by Jeff Sutton
Where was the alien? The question nibbled persistently at his mind as he ascended to the next level, and to the next. Finally he halted at the foot of a stairwell that led past several small staterooms used by the captain and his chief officers when the ship was in deep space. Beyond was the chart room, the astrogation bridge, the command bridge.
A warning clanged in his mind.
H@ halted, his body taut with expectancy. Although he could detect no mental activity, he became aware of a sense of presence. The warning rose to a scream in his mind. The hair at the nape of his neck bristled. A host, but who? Not that it mattered. Neither was there any turning back.
He forced himself slowly up the stairs. The back of a head came into view, narrow shoulders. He froze, recognizing the figure as that of Jonley, Chief of Maintenance. Attempting to probe him, he encountered only the same curious blankness he had known before. And yet, with the blankness, there was that same indefinable aura that he interpreted as a presence. In some strange way, it recalled the horror he'd encountered in Duvall's mind. It was that way now as he gazed at Jonley—the feel of something malevolent, something foreign to anything he'd ever known. Holding the laser steady, he reached into a pocket with the other hand and brought out a dart gun.
How many like Jonley were on the bridge? Two, three, a dozen? He moved stealthily up the stairs. Jonley turned, bringing his hatchet profile into view. Keim halted, lifted the dart gun, flipped the safety with his thumb. He felt taut with apprehension. As if suddenly sensing his presence, Jonley swung toward him. Keim triggered the weapon, felt it buck slightly as it discharged the dart.
Jonley looked blankly down at him. His hand came up, grasped the needle-tipped missile and yanked it from his chest; mechanically he threw it to one side. An instant later his legs began to buckle. Pitching face forward, he tumbled down the stairs. One swift glance at his face told Keim that consciousness had fled. But the alien would know!
The laser gripped in one hand, the dart gun in the other, he moved quietly up the stairs. Feet thudded against the deck above him and another head came into view. He fired a second dart, saw it strike the other in the neck even before he recognized the figure as that of Paul Rayfield, the physicist.
Rayfield's hand jerked up with a laser as his eyes met the telepath's. Ice touched Keim's brain. Through sheer will power, he scrambled back behind Jonley's inert body, at the same time struggling to bring his own laser to bear. The paint sizzled as a beam cut through the bulkhead alongside him. Rayfield swung his weapon sideways with a disjointed, chopping motion; Jonley's body convulsed as a beam cut through it. Keim felt a searing pain along the side of his neck. Rayfield jerked erect, a groan escaping his lips. Collapsing, he slid forward on his face and lay still.
Desperately aware that time was running out, Keim leaped to his feet. Rayfield's body suddenly lifted, hurtled toward him. He threw himself frantically to one side. A staggering blow on the shoulder hurled him against the bulkhead; a split second later, he heard the physicist's body slam with a sickening thud against the deck below. Keim pulled himself erect, sprinted up the stairs and burst into the passageway that led to the bridge.
Kimbrough came racing from one of the small staterooms, his long legs pumping awkwardly. One hand grasped a bolt gun. He slid to a halt just as Keim's dart caught him in the chest. Staggering, he started to collapse, but suddenly was lifted into the air.
This time Keim was ready. As the chief scientist's body hurtled toward him, he threw himself flat to the deck. The body whistled past, thudded against a bulkhead. Keim glanced back, saw the bloody body lift, fly toward him with bullet speed. He threw himself violently from its path. The body smashed through a window of the small chart-room and was lost to sight.
A laser beam hissed past Keim's shoulder.
Coulter, the chief engineer, charged toward him from another of the small staterooms. The ludicrous thought struck Keim; whatever the alien was, he certainly wasn't a tactician. He fired, missed, triggered the dart gun again and discovered it was empty. He hurled the weapon violently. It caught Coulter in the face, staggered him backward. He fell in a crumpled heap.
Keim raced toward the bridge with the sick feeling that too many things were happening too fast. Weapons on the bridge! One slash of a misdirected beam and the explosive decompression would spell the end. Although the safety doors automatically would seal off the bridge, there were no maintenance crews to effect repairs. A starship without a usable command bridge!
Ahead, the thin form of Kramer, the Second Astrogator, whirled to meet him. Other feet thudded against the deck behind him. Instinctively he realized it was Coulter and cursed himself for not having killed him.
Miraculously, or so it seemed, a weapon appeared in the astrogator's hand. As he fired, Keim dived for ""his legs. The heavy wump of the discharge identified it as a bolt gun. A scream came from behind. The force of his body drove Kramer into the instrument console; he came down atop the telepath in a dead weight.
Keim seized his body to use as a shield. As he did, he glimpsed the laser slash across the astrogator's chest and knew he was dead. Struggling to his feet, he whirled toward the chief engineer.
Coulter was lying in a pool of blood. It took Keim an instant to realize that Coulter and Kramer had killed each other in the deadly cross-fire. His eyes swept up; the star shields were closed. A quick inspection revealed the only damage was to the console.
He glanced up at the telescreens. They showed only the vast emptiness of unspace—an ebon, starless night that still remained a mystery to man, even though he used it as a swift byway between stars. Whether a phenomenon of time or space, or both, no one really knew.
Keim could not even begin to guess the Alpha Tauri's location relative to the real universe; that secret, temporarily at least, had died with the Second Astrogator. Not that it actually mattered, he reflected. For his purpose, one place was as good as another.
His heart still pounding, he studied the control panel. Like most personnel who had spent considerable time on the bridge, he was generally familiar with its operation. He grasped a red handle, jerked it down. The ship seemed to reel around him as a wave of vertigo struck him, then passed. He lifted his eyes to the telescreens. They danced with a thousand lights—the lights of stars. The Alpha Tauri had emerged from unspace.
TWELVE
Harlan Duvall felt a surge of vertigo. The sensation told him that the Alpha Tauri had made the transit from unspace. Gazing at the others, he tried to suppress his tension. Lara wet her lips nervously.
"I'm frightened," Robin whispered. He nodded understandingly. Coming from unspace in the blind, as the Alpha Tauri surely had, was perilous at best. Although the possibility of colliding with a star was remote, at least on a statistical basis, there was a far greater possibility of emerging sufficiently close to one to be incinerated in its radiation field. It had happened.
When a moment passed with no discernible rise in temperature, he exhaled slowly. "Made it." He tried to sound laconic.
"Even a normal transition frightens me," Lara confided. He knew she spoke for Robin's benefit. A pounding at the door brought up his head with a jerk. He fumbled for his laser.
"No," Lara called sharply. Although she knew it must be Burl Ashford, she couldn't admit it without revealing her telepathy. Momentarily she struggled with the dilemma.
"It might be one of them," Robin whispered fearfully.
"Lara," a hoarse voice shouted, "Roger sent me here!"
"Burl Ashford," she exclaimed. Relieved, she went to the door and peered out before the others could protest. As her eyes met the geologist's she experienced a slight shock. Reluctantly, she retreated, Ashford following her into the room. His blue eyes were deep, long tunnels. She wanted to scream, found she couldn't.
"Burl!" Grimacing with pain, Duvall struggled up from his chair, careful to keep his hand on the dart gun. The geologist looked as if he had been dragged through the pits of hell.
"Dead, all dea
d," Ashford moaned. His sepulchral tone made Duvall shiver.
"How did you escape?" he demanded.
"Running, hiding…"
"Where did you meet Roger?"
"He… found me." Ashford switched his gaze to the psychmedic. "He… sent me here." The words came out in a curiously halting manner. His lips twisting convulsively, he blinked and began to sway.
"You all right?" Duvall sprang forward, caught Ash-ford's arm as he collapsed. Sprawled on the deck, soft moans escaped his lips. Duvall rolled him over, felt his pulse. "Get the amoid," he snapped.
Robin pawed nervously through the medical kit to retrieve the nerve-tingling drug that had been used to revive Henry Fong. She located the container, passed it to him. Duvall held the bottle under the geologist's nose. Ashford's body twitched and jerked; a long strangled cry escaped his lips. His stubby hands clenched and unclenched. Finally his eyelids fluttered open and he looked bewildered into the psychmedic's face.
"Lord," he sobbed.
"What is it?" Duvall tried to suppress his alarm.
"The alien." Ashford struggled to a sitting position and looked wildly around. The fear surged into his eyes anew. Duvall had the fleeting impression of a trapped animal.
"You're safe here." He laid a restraining hand on the geologist's shoulder. "Tell us what you know about the alien."
"My mind," moaned Ashford.
"It's there now?" Duvall's hand dropped to the dart gun.
"No, no, it's gone. Oh God!" His body shook uncontrollably.
"Get hold of yourself," snapped Duvall. "We have to know."
"Lord, the memories…"
"What happened?" Duvall fought to subdue his growing tension.
"Dead, dead," Ashford sobbed piteously. "Shepherd, Diamond, Carol Rusnak, Hester Kane—all dead, murdered." Robin stepped back her eyes wide with fright.
"How do you know?" demanded Duvall. Ashford averted his gaze. Haunted and miserable, he began to weep. Duvall stared at him with a terrible comprehension.
"My God, you____"
"No, no," the geologist called wildly. He looked beseechingly at the psychmedic.
"Who then? Speak up, man!" Duvall shook the geologist's shoulder violently.
"The thing… the thing in my mind," moaned Ashford. He lifted his eyes imploringly. "I couldn't help myself, control myself. It was like my mind was cut off from my body. I could see, know, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing at all. My God, Harlan, my body was a machine. I was walking, walking and holding the laser. The thing in my mind made me…* He broke off with a strangled sob.
"You killed them?" Duvall's voice shook with horror and disbelief. Dropping the dart gun, he fumbled for his laser.
"Not me, it was the thing in my mind. Can't you understand?" Ashford pleaded. "I was… cut off from myself. It was as if I were looking at myself from somewhere deep inside, but I had no control. God, it was horrible. It was the same with Kimbrough and Woon and Coulter and Jonley."
"They were all killing?" Duvall was aghast.
Ashford jerked his head in a nod. "I was sharing their minds. Bascomb killed Ross Janik. Only it wasn't Ross Janik; it was the thing in his mind. It looks like a large egg. Uli, that's its name. I remember, I was in its mind, too."
"What is it? For God's sake, talk, Burl!"
"I was in its mind," babbled Ashford. His lips twisted in self-pity.
Duvall shook him savagely. "What is it?" he demanded.
"It came… it came from the edge of the universe. There was a purple sun dying; the stars were dying." The geologist peered at him, his eyes filled with both wonder and terror. "It came from billions… billions of years ago. There were nine of them, nine—driven by thought, feeding on radiation. My God, I saw galaxies die!" The fright swept back into his face.
"Talk sense, Burl!"
"But I am." Ashford twitched violently. "The others died, but it lived. It came to take over the galaxy."
Duvall asked intently, "Where is it now? Try to remember."
"It's, it's…" Ashford flinched, the horror leaping into his eyes. "My God, we've got to get out of here, get to the lifeboats. It's our only chance." Struggling to his feet, he lurched toward the door.
Duvall grabbed him savagely. "It's what?" he shouted.
"Lara! That's what I had to do, find Lara!"
"Lara?" The psychmedic recoiled.
"It sent me here to find her!" Ashford's eyes blazed with the fright of memory. "It left me, went to her. It's there now, in her mind!"
Robin shrieked.
"We've got to escape." Ashford twisted from the psych-medic's grip and bolted toward the door. For the first time Duvall saw that it was open.
"Lara?" He looked wildly around, saw only Robin.
"She's gone," Robin quavered.
"Lara?" he shouted. His cry echoed through the passage ways, died, left only the silence.
Lara was gone.
Keim peered through the directional telescreens.
Suns, like fireflies, sparked the night. Some burned in solitude, others in clusters. Out and out and out they receded into that never-ending space where live the whitish shadows of galaxies. Galaxies without end. The sight made him giddy.
He hadn't the remotest idea in what part of space the Alpha Tauri might be; nothing on the instrument panel gave him the slightest clue. Coming as abruptly as the ship had from unspace, without reference to the atomic clock that marked its passage through that other void, even a first-class astrogator would have his work cut out to position them correctly. Not that it mattered. All he needed was a sun, a sun with planets. The latter was imperative to his plan. He had to have a seeming escape route, even though in reality none would exist. Not for the alien. And he needed luck. Lots of luck.
He found his sun.
Greenish-white, all but lost in the splay of light from the stars around it, he would never have detected it were it not for the sensitive rad analyzers, which revealed it to be by far the closest. And it had planets, five of them. Despite the tremendous distance, the grav detectors had picked them up, separating their masses from that of the green-white sun itself. Each of the three outer planets possessed a single moon. Although quite an ordinary system, Keim believed it the loveliest he'd ever seen.
How close was the green-white sun? He wasn't certain, but if he were interpreting the readout data correctly it lay but the fractional part of a standard light-year away. In terms of real space, or in terms of time as real space was measured, that still was an awesome distance; in terms of the equations of unspace, the moments of transfer, it was dangerously close. Given time, he might refine the figures more closely, but he couldn't wait. That inescapable knowledge plagued him. The alien knew where he was, what he was attempting—had known since that first instant Jonley had seen him on the stairwell. By telepathy, all its hosts had known; the quick but futile attempt to kill him proved that. And knowing, the alien undoubtedly was taking countermeasures at this very moment. Keim could but guess at their form.
Setting the course for the green-white sun was simple; he had merely to lock the guidance system to the grav detectors. It took but a moment to actuate the proper controls. Waiting for the course correction to take effect required far longer, for the change had to be agonizingly slow to keep the resulting g-forces within tolerable limits. While waiting, he tried to contact Lara, but failed. He felt an immediate anxiety when probes directed toward the air-conditioning compartment returned only a confused medley of thought. Neither could he obtain more than a fragmentary image through clairvoyance. Worried, he returned his attention to the green-white sun. Finally, through a visual scope, it flared directly ahead.
Nervously, for he knew he was working in the blind, he moved the red handle up again; the stars blinked out. In the wave of vertigo that followed, the Alpha Tauri transferred to unspace. The blank telescreens mirrored only the awful emptiness of a sunless universe.
Almost immediately he jerked the red handle down, felt the giddiness—saw
a gigantic green-white sun spring into view on the telescreens. Great coronal flames leaping outward from its disc stabbed vast distances into space.
Gripped by the horrible fear that he might have misjudged, he threw a quick glance at the instrument console. The grav meters and rad counters were going wild. In relation to its diameter, the sun's angular distance in the sky was slightly more than one and one-half degrees. Coupled with its spectral type and temperature, that gave him an uncomfortably slim margin of safety, but still a margin. But he had to work swiftly.
He threw the velocity controls into the maximum tolerable deceleration and polarized the telescreens to diminish their brightness. Even then, the harsh glare caused his eyes to ache. The spectrum analysis readout data revealed the sun to be comparatively young, not more than a few billion standard years of age. Flaming, awesome, unstable, eye-searing—it was straight into that pit of hell that the Alpha Tauri was plunging. He jerked his gaze away. The needles on the rad meters, after the first wild fluctuations, now were edging steadily upward and soon would reach the red line that marked the radiation hazard as critical. In the silence, he heard the cooling system groan as it sought to counter the rising internal temperatures. Still another instrument reported that the Alpha Tauri was inside the orbit of the innermost planet.
A glance along the outer corridor and approaches to the bridge revealed them to be clear. Blood dripped from the jagged edges of the chartroom window where Kimbrough's body had crashed through. The sight brought a quick revulsion.* The bodies of Kramer and Coulter lay where they had , fallen. Eyeing them, he wondered why the alien hadn't attempted to use them as missiles and concluded that it was from fear of destroying the ship's astrogation and computer equipment. What significance had that? He wasn't certain.
Where was the alien? More important, where were its hosts? Certainly the increased load on the cooling system had apprised him of what was happening. Whatever the alien was planning to do had to be done quickly. Time was running out.