Slan

It had been said on Earth that the secret of the materials that made up the walls of the grand palace had been lost. But here in this hidden city of the tendrilless slans was all the glory of it, and more. There was a street of soft, changing colors, and the magnificent realization of that age-old dream of architects, form-perfect buildings that were alive as music was alive. Here was – and no other word could apply, because no word in his knowledge was suitable – here was the gorgeous equivalent in architecture of the highest form of music.

Out in the street, he cut the beauty of it from his mind. Only the people mattered. And there were thousands in the buildings, in bustling cars and on foot. Thousands of minds within reach of a mind that missed nothing and searched now for one, just one, true slan.

And there was none; not a trace of betraying mind whisper; not a brain that did not know its owner was a tendrilless slan. Definitely, finally, the leaky brain shields gave of their knowledge. His conviction that they must be here was shattered, as his life would now be. Wherever the true slans were, their protection was slan-proof, beyond logic. But then, of course, logic had said that monster babies were not created by decent folk. The facts, it happened, were otherwise. What facts? Hearsay? But what other explanation was there?

"Here we are!" Ingraham said quietly.

Bradshaw said, "Come along, Corliss, Miss Hillory will see you now... alone!"

The floor felt strangely hard beneath his feet as he walked the hundred feet to the open door. Her i

Cross had not expected Joa

He noted curiously that her gaze was eager-bright, and that seemed out of place. His mind concentrated. The coordinated power of his sense abruptly dissolved her facial expression into triumph and a genuine joy. Alertly, his brain pressed against her mind shield, probing at the tiny gaps, absorbing every leak of thought, analyzing every overtone, and second by second his puzzlement grew. Her smile flashed into soft laughter; and then her shield went down. Her mind lay before him, exposed to his free, un-trammeled gaze. Simultaneously, a thought formed in her brain:

"Look deep, John Thomas Cross, and know first that all Porgrave receivers in this room and vicinity have been disco

There was no credulity, no trustfulness, in his brain. The moments fled, and still he probed the dark corridors of her brain searching for those basic reasons that alone could explain this wondrous thing. At last he said quietly:

"So you believed in the ideals of a fifteen-year-old, caught fire from a young egotist who offered only – "

"Hope!" she finished. "You brought hope just before I reached the point where most slans become as hard and ruthless as life can make them. 'Human beings,' you said, 'what about human beings?' And the shock of that and other things affected me beyond recovery. I deliberately gave a false description of you. You may have wondered about that. I passed it off because I was not supposed to have an expert's knowledge of human physiology. I didn't, of course, but I could have drawn you from memory perfectly, and the picture grew clearer every day." It was considered natural that I become a student of the Cross affair. And natural, also, that I was appointed to most of the supervisory positions that had any co

She stopped almost expectantly, and Cross said gravely, "I'm sorry about that!"

Her gray eyes met his brown ones steadily. "Whom else will you marry?" she asked. "A normal life must include marriage. Of course, I know nothing of your relationship to the slan girl, Kathleen Layton, except that you were with her at her death. But marriage to several women, frequently at the same time, is not unusual in slan history. Then, of course, there is my age."

"I recognize," Cross said simply, "that fifteen or twenty years is not the slightest obstacle to marriage among long-lived slans. It happens, however, that I have a mission."

"Whether as wife or not," said Joa

"Oh, that!" Cross waved a hand. "All I needed was time and a method of getting certain crystals into the hands of Ingraharam and the others. You have provided both. We'll also need the paralyzer gun in the drawer of your desk. And then call them in one at a time."

With one sweeping movement of her hand, she drew the gun from the drawer. "Ill do the shooting!" she said. "Now what?"

Cross laughed softly at Joa

"And you won't regret what you have done, though your faith may be tried to the utmost before we are finished. This attack on Earth must not take place. Not now, not until we know what to do with those poor devils aside from holding them down by force. Tell me, is there any way I can get to Earth? I read in Corliss' mind something about a plan to transfer to Earth all slans resembling me. Can that be done?"

"It can. The decision rests entirely with me."

"Then," said Cross grimly, "the time has come for quick action. I must get to Earth. I must go to the palace. I must see Kier Gray."

The perfect mouth parted in a smile, but there was no humor in her fine eyes. "And how," she asked softly, "are you going to get near the palace, with its fortifications?"

"My mother spoke often of the secret passages under the palace," Cross answered "Perhaps your statistics machine will know the exact location of the various entrances."

"The machine!" said Joa

In the outer room, he followed her as she led the way in and out among row on row of great, thick, shiny, metallic plates. This, Cross knew, was the Bureau of Statistics, and these plates were the electric filing cabinets that yielded their information at the touch of a button, the spelling out of a name, a number, a key word. No one knew (so Corliss' mind had informed him) how much information was in those cabinets. They had been brought from Earth, and dated back to the earliest slan days. A quadrillion facts were there for the asking. Included, no doubt, was the entire story of the seven-year search for one John Thomas Cross – the search that Joa

Joa

He stood watching her as she pushed the name plates "Samuel La

"Excerpts from Samuel La