The two ships landed a few miles apart at almost the same time.
They settled to the plane's surface like whirling hour-glasses. Fire
spouted from them in all directions. Then their movement stopped. Smoke
shrouded them and slowly drifted away.
They were upon a reddish plain. Above them, the red sun filled a twelfth of
the sky. That sky was one vast swirl of crimson. Even the few clouds seemed
to be on fire. And yet their instruments showed that the temperature of the
thin air outside was in the sixties.
There were no mountains or valleys. The giant planet had weathered down to
one great curving plain. It was mostly red sandstone, but here and there
were reddish carpets of moss and grass. In the distance were a few gaunt
trees. They had seen no rivers or seas before they landed. Odin learned
later that there were many muddy ponds left upon the surface from the
remains of stagnant seas. He also learned later that huge reservoirs were
underground.
With the exception of the trees, the only thing that broke the monotonous
line of the horizon was one great dome of violet stone or metal. It flashed
like an amethyst in the red glare of the sun--and it was certainly
man-made.
But on that occasion Jack Odin had little time to look at the scenery. They
had hardly settled to the planet's surface before Grim Hagen trained his
guns upon them and began to fire. Flame enveloped them. Bombs of acid and
steel shook The Nebula. The battle-stations were already manned, and Ato
gave 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 upon
them. And then it was over.
The two ships, scarred and blackened; glared at each other across a
three-mile expanse that had now turned to cinders. And that was all.
Practically indestructible, and evenly matched, they had fought to a
standstill. Neither ship had lost a man.
"See how it is, Nors-King?" Gunnar said as he drew his fingers across the
shaft 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 the
Second 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 contact
with Grim Hagen."
* * * * *
Jack Odin was never quite able to cope with the passing of time on these
planets, while the ships scurried through Trans-Space in what appeared to
be a matter of a few days.
The voice continued. "We invited Grim Hagen to our world. We did not invite
you. Go away."
"I don't think I like his tone," Gunnar interrupted. "Some day I will catch
the 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 do
not have weapons such as yours. But we do have a defense. An electric
screen nearly half a mile across has been placed about you. Watch."
They looked at the screen, and a tiny drone-torpedo came winging its way
from the violet dome. It came to within a thousand yards of them and
suddenly crashed into an unseen barrier. Broken and blazing, it came
falling down like a crippled bird.
"There," the voice said triumphantly. "That is what will happen to you. Why
don'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 to
smash that curtain. We want Grim Hagen and his prisoners. When we have them
we will depart."
"Grim Hagen is our ally. We have already sworn our allegiance. I have no
more words for you."
There was a clicking sound and the loudspeaker died with a sputter of
static.
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 am
a reasonable man. You can have Maya. You can have the ship. You can have
the prisoners--the few that are left. I will trade all these for Wolden's
secret."
"Greed has you in its hand, Grim Hagen. I know nothing of my father's
secret. I do not even know if he succeeded--"
"Then summon him and let him decide for himself. You are young, but
two-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 does
Maya, my slave. I had to beat her the other day. My boots were not polished
very well--"
"Talk on, Grim Hagen," Odin growled. "I am here. And I intend to kill
you--Just as I promised."
"Like most of your race, you talk too loud, Odin. Well, Ato, Gunnar, and
Odin, I am going now. Please don't get in my way or I will hatchet the
flesh from your bones."
Another click and the loudspeaker was silent.
* * * * *
They had landed on the giant, worn planet very early in the day. Now, as
time 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 going
on to the city.
Ato and Odin voted in favor of waiting, although they admitted that they
could think of no better plan. Ato was sure that The Nebula could plunge
through any curtain, but he wanted to try that as a last resort.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of tractors and men was going back and forth
from the Old Ship to the city. Odin watched them on the screen. They were
mostly the white-skinned people of Aldebaran. The Brons who had gone out
into space with Grim Hagen had dwindled away. Odin saw a few white-headed
ones. And once he saw a captain stop to lash a worn, gray-haired Bron who
must have been one of the original prisoners. The poor fellow looked so old
and frazzled that Odin could not recognize him. His heart grew heavy as he
thought of those prisoners. They had done no harm. Their lives had been
wasted away because of their loyalty to Maya. And the words of an old poet
came to his mind: "Think of man's inhumanity to man and write your poem if
you can."
The day passed wearily by.
Odin felt that it was one of the worst days of his life. They had spanned
thousands of light-years and time had slid by like a stream of quicksilver
while they hunted through space. And now, at the last, they were pinned
down on a gaunt planet while a triumphant Grim Hagen went back and forth
from the Old Ship to the violet dome. Welcomed like a conqueror, and
holding 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 faintest
mauve, 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 of
this planet had fed their moon to the dying sun long before.
* * * * *
They ate supper--as Gunnar called it--and then Ato and Odin studied some
photo-maps which they had taken just before they landed. Meanwhile, Gunnar
busied himself with the sword. And Nea, who stayed in her lab most of the
day, 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 steadily
increasing 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. Like
the face of a child that has worked too hard. "I think not," she answered
him 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 still
have my Kalis. With them I could have been a huntress on some greener
planet--another Diana, perhaps. Oh!" She stamped her foot in worriment. "We
held creation in our grasp out here. We could have forced the last secrets
from her. Yes, I will say it! We could have been as gods. And where is it
ending? A mad chase after a madman. And for all the years and all the lives
that have been spent on these two ships, time and space are the only
winners."
* * * * *
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 and
turned on the controls.
A long procession of mauve shadows was approaching. Already inside the
barrier, 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 up
to its highest point, and speaking brokenly in the language of the Brons a
voice 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. We
would visit you in peace. We are called Lorens."
Within a few minutes, a dozen of the strangers had been brought aboard The
Nebula. 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 about
his face that he looked a bit like a mummy. Val was over sixty, Odin
judged, and though his wrists were skinny the tendons and muscles on his
arms stood out like taut lengths of cable. He and his men were dressed
alike--a sleeveless shirt of walnut-brown plastic, dark peg-bottomed
trousers of corduroy, and footgear that looked like engineer's boots
with rippled soles. The tops of the boots were tight-fitting and the
peg-bottomed trousers were drawn snugly over them. Odin learned later
that what had appeared to be green moss out there on the weathered plain
was a kind of thistle with cat-claw thorns.
Each man wore a heavy black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt
were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another
pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted
to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an
over-sized toadstool.
In addition to this odd assortment of gear, each man carried something
in his hand which greatly resembled the frame of an old-fashioned
umbrella--except that half a dozen vari-colored buttons were set into
the handles.
"It was nearly thirty years ago," Val was explaining, "that the voice of
Grim Hagen began to interfere with our broadcasting system. Some said it
was a god. Some said it was a devil. It came from space. It came from
almost 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 the
distance. In times past, our astronomers had seen the glow of millions of
suns, millions upon millions of miles away. But we were never able to
perfect 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 toward
us every twenty years, and our scientists were able to use a gravitational
beam to deflect a part of it toward our sun. In this way we kept it alive
and might have been able to do so for ages. But now the dust-cloud is
gone."
* * * * *
Val paused to sigh, and then resumed his story. "The voice--I mean the
voice of Grim Hagen--promised my people that if they would accept him he
would take them forth into the stars. They would plunder thousands of
worlds and they would live for centuries while generations died. Also, he
said, he was on the brink of discovering eternal life--"
"He was playing at being the eternal Loki--the old mischief-maker--" Gunnar
interrupted and went on edging his sword.
"Well," Val continued, "I cannot blame my people too much for believing
this story. Our plight was desperate. But there were those of us who did
not believe him. He seemed to know too much, when according to our
philosophy 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 once
you 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 shake
of his grizzled head. "This Grim Hagen said that he did not age until he
stopped to conquer a planet and replenish his ship's energy. It was thirty
years ago when he first spoke to us. He looks like a man of forty-five
now. Could he have been an upstart of fifteen when he first spoke into our
receivers?"
"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 he
is so great, why doesn't he give new life to our feeble sun? That is what
we really need. Meanwhile, the people of the Dome are building five new
ships, as Grim Hagen directed. They have been working upon them for
years--"
"Good God," Jack Odin was thinking, "what a hideous propaganda machine
these ships are? To condition and instruct a whole generation while you
flash through space in the twinkling of an eye!"
"And that is all," Val finished with a shrug of his lean shoulders. "Those
of us who had never agreed with the idea were thrown out of the city as
soon 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. There
are strange beasts out there on the plain. This instrument allows us to go
through 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's
advantage. To the city--as fast as we can--"