Lucky said, "You look worried?"
"I am worried. What in space and time do we do?"
Lucky said, "I've been thinking about that. It seems to me that all we can do is get the V-frog story to someone who's safe from any mental control by them."
"And who's that?"
"No one on Venus. That's for sure."
Evans stared at his friend. "Are you trying to tell me that everyone on Venus is under control?"
"No, but anyone might be. After all, there are different ways in which the human mind can be manipulated by these creatures." Lucky rested one arm over the back of the pilot swivel and crossed his legs. "In the first place, complete control can be taken for a short period of time over a man's mind. Complete control! During that interval a human being can be made to do things contrary to his own nature, things that endanger his own life and others': the pilots on the coaster, for instance, when Bigman and I first landed on Venus."
Evans said grimly, "That type of thing hasn't been my trouble."
"I know. That's what Morriss failed to realize. He was sure you weren't under control simply because you showed no signs of amnesia. But there's a second type of control that you suffered from. It's less intense, so a person retains his memory. However, just because it's less intense, a person cannot be forced to do anything against his own nature; you couldn't be forced to commit suicide, for instance. Still, the power lasts longer-days rather than hours. The V-frogs make up in time what they lose in intensity. Well, there must be still a third kind of control."
"And that is?"
"A control that is still less intense than the second type. A control that is so mild the victim isn't even aware of it, yet strong enough so that the victim's mind can be rifled and picked of its information. For instance, there's Lyman Turner."
"The chief engineer on Aphrodite?". "That's right. He's a case in point. Can you see that? Consider that there was a man at the dome lock yesterday who sat there with a lever in his hand, endangering the whole city, yet he was so tightly protected all around, so netted about with alarms that no one could approach him without warning until Bigman forced a passage through a ventilator shaft. Isn't that odd?"
"No. Why is it odd?"
"The man had only been on the job a matter of months He wasn't even a real engineer. His work was more like that of a clerk or an office boy. Where did he get the information to protect himself so? How could he possibly know the force and power system in that section of the dome so thoroughly?"
Evans pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. "Hey, that is a point."
"The point didn't strike Turner. I interviewed him on just that matter before getting on the Hilda. I didn't tell him what I was after, of course. He himself told me about the fellow's inexperience, but the incongruity of the matter never struck him. Yet who would have the necessary information? Who but the chief engineer? Who better than he?"
"Right. Right."
"Well, then, suppose Turner was under very gentle control. The information could be lifted out of his brain. He could be very gently soothed into not seeing anything out of the way in the situation. Do you see what I mean? And then Morriss…"
"Morriss, too?" said Evans, shocked.
"Possibly, He's convinced it's a matter of Sirians after yeast. He can see it as nothing else. Is that a legitimate misjudgment or is he being subtly persuaded? He was ready to suspect you, Lou-a little too ready; One councilman ought to be a little less prepared to suspect another."
"Space! Then who's safe, Lucky?"
Lucky stared at his empty coffee cup and said, "No one on Venus. That's my point. We've got to get the story and the truth somewhere else."
"And how can we?"
"A good point. How can we?" Lucky Starr brooded over that.
Evans said, "We can't leave physically. The Hilda is designed for nothing but ocean. It can't navigate the air, let alone space. And if we go back to the city to get something inore suitable, we'd never leave it again."
"I think you're right," said Lucky, "but we don't have to leave Venus in the flesh. Our information is all that has to leave."
"If you mean ship's radio," said Evans, "that's out, too. The set we've got on this tub is strictly intra-Venus. It's not a subetheric, so it can't reach Earth. Down here, as a matter of fact, the instrument won't reach above the ocean. Its carrier waves are designed to be reflected down from the ocean surface so that they can get distance. Besides that, even if we could transmit straight up, we couldn't reach Earth."
"I don't see that we have to," said Lucky. "There's something between here and Earth that would do just as well."
For a moment, Evans was mystified. Then he said, "You mean the space stations?"
"Surely. Two space stations circle Venus. Earth may be anywhere from thirty to fifty million miles away, but the stations may be as close as two thousand miles to this point. Yet there can't be V-frogs on the stations, I'm sure. Morriss said they dislike free oxygen, and one could scarcely rig up special carbon-dioxide chambers for V-frogs considering the economy with which space stations must be run. Now, if we could get a message out to the stations for relay to central headquarters on Earth, we'd have it."
"That's it, Lucky," said Evans, excitedly. "It's our way out. Their mental powers can't possibly reach two
thousand miles across space to…" But then his face
turned glum once more. "No, it won't do. The subship radio still can't reach past the ocean surface."
"Maybe not from here. But suppose we go up to the surface and transmit from there directly into the atmosphere."
"Up to the surface?"
"Well?"
"But they are there. The V-frogs."
"I know that."
"We'll be put under control."
"Will we?" said Lucky. "So far they've never tackled anyone who's known about them, known what to expect and made up his mind to resist it. Most of the victims were completely unsuspecting. In your case you actually invited them into your mind, to use your own phrase. Now I am not unsuspecting, and I don't propose to issue any invitations."
"You can't do it, I tell you. You don't know what it's like."
"Can you suggest an alternative?"
Before Evans could answer, Bigman entered, rolling down his sleeves. "All set," he said. "I guarantee the generators."
Lucky nodded and stepped to the controls, while Evans remained in his seat, his eyes clouded with uncertainty.
There was the churning of the motors again, rich and sweet. The muted sound was like a song, and there was that strange feeling of suspension and motion under one's feet that was never felt on a spaceship.
The Hilda moved through the bubble of water that had been trapped under the collapsing body of the giant patch and built up speed.
Bigman said uneasily, "How much room do we have?"
"About half a mile," said Lucky.
"What if we don't make it?" muttered Bigman. "What if we just hit it and stick, like an ax in a tree stump?"
"Then we pull out and try again," said Lucky.
There was silence for a moment, and Evans said in a low voice, "Being closed in under here, under the patch -it's like being in a chamber." He was mumbling, half to himself.
"In a what?" said Lucky.
"In a chamber," said Evans, still abstracted. "They build them on Venus. They're little transite domes under sea-floor level, like cyclone cellars or bomb shelters on Earth. They're supposed to be protection against incoming water in case of a broken dome, say by Venus-quake. I don't know that a chamber has ever been used, but the better apartment houses always advertise that they have chamber facilities in case of emergency."
Lucky listened to him, but said nothing.
The engine pitch rose higher.
"Hold on!" said Lucky.
Every inch of the Hilda trembled, and the sudden, almost irresistible deceleration forced Lucky hard against the instrument panel. Bigman's and Evans's knuckles went white and their wrists strained as they gripped the guard rails with all their strength.