"Another item," went on Jerry. "He talks English without using alingoalter. Thus, probably, he's telepathic. 'Take heart mortals' hemight have grubbed out of somebody's subconscious."
"It adds up to this," said Pink. "We're helpless against him. Grantingthis, I say let's go get him."
It made no sense, it was the gesture of fools in love with death or ofmadmen battling their own futility; but every officer there shouted,"Right!" Except for Joe Silver.
"I say, sit tight and wait," he said. "Something will happen. There's nouse committing suicide."
"If he wants us alive, and we can't fight him, I think we're better offdead," said Jerry through his teeth.
"Hell. Where there's life there's hope."
"I suppose you're right," said Pink slowly. His muscles ached, his handsgrasped ceaselessly at the air; he was a man of action, his desire forcombat throttled by incapability. "Twenty-some hours before the otherships get here. If our deductions are on the beam, he won't do anythingtill then. He wants the whole armada."
Then, with a snarl of static, the intercom came to life.
At first they heard a jumble of voices. "What's wrong?" "Nothingworks...." "Are all the officers dead?" It was the crew, beyond thebarriers of the mutiny gates, evidently trying to get intocommunication. Over and over one voice said, "Hello, Captain Pinkham.Come in, Captain Pinkham."
Pink took two strides and flipped the switch of the visiograph. Tuningit first to one crew station and then another, he told them succinctlywhat bad happened. "Don't panic, for God's sake. The mutiny gates arefor your protection. If they work, you may be able to do somethinglater, regardless of what happens to us."
* * * * *
Their somber faces looked out of the screen at him. "Let us in,Captain," pleaded one big repairman. "We'll mob the critter."
"No use, Jackson. Stand by." He turned the dial of the visiograph intothe officers' section, scanned one room after another. No alien beingappeared. "I wonder if he's in here with us?" said Pink half-aloud.
Jerry came to him. "I have an idea," he said quietly. Then he whisperedat length into Pinkham's ear.
"It won't work. He knows what he's doing."
"How do we know that? If he needs us, he's ignorant of spaceships. Lookat the intercom--he turned it off, by some means, then turned it on whenhe found out what it was. The space drive must have been easy to guessat; likewise the life-scanner. But the intercom's a lot of complexmachinery that only adds up to a television-telephone communicationsystem. However he snarls the stuff, it's instantaneous and simple forhim to do. I think he just took a crack at everything that lookedimportant. Now he's experimenting, learning the ship, finding out whathe threw out of joint. Obviously he doesn't give a damn if we talk tothe crew!"
"You could be right."
"So if I do what I want to, it'll confuse hell out of him. It may giveus an advantage. And we'll certainly learn something."
"It's worth a try." Pink looked at Jerry, his closest friend. "I'llsend Silver to do it," he said.
Jerry shook his lean head. "This is my baby, Pink." Then he opened thedoor and went out, closing it behind him.
Pinkham said levelly, "Daley, come here." He whispered the plan into hislieutenant's ear. Daley said admiringly, "Good deal. And I think that'ssense--he can't know much about the ship. I'll bet he was hiding in thatbottle, casing Sparks's equipment and learning how to operate it. Thequick look he got at the rest of us on our jobs before he startedplaying hob must have given him the barest, scantiest idea of things. SoJerry's notion could work."
"Or it could blow up," said Pink dismally. "Go tell the others. Whisperit, in case our guest is in here." He struggled briefly with his deepestfeelings. "Don't tell Circe. We can't be sure of her yet."
"Roger." Daley left him alone at the intercom. Pinkham set the dial toshow the large room toward which Jerry was making his way....
Somewhere beyond their ken, the incredible beast from the void madeanother decision, or tried another experiment; and the life-scannerflickered into working order again. Joe Silver saw it first. Its screenblinked, then its alarm buttons glowed vividly. Without the ship, at avast distance but approaching rapidly, were an untold number of organicentities, life-sources that reacted upon the scanner like approachingaircraft on a radar set. They could be spaceships, slugjet suits, oranything that contained the intangible thing called life. And the sisterships of the _Elephant's Child_ were still too far away to register.
"Great Jupiter!" bellowed Joe Silver, pointing. "What now?"
CHAPTER VIII
O. O. Jerry Jones crept along the last ramp. Why the devil was heskulking like this? Habit, he grinned ruefully to himself; the habit ofprimitive man who crouched and slunk in the presence of danger, nomatter what kind.
And the old preservation instinct was also giving him all sorts ofreasons to knock this silly business off, and go back to the protection,however illusory, of the control room. For instance, said the slyinstinct, if this alien is telepathic, as you so neatly proved toyourself, then doesn't he know all that you and your pals know about aspaceship?
Shut up, Jerry told himself. I was wrong. He can't be telepathic, or hewouldn't bother to keep us alive after he's combed our brains.
"Couldn't he have some physical use for you all?" said the instinct.
Get thee behind me, Satan, he growled in his mind.
He opened the door of the room he was seeking.
Where to start? One wall was banked with books; never mind them. Anotherwall was covered with strange-looking projections, tubes and spouts andwheels and levers, behind a long table of plastikoid. There? Goodenough.
He had a momentary pang as he picked up a spanner from the rack of toolsby the door....
Then he was across the room and smashing wildly at levers, spouts, walltanks, faucets; beating metal into scrap, crushing shining aluminum toscarred uselessness; he did not rest his arm until the whole wall was aruin of beaten metal and broken glass. Then he turned his attention tothe third wall.
Here was a giant turntable, rack on rack of shellacked alloy discs,mysterious-appearing charts and cabalistic signs. These he wrecked asmethodically and ruthlessly as he had the first, but now there weretears glistening in his eyes. He ended the destruction with a moan ofsorrow.
He paused to snap on the intercom. Pink's worry-lined face appeared."How'm I doing?" Jerry asked his captain.
"Great so far. Calico is crying like a child."
"I have news for you," Jerry said. "So am I." Then he turned to the lastwall. Before it spread a long array of mechanical devices: large boxeson spindly legs, with glassed tops and brilliant colors splashed acrosstheir surfaces; taller, narrower cases with crooked levers andviewplates on which were small designs and words. There was a kind ofdouble cage with tiny cubes therein. There were great wheels with manynumbers. Almost all were attached to the wall by electric cords, thoughsome were entirely mechanical and others ran on self-generated power.Jerry began at one end and passed down the line, shattering glass andsnapping wooden legs with his spanner.
He had almost finished when the door burst open and the tall humanoidform of the stranger appeared. A blast of rage almost lifted Jerry offhis feet. The being came at him, its motion a flowing tigerish pounce.The spanner was twitched from his hand flung across the room. He backedagainst the wall, bloating with fear in spite of himself. The creatureswelled above him.
"Whoreson knave!" it bawled angrily. "What are you doing?"
"Making d-d-damn sure you don't take the ship anywhere," said Jerry,croaking a little. "Now t-try and run it!"
He was suddenly lifted off his feet and dangled helplessly a yard offthe floor. "Fix them," snarled the alien thing into his face. He hadtime to realize that its grip was extremely powerful, whatever itsmolecules and atoms might be made of. "Reconstruct them, or you die."
"Don't be an idiot," Jerry told it, making up his mind that he was asgood as dead and might as well go out like a
man. "There isn't a singlespare part aboard for any of these devices." He managed a sick grin. "Ifyou're so smart, you _know_ I'm telling the truth."
Pinkham called from the screen of the intercom. "That's true,whatever-you-are. Those things are useless to you now."
The alien took Jerry by the chest, wrapping one hand around his back todo it; slowly it exerted pressure, and Jerry realized that it must haveelongated the hand enormously to encompass him so. He also knew that hisrib cage would shortly collapse. He shrieked.
Then Circe, the girl from the asteroid, was gazing from the screen,horrified. "No!" she screamed at the being. "You can't kill him for onlywrecking the--"
"Shut up!" squealed Jerry.
"The recreation room!" she finished.
Abruptly he was dropped to the floor, where he lay gasping, massaginghis bruised sides. The thing above him said, "Recreation room?"
"Sure. The soda fountain, the phonograph, and the pinball machines andgames."
Then Pinkham had encircled her throat with one arm, clamped his otherhand on her mouth, and dragged her back. But the damage was done.
The alien gave another of those mirthless peals of bull's laughter."Clever," he said. "Oh, clever little man." Then he plucked Jerry offthe floor once more.
_I'm going to die now...._
The brute set him on his feet, twisted him toward the door, and gave hima brisk, forceful pat on the backside that sent him staggering. Hegained his balance and ran into the corridor. It was more humiliatingthan had he been slain.
CHAPTER IX
"It didn't work, but it taught us a few things."
"You're right. It taught us that this bitch can't be trusted. Eithershe's in league with _it_, a sister or brother of it, or else she's sostupid that she's a menace to our survival."
"Oh, you blithering jackass!" said Circe indignantly to her felloworganicus officer. "How could I guess what your plan was? Nobody toldme. All I knew was that you were going to be murdered for doing aperfectly harmless--"
"She's right," said Joe Silver. "We ought to have told her."
"Shut up," said Pinkham savagely. "Any more of that and I'll figureshe's corrupted you or addled your brains, and I'll toss you into thebrig, Silver."
"You try it you pigsqueak," shouted Silver, who measured half an inchover Pink's six-foot-three. "Captain or not, this is a grade A emergencyand we're all needed. I'll pull the Mars Convention on you if you try toshut me up."
"He's right," said Daley to the captain. "Mars Convention says that in agrade A emergency any officer above Second Watch is equal to the captainor commander, Pink." Then he turned to Silver, grinned, and lashing outwith a hand the size of a spaniel, caught his under-lieutenant on theear. It knocked Silver sprawling. "That's for slanging at yoursuperiors," he said quietly. "And the Mars Convention says I can do_that_."
Silver got up and blinked. He seemed dazed and for the first time in hisspace life, uncertain of himself. He looked at the others and recognizedhimself as a minority here. "Okay," he said, "okay, I'm outvoted. But Isay the girl is only suspect, by no means convicted of anything butignorance of the plan."
Kinkare, unable to speak through his bandaged mouth, nodded strongly.Circe glared defiance at Pinkham. "Next time, for God's sake tell mewhat you have in mind," she said. "Not that I'd let you sacrifice poorJerry, anyway."
"Women," said Jerry. "Women on a ship. Jonahs. Sentimental imbeciles."
"I'll knock your teeth down your scrawny throat," began Joe Silver, and"Quiet!" roared Pinkham. "We're quarreling like kids. What's to be donenow!"
"I was saying it taught us a few things," said Daley. "Let's figure themout. The thing's evidently not telepathic. It can't run a spaceship, orit wouldn't have been so worked up over the ruin of the soda fountain,which must have looked pretty vital to its inexperienced eyes. It'sdefinitely tangible, for it picked Jerry up."
"It also murdered eleven men," said Pink. "That's tangible enough too."
"It's damned intelligent, for it must have spotted Jerry on theintercom, which means it was working it. It also speaks a very funnybreed of English. 'Whoreson knave,' for example. Nobody here ever calledanyone that."
"Whoreson knave is Shakespearean," said Jerry.
"And, to finish what I've deduced, the monster is as strong as a coupleof men, at least." He grinned at Jerry. "Not that you needed me todeduce that."
Randy Kinkare was staring at the life-scanner screen. Now he beat atattoo on the arm of his chair, pointed so that they all looked. Theflecks of light that indicated organic life had thronged in toward theship; not so numerous as the stars, they were still too many to count.One object on the screen was large now, large enough to be identified.It approached the ship at a slow but steady rate, and they gasped asthey saw it was another of the human-like figures.
"His brothers," said Pinkham. "That must be their natural form, then."
It grew and grew. It seemed it must now be touching the scanner'soutside cell; but no, it grew even greater. At last it could not be seenin its entirety, then only its face showed. It was a hideous face,twisted with sardonic malice. The face grew. When it stopped, only oneenormous eye filled the screen.
Jerry cleared his throat. "Do you know what that means?" he asked. "Itmeans that, at a conservative estimate, the critter is--"
"Go on," said Daley impatiently, when Jerry's silence had lengthenedintolerably.
"It must be at least one thousand feet tall," said the O. O.
There was a long, unbroken stillness, a hush of horror and disbelief inthe control room.
Finally Circe said slowly, "I think I'm going to faint."
And she did.
CHAPTER X
The long-unused armaments room was half the width of the ship away. Theywent toward it silently, seven men and a girl, praying that theirvisitor would not meet them or spot their furtive advance on theintercom. They slunk into the gunroom and Pink, coming last, ran theheavy emergency bolt across the door behind him.
The armaments officer was dead, of course. Pink said quietly, "Who knowsthe principles of these weapons?" Daley and Joe Silver raised theirhands. "Activate the viewers, then."
Two walls darkened and became the silver-flecked night of space; it wasas if they had become suddenly transparent. Half a dozen of thevoid-giants showed near the _Elephant's Child_, hovering or slowlydrifting around the bow of the ship.
"Now," said the captain, "if only our friend in the bottle has left usour guns--train 'em on those monstrosities and fire every forwardbattery simultaneously."
The lieutenants, seated in foam-chairs behind the double banks of thegun controls, manipulated instruments that were very like the sights oncommon atom-pistols. Thin blue lines moved across the reflected pictureof the space beyond the ship's nose, steadied and centered on thenearest giants. Silver glanced at Daley, who said, "Count o' three,Joe."
Every man leaned forward, scowling at the screens. The nearestspace-soarer squinted full in their faces, as though he could actuallysee them as they were scanning him. Coincidence, but--Pink shuddered.
"One," said Daley. "Two."
The _Elephant's Child_ rocked wildly up and back as thirty platinumguns, the heaviest type in the known universe, fired theirhell-projectiles--great shells whose inconceivable destructive power wasreleased by the splitting of the curium atom. In flight, the ship wouldhave absorbed the tremendous recoil automatically; stationary as shewas, it bucked her over like a blown leaf.
The shells, set to explode at the very closest range that safetypermitted, flashed upon the twin screens like bursting suns. Human eyeslooking directly at such a bombardment would have crisped in theirsockets; even on the screens their glare was too bright for comfort.
The men blinked, peered sharply for signs of the effect on the giants.
Pink felt disappointment, so biting and gut-curdling that he nearlyvomited. For at first the shells seemed to have had little effect exceptto hurl the giants back a mile or so from the ship. Then, as they slo
wlysurged forward toward it again, he saw that they had not escaped whole.
One lacked an arm; another had, half his head blown away; a thirddrifted in without the lower half of his torso. The expressions of theirbronze-yellow faces were not of pain, however, but only of rage.
"Hey!" bellowed Calico. "We nicked 'em up, anyway!"
"Look again," said Daley morosely, standing from his foam-chair. "Lookat the head of the far left skunk."
He who had lost half his cranium was slowly regenerating it, the browand cheek pressing outward to form new firm outlines, a missing eyegradually emerging from the bloodless tatters of the old socket. Pinksaid, "Well." He took a deep breath. "Well, that's that. Let's all getout and plink at them with bean-shooters. It'll do as much harm." Allthe giants were reconstituting their lost parts.
Now one monster, floating right up to the ship, wrapped hisfive-hundred-feet-long arms around it and gave it a shake. It was as ifa man had rattled a box full of beetles. The officers of the _Elephant'sChild_, who had ridden through the bucking of the tremendous explosion,were unprepared for this movement, for they had risen from their deepseats. They sprawled across the room, smashing up against the wall withbone-jarring thumps. Pinkham found himself entangled with Circe Smith ina pretzel of arms and legs that would under other circumstances havebeen ridiculous but pleasurable. Fearing for her safety, he grasped heraround the waist; she yielded to him a moment, then struggled back andstood up. Was her face flushed with indignation, fright, or--? He got tohis own feet. The giant had released the ship.