DeLameters and Space-Axe!
Cloud wasted no time in swearing; he could swear and act
simultaneously. He flashed his cruiser up near the lifeboat, went
inert, and began to match velocities even before the Uhalian's
heat-beam expired. Since his intrinsic was not very far off, as such
things go, it wouldn't take him very long, and he'd need all the time
to get ready for what he had to do. He conferred briefly with the
boat's Chickladorian pilot upon his visual, then thought intensely.
He would have to board the lifeboat--he didn't see any other way out
of it. Even if he had anything to blast it with, he couldn't without
killing innocent people. And he didn't have much offensive stuff; his
cruiser was not a warship. She carried plenty of defense, but no heavy
offensive beams at all.
He had two suits of armor, a G-P regulation and his vortex special,
which was even stronger. He had his DeLameters. He had four
semi-portables and two needle-beams, for excavating. He had thousands
of duodec bombs, not one of which could be detonated by anything less
violent than the furious heart of a loose atomic vortex.
What else? Nothing--or yes, there was his sampler. He grinned as he
looked at it. About the size of a tack-hammer, with a needle point on
one side and a razor blade on the other. It had a handle three feet
long. A deceptive little thing, truly, for it weighed fifteen pounds
and that tiny blade could shear through neocarballoy as cleanly as a
steel knife slices through cheese. It was made of dureum, that peculiar
synthetic which, designed primarily for use in hyper-spatial tubes, had
become of wide utility. Considering what terrific damage a Valerian
could do with a space-axe, he should be able to do quite a bit with
this. It ought to qualify at least as a space-hatchet!
He put on his special armor, set his DeLameters to maximum intensity
at minimum aperture, and hung the hatchet upon a hook at his belt. He
eased off his blasts--there, the velocities matched. A minute's work
with needle-beam, tractors and pressors sufficed to cut the two smaller
ships apart and to dispose of the Uhalian's magnets and cables. Another
minute of careful manipulation and the cruiser had taken the Uhalian's
place. He swung out, locked the cruiser's outer portal behind him, and
entered the lifeboat.
As Cloud stepped into the boat's saloon he was met by a lethal,
high-intensity beam. He had not really expected such an instantaneous,
undeclared war, but he was ready for it.
Every screen he had was full out, his left hand held poised and ready
at his hip on a screened DeLameter. His return blast was practically a
reflection of Darjeeb's bolt, and it did vastly more damage, for the
Uhalian had made an error!
The hand which held the ray-gun was the one which had been manhandling
the pilot, and the monster had not had time, quite, to get it back
inside his screens. In the fury of Cloud's riposte, gun and hand
disappeared, as did a square foot of panel behind them. But Darjeeb had
other hands and other guns, and for seconds blinding rays raved out
against unyielding defensive screens.
Neither screen went down. The Tellurian holstered his DeLameter. It
would not take much of this stuff, he reflected, to kill some of the
passengers remaining in the saloon. He'd go in with his hatchet!
* * * * *
He lugged it up and leaped, driving straight forward at the flaming
projectors, with all of his mass and strength going into the swing of
his weapon. The enemy did not dodge, merely threw up a hand to flick
aside with his gun-barrel the descending toy.
Cloud grinned fleetingly as he realized what the other must be
thinking--that the man must be puny indeed to be making such ado in
wielding such a tiny, trifling thing. For, to anyone not familiar with
dureum, it is sheerly unbelievable that so much mass and momentum can
possibly reside in so small a bulk.
Thus, when fiercely-driven cutting edge met opposing ray-gun, it did
not waver or deflect. It scarcely even slowed. Through the metal of the
gun that vicious blade sliced resistlessly, shearing off fingers as it
sped. And on down, urged by everything Cloud's powerful frame could
deliver. Through armor it punched, through the bony plating covering
that tremendous double shoulder, deep into the flesh and bone of the
shoulder itself. So deep that its penetration was stopped only by the
impact of the hatchet's haft against the armor.
Under the impetus of the man's furious attack both battlers went down.
The unwounded Tellurian, however, was the first to recover control.
Cloud's mailed hands were still clamped to the sampler's grips, and,
using his weapon as a staff, he scrambled to his feet. He planted one
steel boot upon the helmet's dome, got a momentary stance with the
other thrust into the angle between barrel body and flailing leg, bent
his burly back and heaved. The deeply-embedded blade tore out through
bone and flesh and metal--and as it did so the two rear cabled arms
dropped limp, useless!
That mighty rear shoulder and its appurtenances were thoroughly _hors
du combat_. The monster still had one good hand, however--and he was
still in the fight!
That hand flashed out, to seize the hatchet and to wield it against
its owner. It was fast, too--but not quite fast enough. The man,
strongly braced, yanked backward, the weapon's needle point and keen
blade tearing through flesh and snicking off clutching fingers as it
was hauled away. Then Cloud swung his axe aloft and poised, making it
abundantly clear that the next stroke would be straight down into the
top of the Uhalian's head.
That was enough. The monster backed away, every eye aglare, and Cloud
stepped warily over to the captive, Luda. A couple of strokes of his
trenchant sampler gave him a length of chain. Then, working carefully
to keep his wounded foe threatened at every instant, he worked the
chain into a tight loop around Darjeeb's neck, pulled it unmercifully
taut around a stanchion, and welded it there with his DeLameter.
Nor did he trust the other monster unreservedly, bound though she was.
In fact, he did not trust her at all. In spite of family rows, like
has a tendency to fight with like against a common foe! But since she
was not wearing armor, she didn't stand a chance against a DeLameter.
Hence, he could now take time to look around the saloon.
The pilot, lying flat upon the floor, was beginning to come to. Not
quite flat, either, for a shapely Chickladorian girl, wearing the
forty-one square inches of covering which was _de rigeur_ in her eyes,
had his head cushioned upon one bare leg, and was sobbing gibberish
over him. That wouldn't help. Cloud started toward the first-aid
cabinet, but stopped. A white-wrapped figure was already bending over
the injured man, administering something out of a black bottle. He
knew what it was--kedeselin. That was what he had been going after
himself, but he would not have dared to give even a hippopotamus such
a terrific jolt as she was pouring into him. She must be a nurse and a
top-ranker--but Cloud shivered in sympathy.
The pilot stiffened convulsively, then relaxed. His eyes rolled; he
gasped and shuddered; but he came to life and sat up groggily.
* * * * *
"What goes on here?" Cloud demanded ungently, in spaceal. The
Chickladorian's wounds had already been bandaged. Nothing more could
be done for him until they could get him to a hospital, and he _had_ to
report before he blacked out entirely.
"I don't know," the pink man made answer, recovering by the minute.
"All the ape said, as near as I could get it, was that I had to show
him all about inertialessness."
He then spoke rapidly to the girl--his wife, Cloud guessed--who was
still holding him fervently.
The pink girl nodded. Then, catching Cloud's eye, she pointed at the
two monstrosities, then at the Manarkan nurse standing calmly near
by. Startlingly slim, swathed to the eyes in billows of glamorette,
she looked as fragile as a reed--but Cloud knew that appearances were
highly deceptive in that case. She, too, nodded at the Tellurian, then
talked rapidly in sign language to a short, thick-muscled woman of some
race entirely strange to the Blaster. She was used to going naked; that
was very evident. She had been wearing a light robe of convention,
but it had been pretty well demolished in the melee and she did not
realize that what was left of it was hanging in tatters down her broad
back. The "squatty" eyed the gesticulating Manarkan and spoke in a
beautifully modulated, deep bass voice to the Chickladorian eyeful, who
in turn passed the message along to her husband.
"The bonehead you had the argument with says to hell with you," the
pilot translated finally into spaceal. "Says his mob will be out here
after him directly, and if you don't cut him loose and give him all the
dope on our Bergs he'll give us all the beam--plenty."
Luda was, meanwhile, trying to attract attention. She was bouncing
up and down, rattling her chains, rolling her eyes, and in general
demanding notice of all.
More communication ensued, culminating in, "The one with the
fancy-worked skull--she's a frail, but not the other bonehead's frail,
I guess--says pay no attention to the ape. He's a murderer, a pirate, a
bum, a louse, and so forth, she says. Says to take your axe and cut his
damn head clean off, chuck his carcass out the port, and get to hell
out of here as fast as you can blast."
Cloud figured that that might be sound advice, at that, but he didn't
want to take such drastic steps without more comprehensive data.
"Why?" he asked.
But this was too much for the communications relays to handle. Cloud
realized that he did not know spaceal at all well, since he had not
been out in deep space very long. He knew that spaceal was a simple
language, not well adapted to the accurate expression of subtle nuances
of meaning. And all those intermediate translations were garbling
things terrifically. He was not surprised that nothing much was
coming through, even though the prettied-up monster was by this time
practically throwing a fit.
"She's quit trying to spin her yarn," the Chickladorian said finally.
"She says she's been trying to talk to you direct, but she can't get
through. Says to unseal your ports--cut your screens--let down your
barrier--something like that. Don't know what she does mean, exactly.
None of us does except maybe the Manarkan, and she can't get it across
on her fingers."
"Oh, my thought-screen!" Cloud exclaimed, and cut it forthwith.
"More yet," the pilot went on, after a time. "She says there's another
one, just as bad or worse. On your head, she says--no, on your
head-bone--what the hell! Skull? No, _inside_ your skull, she says now.
Hell's bells, _I_ don't know what she wants!"
"Maybe I do--keep still a minute." A telepath, undoubtedly, like the
Manarkans--that was why she had to talk to her first. He'd never been
around telepaths much--never tried it. He walked a few steps and stared
directly into one pair of Luda's eyes. Large, expressive eyes, soft
now, and gentle.
"That's it, Chief! Now blast easy--baffle your jets. Relax, she means.
Open your locks and let her in!"
* * * * *
Cloud did relax, but gingerly. He did not like this mind-to-mind stuff
at all, particularly when the other mind belonged to such a monster. He
lowered his mental barriers skittishly, ready to revolt at any instant.
But as soon as he began to understand the meaning of her thoughts he
forgot utterly that he was not talking man to man. The interchange was
not as specific nor as facile as is here to be indicated, of course,
but every detail was eventually made perfectly clear.
"I demand Darjeeb's life!" was her first intelligible thought. "Not
because he is my enemy and the enemy of all my race--that would not
weigh with you--but because he has done what no one else, however
base, has ever been so lost to shame as to do. In the very capital of
our city upon Lune he kindled an atomic flame which is killing us in
multitudes. In case you do not know about atomic flames, they can never
be--"
"I know--we call them loose atomic vortices. But they can be
extinguished. That is my business, putting them out."
"Oh--incredible but glorious news!" Luda's thoughts seethed, became
incomprehensible. Then, after a space, "To win your help for my race
I perceive that I must be completely frank with you," she went on.
"Observe my mind closely, please, so that you may see for yourself
that I am withholding nothing. Darjeeb wants at any cost the secret
of your vessels' speed. With it his race will destroy mine utterly.
I want it too, of course--if I could obtain it we would wipe out the
Uhalians. However, since you are so much more powerful than could
be believed possible, I realize that I am helpless. I tell you,
therefore, that both Darjeeb and I have long since summoned help.
Warships of both sides are approaching to capture one or both of these
vessels. Darjeeb's are nearest, and these secrets must not, under any
conditions, go to Uhal. Dash out into space with both of these vessels,
so that we can plan at leisure. First, however, kill that unspeakable
murderer. You have scarcely injured him the way it is. Or, free me,
give me that so-deceptive little axe, and I will be only too glad--"
A chain snapped ringingly, and metal clanged against metal. Only two of
Darjeeb's major arms had been incapacitated; his two others had lost
only a few fingers apiece from their respective hands. His immense
bodily strength was almost unimpaired; his feeding hand was untouched.
He could have broken free at any time, but he had waited, hoping
that he could take Cloud by surprise or that some opportunity would
arise for him to regain control of this lifeboat. But now, deeming it
certain that the armored biped would follow Luda's eminently sensible
advice, he decided to let inertialessness go for the time being, in the
interest of saving his own life.
"Kill him!"
Luda shrieked the thought and Cloud swung his weapon aloft. But Darjeeb
was not attacking. Instead, he was rushing into the airlock--escaping!
"Go free, pilot!" Cloud commanded, and leaped; but the heavy valve
swung shut before he could reach it.
As soon as the lock could be operated the Tellurian went through it. He
knew that Darjeeb could not have boarded the cruiser, since every port
was locked. He hurried to his control room and scanned space. There the
Uhalian was, falling like a plummet under the combined forces of his
own drive and the gravitations of two worlds. There also were a dozen
or so spaceships, too close for comfort, blasting upward.
Cloud cut in his Bergenholm, kicked on his driving blasts, cut off, and
went back into the lifeboat.
"Safe enough now," he announced. "They'll never get out here inert. I'm
surprised that he jumped--didn't think he was the type to kill himself."
"He isn't. He didn't," Luda said, dryly.
"Huh? He must have! That was a mighty long flit he took and his suit
wouldn't hold air."
"He would stuff something into the holes--if necessary he could make it
the whole distance without either air or armor. He is tough. He still
lives--curse him! But it is of no use for me to bewail that fact now.
Let us make plans. You must extinguish that flame and the leaders of
our people will have to convince you that--"
"Just a sec--quite a few things we've got to do first." He fell silent.
First of all, he had to report to the Patrol, so that they could get
Lensmen and a battle fleet out here to straighten up this mess. With
his short-range communicators, that would take some doing--but wait, he
had a double-ended tight beam to the Laboratory. He could get through
on that, probably, even from here. He'd have to mark the lifeboat as a
derelict and get these folks aboard his cruiser. No space-tube. He had
an extra suit, so he could transfer the women easily enough, but this
Luda....
"Don't worry about me!" that entity cut in, sharply. "You saw how I
came aboard here, didn't you? I do not particularly enjoy breathing
a vacuum, but I can stand it--I am as tough as Darjeeb is. So hurry,
please hurry. During every moment we delay, more of my people are
dying!"