Somewhere in the void was a planet with a new
element that could transform men into supermen.
It was Boone's job to find that world--if he survived--
The Terror Out Of Space
By Dwight V. Swain
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
July 1954
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was a good proposition, the way the lean, grey man from Associated
Independents told it. He ticked off the points on his fingers:
"Ten thousand credits an Earth year, Boone, win or lose. Full command
of the field force. Five per cent cut on the profits if you get a
mekronal processing unit in production on one of the unassigned
satellites ahead of the Cartel."
"Sorry, Terral." Again, Boone glanced at his chronox. "It's like I
said. Any other time I might be interested. But right now I've got
something else on my mind."
"Fifteen thousand, then. And ten per cent if you spot in more than one
satellite." Terral leaned forward. "Hell, man, that's more than you can
hope to make as a GX if you stay with the Cartel!"
Boone grinned, after a fashion. "Sorry."
The lean man pushed back abruptly and gulped down his drink. "Then it
_is_ the woman!" he accused. A spark of pale fire lighted behind the
grey eyes. Even in the dimness of the thil-shop, Boone couldn't miss
the tension. "Krobis shoves her in ahead of you, but you'd still throw
away your future--"
Boone brought his own glass down on the tanach table top, just hard
enough so that it clicked a curt, sharp period to the other's sentence.
"And what makes that your business?"
For the moment Terral's narrow jaws seemed to widen at the hinges.
His lips peeled back, as if he were about to say something raw and
cutting. Then, reconsidering, he breathed in deep instead and slumped
loose in his seat. The thin lips drew together in a crooked smile. "My
business--? Nothing, Boone. Nothing at all."
"That's the way I see it, too." Boone got up. "Good night, Terral."
He strode on out, not bothering to shake hands or look back.
The night closed in upon him--the night, and the narrow street; the
alien sounds and smells and stir of Gandor City. A cadet from the
Federation fleet pushed past him, a moss-furred Callistan crustach
perched on his shoulder. Behind the cadet came two spask-masked berlon
prospectors, up from the Hertzog fields, leading their lumbering
flipper-tentacled coddob by a chain run through its gill-slits. The
throb of the atmosphere compressors pressed in like a giant heartbeat,
punctuated by the rattle of surface carriers, the shrill wail of tricol
pipes. A sweetish, slightly nauseous scent of thes-wood flares and
Martian paggod eddied from the doorway of a greasy-looking grill that
placarded "Genuine Earth Meats--No Synthetics, No Alien Substitutes!"
Once more, Boone checked his chronox.
It was less than an hour till the end of the cycle now.
In spite of himself, Boone's belly tightened. Turning at the first
intersection, he headed for the carrier station.
The IC flight was already on the line and waiting. He found a seat
next to a dour-faced tech whose eye-whites showed green with mekronal
infusion.
* * * * *
The carrier wheeled slowly forward into the lock that sealed off Gandor
City's precious, bubble-pressured air supply from the bleak world
outside. A moment later the lock's outer hatch opened. Climbing on its
anti-gravitational beam--slowly, at first; then faster and faster--the
carrier lanced out across the star-spangled black velvet of the
Ganymedan sky.
The minutes dragged. Crags and peaks came and went below; then the dull
grey wash of a cliff-bound sea of liquid gas. Off to the left, the sky
took on a scarlet-purple tint, reflection of Jupiter's great Red Spot.
Down again, then. Down through another hatch, into another lock.
Its inner seal opened. The carrier swept into the bubble proper,
settling onto the clean-swept ramp with its glaring forspark lights and
the sign that said:
INTERPLANETARY CARTELS UNLIMITED
MEKRONAL PROCESSING DIVISION
GANYMEDAN ADVANCE BASE
Boone passed through the scanner unit; bared his ID plate for the guard.
"Back early, aren't you, Mister Boone?" The guard grinned. "Guess it
makes a difference when you go alone. Though I will say that new job's
a nice break for Miss Rey."
Boone nodded, not speaking.
"She goes out tonight, doesn't she?" The guard's face grew sober. "Hope
she makes it o.k. That Titan run is no picnic--not with this monster
business hitting half the ships. Bucking that kind of thing ain't my
idea of a woman's job, no matter how high it rates nor how much it
pays."
"She'll make it, all right."
"Sure." The guard's eyes shifted away from Boone's. "Sure, Mister
Boone. She'll make it."
Boone passed on.
Inside the personnel compound, he looked at his chronox again.
Only half an hour now till Eileen was scheduled to grav-off.
Barely time for the job he had to do....
Turning in at his own quarters, he strode down the empty, echoing
corridor to his room; closed the door behind him.
The nerve-gun lay in the top drawer, as always--sleek, grim, coldly
lethal. Stiff-fingered, Boone checked the charge, then slid the weapon
beneath his blouse and turned to go.
But Eileen's picture on the corner stand caught him ... held him.
Her picture, and the memories that went with it.
He picked it up; stared at it.
She was wearing her first uniform, with its student stripes, the silver
comet Cartel insignia shining against the dark blue of the lapels. But
even official tailoring and close-combed regulation hair-do couldn't
hide her radiance. The blue eyes laughed with sheer love of living. Her
lips showed soft and smiling, better styled for kisses than commands.
That was the Eileen Rey whom he remembered ... the Eileen of his own
student unit days, the girl who'd climbed rank after rank beside him
through Interplanetary Cartels' service.
Till now....
He cursed Krobis under his breath, slapped the picture back, face down
on the cabinet.
There was another guard at the gate to the Titan ramp. Boone bared his
ID plate.
But the man made no move to step aside. "Sorry, Mister Boone."
"What--?"
"Mister Krobis' orders, sir. You are barred from the ramp till after
the ship gravs off."
"Oh." For a long, long moment Boone stood very still. And then: "I see."
"He might still be at his office, sir. Maybe if you was to talk to
him...."
"Thanks." Stiffly, Boone turned and walked back the way he'd come,
past silent warehouses and noisy shops and rattling, rumbling surface
carrier units.
Then he was in front of the blank-faced central administration building.
For the fraction of a second only, he hesitated. Then, turning in, he
strode through the deserted passageways.
Krobis' office. Another guard. "Mister Krobis is busy, sir. He left
orders that he wasn't to be disturbed till after the Titan ship gravs
off."
Again, a long, long, moment of decision. Then, very gently, Boone
repeated, "I want to see Krobis."
"I'm sorry, sir--"
* * * * *
Boone brought out the nerve-gun in one swift motion, leveled it at the
man's belly. "Maybe you didn't understand."
The guard's eyes flicked from his face to the nerve-gun. "You're making
a mistake, sir."
Boone kept the nerve-gun steady, ready. "You're probably right. But
anyone who tries to stop me is going to get hurt."
"If that's the way you want it, sir...." The guard shrugged and stepped
aside.
"No." Boone shook his head. "You're going in with me, friend. Ahead of
me."
Wordless, the guard shrugged again and, turning, walked through the
anteroom towards Krobis' door.
Boone spun the nerve-gun's impact dial down to the temporary paralysis
level and fired.
The guard crumpled. Stepping across him, Boone tried the door handle.
It was locked.
Sucking in a quick breath, Boone kicked for the bolt with all his might.
The door burst open. He lunged into the office beyond.
It was a big room, with the desk set at the far end so that visitors
would have plenty of time to lose self-confidence while they walked its
length.
Martin Krobis specialized in tricks like that.
He leaped up as Boone came through the door--face stiff, nostrils
flaring.
Then: "Boone--!"
"That's right." Boone heeled the door shut behind him. "You're a hard
man to see these days, Krobis. This time I couldn't wait."
Krobis straightened slowly, a small, sharp-featured man with too-short
legs. Twin spots of color came to mark his cheekbones, and his black
eyes grew hard and shiny. "I don't believe I understand you, Boone."
Boone laughed, harsh and bitter. "You understand, all right." He strode
forward. "That's why you gave orders to the guards to keep me away from
you and off the ramp."
"So--?" This out of a thin-lipped, mask-like face.
"So Eileen Rey doesn't take the Titan run." Boone gestured with the
gun. "Let's go, Krobis."
"You realize what you're doing, of course, Boone?" A raw, raging edge
crept into Krobis' voice. "You know that this finishes you with IC?
That as soon as my report goes in, it's the end of your career?"
Deliberately, Boone spun the nerve-gun's dial to the lethal output
point. "Time's too short for talk, Krobis. We're going out to the ramp.
You and me, together."
Again, Krobis' nostrils flared. His shoulders drew in. His head thrust
a fraction forward.
Boone tightened his finger on the nerve-gun's trigger. "Try it, Krobis.
Just try it."
Silence. Long, aching seconds of silence.
Then, slowly, Krobis' head came up. He made a business of smoothing
his sleek black hair and came around the desk, walking with the
peculiar, waddling stride that came of trying to stretch his too-short
legs farther than they were meant to go.
He hadn't done quite a good enough job on his hairline, either, Boone
noted. Tiny beads of sweat still showed at the roots.
"Well, Boone?" Krobis carved the words out of ice.
Stripping a coat from the rack, Boone draped it over his arm to hide
the gun, then fell in at Krobis' left, not quite abreast him. In
silence, they went through the anteroom where the stunned guard lay and
on out of the administration building.
Again, the ramp gate loomed.
Low-voiced, Boone said, "I'm going aboard that Titan ship, Krobis. See
that I get there if you want to live."
Krobis didn't answer. But his curt nod took them past the guard.
* * * * *
Ahead, the great sphere that was the Titan ship glinted under the
forspark lights. The cargo hatches were already sealed. The last of the
surface carriers shuttled in and out like rumbling beetles through the
shadows cast by the stubby tripod legs.
Boone herded Krobis to the loading shaft, into the lift; threw a tight
grin at the man on duty. "How long?"
"Seven minutes, sir. We're right on schedule."
"Good enough."
The lift ground upward ... halted, finally, deep in the heart of the
ship.
Boone prodded Krobis down the narrow, duroid corridor that led to the
tech quarters. The card on the last door to the right said, "Miss Rey."
Boone knocked. The tension was almost unbearable now. His palms were
slick. His belly quivered.
A latch-click. The door opened part way, framing Eileen's face.
Shoving Krobis ahead of him, Boone crowded her back into the cabin and
shouldered shut the door.
She stared. "What--?"
Krobis spoke rapidly, caustically: "Boone's jealous of your new
assignment, my dear. He doesn't want to let you go to Titan."
Eileen caught her breath. Her eyes flicked to Boone. "Fred--"
"You can believe that if you want to, Eileen." Boone quit trying to
keep the anger, the tension, out of his own voice. "The main thing is,
you're not going."
He could see the storm flare in her eyes. "Fred, you can't stop me!"
"Can't I?" Boone tossed the coat from his arm, baring the nerve-gun.
"I've watched Krobis run through this big-boss act before, Eileen.
He specializes in putting people under obligation. In your case, he
knows how much your work means to you, so he'd like to maneuver things
around to where you'll feel indebted to him for letting you prove your
professional competency at the top level. Only this gun,"--he gestured
with it--"says he's not going to get away with it."
The curves of Eileen's face changed to planes and hollows. A thin white
anger-line drew about her mouth. "Fred, this is utterly absurd!"
And from Krobis: "Miss Rey happens to be one of the Cartel's best
extraterrestrial biologists--"
Boone slashed in on him: "--And also, at the moment, she's a woman you
want." He laughed--savagely, explosively. "A nice co-incidence, isn't
it? You'd gamble her life on it--send her into a chunk of void where
monsters materialize out of nowhere and two ships in three never come
back. If she lives and cracks the nut, figures out how those nightmares
get aboard our ships and why, mekronal production and your rating--with
Eileen and IC both--go sky-high. If she dies, you chalk up another
score for yourself as an ironclad Cartel man so set on his job that he
doesn't know what sentiment means. Either way, Martin Krobis wins."
"Then you'd let this ship go out without a biologist?" Eileen's breath
came fast and shallow. "You'd let the crew face the monsters with not
even a fighting chance to win?"
Boone clipped his words: "Don't worry. There'll be a biologist aboard."
And then: "You see--I'm going in your place."
"So--!" Face alight, Krobis turned to Eileen. "I was right, my dear!
Boone's jealous, that's all--jealous of you, your ability, the chance
I've given you to solve this problem!"
A tremor ran through Eileen. For an instant she swayed, her pale face a
mask of mixed emotions.
Then, heedless of the nerve-gun, she clawed at Boone.
He stepped back fast; clubbed his left fist upward.
It caught her squarely on the point of the jaw. Her teeth clicked; her
head snapped back. Already sagging, she reeled against the wall, then
slid unconscious to the floor.
Krobis started to spin about.
Boone said tightly, "Come ahead, Krobis! Eileen I wouldn't burn. But
you--it'd be a pleasure!"
Krobis froze in his tracks.
* * * * *
Boone shot a quick glance at his chronox. "Less than four minutes till
grav-off. We'll have to hurry." He gestured with the nerve-gun barrel.
"Get her up!"
"And if I won't?"
"Get her up I said!" Boone's voice rang savage with menace.
Krobis' eyes wavered. Squatting, he dragged Eileen's limp body round
till he could slide an arm beneath her and heave her up onto his
shoulder.
Boone closed in to help support her. "You know what to tell the man
at the lift, Krobis: Miss Rey's suddenly been taken ill, so you're
relieving her from duty and assigning me to take her place."
Black eyes asmoulder, Krobis nodded.
"And in case you've got any sharp ideas--just remember no man alive can
outrun a nerve charge...." Sliding his hand up under Eileen's service
blouse to conceal his weapon, Boone jerked open the cabin door. In
seconds, they had Eileen into the lift.
Then they were past the guard ... out on the ramp again ... into the
black shadows on the far side of an emptied cargo carrier.
Boone stepped back while Krobis awkwardly lowered Eileen to the ramp.
She moaned a little; that was all.
Barely two minutes till grav-time now, the chronox said.
Krobis straightened. "You'll never get away with this, Boone!" His
voice was thick with hate.
"Because you'll stop the grav-off, you mean?" Boone spun the
nerve-gun's dial back to the temporary paralysis level. "I've thought
of that, too, Krobis."
He squeezed the trigger.
The other's eyes went blank and glassy. He slumped beside Eileen on the
ramp.
Pivoting, Boone strode back to the ship.
The hatchmen were already gathering with their sealers. The hum of the
converters rose in an all-pervasive drone.
Up in the tech quarters once more, Boone wryly slipped the card bearing
Eileen's name from its bracket on the door and substituted his own.
Then, going on into the cabin, he threw himself down at full length on
the foamex bunk. He was tired, more tired than he could remember ever
having been, with the utter weariness that comes of too much strain and
tension.
A moment later the signal light above the door flashed red. Then a
momentary shifting said that the sphere was off the ground and rising,
riding its great beam of anti-gravitational force up from Ganymede's
bleak surface.
So it was done. Eileen was safe at last and he, Fred Boone, was on his
way to Titan.
Of course, there'd be charges waiting for him when he got back.
_If_ he got back.
Only that could wait. That was still far off in the future.
* * * * *
He fell asleep that way ... a troubled sleep, full of mad, distorted
dreams of Eileen and Krobis, and of monsters.
Then, all at once, he was awake again, sitting bolt upright in the
bunk--sweat-drenched, fists clenched.
Dimly, confusedly, he sensed that some sound must have roused him.
In the same instant the sound came again--a knock, echoing over-loud in
the cabin's stillness.
Stumbling from the bunk, Boone jerked open the door.
Eileen stood in the corridor outside, flanked by two guards with
nerve-guns at the ready. A cold-eyed ship's officer waited behind them.
Boone stared--unable to speak, still not quite believing.
"I believe these are my quarters, Mister Boone," Eileen said. She was
a picture of chill self-possession. Only a faint trace of color marked
the place along her jaw where he had struck her.
"Eileen--!" he choked. "Eileen...."
"You're surprised, you mean?" Her voice stayed icy. "I thought you
might be. It's just that you didn't hit me quite as hard as you thought
you did. I was conscious again before you ever carried me out of this
cabin. But you had a gun, so I let you take me off, then came back on
again just behind you."
"I see," Boone nodded slowly. Of a sudden there was a churning weakness
in his middle. "Then--Eileen--"
"Miss Rey," she corrected, voice still icy. And then: "You'll
understand, of course, that I had no choice but to take this whole
thing to the captain."
Again, Boone nodded. "Yes."
"To return to Ganymede once the locks were closed behind us would be
an expensive undertaking. So we'll both go on to Titan. I'll serve as
biologist for the run, in accordance with my orders. As for you"--she
shrugged--"your status should be obvious."
"To you, maybe. Not to me."
"Then I'll clarify it." All at once her eyes, her face, mirrored bitter
triumph. "You'll make the trip, Mister Boone, but you'll do it as a
prisoner--under guard and confined to your quarters!"
CHAPTER TWO
The captain was a broad-bodied, heavy-shouldered man with the veined
red nose and cheeks of a heavy drinker. The cold-eyed way he looked at
Boone, low-lidded, told how he felt.
"Don't think I've turned you loose because I like you, Boone," he
clipped. "I don't. But we're coming into Saturn's orbit, and that means
we need a biologist on duty. Prisoner or not, you qualify, so you're
elected."
Boone stared. "Miss Rey--"
"Her temperature hit 104 an hour ago."
A chill ran through Boone. "You mean--"
"That's right. Titan fever."
Boone caught his breath as the door swung open to admit a thin-faced
young ensign. "Another down, Captain," the man reported grimly.
"Verdov, converter crew."
"That makes four. Thank the good Lord we've got plenty of chandak
extract." The captain hunched forward, his thick forearms heavy on the
desk. "You see where it puts us, Boone. From here on in it's monster
country; we'll pass Japetus any minute. So the quicker you check the
ship, the better."
"Right." Dry-lipped, Boone pivoted and strode towards the door,
gesturing to the ensign. "Come on."
The other nodded and fell in beside him. "Where do you want to start?"
"Top live cargo section."
Together they rode the lift to the highest level, then walked to the
end of the "A" passage.
Boone kicked the hatch of the first bunker. "Open it up."
"Open it--?" The ensign's eyes widened. "You mean you're going to check
inside, too?"
Boone nodded curtly. "That's right."
"Well, if you say so...." Frowning, the ensign broke the seal; swung
back the hatch.
Cold air washed over them. Light glinted on the seven-foot synthice
slabs stacked floor to ceiling, each casing a contract worker stiff in
frozen sleep.
Narrow-eyed, Boone probed each nook and crevice with his light-rod,
then stepped back. "All right. Let's have the next one."
The ensign slammed shut the hatch. He studied Boone curiously. "Just
what are you looking for?"
Boone shrugged. "Monsters don't come out of nowhere; not really. My
bet is that they get aboard our ships at the Titan base--in embryo,
maybe, or as a virus. If we can spot one before it's grown to a
full-scale nightmare, it may give us a hint as to how to beat them."
"But they say they're human, sometimes--"
"Maybe. But no man I know can appear and disappear at will, and so far
we're the only humanoid race we've found anywhere in the system. Till
I see more proof, I'll put my money on alien life-forms plus optical
illusion."
"Oh." The ensign's brows drew together. He opened the next hatch.
Another blank.
It went on like that, section after section. They checked supply
storage, power receptors, converters.
Still nothing.
In the control room, when they got there, Japetus was already fading
from the visiscreen. Hyperion loomed ahead, a bead-like dot hovering in
the shadow of the Rings.
Beyond it, dim and distant, lay Titan.
Titan, greatest satellite of Saturn, nearly half the size of Earth
itself. Titan, that had given Man mekronal, the precious, mysterious
catalyst that cut loose the human race from the need for the
oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere of its homeland.
Titan, world of lost sphere-ships and phantasmic monsters.
Bleakly, Boone wondered if he'd ever reach it.
Or even if he did, would Eileen Rey live to see it with him? What were
the odds against a woman struck down by Titan fever?
Those were questions without answers.
Weary, tight-lipped, he turned from the screen. "Nothing here. Let's
try the crew quarters."
"Good enough." Once again, the ensign fell in beside him.
Overhead, the alarm bell clanged.
* * * * *
Boone went rigid; spun about as the com-box crackled, raw and ragged:
"Top level calling! There's something in "A" passage--something awful!
Get the biologist--Oh, my God--!"
A scream: the scream of a soul in torment.
The com-box went dead.
The ensign at his heels, Boone raced for the lift-shaft.
The top level, "A" passage. The lights at the far end were out.
Boone snatched the ensign's nerve-gun. Cat-footed, he moved forward.
Ahead, something shifted in the shadows. He became aware of a vague,
phosphorescent glow.
A whisper of sound. A floundering wallow of movement.
Raw-nerved, Boone flicked on his light-rod.
Its beam sprayed out across a creature like nothing ever seen before in
earth or heaven. A bulbous thing, a nightmare of pseudopodal horror.
But before he could fire, it began to change.
First it drew together, a bubbling mass like green calf-slobber shot
with blood. A rank stench of musty death curled to him from it.
Then, while he watched, a shape began to rise out of the slime; a
shape--
He caught his breath. His blood froze.
_It was a woman!_
Now she stood erect and naked, shrouded from the hips down in the
slime-mass. Her hands caressed her high, proud breasts. She laughed and
stretched her arms out toward Boone.
In spite of himself, he took a dragging step forward. Then another, and
another.
As from afar, the ensign's shout dinned in his ears. He half turned.
As one, woman and slime-mass lunged towards him. And now, incredibly,
Boone saw that there were fangs beneath the laughing lips; that, like
Medusa, the woman was crowned not with rippling hair, but writhing
serpents.
He screamed as the voice on the com-box had screamed; blazed
point-blank at the naked belly with his nerve-gun.
The soft flesh shimmered, darkened. Great scales took form. The smooth
body distorted into the plated, cartilaginous torso of a dragon.
Boone hurled himself aside as its great horned head lanced forward.
With all his might, he threw the nerve-gun into the yawning mouth.
The mighty jaws clamped down. The metal crumpled.
Behind Boone, thunder crashed in the passage. A fire-bolt from a
blaster smashed into the monster.
Dragon and slime-mass alike exploded into spattering fragments.
Half-stunned, Boone felt the ensign's fingers dig into his shoulders
and drag him back towards the lift-shaft.
But he shook them off. "No. I've got to see--" Even as he spoke, he
knew that the words were coming out an incoherent mumble.
He staggered back anyhow ... clawed amid the smoke and debris.
His hands came up green and stinking with viscous slime.
Numbly, he stared down at them. "Then--it was real--no optical
illusion--"
"Real? Of course it was real!" This from the half-hysterical ensign. "I
saw it all--the woman, the dragon! If I'd been two seconds later with
the blaster, it would have got you!"
Boone slumped against the wall. "That thing--"
* * * * *
A muffled crash of sound from the lift-shaft cut in on him. Red lights
flashed on the call-board.
"Third level--!" The ensign's voice rang raw with tension.
"Come on!" Boone lunged for the lift.
Together they plummeted downward ... stumbled out into a murky,
smoke-eddying third level passage.
More slime, purple this time, and a man with a blaster.
Only he hadn't fired quite quick enough. He sprawled dead on the
floor-plates, his chest torn wide open as if by talons.
Red lights were flashing all over the call-board now. Alarm bells
jangled wildly.
The captain's voice rasped from the com-box: "All hands! Make for
your closest emergency carrier and stand by to abandon ship! Central
Control will blow all carriers clear in three minutes! Repeat, Central
Control will blow all carriers clear in three minutes, so get aboard
fast! All hands...."
Stiff-lipped, Boone stared up at the call-board. "Seven levels
signalling! It's an attack in force, then...."
The ensign clutched his arm. "Let's go! There's a carrier at the end of
the passage!"
Boone started to turn, then stopped short. "Eileen--!"
"What?"
"The other biologist--the girl with Titan fever."
"Let the medmen worry about her! They'll take her off if she's not too
sick to move!"
"No!" Spasmodically, Boone jerked free. "We can't leave her!"
"But there's no time!"
"I can't help that." Boone shoved the other away. "You go ahead...."
The ensign threw him one last taut, frustrated glance, then wheeled and
ran off down the passage towards the carrier lock. A score of steps he
ran....
Only then, out of the murk, a primordial horror rose before him--a
thing of tentacles and feelers massed about a hideous white skull-face.
It happened too fast for shouts or screaming. The ensign's head jerked
back and sidewise. He tried to veer.
Too late. With a sound that came straight from hell, the skull-thing
lurched forward. The tentacles engulfed him.
Convulsively, Boone clawed the blaster from the dead hands of the man
beside the lift-shaft ... lanced a fire-bolt into the monster's leering
face.
Face and monster vanished in a blaze of ear-shattering sound and
blue-white flame.
Then the echoes died and Boone was alone again--shaking, retching. Of
the ensign, no trace remained.
* * * * *
Numbly, Boone stumbled back into the lift and dropped it fullspeed down
the shaft to the tenth level, the very heart of the great sphere-ship.
There was another monster waiting for him when he came out--a creature
that looked for all the world like a huge, iridescent coffin whose lid
came up to bare rows of razor-edged shark-teeth.
Raw-nerved, he blasted it to atoms; then, belly churning, waded through
stench and putrescent fragments towards the tech quarters where Eileen
lay.
As he did so, the ship rocked sharply.
For an instant Boone went rigid, then cursed aloud. That jolt--it
could have been only the impact of the carriers' departure.
Now, truly, he was alone--alone in the void on a sphere of death, where
nightmare monsters roamed lusting for his blood.
Alone with Eileen, perhaps. If she were still alive.
_If...._
He quickened his pace, moving along the corridor cold-eyed and wary,
his finger taut on the blaster's trigger.
The last door to the right. A card that said, "Miss Rey."
Palm slick with sweat, Boone tried the handle.
The door was unlocked. He opened it a fraction.
A voice rose high and incoherent, ranting. The voice of delirium.
Boone stepped inside; flicked on the light.
Eileen lay in the bunk, held there by the broad straps of a safety
pack. A flush-faced Eileen with wild, fever-blinded eyes. Her lips
moved in ceaseless, garbled speech. Thin fingers tugged and twisted at
the sheets as if it were not in them to be still.
A knot drew tight in Boone's midriff. Grimly, he studied the chart on
the stand, then glanced at his chronox.
Time for more chandak extract.
Stiff-fingered, he prepared the aerojet; sprayed the precious drops
into Eileen's jugular vein. Then, barring the door against invading
monsters, he settled down to wait and hope.
The hours dragged by till he lost track, a blur of time broken only by
the routine with the aerojet. Once he thought Eileen recognized him.
Twice he fell asleep. A dozen times, in his mind's eye, the monsters
came, only to fade away again as he fought his way up from the depths
of his fatigue. Hunger, thirst--they were words only....
Then, the crash.
It threw him clear across the cabin, to land with stunning force
against the farthest wall. The whole room hung tilted at a
thirty-degree angle.
Dragging himself up, he clambered to the bunk.
Eileen's eyes were closed, her tongue and fingers still at last. To
Boone, it seemed as if her forehead were less feverish--as if she might
even be asleep.
But again, she might have slipped into a coma. In his own state, he
couldn't be sure.
As for the crash, the room--Blinking, he looked around.
The cabin's angle was still the same. Thirty degrees, at least.
Only the room couldn't stay this way, tilted. Not with the sphere
floating free in space. That was what the orientational gyroscopes were
designed to prevent.
In the same instant, he caught the first faint whiff of ammonia.
A chill ran through him. Scrambling erect, he snatched up the blaster,
fumbled open the door, and peered out into the corridor.
No monsters--but something worse. For here the ammonia-smell hung even
stronger.
* * * * *
Dragging the door shut behind him, Boone half-ran, half-fell along the
crazily-tilted passage to the administrative center at the ship's core.
The door to the medical office was locked. Cursing savagely, Boone drew
back and to one side and fired a glancing bolt.
The door swung wide, the lock and half the panel shattered.
Inside, Boone pawed the supply chest into chaos, then turned to the
wall cabinets.
A case of mekronal ampules stood on the first shelf.
Coughing as a new eddy of ammonia fumes curled round him, Boone
snatched down the carton and an extra aerojet injector, then ran from
the room and back along the passage to Eileen's cabin.
The air inside was a little better. Slamming shut the door, he tossed
down the ampules and began wadding the first of Eileen's garments to
come to hand into the wall vent.
A faint voice whispered, "Fred...."
Boone spun around. "Eileen--!"
She smiled, the pale wraith of a smile. But her eyes had lost their
fever-wildness. Her cheeks were no longer quite so flushed.
"What's ... the matter, Fred?"
"Nothing. Nothing." Futilely, Boone groped for some convincing fable.
"It's just--you've been down with Titan fever--"
"Don't ... lie to me, Fred. Please tell me." And then: "Were there ...
monsters--?"
Of a sudden Boone could no longer face her. "Yes, there were monsters."
He pivoted; stuffed more clothing into the air vent. "All hands took
off in carriers. Now the ship's crashed--on Hyperion, maybe; someplace
with an ammonia-and-methane atmosphere, anyhow. The plates must have
sprung when we hit. The smudge outside is leaking in."
"Then--what--?"
Boone finished with the vent. Sliding down to the bunk, he tore open
the mekronal case with unsteady fingers; drew out an ampule.
"We'll try it on mekronal," he answered in a voice gone flat in spite
of him. "If we can last three hours till it takes effect, we still may
make it."
He readied the injector and sprayed the ampule's contents into Eileen's
bloodstream, then shot a second into his own.
The girl's hand touched his; held it. "I'm ... so tired...." Her eyes
closed.
She slept.
Seconds dragging by, melding into minutes. The cabin growing
uncomfortably warm, the air stale and stuffy.
A half-hour gone. Time for another ampule.
Again and again, Boone read the legend on the carton: _Mekronal is
an unanalyzed catalyst derived from the skeletal structure of the
non-carbon chemistry life-form_ Helgae _found on Titan. When injected
into the human bloodstream, it enables man to breathe all known
atmospheres, regardless of content, without toxic effect. Dosage: One
ampule every thirty minutes till three ampules have been injected.
Repeat weekly until return to normal oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Takes
effect within approximately three hours after first injection though an
additional one-hour safety factor is recommended_.
"Takes effect within approximately three hours after first
injection...."
Three endless hours.
Or the other line--"Enables man to breathe all known atmospheres,
regardless of content, without toxic effect."
Did that include carbon dioxide atmospheres like the one now forming in
this cabin?
Bleakly, Boone wondered. He checked his chronox.
Time for the third injection.
Maybe it would be better to take no chances--move Eileen to a lower
point, where the air was clearer.
Besides, the heat here by the bunk was becoming almost unbearable.
Already, both of them were drenched with sweat.
_Sweat! Heat--!_ Boone went rigid.
There shouldn't be any heat to speak of--not if they lay in a
plate-sprung ship on Hyperion's frigid surface!
Then what--?
Boone could find no ready answer.
The air grew thicker, thicker. Eileen's breathing steadily became more
labored.
* * * * *
Freeing her from the safety pack, Boone carried her to the room's
lowest corner. She roused a little, then sank back once more, as if
even consciousness had become an effort.
More seconds. More minutes.
Then, slowly, the pressure on Boone's lungs seemed to lift. Depression
and weariness fell away. New energy flowed through him.
He dared a look at his chronox.
Three hours and seventeen minutes!
Of a sudden he was giddy with exaltation. He wanted to shout, to laugh
and leap.
From the corner, Eileen whispered, "Fred, have we made it?"
Wordless, he stumbled to her.
Her eyes were open, cool and steady. The last flushed traces of fever
had vanished.
"Eileen--!" he choked, "Eileen...." and strained her to him.
Then, because he could not trust his own emotions further, he rose and
took up the blaster. "I'll go take a look around, get you something to
eat."
The corridor outside was thick with the alien atmosphere. But though it
stung his eyes a little, his lungs now accepted it without protest.
Watchful, wary of monsters, he made his way to the galleys and gathered
up a sack of food, wolfing down a whole can of meat synthetic in the
process.
Eileen was up and dressed when he returned. Grinning, he watched her
eat with the eager hunger of the fever-famished.
When she had finished and he got up to leave again, she rose also.
"Fred, I'm going with you."
He shook his head. "You're too weak. You need to take it easy."
"Please, Fred."
For an instant his eyes met hers and he knew again that now, as always,
he never could deny her. "All right. Just for a little way."
Together, his arm about her, they left the cabin ... turned down the
corridor that led to the nearest carrier lock.
The hatch hung free, sprung from its hinges. Bracing himself, Boone
levered it open.
Eileen caught her breath. "Fred--!"
He twisted; stared out past her.
The sight that met his eyes set his senses reeling.
For here lay no frozen wastes, no icy crags and barrens.
Instead, a blaze of living color spread before him, kaleidoscopic in
its brilliance. Huge flowers like none that he had ever seen carpeted
the foreground in clumps of yellow, red, green, purple--every color of
the rainbow. Strange trees stretched upward towards the shining blue
vault of the sky, rustling and swaying in the gentle breeze.
"Fred--!" Eileen's hand rested on his shoulder. "Fred, it's beautiful!"
Her words broke the spell. "Beautiful? Yes, of course it is," Boone
nodded, frowning. "But the question is, where are we? There's no planet
like this anywhere in our whole solar system, so far as I know--"
He broke off; moved out into the carrier-cradle proper, where he could
get a broader field of vision.
To the right, the flowerland stretched away to rolling hills that
spread as far as he could see.
To the left--
He went rigid.
Beyond the flower-fields, strange, low domes rose--grey-silver domes
whose very lines and curves bespoke an alien pattern. One atop the
other they piled in a jumbled, sprawling mass like bubbles trapped in
cooling lava. Boone could only guess how many miles of ground they
covered.
Yet it was a scene of a kind he'd seen before, once, on microreels in
IC's confidential archives.
Behind him, Eileen caught her breath. "Those things--Fred, are they
buildings?"
"Buildings?" Boone hesitated; fumbled. "I don't know. I guess that you
might call them that."
"You guess--? Then you recognize them!" Eileen's blue eyes were
suddenly worry-shadowed. "Tell me, Fred. Don't hold back. Is something
wrong? Where are we?"
For a long, long moment Boone stared away at the distant dome-pile.
"No, nothing's wrong," he said at last. "Maybe it's even better luck
than we could hope for." And then: "But wherever we are, Eileen, one
thing's for certain: That place is a Helgae city!"
CHAPTER III
It was a situation that held Boone tense, uneasy.
On the one hand, the Helgae domes loomed over the paradisaical
flowerland where the sphere-ship lay in strange, silent menace.
On the other, aboard the globe, he could not but chill to the
recollection of the monsters.
As for Eileen ... Boone wondered. She had said not a word about their
earlier trouble--his desperation-born effort to keep her from making
the Titan run; its sudden reversal and her triumph. Yet after the first
moments of tenderness and relief at their own survival the clash hung
like an invisible wall between them. Out of it, a reserve had come into
being--a weighing of words, a wary watching.
Or was that only his imagination?
Regardless, they had to adjust to each other's presence; to work out
some solution to their mutual problem.
Cautious exploration finally convinced him that the monsters had
vanished from the ship as mysteriously as they'd come. It didn't
surprise him; it had been the pattern in every such invasion--nightmare
figures materializing out of the void to wreak chaos aboard the IC's
Titan-bound craft, then disappearing again, back into whatever dark
limbo they called home.
Too, the carrier towards which the dead ensign had been running when
the monster seized him was still aboard; apparently the blast-charge
had jammed its locks. So there was at least a slim chance for escape.
It was enough for Boone. He persuaded Eileen that, weak as she was, it
would be best to stay in her cabin and eat and sleep and rest while
they waited for night and stars that might give them some clue as to
where they were.
For his own part, he moved from one empty carrier-cradle to another,
studying the landscape and the sky.
The effort brought only bafflement. Here and there in the distance,
great mountains towered. But always, the blue of the heavens seemed to
chop off their highest peaks, as if the sky were a translucent ceiling
that they pierced.
Nor could he find the sun, save as a vague, luminous glow that shifted
slowly towards the far horizon.
Yet the astrogation microreels showed no satellite or planet short of
Venus with an atmosphere thick enough to give such an effect.
Then, at last, the light began to fade. Eagerly, Boone waited for the
stars.
Instead, a pitch-black night came down. Only in one tiny spot, almost
directly over the fallen globe-ship, could he detect a spark of light.
Then it, too, vanished.
Boone cursed aloud.
But when, once again, he scanned the sky, the spark was back where it
had been.
Or was it? Before, the glint had shone cold and blue. Now, it seemed to
have a faint orange cast.
He settled down to watching it, as nearly without blinking as he could.
For a few minutes it grew brighter, then faded again till only ebon
black remained.
Still Boone held his eyes on the place where it had been.
A dim, greenish glow, so pale he could not be sure that it was really
there. Then a pin-prick of undeniable light.
Minutes, ticking by.
A rustle of movement. At his elbow, Eileen said, "Fred, that
light--this black--I don't understand."
"I'm afraid I do." Boone rubbed the stiffness from his neck and quit
trying to watch the spark above. "We've always thought of the outer
worlds as rock and ice. Where this one's concerned, we were wrong.
There's ice, all right, but at least in places it's just a shell, with
a warm pocket underneath."
He could hear Eileen's breath hiss in the darkness. "Then you mean--"
"Yes. We must have been crossing this planetoid's orbit when the crew
abandoned ship. It's too small to have much gravity, but there was
enough to pull us in. So we crashed through the ice-shell and landed
here."
* * * * *
The girl's body touched his. He could feel her shiver. "Then those
lights we see are the stars as they pass above the hole we made? We'll
have to go through it again to get back into space?"
"That's right." Boone put his arm about her shoulders. "It shouldn't
be too hard. I'm betting this is Hyperion--and that means we are close
enough to jump to Titan, even in a carrier. We'll know for sure when it
gets light again. I can check the time from sunset to sunrise against
the tables that show how long it takes Hyperion to revolve on its
axis."
"You make it seem so easy." Eileen sighed. "In a way, I'm not even sure
I want to go."
"That has a nice sound." Boone held her closer.
But she twisted. "No. It--it isn't what you think, Fred."
Boone let his arm fall. He frowned into the darkness. "Then why--?"
"Can't you guess?" All at once the girl sounded weary; almost bitter.
"There's going to be trouble, Fred. Trouble with Krobis. You know that."
"Oh."
"He won't forget what you did. He'll break you for it. And--and I won't
like that."
"You ... won't like it?"
"You know I won't. You--you saved my life."
Boone could feel his muscles tensing. In spite of him, his voice came
edged: "Then that's all that's bothering you? You just don't want to
see me get in trouble?"
"No, no!--Oh, I don't know!" Eileen's words were suddenly stumbling and
uneven. "It's just that--well, you showed me something, Fred, when you
tried to stop me. How you feel about me. How my work doesn't really
matter to you."
"I see." Boone's mood turned raw and savage. "Maybe you even figure
like Krobis pretended he did--that I was just jealous of your
assignment when I barged into this business."
"Fred!" And then: "You're trying to hurt me, Fred. I hurt you, so now
you want to pay me back."
He didn't answer.
A moment of silence. At last Eileen said, "I--I think I'll go to bed.
I'm still awfully tired. That fever...."
Her voice trailed away. Then, after another moment, her shoes whispered
on the cradle-plates.
Still Boone stared bleakly out into the darkness.
The whispering footsteps faded, died. He stood alone, in utter silence.
Even the murmur of the breeze in the trees about the ship was stilled.
That stillness--it made him frown a little. It wasn't natural, somehow.
As a matter of fact, was anything natural in this weird, ice-shelled
wonderland? Even the flowers lacked kinship with those he'd known on
Earth.
Or did they?
It came to him in a flash that what he needed now was action. The
night, the silence, the bitter disillusion--they'd rasped his nerves in
a raw tension. Unless he cut it loose, something would snap.
The flowers, then, could serve as an outlet.
First, he'd get a light-rod....
Pivoting, he strode back along the carrier guides to the hatch ...
started to step through.
From the other side came the hiss of a quick-drawn breath.
Boone froze. "Eileen...."
A tremulous laugh. "Fred, I came back. I--I was afraid."
"Oh." He made it curt. "I'm going out as soon as I can find a light."
"I've got one." A beam blazed in the black, half-blinding him. "You're
going--out--?"
"Yes. Down onto the ground. I want a closer look at some of those
flowers."
It was a belligerent statement, geared for more trouble. But Eileen's
tone stayed almost humble: "Can I come with you?"
"If you want to." Boone took the light-rod and, with no further words,
led the way down to the sphere-ship's lowest level and out through
another carrier-cradle.
* * * * *
Just short of the mouth, he paused. Lowering himself carefully from the
cradle-lip, he tested the ground.
It had the slightly spongy feel of thick carpeting, but there was no
question but that it would hold his weight. Spraying the light out in
a quick arc, he checked for other dangers--of just what sort he wasn't
sure--and then helped Eileen down.
Already, he felt better; perhaps even a trifle chagrined at the
emotions that had brought him here.
But it wasn't in him to show that now. Crossing to the nearest
flower-clump, he spread the petals of a half-opened bud.
They were gigantic--three times the size of any he'd ever seen before.
Within the corolla lay half-a-dozen concentric rings of thread-like,
sharply differentiated tendrils.
He frowned; spoke half to himself: "Which are the stamens?"
"Or are there any?" Eileen slid a fingernail across the rippling
tendrils. "Maybe this is a different kind of plant than we know--one
based on six sexes instead of two."
"Maybe." Still frowning, Boone picked another flower to study. Again,
as earlier up in the carrier-cradle, he was acutely conscious of the
blackness pressing in about them; the utter silence. It brought a queer
prickling along his spine.
Eileen brushed against him. "Fred, why can't we let this wait till
morning? After all, what do we know about this place, or the Helgae?"
There was a tremor in her voice.
"The Helgae?" Stubbornly, Boone shrugged off his own mood. "If they
could do anything to humans, they'd have done it when IC started
operations out on Titan. As for this place--" He tilted the light-rod
up to illuminate the ground ahead.
Its beam stopped short a bare six feet before them, cut off as
completely as by a wall.
Eileen clutched his arm. "Fred--!"
Boone whipped the beam left.
Six feet it carried; no more.
Whirling, he pointed it back in the direction from which they had come,
squarely at the sphere-ship.
But there was no ship; or if there was, the light-beam could not reach
it.
Panic gripped Boone--the black, surging panic that roars up in a tidal
wave when Man stands face to face with the unknown. Dimly, he knew that
Eileen had swayed against him; that instinctively he'd thrown his arm
about her. That was all.
Yet in spite of it, now, he forced himself into striding forward--one
creaking step ... two ... three....
The light-beam shortened with each step.
The truth dawned on him, then: The beam stopped short as if cut off by
a wall ... because, indeed, a wall had risen up before it!
A dull, translucent wall of silvery grey.
Numbly, he lanced the beam skyward.
There, too, it broke on the grey shell.
Boone's panic channeled into fury. He spun about; struck savagely at
the barrier.
Blood spurted from split knuckles. The wall remained.
Twisting, he hurled his full weight against the barrier.
Again, it threw him back.
He straightened, then; swung round the light-rod, searching the shell
for some flaw, some weakness.
He found none.
Beside him, Eileen was sobbing. "Fred, what's happened?"
"What's happened--?" Boone laughed, a harsh and bitter laugh. "We're
trapped, Eileen; that's what: Trapped in a Helgae bubble like those
domes we saw!"
Her tears died. She stared at him. "But the Helgae can't hurt humans--"
"They can't?" He threw out the query like a challenge. "What do we
really know about it?"
"But--on Titan--"
"On Titan, we found what we thought was a dead or dying culture. No
one's ever seen Helgae alive. Or maybe we have. They're a non-carbon
chemistry life-form. The elemental blobs we figured for skeletal
structure may actually be their version of organic matter. Our mekronal
units could have been smashing the golden age of their civilization,
for all we really know."
The girl's face blanched. "No! It can't be!"
"Why can't it?" Her opposition lashed Boone to new fierceness. "Man's
never found a way to communicate with any other life-form--not even on
our own home planet! We can't talk to ants or paramecium, let alone
Martian torglors or Callistan crustachs. But we're egoists, so we've
taken it for granted we're the only truly intelligent creatures. All
over the system, we've moved in at will, taken what we wanted, because
we had the power to do it. But maybe the Helgae are different. Maybe,
on their plane, they can think as well as we, or better. Do you think
they won't react when the Cartel rips apart their cities and hauls them
off by millions for the sake of the mekronal that can be extracted from
their bodies?"
* * * * *
Eileen drew back. Her eyes distended. "You're mad, Fred! The
Helgae--they'd strike back if they were alive or had the power to
think!"
"Maybe they have. Maybe that's the origin of Titan fever, and the
monsters that appear aboard our sphere-ships." Boone hammered on the
shell that caged them. "Or would you like to deny this bubble, too?
Whether it came down from above or grew up from below, it's here--and
I, for one, can't break it!"
Eileen's lips were quivering. Her face averted. Her shoulders shook.
"Fred--oh, Fred...."
Then she was crumpling. Barely in time, Boone caught her; held her.
What was there in him that made him strike out so at her? Jealousy,
as Krobis said? Frustration at their plight here? A projection of the
rage he felt towards himself for having been fool enough to leave the
security of the sphere-ship to come out here in the black night without
decent reason?
Or was it as some forgotten poet had said in a line of verse that he
remembered--"For each man kills the thing he loves...."
He cursed aloud.
The night dragged on, with Boone cradling the girl in his arms. There
were no more words between them.
Then pale light came, filtered and dim within the grey translucence of
the bubble. Eileen roused, suddenly wild-eyed and rigid. "Fred--"
"Easy, girl. We're still inside the bubble." And then, to soothe her:
"Don't worry. They wouldn't have taken the trouble to make us prisoners
if they'd planned to kill us right away."
She didn't answer.
Wearily, Boone got up and started towards the shell's closest wall.
But as he did so, the ground seemed to come alive beneath his feet.
Crackling and crumbling it tilted so sharply that he was pitched from
his feet.
Then earth and flower-sod alike were sliding. Loose loam cascaded over
Boone. Desperately, he tried to find Eileen amid the welter.
"Here, Fred! Behind you!"
Floundering, Boone craned to see her.
She stood close to the shell's wall, braced against it.
Then another tremor threw him flat; half-buried him.
Clawing, cursing, he wallowed towards the girl.
She darted forward in the same instant. Her hand locked on his. With a
final effort he shook free of the clods and lurched panting to a place
at the wall beside her.
Another jolt. Again the earth slipped from beneath his feet. Yet now,
since he had the wall to brace him, the surge of movement did not fell
him.
Then it dawned on him that the shell itself was sliding, sliding
upwards!
It was Eileen who gave the answer: "Lean back, Fred! The bubble's
rolling, that's all. The dirt keeps sliding forward." Strangely, her
voice was steady now; calm, almost.
After that, there was no more time for talking. Faster and faster,
the grey sphere careened onward, bumping and bouncing. A dozen times,
one or the other of them fell. But as long as they held their places
against the rear wall, the earth and clods spilled away from them, so
that with sweat and scrambling they managed each time to regain their
footing.
Then, at long last, the strange globe slowed and changed direction.
The surface beneath it seemed smoother now, and the bubble moved in
arcs and curves. Shadows fell across it. The light grew dim, then faded
altogether.
More movement, through long lanes of utter darkness. Strange sounds,
faint whispers in the stillness.
Then, abruptly, light again--a blaze of it, dazzling and incandescent.
The bubble halted.
A crash of silent thunder, more felt than heard.
Its impact pitched Boone and Eileen forward into the dirt. The globe
split into segments like a quartered orange.
Half-stunned, they stared about.
* * * * *
It was a chamber such as Boone had never seen before--a great, bare
bubble-room whose very walls radiated chill white light.
Lurching to his feet, he stumbled down from the tumbled earth.
Two steps he took. And then, incredibly, he could go no further, for
out of nowhere, a new bubble, crystal clear and barely large enough for
him to stand erect, had formed around him.
He spun about.
Like him, Eileen stood in a solitary global prison. Stiff-faced with
fear, she gestured to him--helpless, hopeless.
He hammered at the shimmering wall in furious frenzy. But to no avail.
The casing gave no more than had that of the cell in which he and
Eileen had come.
His sphere began to move away from Eileen's, then. Like a huge ball it
rolled, spinning out in an arc that carried it through some unseen exit
that led from the chamber of chill white light.
Darkness again.
But only briefly, this time. Then, once more, the globe halted. New
light came, a warm and golden glow.
Again, Boone peered forth.
Now he lay in a sort of amphitheatre, it seemed--a bubble joined on
all sides by a thousand other, smaller bubbles.
Each lesser sphere held one of the Helgae.
Fascinated, Boone studied them through the clear walls of his cage; and
never did man look on stranger creatures.
For their bodies were mottled, shapeless blobs--limbless, with no
visible trace of sensory organs. They could as well have been lumps of
mud or metal, for all that Boone could see.
Perhaps the men at the Titan base had been right. It outraged human
reason even to dream that such things could have intelligent,
independent life.
Only then an alien thought flashed through Boone's mind--a thought
without meaning, couched in terms no mammalian brain could ever have
defined.
Boone groped; floundered.
Another thought-tendril reached him, even less translatable than the
first. He felt an uneasiness, a twinge almost of conscience, as if this
were a thing that duty demanded he should grasp.
But effort made no slightest difference. Though he strained till his
temples throbbed, the concept remained beyond his powers to understand.
Shaking, he gripped his head between his hands.
Now the patterns came in dozens, hundreds. Boone's brain reeled under
their impact. He staggered, cried out in helpless fury.
As swiftly as they had come, the alien intellects withdrew.
Weak, drenched with sweat, Boone slumped to the bottom of his sphere.
As he did so, the golden glow that bathed him changed to deepest purple.
Taut, eyes flickering, Boone watched and waited.
Slowly, a new sensation came.
This time, there was no alien thought-projection--if, indeed, it had
been that which he had felt before.
Rather, now, the other minds were probing his own
brain-cells--searching his cortex with tendrils a thousand times more
delicate than Man's finest nerve-ends; wringing out his thoughts as
one might squeeze water from a sponge. There was a laying-bare of
dreams dredged from the deep subconscious, a draining off of skills and
knowledge.
And agony came with it--an agony that rose from soul, not body; a
pain that seared beyond all human ken. Through a thousand years it
stretched, that pain--a thousand years when seconds lasted eons.
Boone writhed and screamed. At least, he thought he did. For never,
never, so long as he should live, could he be quite sure.
Yet he knew, somehow, that, lacking a universe of discourse, the things
the Helgae sought most were still locked in his brain. Like him, they
could not bridge the chasm that yawned between such different minds.
Then it was over and the glow of purple, too, was fading. The probing
minds drew back their tendrils. Boone's sphere dissolved into a place
of glorious, delirium-born darkness and he was falling ... falling....