Kris Neville

“ His breathing was hoarse and painful, and he thought comfortingly of his home planet; a small planet with a low sky; incredibly blue, a trading station far removed from Earth, satisfyingly deep in the Empire. As a boy he had often gone to the space port to watch the ships. He remembered how he had stood watching their silvery beauty and their naked violence. He had always been very excited by them. Always. And they were a symbol of Empire.
After the cab driver had spoken to him several times he roused himself to say, "A hotel, any hotel." ”

“ Yet he was conditioned to hate and he was conditioned to kill. He must kill, for the conditioning was strong. He tried to fight down the revolt of his thoughts, and, in recognizing the revolt at last, knowledge came. The guilt of treason. Not for any act. His treason was doubt, and doubt was weakness, and weakness was death. He could not be weak for the weak are destroyed. But he seemed, for a heart beat, to see through the fabric of Empire which was not strength at all. ”

“ Listen, Parr, are you all right down there?"
Suddenly he relaxed. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," he said. "I'm just a little nervous."
He ordered the driver to stop. The building was columned, red brick, decayed. The sidewalk before it was grimy, littered, cracked, chipped. Listlessly, people shuffled down the street, flecks from the vortex of humanity farther uptown drifting in the backwater of the city. Faded overalls, jeans, thin unpressed cheap suits, frayed shirts and crumpled soggy collars. Faces—lean, hollow, blotched; eyes that were harried, red, tired. ”

“ Parr kicked the door shut viciously and the sound rang in his ears. He launched himself at the Knoug with the phone. He felt his head meet a soft stomach and he heard explosive air pop from the man's lungs. The Knoug went over backwards, down hard.
The other one roared an oath.
Parr walked on the fallen one's face. He stomped the face and it gurgled. He stomped again in fury as all his frustration and new bitterness found an outlet. He locked the other Knoug in mental battle, but the mind he met was strong, catching him off guard. ”

“ The comset had erupted into a babble of incredible confusion after her message. She waited leadenly. She warned the Fleet once more. "If you do not leave at once, we Oholos will destroy your whole Fleet." She had no way of knowing what was happening.
The Knoug commanders, unnerved, cried among themselves:
"No weapon I ever heard of could do that!"
"The advanceman was right! They can destroy us!"
"I say we don't stand a chance!"
"Did you hear? It just vanished."
"I'm going to order my ship back."
"I've already shielded for hyperspace." ”

“ Parr let the comset fall to the chair. He walked to the window and looked out at the haze-bound city. Early sunlight fought blue smog. Across the street the Pershing Square pigeons waddled self-consciously about on the grass beside the new fountain, picking at invisible tidbits and cooing.
Parr rubbed his throat trying to massage away the inner tenseness. He was alone against the Oholo. An aloneness that he had not been prepared for. And he worried at the fear that was inside him. ”

“ The attack. The meaning of it suddenly rang in Parr's ears. Until a second ago, he had seen his hate as personal, and now he realized that the Empire was ready to capture a planet and then to destroy a System. And he saw the vast evil of the Empire hurtling toward Oholo civilization. He gnashed his teeth.
Lauri's hand jerked on Parr's elbow. "The one you call Kal is dead."
"I'm glad," Parr was grim. He remembered the savage eyes which the Earth disguise could not conceal. "I'm glad."
"Kal, Kal," the Advanceship called into emptiness. "Kal! Come in, advanceman Kal!"
Parr flipped off the comset. ”

“ He projected his thoughts beyond the immediate future to the bright burning of the Oholo System, the atomic prairie fire skipping from sun to sun at the core, leaving the planets ashes—while isolated, the periphery worlds would one by one capitulate to Knoug power, to Knoug will, and become infected with Destiny. ”

“ At first there had been mobs after the mail delivery. Then the governor, conscious of what had happened in some Eastern cities, had declared martial law and only soldiers were supposed to be on the streets after sundown curfew. Already many people had fled the city in terror.
As he and Lauri walked side by side, Parr felt he had come to know her better than he had ever known anyone. He realized how strong his mind had grown under its month long test, and he knew that she had come to respect his strength, she who was so strong herself. ”

“ She said, "Don't you see what he might have become within a few years?"
"Imagine hitting hyperspace without a shield," one Oholo said.
"It must have turned the ship inside out!"
"So the Knougs actually believed it was a weapon that did it!" another said, pleased.
Lauri said, woodenly, "He was very strong. He was almost as strong as I am. He would have become even stronger."
"There's no Knoug as strong as one of our best workers, Lauri."
"He was more than a Knoug," she insisted gently. "A Knoug would have just—just gone on being what he was." ”

“ The Empire had made him unclean and debased him, and he had to cleanse himself. His vast reserve of hate shrieked out against the Empire; their own weapon turned against them.
"I'd like to get back to the Advanceship," Parr said. "If I could get back, I could smash in their faces!"
"Oh," she said.
The comset sputtered excitedly. "Three Oholos after me! They're armed! Must be new ones. ”

“ Kal chuckled. "Good one, Bertie. Useful. Damn this pressure. Glad I brought him. They won't be looking for an Earthman, eh? So when they try to come in here after us, he'll drop 'em, eh?"
Parr wet his lips. "They're getting nearer."
"Relax," Kal said. He crossed to the bed and sat down. "The Fleet's out. It just came out. Did you hear?"
Parr felt a shock of surprise. He imagined the hundred powerful ships of the fleet coming, one by one, from the dead isolation of hyperspace. In his mind's eye he could see the faint glimmer of the static shield—the protective aura—form slowly in real space ”

“ Feeling a sense of elation and a new confidence, Parr went to the comset. "Parr. Oholo report."
"Go ahead."
Parr concentrated on the wording, filling in the blank spots with his imagination. Suddenly he was conscious of an inadequacy, something elusive that he should be able to add. He wrinkled his face, annoyed. But the uncertainty refused to resolve itself into words. "His name is Lauri. He's here on a mission having to do with the natives. I got no details, but it doesn't directly concern us, I'm sure of that. There appear to be several more on the planet. ”

“ The passing landscape was peaceful in starshine and the buildings stood proudly defenseless. In imagination he saw the illuminated, "You'll-take-a-shine-to-this-fine-wine" sign hanging askew over a backdrop of smoking rubble. And it was delicious to know that this would be fit and proper.
Although the preliminary intelligence report (based on nearly four years of preparatory scouting) contained no instance of Oholo activity on the planet, he listened, high up, on their frequencies, (particularly here, vulnerably near their own system it would be no fun fighting them) . ”

“ Parr said. "Before the other Knoug comes back. Get out."
Words damned up inside him. He had been trained to hate and trained to kill. The emotions were loose now. There was no outlet for them. He was frustrated and enraged. Hate bubbled about in him, fermenting. He had been trained to hate and to kill. Lauri winced as she felt the turmoil. "Get out!" ”

“ The terrified driver stepped down on the accelerator. The car leaped forward.
Parr, fighting with all his strength, was twisted in agony, and blood trickled from his mouth.
He gasped at the driver: "Cab. Behind. Trying to kill me."
The driver was white-faced and full of movie chases and gangster headlines of shotgun killings, typical of Southern California. He had a good car under him, and he spun the wheel to the right, cutting into an alley; to the left, onto an intersecting alley; to the right, into a crosstown street; then he raced to beat a light. ”

“ It was what someone had told him once. "They think differently than you do." How, he pondered confusedly, could they expect him to think like an Oholo?
"I can't think like an Oholo," he said tonelessly.
"You could.... Never mind."
"I could? Listen, how can they be thinking, to leave a flank like this unprotected? Why didn't they take this planet into protective custody long ago? How can you think like that? They aren't logical. How could I know they'd let a woman...."
"Parr!" the Ship ordered sharply.
Parr gulped. "Sorry."
"Insubordination on your record."
Parr clicked off the comset. ”

“ Then he commanded the driver to abandon the intricate inter-weaving and head directly for the airport in Santa Monica.
Shortly, the two other cars swung in line, down Wilshire.
The job of softening up Earth for the invasion began to pass entirely from the hands of the advancemen. From a ticklish, dangerous proposition at first to a virtual certain mailing day. The world wide mechanism of delivery swung into operation from time zone to time zone, and, in the scheme of conquest the advancemen passed from integral factors to inconsequential objects. ”

“ Three days later, on D-Day minus thirty, the Advanceship began to move eastward, seeding down advancemen toward strategic centers in North America.
Towns with big post offices.
And then on over the Atlantic toward other continents.
Parr was the first advanceman to land. The coat tails of his conservative double breasted suit fluttered gently as he fell; air, streaming by, fretted his hair. Except for the anti-grav pack strapped to his back, he could easily have been mistaken in a more probable setting for an Earthman.
Minutes later his feet touched the ground with scarcely a jolt. ”

“ For people who were incapable of finding it anywhere. Parr felt suddenly sad.
Odd natives, he thought. But even odder thoughts for a Knoug, he knew. Then he felt the savage stirrings inside of him again. It brushed away sadness. The numbered days until the invasion excited him. The emotional surge of danger and trial and obedience were the preludes to the necessary relief.
Parr felt fully relaxed.
He got off the trolley in Santa Monica, where the night fog was already fingering in from the ocean.
He crossed the wide street, angled toward the Mira Mar hotel. ”

“ How many hours now? His mind was clogged and stuffy and sluggish. An hour's sleep, ten minutes sleep—any time at all. If it could be spent in clear, cold, real sleep.
Eat, run. Always, now, he was running, afraid to stop longer than a few minutes. He needed time to think.
And the pressure was steady.
Get away. Leave Los Angeles!
"Parr, Parr. This is Parr," he whispered hoarsely from the back seat of the moving cab into the comset. ”

“ He took them to the roof, checked the three cities off his list, placed the directories at the base of the chute. Later the helicopter would come swishing down from the night sky, collect them, and return tomorrow evening with the compressed and labeled parcels, one to a family, stamped with the requisite postage. The parcels, spilling out of the compressor, would expand to a huge jumbled heap for the natives to handle. And Parr knew he was only one of many advancemen. The cargos would nightly spew to all points of the Earth from the Advanceship slowly circling the globe behind the sun. ”

“ I thought there were just five on the whole planet."
"There's about fifty now. They landed last night. Out in the Arizona desert. They're the only ones who could get here in time."
Parr felt elation. But it passed. "Fifty.... That's not enough to stop the invasion."
"It's all we could get here," Lauri repeated.
Parr groaned. "The Knougs will shield the planet tomorrow. It will trap those fifty on the surface. And us. They'll shoot us, if we're lucky. But I'd like to kill some first!"
The comset crackled, and the Ship voice said: "How many new ones altogether?"
"I don't know," Kal answered. ”

“ They had been a difficult people to rule. As agent provocateur, (that had been several years ago on Quelta) he had reason to expect blood.
He crossed to the trousers, neatly folded over a chair. In the left front pocket was the comset. He fumbled it out and standing naked in the gloomy dawn, whispered: "Parr. There is an Oholo in my hotel."
After a pause the comset issued the tinny question: "Is he aware of you?" The voice filtering through the small diaphragm was without personality. ”

“ Parr let out his breath slowly. "I don't know."
"Try. Either way. Get rid of him. An Oholo could cause the invasion trouble."
Parr plucked nervously at his leg. "If I'm not able to?"
The comset was silent for a moment. Then the impersonal voice said, "If you are killed in the attempt, we will replace you." It paused for a reply. Receiving none it continued: "Get what information you can, even at the risk of exposure. It's too late now for them to mount a defense, and they probably have no way to alert the natives. We want to know what he's doing there, and if there are any more on the planet." ”