This, which takes time to record; to read, passed through Wanniston's
mind in no flash of staccato continuity, but as a pattern-plan. It was
like thinking of a scotch plaid, or a linoleum pattern to the ordinary
mortal; it came instantaneously to the energized intellect of John
Wanniston, and he knew the whole futile thing from upper left to lower
right before Lieutenant Alfred's voice had ceased to echo through Gerd
Lel Rayne's workshop.
He was framed.
He was IT.
And as nicely a nasty bit of connivery as ever hit the sight.
HE was IT.
Wanniston moved with rattlesnake swiftness. He hit the light cord,
pulled and twisted. A splurt of sparks came with blackness and
Wanniston faded back and down to run, stooped, across the workshop
floor avoiding the clutter of machinery and furniture by the faculty of
eidetic memory.
By sensitivity of mind, he knew where Gerd Lel Rayne kept his
spacecraft, and he went there immediately. A _whoosh!_ of passing air
and Wanniston was in the stratosphere, free and away. He dropped back
again a few minutes later to his office where he bundled his mind
machine into the spacecraft before he left Terra forever.
Terra.
A planetful of fools. They did not respect his superior intellect. They
did not even admit it. They hated him for being able to get that which
they could not get, and they resented the fact that he was capable of
doing it to their misfortune. They gambled with him--and when they
lost, they welshed, like stinking cry-babies.
But Wanniston was smart. He knew where he'd be appreciated. In the
galaxy were men of intellect that would welcome him. Give him another
month at the machine.
Gerd Lel Rayne. Now he knew the truth about Gerd. Emissary! Magnificent
creature; supergenius!
Bah! One whose intellect was moronic compared to the Galactic Ones.
One who had been placed on Terra because only a moron could be
understood by Terrans. The Galactic Ones could understand Terrans
after much painful, wearisome prodding and waiting while the Terrans,
idiotlike, stumbled through their clumsy sentence structure. But no
Terran could understand the pattern-plan of quadruple-ideas that passed
from Galactic One to Galactic One--or even the most careful effort of
the Galactic One to be patient and redundantly explicit when and if
speaking to a Terran. That is why the inbetween--Gerd Lel Rayne.
Well, Wanniston was far superior to Gerd Lel Rayne, and another month
would see him equal to any of the Galactic Ones.
* * * * *
Far, long light-years across the galaxy, Wanniston loafed along, taking
accelerated treatments and seeking, idly, one of the main planets of
the Galactic Ones. He found one, finally, and slid into the spaceport
with all the boldness of a sector governor.
He decided to brazen it out--obviously the ship would be registered and
his lack of license papers might be questioned. So he opened the space
lock and stepped to the ground to face one of the attendants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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