The Embedding

NINETEEN

Roused from sleep, Sciavoni gulped down a benzedrine tablet and a glass of milk then pulled on his clothes and stumbled from the room with the military policeman who wakened him.

Silverson was waiting for him on the ground floor.

“Before you talk to the alien, Mr Sciavoni—Franklin has had to send out a search and rescue mission to look for Zwingler and his Indians.”

Sciavoni, who had been dreaming an Italian spaghetti Western till just a couple of minutes before, found this information faintly confusing and shook his head sleepily, hoping the pill would hurry up and take effect.

“The thing is,” Silverson whispered, as they headed for the door to outside, “guerrilla activity’s getting worse down there. We just heard the bastards dynamited Project Headquarters in Santarém. Apparently the whole situation has been much worse than the Brazilian authorities realized. In a sense, this exonerates us for blowing that dam. Let’s say it confuses the issue nicely. But we still don’t know where Zwingler and that man Sole are, even if they’re still alive—”

“So I have to stall Ph’theri?”

“Yes, that’s no joke,” sympathized Silverson. “But that isn’t all. I fear our friends made too good a job of blowing the dam. The really worrying thing is reports of the sheer volume of water emptying down that river. We’re afraid the lower dam is going to be overtopped. If that happens and the weight of both lakes gets down to the primary dam upstream of Santarém—well, that’s that. I wouldn’t like to be in Santarém.”

Sciavoni passed a hand over his tousled wiry hair agitatedly. NASA spent billions of dollars to safeguard the lives of a trio of human beings a quarter million miles from home—the idea of protecting life sank in after a while.

“Still,” Silverson consoled, “I hear the guerrillas blew up a barge-load of gelignite inside one of the locks at Santarém. So when the structure fails, it can always be blamed on them. It’ll make it seem more plausible they sabotaged the upper dam too.”

“Bad. It’s bad. Look Silverson, I can’t concentrate on that aspect right now. All I want to know about is Sole and Zwingler and those precious Indians.”

“Well, like I said. Franklin has a search mounted now. They know roughly where to look.”

However, Ph’theri wasn’t to be stalled, out there under the stars which were his stars.

“Forty-eight hours,” the alien said sharply, raising his hand. “The time bonus lapses—”

“It’s the terrain, Ph’theri. Dense jungle, it’s terribly difficult…”

“Is there any real evidence for the existence of this Self-Embedding Brain? We have traded with species who thought themselves wily, before.”

“I resent that, Ph’theri. We’re going to a lot of trouble to get that brain for you.”

“Where are the ordinary brain units?”

“They’re all here now, Mr Sciavoni,” Silverson said brightly. “The Soviets came through with theirs about half an hour ago. I guess their SST landing was what alerted Ph’theri.”

“Good,” said Ph’theri. “Let us get on with that transfer, at least. We have dissected the corpse. We will perform brain excision together with eyes and elements of the spinal column. Subsequent testing procedures should occupy another twenty-four hours, which will allow you time to establish the intelligibility of the data we transfer to you. If there is no sign of the Self-Embedding Brain by then, we will wait another twenty-four hours, then we shall have to leave—”

Two other Sp’thra, who must have been monitoring the conversation, appeared in the doorway of the scoutship. They carried a display screen with a small control panel down the ramp and set it on the concrete before Sciavoni.

“This is programmed with the relevant information. And now, the brain-units please,” Ph’theri insisted.

Reluctantly, Sciavoni called out instructions; and shortly after that the first of six mobile stretchers with a sedated human form on it was wheeled through the glass doors.

Sciavoni hurriedly bent to inspect the data screen.