next thing I may have to ask you to do is help me
pack a suitcase."
As if by some prearranged signal, the
commphone began to beep. Grayson
looked at Spock, eyes twin
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
kling beneath their tangled brows. He switched the
vidscreen from news to the commphone. Within moments he
was conversing with a former student, now head of the Peace
Institute in Stockholm.
Shortly Spock would indeed be helping him pack
a suitcase.
"Oh, Sally?"
For a sinking moment Kirk thought Elizabeth
Dehner would fail to respond to her cover name, but it
was only his tone of voice that made her hesitate
a particular tone in the male voice she was too
accustomed to ignoring in her role as Elizabeth
Dehner. But training got the better of reflex, and
she turned to find Jim Kirk standing in the doorway
of his cabin, smiling his
charming-as-ever smile and crooking his finger at her.
When she approached, he grabbed her, pulled her
inside, and shut the door.
"Captain, what the hell . . . ?"
""Colonel," if you must call me something.
As you were, doctor." Kirk dropped the act
immediately, became all business.
"Don't jump to conclusions. Unlike Mitchell,
I'm concerned with a different sort of diversionary
action."
Dehner seemed visibly relieved.
"Sorry."
Kirk dismissed it. "We've got more
important things to worry about.
"I want you to do whatever you can to remain here when the
others leave," he instructed her. "Up to and
including faking an affair with me as a reasonable
excuse. We can't take the risk of their moving you
somewhere where we can't find you."
Dehner relaxed, sat on Kirk's narrow
bunk. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"
"How much do you know about this "wiping"
pFO-CESS?"
"Mandatory reading for any history-of-med
course,"
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
Dehner replied. "Mostly the administering of
large doses of meperidine and the neo-dopamines
combined with selective hypnosis. Banned during the
Mind Control Riots. It's crude by our
standards, but effective."
"Could you do it if you had to?" Kirk wanted
to know.
Dehner thought about it. "Theoretically, given the
right drugs. But I'm not sure if I'd want
to morally, I mean.
Kirk sat beside her on the bunk. "If it meant
the difference between this mess we're in now and getting
history back on course, could you? Morally?"
"I think so," Dehner said after a long moment.
"Good!" Kirk patted her knee fraternally, was
on his feet to check the door and the corridor beyond.
Satisfied that no one could overhear them, he shut the
door and stood with his back to it. "As nerve-racking
as all this is, it's working in our favor. The
government will make sure
everyone who leaves retains no memory of what
happened here. That leaves only the people aboard that
ship. And you and I, doctor, are going to get
aboard that ship."
He told her about his encounter with the pacifists and
how he'd managed to contact their Professor
Grayson via Stockholm. The pacifists'
wingboat had lifted off less than an hour before.
"If Grayson turns up, he'll be one
extra factor we'll have to consider,"
Kirk said grimly. "But I understand he's an old
man, and not well. He might not show. We may
get lucky. What about the other medical
personnel?"
Dehner smiled her wry smile. "They couldn't
wait to get out of here. I think they were looking forward
to being "wiped." Being confronted with anything so
different was frightening to them."
was "So different," was Kirk repeated.
"Wonder how they'd cope with some of the really different
types
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we've encountered. We forget how parochial we were
in these times."
In these times? Definer thought, but said nothing.
Kirk was already off on another tangent.
"You all have had to file reports."
"Right," Dehner confirmed. "They're stored in the
computer system down the hall. It's an antique
even by tds standards. Took us half a day
to figure out how to store things instead of dumping them."
"That's useful," Kirk said, suddenly
animated. "See if you can get back into the computer
room. Sweet-talk the guards, do
whatever you have to. Get into the system and dump
whatever you can your reports, the other medics',
anything the other civilian personnel might have
entered."
"Is that all?" Dehner asked dryly, already on
her feet. "Where will you be?"
"Right here," Kirk promised. "At least
until morning. Mitchell hasn't reported in for
two days. He may just be moving around, or he could
be in trouble."
Watching the Ivory Coast slip rapidly
by to his left, Comrade Engineer Jerzy
Miklovcik tried not to grin as the captain of the
speedcruiser grunted and handed him back his
departure orders.
"Beats me why they have to divert an entire ship
to transport one engineer to the ends of the Earth," she
growled. "What the hell you going to be doing in
Antarctica anyway?"
"Building igloos," Gary Mitchell joked in
his best Polish accent. "Ours not to question why
correct, Captain?"
She gave him a sour look and went below.
Mitchell stood at the rail with the wind ruffling his
close-cropped hair and hoped he'd be in
time.
Jim Kirk had told him to stay put in
Gdansk unless and until he ordered him to come
to Byrd. Mitchell was
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
acting against orders, acting on an internal order
an absolute psychic certainty that Jim Kirk
would need him soon, if he didn't already.
Mitchell had had such flashes of insight with
uncanny regularity all his adult life; they
rarely misled him. He hoped he was wrong this time,
Pooped he'd get to Kirk in time to earn a
reprimand for disregarding orders over something as
harebrained as a "feeling." But, better safe.
Besides, considering what Parneb had told him
to look for in the Western Desert on his way here,
Jim Kirk should be pleased to see him no matter
what.
"Lee's gone to ground and I can't take the time
to look for him," Mitchell had told the sorcerer,
popping in on him unexpectedly, if it were possible
to do that with a true psychic. "It doesn't feel right
to me, but right now I've got to get to Jim. I
figured if you wanted something useful to do .
. ."?
"I too have been searching for Mr. Kelso since
his last transmission," Parneb announced in an
injured tone. "As I continue to search for your
Vulcan companion. his
"Yeah, well, you keep at it," Mitchell
advised, not expecting results on either search, but
it kept Parneb out of further mischief. "See you
around. I've got a ship to commandeer."
"Mr. Mitchell." Parneb pulled himself up
to his full height in an attempt at hauteur;
in such a comic-opera figure it was hopeless. "There
will never be any love lost between us; I can
appreciate that. But there is a. larger
consideration here, which is why I will tell you one thing:
if you chance to be passing over the Western Desert in
your travels, you might wish to observe from your window
what appears to be an abandoned petrol refinery.
It is in fact an installation left over from the
Third War . . ."
* * *
293.
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
Flying over the neatly disguised half-ruined
silos in the special Aeroationav plane
reserved for transporting high-level personnel,
and using the on-board computer to cross-reference
certain files he'd left open in Gdansk,
Gary Mitchell wondered if Parneb was a total
bungler after all.
A sudden blizzard waylaid Easter's band
less than a hundred kilometers from where they'd
started, bringing both snowmobiles to a standstill.
Worse, one of them had developed a fuel leak,
the result of a stray shot from Aghan's penguin
massacre.
"Must have ricocheted and hit the tank," Aghan
offered, as if it were nothing.
Even if they siphoned some fuel from the second
mobile there might not be enough, and there was no way
all five of them, with their weapons, could travel in
a single vehicle. Easter sat at the controls and
cursed himself hoarse. Red, disgusted, kicked the
hatch open and braved the flailing ice storm
to huddle in with Noir and Kaze, while Aghan
shrugged and went to sleep, oblivious to the rage of his
leader and the wind outside.
Meanwhile, Racher's dozen, unstopped by either
storm or stupidity, continued on their deadly way.
"You look unwell, Professor,"
Spock observed, pausmg in his task. "Perhaps if
I could accompany
"Accompany me?" Grayson wheezed, breathless
from the preparations and perhaps something more. "Lord, Ben, I
almost wish you could go in my place!"
He sat on the bed beside his single battered
suitcase as Spock packed it for him in his
purposeful, methodical way.
"Quite seriously," Grayson said. "I'd take
you if I could. Even send you alone. I don't know
what it is about you maybe it's nothing more than the way
you look a person in the eye when he talks to you but
I
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
believe I could trust you with my life. Or any
number of lives, for that matter."
There was no logical response to such an
accolade. Spock's hands continued their work, folding
sweaters and shirts and extra
handkerchiefs, while his eyes met his ancestor's
blue-eyed gaze in their characteristic steady way.
"But there's a strong chance they'll turn me back
at the borders," Grayson went on. His breathing
was labored, as Spock had never heard it
before. "I'm sorry, but I can't risk
antagonising them. They'll have to make their best use
of one old man, that's all."
Spock had heard the report from Stockholm, and
Grayson had added his knowledge to the journalese still pouring
from the vidscreen on the topic. Extrapolating from
these scant facts and his knowledge of the time and place and of
Vulcan scoutcraft procedure, Spock had come
to the disquieting conclusion that the aliens in question were in
fact Vulcans.
Their untimely presence must be linked to his own,
to the disappearance of his crewmates, to the distortion of
present history. Ironic that it was to be his
ancestor who attempted to set things right, while he
could only stand helplessly by. But if Grayson
failed . . .
"Professor, if I may ask" Spock
closed the suitcase, set it near the bedroom
door preparatory to bringing it downstairs "if these
are indeed beings from another world, what can be done about
them?"
"Oh, they're from another world, all right!"
Grayson stated unequivocally, pulling himself off
the bed suddenly and rummaging in a bureau drawer for
something. "No human would have tolerated the
nonsense they have without raising hell. If it rested
with me and that's a rather improbable 'if" I'd see
they got a ship to return to their world and hope to God
they can forgive us our immaturity!" He found what
he was
searching for, a small odd-looking talisman on
a tangled silver chain. Grayson proceeded
to try untangling it. "Mind 295
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
you, if you think the powers-that-be are going to take the
advice of one decrepit pacifist here, give me
a hand with this, can you'd
The tremor in his hands made him drop the
talisman; Spock retrieved it from the floor and
examined it curiously.
"Doubt if your generation would know what to make of that
little object." Grayson's breath came in shorter
gasps now, but his eyes remained untroubled, studying
his mysterious lodger under his eyebrows, glinting
mischievously.
Spock disentangled the talisman from its chain and
studied it. It was a simple thing a circle
enclosing a modified inverted y or perhaps a
runic K simple, but of great significance.
"I believe it was commonly called a
peace symbol," Spock observed. "Of obscure
but possibly ancient origin, first used
extensively during the antiwar movements of the
1960's."
Grayson nodded, as if he'd expected
Spock to know this much. "It became our symbol in the
underground durinand the Third War a way of knowing whom
we could trust. Now that peace is the majority
opinion, the symbol has fallen inffdisuse. Though
if I fail in what I've been asked to do well,
this small thing has gotten me through many a dangerous
situation; let's hope it can get me through one more."
He sat heavily on the bed, his breathing growing more
and more labored. He seemed to be
listening to some inner voice. Spock watched him with
growing, concern. Unaware that he was doing so, he had
untangled the fine silver chain and extricated the
talisman; he held it gently, reverently in his
hands.
"You have extraordinary hands, Ben, has anyone
ever told you that?" Grayson's voice sounded
dreamy, far away. "I've watched them do
things strong, deft, accustomed to work, but gentle
at the
same time . . ."
Those same hands caught Jeremy
Grayson and pre- 296
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
vented him from falling as he was suddenly taken by some
sort of seizure.
"You are ill," Spock said, steadying him,
activating the alarm on the commphone, which would alert the
nearest hospital. He lifted the old man
effortlessly in his arms and carried him downstairs
to await the ambulance.
"Ben . . ." Grayson gasped, clinging
to Spock as if to life itself. "Benjamin . . .
favored son . . ."
He suffered a second seizure, which sent him
into cardiac arrest. Spock laid him out on the
living-room carpet and began CPR, breathing life
into him to whom he owed life.
Mahmoud Gamal al-Parneb Nezaj
abandoned his crystal-gazing with something like despair.
Lee Kelso was nowhere to be found, and whatever hope
he'd had of finding Spock was finally exhausted.
Parneb made himself a pot of mint tea and
absently flicked on his vidscreen. Voices
trickled in and out of his consciousness as he waited for the
tea to steep.
"dis . . in major capitals and small
villages alike, demands from groups of every
political stripe calling for the aliens to be brought
forth and made available for questioning, if they in fact
exist. Meanwhile, planetary comdefences continue
on the alert, and countless millions scan the heavens
nightly, waiting with dread for the appearance of further
strangers from the sky . . ."
"dis . . have gone so far as to suggest that the arrival
of aliens is in fact a reprisal for the launching
of the Icarus mission to Alpha
Centauri. Spokesmen for the Back to Earth
Movement, at a prayer meeting hastily assembled
in Salt Lake City, called for a halt to all
further space exploration, and one source was quoted
as saying there would be nothing morally wrong with abandoning
the Icarus in space if this would put an end to the
alien invasion . . ."
"dis . . eyewitnesses claim that such aliens have
landed
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
before, and have been secretly interbreeding with human
stock since the first UFO sightings nearly one
hundred years ago . . ."
"dis . . seventeen people injured when an
unidentified person or persons spread the rumor
that alien invaders had taken over the airports . .
."
"Oh, dear!" Parneb sighed, stirred his tea,
and changed the channel. In a moment of
Strangers from the Sky Page 33
