Gordon Dickson - The Human Edge

“Listen—” said Jerry. The tigerishness inside him had woken at Milt’s words. It tugged and snarled against the words of defeat from the captain’s lips. “We’re winning. We aren’t losing!”

“Quit it, Jerry,” said Ben dully, from the far end of the room.

“Quit it—?” Jerry swung on the engineer. “You lost your temper with me before I went down to the village, about the way I said ‘ oot ’! How could you lose your temper if you were full of tranquilizers? I haven’t been taking any myself, and I feel better because of it. Don’t tell me you’ve been taking yours!—and that means we’re getting stronger than the nightmares.”

“The tranquilizers’ve been making me sick, if you must know! That’s why I haven’t been taking them—” Ben broke off, his face graying. He pointed a shaking finger at the purplish mass. “I’m being changed, that’s why they made me sick! I’m changing already!” His voice rose toward a scream. “Don’t you see, it’s changing me—” He broke off, suddenly screaming and leaping at Milt with clawing fingers. “We’re all changing! And it’s your fault for bringing the ship down here. You did it—”

Milt’s huge fist slammed into the side of the smaller man’s jaw, driving him to the floor beside the still shape of the medician, where he lay quivering and sobbing.

Slowly Milt lifted his gaze from the fallen man and faced Jerry. It was the standard seventy-two degrees centigrade in the room, but Jerry saw perspiration standing out on Milt’s calm face as if he had just stepped out of a steam bath.

“But he may be right,” said Milt emotionlessly. His voice seemed to come from the far end of some lightless tunnel. “We may be changing under the influence of those growths right now—each of us.”

“Milt!” said Jerry sharply. But Milt’s face never changed. It was large, and calm, and pale—and drenched with sweat. “Now’s the last time we ought to give up! We’re starting to understand it now. I tell you, the thing is to meet Communicator and the other natives head on! Head to head we can crack them wide open. One of us has to go down to that village.”

“No. I’m the captain,” said Milt, his voice unchanged. “I’m responsible, and I’ll decide. We can’t lift ship with less than five men and there’s only two of us—you and I—actually left. I can’t risk one of us coming under the influence of the growth in him, and going over to the alien side.”

“Going over?” Jerry stared at him.

“That’s what all this has been for—the jungle, the natives, the nightmare. They want to take us over.” Sweat ran down Milt’s cheeks and dripped off his chin, while he continued to talk tonelessly and gaze straight ahead. “They’ll send us—what’s left of us—back against our own people. I can’t let that happen. We’ll have to destroy ourselves so there’s nothing for them to use.”

“Milt—” said Jerry.

“No.” Milt swayed faintly on his feet like a tall tree under a wind too high to be felt on the ground at its base. “We can’t risk leaving ship or crew. We’ll blow the ship up with ourselves in it—”

“Blow up my ship!”

It was a wild-animal scream from the floor at their feet; and Ben Akham rose from almost under the table like a demented wildcat, aiming for Milt’s jugular vein. So unexpected and powerful was the attack that the big captain tottered and fell. With a noise like worrying dogs, they rolled together under the table.

The chained tiger inside Jerry broke its bonds and flung free.

He turned and ducked through the door into the corridor. It was a heavy pressure door with a wheel lock, activating metal dogs to seal it shut in case of a hull blowout and sudden loss of air. Jerry slammed the door shut, and spun the wheel.

The dogs snicked home. Snatching down the portable fire extinguisher hanging on the wall alongside, Jerry dropped the foam container on the floor and jammed the metal nozzle of its hose between a spoke of the locking wheel and the unlocking stop on the door beneath it.

He paused. There was silence inside the sick-bay lab. Then the wheel jerked against the nozzle and the door tried to open.

“What’s going on?” demanded the voice of Milt. There was a pause. “Jerry, what’s going on out there? Open up!”

A wild, crazy impulse to hysterical laughter rose inside Jerry without warning. It took all his willpower to choke it back.

“You’re locked in, Milt,” he said.

“Jerry!” The wheel spoke clicked against the jamming metal nozzle, in a futile effort to turn. “Open up! That’s an order!”

“Sorry, Milt,” said Jerry softly and lightheadedly. “I’m not ready yet to burn the hoose about my ears. This business of you wanting to blow up the ship’s the same sort of impulse to suicide that got Wally and the rest. I’m off to face the natives now and let them have their way with me. I’ll be back later, to let you oot.”

“Jerry!”

Jerry heard Milt’s voice behind him as he went off down the corridor.

“ Jerry! ” There was a fusillade of pounding fists against the door, growing fainter as Jerry moved away. “Don’t you see?—that growth in you is finally getting you! Jerry, come back! Don’t let them take over one of us! Jerry…”

Jerry left the noise and the ship together behind him as he stepped out of the air lock. The jungle, he saw, was covering the ship’s hull again, already hiding it for the most part. He went on out to the translator console and began taking off his clothes. When he was completely undressed, he unhooked the transceiver he had brought back from the native village, slung it on a loop of his belt, and hung the belt around his neck.

He headed off down the trail toward the village, wincing a little as the soles of his shoeless feet came into contact with pebbles along the way.

When he got to the village clearing, a naked shape he recognized as that of Communicator tossed up its arms in joy and came running to him.

“Well,” said Jerry. “I’ve grown. I’ve got rid of the poison of dead things and the sickness. Here I am to join you!”

“At last!” gabbled Communicator. Other natives were running up. “Throw away the dead thing around your neck!”

“I still need it to understand you,” said Jerry. “I guess I need a little help to join you all the way.”

“Help? We will help!” cried Communicator. “But you must throw that away. You have rid yourself of the dead things that you kept wrapped around your limbs and body,” gabbled Communicator. “Now rid yourself of the dead thing hanging about your neck.”

“But I tell you, if I do that,” objected Jerry, “I won’t be able to understand you when you talk, or make you understand me!”

“Throw it away. It is poisoning you! Throw it away!” said Communicator. By this time three or four more natives had come up and others were headed for the gathering. “Shortly you will understand all, and all will understand you. Throw it away!”

“Throw it away!” chorused the other natives.

“Well…” said Jerry. Reluctantly, he took off the belt with the transceiver, and dropped it. Communicator gabbled unintelligibly.

“…come with me…” translated the transceiver like a faint and tinny echo from the ground where it landed.

Communicator took hold of Jerry’s hand and drew him toward the nearest whitish structure. Jerry swallowed unobtrusively. It was one thing to make up his mind to do this; it was something else again to actually do it. But he let himself be led to and in through a crack in the structure.

Inside, the place smelled rather like a mixture of a root cellar and a hayloft—earthy and fragrant at the same time. Communicator drew him in among the waist-high tangle of roots rising and reentering the packed earth floor. The other natives swarmed after them. Close to the center of the floor they reached a point where the roots were too thick to allow them to pick their way any further. The roots rose and tangled into a mat, the irregular surface of which was about three feet off the ground. Communicator patted the root surface and gabbled agreeably.