The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (60 page)

“I said get her out of here!” shouted Speidel. He rose half out of his chair, turned to Langsmith who sat in pale silence. “And I want a thorough investigation! I want to know where the security leak was that put her wise to our plans.”

“Watch yourself!” snapped Langsmith.

Speidel took two deep breaths, sank back.

They're insane,
thought Francine.
Insane and pushed into a corner. With that kind of fragmentation they could slip into catatonia or violence.
She felt weak and afraid.

Others around the table had arisen. Two civilians moved up beside Francine. “Shall we lock her up, general?” asked one.

Speidel hesitated.

Langsmith spoke first: “No. Just keep her under very close surveillance. If we locked her up, it would arouse questions that we don't want to answer.”

Speidel glowered at Francine. “If you give us away, I'll have you shot!” He motioned to have her taken out of the room.

When she emerged from the headquarters building, Francine's mind still whirled.
Lies!
she thought.
All lies!

She felt the omnipresent sand grate under her feet. Dust hazed the concourse between her position on the steps and the spaceship a hundred yards away. The morning sun already had burned off the night chill of the desert. Heat devils danced over the dun surface of the ship.

Francine ignored the security agent loitering a few steps behind her, glanced at her wristwatch: nine-twenty.
Hiko will be wondering what's happened to me,
she thought.
We were supposed to get started by eight.
Hopelessness gripped her mind. The spaceship looming over the end of the concourse appeared like a malignant growth—an evil thing crouched ready to envelope and smother her.

Could that fool general be right?
The thought came to her mind unbidden. She shook her head.
No! He was lying! But why did he want me to …
Delayed realization broke off the thought.
They wanted me to take a small bomb inside the ship, but there was no mention of my escaping! I'd have had to stay with the cart and the bomb to allay suspicions. My God! Those beasts expected me to commit suicide for them! They wanted me to blame the Galactics for Bob's death! They tried to build a lie in my mind until I'd fall in with their plan. It's hard enough to die for an ideal, but to give up your life for a lie …

Anger coursed through her. She stopped on the steps, stood there shivering. A new feeling of futility replaced the anger. Tears blurred her vision.
What can one lone woman do against such ruthless schemers?

Through her tears, she saw movement on the concourse: a man in civilian clothes crossing from right to left. Her mind registered the movement with only partial awareness:
Man stops, points.
She was suddenly alert, tears gone, following the direction of the civilian's extended right arm, hearing his voice shout: “Hey! Look at that!”

A thin needle of an aircraft stitched a hurtling line across the watery desert sky. It banked, arrowed toward the spaceship. Behind it roared an airforce jet—delta wings vibrating, sun flashing off polished metal. Tracers laced out towards the airship.

Someone's attacking the spaceship!
she thought.
It's a Russian ICBM!

But the needle braked abruptly, impossibly, over the spaceship. Behind it, the air force jet's engine died, and there was only the eerie whistling of air burning across its wings.

Gently, the needle lowered itself into a fold of the spaceship.

It's one of theirs—the Galactics',
she realized.
Why is it coming here now? Do they suspect attack? Is that some kind of reinforcement?

Deprived of its power, the jet staggered, skimmed out to a dust-geyser, belly-landing in the alkali flats. Sirens screamed as emergency vehicles raced toward it.

The confused sounds gave Francine a sudden feeling of nausea. She took a deep breath and stepped down to the concourse, moving without conscious determination, her thoughts in a turmoil. The grating sand beneath her feet was like an emery surface rubbing her nerves. She was acutely conscious of an acrid, burning odor, and she realized with a sudden stab of alarm that her security guard still waited behind her on the steps of the administration building.

Vaguely, she heard voices babbling in the building doorways on both sides of the concourse—people coming out to stare at the spaceship and off across the flats where red trucks clustered around the jet.

A pebble had worked its way into her right shoe. Her mind registered it, rejected an urge to stop and remove the irritant. An idea was trying to surface in her mind. Momentarily she was distracted by a bee humming across her path. Quite inanely her mind dwelt on the thought that the insect was too commonplace for this moment. A mental drunkenness made her giddy. She felt both elated and terrified.
Danger! Yes: terrible danger,
she thought.
Obliteration for the entire human race.
But something had to be done. She started to run.…

An explosion rocked the concourse, threw her stumbling to her hands and knees. Sand burned against her palms. Dumb instinct brought her back to her feet. Another explosion—farther away to the right, behind the buildings. Bitter smoke swept across the concourse. Abruptly men lurched from behind the buildings on the right, slogging through the sand toward the spaceship.

Civilians! Possibly—and yet they moved with the purposeful unity of soldiers.

It was like a dream scene to Francine. The men carried weapons. She stopped, saw the gleam of sunlight on metal, heard the peculiar crunch-crunch of men running in sand. Through a dreamy haze she recognized one of the runners: Zakheim. He carried a large black box on his shoulders. His red hair flamed out in the group like a target.

The Russians!
she thought.
They've started their attack! If our people join them now, it's the end!

A machine-gun stuttered somewhere to her right. Dust puffs walked across the concourse, swept into the running figures. Men collapsed, but others still slogged toward the spaceship. An explosion lifted the leaders, sent them sprawling. Again, the machine-gun chattered. Dark figures lay on the sand like thrown dominoes. But still a few continued their mad charge.

MPs in American uniforms ran out from between the buildings on the right. The leaders carried submachine-guns.

We're stopping the attack,
thought Francine. But she knew the change of tactics did not mean a rejection of violence by Speidel and the others. It was only a move to keep the Russians from taking the lead. She clenched her fists, ignored the fact that she stood exposed—a lone figure in the middle of the concourse. Her senses registered an eerie feeling of unreality.

Machine-guns renewed their chatter and then—abrupt silence. But now the last of the Russians had fallen. Pursuing MPs staggered. Several stopped, wrenched at their guns.

Francine's shock gave way to cold rage. She moved forward, slowly at first and then striding. Off to the left someone shouted: “Hey! Lady! Get down!” She ignored the voice.

There on the sand ahead was Zakheim's pitiful crumpled figure. A gritty redness spread around his chest.

Someone ran from between the buildings on her left, waved at her to go back.
Hiko!
But she continued her purposeful stride, compelled beyond any conscious willing to stop. She saw the red-headed figure on the sand as though she peered down a tunnel.

Part of her mind registered the fact that Hiko stumbled, slowing his running charge to intercept her. He looked like a man clawing his way through water.

Dear Hiko,
she thought.
I have to get to Zak. Poor foolish Zak. That's what was wrong with him the other day at the conference. He knew about this attack and was afraid.

Something congealed around her feet, spread upward over her ankles, quickly surged over her knees. She could see nothing unusual, but it was as though she had ploughed into a pool of molasses. Every step took terrible effort. The molasses pool moved above her hips, her waist.

So that's why Hiko and the MPs are moving so slowly,
she thought.
It's a defensive weapon from the ship. Must be.

Zakheim's sprawled figure was only three steps away from her now. She wrenched her way through the congealed air, panting with the exertion. Her muscles ached from the effort. She knelt beside Zakheim. Ignoring the blood that stained her skirt she took up one of his outstretched hands, felt for a pulse. Nothing. Now, she recognized the marks on his jacket. They were bullet holes. A machine-gun burst had caught him across the chest. He was dead. She thought of the big garrulous redhead, so full of blooming life only minutes before.
Poor foolish Zak.
She put his hand down gently, shook the tears from her eyes. A terrible rage swelled in her.

She sensed Ohashi nearby, struggling toward her, heard him gasp: “Is Zak dead?”

Tears dripped unheeded from her eyes. She nodded. “Yes, he is.” And she thought:
I'm not crying for Zak. I'm crying for myself … for all of us … so foolish, so determined, so blind
 …

“
EARTH PEOPLE
!” The voice roared from the spaceship, cutting across all thought, stilling all emotion into a waiting fear, “
WE HAD HOPED YOU COULD LEARN TO COMMUNICATE
!” roared the voice. “
YOU HAVE FAILED
!”

Vibrant silence.

Thoughts that had been struggling for recognition began surging to the surface of Francine's mind. She felt herself caught in the throes of a mental earthquake, her soul brought to a crisis as sharp as that of giving birth. The crashing words had broken through a last barrier in her mind.
“COMMUNICATE!”
At last she understood the meaning of the ultimatum.

But was it too late?

“No!” she screamed. She surged to her feet, shook a fist at the ship. “Here's one who didn't fail! I know what you meant!” She shook both fists at the ship. “See my hate!”

Against the almost tangible congealing of air she forced her way toward the now silent ship, thrust out her left hand toward the dead figures on the sand all around her! “You killed these poor fools! What did you expect from them? You did this! You forced them into a corner!”

The doors of the spaceship opened. Five green-skinned figures emerged. They stopped, stood staring at her, their shoulders slumped. Simultaneously, Francine felt the thickened air relax its hold upon her. She strode forward, tears coursing down her cheeks.

“You made them afraid!” she shouted. “What else could they do? The fearful can't think.”

Sobs overcame her. She felt violence shivering in her muscles. There was a terrible desire in her—a need to get her hands on those green figures, to shake them, hurt them, “I hope you're proud of what you've done.”

“
QUIET
!” boomed the voice from the ship.

“I will not!” she screamed. She shook her head, feeling the wildness that smothered her inhibitions. “Oh, I know you were right about communicating … but you were wrong, too. You didn't have to resort to violence.”

The voice from the ship intruded on a softer tone, all the more compelling for the change: “Please?” There was a delicate sense of pleading to the word.

Francine broke off. She felt that she had just awakened from a lifelong daze, but that this clarity of thought-cum-action was a delicate thing she could lose in the wink of an eye.

“We did what we had to do,” said the voice. “You see our five representatives there?”

Francine focused on the slump-shouldered Galactics. They looked defeated, radiating sadness. The gaping door of the ship a few paces behind was like a mouth ready to swallow them.

“Those five are among the eight hundred survivors of a race that once numbered six billion,” said the voice.

Francine felt Ohashi move up beside her, glanced sidelong at him, then back to the Galactics. Behind her, she heard a low mumbling murmur of many voices. The slow beginning of reaction to her emotional outburst made her sway. A sob caught in her throat.

The voice from the ship rolled on: “This once great race did not realize the importance of unmistakable communication. They entered space in that sick condition—hating, fearing, fighting. There was appalling bloodshed on their side and—ours—before we could subdue them.”

A scuffing sound intruded as the five green-skinned figures shuffled forward. They were trembling, and Francine saw glistening drops of wetness below their crests. Their eyes blinked. She sensed the aura of sadness about them, and new tears welled in her eyes.

“The eight hundred survivors—to atone for the errors of their race and to earn the right of further survival—developed a new language,” said the voice from the ship. “It is, perhaps, the ultimate language. They have made themselves the masters of all languages to serve as our interpreters.” There was a long pause, then: “Think very carefully, Mrs. Millar. Do you know why they are our interpreters?”

The held breath of silence hung over them. Francine swallowed past the thick tightness in her throat. This was the moment that could spell the end of the human race, or could open new doors for them—and she knew it.

“Because they cannot lie,” she husked.

“Then you have truly learned,” said the voice. “My original purpose in coming down here just now was to direct the sterilization of your planet. We thought that your military preparations were a final evidence of your failure. We see now that this was merely the abortive desperation of a minority. We have acted in haste. Our apologies.”

The green-skinned Galactics shuffled forward, stopped two paces from Francine. Their ridged crests drooped, shoulders sagged.

“Slay us,” croaked one. His eyes turned toward the dead men on the sand around them.