The legion of space the.., p.42
The Legion of Space: The Complete Saga, page 42
“Well, Luroa,” he said slowly, “I guess it’s going to be good-by.” He waved a grave farewell to her white and mocking loveliness. “You know, we could have made quite a team, you and I—if I had just been what the legion takes me for!”
His bronze head shook.
“But, my lady, I’m not: I’m no reckless pirate of the spaceways—unless by dire necessity. I’m just a plain soldier of the legion, in incredibly and peculiarly bad luck. I haven’t got any ‘mysterious and deadly instrumentality.’ ”
His head lifted a little. His eyes lighted. His voice softened, confidentially.
“But I’ve got a secret, Luroa!” Smiling again, almost wistfully, he pointed at a series of figures on the log tape beside the hooded glass.
“No secret weapon,” he whispered. “And nothing like the secret of your life, Luroa. But it’s enough to mean new hope, to me.” His great head lifted, with a fierce little gesture of pride. “It means one more chance.”
A moment he looked silently at the smiling picture. And the green-eyed loveliness of Luroa looked back, he thought, with a mocking comprehension. “It was like this, my lady,” he said.
“The last time Hal Samdu chased me, I got a hundred million miles ahead of his fleet, running out north. I got far beyond visual range. Or beyond the normal range of the mass-detectors. I was splicing up a new hookup, to find if old Hal was still on the trail, when I found—something else.”
He shook his finger at her.
“Don’t ask me what it is, Luroa. It’s too far off, with whatever albido it has, to show even a point in the System’s best telescope. But the mass is of the order of ten million tons, and the distance approximately ten billion miles, estimated by triangulation.
“Doesn’t matter, what it is. A chunk of rock, or a projectile from Andromeda. I’m going out there. Just one more landing first, at some outstation, to get food and cathode plates. And then I’m off. I’ll find out what it is. And do a bit of research I have in mind. And wait.”
Chan Derron’s air of lightness was growing very thin. A hoarse little break came in his voice.
“Wait,” he whispered. “With the ato-synthesis plant, for air and food staples, I can wait a lifetime—or what’s left of mine—if I must.
“Wait—and listen. Beyond the ultrawave, of course, and out of all the beams—but the visi-wave should pick up something. Enough so I’ll know if Chan Derron can ever come back.”
He tried to grin, again, and waved his hand at the picture of Luroa.
“Till then, my darling,” his voice came huskily, “I guess it’s good-by. To you. And the legion. And the System. To every man and woman I ever knew. To every street I ever walked. To every bird and every tree. To every living being I ever saw.
“Good-by—”
Chan Derron gulped suddenly. He turned quickly away from the two pictures on the bulkhead, and looked out into the depthless dark of space. His eyes blinked, once or twice. And his great tanned hands stiffened like iron on the vernier wheel of the Phantom Atom.
THE GEODYNES made a soft musical humming. There was a slow, muffled clicking from the gyrotomic pilot. Chan Derron peered northward, into the star-shot dark. There—somewhere in Draco—lay that unknown object, his only possible haven.
It would be like this, always, he thought. Silence, and darkness. He would hear the small sounds of machines, and his own voice, and nothing else. He would talk too much to himself. He would look across the cold dark, at the bright points of other worlds. And wonder—
Tchlink!
It was a soft little sound. But Chan Derron stiffened as if it had been the crash of a meteor’s impact. He spun, and his hand flashed for the barytron blaster hanging in its holster on the bulkhead. Then he saw the thing that had made the sound, lying on the view plate of the star-chart cabinet.
The breath went out of him. His hand dropped from the weapon, helplessly. His great shoulders sagged a little. For a long time he stood staring at it, with all the strength and hope running out of him, like blood from a wound.
“Even here!” His bronze head shook wearily. “Even out here.”
Slowly, at last, he picked up the sheet of heavy red paper, that had been pinned beneath the crude little serpent of black-burned clay. He read the neat, black script:
MY DEAR CAPTAIN DERRON:
Congratulations on the brilliance and the daring of your last escape. Samdu has long since turned back, to try to guard the New Moon—from me! For the moment you are safe. But I must give you two points of warning.
You will find alarm and danger waiting for you on the moons of Uranus. For the legion base there has been tipped off that you are on your way.
And you will be held responsible, captain, I fear, for the things that are going to happen in the New Moon—whether you are there or a billion miles away.
Your faithful shadow,
THE BASILISK.
Stark dread had driven its stunning needle into Chan Derron’s spine. He stood dazed, motionless. The mockery of that message swam and blurred upon the red page. And a slow, deadly cold crept into his paralyzed body.
It was more than frightening to know that his every act was followed by a sinister and unescapable power. Frightful to know that the incredible arm of the Basilisk could reach him, even here. Omniscience! Omnipotence! The powers, almost, of a god in the hands of—the Basilisk!
Almost, he could feel that fearful presence with him. He peered about the tiny pilot bay. It was dimly lit with the shaded instrument lights, the faint starlight that struck through the ports. He snapped on a brighter light. He wanted to search the ship. But, of course, that was no use. There couldn’t be a man within a hundred million miles. The mass-detectors, with his new hookup, would have given automatic warning of the approach of the mass of a man’s body, within a million miles.
HE CAUGHT his breath, trying to shake off that shuddery chill, and began to talk.
“Give me a chance, won’t you?” he begged of the empty air. “I don’t know who you are, Basilisk. Or where. But I’ve got a feeling you can hear me—a terrible feeling. Just listen to me. And give me a chance.”
His great fists clenched, and came up against his breast.
“Look what you’ve already done to me! Isn’t that enough? Four years ago I was a captain in the legion, with the promise of an honorable career. Commander Kalam chose me to guard Dr. Eleroid—that proved he trusted me.
“It was you, Basilisk, who killed Dr. Eleroid!” Against the silence of the ship, the muffled musical hum of the geodynes, the subdued clicking of the robot navigator, his challenging voice rang a little wild. “You did it—with my bayonet!
“It was you who sent me to prison. Two years, Basilisk, on the place they call the Devil’s Rock. With the guards making it a hell for me, trying to make me tell what I did with Dr. Eleroid’s invention—the invention that you took, Basilisk!
“And you’ve hounded me since I escaped in the guard cruiser I rebuilt into the Phantom Atom.” A hoarse little quiver was in his voice. “I’ve been trying to find another identity and another life. I didn’t want to fight the legion—or you, Basilisk. But you’ve made me!”
He tried to swallow a pleading sob.
“Look at all the things you’ve done. Look at the time I landed at that plantation on Ceres to get supplies—I was going to pay for them, honestly, with my mother’s rings. But I found the planter and his wife murdered—you did that, Basilisk! And a cruiser of the legion was about to arrive—you called it! And, after I had got away, I found the loot—the plate and jewels from the plundered house—aboard the Phantom Atom. You put it there, Basilisk!”
His bronze-gray eyes blinked.
“Or the time in Ekarhenium, on Mars, when I had just found an honest job in a laboratory, under another name. And my new employer was stabbed at his desk. And a bag of his money and papers—with blood on it—was flung into my room.
“Or that time I left the Phantom Atom hidden in the desert on Mercury, and stowed away on a freighter for Venus. The very hour I got aground in New Chicago, I saw my face on the news screens, with offers of reward. For the Terrestrial Bank had been looted on the night before, and the film in the camera of a murdered guard showed my face.”
His voice broke again.
“And that’s not half! Haven’t you done enough, Basilisk? Haven’t you tortured me long enough? Won’t you let me go? I only want to leave the System, now. You can’t deny me even—exile!”
He choked, and stared around the pilot bay again. The geodynes, aft, hummed softly on. The gyrotomic pilot clicked gently, now and then, as it set the little ship back upon her course toward Uranus.
“Will you let me go?” gasped Chan Derron. “Tell me, Basilisk! Give me a sign.”
Silence jerred at him.
He stared at the B-shaped serpent of clay and the heavy red sheet lying on the chart cabinet. And his breath caught. They were his answer—answer enough. This thing called the Basilisk had no humanity—no more than the android Luroa, whose dazzling, enigmatic smile mocked him from the wall.
No appeal would serve—none save a force as ruthless as its own.
He snatched the serpent, suddenly, and hurled it to shatter into black fragments on the floor. A savage anger took his breath, and roared in his ears, and shook him. He gasped. And suddenly his voice came back to him, low, and cold, and harsh.
“All right, Basilisk,” he said. “I’m going to quit trying to run away. It may seem pretty foolish, for one man to try to buck you, and the legion, too. But I’m going to, Basilisk. I’m going to get you—or die fighting. Still I may be your pawn—you must have meant for me to turn back, when you delivered that note. But watch me!”
He stopped the song of the geodynes, and then turned grimly to the star-chart cabinet. The view plate presently showed him the silver atom, spinning about the green sphere of the Earth, that represented the New Moon. He read its position, and his fingers moved swiftly to set up a new destination on the calculator.
V.
THE MIGHTY Inflexible slipped gently into a berth against one of the six vast tubular arms of the New Moon’s structure. Massive keys locked her trim hundred thousand tons of fighting strength into position. Her valves opened to communicate with the artificial satellite.
Three men in mufti were sitting at a table in a long, richly simple chamber hidden aft the chart room of the flagship. The slender man had chosen conservatively dark, exquisitely tailored civilian garb. The white-haired, ruggedfaced giant had attired himself in lustrous silks that reflected every bright hue of the New Moon’s mirrors; he had left behind his tinkling sheaf of medals only after argument. The careless gray cloak of the third fell loose of his short but massive figure; a heavy cane was gripped in his pudgy yellow hand.
“For life’s sake, Jay, what’s the mortal haste?” The round, blue-nosed face of Giles Habibula looked imploringly at the dark-clad commander. “Here we’ve just sat down to get our precious breath, after a frightful dash across the void of space. We’ve had but a whiff of your blessed viands, Jay. And now you say that we must go!”
Great Hal Samdu looked at him grimly.
“The dashing could have harmed you little, Giles,” he rumbled, “when you were fast in a drunken sleep. And if you’ve had but a whiff of Jay’s good food—then a mere taste would founder a Venusian gorox!”
Jay Kalam nodded gravely.
“We’re at the New Moon, Giles. Gaspar Hannas is waiting for us, at the valve. And we’ve a job to do.”
Giles Habibula shook the wrinkled yellow sphere of his head, and turned fishy pleading eyes to the commander of the legion.
“I can’t stand it, Jay,” he whimpered. “It’s a mortal turn I can’t endure.” He pointed a trembling yellow thumb at his protruding middle. “Look at Giles Habibula. He’s an old, old man, Giles is. He must ration his wine. He must have a cane to aid his limping steps. He’ll be dead soon, Giles will.”
The pale eyes blinked.
“Ah, so, dead—unless the blessed scientists come at the secret of rejuvenation. There’s a specialist, Jay, on this very New Moon, that promised—but John Star wouldn’t let me come!”
He sighed, sadly.
“Aye, the whole world plots for the death of poor old Giles. Look at him, Jay! He was drinking up his last miserable drop of happiness at the Purple Hall. For Phobos is a pleasant world, Jay. The sun in its gardens is blessed kind to the aches in an old man’s bones. John Star is a generous host—not always rushing famished guests away from his fable, Jay!”
His thick yellow finger shook reprovingly.
“Ah, and it is a blessed comfort to see Aladoree every day—to see her so happy with John Star, Jay, after all the fearful dangers they have come through. A comfort to be near, to guard her, if trouble comes again.”
His seamed face smiled a little.
“It gives a lonely, friendless old soldier a blessed mite of happiness, Jay, to dandle Bob Star’s daughter on his knee. And to see the lass, Kay, so lovely, after all the horror of the comet, and so eager for Bob’s visits home.
“The next one, the doctors say, will be a son—and that’s a precious secret, Jay!”
Leaning heavily back in his chair, the old man sighed again.
“Old Giles was happy on Phobos, Jay—happy as the miserable, shattered old wreck of a dying legionnaire can be. Look at him. He has his bit of supper, amid the dear familiar faces. He savors his precious sip of wine. He dozes quietly away—ah, so, and it might have been into a poor old soldier’s well-earned last repose!
“And what happens?”
His pale eyes stared accusingly.
“He wakes up in a strange cramped bunk. And he finds he is upon a mortal cruiser of the legion, shrieking through the frigid gulf of space. Ah, Jay, and his dimming old senses feel the shadow of a frightful danger, rushing down upon him! That’s a mortal evil way to serve a defenseless old man, Jay, in his miserable sleep. The shock might stop his blessed heart!”
His fat hands clutched the edges of the table.
“ ’Tis a fearful thing, Jay, to alarm folks so! Ah, it made me think of the bloody Medusae. And that evil man-thing named Stephen Orco, and his fearful cometeers.” He leaned forward, earnestly. “Tell old Giles there’s no alarm, Jay! Tell him it’s only a precious joke.”
His small eyes looked anxiously back and forth, between the grave face of Jay Kalam and the grimly rugged one of Hal Samdu. His wrinkled face faded slowly, to a paler, sickly yellow.
“Life’s name!” he gasped. “Can this thing be so mortal serious as that? Speak, Jay! Tell old Giles the fearful truth, before his poor brain cracks.”
RISING beside the table, Jay Kalam shook his head.
“There’s little enough to tell, Giles,” he said. “We have to deal with a criminal, who calls himself the Basilisk. He has got some uncanny mastery of space, so that distance and material barriers apparently mean nothing to him.
“He began in a small way, nearly two years ago. Taking things from secure places. Putting notes and his little clay snakes in impossible places—I received one in my office in the Green Hall.
“He keeps attempting something bigger. There have been murders. Now he has served notice that he is going to rob and murder one of the New Moon’s patrons every day. If he goes on—well, Hal is afraid—”
“Afraid?”
Hal Samdu crushed a great fist into the palm of his hand, and towered to his feet.
“Afraid?” he rumbled. “Aye, Giles, I’m sick and cold with fear. For if this goes on, the Basilisk can take Aladoree as easy as any luckless gambler—and nothing all the legion can do to save her!”
“Aladoree?” In his own turn, lifting himself with the table and his cane, Giles Habibula heaved anxiously to his feet. His pale eyes blinked at Jay Kalam. “Then why can’t she use—AKKA”—his voice had dropped, almost reverently, as he spoke those symbolic letters—“and so end the danger?” The commander’s dark head shook, regretfully.
“Because we don’t know who the Basilisk is, Giles,” he said. “Or where. Aladoree can’t use her weapon, without a target to train it on. If we can ever discover the precise location of the Basilisk in space—before he takes her—that is all we need to know.”
“Aye, Giles,” Hal Samdu rumbled urgently. “And that is why we sent for you. For you have a gift for opening locks and discovering hidden things.” Giles Habibula inflated himself.
“Ah, so, Hal,” he wheezed. “Old Giles had a blessed genius, once—a precious talent that has twice saved the System. And a miserable little thanks he got for the saving of it. Ah, once—But it’s rusted, now. It is dying. Ah, Jay, you might better have left a poor old legionnaire to his peaceful sleep on Phobos.”
His small eyes were blinking at them, swiftly.
“But we must seek the identity of this mortal genius of crime? Have you no clue, Jay? No precious clue at all?”
“Aye, Giles,” broke in Hal Samdu again. “We’ve clues enough. Or too many. And they all tell the same story. The Basilisk is the convict, Derron.”
“Derron?” wheezed Giles Habibula. “I’ve heard the name.”
“A captain in the legion,” Jay Kalam told him, “Chan Derron was convicted of the murder of Dr. Max Eleroid and suspected of the theft of a mysterious invention. The model was never recovered. Derron escaped from the prison on Ebron, two years ago. The activities of the Basilisk began soon after.”
A green light blinked, above the door of the sound and ray-proofed room.
“My orderly,” said Jay Kalam. “We must go. Gaspar Hannas will be waiting.” He looked at the timepiece on his wrist, a compact comparative chronometer that would give solar, civil and astronomical time for any zone on any planet. “And we have only two hours.”
“Two hours?” gasped Giles Habibula. “Jay, you speak as if we were condemned! What do you mean?”
