“That’s right, Thugg,” Babble said. “You keep hold of it. So we can see how many other innocent people you want to kill.”
“I didn’t want to kill her.” Thugg pointed the gun at Dr. Babble. “I’ve never killed nobody before. Who wants the gun?” He looked around, wildly, at all of them. “I did exactly what Belsnor did, no more and no less. We’re the same, him and me. So I’m sure as hell not going to give him the gun.” Panting, his breath rasping in his windpipe, Thugg gripped the gun and stared huge-eyed around at all of them.
Belsnor walked over to Seth Morley. “We’ve got to get it away from him.”
“I know,” Seth Morley said. But he could think of no way to get it. If Thugg had killed simply because someone—and a woman at that—had approached him reading from The Book, then he would shoot any and all of them at the slightest pretext.
Thugg now was blatantly and floridly psychotic. It was obvious. He had wanted to kill Maggie Walsh, and Seth Morley realized something now that he hadn’t understood before. Belsnor had killed but he had not wanted to. Thugg had killed for the pleasure of it.
It made a difference. They were safe from Belsnor—unless they became homicidal themselves. In that case, Belsnor would of course shoot. But if they did nothing provocative—
“Don’t,” his wife Mary said in his ear.
“We have to get the gun back,” Seth Morley said. “And it’s my fault he has it; I let him get it away from me.” He held out his hand, held it in Ignatz Thugg’s direction. “Give it to me,” he said, and felt his body squinch up in fear; his body prepared itself for death.
12
“He’ll kill you,” Russell said. He, too, walked toward Ignatz Thugg. Everyone else watched. “We need to have that gun,” Russell said to Thugg. To Seth Morley he said, “Probably he can get only one of us. I know that gun; it can’t be fired rapidly. He’ll be able to get off one shot and that’ll be it.” He moved to the other side of Thugg, approaching at a wide angle. “All right, Thugg,” he said, and held out his hand.
Thugg turned uncertainly toward him. Seth Morley moved rapidly forward, reaching.
“Goddam you, Morley,” Thugg said; the barrel of the gun swiveled back, but momentum carried Seth Morley forward. He collided with the skinny but muscular body of Ignatz Thugg—the man smelled of hair grease, urine and sweat.
“Get him now,” Belsnor yelled; he, too, ran at Thugg, reaching to grapple with him.
Cursing, Thugg tore away from Seth Morley. His face blank with psychopathic neutrality, his eyes glittering with cold, his mouth tormented into a squirming line, he fired.
Mary Morley shrieked.
Reaching with his left arm, Seth Morley touched his right shoulder and felt blood oozing through the fabric of his shirt. The noise of the shot had paralyzed him; he sank to his knees, convulsed by the pain, realizing in a dim way that Thugg had shot him in the shoulder. I’m bleeding, he thought. Christ, he thought, I didn’t get the gun from him. With effort he managed to open his eyes. He saw Thugg running; Thugg hurried away, pausing a time or two to fire. But he hit no one; they had all scattered, even Belsnor. “Help me,” Seth Morley grated, and Belsnor and Russell and Dr. Babble sneaked their way to him, their attention fixed on Thugg.
At the far end of the compound, by the entrance to the briefing room, Thugg halted; gasping for breath he aimed the gun at Seth Morley and fired one more shot. It passed Morley; it did not strike. Then with a shudder, Thugg turned away again and jogged off, leaving them.
“Frazer!” Babble exclaimed. “Help us get Morley into the infirmary! Come on; he’s bleeding from a severed artery, I think.”
Wade Frazer hurried over. He, Belsnor and Ned Russell lifted Seth up and began the task of carrying him to the doctor’s infirmary.
“You’re not going to croak,” Belsnor gasped as they laid him onto the long metal-topped table. “He got Maggie but he didn’t get you.” Standing back from the table, Belsnor got out a handkerchief and, shaking as he did so, blew his nose. “That pistol should have stayed with me. Can you see that now?”
“Shut up and get out of here,” Babble said, as he snapped on the sterilizer and rapidly placed surgical instruments in it. He then tied a tourniquet around Seth Morley’s injured shoulder. The flow of blood continued; it had now formed a pool on the table beside Seth Morley. “I’ll have to open him up, get the artery ends, and fuse them together,” he said. He tossed the tourniquet away, then turned on the artificial blood-supply machinery. Using a small surgical tool to drill a hole in Seth Morley’s side, he adroitly fastened the feeder-tube of the artificial blood-supply. “I can’t stop him from bleeding,” he said. “It’ll take ten minutes to dig in, get the artery ends and fuse them. But he won’t bleed to death.” Opening the sterilizer, he got out a tray of steaming tools. Expertly, hastily, he began to cut away Seth Morley’s clothing. A moment later and he had begun exploring the injured shoulder.
“We’re going to have to keep a continual watch for Thugg,” Russell said. “Damn it. I wish there were other weapons available. That one gun, and he’s got it.”
Babble said, “I have a tranquilizing gun.” He got out a set of keys, tossed them to Belsnor. “That locked cabinet over there.” He pointed. “The key with the diamond-shaped head.”
Russell unlocked the cabinet and got out a long tube with a telescopic sighting device on it. “Well, well,” he said. “These can be handy. But do you have any ammunition besides tranquilizers? I know the amount of tranquilizers these hold; it would stun him, maybe, but—”
“Do you want to finish him off?” Babble said, pausing in his investigation of Seth Morley’s shoulder.
Presently Belsnor said, “Yes.” Russell, too, nodded.
“I have other ammo for it,” Babble said. “Ammo that will kill. As soon as I’m finished with Morley I’ll get it.”
Lying on the table, Seth Morley managed to make out the sight of Babble’s tranquilizer gun. Will that protect us? he wondered. Or will Thugg make his way back here and kill all of us or possibly just kill me as I lie here helpless. “Belsnor,” he gasped, “don’t let Thugg come back here tonight and kill me.”
“I’ll stay here with you,” Belsnor said; he gave him a thump with the edge of his hand. “And we’ll be armed with this.” He held Babble’s tranquilizing gun, scrutinizing it. He seemed more confident, now. So did the others.
“Did you give Morley any Demerol?” Russell asked Dr. Babble.
“I don’t have time,” Babble said, and continued working.
“I’ll give it to him,” Frazer said, “if you’ll tell me where it is and where the hypos are.”
“You aren’t qualified to do that,” Babble said.
Frazer said, “And you’re not qualified to do surgery.”
“I have to,” Babble said. “If I don’t he’ll die. But he can get by without an analgesic.”
Mary Morley, crouching down so that her head was close to her husband’s, said, “Can you stand the pain?”
“Yes,” Seth Morley said tightly.
The operation continued.
He lay in semi-darkness. Anyhow the bullet is out of me, he thought drowsily. And I’ve had Demerol both intravenously and intermuscularly … and I feel nothing. Did he manage to stitch the artery properly? he wondered.
A complex machine monitored his internal activity: it kept note of his blood pressure, his heart rate, his temperature and his respiratory apparatus. But where’s Babble? he wondered. And Belsnor, where is he?
“Belsnor!” he said as loudly as he could. “Where are you? You said you’d be here with me all the time.”
A dark shape materialized. Belsnor, carrying the tranquilizer gun with both hands. “I’m here. Calm down.”
“Where are the others?”
“Burying the dead,” Belsnor said. “Tony Dunkelwelt, old Bert, Maggie Walsh … they’re using some heavy digging equipment left over from the building of the settlement. And Tallchief. We’re burying him, too
. The first one to die. And Susie. Poor, dumb Susie.”
“Anyhow he didn’t get me,” Seth Morley said.
“He wanted to. He did his best.”
“We shouldn’t have tried to get the gun away from you,” Seth Morley said. He knew that, now. For what it was worth.
“You should have listened to Russell,” Belsnor said. “He knew.”
“Hindsight is cheap,” Seth Morley said. But Belsnor was patently right; Russell had tried to show them the way and they, from panic, had failed to listen. “No sign of Mrs. Rockingham?”
“None. We’ve searched throughout the settlement. She’s gone; Thugg’s gone. But we know he’s alive. And armed and dangerous and psychopathically oriented.”
Seth Morley said, “We don’t know he’s alive. He may have killed himself. Or what got Tallchief and Susie may have gotten him too.”
“Maybe. But we can’t count on it,” Belsnor examined his wristwatch. “I’ll be outside; from there I can see the digging operation and still watch over you. I’ll see you.” He thumped Morley on his left shoulder, then walked silently from the room and disappeared at once from sight.
Seth Morley wearily shut his eyes. The smell of death, he thought, is everywhere. We are inundated with it. How many people have we lost? he asked himself. Tallchief, Susie, Roberta Rockingham, Betty Jo Berm, Tony Dunkelwelt, Maggie Walsh, old Bert Kosler. Seven dead. Seven of us left. They’ve gotten half of us in less than twenty-four hours.
And for this, he thought, we left Tekel Upharsin. There is a macabre irony about it; we all came here because we wanted to live more fully. We wanted to be useful. Everyone in this colony had a dream. Maybe that’s what was wrong with us, he thought. We have been lodged too deeply in our respective dream worlds. We don’t seem able to come out of them; that’s why we can’t function as a group. And some of us, such as Thugg and Dunkelwelt—there are some of us who are functionally, outright insane.
A gun muzzle jutted against the side of his head. A voice said, “Be quiet.”
A second man, wearing black leather, strode toward the front of the infirmary, an erggun held ready. “Belsnor is outside,” he said to the man holding the gun against Seth Morley’s head. “I’ll take care of him.” Aiming his weapon he fired an arc of electricity; emerging from the anode coil of the gun it connected with Belsnor, turning him momentarily into a cathode terminal. Belsnor shivered, then slid down onto his knees. He fell over on one side and lay, the tranquilizer gun resting beside him.
“The others,” the man squatting next to Seth Morley said.
“They’re burying their dead. They won’t notice. Even his wife isn’t here.” He came over to Seth Morley; the man beside him rose and both of them stood together for a moment, surveying Seth Morley. Both wore black leather and he wondered who or what they were.
“Morley,” the first man said, “we’re taking you out of here.”
“Why?” Morley said.
“To save your life,” the second man said. Swiftly they produced a stretcher and laid it beside Morley’s bed.
13
Parked behind the infirmary a small squib-ship glistened moistly in the moon-laden night. The two men in black leather uniforms carried Morley in his stretcher to the hatch of the squib; there they set the stretcher down. One of them opened the hatch. They again picked up the stretcher and carried him carefully inside.
“Is Belsnor dead?” he asked.
The first man said, “Stunned.”
“Where are we going?” Morley said.
“To a place you’d like to go to.” The second leather-clad man seated himself at the control board; he threw several switches to “on,” adjusted dials and meters. The squib rose up and hurled itself into the nocturnal sky. “Are you comfortable, Mr. Morley? I’m sorry we had to put you on the floor, but this will not be a very long trip.”
“Can you tell me who you are?” Morley said.
“Just tell us,” the first man said, “if you’re comfortable.”
Morley said, “I’m comfortable.” He could distinguish the viewscreen of the squib; on it, as if this were daylight, he saw trees and smaller flora: shrubs, lichens, and then a flash of illumination: a river.
And then, on the viewscreen, he saw the Building.
The squib prepared to land. On the Building’s roof.
“Isn’t that right?” the first man in black leather said.
“Yes,” Morley nodded.
“Do you still want to go there?”
He said, “No.”
“You don’t remember this place,” the first man said. “Do you?”
“No,” Morley said. He lay breathing shallowly, trying to conserve his strength. “I saw it today for the first time,” he said.
“Oh no,” the second man said. “You’ve seen it before.”
Warning lights on the Building’s roof glinted as the squib bounced to an unskilled landing.
“Damn that R.K. beam,” the first man said. “It’s erratic again. I was right; we should have come in on manual.”
“I couldn’t land on this roof,” the second man said. “It’s too irregular. I’d hit one of those hydro-towers.”
“I don’t think I want to work with you any more,” the first man said, “if you can’t land a size-B ship on a roof this large.”
“It has nothing to do with the size. What I’m complaining about is the random obstructions. There’re too many of them.” He went to the hatch and manually cranked it open. Night air smelling of violets drifted in … and, with it, the dull, moaning roar of the Building.
Seth Morley scrambled to his feet; at the same time he strained to get his fingers on the erggun held loosely by the man at the hatch.
The man was slow to react; he had looked away from Seth Morley for a moment, asking the man at the control board something—in any case he did not see Seth Morley in time. His companion had already shouted a warning before he reacted.
In Seth Morley’s grip the erggun slithered and escaped from him; he fell on it deliberately, struggling to get hold of it once again.
A high-frequency electrical impulse, released by the man at the control board, shimmered past him. The man had missed. Seth Morley flopped back onto his good shoulder, dragged himself to a quasi-sitting position, and fired back.
The beam touched the man at the control board; it caught him above the right ear. At the same time, Seth Morley swiveled the gun barrel; he shot the man tumbling vainly over him. At such close range the impact of the beam was enormous; the man convulsed, fell backward, tumbled with a loud crash into a complex of instrumentation mounted against the far wall of the squib.
Morley slammed the hatch, turned it to lock, then sank down onto the floor. Blood seeped through the bandage on his shoulder, befouling the area adjacent to him. His head hummed and he knew that he would, in a moment or two, pass entirely out.
A speaker mounted above the control board clicked on. “Mr. Morley,” it said, “we know that you have taken control of the squib. We know that both our men are unconscious. Please do not take off. Your shoulder was not operated on properly; the junction of torn pieces of artery was unsuccessful. If you do not open the hatch of the squib and let us render you major and immediate medical assistance, then you probably will not live another hour.”
The hell with you, Seth Morley thought. He crept toward the control board, reached one of its two seats; with his good arm he hoisted himself up, groped to steady himself and, gradually, pulled himself into place.
“You are not trained to pilot a high-speed squib,” the speaker said. Evidently monitors of some sort, within the squib, were telling them what he was doing.
“I can fly it,” he said, snorting for breath; his chest seemed weighted down and he had immense difficulty inhaling. On the dashboard a group of switches were marked as being tape-programmed flight patterns. Eight in all. He selected one at random, pressed the switch shut.
Nothing happened.
It’s still on t
he incoming beam, he realized. I have to release the beam lock.
He found the lock, clicked it off. The squib quivered and then, by degrees, rose up into the night sky.
Something is wrong, he said to himself. The squib isn’t handling right. The flaps must still be in a landing position.
By now he could barely see. The cab of the vehicle had begun to dim around him; he shut his eyes, shuddered, opened his eyes once more. Christ, he thought; I’m passing out. Will this thing crash without me? Or will it go somewhere, and if so, where?
He fell, then, toppling from the seat and onto the floor of the squib. Blackness collected around him and included him within itself.
As he lay on the floor unconscious the squib flew on and on.
Baleful white light dinned into his face; he felt the scorching brilliance, squeezed his eyes shut again—but he could not suppress it. “Stop,” he said; he tried to put up his arms, but they did not move. At that, he managed to open his eyes; he gazed around, trembling with weakness.
The two men in black leather uniforms lay quietly … exactly as he had last seen them. He did not have to examine them to know that they were dead. Belsnor, then, was dead; the weapon did not stun—it killed.
Where am I now? he wondered.
The viewscreen of the squib was still on, but its lens fed directly into an obstruction of some sort; on it he saw only a flat, white surface.
Rotating the ball which controlled the sweep of the viewscreen he said to himself, A lot of time has passed. He touched his injured shoulder cautiously. The bleeding had stopped. Perhaps they had lied to him; perhaps Babble had done an adequate job after all.
Now the viewscreen showed—
A great dead city. Under him. The squib had come to rest at a field up in the higher spires of the city’s building-web.
No movement. No life. No one lived in the city; he saw in the viewscreen decay and absolute, endless collapse. As if, he thought, this is the city of the Form Destroyer.
The speaker mounted above the control board made no sound. He would get no help from them.