FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE WILDERNESS

IT IS NOT EVERY DAY THAT THE DEMON HORDES OF hell materialize in your backyard.

It took the Watch Officer a few seconds to comprehend his vision: great ships, huge and black against the darkness of the universe, yet sharp and clear to the watchman through his augmented senses.

They were Guara ships-thousands of them, perhaps their whole main fleet, winking in suddenly along almost two parsecs of sky, globules of metal framed by two enormous, stylized "wings" like those of a monstrous, frozen gull, curving around and almost, but not quite, touching the main body of the ship again at their tips.

The Watch Officer did not need to sound an alarm; he and several others were cybernetically linked to their control ships, and could communicate in real space at the speed of thought.

The little timer by the right hand of his comatose, helmeted body clicked and set in both modes. Within less than one minute the initial interceptor squadron was away; within two minutes nine squadrons totaling over five hundred ships were out in pursuit.

The Watch Officer felt control switch from his own com to that of a flag officer; now he launched his own squadron.

No person on the intercept ships allowed himself the luxury of spurious thoughts; the cybernetic link provided pinpoint concentration on but the single objective of destroying the enemy.

And yet, deep down in that unreachable recess of every thinking person was a single thought: At last! The Guara have decided to fight at last! Even this was tempered by a realization that swept away the anticipation, for the main fleet was on leave and undermanned. Mobilization would be impossible in the subjective time of the battle.

The Guara outnumbered the defenders fifteen to one.

Both sides used different methods to power their ships, yet both types involved inducing negative half-spins in their tachyonic drives. In effect, real time was slowed, even reversed, although usually only for a few seconds under full power. Time negated distance, but it meant fighting on a multitude of different temporal levels separated by milliseconds. Fleets on the defender's side were controlled by crews cybernetically amplified and linked to their ships, and to each other.

Nobody knew how the Guara did it.

But when fleet-sized masses were moved, it was necessary to spread them out to avoid cancellation when the ships phased into objective time, and there was an inconstant braking factor. Fleets tended to come out scrambled up and spread all over creation, like the Guara had; in the precious few minutes of objective time it took them to regroup, they were vulnerable.

A star-shaped unit of nine ships, surrounding the controlling officer's com ship in its center, broke off and started after two isolated Guara vessels that had materialized nearby only moments before.

Bolts of searing energy, visible only to the people on the ships, lashed out at the two black gulls, and struck full amidships. The captains of the invaders applied full power, and both vanished.

Suddenly, it was over-just like that.

The first strike had told the Guara force where they were, and they hadn't even waited to see what was hitting them.

The entire Guara fleet had done a scatter run.

"No use chasin' them," the field officer commented, a trace of disappointment in his mental tone. "They have several seconds on us in lag and speed. Casualties?"

There were none. Not one of the Guara ships had defended itself. Faced with a challenge, they had run-as always.

"Energy trail!" reported the com from the one unit to get in a strike at the enemy. "We got one-maybe both!"

The field officer trained his sophisticated tracking devices in the area of the strike and saw it.

Almost anyone, even with the best sensors, could have missed it, should have missed it-but the unit com had felt the hit with the intuition that only a veteran combat pilot could have. He'd searched for it-and found it.

A tiny, thin wisp of a trail, as nebulous as a single strand of a spider's web, went off into the deep of space.

Instantly ordering most of the force back to station in case the black ships realized their folly and returned, the field officer took one squadron spearheaded by the strike unit and started to follow the already dissipating trail.

Several times in the lengthy track they lost it, but had enough regression time to recapture the wisp and proceed at flank to where it was stronger.

After a great distance, it became easier to track. Whatever had been hit had been hit bad. The pilot was good; he-or it-was holding the engines together with spit and prayer.

There was a sudden, localized energy burst, and the squadron emerged into normal space-time.

An aged red dwarf glowed dimly, far off. The nova, perhaps a million years before, must have been spectacular; the star's collapse had also torn its solar system apart. And yet, circling the eerily glowing center, were that system's remains: millions, perhaps billions of chunks of matter, from microscopic size to over a thousand kilometers in diameter, continued their vigilant orbits around their diminished but still supreme master.

The strike unit broke off, heading for the medium-sized chunk of matter about three hundred kilometers in irregular, jagged diameter.

The one with the spot that glowed on their sensor plates.

The nine ships edged ever closer, until they were only a few thousand kilometers from the planetoid.

Suddenly the tiny energy spark below flickered, changed hues, and reached out at them.

The nine ships vanished, and the energy arm that clutched and crushed them withdrew.

The field officer's fury was so strong that it almost, but not quite, broke the programmed controls. He wanted to bomb the son of a bitch into a nebulous mass.

Instead, he pulled back his forces to the minimum distance experience that his computers felt was safe, and ordered a photo probe.

A jagged, craggy landscape, reminding the observers of microscopic views of rust crystals, passed slowly before them. Eerie pinnacles, weird spires, and twisted shapes of deep red and dull gold forever in deep shadow showed the little world's ugly sterility.

"We're coming up on it in a moment," a deep voice commented in the darkness of the viewing room. "There! See?"

Suddenly there was a blinding flash that obscured all vision, yet it radiated from a sparkling, seemingly solid core of energy that was curiously shining and alive. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone, replaced with more of the reddish landscape.

The screen flickered, and the approach was repeated from just before the appearance of the brightness. This time it was frame-by-frame, very slow and methodical. The glare started, but didn't quite overtake the view. They blew it up, focused it, played with its spectrum and microdot composition, trying to clear it.

"Look how the terrain's torn up," a voice commented. "The ship came in hard and fast. It's incredible that he survived-I'm pretty sure none of us would have."

"He's still alive, all right, or a machine," the first voice responded. "And he's got teeth." The tone turned bitter. "Thirty-two lost."

The picture changed again, the computer playing now with the shot of the exact center of the energy burst, toning, warping, shielding and filtering the picture, focusing on the living brightness in the center of the mass.

A fuzzy shape, the best that could be done, emerged. It was a Guara ship, all right-flickering, indistinct, but unmistakable-one of its strange curved "wings" had been clipped off, the other twisted. Part of the bow seemed crumpled and distorted.

The second man sighed and flipped off the wall-sized picture. The lights flickered and winked on.

It was an odd assortment that sat in the room; a collection of three dozen different life forms with shapes ranging from centauroid to anthropomorphic. Many others, unable to share the biosphere the others mutually tolerated, watched on remotes.

This was the Board of Advisors, a collection of dominant races who were still struggling to pick up the pieces from the civil war less than a dozen years before.

"So one is down at last," came a voice from what looked like a huge, tentacled housefly, amplified and translated by devices hidden in the walls and transmitted to each member's hearing-piece. "Now what do we do?"

At the head of the table sat a Terran; his body was young and muscular, yet he had short-cropped white hair and a hook for a left hand.

And the oldest eyes of anyone in the room.

"I needn't tell you that the Guara is the greatest threat to reconstruction we have faced-and perhaps the greatest threat to us all in our history, not excepting the late war," he said gravely.

"Why not just let it be?" a creature that resembled a four-legged turnip asked. "It can't get off, and we can't get to it without losing people. Besides, doing nothing further to provoke it might show our peaceful intent and nature."

"Do nothing?" roared the Terran, emotionally upset. "Provoke it? What the hell do you mean by that-no, don't bother with the translation! How can you suggest such a course?"

"We have over eleven hundred worlds wrecked and ruined in the late war," the creature reminded him. "Our reconstruction will take centuries as it is."

Paul Carleton Savage, the Terran Chairman, stood up and faced them all. "And I have four dead planets," he snarled. "Dead. About thirty billion people gone. Two of them among the gentlest, most peaceful people this galaxy has ever produced. Killed. Wiped out in a single, concentrated attack-a few minutes, no more. A few more of those and we'll equal the casualty rate of the entire Civil War! And by who? A mysterious group who's never communicated with us, never given any motivation, never even shown its face. Only one word-one word from Grumiad as they were igniting its atmosphere. One scream from the victims we can't even translate-'Guara'!"

"But they are not totally destructive," a satyrlike creature noted. "Eleven other planets received sudden visits, too. Telikial-its dehydration miraculously reversed. Basiodl-the depleted ozone reinstated in moments, beyond our wildest technology. These people think the Guara are gods!"

A creature that resembled a great grizzly bear raised its head. Being telepathic, it needed no translator.

"One moment!" the bear called forcefully into the shouting match. "It seems that both of you are talking of the same things. What we have here is not a friend, not an enemy, but something alien. No matter how strange we are in form, no matter how wildly different our worlds and cultures, there is a basic commonality among us. We are the products of a consistent evolution that, when stripped of physical and cultural differences, reveals basic similarities in our deepest natures. That is how we can assemble here.

"But for the Guara we have none-their actions are apparently psychopathic, motiveless. Great power applied in what seems to be a random, capricious manner. And yet, races that build such ships as theirs and possess technological skills far in advance of any of ours, don't act randomly. What we are operating from is a lack of knowledge-of knowing who and what they are, where they're from, and why they're here doing what they are doing. We need facts, not guesses. I don't want my world to be the next one they decide to eliminate-nor yours, either. I want to know, now, while I can still do something."

Savage nodded. "That's really it. This is our first opportunity to learn something about them, to perhaps contact them, to begin to understand them."

"Perhaps if we hadn't attacked them we'd already know," the turnip chided. "Our first face-to-face meeting, and we fired on them!"

"Beside the point," the bear responded brusquely. "We did shoot, and the situation is as it is and that's that. Savage, how do you think this should be handled? After all, it zapped our ships."

"But not our photo probe," Savage pointed out. "Warships-no. But a small ship, a single passenger, a single landing. One to one. And wired, of course."

They were all silent for a few moments, digesting the idea, imagining themselves down there, on that jagged speck, alone with the unknown. Finally it was the pacifistic turnip that broke the silence.

"Where in the vast galaxy are you going to get someone dumb enough to volunteer for that?" it asked.

Following is the official edited transcript of Project Shepherd. The actual elapsed time was 37 hours, 22 minutes, 13 seconds to EOM. The mikes ran continuously for this period, and involve a great deal of technical and routine commentary as well as the expected random comments and long silences, and only those parts directly bearing on the subject Mandeus and the mission are included here. Tapes and complete transcripts are available through the Exchange. All commentary is as recorded via relay at the Base Station, established in stationary orbit approximately sixty million kilometers from the target asteroid, this being about ten million kilometers beyond the minimum known safety range from Guara surface weapons. For annotations, and interpolations see Board minutes PS-345762397, 399, 412, and 436.

MANDEUS: . . . Forty thousand and closing. No sign of any actions toward me or the ship as yet . . . Thirty-five thousand. Looks like a tiny blood clot on the screens; still too far to see it without aid. Thirty thousand. God! That's a weird looking place! Twenty-five. Systems look green and no sign I'm noticed. Twenty. There go the brakes. Readout looks fine here. Fifteen thousand. Doesn't seem any slower but I know it must be. Yes, the dials are starting to become reasonable. Ten thousand. It really is a tiny speck-I guess I'll be on it before I see it without magnification. Sure this thing's there? . . . Seven thousand. Sure is dark out there-a dead place to die-no, hell, that doesn't make any sense, but what does? ... Five thousand. The galaxy's asshole . . . Nothing there but the dark. Whump! Little bumpy here, I guess we must be gliding in. What a nightmarish place. The Guara sure can pick them. Wonder if they think this is a resort? . . . One thousand and I still can't see the damned thing. Oh, yes ... wait a minute. Little nothing about like the head of a pin.

SAVAGE: How's my transmission to you? You're coming in beautifully here.

MANDEUS: Perfect. Wow! Just got a flash like somebody shined a light in the nose camera! That must be our baby.

SAVAGE: Our video signal's getting strong interference. I don't like it. Doesn't show up on audio, though.

MANDEUS: Cheerful thought. Maybe I'm expected. Whups! I've been talking too much. The thing's huge out there now, distance ...let's see ... fifteen kilometers! Looks even uglier up close, but the shadows and dim light make it even worse. Good setting for a ghost story. Making the swing. How's the picture now? I'm trying to straighten it out.

SAVAGE: Real bad, but forget the adjustments now. I want to know what you're seeing. The energy field shouldn't cloud your direct sight.

MANDEUS: Coming up on it. Funny-it really does put out a golden glow. Just over the next range. Here we go-ow! Ah! The hell with your theories! It was just like looking directly into a star! Damn near burned my eyeballs out!

SAVAGE: It burned our cameras, anyway. Any permanent damage to you?

MANDEUS: No, no. Things are starting to come back in now, eyes readjusting. I see from the screens it's the same story. Burned out. Think the old boy did it deliberately?

SAVAGE: Remains to be seen. We're putting you down about fifteen hundred meters southeast of him, so that mountain range as you call it will be in the way. All sensors except vision are perfectly normal-interesting. Should have at least generated static or pulses. I'd have to guess he knows you're there and did it deliberately because he knows I'm here. You're the eyes of the project now, boy! Make it count!

MANDEUS: Here we go ... Into the valley of death and all that. Umph! A rotten touchdown, damn near jarred my teeth out. Here, I'm going to undo the straps. Any visuals yet? How about the internal cameras? They should be working. See me?

SAVAGE: Negative. They're all out. Apparently the damage is to the antenna or replay amplifier. I don't like this. You'll have to be our eyes now. Just remember we're blind when you see something.

MANDEUS: (sighs). I'm not sure I like this, makes me feel even more alone than ever. I wonder what he doesn't want you to see?

SAVAGE: Just remember that you will see it! That may have sinister implications.

MANDEUS: I'll remember. Doesn't matter much, does it? [grimly] You and I both know why I'm the one that's down here.

SAVAGE: Now stop that! I want you back alive! If you dwell on that sort of thing you won't be any good to anybody. We've been over this ground before.

MANDEUS: All right, all right, mother. Let me straighten up the housekeeping here. A lot of stuff got banged up all over the place when we landed hard. Humph! No gravity to speak of-that's to be expected, of course. Speck like this wouldn't have much anyway. Just lightly tossed a pencil and at the rate it's going it'll hit the floor in about a day and a half. I'm going to have to be careful of quick motions.

SAVAGE: Just be careful, period. The fact that you're there is important-it means that he didn't want to zap you. He's almost certainly got our number and is listening in. If so, he knows you're unarmed, alone, and that we only want to talk.

MANDEUS: I'm sure he's a bright enough boy for you not to have to draw pictures. So now we wait, I guess. How long?

SAVAGE: Give him some time. Right now it looks like he's running the show. If we don't get anything from him in a day or so, you'll have to go calling on him.

MANDEUS: Well, it's been some time now. What's the old saying? Minutes creep like hours or something. I keep looking out at the dead landscape, and the more time I do the more I start dwelling on the dead. Funny. You'd think I could look back on it more dispassionately now, but I can't.

What did the last dodo bird think about?

Other dodo birds, of course .. .

Hell, I'm not an explorer, an adventurer. I'm a perfume salesman. How and why did I get here, doing this? ...

... No change in that glow. Damn! Almost a full day now, and this little chunk is haunted with ghosts. There's five billion ghosts staring at that glow with me. I can feel them, feel their presence, feel them asking what I ask, pleading for the answer we crave.

Why?

Do any of you up there really know what it is to be lonely? Can you imagine yourself in a zoo, among nothing but alien life forms, seeing nothing familiar? Can you understand what it's like to know it'll always be that way? That your home's a burnt-out cinder, that not only your world and your civilization but your kind is gone?

Oh, we think similarly, most of us. If your race pulls itself up from the slime it shares a kinship with all others who do the same. Universal constants, I guess. ‘Nobody's really alien,' those glib psychologists tell you. But that's even worse-a disembodied spirit, still roaming the worlds, witnessing happiness it cannot share, seeing love it cannot join, watching children that can never be his children ...

The glow has changed. I can't really describe it, but the color's different, and the intensity. I wonder if it really is the power pile? Maybe they're over there making repairs. Welding torches? Maybe they're building something ...

... What universal constants do we share with them, I wonder? A body, certainly-they use ships. But-inside? What sort of thing could do what they did and have a reason? Is their whole race insane? I swear I can hear Jewell and the twins behind me. More ghosts . . . Sad ghosts? They seem to be pleading . . . Why? Why? ...

Oh, my God! If they don't come soon I shall have to go ask them. I shall have to look them in the eye or whatever they have and scream it at them. Why? Why did you do such wonderful things for all those planets, some of whom are violent, nasty people? Why did you choose my people to murder? We who outgrew war, tamed our world, lived in happiness without hurting ourselves or others? What harm could we have done? Whom did we wrong? [A crashing sound]. Why? God damn you to all nine Hells, why? ...

...I'm going out there. It's been almost forty standard hours, and if I don't get out there I'll kill myself.

Might as well go over and scream that they have to complete the set-they missed one who was off-planet. One without the guts to join his friends ... I'm suiting up. Looks like a nice day for a walk ...

... Pressure down to zero. Lock clear. All secure. I'm pressing the outer lock control now. There she goes! Lord! This crummy speck looks even worse in person!

... Grainy red dust all over. I'll have to walk through a mound of it kicked up by the landing. Seems to be about thirty centimeters deep. I'm in almost to my knee. This'll be tough going. Say, now! That's interesting. I haven't been as ignored as I thought! There are some tracks out here!

SAVAGE: What sort of tracks?

MANDEUS: Looks kind of like a three-runner sled. Long, continuous grooves, very thin and evenly spaced. they sunk all the way in but didn't churn up any dust. Almost like the thing was built for this little pisshole. Wonder why I didn't see them? Are the bastards invisible?

Well, I-what the hell? I've got a suit malfunction! Pressure's going down very slowly!

SAVAGE: Get back in the ship quickly! We're too close to end it like this. There's patching material and such to build a whole new suit in there if we need to.

MANDEUS: Funny .. . Checked everything. Well, I'm already back in. Door closed, pressure starting to go up. I'll match it to the suit and then remove the thing. Hmmm . . . Wonder if I'm not permitted to go out? What if I were to try a takeoff right now? How close are they?

... Looking out the window here, and I can't see the tracks. Guess the angle's wrong. If they were reddish and low to the ground they could be zipping all around and I wouldn't hear them. [loud thump].

My God! Something's at the airlock!

VOICE: Man! [The voice is a deep baritone, but sounds strangely altered, as if dozens of identically voiced men were speaking at the same time. It is vocal, not telepathic-the microphone picked it up, and it records.]

VOICE: [ again, same patient tone]. Man!

MANDEUS [nervously]: I am here. Can you hear me? Are you the Guara?

VOICE: I am of the Guara. As such I answer to the need.

MANDEUS: You-you what to the who? I don't understand.

VOICE: You have an injury to the soul. I must minister to that need.

MANDEUS: You are a missionary?

VOICE: I am a physician.

[Long pause, no sound except automated equipment].

MANDEUS: A physician? How can this be? Did we then shoot down a hospital ship?

VOICE: We are all physicians. It is our purpose and our mission. It is our destiny. We minister to those in need.

MANDEUS [bitterly]: You kill.

VOICE: We save.

MANDEUS: Then why do you destroy whole worlds? Why?

VOICE: We must maintain the order and the balance. We are mandated to provide to those seekers who require, to cure those diseases which you might not even recognize as such.

MANDEUS: Do you cure by mass murder? Surely those you cure in such a manner are cured indeed!

VOICE: We cleanse. Pretenders must be removed lest their cancer spread and infect the whole of the social body. Only disease is excised, so the whole may grow. As physicians, we must ethically remove the disease.

MANDEUS [highly emotional]: But you have destroyed whole civilizations! Billions of innocents! My own .. . [sobs].

VOICE: Is a virus guilty? It seeks only to feed, to reproduce. Is there evil intent in the cell of the body that malfunctions and grows cancerously throughout the system? Are such terms as good and evil relevant in such a case? We do not presume to judge. We diagnose. As for your own people-I recall them not, yet there are so many, our operations so far-flung, that it is not impossible that I overlooked it. Still, I must confess, it puzzles me greatly, as I can detect no abnormality within your mind. You require service, not surgery. I confess to being too lowly for such decisions, yet you I must aid, for you are suffering. What is done may be undone. All that is done is yet to be done. I shall help-and, if possible, should I survive this ordeal, plead your greater cause, as what I can do on my own, with my damaged equipment, is unhappily limited.

MANDEUS [incredulous]: You can-you can restore my people?

VOICE: As I say, my own powers are quite limited. Yet does not she whom you love live yet within you? Can I not restore at least what was yours alone to you?

MANDEUS: What? Wha-?

VOICE [fading away]: Will you be my prophet when I come? Will you bear witness to the others? Shall you give testimony that our cause is to the greater good? [The voice is far away now, and fades. There are only echoes of its eerie tones].

SAVAGE: Mandeus?

MANDEUS [distantly]: Yes?

SAVAGE: Was it there or some sort of projection?

MANDEUS: I can't tell. There was definitely something attached to the airlock. That's obviously how the voice came through.

SAVAGE: Check the windows, man! See what you can see! Quickly!

MANDEUS: Yes, of course, you're right-oh! My God!

SAVAGE [anxiously]: What is it? Can you see it?

MANDEUS: Savage! The scene's changed! Either I have been moved, or it has changed things! You-I can't believe it! I must be mad! I must be insane, or dead! My God!

SAVAGE: You're still where you were. What do you see? Damn this vision blackout!

MANDEUS: It's-it's like home, Savage! Rich, green foliage native to my own world, just as I remember it! Bright flowers of purple and gold, swaying in a soft breeze! And-a path! A path of rough stones! I cut and hauled those stones, Savage! It is my own land that I see! I must go out to it!

SAVAGE: Your suit's broken! Don't go out there! It's creating the illusion to get at you!

MANDEUS: The hell with you! If it's illusion, it's the way I want to die! It got our ships, anyway. It could get me easier in a thousand ways. As for my suit-I shall not need it. I'm going out. [An alarm rings. Mandeus has pressed the inner lock switch without depressurization. A second alarm as he presses the outer lock switch. There is a humming sound as the door slides open.]

SAVAGE: Mandeus!

MANDEUS: I'm here! There's air! It is my home, Savage! I'm going up that path! My house-my family-lies at the other end.

SAVAGE: Keep talking! Tell us what you see!

MANDEUS: There it is! The house! And-in the courtyard . . . [voice breaks]. The children! My precious Jewell! [Shouts] Jewell! My love! She turns joyfully! She-my God! What's wrong? That look on her face! The children, screaming, running away. No, no, don't! Come back! It is Mandeus! Jewell! Do not recoil! I-I ... What in God's name is wrong here? There's a noise behind me! The Guara! I-Oh, my God! I remember! I know! It's…

There was a sound like none of the listeners could ever imagine, a feeling of immense pain and sadness that went through them, though it had no substance. It reached out to them in its agony from that tiny little asteroid, reached out to their distances and rolled past, until it was lost to space.

Savage and the others sat stunned for a few moments. Suddenly the Terran said, "We're going down."

Slugodium, the science officer, shook its massive, elephantine body from its stupor. "Big energy flare-up, two locations," it reported. "Whatever was giving off those Guara radiations just exploded."

"Let's go!" Savage urged.

They approached cautiously, and all nine members of the monitor team breathed collective sighs of relief when they passed the point where the fighters had been blown apart. Quickly now they neared the dark planetoid.

A brief survey showed that the area of intense radiation was now just that-a bubbling, seething mass without form or substance. They held their breaths again as they slowly came over the jagged outcropping Mandeus called a mountain, and saw the area around the ship.

"Oh, by the gods!" someone swore.

The land, for two or three square kilometers around the ship, was as Mandeus had described. It was green, lush, even close in to the little survey ship whose shiny, rounded nose stuck out from the center of the growth. There was a shimmery bubble of atmosphere around the area which offered no resistance to their landing.

The atmosphere, although a bit rich in oxygen for what the oddest of them were used to, was pronounced fit to breathe, and there was no trace of airborne micro-organisms.

They grabbed pistols and disembarked.

The air temperature was about 26bC, and somewhat humid.

Savage shook his head in awe and wonder. "This powerful!" he muttered over and over to himself. "My god! This powerful!"

Slugodium kept looking around. "Stable, too. Incredible. It outlasted its makers. Where does the light come from, I wonder? Phosphorous in the upper air bubble? But, then, where's the heat from?"

A young communications specialist who looked like a tiny, red-furred cross between a monkey and a fox, commented, "If this is what one could do with damaged equipment, no wonder the whole bunch can change a planet! They should be able to create one!"

Savage nodded grimly. "I think they can. Remember, this one said that Mandeus's world could be rebuilt."

"Over here!" Slugodium called urgently. "This burnt-out area! Look!"

They hurried over. The blast had been intense. There was little left of anything.

"Damn!" Slugodium muttered to himself. "Used too much tititherite."

"Can you get anything?" Savage asked.

"Oh, probably, with months of lab work," the science officer replied. "I had no idea that the two would be practically together when and if Mandeus blew himself up. I erred on the side of too much explosive-better, I thought, to overdo than underdo."

"Don't blame yourself," Savage consoled. "You were right. We never expected anything like this. Obviously when the wife-simulacrum saw Mandeus and recoiled in horror, the truth hit him and he turned and ran straight into the thing. With his dreams restored, then abruptly and absolutely snatched from him, it was the only thing left to do."

"Well," interjected Goreath, the psychologist, "at least we know a lot more about them now."

"Do we?" Savage retorted, eyebrows up in surprise, a humorless grin on his face. "Do we, really? Physicians? To what? For what? Why do they destroy those worlds? Do we truly understand anything?"

Goreath nodded grimly. "Of course. Imagine being able to do all this-and be able to die. It must be horrible, much more so than for us. They must live in constant terror. Imagine such godlike power-and mortality. I suspect it's behind everything they do."

Savage shrugged. "At least it explains why they never fight."

They continued on the path, and reached the house. They stopped short. Fear crept through them, and Savage felt it most of all.

"Lord!" he breathed. "We forgot about that!"

Huddling behind a far wall of the courtyard, hunched down, protecting her two children and trembling violently, was Jewell, wife of Mandeus.

Slowly, Savage walked toward them. "Don't be afraid," he said gently. "You've had a lot of pain, but it's over now. It's all over. We won't let anyone hurt you again."

The woman trembled slightly, but summoned a reserve of courage and stood up, facing the strange man.

She looked like an incredibly beautiful Terran woman, small but lean and muscular, like a dancer. Auburn hair fell across her exposed breasts, her skin a golden brown, her eyes sparkling like jewels-and down her back two great, frail-looking faery-wings, transparent and folded like a butterfly's. She seemed to stand poised on tiptoe, like a ballet dancer, and looked with a mixture of puzzlement and caution on Paul Carleton Savage.

"You are like Mandeus," she said at last, her voice sounding like it was made of musical bells. "And yet you are not of our people."

"Yes, like Mandeus," Savage responded softly.

The little fox-monkey communications officer looked up at the giant Slugodium and whispered, "I joined this project as a last-minute replacement, but up until now I thought I understood things. Will someone please tell me what that's all about?"

"Time was of the essence," the science officer replied slowly. "Volunteers were hardly plentiful. So we took a Valiakean android and impressed some basic personality and emotive memory patterns on it. There never was a Mandeus, nor a world like this, nor a Jewell and twins, except in Paul Savage's vivid imagination.

"He made them all up about five days ago ...”