A. Van Vogt - Slan

"What's the test?" Cross asked curtly.

"Well, if you're Cross, you'll be wearing false hair to cover your slan tendrils. If you're Corliss, the natural strength of your hair would enable us to lift you right off the ground, and you'd scarcely feel it. False hair, artificially fastened on, could not possibly stand pressure. So, for the sake of your wife, I'm going to ask you to bend your head.

We'll be gentle, and apply the pressure gradually."

Cross smiled. "Go ahead! I think you'll find that it's genuine hair."

It was, of course. Long since, he had discovered a kind of answer to that problem – a thick fluid that, worked over the roots of his hair, gradually hardened into a thin layer of rubbery, fleshy-looking stuff, sufficient to cover his betraying tendrils. By carefully twisting the hair just before the hardening process was completed, tiny air holes were formed through to the hair roots.

Frequent removal of the material, and long periods of leaving his hair and head in the natural state, had in the past proved sufficient to keep the health of his head unimpaired. Something similar, it seemed to him, was what the true slans must have been doing these many years. The danger lay in the periods of "rest."

Ingraham said finally, grudgingly, "It doesn't really prove anything. If Cross ever comes here, he won't be caught on anything as simple as that. Here's the doctor, and I guess it's all right."

The bedroom was large and gray and full of softly pulsing machines. The patient was not visible, but there was a long metal case, like a streamlined coffin, one end of which pointed toward the door; the other end Cross couldn't see, but he knew the woman's head was projecting from that far side.

Attached to the top of the case was a bulging, transparent test tube affair. Pipes ran from it down into the "coffin," and through these pipes, through that bulbous bottle, flowed a rich, steady stream of red blood. A solid bank of instruments sat just beyond the woman's protruding head. Lights were there, glowing with the faintest unsteadiness, as if now one, now another was yielding obstinately to some hidden pressure. Each time, the, one affected fought stubbornly to regain the infinitesimal loss of brightness.

From where the doctor made him stop, Cross could see the woman's head against the background of those whispering machines. No, not her head. Only the bandages that completely swathed her head were visible; and it was into the white pulp of bandage that the host of wires from the instrument board disappeared.

Her mind was unshielded, a still-broken thing, and it was into the region of semi-thoughts that flowed along in dead-slow time that Cross probed cautiously.

He knew the theory of what the tendrilless slan surgeons had done. The body was entirely disconnected from nervous contact with the brain by a simple system of short circuit. The brain itself, kept alive by rapid tissue-building rays, had been divided into twenty-seven sections; and, thus simplified, the enormous amount of repair work had been swiftly performed.

His thought wave sped past those operation "breaks" and "mends." There were faults in plenty, he saw, but all of a distinctly minor character, so superbly had the surgical work been done. Every section of that powerful brain would yield to the healing force of the tissue-building rays. Beyond doubt, Mrs. Corliss would open her eyes a sane, capable young woman, and recognize him for the imposter he was.

In spite of urgency, Cross thought, "I was able to hypnotize human beings without the aid of crystals years ago, though it took a great deal longer. Why not slans?"

She was unconscious, and her shield down. At first, he was too aware of the Porgrave receivers, and the danger they offered. And then he grooved his mind to the anxiety vibration that would be normal for Corliss regardless of the circumstances. All fear drained from his brain. He strained forward with frantic speed.

It was the method of the operation that saved him. A properly knit slan brain would have required hours. So many millions of paths to explore, without a clue to the proper beginning. But now, in this mind, split by master surgeons into its twenty-seven natural compartments, the mass of cells comprising the will power was easily recognizable. In one minute he was at the control center, and the palpable force of his thought waves had gained him control.

He had time then to place the earphones of the Porgrave receivers over his head, noting at the same time that Bradshaw already had on a pair – for him, he thought grimly, But there was no suspicion at the surface of the young slan's mind. Evidently, thought in the form of an almost pure physical force, completely pictureless, could not be translated by the Porgraves. His own tests were confirmed.

The woman stirred mentally and physically and the incoherent thought in her mind clattered as a sound in his earphones:

"Fight... occupation – "

The words fitted only because she had been a military commander, but there was not enough to make sense. Silence, then:

"June... definitely June... be able to clear up before winter then, and have no unnecessary deaths from cold and dislocation... that's settled, then... June 10th – "

He could have repaired the faults in her brain in ten minutes by hypnotic suggestion. But it took an hour and a quarter of cautious co-operation with the surgeons and their vibration-pressure machine, and almost every minute of the time he was thinking about her words.

So June 10th was the day of the attack on Earth. This was April 4th, Earth reckoning. Two months! A month for the journey to Earth and a month – for what?

As Mrs. Corliss slipped quietly into a dreamless sleep, Cross had the answer. He dared not waste another day searching for the true slans. Later, perhaps, that trail could be picked up again, but now, if he could get out of this – He frowned mentally. Within minutes he would be under physical examination by members of the most ruthless, most thoroughgoing and efficient race in the solar system. In spite of his successful attempt at delay, in spite of his preliminary success in getting a crystal into the hands of one of his escorts, luck had been against him. Ingraham was not curious enough to take the crystal out of his pocket and open it. He'd have to make another attempt, of course, but that was desperate. No slan would be anything but suspicious at such a second try, no matter how the approach was made.

His thought stopped. His mind stilled to a state of reception as an almost inaudible voice spoke from Ingraham's radio, and the words rowed across the surface of Ingraham's mind. "Physical examination completed or not, you will bring Barton Corliss immediately before me. That supersedes any previous order."

"O.K., Joanna!" Ingraham replied quite audibly. He turned. "You're to be taken at once before Joanna Hillory, the military commissioner."

It was Prentice who echoed the thought in Cross' mind. The tall slan said, "Joanna is the only one of us who spent hours with Cross. She was appointed commissioner with that experience and her subsequent studies of him in mind. She supervised the world-wide successful search for his hide-out and she also predicted the failure of the attack that was made with the cyclotron. In addition, she's written a lengthy report outlining in minutest detail the hours she spent in his company. If you're Cross, she'll recognize you in one minute flat."

Cross was silent. He had no way of evaluating the tall slan's statement, but he suspected that it might be true.

As Cross emerged from the base room, he had his first glimpse of the city of Cimmerium, the true, the underground city. From the doorway he could see along two corridors. One led back to the elevator down which he had come, the other to a broad expanse of tall, transparent doors. Beyond the doors lay a city of dreams.