Earth Alert!, Kris Neville [best value ebook reader TXT] 📗

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!**

CHAPTER V

The thing Walt first noticed was the hugeness of space around his tiny, falling ship. Through the viewplate above him—he was supine—the vast, star-set blackness seemed infinite, seemed to suck his mind out of his body until it was connected only by a tenuous thread. He had seen space from the great wheel that was dwindling behind him; but never before had its immediacy been impressed on him with such force: here, it was an intimate wrapping, clutching at him from all sides.

He had pointed out as nearly as he could determine it from brief, telepathic contact (the aliens showed him how to center on her) Julia's location on the planet. The aliens had promised to land him in an unpopulated area on the same part of the continent. The aliens' thoughts did not come through the shielding around their space station; nor did the thoughts of his compartment-mates. For the first time in his life, he was terribly alone.

Earth grew in the viewplate; expanding majestically to obliterate the surrounding space, it grew shimmery along its almost regular circumference. The orbit of his saucer-shaped ship flattened into a great spiral. The ship twisted around the Earth from shadow to light and then into shadow again as if it were attached to the loose end of a piece of string being wound up by the slowly turning planet. Gravity pressed his body, crushed him; a sudden, sickening drop left him weightless.

The aliens maneuvered his ship carefully. Walt could not—as the aliens could—be immersed in a liquid tank to make possible instantaneous changes of direction. They let him down tenderly.

Hello, Julia thought brightly.

It was frightening. Here was a Lyrian whose mind had pierced even the wheel's shielding! How could he hope to kill her?

He stared at the approaching planet, and his hands tightened beneath the pressing layers of the acceleration cocoon that enfolded him.

But I, he thought: I was able to contact her through the shielding, too. I was the only one who did; nobody else reported her. It's all right: she's no stronger than I am.

I know you're there, she thought.

I'll wait to answer, he thought; he tried to hold his mind shut.

You're traveling very fast: Much too fast!

The ship lurched a bit, slowing down. Then—for several seconds—he was as much in Calvin's mind as his own; their minds blended. The shielding did not stop that. Calvin was waiting at the foot of the ladder for him to return. Don't wait,