by Kris Neville
**It’s, it’s our only hope,** the Elder whispered.
FIERUT scuttled out of his compartment and down the ramp to the instrument room. He began to analyze and test and measure the beams of interference pouring from Earth. He used a synchronized model of the planet to pinpoint originating sites. He traced the beams back, Earth transmitter by Earth transmitter, back to the originating site of least distortion and sharpest harmonics. **There!** he cried. **I have located their signal generator!**
**All the power is now on Forential’s transmitter,** Lycan thought. **My transmitter is off.**
**Send five of your charges down to destroy the signal generator!** the Elder ordered Forential. **Hold the rest in reserve—in case of more trouble—**
Forential dropped down the ladder to the rim level. He was chattering in nervous excitement.
Gasping painfully he selected five of his best mutants.
“Come!” he cried. “I will explain as we go. Traitors on Earth . . . Walt is a traitor . . . Hurry!”
“I’ll come too,” Calvin cried eagerly. “I’ll come too!”
“You stay here!” Forential ordered.
**When the installation is destroyed, prepare to switch your transmitter back on again, Lycan,** the Elder ordered. **If any of your mutants are alive, they can resume destruction.**
**If all goes well,** Forential thought, **we may yet succeed. I will reassign sectors among my remaining charges.**
Shortly five new saucer ships left the space station.
THE five saucers, in V-formation, careened into the atmosphere. They circled the planet, slowing. The leader peered at a floating needle in a spherical container of liquid. The needle vibrated in answer to the beam of interference it was attuned to. The silver tip wobbled back and forth across the target.
The ships leveled out over the Rocky Mountains. Losing altitude, they hurtled on a sloping trajectory toward Washington.
Across the Great Plains. Across the turgid, swollen Mississippi River. Across the Appalachians, worn and old.
They slowed. The controls became more sluggish.
They hovered over Washington. The needle dipped.
Below, white and massive with afternoon sunlight, the Washington Monument, the tallest piece of masonry on the planet, loomed up between The Ellipse and the Tidal Basin, towering 555 feet into the air: standing rooted and solid and defiant.
Walt felt them.
“Mutants from my compartment!” he cried.
Instantly all activity in the laboratory ceased. It resumed almost immediately, pointless and frantic, now.
“They’ve been sent to destroy our signal generator,” Dr. Norvel said matter of factly.
Technicians glanced anxiously at the suddenly unsubstantial walls. There was no protection. They were exposed as completely as if they were alone on a flat, barren tennis court of infinite dimensions.
“Cut off the transmitter!” the general ordered. “Find Walt’s interference frequency!”
“. . . too late,” Julia said. “We haven’t time.”
“We could be lucky!” the general insisted. “Pick a frequency range. Maybe we can hit the right one. Hurry up, for Christ’s sake; you, there—!”
“But we can’t cut the transmitter off,” Dr. Norvel pleaded. “It would release the other mutants. Give them even five minutes . . .”
“I can hold them off for awhile,” Walt said. “I can shield myself from the radiations of the focus rod. All the mutants have to be able to. I think I can shield the building against them; I think I have the advantage of knowing more than they do. I don’t know how long I can hold such an extended shield—Until they come in after me, I guess.”
“We’ll stop them,” the general said. “We’ll stop them at the door.”
“You can’t,” Julia said. She was slowly rousing from her stupor. “They can displace.”
“I can’t hold off five of them long,” Walt said. “Not and hold the shield.”
“It would be a greater risk, cutting off Julia’s frequency, searching for Walt’s.”
“But Julia could help him then!” the general said.
“No, because then those on her frequency would come after us. There’s more of them.” Dr. Norvel pressed her forehead wearily.
“We’ve got to do something.”
Walt’s voice cut through the confused babble. “I’m trying to reason with them.”
“. . . he hears their thoughts,” Julia whispered.
Activity ceased. Breathing seemed to cease.
Walt stood erect, motionless, grim. His body was taut. His eyes were bright with tension.
Your focus rods can’t penetrate! he called to them.
He braced the shielding against another assault. It came and passed. I can hold the shielding as long as you can!
We’ll come in and kill you. There’s five of us.
Friends, it’s me. Walt.
Traitor!
No! No, I’m not!
Lies!
Let me—Listen! Forential lied! I, I can prove it! . . . how?
Hell with him!
No, wait! one of the five insisted sharply. Walt didn’t catch who.
He could hear them in conference.
THEN one blocked out the whole conversation and held it blocked out. A moment later, the block faltered and faded. Walt felt uneasy. What had they said? Some trick?
We do know Walt, after all. We may as well listen.
He’s a traitor.
Wait. If he has proof—!
He couldn’t have: It’s Lyrian lies!
Give me a chance! Walt pleaded. I know you all. Give me a chance. What can you lose?
Forential said—
Give me a chance!
Let’s hear him.
We owe him that.
Walt was sweating now. His hands were clenched into fists. He was almost certain that the argument was for his benefit: to make their seeming acquiescence less suspicious.
I’m coming out. One of you come to me.
Walt let out his breath. “There’s a chance—” He went to the table and scooped up the birth certificates. “I hope one of these fits.”
“Walt!” Julia cried. “If it doesn’t!”
“. . . they were my friends,” he said. “I was raised with them. Maybe they’ll believe me anyway. Bob and Jim and Dave and Reg and Willy . . .” Walt shrugged.
He crossed to the doorway. He left the laboratory.
Just outside he waited. One of the five saucer ships approached. He could see Julia’s face at the window. It was drawn and pathetic. He wanted to go back and comfort her and tell her everything was going to be all right.
How sweet she was! Now that she was no longer infinitely wise and superior, now that she was dependent and helpless: how sweet she was!
He wanted to protect her. His heart swelled with sadness and with joy.
The saucer ship hovered. He motioned it closer. It drew in toward him like a nervous colt.
He waited.
He motioned it closer.
At last, just in front of him, it jolted down.
Willy got out.
Walt watched as the horror of openness flickered across his face.
You’ll get used to it, Walt thought. You’ll like it, when you get used to it.
Willy clutched the side of the ship for support. I’m, I’m all right, inside the ship . . . You come inside. He clambered back out of sight.
Caution counseled refusal. But Walt approached the entrance. His increased knowledge made him confident. He had learned much—just in the last day. He was more than a match for a single mutant from the space station. If he had known as much last Monday as he knew now, Julia would never have escaped. He entered.
Willy pulled the door closed. He was breathing heavily.
Take off your shoes! Walt commanded. Walt knew Willy was going to try to start the ship, try to move it away so that Walt’s shield would no longer cover the laboratory. Once that happened,
the mutants on the outside could blast the laboratory in a second.
What?
Slowly, Willy was moving the starting lever by teleportation. Walt located the focus rod.
Take your shoes off!
SUSPICIOUSLY Willy glanced back mentally at the other saucer ships a short distance behind. Willy hesitated. Then he sat down and removed his shoes. He watched Walt closely. The starting lever continued to inch into position.
Walt knew Willy wouldn’t risk a sudden motion.
But Walt was wrong. As he bent down, the lever snapped in place. The saucer shuddered.
And Walt, using the focus rod for power, fuzed the control panel in an instant beyond all use. Before the other mutants could strike, his extended shielding was back around himself and the laboratory.
You’re going to listen, Walt told him calmly. All of you. You’re an earthling. Every one of you. You were born here of Earth parents.
Nonsense!
It’s true. You shut up!
Willy waited, uncertain. The others were equally uncertain. They had not been prepared for a failure in their initial plan.
I have proof. Right here. Walt thought all the details to the mutants as rapidly and as sincerely as he could. His face was bloodless. His hand was shaking. The strain of holding the shielding was beginning to tell on him.
Only two birth certificates were left. I’ve got to make them see that Forential had lied to them! he thought.
The mutants were thinking the situation over in privacy, agreeing on a new course of action.
And there it was!
Wonder of wonders, the last birth certificate was Willy’s!
See! See! Walt thought excitedly. This proves what I was telling you! Look! All of you! They’re the same!
It proves nothing, Bob thought . . .
It’s faked.
Is that the best you have to offer? one of them sneered.
Let’s kill him! Get it over with!
How could I fake it? Walt demanded. He realized now what a pathetic hope it had been. He needed time; given that, the birth certificates would be very helpful in convincing them. But without time, he couldn’t give them all the background they needed. And they weren’t going to give him time.
Lyrian traitor!
You can’t hold us all off, Walt. We’re going to kill you.
Walt saw them—saw them mentally—landing their four ships. In a few minutes they would be upon him.
He began to tremble in impotent rage. He backed toward the door to escape from the confining walls. He tried to make his shielding even stronger against their focus rods.
Julia, waiting in the laboratory, heard her heart beating loudly and rapidly. The one saucer had landed. Walt had boarded it. The four were drifting, waiting. There was a hum from the signal generator behind her. Let him be all right, let him beat them off! she prayed.
What’s happening? How can I help?
. . . Perhaps because her mind was so fatigued that it was almost functioning on the automatic level of sleep, she realized at last why the two compartments in the space station had been kept separate. After the second wave of mutants destroyed the first—under the impression they were the Earth survivors of a war—the aliens would silence the second frequency transmitter. Earth would be populated by less than thirty male mutants. The race of man would not breed back. In a few years, the planet would be ready for its conquerors.
I wish I could tell Walt that, she thought. Maybe it would be of some help to him.
The four saucers landed.
She bent forward tensely.
Has he convinced them? Are they coming out to surrender?
CHAPTER XII
WALT was outside the ship. His feet planted firmly, he waited. The four advancing mutants were not yet adjusted to the space disorientation. Behind them, the tip of the Washington Monument loomed starkly white above the trees.
Walt’s anger rose to an even greater fury. He knew how Julia had felt as a child: the hot, impotent flare of rage; the senseless desire to throw something; to smash and destroy something; to disprove helplessness by some savage action.
The mutants were closer; terror was dying out of their eyes. Their lips were relaxing. Their bodies were loosening to their wills.
We’re going to kill you, Walt: with our hands.
Lyrian traitor.
Walt was breathing in shallow gasps. They would rush him in a minute. Willy, out of the saucer ship now, crouched only yards away, ready to spring. He feinted, and Walt flinched instinctively.
You can’t displace from five of us!
Not and hold the shielding, traitor!
General Tibbets, in the doorway behind Walt, began firing at the mutants with a pistol.
Bob clutched at his chest and staggered. In an instant, the others were displaced and invulnerable.
Bob fell.
Reg went to his wounded companion, held him in displacement, healed him rapidly.
Bob coughed and shook his head and scrambled to his feet. He screamed his hate at the general.
The pistol clicked on an empty chamber.
Walt retreated several steps.
. . . green wartle rivers of Lyria; birdsong, there, in a skybranch, partly pretty orange and soft like fur pictures . . .
He was in Calvin’s mind!
Calvin was sitting in the games space, on the floor, rolling the metal practice ball back and forth before him between his hairy hands. Forential was speaking. The confining walls of the space station were so comfortingly solid . . .
And Walt had a fix on it! Knew its position, its direction, its speed! He had an anchor!
Where is something? he thought wildly. Quick! A rock! Throw a rock! Something big: to throw: quick! Huge, heavy—
FORGOTTEN, the advancing mutants. With every unit and sub unit and compartment and section of his mind, pouring out every available degree of telepathic power, dropping the shielding, concentrating above everything else, he seized the Washington Monument. It shook; it wobbled unsteadily; it wrenched free.
Calvin, delighted, was helping him.
Walt! he cried. We’ll play games! We’ll throw it!
It was off the ground. It poised uncertainly. It moved upward. Slowly at first, like a rocket: faster and faster, dwindling from Earth, becoming a vanishing pinpoint like a black, daylight star.
Calvin pulled it in with childish joy. It’s big! he cried proudly.
It was aimed on target.
Calvin was no longer in Walt’s mind.
With a last, exhausting burst of thought, he increased its already terrific speed. The laboratory still stood. The mutants had not realized his shielding was down. He restored it, weakened and quivering.
And they were upon him. He fought them off with his fists and elbows. He dared not displace, lest the shielding should crumble entirely. A few minutes more; if I can just gain a few minutes more, he thought.
He was down. He jerked his head out of the way of a foot. He caught a leg and twisted.
Fingers tore at his throat. He caught someone with a savage and satisfying kick.
Out in space, beyond the orbit of the moon, Fierut detected the Washington Monument on his warning device. It was coming too fast to deflect. He tried.
A heartbeat later, it ripped into the steel of the space station. It crumbled and shattered and sprayed marble, and huge fragments erupted from the opposite side. The space station became visible. There was a great, ragged, tunneling hole from rim to rim. Escaping air spewed wreckage into space. Parts of demolished machinery whirled away. In a yet-sealed compartment, a power system exploded with a great, blinding, soundless flash. Chunks of steel debris, vast shrapnel, blossomed in all directions.
The space station, its orbit altered, twisted away, a gutted, lifeless derelict.
Walt’s shielding collapsed. His mutant bridge opened; his mutant powers vanished. He screamed for help.
He saw General Tibbets slam a pistol butt against Willy’s sudd
enly unprotected skull.
FIVE minutes later, in the laboratory, amid incredible confusion, Julia stood over Walt and dabbed antiseptic on his cut, swollen lip.
Throughout the room there were shouts and laughter and cries of victory. One of the technicians—one who had worked hardest over it—was joyfully smashing the second signal generator.
In the center of the frenzy, Dr. Norvel sat slumped across the desk. She was sound asleep.
Weary and proud, Julia straightened up from Walt.
“I’ve—we’ve both—got to get some rest,” she said. “There’ll be the press, the TV, the radio . . . I can’t face them. I’m too tired . . . I must look like something the cat dragged in . . .”
Walt, heavy lidded and exhausted, looked up at her. He smiled leadenly. “Look fine, Julia.” His voice was thick and indistinct because of the swelling of his tongue.
She sure ran me around, he thought. But she can’t now. She’s not superior to me any more. I’ll be able to hold my own. She’s, she’s so helpless, so pliant. That’s the way I like her. Poor tired girl!
We’ll travel, he thought. I want to see all of the planet. All the sights, all the cities. I want to live in the bustle of its life, in the hurry of its crowds. I want to travel and learn all the different smells and experience all the different places, and I want to celebrate its richness and its newness; I want to devour it; I want to—
She’ll be there; I want to feel her by my side: sweet Julia, so compliant, waiting my decisions and anticipating my wishes. I want to see her laugh. And I want . . . I want . . .
I’ll have to ask her about things like that.
. . . I’m no longer so innocent, but I’m not yet so wise. I have grown and matured marvelously, and I will further: I know what I want. And she’ll be there to, to help me see and do and . . .
He felt a great warm glow of bursting and bubbling emotions.
“I’m going to sleep twenty-four hours,” Julia said. “Just as soon as I can get in bed.”
“Better leave before the fourth estate gets here,” the general said. “I’ll have the staff car drive you back to the hotel.”
“Don’t tell anybody we’re there.”
The general nodded. He took Julia’s arm. “I’ll walk you outside.” He sent an orderly for the car.