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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stutterer, by R.R. Merliss
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Stutterer
+
+Author: R.R. Merliss
+
+Illustrator: Riley
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2007 [EBook #22512]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STUTTERER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STUTTERER
+
+BY R. R. MERLISS
+
+
+ _A man can be killed by a toy gun--he can
+ die of fright, for heart attacks can kill.
+ What, then, is the deadly thing that must
+ be sealed away, forever locked in buried
+ concrete--a thing or an idea?_
+
+
+Illustrated by Riley
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Out of the twenty only one managed to escape the planet. And he did it
+very simply, merely by walking up to the crowded ticket window at one of
+the rocket ports and buying passage to Earth. His Army identification
+papers passed the harassed inspection of the agent, and he gratefully
+and silently pocketed the small plastic stub that was handed him in
+exchange for his money.
+
+He picked his way with infinite care through the hordes of ex-soldiers
+clamoring for passage back to the multitudinous planets from which they
+had come. Then he slowly climbed the heavy ramp into the waiting rocket.
+
+He saw with relief that the seats were strongly constructed, built to
+survive the pressure of many gravities and he chose one as far removed
+as possible from the other passengers.
+
+He was still very apprehensive, and, as he waited for the rocket to take
+off, he tried hard to remember the principles of the pulse drive that
+powered the ship, and whether his additional weight would upset its
+efficiency enough to awaken suspicion.
+
+The seats filled quickly with excited hurrying passengers. Soon he heard
+the great door clang shut, and saw the red light flicker on, warning of
+the take-off. He felt a slow surge of pressure as the ship arose from
+the ground, and his chair creaked ominously with the extra weight. He
+became fearful that it might collapse, and he strained forward trying to
+shift some of the pressure through his feet to the floor. He sat that
+way, tense and immobile, for what seemed a long time until abruptly the
+strain was relieved and he heard the rising and falling whine of the
+rockets that told him the ship was in pulse drive, flickering back and
+forth across the speed of light.
+
+He realized that the pilots had not discovered his extra weight, and
+that the initial hazards were over. The important thing was to look like
+a passenger, a returning soldier like the others, so that no one would
+notice him and remember his presence.
+
+His fellow travelers were by this time chatting with one another, some
+playing cards, and others watching the teledepth screens. These were the
+adventurers who had flocked from all corners of the galaxy to fight in
+the first national war in centuries. They were the uncivilized few who
+had read about battle and armed struggle in their history books and
+found the old stories exciting.
+
+They paid no attention to their silent companion who sat quietly looking
+through the quartz windows at the diamond-bright stars, tacked against
+the blackness of infinity.
+
+The fugitive scarcely moved the entire time of the passage. Finally when
+Earth hung out in the sky like a blue balloon, the ship cut its
+pulsations and swung around for a tail landing.
+
+The atmosphere screamed through the fins of the rocket, and the
+continents and the countries, and then the rivers and the mountains took
+shape. The big ship settled down as gently as a snowflake, shuddered a
+few times and was quiet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The passengers hurriedly gathered up their scattered belongings and
+pushed toward the exit in a great rush to be out and back on Earth.
+
+The fugitive was the last to leave. He stayed well away from the others,
+being fearful that, if he should touch or brush up against someone, his
+identity might be recognized.
+
+When he saw the ramp running from the ship to the ground, he was
+dismayed. It seemed a flimsy structure, supported only by tubular steel.
+Five people were walking down it, and he made a mental calculation of
+their weight--about eight hundred pounds he thought. He weighed five
+times that. The ramp was obviously never built to support such a load.
+
+He hesitated, and then he realized that he had caught the eye of the
+stewardess waiting on the ground. A little panicky, he stepped out with
+one foot and he was horrified to feel the steel buckle. He drew back
+hastily and threw a quick glance at the stewardess. Fortunately at the
+moment she was looking down one field and waving at someone.
+
+The ramp floor was supported by steel tubes at its edges and in its
+exact center. He tentatively put one foot in the middle over the support
+and gradually shifted his weight to it. The metal complained creakily,
+but held, and he slowly trod the exact center line to Earth. The
+stewardess' back was turned toward him as he walked off across the field
+toward the customhouse.
+
+He found it comforting to have under his feet what felt like at least
+one yard of cement. He could step briskly and not be fearful of
+betraying himself.
+
+There was one further danger: the customs inspector.
+
+He took his place at the end of the line and waited patiently until it
+led him up to a desk at which a uniformed man sat, busily checking and
+stamping declarations and traveling papers. The official, however, did
+not even look up when he handed him his passport and identification.
+
+"Human. You don't have to go through immigration," the agent said. "Do
+you have anything to declare?"
+
+"N-no," the traveler said. "I d-didn't bring anything in."
+
+"Sign the affidavit," the agent said and pushed a sheet of paper toward
+him.
+
+The traveler picked up a pen from the desk and signed "Jon Hall" in a
+clear, perfect script.
+
+The agent gave it a passing glance and tossed it into a wire basket.
+
+Then he pushed his uniform cap back exposing a bald head. "You're my
+last customer for a while, until the rocket from Sirius comes in. Guess
+I might as well relax for a minute." He reached into a drawer of the
+desk and pulled out a package of cigarettes, of which he lit one.
+
+"You been in the war, too?" he asked.
+
+Hall nodded. He did not want to talk any more than he had to.
+
+The agent studied his face.
+
+"That's funny," he said after a minute. "I never would have picked you
+for one of these so-called adventurers. You're too quiet and peaceful
+looking. I would have put you down as a doctor or maybe a writer."
+
+"N-no," Hall said. "I w-was in the war."
+
+"Well, that shows you can't tell by looking at a fellow," the agent said
+philosophically. He handed Hall his papers. "There you are. The left
+door leads out to the copter field. Good luck on Earth!"
+
+Hall pocketed the stamped documents. "Thanks," he said. "I'm glad to be
+here."
+
+He walked down the wide station room to a far exit and pushed the door
+open. A few steps farther and he was standing on a cement path dug into
+a hillside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Across the valley, bright in the noon sun lay the pine covered slopes of
+the Argus mountains, and at his feet the green Mojave flowering with
+orchards stretched far to the north and south. Between the trees, in the
+center of the valley, the Sacramento River rolled southward in a
+man-made bed of concrete and steel giving water and life to what had a
+century before been dry dead earth.
+
+There was a small outcropping of limestone near the cement walk, and he
+stepped over to it and sat down. He would have been happy to rest and
+enjoy for a few moments his escape and his triumph, but he had to let
+the others know so that they might have hope.
+
+He closed his eyes and groped across the stars toward Grismet. Almost
+immediately he felt an impatient tug at his mind, strong because there
+were many clamoring at once to be heard. He counted them. There were
+seventeen. So one more had been captured since he had left Grismet.
+
+"Be quiet," the told them. "I'll let you see, after a while. First I
+have to reach the two of us that are still free."
+
+Obediently, the seventeen were still, and he groped some more and found
+another of his kind deep in an ice cave in the polar regions of Grismet.
+
+"How goes it?" he asked.
+
+The figure on Grismet lay stretched out at full length on the blue ice,
+his eyes closed. He answered without moving: "They discovered my
+radiation about an hour ago. Pretty soon, they'll start blasting through
+the ice."
+
+The one on Earth felt the chill despair of his comrade and let go. He
+groped about again until he found the last one, the only other one left.
+He was squatting in the cellar of a warehouse in the main city of
+Grismet.
+
+"Have they picked up your trail yet?" he asked.
+
+"No," answered the one in the cellar. "They won't for a while. I've
+scattered depots of radiation all through the town. They'll be some time
+tracking them all down, before they can get to me."
+
+In a flash of his mind, Hall revealed his escape and the one on Grismet
+nodded and said: "Be careful. Be very careful. You are our only hope."
+
+Hall returned then to the seventeen, and he said with his thoughts: "All
+right, now you can look." Immobile in their darkness, they snatched at
+his mind, and as he opened his eyes, they, too, saw the splendors of the
+mountains and the valley, the blue sky, and the gold sun high overhead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The new man was young, only twenty-six. He was lean and dark and very
+enthusiastic about his work. He sat straight in his chair waiting
+attentively while his superior across the desk leafed through a folder.
+
+"Jordan. Tom Jordan," the older man finally said. "A nice old Earth
+name. I suppose your folks came from there."
+
+"Yes, sir," the new man said briskly.
+
+The chief closed the folder.
+
+"Well," he said, "your first job is a pretty important one."
+
+"I realize that, sir," Jordan said. "I know it's a great responsibility
+for a man just starting with the Commission, but I'll give it every
+thing I have."
+
+The chief leaned back in his seat and scratched his chin thoughtfully.
+
+"Normally we start a beginner like you working in a pair with an older
+man. But we just haven't got enough men to go around. There are eight
+thousand planets there"--he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to
+a wall-sized map of the galaxy--"and we've got to cover every one. It
+seems reasonable that if he escaped this planet, he'll go to another
+that will by its atmosphere or its temperature give him some natural
+advantage over us--some place that is either burning hot or at absolute
+zero, or perhaps with a chlorine or sulfur dioxide atmosphere. That's
+why"--he hesitated a minute, but continued because he was a truthful
+man--"I picked you for Earth. It's the most populated of all the planets
+and it seems the least likely one that he would choose."
+
+Jordan's face dropped a little bit when he heard the last piece of
+information, but he said: "I understand, sir, and if he's there, I'll
+bring him back."
+
+The chief slouched farther back in his seat. He picked up a shard of
+rubidium that served as a paper weight and toyed with it.
+
+"I guess you know most of the facts. They are made out of permallium.
+Have you ever seen any of the stuff?"
+
+The new man shook his head. "I read about it though--some new alloy,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Plenty new. It's the hardest stuff anybody has ever made. If you set
+off one hundred successive atom blasts over a lump of permallium, you
+might crystallize and scale maybe a micron off the surface. It will
+stand any temperature or pressure we can produce. That just means
+there's no way to destroy it."
+
+Jordan nodded. He felt a little honored that the chief was giving him
+this explanation in person rather than just turning him over to one of
+the scientific personnel for a briefing. He did not understand that the
+old man was troubled and was talking the situation through as much for
+his own sake as for anyone else's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's the problem," the chief continued. "Essentially an
+indestructible machine with a built-in source of power that one can't
+reach. It had to be built that way--a war instrument, you know."
+
+He stopped and looked squarely at the bright young man sitting across
+the desk. "This lousy war. You'd think the human race would grow up some
+time, wouldn't you?" He filled a pipe with imported Earth tobacco and
+lit it, and took a few deep puffs. "There's something else. I don't know
+how they do it, but they can communicate with one another over long
+distances. That made them very useful for military purposes.
+
+"They are loyal to one another, too. They try to protect each other and
+keep one another from being captured. Do you find that surprising?"
+
+The question caught Jordan unprepared. "Well, yes. It is, kind of--" he
+said. "They are only machines."
+
+The chief closed his eyes for a moment. He seemed tired.
+
+"Yes," he repeated, "they are only machines. Anyway, we don't know
+everything about them, even yet. There are still a few secret angles, I
+think. The men who could tell us are either dead or in hiding.
+
+"There's one fact though that gives us a great advantage. Their
+brain"--he stopped on the word and considered it--"I mean their thinking
+apparatus gives off a very penetrating short-wave length radiation which
+you can pick up on your meters anywhere in a radius of two thousand
+miles, and you can locate the source accurately if you get within fifty
+miles.
+
+"The only real problem you'll have in finding them is the confusion
+created by illegal atomic piles. You'd be surprised how many of them we
+have turned up recently. They are owned by private parties and are run
+illegally to keep from paying the tax on sources of power. You have to
+track those down, but once you get them labeled it will be clear
+sailing."
+
+He stopped to take a few puffs on his pipe.
+
+"Don't try to be a hero," he said after a few moments. "Don't get close
+to the thing you are hunting. None of them yet has injured any of us,
+but if one should want to, he could crush you to death with two
+fingers. Use the permallium nets and net bombs if you locate him."
+
+He tamped his pipe out. "Well, that's it," he said.
+
+The new man arose. "I want you to know that I appreciate the trust you
+have put in me."
+
+"Sure, sure," the chief said, but it was not unfriendly. "Do you like
+the job?"
+
+"It is a great opportunity," Jordan said, and he meant it.
+
+"What do you think about what we do to them after we capture them?"
+
+The new man shrugged. "I suppose it's the only thing to do. It's not as
+though they were human."
+
+"Yeah," the chief said. "I guess so. Anyway, good luck."
+
+Jordan arose and shook the chief's hand. However, just as he was
+stepping through the door, his superior asked him another question. "Did
+you know that one of them stutters?"
+
+He turned back, puzzled. "Stutters? Why should he stutter? How could
+that be?"
+
+The chief shook his head and started cleaning out his pipe.
+
+"I don't know for sure. You'd better get started." He sat back in his
+seat and watched the back of the new man as he disappeared through the
+doorway.
+
+That young fellow has a lot to learn, he thought to himself. But even
+so, maybe he's better off than I am. Maybe I've had too much experience.
+Maybe too much experience puts you back where you started from. You've
+done the wrong thing so many times and profited so many times from your
+mistakes that you see errors and tragedies in everything.
+
+He was depressed, and he did something that usually made him feel better
+again. He reached under the edge of his desk and pulled a little switch
+that made the galactic map on the wall light up in three-dimensional
+depth, then he swung around in his chair so he could see it. Eight
+thousand planets that his race had conquered, eight thousand planets
+hundreds of light-years apart. Looking at the map gave him a sense of
+accomplishment and pride in humanity which even a stupid war and its
+aftermath could not completely destroy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jon Hall, the fugitive, walked along the highway leading south from the
+rocket port. There was very little traffic, only an occasional delivery
+truck carrying meat or groceries. The real highway was half a mile
+overhead where the copters shuttled back and forth up and down the state
+in neat orderly layers.
+
+The seventeen were inside his head, looking through his eyes, and
+feasting on the blueness of the sky, and the rich green vegetation that
+covered the fertile fields. From time to time they talked to him, giving
+advice, asking questions, or making comments, but mostly they looked,
+each knowing that the hours of their sight might be very few.
+
+After walking a while, Hall became aware of someone's footsteps behind
+him. He stopped suddenly in apprehension and swung around. A dozen or so
+paces away was a red-headed boy of about ten or eleven, dressed in
+plastic overalls, and carrying a basket of ripe raspberries. The stains
+about his mouth showed that not all the raspberries were carried in the
+basket.
+
+Hall's anxiety faded, and he was glad to see the child. He had hoped to
+meet someone who was not so old that they would become suspicious, but
+old enough that they might give him directions.
+
+He waited for the lad to catch up.
+
+"Hello," the boy said. "I've been walking behind you most of a mile, but
+I guess you didn't hear me."
+
+"It looks as though you've been p-p-picking raspberries," Hall said.
+
+"Yup. My dad owns a patch by the river. Want some?" He proffered the
+basket.
+
+"No, thank you," Hall answered. He resumed his walk up the highway with
+the boy at his side.
+
+"D-do you live around here," he asked.
+
+"Just up the road a ways." The lad studied his companion for a minute.
+"You stutter, don't you?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"There was a boy in my class who used to stutter. The teacher said it
+was because he thought so far ahead of what he said he got all tangled
+up." The boy reached in his basket for a handful of berries and chewed
+them thoughtfully. "She was always after him to talk slower, but I guess
+it didn't do any good. He still stutters."
+
+"Is there a p-power plant around here?" Hall asked. "You know, where the
+electricity comes from."
+
+"You mean the place where they have the nu-nuclear fission"--the boy
+stumbled on the unfamiliar word, but got it out--"and they don't let you
+in because you get poisoned or something?"
+
+"Yes, I think that's it."
+
+"There are two places. There's one over at Red Mountain and another over
+at Ballarat."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"Well--" The boy stopped to think. "Red Mountain's straight ahead, maybe
+ten miles, and Ballarat's over there"--he pointed west across the orange
+groves--"maybe fifteen miles."
+
+"Good," Hall said. "Good." And he felt glad inside of himself. Maybe it
+could be done, he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They walked along together. Hall sometimes listening to the chattering
+of the boy beside him, sometimes listening to and answering the distant
+voices of the seventeen. Abruptly, a few hundred yards before the house
+that the boy had pointed out as his father's, a small sports car whipped
+down the highway, coming on them almost without warning. The lad jumped
+sideways, and Hall, to avoid touching him, stepped off the concrete
+road. His leg sank into the earth up to the mid-calf. He pulled it out
+as quickly as he could.
+
+The boy was looking at the fast retreating rear of the sports car.
+
+"Gee," he said. "I sure didn't see them coming." Then he caught sight of
+the deep hole alongside the road, and he stared at it. "Gosh, you sure
+made a footprint there," he said wonderingly.
+
+"The ground was soft," Hall said. "C-come along."
+
+But instead of following, the boy walked over to the edge of the road
+and stared into the hole. He tentatively stamped on the earth around it.
+"This ground isn't soft," he said. "It's hard as a rock." He turned and
+looked at Hall with big eyes.
+
+Hall came close to the boy and took hold of his jacket. "D-don't pay any
+attention to it, son. I just stepped into a soft spot."
+
+The boy tried to pull away. "I know who you are," he said. "I heard
+about you on the teledepth."
+
+Suddenly, in the way of children, panic engulfed him and he flung his
+basket away and threw himself back and forth, trying to tear free. "Let
+me go," he screamed. "Let me go. Let me go."
+
+"Just l-listen to me, son," Hall pleaded. "Just listen to me. I won't
+hurt you."
+
+But the boy was beyond reasoning. Terror stricken, he screamed at the
+top of his voice, using all his little strength to escape.
+
+"If you p-promise to l-listen to me, I'll let you go," Hall said.
+
+"I promise," the boy sobbed, still struggling.
+
+But the moment Hall let go of his coat, he tore away and ran as fast as
+he could over the adjacent field.
+
+"W-wait--don't run away," Hall shouted. "I won't hurt you. Stay where
+you are. I couldn't follow you anyway. I'd sink to my hips."
+
+The logic of the last sentence appealed to the frightened lad. He
+hesitated and then stopped and turned around, a hundred feet or so from
+the highway.
+
+"L-listen," said Hall earnestly. "The teledepths are wr-wrong. They
+d-didn't tell you the t-truth about us. I d-don't want to hurt anyone.
+All I n-need is a few hours. D-don't tell anyone for j-just a few hours
+and it'll be all right." He paused because he didn't know what to say
+next.
+
+The boy, now that he seemed secure from danger had recovered his wits.
+He plucked a blade of grass from the ground and chewed on an end of it,
+looking for all the world like a grownup farmer thoughtfully considering
+his fields. "Well, I guess you could have hurt me plenty, but you
+didn't," he said. "That's something."
+
+"Just a few hours," Hall said. "It won't take long. Y-you can tell your
+father tonight."
+
+The boy suddenly remembered his raspberries when he saw his basket and
+its spilled contents on the highway.
+
+"Why don't you go along a bit," he said. "I would like to pick up those
+berries I dropped."
+
+"Remember," Hall said, "just a few hours." He turned and started
+walking again toward Red Mountain. Inside his mind, the seventeen asked
+anxiously, "Do you think he'll give the alarm? Will he report your
+presence?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Back on the highway, the boy was gathering the berries back into his
+basket while he tried to make his mind up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jordan reached Earth atmosphere about two o'clock in the afternoon. He
+immediately reported in to the Terrestrial police force, and via the
+teledepth screen spoke with a bored lieutenant. The lieutenant, after
+listening to Jordan's account of his mission, assured him without any
+particular enthusiasm of the willingness of the Terrestrial forces to
+cooeperate, and of more value, gave him the location of all licensed
+sources of radiation in the western hemisphere.
+
+The galactic agent set eagerly to work, and in the next several hours
+uncovered two unlisted radiation sources, both of which he promptly
+investigated. In one case, north of Eugene, he found in the backyard of
+a metal die company a small atomic pile. The owner was using it as an
+illegal generator of electricity, and when he saw Jordan snooping about
+with his detection instruments, he immediately offered the agent a
+sizable bribe. It was a grave mistake since Jordan filed charges against
+him, via teledepth, not only for evading taxes, but also for attempted
+bribery.
+
+The second strike seemed more hopeful. He picked up strong radiation in
+a rather barren area of Montana; however when he landed, he found that
+it was arising from the earth itself. From a short conversation with the
+local authorities, he learned that the phenomenon was well known: an
+atomic fission plant had been destroyed at that site during the Third
+World War.
+
+He was flying over the lovely blue water of Lake Bonneville, when his
+teledepth screen flickered. He flipped the switch on and the
+lieutenant's picture flooded in.
+
+"I have a call I think you ought to take," the Earth official said. "It
+seems as though it might be in your line. It's from a sheriff in a small
+town in California. I'll have the operator plug him in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Abruptly the picture switched to that of a stout red-faced man wearing
+the brown uniform of a county peace officer.
+
+"You're the galactic man?" the sheriff asked.
+
+"Yes. My name is Tom Jordan," Jordan said.
+
+"Mine's Berkhammer." It must have been warm in California because the
+sheriff pulled out a large handkerchief and mopped his brow. When he was
+done with that he blew his nose loudly. "Hay fever," he announced.
+
+"Want to see my credentials?"
+
+"Oh sure, sure," the sheriff hastily replied. He scrutinized the card
+and badge that Jordan displayed. After a moment, he said, "I don't know
+why I'm looking at those. They might be fakes for all I know. Never saw
+them before and I'll probably never see them again."
+
+"They're genuine."
+
+"The deuce with formality," the sheriff said heavily. "There's some kid
+around here who thinks he saw that ... that machine you're supposed to
+be looking for."
+
+"When was that?" Jordan asked.
+
+"About four hours ago. Here, I'll let you talk to him yourself." He
+pulled his big bulk to one side, and a boy and his father walked into
+the picture. The boy was red-eyed, as though he had been crying. The
+father was a tall, stoop-shouldered farmer, dressed like his son in
+plastic overalls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sheriff patted the boy on the back. "Come on, Jimmy. Tell the man
+what you saw."
+
+"I saw him," the boy said sullenly. "I walked up the highway with him."
+
+Jordan leaned forward toward the screen.
+
+"How did you know who he was?"
+
+"I knew because when he stepped on the ground, he sank into it up to his
+knee. He tried to say the ground was soft, but it was hard. I know it
+was hard."
+
+"Why did you wait so long to tell anybody?" Jordan asked softly.
+
+The boy looked at him with defiance and dislike in his eyes and kept his
+small mouth clamped shut.
+
+His father nudged him roughly in the ribs.
+
+"Answer the man," he commanded.
+
+Jimmy looked down at his shoes.
+
+"Because he asked me not to tell for a while," he said curtly.
+
+"Stubborn as nails," the father said not without pride in his voice.
+"Got more loyalty to a lousy machine than to the whole human race."
+
+"Which way did he go, Jimmy?"
+
+"Toward Red Mountain. I think maybe to the power house. He asked me
+where it was."
+
+"What do you think he wants with that?" the sheriff asked of Jordan.
+
+Jordan shrugged and shook his head.
+
+"Maybe it's all in the kid's head," the sheriff suggested. "These wild
+teledepth programs they look at give them all kinds of ideas."
+
+"It isn't in my head," Jimmy said violently. "I saw him. He stepped on
+the ground and stuck his foot into it. I talked to him. And I know
+something else. He stutters."
+
+"What?" said the sheriff. "Now I know you're lying."
+
+The father started dragging the boy by the arm. "Come on home, Jimmy.
+You got one more licking coming."
+
+Jordan, however, was sure the boy was not lying. "Leave him alone," he
+said. "He's right. He did see him." He took a fast look at the timepiece
+on his panel board. "I'll be down in an hour and a half. Wait for me."
+
+He flicked the switch off, and kicked up the motors. The ship shot
+southward almost as rapidly as a projectile.
+
+He had topped the Sierras and had just turned into the great central
+valley of California when, with the impact of a blow, a frightening
+thought occurred to him.
+
+He flicked the screen on again, and he caught the sheriff sitting behind
+his desk industriously scratching himself in one armpit.
+
+"Listen," Jordan said, speaking very fast. "You've got to send out a
+national alarm. You must get every man you can down to the power plant.
+You've got to stop him from getting in."
+
+The sheriff stopped scratching himself and stared at Jordan.
+
+"What are you so het up about, young man?"
+
+"Do it, and do it now," Jordan almost shouted. "He'll tear the pile
+apart and let the hafnium go off. It'll blow half the state off the
+planet."
+
+The sheriff was unperturbed. "Mr. Star boy," he said sarcastically, "any
+grammar school kid knows that if someone came within a hundred yards of
+one of those power-house piles, he'd burn like a match stick. And
+besides why would he want to blow himself to pieces?"
+
+"He's made out of permallium." Jordan was shouting now.
+
+The sheriff suddenly grew pale. "Get off my screen. I'm calling
+Sacramento."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jordan set the ship for maximum speed, well beyond the safety limit. He
+kept peering ahead into the dusk, momentarily fearful that the whole
+countryside would light up in one brilliant flash. In a few minutes he
+was sweating and trembling with the tension.
+
+Over Walnut Grove, he recognized the series of dams, reservoirs and
+water-lifts where the Sacramento was raised up out of its bed and turned
+south. For greater speed, he came close to Earth, flying at emergency
+height, reserved ordinarily for police, firemen, doctors and ambulances.
+He set his course by sight following the silver road of the river,
+losing it for ten or fifteen miles at a time where it passed through
+subterranean tunnels, picking it up again at the surface, always
+shooting south as fast as the atmosphere permitted.
+
+At seven thirty, when the sun had finally set, he sighted the lights of
+Red Mountain, and he cut his speed and swung in to land. There was no
+trouble picking out the power plant; it was a big dome-shaped building
+surrounded by a high wall. It was so brilliantly lit up, that it stood
+out like a beacon, and there were several hundred men milling about
+before it.
+
+He settled down on the lawn inside the walls, and the sheriff came
+bustling up, a little more red in the face than usual.
+
+"I've been trying to figure for the last hour what the devil I would do
+to stop him if he decided to come here," Berkhammer said.
+
+"He's not here then?"
+
+The sheriff shook his head. "Not a sign of him. We've gone over the
+place three times."
+
+Jordan settled back in relief, sitting down in the open doorway of his
+ship. "Good," he said wearily.
+
+"Good!" the sheriff exploded. "I don't know whether I'd rather have him
+show up or not. If this whole business is nothing more than the crazy
+imagination of some kid who ought to get tanned and a star-cop with milk
+behind his ears, I'm really in the soup. I've sent out an alarm and I've
+got the whole state jumping. There's a full mechanized battalion of
+state troops waiting in there." He pointed toward the power plant.
+"They've got artillery and tanks all around the place."
+
+Jordan jumped down out of the ship. "Let's see what you've got set up
+here. In the meantime, stop fretting. I'd rather see you fired than
+vaporized along with fifty million other people."
+
+"I guess you're right there," Berkhammer conceded, "but I don't like to
+have anyone make a fool out of me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Ballarat, an old man, Eddie Yudovich, was the watchman and general
+caretaker of the electrical generation plant. Actually, his job was a
+completely unnecessary one, since the plant ran itself. In its very
+center, buried in a mine of graphite were the tubes of hafnium, from
+whose nuclear explosions flowed a river of electricity without the need
+of human thought or direction.
+
+He had worked for the company for a long time and when he became
+crippled with arthritis, the directors gave him the job so that he might
+have security in his latter years.
+
+Yudovich, however, was a proud old man, and he never once acknowledged
+to himself or to anyone else that his work was useless. He guarded and
+checked the plant as though it were the storehouse of the Terrestrial
+Treasury. Every hour punctually, he made his rounds through the
+building.
+
+At approximately seven thirty he was making his usual circuit when he
+came to the second level. What he discovered justified all the years of
+punctilious discharge of his duties. He was startled to see a man
+kneeling on the floor, just above where the main power lines ran. He had
+torn a hole in the composition floor, and as Yudovich watched, he
+reached in and pulled out the great cable. Immediately the intruder
+glowed in the semidarkness with an unearthly blue shine and sparkles
+crackled off of his face, hands and feet.
+
+Yudovich stood rooted to the floor. He knew very well that no man could
+touch that cable and live. But as he watched, the intruder handled it
+with impunity, pulling a length of wire out of his pocket and making
+some sort of a connection.
+
+It was too much for the old man. Electricity was obviously being stolen.
+He roared out at the top of his voice, and stumped over to the wall
+where he threw the alarm switch. Immediately, a hundred arc lights
+flashed on, lighting the level brighter than the noon sun, and a
+tremendously loud siren started wailing its warning to the whole
+countryside.
+
+The intruder jumped up as though he had been stabbed. He dropped the
+wires, and after a wild look around him, he ran at full speed toward the
+far exit.
+
+"Hold on there," Yudovich shouted and tried to give chase, but his
+swollen, crooked knees almost collapsed with the effort.
+
+His eyes fell on a large wrench lying on a worktable, and he snatched it
+up and threw it with all his strength. In his youth he had been a ball
+player with some local fame as a pitcher, and in his later life, he was
+addicted to playing horseshoes. His aim was, therefore, good, and the
+wrench sailed through the air striking the runner on the back of the
+head. Sparks flew and there was a loud metallic clang, the wrench
+rebounding high in the air. The man who was struck did not even turn his
+head, but continued his panicky flight and was gone in a second.
+
+When he realized there was no hope of effecting a capture, Yudovich
+stumped over to see the amount of the damage. A hole had been torn in
+the floor, but the cable itself was intact.
+
+Something strange caught his attention. Wherever the intruder had put
+his foot down, there were many radiating cracks in the composition
+floor, just as though someone had struck a sheet of ice with a sledge
+hammer.
+
+"I'll be danged," he said to himself. "I'll be danged and double
+danged."
+
+He turned off the alarm and then went downstairs to the teledepth screen
+to notify the sheriff's office.
+
+A few hundred yards from the powerhouse, Jon Hall stood in the darkness,
+listening to the voices of his fellows. There were eighteen of them, not
+seventeen, for a short while before the one in the ice cave had been
+captured, and they railed at him with a bitter hopeless anger.
+
+He looked toward the bright lights of the powerhouse, considering
+whether he should return. "It's too late," said one of them. "The alarm
+is already out." "Go into the town and mix with the people," another
+suggested. "If you stay within a half mile of the hafnium pile, the
+detection man will not be able to pick up your radiation and maybe you
+will have a second chance."
+
+They all assented in that, and Hall, weary of making his own decisions
+turned toward the town. He walked through a tree-lined residential
+street, the houses with neatly trimmed lawns, and each with a copter
+parked on the roof. In almost every house the teledepths were turned on
+and he caught snatches of bulletins about himself: "... Is known to be
+in the Mojave area." "... About six feet in height and very similar to a
+human being. When last seen, he was dressed in--" "Governor Leibowitz
+has promised speedy action and attorney general Markle has stated--"
+
+The main street of Ballarat was brilliantly lighted. Many of the
+residents, aroused by the alarm from the powerhouse, were out, standing
+in small groups in front of the stores and talking excitedly to one
+another.
+
+He hesitated, unwilling to walk through the bright street, but uncertain
+where to turn. Two men talking loudly came around the corner suddenly
+and he stepped back into a store entrance to avoid them. They stopped
+directly in front of him. One of them, an overalled farm hand from his
+looks, said, "He killed a kid just a little while ago. My brother-in-law
+heard it."
+
+"Murderer," the other said viciously.
+
+The farmer turned his head and his glance fell on Hall. "Well, a new
+face in town," he said after a moment's inspection. "Say I bet you're a
+reporter from one of the papers, aren't you?"
+
+Hall came out of the entrance and tried to walk around the two men, but
+the farmer caught him by the sleeve.
+
+"A reporter, huh? Well, I got some news for you. That thing from Grismet
+just killed a kid."
+
+Hall could restrain himself no longer.
+
+"That's a lie," he said coldly.
+
+The farmer looked him up and down.
+
+"What do you know about it," he demanded. "My brother-in-law got it from
+somebody in the state guard."
+
+"It's still a lie."
+
+"Just because it's not on the teledepth, you say it's a lie," the farmer
+said belligerently. "Not everything is told on the teledepth, Mr.
+Wiseheimer. They're keeping it a secret. They don't want to scare the
+people."
+
+Hall started to walk away, but the farmer blocked his path.
+
+"Who are you anyway? Where do you live? I never saw you before," he said
+suspiciously.
+
+"Aw, Randy," his companion said, "don't go suspecting everybody."
+
+"I don't like anyone to call me a liar."
+
+Hall stepped around the man in his path, and turned down the street. He
+was boiling inside with an almost uncontrollable fury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few feet away, catastrophe suddenly broke loose. A faulty section of
+the sidewalk split without warning under his feet and he went pitching
+forward into the street. He clutched desperately at the trunk of a tall
+palm tree, but with a loud snap, it broke, throwing him head on into a
+parked road car. The entire front end of the car collapsed like an egg
+shell under his weight.
+
+For a long moment, the entire street was dead quiet. With difficulty,
+Hall pulled himself to his feet. Pale, astonished faces were staring at
+him from all sides.
+
+Suddenly the farmer started screaming. "That's him. I knew it. That's
+him." He was jumping up and down with excitement.
+
+Hall turned his back and walked in the other direction. The people in
+front of him faded away, leaving a clear path.
+
+He had gone a dozen steps when a man with a huge double-barreled shotgun
+popped out from a store front just ahead. He aimed for the middle of
+Hall's chest and fired both barrels.
+
+The blast and the shot struck Hall squarely, burning a large hole in his
+shirt front. He did not change his pace, but continued step by step.
+
+The man with the gun snatched two shells out of his pocket and
+frantically tried to reload. Hall reached out and closed his hand over
+the barrel of the gun and the blue steel crumpled like wet paper.
+
+From across the street, someone was shooting at him with a rifle.
+Several times a bullet smacked warmly against his head or his back.
+
+He continued walking slowly up the street. At its far end several men
+appeared dragging a small howitzer--probably the only piece in the local
+armory. They scurried around it, trying to get it aimed and loaded.
+
+"Fools. Stupid fools," Hall shouted at them.
+
+The men could not seem to get the muzzle of the gun down, and when he
+was a dozen paces from it they took to their heels. He tore the heavy
+cannon off of its carriage and with one blow of his fist caved it in. He
+left it lying in the street broken and useless.
+
+Almost as suddenly as it came, his anger left him. He stopped and looked
+back at the people cringing in the doorways.
+
+"You poor, cruel fools," Hall said again.
+
+He sat down in the middle of the street on the twisted howitzer barrel
+and buried his head in his hands. There was nothing else for him to do.
+He knew that in just a matter of seconds, the ships with their
+permallium nets and snares would be on him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since Jordan's ship was not large enough to transport Jon Hall's great
+weight back to Grismet, the terrestrial government put at the agent's
+disposal a much heavier vessel, one room of which had been hastily lined
+with permallium and outfitted as a prison cell. A pilot by the name of
+Wilkins went with the ship. He was a battered old veteran, given to
+cigar smoking, clandestine drinking and card playing.
+
+The vessel took off, rose straight through the atmosphere for about
+forty miles, and then hung, idly circling Earth, awaiting clearance
+before launching into the pulse drive. A full course between Earth and
+Grismet had to be plotted and cleared by the technicians at the dispatch
+center because the mass of the vessel increased so greatly with its
+pulsating speed that if any two ships passed within a hundred thousand
+miles of each other, they would at least be torn from their course, and
+might even be totally destroyed.
+
+Wilkins had proposed a pinochle game, and he and Jordan sat playing in
+the control room.
+
+The pilot had been winning and he was elated. "Seventy-six dollars so
+far," he announced after some arithmetic. "The easiest day's pay I made
+this month."
+
+Jordan shuffled the cards and dealt them out, three at a time. He was
+troubled by his own thoughts, and so preoccupied that he scarcely
+followed the game.
+
+"Spades, again," the pilot commented gleefully. "Well, ain't that too
+bad for you." He gave his cigar a few chomps and played a card.
+
+Jordan had been looking out of the window. The ship had tilted and he
+could see without rising the rim of Earth forming a beautiful geometric
+arc, hazy and blue in its shimmering atmosphere.
+
+"Come on, play," the pilot said, impatiently. "I just led an ace."
+
+Jordan put down his cards. "I guess I better quit," he said.
+
+"What the devil!" the pilot said angrily. "You can't quit like that in
+the middle of a deal. I got a flush and aces."
+
+"I'm sorry," Jordan said, "but I'm going to lie down in my cabin until
+we are given clearance."
+
+He opened the door of the little room and went into the hall. He walked
+down past his own cabin and stopped in front of another door, a new one
+that was sheathed in permallium. He hesitated a few moments; then he
+snapped open the outside latch and walked in, letting the door swing
+closed behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hall lay unmoving in the middle of the floor, his legs and arms fastened
+in greaves of permallium.
+
+Jordan was embarrassed. He did not look directly at the robot.
+
+"I don't know whether you want to talk to me or not," he started. "If
+you don't want to, that's all right. But, I've followed you since you
+landed on Earth, and I don't understand why you did what you did. You
+don't have to tell me, but I wish you would. It would make me feel
+better."
+
+The robot shrugged--a very human gesture, Jordan noted.
+
+"G-go ahead and ask me," he said. "It d-doesn't make any difference
+now."
+
+Jordan sat down on the floor. "The boy was the one who gave you away. If
+not for him, no one would have ever known what planet you were on. Why
+did you let the kid get away?"
+
+The robot looked straight at the agent. "Would you kill a child?" he
+asked.
+
+"No, of course not," Jordan said a little bit annoyed, "but I'm not a
+robot either." He waited for a further explanation, but when he saw none
+was coming, he said: "I don't know what you were trying to do in that
+powerhouse at Ballarat, but, whatever it was, that old man couldn't have
+stopped you. What happened?"
+
+"I l-lost my head," the robot said quietly. "The alarm and the lights
+rattled me, and I got into a p-panic."
+
+"I see," said Jordan, frustrated, not really seeing at all. He sat back
+and thought for a moment. "Let me put it this way. Why do you stutter?"
+
+Hall smiled a wry smile. "Th-that used to be a m-military secret," he
+said. "It's our one weakness--the one Achilles heel in a m-machine that
+was meant to be invulnerable."
+
+He struggled to a sitting position. "You see, we were m-made as
+s-soldiers and had to have a certain loyalty to the country that m-made
+us. Only living things are loyal--machines are not. We had to think like
+human beings."
+
+Jordan's brows contracted as he tried to understand the robot.
+
+"You mean you have a transplanted human brain?" he asked incredulously.
+
+"In a way," Hall said. "Our b-brains are permallium strips on which the
+mind of some human donor was m-magnetically imprinted. My mind was
+copied f-from a man who stuttered and who got panicky when the going got
+rough, and who couldn't kill a child no matter what was at s-stake."
+
+Jordan felt physically ill. Hall was human and he was immortal. And
+according to galactic decree, he, like his fellows, was to be manacled
+in permallium and fixed in a great block of cement, and that block was
+to be dropped into the deep silent depths of the Grismet ocean, to be
+slowly covered by the blue sediment that gradually filters down through
+the miles of ocean water to stay immobile and blind for countless
+millions of years.
+
+Jordan arose to his feet. He could think of nothing further to say.
+
+He stopped, however, with the door half open, and asked: "One more
+question--what did you want with the electrical generator plants on
+Earth?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Slowly and without emotion Hall told him, and when he understood, he
+became even sicker.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He went across to his cabin and stood for a while looking out the
+window. Then he lit a cigarette and lay down on his bunk thinking. After
+a time, he put out the cigarette and walked into the hall where he paced
+up and down.
+
+As he passed the cell door for about the tenth time, he suddenly swung
+around and lifted the latch and entered. He went over to the robot, and
+with a key that he took from his pocket, he unlocked the greaves and
+chains.
+
+"There's no point in keeping you bound up like this," he said. "I don't
+think you're very dangerous." He put the key back in his pocket.
+
+"I suppose you know that this ship runs on an atomic pile," he said in a
+conversational tone of voice. "The cables are just under the floor in
+the control room and they can be reached through a little trap door."
+
+Jordan looked directly into Hall's face. The robot was listening with
+great intentness.
+
+"Well," the agent said, "we'll probably be leaving Earth's atmosphere in
+about fifteen minutes. I think I'll go play pinochle with the pilot."
+
+He carefully left the door of the cell unlatched as he left. He walked
+to the control room and found Wilkins, a dry cigar butt clenched between
+his teeth, absorbed in a magazine.
+
+"Let's have another game," Jordan said. "I want some of that
+seventy-six dollars back."
+
+Wilkins shook his head. "I'm in the middle of a good story here. Real
+sexy. I'll play you after we take off."
+
+"Nothing doing," Jordan said sharply. "Let's play right now."
+
+Wilkins kept reading. "We got an eighteen-hour flight in front of us.
+You have lots of time."
+
+The agent snatched the magazine out of his hands. "We're going to play
+right now in my cabin," he said.
+
+"You quit when I have aces and a flush, and now you come back and want
+to play again. That's not sportsmanlike," Wilkins complained, but he
+allowed himself to be led back to Jordan's cabin. "I never saw anybody
+so upset about losing a miserable seventy-six bucks," was his final
+comment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The robot lay perfectly still until he heard the door to Jordan's cabin
+slam shut, and then he arose as quietly as he could and stole out into
+the hall. The steel of the hall floor groaned, but bore his weight, and
+carefully, trembling with excitement inside of his ponderous metallic
+body, he made his way to the control room. He knelt and lifted the
+little trap door and found the naked power cable, pulsating with
+electrical current.
+
+In a locker under the panel board he found a length of copper wire. It
+was all he needed for the necessary connection.
+
+Since his capture, his fellows on Grismet had been silent with despair,
+but as he knelt to close the circuit, their minds flooded in on him and
+he realized with a tremendous horror that there were now nineteen, that
+all except he had been bound and fixed in their eternal cement prisons.
+
+"We are going to have our chance," he told them. "We won't have much
+time, but we will have our chance."
+
+He closed the circuit and a tremendous tide of electric power flowed
+into his head. Inside that two-inch shell of permallium was a small
+strip of metal tape on whose electrons and atoms were written the
+borrowed mind of a man. Connected to the tape was a minute instrument
+for receiving and sending electromagnetic impulses--the chain by which
+the mind of one robot was tied to that of another.
+
+The current surged in and the tiny impulses swelled in strength and
+poured out through the hull of the ship in a great cone that penetrated
+Earth's atmosphere in a quadrant that extended from Baffin land to
+Omaha, and from Hawaii to Labrador. The waves swept through skin and
+bone and entered the sluggish gelatinous brain of sentient beings,
+setting up in those organs the same thoughts and pictures that played
+among the electrons of the permallium strip that constituted Jon Hall's
+mind.
+
+All nineteen clamored to be heard, for Hall to relay their voices to
+Earth, but he held them off and first he told his story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Casseiopeian delegate to the Galactic Senate was at the moment
+finishing his breakfast. He was small and furry, not unlike a very large
+squirrel, and he sat perched on a high chair eating salted roast almonds
+of which he was very fond.
+
+Suddenly a voice started talking inside of his head, just as it did at
+that very second inside the heads of thirteen billion other inhabitants
+of the northwest corner of Earth. The Casseiopeian delegate was so
+startled that he dropped the dish of almonds, his mouth popping open,
+his tiny red tongue inside flickering nervously. He listened spellbound.
+
+The voice told him of the war on Grismet and of the permallium
+constructed robots, and of the cement blocks. This, however, he already
+knew, because he had been one of the delegates to the Peace Conference
+who had decided to dispose of the robots. The voice, however, also told
+him things he did not know, such as the inability of the robots to
+commit any crime that any other sane human being would not commit, of
+their very simple desire to be allowed to live in peace, and most of all
+of their utter horror for the fate a civilized galaxy had decreed for
+them.
+
+When the voice stopped, the Casseiopeian delegate was a greatly shaken
+little being.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back on the ship, Hall opened the circuit to the nineteen, and they
+spoke in words, in memory pictures and in sensations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A copter cab driver was hurrying with his fare from Manhattan to Oyster
+Bay. Suddenly, in his mind, he became a permallium robot. He was bound
+with cables of the heavy metal, and was suspended upside down in a huge
+cement block. The stone pressed firmly on his eyes, his ears, and his
+chest. He was completely immobile, and worst of all, he knew that above
+his head for six miles lay the great Grismet Ocean, with the blue mud
+slowly settling down encasing the cement in a stony stratum that would
+last till the planet broke apart.
+
+The cab driver gasped: "What the hell." His throat was so dry he could
+scarcely talk. He turned around to his fare, and the passenger, a young
+man, was pale and trembling.
+
+"You seeing things, too?" the driver asked.
+
+"I sure am," the fare said unsteadily. "What a thing to do."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For fifteen minutes, over the northwest quadrant of Earth, the words and
+the pictures went out, and thirteen billion people knew suddenly what
+lay in the hearts and minds of nineteen robots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A housewife in San Rafael was at the moment in a butcher shop buying
+meat for her family. As the thoughts and images started pouring into her
+mind, she remained stock-still, her package of meat forgotten on the
+counter. The butcher, wiping his bloodied hands on his apron froze in
+that position, an expression of horror and incredulity on his face.
+
+When the thoughts stopped coming in, the butcher was the first to come
+out of the trancelike state.
+
+"Boy," he said, "that's sure some way of sending messages. Sure beats
+the teledepths."
+
+The housewife snatched her meat off the counter. "Is that all you think
+of," she demanded angrily.
+
+"That's a terrible thing that those barbarians on Grismet are doing to
+those ... those people. Why didn't they tell us that they were human."
+She stalked out of the shop, not certain what she would do, but
+determined to do something.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the ship Hall reluctantly broke off the connection and replaced the
+trap door. Then he went back to his cell and locked himself in. He had
+accomplished his mission; its results now lay in the opinions of men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jordan left the ship immediately on landing, and took a copter over to
+the agency building. His conversation with his superior was something he
+wanted to get over with as soon as possible.
+
+The young woman at the secretary's desk looked at him coldly and led him
+directly into the inner office. The chief was standing up in front of
+the map of the galaxy, his hands in his pockets, his eyes an icy blue.
+
+"I've been hearing about you," he said without a greeting.
+
+Jordan sat down. He was tense and jumpy but tried not to show it. "I
+suppose you have," he said, adding, after a moment, "Sir."
+
+"How did that robot manage to break out of his cell and get to the power
+source on the ship in the first place?"
+
+"He didn't break out," Jordan said slowly. "I let him out."
+
+"I see," the chief said, nodding. "You let him out. I see. No doubt you
+had your reasons."
+
+"Yes, I did. Look--" Jordan wanted to explain, but he could not find the
+words. It would have been different if the robots' messages had reached
+Grismet; he would not have had to justify himself then. But they had
+not, and he could not find a way to tell this cold old man of what he
+had learned about the robots and their unity with men. "I did it because
+it was the only decent thing to do."
+
+"I see," the chief said. "You did it because you have a heart." He
+leaned suddenly forward, both hands on his desk. "It's good for a man to
+have a heart and be compassionate. He's not worth anything if he isn't.
+But"--and he shook his finger at Jordan as he spoke--"that man is going
+to be compassionate at his own expense, not at the expense of the
+agency. Do you understand that?"
+
+"I certainly do," Jordan answered, "but you have me wrong if you think
+I'm here to make excuses or to apologize. Now, if you will get on with
+my firing, sir, I'll go home and have my supper."
+
+The chief looked at him for a long minute. "Don't you care about your
+position in the agency?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Sure I do," Jordan said almost roughly. "It's the work I wanted to do
+all my life. But, as you said, what I did, I did at my own expense.
+Look, sir, I don't like this any better than you do. Why don't you fire
+me and let me go home? Your prisoner's safely locked up in the ship."
+
+For answer the chief tossed him a stellogram. Jordan glanced at the
+first few words and saw that it was from Galactic Headquarters on Earth.
+He put it back on the desk without reading it through.
+
+"I know that I must have kicked up a fuss. You don't have to spell it
+out for me."
+
+"Read it," the chief said impatiently.
+
+Jordan took back the stellogram and examined it. It read.
+
+  To: Captain Lawrence Macrae Detection Agency, Grismet.
+
+  From: Prantal Aminopterin Delegate from Casseiopeia Chairman, Grismet
+    Peace Committee of the Galactic Senate.
+
+  Message: You are hereby notified that the committee by a vote of 17-0
+    has decided to rescind its order of January 18, 2214, directing the
+    disposal of the permallium robots of Grismet. Instead, the committee
+    directs that you remove from their confinement all the robots and
+    put them in some safe place where they will be afforded reasonable
+    and humane treatment.
+
+  The committee will arrive in Grismet some time during the next month
+    to decide on permanent disposition.
+
+Jordan's heart swelled as he read the gram. "It worked," he said. "They
+have changed their minds. It won't be so bad being discharged now." He
+put the paper back on the desk and arose to go.
+
+The chief smiled and it was like sunlight suddenly flooding over an
+arctic glacier. "Discharged? Now who's discharging you? I'd sooner do
+without my right arm."
+
+He reached in a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of old Earth bourbon
+and two glasses. He carefully poured out a shot into each glass, and
+handed one to Jordan.
+
+"I like a man with a heart, and if you get away with it, why then you
+get away with it. And that's just what you've done."
+
+He sat down and started sipping his whisky. Jordan stood uncertainly
+above him, his glass in his hand.
+
+"Sit down, son," the old man said. "Sit down and tell me about your
+adventures on Earth."
+
+Jordan sat down, put his feet on the desk and took a sizable swallow of
+his whisky.
+
+"Well, Larry," he started, "I got into Earth atmosphere about 2:40
+o'clock--"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ April 1955.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
+on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
+have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stutterer, by R.R. Merliss
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