In the magnificent laboratories evey known or conceivable piece of apparatus could be had for the asking; the memory banks of the library would furnish in seconds any item of information that had been stored in any one of them during all seventy thousand years of the Realm’s existence.
And there were fully-equipped game and exercise rooms, ranging in size from tiny card-rooms up to a full-sized football field, to suit every Jelman need or desire for play or for exercise.
But not one of the hundreds of Jelmi observed — each one a perfect specimen physically, as was plainly revealed by the complete absence of clothing — appreciated any one of these advantages! Most of the laboratories were vacant and dark. The few scientists who were apparently at work were not doing anything that made sense. The library was not in use at all; the Jelmi who were reading anything were reading works of purely Jelman authorship — mostly love stories, murder mysteries, and science fiction. Many Jelmi seemed to be busy but their activities were as pointless as cutting out paper dolls.
“The pale, frail, practically hairless, repulsive, incomplete, illogical, and insane animals refuse steadfastly to cooperate with us on any level.”
Any Earthman so frustrated would have snarled the sentence, but the Llurd merely stated it as a fact. “You can all see for yourselves that as far as productive work is… but hold!”
The viewpoint stopped moving and focussed sharply on a young man and a young woman who, bending over a table, were working on two lengths of smooth yellow material that looked something like varnished cambric. “Mergon and Luloy of planet Mallidax,” Kalton said into the microphone. “What are you doing? Why are you so far away from your own laboratories?”
Mergon straightened up and glared at what he thought was the point of origin of the voice. “If it’s any of your business, funnyface, which it isn’t,” he said savagely, “I’m building a shortlong whatsit, and Luloy has nothing to do with it. When I get it done I’m personally going to tear your left leg off and beat you to death with the bloody end of it.”
“You see?” Kalton dispassionately addressed the other members of the Board. “That reaction is typical.”
He manipulated controls and both Jelmi leaped to their feet, with all four hands pressed to their buttocks. The fact that Luloy was a woman — scarcely more than a girl, in fact — was of no consequence at all to Kalton. Even Llurdan sex meant very little to the Llurdi.
Jelman sex meant nothing whatever.
“Nerve-whip,” Kalton explained to his fellows. He dropped his controller into his lap and the tri-di tank vanished. “Nothing serious — only sightly painful and producing only a little ecchymosis and extravasation. Neither of those two beasts, however, will be at all comfortable until they get back where they belong. Now, to continue my report:
“So much for failure to work-study. Failure — refusal to breed, while not possible of such simple and easy demonstration, is no less actual, effective, and determined. A purely emotional, non-logical, and ridiculous factor they call ‘love’ seems to be involved, as does their incomprehensibly exaggerated, inexplicable craving for ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’.”
The Llanzlan said thoughtfully, “But surely, unwillingness to breed cannot possibly affect the results of artificial insemination?”
“It seems to, sir. Definitely. There is some non-physical and non-logical, but nevertheless powerful operator involved. My assistants and I have not been able to develop any techniques that result in any except the most ephemeral pregnancies.”
“You apparently wish to comment, Velloy?” Klazmon asked.
“I certainly do!” a middle-aged female snapped, giving one tautly-outstretched wing a resounding whack with her tail. “Of course they haven’t! As Prime Sociologist I said five years ago and I repeat now that no mind of the quality of those of the Jelmi here in the llanzlanate can be coerced by any such gross physical means. Kalton talks of them and thinks of them as animals — meaning lower animals. I said five years ago and still say that they are not. Their minds, while unstable and completely illogical and in many instances unsane to the point of insanity, are nevertheless minds of tremendous power. I told this Board five years ago that the only way to make that project work — to cause selected Jelmi to produce either ideas or young or both was to give the selectees a perfect illusion of complete freedom, and I recommended that course of action. Since I could not prove my statement mathematically, my recommendation was rejected. While I still cannot prove that statement, it is still my considered opinion that it is true; and I now repeat both statement and recommendation. I will keep on repeating them at every opportunity as long as this Board wastes time by not accepting them. I remind you that you have already wasted — lost — over five years.”
“Your statement becomes more probable year by year,” the Llanzlan admitted. “Kalton, have you anything more to say?”
“Very little. Only that, since Project University has admittedly failed, we should of course adopt—”
Kalton was silenced in mid-sentence by a terrific explosion which was followed by a rumbling crash as half of one wall of the Hall collapsed inward.
A volume of Jelman air rushed in, enveloping a purposeful company of Jelmi in yellow coveralls and wearing gasmasks. Some of these invaders were shooting pistols; some were using or throwing knives; but all were covering and protecting eight Jelmi who were launching bombs at one great installation of sixth-order gear — the computer complex that was the very nerve center of the entire Realm.
For the Jelmi — who, as has been said, were human to the last decimal of classification — had been working on fifth- and sixth-order devices purely as a blind; their real effort had been on first-order effects so old that their use had been all but forgotten.
The Jelman plan was simple: Thirty men and thirty women would destroy the central complex of the computer system of the entire Realm. Then, if possible, the survivors of the sixty would join their fellows in taking over an already-selected Llurdan scout cruiser and taking off at max.
It was quite probable that many or even most of the attacking sixty would die. It was distinctly possible that they all would. All sixty, however, were perfectly willing to trade their lives for that particular bank of sixth-order apparatus, in order that seven hundred forty other Jelmi could escape from Llurdiax and, before control could be re-established, be beyond their masters’ reach.
Theoretically, the first phase of the operation should have been successful; the Realm’s nerve center should have been blown to unrecognizable bits. The Jelmi knew exactly what they were going to do, exactly how they were going to do it and exactly how long it would take. They knew that they would have the advantage of complete surprise. There would be, they were sure, half a second or so of the paralysis of shock, followed by at least one second of utter confusion; which would give them plenty of time.
They were sure it would be as though, during a full formal session of the Supreme Court, a gang of hoodlums should blast down a wall and come leaping into the courtroom with Tommy-guns ablaze and with long knives flying and stabbing and slashing. Grave, stately, and thoughtful, the justices could not possibly react fast enough to save their lives or their records or whatever else it was that the gangsters were after.
The Jelmi, however, had never seen any Llurd in emergency action; did not know or suspect how nearly instantaneous the Llurdan speed of reaction was; did not realize that a perfectly logical mind can not be surprised by any happening, however unusual or however outrageous.
Thus:
Yelling, shooting, throwing, stabbing, slashing, the men and women of the Jelmi rushed into battle; to be met with no paralysis and no confusion and no loss of time whatever — by buffeting wings, flailing tails, tearing teeth, and hard, highly skilled hands and fists and feet.