Slan

Chapter Five

The rickety old cart was downtown now. It rattled and shook over the uneven pavement of the back alleys until Jommy, half lying, half crouching in the back, felt as if he would be shaken out of his clothes. Twice he attempted to stand up, but each time the old woman poked at him with her stick.

"You stay down! Granny doesn't want anyone to see those fine clothes of yours. You just keep covered up with that robe."

The tattered old robe stank of Bill, the horse. The stench brought Jommy moments of nausea. At long last the junk wagon stopped.

"Get out," snapped Granny, "and go into that department store. You'll find big pockets I've sewn inside your coat. Just fill them with stuff so they won't bulge."

Dizzily, Jommy climbed down to the concrete. He stood there swaying, waiting for the swift flame of his strength to drive away that abnormal weakness. He said then, "I'll be back in about half an hour."

Her rapacious face bent toward him. Her black eyes glittered. "And don't get caught, and use your common sense in what you take."

"You needn't worry," Jommy replied confidently. "Before I take anything, I'll throw my mind around to see if anyone is looking. It's as simple as that." "Good!" The thin face broke into a grin. "And don't worry if Granny isn't here when you come back. She's going over to the liquor store for some medicine. She can afford medicine now that she's got a young slan; and she does need it – oh, so much – to warm her cold old bones. Yes, Granny must lay in a good supply of medicine."

Outside fear came rushing in to him as he breasted the throngs that washed in and out of the skyscraper department store; abnormal, exaggerated fear. He opened his mind wide, and for one long moment kept it that way. Excitement, tenseness, dismay and uncertainty – an enormous, dark spray of fear caught at him and twisted his mind along into the swirling stream of it Shuddering, he pulled himself clear.

But during that plunge he had caught the basis of that mass fear. Executions at the palace! John Petty, the head of the secret police, had caught ten councilors making a deal with the slans, and killed them. The crowd didn't quite believe. They were afraid of John Petty. They distrusted him. Thank heaven Kier Gray was there, solid as a rock to protect the world from the slans – and from the sinister John Petty.

It was worse inside the store. There were more people. Their thoughts pounded at his brain as he threaded his way along the aisles of shining floor displays, under the gleam of the ceiling lights. A gorgeous world of goods in enormous quantities swelled all around him, and taking what he wanted proved easier than he had expected.

He passed the end of the long, glittering jewelry department and helped himself to a pendant marked fifty-five dollars. His impulse was to enter the department, but he caught the thought of the salesgirl. Annoyance was in her mind, hostility at the idea of a small boy entering the jewelry section. Children were not welcome in that world of magnificent gems and fine metals.

Jommy turned away, brushing past a tall, good-looking man who whisked by without so much as a glance at him. Jommy walked on for a few paces, and stopped. A shock such as he had never known before stabbed through him. It was like a knife cutting into his brain, it was so sharp. And yet it was not unpleasant Astonishment, joy, amazement flashed through him as he turned and stared eagerly after the retreating man.

The handsome, powerfully built stranger was a slan, a full-grown slan! The discovery was so important that, after the first realization sank in, his brain reeled. The basic calm of his slan-steady mind was not shattered, nor was there the sinking into emotionalism that he had noticed when he was sick. But his mind soared with a sheer, wild eagerness unequaled in his past experience.

He began to walk rapidly after the man. His thought reached out, seeking contact with the other's brain – recoiled! Jommy frowned. He could still see that the being was a slan, but he could not penetrate beyond the surface of the stranger's mind. And that surface reflected no awareness of Jommy, not the faintest suggestion that he was conscious of any outside thoughts at all.

There was mystery here. It had been impossible a few days before to read beyond the surface of John Petty's mind. Yet there had never been any question of Petty being anything but a human being. It was impossible to explain the difference to himself. Except that when his mother guarded her thoughts from intrusion, he had always been able to make her aware with a directed vibration.

The conclusion was staggering. It meant that here was a slan who couldn't read minds, yet guarded his own brain from being read. Guarded it from whom? From other slans? And what manner of slan was it that couldn't read minds? They were out in the street now; and it would have been easy, there under the brilliant lights that blazed from the street lamps, to break into a run that would have brought him up to the slan in a few moments. In all those rushing, selfish crowds, who would notice a little boy running?

But instead of narrowing the gap that separated him from the slan, he allowed it to widen. The entire logical roots of his existence were threatened by the situation presented by this slan; and the whole hypnotic education that his father had imprinted upon his mind rose up and prevented precipitant action.

Two blocks from the store, the slan turned up a wide, side street; puzzled, Jommy followed him at a safe distance – puzzled because he knew this was something of a dead-end street, not a residential section. One, two, three blocks they went. And then he was certain.

The slan was heading for the Air Center that, with all its buildings and factories and landing field, sprawled for a square mile at this part of the city. The thing was impossible. Why, people couldn't even get near an air-lane without having to remove their hats to prove that they were minus slan tendrils.

The slan headed straight toward a big, blazing sign: AIR CENTER – vanished without hesitation into the revolving door under the sign.

Jommy paused at the door. The Air Center, which dominated the entire aircraft industry on the face of the globe! Was it possible that slans worked here? That in the very center of the human world that hated them with almost unimaginable ferocity slans actually controlled the greatest transportation system in the entire world?

He pushed through the door, and along the corridor of marble that stretched ahead of him, countless doors leading off it. For the moment there was not a person in sight, but little thoughts trickled out to feed his growing amazement and delight.

The place swarmed with slans. There must be scores, hundreds!

Just ahead of him, a door opened, and two bareheaded young men came out and walked toward him. They were talking quietly to each other, and for a moment did not see him. He had time to catch their surface thoughts, the calm and magnificent confidence of them, the lack of fear. Two slans, in the very prime of maturity – and bareheaded!

Bareheaded. That was what finally penetrated to Jommy above everything else. Bareheaded – and without tendrils.

For a moment it seemed to him that his eyes must be playing him tricks. His gaze searched almost frantically for the golden strands of tendril that should have been there. Tendrilless slans! So that was it! That explained why they couldn't read minds. The men were only ten feet away from him, and simultaneously, they became aware of him. They stopped.

"Boy," said one, "you'll have to get out. Children are not allowed in here. Run along now."

Jommy drew a deep breath. The mildness of the reproof was reassuring, especially now that the mystery was explained. It was wonderful that, by the simple removal of their telltale tendrils, they could live and work securely in the very center of their enemies! With a sweeping, almost melodramatic gesture, he reached up to his cap, and removed it "It's all right," he began. "I'm – "

The words blurred on his lips. He watched the two men with fear-widened eyes. For after one uncontrolled moment of surprise, their mind shields closed tight Their smiles were friendly. One said, "Well, this is a surprise!"

And the other echoed, "A. damned pleasant surprise. Welcome, kid!"

But Jommy was not listening. His mind was swaying from the shock of the thoughts that had exploded in the brains of the two men in that brief period when they saw the glittering golden tendrils in his hair:

"God," the first one thought, "it's a snake!"

And from the other came a thought utterly cold, utterly merciless: "Kill the damned thing!"