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Title: Death between the stars
Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Illustrator: Mel Hunter
Release date: July 31, 2026 [eBook #79243]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1956
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79243
Credits: Tom Trussel and Sean/IB@DP (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH BETWEEN THE STARS ***
Death Between the Stars
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
_We’ve had many requests for a sequel to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s
warmly human, unforgettably appealing little story_ JACKIE SEES A
STAR. _We’ll have to admit that she is keeping us in a state of
bitter frustration in that respect. But as if to salve our hurt she
has come up with a story as appealing in a somewhat different vein,
and we’re delightfully convinced it will entrance you._
=Sympathy may or may not be an invention of the human mind. But in
the gulfs between the stars it is likely to work a miracle. =
They asked me about it, of course, before I boarded the starship. All
through the Western sector of the Galaxy, few rules are stricter than
the one dividing human from nonhuman, and the little Captain of the
_Vesta_--he was Terran, too, and proud in the black leather of the
Empire’s merchantman forces--hemmed and hawed about it, as much as was
consistent with a spaceman’s dignity.
“You see, Miss Vargas,” he explained, not once but as often as I would
listen to him, “this is not, strictly speaking, a passenger ship at
all. Our charter is only to carry cargo. But, under the terms of our
franchise, we are required to transport an occasional passenger, from
the more isolated planets where there is no regular passenger service.
Our rules simply don’t permit us to discriminate, and the Theradin
reserved a place on this ship for our last voyage.”
He paused, and re-emphasized, “We have only the one passenger cabin,
you see. We’re a cargo ship and we are not allowed to make any
discrimination between our passengers.”
He looked angry about it. Unfortunately, I’d run up against that
attitude before. Some Terrans won’t travel on the same ship with
nonhumans even when they’re isolated in separate ends of the ship.
I understood his predicament, better than he thought. The Theradin
seldom travel in space. No one could have foreseen that Haalvordhen,
the Theradin from Samarra, who had lived on the forsaken planet of
Deneb for eighteen of its cycles, would have chosen this particular
flight to go back to its own world.
At the same time, I had no choice. I had to get back to an Empire
planet--_any_ planet--where I could take a starship for Terra. With
war about to explode in the Procyon sector, I had to get home before
communications were knocked out altogether. Otherwise--well, a Galactic
war can last up to eight hundred years. By the time regular transport
service was re-established, I wouldn’t be worrying about getting home.
The _Vesta_ could take me well out of the dangerous sector, and all
the way to Samarra--Sirius Seven--which was, figuratively speaking,
just across the street from the Solar System and Terra. Still, it was
a questionable solution. The rules about segregation are strict, the
anti-discriminatory laws are stricter, and the Theradin had made a
prior reservation.
The captain of the _Vesta_ couldn’t have refused him transportation,
even if fifty human, Terran women had been left stranded on Deneb
IV. And sharing a cabin with the Theradin was ethically, morally and
socially out of the question. Haalvordhen was a nonhuman telepath; and
no human in his right senses will get any closer than necessary even to
a human telepath. As for a nonhuman one--
And yet, what other way was there?
The captain said tentatively, “We _might_ be able to squeeze you into
the crewmen’s quarters--” he paused uneasily, and glanced up at me.
I bit my lip, frowning. That was worse yet. “I understand,” I said
slowly, “that this Theradin--Haalvordhen--has offered to allow me to
share _its_ quarters.”
“That’s right. But, Miss Vargas--”
I made up my mind in a rush. “I’ll do it,” I said. “It’s the best way,
all around.”
At the sight of his scandalized face, I almost regretted my decision.
It was going to cause an interplanetary scandal, I thought wryly. A
human woman--and a Terran citizen--spending forty days in space and
sharing a cabin with a nonhuman!
The Theradin, although male in form, had no single attribute which one
could remotely refer to as sex. But of course that wasn’t the problem.
The nonhuman were specifically prohibited from mingling with the human
races. Terran custom and taboo were binding, and I faced, resolutely,
the knowledge that by the time I got to Terra, the planet might be made
too hot to hold me.
Still, I told myself defiantly, it was a big Galaxy. And conditions
weren’t normal just now and that made a big difference. I signed a
substantial check for my transportation, and made arrangements for the
shipping and stowing of what few possessions I could safely trans-ship
across space.
But I still felt uneasy when I went aboard the next day--so uneasy
that I tried to bolster up my flagging spirits with all sorts of
minor comforts. Fortunately the Theradin were oxygen-breathers, so I
knew there would be no trouble about atmosphere-mixtures, or the air
pressure to be maintained in the cabin. And the Theradin were Type Two
nonhumans, which meant that the acceleration of a hyperspeed ship would
knock my shipmate into complete prostration without special drugs. In
fact, he would probably stay drugged in his skyhook during most of the
trip.
The single cabin was far up toward the nose of the starship. It was a
queer little spherical cubbyhole, a nest. The walls were foam-padded
all around the sphere, for passengers never develop a spaceman’s skill
at maneuvering their bodies in free-fall, and cabins had to be designed
so that an occupant, moving unguardedly, would not dash out his or her
brains against an unpadded surface. Spaced at random on the inside of
the sphere were three skyhooks--nested cradles on swinging pivots--into
which the passenger was snugged during blastoff in shock-absorbing foam
and a complicated Garensen pressure-apparatus and was thus enabled to
sleep secure without floating away.
A few screw-down doors were marked LUGGAGE. I immediately unscrewed one
door and stowed my personal belongings in the bin. Then I screwed the
top down securely and carefully fastened the padding over it. Finally,
I climbed around the small cubbyhole, seeking to familiarize myself
with it before my unusual roommate arrived.
It was about fourteen feet in diameter. A sphincter lock opened from
the narrow corridor to cargo bays and crewmen’s quarters, while a
second led into the cabin’s functional equivalent of a bathroom.
Planetbound men and women are always surprised and a little shocked
when they see the sanitary arrangements on a spaceship. But once
they’ve tried to perform normal bodily functions in free-fall, they
understand the peculiar equipment very well.
I’ve made six trips across the Galaxy in as many cycles. I’m
practically an old hand, and can even wash my face in free-fall without
drowning. The trick is to use a sponge and suction. But, by and large,
I understand perfectly why spacemen, between planets, usually look a
bit unkempt.
I stretched out on the padding of the main cabin, and waited with
growing uneasiness for the nonhuman to show up. Fortunately, it wasn’t
long before the diaphragm on the outer sphincter-lock expanded, and a
curious, peaked face peered through.
“Vargas Miss Hel-len?” said the Theradin in a sibilant whisper.
“That’s my name,” I replied instantly. I pulled myself upward, and
added, quite unnecessarily, “You are Haalvordhen, of course.”
“Such is my identification,” confirmed the alien, and the long, lean,
oddly-muscled body squirmed through after the peaked head. “It is kind,
Vargas Miss, to share accom-modation under this necesssity.”
“It’s kind of you,” I said vigorously. “We’ve all got to get home
before this war breaks out!”
“That war may be prevented, I have all hope,” the nonhuman said. He
spoke comprehensibly in Galactic Standard, but expressionlessly, for
the vocal chords of the Theradins are located in an auxiliary pair of
inner lips, and their voices seem reedy and lacking in resonance to
human ears.
“Yet know you, Vargas Miss, they would have hurled me from this ship to
make room for an Empire citizen, had you not been heart-kind to share.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, shocked, “I didn’t know that!”
I stared at him, disbelieving. The captain couldn’t have legally done
such a thing--or even seriously have entertained the thought. Had he
been trying to intimidate the Theradin into giving up his reserved
place?
“I--I was meaning to thank _you_,” I said, to cover my confusion.
“Let us thank we-other, then, and be in accord,” the reedy voice
mouthed.
I looked the nonhuman over, unable to hide completely my curiosity.
In form the Theradin was vaguely humanoid--but only vaguely--for, the
squat arms terminated in mittened “hands” and the long sharp face was
elfin, and perpetually grimacing.
The Theradin have no facial muscles to speak of, and no change of
expression or of vocal inflection is possible to them. Of course, being
telepathic, such subtleties of visible or auditory expression would be
superfluous on the face of it.
I felt--as yet--none of the revulsion which the mere presence of the
Theradin was _supposed_ to inspire. It was not much different from
being in the presence of a large humanoid animal. There was nothing
inherently fearful about the alien. Yet he was a telepath--and of a
nonhuman breed my species had feared for a thousand years.
Could he read my mind?
“Yes,” said the Theradin from across the cabin. “You must forgive me.
I try to put up barrier, but it is hard. You broadcast your thought so
strong it is impossible to shut it out.” The alien paused. “Try not to
be embar-rass. It bother me too.”
Before I could think of anything to say to that a crew member in black
leather thrust his head, unannounced, through the sphincter, and said
with an air of authority, “In skyhooks, please.” He moved confidently
into the cabin. “Miss Vargas, can I help you strap down?” he asked.
“Thanks, but I can manage,” I told him.
Hastily I clambered into the skyhook, buckling the inner straps, and
fastening the suction tubes of the complicated Garensen apparatus
across my chest and stomach. The nonhuman was awkwardly drawing his
hands from their protective mittens and struggling with the Garensens.
Unhappily the Theradin have a double thumb, and handling the small-size
Terran equipment is an almost impossibly delicate task. It is made more
difficult by the fact that the flesh of their “hands” is mostly thin
mucus membrane which tears easily on contact with leather and raw metal.
“Give Haalvordhen a hand,” I urged the crewman. “I’ve done this dozens
of times!”
I might as well have saved my breath. The crewman came and assured
himself that _my_ straps and tubes and cushions were meticulously
tightened. He took what seemed to me a long time, and used his hands
somewhat excessively. I lay under the heavy Garensen equipment, too
inwardly furious to even give him the satisfaction of protest.
It was far too long before he finally straightened and moved toward
Haalvordhen’s skyhook. He gave the alien’s outer straps only a
perfunctory tug or two, and then turned his head to grin at me with a
totally uncalled-for familiarity.
“Blastoff in ninety seconds,” he said, and wriggled himself rapidly out
through the lock.
Haalvordhen exploded in a flood of Samarran which I could not follow.
The vehemence of his voice, however, was better than a dictionary. For
some strange reason I found myself sharing his fury. The unfairness of
the whole procedure was shameful. The Theradin had paid passage money,
and deserved in any case the prescribed minimum of decent attention.
I said forthrightly, “Never mind the fool, Haalvordhen. Are you
strapped down all right?”
“I don’t know,” he replied despairfully. “The equipment is unfamiliar--”
“Look--” I hesitated, but in common decency I had to make the gesture.
“If I examine carefully my own Garensens, can you read my mind and see
how they should be adjusted?” He mouthed, “I’ll try,” and immediately
I fixed my gaze steadily on the apparatus. After a moment, I felt a
curious sensation. It was something like the faint, sickening feeling
of being touched and pushed about, against my will, by a distasteful
stranger.
I tried to control the surge of almost physical revulsion. No wonder
that humans kept as far as possible from the telepathic races....
And then I saw--did I _see_, I wondered, or was it a direct telepathic
interference with my perceptions?--a second image superimpose itself
on the Garensens into which I was strapped. And the realization was
so disturbing that I forgot the discomfort of the mental rapport
completely. “You aren’t nearly fastened in,” I warned. “You haven’t
begun to fasten the suction tubes--oh, _damn_ the man. He must have
seen in common humanity--” I broke off abruptly, and fumbled in grim
desperation with my own straps. “I think there’s just time--”
But there wasn’t. With appalling suddenness a violent clamor--the final
warning--hit my ears. I clenched my teeth and urged frantically: “Hang
on! Here we go!”
And then the blast hit us! Under the sudden sickening pressure I
felt my lungs collapse, and struggled to remain upright, choking for
breath. I heard a queer, gagging grunt from the alien, and it was far
more disturbing than a human scream would have been. Then the second
shockwave struck with such violence that I screamed aloud in completely
human terror. Screamed--and blacked out.
I wasn’t unconscious very long. I’d never collapsed during takeoff
before, and my first fuzzy emotion when I felt the touch of familiar
things around me again was one of embarrassment. What had happened?
Then, almost simultaneously, I became reassuringly aware that we were
in free fall and that the crewman who had warned us to alert ourselves
was stretched out on the empty air near my skyhook. He looked worried.
“Are you all right, Miss Vargas?” he asked, solicitously. “The blastoff
wasn’t any rougher than usual.”
“I’m all right,” I assured him woozily. My shoulders jerked and the
Garensens shrieked as I pressed upward, undoing the apparatus with
tremulous fingers. “What about the Theradin?” I asked urgently. “His
Garensens weren’t fastened. You barely glanced at them.” The crewman
spoke slowly and steadily, with a deliberation I could not mistake.
“Just a minute, Miss Vargas,” he said. “Have you forgotten? I spent
_every moment_ of the time I was in here fastening the Theradin’s belts
and pressure equipment.”
He gave me a hand to assist me up, but I shook it off so fiercely that
I flung myself against the padding on the opposite side of the cabin. I
caught apprehensively at a handhold, and looked down at the Theradin.
Haalvordhen lay flattened beneath the complex apparatus. His peaked
pixie face was shrunken and ghastly, and his mouth looked badly
bruised. I bent closer, then jerked upright with a violence that sent
me cascading back across the cabin, almost into the arms of the crewman.
“You must have fixed those belts _just now_,” I said accusingly.
“They _were not_ fastened before blastoff! It’s malicious criminal
negligence, and if Haalvordhen dies--”
The crewman gave me a slow, contemptuous smile. “It’s my word against
yours, sister,” he reminded me.
“In common decency, in common humanity--” I found that my voice was
hoarse and shaking, and could not go on.
The crewman said humorlessly, “I should think you’d be glad if the geek
died in blastoff. You’re awfully concerned about the geek--and you
know how _that_ sounds?” I caught the frame of the skyhook and anchored
myself against it. I was almost too faint to speak. “What were you
trying to do?” I brought out at last. “_Murder_ the Theradin?”
The crewman’s baleful gaze did not shift from my face. “Suppose you
close your mouth,” he said, without malice, but with an even inflection
that was far more frightening. “If you don’t, we may have to close it
for you. I don’t think much of humans who fraternize with geeks.”
I opened and shut my mouth several times before I could force myself to
reply. All I finally said was, “You know, of course, that I intend to
speak to the captain?”
“Suit yourself.” He turned and strode contemptuously toward the door.
“We’d have been doing you a favor if the geek had died in blastoff.
But, as I say, suit yourself. I think your geek’s alive, anyhow.
They’re hard to kill.”
I clutched the skyhook, unable to move, while he dragged his body
through the sphincter lock and it contracted behind him.
Well, I thought bleakly, I had known what I would be letting myself in
for when I’d made the arrangement. And since I was already committed, I
might as well see if Haalvordhen were alive or dead. Resolutely I bent
over his skyhook, angling sharply to brace myself in free-fall.
He wasn’t dead. While I looked I saw the bruised and bleeding “hands”
flutter spasmodically. Then, abruptly, the alien made a queer, rasping
noise. I felt helpless and for some reason I was stirred to compassion.
I bent and laid a hesitant hand on the Garensen apparatus which was
now neatly and expertly fastened. I was bitter about the fact that for
the first time in my life I had lost consciousness! Had I not done so
the crewman could not have so adroitly covered his negligence. But it
was important to remember that the circumstance would not have helped
Haalvordhen much either.
“Your feelings do you nothing but credit!” The reedy flat voice was
almost a whisper. “If I may trespass once more on your kindness--can
you unfasten these instruments again?”
I bent to comply, asking helplessly as I did so, “Are you sure you’re
all right?”
“Very far from all right,” the alien mouthed, slowly and without
expression.
I had the feeling that he resented being compelled to speak aloud, but
I didn’t think I could stand that telepath touch again. The alien’s
flat, slitted eyes watched me while I carefully unfastened the suction
tubes and cushioning devices.
At this distance I could see that the eyes had lost their color, and
that the raw “hands” were flaccid and limp. There were also heavily
discolored patches about the alien’s throat and head. He pronounced,
with a terribly thick effort. “I should have--been drugged. Now it’s
too late. _Argha maci_--” the words trailed off into blurred Samarran
but the discolored patch in his neck still throbbed sharply, and the
hands twitched in an agony which, being dumb, seemed the more fearful.
I clung to the skyhook, dismayed at the intensity of my own emotion.
I thought that Haalvordhen had spoken again when the sharp jolt of
command sounded, clear and imperative, in my brain.
“_Procalamine!_” For an instant the shock was all I could feel--the
shock, and the overwhelming revulsion at the telepathic touch. There
was no hesitation or apology in it now, for the Theradin was fighting
for his life. Again the sharp, furious command came: “_Give me
procalamine!_”
And with a start of dismay I realized that most nonhumans needed the
drug, which was kept on all spaceships to enable them to live in
free-fall.
Few nonhuman races have the stubbornly persistent heart of the Terrans,
which beats by muscular contraction alone. The circulation of the
Theradin, and similar races, is dependent on gravity to keep the vital
fluid pulsing. Procalamine gives their main blood organ just enough
artificial muscular spasm to keep the blood moving and working.
Hastily I propelled myself into the “bathroom”--wriggled hastily
through the diaphragm, and unscrewed the top of the bin marked FIRST
AID. Neatly pigeonholed beneath transparent plastic were sterile
bandages, antiseptics clearly marked HUMAN and--separately, for the
three main types of nonhuman races, in one deep bin--the small plastic
globules of vital stimulants.
I sorted out two purple fluorescent ones--little globes marked
_procalamine_--and looked at the warning, in raised characters on the
globule. It read: FOR ADMINISTRATION BY QUALIFIED SPACE PERSONNEL ONLY.
A touch of panic made my diaphragm catch. Should I call the _Vesta_’s
captain, or one of the crew?
Then a cold certainty grew in me. If I did, Haalvordhen wouldn’t get
the stimulant he needed. I sorted out a fluorescent needle for nonhuman
integument, pricked the globule and sucked the dose into the needle.
Then, with its tip still enclosed in the plastic globe, I wriggled
myself back to where the alien still lay loosely confined by one of the
inner straps.
Panic touched me again, with the almost humorous knowledge that I
didn’t know where to inject the stimulant, and that a hypodermic
injection, in space presents problems which only space-trained men
are able to cope with. But I reached out notwithstanding and gingerly
picked up one of the unmittened “hands.” I didn’t stop to think how
I knew that this was the proper site for the injection. I was too
overcome with strong physical loathing.
Instinct from man’s remote past on Earth told me to drop the nonhuman
flesh and cower, gibbering and howling as my simian antecedents would
have done. The raw membrane was feverishly hot and unpleasantly slimy
to touch. I fought rising queasiness as I tried to think how to steady
him for the injection.
In free-fall there is no steadiness, no direction. The hypodermic
needle, of course, worked by suction, but piercing the skin would be
the big problem. Also, I was myself succumbing to the dizziness of
no-gravity flight, and realized coldly that if I couldn’t make the
injection in the next few minutes I wouldn’t be able to accomplish it
at all.
For a minute I didn’t care, a primitive part of myself reminding me
that if the alien died I’d be rid of a detestable cabinmate, and have a
decent trip between planets.
Then, stubbornly, I threw off the temptation. I steadied the needle in
my hand, trying to conquer the disorientation which convinced me that I
was looking both up and down at the Theradin.
My own center of gravity seemed to be located in the pit of my stomach,
and I fought the familiar space voyaging instinct to curl up in the
foetal position and float. I moved slightly closer to the Theradin. I
knew that if I could get close enough, our two masses would establish
a common center of gravity, and I would have at least a temporary
orientation while I made the injection.
The maneuver was unpleasant, for the alien seemed unconscious, flaccid
and still, and mere physical closeness to the creature was repellent.
The feel of the thick wettish “hand” pulsing feebly in my own was
almost sickeningly intimate. But at last I managed to maneuver myself
close enough to establish a common center of gravity between us--an
axis on which I seemed to hover briefly suspended.
I pulled Haalvordhen’s “hand” into this weight-center in the bare
inches of space between us, braced the needle, and resolutely stabbed
with it.
The movement disturbed the brief artificial gravity, and Haalvordhen
floated and bounced a little weightlessly in his skyhook. The “hand”
went sailing back, the needle recoiling harmlessly. I swore out loud,
now quite foolishly angry, and my own jerky movement of annoyance flung
me partially across the cabin.
Inching slowly back, I tried to grit my teeth, but only succeeded with
a snap that jarred my skull. In terse anger, I seized Haalvordhen’s
“hand,” which had almost stopped its feverish pulsing, and with a
painfully slow effort--any quick or sudden movement would have thrown
me, in recoil, across the cabin again--I wedged Haalvordhen’s “hand”
under the strap and anchored it there. It twitched faintly--the
Theradin was apparently still sensible to pain--and my stomach rose
at that sick pulsing. But I hooked my feet under the skyhook’s frame,
and flung my free arm down and across the alien, holding tight to the
straps that confined him. Still holding him thus wedged down securely,
I jabbed again with the needle. It touched, pricked--and then, in
despair, I realized it could not penetrate the Theradin integument
without weight and pressure behind it.
I was too absorbed now in what had to be done to care just how I did
it. So I wrenched forward with a convulsive movement that threw me,
full-length, across the alien’s body. Although I still had no weight,
the momentum of the movement drove the hypodermic needle deeply into
the flesh of the “hand.”
I pressed the catch, then picked myself up slowly, and looked around to
see the crewman who had jeered at me with his head thrust through the
lock again, regarding me with the distaste he had displayed toward the
Theradin from the first. To him I was lower than the Theradin, having
degraded myself by close contact with a nonhuman.
Under that frigid, contemptuous stare, I was unable to speak. I could
only silently withdraw the needle and hold it up. The rigid look of
condemnation altered just a little, but not much. He remained silent,
looking at me with something halfway between horror and accusation.
It seemed years, centuries, eternities that he clung there, just
looking at me, his face an elongated ellipse above the tight collar of
his black leathers. Then, without even speaking, he slowly withdrew
his head and the lock contracted behind him, leaving me alone with my
sickening feel of contamination and an almost hysterical guilt.
I hung the needle up on the air, curled myself into a ball, and,
entirely unstrung, started sobbing like a fool.
It must have been a long time before I managed to pull myself
together, because before I even looked to see whether Haalvordhen was
still alive, I heard the slight buzzing noise which meant it was a
meal-period and that food had been sent through the chute to our cabin.
I pushed the padding listlessly aside, and withdrew the heatsealed
containers--one set colorless, the other set nonhuman fluorescent.
Tardily conscious of what a fool I’d been making of myself, I hauled
my rations over to the skyhook, and tucked them into a special slot,
so that they wouldn’t float away. Then, with a glance at the figure
stretched out motionless beneath the safety-strap of the other skyhook,
I shrugged, pushed myself across the cabin again, and brought the
fluorescent containers to Haalvordhen.
He made a weary, courteous noise which I took for acknowledgment. By
now heartily sick of the whole business, I set them before him with a
bare minimum of politeness and withdrew to my own skyhook, occupying
myself with the always-ticklish problem of eating in free-fall.
At last I drew myself up to return the containers to the chute,
knowing we wouldn’t leave the cabin during the entire trip. Space, on
a starship, is held to a rigid minimum. There is simply no room for
untrained outsiders moving around in the cramped ship, perhaps getting
dangerously close to critically delicate equipment, and the crew is far
too busy to stop and keep an eye on rubbernecking tourists.
In an emergency, passengers can summon a crewman by pressing a
call-button. Otherwise, as far as the crew was concerned, we were in
another world.
I paused in midair next to Haalvordhen’s skyhook. His containers were
untouched and I felt moved to say, “Shouldn’t you try to eat something?”
The flat voice had become even weaker and more rasping now, and the
nonhuman’s careful enunciation was slurred. Words of his native
Samarran intermingled with queer turns of phrase which I expected were
literally rendered from mental concepts. “Heart-kind of you, _thakkava_
Vargas Miss, but late. Haalvordhen-I deep in grateful wishing--” A long
spate of Samarran, thickly blurred followed, then as if to himself,
“Theradin-we, die nowhere only on Samarra, and only a little time ago
Haalvordhen-I knowing must die, and must returning to home planet.
_Saata_. Knowing to return and die there where Theradin-we around
dying--” The jumble of words blurred again, and the limp “hands”
clutched spasmodically, in and out.
Then, in a queer, careful tone, the nonhuman said, “But I am not living
to return where I can stop-die. Not so long Haalvorden-I be lasting,
although Vargas-you Miss be helping most like _real_ instead of alien.
Sorry your people be most you unhelping--” he stopped again, and with
a queer little grunting noise, continued, “Now Haalvordhen-I be giving
Vargas-you stop-gift of heritage, be needful it is.”
The flaccid form of the nonhuman suddenly stiffened, went rigid. The
drooping lids over the Theradin’s eyes seemed to unhood themselves, and
in a spasm of fright I tried to fling myself backward. But I did not
succeed. I remained motionless, held in a dumb fascination.
I felt a sudden, icy cold, and the sharp physical nausea crawled over
me again at the harsh and sickening touch of the alien on my mind, not
in words this time, but in a rapport even closer--a hateful touch so
intimate that I felt my body go limp in helpless fits and spasms of
convulsive shuddering under the deep, hypnotic contact.
Then a wave of darkness almost palpable surged up in my brain. I tried
to scream, “_Stop it, stop it!_” And a panicky terror flitted in my
last conscious thought through my head. _This is why, this is the
reason humans and telepaths don’t mix_--
And then a great dark door opened under my senses and I plunged again
into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
It was not more than a few seconds, I suppose, before the blackness
swayed and lifted and I found myself floating, curled helplessly in
midair, and seeing, with a curious detachment, the Theradin’s skyhook
below me. Something in the horrid limpness of that form stirred me wide
awake.
With a tight band constricting my breathing, I arrowed downward. I had
never seen a dead Theradin before, but I needed no one to tell me that
I saw one now. The constricting band still squeezed my throat in dry
gasps, and in a frenzy of hysteria I threw myself wildly across the
cabin, beating and battering on the emergency button, shrieking and
sobbing and screaming....
They kept me drugged all the rest of the trip. Twice I remember waking
and shrieking out things I did not understand myself, before the stab
of needles in my arm sent me down into comforting dreams again. Near
the end of the flight, while my brain was still fuzzy, they made me
sign a paper, something to do with witnessing that the crew held no
responsibility for the Theradin’s death.
It didn’t matter. There was something clear and cold and shrewd in my
mind, behind the surface fuzziness, which told me I must do exactly
what they wanted, or I would find myself in serious trouble with the
Terran authorities. At the time I didn’t even care about that, and
supposed it was the drugs. Now, of course, I know the truth.
When the ship made planetfall at Samarra, I had to leave the _Vesta_
and trans-ship for Terra. The _Vesta_’s little captain shook me
by the hand and carefully avoided my eyes, without mentioning the
dead Theradin. I had the feeling--strange, how clear it was to my
perceptions--that he regarded me in the same way he would regard a
loaded time bomb that might explode at any moment.
I knew he was anxious to hurry me aboard a ship for Terra. He offered
me special reservations on a linocruiser at a nominal price, with the
obvious lie that he owned a part interest in it. Detachedly I listened
to his floundering lies, ignored the hand he offered again, and told a
lie or two of my own. He was angry. I knew he didn’t want me to linger
on Samarra.
Even so, he was glad to be rid of me.
Descending at last from the eternal formalities of the Terran landing
zone, I struck out quickly across the port city and hailed a Theradin
ground-car. The Theradin driving it looked at me curiously, and in a
buzzing voice informed me that I could find a human conveyance at the
opposite corner. Surprised at myself, I stopped to wonder what I was
doing. And then--
And then I identified myself in a way the Theradin could not mistake.
He was nearly as surprised as I was. I clambered into the car, and he
drove me to the queer, block-shaped building which my eyes had never
seen before, but which I now knew as intimately as the blue sky of
Terra.
Twice, as I crossed the twisting ramp, I was challenged. Twice, with
the same shock of internal surprise, I answered the challenge correctly.
At last I came before a Theradin whose challenge crossed mine like
a sure, sharp lance, and the result was startling. The Theradin
Haalvamphrenan leaned backward twice in acknowledgment, and said not in
words--“Haalvordhen!”
I answered in the same fashion. “Yes. Due to certain blunders, I could
not return to our home planet, and was forced to use the body of this
alien. Having made the transfer unwillingly, under necessity, I now
see certain advantages. Once within this body, it does not seem at all
repulsive, and the host is highly intelligent and sympathetic.
“I regret the feeling that I am distasteful to you, dear friend. But,
consider. I can now contribute my services as messenger and courier,
without discrimination by these mind-blind Terrans. The law which
prevents Theradin from dying on any other planet should now be changed.”
“Yes, yes,” the other acquiesced, quickly grasping my meaning.
“But now to personal matters, my dear Haalvordhen. Of course your
possessions are held intact for you.”
I became aware that I possessed five fine residences upon the planet,
a private lake, a grove of Theirry-trees, and four hattel-boats.
Inheritance among the Theradin, of course, is dependent upon continuity
of the mental personality, regardless of the source of the young. When
any Theradin died, transferring his mind into a new and younger host,
the new host at once possessed all of those things which had belonged
to the former personality. Two Theradin, unsatisfied with their
individual wealth, sometimes pooled their personalities into a single
host-body, thus accumulating modest fortunes.
Continuity of memory, of course, was perfect. As Helen Vargas, I had
certain rights and privileges as a Terran citizen, certain possessions,
certain family rights, certain Empire privileges. And as Haalvordhen, I
was made free of Samarra as well.
In a sense of strict justice, I “told” Haalvamphrenan how the
original host had died. I gave him the captain’s name. I didn’t envy
him, when the _Vesta_ docked again at Samarra. “On second thought,”
Haalvamphrenan _said_ reflectively, “I shall merely commit suicide in
his presence.”
Evidently Helen-Haalvordhen-I had a very long and interesting life
ahead of me.
So did all the other Theradin.
Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, March 1956 (Vol. 5,
No. 2). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, while
minor inconsistencies have been kept as is.
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