by John Norman
The large man replaced a small implement in his jacket pocket. It resembled a pocket flashlight. But the beam that had struck me I had not seen.
"The pain will not last long," the man informed me.
"Please," I begged him. "Please."
"You were superb," he said.
I looked at him, numbly.
The man whom I had slashed with the knife stood behind him, holding his arm, grinning.
"Have your arm attended to," said the large man. The other grinned again and turned away, going toward the truck.
One of the men from the dark, disklike shape, the smaller one, which had followed me, approached. "There is little time," he said.
The large man nodded. But he did not seem perturbed, nor hurried.
He looked at me, carefully. "Stand straight," he said, not urgently.
I tried to stand straight. My arm still felt paralyzed from the shock. I could not move my fingers.
He touched the bloodied cut on my belly, where the branch had struck me. Then, with his hand, he lifted my head, turning it, looking at the cut on my cheek.
"We are not pleased," he said.
I said nothing.
"Bring salve," he said.
An ointment was brought, and he smeared it across the two cuts. It was odorless. To my surprise it seemed to be absorbed almost immediately.
"You must be more careful," he said.
Again I said nothing.
"You might have marked yourself," he said, "or might have been blinded." He returned the ointment to another man. "They are superficial," he told me, "and will heal without trace."
"Let me go!" I cried. "Please! Please!"
"There is little time, little time!" urged the man in the black tunic.
"Bring her handbag," said the large man, calmly. It was brought to him, from where it had fallen when I had tried to escape.
He looked at me.
"Perhaps you are interested in knowing how you were followed?" he asked.
I nodded, numbly.
From the handbag he extracted an object.
"What is this?" he asked.
"My compact," I told him.
He smiled, and turned it over. He unscrewed the bottom. Inside there was a tiny cylinder, fused to a round, circular plate, covered with tiny, copperish lines. "This device," he said, "transmits a signal, which can be picked up by our equipment at a distance of one hundred miles." He smiled. "A similar such device," he said, "was concealed beneath your automobile."
I sobbed.
"It will be dawn in six Ehn," said the man in the tunic.
I could see that there was a lightness in the east.
I did not understand what he said.
The large man nodded at the man in the black tunic. The man in the black tunic then lifted his arm. The small disklike ship then slowly lifted and moved toward the large ship. A port in the large ship slid upward. The small ship moved inside. I could briefly see men, in black tunics, inside, fastening it to plates in a steel flooring. Then the port slid shut again. The remains of the boxes had now been replaced in the truck. Here and there, about the clearing, men were moving about, gathering up equipment. They placed these things in the truck.
I could now move my arm and, barely, the fingers of my hand.
"But your ship," I said, "the small one, could not seem to find me."
"It found you," he said.
"The light," I said, "it couldn't catch me."
"You think it was simply your misfortune, a mere coincidence, that you stumbled into our camp?" he asked.
I nodded, miserably.
He laughed.
I looked at him, with horror.
"The light," he said. "You ran always to avoid it."
I moaned.
"You were herded here," he said.
I cried out with misery.
He turned to a subordinate. "Have you brought Miss Brinton's anklet?"
The subordinate then handed him an anklet. I could see that it was steel. It was open. It had a hinged catch.
Then I stood before them as I had, in the tan slacks, in the black, bare-midriff blouse, save that I now wore a steel anklet.
"Observe," said the large man, indicating the black ship. As I watched it, it seemed that lights began to flicker on its surface, and then it seemed that tendrils of light began to interweave across its steel, and, before my eyes, it began to change in color, turning a grayish blue, streaked with white.
I could now see the first streak of light in the east.
"This is a technique of field-light camouflage," said the large man. "It is primitive. The radar-screening device, within, is more sophisticated. But the light camouflage technique has considerably reduced sightings of our craft. Further, of course, we do little more, normally, with the large craft than arrive and depart, at given points. The smaller craft is used more extensively, but normally only at night, and in isolated areas. It, too, incidentally, is equipped for light-camouflage and radar-screening."
I understood very little of what he said.
"Shall we strip her?" asked one of the subordinates.
"No," said the large man.
The large man stepped behind me. "Shall we go to the ship?" he asked.
I did not move.
I turned to face him.
"Hurry!" called the man in the black tunic, from within the large ship. "Dawn in two Ehn!"
"Who are you? What do you want?" I begged.
"Curiosity," he said, "is not becoming in a Kajira."
I stared at him.
"You might be beaten for it," he said.
"Hurry! Hurry!" cried the man in the black tunic. "We must make rendezvous!"
"Please," invited the large man, gesturing to the ship with one hand.
Numbly I turned and preceded him to the ship. At the foot of the ramp I trembled.
"Hurry, Kajira," said he, gently.
I ascended the steel ramp. I turned. He was standing back on the grass.
"In your time," he said, "dawn occurs at this meridian and latitude, on this day, at six sixteen."
I saw the sun's rim at the edge of my world, rising, touching it. In the east there was dawn. It was the first dawn I had ever seen. It was not that I had not stayed up all night, even many times. It was only that I had never watched a sunrise.
"Farewell, Kajira," said the man.
I cried out and extended my arms. The steel ramp swung upward and locked in place, shutting me in the ship. A sealing door then slid across the closed ramp, it, too, locking in place. I pounded on its plates, wildly, sobbing.
Strong hands seized me from behind, one of the men in a black tunic. There was a tiny, three-pronged scar on his right cheekbone. I was thrust weeping and kicking through the ship, between tiers of piping and plating.
Then I was in a curved area, where, to my horror, I saw, crowded together, closely set tiers of metal racks. These racks were fixed to the curved metal ceiling at the top of the ship and the metal floor at the bottom. There were narrow walk spaces between the tiers. Fixed in these racks, held in place by belts, their long axes parallel to the floor, were large, transparent cylinders, or tubes, perhaps of heavy plastic. In these were the girls I had seen, those who had been taken from the truck.
I was forced down the central aisle, between the racks of tubes on the left and right.
Then I was held in place.
One tube, accessible, close to us, on the right, about at my eye level, was empty.
Here the man who held me from behind, by the arms, had stopped.
Another man, clad as the first, unscrewed one end of this tube.
I could see that there were two small hoses, one at each end, fixed in each tube. They led into a machine fixed in the wall.
"No!" I cried. "No!"
I struggled wildly, but the two men, one at my ankles, the other holding me under the arms, forced me into the tube. My prison was perhaps eighteen inches in diameter. The lid to the tube was screwed shu
t. I screamed and screamed, pushing and kicking at the cylinder. I turned on my side. I pressed my hands against the walls of the tube. The men did not seem to notice me.
Then I began to feel faint. It was hard to breathe.
One of the men attached a small hose to a tiny opening in the tube, above my head.
I lifted my head.
Oxygen streamed into the tube.
Another hose was attached at the other end of the tube, above my feet. There was a tiny, almost inaudible noise, as of air being withdrawn.
I could breathe.
The two men then, standing in the central aisle, seemed to brace themselves, one holding to the racking on the left, the other to the racking on the right. I suddenly felt as though I were in an elevator, and for the moment could not breathe. I knew then we were ascending. From the feeling of my body, pressing against the tube, I thought we must be ascending vertically, or nearly vertically. There was no peculiarly powerful stresses, and very little unpleasantness. It was swift, and frightening, but not painful. I heard no sound of motors, or engines.
After perhaps a minute the two men, holding to the racking, moved from the room.
The strange sensation continued for some time. Then, after a time, I seemed pressed against the side of the tube, rather cruelly, for perhaps several minutes. Then, suddenly, no forces seemed to play upon me, and, to my horror, I drifted to the other side of the tube. A finger's pressure now put me back to the side against which I had been cruelly pressed. I thought that that must be down. But shortly thereafter one of the men in a black tunic, wearing sandals with metal plates on the bottoms, stepped carefully, step by step, across the steel plating. It had been the floor, but now it seemed as though it were a wall at my left, and he moved strangely on the wall.
I cried out in misery.
I was now hopelessly disoriented in the capsule.
I had lost all sense of direction, of what might be up or down, or even if, any longer, there were such things.
He went to the machine into which the hoses from the tubes led, and moved a small dial.
In a moment I sensed something different in the air being conducted into my tube.
There were several other similar dials, beneath various switches, doubtless one for each of the containers.
I tried to attract his attention. I called out. Apparently he could not hear me. Or was not interested in doing so.
I was vaguely aware that now a gentle force seemed to draw my body against the tube differently. I was vaguely aware that now the ceiling and the floor seemed as they should be. I saw, not fully conscious of it, the man leave the room.
I looked out through the plastic. I pressed my hands against the heavy, curved, transparent walls of my small prison.
The rich, clever, vain, insolent, proud Elinor Brinton, it was clear, had not escaped.
She was a prisoner.
She did not know what had been done to her, whither she was bound, or what her fate was to be.
I fell unconscious.
5
Three Moons
It is difficult for me to conjecture what happened.
I do not know how long I was unconscious.
I know only that I awakened, stunned, bewildered, lying on my stomach, head turned to the side, on grass. My fingers tore down at the roots. I wanted to scream. But I did not move. The events of the August afternoon and night flashed through my memory. I shut my eyes. I must go back to sleep. I must awaken again, between the white satin sheets in my penthouse. But the pressing of fresh grass against my cheek told me I was no longer in the penthouse, in surroundings with which I was familiar.
I got up to my hands and knees.
I squinted toward the sun. Somehow it seemed not the same to me. I moved my hand. I pressed my foot against the earth.
I threw up with horror.
I knew I was no longer on my world, on the world I knew. It was another world, a different world, one I did not know, one strange to me.
And yet the air seemed beautifully clear and clean. I could not remember such air. The grass was wet with dew, and rich and green. I was in a field of some sort, but there were trees, tall and dark, in the distance. A small yellow flower grew near me. I looked at it, puzzled. I had never seen such a flower before. In the distance, away from the forest, I could see a yellowish thicket, it, too, of trees, but not green, but bright and yellow. I heard a brook nearby.
I was afraid.
I cried out as I saw a bird, tiny and purple, flash past overhead.
In the distance, near the yellowish thicket, I saw a small, yellowish animal moving, delicately. It was far off and I could not see it well. I thought it might be a deer or gazelle. It disappeared into the thicket.
I looked about myself.
Some hundred yards or so from me I saw a mass of torn metal, a ruptured structure of black steel, half buried in the grass.
It was the ship.
I noted that I no longer wore the anklet on my left ankle. It had been removed.
I still wore the clothing in which I had been captured, the tan slacks, the black, bare-midriff blouse. My sandals I had lost in the woods on Earth, while fleeing from the small dark ship which had so unerringly, herding me like a frantic animal, delivered me to my captors.
I felt like running from the ship, as far as I might. But there seemed to be no sign of life about it. I was terribly hungry.
I crawled in the direction of the brook, and, lying on my stomach before it, scooped water into my mouth.
What I thought was a petaled flower underneath the swift, cold surface of the brook suddenly broke apart, becoming a school of tiny yellow fish. I was startled.
I slaked my thirst.
I wanted to run from the ship. Somewhere there might be the men.
These men, those in black tunics, and those, too, who had been instrumental in my capture, were the first men I had ever learned to fear.
On Earth I had not feared men. I had despised them. I had held them in contempt. They were so eager to please, so manipulable, so pliant, so meaningless, weak and docile. But these men, those in black tunics, and those who had been instrumental in my capture, I had learned to fear. They were the first men I had learned to fear. They would not be the last.
But the ship seemed still. I saw some small birds fluttering about it.
There might be food on the ship.
Slowly, frightened, I approached the ship, step by step.
I heard a singing bird.
At last, about twenty yards from the ship, I circled it, fearfully.
It was torn open, the steel plating split and bent, scorched and blistered.
There was no sign of life.
I then approached the ship, half buried in the grass. I looked inside, through one of the great rents in the steel. Its edges seemed to have melted and hardened. In places there were frozen rivulets of steel, as though heavy trickles of paint had run from a brush and then hardened. The inside of the ship was black and scorched. The piping, in several places, had ruptured. Panels were split apart, revealing a complex, blackened circuitry within. The heavy glass, or quartz or plastic, in the ports was, in many places, broken through.
Barefoot, on the steel plating, buckled under my feet, the bolts broken, I entered the ship, holding my breath.
There seemed no one there.
The interior of the ship was compactly organized, with often only small spaces between tiers of tubing, piping and meters. Sometimes these small passages were half closed with bent pipes and tangles of wire erupted from the sides, but I managed to crawl where I wished to.
I found what seemed to be a control room, with two chairs and a large port before them. In this room there were also chairs about the side, four of them, before masses of dials, gauges and switches. There was no engine room that I could find. Whatever force drove the ship must have been beneath it, reached perhaps through the floor plating. The engines of the ship, and its weapons, if weapons it had, must have been op
erated from the control room. I found the area where the heavy plastic tubes had been kept, in one of which I had been confined. The tubes had all been opened. They were empty.
I heard a sound behind me and I screamed.
A small, furred animal scurried past me, its claws scrabbling on the steel plating. It had six legs. I leaned against a rack of piping, to catch my breath.
But now I was afraid.
I had found no one in the ship.
But where could they be? There had been a crash. But there were no bodies. But if there had been survivors, where had they gone? Might they return soon?
I returned to the main portion of the ship, and looked again at the great rents in the steel. It did not seem likely to me that they had been caused simply by the crash. There were four of them. One, rather on the bottom of the ship, was about five foot square. Two, on the left side, were smaller. The rent through which I had entered the ship was the largest. It was, at the point at which I had entered, as the metal had been torn open, like steel petals, more than nine feet in height, a vast gash which, irregularly, on the left, tapered downward to a tear in the steel of only some four inches in height. There were, of course, numerous other points of damage on the ship, both interiorly and exteriorly, pitted, buckled plating and such. Much of the buckled plating, I supposed, might have been done when the ship impacted. I looked once more at the great rents. It did not seem unlikely to me that the ship had been attacked.
Frightened, I ran through the ship, wanting to find food or weapons. I found the crew's quarters. There were lockers there, and six cots, three on a side, mounted one over the other on the two walls, a mirror. The lockers had been split open and were emptied. I found blood on one side of one of the cots.
I hurried from the room.
I found the tiny galley. In one corner, hunched over, nibbling, I saw an animal, about the size of a small dog. It lifted its snout and hissed at me, the hair about its neck and on its back suddenly bristling out with a crackle.
I screamed.
It seemed twice the size it had been.
It crouched over a metallic container, round, not unlike a covered plate, that had been sprung open.
