Sargasso of Space (Solar Queen Series) (18 page)

“What’s out there?” Dane wanted to know.

Kosti’s nose wrinkled. “Another hallway as black as outer space. But at least we can get out of this whirlly-round!”

Impatient as they were to be on their way, they must wait until it was safe to cross that cut which radiated heat. Adjusting helmets, improvising a protection for Ali from the Rigellian’s tunic, they made ready. But before they went Kosti gave a last attention to their captive.

“We could pull you through,” he observed. “But you might fry on the way, and besides you’d be a dead jet breaking our speed if we tangle with any of your friends outside. So we’ll just store you in deep freeze—to be called for.” He fastened the man’s ankles as well as his wrists and rolled him away from the heated portion of the corridor.

Then with Ali in their midst they hurried through the cut and out into the hall. Darkness closed about them once more, and an experiment proved that here, as well as in the maze, the torches could not fight the blackness. But at least the way before them was smooth and straight and there were no openings along it to betray them into wrong turnings.

They slowed their pace to accommodate Ali, and went linked together by touch as they had in the maze.

“Worm’s eye view—” Kosti’s grumble came through the sable quiet. “Did the Forerunners have eyes?”

Dane slipped his arm about the swaying Ali’s shoulders and gave him support. He felt the engineer-apprentice wince as his clumsy grasp awoke some bruise to life and adjusted his hold quickly, though Ali made no sound of protest.

“Here is an opening, we have reached the end of this way,” Mura said. “Yes, beyond is another passage, wider, much wider——”

“A wider road might lead to a more important section,” Dane ventured.

“Just so it gets us out of here!” was Kosti’s contribution. “I’m tired of jetting around in this muck hole. Go on, Frank, take us in.”

The procession of four moved on, making a sharp turn to the right. They were now marching abreast and Dane had an impression of room about them, though the dark was as complete as ever.

Then they were stopped, not by another barrier but by noise—a shout which exploded along the hall with the crack of a stun rifle. In a moment it was followed by just that—the stun of a rifle.

“Down!” Mura snapped. But the others were already moving.

Dane ducked, pulling Ali with him. Then he was lying flat, trying to sort out some meaning from the wild clamor which floated back to them.

“Small war on—” that was Kosti managing to make himself heard between two bursts of firing.

“And it’s coming our way,” Ali breathed close to Dane’s ear.

The cargo-apprentice drew his blaster, though he did not see how he was going to make much use of it now. To fire blindly in the dark was not a wise move.

“Yaaaah—” That was no shout of rage, it was the yammering scream of a man who had taken his death wound. And Ali was very right—the battle was fast approaching where they lay.

“Back against the walls,” again Mura gave tongue to a move they were already making.

Dane clutched a portion of Ali’s torn tunic and felt it rip more as he pulled the engineer-apprentice after him to the right. They fetched up against the wall and stayed there, huddled together and listening.

A flash of light cracked open the curtain about them. Dazzled. Dane had an impression of black forms. And then a smoldering patch of red on the wall was all that marked the burst of a blaster.

“Lord of High Space,” Ali half whispered. “If they beam those straight down here, we’ll fry!”

Feet pounded toward them and Dane stiffened, clutching his weapon. Maybe he should fire at the sound, knock out the runners before they came too close. But he could not bring himself to squeeze the trigger. All a Trader’s ingrained distrust of open battle made him hesitate.

There was light up there now. Not the gray, ghostly gloom which had once lit these halls, but a thick yellow shaft which was both normal and reassuring to Terran eyes. And against that the four from the
Queen
saw five figures take cover on the floor, ready—no longer fleeing, but turning to show their teeth to their pursuers.

18
   
UP SHIP AND OUT

“S
URRENDER!
in the name of the Federation—” the voice boomed from the walls about them.

“Patrol!” Ali identified the order.

All right—so the Patrol had landed, Dane was willing to accept that. But which of the parties before them represented law and order? Those waiting attack, or those behind the light, waiting to deliver it?

The light steadily advanced—until one of those in wait shot straight into its heart. There was answering fire through the resulting dark and someone screamed.

If they had any sense, Dane thought, they would now rereat to the maze until the fight was over. This was no time to get caught in a mix-up between Rich’s forces and the Patrol. But he made no move to pass that bright thought on to Ali. Instead he found himself leveling his blaster, taking aim through the dark at the roof of the hall in which they lay. He pressed the trigger.

The voltage was still set on “low” but the beam struck the roof and bit in. And he had not misjudged the distance too badly—that burst of light revealed the men who had shot out the Patrol light—he was sure that the Patrol were the light party now. Their white faces, mouths agape, stared up at the glowing core of destruction over their heads as if they were hypnotized by it. Only one moved, throwing himself back, passing under that coruscating splotch, toward the men from the
Queen.
But he did not get past them.

Kosti launched his body out of the shadows, barely visible in the fading gleam from the roof. He should have struck the fleeing man head on. Instead the other made an unbelievable swift twist of his body which carried him almost by the contact point. Had the jet- man’s fingers not caught in the fugitive’s belt, he would have made it.

Dane fired again, sending a second bolt of fire up beside the first to give Kosti light for his fight. But the flash revealed a far different scene. A figure as tall as the jetman was getting to hands and knees for a second forward dash, while Kosti lay limp and still.

Ali moved, clumsily, but at all the speed he could muster, rolling out so that the other stumbled over his body and went down once more. And then Dane used the blaster for the third time, aiming at a point behind them, bracketing the would-be escapee with the blaze.

“Stop!” again the voice boomed about them. “Stop firing or we’ll bring a flamer in and sweep this whole hall!”

A wild beast’s snarl from the shadows answered. And at the edge of the last glowing splotch, the one meant to barricade the passage, a dark shape prowled back and forth, its crouching outline suggesting something not human.

Then the light went on again, catching them all in its glare. Nearest to the source of it three outlaws stood, their empty hands rising above their heads. But the beam reached on, past them, to reveal Kosti. The big jetman lay still, a trickle of blood on his chin. On the radiance swept, pinpointing Mura as he hurried to Kosti, bringing Ali into focus as he hunched over, clutching at his chest, coughing.

Dane, his back to the glare, was alert, his blaster ready for the next move of that other thing. The thing with slavering lips and slack jaw who prowled up and down at the edge of the burning ring which cut it off from the dark safety beyond, that thing who had once been Salzar, lord of this forgotten kingdom—the thing who had retreated into the Hell of the crax user until it was no longer a man at all!

It turned as the light caught it, snarled and spat at the beam, and then whirled and leaped over the burning area, squalling at the lick of fire, heading for the maze.

“Thorson! Mura!”

Dane shivered. He should be after Salzar but he couldn’t force himself to cross those flames to hunt down that thing in the dark. It was with real thankfulness that he heard that sharp call. He looked over his shoulder to its source, but the glare of the light dazzled him and he blinked painfully at the figures advancing around it, able at last to make out the black and silver of the Patrol, the drabber tunics of Trade. He holstered his blaster and waited for them to come up.

It was some time later that he sat at a table in a strange room. A room with furnishings which betrayed the nature of the trap which was Limbo in bald openness, things which had been looted from fifty—a hundred ships—crowded together to provide a tawdry luxury for the private quarters of the man they had known as Salzar Rich.

Dane wolfed down a meal of real food—no concentrates—as he listened half dreamily to Mura deliver a concise report of their activities for the past three days. He fought an aching fatigue which ordered him to put his head down on the table and sleep—just sleep. Instead he sat and chewed on delicacies he had not tasted since he left Terraport.

Black tunics slipped in and out of the room, delivering reports, taking orders from the Squadron Commander who sat with Captain Jellico listening to Mura’s often interrupted story. It was rather like the end of a Video serial, decided Dane groggily, all wrapped up in a neat little package. The Patrol had arrived, the situation was now well in hand——

“As nasty a set up as we’ve ever come across,” that was the Patrol officer.

“I take it,” Van Rycke observed, “that this is going to clear up a great many disappearances——”

The Patrolman sighed. “We’ll have to comb these hills, maybe chop into them, before we have the role complete. Though we can do a lot just listing the loot they gathered in. Yes, it’s going to clear a lot of records at Headquarters. Thanks to you, we have the chance to do it.” He arose and favored Jellico with a sketch of salute. “My compliments, Captain, if you will be free to join me in about—” he consulted his watch—“three hours, we can have a conference. There are several points to be considered.”

He was gone. Dane drank from a mug engraved with the Survey crest. And at the sight of those crossed comets, he shuddered and pushed the container from him. It reminded him too vividly of an earlier discovery. Yes, there should be a wealth of strange relics found here. Somehow he was glad that he did not have the task of sorting out and listing them.

“That maze now,” Van Rycke’s calm seemed ruffled. “That’s worth looking over.”

Jellico gave a snort of humorless laughter. “As if the Patrol is going to let anyone but themselves and the Fed experts in there!”

The mention of the maze triggered Dane’s memory and for the first time he spoke:

“Rich ran back into that. Have they caught him yet, sir?”

“Not yet,” Jellico replied. He did not appear much interested in the problem of the missing outlaw leader. “Crax chewer, isn’t he? Went right over the edge when we caught up with you——”

“Yes, he was insane at the last, sir,” Mura agreed. “How ever, I trust that the Patrol are not discounting him. To hunt a madman through that puzzle without precautions of a most serious kind—that is a task I would not care to assume.”

“Well,” the Captain got up, “we’re not asked to do it. The whole thing’s in Patrol hands now, let them worry about it. The sooner we lift ship from this misbegotten place, the better I’ll be satisfied. We’re Trade, not police.”

“Hmm—” Van Rycke still lounged in a chair which had been ripped from some liner captain’s cabin. “Yes, Trade—a matter of Trade. We must keep our minds on business.” But none of Jellico’s impatience lurked in his limpid blue eyes. He was bland, and, Dane thought, about to go to work. Van Rycke, Patrol or no Patrol, was not yet through with Limbo.

In spite of Jellico’s chaffing to be gone, the Captain did not suggest a return to the
Queen.
Instead he paced warily about the room, stopping now and again to inspect some particular fitting Salzar had fancied enough to have installed there. Van Rycke looked over at Dane and Mura.

“I would suggest,” he said mildly, “that you make use of Dr. Rich’s bedroom. I think you’ll find his bunk soft——”

Still wondering why they were not ordered back to the
Queen
where the injured Kosti and Ali had been sent hours before, Dane followed the steward into the second room of Rich’s private suite. Van Rycke had been right about the luxury, but it was no bunk which fronted them, only a wide, real Terra-side bed equipped with self-warming foam blankets and feather down puffs.

Dane shed his helmet, bulky belt, and boots to lie back in the fleecy softness. He was dimly aware of Mura’s weight settling down on the other edge of the broad expanse and then he was instantly and deeply asleep.

He was in the control cabin of the
Queen
, it was necessary for him to compute their passage into hyper. And yet across from him sat Salzar Rich, his face disciplined, hard as it had been on that day back on Naxos when they had first met. He, Dane, must get them into hyper, yet if his calculations were wrong Salzar would blast him—and he would fall down, down out of the
Queen
into the maze where something else crouched and yammered in the darkness waiting to hunt him!

Dane’s eyes opened, he stared up at a grayness above. His body was shaking with chill, his hands icy cold and wet as he groped for some solid reality among the soft billowy things which melted at his touch. He willed his hands to be still, he dared not even shift his eyes now. There was something here, something which broadcast such a threat of menace that it tore at his nerves.

Dane forced himself to breathe deeply, evenly. Mura was there, but he could not turn his head to make sure—A fraction of an inch at a time he began to shift his position. He had no idea of what he had to face as yet, but fear was there—he could almost taste it, see it as a murky cloud in the air.

He could see the door now, and from beyond he could hear the murmur of voices. Perhaps both the Captain and Van Rycke were still in the outer room. Yes, the door, and now a scrap of the wall by it. His eyes took in a Tri-Dee painting, a vivid landscape from some eerie world, a world dead, sterile to life, and yet in its way beautiful. Now he dared to move his hand, burrowing under those feather-weight covers, striving to arouse Mura, sure that the other would not betray himself, even when waking.

Hand moved, head moved. The picture—and beyond it a strip of woven stuff hanging, glittering with threads which might have been spun of emerald and diamond, a bright, too bright thing which hurt the eyes. And now by that, his shoulders blotting out part of it——

Salzar!

Only an exercise of will such as he had not known he could command kept Dane immovable. Luckily the outlaw was not watching the bed. He was taking a serpent’s silent way to the door.

To all outward appearances he was a man again, but there was no sanity in those dark fixed eyes. And in his hands he fondled a weird tube set on an oddly shaped handstock, a thing which must be a weapon. He was gone from in front of the hanging, his head cut the picture. Three feet more and he would be at the door. But the hand Dane had sent to warn Mura was met, enfolded in a warm grasp. He had an ally!

Dane tried to plan the next move. He was on his back, muffled in the thick covers of the bed. It would be impossible to jump Salzar without warning. Yet the outlaw must not be allowed to reach the door and use that weapon.

The hand which Mura had grasped now received a message—it was pushed back toward him forcefully. He hoped that he interpreted that correctly. He tensed and, as a wild cry broke from the throat of his bedmate, Dane rolled over the edge to the floor.

Lightning rent the air, fire burst from the bed. But Dane’s hands closed on a strip of Paravian carpet and he gave it a furious tug. Salzar did not lose his balance, but he fell back against the wall. He swung the weapon toward the scrambling cargo-apprentice. Then hands, competent, unhurried, closed about his throat from behind and dragged him to Van Rycke’s barrel chest as the cargo-master proceeded to systematically choke him into submission. Dane and Mura got up from the floor, the blazing bed between them.

There was more confusion, an eruption of Patrolmen, the removal of Salzar and some hasty firefighting. Dane settled down on a bench with a confirmed distaste for beds. Just let him get back to his bunk on the
Queen—
that was all he asked. If he could ever bring himself to try and sleep again.

Van Rycke laid the captured weapon down on the table. “Something new,” he commented. “Perhaps another Forerunner toy, or maybe just loot. The Feds can puzzle it out. But at least we know that the dear doctor is now under control.”

“Thanks to you, sir!” Dane gave credit where it was due.

Van Rycke’s brows raised. “I only supplied the end—there might have been another had we not had warning. Your voice, I believe, Frank,” he nodded to the steward.

Mura yawned politely behind his hand. His tunic was hanging open, he had a slightly disheveled air, but his emotions were all neatly undercover as always.

“A joint enterprise, sir,” he returned. “I would not have been awake to cry out had not Thorson attended to it. He also delivered the motive power with the carpet. It is a wonder to me why Salzar did not burn us first, before he tried to get at you——”

Dane shivered. The smell of the burned bed clothing was strong enough to turn his stomach. He wanted fresh air and lots of it. Also he did
not
want to think of such alternatives as Mura had just spoken about.

“That seals it up,” Captain Jellico came back into the room followed by the Patrol Commander. “You’ve got Rich—what do we do—continue to sit on our fins while you comb the mountains to discover how many ships he smashed up here with that hellish gadget of his?”

“I don’t think, Captain, that you will have to stay much longer,” began the Commander when Van Rycke interrupted.

“Oh, we’re in no great hurry. There is the problem of our rights on Limbo. That hasn’t been discussed as yet. We have a Survey Auction claim, duly paid for and registered, reinforced by an “All Rights” claim good for twelve Terran months. How much these cover salvage and disposal of wrecks found here, and their contents, must be decided——”

“Wrecks as a result of criminal activity,” began the Commander once more, only to have the cargo-master cut in smoothly for the second time: