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“That isn't anything very mysterious!” said Jo
Jo
“All right. Mathematics is logical thought! It is the approximation of being sensible! Now even if a Psychlo has a soul and does his thinking with a soul, or even if he doesn't have, mental action works between those two cha
“So long as a Psychlo is thinking logically, there is a constant current between those two nerves. Even asleep there would be a current, a very slight one.
“Now up comes an alien. The Psychlo knows his whole race and empire depends upon keeping his mathematics a secret. And the alien wants to know about Psychlo mathematics. The Psychlo instantly shuts off thinking about them. Or a surge occurs and then a shutoff. Pop. Blown fuse!”
MacKendrick was quite interested. But he said, “That doesn't explain suicide.”
“All right! Look at this picture and look at this fuse. The silver capsule is very close to that bronze item that short-circuits pleasure and pain and action. Look at this fuse filament! When it parts, the ends drop down inside the capsule and you get a short circuit into the bronze item.
“The Psychlo has an instant impulse to kill! If he can't right then, the short circuit between the silver and bronze items acts as an obsession to kill that doesn't let up. He has to kill something and he winds up killing himself!"
MacKendrick thought it over and nodded. “But,” he said, “that doesn't explain the females.”
Jo
Jo
“And why they're so crazy,” said MacKendrick. “I am sure you have the explanation and that those things are what you say they are.”
MacKendrick turned the Psychlo skull around on the table. It was a huge, massive, heavy thing. A complex mass of bone and joints. “There's only one thing wrong.”
Jo
“We're no closer to getting those things out of their heads than we were,” said MacKendrick.
Jo
It was definitely not a hopeful day.
Chapter 7
Jo
32 battle plane.
The alert had come just over half an hour ago. Glenca
It was Day 78, only fourteen days before Terl had scheduled himself to fire. He had not begun his panel on the last discs Jo
And now this! Glenca
The visitors, four hundred miles above Earth, had increased. There were eighteen of them now. Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl had come back and with him he had brought four heavy war vessels. One of them at least, if not more, was a plane carrier. It was probably from this that the attack on Glenca
Jo
He was gaining altitude and widening his viewscreens. He had Stormalong and the other two ships just ahead of him. He had not yet picked up Glenca
Jo
Was that the Vulcor-class vessel? The other two with it were larger, more bulky. Yes, that was the Vulcor-class: diamond-shaped bridge. Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl himself.
The three weren't coming down-apparently it took a lot of solar accumulation to do that and they tended to reserve themselves. The other two must be plane carriers.
Yes! From one of them came a new launch.
Six needle-like craft were coming down like arrows.
Clearly, using Psychlo, Jo
There was Glenca
should have an escort. No sign of them!
Four needles were shooting along behind Glenca
There went Stormalong!
In tight formation, the three planes cut straight through the pursuing Tolneps.
An explosion! A second gout of hot blue flame. And a third.
There was only one Tolnep racing out of the smoke.
Jo
He centered on the nose of the leader. His thumb hit the firing trip as he wildly swung sideways, sweeping his awesome firepower into the Tolnep's tight formation.
His viewscreen flared out with the explosions ahead.
A slight thump as a broken piece of a Tolnep plane touched his wing.
Jo
He flashed ahead of them and spun about. He was almost head-on with the Tolnep now leading. An instant before they would have collided, Jo
Three Tolneps left. They looped and came on, firing in formation. The air about Jo
Jo
The last one tried to make a run for it, shooting back into the heights.
Jo
“Maximum Range.” He sent searching needles straight up.
The Tolnep shattered into a ragged ball of fire.
Where was Glenca
There he was, racing down to the minesite, almost there.
He had a Tolnep right on his tail.
Stormalong and his other two ships were slashing down on the Tolnep.
The guard opened the atmosphere armor curtain and Glenca
A scythe of fire hit the Tolnep as Stormalong and the other two pilots let drive from extreme range.
The guard got the atmosphere curtain on. The Tolnep hit it and slammed through.
The air had not had time to reionize enough.
The Tolnep ship exploded in a ball of flame in the scramble area, narrowly missing Glenca
Jo