by Unknown
“The aliens?” Samul queried softly. So the aliens had crossed the gulf; he accepted the fact even as he asked.
“That appears to be the case,” the Overlord acknowledged.
“The trackers lost them?”
“Apparently the ship’s captain failed to abide by the approach regulations,” Sol Houston explained crisply. “By the time the Obi and Gylan operators got together on procedures, the vessel had merged with the ground pattern.”
There was no condemnation in the Overlord’s voice, nor did Samul expect any. The vast civil service bureaucracy, operated strictly by the book, had stultified personal initiative almost to the point of nonexistence. Although the system worked well enough in day-to-day operations, its inflexibility prevented swift response to emergencies. And an emergency, as Samul knew, was any situation not fully covered by the regulations. That was the price of bigness.
“Do we know what became of the ship?” he inquired.
The Overlord nodded. “Ark Station tracked an unidentified vessel lifting into the Ebon Deeps from above the western shore of the Wasach Sea. That was thirty-six minutes later. We have to assume it was the same ship.”
“Then it could have been in the vicinity of Gylan for nearly thirty minutes,” Samul mused. His mind flew ahead. “It wasn’t a reconnaissance flight. They could have accomplished that from orbit.”
“I believe their purpose was to land someone or something…or effect a pickup,” Sol Houston returned.
“A kidnap mission?” Samul digested the possibility. “I’ll run a missing person check.”
“I don’t believe it’s that simple, Samul.”
“Neither do I, but it’s a possibility we have to cover.” He added more slowly, “It strikes me as significant that they came directly to Gylan, the administrative heart of the sector. It’s scarcely conceivable that it was by chance…”
“Are you suggesting previous penetrations?”
“It’s possible,” Samul answered. “At the very least we’ll have to concede them some knowledge of our system.”
“From the Golden Ram?”
“It’s a working hypothesis,” he declared.
“I’ve assumed that,” the Overlord acknowledged. “While I don’t want to prejudice your thoughts, I still favor the idea that they came to land someone…or something.”
“Are you thinking of mechanical artifacts — scanners and pickups and such?”
“Yes and no.”
“I can’t imagine that any alien life form would be sufficiently like ours to enable them to plant agents among us,” Samul reflected. “Even though they had a physical likeness, the barriers of language and custom would present almost insurmountable problems.”
“Unless they had an opportunity to study us earlier,” Sol Houston suggested.
“Everything leads back to the Golden Ram.”
“It appears that way, Samul, but frankly I don’t know what we gain from the knowledge. You’ll be working in the dark.”
“Isn’t that the usual case?”
“It seems that way.” They spoke for several moments longer before the Overlord cut off. Samul sat unmoving for several minutes after his image faded from the screen. So the aliens had come and gone, but to what purpose? To land someone or something; Sol Houston could be quite correct on that surmise. But if that were so, it indicated that the aliens, whatever their strength, weren’t prepared for open hostilities; their need of information revealed that.
He walked to the window. Small aircars darted like birds among the graceful towers piled against the pinkish-gray sky. He watched the scene contemplatively. For generations the Terrans had marched through space, carving an empire from the vast worlds of glittering suns. At times they had halted, stagnated; but like buds of spring, they had blossomed anew to march again.
It was inevitable that some day they would encounter another form of life imbued with the same purpose. Could two interstellar races live side by side in harmony, sharing the galaxy between them? Considering the bitter wars that once had raged among humans of differing beliefs and skin color, he scarcely believed it possible.
The aliens — he pondered the term wryly. Somewhere across the Ebon Deeps another life form, scrutinizing the humans, undoubtedly was branding them as aliens. What did the term really mean? It meant, he reflected, that form of life that was on the other side of the fence. He smiled ruefully at the task in hand.
As Sol Houston had predicted, he would be walking in the dark.
5
TORN BETWEEN expectation and despair. Danny clenched his fists desperately as he projected his thoughts into the void. For two days, to no avail, Zandro had been guiding his efforts in the mental attempt to span the
starless deeps to that distant world where people like himself lived. Tommy One, Tommy Two, Tommy Three…Altogether there were six Tommies who would answer him, tell him all the wonderful things he wanted to know, if only he could make contact.
“Tommy One? Can you hear me?” Danny rubbed his eyes, aware he was perspiring as he listened into the void. The silence was awesome. “Tommy One, Tommy One…”
“You are not maintaining total concentration,” Zandro cut in. His voice came into Danny’s mind in a quiet aside. “Fragments of your thoughts are elsewhere.”
“They’re not,” he cried crossly.
“You are too excited,” Zandro counseled patiently. “Remember, you have to quell all emotion, subdue all physical response.”
“Perhaps they’re not listening,” Danny objected. He felt his despair well anew. “You said that…”
“They’re always listening,” Zandro replied enigmatically.
“Then why don’t you call them, tell them what to say?”
“No!”
“But perhaps if you contacted them once…”
“No!” This time the denial was cold and final.
Undaunted, Danny cried, “But why not? You can do it. You had to talk to someone or you wouldn’t know about the Tommies.”
A long silence ensued before Zandro replied, “I can’t talk with them, Danny.”
“Can’t?” He was stunned.
“Their minds are different.”
“But they’re like mine,” he objected. “You said that yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And you can talk with me.”
“Here on Wenda, yes, but not over a great distance.” Zandro’s answer held a defeated note.
“Then how did you know about the Tommies?”
“You are trying to learn too much at once,” Zandro replied. “All this is quite distracting to you.”
“But…”
“Do you want me to teach you to talk to your friends?” Zandro interrupted. “If so, you’ll have to learn to concentrate.”
“I’m trying,” he answered desperately.
“You have to shut out the meadow, the sky, your awareness of yourself, everything — focus your entire mind on making contact.”
“I will,” he promised hurriedly.
“And you will have to stop being emotional.”
“I’ll try.” Danny closed his eyes to eliminate the distraction of the landscape and concentrated. With the view shut out, he became aware of the posture of his body and one by one relaxed his muscles, feeling the tension subside.
“Tommy One, this is Danny. Can you hear me, Tommy One?” Listening with his mind, he became conscious of the gurgling of the stream and shut his ears to it. “Tommy One…” He sent out the call again.
“Tommy One…” The response, like a faint echo from somewhere deep in his brain, jolted him. For an instant he thought the words had been his own, then realized they had come in answer to his call.
“This is Danny,” he cried eagerly. “Can you hear me?”
“I…hear you.”
“Tommy One can hear me,” he exclaimed joyfully. The moment he’d uttered the words he knew he’d broken the contact, but he didn’t care; he’d projected his thoughts across
the void! Hurtling the starless depths, they’d reached a
being like himself. Oh, the wonder of it!
“Tommy One, can you hear me?” This time there was only silence, vast and muted, deeper than the silence of the forest when the wind was stilled.
“You broke the contact,” Zandro reproved.
“But I reached him, I reached him. He heard me!”
“You have to keep practicing.”
“I will, I will.”
“It will take awhile before you really learn to project your thoughts over such a great distance,” Zandro warned. “It’s not like talking to me. It’s a matter of control.”
“Control?”
“Establishing absolute mastery over your mind.”
“Shall I try Tommy Two?”
“It doesn’t make much difference which one you try,” Zandro explained. “Once you learn to establish contact, you can talk with one as well as with another.”
“I want to talk to all of them,” he cried eagerly.
“In time, Danny.”
“I’m going to try again.”
“Rest your mind. We will try again tomorrow.”
“But I’m not tired,” he protested.
“Tomorrow,” Zandro answered with finality. “And don’t practice when you’re by yourself. You can cause more harm than good.”
“Please,” he begged. But even as he asked, he felt the silence. Zandro had withdrawn. He stared indecisively at the sky, feeling elated. His mind had hurtled that gulf; he’d talked with a boy just like himself. Tommy One wasn’t his real name, of course. Zandro had explained that the name “Tommy” and the designations “One” through “Six” were simple codes to aid in identifying one from another and to make communication easier. He didn’t care; talking with them was all that mattered.
Why couldn’t he try to contact them when Zandro wasn’t present? He pondered it while returning to the ship. Zandro had warned him of it before, had said that it might cause difficulties which would prevent him from ever again establishing the contact. How could that be?
He debated the question uneasily. There was so much he didn’t know. When he put the questions to Zandro, he was either coldly rebuffed or promised that he would “learn in time.” Yet there were so many things Zandro did tell him. Perhaps, as Zandro said, everything was for his own good.
When the long dusk turned to darkness, he walked to the edge of the meadow and stared at the sky. A swath of orange stars bordered this edge of the great black gulf. He looked long into the ebony rift. At incredible distances through that blackness lay a sun called Apar; around it circled the planet Makal, on which was the wondrous city of Gylan. There, people like himself lived; he had talked with one of them! Why couldn’t he now? What possible harm could it do? None, if he just called the name. Oh, to hear that voice again!
Clenching his fists, he felt his determination grow. If he tried to establish contact only as Zandro had taught him and if Zandro didn’t know, nothing could happen. He stared across the dark meadow.
“Zandro?” He projected the name telepathically, listening with his mind. Only the silence answered him. He tried again, with the same result. Why did Zandro hear him only at times? Did Zandro, like himself, sleep? The thought startled him, for he’d always associated sleep with a physical body; and Zandro had no body. No body? He felt an inner disquiet. If Zandro had no body, who were Iku 214J, Iku 998W, and Subcommander Gobit? Were they, too, bodiless? There was so much he didn’t know.
“Zandro?” He called the name again, reassured at the silence that
followed. Sprawled comfortably on the meadow, he let his body relax. Breathing through his mouth to shut out the scents of the world around him, he closed his eyes, forced his mind to blankness. Gradually he felt a deepening peace — a sense of floating as if, somehow, he were suspended in midair.
He lay for a long while, drifting in a world of nothingness. It was as if his mind and body were two separate things — separate and far apart. His body was there on the meadow, inert and apparently lifeless; his mind was free, unfettered, uncluttered. He felt no sensation, for all sensation had been left behind on the meadow; it resided in the inert form. This must be what Zandro had meant by the total emancipation of the mind.
He stirred, envisioning the vast gulfs through which he must pass. Black, black, black — a firmament unknown to any star.
“Tommy One…” He projected the thought with the whole of his mind, directing it into that blackness. “This is Danny. Can you hear me?”
“Tommy One…” This time the echo in his mind came almost immediately. He felt a fierce pang of joy that he instantly regretted, for he knew the emotion had broken the contact. Lying quietly in the tall grass, he waited until the tumult inside him had subsided.
When the sense of peace came again, he projected the call into the void. “Tommy One, can you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“I’m Danny. I live on the planet Wenda that goes around the sun Aura Rawn.” He fought to keep down his excitement. “Where are you?”
“The city of Gylan of the planet Makal of the sun Apar.” The words came into Danny’s mind with a stilted precision that puzzled him.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Tommy One.”
“No, your real name.”
“Tommy One.”
“But it can’t be,” he protested. “That’s just a means of identification. What does your mother call you?”
Silence.
“You have to have a real name,” he exclaimed.
Silence.
“Say something,” he urged.
Silence.
Danny had the sudden fear that the contact had been broken, then realized that it hadn’t, for he had the same sensation of presence he experienced whenever Zandro entered his mind. He tried a different approach.
“What do you see?”
“Buildings, people, aircars, lights.” The words came in the same stilted fashion as before. But Danny was delighted; Tommy One, in faraway Gylan, was naming the wonderful things that his eyes fell upon. Tommy One was telling him all about it.
Danny started to ask another question when suddenly he felt a second presence in his mind. Zandro! The knowledge came so sharply that he recoiled in terror, instantly breaking the contact with Tommy One. Trembling, he waited for some awful pronouncement. When none came, he fled back to the ship, barring the metal door behind him.
It had been Zandro! He knew that with certainty. What would Zandro do? He might cut him off from the Tommies forever. No, he wouldn’t do that! He wanted to call out to Zandro, promise that he would never talk with the Tommies again when he was alone. He fought the impulse. But he couldn’t afford to alienate Zandro. Not now!
Danny was almost asleep when he felt the sense of presence in his mind again. It was like a touch that had no physical counterpart.
“Sleep, Danny, sleep.” Zandro’s words come soothingly. Danny started to
rebel but thought better of it.
“Yes,” he murmured. He allowed the drowsiness to steal over him while fighting to retain a spark of consciousness in which memory could live.
“Sleep, sleep,” Zandro intoned.
“Yes…”
“It is bad to contact the Tommies when you are alone.” The words were soft and persuasive.
“It is bad,” he murmured.
“You will not contact them unless I am with you.”
“I will not contact them unless you are with me,” he drowsily agreed.
“You will tell me what the Tommies say.”
“I will tell you…”
“You won’t wonder about the Tommies anymore, Danny. They are there. That is all you have to know.”
“I won’t wonder…”
“Now sleep, Danny. Sleep, sleep, sleep.”
With the last spark of consciousness fading, Danny felt Zandro withdraw from his mind. One moment he’d had the sense of presence; the n
ext it was gone, leaving a curious blankness. But he remembered!
He struggled to bring himself to full wakefulness, then fell back exhausted. “I will contact them,” he vowed. “I will, I will.”
In the darkness of the ship, he slept.
She came down the Street of the Shopkeepers in Gylan, a thin wisp of a girl with deep-blue eyes and dark tangled hair that fell almost to her shoulders. Her faded pink dress, several sizes too large, and worn sandals gave her the appearance of a ragged urchin. She was fifteen; her name was Arla Koy.
Sauntering slowly, she gazed wistfully at the displays in the window. Ornate jewelry from Mokia, colorful scarves and skirts from the mills in Jedro, bright metallic slippers and sandals from Cardon — products from all Makal were to be seen behind the glass. Passing an open-air market, her eyes glowed at sight of luscious yellow polloms from the orchards beyond the mountains.
At the main intersection she boarded a moving belt that carried her toward the heart of the city. It wound through a garden lane devoid of ground vehicles. Occasionally it carried her through small parks, each with a central fountain and pleasant walkways, where older people, warming themselves in the sun, fed scarlet hela birds from small sacks of grain dispensed by the vending machines.
The stores grew bigger and gaudier, the window displays more lavish as she approached the central shopping area. Aircars darted among the graceful towers that pierced the pinkish-gray sky or landed or took off from heliports situated a hundred or more stories above the ground. Occasionally a pair of eyes would fasten inquiringly on her shabby clothes. She didn’t mind; she was used to it.
Her eyes lighted with anticipation as she approached the central library, the one place where even the poorest could share in the richness of books, tapes, and visual displays. The store windows, while filled with wondrous things, held nothing by comparison. In print, art, music, and voice the library held the wealth of 6,800 sun systems — wealth that spanned time and distance, encompassing all that was known of matter as well as the abstract knowledge of the mind. She believed the library to be the most wonderful place in the Universe, for within its ninety-eight stories it encompassed the Universe itself.