Alton's Unguessable

by Jeff Sutton

  Unlike the first night, at the onset of dusk Captain Woon ordered the skimmers docked and a force field thrown around the ship. Clearly he thought it entirely unnecessary and a waste of power, but Kimbrough had insisted. The precaution told Keim that the chief scientist hadn't taken his words lightly.

  After supper, most of the scientists and crewmen remained inside, but a few—including Keim—ventured out to watch the sky blacken. The faint and lonely stars emerged. Moon K-1.2, on its downward trajectory, gleamed with a cold bluish light that cast an eerie sheen over the grasslands and gave an illusory sense of depth.

  Keim studied his companions. Ivor Bascomb, Burl Ash-ford and Karl Borcher stood in a tight knot talking heatedly. Ashford's voice came as a hoarse croak. Occasionally Borcher flung out an arm to emphasize some point or other. The biologist Yozell stood alone, staring into the darkness. Off to the other side, Lara Kamm was scrutinizing the sky as if trying to discern some familiar part of the galaxy. As they stood on this strange planet of the blue-white sun that lay at the very edge of nowhere, were their thoughts of danger? Of awe that man had come so far? Or were they wishing they were home? Keim wondered.

  Alton Yozell was first to move. Turning toward the ship he saw the telepath, hesitated, then came toward him. Keim sensed that he was deeply troubled. Yozell gestured toward the sky and said, "Dozens of birds are flying around."

  "I'd noticed."

  "Not one has flown into the force field."

  Keim jerked his eyes upward. Here and there he glimpsed a bird in the gleam of the nightlights, but no flashes that marked death. He was all too familiar with the sight of birds and other small animals being scorched from existence as they encountered the screen. Here, with scores of birds wheeling through the velvet night, the flashes should occur with regularity, but they weren't. What were the statistical odds against that?

  He shifted his gaze to the base of the screen. A brief flare broke the darkness and, immediately afterward, another. At least the small rodents weren't so wary. He asked in a strained voice, "How do the birds know?"

  Alton Yozell's face appeared white in the night. He said, "Many animals possess senses far more acute than man's, and senses of which we know only through deduction. How does the prokell wend its way back through ten thousand tributaries to spawn in exactly the same backwater from which its eggs were taken, even after being hatched in a far different place? How, when deprived of all their known senses through surgery, can the herk birds of Kalanda fly unerringly back to the white cliffs where they nest, back to the same nests from which each came? Answer me that, Roger, and I'll venture a guess at how the birds yonder sense the force field."

  "I was under the impression that a sense organ, any sense organ, is developed to meet a specific condition," answered Keim. He looked toward the grasslands. "If so, how can these birds sense such a thing as a force field?"

  "I can't imagine."

  "I was watching them earlier. They resemble the gulls of Klasner, of Tarth, of Old Earth."

  "That doesn't necessarily mean they have the same or even similar sensory capabilities," Yozell countered. "But these birds are peculiar in other ways. Most birds of a diurnal nature come to roost with the onset of darkness, but not these."

  "Most have," he observed.

  "True." Yozell's assent held skepticism. "It will be interesting to trap a few." He looked at the night sky for a long moment, then bade the telepath goodnight and returned inside. Watching the birds, Keim contemplated the strangeness of this world. The more man learned, the more remained to be learned. Each opened door revealed a new maze. The universe was a puzzle box, and this world especially. The race that had begun its upward climb from the brackish tide pools of Old Earth and by Galactic Year 4005 had found itself master of more than four hundred star systems had, in the process, fallen heir to a million imponderables. But here…

  He looked at the solitary figure of Lara Kamm, at the lonely sky, then abruptly went inside.

  Keim awoke during the night, groggily at first, but suddenly fully alert. Puzzled and tense, he drew himself up in bed to listen, then it came to him.

  The crackling thunder in his mind had died.

  THREE

  Small shadows hurtling at mind speed through the awesome chasms of the universe. Tlo, Glomar, Xexl, Zimzi—nine of them—each moving out radically from the planet of the purpling sun. Stars being born, collapsing, flaming in death. Aeons of forgotten time, the passage of forgotten gulfs. The dying edge of the universe receding farther and farther. Whispery thoughts passing from shadow to shadow, whispery thoughts from the planet of the purpling sun—thoughts that grew fainter and fainter with the incredible distances, with incalculable time. Zimzi dying in a collision with a vagrant wanderer of the intergalactic gulfs, Yilill in the collapse of a dying galaxy, Omegi in a nucleonic storm. Death striking again and again and again. Silence from the dying edge of the universe. Silence from Tlo, Glomar, Xexl—from all of them. A silence more immense than the universe, more durable than time. His own thoughts screaming out into the silence. Galaxies aborning, flourishing, dy—

  Uli's attention jerked back as the mind fragment that had lived in the brain of a bird died. Just as instantly he knew that the bird had flown into some type of invisible barrier, had been incinerated. Simultaneously the knowledge was transmitted to the mind fragments in thousands of other birds.

  An invisible barrier! Incineration! Reconnoitering through the myriad eyes of his hosts, he watched the great ship. Eyes everywhere. A flare, and another, told him of the deaths of several unwary rodents. While the exact principle behind the screen was not entirely clear, Uli understood it sufficiently well to feel a caution akin to respect.

  Dimly, like a faint drum tap in memory, he had the recollection of similar devices used to protect the sleeperies on the planet of the purpling sun in those last days when his race was dying—when the spawn of the hosts, not yet old enough to serve as hosts, had fled to become the renegades of those darkening worlds. Those same renegades destroyed the great automatic factories in which the Qua were building huge ships they hoped would bridge the abyss that led to still-living star islands. It was then that the* Qua attempt to separate mind from body, to exist as pure thought, had failed. And it was then, in those very last days, that Uli and his eight companions had been propelled forth into that same abyss. Ah, so long ago. Now he, alone, lived. And his hosts were here.

  But a force field! Unbelievable that this race of Ungainly bipeds could have erected defenses similar to those of the Qua; but they had! The proof lay in the small flares as the rodents died.

  Had they the mind power? The question smote him with staggering force. It was inconceivable; he had only to tap his memory banks to know that. No life form other than his own had ever been able to use its mind in ways that made the most gigantic of tools and weapons hopelessly obsolete; the proof had lain in the conquest of more than a million sun systems. If only the Qua had achieved their final goal, had been able to discard their bodies entirely and exist as pure thought untied to either sun or planet… He felt a sadness. Still, he was immortal.

  Shortly after dawn a number of the bipeds emerged from the ship. He watched them carefully, as he had the day before. No hurry; the equipment they had set up on the plain told him there was no danger of the ship's imminent departure. He was startled to note that several of the bipeds appeared quite uneasy. Could they have sensed his presence? No, for as yet he'd made no overt move, had done nothing that might alarm them. But he'd have to be careful lest they flee the planet before he could acquire a proper host. The possibility that they might filled him with dread. Perhaps he shouldn't delay. A sudden urgency flooded his mind. But there was the strange energy screen! He waited.

  Uli knew the protective screen had been removed when several small skimmers, each carrying two occupants, rose and started across the plain. Birds were dispatched in their wakes. Another was sent to wheel close to the ship to make certain the invisible barrier hadn't
been erected again.

  He studied the figures around the ship curiously. Except for' their much larger size, they physically resembled the planet's former bipedal inhabitants, but with a difference: this race was far more advanced. Yet that too was relative. In his own measure, the newcomers were quite primitive.

  Other bipeds emerged from the ship. Big doors in its sides slid open, ramps were lowered, additional equipment was brought outside. He eyed it interestedly. The use of some of the equipment was apparent from its geometry; other pieces were quite baffling. The need for such tools to do what his mind alone could accomplish made him feel quite smug. Still, there had to be lower life forms. Hosts were imperative.

  He waited patiently. Finally one of the creatures walked farther out into the grass, halted to watch the birds. The others continued their work.

  Uli acted quickly: a bird winged forward to meet the solitary biped. At the last moment it halted in midair, hovering a scant distance from its prey. As their eyes met—a necessary condition in order to effect a mind transfer—a fragment of Uli's consciousness entered its new host.

  The biped screamed hoarsely and clutched at its throat. The creatures nearest it straightened from their work and ran toward it. Panicky at the stricken cry, the alarm it had raised, he twisted the biped's head toward the bird; but the bird, no longer a host, had begun to fly away. Uli used the mind power to whip it back, to place its beady eyes close to those of the biped and retransfer the mind fragment. As he did so, he also used the mind power to efface any memory of the incident that the biped might have retained. He accomplished this by snapping the creature's neck. With the crack clearly audible, the biped collapsed just as the others reached his side. The whole affair ended almost as quickly as it had begun.

  It was then that Uli realized how precipitate his action had been, how unnecessary. He could have rushed in other birds, made hosts of all the creatures. No matter; the day was young.

  Although Uli's mind fragment had been in the biped's brain for but a few scant seconds, the time had been sufficient to acquire the creature's language and skills and, more importantly, his store of memories. They would take time to assimilate, for the mind of the human, the name by which they called their race—was far stronger and more complex than he had expected. Not that this particular mind was strong, it was that of a worker, a crewman; but it harbored many memories of things which the creature itself had failed to understand.

  The big ship was the Alpha Tauri! Already on this expedition—Survey 992—the planets of a dozen stellar systems had been explored. The humans were seeking new worlds for development and habitation. Until now, Survey 992 had been unsuccessful, which indicated fewer habitable planets than Uli had suspected.

  More tantalizing were the memories of the Empire from which the Alpha Tauri had come. The Third Empire! Hundreds of planets, each with vast cities, each tied to the others through a huge web of government, commerce, travel… While not overwhelming, the visions were deeply satisfying. Even so, the complexity of such a civilization, even its bare structure, had been far beyond the dead human's ability to comprehend. It had known that the complex of sun systems, the Third Empire, was governed by the Imperator through a Council of Overlords. There were also Lords of planets %and Megamayors; higher-up in government were the IE, the Intellectual Elite. The Alpha Tauri''s science staff (the crewman's term) was of the IE. Some of the offices—Imperator and Overlords, and often Planetary Lords—were hereditary. Others served at the convenience of the Imperator, and still others were awarded as the result of achievement. But the crewman hadn't been quite clear on any of those things. Low in intelligence, it had perceived but hadn't understood. The mind was merely an echo. But all that was quite unimportant. What was important was the Third Empire and the inexhaustible supply of hosts it represented. Uli exulted.

  This surely was a race through which to conquer the galaxy!

  "It isn't possible," Harlan Duvall declared. "Weber's neck was broken with a torque movement, a violent twist. That couldn't happen from a fall."

  "But it did." Captain Woon leaned forward in his seat. "Half a dozen men saw him fall."

  "After he screamed," the psychmedic countered. "Merker, your own man, stated that Weber's head was twisted at a crazy angle before he fell. He heard Weber's neck snap."

  "Merker." The captain sniffed.

  "He has eyes," Duvall retorted. "Besides, a fall doesn't explain the bird."

  "He probably was trying to catch it."

  "Not according to the eyewitnesses. The bird was inches from Weber's face, but he wasn't holding it."

  "Why try to compound the problem?" snapped Woon. His face showed his annoyance.

  "I'm trying to clarify it."

  "With a bird?"

  For a while, silence hung heavy in the captain's lounge. Roger Keim, seated slightly apart from the others, had been surprised when Kimbrough first summoned him to the meeting. He wasn't now, not with the odd revelations that had come up. Weber's neck broken before he struck the ground—the evidence seemed all but indisputable despite the captain's skepticism. He'd heard the rumors earlier, of course, but the accounts had been so garbled that he'd considered the death a bizarre accident, nothing more. But not now. And the bird. Birds that could sense a force field! Small wonder Kimbrough wanted him in on the session. He felt a vague uneasiness. Why didn't Kimbrough mention what he was thinking? Or was he weighing the facts, attempting to make certain that it wasn't just another odd accident?

  A quiet planet, beautiful, but something was here—something that screamed in his mind, that caused birds to sense force fields, that had stripped the planet of virtually all its animal forms, that snapped necks. What in God's name was it?

  Kimbrough broke the silence. "You're satisfied with the autopsy findings?" His gaze rested on the psychmedic's face.

  Duvall gestured wearily. "Brain, heart, lungs, vascular system, stomach contents, bladder—I combed the body from head to toes. Weber was thirty-three, healthy, in the prime of life; he collapsed because of a broken neck."

  "You absolutely rule out a fall?"

  "Positively. I've stated that, five or six times as I recall. The ground was soft, spongy."

  "If I'm repetitious, it's because I have to be sure, Harlan."

  "I am positive."

  Woon asked stonily, "If it wasn't the fall, how did he break his neck? You haven't explained that."

  "I haven't the faintest idea."

  "Roger?" Kimbrough glanced at the telepath.

  "Totally in the dark," he confessed.

  "Could it be related to this sense of threat you've mentioned before?"

  There, it was out, the thing that was in Kimbrough's mind, in his own mind. But still he had to hew to the facts. "This was an overt act," he answered.

  "Don't tell me you're going to try to hang Weber's death on that," Woon interrupted testily.

  "We have to explore every avenue," replied Kimbrough. His eyes measured the telepath. "I realize you didn't see the accident but what's your impression of it from what you've heard?"

  "None directly related to the accident."

  "Is that evasive?"

  "I didn't intend it that way, but there has been a new twist." He held the chief scientist's gaze. "Last night the thunder stopped."

  "Entirely?"

  "For the night. It's back again."

  "Had your blood pressure checked lately?" asked Woon. "I've heard it can cause such things."

  "I had Harlan check me out the first day."

  "Blood pressure normal," the psychmedic confirmed. "He's in tip-top shape."

  Woon looked pained. "Thunder can't break a man's neck."

  "Something did," countered Kimbrough.

  Keim said, "There's one other thing." As Kimbrough's head snapped up, he continued, "The birds avoid the force field."

  "Alton told me." Kimbrough sighed wearily. "I'll be damned if I can conceive of even the slightest relationships."

  "Between Roge
r's thunder and the birds' actions?" demanded Woon.

  "And Weber's death."

  "I can't conceive of such relationships," Duvall ventured, "but neither can I conceive of a man breaking his neck as Weber did."

  "Could I offer a suggestion?" asked Keim. "Certainly." Kimbrough nodded.

  "I don't believe that anyone should venture out alone, even in the vicinity of the ship. I'd recommend that we stay in pairs, at least. That would include all field trips. I also believe that anyone going outside should be armed."

  "Dangerous," objected Woon. "I don't want the crew fooling around with bolt guns or lasers. The ship's too vulnerable. That's why we keep them locked up."

  "It could be the lesser of two dangers," rebutted Keim. "I agree with Roger, at least until we know more about this planet," observed Kimbrough. "You can issue strict orders on the use of the weapons." While the captain's eyes refuted the argument, he nodded reluctantly. Clearly he believed the cause of the crewman's death was being blown out of all proportion. Neither did he place much credence in the testimony concerning the birds. But Keim could appreciate his feelings; the whole thing did ring of the fantastic. But as Arden had remarked, "Shouldn't we expect something new in the universe?" Well, they had something new. The damnable thing was that they didn't know what it was.

  When the meeting broke up, the chief scientist detained the telepath in the corridor. "I'd like you to remain awake tonight," he said.

  "To chart the thunder?"

  "Whether it diminishes, ceases entirely and, if so, when it begins to return," confirmed Kimbrough. "I'd like the time and duration of each stage, if it has stages. I don't know what that might tell us, but we have to start somewhere."

  "A statistical spook," agreed Keim, "but it's worth a try."

  "Spooks don't exist, Roger. Whatever this thing is, it has a tangible presence somewhere. I'll admit that I can't connect whatever it is with Weber's death, but I feel certain that such a connection exists." He smiled wanly. "I'd hate to have to repeat this story to a Board of Inquiry some day."