Zach Hughes - Tiger in the Stars

consider yourself intelligent life. There is only one form of intelligent life. You are a quirk, a miscalculation. You have rudimentary intelligence and this is a sadness, for you will never advance beyond your miserable state. Your tiny brain serves only to make you useful to me. If only you knew the

effort of will it took to permit your brain to continue to exist, but that is beyond your understanding. Listen closely and I will explain. You have, in your background, an analogy. You enjoy fishing for the small creatures of the waters. You lower a lure or a bait into the water and feel an

excitement. It is so with us. It is an amusement. In recent time we felt, but

could not believe that we felt, the force of the ancients, the movement of a mechanical ship out of time and space. We know that the ancients are gone, that they could not exist. And yet we feel the signal again and we

pull, directing our force into the affected area of space without being able to pinpoint the location. We catch and are disappointed, for the primitive ship has no life. Ten times we pull, and ten times we have lifeless metal. We increase the power of our lure and, ah, we catch the first of your kind. We are astounded, but we enjoy. There are no more of the nibbles caused by the force of the ancients, but we receive tiny, random signals and it is difficult. We dedicate ourselves to the fishing, and we catch now and again. Then we caught you and exercised supreme will to preserve the tastiest part of you, the brain, for we wanted to give you a continued existence so that you could serve us. You proved useful from the beginning, finding a planet of the food creatures, one we had overlooked. Now you will lead us to your own planet, a planet of super-food creatures.» Plank struggled, trying to protest, trying to free his mind. «Do not anger us. You have already annoyed us. You were grown to serve us. You are nothing more than a freak mutation, a slight advance over what you think of as the slugs, and you are ours to enjoy. You can

help, but you resist. It is hopeless to resist, for you have already given us the location of your home planet. It is merely a matter of doing the boring checking of the mechanical toys, wherein are the data necessary.» «No,» Plank said, forcing past the mind-bending force. «The master of the galaxy is, by fate, meant to be alone. It pleases us to use you as a momentary diversion. We will allow you to exist for what to you will be an eternity. We bend even more. We offer you the woman thing. What you think of as your mobile form is actually more sophisticated than your own primitive flesh. You want more? Ah, well, with billions awaiting us we can be generous. We give you a dozen others of your kind. Even 100 of your choosing. Together you will serve us. You

will exist and know pleasure. You will be free to hunt the galaxy for us. We have seen the suns too many times and travel bores us. You will be our arm. While you hunt to give us pleasure, we will concentrate on the limitation. Observe.» The dark ship was flashing outward toward the edge of the galaxy, Plank aboard. Then he was not aboard, but outside, watching as the ship moved in normal space away from the finest sprinkle of stars into the deep blackness. Suddenly it smashed. «You anger me almost beyond endurance with your joy to discover that

we are limited, confined to this galaxy. We consider projecting you, living,

into the heat and fire of a star, there to linger. Or we might have a tiny bit of enjoyment with the remaining morsel of your flesh. But no. There is the

game and we have use for you. It is pointless to resist. Look. See us in our natural form. Are we not magnificent? Do not feel belittled. Note how functional, how balanced. Four walking appendages for stability, four sets of hands for dexterity beyond your belief. We are the ultimate form of mobile life and your ignorance is shown by your repugnance, not recognizing true beauty. But you will realize our beauty as time goes on. Now we give you your friends. Now we proceed with the game.» Plank was in a room. A door opened. Hara and Heath entered. Plank's

eyes saw the slightly strange texture of their skin. With a sinking feeling of sorrow, he knew that they were now like him. CHAPTER FOURTEEN «Where are you?» Plank asked, as Hara and Heath looked around in surprise. «I was going to ask you that,» Heath said. «I mean, do you know where your brains are?» Plank asked. A look of fear crossed Hara's face. '"We're like you?» «Yes.» She felt herself, running her hands over her body. She was dressed in her uniform. She looked the same, but Plank knew. «Think,» Plank said. «See if you have any indication of where your brains are being kept.» «It's blank,» Hara said. «I'll repeat the question,» Heath said, looking slightly dazed. «Where are we as we are?» «The tinker-toy planet,» Plank said. «And them?» «Here,» Plank glanced swiftly around the room. It was the same, but the walls were solid. The huge screen or viewport was not in evidence. «You're my reward for being a good boy,» he said. «I can have a total of 100.» «They know?» Heath asked. «Not yet. They're going over the records of the communicators. It sounds as if it might be a slow process, a process that bores them. I don't know how much time we have.» «You have a weapon,» Heath said, noting Plank's side arm. «Not effective against them,» Plank said. «They, or it—since I think it uses the 'we' pronoun as royalty used to use it on Earth—well, it's pretty powerful.» «Is there anything we can do?» Hara asked. «I don't know. I know this. I know what it looks like in what it calls its primary form. It's a cross between an animal and an insect. It can change

forms—the eater on the other planet was one. I think it's insane, at least by our standards. It's very old. It thinks it owns the galaxy, and it probably

does. It has fantastic powers over all physical matter. And it plans to make a meal of everyone on Earth and the Centauri planets. It equates us with

the slugs on Plank's World. It discounts our intelligence. It considers us as low as the animals and wants us to do its hunting, because it doesn't like

to travel around the galaxy. It wants us to find planets where there's life. Apparently, there used to be more than one 'it,' and these creatures seeded

planets with the little slug animals for food. It thinks we evolved from the slugs and are, therefore, just a bit bigger morsel of food.» «Is there any way we can warn Earth?» Heath asked. «I don't think so, and I doubt it would do any good if we could,» Plank

said. «If anything can be done, we have to do it; and we have to do it while

it's concentrating on finding the location of Earth. There's one small thing in our favor. It has a certain amount of arrogance. It's so sure it's all

powerful that it probably won't be watching us very closely. I think it gets involved in what it's doing. Back on Plank's World I surprised it. Flew right above it without being seen.» «Perhaps we can find the ship and just get out of here,» suggested Hara. «Get back to Earth and try to organize a defense.» «I don't know where the ship is,» Plank said. «I do know that the dark ship is destroyed. The creature smashed it into some sort of barrier out beyond the edge of the galaxy.» «A barrier?» Heath asked.

«It talks of being limited. I have the idea that it's limited to this galaxy,

that it can't get out. Now we know that light goes in and out of the galaxy, but when the dark ship was driven at the barrier, the ship just crunched.» «Something out there more powerful than that thing?» Hara asked. «Yes.» «Or a natural phenomenon,» Heath said. «I might have been able to believe that once,» Plank said. «Back when I wouldn't have believed that a being could push a star into the nova stage and move planets, I might have believed that such a force, capable of closing in a galaxy, would have had to be natural and unexplained. Now I'm not so sure.» Plank was looking around the room. He discovered an opening, pushed at the panel. It was unmovable. He used his weapon to cut a hole large enough for exit. The way led upward. They were far underground, but their artificial bodies did not tire as they ran up stairs designed not for human feet, but for the four feet of the creature. They emerged on the surface in the devastated area around the communications structure. All was quiet. Knowing the directions well, Plank led the way toward the accelerator. Once before he had attacked the creature there and had aroused response. He knew of no other course of action. He had no plan. They ran swiftly through the ruins, and when Plank reached the undestroyed area around the accelerator building, he slowed, moved with caution. If the creature were using his ability, then it knew their exact location; but they had no choice but to proceed. The huge accelerator was empty. The surrounding buildings, more practical than the random construction, were obviously laboratories, very functional laboratories. They, too, were empty. «When it finally gave in and decided to try to convince me by reason rather than by power, it took me into that underground room where I was when you joined me,» Plank said. «I know from experience that it values only the area surrounding the accelerator, not even the building that housed the communications bank. It seemed to be willing to let me destroy everything else on this crazy planet. Most of the constructions are nonfunctional, mere exercises in building. We know that it's busy now checking the tapes from the dark ship's communicator, and we know that those tapes were in the communications bank. But the creature isn't there now. That leaves two possibilities. Either it has another communications facility somewhere or it's picked out the information and has already left the planet.» «Or it's merely being undetectable,» Hara said. «I know a way to test that,» Plank said. «But first let's check around. If it has another underground communications facility, the entrance should be here in the area it was willing to protect.» Plank had a feeling that time was running out. He led a desperate search concentrated in the area of the atomic installations. The construction of the area was more logical, from the human viewpoint, but still was the work of an alien mind. «I know how a laboratory rat must feel trying to find its way through a maze,» Hara sighed, after an hour of fruitless search. «It said finding the coordinates would be a time-consuming process,» Plank said, «but enough time has passed. I could have gone through the tapes myself by now. I'm sure it's had time.» One by one, aboard the small scout, they made the trip up to the orbiting Pride. When they were together in the lounge, Plank said, «There's still one very important thing we have to know.» «I've been thinking about that,» Heath said. «Your first question, where are we?» «Yes. My home base is right here, on the ship. Where's yours?» «I feel complete,» Hara said. «It's difficult for me to believe that my brain might be down on the planet somewhere.» «We have to find them,» Plank said. «I know that I can be in more than one place at once, but I do it through mechanical extensions. My brain