Sargasso of Space

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE HEART CEASES TO BEAT

As the door slid back into the wall and Kosti leaped through, Mura raised his voice:

“You are covered! Stand where you are!”

The man at the keyboard started, looking over his shoulder at Kosti, his face a mask of wild surprise. But the Rigellian moved with the superhuman speed of his race, his blue hand whipping towards another point on the control board.

It was Dane who fired and struck, not living flesh but that bank of controls. The man at the keyboard screamed, a thin, inhuman cry to echo though the maze. And the Rigellian dropped to the floor. But he was not yet beaten. He threw himself at Kosti, moving with a speed no Terran muscles could equal.

The big man swerved, but not far or fast enough, and went down into a clawing, gouging scramble on the floor. But the other outlaw remained where he was, sounds which bore small likeness to words still bubbling between his lips.

Ali slipped through the door and started around the room, edging with the wall as a support to his weaving legs. He turned his face up to Dane.

“Which is it?” he cried. “That switch—”

“Just ahead—the black one with the device set in the handle,” Dane called back. And now the eyes of the man by the keyboard found the two on the top of the wall. Why the sight of them restored his sense they could never know, but his hand went to the weapon at his belt. And at that same instant blaster fire cut so close to him that he must have felt the sear of the beam.

“Your hands—up with your hands—at once!” Mura gave the order with the same snap as Jellico might have used.

The man obeyed, leaning over to plant his outspread fingers on the screen he had watched for so long. But now he was intent upon Ali’s tottering advance and on his face there was a growing horror. When Kamil’s hand fell on the switch at last he gave another cry.

“Don’t!”

But Ali disregarded the warning and pulled the lever down with all his strength. The outlaw at the keyboard screamed for the second time. And there came another answer. The hum which had filled the walls, beat within their bodies for so long, was gone.

The Rigellian wrenched himself free from Kosti’s grip and gathered his feet under him to launch himself at the switch. But Ali had flung his whole weight upon the lever, dragging it down until the metal shaft broke off in his hand, determined that it would not be opened again. And at the sight of that the man at the keyboard went mad, flinging himself at Kamil in spite of the menace of Mura’s blaster.

Dane had been caught napping, his attention had been on the Rigellian who, he thought, was the more dangerous of the two. But the steward burned the lunatic down as his tearing hands reached for Ali’s throat. The man’s shriek was choked in mid cry and he writhed to the floor, on his face. Dane was glad he could not see those blackened features.

The Rigellian got to his feet, his unblinking reptilian eyes fastened on Dane and Mura, very much aware of the two blasters now centred upon him. He pulled his clothing into order and ignored Kosti.

“You have just condemned us all, you know—” his voice speaking the Trade Lingo was flat, unaccented, he might have been exchanging the formal compliments used among his kind.

Kosti moved on him. “Suppose you get your hands up, and don’t try the trick your partner pulled—”

The Rigellian shrugged. “There’s is no need for tricks now. We are all caught in the same trap—”

Ali caught at the chair and lowered himself into it it. Behind him the screen was blank—dead.

“And this trap?” asked Mura.

“When you threw that switch and wrecked it—you wrecked all the controls,” the Rigellian leaned back against the wall at his ease, no emotion to be read on his scaled face. “We’ll never get out of here—in the dark!”

For the first time Dane was aware of a change. The grey radiance which had glowed from the walls of the Forerunners’ domain was fading, as the glow might fade from the dying embers of a fire.

“We are locked in,” the remorseless voice of their prisoner continued. “And since you’ve smashed the lock, no one can get us out.”

Kosti laughed. “You setting up for a Whisperer?” he asked roughly. And produced his torch, snapping on the beam.

A ray of light answered. The Rigellian showed no interest.

“We don’t know all the secrets of this place,” he told them. “Wait and see how good your lights will be in here shortly.”

Dane turned to the steward. “If we start now—before the light is all gone from the walls—”

The other agreed with a nod and called down to the Rigellian: “Can you open the door?”

His answer came in a detached shake of the alien’s head. And Kosti promptly went into action. Using his blaster he burnt holds on the wall. Dane fairly danced in his impatience for them to be out and trying for the entrance, he hated to spare the time for those holds to cool.

But at last they were up and over the wall and all in the road to the outside. In the corridor Kosti pulled the hands of the Rigellian behind him and tied them with the man’s own belt before ordering him ahead. Their progress was necessarily slow as even with an aiding hand Ali could not keep a fast pace. And now they were in virtual darkness—the light only a ghostly reflection of the former glow.

Mura snapped on his torch. “We’ll use these one at a time. Save the charges for when we need them most.”

Dane wondered about that. Torch charges were not easily exhausted, they were made to be in use for months. But the ring of light which guided them now was oddly pallid, greyish, instead of yellow-bright as they expected.

“Why not turn it up?” Ali asked after a moment.

There was a snicker out of the gloom from the direction of the Rigellian. Then Mura answered:

“It is up—top strength—”

No one commented, but Dane knew that he was not the only one to watch that faint circle anxiously. And when it faded to a misty light extending hardly a foot beyond, somehow he was not surprised. Kosti, alone, asked a question:

“What’s the matter? Wait—!” The beam of his own torch struck out into the thick darkness. For perhaps two minutes it was clear, uncut, and then it, too, began to diminish as if something in the atmosphere sapped it.

“All energy within this space,” the Rigellian’s voice expounded, “is affected now. There is much of the installation we do not understand. Light goes, and later the air, also—”

Dane drew a long, testing breath. To his mind the chilly atmosphere was the same as it had always been. Perhaps that last embellishment was merely a flight of imagination on the part of their prisoner. But their pace quickened.

The pallid circle of the torch did not fade totally away for some time and they were able to follow the pattern which Rich had betrayed—the one which should guide them out of the labyrinth. There was a vast and brooding silence now that the great machine had stopped and in it the ring of their boots awoke strange echoes. At length Kosti’s torch was sucked dry and Dane’s pressed into use. They threaded on, from one room to another, down this short corridor to that, trying to make the best possible use of the dying light. But there was no way of gauging how close they were to the outer door.

When the last flicker of Dane’s light was in turn swallowed up, Mura gave a new order.

“Now we link ourselves together—”

Dane’s right hand clipped into Mura’s belt, his left closed about Ali’s wrist, providing one link in the chain. And they went on so, a soft murmur of sound telling the cargo-apprentice that the steward in the lead was counting off paces, seeming to have worked out some method of his own for getting them from one unseen point to the next.

But the dark pressed in upon them, thick, tangible, with that odd sensation that darkness on this planet always possessed. It was like pushing through a sluggish fluid and one lost any belief in ground gained, rather there was the feeling of being thrust back for a loss.

Dane followed Mura mechanically, he could only trust that the steward knew what he was doing and that sooner or later he would bring them to the portal of the maze. He himself was panting, as if they had been running, and yet the pace was the unhurried, ground-covering stride of the Pool parade ground which they had fallen into insensibly as they advanced in line.

“How many miles do we have to go, anyway?” Kosti’s voice arose.

He was answered by another snicker from their prisoner. “What difference does it make, Trader? From this there is no way out—once you smashed that switch.”

Did the Rigellian really believe that? If he did why wasn’t he more alarmed himself? Or was he one of those fatalistic races to whom life and death wore much the same face?

There was a surprised grunt from Mura and a second later Dane piled up tight against the steward while Ali and the two following him ploughed up in a tangle. To Dane there was only one explanation for that barrier before them—somewhere Mura had miscounted and taken a wrong turn in the dark. They were lost!

“Now where are we?” Kosti asked.

“Lost—” the Rigellian’s voice crackled dryly with a cold amusement crisping its tone.

But Dane’s hand was on the wall which had brought them up short and now he moved his fingers across its surface. This was not fashioned of the smooth material manufactured by the Forerunners, instead it had the grit of stone. They had reached the native rock of the cave! And Mura confirmed that discovery.

“This is the rock—the end of the maze.”

“But where’s the way out?” persisted Kosti.

“Locked—locked when you broke the switch,” the Rigellian replied. “All openings are governed by the installation—”

“If that is so,” Ali’s voice rose for the first time since they had begun that march, “what happened in the past when you shut off the machine? Were you locked in then until it was turned on once more?”

There was no reply. Then Dane heard a rustle of movement, and queer choking noise, and hard on it the jetman’s husky tone:

“When we ask questions, snake man, we get answers! Or take steps. What happened when you shut off that switch before?”

More scuffling sounds. And then a hoarse answer: “We stayed in here until it was switched on again. It was only off occasionally.”

“It was off for days while Survey was poking about here,” Dane corrected.

“We didn’t come near here then,” returned the Rigellian promptly—a little too promptly.

“Someone must have stayed in here—to turn it on again when you wanted that done,” Ali pointed out. “If the doors were locked you couldn’t have got in or out—”

“I’m not an engineer,” the Rigellian had lost some of his detachment, he was sullen.

“No, you’re just one of Rich’s lieutenants. If there’s a way out of here, you’ll know it.” That was Kosti.

“How about your pipe?” Dane asked Mura, whose continued silence puzzled him.

“That I have been trying,” the steward answered.

“Only it doesn’t work, eh? All right, snake man, spill—!” More sounds of a scuffle and then Ali’s voice across them—

“If this is rock, and it is the right place—how about using a blaster?”

To cut through! Dane’s hand went to his holster. A blaster could cut rock, cut it with greater dispatch than it had shorn through the tougher material of the maze. The idea struck Kosti too—the muffled noise made by his “persuasion” methods ceased.

“You’ll have to pick just the right spot,” Ali continued. “Where is the door—”

“That can be found by this old snake here, can’t it?” purred the jetman.

There was an inarticulate whimper in answer to that. Kosti must have heard it as an assent for he pushed past Dane, shoving the captive before him.

“Right there eh? Well, it better be, blue boy, it just better be!”

Dane nearly lost his balance as the Rigellian was thrust back upon him. He elbowed the man back against the wall and stood waiting.

“That you, Frank? Get back man—all of you get back!”

A second body was pushed against Dane and he gave ground, retreating with the Rigellian and the other.

“Look out for a back wash, you fool!” Ali called out. “Give it low power ‘til you see how that cuts—”

Kosti laughed. “I was flipping a polishing rag, son, when you were learning how to walk. You let the old man show his stuff now. Up ship and out!” With that wild slogan which had resounded in countless bars when the Traders hit dirt after long voyages, blazing light spewed out, blinding them all.

Dane peered between the fingers of a shielding hand and watched that core of brilliance centre on the rock, saw the stone glow red and then white before rippling in molten streams to the floor. Heat, waves of roasting heat blasted back at them, forcing retreat for all except that one big figure who stood his ground, pointing the weapon at the rock, his helmet, its protecting visor snapped into place, nodding a little in time with the force bolts which jerked his arm and body as they burst from the weapon in his hand to crash against the disintegrating wall. How could Kosti stand up to that back wash? He was taking more than was possible for a man to endure.

But the beam held steady on the point and hole grew as stone flaked away in patches, the inner rot spreading. The stink of the discharge filled their throats, gave them hacking coughs, cut at their eyes until tears wet their cheeks. And still Kosti stood in his place, with the stability of a command robot.

”Karl!” Ali’s voice rose to a scream, “Look out—Let up!”

There was a crash as a piece of rock gave way, bashing down into the corridor of the maze. Just in the last instant the jetman had moved, but he did not give more than the few feet necessary to preserve the minimum safety.

With his free hand he beat at a smouldering patch on his breeches. But his grip on the blaster did not waver and the beam of destruction continued to bore in just where he had aimed it.

By the flame Dane saw the Rigellian’s face. His wide eyes centred on Kosti and there was a kind of horror mirrored in them. He edged away from the inferno at the portal, but more as if he feared the man who induced it than if he were afraid of the blaster work.

“That does it!” Kosti’s voice was muffled in his helmet.

As yet they dared not approach the glowing door he had cut for them. But since he had holstered his arm it was plain that he thought the job done. Now he came back to join them, pushing up his visor so by the glow of the cooling rock they could see his face wet and shiny. He pounded vigorously with his gloved hands at places on the front of his tunic and breeches and carried with him the taint of singed leather and fabric.

“What’s out there?” Dane wanted to know.

Kosti’s nose wrinkled. “Another hallway as black as outer space. But at least we can get of this whirly-round!”

Impatient as they were to be on their way, they must wait until it was safe to cross that cut which radiated heat. Adjusting helmets, improvising a protection for Ali from the Rigellian’s tunic, they made ready. But before they went Kosti gave a last attention to their captive.

“We could pull you through,” he observed. “But you might fry on the way, and besides you’d be a dead jet breaking our speed if we tangle with any of your friends outside. So we’ll just store you in deep freeze—to be called for.” He fastened the man’s ankles as well as his wrists and rolled him away from the heated portion of the corridor.

Then with Ali in their midst they hurried through the cut and out into the hall. Darkness closed about them once more, and an experiment proved that here, as well as in the maze, the torches could not fight the blackness. But at least the way before them was smooth and straight and there were no openings along it to betray them into wrong turnings.

They slowed their pace to accommodate Ali, and went linked together by touch as they had in the maze.

“Worm’s eye view—” Kosti’s grumble came through the sable quiet. “Did the Forerunners have eyes?”

Dane slipped his arm about the swaying Ali’s shoulders and gave him support. He felt the engineer-apprentice wince as his clumsy grasp awoke some bruise to life and adjusted his hold quickly, though Ali made no sound of protest.

“Here is an opening, we have reached the end of this way,” Mura said. “Yes, beyond is another passage—wider, much wider—”

“A wider road might lead to a more important section,” Dane ventured.

“Just so it gets us out of here!” was Kosti’s contribution. “I’m tired of jetting around in this muck hole. Go on, Frank, take us in.”

The procession of four moved on, making a sharp turn to the right. They were now marching abreast and Dane had an impression of room about them, though the dark was as complete as ever.

Then they were stopped, not by another barrier but by noise—a shout which exploded along the hall with the crack of a stun rifle. In a moment it was followed by just that—the crack of a rifle.

“Down!” Mura snapped. But the others were already moving.

Dane ducked, pulling Ali with him. Then he was lying flat, trying to sort out some meaning from the wild clamour which floated back to them.

“Small war on—” that was Kosti managing to make himself heard between two bursts of firing.

“And it’s coming our way,” Ali breathed close to Dane’s ear.

The cargo-apprentice drew his blaster, though he did not see how he was going to make much use of it now. To fire blindly in the dark was not a wise move.

“Yaaaah—” That was no shout of rage, it was the yammering scream of a man who had taken his death wound. And Ali was very right—the battle was fast approaching where they lay.

“Back against the walls,” again Mura gave tongue to a move they were already making.

Dane clutched a portion of Ali’s torn tunic and felt it rip more as he pulled the engineer-apprentice after him to the right. They fetched up against the wall and stayed there, huddled together and listening.

A flash of light cracked open the curtain about them. Dazzled, Dane had an impression of black forms. And then a smouldering patch of red on the wall was all that marked the burst of a blaster.

“Lord of High Space,” Ali half whispered. “If they beam those straight down here, we’ll fry!”

Feet pounded towards them and Dane stiffened, clutching his weapon. Maybe he should fire at the sound, knock out the runners before they came too close. But he could not bring himself to squeeze the trigger. All a Trader’s ingrained distrust of open battle made him hesitate.

There was light up there now. Not the grey, ghostly gloom which had once lit these halls, but a thick yellow shaft which was both normal and reassuring to Terran eyes. And against that the four from the Queen saw five figures take cover on the floor, ready—no longer fleeing, but turning to show their teeth to their pursuers.