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The opening · free to read
Reese returned to the colony expecting a pleasant reunion; instead he found friends ready to hunt him down like an alien beast....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy October 1957 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Colony Eight on the Damballa was a huddle of low plastic domes set in a clearing of the jungle. It was also the most welcome sight Jim Reese had seen in a month--the month since he'd quarreled with Lois and struck out into the jungle alone.
He had covered close to a thousand miles--all the way to Colony Seven, the nearest of the 10 colonies Earth had planted on the jungle world. Now he was returning, hoping his month's absence had healed the wounds he and Lois had caused each other. She had had time to think things over. So had he--and he still loved her.
He saw one of the natives straggling through the jungle toward him and grinned. It was drunken old Kuhli, a native who had been accidentally made a drug addict by a well-meaning Terran doctor. Kuhli lived in a murky fog and hung around Colony Eight because he had no place else to go.
Reese was happy to see a familiar face, even Kuhli's. He hailed the alien.
"Kuhli! Kuhli, you old devil! Where are you going?" He knew the native rarely ventured into the jungle any more; his delicate sense of direction had long since been blunted by drugs.
The alien whirled uncertainly and fixed his bleary green eyes on Reese. "Trouble, Earthman," he wheezed. "Go away. Away. Big trouble."
Reese frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Kuhli came near and rocked unsteadily on the pads of his seven-toed feet. "Everyone crazy there. Not safe. Trouble, Earthman." He moaned softly to himself. "Sad things happening."
Reese glared at the alien; grasped him by his scaly shoulders and shook him. "Speak up, Kuhli! Is this just another pipedream of yours or is there something wrong in the Colony? I have to know!"
The alien whined piteously. "Don't hurt Kuhli. Don't hurt. Trouble, Earthman!"
Reese noticed a pack slung over the creature's back. "What's in here?"
"Mine! Mine! Don't touch!"
Curiosity impelled Reese to turn the alien around and peer in the bulging pack while the old man gibbered in fear.
Reese whistled. The pack was brim-full of ampoules of benzolurethrimine, the pain-killing drug to which Kuhli had been made an addict. The alien had stumbled into the colony one day, his chest slashed open by the talons of a _khaljek_-bird; the colony doctor had administered the drug to ease his agony and only then discovered benzolurethrimine was a powerful narcotic for the aliens.
"Where'd you get all this stuff?" Reese demanded.
"Took it. Needed it. Not going back to Colony any more."
There was something doing there, all right. This was no pipedream of Kuhli's--not when he was willing to steal a supply of drugs and strike out on his own into the treacherous jungle. Reese tightened his lips and, started to run toward the nearby colony at a dead trot. He hoped Lois was all right; he'd never forgive himself for leaving her if anything had happened to her.
He entered the circle of domes. No one seemed to be around. That was peculiar. There should always be a few idling colonists resting up before continuing their task of clearing the jungles.
Finally he spotted Lloyd Kramer, one of his best friends. He and Kramer had decided together to join and had come out to Damballa on the same ship.
"Lloyd! Lloyd!" Reese ran toward the big man, who was standing stiffly outside his hut, staring elsewhere. "Hey, Lloyd!"
Kramer turned. Reese said, "I just saw old Kuhli heading through the forest with a packload of benzo. He says there's some trouble in the Colony. What's up? How's Lois? Is she all right?"
A puzzled frown appeared on Kramer's face. "Who are you?" he said in a deep rumbling, voice. "I do not recognize you."
"What? You crazy, Lloyd? I'm Jim Reese!"
"_Jim ... Reese?_" Kramer repeated the words as if they were some totally alien name. "Where did you come from, Jim Reese?"
"I--what the devil is this, Lloyd?" Reese backed away suspiciously. "What's happened to you? Where is everyone?"
"You do not know," Kramer said. "Therefore you were not here when the conversion took place. Therefore I must capture you."
He lunged.
Reese got out of the way just as Kramer's six-four body came thundering toward him. He had known Lloyd long enough to be aware of the big man's fight-patterns; he could side-step easily enough.
"Lloyd! You out of your head?"
"You must be captured," Kramer repeated. He turned and swung his giant fists. Reese managed to parry one blow but a massive right crashed into his belly and knocked him gasping back against the thick bole of a ghive tree. He clung to the sticky bark for a second, sucking in breath. Then, as Kramer advanced again, Reese yanked out his hunting-knife. Kramer was unarmed.
"Lloyd, I don't know what's gotten into you but if you take another step closer to me I'm going to slice you up. You must be crazy!"
Kramer drew back, staring in puzzlement at the gleaming saw-toothed blade in Reese's hand. He froze some three yards away.
He said aloud, "What should I do, Dr. Tersen? He has a knife."
And in a cold, unfamiliar voice, he answered himself: "Keep him there at all costs--your life, if necessary. I will send help."
"Yes, Dr. Tersen," Kramer said in his own voice.
Reese frowned. Tersen? He remembered someone of that name--some scientist involved in a scandal a few years back on Earth. But what he was doing here on Damballa and what sort of control was he exerting over Lloyd Kramer?
"I am to keep you from escaping," Kramer said flatly. "Put the knife away, Jim Reese."
Reese glanced past Kramer and saw moving figures--colonists, coming toward him. He recognized them but still there was something unfamiliar about them. They moved stiffly. Like so many zombies, Reese thought.
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