Читать книгу Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack - Edmond Hamilton - Страница 13

Calvin practiced teleportation for endless hours. He kept the metal ball Forential had given him in almost constant motion.

He would exclaim delightedly and hurl it toward one of the twenty-seven other mutants in his compartment. Until the time he hit John in the back of the head with it, his intended victims had always parried it. John lay in a pool of blood, and Calvin began to cry—loud, shrill wails of despair and contrition. When Forential came, he knew instinctively what had happened.

Calvin represented the only failure the aliens had experienced in their mutation program; ten years ago his mind had ceased to develop. But for Forential’s intercession, the council would have had him destroyed long ago; Forential, like a proud parent, kept hoping to overcome Calvin’s heredity.

Forential waved his tentacles in exasperation. “You, here, Walt,” he said. “We’ll have to hurry. I’ll show you how, and you can do it.”

Walt, the most adept mutant in the compartment, listened attentively and then began to heal John. His face wrinkled in deep concentration. Flesh came together; blood ceased to flow; bone knitted. Forential grunted approval.

“Watch Walt, now,” the alien instructed. “He’s doing it nicely.”

The others, breath held, watched.

At length John’s head was healed. John stirred. He opened his eyes and looked about angrily. He stood up and hit Calvin in the face with his fist. Calvin, tears streaming down his cheeks, fingered his nose and sobbed brokenly. He put out a hand to touch Walt reassuringly.

Walt was his friend.

Walt—he had no other name—was six feet two inches tall, and, as Julia observed, handsome. His parents—he did not know this—were Americans; he had never seen them. He had been stolen from the hospital by Forential shortly after he was born. The alien, invisible, had come for him, clucked softly, wrapped him in a warm, invisible mantle, and taken him away; and the council of aliens had drawn a line through the names of another set of parents who had been exposed to the powerful, mutation-inducing field. Walt thought of Forential—in charge of their compartment—as a friend, as a parent, as a playmate, and as a counselor.

*

Shortly after Walt had healed John, the mutants of the smaller compartment gathered at the observation screen in the floor—or what was to them the floor: it was actually the broad rim of the wheel. They could look down at the screen and see a somewhat flickering image of Earth lying below their feet.

“Forential told us we’d get many strange powers . . . .” one said.

Just before we went down to the planet, another completed the thought.

It’s growing time, then.

They laughed together with excitement, and Calvin cracked his knuckles nervously.

“Let’s play a trick on Forential,” Calvin said. “Let’s see if we can go through the bulkhead.” His face was bright and hopeful. “Let’s huh?”

Calvin raced to the far end of the compartment. “Come on!”

Like guilty children, they looked at one another. Then a few of them joined Calvin. All right, let’s.

“Don’t,” Walt cautioned. “It’s just machinery on the other side.”

Why can’t our thoughts penetrate it, then?

We aren’t developed enough, Walt thought.

“Huh?” Calvin asked. He began pounding the bulkhead with his fist.

“No,” one of the other mutants said. “Like this.” He concentrated and tried to put a hand through the bulkhead.

We aren’t developed enough.

Still the mutants continued. Since the aliens had stepped up the power in the two transmitters (power that closed the final connection in the mutants’ brains and held it closed) the mutants were able to assault any problem with the full potentialities of the human brain. But even that was not enough. The aliens had planned carefully in order to keep the two mutant groups from discovering each other.

*

Forential came to make a special announcement. He spoke English with an accent that the mutants (who had learned the language from him) could not even imitate. As he surveyed them, his eyes shone with pride: they were a good, sturdy, healthy lot. “Children,” he said. “Earth is now in the middle of a war. There will be little work left for us within another two months.”

Calvin cried and waved his arms wildly and bounced the ball viciously around the room. Every earthman who killed an earthman was depriving him personally, of a victim. He wrung his hands.

“There’ll be a thousand or so left, Calvin,” Forential promised. “You must practice very diligently to be able to cope with them.”

Calvin sniffed and shook his head. “I can kill that many in a minute. You stop the war, Forential, please.”

“Think of it this way,” Forential said. “The less work there is to do, the sooner you can return to your own planet.”

“There’s no earthmen to kill on Lyria,” Calvin insisted stubbornly. “Please stop the war.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” The alien smiled kindly. “You have the proper spirit. You are all very good children. You hurry, now, and practice all you can.”

I can see Lyria’s star now, Walt thought. We’ll be home in another year, then. How welcome that will be . . . .

He had not broadcast the thought. And suddenly, as if on another channel, another frequency, he felt Calvin in his mind and his mind in Calvin’s—an odd, unexpected blending of thoughts that seemingly had occurred unconsciously.

Forential describes it so it is so pretty, our planet, Calvin was thinking: Green wartle rivers whack throw the ball at him, easy now . . . . God, I hate those earthmen.

“I’ll practice,” Walt made Calvin say. He made Calvin hold the ball stationary. Then the contact between their minds was broken.

“Who did that?” Calvin demanded. “I’ll hit him and break all his bones!”

Forential smiled sadly at Calvin and withdrew.

“It’s nearly time,” a mutant rejoiced. “God, I hate them, every one of them.”

The mutants instinctively began forming their minds for the death radiation.

“They’ll issue the rods shortly,” Walt said.

Hatred blazed on Calvin’s face. He had already forgotten about the contact a moment before. “I will kill them even without a rod.”

“The radiation isn’t lethal unless we have something to focus it with, remember that.”

“With my hands!” Calvin cried happily. “I will kill them with my hands!”

Sweat beaded John’s face. “There will be enough of killing.”

It will be great pleasure to hunt them down.

They will kill some of us, Walt thought back. And, to himself: I wish I could be afraid.

Not me! Calvin thought joyously. It was uncertain when Calvin could telepath. Not me!

They have powerful weapons, too. Atom bombs, they are called. It will not be easy to kill them all. This thought came as a reminder from one of the aliens.

Calvin moved his powerful hands. “I can kill them all by myself.”

*

The smaller compartment, itself, was huge. To the left lay the hydroponics tanks, and to the right, the mutants’ cubicles. In the center of the compartment was the games space where the mutants boxed and wrestled and exercised with weights. The walls of each cubicle were so designed as to produce the illusion of great distances. The mutants would be required to face vast open spaces, and their cubicles partially conditioned them for the experience. Huge as their world was, it was miniscular compared to the one that would confront them.

Calvin, sitting beside Walt in Walt’s cubicle, was trying to express an abstract concept.

“ . . . Forential is afraid of earthmen,” he said. He puckered his face in a frown. “I have just thought of that.”

“Forential is afraid of everything,” Walt said respectfully.

“I remember once when I shoved him he was very afraid. I shouldn’t have,” Calvin said, “ . . . it must be wonderful to be afraid.”

“He is more advanced than we are.”

“We can kill earthmen, though,” Calvin said. “He’s too afraid to; so we get to kill them for him.”

“You got it wrong; you always get things wrong. We are killing earthmen for ourselves.”

“Oh, yes,” Calvin nodded. “I forget.”

“Forential is a friend,” Walt said. “He helps the Lyrians from the goodness of his heart.”

“Earthmen are very bad.”

“That’s right.”

“They are a great evil,” Calvin said excitedly.

“They must be killed.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Calvin agreed. “I will kill them with my hands.” He fell silent, thinking.

“ . . . there is a Lyrian on Earth,” Walt said slowly “I have been hearing her thoughts.”

“I can think to you,” Calvin said proudly. “Listen.” He concentrated. Muscles in his jaws quivered, “ . . . not today,” he said sadly. “My brain . . . sometimes . . . you know? . . . sometimes . . . .”

“I am hearing thoughts from a Lyrian on Earth,” Walt said in dull amazement. “Do you understand?”

“No; no.”

“It’s a female.”

“All the females are on Lyria . . . . This is a man’s work. We are . . . are going to fight for females, isn’t that right?”

“I tell you,” Walt said, “she’s down there. The first time, I thought I was mistaken.”

Calvin shook his head and flipped the ball toward an unseen mutant. “I can do that good,” he said. The ball whistled back at him through the cubicle wall—leaving the wall unmarked as the atoms of one passed through the atomic spaces of the other. Happily, Calvin stopped it in mid flight.

“She’s down there,” Walt said. “I’ll have to tell Forential about her.”

Calvin tapped his head and smiled. “I think funny thoughts some times, too. You go see Forential. He can’t help, but you go see him, Walt.”

“I wasn’t sure until just before you came in,” Walt said.

“You go see him,” Calvin said.

Walt stood up. “I was thinking with her just a little while ago. I don’t understand it.”

“I can think to you . . . some times.”

“I’ll be back,” Walt said.

*

At the steel ladder leading up toward the alien section, Walt stopped and pressed the emergency-audience button. He waited for permission to ascend the ladder. Under no circumstance would he have ascended without it. The permissive light blinked.

He began to climb. At the ceiling hatch, he grunted and pressed against it with his shoulders. The hatch lifted away. He continued upward. Gravity lessened. His feet made soft, rustling noises.

He paused to rest at the first landing. He was in familiar territory. Fierut let the mutants from the smaller compartment help clean the machinery there every month or so. The air smelled of crisp ozone and hot oil.

Then as he rested, he saw movement behind one of the huge, softly purring machines. Although he could not know this, it was a female from the larger compartment. Muscles knotting, he waited.

He saw her again—the merest glint of flesh. She had not seen him. He half crouched.

It is impossible, he told himself. Only my compartment-mates and Forential and others of his race are on the ship.

Walt did not even think of trying for telepathic contact. Blind hatred overcame him. She’s an earthling! he thought instinctively.

She has been left here for a test; that’s it, he thought. Forential is testing me . . . .

He crept cautiously toward her. Still she was unaware of him.

I will break her neck, so . . . .

No, he thought suddenly.

Forential has brought her here for questioning. He would be angry if I harmed her. He does not intend it for a test after all.

He crouched undecided, trying to think. I better leave her, he thought.

He was motionless, watching. If I killed her, he thought, Forential might be angry.

He slipped silently toward the ladder.

Perhaps, he thought, Forential will give her to me to dispose of when he finishes with her.

He remembered seeing Forential dispose of several captured earthlings. It was a very satisfying thing to watch. Forential promised us some, Walt thought, but he never gave us any. But I guess I was wrong in thinking he was too cowardly to risk another trip to Earth for them . . . .

Just as he reached the ladder, he whirled. The female had seen him. She had started toward him. His eyes sparkled in anticipation.

She’s a Lyrian! he thought in amazement.

Damned earthmen, she thought.

No, I . . . .

For a long moment they were motionless. Then Walt, keeping a suspicious eye on her until he was above the second ceiling continued to climb.

*

In the alien compartment, the gravity was so low that Walt almost floated. He propelled himself toward Forential’s cubicle.

“Come in,” Forential said, sensing him. Forential looked up when he entered.

“I saw a female Lyrian in the machinery room!” Walt blurted.

There was a moment of silence. Forential’s face grew a shade paler. “ . . . did she see you?”

Of course, Walt thought.

It was an effort for Forential to telepath in English. He preferred vocalizing. Staring at Walt with his faceted, unblinking eyes, he thought in his own language, a language earthlings were incapable of learning: **Lycan, you idiot! You told me the machinery room was clear! One of my charges has seen one of yours!**

**I have great regret,** Lycan answered. **I, I overlooked her.**

**We cannot risk the compartments discovering each other.** Forential thought angrily.

“This is not all,” Walt said. There is one on Earth!

Forential’s tentacles stiffened. What? It was almost involuntary: unbelieving: terrified.

“There is one on Earth. A female.”

**I have regretfully disposed of the one he saw,** Lycan telepathed. **Have you disposed of the one who saw her?**

**Send out a call for the Council!** Forential broadcast hysterically. **One more set of parents than we were aware of was exposed to our field! There is an unindoctrinated mutant on Earth!**

“Are you sure?” Forential demanded of Walt.

“What about the one I saw a minute ago?” Walt persisted.

“ . . . she came on the last ship from Lyria,” Forential lied curtly.

“Oh? I would like to talk to her. We all would. Can we, Forential?”

The alien was outwardly impassive. “We’ll see. Never mind her right now. Tell me about this one on Earth.”

“I heard her thoughts.”

Forential lay his tentacles on his desk. They scrabbled nervously. “How long have you known?” How did she manage to break through our telepathic shielding? he wondered. He made an inward snarl of surprise . . . powerful mind! . . . Then he went weak with temporary relief: Suppose we hadn’t found out about her until the invasion? We had to know now while there’s time! How much does she . . . ?

“Just today, for sure. Once or twice before . . . .”

Walt told Forential all he knew about Julia. He spoke quickly, and with rising excitement.

*

By the time he was finished, the council had convened. The circuits were open. Forential fed them the information Walt had just given him. Their incomprehensible language crackled beyond Walt’s thought range.

**We must destroy her at once.**

**Unconditioned! Unconditioned: no telling how much information she has.**

A terrified thought: **Danger, danger, danger!**

Forential’s eyes did not leave Walt’s face. His thoughts were assessing the situation even under the force of the shock . . . . The one called Julia had to be under the influence of the larger transmitter; all the mutants had been bred for that frequency. It was only years later that the ones in the smaller compartment had been adjusted to the other frequency. If the larger transmitter were to be shut down, then it would interrupt Lycan’s training schedule for nearly a thousand mutants. But it would also render Julia an earth-normal . . . .

“ . . . we’ll try to teleport her here,” Forential said. “You have had contact with her. Can you regain it?”

“I think, yes.”

“I will explain the process,” Forential said.

“Yes . . . yes . . .,” Walt said from time to time as he listened. He nodded his head excitedly. “I have it! I understand! I can do it!”

“You are in contact with her through the shielding? Do not think of her now. Just touch her. Can you?”

“Yes,” Walt said.

“You feel the grip on her I explained?” Forential said eagerly.

“Yes!”

Now yank her!

Walt yanked.

Julia didn’t budge.

“ . . . I slipped,” Walt said apologetically. Sweat glistened on his upper lip.

“Try again!” Forential ordered.

**Cut the power in the big transmitter,** he instructed.

The aliens had been unwilling to complete their mutations. To do so would have given the mutants too much autonomy. By arranging to have the final effects dependent upon the transmission of certain frequency impulses, the aliens could—in the unlikely event of difficulty with their charges—reduce them to earth-normals by the flick of a switch. It also was an arrangement necessary to their invasion plan. The aliens were careful.

**It’s cut.**

A moment later, Walt said, “She’s changed!”

(The mutants in the larger compartment had ceased to be able to hear or put their hands through walls.)

Now! Forential ordered.

A pause.

*

Walt let out his breath in an explosive burst. He shook his head. “It’s no use. I can’t.”

Forential’s tentacles went limp. He had known it was impossible to teleport higher life forms against their resistance; he had hoped she would have been caught off guard.

**Cut the transmitter in again,** Forential thought wearily.

**She’ll have to be killed,** Lycan projected with an undertone of terror.

**Send him down,** Fierut, the engineer, suggested, trembling in fear. **Since he has potential knowledge of the other compartment, he will have to be destroyed anyway if he remains. Send him down to kill her.**

**We can cut off his transmitter when the main force strikes. He can’t do us any harm down there . . . .**

“You’ll have to go down and kill her,” Forential told Walt. “She is a clever, clever traitor . . . .”

“Give me the focus rod, so I can practice the death radiation with it,” Walt said eagerly.

Forential answered smoothly, with scarcely an instant’s hesitation; but during that time, he explored the situation and his answer was a considered one. “No, you’ll have to go unarmed. We can’t run the risk of premature exposure.”

**Stress that,** the Elder insisted.

“I can kill earthmen, too?”

“Just her,” Forential said, knowing Walt would obey him. “Just her,” he repeated for emphasis. “Remember that. Approach her carefully. Do not let her suspect what you intend to do. Lie to her, Walt, anything to get close to her, and then . . . .”

**I’ll get a ship ready for him,** Lycan thought. **And some suitable clothes.**

“May I tell my mates goodbye?” Walt asked.

**Don’t forget he has seen the one from the other compartment,** the Elder reminded Forential sharply.

“No,” Forential lied. “You haven’t the time. You must leave immediately.”

**Tell him much depends on him,** the Elder thought.

“I can’t overstress the importance of this,” Forential said. He too, was trembling now as he began to see the possible implications; his tentacles quivered. His faceted eyes peered deeply into Walt’s face. “It will be a great service to Lyria and to all the people of your race.”

**It is a good planet,** Lycan thought. **We can’t lose it now!**

**We’ve already begun to breed for the gravity,** one of the others thought plaintively.

**By rights it should be ours.**

**The air is so good, so rich . . . .**

**We can’t lose it now!** Lycan insisted pathetically.

**Savages: the thought of the natives horrifies me! Hurry Forential!**

Forential thought to them with all the conviction he could muster: **This child of mine is very adept. He will kill her.**

“The ship will have to be destroyed as soon as you land,” Forential told the mutant. “That means you will have to remain until the invasion. Let me review all this again . . . .”

Walt’s hands jerked with nervous anticipation. “I understand, Forential.”

**The ship is ready any time, Forential.**

“Let me review this again . . . .”

As Walt listened, he thought; I wonder if earthmen can prevent themselves from being teleported? I hope not. I want to teleport them this way and that way, from all around me, whenever one comes close to me. It’s the easiest way to kill them. It’s a shame I couldn’t get the one on Earth . . . . She would have suddenly materialized, bloody, twisted, wrenched, turned inside out—a beautiful corpse; that’s what we should do with earthlings, and with traitors.

**Lycan: Hurry with your charges.**

**One more week, Elder. And they will be ready to attack!**