“Clearly put,” acknowledged Vuldane. “We found, after much searching, such a variable, and migrated to its planets. We set up our civilization and had another period of well-being. Then that Cepheid reached the explosion point. Again we had to search for a twenty-two day Cepheid—one with planets, which are rare—and migrate to it. We have migrated a dozen times in the past million years, Anton York. We are nomads of the cosmos, never knowing a true home.”
York felt the aura of sadness that suddenly radiated from the alien being. Certainly they were to be pitied for having been cursed to live under a temperamental star like a Cepheid, instead of a long-burning, stable sun, like Sol.
“We have been in this Cepheid system fifty thousand years,” Vuldane resumed. “Two thousand years ago our astronomers again gave out their sickening omen. This sun would soon explode. Again the packing up, the elimination of all but a comparative few to start the race over, the departure from loved homes, deserted cities, the trials of rebuilding a new civilization. That faces us again.”
“But why not migrate to a stable star and live under domes?” York objected. “You can duplicate any environment, as in the experiment domes. Surely you can duplicate your own.”
“Live under domes?” The alien shook his head. “It would stultify the race, wither it away. It is not a good life. Would your Earth people like it?”
York thought back to Earth’s colonization of the other planets. It was a tough existence. Young people aged rapidly. If Earth were to vanish, the remaining Earth race on other planets, in their sealed habitations, would die off through sheer strangulation.
“No, we must migrate to our type of sun,” Vuldane stated. His thought-voice changed. “But this crisis is sharper than all others have been in the past. We have combed our universe from end to end. Only one twenty-two day Cepheid is left, with a family of planets. The Cepheids of adjacent universes, like yours, are out of the question, for your astral laws are different. Our race would wither away as slowly but surely, in an alien universe, as under domes. We do not wish it. Thus that last Cepheid is our remaining hope. That is the last world possible for us! And now I come to that which affects your people—and the hypno-beasts.”
He eyed York a moment, as though reluctant to go on.
“That Cepheid has a family of ten planets, all inhabited by the hypno-beasts. Somehow their evolution inhibited them and they never became scientific. But they were endowed with the remarkable power of hypnotism. A kind of hypnotism to which our minds are peculiarly vulnerable. So strong did it seem that we doubted whether any minds could stand against it. But we had to find out.
“Thus we roamed our universe—and yours and others—and transplanted bits of inhabited worlds under the domes. We pitted them against the hypno-beasts. Our sole purpose was to find a race that could learn how to fight the Beasts, while using this universe’s scientific laws.”
The pieces all clicked into place abruptly, in York’s mind, with a stunning impact.
“I see,” he murmured. “A colossal search for a race of creatures parasitic to the hypno-beasts! A race able to resist the hypnotism and conquer the Beasts!”
“In broad detail, just that,” agreed Vuldane. “But for a long time we despaired of results. Most races succumbed to the hypnosis and became slaves of the hypno-beasts within a century or so. These we cast out as abortive cultures and procured new ones. In all, in the period of our long-range experiment, we have tried out more than ten thousand races, culled from seven universes!”
The staggering sweep of it overwhelmed York. Vera looked at him sympathetically. She had got over the first shock long before.
York looked at Vuldane, king of a driven, nomad race, in a new light. He and his people had the indomitable courage and never-say-die spirit that could only be admired in any race. York’s thoughts leaped ahead.
“Earth people,” he whispered. “Earth people are the ones!” Vuldane nodded, and somehow there was infinite regret in his manner.
“Yes, so it has proved. As with the many other races, we installed a thousand of your race in a dome, and pitted them against a control group of the hypno-beasts. One other remarkable, or damnable, attribute the hypno-beasts have. They are almost infinitely adaptable to any environment. They do not breathe oxygen. They absorb life energy from blood, any blood, and no extremes of temperature can stop them. We watched your race with avid interest for those two thousand years. We could not leap to conclusions. We used the true scientific method of thorough waiting. We watched as generation by generation your people developed immunity to the hypnotism. At the time you arrived, we had just about decided they were the ones. More, your rapid killing off of the hypno-beasts convinced us completely. Another race has developed immunity, but they do not have the scientific capabilities of yours.”
York knew he was grinning in a ghastly, mirthless way. “You mean,” he gasped, “that my coming decided you on my race, rather than the other? But I’m a special case. I’m an immortal among our race, and a super-scientist only because of that. You are overestimating—”
Vuldane smiled. “I cannot blame you for pleading in that way, trying to throw us off our decision. We know you are a special case. But you are still a sample of your race. The important thing is your race’s capacity for science. We will furnish all the science necessary to destroy the hypno-beasts.”
York pondered.
“You are supreme scientists. Why not simply ray down the beasts, with long-range beams from space, on their planets?”
“Do you think we haven’t tried everything possible?” responded the alien. “We did that long ago. We rayed down all their centers and cities. We tried to cover every square inch of their planets. When we thought we had reduced their numbers to a safe minimum, we built fortresses. The inevitable happened The Beasts rebred rapidly. They surrounded the fortresses in massed numbers, throwing their combined hypnosis within. Our people fell under the spell, were killed. The Beasts reigned again.
“You do not realize, Anton York, the tremendous power of their hypnosis in quantity. No minds in the universe can withstand it, except two. Those of your race and the non-scientific races.”
“No diseases sowed among them could kill them off?”
York queried. “No insect plagues them? Often it’s the little things that conquer the big.”
Again he got a withering smile.
“Before we used cultures of races, we gathered cultures of germs, worms, insects, crustaceans, plants. More than a million varieties of them, We sowed them among their planets. The hypno-beasts survived everything—everything. They are perhaps the most tenacious form of life in all the universe. Don’t forget we have been trying for twenty centuries. No, Anton York, only intelligence, immune to their hypnotism, will ever wipe them out.”
York shrugged. “I must admit a certain degree of sympathy in your problem. I appoint myself emissary to my world, to tell them of your need for help. How many Earth people do you think you need?”
York saw the stricken look in Vera’s eyes and prepared to hear a gigantic number.
“All of your people!” responded Vuldane softly.
York was past shock. He could only stare, as if turned to stone.
“All of your people,” repeated the alien. “It will not be a simple task, even with Earth people immunity, and our science given to them. The time is short now, before our sun explodes. We must move all your people to the Beasts’ planets, setting them up in fortresses which we will build. Many, perhaps most, of your people will succumb at first, till the following generations develop immunity. Finally they will wax strong, sweep out and conquer the Beasts completely. Then we will sow some disease among your people to kill them, and our new home will be ready for our occupancy.”