Part 7 (2/2)

He drifted across the chamber to the bottle and looked at it more closely. On the floor, beneath the flask, there was a thick plasti-gla.s.s jug of the sort often used to hold cider or wine. It was half full of the amber fluid. Timothy lifted it, examined it, and discovered it had been made in Pernborth, New Jersey. It was most a.s.suredly not an artifact from another world. The Brethren entered the room every day, perhaps twice a day judging by the production rate of the fluid, collected a full bottle, dumped it into the jug, replaced the bottle and left When the jug was full, they would take the PBT away to be put into small flasks and inserted into bra.s.s statuettes for distribution. When they returned to collect the latest supply, a new jug would be brought along.

The combination of the supertechnical alien machines and the plastic cider jug was almost comical. He would have laughed, except for the thoughts of Leonard Taguster and the other thousands who had had their lives ruined by the stuff.

And it was no wonder that the police laboratories had not yet been able to break down the chemical composition of the stuff. Whatever it was, it was utterly unhuman, unearthly. It had come from another star system, perhaps even from another galaxy. There was little likelihood that any earthly a.n.a.lysis would ever decode the structure of the substance. Metals, such as these steel tubes, might be fairly uniform throughout large sections of the galaxy. But plant life would differ from world to world. Animal life would differ too, perhaps even more radically. And since the serums more than likely were produced from animal or vegetable sources, an earth laboratory would meet a blank wall every time it applied its own standards and knowledge to the task.

Around the machine, the access plating had been pried loose and bent back as if the Brethren had summoned experts to examine the guts of the mechanism, perhaps searching for some manner of accelerating the production of the priceless fluid. There was a fantastically miniaturized and complex system behind the plating, more involved than anything Timothy had ever seen, even in the SAM built by Weapons Psionic. This indecipherable mess of circuits and switches had apparently dissuaded the Brethren from tinkering with it (and thereby possibly losing what supply they could obtain), because they had never bothered to remove the plating the entire way. Considering the Brethren he knew, it was difficult to believe they would be satisfied with such a slight attempt to change the flow of PBT. Perhaps their fear augmented their ignorance of the machinery. Perhaps they felt that death waited on anyone who would attempt to fool with the works of creatures like the one lying in the morgue drawer.

Finally, there was nothing more to be discovered in the chamber, at least on a casual survey of the sort upon which he was now embarked. Later he would return and delve into things with his ESP, study and comprehend whatever he could. He moved toward the main tubeway.

He was anxious to return to the surface and his mountainside home where he could contact United Nations narcotics people and break the story to them. After, of course, breaking it to the world in Enterstat Enterstat first. He did not particularly care about getting the scoop on anyone anymore. Strangely, he did not even care whether first. He did not particularly care about getting the scoop on anyone anymore. Strangely, he did not even care whether Enterstat Enterstat folded. But the chance to explode something like this would give George Creel more pleasure than he received from editing a thousand regular editions. folded. But the chance to explode something like this would give George Creel more pleasure than he received from editing a thousand regular editions.

There was still more of the stars.h.i.+p to explore, and he wanted to have everything down pat before turning the matter over to the authorities. That was a habit he had gotten into after previous disastrous encounters with the police...

In the corridor, the eerie blue light preceded him, emanating softly and inexplicably from the walls. He was reminded of a funhouse in a carnival, one of those nightmare places where the public (most of them reasonably sane but in need of some fear in a world where daily life grew more and more comfortable and unadventurous) paid to be given the opportunity to find its way through a dark maze of pa.s.sages where anything and everything might leap out to block the way at the most unexpected times, where there were ghosts, goblins, and ghouls who were nonetheless frightening for their plastic, and cardboard natures. But the comparison did nothing for his nerves, and he abandoned it before the submerged fear rose out of his mind again.

In another twenty feet, the tubeway came to an abrupt end against a perfectly blank wall of burnished emerald metal similar to that which he had seen outside when he had first come upon the vast hull of the stars.h.i.+p. He looked for a doorway, but there was none. He knew that he could not possibly have seen all the s.h.i.+p, even though he had traveled over two hundred feet since entering the portal part way along from the tubes of the rockets. For one thing, there had been no control room or observation deck. Indeed, those need have been only of a minimal nature, but there should have been something. And the crew quarters he had thus far seen, those small rooms off the main tubeway, could have slept no more than two dozen. Considering the microminiaturization of the s.h.i.+p, it would have been foolish to have built so huge a vessel for so few inhabitants. The theater alone had been large enough to seat a hundred. So, though this was the end-it wasn't wasn't the end. It was a barrier of some sort, a fake part.i.tion meant to conceal the heart of the great vessel. the end. It was a barrier of some sort, a fake part.i.tion meant to conceal the heart of the great vessel.

The Brethren had reached similar conclusions and had made several attempts to cut their way through the part.i.tion that denied them access to whatever further wonders might lie ahead. There was a powerful hand drill lying on the deck, a dozen broken bits scattered around it. Ti saw that one of the bits was an industrial diamond and that it had done no better than the bits which were tempered steel. There was a robot drilling device whose bit and arm were mangled into uselessness. It had apparently been applying maximum pressure when the bit broke, and the destruction had carried back along the heavy arm in the form of harsh vibrations. A second robot worker with a laser drill instead of the standard bit was scattered all over the end of the hallway in pieces no larger than a man's hand, indicating that it had been set to continue drilling no matter what-and that the energy of the pencil-thin light beam had carried back on itself to climax in an explosion of rather severe magnitude.

But the wall was totally unmarked. It was as if gnats had been flying against it. There was not the slightest scratch or impression upon the alien alloy.

Timothy flushed his psionic power through the part.i.tion and was able to distinguish the hollow areas of rooms, a good number of them, bisected by thin gray shadows which were walls. He could not see anything more than what an X-ray might reveal of a man's intestines, but it was enough to convince him of the necessity of conquering this barrier. The Brethren may have failed repeatedly at the task, but they were not as equipped as he was, did not have psi fingers to pry with, to rip, rend, and tear.

He extended those insubstantial fingers now, with the same naturalness he had once had for the direction of his servo hands. He slid them between the terribly dense molecules of the emerald wall.

When he felt that he had correctly ascertained the nature of the atomic patterns of the material, he spread his psionic digits in an attempt to rip apart the very fabric of the structure before him.

Abruptly, his body expanded, exploding with a blinding white ball of flame, and flung itself apart in thousands of b.l.o.o.d.y pieces...

CHAPTER 15.

Blackness welled up like pooling blood, swallowing all traces of light and life.

There was a sensation of falling, and the understanding that the fall would never end. There was no bottom to the well into which he had been dropped, for that well was eternity.

He tried to breathe, but there was no air in this place. Just as there was no sound, light, color, odors, or sensations of a tactile nature. This was only nothingness. Nothingness...

Then he found himself in one piece, leaping backward on his psionic legs, away from the wall. He rebounded from the side of the tubeway, cracking his head a rather solid blow. The pain from that encounter was welcome, for it was proof that he was still alive and functioning. He looked down at himself, nevertheless surprised to discover that he could still see and that what he saw was as it had always been. That excruciatingly horrible plunge into death had seemed too real to be an illusion-and yet that was exactly what it appeared to have been.

He was tempted to feel and pinch himself with his extrasensory hands, to let out a yell of relief at the undamaged condition of his mutant husk. He had always enjoyed life, despite what he had suffered and the limitations his body had presented him with. But now, having experienced the moment of death, having suffered the micro-second spasm that somehow seemed to continue on and on, without regard to the pa.s.sing of objective time, life was far more precious than it had ever been.

Now he saw why the Brethren had brought in the robot machines to breach the wall for them. The agony of dying over and over again, every time he set his drill bit to the sheen of that unearthly metal, would have driven a human workman mad.

The star people had incorporated an alarm into the wall to insure its sanct.i.ty. Or perhaps a better word than ”alarm” was ”deterrent.” It was not a warning to the possessors of this vessel so much as a show of their muscle to those who would depose them. Some sort of structured subliminal broadcast was played whenever the solidity of the part.i.tion was endangered, thrusting deep into the fear centers of the brain and dredging up that most ingrained of fears-death.

There was only one pleasant thing about discovering this deterrent the hard way: the knowledge that, though they were races from vastly different star systems, their basic fears must be similar. Unless, in other species, the broadcast aroused fears of a different nature than that of death. It was impossible to say what some alien mind might find terrifying.

His optimism about their similarity was further shattered when he thought that the alarm-deterrent might very well have been set up after an a.n.a.lysis of the human brain. Indeed, to have compared mankind's struggling intellect to that of a race traveling casually between the stars was like comparing his fellow human beings to himself now that, his psionic abilities were fully flowered. It was almost certain then. They had structured this deterrent after studying human intelligence. But how long ago? Ten years ago? A century ago? Ten thousand years ago?

He touched the metal with ESP fingers once more, threading the power into the molecules. Perhaps his problem had been in not exerting a sudden enough force-and thus being caught by a trap the aliens had laid for lesser men. They could not have been antic.i.p.ating a psionically gifted mind, much like their own, to attempt to destroy their handi work.

He fed more power into the wall, between the small, tightly packed molecules.

It surged there, waiting for him to make some use of it.

He tensed himself. He was afraid, but there was no sense in admitting that to himself now.

Without warning, he blasted the ESP power outward in an attempt to rip the wall asunder...

... And staggered backward as his body was impaled on a dozen long and wicked spikes which sprung out of the wall and snapped angrily into his soft flesh...

Blood fountained up, splattering across the ceiling, dripping down the walls, and then the spikes were worked completely through him, and he was sliding and sliding and sliding down a very long trough, toward inky blackness. Somehow, he knew the slide would require several million years to complete...

When this vision pa.s.sed, he found himself curled at the. waist against the awful pain-both physical and psychological-of dying. The deterrent worked much faster than his ESP power ever could, negating any chance of opening the wall by force. He simply could not withstand too many spiralings down into the grave, artificial or real, without being thoroughly unhinged by them. And if he lost his sanity, he was not at all certain he would be able to make use of the extrasensory powers to heal himself. If his mind were unhinged, so might be his psionic abilities.

He floated before the s.h.i.+mmering emerald panel, searching for a switch that might send the wall up or sideways, knowing even as he looked that such a thing was impossible. This was no cleverly disguised door before him, but a thick and st.u.r.dy wall. As he had thought, there was no sign of a switch.

He did not even consider returning topside, to the mountainside home that had once been the main part of his life. That was unthinkable. Now that he had discovered the source of PBT and had cracked the hold of the Brethren on the underworld and on all the people addicted to their amber-colored drug, he needed another goal, something more to be met and engaged and conquered. If he did not tackle the challenge of this wall, the time would have come when he would have to stop deluding himself about the unimportance of his new-found powers. He would have to plan for the future. And the future scared him. If he had been a freak in a normal world before, he was a superfreak now. There was no possible way he could fit into the fabric of modern society. No way at all.

His life had been a desperate race to be accepted, to have at least a goodly number of peripheral friends, if he had to be restricted to only Taguster as a confidant Enterstat Enterstat had connected him with the beautiful people, the favored, the talented, the wealthy. He had boosted himself into the second-echelon corridors of high society. Now he had completed the circle of his mutation and had pa.s.sed out of their world, forever and without question. He was alone. had connected him with the beautiful people, the favored, the talented, the wealthy. He had boosted himself into the second-echelon corridors of high society. Now he had completed the circle of his mutation and had pa.s.sed out of their world, forever and without question. He was alone.

In the back of his mind he knew there was one other thing he could try-to get beyond this wall. And though it was a dangerous plan, it was far safer-psychologically-than giving up and returning to the surface. The answer was simple enough: he must teleport...

The problem was that he had only the vaguest of impressions concerning the area beyond this wall. It was not nearly enough to fix it in his mind as a solid point in s.p.a.ce-time. As a result, he was not certain that, if he teleported without a distinct destination embedded in his mind, he would end up where he wished to go. He might find himself inextricably wound up in the molecular patterns of this part.i.tion, his own molecules hopelessly enmeshed in those of the emerald substance. It was not the pleasantest of thoughts-especially if it were to happen and he were to maintain his mental powers as he had while teleporting the first time...

Yet he had not known any exact coordinates when he had come to this farm from New England. He had known what it looked like and that it was close to Charter Oak, Iowa, but that was hardly hair-fine sighting. Perhaps an exact impression of the destination was not essential. If it were, then he could never teleport beyond this wall, for he would have to be there first to ascertain the landscape. Therefore, he stopped worrying about it and decided to take the plunge.

The life he would have to lead once he was in the outside world again, and reported this to the United Nations was more frightening with each pa.s.sing moment And though his ESP might have expanded, his emotions were still primitively human. Out there, it would be an emotional problem, something his great power could not help him cope with.

He turned back to the green wall, examined it carefully, tried to establish a mental image of the ghostly X-ray he had seen of the chambers beyond.

He sucked in breath; the air seemed infinitely cooler than it had been moments earlier.

He teleported...

The time spent in transit was no different than it had been when he had taken the much longer jump from New England to the Brethren farmhouse. The landscape of the eerie, non-matter universe through which he pa.s.sed like a beam of black light was just as it had been before: dark, singing yet silent, warm yet cold...

Then he was standing within the core of the vast s.h.i.+p, beyond the green barrier that had been erected to stop him. He felt a flush of triumph, of superiority-which a glance around at the marvelous s.h.i.+p dispelled immediately. He was at the very front of the stars.h.i.+p, in a small chamber that served as a minimal guidance deck. It was very bare of decoration and contained only three seats, all on swivel bases, all heavily padded. He would have to walk backward toward the barrier through which he had traveled to see what the other rooms contained.

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