The Issahar Artifacts Read online

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  The principal impressions I received from this initial contact were anawareness of self and a recognizance of identity--the concept of _cogitoergo sum_ came through quite clearly. I wonder what Descartes wouldthink of an alien intelligence quoting his dogma.... I think it isanimal, despite the absence of animal life in this area. The thoughtpatterns are quick and flexible. And they have been increasing in powerand precision at an appreciable rate. I am sure that it is aware of me.I shall call the feeling "it" until I can identify the source moreaccurately. Certainly "it" appears to be as good a description as any,since there is no consciousness of sex in the thought patterns. I wonderwhat sort of ... and to my surprise I _swore_! I do not ordinarilycurse or use obscenities--not because they are obscene but because theyare a poor and inexact means of conveying ideas or impressions. But inthis case they were particularly appropriate. No other words could soprecisely describe my feelings. Me, a rational intelligence, succumbingto such low-level emotional stimuli! If this keeps on, the next thing Iknow I will be seeing little green men flitting through the trees.... Ofcourse, this world is unnatural, which makes its effect on the nervoussystem more powerful, yet that does not explain the feeling of tensionwhich I have been experiencing, the silent straining tension of anoverloaded cable, the tension of a toy balloon overfull with air. I havea constant feeling of dreadful expectancy, of imminent disaster, mixedwith a sense of pain and a lively--almost childlike--curiosity. To saythat this is disquieting would be a complete understatement, this stateof chronic disease, mixed with occasional rushes of terror. I am certainthat my nervous system and emotional responses are being examined, andcatalogued like a visceral preparation in an anatomy laboratory. Thereis something infinitely chilling about this mental dissection.

  ... and after a careful search of the area I found precisely nothing.You who may read this will probably laugh, but I cannot. To me this isno laughing matter. I find myself jumping at the slightest noise, anincrease in the wind, the snap of an expanding hull plate, the crackleof static over my radio. I whirl around to see who, or _what_, iswatching me. My skin crawls and prickles as though I were covered withants. My mind is filled with black, inchoate dread. In three words, _I'mscared stiff_! Yet there is nothing tangible--nothing I should befrightened about, and this terrifies me even more. For I know where thiscontinual fear and worry can lead--to what ends this incessantstimulation can reach.

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  Under pressure my body reacts, preparing me to fight or flee. Myadrenals pump hormones into my bloodstream, stimulating my heart and mysympathetic nervous system, making glucose more available to my muscles.My peripheral capillaries dilate. Intestinal activity stops as blood ischanneled into the areas which my fear and my glands decide will need itmost. I sweat. My vision blurs. All the manifold changes of the fight orflight syndrome are mobilized for instant action. But my body cannot beheld in this state of readiness. The constant stimulation willultimately turn my overworked adrenal glands into a jelly-like mess ofcystic quivering goo. My general adaptation syndrome will no longeradapt. And I will die.

  But I am not dead yet. And I have certain advantages. I am intelligent.I know what faces me. And I can adjust. That is one of the outstandingcharacteristics of the human race--the ability to adjust to ourenvironment, or, failing that, to adjust our environment to us. Inaddition, I have my hands, tools, and materials to work with here in thelifeboat. And finally I am desperate! I should be able to accomplishsomething. There must be ...

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  ... But it is not going well. There are too many parts which I do notknow by sight. If I were a more competent electronicist I would have hadthe parts assembled now and would be sending a beacon signal clearacross this sector. The pressure hasn't been any help. It doesn't getgreater, but it has become more insisting--more demanding. I seem tofeel that it _wants_ something, that its direction has become morechannelized. The conviction is growing within me that I am destined tobe _absorbed_.

  The fear with which I live is a constant thing. And I still keep lookingfor my enemy. In a strange, impersonal way it has become my enemy forthough it does not hate, it threatens my life. My waking hours are helland my sleep is nightmare. Strange how a man clings to life and sanity.It would be so easy to lose either. Of one thing I am certain--thiscannot go on much longer. I cannot work under pressure. I must act. Ishall try again to find my enemy and kill it before it kills me. It isno longer a question of ...

  ... Never again shall I wish to be alone. If I get out of this alive Iam going to haunt crowds. I will surround myself with people. Right nowI would give my soul to have one--just one--person near me. Anyone. Ifeel certain that two of us could face this thing and lick it. Ifnecessary we could face it back to back, each covering the other. I amnow getting impressions. Sensory hallucinations. I am floating. I swim.I bathe luxuriantly in huge bathtubs and the water runs through my bodyas though I were a sponge. Have you ever felt _porous_?...

  ... and that last attack was a doozer! I wrecked a week's work lookingfor the little man who wasn't there. The urge to kill is becoming moreintense. I want to destroy the author of my misery. Even though I amstill a balanced personality--polite language for being sane--I can'ttake much more of this. I will not go mad, but I will go into theadrenal syndrome unless I can end this soon.

  Nothing I have done seems to help. For a while I was sure that the musictapes held the pressure back, but the enemy is used to them now. I amstill working on the subspace beacon. The radio and most of the controllinkages have gone into it. It looks like an electronicist's nightmare,but if the survival manual is right, it will work. It has to work! Idread the time when I shall have to cannibalize the recorder. Can'thelp thinking that Shakespeare was right when he wrote that bit aboutmusic soothing the savage breast. It may not soothe the enemy, for itisn't savage, but it certainly soothes me, even though there's somethingrepetitive about it after a half a hundred playings. My breast's savageall right. Fact is, it's downright primitive when an attack starts. Ican feel them coming now. I keep wondering how much longer I can last.Guess I'm getting morbid....

  More nightmares last night. I drowned three times and a purple octopusgave me an enema. Woke up screaming, but got an idea from it. Funny thatI never thought of it before. Water's the fountainhead of life, andthere is no real reason for assuming my enemy is terrestrial. He couldjust as well be aquatic. I'll find out today--maybe. Just to be doingsomething positive--even thinking--makes me feel better....

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  _Got it!_ I know where it is! And I know how to kill it. Fact is, I'vealready done it! Now there's no more pressure. God--what a relief! Thismorning I burned the meadow and cut down the nearest trees surroundingthis clearing and nothing happened. I expected that. Then I checked thewater. Nothing in the stream, but the pond was _green_!--filled almostto the edge with a mass of algae! A hundred-foot platter of sticky greenslime, cohesive as glue and ugly as sin. It _had_ to be it--and it was.I never saw algae that cohered quite like that. So I gave it about fiftygallons of rocket juice--red fuming nitric acid--right in the belly.Then I sat down and let the tension flow out of me, revelling in itspain, laughing like crazy as it turned brown--and the pressuredisappeared. No tension at all now. The place is as quiet and peacefulas the grave. I want to laugh and laugh--and run through the burnedmeadow and roll in the ashes so grateful am I for my deliverance.

  Got the idea of killing the monster from a splash of rocket fuel on thebank of the stream and my memory of the pain in the early feelings. Butit was nothing compared to the feeling when the acid hit that damnedmass of green slime! Even though my brain was screaming at me, I feltgood. I should put a couple of hundred gallons into the stream just tomake sure--but I can't afford it. I need the fuel to run the generatorsto propagate the wave that'll bring me home if someone hears it. Andthey'll hear it all right. My luck is in. Now I'm going to sleep--_sweetsleep that kni
ts the ravelled sleeve of care_--Shakespeare, old man, youhad a phrase for everything! I love you. I love everything. I even feelsorry for that poor plant ... of guilt. It couldn't help the fact thatmy jets set up a mutation. And being intelligent it _had_ to becurious. Of course, no one would believe me if I started talking aboutintelligent algae. But what's so odd about that? Even the most complexlife forms are just aggregations of individual cells working together.So if a few individual cells with rudimentary data-storage capacity gotthe idea of uniting why couldn't they act like a complex organism?

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  It is useless to speculate on what might have happened had that thinglived. But it's dead now--burned to death in acid. And althoughdestruction of intelligent life is repugnant to me, I cannot helpfeeling that it is perhaps better that it is gone. Considering