Alton's Unguessable

by Jeff Sutton

  Now, contemplating his failure to kill Keim, he felt the terror anew. Would the telepaths actually destroy the ship? He couldn't risk that possibility. If the death of either would cause the other to act, the only recourse was to kill them simultaneously. Or, if he could get into the mind of one of them, it would be a simple matter to have that one kill the other.

  But would either of the two actually destroy the ship? That seemed inconceivable. Survival, the first law of life, transcended all else. That law was as old as life itself. Implanted firmly in his being, it had guided his actions throughout all the empty millennia of his consciousness. Should it be different for this new race? When he analyzed the matter objectively, he was, certain that it wasn't; the horror of death had been in every mind he'd entered.

  Whether consciously or subconsciously, it was there. To be sure, the fear was masked in many ways. Woon's secret fear was of "growing too old to travel among the stars;" Bascomb's, that one day the Alpha Tauri would emerge from unspace too close to a strange sun and be incinerated; Yozell's fear had been that "something might happen" before he could complete the work which he felt certain would carry his name into posterity. But it all added up to the same thing—the fear of death.

  Were the telepaths any different? He decided not; Keim had been bluffing. (The word, dredged from his new vocabulary, fitted exactly.) Still, to be safe, he had to kill the two telepaths simultaneously, or penetrate the mind of one; then that telepath would kill the other.

  Keim was extremely dangerous. Uli contemplated the tele-path uneasily. The minds he now possessed revealed that Keim—the T-man, as he was thought of—was deeply feared. More, it was a fear that extended to all telepaths. With it were feelings of envy, rank jealousy, the secret desire to be telepathic; some dreamed of probing the minds of others. But the fear was uppermost. With all that, the minds of his hosts told him very little about telepathy itself.

  But none of his hosts had known that the female Lara Kamm was telepathic! Kimbrough, Bascomb, Woon, Ray-field—they had been totally ignorant of the fact. So had the others. Had she concealed the trait because of a certain stigma attached to it? Could there be still other hidden telepaths?

  Uli felt his anxiety soar. Did telepaths posses perhaps even greater powers? Nothing in the minds of his hosts indicated such a possibility, yet his hosts had known very little of Keim and even less of the girl. What might he find in the heart of the galaxy? He had to know. Suddenly he felt it was imperative that he enter the male telepath's mind. As it was, he was getting nowhere. Thought of Keim was so discomforting that he forced the telepath from his mind.

  Fortunately his control of the ship soon would be absolute—the dozen birds he'd had Yozell hide in the ship assured that. Tonight, while most of the humans slept, he'd have a host place them in the quarters of the humans he needed most; then he could dispose of the others.

  He considered the crew and science staff. He'd need the chief engineer, the astrogator, perhaps the psychmedic. And Henry Fong, the historian. It would be interesting to have the historian record the epitaph for his race. The thought amused him.

  NINE

  Keim switched off the interphone and said jubilantly, "Jamie will be right down."

  "Are you certain he's all right?" Lara sounded dubious.

  "Positive. His background thought pattern was perfectly normal. S6 was his voice." He felt some of the tension drain from his body. If anyone would believe him, that person would be Ross Janik, the astrogator. Janik was a clear thinker, cool, experienced. As Third Officer, he was in a position to warn the others, organize resistance. If they acted quickly enough they might be able to… what? He wasn't certain, but it was a beginning.

  "Should I remain here?"

  He nodded. "Coming from me alone, the story might sound wild."

  "Incredible is the word."

  "Keep your mind open, keep probing," he urged.

  "It's a jumble."

  "Pick a specific person, concentrate on him."

  "I have. It's still a jumble."

  "Who?"

  "Peter Diamond."

  "How well do you know him?"

  "We exchange ideas occasionally."

  "It usually works better with someone you know quite well, perhaps because of the rapport. Why not try Sam Gossett?"

  "I couldn't." She flushed. "That would be too much of an invasion of privacy."

  He grinned. "Is it worse to tap Sam's mind than it is to tap Diamond's?"

  "He's a close friend," she protested.

  "We have no friends, not now. You have to get over that. The best we can hope for are allies."

  "Because we're telepaths?" she rebuked.

  "Because of the alien," he corrected. "We don't know who he has infected. But we have to know, and damn quick. To be certain, we have to probe every mind on the ship, friends not excluded. Telepathy is our only weapon."

  He returned his attention to the ship around him. With the muted thunder in his mind reduced to an occasional crackling, he sensed the flow of life on all sides. And out of the flow, like faint voices hissing in his brain, came the thoughts of specific individuals. When he concentrated on such an individual, the thought usually came through with startling clarity and completeness, but not always. Some minds were more masked than others, but that too varied. The best he could do was probe and hope.

  Abruptly a flickering image danced in his mind—the image of a slender, narrow-faced man whose arched brows gave him a satanic expression. Ross Janik! The astrogator was descending the stairwell from the astrogation bridge. Almost as quickly the image faded, leaving disconnected fragments of thought.

  Keim wasn't surprised at the phenomenon. He'd experienced clairvoyant episodes before—swift, shimmery visions that he'd seldom been able to retain for more than a few seconds. With the passage of years, they had occurred more frequently. Because clairvoyance had never been proved satisfactorily, he'd once believed that he'd conjured up the imagery to fit the situation he was sensing telepathically; but no longer. He'd tested the phenomenon too often for that. Now he accepted the phenomenon as another facet of his mind that he didn't fully understand.

  He felt a sudden uneasiness. Janik's thoughts were intense, filled with emotion, disorganized. That wasn't like him. Keim focused his attention on the astrogator while trying to shut out the distractions that assailed his mind from all sides. Janik's worry had to do with Captain Woon and the T-man. The T-man! Other people had names but he was the T-man! There, he had it! Janik was highly concerned over the captain's decision to abandon the planet —to set a course for Frohm, a minor system that lay on the periphery of the Empire. Why Frohm? Its single, habitable planet was scarcely more than a frontier world. Janik had coupled Woon's decision with Keim's call on the interphone warning him not to mention the message to anyone and to come to Keim's quarters as quickly as possible. The T-man knew why the captain had ordered Krado 1 abandoned! There was some terrible danger! Janik's mind fairly roiled with apprehension. The T-man knew!

  Keim felt the growing tension; his uneasiness rose to a shriek inside him. Small alarm bells clanged from somewhere deep in his subconscious. A flickering vision lasting but a fraction of a second showed the astrogator hurrying toward him. Abruptly, Keim rose and went to the door.

  Lara asked quickly, "What's wrong?"

  He shook his head. Senses focused on the passageway, he detected nothing. Still the alarm bells clanged unabated. The shimmery image of the astrogator danced in his mind again; Janik had reached the lower level.

  Keim inched the door open to peer through the crack. The corridor was deserted. In instant later, the astrogator appeared at the far end and hurried toward him. Keim waited, puzzled by the strident danger signals that clamored in ,his mind.

  Suddenly Ivor Bascomb stepped from another doorway. His 'hand whipped up, holding a small cylinder. Keim shouted a warning as he leaped from the room, a hand grasping for his laser. Janik halted, staring spellbound at the botanist before turni
ng to flee. Bascomb fired, catching the astrogator squarely between the shoulder blades. Janik staggered and collapsed.

  Bascomb swung toward the telepath just as Keim triggered his own weapon; the lethal beam caught the botanist in the chest. Keim glimpsed Bascomb's face as the man fell; it was blank, wooden, the eyes dull.

  Keim stepped swiftly back into his own quarters and locked the door. "Janik's dead… murdered! Bascomb," he added.

  "Oh!" Lara's cry verged on hysteria. Keim moved past her to the sleeping cubicle, hoisted Yozell's body over his shoulder and returned to the door. Finding the corridor still empty, he stepped outside and hastily deposited his burden alongside the dead botanist. Returning, he locked the door behind him. Lara's eyes questioned him.

  "We couldn't leave Yozell's body here forever," he explained. He rubbed his jaw, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

  "How did Bascomb know?" she whispered.

  "Perhaps someone on the bridge read Janik's mind, alerted Bascomb telepathically," he conjectured. The message behind Janik's death was stark; anyone who opposed the alien had to die!

  "I know, but why was Bascomb there?" She appeared to have regained her composure. "He was waiting for one of us, wasn't he?"

  "One or both," he acknowledged.

  "Kimbrough?"

  "Somewhere around."

  "What should we do?"

  "We'd better try to contact Gossett, Duvall, Rayfield— all the senior scientists we can. We haven't much time." The moment he picked up the interphone he knew he was too late; the instrument returned only a dead silence.

  "They've cut the circuit?" Lara's voice was strangely calm. He nodded, his mind already grappling with the next move. What might happen if he left the room? Was- another Bascomb waiting to kill him? Perhaps not, if the alien believed that his death would result in Lara's immediate destruction of the ship. If he followed that assumption, the alien wasn't likely to kill either of them while the other remained free to act; ergo, the alien's only safe course lay in killing them simultaneously.

  Following his reasoning, Lara exclaimed, "You still can't risk leaving here."

  "Sooner or later I'll have to."

  "There must be another way," she protested. Her head jerked up as a high-pitched scream echoed in the corridor. Startled, Keim looked at her. "Robin Martel," she murmured.

  Keim concentrated, trying to probe the meteorologist's mind. Confusion, fear, shock, horror—although no image came, he knew she was gazing at the three laser-burned bodies. He heard other shouts, the pounding of feet.

  "Get Harlan Duvall," a piercing voice commanded. Keim smiled soberly. The psychmedic was good, but not that good. For Yozell and Janik and Bascomb, time had run out. The shouts and confusion increased. Keim gestured for silence as someone began rapping at doors along the corridor.

  "Wouldn't this be a good time to warn someone?" Lara whispered.

  "We don't know who's rapping." He smiled grimly, at the same time trying to fix the identity of those outside. Peter Diamond, Karl Borcher, the astrophilosopher Arden, others who remained anonymous in the confusion. The rapping reached his door. He saw the look of inquiry on Lara's face. "Sam Gossett," he said telepathically.

  ''Sam…" Her eyes held an anxious look but he shook his head. He knew Sam Gossett, the elderly chemist, was her closest friend; but they couldn't take the chance. Gossett had to remain suspect for the time being. The footsteps retreated to the next door, and the next.

  Keim kept his attention riveted on the corridor, certain that the alien, through the eyes of a host, would be watching the scene. But he couldn't contact such a mind; his experience with Yozell, Bascomb and Kimbrough had proved that. Yet he had discerned a sense of presence before Yozell reached his door—had felt a clamor of alarm as Janik had hurried to his death. But the inability to read such a mind wasn't entirely negative; any mind that he could read meant that person was safe. On that basis Robin Martel, Sam Gossett, and Harlan Duvall had not yet fallen prey to the alien. Neither had Arden, Peter Diamond, Karl Borcher.

  Out of the welter of confused thoughts, he managed to pinpoint Hester Kane and Burl Ashford, adding them to the safe list. Ashford's mind was a maelstrom of terror. So were the minds of several crewmen who had been summoned to remove the bodies. After a while, the confusion waned and the silence returned.

  Keim was probing the ship when he felt the first sensation of vertigo. He looked up quickly, caught Lara's eyes. Neither spoke. Moments later the vertigo passed.

  The Alpha Tauri was in unspace.

  Did the alien ever sleep?

  Keim pondered the question, thinking it odd that he was locked in a life-and-death struggle with an adversary that still was but a shadowy mind. But a mind that could wreck a planet! Kimbrough had termed the alien invisible, immortal; but he couldn't believe that. He kicked the questions around. Man pretty well lived by his biological clock, but did the alien? And if he slept, what vigilance did he maintain?

  Was sleep a requisite to life? It seemed so. The birds had been diurnal, but the alien hadn't needed to guard the night before the advent of the Alpha Tauri. And now the alien had human watchmen. Yet they had to sleep, if only fitfully, just as Lara now slept from sheer fatigue. Although it was too much to hope that they'd all sleep at once, he could hope for less vigilance during the night hours. Waiting was the most difficult part.

  He probed the ship. Jobe Kyler, Hester Kane, Alex Jason, Peter Diamond—one by one he isolated their minds, satisfied they were still free of the alien's control. But he was surprised and perturbed at his failure to sense the minds of Wayne Coulter, the chief engineer, and Paul Rayfield, the physicist. Dismayed, he realized how quickly the alien was taking command of the ship.

  On every side he sensed the terror brought by the triple murders. He found the reaction understandable, for murder was a specter from man's past; only rarely did it occur. But three murders aboard a single ship! That was a shocker. The speculation ran high, much of it centered on the captain's sudden decision to abandon Krado 1. The action generally was interpreted in terms of some grave danger or other. One rumor claimed an invidious disease that deranged men's minds, else why the senseless killings? Another that the three men had been slain to prevent the spread of their contamination.

  As the hours sped past, the turmoil began to subside, replaced by the disjointed thoughts of dreamers. Fear, worry and stark terror paraded as men slept. Keim made a last attempt to pinpoint key personnel still free of the alien. From the welter of dreams he isolated the mind of Sam Gossett, the chemist, surprised at its relative equanimity. Harlan Duvall was another who slept calmly. Karl Borcher, Hester Kane and Robin Martel were caught in hideous nightmares. And on the bridge Lloyd Kramer, the Second Astrogator, was wondering why the captain hadn't budged from his small underway stateroom since lift-off.

  Keim felt satisfied. While the list of those still free of the alien's control was small, it would provide a nucleus for action. He stirred restlessly. With the interphones dead, he had no recourse but to attempt to make the first contacts personally; after that, the others could spread the word. He called Lara telepathically.

  She awoke instantly. "What is it?"

  "Time to contact Sam Gossett, the others," he explained. "If anything happens. …"

  "I'll destroy the ship," she promised. Her thoughts were calm, unafraid. Any fears she might have had were pushed far down into her subconscious. He heard her rustling around before she came from the other room.

  "Don't jump the gun," he cautioned wryly.

  "How will I know?"

  "If you can't reach me, if my mind goes blank." He could all but feel her shudder.

  "Be careful," she whispered.

  "Keep in contact." He probed the corridor, found no sense of presence, nothing. Opening the door, he stepped outside. The main lights in the passageways and stairwells, extinguished during the sleep cycle, left only the dim glow of the night lamps. He stood for a moment to adapt his eyes to the gloom
.

  He'd taken but a few steps when the danger signals screamed in his brain. Pressing his body against the bulkhead, he glanced quickly in both directions, but saw no one. Still the sensation of imminent peril persisted. His hands grew clammy.

  "Lara?" He called silently, listened with his mind.

  "What is it?" she replied quickly.

  "Sense something?"

  "A jumble." The answer came hesitantly. "Danger?"

  "I'm not certain." He tried to pinpoint the source of his alarm, failed, yet the prickling sense of peril increased. The clamor in his brain rose to a shriek. The danger close, close. The laser held waist-high, he moved slowly along the corridor. Movement in a doorway brought him to a halt. Shrinking against the bulkhead, he saw a figure emerge from the quarters of Harlan Duvall, the psychmedic.

  The warning signals screamed anew. His first impression that it might be Duvall was quickly dismissed; the figure was too tall, too stoop-shouldered. In the dim glow of the night lamps, he had the impression of a far older man. The mental probe he directed toward the other elicited no response. A host! He caught his breath.

  At the far end of the corridor the figure turned and started up a stairwell. Only then did he recognize it as that of Myron Kimbrough, the chief scientist. What had Kimbrough been doing in Duvall's quarters? Alarmed, Keim concentrated on the psychmedic.

  The contact came with a mental blast. He recoiled at the wild, horrible, nightmarish thoughts that struck him. He had the tangled impression of fleeting galaxies, of time without end, of cold and deadly cogitation emanating from a small, egg-shaped body hidden in the confines of a scarcely larger black champer. The alien! Clairvoyance, or had he conjured it?

  "No! No!" Hoarse screams from Duvall's quarters shattered the stillness. Keim raced toward his door. A glance told him that the lock had been destroyed. Bursting inside, he saw a faint light seeping out from the bedroom.

  Three bounds took him through the doorway. The light of a bedside lamp revealed Duvall, his face horribly contorted, sitting half-erect with eyes turned toward the shadowy corner of the room. Keim jerked his head in that direction, saw two small faintly-glowing coals—a small form atop a desk. Whipping up his weapon, he loosed a beam that reduced the desk to molten metal and sliced through the bulkhead beyond. The smell of burned feathers filled the air.