A _gruoon_, a flying reptile, had started a dive across the thick air
toward the fungus-covered dome of S.S.C. A giant bivalve, at least
fifty meters wide, snapped open. Its lifting shell-half dripped an
avalanche of tendrils and muddy slime. A pliable snout whipped upwards.
On its end, a formless pliant mouth full of row after row of rasp-like
teeth, closed on the _gruoon_, sucked it into the pallid grey pulsating
interior of the bivalve. Its shells closed with slow certainty on the
writhing, screaming _gruoon_.
"We can't make that trek on foot, Kewpie Doll. Got to get back to the
ship. We landed on the wrong side. Got to rush things though, and get
the Zharkon's brain before the Marties try illegal entry and ruin
everything. Come on. I'll get you inside S.S.C., don't worry."
"I'll worry either way--hey, listen!" He froze. His eyes rolled up and
followed the sound droning invisibly above the impenetrable envelope of
mist--the long _hissshowwww_ of a decelerating Martian war-ship.
"That's the boys," growled Venard darkly. His jaw knotted. "Not time to
go back to the ship. Probably five hours--if we made it at all." His
eyes studied the hundred meter-wide barrier of quivering, snapping,
hungry molluscs. "I wonder," he murmured, "if we could do it?"
But Larson, moaning and trembling, was already waist-deep in the
iridescent slime. Venard grinned and followed jerkily. "We'll try
to crawl from one to the other," he managed to say. "So keep your
remaining hand free. Don't draw your blaster unless you have to."
Followed by Larson, now behind him, Venard started climbing gingerly up
the jagged, weirdly-glowing mollusc. Larson puffed painfully, swearing.
They were half way across the shell before it shifted. They crouched
down, hanging on desperately. Around them, shells snapped open and shut
hungrily. Mouthed probosci were snaking about, dragging things out of
the air.
"If we can stay on these things," gasped Venard. "Haven't seen any of
them interested in each other. This baby has a keen sense of taste and
smell; not much sense of touch, though."
Their shell suddenly rocked violently. The two Guardsmen squeezed
themselves between two roughly porous spines for support, drew their
blasters. The top half of the bivalve was slowly lifting.
They clung precariously by friction alone while the shell shook,
rose higher and higher. It shifted, and fell so that its hinge was
uppermost. Larson yelped, slipped, almost fell within reach of the
pulsing pink-tissued maw. His face was dead white.
The gigantic pinkish foot of the mollusc was oozing out and out, away
from them toward the opposite embankment. It stopped almost across the
bed; and when it withdrew toward them, in short contracting jerks, it
left behind, cemented against the shell of another mollusc, a long
strand of fleshy cable as big around as Larson's arm.
The mussel's foot contained a narrow groove ending at a gland which
exuded a sticky substance, much like liquid glue. This hardened almost
instantly when exposed to air. Their shell had placed this foot against
the other mollusc, and the sticky material was forced along the groove,
touched the other mollusc, adhered and hardened. Then by slowly drawing
back the foot, their own shell had, with astounding speed, spun a
strong cable almost across the moat.
"An anchor," shuddered Larson. "It's put out an anchor just like a
ship."
"That cable's more than just an anchor, Kewpie Doll. Evolution's given
him such a weak foot compared to its body weight; it has to throw out a
cable and drag itself from one place to another."
The cable was tightening. The pitted shell to which they miraculously
clung began to shift slightly as the cable stretched taunt. "This is
too lucky a break," groaned Larson. "Getting a free ride across like
this. There's a catch to it, somewhere. Venus ain't operatin' no free
ferry service."
"And that's the catch!" Venard pointed. "We fastened to that other
mollusc. Instead of us moving, we're pulling that other oyster out of
its bed!"
Their living anchor base lifted upward slowly with a long sucking
sound. Their own mollusc wasn't making enough headway even to pull
himself up over other shells. Its anchor base was too weak. But not
passive. It reacted violently.
"Watch out!" screamed Larson, shrinking.
The mollusc to which the cable was fastened suddenly opened its giant
shells, snapped them shut with a thunderous crack. The effect was to
send its great weight in a flying jump to the right about fifteen
meters. The cable parted with a sighing whine, whipped out, round and
back in a deadly arc. Larson screamed again. Only once. The cable
swept him away into the mud. Multicolored, squid-like faces sprouting
thousands of powerful filaments, writhed hungrily toward him as he
struggled briefly.
A choking, helpless horror went through Venard as he saw the bivalve
snap open, and then, a snaking proboscis with the filamented mouth whip
out and close on Larson's twisting body to jerk him down with lightning
swiftness into that pulsating abyss of hungry flesh.
It had happened awfully fast to the toughest little guy in the System.
* * * * *
Too fast for Venard even to try against invincible odds to avert his
death. Eaten alive by a clam. He tried to think of things that would
compensate as the mollusc spun another cable. He concentrated his eyes
and thought on the taut flesh cable the bivalve had spun, the one
remaining link with S.S.C. and the fulfillment of Jhongan's unknown
plan. First Jhongan, then the Kewpie Doll.... He had to keep on to
make their sacrifice seem worth while. Theirs and billions of others
throughout the System.
The mollusc had reached the end of the cable. Its unpredictable nerve
centers had decided, however, to settle down right there. Its migration
was over, maybe for years. And Venard was still about fifty feet from
the other side of the moat.
Acting on impulse, Venard hooked his arms over the cable and leaped
toward the bank. He slid wildly, with little friction, along the new
slickness of the cable strands, plopped into the mud. He crawled
frantically up onto the thick vegetation just as a univalvular mouth
missed him by inches, tried again. He burned it and the charred snout
curled away.
He was across, lying against the mossy slimy uprising shell of S.S.C.
But so what? He had two hands. Larson, their entry ticket, was gone. He
steeled himself, didn't let himself think about it anymore. He brought
the H-gun on down in a quick savage gesture across his left wrist....
He didn't lose consciousness. It was just a quick, jabbing, burning
agony. He looked at the charred stub--and then quickly swallowed five
para-pills. They calmed him, enabled him to climb to his feet and
follow the elevated ramp until he came to the ingress to the scanning
chamber.
He stood inside, before the wall, his legality being checked. The
chromoplex room was barren except for the telescreen and the opening of
the tubecar that would plunge him through the magnetized vacuum tube
into the heart of S.S.C.--and to what?
Tendrils of a vague fear oozed insidiously into his mind. He couldn't
shake free from a superstitious sensing of evil hidden danger. He heard
the faint murmuring of concealed photo-electric mechanisms and relays.
He was being thoroughly scanned.
A milky opalescense filled the screen, and coalesced; a misty outline
solidified, looked stoically at Venard. Recognition shocked the
Guardsman. It was Bronlen, greatest Solar physicist Terra had ever
produced. Bronlen had been summoned to S.S.C. ten years ago to become
its Director. Consequently, like all who came here, he had dropped out
of all sight and sound. But how he had changed! Only a few among the
allied worlds had ever come to S.S.C. for a long time now, even for
such a vitally needed thing as a body part transplantation. S.S.C. had
become a place of mystery and strange fear. A place shunned and hated.
The austere, smoothly-aged face seemed, somehow, not human. Unalive,
a dull conscienceless face that shouldn't be Bronlen at all. The
bloodless lips parted.
"You may enter, barbarian. You are entitled to have your left hand
replaced, thought it's too bad you decided to annoy us, and didn't
resign yourself to your barbaric fate of one-handedness like most other
barbarians of the System have wisely decided to do. However, upon
completion of the transplantation, you will be transported immediately
and directly back out of S.S.C. Now the tubecar will take you directly
to the hetero-transplant ward."
The screen faded and Venard, boiling with inner rage and hatred,
entered the tubecar. Then, desperate helplessness as he felt the
tingling numbness settling over his brain. Concealed hypnotic
frequencies. They were blanking him out!
V
Sometime later he was violently awakened by hands shaking him.
"Karl!... Karl!" There was a terrible urgency in the low, rich
voice. But this was mad dreaming! He'd never really expected to hear
this voice again. Subconsciously, buried deep down, he had perhaps
entertained the idea that he might see her again, but--
"Karl, hurry and wake up, for the love of Heaven! They're coming back.
I've got to explain before they get here!"
Venard opened his eyes, sat bolt upright on a kind of operating table.
It was her all right. Vale. She was bending over him. Strangely, she
didn't seem to have changed much. She appeared older, a little, with
some of the blue fire gone from her eyes. "Hello, Vale," he finally
managed to say rather thickly. He didn't want to sound that way. He
wanted to sound cynical, tough. He didn't at all.
In her drab grey interne's robe and cap she stood trembling above him,
eyes wild with fear. She shoved his H-gun at him. "I don't know why you
came here, but take this gun. You'll need it. I know you didn't come
here just for another hand."
Wordlessly, he took the gun, hid it under his tunic. He flexed
his--yes, they had transplanted the hand. He clenched his new fist on
the H-gun. The whole transplantation process probably hadn't taken
more than an hour. Incredibly advanced healing acceleration--amazing
bio-chemical and surgical science. Just an example of the knowledge
held imprisoned inside S.S.C. Knowledge that should have been given out
to the Federation.
"Vale. You don't seem the same. Why didn't you come back? You promised."
Her eyes shone wetly, and her full lips quivered. "Oh, how I wanted to
come back. I tried. But it completely ended my free agency of will and
mind." Then her voice became harsh and urgent.
He swung around as she said tautly, "No time for reminiscence. I know
you. You're here for some desperate, mad reason or other. But it won't
go here, Karl. S.S.C. is completely under its power. You haven't a
chance, nothing human has a chance against it. That's why I never even
tried to get word to you at first, while I still had a chance. I knew
that if you came here to help me, it would only get you too. None of us
here can do anything now, or ever. We're all mindless slaves."
"Except you," commented Venard sarcastically. "I.Q. Saunders. But then,
you always did have a mind of your own."
Her eyes darted wildly down toward the paneled door of the operating
room. "That puzzles me, Karl. My full mental faculties returned to me
seven days ago, Earth time. It was a flash of white flame. And it's
hold over me dropped away. But it's influence is coming back, creeping
in again. Oh, it's horrible, horrible! Karl, you've got to--"
Venard felt a chill of alien cold. Seven days ago, Earth time. "The
memory-crystal," he whispered. "That's the night I smashed the Venusian
memory-crystal."
"Don't talk mystical nonsense," she said frenziedly. "When they come to
send you out of S.S.C., don't try any mad scheme. Just go, and please
say or do nothing. Just leave S.S.C. without question. Please Karl."
He liked to hear that kind of talk, especially from Vale. He stood up;
he was a little weak. "I came here to get that preserved Zharkonian
brain from the body banks. I'm going to give it to the Martians and
they're going to replace the present Zharkonian ruler's injured brain
with it. You can believe anything, even that I'm a spy working for the
Marties, if you want to. Jhongan said--"
Vale interrupted. "That's the brain we have preserved here. That of the
first Zharkon. An experiment in bio-chemistry. They actually succeeded
in developing a synthetic brain." Her lips twisted thoughtfully. "Yes,
I can see Jhongan's reasons. Ingenious, and it probably would work,
but--listen!"
She gripped his shoulders. The touch did things to Venard's nervous
system. Forgotten things. "But it's useless," she said, "for you to try
such a scheme here, Karl. The Martians, for all their military might,
are just insignificant pawns."
Venard exclaimed, "Martians--just pawns! You haven't been around
lately. Those babies have taken over everything, and they intend to
keep it. This other menace ... don't be so mysteriously evasive, Vale.
Who, or what, is this _it_? Don't tell me the Martie desert tribes'
rumors about an alien god controlling S.S.C. is authentic!"
She tried to answer, but she swayed, shut her eyes, and clenched
small white fists. Her body twitched violently, blood drained from
her face. He shot an arm about her waist, but she was stiff, cold and
unyielding. And this was too abnormal. Her head fell back over his arm.
Then she opened her eyes slowly. They were glazing, dulling, as though
being seared by a minute but horrific flame. Her lips moved stiffly.
"It--back--jo--jo--"
He was holding her that way when the door slid noislessly open and they
filed through.
* * * * *
He hated them thoroughly--the weird polyglot of selfish recluses,
without purposes here in their rotten, sequestered borough. Greatest
minds of the System withholding their marvels of science. The Martie
surgeon, the Mercurian medic, the Ganymedian and Saturnian, slippery,
metallic and spidery. And weirdest of all, the Jovian liquescent brain
in its square, black cubicle body ... a faceless, eyeless, limbless
parasite. An incredibly specialized thinking formulae sentiently
bubbling in the arms of the Martian medic.
On its own world, there were special mechanisms designed to carry these
Jovians around. But here in S.S.C. it evidently utilized personnel for
transportation. No Jovian had ever visited another world in the System,
and vice versa. They were neutrals with a strict mutual code of hands
off with all other planets.
They were the sociopaths of the System. They had never entered the
Federation, even on paper. Isolationists who--
* * * * *
Then he knew. Without that clue from poor Vale, he might never have
found out the truth until it was too late. If it wasn't already much
too late.
"_Jo--Jo--_" just what she had been trying to tell him. The menace to
the Solar System that made even the Martians only insignificant pawns
were the unknown completely ignored Jovians!
The Martians pawns of these little--impossible. No, not impossible.
The Jovians were mysteriously uncatalogued. They possessed telepathic
power by which they communicated with each other. But no being of any
other planet had ever been able to communicate with a Jovian--as far
as anyone knew. It was said that it demanded some time for a Jovian to
familiarise itself with highly individualized brain-wave patterns.