DAWN INVADER
THERE were eleven planets in that system, and Dillon found that the outer ones contained no life whatsoever. The fourth planet from the sun had once been populated, and the third would someday be. But on the second, a blue world with a single moon, intelligent life existed, and to this planet Dillon directed his ship.
He approached stealthily, slipping through the atmosphere under cover of darkness, descending through thick rain clouds looking much like a cloud himself. He landed with that absolute lack of commotion possible only for an Earthman.
When his ship finally settled it was an hour before dawn, the safe hour, the time when most creatures, no matter what planet has spawned them, are least alert. Or so his father had told him before he left Earth. Invading before dawn was part of the lore of Earth, hard-won knowledge directed solely toward survival on alien planets.
“But all this knowledge is fallible,” his father had reminded him. “For it deals with that least predictable of entities, intelligent life.” The old man had nodded sententiously as he made that statement.
“Remember, my boy,” the old man went on, “you can outwit a meteor, predict an ice age, outguess a nova. But what, truthfully, can you know about those baffling and constantly changing entities who are possessed of intelligence?”
Not very much, Dillon realized. But he believed in his own youth, fire, and cunning, and he trusted the unique Terran invasion technique. With that special skill, an Earthman could battle his way to the top of any environment, no matter how alien, no matter how hostile.
From the day he was born, Dillon had been taught that life is incessant combat. He had learned that the galaxy is large and unfriendly, made up mostly of incandescent suns and empty space. But sometimes there are planets, and on these planets are races, differing vastly in shape and size, but alike in one respect: their hatred for anything unlike themselves. No cooperation was possible between these races. For an Earthman to live among them called for the utmost in skill, stamina, and cunning. And even then, survival would be impossible without Earth’s devastating technique of invasion.
Dillon had been an apt student, eager to face his destiny in the great galaxy. He had enlisted for the Exodus, not waiting to be drafted. And finally, like millions of young men before him, he had been given his own spaceship and sent out, leaving small, overcrowded Earth forever behind. He had flown to the limit of his fuel. And now his destiny lay before him.
His ship rested in a clump of jungle near a thatch-roofed village, almost invisible in dense underbrush. He waited, tense behind his controls, until the dawn came up white, with red hints of sunrise in it. But no one came near, no bomb fell, no shells burst. He had to assume that he had landed undetected.
When the planet’s yellow sun touched the rim of the horizon, Dillon emerged and sized up his physical surroundings. He sniffed the air, felt the gravity, estimated the sun’s spectrum and power, and sadly shook his head. This planet, like most planets in the galaxy, would not support Terra life. He had perhaps an hour in which to complete his invasion.
He touched a button on his instrument panel and walked quickly away. Behind him, his ship dissolved into a gray ash. The ash scattered on the morning breeze and dispersed over the jungle. Now he was committed irrevocably. He moved toward the alien village.
As he approached he saw that the aliens’ huts were crude affairs of wood and thatch, a few of hand-hewn stone. They seemed durable and sufficient for the climate. There was no sign of roads—only a single footpath leading into the jungle. There were no power installations, no manufactured articles. This, he decided, was an early civilization, one he should have no difficulty mastering.
Confidently he stepped forward, and almost bumped into an alien.
They stared at each other. The alien was bipedal, considerably taller than an Earthman, with a good cranial capacity. He wore a single striped garment wrapped around his waist. His skin was pigmented a light brown beneath gray fur. He showed no tendency to run.
“Ir tai!” the creature said, sounds which Dillon interpreted as a cry of surprise. Looking hastily around, he saw that no other villager had discovered him yet. He tensed slightly and leaned forward.
“K’tal tai a—”
Dillon leaped like a great spring unfolding. The alien tried to dodge, but Dillon twisted in midair like a cat and managed to clamp a hand around one of the alien’s limbs.
That was all he needed. Now physical contact had been established. The rest should be easy.
For hundreds of years, an exploding birth rate had forced the inhabitants of Earth to migrate in ever-increasing numbers. But not one planet in ten thousand was suitable for human life. Therefore, Earth considered the possibility of altering alien environments to suit Terran needs, or changing men biologically to suit the new environments. But there was a third method which yielded the greatest returns for the least effort. This was to develop the mind-projecting tendency latent in all intelligent races.
Earth bred for it, concentrated and trained it. With this ability, an Earthman could live on any planet simply by taking over the mind of one of its inhabitants. This done, he had a body tailor-made for its environment, and filled with useful and interesting information. Once an Earthman was established, his love of competition usually carried him to a preeminent position in the new world he had invaded.
There was only one slight hitch; an alien usually resented having his mind invaded. And sometimes, he was able to do something about it.
In the first instant of penetration, Dillon sensed, with passionate regret, his own body collapsing, folding in on itself. It would dissolve immediately, leaving no trace. Only he and his host would know an invasion had taken place.
And at the end, only one of them would know.
Now, within the alien mind, Dillon concentrated entirely on the job ahead. Barriers went down one after another as he drove hard toward the center, where the I-am-I existed. When he entered that citadel and succeeded in driving out the ego now occupying it, the body would be his.
Hastily erected defenses dissolved before him. For an instant, Dillon thought that his first wild rush was going to carry him all the way. Then, suddenly, he was directionless, wandering through a gray and featureless no-man’s-land.
The alien had recovered from his initial shock. Dillon could sense energies slowly growing around him.
Now he was really in for a fight.
A parlay was held in the no-man’s-land of the alien’s mind.
“Who are you?”
“Edward Dillon, from the planet Earth. And you?”
“Arek. We call this planet K’egra. What do you want here, Dillon?”
“A little living space, Arek,” Dillon said, grinning. “Can you spare it?”
“Well, I’ll be damned.... Get out of my mind!”
“I can’t,” Dillon said. “I have no place to go.”
“I see,” Arek mused. “Tough. But you are uninvited. And something tells me you want more than just living room. You want everything, don’t you?”
“I must have control,” Dillon admitted. “There’s no other way. But if you don’t struggle, perhaps I can leave a space for you, although it isn’t customary.”
“It isn’t?”
“Of course not,” Dillon said. “Different races can’t exist together. That’s a law of nature. The stronger drives out the weaker. But I might be willing to try it for a while.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” Arek said, and broke off contact.
The grayness of no-man’s-land turned solid black. And Dillon, waiting for the coming struggle, felt the first pang of self-doubt.
Arek was a primitive. He couldn’t have any training in mind-combat. Yet he grasped the situation at once, adjusted to it, and was now prepared to deal with it. Probably his efforts would be feeble, but still ...