The Alien Trace [Cord 01] (30 page)

    Of course, it was all prerecorded, so there should be no unpleasant surprises. And yet it was impossible to watch without becoming tense. The jugglers worked with little illumination, so the cutters' opalescent rays wove a spiderweb pattern in the dark.

    "This isn't entertainment, it's an art form," Cord whispered.

    Every eye in the cafe was watching the act; conversation had ceased. Julia made no response.

    The routine came to an end. Cord and Julia had finished their meal; the wine was gone.

    "Let's go," Cord suggested.

    "Yes," Julia said. Her breasts rose and fell. The dress she wore was cut low, exposing part of the aureolae around her nipples. Her pupils were dilated with expectation.

    "Your room or mine?"

    "Why not go somewhere different tonight?" she asked. "There's something I've wanted to try. Do you know what a stim-center is?"

    "I've heard of it, but I haven't been there." In fact, Cord did not know what a stim-center might be, but he was willing to find out.

    "Neither have I, of course, because it looks odd if you go alone-and a missionary shouldn't go at all-but I would like to see what it's like. You wear a headset which links you to a computer. You describe to the computer a fantasy you want to experience. A very simple description will do, although you can get more elaborate if you wish. Then you take a drug, and you live out the fantasy. Stim-centers are used a lot on worlds where the port staff can't go outside because of the climate, and also on ships making long trips."

    "It sounds fantastic," Cord said. He could imagine some very interesting scenarios to try.

    The stim-center was not far from the cafe. They strolled along a concourse twinkling with colored lights and advertisements for diversions. Life, Cord decided, cupping one of Julia's buttocks in his hand, could be very good.

    The cubicle was small and gray, furnished only with a plastic-covered bed platform, a pair of silver bands with long cords leading to a simple console, and a small grille set beside it in the wall.

    "Would you like to take a cruise on a luxury liner?" Julia asked.

    "Yes, unless you'd rather do something else. It would be good practice for when I leave."

    Julia laughed. "I'll never be able to travel in a starship of this class," she said. "But maybe you will."

    Her fingers flew over a keyboard as she programmed the computer. "Margravia and bound for Jeelung. With plenty of entertainment-especially in free fall…"

    She led him over to the grille. "Now put your hand over this." He followed her movements. "We've just been air-injected with a drug. Put on the headband and lie down next to me."

    The headbands adjusted to fit snugly, Cord found. His last thought before stretching out beside Julia was that the trailing wires might be a nuisance…

    

    

    He was standing in front of a great viewport, staring at his own planet, Mehira. He could see the continents and oceans before him, like a living map. As the ship moved slowly into space, Mehira became swathed in mist and clouds.

    Julia touched his shoulder, and he looked away from the viewport. They were in a lounge, large and carpeted on all walls with a silky, many-colored covering. The ceiling and walls were studded with strange plateaulike formations. They were seating areas, Cord realized, for the occasions when the ship's up and down orientation was different, and for the times it might be in free fall. At the moment there was gravity.

    Julia stood beside him. Her hair was dressed high on her head in an elaborate style which must involve some sort of frame underneath. She was wearing floor-length strings of gems falling from a collar around her neck, and not very much more. Hip-high hose, and nothing else, he noted as she turned to him. Her eyes were greener than the jewels. There were bracelets of the same stones on her wrists.

    He looked down at himself. He was clad in the richest Mehiran clothing he had ever seen-far more costly than anything Bird's father had worn. A broad neck ornament of precious stones lay heavy on his shoulders, while he, too, wore bracelets and rings. The soft tunic did not conceal the beginning of an erection.

    "Let's go to the free-fall deck," Julia suggested, lowering her eyes.

    The ship was lavishly fitted: no utilitarian, naked decks or bulkheads. It was not as Cord had envisioned, yet he recognized it as being right. He could remember embarking on Margravia amid the glitter of casinos, vast estates, and slave markets. He knew that the door down the passage led to the crew's quarters and the cabins for passengers' servants. This ship carried no second-class accommodations.

    He knew it all, and knew that the computer link was supplying the knowledge. At the same time, it was all quite real. It would be very easy to slip into the dream and be aware of nothing else.

    The free-fall room was in a lobe of the ship which did not rotate to provide gravity. Cord savored the sensation of decreasing weight. Part of the space was divided into small areas where passengers could take advantage of the novelty in privacy. Julia led him to an unoccupied one.

    Freed of the restraint of gravity, the jeweled strands floated, exposing more of Julia's body. The hose and flimsy bandeau left just enough to the imagination to tease.

    Sex was different in free fall. Postures which would be impossible in a strong gravitational field (or even a weak one) presented no challenge. Weightless, they writhed around each other, laughing as they recoiled from the cushioned walls.

    "I've got you now," Cord said, pinning Julia against the wall. Garments floated like strangely hued clouds: here a cirrus wisp of black chiffon, there a cumulus of velvety white kilt.

    The tip of his tail snaked up to stroke her. Julia lunged against him as his organ snaked up, too. The designer of the ship had thoughtfully provided handholds, so Cord was not dislodged.

    "Oh, Cord," Julia sighed when they were no longer locked together. "I hope you aren't disappointed in me. I'm so many people-not all of them nice."

    "Nice enough for me," Cord replied, kissing one leg from knee to delicate toes. What a position for a despised Catcher to find himself in!

    Somehow, the dream changed and flowed. He heard a bell sounding high up and far away. Julia's expression changed. "We're going into overdrive."

    She reached for him, and he entered her again. His clothes melted away like wax, forming little colored beads that bounced away. Julia's long strands of jewels dissolved and fell in a tinkling shower. Even the air around them changed colors, swirling around them, as the ship went into overdrive.

    A thousand tiny fists pounded on his body; his brain exploded in a kaleidoscope of lights. He felt as though he were having an orgasm that was without end, and a tiny part of his mind wondered how Julia could survive this.

    But she had. When the ship came out of overdrive, he looked into her glittering eyes and avid face. Their sweat-slicked bodies parted. The dream changed again.

    Cord was naked except for a collar around his neck and a small chain which led from the collar to Julia's hand. She was now dressed in flimsy black stockings with an openwork pattern in them. Her firm breasts were covered by little circles of matching black. She led him down a corridor, into another lounge.

    Inside, a huge table was set for dinner-the captain's table. The dishes were creamy porcelain, the tableware was inlaid with mosaics of precious stones. A gold-chased goblet was at every setting.

    Julia tugged him into a chair beside her. Suddenly all sorts of humans came forward to claim their seats.

    The captain was Hamilton K. Around the table sat Tanna, the little brunette from the party, and the twins May and Mary, as well. All three women wore ornaments instead of clothing, leaving bare all the necessary parts of their bodies. They licked their lips in anticipation-but not of food.

    Across from Cord sat the burly large man who'd first attacked him-the dead man from the
Maida
. The crewman smiled at him, revealing pointed fangs. Farther down the table sat a young man; it took Cord a moment to recognize the young security guard who stood outside his lab. The security guard turned and fondled the dead crewman.

    At the very end of the table, in apparent segregation, were three Mehirans: Bird, and his dead parents. Bird ignored everyone at the table, and tended the mutilated bodies of his parents, which had a tendency to slump over as they fell apart.

    Cord flinched. The dreams were turning ugly, and he wanted to leave. But Julia's silver chain prevented it. Then dinner started. Brisk stewards in crisp uniforms were in constant attendance, bringing a never-ending stream of delicacies. They filled glasses almost before they were empty and removed plates unobtrusively.

    The captain, however, was served by a young woman who was naked but for an ornamental hip belt and neck collar.

    Another slave, Cord realized, and then started when he recognized the woman as O'as Garatua.

    O'as spilled a few drops of wine on the table cover while filling the captain's goblet. Hamilton K backhanded her across the mouth without interrupting his conversation with a flirtatious Tanna. O'as fell back against the wall, a trickle of blood on her lip. She managed not to drop the decanter, however, and returned to her place behind the captain's chair. O'as furtively wiped away the blood with the palm of one hand and stared hatefully at the back of K's head. No one else seemed to take notice of the incident… they were too busy stripping off what there was left of clothing.

    The stewards ripped off their uniforms and eagerly reached for O'as, holding her down as she fought them. The twins and the nameless security guard formed a threesome on the floor. Julia stood up as Hamilton K and the
Maida
crewman approached; Cord watched as each male human entered her front and back. Dispassionately, he realized he'd not quite seen the human male organ; it was substantially different from his, but only in the beginning, before it swelled and grew. But unlike a Mehiran's, it jutted forward in a curve. His own organ hung down between his legs, as he realized something was touching it, making it grow even larger. He saw the top of Tanna's head between his thighs; somehow she'd crawled under the length of the table and now her inventive pink wet, warm tongue was busy.

    A whirlwind of emotions assaulted him, hitting against his barriers. Something was pressing at his mind. A hunger, an avidity for experience, a lust for pain, terror, and the keen knife edge of emotions. The sensation was not like the instant, massive burst of psychic force from a violent death. It was pervasive, steady, and sharp as acid. It ate away at his shielding. He made an extra effort to block the signal, but he was having trouble concentrating-distracted by Tanna's insistent tongue and the steady hammering of the alien trace.

    It was the same alien emotion that came to him during the dreams. As his shields slowly disintegrated, his mind finally accepted what he'd suspected all along but refused to admit- the signal came from someone close to him, someone whose emotional closeness heightened psychic receptivity…

    He looked up into the face of the killer. Julia smiled back. "Not enjoying yourself?" she purred. "I thought we had much in common: you Mehirans are so amoral, in heat all the time." So Julia hadn't understood Mehiran culture and abilities; she didn't know he was empathic! For all her own powers, and her fear of the telepathy machine, she didn't realize he could still detect her fatal flaw-her alien trace!

    It was so incongruous, Julia standing there, talking to him in a sweet, low voice while two human males made love to her; the slapping sounds of flesh meeting flesh counterpointed her words.

    She reached out and tweaked his ear. "My fuzzy alien lover and his wonderful tail. So polite all the time, so entertaining. I liked you and I was sorry about your parents. But I couldn't let them reveal me, could I?"

    Her voice still dripped honey, but the dream flowed and changed again. Hamilton K's body altered and shifted. His nose and mouth grew longer, into a hairy muzzle, as he shrank in height and length. His smooth human flesh sprouted hairs, his eyes grew dark and beady. He changed into a small animal and scurried away.

    The
Maida
crewman shifted also. His skin flayed away in strips, the capillaries and veins spouting little fountains of blood; the fat and muscle and sinew melted and ran off in puddles until only bones remained. The skeleton stepped back and stood there, an insane grin on the skull.

    Julia jerked the silver chain, and Cord staggered upright. Tanna scrambled to her feet.

    "Who are you? What are you?"

    Julia tsked-tsked. "So many questions. How can I possibly explain?" An image of a cold, rocky world with a dim sun penetrated his shredded barriers. Was this Terra? He didn't know.

    "You're not Julia McKay," he accused.

    "But I am. I'm Julia-and I'm everyone, and I'm no one. I can't take the chance that you'll remember how to put together your infernal device-not that it would answer all your questions anyhow…"

    Julia turned and handed the silver chain to the skeleton. She blew Cord a goodbye kiss. "Pleasant dreams. You may not survive, but at least you'll die happy. If you do live, well"-she shrugged-"I might even be glad…"

    Julia faded slowly from view; with her disappearance, the cold alien trace withdrew from his mind.

    The skeleton jumped forward and wrapped the silver chain around his neck with one hand and reached under his tail with the other. Something hard and cold penetrated him, pressing insistently against a crucial gland. It caused his organ to throb; he arched his back, plunging it even deeper into a writhing Tanna, who by now had impaled herself on it.