The Sound

Read/Watch 'em In Order #114

The next-to-last story in A.E. Van Vogt's War Against the Rull, as it appeared in its original pulp magazine form, once again involved the shape-changing Yevd.

The Yevd were also the villains in the previous story we looked at and I refered to them as shape-changers at that time as well. But that's not really accurate. These aliens don't literally change shape, but control light so that they can appear to be human. Since they are at war with humanity, this ability gives them a major advantage in the spy & sabotage departments.

"The Sound," (published in the February 1950 issue of Astounding) involves a nine-year-old boy nicknamed Diddy, who (along with a number of other kids) is being raised on the Yards, where a gigantic spaceship is being constructed. This ship is so large and so complex that it is necessary to raise a generation of kids who are trained almost from birth to eventually become its crew.

It's time for Diddy to take a specific test. He and other kids about his age are left to wander about the Yards one night with the task of identifying the source of a rumbling sound that they have all heard all their lives. But Diddy is going to be stuck with a much more important and dangerous job that night.

He's asked by a couple of security men to help out with a methods of checking the anti-Yevd defenses that guard the innermost section of the Yards. Since Yevd are immune to electrical shocks and too tough-skinned for barbed wire to work, these defenses are biological in nature. 

Diddy has already tumbled to the fact that the security "men" are actually Yevd and are using him to give them access to the Yards' research facility. But his training has taught him to go along with Yevd if necessary and not give away that he's on to them. Soon, he realizes that other kids also gaining access to the research building are also Yevd, using him to get them in.

What's a nine-year-old to do? Diddy is smart and well-trained despite his youth, but he's in a situation where the military considers him expendable and where he seems to be the only real human around.

But the human security forces are there, using known Yevd weaknesses to communicate with the boy and eventually asking him to do more than a child should ever be expected to do to clean up the alien infiltration.

"The Sound" is a strong story, though the reveal about the source of that Sound is a bit anti-climatic. By switching the point-of-view between Diddy and his worried but helpless father, Van Vogt builds up a high degree of tension. 

As most of the other stories from the Rull cycle, Van Vogt re-wrote this when he compiled his fix-up novel The War of the Rull to fit it into that universe. The Yevd, though, are pretty interesting aliens in their own right and I've been enjoying these stories in their original form. 

You can read it online HERE.