“That is correct,” Mergon said.
Klazmon’s projection remained motionless and silent; both Jelmi could almost perceive the Llurd’s thoughts. And Mergon, who had tracked the Llurd’s thoughts so unerringly so far, was practically certain that he was still on track.
Klazmon did not actually know whether the Jelmi had made a breakthrough or not. The Jelmi intended to make him believe that they had, and that breakthrough was something that made them either invulnerable or invincible, or both. Any of those matters or assumptions could be either true or false. One of them, the question of invulnerability, could be and should be tested without delay. If they were in fact invulnerable, no possible attack could harm them. If they were not invulnerable they were bluffing and lying and should therefore be eliminated.
Wherefore Mergon was not surprised when Klazmon’s projection vanished without having said another word — nor when, an instant after that vanishment, the Mallidaxian’s mighty defensive screens flared white.
They did not even pause at the yellow or the yellow white, but went directly to the blinding white; to the degree of radiance at which the vessel’s spare began automatically to cut in — spare after spare after spare.
After staring in silence for two long minutes, Mergon said, “We figured their most probable maximum offense and applied a factor of safety of three — and look at ’em!”
White-faced, Luloy licked her lips. “Mighty Llenderllon!” she cried. “How can they possibly deliver such an attack ’way out here?”
Then Mergon picked up his microphone and said, “Our screens are still holding and they’re protecting the dome; but we’re going to need a lot more defense. So go back out there, please, and give me everything you can.”
He then sat back — and stared tight-jawed at the everclimbing needles of his meters and at the unchanging blinding-white brilliance of his vessel’s screens.
22. THE GEAS
As the Llurd’s attack mounted to higher and ever higher plateaus of fury, Mergon slid along his bench to his fourth dimensional controls and there appeared on the floor beside him a lithium-hydride fusion bomb, armed and ready.
He stared at it, his jaw-muscles tightening into lumps. Luloy stared at the thing, too, and her face became even paler than it had been.
“But could you, Merg?” she asked, through stiff lips. “I… I mean, you couldn’t possibly… could you?”
“I don’t know,” he said harshly, scarcely separating locked teeth. “I may have to whether I can or not. We had a factor of safety of three. Two point nine of them are in now and the last tenth is starting up. The dome can’t put out more than that.”
“I know! But if we blow the llanzlanate up, won’t they kill all the Jelmi of all our worlds and start breeding a more tractable race of slaves?”
“That’s the way I read it. In that case we eight hundred could get away clean and start a better civilization somewhere out of range.”
She shuddered. “In that case would life be worth living?”
“It’s a tough decision to make… since the alternative could be for us to kill all the Llurdi.”
“Oh, no!” she cried. “But don’t you think, Merg, that he’ll cooperate? They’re absolutely logical, you know.”
“Maybe. In one way I think so, but I simply can’t see any absolute ruler making such an abject surrender. However, we’ve got to decide right now and we’ll have to stick to our decision — we both know that he can’t be bluffed. If it comes right down to it we can do one of three things. First, commit suicide for our whole eight hundred by not touching the bomb off. Second, wipe them out. Third, let them wipe out all Jelmi except us. What’s your vote?”
“Llenderllon help me! Put that way, there’s — oh, look!” she screamed, in a miraculously changed tone of voice.
“The master-meter! It’s slowing down! It’s going to stop!” She uttered an ear-splitting shriek of pure joy and hurled herself into her husband’s arms.
“It’s stabilized, for a fact,” Mergon said, after their emotions had subsided to something approaching normal “He’s throwing everything he’s got at us. We’re holding him, but just barely, so the question is—”
“One thing first,” she broke in. “My vote. I hate to say it, but we can’t let them kill our race.”
He put his arm around her and squeezed. “That’s what I was sure you’d say. The question now is, how long do we let him stew in his own juice before we skip over there and talk peace terms?”
“Not long enough to let him build more generators than we can to fry us with,” she replied, promptly if a bit unclearly. “One day? Half a day? A quarter?”
“But long enough to let him know he’s licked,” Mergon said. “I’d say one full day would be just about right So let’s go get us some sleep.”
“Sleep! Llenderllon’s eyeballs! Can you even think of such a thing as sleep after all this?”
“Certainly I can. So can you — you’re all frazzled out. Come on girl, we’re hitting the sheets.”
“Why, I won’t be able to sleep a wink until this is all over!”
But she was wrong; in ten minutes they were both sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
Twelve hours later she came suddenly awake, rolled over toward him, and shook him vigorously by the shoulder. “Wake up, you!”
He grumbled something and tried to pull away from her grip.
She shook him again. “Wake up, you great big oaf! Suppose that beast Klazmon has got more generators built and our screens are all failing?”
He opened one eye. “If they fail, sweet, we won’t know a thing about it.” He opened the other eye and, three-quarter awake now, went on, “Do you think I’m running this ship single-handed? What do you think the other officers are for?”
“But they aren’t you,” she declared, with completely feminine illogic where her husband was concerned. “So hurry up and get up and we’ll go see for ourselves.”
“Okay, but not ’til after breakfast, if I have to smack you down. So punch us up a gallon of coffee, huh? And a couple slabs of ham and six or eight eggs? Then we’ll go see.”
They ate and went and saw. The screens still flared at the same blinding white, but there were no signs of overloading or of failure. They could, the Third Officer bragged, keep it up for years. Everything was under control.
“You hope,” Mergon said — but not to the officer. He said that under his breath as he and Luloy turned away toward their own station.
Much to Mergon’s relief, nothing happened during the rest of the day, and at the end of the twenty-fourth hour he sent the actual bomb and working projections of himself and Luloy into the llanzlanate. Into the llanzlan’s private study, where Klazmon was hard at work.
It was an immense room, and one in which a good anthropologist could have worked delightedly for weeks. The floor was bare, hard, smooth-polished; fantastically inlaid in metal and colored quartz and turquoise and jade. The pictures — framed mostly in extruded stainless steel portrayed scenes (?) and things (?) and events (?) never perceived by any Earthly sense and starkly incomprehensible to any Earthly mind. The furniture was… “weird” is the only possible one-word description. Every detail of the room proclaimed that here was the private retreat of a highly talented and very eminent member of a culture that was old, wide and high.
“Hail, Llanzlan Klazmon,” Mergon said quietly, conversationally. “You will examine this bomb, please, to make sure that, unlike us two, it is actual and practical.”
The Llurd’s eyes had bulged a little and the tip of his tail had twitched slightly at the apparition. That was all. He picked up an instrument with a binocular eyepiece, peered through it for a couple of seconds, and put it down. “It is actual and practical,” he agreed.