John Rackham (12 page)

And Jack felt the blood pound in his ears as
Haldar screamed again. This was an evil ruthlessness he had never dreamed of
before. That cavernous slow voice was utterly inhuman, devoid of any real
emotion. He heard Jasar growling by his side. "It burns me to have to
stand helpless like this, lad. My thumb itches to put my beamer on that
bloated thing, to burn him, to hear
him
scream,
for a change. But it would serve no good purpose, not at this time. Bite on it,
Haldar. We'll avenge you, somehow!"

"Would
these small weapons slay a creature so vast?" Jack demanded.

"You'll
see, lad, just as soon as the moment is ripe. So far as I can judge, Garmel isn't
screened. He's not wearing any protection. And why should he, here inside the
safety of his station? And, that being the case, you just wait. Let the time be
ripe, and give me one bead on him with my beamer
...
and you'll see
...
burn his heart! But wait
...
what's
he up to now?"

As the screeching anguish ceased that tunnel-voice boomed again.
"Into the net, man-thing, and I will
take you to the brain-room.
Where you will work.
You
will check and sharpen every circuit, bring everything up to the mark. You will
make good all your idleness, your omissions. And I will check, myself, when you
are done. And if anything is as much as a hundredth part less than perfect
...
you will scream much louder than you
have ever done before. Come. No!
Just a moment."
A sudden staccato twittering and beeping came to attract attention to some
machine or other up there on the table. A click stopped it, produced a metallic
voice.

"Sector Flagship
Belon
to
Station BB7 Arc.
Fix. Fix. Fix."

"This
is BB7 to Flagship
Belon,"
Garmel's voice boomed.
"You should be receiving standard coordinates from me. Confirm."

"Belon
to
BB7.
We
have your standard transmission, but we are under damage conditions. Will need
tractor assist, docking, and repair facilities.
ETA your
tractor range, three time units from now.
Confirm assist and repair
availability."

"BB7 Arc to
Belon.
Full facilities confirmed. Await your further signal in three time
units. Do you have casualties?"

"Belon
to
BB7 Arc.
We
have eighteen injured, not critical.
Also three enemy units
in grapple, for impounding.
Flagship
Belon
out!"

The
iron-throated voice ceased, leaving a bee-like humming. That ceased also, with
a click. "You heard, Haldar?" Garmel rumbled. "Three of your
ships are approaching.
Wrecked, captured, for salvage and
stripping.
Think of that, little man-thing. Consider the chances I will
find a replacement for you
...
and
see if that makes you work well. Now cornel
Into
the
net!"

Now
Jack saw those vast boots start to move again, to walk away and grow distant.
He saw the dead cat-creature till swinging in one of Garmel's huge hands, and a
glittering silvery net dangling from the other. And Haldar in it,

"Come
on!" Jasar hissed, scrambling through the hole.
"After
him."
It took a moment to replace the oval cut piece, and then they
ran, fearfully, over that vast floor to the far wall. The door shut as they
scampered near, the puff of air from it making them stagger for a moment.

"We
can't open the door!" Jack cried, staring up at it, but Jasar was already
at the wall, his hand-weapon out, setting it swiftly, pointing . . . and a
searing thread of fire sliced the wall in a swift slant cut. Then another, and
a third, and Jack coughed at the stench, but there was a triangular hole now,
big enough for them to crawl through and close after them. Jack closed it while
his intent little friend burned a matching hole in the other side of the narrow
air-gap. This time the fumes and stench were choking for a moment; then they
were through, out and running once more. This was a long corridor, and far
ahead, dwarfed to near normality by distance, they saw Garmel striding along.
This floor was all in blue and white squares, and it seemed to extend for
miles. Jack became painfully aware of aches in his legs and a hollow where his
stomach had been. He recalled, vainly, that he had only taken one small bite of
that food-disk Haldar had provided, only a sip of the hot beverage.

No such lack seemed to trouble Jasar, who ran
steadily and sturdily, keeping close in to the right-hand wall. Jack drove
himself into effort, cursing the hand-weapon that banged his thigh, and the
bowstring that seemed a tight band across his chest. Breath burned his throat,
scoured his lungs. Far ahead, Garmel seemed to pause, then wheel and disappear
to the right. Trotting after, Jasar slowed for the corner, stole up to it,
peered around with his hand up for caution. Jack shambled close, then leaned on
the wall and made the most of this chance to catch up on breathing, working
hard at it. This was worse than trying to run down a deer. At least there a man
started out with a full belly and a good night's rest behind him. Adding it up,
Jack realized he had not slept in a long time, nor yet had anything substantial
to eat in even longer.

Then,
over the roar and snore of breathing, and the bump of his heart, he heard
something truly magical. It was faint, far off, and he knew it was someone
singing. But it was like no singing he had ever heard before. Into his mind
came a fleeting vision of the choir of the monastery of St. Cecilia, once seen
on a ceremonial occasion in the courtyard of Castle Dudley. This was the same
kind of singing, but infinitely more sweet, more wonderful.
And
just one voice.
No words that he could make out. He pressed his head
close to the wall, and it came a little clearer.
Still no
words, just a plaintive chant.

"Back!"
Jasar snapped urgently. "Garmel is returning. We have nowhere to take
cover.
Flat on the floor in the angle, and keep still!"

Jack
fell flat on his face and tried to melt into the nook between wall and floor,
holding his breath. That singing was still there, sweet and faint. Now the
floor bumped and shivered to the Dargoon's ponderous tread. He came around the
corner.
Went past.
Then stopped! Jack squeezed his
eyes tight shut, anticipating the roar of discovery. Instead he heard the
click and sigh of a door opening, the rush of air, and that angelic singing
came clear now, distinct, a sad and slow lilt that brought tears to his eyes
instantly. Just for a breath or two, then the door thudded shut again and the
magic was gone. But so was Garmel. He scrambled excitedly to his feet.
"Did you hear it too, Jasar?"

"That music?
I heard it.
Probably a
recording of some kind.
Or that singing pet that Haldar spoke of. Come
on. I saw where Garmel took our friend Haldar. We might be faced with some
trouble. The wall and door looked like thermal armor to me. As it would be, if
it is the way into the brain-room." He had rounded the corner as he spoke,
leaving Jack to follow, and see, some thirty feet ahead, a gray wall, and in it
a door with a huge spoked wheel at its center. From that wheel came thigh-thick
rods of metal that engaged the frame of the door in eight places. Obviously to
lock it shut. Jasar was close enough now to rap on the gray wall and shake his
head ruefully.

"It
will take a while to cut through this. And no way of telling when Garmel will
take it into his head to return. Still, it's a chance we have to take. You keep
watch at the corner, Jack, in case Garmel comes back, while I cut."

Jack
hesitated. "If all these walls are hollow, as Haldar said, then it would
seem that we should cut into one here, and thus approach the armor within the
gap, and not be seen while we work at it." He eyed Jasar nervously, but
the small scout chuckled.

"I am not cursed with an overweening
ego, lad, otherwise I might get ruffled at the way you see farther than I do.
You're quite right, of course. Make way a moment." He went down on his
knees and did his trick with his hand-weapon again, and very soon they were
safely within the hollow of the wall, and facing armor-plate. And that singing
was much clearer now.

"Pay
attention." Jasar nudged his elbow. "See this?" He indicated a
serrated rim at the tip of the weapon. "When I wind this focus to zero the
beam is very fine, a needle that will punch through anything, and over a long
range. The more I set it back
...
to
two
...
or three
...
or
four
..
.
the
wider the beam fans out. Covers more area
but doesn't hit the target so hard. A two setting is good enough for general
purposes, but now,
see,
I am setting it to zero. I
need maximum cut, and even then it will take a while to burn this plate."

"How long?"
Jack demanded, his curiosity burning almost as intensely as Jasar*s
beam.

"Hard
to tell.
Why?"

"I
want to see into this other chamber.
Where Garmel is.
Where the singing comes from."

"So
long as you only look, and listen," Jasar cautioned. "You have time
enough. Set for zero, keep close to the floor, pick a corner
...
by the door is as good as any. And set
your talk-switch. Ill
call
you when ready . . . and
you come at once; understand?"

Jack
promised, and went off along the narrow track until he was near the door, then
knelt and cut as he had seen Jasar do, angling the needle beam so that the
triangular section fell inward where he could catch it. Holding his breath
until the stench had drifted
away,
he listened to that
wonderful singing, and knew as certainly as he knew his own name that it was
coming from a human throat. Then, on his knees, he peered into the new chamber.
With experience to help, he could make rapid adjustments of viewpoint and no
longer thought of the hugeness of things, just that to his right was a great
cabinet and shelves full of disks.
To the right, another
similar cabinet.
And right in front of him, sprawled in an enormous
chair, was Garmel. The chair was of flimsy-seeming metal tubes and dark
canvas-like stuff, and purple cushions bulged under Gar-mel's bulk.

The
Dargoon held a device in his lap very like the reader-screen that Jasar had
used, back home in the cottage. How long ago that seemed, now. The pictures
that danced across it were obviously engrossing the giant, so that Jack had a
fine opportunity to study him in detail and three-quarter profile. The sight
was awesome. In a general way the head and face were humanoid enough, but brow,
forehead, and nose were all in one plane. Yellow fuzz covered the flat-topped
skull down to where it became neck. Briefly below the nose was a thin gash of
mouth and virtually no chin to mark face from neck in front. And all was a
curious glistening pink. The monster had no brows and his ears were only dark
holes, devoid of pinna. The dark blue stuff of his tunic lay in tight folds
over a vast chest and arms, one of which he raised now to reach to a nearby
tabletop and collect a goblet of dark green liquid. He gulped at it, set it
aside,
then
stretched up that same hand over his head,
to rap with his fingers on the underside of a golden cage.

"Enough of that misery, Silvana, my songbird.
Chant me a merry melody, hear me?"
Jack's wondering gaze traveled up into that cage and he was at once wide-eyed
and enraged. The voice
was
human, was a girl, a slim
blue-eyed golden-haired dream of a girl, somehow meshed in many hair-fine gold
strands, like a web that led to
a
central
cluster over her head. Her prison dangled on the end of a glossy black cable,
from the ceiling. She moved now to clutch the bars of her cage and peer down
at
Garmel.

"Do
you expect me to be merry while I am kept in this cage, slave to your whim,
Dargoon?" To Jack's wonder, her voice sounded big, seemed to fill the room.
Garmel flicked the underside of the cage again, making her stagger-

"You
are a singer, Silvana, so singl
Or
shall
I
play on your nerves?"