Time Thieves

silence.
        
        He stopped struggling and tried to remember how he had gotten here, and where “here” was. In time, he could recall every detail of his last waking moments. The return of his memory did nothing to quiet his nerves.
        
        “Della?”
        
        Instantly, the alien being was there, pressing down on him with its telepathic powers. He sensed a relentless enemy that would not quit, ever.
        
        “Where is Della?” he thought.
        
        “She is safe.”
        
        “I want to see her.”
        
        “Later.”
        
        “Now!”
        
        “You are in no position to argue or to bargain, Mr. Mullion,” the creature said. “You were a match for one of us, working through the robotic mind constructions. But here, in the ship, we are all cooperating to hold your powers in check. I wish you to understand this and to cease your opposition. Cooperate. You will not be harmed. Neither will your wife, who is presently sedated and undergoing mind-scouring.”
        
        “Mind-scouring?” The sound of it was ominous.
        
        “We must remove all traces of our presence from her memory. When she wakes up, she will not remember the robots nor anything you might have told her telepathically.”
        
        “And the same for me?”
        
        “More for you.”
        
        “Death?” It was projected in blacks, with more fear than he would have liked to let them see.
        
        “No, no!” the alien assured him. “You have misunderstood our motives, from the beginning.”
        
        “I was shot.”
        
        “Only with narcotic darts, Mr. Mullion.”
        
        He directed a telepathic bolt of energy at the center of the alien mind. At the same time, he gritted his teeth and wrenched every muscle in his body, trying to sit up. If he could only sit up, all would be fine. From there, he would gain his feet, find Della, and escape this place.
        
        The alien fielded the psychic lance and plummeted Pete into quiet sleep where, this time, there were no dreams.
        
        “Shall we cooperate this time?” the newscaster's thoughts asked.
        
        He said nothing.
        
        “You see, four of us can handle you. There is no possibility of resistance. And, I must stress yet again, there is no need for resistance.” It seemed to sigh in exasperation. “We honestly have only your best interests in mind.”
        
        “Where did you come from?” he asked. He closed his eyes, preferring not to stare at the intense blackness on all sides.
        
        “Our home world is of no significance to you. You could not place it, even if you were familiar with star charts-which you are not.'
        
        “I didn't mean that,” he said. “What I meant was, why did you come into my life?'
        
        “Yes, of course, the creature said. “We owe you that much, at least. And, too, we will need your cooperation, later. I am certain you will give that more freely when you can conceive of the background to the drama of these past few weeks.'
        
        He waited. He sensed some sort of consultation on the telepathic channels, beyond reach, shielded.
        
        “We never intended to have direct contact with an intelligent creature,” the alien said, returning to their conversation as if they had never broken it off. “We chose the mountainside for a soft landing in this scout vessel because it was remote, yet near subjects for study. It was necessary to settle on the paved highway long enough for our engineers to run an analysis of the earthen bank on the other side of the road. That analysis would have taken three minutes. In five minutes, we would have meshed the molecules of our ship with those of the earth and would have traveled into the mountainside far enough to find a cavern in which the scout ship could reside for the duration of our studies here.”
        
        He was beginning to see what had happened.
        
        “That's correct,” the alien said, receiving his thoughts on the matter. “You rounded the curve in the road and struck the side of the ship. Your car went out of control, over the edge of the roadway, down the mountainside. Fortunately, it did not catch fire. Though it was too early in the morning for the noise to attract anyone, someone might have seen the flames, no matter if