by Jeff Sutton
Duvall slumped back on the bed, his breath a harsh rasp in his throat. His husky frame jerked convulsively. Beads of sweat, reflecting the lamplight, covered his brow. A flash of insight told Keim how the alien acquired his hosts. Holding the laser on the psychmedic, he tried to discern whether or not the alien had entered his mind. A swift probe revealed Duvall's ebbing panic; the thoughts that swirled up from his subconscious, although alive with horror, were reassuring. Keim thanked God that he had been on time.
"Harlan, wake up!" He shook Duvall's shoulder. The psychmedic jerked his head in protest. Suddenly his eyes opened, flared with apprehension before he recognized the telepath.
"Lord, what a nightmare." He pushed himself to a sitting position and wiped his brow. His hand trembled in the lamplight.
"That was no nightmare," said Keim. He retreated to the outer room, braced a chair against the door to give him warning should anyone try to enter, and returned. Duvall's face was puzzled.
"No nightmare?" he asked.
"Not the normal variety." Tersely Keim told him of the alien with terrible mental powers, how he was using the birds to take over the minds of the science staff and crew, how Yozell and Janik and Bascomb had died. He related his failure to sense the minds of Coulter, Rayfield, Jonley, Henry Fong and several others. "We have to assume that they're under alien control," he added.
"My God!" Duvall was aghast. "What can we do?"
"Warn everyone. Search the ship and destroy him or it, whatever it is. We haven't much time."
"If it takes one bird per host… ?" Duvall gazed at him.
"Then there can't be too many hosts, unless there's a lot of birds we don't know about. God alone knows how many Yozell or others might have sneaked aboard," he added.
Duvall mopped his forehead. "How about Woon, Kim-brough, the others? Can they be saved?"
"I don't know." Keim spoke irritably, realizing that the same question had laid deeply within his own mind. When the alien possessed a victim, did it possess him for all time, or could it enter and withdraw at will? Or did it kill its hosts upon withdrawal, as it had Weber? Yet what of Duvall? Equally interesting was how he'd managed to glimpse Duvall's thoughts at a time when the alien most certainly was in the psychmedic's mind, yet had found only blankness in the minds of Yozell and others. Perhaps he'd entered Duvall's mind before the alien had established full control, then had forced the alien to withdraw by killing the bird. In that event, for a few brief seconds, they had both been privy to Duvall's thoughts. Fleeting galaxies, endless time*. . . . Had he tapped the alien's memories in that part of Duvall's mind not yet under full control? It seemed certain. The knowledge staggered him. Good God, Kim-brough had been right, the alien must be practically immortal, from the edge of the universe! He shivered.
Duvall agreed with Keim's reasoning.
"I awoke suddenly," he explained. "I seem to remember a soft clucking sound, realized it was coming from near the desk. I turned on the light, then saw the bird in the shadows—saw the glow of its eyes, as I recall. My first reaction was wonder at how it had gotten there; then I felt its mind entering me. It was cold, sharp, alien. That's when I screamed." Duvall peered at him. "You know how a frightful nightmare comes? It came like that. Subconsciously, I suppose, I realized what was happening and tried to fight it. I had the impression that my mind was a duality, each part battling the other. Suddenly entire galaxies were sweeping past me. I had the mental imagery of a purple star, of a small egg-shaped body…"
"Hiding in a small chamber?" interrupted Keim. He felt tense, edgy.
"You know?"
"Your thoughts struck me like a wave," he acknowledged. "I'm certain you were sharing the alien's mind. It fortifies the belief that when it enters a host, both share both minds, at least until the host's mind is completely subjugated."
"What kind of a monster is it, Roger?"
"Kimbrough got me to thinking of it as a he." Keim smiled faintly. "If it's shaped anything like our mental impressions, it must not be mobile. Perhaps it requires a host to move it from place to place." He spoke slowly, analytically, drawing a portrait of the alien in his mind.
"Inconceivable," exclaimed Duvall.
"We have to accept the inconceivable, Harlan, get used to it."
"God, what it must do to the mind!"
"If we can control its hosts, we can keep it helpless," Keim reflected. "Given time, we can find it, destroy it."
"And its hosts?"
"We have to stop them at any cost."
"Kill them?"
"If necessary."
"That's murder," protested Duvall.
"Is it? We have an Empire at stake, Harlan, the whole of humanity. We used to talk about the unguessables, the life that might exist in the far reaches of space; and now we know. Our concern isn't with the few lives aboard this ship; it's with the billions and billions and billions of our kind. I'm convinced of that. We have to consider the hosts as they are, not as they were. For all practical purposes, they are aliens."
Duvall said softly, "They were once men, Roger." Once men! The term jarred Keim. It also was Duvall's subconscious admission that he no longer considered the alien's hosts as human. Robots created from flesh. Could they be redeemed? But Duvall was right; they couldn't kill them except as a last recourse.
"We might use the dart guns," said Duvall. Keim felt a surge of hope. Designed to subdue even the largest and most unruly of animals, the dart guns employed knockout charges that worked within seconds.
"You can't let them see you," he warned. "But first things first. We're in unspace, en route to the Empire."
"Take the bridge, is that what you're thinking?" The gleam of hope that flickered in Duvall's eyes almost as quickly died. "I imagine the alien has tight control of that."
"A chance we'll have to take," answered Keim.
"And if it has?"
"It's either dartguns, lasers, or a confrontation."
"With the alien?" Duvall's face showed shock. Keim nodded. Although he'd spoken almost without thinking, he realized the idea had lain deep within his mind. Neither was it entirely without merit. Remembering Duvall's ordeal, the prospect of such a confrontation made him shiver. But if he could contact the alien while remaining outside his visual field, as he had through Kimbrough, he might still salvage ship and crew. He held powerful weapons, the life and death of the ship and every living thing aboard it not being the least of them. Did the alien realize that? If not, it was another reason for such a confrontation. He could offer the alien a choice of safe passage back to Krado 1, or death. He broached the idea.
"I wouldn't risk it." The psychmedic shook his head. "What's to prevent him from taking over your mind, converting you into a robot?"
"If he knew that such an action would result in the instant destruction of the ship?"
"Risky, Roger, I've had a taste of him."
"A chance I'll have to take." He'd scarcely spoken before he heard his name screamed in his mind. Instantly he realized its source. "Lara?" he replied urgently.
"My door! Someone's trying…"
"Coming!" He raced from the room, leaving the startled psychmedic behind. Speeding through the corridor, he jerked the laser from his pocket.
"He's burning it down!" The silent shriek in his mind was filled with terror.
"The inner room . . . use your laser," he shouted tele-pathically, conscious of the speeding seconds. While still a dozen paces from his quarters, he saw the door had been burned open. Scarcely slackening speed, he burst into the room. A slight figure whirled to meet him. He only had time to glimpse Henry Fong's slender face before he struck him, driving his body against the wall. The historian fell to his knees, tried to scramble up. Keim kicked the laser from his grasp and brought down the edge of his hand in a brutal chopping blow that caught Fong at the base of the neck. The historian collapsed with a groan.
"You all right?" shouted Keim.
"I'm… all right." Lara opened the inner door, her face pale and
distraught. Her hand, clasping a laser, was trembling violently. Keim's immediate reaction was shock that the alien had tried to kill her. Didn't he believe that the death of one would cause the other to destroy the ship? If not, then he'd dispatch others to finish what the historian had failed to accomplish.
"Let's get out of here." He caught her hand and pulled her out into the corridor.
"Where to?" she asked breathlessly. The question stopped him only momentarily.
"Yozell's quarters will be empty." Holding the laser waist-high, he gestured and started toward an intersecting passageway that led to the biologist's rooms. He wondered why he hadn't killed Fong. Certainly, when the man recovered, he'd be as dangerous as before. It struck him that the strongly ingrained ethos against murder, present in the normal mind, could only be broken by conscious effort, and then only in the direst need for survival. He reflected grimly that he had a lot to learn.
They'd almost reached the biologist's quarters when he remembered the birds. Slackening his pace, he probed ahead with his mind. There was no indication of thought, of presence of danger. He tried the door, found it unlocked, slowly pushed it open.
"Wait," he commanded. Stepping inside, he hurriedly scanned the room; it was empty. So were the sleeping quarters. There was no sign of the birds, no sign that anyone had been in the rooms since Yozell's departure. He gestured her inside and locked the door.
"What happened?" she whispered.
"Keep to telepathy," he instructed.
She forced a smile. "It gives me a creepy feeling."
He laughed silently. "It has a high survival value."
"For the alien, too," she reminded.
"Not unless he sees us. He needs his eyes." He told her about Duvall, and of their deductions regarding the alien. "I reached him just in time" he finished.
"Sam?" she asked worriedly.
"He was all right earlier." He looked at her. "Things are happening fast." He sent out a mental probe, aware that the usual mosaic of thought that filled the ship was all but gone. The silence was unnerving. He let his mind range. Sporadic words and sentences came; mental images flared and died.
Two men deep down in the engine room were hiding among the giant energy converters, their thoughts a flood of terror. They were waiting for a murderer! Dreading the moment one might come, they scarcely dared move. …
The scene flamed in his mind, faded, disappeared. He shifted his probe. The big wardroom used by the science staff and ship's officers was deserted, as were the galley and recreation hall. Large parts of the ship returned only the stillness of a void. What had happened? Perhaps while he was winning the small battles the alien was winning the big ones. The possibility was frightening. He probed above, below, to all sides.
Several men were hiding in the cavernous storerooms deep down in the hull. One, holding a laser, kept it trained on the hatch. Desperation, fear, despair— The emotions struck Keim's consciousness like the battering of the tides.
He probed the navigation bridge. Silence! Where was Lloyd Kramer? He had been there only a short while before; now there was no sign of life. He tried both the captain's quarters and his small stateroom adjacent to the bridge but with no better results. Neither had he expected any; Woon's mind would be blank. Like Kimbrough, like the others, he would be awaiting only that moment when the alien^ had need of him.
"Sense anything?" Lara's worried question broke his concentration.
He stemmed his impatience. "Nothing that matters. You?'
"It's all so silent." She shivered.
"Keep trying." Again he concentrated. Mentally quartering the ship, he explored the areas allocated to the science staff—the passageways, living quarters, work spaces, library, laboratories. Suddenly he stiffened.
"What is it?" she asked quickly.
"Harlan Duvall." He closed his mind to her, attempting to recapture the contact. Again it came, this time as a shimmery image. He caught the shadowy outlines of a second figure, one without features. Then the hair was painted in, the eyes, the slender nose, the full lips. Robin Martel! It was like watching a magic artist at work.
They were in the infirmary. Robin, faced toward the door, was holding a laser. Her face was a tight mask of anxiety, fear. She constantly nibbled at her lower lip. Duvall was loading the dart guns. He worked quickly, calmly.
The stark clarity of the scene awed Keim. It struck him that perhaps the evolutionary process had given the tele-path clairvoyance as a survival weapon—one that could be triggered only under the greatest stress. Certainly it had never been so crystal clear. Beakers, syringes, scalpels—everything stood out in minute detail: Duvall's swarthy skin, the sweat glistening on his jaw. He watched the psych-medic drop the loaded dart guns in his pocket. Taking out a laser, he moved past Robin to open the door and peered out into the corridor. A bird flew out of the shadowy darkness; its wings rose and fell with the familiar slow-motion grace of a gull. Duvall leaped backward and slammed the door.
Birds patrolling the ship! Keim watched hypnotically until it reached the end of the corridor and vanished from view. Only then did it strike him that the clairvoyance had persisted after he'd broken contact with Duvall. What did that signify? He didn't know, no more than he knew the basis of his telepathy.
He saw the door open and the psychmedic peer out, scrutinizing the passageway carefully before stepping into full view. He held his laser low. The meteorologist came out behind him, her face taut with fright.
"Is it gone?" Her whisper echoed in Keim's mind. Duvall jerked his head in gesture for her to follow as he crept toward the stairwell leading toward the crew quarters.
"I heard voices," Lara murmured.
"Duvall and Robin," he explained.
"Oh, she's safe. I'm glad."
"No one's safe," he countered. "We can't let down our guards for a second." He told her about the bird.
Her eyes took on a strange look. "You saw it?"
"Sensed it, at least."
"Clairvoyance," she whispered.
"Something like that. I'm not certain."
"The idea frightens me."
"Why should it? Is it any more magical than telepathy?"
"I was thinking about how you saw the temple collapse before it actually fell."
"I'm not certain that the imagery didn't arise in retrospect," he countered.
"But there's the possibility. Telepathy's bad enough." She gave a nervous laugh.
"We'll debate the merits of it later," he said. "Right now we have to organize some resistance."
"How many are left?"
"I'm not certain."
"How many has the…" She faltered again.
"Alien taken over?" he supplied. "Woon, Kimbrough, Coulter, Paul Rayfield and, oh yes, Lloyd Kramer; but I have no doubt that there are others."
"Sam?" she asked worriedly.
"Safe in his slumbers at last count." Don't let it happen to Sam he thought. Death would be far preferable. The reflection brought an anguish. What of Hester Kane, Dave Shepherd, Peter Diamond? What of Arden, the gentle astrophilosopher? The loss of any would be a severe blow. Alton Yozell, Ivor Bascomb, Ross Janik—they had all been good men. Now they were silent. How many more would follow? And could Kimbrough be saved? Woon? Paul Ray-field? Or had their time run out? Shaking aside the morbid accounting, he sent swift probes throughout the ship. It rang with the silence of death.
TEN
"Roger!"* The call cut through Keim's mind with frantic urgency. Instantly he realized it had come from Duvall. Lara had Sensed it too; she was holding her head cocked in a listening attitude. As the call was repeated, he tried to localize the source. The psychmedic's image danced fuzzily in his mind. Waxing and waning, it finally grew steadier. Duvall's thoughts were a jumble of horror—horror and rage; the intensity of his feelings was a blast in the telepath's mind.
As if a camera suddenly had moved back for a long shot, Keim envisioned two figures at the end of a long, shadowy corridor—Duvall and Robin Mar
tel—there was no mistaking them. He murmured the information to Lara while trying to retain the clairvoyant image. She nodded jerkily.
The movements of the two figures were quick, spasmodic. The psychmedic paused at each door, called out in a husky whisper, opened the door and entered, returning almost immediately. Each time the horror in his mind flared anew.
Why were all the doors unlocked? The question stabbed at Keim's mind. Something was wrong, wrong. He felt an overwhelming sense of dread coupled with anxiety. Suppose Duvall entered the room of a host?
The camera in his mind moved up again, focused on the psychmedic's face. Duvall's jaws were clamped in a tight knot, his eyes were sick with disbelief. Sweat beaded his brow. Keim felt a horrible premonition. The camera moved to the blonde meteorologist wetting her lips. Her terror-stricken eyes darted from side to side; one hand gripped a dart gun.
What had happened? Keim tried to decipher the answer from the tumult in their minds, failed. He sensed Lara's questions. "They're moving toward the wardroom," he explained.
"Have they found anyone?"
"I don't know. They're highly perturbed. I'd better get them, bring them here."
She jerked her head in nervous agreement. "Be careful." He pulled the door slightly ajar and peered out into the corridor. Neither his eyes nor his telepathic sense detected any immediate danger. The alarm signal in his brain was still. Nevertheless, he took the time to send his probes ranging throughout the ship.
Two crewmen had taken refuge in the galley; another crouched in a forward hold; a third man had joined the two hiding among the energy converters—flitting figures in the bowels of the ship.
Some of the information came as imagery, some as words—all were accompanied by waves of terror, horror, desperation, resignation. My God, what was happening? Keim forced himself to remain calm. Why were Duvall and Robin still alone?