Get Off the Unicorn (6 page)

“I made individual contact,” she cried. “And what a mind!” She was so excited that she didn't notice the flare of jealousy which Afra couldn't suppress. “And what a surprise
he
got,” she went on.

From the moment she had entered, Afra had known that the mind was male.

“A Prime talent?” he asked, counterfeiting a show of genuine interest.

“I can't assess it. He's so . . . different,” she exclaimed, her eyes shining and her mental aura dazzling with her success. “He fades and then returns. The distance is immense, and there isn't much definition in the thoughts. I can only reach the surface.” Damia threw herself onto the long couch. “I'm exhausted. I shall have to sleep before I can reach Jeff with the news. I don't dare use the station.”

Afra agreed readily, waiting until she relaxed into sleep. Ethics aside, he tried to reach this experience in her mind below the emotional level, only to find himself overwhelmed by the subjective. Damia was treating herself to a high emotional kick! Afra was afraid for her, with a fear deeper than any he had ever touched personally or vicariously. Afra withdrew troubled. She had better calm down and start acting like a Prime when she woke, instead of a giddy girl. If she didn't, he'd push the panic button himself.

After several hours' sleep, Damia's mental pyrotechnics were calmer. She “reached” Jeff with a professional report of the contact, only just a trifle high. When she had finished broadcasting, Jeff got a private thought to Afra but Afra could only confirm Damia's report. He did not yet comment on his vague forebodings.

The next day, Damia tossed off her necessary work as fast as she could, then went into space. And Afra waited as he had been waiting for Damia for years. She returned so shining from the second encounter, Afra had to clamp an icy hold over his mind.

The third morning, as Damia sat in the control tower, she worked with such haste Afra reprimanded her. She corrected herself, gaily, making far too light of her mistake, and then, eagerly, she propelled herself out toward the rendezvous. When she returned that evening so tired that she reeled into the living room, Afra took command.

“I'm going with you tomorrow, Damia,” he said firmly.

“What for?” She sat bolt upright to glare at him.

“You forget that I have a direct order from Earth Prime to check the aura of these aliens. You've no way of knowing this isn't a reinvasion by the same entities that attacked Deneb twenty years ago.”

“Sodan said they'd had no previous contact with any sentients,” she said, half angry.

“Sodan?”

“That is how he identifies himself,” she said with smug complacency. She lay back on the couch, smiling up at Afra.

It disturbed him to know that this entity had a name. It made the alien seem too human. Nor could Afra quite reason away the tenderness with which Damia spoke that name.

“Good enough,” Afra said, with an indifference he didn't feel. “However, you don't need to introduce me formally. All I need is to check on the aura. I'll know in an instant if there's any familiarity. I won't jeopardize his confidence in your touch. He'll never know I've been there.” Afra yawned,

“Why are
you
tired?”

“I've been stevedoring all day,” he said with a malicious grin.

The remark had the desired effect of infuriating Damia. The very fact that he could so easily divert her conclusively proved to Afra that her emotions were unhealthily involved. It no longer mattered whether this Sodan was of the race that Jeff and the Rowan had fought. He was a menace in himself.

Somehow Afra got through the evening without a hint of his inner absorption spilling over. Damia, reliving the success of her day, wasn't listening to anything but her own thoughts.

The next day, after the necessary work was completed, Damia and Afra both took to their personal capsules. Afra followed Damia's thrust and held himself silently as she reached the area where she could touch the aura of Sodan. Damia then linked Afra and carried his mind to the alien ship. As soon as the alien touch impinged on Afra's awareness, much was suddenly clear to him: much seen, and worse, much unseen.

What Damia could not, would not, or did not see justified Afra's nagging presentiment of danger.
Nothing
out of Sodan's mind was visible: and nothing beyond his public mind was touchable. The alien had a very powerful brain. As a quiescent eavesdropper, Afra could not probe, but he widened his own sensitivity to its limit and the impressions he received were as unreassuring as his increasingly stronger intuition of disaster.

It was patent that this Sodan was not of the previous invasion species: that he had been traveling for an unspecifiable length of time far in excess of two Earth decades.

It would not occur to Damia that Afra would linger once he had established his facts. But Afra did linger, discovering other disturbing things. Sodan's mind, undeniably brilliant, was nevertheless augmented. Afra couldn't perceive whether Sodan was the focus for other minds on the ship or in gestalt with the ship's power source. Straining to his limit without revealing himself, Afra tried to pierce the visual screen or, at least, the aural one. All he received was a low stereo babble of mechanical activity, and the burn of heavy elements.

Defeated, Afra withdrew, leaving Sodan and Damia to exchange thoughts that he had to admit were the ploys of courtship. He returned to Auriga and lay in the Tower couch, summoning up the energy to call. Jeff Raven had moved young Larak nearer to Auriga to facilitate sub-rosa communications.

It was not, Afra assured himself, that Damia had deliberately hidden anything in her reports to himself or to Jeff: she was unaware that her usually keen perceptions were fuddled and distorted by her emotional involvement: she who had prided herself on her ability to assess dispassionately any emotionally charged incident.

Larak,
Afra called, drawing heavily on the gestalt and projecting his own mental/physical concept of Larak to aid him in reaching the mind.

Man, you're beat
, Larak came back, sharp, clear green.

Larak, relay back to Jeff that this Sodan . . .

It's got a name?

It's got more than that and Damia is responding on a very high emotional level,
Afra sighed heavily.
Relay back to Jeff that I want him and the Rowan to remain on call at all times to me. I consider this an emergency. Get yourself pushed out here as soon as you can relay that message. I'll need you here so we can get through to Prime when we need to without going through Station or Damia.

Coming,
Larak responded crisply.

Afra leaned back in the couch and flicked off the generators, thanking the paradox that allowed Damia to run a Station on low T ratings; she would be unable to catch what he had just transmitted.

He would have given much to have been able to handle the Sodan mind by himself, without having to call on other Primes. All through Damia's life, Afra had been able to cope with her mercurial tempers and to direct her restless energies. And though his recent complete withdrawal from her had been painfully calculated, it meant that now he could neither further his cause, nor divert Damia from her headlong immersion in romance. Nor was he able to challenge Sodan and remove that competition.

“Galloping gronites, you look like a rough ride on a long ellipse comet,” was Larak's cheery greeting as he bounced into the Tower.

“Your description is remarkably apt,” Afra replied grimly, and gripped Larak's shoulder to convey the one impression he had not included in the broadcast.

Love has touched our fair sister at last, huh?
Larak murmured sympathetically.
And with a total alien.

A very dangerous alien, unfortunately,
Afra added. “There is fissionable material aboard, mighty heavy stuff for a ship bound on an ostensibly peaceful exploratory mission. Heavy enough to suspect whoever gave Sodan his mission
knew
our civilization is on an advanced level.”

“More's the pity,” Larak agreed thoughtfully, perching on the edge of the console. “Could you sense any communications with his own people?”

“Tremendous power source in the ship. Tremendous, but by the mighty atom, Larak, you can't get past the public mind. Anyhow, I couldn't. And Damia hasn't.” Afra rose, paced restlessly back and forth in the narrow Tower.

“Then it's possible he has informed them of the contact?”

“I can't tell.”

Larak held Afra's glance, and then sighed.

“It'll be a shame to have to destroy him,” he said slowly.

“Ha! We'll be lucky if we can,” Afra replied. “Oh, yes, Larak, that mind is the equal, if not the superior, of Damia's. It could destroy . . . all of us.”

“Then we must act quickly before any suspicion leaks to Damia,” Larak said in sudden resolution.

Together the two flicked on the generators and soberly presented to Jeff and the Rowan the action they deemed advisable.

But are we sure the evasions are deliberate? Maybe this alien is exercising caution? I would if I met a mind in outer space,
the Rowan said in argument. She met absolute resistance to her position.
Why can't we destroy him then? Why must we ask her to do it?
She spoke as Damia's mother, not Callisto Prime.

For one thing, we can't reach that far without her. Nor can we draw, as Damia can, without prearrangement on other Talent reserves,
Jeff replied.
We'll have to show her how dangerous Sodan is,
he added, disliking this as much as any of them.

Each day Damia returns to Auriga a little more tired than the previous one,
Afra said slowly.
I suspect that he realized he must drain her before she suspects his intentions.

Playing with her?
The Rowan was angry now.

Don't be silly, mother,
Larak said derisively.

Not in that sense, Rowan,
Afra answered her.
I suspect Damia was as much a surprise to him as he has been to her.

Hurry,
Larak cautioned him.
She's returning. And boy, is she exhausted!

Afra suppressed a feeling of annoyance that the curious childhood link between Damia and Larak gave him the edge in sensing Damia's return. He turned his mind to the debate, as decision and strategy were settled in the moment before Damia's capsule landed back on Auriga.

“Larak. I thought I felt you near,” she cried happily as she saw her brother, the picture of casual relaxation, perched on the edge of the console.

“Just thought? You usually know,” he said, crowing with boyish delight. “This alien sure has got you wrapped up and tied like a present. See how the mighty have fallen.”

When Damia flushed, Larak roared with laughter.

“I've got to meet this guy,” he said.

“I've always felt that I was building experience and training for one special reason,” Damia said, her eyes shining. “and now I know what it is!”

“The whole Sector will know in a moment if you don't lower your ‘voice,' “ Afra said, sharply, to give Larak a chance to control the shock the boy was feeling as he witnessed Damia's exultation.

Resentfully, Damia dampered her emotional outpouring.

“I suppose you arrived with an appetite like a mule,” she said sourly.

Larak's face was a study in innocent hurt.

“I'm a growing boy, and while you're out courting, Afra's getting overworked, and leaner and hungrier.”

Damia looked guiltily at Afra.

“You
do
look tired,” she said with concern. “Let's all push over to the house and have dinner. Larak, why are you here?”

“Oh, Dad wants Afra to pinch-hit on Procyon. Two high T's are down with one of the local viruses and traffic is backing up. Say, what's this alien ship like? Crew or full automation for a void trek?”

Her hand poised over the cooking dials, Damia hesitated. She looked at her brother blankly.

“Oh, you men are all alike. Details, details!”

“Well, sure,” Larak replied. “But if details like that bore you, they fascinate me. I'll ask him myself.”

“You can't reach that far!”

“I planned to hop a ride with you tomorrow.”

Damia hesitated, looking for assistance from Afra, who shrugged noncommittally.

“Oh, for glory's sake, Damia. This is no time to be coy,” her brother said.

“I'm not being coy!” she exploded. “It's just that . . . just that . . .”

“Who're you kidding?” Larak wanted to know, letting his temper rise with hers. “You're gone on this guy, and how do you know he's even anything resembling a man?”

“His is a true mind, brilliant and powerful,” she said haughtily.

“That's great for fireside chats, but no damned good in bed.”

Damia reddened, half with fury and indignation, and half with sudden virginal embarrassment at her brother's accurate thrust.

“You're insufferable. If it weren't for me, we wouldn't have been warned at all.”

“Warned?” Afra leapt on the choice of word. Perhaps she was not as completely bedazzled as they'd thought.

“Of this momentous meeting,” she went on, oblivious to the implication. “You've touched him, Afra. Don't you agree?”

“That it's a brilliant mind? Yes,” and Afra nodded judiciously.

Damia caught his sour undertone. “Oh, you . . . you're jealous, that's all.” And then she frowned, looking at Afra with sudden suspicion.

“Hey, you're letting my dinner burn,” Larak said, pointing.

“And you say that women gossip,” Damia exclaimed, quickly lifting two pans from the heat. “It's a mercy nothing
is
burned.”

They ate in strained silence, Larak and Afra concentrating hard to maintain a convincing surface of thought. They hardly needed to because Damia went off into her own private reverie, ignoring them completely.