Hogan's voice rasped, "There's nothing there, Tony. Not a damn thing in a single one of these pictures." Hogan turned from the screen. "Have a look yourself."
"That can't be," Tony said, sliding into the seat. He felt his chest tighten. Following the debriefing on their survey, they had been expecting these pictures to support their assertion that something—possibly a survivor of the alien ship—was moving about in the area. Their alarm had been taken seriously; the skipper had doubled the outside guard. But what was on the screen now, translated from the storage chip in the binocs, was a series of clear shots of the plain, exactly as he had taken them—with a crucial difference. The plain was empty. There was no figure of shadow, nothing that looked as though it were moving, nothing to indicate that they had seen anything except gently rolling hills and grassland.
Tony swallowed. He replayed each shot, fiddling with the enhancements. It made no difference. There was nothing there. He looked up at Hogan, stunned. "We saw something, though. We saw it."
"Yeah." Hogan caught his hands on an overhead console and rested his forehead against his arm. "Look—are you sure you got it in the frame?"
"I saw, I snapped," Tony said angrily. "I got it if it was there to get. If the camera could see it."
Hogan nodded. "Okay. Just making sure."
Tony stared at him. "We all saw it. We felt it. There's no question—something was there. I don't know what. But it was there."
Hogan straightened up. "Right. Well, the skipper's going to want to know what it was. Which means he'll be sending us out again, probably first thing in the morning. This time, bring your nobblies."
Tony nodded, remembering the alive-looking shadows that they had seen running across the plain, and the fear that had accompanied them. He wanted to discover the cause of that fear, but the thought of going back out there gave him chills.
"Something wrong?"
Tony looked up again. "No. I was just thinking about—" The words caught in his throat, and he found himself saying something altogether different. "What about tonight? We don't know what could be coming this way."
"We're not going out there in the dark."
"Lord, no. But what about the guards? Shouldn't they—" Tony swallowed. "Shouldn't they have the nobblies? Or shouldn't I—"
"You want to stand sentry duty, is that what you're saying?"
"Want to?" Tony laughed hollowly. "Hardly. But the nobblies should be out there, probably . . . and I suppose that means . . . me." He closed his eyes, his pulse fluttering weakly at the thought.
Hogan stared back at him. "You're probably right. I'll talk to the commander when I can. He's busy now—they just got through to Aleph." Hogan started to turn. "If you want to check me out on the gear, I'll take shifts with you. You can't sit out there all night with it."
Tony nodded. Their eyes met, and Tony knew that they were thinking the same thing. Hogan didn't want to be out there any more than he did. But someone had to be on watch, and his nobblies could be the best sentry they had. But as Hogan left, he found himself thinking, Even if I spot something, will I know how to read it? What makes me so qualified?
* * *
The Argus night seemed preternaturally quiet, despite noise from within the lander and the sentries muttering among themselves. It was a frightening inner quiet that made Tony wish he were almost anywhere else.
He remained uneasy about the flash that had been reported a while ago, near the north horizon. There was still no explanation, but it was presumed to have been alien activity. Tony, and everyone else on the lander, had been stunned by the news from Aleph that they had flown unwittingly into a war zone. Every alien action now was cause for fear.
Tony focused on his equipment, set up under the nose of the lander. Hogan would be out in a few minutes to be coached in the use of the nobblies—something Tony realized now he should have done earlier, with as many people as possible. Never mind that now, he thought. Just get it working.
He adjusted the headset and keyed himself into the circuit, along with the nobblie plant cells that formed the heart of the unit. He felt an immediate jangling commotion of feelings—nervousness, weariness, fear—like stepping from a silent forest into a crowded room. He grimaced as he touched a filter control to mute the noise. How many times had Mung reminded him to turn on the filters first? He never could remember to do that.
It took a minute or so of careful adjustment to suppress the human presences. Then he began scanning the area. It was difficult at first to tell what he was picking up. There was a low-level background hum, almost unnoticeable at first, like the whisper of a ventilator. That was probably the local flora—grasses, and perhaps microbial life. He probed for irregularities in the murmur. Finding none, he filtered it out, leaving virtual silence. Then he began to extend the range, scanning beyond the immediate area.
He had no good calibration for distance, since his testing had been confined to the lab; but he could alter the relative range. He stretched his senses, listening anxiously, trying to shut out the sounds his ears were bringing into his brain. There was another low sort of whisper, perhaps a different form of plant life, he couldn't quite tell . . .
"Tony."
He jumped . . . and caught his breath. It was Hogan. "Jesus, you scared me half to death!"
Hogan chuckled grimly. "I thought this thing was supposed to tell you when sentient beings were approaching."
"Yeah, well . . . sentient . . ."
"No wisecracks. You want to show me how to do this?"
Tony peered up at him. Hogan looked calm enough, but his expression was a little tighter than usual, his gaze a little narrower. Tony didn't know whether to be worried or relieved that Hogan was as scared as he was. "Here, put on the headset." Tony showed him the use of the controls. "The tricky part is deciding what to filter out and what to leave in. When you don't know what you're dealing with, you sort of have to feel your way along."
"You mean guess?" Hogan asked, making a small, trial adjustment. Tony nodded. "And if you make a mistake?"
Tony drew a deep breath, and let it out without answering.
"Well, what do you have cut out right now?"
"All human presence. And a low-level background which I think is plant life."
Hogan nodded. He fiddled with the controls for a minute. "What's this I'm getting?" he said, his brow furrowing in concentration. Tony raised his eyebrows.
"Jesus!" Hogan ripped off the headset and jumped back, wide-eyed.
"What is it?" Tony asked. Two of the sentries had turned, alarmed by the shout. Hogan was too stunned to answer. Tony cautiously picked up the headset and put it on—lowering the gain first. He immediately felt a tickle deep at the base of his neck.
"Do you . . . feel it?" Hogan gasped.
Tony frowned, nudging the gain upward. The tickle became a stinging sensation and moved around to the front of his skull. He shook his head, aware of Hogan and the sentries looking on worriedly. "Something," he said. "It's distant, I think." He extended the range.
"Plant life?"
"Don't think so," Tony murmured. He shivered, chilled by something other than temperature; the air was warm. He was having trouble focusing. There was something here that was familiar—like what he had felt this afternoon, but quieter, like music that was heavily filtered . . .
Filtered? A rush of fear welled up in his chest. "Hogan?" he whispered. Hogan leaned toward him. Tony groped for the other man's arm, squeezed it hard. "Call the commander." He barely got the words out. He was dizzy, flushed with apprehension. Why, why . . . ? Whatever it was that was touching his mind, it was keeping him from thinking straight. Then he remembered again . . . the filter, it was being blocked by the filtering program. If he could change it, he could hear this more clearly . . .
Hogan was yelling. People were running toward him. He barely saw, barely noticed.
The filter . . . if he restored the background hum . . . it was connected to that somehow, leaking through the filter . . . it was almost as if he couldn't help changing the setting. He fumbled, then he had it.
A whispering presence poured through the headset and filled his thoughts like a cold, dank fog. He could hear the voices of Hogan and others shouting to him, but he couldn't respond; they were hopelessly far away. The fog was enveloping him, smothering him, isolating him from that other world where his friends were.
And then it seized him, a voiceless presence that twisted his mind open with a single contemptuous gesture and left him frozen, a scream caught lifeless and silent in his throat.
* * *
"Damn it!" The connection had broken up just as the lander com was trying to tell Aleph something important. Chandra snapped, "Aggie, can't you clear that up?"
"Trying," Aggie answered. "There seems to be some disruption on the planet. I still have a good link with the messenger-probe."
Chandra paced the bridge, aware that she was probably unsettling her officers, but unable to stop. "What kind of disruption?"
"Unknown. Fluctuating. We're trying to compensate, to match the fluctuations as they occur." Aggie's voice was dry, a little slow—a sign that the AI was working at top capacity.
"Is it related to that explosion?"
"Uncertain. According to the messenger-probe, it is not like anything known to have been done by the Ell."
Chandra grunted and continued pacing, scowling over the shoulders of her bridge officers. The restless movement of her feet was nothing compared to what her heart was doing. The AI-messenger from Earth had taken up a closer orbit to serve as a relay satellite; since then, in a matter of hours, she had gone from thinking her landing crew dead, to learning that they'd made it down with just one casualty, to learning that some alien power was invading their camp. Then Aggie'd lost the connection. To make matters worse, there was evidence that an Ell ship had exploded in the planet's atmosphere an hour ago, but not through any Human action. Whose, then? An accident?
She whirled impatiently. "Aggie, what have you got?"
"Captain, we're getting through." There was a sudden blast of static, which Aggie damped down before the com-officer could move a finger. Then a voice, cutting through:
"Can you hear me, Aleph—can you hear me?"
"This is Aleph! What's your status?"
The voice at the other end, millions of kilometers away, sounded broken; even through the static, Chandra heard the fear. "Several of our . . . people lost. Captain—Commander wants to speak to you."
"Jensen!"
Another voice answered. "Chandra—unclear how long we can hold out. Something's . . ." A rasp of static drowned out his next words. ". . . people mad . . . DeWeiler and Hogan . . . something on his unit, but it's affecting everyone . . ."
"Jensen, explain! Say again!"
"Something's . . . wait a minute . . . dear God!"
"Jensen!" Chandra shouted, pounding the console.
The first voice came back on. "Commander's . . . back outside, Captain! Something's been sighted . . ." There was a pause and then a shriek: "Attack . . . oh God, no . . . inside . . . it's . . ." The voice broke off.
"LANDER!" Chandra roared.
There was nothing but static. "Aggie! Get that signal back!" The static rose and fell as Aggie modulated the circuit, trying to comply with the captain's order. Chandra shouted to the com: "Get department heads of all ships into conference on this!"
The hiss was broken by the voice of Commander Mortaine, thin and distant. ". . . terrible . . . they're in the air . . . around . . . in my head . . . DAMMIT, NO!" For a moment, all that could be heard was the sound of labored breathing. Then Mortaine's voice again, panting: "Must lift off, get away!"
"Jensen, listen to me! You can't lift off!"
"Nightmare . . . must lift . . ." Mortaine's voice disappeared in an eruption of static, then returned, anguished: "Pilot dead, torn apart . . . blood everywhere. Prelaunch cycle . . ."
"Commander Mortaine!" Chandra shouted, and realized that it was no use, no use at all. He didn't even hear her. But she had to keep trying. "Aggie, highest gain on my voice! JENSEN—WAIT!"
"Counting, down now—Yes, Captain, I hear you—" His voice came back stronger. "No choice . . . all hands, prepare for lift!" His voice strained. "Is there anyone left . . . anyone back there? I don't know, don't know . . ."
Jensen, no, Chandra prayed; but it was out of her hands now, unless—
She had a sudden, desperate notion. "Aggie, is that AI-probe in a position to do anything?"
"It's changing orbit to stay in relay range—but it could not intercede in less than three hours," Aggie answered.
Chandra's breath escaped as she ground her knuckles together uselessly. From the com, the voice of Jensen Mortaine was now a groan: "No! It's cycling wrong . . . have to risk it anyway . . ."
"JENSEN!"
There was a sharp burst of static, and then a flat hiss.
Chandra looked up at the viewscreen in horror, as though there were something there to tell her what was happening on the still-distant planet. "Aggie?" she whispered hoarsely.
A moment of silence. Then: "Captain, the signal is terminated. Wait, please." Chandra waited, and the seconds ground by with terrible slowness. Finally the dry voice of Aggie said, "Captain, the messenger-probe reports: long-range scanning indicates a bright flash of light. We have spectral confirmation: it was an explosion."
"The lander?" Chandra whispered.
"The location is correct, and the spectral ID matches that of an engine reactor exploding . . ."
Aggie had more details, but Chandra stopped listening. She stood motionless, gripping the back of her seat with white-knuckled hands. She was trembling, aware of tiny convulsions in her body that she controlled only through sheer force of will. There was a rushing in her ears. Center yourself . . . center . . .
"Captain?" With a tremendous effort she turned, trying to locate the voice. It was the com-officer. "Captain, are you—?" The officer cleared her throat. "Captain, the commander of LS-Two wishes to know, should he continue with launch preparations?"
Chandra closed her eyes. The rescue scout. They'd been planning to send it to the aid of the first lander. Chandra shook her head, pressed her hands to her sides. They were wet; she was drenched with sweat. "No," she answered finally. "Cancel landing orders. Are department heads together?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Good. First connect me to Captains Khumalo and Fitzpatrick." Chandra sighed and turned to enter rap. She staggered. "Aggie!" Her voice was hoarse. "Tell the messenger-probe—ask it, I mean—if it can fly over the landing site and search for survivors."
"It can make a low pass, with a high-resolution scan."
"Good. Handle it. Find out what happened." She rubbed her eyes. Find out what happened? Perhaps. But those crewmen were gone now, and there was a cold emptiness at the pit of her stomach that said she already knew more than she wanted. And what she thought she knew was that this colony was finished before it had gotten started.