Get Off the Unicorn by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online Page B

to a high emotional kick! Afra was afraid for her, with a fear deeper than any he had ever touched personally or vicariously. Afra withdrew troubled. She had better calm down and start acting like a Prime when she woke, instead of a giddy girl. If she didn’t, he’d push the panic button himself.
    After several hours’ sleep, Damia’s mental pyrotechnics were calmer. She “reached” Jeff with a professional report of the contact, only just a trifle high. When she had finished broadcasting, Jeff got a private thought to Afra but Afra could only confirm Damia’s report. He did not yet comment on his vague forebodings.
    The next day, Damia tossed off her necessary work as fast as she could, then went into space. And Afra waited as he had been waiting for Damia for years. She returned so shining from the second encounter, Afra had to clamp an icy hold over his mind.
    The third morning, as Damia sat in the control tower, she worked with such haste Afra reprimanded her. She corrected herself, gaily, making far too light of her mistake, and then, eagerly, she propelled herself out toward the rendezvous. When she returned that evening so tired that she reeled into the living room, Afra took command.
    â€œI’m going with you tomorrow, Damia,” he said firmly.
    â€œWhat for?” She sat bolt upright to glare at him.
    â€œYou forget that I have a direct order from Earth Prime to check the aura of these aliens. You’ve no way of knowing this isn’t a reinvasion by the same entities that attacked Deneb twenty years ago.”
    â€œSodan said they’d had no previous contact with any sentients,” she said, half angry.
    â€œSodan?”
    â€œThat is how he identifies himself,” she said with smug complacency. She lay back on the couch, smiling up at Afra.
    It disturbed him to know that this entity had a name. It made the alien seem too human. Nor could Afra quite reason away the tenderness with which Damia spoke that name.
    â€œGood enough,” Afra said, with an indifference he didn’t feel. “However, you don’t need to introduce me formally. All I need is to check on the aura. I’ll know in an instant if there’s any familiarity. I won’t jeopardize his confidence in your touch. He’ll never know I’ve been there.” Afra yawned,
    â€œWhy are
you
tired?”
    â€œI’ve been stevedoring all day,” he said with a malicious grin.
    The remark had the desired effect of infuriating Damia. The very fact that he could so easily divert her conclusively proved to Afra that her emotions were unhealthily involved. It no longer mattered whether this Sodan was of the race that Jeff and the Rowan had fought. He was a menace in himself.
    Somehow Afra got through the evening without a hint of his inner absorption spilling over. Damia, reliving the success of her day, wasn’t listening to anything but her own thoughts.
    The next day, after the necessary work was completed, Damia and Afra both took to their personal capsules. Afra followed Damia’s thrust and held himself silently as she reached the area where she could touch the aura of Sodan. Damia then linked Afra and carried his mind to the alien ship. As soon as the alien touch impinged on Afra’s awareness, much was suddenly clear to him: much seen, and worse, much unseen.
    What Damia could not, would not, or did not see justified Afra’s nagging presentiment of danger.
Nothing
out of Sodan’s mind was visible: and nothing beyond his public mind was touchable. The alien had a very powerful brain. As a quiescent eavesdropper, Afra could not probe, but he widened his own sensitivity to its limit and the impressions he received were as unreassuring as his increasingly stronger intuition of disaster.
    It was patent that this Sodan was not of the previous invasion species: that he had been traveling for an unspecifiable length of time far in excess of two Earth