Rabd.
He tried “listening” with his mind. All kinds of drifting, miscellaneous thoughts were sloshing around in his brain, from the nearer inhabitants of the city.
“All right, darling, all right. If you don’t want to gadl, you don’t have to gadl. We’ll do something else…”
“That smart-aleck Bohrg! Will I fix him properly tomorrow.
“Do you have three zamshkins for a plet? I want to make a long-distance send…”
“Bohrg will roll in tomorrow morning, thinking everything is the same as it’s always been. Is he going to be surprised…”
“I like you, Nernt, I like you a lot. And that’s why I feel it’s my duty to tell you, strictly as a friend, you understand.
“No, darling, I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to gadl. I thought you didn’t want to; I was trying to be considerate like you always tell me to be. Of course I want to gadl. Now please don’t look at me like that…”
“Listen here. I can lick any flefnobe in the place…”
“To tell you the truth, Nernt, I think you’re the only one who doesn’t know. Everybody else…”
“So you’re all scared, huh? All right, I’ll take you on two at a time. Come on, come on….”
But no hint of Rabd. Manship began to walk cautiously down the stone-paved streets, sloshing through the little rivulets.
He stepped too close to the wall of the dark buildings. Immediately, a zigzag doorway opened its jagged invitation. He hesitated for a moment, then stepped through.
Nobody here either. Did the flefnobes sleep in some central building, dormitory fashion? Did they sleep at all? He must remember to tune in on some likely mind and investigate. The information might be useful.
This building seemed to be a warehouse; it was filled with shelves. The walls were bare, however—there seemed to be some flefnobe inhibition against putting objects against the walls. The shelves rose in tall tiers—again free-form shapes—from the center of the floor.
Manship strolled over to the shelving that was the height of his chest. Dozens of fat green balls rested in white porcelain cups. Food? Could be. They looked distinctly edible, like melons.
He reached out and picked one up. It immediately spread wings and flew away to the ceiling. Every one of the other green balls, on all the shelves, spread a similar set of multiple, tiny wings and flew upward, like so many spherical birds whose nests have been disturbed. When they reached the domed ceiling, they seemed to disappear.
Manship backed out of the place hurriedly through the jagged aperture. He seemed to be setting off alarms wherever he went!
Once out in the street, he sensed a new feeling. There was a sensation of bubbling excitement everywhere, a tense waiting. Very few individual thoughts were coming through.
Suddenly the restlessness coalesced into an enormous mental shout that almost deafened him.
“Good evening!” it said. “Please stand by for an emergency news bulletin. This is Pukr, the son of Kimp, coming to you on a planetwide, mind-to-mind hookup. Here is the latest on the flat-eyed monster:
“At forty-three skims past bebblewort, tonight, this creature was materialized by Professor Lirld from astronomical unit 649-301-3 as part of an experiment in one-way teleportation. Councilor Glomg was present as a witness to the experiment in the course of his official duties and, observing the aggressive way in which the monster comported itself, immediately warned Lirld of the dangers in letting it remain alive.
“Lirld disregarded the warning and, later, after Councilor Glomg had departed with his son, Rabd, the well-known interplanetary explorer and flefnobe-about-town, the monster ran amuck. Having fought its way out of a cage of solid paper, it attacked the professor with an unknown type of high-frequency mental beam that seems to emanate from its unbelievably flat eyes. This beam seems to be similar, in effect, to that thrown out by second-order grepsas when all fuses have blown. Our best psycho-physicists are, at this very moment, working feverishly on that aspect of the problem.
“But Professor Lirld paid with his life for his scientific curiosity and for disregarding the warnings of Councilor Glomg’s experience. Despite the best efforts of Srin, Lirld’s laboratory assistant, who fought a desperate and courageous diversionary action in an attempt to save the old scientist, Lirld perished horribly before the monster’s ferocious onslaught. With his superior dead, Srin retreated tentacle by tentacle, fighting all the way, barely managing to make his escape in time.
“This alien monster with its incredible powers is now loose in our city! All citizens are urged to remain calm, not to panic. Rest assured that as soon as the authorities know what to do, they will do it. Remember—above all—stay calm!
“Meanwhile, Rabd, the son of Glomg, has postponed his mating flight which was to have begun tonight. He is mating, as you all know, with Tekt, the daughter of Hilp—Tekt being the well-known star of fnesh and blelg from the southern continent. Rabd is leading a troop of volunteer flefnobes to the scientific quarters of the city, where the monster was last seen, in an attempt to exterminate it with already-existing, conventional weapons before the creature starts to reproduce. I will return with more bulletins when they are available. That is all for now.”
That was more than enough, Manship felt. Now there wasn’t any hope that he could work out some method of communication with these creatures and sit down for a little quiet conversation on ways and means of getting himself home—which seemed to be a conclusion earnestly desired by all. From now on the watchword was going to be Get That Manship!
He didn’t like that at all.
On the other hand, he didn’t have to wander after Rabd. If Manship can’t get to the flefnobe, the flefnobe will come to Manship. Heavily armed, however, and with homicidal intent…
He decided he had better hide. He stepped up to a building and wandered along a wall until the doorway opened. He walked through and watched it close behind him, then looked around.
To his relief, it seemed like an excellent place to hide. There were quantities of large, heavy objects in the center of the place, none of them, so far as he could tell, alive, and all of them satisfactorily opaque. He wedged himself between two of these, which looked like stored tabletops, and hoped wistfully that the flefnobe sensory apparatus did not boast any more detective mechanisms than he had already experienced.
What he wouldn’t give to be an assistant professor in Kelly University again instead of a flat-eyed monster ravening, all unwittingly, through an alien metropolis!
He found himself wondering about the strange powers he was supposed to possess. What was all this nonsense about a high-frequency mental beam emanating from his eyes? He hadn’t noticed anything coming out—and he should have noticed if anyone did, he felt. Yet Lirld had made some comment to that effect just before he dissolved.
Was it possible that there was some by-product of the human brain that was only visible to flefnobes and was highly deleterious to them?
After all, he could tune in on the flefnobes’ minds and they couldn’t tune in on his. Maybe the only way he could make his mental presence felt to them was in some prodigious blast of thought which literally ripped them apart.
But he apparently couldn’t turn it on and off at will—he hadn’t caused the slightest alteration in Lirld, the first time the professor had fired.
There were ripples of new, excited thoughts reaching him suddenly. They were coming from somewhere in the street outside.