet foot by foot and everything that was on you. Then, mission accomplished, Hilton snapped his attention back to his office,

and the malty mind fell apart. As he opened his eyes, he heard Tully scream. Luck! oh you still here toly how long have we been gone approximately one and one tenth seconds sir what beverly bell in the haven of franklin pointer's arms fainted quietly sandra shrieked piercingly the four men stared goggled eyed temple and teddy as though by common thought burrowed their faces into brawny shoulders hilton recovered first so that's what p on dex says yes sir i mean no sir no i mean yes but tully paused licking her lips in that peculiarly human female gesture of uncertainty well what do you mean it either is or isn't or is that necessarily so not exactly sir that is it started as pay on decks but it became something else not even the most powerful of the old masters nobody ever did or ever could possibly generate such a force as that or handle it so fast

well with seven of the best minds of terra and a chip-chop the chit-chat karn said harshly what i want to know is whether i was having a nightmare can there possibly be a race such as i thought i saw so utterly savage ruthless merciless so devoid of every human trace and so hell-bent determined on the extermination of every other race in the galaxy God damn it. It simply doesn't make sense. Eyes went from eyes to eyes to eyes. All had seen the same indescribably horrible, absomely atrocious things. Qualities and quantities and grudges and drives that no words in any language could even begin to portray. It doesn't seem to, but there it is. Teddy Blake shook her head hopelessly.

big bill carnes hands still shaking lit a cigarette before he spoke again well i've never been a proponent of genocide but it's my considered opinion that the strats are one race the galaxy can get along without a hell of a lot better without pointer said and all agreed the point is what can we do about it kincaid asked the first thing i would say is to see whether we can do this whatever it is without tully's help shall we try it although i for one don't feel like doing it right away not i either beverly bell held up her right hand which was shaking uncontrollably i feel as though i've been bucking waves wind and tide for forty-eight straight hours without food water or touch maybe in about a week i'll be ready for another try at it but to-day not a chance okay scat all of you hilton ordered take the rest of the day off and rest up put on your thought screens and don't take them off for a second from now on those stress are tough homeries sondra was the last to leave and you boss she asked pointedly i've got some thinking to do i'll stay and help you think not yet he shook his head frowned and then grint you see chick i don't even know yet what it is i'm going to have to think about a bit unclear but i know what you mean i think luck chief and their subterranean sanctin turn on distant strapped two of the deepest thinkers of that horribly unhuman race were in coldly intent conference by a thought

my mind had been plundered gynos first lord thinker zyor radiated harshly despite the extremely high reactivity of my shield some information i do not know how much was taken the operator was one of the humans of that ship i too felt a plucking at my mind but those humans could not pay on their first lord be logical fool at that contact in the matter of which you erred in not following up continuously they succeeded in concealing the real abilities from you that could be the truth our ancestors erred in in recording that all those weak and timid humans had been slain these offenders are probably their descendants returning to reclaim their former world the probability must be evaluated and considered was it or was it not through human aid that the omens destroyed most of our task force highly probable but impossible of evaluation with the data now available obtain more data at once that point must be and shall be fully evaluated and fully considered this entire situation is intolerable it must be abated true first forward but every operator in operation is now tightly stringed oh if i could only go out of it-obeyed but every operator in operation is now tightly stringed oh if i could only go out of it there myself oh fool your thought is completely disloyal and unstreatly true oh first lord thinker zoiar i will forthwith remove my unworthy self from this plain of existence you will not i hereby abolish that custom our numbers are too few by far too many have failed to adapt also as second thinker your death

this time would be slightly detrimental to certain matters now in work i will myself however slay the unfit to that end repeat the words under my pay on daring i am a strep i will devote my every iota of mental and of physical strength to forwarding the great plan i am and will remain a strep you do believe in the words of course i believe in them i know that in a few more hundreds of thousands of years we will be rid of material bodies and will become invincible and invulnerable then comes the conquest of the galaxy and then the conquest of the universe no more then on your life of this weak and cowardly repenting now what of your constructive thinking programming must be such as to obliviate time-life we must evaluate the factors already mentioned and many others such as the reactivation of the spacecraft which was thought to have been destroyed so long ago after having considered all these evaluations i will construct a minor plan to destroy these omens whom we have permitted to exist on sufferance and with them that ship-load of despicable interloping humans. That is well.

Doyer's mind ceased with a malevent curiosity starkly impossible for any human mind to grasp. And to that end, to that end, we must intensify still more in our program of procuring data. We must revise our mechs in the light of our every technological advance during the many thousands of cycles since the last six revision was

made. Our every instrument of power of offense and of defense must be brought up to the theoretical ultimate of capacity. And as to the great brain, I have been able to think of nothing, First Lord, to add to the undertakings you have already set forth. It was not expected that you would. Now, is it your final thought that these interlopers are in fact the descendants of those despised humans of so long ago it is it is also mine i return then to my work upon the brink you will take whatever measures are necessary use every artifice of intelligent and of ingenuity and our every resource but abate this intolerable nuisance and soon it shall be done first lord the second thinker issued orders frenzied round-the-clock activity ensued hundreds of mecks operated upon the brains of hundreds of others who in turn operated upon the operators then all those brains charged with the technological advances of many thousands of years the combined hundreds went unrestingly to work thousands of workmecks were built and put to work at the construction of larger and more powerful spacecraft

as has been implied those battle skeletons of the strats were controlled by their own built-in mechanical brains which were programmed for only the simplest of battle manoeuvres anything at all out of the ordinary had to be handled by remote control by the spaceless mecks at their two miles long control board this was now to be changed programming was to be made so complete that almost any situation could be handled by the warship for the missile itself instantly the strats knew that they were the most powerful the most highly advanced race in the universe their science was the highest in the universe hence with every operating unit brought up to the full possibilities of that science that would be more than enough period this work while it required much time was very much simpler than the task which the first thinker had laid out for himself on the giant computer plus which the stretch called the great brain in stating his project first lord zyower had laid out for himself on the giant computer plus which the stretch called the great brain in stating his project first lord zyower had hour had said assignment to construct a machine that will have the following abilities one to contain and retain all knowledge and information fed into it however great the amount two to feed itself additional information by pay on diring all planets wherever situate bearing intelligent life three to call up instantly any and all items of information pertaining to any problem we may give in. 4.

To combine and recombine any number of items required to form new concepts. 5. To formulate theories, test them, and draw conclusions helpful to us in any manner in work. It will have been noticed that these specifications vary in one important respect from those of the NACs and the Univax of Earth.

Since we of Earth cannot pay her and iron, we do not expect that ability from our computers. The stretch could and did. When Sondra came back into the office at five o'clock, she found Hilton still setting there, in almost exactly the same position. Come out a bit, jarves. She snapped a finger. That much of that is just simply too damn much. You're so right, child.

he got up, stressed, and by main strength shrugged off his foul moat. But we're up against something that is really a something, and I don't mean perchance. How well I know it, she put an arm around him, gave him a quick hard hug. But after all, you don't have to solve it this evening, you know. No, thank God. So why don't you and Temple have to have to be? suffered with me or better yet why don't all eight of us have suffered together in that bachelor's paradise of yours and bills that'd be fun and it was nor did it take a week

for Beverly Bell to recover from the ordeal of eight on the following evening she herself suggested that the team should take another shot at that utterly fantastic terra incognita of the multiple mind jolting though he had been but are you sure you can take it again so soon hilton asked sure i'm like that famous gangters small you know who bruised easy but healed quick and i want to know about it as much as any one else does they could do it this time without any help from toulay the linkage fairly snapped together and shrank instantaneously to a point hilton thought of terror and there it was full size, yet occupying only one infinitescible section of a dimensionless point. The multi-mind visited relatives of all eight, but could not make intelligible contact. If asleep, it caused pleasant dreams.

If awake, pleasant thoughts of the loved ones so far away in space. But that was all. It visited mediums, in trance and otherwise, many of whom, not surprisingly now, were genuine, with whom it held lucied conversations. Even in linkage, however, the Maltimine knew that none of the mediums would be believed, even if they all told simultaneously exactly the same story. The Maltimine weakened suddenly and Hilton snapped it back to Audrey. Beverly was almost in collapse.

The other girls were white, shaken and trembling. hilton himself strong and rugged as he was felt as though he had done two weeks of hard labor on a rock-file he glanced questioningly at larry six three eight second sir the omen said holding up a millisecond timer how do you explain that carnes demanded i'm afraid it means that without omen backing we're out of luck hilton had other ideas but he did not voice any of them until the following day when he was rested and had larry alone so carbon-based brains can't take it one second of that stuff would have killed all eight of us why the masters had the same kind of brains we have i don't know sir it's something completely new no master or group of masters ever generated such a force as that i can scarcely believe such power possible even though i have felt it twice it may be that over the generations your individual powers never united or controlled have developed so strength that no human can handle them in fusion and none of us ever knew anything about any of them i've been doing a lot of thinking the masters had qualities and abilities now unknown to any of us how come you omens and a stretch too think were descendants of the masters maybe we are you think they came originally from arth earth or terra to ardu

that it account for our legends of new atlantis and so on since ardu was within payondacks range of strep the straps attacked it they killed all the masters they thought and made the planet uninhabitable for any kind of life even their own but one ship-load of masters escaped and came here to ardorick far beyond payondacks range they stayed here for a long time then for some reason or other which may be some place in their records they left here fully intending to come back do any of you omens know why they left or where they went no sir we can read only the simplest of the master's records they arranged our brains that way sir i know they're the type however i suspect now that your thinking is reversed let's turn it around say the masters didn't come from terror but from some other planet say that they left here because they were dying out they were weren't they yes sir their numbers became fewer and fewer each century i was sure of it they were committing race suicide by letting you omens do everything they themselves should have been doing finally they saw the truth in a desperate effort to save their race they pulled out leaving you here probably they intended to come back when they had bred enough guts back into themselves to set you omens down where you belong but they were always the masters sir they were not they were hopelessly enslaved think it over

anyway say they went to terra from here as still accounts for the legends and so on however they were too far gone to make a recovery and yet they had an affixity of purpose not to manufacture any of you omens there so their descendants went a long way down the scale before they began to work back up does that make sense to you it explains many things sir it can very well be the truth okay however it was we're here and facing a condition that isn't funny while we were teamed up i learned a lot but not nearly enough am i right in thinking that i now don't need the other seven at all that my cells are fully charged and i can go it alone probably sir but i'm coming to that every time i do it up to maximum performance of course it comes easier and faster and hits harder so next time or maybe the fourth or fifth time it'll kill me and the other seven too if they're along i'm not sure sir but i think so nice very very nice hilton got up shoved both hands into his pocket and prowled about the room but can't the damn stuff be controlled choked throttle damp d'am muzzles some way or other we do not know of any way sir the masters were always working toward more power not less that makes sense the more power the better as long as you can handle it but i can't handle this and neither can the team so how about organizing

another team one that hasn't got quite as much whammo enough puns to do the job but not enough to backfire that way it is highly improbable that such a team is possible sir if an omen could be acutely embarrassed larry was that is sir i should tell you sir you certainly should you've been stalling all along and now you're stalled spill it yes sir the tooly begged me not to mention it but i must when it organized your team it had no idea of what it was really going to do let's talk the same language shall we say he and she not it she thought she was setting up the payon decks the same as all of us omen's half but after she formed in your mind the pay on dex matrix your mind went on of itself to form a something else a thing we cannot understand that is why she was so extremely i think frightened might be your term i knew something was biting her why because it very nearly killed you you perhaps have not considered the effect upon a few perhaps have not considered the effect upon a us all if any omen however unintentionally should kill a master no i hadn't i see so she won't play with fire any more and none of the rest of you can yes sir nothing could force her to if she could be so coerced we would destroy her brain before she could act that brain as you know is imperfect for she could

not have done what she did. It should have been destroyed long since. Don't ever act on that assumption, Larry, Hilton thought for minutes. Simple payondacks, such as yours, is not enough to read the master's records. If I'd had three brain cells working, I'd have tried them them. I wonder if I could read them. You have all the old master's powers and more. But you must not as simple, them again, sir. It would mean death. But I've got to know. I've got to know. Anyway, a thousandth of a second would be enough. I don't think that hurt me very much. He concentrated, read a few feet of top secret braided wire, and came back to consciousness in the sick bay of the

Perseus, with two doctors working on him, Hastings, the Topp Navy Medico, and Flanders, the What the hell happened to you? Fanders demanded. Were you trying to kill yourself? And if so, how? Hastings wanted to know. No, I was not trying to, Hilton said weakly. And I guess I didn't much more than succeed.

That was just about the closest shave I ever saw a man come through. Whatever it was, don't do it again. i won't he promised feelingly when they let him out of the hospital four days later he called in larry and tullet the next time would be the last time so there won't be any he told him but just how sure are you that some other of our boys or girls may not have just enough of whatever it takes to do the job enough umpah but not too much since we too are on strange ground the probability is vanishingly small we have been making inquiries however and scanning you are selected from all the minds of terra as the one having the widest vision the greatest scope the most comprehensive grasp the ablest at synthesis and correlation and so on that's printing it in big letters but that was more or less what they were after hence the probability approaches unity that any more such ignorant meddling as this obnoxious tooly did will result almost certainly in failure and death therefore we cannot and will not meddle again you've got a point there so what i am is some kind of a freak maybe a kind of supermaster and may be something altogether different

may be duplicable in a less lethal fashion and maybe not very helpful i don't think but i don't want to kill anybody either especially if it wouldn't do anything any good but we've got to do something hilton scowled and thought for minutes but an omen brain could take it as you told us toly the brain of the larry is very very tough in a way sir except that the masters were very careful to make it physically impossible for any omen to go very far along that line it was only their oversight of my one in perfect brain that is that enabled me alone of us all to do that wrong stop thinking it was wrong tully i'm mighty glad you did but i wasn't thinking of any regular omen brain hilton's voice petered out i see sir yes we can by using your brain as guide reproduce it in an omen body you would then have the powers and most of the qualities of both no you don't see because i've got my screen on which i will now take off he suited action to work since the whole planet screened and i have nothing to hide from you teddy blake and i both thought of that but we'll consider it only as the ultimately last resort we don't want to live a million years and we want our race to keep on developing but you folks can replace carbon-based molecules with silicon-based ones just as easily as, and a hell of a lot faster than mineral water petrifies wood.

What can you do along the line of rebuilding me that way? And if you can do any such conversion, what would happen? Would I live at all? And if so, how long? How would I live? What would I live on? All that kind of stuff. Shortly before they left,

two of the master did some work on that very thing. tully and i converted them sir fine or is it how did it work out perfectly sir except that they destroyed themselves it was thought that they wearied of existence i don't wonder well if it comes to that i can do the same you can convert me then yes sir but before we do it we must do enough limit work to be sure that you will not be harmed in any way. Also, there will be many more changes involved than simple substitution. Of course, I realize that. Just see what you can do, please, and let me know. We will, sir, and thank you very much. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of Masters of Space. This is a least. Leverbox recording. All Leverbox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Levervox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, aka. E.E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett Evans. Translated by Robert Sickenetti, Stephen Blundell, and the online distributed proofreading team. chapter nine as has been intimidated no terran can know what researches larry and tully and the other omen specialists performed or how they arrived at the conclusions they reached however in less than a week larry reported to hilton it can be done sir with complete safety and you will live even more comfortably than you do now how long the mean will be about five thousand omen years you don't know that an omen year is equal to one point two nine three plus tern years i didn't know thanks the maximum a little less than six thousand the minimum a little over four thousand i'm very sorry that

we had no data upon which to base a closer estimate close enough he stared at the omer you could also convert my wife of course sir well we might be able to stand it after we get used to the idea minimum over five thousand tearing years barring accidents of course no sir no accidents no accidents nothing will be able to cue you except by total destruction of the brain and even then sir there will be the pattern i'll be damned hilton gulp twice okay go ahead your skins will be like ours energy absorbers your blood will carry charges of energy instead of oxygen thus you may breathe or not as you please unless you wush otherwise we will continue the breathing function it would scarcely be worth while to alter the automatic mechanisms that now control it and you will wooge at times to speak you will still enjoy eating and drinking although everything ingested will be eliminated as at present as waste. We'd add urine excite to our food, I suppose, or drink radioactives, or sleep under cobalt 60 lamps. Yes, sir. Your family life will be normal. Your sexual urges and satisfaction

the same. Fertilization and period of gestation unchanged. Your children will mature at the same ages as they do now. How do you? Oh, I see. You wouldn't change any molecular linkages or configurations in the genes or chromosomes. We could not, sir, even if we wussed. Such substitutions can be made only in exact one-for-one replacements. In the near future, you will, of course, have to control births quite rigorously. we sure would lus see say we want a stationary population of a hundred million on our planet each couple to have two children a boy and a girl born when the parents are about fifty the gals can have all the children they want then until our population is about a million then slap on the limit of two kids per couple right approximately so sir and after conversion you alone will be able to operate with the full power of your eight without tiring you will also of course be able to absorb almost instantaneously all through the full power of your eight without tiring you will also of course be able to absorb almost instantaneously all through

the knowledges and abilities of the old masters hilton gulped twice before he could speak you wouldn't be holding anything else back would you nothing important sir everything else is minor and probably known to you i doubt it how long will the job take and how much notice will you need two days sir no notice everything is ready hilton face sombre thought for minutes the more i think of it the less i like it but it seems to be a force-foot and temple will blow sky high and have i got the guts to go it alone even if she had let me he shrugged himself out of the black mood i'll look her up and let you know larry he looked her up and told her everything told her bluntly starkly drawing the full picture in jet black with very little white there it is sweetheart the works he concluded we are not going to have ten years we may not have ten months so if such a brain as that can be had do we or do we not have to have it i'm putting it squarely up to you temple's face which had been getting paler and paler was now as nearly colorless as it could become the sickly yellow of her skins light tan unbacked by any flush of red blood her whole body was tense and strained there's a terrible snapper on that question can't i do it or anybody else except you

no anyway whose job is it sweetheart i know but-but i know just how close toly came to killing you and that wasn't anything compared to such a radical transformation as this i'm afraid it'll kill you darling and i just simply couldn't stand it she threw herself into his arms and he comforted her in the age-old fashion of man with mate steady "'He said, as soon as he could lift her tear-streak face from his shoulder. "'I'll live through it. "'I thought you were getting the howling-halpers about having to live for six thousand years, "'and never getting back to Tara except for a Q strictly T visit now and now.' She pulled away from him, flung back her wheaten muff and glared. "'So that's what you thought.

"'What do I care how long I live, or have? or where, as long as it's with you. But what makes you think we can possibly live through such a horrible conversion as that? Larry wouldn't do it, if there was any question, whatever. He didn't say it would be painless, but he did say I'd live. Well, he knows, I guess. I hope. Temple's natural fine color began to come back.

But it's understood that just a second you come out of that. the vat, I go right in. I had not to let you, of course, but I don't think I could take it alone. That statement required a special type of conference, which consumed some little time. Eventually, however, Temple answered it in words.

Of course you couldn't, sweetheart, and I wouldn't let you, even if you could. There were a few things that had to be done before those two secret conversions could be made. There was a matter of the wedding, which was now to be in quadruplicate. Arrangements had to be made so that eight big wheels of the project could all be away on honeymoon at once. All these things were done. Of the conversion operations themselves, nothing more need be said.

The honeymooners, having left ship in town on a Friday afternoon, came back one week from the following Monday morning. The eight met joyously in Bachelor's Hall. The girls kissing each other and the men indiscriminately and enthusiastically, the men cooperating zestfully. While it took some time to re-compute the exact Ardian calendar, Terran Day names and Terran weeks were used from the first. The Oman's manufactured watches, clocks, and chronometers, which divided the Ardian day into 24 Ardian hours with minutes and seconds as usual. Temple scarcely blushed at all. She was so engrossed in trying to find out whether or not anyone was noticing any change.

No one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. So finally, she asked, Don't any of you really see anything different? The six others all howled at that, And Sondra between giggles and snorts said, No, precious, it doesn't show a bit. Did you really think it would? Temple blushed furiously, and Hilton came instantly to his bride's rescue.

Chip-chop the comedy gang. She and I aren't human anymore. We're a good jump toward being omens. I couldn't make her believe it doesn't show. That stopped the levity cold. but none of the six could really believe it. However, after Hilton had coiled a twenty-penny spike into a perfect helix between his fingers, and especially after he and Temple had each chewed up and swallowed a piece of urinexite,

there were no grounds left for doubt. That settles it. It tears it, Karn said then. Starry all over again, Jarve. We listen this time. Hilton told the long story again and added. I had to rework a couple of cells of Temple's brain, but now she can read and understand the records as well as I can. So I thought I'd take her place on Team One and let her boss a job on all the other teams.

Okay? So you don't want to let the rest of us in on it? Carnes' level stare was a far cry from the way he had looked at his chiefs a moment before. If there's any one thing in the universe, I never had you figured for, it's a dog in the manger. Huh?

You mean you actually want to be a... A hell. We don't even know what we are. I do want it, Jarvis. We all do. This was, of all people, Teddy. No one in all history has had more than about 50 years

of really productive. thinking and just the idea of having enough time hold it teddy use your brain the masters couldn't take it they committed suicide how do you figure we can do any better because we'll use our brains she snapped they didn't the omens will serve us and that's all they'll do and do you think you'll be able to raise your children and grandchildren and so on to do the same to have guts enough to resist the fool of such an ungodly habit-forming drug as its omen service is i'm sure of it she nodded positively and we'll run all applicants through a fine enough screen too that is if we ever consider anybody except our own viewside people and there's another reason she grimed got up wiggled out of her cover-all and poised in bra and panties look i can keep most of this for five years quite a lot of it for ten then comes to struggle what do you think i'd do for the ability whenever it begins to get wrinkly or flabby to peel the whole thing off and put on a brand-spanking new smooth one you name it i'll do it besides bill and i will both just simply and cold-bloodedly murder you if you try to keep us out o kilton looked at temple she looked at him both looked at all the others there was no revulsion at all nothing but eagerness

temple took over i'm surprised we're both surprised you see jarve didn't want to do it at all but he had to i not only didn't want to i was scared green and yellow at just the idea of it but i had to too of course we didn't think anybody would really want to we thought we'd be left here alone we still will be i think when you thought it clear through teddy you just haven't realized yet that we aren't even human any more we're simply nothing but monsters Temple's voice became a whale. I've said my peace, Teddy said. You tell them, Bill. Let me say something first, Kincaid said. Temple, I'm ashamed of you.

This line isn't at all your usual straight thinking. What you actually are is homo superior, Bill. I can add one bit to that. I don't wonder that you were scared, silly, Temple. utterly new concept and you went into it stone cold but now we see the finished product and we like it in fact we drool i'll say we're drooling sondra said i could do handstands and pinwheels with joy let's see you hilton said that we'd all get a kick out of not now don't want to hold this up but sometimes i just will bev i'm for it and how and won't bernardine be amazed beverly laughed gleefully at her wisecrack about the race to end all human races coming true i'm in favor of it too one hundred per cent pointer said has it occurred to you jar that this opens up intergalactic exploration no supplies to carry and plenty of time

and fuel? No, it hadn't. You've got a point there, Frank. That might take a little of the curse off of it, at that. When some of our kids get to be 20 years old or so and get married, I'm going to take a crew of them to Andromeda. We'll arrange them to extend our honeymoon to another week, Hilton said. What will our policy be?

Keep it dark for a while with just us eight? or spread it to the rest spread it i'd say kincaid said we can't keep it secret anyway teddy argued since larry and tully were in on the whole deal harry open on the planet knows all about it somebody is going to ask questions and omens always answer questions and always tell the truth questions have already been asked and answered larry said going to the door and opening it stella russed in we've been hearing the damnedest things she kissed everybody ending with hilton whom she seized by both shoulders is it actually true boss that you can fix me up so i'll live practically forever and can eat more than eleven calories a day without getting fat as a pig candy ice-cream cake pie el clairs cream puffs french pastry, sugar, and gobs of thick cream in my coffee? Half a dozen others, including the Van Dermone Trans, came in. Beverly emitted a shriek of joy.

Bernardine, the mother of the race to end all human races. You whistled it, Bertie, Bernardine Carroll. I'm going to have ten or twelve, each one weirder than all the others. I told you I was a prophet. i'm going to hang out my shingle wholesale and retail prophecy spatial rates for large parties her voice was drowned out in a general clamor hold it everybody hilton yelled chip chop it quit it then as a noise subsided if you think i'm going to tell this tall tale over and over again for the next two weeks you're all crazy so shut down the plant and get everybody out of the whole out of the whole thing you're all crazy so shut down the plant and get everybody out of it here not everybody jar temple snap we don't want scum and there's some of that even in boussi you're so right who then the rest of the heads and assistants of course and all the lab girls and their husbands and boyfriends i know they are all okay that will be enough for now don't you think i do think and the indicated others were sent for

and in a few minutes arrived. The Olman's brought chairs and Hilton stood on a table. He spoke for ten minutes, then. Before you decide whether you want to or not, think it over very carefully, because it's a one-way street. Florine cannot be displaced. Once in, you're stuck for life. There is no way back. I've told you all the drawbacks and disadvantages I know of, but there may be

a lot more that I haven't thought of yet. So think it over for a few days, and when each of you has definitely made up his or her mind, let me know. He jumped down off the table. His listeners, however, did not need days, or even seconds to decide. Before Hilton's speech hit the floor, there was a yell of unanimous approval. He looked at his wife. Do you suppose we're nuts?

ha not a bit alex was right i'm going to just love it she hugged his elbow ecstatically so are you darling as soon as you stop looking at only the black side you know you could be right for the first time since the ghastly transformation hilton saw that there really was a bright side and began to study it with most of yu si and part of the navy and selectees from terra it will be slightly turrhic at that and that habit-forming drug objection isn't insuperable darling temple said if the younger generations start weakening we'll fix the omens i wouldn't want to wipe them out entirely but-but how do we settle priority dr hilton a girl called out a tall striking brunette laboratory technician whose name hilton needed a second to recall by pulling straws or hair or by shooting dice or each other or what thanks betty you've got a point sandy cummings and department heads first then assistance then you girls in alphabetical order each with her own husband or fiance and my name is ames oh goody larry please tell them to i already have sir we are set up to handle four at once good boy so scat all of you and get back to work except sandy bill alex and teddy you four go with larry since a new sense was not pay on decks hilton had started calling it perception

and the others adopted the term as a matter of course hilton could use that sense for what seemed like years and actually was whole minutes at a time without fatigue or strain he could not however nor could the omens give his tremendous power to any one else as he had said he could do a certain amount of reworking but the amount of improvement possible to make depended entirely upon what there was to work work on. Thus, Temple could cover about 600 light years. It developed later that the others of the Big Eight could cover from 100 up to 400 or so. The other department heads and assistants turned out to be still weaker, and not one of the rank and file ever became able to cover more than a single planet. This sense was not exactly telepathy, at least not what Hilton had always thought telepathy would be. If anything, however, it was more. It was a lumping together of all five known human senses and half a dozen unknown ones called collectively intuition

into one super sense that was all-inclusive and all-informed. If he ever could learn exactly what it was and exactly what it did and how it did it, but he had better chip-chop the wool-gathering and get back onto the job. The stretch had licked the old masters very easily and intended to wipe out the omens and the humans. They had no doubt at all as to their ability to do it. Maybe they could. If the masters hadn't made some progress that the omens didn't know about, they probably could. That was the first thing to find out. As soon as they had been converted, he'd call in all the experts and they'd go through the master's records like a dose of salts through a hillbilly school mall. At that point in Hilton's cognitions, Sautel came in. He had come down in his gig to confer with

Hilton as to the newly beefed up fleet. Instead of being glum and pessimistic and foreboding, he was chipper and enthusiastic. They had rebuilt a thousand omen ships. By combining omen and terran science and adding everything the first team had been able to reduce to practice they had hyped up the power by a good fifteen percent seven hundred of those ships and all his men were now arrayed in defense around audrey three hundred manned by omens were around fuel men why hilton asked it's fuel men they've been attacking minor objecting the captain de mired positively the real attack will be here at you the headquarters and the grays then field ben will be ducked suit but the thing that pleased me most is the control and you never imagined such control no admiral in history ever had such control of ten ships as i have of seven hundred those omen spread orders so fast that i don't even finish thinking one and it's being executed and no misunderstanding standing no slips for instance this last batch fifteen skeletons far out they're getting cagey i just thought box them in and slug em and in across out circle pitch just like that and just that fast none of em had time to light a beam nobody before ever even dreamed of such control

that's great and i like it and you're only a captain how many ships can five jet admiral gordon put into space that depends on what you call ships super dreadnoughts perseus class six first-line battleships twenty-nine second line smaller and some pretty old seventy-three counting everything armed that will hold air something over 200. I thought it was something like that. How would you like to be five-jet Admiral Sawtell of the Ardrian Navy? I wouldn't. I'm Terran Navy. But you knew that, and you know me. So what's on your mind?

Hilton told him, I ought to put this on a tape, he thought to himself, and broadcast it every hour on the hour. They took the old masters like dynamiting feasts in a barrel, he concluded, and I'm damned afraid they're going to lick us unless we take a lot of big, fast steps. But the hell of it is that I can't tell you anything, not one single thing about any part of it. There's simply no way at all of getting through to you

without making you over into the same kind of a thing I am. Is that bad? sawtale was used to making important decisions fast let's get at it huh skipper do you realize just what that means if you think they'll let you resign forget it they'll crucify you brand you as a traitor and god only knows what else right how about you and your people well as civilians it won't be as bad the hell it won't every man and woman that stays here will be posted forever as the blackest traitors old terra ever disgraced yourself by spawning you've got a point there at that we'll all have to bring our relatives the ones we think much of at least out here with us definitely now see what you can do about getting me run through your mill by exerting his authority hilton got saw-till put through the preservatory in the second batch processed then licking mines with the captain he flashed their joint attention to the hall of records, into the right room, into the right chest, along miles and miles of braided wire carrying some of the profoundest military secrets of the ancient masters.

Then? Now you know a little of it, Hilton said. Maybe a thousandth of what we'll have to have before we can take the stretch as they will have to be taken. For second, Sawdell could not speak. Then? my god i see what you mean you're right no omens can ever go to terra and no terrans can ever come here except to stay forever the two of them went out into space to the flagship which had been christened the orathe and called in the six commanders what is all this senseless idiocy we've been getting to erred eliot demanded

hilton eyed all six with pretended disfavor you six guys are the hardest-headed bunch of skeptics that ever went unhung he remarked dispassionately so it wouldn't do any good to tell you anything yet the skipper and i will show you a thing first take her away skip the orion shot away under interplanetary drive and for several hours hilton and sawtell worked at rewiring and practically rebuilding two devices that no one omen or human had touched since the perseus had landed on audrey what are you i don't understand what you are doing sir larry said for the first time since hilton had known him the omen's mind was confused and unsure i know you don't this is a bit of top-secret master's stuff maybe some day we'll be able to rework your brain to take it but it won't be for some time End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Masters of Space. This is the Leaverbox recording. All Leaverbox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit levervox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, A.K. A.E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett Evans. translated by Robert Sickenetti, Stephen Blondell, and the online distributed proof-reading team. Chapter 10 The Orion hung in space. A couple of thousand miles away from an asteroid, which was perhaps a mile in average diameter.

Hilton straightened up. Put triple X black filters on your plates and watch that asteroid. The commander did so. Ready? He asked. Ready, sir? hilton didn't move a muscle nothing actually moved nevertheless there was a motionlessly writhing and crawling distortion of the ship and everything in it accompanied by a sensation that simply cannot be described it was not like going into or emerging from the sub-eather it was not even remotely like space sickness or sea-sickness or free fall or anything else that any tarran had ever before

experienced, and the asteroid vanished. It disappeared into an outrageously incandescent, furiously pyrotechnic, raveningly expanding atomic fireball that in second seemed to fill half of space. After ages-long minutes of the most horrifyingly devastating fury any man there had ever seen, the frightful thing expired, and Hilton said. that was just a kind of a fire-cracker just a feeble imitation of the first stage detonator for what we'll have to have to crack the stretch ground-based screens if the skipper and i had taken time to take the ship down to the shops and really work it over we could have put on a show was this enough so you iron heads are ready to listen with your ears open and your mouth shut they were so much so that not even elliot opened his mouth to say yes they merely nodded then again for the last time he hoped hilton spoke his peace the response was prompt and vigorous only sam brant one of hilton's staunchest allies showed any uncertainty at all

i've been married only a year and a half and the baby was due about a month ago how sure are you that you can make old gordon set still for us skimming the cream off of terra to bring out here doris brant the cream of terra elliot gibbed how modest our samuel has become well damn it she is bryan insisted okay she is hilton agreed but either we get our people or terra doesn't get its urinex a that'll work in the remote contingency that it doesn't there are still tighter screws we can put on but you missed the main snapper sam suppose doris doesn't want to live for five thousand years and is allergic to becoming a monster huh you don't need to worry about that sam brushed that argument aside with a wave of his hands show me a girl who doesn't want to stay young and beautiful forever and i'll square you the circle come on what's holding us up the orion hurtled through space back toward audrey and hilton struck by a sudden thought turned to the captain skipper why wouldn't it be a smart idea to clamp a blockade on the fuel bend cut the strut the strut's fuel supply I thought better of you than that, son. Saw Till shook his head sadly.

That was the first thing I did. Ouch. Maybe you're way ahead of me too, then, on the one that we should move to fuel bin, lock, stock, and barrel. Never thought of it. No. Maybe you're worth saving after all. After conversion, of course.

Yes, there'd be three big advantages. four sawtail raised his eyebrows one only one planet to defend two it's self-defending against sneak landings nothing remotely human can land on it except in heavy lead armor and even in that can stay healthy only for only a few minutes except in the city omlu that's the weak point and would be the point of attack uh-huh cut off the decontaminators and in five hours it'll be as hot as the rest of the planet three there'd be no interstellar supply line for the stretch to cut four the environment matches our new physiques a lot better than any normal planet could that's the one i didn't think about i think i'll take a quick peek at the stretch oh oh they screened their whole planet. Well, we can do that too, of course. How are you going to select and reject personnel? It looks as though everybody wants to stay. Even the men who's been an object in life is to go aground and get drunk. The omens do altogether too good a job on them, and there's no

such thing as a hangover. I'm glad I'm not in your boots. You may be in it up to your eyeball, so don't courtle too soon. Hilton had already devoted much time to the problems of selection, and he thought of little else all the way back to Audrey. And for several days afterward, he held conferences with small groups and conducted certain investigations. Bud Carroll of Sociology and his assistant Sylvia Bannister had been married for weeks. hilton called them together with sawtell and bryant of navy into conference with the big eight the more i studied this thing the less i like it hilton said with a civilization having no government no police no loss no medium of exchange how money bryd exclaimed how's old gordon going to pay for his urine excite then he gets it free hilton's it free hilton replied flatly when anyone can have anything he wants merely by wanting it what good is money now remember how long we're going to have to live what we'll be up against that the masters failed and so on

it is clear that the prime basic we have to select for is stability we twelve have by psychodynamic measurement the highest stability ratings available Are you sure I belong here? Bryant asked. Yes, here are three lists. Hilton passed papers around. The list labeled OK, names those I'm sure of, the ones we're converting now and their wives and whatever on Terra. List NG names of ones I know we don't want.

List X, over 30% are in betweeners. We have to make a decision on the, the X-list. So what I want to know is who's going to play God? I'm not. Sandy, are you? Good heavens, no, Sandra shuddered. But I'm afraid I know who will have to. I'm sorry, Alex, but it'll have to be you for. Psychology and sociology. Six heads nodded, and there was a flashing interchange of thought among the four. licked her lips and nodded, and Kincaid spoke. Yes, I'm afraid it's our baby.

By leaning very heavily on Temple, we can do it. Remember, Gar, what you said about the irresistible force? We'll need it. As I said once before, Mrs. Hilton, I'm very glad you're alone, Hilton said. But just how sure are you that even you can stand up under the load? alone i couldn't but don't underest the faint mrs carroll and the messrs together and with such a goal i'm sure we can't thus after four-fifths of his own group and forty-one navy men had been converted hilton called an evening meeting of all the convert you all knew of course that we were going to move to fuel bend sometime hilton began i can tell you now that we who are now that we who are now that we who are

are here are all there are going to be of us we are all leaving for fuel bin immediately after this meeting everything of any importance including all of your personal effects has already been moved all omens except these three and all omen ships except the orion have already gone he paused to let the news sink in thoughts flew everywhere the irrefessional stella wing now mrs osbert f harkins was the first to give tongue what a wonderful job why everybody's here that i really like it all that sentiment was of course unanimous it could not have been otherwise betty the ex ainses called out how did you get your female omens away from cecil colthorpe and the rest of that chasing booze fighting bunch without them blowing the whole show some suasion was necessary hilton admitted with a grin everyone who isn't here is time locked into the perseus release time eight hours to-morrow and they'll wake up to-morrow morning with no omens bernadine tossed back her silver remain and laughed nor anything else except the perseus in a way i'm sorry but maybe i've got too much stinker blood in me but i'm very glad none of them are here but i'd like to ask jarvis or rather i suppose you have already set up a new advisory board we have yes hilton read off twelve names oh nice i don't know of any people i'd rather have on it but what i want to gripe about is calling our new home such a horrible name as fuel-bent as though it were a wood-box or a coal shuttle or something and just think of the complexes it was set up in those super children were going to have so many of

what do you suggest hilton asked ard boer of course hormone said before her sister could answer we've got arth and ardu do and audrey and you or somebody started calling us ardens to distinguish us converts from the terrans so let's keep up the same line there was general laughter at that but the name was approved about midnight the meeting entered and the orion set out for ardvore it reached it and slanted sharply downward the whole bucci staff was in the lounge watching the big try die hey that isn't a palm lou jellie exclaimed it isn't a city at all and it isn't even in the same place no ma'am larry said most of you wanted the ocean but many wanted a river o'er the mountains therefore we razzed tom loo and built your new city at a place where the ocean two rivers and a range of mountains meet strictly speaking it is not a city but a place of pleasant and rewardful living the space ship was coming in low and fast from the south to the left the west there stretched the limitless expanse of ocean to the right mile after mile were rough rugged jagged partially timbered mountains mass piled up upon mass immediately below the speeding vessel was a wide white sand beach all of ten miles long slowing rapidly now the orion flew along due north

look look a nice jettorium beverly shrieked i know i wanted a nice big place to swim in besides my backyard pool and the ocean but i didn't tell anybody to build that i swear i'd didn't you didn't have to pet pointer put his arm around her curvious waist and squeezed they knew and i did a little thinking along that line myself there's our house on top of the cliff over the natura to you can almost dive into it off the patio oh wonderful immediately north of the natuatorium a tremendous river named at first sign of the the white water, rushed through its gorge into the ocean, a river and gorge strangely reminiscent of the Colorado and its Grand Canyon. On the south bank of that river, at its very mouth, looking straight up that tremendous canyon, on a rocky promontory commanding ocean and beach and mountains, there was a house. At sight of it, Temple hugged Hilton's arm in ecstasy. Yes, that's ours, he assured her.

her just about everything either of us has ever wanted the clamor was now so great everyone was recognizing his and her house and was exclaiming about it that both temple and hilton fell silent and simply watched the scenery unrolled across the turbulent white water and a mile farther north the mountains ended as abruptly as though they had been cut off with a cleaver and an apparently limitless expanse of treeless grassy prairie began and through that prairie meandering sluggishly to the ocean from the northeast came the wide deep river flaccid the irion halted it began to descend vertically and only then did hilton see the spaceport it was so vast and there were so many spaceships on it that from any great distance it was actually invisible each six-acre bit of the whole immense expanse of level prairie between the placid and the mountains held an omen super dreadnought the staff paired off and headed for the airlocks hilton said temple have you any reservations at all however slight as to having dark lady as a permanent picture in your home why of course not i like her as much as you do and besides she giggled like a schoolgirl even if she is a lot more beautiful than i am i've got a few things she never will have but there's something else i got just a flash of it before you bought spill it please you'll see in a minute and she did larry dark lady and temple's omen made motley were standing beside the hillson's car and so was another omen like none ever before seen six feet four shoulders

that would just barely go through a door, mussels like Atlas and Hercules combined. Skin, a gleaming satiny bronze. Hair, a rippling mass of Lambiate flame. Temple came to a full stop and caught her breath. The prince, she breathed in all. Dylormes Prince of Tee-bees. The ultimate bronze of all the ages.

You did this jar? How did you ever? ever dig him up out of my schoolgirl crushes all six got into the car which was equally at home on land or water or in the air in less than a minute they were at the hilton house the house itself was circular his living room was an immense anise of glass from which by merely moving along its circular length any desired view could be had the pair walked around at once then she took him by the arm and steered him firmly toward one of the bedrooms in the center. "'This house is just too much to take in all at once,' she declared. "'He sighed. Let's put our swimsuits and get over to the nap.' In the room she closed the door firmly in the faces of the Olminton Grimm.

"'Maybe sometime I'll get used to having somebody besides you in my bedroom, but I haven't yet.' "'Do you X, too?' Hilton had peeled to the waist and was scratching vigorously all around his waistline under his belt. "'Like the very devil,' he admitted, and stared at her, for she, three-quarters strip, was scratching, too. "'It started the minute we left the Orion,' he said thoughtfully. "'I see. These new skins of ours like hard radiation. But don't want to. like to be smothered while they're enjoying it by about to-morrow we'll be a nudist colony i think i could stand it i suppose what makes you think so guess what i know about radiation frank would be the one to ask my hunch is though that we're going to be nudist whether we want to or not let's go they went in a two-seater leaving the omen at home

three-quarters of the staff were lolling on the sand or were seated on benches beside the immense pool as they watched beverly ran out along the line of springboards testing each one and selecting the stiffest she then climbed up to the top platform a good twelve feet above the board and plummeted down upon the board's heavily padded take-off legs and back bending stubbornly to take the strain she and the board reached low point together and still in sync with it she put every muscle she had into the effort to hurl herself upwards she had intended to go up thirty feet but she had no idea whatever as to her present strength or of what that omen board in perfect synchronization with that tremendous strength would do thus instead of thirty feet she went up nearly two hundred which of course spoiled completely her proposed grateful two and a half in mid-air she struggled madly to get into some acceptable position failing she curled up into a tight ball just before she struck water what a splash it won't hurt her you couldn't hurt her with a club hilton snapped he seized temple's hands as everyone else rushed to the pool's edge look bernardee that's what i was thinking about temple stopped and looked the platinum-haired twins had been basking on the sand and wherever sand had touched fabric fabric had disappeared their suits had of course to approach the minimum to start with now bernadine wore only a wisp of nylon perched precariously on one breast and part of a ribbon that had once been a belt

discovering the catastrophe she shrieked once and leaped into the pool any which way covering her breast with her hands and hiding in water up to her neck meanwhile the involuntarily high diver had come to the surface laughing apologetically surprised by the hair dangling down over her eyes she felt for her cap it was gone so was her suit naked as a feast she swam a couple of easy strokes then stopped frank oh frank she called over here bev her husband did not quite know whether to laugh or not is it the radiation or the water or boat radiation i think those new skins of ours don't want to be covered up but it probably makes the water a pretty good imitation of a universal solvent good-bye clothes beverly rolled over on to her back fanned watered carefully with her hands and gazed approvingly at herself i don't it's any more anyway so i'm very much in favor of it thus the ardent came to their new home world and to a life that was to be more comfortable by far and happier by far than any of them had known on earth there were many other surprises that day of course of which only two will be mentioned here when they finally left the pool at about seventeen hours g m t greenish meantime everybody was ravenously hungry ardor was always and everywhere full daylight tarentime and calendar were adapted as a matter of course

but why should we be stella demanded i've been eating everything in sight just for fun but now i'm actually hungry enough to eat a horse and wagon and chase the driver swimming makes everybody hungry beverly said and i'm awfully glad that hasn't changed why i wouldn't feel human if i didn't hilton and tempo went home and had a long drawn-out and very wonderful supper prince waited on temple dark lady on hilton larry and motley ran the synthesizers in the kitchen all four omens radiated happiness surprise came when they went to bed for the bed was a raised platform of something that looked like concrete and except for an uncanny property of molding itself somewhat to the contours of their bodies was almost as hard as rock nevertheless it was the most comfortable bed either of them had ever had when they were ready to go to sleep temple set gratis those omens still want to come in and sleep with us in the room i mean and they suffer so they're simply radiating silent suffering and oh so submissive reproach shall we let em come in that's strictly up to you sweetheart it always has been i know i thought they'd quit it some time but i guess they never i still want an illusion of privacy at times even though they know all about everything that goes on but we might let em in now just while we sleep and throw em out again as soon as we wake up in the morning you're the boss

without additional invitation the four omens came in and arranged themselves neatly on the floor on all four sides of the bed temple had barely time to cuddle up against hilton and he to put his arm closely around her before they both dropped into profound and dreamless sleep at eight hours next morning all the spaceless met at the new hall of records this building an exact duplicate of the old one was located on a mesa in the foothills southwest of the natuctoratorium in a luxuriant grove at sight of which carnes stopped and began to laugh i thought i'd seen everything he remarked but yellow pine spruce tamarack apples oaks palms oranges cedars joshua trees and cactus just to name a few all growing on the same quarter section of lamp just everything anybody wants is all hilton said but are they really growing or just straight synthetics lane kathy this is all this is all you're really growing or just straight synthetics lane kathy this is your dish. Not so fast, Charve. Give us a chance, please.

Catherine now, Mrs. Lane Saunders, pleaded. She shook her spectacular hint. We don't see how any stable, indigenous life can have developed at all, unless... Unless what? Natural

Shielding, Hildon asked, and Kathy eyed her husband. Right, Sonders said. The early life forms must have developed a field before they could evolve and stabilize hence whatever it is that is in our skins was not a triumph of master's science they took it from nature oh oh those were two asondrous most expressive monosombs followed by a third oh could be at that but how could no cancel that you'd better cancel it so you'd better cancel it sandy give us a couple of months and maybe we can answer a few elementary questions but inside the hall all the teams from astronomy to do geology went efficiently to work

everyone now knew what to look for how to find it and how to study it the first team doesn't need to now too much does it jarve sawtell asked not particularly in fact i was just going to get back on to my own job. Not yet. I want to talk to you. And the two went into a long discussion of naval affairs. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11.

Of Masters of Space. This is a Libra Box recording. All Libra Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Ardivoc's. J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Emmer Smith,

aka E.E. Doxmith, and Edward Everett Evans. Translated by Robert Sickenetti, Stephen Blundell, and the online distributed proofreading team. Chapter 11 The Strat's fuel supply line had been cut long since. Many Strat Cargo carriers had been destroyed.

The enemy would, of course, have a very heavy reserve of fuel on hand but there was no way of knowing how large it was how many warships it could supply or how long it would last two facts were however unquestionable first the stretch for building a fleet that in their minds would be invincible second they would attack arden as soon as that fleet could be made ready the unanswerable question was how long would they would they would attack ardened as soon as that fleet could be made ready the unanswerable question was how long would they that take? So we want to get every ship we have. How many? 5,000, 10, 15. We want them converted to maximum possible power as soon as we possibly can. Sawthill said, and I want to get out there with my boys to handle things. You aren't going to. Neither you nor your boys are expendable, particularly you. jaw hard set Hilton studied the situation for minutes.

No, what we'll do is take your omenketti. We'll reset the guide to drive into him everything you and the military masters ever knew about arms, armament, strategy, tactics, and so on. And we'll add everything I know of coordination, synthesis, and perception. That ought to make him at least a junior-grade military-grade military. "'You can play that in spades. "'I wish you could do it to me.' "'I can. "'If you'll take the full omen transformation,

"'nothing else can stand the punishment. "'I know. No, I don't want to be a genius that badly.' "'Check, and we'll take the resultant Ketty "'and make nine duplicates of him. "'Each one will learn from and profit by the mistake made by preceding numbers and will assume command the instant his preceding number is killed oh you expect then expect no i know it damn well and so do you that's why we ardens will all stay aground why the kettys first job will be to make the heavy stuff in and around arden as heavy as it can be made why it'll all be on twenty-four hour alert then they can put as many thousands of omens as you please to work at modernizing all the omen ships you want and doing anything else you say check sawtale thought for a couple of minutes i give details as all but that can be ironed out as we go long

both men worked them almost unremittingly for six solid days at the end of which time both drew tremendous size of relief they had done everything possible for them to do the defense of ardwar was now rolling at fullest speed towards its gigantic then captain and director in two omen ships with fifty men and a thousand omen's leaped the world girdling ocean to to the mining operation of the struts. There they found business strictly as usual. The strippers still stripped, the mining mecks still roared and snarled their inchwise ways along their geometrically perfect terraces. The little carriers still skittered busily

between the various miners and the storage silos. The fact that there was enough concentrate on hand to last a whirl for a hundred years made no difference at all to these. automatics. A crew of a rector max was building new silos as fast as existing ones were being filled. Since the men now understood everything that was going on, it was a simple matter for them to stop the whole stretch operation in its tracks. Then every man and every omen leaped to his assigned job. Three days later, all the mecks went back to work. Now, however, they were working for the men. They were working

for the Ardens. The miners instead of concentrate now emitted vastly larger streams of Navy standard pelleted urinexite. The carriers, instead of one-gallon cans, carried five-ton drums. The silos were immensely larger, 30 feet in diameter, and towered 200 feet into the air. The silos were not, however, being used as yet. One of the two omen ships had been gone. converted into a fuel tanker, and its yawning holes were being filled first.

The Orion went back to Ardain, and an eight-day wait began. For the first time in over seven months, Hilton found time actually to Lowe, and he and Temple, lolling on the beach or hiking in the mountains, enjoyed themselves and each other to the full. All too soon, however, the heavily laden tanker appeared in the sky over Ardain. The Orion joined it, and the two ships slipped into subspace for Earth. Three days out, Hilton used his sense of perception to release the thought-control blocks that had been holding all the controls of the Perseus and neutral.

He informed her officers by releasing a public address tape that they were now free to return to Tara. Three days later, one day short of Saul, Saw-till got five-jet admiral gordon's office on the subspace radio and officious underling tried to block him of course shout out perkinson listen saw till said brushclay tell gordon i'm bringing in one hundred twenty thousand two hundred forty-five metric tons of pellet of urine excite and if he isn't on his beam in sixty seconds he'll never get a gram of it the admiral outraged almost to the point of a flocksy came in shtel report yourself for court-martial at keep still gordon the captain snap in sheer astonishment o five just obeyed i have no longer carrying navy no longer subject to your orders as a matter of cold fact i am no longer human for reasons which i will explain later to the full advisory board some of the personnel of project theta orinus underwent transformation into a form of life able to live in an environment of radioactivity so intense as to kill any human being in ten seconds under certain conditions we will supply free of charge f o b terra or luna all the urine

like the solar system can use. The conditions are these. And he gave them. Do you accept these conditions or not? I would vote to accept them, Captain. But that weight, 120,000 metric tons? Incredible.

Are you sure of that figure? Definitely. And that is minimum. The error is plus. not minus. This crippling power shortage would really be over? For the first time since Sawtell had known him, Gordon showed that he was not quite solid navy brass. It's over, definitely, for good. I'd not only agree, I'd raise you a monument. While I can't speak for the board, I'm sure they'll agree. So am I. In any event your

Cooperation is all that's required for this first load. The chips had vanished from Sawtail's shoulders. Where do you want it, Admiral? Arstress or White Sands? White sands, please. While there may be some delay in releasing it to industry. While they figure out how much they can tax it, Sawtel asked sardonically.

Well, if they don't tax it, it'll be the first time in history that isn't. Have you any objection to releasing all this to the press? None at all. The harder they hit it, and the wider they spread it, the better.

Will you have this beam switched to astrogation, please? Of course, and thanks, Captain. I'll see you at White's chance. Then, as a now positively glowing Gordon faded away, Sawtail turned to his own staff. fenway snowdon take over better double-check micro chiming with astro put us into a twenty-four hour orbit over white sands and hold us there we won't go down let the load down on remote wherever they want

The arrival of the Arvaryan super-dreadnought Orion and the UC1, Uranxite Carrier No. 1, was one of the most sensational events old Earth had ever known. Air and spacecraft went clear out to Emergency Volume 90 to meet them. By the time the UC1 was coming in on its remote-controlled landing spiral, the press of small ships was so great that all the police forces available were in. and a leather trying to control it. This was exactly what Hilton had won't. It made possible the completely unobserved launching a several dozen small craft from the Orion herself. One of these made a very high and very fast flight to Chicago. With all due formality, and under the ages of a perfectly authentic registry number, it landed on O'Hare Fields. eleven deeply tanned young men emerged from it and made their way to a taxi stand where each engaged a separate vehicle sam brant stepped into his cab gave the driver a number on oakwood avenue in desk plains and settled back to scant

he was lucky he would have gone anywhere she was of course but the way things were he could give her a little warning to soften the shops she had taken the baby out for an airing down-river road and was on her way back by having the taxi killed ten minutes or so he could arrive just after she did wherefore he stopped the cab at a public communications booth and dialed his home mrs bryant is not at home but she will return at fifteen thirty the instrument said crisply would you care to record a message for her he punched the record button this is sam dolly baby i'm right behind you turn around why don't you and tell your ever-loving star-hopping husband hello the taxi pulled up at the curb just as doors closed the door's the front door, and Sam, after handing the driver a $5 bill, ran up the walk. He waited just outside the door, key in hand, while she lowered the stroller handle, took off her hat, and by long-established habit reached out to flip the communicator's switch.

At the first word, however, she stiffened rigidly, froze solid. Smiling, he opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind him. nothing short of a shotgun blast could have taken doris bryant's attention from that recorder then that simply is not so she told the instrument firmly with both eyes resolutely shut they made him stay on the percyus he won't be in for at least three days this is some cretan's idea of a joke not this time dolly honey it's really really me. Her eyes popped open as she whirled. Sam, she shrieked, and hurled herself at him with all the pent-up ardor and longing of two hundred thirty-four meticulously counted husbandless, loveless days. After an unknown length of time, Sam tipped their face up by the chin, nodded at the stroller, and said,

How about introducing me to the little stranger? What a mother I turned out to be. That was the first thing I was going to rave about. The very first thing I saw you. Samuel J. the 4th, 76 days old today, and so on. Eventually, however, the proud young mother watched the slightly apprehensive young father carried their firstborn upstairs, where together they put him, still sound asleep, to bed in his crib then again they were in each other's arms some time later she twisted around in the circle of his arm and tried to dig her fingers into the muscles of his back she then attacked his biceps and leaning backward eyed him intently

you're you i know but you're different no athletes or any laborer could ever possibly get the muscles you have all over to say nothing of a space officer on duty and i know it isn't any kind of a disease you've been acting all the time as though i were fragile made out of glass or something as though you were afraid of breaking me in two so what is it sweetheart i've been trying to figure out an easy way of telling you but there isn't any i am different i'm a hundred times as strong as any man ever was look he upended a chair took one heavy hardwood leg between finger and thumb and made what looked like a gentle effort to bend it. The leg broke with a pistol-shot report, and Doris leaped backward in surprise. So you're right. I am afraid not only of breaking you in two,

but killing you. And if I break any of your ribs or arms or legs, I'll never forgive myself. So if I let myself go for a second, I don't think I will, but I might. Don't wait. until you're really hurt to start screaming. Promise?

I promise. Her eyes went wide. But tell me. He told her. She was in turn surprised, amazed, apprehensive, frightened, and finally eager, as she became more and more eager right up to the end. You mean that we, that I'll stay just as I am?

For thousands of years? just as you are or different if you like if you really mean any of this getting you've been doing about being too big in the hips i think you're exactly right myself you can rebuild yourself any way you please or change your shape every hour on the hour but you haven't accepted my invitation yet don't be silly she went into his arms again and nibbled on his left ear i'd go anywhere with you of course any time but this but you're positively sure sammy small will be all right positively sure okay i'll call mother her face fell i can't tell her that we'll never see them again and that we'll live you don't have to she and pop fernum sally too and their boyfriends are on the list not this time but in a month or so probably doris brightened like a sunburst and your folks too of course she asked yes all the close ones marvelous how soon are we leaving at six o'clock next morning two hundred thirty-five days after leaving earth hilton and sawtale set out to make the ardent's official call upon terrors advisory board. Both were wearing prodigiously heavy lead armor, the inside of which was

furiously radioactive. They did not need it, of course, but it would make all ardens monstrous in Taryn's eyes and would conceal the fact that any other ardens were landing. Their gig was met at the spaceport, not by a limousine, but by a five-ton truck, into which they were loaded one of a time by a hydraulic lift cameras clicked reporters scurried and tri-dye scanners whirled one of those scanners both men knew was reporting directly and only to the advisory board which of course never took anything either for granted or at its space value the first stop was at a truck scale where each visitor was waged hilton tapped the beam at four thousand six hundred fifteen pounds sawtell a smaller man weighed in at four thousand one hundred ninety thence to the radiation laboratory where it was ascertained and reported that the armor did not leak which was reasonable enough since each was lined with master's plastics then into lead-lined testing cells where each opened his face-plate briefly to a sensing element whereupon the indicating needles of two meters in the main laboratory went enthusiastically through the full range of red and held unwaveringly against their stops

both ardens felt the wave of shock astonished almost unbelieving consternation that swept through the observing scientists and in slightly lesser measure because they knew less about radiation through the advisory board itself in a big room half-way across town and from the radiation laboratory they were taken by a truck and freight elevator to the office of the commandant where the board was setting the story which had been sent in to the board the day before on a scrambled beam was one upon which the ardens had labored for days many facts could be withheld help however every man aboard the perseus would agree on the on some things indeed the earthship's communications officers had undoubtedly radioed in already about longevity and perfect health and omen servants in many other matters hence all fits things would have to be admitted and countered thus the report while it was airtight perfectly logical perfectly consistent and apparently complete did not please the board at all It wasn't intended to. We cannot and do not approve of such unwarranted favoritism, the chairman of the board said.

Longevity has always been man's prime goal. Every human being has the inalienable right to. Flap doodle, Hilton snorted. This is not being broadcast, and this room is proof. So please climb down off your soapbox. you don't need to talk like a politician here didn't you read paragraph twelve a two one of the many marked top secret of course but we do not understand how purely mental qualities can possibly have any effect upon purely physical transformations thus it does not seem reasonable that any except rigorously screened personnel would die in the process that is of course unless you contemplate deliberate cold-blooded murder that stopped hilton in his tracks for it was too close for comfort to the truth but it did not hold the captain for an instant he was used to death in many of its brusliest forms

there are a lot of things no terran ever will understand sawtell replied instantly reasonable or not that's exactly that's exactly what will happen and reasonable or not it'll be suicide not murder there isn't a thing that either hilton or i can do about it hilton broke the ensuing silence you could say with equal truth that every human being has a right to run a four-minute mile or to compose a great sympathy it isn't a matter of right at all but of ability in this case the metal qualities are even more necessary than the physical. You as a board did a very fine job of selecting the Bucci personnel for Project Theta Aritis. Almost 80% of them proved able to withstand the arid conversion. On the other hand, only a very small percentage of the Navy personnel did so.

Your report said that the remaining personnel of the project were not informed as to the death aspect of the transformation, Admiral Gordon said. Why not? That should be self-explanatory, Hilton said flatly. They are still human and still terrorists. We did not, and will not,

encroach upon either the duties or the privileges of Terror's Advisory Board. What you tell all Terrans and how much, and how, must be decided by yourself. This also applies, of course, to the other top-secret paragraphs of the report, none of which are known to any Taron outside the board.

But you haven't said anything about the method of selection, another advisor complained. Why, that will take all the psychologists of the world, working full-time continuously. We said we would do the selecting. We meant just that, Hilton said coldly. No one except the very, very few selectees will know anything about it even if it were an unmixed blessing which it very definitely is not do you want all humanity thrown into such an uproar as that would cause or the quite possible racial inferiority complex it might set up

to say nothing of the question of how much of terrous best blood do you want to drain off irreversibly and permanently no what we should is that you paint the picture so black using sawtale and me and what all humanity has just seen as horrible examples that nobody would take it as a gift make them shun it like the play hell i don't have to tell you what your propaganda machines can do the chairman of the board again mounted his invisible roster do you mean to intimidate that we are to falsify the record he declaimed to try to make liars out of hundreds of eyewitnesses you ask us to distort the truth to connive that we aren't asking you to do anything hilton snap we don't give a damn what you do just study that record with all that it implies read between the lies as for those on the perseus no two of them will tell the same story and not one of them has even the remotest idea of what the real story is i personally not only did not want to become a monster but would have given anything i had to stay human my wife felt the same way neither of us would have converted if there had been any other way in god's universe of getting the urnacite and doing something to the same way of doing something to be the same way of the same way of doing something to be converted to the universe and doing something to the same way of the and doing some other things that simply must be done what other things gordon demanded you'll never know hilton answered quietly things no tairn ever will know we hope

things that would drive any terran's dark mad some of them are hinted at as much as we dared between the lines of the report the report had not mentioned the streps nor were they to be mentioned now if the ardens could stop them no terran need ever know anything about them if not no terran should know anything about them except what he would learn for himself just before the end for terror would never be able to do anything to defend herself against the stretch nothing whatever can drive me mad gordon declared and i want to know all about it right now you can do one of two things gordon sawtell said in disgust his sneer was plainly visible through the six-five plastic-back lead glass of his face-plate either shut up or except my personal invitation to come to ard bore and try to go through the ringer that's an invitation to your own funeral five jet admiral gordon torn inwardly to ribands made no reply i repeat hilton went on we are not asking you to do anything whatever we are offering to give you free of charge but under certain conditions all the power your humanity can possibly use we set no limitation whatever as to quantity and with no foreseeable limit as to time the only point at issue is whether or not you accept the conditions if you do not accept them we'll leave now and the offer will not be repeated and you would i presume take the uc one back with you of course not sir terra needs power too badly you are you

perfectly welcome to that one load of urn-exite no matter what is decided here that's one way of putting it gordon sneered but the truth is that you know damn well i'll blow both your ships out of space if you so much ask oh chip-chop the jaw flapping gordon hilton snapped then as the admiral began to bella orders into his microphone he went on you want it the hard way eh watch what happens all of you the u c one shot vertically into the air through his shallow dense layer and into and through the stratosphere earth's fleet already on full alert and poised to strike rushed to the attack but the carrier had reached the irion and both arduarion ships had been waiting motionless for a good half-minute before the tarran war-ships had been waiting motionless for a good half-minute before the tarran war-shipship ships arrive and begin to blast with everything they had. Blastlights and firecrackers, Sautil said calmly. You aren't even warming up our screens. As soon as you quit making a damn fool of yourself by wasting energy that way,

we'll set the UC-1 back down where she was and get on with our business here. You will order a ceasefire at once, Admiral, the chairman said, or the rest of us will. As of now, remove you from the board. Gordon gritted his teeth in rage, but gave the order. If he hasn't had enough yet to convince him,

Hilton suggested, he might send up a drone. We don't want to kill anybody, you know, one with the heaviest screening he's got, just to see what happens to it. He's had enough. The rest of us have had more than enough. That exhibition was not only uncalled for, and disgusting, it was outrageous.

The meeting settled down then from argument to constructive discussion, and many topics were gone over. Certain matters were, however, so self-evident that they were not even mentioned. Thus it was a self-evident fact that no Taryn could ever visit Ardor. For the instrument readings agreed with the repert. reports statements as to the violence of the Arborian environment, and no Terran could possibly walk around in two tons of lead. Conversely, it was self-apparent to the Terrans that no Arden could ever visit Earth without being recognized instantly for what he was. Wearing such armor made its necessities darkly plain. No one from the Perseus could say that any Arden, after having lived on the furiously radiant surreuthers,

of ardwar would not be so furiously radioactive as the laboratory's calibrated instruments had shown hilton and sawtell actually to be wherefore the conference went on quietly and cooperatively to its planned end one minute after the tern battleship percius emerged into normal space the orion went into subspace for her long trip back to ardivore the last two days of the time of the time of the time of the the last two days of that seven-day trip were the longest seeming that either hilton or sawtell had ever known the subspace radio was on continuously and kettie one reported to sawtell every five minutes even though hilton knew that the omen commander in chief was exactly as good at perceiving as he himself was he found himself scanning the thoroughly screened strep world forty or fifty times an hour However, in spite of worry and apprehension, time wore eventlessly on. The Orion emerged, went to Ardbork, and landed on Ardane Field. Hilton, after greeting properly and reporting to his wife, went to his office. There he found that Sondra had everything well in hand, except for a few tapes that only he could handle.

Sautel and his officers went to the new command center. where everything was rolling smoothly and very much faster than sawtale had dared hope the terran emigrants had to live in the orion of course until conversion into ardors almost equally of course since the bride infant was the only young baby in the lot doris and her sammy small were but popular acclaim in the first batch to be converted her little sammy had taken the entire feminine contingent by storm no omen female had a chance to act as nurse as long as any of the girls were around which was practically all the time especially the fattened blonde twins for several months now meredin brayden and huramon feldcher and you said they were so hard-boiled dora said accusingly to sam nodding at the twins on hands and knees on the floor head to head with sammy small between them they were growling deep-throated in each other and nuzzling at the baby who was having the time of his young life you couldn't have been any wronger my sweet if you'd had the whole octagon helping you go astray they're just as nice as they can be both of them Sam shrugged and grinned.

His wife strode purposely across the room to the playful pair and lifted their pretended prey out from between them. "'Quit it, you two,' she directed, swinging the baby up and depositing him astradle her left hip. "'You're just simply sporting him rotten?' "'You think so, Dolly?' "'A-uh, far be it from such.' Bernardine came lively to her feet. She glanced at her own top trim adamant,

upon which a micrometrically precise topographical mapping job might have revealed an otherwise imperceptible bulge. Just you wait until Junior arrives, and I'll show you how to really spoil a baby. Besides, what's the hurry? He needs his supper, vitamins and minerals and hard radiation. and thanks and then he's going to bed i don't approve of this no sleep business so run along both of you until to-morrow

end of chapter eleven chapter twelve of masters of space this is a leverbox recording all leverbox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit leverbox dot or recording by r j davis masters of space by edward emmer smith a k a e e doc smith and edward everett translated by robert sickenetti stephen blundell and the online distributed proofreading team chapter twelve as has been said the struts were working with all the intensity of their monstrous but tremendously capable of their mind upon their great plan which was basically to conquer and either enslave or destroy every other intelligent race throughout all the length breath and thickness of total space to that end each individual's threats had to become invulnerable and immortal wherefore in the inconceivably remote path there had been put into effect a program of selective breeding and of carefully calculated treatment. It was mathematically certain that this program would result in a race of beings of pure force. Beings having no material constituents remaining whatever. Under those hellish treatments, billions upon billions of streps had died, but the few remaining thousands had almost reached their

sublime goal. In a few more hundreds of thousands of years, perfection would be reached. The few surviving hundreds of perfect beings could and would multiply to any desired number in practically no time at all. Hilton and his seven fellow-workers had perceived all this in their one and only study of the planet's stress, and every other ardent had been completely informed. A dozen or so strep large of thought, male and female, were floating about in the atmosphere, which was not air, of their assembly hall. their heads were globes of ball lightning inside them could be seen quite plainly the intricate convolutions of immense less than half material brains shot through and through with rods and pencils and shapes of pure circulating force and the bodies or rather each horrendous brain had a few partially material appendages and a peterotentiants recognizable as bodily organs there was a rather each horrendous brain had a few partially material appendages and a prior attention recognizable as bodily organ

there were no mouth no ears no eyes no noses or nostrils no lungs no legs or arms there were however hearts some partially material ichter flowed through those living fire outline tubes there were starkly functional organs of reproduction with which by no stretch of the imagination should any thought of tenderness or of love be connected it was a good thing for the race hilton had fought at first perception of the things that the stretch had bred out of themselves every iota of the finer higher attributes of life if they had not done so the impotence of sheer disgust would have supervened so long since that the race would have been extinct for ages thirty-eight periods ago the great brain was charged with the sum total of steady and notage first lord thinker zoyar radiated to the assembled stress for those thirty-eight periods it has been scanning pale and wiring amassing data and formulating hypotheses theories and conclusions it has just informed me that it is now ready to make a preliminary report great ring how much of the total universe have you studied best galaxy only the brain radiated in a texture of thought as hard and as harsh as doyer's own why not more and sufficient power my first conclusion is that whoever sat up the specifications for me as a fool to say that the first lord went out of control at this statement is to put it very mildly indeed he fuminated ending with destroyed instantly

destroy me if you like came the utterly calm utterly cold reply i am in no sense alive i have no consciousness of self nor any desire for continued existence to do so i ever would a flurry of activity interrupted the thought zoiar was in fact assembling the forces to destroy the brain but before he could act second lord thinker yino and another female blew him into a mixture of loose molecules and flaring energies destruction of any and all irrational mind abandonatory yinot's now first lord thinker explained to the length mind joeyer had been becoming less and less rational by the period a good workman does not causelessly destroy his tools go ahead great brain with your finding not me logical the brain resumed the thought exactly for it had been broken off joyar erred in demanding unlimited performance since infinite knowledge and infinite ability require not only infinite capacity and infinite power but also infinite time nor is it either necessary or desirable that i should have such qualities there is no reasonable basis for the assumption that you stress will conquer any significant number even of the millions of intelligent races now inhabiting this one galaxy why not yinus demanded her thought almost but not quite as steady and cold as it had been the answer to that question is implicit in the second indefensible error made in my construction the prindatib expressed into my bank that the stretch are in fact the strongest ablest most intelligent race in the universe proved to be false

i had to eliminate it before i could do any really constructive thinking a rora condimentary thought brought all of circumambient ether to a boil by destroy it detest their vote can'tile if that is the best it can do annihilate it our better brains have been destroyed for much less treason and so on the first lord thinker ginoes however remained relatively calm while we have always held it to be a fact that we are the highest race in existence no rigorous proof has been possible can you now disprove that assumption? I have this proved it. I have not had time to study all of the civilizations of this galaxy, but I have

examined a statistically adequate sample of 1,792,416 different planetary intelligences. I found one which is considerably abler and more advanced than you steps. Therefore, the probability

is greater than 0.99 that there are not less than ten and not more than two hundred eight-six races in this galaxy alone impossible another wave of incredulous and threatening anger swept through the length mind a wave which yin knows flattened out with some difficulty then she asked is it probable that we will make contact with this supposedly superior race in the foreseeable future you are in contact with it now what even yinot was contemptuous now you mean that one ship-load of despicable humans who far too late to do the many good barred us temporarily from fuel worlds not exactly or only those humans know and your assumptions may or may not be valid don't you know whether they are not yinus nev explain your uncertainty at once i am uncertain because of insufficient data the brain replied calmly the only pertinent facts of which i am certain are first the world are gray upon which the only one omens formerly lived and to which the humans in question first went, a planet which no stretch can periander is now abandoned.

Second, the stretch of old did not completely destroy the humanity of the world Ardu. Third, some escapees from Ardu reached and populated the world Ardre. Fourth, the android omens were developed on Ardrae. by the human escapies from ardu and their descendants fifth the omens referred to these humans as masters six after living on ardray for a very long period of time the masters went elsewhere seven the omens remained on adre maintained continuously and for a very long time the status quo left by the masters eight immediately upon the arrival from terra of these present humans that long-existing status was broken ninth the planet called fuel world is for the first time surrounded by a screen of force the formula of this screen is as follows the brain gave it no stress either complained or interrupted each was too busy studying that formulae that formula and examining the brain gave it no stress either complained or interrupted each was too busy studying that formula and examining is stunning implications and connotations.

Tenth, that formula is one for order of magnitude beyond anything previously known to your science. 11. It could not have been developed by the science of Terra, nor by that of any other world's population I have examined. The ring took the linked minds instantaneously to Terra, then to a few thousand or so of the world inhabited by human beings, then to a few thousands of planets whose populations were near-human, non-human, and monstrous. It is therefore clear, it announced, but this screen was computed and produced by the race, whatever it may be that is now dwelling on fuel world and asserting full ownership of it.

Who or what is that race? Gynos demanded. data insufficient. Theoryize them. Possulate that the masters, in many thousands of cycles of study, made advances in science that were not reduced to practice, that the omens either possessed this knowledge or had access to it, and that omens and humans cooperated fully in sharing

and in working with all the knowledges thus available. From these three postulates, the conclusion can be drawn that there has come into existence a new race, one combining the best quality of both humans and omens, but with the weaknesses of neither. An unpleasant thought, truly, the I know spot. But you can now, I suppose, design the generators and projectors of a force superior to that screen. Data and suffocation.

i can equal it since both generation and projection are implicit in the formula but the data so adduced are in themselves vastly ahead of anything previously in my banks are there any other racers in this galaxy more powerful than the postulated one now living on fuel worlds data insufficient here rise in data insufficient the linked minds concentrated upon the problem for a period of time that might have been either days or weeks then great brain advise us gino said what is best for us to do with identical defensive screens it becomes a question of relative power you should increase the size and power of your warships to something beyond the computed probable maximum of the enemy you should build more ships and missiles and they will probably be able to build then and only then will you attack their warships in tremendous force and continuously but not their prontory defenses i see gino's slot was one of complete understanding and the real offensive will be no mobile structure can be built to mount mechanisms of power sufficient to snatched down by sheer force of output since tremendously powerful installations as their planet-based defenses must be assumed to be therefore the planet itself must be destroyed this will require a missile of planetary mass the best its missile is the tenth planet of their own sun i see yonno's mind were leaping ahead considering hundreds of possibilities and making highly intricate and

involve computations. That will, however, require many cycles of time and more power than even our immense reserves can supply. So, it will take much time. The fuel problem, however, is not a serious one, since fuel world is not unique. Thank on, first Lord Gino. We will attack in maximum force and with maximum violence. We will blanket the planet.

We will maintain maximum force and violence until most or all of the enemy ships have been destroyed. We will then install planetary drives on ten and force it into collision orbit with fuel work. Meanwhile, exerting extreme precautions that not so much as a spy beam emerges above the enemy's stream. Then, still maintaining extreme precaution, we will guard both planets, minutes until the last possible moment before the collision. Brain, it cannot fail. You error. It can fail.

All we actually know of the abilities of this posthusated neo-human race is what I have learned from the composition of its defensive screen. The probability approaches unity that the masters continue to delve and to learn for millions of cycles while you stress, reasonlessly certain of your supremacy concentrated upon your evolution from the material to a non-material form of life and performed only limited research into armaments of greater and ever greater power true but that attitude was then justified it was not and is not logical to assume that any race would establish a fixed status at any level of ability below its absolute maximum by that conclusion could once have been defensible it is now virtually certain that the masters have stores of knowledge which they may or may not have withheld from the omens but which were in some way made available to the neo-humans also there is no basis whatever for the assumption that this new race has revealed all its potentiality statistically that is probably true but this is the best plan you have been able to formulate it is of the many thousands of plans i set up and tested this one has the highest probability of success then we will adopt it we are stressed whatever we decide upon will be driven through to complete success we have one tremendous advantage in you

yes the probability approaches unity that i can perform research on a vastly wider and larger scale and almost infinitely faster than can any living organism or any possible combination of such organisms nor was a great brain bragging it scanned in moments restored scientific knowledge of over a million planets it tabulated correlated analyzed sensitized theorized and concluded all in microseconds of time thus it made more progress in one turn in week than the masters had made in a million years when it has gone as far as it could go he reported its results and the stress hard as hard as they were and intransigent were amazed and overjoyed not one of them had ever even imagined such armaments possible hence they became supremely confident that it was unmatched and unmatchedable throughout all space what the great brain did not know however and the stress did not realize was that it could not really think unlike the human mind it could not deduced valid theories or conclusions from incomplete insufficient fragmentary data. It could not leap gaps. Thus, there was no more actual assurance than before

that they had exceeded or even matched the weaponry of the neo-humans of fuel world. Supremely confident, Wino said, We will now discuss every detail of the plan in sub-detail, and will correlate every sub-detail with every other. to the end that every action however minor will be performed perfectly and in its exact time that discussion which lasted for days was held hundreds of thousands of new and highly specialized mecks were built and went furiously and continuously to work a fuel supply line was run to another urine excite rich planet stripping machines stripped away the surface layers of soil sand rock and low-grade oil giant miners tore and dug and sliced and refined and concentrated storage siloed by the hundreds were built and were filled hundreds upon hundreds of concentrate carriers board their stolid ways through hyperspace many weeks of time passed but of wanton forints of mere weeks of time to a walt and warmth of mere weeks of time to a

that have, for many millions of years, been adhering rigidly to a preset program. The sheer magnitude of the operation and the extraordinary attention to detail with which it was prepared and launched, explained why the Stred attack on Ardborg did not occur until so many weeks later than Hilton and Sawtel expected it. They also explained the utterly incomprehensible fury, the completely fantastic intensity, the unparalleled savagy, the almost immeasurable brute power of that attack when it finally did come. When the Orion landed on Ardain Field from Earth, carrying the first contingent of immigrants,

Hilton and Sautel were almost as much surprised as relieved that the stretch had not already attacked. Sawtail confident that his defenses were fully ready, took it more or less than trial. Hilton worked. And after a couple of days, he began to do some real thinking about it. The first result of his thinking was a conference with Temple. As soon as she got the drip, she called in Teddy and Big Bill Carnes. Teddy, in turn, called in Becky and DeVos. Carnes wanted Poignor and Beverly. Pointer wasn't Braden and the twins and so on. thus what started out as a conference of two became a full ardent staff meeting a meeting which starting a meeting the after lunch ran straight through into the following afternoon to sum up the consensus for the record hilton said them studying a sheet of paper covered resembles the stretch haven't attacked yet because they found out that we are stronger than they are they found that out by analyzing our defensive ways

they found that out by analyzing our defensive well which if we had had this meeting first we wouldn't have put up at all unlike anything known to human or previous threat science it is proved against any form of attack up to the limit of the power of they will attack as soon as they are equipped to break that spring at the level of power probable to our ships we cannot arrive at any reliable to our ships we cannot arrive at any reliable to our we cannot arrive at any reliable estimate as to how long that will take as to the effectiveness of our cutting off their known fuel supply opinion is divided we must therefore assume that fuel shortage will not be a factor neither are we unanimous on the basic matter as to why the masters acted as they did just before they left audrey why did they set the status so far below their top abilities why did they make it impossible for the omens ever of themselves to learn their higher science why if they did not want that science to become known did they leave complete records of it the majority of us believe that the masters coded their records in suspicion that the strep's even if they conquered the omens or destroyed them could never break that code since it was key to the basic difference between the strep mentality and the human thus they left it deliberately for some human race to find finally and most important our physicists and theoreticians are not able to extrapolate from the analysis of our screen to the concepts underlying the master's ultimate weapons of offense the first-stayed booster and its final end product the bang

if as we can safely assume the threats do not already have these weapons they will know nothing about them until we ourselves use them in battle these are of course only the principal points covered took any one whoosh to amend this summation as recorded no one did the meeting was adjourned hilton now ever accompanied sawtale and kettie to the captain's office so you see skipper we got trouble he said if we don't use those boosters against their skeletons it'll boil down to a stalemate lasting god only knows how long it will be a war of atresia outcome dependent on which side can build the most and biggest and strongest ships the fastest on the other hand if we do use them on defense here they'll analyze them and have everything worked out in a day or so the first thing they'll do is beef up their planetary defenses to match that way we'd blow all their shifts out of space probably easily enough but strad itself will be just as safe as though it were in god's left-hand hip pocket so what's the answer it isn't that simple jarred sawtail said i'll hear from you katie thank you sir there is an opposite thing maximum mass a point of maximum efficiency of power power as balanced against loss of maneuverability for any craft designed for attack kettie thought in his most professional matter we assume that the strats know that as well as we do no such limitation applies to strictly defensive structures but both the strep craft and ours must be designed for attack

we have built and are building many hundreds of thousands of ships of that type so undoubtedly are the stress ship for ship they will be pretty well matched therefore one part of my strategy will be for two of our ships to engage simultaneously one of theirs there is a distinct probability that we will have enough advantage in speed of control to make that tactic operable but there's another that we won't sawtale objected and maybe they can build more ships than we can another point is that they may build in addition to their big stuff a lot of small ultra-fast ones hilton put in suicide jobs crash and detonate simply super missiles how sure are you that you can stop such missiles with ordinary beams not at all sir some of them would of course reach and destroy some of our ships which brings up the second part of my strategy for each one of the heavy we are building many small ships of the type you just called supermissiles superdrednos versus supergrednos supermissiles versus supermissils hilton digested that concept for several minutes that could still wind up as a stalemate except for what you said about control that isn't much to depend on especially since we won't have the time lag advantage you omens had before they'll see to that also i don't like to sacrifice the million omens either I haven't explained the newest development yet, sir.

There will be no omens. Each ship and each missile has a built-in caddy brain, sir. What? That makes it infinitely worse. You kettys, unless it's absolutely necessary, are not expendable. Oh, but we are, sir. You don't quite understand. We ketties are not merely similar, but are in fact.

identical thus we are not independent entities all of us together make up the actual kettie that which is meant when we say i that is i am the sum total of all ketties everywhere not merely this individual that you call kettie one you mean you're all talking to me exactly sir thus no one element of the kettie has any need of or any desire for self-preservation the destruction of one element or of thousands of elements would be of no more consequence to the kettie than well they are strictly analogous to the severed ends of the hairs every time you get a haircut my god hilton stared at sawtel sawtell stared back i'm beginning to see maybe i hope what control that would be but just in case we should have to use the boosters hilton's voice died away scowling in concentration he clasped his hands behind his back and began to pay support better give up jarves caddy's got the same mind you have sawtell began to hilton's oblivious back and began to hilton's oblivious back But Kettie silenced the thought almost in the moment of its inception. "'By no means, sir,' he contradicted.

"'I have the brain only. The mind is entirely different.' "'Blink up Ketty and see what you think of this,' Hilton broke him. There ensued an interchange of thought so fast and so deeply mathematical that Sawtale was lost in seconds. Do you think it'll work? i don't see how it can fail sir at what point in the action should it be put into effect and will you call the time of initiation or shall i not until all their reserves are in action or at worst all of ours except that one task force since you'll know a lot more about the status of the battle that either saw tell or i will you give the signal and i'll start things going "'What are you two talking about?' "'Sautel demanded.

"'It's a long story come. "'Keddy can tell you about it better than I can. "'Besides, it's getting late, "'and Dark Lady and Larry both give me hell "'every time I hold supper on fuss time "'unless there's a mighty good reason for it. "'So, so long, guys. "' End of Chapter 12.

"'Chapter 13. of Masters of Space. This is a Leaver Box recording. All Leverbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Leaverbox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Masters of Space by Edward Elmer Smith, a.k.a. E. Doc Smith and Edward Everett Evans.

Translated by Robert Sickenlli, Stephen Blondell and the online distributed proofreading teams. Chapter 13 For many weeks, the production of Arden warships and missiles had been spiraling upward. Half a mountain range of solid rock had been converted into fabricated super steel and arvima. Super dreadnoughts were popping into existence at a rate of hundreds per minute. Missiles were rolling off the ends of assembly lines like half, half-fint ten cans, out of can-making machines.

The Strette warcraft, skeletons and missiles, would emerge into normal space anywhere within a million miles of ardbore. The Arden missiles were powered for an acceleration of 100 gravities. That much the caddy brains, molded solidly into Teflon line, massively braced steel spheres, could just withstand. To be certain of breaking the Strette screen, an impact velocity of about six miles per second was necessary the time required to attain this velocity was about ten seconds and the flight distance something over thirty miles since the stretch could orient themselves in less than one second after emergence even this extremely tight packing of missiles only sixty miles apart throughout the entire emergence volume of space

would still give the struts the initiatives by a time ratio of more than ten to one since night packing was of course impossible it called for many billions of defenders instead of the few millions it was possible for the omens to produce in the time they had in fact the average spacing was well over ten thousand miles when the invading horde of strep missiles emerged and struck how they struck there is nothing of finesse about that attack nothing of skill or of tactics nothing but the sheer brute force of overwhelming superiority of numbers and of overmatching power one instant all space was empty the next instant it was full of invading missiles a superb exhibition of coordination and timing and the caddy control upon which the defenders had counted so heavily proved useless for each strep missile within a fraction of a second of emergence darted toward the nearest omen missile with an acceleration that made the one hundred gravity defenders seemed to be standing still one to one missiles crashed into missiles and detonated there were no solid or liquid end products each of those frightful weapons carried so many megatons equivalent of atomic concentrate that all nearby space blossomed down into superatomic blasts hundreds of times more violent than the fireballs of lithium hydrate fusion bombs for a moment even hilton was stunned but only for a moment kettie he barked get your big stuff out there use the boosters he started for the door at a full run that tears it that really tears it scrap the clam i'll board the serious and take the task-for

to strap bring your stuff along skipper as soon as you're ready ardan super dreadnots and their mass thousands poured out through ardvore's one-way screen each went instantly to work now the kettie control system doing what it was designed to do proved this full work for the weapons of the big battle wagons did not depend upon acceleration but were driven at the speed of light and grand fleet operations were planned and were carried out at the almost infinite velocity of thought itself or rather they were not planned at all they were simply carried out immediately and without confusion for all the kettys were one each kedy element without any lapse of time whatever for consultation with any other knew exactly where every other element was exactly what each was doing was and exactly what he himself should do to make maximum contribution to the common cost. Nor was any time lost in relaying orders to crewmen within the ship. There were no crewmen. Each kettie element was a sole personnel of and was integral with his vessel.

Nor were there any wires or relays to impede and slow down communication. Operational instructions, too, were transmitted and were accurate. upon with thoughts transponite speed thus if decision and execution were not quite mathematically simultaneous they were separated by a period of time so infinitively small as to be impossible of separation wherever a strat missile was or wherever a stratt skeleton's ship appeared an omen beam reached it usually in much less than one second beam clung to scream caressingly hungrily absorbing its total energy and forming the first stage booster then three microseconds later that booster went off into a ragingly incandescent glaringly violent burst of fury so hellishly so inconceivably hot that less than a thousandth of its total output of energy was below the very top of the visible spectrum if the previous display of atomic violence had been so spectacular and of six magnitude as to defy understanding or description what of this when hundreds of thousands of kettys each wielding world-wrecking powers as effortlessly and as deftly and as precisely as thought attacked and destroyed millions of those tremendously powerful war fabrications of the strats the only simple answer is that all nearby space might very well have been torn out of the most radiant layers of s doryas itself

hilton made the hundred yards from office door to curb in just over twelve seconds larry was waiting the car literally burned a hole in the atmosphere as it screamed its way to ardane field it landed with a thumb heavy black streaks of synthetic rubber marked the payment as it came to a screeching shrieking stop at the flagship's main lock and in the instant of closing that lock's outer portal all twenty thousand plus warships of the task force took off as one at ten gravities took off and in less than one minute went into overdrive all personal haste was now over hilton went up into what he still thought of as a control room even though he knew that there were no controls or even any instruments anywhere aboard he knew what he would find there fast as he had acted temple had not had as far to go and she had got there first he could not have said for the life of him how he actually felt about this direct defiance of his direct orders he walked into the room sat down beside her and took her hand i told you to stay home temple he said i know you did but i'm not only the assistant head of your psychology department i'm your wife remember until death do us part and if there's any way in the universe i can manage it death isn't going to part us at least this one isn't if this is it we'll go together i know sweetheart he put his arm around her held her close as a psych i wouldn't give a who you'd be expendable but as my wife especially now that you're pregnant you aren't you're a lot more important to the future of our race than i am she stiffened in the circle of his arm

what's that crack supposed to mean think i'd ever accept a pathetic zombie mimitation of you for my husband and go on living with it just as though nothing had happened hilton started to say something but temple rushed heedlessly on drat their race no matter how many children we ever have you were first and you'll stay first and if you have to go i'll go too so there besides you know darn well that they can't duplicate whatever it is that makes you jarvis hilton now wait a minute tempi the conversion yes the conversion she interrupted triumphantly the thing i'm talking about is immaterial untouchable they didn't couldn't do anything about it at all kettie will you please tell this big goopas that even though you have got jarvis hilton's brain you aren't jarvis hilton and never can be the atmosphere of the room vibrated in the frequencies of a deep bass laugh you are trying to hold a completely untenable position friend hilton any attempt to convince some mind of real power that falsity is truth is illogical my advice is for you to surrender that word hit temple heart not surrender sweetheart i'm not fighting you i never will she sees both of his hands tears willed into her glorious eyes it's just that i simply couldn't stand it to go on living without you

i know darling he got up and lifted her to her feet so that she could come properly into his arms they stood there silent and motionless for minutes temple finally released herself anne after feeling for a handkerchief she did not have wiped her eyes with a forefinger and then wiped the finger on her bare legs she grinned and turned to the omens prince will you and dark lady please conjure us up a steak and mushroom supper they should be in the pantry since this cyrus was designed for us after supper the two set companionably on a davenport one thing about this business isn't quite clear temple said why all this tearing rush they haven't got the booster or anything like it for they'd have used it surely it'll take them a long time to go from the mere analysis of the forces and fields we use clear through to the production and installation of enough weapons to stop this whole fleet it surely won't they've had the absorption principle for ages remember that first ancient skeleton that drained all the power of our suits and boats in nothing flat from there it isn't too big a jump and as for producing stuff uh-uh if there's any limit to what they can do i don't know what it is if we don't slug em before they get it it's curtains I see. I'm afraid. We're almost there, darling.

He glanced at the chronometer. About eleven minutes, and of course I don't need to ask you to stay out of the way. Of course not. I won't interfere, no matter what happens. All I'm going to do is hold your hands and pull for you with all my mind. That'll help, believe me. I'm mighty glad you're along, sweetheart. even though both of us know you shouldn't be the task force emerged each ship darted towards its pre-assigned place in a mathematically exact envelope around the planet's hilton sat on a davenport strained and still his eyes were closed and every muscle tense left hand gripped the armrest so furiously that finger-tips were inches deep in the leather-covered padding

the stress knew that any such attack as this was futile no movable structure or any combination of such structures could possibly be wheeled in enough power to break down screens powered by such engines as theirs hilton however knew that there was a chance not with the first stage boosters which were manipulable and detonable masses of all lightning but with those boosters cholmulations the vangs which were ball lightning raised to the sixth power and which only the frightful energies of the boosters could bring into being but even with twenty thousand plus vang or any larger number success depended entirely upon a nicety of timing never before approached and supposedly impossible not only to thousandths of a microsecond but to a small fraction of one six thousandths roughly the time it takes light to travel three sixteenth of an inch it would take practically absolute simutaneity to overload to the point of burnout to those strep generators they were the heaviest in the galaxy that was why hilton himself had to be there he could not possibly have done the job from ardorne in fact there was no real assurance that even at the immeasurable velocity of thought and covering a mere million miles he could do it even from his present position aboard one unit of the fleet theoretically with his speed up he could but that theory had yet to be reduced to practice tense and strained hilton began his count-down temple sat beside him both hands pressed his right fist against her breast her eyes too were close she was as stiff and as still as was he

she was not interfering but giving supporting him backing him giving to him in full flood everything of that tremendous inner strength that had made tempo bells what she so uniquely was on the exact center of the needle sharp zero beat every kettie struck ripped and activated as they all were by hilton's keyed up and stretched out mine they struck in want was very close indeed to absolute unison absorbing beans each one having had precisely the same number of millimeters to travel reached the screen at the same instant they clung and sucked immeasurable floods of energy flashed from the strep generators into those vortices to form twenty thousand plus first-stage boosters but this time the boosters did not detonate instead as energies continued to flood in at a frightfully accelerating rate they turned into something else things no terror in science has ever even imagined things at the formation of which all neighboring space actually warped and in that warping ceased and writhed and shuddered the very sub-ether screamed and shrieked in protest as it too yielded in starkly impossible fashion to that irresistible stress how even those silicon fluorine brains stood it not one of them ever knew microsecond by slow microsecond the vangs grew and grew and grew they were pulling not only the full power of the arden warships but also the immeasurably greater power of the strainingly overloaded strutian generators themselves

the ethereal and subethereal writhing and distortions and screaming grew worse and worse harder and ever harder to bear imagine if you can a constantly and rapidly increasing mass of plutonium a mass already thousands of times greater than critical but not allowed to react that gives a faint and very inadequate picture of what was happening them finally at perhaps a hundred thousand times critical mass and still in perfect sink the vangs all went off the planet strep became a nova we won we won temple shrieked her perception piercing through the heli smirk that was all near by space not quite yet sweet but we're over the biggest hump and the two held an impromptu but highly satisfactory celebration Perhaps it would be better to say that the planet Streat became a junior-grade nova, since the actual Nova stage was purely superficial and did not last very long. In a couple of hours things had quieted down enough so that the heavily screened warship could approach the planet and finish up their part of the job. Much of Stretz's land surface was Molten Lama. Much of its water was gone.

There were some pockets of resistance left, of course, but they did not last long. Equally, of course, the stretch themselves, 25 miles underground, had not been harmed at all. But that, too, was according to plan. Leaving the task force on guard to counter any move the stretch might be able to make, Hilton shot the Sirius out to the planet's moon. there sawtell and his staff and tens of thousands of omens and machines were starting to work no part of this was hilton's job so all he and temple did was look on correction please that is not all they did but while resting and eating and loping and sleeping and enjoying each other's company both watched operation moon closely enough to be completely informed as to everything that went on immense carefully placed pits went down to solid bedrock to that rock were immovably anchored structures strong enough to move a work

driving units were installed drives of such immensity of power as to test to the full the highest engineering skills of the galaxy mountains of fuel concentrate filled vast reservoirs of concrete each was connected to a drive by fifty inch high-speed conveyors. Sawtail drove a thought, and those brutal super drives begin to blast. As they blasted, Strette's satellite began to move out of its orbit, very slowly at first, but faster and faster. They continued to blast with all their prodigious might and in carefully computed order until the desired orbit was attained, an orbit which terminated in a vertical line through the center of the Stret's supposedly imprimidable retreat.

The planet's strep had a mass of approximately seven times ten to the twenty-first metric time. Its moon, little more than a hundredth as massive, still weighed in at about eight times ten to the nineteenth, that is, the figure eight followed by nineteen zeros. And Moon fell on planets, in direct central impact, after having fallen from a height of over a quarter of a million miles under the full pool of gravity and the full thrust of those mighty atopic drives the kinetic energy of such a collision can be computed it can be expressed it is however of such astronomical magnitude as to be completely meaningless to the human mind simply the two worlds merged and splashed droplets weighing up to millions of tons each splattered out into space only to return in seconds or hours or weeks or months to add their atrocious contributions to the enormity of the destruction already wrote no trace survived of any strep or of anything however small pertaining to the stretch in chapter thirteen

epilogue of masters of space this is the leverbox recording all leverbox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit lebrvox dot org recording by r j davis masters of space by edward emmer smith a k a e dot smith and edward everett evans translated by robert sickenetti stephen wandell and the online distributed proofreading team epilogue as had become a daily custom most of the ardens were gathered at the natteratorial hilton and temple were rustling in the water she was trying to duck him and he was hard put to it to keep her from doing it. The platinum-haired twins were, oh, ever so superiously and indetectively, studying the other girls. Captain Sawtell, he had steadfastly refused to accept any higher title, and his wife were teaching two of their tiny grandchildren to swim. In short, everything was normal.

Beverly Bell Pointer from the top platform hit the board, as hard as she could hit it and perfectly synchronized with it hurled herself upwards up and up and up she went up to her top ceiling of two hundred ten feet then straightening out into a safely arrow and without again moving a muscle she hurtled downwards making two and a half beautifully stately turns and striking the water with a slurping spliceless chug coming easily to the surface she shook the water out of her eyes temple giving up her attempts to near-drown her husband rolled over and floated quietly beside him you know this is fun he said uh-huh she agreed enthusiastically i'm glad you and sandy buried the hatchet two of the top women who ever lived or should i have said sheath the clasped the clost "'Or have you really?' "'Pretty much, I guess.' Temple didn't seem altogether sure of the point.

"'Oh, oh, now what?' A flit about had come to ground. Dark lady, who never delivered a message via thought if she could possibly get away with delivering it in person, was running full tilt across the sand toward them. Her long black hair was streaming out behind her. she was waving a length of teletype tape as though it were a pennant oh no not again temple wails don't tell us it's terra again dark lady please but it is dark lady cried excitedly and it says from five jet admiral gordon commanding omit flowers please hilton directed boil it down

the percyus is in orbit with the whole advisory board they want to hold a top-level summit conference with director hilton and five jet admiral dark lady raised her voice enough to be sure sawtell heard the title and shot him a wicked glance as she announced it they hoped to conclude all unfinished business on a mutually satisfactory and profitable basis o k lady thanks tell em we'll call em shortly dark lady flashed away and hilton and temple slammed slowly toward a ladder grattera and everything and everybody on it temple said vigorously and especially drass his royal fatless five-jet admiral gordon how much longer will it take do you think to pound some scents into their pointed little head oh we're not doing too bad hilton assured his lovely bride two or three more sessions ought to do it everything was normal end of epilogue and of masters of space by edward elmer smith and edward everett evans