Part 3 (1/2)
”And if I don't?” he asked. His voice trembled the faintest bit.
”Your signature,” was the reply, ”would merely make things easier for us. In doing what we have done, we had to act swiftly, and so none of our people capable of imitating a signature is available on this planet. That can be rectified in a few days, but fortunately for you, we want quicker action. Accordingly, we are in a position to offer you the choice of signing or not signing.”
”O.K.,” said Marenson ironically. ”My choice is--I don't sign.”
”If you sign,” the Yevd went on in an inexorable tone, ”we'll kill you mercifully.”
”And if I don't?”
”We leave you here.”
Marenson blinked. For an instant it seemed a meaningless threat. And then: ”Yes,” said Peter's image with satisfaction, ”leave you here for the lymph beast's progeny. I understand they like to burrow into the flesh of anybody they catch--a very weight-reducing experience.”
He laughed. It was a human laugh, a remarkable reproduction considering that it was done by light wave activation of a sound box it carried in its abdomen.
Marenson did not answer immediately. Until this instant, he had taken it for granted that the Yevd knew as much about the habits of those deadly dangerous creatures as did men. Apparently, their information was vague, accurate as far as it went, but-- ”Of course,” said Peter Clugy's image, ”we won't really go away. We'll just go over to the s.h.i.+p and watch. And when you've had enough, we'll get your signature. Does that meet with your approval?”
Marenson had caught a movement out of the corner of one eye. It seemed a little more than a series of shadows very close to the ground, more like a quiver in the soil than anything substantial. But the perspiration broke out on his forehead. Dark forest of Mira, he thought, alive with the young of the lymph beast--He held himself very still, looking neither to the right nor to the left, neither at the Yevd nor at the shadow things.
”Well”--it was the Yevd image of the pilot--”we'll stick around and have a look at some of these creatures we've been hearing so much about.”
They were moving away as the speaker reached that point. But Marenson did not turn, did not look. He heard a jerky movement, and then bright flashes lit up the dark corridor under the trees. But Marenson did not even roll his eyes. He lay still as death, silent as a log. A thing slithered across his chest, paused while he grew half-paralyzed with fright and then moved on with a gliding movement.
The lights flashed more brilliantly now, and more erratically. And there were thumping sounds as if heavy bodies were frantically flinging themselves around. Marenson didn't have to look to realize that the enemy pair were in their death throes.
Two more Yevd were discovering the hard way that human beings were interested in the brainless lymph things because they were as dangerous to man's cunning opponent as to man himself.
For Marenson, the effort to remain quiet was a special agony, but he held himself there until the light was as spasmodic as a guttering candle, and as dim. When the glow had completely died, and when there had been silence for more than a minute, Marenson permitted himself the exquisite luxury of turning his head slightly.
Only one of the Yevd was in his line of vision. It lay on the ground, a long, almost black, rectangular shape, with a whole series of reticulated arms and legs. Except for the appendages, it looked more like a contorted bar of metal than a thing of flesh. Here and there over its surface, the body glittered with a black, gla.s.sy sheen, evidence that some of the light-controlling cells were still alive.
In that one look, Marenson saw no less than seven discolored gashes in the part of the Yevd body that he could see--which meant that at least seven of the young lymph beasts had crawled inside. Being mindless, they would be quite unaware that they had killed anything or that there had been a struggle.
They lived to eat, and they attacked any object that moved. If it ceased moving before they reached it, they forgot about it instantly. Utterly indiscriminate, they attacked leaves drifting in the wind, the waving branch of a tree, even moving water. Millions of the tiny snake-like things died every month making insensate attacks on inanimate objects that had moved for one reason or another. Only a very small percentage survived the first two months of their existence, and changed into their final form.
In the development of the lymph beast, Nature had achieved one of her most fantastic balancing acts. The ultimate shape of the lymph beast was a hard-sh.e.l.led beehivelike construction that could not move. It was difficult to go far into the Mira jungle without stumbling across one of these structures. They were everywhere, on the ground and in trees, on hillsides and in valleys--wherever the young monster happened to be at the moment of the change, there the ”adult” settled. The final stage was short but prolific. The ”hive” lived entirely on the food it had stored up as a youngster. Being bis.e.xual, it spent its brief existence in a sustained ecstasy of procreation. The young, however, were not discharged from the body. They incubated inside it, and when the sh.e.l.l died ate what was left of the parent. They also ate each other, but there were thousands of them, and the process of birth was so rapid that a fairly large proportion simply ate themselves to comparative safety outside.
On rare occasions, the outer sh.e.l.l failed to soften quickly enough for the progeny to escape their own savage appet.i.tes. At such times, the total ”born” was greatly reduced.
Marenson had no trouble. As soon as he had carefully examined his surroundings, he climbed to his feet--and stood silent and cautious while he made another prolonged investigation. In that fas.h.i.+on, step by step, he moved toward the helicar that stood in the little open s.p.a.ce just beyond where the first machine had crashed.
He reached it and a few minutes later was back at the camp. Clugy warned, and the entire camp finally on the alert, he took another pilot-guide--this time after both he and the pilot were tested for humanness--and flew to the distant pleasure town. News awaited him there.
The Yevd gang was caught. Janet had become suspicious of the Marenson image, and had skillfully aided in its capture. That put the security police on the trail, and it was a simple matter of following the back track of the persons involved.
It took another hour before Marenson was able to contact Janet on Paradise Planet. He sighed with relief when her face came onto the visiplate. ”I was sure worried,” he said, ”when the Yevd here told me that my image was counting on the habits of old married couples. They evidently didn't realize why we were taking the trip.”
Janet was anxious. ”A police s.h.i.+p will be calling at Mira tomorrow,” she said, ”be sure to get on it, and come here as fast as you can.”
She finished, ”I want to spend at least part of my second honeymoon with my husband.”
WAR OF NERVES.
THE voyage of the s.p.a.ce Beagle--Man's first expedition to the great galaxy, M33 in Andromeda--had produced some grisly incidents. Not once, but three times, deadly attacks by aliens had been made against the 900-odd scientists under Director Morton, and the 149 military personnel commanded by Captain Leeth--all this entirely aside from the tensions that had developed among the men themselves. Hate, dislike, anxiety, ambition--of which Chief Chemist Kent's desire to be Director was but one example--permeated every activity aboard.
Elliott Grosvenor, the only Nexialist on the s.h.i.+p, sometimes had the feeling that even one more danger would be too much for the physically weary and emotionally exhausted men, who were now on the long return journey to Earth.
The danger came.
Elliott Grosvenor had just said to Korita, the archeologist aboard the s.p.a.ce Beagle: ”Your brief outline of cyclic history is what I've been looking for. I did have some knowledge of it, of course. It wasn't taught at the Nexial Foundation, since it's a form of philosophy. But a curious man picks up odds and ends of information.”
They had paused at the ”gla.s.s” room on Grosvenor's floor. It wasn't gla.s.s, and it wasn't, by strict definition, a room. It was an alcove of an outer wall corridor, and the ”gla.s.s” was an enormous curving plate made from a crystallized form of one of the Resistance metals. It was so limpidly transparent as to give the illusion that nothing at all was there--beyond was the vacuum and darkness of s.p.a.ce.
Korita half-turned away, then said, ”I know what you mean by odds and ends. For instance, I've learned just enough about Nexialism to envy you the mind trainings you received.”
At that moment, it happened--Grosvenor had noticed absently that the s.h.i.+p was almost through the small star cl.u.s.ter it had been traversing. Only a score of suns were still visible of the approximately five thousand stars that made up the system. The cl.u.s.ter was one of a hundred stat groups accompanying Earth's galaxy through s.p.a.ce.
Grosvenor parted his lips to say, ”I'd certainly like to talk to you again, Mr. Korita.”--He didn't say it. A slightly blurred double image of a woman wearing a feathered hat was taking form in the gla.s.s directly in front of him. The image flickered and s.h.i.+mmered. Grosvenor felt an unnormal tensing of the muscles of his eyes. For a moment, his mind went blank. That was followed rapidly by sounds, flashes of light, a sharp sensation of pain--hypnotic hallucinations! The awareness was like an electric shock. The recognition saved him. He whirled, stumbled over the unconscious body of Korita, and then he was racing along the corridor.
As he ran, he had to look ahead in order to see his way. And yet, he had to keep blinking to break the pattern of the light flashes that came at his eyes from other images on the walls. At first, it seemed to him that the images were everywhere. Then, he noticed that the woman-like shapes--some oddly double, some single--occupied transparent or translucent wall sections. There were hundreds of such reflecting areas, but at least it was a limitation. At least he knew where he had to run fastest, and where he could slow down.
He saw more men. They lay at uneven intervals along his line of flight. Twice, he came upon conscious men. One stood in his path with unseeing eyes, and did not move or turn as Grosvenor sped by. The other man let out a yell, grabbed his vibrator, and fired it. The tracer beam flashed on the wall beside Grosvenor. Grosvenor whirled, and lunged forward, knocking the man to the floor. The man--a Kent supporter--glared at him malignantly. ”You d.a.m.ned spy!” he said harshly. ”We'll get you yet.” Grosvenor didn't pause. He reached his own department safely, and immediately took refuge in the film recording room. There he turned a barrage of flas.h.i.+ng lights against the floors, the walls and the ceiling. The images were instantly eclipsed by the strong light superimposed upon them.
Quickly, Grosvenor set to work. One fact was already evident. This was mechanical visual hypnosis of such power that he had saved himself only by keeping his eyes averted, but what had happened was not limited to vision. The image had tried to control him by stimulating his brain through his eyes. He was up to date on most of the work that men had done in that field, and so he knew--though the attacker apparently did not--that control by an alien of a human nervous system was not possible except with an encephalo-adjuster or its equivalent.
He could only guess, from what had almost happened to him, that the other men had been precipitated into deep sleep trances, or else they were confused by hallucinations and were not responsible for their actions. His hope was that the woman-like beings--the enemy seemed to be feminine--were operating at a distance of several light years and so would be unable to refine their attempts at domination.
His job was to get to the control room and turn on the s.h.i.+p's energy screen. No matter where the attack was coming from, whether from another s.h.i.+p or actually from a planet, the energy screen should effectively cut off any carrier beams they might be sending.
With frantic fingers, Grosvenor worked to set up a mobile unit of lights. He needed something that would interfere with the images on his way to the control room. He was making the final connection when he felt an unmistakable sensation, a slight giddy feeling--that pa.s.sed almost instantly. Such feelings usually occurred during a considerable change of course and were a result of readjustment of the anti-accelerators. Had the course actually been changed? He couldn't stop to make sure. Hastily, Grosvenor carried his arrangement of lights to a power-driven loading vehicle in a nearby corridor, and placed it in the rear compartment. Then he climbed on and headed for the elevators.
He guessed that altogether ten minutes had gone by since he had first seen the image.
He took the turn into the elevator corridor at twenty-five miles an hour, which was fast for these comparatively narrow s.p.a.ces. In the alcove opposite the elevators, two men were wrestling each other with a life and death concentration. They paid no attention to Grosvenor but swayed and strained and cursed. Their labored breathing was a loud sound in the confined area. Their single-minded hatred of each other was not affected by Grosvenor's arrangement of lights. Whatever world of hallucination they were in, it had ”taken” profoundly.
Grosvenor whirled his machine into the nearest elevator and started down. He was beginning to let himself hope that he might find the control room deserted. The hope died as he came to the main corridor. It swarmed with men. Barricades had been flung up, and there was an unmistakable odor of ozone. Vibrators fumed and fussed. Grosvenor peered cautiously out of the elevator, trying to size up the situation. It was visibly bad. The two approaches to the control room were blocked by scores of overturned loading-mules. Behind them crouched men in military uniform. Grosvenor caught a glimpse of Captain Leeth among the defenders and, on the far side, he saw Director Morton behind the barricade of one of the attacking groups. That clarified the picture slightly. Suppressed hostility had been stimulated by the images. The scientists were fighting the military whom they had always unconsciously hated. The military, in turn, was suddenly freed to vent its contempt and fury upon the despised scientists.
It was, Grosvenor knew, not a true picture of their feeling for each other. The human mind normally balanced innumerable opposing impulses so that the average individual might live his life-span without letting one feeling gain important ascendancy over the others. That intricate balance had now been upset. The result threatened disaster to an entire expedition of human beings, and promised victory to an enemy whose purpose could only be conjectured. Whatever the reason, the way to the control room was blocked. Reluctantly, Grosvenor retreated again to his own department.
Carefully, but quickly, he tuned a wall communicator plate to the finely balanced steering devices in the fore part of the s.p.a.ce Beagle. The sending plate there was focused directly along a series of hair-line sights. The arrangement looked more intricate than it was. As he brought his eyes to the sights, Grosvenor saw that the s.h.i.+p was describing a slow curve which, at its climax, would bring it to bear directly on a bright white star. A servo-mechanism had been set up to make periodic adjustments that would hold it on its course.
Still he was more puzzled than alarmed. He s.h.i.+fted the viewer over to the bank of supplementary instruments. According to the star's special type, magnitude and luminosity, it was just over four light-years distant. The s.h.i.+p's speed was up to a light year every five hours. Since it was still accelerating, that would increase on a calculable curve. He estimated roughly that the vessel would reach the vicinity of the sun in approximately eleven hours. Grosvenor's thought suffered a pause at that point. With a jerky movement, he shut off the communicator. He stood there, shocked, but not incredulous. Destruction could be the purpose of the deluded person who had altered the s.h.i.+p's course. If so, there was just about ten hours in which to prevent catastrophe.
Even at that moment, when he had no clear plan, it seemed to Grosvenor that only an attack on the enemy, using hypnotic techniques, would effectively do the job. Meanwhile-- He stood up decisively. It was time for his second attempt to get into the control room.
He needed something that would cause direct stimulation to brain cells. There were several devices that could do that. Most of them were usable for medical purposes only. The exception was the encephalo-adjuster. Though important medically, it had other uses as well. It took Grosvenor several minutes to set up one of his adjusters. Testing it consumed still more time; and, because it was such a delicate machine, he had to fasten it to his loading vehicle with a cus.h.i.+on of springs around it. Altogether, the preparation required thirty-seven minutes.
The presence of the encephalo-adjuster made it necessary for him to keep down the speed of his vehicle as he headed for the control room. The enforced slow-down irked him, but it also gave him an opportunity to observe the changes that had taken place since the first moment of attack. He saw only an occasional unconscious body. Grosvenor guessed that most of the men who had fallen into deep trance sleeps had awakened spontaneously. Such awakenings were a common hypnotic phenomenon. Now they were responding to other stimuli on the same chance basis. Unfortunately--although that also was to be expected--it seemed to mean that long-suppressed impulses controlled their actions.
A highly developed mind--human or alien--was a built-up structure, an intricate balance of positive and negative excitations. The more superficial impulses, having considerable freedom of expression at all times, could not endanger the whole structure. The suppressed impulses, suddenly given free rein, acted like water breaking through a dam. So men who, under normal circ.u.mstances merely disliked each other mildly, all in an instant had their dislike change to a murderous hatred. The deadly factor was that they would be unaware of the change. For the mind could be tangled without the individual being aware of it. It could be tangled by bad environmental a.s.sociation, or by the attack that was now being made against a s.h.i.+p-load of men. In either case, each person carried on as if his new beliefs were as soundly based as his old ones.