CHAPTER IV
The Monster
They blacked out the ship before they moved it, carefully covering eachport with paper, then showing no lights. Hargraves handled the controlshimself, slowly turning current into the drivers so their grunting wouldnot reveal what was happening.
"Are we going to take her up high for tonight?" Ushur, the archeologistasked. "She will fly all right as long as we stay in the atmosphere. Wewould be safer up high, it seems to me."
"Safer from ground attack, yes," Hargraves said thoughtfully. "However,I'm afraid we would be more exposed to attack from a ship."
"Oh! That damned sphere. I had forgotten about it."
Hargraves moved the ship less than a mile, carefully hid her among thetrees. Then he posted guards outside all the ports. He took the firstwatch himself, in the control room. Ron Val was waiting for him there.The astro-navigator's face was grave. "Jed," he said. "I've been talkingto several of the fellows. They don't believe you are taking asufficiently realistic view of our situation. They don't believe you arefacing the facts."
"Um. What facts have I been evading?"
"You apparently don't realize that it will take months--if it can bedone at all--to repair the damage to the ship."
Hargraves settled deep into his chair. He looked at the astro-navigator.Ron Val wasn't angry. Nor was he mutinous. He wasn't challengingauthority. He was just scared.
"Ron," he said, "according to the agreement under which we sailed, anytime the majority of the members of this expedition wants a new captain,they can have him."
"It isn't that."
"I know. You fellows are scared. Hells bells, man! What do you think Iam?"
Ron Val's eyes popped open. "Jed! Are you? You don't show it. You don'tseem even to appreciate the spot we're in."
Hargraves slowly lit a cigarette. The fingers holding the tiny lighterdid not shake. "If I had been the type to show it, do you think I wouldhave been selected to head this expedition?"
"No. But--"
"Because I haven't made an official announcement that we may not be ableto repair the ship, you seem to think I don't realize the fact. I knowhow big a hole has been ripped in our hull. I know the ship is made ofmagna steel, the toughest, hardest, most beautiful metal yet invented. Iknow the odds are we can't repair the hole in the hull. We don't havethe metal. We don't have the tools to work it. I know these things. WhenI didn't call it to your attention, I assumed it was equally obvious toeveryone else that we may never leave this planet."
"Jed! Never leave this planet! Never--go home! That can't be right."
"See," said Hargraves. "When you get the truth flung in your face, evenyou crack wide open. Yes, it's the truth. The fact you fellows think I'mnot facing--the one you don't dare face--is that we may be marooned herefor the rest of our lives."
That was that. Ron Val went aft. Hargraves took up his vigil on thebridge. At midnight Ron Val came forward to relieve him.
"I told them what you said, Jed," the astro-navigator said. "We're backof you one hundred per cent."
Hargraves grinned a little. "Thanks," he said. "We were selected to worktogether as a unit. As long as we remain a unit, we will have a chanceagainst any enemy."
* * * * *
Dog-tired, he went to his bunk and rolled in. It seemed to him he hadbarely closed his eyes before a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and ashaken voice shouted in his ear. "Jed! Wake up."
"Who is it? What's wrong?" The room was dark and he couldn't see who wasshaking him.
"Ron Val." The astro-navigator's voice was hoarse with the maddest,wildest fright Hargraves had ever heard. "The--the damnedest thing hashappened!"
"What?"
"Hal Sarkoff--" That was as far as Ron Val could get.
"What about him?"
"_He's outside trying to get in!_"
"Have you gone insane? Sarkoff is dead. You helped me bury him."
"I know it. Jed, he's outside. He wants in."
Hargraves had gone to bed without removing even his shoes. He ranforward to the control room, Ron Val pounding behind him. Lights hadbeen turned on here, in defiance of orders. Someone had summoned thecrew. They were all here, all eighteen who remained alive. The innerdoor of the lock was open. A dazed guard, who had been on watch outsidethe lock, was standing in the door. He had a pistol in his hand but helooked as if he didn't know what to do with it.
In the center of a group of men too frightened to move was ablack-haired, rugged giant.
"Sarkoff!" Hargraves gasped.
The giant's head turned until his gaze was centered on the captain. "Youmoved the ship," he said accusingly. "I had the damnedest time findingit in the dark. What did you move the ship for, Jed?"
If some super-magician had cast a spell over the little group he couldnot have produced a more complete stasis. No one moved. No one seemed tobreathe. All motion, all action, all thinking, had stopped.
Sarkoff's face went from face to face.
"What the heck is the matter with you guys?" he demanded. "Am I poison,or something?"
He seemed bewildered.
"Where--where are the others?" Ron Val stammered.
"What others? What the heck are you talking about, Ron?"
"Nevins and Reese. We--we buried them with you. Where are they?"
"How the hell do I kn----_You buried them with me?_" Sarkoff's face wentfrom bewilderment to inexplicable good nature. "Trying to pull my leg,huh? Okay. I can go along with a gag." He looked again at Hargraves."But I can't go along with that gag of moving the ship after you sent meout scouting. Why didn't you wait for me? Wandering around among allthese trees, I might have got lost and got myself killed. Why did you dothat, Jed?" he finished angrily.
"We were--ah--afraid of an attack," Hargraves choked out. "Sorry, Hal,but we--we had to move the ship. We would have--hunted you up,tomorrow."
* * * * *
Sarkoff was not a man who was ever long angry about anything. Theapology satisfied him. He grinned. "Okay, Jed. Forget it. Jeepers! I'mso hungry I could eat a cow. How about a couple of those syntheticsteaks we got in the ice-box?" His eyes went around the group, came torest on the astro-navigator. "How about it, Ron? How about me and youfixing us up some chow?"
"Sure," said Hargraves. "Go on back to the galley and start fixingyourself whatever you want. You go with him, Ron. I'll handle your jobup here while you're gone."
Nodding dumbly, Ron Val started to follow Sarkoff toward the galley."One minute," Hargraves called after him. "I want to check somethingwith you before you go!"
Sarkoff kept going. Ron Val returned. "Take your cues from him,"Hargraves said. "You know him better than anyone else. Whatever he says,you agree. Casually bring up past events and watch his reaction. _Yourjob is to find out if that is really Hal Sarkoff!_"
The astro-navigator, his face white, clumped toward the galley.
Hargraves faced a torrent of questions.
"Jed! We buried him."
"Jed. He had been in that engine room without air for at least tenminutes before we got there. He can't be alive."
"No air. Temperature diving toward absolute zero. He was frozen stiff,Jed, before we moved him. We left him where he was until long after welanded."
"I know," Hargraves said. "There is no doubt about it. I used astethoscope on him as soon as I could get to it after we landed. _He wasdead._ There wasn't a sign of life."
Frightened faces looked at him. Awed faces. Bewildered faces.
"What did you mean when you told Ron Val to find out if that is reallySarkoff?"
"Just what I said. That may be Sarkoff. It may be something that lookslike Sarkoff, acts like him, talks like him--_but isn't he_!"
"That--that's impossible."
"How do we know what is possible here and what isn't?"
"What are we going to do?"
"We're going to act just as we would if that were Sarkoff. We're goingto pick up our cue
s from him? You remember he said he was out scouting.That is his story. We will not question it. We will act as though itwere true, until we know what is happening. Now everybody back to hispost. Act as if nothing had happened. And for the love of Pete, don'task me what is going on. I don't know any more than you do."
They didn't want to obey that order. They had just seen a dead manwalking, had heard him talking, had spoken to him. There was comfort injust being with each other. Hargraves walked to the bridge, waited.Eventually, discipline sent them back to their posts. He kept onwaiting. Ron Val returned.
"I don't know, Jed. I just don't know. We were in school together. Ibrought up incidents that happened in school, things that only Hal and Iknew. _Jed, he knew them._"
* * * * *
With the exception of a hooded blue lamp on the bridge, all lights hadbeen turned off again. The control room was in darkness. Ron Val was anuneasy shadow talking from dim blackness.
"Then you think that it is really Sarkoff?"
"I don't know."
"But if he remembers things that only Hal could know--"
"He remembers things that he can't know."
"Um. What things?"
"He asked me how much progress had been made in repairing the ship. Jed,he must have died before he knew the ship had been damaged."
"Not necessarily," said Hargraves thoughtfully. "He might have beenconscious for one or two minutes after the beam struck us. He would knowthat the ship had been damaged. What did you tell him?"
"I changed the subject."
"Good for you. If he isn't Sarkoff, the one thing he might want to knowis whether the ship has been repaired. What else?"
"Jed, he remembers _everything_ that happened after the ship wasattacked. We almost crashed before we got the engines started. Heremembers that. He remembers hiding the ship among the trees."
Hargraves stirred. The keen logic of his mind was being blunted by factsthat would not fit into any logical pattern. He tried to think. His mindrefused the effort. Dead men ought not to remember things that happenedafter they died. But a dead man had remembered!
For an instant panic walked through the captain's mind. Then he got itunder control. There was always an answer to every question, a solutionto every problem. Or was there? He went hunting facts.
"Does he remember being buried?"
Even in the darkness he could feel Ron Val shiver. "No," Ron Val said."He doesn't remember. Just as soon as we landed, he thinks you sent himout, to scout the surrounding territory for possible enemies."
"Does he know that we had visitors in his absence?"
"No. Or if he does, he didn't mention it, and I didn't ask. He says hewas returning when he saw the ship being moved. He says he tried tofollow, but lost it in the darkness. He says he had the devil's own timefinding it again, and he's still hot about being left behind."
Again Hargraves had to fight the panic in his mind. This much seemedobvious. Sarkoff's memory was accurate--until the ship landed. Then itwent into fantasy, into error. If one thing was certain, he had not beensent out to scout for enemies. If there was another fact that wasimmutable, he had been buried.
"Where is he now?" Hargraves asked abruptly.
"In his bunk, snoring. He ate enough for two men, yawned, said he wassleepy. He was sound asleep almost as soon as he touched the blankets."
Ron Val's voice relapsed into silence. The whole ship was silent.
"Jed, what are we going to do?"
"You bunk with him, don't you?"
"Yes. Jed! You don't mean--"
Hargraves cleared his throat. "This is not an order. You don't have todo it if you don't want to. But Sarkoff must be watched. Are you willingto go back to the room you two shared together and get into the upperdeck of your bunk just as if nothing has happened?"
"Yes," said Ron Val.
"Somebody must be with him--all the time. You stay awake. When he getsup, you get up. Whatever he does, you stay with him. I'll have yourelieved as soon as possible. And, Ron--"
"Yes."
"You have something a man could use for courage."
Silently, Ron Val walked out of the control room. He fumbled his waythrough the door and his steps echoed down the corridor that led to thesleeping quarters.
Hargraves sat in thought. Then he, too, left the control room.
"Noble, you're a bio-chemist. You come with me. Nielson, you take overhere in the control room. In my absence you are in command."
"Yes sir," Nielson said. "But what are you going to do?"
"See what is in a grave we dug yesterday," Hargraves answered.
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