“Isn’t it time you confided in your wife just what the hell is going on?”
“Pardon me, light of my life, I just had a bad moment there.” I drained the glass and forced a smile. “It started when I whispered to the nearest admiral. One look at me and he called the guards. So I shot him.”
“One less to rescue,” she said with satisfaction.
“Not quite. I used a sleeping needle. No one heard what he said so I slipped away and the opening is sealed, but that is not what is bothering me.”
“I know you haven’t been drinking, but you don’t sound too lucid.”
“Sorry. It was the admiral. When he dropped over I saw his wrists. There were red marks like scars around both of them.”
“So?” she asked in obvious puzzlement—then her face went suddenly pale. “No, it couldn’t possibly be?”
I nodded slowly, finding it impossible to smile. “The gray men. I could recognize their handiwork anywhere.”
The gray men. Just thinking of them sent a chill down my back—a back, I must add, that is not chill-prone very often. While I am strong and brave and stand up to the physical batterings of life quite well, I, like all of us, find it hard to resist direct assaults on my gray matter. The brain has no defenses once the inputs of the body have been bypassed. Plug an electrode into the pleasure center of an experimental animal’s brain and it keeps pushing the button that supplies the electric fix until it dies of hunger or thirst. Dies happily.
Some years ago, while involved in straightening out a little matter of interplanetary invasion, I had been cast in the role of experimental animal. I had been captured and secured—and had seen both of my hands cut off at the wrists. Then had lost consciousness and, when I came to, had seen the hands apparently sewn back on. With scars just like those the admiral had been sporting.
But my hands had never been cut off. The scene had been imprinted directly into my brain. Yet for me it had happened, along with a number of other loathsome things which are better forgotten.
“The gray men must be here,” I said. “Working with the aliens. No wonder the admirals are cooperating. Being firmly structured in the physical world of commands and obedience, they are perfect targets for brain stomping.”
“You must be right—but how is it possible? The aliens hate all humans and certainly wouldn’t work with the gray men. Nasty as they are, they are still human.”
As soon as she said it that way I saw the answer clearly. I smiled and embraced her and kissed her, which we both enjoyed, then held her at arm’s length since she was a great distraction to clear thought.
“Now hear this, my love. I think I see a way out of this entire mess. All of the details aren’t clear—but I know what you must do. Could you bring the boys and a crowd of those Cill Airne back here? Go up through the floor, shoot the guards, put the admirals to sleep, then carry them away?”
“I could arrange that, but it would be a little dangerous. How would we get them clear?”
“That’s what I will take care of. If I had this entire planet in a turmoil, no one knowing what was happening next or who to take orders from or anything—would that make the job easier?”
“It would certainly simplify things. What do you plan to do?”
“If I told you you might say that it was too dangerous and would forbid me. Let me say only that it must be done and that I am the only one to do it. I am off in my alien disguise and you have two hours to assemble the troops. As soon as things start falling apart make your move. Get them all to some safe spot, preferably near the spacedrome. I’ll get back to my sleeping quarters as soon as I can. Have a guide waiting there for me. But make sure that he knows that he is to wait no more than one hour for me to show up. What I have to do will be done by that time and I will get back. There should be no problems. But if there is and I’m not there he is to report right back to you. I can take care of myself as you know. And we can’t jeopardize everything by waiting for one person. When the guide reports back with or without me, you go. Grab a spaceship then at the height of the confusion and leave this place.”
“And about time too. I’ll expect you back.” She kissed me but did not look happy. “You’re not going to tell me what you are going to do?”
“No. If I told you I would have to listen too and then I might not do it. But it does involve three things. Finding the gray men, turning them over to our alien friends—then getting out of it myself.”
“Well you do that. But don’t skip any of the steps—particularly the last one.”
We climbed into our various disguises and departed quickly before we changed our minds. Angelina clattered off with knowledgeable tread and I thudded off in the opposite direction. I thought I knew the way but must have made a wrong turning. Looking for a shortcut back to the upper levels, I managed to fall through a rusted plate in the decking into what must have been a covered-over lake or underground reservoir. In any case I thrashed on for quite awhile in the darkness, my course lit only by my glowing eyes, until I found the far end. There was no obvious way out but I settled that by dropping a grenade from my cloaca and flicking it against the wall with a twitch of my tail. It crumped nicely and I crawled through the smoky opening back into the light of day. Just in time to see an officer with a patrol of nasties trotting up to see what was the trouble.
“Help, ohh help, please,” I moaned, staggering in small circles with my claws pressed to my forehead. Thankfully, the officer was also a TV-news watcher.
“Sweet Sleepery—what is bothering you?” it cried aloud emotionally, showing me about five thousand rotten fangs and a meter or two of damp purple throat.
“Treachery! Treachery in our midst,” I cried. “Send a message to your CO to order an emergency meeting of the War Council—then take me there at once.”
It was done instantly, and they took me at my word by wrapping a thousand sucker-tipped tentacles around me and rushing me off my feet. This made the trip easier, and saved my batteries, and I was refreshed and relaxed when they finally dropped me at the door to the conference room.
“You are all repugnant lads, and I shall never forget you,” I shouted. They cheered and slapped their suckers against the deck with wet shlurping sounds and I galloped into the conference.
“Treason, treachery, betrayal!” I cried.
“Take your seat and make your statement in the proper form after the meeting is correctly opened,” the secretary said. But a thing like a purple whale with terminal hemorrhoids was more sympathetic.
“Gentle Jeem, you seem disturbed. We have heard that there has been mayhem in your quarters, and all we can find of the noble Gar-Baj is his tail which doesn’t say very much. Can you elucidate?”
“I can—and will, if the secretary will let me.”
“Ohh, get on with it then,” the secretary grumbled ungraciously, looking more and more like a squashed black frog with every passing moment. “Meeting called to order, Sleepery Jeem speaking re certain grave charges.”
“It’s like this,” I explained to the attentive War Council. “We of Geshtunken have certain rare abilities—in addition to being inordinately sexy, I mean.” They appreciated this last and there was a lot of squishy banging on the furniture and wet smacking sounds. “Thank you, and the same to you. Now one thing we can do is smell very good—yes, I know, we smell good too, sit down boy, you’re in the way. As I was saying, my keen sense of smell led me to believe that there was something not strictly kosher about this planet. I sniffed and sniffed well—and I sniffed out humans!”
Through the cries of shocked horror I heard shouts of “Cill Airne!” and I acknowledged them with a nod of my head.
“No, not the Cill Airne, the natives of this planet. I detected their traces at once, but they are like mouse droppings and I know the extermination corps is surely taking good care of them. No, I mean humans right here in our midst! We have been penetrated!”
That rocked them back and I let them shout and writhe a bit while I sharpened my claws with a file. Then I raised my paws for silence and there it was in an instant. Every eye, large, small, stalked, green, red or soggy, was on me. I walked slowly forward.
“Yes. They are among us. Humans. Doing their best to sabotage our lovely war of extermination. And I am going to reveal one to you—rightnow!”
My legs’ motors hummed and my power plant grew warm as I sprang into the air with a mighty leap. Sailing in an arc through the air, twenty meters or more. Graceful too. Landing with a horrible crunch that set my shock absorbers groaning. Dropping down crash onto the secretary’s desk which crushed nicely. Paws extended so that my claws sank through the secretary’s damp black hide. Picking him up and waving him about as he writhed and shouted.
“You’re mad. Let me down! I’m no more human than you are!”
That was what made my mind up. Up until this moment it had all been guesswork. The gray men were here, they must be disguised, and the only four-limbed creature other than myself was the secretary. In the position of power to run things, the only really organized alien I had yet encountered. But it was still just guesswork until he had spoken. Roaring with victory I hooked a recently sharpened claw into the front of his throat.
Dark liquid spurted out and he screamed hoarsely.
I gulped and almost hesitated. Was I wrong? Was I going to dismember the secretary of the War Council right in front of the council itself? I had a feeling they would not take that too well. No! It was for only a microsecond that I hesitated—then I tore on. I had to be right. I ripped out his throat, delicately sliced all around his neck—then tore his head off.
There was a shocked silence as the head bounced and squashed on the floor. Then a gasp from all sides. Inside the first head there was another head. A small, pallid, scowling human head. The secretary was a gray man.
While the council was shocked into immobility the gray man was not. He pulled a gun from a gill slit and leveled it at me. Which of course I had been expecting and I brushed it aside. I was not as quick when he grabbed out a microphone from his other gill and began shouting into it in a strange language.
I wasn’t as fast because this was just what I wanted him to do. I gave him more than enough time to get out the message before I grabbed away the microphone. Then he kicked out and got me in the stomach and I folded, gasping and unmoving as he vanished through a trapdoor in the floor.
Recovering quickly I waved away all offers of aid.
“Care not for me,” I croaked, “for the blow was mortal. Avenge me! Send out the alarm to grab all the other black ploppies like the secretary. Let none escape! Go now!”
They went, and I had to roll aside before I was trampled in the rush. Then I thrashed and expired, in case anyone was watching, and peeked through one half-closed eyelid until they were all gone.