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It hurt Miles' eyes to watch the globe. He looked away toward the steadily flowing yellow light of the
wall, which was more bearable. Swarming in suddenly upon the heightened perceptivity that the aliens
had given him came an impingement, a feeling of being surrounded on all sides by many minds. All at
once he realized that he was inside literally inside one of the huge ships of the Center Aliens.
"You will look at " The last word said by the Center Alien had meanings beyond the ability of Miles'
mind to grasp. It translated vaguely in his mind as words like "eye" or "window." But he understood that it
was the globe to which the Center Alien referred.
He forced his eyes back to the globe, which caught and held his gaze with a strength and intensity that
were so great as to be almost painful. He felt himself, his mind, his memories, everything about him, being
some wayexamined.
For a long moment the examination continued. Then, abruptly, it was over. He found himself free to look
again at the yellow, flowing light of the walls, which he did gratefully.
"It's settled then," said the voice of the Center Alien beside him. "You will be given the observational test
for which you've asked."
Abruptly he was back in the small ship. The Center Alien sat beside him again, and they were still
headed back toward the end of the line where theFighting Rowboat waited on her platform.
No,they were not headed back. Looking sideways at the Center Alien beside him and feeling the
emotional response under the illusory appearance of humanity that clothed him, Miles sensed that this
was a different individual from the Center Alien who had first picked him up.
Miles opened his mouth to comment on this and then closed it again. They rode in silence back to the
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platform where theFighting Rowboat waited.
However, when they left the small ship and Miles started up the ladder into theFighting Rowboat, he
became conscious of the fact that the Center Alien was not following him. Turning about, halfway up the
ladder, he saw the Center Alien standing still on the platform about a dozen steps off.
"Go ahead," said the Center Allen. "I will observe from here."
Miles went on up the ladder and closed the entrance port of theFighting Rowboat behind him. The air
of tension and excitement within struck him like a physical blow. He stalked rapidly through the lounge
and into the control room, where Eff and Luhon were already in their seats. Their faces looked a question
at him, but he did not answer that question to them, alone. Instead, he sat down in his own seat before
the central console and, touching a communications control, spoke to everyone aboard the ship.
"Calm down," he said. "All of you, calm yourselves. We can't put on any demonstration, keyed up the
way we are now. I'm giving everybody two minutes to damp down his emotions. Remember we're under
observation here, and we're going to be judged from the moment we lift off the platform."
He dropped his finger from the control and sat back limply in his chair, trying to relax. He did not look to
either right or left at his two underofficers. Before him on the console, a chronometer marked off those
secondlike sections of time which made up intervals roughly analogous to Earth minutes.
As he sat there, Miles could feel his own tension lowering like the red line of the spirit level in a
thermometer plunged into ice water on a warm day. Not only that, but he could feel now the general
air of tension in the vessel was also slipping away. At the end of two minutes those aboard theFighting
Rowboat were almost calm.
Miles touched the controls, and the ship lifted. For a moment he wondered how the Center Alien was
going to observe them when they would be light-years out from the Battle Line in intergalactic darkness.
But that was the Center Alien's worry. He dismissed the thought and put his whole mind to handling the
craft.
The emotion of the twenty-three aboard the ship had evaporated now. There was left only the hard
purpose the hard, cold purpose of their intentness on the exercise. TheFighting Rowboat was now a
good dozen light-years out in front of the rest of the Battle Line. Miles pressed a control on the console
before him. The illusory Silver Horde ships that were the first phase of their battle exercise were
produced by the computer on the screen before him and on the screens that were the transparent
bubbles enclosing the weapons lining the ship's sides.
Miles' hands leaped over the console before him, and the hands of Luhon and Eff followed him on either [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]