“Brargas. Comder Brargas. Data. Data in to M-M — . I will — I want to — ” His eye rolled, and he made a supreme effort. “I want to help.”
Chapter 20
Mondrian awoke in a fetid, red-lit gloom to the sound of a low and ominous humming. He tensed as a tall figure loomed high overhead. As he recognized it, he slowly relaxed.
He knew where he was. He had been dreaming again; ghastly, terrifying dreams, but just what he had come to expect. The figure hovering over him was Skrynol, and the nightmare visions had been carefully designed and planted under Fropper supervision. Even the noise had a simple explanation. Skrynol was singing.
The Pipe-Rilla bent over Mondrian’s sweat-soaked body, peered at him with huge compound eyes, and hummed a three-toned phrase. The lights in the chamber promptly increased.
“For your benefit,” said Skrynol. She chittered strangely in Pipe-Rilla speech. “I did it so that you can admire my rare beauty.”
Mondrian took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead and bare chest. He had stripped to the waist at the beginning of the session, not for Skrynol’s benefit but his own. She was not fully comfortable at a temperature below human blood heat, and in the last few meetings the chamber had been made hotter and hotter.
“You seem in exuberant mood,” he said. “Can I assume that we have made progress?”
“Oh, yes, indeed.” The Pipe-Rilla bobbed her head back and forward in the gesture of assent she had learned from Mondrian. “Excellent progress. Excellent-excellent progress.”
“Enough to sing about?”
“Ahhh.” Skrynol raised her forelimbs and placed them on top of her head. “You embarrass me. A word is in order on my singing. Because we were doing so well, I extended the length of our session somewhat to pinpoint one result. As a result I took more of your blood than usual.”
“How much more?”
“Some more. Rather a lot, actually. But do not worry, I gave you replacement fluids. Mm-mm …” She bent over him, an enormous and deformed praying mantis inspecting its victim. There was a flutter of olfactory cilia, and a whistling sigh. “Mm-mm. Esro Mondrian, it is well that we Pipe-Rillas can so control our emotions and our actions. I had been warned before I came to Earth that human blood was a powerful stimulant and intoxicant to our metabolism — but no one could ever describe this feeling of exhilaration!”
She reached down with one soft flipper and drew it lovingly along Mondrian’s neck and naked chest. As she did so, long flexible needles peeped involuntarily out of their sheaths on each side of her third tarsal segment. They glistened orange in the bright white light. Fully extended, they would reach their hollow length more than nine feet in any direction. The official propaganda on the Pipe-Rillas described the aliens as “peaceable sap-sucking beings despite their formidable mandibles.”
Esro Mondrian stared uneasily at the needles. Sap-sucking? Perhaps — but only if the word could apply to the body juices of plants and animals.
The urge to flinch away from her touch was strong. He resisted it and sat upright on the velvet couch. “I know how you must feel. Some humans also experience exhilaration from blood. Myself, I draw excitement from other sources. Can we talk about the session now? Are you controlled enough to tell me what you have found?”
“Of course.” Skrynol, swaying like a sailing rig in a high sea, somehow reared her jointed body up another six feet. “We do not yet have a solution for your difficulties, but I think I can fairly say that at last we have defined the problem. I will begin with a question. You are Chief of Boundary Survey Security. Tell me, if you will, how you came to that position.”
“Through the usual route.” Mondrian was puzzled. “After I first left Earth I studied the other civilizations in the Stellar Group, and then took a job in commercial liaison with them. After that it was just a matter of hard work and steady promotion.”
“That is the way it may appear to you. But your physical response when certain subjects are mentioned makes one fact obvious: the rise to your present position was less circumstantial than you believe. You were driven to seek it. As I told you in our first meeting, your nightmares are no more than analogies. But we are past that level. Now we must ask, analogies for what?”
Skrynol turned to a marker screen that sat behind her, and drew a circle in the middle with her left forelimb. She placed a small dot in the center and drew a set of radii to connect it with the circumference. “It is time for a little lecture from me. This is you” — she tapped the central dot — “sitting in the middle of a safe region. Like most members of your species you are dominated by self-concern, and so you see yourself at the center of the universe.” She pointed to the radiating spokes. “You also dream of a web. And indeed, you sit in the middle of such a web — a web of information, provided to you through the Mattin Links from everything within the Perimeter. In your dreams there is a dark region. And sure enough, in your working world there is also a dark region. It is everything that lies beyond the Perimeter. More than that, it is terrifying to you. Maybe you can control everything within the known sphere of space — but how can you possibly control what is outside it? How can you even know what is there?”
Skrynol tapped the screen. “In your dreams the safe lighted region is always shrinking, the dark and dangerous zone always comes closer. And in the real world, the Perimeter grows, since through the probes and the Mat-tin Links new parts of space are steadily made more accessible. They are accessible to you — and you are accessible to them. That is the problem. You do not know what may lie beyond today’s Perimeter, but you know you are afraid of it. The safe region is not really shrinking. It only seems to be so, because the unsafe region steadily becomes larger. New space is added all the time.
“So how can you minimize the danger? It is simple. You seek the position which gives you maximum control over the Perimeter. That is the position of Chief of Boundary Survey Security. You cannot banish the dangers, because they are caused by a force beyond your controclass="underline" the Solar Group’s expansionist policy. But at least you will learn of any danger as early as possible, and be in a position to combat it. You had no choice except to seek the position of Chief of Boundary Security. And you will do anything to protect the Perimeter. Anything at all.”
Mondrian froze, his exhaustion forgotten. The Pipe-Rilla had discovered his secret — knew why he needed the Morgan Construct.
But the Pipe-Rilla was leaning forward, until her broad, heart-shaped face was less than a foot from Mondrian’s. “I pity you, Esro Mondrian,” she went on. “Although I cannot share your fears, I know that your nightmare is real. You are afraid of the rest of the Universe, everything that lies beyond the Perimeter.” The dark, lid-less eyes stared into his. “Do you understand my analysis, and accept it?”
Mondrian’s nod was no more than a tiny tightening of neck muscles. “I accept it. But I do not know where it leads. Are you telling me that the nightmares must continue as long as I hold my present position?”
“Not at all. You accept, but you do not understand. You sought your present position in an attempt to control the situation, and so banish your nightmares. But those nightmares are not the result of your position, or of the existence of the Perimeter. They stem from a much deeper cause — deeper within Esro Mondrian.”
“What is that cause?”
Skrynol shook her head. “That, I do not know. Not yet. But I do know that it lies deep-buried, far back in your childhood. Still I cannot reach it. I need help. That is why you must do something more.”