“The way in is the way out?”
Whatever that was supposed to mean! Ryll felt ever more hopeless about his situation. Take over the body and risk being identified as a Dreen? Did he dare?
Lutt finished his editorial, unfolded a cot from a wall, stretched out and dimmed the lights, preparing to sleep.
That editorial will anger your father, Ryll intruded.
It won’t make Mother happy, either. Now, let me sleep.
Ryll felt his flesh-partner drift into sleep and dreaded the dreams that might come. What an evil creature this Lutt was. No gratitude at all about being saved. He didn’t care about others, only about his own desires.
If I can separate us, he’ll die. Why doesn’t he suspect?
Ryll returned in memory to the deck of his Spiral ship, that first awakening after the crash and the subsequent merger of bodies. He remembered cellular intrusion into a shattered body.
The way in is the way out?
Ryll asked himself if it might be possible to idmage their body smaller than the present one, reducing it precisely by the amount of Lutt’s commandeered flesh.
Ryll swiveled his eyes inward and began the idmage formula for a new human body but encountered immediate resistance. Even while asleep, Lutt projected a powerful will to live.
He is attempting to survive by preventing my idmage efforts!
As he prepared himself for a new attempt, Ryll felt Lutt awaken.
“So you didn’t believe my warning?” Lutt demanded. “Okay, baby. Today, we go hang gliding.”
Lutt! Don’t! I was—
“I know what you were doing. And after I warned you, too.”
Ryll retreated into his private consciousness, resolved to increase his idmage strength by reviewing every school-day lesson he could recall.
Oh . . . why didn’t I pay more attention?
And this hang gliding venture could be fatal!
Ryll tried to remember the lessons on how to escape from a merged body that was dying. Parts of it came through daydreams about commanding his own ship in the Spirals but there were frustrating gaps. The instructor’s words mingled with Ryll’s own dreaming commands to the fantasized ship.
He felt a sudden anger at Lutt.
This Earther is being cavalier with my body!
“I smell that interesting smell,” Lutt whispered.
Ryll ignored this. Anger and fear had cut through some of the frustrating memory gaps. The instructor had been talking about how to escape a combined life form at death, even though trapped in it during its life.
“You dare not act too soon or too late” The words burned into Ryll’s memory.
But what was too soon or too late? Did it require regaining his own mass or shifting to another fleshly mass?
Memory provided no answer and he could feel Lutt’s gloating confidence.
Privately, Ryll thought: It’s my body, damn you! Mine! You’re the alien intruder.
***
Certain things I know innately, but I cannot explain the source of my knowledge. I know there occurred in the seeding of this universe a Dreen who might discover a way to conceal his thoughts from me. I have no way of knowing whether this awful ability can be passed along to offspring. There could be many Dreens with secret thoughts.
—The Habiba Commentary
An evening breeze blew through tall brown grass, moving the stalks against Prosik’s new body. He did not like the absence of legs but the idmaged form possessed a slithery suppleness, as had the original in the zoo where he had first observed it.
After hiding his ship, the Kalak-III, under a swamp, he had thought it a brilliant maneuver to sample Earther animal types at the nearest zoo and there he had found the perfect creature for creeping up unseen: A giant snake! It was a much better disguise than assuming Zone Patrol shape and uniform. Too many unknowns there that might give him away.
Through a wide doorway about thirty meters distant and directly ahead of him, Prosik could see into an enormous hangar where Zone Patrol technicians worked cautiously over the remnants of a Dreen Storyship. Enough wreckage remained that he identified Patricia, the ship designed, for erasure of Earth.
Nothing remained of the drive section except random strands of once-molten metal.
Between Prosik and the open doorway lay a flat paved surface. His green-scaled snake head, its tongue darting out and back in automatic fashion, was concealed by grass and a raised lip on the concrete.
Soon it would be dark and he thought he might venture from the concealing grass for a closer look at Patricia. The erasure system had been built into supporting struts for the control center. Some of it might have survived the crash.
While he waited, Prosik went over the memorized erasure procedure in his mind: First a twist of this plate and then . . .
A great clattering sound intruded on his thoughts. It grew louder with frightening rapidity and now there was an added swishing noise. Prosik lifted his head slightly and peered toward the sound. He was in time to see an enormous automated power mower bearing down on him from the right. Before he could wriggle a tail muscle, the thing was on him. Cutting blades tore through his idmaged snake body. Pain coursed through him as the mower chewed its way across his center section, spattering blood and torn flesh through the fallen grass. He fought to maintain consciousness in what was left of his body behind the head—less than a third of the original mass. Urgency drove him, propelling the intact section across the scattered shreds of flesh, reassembling, taking what he needed where he found it, snatching up two unfortunate ground rodents when he required their mass.
When it was done, he cowered near the raised lip of the concrete and watched the mower devour another section of tall grass, thus removing the cover on which he had counted.
Did anyone see me?
He lay there along the concrete, waiting. And when the mower moved far enough away to permit distinguishing other local noises, he thought the sounds from the hangar did not change—still occasional screeches of torn metal being moved, the grinding of machinery, voices.
As he listened, he reflected on his narrow escape from destruction and thought: This is a dreadful world. Wemply the Voyager was a traitor to all Dreendom when he created it. I will be glad when Earth is no more!
But if I’m the one to erase this awful planet, I may be no more, too.
Prosik felt deeply sorry for himself then and longed for just a small amount of bazeel to soothe his anguish.
As evening shadows grew longer, he heard changes in the noises from the hangar and risked a look across the concrete. Yes . . . it appeared the workers were concluding their labors for the day and were preparing to leave. Tools were being stored, a guard posted. Different lights were turned on, bathing the hangar entrance in a brilliant wash of illumination through which even a small flying insect might be detected.
Prosik felt a sinking sensation. How could he traverse that lighted barrier without being discovered?
He scanned the building and then remembered his adopted form. Snakes could climb. He had seen this at the zoological gardens. He would go to the shadowed corner of the building, up a drainpipe and down along the top of a sliding door, then into the hangar at an upper corner of the doorway where guardians were not likely to look. Once more, Prosik congratulated himself on the shape he had chosen.
Eagerly, he waited for night, noting how lights went on all around the Zone Patrol compound. Small flying craft began to flit back and forth across the area and Prosik suspected they were scanning the ground with unseen rays. He would have to cross the open concrete area rapidly between such scans.
Darkness came and the bright lights at the open doorway of the hangar appeared even brighter.
Habiba, help me, Prosik prayed and slithered to a corner of the concrete apron. Waiting until one of the small flitters had passed, he sped across a shadowy expanse of the flat surface and up the drainpipe. The pipe creaked alarmingly with his weight but the snake body performed even bet
ter than he had hoped and he soon found himself atop a sliding door. Here, he used more caution and moved slowly, ever alert for indications that he had been detected.
As he had seen from the ground, the door was suspended on heavy rollers that rode atop a track. The track afforded a good avenue for him to traverse but the rollers were heavy with grease that soon coated much of his body and made it difficult to keep from slipping off. Insects attracted by the light distracted him.
Relieved when he reached the end of the door, Prosik ventured a look down into the hangar. The guard sat at a small desk in a near corner, feet up and head back, a dark handkerchief over his face. The rhythmic sounds of sleep breathing could be heard quite clearly.
Abruptly, a buzzer sounded and the guard snorted to wakefulness, glanced around and activated a control on the desk. The bright lights went off and the door beneath Prosik began sliding closed along its track, carrying him with it.
Frantically, Prosik fought to stay out of the rollers and remain on the track. A roller crunched across the tip of his tail and a piece of him dropped outside. He grabbed flying insects to replace his mass but that distracted him even further and the door pinched him into a corner as it closed.
Several minutes were required for him to disengage himself and by then a small group of humans had entered the hangar through a side door. Prosik watched them through a crack where the door overlapped the hangar wall. It was a limited view but his acute hearing brought their voices to him clearly. They walked around the Dreen ship’s wreckage while the guard stood stiffly at attention nearby.
Their leader appeared: a tall, bald man, lean and with a birdlike beak of a nose.
“This is a pretty typical Dreen ship,” he said. “As usual, the drive system is such a congealed mass that we have no hope of discovering anything useful from it. We have confirmed, however, that it was remarkably small.”
“What does its size tell us?” one of the others asked.
“That their technology is supersophisticated,” the leader said. “We’re going to try disassembling the drive supports next. As you can see, the support structure is different from that on any other ship we’ve taken.”
“Are we apt to set off a self-destruct system such as that which destroyed the drive?” another asked.
“That’s always the risk,” the leader said. “Most of our casualties have come that way.” He turned away from the wreckage. “This is it, then. I wanted you to see the actual thing. We’ll go back to the lab now and study the photos and sketches.”
As the group left, the leader paused beside the guard and asked: “Any sign of intruders?”
“Nothing, sir,” the guard said.
“I see we’ve baited the wreck,” the leader said.
“That’s the routine, sir.”
When they were gone, Prosik waited for the guard to settle down but the man appeared nervous. He walked over to the wreckage and studied it, then looked all around at the shadows before returning to his desk and chair. Even there, he continued to look around him.
Prosik dared not move lest a sound attract the guard. Would they stay this way until daylight exposed him here clinging to the track and the edge of the door? It was a frightening thought.
Time passed and Prosik’s snake body ached with inactivity.
A buzzer sounded and a red light flashed on the guard’s desk. He pressed a button and a slot on the desk surface opened, presenting him with a steaming container of food.
As the guard concentrated on eating, Prosik began to hope. Earthers were notorious for being distracted by food. Indeed, the fellow appeared uninterested in his surroundings.
Slowly, thinning and elongating his body, Prosik descended between the door and the wall. At the bottom, he slithered around the edge of the doorway and hugged the base of the wall.
At last!
He was in the hangar and the guard gave no notice of the thin addition to the dark juncture of wall and floor. Even when behind the guard, Prosik dared not relax. He moved faster, however, making for the end where the wreck would conceal him.
With a patience Prosik had not suspected he possessed, he crept around the hangar, achieving finally the concealment he had sought. Even here, he dared not relax because it came to him belatedly that the wreckage also concealed the guard. What was the Earther doing over there? Prosik listened to faint buzzings and clangings from the guard station. What was their significance? And what had that Earther group leader meant by “bait” in the wreck?
The exposed space between the hangar wall and the wreckage appeared dangerously magnified by his fears. He paused to condense his snake body into its original anaconda muscularity and then, praying once more to Habiba, he slithered out onto the floor, moving as fast as he could.
At the wreck, he inserted himself into a space beneath it and lifted his head carefully until he could look across the hangar at the guard. The Earther sat with eyes half lidded, obviously far gone in digestive torpor.
Excellent!
Prosik withdrew his head and began examining the damaged ship. Yes—the drive was an unreadable meltdown as the Earther had said. But the erasure system was intact and the self-destruct safeguard remained.
Would there be time to open the system and activate the erasure sequence now?
He ventured another look at the guard and felt a surge of terror. The seat at the desk was empty and the guard was nowhere to be seen. Even as Prosik contemplated flight, he saw a door open behind the desk and the guard emerged. There was a brief glimpse of toilet facilities before the door closed. The guard returned to his seat with a satisfied grunt.
Prosik lowered his head and once more studied the supports that concealed the erasure system. Two had been badly twisted but the protective covers remained intact. Critical structures with the controls showed a few dents but the system was duplicated and allowance had been made for possible damage. Essential elements were buffered by protective shielding. Prosik swiveled his eyes inward and began the idmaging to extrude a manipulative arm. Before he could do this, he smelled a familiar odor.
Bazeel!
A small mound of the wonderful drug lay on a flat surface of the wreckage only centimeters away.
Prosik moved his head toward the bazeel and his tongue flickered out in its automatic snake fashion. The tongue withdrew with a generous dusting of bazeel on the tip. Prosik felt the familiar soothing sensation.
Ahhhhhh.
He allowed himself another taste.
A small dalliance, he told himself.
Only when he was close to complete bazeel torpor did he remember the Earther’s remark about bait. A sound behind him cut across his memory. Prosik, his head wavering deliciously, turned and looked toward the sound.
Horrors!
The guard stood there with the muzzle of a long weapon pointed directly at Prosik.
“What have we here?” the guard asked.
Prosik could not move a muscle. He wanted only to sink into bazeel fog but terror would not permit this.
The menacing muzzle of the weapon moved closer.
Prosik stared at it, completely fascinated.
“A snake?” The guard’s tone was clearly incredulous.
Summoning all of his energy, Prosik dropped his head behind a broken metal surface and sought a way to bury himself in the wreckage. He knew he could not move backward without tearing scales from his snake body and that effort was beyond him.
An ear-shattering explosion interrupted his frantic search and a metal surface slammed against his back. This was followed immediately by another explosion and the sizzling eruption of a self-destruct system. Molten metal seared one side of Prosik’s snake body and he reacted instinctively, slithering out of the wreckage as fast as he could.
The guard lay on the floor, half his head torn away by the blast that had ignited the self-destruct system.
Without thinking it through, Prosik idmage-scanned the dead guard and cast himself into that shape, complete with to
rn uniform and a few bloody but lesser wounds. It was done in seconds and Prosik stood in his new form to hurl the guard’s body into the inferno that had been one of the ship’s erasure activating systems.
As he slumped back to the floor, there to allow himself to be discovered by the Earthers he could hear racing toward the scene of disturbance, Prosik knew he had added a new dimension to his problem. In the brief moments of his flight into this disguise, he had seen the drive supports still standing on the far side of the wreck. If they survived, he now had only one control system with which to carry out his mission but, if his disguise succeeded, he might be able to gain undisturbed access to what remained of the erasure ship.
***
Leaders must never set a bad example for those who follow. But the band of followers also must set a good example—both for their leaders and for their fellows. Otherwise, the social compact dissolves and society descends into chaos.
—Dreen aphorism
Lutt awoke on the cot in his office with a most memorable headache, which, on asking a few internal questions, he found was shared by Ryll, the partner of his flesh.
We will tend to share most bodily ills and good feelings, Ryll explained.
But I seldom have hangovers, Lutt complained.
Perhaps it was the combination of the foods and the drink, Ryll suggested.
There wasn’t anything I hadn’t eaten before . . . or drunk.
In that combination?
Well. . . we sure got around one helluva lot of pesto.
At mention of the dish that had contained the bazeel, Ryll felt an involuntary shudder go through their shared body.
You seemed to like the pesto, Lutt said. He glanced at his watch. Keerist! I’m due at the editorial conference. Gotta order up some coffee.
Ryll found the coffee helpful but he sensed the beginnings of suspicion in Lutt about the contents of their meal.
Lutt asked himself if certain Earther foods might have an adverse effect on Dreens and if there might be an advantage in this. A dangerous line of questioning, but Ryll felt helpless to divert it. Any such attempt would be sure to increase Lutt’s suspicions.