Her thoughts slid away from the restricted area. Should she go out for lunch or eat off the sandwich machine? And Riuku curled inside her mind and cursed her with his rapidly growing Earthwoman’s vocabulary.
At the end of the shift he had learned nothing. Nothing about the weapon, that is. He had found out a good deal about the sex life of Genus Homo—information that made him even more glad than before that his was a one- sexed race.
With work over and tools put away and Alice in the restroom gleefully thinking about the red Friday night tag she was slipping onto her ID badge, he was as far from success as ever. For a moment he considered leaving her, looking for another subject. But he’d probably not be able to find one. No, the only thing to do was stay with her, curl deep in her mind and go through the Shielding boost, and later on….
The line. Alice’s nervousness…. Oh, oh, there’s that guy with the meter—the one from maintenance. What’s he want?
“Whaddya mean, my shield’s low? How could it be?”… If he checks the tag I’ll be fired for sure. It’s a lot of nonsense anyway. The enemy is everywhere, they keep telling us. Whoever saw one of them? “No, honest, I didn’t notice anything. Can I help it if…. It’s okay, huh? It’ll pass….”
Down to fifteen per cent, the guy said. Well, that’s safe, I guess. Whew.
“Oh, hello, Paula. Whatcha talking about, what am I doing here tonight? Shut up….”
And then, in the midst of her thoughts, the pain, driving deep into Riuku, twisting at him, wrenching at him, until there was no consciousness of anything at all.
He struggled back. He was confused, and there was blankness around him, and for a moment he thought he’d lost contact altogether. Then he came into focus again. Alice’s thoughts were clearer than ever suddenly. He could feel her emotions; they were a part of him now. He smiled. The Shielding boost had helped him. Integration—much more complete integration than he had ever known before.
“But Pete, honey,” Alice said. “What did you come over to the gate for? You shouldn’t of done it.”
“Why not? I wanted to see you.”
“What if one of Susan’s pals sees us?”
“So what? I’m getting tired of checking in every night, like a baby. Besides, one of her pals did see us, last night, at the bar.”
Fear. What’ll she do? Susan’s a hellcat. I know she is. But maybe Pete’ll get really sick and tired of her. He looks it. He looks mad. I’d sure hate to have him mad at me….
“Let’s go for a spin, baby. Out in the suburbs somewhere. How about it?”
“Well—why sure, Pete….”
Sitting beside him in the copter. All alone up here. Real romantic, like something on the video. But I shouldn’t with him married, and all that. It’s not right. But it’s different, with Susan such a mean thing. Poor Petey….
Riuku prodded. He found it so much easier since the Shielding boost. If only these Earthmen were more telepathic, so that they could be controlled directly. Still, perhaps with this new integration he could accomplish the same results. He prodded again.
“Pete,” Alice said suddenly. “What are we working on, anyway?”
“What do you mean, working on?” He frowned at her.
“At the plant. All I ever do is sit there soldering plugs, and no one ever tells me what for.”
“Course not. You’re not supposed to talk about any part of the job except your own. You know that. The slip of a lip—”
“Can cost Earth a ship. I know. Quit spouting poster talk at me, Pete Ganley. The enemy isn’t even human. And there aren’t any around here.”
Pete looked over at her. She was pouting, the upper lip drawn under the lower. Someone must have told her that was cute. Well, so what—it was cute.
“What makes you think I know anything more than you do?” he said.
“Well, gee.” She looked up at him, so near to her in the moonlight that she wondered why she wanted to talk about the plant anyway. “You’re in Final Assembly, aren’t you? You check the whatsits before they go out.”
“Sure,” he said. No harm in telling her. No spies now, not in this kind of war. Besides, she was too dumb to know anything.
“It’s a simple enough gadget,” Pete Ganley said. “A new type of force field weapon that the enemy can’t spot until it hits them. They don’t even know there’s an Earth ship within a million miles, until Bingo!…”
She drank it in, and in her mind Riuku did too. Wonderful integration, wonderful. Partial thought control. And now, he’d learn the secret….
“You really want to know how it works?” Pete Ganley said. When she nodded he couldn’t help grinning. “Well, it’s analogous to the field set up by animal neurones, in a way. You’ve just got to damp that field, and not only damp it but blot it out, so that the frequency shows nothing at all there, and then—well, that’s where those Corcoran assemblies you’re soldering on come in. You produce the field….”
Alice Hendricks listened. For some reason she wanted to listen. She was really curious about the field. But, gee, how did he expect her to understand all that stuff? He sounded like her algebra teacher, or was it chemistry? Lord, how she’d hated school. Maybe she shouldn’t have quit.
… Corcoran fields. E and IR and nine-space something or other. She’d never seen Pete like this before. He looked real different. Sort of like a professor, or something. He must be real smart. And so—well, not good-looking especially but, well, appealing. Real SA, he had….
“So that’s how it works,” Pete Ganley said. “Quite a weapon, against them. It wouldn’t work on a human being, of course.” She was staring at him dreamy-eyed. He laughed. “Silly, I bet you haven’t understood a word I said.”
“I have too.”
“Liar.” He locked the automatic pilot on the copter and held out his arms. “Come here, you.”
“Oh, Petey….”
Who cared about the weapon? He was right, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She hadn’t even listened, hardly. She hadn’t understood.
And neither had Riuku.
Riuku waited until she’d fallen soundly asleep that night before he tried contacting Nagor. He’d learned nothing useful. He’d picked up nothing in her mind except more thoughts of Pete, and gee, maybe someday they’d get married, if he only had guts enough to tell Susan where to get off….
But she was asleep at last. Riuku was free enough of her thoughts to break contact, partially of course, since if he broke it completely he wouldn’t be able to get back through the Shielding. It was hard enough to reach out through it. He sent a painful probing feeler out into space, to the spot where Nagor and the others waited for his report.
“Nagor….”
“Riuku? Is that you?”
“Yes. I’ve got a contact. A girl. But I haven’t learned anything yet that can help us.”
“Louder, Riuku. I can hardly hear you….”
Alice Hendricks stirred in her sleep. The dream images slipped through her subconscious, almost waking her, beating against Riuku.
Pete, baby, you shouldn’t be like that….
Riuku cursed the bisexual species in their own language.
“Riuku!” Nagor’s call was harsh, urgent. “You’ve got to find out. We haven’t much time. We lost three more ships today, and there wasn’t a sign of danger. No Earthman nearby, no force fields, nothing. You’ve got to find out why.” Those ships just disappeared.
Riuku forced his way up through the erotic dreams of Alice Hendricks. “I know a little,” he said. “They damp their thought waves somehow, and keep us from spotting the Corcoran field.”
“Corcoran field? What’s that?”
“I don’t know.” Alice’s thoughts washed over him, pulling him back into complete integration, away from Nagor, into a medley of heroic Petes with gleaming eyes and clutching hands and good little Alices pushing them away—for the moment.
