Sense of Obligation

by Harry Harrison

  XVII

  "Do you mean what you said, about giving up?" Lea asked. Brion realizedthat she had stopped talking to Ulv some time ago, and had beenlistening to his conversation with Krafft. He shrugged, trying to puthis feeling into words.

  "We've tried--and almost succeeded. But if they won't listen what can wedo? What can one man possibly do against a fleet loaded with H-bombs?"

  As if in answer to his question Ulv's voice drowned him out. The harshDisan words slashing the silence of the room.

  "Kill you, the enemy!" he said. "Kill you _umedvirk_!"

  He shouted the last word and his hand flashed to his belt. In a singleswift motion he lifted his blowgun and placed it to his lips. A tinydart quivered in the already dead flesh of the creature in the magter'sskull. The action had all the symbolism of a broken lance, thedeclaration of war.

  "Ulv understands it a lot better than you might think," Lea said. "Heknows things about symbiosis and mutualism that would get him a job as alecturer in any university on Earth. He knows just what thebrain-symbiote is and what it does. They even have a word for it, onethat never appeared in our Disan language lessons. A life form that youcan live with or co-operate with is called _medvirk_. One that works todestroy you is _umedvirk_. He also understands that life forms canchange, and be _medvirk_ or _umedvirk_ at different times. He has justdecided that the brain symbiote is _umedvirk_ and is out to kill it. Sowill the rest of the Disans as soon as he can show them the evidence andexplain."

  "You're sure of this," Brion asked, interested in spite of himself.

  "Positive. The Disans have a very absolute attitude towards survival,you should realize that. Not the same as the magter, but not muchdifferent in the results. They will kill the brain-symbiote, even if itmeans killing every magter who harbors one."

  "If that is the case, we can't leave now," Brion said. With these wordsit suddenly became very clear what he had to do. "The ship is comingdown now from the fleet. Get in it and take the body of the magter. Iwon't go."

  "Where will you be?" she asked.

  "Fighting the magter. My presence on the planet means that Krafft won'tkeep his threat to drop the bombs any earlier than the midnightdeadline. That would be deliberately murdering me. I doubt if mypresence past midnight will stop him, but it should keep the bombs awayat least until then."

  "What will you accomplish besides committing suicide?" Lea pleaded. "Youjust told me how a single man can't stop the bombs. What will happen toyou at midnight?"

  "I'll be dead--but in spite of that I can't run away. Not now. I must doeverything possible right up until the last instant. Ulv and I will goto the magter tower, try to find out if the bombs are there. He willfight on our side now. He may even know more about the bombs, thingsthat he didn't want to tell me before. We can get help from his people.Some of them must know where the bombs are, being native to thisplanet." Lea started to say something, but he rushed on, drowning outher words.

  "You have just as big a job. Show the magter to Krafft, explain thesignificance of the brain-parasite to him. Try and get him to talk toHys about the last raid. Try to get him to hold off the attack. I'llkeep the radio with me and as soon as I know anything I'll call in. Thisis all last resort, finger in the dike kind of stuff, but it is all wecan do."

  "Because if we do nothing it means the end of Dis."

  Lea tried to argue with him, but he wouldn't listen to her. He onlykissed her, and with a lightness he did not feel tried to convince herthat everything would be all right. In their hearts they both knew itwasn't, yet they left it that way because it was the least painfulsolution.

  * * * * *

  A sudden rumbling shook the building and the windows darkened as a shipsettled in the street outside. The Nyjord crew came in with gunspointed, alert for anything. With a little convincing they took thecadaver, as well as Lea, when they lifted ship. Brion watched thespacer become a pinpoint in the sky and vanish. He shrugged hisshoulders, trying to shake off the feeling that this was the last timehe would see any of them.

  "Let's get out of here fast," he told Ulv, picking up the radio. "Beforeanyone comes around to see why the ship landed."

  "What will you do," Ulv asked, as they went down the street towards thedesert. "What can we do in the few hours we have left?" He pointed atthe sun, nearing the horizon. Brion shifted the weight of the radio tohis other hand before replying.

  "Get to the magter tower we raided last night, that's the best chance.The bombs might be there. Unless you know where the bombs are?"

  Ulv shook his head. "I do not know, but some of my people may. We willcapture a magter then kill him so they can all see the _umedvirk_. Thenthey will tell us everything they know."

  "The tower first then, for bombs or a sample magter. What's the fastestway we can get there?"

  Ulv frowned in thought. "If you can drive one of the cars theoffworlders use, I know where there are some locked in buildings in thiscity. None of my people know how they are made to move."

  "I can work them--let's go."

  Chance was with them this time. The first sandcar they found still hadthe keys in the lock. It was battery powered, but contained a fullcharge. Much quieter than the heavy atomic cars it sped smoothly out ofthe city and across the sand. Ahead of them the sun sank in a red waveof color and it was six o'clock. By the time they reached the tower itwas seven and Brion's nerves felt as if they were writhing under hisskin.

  Even though it looked like suicide, attacking the tower brought blessedrelief. It was movement and action, and for moments at a time he forgotthe bombs hanging over his head.

  The attack was nerve-wrackingly anticlimactic. They used the mainentrance, Ulv ranging soundlessly ahead. There was no one in sight. Onceinside they crept down towards the lower rooms where the radiation hadbeen detected. Only gradually did they realize that the magter tower wascompletely empty.

  "Everyone gone," Ulv grunted, sniffing the air in every room that theypassed. "Many magter were here earlier, they are gone now."

  "Do they often desert their towers?" Brion asked.

  "Never. I have never heard of it happening before. I can think of noreason why they should do a thing like this."

  "Well I can," Brion told him. "They would leave their home if they tooksomething with them of greater value. The bombs. If the bombs werehidden here, they might move them after the attack." Sudden fear hithim. "Or they might move them because it is time to take them--to thelauncher! Let's get out of here, the quickest way we can."

  "I smell air from outside," Ulv said, "coming from down there. Thiscannot be, because the magter have no entrances this low in theirtowers."

  "We blasted one in earlier--that could be it. Can you find it?"

  Moonlight shone ahead as they turned an angle of the corridor, and starswere visible through the gaping opening in the wall.

  "It looks bigger than it was," Brion said, "as if the magter enlargedit." He looked through and saw the tracks on the sand outside. "As ifthey enlarged it to bring something bulky up from below--and carried itaway in whatever made those tracks!"

  * * * * *

  Using the opening themselves they ran back to the sandcar. Brion groundit fiercely around and turned the headlights on the tracks. There werethe marks of a sandcar's treads, half obscured by thin, unmarked wheeltracks. He turned off the lights and forced himself to move slowly andto do an accurate job. A quick glimpse of his watch showed him therewere four hours left to go. The moonlight was bright enough toilluminate the tracks. Driving with one hand he turned on the radiotransmitter, already set for Krafft's wave length.

  When the operator acknowledged his signal Brion reported what they haddiscovered and his conclusions. "Get that message to Commander Krafftnow. I can't wait to talk to him--I'm following the tracks." He killedthe transmission and stamped on the accelerator. The sandcar churnedand bounced down the track.

  "They are going to the mountains," Ulv said half a
n hour later, as thetracks still pointed straight ahead. "There are caves here and manymagter have been seen near them, that is what I have heard."

  The guess was correct. Before nine o'clock the ground humped into arange of foothills and the darker masses of mountains could be seenbehind them, rising up to obscure the stars.

  "Stop the car here," Ulv said, "The caves begin not too far ahead. Theremay be magter watching or listening, so we must go quietly."

  Brion followed the deep-cut grooves, carrying the radio. Ulv came andwent on both sides, silently as a shadow, scouting for hidden watchers.As far as he could discover there were none.

  By nine-thirty Brion realized they had deserted the sandcar too soon.The tracks wound on and on, and seemed to have no end. They passed somecaves, Ulv pointed them out to him, but the tracks never stopped. Timewas running out and the nightmare stumbling through the darknesscontinued.

  "More caves ahead," Ulv said. "Go quietly."

  They came cautiously to the crest of the hill, as they had done so manytimes before, and looked into the shallow valley beyond. Sand coveredthe valley floor, and the light of the setting moon shone over thetracks at a flat angle, setting them off sharply as lines of shadow.They ran straight across the sandy valley and disappeared into the darkmouth of a cave on the far side.

  Sinking back behind the hilltop, Brion covered the pilot light with hishand and turned on the transmitter. Ulv stayed above him, staring at theopening of the cave.

  "This is an important message," Brion whispered into the mike, "Pleaserecord." He repeated this for thirty seconds, glancing at his watch tomake sure of the time, since the seconds of waiting stretched to minutesin his brain. Then, clearly as possible without raising his voice abovea whisper, he told of the discovery of the tracks and the cave.

  "... The bombs may or may not be in here, but we are going in to findout. I'll leave my personal transmitter here with the broadcast powerturned on, so you can home on its signal. That will give you adirectional beacon to find the cave. I'm taking the other radio in, ithas more power. If we can't get back to the entrance, I'll try a signalfrom inside. I doubt if you will hear it because of the rock, but I'lltry. End of transmission. Don't try to answer me because I have thereceiver turned off. There are no earphones on this set and the speakerwould be too loud here."

  He switched off, held his thumb on the button for an instant, thenflicked it back on.

  "Good-by, Lea," he said, and killed the power for good.

  * * * * *

  They circled and reached the rocky wall of the cliff. Creeping silentlyin the shadows here they slipped up on the dark entrance of the cave.Nothing moved ahead and there was no sound from the entrance of thecave. Brion glanced at his watch and was instantly sorry.

  Ten-thirty.

  The last shelter concealing them was five meters from the cave. Theystarted to rise, to rush the final distance when Ulv suddenly wavedBrion down. He pointed to his nose, then to the cave. He could smell themagter there.

  A dark figure separated itself from the greater darkness of the cavemouth. Ulv acted instantly. He stood up and his hand went to his mouth;air hissed faintly through the tube in his hand. Without a noise themagter folded and fell to the ground. Before the body hit Ulv crouchedlow and rushed in. There was the sudden scuffling of feet on the floor,then silence.

  Brion walked in, gun ready and alert, not knowing what he would find.His toe pushed against a body on the ground and from the darkness Ulvwhispered. "There were only two. We can go on now."

  Finding their way through the cave was a maddening torture. They had nolight, nor could they dare use one if they had. There were no wheelmarks to follow on the stone floor. Without Ulv's sensitive nose theywould have been completely lost. The caves branched and rejoined andthey soon lost all sense of direction.

  Walking was maddening and almost impossible. They had to grope withtheir hands before them like blind men. Stumbling and falling againstthe rock, their fingers were soon throbbing and raw from brushingagainst the rough walls. Ulv followed the scent of the magter that hungin the air where they had passed. When it grew thin he knew they hadleft the frequently used tunnels and entered deserted ones. They couldonly retrace their steps and start again in a different direction.

  More maddening than the walking was the time. Inexorably the glowinghands crept around the face of Brion's watch until they stood at fifteenminutes before twelve.

  "There is a light ahead," Ulv whispered, and Brion almost gasped withrelief. They moved slowly and silently until they stood, concealed bythe darkness, looking out into a domed chamber brightly lit by glowingtubes.

  "What is it," Ulv asked, blinking in the painful wash of illuminationafter the long darkness.

  Brion had to fight to control his voice, to stop from shouting.

  "The cage with the metal webbing is a jump-space generator. The pointed,sliver shapes next to it are bombs of some kind, probably the cobaltbombs. We've found it!"

  His first impulse was to instantly send the radio call that would stopthe waiting fleet of H-bombers. But an unconvincing message would beworse than no message at all. He had to describe exactly what he sawhere so the Nyjorders would know he wasn't lying. What he told them hadto fit exactly with the information they already had about the launcherand the bombs.

  * * * * *

  The launcher had been jury-rigged from a ship's jump-space generator,that was obvious. The generator and its controls were neatly cased andmounted. Cables ran from them to a roughly constructed cage of wovenmetal straps, hammered and bent into shape by hand. Three technicianswere working on the equipment. Brion wondered what sort of bloodthirstywar-lovers the magter had found to handle the bombing for them. Then hesaw the chains around their necks and the bloody wounds on their backs.He still found it difficult to have any pity for them. They had beenobviously willing to accept money to destroy another planet--or theywouldn't have been working here. They had probably rebelled only whenthey had discovered how suicidal the attack would be.

  Thirteen minutes to midnight.

  Cradling the radio against his chest, Brion rose to his feet. He had abetter view of the bombs now. There were twelve of them, alike as eggsfrom the same deadly clutch. Pointed like the bow of a spacer, each oneswept smoothly back for its two meters of length, to a sharply choppedoff end. They were obviously incomplete, the war heads of rockets. Onehad its base turned towards him and he saw six projecting studs thatcould be used to attach it to the missing rocket. A circular inspectionport was open in the flat base of the bomb.

  This was enough. With this description the Nyjorders would know hecouldn't be lying about finding the bombs. Once they realized this theycouldn't destroy Dis without first trying to neutralize them.

  Brion carefully counted fifty paces before he stopped. He was far enoughfrom the cavern so he couldn't be heard, and an angle of the cave cutoff all light from behind him. With carefully controlled movements heturned on the power, switched the set to transmit and checked thebroadcast frequency. All correct. Then, slowly and clearly, he describedwhat he had seen in the cavern behind him. He kept his voiceemotionless, recounting facts, leaving out anything that might beconsidered an opinion.

  It was six minutes before midnight when he finished. He thumbed theswitch to receive and waited.

  There was only silence.

  Slowly, the empty quality of the silence penetrated his numbed mind.There were no crackling atmospherics nor hiss of static, even when heturned the power full on. The mass of rock and earth of the mountainabove was acting as a perfect grounding screen, absorbing his signaleven at maximum output.

  They hadn't heard him. The Nyjord fleet didn't know that the cobaltbombs had been discovered before their launching. The attack would goahead as planned. Even now the bomb-bay doors were opening, armedH-bombs hung above the planet, held in place only by their shackles. Ina few minutes the signal would be given and the shackles would springopen,
the bombs drop clear....

  * * * * *

  "Killers!" Brion shouted into the microphone. "You wouldn't listen toreason, you wouldn't listen to Hys, or me, or to any voice thatsuggested an alternative to complete destruction. You are going todestroy Dis and _it's not necessary_! There were a lot of ways you couldhave stopped it. You didn't do any of them and now it's too late. You'lldestroy Dis and in turn this will destroy Nyjord. Ihjel said that andnow I believe him. You're just another failure in a galaxy full offailures!"

  He raised the radio above his head and sent it crashing into the rockfloor. Then he was running back to Ulv, trying to run away from therealization that he, too, had tried and failed. The people on thesurface of Dis had less than two minutes left to live.

  "They didn't get my message," Brion said to Ulv. "The radio won't workthis far underground."

  "Then the bombs will fall?" Ulv asked, looking searchingly at Brion'sface in the dim reflected light from the cavern.

  "Unless something happens that we know nothing about, the bombs willfall."

  They said nothing after that, they simply waited. The three techniciansin the cavern were also aware of the time. They were calling to eachother and trying to talk to the magter. The emotionless, parasite-riddenbrains of the magter saw no reason to stop work, so the men were beatenback to their tasks. In spite of the blows they didn't go, just gaped inhorror as the clock hands moved remorselessly towards twelve. Even themagter dimly felt some of the significance of the occasion. Theystopped, too, and waited.

  The hour hand touched twelve on Brion's watch, then the minute hand. Thesecond hand closed the gap and for a tenth of a second the three blackhands were one. Then the second hand moved on.

  Brion's immediate sensation of relief was washed away by the chillingrealization that he was deep underground. Sound and seismic waves wereslow and the flare of atomic explosions couldn't be seen here. If thebombs had been dropped at twelve, they wouldn't know it at once.

  A distant rumble filled the air. A moment later the ground heaved underthem and the lights in the cavern flickered. Fine dust drifted down fromthe roof above.

  Ulv turned to him, but Brion looked away. He could not face theaccusation in the Disan's eyes.