Collected Short Fiction, page 334
A barytron blaster of the newest legion design, identical with his own!
The merest fraction of its energy could have electrocuted—exploded—his undefended body. But his second bolt, into the monster’s central crimson eye, took instant effect. The blaster fell. Queerly stiffened, the creature toppled toward the girl.
Ignoring a voice of fearful protest in his heart, Chan sent himself forward. The same arm that held the blaster slipped under the girl. The geopeller lifted them both. The monster came crashing down behind them. The diaphanous green wings, when it struck, abruptly unrolled. They remained rigidly extended, and the thing did not move again.
Chan dropped, beside it, and set the breathless girl upon her feet.
Her lithe body had been vibrantly warm in his arms. There was subtle intoxication in the perfume of her platinum hair. The radiance of her white smile made him glad, tor a moment, that he had saved her.
“Thank you”—some husky magic in her breathless voice set his heart to racing—“Chan!”
Her violet eyes slowly closed, and her scarlet lips swayed toward his. And then, with an unexpected pantherine quickness, she was gone from his arms. A clever, numbing blow from her elbow had struck some nerve center in his neck. A clever, savage strength had wrested the blaster out of his hand.
He swayed, dazedly. Here, far from the gravity plates in the “bottom” of the New Moon’s hull, their attraction was somewhat decreased, and it required a little time for muscles to adjust themselves to the lessened strains.
When he recovered, the girl w-as already backing alertly away from him, covering him with his own weapon.
“Well, Mr. Basilisk!” her soft voice mocked him. “Let’s see you get away this time!”
Chan caught his breath. The blue darkness and the shadowy strands of steel spun about him. He had foreseen this danger from the girl—and yet the very peril of her beauty made it all incredible.
His hand tightened on the spindle of the geopeller. Small chance of distancing the bolt of barytrons, he knew. But the power of the little unit could hurl his body against her—
“Still, Chan Derron!” her voice rang sharply. “Open your hand.” The blaster gestured alertly.
His fingers relaxed. He tried, hopelessly, to protest:
“Vanya, you can’t believe that I’m the Basilisk. For, all the time, you were there at my side—”
“Silence!” The bright weapon-lifted; imperatively. “I was there,” she said, “close enough to feel the mechanisms strapped to your body, Derron. To feel the wires in your sleeve.”
Narrowed, her violet eyes had a deadly glint.
“I had you then, Derron—until you sent your little pet to carry me away.
Now I’ve got you again—and you won’t escape!” He wondered at the fingers of her left hand, lifted to that strange white jewel at her throat. “But I’ll give you one last chance.”
He saw the tension in her hand, saw the ruthless purpose behind the white perfect mask of her face. Cold as sleet, her voice whipped at him:
“What did you do with Dr. Eleroid’s invention?”
Sick, helpless, he shook his head. “Where is the machine you control with the instruments on your body—” He knew she was going to fire, when he didn’t answer. He could hurt himself at her with the geopeller. Two deaths, instead of one. But her pitiless beauty—That monstrous pur came suddenly. The girl and everything beyond flickered abruptly, as if a wall of vitrilith had dropped between. He saw her hand stiffen on the blaster, saw the white bolt’s flash.
The last thing he saw was her white face, with grim suspicion changed to amazed and hateful certainty. Her image dissolved in a chasm of starless darkness. And Chan Derron was hurled into black and airless cold.
X.
“YOU SAY it’s dead?” quavered Giles Habibula. “Jay, you’re sure the fearful thing is dead?”
High in the blue dim web of shadows and metal beneath the New Moon’s shell, the grotesque monstrosity sprawled stiffly on the bare platform. Jay Kalam and Hal Samdu and Gaspar Hannas were staring down at it, wonderingly. Giles Habibula hung apprehensively back near the elevator that had brought them up.
“Quite dead,” Jay Kalam assured him. “Chan Derron evidently beat us to it. Who would have guessed he had a geopeller unit under his cloak? And then got away—with the girl!”
“Got away!” It was a frightened, groan, from the gigantic, black-clad master of the New Moon. His foolish smile was ludicrously pathetic. “And all our guests know he did! There’s a panic at the docks! Every vessel going out is already booked to capacity. In twenty-four hours there won’t be a visitor in the New Moon—and not many of our own employees—unless the Basilisk is caught!”
The great white hands of Hannas clenched, impotently, as: “The Basilisk has ruined me, commander!” he groaned. “Or Chan Derron has. Already.”
“Keep your men after him.” Jay Kalam’s gesture swept the dusky labyrinth of shadow-clotted steel. “He could be here—anywhere. With that woman—” His dark brow furrowed. “There was something about that woman—you observed her, Hal?”
“Aye, Jay,” rumbled Hal Samdu. “She was beautiful—too beautiful for any good! She had that destroying beauty that belonged to those evil androids of Eldo Arrynu.”
“Android!” Jay Kalam started at the word. “She could be! She could be Luroa—Stephen Orco’s last sinister sister!” He set his lean fingers deliberately tip to tip. “The New Moon would be her natural hunting ground, and Chan Derron the sort of confederate she would seek. But she didn’t look like—”
“Ah, Jay, but she did!” protested Giles Habibula, plaintively. “ ’Twas mortal evident! The hair and the eyes were changed, of course. And make-up cunningly used, to alter the proportions of her blessed face—ah, Jay, ’twas a lovely one! But all its precious features were identical with those on the mortal bill of reward!”
Jay Kalam spun on him.
“Why didn’t you speak?”
Lifting his cane defensively, Giles Habibula stumbled apprehensively back.
“Jay, Jay,” he whined plaintively, “don’t be too mortal severe on a poor old soldier of the legion.” He sighed heavily, and one fat yellow hand clutched at his heart. “Giles is an old, old man. His eyes are blurred and dim. But still he can relish the blessed sight of beauty, Jay. And that girl was too beautiful to be stood before your blaster squad. Ah, so, she was a blessed dream!”
“If you were any other man in the legion, Giles, you’d stand before a blaster squad yourself!”
The commander turned decisively back to Gaspar Hannas.
“Remind your police,” he said, “that this android is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That makes three quarters of a million, for the two.”
“I’ll make it a millions dollars, commander,” the white giant gasped wildly, “for the two! To save the New Moon . . . I’ll do anything!”
He stumbled into the elevator tube.
JAY KALAM was rubbing reflectively at his lean jaw.
“Luroa might stand beside Derron on our suspect list,” he said slowly. “We know that the brain of the Basilisk is clever, utterly ruthless, and superbly trained in science—and the brain of the android has those qualities in full measure. Luroa is either the Basilisk, or his confederate—or else she came here to snatch his prize away!”
He turned methodically to the rigid thing that Chan Derron had slain. Hal Samdu was already playing his light tube over it; Giles Habibula was prodding rather fearfully at its armored body with his cane.
“Ah, such a mortal horror!” the old man wheezed. “And it came out of nothing! To shatter the wretched nerves of a poor old soldier—”
“It came from somewhere,” said Jay Kalam, gravely. “And it brings a new complexity into the situation. It’s no native of the System. And like nothing we met on Yarkand, or in the comet. It means—”
“Jay!” It was an astonished gasp, from Giles Habibula. “Jay, look here!” The prodding cane trembled in his hand. “This mortal thing was never alive!”
“What’s that?”
“See,” the old man wheezed. “The scales of it are metal, fastened on with mortal rivets. The wings are neither flesh nor feathers—they’re blessed cellulite. It’s no muscles that made them beat, but this rotating shaft. These serpentine tentacles, that raped the poor lass away, are all of metal disks and rubber and wire. And the fearsome eyes have lenses of vitrilith.
“Jay, the thing’s a mortal robot!”
“So it is, Giles.” He bent over it. “And an illegal one, apparently. May I have your light, Hal?”
He peered into one of the huge, glassy orbs, felt the frail-seeming elastic stuff of the wings, inspected beak and tentacles and limbs, studied the patch of scorched metal scales, the fused pit where the central eye had been.
At last he stood up, decisively, and returned the light tube.
“Ah, Jay,” inquired Giles Habibula, “what do you discover?”
“A good deal,” said the commander, gravely. “A good many inferences are immediately obvious. A thorough scientific investigation will check them, and doubtless suggest as many others.”
He turned to Hal Samdu.
“Hal, you take charge of this. Send to Rocky Mountain Base at once for a crew of research technicians—get as many men as possible who were with us on the comet expedition—and have them disassemble this machine.”
His lean hand gestured at the stiff monstrous body.
“Make a thorough microscopic, chemical, bacteriological, and spectrographic study of surface specimens and the material of every part. Photograph every part, before and after removal, under ultra-violet light. Compare it with the illicit robots in the legion museum. Make—But your crew will know what to do. Tell them to neglect no possible source of information—for this thing is our one tangible clue to the methods and the headquarters of the Basilisk.
“Have your men write up a complete report of what you find, and all possible deduction as to where this machine was built, by whom, for what purpose, and how it could have come to the New Moon. One word more—guard the robot and your results with the utmost care!”
“Yes, commander.” Hal Samdu saluted, eagerly, and a joyous smile lit his big, ugly face. “Aye, and it’s good to have something really to do, Jay, at last!”
And he stepped after Hannas into the elevator beam.
“NOW, GILES,” the commander said, “there are three men that I must learn more about. I know the overwhelming weight of evidence that Chan Derron is our Basilisk—perhaps with the android’s complicity. But, in a case so grave, we can’t afford to overlook the bare possibility that our chief enemy is another. Admitting that the Basilisk must have a brilliant, pitiless, and scientific mind, there were three others present in the Diamond Room who might possibly be suspects.”
“Eh, Jay?” The small fishy eyes of Giles Habibula blinked. “Who?”
“The engineer,” began Jay Kalam, “John Comaine—”
“Ah, so,” agreed Giles Habibula. “I didn’t like the look of his mysterious box. And the others?”
“The gambler, Brelekko,” said the commander. “And Hannas, himself.”
“Hannas! And Brelekko?” The old man nodded. “Ah, so, I guess all three fit your classification. I know less of this Comaine. But if two men ever were ravening wolves, Jay, they were Hannas and Brelekko!”
“You knew them, Giles. Were they always friends, as now?”
“Friends, Jay!” The leaden eyes peered at him. “Ah, Jay, they were mortal bitter enemies as ever fought—the three of us were against each other. Ah, so! And if any of us had been less a man than he was, the others would have picked his blessed bones!”
“Tell me about it, Giles.”
“It was forty years ago, and more. Jay.” Leaning on the cane, he heaved to a sorrowful sigh. “When Giles was yet a man—aye, and a warrior, Jay!—not the miserable, shattered, dying old soldier before you now. He was back on Venus, on furlough from the legion—”
“Furlough, Giles?” inquired the grave commander. “For five years?”
Giles Habibula sucked in his breath, indignantly.
“The charges of desertion were never proven, Jay,” he wheezed. “Oh, ’twas but a mortal wicked plot of my enemies, to wreck the career of a loyal legionnaire—”
“Never proven,” put in Jay Kalam, solemnly, “because all the documents in the case mysteriously vanished from the files of the legion.”
“I know nothing of that, sir!” The fishy eyes blinked. “Jay, Jay—” A bitter sob. “If you’ve nothing better to do than turn up all the malicious lies that were invented by his enemies to ruin the bravest soldier that ever risked his life to save the blessed System—ah, then, Jay—”
His thin voice broke, piteously.
“Forget it, Giles.” A faint twinkle lit the dark eyes of Jay Kalam. “And tell me what happened on Venus.”
“Ah, thank you, Jay,” wheezed the old man, gratefully, “You were never one to exhume the mortal skeleton of the past, to haunt a poor old soldier with!”
HE BALANCED himself on the cane.
“I went back to the Blue Unicorn, Jay. It was on a little rocky island off New Chicago. The wildest place—and the richest place—in all the blessed System. But it was a woman that brought me back, Jay.”
He sighed, and his colorless eyes looked far away into the New Moon’s darkness.
“Ah, Jay, such a woman as you wouldn’t find in all the whole System today—not unless you picked upon the android Luroa. Ah, no other could be so beautiful, or so quick, or so brave as she was—Ethyra Coran.”
He gulped, and his thin voice trembled.
“The three of us loved her, Jay. Ah, so, every man on Venus was mad with her mortal beauty—but we three were better than all the rest. We knew that the matter lay between us. And, for her precious sake, we had to pretend a sort of friendship.
“Amo Brelekko was just off the Jovian liners. He wasn’t using that name, then. Or the one he had used on the liners—for one ruined man had killed himself, and another had been ordered. But he was made of money. He was only a callow youth, then. But already he had a skill—none but I could ever win from him, at any game. He had a voice, then. And the same gaudy dress and glitter of jewels that he wears today. He had a gentle, flattering way with women. Aye, Jay, many a poor lass had given him her soul, and perished for it.
“Gaspar Hannas had come from none knew where. He was known then as Pedro the Shark. There were a thousand whispers about his past, but he had a different face then—and none who had seen it cared to ask the truth. From wherever he came, he had brought a fortune with him, and he found more of the Blue Unicorn. Money and blood—ah, Jay, I’ve seen sights that an old man should forget. But I’ve made it plain that Gaspar Hannas was mortal grim. Precious few lasses would have dared to refuse him. Ah, but Ethyra Coran had a courage to match her beauty and her wit. Ah, so, and precious few men would have cared to be the rival of Pedro the Shark! But that was in the old days, Jay, when old Giles was still a man.”
The old man’s eyes chanced to fall again upon the robot monster on the floor, and he started back apprehensively, as if he had not seen it before.
“Ah, the fearful horror! . . . I could make a long story of it, Jay. Aye, a story of cunning and passion and death that ’twould make your blessed blood congeal to hear. For the Shark and the Eel were ruthless feral beasts, and I—you know that Giles was ever honest and straightforward, Jay, aye, and simple as a precious child. I had to grapple for their fearful weapons, to hold my own. To make the story short, Jay—”
He paused a little, and a happy smile seamed his round yellow face.
“I got the girl—aye, and a mortal lovely prize she was!”
His smile twisted into a triumphant grin.
“As for Hannas and Brelekko, why, each of them, Jay—through a neat little device of my own—blamed his defeat upon the other. Ah, so, they became mortal enemies indeed! But the quickness and the craft of Brelekko matched the brutish strength and the ruthless courage of Hannas, and each mailed to destroy the other.”
“And you think they are still,” the grave commander asked, “enemies?”
“Mortal enemies,” insisted Giles Habibula. “Gould they be friends? When Brelekko must be madly jealous of the rise of Hannas to wealth and power, in his New Moon. When Hannas—aye, and justly—must hate Brelekko for knowing his past and his tricks, for hanging on him like a leech, and winning at his tables.
“Ah, so, Jay, in either of them—you have brains enough—and mortal evil enough—to make your Basilisk.”
“Possibly,” admitted Jay Kalam. “Though there’s not a shred of evidence, except against Chan Derron. We’ll see them again, below.”
WHEN Hal Samdu had returned, with a guard of legionnaires, to take charge of the robot for his crew of scientists, they went down again to the luxurious suite that Gaspar Hannas had placed at their disposal. The commander sent for Amo Brelekko.
Yellow and almost skeletal, strutting in his gaudy silks, great jewels glittering, the gambler made a fantastic figure. The insolence of his swagger, Jay Kalam thought, was put on to cover a deep unease. His dark eyes shot an insanely malicious look at Giles Habibula.
“Brelekko,” asked the grave commander, “a clever man, on the spot from the beginning, intimately acquainted with the persons involved, what is your opinion about the Basilisk?”
The hawk-face remained a bleak tense mask, as:
“Obviously the criminal must be an able scientist,” the voiceless whisper of the gambler replied. “Obviously, he knows the New Moon intimately. Obviously, also, he dislikes Gaspar Hannas. I know one man, commander, who fits those conditions.”
“So?” wheezed Giles Habibula. “Besides yourself?”
The dark unblinking eyes darted at him, venomously.
