Chapter 17

Underwood’s physical body recovered slowly from the severe shock of the operation. He was immune to the pain of it, however, for having the abasic senses was like possessing another body. He could close all the normal channels of perception and exist with his consciousness operating only through the abasic senses.

While the fleet sped about the planet on its path of useless destruction, Underwood spent his hours practising the use of his new powers.

Gradually, he obtained an understanding of their properties and some of their functions. The tri-abasa was the sensory organ, located at the base of his brain, which could pick up distant, focusable sensations which any of his normal five senses could detect. They were controllable in their subjective effects, however, as he had found when going beyond the limits of the ship. Though he had been unaware of the interstellar cold, it had no subjective effect upon his body or his sensory apparatus.

The dor-abasa was the organ of communication, but it worked in combination with the tri-abasa in order to transmit and receive sensory effects. So it was that the two of them in combination could transmit not only ordinary communication, but could convey the actual sensations of heat, cold, light, sound.

And these same two organs were capable of dispensing swift and silent death.

How this happened was the greatest mystery Underwood had to solve. He experimented by hurling the powers upon an artificial nervous system rigged up from a network of wires. A strong electric field was definitely measured within the wires, but it had properties that were not within the physicists’ prior experience. Regardless, Underwood continued with his practising and found that he could increase the strength of that field more each time. If necessary, a full understanding of how it destroyed nerve tissue could wait until they reach their objectives upon Earth.

The third organ, the seaa-abasa, was the strangest of all. Interconnected intimately with the other two through nerve channels, it nevertheless had no obvious functions. Jandro had referred to it as the receptacle of life. It appeared to be the belief of the Dragbora that everything representing the individual could be drawn into the seaa-abasa when death approached.

Eons ago, the art of artificially reconstructing new bodies into which the organ could be placed, a process constituting literal resurrection, had been lost, but the Dragbora lived in hope of recovering the forgotten knowledge. This was their explanation of the preservation of the seaa-abasa, each family possessing the vast collection of its ancestral organs back to the time of the expulsion from their parent world.

What basis in fact there was to this theory, the scientists did not know. Apparently, such resurrection had never been accomplished, yet with each death, the seaa-abasa was religiously removed and preserved.

Underwood felt like some ancient gladiator training for an arena battle, but never had any gladiator fought for such a prize. No one knew better than he that at the moment he faced Demarzule and challenged the Sirenian, he might face equal and perhaps superior powers of destruction, for Demarzule was old in experience.

There was a defense against it, and to this Underwood turned his attention, for it was difficult in function. The dor-abasa had the power to absorb and store the destructive energies. Underwood discovered it almost by accident when Mason’s technicians set up equipment for duplicating the destructive force as nearly as possible. It was weak and wholly ineffective, but it acted upon the dor-abasa, and the organ absorbed it involuntarily.

He was absolutely confident that they had succeeded in finding the great weapon for which they had come. The ancient Dragboran-Sirenian culture had obviously possessed the force shell as a protection. Toshmere’s words made that plain, but they had misunderstood the implications when he had said, “They have found a way through the barrier. Our men are falling one by one.”

Trained in physical ways of thinking, they had overlooked any such possibility as the superior powers of the Dragboran abasa.

There was one other thing that worried Underwood, however, and that was the possibility of producing the effects of the abasic weapon by electronic means. Though the scientists were failing almost completely in their attempts to do that, he wondered if perhaps the Terrestrians under Demarzule might not succeed.

In the scientists’ favor, however, was the fact that though he possessed a vast reservoir of scientific knowledge, Demarzule was still only the dictator, the politician. He was no scientist.

On the third day following the operation, Underwood was able to be up about the ship for a few moments, though by means of the abasic senses he had been actively supervising the work in the laboratory during the entire time.

He felt his powers growing almost hourly, and the vista of the new world of physical and mental powers into which he was coming was almost overwhelming. He sensed other new and untried properties of the organs, which he dared not experiment with yet. There would be time enough when they reached Earth.

An accurate watch had been kept on the battle fleet from Earth. Its wanton firing of the ancient cities was completed by the time Underwood was able to rise physically from his bed. The observer reported the ships were turning about and returning in the direction of the Lavoisier.

“We’d better get into space,” said Underwood. “There’s no reason for staying here longer, and I don’t want them to burn away all our probes again if we can help it. They may try to send a surrender demand or something of the sort, but let’s be in space where we can maneuver when they do it.”

The Lavoisier lifted from the surface of the planet, its course set for Earth, more than ninety million light years away.

The force shell about it glistened in space like a new star, and through the probes the observers aboard saw the fleet swiftly shift its course in pursuit.

Underwood left the ship and let his senses rove through the space about the vessel. He remained like some omnipotent observer in space, while the shining bubble sped through the heavens. Behind it came the twenty mighty battleships, their acceleration high enough to overtake the Lavoisier. Impulsively, Underwood drifted toward the nearest and entered through the hull.

It was the giant flagship, Creagor. The Disciples who formed the fighting forces were like men reborn. There was none of the blasé, disillusioned attitude that had been prevalent upon Earth before the coming of Demarzule. Instead, there was a zealous, inspired attitude that frightened Underwood. It was a fanatic, desperate, unhealthy thing.

He tried to picture the nations of the Earth filled with such men driven by the same kind of unholy inspiration. It sickened him, for even if Demarzule were destroyed, the Earth would be no place where a sane man could find peace for decades to come. In death, Demarzule might become a martyr and live more strongly than ever in the minds of his followers.

As Underwood moved so strangely among his enemies, he heard occasional remarks concerning the Lavoisier and its scientists. Blasphemer and infidel were the mildest terms applied to them.

He came to the control room, where the Admiral was in conference with the Captain of the flagship.

“We have our orders, Captain Montrose,” the Admiral was saying. “Destruction of the ship and all its occupants is to be complete.”