Chapter V: Kingallis

Kingallis himself put an end to one of Carroll's worries. After several days of study, the alien doctor called him aside.

"Carroll, you know that you are helpless," he said. "We know that you are helpless. The point is just this: We can study your mind better if you are not worrying. Therefore I am going to put an end to one major worry of yours. Remember, always, we know that you are studying us!

"We are using the forerunner of our mental control beam to study you, Carroll. You know that. The mental educator came first, the mental control without wearing electrodes came long afterwards."

"Understandable," nodded Carroll easily. "Men learned to communicate along a wire long before they used radio."

"The gadget we've been using is none other than a person-to-person telepathy aid. It was first developed as a means of placing men _en rapport_ while studying a complex problem. Thus, for instance, a machinist can do a job for an electrical project while understanding perfectly just why this must or must not be done despite its mechanical desirability.

"It was but a step from that to its use in educating the youth of our race. A rather complex problem, Carroll, and one that cannot be appreciated until the whole problem is studied complete with both successes and failures.

"We taught then, Carroll, from a teacher-to-student plan. Later it was discovered how to record certain phases of lessons. The latter removes one main difficulty of the automatic educator."

"Mind telling me what?" asked Carroll, fencing for more information.

"Not at all. You see, the living hookup produces a double flow of information--which is what I meant to tell you. You are studying me as I am studying you--and, as in the case of an infant with erroneous information, you are placing errata in the teacher's mind."

"All children know--from their limited visible evidence--that the earth is flat. Only deep study proves otherwise. I can see where a continued youthful insistence upon a flat earth might cause a bit of mental collision in any teacher's mind." Carroll's voice was sharp.

"You have the point exactly," smiled Kingallis.

"Then tell me," Carroll said suddenly, "why I cannot find out why you are suppressing the information I want?"

"Because we are not studying that," smiled the alien doctor. "I surprise you? You expected me to wish my answer recalled? No, Carroll, I care not that you know some things about us."

Carroll shrugged. Kingallis was clever. Had Carroll known that worry hampered the study he would have felt relieved even though he tried to worry more. That would have been a minor defeat.

But the fact that Kingallis knew and cared not, removed all concern from Carroll's mind but one, and that one was how to hamper the research alone. It was not a satisfactory question as there was no satisfactory answer.

It was many hours later that both a possible answer and a complete impossibility of its use came to a sleepless man. Carroll arose from his bed and tried the door. It was open. Carroll's enforced residence was a large estate, a good many miles from town, in the center of a hilly country.

Carroll left his room and went down the hallway to the laboratory. He prayed that no one was following him with a mind-reading beam of some sort. He guessed that if these aliens could control an entire community with a mental beam, it would be no trouble to read his mind.

* * * * *

He found the cabinets that contained the records of knowledge used by the aliens. These were large reels of wire in metal magazines. On the face and back of each case was its title in the--to Carroll--completely unreadable alien characters.

That was a problem in itself. A lot of good it would do to acquire useless knowledge. Carroll wanted scientific facts or perhaps a recording of their plans. A complete course in alien geography, for instance, would be completely useless--the aliens seemed disinclined to take him from earth.

Yet Carroll had no way of knowing what these characters represented. A book might have given a clue--books often contain pictures. There was no telling on a reel of wire.

Carroll wondered whether the reels were stored in some sort of alphabetical order, in some numerical order or according to some semantic plan that gave the initial startings first and permitted the selector to progress. He knew, however, that if he were running such an expedition, he would not include Guffey's First Reader among the collection of texts. His chances of learning the rudiments of the alien tongue were remote.

In selecting a book one scans through the pages. In selecting a reel one must try it.

So, making a guess, James Forrest Carroll selected a container at random and, still amused at the guesswork quality, he carried it to the machine used by Kingallis to study his mind.

He flipped the switches as he had seen Kingallis do it. He inserted the reel magazine in the obvious slot and fiddled with some tiny toggles until the reel started to feed through the machine.

Then quickly, Carroll slipped the head electrodes on and reclined on the soft couch to let the flow of knowledge enter.

In complete oblivion as the machine ran, Carroll had no control over his actions. It ran on and on and the unreeling wire passed its knowledge into Carroll's brain. It concluded finally and Carroll sat up.

It was faintly light outside and by that faint light Carroll looked at his watch and was amazed to find that it was almost six o'clock in the morning. He quickly replaced the reel and turned to go back to his room.

"Pleased with yourself?" asked a quiet voice.

Carroll jumped a foot. Then in the dim light he saw the form of a woman, fully dressed, sitting in an easy chair not far from the door. To add to his complete surprise he hadn't known that women were with this outfit.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Plead, do not demand," she said. "For you have not the right to courtesy."

"Madam, I am a prisoner here. Courtesy _per se_ has no meaning at all. I have as much right to prowl the place, picking up what I can, as you have to imprison me in the first place."

"A nice point of ethics and quite devoid of rational answer," smiled the woman. In the gaining light James Forrest Carroll saw that she was passably good looking though certainly no raving beauty. When she spoke, her white teeth gleamed in the dim light.

"However," she said, "I am Rhinegallis, King's sister." Then she laughed. "And that," she said, "is the only thing you learned this evening!"

"Oh, I'd not say that," said Carroll.

"Then tell me," she said amusedly, "how you justify yourself."

* * * * *

Carroll paused. Somehow it seemed normal to him that he should not care to appear weak or helpless in front of a woman, even an alien woman. Yet the truth of the matter was that Carroll was a complete captive and at the mercy of this bunch.

Whatever he did he did at their sufferance. There was little to be gained by quiet ridicule in explaining that he had taken a recording by sheer blind guesswork because there was no other way.

There was little to be gained but open ridicule to be forced to admit to this woman that he, James Forrest Carroll, reputed to be one of the Solar System's foremost physicists, was in a position seldom if ever occupied by any human being.

He knew and he knew that he knew, but he knew not what he knew!

He laughed helplessly. "_Son lava tin quil norwham enectramic colvay si tin mer vo si_--"

"Very lucid," she replied in English. "So in the course of the evening, James Forrest Carroll has a complete course in our science--in our language-pattern in our manner of thinking. And," she laughed merrily, "of none of which he has the slightest comprehension.

"That was a nice try, Carroll, but availing nothing. I'll tell you this, however--what you have learned this night is of no more use to you than a complete knowledge of archeology so far as an answer to your present problem goes.

"And for your trouble--it is a rather complimentary thing that you'd make such a try, and we'll all commend you--I'll be your guest for breakfast."

"Thank you," said Carroll cryptically. "I hope I'm amusing."

Rhinegallis stood up and faced Carroll. "You are quite a man," she said earnestly. "And though we must--use you--we still admire you."

"One might admire the tenacity and ability of a pet dog who is working its way through a maze toward a hunk of steak," he said quietly. "Yet one does not consider the dog our equal."

Rhinegallis shook her head. "Would it please you to know that you are a threat to us?"

"I've known that," he returned quickly. "And so is a dog a threat to man. Dogs can kill. They do not because they know that they are dependent for life upon becoming man's friend."

"And you?"

He smiled sourly. "Again the question of ethics," he said. "For no matter what I say you know that I shall do anything I find necessary to defeat you."

"We will never accept your word as bond," she told him. "Were it a simple matter of personal integrity and honor we could take it and be satisfied. But there is too much at stake. A man would be a complete fool to give his word and keep it when his future hangs in the balance."

"I'd not give it," he said simply. And then he turned to her with a cryptic smile. "So my future and the future of Sol are really at stake?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Then you are a threat."

Rhinegallis smiled at him. "Is one a threat that does not permit the child to play with fire?" she said coolly.

"May I point out that I am not a child," he said crossly.

"_Ros nile ver tan si vol klys_," she said in her own tongue. "And if you know what I said you'd know what you studied last night."

"When a child is deprived of matches, he is told why--in many cases he is shown mildly what happens. So go ahead, Rhinegallis, treat me as a child--and tell me, Rhinegallis, why I must not play with the Lawson Radiation."

"It is dangerous," she replied.

"In my lifetime," he said, "I have been responsible for the direction of many children. I have yet to turn away a curious--honestly curious--child. Mankind is always curious--providing we know why."

"It is dangerous," she repeated.

"Dangerous," he echoed. "Dangerous, Rhinegallis, to whom? You?"

"Mr. Carroll," she said quietly, "you think you have trapped me into an admission. You have not. Tell me, do you honestly think you can take the position of demanding an answer?"

"I think so."

"You cannot. You have not."

"No?" he said with a bitter laugh, "then if your race has no evil intent it could stop a lot of trouble, suspicion and labor by guiding us instead of blocking our efforts. Add to that your own refusal to tell me one thing that would frighten me away. I come up with a rather unhappy answer, Rhinegallis."

The girl turned away and left. Her offer to join him for breakfast was forgotten. Carroll watched her back as she went down the hallway and considered himself lucky. Even considering that their way of life was alien to Terran thinking, no advancing race could ever deny honest curiosity unless it had some ulterior motive. Ergo, they were suppressing the truth about the Lawson Radiation because they were afraid that Terra would find the answer!

From behind him he heard Kingallis chuckling.

"_Val tas Winel yep frah?_"

Carroll turned angrily. "Sell it to Tin Pan Alley," he snapped. "I've heard worse jangle songs!"

He stamped off angrily to his room.