The utter confidence with which the alien spoke, the sheer smugness of the assumption of superiority, triggered in Toller a response—inherited from his grandfather—which he had never been able to control. A surge of red-clouded anger erupted through his system, freeing him from the stasis which had affected his mind and body.
“You are the one in danger of making a mistake,” he cried out. “I don’t know what your design is, but I will resist it to the death—and the death I have in mind is yours!”
This is quite interesting. The alien’s thought was tinged with amusement. One of your females reacted with exactly the same kind of irrational belligerence, Toller Maraquine—and I am almost certain she was the one to which you are emotionally bonded.
The reply jolted Toller into a wider frame of awareness. “Have you taken our women?” he bellowed, suddenly forgetful of his own situation. “Where are they? If they have come to any harm…”
They have not been harmed in any way. I have simply transported them to a place of safety far from here—as I am about to do with you. I shall now inject a sedative gas into the confine. Do not be alarmed by it. The gas will cause you to enter a deep sleep, and when you recover consciousness you will be in comfortable surroundings. And although it will be necessary to detain you there indefinitely, you will be adequately provisioned.
“We are not animals to be penned and provisioned,” Toller snapped, his anger further fuelled. “We will go with you to the place to where the women are imprisoned, but of our own free will and with our eyes wide open. Those are my terms, and if you consent to them I give you my word that neither of us will cause you any injury.”
Your arrogance is quite astonishing—and equaled only by your ignorance, came the reply, calm and amused. Beings at your primitive stage of development could never injure me, but I will sedate you, nevertheless, to prevent your causing any minor inconvenience while you are being transported.
The figure beyond the crystal wall made a slight movement—which was translated into flowing color transformations of icy facets—and then a particular darkening of one of the hexagonals showed that something was being placed against its outer surface. Steenameert completed his arming of the pistol, raised it and aimed at the focus of activity.
Suicide, Baten Steenameert? The non-voice held something of the detached pity of a naturalist watching a delicate fly drift closer to a spider’s web. Surely not!
Steenameert glanced at Toller, his eyes unfathomable in the narrow space between scarf and cowl, and lowered the pistol. Toller nodded to him in evident approval of his prudence and—with a deliberate abandonment of conscious intention—drew his sword and in a single swift movement drove the point of it into the crystal wall. He had clamped his left forearm around the handrail, turning his body into a closed system of forces, and the tip of the steel blade buried itself in the shining cells with a power which sent vitreous fragments spinning outwards from the point of impact.
The crystal sphere screamed.
The scream was noiseless, but had no other resemblance to the type of precisely shaped and controlled mental communication employed by the alien. Toller knew, without understanding how, that it was emanating from the walls of the sphere and also from the frozen lake beyond—a multiplied shriek of agony in which chance harmonics and discordant echoes clashed again and again until they hid away and a strange, whimpering non-voice made itself heard…
I have been hurt, Beloved Creator! You did not tell me that the Primitives would be able to damage my body.
Toller, obeying warrior’s instinct, did not allow the unexpected voice to inhibit him or blunt his attack. He had hurt an enemy and that was the signal to press forward with renewed vigor, to go for a kill. His sword seemed to be meeting a peculiar resistance, as though passing through a layer of invisible sponge, but his repeated thrusts were retaining enough force to damage and dislodge glassy cells. In only a few seconds he had shattered an adjacent pair and created a small hole in the sphere.
Changing the style of attack, he used the haft of his sword to strike the damaged area, and in spite of the unseen resistance he succeeded in dislodging the two cells entirely, sending them tumbling away into the outer void. Feverishly inspired, he transferred the sword to his other hand and punched the same area of wall with his gauntleted fist. This time there was no magical barrier to soften the blow and several more of the hexagonal cells, their structural unity weakened, went spinning out of sight, greatly enlarging the hole in the sphere.
The silent, inhuman screaming began again.
Steenameert followed Toller’s example and—bracing himself against the handrail—began raining blows on the irregular edge of the hole, adding to the destructive effect.
In the roaring furnace of Toller’s mind virtually no time passed until the way ahead of him had been cleared and he was outside the sphere and, in weightless flight, closing on a silver-suited figure which was turning to flee. His left arm clamped around the alien’s neck in the instant of collision, and he whipped the sword—which seemed to have returned to his right hand of its own accord—into position for a thrust into the alien’s side.
How did you achieve this? The alien’s words were tinged with revulsion because of the physical contact, but Toller was unable to feel any fear.
You had fully coordinated control of all your muscles, the voice went on, but there was no coherent mental activity that I could detect. It was impossible for me to anticipate your actions. How was it done?
“Be silent,” Toller snarled, hooking a leg around the handrail to prevent himself and his captive drifting free of the metal surface of the station. “Where are the women?”
All you need to know, the alien said imperturbably, b that they are in a place of safety. Again, and to Toller’s bafflement, the mental contact revealed no shadings of alarm.
“Listen to me!” Toller gripped the alien by the shoulder and thrust him to arm’s length, a movement which brought them face to face for the first time. In one searching, wondering, dismayed moment Toller took in every detail of a face which was surprisingly human in the disposition of its features. The principal differences were that the skin was grey; the eyes, lacking pupils, were white orbs drilled with black holes; and the small upturned nose had no central division. Toller could see far back into the nasal cavity, where red-veined orange membranes fluttered back and forth or clung together in tune with the alien’s breathing.
“You haven’t been listening.” Toller, repressing an urge to push himself away from the hideous caricature of a human being, leaned harder on his sword and forced it deep into the reflective material of the other’s suit. “You will tell me what I need to know—immediately—or I will kill you.”
The alien’s charcoal lips slackened into what could have been a smile. At this range? So close? While we are in actual physical contact? No member of a humanoid species could possibly…