Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 5

by Eric Flint

  The tape ended, and Anthea was left with a strange sense of foreboding. Though those events had occurred many centuries ago, they felt real to her.

  Her baby was restless, perhaps reading her own mood. She realized that the bone-jarring hum had grown louder and louder. The signal seemed to come from the back of her head, in her ears, rattling her teeth. However, when she concentrated on it and tried to listen more closely, she could hear nothing.

  Anthea understood with a jolt that it wasn't a tone any human could hear. A secret signal? She turned, eyes widened, and looked at the baby. His fine tendrils were waving like antennae, picking up a transmission meant only for slans—and passing it on to her.

  Her son couldn't move, but he transmitted his need. She had to follow that sound, find out what was making it. She looked on the equipment shelves, found the strange and indecipherable devices that had been confiscated and sealed so long ago. She was sure the secret police had no idea what it was they had taken.

  One of the stored devices turned out to be the source of the piercing hum. It was labeled as "Unknown Slan Mind-Control Device—never tested." The humans must have been too afraid to toy with it.

  Instinctively, Anthea understood which buttons she was supposed to push on the long-quiescent device. The humming gadget began to vibrate in her fingers. Status lights illuminated, and the needles on gauges swung over to their maximum markings. She saw a fuzzy image form, but not with her own eyes. It was the face of a man, but it seemed distant, coming to her in thoughts instead of visions. Her baby was doing it!

  The man talking looked like Dr. Lann, but subtly different. His son, probably, one of the first slans. "If you are receiving this, then I know you are a slan. For our own protection, we have attuned this Porgrave recording so that only those with tendrils can receive it. Those foolish humans who have caused us so much harm and pain will never know how much vital information we transmit right under their noses. All slans, hear me—you must understand who you are, know your destiny, and help gain revenge for the heinous crimes that have been committed against our new race. It will be war.

  "We do not know how our fight will proceed, whether or not we'll be victorious, but we must lay plans so that battle can continue for as long as necessary. Our father was the first to see the potential in the race of slans, and he was murdered for his support of our cause. Blind and prejudiced normals harassed him, interrogated him, and then they set his lab on fire. They shot him down while we watched."

  The blurry face smiled. "But we all knew his conspicuous laboratory was primarily a sham. A diversion. We did very little real work there, but all the humans were afraid of it. Our real laboratory was a completely different complex, well-hidden. There, our father did his ground-breaking work with mental enhancement, brain recordings, and studies of thought processes. All of his real equipment remains there, a true fortress, a place where we slans can build our defenses. In this recording we will implant the location of that secure hideout. The machinery, records, and primary mind imprints of our great father are there. Use what you find, if you can. Help us win this unjust war."

  Anthea suddenly knew where to go. The picture was clear in her mind. She couldn't explain any coordinates or directions, but she knew.

  Even though this strange telepathic beacon had been made centuries before she was born, she felt confident. She went over to her baby, smiling. "Thanks to you, we know of a place now—a place where we can be safe."

  CHAPTER 23

  Kier Gray watched as Jommy packed up the armored vehicle and said his farewells. The President admired the young man's dedication and drive, though he was concerned about the dangers he might encounter in the war-torn city.

  "This is a great risk you're taking, Jommy. We're safe here for now, and we can start to rebuild the government in exile with anything and anybody we can find. Are you sure it's wise to go back to Centropolis?"

  "Mr. President, once I recover the disintegrator weapon, we can stand against this invasion. We can't just hide here."

  "Isn't that what slans are good at? Hiding?" Petty said rudely, and Granny smacked him across the back of his head. The slan hunter spluttered in surprise.

  While Jommy prepared to depart, Petty had grudgingly admitted that his men had taken the disintegrator weapon to a protected sealed vault for his researchers to study in safety.

  "Why are you being so cooperative?" Jommy had asked suspiciously.

  "I was always cooperative—just not too happy about it." The slan hunter's brows furrowed. "With a weapon like that, we could withstand the tendrilless even if they track us down here on the ranch. It just might save my skin."

  With the mind block he had learned over the years, Petty made it impossible for Jommy to read his true thoughts. The secret police chief almost certainly meant to seize the disintegrator for himself as soon as he had the chance, but Jommy would never let that happen.

  Kathleen hugged him before he got into the car. "Be careful. I should be going with you—"

  He was sorely tempted. "I can't risk losing you again. Even if the immediate attack has ended, it'll be dangerous back in the city."

  "Then let me help!"

  "I'll do my work better and faster this way—but I'm not alone. We have a connection through our tendrils. Your mind and my mind. You'll know that I'm safe, and I'll sense you thinking about me." Jommy climbed into his car and sealed the doors. When the engine roared to life, he drove off, leaving his friends behind.

  Gray watched him go, sent his hopes with the young man, then rounded up the others to get down to work putting together the shreds of a government.

  They monitored news reports using battery-powered radios and a short-wave transmitter in Granny's sitting room. Eyewitness accounts claimed that slans were behind the continued bombings of Earth's largest cities, even though the attacking armies had no tendrils that anyone could see. No one challenged the claims, thanks to propaganda distributed for years by tendrilless rebels. One account claimed that John Petty was himself a disguised slan and had seized the presidency so that he could launch this attack upon all humanity. The timing couldn't possibly be a coincidence, the commentator observed.

  Petty couldn't believe what he was hearing. "That's absurd!"

  "The public has been trained to believe absurd things," Gray said. "You did it yourself."

  "Yes, my secret police were actually quite good at that," Petty admitted. "Disinformation is a simple and commonly used tactic. If you give people enough crazy stories, they won't believe the truth more than any other lie."

  "And now you've been beaten at your own game," Kathleen said. "How are we going to convince the population of the truth, that the tendrilless slans are their enemies and they should rise up against them?"

  "That would trigger another whole round of Slan Wars," Petty said. "Do you want more centuries of endless bloodshed? We'd never see the end of it."

  "Or," Gray continued, "we can suggest a meeting with the tendrilless leaders. They have a vendetta against slans, and there's cause for grief on both sides, but maybe they'll listen if we tell them the true story. I doubt they even know their own origins. The only way we all win is if we can work out a peace, a way for us to live together in prosperity."

  "Sounds like you're dreaming," Petty said.

  "Jommy managed to make it work here in this valley," Granny interrupted. "I've never seen so many good neighbors."

  Kathleen sat next to her father. "But what is the true story of the tendrilless? Why do they hate the slans so much? Where did they come from?"

  Gray sighed and leaned back in his chair. "It's a long story."

  "Oh, then I'll make coffee." The old woman came back in a few minutes with a reheated pot of bitter old brew.

  Petty slurped his coffee, then winced at the taste. "And what about yourself, Gray? You don't have tendrils, yet you seem to be on the side of the slans, not the tendrilless. You're obviously a spy, an infiltrator—but which side are you on?"

&
nbsp; The President accepted a cup, thanked Granny, and searched in his mind for the proper spot to begin. "During the long dark ages of the Slan Wars, slan geneticists decided that for the survival of our race they had to breed a new offshoot that couldn't be detected by outsiders, slans that had no tendrils. But consequently, the tendrilless had none of the superior telepathic abilities of true slans. They were sleepers, like dormant seeds planted in the recovering society."

  "What happened to all the other true slans?"

  "They went into hiding somewhere. I don't know the details, since it was so long ago. But many more of them survived than was apparent."

  "Not after my men rooted out the ones you kept in the grand palace." Petty chuckled. "That diminished your numbers quite a bit! And my secret police are probably still hunting them down."

  Granny poured more hot coffee into Petty's cup . . . and onto his hand, and onto his lap. He yelped. The old woman walked away with an innocent expression, which broke into a smile.

  Gray continued, "As vigilante groups killed anyone with tendrils, my forefathers began to create slans that still had the same mutant genes, the same physical strength, but genetically designed to manifest no tendrils, not for several generations. Their telepathic abilities were dormant. Originally, when we infiltrated them into human society, the tendrilless were supposed to know what they were and what their mission was."

  "Spies among us," Petty muttered.

  Granny waved a stern finger in front of his face. "Let the man talk. He's the President."

  "He's been deposed."

  The old woman said with a smirk, "Until you have your picture on a ten-credit bill, Mr. Petty, you'd better listen to him."

  Gray continued, "The tendrilless offshoot could live as humans, among humans, and act as humans. Because of their superior intelligence and physical strength, the tendrilless wouldn't take long to work their way into important positions, running governments and industries. Before the normal humans knew it, slans would have a tight hold on society. By the time the tendrilless began to have true slan babies again, once the genetic clock brought the chromosomes back to the forefront and they bred true, our disguised sleeper agents would have made another slan war impossible. They would have created an environment where slans and humans really could live together."

  "Sounds like that whole idea backfired." Granny slurped her own coffee.

  "The tendrilless convinced themselves that we had betrayed them, that we had robbed them of their telepathic abilities. By depriving them of tendrils, they felt as if we had"—he searched for a word—"castrated them in a way. They claimed that we had stolen their birthright. And so, when true slans came to teach them what they needed to know, the tendrilless turned on them. They declared open war and killed any true slan they could find. That erupted in a terrible slaughter—and it's never stopped."

  Kathleen gave him a puzzled frown. "But if the tendrilless were indistinguishable from normal humans, how could they know each other?"

  "Oh, they could still sense the differences," Gray answered. "Jommy found that out when he tried to approach them as a young boy, thinking they were allies. And because the tendrilless were as intelligent as any other slan, they developed devices to detect us. They could track us down, ambush true slans. Many were murdered before we knew they had this ability. In turn, some radical slans declared open war on the tendrilless. And it got worse from there."

  "People never seem to get tired of killing. It's one of the things we do best." The old woman gulped more coffee. "This is good. Maybe I should go burn another pot."

  Gray, Petty, and Kathleen all spoke out in a quick chorus. "No, no thank you. We've had enough."

  The President leaned back in his chair. "Numerous tendrilless lost contact with each other over the centuries. Plenty of their descendants don't even know what they truly are. And right now, all across the race, the dominant genes are beginning to manifest themselves. Once embedded in their chromosomes, the modifications can't be changed. Even the militant tendrilless who want to destroy all true slans are beginning to give birth to babies with tendrils. In another generation or two, they'll all be true slans."

  "Then they would have killed us all for nothing," Kathleen cried. "By killing us, they'll be killing themselves. If we could just explain to the tendrilless leaders what happened, they'll stop trying to exterminate slans and humans."

  "If they'll listen to us," Gray said.

  The secret police chief made a rude noise, then cringed as if expecting Granny to smack him again.

  "I'm still the President. I'll try to contact the leaders of the tendrilless." He turned to the old woman. "I can use the equipment in Jommy's laboratory to boost the signal and build a powerful transmitter. I'll hold out an olive branch to the tendrilless. Then it'll be in their hands."

  * * *

  Gray, Kathleen, Granny, and even Petty worked together to erect a tall signaling tower on the roof of the back shed. Announcing himself as the President of Earth, Commander-in-Chief and head of the legitimate government in exile, Kier Gray transmitted a bold message to Mars, where they knew the tendrilless had established their base. He hoped his words would fall upon receptive ears.

  Gray requested a peace conference, a summit to discuss the current war on Earth. He was careful not to phrase it in terms of a proposed surrender, though he was sure the tendrilless would view it as such.

  Then they waited. Because of the sheer distance between Earth and Mars, a signal would take hours to cross space and come back. Even so, someone monitored the shortwave constantly, waiting for an answer. The Tendrilless Authority would be surprised, even horrified, by Gray's revelations. They would argue and disagree, but the tendrilless scientists were intelligent enough to discover their own proof. With the invaders bombarding cities and setting up occupation headquarters, Gray hoped the enemy council would at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Petty took his own shift waiting by the shortwave. He was grudgingly cooperative, even helpful. Gray found it suspicious, and he wondered about the slan hunter's true motives. The secret police chief had been trying to gather his scattered operatives into a full-fledged defense, but so far claimed no success. The President would have to rely on diplomacy, because he had no military strength to fall back on.

  Finally, at three o'clock in the morning, the crackling answer came when a sleepy Kathleen was waiting at the radio, missing Jommy. "This is Authority Chief Altus Lorry representing the tendrilless slans on Mars. We have received and considered your message. Your claims are as unexpected as they are unbelievable. However, it is the feeling of this council that we should give it due consideration. Therefore, we will send a representative to meet with you and hear your case. After so many centuries of betrayal and distrust, you should expect no more than that."

  Kathleen frantically answered. "Of course. We accept! I will have President Gray transmit his suggestions to you." She switched off the unit and ran through the house to wake everyone up.

  CHAPTER 24

  Under the great glass sky-ceiling of Cimmerium, the woman sat by herself on a red-rock balcony. Peaceful, she looked out over the deep dry canyon, then turned her face upward and closed her eyes, basking in the distant sunshine. Her light brown hair had grown back in bristly patches, not long enough to be attractive but sufficient to cover the large scars on her scalp.

  Ingrid Corliss had been dead, or at least brain-dead, after a terrible spaceship accident on Mars. Tendrilless medical knowledge had restored her, regrown the damaged parts of her brain, and returned her to some semblance of life. With conditioning, mental priming, and careful therapy, she had reached the limits of what her people could do for her. The doctors had said that Ingrid would never be normal, that nothing could be done.

  Until Jommy Cross came.

  While infiltrating the city on Mars, Cross had found the injured woman. He had disguised himself as Ingrid's husband and used that deception to gather vital information about the tendrilless pla
ns for taking over the Earth. And, though he didn't have to, he had helped to put her brain back together. . . .

  Now, in the quiet and near-empty city, Jem Lorry stepped up behind the too-peaceful woman, frowning. He could see what she must be thinking. Cross had a way of manipulating people, brainwashing them into forgetting how evil he was.

  Ingrid opened her eyes. She stiffened when she saw him. "I'm aware of what you want, Mr. Lorry, but I can't help you. I don't know where Jommy Cross is."

  "You don't know—or you refuse to tell us?"

  She languidly reached up to scratch the scars on her scalp. "I won't lie to you—I have no desire to see him caught and punished."

  "Sympathizing with slans is treason, Mrs. Corliss."