Barrington Bayley - The Garments of Caean

‘What’s he talking about?’ Amara demanded.

‘He’s talking about the invasion of Ziode,’ Estru answered in a flat, dry voice. ‘We’ve all been fooled – the Caeanics themselves have been fooled. An invasion is afoot, or shortly will be – an invasion which will appear to be the work of the Caeanics, whereas in fact they’ll only be proxies. You heard what Forbarth said. The Prossim intelligence plans to clothe the whole of mankind.’

‘I knew we should never have trusted foreigners,’ Amara grunted in disgust.

‘There’s an awful kind of grandeur about it in a way,’ Estru said meditatively. ‘We are familiar with the idea of physical invasion, or of invasion by disease in the form of epidemics. But this is a psychological invasion. The total remaking of mankind.’

‘I like my mind as it is, thank you.’

He smiled with ironic humour. ‘Be objective about it, Amara. Cross-fertilizing is usually a good thing. This is mental crosss-breeding between lifeforms literally poles apart. Something quite unbelievable ought to come out of that. Perhaps the Caeanics know what they’re about.’

Amara cast him a look of withering scorn before turning her gaze to the vidscreen. ‘You’re being flippant. Luckily we are in a position to nip this horror in the bud. We can hardly destroy the entire Prossim species, of course, since it grows all over the planet, but if I understand Forbarth aright the scheme depends on those suits it’s growing. This is the only patch of them so far. Destroy it and Ziode is safe – for the time being, anyway.’

‘We don’t have any external armament to speak of.’

‘It can be done manually. We have portable atomic flamethrowers.’

Overhearing them from where he sat, Peder Forbarth began to laugh weakly. ‘But you won’t be able to! You won’t be able to!’

They found out what Forbarth meant almost as soon as Captain Wilce sent out a pair of his crewmen to burn up the Prossim growth.

The two went out on a disc-shaped grav platform that skimmed over the surface of the plain. One steered the platform, while the other handled the flamethrower, a telescope-like affair he held under one arm, supporting its weight with a harness that went over his shoulders. Both wore protective suits of a silvery heat-resistant light metal, complete with visors.

The sociological team, watching while they glided some distance away from the Callan , waited to see the flamethrower come into action. Nothing of the kind occurred, however. After a puzzling delay the grav disc settled on the plain. The two men divested themselves of their protective clothing until they stood naked on the green Prossim.

‘What in space are they doing?’ Amara squeaked in alarm. ‘Have they gone mad?’

Peder was giggling like an idiot. Now they saw the two crewmen, ignoring all orders that came through their headsets from Captain Wilce, bend down and detach something from the growing greenery. For a minute or two they were busy, probing and poking in the leafy tangle. Soon they had picked an assortment of newly-ripened garments: underpants, shirts, jackets, waistcoats, trousers, ties and cravats. Then, apparently absorbed in what they were doing, they carefully dressed themselves.

Finally, fully attired, they stood upright on the verdant plain. At a nod to one another they remounted the grav platform, leaving the flamethrower where it had been thrown, and headed back towards the ship, landing in full view of the external scanner.

They were transformed men. They stood before the Callan , flexing their limbs, exhibiting themselves to those within, stepping back and forth and pirouetting as if in a fashion show.

‘I told you you couldn’t do it,’ Peder gasped, gurgling with laughter. ‘Go on, give in – you’ve got to eventually. Don’t you feel it getting to you?’

Estru felt like hitting the renegade Ziodean in the face. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Those suits create a field of mental force. It’ll get to you soon, even through the walls of the ship.’

‘I don’t feel anything.’

‘Not even when you look at your men in those suits?’

Estru stared at the disporting pair on the vidscreen. ‘I’m not sure…’

‘All right, focus the screen out on the plain. Let’s see a close-up of all those suits growing out there. Then you’ll know…’ He stood up, staggering to the screen controls. The image zoomed, blurred and sped until, with dazzling clarity, it showed an enlarged spread of garments.

Suddenly Realto Mast sprang forward. He pushed Peder away from the controls and hastily refocused the screen. ‘Don’t let him do that,’ he warned.

Peder sniggered. ‘See, he knows, don’t you, Realto? There’s no defence against those garments. They just call out to be worn – and they are so perfect that the human mind can’t resist that call. The Prossim plant can conquer humanity by sheer mental force, simply by displaying the garments it has created.’

‘I definitely felt something then,’ Estru declared, looking around at the others for confirmation.

‘And Ziodeans say the sartorial art is a delusion!’ Peder derided.

Blanco came forward and leaned over him belligerently. ‘Whose side are you on?’ he shouted. Then he turned to Amara. ‘What about you, madam? Perhaps the garments are ineffective against a woman.’

‘I felt something too,’ Amara admitted quietly.

‘The Prossim plant is something of a male chauvinist,’ Peder told them in a sarcastic voice. ‘Male qualities are more active than female ones, so it elected to delineate mankind by using masculine garments only. It views female garments as accessories. But it isn’t oblivious to sex – far from it. Stand up in one of those suits and no woman can resist you.’

Silence reigned in the conference room.

‘Well?’ Amara said grimly. ‘Has anybody got any ideas?’

‘You can do it, Alexei,’ Mast said earnestly. ‘You’re the only one who can .’

‘I simply don’t understand what you are asking of me,’ the Sovyan replied. ‘I don’t understand why simply anyone cannot do it.’

Mast sighed. ‘No, I don’t suppose you could understand. But you can understand that the growths are menacing us.’

‘If you say so.’

‘We can’t leave until the growths are destroyed.’

Mast was in Alexei Verednyev’s cramped private cabin. Alexei had painted the walls a metallic grey. There were only three items of furniture: a table, a hard chair on which the Sovyan was now seated, and a pallet on which he slept. His face, as always, was dour and immobile.

Mast had slipped away unnoticed from Amara Corl’s section. He was sure she was too insensitive to be able to persuade her victim to help her.

‘On this whole ship, you are the only one who has been a friend to me,’ Alexei said at last, emotion entering his accented voice. ‘I will do what you ask, since it is you who is asking.’

He rose, his arms moving in a waving motion reminiscent of the typical arm movements of a Sovyan metalloid. Mast led him out of the room. They went down to the exit bay where he explained to him what had to be done.

The doors opened. Alexei, armed with a handgun Mast had given him, ventured out.

The breeze that swept over Alexei’s skin as he emerged from the Callan was an entirely new phenomenon to him. It frightened him at first. Realto Mast had not warned him of this.

He stood on the Prossim mats, which were depressed into a shallow bowl by the ship’s weight, and gazed about him. He had seen planetary landscapes before, but only on the Callan ’s external screens when she landed on some world or other. With the flowing of air on his skin, assaulting his intimate feelings, it took on a completely different aspect. The spaciousness of the land, the colour of space seen through an atmosphere – not black, but with a purple tint in this case – made him appreciate all the more the alienness of such an environment.