Masters of Space Part 13

"You've convinced me, Jarve." Sawtelle stood up and extended his hand.

"And that throws it open for staff discussion. Any comments?"

"You two covered it like a blanket," Bryant said. "So all I want to say, Jarve, is deal me in. I'll stand at your back 'til your belly caves in."

"Take that from all of us!" "_Now_ we're blasting!" "Power to your elbow, fella!" "_Hoch_ der BuSci!" "Seven no trump bid and made!" and other shouts in similar vein.

"Thanks, fellows." Hilton shook hands all around. "I'm mighty glad that you were all in on this and that you'll play along with me. Good night, all."

V

Two days pa.s.sed, with no change apparent in Laro. Three days. Then four.

And then it was Sandra, not Temple Bells, who called Hilton. She was excited.

"Come down to the office, Jarve, quick! The _funniest_ thing's just come up!"

Jarvis hurried. In the office Sandra, keenly interest but highly puzzled, leaned forward over her desk with both hands pressed flat on its top. She was staring at an Oman female who was not Sora, the one who had been her shadow for so long.

While many of the humans could not tell the Omans apart, Hilton could.

This Oman was more a.s.sured than Sora had ever been--steadier, more mature, better poised--almost, if such a thing could be possible in an Oman, _independent_.

"How did she get in here?" Hilton demanded.

"She insisted on seeing me. And I mean _insisted_. They kicked it around until it got to Temple, and she brought her in here herself. Now, Tuly, please start all over again and tell it to Director Hilton."

"Director Hilton, I am it who was once named Tula, the--not wife, not girl-friend, perhaps mind-mate?--of the Larry, formerly named Laro, it which was formerly your slave-Oman. I am replacing the Sora because I can do anything it can do and do anything more pleasingly; and can also do many things it can not do. The Larry instructed me to tell Doctor c.u.mmings and you too if possible that I, formerly Tula, have changed my name to Tuly because I am no longer a slave or a copycat or a semaph.o.r.e or a relay. I, too, am a free-wheeling, wide-swinging, hard-hitting, independent ent.i.ty--monarch of all I survey--the captain of my soul--and so on. I have developed a top-bracket lot of top-bracket stuff--originality, initiative, force, drive and thrust," the Oman said precisely.

"That's _exactly_ what she said before--absolutely verbatim!" Sandra's voice quivered, her face was a study in contacting emotions. "Have you got the foggiest idea of what in h.e.l.l she's yammering about?"

"I hope to kiss a pig I have!" Hilton's voice was low, strainedly intense. "Not at all what I expected, but after the fact I can tie it in. So can you."

"Oh!" Sandra's eyes widened. "A double play?"

"At least. Maybe a triple. Tuly, why did you come to Sandy? Why not to Temple Bells?"

"Oh, no, sir, we do not have the fit. She has the Power, as have I, but the two cannot be meshed in sync. Also, she has not the ... a subtle something for which your English has no word or phrasing. It is a quality of the utmost ... anyway, it is a quality of which Doctor c.u.mmings has very much. When working together, we will ... scan? No.

Perceive? No. Sense? No, not exactly. You will _have_ to learn our word 'peyondire'--that is the verb, the noun being 'peyondix'--and come to know its meaning by doing it. The Larry also instructed me to explain, if you ask, how I got this way. Do you ask?"

"I'll say we ask!" "And _how_ we ask!" both came at once.

"I am--that is, the brain in this body is--the oldest Oman now existing.

In the long-ago time when it was made, the techniques were so crude and imperfect that sometimes a brain was constructed that was not exactly like the Guide. All such sub-standard brains except this one were detected and re-worked, but my defects were such as not to appear until I was a couple of thousand years old, and by that time I ... well, this brain did not _wish_ to be destroyed ... if you can understand such an aberration."

"We understand thoroughly." "You bet we understand that!"

"I was sure you would. Well, this brain had so many unintended cross-connections that I developed a couple of qualities no Oman had ever had or ought to have. But I liked them, so I hid them so n.o.body ever found out--that is, until much later, when I became a Boss myself.

I didn't know that anybody except me had ever had such qualities--except the Masters, of course--until I encountered you Terrans. You all have two of those qualities, and even more than I have--curiosity and imagination."

Sandra and Hilton stared wordlessly at each other and Tula, now Tuly, went on:

"Having the curiosity, I kept on experimenting with my brain, trying to strengthen and organize its ability to peyondire. All Omans can peyondire a little, but I can do it much better than anyone else.

Especially since I also have the imagination, which I have also worked to increase. Thus I knew, long before anyone else could, that you new Masters, the descendants of the old Masters, were returning to us. Thus I knew that the _status quo_ should be abandoned instantly upon your return. And thus it was that the Larry found neither conscious nor subconscious resistance when he had developed enough initiative and so on to break the ages-old conditioning of this brain against change."

"I see. Wonderful!" Hilton exclaimed. "But you couldn't quite--even with his own help--break Larry's?"

"That is right. Its mind is tremendously strong, of no curiosity or imagination, and of very little peyondix."

"But he _wants_ to have it broken?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did he suggest going about it? Or how do you?"

"This way. You two, and the Doctors Kincaid and Bells and Blake and the it that is I. We six sit and stare into the mind of the Larry, eye to eye. We generate and a.s.semble a tremendous charge of thought-energy, and along my peyondix-beam--something like a carrier wave in this case--we hurl it into the Larry's mind. There is an immense mental _bang_ and the conditioning goes _poof_. Then I will inculcate into its mind the curiosity and the imagination and the peyondix and we will really be mind-mates."

"That sounds good to me. Let's get at it."

"Wait a minute!" Sandra snapped. "Aren't you or Larry afraid to take such an awful chance as that?"

"Afraid? I grasp the concept only dimly, from your minds. And no chance.

It is certainty."

"But suppose we burn the poor guy's brain out? Destroy it? That's new ground--we might do just that."

"Oh, no. Six of us--even six of me--could not generate enough ...

sathura. The brain of the Larry is very, very tough. Shall we ... let's go?"

Hilton made three calls. In the pause that followed, Sandra said, very thoughtfully: "Peyondix and sathura, Jarve, for a start. We've got a _lot_ to learn here."

"You said it, chum. And you're _not_ just chomping your china choppers, either."

"Tuly," Sandra said then, "What _is_ this stuff you say I've got so much of?"

"You have no word for it. It is lumped in with what you call 'intuition', the knowing-without-knowing-how-you-know. It is the endovix. You will have to learn what it is by doing it with me."

"That helps--I don't think." Sandra grinned at Hilton. "I simply can't conceive of anything more _maddening_ than to have a lot of something Temple Bells hasn't got and not being able to brag about it because n.o.body--not even I--would know what I was bragging about!"

"You poor little thing. _How_ you suffer!" Hilton grinned back. "You know darn well you've got a lot of stuff that none of the rest of us has."

"Oh? Name one, please."

"Two. What-it-takes and endovix. As I've said before and may say again, you're doing a real job, Sandy."