Zach Hughes - Tiger in the Stars

sent in to investigate the sudden and total cutoff of contact with the first village sent out the alarm. Viewing the creature from the safety of a flyer, the first to see it could not believe their eyes. Their early reports were received with amusement, then anger. Communications ceased from a second farm village, and reports that the first village had been devastated, that there were no survivors, were convincing. Although Central Africa had no army, as such, forces were available. Armored ground vehicles went into the area. A close watch was kept. Contact was lost with the vehicles when they reached the area of the second village. When the Eater moved on, the tanks were found, opened

like nuts, their crews missing. The second village was empty. In the streets were reeking mounds of a glutinous substance. The Eater had depopulated an area of roughly ten square kilometers,

cleaning the area of all animal life, when the first service team, called in from the nearest base in the Sahara, made an overflight, filming as they went. The pictures were classified and seen only by top government officials. Public panic was to be avoided. Nevertheless, efforts were begun to organize evacuation of the areas of Central Africa surrounding the Eater. As the hours went by, a pattern seemed to be established. The Eater moved in an ever-widening circle. It left no life behind. The first attack from the air utilized explosive rockets fired from a ship that flew in low. Both rockets and ship were destroyed by the force of explosions that came prematurely. Attacks from a higher level resulted in explosions of the missiles in the air before they reached the ground and the Eater. Ground assault was greeted with equal disaster: the vehicles that neared the Eater's area succeeded only in stalling, to be quickly cracked and depeopled.

Antique artillery, firing high explosive shells, was ineffective. The shells merely exploded before entering the area of the monster. Lasers flared against a protective shell of force surrounding it. Now word was spreading. People outside the numbing zone of the Eater's mind saw and fled, screaming. Roads were packed with ground vehicles with disastrous results. Collisions led to a full-scale panic. Man fought man in his efforts to flee and behind him, moving with a steady slowness, the Eater continued his favorite game. In desperation, the service sent a small nuclear missile homing in on the Eater. The resultant air burst added the problems of drifting radioactivity. But it was a short-lived problem, as the bomb was fairly clean, and the area most threatened by the radioactivity was being rapidly emptied either by panicked flight or by the Eater. Jungle areas surrounding the thing were impregnated by low-flying aircraft carrying flammables, then ignited. The Eater rolled through a sea of fire only to begin a feast on the few remaining members of still another village. Now the world knew and mobilized. A fleet of spaceships, flown down hastily from the moon bases, used man's most sophisticated weapons, firing from high and low, some ships destroyed by their own weapons, as projectiles detonated prematurely. Beams were simply flared by the field surrounding the Eater and, when the all-out effort had failed, man fell back and concentrated on clearing people from the areas surrounding the Eater. The world was in a state of shock when the Pride blinked out into normal space and started monitoring broadcasts. Plank, knowing the

location of the Eater, moved the Pride over him, keeping to the limit of his close viewers. He did not want his presence known, not yet. On the trip home he had formed one plan; it had to work. It was the last chance. From the reports they had monitored, he knew that Earth's best efforts had failed. Plank was sickened to see the people waiting, dumbly, docilely, to be crammed into the maw of the Eater. Were they no better than the slugs? Why were they so unresisting? But he, too, had felt the power of that alien mind. The weapon was prepared. The scout had been turned into a bomb, laden with the warheads of missiles from the Pride's arsenal. From deep space, praying that the single-minded enjoyment of the creature would prevent detection, he sent the range finding signals, checked and doublechecked. He would have only one opportunity. His hope was that the Eater, intent on its game, would not sense the incoming blink of the scout. The small ship would be blinked directly into the mass of the Eater,

the effect of that, in itself, destructive. Then at the instant of blinking out, the warheads would detonate. The surrounding area would suffer, of course, but evacuation was proceeding and the population was minimal. Lives would be sacrificed, but not on the scale that would follow if the Eater were allowed to reach the coastal areas of the continent where people were congregating to await transportation from the continent. They stood together, three ex-humans in artificial bodies crafted by the creature below them. They were silent as Plank finished his preparations and prepared to trigger the scout into its final blink. «Now,» Plank said, beginning the mental order that would send the scout into its final blink. No, he heard. The word was in his mind. He felt a surge of frustration, as he tried desperately to complete the order. He was frozen. Time was at a standstill. He knew, then, that the Eater was all-powerful, that he had detected them, had frustrated them once again. We cannot allow that, the voice in his mind continued. Plank felt both

relief and wonder, because the voice was not that of the Eater. It is, after all, of us. Plank felt a small wrench of movement and looked out with his ship's eyes to see a starfield totally unfamiliar to him. Instantly he directed a

chart check, but there was nothing to relate with the charts. The entire sky had changed. The closeup viewers showed a blue planet, at orbital distance, a planet he'd never seen before. The final effort, the last hope, had failed. He wanted to hit something, longed to have his own fists back, if only to be able to bang one of them into a wall. When in doubt, he thought desperately, strike out. Look for something to hit. He moved his mind to direct the ship to close on the planet below. The ship, however, was already in movement, and he had no control. He was cut out of the command circuit. «What is it, John?» Hara asked. «I heard the voice. Is it another one of them?» «I don't know,» Plank said, «but I have a feeling we'll know very soon.» The ship was closing rapidly. Below them, the planet was growing. The viewers showed a natural landscape of great beauty. Large oceans, wide plains, mountains and lakes. Plank tried to use the scanners and was still blocked from his own ship. He had no way of knowing what sort of life awaited them on the planet, but he was certain life was there. Someone, some force, was directing the ship down toward the foothills of a huge, snow-capped range of mountains at the center of an elongated landmass. CHAPTER SIXTEEN The low, rolling hills were on fire with color, thousands of blossoms on the bushes and trees like part of a landscape painted by a master of composition. Nothing was out of place. Plank had the feeling that he was in the midst of a huge formal garden, not a stylized, symmetrical garden, but a garden of cunning naturalness. Some of the trees were fruited, bearing delicate blooms and delicious-looking fruits at the same time. In the open spaces beneath the trees, a lacy green ground cover allowed no intruding rock, no detracting patch of soil to show. Insects buzzed happily from bloom to bloom. The ship's ears picked up melodious pipings that seemed to originate from brightly colored birds flitting gracefully about. The outside temperature was 24 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere was oxygen-based and astoundingly free of impurities. The sky was clear blue, accented by beautiful white clouds, carrying no threat of rain. The Pride had settled into a small clearing at the base of a valley between two hills, near a clear stream that ran over smooth, water-worn stones into languid pools. In no mood to sit quietly and appreciate the beauty, Plank paced, in his mobile form, and remembered the Eater back on Earth, remembered the dazed and mute acceptance of the people. Ease yourself, the voice said in his mind, he has been removed. Hara darted a quick glance at him, indicating that she, too, had heard the voice. Heath muttered under his breath. You may walk, the voice told them. We think you will enjoy it. «Do we have a choice?» Plank snarled. There was no reply. He opened a