17
DESTRUCTION UNLEASHED
The space they now entered must be the core of the building, Rafthought a little dazedly. For there, towering over them was the roundbulb of the globe. And about its open hatch were piles of the materialwhich he had last seen in the warehouse on the other continent. Theunloading of the alien ship had been hastily interrupted.
Since neither the merman nor Dalgard took cover, Raf judged that theydid not fear attack now. But when he turned his attention away fromthe ship, he found not only the colony scout but most of the seapeople gathered about him as if waiting for some action on his part.
"What is it?" He could feel it, that strong pressure, that bandunited, in willing him into some move. His stubborn streak ofindependence made his reaction contrary. He was not going to be pushedinto anything.
"In this hour," Dalgard spoke aloud, avoiding the mind touch whichmight stiffen Raf's rebellion. He wished that some older, wiser Elderfrom Homeport were there. So little time--Yet this stranger withpractically no effort might accomplish all they had come to do, if hecould only be persuaded into action. "In this hour, here is the heartof what civilization remains to Those Others. Destroy it, and it willnot matter whether they kill us. For in the days to come they willhave nothing left."
Raf understood. This was why he had been brought here. They wantedhim to use the blast bombs. And one part of him _was_ calculating thebest places to set his two remaining bombs for the wildest possibledestruction. That part of him could accept the logic of Dalgard'sreasoning. He doubted if the aliens could repair the globe if it weredamaged, and he was sure that much which they had brought back fromthe eastern continent was irreplaceable. The bombs had not beenintended for such a use. They were defensive, anti-personal weapons tobe employed as he had done against the lizard in the arena. But placedproperly--Without thinking his hands went to the sealed pocket in thebreast of his tunic.
Dalgard saw that gesture and inside him some taut cord began tounwind. Then the stranger's hands dropped, and he swung around to facethe colony scout squarely, a scowl twisting his black brows almosttogether.
"This isn't my fight," he stated flatly. "I've got to get back to theflitter, to my spacer--"
What was the matter? Dalgard tried to understand. If the aliens wonnow, this stranger was in as great a danger as were the rest of them.Did he believe that Those Others would allow any colony to beestablished on a world they ruled?
"There will be no future for you here," he spoke slowly, trying withall his power to get through to the other. "They will not allow you tofound another Homeport. You will have no colony--"
"Will you get it into your thick head," burst out the pilot, "that I'mnot here to start a colony! We can take off from this blasted planetwhenever we want to. We didn't come here to stay!"
Beneath the suntan, Dalgard's face whitened. The other had come fromno outlaw ship, seeking a refuge across space, as his own people hadfled to a new life from tyranny. His first fears had been correct!This was a representative of Pax, doubtless sent to hunt down thedescendants of those who had escaped its throttling dictatorship. Theslender strangely garbed Terran might be of the same blood as his own,but he was as great an enemy as Those Others!
"Pax!" He did not know that he had said that word aloud.
The other laughed. "You are living back in history. Pax has been deadand gone almost two centuries. I'm of the Federation of Free Men--"
"Will the stranger use his fire now?" The question formed in Dalgard'smind. The mermen were growing impatient, as well they might. This wasno time for talk, but for action. Could Raf be persuaded to aid them?A Federation of Free Men--Free Men! That was what they were fightingfor here and now.
"You are free," he said. "The sea people won their freedom when ThoseOthers fought among themselves. My people came across the star void insearch of freedom, paying in blood to win it. But these, these are notthe weapons of the free." He pointed to the supplies about the globe,to the globe itself.
The mermen were waiting no longer. With the butts of their spears theysmashed anything breakable. But the damage one could do by hand in theshort space of time granted them--Raf was surprised that a guard wasnot already down upon them--was sharply limited. The piled-up secretsof an old race, a race which had once ruled a planet. He thoughtfleetingly of Lablet's preoccupation with this spoil, of Hobart's hopeof gaining knowledge they could take back with them. But would thealiens keep their part of the bargain? He no longer believed that.
Why not give these barbarians a chance, and the colonists. Sure, hewas breaking the stiffest rule of the Service. But, perhaps by now theflitter was gone, he might never reach the _RS 10_. It was not hiswar, right enough. But he'd give the weaker side a fighting chance.
Dalgard followed him into the globe ship, climbing the ladders to theengine level, watching with curious eyes as Raf inspected the drivingpower of the ship and made the best disposition possible of one of thebombs.
Then they were on the ladder once more as the ship shook under them,plates buckling as a great wound tore three decks apart. Raf laughedrecklessly. Now that he was committed to this course, he had asmall-boy delight in the destruction.
"They won't raise her again in a hurry," he confided to Dalgard. Butthe other did not share his triumph.
"They come--we must move fast," the scout urged.
When they jumped from the hatch, they discovered that the mermen hadbeen busy in their turn. As many of the supplies as they could movehad been pushed and piled into one great mass. Broken crystal litteredthe floor in shards and puddles of strange chemicals mingled smells tobecome a throat-rasping fog. Raf eyed those doubtfully. Some of thosefumes might combine in the blast--
Once again Dalgard read his mind and waved the mermen back, sendingthem through the door to the ramp and the lower engine room. Raf stoodin the doorway, the bomb in his hand, knowing that it was time for himto make the most accurate cast of his life.
The sphere left his fingers, was a gleam in the murky air. It struckthe pile of material. Then the whole world was hidden by a blindingglare.
It was dark--black dark. And he was swinging back and forth throughthis total darkness. He was a ball, a blast bomb being tossed fromhand to hand through the dark by painted warriors who laughed shrillyat his pain, tossed through the dark. Fear such as he had never known,even under the last acceleration pressure of the take-off from Terra,beat through Raf's veins away from his laboring heart. He was helplessin the dark!
"Not alone--" the words came out of somewhere, he didn't know whetherhe heard them, or, in some queer way, felt them. "You are safe--notalone."
That brought a measure of comfort. But he was still in the dark, andhe was moving--he could not will his hands to move--yet he was moving.He was being carried!
The flitter--he was back on the flitter! They were air-borne. But whowas piloting?
"Captain! Soriki!" he appealed for reassurance. And then was awarethat there was no familiar motor hum, none of that pressure of rushingair to which he had been so long accustomed that he missed it onlynow.
"You are safe--" Again that would-be comfort. But Raf tried to movehis arms, twist his body, be sure that he rested in the flitter. Thenanother thought, only vaguely alarming at first, but which grewswiftly to panic proportions--He was in the alien globe--He was aprisoner!
"You are safe!" the words beat in his mind.
"But where--where?" he felt as if he were screaming that at the fullpower of his lungs. He must get out of this dark envelope, be free.Free! Free Men--He was Raf Kurbi of the Federation of Free Men, memberof the crew of the Spacer _RS 10_. But there had been something elseabout free men--
Painfully he pulled fragments of pictures out of the past, assembled ajigsaw of wild action. And all of it ended in a blinding flash,blinding!
Raf cowered mentally if not physically, as his mind seized upon thatlast word. The blinding flash, then this depth of darkness. Had hebeen--?
"You are safe."
br /> Maybe he was safe, he thought, with an anger born of honest fear, butwas he--blind? And where was he? What had happened to him since thatmoment when the blast bomb had exploded?
"I am blind," he spat out, wanting to be told that his fears were onlyfears and not the truth.
"Your eyes are covered," the answer came quickly enough, and for ashort space he was comforted until he realized that the reply was nota flat denial of his statement.
"Soriki?" he tried again. "Captain? Lablet?"
"Your companions"--there was a moment of hesitation, and then camewhat he was sure was the truth--"have escaped. Their ship took to theair when the Center was invaded."
So, he wasn't on the flitter. That was Raf's first reaction. Then, hemust still be with the mermen, with the young stranger who claimed tobe one of a lost Terran colony. But they couldn't leave him behind!Raf struggled against the power which held him motionless.
"Be quiet!" That was not soothing; it had the snap of a command, sosharp and with such authority in it that he obeyed. "You have beenhurt; the gel must do its work. Sleep now. It is good to sleep--"
Dalgard walked by the hammock, using all the quieting power hepossessed to ease the stranger, who now bore little resemblance to thelithe, swiftly moving, other-worldly figure of the day before.Stripped of his burned rags of clothing, coated with the healing stuffof the merpeople--that thick jelly substance which was their bulwarkagainst illness and hurt--lashed into a hammock of sea fibers, he hadthe outward appearance of a thick bundle of supplies. The scout hadseen miracles of healing performed by the gel, he could only hope forone now. "Sleep--" he made the soothing suggestion over and over andfelt the other begin to relax, to sink into the semicoma in which hemust rest for at least another day.
It was true that they had watched the strange flying machine take offfrom a roof top. And none of the mermen who had survived the battlewhich had raged through the city had seen any of the off-worlder'skind among the living or the dead of the alien forces. Perhaps,thinking Raf dead, they had returned to their space ship.
Now there were other, more immediate, problems to be met. They haddone everything that they could to insure the well-being of thestranger, without whom they could not have delivered that onenecessary blow which meant a new future for Astra.
The aliens were not all dead. Some had gone down under the spears ofthe mermen, but more of the sea people had died by the superiorweapons of their foes. To the aliens, until they discovered what hadhappened to the globe and its cargo, it would seem an overwhelmingtriumph, for less than a quarter of the invading force fought its wayback to safety in the underground ways. Yes, it would appear to be avictory for Those Others. But--now time was on the other side of thescales.
Dalgard doubted if the globe would ever fly again. And the loss of thestorehouse plunder could never be repaired. By its destruction theyhad insured the future for their people, the mermen, the slowlygrowing settlement at Homeport.
They were well out of the city, in the open country, traveling along arocky gorge, through which a river provided a highway to the sea.Dalgard had no idea as yet how he could win back across the waste ofwater to his own people. While the mermen with whom he had stormed thecity were friendly, they were not of the tribes he knew, and their ownconnection with the eastern continent was through messages passedbetween islands and the depths.
Then there was the stranger--Dalgard knew that the ship which hadbrought him to this planet was somewhere in the north. Perhaps when herecovered, they could travel in that direction. But for the moment itwas good just to be free, to feel the soft winds of summer lick hisskin, to walk slowly under the sun, carrying the little bundle ofthings which belonged to the stranger, with a knife once more at hisbelt and friends about him.
But within the quarter-hour their peace was broken. Dalgard heard itfirst, his landsman's ears serving him where the complicated sensewhich gave the sea people warning did not operate. That shrillkeening--he knew it of old. And at his warning the majority of themermen plunged into the stream, becoming drifting shadows below thesurface of the water. Only the four who were carrying the hammockstood their ground. But the scout, having told them to deposit theirburden under the shelter of an overhanging ledge of rock, waved themto join their fellows. Until that menace in the sky was beaten, theydare not travel overland.
Was it still after him alone, hunting him by some mysterious built-insense as it had overseas? He could see it now, moving in circles backand forth across the gorge, probably ready to dive on any preyventuring into the open.
Had it not been for the stranger, Dalgard could have taken to thewater almost as quickly and easily as his companions. But they couldnot float the pilot down the stream, thus dissolving the thick coatingof gel which was healing his terrible flash burns. And Those Others,were they following the trail of their mechanical hound as they hadbefore?
Dalgard sent out questing tendrils of thought. Nowhere did heencounter the flashes which announced the proximity of Those Others.No, it would appear that they had unleashed the hound to do whatdamage it could, perhaps to serve them as a marker for a futurecounterattack. At present it was alone. And he relayed thatinformation to the mermen.
If they could knock out the hound--his hand went to the tender scrapeon his own scalp where that box had left its glancing mark--if theycould knock out the hound--But how? As accurate marksmen as the mermenwere with their spears, he was not sure they could bring down the box.Its sudden darts and dips were too erratic. Then what? Because as longas it bobbed there, he and the stranger were imprisoned in thispocket of the gorge wall.
Dalgard sat down, the bundle of the stranger's belongings beside him.Then, he carefully unfastened the scorched cloth which formed that bagand examined its contents. There was the belt with its pouches,sheaths, and tool case. And the weapon which the stranger had used tosuch good effect during their escape from the arena. Dalgard took upthe gun. It was light in weight, and it fitted into his hand almost asif it had been molded to his measure.
He aimed at the hovering box, pressed the button as he had seen theother do, with no results. The stun ray, which had acted upon livingcreatures, could not govern the delicate mechanism in the hound'sinterior. Dalgard laid it aside. There were no more of the bombs, norwould they have been effective against such a target. As far as hecould see, there was nothing among Raf's possessions which could helpthem now.
One of the black shadows in the water moved to shore. The box swooped,death striking at the merman who ran to shelter. A second followedhim, eluding the attack of the hound by a matter of inches. Now thebox buzzed angrily.
Dalgard, catching their thoughts, hurried to aid them. They undid theknots of the hammock about the helpless stranger, leaving about himonly the necessary bandage ties. Now they had a crude net, woven, asDalgard knew, of undersea fibers strong enough to hold captiveplunging monsters a dozen times the size of the box. If they could netit!
He had seen the exploits of the mermen hunters, knew their skill withnet and spear. But to scoop a flying thing out of the air was a newproblem.
"Not so!" the thought cut across his. "They have used such as this tohunt us before, long ago. We had believed they were all lost. It mustbe caught and broken, or it will hunt and kill and hunt again, for itdoes not tire nor can it be beaten from any trail it is set upon.Now--"
"I will do that, for you have the knowledge--" the scout cut inquickly. After his other meeting with the hound he had no liking forthe task he had taken on, but there must be bait to draw the boxwithin striking distance.
"Stand upright and move toward those rocks." The mermen changedposition, the net, now with stones in certain loops to weigh it,caught in their three-fingered hands.
Dalgard moved, fighting against hunching his shoulders, againsthurrying the pace. He saw the shadow of the flitting death, and flunghimself down beside the boulder the mermen had pointed out. Then herolled over, half surprised not to be struck.
The hound was still in the air b
ut over it now was draped the net, therocks in its fringes weighing it down in spite of its jerky attemptsto rise. In its struggles to be free, it might almost have led thewatcher to believe that it had intelligence of a sort. Now the mermenwere coming out of the stream, picking up rocks as they advanced. Anda hail of stones flew through the air, while others of the sea peoplesprang to catch the dangling ends of the net and drag the captive toearth.
In the end they smashed it completely, burying the remains under apile of rocks. Then, retrieving their net, they once more fastened Rafinto it and turned downstream, as intent as ever upon reaching thesea. Dalgard wondered whether Those Others would ever discover whathad become of their hound. Or had it in some way communicated with itsmasters, so that now they were aware that it had been destroyed. Buthe was sure they had nothing more to fear, that the way to the sea wasopen.
In mid-morning of the second day they came out upon shelving sand andsaw before them the waves which promised safety and escape to themermen. Dalgard sat down in the blue-gray sand beside Raf. The seapeople had assured him that the stranger was making a good recovery,that within a matter of hours he could be freed from his cocoon ofhealing.
Dalgard squinted at the sun sparkling on the waves. Where now? To thenorth where the space ship waited? If what he read in Raf's mind wastrue the other wanted to leave Astra, to voyage back to that otherworld which was only a legend to Dalgard, and a black, unhappy legendat that. If the Elders were here, had a chance to contact these menfrom Terra--Dalgard's eyes narrowed, would they choose to? Anotherchain of thought had been slowly developing in his mind during thesepast hours when he had been so closely companioned with the stranger.And almost he had come to a decision which would have seemed very oddeven days before.
No, there was no way of suddenly bringing the Elders here, oftransferring his burden of decision to them. Dalgard cupped his chinin his hand and tried to imagine what it would be like to shut oneselfup in a small metal-walled spacer and set out blindly to leave oneworld for another. His ancestors had done that, and they had traveledin cold sleep, ignorant of whether they would ever reach their goal.They had been very brave, or very desperate, men.
But--Dalgard measured sand, sun, and sky, watching the mermen sportingin the waves--but for him Astra was enough. He wanted nothing but thisland, this world. There was nothing which drew him back. He would tryto locate the spacer for the sake of the stranger; Astra owed Raf allthey could manage to give him. But the ship was as alien to Homeportas it now existed as the city's globe might have been.