The work went on uninterruptedly, day after day; for so many days that both Mergon and Luloy became concerned — the girl very highly so. “Do you suppose we’ve figured wrong?” she asked.
Mergon frowned. “I can’t be sure, of course, but I don’t think so. Pure logic, remember. Everything we’ve done has been designed to keep Klazmon guessing. Off balance. He’s fortified Llurdiax, that’s sure, but we don’t know how heavily and we can’t find out.”
He paused.
“Without using the gizmo, which of course is out,” said Luloy.
“Check. We haven’t sent any spy-rays or anything else. They wouldn’t have got us anything. But he certainly expected us to try. He’ll think we don’t care… which as a matter of fact, we don’t… too much. It’s almost a mathematical certainty that we can handle anything he can throw at us as of now. But if we give him time enough to build more really big stuff it’ll be just too bad.”
“And the horrible old monster is probably doing just exactly that,” Luloy said.
“I wouldn’t wonder. But we can finish the dome before he can build enough stuff, and he can’t let that happen. Especially since we’re not interfering with his prying and spying, but are treating him with the same contempt he used to treat us. That’ll bother him no end. Burn him up! Also… remember that stuff in the dome that no Llurd can possibly understand.”
Luloy laughed. “Because it isn’t anything whatever, really, except Llurd-bait? I’m scared that maybe they will understand it yet — even though I’m sure they won’t.”
“They can’t. Their minds won’t stretch that far in that direction,” Mergon said positively.
“They knew we made a breakthrough, so they’ll know that what they see is only a fraction of what the thing really is; and that’ll scare ’em. As much as Llurdi can be scared, that is. Which isn’t very much. So Klazmon will do something before our dome is finished. As I read the tea-leaves, he’ll have to.”
“But just suppose he doesn’t take the bait?”
“Then we’ll have to take the initiative. I don’t want to — it’d weaken our bargaining position tremendously — but I will if I have to.”
He did not have to. His analysis of the Llurdan mentality and temperament had been accurate.
Four full days before the scheduled date of completion of the dome, Klazmon’s full working projection appeared in the Mallidaxian’s control room. Mergon had detected its coming, but had done nothing to interfere with it. The Llurd quite obviously intended parley, not violence.
“Hail, brother Ilanzlan, Klazmon of the Llurdi,” Mergon greeted his visitor quietly, but in the phraseology of one ruler greeting another on the basis of unquestionable equality.
“Is there perhaps some service that I, Llanzlan Mergon of the Realm of the Jelmi, may perform for you and thus place you in my debt?”
This, to a human dictator, would have been effrontery intolerable; but Mergon had been pretty sure that it would have little or no effect, emotionally, upon Klazmon. Nor did it; to all seeming it had no effect at all. The Llurd merely said, “You wish me to believe that you Jelmi have made a breakthrough sufficiently important to justify the establishment of an independent but coexistent Realm of the Jelmi.”
This was in no sense a question; it was a flat statement. Mergon had been eminently correct in his assumption that he would not have to draw the Llurd a blueprint. Mergon quirked an eyebrow at Luloy, who pressed the button that signaled all the savants in the dome to drop their tools and dash back into the ship.
“That is correct,” Mergon said.
Klazmon’s projection remained motionless and silent; both Jelmi could almost perceive the Llurd’s thoughts. And Mergon, who had tracked the Llurd’s thoughts so unerringly so far, was practically certain that he was still on track.
Klazmon did not actually know whether the Jelmi had made a breakthrough or not. The Jelmi intended to make him believe that they had, and that breakthrough was something that made them either invulnerable or invincible, or both. Any of those matters or assumptions could be either true or false. One of them, the question of invulnerability, could be and should be tested without delay. If they were in fact invulnerable, no possible attack could harm them. If they were not invulnerable they were bluffing and lying and should therefore be eliminated.
Wherefore Mergon was not surprised when Klazmon’s projection vanished without having said another word — nor when, an instant after that vanishment, the Mallidaxian’s mighty defensive screens flared white.
They did not even pause at the yellow or the yellow white, but went directly to the blinding white; to the degree of radiance at which the vessel’s spare began automatically to cut in — spare after spare after spare.
After staring in silence for two long minutes, Mergon said, “We figured their most probable maximum offense and applied a factor of safety of three — and look at ’em!”
White-faced, Luloy licked her lips. “Mighty Llenderllon!” she cried. “How can they possibly deliver such an attack ’way out here?”
Then Mergon picked up his microphone and said, “Our screens are still holding and they’re protecting the dome; but we’re going to need a lot more defense. So go back out there, please, and give me everything you can.”
He then sat back — and stared tight-jawed at the everclimbing needles of his meters and at the unchanging blinding-white brilliance of his vessel’s screens.
22. THE GEAS
As the Llurd’s attack mounted to higher and ever higher plateaus of fury, Mergon slid along his bench to his fourth dimensional controls and there appeared on the floor beside him a lithium-hydride fusion bomb, armed and ready.
He stared at it, his jaw-muscles tightening into lumps. Luloy stared at the thing, too, and her face became even paler than it had been.
“But could you, Merg?” she asked, through stiff lips. “I… I mean, you couldn’t possibly… could you?”
“I don’t know,” he said harshly, scarcely separating locked teeth. “I may have to whether I can or not. We had a factor of safety of three. Two point nine of them are in now and the last tenth is starting up. The dome can’t put out more than that.”
“I know! But if we blow the llanzlanate up, won’t they kill all the Jelmi of all our worlds and start breeding a more tractable race of slaves?”
“That’s the way I read it. In that case we eight hundred could get away clean and start a better civilization somewhere out of range.”
She shuddered. “In that case would life be worth living?”
“It’s a tough decision to make… since the alternative could be for us to kill all the Llurdi.”
“Oh, no!” she cried. “But don’t you think, Merg, that he’ll cooperate? They’re absolutely logical, you know.”
“Maybe. In one way I think so, but I simply can’t see any absolute ruler making such an abject surrender. However, we’ve got to decide right now and we’ll have to stick to our decision — we both know that he can’t be bluffed. If it comes right down to it we can do one of three things. First, commit suicide for our whole eight hundred by not touching the bomb off. Second, wipe them out. Third, let them wipe out all Jelmi except us. What’s your vote?”
“Llenderllon help me! Put that way, there’s — oh, look!” she screamed, in a miraculously changed tone of voice.
“The master-meter! It’s slowing down! It’s going to stop!” She uttered an ear-splitting shriek of pure joy and hurled herself into her husband’s arms.
“It’s stabilized, for a fact,” Mergon said, after their emotions had subsided to something approaching normal “He’s throwing everything he’s got at us. We’re holding him, but just barely, so the question is—”
“One thing first,” she broke in. “My vote. I hate to say it, but we can’t let them kill our race.”