CHAPTER 14
The two ships landed a few miles apart at almost the same time.
They settled to the plane's surface like whirling hour-glasses. Firespouted from them in all directions. Then their movement stopped. Smokeshrouded them and slowly drifted away.
They were upon a reddish plain. Above them, the red sun filled a twelfth ofthe sky. That sky was one vast swirl of crimson. Even the few clouds seemedto be on fire. And yet their instruments showed that the temperature of thethin air outside was in the sixties.
There were no mountains or valleys. The giant planet had weathered down toone great curving plain. It was mostly red sandstone, but here and therewere reddish carpets of moss and grass. In the distance were a few gaunttrees. They had seen no rivers or seas before they landed. Odin learnedlater that there were many muddy ponds left upon the surface from theremains of stagnant seas. He also learned later that huge reservoirs wereunderground.
With the exception of the trees, the only thing that broke the monotonousline of the horizon was one great dome of violet stone or metal. It flashedlike an amethyst in the red glare of the sun--and it was certainlyman-made.
But on that occasion Jack Odin had little time to look at the scenery. Theyhad hardly settled to the planet's surface before Grim Hagen trained hisguns upon them and began to fire. Flame enveloped them. Bombs of acid andsteel shook The Nebula. The battle-stations were already manned, and Atogave orders to return fire. For nearly an hour, the holocaust continued.Both ships rocked upon their steady foundations. They were bathed in flame,acid streamed down their sides, and rockets tore at them. Shells burst uponthem. And then it was over.
The two ships, scarred and blackened; glared at each other across athree-mile expanse that had now turned to cinders. And that was all.Practically indestructible, and evenly matched, they had fought to astandstill. Neither ship had lost a man.
"See how it is, Nors-King?" Gunnar said as he drew his fingers across theshaft of his sword. "It is as I told you before. We have the same weapons.The same defenses. I will use the Blood-Drinkers yet, before this is over."
There was a demanding buzz from the loudspeaker.
Ato turned the dial. A strange, harsh voice was calling. "You there, on theSecond ship. You on the second ship. Answer."
"Yes!" Ato replied gruffly. "Who are you?"
"I am the head man of the city--the city within the dome."
"How did you know our language?"
"We have known it for thirty years. For that long have we been in contactwith Grim Hagen."
* * * * *
Jack Odin was never quite able to cope with the passing of time on theseplanets, while the ships scurried through Trans-Space in what appeared tobe a matter of a few days.
The voice continued. "We invited Grim Hagen to our world. We did not inviteyou. Go away."
"I don't think I like his tone," Gunnar interrupted. "Some day I will catchthe owner of that voice and make him eat his ears."
"We are not going away," Ato told the voice stubbornly.
"Then you can stay where you are. We have just witnessed the battle. We donot have weapons such as yours. But we do have a defense. An electricscreen nearly half a mile across has been placed about you. Watch."
They looked at the screen, and a tiny drone-torpedo came winging its wayfrom the violet dome. It came to within a thousand yards of them andsuddenly crashed into an unseen barrier. Broken and blazing, it camefalling down like a crippled bird.
"There," the voice said triumphantly. "That is what will happen to you. Whydon't you leave us? You are not wanted. Leave us."
"Faith, he's a hospitable soul," Odin murmured.
Ato's voice was shaking in wrath when he answered. "We can find a way tosmash that curtain. We want Grim Hagen and his prisoners. When we have themwe will depart."
"Grim Hagen is our ally. We have already sworn our allegiance. I have nomore words for you."
There was a clicking sound and the loudspeaker died with a sputter ofstatic.
It sputtered again, and this time Grim Hagen's voice mocked them."There, Ato. You have your answer. You are wasting your time. But I ama reasonable man. You can have Maya. You can have the ship. You can havethe prisoners--the few that are left. I will trade all these for Wolden'ssecret."
"Greed has you in its hand, Grim Hagen. I know nothing of my father'ssecret. I do not even know if he succeeded--"
"Then summon him and let him decide for himself. You are young, buttwo-thirds of my life is gone now--"
"Your calculation is wrong," Gunnar shouted. "You life is nearly all gone,Grim Hagen."
"The dwarf still lives," Grim Hagen answered with a curse. "But so doesMaya, my slave. I had to beat her the other day. My boots were not polishedvery well--"
"Talk on, Grim Hagen," Odin growled. "I am here. And I intend to killyou--Just as I promised."
"Like most of your race, you talk too loud, Odin. Well, Ato, Gunnar, andOdin, I am going now. Please don't get in my way or I will hatchet theflesh from your bones."
Another click and the loudspeaker was silent.
* * * * *
They had landed on the giant, worn planet very early in the day. Now, astime went on, they watched Grim Hagen's ship and tried to make plans.
Gunnar was in favor of hazarding an attack on the barrier and then goingon to the city.
Ato and Odin voted in favor of waiting, although they admitted that theycould think of no better plan. Ato was sure that The Nebula could plungethrough any curtain, but he wanted to try that as a last resort.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of tractors and men was going back and forthfrom the Old Ship to the city. Odin watched them on the screen. They weremostly the white-skinned people of Aldebaran. The Brons who had gone outinto space with Grim Hagen had dwindled away. Odin saw a few white-headedones. And once he saw a captain stop to lash a worn, gray-haired Bron whomust have been one of the original prisoners. The poor fellow looked so oldand frazzled that Odin could not recognize him. His heart grew heavy as hethought of those prisoners. They had done no harm. Their lives had beenwasted away because of their loyalty to Maya. And the words of an old poetcame to his mind: "Think of man's inhumanity to man and write your poem ifyou can."
The day passed wearily by.
Odin felt that it was one of the worst days of his life. They had spannedthousands of light-years and time had slid by like a stream of quicksilverwhile they hunted through space. And now, at the last, they were pinneddown on a gaunt planet while a triumphant Grim Hagen went back and forthfrom the Old Ship to the violet dome. Welcomed like a conqueror, andholding every card, Grim Hagen was the man of the hour.
Yes, it was certainly Grim Hagen's day.
Night fell quite suddenly. But the sky above them turned to the faintestmauve, and there was still a pale ghost of a light hovering over the plain.There were no stars. No moon. Jack Odin learned later that the people ofthis planet had fed their moon to the dying sun long before.
* * * * *
They ate supper--as Gunnar called it--and then Ato and Odin studied somephoto-maps which they had taken just before they landed. Meanwhile, Gunnarbusied himself with the sword. And Nea, who stayed in her lab most of theday, brought in a few calculations on the barrier that prisoned them.
"It's an old idea," she told them quietly. "It can be broken by a steadilyincreasing force. Twenty days, perhaps, after I rig up the machine--"
Odin groaned. "In twenty days Grim Hagen will be back among the stars--"
She smiled quietly. And now he saw how tired her face and eyes were. Likethe face of a child that has worked too hard. "I think not," she answeredhim simply. "Gunnar is always talking about fate. I do not believe in such.But all day I have felt that the end is drawing near. Remember, I stillhave my Kalis. With them I could have been a huntress on some greenerplanet--another Diana, perhaps. Oh!" She stamped her foot in worriment. "Weheld cr
eation in our grasp out here. We could have forced the last secretsfrom her. Yes, I will say it! We could have been as gods. And where is itending? A mad chase after a madman. And for all the years and all the livesthat have been spent on these two ships, time and space are the onlywinners."
* * * * *
Nea went back to the lab. Odin and Ato continued their study of the maps.Gunnar was putting a fine edge to his broadsword.
Then the warning buzzer sounded its alarm. Odin dived for the screen andturned on the controls.
A long procession of mauve shadows was approaching. Already inside thebarrier, they came single-file and slowly circled The Nebula.
Even in the pale weird light, they certainly seemed to be men.
Ato ordered "Battle-Stations" and sirens sounded all over the ship.
* * * * *
But the circling host made no offer to attack. Odin turned the receiver upto its highest point, and speaking brokenly in the language of the Brons avoice came through.
"Men of the strange ship. Men of the strange ship--"
"Yes," Odin answered.
"Good. You hear me. We are those who have been driven out of the city. Wewould visit you in peace. We are called Lorens."
Within a few minutes, a dozen of the strangers had been brought aboard TheNebula. Ato summoned Nea and the rest of the captains.
The leader of the visitors was a man by the name of Val. He was a tall,lean man with a Norman nose and his dark skin was drawn so tightly abouthis face that he looked a bit like a mummy. Val was over sixty, Odinjudged, and though his wrists were skinny the tendons and muscles on hisarms stood out like taut lengths of cable. He and his men were dressedalike--a sleeveless shirt of walnut-brown plastic, dark peg-bottomedtrousers of corduroy, and footgear that looked like engineer's bootswith rippled soles. The tops of the boots were tight-fitting and thepeg-bottomed trousers were drawn snugly over them. Odin learned laterthat what had appeared to be green moss out there on the weathered plainwas a kind of thistle with cat-claw thorns.
Each man wore a heavy black belt about his waist. Attached to the beltwere at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, anotherpistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fittedto a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like anover-sized toadstool.
In addition to this odd assortment of gear, each man carried somethingin his hand which greatly resembled the frame of an old-fashionedumbrella--except that half a dozen vari-colored buttons were set intothe handles.
"It was nearly thirty years ago," Val was explaining, "that the voice ofGrim Hagen began to interfere with our broadcasting system. Some said itwas a god. Some said it was a devil. It came from space. It came fromalmost anywhere. We have been an intelligent race, but we were sore beset.Our sun was dying. All that we had was our sun and a huge dust-cloud in thedistance. In times past, our astronomers had seen the glow of millions ofsuns, millions upon millions of miles away. But we were never able toperfect a telescope that could bring a single sun into view.
"Nor did we ever have a chance to do this. The dust-cloud surged out towardus every twenty years, and our scientists were able to use a gravitationalbeam to deflect a part of it toward our sun. In this way we kept it aliveand might have been able to do so for ages. But now the dust-cloud isgone."
* * * * *
Val paused to sigh, and then resumed his story. "The voice--I mean thevoice of Grim Hagen--promised my people that if they would accept him hewould take them forth into the stars. They would plunder thousands ofworlds and they would live for centuries while generations died. Also, hesaid, he was on the brink of discovering eternal life--"
"He was playing at being the eternal Loki--the old mischief-maker--" Gunnarinterrupted and went on edging his sword.
"Well," Val continued, "I cannot blame my people too much for believingthis story. Our plight was desperate. But there were those of us who didnot believe him. He seemed to know too much, when according to ourphilosophy the only wise man is the one who admits that he knows nothing--"
"I am not a philosopher," Gunnar interrupted again. "I only know that onceyou have thrust a foot of steel into a man he does not bother you again."
"Please, Gunnar," Ato begged. "Let Val go on with his story."
"The rest of the story I do not understand at all," Val said with a shakeof his grizzled head. "This Grim Hagen said that he did not age until hestopped to conquer a planet and replenish his ship's energy. It was thirtyyears ago when he first spoke to us. He looks like a man of forty-fivenow. Could he have been an upstart of fifteen when he first spoke into ourreceivers?"
"I will try to explain that later," Ato answered.
"Well, there were those of us who could not agree with the general idea.There are even some of the Lorens in the Violet Dome who think he is a god.We think he is an evil man. We have no desire to plunder the stars. If heis so great, why doesn't he give new life to our feeble sun? That is whatwe really need. Meanwhile, the people of the Dome are building five newships, as Grim Hagen directed. They have been working upon them foryears--"
"Good God," Jack Odin was thinking, "what a hideous propaganda machinethese ships are? To condition and instruct a whole generation while youflash through space in the twinkling of an eye!"
"And that is all," Val finished with a shrug of his lean shoulders. "Thoseof us who had never agreed with the idea were thrown out of the city assoon as Grim Hagen arrived. We have come to join forces with you."
"How did you get through the barrier?" Nea asked.
Val lifted the umbrella-frame. "We have had the barrier for years. Thereare strange beasts out there on the plain. This instrument allows us to gothrough the barrier when we please."
"Then we can go to the city?" Gunnar exclaimed with a joyful war-whoop."To kill, and kill, and kill--"
"You are right," Ato admitted. "Delay will only increase Grim Hagen'sadvantage. To the city--as fast as we can--"