by Jerry
Waiting, Bors looked down at his leg. Blood seeped from the ripped fabric of the suit. The suit should have clamped around his thigh to stop the bleeding, but the claws must have disabled the sphincter. He had nothing to use for a tourniquet.
‘Bors, the birds couldn’t have been armed. There’s no other way about it. Whoever sent them out didn’t know enough to arm them.’ Needle’s voice was jubilant. ‘Come on in. We’ll fly out in a body at dawn.’
‘Needle, I’m losing blood. Going to try and get my suit off.’
‘Don’t! Hold on. We’ll come for you.’
Pain in his hip and knee sickened him as he stood up. The leg bore his weight, but he wasn’t going to put up with the contortions of getting off the suit.
Something was pressing uncomfortably against his chest. Looking down past his chin he saw Tim crushed.
He still held his machete. The carbine was gone, and his grenades had been clawed away. Tiredly he pulled out his pistol. It looked all right, but he couldn’t quite bother firing it to make sure.
He fired anyway as another bull came out of the grass thirty metres away on the far slope, fired desperately and went down under its bulk. In a moment its weight left him as it toppled over and fell on its back. He was too tired to stand up again and sat for a moment looking at the bullet holes in its chest and belly.
He twisted suddenly and peered against the low sunbeams.
‘Needle, I can see Guinevere.’
No one answered, but he could still see the globe that was his goal. Not so far away, its top curved dark pink against the disc of the sun Amor.
‘Hope they came soon.’ He was too tired even to raise his pistol when the minotaur beside him moved and turned dull eyes on him. It was dying anyway—it couldn’t hurt him.
‘I must be dying too,’ he murmured . . . ‘No, just doped from losing blood. Barbara . . . dying for you. Find romance and excitement in the stars; amour under Amor . . .’
The beast groaned and he looked at it, vaguely surprised to see how manlike it was. Almost more man than beast.
‘You bastards want to get there, don’t you?’ the minotaur said like a man.
Bors said suddenly, ‘Are the women all right?’
It laughed like a man. ‘Who do you think sent us?’
1970
THE CUBE
C.M. Drahan
Which is better—to understand an alien or to know yourself?
THE captain picked up one of the cubes and very carefully felt it between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes held suspicion. “What is it?”
“A bomb.”
He stared at it.
Jerod answered the unspoken comment: “No—not like any bomb you’ve ever seen. Specially constructed for our purpose. The explosive is inside under pressure.”
The captain put the blue-black cube down beside its twin. They lay together on the desk between the two men reduced now to brooding silence. The captain’s eyes were on the cubes.
“When?”
Jerod understood.
“Departure is scheduled for as soon as the Telepath arrives. The rest is set. Your ship is ready?”
“Yes.” The captain raised his eyes to Jerod’s. The sharp lines of his face softened. “I won’t be needing the replacement personnel. The entire crew is staying on.” Pride echoed in his words. “We’ve been together a long time—since before the War. It’s—” He stumbled-tongued, looking perhaps for a word to describe his feelings. Lamely he finished: “It’s too late now anyway.”
The door slid open onto renewed silence. The intruder’s face wore an indoor pallor. His uniform was wrinkled. His eyes were hollow, with harsh shadows beneath them.
Jerod: “That’s all for now, I guess.”
The captain turned to leave. “Wait—” Jerod removed a cube. He never consciously thought of it as a bomb—it was ridiculously small for the power the word implied. “You might as well take it with you.”
He handed the captain the cube. The captain pushed it into a side pocket without looking at it. The newcomer’s eyes followed him out past the door.
Jerod asked, “Well, Hayes?”
“The Telepath? He’s as ready as he’ll ever be.”
Hayes spoke in a monotone. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, damn it! Does it make any difference?”
Jerod stared at him quizzically. “Anything wrong?”
“No. Should there be?” The pale, rumpled man looked doomed. His whole appearance whispered it. “You want to see the Telepath before the Double Bill leaves?”
“No.” Jerod spoke softly. “No. It isn’t necessary.”
ON THE truce planetoid, Stetson-Mirrada, the E-tee was waiting.
He was tall and somber with hair the color of thunderclouds. Both his hands gripped tightly the guide bar of his vehicle as it drifted fifty meters above the surface of the designated meeting place.
An impressive array of devices protected the alien. The craft contained a variety of them and he himself carried no less than a dozen weapons. A stunner at his side was the only one visible. It was within the terms of the meeting—and was meant to lull the Other’s suspicions.
Yet fear prowled the alien’s mind beneath the thin layers of superimposed logic called “civilization”—a terror almost primordial—although, as a precaution against treachery by the Enemy, his mother ship waited. She was standing off a standard astronomical unit from the planetoid, according to the agreement reached with the Enemy. She was also secretly modified to enable her to get to him faster and with more fire-power than her Enemy counterpart. Yet the feeling remained tacit despite all the logical reasons arrayed against it.
The Enemy’s cyborg scout ship grew within his lidless, violet eyes. His hands on the guide bar of the floater clenched into fists.
THE Telepath awoke.
He fought upward from a remembered nightmare to the coolness of silence. Stubborn pieces of the dream swirled within the stark flood of his drugged brain like pinpricks setting it afire with pain. An insanely multiplying torment of billions of animals whimpering in the jungles of night was tearing him apart.
He trembled on the brink of relevance.
Steady. You’ll be all right now. We’re here to help you.
Screams echoed through his mind.
Hurry with that hypo . . .
He jammed the back of his hand against his mouth to stifle the terror rising to his lips.
It’s all right . . . gone now . . . finished . . .
His breathing steadied and he managed to relax the contorted muscles of his face, to drive away the hunted look. He stared into the view-screen, watching the planetoid swallow the ship.
Silence . . .genuine . . . real . . . with no blurred undertone running beneath it . . . so cool . . .
He tasted it within himself.
You understand what’s to be done . . .
Terror rumbled.
Yes. Yes. I understand. Give me the drug. The encephalic depressant. Give it to me . . .
WITH a conscious effort the E-tee kept his face impassive. But he could not control the, turbulence under his imposed calm.
The Enemy was descending from a circular opening at the base of his cyborg ship. He dropped slowly to the E-tee’s level.
The uneasiness kindled higher, racing along his nerves, within his blood, until he could barely keep from baring his teeth at the creature. His hands were fists about the guide bar, the ram-fire needler hidden in it seeming as far away as his home world.
They faced each other separated by five meters of distance.
Hiding the throbbing within him the E-tee spoke: “I am empowered to discuss terms of settlement.”
The movement of his lips revealed small, concavely serrated teeth.
He memorized every detail of the Enemy. The sensors here as well as those watching from the mother ship might miss something and every bit of information would be vital in order to discover the location of the Enemy home world.
The-Enemy winced as if slapped across the face. The action puzzled the E-tee. His face was still a blank. It had not betrayed him.
It came . . .
. . . again.
A wave of nausea knotted his stomach.
Fight it! Fight it, damn you!
Well?” . . .
Couldn’t take it. He’s unconscious. His mind is still receiving, though. I’ll have to give him the e-d . . .
Go ahead. We’ll try again later . . .
Again . . .
And again. As long as it takes . . .
Wouldn’t it be kinder to put him out of his pain?
For whom?
Remembering . . . slashed across its belly . . . died shrieking. Irrelevant. His mind was drowning in a flickering kaleidoscope of flame dripping molten fire like a huge festering sore. He was mute, the screams trapped in his mouth, incapable of escaping
the scouring tumult of images and alien emotions. He reeled with the superimposed pounding in his blood at the sounding din of a million strange trumpets playing a berserk dirge over the gutted carcasses of burning cities; weaving within, improvising upon, the weakening groans of the dying and the high, piercing screams of the still living. Bloated bodies ripening to olive from green to black as burned-out cinders gushed at him. His mind stared numbly at hollow, grinning sockets that nothing could hurt any more and slipped on unwound intestines to lie feebly, attempting to fold in upon itself and escape the . . .
Blood . . .
He fell under the ages of bones and died—and fell again. And then there was no more blood—just words blowing from somewhere.
Llela, there is no other way. The Enemy must be destroyed. Llela, understand. Please, Llela—Llela—what I never had time to say to you . . .”
The Telepath understood.
Must the women always wait? Why? For what reason?
When you’ve found out the location of the E-tee’s home world and any other strategic data press this. stud. It will release an odor. less, invisible gas similar to the encephalic depressant. That should slow the E-tee’s senses enough so that he’ll never feel the explosive
penetrate his epidermis. This button on the guide bar triggers the injector . . .
When?
What? Oh—whenever he enters the gravity field of another planet—hopefully his own home world. The mass conversion reaction should be about ninety-percent efficient . . .
Do statistics bleed, Hayes?
Always the same . . . the blindness . . . does anybody understand?
You have no choice. We have no choice. You have to do it. You’re the only Telepath we’ve got. The other eight burned out within a Month of becoming active. You re the last one alive and sane. You owe the human race something for that at least . . .
Don’t you think I know that? Sometimes I wish Polypsychic hadn’t brought me out of withdrawal. Have you any conception of what it is to be the means by which an entire race of people die? Can you understand that, Hayes? The death of—people?
They’re not people. E-tees. Aliens. Zenophobic monsters—they’re not people. And what difference does it really make anyway? Who gives a damn? That’s the way its always been since the first human could lift a rock or swing a club to take what he wanted. Sure, there has to be a better way—sometime. Maybe we’re not truly human yet. Or only too human . . .
I know. But that still doesn’t make it the way it has to be now. We have to try to change—even if we fail. We have to try . . .
Look, just do what you’re told. It’s not your personal responsibility to decide the moral value judgments . . .
But it is. Can’t you see that? You know, the first contact ships from both races didn’t even try to talk to each other before they opened fire . . .
THE words formed purposefully in the Telepath’s mind.
Listen to me . . .
He opened his mind to the E-tee trying to explain what words could never make clear. For the smallest part of a heartbeat the long war within was ended. They stood face to face, mind to mind.
There was sudden comprehension. Panic. The E-tee’s r eyes glazed over with unreasoning fear. His mind twisted, struck out.
No—can’t you understand? Listen . . .
The E-tee’s hand plunged toward the button on the guide bar of his vehicle.
No . . .
The Telepath reacted instinctively. An almost inaudible hiss whispered from the e-d injector. The E-tee’s hand stopped as if frozen as the gas began to work. Realization dawned slowly on his face.
In a hoarse, straining voice he croaked, “Telepath!” His hand found another, nearer, button.
No . . .
Time shattered into twisting hot splinters . . . melting. The blast slammed into the Telepath with a buzzing steel fury. His floater platform jumped in the shock wave and fell.
He crashed. A blossoming flower of fire exploded within him. He doubled over with pain into a void—into a rushing darkness where the fire did not exist.
HE AWOKE to silence and the smell of dug earth.
Using the battered floater’s rail he pulled himself upright. The E-tee’s vehicle was scattered across the green. Small charred pieces dotted it obscenely, along with other debris.
Blood . . . always blood . . .
High above, within a flashing of sparks, a new star glowed for a moment.
I failed . . . . but there is no escape . . . there can never be . . . I care . . . that is the way it is . . . the only way it could be . . .
The E-tee mother ship was growing rapidly larger in the sky.
THE pictures on the monitors suddenly blacked out. Hayes looked up from the screens.
“The Double Bill is gone.”
Jerod nodded.
“It was supposed to happen. The Telepath could never have completed the mission. We knew that before we sent him. The personality profile. Polypsychic put together on him confirmed it. By now the E-tees have him. They’ll check him carefully and take him to their home world for intensive study.”
Hayes didn’t understand.
“The cubes,” Jerod said. “Didn’t you ever wonder why there were two? The explosive is part of his blood by now.”
“Damn you.”
“It had to be done. As much as it was hard and pitiless, it was justified. Mankind must survive. Its enemies must be destroyed. There is no other way.”
Hayes glared at Jerod.
“You used him. He never had any choice. Now he’s a walking bomb.”
“We had no choice. We did what had to be done. Our survival as a race depends on our individual readiness, to fight—and even die—if necessary. He owed humanity that at least.” He was silent for a moment, the grimness about his mouth and eyes quivering. His voice came deliberately softer: “You understand?”
“Does it matter?” The words were heavy with weariness.
Hayes reached into a pocket for a piece of paper one of the Polypsychic doctors had given him. A poem the Telepath had written. Hayes stared at the scrawl.
All men are strangers now
skeletons without rest
to keep away the World’s end—
for it ends forever
. . . and there are no heavens
in all the haunting ages . . .
Hayes carefully refolded the paper along its deep-laid creases.
Jerod had gone with a shake of his head. Hayes switched, off the screens, slowly rose and drew his weapon.
“He said out loud but softly, “Perhaps there are no answers. Maybe first we have to ask the right questions. This should make for a few.”
ARK IV
Jackson Burrows
It’s a great idea to take the long view in making plans for the future, and astronomical calculations can be precise—but what happens to people is sometimes not quite so neat . . .
Taal, high priestess of Systems, stood rigid before the altar-She had stood thus for hours, and had hours yet to stand, but her eyes never wavered from the grid of bl
inking lights.
The lights blinked and blinked in their altar recess, tracing in swollen reds and soft greens the intricate and almost endless patterns of the Functions of Faith.
Taal knew all the patterns and their sequences. She had known them since childhood, for she was Taal, high priestess, daughter of Taal, high priestess.
As long as the lights blinked their customary patterns all was well with Systems and its countless circuits. And even should the lights signal Malfunction, all was still well; Taal was prepared, always, to deal with Malfunction and correct it. Nothing must threaten Systems and state of grace.
Now it was the appointed hour for Query. Taal’s fingers flew to the Keyboard beside the Functions grid to tap out her message.
OH, SYSTEMS, HEAR THIS THE SUPPLICATION OF THY PEOPLE. WE PRAY THAT GIFT TIME APPROACHES. THE CUSTODIANS REPORT SHORTAGES, AND THY LARGESS IS IMPLORED.
As ever, Taal thrilled to this direct communication with Systems. It was no matter that it was the same Query she made once every wake-period, and had made in all the wake-periods of her consecration, twelve times three hundred sixty-five periods ago.
Breathlessly she awaited the answer, and for a moment all life everywhere seemed suspended. Taal herself could have been no more than a golden statue. Her unblinking eyes stared at Printout. Perhaps this time . . .
The silence of Chapel lengthened and grew fragile as crystal. Then came the staccato clack.
NOT YET, said Printout.
Always Taal hoped . . . always Taal was disappointed. Her fingers returned to the Keyboard.
WE THANK THEE, SYSTEMS, AND ABIDE BY THY WISHES.
Systems did not deign to answer; it never did, unless the message were a Query.
Taal resumed her vigil at the lighted grid of Functions. Systems in its wisdom did all things right. But surely Gift Time was past due. Although Gift Times never came without an interval of at least three hundred times three hundred sixty-five wake-periods between them, the last Gift Time had been almost five hundred times three hundred sixty-five periods ago, the longest interval on record.
Taal wondered if the fault might lie with her. Had she failed Systems in some way?