Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 5

by Eric Flint

  She moved through the door, paused in the dark and silent office, then moved on into the library. She remained a minute or two above the big safe in a corner of the library. Then she knew.

  The safe was empty—and trapped.

  The awareness flicked out of the library, shifted to the fifth floor of the complex, drifted toward a great, black door showing the words: Scientific Liaison and Investigation. She stopped before it.

  Minutes passed as she slowly and carefully scanned the outer walls of John Hammond's offices and living quarters. Here was something new . . . something that seemed very dangerous. Within the walls and doors, above the ceiling, below the flooring of this section, strange energies curled and crawled like twisting smoke.

  She could not pass through that barrier.

  But though she could not enter, her perception might, to some extent.

  She must avoid, she decided, both the front entry door and the secret elevator which led directly to Hammond's living quarters in the rear of the section. As the most obvious points for an intruder to consider, they were also the most formidably shielded.

  She shifted back along the hall to a point some twenty feet away from the massive black door, well back from the wall between her and the front office. She waited. Gradually a picture began to form . . .

  This was an unfamiliar room, the inner office of the section. There was no one in it, nothing of interest except a closed door across from the one which opened on the corridor.

  The inner office disappeared . . . and what came next was no picture, but a surge of savage, demanding hunger.

  Startled, shocked, already feeling the pull that in a moment would hurl her into the murderous barriers about the section, the searching awareness instantly broke the thread of visual perception, went inactive to allow herself to stabilize.

  Nevertheless, she now knew where the serum was—in a strongroom of Hammond's quarters, heavily screened, seemingly inaccessible.

  Perception cautiously opened again. Another section of the living quarters appeared, hazy with hostile energies. The other—the male counterpart—was here. Alive.

  Here, but helpless. Here, but unconscious, in a cage of dark force which permitted no more than barest identification by the searcher. She was very glad he had been rescued.

  Minutes later, she knew there was no one else in Hammond's locked quarters. She withdrew visual perception from there, and let the picture of the main office develop. The blurred image of a woman—Helen Wendell—now seemed to be speaking into an instrument connected with the apparatus before her.

  A second band of perception opened, and voices became indistinctly audible.

  Ganin Arnold, the New Brasilia courier, was making his final call from the city jetport, nine miles south of the Research Alpha complex.

  "The doors are being secured," he said. He was speaking into a disguised microphone clamped over his mouth and nose, which had the appearance of the tranquilizing respirators many of the other jet passengers were using now in the last moments before lift-off. Even to anyone within inches of him, his voice would have remained completely inaudible. In John Hammond's office, it emerged clearly from the device on Helen Wendell's desk.

  "Lift-off for the nonstop jet to Paris," Arnold went on, "will follow—" he glanced at the watch on his wrist—"in two minutes and thirty seconds. All passengers and every member of the crew have passed at least once through the measurement radius. Nothing which may have preceded or followed myself and our biologist aboard registers life energy levels significantly above the standard Earther range—that is, of course, below six.

  "To sum it up, we definitely are not being accompanied to Paris by any abnormally high human evolutionary form. Dr. Gloge's behavior has been excellent. His tranquilizer has begun to take effect and he is showing signs of drowsiness. Undoubtedly, he will sleep soundly throughout the trip."

  Arnold paused, apparently waiting for comment. When there was none, he resumed, "As soon as the lift-field goes on, communication by this means, of course, will be impossible. Since nothing is likely to go wrong from this moment on, I suggest, if it's satisfactory to Mr. Hammond, that I end my report now."

  Helen Wendell's voice, seeming to speak from a point just within the left side of the courier's skull, told him pleasantly, "Mr. Hammond prefers you to remain alert and available for final instructions until the lift has begun."

  XII

  In the locked room on the top floor of the empty warehouse a few miles east of Research Alpha, the woman-shape standing at the window stirred suddenly out of the tranced immobility it had maintained for the past minutes. The head lifted, gaze sweeping the softly glowing night-sky above the city. A hand moved, touching the thick windowpane probingly. The glass fell away like a big drop of melting ice.

  Dust swirled as cool air rushed in.

  Barbara waited, then moved closer to the opening.

  Her gaze swung to the west again, remained there. She listened. The myriad noises of the city were clear and distinct now. Overlying them was a thin fountain of sky-sound as, every thirty seconds—at this hour—a jet lifted vertically from the city port, cut in its engines and vanished up into the night with a whistling shriek. Her head shifted quickly, briefly following the changing pattern of the sound. Then it steadied.

  Her gaze rose slowly, slanting to the north, following a moving, distant point in the night, eyes narrowed with intentness.

  On board the Paris jet which had left the city port a few minutes before, Dr. Henry Gloge now had a very curious experience. Drowsily, almost on the verge of sleep, he had been contemplating the pleasant significance of his assignment today to Sir Hubert Roland's Paris Project. Suddenly, then, there was a sensation of coming partly awake.

  He gazed around him with a rising sense of alarm, looking first of all at his seat companion.

  The fellow was big, heavily built. He looked like a police detective, and Gloge knew that the man was his guard. The curious thing was that he was slumped back in the seat, head lolling forward, eyes closed . . . typical indications of a tranquilized stupor.

  Gloge thought: "Why is he asleep?" He had a strong conviction that it was he who should be unconscious. There was a clear memory of a device—an instrument totally unfamiliar to him—which the Wendell woman had used to implant a complete, compelling set of delusions in his mind. He had come willingly aboard the jet. And he had, at the suggestion of his guard, inhaled enough tranquilizing gas from the seat respirator to have kept him somnolent until the jet touched down in Paris.

  Instead, minutes later, he had come awake, the delusions of the day slipping from his mind!

  There must be an explanation for these apparently contradictory events.

  The thought ended. A feeling of blankness held him for a moment. Then came a churning wave of terror.

  Somewhere a voice had said:

  "Yes, Dr. Gloge—there is an explanation for this!"

  Slowly, against his every inclination but completely unable to withstand the impulse, Dr. Gloge turned, looked back. There was someone in the seat behind him.

  For an instant, it seemed to be a complete stranger. Then the eyes opened. They fixed on him, glowing brilliant demon-blue, even in the muted light of the jet.

  The woman spoke, and it was the voice of Barbara Ellington. "We have a problem, Dr. Gloge. There seems to be a group of extra-terrestrials on this planet, and I still do not have any clear idea of what they are doing here. That's our immediate task—to find out."

  "You are where?" Helen Wendell said sharply.

  Her hand flicked to the right, snapped a switch. A small view-screen on the right side of the desk lit up. She said, "John—quick!"

  In the inner office, John Hammond turned, saw the lit screen on the desk behind him. An instant later he was listening to the words tumbling hoarsely from the telephone speaker on his left. He said to Helen's tense, pale profile in the screen to the right, "Where is he?"

  "At the Des Moines jetport! Th
e Paris jet put down for emergency repairs. Now nobody seems to understand just what was wrong with it or what repairs are needed. But the passengers have been disembarked, are to be transferred to another jet. Arnold's in a state of confusion and shock. Listen to him!"

  "—there was a woman with him," the courier's voice babbled. "At the time, I thought it was one of the passengers who had come off the jet with us. Now I'm not sure. But I simply stood there and watched the two of them walk out of the hall together. It never occurred to me to ask myself why this woman was with Gloge, or to stop them, or even to wonder where they were going . . ."

  Hammond twisted a dial, dimming the voice. He spoke to Helen Wendell. "When did the jet come down?"

  "From what Arnold said first," Helen told him, "it must have been over half an hour ago! As he puts it, it didn't occur to him to call us about it until now."

  "Half an hour!" Hammond came to his feet. "Helen, drop everything you're doing! I want an off-planet observer sitting in on this, preferably within minutes."

  She gave him a startled look. "What are you expecting?"

  "I don't know what to expect."

  She hesitated, began: "The Wardens . . ."

  "Whatever can be done here," Hammond said, "I can do myself. I don't need anyone else for that. The defense screens on the northern side will go off for exactly forty seconds. Now move!" He snapped off the screen, reached under the desk, threw over another switch.

  In the main office, Helen Wendell stared at the blank screen for a moment. Then she jumped to the entry door, pulled it open and slipped out into the hall. The door swung shut behind her.

  Some moments later, John Hammond entered the room behind his private office where Vincent Strather lay enclosed by a trap screen. Hammond went to the wall, turned the trap controls there halfway to the off point.

  The screen faded into smoky near-invisibility, and he stared for a few seconds at the shape stretched out on the couch within it. He asked aloud, "There have been no further internal changes?"

  "None within the past two hours," the MD machine's voice said from the wall.

  "This form is viable?"

  "Yes."

  "He would awaken if I released the screen?"

  "Yes. Immediately."

  Hammond was silent a moment, then asked, "You have calculated the effects of a fourth injection of the serum?"

  "Yes," the machine said from the wall.

  "In general, what are they?"

  "In general," the machine said, "there would be pronounced changes and at an again greatly accelerated rate. The evolutionary trend remains the same, but would be very much advanced. The resultant form would stabilize within twenty minutes. It would again be a viable one."

  Hammond turned the trap screen controls full over to the left. The screen darkened once more into a dense, concealing shroud.

  It was too soon to make the decision to give the fourth shot. Perhaps—mercifully—it could be avoided altogether.

  XIII

  At half past ten, the long-distance signal sounded from the telephone screen. Hammond glanced around from the portable control box on the desk, simultaneously pressed the answer button and the stud which would leave him unseen if the caller's instrument was equipped with a viewscreen, and said, "Go ahead!"

  The screen remained dark, but somebody made a gasping sound of relief. "Mr. Hammond!" It was a reedy, quavering voice, but it was distinctly the voice of Dr. Gloge.

  There were two sharp clicks from one of the instruments lying on the desk—a signal from Helen Wendell, in the observer boat standing off Earth, that she was recording the conversation.

  "Where are you, Doctor?"

  "Mr. Hammond . . . something terrible . . . that creature . . . Barbara Ellington—"

  "She took you off the jet, I know," Hammond said. "Where are you now?"

  "My home—in Pennsylvania."

  "She went with you?"

  "Yes. There was nothing I could do."

  "Of course not," Hammond said. "She's gone now?"

  "I don't know where she is. I took the chance of phoning. Mr. Hammond, there was something I didn't know, didn't remember. But she knew. I . . ."

  "You had some Omega serum in that farm laboratory?" Hammond asked.

  "I didn't think of it as that," Dr. Gloge's voice told him. "It was an earlier experimental variant—one with impurities which produce a dangerously erratic reaction. I was under the impression I had destroyed my entire stock. But this being knew better! It brought me here, forced me to give it what was left of the serum. The quantity was small—"

  "But enough for a standard fourth shot of the series?" Hammond said.

  "Yes, yes, it was sufficient for the fourth injection."

  "And she has now taken it as an injection?"

  Dr. Gloge hesitated, then he said, "Yes. However there is reason to hope that instead of impelling the evolutionary process in what I now regard as a monstrous creature on to its next stage, the imperfect serum will result in its prompt destruction."

  "Perhaps," said Hammond. "But almost since you first launched Barbara Ellington into this process, she appears to have been aware of what was possible to her. I can't believe she's made a mistake now."

  "I . . ." Dr. Gloge paused again, went on: "Mr. Hammond, I realize the enormity of what I've done. If, in any way, I can help avert the worst consequences, I shall cooperate to the fullest extent. I—"

  There was a sharp click as the connection was broken, a pause, then Helen Wendell's voice whispering into Hammond's ear, "Do you think Barbara let him make that call, then cut him off?"

  "Of course."

  Helen made no further comment, simply waited; and presently, softly, Hammond continued: "I think she wants us to know that she's coming here."

  "I think she's there now," said Helen. "Good-by."

  XIV

  John Hammond glanced at the control box on the desk, and saw the flickering indicators. He also saw a wholly unexpected reaction: A condition of non-energy that actually canceled energy.

  "Helen," he said. "This woman has gone up somewhere out of our reach! What you're seeing is energy trying to maintain itself against anti-energy. I received recognition drilling on such things, but I've never seen it before in an actual situation."

  Helen Wendell, eyes fixed on a duplicate check screen in the distant observer boat, did not reply. A shifting electronic storm was blazing through the check-screen indicators; it showed that the defensive forces enclosing Hammond's office and living quarters were coming under a swiftly varying pattern of attack . . . presently that they were being tested almost to the limit.

  It held that way for over a minute—every reading almost impossibly high, barely shifting.

  "John Hammond!" the desk top said softly to Hammond.

  He jerked slightly away, eyes flicking down to it.

  "John Hammond!" the chair whispered beside him.

  "John Hammond!" "John Hammond!" "John Hammond!" "John Hammond . . ."

  His name sprang at him from every part of the office, in a swirling, encircling pattern. Because of his special supervisory position, Hammond knew the pattern and its danger. It had never been considered probable, but nevertheless they had taken the possibility into account and so he had outside power available to deal with this emergency.

  He looked hurriedly about on the desk for an instrument he had laid down among the others there. For an instant, he seemed unable to recognize it, and there was an icy touch of panic. Then he realized he already held it in his hand. He ran a knob up along its side with his thumb, locked it into place, laid the instrument back on the desk.

  A rasping came from it. Not only a sound, but a vibration, a rough, hard shuddering of the nerves. The voice-ghosts sank to a whisper, flowed from the room. Helen Wendell's tiny, distant voice stabbed at Hammond's ear like a needle:

  "The check screen! She's leaving!" Hopefully.

  "You're certain?"

  "Not really." Alarm whipped at him thr
ough Helen's voice. "What does your screen show?"

  "A subjective blur at the moment. It's clearing."

  "What happened?"

  "I think she felt above us and so she took it for granted that she could walk all over us. Accordingly, she's just had the surprise of her brief existence as a sub-galactic super-woman. She didn't realize we represent the Great Ones."