Chapter VI: Proof

Once in his room, Carroll gave way to a period of complete slump, both mental and physical. He just sat there and felt--not thought about--the sheer impossibility of a single man successfully fighting an entire inimical culture.

The more he considered it the more he felt the futility of it all. The fact that he of all the teeming billions of Sol's heritage, was cognizant made it that more hopeless.

Then out of that last, single, hopeless fact James Forrest Carroll took a new hope.

For upon himself and himself alone rested the salvation of mankind! Regardless of what the world might think of him, regardless of life itself, he must carry on!

And when he returned to confront Doctor Pollard he must have visible proof!

The day dragged slowly. As usual, Kingallis did his studying, but found it hopeless because of Carroll's deep funk. Kingallis gave up and left Carroll, which was worse for Carroll because he had all those long hours in which to sit and stew.

Evening came, and with it came more hope.

Whatever it was that Carroll learned it was there and stuck tight. Whether valid or useless it was there. It seemed useful but he could not tell.

For instance there was a concept of a circlet of silvery wire. This was mounted on a small cylindrical slug of metal that enclosed a bimorph crystal. The picture concept showed contour surfaces of force or energy that grew progressively fainter as they retreated from the circlet of wire.

Not magnetism--for Carroll could see no energizing current. Not electrostatic field--for there could be no gradient. The word-concept for the thing was "_Selvan thi tan vi son klys vornakal ingra rol vou._"

Well--whenever Carroll knew words he would know what the circlet of wire did--and why.

But as he drew the diagram on a sheet of paper and labeled each part with a Terran symbol-system representing the alien sounds Carroll understood one other thing. No book is complete without an index!

Wire recordings of text books are impractical otherwise. An engineer seeking information on the winding, packing fraction of a certain type of wire would not care to wade through four hours of facts. Of course he should know it already, for the facts would be indelibly impressed upon his mind.

But there was the forgetting-factor that comes from disuse of any fact and doubtless this automatic means of education did not forever endow the owner with an eidetic memory of everything--never to be lost no matter how long the facts lie in disuse. But every text book has an index.

And so Carroll sought the laboratory again that night and selected another roll at random. He placed it in the machine and, as he started it, hurled a thought into the machine.

Not words, but mere concept--the abstract idea of listing hurled into the machine and the wire reel sang swiftly through the machine to slow down at a listing.

Useless, of course--there were things like, "_Walklin--norva Kin. Fol sa ganna mel zin._" Chapter and verse, probably. What Carroll sought was a dictionary.

He tried another reel and found it as mystifying. A third reel came upon a listing that seemed vaguely familiar. Along with the mere words, of course, there were mental pictures.

"_Zale_," he learned, was a measure of distance equivalent to seventeen thousand times ten to the eighth power times the wavelength of the spectroscopic line of _evaalorg_.

Carroll had hit upon a section of physical identities found in most physics texts.

* * * * *

He also learned a large number of physical identities of no consequence. The unit of gravity expressed in the alien terms meant nothing to a man used to dynes and poundals. There was too much left unsaid.

What the element _evaalorg_ might be Carroll had no idea, although if he persisted he might hit upon a chemistry text--and it was safe to assume that the Periodic Chart of the atoms would be the same in any of the galaxy.

He smiled. It was like trying to calculate the true size of Noah's Ark by assuming the length of a cubit. When you have finished calculating you have a plus or minus thirty percent.

He was about to select another case when the door opened softly and Rhinegallis entered.

"Why do you try?" she asked. Her voice and her manner were as though she had not walked away from his question of almost eighteen hours ago.

"Why?" he repeated dully.

"Yes why? Why do you insist in the face of the impossible?"

"Because," he said, facing her deliberately, "when I admit defeat James Forrest Carroll dies!"

"You're not suicidal."

"Madness," he said, "is suicide of the mind!"

Rhinegallis nodded and then looked down. He went to her and lifted her face by placing a hand under her chin.

"Rhinegallis," he said softly, "place yourself in my position. You are a prisoner of a culture that is inimical to your own. You are kept alive as a museum piece, a sample of life that refuses to be swayed by your mind-directing machinery. Of all the people of your race, you are the only one that knows and believes.

"Death--or worse--awaits you and yours at the end of some unknown time. You are in the position of being the only one that can do anything at all. Tell me, Rhinegallis, would you sit quietly and accept it?"

"Since I would be unable to do anything alone," replied Rhinegallis, "I would accept fate."

"Then die!" snapped Carroll. "Do nothing? Try nothing? That is stagnation--and stagnation is death!"

"I think Kingallis knows that," said the alien girl with a flash of recognition.

"Oh," said Carroll, crestfallen. "Then Kingallis gives me some old outdated volumes of books to play with, as a willful child is directed to cut old rags instead of the lace curtains. Since I must play games, by all means give me games that will harm no one!

"Mumbletypeg labeled 'dangerous' and celluloid toys made up to resemble fierce knives on the theory that children prefer such toys of the block and rattle nature. Bottles full of colored sand with skull-and-crossbones on them and directions against certain mixtures.

"The amusement-park roller coaster that seems dangerous--in fact someone knows someone who knows of a bad accident on it--but is, in fact, less dangerous than a ride in an automobile through traffic."

Rhinegallis was silent.

"Then what am I to do?" he stormed. "I have no one here of my own kind. Not a single understanding soul to lean upon in a moment of stress. A man alone in an inimical environment--and I am expected to play your tricks for you!"

"You--"

"Am I expected to aid you?"

"No," she said honestly. "Yet in deference to your--"

"Deference!" he laughed scornfully. "Deference? No, Rhinegallis, not deference nor even respect. I am the experimental dog that must be pampered because my life and my mind and my body must be studied. Not deference, Rhinegallis, but the deadly fear of a spreading poison. Isolation."

"I am afraid that I should not have come," she said--but it was more a spoken thought than an attempt to convey anything.

"Then you tell Kingallis that no man will strive forever with no result. The donkey must once in a while get a taste of the carrot."

"What do you want?" she asked softly.

"And if I tell you will I get the truth--or just more runaround?" he asked.

"You are too suspicious," she said softly. "Deference you may not have, really. But you do have respect."

"What manner of respect can you possibly have for me?" he said with an open sneer.

"You are a strong man," replied Rhinegallis. "Your strength is sufficient to penetrate the mental beam. To defy King's attempts to study you, bar my tries at following your reason. Kingallis can point the remote hypnosis beam at me and from it can read my innermost thought.

"Against all resistance the hypnoscope is best--except against James Forrest Carroll. You, Carroll, resent this studying and prying. Know--and feel gratified--that as little as you have learned from my brother he knows less of you!"

"And after defying all to completion the defiance is obliterated," replied Carroll bitterly. "For me--oblivion. For mine--what?"

"It need not be--loneliness," she said in a soft voice.

"Joy in the shadow of the sword?" he said sourly. "Pleasures of the flesh with an alien race that would not even understand my passionate gesture?"

He laughed shortly and roughly.

"Affection is but a prelude to understanding between mates. Tell me," he said with extreme cynicism, "have you laid your egg this year?"

"You--_no_!" she said quickly. "I was but trying to ease your lot."

He dropped his cynicism instantly. Rhinegallis seemed honestly hurt at his calloused attitude.

"You cannot, Rhinegallis," he said softly. "I am no longer a youth, to whom personal passion and pleasure is the ultimate. I give you a demonstration of affection." He placed both hands upon her shoulders and squeezed gently. He leaned down and kissed her lightly "Not deep, but still a genuine gesture. Do you respond? No, you do not, for your race is utterly alien despite your appearance. Do you then expect me to continue, knowing that you do not even understand why I might derive sensual pleasure from such contact?"

"Even though we be alien," she said, "the fact that you do enjoy contact might give me--"

"Stop rationalizing," he said roughly.

"I'm not," she said. "There is a meeting of minds that far exceeds any crude mating of bodies."

"Then," he said with a queer crooked smile, "let's keep this on a mental basis, huh?"

* * * * *

Rhinegallis nodded quietly. She went to a side cupboard and took out a single reel of wire.

"Here is what you want," she told him. "Swiftly now, for Kingallis must never know."

"A nibble of the carrot," he observed.

"You want a whole meal?" she returned angrily. "Are you devoid of understanding?"

"I am permitted to play with innocuous trifles," he said. "When I discover their ineffectiveness I am invited to seduction. Failing that, I am offered some trifle of value. Tell me, Rhinegallis, how far will you go to lull my mind into inactivity?"

For answer, Rhinegallis turned and left him. Perhaps if Rhinegallis had been one of Sol's children she might have been crying or at least racked with the bitterness that comes of having an honest gesture scorned. Whatever her reaction Carroll shrugged as she left the room and he forgot her as he looked at the single recording.

"I hope," he said, "that this carrot is sweet...."

Carroll came out of the semi-coma produced by the machine with a premonition of danger--not danger to himself, but a vague unrest, as though someone near to him were being threatened. He was alone and he knew at once that Rhinegallis was the only one of the aliens who knew the truth of this night.

Had any of the others come, they would have seen at once that he was working on a volume of importance and would have stopped him. However, as the minutes passed, the feeling of worry ceased and Carroll felt relief.

He attributed the feeling to a situation known as "wandering concern" which is based upon insecurity. He had been in the mental coma for hours, during which time much might have happened. He had succeeded, with Rhine's aid, in delving into the truth about the alien culture.

This placed him in jeopardy for while they laughed behind his back for toying with the useless records, their derision would change to far deeper distrust and hate were he known to have outguessed them. There is nothing more dangerous than turning a man's bitter joke against him.

So for hours Carroll had been both helpless under the machine and also doing that which was forbidden. He was like the small boy who has been swimming and is not certain of his future until he meets his parents and discovers whether they know of his truancy.

Carroll replaced the record. There was no sense in permitting Rhinegallis to be trapped. Besides, this might go on for some time--and if he could he would fight this out to the very bitter end. Who knew what he might learn next.

This night's work had been language. Not that the volume taught him Alien. It was a volume for aliens, to teach them the Terran languages. But by reverse reasoning it also taught Carroll the alien tongue as well as a couple of good Terran tongues he did not know. He was--because he formerly possessed an excellent knowledge of American--now possessed of Russian, Chinese and Spanish, as well as the single alien tongue.

For the record dealt with concepts and then impressed the word-symbol of the idea in all tongues. And if _Hombre_ means _Man_, conversely, _Man_ means _Hombre_!

Best of all it was a specialized course that dealt with the kind of language scientists and engineers would use, though not exclusively so. Carroll felt cheered. Now he might mingle with them if he wanted to. Stealthily he left the laboratory to return to his room.