Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  I know you’re there, she thought.

  I’ll wait to answer, he thought; he tried to hold his mind shut.

  You’re traveling very fast: Much too fast!

  The ship lurched a bit, slowing down. Then—for several seconds—he was as much in Calvin’s mind as his own; their minds blended. The shielding did not stop that. Calvin was waiting at the foot of the ladder for him to return. Don’t wait, Walt thought; I’m—And as unexpectedly as it had commenced, the blending ceased; he was once again alone. Calvin! Calvin! he thought. No answer. Calvin’s abnormal, unpredictable mind remained inaccessible.

  Hello, Julia said sweetly. The complacency she conveyed, the assurity of her thought, the self confidence, the self reliance—these things troubled him.

  THE ship touched ground, bounced once and was still. The switch above him flipped over with a nasty, metallic snicker. In a fever of haste, he ripped out of the cocoon. He had less than twenty seconds to get outside before the molecular reaction set in.

  His feet pounded to the door; his hand found the lever; his body fell hard against the surface. The door popped open and he sprawled across the cool sand.

  He was up and running.

  At fifty yards he looked back panting. The ship began to glow a dull, unexciting dun color. A wave of heat pressed against his cheek. The ship folded upon itself and collapsed into a powder of dry, red rust.

  The desert around him was endless; the chill of distance from which he was completely unprotected caught in his throat. He sat down and huddled up to protect himself from it. He trembled violently and whimpered for Forential. Cold sweat drenched his body . . .

  He forced himself to stand; slowly the reaction passed. He opened his eyes. He took a deep, nervous breath and let it out.

  And—

  He wanted to fall to the ground and dig his fingers into it.

  Good God! he thought. She’s trying to teleport me to her! She had caught him unaware, when the terror of the desert was still upon him. He could not marshal his thoughts to resist her.

  He twisted frantically. Watch out! You’ll kill me!

  The attempt ceased at once.

  . . . oh? I thought . . . Yes, I can see now that . . . The thought ended abruptly. There was an utter and terrifying silence from her direction.

  His mind began to add up the overall situation with great speed. Hello. She did not answer. He licked his lips.

  I wasn’t, he thought, . . . I wasn’t serious when I tried to teleport you a while ago. I was just playing a joke on you. I wasn’t trying to kill you.

  She seemed to be thinking the statement over. If you had tried again, I would have let you. I didn’t realize it was you at first.

  He cursed himself.

  You were moving too fast a moment ago.

  He was getting her position fixed. She lay west. He turned in that direction. She broke the contact.

  Search planes of the Air Force began to drone over the area; searching for the saucer the radar had tracked to earth.

  WALT walked for hours across the desert. His feet, unaccustomed to the tight fitting shoes, pained him. He grew weary. Occasionally, lights from the highway to his left winked by in the night. On he trudged. Sand crept into his shoes.

  Dawn came. He looked toward the mountains, blue with distance. He would not be able to make them. Soon the sun would be overhead. The heat (it was already promised) would be intense. He would have to have water. I could change the sand to water—the air—the plants, he thought. (Forential could, he told himself.) I could: If I only knew more; if I only had practice. If I could only see just how water is put together. Forential should have explained things like that to us.

  Hello, he thought to Julia.

  He received no answer.

  She’s suspicious, he thought. What did I do to make her suspicious? She wasn’t when I first contacted her. But there was something funny about her . . . Maybe she knows I know she’s a traitor. Forential said lie to her.

  Hello, he thought. I’m a Lyrian traitor, too.

  Julia, he thought. Where are you?

  Damn her: she isn’t going to answer.

  He looked at the mountains. He was walking automatically now.

  Forential has confidence in me, he thought. Or else he’d have given me more instructions. He knows I can get there. It’s up to me to do it, that’s all . . . Well, I can’t make the mountains by walking . . .

  He crossed to the highway; he dreaded his first contact with earthlings.

  It was a broad, gleaming band of concrete, six lanes wide with foot high rails between lanes, broken, each mile, by changeover slots.

  Early morning sun cut down from the east.

  Cars came by like bullets. Whirrr, whish, and they were gone.

  He waved at the ones going west, but they were past him almost before he saw them. The trucks on the inner lanes were ladened streaks; the car traffic on the middle one was varicolored blurs. A streamlined bus flashed silver and dwindled to a spot in the distance.

  . . . Moving more slowly, a passenger car came down the outer lane.

  Walt waved desperately. Thirst was already on him.

  The car squealed to a stop. He ran toward it.

  IT was his first view of an earthman. His stomach knotted with revulsion; his body shook with hatred. All his life he had been conditioned to kill them on sight.

  “Where’s your car?” the driver asked when he came abreast.

  Walt gestured vaguely. His face contorted with the effort he made to control his hands.

  “Why’n hell didn’t ya radio in for a pick-up? God, man, you could die out here.”

  Walt said: “You let me go with you?”

  “Sure . . . get in.”

  Walt fumbled at the side of the car.

  “Push the button, you dope.”

  Walt pushed the button, and the door opened.

  “Aintcha never seen a car before?”

  Walt grunted and got in.

  “You been here long?”

  If he doesn’t shut up, I’ll strangle him, Walt thought. He closed the door and pressed against it to be as far away from the earthling as possible.

  “Somebody probably saw you when they passed and radioed on you,” the driver said, starting the car and flipping it on automatic. “A pick-up’ll be along shortly. This will save you the fee.”

  Walt gritted his teeth. “Thanks.”

  “. . . you gotta funny accent. Where you from?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Walt said slowly. God, he thought, I wish Forential hadn’t told me not to kill any of them!

  The driver looked sideways at him, shrugged, and began to whistle through his teeth.

  Ah, to kill him, Walt thought. To kill him! He stared at the man’s heavy jowls. To rip into them . . . Wait, wait until Julia is caught, just wait . . . I want to kill her a little at a time.

  Beyond the blue mountains, the driver drew the car into the checker stand.

  “Got any fruit?” the California state inspector asked.

  The driver climbed out and called the officer aside. They whispered. Walt twisted uncomfortably. His spine began to prickle.

  The officer came over and opened Walt’s door. “Get out, buddy.”

  “Me?”

  “You. Hurry up!”

  Walt’s eyes darted rapidly about. He got out slowly.

  “Say something!”

  “I, I don’t know. What do you want me to say something for?”

  “It’s Russian?” the driver demanded.

  “Hell, I don’t know. Come on buddy.” The officer took Walt’s arm. “There’s something funny here all right.”

  RUSSIAN? Walt thought. What did that mean? He could tell he was in for trouble. The man’s grip on his arm was uncomfortably authoritative. If I only had a focus rod, I could . . . he thought.

  His heart began to hammer. Would they use one of the terrible atom bombs to destroy him in another minute?

  “Come
along,” the officer said.

  “. . . I want a drink of water, please.”

  “He’s been out on the desert,” the driver said. “Maybe all night, from the looks of him.”

  “Okay,” the officer said. “Let’s go over here . . . What’s your name?”

  Walt walked beside him. “Walt.”

  “Walt what?”

  “. . . Walt.”

  “I mean, Walt Smith or Jones or Johnson?”

  “That’s it.” Walt’s mind raced.

  “What?”

  “Johnson,” Walt said. “Walt Johnson?”

  The officer puckered up his lips. “Okay, friend, we’ll find out more about you in a little bit. Let’s get your drink.”

  They entered the warm roadside office. The officer crossed to the cooler and drew a glass of water.

  “Thanks.” Walt drank thirstily. “More?”

  The officer complied; as yet he had not taken his eyes off the mutant.

  Holding his glass, empty for a second time, Walt glanced around the office, balancing nervously on the balls of his feet. When his eyes rested on a spot behind the officer, he said, “What’s that?”

  The officer turned. “What?”

  Walt tried to concentrate on the invisibility projection. He started for the door.

  “What?” the officer repeated, puzzled. He looked around. “I’ll be damned! Now where—”

  Once in the yard, Walt raced toward the check point. It was hard to hold the distortion field around himself and his clothing.

  The officer was now in the yard shouting.

  “He can’t get far!” someone called.

  A moment later a car drew up to the check point. Walt would have to pass through the steel of the door to enter it unnoticed. Steel was difficult to penetrate, particularly difficult, if he remained invisible while doing it.

  He succeeded.

  He settled into the rear seat.

  Blood vessels strained on his forehead.

  Hurry! he thought.

  THE driver meshed the gears with a button just when he was wavering on the edge of visibility. An officer glanced into the car. Walt held his breath. The officer motioned the car on.

  The driver, Walt saw now, was a girl. Forential had shown him pictures of female Lyrians; and this girl—but for the fact she was an earthling—would have been beautiful. Now that he had begun to master his hate reaction, he felt the stirrings of curiosity.

  He became visible.

  After a mile or so, she must have heard his breathing. The car was on automatic, following the guide beam on the center of the lane. She turned. She studied him for a long moment with beautiful grey eyes.

  “Hello, where did you come from?”

  Walt moved his lips.

  The girl was sizing him up carefully. She seemed to like what she saw. She nodded. “You got on back there? I didn’t see you.”

  Walt stared at her.

  “You wanted a lift, that’s it, isn’t it?”

  Walt said nothing. She wore soft perfume. If I did not hate her so much . . . he thought.

  “You deaf and dumb.”

  “. . . no. No.”

  She pulled the car into a clear-lane niche.

  She regarded him. “Not bad . . . Get up front.”

  He obeyed her. She started the car again.

  “I’m Walt Johnson.”

  “Where are you going, Walt Johnson?”

  “This . . . down this way.” The emotions were almost out of control with excitement. His thoughts were becoming powerful and diffuse.

  You let her alone! Julia ordered.

  It was like a slap. He quickly dampened his thoughts. Hatred returned.

  The driver of the car chewed gum reflectively, watching him. She twitched nervously closer.

  She saw his eyes. She stopped chewing gum. Perhaps she saw the hatred. She was trembling, suddenly. “You . . .” She drew the car into a niche again. “You better get out here.”

  Walt was angry. No killing, no killing, he told himself. He controlled his hands. He forced himself to open the door and get out.

  “Somebody’ll give you a ride,” the girl said.

  The car moved away, gaining speed quickly . . .

  An orchard lay behind him. Cars passed more slowly now that the desert was to the east.

  Walt began to walk.

  He thought: Forential told us a while ago there was a destructive war in progress. It doesn’t seem like there’s a war. I haven’t seen any signs of it. It’s peaceful. I wonder what he meant?

  Within a few minutes, a car drew along side of him.

  “I’m Walt Johnson. I’m going down the road.”

  “Get in, then.”

  Walt got in.

  Hello, Julia, he thought. I want to see you, Julia.

  CHAPTER VI

  IN the space station, Forential sat in his cubicle in mental conference with the other aliens. Behind their flow of thoughts was the unreferred-to but ever-present fear for their own lives. Cowardice was taken for granted; it was so deeply a part of their own culture (if it wasn’t somehow a racial characteristic) that it did not need to be acknowledged.

  The aliens always let other races fight their wars of conquest.

  Forential knew that his own personal existence might well hinge on the outcome of the next few hours. None of the aliens knew how much knowledge Julia possessed. Unlike the other mutants, she had not been kept in ignorance of the basic laws of nature. How dangerous she might be, they could only guess. Was she capable of attacking them?

  Forential was physically ill; he wanted to flee. If he had had a ship capable of traveling interstellar distances, he would have embarked without delay. But the huge interstellar ship of his race would not be back for another thirty years. There was no escape from the space station; there was no place to go.

  And if the earthlings were not destroyed, if the invasion of Earth failed, retaliation from the planet would not be long coming. Once the Earth located the space station (and Earth would, once Earth realized its existence) even human normals would be able to destroy it—one rocket with an atomic war head would do—long before the interstellar ship returned.

  Walt could not fail; the invasion could not fail.

  **Let’s try to make peace with the earthings,** one of the aliens thought. **It’s better than . . . than exposing ourselves to physical violence!**

  **That would be suicide: once they realized what we had been planning to do to them.**

  **I don’t trust them.**

  **Let Forential send down all his charges to kill the female!**

  **Don’t be hysterical!** the Elder thought hysterically.

  Forential knew that to send down his charges first might alert Earth to the danger of invasion: twenty-seven saucer-ships would not go unnoticed. But even if they would, even if Earth remained unaware, such a course would completely disrupt the plan of conquest.

  **She hasn’t realized the menace yet,** the Elder thought. **Walt will kill her. Walt will kill her, won’t he, Forential?**

  **Yes.** If only one of us went to make sure, Forential thought. To help him . . . no . . . None of us would risk it. It’s too dangerous.

  The aliens did not have any equipment to make their single person ships invisible. It took bulky distortion machinery; the single person ships were too large to cover with mental shielding.

  Twenty years ago, yes (Forential thought) we could have risked it. But now the radar screens around all the major countries are too tight. We could not, like Walt, destroy our ship. We would need it to return in.

  **We must give him all the help we can,** Forential thought.

  **We must.**

  **We must.**

  **Lycan,** the Elder thought. **Can you cut the power of your charges?**

  **An extended period might have a bad psychological effect . . .**

  **They won’t realize the implication—that they’re not Lyrians, that we control them—until too late.**
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  **If we could give Walt twelve hours,** Forential thought. **. . . we’ve got to give him every chance!**

  **When do you think he’ll be close to her?** the Elder asked.

  Forential consulted his maps. He calculated rapidly.

  **If he travels fast—if he has luck—by another five hours.**

  **Lycan,** the Elder instructed, **continue with training until then. We’ll cut off the greater transmitter five hours from now. Twelve hours should give Walt more than enough time to kill her. It will be mutant trying to kill an earth-normal. He can’t fail!**

  **He can’t fail,** they echoed nervously.

  **Will twelve hours be enough?**

  **If he does, somehow, fail, we can’t risk delaying the invasion more than that.**

  **I will see that it doesn’t delay the invasion,** Lycan promised. **I’ll train them right through normalcy.**

  WALT had arrived in Hollywood. Wait for me there. Julia (dressing carefully) projected to him. I’ll be right over to get you.

  She finished combing her hair. She went to her handbag, snapped it closed decisively, and slipped it over her arm. She was smiling.

  On her way out of the room, she picked up the book on brain surgery that she hadn’t yet had the chance to read. She skimmed through it in the taxi on the way to pick Walt up.

  She paused a fraction of a second over one of the illustrations; in that time, she was able to memorize it. My brain, she thought, is different right there; but I can’t see my own brain well enough to tell much; I want to look at his for a minute if I can.

  Having finished the book, she held it primly in her lap, tapping impatiently on it with her fingers.

  There’s a lot of things funny about this boy, she thought. I’ve got to get more information about him. I’ve got a suspicion he’s going to be in for a few surprises.

  (It was less than an hour before the aliens would cut off the larger transmitter.)

  When I first located him for sure, she thought, he was traveling much too fast; faster and higher than any experimental rocket I’ve ever heard of.

  I’ve got to check on the old flying saucer reports, she thought. They’re the only things I can remember reading about that were supposed to move that fast.

  “This is him waiting up here,” Julia said to the driver. “Just pull over to the curb.”