Skylark Three | Page 3

have killed
him."
"Such an event would be regrettable, certainly, in that it would remove
all possibility of the abduction."
"It would remove more than that. Remember the explosion in our
laboratory, that blew an entire mountain into impalpable dust? Draw in
your mind a nice, vivid picture of one ten times the size in each of our
plants and in this building. I know that you are fool enough to go ahead
with your own ideas, in spite of everything I've said; and, since I do not
yet actually control Steel, I can't forbid you to, officially. But you
should know that I know what I'm talking about, and I say again that
you're going to make an utter fool of yourself; just because you won't

believe anything possible, that hasn't been done every day for a
hundred years. I wish that I could make you understand that Seaton and
Crane have got something that we haven't--but for the good of our
plants, and incidentally for your own, please remember one thing,
anyway; for if you forget it, we won't have a plant left and you
personally will be blown into a fine red mist. Whatever you start, kill
Seaton first, and be absolutely certain that he is definitely, completely,
finally and totally dead before you touch one of Dorothy Seaton's red
hairs. As long as you only attack him personally he won't do anything
but kill every man you send against him. If you kill her while he's still
alive, though--Blooie!" and the saturnine scientist waved both hands in
an expressive pantomime of wholesale destruction.
"Probably you are right in that," Brookings paled slightly. "Yes, Seaton
would do just that. We shall be very careful, until after we succeed in
removing him."
"Don't worry--you won't succeed. I shall attend to that detail myself, as
soon as I get back. Seaton and Crane and their families, the directors
and employees of their plants, the banks that by any possibility may
harbor their notes or solutions--in short, every person and everything
standing between me and a monopoly of 'X'--all shall disappear."
"That is a terrible program, Doctor. Wouldn't the late Perkins' plan of
an abduction, such as I have in mind, be better, safer and quicker?"
"Yes--except for the fact that it will not work. I've talked until I'm blue
in the face--I've proved to you over and over that you can't abduct her
now without first killing him, and that you can't even touch him. My
plan is the only one that will work. Seaton isn't the only one who
learned anything--I learned a lot myself. I learned one thing in
particular. Only four other inhabitants of either Earth or Osnome ever
had even an inkling of it, and they died, with their brains disintegrated
beyond reading. That thing is my ace in the hole. I'm going after it.
When I get it, and not until then, will I be ready to take the offensive."
"You intend starting open war upon your return?"

"The war started when I tried to pick off the women with my attractor.
That is why I am leaving at midnight. He always goes to bed at
eleven-thirty, and I will be out of range of his object-compass before he
wakes up. Seaton and I understand each other perfectly. We both know
that the next time we meet one of us is going to be resolved into his
component atoms, perhaps into electrons. He doesn't know that he's
going to be the one, but I do. My final word to you is to lay off--if you
don't, you and your 'competent authorities' are going to learn a lot."
"You do not care to inform me more fully as to your destination or your
plans?"
"I do not. Goodbye."
CHAPTER II
Dunark Visits Earth
Martin Crane reclined in a massive chair, the fingers of his right hand
lightly touching those of his left, listening attentively. Richard Seaton
strode up and down the room before his friend, his unruly brown hair
on end, speaking savagely between teeth clenched upon the stem of his
reeking, battered briar, brandishing a sheaf of papers.
"Mart, we're stuck--stopped dead. If my head wasn't made of solid blue
mush I'd have had a way figured out of this thing before now, but I
can't. With that zone of force the Skylark would have everything
imaginable--without it, we're exactly where we were before. That zone
is immense, man--terrific--its possibilities are unthinkable--and I'm so
cussed dumb that I can't find out how to use it intelligently--can't use it
at all, for that matter. By its very nature it is impenetrable to any form
of matter, however applied; and this calc here," slapping viciously the
sheaf of papers containing his calculations, "shows that it must also be