World of the masterminds, p.8
World of The Masterminds, page 8
Teller, refusing to let the staff out of his possession, began to use it as a compass as soon as he was out of the lock. Like some old, weary, but very, very determined hound, Teller followed the staff out from under the cliff. Picking his way around enormous boulders, he never seemed in doubt about the direction to take.
“That old dog will never give up now, until he dies,” Hartford said. “He will either find Race X—or his grave.”
“I know. And Burke—” Micki’s voice had overtones of tension in it.
“Your suit all right? It’s not leaking, is it? Oxygen okay?”
. “Everything is all right, except I think we are being Watched.”
“Here?” Hartford’s voice was incredulous. “God is the only one who is watching us here, Mick. What else could live in a place like this?”
“I know,” her voice came over the radio. “But just the same—”
“Come on.” Ahead of them, Teller sounded impatient.
“Sure thing, Ed. Shake a leg, Midd,” Hartford answered.
A few minutes later Micki’s voice came again. This time it was accompanied by the sound of chattering teeth.
“B—Burke! Since you say that God is the only one who is watching us here, take a look behind and tell me if that’s Him!”
“What?” Hartford pulled his right gun as he turned. Something round and white slid out of sight around a huge boulder. The movement was so ghostlike that he was not sure he had seen anything.
“Have you turned into an hysterical female?” He let the gun slide back into its holster.
“I’m a female, but I’m not hysterical. B—Burke, there was something. T—two of them. They looked 1—like balls of light.”
“But there couldn’t be anything out here, Micki. There just couldn’t!” Hartford protested. “Ahhhh—”
His mouth hung open as two balls of light appeared around the comer of the boulder. About as big as basketballs, they appeared to be pure light which flowed outward from an intense radiation at the core of each. Stopping moving, they floated in the air side by side.
Cold appeared at Hartford’s middle and ran a mad race up his spine. He did not attempt to draw either gun. His hunch was that guns were useless here. Nor did he move. Micki did the moving. She leaped behind him. Over the radio, he could hear her teeth chattering.
“See what I told you about! See! See!” she hissed at him. “I was right. There was something.”
“I see them.”
“What are they, B—Burke?”
“I don’t know.” Hartford found that his own teeth were trying to chatter.
“They look like the eyes of some huge monster. The body of the monster is invisible. All we can see. are the eyes. It’s just sitting there, watching us, and getting ready to spring.”
At her words, and the mental picture they presented, the mad race of the cold up Hartford’s spine was intensified.
“What are we going to do about those t—things, Burke?”
“More important, what are they going to do about us?” he answered.
“Are they dangerous?”
“How in the hell would I know?” Hartford shouted. “I never saw anything like diem before.”
“They’re between us and our barge.”
“I know it,” Hartford answered grimly.
As if estimating and evaluating these two intruders into their airless world at the top of Pluto, the two balls of glowing light continued to hang motionless above the rocky terrain. They didn’t move forward, they didn’t retreat, they didn’t go up, they didn’t go down.
“I wish they’d do something,” Micki said.
“I hope they don’t!” Hartford fervidly answered. “They seem to know we are here. This must mean they are alive.”
Again the cold chills went up his spine. Here in this stone wilderness, where there was neither air nor vegetation, where the stars glittered so brightly you thought you could reach out and touch them with your hand, had nature contrived a life form adapted to its environment? Hartford had the greatest of respect for the ingenuity of nature. Life in some form existed on every planet. Perhaps in forms not perceptible to human senses, it even existed between planets. The environment might be so harsh that no human could hope to survive, yet life was there. No problem was too difficult for nature to solve.
“Now that I’ve gotten over being s—scared, they seem harmless to me,” Micki spoke. “Perhaps they are wondering as much about us as we are about them. Maybe they’re even scared too!’’
“I wouldn’t bet on them being scared. This is their home world. They know it. We don’t. However, we’ll give them the first bite.”
“First b-bite?” The chatter returned to Micki’s teeth.
“You always give a strange dog first bite,” Hartford answered. He took a step toward the glowing balls.
Micki grabbed his arm. “How do you know there will be enough of us left for a s—second bite?”
“We don’t,” Hartford answered. “We can run from the devil or we can face him. A devil fled from is ten times a devil. A devil faced may turn into a pretty nice guy, upon closer acquaintances.”
“You’re r—right, Burke. It’s just that I’m a sissy, I guess. But-”
Hartford moved toward the balls. So intense was the feeling of cold running up his spine that he almost convinced himself that his suit had sprung a leak. As he reached them the balls of light rose higher.
“Hello, there,” he said. Speaking was an involuntary action, an effort to establish communication. He felt silly the instant the words left his lips. These creatures had no radio equipment! Yet they seemed to be in communication with each other. He had the dim impression that some sort of an exchange of information was taking place between them.
“A—are your devils turning into nice guys?” Micki whispered, behind him.
“They haven’t started biting yet”
“Y-yet?”
Hartford slowly drew one gun. He fired a shot at the nearest boulder. Gas puffed from the muzzle. The slug exploded violently. One ball of light moved down to investigate the gun. The other swirled to the point where the slug had exploded. Both returned to their original positions. Again he had the impression that a conference took place between them.
“They’re not s—scared of your gun,” Micki said.
“So it seems.”
“Maybe they don’t know what a gun is.”
“Maybe they do know and figure it isn’t dangerous to them.”
“W—what are you going to do?”
“I walked toward them, and they didn’t run. I fired a shot They still didn’t run. I can’t talk to them. The only thing I see that is left to do is to walk away from them.”
“A—are you going to do that?”
“Yes.” Hartford turned away from the balls of glowing light. Cold danced along his spine as he turned his back to them.
Again Micki moved very fast. “In cases like t—this, I— ladies before gentlemen!” She promptly got in front of him and stayed there. “A—are they following us, Burke? I’m scared to look.”
“I don’t know,” Hartford answered. “I haven’t looked.”
“Well, look!”
Hartford forced himself to look straight ahead. He forced his legs to maintain a moderate pace, like a man taking a casual stroll and interested only in seeing the sights. He was afraid that if he did look around, the panic deep down inside him would burst the chains that bound it. “For a woman who gassed Keglar and wanted to send Holm on the long drop and bluffed her way out of his ship, you’re acting mighty chicken,” he told Micki.
“But this is different,” she answered. “Burke, please look.”
“All right.” He glanced over his shoulder, then forced himself to continue his casual stroll.
“What did you see?” Micki hissed at him.
“They’re following us,” he answered.
“Oh, Lord! I was afraid of that! What are we going to do?”
“They haven’t harmed us. Keep acting as if you are absolutely sure they’re not going to harm us. Also, keep walking straight ahead.”
“I’m not sure my legs will hold me up much longer.”
“Then I’ll ask our friends behind us to carry you.”
“My legs are working just fine now,” Micki promptly answered.
From somewhere ahead of them, Teller’s voice came, urging them to stop lagging.
“We’re coming,” Hartford answered. “Also, were bringing a couple of friends.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Teller’s voice answered, over the radio. “Where would you find friends in this stone pile?”
“Shall we tell him?” Micki answered.
“No,” Hartford answered. “Let him find out for himself.”
They found Teller on top of a rocky hill where he was using Einer’s staff to point some object below him. “Oh, there you are,” he said, as they came up. “I think something has gone wrong with this staff.” Glancing at them, he saw the two balls of glowing light. “Hello! What have you got there?”
“Friends,” Hartford answered.
“We hope,” Micki added.
Both waited for Teller to react. “IVe seen things like that before,” he said. “Can’t remember where.” Wonder was in his voice and a touch of longing. “For a moment, when I first saw them, it was like I had seen them in a dream.” His voice trailed into silence.
“Where did you see diem?” Hartford asked.
“I told you I can’t remember.” Exasperation was in his voice at his inability to remember. “Where was it, I wonder? It was real, not a dream, I know now.”
“Do they b—bite people?” Micki asked.
“Harmless, so far as humans are concerned, as I recall it. At least they’re harmless if the people are the decent sort.” But Teller was not really interested in the balls of light. Nothing could have held his attention for long. He scowled at the staff and again looked down the slope.
Below him, dropping away, was what looked like a bed of tumbled lava. It stretched for miles into the distance. The volcano from which this had come was not visible. When the lava had been hot, a vast boiling lake, gas had bubbled up from below, forming huge, grotesque pockets which had become congealed in black stone. The face of the flow nearest them revealed that the black stone was two hundred feet thick.
“The staff points directly to that lava bed.” Teller demonstrated with the staff, then looked accusingly at Micki.
“Don’t blame me for that,” she answered.
“There just can’t be anything in that pile of lava,” Teller muttered. “Yet Einer was taking us somewhere and this is his staff.”
“Einer didn’t have a Spacesuit or an oxygen tank,” Hartford commented. “He could hardly have been taking us out on this airless plateau without them.”
Nobody was going to challenge Einer in Teller’s presence. “He probably had a ship hidden up near the air line. But—”
From the far side of the lava field, a small ship catapulted upward. Like an arrow from the bow, it came out of nowhere and surged into the sky. There was no blast of rocket or jet gas behind it. Constantly gaining speed, it shot into space.
“Did you see that ship?” Teller gasped. “Einer’s staff has guided us true. There’s something down there.” Elation sounded in his voice. Again the dream of his life had a chance to come true.
“Right,” Hartford spoke. Something of Teller’s excitement had communicated itself to him. “But we’ve got to find our way into the place—hello! What’s cooking now?”
The balls of light had swirled over his head. Floating easily, they went down the slope toward the lava bed. Before they reached it, they stopped.
“They’re waiting for us,” Teller said. “They’re going to show us something. Come on!” He headed down the rocky slope at breakneck speed.
As if this was what they had been waiting for, the balls of light moved forward again.
“They are guiding us,” Hartford said. “Come on.”
“Guiding us to what? A place to bite us better?” Micki wanted to know.
At the bottom of the slope, the flow of lava loomed up as a wall at least a hundred feet high. Here the black stuff had been congealed by the bitter cold of this airless world, here the eternal battle between heat and cold had been won by the cold. The two balls of light hovered dose to the side of the lava flow, here almost as steep as a wall.
In the black stone an irregular opening appeared.
“There’s a door!” Teller shouted, over the radio. “I’m going in.”
“Hold up, you idiot!” Hartford yelled. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
But Teller would not be stayed by words. The black opening was as tall as a man. The two balls of light entered it. Teller was right behind them.
“It’s an air lock!” his voice, charged with excitement, came back to them. “Come on.”
As Hartford and Micki tried to catch him, the opening closed, shutting off radio communication.
“I told you they might be taking us to a place where they could bite us better.” Micki’s voice had an overtone of doom in it.
This could be a trap, Burke Hartford realized. In the world he knew, men set traps for each other, they made snares, baiting both with all kinds of cunning lures. This had happened so often that most men had become trap-wary. Would Race X be any different, presuming Race X was to be found on the other side of the door in the side of the lava flow? Unease was rising in him. He knew so little about Race X. Einer had seemed a tremendous person, but what did he really know about the slender stripling? He knew about Cyrus Holm. Holm was an enemy, now, to the death. He had the impression that other enemies were about and was suddenly aware of the slim foothold they had on life here on this rocky plateau at the top of Pluto. Their suits might begin to leak, they might slip and fall and tear a hole in the suit, the oxygen supply might fail. Even if they found Race X, what guarantee did they have that this mysterious group would be friendly?
Only Ed Teller had complete faith in Race X. And Teller was on the other side of an air lock in the side of a lava flow. Maybe he was being paid off for having faith in the wrong thing!
“You’re getting the wind up, Burke,” Micki said. “I can feel it. But we’ve got to stick now.”
“Don’t worry. We’re going to find out what’s on the other side of that door.” Hartford’s voice was grim.
In front of them, the door swung open again.
“Guns ready. We’re going in.”
The lock was empty. As soon as they Stepped inside, the outer door began to close. The rising air pressure started to deflate their suits. Guns in hands, they waited. The outer door closed, the inner door began to open.
Burke Hartford took one look at what he saw inside. He let the guns slide back into their holsters. One glance told him that guns would never be used against what he saw inside.
Absolutely nothing in the life of Burke Hartford had prepared him for what he saw on the other side of the inner door. Deep inside, at the core of his being, he was shocked as he had never been shocked before in all his life.
6
Ed Teller was standing just inside the door. He was busy trying to loosen his visor. It was not Teller who was holding Hartford’s attention. The two balls of light were floating, easily, in this place which held air. But they were not what caught Hartford’s eyes. Beside him, Micki, after one startled gasp, was frantically loosening her visor, but it was not Micki that was holding Hartford’s gaze.
It was the youth standing beside Teller, a youth with curls that fell in ringlets around his shoulders, a lithe, slender body, a smile on his face, and eternally knowing eyes.
“Einer!” Micki had gotten her visor loose at last. Her shout of recognition had heart-bubbling joy in it. She grabbed Hartford with one hand and pointed with the other. “Look, Burke! Einer!”
“I see him.” Hartford’s voice was sombre and bleak.
“But, Burke—” All the heart-bubbling joy went out of Micki’s voice. She looked again at the smiling stripling. “But I saw you die.” Now her voice had grief in it, and pain and shock, deep hurt that cannot be conveyed by words or washed away by any method known to man.
As she spoke, the smile went away from the stripling’s face. He started to speak to Micki but before he could do this, the two balls of glowing light floated down to him and he spoke to them instead.
“Yes, I know. Run along and play.” His words were those of an adult addressing two beloved children. The balls of light floated up and away. Again the stripling turned his attention to Micki. But Teller had finally gotten his visor loose. “Einer!” Teller shouted, over and over again.
“Easy Ed,” Hartford said. “Remember what we saw.”
The joy went from Ed Teller’s face as memory of what had happened under the fem trees came back to him too. For a moment, so great had been his joy, he had forgotten that. His voice faltered into silence. Fain appeared on his face too, pain turning to bewilderment.
The stripling spoke to Teller. “That’s Einer’s staff you have there.” His voice was cold and bleak.
“Y-yes.”
“Give it to me.”
Teller yielded the staff without a word of protest As soon as it touched the stripling’s hands, colors came back to the staff, a glowing swirl of them. The youth examined it carefully.
“Where did you get this staff?”
“Why—” Teller fumbled for words. He gestured toward Micki. “She stole it from Holm’s men. They got it from you— from Einer—after-after—”
“After what?”
“After you—after Einer—after you. You know. You’ve got to know. Why do you ask such silly questions? You are Einer. This is your staff.” Blankness came over Teller’s face. “But you can’t be Einer.” He muttered. “You just can’t be.”
“Why can’t I be?”
“Because Einer is dead.” Looking as if he was about to break into tears, Teller gulped his words.
Micki’s grip had frozen on Hartford’s arm.
