The Secret Sense

      The lilting strains of a Strauss waltz filled the room. The music waxed and waned beneath the sensitive fingers of Lincoln Fields, and through half-closed eyes he could almost see whirling figures pirouetting about the waxed floor of some luxurious salon.

            Music always affected him that way. It filled his mind with dreams of sheer beauty and transformed his room into a paradise of sound. His hands flickered over the piano in the last delicious combinations of tones and then slowed reluctantly to a halt.

            He sighed and for a moment remained absolutely silent as if trying to extract the last essence of beauty from the dying echoes. Then he turned and smiled faintly at the other occupant of the room.

            Garth Jan smiled in turn but said nothing. Garth had a great liking for Lincoln Fields, though little understanding. They were worlds apart-literally-for Garth hailed from the giant underground cities of Mars while Fields was the product of sprawling Terrestrial New York.

            “How was that. Garth, old fellow?” questioned Fields doubtfully.

            Garth shook his head. He spoke in his precise, painstaking manner, “I listened attentively and can truly say that it was not unpleasant. There is a certain rhythm, a cadence of sorts, which, indeed, is rather soothing. But beautiful? No!”

            There was pity in Fields’ eyes-pity almost painful in its intensity. The Martian met the gaze and understood all that it meant, yet there was no answering spark of envy. His bony giant figure remained doubled up in a chair that was too small for him and one thin leg swung leisurely back and forth.

            Fields lunged out of his seat impetuously and grasped his companion by the arm. “Here! Seat yourself on the bench.”

            Garth obeyed genially. “I see you want to carry out some little experiment.”

            “You’ve guessed it. I’ve read scientific works which tried to explain all about the difference in sense-equipment between Earthman and Martian, but I never could quite grasp it all.”

            He tapped the notes C and F in a single octave and glanced at the Martian inquiringly.

            “If there’s a difference,” said Garth doubtfully, “it’s a very slight one. If I were listening casually, I would certainly say you had hit the same note twice.”

            The Earthman marvelled. “How’s this?” He tapped C and G.

            “I can hear the difference this time.”

            “Well, I suppose all they say about your people is true. You poor fellows-to have such a crude sense of bearing. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

            The Martian shrugged his shoulders fatalistically. “One misses nothing that one has never possessed.”

            Garth Jan broke the short silence that followed. “Do you realize that this period of history is the first in which two intelligent races have been able to communicate with each other? The comparison of sense equipment is highly interesting-and rather broadens one’s views on life.”

            “That’s right,” agreed the Earthman, “though we seem to have all the advantage of the comparison. You know a Terrestrial biologist stated last month that he was amazed that a race so poorly equipped in the matter of sense-perception could develop so high a civilization as yours.”

            “All is relative, Lincoln. What we have is sufficient for us.”

            Fields felt a growing frustration within him. “But if you only knew, Garth, if you only knew what you were missing.

            “You’ve never seen the beauties of a sunset or of dancing fields of flowers. You can’t admire the blue of the sky, the green of the grass, the yellow of ripe corn. To you the world consists of shades of dark and light.” He shuddered at the thought “You can’t smell a flower or appreciate its delicate perfume. You can’t even enjoy such a simple thing as a good, hearty meal. You can’t taste nor smell nor see color. I pity you for your drab world.”

            “What you say is meaningless, Lincoln. Waste no pity on me, for I am as happy as you.” He rose and reached for his cane-necessary in the greater gravitational field of Earth.

            “You must not judge us with such easy superiority, you know.” That seemed to be the galling aspect of the matter. “We do not boast of certain accomplishments of our race of which you know nothing.”

            And then, as if heartily regretting his words, a wry grimace overspread his face, and he started for the door.

            Fields sat puzzled and thoughtful for a moment, then jumped up and ran after the Martian, who was stumping his way towards the exit. He gripped Garth by the shoulder and insisted that he return.

            “What did you mean by that last remark?”

            The Martian turned his face away as if unable to face his questioner. “Forget it, Lincoln. That was just a moment of indiscretion when your unsolicited pity got on my nerves.”

            Fields gave him a sharp glance. “It’s true, isn’t it? It’s logical that Martians possess senses Earthmen do not, but it passes the bounds of reason that your people should want to keep it secret.”

            “That is as it may be. But now that you’ve found me out through my own utter stupidity, you will perhaps agree to let it go no further?”

            “Of course! I’ll be as secret as the grave, though I’m darned if I can make anything of it. Tell me, of what nature is this secret sense of yours?”

            Garth Jan shrugged listlessly. “How can I explain? Can you define color to me, who cannot even conceive it?”

            “I’m not asking for a definition. Tell me its uses. Please,” he gripped the other’s shoulder, “you might as well. I have given my promise of secrecy.”

            The Martian sighed heavily. “It won’t do you much good. Would it satisfy you to know that if you were to show me two containers, each filled with a clear liquid, I could tell you at once whether either of the two were poisonous? Or, if you were to show me a copper wire, I could tell instantly whether an electric current were passing through it, even if it were as little as a thousandth of an ampere? Or I could tell you the temperature of any substance within three degrees of the true value even if you held it as much as five yards away? Or I could-well, I’ve said enough.”

            “Is that all?” demanded Fields, with a disappointed cry.

            “What more do you wish?”

            “All you’ve described is very useful-but where is the beauty in it? Has this strange sense of yours no value to the spirit as well as to the body?”

            Garth Jan made an impatient movement. “Really, Lincoln, you talk foolishly. I have given you only that for which you asked-the uses I put this sense to. I certainly didn’t attempt to explain its nature. Take your color sense. As far as I can see its only use is in making certain fine distinctions which I cannot. You can identify certain chemical solutions, for instance, by something you call color when I would be forced to run a chemical analysis. Where’s the beauty in that?”

            Fields opened his mouth to speak but the Martian motioned him testily into silence. “I know. You’re going to babble foolishness about sunsets or something. But what do you know of beauty? Have you ever known what it was to witness the beauty of the naked copper wires when an AC current is turned on? Have you sensed the delicate loveliness of induced currents set up in a solenoid when a magnet is passed through it? Have you ever attended a Martian portwem?”

            Garth Jan’s eyes had grown misty with the thoughts he was conjuring up, and Fields stared in utter amazement. The shoe was on the other foot now and his sense of superiority left him of a sudden.

            “Every race has its own attributes,” he mumbled with a fatalism that had just a trace of hypocrisy in it, “but I ‘see no reason why you should keep it such a blasted secret. We Earthmen have kept no secrets from your race.”

            “Don’t accuse us of ingratitude,” cried Garth Jan vehemently. According to the Martian code of ethics, ingratitude was the supreme vice, and at the insinuation of that Garth’s caution left him. “We never act without reason, we Martians. And certainly it is not for our own sake that we hide this magnificent ability.”

            The Earthman smiled mockingly. He was on the trail of something-he felt it in his bones-and the only way to get it out was to tease it out.

            “No doubt there is some nobility behind it all. It is a strange attribute of your race that you can always find some altruistic motive for your actions.”

            Garth Jan bit his lip angrily. “You have no right to say that.” For a moment he thought of pleading worry over Fields’ future peace of mind as a reason for silence, but the latter’s mocking reference to “altruism” had rendered that impossible. A feeling of anger crept over him gradually and that forced him to his decision.

            There was no mistaking the note of frigid unfriendliness that entered his voice. “I’ll explain by analogy.” The Martian stared straight ahead of him as he spoke, eyes half-closed.

            “You have told me that I live in a world that is composed merely of shades of light and dark. You try to describe a world of your own composed of infinite variety and beauty. I listen but care little concerning it. I have never known it and never can know it. One does not weep over the loss of what one has never owned.

            “But-what if you were able to give me the ability to see color for five minutes? What if, for five minutes, I reveled in wonders undreamed of? What if, after those five minutes, I have to return it forever? Would those five minutes of paradise be worth a lifetime of regret afterwards-a lifetime of dissatisfaction because of my own shortcomings? Would it not have been the kinder act never to have told me of color in the first place and so have removed its ever-present temptation?”

            Fields had risen to his feet during the last part of the Martian’s speech and his eyes opened wide in a wild surmise. “Do you mean an Earthman could possess the Martian sense if so desired?”

            “For five minutes in a lifetime,” Garth Jan’s eyes grew dreamy, “and in those five minutes sense-”

            He came to a confused halt and glared angrily at his companion, “You know more than is good for you. See that you don’t forget your promise.”

            He rose hastily and hobbled away as quickly as he could, leaning heavily upon the cane. Lincoln Fields made no move to stop him. He merely sat there and thought.

            The great height of the cavern shrouded the roof in misty obscurity in which, at fixed intervals, there floated luminescent globes of radite. The air, heated by this subterranean volcanic stratum, wafted past gently. Before Lincoln Fields stretched the wide, paved avenue of the principal city of Mars, fading away into the distance.

            He clumped awkwardly up to the entrance of the home of Garth Jan, the six-inch-thick layer of lead attached to each shoe a nuisance unending. Though it was still better than the uncontrollable bounding Earth muscles brought about in this lighter gravity.

            The Martian was surprised to see his friend of six months ago but not altogether joyful. Fields was not slow to notice this but he merely smiled to himself. The opening formalities passed, the conventional remarks were made, and the two seated themselves.

            Fields crushed the cigarette in the ash-tray and sat upright suddenly serious. “I’ve come to ask for those five minutes you claim you can give me! May I have them?”

            “Is that a rhetorical question? It certainly doesn’t seem to require an answer.” Garth’s tone was openly contemptuous.

            The Earthman considered the other thoughtfully. “Do you mind if I outline my position in a few words?”

            The Martin smiled indifferently. “It won’t make any difference,” he said.

            “I’ll take my chance on that. The situation is this: I’ve been bom and reared in the lap of luxury and have been most disgustingly spoiled. I’ve never yet had a reasonable desire that I have not been able to fulfill, and I don’t know what it means not to get what I want. Do you see?”

            There was no answer and he continued, “I have found my happiness in beautiful sights, beautiful words, and beautiful sounds. I have made a cult of beauty. In a word, I am an aesthete.”

            “Most interesting,” the Martian’s stony expression did not change a whit, “but what bearing has all this on the problem at hand?”

            “Just this: You speak of a new form of beauty-a form unknown to me at present and entirely inconceivable even, but one which could be known if you so wished. The notion attracts me. It more than attracts me-it makes its demands of me. Again I remind you that when a notion begins to make demands of me, I yield-I always have.”

            “You are not the master in this case,” reminded Garth Jan. “It is crude of me to remind you of this, but you cannot force me, you know. Your words, in fact, are almost offensive in their implications.”

            “I am glad you said that, for it allows me to be crude in my turn without offending my conscience.”

            Garth Jan’s only reply to this was a self-confident grimace.

            “I make my demand of you,” said Fields, slowly, “in the name of gratitude.”

            “Gratitude?” the Martian started violently.

            Fields grinned broadly, “It’s an appeal no honorable Martian can refuse-by your own ethics. You owe me gratitude, now, because it was through me you gained entrance into the houses of the greatest and most honorable men of Earth.”

            “I know that,” Garth Jan flushed angrily. “You are impolite to remind me of it.”

            “I have no choice. You acknowledged the gratitude you owe me in actual words, back on Earth. I demand the chance to possess this mysterious sense you keep so secret-in the name of this acknowledged gratitude. Can you refuse now?”

            “You know I can’t,” was the gloomy response. “I hesitated only for your own sake.”

            The Martian rose and held out his hand gravely, “You have me by the neck, Lincoln. It is done. Afterwards, though, I owe you nothing more. This will pay my debt of gratitude. Agreed?”

            “Agreed!” The two shook hands and Lincoln Fields continued in an entirely different tone. “We’re still friends, though, aren’t we? This little altercation won’t spoil things?”

            “I hope not. Come! Join me at the evening meal and we can discuss the time and place of your-er-five minutes.”

            Lincoln Fields tried hard to down the faint nervousness that filled him as he waited in Garth Jan’s private “concert”-room. He felt a sudden desire to laugh as the thought came to him that he felt exactly as he usually did in a dentist’s waiting room.

            He lit his tenth cigarette, puffed twice and threw it away, “You’re doing this very elaborately, Garth.”

            The Martian shrugged, “You have only five minutes so I might as well see to it that they are put to the best possible use. You’re going to ‘hear’ part of a portwem, which is to our sense what a great symphony (is that the word?) is to sound.”

            “Have we much longer to wait? The suspense, to be trite, is terrible.”

            “We’re waiting for Novi Lon, who is to play the portwem, and for Done Vol. my private physician. They’ll be along soon.”

            Fields wandered onto the low dais that occupied the center of the room and regarded the intricate mechanism thereupon with curious interest. The fore-part was encased in gleaming aluminum leaving exposed only seven tiers of shining black knobs above and five large white pedals below. Behind, however, it lay open, and within there ran crossings and recrossings of finer wires in incredibly complicated paths.

            “A curious thing, this,” remarked the Earthman.

            The Martian joined him on the dais, “It’s an expensive instrument. It cost me ten thousand Martian credits.”

            “How does it work?”

            “Not so differently from a Terrestrial piano. Each of the upper knobs controls a different electric circuit. Singly and together an expert portwem player could, by manipulating the knobs, form any conceivable pattern of electric current. The pedals below control the strength of the current.”

            Fields nodded absently and ran his fingers over the knobs at random. Idly, he noticed the small galvanometer located just above the keys kick violently each time he depressed a knob. Aside from that, he sensed nothing.

            “Is the instrument really playing?”

            The Martian smiled, “Yes, it is. And a set of unbelievably atrocious discords too.”

            He took a seat before the instrument and with a murmured “Here’s howl” his fingers skimmed rapidly and accurately over the gleaming buttons.

            The sound of a reedy Martian voice crying out in strident accents broke in upon him, and Garth Jan ceased in sudden embarrassment. “This is Novi Lon,” he said hastily to Fields, “As usual, he does not like my playing.”

            Fields rose to meet the newcomer. He was bent of shoulder and evidently of great age. A fine tracing of wrinkles, especially about eyes and mouth, covered his face.

            “So this is the young Earthman,” he cried, in strongly-accented English. “I disapprove your rashness but sympathize with your desire to attend a portwem. It is a great pity you can own our sense for no more than five minutes. Without it no one can truly be said to live.”

            Garth Jan laughed, “He exaggerates, Lincoln. He’s one of the greatest musicians of Mars, and thinks anyone doomed to damnation who would not rather attend a portwem than breathe.” He hugged the older man warmly, “He was my teacher in my youth and many were the long hours in which he struggled to teach me the proper combination of circuits.”

            “And I have failed after all, you dunce,” snapped the old Martian. “I heard your attempt at playing as I entered. You still have not learned the proper fortgass combination. You were desecrating the soul of the great Bar Damn. My pupil! Bah! It is a disgrace!”

            The entrance of the third Martian, Done Vol, prevented Novi Lon from continuing his tirade. Garth, glad of the reprieve, approached the physician hastily.

            “Is all ready?”

            “Yes,” growled Vol surlily, “and a particularly uninteresting experiment this will be. We know all the results beforehand.” His eyes fell upon the Earthman, whom he eyed contemptuously. “Is this the one who wishes to be inoculated?”

            Lincoln Fields nodded eagerly and felt his throat and mouth go dry suddenly. He eyed the newcomer uncertainly and felt uneasy at the sight of a tiny bottle of clear liquid and a hypodermic which the physician had extracted from a case he was carrying.

            “What are you going to do?” he demanded.

            “He’ll merely inoculate you. It’ll take a second,” Garth Jan assured him. “You see, the sense-organs in this case are several groups of cells in the cortex of the brain. They are activated by a hormone, a synthetic preparation of which is used to stimulate the dormant cells of the occasional Martian who is born-er-’blind.’ You’ll receive the same treatment.”

            “Oh!-then Earthmen possess those cortex cells?”

            “In a very rudimentary state. The concentrated hormone will activate them, but only for five minutes. After that time, they are literally blown out as a result of their unwonted activity. After that, they can’t be re-activated under any circumstances.”

            Done Vol completed his last-minute preparations and approached Fields. Without a word. Fields extended his right arm and the hypodermic plunged in.

            With the operation completed, the Terrestrial waited a moment or two and then essayed a shaky laugh, “I don’t feel any change.”

            “You won’t for about ten minutes,” explained Garth. -”It takes time. Just sit back and relax. Novi Lon has begun Bar Damn’s ‘Canals in the Desert’-it is my favorite-and when the hormone begins its work you will find yourself in the middle of things.”

            Now that the die was cast irrevocably. Fields found himself stonily calm. Novi Lon played furiously, and Garth Jan, at the Earthman’s right, was already lost in the composition. Even Done Vol, the fussy doctor, had forgotten his peevishness for the nonce.

            Fields snickered under his breath. The Martians listened attentively but to him the room was devoid of sound and- almost-of all other sensation as well. What-no, it was impossible, of course-but what if it were just an elaborate practical joke? He stirred uneasily and put the thought from his mind angrily.

            The minutes passed; Novi Lon’s fingers flew; Garth Jan’s expression was one of unfeigned delight.

            Then Lincoln Fields blinked his eyes rapidly. For a moment a nimbus of color seemed to surround the musician and his instrument. He couldn’t identify it-but it was there. It grew and spread until the room was full of it. Other hues came to join it and still others. They wove and wavered; expanding and contracting; changing with lightning speed and yet staying the same. Intricate patterns of brilliant tints formed and faded, beating in silent bursts of color upon the young man’s eyeballs.

            Simultaneously, there came the impression of sound. From a whisper it rose into a glorious, ringing shout that wavered up and down the scale in quivering tremolos. He seemed to hear every instrument from fife to bass viol simultaneously, and yet, paradoxically, each rang in his ear in solitary clearness.

            And together with this, there came the more subtle sensation of odor. From a suspicion, a mere trace, it waxed into a phantasmal field of flowers. Delicate spicy scents followed each other in ever stronger succession; in gentle wafts of pleasure.

            Yet all this was nothing. Fields knew that. Somehow, he knew that what he saw, heard, and smelt were mere delusions -mirages of a brain that frantically attempted to interpret an entirely new conception in the old, familiar ways.

            Gradually, the colors and the sounds and the scents died. His brain was beginning to realize that that which beat upon it was something hitherto unexperienced. The effect of the hormone became stronger, and suddenly-in one burst-Fields realized what it was he sensed.

            He didn’t see it-nor hear it-nor smell it-nor taste it- nor feel it. He knew what it was but he couldn’t think of the word for it. Slowly, he realized that there wasn’t any word for it. Even more slowly, he realized that there wasn’t even any concept for it.

            Yet he knew what it was.

            There beat upon his brain something that consisted of pure waves of enjoyment-something that lifted him out of himself and pitched him headlong into a universe unknown to him earlier. He was falling through an endless eternity of- something. It wasn’t sound or sight but it was-something. Something that enfolded him and hid his surroundings from him-that’s what it was. It was endless and infinite in its variety, and with each crashing wave, he glimpsed a farther horizon, and the wonderful cloak of sensation became thicker-and softer-and more beautiful.

            Then came the discord. Like a little crack at first-marring a perfect beauty. Then spreading and branching and growing wider, until, finally, if split apart thunderously-though without a sound.

            Lincoln Fields, dazed and bewildered, found himself back in the concert room again.

            He lurched to his feet and grasped Garth Jan by the arm violently, “Garth! Why did he stop? Tell him to continue! Tell him!”

            Garth Jan’s startled expression faded into pity, “He is still playing, Lincoln.”

            The Earthman’s befuddled stare showed no signs of understanding. He gazed about him with unseeing eyes. Novi Lon’s fingers sped across the keyboard as nimbly as ever; the expression on his face was as rapt as ever. Slowly, the truth seeped in, and the Earthman’s empty eyes filled with horror.

            He sat down, uttering one hoarse cry, and buried his head in his hands.

            The five minutes had passed! There could be no return!

            Garth Jan was smiling-a smile of dreadful malice, “I had pitied you just a moment ago, Lincoln, but now I’m glad- glad! You forced this out of me-you made me do this. I hope you’re satisfied, because I certainly am. For the rest of your life,” his voice sank to a sibilant whisper, “you’ll remember these five minutes and know what it is you’re missing-what it is you can never have again. You are blind, Lincoln-blind!”

            The Earthman raised a haggard face and grinned, but it was no more than a horrible baring of the teeth. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to maintain an air of composure.

            He did not trust himself to speak. With wavering step, he marched out of the room, head held high to the end.

            And within, that tiny, bitter voice, repeating over and over again, “You entered a normal man! You leave blind-blind- BLIND.”

THE END

      In June I had graduated from Columbia and obtained my bachelor of science degree. So far, so good. However, my second round of attempts to enter medical school had failed, as the first had. To be sure, I hadn’t really been anxious to go to medical school and I had tried only halfheartedly, but it still left me at loose ends. .

            What did I do now? I did not wish to look for some nondescript job, even if these were to be found, so I had to continue with my schooling. I had been majoring in chemistry, so, failing medical school, the natural next step was to go for my degree of doctor of philosophy in that field.

            The first question was whether I would be able to swing this financially. (It would have been the first question, even more so, if I had gotten into medical school.) College itself had been touch and go all four years, and my small writing income of about $200 during my senior year had been a considerable help.

            Naturally, I would have to continue writing and, just as naturally, my depression made it very difficult to write. I managed one story during that summer; it was called “Life Before Birth.”

            “Life Before Birth” was my first attempt at anything other than science fiction. It was in the allied field of fantasy (as imaginative as science fiction, but without the restriction of requiring scientific plausibility).

            The reason for my attempting fantasy was that at the beginning of 1939, Street & Smith began the publication of a new magazine, Unknown, of which Campbell was editor.

            Unknown caught my fancy at once. It featured stories of what are now called “adult fantasy,” and the writing seemed to my nineteen-year-old self to be even more advanced and literate than that in Astounding. Of course I wanted desperately to place a story in this new and wonderful magazine.

            “Life Before Birth” was an attempt in this direction, but aside from the mere fact that it was a fantasy, I remember nothing more about it. It was submitted to Campbell on July 11 and was back in my hands on the nineteenth. It never placed anywhere and no longer exists.

            August was even worse. All Europe rang with the hideous possibility of war, and on September 1, World War II began with the German Invasion of Poland. I could do nothing during the crisis but listen to the radio. It was not till September 11 that I could settle down long enough to start another story, “The Brothers.”

            “The Brothers” was science fiction, and all I remember is that it was about two brothers, a good one and an evil one, and a scientific invention that one or the other was constructing. On October 5 I submitted it to Campbell, and on October 11 it was rejected. It, too, never placed and no longer exists.

            So the summer had passed fruitlessly and now I had to face another problem. Columbia University was not in the least anxious to take me on as a graduate student. They felt I was going to use the position as a mere way of marking time till I could try once more to get into medical school.

            I swore that this was not so, but my position was vulnerable because as a premedical student I had not been required to take a course in physical chemistry and had therefore not done so. Physical chemistry was, however, required for graduate work in chemistry.

            I persisted, and finally the admissions board made the following suggestion: I would have to take a full year’s selection of graduate courses, and, at the same time, I would have to take physical chemistry and get at least a B in that. If I failed to get the B, I was out on my ear and my tuition money would, of course, not be refunded.

            One of the members of the board told me, some years later, that I was offered this in the belief that I would not accept a set of terms so loaded against me. However, since I had never had trouble with passing courses, it never occurred to me that a set of requirements that merely asked that I achieve certain grades, was loaded against me.

            I agreed, and when at the end of the first semester there were only three A’s in physical chemistry out of a class of sixty, and I was one of them, the probation was lifted.

            By December I had gotten deeply enough into my course work to be quite certain I would fulfill all grade requirements. The only uncertainty remaining was financial. I had to get back to writing.

            On December 21 I began “Homo Sol” and completed it on January 1, 1940, the day before my twentieth birthday. I submitted it on January 4, and on that day, in Campbell’s office, I met Theodore Sturgeon and L. Ron Hubbard, two established members of Campbell’s stable of writers. (Hubbard has since then become world famous, in a fashion, as the originator of the cults of Dianetics and Scientology.)

            There is no sign in my diary of any discouragement, but after a year and a half of assiduous efforts, I had failed to sell Campbell more than one story out of the eighteen I had by then written. He had rejected eight stories before buying “Trends,” and he had rejected seven stories since. (Two stories, which I sold elsewhere, he never saw and had no chance to reject. Had he seen them he would certainly have rejected them.)

            One factor in the lack of discouragement was Campbell’s unfailing interest. As long as he didn’t get tired reading my stories and advising me about them so kindly, why should I get tired writing them? Then, too, my occasional sales to magazines other than Astounding (there had been six by then) and, especially, the opening up of a new and sympathetic market in the form of Pohl’s magazines, helped keep my spirits up.

            For “Homo Sol,” my nineteenth story, there was no outright rejection. Again, Campbell asked for revisions. I had to revise it twice, but it was not to be another “Black Friar of the Flame.” The second revision was satisfactory, and on April 17, 1940, I received my second check from Campbell (and, by that time, my seventh check, all told). What’s more, it was for seventy-two dollars, the story being 7,200 words long, and was the largest check I had ever received for a story up to that time.

            Oddly enough, the clearest thing I remember about that check is an incident that took place that evening in my father’s candy store, where I still worked every day and where I was to continue working for two more years. A customer took offense at my neglecting to say “Thank you” after his purchase-a crime I frequently committed because, very often, I was working without conscious attention but was concentrating deeply on the plot permutations that were sounding hollowly within the cavern of my skull.

            The customer decided to scold me for my obvious inattention and apparent lack of industry. “My son,” he said, “made fifty dollars through hard work last week. What do you do to earn a living?”

            “I write,” I said, “and I got this for a story today,” and I held up the check for him to see.

            It was a very satisfactory moment.

Homo Sol

      The seven thousand and fifty-fourth session of the Galactic Congress sat in solemn conclave in the vast semicircular hall on Eon, second planet of Arcturus.

            Slowly, the president delegate rose to his feet. His broad Arcturian countenance flushed slightly with excitement as he surveyed the surrounding delegates. His sense of the dramatic caused him to pause a moment or so before making the official announcement-for, after all, the entrance of a new planetary system into the great Galactic family is not a thing likely to happen twice in any one man’s lifetime.

            A dead silence prevailed during that pause. The two hundred and eighty-eight delegates-one from each of the two hundred and eighty-eight oxygen-atmosphere, water-chemistry worlds of the System-waited patiently for him to speak.

            Beings of every manlike type and shape were there. Some were tall and pole-like, some broad and burly, some short and stumpy. There were those with long, wiry hair, those with scanty gray fuzz covering head and face, others with thick, blond curls piled high, and still others entirely bald. Some possessed long, hair-covered trumpets of ears, others had tympanum membranes flush with their temples. There were those present with large gazelle-like eyes of a deep-purple luminosity, others with tiny optics of a beady black. There was a delegate with green skin, one with an eight-inch proboscis and one with a vestigial tail Internally, variation was almost infinite.

            But all were alike in two things.

            They were all Humanoid. They all possessed intelligence.

            The president delegate’s voice boomed out then: “Delegates! The system of Sol has discovered the secret of interstellar travel and by that act becomes eligible for entrance into the Galactic Federation.”

            A storm of approving shouts arose from those present and the Arcturian raised a hand for silence.

            “I have here,” he continued, “the official report from Alpha Centauri, on whose fifth planet the Humanoids of Sol have landed. The report is entirely satisfactory and so the ban upon travel into and communication with the Solarian System is lifted. Sol is free, and open to the ships of the Federation. Even now, there is in preparation an expedition to Sol, under the leadership of Joselin Arn of Alpha Centauri, to tender that System the formal invitation into the Federation.”

            He paused, and from two hundred and eighty-eight throats came the stentorian shout: “Hail, Homo Sol! Hail, Homo Sol! Hail!

      It was the traditional welcome of the Federation for all new worlds.

            Tan Porus raised himself to his full height of five feet two -he was tall for a Rigellian-and his sharp, green eyes snapped with annoyance.

            “There it is, Lo-fan. For six months that damned freak squid from Beta Draconis IV has stumped me.”

            Lo-fan stroked his forehead gently with one long finger, and one hairy ear twitched several times. He had traveled eighty-five light years to be here on Arcturus II with the greatest psychologist of the Federation-and, more specifically, to see this strange mollusk whose reactions had stumped the great Rigellian.

            He was seeing it now: a puffy, dull-purple mass of soft flesh that writhed its tentacular form in placid unconcern through the huge tank of water that held it. With unruffled serenity, it fed on the green fronds of an underwater fern.

            “Seems ordinary enough,” said Lo-fan.

            “Ha!” snorted Tan Porus. “Watch this.”

            He drew the curtain and plunged the room into darkness. Only a dim blue light shone upon the tank, and in the murk the Draconian squid could barely be discerned.

            “Here goes the stimulus,” grunted Porus. The screen above his head burst into soft green light, focused directly upon the tank. It persisted a moment and gave way to a dull red and then almost at once to a brilliant yellow. For half a minute it shot raggedly through the spectrum and then, with a final glare of glowing white, a clear bell-like tone sounded.

            And as the echoes of the note died away, a shudder passed over the squid’s body. It relaxed and sank slowly to the bottom of the tank.

            Porus pulled aside the curtain. “It’s sound asleep,” he growled. “Hasn’t failed yet. Every specimen we’ve ever had drops as if shot the moment that note sounds.”

            “Asleep, eh? That’s strange. Have you got the figures on the stimulus?”

            “Certainly! Right here. The exact wave lengths of the lights required are listed, plus the length of duration of each light unit, plus the exact pitch of the sounded note at the end.”

            The other surveyed the figures dubiously. His forehead wrinkled and his ears rose in surprise. From an. inner pocket, he drew forth a slide rule.

            “What type nervous system has the animal?”

            “Two-B. Plain, simple, ordinary Two-B. I’ve had the anatomists, physiologists, and ecologists check that until they were blue in the face. Two-B is all they get. Damn fools!”

            Lo-fan said nothing, but pushed the center bar of the rule back and forth carefully. He stopped and peered closely, shrugged his shoulders, and reached for one of the huge volumes on the shelf above his head. He leafed through the pages and picked out numbers from among the close print. Again the slide rule.

            Finally he stopped. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said helplessly.

            “I know that! I’ve tried six times in six different ways to explain that reaction-and I failed each time. Even. if I rig up a system that will explain its going to sleep, I can’t get it to explain the specificity of the stimulus.”

            “It’s highly specific?” questioned Lo-fan, his voice reaching the higher registers.

            “That’s the worst part of it,” shouted Tan Porus. He leaned forward and tapped the other on the knee. “If you shift the wave length of any of the light units by fifty angstroms either way-any one of them-it doesn’t sleep. Shift the length of duration of a light unit two seconds either way-it doesn’t sleep. Shift the pitch of the tone at the end an eighth of an octave either way-it doesn’t sleep. But get the right combination, and it goes straight into a coma.”

            Lo-fan’s ears were two hairy trumpets, stiffly erect. “Galaxy!” he whispered. “How did you ever stumble on the combination?”

            “I didn’t. It happened at Beta Draconis. Some hick college was putting its freshmen through a lab period on light-sound reactions of molluscoids-been doing it for years. Some student runs through his light-sound combinations and his blasted specimen goes to sleep. Naturally, he’s scared out of his wits and brings it to the instructor. The instructor tries it again on another squid-it goes to sleep. They shift the combination- nothing happens. They go back to the original-it goes to sleep. After they fooled around with it long enough to know they couldn’t make head or tail of it, they sent it to Arcturus and wished it on me. It’s six months since / had a real night’s sleep.”

            A musical note sounded and Porus turned impatiently.

            “What is it?”

            “Messenger from the president delegate of Congress, sir,” came in metallic tones from the telecaster on his desk.

            “Send him up.”

            The messenger stayed only long enough to hand Porus an impressively sealed envelope and to say in hearty tone:

            “Great news, sir. The system of Sol has qualified for entrance.”

            “So what?” snorted Porus beneath his breath as the other left “We all knew it was coming.”

            He ripped off the outer sheath of cello-fiber from the envelope and removed the sheaf of papers from within. He glanced through them and grimaced.

            “Oh, Rigel!”

            “What’s wrong?” asked Lo-fan.

            “Those politicians keep bothering me with the most inconsequential things. You’d think there wasn’t another psychologist on Eron. Look! We’ve been expecting the Solarian System to solve the principle of the hyperatomo any century now. They’ve finally done it and an expedition of theirs landed on Alpha Centauri. At once, there’s a politicians’ holiday! We must send an expedition of our own to ask them to join the Federation. And, of course, we must have a psychologist along to ask them in a nice way so as to be sure of getting the right reaction, because, to be sure, there isn’t a man in the army that ever gets proper training in psychology.”

            Lo-fan nodded seriously. “I know, I know. We have the same trouble out our way. They don’t need psychology until they get into trouble and then they come running.”

            “Well, it’s a cinch I’m not going to Sol. This sleeping squid is too important to neglect. It’s a routine job, anyway-this business of raking in new worlds; a Type A reaction that any sophomore can handle.”

            “Whom will you send?”

            “I don’t know. I’ve got several good juniors under me that can do this sort of thing with their eyes closed. I’ll send one of them. And meanwhile, I’ll be seeing you at the faculty meeting tomorrow, won’t I?”

            “You will-and hearing me, too. I’m making a speech on the finger-touch stimulus.”

            “Good! I’ve done work on it, so I’ll be interested in hearing what you have to say. Till tomorrow, then.”

            Left alone, Porus turned once more to the official report on the Solarian System which the messenger had handed him. He leafed through it leisurely, without particular interest, and finally put it down with a sigh.

            “Lor Haridin could do it,” he muttered to himself. “He’s a good kid-deserves a break.”

            He lifted his tiny bulk out of the chair and, with the report under his arm, left his office and trotted down the long corridor outside. As he stopped before a door at the far end, the automatic flash blazed up and a voice within called out to him to enter.

            The Rigellian opened the door and poked his head inside. “Busy, Haridin?”

            Lor Haridin looked up and sprang to his feet at once. “Great space, boss, no! I haven’t had anything to do since I finished work on anger reactions. You’ve got something for me, maybe?”

            “I have-if you think you’re up to it. You’ve heard of the Solarian System, haven’t you?”

            “Sure! The visors are full of it. They’ve got interstellar travel, haven’t they?”

            “That’s right. An expedition is leaving Alpha Centauri for Sol in a month. They’ll need a psychologist to do the fine work, and I was thinking of sending you.”

            The young scientist reddened with delight to the very top of his hairless dome. “Do you mean it, boss?”

            “Why not? That is-if you think you can do it.”

            “Of course I can.” Haridin drew himself up in offended hauteur. “Type A reaction! I can’t miss.”

            “You’ll have to learn their language, you know, and administer the stimulus in the Solarian tongue. It’s not always an easy job.”

            Haridin shrugged. “I still can’t miss. In a case like this, translation need only be seventy-five percent effective to get ninety-nine and six tenths percent of the desired result. That was one of the problems I had to solve on my qualifying exam. So you can’t trip me up that way.”

            Porus laughed. “All right, Haridin, I know you can do it. Clean up everything here at the university and sign up for indefinite leave. And if you can, Haridin, write some sort of paper on these Solarians. If it’s any good, you might get senior status on the basis of it.”

            The junior psychologist frowned, “But, boss, that’s old stuff. Humanoid reactions are as well known as ... as- You can’t write anything on them.”

            “There’s always something if you look hard enough, Haridin. Nothing is well known; remember that. If you’ll look at Sheet 25 of the report, for instance, you’ll find an item concerning the care with which the Solarians armed themselves on leaving their ship.”

            The other turned to the proper page. “That’s reasonable,” said he. “An entirely normal reaction.”

            “Certainly. But they insisted on retaining their weapons throughout their stay, even when they were greeted and welcomed by fellow Humanoids. That’s quite a perceptible deviation from the normal. Investigate it-it might be worth while.”

            “As you say, boss. Thanks a lot for the chance you’re giving me. And say-how’s the squid coming along?”

            Porus wrinkled his nose. “My sixth try folded up and died yesterday. It’s disgusting.” And with that, he was gone.

            Tan Porus of Rigel trembled with rage as he folded the handful of papers he held in two and tore them across. He plugged in the telecaster with a jerk.

            “Get me Santins of the math department immediately,” he snapped.

            His green eyes shot fire at the placid figure that appeared on the visor almost at once. He shook his fist at the image.

            “What on Eron’s the idea of that analysis you sent me just now, you Betelgeusian slime worm?”

            The image’s eyebrows shot up in mild surprise. “Don’t blame me, Porus. They were your equations, not mine. Where did you get them?”

            “Never mind where I got them. That’s the business of the psychology department.”

            “All right! And solving them is the business of the mathematics department. That’s the seventh set of the damnedest sort of screwy equations I’ve ever seen. It was the worst yet. You made at least seventeen assumptions which you had no right to make. It took us two weeks to straighten you out, and finally we boiled it down-”

            Porus jumped as if stung. “I know what you boiled it down to. I just tore up the sheets. You take eighteen independent variables in twenty equations, representing two months of work, and solve them out at the bottom of the last, last page with that gem of oracular wisdom-’a’ equals ‘a.’ All that work-and all I get is an identity.”

            “It’s still not my fault, Porus. You argued in circles, and in mathematics that means an identity and there’s nothing you can do about it.” His lips twitched in a slow smile. “What are you kicking about, anyway? ‘A’ does equal ‘a,’ doesn’t it?”

            “Shut up!” The telecaster went dead, and the psychologist closed his lips tightly and boiled inwardly. The light signal above the telecaster flashed to life again.

            “What do you want now?”

            It was the calm, impersonal voice of the receptionist below that answered him. “A messenger from the government, sir.”

            “Damn the government! Tell them I’m dead.”

            “It’s important, sir. Lor Haridin has returned from Sol and wants to see you.”

            Porus frowned. “Sol? What Sol? Oh, I remember. Send him up, but tell him to make it snappy.”

            “Come in, Haridin,” he said a little later, voice calmer, as the young Arcturian, a bit thinner, a bit more weary than he had been six months earlier when he left the Arcturian System, entered.

            “Well, young man? Did you write the paper?”

            The Arcturian gazed intently upon his fingernails. “No, sir!”

            “Why not?” Porus’ green eyes peered narrowly at the other. “Don’t tell me you’ve had trouble.”

            “Quite, a bit, boss.” The words came with an effort. “The psychological board itself has sent for you after hearing my report. The fact of the matter is that the Solarian System has ... has refused to join the Federation.”

            Tan Porus shot out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box and landed, purely by chance, on his feet.

            “What!!”

            Haridin nodded miserably and cleared his throat.

            “Now, by the Great Dark Nebula,” swore the Rigellian, distractedly, “if this isn’t one sweet day! First, they tell me that ‘a’ equals ‘a,’ and then you come in and tell me you muffed a Type A reaction-muffed it completely!”

            The junior psychologist fired up. “I didn’t muff it. There’s something wrong with the Solarians themselves. They’re not normal. When I landed they went wild over us. There was a fantastic celebration-entirely unrestrained. Nothing was too good for us. I delivered the invitation before their parliament in their own language-a simple one which they call Esperanto. I’ll stake my life that my translation was ninety-five percent effective.”

            “Well? And then?”

            “I can’t understand the rest, boss. First, there was a neutral reaction and I was a little surprised, and then”-he shuddered in retrospect-”in seven days-only seven days, boss-the entire planet had reversed itself completely. I couldn’t follow their psychology, not by a hundred miles. I’ve brought home copies of their newspapers of the time in which they objected to joining with ‘alien monstrosities’ and refused to be ‘ruled by inhumans of worlds parsecs away.’ I ask you, does that make sense?

            “And that’s only the beginning. It was light years worse than that. Why, good Galaxy, I went all the way into Type G reactions, trying to figure them out, and couldn’t. In the end, we had to leave. We were in actual physical danger from those . . . those Earthmen, as they call themselves.”

            Tan Porus chewed his lip a while. “Interesting! Have you your report with you?”

            “No. The psychological board has it. They’ve been going over it with a microscope all day.”

            “And what do they say?”

            The young Arcturian winced. “They don’t say it openly, but they leave a strong impression of thinking the report an inaccurate one.”

            “Well, I’ll decide about that after I’ve read it. Meanwhile, come with me to Parliamentary Hall and you can answer a few questions on the way.”

            Joselin Arn of Alpha Centauri rubbed stubbled jaws with his huge, six-fingered hand and peered from under beetling brows at the semicircle of diversified faces that stared down upon him. The psychological board was composed of psychologists of a score of worlds, and their united gaze was not the easiest thing in the world to withstand.

            “We have been informed,” began Frian Obel, head of the board and native of Vega, home of the green-skinned men, “that those sections of the report dealing with Sol’s military state are your work.”

            Joselin Arn inclined his head in silent agreement.

            “And you are prepared to confirm what you have stated here, in spite of its inherent improbability? You are no psychologist, you know.”

            “No! But I’m a soldier!” The Centaurian’s jaws set stubbornly as his bass voice rumbled through the hall. “I don’t know equations and I don’t know graphs-but I do know spaceships. I’ve seen theirs and I’ve seen ours, and theirs are better. I’ve seen their first interstellar ship. Give them a hundred years and they’ll have a better hyperatomos than we have. I’ve seen their weapons. They’ve got almost everything we have, at a stage in their history millennia before us. What they haven’t got-they’ll get, and soon. What they have got, they’ll improve.

            “I’ve seen their munitions plants. Ours are more advanced, but theirs are more efficient. I’ve seen their soldiers-and I’d rather fight with them than against them.

            “I’ve said all that in the report. I say it again now.”

            His brusque sentences came to an end and Frian Obel waited for the murmur from the men about him to cease.

            “And the rest of their science; medicine, chemistry, physics? What of them?”

            “I’m not the best judge of those. You have the report there of those who know, however, and to the best of my knowledge I confirm them.”

            “And so these Solarians are true Humanoids?”

            “By the circling worlds of Centauri, yes!”

            The old scientist drew himself back in his chair with a peevish gesture and cast a rapid, frowning glance up and down the length of the table.

            “Colleagues,” he said, “we make little progress by rehashing this mess of impossibilities. We have a race of Humanoids of a superlatively technological turn; possessing at the same time an intrinsically unscientific belief in supernatural forces, an incredibly childish predilection toward individuality, singly and in groups, and, worst of all, lack of sufficient vision to embrace a galaxy-wide culture.”

            He glared down upon the lowering Centaurian before him. “Such a race must exist if we are to believe the report-and fundamental axioms of psychology must crumble. But I, for one, refuse to believe any such-to be vulgar about it-comet gas. This is plainly a case of mismanagement to be investigated by the proper authorities. I hope you all agree with me when I say that this report be consigned to the scrap heap and that a second expedition led by an expert in his line, not by an inexperienced junior psychologist or a soldier-”

            The drone of the scientist’s voice was buried suddenly in the crash of an iron fist against the table. Joselin Am, his huge bulk writhing in anger, lost his temper and gave vent to martial wrath.

            “Now, by the writhing spawn of Templis, by the worms that crawl and the gnats that fly, by the cesspools and the plague spots, and by the hooded death itself, I won’t allow this. Are you to sit there with your theories and your long-range wisdom and deny what I have seen with my eyes? Are my eyes”-and they flashed fire as he spoke-”to deny themselves because of a few wriggling marks your palsied hands trace on paper?

            “To the core of Centauri with these armchair wise men, say I-and the psychologists first of all. Blast these men who bury themselves in their books and their laboratories and are blind to what goes on in the living world outside. Psychology, is it? Rotten, putrid-”

            A tap on his belt caused him to whirl, eyes staring, fists clenched. For a moment, he looked about vainly. Then, turning his gaze downward, he found himself looking into the enigmatic green eyes of a pygmy of a man, whose piercing stare seemed to drench his anger with ice water.

            “I know you, Joselin Am,” said Tan Porus slowly, picking his words carefully. “You’re a brave man and a good soldier, but you don’t like psychologists, I see. That is wrong of you, for it is on psychology that the political success of the Federation rests. Take it away and our Union crumbles, our great Federation melts away, the Galactic System is shattered.” His voice descended into a soft, liquid croon. “You have sworn an oath to defend the System against all its enemies, Joselin Am-and you yourself have now become its greatest. You strike at its foundations. You dig at its roots. You poison it at its source. You are dishonored. You are disgraced. You are a traitor.”

            The Centaurian soldier shook his head helplessly. As Porus spoke, deep and bitter remorse filled him. Recollection of his words of a moment ago lay heavy on his conscience. When the psychologist finished, Am bent his head and wept. Tears ran down those lined, war-scarred cheeks, to which for forty years now they had been a stranger.

            Porus spoke again, and this time his voice boomed like a thunderclap: “Away with your mewling whine, you coward. Danger is at hand. Man the guns!”

            Joselin Am snapped to attention; the sorrow that had filled him a bare second before was gone as if it had never existed.

            The room rocked with laughter and the soldier grasped the situation. It had been Porus’ way of punishing him. With his complete knowledge of the devious ins and outs of the Humanoid mind, he had only to push the proper button, and-

            The Centaurian bit his lip in embarrassment, but said nothing.

            But Tan Porus, himself, did not laugh. To tease the soldier was one thing; to humiliate him, quite another. With a bound, he was on a chair and laid his small hand on the other’s massive shoulder.

            “No offense, my friend-a little lesson, that is all. Fight the sub-humanoids and the hostile environments of fifty worlds. Dare space in a leaky rattletrap of a ship. Defy whatever dangers you wish. But never, never offend a psychologist. He might get angry in earnest the next time.”

            Arn bent his head back and laughed-a gigantic roar of mirth that shook the room with its earthquake-like lustiness.

            “Your advice is well taken, psychologist. Bum me with an atomo, if I don’t think you’re right.” He strode from the room with his shoulders still heaving with suppressed laughter.

            Porus hopped off the chair and turned to face the board.

            “This is an interesting race of Humanoids we have stumbled upon, colleagues.”

            “Ah,” said Obel, dryly, “the great Porus feels bound to come to his pupil’s defense. Your digestion seems to have improved, since you feel yourself capable of swallowing Haridin’s report.”

            Haridin, standing, head bowed, in the corner, reddened angrily, but did not move.

            Porus frowned, but his voice kept to its even tone. “I do, and the report, if properly analyzed, will give rise to a revolution in the science. It is a psychological gold mine; and Homo Sol, the find of the millennium.”

            “Be specific. Tan Porus,” drawled someone. “Your tricks are all very well for a Centaurian blockhead, but we remain unimpressed.”

            The fiery little Rigellian emitted a gurgle of anger. He shook one tiny fist in the direction of the last speaker.

            “I’ll be more specific, Inar Tubal, you hairy space bug.” Prudence and anger waged a visible battle within him. “There is more to a Humanoid than you think-certainly far more than you mental cripples can understand. Just to show you what you don’t know, you desiccated group of fossils, I’ll undertake to show you a bit of psycho-technology that’ll knock the guts right out of you. Panic, morons, panic! Worldwide panic!”

            There was an awful silence. “Did you say world-wide panic?” stuttered Frian Obel, his green skin turning gray. “Panic?”

            “Yes, you parrot. Give me six months and fifty assistants and I’ll show you a world of Humanoids in panic.”

            Obel attempted vainly to answer. His mouth worked in a heroic attempt to remain serious-and failed. As though by signal, the entire board dropped its dignity and leaned back in a single burst of laughter.

            “I remember,” gasped Inar Tubal of Sirius, his round face streaked with tears of pure joy, “a student of mine who once claimed to have discovered a stimulus that would induce world-wide panic. When I checked his results, I came across an exponent with a misplaced decimal point. He was only ten orders of magnitude out of the way. How many decimal points have you misplaced, Colleague Porus?”

            “What of Kraut’s Law, Porus, which says you can’t panic more than five Humanoids at a time? Shall we pass a resolution repealing it? And maybe the atomic theory as well, while we’re about it?” and Semper Gor of Capella cackled gleefully.

            Porus climbed onto the table and snatched Obel’s gavel. “The next one who laughs is getting this over his empty head.” There was sudden silence.

            “I’m taking fifty assistants,” shouted the green-eyed Rigellian, “and Joselin Am is taking me to Sol. I want five of you to come with me-Inar Tubal, Semper Gor and any three others -so that I can watch their stupid faces when I’ve done what I said I would.” He hefted the gavel, threateningly. “Well?”

            Frian Obel gazed at the ceiling placidly. “All right, Porus. Tubal. Gor. Helvin, Prat, and Winson can go with you. At the end of the specified time, we’ll witness world-wide panic which will be very gratifying-or we’ll watch you eat your words, and how much more gratifying that would be.” And with that, he chuckled very quietly to himself.

            Tan Porus stared thoughtfully out the window. Terrapolis, capital city of Earth, sprawled beneath him to the very edge of the horizon. Its muted roar reached even to the half-mile height at which he stood.

            There was something over that city, invisible and intangible but none the less real. Its presence was only too evident to the small psychologist. The choking, cloak of dank fear that spread over the metropolis beneath was one of his own weaving-a horrible cloak of dark uncertainty, that clutched with clammy fingers at the hearts of Mankind and stopped short -just short-of actual panic.

            The roar of the city had voices in it, and the voices were tiny ones of fear.

            The Rigellian turned away in disgust. “Hey, Haridin,” he roared.

            The young Arcturian turned away from the televisor. “Calling me, boss?”

            “What do you think I’m doing? Talking to myself? What’s the latest from Asia?”

            “Nothing new. The stimuli just aren’t strong enough. The yellow men seem to be more stolid of disposition than the white dominants of America and Europe. I’ve sent out orders not to increase the stimuli, though.”

            “No, they mustn’t,” agreed Porus. “We can’t risk active panic.” He ruminated in silence. “Listen, we’re about through. Tell them to hit a few of the big cities-they’re more susceptible-and quit.”

            He turned to the window again. “Space, what a world- what a world! An entirely new branch of psychology has opened up-one we never dreamed of. Mob psychology, Haridin, mob psychology.” He shook his head impressively.

            “There’s lots of suffering, though, boss,” muttered the younger man. “This passive panic has completely paralyzed trade and commerce. The business life of the entire planet is stagnant. The poor government is helpless-they don’t know what’s wrong.”

            “They’ll find out-when I’m ready. And, as for the suffering-well, I don’t like it, either, but it’s all a means to an end, a damned important end.”

            There followed a short silence, and then Porus’ lips twitched into a nasty smile. “Those five nitwits returned from Europe yesterday, didn’t they?”

            Haridin smiled in turn and nodded vigorously, “And hopping sore! Your predictions have checked to the fifth decimal place. They’re fit to be tied.”

            “Good! I’m only sorry I can’t see Obel’s face right now, after the last message I sent him. And, incidentally”-his voice dropped lower-”what’s the latest on them?”

            Haridin raised two fingers. “Two weeks, and they’ll be here.”

            “Two weeks . . . two weeks,” gurgled Porus jubilantly. He rose and made for the door. “I think I’ll find my dear, dear colleagues and pass the time of day.”

            The five scientists of the board looked up from their notes and fell into an embarrassed silence as Porus entered.

            The latter smiled impishly. “Notes satisfactory, gentlemen? Found some fifty or sixty fallacies in my fundamental assumptions, no doubt?”

            Hybron Prat of Alpha Cepheus rumpled the gray fuzz he called hair. “I don’t trust the unholy tricks this crazy mathematical notation of yours plays.”

            The Rigellian emitted a short bark of laughter. “Invent a better, then. So far, it’s done a good job of handling reactions, hasn’t it?”

            There was an unmusical chorus of throat-clearings but no definite answer.

            “Hasn’t it?” thundered Porus.

            “Well, what if it has,” returned Kim Winson, desperately. “Where’s your panic? All this is well and good. These Humanoids are cosmic freaks, but where’s the big show you were going to put on? Until you break Kraut’s Law, this entire exhibition of yours isn’t worth a pinhead meteor.”

            “You’re beaten, gentlemen, you’re beaten,” crowed the small master psychologist. “I’ve proven my point-this passive panic is as impossible according to classic psychology as the active form. You’re trying to deny facts and save face now, by harping on a technicality. Go home; go home, gentlemen, and hide under the bed.”

            Psychologists are only human. They can analyze the motives that drive them, but they are the slave of those motives just as much as the commonest mortal of all. These galaxy-famous psychologists writhed under the lash of wounded pride and shattered vanity, and their blind stubbornness was the mechanical reaction due therefrom. They knew it was and they knew Porus knew it was-and that made it all the harder.

            Inar Tubal stared angrily from red-rimmed eyes. “Active panic or nothing. Tan Porus. That’s what you promised, and that’s what we’ll have. We want the letter of the bond or, by space and time, we’ll balk at any technicality. Active panic or we report failure!”

            Porus swelled ominously and, with a tremendous effort, spoke quietly. “Be reasonable, gentlemen. We haven’t the equipment to handle active panic. We’ve never come up against this superform they have here on Earth. What if it gets beyond control?” He shook his head violently.

            “Isolate it, then,” snarled Semper Gor. “Start it up and put it out. Make all the preparations you want, but do it!”

            “If you can,” grunted Hybron Prat.

            But Tan Porus had his weak point. His brittle temper lay in splintered shards about him. His agile tongue blistered the atmosphere and inundated the sullen psychologist with wave after wave of concentrated profanity.

            “Have your way, vacuumheads! Have your way and to outer space with you!” He was breathless with passion. “We’ll set it off right here in Terrapolis as soon as all the men are back home. Only you’d all better get from under!”

            And with one last parting snarl, he stalked from the room.

            Tan Porus parted the curtains with a sweep of his hand, and the five psychologists facing him averted their eyes. The streets of Earth’s capital were deserted of civilian population. The ordered tramp of the military patrolling the highways of the city sounded like a dirge. The wintry sky hung low over a scene of strewn bodies-and silence; the silence that follows an orgy of wild destruction.

            “It was touch and go for a few hours there, colleagues.” Porus’ voice was tired. “If it had passed the city limits, we could never have stopped it.”

            “Horrible, horrible!” muttered Hybron Prat. “It was a scene a psychologist would have given his right arm to witness- and his life to forget.”

            “And these are Humanoids!” groaned Kim Winson.

            Semper Gor rose to his feet in sudden decision. “Do you see the significance of this, Porus? These Earthmen are sheer uncontrolled atomite. They can’t be handled. Were they twice the technological geniuses they are, they would be useless. With their mob psychology, their mass panics, their superemotionalism, they simply won’t fit into the Humanoid picture.”

            Porus raised an eyebrow. “Comet gas! Individually, we are as emotional as they are. They carry it into mass action and we don’t; that’s the only difference.”

            “And that’s enough!” exclaimed Tubal. “We’ve made our decision, Porus. We made it last night, at the height of the ... the ... of it. The Solar System is to be left to itself. It is a plague spot and we want none of it. As far as the Galaxy is concerned. Homo Sol will be placed in strict quarantine. That is final!”

            The Rigellian laughed softly. “For the Galaxy, it may be final. But for Homo Sol?”

            Tubal shrugged. “They don’t concern us.”

            Porus laughed again. “Say, Tubal. Just between the two of us, have you tried a time integration of Equation 128 followed by expansion with Karolean tensors?”

            “No-o. I can’t say I have.”

            “Well, then, just glance up and down these calculations and enjoy yourself.”

            The five scientists of the board grouped themselves about the sheets of paper Porus had handed them. Expressions changed from interest to bewilderment and then to something approaching panic.

            Nam Helvin tore the sheets across with a spasmodic movement. “It’s a lie,” he screeched.

            “We’re a thousand years ahead of them now, and by that time we’ll be advanced another two hundred years!” Tubal snapped. “They won’t be able to do anything against the mass of the Galaxy’s people.”

            Tan Porus laughed in a monotone, which is hard to do, but very unpleasant to hear. “You still don’t believe mathematics. That’s in your behavior pattern, of course. All right, let’s see if experts convince you-as they should, unless contact with these off-normal Humanoids has twisted you. Joselin-Joselin Am-come in here!”

            The Centaurian commander came in, saluted automatically, and looked expectant.

            “Can one of your ships defeat one of the Sol ships in battle, if necessary?” 214

            Arn grinned sourly. “Not a chance, sir. These Humanoids break Kraut’s Law in panic-and also in fighting. We have a corps of experts manning our ships; these people have a single crew that functions as a unit, without individuality. They manifest a form of fighting-panic, I imagine, is the best word. Every individual on a ship becomes an organ of the ship. With us, as you know, that’s impossible.

            “Furthermore, this world’s a mass of mad geniuses. They have, to my certain knowledge, taken no less than twenty-two interesting but useless gadgets they saw in the Thalsoon Museum when they visited us, turned ‘em inside out, and produced from them some of the most unpleasant military devices I’ve seen. You know of Julmun Thill’s gravitational line tracer? Used-rather ineffectively-for spotting ore deposits before the modem electric potential method came in?

            “They’ve turned it-somehow-into one of the deadliest automatic fire directors it’s been my displeasure to see. It will automatically lay a gun or projector on a completely invisible target in space, air, water or rock, for that matter.”

            “We,” said Tan Porus, gleefully, “have far greater fleets than they. We could overwhelm them, could we not?”

            Joselin Am shook his head. “Defeat them now-probably. It wouldn’t be overwhelming, though, and I wouldn’t bet on it too heavily. Certainly wouldn’t invite it. The trouble is, in a military way, this collection of gadget maniacs invent things at a horrible rate. Technologically, they’re as unstable as a wave in water; our civilization is more like a sanddune. I’ve seen their ground-car plants install a complete plant of machine tools for production of a new model of automobile-and rip it out in six months because it’s completely obsolete!

            “Now we’ve come in contact with their civilization briefly. We’ve learned the methods of one new civilization to add to our previous two hundred and eighty-odd-a small percentage advantage. They’ve added one new civilization to their previous one-a one-hundred-percent advance!”

            “How about,” Porus asked gently, “our military position if we simply ignore them completely for two hundred years?”

            Joselin Am gave an explosive little laugh. “If we could- which means if they’d let us-I’d answer offhand and with assurance. They’re all I’d care to tackle right now. Two hundred years of exploring the new tracks suggested by their brief contact with us and they’d be doing things I can’t imagine. Wait two hundred years and there won’t be a battle; there’ll be an annexation.”

            Tan Porus bowed formally. “Thank you, Joselin Arn. That was the result of my mathematical work.”

            Joselin Arn saluted and left the room.

            Turning to the five thoroughly paralyzed scientists, Porus went on: “And I hope these learned gentlemen still react in a vaguely Humanoid way. Are you convinced that it is not up to us to decide to end all intercourse with this race? We’ may -but they won’t!

            “Fools”-he spat out the word-”do you think I’m going to waste time arguing with you? I’m laying down the law, do you understand? Homo Sol shall enter the Federation. They are going to be trained into maturity in two hundred years. And I’m not asking you; I’m telling you!” The Rigellian stared up at them truculently.

            “Come with me!” he growled brusquely.

            They followed in tame submission and entered Tan Porus’ sleeping quarters. The little psychologist drew aside a curtain and revealed a life-size painting.

            “Make anything of that?”

            It was the portrait of an Earthman, but of such an Earthman as none of the psychologists had yet seen. Dignified and sternly handsome, with one hand stroking a regal beard, and the other holding the single flowing garment that clothed him, he seemed personified majesty.

            “That’s Zeus,” said Porus. “The primitive Earthmen created him as the personification of storm and lightning.” He whirled upon the bewildered five. “Does it remind you of anybody?”

            “Homo Canopus?” ventured Helvin uncertainly.

            For a moment, Porus’ face relaxed in momentary gratification and then it hardened again. “Of course,” he snapped. “Why do you hesitate about it? That’s Canopus to the life, down to the full yellow beard.”

            Then: “Here’s something else.” He drew another curtain.

            The portrait was of a female, this time. Full-bosomed and wide-hipped she was. An ineffable smile graced her face and her hands seemed to caress the stalks of grain that sprang thickly about her feet.

            “Demeter!” said Porus. “The personification of agricultural fertility. The idealized mother. Whom does that remind you of?”

            There was no hesitation this time. Five voices rang out as one: “Homo Betelgeuse!”

            Tan Porus smiled in delight. “There you have it Well?”

            “Well?” said Tubal.

            “Don’t you see?” The smile faded. “Isn’t it clear? Nitwit! If a hundred Zeuses and a hundred Demeters were to land on Earth as part of a ‘trade mission,’ and turned out to be trained psychologists-Now do you see?”

            Semper Gor laughed suddenly. “Space, time, and little meteors. Of course! The Earthmen would be putty in the hands of their own personifications of storm and motherhood come to life. In two hundred years-why, in two hundred years, we could do anything.”

            “But this so-called trade mission of yours, Porus,” interposed Prat. “How would you get Homo Sol to accept it in the first place?”

            Porus cocked his head to one side. “Dear Colleague Prat,” he murmured, “do you suppose that I created the passive panic just for the show-or just to gratify five woodenheads? This passive panic paralyzed industry, and the Terrestrial government is faced with revolution-another form of mob action that could use investigation. Offer them Galactic trade and eternal prosperity and do you think they’d jump at it? Has matter mass?”

            The Rigellian cut short the excited babble that followed with an impatient gesture. “If you’ve nothing more to ask, gentlemen, let’s begin our preparations to leave. Frankly, I’m tired of Earth, and, more than that, I’m blasted anxious to get back to that squid of mine.”

            He opened the door and shouted down the corridor: “Hey, Haridini Tell Arn to have the ship ready in six hours. We’re leaving.”

            “But . . . but-” The chorus of puzzled objections crystallized into sudden action as Semper Gor dashed at Porus and snatched him back as he was on the point of leaving. The little Rigellian struggled vainly in the other’s powerful grasp.

            “Let go!”

            “We’ve endured enough, Porus,” said Gor, “and now you’ll just calm down and behave like a Humanoid. Whatever you say, we’re not leaving until we’re finished. We’ve got to arrange with the Terrestrial government concerning the trade mission. We’ve got to secure approval of the board. We’ve got to pick our psychologist. We’ve got to-”

            Here Porus, with a sudden jerk, freed himself. “Do you suppose for one moment that I would wait for your precious board to start to begin to commence to consider doing something about the situation in two or three decades?

            “Earth agreed to my terms unconditionally a month ago. The squad of Canopans and Betelgeusans set sail five months ago, and landed day before yesterday. It was only with their help that we managed to stop yesterday’s panic-though you never suspected it. You probably thought you did it yourself. Today, gentlemen, they have the situation in full control and your services are no longer needed. We’re going home.”

THE END

      Campbell liked stories in which human beings proved themselves superior to other intelligences, even when those others were further advanced technologically. It pleased him to have human beings shown to possess a unique spirit of daring, or a sense of humor, or a ruthless ability to kill when necessary, that always brought them victory over other intelligences, even against odds.

            I sometimes got the uncomfortable notion> however, that this attitude reflected Campbell’s feelings on the smaller, Earth scale. He seemed to me to accept the natural superiority of Americans over non-Americans, and he seemed automatically to assume the picture of an American as one who was of northwest European origin.

            I cannot say that Campbell was racist in any evil sense of the term. I cannot recall any act of his that could be construed as unkind, and certainly he never, not once, made me feel uncomfortable over the fact that I was Jewish. Nevertheless, he did seem to take for granted, somehow, the stereotype of the Nordic white as the true representative of Man the Explorer, Man the Darer, Man the Victor,

            I argued with him strenuously on the subject, or as violently as I dared, and in years to come our relationship was to be as nearly strained as it could be (considering our mutual affection, and all that I owed him) over the civil rights issue. I was on the liberal side of the issue, he on the conservative, and our minds never met on that subject.

            All this had an important bearing on my science fiction work. I did not like Campbell’s attitude concerning humanity vis-a-vis other intelligences and it took two revisions of “Homo Sol” before Campbell could move me close enough to what he wanted. Even then, he inserted several paragraphs, here and there, without consulting me, in the final version.

            I tried to avoid such a situation in future. One way out was to depart from the traditions of those writers who wove plots against the gigantic web of entire galaxies containing many intelligences-notably those of E. E. Smith and of Campbell himself. Instead, I began to think of stories involving a galaxy populated by human intelligences only.

            This came to fruit, soon enough, in. the “Foundation” series. Undoubtedly the Smith-Campbell view makes more sense. It is almost certain that among the hundreds of billions of worlds in a large galaxy there ought to be hundreds or even thousands of different intelligent species. That there should be only one, ourselves, as I postulated, is most unlikely.

            Some science fiction critics (notably Sam Moskowitz) have given me credit for inventing the human-only galaxy, as though it were some kind of literary advance. Others may have thought privately (I have never heard it stated openly) that I had only human intelligences in my galaxy because I lacked the imagination to think up extraterrestrials.

            But the fact is that I was only trying to avoid a collision with Campbell’s views; I did not want to set up a situation in which I would be forced to face the alternatives of adopting Campbell’s views when I found them repugnant and failing to sell a story (which I also found repugnant).

            On March 25, 1940, the day I put through my final submission of “Homo Sol,” I went on to visit Fred Pohl at his office. He told me that the response to “Half-Breed” had been such that he felt justified in asking for a sequel. It was the first time I had ever been requested to write a specific story with acceptance virtually guaranteed in advance.

            I spent April and May working on the sequel, “Half-Breeds on Venus,” and submitted it to Pohl on June 3. On June 14, he accepted it. The story was ten thousand words long, the longest I had ever sold up to that time. What’s more, Pohl’s magazines were doing so well that his budget had been increased and he was able to pay me five eighths of a cent a word for it-$62.50.

            It appeared in the issue of Astonishing that reached the stands on October 24, 1940, two years almost to a day since my first sale. This was a red-letter day for me, too, since it was the first time that the cover painting on a magazine was ever taken from one of my stories. I had “made the cover.”

            The title of the story and my name were on the cover in bold letters. It was a flattering indication that my name could be counted on to sell magazines by this time.

Half-Breeds on Venus

      The damp, somnolent atmosphere stirred violently and shrieked aside. The bare plateau shook three times as the heavy egg-shaped projectiles shot down from outer space. The sound of the landing reverberated from the mountains on one side to the lush forest on the other, and then all was silent again.

            One by one, three doors clanged open, and human figures stepped out in hesitant single file. First slowly, and then with impatient turbulence, they set first foot upon the new world, until the space surrounding the ships was crowded.

            A thousand pairs of eyes gazed upon the prospect and a thousand mouths chattered excitedly. And in the other-world wind, a thousand crests of foot-high white hair swayed gracefully.

            The Tweenies had landed on Venus!

            Max Scanlon sighed wearily, “Here we are!”

            He turned from the porthole and slumped into his own special arm-chair. “They’re as happy as children-and I don’t blame them. We’ve got a new world-one all for ourselves- and that’s a great thing. But just the same, there are hard days ahead .of us. I am almost afraid! It is a project so lightly embarked upon, but one so hard to carry out to completion.”

            A gentle arm stole about his shoulder and he grasped it tightly, smiling into the soft, blue eyes that met his. “But you’re not afraid, are you, Madeline?”

            “Certainly not!” And then her expression grew sadder, “If only father had come with us. You-you know that he meant more to us than to the others. We were the-the first he took under his wing, weren’t we?”

            There was a long silence after that as each fell into deep thought.

            Max sighed, “I remember him that day forty years ago- old suit, pipe, everything. He took me in. Me, a despised half-breed! And-and he found you for me, Madeline!”

            “I know,” there were tears in her eyes. “But he’s still with us, Max, and always will be-here, and there.” Her hand crept first to her own heart and then to Max’s.

            “Hey, there, Dad, catch her, catch her!”

            Max whirled at the sound of his elder son’s voice, just in time to catch up the little bundle of flying arms and legs that catapulted into him.

            He held her gravely up before him, “Shall I give you to your papa, Elsie? He wants you.”

            The little girl kicked her legs ecstatically. “No, no. I want you, grand-daddy. I want you to give me a piggy-back and come out with grandmamma to see how nice everything is.”

            Max turned to his son, and motioned him sternly away, “Depart, despised father, and let old grand-dad have a chance.”

            Arthur laughed and mopped a red face, “Keep her, for Heaven’s sake. She’s been leading me and the wife a merry chase outside. We had to drag her back by the dress to keep her from running off into the forest. Didn’t we, Elsie?”

            Elsie, thus appealed to, suddenly recalled a past grievance. “Grand-daddy, tell him to let me see the pretty trees. He doesn’t want me to.” She wriggled from Max’s grasp and ran to the porthole. “See them, grand-daddy, see them. It’s all trees outside. It’s not black anymore. I hated it when it was black, didn’t you?”

            Max leaned over and ruffled the child’s soft, white hair gravely, “Yes, Elsie, I hated it when it was black. But it isn’t black anymore, and it won’t ever be black again. Now go run to grandmamma. She’ll get some cake specially for you. Go ahead, run!”

            He followed the departing forms of his wife and granddaughter with smiling eyes, and then, as they turned to his son, they became serious once more.

            “Well, Arthur?”

            “Well, dad, what now?”

            “There’s no time to waste, son. We’ve got to start building immediately-underground!”

            Arthur snapped into an attentive attitude, “Underground!” He frowned his dismay.

            “I know, I know. I said nothing of this previously, but it’s got to be done. At all costs we must vanish from the face of the System. There are Earthmen on Venus-purebloods. There aren’t many, it’s true, but there are some. They mustn’t find us-at least, not until we are prepared for whatever may follow. That will take years.”

            “But father, underground! To live like moles, hidden from light and air. I don’t like that.”

            “Oh, nonsense. Don’t overdramatize. Well live on the surface-but the city; the power-stations, the food and water reserves, the laboratories-all that must be below and impregnable.”

            The old Tweenie gestured the subject away with impatience, “Forget that, anyway. I want to talk about something else- something we’ve discussed already.”

            Arthur’s eyes hardened and he shifted his glance to the ceiling. Max rose and placed his bands upon his son’s brawny shoulders.

            “I’m past sixty, Arthur. How long I have yet to live, I don’t know. In any case, the best of me belongs to the past and it is better that I yield the leadership to a younger, more vigorous person.”

            “Dad, that’s sentimental bosh and you know it. There isn’t one of us that’s fit to wipe your shoes and no one is going to listen for a second to any plan of appointing a successor while you’re still alive.”

            “I’m not going to ask them to listen. It’s done-and you’re the new leader.”

            The younger man shook his head firmly, “You can’t make me serve against my will.”

            Max smiled whimsically, “I’m afraid you’re dodging responsibility, son. You’re leaving your poor old father to the strains and hardships of a job beyond his aged strength.”

            “Dad!” came the shocked retort. “That’s not so. You know it isn’t. You-”

            “Then prove it. Look at it this way. Our race needs active leadership, and I can’t supply it. I’ll always be here-while I live-to advise you and help you as best I can, but from now on, you must take the initiative.”

            Arthur frowned and the words came from him reluctantly, “All right, then. I take the job of field commander. But remember, you’re commander-in-chief.”

            “Good! And now let’s celebrate the occasion.” Max opened a cupboard and withdrew a box, from which he abstracted a pair of cigars. He sighed, “The supply of tobacco is down to the vanishing point and we won’t have any more until we grow our own, but- we’ll smoke to the new leader.”

            Blue smoke curled upwards and Max frowned through it at his son, “Where’s Henry?”

            Arthur grinned, “Dunno! I haven’t seen him since we landed. I can tell you with whom he is, though.”

            Max grunted, “I know that, too.”

            “The kid’s making hay while the sun shines. It won’t be many years now. Dad, before you’ll be spoiling a second set of grandchildren.”

            “If they’re as good as the three of my first set, I only hope I live to see the day.”

            And father and son smiled affectionately at each other and listened in silence to the muted sound of happy laughter from the hundreds of Tweenies outside.

            Henry Scanlon cocked his head to one side, and raised his hand for silence, “Do you hear running water, Irene?”

            The girl at his side nodded, “Over in that direction.”

            “Let’s go there, then. A river flashed by just before we landed and maybe that’s it.”

            “All right, if you say so, but I think we ought to be getting back to the ships.”

            “What for?” Henry stopped and stared. “I should think you’d be glad to stretch your legs after weeks on a crowded ship.”

            “Well, it might be dangerous.”

            “Not here in the highlands, Irene. Venusian highlands are practically a second Earth. You can see this is forest and not jungle. Now if we were in the coastal regions-” He broke off short, as if he had just remembered something. “Besides, what’s there to be afraid of? I’m with you, aren’t I?” And he patted the Tonite gun at his hip.

            Irene repressed a sudden smile and shot an arch glance at her strutting companion, “I’m quite aware that you’re with me. That’s the danger.”

            Henry’s chest deflated with an audible gasp. He frowned. “Very funny-And I on my best behavior, too.” He drifted away, brooded sulkily awhile, and then addressed the trees in a distant manner, “Which reminds me that tomorrow is Daphne’s birthday. I’ve promised her a present.”

            “Get her a reducing belt,” came the quick retort. “Fat thing!”

            “Who’s fat? Daphne? Oh-I wouldn’t say so.” He considered matters carefully, one thoughtful eye upon the young girl at his side. “Now my description of her would be-shall we say-’pleasingly plump,’ or, maybe, ‘comfortably upholstered.’ “

            “She’s fat,” Irene’s voice was suddenly a hiss, and something very like a frown wrinkled her lovely face, “and her eyes are green.” She swung on ahead, chin high, and superbly conscious of her own little figure.

            Henry hastened his steps and caught up, “Of course, I prefer skinny girls any day.

            Irene whirled on him and her little fists clenched, “I’m not skinny, you incredibly stupid ape.”

            “But Irene, who said I meant you?” His voice was solemn, but his eyes were laughing,

            The girl reddened to the ears and turned away, lower lip trembling. The smile faded from Henry’s eyes and was replaced by a look of concern. His arm shot out hesitantly and slipped about her shoulder.

            “Angry, Irene?”

            The smile that lit her face of a sudden was as brilliant as the sparkling sheen of her silvery hair in the bright sun.

            “No,” she said.

            Their eyes met and, for a moment, Henry hesitated-and found that he who hesitates is lost; for with a sudden twist and a smothered laugh, Irene was free once more.

            Pointing through a break in the trees, she cried, “Look, a lake!” and was off at a run.

            Henry scowled, muttered something under his breath, and ran after.

            The scene was truly Earthly. A rapids-broken stream wound its way through banks of slender-trunked trees and then spread into a placid lake some miles in width. The brooding quiet was unbroken save by the muffled beat that issued from the throat-bags of the frilled lizards that nested in the upper reaches of the trees.

            The two Tweenies-boy and girl-stood hand in hand upon the bank and drank in the beauty of the scene.

            Then there was a muffled splash near by and Irene shrank into the encircling arms of her companion.

            “What’s the matter?”

            “N-nothing. Something moved in the water, I think.”

            “Oh, imagination, Irene.”

            “No. I did see something. It came up and-oh, goodness, Henry, don’t squeeze so tightly-”

            She almost lost her balance as Henry suddenly dropped her altogether and jerked at his Tonite gun.

            Immediately before them, a dripping green head lifted out of the water and regarded them out of wide-set, staring goggle-eyes. Its broad lipless mouth opened and closed rapidly, but not a sound issued forth.

            Max Scanlon stared thoughtfully at the rugged foot-hills ahead and clasped his hands behind his back.

            “You think so, do you?”

            “Certainly, Dad,” insisted Arthur, enthusiastically. “If we burrow under these piles of granite, all Earth couldn’t get at us. It wouldn’t take two months to form the entire cavern, with our unlimited power.”

            “Hmph! It will require care!”

            “It will get it!”

            “Mountainous regions are quake regions.”

            “We can rig up enough stat-rays to hold up all Venus, quakes or no quakes.”

            “Stat-rays eat up energy wholesale, and a breakdown that will leave us energyless would mean the end.”

            “We can hook up five separate power-houses,-as foolproof as we can make them. All five won’t break down at once.”

            The old Tweenie smiled, “All right, son. I see you’ve got it planned thoroughly. Go ahead! Start whenever you want-and remember, it’s all up to you.”

            “Good! Let’s get back to the ships.” They picked their way gingerly down the rocky, slope.

            “You know, Arthur,” said Max, stopping suddenly, “I’ve been thinking about those stat-beams.”

            “Yes?” Arthur offered his arm, and the two resumed their walk.

            “It’s occurred to me that if we could make them two-dimensional in extent and curve them, we’d have the perfect defense, as long as our energy lasted-a stat-field.”

            “You need four-dimensional radiation for that. Dad-nice to think about but can’t be done.”

            “Oh, is that so? Well, listen to this-”

            What Arthur was to listen to remained hidden, however- for that day at least. A piercing shout ahead jerked both their heads upward. Up towards them came the bounding form of Henry Scanlon, and following him, at a goodly distance and a much more leisurely pace, came Irene.

            “Say, Dad, I had a devil of a time finding you. Where were you?”

            “Right here, son. Where were you?”

            “Oh, just around. Listen, Dad. You know those amphibians the explorers talk about as inhabiting the highland lakes of Venus, don’t you? Well, we’ve located them, lots of them, a regular convoy of them. Haven’t we, Irene?”

            Irene paused to catch her breath and nodded her head, “They’re the cutest things, Mr. Scanlon. All green.” She wrinkled her nose laughingly.

            Arthur and his father exchanged glances of doubt. The former shrugged. “Are you sure you haven’t been seeing things? I remember once. Henry, when you sighted a meteor in space, scared us all to death, and then had it turn out to be your own reflection in the port glass.”

            Henry, painfully aware of Irene’s snicker, thrust out a belligerent lower lip, “Say, Art, I guess you’re looking for a shove in the face. And I’m old enough to give it to you, too.”

            “Whoa there, quiet down,” came the peremptory voice of the elder Scanlon, “and you, Arthur, had better leam to respect your younger brother’s dignity. Now here. Henry, all Arthur meant was that these amphibians are as shy as rabbits. No one’s ever caught more than a glimpse of them.”

            “Well, we have. Dad. Lots of them. I guess they were attracted by Irene. No one can resist her.”

            “I know you can’t,” and Arthur laughed loudly.

            Henry stiffened once more, but his father stepped between. “Grow up, you two. Let’s go and see these amphibians.”

            “This is amazing,” exclaimed Max Scanlon. “Why, they’re as friendly as children. I can’t understand it.”

            Arthur-shook his head, “Neither can I, Dad. In fifty years, no explorer has ever gotten a good look at one, and here they are-thick as flies.”

            Henry was throwing pebbles into the lake. “Watch this, all of you.”

            A pebble curved its way into the water, and as it splashed six green forms turned a back somersault and slid smoothly below the surface. With no time for a breath between, one was up again and the pebble arced back to fall at Henry’s feet.

            The amphibians were crowding closer in ever increasing numbers now, approaching the very edge of the lake, where they grasped at the coarse reeds on the bank and stared goggle-eyed at the Tweenies. Their muscular webbed, legs could be seen below the surface of the water, moving back and forth with lazy grace. Without cessation, the lipless mouths opened and closed in a queer, uneven rhythm.

            “I think they’re talking, Mr. Scanlon,” said Irene, suddenly.

            “It’s quite possible,” agreed the old Tweenie, thoughtfully. “Their brain-cases are fairly large, and they may possess considerable intelligence. If their voice boxes and ears are tuned to sound waves of higher or lower range than our own, we would be unable to hear them-and that might very well explain their soundlessness.”

            “They’re probably discussing us as busily as we are them,” said Arthur.

            “Yes, and wondering what sort of freaks we are,” added Irene.

            Henry said nothing. He was approaching the edge of the lake with cautious steps. The ground grew muddy beneath his feet, and the reeds thick. The group of amphibians nearest turned anxious eyes toward him, and one or two loosened their hold and slipped silently away.

            But the nearest held his ground. His wide mouth was clamped tight; his eyes were wary-but he did not move.

            Henry, paused, hesitated, and then held out his hand, “Hiya, Phib!”

            The “Phib” stared at the outstretched hand. Very cautiously, his own webbed forelimb stretched out and touched the Tweenie’s fingers. With a jerk, they were drawn back, and the Phib’s mouth worked in soundless excitement.

            “Be careful,” came Max’s voice from behind. “You’ll scare him that way. His skin is terribly sensitive and dry objects must irritate him. Dip your hand in the water.”

            Slowly, Henry obeyed. The Phib’s muscles tensed to escape at the slightest sudden motion, but none came. Again the Tweenie’s hand was held out, dripping wet this time.

            For a long minute, nothing happened, as the Phib seemed to debate within itself the future course of action. And then, after two false starts and hasty withdrawals, fingers touched again.

            “Ataphib,” said Henry, and clasped the green hand in his own.

            A single, startled jerk followed and then a lusty return of pressure to an extent that numbed the Tweenie’s fingers. Evidently encouraged by the first Phib’s example, his fellows were crowding close now, offering hosts of hands.

            The other three Tweenies slushed up through the mud now, and offered wetted hands in their turn.

            “That’s funny,” said Irene. “Everytime I shake hands I seem to keep thinking of hair.”

            Max turned to her, “Hair?”

            “Yes, ours. I get a picture of long, white hair, standing straight up and shining in the sun.” Her hand rose unconsciously to her own smooth tresses.

            “Say!” interrupted Henry suddenly, “I’ve been noticing that, too, now that you mention it. Only when I shake hands, though.”

            “How about you, Arthur?” asked Max.

            Arthur nodded once, his eyebrows climbing.

            Max smiled and pounded fist into palm. “Why, it’s a primitive sort of telepathy-too weak to work without physical contact and even then capable of delivering only a few simple ideas.”

            “But why hair, dad?” asked Arthur.

            “Maybe it’s our hair that attracted them in the first place. They’ve never seen anything like it and-and-well, who can explain their psychology?”

            He was down on his knees suddenly, splashing water over his high crest of hair. There was a frothing of water and a surging of green bodies as the Phibs pressed closer. One green paw passed gently through the stiff white crest, followed by excited, if noiseless, chattering. Struggling amongst themselves for favored vantage-points, they competed for the privilege of touching the hair until Max, for sheer weariness, was forced to rise again.

            “They’re probably our friends for life now,” he said. “A pretty queer set of animals.”

            It was Irene, then, who noticed the group of Phib? a hundred yards from shore. They paddled quietly, making no effort to approach closer, “Why don’t they come?” she asked.

            She turned to one of the foremost Phibs and pointed, making frantic gestures of dubious meaning. She received only solemn stares in return.

            “That’s not the way, Irene,” admonished Max, gently. He 229 held out his hand, grasped that of a willing Phib and stood motionless for a moment. When he loosed his grip, the Phib slid into the water and disappeared. In a moment, the laggard Phibs were approaching shore slowly.

            “How did you do it?” gasped Irene.

            “Telepathy! I held on tightly and pictured an isolated group of Phibs and a long hand stretching out over the water to shake theirs.” He smiled gently, “They are quite intelligent, or they would not have understood so readily.”

            “Why, they’re females,” cried Arthur, in sudden breathless astonishment “By all that’s holy,-they suckle their young!”

            The newcomers were slenderer and lighter in color than the others. They advanced shyly, urged on by the bolder males and held out timid hands in greeting.

            “Oh-h,” Irene cried in sudden delight. “Look at this!”

            She was down on her knees in the mud, arms outstretched to the nearest female. The other three watched in fascinated silence as the nervous she-Phib clasped its tiny armful closer to its breast.

            But Irene’s arms made little inviting gestures, “Please, please. It’s so cute. I won’t hurt him.”

            Whether the Phib mother understood is doubtful, but with a sudden motion, she held out a little green bundle of squirming life and deposited it in the waiting arms.

            Irene rose, squealing with delight. Little webbed feet kicked aimlessly and round frightened eyes stared at her. The other three crowded close and watched it curiously.

            “Its the dearest little thing, it is. Look at its funny little mouth. Do you want to hold it. Henry?”

            Henry jumped backwards as if stung, “Not on your life! I’d probably drop it.”

            “Do you get any thought images, Irene?’ asked Max, thoughtfully.

            Irene considered and frowned her concentration, “No-o. It’s too young, mayb-oh, yes! It’s-it’s-” She stopped, and tried to laugh. “It’s hungry!”

            She returned the little baby Phib to its mother, whose muscular arms clasped the little mite close. The tiny Phib swiveled its little green head to bend one last goggling look at the creature that had held it for an instant.

            “Friendly creatures,” said Max, “and intelligent. They can keep their lakes and rivers. We’ll take the land and won’t interfere with them.”

            A lone Tweenie stood on Scanlon Ridge and his field-glass pointed at the Divide ten miles up the hills. For five minutes, the glass did not waver and the Tweenie stood like some watchful statue made of the same rock as formed the mountains all about.

            And then the field-glass lowered, and the Tweenie’s face was a pale thin-lipped picture of gloom. He hastened down the slope to the guarded, hidden entrance to Venustown.

            He shot past the guards without a word and descended into the lower levels where solid rock was still being puffed into nothingness and shaped at will by controlled blasts of super-energy.

            Arthur Scanlon looked up and with a sudden premonition of disaster, gestured the Disintegrators to a halt.

            “What’s wrong, Sorrell?”

            The Tweenie leant over and whispered a single word into Arthur’s ear.

            “Where?” Arthur’s voice jerked out hoarsely.

            “On the other side of the ridge. They’re coming through the Divide now in our direction. I spotted the blaze of sun on metal and-” he held up his field-glass significantly.

            “Good Lord!” Arthur rubbed his forehead distractedly and then turned to the anxiously-watching Tweenie at the controls of the Disinto. “Continue as planned! No change!”

            He hurried up the levels to the entrance, and snapped out hurried orders, “Triple the guard immediately. No one but me or those with me, are to be permitted to leave. Send out men to round up any stragglers outside immediately and order them to keep within shelter and make no unnecessary sound.”

            Then, back again through the central avenue to his father’s quarters.

            Max Scanlon looked up from his calculations and his grave forehead smoothed out slowly.

            “Hello, son. Is anything wrong? Another resistant stratum?”

            “No, nothing like that.” Arthur closed the door carefully and lowered his voice. “Earthmen!”

            For a moment. Max made no movement. The expression on his face froze for an instant, and then, with a sudden exhalation, he slumped in his chair and the lines in his forehead deepened wearily.

            “Settlers?”

            “Looks so. Sorrell said women and children were among them. There were several hundred in all, equipped for a stay-and headed in this direction.”

            Max groaned, “Oh, the luck, the luck! All the vast empty spaces of Venus to choose and they come here. Come, let’s get a firsthand look at this.”

            They came through the Divide in a long, snaky line. Hard-bitten pioneers with their pinched work-worn women and their carefree, half-barbarous, wilderness-bred children. The low, broad “Venus Vans” joggled clumsily over the untrodden ways, loaded down with amorphous masses of household necessities.

            The leaders surveyed the prospect and one spoke in clipped, jerky syllables, “Almost through, Jem. We’re out among the foothills now.”

            And the other replied slowly, “And there’s good new growing-land ahead. We can stake out farms and settle down.” He sighed, “It’s been tough going this last month. I’m glad it’s over!”

            And from a ridge ahead-the last ridge before the valley-the Scanlons, father and son, unseen dots in the distance, watched the newcomers with heavy hearts.

            “The one thing we could not prepare for-and it’s happened.”

            Arthur spoke slowly and reluctantly, “They are few and unarmed. We can drive them out in an hour.” With sudden fierceness, “Venus is ours!”

            “Yes, we can drive them out in an hour-in ten minutes. But they would return, in thousands, and armed. We’re not ready to fight all Earth, Arthur.”

            The younger man bit his lip and words were muttered forth half in shame, “For the sake of the race. Father-we could kill them all.”

            “Never!” exclaimed Max, his old eyes flashing. “We will not be the first to strike. If we kill, we can expect no mercy from Earth; and we will deserve none,”

            “But, father, what else? We can expect no mercy from Earth as it is. If we’re spotted,-if they ever suspect our existence, our whole hegira becomes pointless and we lose out at the very beginning.”

            “I know. I know.”

            “We can’t change now,” continued Arthur, passionately. “We’ve spent months preparing Venustown. How could we start over?”

            “We can’t,” agreed Max, tonelessly. “To even attempt to move would mean sure discovery. We can only-”

            “Live like moles after all. Hunted fugitives! Frightened refugees! Is that it?”

            “Put it any way you like-but we must hide, Arthur, and bury ourselves.”

            “Until-?”

            “Until I-or we-perfect a curved two-dimensional statbeam. Surrounded by an impermeable defense, we can come out into the open. It may take years; it may take one week. I don’t know.”

            “And every day we run the risk of detection. Any day the swarms of purebloods can come down upon us and wipe us out. We’ve got to hang by a hair day after day, week after week, month after month-”

            “We’ve got to.” Max’s mouth was clamped shut, and his eyes were a frosty blue.

            Slowly, they went back to Venustown.

            Things were quiet in Venustown, and eyes were turned to the top-most level and the hidden exits. Out there was air and the sun and space-and Earthmen.

            They had settled several miles up the river-bed. Their rude houses were springing up. Surrounding land was being cleared. Farms were being staked out. Planting was taking place.

            And in the bowels of Venus, eleven hundred Tweenies shaped their home and waited for an old man to track down the elusive equations that would enable a stat-ray to spread in two dimensions and curve.

            Irene brooded somberly as she sat upon the rocky ledge and stared ahead to where the dim gray light indicated the existence of an exit to the open. Her shapely legs swung gently back and forth and Henry Scanlon, at her side, fought desperately to keep his gaze focussed harmlessly upon air.

            “You know what. Henry?”

            “What?”

            “I’ll bet the Phibs could help us.”

            “Help us do what, Irene?”

            “Help us get rid of the Earthmen.”

            Henry thought it over carefully, “What makes you think that?”

            “Well, they’re pretty clever-cleverer than we think. Their minds are altogether different, though, and maybe they could fix it. Besides-I’ve just got a feeling.” She withdrew her hand suddenly, “You don’t have to hold it. Henry.”

            Henry swallowed, “I-I thought you had a sort of unsteady seat there-might fall, you know.”

            “Oh!” Irene looked down the terrific three-foot drop. ‘There’s something in what you say. It does look pretty high here.”

            Henry decided he was in the presence of a hint, and acted accordingly. There was a moment’s silence while he seriously considered the possibility of her feeling a bit chilly-but before he had quite decided that she probably was, she spoke again,

            “What I was going to say, Henry, was this. Why don’t we go out and see the Phibs?”

            “Dad would take my head off if I tried anything like that.”

            “It would be a lot of fun.”

            “Sure, but it’s dangerous. We can’t risk anyone seeing us.”

            Irene shrugged resignedly, “Well, if you’re afraid, we’ll say no more about it.”

            Henry gasped and reddened. He was off the ledge in a bound, “Who’s afraid? When do you want to go?”

            “Right now, Henry. Right this very minute.” Her cheeks flushed with enthusiasm.

            “All right then. Come on.” He started off at a half-run, dragging her along.-And then a thought occurred to him and he stopped short.

            He turned to her fiercely, “I’ll show you if I’m afraid.” His arms were suddenly about her and her little cry of surprise was muffled effectively.

            “Goodness,” said Irene, when in a position to speak once more. “How thoroughly brutal!”

            “Certainly. I’m a very well-known brute,” gasped Henry, as he uncrossed his eyes and got rid of the swimming sensation in his head. “Now let’s get to those Phibs; and remind me, when I’m president, to put up a memorial to the fellow who invented kissing.”

            Up through the rock-lined corridor, past the backs of outward-gazing sentries, out through the carefully camouflaged opening, and they were upon the surface.

            The smudge of smoke on the southern horizon was grim evidence of the presence of man, and with that in mind, the two young Tweenies slithered through the underbrush into the forest and through the forest to the lake of the Phibs.

            Whether in some strange way of their own the Phibs sensed the presence of friends, the two could not tell, but they had scarcely reached the banks when approaching dull-green smudges beneath water told of the creatures’ coming.

            A wide, goggle-eyed head broke the surface, and, in a second, bobbing frogheads dotted the lake.

            Henry wet his hand and seized the friendly forelimb outstretched to him.

            “Hi there, Phib.”

            The grinning mouth worked and made its soundless answer.

            “Ask him about the Earthmen, Henry,” urged Irene. Henry motioned impatiently.

            “Wait a while. It takes time. I’m doing the best I can.”

            For two slow minutes, the two, Tweenie and Phib, remained motionless and stared into each other’s eyes. And then the Phib broke away and, at some silent order, every lake-creature vanished, leaving the Tweenies alone.

            Irene stared for a moment, nonplussed, “What happened?”

            Henry shrugged, “I don’t know. I pictured the Earthmen and he seemed to know who I meant. Then I pictured Earthmen fighting us and killing us-and he pictured a lot of us and only a few of them and another fight in which we killed them. But then I pictured us killing them and then a lot more of them coming-hordes and hordes-and killing us and then-”

            But the girl was holding her hands to her tortured ears, “Oh, my goodness. No wonder the poor creature didn’t understand. I wonder he didn’t go crazy.”

            “Well, I did the best I could,” was the gloomy response. “This was all your nutty idea, anyway.”

            Irene got no further with her retort than the opening syllable, for in a moment the lake was crowded with Phibs once more. “They’ve come back,” she said instead.

            A Phib pushed forward and seized Henry’s hand while the others crowded around in great excitement. There were several moments of silence and Irene fidgeted.

            “Well?” she said.

            “Quiet, please. I don’t get it. Something about big animals, or monsters, or-” His voice trailed away, and the furrow between his eyes deepened into painful concentration.

            He nodded, first abstractedly, then vigorously.

            He broke away and seized Irene’s hands. “I’ve got it-and it’s the perfect solution. We can save Venustown all by ourselves, Irene, with the help of the Phibs-if you want to come to the Lowlands with me tomorrow. We can take along a pair of Tonite pistols and food supplies and if we follow the river, it oughtn’t to take us more than two or three days there and the same time back. What do you say, Irene?”

            Youth is not noted for forethought. Irene’s hesitation was for effect only, “Well-maybe we shouldn’t go ourselves, but -but I’ll go-with you.” There was the lightest accent on the last word.

            Ten seconds later, the two were on their way back to Venustown, and Henry was wondering, if on the whole, it weren’t better to put up two memorials to the fellow who invented kissing.

            The flickering red-yellow of the fire sent back ruddy highlights from Henry’s lordly crest of hair and cast shifting shadows upon his brooding face.

            It was hot in the Lowlands, and the fire made it worse, yet Henry huddled close and kept an anxious eye upon the sleeping form of Irene on the other side. The teeming life of the Venusian jungle respected fire, and the flames spelt safety.

            They were three days from the plateau now. The stream had become a lukewarm, slowly-moving river, the shores of which were covered with the green scum of algae. The pleasant forests had given way to the tangled, vine-looped growths of the jungle. The mingled sounds of life had grown in volume and increased to a noisy crescendo. The air became warmer and damper; the ground swampier; the surroundings more fantastically unfamiliar.

            And yet there was no real danger-of that, Henry was convinced. Poisonous life was unknown on Venus, and as for the tough-skinned monsters that lorded the jungles, the fire at night and the Phibs during day would keep them away.

            Twice the ear-splitting shriek of a Centosaur had sounded in the distance and twice the sound of crashing trees had caused the two Tweenies to draw together in fear. Both times,  ‘I the monsters had moved away again.              •

            This was the third night out, and Henry stirred uneasily. The Phibs seemed confident that before morning they could start their return trip, and somehow the thought of Venustown was rather attractive. Adventure and excitement are fine and with every passing hour the glory of his scintillating bravery grew in Irene’s eyes-which was wonderful-but still Venustown and the friendly Highlands were nice to think about.

            He threw himself on his stomach and gazed morosely into the fire, thinking of his twenty years of age-almost twenty years.

            “Why, heck,” he tore at the rank grass beneath. “It’s about time I was thinking of getting married.” And his eye strayed involuntarily to the sleeping form beyond the fire.

            As if in response, there was a flickering of eyelids and a vague stare out of deep blue eyes.

            Irene sat up and stretched.

            “I can’t sleep at all,” she complained, brushing futilely at her white hair. “It’s so hot” She stared at the fire distastefully.

            Henry’s good humor persisted. “You slept for hours-and snored like a trombone.”

            Irene’s eyes snapped wide open. “I did not!” Then, with a voice vibrant with tragedy, “Did I?”

            “No, of course not!” Henry howled his laughter, stopping only at the sudden, sharp contact between the toe of Irene’s shoe and the pit of his own stomach. “Ouch,” he said.

            “Don’t speak to me anymore. Mister Scanlon!” was the girl’s frigid remark.

            It was Henry’s turn to look tragic. He rose in panicky dismay and took a single step towards the girl. And then he froze in his tracks at the ear-piercing shriek of a Centosaur. When he came to himself, he found his arms full of Irene.

            Reddening, she disentangled herself, and then the Centosaurian shriek sounded again, from another direction,-and there she was, right back again.

            Henry’s face was pale, in spite of his fair armful. “I think the Phibs have snared the Centosaurs. Come with me and I’ll ask them.”

            The Phibs were dim blotches in the grey dawn that was breaking. Rows and rows of strained, abstracted individuals were all that met the eye. Only one seemed to be unoccupied and when Henry rose from the handclasp, he said, “They’ve got three Centosaurs and that’s all they can handle. We’re starting back to the Highlands right now.”

            The rising sun found the party two miles up the river. The Tweenies, hugging the shore, cast wary eyes towards the bordering jungle. Through an occasional clearing, vast grey bulks could be made out The noise of the reptilian shrieks was almost continuous.

            “I’m sorry I brought you, Irene,” said Henry. “I’m not so sure now that the Phibs can take care of the monsters.”

            Irene shook her head. “That’s all right, Henry. I wanted to come. Only-I wish we had thought of letting the Phibs bring the beasts themselves. They don’t need us.”

            “Yes, they do! If a Centosaur gets out of control, it will make straight for the Tweenies and they’d never get away. We’ve got the Tonite guns to kill the ‘saurs with if the worst comes to the worst-” His voice trailed away and he glanced at the lethal weapon in his hand and derived but cold comfort therefrom.

            The first night was sleepless for both Tweenies. Somewhere, unseen in the blackness of the river, Phibs took shifts and their telepathic control over the tiny brains of the gigantic, twenty-legged Centosaurs maintained its tenuous hold. Off in the jungle, three hundred-ton monsters howled impatiently against the force that drove them up the river side against their will and raved impotently against the unseen barrier that prevented them from approaching the stream.

            By the side of the fire, a pair of Tweenies, lost between mountainous flesh on one side and the fragile protection of a telepathic web on the other, gazed longingly towards the Highlands some forty miles off.

            Progress was slow. As the Phibs tired, the Centosaurs grew balkier. But gradually, the air grew cooler. The rank jungle growth thinned out and the distance to Venustown shortened.

            Henry greeted the first signs of familiar temperate-zone forest with a tremulous sigh of relief. Only Irene’s presence prevented him from discarding his role of heroism.

            He felt pitifully eager for their quixotic journey to be over, but he only said, “It’s practically all over but the shouting. And you can bet there’ll be shouting, Irene. We’ll be heroes, you and I.”

            Irene’s attempt at enthusiasm was feeble. “I’m tired. Henry. Let’s rest.” She sank slowly to the ground, and Henry, after signalling the Phibs, joined her.

            “How much longer, Henry?” Almost without volition, she found her head nestling wearily against his shoulder.

            “One more day, Irene. Tomorrow this time, we’ll be back.” He looked wretched, “You think we shouldn’t have tried to do this ourselves, don’t you?”

            “Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.”

            “Yes, I know,” said Henry. “I’ve noticed that I get lots of ideas that seem good at the time, but sometimes they turn sour.” He shook his head philosophically, “I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.”

            “All I know,” said Irene, “is that I don’t care if I never move another step in my life. I wouldn’t get up now-”

            Her voice died away as her beautiful blue eyes stared off towards the right. One of the Centosaurs stumbled into the waters of a small, tributary to the stream they were following. Wallowing in the water, his huge serpentine body mounted on the ten stocky pairs of legs, glistened horribly. His ugly head weaved towards the sky and his terrifying call pierced the air. A second joined him.

            Irene was on her feet. “What are you waiting for. Henry. Let’s go! Hurry!”

            Henry gripped his Tonite gun tightly and followed.

            Arthur Scanlon gulped savagely at his fifth cup of black coffee and, with an effort, brought the Audiomitter into optical focus. His eyes, he decided, were becoming entirely too balky. He rubbed them into red-rimmed irritation and cast a glance over his shoulder at the restlessly sleeping figure on the couch.

            He crept over to her, and adjusted the coverlet.

            “Poor Mom,” he whispered, and bent to kiss the pale lips.

            He turned to the Audiomitter and clenched a fist at it, “Wait till I get you, you crazy nut”

            Madeline stirred, “Is it dark yet?”

            “No,” lied Arthur with feeble cheerfulness. “Hell call before sundown. Mom. You just sleep and let me take care of things. Dad’s upstairs working on the stat-field and he says he’s making progress. In a few days everything will be all right.” He sat silently beside her and grasped her band tightly. Her tired eyes closed once more.

            The signal light blinked on and, with a last look at his mother, he stepped out into the corridor, “Well!”

            The waiting Tweenie saluted smartly, “John Barno wants to say that it looks as if we are in for a storm.” He handed over an official report.

            Arthur glanced at it peevishly, “What of that? We’ve had plenty so far, haven’t we? What do you expect of Venus?”

            “This will be a particularly bad one, from all indications. The barometer has fallen unprecedentedly. The ionic concentration of the upper atmosphere is at an unequalled maximum. The Beulah River has overflowed its banks and is rising rapidly.”

            The other frowned, “There’s not an entrance to Venustown that isn’t at least fifty yards above river level. As for rain- our drainage system is to be relied upon.” He grimaced suddenly. “Go back and tell Barno that it can storm for my part -for forty days and forty nights if it wants to. Maybe it will drive the Earthmen away.”

            He turned away, but the Tweenie held his ground, “Beg pardon sir, but that’s not the worst. A scouting party today-”

            Arthur whirled. “A scouting party? Who ordered one to be sent out?”

            “Your father, sir. They were to make contact with the Phibs,-I don’t know why.”

            “Well, go on.”

            “Sir, the Phibs could not be located.”

            And now, for the first time, Arthur was startled out of his savage ill-humor, ‘They were gone?”

            The Tweenie nodded, “It is thought that they have sought shelter from the coming storm. It is that which causes Barno to fear the worst.”

            “They say rats desert a sinking ship,” murmured Arthur. He buried his head in trembling hands. “Godi Everything at once! Everything at once!”

            The darkening twilight hid the pall of blackness that lowered over the mountains ahead and emphasized the darting flashes of lightning that flickered on and off continuously.

            Irene shivered, “It’s getting sort of windy and chilly, isn’t it?”

            “The cold wind from the mountains. We’re in for a storm, I guess,” Henry assented absently. “I think the river is getting wider.”

            A short silence, and then, with sudden vivacity, “But look, Irene, only a few more miles to the lake and then we’re practically at the Earth village. It’s almost over.”

            Irene nodded, “I’m glad for all of us-and the Phibs, too.”

            She had reason for the last statement. The Phibs were swimming slowly now. An additional detachment had arrived the day before from upstream, but even with those reinforcements, progress had slowed to a walk. Unaccustomed cold was nipping the multi-legged reptiles and they yielded to superior mental force more and more reluctantly.

            The first drops fell just after they had passed the lake. Darkness had fallen, and in the blue glare of the lightning the trees about them were ghostly specters reaching swaying fingers towards the sky. A sudden flare in the distance marked the funeral pyre of a lightning-hit tree.

            Henry paled. “Make for the clearing just ahead. At a time like this, trees are dangerous.”

            The clearing he spoke of composed the outskirts of the Earth village. The rough-hewn houses, crude and small against the fury of the elements, showed lights here and there that spoke of human occupancy. And as the first Centosaur stumbled out from between splintered trees, the storm suddenly burst in all its fury.

            The two Tweenies huddled close. “It’s up to the Phibs,” screamed Henry, dimly heard above the wind and rain. “I hope they can do it.”

            The three monsters converged upon the houses ahead. They moved more rapidly as the Phibs called up every last bit of mental power.

            Irene buried her wet head in Henry’s equally wet shoulder, “I can’t look! Those houses will go like matchsticks. Oh, the poor people!”

            “No, Irene, no. They’ve stopped!”

            The Centosaurs pawed vicious gouges out of the ground beneath and their screams rang shrill and clear above the noise of the storm. Startled Earthmen rushed from their cabins.

            Caught unprepared-most having been roused from sleep -and faced with a Venusian storm and nightmarish Venusian monsters, there was no question of organized action. As they stood, carrying nothing but their clothes, they broke and ran.

            There was the utmost confusion. One or two, with dim attempts at presence of mind, took wild, ineffectual pot-shots at the mountains of flesh before them-and then ran.

            And when it seemed that all were gone, the giant reptiles surged forward once more and where once had been houses, there were left only mashed splinters.

            “They’ll never come back, Irene, they’ll never come back.” Henry was breathless at the success of his plan. “We’re heroes now, and-” His voice rose to a hoarse shriek, “Irene, get back! Make for the trees!”

            The Centosaurian howls had taken on a deeper note. The nearest one reared onto his two hindmost pairs of legs and his great head, two hundred feet above ground, was silhouetted horribly against the lightning. With a rumbling thud, he came down on all feet again and made for the river-which under the lash of the storm was now a raging flood.

            The Phibs had lost control!

            Henry’s Tonite gun flashed into quick action as he shoved Irene away. She, however, backed away slowly and brought her own gun into line.

            The ball of purple light that meant a hit blazed into being and the nearest Centosaur screamed in agony as its mighty tail threshed aside the surrounding trees. Blindly, the hole where once a leg had been gushing blood, it charged.

            A second glare of purple and it was down with an earthshaking thud, its last shriek reaching a crescendo of shrill frightfulness.

            But the other two monsters were crashing towards them. They blundered blindly towards the source of the power that, had held them captive almost a week; driving violently with all the force of their mindless hate to the river. And in the path of the Juggernauts were the two Tweenies.

            The boiling torrent was at their backs. The forest was a groaning wilderness of splintered trees and ear-splitting sound.

            Then, suddenly, the reports of Tonite guns sounded from the distance. Purple glares-a flurry of threshing-spasmodic shrieking-and then a silence in which even the wind, as if overawed by recent events, held its peace momentarily.

            Henry yelled his glee and performed an impromptu war-dance. “They’ve come from Venustown, Irene,” he shouted. ‘They’ve got the Centosaurs and everything’s finished! We’ve saved the Tweenies!”

            It happened in a breath’s time. Irene had dropped her gun and sobbed her relief. She was running to Henry and then she tripped-and the river had her.

            “Henry!” The wind whipped the sound away.

            For one dreadful moment. Henry found himself incapable of motion. He could only stare stupidly, unbelievingly, at the spot where Irene had been, and then he was in the water. He plunged into the surrounding blackness desperately.

            “Irene!” He caught his breath with difficulty. The current drove him on.

            “Irene!” No sound but the wind. His efforts at swimming were futile. He couldn’t even break surface for more than a second at a time, his lungs were bursting.

            “Irene!” There was no answer. -Nothing but rushing water and darkness.

            And then something touched him. He lashed out at it instinctively, but the grip tightened. He felt himself borne up into the air. His tortured lungs breathed in gasps. A grinning Phib face stared into his and after that there were nothing but confused impressions of cold, dark wetness.

            He became aware of his surroundings by stages. First, that he was sitting on a blanket under the trees, with other blankets wrapped tightly about him. Then, he felt the warm radiation of the heatlamps upon him and the illumination of Atomo bulbs. People were crowding close and he noticed that it was no longer raining.

            He stared about him hazily and then, “Irene!”

            She was beside him, as wrapped up as he, and smiling feebly, “I’m all right, Henry. The Phibs dragged me back, too.”

            Madeline was bending over him and he swallowed the hot coffee placed to his lips. “The Phibs have told us of what you two have helped them do. We’re all proud of you, son-you and Irene.”

            Max’s smile transfigured his face into the picture of paternal pride, “The psychology you used was perfect. Venus is too vast and has too many friendly areas to expect Earthmen to return to places that have shown themselves to be infested with Centosaurs-not for a good long while. And when they do come back, we shall have our stat-field.”

            Arthur Scanlon hurried up out of the gloom. He thwacked Henry on the shoulder and then wrung Irene’s hand. “Your guardian and I,” he told her, “are fixing up a celebration for day after tomorrow, so get good and rested. It’s going to be the greatest thing you ever saw.”

            Henry spoke lip, “Celebration, huh? Well, I’ll tell you what you can do. After it’s over, you can announce an engagement”

            “An engagement?” Madeline sat up and looked interested. “What do you mean?”

            “An engagement-to be married,” came the impatient answer. “I’m old enough, I suppose. Today proves it!”

            Irene’s eyes bent in furious concentration upon the grass, “With whom. Henry?”

            “Huh? With you, of course. Gosh, who else could it be?”

            “But you haven’t asked me.” The words were uttered slowly and with great firmness.

            For a moment Henry flushed, and then his jaws grew grim, “Well, I’m not going to. I’m telling you! And what are you going to do about it?”

            He leaned close to her and Max Scanlon chuckled and motioned the others away. On tip-toes, they left.

            A dim shape hobbled into view and the two Tweenies separated in confusion. They had forgotten the others.

            But it wasn’t another Tweenie. “Why-why, it’s a Phib!” cried Irene.

            He limped his ungainly way across the wet grass, with the inexpert aid of his muscular arms. Approaching, he flopped wearily on his stomach and extended his forearms.

            His purpose was plain. Irene and Henry grasped a hand apiece. There was silence a moment or two and the Phib’s great eyes glinted solemnly in the light of the Atomo lamps. Then there was a sudden squeal of embarrassment from Irene and shy laugh from Henry. Contact was broken.

            “Did you get the same thing I did?” asked Henry.

            Irene was red, “Yes, a long row of little baby Phibs, maybe fifteen-”

            “Or twenty,” said Henry.

            “-with long white hear!”

THE END

      In the fall of 1939, I discovered that a beautiful blond girl had the desk next to mine in the laboratory of my course in synthetic organic chemistry. Naturally I was attracted.

            I persuaded her to go out with me on simple dates, the very first being on my twentieth birthday, when I took her to Radio City Music Hall. For five months, I mooned after her with feckless, romanticism.

            At the end of the school year, though, she had earned her master of arts degree and, having decided not to go on for her doctorate, left school and took a job in Wilmington, Delaware, leaving me behind, woebegone and stricken.

            I got over it, of course, but while she was still at school I wrote “Half-Breeds on Venus.” Of all the stories I had yet written, it was the most heavily boy-and-girl. The heroine’s name was Irene, which was the name of my pretty blond lab neighbor.

            Merely having a few dates on the hand-holding level did not, however, perform the magic required to make me capable of handling passion in literature, and I continued to use girls sparingly in later stories-and a good thing, too, I think.

            The success of “Half-Breeds on Venus” made the notion of writing sequels generally seem a good idea. A sequel to a successful story must, after all, be a reasonably sure sale. So even while I was working on “Half-Breeds on Venus,” I suggested to Campbell that I write a sequel to “Homo Sol.”

            Campbell’s enthusiasm was moderate, but he was willing to look at such a sequel if I were to write it. I did write it as soon as “Half-Breeds on Venus” was done and called it “The Imaginary.” Although it used one of the chief characters of “Homo Sol,” the human-nonhuman confrontation was absent, which probably didn’t help it as far as Campbell was concerned. I submitted it to him on June 11, and received it back-a rejection, sequel or no sequel-on June 19.

            Pohl rejected it, too. Tremaine read it with more sympathy and was thinking of taking it for Comet, I heard, but that magazine ceased publication and the story was back on the market. Actually, I retired it, but two years later I sold it to Pohl’s magazine after all-but at a time when Pohl was no longer editor.

            But though I had my troubles and didn’t click every time, or even right away, I did manage to make $272 during my first year as a graduate student, and that was an enormous help.

The Imaginary

      The telecaster flashed its fitful signal, while Tan Porus sat by complacently. His sharp, green eyes glittered their triumph, and his tiny body was vibrant with excitement. Nothing could have better indicated the greatness of the occasion than his extraordinary position-Tan Porus had his feet on the desk!

            The ‘caster glowed into life and a broad Arcturian countenance frowned fretfully out at the Rigellian psychologist.

            “Do you have to drag me here straight from bed, Porus? It’s the middle of the night!”

            “It’s broad daylight in this part of the world. Final. But I’ve got something to tell you that’ll make you forget all about sleep.”

            Gar Final, editor of the J.G.P.-Journal of Galactic Psychology-allowed a look of alertness to cross his face. Whatever Tan Porus’s faults-and Arcturus knew they were many -he had never issued a false alarm. If he said something great was in the air, it was not merely great-it was colossal!

            It was quite evident that Porus was enjoying himself. “Final,” he said, “the next article I send to your rag is going to be the greatest thing you’ve ever printed.”

            Final was impressed. “Do you really mean what you say?” he asked idiotically.

            “What kind of a stupid question is that? Of course I do. Listen-” There followed a dramatic silence, while the tenseness on Final’s face reached painful proportions. Then came Porus’s husky whisper-”I’ve solved the problem of the squid!”

            Of course the reaction was exactly what Porus had expected. There was a blow-up at the other end, and for thirty interesting seconds the Rigellian was surprised to learn that the staid and respectable Final had a blistering vocabulary.

            Porus’s squid was a by-word throughout the galaxy. For two years now, he had been fussing over an obscure Draconian animal that persisted in going to sleep when it wasn’t supposed to. He had set up equations and torn them down with a regularity that had become a standing joke with every psychologist in the Federation-and none had explained the unusual reaction. Now Final had been dragged from bed to be told that the solution had been reached-and that was all.

            Final ripped out a concluding phrase that all but put the ‘caster out of commission.

            Porus waited for the storm to pass and then said calmly, “But do you know how I solved it?”

            The other’s answer was an indistinct mumble.

            The Rigellian began speaking rapidly. All traces of amusement had left his face and, after a few sentences, all traces of anger left Final’s.

            The Arcturian’s expression became one of wide-eyed interest. “No?” he gasped.

            “Yes!”

            When Porus had finished. Final raced madly to put in rush calls to the printers to delay publication of the coming issue of the J.G.P. for two weeks.

            Furo Santins, head of the math department of the University of Arcturus, gazed long and steady at his Sirian colleague.

            “No, no, you’re wrong! His equations were legitimate. I checked them myself.”

            “Mathematically, yes,” retorted the round-faced Sirian. “But psychologically they had no meaning.”

            Santins slapped his high forehead. “Meaning! Listen to the mathematician talk. Great space, man, what have mathematics to do with meaning? Mathematics is a tool and as long as it can be manipulated to give proper answers and to make correct predictions, actual meaning has no significance. I’ll say this for Tan Porus-most psychologists don’t know enough mathematics to handle a slide-rule efficiently, but he knows his stuff.”

            The other nodded doubtfully, “I guess so. I guess so. But using imaginary quantities in psychological equations stretches my faith in science just a little bit. Square root of minus one!”

            He shuddered. . . .

            The seniors’ lounge in Psychology Hall was crowded and a-buzz with activity. The rumor of Porus’s solution to the now-classic problem of the squid had spread fast, and conversation touched on nothing else.

            At the center of the thickest group was Lor Haridin. He was young, with but newly acquired Senior status. But as Porus’s assistant he was, under present conditions, master of the situation.

            “Look, fellows-just exactly what it’s all about I don’t know. That’s the old man’s secret. All I can tell you is that I’ve got the general idea as to how he solved it.”

            The others squeezed closer. “I hear he had to make up a new mathematical notation for the squid,” said one, “like that time we had trouble with the humanoids of Sol.”

            Lor Haridin shook his head. “Worse! What made him think of it, I can’t imagine. It was either a brainstorm or a nightmare, but anyway he introduced imaginary quantities-the square root of minus one.”

            There was an awful silence and then someone said, “I don’t believe it!”

            “Fact!” was the complacent reply.

            “But it doesn’t make sense. What can the square root of minus one represent, psychologically speaking? Why, that would mean-” he was doing rapid calculation in his head, as were most of the others-”that the neural synapses were hooked up in neither more nor less than four dimensions!”

            “Sure,” broke in another. “I suppose that if you stimulate the squid today, it will react yesterday. That’s what an imaginary would mean. Comet gas! That’s what I say.”

            “That’s why you’re not the man Tan Porus is,” said Haridin. “Do you suppose he cares how many imaginaries there are in the intermediate steps if they all square out into minus one in the final solution. All he’s interested in is that they give him the proper sign in the answer-an answer which will explain that sleep business. As for its physical significance, what matter? Mathematics is only a tool, anyway.”

            The others considered silently and marveled.

            Tan Porus sat in his stateroom aboard the newest and most luxurious interstellar liner and gazed at the young man before him happily. He was in amazing good humor and, for perhaps the first time in his life, did not mind being interviewed by the keen, efficient employees of the Ether Press.

            The Ethereporter on his side wondered in silence at the affability of the scientist. From bitter experience, he had found out that scientists, as a whole, detested reporters-and that psychologists, in particular, thought it fun to practice a bit of applied psych on them and to induce killingly amusing -to others-reactions.

            He remembered the time that the old fellow from Canopus had convinced him that arboreal life was the greatest good. It had taken twenty men to drag him down from the tree-tops and an expert psychologist to bring him back to normal.

            But here was the greatest of them all. Tan Porus, actually answering questions like a normal human being.

            “What I would like to know now, Professor,” said the reporter, “is just what this imaginary quantity is all about. That is,” he interposed hastily, “not the mathematics of it-we’ll take your word on that-but just a general idea that the ordinary humanoid can picture. For instance, I’ve heard that the squid has a four-dimensional mind.”

            Porus groaned, “Oh, Rigel! Four-dimensional poppycock! To tell the honest truth, that imaginary I used-which seems to have caught the popular fancy-probably indicates nothing more than some abnormality in the squid’s nervous system, but just what, I don’t know. Certainly, to the gross methods of ecology and micro-physiology, nothing unusual has been found. No doubt, the answer would lie in the atomic physics of the creature’s brain, but there I have no hope.” There was a trace of disdain in his voice. “The atomic physicists are too far behind the psychologists to expect them to catch up at this late date.”

            The reporter bore down furiously on his stylus. The next day’s headline was clear in his mind: Noted Psychologist Blasts Atomic Physicists!

      Also, the headline of the day after: Indignant Physicists Denounce Noted Psychologist!

      Scientific feuds were great stuff for the Ether Press, particularly that between psychologists and physicists, who, it was well known, hated each other’s guts.

            The reporter glanced up brightly. “Say, Professor, the humanoids of the galaxy are very interested, you know, in the private lives of you scientists. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions about your trip home to Rigel IV.”

            “Go ahead,” said Porus, genially. “Tell them it’s the first time I’m getting home in two years. I’m sort of looking forward to it. Arcturus is just a bit too yellow for my eyes and the furniture you have here is too big.”

            “It’s true, isn’t it, that you have a wife at home?”

            Porus coughed. “Hmm, yes. Sweetest little woman in the galaxy. I’m looking forward to seeing her, too. Put that down.”

            The reporter put it down. “How is it you didn’t bring her to Arcturus with you?”

            Some of the geniality left the Rigellian’s face. “I like to be alone when I work. Women are all right-in their place. Besides, my idea of a vacation is one by myself. Don’t put that down.”

            The reporter didn’t put it down. He gazed at the other’s little form with open admiration. “Say, Prof, how did you ever get her to stay home, though? I wish you’d tell me the secret” Then, with a wealth of feeling he added, “I could use it!”

            Porus laughed. “I tell you, son. When you’re an ace psychologist, you’re master in your own home!”

            He motioned the interview to an end and then suddenly grasped the other by the arm. His green eyes were piercingly sharp. “And listen, son, that last remark doesn’t go into the story, you know.”

            The reporter paled and backed away. “No, sir; no sir! We’ve got a little saying in our profession that goes: ‘Never monkey around with a psychologist, or he’ll make a monkey of you.’“

            “Good! I can do it literally, you know, if I have to.”

            The young press employee ducked out hastily after that, wiped the cold perspiration from his brow and left with his story. For a moment, towards the last, he had felt himself hanging on the ragged edge. He made a mental note to refuse all future interviews with psychologists-unless they raised his pay.

            Tens of billions of miles out, the pure white orb of Rigel had reached Porus’s eyes, and something in his heart uplifted him.

            Type B reaction-nostalgia; conditioned reflex through association of Rigel with happy scenes of youth-

            Words, phrases, equations spun through his keen brain, but he was happy in spite of them. And in a little while, the human triumphed over the psychologist and Porus abandoned analysis for the superior joy of uncritical happiness.

            He sat up past the middle of the sleep period two nights before the landing to catch first glimpse of Hanlon, fourth planet of Rigel, his home world. Some place on that world, on the shores of a quiet sea, was a little two-story house. A little house-not those giant structures fit only for Arcturians and other hulking humanoids.

            It was the summer season now and the houses would be bathed in the pearly light of Rigel, and after the harsh yellow-red of Arcturus, how restful that would be.

            And-he almost shouted in his joy-the very first night he was going to insist on gorging himself with broiled tryptex. He hadn’t tasted it for two years, and his wife was the best hand at tryptex in the system.

            He winced a little at the thought of his wife. It had been a dirty trick, getting her to stay home the last two years, but it had had to be done. He glanced over the papers before him once more. There was just a little nervousness in his fingers as they shuffled the sheets. He had spent a full day in calculating her reactions at first seeing him after two years’ absence and they were not pleasant

            Nina Porus was a woman of untamed emotions, and he would have to work quickly and efficiently.

            He spotted her quickly in the crowd. He smiled. It was nice to see her, even if his equations did predict long and serious storms. He ran over his initial speech once more and made a last-minute change.

            And then she saw him. She waved frantically and broke from the forefront of the crowd. She was on Tan Porus before he was aware of it and, in the grip of her affectionate embrace, he went limp with surprise.

            That wasn’t the reaction to be expected at all! Something was wrong!

            She was leading him dexterously through the crowd of reporters to the waiting stratocar, talking rapidly along the way.

            “Tan Porus, I thought I’d never live to see you again. It’s so good to have you with me again; you have absolutely no idea. Everything here at home is just fine, of course, but it isn’t quite the same without you.”

            Porus’s green eyes were glazed. This speech was entirely uncharacteristic of Nina. To the sensitive ears of a psychologist, it sounded little short of the ravings of a maniac. He had not even the presence of mind to grunt at proper intervals. Frozen mutely in his seat, he watched the ground rush downwards and heard the air shriek backwards as they headed for their little house by the sea.

            Nina Porus prattled on gaily-the one normal aspect of her conversation being her ability to uphold both ends of a dialogue with smooth efficiency.

            “And, of course, dear, I’ve fixed up an entire tryptex, broiled to a turn, garnished with sarnees. And, oh yes, about that affair last year with that new planet-Earth, do you call it? I was so proud of you when I heard about it. I said-”

            And so on and on, until her voice degenerated into a meaningless conglomeration of sounds.

            Where were her tears? Where were the reproaches, the threats, the impassioned self-pity?

            Tan Porus roused himself to one great effort at dinner. He stared at the steaming dish of tryptex before him with an odd lack of appetite and said, “This reminds me of the time at Arcturus when I dined with the President Delegate-”

            He went into details, dilating on the gayety and abandon of the affair, waxing lyrical over his own enjoyment of it, stressing, almost unsubtly, the fact that he had not missed his wife, and finally, in one last wild burst of desperation, mentioning casually the presence of a surprising number of Rigellian females in the Arcturian system.

            And through it all, his wife sat smiling. “Wonderful, darling,” she’d say. “I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself. Eat your tryptex.”

            But Porus did not eat his tryptex. The mere thought of food nauseated him. With one lingering stare of dismay at his wife, he arose with what dignity he could muster and left for the privacy of his room.

            He tore up the equations furiously and hurled himself into a chair. He seethed with anger, for evidently something had gone wrong with Nina. Terribly wrong! Even interest in another man-and for just a moment that had occurred to him as a possible explanation-would not cause such a revolution in character.

            He tore at his hair. There was some hidden factor more startling than that-but what it was he had no idea. At that moment Tan Porus would have given the sum total of his worldly possessions to have his wife enter and make one-just one-attempt to snatch his scalp off, as of old.

            And below, in the dining room, Nina Porus allowed a crafty gleam to enter her eye.

            Lor Haridin put down his pen and said, “Come in!”

            The door opened, and his friend, Eblo Ranin, entered, brushed off a corner of the desk and sat down.

            “Haridin, I’ve got an idea.” His voice was uncommonly like a guilty whisper.

            Haridin gazed at him suspiciously.

            “Like the time,” he said, “you set up the booby trap for old man Obel?”

            Ranin shuddered. He had spent two days hiding in the ventilator shaft after that brilliant piece of work. “No, this is legitimate. Listen, Porus left you in charge of the squid, didn’t he?”

            “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. It’s no go. I can feed the squid, but that’s all. If I as much as clapped my hands at it to induce a color-change tropism, the boss would throw a fit.”

            “To space with him! He’s parsecs away, anyway.” Ranin drew forth a two-month old copy of the J.G.P. and folded the cover back. “Have you been following Livell’s experiments at Procyon U.? You know-magnetic fields applied with and without ultra-violet radiation.”

            “Out of my field,” grunted Haridin. “I’ve beard of it, but that’s all. What about it?”

            “Well, it’s a type E reaction which gives, believe it or not, a strong Fimbal Effect in practically every case, especially in the higher invertebrates.”

            “Hmm!”

            “Now, if we could try it on this squid, we could-”

            “No, no, no, no!” Haridin shook his head violently. “Porus would break me. Great stars and little meteors, how he would break me!”

            “Listen, you nut-Porus can’t tell you what to do with the squid. It’s Frian Obel that has final say. He’s head of the Psychological Board, not Porus. All you have to do is to apply for his permission and you’ll get it. Just between us, since that Homo Sol affair last year, he can’t stand the sight of Porus anyway.”

            Haridin weakened. “You ask him.”

            Ranin coughed. “No. On the whole, perhaps I’d better not. He’s sort of got a suspicion that I set that booby trap, and I’d rather keep out of his way.”

            “Hmm. Well-all right!”

            Lor Haridin looked as if he had not slept well for a week -which shows that sometimes appearances are not deceiving. Eblo Ranin regarded him with patient kindliness and sighed.

            “Look! Will you please sit down? Santin said he would have the final results in today, didn’t he?”

            “I know, I know, but it’s humiliating. I spent seven years on higher math. And now I make a stupid mistake and can’t even find it!”

            “Maybe it’s not there to find.”

            “Don’t be silly. The answer is just impossible. It must be impossible. It must be.” His high forehead creased. “Oh, I don’t know what to think.”

            He continued his concentrated attempt to wear out the nap of the rug beneath and mused bitterly. Suddenly he sat down.

            “It’s those time integrals. You can’t work with them, I tell you. You look ‘em up in a table, taking half an hour to find the proper entry, and they give you seventeen possible answers. You have to pick the one that makes sense, and- Arcturus help me!-either they all do, or none do! Run up against eight of them, as we do in this problem, and we’ve got enough permutations to last us the rest of our life. Wrong answer! It’s a wonder I lived through it at all.”

            The look he gave the fat volume of Helo’s Tables of Time Integrals did not sear the binding, to Ranin’s great surprise.

            The signal light flashed, and Haridin leaped to the door.

            He snatched the package from the messenger’s hand and ripped open the wrappings frantically.

            He turned to the last page and stared at Santin’s final note:

  Your calculations are correct. Congratulations- and won’t this knock Porus’s head right off his shoulders! Better get in touch with him at once.

      Ranin read it over the other’s shoulder, and for one long minute the two gazed at each other.

            “I was right,” whispered Haridin, eyes bulging. “We’ve found something in which the imaginary doesn’t square out. We’ve got a predicted reaction which includes an imaginary quantity!”

            The other swallowed and brushed aside his stupefaction with an effort. “How do you interpret it?”

            “Great space! How in the galaxy should I know? We’ve got to get Porus, that’s all.”

            Ranin snapped his fingers and grabbed the other by the shoulders. “Oh, no, we won’t. This is our big chance. If we can carry this through, we’re made for life.” He shuttered in his excitement. “Arcturus! Any psychologist would sell his life twice over to have our opportunity right now.”

            The Draconian squid crawled placidly about, unawed by the huge solenoid that surrounded its tank. The mass of tangled wires, the current leads, the mercury-vapor lamp up above meant nothing to it. It nibbled contentedly at the fronds of the sea fern about it, and was at peace with the world.

            Not so the two young psychologists. Eblo Ranin scurried through the complicated set-up in a last-minute effort at checking everything. Lor Haridin helped him in intervals between nail-biting.

            “Everything’s set,” said Ranin, and swabbed wearily at his damp brow. “Let her shoot!”

            The mercury-vapor lamp went on and Haridin pulled the window curtains together. In the cold red-less light, two green-tinted faces watched the squid closely. It stirred restlessly, its warm pink changing to a dull black in the mercury light

            “Turn on the juice,” said Haridin hoarsely.

            There was a soft click, and that was all.

            “No reaction?” questioned Ranin, half to himself. And then :  he held his breath as the other bent closer.

            “Something’s happening to the squid. It seems to glow a bit -or is it my eyes?”

            The glow became perceptible and then seemed to detach itself from the body of the animal and take on a spherical shape of itself. Long minutes passed.

            “It’s emitting some sort of radiation, field, force-whatever you want to call it-and there seems to be expansion with time.”

            There was no answer, and none was expected. Again they waited and watched.

            And then Ranin emitted a muffled cry and grasped Haridin’s elbow tightly. “Crackling comets, what’s it doing?”

            The globular glowing sphere of whatever it was had thrust out a pseudopod. A gleaming little projection touched the swaying branch of the sea-fern, and where it touched the leaves turned brown and withered!

            “Shut off the current!”

            The current clicked off; the mercury-vapor lamp went out; the shades were parted and the two stared at each other nervously.

            “What was it?”

            Haridin shook his head. “I don’t know. It was something definitely insane. I never saw anything like it”

            “You never saw an imaginary in a reaction equation before, either, did you? As a matter of fact, I don’t think that expanding field was any known form of energy at-”

            His breath came out in one long whistling exhalation and he retreated slowly from the tank containing the squid. The mollusc was motionless, but around it half the fern. in the tank hung sere and withered.

            Haridin gasped. He pulled the shades and in the gloom, the globe of glowing haze bulked through half the tank. Little curving tentacles of light reached toward the remaining fem and one pulsing thread extended through the glass and was creeping along the table.

            That fright in Ranin’s voice rendered it a cracked, scarcely-understood sound.

            “It’s a lag reaction. Didn’t you test it by Wilbon’s Theorem?”

            “How could I?” The other’s heart pumped madly and his dry lips fought to form words. “Wilbon’s Theorem didn’t make sense with an imaginary in the equation. I let it go.”

            Ranin sped into action with feverish energy. He left the room and was back in a moment with a tiny, squealing, squirrel-like animal from his own lab. He dropped it in the path of the thread of light stealing along the table, and held it there with a yard rule.

            The glowing thread wavered, seemed to sense the presence of life in some horribly blind way, and lunged towards it The little rodent squealed once, a high-pitched shriek of infinite torture, and went limp. In two seconds it was a shriveled, shrunken travesty of its former self.

            Ranin swore and dropped the rule with a sudden yell, for the thread, of light-a bit brighter, a bit thicker-began creeping up the wood toward him.

            “Here,” said Haridin, “let’s end this!” He yanked a drawer open and withdrew the chromium-plated Tonite gun within. Its sharp thin beam of purple light lunged forward towards the squid and exploded in blazing, soundless fury against the edge of the sphere of force. The psychologist shot again and again, and then compressed the trigger to form one continuous purple stream of destruction that ceased only when power failed.

            And the glowing sphere remained unharmed. It engulfed the entire tank. The ferns were brown masses of death.

            “Get the Board,” yelled Ranin. “It’s beyond us entirely!”

            There was no confusion-humanoids in the mass are simply not subject to panic, if you don’t count the half-genius, half-humanoid inhabitants of the planets of Sol-and the evacuation of the University grounds was carried out smoothly.

            “One fool,” said old Mir Deana, ace physicist of Arcturus U., “can ask more questions than a thousand wise men can answer.” He fingered his scraggly beard and his button nose sniffed loudly in disdain.

            “What do you mean by that?” questioned Frian Obel sharply. His green Vegan skin darkened angrily.

            “Just that, by analogy, one cosmic fool of a psychologist can make a bigger mess than a thousand physicists can clear up.”

            Obel drew in his breath dangerously. He had his own opinion of Haridin and Ranin, but no lame-brain physicist could-

            The plump figure of Qual Wynn, university president, came charging down upon them. He was out of breath and spoke between puffs.

            “I’ve gotten in touch with the Galactic Congress and they’re arranging for evacuation of all Eron, if necessary.” His voice became pleading. “Isn’t there anything that can be done?’’

            Mir Deana sighed, “Nothing-yet! All we know is this: the squid is emitting some sort of pseudo-living radiatory field which is not electromagnetic in character. Its advance cannot be stopped by anything we have yet tried, material or vacuum. None of our weapons affect it, for within the field the ordinary attributes of space-time apparently don’t hold.”

            The president shook a worried head. “Bad, bad! You’ve sent for Porus, though?” He sounded as though we were clutching at a last straw.

            “Yes,” scowled Frian Obel. “He’s the only one that really knows that squid. If he can’t help us, no one can.” He stared off toward the gleaming white of the university buildings, where the grass over half the campus was brown stubble and the trees blasted ruins.

            “Do you think,” said the president, turning to Deana once more, “that the field can span interplanetary space?”

            “Sizzling novae, I don’t know what to think!” Deana exploded, and he turned pettishly away.

            There was a thick silence of utter gloom.

Tan Porus was sunk in deep apathy.  He was unaware of the brilliant coruscations of color overhead. He didn’t hear a sound of the melodious tones that filled the auditorium.

            He knew only one thing-that he had been talked into attending a concert. Concerts above all were anathema to him, and in twenty years of married life he had steered clear of them with a skill and ease that only the greatest psychologist of them all could have shown. And now-

            He was startled out of his stupor by the sudden discordant sounds that arose from the rear.

            There was a rush of ushers to the exit where the disturbance originated, a waving of protesting uniformed arms and then a strident voice: “I am here on urgent business direct from the Galactic Congress on Eron, Arcturus. Is Tan Porus in the audience?”

            Tan Porus was out of his seat with a bound. Any excuse to leave the auditorium was nothing short of heaven-sent.

            He ripped open the communication handed him by the messenger and devoured its contents. At the second sentence, his elation left him. When he was finished, he raised a face in which only his darting green eyes seemed alive.

            “How soon can we leave?”

            “The ship is waiting now.”

            “Come, then.”

            He took one step forward and stopped. There was a hand on his elbow.

            “Where are you going?” asked Nina Porus. There was hidden steel in her voice.

            Tan Porus felt stifled for a moment. He foresaw what would happen. “Darling, I must go to Eron immediately. The fate of a world, of the whole galaxy perhaps, is at stake. You don’t know how important it is. I tell you-”

            “All right, go! And I’ll go with you.”

            The psychologist bowed his head.

            “Yes, dear!” he said. He sighed.

            The psychological board hemmed and hawed as one man and then stared dubiously at the large-scale graph before them.

            “Frankly, gentlemen,” said Tan Porus, “I don’t feel too certain about it myself, but-well, you’ve all seen my results, and checked them too. And it is the only stimulus that will yield a canceling reaction.”

            Frian Obel fingered his chin nervously. “Yes, the mathematics is clear. Increase in hydrogen-ion activity past pH3 would set up a Demane’s Integral and that- But listen, Porus, we’re not dealing with space-time. The math might not hold -perhaps nothing will hold.”

            “It’s our only chance. If we were dealing with normal space-time, we could just dump in enough acid to kill the blasted squid or fry it with a Tonite. As it is, we have no choice but to take our chances with-”

            Loud voices interrupted him. “Let me through, I say! I don’t care if there are ten conferences going on!”

            The door swung open and Qual Wynn’s portly figure made its entrance. He spied Porus and bore down upon him. “Porus, I tell you I’m going crazy. Parliament is holding me, as university president, responsible for all this, and now Deana says that-” He sputtered into silence and Mir Deana, standing composedly behind him, took up the tale.

            “The field now covers better than one thousand square miles and its rate of increase is growing steadily. There seems to do no doubt now that it can span interplanetary space if it wishes to do so-interstellar as well, if given the time.”

            “You hear that? You hear that?” Wynn was fairly dancing in his anxiety. “Can’t you do something? The galaxy is doomed, I tell you, doomed!”

            “Oh, keep your tunic on,” groaned Porus, “and let us handle this.” He turned to Deana. “Didn’t your physicist stooges conduct some clumsy investigations as to the speed of penetration of the field through various substances?”

            Deana nodded stiffly.

            “Penetration varies, in general, inversely with density. Osmium, iridium and platinum are the best. Lead and gold are fair.”

            “Good! That checks! What I’ll need then is an osmium-plated suit with a lead-glass helmet. And make both plating and helmet good and thick.”

            Qual Wynn stared horrified. “Osmium plating! Osmium! By the great nebula, think of the expense.”

            “I’m thinking,” said Porus frostily..

            “But they’ll charge it to the university; they’ll-” He recovered with difficulty as the somber stares of the assembled psychologists fastened themselves upon him. “When do you need it?” he muttered weakly.

            “You’re really going, yourself?”

            “Why not?” asked Porus, clambering out of the suit.

            Mir Deana said, “The lead-glass headpiece will hold off the field not longer than an hour and you’ll probably be getting partial penetration in much shorter time. I don’t know if you can do it.”

            “I’ll worry about that.” He paused, and then continued uncertainly. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes. I’d like to speak to my wife first-alone.”

            The interview was a short one. It was one of the very few occasions that Tan Porus forgot that he was a psychologist, and spoke as his heart moved him, without stopping to consider the natural reaction of the one spoken to.

            One thing he did know-by instinct rather than thought- and that was that his wife would not break down or go sentimental on him; and there he was right. It was only in the last few seconds that her eyes fell and her voice quavered. She tugged a handkerchief from her wide sleeve and hurried from the room.

            The psychologist stared after her and then stooped to pick up the thin book that had fallen as she had removed the handkerchief. Without looking at it, he placed it in the inner pocket of his tunic.

            He smiled crookedly. “A talisman!” he said.

            Tan Porus’s gleaming one-man cruiser whistled into the “death field.” The clammy sensation of desolation impressed itself upon him at once.

            He shrugged. “Imagination! Mustn’t get nervy now.”

            There was the vaguest glitter-a sparkle that was felt rather than seen-in the air about him. And then it invaded the ship itself, and, looking up, the Rigellian saw the five Eronian ricebirds he had brought with him lying dead on the floor of their cage, huddled masses of bedraggled feathers.

            “The ‘death field’ is in,” he whispered. It had penetrated the steel hull of the cruiser.

            The cruiser bumped to a rather unskillful landing on the broad university athletic field, and Tan Porus, an incongruous figure in the bulky osmium suit, stepped out. He surveyed his depressing surroundings. From the brown stubble underfoot to the glimmering haze that hid the normal blue of the sky, all seemed-dead.

            He entered Psychology Hall.

            His lab was dark; the shades were still drawn. He parted them and studied the squid’s tank. The water replenisher was still working, for the tank was full. However, that was the only normal thing about it. Only a few dark-brown, ragged strands of rot were left of what had once been sea-fern. The squid itself lay inertly upon the floor of the tank.

            Tan Porus sighed. He felt tired and numbed. His mind was hazy and unclear. For long minutes he stared about him unseeingly.

            Then, with an effort, he raised the bottle he held and glanced at the label-12 molar hydrochloric acid.

            He mumbled vaguely to himself. “Two hundred cc. Just dump the whole thing in. That’ll force the pH down-if only hydrogen ion activity means something here.”

            He was fumbling with the glass stopper, and-suddenly- laughing. He had felt exactly like this the one and only time he had ever been drunk.

            He shook the gathering cobwebs from his brain. “Only got a few minutes to do-to do what? I don’t know-something anyway. Dump this thing in. Dump it in. Dump! Dump! Dumpety-dump!” He was mumbling a silly popular song to himself as the acid gurgled its way into the open tank.

            Tan Porus felt pleased with himself and he laughed. He stirred the water with his mailed fist and laughed some more. He was still singing that song.

            And then he became aware of a subtle change in environment He fumbled for it and stopped singing. And then it hit him with the suddenness of a downpour of cold water. The glitter in the atmosphere had gone!

      With a sudden motion, he unclasped the helmet and cast it off. He drew in long breaths of air, a bit musty, but unkilling.

            He had acidified the water of the tank, and destroyed the field at its source. Chalk up another victory for the pure mathematics of psychology!

            He stepped out of his osmium suit and stretched. The pressure on his chest reminded him of something. Withdrawing the booklet his wife had dropped, he said, “The talisman came through!” and smiled indulgently at his own whimsy.

            The smile froze as he saw for the first time the title upon the book.

            The title was Intermediate Course in Applied Psychology- Volume 5.

            It was as if something large and heavy had suddenly fallen onto Porus’s head and driven understanding into it Nina had been boning up on applied psych for two whole years.

            This was the missing factor. He could allow for it. He would have to use triple time integrals, but-

            He threw the communicator switch and waited for contact

            “Hello! This is Porus! Come on in, all of you! The death field is gone! I’ve beaten the squid.” He broke contact and added triumphantly, “-and my wife!”

            Strangely enough-or, perhaps, not so strangely-it was the latter feat that pleased him more.

THE END

      It was about time that I made another stab at Unknown, and I did so with a story called “The Oak,” which, as I recall, was something about an oak tree that served as an oracle and delivered ambiguous statements. I submitted it to Campbell on July 16, 1940, and it was promptly rejected.

            One of the bad things about writing for Unknown was that the magazine was one of a kind. If Unknown rejected a story, there was no place else to submit it. It was possible to try Weird Tales, a magazine that was older than any science fiction magazine, but it dealt with old-fashioned, creaky horror tales and paid very little to boot. I wasn’t really interested in trying to get into it. (And besides, they rejected both “Life Before Birth” and “The Oak” when I submitted them.)

            Still, July 29, 1940, was a turning point in my career, although, of course, I had no way of telling it. I had up to that point written twenty-two stories in twenty-five months. Of these I had sold (or was to sell) thirteen, while nine never sold at all and no longer exist. The record wasn’t abysmal but neither was it great-let’s call it mediocre.

            However, as it happened, except for two short-short stories that were special cases, I never again wrote a science fiction story I could not sell. I had found the range.

            But not Campbell’s range particularly. In August I wrote “Heredity,” which I submitted to Campbell on August 15, and which he rejected two weeks later. Fortunately, Pohl snapped it up at once.