A Maze of Death

12

“He’ll kill you,” Russell said. He, too, walked toward Ignatz Thugg. Everyone else watched. “We need to have that gun,” Russell said to Thugg. To Seth Morley he said, “Probably he can get only one of us. I know that gun; it can’t be fired rapidly. He’ll be able to get off one shot and that’ll be it.” He moved to the other side of Thugg, approaching at a wide angle. “All right, Thugg,” he said, and held out his hand.

Thugg turned uncertainly toward him. Seth Morley moved rapidly forward, reaching.

“Goddam you, Morley,” Thugg said; the barrel of the gun swiveled back, but momentum carried Seth Morley forward. He collided with the skinny but muscular body of Ignatz Thugg—the man smelled of hair grease, urine and sweat.

“Get him now,” Belsnor yelled; he, too, ran at Thugg, reaching to grapple with him.

Cursing, Thugg tore away from Seth Morley. His face blank with psychopathic neutrality, his eyes glittering with cold, his mouth tormented into a squirming line, he fired.

Mary Morley shrieked.

Reaching with his left arm, Seth Morley touched his right shoulder and felt blood oozing through the fabric of his shirt. The noise of the shot had paralyzed him; he sank to his knees, convulsed by the pain, realizing in a dim way that Thugg had shot him in the shoulder. I’m bleeding, he thought. Christ, he thought, I didn’t get the gun from him. With effort he managed to open his eyes. He saw Thugg running; Thugg hurried away, pausing a time or two to fire. But he hit no one; they had all scattered, even Belsnor. “Help me,” Seth Morley grated, and Belsnor and Russell and Dr. Babble sneaked their way to him, their attention fixed on Thugg.

At the far end of the compound, by the entrance to the briefing room, Thugg halted; gasping for breath he aimed the gun at Seth Morley and fired one more shot. It passed Morley; it did not strike. Then with a shudder, Thugg turned away again and jogged off, leaving them.

“Frazer!” Babble exclaimed. “Help us get Morley into the infirmary! Come on; he’s bleeding from a severed artery, I think.”

Wade Frazer hurried over. He, Belsnor and Ned Russell lifted Seth up and began the task of carrying him to the doctor’s infirmary.

“You’re not going to croak,” Belsnor gasped as they laid him onto the long metal-topped table. “He got Maggie but he didn’t get you.” Standing back from the table, Belsnor got out a handkerchief and, shaking as he did so, blew his nose. “That pistol should have stayed with me. Can you see that now?”

“Shut up and get out of here,” Babble said, as he snapped on the sterilizer and rapidly placed surgical instruments in it. He then tied a tourniquet around Seth Morley’s injured shoulder. The flow of blood continued; it had now formed a pool on the table beside Seth Morley. “I’ll have to open him up, get the artery ends, and fuse them together,” he said. He tossed the tourniquet away, then turned on the artificial blood-supply machinery. Using a small surgical tool to drill a hole in Seth Morley’s side, he adroitly fastened the feedertube of the artificial blood-supply. “I can’t stop him from bleeding,” he said. “It’ll take ten minutes to dig in, get the artery ends and fuse them. But he won’t bleed to death.” Opening the sterilizer, he got out a tray of steaming tools. Expertly, hastily, he began to cut away Seth Morley’s clothing. A moment later and he had begun exploring the injured shoulder.

“We’re going to have to keep a continual watch for Thugg,” Russell said. “Damn it. I wish there were other weapons available. That one gun, and he’s got it.”

Babble said, “I have a tranquilizing gun.” He got out a set of keys, tossed them to Belsnor. “That locked cabinet over there.” He pointed. “The key with the diamond-shaped head.”

Russell unlocked the cabinet and got out a long tube with a telescopic sighting device on it. “Well, well,” he said. “These can be handy. But do you have any ammunition besides tranquilizers? I know the amount of tranquilizers these hold; it would stun him, maybe, but—”

“Do you want to finish him off?” Babble said, pausing in his investigation of Seth Morley’s shoulder.

Presently Belsnor said, “Yes.” Russell, too, nodded.

“I have other ammo for it,” Babble said. “Ammo that will kill. As soon as I’m finished with Morley I’ll get it.”

Lying on the table, Seth Morley managed to make out the sight of Babble’s tranquilizer gun. Will that protect us? he wondered. Or will Thugg make his way back here and kill all of us or possibly just kill me as I lie here helpless. “Belsnor,” he gasped, “don’t let Thugg come back here tonight and kill me.”

“I’ll stay here with you,” Belsnor said; he gave him a thump with the edge of his hand. “And we’ll be armed with this.” He held Babble’s tranquilizing gun, scrutinizing it. He seemed more confident, now. So did the others.

“Did you give Morley any Demerol?” Russell asked Dr. Babble.

“I don’t have time,” Babble said, and continued working. “I’ll give it to him,” Frazer said, “if you’ll tell me where it is and where the hypos are.”

“You aren’t qualified to do that,” Babble said. Frazer said, “And you’re not qualified to do surgery.”

“I have to,” Babble said. “If I don’t he’ll die. But he can get by without an analgesic.”

Mary Morley, crouching down so that her head was close to her husband’s, said, “Can you stand the pain?”

“Yes,” Seth Morley said tightly.

The operation continued.

He lay in semi-darkness. Anyhow the bullet is out of me, he thought drowsily. And I’ve had Demerol both intravenously and intermuscularly… and I feel nothing. Did he manage to stitch the artery properly? he wondered.

A complex machine monitored his internal activity: it kept note of his blood pressure, his heart rate, his temperature and his respiratory apparatus. But where’s Babble? he wondered. And Belsnor, where is he?

“Belsnor!” he said as loudly as he could. “Where are you? You said you’d be here with me all the time.”

A dark shape materialized. Belsnor, carrying the tranquilizer gun with both hands. “I’m here. Calm down.”

“Where are the others?”

“Burying the dead,” Belsnor said. “Tony Dunkelwelt, old Bert, Maggie Walsh… they’re using some heavy digging equipment left over from the building of the settlement. And Tallchief. We’re burying him, too. The first one to die. And Susie. Poor, dumb Susie.”

“Anyhow he didn’t get me,” Seth Morley said.

“He wanted to. He did his best.”

“We shouldn’t have tried to get the gun away from you,” Seth Morley said. He knew that, now. For what it was worth.

“You should have listened to Russell,” Belsnor said. “He knew.”

“Hindsight is cheap,” Seth Morley said. But Belsnor was patently right; Russell had tried to show them the way and they, from panic, had failed to listen. “No sign of Mrs. Rockingham?”

“None. We’ve searched throughout the settlement. She’s gone; Thugg’s gone. But we know he’s alive. And armed and dangerous and psychopathically oriented.”

Seth Morley said, “We don’t know he’s alive. He may have killed himself. Or what got Tallchief and Susie may have gotten him too.”

“Maybe. But we can’t count on it,” Belsnor examined his wristwatch. “I’ll be outside; from there I can see the digging operation and still watch over you. I’ll see you.” He thumped Morley on his left shoulder, then walked silently from the room and disappeared at once from sight.

Seth Morley wearily shut his eyes. The smell of death, he thought, is everywhere. We are inundated with it. How many people have we lost? he asked himself. Tallchief, Susie, Roberta Rockingham, Betty Jo Berm, Tony Dunkelwelt, Maggie Walsh, old Bert Kosler. Seven dead. Seven of us left. They’ve gotten half of us in less than twenty-four hours.

And for this, he thought, we left Tekel Upharsin. There is a macabre irony about it; we all came here because we wanted to live more fully. We wanted to be useful. Everyone in this colony had a dream. Maybe that’s what was wrong with us, he thought. We have been lodged too deeply in our respective dream worlds. We don’t seem able to come out of them; that’s why we can’t function as a group. And some of us, such as Thugg and Dunkelwelt—there are some of us who are functionally, outright insane.

A gun muzzle jutted against the side of his head. A voice said, “Be quiet.”

A second man, wearing black leather, strode toward the front of the infirmary, an erggun held ready. “Belsnor is outside,” he said to the man holding the gun against Seth Morley’s head. “I’ll take care of him.” Aiming his weapon he fired an arc of electricity; emerging from the anode coil of the gun it connected with Belsnor, turning him momentarily into a cathode terminal. Belsnor shivered, then slid down onto his knees. He fell over on one side and lay, the tranquilizer gun resting beside him.

“The others,” the man squatting next to Seth Morley said. “They’re burying their dead. They won’t notice. Even his wife isn’t here.” He came over to Seth Morley; the man beside him rose and both of them stood together for a moment, surveying Seth Morley. Both wore black leather and he wondered who or what they were.

“Morley,” the first man said, “we’re taking you out of here.”

“Why?” Morley said.

“To save your life,” the second man said. Swiftly they produced a stretcher and laid it beside Morley’s bed.