The sensation was similar to, but subtly different from, a mind-link with the saurians. This was closer and warmer; the compatibility of our minds was clearly greater than between human (or hybrid) and saurian. For Freya, with no experience of mind-linking, it was stunning. She stood unmoving at the sink, her mouth open, for several minutes as she absorbed the new dimensions which had suddenly opened up in her mind. I felt her amazement, her gradual understanding of what I had been talking about, her increasing delight as she explored her new abilities.
After a while I reopened the ovoid and took out the other items; two saurian headnets, much finer than my home-made affair, with a tiny radio element built into the wires. I knew that there was no need for batteries – they were powered by the body’s own electrical field, and could be turned on or off with a thought. Freya snuggled hers into her hair, and it became invisible. We both linked to Tertia, who had been intently observing, and Freya was stunned again by the experience of meeting an alien mind.
We spent some time playing with the headnets and quizzing Tertia about their effectiveness. Apart from allowing us to communicate with the saurians, they were capable of extending our own mind-linking range from about a hundred metres to several kilometres. Tertia believed that the range at which we could detect each other’s presence would be boosted from about twenty kilometres to over two hundred. And, of course, by both linking to the saurian on duty we could form a three-link even if we were on opposite sides of the globe.
Afterwards, we said goodbye to Tertia, turned off the headnets and sat at the table, just looking at each other. Freya began to practice communication by mind-link.
‘I need to find a mirror,’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘No need – you look exactly the same. The saurians did an excellent job of gene-fiddling to avoid what I went through. No scaly skin, no golden eyes, hair all there, even your wrinkles are present and correct.’
She grimaced wryly. ‘It would have been nice to have had twenty years taken off my physical age, but I can’t afford to look different or the plan won’t work.’
‘How’s the appetite? Are you a fruit-and-nutcase too?’
She contemplated for a moment. ‘Wonderful – I could murder some smoked puffin washed down with strong beer!’
‘All right, no need to rub it in!’
We sat there, each savouring the experience of being mentally linked to another human being for the first time in our lives. I became aware of the depths of her personality, her intelligence, independence, strength and courage. Her passionate idealism tempered by practical cynicism from her years in international politics. And how she felt about me. Without any conscious decision, our minds opened to the fullest extent, nothing held back, and we merged with an intensity which I had never imagined possible.
We woke together in the morning, our minds as linked as our bodies. Freya looked at me and we smiled slowly, remembering.
‘Worth it, then?’
‘Oh yes – I never quite realised…’
‘Neither did I – it’s different mind-linking with another human. Do you feel happier about the next stage of the plan?’
‘Absolutely – we have to do it.’
I reached for her lazily. ‘We have a little time yet…’
Suddenly I froze as my mental alarm went off. Freya reacted with confusion and anxiety, then sensed through me the approach of trouble. We untangled ourselves and got out of bed quickly; I had a horrible moment of déjà vu, a flash of memory of a wooden chalet perched on the edge of a calmer sea. The men were closing fast and the chop-chop of a helicopter became audible from inland. Before it came within my effective range, it stopped moving and I realised that it had landed and was disgorging men, who began to move steadily towards the house.
We had already planned what to do when this happened. I didn’t want to kill anyone if I could possibly avoid it. Freya, just beginning to learn about her new abilities, was far from ready to take any effective action. We left, taking nothing except small bags of food and water, and the saurian headnets. Freya headed for the rocks, having worked out beforehand an escape route which offered good concealment; I took a running dive into the sea. I sensed a fishing vessel offshore manned by allies of the troops inland, but it offered little threat to me as long as I kept away from its fish-hunting sonar.
The vessel moved inshore and the beam of a powerful searchlight flared out, flashing wildly around as the boat pitched and rolled in the rough sea. I swam parallel to the shore, using the nearby the rocks as cover. I checked on the house and discovered that the men, rather surprisingly, had entered it but did not appear to be doing any damage; there were no explosions or gunfire, and I sensed from their minds that they did not really expect to find anyone there. Puzzled, I turned my attention to the nearby fishing boat and picked up a sense of anticipation from the crew; they were clearly waiting for something.
The sky was beginning to lighten and something moving caught my eye at the same time as I heard a faint murmur of sound from above. I turned on my back for a better view and saw a small aircraft heading straight towards me. I reached out to connect with the pilot and felt no-one there, and then the truth dawned – it was a UCAV, remotely-controlled via a radio link from miles away. These aircraft were equipped with night-vision and infra-red cameras – and weapons. I tried to retune my mind to access the electronic controls, but it was an impossible task at such a distance. I saw something drop from the plane and I desperately turned to swim to the shore, but I was far too late. The shock-wave from the depth charge, designed to crush the hulls of submarines, slammed into me like an express train and sent me spinning down into unconsciousness.
9
I slowly woke to a glare of whiteness. As my eyes adjusted, I became aware of straight lines crossing the whiteness, meeting at angles, with brilliant sources of light scattered along them and black blobs where they met. I sluggishly pondered the sight for a few minutes as my brain wearily got into gear. Suddenly, the view snapped into context. I was lying on my back, looking up at a ceiling. The lines were the joins where the walls met – or almost met – the ceiling, the black blobs I could not immediately identify. The light sources provided a bright, even glare.
I was lying next to one wall. I turned my head and surveyed the rest of the small room. It was a cube about four metres on each side, and almost entirely featureless, just a door in one wall with a small drum-shaped hatch at the bottom, a sink and a toilet. I was lying on the floor, on a thin pad.
With a considerable effort I sat up, feeling very tired. I recalled what had happened, right up to the shock of the depth charge – then nothing. I checked my own body and discovered that any damage done by the crushing blow had been repaired; possibly the resources which that had used up accounted for my exhaustion. There seemed to be something more, though – an unaccustomed lethargy, and a dull headache which I managed to dissolve with a moment’s effort.
I tried extending my senses beyond the wall, and found nothing – my perceptions were completely blocked, limited to what I could see. My headnet had gone, of course. After a while, and with the usual difficulty, I managed to retune my mind to detect electronic fields, and tried again. At first, I seemed to fare no better than before. Then I looked up at the black blobs in the corners of the ceiling. This time there was progress.