by Eando Binder
“Close the hatch,” yelled Miribel, “and hang on. I’m going to scorch the air at top speed.”
Miribel made it up to the space station in record time and before long, Thane was hustled into the labs under a ray-machine. The Vigilante doctors had been alerted by Miribel to stand by.
Thalkon came dashing in just as the doctor jabbed the hypodermic of antidote serum into Thane’s arm.
“Is it in time?” gasped Thalkon.
“Don’t know,” muttered the doctor, turning on the ray-machine under which Thane now sat. “We’ll find out in a moment.”
Silently the purplish rays played over Thane’s hairy body. In combination with the serum, the rays should reverse the metabolic magic they had used to transform him into a Vexxan. Body cells should be expanding to human size. Hair should retract into skin cells. Glands should be rearranging his DNA code…
But nothing happened.
“Oh, Thane,” Miribel moaned, collapsing into a chair. “It was too late.”
“No, it isn’t,” Thalkon grated, seizing a scalpel and handing it to the doctor. “You know what to do.”
“It’s too risky,” the doctor said.
“Do it, man!”
With a visible effort, the doctor plunged the scalpel into Thane’s throat artery. Blood spouted out like an oil gusher.
“Let it spill on the floor, the Vexxan blood,” Thalkon barked. “All of it. Get that transfusion machine over here,” he yelled to the attendants. “As soon as he’s drained of Vexxan blood, pump him full of human blood.”
Thane died in the meantime. He knew he had to go through that. His thoughts faded out into the blankness of non-living. But his thoughts welled up again, out of the lifeless pit. He found himself in a hospital bed with Miribel holding his hand. Thane was too weak to raise it and look.
“How many fingers?” he croaked.
“Five,” Miribel smiled. “You’ve changed back completely to your human form. My father knew that getting rid of your Vexxan blood and pumping in human blood might trigger off the bio-change at the last moment. It did.”
“What if it hadn’t worked?”
“You’d have ended up dead… a dead Vexxan. Thane Smith would not even have had a decent burial.”
Thane shuddered. “That would have been harder on you than on me, Miribel.”
Her eyes were haunted a moment but then they cleared. “Thalkon hasn’t had a chance to debrief you yet. Did you meet any… success?”
“Yes… and no,” said Thane. “Call your father and I’ll tell the story.”
* * * *
“To sum it up,” Thane said, “we know now that the Collection Center is an Earth-type house on the East Coast probably below Atlantic City. We know that a pseudohuman is the Seed Guardian.”
“Those were two things we never suspected,” Thalkon said, stunned. “We might never have found out, without your spy work, Thane. Can you pick that house out?”
“That’s the trouble,” Thane said slowly. “I only saw it at night. And I never got the chance to pinpoint it. I was going to fly my saucer up in the air and take a panoramic look, figuring out its geographic position. But then the saucer went haywire and dumped me out at sea.”
Thalkon was pacing the floor. “How can we find that house? We can’t just send a fleet of flying saucers down to check every one. It would arouse the whole nation, the whole world. It would give away our presence on Earth, a secret we must preserve.”
“Yes, a real impasse,” Thane agreed. “The only other thing I can think of is to drive or walk up and down the shore communities until I spot the house from its general setting and other small clues.”
* * * *
Thane’s invisible saucer, with the anti-visio unit on, cruised along slowly at low altitude. He was approaching the eastern shoreline from the same direction as that night when he had delivered the Seed. Could he somehow recognize the spot where the Collection Center lay?
But the endless miles of sandy dunes, beaches, and groups of houses all seemed the same. Still, he knew it was about three hundred miles south of Tanglewood. Unable to spot from the air the exact house he had visited, Thane decided he would have to walk and get the ground viewpoint. He chose a clump of scraggly bushes among sand dunes to settle down with his unseen saucer. After he had walked about twenty feet, his own ghostly form sprang into visibility again. No one was around to see.
Thane conjectured that within an area of a square mile he would find his large house. But as he walked and walked, approaching big old mansions from several different angles, he still could find none that struck him as the right one. It was frustrating.
“Thane! Thane Smith,” a voice suddenly hailed.
Oh, no, thought Thane. He knew that voice. Of all times to run into Daryl Seatonburry III, playboy and pest extraordinary. He had forgotten that the rich young man had a shore place here. Thane turned and saw Seatonburry waving from a dock, sitting in a sleek motorboat.
“Come and have a ride, old chap. The water’s nice today.”
“No, thanks…” Thane started to say but Seatonburry interrupted: “You know, I never did find out how you escaped from those horrid hairy brutes that time. I had no chance when we last met to inquire. Those creatures have been preying on my mind.”
Thane changed his mind. He had some fence-mending to do. After he stepped in the boat, the playboy drove off with a “wheeeee” and a spray of seawater. Then he sobered and turned to Thane.
“Those weren’t human creatures that captured you that day. Did they come, by any chance, in a flying saucer? If so, I’m seriously thinking of getting in touch with the governor and starting an investigation.”
Trouble was looming. With his connections and influence, the rich playboy might very well talk the governor into a UFO hunt. And that was what the Vigilantes always wanted to avoid. Seatonburry would have to be sidetracked.
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you too far,” Thane said carefully. “Those creatures weren’t human but neither are they spacemen. They come from Earth.”
“Earth? My dear fellow…”
“From within the Earth, I mean. You recall all the legends in past history of gnomes, goblins, kobolds, and trolls?”
“Why yes. They were all supposed to be gnarled little men, sometimes ugly and hairy.”
“Exactly,” said Thane, spinning his yarn further. “Unknown to scientists, a race of such vicious dwarfs has lived underground since time began. And they think they own all metals and jewels in the ground.”
“Ah, I begin to see,” said the playboy, falling into the trap. “That’s why they came to demand the glowing gem from you. But when they couldn’t find it, they dragged you and your wife away. What happened then?”
Thane more-or-less told the story straight after that, of being taken to the vast chamber underground. But he left out significant details—such as Kogg’s boast of destroying the Earth—and pretended it was just minor machinations of the little bogeymen living underground.
“I’m glad you escaped those little stinkers, old man,” said Seatonburry. But doubt still reflected from his face. “One more thing, old chap. I heard them call you and your wife ‘Galactic Vigilantes,’ or did I hear wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Thane said, trying to sound mystified. “One Vexxan had just smashed you in the face hard. Maybe your ears were ringing, and you misinterpreted something he said.”
That seemed to clear things up for the playboy. Now his tone became eager. “But tell me, where in the world had you hidden the glow-gem so that they never found it in your cabin?”
Thane fought down a grin and thought fast. Although the playboy was no Einstein, he had to be given a plausible story.
“You’ll remember, Daryl, that first you rushed up to
defend me. For a moment you blocked off the vision of the dwarfs. That was when I quickly opened the leaden box and dropped the gem. There’s a crack in the floor, not too big but big enough. It dropped down into my basement, where I retrieved it after Miribel and I returned home.”
“As simple as that,” marveled the playboy, swallowing the whole tissue of lies without seeing the loopholes. He swung the motorboat around and headed for shore. “Well, that’s that. I won’t have the governor launch any investigation of UFO’s and little saucermen from outer space. Ha ha, ha.” He was laughing at himself.
Thane heaved a sign of relief. But he had been thinking, wondering if he could get some help from Seatonburry with the house hunt, without arousing his suspicions.
“Daryl,” he said, “have you ever noticed anything… uh… unusual around your neighborhood?”
“Unusual?”
“Unusual sounds or lights at night, say.”
“Why, yes, come to think of it. A big old mansion about a half black from mine—lights at night from the basement and dark forms sneaking around.”
Thane’s pulse leaped. This might be it.
“But surely,” the playboy went on, “you aren’t interested in witchcraft? You see, a coven of modern day witches meets there each week. Silly asses, but it’s all harmless.”
Witches! Thane groaned mentally. A false lead. Besides, Thane wasn’t even sure if Seatonburry’s place was within miles of the right one. Thane decided to give up his hopeless hunt. At the dock he thanked the playboy for the boat ride and walked away. Soon after, his invisible saucer with its unseen pilot, sped away from the shore and arrowed into space to report failure in his quest.
Chapter 18
“The search was hopeless from the start,” said Thalkon, “with several million people living along the shore.”
“I also used the Vibroscope while flying over that area to try locating the right house,” said Thane. “But of course the masked man had all the Seeds laid away in leaden boxes, cutting off their telltale radiations. Blast it,” he growled, “We’re almost as bad off as before.”
Miribel spoke up for the first time. “That masked human called the ‘Seed Guardian’… he intrigues me. Is it possible, Father, for our method to be used in reverse and turn a Vexxan into an Earthman?”
“No,” said Thalkon. “Thane the Vexxan did turn back to human because that was his natural state. But our medics have determined that certain biological laws prevent the conversion of Vexxans to any other form. They lack certain master glands that make it possible by DNA manipulation.”
Thane and Miribel stared at each other. “Then who is the Seed Guardian?” gasped Miribel.
“The only possibility,” returned Thane reluctantly, “is that some Earthman turned renegade.”
“Unthinkable,” snapped Miribel.
“There’s another possibility,” put in Thalkon. “An android. A biological robot. An artificial man, modeled after humans. He would look and act and react just like an Earthman. His brain could be programmed to act the part of an Earthman perfectly, yet be loyal to Vexxa only.”
Thane pondered that. “Then it would be impossible to expose him or trip him up. And no doubt they forged all the legal papers and identification he needed, plus giving him a human house and money—stolen, no doubt—to carry out his pose. To all eyes, a fellow human being. But in secret, a Vexxan slave collecting the Seed for Earth’s doom. Pretty. That’s all we need.”
Miribel had been biting her lip, thinking deeply. “Would an android have any odd characteristics that would betray him as not really human?”
“Perhaps,” nodded Thalkon. “A perfect human would be unattainable. There might be slight, very slight, deviations from the human norm.”
A strange light had come into Miribel’s eyes. “Could an android be immune to the effects of drinking alcohol?”
“They might have made him so,” said Thalkon, “to be sure he never got drunk and spilled secrets.”
“And could he be insensitive to scalding liquid?”
“His sense of pain may have been muted deliberately so that again, if he suffered a painful accident, he wouldn’t babble deliriously.”
“Miribel, what are you…?” began Thane, but she went right on.
“And would this android avoid water for any reason?”
“It might be that his synthetic flesh, not as hardy as human flesh through long evolution, could be somewhat eroded by water, or might change color and give him away.”
Miribel swung on Thane. “Daryl Seatonburry III, Thane! He could be an android, the Seed Guardian of the Vexxans.”
“Oh, come on, Miribel,” Thane protested. “I told you before how those little things mean nothing. They don’t prove he’s an android.”
“No, but other things might. Think back once—right after we found the real Seed, who pops up but Daryl, in time to see it and offer to buy it from us. After all, if the Vexxans could get hold of it in that human way without a fuss, why use other methods.”
Miribel caught her breath and continued. “Then, when it was obvious to the Vexxans—who no doubt lurked outside—that this wouldn’t work, they barged in and used strong-arm methods.”
“But the Vexxans batted Daryl around and treated him like dirt,” reminded Thane.
“The perfect camouflage!” cried Miribel. “Don’t you see? They had to make sure we’d never suspect he was their undercover android. They had to treat him as they would any other simpering, rich playboy. And that ‘playboy’ pose, think how clever that is. The last person one would suspect of being a pseudohuman is an empty-brained, gem-loving, silly nobody.”
“Hmm,” said Thane, now sitting up. “You may have something there, darling. It all adds up phony… wrong… suspicious. Why, for instance, wasn’t he at all curious about the Vexxans capturing us, till just today? He was so used to Vexxans it didn’t occur to him that his lack of interest was a giveaway. That’s why he invited me on the motorboat ride. He was mending fences. His threat to start an investigation was just window-dressing, to convince me he was a true human being.”
“When you think of it,” Miribel added, “he showed up at all the crucial times, during our dealings with Seeds and the Vexxans. He was trying to throw smoke in our eyes and hinder us all the time.”
“Hmm. And that also accounts,” Thane came in, “for the fact that the Vexxans, when they searched for the missing Seed in our cabin, did not bother to check on the playboy. Knowing he was their android, they had no reason to. Any other human they would have checked routinely.”
It was all falling into place like a jig-saw puzzle. Small “anomalies” about the playboy now stood out significantly, proving he was more than he seemed.
Thalkon had listened intently. “Thane, would you say the masked man you saw could be this playboy?”
“Almost sure of it,” Thane barked, “Now I recall, too, that there was something familiar about his voice. And his house. The same palatial seashore home we were invited to a few times. I’m almost sure of it now.” Sitting up in bed, Thane made a little bow toward his wife. “Now who’s the genius around here? I think you’ve cracked the riddle wide open.”
“The problem now is to prove we have the right man—or android,” Thalkon said slowly. “Since only you two have met him, you two must do the fingering, as your Earthly criminals say.”
“Right,” Thane nodded. “Miribel and I will call on Daryl Seatonburry on some pretext, and somehow snoop in his basement. Let’s get going…”
Thane leaped out of bed—and collapsed on the floor. “Silly boy,” Miribel admonished, helping him up.
“You just died, remember? And changed your whole body around from an ugly little gnome into the tall, handsome, noble and sometimes stupid man I love. So get back in bed. It won’t be three
days before we can carry out our new mission.”
“That’s twice I died,” mused Thane. “Once with the Morlians and now here. With your super-medical skill, how many lives have I got?”
“Nine,” Miribel said, straight-faced. “Like a cat.”
* * * *
“Come in, come in!” cooed Daryl Seatonburry III, at the door, after his surprise at seeing who his two visitors were. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“I think we’ve got another surprise for you,” said Thane. “We’ve decided to sell you our glowing gem.” The Seed Guardian—if he was that—was unaware of course that the “mechanic” delivering a “Seed” had been Thane, and that he couldn’t sell a Seed he didn’t have.
“What?” gasped Seatonburry, but for a different reason. “But you told me you lost your gem. Dropped it into a volcano pit by accident.”
“Oh, that,” Miribel waved. “We’ll have to confess that was just a subterfuge to keep you from pester… uh, trying to get us to sell. At first we wanted to keep it. But now we’d like to sell it to you. Show it to him, Thane, to prove it still exists.”
Thane opened a jewel box, lined with lead, and within sparkled a tiny Seed. Seatonburry’s eyes sparkled too, in delight, not knowing it was a fake Seed made in the Vigilante labs.
“I’ll write you out a check right away,” said the enthused playboy.
“No hurry,” Miribel interposed. “Later will do. But we’d like to see your jewel collection, which you offered to show us before. I’d just love to look it over.”
“Certainly, come along,” agreed the playboy, getting up to lead the way into a large chamber from which dazzling colors already flashed. He certainly acted his human part well, Thane ruminated. For a moment he had misgivings that he could be an android.
But continuing their game, Thane paused at the door, holding his head. “All of a sudden I have a frightful headache. I think I’ll walk around in the fresh air for a while.”
