After that they were together constantly. When Meta was on duty he
brought her meals to the bridge and they talked. Jason learned little
more about her world since, by unspoken agreement, they didn't discuss
it. He talked of the many planets he had visited and the people he had
known. She was an appreciative listener and the time went quickly by.
They enjoyed each other's company and it was a wonderful trip.
Then it ended.
There were fourteen people aboard the ship, yet Jason had never seen
more than two or three at a time. There was a fixed rotation of duties
that they followed in the ship's operation. When not on duty the Pyrrans
minded their own business in an intense and self-sufficient manner. Only
when the ship came out of jump and the PA barked _assembly_ did they all
get together.
Kerk was giving orders for the landing and questions were snapped back
and forth. It was all technical and Jason didn't bother following it. It
was the attitude of the Pyrrans that drew his attention. Their talk
tended to be faster now as were their motions. They were like soldiers
preparing for battle.
Their sameness struck Jason for the first time. Not that they looked
alike or did the same things. It was the _way_ they moved and reacted
that caused the striking similarity. They were like great, stalking
cats. Walking fast, tense and ready to spring at all times, their eyes
never still for an instant.
Jason tried to talk to Meta after the meeting, but she was almost a
stranger. She answered in monosyllables and her eyes never met his, just
brushed over them and went on. There was nothing he could really say so
she moved to leave. He started to put his hand out to stop her--then
thought better of it. There would be other times to talk.
Kerk was the only one who took any notice of him--and then only to order
him to an acceleration couch.
Meta's landings were infinitely worse than her take-offs. At least when
she landed on Pyrrus. There were sudden acceleration surges in every
direction. At one point there was a free fall that seemed endless. There
were loud thuds against the hull that shook the framework of the ship.
It was more like a battle than a landing, and Jason wondered how much
truth there was in that.
When the ship finally landed Jason didn't even know it. The constant
2 G's felt like deceleration. Only the descending moan of the ship's
engines convinced him they were down. Unbuckling the straps and sitting
up was an effort.
Two G's don't seem that bad--at first. Walking required the same
exertion as would carrying a man of his own weight on his shoulders.
When Jason lifted his arm to unlatch the door it was heavy as two arms.
He shuffled slowly towards the main lock.
[Illustration]
They were all there ahead of him, two of the men rolling transparent
cylinders from a nearby room. From their obvious weight and the way they
clanged when they bumped, Jason knew they were made of transparent
metal. He couldn't conceive any possible use for them. Empty cylinders a
meter in diameter, longer than a man. One end solid, the other hinged
and sealed. It wasn't until Kerk spun the sealing wheel and opened one
of them that their use became apparent.
"Get in," Kerk said. "When you're locked inside you'll be carried out of
the ship."
"Thank you, no," Jason told him. "I have no particular desire to make a
spectacular landing on your planet sealed up like a packaged sausage."
"Don't be a fool," was Kerk's snapped answer. "We're _all_ going out in
these tubes. We've been away too long to risk the surface without
reorientation."
* * * * *
Jason did feel a little foolish as he saw the others getting into tubes.
He picked the nearest one, slid into it feet first, and pulled the lid
closed. When he tightened the wheel in the center, it squeezed down
against a flexible seal. Within a minute the CO{2} content in the closed
cylinder went up and an air regenerator at the bottom hummed into life.
Kerk was the last one in. He checked the seals on all the other tubes
first, then jabbed the air-lock override release. As it started cycling
he quickly sealed himself in the remaining cylinder. Both inner and
outer locks ground slowly open and dim light filtered in through sheets
of falling rain.
For Jason, the whole thing seemed an anticlimax. All this preparation
for absolutely nothing. Long, impatient minutes passed before a lift
truck appeared driven by a Pyrran. He loaded the cylinders onto his
truck like so much dead cargo. Jason had the misfortune to be buried at
the bottom of the pile so he could see absolutely nothing when they
drove outside.
It wasn't until the man-carrying cylinders had been dumped in a
metal-walled room, that Jason saw his first native Pyrran life.
The lift truck driver was swinging a thick outer door shut when
something flew in through the entrance and struck against the far wall.
Jason's eye was caught by the motion, he looked to see what it was when
it dropped straight down towards his face.
Forgetful of the metal cylinder wall, he flinched away. The creature
struck the transparent metal and clung to it. Jason had the perfect
opportunity to examine it in every detail.
It was almost too horrible to be believable. As though it were a bearer
of death stripped to the very essentials. A mouth that split the head in
two, rows of teeth, serrated and pointed. Leathery, claw-tipped wings,
longer claws on the limbs that tore at the metal wall.
Terror rose up in Jason as he saw that the claws were tearing gouges in
the transparent metal. Wherever the creature's saliva touched the metal
clouded and chipped under the assault of the teeth.
Logic said these were just scratches on the thick tube. They couldn't
matter. But blind, unreasoning fear sent Jason curling away as far as he
could. Shrinking inside himself, seeking escape.
Only when the flying creature began dissolving did he realize the nature
of the room outside. Sprays of steaming liquid came from all sides,
raining down until the cylinders were covered. After one last clash of
its jaws, the Pyrran animal was washed off and carried away. The liquid
drained away through the floor and a second and third shower followed.
While the solutions were being pumped away, Jason fought to bring his
emotions into line. He was surprised at himself. No matter how frightful
the creature had been, he couldn't understand the fear it could generate
through the wall of the sealed tube. His reaction was all out of
proportion to the cause. Even with the creature destroyed and washed out
of sight it took all of his will power to steady his nerves and bring
his breathing back to normal.
* * * * *
Meta walked by outside and he realized the sterilization process was
finished. He opened his own tube and climbed wearily out. Meta and the
others had gone by this time and only a hawk-faced stranger remained,
waiting for him.
"I'm Brucco, in charge of the adaptation clinic. Kerk told me who you
were. I'm sorry you're here. Now come along, I want some blood samples."
"Now I feel right at home," Jason said. "The old Pyrran hospitality."
Brucco only grunted and stamped out. Jason followed him down a bare
corridor into a sterile lab.
The double gravity was tiring, a constant drag on sore muscles. While
Brucco ran tests on the blood sample, Jason rested. He had almost dozed
off into a painful sleep when Brucco returned with a tray of bottles and
hypodermic needles.
"Amazing," he announced. "Not an antibody in your serum that would be of
any use on this planet. I have a batch of antigens here that will make
you sick as a beast for at least a day. Take off your shirt."
"Have you done this often?" Jason asked. "I mean juice up an outlander
so he can enjoy the pleasures of your world?"
Brucco jammed in a needle that felt like it grated on the bone. "Not
often at all. Last time was years ago. A half-dozen researchers from
some institute, willing to pay well for the chance to study the local
life forms. We didn't say no. Always need more galaxy currency."
Jason was already beginning to feel light-headed from the shots. "How
many of them lived?" he mumbled vaguely.
"One. We got him off in time. Made them pay in advance of course."
At first Jason thought the Pyrran was joking. Then he remembered they
had very little interest in humor of any kind. If one-half of what Meta
and Kerk had told him was true, six to one odds weren't bad at all.
There was a bed in the next room and Brucco helped him to it. Jason felt
drugged and probably was. He fell into a deep sleep and into the dream.
Fear and hatred mixed in equal parts and washed over him red hot. If
this was a dream, he never wanted to sleep again. If it wasn't a dream,
he wanted to die. He tried to fight up against it, but only sank in more
deeply. There was no beginning and no end to the fear and no way to
escape.
When consciousness returned Jason could remember no detail of the
nightmare. Just the fear remained. He was soaked with sweat and ached in
every muscle. It must have been the massive dose of shots, he finally
decided, that and the brutal gravity. That didn't take the taste of fear
out of his mouth, though.
Brucco stuck his head in the door then and looked Jason up and down.
"Thought you were dead," he said. "Slept the clock around. Don't move,
I'll get something to pick you up."
The pickup was in the form of another needle and a glassful of
evil-looking fluid. It settled his thirst, but made him painfully aware
of gnawing hunger.
"Want to eat?" Brucco asked. "I'll bet you do. I've speeded up your
metabolism so you'll build muscle faster. Only way you'll ever beat the
gravity. Give you quite an appetite for a while though."
Brucco ate at the same time and Jason had a chance to ask some
questions. "When do I get a chance to look around your fascinating
planet? So far this trip has been about as interesting as a jail term."
"Relax and enjoy your food. Probably be months before you're able to go
outside. If at all."
Jason felt his jaw hanging and closed it with a snap. "Could you
possibly tell me why?"
"Of course. You will have to go through the same training course that
our children take. It takes them six years. Of course it's their first
six years of life. So you might think that you, as an adult, could learn
faster. Then again they have the advantage of heredity. All I can say is
you'll go outside these sealed buildings when you're ready."
Brucco had finished eating while he talked, and sat staring at Jason's
bare arms with growing disgust. "The first thing we want to get you is a
gun," he said. "It gives me a sick feeling to see someone without one."
Of course Brucco wore his own gun continually, even within the sealed
buildings.
"Every gun is fitted to its owner and would be useless on anyone else,"
Brucco said. "I'll show you why." He led Jason to an armory jammed with
deadly weapons. "Put your arm in this while I make the adjustments."
* * * * *
It was a boxlike machine with a pistol grip on the side. Jason clutched
the grip and rested his elbow on a metal loop. Brucco fixed pointers
that touched his arm, then copied the results from the meters. Reading
the figures from his list he selected various components from bins and
quickly assembled a power holster and gun. With the holster strapped to
his forearm and the gun in his hand, Jason noticed for the first time
they were connected by a flexible cable. The gun fitted his hand
perfectly.
"This is the secret of the power holster," Brucco said, tapping the
flexible cable. "It is perfectly loose while you are using the weapon.
But when you want it returned to the holster--" Brucco made an
adjustment and the cable became a stiff rod that whipped the gun from
Jason's hand and suspended it in midair.
"Then the return." The rod-cable whirred and snapped the gun back into
the holster. "The drawing action is the opposite of this, of course."
"A great gadget," Jason said, "but how _do_ I draw? Do I whistle or
something for the gun to pop out?"
"No, it is not sonic control," Brucco answered with a sober face. "It is
much more precise than that. Here, take your left hand and grasp an
imaginary gun butt. Tense your trigger finger. Do you notice the pattern
of the tendons in the wrist? Sensitive actuators touch the tendons in
your right wrist. They ignore all patterns except the one that says
_hand ready to receive gun_. After a time the mechanism becomes
completely automatic. When you want the gun--it is in your hand. When
you don't--it is in the holster."
Jason made grasping motions with his right hand, crooked his index
finger. There was a sudden, smashing pain against his hand and a loud
roar. The gun was in his hand--half the fingers were numb--and smoke
curled up from the barrel.
"Of course there are only blank charges in the gun until you learn
control. Guns are _always_ loaded. There is no safety. Notice the lack
of a trigger guard. That enables you to bend your trigger finger a
slight bit more when drawing so the gun will fire the instant it touches
your hand."
It was without a doubt the most murderous weapon Jason had ever
handled, as well as being the hardest to manage. Working against the
muscle-burning ache of high gravity, he fought to control the devilish
device. It had an infuriating way of vanishing into the holster just as
he was about to pull the trigger. Even worse was the tendency to leap
out before he was quite ready. The gun went to the position where his
hand should be. If the fingers weren't correctly placed, they were
crashed aside. Jason only stopped the practice when his entire hand was
one livid bruise.
Complete mastery would come with time, but he could already understand
why the Pyrrans never removed their guns. It would be like removing a
part of your own body. The movement of gun from holster to hand was too
fast for him to detect. It was certainly faster than the neural current
that shaped the hand into the gun-holding position. For all apparent
purposes it was like having a lightning bolt in your fingertip. Point
the finger and _blamm_, there's the explosion.
* * * * *
Brucco had left Jason to practice alone. When his aching hand could take
no more, he stopped and headed back towards his own quarters. Turning a
corner he had a quick glimpse of a familiar figure going away from him.
"Meta! Wait for a second--I want to talk to you."
She turned impatiently as he shuffled up, going as fast as he could in
the doubled gravity. Everything about her seemed different from the girl
he had known on the ship. Heavy boots came as high as her knees, her
figure was lost in bulky coveralls of some metallic fabric. The trim
waist was bulged out by a belt of canisters. Her very expression was
coldly distant.
"I've missed you," he said. "I hadn't realized you were in this
building." He reached for her hand but she moved it out of his reach.
"What is it you want?" she asked.
"What is it I want!" he echoed with barely concealed anger. "This is
Jason, remember me? We're friends. It _is_ allowed for friends to talk
without 'wanting' anything."
"What happened on the ship has nothing to do with what happens on
Pyrrus." She started forward impatiently as she talked. "I have finished
my reconditioning and must return to work. You'll be staying here in the
sealed buildings so I won't be seeing you."
"Why don't you say 'with the rest of the children'--that's what your
tone implies? And don't try walking out, there are some things we have
to settle first--"
Jason made the mistake of putting out his hand to stop her. He didn't
really know what happened next. One instant he was standing--the next he
sprawled suddenly on the floor. His shoulder was badly bruised, and Meta
had vanished down the corridor.
Limping back to his own room he cursed women in general and Meta in
particular. Dropping onto his rock-hard bed he tried to remember the
reasons that had brought him here in the first place. And weighed them
against the perpetual torture of the gravity, the fear-filled dreams it
inspired, the automatic contempt of these people for any outsider. He
quickly checked the growing tendency to feel sorry for himself. By
Pyrran standards he _was_ soft and helpless. If he wanted them to think
any better of him, he would have to change a good deal.
He sank into a fatigue-drugged sleep then, that was broken only by the
screaming fear of his dreams.