Space Trap

by Juanita Coulson

  The fog was closing in again, and Briv’s expression, veiled by mist, seemed as unfriendly as ever. It looked as though Ken had failed. He was tempted to sink into lethargy, let them do what they would with him. The alien men circled him, grabbing Ken’s arms. He toyed with the idea of making himself a dead weight, forcing them to drag him. Why should he make it easy for them?

  But their grip wasn’t cruel. Firm, but not painful. They were supporting him as well as preventing him from escaping. Could they sense that the Earthman was on the verge of collapse?

  The mist filled his nostrils like a narcotic, but Ken stubbornly held onto his thread of awareness. He had to keep track of what happened and where they went, in case an opportunity for escape arose.

  He was being “walked” like a drunk, forward into the thickest part of the purple mist. West. Southwest. Yes, that “felt” right to Ken. He had to keep directions straight.

  Stumbling along, he opened his mind, and Ken could eavesdrop on the aliens’ emotions. Right now, those signalled impatience and urgency.

  “R.C.?” Ken called. Unless heavy breathing and the shuffle of feet constituted a reply, there was no response. Maybe they were dragging R.C. along with them too. If they hadn’t killed the pilot. There was no real reason why they should have. Apparently they were taking live captives today.

  The fog seeped in his throat and lungs, and Ken coughed spasmodically. His pants were soaked through and the fatigues chafed along the tops of his boots. Wet grass. It seemed to be a world of all-pervading dampness.

  How long would this voyage go on? It was impossible to judge how far they had come. Vision and hearing helped not at all.

  A momentary lurch turned Ken’s stomach, and for a few beats of his pulse, his feet weren’t touching the ground. He couldn’t feel … anything! Not even the aliens’ hands gripped his arms.

  The sensation jolted him, badly. Another pulse beat later, everything was as before — aliens marching him along through the mist, all the sounds and tactile information Ken expected.

  It happened again! It was like stepping in and out of the real world and back again. The process was repeated several times. He would grow weary, mesmerized by the fog and invisibility, his alertness melting into semi-consciousness. Then a jerk in the pit of his stomach would signal absolute nothingness; and then … normalcy again.

  Jumps. The idea came out of nowhere, suddenly. They were jumping forward in space, telepathically. The aliens transported their human captives by telekinetic skills of some kind! Ken had read about such things in fiction, but never dreamed he’d be fortunate enough to ride an alien brainwave. Fortunate! He was a man without a choice in the matter.

  *

  They had stopped. Ken carefully shook his head to clear the fog from his thoughts. The cut on his head was tender.

  The terrain had changed. The swish of grass and the scrape of feet were replaced by the echo of rock sliding across rock: a brittle, resonant noise.

  After more clambering on the rocky surface, Ken was thrust forward. Something white loomed out of the fog ahead of him: a wall. A massive chunk of sheered limestone rose up. Abutting it was some artificial substance. It felt like plastic to the touch, but it undulated as Ken leaned into it.

  Simultaneously the hands that had been supporting and restraining him let go. Ken toppled against the limestone and plastic wall.

  He squirmed around, bracing himself against the rock. The fog had disappeared and so had the aliens. He was alone in a chamber built of rock and rippling white material.

  A prison cell. There were no doors or windows; there was no entrance of any kind that Ken could see.

  Ken slowly slid down until he was sitting, his back propped against the limestone. He surveyed his quarters: a rough hexagon about three meters across with no furniture of any kind. Maybe the aliens created their own out of their thoughts and assumed any prisoners would do the same. They wouldn’t realize that human creative powers were limited to a somewhat more solid technology.

  He caressed the undulating white wall. It seemed alive, yet not alive. For all he could tell, it might be mist, bleached and reformed, something the aliens reshaped at will. Did that make it a manufactured substance? He was a member of Survey, and this was the product of a previously unknown culture. That meant it was Ken’s job to explore and note.

  Exploring and examining would keep his thoughts off unpleasant possibilities. But all his sophisticated equipment designed for examining new objects and cultures lay back in the wrecked ship, wherever it was.

  Ken sniffed the white material, wet a fingertip and touched the wall, then gingerly tasted. Although it lacked the distinctive chalky texture associated with Terran plastics, it was strongly reminiscent of that substance.

  Briv’s plastic. That’s what it was. Briv was the apparent leader of the aliens, and this was an alien material …

  Where was R.C.? In a similar prison cell? Ken’s imagination conjured up a horrible picture of the captain lying dead on a white slab, a sacrifice to atone for the murder of one of the aliens. He shoved the nightmare aside.

  He stood up and walked around the room, kicking at the walls. No chinks appeared. It was solid. Where the hell was the door? Both plastic and rock were slightly warm to the touch, approximately matching human body temperature: a nice gesture, if it was Ken’s comfort they were thinking of.

  His head hurt, and he rubbed his temples rhythmically. There seemed to be no way out, or none that a mere human could comprehend. Until they chose to release him, he was trapped — sealed inside, the rest of the universe, outside.

  Ken sat down again, heaved a sigh, and closed his eyes as he leaned back. It was futile to hammer against an unbreakable wall, so he took the opportunity to rest.

  *

  It seemed no more than a moment, but Ken realized he’d been asleep possibly for an hour or more. He was awake instantly, but without exhibiting any signs of his wakefulness — a trick he had acquired when he was a kid. It was useful now. Ken maintained a slow, regular breathing pattern and kept his eyes closed.

  Someone was in the hexagonal room with him. Someone had found a door, which meant whoever it was knew the secrets of this place: an alien.

  He heard quiet movements, light footsteps, the sound of an object being placed on the floor in front of him. Still Ken feigned sleep. Then, he was pinched — a playful tweaking of the flesh on his forearm.

  Startled, Ken opened his eyes and met those of the little alien woman. Her pretty face was devoid of any expression, but her eyes sparkled with amusement. She had known he wasn’t asleep. Of course. He wouldn’t be able to conceal it from a telepath.

  She pointed to a spongy bowl at Ken’s feet. It was heaped with exotic fruits that Ken recognized as some of the varieties from Noland Eads’ Initial Survey tape. She was offering him the harvest of NE 592.

  Eads’ tape had assured him that these native fruits were edible, non-toxic. Ken selected one and bit into it. It tasted succulent, but wasn’t going to be very filling.

  The woman studied him intently while he ate. Ken felt like a bug under a scientist’s microscan. He shrugged aside resentment. She was bound to be curious, but he did wonder if she was reading his mind as thoroughly as she was studying him visually.

  Did he dare seize her as a hostage and attempt to bargain his way out of this mess? It was idiocy to consider it. Briv and his troops would smash Ken down with a telepathic attack, some non-physical weapon a human couldn’t even see. No, manhandling and brawn would not solve the problem.

  She was staring at him, as she had when Ken was in space, though the frightful urgency in her manner was gone. There was little point in warning him of dangers now. He had already stumbled headlong into these, and the situation was considerably altered.

  Again he wondered if she was reading his mind. How could he express his distaste for that? Images seemed to work. He built a mental picture of a fortress and raised it around his own head. It was crude, but perhaps she
would understand and respect his privacy.

  Communication was the barricade separating them. Ken had never dealt face to face with a highly intelligent telepathic species. No human had until now. He would have to deal with the situation as he went along. The Survey ship had carried a basic computer-translator — just in case the need arose. But the translator was smashed, like everything else in the ship. That left Ken deaf and dumb in any conversation.

  He decided to go back to the beginning. He smiled, beaming friendly “vibes” at the woman. Still smiling, he pointed to himself and said carefully, “Ken Farrell. Ken Far … rell.” He waited for that to soak in, then pointed to the woman.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead she got to her feet and walked around him at a leisurely pace. Was she looking for a weak spot in his mental armor? He had plenty of those!

  Finally she stopped and knelt down in front of him again, waiting expectantly. Ken was frustrated. What was he supposed to do? Apparently the aliens followed a particular ritual, and she’d done her part in circumnavigating him. Sighing, Ken got up, duplicated her circling routine, came back to where he’d been, and sat down facing her.

  Still she didn’t speak or offer any communication that Ken could understand. He tried a new tack. “R.C.? Where is he?” He painted a mind’s-eye image of the captain, including every physical detail he could recall.

  The woman’s expression brightened dramatically. She held out her tiny hands, palms upward and said, “R.C.” She moved her head in a peculiar angular motion, chin jerking toward her right shoulder. A nod of assent?

  Ken beefed up the mental image of the captain he had constructed and replied with his own version of an agreeing nod. “R.C. What have you done with him?”

  She frowned and narrowed her black eyes. Then inspiration struck her and she reached out, touching Ken’s forehead briefly. As her arm dropped back into her lap, an answering impression filled Ken’s mind. Not the clumsy image of Captain Zachary he had created, but the woman’s vivid picture of the man. Ken seemed to observe his captain’s present activity. He saw Zachary unhurt, in a rock and plastic chamber much like Ken’s own. The Survey pilot was exploring his surroundings, stubbornly poking at the unyielding walls.

  That was exactly what R.C. would be doing in this situation. It seemed logical, believable. But could Ken believe that what he saw was true? The woman could be putting fantasies into his head, a telepathic placebo to lull rebellion.

  Ken remembered one of his courses at the Academy — what to do when captured, what your captors might do. He recalled too many unpleasant options there. One of the less nasty forms of interrogation, though, involved separating two prisoners and letting each man stew on his worry and runaway imagination. It served to break down a captive’s resistance. Sometimes the interrogators would put a man off-guard with kindness or let him enjoy the company of a pretty female. But generally, each man would be left alone with his thoughts.

  The irony of that warning made Ken laugh. He would never be alone with his thoughts on this planet! Briv and his troops could pick a human’s brain clean.

  “Thayenta.” She had spoken aloud, but not in the tone she’d used when they were engaged in a life and death argument in the mist. There was nothing guttural about this word. Her long lashes fluttered over those black eyes and her lips curved upward at the corners.

  A smile? Perhaps the aliens didn’t smile to indicate friendship. But she was copying Ken’s facial expressions, communicating! She touched her breast, duplicating Ken’s gesture, and repeated, “Thayenta.”

  Ken nearly yelped in triumph. He had broken through. He hastily went through the establishing routine he had always thought trite when he saw it on tape dramas. But now it made sense. He pointed to himself and said his name, then at the woman and said,. “Thayenta.” He repeated the process several times.

  He overdid it. Gradually he felt something intruding on this linguistic groundbreaking. Amusement. The woman was laughing at him, telepathically.

  “Okay,” Ken chuckled, dropping the elaborate gestures and labored enunciations. “So I’m Ken and you’re Thayenta. We’ve got that settled. Thayenta. That’s …” How could he compliment her on a pretty name? Ken envisioned a flower, mentally calling it “Thayenta.”

  The woman uttered a tiny sound that was a cross between a sneeze and a giggle. Then he sensed her touching him, mind to mind. A countering image replaced Ken’s lumpy picture of a flower. He saw a night scene on an alien world — strange trees and oddly shaped boulders drenched in an eerie lunar light. A beautiful luminescence shifted slowly across that cool, dark landscape as several moons orbited a distant world. The shadow of a tree fell on lush, gray-colored grass. He saw a moon shadow, as fragile and delicate as a fairy carpet.

  The loveliness of this visual poetry took Ken aback. He hadn’t anticipated stepping directly into the alien culture or its unexpected richness. “Thayenta. I understand,” and Ken let himself ride on that night image for a few more seconds. He was embarrassed by his ineptness and inability to use her telepathic language. “I’m afraid my name doesn’t mean anything. Or if it does, I don’t know what it is.”

  She moved a few centimeters closer to him, and Ken longed to touch her jewel-like skin once more. A pair of light stabs nudged each side of his throat as a warning. There was no one else in the rock and plastic cell, but he had been told to keep his hands to himself. Was it Briv, reminding Ken that there were other aliens, possibly watching and listening to everything that happened?

  Thayenta extended her hands, palms up. And suddenly Ken knew what was wanted of him. Half dreading another painful nudge from Briv, he placed his fingers lightly on Thayenta’s, barely making contact. But there was no recurrence of the stabbing sensation. They had read his mind and knew he would behave himself.

  Thayenta was struggling to pronounce an unfamiliar Terran word. “Fri … end.”

  Ken’s jaw dropped. “Yes! Friend. R.C. and I came here in friendship.”

  Thayenta closed her eyes briefly, and Kent felt her fingertips caress his lips, gently coaching him to silence. But she hadn’t moved! Her fingers were still touching his in that alien handshake.

  No, she hadn’t touched his lips physically.

  Ken’s mind reeled. There were so many new experiences and sensations to learn.

  She drew back, releasing his hands. But the telepathic contact remained with him, an invisible bond. She cocked her head coyly and a tress of her green-black hair tumbled over her high brow. Tiny veins of rainbow color threaded under her pale skin, transparent ivory shot through with a tracery of bright jewels.

  “Can’t you tell me where you came from?” he asked gently, trying his damnedest to put his words into thoughts at the same time. “This blurry, misty place — what is it? Do you live here? Did you make the ship crash? And the way the wiring burned — did you do that too? Are you trying to keep us here?”

  Thayenta seemed troubled. Perhaps he was going too fast, demanding too much. He felt sympathy and understanding. Although it was not identical to his own, he sensed a reaching out from her alienness to his humanness.

  At times she behaved as if she were unsure, walking on thin ice. Was she afraid of being slapped down by Briv? The relationships among the aliens were a puzzle to Ken, but he began to suspect Thayenta’s position among her people was low-ranked. Everything she did and thought was being scrutinized.

  What would happen if she miscalculated in her job? Would Briv punish her? Would Thayenta receive demerits, like a cadet at the Academy who’d inadvertently broken the rules? Or would the chastisement be telepathic, incomprehensible to humans?

  Abruptly, Thayenta stood up and walked toward one of the plastic walls. Ken felt the tug of an invisible leash. She wanted him to follow her, and she was pulling the reins. In Thayenta’s telepathic terms, he was certainly a retardate.

  Ken obeyed. As he neared the wall it dilated, a white membrane forming an ovate door. There was no need for doorknobs or key
s or jailors standing guard. Without telepathy, Ken hadn’t a chance to operate the alien locks. It was galling to be utterly dependent on the alien’s whims.

  He followed Thayenta through the ovate door and stepped into another rock and plastic cell. The door sucked closed behind them, and no evidence of its existence remained.

  R.C. stood with his back to Ken and the woman, still prodding at the jointure of the limestone and plastic walls. Refusing to admit defeat, he was looking for a chink.

  “Captain,” Ken exclaimed, and Zachary spun around. Thayenta dropped the telepathic leash, letting Ken move freely. He started toward the pilot, asking, “Are you all right?” Then he stopped, reading the man’s narrow-eyed suspicion.

  “How do I know you’re really here — or that you’re really Ken?” Zachary demanded. His stare shifted to the woman, then back to his apprentice. “You both may be illusions.” R.C. waved at the walls. “Maybe those don’t exist. Maybe they’re images put in my mind to delude me.”

  Ken realized the possibility. Was what he saw truly Captain Zachary? After a moment Ken lost his skepticism. The aliens couldn’t have done such a thorough job. Nobody could imitate that clipped speech and solemn countenance so perfectly. Gradually the tenseness eased out of R.C.’s wiry form as well. His face relaxed a bit. He had weighed similar questions and reached similar conclusions. But his wariness of Thayenta was undiminished. “What’s she been doing to you, Ken? Brainwashing you?”

  Admittedly R.C. had some experience with telepaths, but Ken trusted his own instincts. “Her name’s Thayenta. I’ve been trying to communicate with her. She called me ‘friend’. R.C., I don’t think she’s an enemy. Remember I told you she tried to talk to me out in space — warn me away from the planet?”

  “Warn you off? Why?” R.C. cut away the fat, going to the heart of the problem. “We seem to have crashed in a very convenient location — convenient for the aliens. Right next to the blurry area, their home territory, obviously.”