Thagobar looked flabbergasted and flicked off the sound transmission to the prisoner with a swift movement of his finger.
Zandoplith looked pained. “You are not reading the questions from the Handbook,” he complained.
“I know, I know. But did you hear what he said?”
“I heard it.” Zandoplith’s voice sounded morose.
“It wasn’t true, was it?”
Zandoplith drew himself up to his full five feet one. “Your Splendor, you have taken it upon yourself to deviate from the Handbook, but I will not permit you to question the operation of the Reality Detector. Reality is truth, and therefore truth is reality; the Detector hasn’t erred since—since ever!”
“I know,” Thagobar said hastily. “But do you realize the implications of what he said? There are a few thousand people on the home planet; all the colonies have less. And yet, there are several billion of his race! That means they have occupied around ten million planets!”
“I realize it sounds queer,” admitted Zandoplith, “but the Detector never lies!” Then he realized whom he was addressing and added, “Your Splendor.”
But Thagobar hadn’t noticed the breach of etiquette. “That’s perfectly true. But, as you said, there’s something queer here. We must investigate further.”
Magruder had already realized that his mathematics was off kilter; he was thinking at high speed.
Thagobar’s voice said: “According to our estimates, there are not that many habitable planets in the galaxy. How do you account, then, for your statement?”
With a quick shift of viewpoint, Magruder thought of Mars, so many light-years away. There had been a scientific outpost on Mars for a long time, but it was a devil of a long way from being a habitable planet.
“My people,” he said judiciously, “are capable of living on planets with surface conditions which vary widely from those of Earth.”
Before Thagobar could ask anything else, another thought occurred to the Earthman. The thousand-inch telescope on Luna had discovered, spectroscopically, the existence of large planets in the Andromeda Nebula. “In addition,” he continued blandly, “we have found planets in other galaxies than this.”
There! That ought to confuse them!
Again the sound was cut off, and Magruder could see the two aliens in hot discussion. When the sound came back again, Thagobar had shifted to another tack.
“How many spaceships do you have?”
Magruder thought that one over for a long second. There were about a dozen interstellar ships in the Earth fleet—not nearly enough to colonize ten million planets. He was in a jam!
No! Wait! A supply ship came to New Hawaii ever six months. But there were no ships on New Hawaii.
“Spaceships?” Magruder looked innocent. “Why, we have no spaceships.”
Thagobar Verf shut off the sound again, and this time, he made the wall opaque, too. “No spaceships? No spaceships ? He lied… I hope?”
Zandoplith shook his head dolefully. “Absolute truth.”
“But—but—but—”
“Remember what he said his race called themselves?” the psychologist asked softly.
Thagobar blinked very slowly. When he spoke, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Beings with minds of vast power.”
“Exactly,” said Zandoplith.
Magruder sat in the interrogation chamber for a long time without hearing or seeing a thing. Had they made sense out of his statements? Were they beginning to realize what he was doing? He wanted to chew his nails, bite his lips, and tear his hah-; instead, he forced himself to outward calm. There was a long way to go yet.
When the wall suddenly became transparent once more, he managed to keep from jumping.
“Is it true,” asked Thagobar, “that your race has the ability to move through space by means of mental power alone?”
For a moment, Magruder was stunned. It was beyond his wildest expectations. But he rallied quickly.
How does a man walk? he thought.
“It is true that by using mental forces to control physical energy,” he said carefully, “we are able to move from place to place without the aid of spaceships or other such machines.”
Immediately, the wall blanked again.
Thagobar turned around slowly and looked at Zandoplith. Zandoplith’s face looked a dirty crimson; the healthy violet had faded.
“I guess you’d best call in the officers,” he said slowly; “we’ve got a monster on our hands.”
It took three minutes for the twenty officers of the huge Verf to assemble in the Psychology Room. When they arrived, Thagobar asked them to relax and then outlined the situation.
“Now,” he said, “are there any suggestions?”
They were definitely not relaxed now. They looked as tense as bowstrings.
Lieutenant Pelquesh was the first to speak. “What are the General Orders, Your Splendor?”
“The General Orders,” Thagobar said, “are that we are to protect our ship and our race, if necessary. The methods for doing so are left up to the commander’s discretion.”
There was a rather awkward silence. Then a light seemed to come over Lieutenant Pelquesh’s face. “Your Splendor, we could simply drop an annihilation bomb on the planet.”
Thagobar shook his head. “I’ve already thought of that. If they can move themselves through space by means of thought alone, they would escape, and their race would surely take vengeance for the vaporization of one of their planets.”
Gloom descended.
“Wait a minute,” said Pelquesh. “If he can do that, why hasn’t he escaped from us?”
Magruder watched the wall become transparent. The room was filled with aliens now. The big cheese, Thagobar, was at the pickup.
“We are curious,” he said, “to know why, if you can go anywhere at will, you have stayed here. Why don’t you escape?”
More fast thinking. “It is not polite,” Magruder said, “for a guest to leave his host until the business at hand is finished.”
“Even after we… ah… disciplined you?”
“Small discomforts can be overlooked, especially when the host is acting in abysmal ignorance.”
There was a whispered question from one of Thagobar’s underlings and a smattering of discussion, and then:
“Are we to presume, then, that you bear us no ill will?”
“Some,” admitted Magruder candidly. “It is only because of your presumptuous behavior toward me, however, that I personally am piqued. I can assure you that my race as a whole bears no ill will whatever toward your race as a whole or any member of it.”
Play it up big, Magruder, he told himself. You’ve got ’em rocking—I hope.
More discussion on the other side of the wall.
“You say,” said Thagobar, “that your race holds no ill will toward us; how do you know?”
“I can say this,” Magruder told him; “I know—beyond any shadow of a doubt—exactly what every person of my race thinks of you at this very moment.
“In addition, let me point out that I have not been harmed as yet; they would have no reason to be angry. After all, you haven’t been destroyed yet.”
Off went the sound. More heated discussion. On went the sound.
“It has been suggested,” said Thagobar, “that, in spite of appearances, it was intended that we pick you, and you alone, as a specimen. It is suggested that you were sent to meet us.”
Oh, brother! This one would have to be handled with very plush gloves.
“I am but a very humble member of my race,” Magruder said as a prelude—mostly to gain time. But wait! He was an extraterrestrial biologist, wasn’t he? “However,” he continued with dignity, “my profession is that of meeting alien beings. I was, I must admit, appointed to the job.”