by Kris Neville
“The Ship sent me over,” the Knoug said. “You wanted help? My name’s Kal. You probably remember me on Ianto?”
Parr swung his legs from the bed and stood up. “You feel the pressure?”
Kal rumbled angrily.
“Two Oholos,” Parr said. “I’ve been dodging them.”
“Two, eh? Okay. It’s a good thing I brought Bertie along. Two, you say. Well I’ll be damned.”
Kal turned to the Earthman. “There’ll be two, Bertie. So watch yourself . . .”
Bertie grunted noncommittally. “Okay. Now like I told you, shoot when I give you the mental signal. You’ll see the ones.”
“Uh-huh,” Bertie said, chewing complacently.
“Go on downstairs then.”
Bertie hunkered forward and leered at Parr. “Sure. Sure.”
“Hurry the hell up,” Kal said. Bertie shuffled to the door, opened it, left the room.
Parr swallowed uneasily.
Kal chuckled. “Good one, Bertie. Useful. Damn this pressure. Glad I brought him. They won’t be looking for an Earthman, eh? So when they try to come in here after us, he’ll drop ’em, eh?”
Parr wet his lips. “They’re getting nearer.”
“Relax,” Kal said. He crossed to the bed and sat down. “The Fleet’s out. It just came out. Did you hear?”
PARR felt a shock of surprise. He imagined the hundred powerful ships of the fleet coming, one by one, from the dead isolation of hyperspace. In his mind’s eye he could see the faint glimmer of the static shield—the protective aura—form slowly in real space; hi could imagine the ships safe within their electric sheaths which caught the hull-wrenching force of transition and dissipated it from the heavy steel plating. He could imagine one ship—perhaps one—popping out, shieldless, battered by the force vortex, and perhaps leaking air or ruptured entirely because the protective aura had collapsed under pressure. Then he saw the ships neatly pulling into formation, grouping for instructions, waiting for the attack signal.
“Day after tomorrow they attack,” Kal said.
“They’re closer,” Parr whispered.
Kal concentrated. “Yeah. I feel them. Come to the window.” He stood up and crossed the room in quick cat-like strides.
Parr followed him and the two of them stared down. Perspiration stood on Parr’s forehead. After a moment they saw Bertie come out from beneath the hotel awning. He seemed small at a distance, and they saw him toss a cigarette butt carelessly to the sidewalk. He moved leisurely away from the entrance and leaned against the side of the hotel, one hand in his overcoat pocket.
Kal sneered, “You think they’ll drive right up?”
Parr’s face twitched. “I don’t know . . . if they know there’s two of us . . .” He glanced left along the street. “I guess they will. I guess they’ll try to come right in after us.”
Kal chuckled. “That’s good. That’s damned good, eh?”
Parr turned to stare at him. “They’re strong.”
“They won’t be looking for Bertie.”
“Listen,” Parr whispered hoarsely. “They’re stronger than we are.”
Kal snarled a curse.
“No,” Parr said intently. “They are.”
“Shut up!”
“Listen,” Parr said. “I know. I’ve . . .”
Kal turned slowly. “They’re not stronger. They couldn’t be stronger. Even if Bertie misses, we’ll get them. If they’re so strong, why haven’t they already carried the fight to us? If they’re so strong, they should be ready to attack us, so why don’t they?”
He turned back to the window.
“They’re almost here,” Parr said.
A cab turned the corner. “Feel them center on us?” Parr said, drawing down his shield as tightly as he could.
Kal, tense-faced, nodded.
Parr stared fascinated as the cab screeched to a halt.
Then Parr felt a wave of sickness and uncertainty; he reached out for Kal’s elbow. “Wait!” he cried.
But already, below, Bertie jerked into explosive action.
He shot three times. The male Oholo pitched forward to the gutter.
Bertie’s gun exploded once more, but the muzzle was aimed into the air. He crumpled slowly, and the gun clinked to the sidewalk from nerveless fingers.
“He got one,” Kal said in satisfaction. “The other one must be quicker ’n hell.”
Parr let out a tired sigh.
“That’s that,” Kal said. “. . . I’ll be damned, a female Oholo! She won’t dare to try two of us alone.” Parr’s eyes were fixed below. In what seemed a dream, he watched her get out of the cab. She glanced up and down the street. She looked up, quickly, toward their window. And then she darted across the sidewalk toward the hotel entrance.
“I’ll be damned!” Kal cried. “She’s coming up anyway!” His eyes sparkled gleefully. He searched his lips with his tongue. “Let’s both hit her now! She’s near enough!”
“No!” Parr cried sharply. “No! Let her get closer . . . Let’s . . . let’s make sure we get her.”
They could feel her nearing them, not quickly, not slowly, but with measured steps.
CHAPTER IX
SHE was just outside the door and Parr felt something like momentary confusion before the hate came. Yet when it did it was tinged and colored as he thought of her walking toward them, alone. He tried to concentrate on her remembered image, tried to call up the previous hate in all its glory. He could not; instead, even the hate he knew drained away. In its place he felt—not fear exactly—not fear for himself but of the inevitability of death. Not his death—hers.
He saw Kal’s lips curl, and then he winced. Fingernails dug into his palms.
And the door opened and she stood before them. There was a breathless instant, absolutely still, while time hung fire. Her eyes were aflame. Eyes, he knew, that were capable of softness as well. Eyes steady, intent, unafraid. He was frozen in delicious surprise that tingled his spine, and he felt his scalp crawl. He also felt deep awe at her courage.
She came into the room, closed the door, stood with her back leaning lightly against it. Her eyes blazed into his.
Her red lips moved delicately. “Hello,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.” She had not glanced at Kal.
“Now!” Kal cried wildly.
Parr wanted to scream something meaningless, but before the sound could bubble forth the room seemed to erupt into a colored blaze. She had struck at him with a lethal assault!
He reeled, fighting back for his life, conscious now of Kal fighting at his side.
Her eyes were steady, and her face frowned in concentration. She was icy Calm in the struggle and there was cold fury in her whips of thought. But slowly, under their resistance, her eyes began to widen in surprise.
For a breath-held moment, even with the two of them against her, the issue seemed in doubt; Kal half crumpled, stunned by a blast of hot thought that seared away his memory for one instant.
She could not turn fast enough to Parr, nor could she, in feinting his automatic attack, strike again at Kal. Then again, the two of them were together, and slowly, very slowly, they hedged her mind between them and shielded it off.
Kal recovered.
Parr gritted his teeth in a mental agony he could not account for and stripped at her outer shield. Kal came in too and the shield began to break.
The Oholo still stood straight and contemptuous in defeat, her eyes calm and deadly is she still struggled against them.
She struck once more with fading strength and Parr caught the thrust and shunted it away. And then he was in her mind.
HE held a stroke that would burn like a sun’s core, and almost hurled it. But there was a great calmness before him and he hesitated a fraction of a second in doubt as he stared deep into her glazing eyes. He felt his heart throb in new pain.
Kal struck over him, and the Oholo went limp, suddenly, and sank unconscious to the floor, a pathetic rag doll. A tiny wis
p of thought struggled out and faded.
Kal cried in triumph and gathered for the final blow.
Great, helpless rage tore at Parr then, and almost before he realized it he sent a powerful blast into Kal’s relating shield. Kal rocked to his heels, dazed, and his eft hand went to his eyes. He whirled, lax mouthed, surprised.
“What . . .?”
“She’s mine!” Parr screamed wildly, “She’s mine!”
“The hell—”
In fury Parr slapped the other Knoug a stinging blow across the mouth. “Get out! Get out! Get out or I’ll kill you!”
Kal’s eyes glazed in surprise.
Parr was panting. “I’ll finish her,” he gasped. “Now get out!”
Kal’s eyes met his for a moment but they could not face the anger in Parr’s.
“Get out or I’ll kill you!” Parr said levelly, his mind a welter of emotions that he could not sort out and recognize.
Kal rubbed his cheek slowly.
“Okay,” he said hoarsely. “Okay.”
Parr let breath out through his teeth. “Hurry!”
Kal’s lips curled. His shoulders hunched and he seemed about to charge. But Parr relaxed, for he saw fear in the Knoug’s eyes. Kal straightened. He shrugged his shoulders indifferently, spat on the carpet without looking at Parr and stepped over the unconscious Oholo. He jerked the door open and without looking back slammed it behind him.
Parr was trembling and suddenly emotionally exhausted.
PARR’S knees were water. He stared fascinated at the fallen Oholo. He sank to the bed. He let his thoughts touch her unconscious mind as it lay exposed and helpless, and he wondered why he did not strike the death blow. He tried to think of stripping her mind away slowly, layer by layer, until she lay a helpless babbling infant, her body weak and pliant to his revenge. But he thought of her clear eyes and he was sickened and ashamed.
He called up memories of Oholos—the captured few—and now for the first time he knew general respect rather than hate. And thinking of Knougs, he writhed.
Yet he was conditioned to hate and he was conditioned to kill. He must kill, for the conditioning was strong. He tried to fight down the revolt of his thoughts, and, in recognizing the revolt at last, knowledge came. The guilt of treason. Not for any act. His treason was doubt, and doubt was weakness, and weakness was death. He could not be weak for the weak are destroyed. But he seemed, for a heart beat, to see through the fabric of Empire which was not strength at all. No he thought, I’ve believed too long. IPs in my blood. There’s nothing else.
He went to the wash basin and drew a glass of water. He carried it to the Oholo, knelt by her head and bathed her temple with his dampened handkerchief until she moaned and threw an arm weakly over her forehead. Her hand met his, squeezed, relaxed, and was limp again.
He carried her to the bed and sat beside her, staring at her clear face, which was an Earthface. (I’ve been in this body too long, he thought, I’m beginning to think all wrong.) For the face was not without beauty for him.
He shook his head dazedly, trying to understand himself.
(Here is the enemy, he thought. How do I know? I have been told ever since I can remember. But is it true? Does saying it make it true? But what else can I believe? One must believe something!)
SHE opened her eyes, stared at him uncomprehending. He waited patiently as she gathered her loose thoughts and tied them down. She smiled uncertainly, not yet recognizing him.
Finally he could see understanding in her eyes.
“Your mind is too weak to fight,” he said. “If you try to shield I will kill you.”
Her lips curled. “What do you want?”
“Don’t try to shield,” he warned. He studied her face and his chest was tight. He looked away from her face.
“I’ve got to ask you some questions,” he said. “After that, I’m going to kill you.”
There was no fear in Lauri’s eyes. “Go ahead,” she said calmly. “Kill me.”
“I . . . I . . . want to ask you something first,” he said. “I’ve got to ask you some questions.”
Her lips glistened and he felt sympathy that he could not understand. And seeing her frown, he shielded the thoughts from her.
“You’re not . . . quite like I thought you were,” she said, very calmly.
“I am!” he snarled. “I am what you thought!” He was ashamed of the sympathy he had let her sense, and then he was ashamed of being ashamed, and his mind was confusion.
“Why did you—did you leave this planet as an unprotected flank, like this?” he said. It was a question, he knew, that had to be answered, before . . . before . . . what?
“They weren’t ready to join us,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“They were not developed enough to join us,” she said.
“Why didn’t you conquer them!” he insisted. “You were strong enough. Why didn’t you conquer them?”
She said: “We couldn’t do that. We don’t have any right to do that.”
In that instant, it all became clear. Suddenly truth overwhelmed him, wave after wave, like a sickness. “No!” he cried. “No!” He dropped his head into his hands. “Lies,” he murmured. “Lies, lies, lies!” He saw the wrongness, the terrible wrongness, and he searched desperately over his life for repudiation, an excuse. But he found none.
They had come to him and said, This is the law of life. And they took him and trained him, and showed him nothing else. He had been scarcely a child at the first school of soldiery, and they had fashioned his mind, a pliant mind, and ground doubts out (if there had been any.) They told him that the law was strength, and strength was destiny, and destiny was to rule those below, obey those above, and destroy those who did not agree. There were no friends and enemies—only the rulers and the ruled. And the ruler must expand or die of admitted weakness.
“It’s all lies!” he said. He felt the crumbling away of the certainty he had lived by. And before the helpless Oholo he felt weak and defeated and suddenly he realized that his mind shield was clown.
She reached out gently to touch him.
Below, a police siren wailed in the streets. A car for corpses.
HE tried to shake the hand away.
“They lied,” he said. “They lied about everything. They lied that you were ready to conquer us. They told us you were cowardly and would kill us if we did not kill you first, and that we must take . . .”
She said: “It was worse than we thought. We did not think you were strong enough to attack us. Not here. We thought if we let you alone you would collapse of your own weight.”
“I never knew,” he said. “There wasn’t any way to know. You have to do what everyone else does. You get to think they must be right.” He made a small sound. “When I first came here—it started to bother me, when I saw the planet was unprotected—when I saw how strong you were . . . But I had so many things to do. I was too busy to think. But I felt something at the very first about your presence here . . .”
She stirred restlessly on the bed. He knew that he was defenseless before her because she had recovered, but she did not strike out. “Trying to help them,” she said. “A few of us came to help them. They needed us. We were trying to prevent a war. And a few more years—if we’d . . . but that’s gone now. You’ll destroy it all.”
He stood from the bed and it creaked.
“We were slowly changing their governments,” she said. “We would have succeeded.” He felt her mind slowly gather, and there was infinite bitterness, and he tensed. But still she did not strike at him.
“I want you to go,” Parr said. “Before the other Knoug comes back. Get out.”
Words damned up inside him. He had been trained to hate and trained to kill. The emotions were loose now. There was no outlet for them. He was frustrated and enraged. Hate bubbled about in him, fermenting. He had been trained to hate and to kill. Lauri winced as she felt the turmoil. “Get out!” he screamed. The door crash
ed open.
Three figures lunged through. “Lauri, thank God!” one of them cried. “We thought he’d killed you.” Parr suddenly found his arms held by two Oholos.
“We got here as soon as we could pick up your thoughts.”
Lauri said, “Jen is already dead.” One of the Oholos slapped Parr’s face savagely. “We’ll kill this one for that!” he snarled.
LAURI sprang from the bed and sent the weapon spinning from the hand of the leader of the three Oholos. He gave a startled gasp. The weapon hit the carpet and slammed to rest against the far wall. “Don’t!” she cried.
“You’re crazy!” the leader snarled. “What’s wrong with you?”
“He saved my life,” Lauri said, panting.
“He’s Knoug,” the leader sneered. “You know damned well he was trying to us€ you for something or other.”
Parr stared, fascinated. He was surprised to find that he was not afraid. The shock of capture had not yet passed, and he seemed to be watching a drama from which he was removed.
“No!” Lauri said. “No, he wasn’t!”
“How can you say that, Lauri? Look what, he’s done! Look what he’s already done!”
“Unshield, Parr, show them,” Lauri commanded.
Parr hesitated, trying to divine the plot and see what was required of him.
“It’s a trick,” the leader said. “They’ve got some way to fool us, even with an open mind!”
Lauri’s eyes were wide.
The lealer jerked his hand. “Kill him,” he instructed.
The Oholo on Parr’s left released Parr’s arm and reached inside his coat for a weapon.
Lauri darted across the room and pounced on the weapon lying at the base of the wall. She seized it and rolled over. She aimed it steadily at the Oholo on Parr’s left. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Let him go.” She got to one knee.
PARR felt the grip ease on his right arm. He stood free. And for the first time—with strange hope—the feeling of unreality vanished.
“You’re insane!” the Oholo on Parr’s right rasped.