In the Beginning (49 page)

Spalding felt himself growing limp. He had no will of his own remaining. His mind and body were fusing with that of the creature from Altair VI. He was being swept away on the tide.

“Marge….” he whimpered. “Marge….”

The Kennedy-thing laughed exultantly. “There! Finished!”

He released Spalding. Spalding staggered back, then straightened up suddenly.

He smiled at the Kennedy-thing. The union was complete. The entity Dave Spalding had been totally absorbed, and….replaced.

***

Downstairs, Marge waited impatiently. Five minutes had gone by, and Dave had not yet returned. She had thought she heard the sound of a scuffle upstairs. Were Ted and Dave fighting, she wondered? What if—

Oh, no,
she thought. Nothing serious could be going on up there. It was all her imagination, her feverishly overwrought imagination. But she wished Dave would hurry up down.

A moment later, she heard footsteps, and Dave appeared.

Marge looked up anxiously. “You were up there a long time. I was getting worried.”

Spalding shrugged. “He hadn’t gotten undressed yet when I came in. I had to wait until he took his shirt off—so I could see the scar.”

Marge frowned faintly. Dave’s voice—it sounded a bit hollow, and unnatural. The way—the way Ted’s voice had sounded. Prickles of fear crept along her spine. She tried to calm herself.

In a level voice she said, “He had it, didn’t he? The scar, I mean?”

“Of course. A big purple slash right across the side of his chest, where he got cut the time he climbed over the picket fence.”

“Eh?” Marge was surprised. “He—he told you how he got that scar?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sure,” Spalding said. “He told me all about it. How you and he were stealing apples years ago, and how the farmer came to chase you.” Spalding laughed. “He jumped over the fence, but he cut himself going over, and you were stuck in the orchard because you couldn’t get over the fence.”

Marge felt cold chills racing over her skin. Uncertainly she said, “He told you—
that?”

“Yes.”

“Funny,” she said. “He never would tell anyone that story. He was always so ashamed that he had left his kid sister behind when he tried to get away. He made me swear I would never tell anyone about it.”

“Well,” Spalding said, “he told me.”

“Five years does change a man, I guess.” Marge paused. Wild accusations rose up in her mind. But all this was too fantastic to consider. It made no sense.

She said, “Well, almost midnight, now. You’ll be useless in the morning if you don’t get some sleep now, Dave. Let’s turn in.”

“Just a minute, Marge,” Spalding said slowly.

Marge began to tremble. Her husband’s face was deathly pale, set in a strangely rigid mask. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Come here.”

“I
am
here. Dave, what’s—”

She took an uncertain step toward him. “No. Closer,” he said. “Let me hold you in my arms.”

Marge laughed hollowly. “Why get so lovey-dovey here in the living room, Dave? Let’s go upstairs and—Dave? You look so strange, Dave.”

“Let me hold you,” he said, his voice flat, toneless, mechanical.

Marge took a step away from him, now, clenching her fists to keep herself from screaming. “Dave—your eyes! You look different! What’s wrong with you, anyway? Something happened to you upstairs, I know it! What’s going on in this house?”

“Let me hold you, Marge!” Spalding said, more loudly, stepping toward her. His thick, muscular arms snaked out and met behind her back, drawing her to him in a rough, choking hug.

Tendrils of force reached out, searching, probing, absorbing….

“Let go of me!” Marge yelled, writhing in his tight grasp. “You’re holding me too tight, Dave! Are you drunk? That’s what it is! He has some otherworld liquor upstairs, and he gave you some. Dave, I can’t breathe—”

“Just one more moment, Marge,” Spalding said softly. “And then you’ll be one of us.”

She pummeled against his chest with her fists in an impotent attempt at freeing herself. But he held her tight, feeding on her, consuming the substance of Marge Spalding and transforming it.

“Dave, what are you doing to me?” she whimpered. “Dave, I don’t understand this. Please let go. I—you’re hurting me—”

“Only a moment more before absorption. Then you’ll be part of us, Marge, you and me and Ted, and then soon the whole world—”

“Dave! No!”

She screamed, high, shrill, filling the entire room with her voice.

“Quiet, Marge,” Spalding said.

She screamed again, louder this time—but the scream came to an abrupt halt before it had reached its peak of volume, and died away.

“That’s all there is to it, you see,” Spalding said gently, a few moments later, when the transformation was complete. “A few moments while our organism absorbs yours—then the split, and a new Marge Spalding appears.”

The creature that had been Marge Spalding nodded. “It’s very odd, isn’t it? I remember everything I ever did as Marge Spalding, clear and sharp. But I’m not Marge Spalding any more, am I? I’m—something else. Part of you, Dave. And of Ted. And of all the members of the crew of Ted’s ship.”

“And soon everyone in the world, too. All merged into
us.”

The form of Ted Kennedy came down the stairs. The spaceman stood at the foot of the stairs, taking in the scene.

“I see it’s all over. I waited to come down until you had converted her.”

“We’d better sleep now,” Spalding said. “Build up our energy. And then, tomorrow, every time one of us gets someone alone—”

“We convert him into
us,”
Marge said.

Kennedy nodded. “Simple. Quick. All this food waiting for us on this planet—billions of human beings we can convert. All ours!”

They gloated quietly, wordlessly for a moment. Then the doorbell chimed.

“At this hour!” the creature that had been Marge Spalding exclaimed.

“Answer it,” Kennedy said.

Spalding walked toward the door and opened it. A man in his middle fifties stood there, looking abashed and uncertain about having rung the bell so late at night.

“It’s Mr. Adams from next door,” Spalding said.

Adams said, in an apologetic voice, “Hello there, Mr. Spalding. I know it’s late at night, and I hope I’m not intruding—but I was just coming home from the movies, and as I passed by outside our house I seem to have heard screams, and I think they were coming from in here—”

“That’s right,” Spalding said calmly. “It was my wife Marge who was screaming.”

Adams blinked. “Mrs. Spalding? But you all seem so calm now—I mean, I guess everything’s under control—”

“Yes. Everything is under control,” Spalding said quietly.

“If that’s the case,” Adams said, “I guess I’ll just be going along on home, then. Sorry to have bothered you. Just that I thought you might be needing help—”

“We appreciate that very much, Mr. Adams. Wouldn’t you step in for a moment?”

“Oh, but it’s late, and you say everything’s under control—”

Spalding smiled. “All the same, if you’d come inside—”

“Yes, do come in,” Marge urged. “We’ll fix you a little nightcap.”

Adams hesitated doubtfully, wavering between his desire to be a good neighbor and his wish to get home and to bed. At length he said, “Well, just for a moment. I’ve always believed in being neighborly. Guess I’ll come in, if you’re nice enough to ask me.”

“We’re glad to have you, Mr. Adams. There—don’t stand in the hall. Come on in and close the door. This is my brother-in-law, Ted Kennedy.”

“How do you do,” Adams said, as Spalding closed the door. The little man looked around, suddenly confused. “Why—you all look so grim—”

Hands reached for him. Mr. Adams uttered half a cry of surprise before Spalding’s hand tightened over his mouth. The absorption began….

There was no stopping it. Mr. Adams was absorbed and transformed.

The hunger of the mimic of Altair VI was insatiable. Today, Mr. Adams; tomorrow, the universe….