Chapter VIII

Kirk came to with the feeling that his period of unconsciousness had been momentary. Naia was standing as she had stood before, just beyond the inner doorway. The mocking smile was still on her face. "Did you trip?"

Kirk got groggily to his feet. "No, angel. That's the way I always cross a room." As he came upright his hand reached toward the bulge made by his shoulder holster. But it didn't get that far.

He had not seen from whence the first blow came but that was not true with the second. From a tiny opening in the door jamb, a pinpoint of light appeared. It hung there for a moment. Then it brightened, expanded, and shot forth as a slim beam. It contained a silvery radiance and the kick of a Missouri mule. It slammed against Kirk's jaw, but not quite so hard this time; only hard enough to send him down again amidst a cloud of shooting stars.

He shook his head and got to his hands and knees. "Wha's 'at? A trained flashlight?" He began coming up. As soon as he didn't need his right hand for rising he reached for his gun. The light beam seemed to resent this. It hit him in the solar plexus this time; a sickening blow that fed nausea down through his legs. He tightened his stomach against the agony and began getting up again.

"You see how useless it is?" Naia asked. "Beside us, you Earthlings are children. Will you stop being foolish, or must I kill you?"

Kirk squinted craftily at the pinpoint of light with one closed eye. Clever little devil. What the hell! Nude innocents. Tigers on leashes. Light beams that knocked your teeth out. Paul Cordell with a shaved spot on his head.

"You got your bag packed for a little trip, baby?"

For a brief moment, genuine fear flamed in Naia's eyes. And in Kirk's mind: Dumb babe. What's she got to be scared of? They hit you with nothing and make it stick. Kirk croaked, "Grab your bag, baby. We'll go find that flying biscuit. We got a date with Arthur Kahler Troy."

He was really cagey this time. When the light beam shot out, he hurled himself to the side. But he could have saved the effort. A beam came from the other door jamb and he stepped right into it. That one really tore his head off.

* * * * *

Somebody was talking. It was a man and he had a deep resonant voice: a voice full of authority--and censure. "I'm surprised at you Naia. I never suspected you of having a sadistic streak."

Naia's sullen reply. "Do you think anyone can do the work I do and remain unmarked?"

"I suppose not. But as I remember it, you asked to serve."

"As a benefit to humanity."

"We won't go into it."

But Naia pressed the point. "I have always followed orders. I placed myself in possible jeopardy on Earth by clearing Paul Cordell."

"But Paul Cordell was not cleared."

"Not through any fault of mine."

"But why this? What end does torturing this poor unfortunate serve?"

Martin Kirk cautiously opened one eye. It brought to his brain the image of a large blue globe. A man of fine and commanding appearance stood within the globe, suspended about a foot from the floor. The globe and the man gave every indication of having just come through the opaque glass wall of the room, and as Kirk watched, the man was lowered slowly to the floor and the globe became a blue mist that spiralled lazily and was gone.

Kirk opened both eyes now, stirred, and climbed dizzily to his feet. "You bump into the damndest things around here," he said, "But let's get down to the important business. My name is Martin Kirk. I'm an American police officer. One of your subjects committed a murder on American soil. I hope you aren't going to be difficult about extradition."

The other could not hide his surprise. Nor did he try to. "Amazing," he murmured. Then, "I am Tamu, the overlord of the galaxy. I wonder if Naia's cruelty hasn't affected your mind?"

"If you mean I'm nuts, I think maybe you're right. But it wasn't little Playful here who did it. I've gone through a lot and I don't speak with any sense of bragging. I've seen more funny things happen than any one man should see in so short a time. So maybe I am off my rocker. So I'd like your permission to take my prisoner back to Earth so I can give all my time to regaining my sanity."

Tamu regarded Kirk with thoughtful eyes. "I think we should have a talk."

"I would like a talk. I would like nothing better than to chew the fat with you for hours on end if my jaw didn't hurt so damned much. So I'll just take my prisoner and go. Do I have to sign a paper or something?"

The overlord's surprise was fast becoming a kind of fascinated awe. "Kirk, you said?" He pointed to the door leading to the inner room. "Please go in, sir. There's no use of our standing out here while we discuss your problem."

The Lieutenant eyed the door frame warily, "I tried getting through there before but the light got in my eyes!"

"You can trust me."

The police officer stepped cautiously through the opening and on into a luxuriously furnished room. Tamu, dressed much the same as one of Earth's better bankers, followed him in and suggested he sit down.

"Why?" Kirk demanded bluntly. "Let's stop kitten-and-micing around, Mr. Tamu. I'm not comfortable here and I want to leave. With her." He tilted his head toward the watching, sullen-faced Naia North. "And now."

Tamu said, "Believe me, it will be as easy for you to return to Earth an hour from now. You seem weary to the point of exhaustion. I ask you again: sit down and get back some of your strength. Naia will find you something to eat."

Kirk's stubborn determination to force an immediate showdown wavered. It had been born largely of fear to begin with, and the thought of relief for his burning throat was impossible to resist.

"I could use a drink," he admitted.

* * * * *

Tamu gestured and Naia North turned to leave the room. But Kirk leaped forward to block her off. "Nothing doing! I don't take my eyes off you, baby. I'll just pass up that drink."

The girl glanced at the overlord and shrugged helplessly. Tamu said, "Have a girl bring in something. While we're waiting I suggest all three of us get comfortable."

While Naia was speaking into a tiny screen set into one of the silk-covered walls, Tamu and the man from Earth sat down across from each other on a pair of fragile-legged chairs. The overlord leaned back and sighed. "You've asked my leave to return to Earth and to take Naia back with you to stand trial for murder. Have you considered that I may refuse that permission?"

"I don't think I have to consider it," Kirk said promptly.

"You don't?" Tamu was mystified again. "Why not?"

"You tell me you're the overlord. I take that to mean you're in charge. That means you have laws to govern your people and _that_ means you believe in laws. One of your subjects has broken the law of my country. You can't refuse to let her take the consequences any more than if the situation was reversed."

Tamu was shaking his head and smiling slightly. "I'm afraid you're not taking into consideration one fact, Mr. Kirk. Naia North broke your law, as you call it, on express and definite instructions from me."

Martin Kirk made a show of astonishment. "Let me get this straight. You _ordered_ Professor Gilmore and Juanita Cordell murdered? Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Exactly the reason I suggested we have a talk. To make you see why they--and others in the same classification--could not be allowed to live."

"Men like Karney? Kennedy? Blatz?"

Tamu blinked. "My respect for you increases, Martin Kirk."

"Don't let it throw you. I'm a police officer, and police officers are trained to do the job right."

The overlord crossed his legs and settled deeper into the chair. "Mythox needs men like you, Martin Kirk. That is why I'm going to give you a chance for life. For this you must understand: if I wanted it, you would be dead within seconds."

A chill slid along the stubborn back of the Lieutenant but nothing showed in his impassive expression and he did not speak.

"But because we do need you, I am going to tell you things no Earthman knows. I believe that once you understand why Mythox has undertaken to meddle in the affairs of another world--and I tell you frankly that our doing so is as abhorrent to us as anything you can imagine--once you understand our reasons, you will cheerfully, even eagerly, join us."

"And if I don't?"

"You know the answer to that, I'm sure."

* * * * *

A slim fair-haired girl in a pale green toga-like dress entered the room carrying a tray holding tall glasses of some sparkling blue beverage. She offered it first to Kirk, then the others. The Lieutenant removed one of the glasses, waited until Tamu and Naia had done the same, but not until they had drunk some of the liquid did he tilt his own glass. The cold tangy liquid hit him like a bombshell--a bombshell on the pleasant side. He could almost literally feel his strength flow back, his senses sharpen and the poisons of fatigue and mental strain disappear.

"I'm listening," he said.

Tamu set his glass on the edge of a nearby table and bent forward, his manner earnest. "It won't take long, Martin Kirk. Hear me. We of Mythox are far in advance of the peoples of Earth--both spiritually and scientifically. Life on our planet materialized in much the same manner as on your own world, but countless ages before. Almost the same process of evolution took place; but somewhere along the line humanity on Mythox managed to reach full development without the flaws of character found among so many of Earth's inhabitants. When I tell you that we find it almost impossible to voice an untruth, that taking a human life willfully for any reason is equally difficult, that crime of any nature is almost unknown here--then you will see the difference between the two planets.

"For ages our scientists have observed the events taking place on Earth. By perfecting a method for changing matter from terrene to contraterrene, we have managed to bridge the million light years of space separating our worlds as we saw fit. Thousands of years ago we could have gained control of your ball of clay and turned mankind into any pattern we might choose.

"That is not our way, Martin Kirk. Free will is our heritage too--and we respect it in ourselves, and for that reason must respect it in others. So long as Earth's peoples confined their more destructive tendencies to themselves we kept our hands off--even while we failed to understand such senseless conduct.

"And then one day we witnessed an explosion on Earth's surface--an explosion different from any of the countless ones before it. That explosion was the first man-made release of atomic energy--a process we had known how to bring about for ages, but one we would never use. For we have learned the secret of limitless power without the transformation of mass into energy. Your way is the way of destruction, Martin Kirk; ours is exactly the opposite.

"For the first time, the leaders of Mythox knew the meaning of fear--fear that, once Earth's scientists had found the secret of nuclear fission they would go on to the one extreme forbidden throughout the Universe itself.

"And so we acted. Not in the way your people would have acted were the situations reversed. For we were still determined that there would be no intervention on our part in Earth's affairs--and that is still our way, just as it must always be. But there must be one exception to this rule: no one on Earth must be allowed to blunder into the extreme I mentioned a moment ago."

* * * * *

Tamu, overlord of Mythox, paused to drink from his glass and to cast a speculative glance at the stolid face of Martin Kirk. He might as well have studied the contours of a brick wall.

"The road to that blunder had been opened the day your learned men first split the atom. If they persisted down that path, it was bound to follow that they would attempt the thing we feared: the splitting of hydrogen atoms--the hydrogen bomb, as you call it.

"We know what that would mean: a chain reaction that would wipe out an entire galaxy in one blinding flash. _Our galaxy_, Martin Kirk--yours and mine! Do you have any thought at all on what that means?"

The question was rhetorical; even before Kirk could shake his head, the overlord pressed on.

"Mythox and Earth are two grains of dust on opposite sides of a galaxy--a spiral formation of stars and planets 200,000 light years wide and 20,000 thick. Between us lie countless other worlds, a vast number of them supporting life--not always, or even often, life as we know it, but life nonetheless.

"There is not one of those worlds, Martin Kirk, we do not know as thoroughly as we do our own. Fortunately for our purpose only a relative few have progressed along a line which can lead to danger for the rest. Yours is one of those which has--and that is why we of Mythox have taken a well-masked place in your affairs _so far as they relate to nuclear physics_.

"Every scientist of your world, male or female, is constantly under the eye of a Watcher. These Watchers are members of your own races--people we have enlisted in the fight to save not just their world or mine--but millions of worlds.

"When a Watcher learns a physicist is close to the one key to success in his effort to make a hydrogen bomb--an equation that begins: 'Twelve times zero point seven nine'--we are notified and a killer from our own people is sent to execute that scientist. Yes, Martin Kirk, we have those among us--a very few--who are capable of killing on orders and for cause. Naia, here, is one of them. She was sent to take the lives of Gregory Gilmore and Juanita Cordell; but she bungled and instead of their deaths resembling heart failure, they were obviously murdered.

"Alma Dakin tried to cover up the truth by making it appear both scientists had died at the hands of a jealous husband. She succeeded, both because of her perjured testimony and the fact that Paul Cordell insisted on telling the truth. But when we of Mythox learned what had happened, Naia was sent back to confess the crime. She entered the laboratory only a few hours before she came to your office; while she was in the laboratory the second time, the clues you found were put there.

"Our mistake was in thinking that, once proof was offered clearing Cordell, the innocent man would be freed. For once more we credited Earthlings with the same code of ethics we of Mythox adhere to.

"You succeeded in following Naia here. Only a man composed of equal parts of Earth bulldog and genius could have done so. Martin Kirk, I offer you a place among us and a lifetime devoted to making sure the galaxy of which we both are a part does not perish. What say you?"

Several minutes dragged by. The eyes of both Tamu and Naia North were glued to the grim visage of Homicide Lieutenant Kirk. It was impossible for either of them to know what thoughts were churning behind that stone face.

Abruptly he stood up. "I'm a cop. I leave your kind of problem to the people who are good at it. My people, Tamu. You see, I belong to my world, not to yours.

"But you've got a solid argument--one I'd be a fool not to consider. Let me sleep on it. Tomorrow morning we'll talk about it some more; then I'll give you my answer. Right now I'm too worn out to think in a straight line."

"Of course." The overlord rose to his feet. "Find Martin Kirk comfortable quarters, Naia, and leave orders he is not to be disturbed until he is ready to join us."

On his way down a corridor behind the same slip of a girl who had brought him his drink, Martin Kirk was thinking: They didn't even frisk me for a gun!

Martin Kirk went into his apartment and lay for a while looking at the ceiling. After a time, he got up and went out again.