Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/32

Rh assigned to the aliens. When the man came he said nothing about what had occurred between them. He had to get away for the moment. Sleth Forander would be as safe in the doctor's care as he could possibly be. There was nothing more that George Mahoney could do. It looked like he'd really done his bit!

He reported to Hugh Wilkinson, listened to ten minutes of the Old Man's tirade before cutting off, and went to bed to sleep the clock around. He hadn't realized the extent of physical exhaustion the past few weeks had cost him.

When he awoke again it was to the sound of the phone once more, and Hugh Wilkinson's voice roared out as he answered it! "Mahoney! You had something to do with it—I know you did! If Sleth Forander dies, you're going to be in one unholy jam. Get down here and let's get our story together before they come for you!"

A breath of cold air seemed to pass over George. "Die? What are you talking about? He just fainted last night. Exhaustion of the trip or something. I called the doctor."

"And the doctor doesn't call it exhaustion or something like that. He says Sleth Forander is in a state of shock that looks like the result of some kind of attack. Did you get in a fight with him?"

"I wouldn't be here if I had. But I'll be down."

He dressed in a kind of frenzy. It wasn't possible that his jolt was capable of doing this to the Ragalian. He interrupted his dressing to put in a call to Nat Bergstrom, asking him to meet at the plant. Then he finished dressing and exceeded the speed limit all the way to the yard.

The others were waiting for him when he arrived. He plunged into a description of his last interview with Sleth Forander. "Everything I suspected was true," he said. "His attitude admitted the whole thing. It was so big he just couldn't take it, isn't that right, Nat?"

The psychologist nodded. "I'm afraid it is. You can't just take the basic premise of a person's life and blast it to oblivion. The same goes for other-world creatures. Evidently Sleth Forander's whole existence evolves around protection of his brain, as you guessed. That's why merely going into the exposed control room on the ship produced such a neurotic-appearing reaction. From our point of view it was neurotic. From his, it was perfectly normal. Rock come along; head get knocked off, as he says. He's right."

"He's not right!" George cried. "His people have gone beyond the stage where it's right. They want to get out into space and get a footing that their intellectual potential deserves. This protect-your-brain-at-all-cost business has got to go by the boards. They can build special hats, graft a bony skull over the brain, any one of a thousand things, but they've got to admit the