by Don Wilcox
“Vida, I’ve been thinking—”
“What?”
“I can’t go through with it!” Ilando’s fists were closed tightly and the cuffs of his regulation blue shirt trembled.
Vida exploded with fury. “Why, you cur! You can’t turn coat that way—not on me! My plans are set, and you’re a part of them! Hurry up and dye those uniforms. I tell you the Draz-Kangs would tear you to pieces if I brought you into headquarters wearing your White Comet monkey suit—”
“Vida, you’ve got to listen to me.” Ilando’s white lips trembled. He watched the girl as she marched across the room to don her fur overcoat. “Vida, please listen—Where are you going, Vida?”
“Back to the hotel, to wait till you come to your senses.”
“You know I’m mad about you,” the young guardsman pleaded with all the anguish of a madman. “But if I desert—”
“I tell you you won’t be caught.”
“But being caught isn’t all. It’s more than betraying the Union. It’s betraying a friend—”
The furious girl flopped into a chair, slapped the arms of it, and shouted in a mocking voice. “Well—I’ll—be—damned!”
“If it wasn’t that he believes in me—but he does! He’s staked me—”
“Staked you to what! To two long kilopuntos[*] of freezing on this godforsaken iceberg—”
“I can’t let him down—”
“You’re scared!”
“I’m not!”
“Just because he chases deserters and carries a flame gun and has some extra stripes on his uniform, you think you’ve got to knuckle down—”
“It’s not a matter of knuckling down. It’s a matter of measuring up!”
“Well, if this isn’t a pretty mess of soup!” The girl jerked a slipper off her foot and slammed it at the wall. She breathed like a volcano.
Ilando, open-mouthed, open-eyed, restrained himself from pouring out any more of the torture that burned through him. He was halted momentarily by seeing Vida in a new light, and for an instant he had to stop and ask himself how it was that he had been swept off his feet by her.
The girl, sensing that she had played her fury to the limit, cooled to her normal highly-poised impenetrability. She was not afraid of losing Ilando Ken. She was too practiced in the arts of converting the “right persons” into the cause of the Draz-Kangs for that. This young guardsman was putty in her hands.
And he was valuable.
When she had first sought him out it was because he was a promising young clerk in every important bank. Any road to money, the Draz-Kangs well knew, was a road back to power.
Then that dashing purgier named Theban Hyko had crashed into the scene and she had had to play cautious. But she had quickly discovered that the value of her connection with Ilando Ken was redoubled. For Ken and Hyko became fast friends; it was one of those curious friendships between hero and hero-worshipper, between the competent and the incompetent, between the solid doer and the unsteady dreamer.
Only once had Vida seen Theban Hyko, but she knew well enough that of all the relentless purgiers he was the key man. If he were only out of the way—
“Ilando.” The girl spoke with a hurt, passionate voice. She held out her hand to him. “Ilando, I’ve loved you so. All those lonely endless stretches of time that I’ve waited, longing for the time you’d come down to the planet Bronze, to our headquarters. You’ve no idea how I’ve dreamed—”
“Yes?” Sympathy and devotion sprang back into Ilando’s boyish face. He knew about the endless puntos of longing and dreaming too.
“Won’t you come—now? You needn’t be afraid. Once you’ve joined the Draz-Kangs you’ll feel differently about everything.”
The girl talked on. Her beauty, mysterious and unfathomable, cast a spell. Ilando began to understand; he saw that his enlistment was a mistake. Anything that could stand in the way of his love for Vida must be wrong.
“We’d better go quickly,” he said.
“Go and dye your uniforms.”
“Yes—at once.”
The girl followed him into the little kitchen, watched over his work. He soused the clothes into the black liquid.
A knock sounded at the door.
A hearty voice called from outside.
“Ilando! Ilando, are you in there? This is Theban.”
CHAPTER II
A Traitor Acts
“My stars!” Theban exclaimed as he pumped Ilando’s hand, “You must have spilled the ink.”
Ilando nodded nervously, shifting his eyes around the room against his will, chilled with the fear that some evidence of Vida’s presence would certainly crop up. No, nothing was in sight. She’d remembered to pick up the slipper, she’d grabbed her overcoat, she’d closed the closet door tightly. There was nothing to worry about.
Nevertheless, Theban demanded to know what he was worried about, and whether he was sick, he looked so pale, and why he was so long answering the door if he wasn’t either sick or asleep. But all of Theban’s talk was meant for hearty good-natured jollying, and the only real trouble, as far as Theban could tell, was that Ilando was slow to snap out of it and rejoice, in his usual manner, over the blessing of a surprise visit.
For half an hour they talked and ate and smoked. Ilando was not talkative. The shadow that continually hovered over his end of the conversation was puzzling to Theban. Theban wanted to be certain there were no unseen pitfalls before he waded into the real purpose of his visit.
Failing to break through his friend’s guard, Theban changed tactics and came to the point.
“How would you like to get away from this outpost for a time?”
Ilando’s body stiffened. “Why?” The response was hardly what Theban expected. The eagerness for action of most guardsmen stationed at outposts was well known by Theban. And he knew Ilando well enough to believe that too much isolation here might easily be as damaging as a term in prison.
“Aren’t you tired of it here? Wouldn’t you like to get away?” Ilando’s eyes flicked suspiciously. “What are you driving at?”
“Just this. You’ve come through a difficult transition; and I know how hard it must be for you, especially you, because you’ve had more to fight than most of the young guardsmen. If you don’t mind my mentioning it, you were jerked back rather suddenly from the brink of danger. You’ve played the game like a true patriot. I want to reward you.”
“How?” Only Ilando’s breath said the word; the voice was temporarily gone.
“By having you temporarily released from training and assigned to me as a special assistant . . . Well, what about it? Would you care for a whirl of action for a change?”
Theban couldn’t understand why the silence should hang so heavy. When Ilando answered it was to say that Theban mustn’t put so much trust and faith in him.
“It’s not right,” Ilando said nervously. “You’ve got to live your life, and I mine. You can’t go on this way, believing in me and trying to make something out of me—”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Theban interrupted, trying not to notice the other’s nervousness, which Theban interpreted as a sure sign that his friend needed a respite from routine. “It’s simply a question of whether you’d care for the sort of work we’d have to do—scouting, tracing suspects, holding an air-tight ring around the Draz-Kang nest . . .
And with that Theban fell into a monolog of experiences. He hinted at further plans for checking the Draz-Kang activities, which, he said, were always in danger of spreading. He assured Ilando that there would be danger aplenty; he told what little he knew of the quick mysterious finish that had come to a space ship load of his fellow purgiers.
“But you know as well as I do how the Draz-Kangs work. The papers are full of it. You’ve had a glimpse of it first-hand. (Why does he keep looking away from me?) Some people call them human rats. To me they’re snakes. Do you ever stop to think how lucky you are—”
Theban caught himself with an insta
nt’s fear that he might play his hand too bold; but he had started and he plunged on—
“—How lucky you are that I tore you away from that little she-devil of a Draz-Kang brunette? She was poison, Ilando. She never loved you. You can see it now yourself. She was scheming—”
Ilando breathed tensely through his teeth; his fists clenched into hard knots.
“Let me tell you something, Ilando,” Theban’s tone dug deep. “The Draz-Kangs are dragging for new blood. They’ve got men stationed at the crossroads of the space routes looking for recruits. Any stranger who comes to them in a black uniform they’ll receive.”
Ilando breathed hard. He crumpled an unlighted cigaret in his fingers.
“The black uniform, to them, is a symbol of allegiance, the same as our pledge of allegiance to the White Comet flag that you took when you joined the guardsmen.”
Theban paced the floor as he talked. His gleaming boots turned with military precision as he swung from one corner of the room to the other.
“I don’t know whether the Draz-Kangs think they can stage a swift bloody revolution. I don’t know what happens to the White Comet citizens who turn coat and join. We never hear of them again—because, as you know, we’ve never got into the Draz-Kangs’ central nest . . .
“But I had the pleasure a few puntos ago of tracing down a deserter—” Ilando’s eyelids flicked and then froze.
“—a deserter—” Theban emphasized the word by slamming his fist back against a door that stood behind him—it chanced to be the closet door, “a damned deserter who had been a guardsman on the planet Bronze, who had dyed his uniform black—”
Hando’s stained hands jerked involuntarily. Theban stopped in his tracks and stared. He looked from Ilando’s hands to his eyes and back again; but the hands slipped from view to thrust deep into the pockets of Ilando’s uniform trousers.
Theban Hyko took a long slow breath. The color came and went in his face. Then he spoke abruptly and with decision.
“I’m in no mood to talk today. I’ve made my proposition. I’ll have more to say if you accept.”
Theban swung into his blue and white regulation overcoat, donned his military cap. He glanced out at the thickening snowstorm.
“I’ll make the necessary arrangements with your officers for your leave at once. If you decide to accept, I’ll expect you to be waiting in my space ship. I’ll take off in exactly two decipuntos. Here’s a key.”
Theban tossed it over his shoulder without looking back. He marched out, closed the door securely behind him, trudged along the snowbound avenue of guardsmen’s cottages.
Exactly two decipuntos later the purgier made tracks toward the blotch of white that he knew was his waiting space ship. His heart beat fast. There were tracks ahead of him, drifted nearly full but still discernible.
The sight of those tracks filled him with surging emotions. They must be Ilando’s tracks, seeing that they came from the wrong direction to have been either the marshal’s or the mechanics’. Theban quickened his step.
He entered the ship briskly, caught a glimpse of Ilando’s overcoated figure standing statue-like at the farther end of the companionway, turned instantly to the controls.
His hands worked deftly at the levers. The familiar feel of well-cushioned acceleration shot a thrill through his body; and with it came a thrill of psychological victory. This takeoff, he believed, would be the landmark in the making of Ilando Ken.
Theban opened the motors until he attained his normal flying speed. The snowstorms of Frigio passed out of his mind. The black void was ahead—the open planet-filled skies. And somewhere beyond waited a new adventure on the planet Bronze.
“We’ve got a hard nut to crack,” Theban remarked as he set his controls for a B-Iine through space. Ilando came down toward him with a calm sure step. “If there’s any way to get into that Draz-Kang nest we’re going to find it.”
“Just what are your plans?” Ilando asked tersely.
“Haven’t any.” Theban laughed lightly. “Pm stumped. I’ve pondered. over the thing. Pondering is about as far as I can get.”
“Perhaps the other purgiers have plans?”
“We’re all playing cautious since that recent tragedy. Maybe you’ve heard—a ship load of purgiers was lost. There’s only one possible conclusion out of that. The dead crater where the Draz-Kangs’ central nest is located must be a death trap.”
“How’d you know it was a crater?” Ilando asked sharply.
Theban shot a glance at his companion, still overcoated. Ilando’s manner was still far from reassuring. He fired questions as if he might have been a paid prober.
“Several evidences have pointed to the crater,” Theban replied. “The last word radioed to us from the ship that was lost was that they were descending into the dead crater of an ancient volcano in the Bronze mountains—in direct pursuit of a Draz-Kang space ship.
There was a silence. Then Theban turned the question about.
“Did you know the nest was in a crater?”
“I’ve never seen the place,” Ilando replied.
The answer was an evasion. Theban finished checking the positions of instruments and turned to Ilando with a steady challenging eye.
“Ilando, I’ve never asked you before. But if we’re going to work together we’ve got to meet on an open ground. Don’t you think it’s time you told me how deeply you got into that Draz-Kang mess and just how much you know about it?”
Ilando’s eyes shifted to some point across the room back of Theban. He brought his hands up to the collars of his overcoat. Perhaps the discomfort of the moment prompted him to shed it—
The startling sound of footsteps from somewhere behind him caused Theban to whirl. The room spun across Theban’s eyes. He caught the gleam of an upraised club—a bottle—a silver swish through the air—
The blow glanced across Theban’s skull. He plunged full force at the figure who had struck, crushed the lithe form back against the wall, swung to strike—
Within inches of its mark the lightning punch was pulled. Theban Hyko glared into the cold, tense, and devastatingly beautiful face of Vida.
He drew back a trifle, and his lean strong face showed plainly enough that he was disappointed he hadn’t been able to follow through with some skull-cracking punches. He glanced at the bottle in the girl’s flexed thin fingers. His glare shot back to her drilling black eyes, he caught the hint of a sneer on her seductive orange-painted lips.
Then the girl’s sneer vanished, she glanced at her shoulder—Theban was not aware until that moment that she was still nailed to the wall under the pressure of his left arm—and her eyes returned with an incomprehensible expression to meet his strong gaze. Theban made no move to release her. “What’s the game?”
The girl did not answer.
“Speak up! What’s the game?”
The response that came was the nervous voice of Ilando back of him.
“You’re covered, Theban! We’re taking over!”
Only an iota of restraint kept Theban from whirling back; only the knowledge that Ilando was too nervous to be trusted with a gun, whether he willed to kill or not.
Quickly as it all had happened, it all made sense to Theban. There was no doubt how the land lay now, no need to question motives. Theban turned slowly, his hands upraised. He saw that Ilando was wearing a White Comet uniform dyed black.
“I hate like hell to harm you, Theban,” Ilando’s words poured forth from nervous lips. Suddenly all the tenseness of his recent silence seemed to let go in talk. “I tried to tell you you couldn’t make me over. I tried to tell you not to trust me—don’t come any closer! I’ve made my decision. I’m full of deceit and I know it. You can’t make a man like me honest, Theban, by just believing in him. I haven’t got the stuff you tried to tell me I had—but I’ve got the stuff to go through this deal—and we’re going through with it—Vida and me! And don’t you ever try to search me down—stand back or VO—”
Theban would never know whether Ilando finished that threat. For Theban’s lights went out. The solid blow at the side of his head made him reel and crash to the floor.
Vida put down the bottle and she and Ilando dragged the limp athletic form into a small room that could be securely locked.
CHAPTER III
Death—And Rabbits
Theban Hyko mopped the dust from his eyes and gazed out across the vast crater that stretched before him. The glimpses he had had during the last few weary miles of trudging had led him to believe the crater was filled with a lake of yellow water, so smooth was the floor of yellow soil.
He hurled a stone out over the edge, it fell with a solid earthy thud. As soon as he had rested a bit he would descend over the edge. Would his head never stop aching?
All the way over those endless miles he had thanked his lucky stars he was alive. He had thanked Ilando Ken. For he had no delusions about the treatment Vida would have meted out to him. Ilando must have somehow gotten past her. Ilando! The very name stabbed him. Can anything be more nauseating than to have your proudest faith and trust sell you out?
But Theban had returned to consciousness to find himself lying on a grassy plateau; and that favor, he knew, was an expression of Ilando’s last spark of fair play.
Theban had recognized the Bronze mountains at once. He had reached for his map only to find it gone. But a single distant landmark had given him his bearings. And his memory of the map had led him to choose the long hard unbeaten path over the mountain-tops to that mysterious un fathomed magnet—the dead crater.
Now he removed the scarred and tattered bags of leather that had once been his military boots, and lay, down on his stomach; he propped his head in his hands and studied the vast circular depression. The odor of lava dust tinged the air.
He focused on the island in the center—it would have been an island had that level floor been water instead of soil. Perhaps the occasional black splotches were water.
