John Rackham (11 page)

Jack
understood only dimly, but he felt instant revulsion. Jasar set his dark face
grimly. "All the more hurt to the Hilax if we can wreck the place,
then!" he growled. "But how came you to escape living death within
the brain?"

"Whim!
Garmel's whim.
The probe showed what I have
told you, that I am a craftsman in metal. Strella is a backward culture in
many ways, the most of us being farmers and food-processors. But we breed fine
craftsmen in metal and jewelry. And this was a skill that Garmel could use directly.
Maintainance
...
running repairs
...
such tasks take him into great effort
with delicate tools in his clumsy hands. Me
...
I can do them more easily, and better. So he uses me. Would you know a
fusion-focus gem if you saw one?"

"Of course.
I have two, in my ship.
One in use, one spare.
Not that I know much about how they work, except that without one to convert
energy and direct it, a fusion generator is useless. So . . .?"

"So
...
there are many designs of
gem-fittings. It takes
a
skilled man to adapt one to the other. I can
do it. So, when the Hilax capture one of our ships they seize the power-gems.
And I convert them so that they fit this installation. And I do other things.
I serve Garmel. So slay me, Jasar, here and now, for a craven traitor!"

SIX

"Nay!
Sit and be easy!" Jasar growled.
"Who am I to condemn any man for bending under torture? I have little
stomach for that kind of thing myself. And why would I kill someone who can be
of use to me? As you say, we are only two. If you have the run of this system,
as you say, you have information of great value to us. That belt
...
if there were some way of getting it
off
...
let me look at it more
closely."

On
closer inspection it was obviously tight, so much so that Haldar's flesh bulged
over the edges of it a little. "I've seen something like it before, on
savage animals under restraint," Jasar muttered. "It has something
of the nature of a solenoid. A power-flow into it will make it shrink even
more."

"Is
there power in it now?" Jack asked, touching the fine-wire weave gingerly,
feeling a tingle in his fingertips.

"It is constantly
powered," Haldar muttered.

"Why
then
..."
Jack hesitated,
looking from one to the other. "It may sound foolish, but might it not be
possible in some way to take the power away from it?" He anticipated
scorn, but Jasar stared and then breathed hard.

"Stars and comets!
The lad's right. All we need is a length of stout copper wire and a
ground of some kind. I can feel the fizz of it myself, now. If we can ground
that
...
short it out
...
the belt should come loose enough to
slip out of!"

"And if it doesn't
work that way?"

"Then,
at the worst, you'll die, Haldar. That's your gamble."

Haldar
stood away, his face a mask of control,
then
he sighed
and sat heavily on a pile of waste cloth. "I need time to think, Jasar.
Perhaps I am a coward, after alL

You
must realize that I have lived like this for some time, more than three hundred
cycles, as far as I can guess it. I have jumped to Garmel's whim, learned to
loathe and hate him, built up a little world of my own despite him. I have
weapons. I have my secret ways in and out. I have fought with giant beetles
down here. I have been up on the surface and fought with the rat-creatures
...
and been chased for my life by a feline
. . ."

"A cat-thing?"
Jack interrupted. "I met and killed one of those. It was just
after you fell down the tube, Jasar."

"You killed one?"
Haldar sounded fearful.

"One
arrow through the roof of its mouth and another
Into
its eye!"

"You
can't be blamed for that," Haldar mumbled, "but h was a bad
act."

"My
life?"
Jack demanded.

"Agreed.
But the felines are Garmel's pets. He has three.
Had.
And a singing creature that I have heard only distantly.
He will be angry. As a rule he is slow and placid, sarcastic often, but
tolerant enough in his way. But when anything angers him he can be a
fiend!"

"Do
we care whether or not he is angry?" Jasar growled. "What I am hoping
to do will make him wilder than he has ever been.
If he
survives to talk of it!"

"But
it does matter! When he is in a vicious mood everything suffers, including my
freedom of movement. And I have to tell you"—Haldar lifted his chin, put
on a desperate stare—"I have been planning a strike of my own, more
subtle one than yours, for some time."

"No reason why we
can't cooperate, man!"

"You
don't understand yet. I have been building, little by little, a whole network
of half-rigged relays and insecure trips, all manner of little tricks that
only a close inspection would reveal, all against that moment when I become
so utterly desperate that I can yield my life against the breakdown of this
station. I have neither the materials nor the skill to destroy the place
suddenly and violently, or I would have done it long ago. But my plan has been—
and I can do it—to burn out and destroy all the master circuits to the central
brain-complex. You realize what that would mean?"

"The station would
die, literally," Jasar declared.

"Yes.
But slowly.
It would be utterly beyond Garmel's
ability to save, in time. It would die. No more messages in or out. No more
weapon control. No power supply. No environmental control. Slow death."

Jack had a flash of inspiration. "It
would take Garmel some time to die, also," he said, and Haldar looked at
him, and nodded.

"And
what would he do to me in that time? Because he would know it was my
doing." Haldar's brow glistened with sweat. "I do not fear death any
more than any other man, I think. But I have seen Garmel slicing men to pieces
with his scalpels
...
for amusement
...
before fitting their brains into his
machines. He is like that. He is a Dargoon, and the Dargoon think of
we
humanoids
...
our size, that is
...
as inferior
creatures. My greatest advantage is that he keeps on thinking that.
Unsuspecting.
If he ever suspects anything different
...
and if he becomes angry enough to be
driven along that avenue, and decides to inspect
..
.
and
discovers . . . what I have been doing . .."

Jasar
growled an interruption. "Don't do it, Haldaf. You're buying more trouble
than you already have, trying to anticipate failures that way. Look on the
better side. You've had a hard ride so far, but you're not alone anymore. And
with the expertise you have
...
what?" The little man sat up startled as Haldar stiffened suddenly into
an attitude of soundless screaming, his face gray with pain. Jack leaped to his
feet, guessing what had happened even before the suffering man suddenly slumped
and choked in relief.

"That
was a summons," he gasped. "No more or less than usual. I must go,
and quickly, or Garmel will be pleased to be more severe
...
if I keep him waiting. Follow
...
stay
...
suit yourselves
...
I have no
choice."

He
went past them and away through the rough curtain at a quick trot. Jasar
scrambled up. "Come on; we mustn't lose him!" he said, and Jack had
no option but to follow. Haldar's trot was brisk, but not headlong. He led them
at first along narrow corridors between busy machinery, and then to a vertical
wall where a broad strip of metal clung and supported several heavy wires. The
metal strip had holes and slots cut in it, was almost as easy to climb as a
ladder. Haldar mounted with the speed and familiarity of long practice. It was
more arduous for Jasar, with his shorter reach, but he climbed manfully. In a
while they had reached the top of the wall, but the metal grid kept on upward.
They could see into the brugg-pen. They mounted as high as its roof. The grid
angled forward now and became a horizontal bridge over the pen. It was no more
than a foot wide, and the wires that ran along it offered an uneasy surface
for the feet, but Haldar stood, balanced, and trotted along it. After him,
Jasar stood too, and ran. So Jack swallowed his fear, kept his eyes rigidly
forward, and ran as steadily as he could.

The
narrow grid vibrated under his feet. The stink from the brugg-pen came up
strongly. But there was a stark-white wall ahead, and he saw Haldar go up it,
still climbing that grid. Then Jasar . . . and then he
was
close enough to reach, and start climbing. He heard Jasar breathing hard and
realized that others had their troubles too. Their way led up and up, until the
grid ran up into a narrow round tunnel in the roof and they had to move more
slowly because of the dim light. Jack heard his scout friend call out,
breathlessly:

"Haldar!
A moment, man! I have no wish to slow you, but I ask you to spare the
time to warn us, when we are close to Garmel's domain. So that we may see, and
overhear, without being detected."

"I will do that.
Soon now."

There
was light ahead, and then the end of the tube. But now, while the wire-carrying
grid kept on up the wall, Haldar launched himself aside to a black and
resilient floor, ran a little way, and then tackled what looked like
a
plain wall, prising loose a clean-cut panel,
holding it for them to pass inside.

'The
wall is hollow," he explained. "They all are, here.
For insulation, wiring, and lightness.
In you go,
quickly!"

This
was a curious, narrow space with the roof vanishing into dimness and the walls
of gray stuff that looked like frozen bubbles. Jack hugged that wall to let
Haldar pass,
then
followed him. There were sagging
curves and snarls of wire in various colors. "The blue-ringed wires are
low-power lighting circuits," Haldar called breathlessly back, "and
the lights are what I have borrowed, from time to time, from instrument panels.
The place is a maze. I have not investigated all of it, only those runs that
are useful to me." He was turning abrupt comers as he spoke, left and
right until Jack was utterly lost. In a while he halted again, let them crowd
close to him.

"We are almost where I have to be. In a
moment I shall go through the wall again, into Garmel's radio and record room,
where he receives personal and emergency messages, and keeps all his logbooks and
accounts. In there, also"—his voice hardened "is my cage. To be truthful,
it is well-appointed and equipped, furnished with the looting of many ships,
but it is Garmel's gift, and I would rather run like this, and take my chances
with vermin than be kept by him."

"Does he know you can
escape?"

"He
knows, Jasar, but he prefers to overlook it, so long as I am not too obvious
about it. And he knows I cannot really escape, not while I wear this belt. Nor
even if I were free of it. Where would I go?"

Haldar
leaned on a wall section now and it gaped open. "Is it in your mind what
he wants from you?" Jack asked and Haldar grunted, peering out.

"He
will tell me, soon enough. I must go. I hear his tread!"

The wall section had been cut oval, and Jasar
was able to hold and drag it inside as Haldar ran off. Jack crowded shoulder to
shoulder with the little scout to stare out of the hole into a vast room that
was all red and black. In the far middle of the floor huge columns stood up to
support what had to be a table or bench of some kind.
And
chairs.
Huge cupboards.
A
constant clicking and chattering.
And there was Haldar, trotting
steadily up a long spindly ladder that led to the tabletop. Craning his neck,
Jack regarded it as a dizzy plateau of mystery, and felt fear of Garmel, even
as he sensed a regular thump and shake of vibration, growing steadily stronger.

"This
stuff
...
it's some expanded-foam
type of plastic," Jasar mused. "Lightweight.
Easy
enough to cut."

But
Jack was barely listening. Far away across the floor-plain there came
a darkness
, and movement, and he adjusted his perspective
hurriedly to see that a door had opened.
And closed again.
And there came boots, black and glossy and enormous, thudding solidly on the
floor, one after the other. Craning his head back to peer upward, Jack saw the
boots merge into dark blue cloth and vast legs, a huge furled tunic, a belt
with objects dangling from it, and far above that a blurred pink expanse that
could be nothing else than a jaw and chin. That much, alone, was enough to dry
his mouth and make his heart hammer, but then he saw something that knotted his
stomach and caught his breath.
A vast, limp, swinging furry
thing that grazed the floor and thumped against the wall over his head before
swinging away again.
There came
a
voice, cavemously deep.

"So
..
.
Haldar
..
.
little
man-beast .
..
you
have been careless again. For that you shall
suffer."

"i
don't understand!" Haldar's voice came
small and distant, uneasily protesting. "What have I done?"

"What have you left undone,
fool!
See this? Look well at it, little man-beast! My Milby,
my pet, my favorite proos
...
is
dead, see? And, not far from where I found her, I came across the carcass of a
grat, striken in the selfsame manner. Well, Haldar?"

Jack
stared at the underside of the table, wishing he could see through, wondering
what Haldar was thinking.

"I
regret that your pet is dead." Haldar sounded sullen. "But why are
you angry with me? I didn't kill it!"

"Not with your hand, no!
Milby would have made short work of you, had
you tried that. But you are responsible, fool! Milby was struck, see, by
something solid.
A missile.
A meteorite particle! So
was the grat. And that is something that should not have happened, Haldar. You
are responsible. You have your life because you keep my electronics in good
order.
As you well know.
And now
...
look at this readout!" There came
clicking and whooping sounds and then the voice again, enormously angry.
"See?
The playback record for the past ten time units.
Here
...
and here
...
breaches in the alarm-screens in sector
seven of the outer shield.
But no booster-response, no
automatic step-up
...
no alarm,
Haldar 1 Your careless, slipshod, lazy work, Haldar!"

"No!" Jack heard Haldar's frantic
yell, then a scream of agony . . . and
another .
..
and
a third,
that sent the sweat trickling down his face and made Jasar growl deep in his
throat.

"That," the tunnel-voice rumbled,
"I can do to you, little beast, and more. But nothing can bring back
Milby, my pet. Get up, you filthy vermin! I begin to lose patience with you. I
treat you well. I have given you a luxurious nest, all the food you need. I do
not work you very hard. And yet you fail me. Look at you now, filthy and in
scanty rags. You fail even to maintain a pretense of being a civilized entity.
I am not pleased with you. In a while there will be another wrecked ship of
your kind discharging here. Perhaps I will find some other metalworking
man-thing to take your place, one with more sense, and more respect. And then,
Haldar, I will cut out your little brain and put it into my machine. I am not
pleased with you, at all!"