Subject: Richard Sharpe Shaver. Dec. 12, 2007.
Here he talks about how tall the Titans get and also
introduces the word Dero.
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"Unless they are all mad," said the first speaker. "The
sane unit of such a project will see that the basic unit
right is inherent to their own success, and realize that
destroying those rights will wreck their own plans. The
only thing it can he is the explanation a Titan growth
technicon offered--that some rodite have been detrimentally
charged by disintegrant coil leaks..."
I could not help breaking into the conversation.
"That is right! The thing has been explained to me that
way; as a detrimental hypnosis in which the ego--or
self-will--the self recognition of the mind centers
confuses its self-originated impulses with the
exterior-originated detrimental impulses to destroy. Such a
condition is called dero, [*17] or detrimental energy
robotism. The thing is simple enough, but I cannot
understand how it could happen here in Tean City, where
perfection in romantics is so old. Such an occurrence is
guarded against by many battle ro, by great organic battery
brains raised for just that purpose. How could it happen?"
The two Titans looked at me and shook their heads. They
knew as little as I how it could be.
"Well, it couldn't, but it did!" Arl said with feminine
logic, and taking me by the arm, led the way to a rollat.
In a moment we were speeding away from the dangerous area.
Beside me Arl relaxed with a sigh, and I felt her
trembling with reaction.
I put an arm around her. "Brave girl," I whispered.
We were soon nearing Arl's apartment, and looking down at
her fresh, young face, I felt a wave of worry pass through
me.
"I wish we were under that new sun right now; on those
fresh-born planets of life with clean new coordinating
mechanisms under rodite we ourselves selected and could
therefore trust. I fear that the migration has been too
long delayed--the old sun's disintegrant pressure upon the
unseen base of our life is now too great for anything else
to happen than what happened tonight. Can we help to strive
against this immense err, deep-seated in the control minds
about us as it must be; or must we flee at once, before
they make impossible our flight, thinking of it has a
danger of tale bearing?"
But Arl's lips were on mine as the rollat slowed before
her home, an effective quietus to my dangerous words, and
my mind no longer dwelt on the fear--nor imagined the
embrace of a six-armed giant Sybyl female or the cru****ng
coils of a s**** woman about me!--for it was too busy
recording the ecstatic sensations of the intense vital
charge the faun-legged girl threw into her embrace. My mind
gave up its worry in Arl's soft contact.
The next day I entered the classroom and found it empty.
I went to the incubation laboratory and found several other
early students standing there in silent consternation, the
fear welling up almost to openness in their eyes. The Titan
was not present, nor were any of his attendants. Some of
the embryos were dead, others half-smothered; because no
attendant had turned on the filtered, enriched air tanks
which kept their nutrient fluid supply aerated. I started
toward them, but a young son of a Titan stopped me.
"I turned them on," he said in low, evenly-measured
tones.
"Where is the Titan?" I asked.
"No one knows," was the answer I got from all.
Other students came in now, among them Arl. She came to
my side, but remained silent, troubled.
We waited a short time. Then a student called tutor
center, to inquire. He turned to us with a peculiar look in
his eyes.
"They say he is ill!"
"Ill?" The exclaimed question burst from all of us. In
Atlan this was startling. Illness is almost unheard of; a
rarity only on the space frontiers where new varieties of
germs were sometimes troublesome.
The news brought Arl close to me, her silky-furred tail
trembling as shudders shook her slim body. "Mutan, I am
afraid," she whispered.
Her fear transmitted itself to me, and the thought came
into my mind that this room was not safe. The same thought
obviously had come to the others, because our movement
toward the exit was as though by mutual accord. There was
obviously some awful connection between the b-ack deaths
and the Titan's strange non-appearance. Yesterday the Titan
had said a guard ray was on while he spoke to us so gravely
of the fear--Had that guard ray been no guard at all? Had
those e-il rodite penetrated the guard ray, heard his
words, known the Titan as a menace to their plan?
The: class was dismissed--this time by fear!
And somehow I knew that the thought in my mind was in the
mind of all. We had the same knowledge the Titan had. We
were in the same danger. We were marked for disappearance,
illness, or the bl-ck death! We must flee, now or never!
Proof of the thoughts of the others came almost
instantly. As we trooped in assumed light-heartedness down
the tunnel toward the rollat ways one, of the accompanying
youths proposed a picnic in the forest to celebrate the
unexpected holiday. He said it loudly in a gay voice, and
the others chorused their delighted approval, a delight
that Arl and I feigned too. All fell in with the project,
the unspoken desire to flee the city strong in our breasts,
our anticipation of being together among the trees, which
dwellers seldom see, strong too.
I raced ahead with Arl, shouting , "Let me lead you to
the elevators." There was meaning in my voice, and intent
in my mind. I was not forgetting my promise to my friend,
the control-man.
We reached the shaft that led to Sub Atlan, from which we
would take another lift to surface Mu. There, as we shot
upward, I whispered the news to the control-man. "The
terror is loose in Tean City," I concluded. "Escape as soon
as you can. If at all possible, beg off from another
descent and be away. There is great danger for all whom
they suspect are aware of them."
He retained a straight face, but I could see the concern
in his eyes, and the determination to make good his escape
also.
As we lolled in apparent ease on the soft sod of the
culture forest, the traditional empty glass made its
appearance in the circle. No one spoke of it, but its
significant reminder of d-ath's clutch was a constant thing
in my mind. Never had fear and de-th been a part of my
thought before; but that empty goblet with its sweetly
spiraling stem uppermost was no longer just tradition, but
now had a meaning almost immense. What to do to avoid that
da-nable mechanical play of detrimental force from the mind
of some unknown rodite, staring through the viewplates of
his defective, detrimentally hypnotic mechanism, seeking to
destroy the best first? [*18] If they thought we were
escaping they would seek us out and snatch us back.
I sat and mused. "Simple magnetics; yet such mighty minds
as the Atlans fall before it. We must be clever..." I went
on thinking of it; but again recurred the regret of last
night. If only the migration had taken place a few years
ago! But perhaps it had been so planned; and delayed?
Delayed by the bl-ck dea-h which had thus far struck so
s-cretly and silently. The plan of the rodite must be near
completion or their sec-ecy would have been maintained.
And then, as I sat there, an idea presented itself. I
knew a way to escape, and I spoke quickly before my
thoughts were clear enough for any unseen listener to read
"Let us all charter a space ****p and take a look at Mother
Mu from above!
There is no greater thrill than that to cap the day!"
As one we leaped to our feet. I knew then that our
thoughts had been very similar; I had only been the first
to express the next step in spoken words.
"We will have to take a shuttle ****p first," said a young
Titan quickly.
"Come, I know the way."
# Footnotes #
^27:16 The Atlans, Mr. Shaver reveals, were ever
youthful, and never ceased growing. There was no such thing
as "maturity" in the sense that growth stopped. Thus, an
Atlan's age could be determined to a certain extent by his
size. Many of them reached tremendous stature, sometimes as
much as 300 feet, and heights of 40 feet and more were
rather common. Mr. Shaver refers to "ancient" books which
have been destroyed, which contained a great deal of Atlan
knowledge and history, but points to references in the
B-ble such as "In those days there were giants in the
Earth" as actual truth, recorded memory of the Titans.
Especially significant is the definite statement "in the
Earth" and not on it! The Atlans, by the use of their
wonderful machines. kept their bodies constantly supplied
with a sufficient amount of exd (the energy ash from which
all matter is formed by condensation] so that their growth
never stopped, but their bodies grew ever larger and
heavier.
Health itself was determined by weight; a healthy person
was heavy. If he became ill, he lost weight. Illness is the
inability of the body to fully utilize the available exd,
or is the result of an insufficient quantity of exd.--Ed.
Part 1.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Richard Sharpe Shaver. Part 2. Dec. 13, 2007.
This explains how the Dero got so bad.
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^31:17 Pressed for a more complete explanation, Mr.
Shaver has defined "dero' for us:
"Long ago it happened that certain (underground) cities
were abandoned and into those cities stole many mild
mortals to live, At first they were normal people, though
on a lower intelligence plane; and ignorant due to lack of
proper education. It was inevitable that certain
inhabitants of the culture forests lose themselves and
escape proper development; and some of them are of faulty
development. But due to their improper handling of the
life-force and ray apparatus in the abandoned cities, these
apparatii became harmful in effect. They simply did not
realize that the ray filters of the ray mechanisms must be
changed and much of the conductive metal renewed regularly.
If such renewals are not made, the apparatus collects in
itself--in its metal--a disintegrant particle which
gradually turns its beneficial qualities into strangely
harmful ones.
"These ignorant people learned to play with these things,
but not to renew them; so gradually they were mentally
impregnated with the persistently disintegrative particles.
This habituates the creature's mind, its mental movements,
to being overwhelmed by detrimental, e-il force flows which
in time produce a creature whose every reaction in thought
is dominated by a detrimental will. So it is that these
wild people, living in the same rooms with degenerating
force generators, in time become dero, which is short for
detrimental energy robot.
"When this process has gone on long enough, a r-ce of
dero is produced whose every thought movement is concluded
with the decision to k-ll. They will instantly ki-l or
torture anyone whom they contact unless they are extremely
familiar with them and fear them. That is why they do not
instantly kil- each other--because, being raised together,
the part of their brain that functions has learned very
early to recognize as friend or heartily to fear the
members of their own group. They recognize no other living
thing as friend; to a dero all new things are enemy.
"To define: A dero is a man who responds mentally to dis
impulse more readily than to his own impulses. When a dero
has used old. defective apparatus full of dis particle
ac***ulations, they become so degenerate that they are able
to think only when a machine is operating and they are
using it; otherwise they are i-iot. When they reach this
stage they are known as 'ray' (A Lemurian word not to be
confused with ray as it is used in English.) Translated,
ray means 'dangerous or detrimental energy animal.'
Ray is also used to mean a soldier--one of those who
handles beam weapons (note how the ancient meaning has come
into our modern word)."--Ed.
^35:18 Just as lightning strikes the highest point, so
does detrimental force seek the most active and the
healthiest fruit first--they are most attractive. The
detrimental is only a film over an integrative ion which is
attracted first to the most integrant bodies near. This
holds true in thought movements also--thus a dero strikes
at the best first.--Ed.
CHAPTER IV
Escape Into Space Accustomed as I had become to variform
life, we presented a strange, almost fearsome appearing
company to my eyes as we made our way toward the shuttle
****p station. There was young Halftan, of Venusian b-ood,
long-legged, web-footed and fingered, his eyes huge and
faceted; his mate, a girl of Mu except that some forebear
had given the line four arms, probably under the stimulus
of mutation rays because the family pursuit of making
instruments was one where twice the number of fingers could
well be used; Horton, a young fellow of mixed bl-ods, older
than the rest of us, quiet, but long-eared and
sharp-nosed--a listening fox; his girl, a thin, gray,
transparent-skinned maid of Mars, fragile and lovely, her
large, leaf-green eyes lighting devoted friend****p wherever
they rested; two young Titan sisters, their horns just
sprouting from under their curls, their great bodies
new-budding into womanhood; their two escorts, of the
Elder's special creation, large-headed youths of tremendous
intelligence, their hands double-length, their necks and
shoulders by far stronger than normal to carry their great
heads easily, and finally a young Titan male, accompanied
by his friend who was a distant cousin of my own Arl and
whose sprightly, colorful femininity hinted that Arl's
family must be especially noted for their beauty.
Together we made up a company of twelve life-forms of
great diversity; and yet all of us citizens of Atlan;
citizens apparently on an outing, now bound for a gay
adventure to end a holiday's festivities in the supreme
thrill, a sightseeing trip into space.
We dared not think of our true purpose; and I knew that
at least the two Elder escorts were aware of what had
brewed in my mind and would back me up when the time came.
We thought only of our coming adventure, and tried to feel
the delight of it so that even our emotions would register
true to any spying teleray that sought us out to check on
our motives.
The shuttle ****p we boarded was a small, bullet-shaped
plane containing little but a cabin, air-making equipment
and a small fuel compartment in the rear. This plane was
not a space ****p, but only a sort of bullet to be shot from
the surface of Mu to the large station ****p of great weight
which circled in its own orbit, just as the moon circles
the earth forever.
To get the shuttle ****p on its way gravity was
neutralized by an upward beam of semi-penetrative force
traveling at light speed which was turned on gradually
until the car just floated in its cradle under the effect
of the reverse friction to gravity of the force blast
passing through the car.
[*19] When the weight of the car was thus reduced to less
than a pound, I turned on the rocket blasts very gradually
and traveled up the reverse gravity beam by instrument. In
thirty minutes we were circling the huge station ****p as
though we were in our turn its satellite just as it was a
satellite of earth. With vernier rocket blasts, about the
size of toy pistol explosions, the nearly weightless plane
approached a landing. Above us spread the world we had just
left, making an imposing sight as we settled into a cradle
atop the space station.
When we stepped from the shuttle ****p at the edge of the
oval landing area, we saw several globe-bodied moon-men
bustling about their own type of shuttle plane, a long,
wingless splinter constructed of a very fragile and
glass-like substance. Although I feared to think upon it,
the moon was my next destination. One thing that all of us
knew was that we never intended to return to earth. The
blackened face of that son of the Titans, the noblest blo-d
in Tean City, as he lay dying on the dance floor rose
before me to tell me flight was not only best, but the only
course for us.
In spite of myself my eyes roved over the bla-k dome of
space, searching for the lights that might indicate a
pursuing craft. It seemed almost impossible that we were
fooling the mad rodite and their spying telepath rays. In
spite of all self-imposed mental guards, my mind seemed
intent on shrieking "Escape! Escape!" through every
possible loophole in my concentration.
I engaged the gnome-like moon-men in conversation in an
attempt to still further blanket my turbulent mind. Arl
caught my eye and wagged her tail in cheerful
encouragement, seeming to divine what was on my mind. How
expressive that beautiful tail of hers was; how much it
could say; and with no dangerous thought waves to betray
its meaning to those who must not receive on their
sensitive instruments. With that tail, no language, no
thought-transference was needed!
But even if pursuit developed, I had one trick up my
sleeve. I dared not think of it, or some watching rodite
informer might advise any pursuers of my plans and a way to
cir***vent them would be devised.
It struck me that not all of the rodite might know of
recent conditions and developments in Tean City. Nothing
had been announced on the tele-screen news. Thus, while we
were escaping, others ought to know the truth, and
certainly not all the rodite were dis-infected. They would
not re****t what they read in my mind, and the rodite who
knew would not attach special significance to others who
knew; and the very fact that it was thought about in an
unguarded way might cause them to dismiss us as of
immediate danger, and thus blanket our intent to escape.
I thought of the dance, of the sudden striking of the
black death on the dance floor, of my puzzlement as to
what it might mean. I thought of the disappearance of our
tutor technicon, wondered if he too were murdered. Any
sub-rodite, getting a register of my thoughts, would
certainly ponder the meaning of the unbelievable existence
in center Mu of murder; murder whose actuality he could not
doubt, because it would come to him as the unguarded and
therefore true thought of a ro such as I was.
In double-quick time, still acting out our enthusiasm for
an unexpected holiday, we chartered a fast space ****p for
an hour's time. An attendant led us to a cradle on the
landing stage; and we entered the ****p gaily.
Part 2.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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