The Capture of the Ship
Nielson made his dispositions with care. The ship lay in a little meadow
where the trees bent inward from the blue water of the lake to form a
cove. Her nose was pointed toward the water and her tail was almost in
the trees. Nielson sent three men on a wide circuit. They were to attack
from the farther side. It was to be a feint. While the three men drew
attention to them, the main body was to charge.
"We have every chance of succeeding," Nielson said. "And if we do gain
the ship again, this time we won't stay here. Vega has at least two
planets. The ship will fly to the other one without repairs. You should
have thought of that, Hargraves."
"There are a lot of things I should have thought of and didn't,"
Hargraves answered. There was no animosity in his tone. "What I would
like to know is what they are doing there beside the ship?"
Thulon and his three companions were visible beside the vessel. They
were busily engaged in setting up a device of some kind. Others of their
species had joined them until there were possibly thirty or forty
present. Through the the gaping hole in the hull, still others could be
seen peering out. What they were doing Hargraves could not discern.
"Odd," said Usher beside him.
"What is?"
"It's odd that they should still seem to be human in form," the
archeologist answered. "Ah. Perhaps there is the reason."
Both locks were open. The thing that looked like Hal Sarkoff had just
emerged from the nearest one. He went directly to the main group. They
were erecting something that looked like a tripod. Several were carrying
pieces of metal from the ship which they were fastening together to form
the legs of the tripod. At the apex of the tripod something that looked
like a box was coming into existence.
"They are completely unarmed," Hargraves heard Nielson say. "There isn't
a weapon in the whole damned bunch. We'll blast them senseless before
they even know they're being attacked."
"If they don't succeed in manning the negatron," Usher pointed out.
"They don't know how to operate the negatron."
"Don't they? I might mention that they seem to know everything that
Sarkoff knew. And Hal certainly knew how that negatron operated. He
could take it apart and put it back together blind-folded."
"That's so," Nielson admitted. For a second unease showed on his lean
face. "Well, that only means we will have to lick them before they can
get that negatron into operation. One thing is certain--we have to have
the ship."
"You're right on that score," Usher grimly said.
Seconds ticked away into minutes. The group busy about the ship had no
intimation they were about to be attacked. They were careless to the
point of foolhardiness. No sentries had been posted, no effort had been
made to hide the vessel.
"What are they, really?" Hargraves thought. He wondered if they were
some strange form of water-dwelling life that lived in the lakes of this
planet. Perhaps that was what they were! Perhaps the transition from the
fish to the mammal had never been made on this planet, the fish-form
developing keen intelligence. Certainly there was intelligence on this
world. But it seemed to be an intelligence humans could not comprehend.
* * * * *
The signal for the attack sounded. Fierce shouts came from the other
side of the ship. The shouters were hidden, but there was no mistaking
the sounds. They came from human throats.
"Give 'em hell, boys!"
"Tear 'em to pieces!"
The harsh throbbing of vibration pistols split the quiet air.
"Steady!" Nielson said. "Wait until they go to see what's happening."
The group busy around the ship raised startled faces from their task.
They seemed to listen. Then they turned and ran around the bow of the
vessel.
"Come on!" cried Nielson, leaping from concealment.
There wasn't a person left in sight to oppose them. Fifty yards to
cross. Fifty yards to the ship! Fifty yards to a fighting chance for
life!
Under their racing feet the soft turf was soundless.
Twenty-five yards to go now. Ten yards. Ten feet to the open lock.
Thulon appeared in the lock. He looked in surprise at the charging men.
Except for the rough staff that he carried he was weaponless.
Nielson didn't give the command to fire, didn't need to give it. Every
vibration pistol had been drawn long before the men leaped from cover.
Every pistol came up at the same instant, every index finger squeezed a
trigger.
Only Thulon stood between them and a fighting chance for life. They came
of warrior races, these men. No bugles urged them on. They needed no
bugles.
A howling vortex of radiation smashed at the figure in the lock.
One vibration pistol would destroy a man, smash him to bloody bits. More
than a dozen pistols were centered on the figure standing before them.
Thulon stood unharmed.
Staff in front of him he stood facing the fingers of hell reaching for
him. The flaming fingers grasped, and did not touch him.
The shooting stopped as abruptly as it began. The charge stopped.
Hargraves saw Nielson staring dazedly from the figure in the lock to the
pistol in his hand as if the two were irreconcilable. The pistol ought
to have destroyed Thulon. It hadn't destroyed him. For a mad moment,
Hargraves felt sorry for the new captain. He, too, had run headlong into
a logical impossibility.
All sounds were suddenly stilled, all shouting stopped, all noises died
away.
Around the bow of the ship Hal Sarkoff came running. He saw the group
and looked bewildered. "Hey! How did you guys get here?"
"Blast him!" Nielson said, centering his pistol on this new target.
From the staff in Thulon's hand came a soft tinkle, a bell-like sound.
Nothing seemed to happen but Nielson staggered as if he had been hit a
sharp blow. The pistol flew out of his hand and landed twenty feet away.
* * * * *
"Listen, you apes," Sarkoff shouted at the top of his voice. "I'm Hal
Sarkoff. I've always been Hal Sarkoff. I'll never be anybody else but
Hal Sarkoff. Do you get it?"
They didn't get it.
"If you--" Nielson whispered. "If you are really Sarkoff, then
who--what--is he?" He pointed toward Thulon still standing in the lock.
"Him?" The grin on the craggy face belonged to Hal Sarkoff and to no one
else. "Meet a god," he said.
"A god?" That was Usher speaking now, his voice a tense whisper.
Sarkoff continued grinning. "Well, he resurrected me when I was deader
than hell. I guess that makes him a god."
"You--you know you were dead?"
"Yep. At least I guess I know it. The last thing I remember is trying to
get back to the control panel when we got that hole knocked in the ship,
so I could cut the drivers back in. After that everything gets kind of
hazy. The next thing I remember is my pal here," he gestured toward
Thulon, "and a lot of his buddies chirping like sparrows while they
worked over me. And believe me, they were working me over plenty. I felt
like I had been turned inside out, wrung out, hung out to dry, then
stuffed all over again."
"But when you came back to the ship," Hargraves spoke, "you said you
remembered everything that had happened, the crash of the ship, our
hiding her. If you were dead, how did you learn these things?"
"He told me," Sarkoff answered, nodding toward Thulon. "He filled out my
memory for me with dope he had taken from your mind while you were
talking. Reading minds is one of that old boy's minor accomplishments."
"Then why didn't you tell us the truth?" Hargraves exploded. "You said
you had been sent out scouting. Why didn't you tell us what had really
happened?" Mentally he added, "If it happened!"
"Because you apes wouldn't have believed me!" Sarkoff answered. "To your
knowledge--mine, too, until it happened--dead men don't get up out of
their graves and walk. If I had told you the truth, you wouldn't have
believed a word of it. If I told you something you knew wasn't true,
that you had sent me out on a scouting trip, you would know I was lying,
you would figure it was a trick of some kind, and you would wait around
and try to discover the trick. While you were waiting around trying to
catch me, I could get in some missionary work on Ron Val. I knew I could
convert him, if I had a chance to talk to him. With him on my side, we
could convince the rest of you. It would have worked too. All it needed
was a little time for you boys to get used to the idea of a dead man
coming back to life." He looked at Nielson. "Remind me to black that
other eye of yours one of these days."
"What?" said Hargraves. "What's this?"
"Our pal Nielson," Sarkoff said. "If _you_ think before you act, _he_
acts before he thinks. You had no sooner gone chasing off to see if I
was really where you had buried me, which was what I thought you would
do, until Nielson comes poking into where Ron Val and I were holding a
conference. Nielson had a gun. He had it out ready to use. He figured
the only safe thing to do was to shoot me. So," Sarkoff shrugged, "I had
to smack him. He had forced my hand."
[Illustration: Fists lashed out, weapons appeared, and cries of fury
rent the air]
There was a slight stir among the group. This was news to all of them.
"Is this true?" Hargraves said.
"Yes," said Nielson defiantly. "And I was right. I should have killed
him. He isn't Hal Sarkoff. He isn't telling the truth about coming back
to life. Sarkoff is dead."
* * * * *
Sarkoff glanced up at Thulon who was still standing in the lock looking
down at the men before him. There was a ghost of a smile on his face.
"See!" said Sarkoff, addressing Thulon. "I told you we couldn't tell
these boys anything. They have to see, they have to feel, they have to
be shown."
"Well," the thought came from Thulon to everyone. "Why don't you show
them?"
"Okay," Sarkoff answered. "Nevins!" he shouted. "Reese! Come out of that
ship."
Nevins and Reese were the two engineers who had died with Sarkoff.
Thulon moved a little to one side. Nevins and Reese came out of the
ship. They were grinning.
"Feel us!" Sarkoff shouted. "Pinch us. Cut off a slice of skin and
examine it under a microscope. Make blood tests. Use X-rays. Do whatever
you damned please." He shoved a brawny arm under Nielson's nose. "Here.
Pinch this and see if you think it's real."
Nielson shrank away.
Nevins and Reese passed among the men, offering themselves in evidence.
Startled voices called softly in answer to other startled voices.
"They're real."
"This is no lie. This is the truth."
"I've known this man for years. This is Eddie Nevins."
"And this is Sam Reese."
Hargraves heard the voices, saw the conclusion they were reaching.
"One moment," he said.
The voices went into silence. Eyes turned questioningly to him.
"Even if these men are really Hal Sarkoff and Eddie Nevins and Sam
Reese, if they are the companions we knew as dead who have miraculously
been returned to us, there are still facts that do not fit into a
logical pattern. Even here on this world the laws of logic must hold
true."
Silence fell. Men looked at him and at each other. Where there had been
wonder on their faces, new doubts were appearing.
"What facts, Jed?" Sarkoff questioned.
"The sphere that attacked us, that attempted to destroy us, without
warning. This is a fact that does not fit."
"The sphere?" Uncertainty showed on Sarkoff's face. Then he grinned
again and turned to Thulon. "You tell him about that sphere."
"Gladly," Thulon's thoughts came. "As you know, Vega has two planets.
Long ago we were at war with the inhabitants of this other planet. Part
of our defenses around our own planet were floating fortresses. The war
is done but we have left guards in the sky to protect us if we are
attacked. The sphere that attacked you was one of our automatic forts
which we had left in the sky."
"Ah!" said Hargraves. The cold logic of his mind sought a pattern that
would include fortresses in the sky. Presuming war between two planets,
such fortresses were logical. But--
"The construction of such a sphere indicates vast technical knowledge,
tremendous workshops. I have seen no laboratories and no industrial
centers that could produce such a fortress. I have, moreover, seen no
civilization that will serve as a background for such construction."
* * * * *
He waited for an answer. Usher, the archeologist, looked suddenly at
him, then looked at Thulon.
"The fortresses were built long ago," Thulon said. "In those past
milleniums we had industrial centers. We no longer need them and we no
longer have them."
"Then there _is_ another stage!" the archeologist gasped. "You are past
the city stage in your evolutionary process. You are beyond the metal
age. What--" Usher eagerly asked. "What comes after that?"
"We are beyond the age of cities," Thulon answered. "The next but
possibly not final stage is a return to nature. We live in the groves
and the fields, beside the lakes, under the trees. We need no protection
from the elements because we are in unison with them. There are no
enemies on this world, no dangers, almost no death. In your thinking you
can only describe us as gods. Our activities are almost entirely mental.
Our only concession of materialism is this." He lifted the staff. "When
you fired at me, this staff canceled your beams. It would have canceled
them if they had been a thousand times stronger. When one of you
attempted to destroy Sarkoff, force went out from this staff, knocking
the weapon from his hand. There are certain powers leashed within this
staff, certain arrangements of crystals that are very nearly ultimate
matter. Through this staff my will is worked. Some day," he smiled, "we
will even be able to discard the staff. That is the goal of our
evolution."
The thoughts went into soft silence and Thulon looked down at them.
"Does that satisfy you?" His eyes went among the group, came to rest on
Hargraves. "No, I see it does not. There is still one fact that you
cannot fit into your pattern."
"Yes," said Hargraves. "If all that you have told us is true, why was
the ship stolen?"
"Everything has to fit for you?" Sarkoff answered. "Well, that's why you
are our leader. I can answer this question. I took the ship so I could
have it repaired. Then, when I brought it back to you, fit to fly again,
all of us would have evidence that we could not deny. You might doubt my
identity, you might doubt me, but you would not doubt a ship that had
been repaired. Thulon," Sarkoff ended, "will you do your stuff?"
* * * * *
Standing a little apart from the rest Hargraves watched. Thulon and his
comrades brought metal from the vessel. How they used the tripod he
could not see but in some way they seemed to use it to melt the metal.
This was magna steel. They worked it as if it were pure tin. It didn't
seem to be hot but they spread sheets of it over the gaping hole in the
hull. They closed the hole. He knew the ship had been repaired but still
he did not move. On the ground before him was something that looked like
an ant hill. He watched this, his mind reaching out and grasping a
bigger problem. The ants, he could see, were swarming.
Nielson detached himself from the group at the ship and came to him.
"Jed," he said hesitatingly.
"What?"
"Jed, what Hal said about me attacking him was right. I thought--I
thought he wasn't Sarkoff. I thought I was doing what was right."
"I don't doubt you," Hargraves answered. His mind was not on what
Nielson was saying.
"Jed."
"Uh?"
"Jed. I--"
"What is it?"
"Jed, will you take over command again?" The words came fast. "I--"
"Huh? Take over command? Don't you like the job?"
Nielson shivered. "No. I'm not ready for it yet. Jed, will you take it
over, please?"
"Huh? Oh, sure, if that is what the fellows want."
"They want it. So do I."
"Okay then." Hargraves was scarcely aware that Nielson had left. Nor did
he notice Ron Val approaching.
"Jed."
"Huh?"
"Jed, I've been talking to Thulon." The astro-navigator's voice was
trembling with excitement. "Jed, do you know that Thulon and his people
_belong to our race_?"
"What?" the startled captain gasped. "Oh, damn it, Ron Val, you're
dreaming again."
* * * * *
It would be a wonderful dream come true, Hargraves knew, if it was true.
The human race had kin folks in the universe! Man did not stand alone.
There was something breath-taking in the very thought of it.
"Thulon says the tests he ran on Hal Sarkoff proved it. He says his
people sent out exploring expeditions long ago, just like we are doing,
only the groups they sent out were more colonists than explorers. He
says one of these groups landed on earth and that we are the descendants
of that group, sons of colonists come back to the mother world after
uncounted centuries of absence--"
Ron Val was babbling, the words were tumbling over each other on his
lips.
"Oh, hell, Ron Val, it doesn't fit," Jed Hargraves said. "We can trace
our evolutionary chain back to the fish in the seas--"
"Sure," Ron Val interrupted. "But we don't know that those fish came
from the seas of earth!"
"Huh?" Hargraves gasped. "Well, I'll be damned! I never thought of that
possibility." He looked at the lakes dancing in the Vegan sunshine. From
these lakes, from these seas, had come the original fish-like creature
that eventually became human in form! The thought was startling.
"The colonists landed on earth thousands of years ago," Ron Val said.
"Maybe they smashed their ship in landing, had to learn to live off the
country. Maybe they forgot who they were, in time. Jed, we have legends
that we are the children of God. Maybe--Oh, Jed, Thulon says it's true."
Hargraves hesitated, torn between doubt and longing. He looked down. On
the ground in front of him the ants were still swarming. Hundreds of
them were coming from the ant hill and were flying off. There were
thousands of them. Eventually, in the recesses of this vast grove, there
would be new colonies, which would swarm in their turn. He watched them
flying away. The air was bright with the glint of their wings.
He looked up. Thulon was coming toward them. Thulon was smiling.
"Welcome home," his voice whispered in their minds. "Welcome home."
Hargraves began to smile.
End of Project Gutenberg's Planet of the Gods, by Robert Moore Williams