he was at one end of a long, gleaming corridor—safe for the moment!
There would be searching for him: and—he knew with a cold, hardening resolve—these creatures would never trust alive a being who could slip through solid metal. Their reason would tell them he was a superbeing, unutterably dangerous to them.
One advantage only he had—they did not know the deadliness of his purpose.
TEN MINUTES later, Morton’s gray eyes flicked questioningly over the stern faces of the men gathered in the great reception room. His huge and powerful body felt oddly rigid, as if his muscles could not quite relax. His voice was mellower, deeper, richer than normal:
“I am going to offer my resignation on the ground that, for the second time under my leadership, an abnormal beast has gotten aboard this craft. I must assume that there is a basic lack in my mental make-up; for results, and not excuses, do count hi this universe of ours; even apparently bad luck is rigorously bound up with character. I, therefore, suggest that Korita or von Grossen be named commander in my place. Korita because of the care he advocated, and von Grossen on the strength of his objection to taking any living specimens aboard—both are more fitted to hold the command than I am.”
“The honorable commander has forgotten one thing,” Korita said softly. “The creature was not carried into the ship. I admit it was our collective intention to bring him aboard, but it was he himself who entered. I suggest that, even if we had decided not to bring him into the interior, we could not have prevented his entry in view of his ability to slip through metal. It is absolutely absurd for Commander Morton to feel responsible.”
Von Grossen heaved himself out of his chair. Now that he was out of his spacesuit, the physicist looked not so much plump as big and iron-hard. “And that goes for me all the way. I have not been long on this ship, but I have found Commander Morton to be a most able intellect and leader of men. So let us not waste time in useless self-reproach.
“In capturing this being we must first of all straighten our minds about him. He has arms and legs, this creature, yet floats in space, and remains alive. He allows himself to be caught in a cage, but knows all the time that the cage cannot hold him. Then he drops through the bottom of the cage, which is very silly if he doesn’t want us to know that he can do it. Which means that he is a very foolish creature indeed, and we don’t have to worry very much about him. There is a reason why intelligent living things make mistakes—a fundamental reason that should make it easy for us to analyze him right back to where he came from, and why he is here. Smith, analyze his biological make-up.”
Smith stood up, lank and grim. “We’ve already discussed the obvious planetary origin of his hands and feet. The ability to live in space, however, is an abnormal development, having no connection with natural evolution, but is the product of brain power and science, pure and simple. I suggest that here is a member of a race that has solved the final secrets of biology; and, if I knew how we should even begin to start looking for a creature that can slip through walls, my advice would be: Hunt him down and kill him within an hour.”
“ER!” KELLIE, the sociologist, said. He was a bald-headed man with preternaturally intelligent eyes that gleamed owlishly from behind his pince-nez. “Er, any being who could fit himself to vacuum of space condition would be lord of the universe. His kind would dwell on every planet, clutter up every galactic system. Swarms of him would be floating in space, if space floating is what they go in for. Yet, we know for a fact that his race does not rule our galactic area. A paradox, which is worthy of investigation.”
“I don’t quite understand what you mean, Kellie!” Morton frowned.
“Simply, er, that a race which has solved the final secrets of biology must be millions, even billions of years in advance of man; and, as a pure sympodial—capable of adaptation to any environment—would, according to the lay of vital dynamics, expand to the farthest frontier of the universe, just as man is slowly pushing himself to the remotest planets.”
“It is a contradiction,” Morton agreed, “and would seem to prove that the creature is not a superior being. Korita, what is this thing’s history?”
The Japanese scientist shrugged: “I’m afraid I can only be of the slightest assistance on present evidence. You know the prevailing theory: That life proceeds upwards by a series of cycles. Each cycle begins with the peasant, who is rooted to his bit of soil. The peasant comes to market; and slowly the market place transforms to a town, with ever less ‘inward’ connection to the earth. Then we have cities and nations, finally the soulless world cities and a devastating struggle for power—a series of frightful wars which sweep men back to the peasant stage. The question becomes: Is this creature in the peasant part of this particular cycle, or in the big city ‘megalopolitan’ era?”
Morton’s voice slashed across the silence: “In view of our limited knowledge of this creature, what basic traits should we look for, supposing him to be in the big city stage?”
“He would be a cold, invincible intellect, formidable to the ultimate degree, undefeatable—except through circumstances. I refer to the kind of circumstances that made it impossible for us to prevent this beast entering our ship. Because of his great innate intelligence, he would make no errors of any kind.”
“But he has already made an error!” von Grossen said in a silken voice. “He very foolishly fell through the bottom of the cage. It is the kind of blunder a peasant would make—”
“Suppose,” Morton asked, “he were in the peasant stage?”
“Then,” Korita replied, “his basic impulses would be much simpler. There would be first of all the desire to reproduce, to have a son, to know that his blood was being carried on. Assuming great fundamental intelligence, this impulse might, in the superior being, take the form of a fanatic drive toward race survival—”
He stopped, as half a dozen men came through the doorway.
Morton said: “Finished, Pennons?”
The chief engineer nodded. Then in a warning voice: “It is absolutely essential that every man on the ship get into his rubberite suit, and wear rubberite gloves.”
Morton explained grimly. “We’ve energized the walls around the bedrooms. There may be some delay in catching this creature, and we’re taking no chances of being murdered in our beds. We—” Sharply: “What is it, Pennons?”
Pennons was staring at a small instrument in his hand; he said in a queer voice: “Are we all here, Morton?”
“Yes, except for four men guarding the engine room.”
“Then . . . then something’s caught in the wall of force. Quick—we must surround it.”
TO XTL, returning from a brief exploration of the monster ship’s interior, the shock was devastating, the surprise unutterable and complete.
One moment he was thinking complacently of the metal sections in the hold of the ship, where he would secrete his guuls; the next moment he was caught in the full sparkling fury of an energy screen.
His body writhed with an agony that blackened his brain. Thick clouds of free electrons rose up within him in that hell of pain, and flashed from system to system seeking union, only to be violently repelled by the tortured, madly spinning atom systems. For those long seconds, the wonderfully balanced instability of his structure nearly collapsed into an abyss of disintegration.
But the incredible genius that had created his marvelous body had forethought even this eventuality. Like lightning, his body endured readjustment after automatic readjustment, each new-built structure carrying the intolerable load for a fraction of a fraction of a second. And then, he had jerked back from the wall, and was safe.
In a flare of thought, his mind investigated the immediate possibilities. Obviously, the men had rigged up this defense wall of force. It meant they would have- an alarm system—and they would swoop down every corridor in an organized attempt to corner him.
Xtl’s eyes were glowing pools of white fire as he realized the opportunity. He must catch one of th
ese men, while they were scattered, investigate his guul properties, and use him for his first guul.
No time to waste. He darted into the nearest wall, a tall, gaudy, ungraceful streak, and, without pausing, sped through room after room, roughly parallel to a main corridor. His sensitive feet caught the vibrations of the approaching men; and through the wall his full vision followed the blurred figures rushing past. One, two, three, four—five—on this corridor. The fifth man was some distance behind the others.
Like a wraith, Xtl glided into the wall just ahead of the last man—and pounced forth in an irresistible charge. A rearing, frightful shape of glaring eyes and ghastly mouth, blood-red, metal-hard body, and four arms of fire that clutched with bitter strength at the human body.
The man tried to fight. His big form twisted, jerked; his lashing fists felt vaguely painful as they pounded desperately against the. hard, sheeny crust of Xtl’s body. And then, by sheer weight and ferocity, he was overwhelmed; the force of his fall jarring Xtl’s sensitive frame.
The man was lying on his back, and Xtl watched curiously as the mouth opened and shut spasmodically. A tingling sensation sped along Xtl’s feet, and his mouth opened in a snarl. Incapable though he was of hearing sounds, he realized that he was picking up the vibrations of a call for help.
He pounced forward, one great hand smashing at the man’s mouth. Teeth broke, and crushed back into the throat. The body sagged. But the man was still alive, and conscious, as Xtl plunged “two hands into the feebly writhing body.
The man ceased suddenly even that shadow of struggle, his widened eyes staring at the arms that vanished under Ms shirt, stirred around in his chest, stared in petrified terror at the monstrous blood-red cylindrical body that loomed over him, with its round bright eyes glaring at him as if they would see right through him.
It was a blurred picture the frantic Xtl saw. The inside of the man’s body seemed solid flesh. He had to find an open space, or one that could be pressed open, so long as the pressing did not kill the man. He must have living flesh.
Hurry, hurry—His feet registered the vibrations of approaching footsteps—from one direction only, but coming swiftly, swiftly.
And then, just like that, it was all over. His searching fingers, briefly hardened to a state of semisolidity, touched the heart. The man heaved convulsively, shuddered, and slumped into death.
The next instant, Xtl discovered the stomach. For a moment, black dismay flooded him. Here was what he was searching for, and he had killed it, rendered it useless! He stared in cold fury at the stilled body, uncertain, alarmed.
Then suddenly his actions became deliberate, weighted with contempt. Never for an instant had he suspected these intelligent beings would die so easily. It changed, simplified everything. There was no need to be anything more than casually careful in dealing with them.
Two men with drawn ato-guns whipped around the nearest corner, and slid to a halt at the sight of the apparition that snarled at them across the dead body. Then, as they came out of their brief paralysis, Xtl stepped into the nearest wall, a blur of scarlet in that brightly lit corridor, gone on the instant. He felt the fury of the energy rays that tore futilely at the metal behind him.
His plan was quite clear now. He would capture half a dozen men, and make guuls of them. Then kill all the others, proceed on to the galactic system toward which the ship was heading, and take control of the first inhabited planet. After that, domination of the entire universe would be a matter of a short time only.
COMMANDER MORTON stood very stiffly there in the gleaming corridor, every muscle in his huge body like a taut wire. Only a dozen men were gathered round the dead body, but the audioscopes were on; nearly two hundred tense men throughout the ship were watching that scene. Morton’s voice was only a whisper, but it cut across the silence like a whiplash.
“Well, doctor?”
Dr. Eggert rose up from his kneeling position beside the body, frowning.
“Heart failure.”
“Heart failure!”
“All right, all right!” The doctor put up his hands as if to defend himself against physical attack. “I know his teeth look as if they’ve been smashed back into his brain, and I know Darjeeling’s heart was perfect, but heart failure is what it looks like to me.”
“I can,believe it,” a man said sourly. “When I came around that corner, and saw that thing, I nearly had heart failure myself.”
“We’re wasting time!” von Grossen’s voice stabbed from behind Morton. “We can beat this fellow, but not by talking about him, and feeling sick every time he makes a move. If I’m next on the list of victims, I want to know that the best damned bunch of scientists in the system are not crying over my fate, but putting their best brains to the job of avenging my death.”
“You’re right,” Smith said. “The trouble with us is, we’ve been permitting ourselves to feel inferior. He’s only been on tile ship about an hour but I can see now that some of us are going to get killed. Well, I accept my chance! But let’s get organized for combat!”
Morton snapped: “Pennons, here’s a problem. We’ve got about two square miles of wall and floor space in our twenty levels. How long will it take to energize every inch of it?”
The chief engineer stared at him, aghast; then answered swiftly: “I could sweep the ship and probably wreck it completely within an hour. I won’t go into details. But uncontrolled energization is absolutely out. It would kill every living thing aboard—”
“Not everything!” von Grossen rejected. “Not the creature. Remember, that damn thing ran into a wall of force. Your instrument, Pennons, registered activity for several seconds. Several seconds! Let me show you what that means. The principle underlying his ability to slip through walls is simple enough. The atoms of his body slide through the empty spaces between the atoms of the walls. There is a basic electronic tension that holds a body together, which would have to be overcome, but apparently his race has solved the difficulty. A wall of force would increase those electronic tensions to a point where- the atoms themselves would be emitting free electrons; and, theoretically, that should have a deadly effect on any interfering body. I’ll wager he didn’t like those few seconds he was in the wall—but the point is, he stood them.”
Morton’s strong face was hard: “You could feed more energy to those walls, couldn’t you, Pennons?”
“N-no!” said Pennons reluctantly. “The walls couldn’t stand it. They’d melt.”
“The walls couldn’t stand it!” a man gasped. “Man, man, do you know what you’re making this creature out to be?”
Morton saw the consternation that leaped along that line of stern faces. Korita’s thin, clear voice cut across that pregnant silence:
“Let us not forget, my honorable friends, that he did blunder into the wall of force, and recoiled in dismay, though apparently without damage to his person. I use the word ‘blunder’ with discretion. His action proves once again that he does make mistakes which, in turn, shows him to be something less than a superbeing—”
“Suppose,” Morton barked, “he’s a peasant of his cycle. What would be his chief intellectual characteristic?”
Korita replied almost crisply for one who usually spoke so slowly: “The inability to understand the full power of organization. He will think probably that all he has to fight in order to get control of this ship would be the men who are in it. His most instinctive reasoning would tend to discount the fact that we are part of a vast galactic civilization or organization, and that the spirit of that civilization is fighting in us. The mind of the true peasant is very individualistic, almost anarchic. His desire to reproduce is a form of egoism, to have his own blood particularly carried on. There can be no such thing as a peasant co-operative or organization. But this creature may want to have numbers of beings similar to himself beside him to help him with his fight. But, though there would be a loose union, they would fight as individuals, and not as a group.”
“A loos
e union of those fire-eaters ought to be enough!” a crew member commented acidly. “I . . . a-a-a-a—”
His voice sagged. His lower jaw drooped two inches. His eyes, under Morton’s gaze, took on a horribly goggled stare. The commander whipped around with an oath.
XTL STOOD HERE, forbidding specter from a scarlet hell, his eyes pools of blazing alertness. He knew with a vast contempt that he could plunge into the nearest wall before any gun could leap out at him in ravening fury. But he felt himself protected by another fact. These were intelligent beings. They would be more anxious to discover why he had deliberately come out of the wall than to kill him immediately. They might even consider it a friendly move; and, when they discovered differently, it would be too late.
His purpose, which was twofold, was simplicity itself. He had come for his first guul. By snatching that guul from their very midst, he would demoralize them thoroughly.
Morton felt a curious wave of unreality sweep over him, as he stood just behind von Grossen there in that glittering hallway, facing the tall, thick, cylindrical reality of Xtl. Instinctively, his fingers groped downward toward the sparkling, translucent handle of the ato-gun that protruded from his holster. He stopped himself, and said in Pa steady voice: “Don’t touch your guns. He can move like a flash; and he wouldn’t be here if he thought we could draw on him. I’ll take his opinion any day on that point. Besides, we can’t risk failure. This may be our only chance!”
He continued in a swift, slightly higher, more urgent tone: “Every man listening in on the audioscopes get above and below and around this corridor. Bring up the heaviest portables, even some of the semiportables and burn the walls down. Cut a clear path all around this area, and have your beams sweep that space at narrow focus. Move!”
“Good boy, Morton!” Pennons’ face appeared for an instant on the plate of the audioscope. “We’ll be there—if you can stall that hellhound three minutes.”
Space Beagle- the Complete Adventures Page 6
