Garnett was astounded at the idea. “No, Xoanon, you don’t know me.” He suddenly became aware of the woman behind Xoanon—could she be the old man’s daughter? He had not thought of the aliens as having daughters, sons, wives.
“I know you,” the old man insisted, ‘and now we must talk before it is too late. Some of my crew are running out of patience. This ship, although large by your standards, is regarded by my people as an ordinary commercial vessel, the equivalent of one of your tramp steamers. I could lie to you about its purpose. I could say it is a mercy ship filled with enough serum to save the lives of a billion people, or that it had some other equally important role, but I give you the simple truth. It is a rather old, rather shabby freighter which a long time ago, during a routine journey, suffered a major breakdown—an explosion which destroyed essential equipment and at the same time deprived us of much of our workshop facilities.
“At that time the ship had a crew of almost two hundred, all of whom had a very natural desire to return to their home planet, so we took a number of risks,” Xoanon glanced momentarily at the stump of his arm, ‘and got our vessel as far as this planet. However, our troubles were only beginning. We were unable to land and even if we had been able to put down your high gravity would have made us almost helpless. The component we required was not available on Earth, naturally enough, nor was the means to manufacture and deliver it. No solution at all would have been possible but for the fact that our ship normally travelled to a number of ‘backwoods’ planetary systems and therefore was fitted with a standard brain-to-brain communications device. Our engineers were able to effect a number of illegal modifications to it and …’
“I don’t understand,” Garnett interrupted. “What use would an aircraft wing be to a ship this size?”
Xoanon smiled faintly. “To you it is an aircraft wing—to my engineers it is one of a system of drive thrust deflectors without which the ship cannot be manoeuvred. It is necessary to employ a force field, as you call it, because no physical deflector can exist for more than a few seconds in the drive stream.”
“I see,” Garnett said grimly. “So you took over a man called Garnett and had him order his firm to build a unit the size you needed.”
The old man shook his head. “It wasn’t that simple. The first person we took over was called Clifford Pryce….”
“Pryce ! But that means …’
“Yes, Mr. Garnett. When we reached your world it had an electronics industry of sorts, but our requirements were far beyond its capabilities, so far …’
Garnett stopped listening. There had been a movement of shadows near the doorway. Two aliens carrying what looked like weapons sped through the opening and vanished into the dimness beyond the T.6. Garnett decided to get closer to the wing unit so as to be certain of destroying it with his first shots and began working his way downwards, trying to remain in cover. At the same time his mind swung dizzily over chasms of thought opened by Xoanon’s words.
“Exactly when,” he said, ‘did you take over Pryce?”
“I have already given you that information. It was in your year 1940.”
“But that was …”
“Several years before you were born, Mr. Garnett. At that time Clifford Pryce was a young radio engineer. It was necessary for us to guide his development so that he could ‘invent’ the force field generator. We had to steer him into aviation in order that he would not find some more obvious application than constructing aerofoil surfaces, and at the same time made him a multi-millionaire so that we could retain control of the new invention. The aircraft you refer to as the T.6 had a triple function—it gave your technicians the experience they needed to develop successfully the larger force field unit, it financed the larger unit and, most important, it …’
“It provided the means to get the unit into your hands,” Garnett finished, listening to the strangely distant sound of his own voice. He spoke automatically, all his attention centred on the task of moving downwards without swinging out into view of the two aliens. “You said you know me, Xoanon—but you don’t. You have learned nothing at all about the primitives down there if you think you have just presented a case against my killing you. Not one inhabitant of my world would hesitate in this situation. By your own admission you have twisted people’s lives, you have tampered with Earth’s very history, you have provided a new dimension in weapon building for a race which specialises in weapon building….
“And you took a human life. A very human life.” Garnett reached the metal floor and began to work his way towards the T.6, talking feverishly. “You can have the unit, Xoanon, but you must come here and collect it in person, and pay for it in person. I am close enough to the T.6 to guarantee to put a bullet into the unit unless you come through that doorway within the next five minutes.” Without warning from his stomach, Garnett found himself retching violently, each convulsion tearing the wound in his chest until his eyes blurred with tears. When he had recovered, he again noticed the wispy-haired woman behind Xoanon. She had the typical silt-coloured alien complexion, but her eyes were large and somehow disturbing.
Xoanon remained seated. ‘Before you act, Mr. Garnett, let me remind you of a few basic facts. I told you it was necessary to steer Clifford Pryce into the aircraft industry so that he would not concentrate on more obvious applications of the force field generator. Has it occurred to you that the field could make an excellent instrument of defence in, for instance, the form of a city-sized dome?”
Garnett was no longer listening. He had become the matrix for a ferocious concentration of pain, nausea, exhaustion and, above all, the sheer psychological shock of being translated from his own physical and mental universe into another in which different players played a different game to strange rules. Worlds tilted crazily beneath his feet and spun away, stars became black orbs in a continuum of blinding light. Garnett was foundering, falling, but he hung desperately to the one unalterable fact which remained to him.
“The girl,” he whispered hoarsely. “You can change all the rest, but not that—now get down here or I start blasting the unit apart.”
Xoanon rose from his chair. “You haven’t yet learned …”
“Enough!” Garnett shouted desperately. “No more talk. If you want the unit—come for it!” He dragged his suit microphone free of its socket and pushed it away from him. It twinkled briefly in the shaft of light then floated up into the dimness, and when he looked back into the screen Xoanon’s chair was empty. As he lay waiting for the old man to appear in the doorway several dark, trembling globules escaped from his helmet and drifted away on his breath. Blood, he thought. The old bastard has to get here soon….
Shadow movements disturbed the light again, then Xoanon silently appeared, holding himself upright in the shifting air by gripping the edge of the doorway. Garnett stared at him over the sights of the automatic. He looked frail and helpless—but not as helpless as Janice had been.
“I haven’t finished talking, Mr. Garnett, you …’
“I’ve finished listening,” Garnett shouted. He tightened his finger on the trigger, but there was a new flurry of activity as the alien woman ducked under Xoanon’s arm. She straightened up with a strangely clumsy movement and launched herself towards Garnett.