Part 5

Lucifer spoke of their own experiments with the babies, and of the sweep of five million years of evolution foreshortened through understanding and application of Hardy's Law. Only when he came to the radiation and chemical phases of the psi project, to the pitiable _Goolies_, did his flow of words falter. He tried to pick up quickly with analysis of what training would do for their own children. But the nagging awareness of this second dishonesty, the knowledge that Nina knew what he had done and was watching him in the darkness, broke the flow of thought and his explanation trailed off into awkward silence.

Albert Fetzer didn't say anything. He squatted on his heels, a humped blur in the darkness of the room. Lucifer could feel the probe of his eyes and darting mind.

"So that's it," Fetzer said at last. "We guessed some of it, but we couldn't fill in the missing pieces. You learned a lot, Doc."

"There's so much I haven't yet learned."

"You learned enough."

"Enough for what?"

"We're going to pull that plug, remember?"

"No!" Lucifer stood up in his agitation. "There must be another way--a better way."

"You name it."

"Well--naturally I'd have to think more about it. Everything here is so new to me."

Fetzer stepped closer to him. His shadow was shorter even than Lucifer's, but it bulked with unseen strength.

"Anything else, Doc?"

"I don't understand."

"You've gone for this stuff, haven't you."

Lucifer recoiled from the bluntness of the question.

"I am a scientist," he replied. "Or at least I have always assumed that. These ideas are as strange to me as they are to you, but I'm trying to understand and evaluate them. Isn't that important?"

"Not to me it isn't--not right now. I think the other boys will feel the same."

"You don't care what all this may mean?"

"Nope. Not yet, anyway. I'm not a scientist, Dr. Brill. Maybe I'm not even a very smart guy and maybe I'm just as glad of it, because my feet are on the ground and I know where I want them to go. Sure, this psi stuff could be big, mighty big. Our kids could go a long way with it. I can see that. But I'm a man, not a guinea pig. I happen to go for the woman they teamed me up with, and she feels the same way about me. That's true of most of the folks here. But we're not breeding kids for someone else. We'd rather run our own show. Guess you professors have been away from ordinary people too long to realize that. You should listen to some of our boys who fought with the underground in the last war. Makes you feel kind of good about people."

"Don't you realize that Huth can destroy all of you?"

"I'm not the hero type, Dr. Brill. In the war, I always kept my head down and squeezed as deep in the mud as I could. But there's some things you have to do, no matter how cold your stomach feels about it."

"When do you plan to do this?"

From the forest came a wild, plaintive cry. Fetzer took a quick step toward the window, then paused.

"You better come with me--both of you."

Lucifer drew back.

"Where? Why?"

"I don't like to do this, Doc. But I don't like the way you sound, either. We can't take any chances."

"You don't think ..."

"I don't know. I'm sorry, but I don't know enough about your kind. Hurry up, now."

Lucifer still held back, but Nina stood up and moved wordlessly toward the window. Fetzer's voice toughened.

"Make it easy on yourself, Doc. You're coming along, one way or the other."

His legs shaking, Lucifer followed Nina through the window.

* * * * *

The warp in the force field was at the far corner of the enclosure. At a command from Fetzer, they dropped to their knees and crawled through. A voice whispered a challenge. Fetzer answered, and they proceeded, single file, deeper into the forest. The leader guided them with a pinpoint of light escaping from his cupped hand.

They followed a winding course around the root structures of the trees. Lucifer tripped once and fell sprawling into the wet, leathery leaves. As he got up, the spider loop of a vine caught him around the throat and flipped him again.

"Pick up your feet and keep your head down," Fetzer warned impatiently.

Their direction took them to a shallow stream, and they splashed up the middle of it for a hundred yards. The cacophony of night sounds retreated before them, closed in behind them. The rooftop of intermeshed branches and leaves dripped endlessly. Some alien creature followed them through the branches, yapping in a strident monotone.

They emerged from the stream to crawl into a semi-cave formed by the enjoining roots of two great trees. Vegetation had webbed over the roots until even the dropping of water was cut off.

The light of a guttering torch showed several men waiting for them. A few carried strange weapons stolen from Huth's men. Others were armed with vicious looking clubs, and long, needle-pointed stakes.

It's fantastic, thought Lucifer. Cavemen prepared to challenge a mechanized force. Cavemen forty light years from home.

When they saw Nina, the men stood up, surprised, uneasy. Fetzer went into some detail on what Lucifer had told him. One of the men swore, and smashed the head of his club on the sodden floor of the cave.

A balding man seated Nina on a hummock in one corner of the cave. Ignoring Lucifer, they plunged into discussion of their plans. None could see any reason for further delay. The supply ship had been gone for some time, and might return soon. Its crew would add strength to Huth's base force, which numbered around eight hundred, including nurses, doctors and various technical personnel.

To Lucifer, the plan sounded bold. Pathetically bold. A sizeable group would break out of their quarters and flee into the forest, drawing a portion of Huth's men in pursuit. Another group would attack Center, making it appear that this was the chief point of concentration. After delaying as long as possible, the main force would hit the landing field and try to capture the auxiliary spaceship. The men knew they couldn't handle the ship, but their work around the field had taught them enough about it to know that its armament could give them control of the base.

As Lucifer listened, a sense of familiarity kept tugging at him. It was a strange sensation that he had been through something like this before. But that was ridiculous. He'd never been any closer to military action than rejection by his draftboard, which had stupidly considered parapsychology non-essential.

The feeling persisted, and suddenly he identified it: Hempstead House, New London, Conn. The stories he had been told in childhood about the underground railroad and the abolitionist meetings held by the few who believed men should be free and were willing to do something about it!

The memory came to him across thirty-five years of his life, and half the span of the galaxy. It came with an impact that snapped something inside him, to bring the entity, the changing personality that was himself, into focus again. But it wasn't the same focus as before. It would never be. Yet he felt more a whole person than ever before, and within him there was a surging current that could not be held back.

Hempstead House had been a verity that could not be fitted into any neat cubicle of orthodoxy. New England ministers and spinsters, businessmen and farmers--all of them motivated by a life force that couldn't be duplicated in any laboratory. The same life force was in this tree cave tonight, far away from Earth. It would go with men forever, through all space and time.

It would go with Lucifer Brill, too--to the end of this experience, to whatever new frontiers of science he might live to reach. It would prevent the vision from becoming the still-life picture, the theory from crystalizing into dogma. As long as the force lived in any man, it had the potential of leading all men to freedom. Psi was an unknown part of that life force. It could not always remain in the laboratory. It must bring freedom from blindness, freedom from the cubicles that restricted each man, each science. It was a weapon ...

A weapon!

Good Lord, why not?

Lucifer stepped into the center of the group before he knew what he was going to say. But the words came: "Wait ... there may be a better way--if you have the courage to try it!"

Fetzer eyed him sceptically.

"We don't have much time, Doc."

"Then you must make time! It's your only chance--our only chance!"

The men were silent, uncertain.

"Go ahead," Fetzer said. "But make it fast."

"Would you fight with a knife if you had a machine gun? Would you attack on horseback if you had a jet loaded with atom bombs?"

"Keep talking," said Fetzer.

"The answer is obvious. You would use the best weapon available. Yet here you sit with clubs and wooden spears, ignoring a weapon so potentially powerful that it makes our H-Bomb, or some undoubtedly greater weapon of Huth's, seem like an old crossbow!"

He had their attention now. He felt the force of concentration on his words. He sensed the awareness in Nina, though her eyes were hidden in the shadows beyond the wavering circle of torchlight.

"Think of what I learned from Huth--what Albert Fetzer has told you. Every person was brought here because they were psi positives, because they possessed some individual psi talent. Some of you have been ashamed of that talent. Perhaps you tried to hide it back on Earth--because it made you different from other people. But you know something about it. You may have learned more about it--even experimented with it--during your months and years on this planet. You may know what even limited talents have done in perception, clairvoyance and the moving of objects through telekinesis.

"These things were done by individual people, operating, as we might say, on single generators.

"But now for the first time in history we have more than three thousand psi talents grouped together in one small area.

"What if all the psi power here could be focused on one objective? All the men and women of Mendel's Planet--all the children--especially the children! ... focusing their combined power!

"Wouldn't that give us the force of three thousand generators--fused into one unit? Instead of moving a chair across the room, making a table jump, levitating a person--why couldn't a building be moved? A spaceship crushed? An attacking force cut down like grass under an invisible mower?

"Gentlemen, is there any limit to the power of a psi focus?

"If a psi focus is possible, we have our own world to win--the frontiers of infinity to explore....

"Are you willing to try?"

* * * * *

The silence within the tree-cave lasted for an eternity.

Even the breathing of the men was hushed as each struggled with this new concept.

His emotional fire spent in the greatest effort of his life, Lucifer stood limp and awkward in the center of the circle, looking around at the set faces. Their eyes were fixed on the humus beneath their crossed legs.

Faintly, high above the tree-cave, the wind moaned over the forest canopy, and a new wash of rain approached. It was a cold sound, though the night was steaming hot.

There was a stir in the shadows, and Nina stepped between two men to join him in the circle. Her fists were clenched.

"What's the matter," she cried, "don't you have faith in yourselves? Are you afraid to fight with a new weapon?"

The faces turned up toward her.

"Look at that torch!" she commanded. "Now, put it out! All of us together put it out!"

She turned toward the torch, which had been thrust into a fibrous root structure. She half-closed her eyes. Her lips stretched taut; her fingers knotted and unknotted in an agony of concentration.

The flame flickered violently in the still air of the cave, but it did not go out.

"You're not helping me!" Nina cried: "I'm not strong enough alone--none of us are! Please!"

Abruptly, the torch twisted in its base, the wood snapped with the crack of a rifle shot.

The tree-cave was dark.

Nina's voice was spent, triumphant.

"See! Now do you have faith in yourselves? Didn't you feel what Dr. Brill meant by a psi focus? Think of what it will be like to be in a focus of three thousand minds! Are you still afraid?"

A man groped his way to the broken remnant of the torch. He re-lit the upper portion.

"I'm thinking of my own kid," he said. "I've seen what he can do all by himself."

Fetzer spoke up.

"I've tried it myself. I can't do it always, but sometimes it happens. I don't know why, but it happens."

One after another the men spoke out, digging into hidden memories for some personal or observed experience.

"My wife was a kick," recalled a scrawny little man with a huge nose. "Not the woman I got me now, but the one I had back in Portland. She never would read no cards, but when she got mad, all hell would bust loose! Once we both got mad the same time, and you never saw so much stuff zinging around! The neighbors called the cops."

They fell silent again, thinking.

Nina slipped her hand into Lucifer's. It was icy cold.

"You'd better sit down," he told her.

She shook her head.

Then Fetzer spoke up.

"How could we try this thing, Doc?"

It was the question Lucifer had been hoping for, and fearing. The problems ahead were piling up. He was a teacher, a scientist, not a leader. But he couldn't let his doubts show now.

"We can test it tomorrow night--if you can get word to all the people by that time."

"We can."

Once committed, the men plunged quickly into new plans. The guard tower on the hill behind the compound was picked for the first target. Almost everyone could see it from their own quarters. And it was large enough to provide a valid test for Lucifer's psi focus theory. The searchlight that always blazed on with the coming of dusk would be the signal.

"If it works," said Fetzer, "we've got to be ready to go all the way. They might not know what happened exactly, but you can be sure they'll move in and clamp down fast."

It was decided that a modified version of the original attack plan would be followed if the experiment succeeded. Only this time the diversionary forces would hit the Center and the small spaceport, while the main effort would be concentrated on getting the rest of the people into a clearing just outside the compound. From there they would try to function as a psi unit.

The wail of a forest animal drifted through the night.

"The boys are getting ready to short the field again," Fetzer explained. "We'd better get back."

He held out his hand to Lucifer. "Sorry, Doc."

They made good time back to the compound, and the group split up as they approached it. Fetzer took Nina and Lucifer to their quarters and showed them how to locate the warp.

"So long," he said. "Good luck to us all."

Nina and Lucifer ducked through the warp, but did not go immediately inside. They watched the clouds shred apart, and the incredibly brilliant stars light up the night.

"I wonder where Earth is?" Nina whispered.

"We couldn't see it if we knew."

"Do you think we'll ever get back, Lucifer?"

"I don't know."

She slipped her arm through his.

"Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I have a feeling that we won't. That we will never see our own sun rise again."

He was silent, feeling the weight of her words, the unknown to come, the burden of his responsibility.

"It was hard for me to say that," she continued quietly. "I loved Earth. I loved its beauty and its ugliness. I loved its poor blind people. I loved them all, for I was part of them, and my eyes belonged to them. I could never hate anyone."

She put her cheek against his, and her breath was warmer than the warmth of the night.

Lucifer did not draw away. He asked, "Do you have a sense of what may happen tomorrow?"

"Only a sense of much pain. Beyond that, I can't see. It may be just as well. Are you afraid, Lucifer?"

"A little."

"It is good to be a little afraid, always."

"What about you--are you ever afraid, Nina?"

It was the first time he had spoken the name of this strange woman who bore his child.

"I am afraid, but I am at peace, too. If we do not come through this, there will be nothing more to the end of time. But if we do, we will have a child who can see, and its life will belong to us. Isn't that a wonderful thought?"

Lucifer trembled under the added burden, but he thrust it from his mind, lest she perceive it there. Time enough for her to know the truth when they knew the future.

"We'd better go in," he said.

Her cheek turned. Her mouth found his.

* * * * *

When Huth called them shortly after breakfast, Lucifer was already at work in front of the visagraph screen. He held up a sheet of scribbling, and forced himself to speak with animation.

"Here are some further possibilities based on our findings of yesterday. Can we work on them here today?"

Huth looked interested. "Along what lines are you proceeding, Dr. Brill?"

"All the primary needs and functions of a child could be related to psi, just as well as the feeding. I am intrigued by the possibility of stimulus and response in the prenatal stage. Mrs. Brill believes she has heard or read that thumb-sucking begins within the womb. Could you verify this with Dr. Thame? If it is indeed the case, the need expressed by the foetus in sucking its thumb might be answered psionically by a perceptive mother, thus strengthening the psi sense and building reliance on it at an even earlier stage of development."

"Splendid, Dr. Brill!"

Lucifer pointed to the stack of books beside him on the couch.

"Earlier this morning, I asked for some works on the infant brain, and several books on electroencephalography were delivered by the tubicular. In scanning them, I find several items that may be fruitful for future research. For example, electrodes attached to the belly of a pregnant woman in the eighth month of gestation record an irregular pattern of delta waves. It also appears that both delta and theta are typically infantile rhythms, and that theta activity is early associated with such non-visual stimulation as pleasure, pain and frustration. The pathways on this frontier go in many directions."

"Follow them where you will!" There was deep satisfaction in Huth's voice. "May I say, Dr. Brill, that I have misjudged the potential adaptability of the Earth scientific mind, when it is given proper stimulus and motivation. Your progress has been remarkable, truly remarkable! Would you be content to return to your old cubicle?"

"No," Lucifer answered steadily. "I would not."

The day dragged endlessly, even with the research to occupy his attention. It might have been easier if he could have talked with Nina about what lay ahead, but he dared not risk a chance word being monitored. They could only try to talk casually about themselves and the research.

As the minutes crawled by, new doubts tormented him. Would Fetzer and his men be able to contact everyone? Would the people believe enough in their own power to make a serious attempt at focusing it on the guard tower? If the test failed, he had no doubts that the men would go ahead with their original plan.

Nina smiled whenever their eyes met, but for all its strength her dark face showed the strain of waiting. Near the end of the day, she sat beside him, brushed her lips against the edge of his mustache, and let them creep up to his ear.

"I love you," she whispered. "I want to say it now, and then think only of what we must try to do."

Rain came with the first of dusk. It had been holding back since mid-day, building up rolling black thunderheads. Now it came with such fury that it blotted out the view of the compound and the guard tower. Nina looked stricken.

"The signal!" she whispered. "What will we do?"

Lucifer could only stare through the rain-washed window and repeat to himself the fragment of a prayer he had learned from his father.

With deepening of dusk, the rain lifted a little, but they still couldn't know whether the light would be visible. A sudden gust could blot it out.

Huth called on the visagraph. "I will send a car for you," he said. "I thought it might be pleasant to dine together and pass this miserable evening in stimulating conversation!"

"Thank you," said Lucifer. He hoped his concern didn't show. From the corner of his eye he could see Nina by the window, straining to catch the first glimpse of the signal light.

He must delay Huth in sending for them!

Lucifer picked up a book.

"I will bring this along," he said. "This afternoon I encountered another concept that may help...."

As he had hoped, Huth could not resist the bait.

"That's most interesting, Dr. Brill."

"It has to do with what might be called the relationship between the anatomical maturing of the brain and the changing of rhythm patterns as the child grows older. This has not been applied to psi patterns--"

"By all means, let's discuss it, Dr. Brill! Now--"

"Another factor," Lucifer continued desperately, "may be the alpha rhythm patterns in a child. While these emerge very infrequently below the age of three, and do not appear with regularity until around the age of eleven, there is evidence to indicate that alpha rhythm characteristics are hereditary, and that...."

As Lucifer talked, he saw that Nina's body had become rigid, that her fingers were extended and shaking, with the frenzy of a drowning person trying to reach something just beyond his grasp.

"... and that environmental factors may affect the frequency of alpha rhythms during the period of childhood. For example, two uniovular twins--"

A cry of pain escaped from Nina's lips. Huth showed he had heard it.

"Is something wrong, Dr. Brill?"

"Mrs. Brill may have fallen--I will--"

And then it came, more a rending than an explosion. It was like a gigantic steel beam snapping apart from an irresistible pressure within its molecules.

Their dwelling and the ground beneath it shuddered.

Nina cried out again, a cry in which agony and triumph were one.

Huth leaped back from the screen. A terrible rage was stamped on his bronze features.

"Dr. Brill, if you are responsible for whatever has happened...."

The screen went dark.

Lucifer rushed to the window, tore Nina away from it. He caught a glimpse of white flames in the darkness.

"Hurry! Through the warp!" he shouted.

She followed woodenly, in a state of psychic shock. Her head struck the edge of the warp. Lucifer had to make her bend in order to get through.

The drenching rain revived her a little.

"Oh, Lucifer.... It hurt me so.... I tried so hard...."

She was sobbing, and her tears became part of the rain on her cheeks.

"It was like trying to swim against the tide of all the oceans in the universe. And the tide was pushing me back--and then, all of a sudden, the tide was with me--and I was tumbled and choked--in breakers as high as the stars."

She pressed hard against him, her strong body contorting in a spasm that was more than muscular. Words tore themselves from lips that quivered and twisted:

"Dear God! We've never lived before! A new world, and we're not strong enough to live there, Lucifer--Not strong enough yet! I can't go back to it--but I want to--I want to so much."

* * * * *

They skirted the compound, just within the fringe of the forest. As they ran, other shadow forms joined them in the scramble toward the meeting place. Children, awed momentarily to silence, ran nimbly ahead of their parents. A baby wailed.

Seachlights probed through the rain, thrusting at the forest. Blocks of light and shadow flickered between the trees. It was like a film running wild in its projector.

The light in the bow of the spaceship blazed on, and the misty twilight became a phosphorescent glow, a great dome of brilliance that arched up to the churning black clouds.

A shouting came from the direction of Center. The first attack group had struck.