by Eando Binder
“There are seven thousand grains to a pound,” murmured Thane, calculating in his head. “So 2.4 ounces would be about 1050 grains. Then they are only ten Seeds short. That would mean a few weeks more of gleaning, unless some of the Seeds are slightly heavier, which is likely.”
Thane stared with haunted eyes at Miribel and Thalkon. “That makes the margin much too thin. They may reach critical mass in a month, or a week. Or tomorrow. And then…” Thane shuddered and put a hand to his eyes. “…the whole Earth suddenly leaving orbit and going through space. Weather upset… violent storms; earthquakes… the atmosphere ripped away…chaos for the world. And universal death. But where would they take this murdered world?”
“Perhaps they plan to make it a satellite of their own world, which is huge like Jupiter,” Thalkon said. “Then they would have a new world to colonize, right in their own back yard.”
“Clever,” Thane hissed. “Diabolically clever. In one stroke they wipe out the human race and place the stolen world near their home planet. The most frightfully cunning colonization plan ever conceived.”
“Stop, Thane,” Miribel said softly. “Stop torturing yourself. You remember the Vexxan, Kogg, telling us they had no use for Earth as a colony. It’s some other plan they have. Maybe they don’t plan to move Earth at all.”
“No, I have the deep-down feeling—hunch if you will—that they plan to move Earth somewhere.” Thane swung on Thalkon with tight lips. “We’ve got to rush back to Earth and go into high gear, ferret out their plans. We must locate their Collection Center and take those Seeds away before they gather a critical mass.”
“That is not going to be an easy job,” Thalkon said frankly. “It’s the biggest mystery about the Vexxans. Our ships have scoured the space around Earth for a hidden base, searched undersea in all the oceans, checked on worldwide caves, investigated all deserts and jungles. We keep their known bases under constant surveillance. But nowhere is there a sign of a Vexxan hideout where they could safely store the Seeds. It’s utterly baffling.”
Thalkon’s tone changed. “The only hope is to get a spy among them. You, Thane.”
“Me?” Thane echoed blankly. “How is a six-foot-two hairless human going to mingle with sawed-off furry dwarfs and get away with it?”
“You’ll see,” said Thalkon mysteriously, “when we return to the Vigilante space station near Earth.”
* * * *
In the millionth part of the blink of an eye, the transport ship left the majestic wonders of Unita and materialized near the giant space station. After flying in and debarking, along with a thousand new recruits to replace those that had left, Thalkon led Thane and Miribel to the Vigilante labs.
Thalkon strode up to a Vigilante scientist and asked, “Is the V-serum ready?”
The scientist turned and opened a plastic cabinet, taking out a vial of purple fluid. “We’ve refined it as much as possible. It should be safe to use now.”
Thalkon turned to Thane, holding the vial. “Last year, we obtained a small specimen of a Vexxan’s blood, after a hand-to-hand battle. From this specimen, our exobiologists were able to ascertain all the physiological characteristics of the Vexxans. They then compounded a serum that will change human flesh and mold it into an alien form—that of a Vexxan.”
“You can turn me into a Vexxan?” gasped Thane.
“Exactly. For twenty-four hours.”
“Jekyll and Hyde come true,” murmured Thane. “What happens after twenty-four hours?”
“That’s the risky part,” Thalkon said slowly. “If you don’t return in that time for an antidote, you will stay a Vexxan the rest of your life.”
Thane swallowed hard. Miribel had turned white. “The antidote has to be taken under a ray-machine. Hence, you can’t carry it along. You have the right to decline. No man can be ordered to undergo this… this loathsome experience…”
“The perfect spy!” Thane was muttering. “The chance to break this case wide open. I’m your man”—a wry smile came to his lips—“or your Vexxan.”
Miribel gave a sob and clung to him. “I know you have to do it, dear, but please come back before twenty-fours… please.”
“With you to come back to, how can I fail?” Thane said lightly. He gently disengaged her and turned to Thalkon. “Let’s plan the best way to do this spy job. I’ve got to get to the heart of things quickly. And the main thing is to find out where that Collection Center for Seeds is. How do I do that?”
Thalkon was silent, thinking. Thane paced the floor. “It’s simple,” Miribel said. “We still have that genuine Seed. In a Vexxan ship, you pretend to want to deliver it to the Collection Center and…”
“That’s it,” cried Thane. “They may have rules about who delivers a Seed, but I’ll work out something that will lead me to the Collection Center. The question is, do we have a Vexxan ship?”
“Yes,” Thalkon said. “Some time ago a Vexxan ship crashed on Earth and the crew was killed. We repaired the craft. Let’s check where it would be logical for you to claim finding a Seed.”
Thalkon led the way into a room filled with computers. On a pedestal was the globe model of Earth with a grid-pattern.
“The Vexxan search pattern I told you about before,” said Thalkon. He consulted a chart nearby. “Hmm. The Vexxan search area is now down in South America. You will go to a patch not yet examined… ah, this one, marked K-386 on the globe.”
They talked for some time, consolidating the plan and plugging all loopholes. Finally, Thane stretched cramped muscles. “Okay, no sense wasting time. I’m ready for the serum.”
“Not yet,” Thalkon denied. “You and Miribel must first return to your home on Earth and take up life after your ‘vacation’ trip, to avoid suspicion among your neighbors. The Vexxans won’t bother you if they can’t detect a Seed in your house with a Vibroscope. We’ll keep this Seed up here in the space station, of course.”
As Thane drove their small saucer Earthward, he saw a flash in space, as sunlight glinted off of a metallic object that was cylindrical shaped, with an ungainly contraption fastened to its nose.
“Another Apollo moonship,” he snapped. “Better use the anti-visio unit, Miribel, or they might spot us. It would never do for trained astronauts to report a saucer.”
Miribel turned their ship invisible and then spoke to Thane’s ghostly form. “Astronauts have reported UFO’s before, and even photographed them, especially on the Gemini flights.”
“Yes, I remember,” Thane said. “In 1964, the first unmanned Gemini flight was followed around Earth by four UFO’s, distinctly seen on radar. Ed White, James McDivitt, Frank Borman, John Young—they all reported UFO’s. And McDivitt took photos of the ‘bogeys’ following his spacecraft. Did you Vigilantes follow them?”
“No,” said Miribel. “It was another world that had sent scientists here to observe the debut of space travel on Earth.”
“Primitive Earth,” said Thane, bitterly. “Like observing the first ape pick up a club and use it.”
“Don’t trot out your bruised ego again,” Miribel teased. “You’re safely past the ape stage.”
“Thanks a lot. By the way, Lunar Orbiter Two, in 1966, photographed perfectly shaped domes on the moon, and also strange spires. The domes had moved, when next photographed. Anything of yours?”
“Yes, they are our mobile moon bases, plus antennas, with which we keep a long-range check on Earth.”
“Don’t you think that’s going to give the show away, if the astronauts actually stumble on your domes during a moon walk?”
“We would easily move them out of sight,” the girl said. “Besides, even reports from the astronauts are disbelieved, or explained away. NASA has never announced that genuine UFO’s have been seen. So again we’re safe.”
“It’s almost incredible,
” mumbled Thane. “Here we are sending men to the moon, and planning eventually to visit Mars and the other planets, yet we’re so egocentric that we can’t admit there could be space travel in reverse—from elsewhere to Earth. Scientists will cheerfully admit the universe is crammed with other civilizations. Yet they stubbornly dismiss all flying saucer reports and insist nobody has yet visited us.”
“Well, good luck, boys,” Thane waved at the vanishing spark heading for the moon. “You’re going 25,500 miles an hour. Guess I’ll rev up to 50,000 miles an hour and get home quick.”
Suiting action to words, Thane sent the frictionless saucer slicing down into Earth’s atmosphere. Their reentry required no fleet of Navy ships and helicopters and frogmen.
Chapter 15
Thane finished paying the bills and slapped the checkbook shut. It was a ridiculous contrast, this common Earthly chore being sandwiched between his Vigilante doings that would make the exploits of any adventurer on Earth pale insignificance. Yet it was necessary, this “domestic couple” front.
“We can leave now,” said Thane. But hearing a sound outside he leaped catlike to the window and peered out. His tenseness turned to a half-sick look. “Oh, no! That pesty windbag, Daryl Seatonburry III, again. We won’t get rid of him for at least an hour.”
Daryl came bouncing in when Miribel opened the door, all cheerfulness and smiles. “How are you, my dear friends? Just thought I’d drop in and wear you down some more. I’m determined, you know, to buy that strange flashing gem from you.”
“Sorry, Daryl,” he said, “no sale, like we said before.”
“Aw, you’re cruel,” the playboy wailed. He continued eagerly, “Listen, would you just let me borrow it for a few hours and keep it at my home. Would you, please?”
Thane shook his head. “Daryl, I hate to tell you this but I must now—we don’t have the gem anymore.”
“You sold it to someone else?” he screeched, horrified.
“No, we… er… lost it,” said Thane lamely. Anything to get this pest off their backs in the future.
“Lost it?” bleated the playboy, turning as pale as if the world were coming to an end. “No… no. Where did you lose it? Maybe I can retrieve it…”
Thane’s thoughts whirled. The blue-blooded wretch would hire a search team and spend a fortune, if it were in some ordinary spot. “No use, Daryl,” he said finally. “During our vacation trip we stopped at a smoldering volcano—we always carried the gem with us, since it was priceless. Well, the box slipped from my pocket and… eh… fell into some molten lava below. So you see it’s hopelessly gone. I cursed myself and all that but”—he spread his hands—“that’s the way the jewel bounces.”
He said it with pretended bravery masking pretended sorrow. “Now I know you want to go home and cry about it,” Thane continued, half-pushing Daryl to the door. “We won’t mind if you cut your visit short.”
“No, I’ll be all right,” said the playboy and Thane ground his teeth. “But I do need a drink at the shock.”
“We have no liquor in the house,” lied Thane.
“Then coffee will do,” sighed Daryl.
With a trapped glance at Thane, Miribel went to the kitchen, returning shortly with a pot of hot coffee. Thane had set the cups.
The playboy kept up a brittle chatter, as if manfully trying to forget about the gem. Thane glanced at the clock and contemplated throwing him out bodily, without explanation. But finally, Daryl rose to go.
At the door he turned with a tragic look. “How could you, Thane? How could you lose that priceless gem?” Then he was gone, and soon his gaudy sports car purred away.
Thane started to laugh at Daryl, but the look on Miribel’s face stopped him. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s something strange about that playboy,” she said slowly. “You remember how he drank liquor almost by the gallon at that masquerade party, yet never got the least tipsy? And how he never took a swim in his own pool?”
“What’s odd about that? I explained…”
“But tonight,” Miribel interrupted. “You didn’t notice but when I poured coffee for Daryl, I accidentally spilt some on his knee. He was unaware. Didn’t say ‘ow’ or wipe it with a napkin or anything. And it was scalding hot.”
“My dear, there have been innumerable cases of people losing all sense of feeling in portions of their skin. I don’t remember the name of the condition but you can look it up in any medical encyclopedia. Stop trying to make a freak out of Daryl Seatonburry. He’s a kook, yes, about gems, but otherwise normal. Except for idiosyncrasies, which none of us are free from.”
“All right,” Miribel sighed. “Forget it.”
“Good girl. It’s dark now. Good time to trundle out our saucer and meet Thalkon. Let’s go.”
* * * *
Up in the space station, Thalkon held the hypodermic full of the purple serum, while Thane bared his arm. “I think it best if you don’t see this, my child,” Thalkon said to his daughter.
“He’s right, dear,” Thane said.
Miribel looked at them. She went up and kissed Thane tenderly. Then she turned without a word and left the room. Thane had seen tears welling up in her indigo eyes. He was more determined than ever to return within twenty-four hours.
Thalkon injected the serum. “Now strip and stand under that ray-machine, Thane. It will trigger off the biological processes within your body.”
It took only an hour. As a purling green ray shone over his skin, Thane could feel the slow shrinking of his body. He could sense the body cells shifting and intermingling in a new way. It was biological magic of some sort, far beyond the understanding of Earthly science. It was some fantastic manipulation of the DNA factors in his cells, a super-metamorphosis of tissue. It was, in a sense, like changing gold into lead. Only here it was transmutation of human flesh into alien flesh.
Looking down, Thane saw his long legs shrinking into short gnarled limbs. Black hair began to sprout all over his skin. His five fingers joined together in an amorphous lump, out of which grew three fingers with long sharp talons.
There was no pain, only a weird feeling of being slowly and silently blown apart and then put together again—in a different way.
“It’s done,” said Thalkon finally, as he stared at Thane with a look of revulsion he could not hide. “I warn you, don’t ask to look in a mirror. It would be too much of a shock to see that ugly, totally unhuman face with big glowing eyes. Now put on this breathing helmet. It will supply air with the neon removed.”
Thane was already choking as ordinary air poisoned his Vexxan body. Breathing deep with the helmet on, he felt better.
“How about my brain?” Thane wondered.
“Altered in shape and size to fit your new skull,” said Thalkon, “but otherwise unchanged as to its thinking processes and memory. You are still an Earthman mentally, clothed in a new body. Nothing more, nothing less. Your Vexxan ship is waiting for you. We don’t have to go over the plans again.”
Following Thalkon to the hangar, Thane caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny metal hull. He gasped aloud at his tiny dwarfish body and the pinched feral face that glared back at him through his helmet’s visor.
“You’ll find a Vexxan uniform inside to wear,” said Thalkon. “Well, good luck, Earthman.” Thalkon started to stick out his hand, then thought better of it. Thane didn’t blame him, noticing how his sharp claws scratched the hatchway’s side as he gripped it and swung aboard.
Clearance for the Vexxan craft had been given and Thane drove out of the space station, remembering all the instructions for using the alien drive-controls. His ash-grey flying saucer spun down from the sky toward the night side of Earth and south to South America.
Watching for landmarks previously pointed out by Thalkon, Thane found his way down to the rugged A
ndes mountains in Peru. In moonlight, he pinpointed a particularly tall peak with a glacier split three ways as a marker, then swung down into the adjacent valley. It was filled with stone rubble, an ideal place to find—or pretend to find—a Seed, rarest of Earthly mineral gems.
Thane looked carefully but saw no other Vexxan ship here. As Thalkon had said, this was a future site they would explore. He was there first. Thane noticed that his alien eyes gave him poor vision as compared to his human eyes. The Vexxan optical system was not geared to earthly conditions. But even if only twenty-two-hundred vision, it was adequate to pick out big landmarks and make a landing in the valley.
Out of the ship, Thane used one talon to open the leaden box and take out the tiny glowing spark within. Carefully, he threw the leaden box in a nearby stream where it would sink out of sight. Then, with his foot, he kicked stones around and made a depression amongst them as if he had clawed them aside.
Clutching the Seed in his palm, he reentered the ship and set off the signal alarm. It was not a voice broadcast unit but merely a mechanical call box for a Vexxan ship in trouble to call others.
Before long, another Vexxan craft looped over the mountain and swooped down. This is it, Thane thought. Make your story good.
Three Vexxans ambled out of the landed ship, eyeing him curiously—and suspiciously.
“Your name,” came the telepathic demand. “And what are you doing here alone?”
“I’m Horg,” Thane radiated back. Thank heaven all telepathic interchange was in pure non-linguistic thought, unable to betray his true Earthly nature. As for them not recognizing the made-up name, how could any single Vexxan possibly know everyone of his fellows among the thousands here on Earth? But the other question would take some cunning…
“I’m in the Vexxan ship repair service,” said Thane-Horg, following the story he had rehearsed with Thalkon. “After fixing a ship not long ago, I took it out solo for a test. It still needed tuning up so I landed here. Then I saw a strange glow in the rocks and I remembered about the hunt for Seeds.”
