Fugitive of the Stars

CHAPTER XII

The gallery was cut wide and high through the living rock.

It was dry and well-ventilated, partly through shafts that bored upward to the outside air. Horne figured that they must be hooded against rain and therefore against light too, because no light came through them even though he knew that it was day again in the outer world. Some of the slaves had had their work-lamps with them when they escaped. The purple gargoyle, D'quar, stalked ahead, wearing an incongruous star on his hideous brow, a guiding light to the rest of them.

At intervals along the gallery, steel hatches were set into the right-hand wall — the inner wall, if Horne had figured rightly. They were coated with an anti-corrosive plastic and locked with curious-looking locks. Even Fife did not know what the hatches were for. He only knew that they were deadly dangerous to tamper with. Horne was not tempted to bother with them.

They had come a long way from the refuge in the badlands, working their way by forced marches during the dark hours along the rim of the foothills until they reached the base of a particular bald, humped mountain that was, Ewan had said, close to Rillah on the other side.

While the slow dawn was breaking, Fife led them up a maze of canyons and rising ridges which made for such arduous travel that Yso's strength gave out temporarily. Lurgh, the big brown-furred creature from Allamar Two, had carried her along for a while, not seeming in the least bothered by her weight. By the time she had her strength back, they were entering the mouth of an old boring half hidden by a slide.

"This must have been part of a mine once,” Fife said. “This side of the mountain is full of them, I believe, but this is the only one I know. Some of them connect with the outer galleries of the Project, and that is how we few managed to escape. I think even most of the Vellae have forgotten these borings are still here."

He added, “Go softly. The roof is liable to fall."

They wormed their way through a claustrophobic nightmare of rubble and rotten shorings, with sand and pebbles sifting ominously down their necks, until a narrow opening let them into the dry, solid gallery cut in the deeper rock. That had been, Horne thought, a devil of a long time ago and they had been climbing ever since. By now, they must be close to the top of the mountain, just inside the curve of the south shoulder.

Tunnel in the rind of a mountain, with doors in it. What for? Even preoccupied as he was with Ardric and his intense need to find him, Horne could not help wondering now and again just what was hidden behind those locked doors in the vast bulk of the mountain.

Yso and Ewan were feverish in their desire to know, and they had been restrained only by the grim warnings of the alien slaves from trying to find out.

A Chell of Chorann spoke suddenly in a sibilant whisper. “D'quar, put out your light."

D'quar obeyed, instantly and without question. As the purple gargoyle stopped, they all stopped, and then they stood in the utter darkness, trying not to breathe or move while they listened.

Horne could hear nothing at all, but the ultra-sonic hearing of Chell was keener.

"There isss a cone,” he said. “Coming this way."

"Ah!” Fife's sharp whisper held both satisfaction and worry. “The Vellae patrol these outer galleries now and then, making sure that all is well. So. We will have a chance at a cone. If we take it, good. If we do not, we may as well kill each other quickly and mercifully on the spot. And it will have to be done fast. Fast, Horne, you hear? Otherwise he will call the others with his radio and it will all be useless."

Remembering the utter lack of facilities for ambush in the gallery, Horne said; “That's fine, but do you have any idea about how we do it?"

"Oh,” said Fife, “I have a plan already. I've been making it ever since we entered the gallery."

He began to talk rapidly. When he was finished Horne said, “All right. Why argue? Let's get going."

Chell said, “The cone isss still some distance away. You can risk a light for a few ssseconds."

A work-lamp flicked on, turned so low it was hardly brighter than a match flame but almost blinding after the total darkness. Chell wrapped three of his tentacles around Horne and took an enormous breath. He rose to the ceiling and began bobbing along under it. Another one of the furry green balls from Chorann picked Ewan up, the same way. The others all began to run along the gallery, hurrying to get out of sight around a turn they had just passed. Horne saw Yso stop and look around, reluctant to leave them, and the entirely useless thought came to Home that she was a very gorgeous thing in Meeva's scanty finery, with her long yellow hair hanging over her white shoulders. Then he called in a frantic whisper,

"Fife! Fife, what about the gun?"

Fife paused long enough to shake his head. “You might damage the cone or the uniform. Don't worry, we'll give you all the help you need."

"Thank you,” said Horne, “very much."

"Sssh!” said Chell. “It comes."

His companion, carrying Ewan, whispered, “Here it is.” In the last gleam of the vanishing light, Horne saw him disappear upward into one of the air-shafts. Chell followed him.

It was the devil of a place to be, hanging in the grip of a living green balloon, jammed into a hole in the mountain where he could not see anything at all. His life and the success of his whole mission and a lot of other things depended on his seeing clearly and not making the slightest mistake.

He couldn't see, but he could hear. There was a faint, muffled throbbing in the gallery below.

Then there was light.

Then there was a transparent canopy directly underneath him, with light glowing from two rods set in it, and the top of a man's close-cropped head and the tops of his shoulders in a red uniform tunic and his arms outstretched in red sleeves and his hands on the control levers.

Chell let his breath out and dropped.

They landed together, with Horne underneath, on the slippery plastic bubble. Instantly Chell gripped onto the rim of the cone with three widespread tentacles and flung Horne out and down with the other tentacles. Horne caught a glimpse of Ewan apparently flying through the air and then the other green ball was beside Chell and the two of them with their combined weight and strength were overbalancing the light, floating cone. The man inside it was craning his head upward, his mouth and eyes stretched wide. For the first moment or two he was not doing anything but that. In another few seconds, while he got his wits together again, it might be too late.

Horne leaped for the rim and hit the canopy release.

The plastic bubble opened, almost throwing Chell and his friend but not quite. The cone was dragging now at a tilted angle and the man inside it was clawing mechanically toward the controls to level it again. But he was also trying not to fall clear out of his seat. Before he could make up his mind, Horne was inside the cone and on top of him.

The cockpit was only meant to hold one man. The red-uniformed man tried first to get at his gun, but Horne's knee was already on it and crushing it into his side. Then he bunched up his fists and snarled and pounded Horne as hard as he could around the face. Home hit him back. He got his hands around the man's neck and choked him and beat his head against the inside coaming of the rim, but it was padded and the whole thing was ineffectual because there was no room to move in.

Ewan reached the controls from outside the cockpit and shut off the small propulsion unit and shifted the grav shields so the cone fell over easily and Chell could let go of it. Horne sprawled out of the cone onto the rock floor, dragging the guard with him.

The guard looked past him and his face went perfectly white. He made one last desperate effort to get his gun out. Horne got his feet under him and hit the man solidly on the jaw, and the rest of the slaves came round and stood looking at the first Vellae they had ever seen lying prone and helpless at their feet. Horne slid the man's gun out of its holster.

Fife said, “Strip him.” His face, at this moment, was not even remotely human.

By the time they had his uniform off him the man had opened his eyes again and was staring with a kind of helpless horror at the two hairy nine-foot giants who were holding him and the other aliens that were around. Fife's eyes were brilliant. He held the gun Ewan had given him in his hand.

"Stand away,” he said.

Horne casually raised the gun that he had taken from the guard. He said in a mild voice, “Why do you want to do that? You could be throwing away a lot of important information."

He thought for a minute that Fife was going to try killing him, but then Fife relaxed and let the gun fall to his side.

"You may be right,” he said. “Very well, we'll see what we can find out from him. D'quar?"

The purple gargoyle came and squatted down beside the guard. He held up one huge hand and ostentatiously extruded from his finger ends, one by one, claws that would have been useful to a tiger. Then he laid his hand gently on the guard's chest, just below the throat.

"Ask him whatever you want,” Fife said to Horne. “D'quar will see that you get the answers."

Before Horne could speak, Ewan had pushed forward and bent over the man. “What's behind those doors? What are the Vellae doing inside this mountain?"

The guard looked up at him with bitter contempt. “I know you,” he said. “I've seen your picture often in the telecasts. You used to be Morivenn's errand boy.” He glanced around at the hostile alien faces bent over him. “So this is what you people are doing now that Moriverin is dead. Isn't this pretty low for a human, even a Federationist, to sink?"

Ewan said, “That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm not going to answer it.” The guard's face was set now in the desperate hardness of a man who knows he is going to die and is determined to give his killers no satisfaction. “The doors are there. If you want to know what's behind them, go and look for yourself."

Horne pushed Ewan aside. “We can talk about that later. You men go back and forth to Rillah, don't you? You know most of what goes on?"

"We do."

"What do you know about Ardric?"

"Ardric?” the man, surprised. “Why, he—” Then he broke off and his eyes became wary. “He's dead. I thought everyone knew that."

Fife said softly. “D'quar—

One of those sharp claws moved and hooked itself in the man's throat and began slowly to contract, tearing a little as it went. The guard cried out once — and then shut his teeth tight together.

Horne said, “You're just wasting your time, D'quar. You won't get him to talk that way."

"Shut up,” snarled Fife. “He'll talk or we'll tear him to pieces. Go on, D'quar, tear him!"

Horne shook his head. “You're smart enough, Fife, but you don't know men. This one's all angry and nerved up to die and he isn't going to tell us anything. Why? Because he figures he'll die anyway and so the hell with us. On the other hand, if he had a choice—"

"What kind of a choice?"

"A choice of life or death. If he doesn't talk, he dies. If he does talk, he lives. Don't be stubborn, Fife. What's one Vellae against a chance for home and freedom?"

Fife looked around at the others.

Lurgh awkwardly shifted his giant bulk and said hesitantly, “I think the human is right."

There were no dissenting voices.

For the second time, Fife mastered himself. “We agree, then. If the man talks, he lives."

D'quar sighed, as with regret, and removed his hand.

Horne said to the guard, “Well?"

He watched while the man's hard resolve crumbled away now that its foundation was removed. There was nothing, he thought, more weakening than hope.

"I can start you off easy,” Horne said, “by telling you we know Ardric is alive. We were fighting him only a day or two ago."

"Fighting?” the guard said. “They kept that secret enough. I knew Ardric was gone—"

He took a deep breath and plunged.

"Ardric has been working in the Project ever since he came back to Skereth."

A savage thrill, almost of triumph, sprang up in Horne. He looked at the others and said in a thin harsh voice like a cutting blade, “We won't have to go to Rillah."

"Right here in the Project?” said Fife. “Doing what?"

"Well.” said the man, “he's primarily a spaceman and doesn't know a thing about the Project, but he is used to giving orders. So his father put him in charge of the whole Project guard. Now he tells us how to do the work we've been doing for years."

Fife was figuring time. Finally he said grudingly, “We all escaped before that, so you may be telling the truth."

"I think he is,” said Horne. “If a man wanted to hide for a while, a man who was supposed to be dead, where would he find a better place than this?"

He bent down beside the guard. “I want Ardric. How can I get to him?"

The man looked at him, startled by the cold intensity of his manner. “I don't think there is any way,” he said. “He lives and works in the Administration Center, the heart of the Project. Even if you wore my uniform you wouldn't have much chance to get near him, and even if you did they'd kill you before you could get away. These others—” He looked around at the aliens and shook his head. “No chance at all."

"Are you sure of that?” Horne said. “Think hard. And remember what depends on it."

Sweat came out on the man's face. He was more frightened now, when he had seen a glimmer of hope, than when he had been sure he was going to die.

"I don't know,” he said desperately. “Please, I can't tell you a way if there isn't one!"

"Try,” said Horne. “Take plenty of time."

The man looked around, trapped and despairing. His eyes fell on Yso and his lips half parted as though he were going to make an appeal to her, but then he seemed to recognize her as Morivenn's daughter and the hope in his eyes died.

Fife sauntered a step closer. The aliens began to edge in, and D'quar stood absently looking down at his own talons, and all the unhuman faces stared in a hungry way. Horne could guess what the guard was feeling, as he looked up at those unhuman faces and thought of how these slaves had been treated.

The man's face became agonized with effort, and his voice came in a rattling rush.

"If you go down through the access galleries you'll meet other guards, and you'll have to pass through many levels where work is still going on and there are even more guards to watch over the slaves. So that's impossible. You just couldn't get past without being seen and challenged. So the only possible way there might be would be if you went through the Project itself—"

"Behind the doors?"

"Yes, but listen, if you got all the way to a main-ganglion relay station and from there to the control center in Administration, there would still be only a handful of you against the Project guards, and any slave caught in Administration would be shot on sight. So there isn't any way I can see—"

"Just a minute,” Horne said. “Main ganglion? What's that? What are the Vellae building in this mountain?"

An expression of haunting fear crept into the man's face against his will but too strong to be denied.

"A brain,” he said. “A huge, great brain."