Alien From the Stars Page 8

  Yipping, Ruff scurried alongside him.

  Toby, go home! Barlo's silent command broke into his mind.

  "No!" He threw the word back over his shoulder, forgetful that the alien could read his mind.

  Toby...

  "They won't shoot if I'm with you," he cried. Barlo didn't answer.

  Shouts came from behind, and the pounding hooves grew louder. Toby felt they were shaking the earth. Suddenly he realized they had no chance of reaching the eucalyptus grove before the hounds and horsemen overtook them. Veering, he plunged toward the wash that split the valley floor. It was deeper here, wider, its edges heavier with brush.

  He pushed through the thick growth and leaped blindly down to the sandy bottom. Ruff yelped and came sailing down beside him, followed by the alien.

  Toby gestured and raced back in the general direction from which they had come.

  They might think we're going the other way! He let the thought flare in his mind, not really concerned about whether Barlo was tuned to him or not.

  The main thing was to elude the vigilantes, find a safe place to hide. Or was that possible since the violent explosion that had destroyed the pod? He didn't want to think about that.

  Sharp yelps and a crashing in the underbrush from behind told him the hounds had reached the edge of the wash. Distant shouts floated to his ears.

  He jerked his gaze upward as the beam of a flashlight splayed the brush above him; it filtered eerily through the tangle of leaves and branches before moving ahead.

  He forced himself to assess their situation calmly. The wash could prove either an avenue of escape or a trap, depending on Cleator's grasp of the situation. If the vigilante leader dispersed his men in both directions, they'd be effectively blocked from flight. And there were the hounds!

  They had to find an avenue where the hounds couldn't follow.

  He resurrected the area's topography in his mind. Only a few hundred yards distant lay a steep hill, the slopes of which consisted mainly of huge, weathered boulders impassable to either horses or dogs. If they could reach it, Cleator's men would have to follow them on foot.

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  Something clanged against a rock behind him. Barlo, his head cocked, was a small, thin shadow in the gloom. Were it not for the huge violet eyes, glowing eerily as if by self-contained lanterns, Toby scarcely would have seen him.

  They have entered the wash, said Barlo. The telepathic message held a calm that belied their situation. Toby jerked his head in acknowledgment, at the same time aware that the distant shouts were growing widely separated. He realized that the vigilantes were ranging the wash in both directions. Calling

  Barlo silently, he resurrected a mental image to show the tangle of boulders and rock outcrops of the hill that was his destination.

  The hounds are in the gully, warned Barlo.

  Toby had a frightening vision of the droopy-eared animals racing toward him over the sandy floor. As he glanced frantically at the black brush hemming them in, it occurred to him that the alien was nocturnal. You lead the way, he urged.

  It's quite clear. A small chuckle escaped Barlo's lips as he moved forward a few paces, pulled aside some branches, and started up the steep slope. His slight figure melted into the background. Toby scooped up Ruff and followed, working his way with one hand while the other held the dog. Bits of foliage, springing back, whipped and stung his face. Barlo paused near the top. There's someone on the opposite bank.

  Toby twisted to peer through the screen of shrubbery, saw only the black blobs of trees and bushes silhouetted against the misty star field. The only sounds were those of insects. Where?

  Directly behind you, Barlo warned. Abruptly, one of the blobs moved, followed by the whinny of a horse. Ruff growled. Toby clapped a hand over his muzzle to silence him.

  "They're here in the gully," the rider shouted. Answering cries came from either side. A flashlight beam cut the darkness, swept downward to probe the thick underbrush. Below him Toby glimpsed a hound darting from side to side while sniffing the sandy wash. For a few sickening seconds the beam paused on the bush.

  Hurry, he urged. He pushed Ruff up the slope ahead of him, joined Barlo, and started swiftly toward the rocky hill. Looming in the night, it appeared farther than he'd remembered. Despite the alien's small stature, his curiously graceful lope produced a speed that Toby could scarcely equal. His own breath was a harsh whistle in his throat. Another beam swept the field ahead of them, moved back to pin them in its light.

  "There they are!" The shout was taken up along the line, followed by the sound of horses crashing through the thick brush. The sharp yelps of hounds sounded alarmingly near. Toby realized the distance was too great for them to cover before being overtaken.

  "We won't make it," he gasped. Barlo halted, whirled, and extended an arm. The dry grass behind them crackled into flames. He swept the ray back and forth to create long crescents of fire between them and their pursuers. The hounds halted short of the blaze, then ran back and forth sniffing at the ground as if seeking a new trail. The horsemen pulled up sharply beyond the flames. A voice shouted for them to halt.

  Hurry, commanded Barlo. With the sharp yelps of the hounds and the riders' oaths filling the air, they raced toward the distant rocky slopes.

  Toby knew that the sparse grass would burn for only a moment. The knowledge bent desperation to his speed. Flashlight beams caught and held them.

  Something whizzed past his ear, followed by a high cracking sound that reverberated throughout the hills.

  "They're shooting!" He shouted the warning almost before he realized what had happened. Barlo veered in a zigzag course, and Toby followed suit.

  Ruff raced at his side. The flashlights moved to keep them in their glare.

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  Several more shots zipped past them. He heard their angry splats against the rocks ahead. The weaving and bobbing of the flashlight beams told him the horsemen had crossed the fire lanes, were now thundering toward them.

  The rocks loomed ahead. The alien slowed slightly as he sought an opening in the all but impenetrable thicket that grew at the base of the hill.

  Caught again in the glare of the light beams, Toby had the sick feeling of being trapped.

  Here, Barlo commanded suddenly. Toby scooped up Ruff and followed the alien through a maze of mesquite and cactus to the barren granite boulders that lay in jumbled heaps on the side of the slope. The light beams splayed the rocks in an effort to locate them.

  Barlo moved nimbly along the base of the hill before angling upward between the giant outcrops. Toby marveled at how quickly and gracefully he moved. Glancing back, he saw the light beams probing the slopes where they had passed but moments before. Farther in the distance a faint crescent of glowing embers marked where the flames had consumed the sparse grass.

  Toby suddenly realized he was moving through the maze of twisted and jumbled rock almost as easily as the lithe figure ahead. But the night no longer was black! Instead, it held a curious dusk in which every detail in his visual field stood out with startling clarity. With it he had the eerie feeling of knowing just what did lie ahead. Puzzled, he pondered it, then suddenly grinned. He was seeing what lay ahead through Barlo's nocturnal vision! The alien was projecting what he saw into Toby's mind!

  Barlo paused at the top of the slope to look back. The flashlight beams still poked at the rocks far below, but the vigilantes apparently hadn't penetrated the thicket. Conscious that he was still holding Ruff, Toby put him down and sat on a rock to catch his breath. Barlo selected a small boulder and sat near him.

  "It was nip and tuck," he commented. "I believe that's what you call it."

  Toby's quick grin vanished. "They were trying to shoot us!"

  "Or frighten us into stopping."

  "Couldn't you read their minds?"

  "I didn't take the time to try," admitted Barlo.

  "It's a good thing you started that fire. If you hadn't, they'd have caught us for sure."


  "Ah, yes, a handy device."

  Toby leaned toward him. "It was wonderful seeing through your nocturnal vision. Everything was so clear. It took me a while to figure out why I wasn't stumbling all over myself."

  "Wonderful at night; not so wonderful at day," observed Barlo.

  "Because of our sun?"

  "I find the reddish hue more pleasant." He gestured toward the rocky shoulder of the hill. "I believe your grove lies in that direction."

  "It will be easier to go over the top of the hill. There's a ridge that runs toward it."

  Barlo gazed around. "You have a quite mountainous planet."

  "These are just hills. Don't you have mountains?"

  "Raamz is a very old planet. The forces of gradation have come nearly into balance. Aside from the structures that we ourselves have built, it is nearly flat." As Barlo spoke, Toby experienced a mental image of an enormous level plain covered by the awesome pink- tinted buildings. He remarked on the prevalence of the color.

  "Pink is quite pleasing to our eye," explained Barlo. "Most of our color variations lie in the red spectrum."

  Toby looked at the sky. "Can you see Zaree from here?"

  "Ah, you remember the name." Barlo looked pleased.

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  "Can you?" he persisted.

  "Yes, it can be seen, although it's not now above the horizon." Barlo hesitated. "I couldn't identify it unless you knew the name of the star."

  "I know some."

  Barlo eyed him intently. "You tend to locate them in groups, in what you call constellations."

  "Don't you?"

  "I'm afraid we code them differently, but your memory of the constellation you call Andromeda appears to fit." He described Zaree as reddish and very old, with the beauty that so often comes with age.

  "But each race is partial to its own sun," he admitted, "for each sun shapes the life of its planets."

  "How is that?" asked Toby. He thought he knew but asked anyway. Barlo explained that each life form was the result of its environment, which in turn was largely determined by the proximity of its sun, by the characteristics of the sun's radiation and temperature, by the gravitational pulls and stresses it levied on each planet.

  "The sun sculpts its planets, and each planet sculpts its life," he said, "but in the end everything goes back to the sun." He told Toby of planets that had two, three, and even four suns in their skies, but in such cases only one sun usually was dominant. Lost in contemplation, he spoke of the universe, occasionally projecting mental pictures into Toby's mind. There were green suns, blue suns, yellow suns, red suns -- suns of all sizes and colors. And beneath them on untold millions of planets were billions upon billions of life-forms, many unlike anything ever imagined on Earth. And of those billions of life-forms, only a few emerged into greatness; only a few climbed to the glittering stars. The races that succeeded were those that had adapted their bodies to the tool-making processes, their minds to abstract thought. But in the end, Barlo said, each race was responsible for its own destiny. The sun, the environment, and the processes of adaptation were but the tools, and many races with such tools had crumbled back into the recordless dust of their beginnings.

  "What of my race?" asked Toby humbly. His gaze fixed on a sweep of stars, Barlo was silent for a long moment. Toby had the uneasy feeling that the human race was being weighed in the balance.

  "There are those among you who possess the seeds of greatness," Barlo finally said.

  "How can you make that judgment?" he protested. "You've only seen a few of us."

  "I've also viewed your world through your mind and others," reminded Barlo, "and I've seen something of your cities. Your people have a saying that men are known by their works; there is much of magnificence in what I have seen."

  "We can go to the stars!" He spoke defiantly to conceal the fear that Barlo might think otherwise.

  Barlo merely said, "All things are possible for a race such as yours."

  They paused at the top of the hill to rest again. Far below, flashlights stabbed their beams among the canted boulders, and an occasional shout drifted up through the silent night. Toby reflected that Barlo's use of the ray gun probably had deterred the vigilantes from storming the slope. Whatever the reason, he saw no indication of pursuit.

  He focused his eyes on the dark pool that marked his home, gratified that no light showed. He had worried that the gunfire might have awakened his mother or Gramp and that he might have been missed. His mother would have called the sheriff for sure. He let his gaze wander. Aside from the headlights of an occasional car and the vigilantes below, there was no sign of activity of any kind.

  But there would be in the morning. Word of the tremendous explosion that had wrecked the alien's ship would bring a bigger mob than ever, perhaps even the FBI. What would happen if enough of the ship remained to identify it as alien to Earth? He dreaded to think of that.

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  He followed Barlo down the dark ridge, again following the nocturnal guidance projected into his mind. Now curiously subdued since the gunfire, Ruff followed at his side. Or did the dog sense the need for silence? There were so many things he didn't know. In view of all there was to be learned, he could envy Barlo his twenty thousand years.

  The eucalyptus grove loomed before them, a dark blotch jutted against the faint starlight. Toby's uneasiness swept back. "Do you believe the barn will be safe?" he asked.

  "Don't worry," counseled Barlo. "If anyone comes, I can hide among the trees." Despite his reassurance, Toby did worry. Now that the alien ship had been found and destroyed, the search would grow bigger than ever. And after tonight neither Cleator nor his vigilantes would ever rest. He wondered what they thought of the slight figure they'd caught in the flashlight beams.

  A dilapidated structure edged against the tall trees, the barn was all but lost in a welter of overhanging branches. "There used to be a lot of hay in the loft," said Toby.

  Barlo studied the ramshackle building. "It will be fine," he said.

  "I'll bring you some water in the morning."

  "Thank you." Barlo regarded him, his enormous violet eyes fixed and quiet. "You took an awful chance tonight."

  Toby returned his gaze. "Wouldn't you, under the same circumstances?"

  "I believe I would."

  "Lots of people would," declared Toby. "Gramp and the sheriff both would. Not everyone is like Cleator."

  "Your grandfather is a fine man." Barlo's gaze grew thoughtful. "Will you be safe?"

  Toby grinned. "Don't worry, I'll stick to the ditches."

  "Be careful." Barlo opened the creaking door and went inside. Ruff whimpered and wagged his tail.

  "Come on, boy," called Toby. "We have to get home."

  He was sneaking through the yard when he discerned movement near the back door and halted, startled. His hands were suddenly cold and clammy.

  "Toby?" Gramp's rail-thin figure detached itself from the deeper shadows and moved toward him. Toby's dark-adapted eyes saw that he was carrying his shotgun.

  "The vigilantes came," Toby whispered.

  "Thought so. What about the shootin'? It woke me up."

  "I think they were trying to scare us into giving ourselves up,"

  explained Toby. "None of the bullets came very close."

  "I'm going to sic Dan on those birds."

  "You can't." He felt a quick alarm.

  "I'm not goin' to have 'em shootin' around here," declared Gramp. "If there's any shootin', I'll do it. Where's Barlo?"

  "In the old Jackson shed."

  "Reckon it's safe?"

  "He can hide in the trees if anyone comes," explained Toby.

  "Where's the varmint now?"

  "Cleator? I'm not sure." Toby related the events of the night and added, "Barlo can't stay there very long. They'll find him for sure."

  "I wouldn't fret," advised Gramp. "He's a resourceful young fellow, even if he is ten thousand years old." Despite himself, Toby had to gri
n. Gramp was right, Barlo didn't seem at all old. But he did seem extremely resourceful.

  When he returned to bed, his thoughts were not of the alien or of Cleator but of the stars: of blue, green, yellow, orange, and red stars, and of the millions of planets that whirled around them, and of the billions and billions of different kinds of life Page 41

  scattered throughout the universe. But of that total, only a mere handful had ever seen other suns. It would be wonderful to visit some of the planets Barlo had told him about. And he would;

  he knew he would. A small voice inside his mind promised him he would just before he fell asleep.

  Or was that a dream?

  To the casual observer, there was little out of the ordinary about George Maxwell, which was the way Maxwell wanted it. Of middle height, fortyish, with neatly trimmed dark hair tinged with gray and a face unmarked by any distinguishing characteristic, he roomed in a small transients' hotel in downtown San Diego and patronized the nearby shops for his few needs. He also worked as a cook's helper in one of the palatial restaurants that overlooked San Diego Bay and the North Island Naval Air Station on the opposite shore.

  Yet in a way, George Maxwell was unusual. He was, in fact, Boris Drosdov, an agent of GRU -- Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie -- Russia's vast global military-intelligence/espionage apparatus.

  In the secluded hinterlands several hundred kilometers from Moscow, where he had been trained in an "American village" replete with supermarkets, dime stores, hamburger joints, motion-picture houses, and streets lined with

  Fords, Chevrolets, and other American-made cars, he had learned to speak English "the way Americans speak it in the West." He'd also acquired considerable knowledge of American dress, customs, habits, and the capitalistic system which in time, he was told, would fall with a resounding crash. It was there that the transformation from Boris Drosdov to George Maxwell had taken place; but it was purely a transformation of identity, not of political belief.