MINDBRIDGE by Joe Haldeman

“What we’ll do is send one Tamer to Achernar on a 191/2-minute jump. Assuming the aliens show up again, what he has to do is stay with them, near them, until slingshot time. Then grab one. Embrace him and bring him back.

“Obviously a perilous mission. We don’t know what other sort of weapons the aliens might have.”

He picked up the goldfish bowl and swirled it. “In here, we have the names of every available Tamer – except for pregnant women. That’s not out of chivalry; the magnetic field won’t be strong enough to harm an adult, but we don’t know what it could do to a developing fetus.”

“Quick,” Carol whispered, “make me pregnant.”

“Here?”

“Any one of you is qualified for this mission,” Riley was saying. “For my own peace of mind, if nothing else, I don’t want a volunteer. Is there any objection to this procedure?”

“Yeah-my name’s in that goddam bowl,” Jacque murmured.

Riley picked a Tamer from the front row to draw a name from the bowl and hand it to him.

He looked up. “Wachal. Tamer Three Carol Wachal.”

Jacque went with Carol to the Krupp factory in Denver, where GPEM suits were made. She was to get a final fitting and practice using some of the suit’s unique accessories.

It was larger than a regular suit and had a shiny, crinkly surface, Like rumpled aluminum foil. The man who showed it to them was a Spaniard named Tueme. Jacque had expected a German. He had nothing against Germans, but they always seemed to fall into his life at times of crisis.

“You probably will not have to use all of these things,” Tueme said. “But you should test them, and yourself, just in case.”

He ran his finger along six metal eggs attached to the suit’s chest. “These are limited-radius fragmentation grenades. Each contains thousands of needle-sharp crystals, under pressure, of some sulfur compound that evaporates in air. They will shred any person standing within 21/2 meters when they detonate. Beyond 21/2 meters, the crystals will have evaporated and will do no harm. They explode on contact.

“We suggest that you try to stay outside of the fatal radius. The crystals will not penetrate your suit, of course, but they might harm your equipment.”

“No holo cameras,” Carol said.

“No. The Z-axis camera has to be mounted on a boom. It is awkward. There are two flat cameras, front and back.

“Built into the helmet is a ten-megawatt laser which you aim automatically. There are crosshairs on the screen of your image amplifier. Simply look at your target and depress the tongue switch that normally would put you in contact with your unit’s supervisor. One-second burst, each time you switch-but use it with caution. It drains power from the magnetic field generator, and will leave you temporarily vulnerable.

“The other tongue switch, that normally calls the food and water tubes, will trigger a strong injection of para-amphetamine: this will accelerate your muscular responses and make your senses temporarily more acute. But it will also affect your judgment; it will make you self-confident, perhaps to the point of recklessness. So use it only in an extreme emergency.

“If you hit the switch a second time, it will deliver a compensating dosage of a depressant. Then you may repeat the para-amphetamine if it is needed again.”

“What, no cyanide pill?” Jacque said.

“No, it is not necessary.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“If the aliens overpower you and attempt to open the suit, its power plant will overload and detonate. This will cause a fusion reaction on the order of one megaton.”

“I see,” Carol said.

“A natural precaution. One that should not be necessary, however. You have many defenses.

“These three bulbs contain a powerful tranquilizing gas.” They were rounded cylinders, juice-can-sized, colored yellow, green, and red. “The green one is ten times as strong as the yellow. The red, ten times as strong as the green. Be sure to set them off in the proper order. The gas will work on any mammal and many other creatures: the yellow will make a human drowsy and confused; the green will put him to sleep. The red would kill him.

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