He went back to the other control seat, sat down and leaned forward, elbows on knees. It brought his master directly into my view.
Nothing happened for some minutes, nor could I think of anything to do other than strain at my bonds. By his appearance, the Old Man was asleep, but I placed no trust in that.
A line formed straight down the middle of the horny brown covering of the slug.
As I watched it, it widened. Presently I could see the clotted opalescent horror underneath. The space between the two halves of the shell widened—and I realized that the slug was fissioning, sucking life and matter out of the body of my father to make two of itself.
I realized, too, with rigid terror, that I had no more than five minutes of individual life left to me. My new master was being born and soon would be ready to mount me.
Had it been humanly possible for flesh and bone to break the ties on me I would have broken them. I did not succeed. The Old Man paid no attention to my struggles. I doubt if he were conscious; the slugs must surely give up some measure of control while they are occupied with splitting. It must be that they simply immobilize the slave. As may be—the Old Man did not move.
By the time I had given up, worn out and sure that I could not break loose, I could see the ciliated silvery line down the center of the slug proper which means that fission is about to be complete. It was that which changed my line of reasoning, if there were reason left in my churning skull.
My hands were tied behind me, my ankles were tied, and I was belted tight across the middle to the chair. But my legs, even though fastened together, were free from my waist down; the seat had no knee belts.
I slumped down in the chair to get even more reach and swung my legs up high. I brought them down smashingly across the board—and set off every launching unit in her racks at once.
That adds up to a lot of g’s—how many, I don’t know, for I don’t know how full her racks were. But there were plenty. We were both slammed back against the seats. Dad much harder than I was, since I was strapped down. He was thrown against the back of his seat, with his slug, open and helpless, crushed between the two masses.
It splashed.
And Dad himself was caught in that terrible, total reflex, that spasm of every muscle that I had seen three times before. He bounced forward against the wheel, face contorted, fingers writhing.
The car dived.
I sat there and watched it dive, if you call it sitting when you are held in place only by the belt. If Dad’s body had not hopelessly fouled the controls I might have been able to do something about it—gotten her headed up again perhaps—with my bound feet. As it was, I tried but with no success at all. The controls were probably jammed as well as fouled.
The altimeter was clicking away busily. We had dropped to eleven thousand feet before I found time to glance at it. Then it was nine . . . seven . . . six—and we entered our last mile.
At fifteen hundred the radar interlock with the altimeter cut in and the nose units fired one at a time. The belt buffeted me across the stomach each time and I finally did throw up. I was thinking that I was saved, that now the ship would level off—though I should have known better. Dad being jammed up against the wheel as he was.
I was still thinking so as we crashed.
I came to by becoming slowly aware of a gently rocking motion. I was annoyed by it, I wanted it to stop; even a slight motion seemed to cause me more pain than I could bear. I managed to get one eye open—the other would not open at all—and looked dully around for the source of my annoyance.
Above me was the floor of the car, but I stared at it for a long time before I placed it as such. By the time I figured out what it was I was somewhat aware of where I was and what had happened. I remembered the dive and the crash—and realized that we must have crashed not into the ground but into some body of water—the Gulf of Mexico—but I did not really care.