Some of the Ranroi crew had uttered exclamations, and Vengant was swearing. Harkann had half risen from his chair, and then he turned and looked at Chane with a question on his hard face.
"This is one of their weapons," said Chane, nodding. "The helmets keep most of it out, but not all. We'll have to stand it."
"We'll stand it," said Harkann harshly. "But curse people who use such a weapon."
"They're clever, the Qajars," said Chane. "I'm hoping that soon we can make them pay for their cleverness."
The squadron rushed on toward the dark world that still was not visible to them. But now Harkann gave an order, and smoothly the squadron shifted from the long column to a new formation, which looked like an irregular swarm. There was nothing at all random about the casual-looking formation: every Varnan ship had its place in it.
"Damn this thing that gets into your brain!" said Harkann, shaking his head.
"Be grateful you've got the helmet on and aren't getting the full blast of it," said Chane.
The probing finger of pain in his skull made him remember the ordeal that he and Dilullo and Gwaath had gone through, and his lust for vengeance sharpened.
"Will they come out to fight?" demanded Harkann.
"I think they have to," said Chane, "when they see that neither the Lethal Worlds nor this pain ray is stopping us."
"They're coming now," said Vengant, and pointed to the radar screen.
Harkann and Chane studied the screen tensely, estimating the blips on it that now moved toward them.
"At least eighty ships," said Harkann. "Coming on in a concave formation. Figuring to box us in and give it to us from all sides."
"Very clever," said Chane. "But they haven't fought with Varnans before."
And he and Harkann both smiled grimly.
The swarm of Starwolf ships kept going straight ahead, and the Qajars half-moon formation flew toward them, so that the Varnan swarm would be caught between the horns of the semicircle, and be the target of concentrated fire.
They went on, and were actually between the horns of the Qajar half-circle, before Harkann rapped an order to his captains.
"The left horn. Up shields. All right, let's take them."
The whole Starwolf squadron suddenly turned sharply left. The turn was an impossibly abrupt one, for anyone but Varnans. Even though Chane expected it, and had braced himself in the chair in which he sat at the controls of a missile-launcher, the blood drove into his head and the pressure crushed him as with a giant hand.
The Qajars had indeed never fought Varnans before, and the swiftness and speed of the swerve took them by surprise. Before they could alter formation, the Starwolf ships were swarming around the cruisers in the whole left horn of the formation.
Two or three Varnan ships attacked each one of the Qajars, having here a local numerical superiority. The missiles began to flare and Qajar ships went up in destruction as their shields were overloaded, before there was even any firing back.
Chane kept the radar of his launcher locked onto a Qajar ship that was in plain sight against the stars. Two other Varnans were pumping missiles at it, and the strain became too much for its shields. The Qajar ship blew, and they turned to another prey.
"Hit them! Hit them before the others form up!" Harkann was shouting to his squadron.
The whole middle and right horn of the Qajar fleet was milling confusedly. They could not loose missiles at the Starwolf ships without hitting their own ships that were at death-grips with the Starwolves.
"Faster! Don't give them time!" Harkann cried, as Vengant drove their ship down toward a Qajar craft already engaged with a Varnan cruiser.
The vault of space was dancing with missile-flares, and Chane saw that the Qajar ships of the left horn were already mostly destroyed. The unexpected swiftness and savagery of the Varnan attack had taken a deadly toll.
Even as their immediate enemy's shields failed, and their missiles got through to it, Vengant gave a yell from where he sat at the controls.
"Harkann, look at them! The others!"
Chane turned to glance over his shoulder at the radar screen, as Harkann swung also to see it.
The remaining two-thirds of the Qajar force had not come into any formation. Suddenly, without any attempt to form an attack pattern, the whole formless mass of Qajar ships flung itself headlong toward the Starwolves.
"They must be crazy, to attack without formation!" exclaimed Vengant.
Chane remembered that Eron had said the Qajars were more than a little mad, and now he believed it. Only a sudden maniac fury could have impelled them to such an unplanned attack.
"Crazy or not, we've got them!" bellowed Harkann. "Cone out! Cone out!"
It was at this point that the Starwolves' unique ability to take the tremendous pressures of quick change of direction was brilliantly displayed. The metal of the flagship screeked in protest, and the blood drove again into Chane's skull, as the needle-shaped ship whirled away.
Every Varnan cruiser drove to its assigned position in one of the maneuvers that only Varnans could endure, and which they had practiced so many times that they almost do them in their sleep. With incredible quickness, the Starwolf ships formed into a gigantic conical pattern right in front of the onsweeping Qajar ships.
The Qajars could not react with the same swiftness, and their disorganized mass drove right into the giant cone. And the concentrated fire from all around them, the hail of missiles, shot half of them out of space.
"They're breaking!" cried Harkann. "Pour it on!" Chane, loosing missiles as fast as he could get them off, saw the remaining Qajar ships turn wildly away, smashing clear of the cone of death. Three Varnan cruisers perished in head-on collisions. And then the surviving Qajar vessels, no more than twenty-odd, were fleeing back in the direction of their world.
"After them!" ordered Harkann. "Three columns." Chane saw things through a bloody haze, the pressure effect still clouding his vision. It was only now, as they began the pursuit, that he realized that the probing finger of pain was still inside his skull.
XVII
Thirty Starwolf ships flew low over the surface of the shadowy planet Chlann. The other ships of the Varnan squadron were orbiting in detachments around the planet, wary lest the survivors of the Qajar fleet should return. But so far, none of them had returned.
Chane piloted the flagship now. He was supposed to be an expert on the Qajar world, he thought ironically. Fine. All he knew about it was the location of the city, the location of the treasure houses, and the fact that he had been clobbered real hard the last time he had been here.
"Stand by," he said. "I think we'll be coming up on it pretty quick."
It was dangerous flying starwhips this low over a planet. But the Varnans were used to it—it was part of their regular raid technique—and also they were used to danger.
"Looks like mines of some sort," said Vengant, peering down at the face of the planet as it whirled beneath them.
The primary of Chlann, the old, red, dying sun that was one of the few stars in this cluster with any life left in it at all, cast a dim, bloody light on the surface of the planet. Dark, stony, arid, lifeless, the world below appeared.
But Chane too had caught the glint of the ruddy light on great constructions of metal that rose out of the rock.
"Automated mines," he said. "I told you, this planet has enormous radite deposits, and that's where the Qajars got their wealth. There may be several cities, but I only know of the one, and it's coming up fast. Stand by."
Up over the horizon of the planet came a soft glow. He knew it at once, although he had only seen it in the tridims Eron had made.
The city of the Qajars. The glittering metal buildings, the domes and towers and minarets, all of them bathed in the blue glow that seemed to well up from the ground itself, a sourceless illumination that strangely enough did not seem to conflict or clash with the dusky light of the dying sun.
From the city, a bolt of white lightn
ing shot up toward the advancing Varnan ships. Only it was not lightning at all, but a tremendous laser ray that ripped the air close in front of them. And then other laser batteries joined in, and their ships were flying into a forest of laser lightnings.
"Stunpower projectors on," said Harkann's hard voice, speaking through the communicator to the whole squadron.
A droning began back in the stern of the ship. At the same moment, two laser bolts caught a Varnan cruiser just behind them and sent it tumbling out of the sky.
"On," said the voice of their engineer.
The thirty Starwolf ships were flying in a broad line. And now from every one of them the fans of invisible powerful forces went down.
The force was just the same as that which was generated by the small hand-stunners they all wore in their belts. But instead of being generated by a small portable power pack, it was created by the mighty power units of the Starwolf ships, and it swept the whole terrain beneath them with a paralyzing, stunning force.
And as they flew over the streets of the glowing metal city, they saw the hurrying robed figures down there fall and lie still as the fans of force caught them.
It was the old Starwolf raiding technique. If you came in to a world using your missiles and laser full on, you could kill a lot of people but you would also destroy most of the loot you were after.
They went on over the city and the lasers that had been striking up at them from it fell still. A moment later, with a sense of immense relief, Chane felt the probing finger of pain in his head fade away.
Harkann uttered a rough oath. "So we got whoever was operating that damned pain ray! I'm only sorry we won't have time to hunt him out and kill him."
"Look out!" said Chane.
They were nearing the starport and from it there stabbed viciously an unexpected cluster of laser rays. Chane automatically spun into an evasive course, and the rays went by them.
Another Varnan ship was hit. Its shields were penetrated, and it tumbled downward. Harkann uttered a curse, and then they were past the starport, and its laser battery fell silent.
"Damn these people!" said Vengant. "I'd like to kill them, not just stun them."
"We haven't enough power for lethal, on the broad range we're using," said Harkann. "Otherwise, I agree with you."
Chane shrugged. "I don't mind their lasers, although I can't say I love them. But when I remember how they took my brain apart with that ray, I agree with you too."
"All right," said Harkann. "Come about and land on that starport. There may be some down there we didn't knock out, but we should be able to handle them."
He gave that order to the rest of their force, and then called up to the ships on watch in orbit. "Anything?"
"Not a thing," came the answer. "They've had the fight taken out of them and have landed and holed up somewhere."
"All right," said Harkann. "Let's go down and get the plunder."
They came down on the starport in a rush, and landed there in semidarkness under the black starless sky. They tumbled out of the ship fast, and all across the starport the big golden Varnans were coming out of the ships, the smell of loot in their nostrils and their eyes shining. And to Chane it was all as it had been since the first raid he had ever made, and what better life was there in the whole galaxy than to raid with the Starwolves?
"Break out the sleds," ordered Harkann. "And move!"
The starwolves prepared for their raids in a careful manner. When they hit a world they wanted to take what things they could there, and get away fast. For this the sleds were invaluable.
They were not really sleds. They were narrow, oblong flat hover-craft that nested together in a space just inside the hull of the ship. Chane helped pull them out and separate them.
Then Chane jumped onto the front end of one of them. He unfolded to an erect position the medium-heavy laser there. He opened the controls, and the sled rose several inches above the starport surface, its lifting-jets spuming up the dust underneath.
Vengant remained as ship-guard but the others now urged their sleds toward the city. Nobody among them waited to follow a leader; they raced across the starport in the semidarkness in any sort of order, shouting and laughing to each other.
Chane felt the high, fierce excitement he had always felt on these dashes. But he restrained it. He was now fast approaching the crisis of his whole struggle.
"This way!" bawled Harkann from his racing sled, pointing toward the blue radiance that rose beneath the dark, red-tinged sky.
They approached the smaller outer buildings of the city, gleaming metallically in the blue light. The air became perceptibly warmer as they entered the blue radiance. They whirled on toward the tall towers that glittered brightly in the center of the little city. And now Chane let his sled fall behind the others a bit, without being too obvious about it.
They had the lasers on the fronts of the sleds, and wore their stunners in their belts, but there was no need to use them. The Qajars lay where they had fallen, in streets and buildings. They looked quite neat, sleeping in their long robes, and the sleds racing over them cleared them and did not disturb them.
Chane wished he had time to look for the Qajar named Vlanalan, who had tortured Dilullo and Gwaath and himself.
But taking their stolen treasures will probably be revenge enough, he thought.
The Varnans poured into the metal towers. And quickly they started coming out, laughing and shouting and bringing the first of the loot.
Jewels, precious metals, priceless statuary, all the costly and superb treasures which the Qajars had had thieved for them from worlds far across the galaxy. The big Starwolves, their strength immense on this smaller planet, bundled these treasures together higgledy-piggledy into the carrying-nets they had brought, and lifted it onto the sleds, and went back for more.
Chane unobtrusively steered his sled around the plaza toward the smaller, less-impressive looking tower he remembered from the tridim pictures. So far, it had been ignored. He ran up its steps, his heart beating rapidly, flung open the wide doors, and burst into the round, lofty room that he remembered.
It was the room of the tridim picture, with walls of black hung with silken black hangings, all of it designed to highlight the one thing that was in the room.
He looked at the Singing Suns, and now he heard their music.
XVIII
A long time ago on Earth a man named Plato had looked up at the planets of heaven and dreamed that in their stately movements they made each a glorious music.
Many centuries later, on a world far across the galaxy from Earth, a master artist had looked up at the stars and had the same dream. And because he was a master scientist as well as an artist, he had created the Singing Suns. His world was in decline and his arts lost and he himself long dead before the wider galactic life touched there, and nobody would ever create such a thing again.
And they do sing, thought Chane, standing with more of a look of awe on his dark, wild face than anyone had ever seen there.
There were forty of them, forty jewels that represented the forty mightiest stars. They had been synthetically created, but in their flashing splendor they made all natural gems look dull. Into each one had been built a tiny miniaturized generator that was fed by an almost unaging supply of transuranic fuel. And these generators powered the matrix of invisible force that held the Suns together, guided their movements, and produced the electronic sounds that made their music.
The jewels moved in an intricate pattern, a star-dance that was too complicated at first to follow. Red, green, golden yellow, bright'blue, they wove their unhurried ways in a design of mathematical perfection. The whole mobile of the Suns was only some four feet in diameter, but its splendor to the eye was the fact that it was always changing, now one dark red star-jewel passing two golden ones, now an ethereal blue-white gliding above a greenish one.
And the jewels sang. From each one came its individual note of pure sound electronically produced, rising
and falling in a lilting mode. And like the pattern of their movement, the pattern of their sound changed perpetually. Yet by the miracle that a master of both art and science had wrought, the changing web of sound was always music.
Chane stared, fascinated. No one who had roamed the starry universe could remain unmoved by this brilliant, changing, singing simulation of the great stars. There were the great suns that he knew well, the mighty red glare of Betelgeuse, the white blaze of Rigel, the golden splendor of Altair. It was as though he saw the whole changing, blazing galaxy in miniature, and the siren music of its components reinforced the sensation so that he seemed to fly as a disembodied spirit through the galactic spaces, rather than to stand looking at a mobile.
A Varnan shout not far outside the building startled Chane out of the spell. On Starwolf raid, there was no time for dreaming!
And when they see what I've got, there'll be something like a Starwolf riot, he thought.
He hurried out and brought the sled right through the opening of the great double doors. Then he grasped the base of the mobile.
The thing was heavy, but his strength was quite sufficient on this lower-gravity world. He managed to tip and walk and work the base of the Singing Suns up onto the sled and fasten it securely. And even as he sweated at this task, the jewel-Suns only inches from his eyes continued their smooth, mazy motions and their music thrilled his ears.
When he was done he ripped down one of the black silk hangings from the wall and used it to cover the Singing Suns. Then he backed the sled out of the building and went away fast.
Under the blue radiance of the halo, the Qajar city was a strange scene. The Starwolves, intoxicated by the loot they were loading on the sleds, shouted and laughed at each other, big bawling golden figures gutting the treasures of the Qajars,
And the Qajars still lay sleeping in their robes, as the beauty they had plotted and stolen and tortured to obtain was taken away from them forever. Remembering the agony they had inflicted on him and his two comrades, Chane was fiercely glad.
Starwolf (Omnibus) Page 38
