The Alien MEGAPACK®

by Talmage Powell

  Each carrying one end of a heavy packing box, they went out the door and into the darkness. Beads of sudden sweat were visible on the face of the little man, but Featherstone, on the contrary, showed no sign of fear. His face calm and composed, was lit by an inner glow.

  Graham watched them walk through the door. He took a deep breath. “There goes destiny,” he said.

  * * * *

  Mildred Chambers stayed very close to Graham, as close as she could get. “I’m scared to death,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so frightened in all my life.”

  Graham could feel her trembling. “So am I,” he answered. “And Baby, we’ve got reason to be.”

  “Do—do you believe that story he told?”

  “Do I believe it?” Graham gasped. “Good lord! Do you think Featherstone was lying?”

  “No—it isn’t that. I think he was telling the truth, or what he thought was the truth. But the—well, the brain, the draal—that seems so weird, so incredible—”

  “Haven’t you yet discovered that this is a weird world?” Graham interrupted. “There isn’t a fact in any physics text book, a theorem in any geometry, a statement in any history, that isn’t downright weird when you stop and think about it. Yes, the draal is weird. So is the brain of a man, so is the brain of a dog, so is the brain of an earth worm.”

  Graham talked jerkily. His words came from the top part of his mind. The rest of his mind was concentrated on what was happening down there in that building at the foot of the hill. Would Featherstone succeed?

  Mildred Chambers sensed and voiced his thoughts.

  “Do—you think he will be able—to smash it?” she whispered.

  “He’s got to smash it!” Graham answered fiercely. “And how I hate the thought of that.”

  “What?” the girl gasped in surprise. “You mean you don’t want him to succeed?”

  “It isn’t that,” Graham answered. “He’s got to succeed, it’s—do you realize that this is the first time in human history when a man has had a chance to talk to a reasoning creature other than his own kind? The stories the draal could tell! Its origin, its history, where it came from—these things would be tremendously interesting and valuable to us. I hate to have to destroy the source of so much information. That’s what I mean. The draal unquestionably has to be destroyed, if the human race is to continue its existence. Yet I hate to destroy something that could do so much for us. I think Featherstone feels the same way I do. Both of us know that the draal is like a stolen million dollar bill. It’s worth a mint to you, but if you try to spend it, you’ll get thrown in jail for the rest of your life.”

  The wind tugged at the curtain. Footsteps sounded on the path outside. The door opened. Louie entered.

  “What happened?” Graham demanded.

  The little man was trembling. He wiped sweat from his face, tried to think what happened.

  “He sent me back,” Louie said. “We took the box inside the building and he said I could come back up here. I think he was afraid I might reveal too much.”

  “Has he smashed it?”

  “Not when I left, he hadn’t.” Louie remembered the other things that had happened.

  “There’s only one dreth down there,” he said.

  “Eh?”

  “And there’s a dead man just outside the building!”

  “A dead man?”

  “Yes. A state trooper.”

  “A state trooper? Where did he come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Louie answered. “There’s one other thing—” He frowned, tried to think.

  “Oh, yes. I remember now. There are lights in the sky.”

  “What?”

  “If you step outside, you can see them.”

  * * * *

  The lights weren’t in the sky.

  They were down on the horizon and were reflected against the sky. There were two small glows to the east and toward the north there was a bigger one. At the nearer glow, tiny tips of flame could be seen reaching up into the night.

  “Fires,” Graham said. “I’m guessing but I think those two smaller glows are houses on fire. The bigger one—”

  He paused as a sudden thought popped into his mind. “Louie, where is Elm Point? What direction is it from here?”

  The little man’s finger pointed in the direction of the biggest glow of light. “It’s right about there,” he said.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Graham answered.

  “What do you think it is?” Mildred Chambers asked.

  “I think it isn’t any more,” Graham answered. “I think it’s burning down. I think the whole town is on fire. And I think the glow nearest to us is coming from the burning house of a farmer named Wakely.”

  “Oh.”

  Graham was silent. He could smell smoke now. Smoke in the drifting wind. The odor was dim but it was certainly the smell of smoke.

  “Did you say there was only one dreth down there now?” Graham asked.

  There was no answer. Graham looked quickly around. Louie was gone.

  “I don’t blame him,” Graham said. “And I think—” He looked at the girl. “How did you get here?”

  “Where did—what did you say?”

  “How did you get here?”

  “In my car.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Parked up there on the side of the road.”

  “I think you had better go to your car and use it to get to hell away from here. Come on. I’ll take you up to it.”

  He took her by the arm gently pushed her toward the road. When she protested, he didn’t insist.

  “You may be right at that,” he said. “It may not be exactly easy to get away from here.”

  He wasn’t paying much attention to what he was saying. He was watching a new glow of light that was coming into existence off to the left and a mile or two away.

  Off there in the darkness another farmer’s house and barn were going up in flames.

  The night was peaceful, calm, serene. The moon shone placidly over the rounded hills. There was no hint of danger, no suggestion that anything was wrong except the fires that were throwing their glow on the dark curtain of the night.

  Down below them, a rectangle of intensely violet light suddenly appeared as a door opened in the squat building that had been erected there. Featherstone came out of the building.

  They heard him close the door. They heard him coming up the path toward them. As he walked up the path in the smoky darkness, they could hear him giggling. He saw them standing in the path, stopped and stared at them, then giggled again.

  “It was waiting for me,” he said. “All the time I was talking to you, it was reading my mind. When I went inside the building it was waiting for me and it had a dreth all ready for action.”

  He giggled again.

  * * * *

  Graham took one step forward.

  Smack! His open hand struck Featherstone’s face.

  “Damn you!” Featherstone snarled. “Damn you, Graham, Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Graham stepped back. “You were giggling,” he said.

  “I was—what? Oh.” Wonder was in Featherstone’s voice. “Oh I see. Thanks. Or maybe I shouldn’t thank you. Maybe it would have been better to go crazy.”

  “What happened?” Graham said.

  “What happened? Oh. A cop happened. A state trooper. I don’t know where in the hell he came from or why he turned up here, but while we were talking, he was snooping around. He tried to go into that building. That’s all, brother, that’s all. We’ve got a dead cop on our hands.”

  “So Louie said.”

  “Did Louie tell you about him? He did? Well, did he tell you the rest of it?”

  “No.”

  “The rest of it—” F
eatherstone sounded like he was about to start giggling around. “The draal thought the cop was trying to attack it. I don’t know what that cop was thinking while he was snooping around but the draal certainly thought he was dangerous. He scared the draal. The draal not only killed him but decided it would clear out all the humans within a radius of ten miles of here. It would be safer, the draal decided. It’s clearing them out now.”

  Featherstone nodded toward the circle of fires on the skyline. While he talked, another one had popped into existence.

  “Compared to what’s happening around here right now, hell’s fire and brimstone raining from the sky would be like a summer shower. Hell’s out for noon, Graham, hell’s out for noon for sure.”

  In the darkness the night wind was tangy with the pungent odor of smoke.

  Featherstone looked at Graham. “The draal wants to talk to you,” he said. “To both of you. Yes, it knows you are here. It sent me to tell you to come down and talk about it.”

  “In that case,” Graham answered. “I guess we had better go talk to it.”

  “I guess you had,” Featherstone said. “If you want to stay alive.”

  As they went down the path together, Featherstone started giggling again.

  “It says it can use us,” he said. “It says that’s the reason we’re still alive.”

  Featherstone led the way into the building. Graham followed him. Mildred Chambers entered last. This was one situation where ladies did not go first.

  The big room was bright with violet light.

  * * * *

  The draal lay in a cup-like receptacle. Around it and under it was some sort of a complicated electrical machine. Relays were clicking softly in the machine, transformers were humming. A maze of wires ran from the relays to the cup in which the draal lay. Through the wires it controlled the operations of the machine.

  Graham could not guess the purpose of the machine.

  As he entered the room, he was aware something had suddenly entered his mind and he knew that the draal was probing through the channels of his brain as it read his thoughts.

  “That is close enough,” a voice whispered in his mind.

  Ten feet away from the machine, it stopped them. It would not let them come closer.

  Above the machine, darting like a huge bee in the sunlight, moving too rapidly for the eye to follow, was a dreth.

  On guard!

  Like three slaves, they stood in a row facing the draal.

  It read their minds.

  Graham knew that he was being weighed and measured as a potential antagonist. How dangerous was he? How dangerous was the girl? The draal wanted to use them as tools but it also wanted to know how dangerous were the tools it proposed to use.

  It would have preferred to kill them outright, to destroy them. That would have been safest. But for some reason it needed them, had to use them, and it could not kill them until its need for them was finished.

  It was evaluating them as potential danger spots.

  Graham rigidly excluded such thinking from his conscious mind—he did not want the draal to know he knew what it was doing—but far under the surface of his mind he knew why the draal was studying them so carefully.

  It had to use dangerous tools. And it was afraid of them. Therefore in some way they did not know about, they menaced its safety. It had a weak spot.

  Then it spoke.

  “There is work to be done,” a voice whispered in Graham’s mind. “You must do that work. If you do it well, you will be well rewarded.”

  There was a strong hypnotic quality in the voice that whispered through his mind, a seductive, luring quality. It urged him to do what the brain wanted done, then it talked about the reward that would be his.

  That reward was knowledge. If he helped the draal, it would give him knowledge, it would lift aside the veil that curtained the truth, would help him learn some of the things he had always wanted to know.

  In the rigidly partitioned-off part of his mind that he was keeping from thinking, he knew the draal had discovered the outstanding facet of his character—the urge to know—and had shrewdly taken advantage of it in offering him his reward for service.

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he said.

  Featherstone looked quickly at him.

  “Have you gone mad?” Featherstone demanded.

  “Probably,” Graham answered. “But sane or mad, I will not aid the thing in that machine until I know what I am doing.”

  “Ah!” the draal said.

  The dreth moved toward Graham.

  “No!” Featherstone shouted. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He will do the work that must be done.”

  “I know he will,” the draal’s mental whisper came. “But first he needs a lesson.”

  Out from the swiftly moving dreth a flash of almost invisible light puffed. It struck Graham.

  Mildred Chambers screamed. Featherstone looked appalled.

  Pain, red, raging, dripping, pain, tore Graham’s body apart.

  Suddenly he knew why the little dog in the steel box in Featherstone’s studio had howled in pain. The same thing that had happened to the dog was happening to him.

  He was being turned into bone.

  He couldn’t move a muscle in his body.

  Pain struck every nerve ending in his body.

  He tried to scream and his lungs wouldn’t work.

  Abruptly the flashing light was gone from the dreth.

  The pain relaxed its numbing hold and Graham could breathe again.

  “You can do the work I want done, or you can have more of this,” the draal whispered in his mind. “Take your choice.”

  “I’ll work,” Graham faltered.

  He knew he had no choice.

  “Then get busy,” the draal said.

  It told them what was to be done.

  * * * *

  The voice of the announcer coming over the radio was almost hysterical.

  “An entire community in the northern part of New York state was wiped out last night by fires of mysterious origin,” the announcer said. “Fragmentary reports, far from complete as yet, indicate the death toll may run into thousands. The pilot of an observation plane which flew over the area early this morning reported that the small town of Elm Point has been completely destroyed and that hundreds of fires are still smoldering in and around the town. According to this same report, every farmhouse and barn in the vicinity of Elm Point is a pile of blackened ashes. There has been no communication with Elm Point since late last night.

  “Scientists who had been called in can advance no suggestion as to the cause of the catastrophe but hints from other sources indicate that possibly some type of atomic reaction has taken place in this area. “Exploring parties are carefully approaching the town of Elm Point.

  “Units of the National Guard have been mobilized.

  “The question is asked: Has the United States been attacked?

  “Is this war?

  “If this is war, what nation is attacking this country?

  “Further reports will follow as soon as they are received in this studio. Keep tuned to this station for the news.”

  The voice of the announcer went into silence.

  Graham tiredly shut off the radio.

  There was reason for his being tired. He had worked all night long.

  It was noon before the draal permitted them to stop for a minute. Then it allowed them to leave the big building at the foot of the hill and to come up to the house and prepare food for themselves. After that, they could rest for three hours.

  Then back to work.

  The draal realized they needed food and rest if they were to continue working.

  It had no intention of killing them before they had finished constructing the odd
piece of electrical equipment they were working so hard to assemble.

  They were its hands, its tools. As such, they were valuable to it.

  When they left the building at the foot of the hill and came up to the house to prepare food, a dreth came with them.

  Never still for an instant, it darted around the room above their heads, always watching them.

  The eyes of the girl tried to follow the dreth as it darted around the room. Fatigue and fear had drained all color out of her face. She had worked side by side with the two men. The draal had not spared her because she was a woman.

  “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

  “What can we do?” Featherstone answered. “That damned thing can read our minds. No matter what we try to do, it will know what we are planning before we do it.”

  “I think I can tell when it’s trying to read my mind,” Graham said. “I get little darting pains high up in my forehead every time it starts probing into my brain.”

  * * * *

  Featherstone looked up quickly. “Then you’ve got something,” he said. “I’ve never been able to tell when it was reading my mind and when it wasn’t. If you can tell when it’s reading your mind, then you know when it’s safe for you to think. Maybe—maybe you can think of something to do.”

  “That’s the catch,” Graham wryly answered. “I know when it’s safe to think but I can’t think of anything. I just don’t know enough. There’s a weakness somewhere. I know that much. I suspect the weakness has something to do with that piece of machinery we’re putting together. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Think, man!” Featherstone urged. “And keep any discoveries you make to yourself. Don’t try to tell me anything you find out. The draal might find them out by reading my mind.”

  A flash of fire showed on Featherstone’s lean face as he spoke.

  Like Graham and the girl, Featherstone was desperately tired and almost beyond hope. Graham’s words brought a spark of life back to him.

  To fight the draal, they needed to know much more about it than they knew. Its strength, its weaknesses, if any, how it worked, what it was trying to do—they needed to know these things. Not knowing them, they were like sleepwalkers in the dark. Any misstep might lead to destruction. And they didn’t know when they were taking a misstep because they didn’t know what was right and what was wrong. If they made a move that definitely threatened the draal, the result would be swift and exceedingly painful death.