Dalt awoke with a start and bolted upright in bed. ("Hello, Steve.")
A cascade of conflicting emotions ran over him: joy and relief at knowing Pard was alive and at feeling whole again, anger at the nonchalance of his return. But he bottled all emotions and asked, What happened? Where've you been?
Pard gave him a brief but complete account in the visual, auditory, and interpretive melange possible only with mind-to-mind communication. When it was over, it almost seemed to Dalt that Pard had never been gone. There were a few subtle differences, however.
Do you realize that you called me "Steve"? You've been addressing me by my surname for the last century or so.
("You seem more like the old Steve.")
I am. Immortality can become a burden at times, but facing the alternative for a while is a sobering experience.
("I know,") Pard replied, remembering the panic that had gripped him before he had managed to regain the compact security of Dalt's mind. They were now welded together—permanently.
"But back to the matter at hand," Dalt said aloud. "You and I now know what's behind these assaults. The question that bothers me most is: Why us? I mean, if she wants to send her troops out to kill, surely there are other races closer to her than sixty thousand light-years."
("Perhaps the human mind is especially sensitive to her, I don't know. Who can explain a deranged mind? And believe me, this one is deranged! She's blatantly paranoid with xenophobia, delusions of grandeur, and all the trappings. Steve, this creature actually believes she is divine! It's not a pose with her. And as far as her race is concerned, she is god."
"Pity the atheist in a culture like that."
("There are none! How can there be? When these beings speak of their deity, they're not referring to an abstraction or an ephemeral being. Their goddess is incarnate! And she's with them everywhere! She can maintain a continuous contact with her race—it's not control or anything like that, but a hint of presence. She has powers none of them possess and she doesn't die! She was with them when they were planet-bound, she was with them when they made their first leap into space. She has guided them throughout their entire recorded history. It's not a simple thing to say 'no' to all that.")
"All right, so she's divine as far as they're concerned, but how can she change an entire race into an army of berserk killers? She must have some sort of mind control."
("I can see you have no historical perspective on the power of religion. Human history is riddled with atrocities performed in the names of supposedly benign gods whose only manifestations were in books and tradition. This creature is not merely a force behind her culture ... she is her culture. Her followers attack and slaughter because it is divine will.")
Dalt sighed. "Looks like we're really up against the wall. We were planning to send probes through the passages to try to locate the star system where the assaults originate so we could launch a counteroffensive. Now it makes no difference. Sixty thousand light-years is an incomprehensible distance in human terms. If there was just some way we could get to her, maybe we could give her a nice concentrated dose of the horrors. That'd shake her up."
("I'm afraid not, Steve. You see, this creature is the source of the horrors.")
Dalt sat in stunned silence, then: "You always hinted that the horrors might be more than just a psychological disorder."
("You must admit, I'm rarely wrong.")
"Yes, rarely wrong," Dalt replied tersely. "And frequently insufferable. But again: Why?"
("As I mentioned before, the human mind appears to be extraordinarily sensitive to her powers. She can reach across an entire galaxy and touch one of them. I believe she's been doing that for ages. At first she may only have been able to leave a vague impression. Long ago she was probably probing this arm of the galaxy and left an image within a fertile mind that started the murderous Kali cult in ancient India. Its members worshiped a many-armed goddess of death that bears a striking resemblance to our enemy. So for all practical purposes, we might as well call her Kali, since her given name is a mish-mash of consonants.")
"Whatever happened to the cult?"
("Died out. Perhaps she went back to concentrating on her own race, which was probably moving into space at about that time, and no doubt soon became busy with the task of annihilating the other races they encountered along the way.
("Then came a hiatus and her attention returned to us. Her powers had grown since last contact and although she was still unable to control a human mind, she found she could inundate it with such a flood of terror that the individual would withdraw completely from reality.")
"The horrors, in other words."
("Right. She kept this up, biding her time until her race could devise a means of bridging the gap between the two races. They did. The apparatus occupies the space of a small town and is psionically activated. You know the rest of the story.")
"Yeah," Dalt replied, "and I can see what's coming, too. She's toying with us, isn't she? Playing a game of fear and terror, nibbling at us until we turn against each other. Humiliation, demoralization—they're dirty weapons."
("But not her final goal, I fear. Eventually she'll tire of the game and just wipe us out. And with ease! All she has to do is open the passage, slip through a short-timed planetary bomb, close the passage and wait for the bang.")
"In two standard days," Dalt said in a shocked whisper, "she could destroy every inhabited planet in Occupied Space!"
("Probably wouldn't even take her that long. But we've quite a while to go before it comes to that. She's in no hurry. She'll probably chip away at us for a few centuries before delivering the coup de grace.") Pard went silent for a while. ("Which reminds me: I saw a major assault force gathered on the beach. If she really wanted to strike a demoralizing blow ...")
"You don't think she'll hit Fed Central, do you?"
("With a second chance at interstellar unity almost within reach, can you think of a better target?")
"No, I can't," Dalt replied pensively. The thought of alien berserkers charging through the streets was not a pleasant one. "There must be a way to strike back."
("I'm sure there is. We just haven't thought of it yet. Sleep on it.")
Good idea. See you in the morning.
Morning brought Lenda with news that some of the flitter-probes were outfitted and ready. He invited Dalt to take a look at them. Lacking both the heart to tell Lenda that the probes were a futile gesture and anything better to do, he agreed to go along.
Arriving at a hangar atop one of the lesser buildings in the complex, he saw five drones completed and a sixth in the final stages. They looked like standard models except for the data-gathering instruments afixed to the hulls.
"They look like they've been sealed for pressurization," Dalt noted.
Lenda nodded. "Some of the sensors require it." ("I know what you're thinking!") Pard said. Tell me.
("You want to equip these flitters with blaster cannon and attack Kali's island, don't you? Forget it! There are so many energy dampers in that temple that a blaster wouldn't even warm her skin if you could get near her. And you wouldn't. Her guards would cut you to ribbons.")
Maybe there's a way around that. He turned to Lenda. "Have Petrical meet me here. I have an errand to run but I'll be back shortly."
Lenda gave him a puzzled look as he walked away.
Dalt headed for the street. Throw the Mordirak image around me. I don't want to be mobbed out there.
("Done. Now tell me where we're going.")
Not far. He stepped outside and onto the local belt of the moving strol-lane. The streets were crowded. The new incoming representatives had brought their staffs and families and there were tourists constantly arriving to see the first General Council of the new Federation. He let the strol-lane carry him for a few minutes, then debarked before a blank-fronted store with only a simple hand-printed sign over the door: weapons.