In that moment I was conscious of a new aloneness. For years, I had
known an isolation from the world around me. I had walked apart, and
the sense of exile had walked with me, not understood, beyond any
experience that would have allowed me to understand it. And now I knew
at last the thing which made me different, like the impulse which had
driven the first feeble-legged creature from the sea to walk apart upon
the land.
I turned back to Laurie. For a moment longer I stared at her. Slowly,
I bent to pick up the gun she had dropped. The movement made me wince
as pain shot through me from the stiff, scorched fingers of my left
hand. They felt as if the flame still burned upon them. They smelled
of smoking flesh. I set my teeth against the pain. Without a word, I
turned my back on the girl's frightened eyes and walked back down the
slope of the beach.
The blackened crystal glittered wet. I picked it up. A dead piece of
rock. Frozen matter. Nothing. I took it with me. It seemed fitting that
the two aliens should meet once more, the one who had died--and the one
who lived.
24
All the offices in the Science building were dark. The corridors glowed
with a glassy, empty brightness. Behind me the campus was dark and
deserted. I tried the main doors. They were locked. I had started to
turn away when a thought struck me. I stared at the lock. Concentrating
on it, I tried to see the naked mechanism. I thought of a key turning,
of the tumblers dropping, of the click of the opening lock. Sweat
broke out on my forehead. I bent the full weight of my mind upon the
resisting sliver of metal. It clicked.
For a moment I leaned against the door. I was near a state of total
exhaustion. The pain in my hand now was almost unbearable. I had
wrapped a handkerchief around it. Charred flesh had stuck to the cloth.
When I looked up a watchman was moving along the corridor directly
toward me. I ducked back out of sight. I felt neither surprise nor
satisfaction over the power I had just discovered. After waiting a
moment, I edged forward and peered through the glass in the door. The
watchman was not in sight.
I went in through the unlocked door. My steps sounded loud on the hard
polished surface of the corridor. As I reached the office door, the
watchman's footsteps thudded on the stairs nearby, descending with
a weary, deliberate tread. Apprehensively, I twisted the handle of
the door. It was locked. My new trick worked on this door, too. The
watchman's legs were visible on the staircase as I slipped into the
dark room, not daring to close the door completely for fear of the
noise it would make.
I stood tense behind it, waiting and listening. I heard the low quick
catch of my own breath and felt the fluttering heartbeat of excitement.
The watchman's steps shuffled past the door. They stopped. Through the
glass panel I saw the shadow of an arm reaching out. The door opened
part way. Standing behind it, holding my breath, I heard the watchman
grunt. He pulled the door shut with a decisive bang.
I waited a moment before checking the door. It had an automatic lock
which was now set.
When I was sure the watchman was out of earshot, I searched the office
and its connecting laboratory. Both were empty. I went back to the desk
in the office and took the black crystal from my pocket. I set it on a
sheet of paper in the center of the desk top. Turning away, I brushed
my burned hand against the edge of the desk. A sheet of pain shot up my
arm. I swayed dizzily, gritting my teeth. It seemed to take a long time
for the pain to ebb. My heart thudded heavily.
As I crouched behind the door to wait, the first light of dawn sent
thin streamers above the horizon. In the darkness of the room the black
crystal on the desk seemed to have a glow from within. Its many facets
caught and held the feeble light filtering through the opaque glass
from the bright corridor. I thought of the thing's active state. I
thought of viruses on earth which in their inanimate state had all the
properties of ordinary rock crystals, responded to chemical experiments
in a predictable way--until they touched the living organism on which
they fed and thrived, became themselves living, breathing, growing
parasites. I thought of a dead planet dotted with beautiful colored
crystals....
* * * * *
Slowly, the building came to life. Gray early morning light washed the
office. Voices spoke nearby in the corridor and the sounds of movement
whispered through the walls. It seemed to me to be hours before firm
steps approached the office door and halted. I felt too tired to move.
A key turned in the lock.
Dr. Temple had taken no more than two steps into the room when he
sensed my presence. He stopped in mid-stride. I slammed the door shut
and stepped close behind him. He swung around slowly. I marveled at the
iron discipline that kept him from showing surprise or shock. His face
was expressionless, his eyes like pieces of polished blue slate. They
were fixed on the muzzle of the gun I held inches away from his skull.
"You won't have time to stop me, Doctor," I said softly.
Only his eyes moved, shifting cautiously from the gun to my face. "What
is the meaning of this?"
"You don't seem surprised to see me."
"I am too old for surprises."
"How old are you, Doctor--in human years, that is?"
He frowned, eyeing me speculatively. His gaze swiveled around the room.
"She's not here," I said.
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean she's dead. I killed her."