The Lost Perception (19 page)

“Of course,” the Englishman went on, “our first objective will be to drop the station to its two thousand-mile orbit and bring a halt to the Screamies. Then there’ll be informational telecasts. Next will come crash construction of a tight-beam raultronic transmitter so that we may establish contact with the Valorians. And then…”

But Gregson wasn’t listening. Rather, his attention was focused down the broad corridor on a forlorn figure crumpled against the bulkhead and entangled in the wreckage of an electric cart.

It was Weldon Radcliff. The Security Bureau director’s head lay at an awkward angle on his shoulders and his eyes, glazed over in death, stared
off.
into infinity.

Waiting for Helen and the children to finish dressing for church, Gregson was relaxing on a patio chair, hat drawn down over his eyes. Glially nonreceptive at the moment, he was lulled into near sleep by the subtle, remote sounds of a quiet Pennsylvania morning.

In the field, Forsythe was whiling away the Sunday hours at target practice.
Each zip
of the laser pistol brought startled silence to the chatter of birds bathing in the dust of the barnyard.

A slamming door jarred Gregson fully awake and he zylphed Ted racing across the lawn in his best suit. He was a boy of whom he and Helen, could indeed be proud. Five years old now
(five and a half!
he would quickly insist if you were zylphing him) and already reigning over the farm as though it were his personal province.

He studied the child hypervisually. But the hitter’s glial attention was on his mother as he raced toward the pond. Swimming around in his mind were gleeful visions of himself tossing rocks into the water and leaping nimbly away from the splashes.

Amused, Gregson sensed Helen’s desperation as she tried to force a shoe onto little William’s thrashing foot. She directed a helpless appeal toward her husband. And, in the intimacy of mutual zylphing, she wondered whether he intended doing anything about Ted.

But Gregson perceived that Forsythe had become aware of the situation and was now admonishing the older boy. Nor was it difficult to catch Ted’s unspoken “Gosh, can’t a fellow have
any
fun?”

Lying there in his euphoria, Gregson zylphed without fully perceiving everything about him, enjoying the pleasant omniscience that extended to every element of his environment His attention wandered and he found himself sensing the fiery, sluggish flow of magma deep beneath the surface. He had never ceased to be intrigued by the new impressions his glial receptors were continually gathering.

Halfway back to the surface, he detected the impatient, persistent pressures along a fault and recognized the direction and intensity of the shearing force. He traced the stresses to their origin and zylphed that there would eventually be an earthquake—a moderate one. But not within the next hundred years.

“Greg! Oh, Greg!” Helen’s clear voice attracted his hyper-visual attention. Finally she had William ready and was putting the finishing touches on herself—not that there was any fault in her appearance as it was.

He intercepted her flattered acknowledgment of the compliment. But really, Greg—after
six
years? And… was he ready for church? Or did he intend to nap the morning away?

He rose and stretched and his eyes swept across the distant, blossom-blanketed ridge while his hyperperception focused reflexively in that direction. Beyond the ridge—far beyond and below the horizon—he sensed the direct approach of the long-range hopper. It was a while, though, before he could either hear or see the craft.

By then Helen and William were beside him and Forsythe, •with Ted in hand, was closing in across the lawn. Together they watched the hopper maneuver into position to vertical down beside the house. But long before the craft landed, Gregson was zylphing its pilot.

It’s always a delightful experience,
Wellford greeted,
to come back to this scene of connubial bliss.

And,
Gregson returned his banter,
it’s always a pleasure to welcome a partly scalped Englishman.

The results of the scalping are zylphable, but at least not visible, thanks to London’s best toupee supplier.

By now, Wellford had landed and leaped out onto the lawn. He kissed Helen, gripped Forsythe’s extended hand and mussed the children
’s
neatly-combed hair.

Gregson sensed the other was merely procrastinating. But before he could dig down to the primary motive for the visit, Wellford said:

“The Valorians have turned up another emergent race—farther out toward the rim of the Galaxy. It appears they are approaching the edge of the Stygumbra straightaway. It
’s
felt that with our recent experience along those lines we ought to be able to lend a quite helpful hand.”

THE END