Space Trap

by Juanita Coulson

Was he seeing a holographic picture? The woman moved slightly, her pink dress stirring as if in a breeze. The same breeze wafted across the spot where the men stood and tugged at Ken’s torn fatigues.

  She was real. Her skin looked soft, glowing, an opalescent jewel stretched over bones and muscle. Incredibly alien and beautiful! She was no hallucination. Ken knew that if he could touch her, he would feel warm flesh between his fingers.

  The breeze ripened to a wind, tossing the willowy branches and dashing dust into Ken’s eyes. He flinched, rubbed at his eyelids. When he looked again, the woman was gone, and R.C. was staring at the spot where she’d been.

  “Did you see her?” Ken said softly, afraid to ask. He had to know. Had his hallucinations taken on life or was he going out of his mind?

  He was prepared for scorn or concern. R.C. might wonder if the head wound was bothering his apprentice. But the pilot’s reaction was quite different. “What should I have seen, Ken? What have you been seeing?”

  “Is it that obvious?” Ken chuckled weakly. “I think I’m going crazy.”

  “I doubt it.” R.C. wasn’t humoring him; he looked solemn, troubled.

  Relieved to have a listener, Ken began at the beginning — when he’d first seen the jewel-skinned woman, out in space. He concluded by saying, “And I saw her again over by those trees just now. Only she seemed real this time — three-dimensional, a living woman. Then —”

  “She disappeared.” No skepticism in R.C.’s remark. He studied the place where Ken had seen the woman.

  “It’s probably that crack on the head,” Ken apologized.

  “No, I don’t think you’re imagining this woman,” R.C. said curtly. His sandy brown hair was tousled, and his jaw thrust forward, making him resemble a human bulldog. He softly pounded the business end of the spanner into his palm. “If you are, I’m imagining things too.”

  “You saw her?” Ken exclaimed.

  “No, but I’ve seen something … someone else.” Ken gawked at the pilot. This was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him. R.C. nodded and said, “A man. Funny skin, like you described. Glistening, shot through with threads of colors.”

  “A man,” Ken repeated, trying to absorb this totally unexpected information.

  “Not as pretty as what you saw,” R.C. said wryly, his mouth quirking. “I saw him for just a split second. Almost to the instant we first impacted. I blamed what I saw on shock. We hit hard, admittedly, but now I’m not so sure. The image wasn’t on my screen. It was floating in air, looking straight at me. Mean-looking individual, though it’s risky to judge alien emotions by human expressions.”

  Ken had never met any anthropoid aliens, but he knew that as a member of Survey’s first class, Captain Zachary had. He had encountered several humanoid races during Earth’s early push out into the galaxy — races which were now mostly extinct, victims of culture shock and poorly conceived initial contacts with Terra. But these had been mainly primitive, apelike beings, barely humanoid.

  “Aliens,” Ken said, thinking hard. “Intelligent ones and telepathic.”

  The captain’s hazel eyes sparkled, and he didn’t dispute anything Ken said.

  They both had memorized Noland Eads’ Initial Survey tape. If Eads certified NE 592 as uninhabited by higher life forms, that was that. Before he had resigned and dropped out of sight, Eads had been the best damned frontier Surveyman the service ever had.

  NE 592 had been checked out by an expert. There were no higher life forms, no dangerous predators; the climate was moderate, the atmosphere and soil samples nominal. Eads had left the usual monitoring devices on the planet. For thirty years, they would run automatically, watching for ecological anomalies or other untoward factors. When the planet’s schedule came up for Secondary Survey a re-check would be taken, and if everything proved out, the world would enter Central’s books as ready for colonization.

  “Where could they have come from?” Ken blurted. “These aliens couldn’t have been here when Eads made his Initial Survey.”

  “They’re telepaths,” R.C. reminded him.

  “Oh, come on, Captain!” Ken said, choking on an incredulous laugh. “I read about those telepathic birds on MT5. And I believe the Capellans can do a few low-level telepathic tricks, like making dice jump or guessing which way a bird or game animal will move. But, teleporting across space? We’re ten light-years from the nearest solar system.”

  “How can we know what they can do?” R.C. said harshly. “These are unknown aliens.”

  “Dammit, we didn’t ask to land here,” Ken said angrily. Then he glanced at R.C., remembering the line of questioning that had triggered the pilot’s temper. Shakily, Ken went on, “Did we?”

  R.C. shook his head, refusing a direct reply. “I never fought a comparable gravity pull in my life.”

  “The planet reached out and grabbed us,” Ken said. He put their mutual suspicion into words. “That blurry patch has something to do with it.” R.C. stared toward the purple fog, and Ken turned to follow his gaze.

  He froze, stunned. The woman stepped out from behind the willows. Her slender body swayed, her clothing blown in the breeze.

  Hardly aware he was moving, Ken loped past R.C. He wanted some answers, from R.C. and from the alien woman. She had taken the first step toward him. He could do no less than go half way.

  “Ken, wait!” R.C. roared after him, but Ken’s mind blanked out the cry.

  As he neared the woman, his fascination grew. Her hair was a jade and ebony rainbow, glinting in the sun, her skin as many-layered as pearl.

  “Ken! Ken!” R.C. was panting in his wake, desperation in his voice.

  “She’s not going to get away from me this time!” Ken vowed.

  A flicker of doubt crossed the woman’s piquant, heart-shaped face. Perhaps Ken’s headlong rush frightened her. Too late he slowed his pace. She had panicked and started to run away.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Ken shouted. He caught her in his arms as the woman half-stumbled and nearly fell. Ken held her tightly but gently, afraid of bruising her.

  In the back of his mind a persistent alarm jangled and shrieked. It was all terribly wrong. Something about the landscape was hazy.

  It was the fog! Moving out from the horizon, it swept toward him, a tidal wave of purplish mist.

  The woman hadn’t screamed, but she gazed up at him with terror lurking in her eyes. Deep-set, beautiful black eyes.

  The woman’s struggles abated slightly, but she continued to push at Ken’s chest with her slender fingers. Ken recognized the same frantic gesture she’d made warning him to veer off when he was in space. She had been warning him to go away from the planet.

  Again Ken got the distinct impression that he could hear her speaking a warning directly into his brain, though her lips didn’t move.

  “Ken,” and R.C. panted to a stop at the apprentice’s side.

  “She’s real!” Ken exulted, revelling in the warm body he held. “Not a hallucination.”

  “We’re too far away from the ship,” R.C. said, and the captain pointed to the encroaching purple mist.

  Ken’s viscera squirmed, in instinctive rebellion against the abnormal. The landscape boiled with swirling, threatening mist. He sensed its danger without quite understanding why.

  R.C. plucked at Ken’s sleeve. “Let’s get back.”

  “Not without her,” Ken replied, refusing to release the woman.

  “All right. But remember, my ‘hallucination’ wasn’t nearly as attractive as yours, Ken.” R.C. glowered at the mist.

  “Come with us,” Ken said gently, trying to pull the woman along with him. If he could persuade her to come willingly, there would be some way of communicating.

  Suddenly, she spoke, but fearfully, as if speaking aloud were difficult, or forbidden. “Sk’lee,” she said, urgency in her voice.

  “Sorry. I don’t understand.” Ken smiled encouragingly. He tried to project soothing thoughts at her, hoping she would comprehend. If she wa
s a telepath she must be able to tune in on his brainwaves.

  He was shaken by a violent chill, as a purplish eddy of mist spiralled up out of the grassland, looming above him. Long-dormant fears slipped from Ken’s subconscious as in a scene from a child’s nightmare. He fought unthinking panic, facing something totally outside human experience.

  Without warning, six men suddenly materialized. Smoke gathered itself into tangible, humanoid shapes. Six tall men, jewel-skinned and black eyed, circled Ken and R.C. and the woman.

  “Not just telepathic!” R.C. yelled. “They can teleport themselves!”

  “She didn’t,” Ken said frantically, turning this way and that, trying to see an opening in the closing circle of alien men.

  “We’ve got to run for it!” R.C. insisted. The woman thrust her hands hard against Ken’s chest, seconding that idea.

  “Okay!” sighed Ken. There would be time enough later to re-establish a friendship!

  Dodging this way and that, Ken and R.C. did their best broken-field galloping, trying to avoid the hands that clutched at them. One of those hands snagged Ken’s torn fatigues, throwing him backwards. Ken lashed out with fists and feet, aiming where it would do the most damage. But the man’s powerful grip and agility made it difficult for Ken to escape or counterattack. Finally, Ken feinted and launched a murderous kick at the alien’s groin. He didn’t connect, but apparently the threat was strong enough to catch the stern alien off guard. His grasp on Ken’s fatigues loosened and the apprentice tore free, leaving a sleeve behind him.

  Ken raced to the site where he had been cutting saplings, grabbing up the tool he had used as an axe. Ready to fend off attack, he spun on his heel.

  The purple mist engulfed him, swallowing grass and trees and sky. Ken blinked, his orientation gone. Fog nibbled at the pink fronds of the willows now. Another few seconds and he’d be completely blind, wrapped in purple mist.

  To his left, R.C. was swinging the spanner wrench wildly, striking at phantoms.

  Ken followed suit, slinging his makeshift axe in wide arcs. How could he hit what he couldn’t see? If the alien men could teleport themselves from one location to another, they could teleport out of the path of the Earthmen’s weapons.

  “What the —?” R.C. doubled over, on his knees, clutching his midriff. He was gasping, as if he’d been punched hard in the belly.

  And the spanner wrench leaped out of R.C.’s hands and sailed through the foggy air — straight for Ken’s head!

  A woman screamed as Ken dropped to the grass, and the heavy wrench swished through the hazy air where his head had been moments earlier. On all fours, Ken shouted desperately, “Captain? Where are you? You okay?”

  “Here! Head for my voice!”

  Ken scrambled forward, praying the mist didn’t confuse sound as well as sight. But he couldn’t locate the source of R.C.’s voice. Rising to a crouch, he groped his way through the mist, his hands disappearing into the fog before his face.

  Other, infrequently used senses came to the fore, aiding his crippled sight and warning him. Suddenly he could read emotions, strong feelings, all around him. But these became tangled into a web of sensual distortion. Waves of concern lapped at his mind, and at someone else’s.

  Don’t hurt.

  The woman’s thoughts and feelings became tangible to him, and Ken could understand them! He felt her tense with fear for his sake and perceived a mental image of the woman standing near him, her arms upraised as if to fend off a crushing blow.

  Don’t hurt!

  If she was pleading for the humans’ lives, Ken hoped she had some influence with the stern alien leader.

  “R.C.?” he pleaded. Another mind’s-eye image hit him with shocking clarity — the pilot, stretched out on the purple grass. Was the man unconscious, or dead?

  Standing over R.C. was that same tall alien male. Maybe you shouldn’t judge alien expressions by human standards, but the man’s fury frightened him. Ken recoiled from so much hatred concentrated in one countenance.

  But still the woman stood between Ken and R.C. and the anger of the alien male.

  “Help R.C., if you can,” Ken pleaded into the purple nothingness. She wouldn’t understand Terran, of course. But she might sense his emotions. The aliens held all the cards in this deadly game, and Ken would have to learn to play by their rules. He felt like an infant, competing with merciless mental giants.

  “We’re not your enemies,” Ken explained. How could he get the idea across to them?

  A hand touched his arm. Not an illusion this time. Small, feminine fingers probed his face and head, examining the spray bandage on Ken’s wound. He winced, a wave of nausea seizing him in reaction to the pain and his loss of orientation.

  Clinging to consciousness, Ken whispered, “Don’t hurt R.C. We don’t mean you any harm.”

  *

  For a few seconds, the mist rolled away. The alien woman was beside him, her slender arms about Ken’s waist. Her black eyes and pretty face mirrored her anxiety and pity. It had not been an illusion. R.C. was lying on the ground, with the tallest of the aliens standing over him. Now the stern alien stepped across R.C.’s prostrate form and walked purposefully toward Ken.

  The woman glanced at him apprehensively. The alien carried no visible weapon but Ken took no comfort from that fact. A skilled telepath who could manipulate a mysterious fog and create confusion in human minds would not need conventional weapons.

  Ken inhaled a sweet, unusual scent. Despite his pain and his dread of what might lie in store for him, he was very aware of her close fragrance.

  No!

  Telepathic negatives, flung back and forth. Was he eavesdropping as they conversed mentally?

  As the big alien male stood in front of him, his visage relentless and his body tensed with fury, Ken recalled R.C.’s description of him. Conflict must be avoided if at all possible. The alien was taller than Ken, lean and muscular, with a bony face. His full lips were untouched by the slightest suggestion of a smile.

  He seemed clad in moss, a dark green material that wasn’t a material. Like the woman’s clothes, his appeared to be living fabric, part of the planet’s natural abundance. Was it possible they could reshape plants to their own uses?

  “No!”

  This time the woman had spoken aloud! The language wasn’t Terran, yet Ken understood her. The sound was sharp and gutteral, out of keeping with the woman’s soft voice.

  The big male responded in the same harsh grating language.

  Ken couldn’t follow the floods of alien words, but he understood the general drift of the argument. The woman was appealing to the tall male’s better nature.

  Did he have one?

  “Briv, fytyina …” Ken listened quietly as the woman played devil’s advocate against her own species.

  Briv. Was that his name? It suited him: short and unsweet and very pointed.

  Briv was unmoved by the woman’s plea. Brusquely, he swept out a long arm and brushed her aside. Ken had expected a telepath to be less physical, but these telepaths had proved to be violent ever since they had first appeared out of nothing and attacked the two Surveymen.

  As Briv stared balefully at him, Ken felt an imaginary block of ice encasing his heart. He locked stares with him, and a powerful image hammered its way into Ken’s brain, forcing itself upon his mind: a drama performed on an alien stage, without words or captions. But its meaning was as unmistakable as Briv’s rough rejection of the little female.

  He visualized one of the jewel-skinned aliens, soaked in blood, lying on a white surface. The blood seeped from his mouth and from a hideous wound in the chest. Ken understood that the alien was dead, and that he had died violently. The wounds appeared chillingly familiar, like something Ken had seen on a training tape.

  It was a needler! A Patrol weapon banned to civilians, too cruel and inhumane for hunting purposes. The weapon was designed for war. Ken’s stomach tightened. A needler was a Terran weapon.

  As if in re
sponse to his thought, another figure moved onto the stage of that telepathic drama unfolding in his brain. A man, features oddly indistinct, moved to confront the alien who would later lie dead.

  In the Terran’s hand was a silvery object — a needler. Ken had guessed right. He witnessed the meeting: as the alien turned to flee, the needler flashed, striking the unarmed victim.

  Then the terrible images evaporated and his mind was his own once more. He was staring at Briv, thrown back into present reality. Briv pointed at Ken accusingly and began to speak. The syllables meant nothing to him, but the meaning with its inherent accusation was clear. Borne along on strong emotions and a few final images were anger, grief, shock, incredulous disbelief, and the fierce demand for revenge.

  One of the woman’s people had been killed by a Terran, and with an outlawed weapon. The implications of that chilled Ken.

  Briv concluded his tirade with a snarled, emphatic, “Gr’shaak!”

  Bloody images and furious emotions pounded at Ken, combining into a staggering whole. In the eyes of the aliens, Ken and R.C. were one and the same with the faceless, needler-armed Terran. There was no debate. Briv had declared the hapless Surveymen murderers.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ken couldn’t concentrate; his thoughts were scattered and disorganized. Either the psychic assault or the shock of the crash landing had wearied and weakened him. He tried to brace himself to fight back, but the aliens refused to allow it on his terms. Ken was outnumbered and certainly outclassed telepathically. He was no match for Briv and his troops.

  What were the best survival techniques to employ when a man was really up against superior odds? In this case, Ken decided to cooperate, on a minimal basis. He wouldn’t crawl, but he was in no position to stage a rally, either.

  He had to communicate with them, somehow. Collecting his battered senses, he formed a countering image in his mind, hoping Briv would read it and understand. Ken painted his own reaction to the alien’s murder — revulsion, horror, a wish to see the murderer punished.

  The unaccustomed effort exhausted him. His knees buckled as he released the image and returned to the real world. They had to see that the two Surveymen were not conspirators of the unknown Terran killer!