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Title: The Brain Pirates
Date of first publication: 1938
Author: John W. Campbell, Jr. (1910-1971)
Date first posted: May 15, 2022
Date last updated: May 15, 2022
Faded Page eBook #20220535

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines




  The
  BRAIN PIRATES


  A Penton and Blake Novelet


  BY JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.

  _Author of "The Double Minds," "The Tenth World," etc._


  Two Roving Planeteers Confront the Invisible Imps of an Empire
  From Beyond the Sun and Discover That Matter
  Is Mightier Than Mind


  Intrepid  Scientific Adventurers of the Thirtieth
  Century Explore the Far Regions of Space!




  Contents

  I. Double Gravity
  II. The Invisible Car
  III. The Stolen Ship
  IV. End of the Krull




CHAPTER I

_Double Gravity_

The _Ion_ propelled itself powerfully through the void.  Inside the
craft, Rodney Blake's arm reached out in a dramatic gesture of
disclosure.  Half a hundred thousand miles away hung a dusty,
underripe peach.  It was dim and hard to see, here where the sun's
light was diluted by five billion miles of space.

"There she is, skipper," he told his permanent partner, Ted Penton.
"The only satellite of the Tenth World!  Are we still going to
investigate it?"

"We sure are.  As long as we are this far out from the sun, we may as
well see what's seeable," Penton answered firmly.  "We have those new
suits rigged with atomic-powered lifting gadgets, so that'll protect
us from the weight, if what our instruments say about that world's
true.  I still don't see how any member of this System could be so
confoundedly dense.  This satellite has a diameter of thirty-four
hundred miles, yet the surface gravity is double that of Earth!"

Blake whistled softly.

"Incidentally," he said, "we ought to land in about half an hour.
Any suggestions as to where to go?  Try your telescope."

Penton disappeared into the observatory booth and came back presently
with a rough-sketch map.

"I was up there just before I slept.  That was nine hours ago, and
this place here on the sketch was in the night-shade then, glowing
faintly.  I think it may be a highly radioactive section.  Looking
through the 'scope just now, I see it has moved into daylight, and
the glow is hidden by the sunlight, weak as it is out here, but there
is some funny, rainbow-colored mineral formation there.  Let's land
there.  I'll go check up on those suits, and make some adjustments.
I hadn't thought they'd have to handle any double-gravity worlds."

"That's a swell map," complained Blake.  "You've drawn the thing from
the image in an astronomical 'scope.  It's inverted.  I'm going to be
too busy to figure out mirror images.  And may I suggest that you
make sure you don't get those drive-units in the suits backward?  I'd
hate to have them sit on me as well as a doubled gravity."

Penton grinned and went, down the corridor toward the airlock,
picking up a kit of tools from the machine-shop bench as he passed.
Presently he was deeply engrossed in the delicate task of readjusting
the tiny atomic-power drive units he had fixed in the space suits.
The mobility these would furnish would have been highly welcome at
the time they had been visiting the Tenth World.

"Oh, Ted!"  Penton raised his head abruptly from the work of
fastening down the cover plate that engaged his attention for the
past twenty minutes.  The slightly metallic voice had issued from the
air-lock speaker over his head.

"Yes?"

"We're about to land," said Blake's voice.  "Help take over.  Throw
the switch.  And I hope those suits suit us!"


Penton and Blake stared fretfully through the windows of the _Ion_.
The inhabitants of the satellite were regarding the explorers with a
mild curiosity.

"Those birds are waiting with remarkable patience," Penton said,
somewhat annoyed.  "And this seems to be the local Central Park,
wherefore our landing may have annoyed them.  Come on, you have a UV
gun on one hip, and a disintegrator on the other, and--"

"Lead in both legs.  Did you notice that local yokel to the left of
us make a slow, stately bow?  He snapped like a flag in the wind.
I'll bet they can move five times as fast as we can--or at least two
times as fast.  This gravity's faster."

"Not faster than 186,000 miles a second," Penton declared firmly.
"Did you observe them closely?  Mount one olive on one grapefruit.
Two fat sausages protruding from the opposite sides of said
grapefruit just below the olive, two fatter frankfurters at the
nether end, all add up to equal one--Tenthworldsatelliteian."

"They do have a chubby air," Blake grinned, "but I don't claim to
move 186,000 miles a second.  And these boys do move fast."

"They're patient anyway, much more so than I am.  Lift your blasted
carcass and come on.  They're a pretty human looking gang, even if
they do look like prize-winners in the Fat Men's Club.  Besides, fat
men are always jolly.  You know as well as I do that you're coming in
the end, so let's go."

Reluctantly Blake heaved.  He heaved harder, remaining curiously
fixed to his seat.

"Boy, am I agile," he grunted softly, and gave in.  Slowly he turned
up the lift-control at his belt.  A slow creaking of straps and an
unhappy wriggling on Blake's part attested to the increasing power of
the atomic drive mounted on the suit.  Blake rose.  "I can't even
stand up without the aid of this thing.  Let's go."

Penton opened the outer lock door.  Blake stepped down, or better,
floated down behind Penton.  The gravity-equalizer made him feel as
if he were riding on a parachute.  Penton faced the strange
inhabitants and slowly raised both hands above his head in a gesture
of friendship.

He'd intended to hold them out horizontally in front of him, but the
effort, under that gravity, was distinctly uncomfortable.

"From a much lighter world, aren't you?" suggested a rather
philosophically friendly telepathic voice.  "From an inner planet?
Well--I have always been convinced there were more than five inner
planets."

"Ten," said Penton automatically.  "We're from the third."

One of the immensely rounded inhabitants of this world nodded in
pleased acknowledgement.

"Ah, interesting.  Very.  The third world, then, and there are
twelve."

"Twelve?"

Blake stared at the moon-faced spokesman.

"Oh, so, so.  Ah, yes.  Two more.  That makes twelve.  That's even
more interesting.  There are two worlds further out.  Remarkably
small eyes you have, if I may say so.  The bright light near the sun,
I suppose."


Blake nodded vaguely.  The moon-faced inhabitant did have large eyes;
it was only the immense roundness of his face that made them appear
small.  Now at the ground level, Blake could better judge their
height and size.  About five feet tall, each was, and approximately
six feet in circumference at the equator--which was quite marked.
They resembled diminutive, but well inflated carnival balloons made
in caricature shapes.

"It looks," said Penton softly, "as though we'll have to go way out
before we go back toward the sun.  We'll have to see those two
worlds."

"Yes, see them.  Interesting ship you have.  We've been trying for
some time to make one like it--atomic power, eh?  Yes.  Will you
accompany us? ... I, by the way, am Terruns, associated with the
Power and Mechanisms Department of Runal City.  Oh, this world?  We
call our primary Turlun, and our satellite here is called Pornan.

"But I think we may go to the city.  The members of the Power and
Mechanisms Department have been very anxious to speak with you since
your ship was first sighted.  There was rather a flurry there as to
where you would land.  Very proud to have you in our city.  You will
come?  Our cars are ahead."

"Why--yes," said Penton, slightly bewildered.  Then, more firmly,
"Yes, we will be very interested to see more of your civilization on
this world so far from the sun.  Our lives, our civilization, you
understand, are all based on the movements or apparent movements of
the sun."

Terruns waved briskly in a vertical plane.  His remarkably rotund
body did not crease, so far as Blake's closely watching, interested
eye could determine, but simply contracted vertically, and spread
laterally in front, with a reversal of this process in back.  The
queerly hectic bowing of the comically grapefruitish body fascinated
Blake with the same childish wonder that the incomprehensible
leg-work of the millipede inspires.

Terruns straightened abruptly and regarded Penton closely with large,
dark eyes.

"The ship, by the way.  It does not move in your absence?" he asked
somewhat anxiously.

Penton looked at him somewhat blankly.

"No, it is manually controlled--it will stay where it is."

The round face parted in a somewhat fatuous smile of satisfaction.

"Ah, excellent.  Yes, if it stays there, that will be well.  You will
know it is here.  Come with us.  Yes, a lighter world.  The supports
in the suits--very ingenious, very--"  His mental speech faded off
gradually.  Blake and Penton watched with interest as the dozen or so
Pornans' set off in perfect unison across the close-cropped turf.
Each was dressed in a precisely uniform outfit of apparently
skin-tight elastic fabric, of a rather pleasing, greenish hue in
itself, but covered with a repetitive and complex pattern of spirals
and sharp-angled zigzags.


The Pornans' legs were rather short, and distinctly over the "stout"
classification.  But they worked like frantic pumps, bouncing up and
down at a flurried pace, while the associated body rocked and rolled
in a manner curiously reminiscent of a round-bodied bell-buoy in a
choppy sea.  But they made progress, such progress, considering their
girth, that for a moment Blake and Penton stood in astonished
surprise, while their guides almost disappeared over a little pink
swale of land.

"Did you notice the turf?" Penton asked Blake as they followed
behind.  "It's apparently a sort of moss, and a remarkably pink one
at that.  But then, the trees are, too.  Incidentally, they don't use
sunlight as a source of energy, of course.  Look, our hosts seem to
have arrived at their car."

A moment later, Penton and Blake had arrived also.  There were,
accurately, three cars.  They were very commodious cars, until the
Pornans climbed in.  They accomplished that act with a surprising
ease and actual grace, despite their immense girth.  The cars
themselves were merely open platforms, in effect, seating six Pornans
in three cross seats, two to a seat.  Each, place was equipped with a
very solidly made rail, on which the passengers immediately placed
both feet.  Their hands settled comfortably, and firmly into
handgrips in their seat-arms.

Four wheels, scarcely eighteen inches in diameter, and consisting
exclusively of pneumatic tires supported the vehicle, and a small
square case behind the rear-most seat presumably contained the
engine.  From the size of its case, it was a wholly inadequate
engine.  But the two explorers clambered in.

"Hold fast," said Terruns, cheerily.  "It's only about a
fifteen-minute ride."  Curiously, the time-designation was quite
clear to the Terrestrials.




CHAPTER II

_The Invisible Car_

Terruns stabbed viciously at a red button on the panel that formed
the front of the car.  Something in the box at the rear muttered
faintly, and began throbbing furiously.  Rapidly, from the sides, a
pinkish mass protruded, until inside of ten seconds a pneumatic
bumper fully two feet thick had pushed out all about, front, side and
rear.

"We're going," said their guide cheerfully, "to the center of the
city.  Power and Mechanisms Building; where all our broadcast energy
is developed."

Blake understood suddenly the purpose of the rails and handgrips.
The motor, whatever it was, was far from inadequate.  The car moved
to speed with a rush that snapped his head back viciously.

"We power nearly everything," continued Terruns, "by broadcast
energy.  Source of energy's the trouble.  Very troublesome, because
it's a frightful job concentrating the radio-active ores.  Lasts a
good while, but power demands growing faster than ore-concentrate
available.  Perhaps--"

Blake closed his eyes and held on as Terruns sailed blithely toward
the side of another car coming out of a side street.  Abruptly he was
hurled from his seat, and draped over Terruns' immense shoulders.
The Pornan yielded softly under him, but not sufficiently to cushion
the violent shock.  Blake opened his eyes to observe the details of
the collision, and saw Terruns' head turned completely around on an
amazingly flexible neck, regarding him in faint surprise.

"Ah, yes, light worlds.  So.  So sorry.  I'll slow down more gently."
The head pivoted outrageously, and the car jerked forward, depositing
Blake in his seat once more.

"Penton," said Blake softly, bracing himself solidly, "can you find
the way back?  I want to walk."  He closed his eyes again, for they
had left the roadways of the park and entered the heavy, city
traffic.  It was, quite evidently, suicidally inclined, or else
controlled solely by inspired maniacs.

Somewhere in the depths of his mind, the thought popped that here,
evidently, the movies got those impossible scenes of a mad ride
through New York traffic at impossible speed.  Not that the cars
moved rapidly.  At their best, in fact, Terruns had maintained no
better than twenty miles an hour; but the utter indifference to
safety, the half-inch margins gleefully accepted by the drivers made
that insane recklessness.

The purpose of the huge bumpers inflated about them seeped into
Blake's mind.  His eyes, refused to close again, because he wanted to
know which way to jump.  A brilliantly green vehicle tore down from a
side street, swinging toward their rear as it appeared that they were
to escape, then braked violently to permit them to move out of the
way by a fraction of an inch.

"Traffic," said Terruns somewhat annoyedly, "always disturbs me.  How
do they control traffic in your world?"

"The problem is worse," said Penton through clenched teeth, "though
less disturbing to us."  He paused to grip violently and brace
himself as Terruns braked the car to a dead stop in a distance that
did not exist.  "Traffic lights--not so disturbing to us, because
braking--"

"Ah, yes.  Very difficult on light world."  Traffic moved again,
jumping forward as though seen on a broken film, inexpertly patched.
They were in motion.  "The traction is much less, on a lighter world,
is it not?  The inertia to mass to weight ratio--"


Blake looked around with a sudden relief.  He had been too startled
and frightened to think.  On this world, where great weight forced
their tires solidly into the greenish glasslike pavement, brakes were
infinitely more efficient, and--

They took a right-angle corner with an abruptness that had him half
out of the car, his feet on the thick, pneumatic bumper before he
gripped the rail and pulled himself in again.  And--cars gripped
better on turns.  The mad driving was comparatively sane on that
basis.

"I have no patience with some drivers we have," Terruns told them.
"Reckless.  Use no judgment, and show no respect for other people."
No sooner had he said this when he halted his vehicle a sickening
half an inch from the bumper of the car ahead.

"Relative," said Penton softly, "All things are relative--especially,
speed and acceleration," and gripped the rail in preparation for the
next start.

The road narrowed, became a two-lane street.  Blake was recovering,
as the better understanding of local conditions penetrated.  Suddenly
there was a violent explosion from the empty air directly ahead of
them, a flash of violet flame, and white smoke.  Instantly Terruns
jammed on the brakes, and a violent thud of pneumatic bumpers crashed
the car to a halt so short that Penton and Blake both sailed into the
air.

They sailed along for some hundreds of feet through the air before
descending, their lifting units now advanced to support them
entirely.  A series of popping explosions like a string of
firecrackers sounded behind them, and a howl like a dog whose paw has
been stepped on followed and accompanied.

Together the Terrestrials looked back.  Terruns and his followers
were looking at them in mild bewilderment.  Its great bumper hard
against that of the machine they had so recently quitted, a similar
vehicle carrying two Pornans occupied the formerly vacant volume of
air.  These also were watching the Terrestrials with interest.

"I think I know," said Penton in slow disgust, "why they go only
twenty miles an hour.  Will you tell me what in hell is the idea of
driving around in an invisible car?  Or is that the police system
here?  If it is, I consider it notably screwier than even this
wabble-eyed planet.  Great Wavering Worlds!"


Terruns nodded toward them with evident relief on his face.

"Remarkable--very remarkable, your flight.  For a moment I feared you
might land rather heavily--but why didn't you just hold on?  We
usually do."  For a man of his girth, he displayed a surprising ease
in the agile jump that carried him over the enormous bumper to the
roadway.  The driver of the other car jumped down to meet him, and
the two bowed jerkily in perfect unison.  Together they walked to the
point of collision.

The two cars nuzzled each other like amorous hippopotami.  Terruns
inspected the front of his machine as Penton and Blake approached,
Penton's mouth somewhat angular.

"No damage?" suggested the driver of the second car.

Terruns beamed cheerfully.

"No damage," he agreed.

The second driver swung nimbly into his seat, nodded good-by.  His
car swerved violently backward, braked, then swung forward and away
with a savage acceleration.

"Is it customary to drive around in invisible cars?" interrupted
Penton plaintively.  "I should think it would make traffic more than
a little confusing."

"Sorry, my friend.  Very unusual now.  But no damage, no damage at
all.  In the last six months, but two people have been killed in such
collisions."  Terruns looked rather proudly at the enormous inflated
sausage that circled the car.  "Some of my men developed that.  Very
effective--very simple."

"Excellent, no doubt.  But why have invisible cars in the first
place?  You were, I assure you, no less surprised than we that we did
not land heavily.  And how do you accomplish that invisibility?"

Terruns sighed.

"Not by choice.  We don't accomplish it.  Look.  Come--"  Terruns
started forward to meet the slowly approaching Terrestrials.
Suddenly his immense body seemed to tangle in his feet, and he fell
with a resounding crash.  The force of the impact dented his pudgy
body by several inches, and for a moment he lay there, rather
startled eyes slowly winking.  A queerly mischievous, chuckling
gurgle came from the empty air beside him, and it seemed to Penton
that a sort of vertical heat wave in the air danced down the street,
to vanish as suddenly as it had come into being.

Terruns' large eyes blinked once more, and he shook his head.  He
rose to his feet with a sigh of annoyance, just as one of the
hurrying Pornans from the rear of the car reached him.

"Damn _krull_," he exclaimed.  The frown faded from his moon face and
his usual good-natured philosophy seemed to rule again.  "Unusually
persistent, wasn't he?  I suppose he has gone.  Ah, well.  I could
smell singed hair, I hope he learned something."

Blake stared at him in considerable wonder.

"What is a _krull_?" he asked.

For once, Terruns did not reply immediately.  He looked thoughtfully
at Blake, and even more thoughtfully at Penton.

"Monkey," he said at length.  "Ape--no, monkey."  Then he nodded,
smiling as usual, somewhat vaguely.  "A _krull_ is somewhat like your
monkey.  A higher species.  Quite intelligent.  Delights in mischief.
Smaller than we are, and very bony.  Oh, very."  Terruns rubbed his
pudgy leg vigorously, the soft flesh denting deeply under his fingers.

"Are they--invisible?"  Blake looked about him vaguely.  "I gathered
you had tripped over one, but unless they are a good deal smaller
than you, I don't see how I missed it."

Terruns nodded sadly.

"They disrupt economic life.  Mischievous, just mischievous.  And
they love excitement.  When we first started using automobiles they
caused no end of excitement.  All our higher species have telepathic
powers.  _Krulls_, very sad, have great powers.  Not intelligent, not
quite reasoning, perhaps, but almost.  And remarkable vision.  Eyes
unlike ours.  One on each side of the head like--oh, your rabbit?
Rabbits see in all directions also?  Yes, so do _krulls_.  And
telepathic, marvelously so.  That makes them invisible."

Penton looked at the Pornan thoughtfully for a moment.

"Sorry, my friend, you have skipped a step somewhere.  How does that
make them invisible?"

"Well, now see.  You see me.  Now--"  Terruns grinned and wasn't
there.




CHAPTER III

_The Stolen Ship_

Denton wiggled his head slowly, and looked more carefully.
Definitely there was a large, and conspicuous hole in the landscape,
a large, grayish mist that swirled and seethed with a curious riot of
colors and angles and impossibly shaped buildings.

[Illustration: _Penton saw a curious riot of colors and angles_]

Abruptly Terruns was back.  Blake looked at him with considerable
distaste.

"Can all of you do that?"

"It's very simple," nodded Terruns.  "But we can't see like a
_krull_.  I merely telepathized the idea that I wasn't there.
Momentarily you were deceived, but quickly reasoned that I _must_ be
there, because of the hole in the landscape.  Therefore you saw me
again.  A _krull_, of course, sees in all directions, and therefore
can fill the hole in the landscape by telepathizing two things.  He
isn't there.  You see the landscape.  Very simple."

Blake looked at Penton from the side of his eyes.

"Ted, shall we go for a walk?  Back to the ship, maybe.  Somehow
telepathizing imps don't promise well."

"They make themselves completely invisible in that way?" asked Penton.

"Quite," Terruns replied.  A more serious expression crossed his face
as he explained further the troubles of his people.  "And worse, as
you saw.  They make automobiles invisible.  Sit on the bumper in
front.  They like excitement, and that sometimes makes a lot of
excitement."  His face lighted a bit as he nodded toward the car,
"But not so much since the fire-vents were installed."

"Oh.  Explosives?"

"Yes.  Serves two purposes.  First, if I see a car coming toward me
that doesn't seem to see me, I know a _krull_ is riding in front.  I
press a button on the panel.  Explosions warn other driver, and we
both brake sharply.  Also explosions immediately under _krull_
usually induce him to move.  Frequently the _krull_ gets caught
between cars, which is very good.  Usually," he sighed, "they escape,
merely somewhat singed.  But they are intelligent.  They learn."

"Why the devil don't you drive them away?"

Terruns smiled sadly.

"How?  We would very much like to.  Oh, no end.  But no results.
They steal our food, they steal anything that will move.  Don't
attack us, because we are very much stronger.  Very hard to shoot
what you can't see."

"Great Worlds, Terruns, can't you get rid of the creatures somehow?
Use colored glasses so you see differently than they, and make them
visible.  Any trick like that?"

"Trick?  Oh, my dear friend, the mind is tricked.  It does no good to
trick our eyes, when our minds are tricked.  We have tried a truly
remarkable assortment of mechanisms," Terruns sighed, "but none of
them work."

"From your fall, I should think people would be badly injured
tripping over the blamed things," Blake suggested.

"That's why we wear these suits," Terruns replied.

"Suits?"

The moon face split in a good-natured grin.

"I'm not quite as large as this.  It's the protective suit.  It
bounces."  The Pornan touched something somewhere in his suit.
Rapidly the seemingly skin-tight suit shrank.  It hung in folds,
disconsolate droops and lumps all over him.  Then the elasticity of
the suit began to work, and slowly it crawled back to a skin-tight
fit in fact.


An utterly different Terruns emerged.  His body was squat and
enormously powerful, the huge chest heavily banded with thick sheets
and cords of muscle, great rippling cords of it flowing into thick,
muscle-ridged arms.  His torso tapered to a narrow waist, then
expanded into blocky, corded legs.  Far from pudgy, there was not an
ounce of fat on that perfect specimen of the powerfully muscled
denizen of this heavy-gravity world.

And with that alteration, his face seemed now subtly changed.  The
roundness was not the fulness of fat, but a roundness of differently
shaped bones, and differently placed muscle-cords.  The roundness
differed from a human face as a bulldog's round face from the lean
jaws of the wolfhound.  Blake whistled softly.

The Pornan's good-natured smile reappeared.

"Different worlds--different people."

"Different worlds," repeated Penton with a gentle moan, "different
people.  I, Blake, am different for life."

"Do you still remember that--six long hours ago?  Old Elephant
Penton.  Can you remember anything else that was said?"

"Little."  Penton moved gingerly.  The motion, inasmuch as he was
floating in Terruns' salt-water-filled swimming pool, sent his nose
under the surface.  He straightened out with hasty caution and a
soft, but heartfelt remark.  "Damn little.  Six hours under doubled
gravity and--"  He stopped and looked up.  Terruns was standing on
the edge of the pool looking down at them with sad reproof.

"I asked you," their host said reproachfully, "I asked you
particularly, but you said the ship would not move if you weren't
there."

"Right," agreed Penton, paddling gently to bring himself to a
vertical position.  "You asked, and it won't."

"Sorry," Terruns shook his head.  "Report from the Park Department.
They can't find it.  They didn't expect to see it.  We never see
things like that, but they can't feel it.  Very unusual, if it can't
be moved."

"What?  Can't find our ship?"

"You said," Terruns began.  He stopped abruptly as he leaped
violently and awkwardly into the air, to land in the pool with a
mighty thunder, and a tidal wave that all but swamped the
Terrestrials.  Immediately the inflated suit brought him bobbing to
the surface, lying on his stomach, his arms moving uselessly because
of the airtight suit.  They would not grip the water.  Simultaneously
there was a chuckling chatter and a loud _thump_.

Terruns released a mighty "oof" and sank six inches into the water.
The chattering went on excitedly from empty air, while a mad
splashing began on both sides of the balloon-clad Pornan, as though
an invisible side-wheeler in a frightful hurry had gone slightly
askew.  Terruns was gasping heavily, half stunned, while his body
began to move in hurried circles to the accompaniment of much
chattering.

Blake and Penton stared in paralyzed astonishment.  Terruns recovered
his wind, reached the tab on his suit, and Pornan and invisible rider
plunged into the water.  Instantly both struck out for the shore, and
the _krull_, too busy otherwise to remain invisible, appeared.

A rabbit-eared, rabbit-faced, four-limbed creature the size of a
ten-year-old child, it had a surprisingly chunky body.  Details of
arms and legs were rather blurred, as both were working with a truly
amazing determination and efficiency.  For a moment Terruns was
handicapped as his suit shrank back to fit; then he too got into
action.  Arms churning like twin propellers, and both feet going in a
white froth of water, he overhauled the shrieking _krull_, a six-inch
bow wave curling about his ears.


The little creature bounced out of the water when it reached the pool
edge, and disappeared the instant it hit the tiled floor.
Immediately behind it, Terruns swarmed up the lip of the pool and set
off down the tile like a bloodhound on the trail.  The wet animal was
dripping revealingly.  Halfway to the arched door at the far end he
skidded to a halt, and grabbed at the air.  A yowling shriek greeted
his move, and triumphantly he raised his arm.  The shrieks continued
but nothing appeared as a source.

Terruns walked back toward the pool more leisurely.

"You said," went on the Pornan calmly, "that it couldn't be moved,
but it was.  It isn't there."  He reached the edge of the pool, and
bent down.  The shrieking chatter mounted; as he lowered his hand a
hole appeared in the water, then a white froth.  "Presently, my
friends, I shall show you a _krull_.  Very reckless fellow.  They
love to go paddling, though."  The shrieking chatter had changed to
an unhappy glubbing and a thunder of splashing water.  Slowly the
glubbing and splashing reached a climax and died away.  The
pool-edge, the water and even Terruns wavered and twisted crazily in
appearance.  Then a wet, feebly kicking, half-drowned creature
appeared, about six inches below the surface of the water.

"Oh," said Penton distastefully, "we have 'em on our world, too.
They appear and disappear, and sometimes only one person can see
them."

"You do?" asked Terruns with interest.

"Sure," said Penton.  "We have a drug that makes them visible.
Alcohol.  We call them D.T.'s."

"Deetees," said Terruns mildly, looking down at the wet, slowly
reviving creature.  "Curious."  The _krull's_ rabbit ears drooped
dejectedly, bright green rabbit ears drooping over a bright red face.
The red faded gradually into a handsome purple body, marked by a
large and unnaturally brilliant orange stripe down the middle of the
back.  Constant wear had removed all hair from feet, hands, and other
parts frequently in contact with the ground, exposing the bright red
skin.

"Maybe," said Blake, "you should leave it alone so it will recover
rapidly.  They really are more pleasant to look at when they are
invisible."

"Could you tie that thing up somehow, Terruns, so we can experiment
on it?" asked Penton wearily.  "I have an idea that we'll have to
hunt for our ship."

"Oh, yes.  The medical staff is here, by the way.  I'll tie it up,
you can get out of the water, and they will strap you up more
comfortably."

"You're sure that ship is gone?  I don't see how a _krull_ could move
it."

"Not one _krull_.  A troop of _krull_.  We always fasten down
anything movable.  Even stones.  They love to put them in the street,
and sit on them.  Very exciting crashes.  A troop of _krull_, I'm
afraid--but they won't carry it more than five miles or so.  They
lose interest quickly."

"Penton," said Blake softly, "you know, I left the lift-drive on
seven-eighths, so the ship wouldn't mar the turf.  I'll bet we are
here three months looking for that blasted thing.  Five miles and an
invisible ship.  More fun--"

"I'd take you up on that bet, Blake, but for one thing.  I _know_ we
won't be here three months looking for it."

"Why?"

"Because we have emergency rations in the suits for only one week,
and they use a mixture of copper selenate and potassium arsenate for
fertilizer on the local crops.  Laugh that off."

"You left out potassium cyanide," Blake groaned.

"I didn't leave out cyanide; that's about the only poison they don't
use.  All their plants want nice heavy metals like lead and copper
and mercury.  For non-metals they prefer the heavy ones like selenium
and tellurium and arsenic.  This world, it would seem, is lousy with
heavy metals, and so are the plants.  And due to a sad neglect in my
education, I never learned to digest those compounds."




CHAPTER IV

_End of the Krull_

Blake looked down at himself thoughtfully.  Elastic bandages wound in
puttee fashion about each leg joined and wound up on his abdomen to
his chest.  He squeaked faintly when he moved.

"Did they give you the oil can, Ted?"

"No.  But this should make a good shock-absorber.  Step on it, will
you?  There's a chauffeur waiting to take us down to the Powers and
Mechanisms Building again.  Terruns said he'd meet us there."

"The bird that wrapped me ought to make a living as a mummy-maker.
Did Terruns say how they go about looking for lost things?"

"Their search methods are simple and ineffective; gang of men with a
long rope between them.  Hurry up; I'll wait outside."

Half an hour later they joined Terruns at his office, slightly
jittery, but somewhat to their own surprise, in one piece.  Terruns,
they had learned during this last ride, was a careful driver, indeed,
for a Pornan.

"Ah.  The Terrestrials," he greeted them.  "Sit down."  Terruns waved
them to a seat with one hand.  Thoughtfully, Penton noticed that
Terruns' desk was of a rich, red wood finished with brightly chromium
plated fixtures of quite familiar design.

"If," said Penton softly, "we don't find that ship in about three
weeks, we'll be gone, because we use food faster here.  I've already
eaten twice of those emergency rations."

"Feeding," acknowledged Blake unhappily, "but not filling.  If you
hear me grumble, it's my stomach, over which I'm losing all control.
It is distinctly annoyed at what it righteously considers my perfidy.
That one-inch lump of extinct sawdust, labeled 'one sirloin steak,
350 cal.', didn't fool it a bit.  It's just as hungry as ever."

Penton nodded at a luscious-looking dark violet fruit that Terruns
was toying with.

"If you ate that, Blake, your stomach would quiet down almost at
once.  Certainly within two hours.  On Earth we mine ore that doesn't
assay as high a mercury content as that thing has.  Shut up and let
me think."

"Why don't you rig up a radio doodle-bug?" suggested Blake.  "The
inductance of the ship should be darned easy to spot, and working the
way they do with those--"

"Doodle-bugs are out," sighed Penton, "I thought of that.  They're
fine for finding buried metal, but they have two troubles here.
Pornans broadcast power, which I have studied carefully while you
were studying their ore-handling machinery.  But they do not use
radio methods.  I gave Terruns complete data on radio.  In six months
or a year he'll make an effective radio tube, I'll bet.

"If you want to wait for that--in the meantime all our tools are in
the ship.  The electrical field method doesn't work because that
requires an amplifier.  The magnetic induction won't work till we are
already so near you'd find it quicker with the rope method they use."

"Yes," sighed Penton, "but no ship."  Blake turned to Terruns.

"How long will it take them to run that search out to that five mile
circle?" he asked.

"Ah," said Terruns hesitantly, glancing at some sheets in front of
him, "two months and three days, the last time.  But more men this
time.  A month, perhaps?  Not quick enough--I'm truly sorry, but you
have no idea how annoying these creatures are to a decent,
civilized--"

"Stomach," suggested Blake unhappily.  "We're rapidly finding out.
You've no idea how annoyed we'll be as we slowly starve to death.
Oh, no idea."


Penton interrupted.

"Listen," he begged Blake, "will you eat that fruit over there and
shut up one way or another?  I'm trying to think.  There must be some
way--this thing's gone on too damned long now."

"Oh, yes, much," agreed Terruns.  "We're doing all we can--"

"I know.  We're not blaming you or your people," Penton grinned.
"You are doing your damnedest, I realize, but the thing's senseless.
There must be some way to stop them.  This world of yours is too
monotonous for your own good.  Always warm, everywhere.  Always
light, every--yeah.  So it is.  Sweet--Terruns!"

Suddenly Penton jumped out of his seat with all the speed of a
Pornan, his hand flashing back to his pack.  Abruptly his hand was
leveling a short, lensed tube at Terruns' startled face.  The Pornan
first bent back in his chair hastily in startled amazement, then,
thinking the tube a weapon, his hand darted out like a striking snake
to twist the cold, crystalline eye of the tube away from him.

Penton dropped his tube with a howl of pain and leaped back, shaking
his hand, but grinning sheepishly.

"Sorry, Terruns, must have startled you," he apologized.  "Look--it's
harmless--just a light."  Again he picked up the tube, in his left
hand this time, and turned it on Blake.  The brilliant light beam of
his atomic flashlight stabbed sharply into Blake's face forcing him
to blink, squinting until his eyes became adjusted.

"Yes," said Terruns, uncertainly.  "Most--er--confusing.  Your
thoughts are not at all clear.".

Penton turned the beam of light into Terruns' face.  The Pornan shut
his eyes at once, throwing a hand up to his face.

"It's very brilliant, uncomfortably so.  Could you turn--turn it
somewhere else--oh.  Yes, turn it away."

Penton turned away the light with a sigh of relief.

"That, Terruns, is all I want to know.  Look, take these, and make
'em fit somehow.  And come on, we're due for some good hunting."
Penton passed over a pair of space goggles, and reluctantly Terruns
adjusted them to his face.

"It's an unpleasant sensation," he told the explorers.  "But yes, I
think, my friend, that you have solved, with your other-world mind, a
long outstanding problem.  Just one moment and we will be on our way.
Oh do you have another pair for my friend, Drunath, a very excellent
gentleman?  Spent his life finding quicker ways to kill _krull_.
Just down the hall--"

Blake passed over his set of space goggles in blank wonderment.
Presently the four started down, and out of the building, into a side
street that Terruns recommended for a test.  The test was wholly
inconclusive.

"The park," said Drunath slowly, "is always infested with _krull_.
There is a wood, a group of trees, that has not been properly
searched in fifty years.  Ropes cannot be used.  Shall we go there?"

Half an hour later, cars had deposited them, together with a troop of
Drunath's extermination squad.  Penton and Blake for the first time
had an opportunity to walk through the spot where the ship should
have been, a remembered swale between a little hillock of pink turf
and a vine-covered outthrust of black, glistening rock.  It rose some
hundred feet, to a huge, rugged boulder that looked strangely like a
lop-eared _krull_ with an ugly, grinning face.

"Krull Rock," explained Drunath.  "Always search it first for
anything smaller than an automobile.  If there aren't any _krull_
there, there aren't any in town."


Blake looked up.  Black rock, jumbled boulders, and creeping vines.
Bright metal testified to a complete ring of steel traps, all
unoccupied.  Penton was working with his flash, adjusting the tiny
atomic generator it contained to maximum power.  Then he pressed the
little button.

A low hum came from the instrument, then, a shaft of light
unbearable, coruscating brilliance.  It shimmered from the black
rocks in a scintillating, twinkling rain--and vanished as Penton
released the flash.  Slowly, Blake's eyes adjusted themselves.  Then
again the flash, and again, till it was on full, and Blake's eyes had
readjusted to its light.

Penton was chuckling softly.  The air was full of soft whimpers, and
little screeches.  They turned to howls of dismay as Penton and
Blake, unsteady for laughter, picked off dozens of the crazy-quilt
_krull_.  Their UV pistols working methodically, they cleaned out the
entire colony of the beasts perched on the rock.

Slowly, unsteadily, Terruns and Drunath were firing.

"Curse all Gods, destroy all devils, and particular maledictions of
_krull_," Drunath exclaimed.  "Your goggles are inadequate.  I can
hardly see through them.  For the first time in my life I can dimly
see a colony, a whole troop of _krull_, and I cannot shoot straight!"
Drunath threw down his weapon in disgust.  "Can you," asked Blake,
"see what is on top of that blasted rock?"

"Fire.  It looks like fire to us."

"Not fire.  Metal.  A whole metal ship.  Your idiotic krall didn't
carry it two hundred yards, but just up above where your search
methods weren't worth a damn.  We will move it."

"You are leaving?" asked Terruns sadly.

"Not," Penton assured him, "by six planets and a dozen moons.  We're
staying for the shooting.  And, oh, my friends, what royal and
unadulterated joy I'll take in running the last of those _krull_ out
of this town."  Penton and Blake lifted simultaneously into the air,
and within a few seconds into the ship.

Alone in their space ship a day later, Blake puffed complacently at a
cigarette.

"I would still like to know just how you thought of it.  It's an
excellent way, I don't dispute, but how did you figure it out, Ted?"

Penton smiled affably.

"What big eyes you have, Terruns.  The better to see with five
billion miles from the sun.  Look, Rod, though their eyes are
extremely sensitive, they are powerfully weak in accommodation.  The
inhabitants on this satellite never have any real light out here.  I
was using a light so powerful that these unadapted fellows just
couldn't see in it at all; we could, after a moment.  But the _krull_
were totally blinded by it, and suffered acute pain in the bargain.
It's not surprising that an animal that depends so on its eyes should
be paralyzed when its eyes won't work.  When I flashed the light they
could not wiggle a muscle, they were so scared.  And they couldn't
keep the ship invisible, either!"

"Nor," said Blake comfortably, "our food supply."


[The end of _The Brain Pirates_ by John W. Campbell, Jr.]