Zandoplith looked pained. “You are not reading the questions from the Handbook,” he complained.
“I know, I know. But did you hear what he said?”
“I heard it.” Zandoplith’s voice sounded morose.
“It wasn’t true, was it?”
Zandoplith drew himself up to his full five feet one. “Your Splendor, you have taken it upon yourself to deviate from the Handbook, but I will not permit you to question the operation of the Reality Detector. Reality is truth, and therefore truth is reality; the Detector hasn’t erred since—since ever!”
“I know,” Thagobar said hastily. “But do you realize the implications of what he said? There are a few thousand people on the home planet; all the colonies have less. And yet, there are several billion of his race! That means they have occupied around ten million planets!”
“I realize it sounds queer,” admitted Zandoplith, “but the Detector never lies!” Then he realized whom he was addressing and added, “Your Splendor.”
But Thagobar hadn’t noticed the breach of etiquette. “That’s perfectly true. But, as you said, there’s something queer here. We must investigate further.”
Magruder had already realized that his mathematics was off kilter; he was thinking at high speed.
Thagobar’s voice said: “According to our estimates, there are not that many habitable planets in the galaxy. How do you account, then, for your statement?”
With a quick shift of viewpoint, Magruder thought of Mars, so many light-years away. There had been a scientific outpost on Mars for a long time, but it was a devil of a long way from being a habitable planet.
“My people,” he said judiciously, “are capable of living on planets with surface conditions which vary widely from those of Earth.”
Before Thagobar could ask anything else, another thought occurred to the Earthman. The thousand-inch telescope on Luna had discovered, spectroscopically, the existence of large planets in the Andromeda Nebula. “In addition,” he continued blandly, “we have found planets in other galaxies than this.”
There! That ought to confuse them!
Again the sound was cut off, and Magruder could see the two aliens in hot discussion. When the sound came back again, Thagobar had shifted to another tack.
“How many spaceships do you have?”
Magruder thought that one over for a long second. There were about a dozen interstellar ships in the Earth fleet—not nearly enough to colonize ten million planets. He was in a jam!
No! Wait! A supply ship came to New Hawaii ever six months. But there were no ships on New Hawaii.
“Spaceships?” Magruder looked innocent. “Why, we have no spaceships.”
Thagobar Verf shut off the sound again, and this time, he made the wall opaque, too. “No spaceships? No spaceships ? He lied… I hope?”
Zandoplith shook his head dolefully. “Absolute truth.”
“But—but—but—”
“Remember what he said his race called themselves?” the psychologist asked softly.
Thagobar blinked very slowly. When he spoke, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Beings with minds of vast power.”
“Exactly,” said Zandoplith.
Magruder sat in the interrogation chamber for a long time without hearing or seeing a thing. Had they made sense out of his statements? Were they beginning to realize what he was doing? He wanted to chew his nails, bite his lips, and tear his hah-; instead, he forced himself to outward calm. There was a long way to go yet.
When the wall suddenly became transparent once more, he managed to keep from jumping.
“Is it true,” asked Thagobar, “that your race has the ability to move through space by means of mental power alone?”
For a moment, Magruder was stunned. It was beyond his wildest expectations. But he rallied quickly.
How does a man walk? he thought.