Deathworld

  VI.

  After that they were together constantly. When Meta was on duty hebrought her meals to the bridge and they talked. Jason learned littlemore about her world since, by unspoken agreement, they didn't discussit. He talked of the many planets he had visited and the people he hadknown. She was an appreciative listener and the time went quickly by.They enjoyed each other's company and it was a wonderful trip.

  Then it ended.

  There were fourteen people aboard the ship, yet Jason had never seenmore than two or three at a time. There was a fixed rotation of dutiesthat they followed in the ship's operation. When not on duty the Pyrransminded their own business in an intense and self-sufficient manner. Onlywhen the ship came out of jump and the PA barked _assembly_ did they allget together.

  Kerk was giving orders for the landing and questions were snapped backand forth. It was all technical and Jason didn't bother following it. Itwas the attitude of the Pyrrans that drew his attention. Their talktended to be faster now as were their motions. They were like soldierspreparing for battle.

  Their sameness struck Jason for the first time. Not that they lookedalike or did the same things. It was the _way_ they moved and reactedthat caused the striking similarity. They were like great, stalkingcats. Walking fast, tense and ready to spring at all times, their eyesnever still for an instant.

  Jason tried to talk to Meta after the meeting, but she was almost astranger. She answered in monosyllables and her eyes never met his, justbrushed over them and went on. There was nothing he could really say soshe moved to leave. He started to put his hand out to stop her--thenthought better of it. There would be other times to talk.

  Kerk was the only one who took any notice of him--and then only to orderhim to an acceleration couch.

  Meta's landings were infinitely worse than her take-offs. At least whenshe landed on Pyrrus. There were sudden acceleration surges in everydirection. At one point there was a free fall that seemed endless. Therewere loud thuds against the hull that shook the framework of the ship.It was more like a battle than a landing, and Jason wondered how muchtruth there was in that.

  When the ship finally landed Jason didn't even know it. The constant2 G's felt like deceleration. Only the descending moan of the ship'sengines convinced him they were down. Unbuckling the straps and sittingup was an effort.

  Two G's don't seem that bad--at first. Walking required the sameexertion as would carrying a man of his own weight on his shoulders.When Jason lifted his arm to unlatch the door it was heavy as two arms.He shuffled slowly towards the main lock.

  They were all there ahead of him, two of the men rolling transparentcylinders from a nearby room. From their obvious weight and the way theyclanged when they bumped, Jason knew they were made of transparentmetal. He couldn't conceive any possible use for them. Empty cylinders ameter in diameter, longer than a man. One end solid, the other hingedand sealed. It wasn't until Kerk spun the sealing wheel and opened oneof them that their use became apparent.

  "Get in," Kerk said. "When you're locked inside you'll be carried out ofthe ship."

  "Thank you, no," Jason told him. "I have no particular desire to make aspectacular landing on your planet sealed up like a packaged sausage."

  "Don't be a fool," was Kerk's snapped answer. "We're _all_ going out inthese tubes. We've been away too long to risk the surface withoutreorientation."

  * * * * *

  Jason did feel a little foolish as he saw the others getting into tubes.He picked the nearest one, slid into it feet first, and pulled the lidclosed. When he tightened the wheel in the center, it squeezed downagainst a flexible seal. Within a minute the CO{2} content in the closedcylinder went up and an air regenerator at the bottom hummed into life.

  Kerk was the last one in. He checked the seals on all the other tubesfirst, then jabbed the air-lock override release. As it started cyclinghe quickly sealed himself in the remaining cylinder. Both inner andouter locks ground slowly open and dim light filtered in through sheetsof falling rain.

  For Jason, the whole thing seemed an anticlimax. All this preparationfor absolutely nothing. Long, impatient minutes passed before a lifttruck appeared driven by a Pyrran. He loaded the cylinders onto histruck like so much dead cargo. Jason had the misfortune to be buried atthe bottom of the pile so he could see absolutely nothing when theydrove outside.

  It wasn't until the man-carrying cylinders had been dumped in ametal-walled room, that Jason saw his first native Pyrran life.

  The lift truck driver was swinging a thick outer door shut whensomething flew in through the entrance and struck against the far wall.Jason's eye was caught by the motion, he looked to see what it was whenit dropped straight down towards his face.

  Forgetful of the metal cylinder wall, he flinched away. The creaturestruck the transparent metal and clung to it. Jason had the perfectopportunity to examine it in every detail.

  It was almost too horrible to be believable. As though it were a bearerof death stripped to the very essentials. A mouth that split the head intwo, rows of teeth, serrated and pointed. Leathery, claw-tipped wings,longer claws on the limbs that tore at the metal wall.

  Terror rose up in Jason as he saw that the claws were tearing gouges inthe transparent metal. Wherever the creature's saliva touched the metalclouded and chipped under the assault of the teeth.

  Logic said these were just scratches on the thick tube. They couldn'tmatter. But blind, unreasoning fear sent Jason curling away as far as hecould. Shrinking inside himself, seeking escape.

  Only when the flying creature began dissolving did he realize the natureof the room outside. Sprays of steaming liquid came from all sides,raining down until the cylinders were covered. After one last clash ofits jaws, the Pyrran animal was washed off and carried away. The liquiddrained away through the floor and a second and third shower followed.

  While the solutions were being pumped away, Jason fought to bring hisemotions into line. He was surprised at himself. No matter how frightfulthe creature had been, he couldn't understand the fear it could generatethrough the wall of the sealed tube. His reaction was all out ofproportion to the cause. Even with the creature destroyed and washed outof sight it took all of his will power to steady his nerves and bringhis breathing back to normal.

  * * * * *

  Meta walked by outside and he realized the sterilization process wasfinished. He opened his own tube and climbed wearily out. Meta and theothers had gone by this time and only a hawk-faced stranger remained,waiting for him.

  "I'm Brucco, in charge of the adaptation clinic. Kerk told me who youwere. I'm sorry you're here. Now come along, I want some blood samples."

  "Now I feel right at home," Jason said. "The old Pyrran hospitality."Brucco only grunted and stamped out. Jason followed him down a barecorridor into a sterile lab.

  The double gravity was tiring, a constant drag on sore muscles. WhileBrucco ran tests on the blood sample, Jason rested. He had almost dozedoff into a painful sleep when Brucco returned with a tray of bottles andhypodermic needles.

  "Amazing," he announced. "Not an antibody in your serum that would be ofany use on this planet. I have a batch of antigens here that will makeyou sick as a beast for at least a day. Take off your shirt."

  "Have you done this often?" Jason asked. "I mean juice up an outlanderso he can enjoy the pleasures of your world?"

  Brucco jammed in a needle that felt like it grated on the bone. "Notoften at all. Last time was years ago. A half-dozen researchers fromsome institute, willing to pay well for the chance to study the locallife forms. We didn't say no. Always need more galaxy currency."

  Jason was already beginning to feel light-headed from the shots. "Howmany of them lived?" he mumbled vaguely.

  "One. We got him off in time. Made them pay in advance of course."

  At first Jason thought the Pyrran was joking. Then he remembered theyhad very little interest in humor of any kind. If one-half of what Metaan
d Kerk had told him was true, six to one odds weren't bad at all.

  There was a bed in the next room and Brucco helped him to it. Jason feltdrugged and probably was. He fell into a deep sleep and into the dream.

  Fear and hatred mixed in equal parts and washed over him red hot. Ifthis was a dream, he never wanted to sleep again. If it wasn't a dream,he wanted to die. He tried to fight up against it, but only sank in moredeeply. There was no beginning and no end to the fear and no way toescape.

  When consciousness returned Jason could remember no detail of thenightmare. Just the fear remained. He was soaked with sweat and ached inevery muscle. It must have been the massive dose of shots, he finallydecided, that and the brutal gravity. That didn't take the taste of fearout of his mouth, though.

  Brucco stuck his head in the door then and looked Jason up and down."Thought you were dead," he said. "Slept the clock around. Don't move,I'll get something to pick you up."

  The pickup was in the form of another needle and a glassful ofevil-looking fluid. It settled his thirst, but made him painfully awareof gnawing hunger.

  "Want to eat?" Brucco asked. "I'll bet you do. I've speeded up yourmetabolism so you'll build muscle faster. Only way you'll ever beat thegravity. Give you quite an appetite for a while though."

  Brucco ate at the same time and Jason had a chance to ask somequestions. "When do I get a chance to look around your fascinatingplanet? So far this trip has been about as interesting as a jail term."

  "Relax and enjoy your food. Probably be months before you're able to gooutside. If at all."

  Jason felt his jaw hanging and closed it with a snap. "Could youpossibly tell me why?"

  "Of course. You will have to go through the same training course thatour children take. It takes them six years. Of course it's their firstsix years of life. So you might think that you, as an adult, could learnfaster. Then again they have the advantage of heredity. All I can say isyou'll go outside these sealed buildings when you're ready."

  Brucco had finished eating while he talked, and sat staring at Jason'sbare arms with growing disgust. "The first thing we want to get you is agun," he said. "It gives me a sick feeling to see someone without one."

  Of course Brucco wore his own gun continually, even within the sealedbuildings.

  "Every gun is fitted to its owner and would be useless on anyone else,"Brucco said. "I'll show you why." He led Jason to an armory jammed withdeadly weapons. "Put your arm in this while I make the adjustments."

  * * * * *

  It was a boxlike machine with a pistol grip on the side. Jason clutchedthe grip and rested his elbow on a metal loop. Brucco fixed pointersthat touched his arm, then copied the results from the meters. Readingthe figures from his list he selected various components from bins andquickly assembled a power holster and gun. With the holster strapped tohis forearm and the gun in his hand, Jason noticed for the first timethey were connected by a flexible cable. The gun fitted his handperfectly.

  "This is the secret of the power holster," Brucco said, tapping theflexible cable. "It is perfectly loose while you are using the weapon.But when you want it returned to the holster--" Brucco made anadjustment and the cable became a stiff rod that whipped the gun fromJason's hand and suspended it in midair.

  "Then the return." The rod-cable whirred and snapped the gun back intothe holster. "The drawing action is the opposite of this, of course."

  "A great gadget," Jason said, "but how _do_ I draw? Do I whistle orsomething for the gun to pop out?"

  "No, it is not sonic control," Brucco answered with a sober face. "It ismuch more precise than that. Here, take your left hand and grasp animaginary gun butt. Tense your trigger finger. Do you notice the patternof the tendons in the wrist? Sensitive actuators touch the tendons inyour right wrist. They ignore all patterns except the one that says_hand ready to receive gun_. After a time the mechanism becomescompletely automatic. When you want the gun--it is in your hand. Whenyou don't--it is in the holster."

  Jason made grasping motions with his right hand, crooked his indexfinger. There was a sudden, smashing pain against his hand and a loudroar. The gun was in his hand--half the fingers were numb--and smokecurled up from the barrel.

  "Of course there are only blank charges in the gun until you learncontrol. Guns are _always_ loaded. There is no safety. Notice the lackof a trigger guard. That enables you to bend your trigger finger aslight bit more when drawing so the gun will fire the instant it touchesyour hand."

  It was without a doubt the most murderous weapon Jason had everhandled, as well as being the hardest to manage. Working against themuscle-burning ache of high gravity, he fought to control the devilishdevice. It had an infuriating way of vanishing into the holster just ashe was about to pull the trigger. Even worse was the tendency to leapout before he was quite ready. The gun went to the position where hishand should be. If the fingers weren't correctly placed, they werecrashed aside. Jason only stopped the practice when his entire hand wasone livid bruise.

  Complete mastery would come with time, but he could already understandwhy the Pyrrans never removed their guns. It would be like removing apart of your own body. The movement of gun from holster to hand was toofast for him to detect. It was certainly faster than the neural currentthat shaped the hand into the gun-holding position. For all apparentpurposes it was like having a lightning bolt in your fingertip. Pointthe finger and _blamm_, there's the explosion.

  * * * * *

  Brucco had left Jason to practice alone. When his aching hand could takeno more, he stopped and headed back towards his own quarters. Turning acorner he had a quick glimpse of a familiar figure going away from him.

  "Meta! Wait for a second--I want to talk to you."

  She turned impatiently as he shuffled up, going as fast as he could inthe doubled gravity. Everything about her seemed different from the girlhe had known on the ship. Heavy boots came as high as her knees, herfigure was lost in bulky coveralls of some metallic fabric. The trimwaist was bulged out by a belt of canisters. Her very expression wascoldly distant.

  "I've missed you," he said. "I hadn't realized you were in thisbuilding." He reached for her hand but she moved it out of his reach.

  "What is it you want?" she asked.

  "What is it I want!" he echoed with barely concealed anger. "This isJason, remember me? We're friends. It _is_ allowed for friends to talkwithout 'wanting' anything."

  "What happened on the ship has nothing to do with what happens onPyrrus." She started forward impatiently as she talked. "I have finishedmy reconditioning and must return to work. You'll be staying here in thesealed buildings so I won't be seeing you."

  "Why don't you say 'with the rest of the children'--that's what yourtone implies? And don't try walking out, there are some things we haveto settle first--"

  Jason made the mistake of putting out his hand to stop her. He didn'treally know what happened next. One instant he was standing--the next hesprawled suddenly on the floor. His shoulder was badly bruised, and Metahad vanished down the corridor.

  Limping back to his own room he cursed women in general and Meta inparticular. Dropping onto his rock-hard bed he tried to remember thereasons that had brought him here in the first place. And weighed themagainst the perpetual torture of the gravity, the fear-filled dreams itinspired, the automatic contempt of these people for any outsider. Hequickly checked the growing tendency to feel sorry for himself. ByPyrran standards he _was_ soft and helpless. If he wanted them to thinkany better of him, he would have to change a good deal.

  He sank into a fatigue-drugged sleep then, that was broken only by thescreaming fear of his dreams.