Spalding backpedaled on numb, watery legs. “Your face—you—it’s—”
“My face is different?”
Whispering incredulously, Spalding said, “Why—you look like me, now! My face, that is. Not yours!”
“I’m simply practicing,” Kennedy said in the same flat, metallic tone.
“Practicing?”
“Don’t go away,” Kennedy said quickly, as Spalding continued to back toward the hallway. “Come here, Dave. Right over here to me.”
“What are you?” Spalding muttered. He felt a trickle of cold sweat run tinglingly down his back.
Kennedy chuckled. “What am I? I’m your brother-in-law, Dave.”
“But your face—and your hand, before, in the disposal unit—”
“Yes. You did seem surprised. It was an error of mine, putting my hand in there. But I didn’t know the consequences, or I’d have kept my hands away from it.” He circled around, deftly putting himself between Spalding and the door. Paling, Spalding stood his ground, resisting the temptation to try to fight his way out. Kennedy went on, “I couldn’t do things like this before I visited Altair VI, two years ago. Altair VI has a very interesting form of native life. At the moment nobody knows of the existence of this life-form but me. It’s a mimic, Dave.”
“Mimic?”
“When the spaceman known as Ted Kennedy was exploring Altair VI two years ago,” Kennedy continued, “he wandered off alone, away from his ship, to look for lifeforms. There was a big brown stone in his way; he kicked it. But the stone clung to his boot. It wasn’t a stone, you see. It was a mimic.”
Kennedy’s words made no sense. Spalding shook his head in confusion. He was close to panic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ted. Get out of my way and let me out of this room. You—you must be out of your mind to talk this way—”
“Ted Kennedy never knew what happened to him,” the other continued serenely, as though there had been no interruption. “Within ten seconds the mimic had absorbed him—swallowed him up, flesh, brain, memories, and all. When the mimic had fed, it realized what a lucky find it had made. A spaceman—who would be going back to Earth some day. The mimic can divide itself infinitely, you see. It left part of itself there, in its old disguise as a stone, waiting for unwary beasts to come along and be absorbed. The rest of itself went back to the spaceship—wearing the disguise of Ted Kennedy.”
“Marge said you were different—that something had happened to you—”
“I have all of Ted Kennedy’s memories. So far as anyone can tell, I am Ted Kennedy, down to the last molecule. And my crewmates, who were all absorbed by the mimic and who are all here on Earth, enjoying ground leave, now—”
Spalding shuddered. “No! You mean—there’s a whole ship full of you on Earth now—all over—”
“Exactly. Come here, Dave.”
“No! Get away from me.”
“Come here, Dave!”
Spalding backed away, but Kennedy advanced toward him, his eyes gleaming, his hands reaching out. Spalding felt the cold fingers seize his shoulders with a burning grasp. Felt himself being drawn closer, closer, to the body of the thing that wore the guise of his brother-in-law. Felt the framework of his soul giving way, felt himself being pulled apart, demolished, absorbed—
He fought to free himself. But every move he made only increased the destruction.
“Don’t try to resist,” Kennedy murmured. “It’ll just take a few seconds, Dave.”
In a muffled, indistinct voice, Spalding cried, “Marge! Marge, help me!”
“Just a moment more,” Kennedy whispered calmly. “Don’t waste your breath. She can’t hear you, anyway. Just a moment more, then it will be over.”
Spalding felt himself growing limp. He had no will of his own remaining. His mind and body were fusing with that of the creature from Altair VI. He was being swept away on the tide.
“Marge….” he whimpered. “Marge….”
The Kennedy-thing laughed exultantly. “There! Finished!”
He released Spalding. Spalding staggered back, then straightened up suddenly.
He smiled at the Kennedy-thing. The union was complete. The entity Dave Spalding had been totally absorbed, and….replaced.
Downstairs, Marge waited impatiently. Five minutes had gone by, and Dave had not yet returned. She had thought she heard the sound of a scuffle upstairs. Were Ted and Dave fighting, she wondered? What if—
Oh, no, she thought. Nothing serious could be going on up there. It was all her imagination, her feverishly overwrought imagination. But she wished Dave would hurry up down.
A moment later, she heard footsteps, and Dave appeared.
Marge looked up anxiously. “You were up there a long time. I was getting worried.”
Spalding shrugged. “He hadn’t gotten undressed yet when I came in. I had to wait until he took his shirt off—so I could see the scar.”
Marge frowned faintly. Dave’s voice—it sounded a bit hollow, and unnatural. The way—the way Ted’s voice had sounded. Prickles of fear crept along her spine. She tried to calm herself.
In a level voice she said, “He had it, didn’t he? The scar, I mean?”
“Of course. A big purple slash right across the side of his chest, where he got cut the time he climbed over the picket fence.”
“Eh?” Marge was surprised. “He—he told you how he got that scar?”
“What? Oh, yeah, sure,” Spalding said. “He told me all about it. How you and he were stealing apples years ago, and how the farmer came to chase you.” Spalding laughed. “He jumped over the fence, but he cut himself going over, and you were stuck in the orchard because you couldn’t get over the fence.”
Marge felt cold chills racing over her skin. Uncertainly she said, “He told you—that?”
“Yes.”
“Funny,” she said. “He never would tell anyone that story. He was always so ashamed that he had left his kid sister behind when he tried to get away. He made me swear I would never tell anyone about it.”
“Well,” Spalding said, “he told me.”
“Five years does change a man, I guess.” Marge paused. Wild accusations rose up in her mind. But all this was too fantastic to consider. It made no sense.
She said, “Well, almost midnight, now. You’ll be useless in the morning if you don’t get some sleep now, Dave. Let’s turn in.”
“Just a minute, Marge,” Spalding said slowly.
Marge began to tremble. Her husband’s face was deathly pale, set in a strangely rigid mask. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“Come here.”
“I am here. Dave, what’s—”
She took an uncertain step toward him. “No. Closer,” he said. “Let me hold you in my arms.”
Marge laughed hollowly. “Why get so lovey-dovey here in the living room, Dave? Let’s go upstairs and—Dave? You look so strange, Dave.”
“Let me hold you,” he said, his voice flat, toneless, mechanical.
Marge took a step away from him, now, clenching her fists to keep herself from screaming. “Dave—your eyes! You look different! What’s wrong with you, anyway? Something happened to you upstairs, I know it! What’s going on in this house?”
“Let me hold you, Marge!” Spalding said, more loudly, stepping toward her. His thick, muscular arms snaked out and met behind her back, drawing her to him in a rough, choking hug.
Tendrils of force reached out, searching, probing, absorbing….
“Let go of me!” Marge yelled, writhing in his tight grasp. “You’re holding me too tight, Dave! Are you drunk? That’s what it is! He has some otherworld liquor upstairs, and he gave you some. Dave, I can’t breathe—”