by Chad Oliver
If this is an alien, the dream is ended. Unless—
The man called John slid out of his chair and backed away. His blue eyes glittered coldly. The cigarette between his fingers shredded itself to the floor, squeezed in two.
“Stop,” said John.
Gordon Collier kept on coming.
The man called John—changed.
Gordon Collier screamed.
It was an animal scream.
He staggered back, back against the wall. His eyes were shut, jammed shut as tightly as he could force them. His mouth was open, to let the endless scream rip and tear itself out from the matrix of his being. He cowered, crouched against the wall, a creature in agony.
He was afraid that he would not die.
His hands shook, and they were clammy with the cold sweat that oozed from his palms. A white flash of indescribable pain seared up from his toes, burned like molten lead through his body. It hissed along his naked nerves and howled into his cringing brain with the numbing, blinding impact of a razor-sharp chisel on a rotten tooth. Blood trickled wetly from his nostrils.
He clawed the floor, not feeling the splinters in his nails.
The scream screeched to a piercing climax that bulged his eyes from their sockets.
Something snapped.
His body relaxed, trembling quietly. His mind was clean and empty, like a flower washed with the summer rain. He breathed in great choking mouthfuls of air. He remembered—
It had bubbled.
He shut it out. He lay quite still for a long minute, letting the life wash warmly back through his veins. His breathing slowed. He felt a tiny thrill of triumph course through his body.
His mind was clean.
He could think again.
He took a deep breath and turned around.
The cottage was still there. The frigidaire wheezed in the kitchen. The living room was unchanged. There were the chairs, the tri-di, the picture of Grandfather Walters, the ashes on the rug, the three motionless figures at the bridge table. Bart and Mary and Helen.
They were very still.
Yes, of course. Their conditioned minds had been strained past the tolerance point and they had blanked out. Short-circuited. The fuse had blown. They were out of it, for now.
He was alone.
The man called John was seated again in his armchair, blue eyes twinkling, moustache neat and prim, the pile of ashes at his feet. He had lit another cigarette. He was smiling, quite himself again.
Or, rather, he was not himself again.
Gordon Collier got to his feet. It took him a long time, and he did it clumsily. He was shaken and weak in the knees. He had lost the fuzziness which had partially protected him.
But he had his mind back.
It was, he thought, a fair trade.
“I fear the shock has been too much for your dull friends,” John said languidly, crossing his legs carefully so as not to disturb the neat crease in his trousers. “I tried to warn you, you know.”
Gordon said: “You can’t stay here.” The words were thick and he licked his lips with his parched tongue.
John hesitated, but recovered quickly. “On the contrary,” he said, “I can and I will. A charming place, really. I’d like to get to know you better.”
“I can imagine,” said Gordon Collier.
The silence beat at his ears. It was uncanny. He had never heard no-sound before.
Black despair settled within him like cold ink. The situation, he now saw, was frightening in its simplicity. He had to accept it for what it was. The thing was alien. It didn’t care what the effects of its visit would be on the future of Earth. Human beings were to it what pigs were to man.
Does the hungry man worry about whether or not pigs have dreams?
“You’re going to get out,” he told it.
The man called John raised an eyebrow in polite doubt.
Gordon Collier was not sure, now, that man should leave the Earth. It was odd, he thought, that his concern was still with the dream. Regardless of his actions here, all the human beings would not be “eaten.” Many would escape, and the species would recover. But if this thing, or even any news of it, reached the Earth, then the dream was finished. The whole shaky, crazy structure that had put man into space would collapse like a card house in a hurricane. Man—or what was left of him—would retreat, build a wall around himself, try to hide.
And if he did get into space to stay?
Gordon Collier didn’t know. There were no simple answers. If the aliens, or even the intelligence that there were such aliens, reached the Earth, then man was through, dead in his insignificance. If not, he had a chance to shape his own destiny. He had won time. It was as simple as that.
Gordon Collier again faced the man called John. He smiled.
Two cultures, locked in a room.
From the bridge table, three sluggish statues turned to watch.
To Gordon Collier, the only sound in the room was that of his own harsh breathing in his ears.
“As I was saying,” said the man called John, “I’m afraid I really must ignore your lamentable lack of hospitality and stay on for a while. I am, you might say, the man who came to dinner. You are quite helpless, Gordon Collier, and I can bring my people here at any time. Enough of them, you see, to fill both your houses and the air bubble beyond. It will be alive with my people. You are quite helpless, Gordon Collier, and I can bring my people here at any time. Enough of them, you see, to fill …”
Gordon Collier refused to listen to the voice that tried to lull him back to sleep. He shut it out of his mind. He had but one weapon, and that was his mind. He had to keep it clear and uncluttered.
John kept talking, melodically.
Gordon Collier tried to think, tried to organize his thoughts, collect his data, relate it to a meaningful whole.
Somewhere there is a pattern.
Several pieces of information, filed away by his conditioned brain until it could assemble them, clicked into place like parts of a puzzle. Now that the fog was gone, a number of facts were clear.
He used his mind, exultantly.
For one thing, of course, the man called John had given him more information than was strictly necessary. Why? Well, he had explained about the prestige mechanism involved—and the more danger there was, the more prestige. An important fact followed: if he, Gordon Collier, were in fact utterly helpless, then there was no danger, and no prestige.
And that indicated …
“… lamentable lack of hospitality and stay on for a while,” the voice droned on in his ears. “I am, you might say, the man who came to dinner. You are quite helpless, Gordon Collier, and I can …”
So John had armed him with information. He had been playing a game of sorts, a game for keeps. He had given his opponent clues. What were they? What were they?
“… bring my people here at any time. Enough of them, you see …”
“The trouble is,” John had said, “that you have a word, ‘alien,’ and no concept to go with it.”
Gordon Collier stood motionless, between John and the three immobile figures at the bridge table, looking for the string that would untie the knot. John’s voice buzzed on, but he ignored it.
From the first, he remembered, John had kept himself apart from the human beings. He had walked in, hesitated, said his stilted tri-di derived introductory remarks, and seated himself as Grandfather Walters. He had remained isolated. He had never come really close to any of the human beings, never touched them.
And when Gordon Collier had advanced on him …
Collier stared at the man called John. Was he telepathic, or had he picked up his story before he ever came through the door? Was he listening in on his thoughts even now?
That was unimportant, he realized suddenly. That was a blind alley. It made no practical difference. What counted was a simple fact: the alien could not touch him. And, presumably, it wasn’t armed; that would have counterbalanced the danger factor.
It was very cold in the room. Gordon Collier felt a sick thrill in the pit of his stomach.
“… to fill both your houses and the air bubble beyond. It will be alive …”
There was danger for the alien here. There had to be. Gordon Collier smiled slowly, feeling the sweat come again to his hands. There could be but one source for that danger.
Himself.
He saw the picture. It was quite clear. All that build-up, all the sounds and the rain and the wind, had been designed to test man in a beautiful laboratory situation. If man proved amenable to “typing,” then he was next on the food list.
Pigs.
If he didn’t crack, if he fought back even here and now, then the aliens would have to play their game elsewhere. Death wasn’t fun, not even to an alien.
Death was basic.
Yes, it was quite clear what he had to do. He didn’t know that he could do it, but he could try. He was weak on his legs and there was a cold shriek of memory that would not stay buried in his mind. He bit his lip until he felt the salt taste of blood in his mouth. He was totally unprotected now, and he knew the price he would have to pay.
He smiled again and walked slowly toward the man called John, step by steady step.
Gordon Collier lived an eternity while he crossed the room. He felt as though he were trapped in a nightmare that kept repeating itself over and over and over again.
The six dead eyes at the bridge table followed him.
“Stop,” said John.
Gordon Collier kept coming.
The man called John slid out of his chair and backed away. His blue eyes were cold with fear and fury.
“Stop,” he said, his voice too high.
Gordon Collier kept coming.
That was when John—changed.
Gordon Collier screamed—and kept on walking. He shaped his screaming lips into a smile and kept on walking. He felt the sickness surge within him and he kept on walking.
Closer and closer and closer.
He screamed and while he screamed his mind clamped on one thought and did not let go: If that seething liquid hell is hideous to me, then I am equally hideous to it.
He kept walking. He kept his eyes open. His foot stepped into the convulsive muck on the floor. He stopped. He screamed louder. He reached out his hand to touch it. It bubbled icily …
He knew that he would touch it if it killed him.
The thing—cracked. It contracted with lightning speed into half its former area. It got away. It boiled furiously. It shot into a corner and stained the wall. It tried to climb. It heaved and palpitated. It stopped, advanced, wavered, advanced—
And retreated.
It flowed convulsively, wriggling, under the door.
Gordon Collier screamed again and again. He looked at the three dead-alive statues at the bridge table and sobbed. He was wrenched apart.
But he had won.
He collapsed on the floor, sobbing. His face fell into the mound of dry gray ashes by the armchair.
He had won. The thought was far, far away …
One of the statues that had been his wife stirred and somehow struggled to her feet. She padded into the bedroom and got a blanket. She placed it gently over his sobbing body.
“Poor dear,” said Helen. “He’s had a hard day.”
Outside, there was a whistle and a roar, and then the pale light of dawn flowed in and filled the sky.
The five months passed, and little seemed changed.
There was only one little white cottage now, and it was on Earth. It snuggled into the Illinois countryside. It had green shutters and crisp curtains on the windows. It had knickknacks on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. It had a fragment of cozy poetry, caught in a dime-store frame …
Gordon Collier was alone now, and the loneliness was a tangible thing. His mind was almost gone, and he knew that it was gone. He knew that they had put him here to shelter him, to protect him, until he should be strong enough to take the therapy as Helen and Bart and Mary had taken it.
But he knew that he would never be strong enough, never again.
They pitied him. Perhaps, they even felt contempt for him. Hadn’t he failed them, despite all their work, all their expert conditioning? Hadn’t he gone to pieces with the others and reduced himself to uselessness?
They had read the last notation in the equipment room. Odd that a meteor could unnerve a man so!
He walked across the green grass to the white picket fence. He stood there, soaking up the sun. He heard voices—children’s voices. There they were, three of them, hurrying across the meadow. He wanted to call to them, but they were far away and he knew that his voice would not carry.
He stood by the white fence for a very long time.
When darkness came, and the first stars appeared above him, Gordon Collier turned and walked slowly up the path, back to the warmth, and to the little white cottage that waited to take him in.
FIELD EXPEDIENT
I
The cold wind swept in from the gray Pacific, drenching Los Angeles under sheets of driving rain. Keith Ortega, pushing his way through the uneasy puddles of Wiltshire Walk, began to regret leaving his copter at the Center. He was dry enough in his rainbender, but the air coming in from underneath the force lines was tasting decidedly stale.
The broad walkway was deserted around him, although he could see a few lights spilling out wetly from store windows. A violet government airsign hung in the rain, glowing gently just above his head: DON’T ROCK THE BOAT.
He turned left at the empty Santa Monica cross and two blocks later he reached the Vandervort Tower. A flashing orange neon sign above the ornate street doorway said: WE WANT YOUR BABY.
Keith Ortega stepped through the door and hurriedly shut off his rainbender. He took a deep breath of relatively fresh air and felt much better. There was no one in the street lobby; he had already guessed that business would be slow this afternoon. He went across to the elevator, his feet light and awkward without the rain-benders on his shoes, and went up to the tenth-floor interview room. Surprisingly, it was in use.
Ellen Linford, who looked like the epitome of American motherhood, had another young couple on the hook. She was bouncing a baby on her knee and smiling, and even Keith’s knowledge that Ellen detested babies failed to spoil the warmth of the scene. Ellen was a good actress. She had to be.
Keith assumed what he trusted was a kind and paternal expression and sat down next to Ellen. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Linford,” he said. He beamed at the baby and chucked it under its chin. “What have we here? How are you, little fellow?”
“It’s a girl,” Ellen corrected him. She turned to the nervous couple before her. “Well, aren’t we in luck! This is Mr. Ortega personally.”
Brother, thought Keith.
The couple brightened, confronted with Fame in the flesh.
“I’d like to have you meet Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant,” Ellen said. “They’ve decided to leave their little Hazel to the Foundation. Isn’t that nice?”
“Wonderful,” Keith Ortega agreed heartily. He shook hands with the parents. “You’ve made a very wise decision.”
They hesitated. Then the woman blurted out the inevitable question. “I still don’t understand all the conditions, sir,” she said in a too-high voice. “Why couldn’t we see Hazel, just once in a while? I mean … we wouldn’t want to rock the boat or anything … but just to make sure she’s all right—”
“I’ve been trying to explain,” Ellen began.
“Well now, Mrs. Sturtevant,” Ortega cut in, “please let me assure you that we are in complete sympathy with your request. Your reaction is perfectly normal for an American mother, and we’re glad that you are concerned about your child. Unfortunately, it just would not be wise for you to see Hazel again, even for a little while.”
Mrs. Sturtevant looked at her husband for support, didn’t get any, and faltered ahead on her own. “But why?”
Keith frowned and ma
de precise pyramids with his hands. “Facts are facts, my dear,” he said slowly. “If you wish to keep Hazel, that is certainly your privilege. You have come to the Foundation of your own free will, and you surely have investigated us enough to learn that we are an absolutely reliable concern. We believe that children entrusted to our care are entitled to a life of their own, and we have found that repeated contacts with the original parents just make it tough on the child. Now then, you want Hazel to lead a full, normal, happy life, don’t you?”
“Of course we do,” the husband said. Plainly, he didn’t care what happened to little Hazel.
Keith smiled. “Then you must trust us,” he said. “You can’t have it both ways. I give you my personal word that Hazel will be in good hands with the Foundation. If you have any doubts, I suggest that you go back home with your child and talk it over some more. The decision is yours to make.”
The parents held a whispered consultation. Mrs. Sturtevant finally whispered, “We’ll leave Hazel with you.”
“Splendid!” Ortega said. He shook hands again. “You just sign the papers with Mrs. Linford, and that’s all there is to it. I’ll look in on Hazel from time to time myself, so please don’t worry about her.” He looked at his watch, although he knew perfectly well what time it was. “I’m afraid I must be going. Good luck to you!”
He hurried out of the interview room to the elevator, leaving Ellen to finish things up. He couldn’t take the last farewells to the child; they gave him the creeps. If the parents loved their children so much, why did they give them to the Foundation?
The elevator whisked him up to the fifteenth floor.
Outside, the cold rain dropped from the sky and ran in rivers down the sides of the Vandervort Tower.
Keith Ortega checked in at his office, a pleasant sanctum lined with shelves of books and a clinging memory of blue tobacco smoke, and the first thing he saw was the red light blinking over the tri-di.
Someone had called. Since his private number was not generally known, the caller had probably been either Carrie or Old Man Vandervort himself. He dropped into the comfortable chair behind his desk and punched the button.
