by Kris Neville
Herb was at the door. He almost tore it from the hinges when he jerked it open.
John picked up his telephone and placed a call to the C.I.D. “The starman, Herb,” he said, “has just left Senator Council’s office. You can pick him up outside. If you hurry.”
BUD dismissed his bodyguard, and he and George supported Norma between them as they left the building by private elevator and subway to the garage. Bud’s face was grey, his lips bloodless.
The Oligarch had presented him with a choice. Tomorrow morning, some high government official would receive in the mail Frank’s head, along with Bud’s signed confession. If Bud did not, before then, speak the key words that would blow up the planet. Bud, in the first stunned instant, cried: “Take me with you!” But even as he spoke, he knew that he was doomed. Knowledge did not prevent appeal, but it helped develop resignation. Bud thrust out with entreaties and debased himself with cowardly promises, and seeing them fail, tried threats which failed equally. His mind splintered into a thousand shards and reality became abstracted fragments of himself: the world ceased then to exist for him, and he lived in a phantom land, and his ego seized upon icebergs that drifted across the chill sea of thought.
He became noble.
Norma came to consciousness as the car, driven inexpertly by the Senator, rolled toward the airport. Early afternoon sunlight slanted down across the Capitol.
She lay very quiet in the back seat, listening to the hiss of the tires. Her neck was swollen and throbbing. Don’t kill her yet, her own brother had said, and then, out of the silence of the car, came his own voice again, contradicting what had gone before.
“Dearer to me than all gold,” Bud said. “Child of my beloved mother.”
“We will take her with us,” the starman answered soothingly, reassuringly.
“She’s all that’s left,” Bud said.
Norma lay quiet, unmoving, not daring to open her eyes.
“You can’t know what she means to me,” Bud said. “You must tell her that. You must promise to tell her.”
“I will do it. I promise you,” Bud said intently, “You must promise, I must know.”
“I promise.”
“Nothing will happen to her? She’s all I have left. All. Child of my beloved mother.”
Tension accumulated between Bud and the starman. Norma realized that her brother was no longer sane.
The car slowed and stopped. Still Norma did not move. She was too terrified. They came to her door and opened it.
George pulled her roughly from the seat. She moaned but she did not open her eyes. His hard muscles against her were deadly and threatening, and her knees were so weak that, had she wanted to, she could not have supported herself.
She heard a starman’s feet on the steel ladder that descended from the spider ship. She felt herself scooped up and dropped over his shoulder. In the background she heard her brother’s voice, “Child of . . .” The agony of the voice was almost unendurable. “You must tell her what I did to save her.”
And she was jolted harshly upon the starman’s shoulder as he swung her up the ladder.
George’s feet clanged behind her on the steel, and she heard the sharp, laboring hiss of the breath of the man carrying her.
They were at the port. They entered, and the starman dropped her roughly to the floor, and George clanged the door.
“You attended to the other ships?” George asked in the alien tongue of Brionimar.
“Yes,” the starman said. “They will both explode shortly after takeoff.”
“The others are all aboard? We are the only ones on this one?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I will remember this. You have done a good day’s work. You follow instructions well. I won’t forget.”
“Thank you.”
“Watch the girl. I’ll give the signal to leave.”
“What do we do with her?”
“Dump her out as soon as we hit open space.”
George’s feet went forward. It. was over, he was done. The issue lay between Bud and himself and between Bud and Herb, an exciting and dangerous situation that held, in its solution, the Oligarch’s (and the Oligarchy’s) fate: the fate of two worlds. The stakes were high. The Oligarch, thinking how free he was of the final responsibility, went first to wash the Earth germs from his contaminated hands.
Norma had not understood the conversation that muttered above her. But her terror was replaced by a sense of desperation. She moaned and opened her eyes.
The starman, looking down at her with a cold, impersonal gaze, grunted something unintelligible.
Norma struggled to her feet. He made no move to prevent or assist her. She steadied herself against the wall. Near her hand, in a clip holder, was a short, steel fire extinguishing rod. When the starman drew back his hand to hit her, she cringed away. Instinctively she found the rod and jerked it loose. Before she was aware of the action with her conscious mind, the starman sank to the floor, and the bar clattered from her nerveless fingers.
Heart racing she turned for the door. A moment later, she was outside, clambering down the ladder.
THERE were no taxis in sight.
A jeep, driven by a uniformed messenger, drew to the curb. Herb, holding his breath, crossed to it. The driver cut the motor and got out. When he disappeared in the building across the street, Herb, slipped behind the wheel. He was a technician. He began to experiment. Recently acquired knowledge came to his aid.
After what seemed a timeless heat and an endless exposure, he had the motor running.
The C.I.D. man, who had come over on the subway from the House, stepped out into the sunshine. He surveyed the street with a practiced eye.
Herb spun the jeep away from the curb and sent it careening erratically toward the airport. The C.I.D. man (fairly confident of his identification of Herb) fired twice. Herb heard one of the bullets make an explosive pop as it passed near his ear. He hunched over the wheel and gunned the motor.
NORMA stumbled from the ladder and started to run. The spider ships loomed menacingly behind her. An army guard started forward to question her, and a jeep leaped suddenly into sight from around the corner of the Administration Building. A heart beat later the jeep skewed around beside her, and Herb, his face twisted with hate and fury cried, “Where’s Bud?”
One of the spider ships behind them became airborne; and then a second leaped away.
CHAPTER XII
GEORGE was at the controls of the ship. As his hand hovered at the firing stud, he heard someone enter behind him. He turned.
It was the starman. His hair was matted with blood. There was a wild, rebellious glint in his eyes. He snarled like an animal.
“She hit me!” he cried. And then he smashed a fist into George’s face. George went down and the starman stepped across him to the control panel. His resentment had been accumulating for a life time. He had just sabotaged two ships and sent his fellow starmen to death at the orders of the Oligarch; and he must have known (even if he told himself otherwise) that he, too, would not return to Brionimar: that alone of all who had been on the surface of Earth, the Oligarch would survive. But even in this knowledge, he had still remained loyal, caught like Herb, like his whole civilization, by the spector of chaos and held helpless. But now, thinking the destruction of Earth a certainty, his resentment rechanneled, he was able to strike—even kill, if necessary—the Oligarch in order to revenge himself upon the Earth girl who had struck him.
He snapped on the scanner and searched the airport. He saw Norma climb into the jeep. He sent the spider ship lumbering toward her. The jeep began to run.
The spider legs moved faster, and the ship, like a drunk, lurched awkwardly across the runway in pursuit. He was no pilot, but his hands jerked levers and twisted wheels and the ship moved. He sighted the underbelly heat ray.
Just as he depressed the firing lever, the ship stumbled across a transport plane that lay passively interdicting its path. The ship veered sh
arply to the left, throwing the sighting off target and causing the ray to turn the ground molten short of the speeding car.
The starman struggled to right his vehicle.
George found his weapon. He was numb and horrified. If Norma were actually killed . . . if Bud found out . . .
George moved his weapon slowly so as not to attract the starman’s attention. He was terribly, desperately frightened and unsure of himself.
The starman reached again for the firing lever. George shot twice. The starman’s hand fluttered as if in indecision, and George shot again. The starman fell backwards, and the ship shuddered to a stop.
George rolled to his feet. If Norma were not already dead, he must recapture her.
THE C.I.D. man arrived in time to see the fantastic sight of a red and, silver, tri-legged Leviathan from space stumbling after a surplus jeep. He slammed his car to a halt before the army guard station and cried, “Shoot him! Shoot him!” Demonstrating, he fired wildly in the direction of the jeep. “C.I.D.!” he cried. “Shoot, damn it!”
Herb heard the sinister pop of the hand gun and, glancing out of the corner of his eye, saw the rifles aligning themselves in his direction. He huddled lower over the wheel and screamed to Norma, “Hold on!”
Norma was transfixed with terror. The huge spider ship seemed almost upon them.
Herb was going too fast for the quick turn he attempted. The steering wheel was wrenched from his hand, and the jeep, like a tripped animal, twisted and threw itself to the ground and rolled over.
At the first bone shattering crash, Norma slammed into Herb, and his head cracked the steering wheel solidly.
Far to the west, the sky flashed dull red as the first spider ship exploded in flight. The sky flashed red again. Soldiers were running toward the wreck when the first shock wave rolled in.
In giant strides, George brought his own ship to the overturned jeep. It straddled the wreck like a defiant parent and seemed to challenge the advancing soldiers. George hurried to the port.
He slammed the door back and cried, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” The outer ladder fell away at the touch of his hand, and a second later his feet were hurrying down it.
Once on the ground, he was at the jeep in a heart beat. There was no blood, but both figures were very still. “Help me!” he cried to the arriving soldiers.
Two came forward, laid aside their guns, and together, with gentle hands, lifted Norma and then Herb free of the wreckage.
When they were stretched out on the ground, George knelt. Perspiration wetted his upper lip. He poised above Norma, seeking some sign of life, and he was aware of Herb stirring uneasily to his rear. Norma’s eyelids fluttered, and a wave of relief and exultation enveloped George.
“She’s all right,” George said loudly. “Make sure the newspapers carry that. The girl is all right.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s one of ours,” the Oligarch said with nice possessiveness. Bud would know better: that was all that mattered. He would know that the girl was Norma and that the girl was safe. The delicate equation of his decision was once more in balance. “Help me get them aboard the ship.”
A small crowd was gathering, and an Army major pushed his way forward. The C.I.D. man, overawed by the Oligarch’s presence, and uncertain of what to do now, held back watching.
“What’s this?” the major demanded. “What’s this?”
George stood up. “It’s our personal problem. This renegade—”
“Is he the one who escaped from you? The nutty one?”
“Yes,” George said.
“What about your other two ships? They exploded. They just exploded.”
Instantly the surrounding Earthmen rustled suspiciously.
“He—” George said . . . “It was sabotage. He is responsible. Terrible. Terrible. I’m stunned. We haven’t any time to waste. I’ve got to get this girl back to our big ship out there in space for medical attention.”
“We’ve sent for a doctor,” the major said stiffly.
“We have doctors. For God’s sake, man, help me get them aboard. There’s no time to stand here talking. We have advanced techniques, if I can only get there in time, that may mean the difference between life and death . . .” The major hesitated. “All right. You two soldiers—take the girl up the ladder.”
“Herb, too,” the Oligarch said. “If he survives, he will be tried.” The major grunted at two more soldiers.
GEORGE followed them up the ladder. He greeted the capture of Herb with bitterness. The game was over; he had been denied the excitement of it being played out. And yet there was relief: although he had once more been thrust into a role of player, it was not of his own volition. The conspiracy of events had released him from free choice. It was not his fault that it was necessary to remove Herb prematurely from the arena. He was uncomfortably aware that the major was following him.
Inside the ship, George directed the soldiers to put their burdens in the first compartment to the left. Then he turned to the major. “Your prompt action may well have saved her life.” He was tense and frightened. Now that he was sure it would be reported that a girl had been returned to the ship and hurried to medical attention, it was of paramount importance to get the soldiers and the major out of the ship. If Norma were unexpectedly to recover and begin to talk, the major might prove difficult to handle.
The crush of danger hung upon him. An instant, in which he wished to surrender and confess, was transplanted by dedication to victory. The sense of mission returned.
“I don’t think I should permit you to leave, sir,” the major said politely. “I’ve thought it over.”
“Sir?”
“In view of what happened to the other two ships. How do you know this one hasn’t been sabotaged, too? In your understandable anxiousness to get this girl . . .”
“I’m sure,” George said evenly. “I tell you this ship is all right.”
“Well, how do you know? Obviously, you knew the other two ships were all right, too; only they weren’t . . .”
The Oligarch restrained an impulse to command. “This is too important a matter to delay with explanations.”
The four soldiers clustering around the major seemed ominous.
“Our doctor will be here in a moment. Immediate aid can be given the girl.”
George’s hands trembled with rage and maddening anxiety. “I am going to takeoff immediately. Explanations can come later when the girl has been treated. I will hold you personally responsible for any further delay.” He went toward the control room.
The major started to follow.
The Oligarch whirled to face him. “You will be responsible for her death. I am going to leave. If necessary, I will take all of you with “me. You will have to use force to stop me.”
The major stood with his hands clenched into fists at his sides. There was silence. The fists slowly unclenched.
“I would advise you to get off the ship at once,” George said. He turned once more. This time he did not look back.
A thrill of uncertainty grew within the major. He swallowed stiffly and then snapped angrily to the waiting soldiers, “All right, get the lead out! Let’s go! Let’s go, let’s go!” He seemed to want to push them physically toward the exit.
THE Oligarch was in the control room by the time they dropped off the ladder to the ground. A flick of the switch, and the ladder retreated. The ship trembled. A savage jab, and the ship became airborne. It was too late now for them to stop him. He had made a successful escape. He was weak with reaction. A few moments more . . .
He studied the dials. Earth fell away.
He could hurry. He only need save enough fuel for a tie in. He waited impatiently for altitude. Earth shrank. The features of her surface blurred. A cloud occluded her face completely. The air resistance lessened. Gravity weakened. He was able to pour the fuel into the space jets. He fired the first and second banks. Fuel guages descended. Acceleration pressed against him
like a hand. More jets. He was in a hurry. His mission was accomplished. Within two hours he would be out of the danger area of the Earth explosion. But he was not overly worried about that. He did not expect it until an hour or so after sunrise over Washington.
He locked the ship on automatic. Time enough later to finish computing the trajectory.
He was now free to dispose of Herb and Norma.
The sense of elation increased as he left the control room. He fingered his hand weapon and smiled to himself. Less than a minute later, he stepped into the doorway of the room containing the two people, his gun raised.
CHAPTER XIII
HERB had regained consciousness.
Herb shot, and flame leaped toward the Oligarch. The room roared with the explosion.
George jerked back, and in midmotion, something caught him low in his chest, on the left side of his body and slapped him savagely off his feet.
Incredibly, he had been hit!
He shook his head and got one knee under him. His left side was numb. He looked down and saw blood start to color his shirt.
He got to his feet and backed along the corridor. His knees were weak. He covered the door with a trembling hand and prayed for Herb to show himself.
The ship was silent.
He had to sit down. He wanted to be sick.
Perhaps Herb had taken the other door out!
He whirled.
No movement.
He had to have a place to hide. He had to hide, and wait, and when Herb came searching for him—
He staggered back. His side began to throb dully.
The ship was very quiet.
“He’s out there,” Herb said, knowing that his words would carry-over the hidden microphones.
“I will manage to kill him before we reach the big ship.”
Norma was breathing shallowly, not yet fully recovered from the wreck. “What about Earth?”
“It’s too late.”
“If we could—if we could destroy the . . . that ship . . . if we could ram it: prevent it from setting off the charge . . .”
