Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE STORM 3 to look at him. The councilof, tinaware of the compulsion, conscious only that he had | turned, said: “You understand your instructions, Cap- tain Maltby?” Maltby nodded. “I do.” The curt words must have evoked a vivid picture. The fat face rippled like palsied jelly and broke out in a new trickle of sweat. “The worst part of it all,” the man groaned, “is that the people of the ship found us by the wildest accident. They had run into one of our meteorite stations and captured its attendant. The attendant sent a general warning and then forced them to kill him before they could discover which of the fifty million suns of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud was us. “Unfortunately, théy did discover that he and the rest of us were all descendants of the robots who had escaped the massacre of the robots in the main galaxy fifteen thousand years ago. “But they were baffled, and without a clue. They started home, stopping off at planets on the way on a chance basis. The seventh stop was us. Captain Maltby—” The man looked almost beside himself. He shook. His face was as colorless as a white shroud. He went on hoarsely: “Captain Maltby, you must not fail. They have asked for a meteorologist to guide them to Cassidor VII, where the central government is located. They mustn’t reach there. You must drive them into the great storm at 473. “We have commissioned you to do this for us because you have the two minds of the Mixed Men. We regret that we have not always fully appreciated your services in the past. But you must admit that, after the wars of the Mixed Men, it was natural that we should be careful about—” Maltby cut off the lame apology. “Forget it,” he said. ““The Mixed Men are robots, too, and therefore as deeply involved, as I see it, as the Dellians and non-Dellians. Just what the Hidden Ones of my kind think, I don’t know, nor do I care. I assure you I shall do my best to destroy this ship.” “Be careful!” the chairman’ urged anxiously. “This ship could destroy us, our planet, our sun in a single minute. We never dreamed that Earth could have gotten so far. ahead of us and produced such a devastat- ingly powerful machine. After all, the non- Dellian robots and, of course, the Mixed Men among us are capable of research work; the former have been laboring fever- ishly for thousands of years. “But, finally, remember that you are not being asked to commit suicide. The battle- ship is absolutely invincible. Just how it will survive a real storm we were not told when we were shown around. But it will. What happens, however, is that everyone aboard becomes ‘unconscious. | *“As a Mixed Man you will be the first to revive. Our combined fleets will be waiting to board the ship the moment you open the doors. Is that clear?” It had been clear the first time it was ex- plained, but these non-Dellians had a habit of repeating themselves, as if thoughts kept growing vague in their minds. As Maltby closed the door of the great room behind him, one of the councilors said to his neighbor: “Has he been told that the storm has gone Nova?” The fat man overheard. He shock his head. His eyes gleamed as he said quietly: “No. After all, he is one of the Mixed Men. We can’t trust him too far no matter what his record.” All morning the reports had come in. Some showed progress, some didn’t. But her basic good humor was untouched by the failures. The great reality was that her luck had held. She had found a planet of the robots. Only one planet so far, but— Grand Captain Laurr smiled grimly. It wouldn’t be long now. Being a supreme com- mander was a terrible business. But she had not shrunk from making the deadly threat: provide all required information, or the entire planet of Kaider III would be de- stroyed. The information was coming in: Popula- tion of Kaider III two billion, one hundred million, two-fifths Dellian, three-fifths non- Dellian robots. Dellians physically and mentally the higher type, but completely lacking in creative ability. Non-Dellians dominated in the research laboratories. The forty-nine other suns whose planets were inhabited were called, in alphabetical order: Assora, Atmion, Bresp, Buraco, Cas- sidor, Corrab— They were located at (1) Assora: Latitude 931, Longitude 27, Center 201 parsecs; (2) Atmion— It went on and on. Just before noon she noted with steely amusement that there was still nothing coming through from the Ccomiclboooks.€c©