by Dean Koontz
"It wasnt exactly a voice. It was more like... well..."
There was a sudden pounding noise.
They whirled in the direction of the sound and saw a suited figure against the viewplate, rapping his fist against the glass. He had his suit phone turned up to maximum volume and was shouting something. They moved to the window. The man outside was huge-six feet six if an inch, two hundred and sixty pounds if an ounce. "Open up and let me in!" he was shouting. "Let me in before I tear this tub apart plate for plate!"
He looked as if he just might be able to carry out that threat.
"He must be from the other ship," Hurkos said, moving to open the outer doors into the Scavenger that served as a pressure chamber.
The figure moved away from the viewplate toward the port. They waited nervously until the chamber closed, equalized with cabin pressure, and the door in the floor was opened.
If the stranger from the other ship had been imposing seen through the viewplate, he was overwhelming seen at first hand, inside the cabin, his head towering dangerously close to the ceiling. He pulled back his helmet, spewing a stream of curses, his eyes two fiery droplets within the flushed fury of his face. His blond hair was a wild disarray, uncombed and completely uncombable. "What the hell are you, some kinda moron? Morons have been wiped out of the culture! Havent you been told? Youre a one-of-a-kind, and I have to meet up with you in all this emptiness where-by all rights-we should never even be able to imagine each others existence!"
"I guess youre angry about the collision," Sam began, "and-"
The big man allowed his mouth to drop to his ankles and bounce back to a more respectable level just below the chin. "You guess Im angry about the collision! You guess I" He turned to Hurkos. "He guesses Im angry about the collision," he repeated as if the stupidity of the remark was the most glaring understatement ever pronounced and had to be shared and discussed to be believed.
"I-" Sam began once more.
"Of course Im angry about the collision! Damn furious is what I am! You hyperspaced without checking to see if there was another ship in hyperspace within the danger limit. Your field locked in mine and jolted us out into Real Space. What would have happened if our ships had struck instead of just our fields?"
"Thats rather unlikely," Hurkos said. "After all, the fields are five miles in diameter, but the ships are far, far smaller than that. The odds against our ships striking in so vast a galaxy-"
"A moron spewing logic!" the big stranger shouted. "A real, honest moron shouting scientific gobbleygook at me like it really meant something to him! This is amazing." He slapped one hammy hand against his forehead in a snow of amazement.
"If youll just listen a moment..." Sam sighed, seeing the big mans lips open for comment even before he had said three words.
"Listen? Im all ears. Im just all ears for your excuse! Some excuse that could possibly explain your imbecilic reactions, and-"
"Wait a minute!" Hurkos shouted gleefully. "I know you!"
The stranger stopped talking abruptly.
"Mikos. Youre Mikos, the poet. Gnossos Mikos!"
The rage was swept away in the wash of a wide grin, and the grin became a flush of embarrassment. The huge fist dropped away from the forehead and became a hand again-a hand that was abruptly stuck out to Hurkos as a sign of friendliness. "And I havent had the pleasure," the giant said politely.
Hurkos took the hand, shook it vigorously.
For one short moment, Sam felt as if he were going to collapse. Fear of the colossus had been the only thing holding him up, a fear whose vibrant force coursed through his quivering legs and straightened him with its current. Now, the fear gone, he wanted nothing so much as to fold up his legs, tuck them under his belly, and fall onto his face. Somehow, he held himself erect.
"My name is Hurkos. First and last. Im a nobody, but I read your poetry. I love it. Especially "The Savagery of Old."
"That was a damn grizzly one though," Gnossos said, beaming.
"Spill the blood across the savage face;
Raise the ax, the bow, the gun, the mace-"
Gnossos finished the quatrain:
"Scream the scream that breaks apart the chest.
Killing is the thing you know best."
The grin on the poets face was even wider.
"All the worlds a stage for plundering..." Hurkos began the next stanza.
"Hmmph!" Sam manged to cough without being too conspicuous.
"Oh! Mr. Mikos, this is-"
"Gnossos," the poet interrupted. "Call me Gnossos."
Hurkos was more than pleased with the offer of a first name basis. "Gnossos, this is a recently-made friend of mine. Sam, meet Gnossos Mikos, the empires most famous and most literate poet."
The giant hand came forth, engulfed Sams own in a warm, dry embrace that almost crushed every bone up to his wrist. "Glad to meet you, Sam!" He seemed to mean it. "Now what malfunction of your vessel caused this recent unpleasantry?"
"I-"
"Perhaps I can help you repair it."
Later, after the poet had heard the story of the missing trade names, the amnesia, the memory blank, the strange voices in Sams head, he rubbed his hands together and said, "Youll not get rid of me until we discover the roots of this thing. What a helluva mystery! Its almost worth an epic poem already!"
"Then you arent angry?" Sam asked.
"Angry? But whatever for? If youre referring to the unfortunate collision of our hyperspace fields, please let us forget it. It was very obviously not your fault, and there are far more important things to discuss."
Sam sighed again, heavily.
"Well," Hurkos said, "what do you make of it?" He was hunched forward, as they all were, sitting on the floor like a small boy at his fathers knee.
Gnossos rolled his tongue over his wide, perfect teeth, thought a moment. His eyes were crystal blue and, when he stared, it seemed as if he were looking directly through-not at-whatever his gaze fell upon. "It sounds," he said at length, "as if someone is trying to overturn the galaxy-or the order of the galazy, at least."
Hurkos looked at him blankly. Sam shifted, waited for more, shifted again. "What do you mean?"
"Consider the weapons. Weapons have been illegal-except for sport, Beast hunting and collecting-for a thousand years. You say these weapons are obviously not for sporting because of their terrific power, and yet no one collects explosives or new and gleaming guns. Someone, it seems painfully clear to me, means to use them on humans."
Sam shuddered. Hurkos blanched. The thought had been hanging in the rear of their minds, but neither had allowed it to gain perspective out in the light of the conscious. Now it was looming there-to be feared.
"The trade names," Gnossos continued, "are missing because this ship and its contents were designed to provide secrecy for their owner and manufacturer. Sam here is being used by someone. He seems to be a tool to overthrow the current order of things."
"Then he could get orders at any time to kill both of us!"
Sam was perspiring.
"I dont think so," the poet said.
"But the order to hyperspace-" Hurkos protested.
"Was a posthypnotic suggestion." Gnossos waited for a reaction. When their facial expressions registered a modicum of relief, he continued. "Sam here was kidnapped, taken somewhere to have his memory removed. Then they-whoever They may be-implanted a series of hypnotic commands, a sequence of orders. When that was done, they shipped him off to do whatever they had ordered. The first order was designed to be triggered by... oh, lets say that meal you ate earlier."
"The food didnt affect me," Hurkos said.
"But you had no hypnotic suggestions implanted in your mind. Sam did. The food triggered the first, lets say. Now, perhaps the remaining orders will come at measured intervals. Every sixth hour or something like that. Or perhaps they will be irregularly spaced but with planned intervals."
"So whoever gave him the orders would
not be aware of our presence."
"Correct."
Sam interrupted the dialogue. "Thats a relief. I like you both too much to kill."
"One thing Ive been wondering about," Gnossos said. "Why didnt you acknowledge my radio message just after the collision?"
"We didnt receive any," Sam said, perplexed. "We tried to get through to you, but you didnt answer."
"A broken radio?" Hurkos offered.
Sam forced himself to his feet, walked to the console. "Report on the condition of the radio/receiver."
WORKING PROPERLY.
"That shoots that theory."
"But how could my secret master control the radio if he doesnt even know whats going on here?" Sam traced his fingers over the seams of the console chair.
Gnossos shrugged, got to his feet. "Maybe were wrong. Maybe they do know that Hurkos and I are here and theyre just waiting for the best moment to knock us off. But thats a question well leave till later. Right now, lets check out your laboratory. I have an idea."
The three of them stood looking up at the robosurgeons. Sam shivered at the sight of them: men-talented but not men. He hated every machine he came in contact with, though he was not sure why.
"Someone could have machined the cases for these," the poet said. "But there are only a few companies that have the facilities to produce the delicate interiors. No one could make his own robosurgeon from scrap without billions in equipment and hundreds of trained minds. Whoever put this together would have had to purchase the factory-made workings."
Sam flicked the control knob that lowered the machines out of the ceiling. Ponderously, they came. When the underslung arms had spread to the sides and the machines were almost to the top of the table, he stopped them. Then he caused the main component to revolve so that the access plate faced them.
Gnossos rubbed his palms together: sand on stone. "Now well find a few clues." He threw back the latches that held the plate on, dropped the cover to the floor. "Every company carries a list of purchases and customers. With one little serial number, we can find the buyer and, consequently, the constructor of this tub." He bent over and peered into the dark interior of the globe. He looked puzzled.
"Awful dark in there," Hurkos said.
Gnossos put a hand inside, reached in... and in, in, in up to his elbow.
"Theres nothing in it!" Sam said.
"Oh yes there is!" Gnossos shouted painfully. "And it has hold of my hand!"
* * *
V
Gnossos tore his hand out of the machine, rubbed it against his chest. It was red and raw and bleeding in a few spots.
"What the hell is in there?" Hurkos asked, leaning away from the open machine.
Sam stifled some low-keyed scream he felt twisting up toward his lips.
As if in answer to Hurkos question, a jelly-mass began dripping onto the table from the open access plate. It collected there, amber spotted with areas of bright orange. It trembled there, quivered. Piercing, low-scale hummings bathed its convulsing form. There was something like a skin forming over it, the amber and orange changing to a pinkish-tan hue that made it look amazingly like human skin-too much like human skin. The skin expanded, contracted, and there were pseudopods pulling the mass across the table toward the warmth of their bodies.
They had backed nearly to the door. "There were no mechanical insides!" Gnossos said, rubbing his hand.
"But it moved," Sam argued. "It operated like a machine. How could it do that without moving parts?"
The jelly-mass burst in places as bubbles of something reached its surface, flopped open and left pocks. But the pocks were healed rapidly, and the skin was returned to normal.
"That-that thing was its insides, its working parts," Gnossos said. "The jelly-mass operated the shell like a machine."
The last of the mess dropped from the bowl of the main component. There was more than could have been contained in the main sphere; apparently all the sections had been filled and were now drained empty. The jelly-mass, shapeless, plunged over the end of the table, struck the floor with a sickening sloshing noise, and moved toward them, arms of simulated flesh lashing out for purchase on the cold floor.
"The armory!" Sam shouted, turning into the hall and flinging the door to the other room wide. Perhaps it had been the hypnotic training with the weapons that had made him think of guns so quickly. He knew how to kill; he could stop the amoeba, the super-cell. He stepped back into the hall with a rifle in his hands, brought it up, sighted. "Move away!"
Gnossos and Hurkos stepped behind him, moving toward the control cabin. Aiming for the center of the mass, Sam pulled the trigger. Blue lightning flashed outward, sparkling, and illuminated the passageway like a small sun going nova. Despite the light, there was no heat. In fact, the flame seemed to radiate coolness. It struck the jelly, sank into it. There was something like a scream from the writhing slop, though the sounds were most certainly not a voice. It was as if the very molecules of the mass had closed gaps and were rubbing one another. The jelly stopped.
Sam, trembling, released the trigger, started to let air out of his lungs.
And the jelly leaped!
He fired, caught it in mid-jump, sent it crashing backward, blue fire coursing through it like contained lightning flashing in a crystal paperweight. He aimed again, depressed the firing stud.
Nothing.
Nothing!
No blue, shimmering flame. No cool but deadly flame. Not even a lousy click! He raised the weapon to look at it, to see if some latch or bolt had not been thrown properly by the automatic mechanism. Then he saw the amber goo beginning to pulse out of the tip of the barrel. Suddenly his hand was burning furiously and there was amoeba slopping out of the powerpack casing inside the handle. He threw the gun down, wiped his hand on the wall, scraping his skin loose in the mad attempt to rid himself of every drop of the jelly.
"Explosives!" Gnossos shouted.
Sam turned, dashed into the armory once more. When he came out, he had three grenades. He ran to Gnossos and Hurkos, panting heavily, his eyes wide, his heart furious as a drum.
The jelly-mass was recovering and had slopped into the hall where it joined up with the smaller clump of stuff that had been the insides of the gun. The two touched each other, glowed purple where their surfaces met, then easily flowed together and became one.
"I think I see why the radio didnt work," Gnossos said. "It didnt want to work!"
"The entire ship is alive," Sam agreed.
Hurkos rapped a hand on the wall, listened to the solid sound of it. "Its steel. Ill be damned if it is anything but steel!"
"Inside," Sam said, keeping an eye on the pulsating jelly-mass at the end of the passageway. "Deep inside the plating, theres more goo."
"But the hyperdrive-"
"There mustnt really be a hyperdrive mechanism," Sam said. "The jelly can build up a hyperspace field somehow. There are no machines aboard, Id wager. Only jelly-cored shells."
"Your fear of machines-" Hurkos began.
"Was gained from whoever-or whatever-built this... this ship-thing."
The lump had begun to move again, pseudopods slapping wetly against the deck. It was six feet high, a good three hundred pounds.
"You two get into the suits," Gnossos said, taking the grenades. He still had his own suit on, and his helmet lay within easy reach. "Well have to go across to my ship. This one wont let us live long now that we know part of its secret."
Sam and Hurkos struggled into their suits, fitted their helmets to the shoulder threads, attached their air tanks. Every little act, though performed at top speed, seemed to take hours. When they were dressed, Gnossos pulled the hatch shut, sealing the main cabin from the hallway where the thing was advancing warily. "Lets see it get through that!" the poet said, putting on his helmet. "Now lets get out of here."
"Im afraid there isnt much hope of that," Sam said from his position next to the control con
sole. "Ive pressed all buttons to depressurize the cabin and open the exit chamber, but I cant seem to get any response from the ship."
Hurkos, eyes wide, jumped to the console, flipped the comline to the computer open. "Let us out!"
But the computer was not a computer. There was a deafening roar from the wire and plastic voice plate. There were screams, thunders, explosions. A thousand rats burning alive. A million sparrows madly attacking one another in a battle to the death.
"Shut it off!" Gnossos shouted.
Hurkos slammed the switch shut. The noises continued. At first, it swept out in irregular waves, shredded them and put them back together. Then there was not even a pattern of waves, merely a constant din of overwhelming magnitude. And there was jelly spewing out of the speaker grid...
Jelly spewing out of the jack-holes...
Abruptly, the speaker grid was gone, thrust away by the surging pressure of the thing behind it. Parts of the console began to sag as the supportive jelly that had filled it was drained away, spat out.
Still the noise. "Its the same sound," Sam shouted into his suit phone, "that I heard when I was obeying the hypnotic orders-only it isnt ordering anything."
"The grenades!" Hurkos called above the roar as the jelly began to collect on the floor, changing from amber to pink-tan, rising in a pulsating mass. The other glob pressed against the hatch from the hallway. There was the screeching sound of metal being strained to its limits. Soon the hatch would give, and they would be trapped between two shapeless monsters. The jelly would cover them and do... whatever it did to flesh and blood and bone.
Gnossos flipped the cap that dissolved the anti-shock packing in the outer shell of the grenade. He tossed it. Nothing.
"The grenades are jelly too!" Hurkos shouted.
Sam snatched one of the remaining bulbs from the poet. "No. They arent machines, so there is no reason for the jelly to replace them with part of itself. Its just a natural chemical that explodes without mechanical prompting. It just needs a jar. Gnossos didnt throw it hard enough." He wailed the second grenade against the viewplate.