Tom Swift and His 3-D Telejector (17 page)

Tom also had to answer an objection from his best friend. "Whattaya you
mean
you invited that jerk Pete Langley to Fearing!"

The young inventor added an apologetic grin to his reply. "But not for the space trip, Bud. Dad and I agreed to invite a number of prominent members of the experimental science community here, to personally receive whatever data we collect upon our return. Pete’s obnoxious and competitive, I agree. But he’s not a bad guy. And he
is
a good scientist-inventor."

Bud bought it reluctantly. "If he shows up in a striped tee, I
swear
I’ll punch him out!"

At last loading was completed, all passengers in place—Tom and Bud, Hank and Arv, a veteran astronaut named Bert Everett, and Lorna Darvey and her charge. Chow Winkler, left behind in Shopton, had protested his exclusion, but Tom provided a compelling reason. "Pardner, I’ve had that fever, and you know about Hank and Arv. Bert was one of the ones who had it here. You see, in this circumstance Li Ching’s plot backfired. Because of the fever, or maybe the antigens it built up in our bodies, we’re immune to the Orb’s psychic effects. We shouldn’t see any of those ‘keep away’ visions this time—and we shouldn’t get knocked out as we approach."

"Ye-ahh," Chow had conceded grumpily. "An’ you gotta have the lady doctor an’ the little kid. Okay." The cook didn’t bother to challenge Tom’s inclusion of Bud.

The
Challenger
lifted off precisely on time. Dr. Darvey and Jennifer December were fearful, awed, and thrilled all in one, and the feelings lasted unabated through the flight to the Orb—a briefer flight than the previous one, as the weird intruder was now much nearer the earth.

"We’re coming in at the thousand-mile mark, Tom," Bert called out.

"Reporting as your ‘test canary’," Bud wisecracked, "I feel fine. No visions—nothin’."

"I’m
sorry
I skeered you when I made my picture outside the big window," said Jennifer to Bud, very earnest.

"S’okay, sweetie. Keeps my blood moving."

"Continue the approach," Tom directed.

Dr. Darvey asked Jennifer if she were detecting anything from their destination now that the ship had drawn near. "A little, kind of. They all wonder what’s going on, an’ they can
feel
that they can’t use their pictures like before, to scare you. I’m trying to tell them not to be afraid. We bother them, a’cause they don’t know what we are. They can’t
see
anything outside, unless it’s real big an’ bright."

"Something tells me we’re more like a big
headache
than anything else," half-joked Arv Hanson.

"Or a bad dream," Tom murmured.

Presently the Green Orb loomed huge, strangely dim and ghostly compared to the stark brilliance of Earth and Moon, or the distant white fire of the Sun. "Can’t go into orbit," remarked Hank Sterling. "No gravity."

"And the repelatrons can’t get a fix on it either," Tom muttered.

Arv asked, "Then just how
are
you planning to maintain position?"

"Hey, easiest thing in space. We use a half-dozen celestial bodies to slow us to a dead stop—and just hang around!"

The
Challenger
was brought to a halt some hundred miles above the margins of the sphere, its hazy corona. Now that they knew what they were seeing, it was obvious that the darting "motes" comprising the granular surface were indeed individual entities of some incomprehensible form, swarming about violently within the flat confines of their strange world like living beings in a state of alarm. "It’s amazing we can see them at all," Tom declared. "We’re looking at them at an extreme angle, from three dimensions into two—and the light we see by is going through a curlicue course like― "

"Like the tail on a
Q
," was Bud’s wry conclusion.

"Ohh!" Darvey cried out suddenly. "
Something’s happened to
― "

Jennifer was standing rigidly, her face pale as she stared at the green expanse outside the viewport. "I—I’m okay," the little girl whispered. "This is how it’s s’posed to be. They’re makin’ me strong. It’s auti-matic, because they’re paying so much attention—like, concentrating. That’s what they—he—does when he tries to understand things. ‘
It can’t be! It is not real!
’"

The last was in a little girl’s voice—yet not the voice of a little girl.

"
What is it?
Why is it happening? It is part of the lesser light. We can no longer push it from our thoughts. I fear, I fear."

Tom spoke gently into Jennifer’s ear. "Tell them: ‘Don’t be afraid. Can you understand me?’"

"
The delusion is strong this time. It seems to speak to us. Yet it is not one with us.
"

"I am called Tom Swift. We inhabit the—the lesser light you are approaching."

There was a long, tense pause. A thought crossed Tom’s mind—"They’re calling somebody to the phone!"

"
Yes. We know you. I know what you are. We fear you because you are Fear itself. I cannot deceive myself any longer—the two paths, the Great Finality so near—what will become of us? What you think comes in a different way. But with every thought, I know more and understand.
"

"I mean no harm to you."

"
You are from the shadow. You have no reality. I understand because now you have entered within. But you are not one with me. The lesser light has disturbed me. I will not allow!
"

Jennifer suddenly shrieked and fell backward, as if in pain. Dr. Darvey held her. "It’s hurting her! We’ve got to stop this!"

"N-no, Docky-Dee," half-sobbed the little girl. "I’ll be okay. We can’t stop. My night friends—they’re helping me now. The snake doesn’t know. They’re helping with words..." She looked up at Tom. "The green balloon people think this is in their, like... imagination! They only believe what
all
of them can see,
at the same time
. Out here where we are—it’s like we’re behind them. They call it the shadow, and they think it’s all made up. But—Tom—what’s new-roses?"

Tom knelt to look in her eyes. "I think your psychic friends gave you that word—
neurosis
! It’s something in the mind that makes you think and do things that you really don’t want to do. Is that what the Orbites think I am—all of us?"

"Just somethin’ made up—but they can’t stop thinking it.

"
Why do we think this now? As I feared, the lesser light is madness. Only the Great Light is the true path for me
."

"Jetz!" Bud muttered. "Is it a ‘me’ or a ‘we’? Talk about a split personality!"

"
It has its own fears. It puts me aside with amusement-thoughts over its dread
."

"That’s my—my friend you hear," Tom said to Jennifer and the Orb. "He is another one of us. We are not like you. We are each separate."

"
My name is Legion, for I am many
."

The quote startled Tom, but then he reasoned that it derived from the little girl’s own mind, or perhaps the psychic captives that now were assisting her.

"
I am not like you, Tom-Swift-One. With us, what one knows, all know. What one sees, all see,
" the Orb-being resumed.

"There is a division within you."

"
We know that you are a part of the division within me. I see it now. Because I am of two minds, the fearful part speaks to me as if it were real. But what is separate cannot be real. You are from the shadow.
"

"I can prove to you that I am real, that the lesser light—where we live—is also real," Tom pronounced as calmly as he could. "Will you wait?"

"
What else is there ever, but to wait?
"

Jennifer stirred, herself again for the moment. Dr. Darvey held her comfortingly.

"I guess now I know where my intuition came from," Tom reflected. He directed that the telejector be moved out on the vehicular stage and linked to the ship’s tremendous power circuits, its triple antenna aimed square at the Orb. Then he stood in a bright worklight between the holoceiver array, which remained on the command deck.

Tom directed Bert to rotate the
Challenger
to a new orientation, and Arv Hanson to re-angle the telejector antenna. Then he turned to Jennifer. "Jennifer, I don’t know if you can make him understand, but somehow the part of the swarm near us has to move aside to allow the telejector beams to reach into the center of the sphere. Do you― "

"S-Skipper!" called out Bud in raw astonishment. "It knows!—it’s doing it already!"

A dark circular aperture, like something unrolling from a center, was opening beneath them!

Tom glanced at the others. "The Orbites look
inward
, toward the center and toward each other, always. They spend their lives looking at one another. I guess that’s the way they’re made. They can only see the brightest exterior lights that penetrate—anything else is taken to be transient thought, imagination. Fear!"

"Uh-huh!" exclaimed Jennifer firmly. "For them, ever’thing else is just a mind-eye picture. They don’t believe it!"

"Now we’ll give them something to believe!"

Tom actuated the telejector. Jennifer—those who spoke through Jennifer—cried out in shock.

"
I see it! It is real!
"

The creatures were seeing, each and all, a solid looking figure, a gigantic form that they had somehow sensed but had never grasped amidst their fear and skepticism. "What you see now is how I appear to myself," explained the young inventor. "I am using a—a method to produce this image for you. So you’ll believe."

"
Help me in my unbelief! Then the unbelievable thing is so indeed—you of the lesser light are as real as we
."

"Yes. You’re a small part of a world much bigger than you ever thought. We are out here. There may be others of your kind, too—but separate."

"
Separate! Now that we see you, I begin to understand. I have great fear, Tom-Swift-One, and yet if it is real, it is part of the true path.
"

"Will you tell me― "

"
I will tell you
."

"Why do you approach the great light, which we call our Sun?"

"
That is not a Why. How could it be otherwise? The end is near, the purpose of time. To go there is to be completed. Is it not so with you? Unthinkable!
"

"But some of you― "

"
I will conquer my fears.
"

"But—it’s a waste of― " Tom stopped himself. How well did he know the truth of what he was trying to say? "There is something else. You are coming near to the lesser light..."

"
In all our journey to the Great Light, which we thought would be endless, I have known no thing like it—another light. We were guilty of wondering if the Great Light were really all, really the only true path. It was a new idea, a thought to consider. I was fascinated by it. It tempted me and forced itself upon me, and yet I was ashamed to think such a thing. It was dangerous and I tried to push it aside in every way we knew. Yet because it was dangerous and new, it was also...
" Jennifer broke in after a moment: "They means it’s fun to think about, Tom. Like a horror movie or a thrill ride. You don’t want to, zackly, but you kinda do."

"I understand," Tom said. "But for you to come close may harm us. It could—prevent us from reaching our
own
purpose. Do you see?"

"
Yes, as you show us these things of the shadow, now we see in the light, with my own eyes. I will move away. I was uncertain; my course became uneven and hesitant, because I had blinded ourself to a disturbing truth, that to reach the good end, the joyous completion, is also dreadful. We could not think as one. A part was sad and unwilling; they called out to you, Tom-Swift-One. I could not see what I myself was doing, for it was not before me in the light, but behind. All is different now. You have shown me the true path. You have given us the unknown, and I now see that to accept it is not to lose what we had already. Our faith is restored. All is well.
"

Bud leaned over to whisper in Tom’s ear—which made the image before the Orb’s million eyes morph unexpectedly and grotesquely as one became two—and Tom nodded. "Mm, you need to know this too... because we are separate, there can be many true paths for us. There is one who’s following a path that—well, I don’t think it could really be true for
anyone
!"

"I see now. That one is the twinge, the ache that promises its own end but never ceases. You think of that one as—we see the picture. The idea that tempts, that tries always to speak to us from the shadow. It intruded upon me with thoughts that fascinated us, thoughts we did not want. We would not give in to his temptations, yet they could not be silenced. I must be strong and not deviate—I have left the path too much. I will have no more of him.

"It is done. I have an appointment to keep. But I will think of you as I go.—Tom," said Jennifer weakly, easing back into Lorna Darvey’s comforting arms, "that’s all they want to say."

"It’s already begun to change course," noted Hank at the instrument panel. "I’m sure its new heading will be straight for the Sun."

Tom sought out a chair, almost panting with the concealed strain of what he had been through. "I—I guess maybe I’m one of the ‘sad ones’, too," he mused. "Taking a death dive into the Sun seems wrong."

"Pal,
that’s
one thing that’s out of your hands!" Bud admonished quietly.

The
Challenger
returned. Bud groaned at the first sight to meet his eyes upon touching the ground. "There he is," he grumbled to Tom. "And look who’s with him."

The young inventor strode up to greet Peter Langley and Amelia Foger, who both responded with polite coolness.

Tom had finished making a brief statement to the assembled crowd of scientists when Amelia appeared and drew him aside, obviously not wanting to be seen by Langley. "Pardon me for the moment of intrigue, Tom. Something I’d like to mention."

"You’re suing me?"

She smiled. "So amusing. No, just this. It might be construed to be a violation of professional ethics, this little private conversation—but really, no law was broken by my client, no liability incurred."

"About the telephone stuff?"