Starblood

circular port of the guidance deck, into the tubeway that led to the next room, the alien voice spoke to him like sand spilling down a marble slope: whispers, whispers, whispers…

CHAPTER 16
    "…
del esseda esseda esseda
…
quaol mi o esseda
…
esseda
…"
    He came to an abrupt halt, the submerged fear rising as the cold, quiet voice echoed softly through the tubeway. He looked back into the room he had just left. There did not seem to be anything there, though the darkness made it difficult to tell for certain. He uncapped his psionic talents and searched that chamber, questing for the spark of life, the jumble of thoughts and impressions that would have accompanied even an alien mind. But he could find nothing.
    Even as he searched ahead, he began to realize that the words had not been spoken, that they had impressed themselves in his mind without need for verbalization. That meant the speaker, using ESP powers, might not even be present.
    He stood quite still for several minutes, waiting for a repetition of the words. When he was met with only silence and an uncomfortable feeling of being watched, he started forward again. Before he had progressed another half dozen feet further along the tubeway, the same, alien, cold whisper began again: "…
saysi del esseda esseda esseda
…
quaol mi o"
…
    He stopped to listen but heard nothing more. At last he found his throat sufficiently unconstricted enough to say, "I can't understand you."
    He did not think to impart the words without speaking them, as the alien had done. He was not yet quite accustomed to the new abilities of his mind. He had never even considered the possibility of telepathy, and he was more than a little stunned by the prospect now.
    There was another minute during which nothing was said. Then another. Finally, when his patience had worn thin and he was prepared to advance to see if that would spark interest in the alien's part where there now seemed to be none, the soft, ethereal whisper came again—this time with the same sort of English that Timothy might have used himself.
    "
I thought that you were one of us
." Despite the English, the voice was eerie, thin, rasped like the voice of a man stricken with some disease of the vocal cords.
    "No," he said. "No." And for a horrible moment he was certain that his powers of concentration would desert him, that he would be able to do nothing more than babble inanely, like some mentally deficient child, at what was most certainly a historical moment, this first meeting of man and extraterrestrial. His feeling of inadequacy had been resurrected. He had not felt this insecure and worthless since his days in the hospital and the first year or so after his release. But then there were words, issued haltingly but nonetheless sensibly. Not profound, to be sure. He did not have the presence of mind, right then, to be philosophical. But sensible, at least. "I'm from this world—not yours," he said.
    "In what manner did you gain entrance?"
    "Teleportation," he said. That gave him at least a little pride. "Just as your kind used to travel from the rear portion of the ship to these private chambers."
    "You know of us."
    It was not a question so much as a statement, but he said, "Some. Not very much."
    "How?"
    "From deduction," he said. He recounted the things he had found since entering the starship, speaking swiftly in hopes that he was not boring the disembodied voice with ramblings which might seem relatively petty to it. For two races to meet and speak, though they were of different and distant star systems, was a thing for wonder. Not for boredom.
    He found he was perspiring. He felt as if he were on a great stage before an audience whose faces were invisible beyond the brilliant footlights, but which must number in the thousands.
    "
You speak of the Brethren
," the whispering voice said, picking that piece of datum out of the information Timothy had supplied. "
Explain them, please
."
    He obliged, explaining the nature of Brethren hierarchy, then of the Brethren activity itself. It was not that he felt all of the minute facts should be transmitted to the listening alien or that—once transmitted—they would serve any purpose through their illumination; it was more of a fear, actually, that if he stopped talking for even a short moment, the creature would have learned all that it wished to know and would send him on his way without satisfying his own curiosity. Or destroy him. That was what one