E. S. P. Worm Read online

  “SSSSS!” Qumax sounded as I fell. Yes, it hurt him. Then suddenly he wasn’t in my head, and I was able to look up at Nancy and force a smile at her.

  “I don’t like to cause pain to anyone or anything,” she said, pulling her suit together. “Qumax, if you persist—”

  She paused, as though rebuffing another mental siege.

  Then the itch was back and I was making another lunge. This time I got her: I clamped my arms around her small waist, locked one hand over one wrist, and grabbed at her coveralls with the other hand. I was behind her, my hands in front. My palm pressed against—

  Then the mind presence was gone again, and I felt her stiffen. Qumax was attacking her again, and there I was hanging on to her . . . chest. The giant worm rumpled up, and the massed tentacles were reaching for both of us.

  I hurled Nancy sidewise and shouldered into Qumax. His writhing digits touched me repulsively, but my weight was enough to rock back his fore-part. He lost his balance and fell, his tail slapping frantically at the rug. The worm-shape was not ideal on a flat surface.

  I ran to Nancy to help her up. She was unconscious. Had she banged her head when I threw her down? I had only done it to save her from the alien.

  Qumax righted himself. “Stupid female,” he complained. “She fainted when you squeezed her boob. Prudish mammal!”

  “I never—” But of course I had. My hand still tingled with the memory. Qumax had made me do it, but full sensation had returned to me when he went after her.

  I felt faint myself. This went far beyond mere pornography. That was vicarious. To actually perform such an obscene act—

  “The fuzz’ll be on our necks in a moment,” Qumax said. It was amazing how much old-fashioned slang he had picked up from three days of trebvee. The fuzz on his neck? He didn’t even have a neck, unless it was his entire body. “I’ll just have to make do with you, I guess. She has a much better mind, but I can’t get at it. Not in the time we have. But we’d better bring her along.”

  “Bring her—” I started, confused. “Where are we going?” I did recognize the need to escape, whatever our personal differences. None of us had much of a future in Lucifernia. Not after the trouble we had caused. Not with Freddy’s machinations.

  At Qumax’s mental spur I picked up Nancy’s unconscious form and hoisted it out of the pit. Then I gave Qumax a boost— or rather, I braced myself while he crawled over me. He was astonishingly heavy. No wonder a five-foot wall had been enough to confine him. With no place for him to get a proper tentacle-hold, and the furniture bolted down (and no doubt securely riveted) in the center, he had been helpless. Except for his ability to control human minds. Why hadn’t he used that before?

  “Because I didn’t think of it,” he admitted candidly. He was, after all, a child; his experience was limited. “Anyway, there were no good subjects in this hole, and it wasn’t time yet.”

  Time? Oh, the space ship that was coming for him. I hadn’t realized it was arriving so soon.

  “It isn’t the one they expect,” he said. “This one happened to be closer, so stopped by to help. My Swarm Tyrant doesn’t know about it either. He’ll be real mad when his ship comes and Earth can’t turn me over!” Again the frying sound.

  Somehow I did not share his glee. That Tyrant might very well liquidate our sun, or whatever it was he had threatened. And how did Qumax himself know about that nearer ship?

  Before I could consider such things further, Qumax was up, and I had to climb out myself and pick up Nancy again. I wasn’t used to such exercise, and she was no light pool cue. But it was either cooperate or feel the itch, and I preferred the former.

  We made our way along the various halls and tunnels to the elevator, and piled inside. Qumax’s bulk made it uncomfortably crowded. I thought I’d gag on that licorice aroma. We started up.

  Nancy’s blue eyes opened. “What? What?” she inquired.

  “We’re, ah, leaving Lucifernia,” I said. It was my voice and my statement, but not my conviction. Qumax was out of my head.

  Her hand went to her . . . chest. “Harold, what happened after—after—?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “The worm and I had a discussion and decided to break out. That’s all.”

  “This is suicidal!” she exclaimed, coming fully awake. “We can’t just walk out!”

  “Why not!” Qumax demanded.

  “A disheveled woman, an alien creature, and a naked man?”

  Oops! I had forgotten that last.

  And then the elevator was gentling to a stop. Qumax pressed a button and the doors slid aside.

  There, as I had feared, was the firing squad. Six guards and Nitti.

  “Now, my little menagerie,” the warden said, “Let’s have a little chat. About an attempted jail-break, and an unprovoked attack on duly constituted authorities, and . . .”

  He spun off a whole paragraph of technicalities, but I didn’t listen. He must have been dosed with an antidote to the Jupegas, for he obviously hadn’t slept for any twenty hours. His suit was rumpled where I had grabbed him, and he did not seem to be in a good humor.

  Seven men, counting Nitti. How many could Qumax control simultaneously? I wished the worm had been paying attention to what lay ahead; he could have landed at another floor. But a brat wouldn’t have such elementary foresight.

  I peered quickly at my Jamborang cohort and saw the reaction I had been half expecting. Qumax was quivering in dismay. Obviously, if he could control more than one person at a time, he would have hung on to me while attacking Nancy. Instead, he had tackled us one at a time.

  “The warden!” Nancy stage-whispered, poking Qumax just beneath the cluster of tentacles. “He gives the orders—”

  “No talking in the ranks!” Nitti barked. “I’m in charge here, and—and I say—” His expression grew even uglier than usual. “I say—” Fear came and went. “I say—” He formed a greasy smile. “I say we’ll take my personal copter. March!”

  Had Qumax succeeded in taking over? I wasn’t sure. But I knew Nitti had a skull-sized itch along about now.

  At any rate, we marched. A woman, a worm, and a naked man. Down the hall, through an office, out a door, into a courtyard open to the sky.

  A sentry came to life. “Halt!” he cried. “Show your passes.”

  “I’m taking these prisoners to my copter,” Nitti said.

  “By what authority?”

  “By my own authority! I’m the warden.”

  “The Jamborangan entity is confined according to the directive of the President of the World. Show me his authorization.”

  Oh-oh. Divided authority here. Trouble.

  The sentry made the peculiar combination of faces, and I knew that the itch had transferred itself to his head. “Very well. Pass,” he said at last.

  But if Qumax had transferred control to the sentry, what about Nitti?

  “Jailbreak! Jailbreak!” Nitti cried suddenly. “Oh, my parboiled head! Gas them all!”

  Qumax had bungled it. For now Nitti knew the score.

  The men milled about in confusion, not comprehending this abrupt change. Nancy reached over, grabbed a Jupegas gun, and pulled the trigger. Slivers of ice shot out in a steady stream. She swung the weapon in a half circle before us, and suddenly we three were the only ones standing.

  It occurred to me that I wouldn’t like to have this woman mad at me.

  After that it was almost routine. Qumax summoned an attendant, made him show us where the copter was, made him phone down instructions to let the warden’s aircraft pass, and then had me gas the attendant with one of the other guns. We climbed into the machine.

  “Now,” Nancy said, “we have only three problems.”

  “We don’t have time for a discussion,” I said nervously. “We have to get out of here before they discover what we’ve done and activate the defenses.” The thought of those defenses chilled me. I hardly cared to be goosed by a missile.

  “That’s the first problem,” s
he said. “Which of us knows how to fly a military copter?”

  I looked at Qumax and he looked at me. Blanks. “Next problem,” she said, brisk as a schoolteacher. “Which of us knows the safe route past the airborne minefields and the territory covered by the automatic antiaircraft emplacements?”

  Blanks.

  “And just how long will it be before they find Nitti and give him the antidote again? Long enough for us to blunder out of his vengeful, all-points-bulletin reach?”

  “I’m only a misunderstood alien child,” Qumax said, and began to cry.

  Nancy rolled her eyes skyward. “Well, we’re committed now. We’ll all be crucified if we stay here. Harold, you go drag the warden to the copter. He’ll be able to fly us out safely, and that’ll keep him out of mischief, too.”

  Qumax brightened. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re only a misunderstood alien child,” she snapped. “See if you can find the Jupegas antidote. We’ll need him conscious.”

  Meekly, Qumax got busy. So did I.

  Nitti was heavy. He must have had decades of rich dining at the taxpayers’ expense. But somehow I hauled his carcass to the copter, where Nancy gave him a shot of the antidote— Saturngas—that Qumax had found in the machine’s first-aid kit. Then Qumax took over his mind and Nitti piloted us slowly and circuitously upward.

  Qumax stretched across three let-down passenger seats. I found a civilian suit and made myself halfway presentable. Nancy procured needle and thread and did the same.

  Gradually the prison became a dark fearsome shadow with its walls studded with radar antennae and rocket launchers. Overhead, sunlight streamed strong and free. Nitti answered three challenges with three separate passwords and a flash of his badge, and we were not fired on.

  “Good thing I’m a Jam,” Qumax remarked. “Most galactics can read minds, but can’t control actions. They’d be helpless now.”

  I decided not to comment on how helpless he had seemed before Nancy organized our little escapade.

  At last we passed out of Lucifernia. We were free.

  The phone rang.

  We all jumped. Qumax’s rumple landed him on the floor between seats, and he was hard put to it to climb back up. Nancy was first to recover.

  “It’s the warden’s phone,” she pointed out. “He should answer it. He can put the copter on automatic now.”

  Nitti, under mental duress, did just that. He set the controls and pressed the “receive” stud on the control panel. “Warden Nitti speaking.”

  Freddy’s face appeared in the front screen. “Warden, I gave you strict orders to keep that worm confined until the alien ship— ”

  Then he spied the rest of us. “All right, Harold—what are you up to?”

  Before I could answer, Qumax cut in. “Help! Help! Mr. President, this awful man is wormnapping me! He says he—he’ll kill me if you try to stop him. Please, please save me from him!”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Nancy kicked me. Then I realized that Qumax was actually putting me in charge, while he continued to control Nitti. I nodded, surreptitiously massaging my bruised ankle. “You’ll have to—to pay a big ransom, if you want him back in one segment,” I growled. “You know what his Swarm Tyrant will do to Earth if anything happens to him.”

  “Warden, arrest this man!” Freddy cried.

  “Arrest him yourself, Rube,” Nitti’s voice said. “I’m with Harold.”

  “And don’t send any planes after us,” I said. “I mean business. Ten million in small bills. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to deliver.” But I wondered how he could deliver, if we were avoiding him.

  “Do as he says, sir!” Qumax cried pitifully. “He’s a bad man!”

  “Ridiculous,” Freddy said, but he looked uncertain.

  “Harold,” Nancy whispered urgently. “I—I think we’re being followed already.”

  I glanced at her white face, then followed her quivering finger to the red light rising behind us. Another copter—a large one! Trust Freddy not to communicate until he had the power to back it up.

  “Get rid of it,” I told Freddy. “Or I’ll—”

  I hesitated. What would I do, in my assumed capacity as abductor of the alien worm? I saw the blunt tip of Qumax’s tail and had a dull inspiration.

  I grabbed the tail and hauled it up into the field of view of the phone pickup. The thing was as lumpy and limp as a bean cushion, and sandpaper rough. No wonder Qumax seldom skidded! “I’ll start torturing him!” I said with what I hoped was the proper note of fanaticism. I made a face and tweaked the tail gently.

  “Ouch! Oooo, that smarts!” Qumax screamed obligingly. He was hamming it up too much, but Freddy seemed impressed. “This monster is killing me! Please, please, Mr. President, do as he says!”

  “Harold wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a worm,” Freddy said disgustedly.

  So much for bluffing. My practical cousin knew me too well. The copter behind gained.

  “Take us into those clouds,” Nancy said, speaking to Qumax. “And cut off President Bascum—he’s using the phone to keep tabs on us.”

  How nice to have someone smart along, I thought. Nitti’s hand flicked the phone switch off and banked the copter to the left. Sure enough, there was a floating mountain of cloud, with outlying islands and a dense interior mass. We shot into that complex, and it was like peasoup fog. Cotton candy that became vapor drifted across our windshield. I hoped nothing solid was hidden there.

  I breathed silent relief as the copter began to drop. If we landed under cover of this fog, Freddy’s pursuit copter would never find us. Of course we could not exactly pose as tourist civilians—not with Qumax along. We’d have to hide him, scrounge for food, discourage inquiries, wait for his rescue-ship to arrive . . .

  The wheels touched ground moments after the fog lifted. Rather, I corrected myself, we had come out of the bottom of the cloud, submerging into daylight. Now to conceal the copter and ourselves—

  School children came from behind trees to stare. There were eight little country boys in overalls and flannel shirts, and one little girl in a proper baggie and sunbonnet. They gaped at the machine for a while, while we remained frozen with dismay, and then two of the boys tried to boost a third to our canopy. He made it and the brown eyes in the freckled face all but popped out of his head. I could not hear him, but I could imagine what descriptions of Nancy and Qumax his moving mouth was making.

  Qumax fried merrily and waved his tentacles at the lad.

  I wondered how many minutes it would take for the word to get back to Freddy’s minions. The cover had been blown, and we were right back in trouble. Why couldn’t the worm for once have acted with discretion—played dead, or hidden under a seat, or something? Did he want to be recaptured?

  I looked at Nancy. She looked at me. We shrugged fatalistically. Qumax was a child, after all.

  Chapter 4

  Suddenly Nancy remembered what she was wearing. “Well, now you’ve done it, haven’t you, Qumax?” she exclaimed, turning a flaming face on him. “It isn’t enough that you disgraced me before Harold and those terrible prison guards! Oh no, you had to let me be seen by children! Goodness knows what this will do to them! You—you should be ashamed of yourself!”

  I had thought she was adjusting nicely to the situation, and this surprised me. Maybe she had been too busy to be shy until now, but had suffered a letdown. Or maybe there was something particularly shocking about perverting the tender gaze of children. But most likely she was really angry that Qumax should throw away the escape we had managed, and was berating him on something minor just to let off steam.

  “It’s you who should be ashamed,” Qumax said. “Not for the reasons you imagine, either. But cheer up, it’s more than just young humans who will see you. Here comes—”

  “Oh no!” Nancy said, and shrank pitifully. When she let down, she really let down. Well, she had performed marvelously until this point, and Qumax had nullified it a
ll, so I could hardly blame her. Why keep fighting, when everything was already lost?

  Qumax continued to fry. “Don’t worry. There’s a lot more hidden. Only the outlines are prominent—”

  I forced myself to look sternly at him, much as I had been appreciating those feminine outlines he referred to. “Qumax, Nancy is right. You should be ashamed.” I was listening for the wail of a police siren, for surely the spectators had given the word by this time. No point in scrambling any more.

  I turned to Nancy. “Look, it’s only coveralls,” I said, still trying not to ogle them. “It’s only your hands that are uncovered and if you put them in your pockets—”

  Nitti turned around, grinning lasciviously. “Look at those bumps!”

  I picked up a gun and let him have a sliver right in the chest. He collapsed, still smiling, and I looked at my hand in shock. I had never been that short-tempered before.

  “They’re nice bumps,” I said, trying to cover over the insult and failing dismally. “If it were the custom to show them completely, I’d—I’d approve of it!”

  You’d go mad with desire, something said in my head. I jumped, then shook it off; I was hallucinating. I was reacting just as ridiculously as she was. It would almost be a relief when the police finally came.

  “Oh, Harold, you don’t know what it’s like,” she was saying. “Leered at—by children!”

  “It’s not your fault,” I started comfortingly, already heartily sick of this dialogue. But while I spoke, Qumax was lowering the ramp and getting the door open. The door swung upon three elderly females in very proper bag-dresses. There was no way they could have avoided seeing the shocking sight within the copter—a tousled man, an unconscious official, an unbagged woman and a monster worm. Three elderly breaths sucked sharply inwards in unison.

  “Well, I never!” said the modern with an obviously black-dyed hair bun.

  “Heavens!” said the tight-collared, earmuffed conservative.