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your language-huh, you would be. Don't even
understand telepathy, or the ether, or the relationship between time and
space. Not even the fourth dimension."
Changing instantaneously from Seaton's form to Dorothy's, the stranger went on
without a break. "Electrons and
neutrons and things-nothing here, either."
The form became DuQuesne's. "Ah, a freer type, but blind, dull, stupid;
another nothing. As Martin Crane; the same.
As Peggy, still the same, as was of course to be expected. Since you are all
nothings in essence, of a race so low in
the scale that it will be millions of years before it will rise even above
death and death's clumsy attendant
necessity, sex, it is of course necessary for me to make of you nothings in
fact; to dematerialize you."
In Seaton's form the being stared at Seaton, who felt his senses reel under
the impact of an awful, if insubstantial,
blow. Seaton fought back with all his mind and remained standing.
"What's this?" the stranger exclaimed in surprise. "This is the first time in
millions of cycles that mere matter,
which is only a manifestation of mind, has refused to obey a mind of power.
There's something screwy
somewhere." He switched to Crane's shape.
"Ah, I am not a perfect reproduction-there is some subtle difference. The
external form is the same; the internal
structure likewise. The molecules of substance are arranged properly, as are
the atoms in the molecules. The
electrons, neutrons, protons, positrons, neutrinos, mesons ... nothing amiss
on that level. On the third level . . ."
"Let's go!" Seaton exclaimed, drawing Dorothy backward and reaching for the
airlock switch. "This
dematerialization stuff may be pie for him, but believe me, it's none of my
dish."
"No, no!" the stranger remonstrated. "You really must stay and be
dematerialized-alive or dead."
He drew his pistol. Being in Crane's form, he drew slowly, as Crane did; and
Seaton's Mark I shell struck him
before the pistol cleared his pocket. The pseudo-body was votalized; but, just
to make sure, Crane fired a Mark V
into the ground through the last open chink of the closing lock.
Seaton leaped to the board. As he did so, a creature materialized in the air
in front of him-and crashed to the floor
as he threw on the power. It was a frightful thing-outrageous teeth, long
claws, and an automatic pistol held in a
human hand. Forced flat by the fierce acceleration, it was unable to lift
either itself or the weapon.
"We take one trick!" Seaton blazed. "Stick to matter and I'll run along with
you 'til my ankles catch fire!"
"That is a childish defiance. It speaks well for your courage, but not for
your intelligence," the animal said, and
vanished.
A moment later Seaton's hair stood on end as a pistol appeared upon his board,
clamped to it by hands of steel. The
slide jerked; the trigger moved; the hammer came down. However; there was no
explosion, but merely a click.
Seaton, paralyzed by the rapid succession of stunning events, was surprised to
find himself still alive.
"Oh,.I was almost sure it wouldn't explode," the gunbarrel said, chattily, in
a harsh, metallic voice. "You see, I
haven't derived the formula of your sub-nuclear structure yet, hence I could
not make an actual explosive. By the
use of crude force I could kill you in any one of many different ways. . . ."
"Name one!" Seaton snapped.
"Two, if you like. I could materialize as five masses of metal directly over
your heads, and fall. I could, by a
sufficient concentration of effort, materialize a sun in your immediate path.
Either method would succeed, would
it not?"
"I ... I guess it would," Seaton admitted, grudgingly. "But such crude work is
distasteful in the extreme, and is never,
under any conditions, mandatory. Furthermore, you are not quite the complete
nothings that my first rough analysis
seemed to indicate. In particular, the DuQuesne of you has the rudiments of a
quality which, while it cannot be
called mental ability, may in time develop into a quality which may just
possibly make him assimilable into the
purely intellectual stratum.
"Furthermore, you have given me a notable and entirely unexpected amount of
exercise and enjoyment and can be
made to give me more-much more-as follows: I will spend the next sixty of your
minutes at work upon that
formula-your subnuclear structure. Its derivation is comparatively simple,
requiring only the solution of ninety-
seven simultaneous differential equations and an integration in ninety-seven
dimensions. If you can interfere with
my computations sufficiently to prevent me from deriving that formula within
the stipulated period of time you
may return to your fellow nothings exactly as you now are. The first minute
begins when the sweep-hand of your
chronometer touches zero; that is . . . now."
Seaton cut the power to one gravity and sat up, eyes closed tight and frowning
in the intensity of his mental effort.
"You can't do it, you immaterial lug!" he thought, savagely. "There are too
many variables. No mind, however
inhuman, can handle more than ninety-one differentials at once . . . you're
wrong; that's theta, not epsilon. . . . It's X,
not Y or Z. Alphal Beta! Ha, there's a slip; a bad one-got to go back and
start all over.... Nobody can integrate above
ninety-six brackets . . . no body and no thing or mind in this whole, entire,
cock-eyed universe! . . .
Seaton cast aside any thought of the horror of their position. He denied any
feeling of suspense. He refused to
consider the fact that both he and his beloved Dorothy might at any instant be
hurled into nothingness. Closing his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]