“So they can read our thoughts, eh? Hm-m-m—bet Chanthavar doesn’t know that! Then that inspection here they mentioned would have been via the superintendent’s mind, I suppose—But are you sure?”
“Yess. It iss a certainty. Let me explain.”
The exposition was short and to the point. Every living nervous system radiates energy of several kinds. There are the electrical impulses, which encephalography had discovered in man even before Langley’s time; there is a little heat; there is the subtler and more penetrating emission in the gyromagnetic spectrum. But the pattern varies: each race has its own norms. An encephalographer from Earth would not find the alpha rhythm of the human brain in a Holatan; he would have to learn a whole new ‘language’.
On most planets, including Earth, there is little or no sensitivity to such emissions. The evolving life develops reactions to such vibrations as light and sound and, these being sufficient for survival purposes, does not go on to an ability to “listen in” on nervous impulses. Except for a few dubious freaks—to this day, the subject of ESP in man was one for debate and bafflement—humanity is telepathically deaf. But on some planets, through a statistically improbable series of mutations, ESP organs do develop and most animals have them: including the intelligent animals, if any. In the case of Holat, the development was unique—the animal could not only receive the nervous impulses of others, but could at short range induce them. This was the basis of Holatan emotional empathy; it was also the reason Saris could control a vacuum tube. As if following some law of compensation, the perceptive faculty was poor on the verbal level; the Holatans used sonic speech because they could not get clear ideas across telepathically.
Thryman telepathy was of the “normal” sort—the monsters could listen in, but could not influence, except via the specialized nerve endings in their joined feelers.
But a telepathic listener does not perceive pure thought. “Thought” does not exist as part of the real world; there is only the process of thinking, the flow of pulses across synapses. The Thryman did not read a man’s mind as such, but read the patterns of subvocalization. A man thinking on the conscious level talks to himself: the motor impulses go from brain to throat as if he were speaking aloud, but are suppressed en route. It was these impulses that the Thryman sensed and interpreted.
So to read the thoughts of another being, they had to know that being’s language first. And Saris and Langley habitually thought in languages unknown to them. What they detected was gibberish.
“I... see.” The man nodded. “It makes sense. I read about a case once which happened some hundred years before my time. An alleged telepath was demonstrating before the Pope—that was a religious person back then. He got confused, said he couldn’t understand, and the Pope answered he’d been thinking in Latin. Yes, that may have been the same thing.” He smiled, grimly. “Keeping our mental privacy is one consolation, at least.”
There iss otherss,” replied the Holatan. “I hawe a warning to giwe you. There iss soon to be an attack.”
“Huh?”
“Act not so alarmed. But the female you hawe—Marin iss her name? In her I hawe detected an electronic circuit.”
“What?” Langley sucked in his breath. There was an eerie tingle along his nerves. “But... that’s impossible... she—”
“In her iss been planted surgically a t’ing which I t’ink iss a wariable-frequency emitter. She can be traced. I would hawe told Walti, but wass not then familiar wit” the human nerwous system. I t’ought it a normal pattern for your femaless, ewen ass ours iss different from the maless. But now that I hawe seen more of you, I realize the trut’.”
Langley felt himself shivering. Marin—Marin again! But how-?
Then he understood. The time she had been seized, and returned. It had been for a purpose, after all; he, Langley, had not been the goal of that raid. An automatic communicator similar to Valti’s, planted in her body by today’s surgery—yes.
And such a device would be short-range, which meant that only a system of detectors spotted around the planet could hope to follow her. And only Chanthavar could have such a system.
Langley groaned: “How many people’s Judas goat is she, anyway?”
“We must be prepared,” said the Holatan calmly. “Our guards will try to kill us in case of such, no? Forewarned, we may be able to—”
“Or to warn Brannoch?” Langley played with the idea a minute but discarded it. No. Even if the Centaurians got clean away, Sol’s battle fleet would be on their heels; the war, the empty useless crazy war, would be started like an avalanche.
Let Chanthavar win, then. It didn’t matter.
Langley buried his face in his hands. Why keep on fighting? Let him take his lead like a gentleman when the raid came.
No. Somehow, he felt he must go on living. He had been given a voice, however feeble, in today’s history; it was up to him to keep talking as long as possible.
It might have been an hour later that Saris” muzzle nosed him to alertness. “Grawity wibrationss. I t’ink the time iss now.”
16
A siren hooted. As its echoes rang down the hall, the guards jerked about, frozen for a bare instant.
The door flew open and Saris Hronna was through. His tigerish leap smashed one man into the farther wall. The other went spinning, to fall a yard away. He was still gripping his weapon. He bounced to his feet, raising it, as Langley charged him.
The spaceman was not a boxer or wrestler. He got hold of the gun barrel, twisting it aside, and sent his other fist in a right cross to the jaw. The Thorian blinked, spat blood, but failed to collapse. Instead, he slammed a booted kick at Langley’s ankle. The American lurched away, pain like a lance in him. The Centaurian backed, lifting the musket. Saris brushed Langley aside in a single bound and flattened the man.
“Iss you well?” he asked, wheeling about. “Iss hurt?”
“I’m still moving.” Langley shook his head, tasting the acridness of defeat. “Come on... spring the rest. Maybe we can still make a break during the fracas.”
Shots and explosions crashed through the other rooms. Valti stumbled forth, his untidy red head lowered bull-like. “This way!” he roared. “Follow me! There must be a rear exit.”
The prisoners crowded after him, swiftly down the corridor to a door which Saris opened. A ramp led upward to ground level. Saris hunched himself—anything might be waiting beyond. But there was no alternative. The camouflaged entrance flew up for him, and he bounded into a late daylight.
Black patrol ships swarmed overhead like angry bees. There was a flier near one of the buildings. Saris went after it in huge leaps. He was almost there when a blue-white beam from the sky slashed it in half.
Wheeling with a snarl, the Holatan seemed to brace himself. A police vessel suddenly reeled and crashed into another. They fell in flame. Saris sprang for the edge of the compound, the humans gasping in his wake. A curtain of fire dropped over his path. Valti shouted something, pointing behind, and they saw black-clad slave soldiers rushing from the underground section.
“Stop their weapons!” shrieked Langley. He had one of the muskets, he laid it to his cheek and fired. The crack of it and the live recoil were a glory to him. A man spun on his heel and fell.
“Too many.” Saris lay down on the bare earth, panting. “Iss more than I can handle. I had little hope for escape anyhow.”
Langley threw down his gun, cursing the day of creation.
The corpsmen ringed them in, warily. “Sirs, you are all under arrest,” said the leader. “Please accompany us.”