Collected Short Fiction, page 249
“It is very hard to believe,” the commander’s voice was saying beside him, very soft, very tired, “that we are not utterly defeated. It seems that no weapon a man ever used could kill Stephen Orco now. And it seems that now we are to be prisoners, and soon—destroyed.”
The clang of some metal thing—perhaps the cover of a sort of hatch—jerked Bob Star from the apathy of despair. He heard raucous hoots and answering reverberations that were like the booming of great drums. These were the same uncanny sounds, he realized, that he had heard from the invisible ship which carried Stephen Orco away from Neptune.
A great square opening gaped suddenly black in the crimson side of the disk. A square door had fallen outward to form an inclined gangway. Marching down that incline came monstrous things.
No longer—despite the unsolved enigma of Kay Nymidee’s humanity—did Bob Star expect to find beings like men within the comet. Yet he was not prepared for the mind-shaking impact of the things that came down the gangway.
THERE WERE eight of them, of three different sorts.
The foremost was a ten-foot sphere of white, silvery metal, surrounded with a dark equatorial band. At first Bob Star thought that it was rolling; then he saw that only the band turned, sliding about the globe. Each pole was a dark, glittering bulge that looked like a faceted eye. About each bulge were spaced three long, gleaming metallic tentacles, now coiled close to the hemispheres.
The two creatures behind were shaped like slender cones, nearly twenty feet high. They were bright-green; their skins had an oily luster. Their bases, apparently, were elastic, inflated membranes, expanded to hemispheres, upon which they bounded forward with a curious, astounding agility. The slender upper parts of the cones were flexible, like necks. The dark, pointed organs that tipped them turned this way and that, like singular heads.
Green cones bouncing upon distended bases! They looked like grotesque nursery toys; but their grotesquery held the essence of horror.
The remaining five were slender tri-pedal giants. Their lean bodies, vaguely suggestive of the human, stood perhaps fifteen feet tall. They were covered with a dully glistening, dark-red armor, like the chitin of gigantic insects. Their tapering lower limbs were many-jointed, so that they resembled stiff tentacles.
Each bore six upper limbs, very long, slender, also many-jointed, forming a kind of fringe about the upper part of the crimson-armored body. Where the head should have been was a cluster of stalked organs, shimmering with bright colors.
Their lean bodies supported a kind of golden harness, to which was slung a variety of curious implements or weapons of some yellow metal.
“Mortal me!” gasped Giles Habibula, his small eyes round with apprehensive wonder, “are these mortal things the lords of the comet—and not the shining monsters?’
The commander was watching their approach, his dark eyes grave.
“No,” his quiet voice said slowly. “I imagine that these creatures are the slaves of the Cometeers. In the ages they have roved the universe they must have conquered many planets inhabited by intelligent life. They must have preserved a few of the higher forms to serve them.”
His low voice fell into the silence of dread as the alien creatures came on.
The white sphere turned a little aside and halted, resting on the dark belt. Hoarse, raucous hoots came from it—like commands.
The green cones answered with dull, booming reverberations that seemed to come from their inflated pedal membranes. The scarlet, three-legged creatures made no sound. But they came, with the cones, on past the motionless sphere, and spread out as if to encircle the five by the sledges.
Bob Star jerked himself out of his trance of horror and fumbled for his proton guns.
“Wait, Bob,” advised Jay Kalam, wearily. “Our weapons have all been ruined. We can’t resist——”
“But, Jay,” protested Hal Samdu, “we can’t give up without a fight.”
“We must,” Jay Kalam insisted quietly. “We must preserve our lives and hope for some opportunity——”
The giant made a mute, hurt sound. “The legion?” he rumbled incredulously. “Surrender?”
Catching up a dead proton gun like a club, Hal Samdu strode grimly to meet the nearest bounding, green cone.
“No!” his deep tones came back. “Not when Aladoree is in danger——”
Tense, urgent, the voice of Kay Nymidee rang after them: “Pahratee!”
She hastened after Hal Samdu, as if to catch his arm.
But she was too late. The thin, flexible, upright tip of the green cone whipped over toward Hal Samdu. From the dark, pointed organ at the tip of it—which was like a head—flashed a thin, blinding ray of orange light.
Hal Samdu crumpled, groaning with helpless agony.
“We can’t resist,” repeated Jay Kalam. “Help me carry him, Bob. We’ll go aboard—if that’s what they want——”
His quiet voice broke off with a sudden, suppressed exclamation. And Bob Star was amazed when he turned and spoke to Kay Nymidee with strange words as soft and liquid-toned as her own.
XXIV.
THE PRISON HOLD was a vast space, filling nearly all the lowest level of the disk ship. The circle of it—perhaps five hundred feet in diameter—was broken only by a doorless wall—perhaps inclosing engine rooms—which shut off a part of the center.
There were no ports giving directly upon the hold, and the only light was a harsh red glare that was reflected downward from the high metal ceiling. The ventilation was not good; sanitary conveniences were few.
The entrance was a massive grille of red metal bars at the top of a long ramp. One of the white spheres remained on guard beyond the grille, but none of the cometary beings was within the hold.
The five new prisoners had been pushed through the door and left upon the ramp within. Examining Hal Samdu—who was still unable to speak or to sit up—Bob Star and Giles Habibula found only a superficial injury—a small, circular, inflamed patch on his temple.
“The orange ray didn’t come out of a weapon,” Bob Star said. “It was projected out of the cone thing’s head.”
“Ah, ’tis a mortal strange world,” sighed Giles Habibula, in a melancholy tone. “And we’re all in a mortal evil plight! Anyhow”—and his voice grew brighter—“I think poor Hal is no more than stunned. He’ll soon be himself again.”
Bob Star and Jay Kalam had attempted to carry him as they came aboard. But one of the thin red giants had taken the limp body from them, in its six many-jointed arms. They had meekly followed it into the ship.
The miserable thousands imprisoned in the hold were mostly sitting or lying on the bare red metal of the floor. They were clad in haphazard fragments of clothing; only a few had odd little bundles of their possessions. Their unwashed faces were haggard with fatigue and despair, and the sound that rose up from all of them was a weary murmur of hopeless apathy, without any light or laughter.
Bob Star walked down the ramp, and was accosted by a gaunt, gray-faced man who had been stalking grimly, like a tired specter, across the great floor, stepping over recumbent bodies to look at the face of every slumbering or weeping child.
“Have you seen my son?” he asked rustily. “A blue-eyed lad, with curly yellow hair. His name is John—after the great John Star. Have you seen him?”
Bob Star shook his head, and saw hope again extinguished by gray despair.
“Where do you come from?” he asked.
“From Pluto.” The bloodshot, dark-ringed eyes looked at him with a wean, mute curiosity. “My name is Hector Valdin,” he said heavily. “I was a worker in the platinum mines of Votanga.”
His gnarled hand made a slow, weary gesture.
“These people all came from Votanga, on Pluto. They are my friends and neighbors. The men used to work with me in the mines. And now——”
His throat worked convulsively.
“What happened?” asked Bob Star.
“Don’t you know?” The dull eyes were still curious. “Well, they say invisible ships destroyed the legion patrol and the bases. And Pluto came away from the Sun and into the green comet.”
His teeth ground together in sudden, savage pain.
“And then these monsters came and herded us into this ship. They burned our houses to drive out our women and children, so that they could catch them. They’re taking us somewhere. I don’t know where. Nobody knows.
“My son John is lost.” The red eyes came pleadingly back to Bob Star’s face. “You haven’t seen a little blue-eyed lad——”
THIS, Bob Star was thinking bitterly, was the fate of the colonists. To be snatched unawares out of peaceful homes and dragged away like bewildered cattle to feed the vampiric Cometeers. It was the fate awaiting all humanity.
Thinking vaguely of escape, he asked: “Do the monsters ever come in here? Do they ever open the door?”
Hector Valdin shook his head, dully.
“They never come down among us. The door has not been opened since we were put on the ship, save to admit you.”
“How do they clean the floor and feed the prisoners?”
“They don’t clean the floor,” Hector Valdin said. “And the only food they give us is a sour liquid that runs into troughs by the wall.”
The tired, hopeless eyes scanned Bob Star again with a weary wonderment.
“Where was your home?” he asked heavily. “I think I never saw you in Votanga. And who are those with you? How was the big man hurt?” Appearing hardly to hear him, Bob Star had looked away from him, across the hopeless, murmuring misery of the thousands sitting and lying on the floor, and then back at the massive locked grating at the top of the ramp.
“Well,” said Hector Valdin slowly, as he paused, “I must go on to look for my son John——”
A sudden blue light had come into Bob Star’s eyes. And a curious grim smile had come over his lean face—a hard and dangerous smile.
“Wait, Hector Valdin,” he said in a voice with a bright, eager ring, “I’ll tell you who we are and how we came to be in this prison ship——”
The gaunt man shook his haggard head.
“No,” he said wearily, “it doesn’t matter. I must find John.”
“Wait!” Bob Star called urgently. “If you honor the name of John Star——”
And Hector Valdin came back, with a little of the leaden apathy already lifted from his gray face.
And others, near at hand, lifted their heads and began to listen. For Bob Star’s voice rang strong with an urgent, compelling eagerness. And he spoke magic names, a magic symbol, out of glorious history.
“. . . Jay Kalam, who is commander of the legion . . . The big man, just sitting up, is Hal Samdu, who went with my father and the others out to Yarkand . . . Giles Habibula—he can open that door, to let us out into the ship! . . . My mother, the keeper of AKKA. She is a prisoner, now, about to be murdered . . .” Bob Star talked on. He groped for stirring words. He was a little surprised at the confidence, the ringing strength, in his voice. For in his heart he knew there was no hope. He knew that they were all doomed prisoners.
And he knew that Stephen Orxxxxxxxxxxxec could not be killed.
Soon many men were listening to him. A quick interest was penetrating the leaden despair upon their weary faces. And the bright finger of hope transfigured now one and now another.
THE first conversation of Jay Kalam and Kay Nymidee was extended, and singularly difficult to interrupt. It had begun out upon the jewel-smooth armor of the planet, when the girl called out for Hal Samdu to stop, and the surprised commander addressed her in her own language.
Ever since her arrival upon the asteroid she had been struggling to communicate something to the others, had evidently been very much bewildered by their failure to comprehend. When, at last, the unexpected opportunity came, she welcomed it very eagerly.
Her face shone with sudden delight. She ran joyously to the grave, tall commander and threw her slim arms about him. She lifted on tiptoe to kiss both his lean cheeks.
Then, ignoring the alien monsters herding them into the ship, she was talking to him furiously. And he replied, awkwardly, difficultly, but as if he understood.
They were not interrupted when their captors pushed them into the prison hold and locked the massive grate behind them. They stood upon the ramp within, oblivious of their surroundings. Kay Nymidee talked very fast, in a clear, melodious voice. Her white face showed much play of expression, smiling with joy, frowning with the effort of making her meaning clear; it was bright with hope, shadowed with apprehension. She gestured, speaking with her whole pliant body.
Jay Kalam’s lean, dark face, in contrast, was very still; but the bright intensity of his dark eyes revealed his eagerness. For the most part he listened, his dark brow furrowed a little with the effort of comprehension. Frequently, he interrupted the girl’s ardent discourse, to make her repeat something more slowly or to ask some halting question.
Bob Star came to them more than once, and went away again when they appeared unconscious of everything but their talk. Men were following him, now, led by wondrous words that were golden banners blowing. It still amazed him that they should, for he knew that he was only a boy—afraid and half ill with the pain of a strange and ancient injury. But they did, and he went on, rejoicing in the magic power of those words.
And when he came again, Kay Nymidee turned eagerly toward him to speak, and looked as much disappointed as ever at his failure to understand.
“She’s asking,” Jay Kalam told him, “if you know Spanish.”
“Spanish?” echoed Bob Star, astounded.
“Yes. That’s her language.”
“Spanish? How does she know Spanish?” He was bewildered. “Isn’t she a native of the comet?”
“She is,” said the commander, gravely. “But her race isn’t. I told you how improbable——”
“How does that happen? How did her people get into the comet?”
Jay Kalam stroked at the dark angle of his jaw.
“It’s an odd story,” he said. “But credible enough, with what we know of the Cometeers. The bare outline is all I have. Kay’s Spanish, you see, and mine are almost two different languages. Mine is due to an interest in the plays of Lope de Vega, who wrote fourteen hundred years ago. Hers is the Spanish of a thousand years later, still farther changed by four hundred years of adaptation to an alien environment. Her accent is so unfamiliar that it is the merest accident that I recognized her tongue at all. If she hadn’t called out to Hal Samdu to stop.
“And her scientific words, of course, are nearly all totally unfamiliar. That makes her message peculiarly difficult to understand.”
“FOUR HUNDRED YEARS?” Bob Star had caught at a phrase. “You mean that her people have been in the comet that long?”
“You may recall from your history, Bob,” Jay Kalam explained deliberately, “that during the latter part of the twenty-sixth century the Argentine Republic passed through a brief Golden Age. For a few years, in science and nearly all the arts, as well as in wealth and military power, it was the leading nation of Earth.
“The climax of that splendid era was the Conquistador Expedition. In the greatest geodesic cruiser that had ever been built a hundred men and women left Buenos Aires upon what was designed to be the system’s greatest voyage of science and exploration.
“The Conquistador never returned.
“The hundred had been the intellectual flower of the republic. Their loss was a blow that shattered the Golden Age. The northern races resumed their supremacy with the turn of the century, and Spanish is now almost a dead language.”
“The Conquistador——” Bob Star began the question.
“It was captured by the Cometeers.”
Amazed, incredulous, he demanded: “Four hundred years ago?”
“So Kay tells me,” said Jay Kalam. “Apparently their ships were continually sent ahead, at speeds far beyond that of light, on scouting expeditions. Most suns, you know, have no planets at all, and so aren’t worth raiding.
“And the invisible scout, it seems, met the Conquistador, out beyond Pluto. Her entire crew was carried back to the comet, which was then in a remote part of the galaxy.
“The prisoners were kept alive to be questioned and studied; and eventually a few of them escaped from the laboratories of the Cometeers. Aided by other beings who had been enslaved by the aythrin, they got away from the master planet in a captured ship, and reached one of the outlying planets of the cluster.
“For two generations they existed as miserable fugitives, until the survivors found their way into a great cavern, where they were not discovered.
“The human beings still clung to their knowledge of science. They were the finest specimens of a brilliant era. They had learned of the doom already overshadowing the unsuspecting system, and they determined to prevent it.
“They were aided by the science of the strange slaves who had escaped with them.
“And Kay Nymidee is their daughter—after four hundred years.
“The secret colonists made scientific progress. The projector by whose means Kay appeared to you on Neptune, and came to the asteroid, is their most brilliant achievement. I understand her explanation very imperfectly, but apparently it operates by warping the world lines of the continuum to bring two remote points so close together in hyperspace that light—or even, finally, a material body—can leap across the gap.
“The machine, anyhow, was developed by Kay’s father. And he had been operating it and sending Kay into the hidden places of the Cometeers, after their secrets. They detected it after she tried to warn you, on Neptune. They located the cavern, and destroyed the inhabitants.
“Kay Nymidee is the only one who escaped. At the last moment, her father used the machine to send her to you, upon the asteroid. He remained to perish.”
Bob Star caught eagerly at his arm.
“What has she been trying to tell us?” he gasped abruptly. “About Stephen Orco and the aythrin? Had she—had she learned anything?”
