Planet of the Damned bb-1

by Harry Harrison

  “But Hys is in charge of an army now?”

  “All volunteers, too few of them and too little money. Too little and too damned late to do any good. I’ll tell you we did our best, but it could never be good enough. And for this we get called butchers.” There was a catch in Telt’s voice now, an undercurrent of emotion he couldn’t suppress. “At home they think we like to kill. Think we’re insane. They can’t understand we’re doing the only thing that has to be done—”

  He broke off as he quickly locked on the brakes and killed the engine. The line of sand cars had come to a stop. Ahead, just visible over the dunes, was the summit of a dark tower.

  “We walk from here,” Telt said, standing and stretching. “We can take our time, because the other boys go in first, soften things up. Then you and I head for the sub-cellar for a radiation check and find you a handsome corpse.”

  Walking at first, then crawling when the dunes no longer shielded them, they crept up on the Disan keep. Dark figures moved ahead of them, stopping only when they reached the crumbling black walls. They didn’t use the ascending ramp, but made their way up the sheer outside face of the ramparts.

  “Line-throwers,” Telt whispered. “Anchor themselves when the missile hits, have some kind of quick-setting goo. Then we go up the filament with a line-climbing motor. Hys invented them.”

  “Is that the way you and I are going in?” Brion asked.

  “No, we get out of the climbing. I told you we hit this rock once before. I know the layout inside.” He was moving while he talked, carefully pacing the distance around the base of the tower. “Should be right about here.”

  High-pitched keening sliced the air and the top of the magter building burst into flame. Automatic weapons hammered above them. Something fell silently through the night and hit heavily on the ground near them.

  “Attack’s started,” Telt shouted. “We have to get through now, while all the creepies are fighting it out on top.” He pulled a plate-shaped object from one of his bags and slapped it hard against the wall. It hung there. He twisted the back of it, pulled something and waved Brion to the ground. “Shaped charge. Should blow straight in, but you never can tell”

  The ground jumped under them and the ringing thud was a giant fist punching through the wall. A cloud of dust and smoke rolled clear and they could see the dark opening in the rock, a tunnel driven into the wall by the directional force of the explosion. Telt shone a light through the hole at the crumbled chamber inside.

  “Nothing to worry about from anybody who was leaning against this wall. But let’s get in and out of this black beehive before the ones upstairs come down to investigate.”

  Shattered rock was thick on the floor, and they skidded and tumbled over it. Telt pointed the way with his light, down a sharply angled ramp. “Underground chambers in the rock. They always store their stuff down there—”

  A smoking, black sphere arced out of the tunnel’s mouth, hitting at their feet. Telt just gaped, but even as it hit the floor Brion was jumping forward. He caught it with the side of his foot, kicking it back into the dark opening of the tunnel. Telt hit the ground next to him as the orange flame of an explosion burst below. Bits of shrapnel rattled from the ceiling and wall behind them.

  “Grenades!” Telt gasped. “They’ve only used them once before—can’t have many. Gotta warn Hys.” He plugged a throat mike into the transmitter on his back and spoke quickly into it. There was a stirring below and Brion poured a rain of fire into the tunnel.

  “They’re catching it bad on top, too! We gotta pull out. Go first and I’ll cover you.”

  “I came for my Disan—I’m not leaving until I get one.”

  “You’re crazy! You’re dead if you stay!”

  Telt was scrambling back towards the crumbled entrance as he talked. His back was turned when Brion fired. The magter had appeared silently as the shadow of death. They charged without a sound, running with expressionless faces into the bullets.

  Two died at once, curling and folding; the third one fell at Brion’s feet. Shot, pierced, dying, but not yet dead. Leaving a crimson track, it hunched closer, lifting its knife to Brion. He didn’t move. How many times must you murder a man? Or was it a man? His mind and body rebelled against the killing, and he was almost ready to accept death himself, rather than kill again.

  Telt’s bullets tore through the body and it dropped with grim finality.

  “There’s your corpse—now get it out of here!” Telt screeched.

  Between them they worked the sodden weight of the dead magter through the hole, their exposed backs crawling with the expectation of instant death. No further attack came as they ran from the tower, other than a grenade that exploded too far behind them to do any harm.

  One of the armoured sand cars circled the keep, headlights blazing, keeping up a steady fire from its heavy weapons. The attackers climbed into it as they beat a retreat. Telt and Brion dragged the Disan behind them, struggling through the loose sand towards the circling car. Telt glanced over his shoulder and broke into a shambling run.

  “They’re following us!” he gasped. “The first time they ever chased us after a raid!”

  “They must know we have the body,” Brion said.

  “Leave it behind…” Telt choked. “Too heavy to carry… anyway!”

  “I’d rather leave you,” Brion said sharply. “Let me have it.” He pulled the corpse away from the unresisting Telt and heaved it across his own shoulders. “Now use your gun to cover us!”

  Telt threw a rain of slugs back towards the dark figures following them. The driver of the sand car must have seen the flare of their fire, because the truck turned and started towards them. It braked in a choking cloud of dust and ready hands reached to pull them up. Brion pushed the body in ahead of himself and scrambled after it The truck engine throbbed and they churned away into the blackness, away from the gutted tower.

  “You know, that was more like kind of a joke, when I said I’d leave the corpse behind,” Telt told Brion. “You didn’t believe me, did you?”

  “Yes,” Brion said, holding the dead weight of the magter against the truck’s side. “I thought you meant it.”

  “Ahhh,” Telt protested, “you’re as bad as Hys. You take things too seriously.”

  Brion suddenly realized that he was wet with blood, his clothing sodden. His stomach rose at the thought and he clutched the edge of the sand car. Killing like this was too personal. Talking abstractedly about a body was one thing, but murdering a man, then lifting his dead flesh and feeling his blood warm upon you is an entirely different matter. But the magter weren’t human, he knew that. The thought was only mildly comforting.

  After they had reached the other waiting sand cars, the raiding party split up. “Each one goes in a different direction,” Telt said, “so they can’t track us to the base.” He clipped a piece of paper next to the compass and kicked the motor into life. “We’ll make a big U in the desert and end up in Hovedstad. I got the course here. Then I’ll dump you and your friends and beat it back to our camp. You’re not still burned at me for what I said, are you? Are you?”

  Brion didn’t answer. He was staring fixedly out of the side window.

  “What’s doing?” Telt asked. Brion pointed out at the rushing darkness.

  “Over there,” he said, pointing to the growing light on the horizon.

  “Dawn,” Telt said. “Lotta rain on your planet? Didn’t you ever see the sun come up before?”

  “Not on the last day of a world.”

  “Lock it up,” Telt grumbled. “You give me the crawls. I know they’re going to be blasted. But at least I know I did everything I could to stop it. How do you think they are going to be feeling at home-on Nyjord—from tomorrow on?”

  “Maybe we can still stop it,” Brion said, shrugging off the feeling of gloom. Telt’s only answer was a wordless sound of disgust.

  By the time they had cut a large loop in the desert the sun was well up in the sk
y, the daily heat begun. Their course took them through a chain of low, flinty hills that cut their speed almost to zero. They ground ahead in low gear while Telt sweated and cursed, struggling with the controls. Then they were on firm sand and picking up speed towards the city.

  As soon as Brion saw Hovedstad clearly he felt a clutch of fear. From somewhere in the city a black plume of smoke was rising. It could have been one of the deserted buildings aflame, a minor blaze. Yet the closer they came, the greater his tension grew. Brion didn’t dare put it into words himself; it was Telt who vocalized the thought.

  “A fire or something. Coming from your area, somewhere close to your building.”

  Within the city they saw the first signs of destruction. Broken rubble on the streets. The smell of greasy smoke in their nostrils. More and more people appeared, going in the same direction they were. The normally deserted streets of Hovedstad were now almost crowded. Disans, obvious by their bare shoulders, mixed with the few off-worlders who still remained.

  Brion made sure the tarpaulin was well wrapped around the body before they pushed the sand car slowly through the growing crowd.

  “I don’t like all this publicity,” Telt complained, looking at the people. “It’s the last day, or I’d be turning back. They know our cars; we’ve raided them often enough.” Turning a corner, he braked suddenly, mouth agape.

  Ahead was destruction. Black, broken rubble had been churned into desolation. It was still smoking, pink tongues of flame licking over the ruins. A fragment of wall fell with a rumbling crash.

  “It’s your building—the Foundation building!” Telt shouted. “They’ve been here ahead of us—must have used the radio to call a raid. They did a job, explosive of some land.”

  Hope was dead. Dis was dead. In the ruin ahead, mixed and broken with other rubble, were the bodies of all the people who had trusted him. Lea… beautiful and cruelly dead Lea. Doctor Stine, his patients, Faussel, all of them. He had kept them on this planet, and now they were dead. Every one of them. Dead.

  Murderer!

  XIV

  Life was ended. Brion’s mind contained nothing but despair and the pain of irretrievable loss. If his brain had been completely the master of his body he would have died there, for at that moment there was no will to live. Unaware of this, his heart continued to beat and the regular motion of his lungs drew in the dreadful sweetness of the smoke-tainted air. With automatic directness his body lived on.

  “What you gonna do?” Telt asked, even his natural exuberation stilled by this. Brion only shook his head as the words penetrated. What could he do? What could possibly be done?

  “Follow me,” a voice said in guttural Disan through the opening of a rear window. The speaker was lost in the crowd before they could turn. Aware now, Brion saw a native move away from the edge of the crowd and turn to look in their direction. It was Ulv.

  “Turn the car—that way!” He punched Telt’s arm and pointed. “Do it slowly and don’t draw any attention to us.” For a moment there was hope, which he kept himself from considering. The building was gone, and the people in it all dead. That fact had to be faced.

  “What’s going on?” Telt asked. “Who was that talked in the window?”

  “A native—that one up ahead. He saved my life in the desert, and I think he is on our side. Even though he’s a native Disan, he can understand facts that the magter can’t. He knows what will happen to this planet.” Brion was talking to fill his brain with words so he wouldn’t begin to have hope. There was no hope possible.

  Ulv moved slowly and naturally through the streets, never looking back. They followed, as far behind as they dared, yet still keeping him in sight. Fewer people were about here among the deserted offworld storehouses. Ulv vanished into one of these; LIGHT METALS TRUST LTD., the sign read above the door. Telt slowed the car.

  “Don’t stop here,” Brion said. “Drive around the corner, and pull up.”

  Brion climbed out of the car with an ease he did not feel. No one was in sight now, in either direction. Walking slowly back to the corner, he checked the street they had just left. Hot, silent and empty.

  A sudden blackness appeared where the door of the warehouse had been, and the sudden flickering motion of a hand. Brion signalled Telt to start, and jumped into the already moving sand car.

  “Into that open door—quickly, before anyone sees us!” The car rumbled down a ramp into the dark interior and the door slid shut behind them.

  “Ulv! What is it? Where are you?” Brion called, blinking in the murky interior. A grey form appeared beside him.

  “I am here.”

  “Did you—” There was no way to finish the sentence.

  “I heard of the raid. The magter called together all of us they could to help them carry explosive. I went along. I could not stop them, and there was no time to warn anyone in the building.”

  “Then they are all dead?”

  “Yes,” Ulv nodded. “All except one. I knew I could perhaps save one; I was not sure who. So I took the woman you were with in the desert—she is here now. She was hurt, but not badly, when I brought her out.”

  Guilty relief flooded through Brion. He shouldn’t exult, not with the death of everyone in the Foundation still fresh in his mind. But at that instant he was happy.

  “Let me see her,” he said to Ulv. He was seized by the sudden fear that there might be a mistake. Perhaps Ulv had saved a different woman.

  Ulv led the way across the empty loading bay. Brion followed closely, fighting down the temptation to tell him to hurry. When he saw that Ulv was heading towards an office in the far wall, he could control himself no longer and ran on ahead.

  It was Lea, lying unconscious on a couch. Sweat beaded her face and she moaned and stirred without opening her eyes.

  “I gave her saver, then wrapped her in cloth so no one would know,” Ulv said.

  Telt was close behind them, looking in through the open door.

  “Saver is a drug they take from one of their plants,” he said. “We got a lot of experience with it. A little makes a good knock-out drug, but it’s deadly poison in large doses. I got the antidote in the car; wait and I’ll get it.” He went out.

  Brion sat next to Lea and wiped her face clean of dirt and perspiration. The dark shadows under her eyes were almost black now and her elfin face seemed even thinner. But she was alive—that was the important thing.

  Some of the tension drained away from Brion and he could think again. There was still the job to do. After this last experience Lea should be in a hospital bed. But this was impossible. He would have to drag her to her feet and put her back to work. The answer might still be found. Each second ticked away another fraction of the planet’s life.

  “Good as new in a minute,” Telt said, banging down the heavy med box. He watched intently as Ulv left the room. “Hys should know about this renegade. Might be useful as a spy, or for information—though of course it’s too late now to do anything, so the hell with it.” He pulled a pistol-shaped hypodermic gun from the box and dialled a number on the side. “Now, if you’ll roll her sleeve up I’ll bring her back to life.” He pressed the bell-shaped sterilizing muzzle against her skin and pulled the trigger. The hypo gun hummed briefly, ending its cycle with a loud click.

  “Does it work fast?” Brion asked.

  “Couple of minutes. Just let her be and she’ll come to by herself.”

  Ulv was in the doorway. “Killer!” he hissed. His blowgun was in his hand, half raised to his mouth.

  “He’s been in the car—he’s seen it!” Telt shouted and grabbed for his gun.

  Brion sprang between them, raising his hands. “Stop it! No more lolling!” he shouted in Disan. Then he shook his fist at Telt. “Fire that gun and I’ll stuff it down your throat. I’ll handle this.” He turned to face Ulv, who hadn’t brought the blowgun any closer to his lips. This was a good sign—the Disan was still uncertain.

  “You have seen the body in the car, Ulv. So
you must have seen that it is that of a magter. I killed him myself, because I would rather loll one, or ten, or even a hundred men than have everyone on this planet destroyed. I killed him in a fair fight and now I am going to examine his body. There is something very strange and different about the magter, you know that yourself. If I can find out what it is, perhaps we can make them stop this war, and not bomb Nyjord.”

  Ulv was still angry, but he lowered the blowgun a little. “I wish there were no off-worlders,” he said. “I wish that none of you had ever come. Nothing was wrong until you started coming. The magter were the strongest, and they killed; but they also helped. Now they want to fight a war with your weapons, and for this you are going to loll my world. And you want me to help you!”

  “Not me—yourself!” Brion said wearily. “There’s no going back, that’s the one thing we can’t do. Maybe Dis would have been better off without off planet contact. Maybe not. In any case, you have to forget about that. You have contact now with the rest of the galaxy, for better or for worse. You’ve got a problem to solve, and I’m here to help you solve it.”

  Seconds ticked by as Ulv, unmoving, fought with questions that were novel to his life. Could killing stop death? Could he help his people by helping strangers to fight and kill them? His world had changed and he didn’t like it. He must make a giant effort to change with it. Abruptly, he pushed the blowgun into a thong at his waist, turned and strode out.

  “Too much for my nerves,” Telt said, settling his gun back in the holster. “You don’t know how happy I’m gonna be when this whole damn thing is over. Even if the planet goes bang, I don’t care. I’m finished.” He walked out to the sand car, keeping a careful eye on the Disan crouched against the wall.

  Brion turned back to Lea, whose eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. He went to her.

  “Running,” she said, and her voice had a toneless emptiness that screamed louder than any emotion. They ran by the open door of my room and I could see them when they killed Dr. Stine. Just butchered him like an animal, chopping him down. Then one came into the room and that’s all I remember.” She turned her head slowly and looked at Brion. “What happened? Why am I here?”