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Nomad

By WESLEY LONG

CHAPTER 1.

Guy Maynard left the Bureau of Exploration Building at Sahara Base and
walked right into trouble. It came more or less of a surprise; not the
trouble as a condition but the manner and place of its coming was the
shocking quality. Guy Maynard was used to trouble but like all men who
hold commissions in the Terran Space Patrol, he was used to trouble in
the proper places and in the proper doses.

But to find trouble in the middle of Sahara Base was definitely
stunning. Sahara Base was as restricted an area as had ever been
guarded and yet trouble had come for Guy.

The trouble was a MacMillan held in the clawlike hand of a Martian. The
bad business end was dead-center for the pit of Guy's stomach and the
steadiness of the weapon's aim indicated that the Martian who held the
opposite end of the ugly weapon knew his MacMillans.

Maynard's stomach crawled, not because of the aim on said midriff, but
at the idea of a MacMillan being aimed at any portion of the anatomy.
His mind raced through several possibilities as he recalled previous
mental theories on what he would do if and when such a thing happened.

In his mind's eye, Guy Maynard had met MacMillan-holding Martians
before and in that mental playlet, Guy had gone into swift action using
his physical prowess to best the weapon-holding enemy. In all of his
thoughts, Guy had succeeded in erasing the menace though at one time
it ended in death to the enemy and at other times Guy had used the
enemy's own weapon to march him swiftly to the Intelligence Bureau
for questioning. The latter always resulted in the uncovering of some
malignant plot for which Maynard received plaudits, decorations, and an
increase in rank.

Now Guy Maynard was no youngster. He was twenty-four, and well
educated. He had seen action before this and had come through the
Martio-Terran incident unscathed. Openly he admitted that he had been
lucky during those weeks of trouble but in his own mind, Maynard
secretly believed that it was his ability and his brain that brought
him through without a scratch.

His dreaming of action above and beyond the call of duty was normal for
any young man of intelligence and imagination.

But as his mind raced on and on, it also came to the conclusion that
the law of survival was higher than the desire to die for a theory.

Therefore it was with inward sickness that Guy Maynard stopped short on
the sidewalk before the Bureau of Exploration Building and did nothing.
He did not look around because the fact that this Martian was able to
stand before him in Sahara Base with a MacMillan pointed at his stomach
was evidence enough that they were alone on the street. Had anyone
seen them, the Martian would have been literally torn to bits by the
semi-permanent MacMillan mounts that lined the roof tops.

The Martian had everything his own way, and so Maynard waited. It was
the Martian's move.

"Guy Maynard?"

Maynard did not feel that such an unnecessary question required an
answer. The Martian would not have been menacing him if he hadn't known
whom he wanted.

"Guy Maynard, I advise that you do nothing," said the Martian.
His voice was flat and metallic like all Martian voices, and the
sharply-chiseled features were expressionless as are all Martian faces.
"You are to come with me," finished the Martian needlessly. He had not
concluded the last bit of information when invisible tractor beams
lashed down and caught the pair in their field of focus and lifted
them straight up.

The velocity was terrific, and the only thing that saved them
suffocation in the extreme upper stratosphere was the entrapped air
that went along with the field of focus.

The sky went dark and the stars winked in the same sky as the flaming
sun.

And then they entered the space lock of an almost invisible spaceship.
The door slammed behind them and air rushed into the confines of the
lock just as the tractors were snuffed.

Maynard arose from the floor to face once more that rigidly held
MacMillan. Before he could move, the door behind him flashed open and
three Martians swarmed in upon him and trussed him with straps. They
carried him to a small room and strapped him to a surgeon's table.

The one with the MacMillan holstered the weapon as the ship started off
at 3-G.

"Now, Guy Maynard, we may talk."

Maynard glared.

"It is regrettable that this should be necessary," apologized the
Martian. "I am Kregon. Your being restrained is but a physical
necessity; I happen to know that you are the match for any two of us.
Therefore we have strapped you down until we have had a chance to speak
our mind. After which you may be freed--depending upon your reception
of the proposition we have to offer."

Maynard merely waited. It was very unsatisfactory, this glaring,
for the Martian went on as though Maynard were beaming in glee and
anxiously awaiting for the "Proposition." He recalled training which
indicated that the first thing to do when confronted by captors is to
remain silent at all cost. To merely admit that your name was correctly
expressed by the captor was to break the ice. Once the verbal ice was
broken, the more leading information was easier to extract; a dead and
stony silence was hard to break.

"Guy Maynard, we would like to know where the Orionad is," said
Kregon. "We have here fifty thousand reasons why you should tell. Fifty
thousand, silver-backed reasons, legal for trade in any part of the
inhabited Solar System and possibly some not-inhabited places."

No answer.

"You know where the Orionad is," went on Kregon. "You are the aide
to Space Marshal Greggor of the Bureau of Exploration who sent the
Orionad off on her present mission. The orders were secret, that we
know. We want to know those orders."

No answer.

"We of Mars feel that the Orionad may be operating against the
best interests of Mars. Your continued silence is enhancing that
belief. Could it be that we have captured the first prisoner in a new
Terra-Martian fracas? Or if the Orionad is not operating against
Mars, I can see no reason for continued silence on your part."

No answer, though Maynard knew that the Orionad was not menacing
anything Martian. He realized the trap they were laying for him and
since he could not avoid it, he walked into it.

Kregon paused. Then he started off on a new track. "You are probably
immunized against iso-dinilamine. Most officials are, and their
aides are also, especially the aide to such an important official as
Space Marshal Greggor. That is too bad, Guy Maynard. Terra is still
behind the times. Haven't they heard that the immunization given by
anti-lamine is good except when anti-lamine is decomposed by a low
voltage, low frequency electric current? They must know that," said
Kregon with as close to a smile as any Martian could get. It was also
cynically inclined. "After all, it was Dr. Frederich of the Terran
Medical Corps who discovered it."

Maynard knew what was coming and he wanted desperately to squirm and
wriggle enough to scratch his spine. The little beads of sweat that had
come along his backbone at Kregon's cool explanation were beginning to
itch. But he controlled the impulse.

"We are not given to torture," explained the Martian. "Otherwise we
could devise something definitely tongue-loosening. For instance,
we could have you observe some surgical experiments on--say--Laura
Greggor."

The beads of sweat broke out over Maynard's face. It was a harsh
thought and very close to home. And yet there was a separate section
of his mind that told him that Laura would undergo that treatment
without talking and that he would have to suffer mentally while he
watched, because she would hold nothing but contempt for a man who
would talk to save her from what she would go through herself. He
wondered whether they had Laura Greggor already and were going to do as
they said. That was a hard thing to reason out. He feared that he would
speak freely to save Laura disfigurement and torture; knowing as he
spoke that Laura would forever afterward hate him for being a weakling.
Did they have her--?

"Unfortunately for us, we have not had the opportunity of getting the
daughter of the Space Marshal. But there are other things. They are far
superior, too. I was against the torture method just described because
I know that Mars would never have peace again if we destroyed the
daughter of Space Marshal Greggor. Your disappearance will be explained
by evidence. A wrecked spaceship or flier, will take care of the
question of Guy Maynard, whereas Laura Greggor is forbidden to travel
in military vehicles."

Kregon turned and called through the open door. His confederates came
with a portable cart upon which was an equipment case, complete with
plug-in cords, electrodes, and controls.

"You will find that low frequency, low voltage electricity is very
excruciating. It will not kill nor maim nor impair. But it will offer
you an insight on the torture of the damned. Ultimately, we will have
decomposed the anti-lamine in your system and then you will speak
freely under the influence of iso-dinilamine. Oh yes, Guy Maynard, we
will give you respite. The current will be turned off periodically.
Five minutes on and five minutes off. This is in order for you to rest."

"--to rest!" said Maynard's mind. Irony. For the mind would count the
seconds during the five free minutes, awaiting with horror the next
period of current. And during the five minutes of electrical horror,
the mind would be counting the seconds that remain before the period of
quiet, knowing that the peaceful period only preceded more torture.

Kregon's helpers tied electrodes to feet, hands, and the back of his
head. Then Kregon approached with a syringe and with an apologetic
gesture slid the needle into Maynard's arm and discharged the
hypodermic.

"Now," he asked, "before we start this painful process, would you care
to do this the easy way? After all, Maynard, we are going to have the
answer anyway. For your own sake, why not give it without pain. That
offer of fifty thousand solars will be withdrawn upon the instant that
the switch is closed."

Maynard glared and broke his silence. "And have to go through it
anyway? Just so that you will be certain that I'm not lying? No!"

Kregon shook his head. "That possibility hadn't really occurred to
us. You aren't that kind of man, Maynard. I think that the best kind
of individual is the man who knows when to tell a lie and when not
to tell. Too bad that you will never have the opportunity of trying
that philosophy, but I think it best for the individual, though often
not best for society in general. Accept the apology of a warrior, Guy
Maynard, that this is necessary, and try to understand that if the
cases were reversed, you would be in my place and I in yours. I salute
you and say good-by with regrets."

Maynard strained against the straps in futility. He felt that sense of
failure overwhelm him again, and he fought against his fate in spite of
the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. Another man would
have resigned himself, realizing futility when it presented itself, and
possibly would have made some sort of prayer. But Guy Maynard fought--

And the surge of low frequency, low voltage electricity raced into his
body, removing everything but the torture of jerking muscle and the
pain of twitching nerves. It was terrible torture. He felt that he
could count each reversal of the low frequency, and yet he could do
nothing of his own free will. The clock upon the wall danced before his
jerking eyeballs so that he could not see the hands no matter how hard
he tried. Ironically, it was a Martian clock and not calibrated into
Terran time; it would have had no bearing on the five-minute periods of
sheer hell.

Ben Williamson raced across the sand of Sahara Base, raising a curling
cloud of dust behind him. The little command car rocketed and careened
as Williamson approached his destroyer, and then the long, curling
cloud of dust took on the appearance of a huge exclamation point as
the brakes locked and the command car slid to a stop beside the space
lock. Williamson leaped from the command car and inside with three long
strides.

He caught the auxiliary switch on his way past, and the space lock
whirred shut. "Executive to pilot," he yelled. "Take her up at six."

The floor surged, throwing Williamson to his knees. Defiantly,
Ben crawled to the executive's chair and rolled into the padded,
body-supporting seat. He lay there for some seconds, breathing heavily.
Then from the communicator there came the query:

"Pilot to executive: Received. What's doing?"

"Executive to crew: Martian of the Mardinex class snatched Guy
Maynard on a tractor. We're to pursue and destroy."

"Golly!" breathed the pilot. "Maynard!"

"That's right," said Williamson. "They grabbed him right in front of
the BuEx and that's that."

"But to destroy them--?"

"We're running under TSI orders, you know," reminded Williamson.

"Yeah, I know. But killing off one of our own people doesn't sound good
to me. Makes me feel like a murderer."

"I know," said Ben. "But remember, Maynard was grabbed by a Martian.
Being an aide to Greggor, he was filled to the eyebrows with
anti-lamine. That means the electro-treatment for him, plus a good shot
of iso-dinilamine. All we're doing is giving peace to a man who is
suffering the tortures of hell. After all, would any of you care to go
on living after that combination was finished?"

"No, I guess not. Must be worse than death not to have a mind."

"What's worse is what happens. You haven't a mind--and yet you have
enough mind to realize that fact. Strange psychological tangle, but
there it is. Tough as it is, we've got to go through with it."

"They're after some information on the Orionad?"

"Probably. That's why we're taking out after them. It's the only reason
why Guy Maynard was covered under the TSI order."

"Too bad," said the pilot.

"It is," agreed Williamson. "But--prepare for action. Check all
ordnance."

It was almost an hour later that the communicator buzzed again.
"Observer to executive: Martian of Mardinex class spotted."

"Certain identification?"

"Only from the cardex file. Can't see her yet, but the spotters have
picked up a ship having the characteristics of the Mardinex class.
It's the Mardinex herself, Ben, because she's the only one left in
that class. Old tub, not much good for anything except a fool's errand
like this."

"Turretman to executive: Have we got a chance, tackling a first-line
ship like the Mardinex in a destroyer?"

"Only one chance. They probably didn't staff it too well. On an
abortive attempt like this, they'd put only those men they could
afford to lose aboard. Probably a skeleton crew. Also the knowledge
that detection meant extermination, therefore go fast and light and as
frugal as possible on crewmen. That's our one chance."

"One more chance," interrupted the technician. "We have the drive
pattern of the Mardinex in the cardex. We can bollix their drive.
That's one more item in our favor."

"Right," said Ben. "What's our velocity with respect to theirs?"

"Forty miles per second."

"Tim, launch two torpedoes immediately. Pete, continue course above
Mardinex and cross their apex at two hundred miles. Tim, as we cross
their apex, drop a case of interferers. Once that is done, Pete, drop
back and give Tim a chance to say hello with the AutoMacs."

"Giving them the whole thing at once?"

"Yes. And one thing more, Jimmy?"

"Technician to executive," answered Jimmy. "I'm here."

"Can you rig your drive-pattern interferer?"

"In about a minute. I've been setting up the constants from the cardex
file."

"And hoping they've not been changed?" asked Ben with a smile.

"Right."

The little destroyer lurched imperceptibly as the torpedoes were
launched, and then continued on its course a hundred miles to the south
of the Martian ship, passing quickly above the Mardinex and across
the apex of the Martian's nose. The turretman was busy for several
seconds dropping his case of interferers from the discharge lock. The
little metal boxes spread out in space and began to emit signals.

Then the destroyer dropped back, and from the turret there came the
angry buzz of the AutoMacs. On the driving fin of the Mardinex
appeared an incandescent spot that grew quickly and trailed a fine line
of luminous gas behind it. Then the turrets of the Mardinex whipped
around and Tim shouted: "Look out!"

His shout was not soon enough. On the turret of the Martian ship there
appeared two spots of light that were just above the threshold of
vision against the black sky. The destroyer bucked dangerously, and the
acceleration fell sharply.

"Hulled us."

On the pilot's panel there appeared a number of winking pilot lights.
"We'll get along," said he, studying the lights and interpreting their
warning.

"Got him!" said the turretman. The top turret of the Mardinex erupted
in a flare of white flame blown outward by the air inside of the ship.

"Can we catch him for another shot?" asked Ben pleadingly.

"Not a chance," answered Pete. "We're out of this fight."

"No, we're not," said Ben. "Look!"

Before the Mardinex there began to erupt a myriad of tiny, winking
spots. The meteor spotting equipment and projectile intercepting
equipment were flashing the interferers one after the other with huge
bolts from the secondary battery of the Mardinex.

Ben counted the flashes and then asked the technician: "How many
spotters has the Mardinex?"

"Thirty."

"Good. The torps have a chance then." The nonradiating torpedoes
would be ignored by the spotting equipment since the emission of
the interferers made them appear gigantic and dangerously close to
the nonthinking equipment. The torpedoes, on the other hand, would
be approaching the Mardinex from below and slowly enough to be
considered not dangerous to the integrating equipment. If they arrived
before the spotting circuits destroyed the entire case of interferers--

The lower dome of the Mardinex suddenly sported a jagged hole. And
almost immediately there was a flash of explosive inside of the lower
portion of the Martian ship. The lower observation dome split like a
cracked egg, and the glass shattered and flew out. Portholes blew out
in long streamers of fire around the lower third of the Mardinex and
a series of shattering cracks started up the flank of the ship.

"There goes number two--a clean miss," swore Ben.

"Number one did a fine job."

"I know but--"

"This'll polish 'em off," came Jimmy's voice. "Here goes the drive
scrambler."

"Hey! No--!" started Ben, but the whining of the generators and the
dimming of the lights told him he was too late.

The Mardinex staggered and then leaped forward until six full
gravities. Bits of broken hull and fractured insides trailed out behind
the Mardinex as the derelict's added acceleration tore them loose.
Within seconds, the stricken Martian warship was out of the sight of
the Terrans.

"No reprimand, Jimmy," said Ben Williamson soberly. "I did hope to
recover Guy's body."

CHAPTER two.

Thomakein, the Ertinian, stopped the recorder as the Terran ship
reversed itself painfully and began to decelerate for the trip back to
home. He nodded to himself and made a verbal addition to the recording,
stating that the smaller ship had been satisfied as to the destruction
of the larger, otherwise a continuance of the fight would have been
inevitable. Then Thomakein placed the recording in a can and placed it
on a shelf containing other recordings. He forgot about it then, for
there was something more interesting in view.

That derelict warship would be a veritable mine of information about
the culture of this system. All warships are gold mines of information
concerning the technical abilities, the culture, the beliefs, and the
people themselves.

Could he assume the destruction of the crew in the derelict?

The smaller ship had--unless they were out of the battle and forced
to withdraw due to lack of fighting contact. That didn't seem right
to Thomakein. For the smaller ship to attack the larger ship meant a
dogged determination. There would have been a last-try stand on the
part of the smaller ship no matter how much faster the larger ship
were. At worst, the determination seemed to indicate that ramming the
larger ship was not out of order.

But the smaller ship had not rammed the larger. Hadn't even tried. In
fact, the smaller ship had turned and started to decelerate as soon as
the larger ship had doubled her speed.

Thomakein couldn't read either of the name plates of the two fighting
ships. He had no idea as to the origin of the two. As an Ertinian,
Thomakein couldn't even recognize the characters let alone read them.
He was forced to go once more on deduction.

The course of the larger vessel. It was obviously fleeing from the
smaller ship. Thomakein played with his computer for a bit and came to
two possibilities, one of which was remote, the other pointing to the
fourth planet.

A carefully collected table of masses and other physical constants of
the planets of Sol was consulted.

Thomakein retrieved his recording, set it up and added:

"The smaller ship, noticing the increased acceleration of the larger,
assumed--probably--that the larger ship's crew was killed by the
increased gravity-apparent. Since the larger ship was fleeing, it
would in all probability have used every bit of acceleration that the
crew could stand. Its course was dead-center for the fourth planet's
position if integrated for a course based on the larger ship's velocity
and direction and acceleration at and prior to the engagement.

"This fourth planet has a surface gravity of approximately one-eighth
of the acceleration of the larger ship. Doubling this means that the
crew must withstand sixteen gravities. The chances of any being of
intelligent size withstanding sixteen gravities is of course depending
upon an infinite number of factors. However, the probable reasoning of
the smaller ship is that sixteen gravities will kill the crew of the
larger ship. Otherwise they would have continued to try to do battle
with the larger ship. Their return indicates that they were satisfied."

Thomakein nodded again, replaced the recording, and then paced the
derelict Mardinex for a full hour with every constant at his disposal
on the recorders.

At the end of that hour, Thomakein noted that nothing had registered
and he smiled with assurance.

He stretched and said to himself: "I can stand under four gravities. I
can live under twelve with the standard Ertinian acceleration garb. But
sixteen gravities for one hour? Never."

Thomakein noted the acceleration of the derelict as being slightly over
six gravities on his own accelerometer, which registered the Ertinian
constant.

Then he began to maneuver his little ship toward the derelict.

Entering the Mardinex through the blasted observation dome was no
great problem. The lower meteor spotters and most of the machinery had
gone with the dome and so no pressor came forth to keep Thomakein from
his intention.

The insides were a mess. Broken girders and ruined equipment made a bad
tangle of the lower third of the great warship. Thomakein jockeyed the
little ship back and forth inside of the derelict until he had lodged
it against the remainder of a lower deck in such a manner as to keep it
there under the six Terran gravities of acceleration. Then he donned
spacesuit and started to prowl the ship. It was painful and heavy
going, but Thomakein made it slowly.

An hour later, Thomakein heard the ringing of alarms, coming from
somewhere up above, and the sound made him stop suddenly. Sound, he
reasoned, requires air for propagation. The sound came through the
floor, but somewhere there must be air inside of the derelict.

So upward he went through the damage. He found an air-tight door and
fought the catch until it puffed open, nearly throwing him back into
the damaged opening. White-faced, Thomakein held on until his breath
returned, and then with a determined look at the gap below--and
the place where he would have been if he had fallen out of the
derelict--Thomakein tried the door again. He closed the outer door and
tried the inner.

His alien grasp of mechanics was not universal enough to discover his
trouble immediately. But it was logical, and logic told him to look for
the air vent. He found it, and turned the valve permitting air to enter
the air-tight door system. The inner door opened easily and Thomakein
entered a portion of the hull where the alarm bells rang loud and clear.

He found them ringing in a room filled with control instruments.
Throwing the dome of his suit back over his head, Thomakein looked
around him with interest. There was nothing in the room that logic or a
grasp of elementary mechanics could solve. It did Thomakein no good to
look at the Martian characters that labeled the instruments and dials,
for he recognized nothing of any part of the Solar System.

He did recognize the bloody lump of inert flesh as having once been the
operator of this room--or one of them he came to conclude as his search
found others.

Thomakein was not squeamish. But they did litter up the place and the
pools of blood made the floor slippery which was dangerous under 6-G
Terran--or for Thomakein, five point six eight. So Thomakein struggled
with the Martian bodies and hauled them to the corridor where he let
them drop over the edge of the central well onto the bulkhead below.
He returned to the instrument room in an attempt to find out what the
bell-ringing could mean.

He inspected the celestial globe with some interest until he noticed
that the upper limb contained some minute, luminous spheres--prolate
spheroids to be exact. Wondering, Thomakein tried to look forward and
up with respect to the ship's course.

His anxiety increased. He was about to meet a whole battle fleet that
was spread out in a dragnet pattern. Then before he could worry about
it he was through the network and some of the ships tried to follow but
with no success. The Mardinex bucked and pitched as tractors were
applied and subsequently broken as the tension reached overload values.

Thomakein smiled. Their inability to catch him plus their obvious
willingness to let the matter drop with but a perfunctory try gave him
sufficient evidence as to their origin.

They could never catch a ship under six gravities when the best they
could do was three. The functions with respect to one another would be
as though the faster ship were accelerating away from the slower ship
by 3-G plus the initial velocity of the faster ship's intrinsic speed,
for the pursuers were standing still.

The Mardinex swept out past Mars and Thomakein smiled more and more.
This maze of equipment was better than anything that he had expected.
The Ertinians would really get the information as to the kind of people
who inhabited this system.

Thomakein wandered idly from room to room, finding dead Martians and
dropping them onto the bulkhead. Two he saved for the surgeons of
Ertene to inspect; they were in fair physical condition compared to the
rest but they were no less dead from acceleration pressure.

Eventually, Thomakein came to the room wherein Guy Maynard was lying
strapped to the surgeon's table. The Ertinian opened the door and
walked idly in, looking the room over quickly to see which item of
interest was the most compelling.

His glance fell upon Maynard and passed onward to the equipment on
the cart beyond the Terran. Then Thomakein's eyes snapped back to the
unconscious Terran and Thomakein's jaw fell while his face took on an
astonished look.

Thomakein often remarked afterwards that it was a shame that no one
of his photographically inclined friends had been present. He'd have
enjoyed a picture of himself at that moment and he realized the fact.

Thomakein had ignored the dead Martians. They were different enough to
permit him a certain amount of callousness.

But the man strapped to the table, and hooked up to the diabolical
looking machine was the image of an Ertinian! Thomakein didn't know
what the machine was for, but his logical mind told him that if this
man, different from the rest, were strapped to a table with some sort
of electronic equipment tied to his hands, feet, and head, it was
sufficient evidence that this was a captive and the machine some sort
of torture. He stepped forward and jerked the electrodes from Maynard's
inert frame and pushed the machine backward onto the floor with a foot.

A quick check told Thomakein that the unknown man was not dead, though
nearly so.

He raced through the derelict to his own ship and returned with a
stimulant. The man remained unconscious but alive. His eyes opened
after a long time, but behind them was no sign of intelligence. They
merely stared foolishly, and closed for long periods.

Thomakein tended the man as best he could with the limited supplies
from his own ship and then began to plan his return to Ertene with his
find.

Days passed, and Thomakein unwillingly abandoned any hope of having
this man give him any information. The man was as one dead. He could
not speak, nor could he understand anything. Thomakein decided that
the best thing to do was to take the unknown man to Ertene with him.
Perhaps Charalas, or one of his contemporary neuro-surgeons could bring
this man to himself. Thomakein diagnosed the illness as some sort of
nerve shock though he knew that he was no man of medicine.

Yet the surgeons of Ertene were brilliant, and if they could bring this
unknown man to himself, they would have a gold mine indeed.

So at the proper time, Thomakein took off from the derelict with the
mindless Guy Maynard. By now, the derelict was far beyond the last
outpost of the Solar System and obviously beyond detection. Thomakein
installed a repeater-circuit detector in the wrecked ship; it would
enable him to find the Mardinex at some later time.

So unknowing, Guy Maynard came to Ertene.

The first thing that reached across the mental gap to Guy Maynard was
music. Faint, elfin music that seemed to sway and soothe the ragged
edges of his mind. It came and it went depending on how he felt.

But gradually the music increased in strength and power, and the
lapses were shorter. Warm pleasant light assailed him now and gave
him a feeling of bodily well-being. Flashes of clear thinking found
him considering the satisfied condition of his body, and the fear and
nerve-racking torture of the Martian method of extracting information
dropped deeper and deeper into the region of forgetfulness.

Then he realized, one day, that he was being fed. It made him ashamed
to be fed at his age, but the thought was fleeting and gone before he
could clutch at it and consider why he should be ashamed. One portion
of his mind cursed the fleetingness of such thoughts and recognized the
possibilities that might lie in the sheer contemplation of self.

There were periods in which someone spoke to him in a strange tongue.
It was a throaty voice; a woman. Maynard's inquisitive section tried
the problem of what was a woman and why it should stir the rest of
him and came to the meager conclusion that it was standard for this
body to be stirred by woman: especially women with throaty voices. The
tongue was alien; he could understand none of it. But the tones were
soothing and pleasant, and they seemed to imply that he should try to
understand their meaning.

And then the wonder of meaning came before that alert part of Maynard's
mind. What is meaning? it asked. Must things have meaning? It decided
that meaning must have some place in the body's existence. It reasoned
thus: There is light. Then what is the meaning of light? Must light
have a meaning? It must have some importance. Then if light has
importance and meaning, so must all things!

Even self!

So the voices strived to teach Ertinian to the Terran while he was
still in the mindless state, and gradually he came to think in terms of
this alien tongue. But he had been taught to think in Terran, and the
Terran words came to mind slowly but surely.

And then came the day when Guy Maynard realized that he was Guy
Maynard, and that he had been saved, somehow, from the terrors of
the Martian inquisition. He saw the alien tongue for what it was and
wondered about it.

Where was he?

Why?

The days wore on with Maynard growing stronger mentally. They gave
him everything they could, these Ertinians. Scrolls were given to him
to read, and the movement of reflections from his eyeballs motivated
recording equipment that spoke the word he was scanning into his ear
in that pleasant throaty voice. It was lightning-fast training, but
it worked, once Guy's mentality went to work as an entity. Maynard
learned to read Ertinian printing and lastly the simplified cursory
writing.

Then with handwriting at the gate of learning, they placed his hand
around a controlled pencil, and the voice spoke as the controlled
pencil wrote. They spoke Ertinian to him, not knowing Terran, though
his earlier replies were recorded.

And as he strengthened, his replies made sense, and for every Ertinian
word impressed upon his mind, he gave them the Terran word. They taught
him composition and grammar as he taught them, and whether it was by
the written script or the spoken word, the interchange of knowledge was
complete.

One day he asked: "Where am I?"

And the doctor replied: "You are on Ertene."

"That I know. But where or what is Ertene?"

"Ertene is a wandering planet. We found you almost dead in a derelict
spaceship and brought you back to life."

"I recall parts of that. But--Ertene?"

"Generations ago, Ertene left her parent sun because of a great,
impending cataclysm. Since then we have been wandering in space in
search of a suitable home."

"Sol is not far away--you will find a home there."

The doctor smiled sagely and did not comment on that. Maynard wondered
about it briefly and tried to explain, but they would have none of it.

He tried at later times, but there was a reticence about their
accepting Sol as a home sun. No matter what attack he tried, there was
a casual reference to a decision to be made in the future.

But their lessons continued, and Guy progressed from the hospital to
the spacious grounds. He sought the libraries and read quite a bit,
for they urged him to, saying: "We can not entertain you continually.
You are not strong enough to work, nor will we permit you to take any
position. Therefore your best bet is to continue learning. In fact,
Guy, you have a job to perform on Ertene. You are to become well
versed in Ertinian lore so that you may converse with us freely and
draw comparisons between Ertene and your Terra for us. Therefore apply
yourself."

Guy agreed that if he could do nothing else, he could at least do their
bidding.

So he applied himself. He read. He spoke at length with those about
him. He practised with the writing machine. He accepted their customs
with the air of one who feels that he must, in order that he be
accepted.

And gradually he took on the manner of an Ertinian. He spoke with a
pure Ertinian accent, he thought in Ertinian terms, and his hand was
the handwriting of an Ertinian. And from his studies he came to the
next question.

"Charalas, how could you tell me from an Ertinian?"

Charalas smiled. "We can."

"But how? It is not apparent."

"Not to you. It is one of those things that you miss because you are
too close to it. It is like your adage: 'Cannot see the forest for the
trees.' It will come out."

"Come out?"

"Grow out," smiled the neuro-surgeon. "Your ... beard. You notice that
I used the Terran name. That is because we have no comparable term
in Ertinian. That is because no Ertinian ever grew hair on his face.
Daily, you ... shave ... with an edged tool we furnished you upon your
request. You were robotlike in those days, Guy. You performed certain
duties instinctively and the lack of ... shaving equipment ... caused
you no end of mental concern. Thomakein studied your books and had
a ... razor ... fashioned for you."

"Whiskers. I never noticed that."

"No, it is one of those things. Save for that, Guy, you could lose
yourself among us. The ... mustache ... you wear marks you on Ertene as
an alien."

"I could shave that off."

"No. Do not. It is a mark of distinction. Everyone on Ertene has seen
your picture with it and therefore you will be accorded the deference
we show an alien when people see it. Otherwise you would be expected to
behave as we do in all things."

"That I can do."

"We know that. But there is another reason for our request. One day you
will know about it. It has to do with our decision concerning alliance
with Sol's family."

Guy considered. "Soon?"

"It will be some time."

Again that unwillingness to discuss the future. Guy thought it over and
decided that this was something beyond him. He, too, let the matter
drop for the present and took a new subject.

"Charalas, this sun of yours. It is not a true sun."

"No," laughed Charalas. "It is not."

"Nor is it anything like a true sun. Matter is stable stuff only
under certain limits. If that size were truly solar matter, it would
necessarily be so dense that space would be warped in around it so
tight that nothing could emerge--radiation, I mean. To the observer, it
would not exist. That is axiomatic. If a bit of solar matter of that
size were isolated, it would merely expand and cool in a matter of
hours--if it were solar-core matter it would probably be curtains for
anything that tried to live in the neighborhood. Matter of that size is
stable only at reasonable temperatures. I don't know the limits, but
I'd guess that three or four thousand degrees kelvin would be tops. Oh,
I forgot the opposite end; the very high temperature white dwarf might
be that size--but it would warp space as I said before and thus do no
good. Therefore a true sun of that size and mass is impossible.

"Another thing, Charalas. We are close to Sol. A light-week or
less. That would have been seen ... should have been seen by our
observatories. Why haven't they seen it?"

"Our shield," explained Charalas, "explains both. You see, Guy, in
order that a planet may wander space, some means of solar effect must
be maintained. As you say, nothing practical can be found in nature.
Our planet drive is poorly controlled. We can not maneuver Ertene
as you would a spaceship. It requires great power to even shift the
course of Ertene by so much as a few degrees. We've taken luck as a
course through the galaxy and have visited only those stars that have
lain along our course. Trying to swing anything of solar mass would be
impossible. Ertene would merely leave the sun; the sun would not answer
Ertene's gravitational pull.

"But this is trivial. Obviously we have no real sun. But we needed
one." Charalas smiled shyly. "At this point I must sound braggart," he
said, "but it was an ancestor of mine--Timalas--who brought Ertene her
sun."

"Great sounding guy," commented the Terran.

"He was. Ertene left the parent sun with only the light-shield. The
light-shield, Guy, is a screen of energy that permits radiation to pass
inwardly but not outwardly. Thus we collect the radiation of all the
stars and lose but a minute quantity of the input from losses. That
kept Ertene warm during those first years of our wandering.

"It also presented Ertene with a serious problem. The entire sky was
faintly luminous. It was neither night nor day at any place on Ertene,
but a half-light all the time. Disconcerting and entirely alien to the
human animal. Evolutionary strains might have appeared to accept this
strange condition, but Timalas decided that Intis, the lesser moon,
would serve as a sun. He converted the screen slightly, distorting
it so that the focal point for incoming radiation was at Intis. The
lesser moon became incandescent, eventually, and serves as Ertene's
sun. It is synthetic. The other radiations that prove useful to growing
things and to man but which are not visible are emitted right from
the inner surface of the light-shield itself. Intis serves as the
source of light and most of the heat. It is a natural effect, giving
us beautiful sunrises and peaceful sunsets. The radiation that causes
growth and healthful effects is ever-present, because of the screen.
Some heat, too, for that is included in the beneficial radiation. But
the visible spectrum is directed at Intis along with a great quantity
of the heat rays. Intis is small, Guy, and it is also beneficial that
the re-radiation from Intis that misses Ertene and falls on the screen
is converted also. Much of Ertene's power is derived from the screen
itself--a back-energy collected from the screen generator."

"So the effective sun is the result of an energy shield? And this same
shield prevents any radiation from leaving this region. I can see why
we haven't seen Ertene. You can't see something that doesn't radiate.
But what about occultation?"

"Quite possible. But the size of the screen is such that it is of
stellar size as seen from stellar distances. It is but a true point in
space." Charalas smiled. "I was about to say a point-source of light
similar to a star but the shield is a point-source of no-light, really.
Occultation is possible but the probabilities are remote, plus the
probability of a repeat, so that the observer would consider the brief
occultation of the star anything but an accident to his photographic
plate."

"Don't get you on that."

"It's easy, Guy. Take a star-photograph and lay a thin line across it
and see how many stars are really covered by this line--which is of
the thickness of the stars themselves. Too few for a non-suspecting
observer to tie together into a theory. No, we are safe from detection."

"Detection?"

"Yes. Call it that. Suppose we were to pass through a malignant
culture. We did, three generations ago and it was only our shield that
saved us from being absorbed into that system. We would have been
slaves to that civilization."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"Certainly," said Guy. "You intend to have me present the Solar
Government to your leaders. Upon my tale will rest your decision. You
will decide whether to join us--or to pass undetected."

"I believe you understand," said Charalas. "So study well and be
prepared to draw the most discerning comparisons, for the Council will
ask the most delicate questions and you should be able to discuss any
phase of Ertene's social system and the corresponding Terran system."

Mentally, Guy bade good-by to Sol. He applied himself to his Ertinian
lessons because he felt that if Sol were lost to him--as it might
be--he could at least enter the Ertinian life as an Ertinian.