More Things in Heaven Page 7

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  The first inkling that something was amiss came when Starventure swung within voice communication range of the tugs sent out to gentle her into orbit, and continued to transmit code instead of switching to radio. But in the excitement of the moment no serious notice was taken; it was assumed that an equipment breakdown must account for the anomaly.

  The tugs brought Starventure into orbit, and silence followed.

  Alarmed, the expedition commander requested permission to break regulations and send a boarding party across. With the vanishingly small but dangerous risk that there might be alien infection in the starship, no direct contact had been scheduled in that direction; members of the starship’s crew were supposed to sterilize their suits and transship to the tugs, remaining sealed from the tugs’ atmosphere until after the initial medical examination.

  Permission having been granted, volunteers went to investigate, and found the suiting chamber of Starventure’s main airlock occupied by two apparently monstrous creatures in a state of total catalepsy. The men must have been brave. Though they were unarmed, they declined to turn back. They reported their findings and continued into the ship, finding everything normal except the crew. It was some little while before they came on any more of the latter. When they did, the meeting was perfectly crazy.

  Apparently—so Suvorov informed us on the

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  basis of what the psychologists had established— none of the crewmen had had any idea they were physically altered until they were confronted with irrefutable evidence. The pair found in coma in the suiting chamber were examples of this. They had gone to put on spacesuits, intending to jet across to the tugs, and found that they had too many limbs and their bodies were the wrong shape. The shock paralyzed them, and they were found still overcome with fright.

  When other members of the crew met the boarding party, they reacted exactly as normal human beings would—provided they had none of their colleagues for reference and comparison. A single crewman would come happily to greet his fellow humans, and be dismayed at their alarm. Two or more together realized by looking at the newcomers and then at each other what had happened to them, and the result was again cataleptic shock.

  Naturally, the first explanation that sprang to mind—Suvorov told us with irony—was the one which Carmen had just voiced: that the crew had somehow been replaced during the trip with alien beings. In a sense, of course, this was so. The human bodies of the crew had been transformed, or exchanged, or . . . something.

  But it rapidly became clear that the personalities of the crew were still present, reflected in their strange new shapes. Not all of them could talk; those who could spoke in the wrong auditory range. But they could all communicate with

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  each other and retained the ability to write. It was as though some areas of common human experience had been blanked off for them, whereas other areas which might not be human at all had been opened up for them.

  “This is why the psychologists are having such difficulty,“Suvorovsaid. “For instance, although the bodies in which the crew’s minds now seem to be—ah—housed are much more different one from another than human bodies, having various types and numbers of limbs, various distribution of bodily organs, and so on, they all share the ability to sense radiant energy far down into the ultraviolet. We’re still testing them; some of them may be able to ‘see’ X-rays. And another thing: some of them appreciate the passage of time differently from us. We had to send up a computer to handle the questioning of the one who’s been identified as Chandra Dan; at first we thought he was one of the ones who can’t talk, but then it turned out he was compressing whole sentences into tiny fractions of a second. Don’t ask me for details—I’m just relaying to you what little I’ve managed to absorb.”

  “What became of the ones who went into catalepsy?” Brian demanded.

  “Oh, the initial shock wore off remarkably quickly. In a day or so at most they became able to adjust, and now they’re moving around among the people who’ve been sent up to study them, and proving perfectly compliant.”

  “Are these new bodies of theirs oxygen-breathing?”

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  “Yes, they’re quite happy in Earth-normal air. Also they utilize ordinary food, though they seem to need a high proportion of extra trace elements, particularly cobalt and manganese."

  Brian frowned and gave a nod. “David here was telling me that there have been more takeoffs than landings from the port recently. What have you been doing—sending up teams of investigators?”

  “Yes, of course, and a great deal of equipment too. And we’ve had to leave three or four of our ferries in orbit, locked on to Starventure, to accommodate everything.”

  “When were they . . .?” began Carmen, ran out of breath on a whisper of terror, and tried again. “When were they changed?”

  “During the return trip. Probably, just before their reemergence into normal space. We have the pictures they took in the Centaurus system, and some of those show members of the crew normally suited up, which would of course have been impossible if the change had taken place there. And we have a few records from the voyage home, mainly of instrument readings, which include a glimpse of normal hands or fingers."

  “Have they no recollection at all of the—the process?” Brian asked.

  “None at all.”

  Brian gazed down at the picture of what was alleged to be my brother. I still hadn’t come to grips with that idea. He said, “David thought this was a picture of a sky-monster when you first showed it to him. What’s the connection

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  between these bodies and the shapes we’ve been seeing in the sky? The resemblance is remarkable, isn’t it?”

  Silently I damned him for being so cool when I was on the edge of a precipice of insane terror.

  Suvorov shook his head, looking unutterably fatigued. He said, “How can we know? We have only one working hypothesis, and I don’t understand it, but for what it’s worth . . . Well, it’s been suggested that there are creatures in hyperspace, intelligent, possessed of vast knowledge and power, to whom a body has no individuality but is simply regarded as a vehicle for the mind. By some means we can’t fathom we attracted their attention when we launched Starventure into their universe. On the outward trip they were taken by surprise, so that it wasn’t until the return trip that they were able to abstract the crew’s bodies in order to examine them, replacing them with what they thought would be satisfactory substitutes. Now they’ve tracked the ship to Earth itself, and they’re looking us over. Owing to the different physical qualities of the universe they inhabit, we see them projected on the sky.”

  Brian blinked, and appealed to me for comment. “David, how does that strike you? I can see it making a sort of twisted sense, but it scares me.”

  “The word I agree with is ‘twisted,’ ” I said, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “It’d call for a whole new cosmology to accommodate the idea. And right now I can’t think straight enough to give an opinion.”

  Brian turned to Suvorov again. He said, “I

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  hate to have to admit this, but—well, maybe it is better not to publish the facts until we know a great deal more. But you can’t make do with mere denials. You're going to have to release some kind of story to the press, preferably something with a lot of half-truths in it, amplified convincingly enough to stifle all these rumors that are going around.”

  I took a deep breath. I’d never in my life expected to want to connive at hiding important truths from the world, but I was compelled to agree with Brian. Something as shattering as what we’d just been told was too great a shock to release all at once; the ground would have to be prepared.

  I
said, “Yes, Brian, I’m afraid you’re right. And I—I guess I could help you write the proper kind of lies. In fact I’ll agree to do so on one condition.”

  Suvorov looked at me expressionlessly.

  “I’d like to—to meet my brother.”

  The words hung in the air like smoke for a long moment. But Anally the general gave a nod.

  “I think I can arrange that,” he said. “It will be worth it to have the authority of a Kalinga Prize winner behind this misleading news story. Does Miss Iglesias also want the chance to see her brother?”

  We all glanced at Carmen. After a pause she shook back her sleek dark hair and set her chin mutinously.

  “See my brother?” she echoed. “Of course not. No matter what you say, I know it isn’t my brother who’s up there in the ship. I’ve seen

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  him myself in Quito—not as a monster, but as himself, alive and well.”

  Suvorov leapt to his feet as though stuck with a goad. “For God’s sake!” he exclaimed. "Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

  IX

  I HAD been on the point of apologizing for the foolishness of Carmen’s remark. Suvorov’s reaction startled me, and a moment later I was veiy glad 1 hadn’t spoken.

  Before, it had of course seemed ridiculous on the face of it to think that I might really have seen Leon—Leon’s body—in Quito, or that Carmen and her nephew might have seen Herm- anos. Indeed, in spite of her requests that I inquire among the other relatives of the crew for people who had had similar visions, I’d only made a show of complying, thinking that there were many other lines of investigation which demanded my attention. I hadn’t even mentioned the point, that I could recall, to Brian, Kaye or Don, who were old colleagues of mine and could certainly have found time to check with the many members of crewmen’s families who were now converging on Quito.

  “Explain clearly, please. Miss Iglesias,” Suvorov ordered. “When and under what circumstances did you see what you took for your brother?”

  Still pale with shock, still having to interlace her fingers to stop them trembling, but speaking in a calm enough tone. Carmen said. "Not

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  only I, but a nephew of mine also, a boy six years old.”

  “All the more interesting. Go on.”

  She recited her story, and finished by turning to me.

  “The same thing happened to you, didn’t it, David?”

  Sheepishly I admitted that was so.

  “Why didn’t you report this earlier?” Suvorov snapped.

  “Well. . . Henri Chambord knew," I muttered, feeling peculiarly guilty, as though I’d withheld valuable evidence at a trial where Leon’s life was in danger.

  Suvorov jabbed at a button on his desk and leaned back in his chair. He said, “I have no idea whether this is important, but certainly to me it is new. Any new fact may be valuable.”

  Carmen glanced at me, her head tilted a little, one eyebrow lifted. I guessed what she was thinking. She had said almost exactly the same thing to me when asking me to make those inquiries among the families of the crew.

  “By the way,” Suvorov added, “eveiything you said during our talk has been recorded. We’ve been on twenty-four-hour recording since the ship returned to normal space. On the record, I want to warn you formally that everything I’ve told you which has not been released to the press is UN-classified and divulgence of it will result in withdrawal of all your UN privileges. Signify you understand this warning.”

  We muttered that we did. It was chastening to move over from the privileged reporters’ seat to the ordinary layman’s role, but I could all too

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  easily visualize the terror which might follow the wrongly timed release of this appalling news, and neither my heart nor Brian's was in objecting.

  The desk phone sounded. Suvorov flipped the switch and said, “Is Dr. Lenister there?”

  The sound was directionalized and we couldn’t hear the answer, but it must have been affirmative, for he continued, “Ask him to step into my office for a few minutes, will you? I have something new for him, I think.”

  Brian asked me a question with his eyes.

  “Herb Lenister,” I said. “Cornell and Sorbonne. Cybernetic psychologist. Just one of about a hundred scientists I’ve been trying to talk to this past week. ”

  If I’d known what they knew, I concluded silently to myself, I'd have decided not to bother them.

  Lenister turned up almost at once: a dapper man, extremely well dressed, with half-rimmed glasses and a gold tooth. He looked worn out, though, which wasn’t surprising. He sat on the comer of Suvorov’s desk and nodded acknowledgment of the introductions.

  “All right, what’s the urgent news?” he said.

  “Miss Iglesias here—sister of Hermanos Iglesias aboard Starventure—reports seeing her brother in Quito the day of the reemergence.”

  Lenister sighed. “Yes, I know,” he said. “So did her nephew a day later, and Drummond reported something similar to the press officer, Chambord.”

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  “You knew?” Brian demanded. “How did you hear?”

  Lenister took off his glasses and wiped them carefully. “Oh, stories like that get around a town which is bubbling the way Quito is at the moment. And we’ve been collecting every scrap of data we can find, regardless of whether it’s fact or rumor.”

  “But what have you done to follow up the stories?” Brian persisted.

  “Follow them up? Jesus Christ almighty, Mr. Watchett, when do you think we might have found the time?" Lenister rammed his glasses back into place. “We have a whole department investigating strange coincidences, alleged pre- cognitive dreams, silly-season newspaper stories, things of that kind, on the slim chance that we may dig up some kind of link between them all. But think what we’ve also got to cope with that’s a deal more solid! Solar disturbances! Auroral phenomena! Magnetic anomalies! Cosmic ray showers! The reentry of Starventure played merry hell with the continuum across three-quarters of the solar system. With respect, Miss Iglesias, we have other things on our minds than locating a double for your brother. ”

  “But nothing more important," Brian said.

  Poised to rise from Suvorov’s desk and leave, Lenister blinked at him in surprise. “I don’t think I understand,” he said after a moment.

  I’d seen the look on Brian’s face before. He was playing a hunch, reading into what Lenister had said something that a thousand other people would have failed to notice.

  “I hadn’t heard about Miss Iglesias’s brother,

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  or Leon Drummond. But I had heard about people who thought they’d seen other members of the crew in Quito—I’ve had similar stories from four or five sources since my arrival. I checked up and found that none of the sources was personally acquainted with the crewmen they claimed to have seen, so I put it down to overactive imagination. Now I’m not so sure any longer.”

  Carmen said breathlessly, "The day the ship came back, David and I were the only people in Quito—apart from the rest of my family—related to a member of the crew.”

  “But granting that,” Lenister said, “I still don’t know why Mr. Watchett thinks it’s terribly important.”

  “Nor do I," I said, butting in before Brian could respond. “Look, Brian! Are you implying that the—the real bodies of the crew could have been seen here, with alien minds in control?”

  Annoyed, as though he’d expected me to support him without question, Brian said, “Well, there are a hell of a lot of bodies missing, aren’t there?”

  “So how were they put down on Earth? In a ship? Tossed down through the atmosphere like meteorites?”

  “Damn it!” He sat up furiously straight. “You’re the scientific brain between us two—why not through hypersp
ace, though?”

  My mouth opened and no words came out. Why not, indeed? We were still only trespassing on the fringe of that mysterious domain.

  “Gentlemen,” Lenister said, “I sympathize, believe me. You've only just been exposed to the

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  problem. We’ve had it for a full week now, and we’re still learning to discard traditional preconceptions. Mr. Watchett may be perfectly right, and the missing bodies of the crew may be here on Earth—may even have been landed via hyperspace, for all I know. But, for pity’s sake, we’ve got the crew in their new shapes, up there at Starventure, and we still have to find out a million and one things about them! Are we to divert our efforts from that to chase after these crew members’ doubles, vouched for only by one man, or one woman, or a six-year-old boy?”

  “But I think it’s worth investigating, as Mr. Watchett argued,” put in Suvorov. “For all we know, doctor, one of those monsters might have reached down from the sky and set the crew's bodies on their feet like a kid playing with toy soldiers.”

  Once more Lenister wiped his glasses, this time veiy slowly and tiredly.

  “Yes, yes of course,” he muttered. “But I haven’t anyone to spare to look into such matters more than we’re doing already.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Brian said. “If we put out this cover story we’ve been talking about, there won’t be any honest news to keep me busy for a while.”

  “Cover story?” Lenister said questioningly, and I summed up what Brian and I had agreed to do.

  “Excellent idea,” he approved. “Though I haven’t the vaguest idea what you’re going to say. But the sooner you do it, the better. So I’ll get back to work. Forgive me if I’ve been sharp