Stepping Stones (11 page)

I’ve had plenty of time to think, and I’ve realized a couple of things.  I was wrong about Holden.  I see that now.  Oh, he wasn’t innocent, not by a long shot.  He was merely part of a more insidious plan.

Just like the cosmic background radiation, the answer was there all the time, staring me in the face.  One night I finally saw it.  Peering into the
TV
, I noticed something hauntingly familiar about my assailant.  All at once I recognized that limber dancer’s stance, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head.

Sarah.

I can’t let on
that I know what she and Holden were planning.  I’ll be pleasant to her at breakfast, call her at work during the day, lie beside her at night till she falls asleep.  And I’ll be very, very careful.

I know what I have to do.  And
when the
time is right, I’ll do it.  I have
plenty of time to plan, plenty of time to make
certain
everything is perfect.

Plenty of time.

Twenty-four hours a day.  Every day.

As I said, I have
a problem . . .

I can’t sleep.

Final Exam

Y
ou
will enter
the
(
unintelligible
)
now.

The words thundered
in my head, bouncing
around inside my skull for what seemed
like forever. 
“I’m not deaf, at least not yet,” I shot back with as much sarcasm as I could muster.  “Y
ou don’t have to shout.”

Actually, shouting doesn’t come close to describing
what they were doing
.  From the
beginning, all of their
commands had been delivered telepathically—the volume cranked up full and
injected
with maddening precision into my brain one syllable at a time, as
if
I were so stupid
that
everything had to be spelled out.

Fighting a wave of revulsion, I stared at the squirming thing on the deck—a glistening, sluglike cylinder
around
five meters long and two meters in diameter
,
with short slimy appendages studding its greenish-brown surface.  At one end
,
an elliptical orifice opened and closed, winking
at me
like
an
obscene eye.

Enter now.

They had
turned the volume down somewhat,
but
they
were still spelling it out.  I resented it like hell.  No one likes being treated like an idiot, even if compared to them your
IQ
really
is
down
in the amoeba range.

“What
?” I asked aloud.  Early on I had learned that
they could read my thoughts, but I still hadn’t
grown
used to just
thinking
at them.

Enter.

“Enter what?”

The (unintelligible
)!

I smiled, sensing a hint of irritation.  Early on
I had
also learned that resistance
was futile.  So far any order I
disobeyed
had quickly
resulted in punishment something akin to sticking your head in a power conduit, only worse.  Bu
t I couldn’t stop myself.  I have
a stubborn streak a mile wide, and if they insisted on treating me like a moron—well, I figured on playing it to the hilt.  Besides, I wanted to put off the inevitable
for
as long as possible.

Then the pain began, and I
knew
I couldn’t hold out much longer.  Soon, no matt
er how hard I fought, I would
be crawling into that wet, gaping mouth.

Three days back
I had
been on the bridge of the
UFS
Drake
, one of the
last
two-man surveyships still operational in the fleet.  We were stationed in the third quadrant of a constellation known as the Dragon’s Eye, orbiting NGC 11746915—a stellar binary that
had recently
turned into a particularly interesting subject for
scientific
study. 
The dual star system
was composed of a small black hole circling a medium-sized G-type sun that had left the main sequence a million years back, swelling to a red giant.  By gravitationally drawing a bridge of gas from the swollen primary, the black hole was gradually devouring its larger companion.  In the process
,
it was releasing tremendous amounts of energy in the form of twin jets emanating from both poles of the singularity, along with intense radiation from the surrounding accretion disc.

We had
been gathering data for just under two weeks when
an
alien spacecraft squeezed out of the black hole.

M
y first officer
,
Axle Chang, and I were on the observation deck at
the time.  Axle is
short, with curly red hair, a razor-sharp mind, and a decidedly Irish temperament contrasting his otherwise Asian equanimity.  An
unusual combination, but Axle is
an unusual guy.  He can fix just about anything—be it atomic, electrical, mechanical, or photonic
.  You name it; Axle can make it work
.  A guy like him could mean the differe
nce between life and death on an aging ship
like the
Drake
, and I was lucky to have him.

“What the—”  Axle bolted upright in his chair, spilling most of his coffee on the sensor console.  “Cap
tain
, take a look at this!”

I leaned over Axle’s shoulder, staring at the thr
ee-dimensional image in the
screen.  I tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

Nothing is supposed to be able to escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.  Nothing—not even light.  The tidal effect created by just getting
too
close to
a black hole
is enough to rip ordinary matter to bits.  “My God,” I whispered.  “Look at the size of it.”

We looked.

Slowly, the craft oozed out of the singularity.  The vessel looked like a huge, liquid-silver bubble and had to be at least a thousand kilometers in diameter, the size of a small moon.

“Are you recording this?” I asked, unable to control
a
quaver in my voice.

“Yes, sir,” Axle answered, his hands a blur on the sensors.

Seconds later the alien ship emerged completely, lighting up the event horizon with a brilliant flash.  Spellbound, we watched as it pulsed and shimmered, bolts of energy discharging from its surface.  Then
,
without warning
,
it was b
eside us—
not five hundred kilometers from the
Drake
. 
We never saw it move.  It was suddenly just
. . .
there.

Axle rose from the command console and stumbl
ed backward, his face ashen.  “Cap, s
omething’s accessing our o
nboard computer. 
I don’t know how, but
I
—”

It’s hard to describe what happened next.  One minute I was on the bridge, the next I found myself suspended in total, impenetrable darkness.  I could feel nothing around me, not even the deck beneath my feet.  With a sinking feeling, I began to suspect
that
I was no longer aboard the
Drake
. . .

Time passed.

My skin itche
d.  My muscles twitched.  Then t
houghts and images began popping into my brain, flashing past as if someone were shuffling through my memories like riffling a deck of cards.  “Hey!” I yelled.  “Stop that!”

Actually, I tried to yell but couldn’t.  I had no control of my body.  But I did
think
it, and someone got the message.

Cooperate or suffer punishment
.

I had
always imagined that
direct
mind-to-mind communication, if it existed at all, would be soft and tenuous and mystical,
like
whispering tendrils of thought insinuated into your consciousness.  This
hurt. 
“What . . . what are you doing,” I demanded, screwing my eyes shut in concentration.

You are being examined.  Afterward you will be tested
.

“Tested for what?”

To determine whether your species is fit to join the brotherhood of servant races
.

“You’re slavers, eh?” I was scared but trying to maintain a good front, figuring people were the same the galaxy over.  Give ’em an inch and they think they own you.  “What if I don’t want to join your so-called brotherhood?”

Irrelevant
.

The response was accompanied by a
searing
bolt of pain that convinced me to keep my thoughts private, if possible.  As I soon learned, it was not.

Their “examination” seemed endless.  Occasionally
they
let me sleep, then
woke
me with a nudge of pain and
began
anew.  Some of it wasn’t bad, like reliving experiences
I had
long forgotten—life as a kid on Mars, my first flight in an antigrav harness, listening to my Granddad’s stories
about
mining the asteroid belts—but for the most part what they did to me can only be described as a nightmare, a mental rape.

And then the real testing began.

Apparently using the same technique
they had
used to snatch me off the
Drake
, they shifted me to a glowing, cavernous ch
amber.  Although the bright light in
my new surroundings hurt my eyes, it felt good to be able to see once more.  I had control of my body again, too.  Squinting, I peered around the room.  On all sides, luminous walls curved to a domed ceiling far above.  The deck beneath my feet felt spongy and pliant, almost alive.  Glowing a deep blood-red, a giant dodecahedral crystal sat in the center of the room atop a raised platform.  Scattered around
the crystal
were peculiar-looking devices, many
spouting
tentacles and odd, jointed appendages.

No sign of my hosts.

Moments later I embarked on a battery of tests
seemingly
designed to determine my body’s capabilities.  They controlled my every move; I was just along for the ride.  I strutted across the chamber, raising my heels high off the deck.  I carried objects tiny and delicate, heavy and large.  I operated alien machines, pushed buttons, pulled levers.  Some tasks proved impossible, like manipulating devices that seemed more suited to someone with tentacles than fingers.  Other tasks I performed easily.  They subjected me to heat, cold, electric shock, taking everything to the extreme—how fast, how long, how much pain could I endure.

Somehow I lived throu
gh it.  And i
n the end
,
I sensed
that
they considered me physically acceptable, if only marginally intelligent.  But acceptable, nonetheless.

I felt miserable—not only from the testing, but because I realized
that I had
probably been instrumental in getting Homo sapiens into a world of trouble.  Given the opportunity, I’d have
simply
dug in my heels and refused to be tested, or flunked on purpose, or whatever.  I just never got the chance.  Angrily, I wondered what they had planned for me next.  Death?  Or would I have the honor of joining their brotherhood as the first serving human?

Suddenly I heard a click.  A section of bulkhead slid back, revealing a large recess.

An instant later it squirmed out.

I backed away in terror.  Leaving a trail of slime, the thing on the deck slithered
toward me
, its hideous mouth opening and closing hungrily.  “What the hell is
that
?” I croaked.

The
(
unintelligible
)
will complete your examination.  Enter it now.

“Wait!  What . . . what can you possibly learn from having that thing eat me?” I
stammered
, stalling for time.

Enter now
.

I tried everything to avoid going in.  Punishment is a great convincer, but I held out.  After a while they lost patience, took control of my body, goose-stepped me across the chamber, forced me to my knees, and shoved my head into that horrible, slimy mouth.

A moment later
I was in.

Paralyzed, I lay on my stomach in total darkness, steeling myself for the worst.

Nothing happened.

I groped around.  The inky space surrounding me seemed inexplicably large.  The surface pressing into my ch
eek felt coarse and gritty.  Strangely,
my hands encountered nothing
out
to the sides or above
me.  Briefly
I considered trying to back my way out
of the slug
.  I quickly gave up that idea, reasoning
I would
simply be forced to reenter.  Besides, for some reason I couldn’t locate the opening. 
Instead
I sat, hugging my knees and shivering in the cold.

Minutes dragged by, turning to hours.  Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a faint light began building on a distant horizon.

Horizon?

To my amazement, an angry red sun rose slowly before me, firing the sky with oranges and golds.  Rubbing my eyes
in disbelief
, I stared at my surroundings.  Sparkling in the morning light, a blue-green ocean lay at my feet, small waves gently lapping its shore.  To my right a dazzling white beach
traced
the water’s edge to a volcanic outcrop in the distance.  On the land
side, thick green jungle bordered the sand.