Flee!
Flee far and fast…
Toller blinked vigorously, momentarily certain that a watery ripple had passed across his vision, but he realized almost at once that the effect had been subjective and illusory. His internal model of the universe had been torn asunder and rebuilt in drastically different form, and now he, too, was different. A quick glance at Steenameert’s pale face and blanked-out eyes confirmed that he also had undergone a similar chastening metamorphosis.
A voice from Toller’s distant past whispered a warning: Your defenses have been breached! Should he choose to do so, grey face could overwhelm you in this very instant!
Responding to the warning, Toller alerted himself. He triangulated his gaze on the alien’s face and saw nothing there but a growing display of relaxation and satisfaction. There was no sense of physical threat, but that in itself might have constituted another kind of menace. They were in Divivvidiv’s stronghold and there was no telling what semi-magical forces the alien might be able to summon to do his bidding without so much as having to raise a finger.
Striving to assimilate all that he had learned, Toller shook his head as though recovering from a blow. His mind had been swamped in the influx of pure knowledge—to the extent that all normal thought processes were being prorogued—but, even so, he had a dim awareness that one great question remained unanswered. What could it be? He had been told too much in too short a time, and yet he was troubled by a nagging conviction that he had been told too little. And, all the while, the hideous alien in his costume of wafting black rags gave the impression of being more and more content with the situation…
“Why do you seem so pleased with yourself, greyface?” Toller growled. “After all, nothing has changed between us.”
Oh, but it has, Divivvidiv assured him, shading his words with a kind of glee. You are not immune to reason, and therefore in this situation logic has to work for me and against you. Without admitting as much to yourself you have already begun to realize how pointless it would be for you to pit yourself against representatives of the greatest civilization in the galaxy.
“I refuse to…”
And now that you have come so far, Divivvidiv went on relentlessly, I will complete the edifice of logic which to me is an impregnable defense and to you an insurmountable barrier. You were on the verge of asking why your insignificant pair of little worlds had to become involved with Dussarra’s flight from annihilation.
The answer is that binary planets sharing a common atmosphere are extremely rare. Dussarran astronomers are aware of only three other examples in this galaxy—all of them very distant and less well matched than Land and Overland. As you already know, we can move our home world instantaneously from star to star, but energy limitations prevent us from leaping more than a few light years at a time. That fact means that the annihilation front, which even now is roiling outwards through this region of the galaxy, would always have been at our heels… unless… unless, Toller Maraquine… we found the way to make the leap to another galaxy.
Toller became aware of his own breathing, a regular and impersonal sound, like waves subsiding on a distant beach.
We designed a machine which was capable of transporting the home world across the required distance, but for its construction the machine required a very special physical environment. There had, of course, to be freedom from gravity to prevent the machine from distorting under its own weight—a factor which posed us no problems. There also had to be a limitless supply of oxygen and helium to facilitate accretive growth of the machine—and that is why we chose to position the Xa at the very center of your two worlds.
In addition to all the other knowledge which I have impressed on your mind, Toller Maraquine, it is necessary for you to appreciate that the Xa is almost complete. It will be activated in approximately six days from now, and when that happens the planet Dussarra will simply vanish from your sight. It will have been instantaneously relocated in another galaxy—one which is nine million light years from here.
Absorb what I am telling you, Toller Maraquine—for your own sake, for your own peace of mind.
There is nothing you can do to retrieve your females. The massed resources of a thousand civilizations like yours would be powerless in this situation. I urge you—accept what I say and return to your home world in peace and with no qualms of conscience, knowing that you have done all that any individual could possibly do…
Toller stared into the black-drilled orbs of the alien’s eyes, tranced, communing with himself and with another—that heroic figure from heroic times past whose example and counsel, although inferred, he prized above all else. “What would the real Toller have done?” he asked himself, silently moving his lips to frame the words. He remained immobile for several seconds, half-seduced by the blandishments of the alien logic, then he recoiled, eyes widening, like a man evading the jaws of a steel trap.
’Take this pistol from me,” he said to Steenameert. “And give me my sword.”
I have lost you again. Divivvidiv cowered back from him. You are acting without thinking. What are you going to do?
Toller accepted the weapon from Steenameert, closing his fingers around the familiar moldings of the haft, and pressed the tip of the blade to the alien’s throat. Crimson stars sparkled across his vision.
“What am I going to do, greyface?” he whispered. “Why, I am going to part your head from your foul body unless you stop telling me what you want me to hear and start telling me what I want to hear. Has your wonderful intellect absorbed that message? Tell me—now!—how I can rescue our women.” He bored with the steel blade into Divivvidiv’s throat.
The alien’s black-rimmed mouth distorted and his frail body began its convulsive trembling, but this time the threat of instant death did not entirely destroy his self-control. I have told you all there is to tell. You have to understand the situation—there is nothing you can do.
“I could kill you!”
Yes, but what would that achieve? Nothing! Nothing!
*T…” Toller refused to be diverted. “You said the women were transported to your world… instantaneously … by one of your machines…”
Yes?
“In that case, we will pursue them by the same mode of transport,” Toller ground out, shocked by his own words.
The quaking of Divivvidiv’s body grew less severe. Is there no end to your obtuseness, Toller Maraquine? You ask to be transported to the heart of a Dussarran mega-city, the population of which is in excess of thirty millions! What do you think you and your companion could achieve there?
“I would have you as a hostage. I will bargain with your miserable life.”
The tremors in Divivvidiv’s frame ceased altogether. This is quite incredible, but there is just a chance—infinitesimal though it may be—that in your blind and primitive stubbornness you could succeed where vastly superior beings would have been doomed to failure. What an intriguing concept! This could even form a major topic for discussion at the next meeting of the…