There followed a short silence, and then Porus’ lips twitched into a nasty smile. “Those five nitwits returned from Europe yesterday, didn’t they?”
Haridin smiled in turn and nodded vigorously, “And hopping sore! Your predictions have checked to the fifth decimal place. They’re fit to be tied.”
“Good! I’m only sorry I can’t see Obel’s face right now, after the last message I sent him. And, incidentally”-his voice dropped lower-”what’s the latest on them? ”
Haridin raised two fingers. “Two weeks, and they’ll be here.”
“Two weeks… two weeks,” gurgled Porus jubilantly. He rose and made for the door. “I think I’ll find my dear, dear colleagues and pass the time of day.”
The five scientists of the board looked up from their notes and fell into an embarrassed silence as Porus entered.
The latter smiled impishly. “Notes satisfactory, gentlemen? Found some fifty or sixty fallacies in my fundamental assumptions, no doubt?”
Hybron Prat of Alpha Cepheus rumpled the gray fuzz he called hair. “I don’t trust the unholy tricks this crazy mathematical notation of yours plays.”
The Rigellian emitted a short bark of laughter. “Invent a better, then. So far, it’s done a good job of handling reactions, hasn’t it?”
There was an unmusical chorus of throat-clearings but no definite answer.
“Hasn’t it?” thundered Porus.
“Well, what if it has,” returned Kim Winson, desperately. “Where’s your panic? All this is well and good. These Humanoids are cosmic freaks, but where’s the big show you were going to put on? Until you break Kraut’s Law, this entire exhibition of yours isn’t worth a pinhead meteor.”
“You’re beaten, gentlemen, you’re beaten,” crowed the small master psychologist. “I’ve proven my point-this passive panic is as impossible according to classic psychology as the active form. You’re trying to deny facts and save face now, by harping on a technicality. Go home; go home, gentlemen, and hide under the bed.”
Psychologists are only human. They can analyze the motives that drive them, but they are the slave of those motives just as much as the commonest mortal of all. These galaxy-famous psychologists writhed under the lash of wounded pride and shattered vanity, and their blind stubbornness was the mechanical reaction due therefrom. They knew it was and they knew Porus knew it was-and that made it all the harder.
Inar Tubal stared angrily from red-rimmed eyes. “Active panic or nothing. Tan Porus. That’s what you promised, and that’s what we’ll have. We want the letter of the bond or, by space and time, we’ll balk at any technicality. Active panic or we report failure!”
Porus swelled ominously and, with a tremendous effort, spoke quietly. “Be reasonable, gentlemen. We haven’t the equipment to handle active panic. We’ve never come up against this superform they have here on Earth. What if it gets beyond control?” He shook his head violently.
“Isolate it, then,” snarled Semper Gor. “Start it up and put it out. Make all the preparations you want, but do it!”
“If you can,” grunted Hybron Prat.
But Tan Porus had his weak point. His brittle temper lay in splintered shards about him. His agile tongue blistered the atmosphere and inundated the sullen psychologist with wave after wave of concentrated profanity.
“Have your way, vacuumheads! Have your way and to outer space with you!” He was breathless with passion. “We’ll set it off right here in Terrapolis as soon as all the men are back home. Only you’d all better get from under!”
And with one last parting snarl, he stalked from the room.
Tan Porus parted the curtains with a sweep of his hand, and the five psychologists facing him averted their eyes. The streets of Earth’s capital were deserted of civilian population. The ordered tramp of the military patrolling the highways of the city sounded like a dirge. The wintry sky hung low over a scene of strewn bodies-and silence; the silence that follows an orgy of wild destruction.
“It was touch and go for a few hours there, colleagues.” Porus’ voice was tired. “If it had passed the city limits, we could never have stopped it.”
“Horrible, horrible!” muttered Hybron Prat. “It was a scene a psychologist would have given his right arm to witness- and his life to forget.”
“And these are Humanoids!” groaned Kim Winson.
Semper Gor rose to his feet in sudden decision. “Do you see the significance of this, Porus? These Earthmen are sheer uncontrolled atomite. They can’t be handled. Were they twice the technological geniuses they are, they would be useless. With their mob psychology, their mass panics, their superemotionalism, they simply won’t fit into the Humanoid picture.”
Porus raised an eyebrow. “Comet gas! Individually, we are as emotional as they are. They carry it into mass action and we don’t; that’s the only difference.”
“And that’s enough!” exclaimed Tubal. “We’ve made our decision, Porus. We made it last night, at the height of the… the… of it. The Solar System is to be left to itself. It is a plague spot and we want none of it. As far as the Galaxy is concerned. Homo Sol will be placed in strict quarantine. That is final!”
The Rigellian laughed softly. “For the Galaxy, it may be final. But for Homo Sol?”
Tubal shrugged. “They don’t concern us.”
Porus laughed again. “Say, Tubal. Just between the two of us, have you tried a time integration of Equation 128 followed by expansion with Karolean tensors?”
“No-o. I can’t say I have.”
“Well, then, just glance up and down these calculations and enjoy yourself.”
The five scientists of the board grouped themselves about the sheets of paper Porus had handed them. Expressions changed from interest to bewilderment and then to something approaching panic.
Nam Helvin tore the sheets across with a spasmodic movement. “It’s a lie,” he screeched.
“We’re a thousand years ahead of them now, and by that time we’ll be advanced another two hundred years!” Tubal snapped. “They won’t be able to do anything against the mass of the Galaxy’s people.”
Tan Porus laughed in a monotone, which is hard to do, but very unpleasant to hear. “You still don’t believe mathematics. That’s in your behavior pattern, of course. All right, let’s see if experts convince you-as they should, unless contact with these off-normal Humanoids has twisted you. Joselin-Joselin Am-come in here!”
The Centaurian commander came in, saluted automatically, and looked expectant.
“Can one of your ships defeat one of the Sol ships in battle, if necessary?” 214
Arn grinned sourly. “Not a chance, sir. These Humanoids break Kraut’s Law in panic-and also in fighting. We have a corps of experts manning our ships; these people have a single crew that functions as a unit, without individuality. They manifest a form of fighting-panic, I imagine, is the best word. Every individual on a ship becomes an organ of the ship. With us, as you know, that’s impossible.
“Furthermore, this world’s a mass of mad geniuses. They have, to my certain knowledge, taken no less than twenty-two interesting but useless gadgets they saw in the Thalsoon Museum when they visited us, turned ‘em inside out, and produced from them some of the most unpleasant military devices I’ve seen. You know of Julmun Thill’s gravitational line tracer? Used-rather ineffectively-for spotting ore deposits before the modem electric potential method came in?
“They’ve turned it-somehow-into one of the deadliest automatic fire directors it’s been my displeasure to see. It will automatically lay a gun or projector on a completely invisible target in space, air, water or rock, for that matter.”
“We,” said Tan Porus, gleefully, “have far greater fleets than they. We could overwhelm them, could we not?”
Joselin Am shook his head. “Defeat them now-probably. It wouldn’t be overwhelming, though, and I wouldn’t bet on it too heavily. Certainly wouldn’t invite it. The trouble is, in a military way, this collection of gadget maniacs invent things at a horrible rate. Technologically, they’re as unstable as a wave in water; our civilization is more like a sanddune. I’ve seen their ground-car plants install a complete plant of machine tools for production of a new model of automobile-and rip it out in six months because it’s completely obsolete!
“Now we’ve come in contact with their civilization briefly. We’ve learned the methods of one new civilization to add to our previous two hundred and eighty-odd-a small percentage advantage. They’ve added one new civilization to their previous one-a one-hundred-percent advance!”
“How about,” Porus asked gently, “our military position if we simply ignore them completely for two hundred years?”
Joselin Am gave an explosive little laugh. “ If we could- which means if they’d let us-I’d answer offhand and with assurance. They’re all I’d care to tackle right now. Two hundred years of exploring the new tracks suggested by their brief contact with us and they’d be doing things I can’t imagine. Wait two hundred years and there won’t be a battle; there’ll be an annexation.”
Tan Porus bowed formally. “Thank you, Joselin Arn. That was the result of my mathematical work.”
Joselin Arn saluted and left the room.
Turning to the five thoroughly paralyzed scientists, Porus went on: “And I hope these learned gentlemen still react in a vaguely Humanoid way. Are you convinced that it is not up to us to decide to end all intercourse with this race? We’ may -but they won’t!