He said that he had worked backwards and forwards from life-field equations of one to five orders and that his resultant was like nothing he had ever seen before. It consisted of an equation of what he called the alpha order, something that suggested altogether new forms of life and consciousness.
Yancey Mears retired to check on his resultant; she found that Star Macduff's work was correct in every detail but that he had misinterpreted his alpha order; it was merely an unfamiliar third order of great magnitude and complexity. She derived from it a series of fields which would lower the level of the Gentleman's consciousness considerably. They were set up by the ratings from stock tubes and target; the E.O. found that results checked.
The ship had come back to a sort of normalcy. Rather than being a matter of relays and orders, navigation was partly cajoling, partly outwitting the huge, naive monster in whose bowels they rode. It appeared to accept them kindly, almost graciously; at times the Officers felt that there was a sort of mistaken affection on its part. They did what they could to encourage the proprietary feeling of the Gentleman; it was their main safeguard. For themselves, their emotions were inextricably confused regarding the ship. They liked it as they would like an animal; they got an enormous kick out of the way they kidded it along.
A fortunate consequence of the crisis had been the resolution of the emotional problem that had existed among the Officers. The Executive and Yancey Mears had entered permanent union and there were no further complaints from the other two. The stark necessity of united action and intent had been driven into their heads by the so- narrowly-averted danger.
The Psychologist had become high priestess to the Gentleman up forward—that is to say, liaison officer. Her schedule worked near perfection every time; she had built up in the mind of the living ship a conviction of some formless errand which it was running; by appeal to this mystic factor she could guide it easily, wherever the E.O. decided.
Observations were run constantly on the radiant body of protoplasm at which Sphere Nine was aimed. Culture-plates extruded from the hull became specked with the discoloration of living matter in hours. There was little doubt but that their target was not only the source of cosmic rays but of the classic life-spores of Arrhenius. Star Macduff went so far as to formulate a daring hypothesis—that the life-spores were diffused throughout the universe by pressure of the mitogenic-cosmic rays, and that such similar rays as man exhibited bespoke the possibility of man being a rung on an evolutionary ladder working up to this star-beast, whatever it was. Reproduction by evolution, with all its lunatic possibilities, would have been frowned on by the other Officers. He kept his notion to himself.
No more valid concept than his own was advanced, and he knew that none was likely to be until the rest of the complement had data to reason with. The enormously intriguing possibilities of the protoplasmal mass were left strictly alone by the disciplined minds of his messmates.
Ratings Three and Nine strayed into the computations room and died there, blasted into powder by the outraged forces of the Gentleman. It took days before it was sufficiently soothed to obey the sly suggestions of Mamie Tung.
By the time they had approached close enough to the mass nearing them to take a bearing, it occupied sixty degrees of their sky.
Will Archer summoned a conference of the Officers and ordered concentration on the problem of their target.
'It would be most uneconomical to return with merely a report. There would be time and effort duplicated or wasted to send out another ship equipped for taking samples.'
'I suggest, Will,' said the statistician, 'that we take such samples as will become necessary and then return.'
'How about it?'
The other two nodded gravely.
'Very well. So ordered. This is, you know, the last decision point we can take before treating with the Gentleman conclusively.'
'I recommend,' said Mamie Tung, 'that we proceed to eliminate its consciousness. It can't, properly speaking, be killed.'
'How will you go about it? It's your field, you know.'
'What studies I've made indicate that the Gentleman is susceptible to mental illnesses. Star, how weak can you make him with those field-equations of yours before he realizes that something's wrong?'
'Pretty weak. I can lower its vitality to about one-half of normal. Is that enough?' 'Better not risk that much. Two-fifths is plenty. I'll establish a liaison service with you in the stock-room. Call me one of the ratings, will you, Yancey?'
The woman blinked the commons room.
'Rating One, stand by in the corridor-tube outside the computations room. Be prepared to run a message to Officer Macduff in the stock room, aft slice. Understand?'
'Yes, Officer. Cut?'
'Cut. Now, Star, when that man signals you from me—I won't be able to use the wires for obvious reasons— you throw every dyne on shipboard into your interference fields. We'll have to slug the Gentleman with everything we have and leave him so dizzy he won't be able to raise his head for months, maybe forever. I expect that parts and sections will retain vitality, so you construct a portable field-generator to hose them with.'
'Right, Mamie. Give me an hour.'
'You'll have it. Will, would you help me in this business?'
'Waiting orders, Mamie.'
'I haven't got any orders. I just want you to stand around and look useful.'
'I hope that wasn't levity, Mamie,' said Will Archer in a soft, dangerous voice.
The golden-skinned woman flushed a little. 'Perhaps you're right. Your part will be to interrupt me occasionally with irrelevant comments.
What I'm going to try to do is to establish in the mind of the Gentleman a lesion relative to the idea of direction. When that occurs I will have to act as its behavior indicates.'
'Very well. Let's go.'
Restively they slipped through the tube, nodded silently to the rating stationed by the entrance to the computations room.
'Hail. We bow before your might, great machine,' said Mamie Tung.
The machinery of the Gentleman was somewhat altered; it had been constantly experimenting with senses. Its hearing was considerably improved, and its voice was a credible imitation of a human baritone.
There was a set of scanning-eyes which it seldom used.
'What news have you for me today?' asked the ringing voice of the Gentleman.
'A trifling problem.' She tipped a wink to the E.O.
Will Archer piped up: 'Not trifling, mighty machinery. I consider it of the utmost importance.'
'That is hardly a matter for you poor creatures. What is the problem?'
'You are familiar with the facial phenomenon known as 'whiskers,'
mightiness?'
'Of course. Like insulators.'
'It is customary to remove them daily with moderate charges of electricity. There might be a place where specialization would be so carried out that it becomes the task of only one man in a social unit to perform this task for all persons who do not perform the task for themselves.'
'That is very likely. What is the problem?'
Mamie Tung waited for a long moment before uttering the classic paradox.
'Who performs the operation on the person who performs the operation only on those who do not perform the operation on themselves?'
The machinery of the Gentleman clicked quietly for a while, almost embarrassedly.
A volumeter rolled across the floor and connected with the apparatus, rapidly stripped itself down to the bearing and styli, which fused with Bowden wires leading to a battery of self-compensating accounters.
Plastic slips flapped from a printer and were delivered to a punching machine, emerged perforated variously to allow for the elements of the problem. They ran through a selector at low speed, then at higher. The drone of the
