E c tubb, p.14
E C Tubb, page 14
"No!" Machen was positive. "No, dammit! No! We've had enough! Lost enough! We -- "
"Two men!"
"Are you crazy?" Machen glared at Varl. "Can't you count? We had thirty when we started, and -- "
"We've lost two men since we came into this alien space!" Varl slammed his hand on the table in a demand for attention. The rest don't count. Not as regards the present situation. Two men -- for God's sake, are you children? You knew there'd be risks!"
"Three." Machen was stubborn. "You're forgetting Asner. That makes twenty percent casualties."
"Asner died as a result of an accident."
"Rachel then."
"She's still alive. The alien didn't touch her. And why talk of figures? We came to do a job. It seemed a good idea to you when we left. Now you want to quit. What are they going to call you back home? A hero?"
"You bastard! I'm no coward!"
"Then prove it! And watch your mouth when you talk to me!" Varl had not moved, but Machen stepped back as if sensing the need to defend himself. "I'm not ordering you to commit suicide, and I've no intention of committing it myself," Varl said. "Now use your brains. We were attacked in hyperspace.
Why?"
"A long journey," Erica said. "And we used the PEAP to simulate a crowd. One busy making love."
"Broadcasting it," Stacey said. "Broadcasting?"
"Radio," Varl said. "Or something so near it as to make no difference. We wanted to be noticed, so we advertised our presence."
"So?"
"What makes a man swat a fly? He hears it buzz, right? So he reaches out and swats it." Varl rapped the table. "End of fly. Too bad. But what really killed it?"
"The buzz," Erica said, understanding. "You're saying we were attacked because of the noise we made. The broadcast. But what about Yegorovich and Ovidio? We had no radio -- the transistors were destroyed during the attack."
"They were replaced. Carter and Ovidio were using suit radios while working outside. Carter left Ovidio alone, and he was fond of singing to himself."
"And Yegorovich?"
"They both died as a result of the same incident. That was the flash I saw. One attack, not three.
One event triggered by use of the radio. I guess our own mental emanations are too weak to be noticed or have too short a natural range. But if we don't use radio or anything similar we should be safe."
"It makes sense," Owen said. "By God, it makes sense. He looked at Machen. "Still want to go home, Piers?"
"I don't know what he wants, but I do." Stacey looked uneasily at the alien space depicted in the screens. "I just want to get away from here. I don't like what's out there and I don't like what it can do.
When -- " He broke off, startled. "What the hell is that?"
A sudden crowd of ghosts, rushing, thrusting, busy with love. Filling every nook and cranny of the ship and streaming from the hull to fill space with their noisy presence.
"Kurt!" Erica's voice was almost a scream. "Kurt! Kurt, look!"
In the screens something moved.
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*CHAPTER 22*
THE sponge-like, jelly-like, squamous mass was something from a nightmare; it reached with fretted tentacles ringing a puckered orifice that could have been a mouth. Varl lunged for the controls, slamming his hand on the intercom, barking orders.
"Lydon! Turn off that machine! Kill the PEAP! Now!"
He turned as Lydon made no answer to snap at the doctor. "Go and see that it's done. Find out what the fool thinks he's doing. Owen, man the guns! Reitsch!" he snapped into the intercom.
"Commander?"
"Stand by for use of rocket power. If there's trouble, see to it immediately. First priority." Varl slammed his hand on a button. "Red alert! Battle stations!"
The blare of the alarm echoed through the ship as he checked the screen. The thing was closer, and seemed to be incredibly vast, a creature which belonged in a diseased mind, it rested where a pyramid had drifted in roseate hues.
"Piers?"
Machen reported with no trace of his former anger. "Nothing else in close proximity. Observed drift as before. The only threat is that one thing which seems to have appeared from nowhere."
"There was something there. A pyramid."
"Which is no longer in evidence." The navigator shook his head. "I don't understand it. If it changed then why the sudden move, and why toward us?"
The questions could wait. Varl grunted as the ghosts vanished, the sense of their presence disappearing as quickly as it had come.
"It heard," Machen said. "Whatever's out there must have heard. Lydon must have gone crazy to do a thing like that."
Lydon had not known, but that was no excuse -- he had acted on his own volition, and later, if they lived, if the ship remained intact, Varl would know why.
"Reitsch?"
"Ready for firing, Commander."
Varl checked the rest of the vessel and found it as ready as it would ever be. Still the decision remained: to move and risk what such a move would bring, or to remain still and hope the blast of ghost noise had passed unnoticed.
"The hydee," Machen said. "We should be building the field."
"Attention! Hear this!" Varl kept his eyes on the thing outside as he spoke to the ship. "All hands secure for thrust. Fifteen seconds. Mark!" He waited, counting. "Two! One! Go!"
At the rear of the ship, as Varl operated the controls, a giant sprang to life, yawning to spit flame from the venturis of its mouth. Fire streamed with savage brilliance into the void; tiny particles of matter superheated by the fury of atomic energy were thrown from the _Odile_ at tremendous velocity.
As the ship lunged forward, a reaching tentacle touched the stern, slung the vessel to one side, then passed on to be bathed in the flame of the exhaust and incinerated into fuming vapor.
"Fire!" Varl yelled as other tentacles came close. "All guns open fire!"
The target was obvious; the creature shuddered to the impact of laser fire and shells. The searing heat sent more of the tremendous bulk into vapor, and the detonations tore holes large enough to contain the _Odile_ in the scaled substance.
The attacks were mere pin-pricks to the monster, but they stung. The thing seemed to flinch, then, with mindless courage, moved in again for the kill.
Varl opened the rocket drive to its full power. Thunder pulsed from the venturis and invisible weight piled on his chest and pressed him hard against the back of his chair. Blackness edged his vision, and he fought to retain consciousness as the blood drained from his brain. Then he cut the drive and he could see again.
"We did it!" Machen almost shouted in relief. "We outran it! Left it behind!"
In the far distance the shapeless blob changed, dwindling as they watched to become just another object among the rest. They saw a sudden bright glitter.
"Owen! Bring in the external gunners. All sections stand easy. I'm shutting down all electrical activity."
"Commander!" Owen protested. "The locks -- "
"I'll give you time. Move!"
The lights died as Varl tripped switches, their bright glow replaced by an eerie blue luminescence
from the emergency plates. The soughing of air, noticed only when absent, fell silent as the fans ceased to spin. The life-support panel winked from green to yellows then red, to stand finally dark.
As the last external gunner passed through the airlock into the hull, the _Odile_ died.
Seated at the useless controls, staring at the blank screens, Varl felt the weight of metal and machines. Nothing was left to advertise their presence but the activity of their own brains; he hoped the thickness of the hull would negate their small broadcasts.
There was nothing to do but wait.
In the engine room, Otto Reitsch checked the inert venturis, touching the injectors, the feeds, the coils that harnessed the streaming power. The machines had functioned perfectly, but he had sensed a minor vibration at a junction which could mean a slight misalignment of one of the permanent magnets. He would see to it later; meanwhile, just to move and touch the gleaming fabrications brought a measure of comfort.
Gloria Arle could not stop thinking of Rachel. She was back in her chair beside the bunk, watching the curled figure, almost envying the woman her escape from the problems that nagged at her mind. How had Ivan felt when it happened? What would it be like to be killed? She knew that the brain remained active and aware for at least three minutes after the heart had stopped beating -- an eternity of pain. Pain and horror and -- dear God, what if it should happen to her?
In a cabin, Carter felt the comforting warmth of the woman at his side and tried not to think of losing the happiness he had found. He had waited too long, hoped too desperately for a woman like Shelia to come his way. The initial attack had made her his -- would another take her away? The thought of her spread out like Ovidio sent his hand questing to find her own, to hold it, to squeeze it.
"Shelia, darling, I love you."
She returned the pressure. "And I love you, Stan. For ever and ever."
For an hour, a day, a minute even, but still forever. For as long as they had -- could anyone ask for more?
Stacey wanted to get drunk, to forget the screaming of his nerves in the warm comfort of alcohol.
But the golden fluid seemed to have lost its magic, and he could do nothing but sit and think of the people who had died and how they must have felt when dying.
Lydon thought of ghosts. Owen thought of guns. Others thought of their own private hopes and fears.
"How long?" Machen coughed to clear his throat, conscious of the betraying timbre of his voice.
"How long do we act dead?"
Any answer would be a guess, but Varl considered the problem with what data he had. The initial attack had followed soon after the PEAP had been activated with the new emissions. Ovidio had died shortly after using a suit radio. How long? Allow time for them to have worked, more for Carter to have returned to the ship and desuited. An hour? Two?
Had the last attack been nothing but a coincidence?
"It could have been," Machen admitted when Varl mentioned the possibility. "Maybe the thing was ready to jump us anyway. But, if your theory is correct, why?"
Varl scowled at the blank screens. To drift dead was bad enough, but to drift dead and blind was worse. Into what might they drift?
He leaned back, forcing himself to relax as he built mental images. A river winding its way to a sea.
A flow of air carrying motes of dust to a common point. The fall of sand in an hourglass. Rain. Snow. The drift of leaves. Where were they heading? What waited when they arrived?
Kreutzal?
If the drift was universal to this alien space and Kreutzal had broken through as they had, then it was possible -- highly improbable but possible.
Varl reached for the intercom, then remembered and, rising, went to the door of the operations room only to find it empty. But minutes after he had returned to his chair, Erica came with a tray bearing cups of coffee. She handed one to him, gave another to Machen.
"From the emergency survival kit," she explained. They contain chemical elements to heat food and
water. I've laced it with brandy"
"Stacey's?"
"He didn't object. Incidentally, Lydon had an accident. A small one. He'd been working on his machine and had it all ready for operation when he slipped and knocked on the switch when he fell. He banged his head and was too dazed to answer when you called." Erica sipped at her coffee. "How long do we run dead?"
"We're in no hurry." The coffee was good, the brandy warming. "Are the others having this?"
"Some of the girls are taking care of it." Erica set down her cup and lifted some papers she had brought in on the tray. "I've been doing some checking. Remember I said there was no pattern to the vanished ships? Nothing to go on? Then you found a correlation and proved it to be correct. So I turned back to the data on Kreutzal and his journeys. At first they too seemed wholly random, but that didn't make sense. He was too logical a man to go shooting off in all directions without a reason. Remember his advice to those students he spoke to at Heidelberg three years before he vanished?"
"'Think before you act,'" Varl quoted. "'Misdirected effort is wasted energy.'"
"They've got it carved in stone," Machen said. "I've seen it."
"So what he did must have had a plan. I think I've found it." Erica shuffled her papers. "He was looking for something. He was very secretive about it, but it's there." She paused. "I think he knew what would happen when the big ships got into space. I think he was looking for an answer."
A wild guess? Kreutzal had been a genius, and such men often seemed to be touched with the gift of clairvoyance. Had he, in some inexiplicable fashion, managed to peer into the future to recognize the nature of the thing which now ravaged normal shipping? Had he dreamed of violated bodies? Of hulls smeared with blood?
"You're wrong," Machen said. "Kreutzal was working to improve the hydee. Everyone knows that."
"No. That work was being done by others. Kreutzal was more interested in investigating the true nature of hyperspace." Erica slapped a hand against her papers. "It's all in the figures if you know how to look. That and certain recommendations he made. They were ignored because they were considered to be cost-ineffective."
"Short jumps," Varl said. "Small ships. But that was centuries ago. We've improved since then."
"And run into trouble." Erica shrugged. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything now, but I thought you should know. If Kreutzal left anything we've got to find it:"
Kalif had thought the chance worth following, and had sent a ship and crew after the genius. For the Comptroller, the gamble was safe -- he had not come along. Varl reached for the controls. If anything was out there waiting for them it had waited long enough.
Erica sighed her relief as the screens showed nothing but the colors, the drifting, enigmatic shapes.
"Nothing, Kurt. We're safe."
"Safe?" Stacey came into the control room. He halted, looking at the screens. "Now I know what that reminds me of," he said. "Blood!"
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*CHAPTER 23*
FLEUR Brandt grunted as Garewell removed the dressing. Even though he had tried to be careful, the wound had stung, and she tried to examine it, holding a mirror to reflect the saucer-large burn on her back. The movement caused pain to dart from her broken ribs.
"Careful!" The aide had heard bad language before but had never learned to like it. "Just stay easy until I fix this."
"It's turning bad on me, right?" Brandt was a big woman with a hard face and a manner to match.
Her nature did not match her name; there was nothing of the softness of flowers about it. "I should be treated by a proper doctor. Where's Stacey ?"
"With Rachel." Garewell lifted a spray and covered the burned patch with an antiseptic film; a second spray firmed into a transparent dressing. "That should do it."
"What about the ribs? They still hurt."
"Give them time. The breaks are knitting and will heal as good as new. Just take things easy and if
that burn gives you trouble come back."
"If I do, I want to see the doctor. How is she, anyway?"
"Rachel? No change."
"We should be getting her to a proper hospital. Me too, and Gloria -- that arm of hers needs more than you can give it. Mention it to the commander when you see him, huh?"
"Why not you?"
"I'm busy. Just tell him you think we've traveled long enough and it's time we started for home." The woman grunted as Garewell adjusted her blouse. "Do that and I'll have a word with a friend of mine. She runs a big hospital in Bremen. Just the place for you to graduate as a doctor. You do want to become a doctor, don't you?" She smiled as the aide nodded. "Then just do as I ask and I'll arrange it. A scholarship -- it won't cost you a thing."
Mboto reported the bribe when he and Varl were alone in the control room.
"It's beginning again, Commander. They're getting keyed up, restless, worried as before. The attack broke the pattern; mutual need and danger always does, but the basic situation hasn't altered. And it's aggravated by this drifting." He gestured toward the screens. "It's getting on their nerves. Heading through mystery into the unknown."
"How bad is it?" Varl asked.
"Just restlessness as yet, but another death like Ovidio's or Yegorovich's could trigger an outright demand for you to abort the mission."
"Mutiny?"
"They wouldn't think of it as that, but, yes, a mutiny."
Varl reflected that death could come from other than alien sources.
"You handled it well the last time," Mboto said. "Edging Machen into a rage and using his temper against him. And you had luck. This time? Well, luck can only last so long."
As could patience and supplies and the raw courage needed to live beneath the constant fear of alien death. Supplies could be stretched and the courage found if there was no choice; patience was another matter. Varl's own patience was wearing thin.
Varl looked at the screens and remembered what Stacey had said -- blood. The alien space had reminded the doctor of blood.
And Mboto?
"I don't know," he said when Varl asked. "It could just as well be soup."
"I'm serious!"
"So am I. Start thinking of it as blood and the next thing you'll be imagining we're stuck in the gut of some monster. It's a coincidence. Blood is a fluid filled with bits, the corpuscles, the platelets, antibodies, all manner of cellular debris. A river is like blood. Sap is a form of blood. Ichor. Some say the oil in an engine. With enough imagination you can see anything."
In a universe of infinite possibilities, anything could be. Varl pondered that thought as he sat alone and looked at the screens. The pyramid had turned into something else -- was that a defensive mechanism to take care of invaders? Had they drifted a little too close and triggered a reaction?
How long could Kreutzal have survived? If he had crossed into this alien space, he would have been helpless; in a frail ship lacking armament he would have been easy prey. Could his vessel have drifted for three hundred years?
