The Skylark of Valeron

by E. E. Smith

"Take the educator and get some of their surgeon's skill," DuQuesne directed curtly, after the last member of the crew had been accounted for. "Take off the heads and put them where they'll keep. Throw the rest of the rubbish out. Never mind about this captain—I want to study him."

Then, while Loring busied himself at his grisly task, DuQuesne sat at the captain's bench, read the captain's brains, and sent in to general headquarters the regular routine reports of the vessel.

"All cleaned up. Now what?" Loring was as spick-and-span, as calmly unruffled, as though he were reporting in one of the private rooms of the Perkins Café. "Start back to the Earth?"

"Not yet." Even though DuQuesne had captured his battleship, thereby performing the almost impossible, he was not yet content. "There are a lot of things to learn here yet, and I think that we had better stay here as long as possible and learn them; provided we can do so without incurring any extra risks. As far as actual flight goes, two men can handle this ship as well as a hundred, since her machinery is all automatic. Therefore we can run away any time.

"We could not fight, however, as it takes about thirty men to handle her weapons. But fighting would do no good, anyway, because they could outnumber us a hundred to one in a few hours. All of which means that if we go out beyond the detector screens we will not be able to come back—we had better stay here, so as to be able to take advantage of any favorable developments."

He fell silent, frowningly concentrated upon some problem obscure to his companion. At last he went to the main control panel and busied himself with a device of photo cells, coils, and kino bulbs; whereupon Loring set about preparing a long-delayed meal.

"It's all hot, chief—come and get it," the aid invited, when he saw that his superior's immediate task was done. "What's the idea? Didn't they have enough controls there already?"

"The idea is, Doll, not to take any unnecessary chances. Ah, this goulash hits the spot!" DuQuesne ate appreciatively for a few minutes in silence, then went on: "Three things may happen to interfere with the continuation of our search for knowledge. First, since we are now in command of a Fenachrone mother ship, I have to report to headquarters on the telemental recorder, and they may catch me in a slip any minute, which will mean a massed attack. Second, the enemy may break through the Fenachrone defenses and precipitate a general engagement. Third, there is still the bare possibility of that cosmic explosion I told you about.

"In that connection, it is quite obvious that an atomic explosion wave of that type would be propagated with the velocity of light. Therefore, even though our ship could run away from it, since we have an acceleration of five times that velocity, yet we could not see that such an explosion had occurred until the wave-front reached us. Then, of course, it would be too late to do anything about it, because what an atomic explosion wave would do to the dense material of this battleship would be simply nobody's business.

"We might get away if one of us had his hands actually on the controls and had his eyes and his brain right on the job, but that is altogether too much to expect of flesh and blood. No brain can be maintained at its highest pitch for any length of time."