"That I'm under their influence?" Morriss reddened. "That isn't so. I deny it."
''There's nothing to be ashamed of, Dr. Morriss," said Lucky, crisply. "Evans was under their control for days, and Bigman and I have been controlled, too. It is possible to be honestly unaware that your mind has been continuously picked."
"There's no proof of it, but never mind," said Morriss violently. "Suppose you're right. The question is, what can we do? How do we fight them? Sending men against them will be useless. If we bring in a fleet to bombard Venus from space, they may force the dome locks open and drown every city on Venus in revenge. We could never kill every V-frog on Venus anyway. There are eight hundred million cubic miles of ocean for them to hide in, and they can multiply fast if they want to. Now your getting word to Earth was essential, I admit, but it still leaves us with many important problems."
"You're right," admitted Lucky, "but the point is, I didn't tell Earth everything. I couldn't until I was certain I knew the truth. I…"
The intercom signal flashed, and Morriss barked. "What is it?"
"Lyman Turner for his appointment, sir," was the answer.
"One second." The Venusian turned to Lucky and said in a low voice, "Are you sure we want him?"
"You had this appointment about strengthening the transite partitions within the city, didn't you?"
"Yes, but…"
"And Turner is a victim. The evidence would seem to be clear there. He is the one highly-placed official beside ourselves who would definitely seem to be one. We would want to see him, I think."
Morriss said into the intercom, "Send him up."
Turner's gaunt face and hooked nose made up a mask of inquiry as he entered. The silence in the room and the way the others stared at him would have filled even a far less sensitive man with foreboding.
He swung his computer case to the floor and said, "Is anything wrong, gentlemen?"
Slowly, carefully, Lucky gave him the bare outline of the matter.
Turner's thin lips parted. He said, weakly, "You mean, my mind…-"
"How else would the man at the lock have known the exact manner in which to keep out intruders? He was unskilled and untrained, yet he barricaded himself in with electronic perfection."
"I never thought of that. I never thought of that." Turner's voice was almost an incoherent mumble. How could I have missed it?"
"They wanted you to miss it," said Lucky.
"It makes me ashamed."
"You have company in that, Turner. Myself, Dr. Morriss, Councilman Evans…"
"Then what do we do about it?"
Lucky said, "Exactly what Dr. Morriss was asking when you arrived.' It will need all our thought. One of the reasons I suggested you be brought into this gathering is that we may require your computer."
"Oceans of Venus, I hope so," said Turner fervently.
"If I could do something to make up for…" And he
put his hand to his forehead as though half in fear that he had a strange head on his shoulders, one not his own.
He said, "Are we ourselves now?"
Evans put in, "We will be as long as we concentrate on that petroleum jelly."
"I don't get it. Why should that help?"
"It does. Never mind how for the moment," said Lucky. "I want to get on with what I was about to say when you arrived."
Bigman swung back to the wall and perched himself on the table where the aquarium once stood. He stared idly at the open jar on the other table as he listened.
Lucky said, "Are we sure the V-frogs are the real menace?"
"Why, that's your theory," said Morriss with surprise.
"Oh, they're the immediate means of controlling the minds of mankind, granted; but are they the real enemy? They're pitting their minds against the minds of Earthmen and proving formidable opponents, yet individual V-frogs seem quite unintelligent."
"How so?"
"Well, the V-frog you had in this place did not have the good sense to keep out of our minds. He broadcast his surprise at our being without mustaches. He ordered Bigman to get him peas dipped in axle grease. Was that intelligent? He gave himself away immediately."
Morriss shrugged. "Maybe not all V-frogs are intelligent."
"It goes deeper than that. We were helpless in their mental grip out on the ocean surface. Still, because I guessed certain things, I tried a jar of petroleum jelly on them, and it worked. It scattered them. Mind you, their entire campaign was at stake. They had to keep us from informing Earth concerning them. Yet they ruined everything for one jar of petroleum jelly. Again, they almost had us when we were trying to re-enter Aphrodite. The cannon was coming to an aim when the mere mention of petroleum spoiled their plans."
Turner stirred in his seat. "I understand what you mean by the petroleum now, Starr. Everyone knows the V-frogs have a craving for grease of all sorts. The craving is just too strong for them."
"Too strong for beings sufficiently intelligent to battle Earthmen? Would you abandon a vital victory, Turner, for a steak or a wedge of chocolate cake?"
"Of course I wouldn't, but that doesn't prove a V-frog wouldn't."
"It doesn't, I grant you. The V-frog mind is alien to us and we can't suppose that what works with us must work with them. Still, the matter of their being diverted by hydrocarbon is suspicious. It makes me compare V-frogs with dogs rather than with men."
"In what way?" demanded Morriss.
"Think about it," said Lucky. "A dog can be trained to do many seemingly intelligent things. A creature who had never seen or heard of a dog before, watching a seeing-eye dog guide a blind master in the days before Son-O-Taps, would have wondered whether the dog or the man was the more intelligent. But if he passed by them with a meaty bone and noted that the dog's attention was instantly diverted, he would suspect the truth."
Turner said, his pale eyes nearly bulging, "Are you trying to say that V-frogs are just the tools of human beings?"
"Doesn't that sound probable, Turner? As Dr. Mor-riss said just a while ago the V-frogs have been in the city for years, but it's only a matter of the last few months that they've been making trouble. And then the trouble started with trivialities, like a man giving away money in the streets. It is almost as though some men learned how to use the V-frogs' natural capacity for telepathy as tools with which to inflict their thoughts and orders on human minds. It is as though they had to practice at first, learn the nature and limitations of their tools, develop their control, until the time came when they could do big things. Eventually, it would be not the yeast that they were after but something more; perhaps control of the Solar Confederation, even of the entire galaxy."
"I can't believe it," said Morriss.
"Then I'll give you another piece of evidence. When we were out in the ocean, a mental voice-presumably that of a V-frog-spoke to us. It tried to force us to give it some information and then commit suicide."
"Well?"
"The voice arrived via a V-frog, but it did not originate with one. It originated with a human being."
Lou Evans sat bolt upright and stared incredulously at Lucky.
Lucky smiled. "Even Lou doesn't believe that, but it's so. The voice made use of odd concepts such as 'machines of shining metal' instead of 'ships.' We were supposed to think that V-frogs were unfamiliar with such concepts, and the voice had to stimulate our minds into imagining we heard round-about expressions that meant the same thing. But then the voice forgot itself. I remember what I heard it say. I remember it word for word: 'Life will end for your people like the quenching of a flame. It will be snuffed out and life will burn no more.'"