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“I wish they’d come,” Edwardson said.

* * * * *

Richard Everset and C. R. Jones had gone on the first interstellar flight. They had found an inhabited planet in the region of Vega. The rest was standard procedure.

A flip of the coin had decided it. Everset went down in the scouter, maintaining radio contact with Jones, in the ship.

The recording of that contact was preserved for all Earth to hear.

“Just met the natives,” Everset said. “Funny-looking bunch. Give you the physical description later.”

“Are they trying to talk to you?” Jones asked, guiding the ship in a slow spiral over the planet.

“No. Hold it. Well I’m damned! They’re telepathic! How do you like that?”

“Great,” Jones said. “Go on.”

“Hold it. Say, Jonesy, I don’t know as I like these boys. They haven’t got nice minds. Brother!”

“What is it?” Jones asked, lifting the ship a little higher.

“Minds! These bastards are power-crazy. Seems they’ve hit all the systems around here, looking for someone to–“

“Yeh?”

“I’ve got that a bit wrong,” Everset said pleasantly. “They are not so bad.”

Jones had a quick mind, a suspicious nature and good reflexes. He set the accelerator for all the G’s he could take, lay down on the floor and said, “Tell me more.”

“Come on down,” Everset said, in violation of every law of spaceflight. “These guys are all right. As a matter of fact, they’re the most marvelous–“

That was where the recording ended, because Jones was pinned to the floor by twenty G’s acceleration as he boosted the ship to the level needed for the C-jump.

He broke three ribs getting home, but he got there.

A telepathic species was on the march. What was Earth going to do about it?

A lot of speculation necessarily clothed the bare bones of Jones’ information. Evidently the species could take over a mind with ease. With Everset, it seemed that they had insinuated their thoughts into his, delicately altering his previous convictions. They had possessed him with remarkable ease.

How about Jones? Why hadn’t they taken him? Was distance a factor? Or hadn’t they been prepared for the suddenness of his departure?

One thing was certain. Everything Everset knew, the enemy knew. That meant they knew where Earth was, and how defenseless the planet was to their form of attack.

It could be expected that they were on their way.

Something was needed to nullify their tremendous advantage. But what sort of something? What armor is there against thought? How do you dodge a wavelength?

Pouch-eyed scientists gravely consulted their periodic tables.

And how do you know when a man has been possessed? Although the enemy was clumsy with Everset, would they continue to be clumsy? Wouldn’t they learn?

Psychologists tore their hair and bewailed the absence of an absolute scale for humanity.

Of course, something had to be done at once. The answer, from a technological planet, was a technological one. Build a space fleet and equip it with some sort of a detection-fire network.

This was done in record time. The Attison Detector was developed, a cross between radar and the electroencephalograph. Any alteration from the typical human brain wave pattern of the occupants of a Detector-equipped ship would boost the indicator around the dial. Even a bad dream or a case of indigestion would jar it.

It seemed probable that any attempt to take over a human mind would disturb something. There had to be a point of interaction, somewhere.

That was what the Attison Detector was supposed to detect. Maybe it would.

The spaceships, three men to a ship, dotted space between Earth and Mars, forming a gigantic sphere with Earth in the center.

Tens of thousands of men crouched behind gunfire panels, watching the dials on the Attison Detector.

The unmoving dials.

* * * * *