The Planet Killers

  He rounded the turn.

  What he saw was so unexpected that he halted, dazzled and gasping, and for a long moment his mind failed to accept the sight. It simply did not register. A span of perhaps three full seconds went by before the vision got through to his mind as anything he could comprehend.

  The tunnel had widened abruptly into a spherical chamber about fifteen feet in diameter, which began right around the bend from the path Storm had been following. A kind of curtain covered what lay beyond—not a tangible, material curtain, but something more like a thin fog, glowing a lambent greenish-yellow, giving off a bright radiance that made Storm’s helmet-light completely superfluous.

  And beyond the glowing curtain—

  Storm’s eyes, adjusting to the sudden brightness, peered through the swirling patterns of the intangible wall of color, and gradually the cloud cleared a little, to reveal the things within.

  Machinery, first of all.

  The walls of the chamber were lined with machinery. Gleaming cabinets held who knew what complex instruments. Bank upon bank of delicate shining metal shielding rose to right and to left, dizzyingly complex with tubing and pipes and dials and meters, a nightmare of mechanisms. The machinery rose perhaps ten feet high, two or three feet deep, along the curving walls of the chamber.

  But there was something else in the chamber too.

  It was floating ( floating? Storm thought incredulously) about ten feet above the floor of the chamber. It was an object perhaps three feet long, shrouded in a denser fog of the greenish-yellow stuff that made up the curtain of the chamber. Narrowing his eyes, Storm struggled to penetrate that inner fog.

  He could not clearly see what lay within. It was a creature of some sort, he decided. He could make out, or thought he could, the shapes of limbs, like pipestems, and something that might have been a head, and other things that could have been ropy coiled tentacles.

  It was, he realized dazedly, some sort of alien being, some creature from the depths of space. It had to be. There was no other explanation. None of the worlds Mankind had explored had yielded any form of life of this complexity. Mercury was utterly barren; Venus had only insects; Mars had nothing higher than rodents. Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus had been explored only by robot vehicles, because no human being could hope to land on those giant planets and withstand the crushing grip of their gravities, and the robot explorers of the big worlds had found no signs of life at all. As for the outer worlds, Neptune and Pluto, they were too cold to support any kind of comprehensible life.

  And yet here, in a tunnel into a cliff of an asteroid eight miles in diameter—

  Here, suspended in some kind of cocoon ten feet above the ground, wrapped in a bewildering nest that seemed to have neither substance nor form—

  Here, surrounded by bedazzling machines and instruments that no Earthly mind had ever created—

  Here, high above the floor, rested some kind of alien creature, some representative of what Storm guessed was an incredibly advanced creature. A visitor from the stars, Storm wondered? A stranded wayfarer?

  Storm stared at the glowing dark core of the chamber, at the place where the shrouded alien hovered in mid-air suspension. As Storm peered in awe and terror into the jewelled heart of the green cloud, it seemed to him that the fog was clearing, thinning.

  Illusion, he wondered?

  No. It was really happening. Imperceptibly, moment by moment, the curtain was growing more scant. He could see the machinery clearly, now, though it was no more understandable for that. And the dark figure high above the floor seemed more discernible now too. The inner cloud was not parting as rapidly as the outer, but it too was giving way slowly.

  Storm half-saw the creature, now, as though through the waters of a stagnant lake. Yes, there were limbs, small ones, and yes, tentacles too, dangling like limp snakes from the shoulders of the creature. And a skull, swollen and distorted, and … were those things eyes? Those gleaming, multi-faceted diamonds glittering in the broad forehead?

  Beyond doubt, it was a living creature suspended up there. And just as certainly it was a creature spawned on no world of the solar system.

  The cloud ceased to grow thin. The alien had obviously revealed all that he was going to reveal. The outer curtain was faint as smoke now, but the inner cocoon surrounding the creature was still close and thick, so that Storm got only a partial view. He remained at the entrance to the chamber, not daring to approach further. The outer reaches of the curtain were a foot away from him.

  His head throbbed with wonder and excitement. And then something new touched him, and he quivered convulsively, stepping back a stride in fright.

  It had been like … like—he struggled for some way to explain it—like a hand reaching into his skull, slipping down behind the bone wall of his forehead to stroke the ridged gray furrows of his brain!

  He thought he was going to be sick, and being sick inside a space-suit can be a harrowing experience. Storm fought for his self-control. Panic gripped him, and he wanted to turn and run, to flee from the chamber and the strange being it contained, to escape to the open plain before—

  Again!

  Again the invisible hand reached out to stroke his brain! Storm shuddered, trembled. Reaching out one gloved hand, he braced himself against the smooth glassy wall of the tunnel to keep from falling.

  Run , he told himself. Turn yourself around and get the hell out of here!

  But he stayed where he was. His first wild fears were giving way to curiosity, now. Storm stood straight again, and peered into the swirling cloudy mists, staring up at the thing above him.

  A third time there was the feeling of something trying to enter his brain. The contact had an almost physical tangibility to it. He felt as though something slimy were being dragged across his brain, something that felt like a wet fish. But yet it was not altogether unpleasant.

  And he sensed something else, something emotional, an undercurrent of … what? Yearning? Pleading? A current of loneliness?

  It’s trying to communicate with me , he thought.

  Yes, that was the only explanation. The thing was reaching out, sending waves of mental force at him, probing his brain, trying desperately to make contact with him. Storm wondered if it could be achieved.

  Go ahead! he thought. I’m listening!

  He had never believed in telepathy, psychic communion, extra-sensory perception, or anything else of the sort. But this was no question of theory, of belief or disbelief. This was something that was happening, unrolling from moment to moment, and Storm could only follow along the path of events from one instant to the next.

  He had no idea of how to go about making him receptive to the mind of a creature from another galaxy. All he could do was stand where he was, feeling the alien being probing at his mind.

  The moments of probing were coming more rapidly, now. The first two had been nearly a minute apart. The third had followed, about half a minute after the second. But now they were coming every few seconds, quick, eager jabs. There was something almost panicky about them, Storm thought. As though the alien had a message of the greatest importance to communicate to him.

  Go ahead! he thought. I’m listening!

  Another probe came, more intense than any of the others, a hard thrust to the core of his mind. Storm felt ear-splitting agony, but he remained upright, and despite his fear he tried to remain sympathetic. He had the feeling that contact was only moments away, that one more jab would do it, would establish some kind of linkage between their minds.

  The jab didn’t come.

  Instead, the creature withdrew, and Storm stood there blinking, suddenly bereft of his uncertain contact with the alien being.

  The next moment, before Storm had fully recovered from the shock of being abandoned by the being, gloved hands grasped his arms from behind, and a helmet was thrust against his, and a voice said roughly, “Don’t move or you won’t live to regret it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Storm??
?s first impulse was to turn and fight. But that, he saw immediately, was as good as committing suicide.

  He switched his helmet radio on, and heard the voice saying, “I’ve got a gun in your back. Turn around slowly with your hands up or I’ll blow a hole in your suit.”

  “I’m turning,” Storm said.

  He took a last look at the chamber ahead of him. The strange cloud-curtain had thickened again, growing even more impenetrable than when Storm had first stumbled around the bend in the tunnel. Now only dim shapes could be seen in the chamber, glittering yellowness where the banks of alien instruments rose, and darkness midway up, where the alien himself remained suspended.

  Storm turned.

  The man directly in front of him wore a copper-colored spacesuit bearing the UMC monogram. There were three other cartel men behind him, and all four were carrying guns. Through the panels of their helmets, Storm could see cold, merciless faces. Not stupid faces, not the faces of hoodlums, but the faces of grimly determined men.

  “Let’s go,” the one in the lead said. “Walk past me and start walking down the tunnel. Walk at a steady pace, and slow down if I tell you to slow down. If you don’t obey, I’ll have to kill you. Move!”

  Storm glanced back over his shoulder at the enigma behind the swirling greenish-yellow cloud. But no response came, no clearing of the cloud, no mental probe, no contact at all. Dark turquoise streaks slashed across the curtain, as though displaying the anger or frustration of the being within.

  Hands high, Storm began to walk.

  He retraced his steps. Twenty-one paces to the next turn, then eight paces, then twelve paces more, and he was at the mouth of the tunnel. He stepped out. Two more UMC men were waiting for him there, with guns drawn.

  A glance at the plain told him what had happened. Two UMC crawlers were parked near his ship. Whether on a routine surveying tour, or in search of a detected intruder, they had come across the asteroid’s equator and had come upon his ship. As Storm looked, he saw a suited UMC man emerge from the cabin of the ship and crawl down the ladder.

  All the UMC men were out of the cave, now. The one who seemed to be in charge said, “You’re coming with us. Just walk quietly toward those crawlers.”

  Storm obeyed. His mind was half-paralyzed by the rapidity of events. To come across some inconceivable kind of creature in a cave on a dead asteroid, to have his mind probed by alien thought-waves, then to be captured without a fight by the very enemies he had come here to surprise—things were happening much too fast, all of a sudden.

  They hustled Storm into the nearer of the two crawlers. One man sat on each side of him, with guns ready. Not that he could have made much trouble for them, he thought. He had left his weapon in the ship, and they had probably confiscated it by this time. But perhaps they didn’t realize he was unarmed.

  The crawler was a versatile vehicle adapted for moving through any imaginable climatic circumstances. Torpedo-shaped, a dozen feet long, it rose on pivot-mounted legs, six in all. A transparent plastic shield formed a dome over the crawler. The vehicle lurched forward, skittering across the empty plain toward the mountain range that separated this hemisphere of the asteroid from the other.

  Storm, unable to do anything but sit still, remained motionless. The fact that he had been captured by UMC hardly registered yet. His mind still glowed with the unearthly experience he had had at the end of the tunnel.

  The UMC installation on the asteroid was more impressive than Storm had suspected when surveying it from a hundred miles up. They had chosen a plateau about five hundred yards square, nestling between two jagged hills, and had blown three big permoplast domes. One dome seemed to be serving as headquarters; the second looked like a tool dump. The third, at the far side of the plateau, appeared to house the rocket installation, whose launch-pads lay just alongside it.

  The UMC men led Storm, none too gently, into the main dome. As he was getting his helmet open, a short, almost reckless man in a serge jersey strode up to him and peered in his face.

  “Here he is, Mr. Ellins,” said one of Storm’s captors. “The one who landed the ship. We found him in the cave.”

  “The cave , you idiots? Couldn’t you have gotten to him faster?” Ellins snapped coldly.

  “Sorry, Mr. Ellins. We did our best.”

  “Next time do a little better, will you?”

  Storm stared down at the man who had come to represent for him the personification of all the forces that were working against him. So this was Ellins? He looked tough, Storm thought. He wasn’t a neat, slick, smooth-talking executive type at all. There was steel in his eyes and in the bear-trap set of his jaw. His lips were thin and bloodless, his face square and hard, his body compact, ruggedly muscular.

  Ellins glared at him and said, “What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Storm said. “I’ve got a right to be here. You don’t.”

  “This asteroid belongs to UMC,” Ellins said thinly. “I’m the UMC man in this part of space. I belong here. You’re a trespasser on our claim.”

  “It’s my claim,” Storm said. “You know that as well as I do, Ellins. I was here a week ahead of you and got there first with a legitimate claim.”

  “What’s your name?” Ellins asked.

  “John Storm.”

  One corner of Ellins’ mouth turned up in a bleak smile. He folded his arms, tapped his fingers against his elbows. “Storm,” he repeated. “John Storm. Sorry, Storm. I never heard of you in my life.”

  “Maybe not. But somebody in your outfit did. Somebody pulled my claim out of the records and replaced it with a UMC claim. Somebody named Clyde Ellins filed that second claim. That illegal claim.”

  Ellins spat. “The claim’s legal. What do you think UMC is, a pirate organization?”

  “Don’t make me answer that.”

  “There’s a claim on file on Mars,” Ellins said, “and one recorded on Earth too. It shows that this was an unclaimed asteroid until a UMC prospecting party landed here. We’ve had the claim searched and the title’s clear. The asteroid is ours, Storm, and you’re a trespasser, and you ought to know what happens to claim-jumpers out here.”

  “Sure I know,” Storm said evenly. “Do you?”

  Ellins didn’t smile this time. “You’re annoying me, Storm. I warn you, I can punish you heavily. You came down by stealth on an occupied asteroid. Luckily we had mass-detectors here, and we spotted your landing. You were obviously on some sneaking mission of mischief.”

  “I was coming to inspect my claim,” Storm said doggedly.

  “You have no claim!”

  “You know I do, Ellins! Maybe you’ve phonied up all the records, but I still have a duplicate of my original claim. I’ve got witnesses on Earth who know my computer file was deliberately erased. I’ve got someone on Mars who’ll testify that he saw UMC workmen building a rocket installation here. Why build rockets on an asteroid, unless you want to shift its orbit to jump a claim?”

  Ellins said smoothly, “The rockets will take the asteroid closer to Earth for more efficient mining.”

  “Hogwash! You’re just trying to run it into a different orbit to clear your claim!” Storm shook his head. “You won’t get away with it, Ellins. I’ve got enough evidence to stir up a real stink. Maybe I’ll lose the asteroid anyway—nobody beats UMC in court—but at least I’ll get a hearing for myself. I’ll see to it that UMC gets smeared in every newsfax sheet in the solar system!”

  “Listen, if you—”

  Storm cut him off. “I know how UMC worries about its public image. There are plenty of people on Earth who still aren’t happy about the cartel system, and all UMC needs is to be caught pushing some free-lance prospector around. Oh, UMC will survive it, I guess. But what’s going to happen to the guy who let UMC in for the trouble? What will UMC do to a local representative who couldn’t cover his tracks well enough to avoid some bad publicity?”

  There was a long momen
t of silence. Storm saw that his thrust had reached a vulnerable spot in Ellins. The way to strike terror into a company man was to put him in a position where his actions could be construed as hurting the corporate image. For the first time, Ellins looked troubled.

  He shrugged, exhaled annoyedly, scowled at Storm. Storm faced him calmly, with the calm of a man who knows he had almost nothing left to lose, and perhaps a great deal to gain.

  At length Ellins said, “What do you want, Storm?”

  “My asteroid.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. We’ve found the asteroid and we’ve claimed it. It’s ours, and any claim you made would be just a nuisance claim. We’d squash you like a mosquito.”

  “Sometimes people get stung themselves while they’re squashing mosquitoes,” Storm pointed out.

  “All right,” Ellins said. “I asked you, and I’ll ask you again: what do you want?”

  “I thought I told you.”

  “I thought I answered you,” Ellins retorted. “You can’t have the asteroid. What will you settle for?”

  “Does that mean you’re trying to buy me off?” Storm asked in surprise.

  “Call it that if you like.”

  “No sale,” Storm said.

  “Don’t be a bigger lunatic than you have to be,” Ellins said. A look of craftiness came into his eyes. Craft didn’t look appropriate in those flat, menacing, reptilian eyes. He said in a soft voice, “I’m not admitting you have any valid claim to this asteroid whatsoever, Storm. But I’m interested in protecting the reputation of my company. Rather than get into a long legal hassle which we’re sure to win but which will cost us a pile of dough, I’ll offer you a fee to drop your claim right here and now.”

  “I said I wasn’t interested.”

  “I’ll offer you a million dollars,” Ellins said crisply. “We can have the deal set up in an hour. I’ll beam Mars for the authorization and UMC will deposit a certified check to your account in any bank you name, in return for your signature on a document that declares—”