Tim didn't have anything else to recommend him; he was as coldly vicious as a guillotine. But Jock had some slight awareness of right and wrong, or he wouldn't have tried to justify himself. You might say he was just weak.
But I don't hold with the idea that to understand all is to forgive all; you follow that and first thing you know you're sentimental over murderers and rapists and kidnappers and forgetting their victims. That's wrong. I'll weep over the likes of Peewee, not over criminals whose victims they are. I missed Jock's talk but if there were some way to drown such creatures at birth, I'd take my turn as executioner. That goes double for Tim.
If they ended up as soup for hobgoblins, I couldn't honestly be sorry—even though it might be my turn tomorrow.
As soup, they probably had their finest hour.
CHAPTER 8
I was jarred out of useless brain-cudgelling by an explosion, a sharp crack—a bass rumble—then a whoosh! of reduced pressure. I bounced to my feet—anyone who has ever depended on a space suit is never again indifferent to a drop in pressure.
I gasped, "What the deuce!"
Then I added, "Whoever is on watch had better get on the ball—or we'll all be breathing thin cold stuff." No oxygen outside, I was sure—or rather the astronomers were and I didn't want to test it.
Then I said, "Somebody bombing us? I hope."
"Or was it an earthquake?"
This was not an idle remark. That Scientific American article concerning "summer" on Pluto had predicted "sharp isostatic readjustments" as the temperature rose —which is a polite way of saying, "Hold your hats! Here comes the chimney!"
I was in an earthquake once, in Santa Barbara; I didn't need a booster shot to remember what every Californian knows and others learn in one lesson: when the ground does a jig, get outdoors!
Only I couldn't.
I spent two minutes checking whether adrenalin had given me the strength to jump eighteen feet instead of twelve. It hadn't. That was all I did for a half-hour, if you don't count nail biting.
Then I heard my name! "Kip! Oh, Kip!"
"Peewee!" I screamed. "Here! Peewee!"
Silence for an eternity of three heartbeats—"Kip?"
"Down HERE!"
"Kip? Are you down this hole?"
"Yes! Can't you see me?" I saw her head against the light above.
"Uh, I can now. Oh, Kip, I'm so glad!"
"Then why are you crying? So am I!"
"I'm not crying," she blubbered. "Oh Kip... Kip."
"Can you get me out?"
"Uh—" She surveyed that drop. "Stay where you are."
"Don't go 'way!" She already had.
She wasn't gone two minutes; it merely seemed like a week. Then she was back and the darling had a nylon rope!
"Grab on!" she shrilled.
"Wait a sec. How is it fastened?"
"I'll pull you up."
"No, you won't—or we'll both be down here. Find somewhere to belay it."
"I can lift you."
"Belay it! Hurry!"
She left again, leaving an end in my hands. Shortly I heard very faintly: "On belay!"
I shouted, "Testing!" and took up the slack. I put my weight on it—it held. "Climbing!" I yelled, and followed the final "g" up the hole and caught it.
She flung herself on me, an arm around my neck, one around Madame Pompadour, and both of mine around her. She was even smaller and skinnier than I remembered. "Oh, Kip, it's been just awful."
I patted her bony shoulder blades. "Yeah, I know. What do we do now? Where's W—"
I started to say, "Where's Wormface? but she burst into tears.
"Kip—I think she's dead!"
My mind skidded—I was a bit stir-crazy anyhow. ''Huh? Who?"
She looked as amazed as I was confused. "Why, the Mother Thing."
"Oh." I felt a flood of sorrow. "But, honey, are you sure? She was talking to me right up to the last—and I didn't die."
"What in the world are you talk—Oh. I don't mean then, Kip; I mean now."
"Huh? She was here?"
"Of course. Where else?"
Now that's a silly question, it's a big universe. I had decided long ago that the Mother Thing couldn't be here—because Jock had brushed off the subject. I reasoned that Jock would either have said that she was here or have invented an elaborate lie, for the pleasure of lying. Therefore she wasn't on his list—perhaps he had never seen her save as a bulge under my suit.
I was so sure of my "logic" that it took a long moment to throw off prejudice and accept fact. "Peewee," I said, gulping, "I feel like I'd lost my own mother. Are you sure?"
"'Feel as if,'" she said automatically. "I'm not sure sure... but she's outside—so she must be dead."
"Wait a minute? If she's outside, she's wearing a space suit. Isn't she?"
"No, no! She hasn't had one—not since they destroyed her ship."
I was getting more confused. "How did they bring her in here?"
"They just sacked her and sealed her and carried her in. Kip—what do we do now?"
I knew several answers, all of them wrong—I had already considered them during my stretch in jail. "Where is Wormface? Where are all the wormfaces?"
"Oh. All dead. I think."
"I hope you're right." I looked around for a weapon and never saw a hallway so bare. My toy dagger was only eighteen feet away but I didn't feel like going back down for it. "What makes you think so?"
Peewee had reason to think so. The Mother Thing didn't look strong enough to tear paper but what she lacked in beef she made up in brains. She had done what I had tried to do: reasoned out a way to take them all on. She had not been able to hurry because her plan had many factors all of which had to mesh at once and many of them she could not influence; she had to wait for the breaks.
First, she needed a time when there were few wormfaces around. The base was indeed a large supply dump and space port and transfer point, but it did not need a large staff. It had been unusually crowded the few moments I had seen it, because our ship was in.
Second, it also had to be when no ships were in because she couldn't cope with a ship—she couldn't get at it.
Third, H-Hour had to be while the wormfaces were feeding. They all ate together when there were few enough not to have to use their mess hall in relays—crowded around one big tub and sopping it up, I gathered—a scene out of Dante. That would place all her enemies on one target, except possibly one or two on engineering or communication watches.
"Wait a minute!" I interrupted. "You said they were all dead?"
"Well . . . I don't know. I haven't seen any."
"Hold everything until I find something to fight with."
"But—"
"First things first, Peewee."
Saying that I was going to find a weapon wasn't finding one. That corridor had nothing but more holes like the one I had been down—which was why Peewee had looked for me there; it was one of the few places where she had not been allowed to wander at will. Jock had been correct on one point: Peewee—and the Mother Thing—had been star prisoners, allowed all privileges except freedom... whereas Jock and Tim and myself had been third-class prisoners and/or soup bones. It fitted the theory that Peewee and the Mother Thing were hostages rather than ordinary PoW.s.
I didn't explore those holes after I looked down one and saw a human skeleton—maybe they got tired of tossing food to him. When I straightened up Peewee said, "What are you shaking about?"
"Nothing. Come on."
"I want to see."
"Peewee, every second counts and we've done nothing but yak. Come on. Stay behind me."
I kept her from seeing the skeleton, a major triumph over that little curiosity box—although it probably would not have affected her much; Peewee was sentimental only when it suited her.
"Stay behind me" had the correct gallant sound but it was not based on reason. I forgot that attack could come from the rear—I should have said: "Follow me and watch behin
d us."
She did anyway. I heard a squeal and whirled around to see a wormface with one of those camera-like things aimed at me. Even though Tim had used one on me I didn't realize what it was; for a moment I froze.
But not Peewee. She launched herself through the air, attacking with both hands and both feet in the gallant audacity and utter recklessness of a kitten.
That saved me. Her attack would not have hurt anything but another kitten but it mixed him up so that he didn't finish what he was doing, namely paralyzing or killing me; he tripped over her and went down.
And I stomped him. With my bare feet I stomped him, landing on that lobster-horror head with both feet.
His head crunched. It felt awful.
It was like jumping on a strawberry box. It splintered and crunched and went to pieces. I cringed at the feel, even though I was in an agony to fight, to kill. I trampled worms and hopped away, feeling sick. I scooped up Peewee and pulled her back, as anxious to get clear as I had been to join battle seconds before.
I hadn't killed it. For an awful moment I thought I was going to have to wade back in. Then I saw that while it was alive, it did not seem aware of us. It flopped like a chicken freshly chopped, then quieted and began to move purposefully.
But it couldn't see. I had smashed its eyes and maybe its ears—but certainly those terrible eyes.
It felt around the floor carefully, then got to its feet, still undamaged except that its head was a crushed ruin. It stood still, braced tripod-style by that third appendage, and felt the air. I pulled us back farther.
It began to walk. Not toward us or I would have screamed. It moved away, ricocheted off a wall, straightened out, and went back the way we had come.
It reached one of those holes they used for prisoners, walked into it and dropped.
I sighed, and realized that I had been holding Peewee too tightly to breathe. I put her down.
"There's your weapon," she said.
"Huh?"
"On the floor. Just beyond where I dropped Madame Pompadour. The gadget." She went over, picked up her dolly, brushed away bits of ruined wormface, then took the camera-like thing and handed it to me. "Be careful. Don't point it toward you. Or me."
"Peewee," I said faintly, "don't you ever have an attack of nerves?"
"Sure I do. When I have leisure for it. Which isn't now. Do you know how to work it?"
"No. Do you?"
"I think so. I've seen them and the Mother Thing told me about them." She took it, handling it casually but not pointing it at either of us. "These holes on top—uncover one of them, it stuns. If you uncover them all, it kills. To make it work you push it here." She did and a bright blue light shot out, splashed against the wall. "The light doesn't do anything," she added. "It's for aiming. I hope there wasn't anybody on the other side of that wall. No, I hope there was. You know what I mean."
It looked like a cockeyed 35 mm. camera, with a lead lens—one built from an oral description. I took it, being very cautious where I pointed it, and looked at it. Then I tried it—full power, by mistake.
The blue light was a shaft in the air and the wall where it hit glowed and began to smoke. I shut it off.
"You wasted power," Peewee chided. "You may need it later."
"Well, I had to try it. Come on, let's go."
Peewee glanced at her Mickey Mouse watch—and I felt irked that it had apparently stood up when my fancy one had not. "There's very little time, Kip. Can't we assume that only this one escaped?"
"What? We certainly cannot! Until we're sure that all of them are dead, we can't do anything else. Come on."
"But—Well, I'll lead. I know my way around, you don't.
"No."
"Yes!"
So we did it her way; she led and carried the bluelight projector while I covered the rear and wished for a third eye, like a wormface. I couldn't argue that my reflexes were faster when they weren't, and she knew more than I did about our weapon.
But it's gravelling, just the same.
The base was huge; half that mountain must have been honeycombed. We did it at a fast trot, ignoring things as complicated as museum exhibits and twice as interesting, simply making sure that no wormface was anywhere. Peewee ran with the weapon at the ready, talking twenty to the dozen and urging me on.
Besides an almost empty base, no ships in, and the wormfaces feeding, the Mother Thing's plan required that all this happen shortly before a particular hour of the Plutonian night.
"Why?" I panted.
"So she could signal her people, of course."
"But—" I shut up. I had wondered about the Mother Thing's people but didn't even know as much about her as I did about Wormface except that she was everything that made her the Mother Thing. Now she was dead—Peewee said that she was outside without a space suit, so she was surely dead; that little soft warm thing wouldn't last two seconds in that ultra-arctic weather. Not to mention suffocation and lung haemorrhage. I choked up.
Of course, Peewee might be wrong. I had to admit that she rarely was—but this might be one of the times... in which case we would find her. But if we didn't find her, she was outside and—"Peewee, do you know where my space suit is?"
"Huh? Of course. Right next to where I got this." She patted the nylon rope, which she had coiled around her waist and tied with a bow.
"Then the second we are sure that we've cleaned out the wormfaces I'm going outside and look for her!"
"Yes, yes! But we've got to find my suit, too. I'm going with you."
No doubt she would. Maybe I could persuade her to wait in the tunnel out of that bone-freezing wind. "Peewee, why did she have to send her message at night? To a ship in a rotation-period orbit? Or is there—"
My words were chopped off by a rumble. The floor shook in that loose-bearing vibration that frightens people and animals alike. We stopped dead. "What was that?" Peewee whispered.
I swallowed. "Unless it's part of this rumpus the Mother Thing planned—"
"It isn't. I think."
"It's a quake."
"An earthquake?"
"A Pluto quake. Peewee, we've got to get out of here!"
I wasn't thinking about where—you don't in a quake. Peewee gulped. "We can't bother with earthquakes; we haven't time. Hurry, Kip, hurry!" She started to run and I followed, gritting my teeth. If Peewee could ignore a quake, so could I—though it's like ignoring a rattlesnake in bed.
"Peewee... Mother Thing's people... is their ship in orbit around Pluto?"
"What? Oh, no, no! They're not in a ship."
"Then why at night? Something about the Heaviside layers here? How far away is their base?" I was wondering how far a man could walk here. We had done almost forty miles on the Moon. Could we do forty blocks here? Or even forty yards? You could insulate your feet, probably. But that wind— "Peewee, they don't live here, do they?"
"What? Don't be silly! They have a nice planet of their own. Kip, if you keep asking foolish questions, we'll be too late. Shut up and listen."
I shut up. What follows I got in snatches as we ran, and some of it later. When the Mother Thing had been captured, she had lost ship, space clothing, communicator, everything; Wormface had destroyed it all. There had been treachery, capture through violation of truce while parleying. "He grabbed her when they were supposed to be under a King's 'X'" was Peewee's indignant description, "and that's not fair! He had promised."
Treachery would be as natural in Wormface as venom in a Gila monster; I was surprised that the Mother Thing had risked a palaver with him. It left her a prisoner of ruthless monsters equipped with ships that made ours look like horseless carriages, weapons which started with a "death ray" and ended heaven knows where, plus bases, organization, supplies.
She had only her brain and her tiny soft hands.
Before she could use the rare combination of circumstances necessary to have any chance at all she had to replace her communicator (I think of it as her "radio" but it was more than that)
and she had to have weapons. The only way she could get them was to build them.
She had nothing, not a bobby pin—only that triangular ornament with spirals engraved on it. To build anything she had to gain access to a series of rooms which I would describe as electronics labs—not that they looked like the bench where I jiggered with electronics, but electron-pushing has its built-in logic. If electrons are to do what you want them to, components have to look pretty much a certain way, whether built by humans, wormfaces, or the Mother Thing. A wave guide gets its shape from the laws of nature, an inductance has its necessary geometry, no matter who the technician is.
So it looked like an electronics lab—a very good one. It had gear I did not recognize, but which I felt I could understand if I had time. I got only a glimpse.
The Mother Thing spent many, many hours there. She would not have been permitted there, even though she was a prisoner-at-large with freedom in most ways and anything she wanted, including private quarters with Peewee. I think that Wormface was afraid of her, even though she was a prisoner—he did not want to offend her unnecessarily.
She got the run of their shops by baiting their cupidity. Her people had many things that wormfaces had not—gadgets, inventions, conveniences. She began by inquiring why they did a thing this way rather than another way which was so much more efficient? A tradition? Or religious reasons?
When asked what she meant she looked helpless and protested that she couldn't explain—which was a shame because it was simple and so easy to build, too.
Under close chaperonage she built something. The gadget worked. Then something else. Presently she was in the labs daily, making things for her captors, things that delighted them. She always delivered; the privilege depended on it.
But each gadget involved parts she needed herself.
"She sneaked bits and pieces into her pouch," Peewee told me. "They never knew exactly what she was doing. She would use five of a thing and the sixth would go into her pouch."
"Her pouch?"
"Of course. That's where she hid the 'brain' the time she and I swiped the ship. Didn't you know?"
"I didn't know she had a pouch."
"Well, neither did they. They watched to see she didn't carry anything out of the shop—and she never did. Not where it showed."
Have Space Suit - Will Travel Page 13
