When the Mindee and the Blaster arrived, they motioned the Ensign to remove the contents of the safe. He walked over nervously, took out the tiny recorder and the single speak-tip.
“Play it, Ensign,” the Mindee directed.
The spaceman thumbed the speak-tip into the hole, and the grating of the blank space at the beginning of the tip filled the room.
“You can leave now, Ensign,” the Mindee said.
After the SpaceCom officer had securely loktited the door, the voice began. Gunnderson recognized it immediately as that of Terrence, head of SpaceCom. The man who had questioned him tirelessly at the Bureau building in Buenos Aires. Terrence, hero of another war, the Earth-Kyben war, now head of SpaceCom. The words were brittle, almost without inflection and to the point, yet they carried a sense of utmost importance:
“Gunnderson,” it began, “we have, as you already know, a job for you. By this time the ship will have reached central-point of your trip through inverspace.
“You will arrive in two days Earthtime at a slip-out point approximately five hundred million miles from Omalo, the enemy sun. You will be far behind enemy lines, but we are certain you will be able to accomplish your mission safely, that is why you have been given this new ship. It can withstand anything the enemy can throw.
“But we want you to get back for other reasons. You are the most important man in our war effort, Gunnderson, and it's tied up with your mission.
“We want you to turn the sun Omalo into a supernova.”
* * * *
Gunnderson, for the first time in thirty-eight years of bleak, gray life, was staggered. The very concept made his stomach churn. Turn another people's sun into a flaming, gaseous bomb of incalculable power, spreading death into space, burning off the very layers of its being, charring into nothing the planets of the system? Annihilate in one move an entire culture?
Was it possible they thought him mad?
What did they think he was capable of?
Could he direct his mind to such a task?
Could he do it?
Should he do it?
His mind boggled at the possibility. He had never really considered himself as having many ideals. He had set fires in warehouses to get the owners their liability insurance; he had flamed other hobos who had tried to rob him; he had used the unpredictable power of his mind for many things, but this...
This was the murder of a solar system!
He wasn't in any way sure he could turn a sun supernova. What was there to lead them to think he might be able to do it? Burning a forest and burning a giant red sun were two things fantastically far apart. It was something out of a nightmare. But even if he could...
“In case you find the task unpleasant, Mr. Gunnderson,” the ice-chip voice of the SpaceCom head continued, “we have included in this ship's complement, a Mindee and a Blaster.
“Their sole job is to watch and protect you, Mr. Gunnderson. To make certain you are kept in the proper, er, patriotic state of mind. They have been instructed to read you from this moment on, and should you not be willing to carry out your assignment ... well, I'm certain you are familiar with a Blaster's capabilities.”
Gunnderson stared at the blank-faced telepath sitting across from him on the other bunk. The man was obviously listening to every thought in Gunnderson's head. A strange, nervous expression was on the Mindee's face. His glaze turned to the Blaster who accompanied him, then back to Gunnderson.
The pyrotic swiveled a glance at the Blaster, then swiveled away as quickly.
Blasters were men meant to do one job, one job only, and a certain type of man he became, he had to be, to be successful doing that job. They all looked the same, and Gunnderson found the look almost terrifying. He had not thought he could be terrified, any more.
“That is your assignment, Gunnderson, and if you have any hesitance, remember they are not human. They are extraterrestrials as unlike you as you are unlike a slug. And remember there's a war on ... you will be saving the lives of many Earthmen by performing this task.
“This is your chance to become respected, Gunnderson.”
“A hero, respected, and for the first time,” he paused, as though not wishing to say what was next, “for the first time—worthy of your world.”
The rasp-rasp-rasp of the silent record filled the stateroom. Gunnderson said nothing. He could hear the phrase whirling, whirling in his head: There's a war on, There's a war on, There's a war on, THERE'S A WAR ON! He stood up and slowly walked to the door.
“Sorry, Mr. Gunnderson,” the Mindee said emphatically, “we can't allow you to leave this room.”
He sat down and lifted the battered mouth organ from where it had fallen. He fingered it for a while, then put it to his lips. He blew, but made no sound.
And he didn't leave.
* * * *
They thought he was asleep. The Mindee—a cadaverously thin man with hair grayed at the temples and slicked back in strips on top, with a gasping speech and a nervous movement of hand to ear—spoke to the Blaster.
“He doesn't seem to be thinking, John!”
The Blaster's smooth, hard features moved vaguely, in the nearest thing to an expression, and a quirking frown split his ink-line mouth. “Can he do it?”
The Mindee rose, ran a hand quickly through the straight, slicked hair.
“Can he do it? No, he shouldn't be able to do it, but he's doing it! I can't figure it out ... it's eerie, uncanny. Either I've lost it, or he's got something new.”
“Trauma-barrier?”
“That's what they told me before I left, that he seemed to be blocked off. But they thought it was only temporary, once he was away from the Bureau buildings he would clear up.
“But he isn't cleared up.”
The Blaster looked concerned. “Maybe it's you.”
“I didn't get a Master's rating for nothing, John, and I tell you there isn't a trauma-barrier I can't at least get something through. If only a snatch of gabble. But there's nothing... nothing!”
“Maybe it's you,” the Blaster repeated, still concerned.
“Damn it! It's not me! I can read you, can't I—your right foot hurts from new boots, you wish you could have the bunk to lie down on, you ... oh hell, I can read you—and I can read the Captain up front, and I can read the pitmen in the hold, but I can't read him!
“It's like hitting a sheet of glass in his head. There should be a reflection or some penetration, but it seems to be opaqued. I didn't want to say anything when he was awake, of course.”
“Do you think I should twit him a little—wake him up and warn him we're on to his game?”
The Mindee raised a hand to stop the very thought of the Blaster. “Great Gods, no!” He gestured wildly. “This Gunnderson's invaluable. If they found out we'd done anything unauthorized to him, we'd both be Tanked.”
Gunnderson lay on his acceleration-bunk, feigning sleep, listening to them. It was a new discovery to him, what they were saying. He had always suspected the pyrotic faculty of his mind. It was just too unstable to be a true-bred trait. There had to be side-effects, other differences from the norm. He knew he could not read minds; was this now another factor? Impenetrability by Mindees? He wondered.
Perhaps the Blaster was powerless, too.
It would never clear away his problem—that was something he could do only in his own mind—but it might make his position and final decision safer.
There was only one way to find out. He knew the Blaster could not actually harm him severely, by SpaceCom's orders, but he wouldn't hesitate blasting off one of the pyrotic's arms—cauterizing it as it disappeared—to warn him, if the situation seemed desperate enough.