The Silkie

by A. E. van Vogt

  At that precise moment, as Cemp was bracing himself to use logic of levels, there was an interruption.

  An 'impulse' band — a very low, slow vibration — touched one of the receptors in the forward part of his brain. It operated at mere multiples of the audible sound range directly on his sound-receiving system.

  What was new was that the sound acted as a carrier for the accompanying thought. The result was as if a voice spoke clearly and loudly into his ears.

  'You win,' said the voice. 'You have forced mc. I shall talk to you myself — bypassing my unknowing servants.'

  * * *

  XVII

  CEMP IDENTIFIED the incoming thought formation as a direct contact. Accordingly, his brain, which was programmed to respond instantaneously to a multitude of signals, was triggered into an instant effort to suction more impulses from the sending brain ... and he got a picture. A momentary glimpse, so brief that even after a few seconds it was hard to be sure that it was real and not a figment of fantasy.

  Something huge lay in the darkness deep inside the planetoid. It lay there and gave forth with an impression of vast power. It had been withholding itself, watching him with some tiny portion of itself. The larger whole understood the universe and could manipulate massive sections of space-time.

  'Say nothing to these others.' Again the statement was a direct contact that sounded like spoken words.

  The dismay that had seized on Cemp in the last few moments was on the level of desperation. He had entered the Silkie stronghold in the belief that his human training and Kibmadine knowledge gave him a temporary advantage over the space Silkies and that if he did not delay, he could win a battle that might resolve the entire threat from these natural Silkies.

  Instead, he had come unsuspecting into the lair of a cosmic giant. He thought, appalled, Here is what has been called 'the Power.'

  And if the glimpse he had had was real, then it was such a colossal, power that all his own ability and strength were as nothing.

  He deduced now that this was what had attacked him twice. 'Is that true?' he telepathed on the same band as the incoming thoughts had been on.

  'Yes. I admit it.'

  'Why?' Cemp flashed the question. 'Why did you do it?'

  So that I would not have to reveal my existence. My fear is always that if other life forms find out about me, they will analyse how to destroy me.'

  The direction of the alien thought altered. 'But now, listen; do as follows....'

  The confession had again stirred Cemp's emotions. The hatred that had been aroused in him had a sustained force deriving from the logic-of-levels stimulation — in this instance the body's response to an attempt at total destruction. Therefore, he had difficulty now restraining additional automatic reactions.

  But the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. So, presently he was able, at the request of the monster, to say to E-Lerd and the other Silkies, 'You take a while to think this over. And when the Silkies who have defected arrive from Earth, I'll talk to them. We can then have another discussion.'

  It was such a complete change of attitude that the two Silkies showed their surprise. But he saw that to them the change had the look of weakness and that they were relieved.

  'I'll be back here in one hour!' he telepathed to E-Lerd. whereupon he turned and climbed up and out of the courtyard, darting to an opening that led by a roundabout route deeper into the planetoid.

  Again the low, slow vibration touched his receptors. 'Come closer!' the creature urged.

  Cemp obeyed, on the hard-core principle that either he could defend himself — or he couldn't. Down he went, past a dozen screens, to a barren cave, a chamber that had been carved out of the original meteorite stuff. It was not even lighted. As he entered, the direct thought touched his mind again: 'Now we can talk.'

  Cemp had been thinking at furious speed, striving to adjust to a danger so tremendous that he had no way of evaluating it. Yet the Power had revealed itself to him rather than let E-Lerd find out anything. That seemed to be his one hold on it; and he had the tense conviction that even that was true only as long as he was inside the planetoid.

  He thought... Take full advantage!

  He telepathed, 'After those attacks, you'll have to give me some straight answers, if you expect to deal with me.'

  'What do you want to know?'

  'Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want?'

  It didn't know who it was. 'I have a name,' it said. 'I am the Glis. There used to be many like me long ago. I don't know what happened to them.'

  'But what are you?'

  It had no knowledge. An energy life form of unknown origin, traveling from one star system to another, remaining for a while, then leaving.

  'But why leave? Why not stay?' sharply.

  'The time comes when I have done what I can for a particular system.'

  By using its enormous power, it transported large ice-and-air meteorites to airless planets and made them habitable, cleared away dangerous space debris, altered poisonous atmospheres into nonpoisonous ones....

  'Presently the job is done, and I realise it's time to go on to explore the infinite cosmos. So I make my pretty picture of the inhabited planets, as you saw, and head for outer space.

  'And the Silkies?'

  They were an old meteorite life form.

  'I found them long ago, and because I needed mobile units that could think, I persuaded them into a permanent relationship.'

  Cemp did not ask what persuasive methods had been used. In view of the Silkies' ignorance of what they had a relationship with, he divined that a sly method had been used. But still, what he had seen showed an outwardly peaceful arrangement. The Glis had agents — the Silkies — who acted for it in the world of tiny movements. They, in turn, had at their disposal bits and pieces of the Glis's own 'body,' which could apparently be programmed for specific tasks beyond the Silkies' ability to perform.

  'I am willing,' said the Glis, 'to make the same arrangement with your government for as long as I remain in the solar system.'

  But absolute secrecy would be necessary.

  'Why?'

  There was no immediate reply, but the communication band remained open. And along the line of communication there flowed an essence of the reaction from the Glis — an impression of unmatched power, of a being so mighty that all other individuals in the universe were less by some enormous percentage.

  Cemp felt staggered anew. But he telepathed, 'I must tell someone. Somebody has to know.'

  'No other Silkies — absolutely.'

  Cemp didn't argue. All these millennia, the Glis had kept its identity hidden from the space Silkies. He had a total conviction that it would wreck the entire planetoid to prevent them from learning it.

  He had been lucky. It had fought him at a level where only a single chamber of the meteorite had been destroyed. It had restricted itself.

  'Only the top government leaders and the Silkie Council may know,' the Glis continued.

  It seemed an adequate concession; yet Cemp had an awful suspicion that in the long past of this creature every person who uncovered its secret had been murdered.

  Thinking thus, he could not compromise. He demanded, 'Let me have a complete view of you — what I caught a fleeting glimpse of earlier.'

  He sensed, then that the Glis hesitated.

  Cemp urged, 'I promise that only the persons you named will be told about this — but we must know!'

  Floating there in the cave in his Silkie form, Cemp felt a charge of energy tension in the air and in the ground. Although he put forth no additional probing energies, he recognised that barriers were going down. And presently he began to record.

  His first impression was of hugeness. Cemp estimated, after a long, measuring look, that the creature, a circular rocklike structure; was about a thousand feet in diameter. It was alive, but it was not a thing of flesh and blood. It 'fed' from some inner energy that rivaled what existed in the heart
of the sun.

  And Cemp noticed a remarkable phenomenon. Magnetic impulses that passed through the creature and impinged on his senses were altered in a fashion that he had never observed before — as if they had passed through atoms of a different structure than anything he knew.

  He remembered the fleeting impression he had had from the molecule. This was the same but on a massive scale. What startled him was that all his enormous training in such matters gave no clue to what the structure might be.

  'Enough?' asked the creature.

  Doubtfully, Cemp said, 'Yes.'

  Glis accepted his reluctant agreement as a complete authorisation. What had been a view through and past the cave wall disappeared abruptly.

  The alien thought spoke into his mind, 'I have done a very dangerous thing for me in thus revealing myself. Therefore, I again earnestly impress on you the importance of a limited number of people being told what you have just witnessed.'

  In secrecy, it continued, lay the greatest safety, not only for it, but for Cemp.

  'I believe,' said the creature, 'that what I can do is overwhelming. But I could he wrong. What disturbs me is, there is only one of me. I would hate to suddenly feel the kind of fear that might motivate me to destroy an entire system.'

  The implied threat was as deadly — and as possible — as anything Cemp had ever heard. Cemp hesitated, feeling overwhelmed, desperate for more information.

  He flashed, 'How old do Silkies get?' and added quickly. 'We've had no experience, since none has yet died a natural death.'

  'About a thousand of your Earth years,' was the answer. 'What have you in mind for Earth-born Silkies? Why did you want us to return here?'

  Again there was a pause; once more the sense of colossal power. But presently with it there came a reluctant admission that new Silkies, born on planets, normally had less direct knowledge of the Glis than those who had made the latest trip.

  Thus, the Glis had a great interest in ensuring that plenty of time was allowed for a good replacement crop of unknowing young Silkies.

  It finished, 'You and I shall have to make a special agreement. Perhaps you can have E-Lerd's position and be my contact.'

  Since E-Lerd no longer remembered that he was the contact, Cemp had no sense of having being offered anything but ... danger.

  He thought soberly, I'll never be permitted to come back here, once I leave.

  But that didn't matter. The important thing was — get away! At once!

  * * *

  XVIII

  AT THE Silkie Authority, the computer gave four answers. Cemp rejected two of them at once. They were, in the parlance of computer technology, 'trials.' The machine simply presented all the bits of information, strung out in two lookovers. By this means a living brain could examine the data in segments. But Cemp did not need such data — not now.

  Of the remaining two answers, one postulated a being akin to a god. But Cemp had experienced the less-than-godlike powers of the Glis, in that it had twice failed to defeat him. True, he believed that it had failed to destroy him because it did not wish to destroy the planetoid. But an omnipotent god would not have found that a limitation.

  He had to act as if the amazing fourth possibility were true. The picture that had come through in that possibility was one of ancientness. The mighty being hidden in the planetoid predated most planetary systems.

  'In the time from which it derives,' said the computer, 'there were, of course, stars and star systems, but they were different. The natural laws were not what they are today. Space and time have made adjustments since then, grown older therefore, the present appearance of the universe is different from that which the Glis knew at its beginnings. This seems to give it an advantage, for it knows some of the older shapes of atoms and molecules and can re-create them. Certain of these combinations reflect the state of matter when it was the best comparison — younger.'

  The human government group, to whom Cemp presented these data, was stunned. Like himself, they had been basing their entire plan on working out a compromise with the space Silkies. Now, suddenly, here was a colossal being with un known power.

  'Would you say,' asked one man huskily, 'that to a degree the Silkies are slaves of this creature?'

  Cemp said, 'E-Lerd definitely didn't know what he was dealing with. He simply had what he conceived to be a scientific system for utilising a force of nature. The Glis responded to his manipulation of this system, as if it were simply another form of energy. But I would guess that it controlled him, perhaps through preconditioning installed long ago.'

  As he pointed out, such a giant life form would not be concerned with the everyday living details of its subjects. It would be satisfied with having a way of invariably getting them to do what it wanted.

  'But what does it want?' That came from another man.

  'It goes around doing good,' said Cemp with a tight smile. 'That's the public image it tried to give me. I have the impression that it's willing to make over the solar system to our specifications.'

  At this point Mathews spoke, 'Mr Cemp,' he said, 'what does all this do to the Silkie situation?'

  Cemp said that the Silkies who had defected had clearly acted hastily. 'But,' he finished, 'I should tell you that I find the space Silkies a very likeable group. In my opinion, they are not the problem. They have the same problem, in another way, that we have.'

  'Nat,' said Charley Baxter, 'do you trust this monster?'

  Cemp hesitated, remembering the deadly attacks, remembering that only the Kibmadine defense screen and energy-reversal process had saved him. He remembered, too, that the great being had been compelled to reveal its presence to prevent him from forcing E-Lerd to open his mind — which would have in formed the space Silkies of the nature of the Power.

  'No!' he said.

  Having spoken, he realised that a simple negative was not answer enough. It could not convey the reality of the terrifying danger that was out there in space.

  He said slowly, 'I realise that my own motives may be suspect in what I am about to say, but it's my true opinion. I think all Earth Silkies should be given full knowledge of the Kibmadine attack-and-defense system at once and that they should be assigned to work in teams to keep a constant watch on the Glis, permitting no one to leave the planetoid — except to surrender.'

  There was a pregnant silence. Then a scientist said in a small voice, 'Any chance of logic of levels applying?'

  'I don't see how,' said Cemp.

  'I don't either,' said the man unhappily.

  Cemp addressed the group again. 'I believe we should gird ourselves to drive this thing from the solar system. We're not safe until it's gone.'

  As he finished speaking, he sensed an energy tension ... familiar! He had a sensation, then, of cosmic distance and cosmic time — opening. Power unlimited!

  It was the same feeling he had had in the second attack, when his senses had been confused.

  The fear that came to Cemp in that moment had no parallel in his experience. It was the fear of a man who suddenly has a fleeting glimpse of death and destruction for all his own kind and for his planet.

  As he had that awful consciousness, Cemp whirled from where he was standing. He ran headlong toward the great window behind him, shattering it with an arc of lightning as he did so. And with eyes closed against the flying glass, he plunged out into the empty seventy stories above the ground.

  As he fell, the fabric of space and time collapsed around him like a house of cards tumbling. Cemp transformed into class-C Silkie and became immensely more perceptive. Now he sensed the nature of the colossal energy at work — a gravitational field so intense that it actually closed in upon itself. Encompassing all things, organic and inorganic, it squeezed with irresistible power.

  Defensively, Cemp put up, first, his inverter system ... and perceived that that was not the answer.

  Instantly, he triggered gravity tranformation — an infinitely variable system that converted the encroaching su
perfield to a harmless energy in relation to himself.

  With that, he felt the change slow. It did not stop. He was no longer so involved, so enveloped; yet he was not completely free.

  He realised what held him. He was oriented to this massive segment of space-time. To an extent, anything that happened here happened to him. To that extent, he could not get away.

  The world grew dim. The sun disappeared.

  Cemp saw with a start that he was inside a chamber and realised that his automatic screens had protected him from striking the hard, glittering walls.

  And he became aware of three other realities. The chamber was familiar, in that there below him was one of the glowing images of a planet. The image showed the oceans and the continents, and since he was looking down at it, he felt that he was somehow back inside the Silkie planetoid, in one of the 'art' rooms.

  What was different was that as he looked down at the planetary image, he saw the familiar outlines of the continents and oceans of Earth. And he realised that the feeling of a virtually unlimited force pressing in was a true explanation of what was happening.

  The ancient monster that lived at the core of the planetoid had taken Earth, compressed it and everything on it from an 8,000-mile-in-diameter planet into a hundred-foot ball, and added the ball to its fabulous collection.

  It was not a jewel-like image of Earth there in the floor — it was Earth itself.

  Even as he had the thought, Cemp sensed that the planetoid was increasing its speed.

  He thought, We're leaving the solar system.

  In a matter of minutes, as he hovered there, helpless to act, the speed of the planetoid became hundreds, then thousands of miles a second.

  After about an hour of continuing acceleration, the velocity of the tiny planetoid, in its ever-widening hyperbolic orbit was nearly half that of light.

  A few hours later, the planetoid was beyond the orbit of Pluto, and it was traveling at near light speed.

  And still accelerating...

  * * *