"Well ... it's obvious from the artifacts we brought along."

E-Lerd's att.i.tude dismissed the questions as being irrelevant. Cemp detected a mind phenomenon in the other that explained the att.i.tude. To s.p.a.ce Silkies, the past was unimportant. Silkies always did certain things, because that was the way they were mentally, emotionally, and physically constructed.

A Silkie didn't have to know from past experience. He simply had to be what was innate in Silkies.

It was, Cemp realized, a basic explanation for much that he had observed. This was why these Silkies had never been trained scientifically. Training was an alien concept in the cosmos of the s.p.a.ce Silkies.

"You mean," he protested, incredulous, "you have no idea why you left the last system where you had this interrelationship with the race there? Why not stay forever in some system where you have located yourself?"

"Probably," said E-Lerd, "somebody got too close to the secret of the Power. That could not be permitted."

That was the reason, he continued, why Cemp and other Silkies had to come back into the fold. As Silkies, they might learn about the Power.

The discussion had naturally come around to that urgent subject.

"What," said Cemp, "is the Power?"

E-Lerd stated formally that that was a forbidden subject.

Then I shall have to force the secret from you," said Cemp. There can be no agreement without it."

E-Lerd replied stiffly that any attempt at force would require him to use the Power as a defense.

Cemp lost patience. "After your two attempts to kill me," he telepathed in a steely rage, "I'll give you thirty seconds--"

"What attempts to kill you?" said E-Lerd, surprised.

At that precise moment, as Cemp was bracing himself to use logic of levels, there was an interruption.

An "impulse" band--a very low, slow vibration--touched one of the receptors in the forward part of his brain. It operated at mere multiples of the audible sound range directly on his sound-receiving system.

What was new was that the sound acted as a carrier for the accompanying thought. The result was as if a voice spoke clearly and loudly into his ears.

"You win," said the voice. "You have forced me. I shall talk to you myself--bypa.s.sing my unknowing servants."

9.

Cemp identified the incoming thought formation as a direct contact. Accordingly, his brain, which was programmed to respond instantaneously to a mult.i.tude of signals, was triggered into an instant effort to suction more impulses from the sending brain ... and he got a picture. A momentary glimpse, so brief that even after a few seconds it was hard to be sure that it was real and not a figment of fantasy.

Something huge lay in the darkness deep inside the planetoid. It lay there and gave forth with an impression of vast power. It had been withholding itself, watching him with some tiny portion of itself. The larger whole understood the universe and could manipulate ma.s.sive sections of s.p.a.ce-time.

"Say nothing to these others." Again the statement was a direct contact that sounded like spoken words.

The dismay that had seized on Cemp in the last few moments was on the level of desperation. He had entered the Silkie stronghold in the belief that his human training and Kibmadine knowledge gave him a temporary advantage over the s.p.a.ce Silkies and that if he did not delay, he could win a battle that might resolve the entire threat from these natural Silkies.

Instead, he had come unsuspecting into the lair of a cosmic giant. He thought, appalled, Here is what has been called "the Power".

And if the glimpse he had had was real, then it was such a colossal power that all his own ability and strength were as nothing.

He deduced now that this was what had attacked him twice. "Is that true?" he telepathed on the same band as the incoming thoughts had been on.

"Yes. I admit it."

"Why?" Cemp flashed the question. "Why did you do it?"

"So that I would not have to reveal my existence. My fear is always that if other life forms find out about me, they will a.n.a.lyze how to destroy me."

The direction of the alien thought altered. "But now, listen; do as follows. ..."

The confession had again stirred Cemp's emotions. The hatred that had been aroused in him had a sustained force deriving from the logic-of-levels stimulation--in this instance the body's response to an attempt at total destruction. Therefore, he had difficulty now restraining additional automatic reactions.

But the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. So, presently he was able, at the request of the monster, to say to E-Lerd and the other Silkies, "You take a while to think this over. And when the Silkies who have defected arrive from Earth, I'll talk to them. We can then have another discussion."

It was such a complete change of att.i.tude that the two Silkies showed their surprise. But he saw that to them the change had the look of weakness and that they were relieved.

"I'll be back here in one hour!" he telepathed to E-Lerd. Whereupon he turned and climbed up and out of the courtyard, darting to an opening that led by a roundabout route deeper into the planetoid.

Again the low, slow vibration touched his receptors. "Come closer!" the creature urged.

Cemp obeyed, on the hard-core principle that either he could defend himself--or he couldn't. Down he went, past a dozen screens, to a barren cave, a chamber that had been carved out of the original meteorite stuff. It was not even lighted. As he entered, the direct thought touched his mind again: "Now we can talk."

Cemp had been thinking at furious speed, striving to adjust to a danger so tremendous that he had no way of evaluating it. Yet the Power had revealed itself to him rather than let E-Lerd find out anything. That seemed to be his one hold on it; and he had the tense conviction that even that was true only as long as he was inside the planetoid.

He thought ... Take full advantage!

He telepathed, "After those attacks, you'll have to give me some straight answers, if you expect to deal with me."

"What do you want to know?"

"Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want?"

It didn't know who it was. "I have a name," it said. "I am the Glis. There used to be many like me long ago. I don't know what happened to them."

"But what are you?"

It had no knowledge. An energy life form of unknown origin, traveling from one star system to another, remaining for a while, then leaving.

"But why leave? Why not stay?" sharply.

"The time comes when I have done what I can for a particular system."

By using its enormous power, it transported large ice-and-air meteorites to airless planets and made them habitable, cleared away dangerous s.p.a.ce debris, altered poisonous atmospheres into nonpoisonous ones. ...

"Presently the job is done, and I realize it's time to go on to explore the infinite cosmos. So I make my pretty picture of the inhabited planets, as you saw, and head for outer s.p.a.ce."

"And the Silkies?"

They were an old meteorite life form.

"I found them long ago, and because I needed mobile units that could think, I persuaded them into a permanent relationship."

Cemp did not ask what persuasive methods had been used. In view of the Silkies' ignorance of what they had a relationship with, he divined that a sly method had been used. But still, what he had seen showed an outwardly peaceful arrangement. The Glis had agents--the Silkies--who acted for it in the world of tiny movements. They, in turn, had at their disposal bits and pieces of the Glis's own "body", which could apparently be programmed for specific tasks beyond the Silkies' ability to perform.

"I am willing," said the Glis, "to make the same arrangement with your government for as long as I remain in the solar system."

But absolute secrecy would be necessary.

"Why?"

There was no immediate reply, but the communication band remained open. And along the line of communication there flowed an essence of the reaction from the Glis--an impression of unmatched power, of a being so mighty that all other individuals in the universe were less by some enormous percentage.

Cemp felt staggered anew. But he telepathed, "I must tell someone. Somebody has to know."

"No other Silkies--absolutely."

Cemp didn't argue. All these millennia, the Glis had kept its ident.i.ty hidden from the s.p.a.ce Silkies. He had a total conviction that it would wreck the entire planetoid to prevent them from learning it.

He had been lucky. It had fought him at a level where only a single chamber of the meteorite had been destroyed. It had restricted itself.

"Only the top government leaders and the Silkie Council may know," the Glis continued.

It seemed an adequate concession; yet Cemp had an awful suspicion that in the long past of this creature every person who uncovered its secret had been murdered.

Thinking thus, he could not compromise. He demanded, "Let me have a complete view of you--what I caught a fleeting glimpse of earlier."

He sensed, then, that the Glis hesitated.

Cemp urged, "I promise that only the persons you named will be told about this--but we must know!"

Floating there in the cave in his Silkie form, Cemp felt a change of energy tension in the air and in the ground. Although he put forth no additional probing energies, he recognized that barriers were going down. And presently he began to record.

His first impression was of hugeness. Cemp estimated, after a long, measuring look, that the creature, a circular rocklike structure, was about a thousand feet in diameter. It was alive, but it was not a thing of flesh and blood. It "fed" from some inner energy that rivaled what existed in the heart of the sun.

And Cemp noticed a remarkable phenomenon. Magnetic impulses that pa.s.sed through the creature and impinged on his senses were altered in a fashion that he had never observed before--as if they had pa.s.sed through atoms of a different structure than anything he knew.

He remembered the fleeting impression he had had from the molecule. This was the same but on a ma.s.sive scale. What startled him was that all his enormous training in such matters gave no Clue to what the structure might be.

"Enough?" asked the creature.

Doubtfully, Cemp said, "Yes."

Glis accepted his reluctant agreement as a complete authorization. What had been a view through and past the cave wall disappeared abruptly.

The alien thought spoke into his mind, "I have done a very dangerous thing for me in thus revealing myself. Therefore, I again earnestly impress on you the importance of a limited number of people being told what you have just witnessed."

In secrecy, it continued, lay the greatest safety, not only for it, but for Cemp.

"I believe," said the creature, "that what I can do is overwhelming. But I could be wrong. What disturbs me is, there is only one of me. I would hate to suddenly feel the kind of fear that might motivate me to destroy an entire system."

The implied threat was as deadly--and as possible--as anything Cemp had ever heard. Cemp hesitated, feeling overwhelmed, desperate for more information.

He flashed, "How old do Silkies get?" and added quickly, "We've had no experience, since none has yet died a natural death."

"About a thousand of your Earth years," was the answer.

"What have you in mind for Earth-born Silkies? Why did you want us to return here?"

Again there was a pause; once more the sense of colossal power. But presently with it there came a reluctant admission that new Silkies, born on planets, normally had less direct knowledge of the Glis than those who had made the latest trip.

Thus, the Glis had a great interest in ensuring that plenty of time was allowed for a good replacement crop of unknowing young Silkies.

It finished, "You and I shall have to make a special agreement. Perhaps you can have E-Lerd's position and be my contact."

Since E-Lerd no longer remembered that he was the contact, Cemp had no sense of having being offered anything but ... danger.

He thought soberly, I'll never be permitted to come back here, once I leave.

But that didn't matter. The important thing was--get away! At once!

10.

At the Silkie Authority, the computer gave four answers.

Cemp rejected two of them at once. They were, in the parlance of computer technology, "trials". The machine simply presented all the bits of information, strung out in two lookovers. By this means a living brain could examine the data in segments. But Cemp did not need such data--not now.

Of the remaining two answers, one postulated a being akin to a G.o.d. But Cemp had experienced the less-than-G.o.dlike powers of the Glis, in that it had twice failed to defeat him. True, he believed that it had failed to destroy him because it did not wish to destroy the planetoid. But an omnipotent G.o.d would not have found that a limitation.

He had to act as if the amazing fourth possibility were true. The picture that had come through in that possibility was one of ancientness. The mighty being hidden in the planetoid predated most planetary systems.

"In the time from which it derives," said the computer, "there were, of course, stars and star systems, but they were different. The natural laws were not what they are today. s.p.a.ce and time have made adjustments since then, grown older; therefore, the present appearance of the universe is different from that which the Glis knew at its beginnings. This seems to give it an advantage, for it knows some of the older shapes of atoms and molecules and can re-create them. Certain of these combinations reflect the state of matter when it was--the best comparison--younger."

The human government group, to whom Cemp presented this data, was stunned. Like himself, they had been basing their entire plan on working out a compromise with the s.p.a.ce Silkies. Now, suddenly, here was a colossal being with unknown power.

"Would you say," asked one man huskily, "that to a degree the Silkies are slaves of this creature?"

Cemp said, "E-Lerd definitely didn't know what he was dealing with. He simply had what he conceived to be a scientific system for utilizing a force of nature. The Glis responded to his manipulation of this system, as if it were simply another form of energy. But I would guess that it controlled him, perhaps through preconditioning installed long ago."