The Psionic Menace

by John Brunner

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

MUST THE UNIVERSE DIE WITH THEM? The Starfolk, arrogant masters of vast stretches of the cosmos beyond the Earth's sphere of influence, were determined to complete the extermination of the mind-reading mutants of Regnier's planet. But to the mutants themselves, the terror of the Starfolk was nothing compared to the greater dread that gripped their spirits - the obsession that the universe itself was doomed. This obsession ripped into their minds, overwhelmed them, and plunged them into horrifying hysteria. The message of room reached the ears of the Starfolk themselves, forcing the to a fateful decision. They would allow an Earthman, archeologist Philip Gascon, to visit Regnier in an attempt to unravel its secrets. What he found would either contain the key to the ultimate destiny of the universe - or the date of the doomsday.

Release date: July 25, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 90

Sample

THE AIR was as clear as glass. The stars burned the sky like white-hot needles, offering an indistinct, shadowy twilight, and the last of the day’s warmth was seeping away from the Painted Rocks which had been the excuse to come out this far from the city.

He and Aura, Gascon thought, were probably the only people for ten miles in any direction, except those living in the psion village further out toward the desert—and psions had never bothered him when he had come out here before. Aura, though, had been nervous at first, and it had taken him a long time to soothe her worries.

But the car was a cozy haven, and the tautness was going out of her.

Abruptly, it was back. She was lifting her head, her eyes widening.

“Philip!” she whispered. “Philip, what was that?”

“What was what?” Gascon said, nuzzling her fair hair.

“A—a noise!” She pushed him away from her and sat up. “Listen, there it is again!”

Gascon sighed and turned his head. This time she wasn’t imagining things; there was a shrill hoarse cry from somewhere nearby, etching the night like acid. It was an eerie, unpleasant sound, and he felt his scalp crawl.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I’ve never heard anything like it here before.”

He put the window of the car down and leaned out. The cry came again, and with it an irregular grinding noise, as of footfalls on loose stone. But then there was renewed silence.

He said eventually, “It’s probably only a wild animal—there still are some out this way.”

“Wild animals!” Aura’s voice was sharp with alarm. “You didn’t say anything about wild animals!”

“Honey, I don’t mean anything big enough to be dangerous,” Gascon soothed. “Little things, like foxes—that’s all.” He gestured at the car. “They won’t bother us in here, anyway.”

He tried to put his arms around her again, but she avoided him, her eyes searching the featureless dark She was shivering.

“I can’t hear it now,” she said.

“It’s—” Gascon began, and broke off. This time the cry was louder and more desperate, and seemed even closer. There were scrabbling noises.

“I don’t think it’s an animal after all,” he said reluctantly. “It sounds more like a child.”

He came to a sudden decision, picked up his laser-flashlight and moved to open the door on his side of the car.

Aura grabbed his arm. “Philip! You’re not going to leave me by myself!”

“I’m only going to take a look,” Gascon said. “If it is a child screaming out there, do you want me to sit and do nothing?”

“You said a moment ago it was an animal!”

“I hadn’t heard it so clearly them,” Gascon snapped.

“But if it is a child, it must be from the psion village—out here, it must be!” Aura’s voice was ragged. “Philip, it’s nothing to do with you—don’t get out!”

He snapped on the flashlight and by its fierce beam looked at her as though he had never seen her before. In a curious tone, he said, “Psions are still people, and a child of theirs is a child, and if it’s screaming like that, it needs help.”

She folded her hands so that her nails dug into her palms. Her beautiful face was suddenly ugly. “Philip, if you get out of this car and leave me by myself, I’ll never speak to you again.”

A wave of anger rose in Gascon’s mind, and he slammed the door shut. He said, “You’re being completely unreasonable. Put the lights on if you want to keep me in sight. I’m only going to take a look, that’s all.”

He got to the ground, the brilliance of the flashlight dancing at random with his movements across the gravelly ground and up the sides of the Painted Rocks, revealing their abstract flow of color—white, ochre, green, orange. He hesitated a moment, feeling the oppressive weight of the empty night, and then walked forward slowly.

Behind him, the car’s lamps came on, trebling the illumination, and he had to pause while his eyes adjusted to the glare.

That was why, when he heard the hum of the engine, he did not at first realize what was happening. When he did, it was too late.

He spun around, seeing the car rising to operating height, and caught a glimpse of Aura’s white and angry face behind the driver’s window; and then she was hauling at the steering control, the car was swinging around, and accelerating madly back the way it had come.

“Aura!” he shouted, and ran futilely after the vehicle. He had taken no more than five paces when his foot found a rock that twisted under his weight and he lost his balance.

He threw out his hands to break the fall, and the flashlight switched off as it struck the ground. A fiery pain spread over his palms and knees.

By the time he was able to pick himself up, the car was out of sight on the twisting track that led to the highway.

For a minute he was too angry to do anything but curse. Then he mastered himself and started to take stock of his situation. He bent down and fumbled on the ground for the flashlight, but when he located it, he could not make it work—the impact had distorted the laser and probably broken a connection somewhere inside. He vented a little more of his rage by swinging the useless object over his head and hurling it away.

The crash of its landing among the rocks brought a renewal of the screams. In the act of dabbing at his palms with a handkerchief, he froze. Now that he was alone and stranded the sound was far more frightening—almost menacing.

Was it a child? Even if it was, were the screams really an appeal for help? It was one thing to be scornful of Aura’s irrational reaction to the idea of encountering psions; it was another to find himself compelled to act without resources.

While he was still rooted to the spot, the character of the cries changed; the violence seemed to go out of them and they came nearer to a hysterical moan. He began to hear more background noises than before—of the same kind—the sound of feet in gravel and on rock, but from different points further away.

As his eyes adapted to the colorless starlight, he also discerned hints of movement ahead; something whitish, appearing from a shadow and then disappearing before he could focus on it. It was coming this way, very fast. From the brief glimpses he had, he judged he had been right to think of a child screaming. Whatever was driving it, it wasn’t pain. It must be terror. No one seriously injured could leap and race across this sort of terrain.

He cast around him for a hiding-place—clearly, it was no use running. At best, he would turn an ankle. He hadn’t even been able to run after the departing car without losing his footing.

But before he had had time to select a shelter, he glanced back to where he had seen the whitish form moving, and found that it was heading straight for him, head down, arms and legs driving now that it had come to a piece of ground smooth enough to run at top speed. A boy, naked and barefoot, age about twelve or at most fifteen—a psion child.

It was absurd to think that he would run straight into Gascon. But that—a matter of seconds later—was what happened. The boy never raised his head. He merely charged at Gascon, who lifted his arms and tried to fend him off, then caught hold of him.

The boy’s eyes, wide as they could go, seemed to recognize the presence of a human being for the first time. He struggled, but Gascon held him fast; though wiry, the boy was exhausted.

On finding it was useless to try and break free, he started to scream again.

Part of Gascon’s mind had somehow remained aloof from what was happening, making a sort of explanatory comment. Psion children, supposedly, like their parents, were able to detect the thoughts of each other and of ordinary folk; indeed, it was the faculty of reading minds which compelled them to live apart in their isolated communities. Most of them could not endure the psychic battering caused by the population of a city.

Yet this boy had run full tilt into someone he apparently didn’t know was there. Consequently, he presumably was not a psion; he must have come from the psion village, unclothed as he was, fleeing from some intolerable threat …

Once more Gascon’s scalp crawled. The running footsteps that had continued in the distance came closer and grew louder, and human silhouettes appeared following the trail of the boy. Desperately, Gascon tried to think of some way of escape for the boy as well as himself, but no possibility came to him.

If it was true that this was a normal boy and not a psion, and if it was something psions had done which had so terrified him, then it would be dreadful to make him go back. Though the boy might not be a psion, there was no doubt that those coming after him were. And it took deep hypnosis to hide deception from a psionic probe.

Then all Gascon’s deductions were turned topsy-turvy.

First, the boy ceased to scream. His taut muscles relaxed, and he no longer tired to break away from Gascon. Then a shadowy figure—a bearded man, inches taller than Gascon, wearing homespun and homemade boots—slowed his pace from a lope to a fast walk, striding over the last twenty-five yards to where Gascon and the boy were standing. Not a word was said, but the boy nodded as though answering something, eased his arm from Gascon’s grasp—which had now slackened—and walked calmly to meet the new arrival. The man threw his arm around the boy’s shoulders as though to comfort him.

So the boy was a psion after all! Gascon was bewildered.

The bearded man, his arm still around the boy, spoke now in a voice which sounded rusty from lack of use. He said, “Thank you, friend. You’re a miracle. My son didn’t realize there was anyone here since the car went off, and nor did I.” A pause; then he ended on a lower tone, “He might have gone running clear to the city, if you hadn’t held him long enough for me to get close and call him.”

Gascon said slowly, “But I thought—”

“Thought we could see into your mind?” The bearded man nodded, his head moving dark on dark shoulders. “Mostly we can. But you’re a psinul—didn’t you know? You have no psionic . . .