Chapter VII

Lynne lay down on her simple cot and tried to flash a personal message through to Revere. But all she got was an increase of agony that almost blacked her out.

Then she tried to reach Rolf Marcein. Although she lacked the advantage of being high in her tower-post, the emotional urgency of the moment more than compensated for this adverse factor. She got through to him quickly, discovered his mind was open. So intense was his concentration that he seemed momentarily unaware of her probing.

He was sitting in a hospital room, an operating room, and Revere lay in front of him, stretched out on a surgical table. Sight of him made Lynne feel another wave of nausea. An anestherator had been attached to his nose and mouth and an alert nurse stood by the regulator. Revere's temples had been slit by twin incisions, from which tubes were attached to an odd and complex piece of machinery that seemed to support a visual-grid.

Rolf Marcein was digging at her twin mentally, at the same time seeking to receive whatever messages came from his tortured brain. Lynne could read Rolf's thoughts clearly as he waved to her twin, _Their shape--you of all of us must have received some vision of their appearance_. Crehut, _Fenlay, we've got to know how they think of themselves!_

* * * * *

Then came a chaotic jumble of answering thoughts from Revere's damaged brain. And even as she suffered sympathetic anguish Lynne understood that with full anesthesia the mind itself would be dulled so that no messages would be possible. It was a hideous moment.

_I'm trying, Rolf--I'm trying...._ In spite of the agony he was undergoing Lynne's brother was beginning to formulate his thoughts. Little by little a picture was building itself on the screen. It was a wispy fragmentary picture, like a vidarscreen suffering from old-fashioned television "ghosts." The figures he projected looked wispy, blurred, repeated side by side in overlapping focus.

Lynne noted that Rolf and the alert attendants present were using stereoscopic devices, forced herself to see through the mind of one of them, to learn the impressions they were getting of the infra-red portions of the picture.

It was like some of the images Lynne had seen earlier on the Martian mural--but all balled up. It looked like one of the near-human dominant species, yet had the multiple body of one of their disgusting pets. Its antics were even more suggestive than the mural.

Lynne quickly re-transferred herself. She remembered all at once what Tony Willis had told her about women being better able to resist the aliens than men. They were incredible, impossible, she thought, yet there was a hint of intense pleasure in their....

All at once she lost the entire image in a flash of worry, confusion and finally frustration. Yet her headache persisted, grew worse, and she got a definite impression that Revere was dying, that Rolf was mercilessly goading him on to destruction. Outraged, she tried to key furious thoughts in Rolf's direction--but so greatly was she herself suffering that she was unable to focus her powers.

Then, abruptly, the agony was over. Whatever had happened was finished, done with. Lynne sat up on her bed, feeling limp and sore all over, as if she had taken a physical beating. She ran an acti-comb through her blond hair, freshened up her looks generally, though she felt like the proverbial wrath of Satan, went out to the recreation room. At the moment she needed human company.

Through a window she saw that the sun was low in the west, looked in awe at the brilliant colors of the Martian sunset. Thanks to the thinner atmosphere and its high impregnation of dust, the brilliance far exceeded anything on Earth, even though the sun looked far-away and cold.

Someone offered her a colafizz, which she accepted gratefully. She tried to reach Revere but got only a wall of blankness. He was either unconscious--or dead, she decided. She didn't know whether to be relieved or grief-stricken at the prospect. True, Revere was her identical twin--yet she barely knew him, had no real close ties.

Then Lao appeared and under the artificial lighting of the chemilamps, Lynne was surprised to note how tired the Eurasio-Martian girl looked. She appeared thin enough to be blown away by the first breeze and there were deep purple circles under her slightly tilted black almond-eyes--yet the fingers that gripped her skinless cigarette were rock-steady.

She said, "They've done something to Revere, haven't they?"

"I think so," Lynne replied. "How did you know?"

"I felt it--until just lately," said Lao. "Most of us are somewhat telepathic on Mars. In moments of emotional stress especially."

"I'm not sure what's happened," Lynne told her. "They were trying to get him to record the shape of the invaders on a grid."

Lao's already pale face turned ashy-white. She whispered, "I _knew_ it! They've used the necro-recorder on him."

"What is it?" Lynne inquired.

"It's a Martian device--supposed to get impressions from the minds of dying men. It was used in the early days when we had more crime." There was sudden listlessness in her manner.

Lynne read her thoughts all too plainly. Lao Mei-O'Connell was stunned with grief. No one, it seemed, had ever survived treatment with this machine--survived to sanity at any rate. So Revere was dead--or as good as dead.

Lynne looked blankly at the Eurasian woman, utterly unable to think under the sudden shock of her words. And then, out of nowhere, came the fragment of a thought. _Don't give up the space-ship, Lynne--tell Lao I'm not completely batty yet._

It was Revere--unquestionably. Lynne tried to get him again but the blank wall was back. Only now, for some reason, it didn't seem so terrifying. She looked at Lao, who said, "You got something just now, Lynne. Was it...?"

Lynne nodded. "It was Revere. He--he asked me to tell you he's okay--not completely batty yet was the way he put it."

For a moment doubt blanked Lao's face. Then she smiled and looked on the verge of passing out herself. She said, "I might not have believed you, Lynne. But that phrase--it's--well, it's the way he would have said it."

"It was Revere," Lynne repeated. She looked at the chronometer above the door of the room, realized it was getting late. "I've barely got time to eat dinner," she said. "I don't want to miss my shift."

"No, you don't," the other told her. "There might be a message."

"Why not share it with me?" Lynne offered. "I could use some company."

Lao shook her head regretfully. "I've got a million things to do here," she said. Then, with the ghost of a smile lighting her exotic features, "Besides, I'd be afraid it might be bad news."

"I'll send you a message via the ground-communicator the second I learn anything," Lynne told her. Then the two women went in to dine at the head table. They were two islands of preoccupation amid the rough good-humored gaiety of the room. It was Saturday night at Barkutburg and there was going to be a dance.

Lynne found herself wondering at the morals of her new companions. They certainly didn't seem backward about sex--and the planet-wide dislike of privacy seemed to extend into even their most intimate personal relationships. Yet when Lynne thought about Janet Downes and certain other young men and women of the supposedly more civilized home planet, she decided the Martians were probably the nicer. At any rate they lived their emotional lives right out in the open.

For the first time since her first few days on the red planet she felt alone as she stepped off the uplift and entered her listening and message-post, high in the crystal tower. There was something frightening about sitting alone in this ruined building with the wind making its night sounds through the flying buttresses about her and what appeared like the whole of Mars stretched out in panorama before her.

It had looked desolate enough in the daylight. Now, with the stars blazing an enigmatic backdrop, it looked dark--and twice as desolate. Lynne found herself wondering what strange and fearsome caravans, what hideous battles and frightful plagues, had passed within view of her post. She seemed to see again the strange capering figures of the murals and bas-reliefs, and of the vision-grid she had viewed telepathically that afternoon in the distant hospital room at New Samarkand.

She told herself she was getting the jams, sent a tune-up message through to Cathayville. Though the telepathic operator should have been on duty there was no response. She reached out further to locate Revere, could not get to him, found Rolf. He told her, _Lay off, you_ marlet, _Lynne. You nearly jammed the works this afternoon._

_How is Revere?_ She was insistent.

_In coma--and hereafter use the proper channels, Lynne. You're supposed to key all messages for New Samarkand through Cathayville._

_Cathayville fails to answer_, she informed him.

_Cease sending at once! Cease sending at once, Lynne. If Cathayville is out it means.... Cease sending at once!_

_What does if mean?_ Lynne was unused to Martian directness, unused to taking peremptory orders, especially from a man. She had no intention of obeying before she was good and ready and....

Suddenly they were there, all around her. Thanks to having viewed the murals and the scene on the visual-grid that afternoon she was able to get some idea of their nature--or what had been their nature before a dying globe had driven them to seek the refuge of pure thought and feeling-forms.

First one of them came fluttering into the room, like some giant invisible moth, then came another and another and another until she lost count. They were gay for some reason and nibbled at her mind like moths nibbling at wool in a closet.

Worse, now that she had allowed them into her brain she was unable to drive them out. They darted away, amused, just beyond the reach of her questing probe. Then they came back, doing their strange dances and whispering outrageous suggestions. Alien or not they had definite erotic appeal, that awakened in Lynne responses she had never before suspected she possessed.

_What kind of creature_ am _I?_ she thought hysterically after a particularly ingenious lascivious mental embrace. And then, from some hidden source, she drew the strength to fight. She concentrated as never before in her life--even while working with the group-machine--and little by little began to win the battle with the aliens.

_You'll regret it--just let us have the loan of your body and we'll show you joys you have never dreamt of._ The thoughts pounded at her head with frail persistent powdery punches, that promised to win through sheer weight of numbers what they lacked in power.

But Lynne forced herself to think of kindly prosaic Mother Weedon. At once, seizing upon her thought, the invaders suggested all sorts of indecent sports for that mature lady. And the very idea of Mother Weedon indulging in such pursuits was so absurd that Lynne was unable to resist laughing out loud.

At once the creatures were gone. They were unable to stand the brain waves of ridicule. Lynne wondered about it. For the moment she felt carried aloft on a wave of high excitement at her victory. She tried to code through a message to Rolf Marcein through the proper Cathayville channel.

Cathayville had been attacked earlier in the evening and for awhile the telepath on duty had been forced to keep his mind resolutely shut, lest he fall prey to the enemy. Repulsed, they had moved on to Barkutburg and Lynne. She gave the message for relay, received information to the effect that Rolf Marcein's current whereabouts were unknown and that he was maintaining a closed mind to all messages and was therefore not to be reached.

Lynne felt terribly alone at this message and the invaders chose that moment, while her mind was still open, to return in greater force. This time Lynne found herself in actual pain. Their promise was no longer mere physical pleasure--although their abandonment of bodies had unquestionably led them to overstress the joys of the flesh. Now they promised pain unless Lynne were to give way to them, the sort of pain, a thousand times magnified, that she had felt sympathetically while Revere was enduring similar attack.

She tried to concentrate on Mother Weedon but the creatures were not to be fooled twice by the same ruse. This time it was their laughter that hurt. Lynne cast about wildly for help from any telepath within mental reach, lest she actually surrender body and mind to their control. She even tried to reach Lao Mei-O'Connell but the Eurasian woman was not telepathic enough to respond to the appeal.

Then, as she was about to give up, support reached her. Revere was sending to her, helping her to steady herself. She could sense his complete exhaustion, felt concern for him even while she accepted gratefully his mental powers of assistance. Only such a relationship as theirs, she realised, could cope with the blanketing torment of the invaders.

He was telling her something, that Rolf and the others had compiled some sort of error that afternoon from the vision-grid. The thought ran, _They think they know what the creatures are now but they don't. Even I don't. My images were mixed. They are not the dominant near-human species we thought but something else...._

Slowly his thoughts faded once more, unable to hold out against the fatigue that was plaguing him. But his hopeless message of defeat had sprung a fresh thought-train in Lynne's mind, one that so occupied her attention she was able to hold the invaders at bay almost without effort.

She recalled the murals--the near-human looking dominants and their pets with the disgusting dual bodies and vile games and many-faceted eyes. She thought back to what Revere had just said via thought-waves--_They are not the dominant near-human species we thought but something else...._

She saw once more, in clear memory-vision, the telepathic picture that had come to her of Rolf and Revere and the visual-grid. No wonder the pictures had looked foggy and full of "ghosts." In his mind's eye, limited by the fixed belief of Mars that only the dominant species could have survived in invisible form, Revere had tried to project these near-humans onto the screen.

Inwardly, subconsciously, he had known better. The dominant species had _not_ survived--on Mars at any rate. It was the horrid little creatures with the multi-faceted eyes and the capuchin-like heads and the dual bodies that had managed to shed their corporate existence and still maintain life of a sort. The masters had gone--the beasts remained....

Lynne felt a wave of delight at her discovery, realised it was more a result of her not having been inhibited by the traditions of Martian conditioning than through any genius of her own. For an instant she let down the bars of her mind--and the invaders, hovering unseen about her in the tower-room, came swarming in for their third and fiercest attack. They knew she had guessed their nature, were determined to prevent Lynne from making the discovery clear to other humans. For they too were telepathic.