Chapter 16

STRATEGIC WITHDRAWAL

Since the Galactic Federation claimed authority over all explored off-planet space, and

since InStell still wanted to get rid of the job of policing all that space, GaIFed took the

navy over. (It had a tremendous war-chest, and the financial details of the transaction

are of no importance here.) What had been the Interstellar Patrol was now the Grand

Fleet of the Galactic Federation.

Fleet Admiral Guerdon Dann, being a psiontist, could understand and could work in

subspace. Therefore he could perceive subspace-going vessels before they emerged

into normal space, a feat no non-psionic observer could perform. Thus he perceived a

very large number of vessels so maneuvering in subspace as to emerge in a roughly

globular formation well outside his own globe of warships. He perceived that they were

warcraft and really big stuff-super-dreadnougbts very much like his own-and that there

were four or five hundred of them. That wasn't good; but, since their purpose was

pellucidly clear, he'd have to do something. What could he do? His mind raced.

He wasn't a war admiral-pirates didn't fight in fleets. He didn't know any more about fleet

action in space than a pig did about Sunday. There'd never been any. Missile-killers were

new and had extreme range, and no repulsor except a planet-based super-giant could

stop one after fifteen seconds of flight at 175,000 gravities. However, they carried no

screen, so they'd be duck soup for beams, especially lasers-if they could spot them soon

enough, and he'd have to assume that they could.

Torps had plenty of screen, but they were slow; hence they were duck soup for

repulsors. What he ought to have, dammit, was something with the legs of a killer and

the screens of a torp, and there was nothing like that even on the drawing boards.

Before leybyrdite nothing like that had been possible.

Beams, then? Uh-uh! They'd englobe shipwise, four or five to one. His ships could then

immerge-if they were fast enough-or get whiffed out.

He got into telepathic touch with his officers. "I don't know whether we can do anything to

those boys or not. Probably not. We certainly can't if we let them get close to us-they'll

englobe us four or five to one if we make like heroes, so we won't. Be ready to immerse

when I give the word. Try killers at fifteen seconds range as they emerge and send out

some torps on general principles, but that's all. We're going to execute a strategic

withdrawal-in other words, run like hell."

Computers computed briefly; impressed data upon mechanical brains. Missile-killers and

torpedoes hurtled away. The first strange warship emerged and the first missile-killer

flashed into a raging, space-wracking fireball miles short of objective.

"I was afraid of that," Dann thought on, quietly. "I don't think they'II follow us-I think I

know what they're after-so we'll run. Numbers one to fifty, to Galmetia; fifty one to one

hundred, to Newmars; and everybody, get under an umbrella, just in case they do follow

us."

En route to Galmetia-the flagship Terra was of course Number One-Dann had a long

telepathic conversation with Maynard, and on landing he went straight to GalMet's main

office. Maynard was waiting for him, with a staff of some fifty people. Maynard said:

"You all know that the purpose of the enemy fleet was not specifically to attack our fleet

or our planets, but to break our blockade of Earth. They broke it, and announced that

any planet refusing to resume full trade with Earth would be bombed. So," he shrugged

his shoulders and grimaced wryly, "we give in and it is now business as usual. We have

of course taken the obvious steps; we are beefing up our repulsors and are developing a

laser that will cut an eighty-mile asteroid up into thin slices at half a million miles. We've

also started on your special torp, Guerd, on a crash-pri basis. `TIMPS' is the name:

Torpedo, Improved, Missile-Propelled, Screened. But we haven't been able to do

anything more than guess at the answers to such questions as: Who are they? Where do

they come from? No known planet, of that we are sure. Capital, Communism, Labor, or

what? Hatfield, have you anything to offer?"

The meeting went on for four hours; but beyond the obvious fact that there was a

planet-and not a Johnny-Come-Lately planet, either, but one long-enough established to

have plenty of people, plenty of industry, and plenty of money or its equivalent-the

meeting got nowhere. At adjournment time Maynard flashed Deston a thought to stay

behind, and after the others had gone he said:

"You told me you didn't know anything. I didn't ask you then and I'm not asking you now

what you're figuring on doing about it. But you're going to do something. Correct?"

"Correct. I don't know what anybody can do, but we're going to work on it. They have

leybyrdite; but they almost certainly did not develop it themselves."

"Cancel the `almost'. We've never limited its sale-we can't. Anyone could have bought

any amount of it. Dummy concerns-untraceable-is my guess on that. We know that a lot

of Tellurian capital has always operated on the old grab-everything-in-sight principle, and

everyone knows what Communism does. Either of them could and would run a planet as

that one has obviously been run for many years-in a way that would make the robber

barons of old sick at the stomach. But since it doesn't make sense that Labor has been

doing it ... it almost has to be either Capital or Communism."

"It looks that way." Deston frowned in thought. "But I don't know any sure-fire way of

finding out which, if either . . . so I'd better go get hold of some people to help me think.

'Bye."

Deston did not walk out of the room, but 'ported himself to Barbara's side in the

University office. "Hi, pet," he said, kissing her lightly. "I got troubles. How about busting

in on that squirrel-some foursome that Horse French is in? I want to cry in their beer."

"Uh-uh, let's not bust in; they'll have to come up for air pretty soon. Let's wait 'til they do,

then 'port up there with some lemon sour and Gulka fizz and cherry sloosh and stuff for a

break."

The foursome did and the Destons did and Deston said:

"Well, well, Frenchy old horse, fancy meeting you here!" and four strong hands gripped

and shook hard. This was the Communications Officer to whom Deston had reported the

survival of the liner Procyon so long before. "Nobody ever even suspected you of having

a brain in your head. All beef-nothing but muscle to keep your ears apart, I always

thought."

"Hi, Runt! You? Think? What with? But I'll tell you how it was. So many captains got

married that they couldn't find room for enough desks for 'em all to sit at, so they loaned

me to this here Adams projecton pay, too. Nice of 'em, what?-but you've never met my

wife. Paula, this renegade fugitive from InStell is Babe Deston-the unabashed hero of

subspace, you know."

"I know." The slender, graceful, black-haired, black-eyed girl with the almost theatrical

make-up, who had been watching and listening to this underplayed meeting as intently as

Barbara had, gave him a firm, warm handshake and turned to Barbara. "And you're

Bobby, of course. These men of ours. . . ." She raised one carefully-sculptured eyebrow,

"but toe don't have to insult each other to prove that we're . . ."

"Hey!" Deston broke in then. He had been studying the way Paula walked-he'd never

seen anybody except Barbara move with such perfect, automatic, unconscious

coordination as that "Wha'-d'ya mean, Paula?" he demanded. "She's Angelique de St.

Aubin!"

"In Person, not a tri-di," French bragged. "But Paula's her real name. The only things

about her that are French are the name she married and her professional accent. This

psionics stuff is the only way I could lure her down off of the high wire-she wouldn't come

to ground, even after she got her Mrs. degree, just for the honor and privilege of being

Mrs. Captain Horace French."

"Let's spread this around a little, huh, and give the rest of us a chance." The coltish but

attractive teenager, having gulped the last syrupy bits of a full half liter of cherry sloosh,

came in. "I'm May Eberly. I can't tell you two wonderful people how glad I am that you

started this and let me in-I never dreamed-well, anyway, it's exactly what I was born for.

The others, too. You know what they call us? The Effeff-the Funny Four, no less-but I

don't care. I love it! And this," she waved a hand at the oldster, "is Titus Fleming. He's

got pots of money, so we call him `Tite', but of course he isn't, just the opposite, in fact

he spoils us all rotten, and. .

"Hush, child," Fleming said, with an affectionate smile. Then, to Deston, "May has an

extraordinarily brilliant and agile mind, but she is inclined to natter too much."

"Well, why not?" the youngster demanded, engagingly. When we're en rapport I don't

talk at all, so I have to make up for it sometime, don't I? And Mr. Deston -no, I think I'll

call you `Babe', too. Okay?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Horse, there-I never heard him called that before, but I like it-says if everybody's

forbearing enough to let me keep on living long enough to grow up, which will surprise

him a megabuck's worth, I'll be a gorgeous hunk of woman some day." She executed a

rather awkward pirouette. "I can't do this anywhere near like Paula does yet, but I'm

going to sometime, just see if I don't."

"I'd hate to bet one buck against Horse's megabuck that you won't." Deston agreed. The

girl was certainly under fourteen, but the promise was there. Unmistakably there. "Or

that you won't live to break a hundred, either.

"Oh, thanks, Babe. Oh, I just can't wait! I'm going to be a femme fatale, you know-all

slinky and everything-but you prob'ly didn't come all the way out here just to chatter-I

think Tite's word `natter' is cute, don't you?-so maybe before Horse bats my ears down

again I'd better keep still awhile. S'pose?"

"Could be-we're in a jam," Deston said, and told them what the jam was. "So you see, to

get anywhere at all, we've got to do some really intensive spying, and the only way to do

that is to learn how to read non-psionic minds, and the poop is that if anybody in total

space can deliver the goods on that order, you four are most apt to be the ones."

"Oh?" May exclaimed. "That's a really funny one, Babe-we must really be psychic. . . ."

She broke off with a giggle as the others began to laugh. "No, I mean really-much more

so even than we thought-because that's exactly what we've just been working on-not to

be just snoopy stinkers, either-or stinky snoopers?-but just to find out why nobody could

ever do it before we aren't very good at it yet, but it goes like this-no, let's all link up and

we'll show you. Oh, this is going to really be fun!"

The four linked up and went to work, and the Destons tuned themselves in; very slowly at

first; more as observers than as active participants in the investigation. The subject this

time was a middle-echelon executive, the traffic manager of one division of far-flung War-

ner Oil. He was a keen-looking young man, sharp-featured, with a very good head for

figures. His king-size desk was littered with schedules, rate-books, and revision sheets.

From time to time his fingertips flicked rapidly by touch over the keys of a desk-type

computer.

The four were getting a flash of coherent thought once in a while, but that was all.

The Destons watched, studied, analyzed, and compared notes until their fusion finally

said, in thought, "Okay, Effeff, come up for air and take a break. Time out for

discussion." They emerged as individuals and Deston said, "You aren't making contact

and I think I know why. Horse, do either you or Paula know consciously that you're trying

to work the Fourth Nume?"

"My Cod, no," Paula said. "We were exposed to that stuff a long time ago, but it didn't

take."

"You weren't ready, so Doc wouldn't have tried to give it to you, so who did?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton."

"They would," Barbara said then. "Fortunately, they've learned better now."

"But you two can give it to us."

"We could make a stab at it, but we'd rather not. We need more practice. We'll call

Adams and Stella and watch."

The Adamses came in, and wrought; and this time, since the pupils were ready, the

lesson "took."

"Now we'll git 'im!" May exclaimed. "Come on, what's holding us up?"

"I am," Deston said. "Don't go off half-cocked; we've got a lot to do yet. Before anyone

can do a job he has to know exactly what the job is and exactly how to do it, and we

don't know either one. So let's examine your four-ply entity-the tools you're using. There's

no three-dimensional analogy, but we can call Horace and Paula an engine, with two vital

parts missing-the spark-plug and the flywheel. . . ."

"But I want to learn that fourth-nume stuff now!" May declared. She was, as usual, 'way

out ahead. "I don't want to wait until I'm old and decrepit and . . .

"Tut-tut, youngsters." Fleming reached out and put his hand lightly over the girl's mouth.

"That attitude is precisely what makes you the spark-plug; but if you and I had the

abilities we lack instead of the ones we have, neither of us would be in this particular

engine at all." "That's right," Deston said. "Now as to what this engine does. Postulating a

two-dimensional creature, you could pile a million of him up and still have no thickness at

all. Similarly, no three-dimensional material body can be compressed to zero thickness.

The analogy holds in three and four dimensions. However, there are discontinuities,

incompatibilities, and sheer logical impossibilities. Hence, ordinarily, a four-dimensional

mind, which all psionic minds are, cannot engage any three-dimensional, non-psionic mind

at all. All possible points of contact are of zero dimensions......

"But wait up, Babe," French broke in. "We can see three dimensional objects, so why

can't we . . ."

"We can't really see 'em," Deston said, flatly. "We can see what and where they are, but

they're absolutely immaterial to us. So forces, already immaterial, become imperceptible.

Clear?"   " As mud," French said, dubiously. "There's a .

Paula broke in. "I see! The Fourth-they just showed us-remember?

Manipulate-immaterial . . . non-space-non-time?"

"Oh, sure." French's face cleared. "What we were doing, Babe, was blundering around in

the Fourth, making a contact once in a blue moon by luck?"

That's about it. Now, another analogy. Consider transformation of coordinates-polar into

Cartesian, three-dimensional into two-dimensional, and so on. What a competent

operator in the Fourth actually does is manipulate non-space-non-time attributes in such

a way as to construct a matrix that is both three- and four-dimensional. Analogous to

light-particle and/or wave. You follow?"

"Perfectly," the Frenches said in unison. "Four on our side, three on the non-psi's side,

with perfect coupling."

"You lost May and me there," Fleming said. "However, you would, of course . . . but I

understand much better now why we four work together so well. I'll venture an

analogy-poor, perhaps-May scouts out ahead, in a million directions at once. I follow

behind, sometimes pushing and sometimes putting on the brakes."

"And steering the sled!" May exclaimed. "I see, now, too-that's the way it works!"

"Close enough," Deston said. "Now. Thought patterns are as individual as fingerprints or

the shape of one snowflake or one instantaneous pattern in a kaleidoscope. What two

telepaths do is not tune one mind to the other. Instead, each one of a very large number

of filaments of thought-all under control, remember-touches its opposite number, thus

setting up a pattern that has never existed before and will never exist again. . . ."

"I get it!" French exclaimed. "Reading a non-psi's mind will be a strictly one-way street.

Well have to go through the matrix-which doesn't exist in telepathy -and match whatever

pattern we find on the other side -which won't change."

"That's right-we hope! Now you can go."

They went; and this time the traffic-manager's mind was wider open to inspection than

any book could possibly be. To be comparable, every page of such a book would have

to be placed in perfect position to read and all at once!

Paula stood it for something over one second, then broke the linkage with what was

almost a scream. "Stop it!"

She drew a deep breath and went on, more quietly, "I'm glad it's you who will have to do

that, Babe, not I. That was a worse thing than anything a Peeping Tom could ever do.

It's shameful-monstrous-it's positively obscene to do a thing like that to anyone, for any

reason."

"Why, Paula, that was fun!" May exclaimed.

"But Babe," Paula said, "that was nothing like telepathy ... but of course if wouldn't be."

"Of course. In telepathy the exchange of information is voluntary and selective. This way,

the poor devil doesn't stand a chance. He doesn't even know it's happening."

Paula frowned. " `Poor devil' is the exactly correct choice of words. Are you going to

have to use us like that on the other poor devils you are going to . . . I can't think of a

word bad enough."

"No. I just tried it. I can do it alone now, perfectly. But that's the way it is; opening new

cells and learning new techniques. I had the latent capabilities. You others did, too."

"I can, but if you think I ever will you're completely out of your mind," Barbara declared,

and Paula agreed vigorously.

But I want to and I can't/" May wailed. "Why oh why can't I grow up faster!"

"We don't want you to grow up at all, sweetie," French said. "We don't want to lose our

spark-plug. Ever think of that angle?"

"Babe, will I really have to leave this Funny Four then?"

"You'll not only have to, you'll want to," Deston replied, soberly. "That is one of the

immutable facts of life."

"Okay, this is lots more fun than being old would be, anyway. What'll we try next, Paula?"

"I'd like to go back up into the Fourth Nume and really explore it-turn it inside out-that is,

if there's nothing more important at the moment?" Paula quirked an eyebrow at Deston.

There was not. Goodbyes were said, and promises were made to meet soon and often,

and the Destons 'ported themselves away.

Maynard called a special meeting of the Board to order and said, "Since you all know

what the Tellurian situation is, politically and otherwise, I won't go into it. It seems to

some of us, however, that this recent disaster may not be a disaster at all; that, if we

play our cards properly, we may be able to secure much better results than if our

blockade of Tellus had succeeded.

"With all threat of nuclear warfare removed, WestHem's so-called defense spending will

stop; in fact, much of it has already stopped. Ordinarily, this would not he a blessing,

since business would slump into a rapidly accelerating downward spiral. A bad

recession, or even a severe panic, would follow. Any such result could be avoided, of

course, if WestHem's government would cut taxes in the full amount of defense spending;

hut has any one of you an imagination sufficiently elastic to encompass the idea of that

government giving up half its income and firing that many hundreds of thousands of

political hangers-on?"

There was a burst of scornful laughter.

"Mine isn't, either. As you know, defense stocks are already plummeting. They are

dropping the limit every day. Due to public panic, they will continue to drop to a point

below-in some cases to a point much below the actual value of the properties. I propose

that we start buying before that point is reached. Not enough to support the market, of

course; just enough to control it at whatever rate of decline the specialists will compute

as being certain to result in our gaining control.

"Having gained control of the largest-excuse me, I'm getting ahead of myself. I assure

you that this program is financially feasible. I am authorized to say that in addition to

GalBank, whose statements you all get, Deston and Deston, Warner Oil, Interstellar, and

Galactic Metals will all put their treasuries behind this project." There was a burst of

applause.

"Since we are very large holders of these stocks already, there is no doubt that we can

obtain control. We will then re-hire all the personnel who have been laid off and convert

to the production of luxury goods, preferably of the more expensive and less durable

types. We will finance the purchase of these goods ourselves . . ."

This time, they clapped and whistled and stamped their feet.

. . . and put on a massive advertising campaign for such basic spending as

modernization, new housing, and so on. All of this, however, will be secondary to our

main purpose. None of you have realized as yet that this is the first chance we have ever

had of forming a political party and actually electing a government of WestHem that will

govern it......

There was a storm of applause that lasted for five minutes. Then Maynard went on:

"The Board seems to be in favor of such action. Mr. Stevens Spehn, who has clone a

great deal of work on the political aspects of this idea, will now take the floor."