The Silkie

by A. E. van Vogt

  The V hesitated, visibly frightened at being challenged by a Silkie. The expression on his face changed, and he seemed to be listening.

  Instantly, Cemp activated the waking centers of a portion of his sensory equipment that he had let sleep and waited for a response on one or more 'channels.' Much as a man who smells a strong odor of sulphur wrinkles his nose or as someone who touches a red-hot object jerks involuntarily away, he expected a sensation from one of the numerous senses that were now ready. He got nothing.

  It was true that in his human state, he was not so sensitive as when he was in the Silkie state. But such a totally negative result was outside his experience. Grig said, 'He says... as soon as you're dressed... come.'

  'Who says?'

  Grig was surprised. 'The boy,' he replied. His manner indicated: Who else?

  As he dried himself and put on the clothes Mensa handed him, Cemp found himself wondering why she believed herself insane. He asked cautiously, 'Why do V's have a poor opinion of themselves?'

  'Because there's something better — Silkies.' Her tone was angry, but there were tears of frustration in her eyes. She went on wearily, 'I can't explain it, but I've felt shattered ever since I was a child. Right now I have an irrational hope that you will want to take me over and possess me. I want to be your slave.'

  Though her jet-black hair was still matted and wet, it was obvious that she had told the truth about her appearance. Her skin was creamy white, her body slim, with graceful curves. As a breather, she was beautiful.

  Cemp had no alternative. Within the next hour, he might need what help she could give. He said quietly, 'I accept you as my slave.'

  Her response was violent In a single convulsion of movement, she ran over to him, writhing out of her upper garments until they draped low on her hips. 'Take me!' she said urgently. 'Take me as a woman!'

  Cemp, who was married to a young woman of the Special People, released himself. 'Slaves don't demand,' he said in a firm tone. 'Slaves are used at the will of their masters. And my first demand as your master is, open your mind to me.'

  The woman drew away from him, trembling. 'I can't,' she said. 'The boy forbids it.'

  Cemp asked, 'What in you makes you feel insane?'

  She shook her head. 'Something... connected with the boy,' she said. 'I don't know what.'

  'Then you're his slave, not mine,' said Cemp coldly.

  Her eyes begged him. 'Free me!' she whispered. 'I can't do it myself.'

  'Where's Apartment One?' Cemp asked.

  She told him. 'You can take the stairway or the elevator.'

  Cemp went by the stairway. He needed a few minutes, just a few, to determine his course of action. He decided...

  See the boy! Determine his fate. Talk to Riber, the administrative officer of the ship. Punish Riber! Order this ship to a check-in point!

  These decisions were hardened in his mind as he reached the upper level and pressed the button beside the door of Apartment One.

  The door swung open noiselessly. Cemp walked in — and there was the boy.

  He was slightly under five feet tall, as fine-looking a human child as Cemp had ever seen. The youngester was watching a TV screen set into one wall of the big room. When Cemp entered the boy turned lazily and said, 'I was interested in seeing what you would do with that shark, in view of your condition.'

  He knew!

  The realisation hit Cemp hard. He braced himself and agreed within himself to die, to make no bargains to avoid exposure, to come to his final decision with even greater care.

  The boy said, 'You couldn't possibly do anything else.'

  Cemp was recovering, and now he was curious. He had set up a complete no-signal condition within himself. Yet the boy was reading detailed signals. How was he doing it?

  Smiling faintly, the boy shook his head.

  Cemp said, 'If you dare not tell, it isn't much of a method. I deduce that if I can find it out, I can defeat it.'

  The boy laughed, made a gesture of dismissal, and changed the subject 'Do you believe I should be killed?'

  Cemp looked into the bright gray eyes that regarded him with a boyish mischievousness and felt a qualm. He was being played with by someone who regarded himself as untouchable. The question was, was the boy fooling himself or was it real?

  'It's real,' said the youngster.

  And if it was real — Cemp's analysis continued — were there built-in restraining factors such as kept Silkies under control?

  The boy said curtly. 'That I will not answer.'

  'Very well,' Cemp turned away. 'If you persist in that decision, then my judgment is that you are outside the law. No person who cannot be controlled will ever be permitted to live in the solar system. But I'm going to give you a little while in which to change your mind. My advice is that you decide to be a law-abiding citizen.'

  He turned and left the apartment. And the important reality was that he was allowed to do so.

  * * *

  IV

  GRIG WAS waiting in the hallway outside. He seemed eager to please. Cemp, who wanted to meet Riber, asked if Riber was a breather. Riber was not; so Cemp and Grig took to the water.

  Cemp was guided to an enormous depth, to where several domes were fixed to the inner hull of the ship. There, in a water-filled labyrinth of metal and plastic, he found Riber. The administrative leader of the ship turned out to be a long, strong fish being with the peculiar protruding eyes of the fish state. He was floating beside a message-receiving machine. In one hand he held the transmitter for the machine. He looked at Cemp and turned the machine on.

  He said aloud in the underwater language, 'I think our conversation should be recorded. I don't think I can trust a Silkie to make a fair report on this special situation.'

  Cemp acquiesced without argument. The interchange began with Riber making what seemed to be a completely frank statement. He said, 'This ship and all aboard are controlled by that remarkable boy. He is not always here, and so for the most part we do as we always have. But those people who went out to meet you had no way of resisting his commands. If you can deal with him, then obviously we shall be free again. But if you can't, then we are his servants, like it or not.'

  Cemp said, 'There has to be some vulnerable level. Why, for example, do you do as he wants?'

  Riber said, 'I laughed when he first told me what he wanted. But when I came to, hours later, I realised that I had done everything he desired while I was unconscious. As a result, I now do it consciously. This has been going on for about a year, Earth time.'

  Cemp questioned Riber closely. That he had continued physical functioning when he was under the boy's control indicated that the boy's principal method of inducing unconsciousness was to shut off normal perception.

  Considering that, Cemp remembered the V whose secret was that he had fallen asleep while tending one of the outer locks.

  At Cemp's request, lock attendants were assembled. He inter viewed each one privately with the question 'What's your secret?'

  Seven of the twenty revealed, in this unwitting fashion, that they had slept while on duty. It turned out to be that simple. The boy had arrived at the lock entrance, blanked out the mind of the attendant, and entered the ship.

  It seemed to Cemp that he need examine no further. There was a frame of logic. The problem, which for a time had seemed to involve some new and intricate kind of telekinetic control, was beginning to look much more mundane.

  He returned to the woman's apartment and put on clothes again. Mensa went with him to the door. She whispered, 'Don't you dare leave this ship without making love to me. I need to feel that I belong to you.'

  Basically, that was not so, Cemp knew. She lived by reversals. She would always want what she did not have, despise or reject what she had. But he reassured her that he meant well by her, and then he went up again to Apartment One.

  It seemed to Cemp as he walked in that the boy's face was flushed and that the eyes that had been so bright were duller.
Cemp said softly, 'If I can figure it out, so can any Silkie. You went to a lot of trouble. Which tells me that you do have limitations.'

  Silkies could approach a vessel undetected, if they were prepared to manipulate energy waves. But the method was involved, requiring training.

  Cemp said, 'Well, you know my thoughts. Which one is correct?'

  Silence.

  'Your problem,' said Cemp emphatically, 'is that the Special People take no chances with dangerous deviates.'

  He hoped the boy understood how ultimately determined the Special People were.

  Abruptly, the boy sighed. 'I might as well admit it. I am Tem, your son. When I realised it was you approaching the ship, I thought I'd have a look at my father. The truth is, I became frightened that those abilities which you found so unusual would be detected. So I've been out here in space setting up an operating base to which I could retreat for my own protection. But I realise I need help, I think some changes should be made in our relationship with human beings. Other than that, I'm willing to conform and be reeducated.'

  For Cemp, it was the decisive clarification. Then and there he made up his mind — there would be no execution.

  Hastily — for Cemp was a man in a hurry — they discussed the situation. Cemp would have to tell of this meeting when he got back to Earth. There was no way by which a Silkie could conceal the facts from the perceptive Special People. And for many months, while he was in his mating stage, he would have no control of energy. During that period the boy would be at the mercy of a highly prejudiced law.

  Tem was disdainful. 'Don't worry about me. I'm ready for them.'

  It was rebel talk, dangerous and unfortunate. But this was not the moment to point that out. Such matters could be left until they got home.

  'You'd better start now,' said the boy, 'but as you'll see, I'll get to Earth before you do.'

  Cemp did not pause to find out how he would achieve this miracle of speed. That, too, would have to wait.

  As Cemp removed his clothes in Mensa's apartment, he said to her with considerable pride, 'the boy is my son.'

  Her eyes widened. 'Your son!' she said. 'But — ' she broke off.

  'What's the matter?' Cemp asked.

  'Nothing.' She spoke mechanically. 'I was surprised, that's all.'

  Cemp finished dressing, then went over to her and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He said, 'I sense that you are involved in a love relationship.'

  She shook her head. 'Not now. Not since... 'She paused.

  She seemed bewildered.

  It was no time to check on a woman's love life. If ever a man was in a hurry, he was.

  When Cemp had left Mensa's apartment, the boy came in. 'You almost gave me away,' he said in a tone that was wholly unchildlike.

  She cringed. 'I'm only a V,' she pleaded.

  He began to change, to grow. Presently, a fully adult human male stood before her. He directed toward her an energy wave that must have exerted an enormous attraction to her, for in spite of the deepening expression of distaste on her face, she swayed toward him. When she was within a foot of him, he cut off the wave. She drew back immediately.

  The man laughed. But he turned away from her, and for a few moments, then, he opened a communication line to some one on a planet of a distant star.

  He said in a silent interchange, 'I have finally risked confrontation with a Silkie, one of the powerful inhabitants of this system. He is guided by an idea called levels of logic. I discovered that his had to do with his only offspring, a boy he had never seen. I distorted his interest in this child in a subtle way. I think I can now land safely on the principal planet, which is called Earth.'

  'To distort it, you must have had to use him as a channel.'

  'Yes. It was the one risk I took with him.'

  'What about the other channels you have used, Di-isarinn?'

  The man glanced at Mensa. 'With one possible exception, they would resist any attempt of a Silkie to explore their minds. They're a rebel group called V's and are suspicious of, and hostile to, the other people in the system. The exception is a V woman who is completely under my control.'

  'Why not annihilate her?'

  'These people have some kind of a sensitive telepathetic connection, which they seem to be able to manipulate but which I have not wholly solved. If she died I think the others would know instantly. Therefore, I cannot do what I normally would.'

  'What about the Silkie?'

  'He's heading to Earth in a state of delusion. Equally important, he is due to suffer a physiological change that will strip him of all his present offensive and defensive powers. I intend to let this physical process run its course — and then kill him.'

  * * *

  V

  CEMP HAD relayed the story through Satellite Five-R to his contact, Charley Baxter, at the Silkie Authority. When he reached the satellite and changed to human form, he found a radiogram from Charley waiting for him. It said;

  HAVE PICKED UP BOY. AUTHORITY FORBIDS YOU TO LAND UNTIL THIS IS ALL SETTLED.

  Till you've done away with him, you mean! Cemp thought angrily, the official action surprised him. It was an unexpected obstacle.

  The commander of the satellite, a normal intelligent human being, who had handed him the message, said, 'Mr Cemp, I have received instructions not to let you on any ferry to Earth until further notice. This is very unusual.'

  'Unusual' was an understatement. Silkies ordinarily moved freely to and from Earth.

  Cemp made up his mind. 'I'm going out into space again,' he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  'Aren't you due for a change?' The officer seemed doubtful about letting him go.

  Cemp smiled wryly and told the Silkie joke about such things, how Silkies were like some mothers-to-be who kept having false labor pains. Off to the hospital they went, lay there in bed, at last returned home. And so, after several false alarms, baby was finally born in a taxicab.

  'Well, sir,' said the man unhappily, 'you do as you please. But there aren't any taxicabs in space.'

  'It's not that instantaneous; you can fight it off for hours,' said Cemp, who had been fighting it off for hours.

  Before he left, Cemp sent a radiogram to his wife.

  DEAR JOANNE: DELAYED BY DISPUTE. WILL ADVISE WHEN TO MEET. BUT SOON. CALL CHARLEY. HE'LL FILL YOU IN. ALL MY LOVE, NAT.

  The coded message would upset her, her knew. But he did not doubt that she would meet him at their pre-arranged rendezvous, as he wanted. She would come, if only to find out on behalf of the Special People what he was up to.

  Once out in space, Cemp headed for a point over the South Pole, and then he began his entry.

  He came in fast. According to theory, that was the only way an unprotected approach should be made. The poles were relatively free of radiation. There, where the magnetic field of the planetary body was bent inward right down to the ground, the potent Van Allen radiation belt was a minimum threat.

  Nonetheless, there were two periods of severe bombardment, one of high-energy stripped nuclei, the other of X rays. The X rays did him no harm, and for the most part the stripped nuclei passed right through his body as if it were a hard vacuum. Those nuclei which hit, however, left a small wake of radioactivity. Hastily, Cemp expelled the more seriously damaged cells, with that special ability Silkies had of eliminating damaged parts of their bodies.

  As he entered the atmosphere, Cemp gradually activated the planet's magnetic force lines behind him. Even as they began to glow brightly, he felt the radar beams bouncing off him from below. But they were not a problem now. Radar would register the movement of his body and the pyrotechnic display to his rear as one phenomenon. The outward appearance was of a meteorite shooting toward the ground.

  His entrance being slantwise in the same direction as Earth's rotation, his speed of entry was such that he could easily absorb, or radiate from him, the heat of his passage through the air. At ten miles up, he slowed even more and came down in the sea north of Antarct
ica about a thousand miles from the lower tip of South America. The cold waters quickly washed from his Silkie body the radioactive debris that still clung to the outer bone. He darted along about five hundred feet up, using the water as a coolant by slowing and diving into it whenever he got too hot. It was a fine balancing of extremely rapid acceleration and deceleration, but he made it to near where he lived at the lower tip of Florida in slightly more than forty minutes, the last five of which were wholly underwater.

  As he surfaced within sight of the beach, he transformed to his fish stage and then, two hundred feet from shore, to human. He had already seen Joanne's car parked on the road behind a sand dune. He did the overhand crawl to get to shallow water and ran against the surging waves up the embankment to where she lay on a blanket, watching him.

  She stood up, a slender, very pretty woman, blonde and blue eyed. Her classically even features were white and set now as she handed him a towel. Cemp dried himself and climbed into the clothes she had brought. A few minutes later they were in the car, and at this point she accepted his kiss. But she still withheld her thoughts, and her body was rigid with disapproval.

  When she finally communicated, it was verbally and not by direct energy. 'Do you realise,' she said, 'that if you persist in this you will be the first Silkie in over a hundred years to get himself punished or executed?'

  That she spoke out loud confirmed Cemp's suspicion. He was now certain that she had reported his illegal entry to the Silkie Authority and that people were listening in to this conversation. He felt no blame of Joanne. He even surmised that all the Special People were prepared to help him through this trying period. They were probably also speeding up the investigation of Tem, so that the execution would he quickly over with.

  'What are you going to do, Nat?' She sounded anxious now, rather than angry. There was color in her face for the first time.

  At some depth within, Cemp felt vaguely surprised at how determined he was. But the awareness did not trigger any question in him. He said coolly, 'If they kill that boy, I'll know the reason why.'