Insect heart

"He cocked his .34-40 and cradled it. At the county fair someone had once said of Alton Drew that he could shoot at a handful of salt and pepper thrown in the air and hit only pepper. Once he split a bullet on the blade of a knife and pit tow candles out. He had no need to fear anything that could be shot at. That's what he believed."

"The thing in the woods looked curiously down at what it had done to Kimbo, and moanded the way Kimbo had before he died. It stood a minute storing away facts in its foul, unemotional mind. Blood was warm. The sunlight was warm. Things that moved and bore fur had a muscle to force out the thick liquid through their tiny bodies. The liquid coagulated after a time. The liquid on tooted freen things was thinner and the loss of a limb did not mean loss of life. It was very interesting, but the thing, the mold with a mind, was not pleased. Neither was is displeased. Its accidental urge was a thirst for knowledge, and it was only-interested."

Random selection from IT by Theodore Sturgeon

He was sure it was Alton Drew that he sensed coming.

Placing the book down and moving into the hallway to survey the surroundings, his antenna waving in the air, picking up signals of a deadly intruder. If not Alton Drew someone as dangerous, if not as gullible. There is not time to continue to read on. How did this Alton Drew overcome the arrogance and certainty, thereby becoming more dangerous and deadly than he would have imagined?

He had sensed danger in these humans before. After all, only the most elite of the Nazi's had access to the weapons exchange programs that he was head of. Aldeberan Intel had selected the exact time and place to begin its insidious deception that would make this water planet theirs.

The mantis-like creature began to think: they had empowered the most sadistic power-mad ape-ling, they had organized the deep grooves within the Thule and Vril power elite, but these detected wavelengths emitted from a coldness that was not driven by hate or lust for power -- they seethed with danger. The dangerous wavelengths seemed to have been processed outside of time; there may have been a desperation at some point in the time line... but in this moment there was only calculation... determination...

Some sense of curiosity was overrinding his urge to escape. Hanging upside down in the shadows of the underground hallway, his antenna waved, tasting the air... reaching out for more information. He was mesmerized, feeling as if he had entered into the story he was reading only moments before. He paused to wonder how Theodore Sturgeon was going to resolve the story. He knew the lust for information the Mold Mind felt. He has partaken of the Red Algae. He allowed himself a humourous thought: "Was Theodore Sturgeon a fish-man, an algae eater himself?"

The sense of curiosity suddenly shifted into an almost uncontrollable erotic urge. Alton Drew was humming a song that was unfolding from deep within his consciousness. Images of the most beautiful translucent wings and the finest silken hairs vibrating from segemented legs were filling his senses. The antenna were being entrained by a strange crooning frequency. All fear was vanishing even though it meant certain doom. Beads of liquid began to swell from the pores covering his body...his olefactory senses were full of his own mating scent. He began to squrry with a maddening pace up the crevices of the hall way toward the ever growing pulses of information ladened frequencies.

He found himself outside the Laboratory. He snapped to a new awarness. His military training and conditioning for this project were able to break the spell. He would not want to release the displacement technologies prematurely to the wrong agents... for it would surely cause the destruction of the Black Sun's Dark Stars. Exhausted and dripping with his own sex scent he paused to collect his senses and focus.

"I've had a love of mine own."

"I've had a love of mine own."

"I've had a love of mine own."

Like a house of cards his resolve crumbles... a rash confusion. The Star must prosper this love of his own...

All that he could focus on was the deep crooning sounds that now echoed in his head... he must be.

His gossamer wings are out now and he is flying through the lab. Passing shelves of equipment to the locked doors. He flips the locking sequences and the dimensional gates spiral out. Impelled by his deepest instincts as if drawn by the light of the star, his own star, the yellow Aldeberan...

He is free. He flys down the street.

He hears a greeting; it is Alton Drew. His insect heart is ready to spill forth its life... surely he is extending his race, releasing his genetic codes into eternity. Aldeberan will live forever, the star seed is ready to shoot forth in death-gasm.

A flash.

A blaze of hot plasma quiets a millisecond of confused anti-climax.

Green flaming goo covers the walls of the building.

Alton Drew steps into the Laboratory, slides the equipment into a leather sack, and slips out of there in a hurry... humming a little tune to himself.

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