The Alien MEGAPACK®

by Talmage Powell

  That didn’t matter. All three of them were long past the point of thinking about themselves. What did matter was that the draal must not be permitted to consolidate its position, it must not be permitted to increase its strength.

  There was only room on the planet for one ruling race.

  “I want to know what that machine is we’re being forced to build,” Graham said. “I think the clue to the weakness of the draal is in that machine—”

  Little prickles of pain squirmed through his brain as he spoke.

  He quickly forced himself to think about something else. He tried to watch the dreth circling over their heads. He let horror of that weird little monstrosity flood through his mind.

  The draal was trying to read his mind.

  It was on guard. It was watchful. It was alert.

  Graham ignored the little darting pains high up behind his forehead. Eventually they went away. He dared to breathe again.

  Two hours later the dreth herded them back down the hill to the building where the draal waited. “Back to work!” the order flowed into their minds. “Back to work.”

  There was insistence in the whisper in their minds. The draal wanted them to hurry. It wanted them to finish the job it was making them do. That job was important. They must work as fast as they could.

  Graham glanced over at the cup-like receptacle where the crystal ball with the central core of blackness rested. He could see little glimmering lights moving in that core of blackness and he knew that the draal was watching him.

  Darting pains moved behind his forehead.

  “Work,” the draal said, in his mind. “The new energy source—”

  The thinking blanked out.

  Graham’s face showed nothing. He kept his mind under rigid control. But he knew what they were building.

  * * * *

  It was a generator, an electrical generator. Unlike any dynamo ever built on earth, it worked on some new and unknown principle, but it was unquestionably an electrical generator. The cables they had already installed and connected to a heavy switch that fed into the power lines that came into the building. The switch was open. Graham had assumed that when the switch was closed current would flow from the power lines to the machine they were assembling. He saw now that the reverse was true. When the switch was closed, current would flow from the generator to the intricate piece of electrical machinery that served as a support for the crystal ball that was the draal.

  “Power,” he thought. “We’re building a new source of power for it. It needs this new power source desperately. I wonder why?”

  The draal was getting the power it used from the high line that had been extended to his building. The faint hum of the transformer on the poles outside was audible inside the big room.

  Plenty of power was coming in over that high line.

  Why did the draal need a new source of power?

  The racing motor of a fighter-bomber tore a hole in the air as the ship passed less than a hundred feet above the roof of the building.

  Boom!

  The building rocked on its foundations.

  Graham picked himself up off the floor. Featherstone and Mildred Chambers looked dazedly up at him. The explosion had thrown them to the floor also.

  “What—what was that?” the girl whispered.

  “That,” said Graham indifferently, “was a bomb. Probably a five hundred pounder—”

  As though nothing had happened, he started back to work on the machine they were assembling.

  “A bomb?” the girl questioned.

  “Yes,” Graham answered. “Hand me that screwdriver, will you? One of these screws has stripped its threads and must be removed.”

  He kept his face expressionless, he kept all thoughts of exultation out of his mind. Prickles of pain behind his forehead warned him not to do any thinking.

  Subconsciously he knew what had happened. That was an army plane that had passed overhead, a fighter-bomber. It had dropped a bomb aimed at this building.

  Somebody outside, somebody in authority, knew what was happening. Somebody knew that the source of the mysterious fires that had destroyed Elm Point and the surrounding community had their source in this building. Fighter-bombers were moving up. There were certainly armored cars back there on the roads, possibly even tanks. The country had armored cars and tanks to burn.

  The appearance of the plane meant one thing: Louie had escaped. The little man in the baggy clothes, the little man who had been so scared, had gotten to someone in authority and told his story.

  Deep in his mind Graham wondered how Louie had ever managed to convince a public official that he was telling the truth. Louie’s story must have sounded utterly fantastic.

  But he had convinced somebody that it was the truth. Of course, Louie had the evidence of a destroyed town and innumerable burned farmhouses to back him up. That must have helped a lot. Anyhow he had certainly told his story, he had convinced somebody that something housed in this building must be destroyed no matter what the cost.

  A fighter-bomber had been sent to do the job.

  Its first bomb had missed.

  The plane’s motor roared somewhere off in the sky as it made a turn and started back to drop a second bomb.

  “They’re aiming at us,” Featherstone said.

  “Oh, no,” Graham answered. “Nothing like that.”

  * * * *

  Featherstone’s face was a study in mixed emotions. He knew he was a target for the next bomb. He knew, also, that something else was also the target. He knew he couldn’t run.

  The draal wouldn’t let him run. The dreth would kill him if he tried to run.

  All he could do was wait.

  In that moment, greatness showed in Featherstone. He managed to grin. And went back to work.

  He completely ignored the racing motor in the sky.

  Graham desperately controlled his mind.

  The draal was trying to find out what was happening. The explosion of that bomb had certainly jarred it.

  It suspected, must certainly know, that it was being attacked.

  But it didn’t know what was attacking it, or how the attack was coming.

  If they knew very little about it, it, in turn, knew very little about them. The great outside world, the world of cities and nations, the world of men and machines, of fighting men and fighting machines, it knew little or nothing about this world.

  It didn’t even know there were such things as fighter-bombers.

  All it knew was that something had roared through the sky and then there had been an explosion.

  It was trying to find out what was happening. It was trying to get information on that roar in the sky and that shattering explosion from the minds of the humans in the room.

  They closed their minds.

  They told it nothing.

  The howl of the motor was growing louder.

  The plane was circling preparatory to making another run on its target.

  This time the pilot would not miss his aim.

  Acting as if nothing whatsoever was happening, the three humans worked calmly on the generator they were fitting together. Featherstone rose to his feet and went to one of the packing boxes for another part. Acting on instructions from the draal, he had ordered these parts from a large electrical supply house. Now he was quietly helping fit them together.

  So far as his face showed or his mind revealed, there were no such things as airplanes and bombs on earth.

  * * * *

  Mildred Chambers incautiously dropped a heavy housing on a finger. She swore and put the mashed digit in her mouth.

  She had never heard of such a thing as a five hundred pound bomb.

  Graham removed the screw with stripped threads from its seat.

  Far up in the sky, he heard the p
lane start its dive toward them.

  The pilot of that plane was incautious. Nobody was shooting at him, he didn’t think there was any danger. He shoved the nose of his ship down toward his target.

  Graham felt the pains abruptly vanish from his forehead.

  The draal had ceased trying to read his mind. It has stopped trying to find out what was happening from him.

  It had sought other sources for the information it needed.

  The motor of the diving plane was overhead.

  Thunder exploded in the sky.

  Wincing, Graham listened. At that moment, he would have given his life for the sound of a diving motor, heard no such sound.

  There was no such sound in the sky.

  There wasn’t even an airplane in the sky any more.

  There were only bits of shattered metal and fragments of flesh plunging down to earth.

  A dreth, on guard somewhere overhead, had been sent to meet the plane.

  The plane had exploded.

  There was silence in the big room. Under the cup-like depression where the draal rested, relays clicked furiously. There was no other sound.

  Outside there were several thumps as pieces of shattered metal hit the ground.

  Featherstone looked like a man who has just heard his, death sentence pronounced.

  The three humans had automatically stopped working, when they heard the plane explode.

  “Back to work!” the voice of the draal lashed their minds. “Hurry. Work faster.”

  As he hastily resumed his interrupted task, Graham heard another sound—the far-off throb of many motors in the sky.

  Not one motor this time.

  Many motors.

  * * * *

  The motors in the sky moved closer. There were six or seven planes at least in the flight. Judging by the racket they were making, they were twin-engined bombers.

  The draal had destroyed a single plane. Would it be able to destroy a flight of bombers?

  Graham could hear relays clicking frantically in the electrical equipment housed under the draal. Somewhere in the sky overhead he had a vision of dreths racing madly in response to those clicking relays. Four of the dreths were available to fight the planes. One dreth remained in the room with them, constantly on guard. As long as that hideous little monstrosity darted around them like a giant bee, they were helpless.

  The motors were as loud as thunder in the sky, gnawing at the air like a giant hound gnawing a bone.

  Boom!

  Real thunder shook the foundations of the earth.

  Graham groaned. He knew what that clap of thunder meant. A dreth had either passed through the fuel tanks of a bomber, exploding the gasoline, or it had exploded the bombs in the racks of the plane. Either way, the answer was the same.

  A plane exploding in blazing wrath!

  Panic hit the flight of bombers. Graham heard the even drone of the motors change as the pilots broke formation.

  The pilots didn’t know what was happening. One of their ships had exploded. They suspected that some sort of a radar beam was being used against them that blew up their fuel tanks. They didn’t know what they were fighting. Their orders were to blow up the group of buildings on the side of the hill. It looked so easy they were suspicious. When one of their ships exploded without apparent cause, panic hit them. They would have rode through a sky full of blasting ack-ack, they would have fought their way through to their objective against fighter opposition, but the mysterious explosion of one of their ships startled them into momentary panic. They broke formation.

  And as they started to scatter, another one of their planes exploded.

  They couldn’t see what was attacking them but they knew now that they were being attacked. The explosion of the first ship might have been an accident, but when two ships exploded, the possibility of accident was ruled out.

  The three humans in the laboratory heard the sound of motors die out in the sky.

  There was a note of triumph in the rattle of clicking relays under the draal.

  There seemed, somehow, to be fewer of the relays in operation now. There had been several and the clicking had been almost continuous. Now there seemed to be only two of the little instruments in operation.

  “Work!” the draal snarled in their minds.

  As they bent again to their task, the spray of violet light at the far end of the room quickened in intensity. Simultaneously the throb of the transformers grew more labored.

  More power was being taken from the high line.

  “Another dreth is being created,” Featherstone whispered, in answer to the question on Graham’s face. He nodded toward the spray of violet light. “That’s where the dreths are created.”

  “Reinforcements?” Graham said.

  “Replacements rather than reinforcements,” Featherstone said.

  “Eh? I don’t understand.”

  “Listen to the relays,” Featherstone answered. “Each relay controls a dreth.”

  * * * *

  Graham had already noticed that fewer relays seemed to be in operation. He listened closely. Only two relays were working.

  “What happened to the three other dreths?” the almost soundless whisper formed on his lips.

  “They destroyed the planes and were themselves destroyed in the explosion,” Featherstone explained.

  “Then there are only two dreths left!” Graham said. “The one in here watching us and one somewhere on guard outside. If those planes will only come back now!”

  One dreth was on guard somewhere outside. Three others had been destroyed. If the planes would only return, one plane would be smashed but the others would get through to drop their bombs without molestation.

  Graham listened. The sky was quiet. There was no sound in the still air of the late afternoon.

  Somewhere off in the distance the planes were no doubt reporting in and asking for further instructions.

  Would they be ordered to continue the attack or would they be pulled off?

  In war, they would be ordered back to the attack. But the country wasn’t officially at war. With two planes already lost, it would be a brave commander who risked further destruction of his ships, further loss of life, until a complete investigation had revealed the necessity for the action.

  In the spray of violet light at the far end of the room Graham saw something rise up.

  A new dreth.

  A new balance of blended force and counterforce.

  It moved sluggishly in the violet glow. Like a butterfly that has just crawled from its cocoon and is growing wings in the sunlight, the dreth drifted uncertainly in the violet light.

  The violet light was developing it, giving it strength.

  Under the draal a new relay began to click slowly.

  Working feverishly at the generator they were building, Graham felt like praying.

  Whoom!

  Something that tore through the air like an express train just missed the roof of the building. It exploded two or three hundred yards away.

  It was a shell from a 90 millimeter cannon that was mounted on a tank destroyer.

  While the planes had attacked overhead, units of the ground forces had moved into position.

  The first shell they fired had missed.

  Graham groaned. They would never get to fire another shell. The single dreth that remained outside would blow the tank destroyer to bits and before another attack could be launched, the new dreth growing stronger by the second in the violet spray would be ready for action.

  He looked at the dreth in the violet light to see how far advanced it was.

  The light was gone.

  The violet spray was not flooding upward.

  He was suddenly aware that two sounds that had been always present in the laboratory were now missing
. The clicking of the relays and the labored hum of the transformers drawing current from the high line.

  These sounds were still.

  The transformer was silent.

  The relays were still.

  Something, drifting like a falling leaf, was floating to the floor before his eyes.

  He needed seconds to realize what it was.

  Then he recognized it.

  It was the dreth that had been guarding them.

  Powerless, it floated downward.

  “The power is off!” Graham heard himself shouting. “The power is off.”

  He was already on his feet and racing toward the crucible that held the crystal ball that was the draal.

  “Stay away! Stay away from me! I’ll turn the dreth on you!” Weak thought impulses chattered in his mind.

  The draal sounded like a frightened monkey seeing death approach.

  Graham and Featherstone were both darting toward it. Both had realized what had happened. Graham got there first. He jerked the draal out of the receptacle where it tested. Simultaneously he turned and shouted at Mildred Chambers.

  “Get outside and wave a white flag. Wave anything but get outside before that tank destroyer takes a second shot at us.”

  She staggered rather than ran to the door. They could hear her screaming outside.

  The second shot didn’t come.

  * * * *

  Graham held the crystal ball in both hands. Weak impulses, generated by the tiny store of energy the draal maintained inside itself, whispered in his brain. The draal promised rewards if he would help it. It promised him anything he wanted, wealth, power, knowledge.

  He laughed.

  “Smash it!” Featherstone urged, trying to snatch the crystal ball away from him.

  He shoved Featherstone away.

  “Smash this?” Graham questioned. “Not until it keeps the promise it made me.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Featherstone urged.

  “I know it’s dangerous but I also know how to control it, now. No, we won’t smash it, Swami. We’ll just keep it from gaining access to any source of power until we learn everything it knows. We know its secret, Swami, we knew it the instant that shell smashed the high line leading into this building. It’s got to have power to operate, power to send forth the dreths, power to create them, power to control them. Without power, it’s helpless. That’s what it was making us build, Swami: a generator to supply power for it. It knew the high line might be broken or the power might be turned off. If that happened, it had to have a source of power that would not fail. That was why it was in such a desperate hurry to get us to finish that generator. Power! It had to have electrical energy, plenty of it. Without that, it’s helpless. We’ll keep it from getting power until we find out its real history. Think of that, Featherstone! Think of it!”