The Best of Lester del Rey

puzzled over it, but seemed completely unsuspicious. It must have been a hard day for her already, and her mind wasn’t on the request.

“I guess so,” she answered. “If I sort of pretend god is still there and use the amulet. I’ll have to concentrate. You stir this till I work it.” She handed the bowl to Kayel, who took it quickly, keeping the swirling bubbles in the mixture going.

Lari pulled out the amulet and clutched it firmly. She bent over it, hesitated, and looked up. “No sense in two of you going for a few drugs,” she commented, and clenched her hand.

Derek found himself in the control room of the Sepelora, beside a new bank of instruments. He let out a yell of protests at the miscarriage of Kayel’s plans, but his finger hit the red button that was still marked firing pin. There was no way he could go back for them, nothing he could do to help. And he was still captain of the ship, in the service of the Federation, with a job to do.

The Sepelora came to life. There was no blanking out of the ports, but the stars began rushing by at an incredible rate, while the radar checked them and threw the ship about to :av6id a direct hit. They were making better than a thousand light-years an hour!

Derek found the instructions beside the new panel and began setting their course for Sirius. He had no idea of how the machines worked, but that would be for experts if he got back; and it was something to aid the Federation, at least.

He could feel the breath of fear blowing down his neck as he worked frantically. Lari might not be able to handle a time-negation field. She might have to waste tune in hunting for Skora. Or perhaps none of them could work through this. Perhaps there was no way to locate him. He could be sure of nothing, except that each thousand light-years gave him a slight added reason for hope—but sure that it wasn’t enough reason, even so.

He wondered about Siryl and Kayel. She might be sick at their failure, but she was probably female enough to appreciate the attempt Kayel had made more than the fact that he hadn’t delivered. And she’d been rocked by telepathy enough to seek comfort where she could find it and in the strongest manner.

Then he went back to worrying, staring back in the direction of Vanir. He had no idea of how far they could reach. Maybe they could throw things farther than they could suck them in. The Waraok had been tossed two hundred thousand light-years. But the people of Vanir had gone out only a few light-years to bring supplies. Maybe he was already safe.

He began to think so as the hours drifted by. And he began to appreciate the time-negation field more as he saw the simplicity of the generators. He could already construct another set from memory, if he had to. With this, the Federation still might win.

Worry over pursuit kept him from sleeping until fatigue finally took over. That day and the next went by. Then the next.

He went to bed with more confidence. He’d underestimated the speed of the new drive and was already half the distance back to Sirius—they should have stopped him before that, since he was now near some of the outer fringes of the Federation. He considered landing on one, but decided against it. The farther he went, the better. And the new drive should be taken directly to headquarters.

In the so-called morning, his head was aching as if the back of his skull were about to split, and the wqrry had returned. There was no reason for it, except the jinx that had become such a part of him. He swallowed anodynes and fought off some of the pain, but it kept coming back, as if something were bursting inside.

He made his way up to the control room, while the feeling that he had lost grew stronger and stronger inside him. He should have remembered that the anodyne was a depressant. It wouldn’t do to go into a fit of depression now, while he was nearing home.

He opened the door to the precabin, strode through it, and into the cabin beyond. Then he stopped.

Skora sat in a seat there, staring at the great spread of stars that streaked across the ports. This time there were no pants of homespun and no scrape over the old shoulders. The beard was still there, but shortened and trimmed. It projected over the collar of a Federation Fleet uniform—and on the side of the collar was pinned the double cluster of a galaxy commander!

The old man saluted crisply, smiling in amusement at the gesture, and waited while Derek’s arm automatically returned the honor. “As you were, Captain!” Then he sobered. “As you can see, Derek, your words made an impression on me. Vanir couldn’t stand in a backwater, hoping that men would never catch up. Nor could we forget that we belonged to the race of mankind and were all brothers. Telepaths are unusually sensitive to that argument, once it’s pointed out to them. I couldn’t convince enough of our council. But after I teleported myself to Sirius and convinced your command there, it was too late for Vanir to retrench. We aren’t limited to one planet now, clinging to the memory of a decaying god. Now there are two million of us being fitted for your uniforms— enough to win your war without having to destroy the enemy we both fought once before.”

“And I suppose headquarters took one look at what you could do and made you all officers,” Derek said bitterly, remembering the years he’d spent fighting for a mere sector commander’s rating.

The pain in his head broke over him again, and he doubled over. Skora seemed not to notice.

“It wasn’t hard, Derek. They were paralyzed with fear of new weapons until they were beginning to lose the battle. Your command had its own superstitions. And reading their minds helped me to find ways of convincing them. Then, when I could, I came to take you back. I’ve been waiting here for you for hours—though not idly.”

The pain hit a sharp peak and faded somewhat. Skora was staring at him intently, and he covered the remaining pain under automatic questions. “How’s Siryl? And I suppose Kayel is happy working out more of the mathematics for you?”

“Siryl—” Skora paused and shrugged. “Kayel had her promise to marry him, of course, and is a new man. She is recovering, we hope, since he made her a metal net and told her it would keep us from reading her mind. It won’t, if we try, but she needs her little superstition, if she’s to stop hating us.”

Derek stared out at the stars rushing by, knowing he had won what he had been sent to win—and had lost the Federation. His jinx had outgrown him, and had spread to the whole race.

Now Siryl hated and feared the men of Vanir for their power to see the things which a prude must conceal within her own mind. She might get over that; perhaps she could learn to accept their power. But in time, all the women on Federation planets would have to hate the telepaths—not for themselves, but for the sake of the children who should never be born into the life that must come.

Skora had spent a few days gaining himself the coveted rank of Galaxy Commander, while Derek had never dared to hope he could rise that high in a lifetime. And Skora’s people could have everything they wanted for the asking.

Monsters were loose on the world. Until power could corrupt them, they might be kind monsters. But they were worse than any enemy defeat could have been. They would save the Federation, but after the triumph, those most fit would own it. The men who had built the star ships would never control the future—that would be left for the conquering march of the men who .had done nothing, but had simply been given a power denied to the rest of the race.

“There was an old legend,” Skora said suddenly. “About a boy who lived with some kind of animals. When men discovered him at the age of twelve, he was a savage. He was unable to talk—and nobody learned how to teach him. Yet his powers of speech were latently as good as those of any man.”

The pain had lashed out again at the man’s words. Derek let them slip over his mind without trying to understand. Skora was reading his mind, but it didn’t matter. He went on thinking, forced to recognize that he had brought total defeat to all nontelepathic men. If there had been any hope…

But the psychologists and geneticists had looked for the power of telepathy in the current race, and had found none.

Skora stirred impatiently. “Telepathy never occurred strongly in men more than once in perhaps a billion births. Even in the group at the place where god found us, only Moskez had any great power, after all the careful breeding for it. He had to teach it to the others, so that they would not be wolf-boys in the world which the explosion left them. And Lari and Ferad are having a child—who will learn, like all the rest of us, even though Ferad is its father.”

Derek groped for the hope, and then shrugged. It was a good line for the rest of the worlds. It would give them faith in their future, while Vanir replaced them. They could believe that with a little more work and time, they