Menace Under Marswood

by Sterling E. Lanier

  Slater braced himself for movement. Satreel rose to its full height and a red flame seemed to glow in the heart of the strange, long eyes. Slater could see a ripple of tiny scalelike spots on the alien skull, as if the alien's skin were the hide of some delicate glassy-blue lizard. The wide mouth opened and then closed several times before an answer was given. The eyes stared fixedly at the colonel.

  "What are you, then?" came the rippling, hissing voice. "Never has one of your kind ever addressed me so. You are no native of the Ruck, nor of this planet. You are of the third world." The great black eyes narrowed as if in thought. Then Satreel spoke again.

  "I have had new things twice in this cycle. You interest me, for you have used your head in a way that few I have seen on this world could. So, you have concluded that some of the life here is not native to this world? Clever, that thought. I would question you at more length. But others have been brought to me, and they too are not of this world." He fell silent and then one of his long arms moved sideways, and Slater could see what looked like seven fingers. One of the long, slender digits touched something on the panel behind which Satreel stood. There was a buzzing noise and then a series of sounds that were a mixture of clicks and muted bell tolls. They died away and Satreel folded both arms across his front and looked down at the humans. Nothing happened for a half minute.

  Then a panel slid aside to the right and behind where the tall figure stood on its dais, leaving a large round opening in the far wall of the great chamber. From this walked a group of figures, four in all.

  Striding at the head of the new group was an unmistakable figure, white-haired, hawk-faced, and arrogant. No one who had ever seen Junius Brutus Pelham could ever mistake him. He was Jay Bee, and he paused to stare coldly at his enemies.

  The tall figure in the center broke the unfriendly silence. "Here are more new humans from your Earth, who have come through the barriers around the Deeps. They must be taught as this place has taught many others. They must learn the truth of the Rulers from beyond the Rim, as you have done. Can they accept the laws of the Rulers? Can you work with them? Shall I, who speak for the Ancients, accept them? What are your thoughts, you who would rule Mars under my guidance?" The strange hissing tremolo died away. Slater got a good look at the three who had entered with JayBee. One of them he knew all too well, but he remained impassive as he took in her ample form now barely covered in wisps of some blue, silken material and her long, flowing hair.

  Pelham broke the silence, his face set in a mocking smile as he spoke. "Lord Satreel, wisest of all who breathe, living spirit of this ancient planet, you have done wisely as only you can do. Behold, you have captured the chief enemy of Mars, of both your ancient rule of this world and my hope to revive it and increase its power." JayBee pointed at Muller, his face contorted with hatred. "There stands the secret leader of the Terrans, the one who hates the True People, who would do anything to block our reconquest of your domain and your emergence from the depths to the surface." He paused for effect.

  Mohini Dutt-Medawar was looking at JayBee as if he were God incarnate. Her father, JayBee's chief acolyte, stood nearby. A vital and strong trio, and as Slater thought this, he looked at the fourth in their party, as JayBee spoke again, and his own jaw dropped, for there was a new surprise.

  The fourth member of JayBee's group was short and very wide, but had no head, only a dome speckled with dots of light. More than anything else, the thing looked like an upright cannon shell or giant bullet gleaming with a metallic blue shimmer. Where the lights sparked was something more clear, like a smoky plastic. A metal spike rose from its blunt point and three pointed tentacles of coiling metal sprang from its midsection.

  JayBee spoke again. "Lord Satreel, you have no reason to fear us three, who are your servants. Do not have your guardian robot waste its strength on us, but rather devote its energies to the disposing of this crew of enemies whom you have been clever enough to capture. They should live no longer, for they oppose the great plan. Destroy them all, unless you can convert the three younger ones of the True People of the planet's surface. Kill the rest." He stared hard at Louis Muller. "Kill them at once, those who are older."

  Mohini Medawar chimed in. "Kill that female too! She is one of the so-called Wise Women. Kill her with the UN men! Kill them first though, especially that one!" Her outstretched arm was thrust at Captain Feng. Glancing at him, Slater saw the captain was impassive.

  Slater could not help speaking to Mohini on the spur of the moment, though it took an effort. "What's the matter, hot stuff? Haven't found a good bedmate down here? Frustrated?" She spat in his direction but stayed silent.

  After a momentary silence, the hissing purr of Satreel broke it. "So, they are enemies and not those who would join the House of the Overlords. This one you call the greatest enemy of all is no fool, JayBee. He has glimpsed something of the past, I think, and of the ages of the dead stars that you have not. I will question them, for much might be learned that you do not know."

  "Then, Lord Satreel, I beg of you, search them well and keep them in the most secure of your prisons! They are very dangerous, more so than you can imagine, you who have not fought, yourself for, for—" he hesitated—"well, for a long time."

  "Satreel from Beyond, you may kill us and no doubt can do so with ease." As Slater listened to Colonel Muller, he saw that one of the alien's unbelievable hands was hidden by the metal of the instrument panel's back. He saw this and braced himself, then went back to listening.

  "You have never tried to see whether our planet, of which I am but a trusted servant, is really your enemy at all. Why should it be? You are great and strange, but perhaps, with all of your vast knowledge, you lack something that we, not our criminals, can give you." He paused, then continued. "They could not find you a path to return. Our knowledge and yours together—such a combination—might find such a trail, to out and back, over the lost years."

  There was a long silence now and it was JayBee who broke it. "He lies! Do not trust him, Lord Satreel. Kill him at once! Kill them all!"

  "Silence!" The hissing rasp of the alien throat shut JayBee up instantly. The alien did not like being argued with, that was obvious.

  The alien spoke again. "All of you new ones, you who have just come, stand still, well apart from one another. You will slowly take any weapon that you have upon you, anything at all, and any communication device of any sort, and lay them with care and slowness on the floor in front of your feet. When you have done so, move those two beasts over to the left side of this chamber. If any one of you attempts to disobey, you will all die, at once."

  When the sibilant trill died away, Muller spoke clearly. "Remember your training. I now give you an order. Do exactly what this lord has said to do."

  The little group separated so that each was standing at least two arm lengths away from any other. Muller set the example by placing a little pile of things at his feet: tiny bombs, a boot knife, and a duplicate homer, such as the one in the butt of the knife the outer guards had taken from him. The others, without a word, began to do the same. Slater had managed to move closest to Danna. While divesting himself of anything that might be thought a weapon, he looked at the wild girl and she looked back. Had he seen a wink? He placed a boot knife on his own pile while he thought.

  When everyone had divested himself of hidden weapons, in apparent good faith, Satreel spoke again. "You have done well to obey. Now lead those two lower things to the wall and secure them to the loops." The alien turned. "JayBee, you and your two servants go now. I will deal with this."

  Without a word, the Master Mind of Mars walked to the back wall, followed by Mohini and her father. Only the squat robot stayed behind. The door opened and they passed through and vanished. Meanwhile, Feng had tied the bulgotes to large metal rings on the right wall. Slater saw splotches of a different color on the wall near those rings and also on the shining floor beside them. He had an idea of what was coming.

  "Observe the doom of th
ose who disobey," came the purring tremolo. One hand stroked the instrument board. There was a humming sound, and a broad beam of light struck the tensed bodies of Strombok and Breenbull, and before the horrified eyes of the humans, the two gotes began to dissolve. Ripples ran over them and their outlines blurred. Their legs vanished and became blunt mounds of ichor, their frantic heads melted back into the bodies and became more of the viscid mass. In seconds two masses of slobbering jelly lay on the floor where two large animals had stood. Slater felt a squeeze on his arm just as a vile stench struck his nostrils. He glanced down and saw Danna was clutching his arm, her face bleak with grief. "He turned Strombok into that! He could do it to you, Moe, to all of us!"

  Her low, shocked murmur was cut off by the alien voice. "Beware you who may think of disobedience. The Outer Lords left me, their good servant and guard, many powers and many weapons. You have seen what one, the Ray of Dissolution, can do. Stand now, and be searched."

  There was the clicking hum again and from one side the strange robot approached. It rolled smoothly up to the colonel, who stood quite still, and its three metallic tentacles began to stroke his body from head to foot. When it was done, the thing moved on to the konsel.

  The creature worked very quickly. In no time, it had done the males, all of them, and was making a start on Danna. After a second or two the robot stopped and stood facing its last target. From inside there came an angry buzz, the first sound the robot had made since its appearance.

  "So, you have a weapon concealed upon or perhaps within you," came the singsong hiss of the robot's master from his mount. "I have told you what comes to those who defy me and you have seen your beasts, of whom I made an example."

  "Wait!" Colonel Muller cried. "Wait, Satreel, you may be committing a grave error. Why does this machine say that the female of our company has a weapon?"

  "I know not." Satreel seemed disinterested. "Perhaps it senses mood and can see treachery and rebellion. I can replace the power units in this mechanism and it will obey me. I can even repair it, in simple ways, should some external device be broken or fatigued." His strange voice paused and a faint sadness seemed to come into it. "But I did not build it. The Le-ashimath built it and others, long ago. I do not understand how it was constructed internally, nor all its purposes."

  Muller's voice exuded confidence. "Has it ever examined a female of our species? This is a great woman, a leader of those who war on the enemies from the third planet, up on the surface. She has much mental power, much seeing-far-off, which we need to obey you properly and aid you in your quest."

  For once the alien seemed hesitant. His purring trill seemed to check and catch as he spoke. "If you think her not an enemy, take her with you. I will have you all placed in secure quarters, whence you can leave only when I bid you to do so. Go then!" As Satreel said this, his hand pointed at Muller. "You, the leader, you stay! I would have speech with you, who seem to know much none of the others do. I will return you to their midst after we have communicated alone."

  He pointed one immense, lank arm at the group and indicated an opening in the left wall, opposite the horrible piles of reeking slime that had once been their two gotes. The konsel moved out at once and the rest fell in behind. Slater took Danna's hand and held it. In single file they went through the opened door and heard it slide shut behind them as the last passed through.

  Looking about, Slater saw they were in a straight corridor. To right and left were doors, all of them shut. A fluorescent band in the center of the ceiling provided adequate light.

  They had gone a little way when the konsel suddenly stopped. He held up his right arm, palm reversed, and they stopped at once.

  Slater could see what had halted them. From a side passage a robot had emerged that looked identical, except for its color, to the one that had just searched them. This one was a baleful green-yellow.

  With one of its sinuous arms, it was beckoning them forward, toward the opening from which it had just come.

  "Follow where it says," the konsel ordered. He stepped forward and the others followed in silence.

  The group turned to the right and entered a corridor that seemed identical to the one they had just left. They walked along it for ten minutes or so, and then the robot halted, blocking the passage and pointing past a hinged door that opened out into the corridor. Slater saw the metal locking bar that slid into it.

  Led by the old warrior, the group came to where the robot waited. It pointed to Thau Lang, Milla Breen, and Arta Burg. When they had entered, it waved the others back and slid the metal bar in place, firmly sealing the door shut. Then it beckoned the others to the next door on the other side of the dim-lit passage. Into this one it sent Feng, Danna, and Slater.

  As the door shut behind them, Slater suddenly remembered that Nakamura was still on the loose. He could have kicked himself. Since Nakamura had been given his quiet instruction by the colonel and slipped away in the forest before they ever got near the place, he had vanished also from his friend's mind. He saw that Feng and Danna were looking at him strangely.

  "It's all right. I was just thinking about Nak, out alone in that creepy wood. Hope to Allah he's not hurt. That lousy ray our friend Satreel used on the gotes ... "

  "The lieutenant is a trained officer, a bush fighter as good as any we ever produced—and we don't know what the colonel told him to do," Feng said. "Personally I'd like to see if we could find some egress from this hole we're in. While locked up here, we are easier targets for that repulsive beam than the lieutenant!"

  "I might add," Feng continued, "that any talking we do ought to be as cryptic and unclear as possible. For all we know, listening devices have been planted in here."

  Danna nodded and said, "This is a funny place, isn't it? I think we should look all over through our clothes, very carefully, in case the temperature is lowered. We might get very cold." The wink that she gave made her meaning quite plain to both of them.

  Feng smiled frostily. "Good thinking, Wise Woman. I wonder what we have left on us that might keep us warm. Let's lay what we find on the floor, shall we?"

  Out of his belt, Feng slid a polished stick of some very dense wood with a delicate curve, about two and a half feet long, with one end swollen into a slight knob. "Call it a knob-kerry," he said. "I've carried it for years and the wood is African. Like the detects in banks and travel ports, our jailer's mechanical sleuth seems unable to find simple wood."

  Flinching slightly as she extracted the thing, Slater watched Danna pull a flexible knife, in a flexible metal sheath, from under her curly hair. "I don't know," she said, "but maybe that's why that machine made noises at me." She smiled merrily. "What about you, Moe? Got any Greenie secrets hidden away?"

  "Only one, I'm afraid." He took off his belt and placed it on the floor and then uncoupled the buckle. At one end, hidden in the belt, was a three-inch, double-edged dagger. "Rather old, this one," he said. "It was a present from my cousin."

  "Let's look about and see what this prison has to offer," Feng suggested. It was not a large cell and seemed to be made of the same unyielding plasticene as the door. It was very dusty. There was no furniture at all save for a stool, also plastic, and a bucket of similar material. The temperature was constant and warm, and the air seemed to circulate through a row of small holes in the plastic ceiling.

  Feng examined the door carefully. "Hah," he said. "There's a trap at the bottom of this thing. That's how food and drink must be put in."

  Danna started to say something and got as far as "Moe, you've forgotten your other thing—" when they heard metallic sounds just beyond the door. They all sprang back and Feng at the same time swept up the things on the floor and upended the bucket over them in a back corner.

  As they watched, the door swung open. Colonel Muller stood in the doorway, a smile on his face, hands in his pockets, and seemingly at ease. Behind him there bulked the form of the mechanical turnkey that had shut them all in.

  Muller walked in casuall
y through the open door and did not even turn when it shut firmly behind him. They could all hear the clunk as the metal bar was slid into place and locked home. "You seem well, all of you." He smiled at them. "How are you feeling?"

  "We're fine, sir," Feng said. "We wondered about you and our absent friend."

  "We were thinking about what we had to keep us warm, if the heat went off," Slater said, grinning. He removed the overturned bucket so the colonel could see the extent of their resources.

  "We've examined this whole place, Colonel," Feng said. "I doubt if we can get out with what we have here. Have something useful?"

  "I fear not. So that's what we have, eh. Not much to play with."

  The sound of a gurgling laugh, soft and deep, filled the little room. They looked at Danna in surprise but she was choking on her laughter. At length she pulled herself together and bent over the pile of weapons. Still choking, she held up Slater's belt, ignoring the detached buckle knife. "I'm ashamed of you, you big Greenie warman." She was still giggling as she pointed to something and Slater felt indeed like an awful fool. How could he have forgot the tiny metal box on the belt and its small inhabitant?"

  It was Feng who saved him. "Damn, I totally forgot your pet, the animal compass, the miniature of that monster that passed us back on the ramp road as we came here. I wonder if it can be used."

  Muller had been looking about while they talked but he missed very little. "I think we must try the door. Nothing else seems to be of any use. The walls, ceiling, and floor are simply heavy sheeting of some synthetic, laid over stone."

  Slater opened the box and Grabbit scuttled slowly out onto his palm. Danna cooed at the strange little creature and his single red eye blinked up at her. A tiny humming came from him, a note Slater had seldom heard the little creature make.