Flares and prominences of this insanely detonating material were hurled upward and outward for millions upon millions of miles. Shock-wave after shock-wave, so hellishly hot as to be invisible for days, raged and raved spherically outward; converting instantaneously all the flotsam in their paths into their own unknown composition or atomic and subatomic debris. Planets lasted a little longer. Oceans and mountain ranges boiled briefly; after which each world evaporated comparatively slowly, as does a drop of water riding a cushion of its own steam on a hot steel plate. And the sphere of annihilation, ravening outward with unabated ferocity, reached and passed the outermost limits of the Chloran solar system and kept on going…
On and on… And on…
Until there came to pass an event which not even Seaton, not even Madame Barlo herself had foreseen… and an event which nearly canceled all their efforts and their lives as well; for the Chlorans were not left without resources even in the destruction of their galaxy…
29. DUQUESNE TO THE RESCUE
As has been said, the Chlorans of Galaxy DW-427-LU as a race were more conversant with the Talent than were any of the human or near-human races of the First Galaxy: that is, with the phases or facets of it that had to do with the remarkable hypnotic qualities of their minds. Thus their mathematicians were more or less familiar with no-space-no-time theory, and some of the Greater Great Ones had played with it a little more or less for fun, in practice. Since they had never had any real use for it as a weapon, however, it had never been fully developed.
Thus there were no detectors or feeling for that type of attack. “It was not sixth-order, but no-space-no-time, which is no-order.” Thus millions upon millions of Chloran planets were destroyed without any intelligent entity either giving or receiving warning that an attack was being made.
And that was the way Richard Seaton wanted it. This was not a game; not a chivalric tournament. This was a matter of life and death, in which the forces of human civilization, outnumbered untold billions to one, needed all the advantage they could get.
Unfortunately for Seaton’s desires and expectations, the Chlorans had a Galactic Institute for Advanced Study.
In common with all such institutions everywhere, its halls harbored at least one devotee of any nameable subject, however recondite or arcane that subject might be. So there was one old professor of advanced optical hypnosis who, as a hobby, had been delving into no-space-no-time for a couple of hundred years. He did not feel the light preliminary surveying tendrils of the human witches; but when the big Gunther beams began to come in he became interested fast and got busy fast.
He called his first assistant and his most advanced student — the latter a Greater Great One who was also interested in and a possessor of the Talent and thus familiar with the mysterious power of the number three — and, synchronizing their three minds, they traced those beams to the Skylark of Valeron and the DQ, and to Seaton and to Crane and to DuQuesne.
“First,” the professor told his two weaker fellows, “we will attune our Union of Three to theirs and break it apart with blasts of psionic force. Then, each of us having tuned to one of the separated strands, we will kill the three murderers forthwith.”
And the Chlorans proceeded to do their best to bring this event about — and their best was very potent indeed.
If things did not quite work out the way they had planned it, it was no fault of the individual Chlorans. Their minds were fully capable of killing three “murderers” at a distance. The first enormous surge of mental energy they thrust into the Tellurian union of minds destroyed its fabric. The coupling of “poles of power” was wrenched asunder.
The individual minds of the operators were left alone against the Chloran thrust… and each of the three Chlorans selected one of the three mightiest intellects of their enemies and commanded it to die.
In that moment, Seaton, Crane and DuQuesne were seized and pinned. The minds that thundered destruction at them were not merely of great intrinsic power, carefully trained: they were backed up by all the million-year evolution of Chloran science, aided by the impact of total surprise.
The three helpless Tellurians were helpless before they knew what hit them.
But they did not die. What saved them was DuQuesne’s bargain with the Fenachrone.
Sleemet had had a few microseconds’ warning by that Fenachrone ferocity, and the backing of every last member of his feral race.
His primary purpose was, of course, the defense of DuQuesne’s life — not for the sake of DuQuesne, to be sure, but for the protection of the Fenachrone. He succeeded.
DuQuesne’s rigidity melted and he was back in control of himself, his own great intellect reinforcing Sleemet’s counterblows. The two of them had enough psionic power left over to help Seaton and Crane… but not enough. The blow had been too powerful and too sudden.
Both Seaton and Crane slumped bonelessly to the floor of the control room, leaving their controllers empty and idle.
In that moment the one great pole of strength left to humankind was-Dr. Marc C.
DuQuesne.
To Dorothy Seaton, that moment was pure horror. It was every terrible fear she had ever thought of, all come to pass at once: Seaton disabled, perhaps dying; DuQuesne in control of all the mighty resources of the Skylark. Dorothy shrieked and leaped from her chair.
And was stopped in her tracks by DuQuesne’s shout, crackling out of a speaker to emphasize his hard-driven thoughts:
“Dorothy! Margaret! Quit it! Pick up your loads and carry ’em. Pole to me!”
And Dorothy hesitated, irresolute, torn between her love for Seaton and her urgent duty to help against the Chlorans, while the whole vast net of human mental energies wavered and hung in the balance.
“Now!” snarled DuQuesne, the thought like a lash. “Move! To hell with the dead—”
Dorothy screamed again — “You’re still alive! But you won’t be long if you goof off!”
Rapidly he scanned the quavering net. “You Barlo women and your poles! Drop what you’re doing and locate this interference for me — fast! All of you — find it for me so I can slug it! Hunkie? Yeah — good girl! Stay with it just as you are!”
“But DuQuesne,” Dorothy protested, “I’ve got to…”
“Oh, hell!” DuQuesne wrenched out, every nuance of his tone showing the tremendous strain under which he was laboring. “Savant Sennlloy! You can’t be spared from there, but have you got a couple of girls who can tune themselves to me?”
“Yes, Doctor DuQuesne.” Neither she or any other Jelm aboard understood why Seeker Sevance of Xylmny had been masquerading as Doctor Marc C. DuQuesne of Tellus when he received his Call. They all knew, however, that it had to do with his Seeking; hence none of them did anything to interfere with it. “We have many very good mentalists in our party.”
“Fine! Have two of ’em relieve these two weak sisters here — and fast!”
“Here we are, sir,” two thoughts came in, in unison. And two powerful female Jelman minds — the minds of two girls with whom he was already very well acquainted — fitted themselves snugglingly to his and picked up the loads that the two Earthwomen had been unable to carry.
It was not that either of those Earthwomen was weak. Both were tremendously strong; mentally and psychically. Both disliked DuQuesne so intensely, however, that it was psychologically impossible for either of them to work with him. Of course, he regarded that fact itself as an extreme weakness. Sentiment was as bad as sentimentality, he held, and both bored him to tears.