Space Trap

by Juanita Coulson

  Ken poured a cup of water for Thayenta, urging her to drink. The bruise on her cheek looked bad. If she had suffered any shock, she ought to take fluids. As the woman sipped, Ken pulled a rag off his torn sleeve and dipped a corner in another cupful of water, gently daubing at her cheek with the makeshift swab.

  “How much do you remember, R.C.?” Eads suddenly asked. He leaned forward, eagerly awaiting Zachary’s answer.

  “Of what? Your theories on modern man’s decadence?” R.C. parried. “I remember that well — so does everyone else who ever served with you. Sometimes it was hard to tell when the theories quit and Noland Eads began.” R.C. pretended to relax, lolling on the bench. “Every time we touched down on an uninhabited world, you saw it as a potential new beginning — man on his own in combat with the elements.”

  “It’s true!” Eads brought his fist down hard on the table, making the cups dance. His craggy features were contorted, his demeanor, demoniacal.

  “No special weapons or tools,” R.C. muttered, quoting from the past. “How do you explain those needlers? I don’t consider that meeting nature on her own terms. Or do you expect nature to arrive at the head of an army, Noland? You intend to use those against wild game?”

  Eads planted a boot on the bench beside R.C. and rested his elbows on his knee. When he grinned, the tension in the room took a quantum leap. “Maybe. Or maybe they’re useful against something a lot more sophisticated than wild game.”

  “Such as the Patrol when they eventually find you? And they will,” R.C. said levelly.

  Eads’ grin widened into a nasty leer. “I never did answer your first question, did I, R.C.? Funny. That was always your trick — stalling, never quite getting around to a straight answer.” He broke into a cackle, slapping his thigh with a smack that made Thayenta start and nearly drop her cup. Taking it from her fingers, Ken replaced it on the table.

  The leader of the marooned colonists began pacing back and forth. Eads’ great head swivelled, and he never took his eyes off his old classmate. “Yes, I learned from you, R.C. Many, many things. You’re a damned good pilot. The best. Just one of your specialties I was happy to borrow. But you never would learn from me, would you? You wouldn’t listen when I told you how man was really meant to live out here on the frontier.”

  “I listened,” R.C. said with apparent sincerity. He took Eads aback.

  “Did you? I hope you did, R.C. That means there’s a chance.” Coming to a stop, he licked his lips and confronted Zachary. “Then tell me — how close is Earth Central to pinpointing my colony world?”

  The atmosphere in the room grew heavy with menace, and Thayenta wriggled close to Ken. She sensed it telepathically. All the human conversation must be gibberish to her ears, but she could read the emotions.

  So could Ken. Violence lurked right under the surface.

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” R.C. began, temporizing.

  Without preamble Eads backhanded the Surveyman, sprawling Zachary forcefully back against the bench.

  Fists clenched, Ken rose to lunge to R.C.’s aid, but strong fingers bit into his collarbone. Turning, he saw a needler aimed at his head. On the other side, the second guard pointed his weapon at Thayenta.

  Ken froze, infuriated and helpless! His mind raced through possibilities, desperately seeking some plan to save them.

  “Answer me!” Eads screamed at Zachary. “I know all your tricks, R.C. I’m not stupid, and I know the Patrol isn’t. I need time. A year, two years, five. Then we’ll own this planet. We’ll have won it with our bare hands, the way it should be won. It’ll be too late for Earth Central to uproot us then. I’ve got connections in high places, R.C. When my friends pull the right strings, they won’t dare send the Patrol in here. NE 592 is ours. If they try to take it away from us they’ll hear the explosion all the way back to Earth!”

  He was actually raving, his face red, his eyes bulging. Ken was appalled. A living legend like Noland Eads — come to this. Too many dangerous and stressful missions out into nothingness had caused this breakdown.

  That backhanded blow had split R.C.’s lip. Blood dabbled down to his chin. Zachary made no effort to wipe it away. He gazed pityingly at Eads, saying nothing.

  Enraged by the silence, Eads grabbed Zachary’s fatigues, shaking the Surveyman. “Tell me! How much time have we got? How much time!”

  With amazing calm, R.C. grasped Eads’ wrists. Their eyes met in a battle of wills. Then either R.C. broke Eads’ steely grip, or Eads chose to let go. Ken exhaled slowly as R.C. palped his swollen lip. With scorn he mopped the blood off and said, “You’re up against it now, Noland.”

  “What?” Eads raised his hand to strike again, but held it in check.

  Ken felt like a coiled spring, his anger poised on a trigger. If Eads hit the captain again, could Ken stop himself from leaping at the man?

  Unperturbed, Zachary sounded as if he were reading from a briefing tape. “They spotted all of it back at Earth Central, Noland. The missing Class-D cargo ship. The missing supplies, the stolen needlers. And your colonists. Oh, those were obvious, too. They stood out like sore thumbs on the missing-persons listings. All those kooks and fanatics and drop-outs who’d joined the Old-Ways Sect disappeared.

  A spasm of pain shot through Ken’s shoulder as the guard’s grip tightened. R.C.’s crack about “kooks” had scored. It would take a shipful of fanatics to follow Noland Eads out to NE 592 in this mad, illegal scheme.

  “Go on! Go on! What else?” Eads said. Some of the frenzy died out of him, replaced by burning curiosity.

  “It didn’t take long to put all the pieces together,” R.C. went on with maddening placidity. “It was plain you had engineered the ship theft and manipulated the requisition sheets in order to supply this colony. The type of supplies gave you away from the start, Noland: hand tools. And you had far too many ‘colonists’ to control. Some of them couldn’t resist bragging in letters to their friends and relatives — hinting about the great adventure coming up, their conversion to the Old-Ways Sect, and Noland Eads’ philosophy.”

  “But Earth Central couldn’t know where we were going!” Eads shouted in triumph. “They couldn’t begin to know that. It’s a big galaxy. We could have gone anywhere. They won’t find us for years!”

  “Why not?” R.C. said in that same dispassionate tone. “I did.”

  Eads boggled at him, and Ken cast a sidelong glance at his guard. Not yet. Their attention was divided, but not sufficiently. It was still too risky to break for it.

  “How?” Eads sounded betrayed, a hurt, spoiled brat whose secret hiding place was obvious to an adult.

  “You said you learned from me,” R.C. said. “The reverse is true, whether you believe it or not. Knowing you, it wasn’t difficult.”

  “A stab in the dark! It had to be!” Eads clung to his insistence that his plan was foolproof, undetectable. “It was an accident that you came to NE 592.”

  R.C. granted him the thinnest of smiles. “Figure it out for yourself, Noland.” He let the suspense hang for several long seconds, and Eads’ mania to know ripened. Finally R.C. said, “All right. You had to have chosen a primitive world. I ran a computer check for water balance, timber, the “proper proportion” of predators to prey — proper according to Noland Eads’ philosophy, which I knew well. I listened to your speeches, and I don’t forget things, Noland. You forget a lot of things. You don’t consider all the possibilities, and sometimes that can be fatal.”

  The needlers aimed at Ken’s and Thayenta’s heads drooped slightly, and the grip on Ken’s shoulder lessened still more. The guards were rapt, hypnotized by R.C.’s performance. The odds were getting better, but the moment had still not come. The man protecting Eads’ back was enthralled, but he was three or four meters away, safe from easy attack.

  “I don’t …” For the first time doubt crossed Eads’ homely face. He drew back, frowning at R.C. “Earth Central can’t know. You’re just whistling to keep your spirits
up.”

  A chuckle rumbled in R.C.’s throat. “You’re the one with problems, not me, Noland. You were beaten before you ever lifted ship for this planet.”

  “We both know the way Patrol operates,” Eads flared. “They’re not going to act on this immediately — even if you did pinpoint NE 592, which I don’t believe. You gave them a couple of dozen options on my hideaway world. They never will be able to decide which one you picked to investigate first, or second, or —”

  “I wasn’t speaking of the Patrol,” R.C. said somberly. “Earth Central doesn’t figure into this, now. You’re up against a random element, one not even Noland Eads predicted. And that element’s going to finish your colony.”

  Eads set his acne-scarred jaw. “Nothing’s going to stop us. What the hell are you babbling about?”

  “The M’Nae.” Zachary dropped the explanation casually. As Eads and the guards puzzled over it, R.C. shot a get-ready glance in Ken’s direction. Like an Academy lecturer bored with his material, R.C. went on, “The aliens. The M’Nae. That’s what they call themselves.”

  “That woman,” and Eads glowered hatefully at Thayenta.

  “She’s unimportant. Only one of many.” R.C. shook his head pityingly. “You’re worrying about small fry. It’s too late for that. The M’Nae got to this planet before you did, Noland. You invaded their territory — their territory by prior right. Even by Earth’s legal standards, their claim is valid, and it pre-dates yours. Their colony was here before you crashed. The M’Nae sent an ambassador to negotiate with you, and you killed him. They send you a second one, and your goons maul her.”

  Eads’ mouth was open and the guards were nonplussed. R.C. rammed the point home. “Killing an ambassador is a very serious crime — particularly for a colony established by illegal means. An alien ambassador. In every culture we’ve known, the person of an ambassador is inviolate. Noland, you just may have triggered an interplanetary and interspecies war.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Eads acted swiftly. He whirled, drawing his needler, thumbing back the intensity control, preparing to fire a deadly lance into Thayenta.

  Ken’s own reflexes were equally quick, however. He tackled the alien woman, knocking her to the floor. “Down! Keep down!” He prayed she’d understand. No time to worry about the hidden translator, or about sending telepathic images to her!

  R.C. threw himself on Eads, wrestling his former friend for the illegal weapon.

  At the same instant Ken swung his arms wide, locking his elbows, and the guards to either side were smashed across their throats. They doubled over, gagging in pain.

  Ken charged past R.C. and Eads. The third guard was wavering, trying to aim his needler but afraid of hitting Eads by mistake. Ken drove a boot into the man’s solar plexus and sent him sprawling.

  The needler! It sailed off into the room’s shadows. No chance of finding it without a search.

  Ken landed a solid punch on the guard’s chin, knocking the man out for the moment. Then he spun on his heel.

  R.C. was holding his own. The wiry Surveyman lacked Eads’ height and strength, but desperation and sanity evened the struggle. One of the guards was coming to, fumbling for the needler he had dropped.

  Ken leapt across overturned benches blocking his path. He had to stop that guard before …

  “The woman!” Eads gasped. “Shoot the woman!”

  R.C. forced Eads’ weapon hand down. The colony leader squeezed the trigger several times, and needler darts set the floorboards smoldering.

  “She’s their tool! Their eyes! You’ve got to kill her!” Eads ranted.

  A guard was raising his weapon to level at Thayenta as Ken crashed into him. They went down in a pummeling heap. At the impact, the needler bounced out of the Praetorian’s hand, but he was a capable rough-and-tumble fighter. He gave as good as he got. Fists and knees and headbutts flew fast and furious.

  Ken caught a glimpse of the two older men waltzing around in a macabre dance, locked in a life and death battle. “Kill her! Kill them all!”

  “Listen to me!” R.C.’s voice was wrenched in gasps by effort. “Noland! Listen! There’s too many of them! You’ve got to —”

  Appeal for reason was useless. Eads’ twisted mind burned with a lust for violence and death. Death for the alien woman and her kind, death for anyone who helped the M’Nae.

  Ken dodged a punch and countered with a hard one of his own, rattling the Praetorian’s head off the floor. Semi-conscious, Eads’ guard was a sitting duck for the finishing blow.

  Ken snatched up the needler the man had dropped earlier. The remaining guard, still coughing, was struggling to draw a bead on Thayenta.

  Thayenta had huddled beside a bench throughout the melee. She was wide-eyed, stunned by the physical behavior of the humans. Their motives were an enigma, alien. Ken — a friend — had knocked her down and she’d stayed put.

  Ken jumped over a bench and threw a body block into the last guard. The two of them reeled back into the log and flagstone wall. The Praetorian took the brunt of the shock. Glaze-eyed, he slithered to the floor in a limp heap.

  Ken grabbed the man’s needler, thrust it in a pocket, and hurried toward Thayenta.

  A sizzling noise ripped through the large room. An ugly sound, one Ken had previously heard only on tapes.

  R.C. uttered a strangled cry, jerking away from Eads. Clutching his left leg, the Surveyman toppled, writhing from the agony of a needler hit.

  Ken froze as Eads turned, weapon in hand.

  Then, purposefully, Ken raised his confiscated needler and pointed it at Eads’ leonine head. “Hold it right there.”

  Eads was aiming too — not at Ken, but at Thayenta.

  The deadly tableau held them all immobile for five or six heartbeats.

  R.C., muffling a groan, dragged himself along the floor, reaching a hand up to Eads. “Noland, don’t! Listen to me!”

  A charred patch on R.C.’s fatigues oozed blood. Pain twisted at Zachary, but he thrust it aside for a more critical matter. He pleaded for understanding. “There’s too many of them, Noland. A whole planet of them, more coming through all the time. Killing the woman won’t solve anything. It’ll only make it worse!”

  Truth, lies, and speculation mingled wildly in a frantic attempt to stay Eads’ murderous drive.

  Ken’s finger rested lightly on the needler trigger. He could deal death, but if he did, so might Eads. The man’s madness made it all a terrible gamble. Even with a needler ray through his brain, Eads might pull the trigger.

  While R.C. begged his old friend to see reason, Ken cleared his mind. One small section focussed on Eads, on the needler in Eads’ hand, but the remainder … Ken didn’t dare look at Thayenta. He mustn’t take his eyes from the madman confronting him. Yet he could think in Thayenta’s direction.

  Telepathy. It wasn’t an interesting experiment this time. Their lives depended on Ken’s ability to project his thoughts to the woman.

  He had to create images. Thayenta could not grasp enough of his language to permit anything else.

  Ken built mental pictures of Briv and the M’Nae council in the room with the prismatic alien matter transmitter. He concentrated on Briv, painting the M’Nae leader’s image, hoping personal dislike did not cloud the telepathic impression. He portrayed Briv in the alien council chamber and simultaneously here, invisibly, in the illegal Terran an colonist community center. Briv was a powerful telepath, able to teleport himself or objects, able to claw his way into a human mind.

  If Briv were eavesdropping, observing, watching everything that had happened to his ambassador and the two Surveymen …

  Thayenta. Ken projected her image, in vivid and attractive detail. Then, though it hurt, he produced a cruel drama — Eads firing that needler. Thayenta, in pain, bleeding the same frothy pink blood Ken had seen covering the first ambassador’s corpse. Then, most difficult of all, he imagined Thayenta dead.

  Savagely, he wiped away the tragedy. It mustn’t
happen! But it would if Briv didn’t help!

  The M’Nae had to become allies. Ken and R.C. were fighting not only for their own lives but those of so many others, M’Nae and human.

  Briv had to help! And quickly!

  Ken’s stare was riveted on Eads, on the needler and a tense trigger finger. In a moment, those guards would regain consciousness. A colonist might wander by the community center and peer inside to see what was happening. Then Eads would have more than enough reinforcements to finish his bloody work.

  Ken winged another telepathic message toward Thayenta, and beyond her, to Briv. Just how strong was Briv? Could he not “hear” Ken’s communication? Why didn’t the M’Nae leader act?

  R.C., somehow finding the strength, had levered himself up to his good knee. He continued to hammer at Eads, gently, with words. Wounded and weaponless, words were all Zachary possessed.

  Miraculously, Eads’ expression slowly shifted. A peculiarly vacant gaze replaced the bug-eyed frenzy. Shakily, Eads lifted his free hand and rubbed his forehead. He looked dizzy, disoriented.

  Suddenly, outside the building, a loud clanging started. An alarm bell? Ken tensed at the sound and barely kept himself from squeezing the needler trigger.

  Eads appeared deaf to the noise. As if he had fallen into a daydream, his gaze was unseeing, unreacting.

  Or a telepathic trance!

  Briv was reaching out from the M’Nae fortress in the mist.

  “R.C.?” Whispering, careful not to wake Eads from that blank stare, Ken said, “I think the M’Nae have come over to our side.”

  “I see.” The pilot was breathing heavily, using the bench for support, gradually pulling himself up onto his right foot. Blood drenched his pant leg below the left knee. Gritting his teeth, he hobbled a few steps, moans escaping him as he jostled the wounded limb.

  Still training his “borrowed” needler on Eads, Ken dug in his pocket for the M’Nae translator. He held out the metallic oblong to Thayenta. “Here. Quick. We’ve got to be able to communicate in a hurry!”