PEACEMAKER BY ALAN E. NOURSE ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL All Flicker wanted was a chance to make the aliens understand. All the aliens wanted was a chance to kill him while they could. But there were things about Flicker that they hadn't counted on.... [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine, February 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Flicker's mind fought silently and desperately to maintain its fast-receding control, to master his frantic urge to writhe and scream in agony at the burning light. The fetid animal stench of the aliens filled his nostrils, gagging him; the heat of the place seared his skin like a thousand white-hot needles, and seeped into his throat to blister his lungs. It didn't matter that his arms and legs were bound tightly to the pallet, for he knew he dared not move them. The maddening off-and-on of the scorching light set his mind afire, twisted his stomach into a hard knot of fear and agony, but his body lay still as death, relaxed and motionless. He knew that the instant he betrayed his tortured alertness by so much as a single tremor, his chance for contact would be totally gone. "_The only sensible thing to do is to kill it!_" It was not repetition but a constant, powerful force, crashing into his mind, hateful, cold. He heard no sound but the muffled throb of spaceship engines far back in the ship, but the _thought_ was there, adamant and uncompromising. It burst from the garbled thought-patterns of the others and struck his mind like an electric shock. One of the aliens wanted to kill him. Thought contact. It was a paralyzing concept to Flicker. The aliens couldn't possibly realize it themselves; they were using sound communication with one another, on a sonic level beyond the sensitivity of Flicker's ears. He could hear no sound--but the thought patterns that guided the sound-talking of the aliens came through to sledge-hammer his brain, coherent, crystal clear. "But why kill it? We have it sedated almost to death-level now. It's completely unconscious, it's securely bound, and we can keep it that way until we reach home. Then it's no longer our worry." The first thought broke out again with new overtones of anger and fear. "I say we've got to kill it! We had no right picking it up in the first place. What is it? How did it get there? Where was the ship that brought it?" The alien mind was venomous. "Kill it now, while we can!"