The Killer Thing

Nine

The sun swung slowly overhead, the area of intolerable light moving gradually towards the west, lengthening the shadows once more. It was still too hot to go out to search for the other dinghy. Trace looked at the thermometer registering one hundred and twenty-two, and knew that he dared not remain outside long in that heat. He cleaned the inside of the compact craft, sliding units back into their places, pulling down covers over the controls, over the charts, and then there was nothing to do. He would keep his air conditioner on for two days only, then keep it off for the next three days until the robot appeared. If it was using infra-red to track him, this time there would be no heat trail for it to home in on.

He felt very calm then when he surveyed his lifeboat, all in good shape, inspection proof. He was a good officer, a good soldier. They had predicted that he would be as far back as he could remember. Not only because of his father who had been army all his life, but everything about him. He had been able to accept the discipline; from the start he had known that it was temporary only, that he would be in a position to issue the orders quickly, that until then it was a matter of yes sirring, and waiting. He had been a good waiter, and it had not been very long, not long at all.

He thought of his mother whom he had not seen for thirteen years, probably never would see again. They had lived on Venus, she, a descendent of one of the original colonists, he as the dependent of a Fleet man. He had seen better worlds since Venus, but still he thought of it with a certain amount of nostalgia. He hummed the refrain of one of the Fleet songs:

His father had sung it before him; his father before that… All army, as far back as the male lineage could be traced, all army married to daughters of army men. He should have married Corrine, the girl his mother had chosen for him. He thought of Corrine, third daughter of still another army general, General Scot Kerwin, retired. Corrine, tall and graceful, even back when he had known her at sixteen and seventeen. No doubt she still was tall and graceful, the mother of an army child, destined to be army himself in eight or ten years. His mouth twisted in a wry smile as he thought of other verses of the song he had been humming:

Had he left sons and daughters behind? He didn’t know.

I would keep you if I could, Lar had said, that last time. They had been swimming; water droplets sparkled on her red-gold skin.

Your way? Renouncing my own kind, becoming one of yours?

Yes, my way.

You know I couldn’t stay like that.

I know.

Mellic was a gentle world with woods and fields and swelling hills of green, with kind oceans and cold rivers and mountains that were painted with snow. The breezes were soft, the air sweet. Behind them the river sang softly.

Why are you back again? she asked, her fingers caressing a blue flower, her gaze on it.

I have escort duty this time. How are the meetings going?

Don’t they keep you informed about them?

Only rumours.

I see. The Outsiders are kind and firm; they do not wish to yield on any of the points of their ultimatum…

They are arrogant and too demanding.

No! Not arrogant. They came here before, long, long ago, and they gave their pledge to come to our aid at any time that we should need them. We needed them, and they came.

He stood up angrily and pulled on his uniform trousers.

Do you know what the terms are that they are demanding? Withdrawal from every world where our withdrawal is requested! Every world, from a civilised planet like Mellic down to the stone age world of Tau Ceti III. What do people like that know about withdrawal of forces?

Is that where you were injured by the spear?

Yes! They are cave-men still! What do they know about anything? They were starving before we came along. Now they are being taught how to provide better for themselves, how to protect themselves from the weather and the wild animals… He had finished dressing as he spoke. How much nakeder she seemed when he was fully clothed!

Would you go from infancy to adulthood without the joys and sorrows of adolescence? Would you be able to trust your own judgement, to prize your own achievements if there never had been that period of trying and failing, and finally not failing? What are you taking from them by forcing too rapid adulthood on them? Aren’t you actually turning them into slaves dependent entirely on your forces, your medicines, your decrees…

You are as savage as they are!

I know. Smiling, her eyes deep and shadowed by luxuriant lashes that hid their lights then.

Why did you say you would keep me here?

There will be war again, this time between your fleet and the Outsiders. Your people never learned how to accept defeat. Pride will force your government to war. They will kill you and drive you back until you are once more on the planet of your birth, and you will be lost to me for ever. I wish it were not to be like that.

I thought you hated us all.

I thought I did also. I wanted to. You are like the savages of Tau Ceti III. You were taken as an infant and trained to be a soldier; perhaps the training could be cancelled… Sometimes I think I can see a suggestion that perhaps the training was insufficient in your case. You have been kind to me, and gentle… But those are simply excuses, and what I feel for you is inexcusable.

Lar, will you go to one of the rooms with me?

I have no choice. Her hand closed on the flower she held; she seemed unaware of it.

Don’t say that! Besides, Mellic is neutral now. You are a free agent.

She bowed her head, and when she raised it once more her eyes were black and very distant. Not to one of those rooms.

Why not?

They are so ugly, hideously ugly…

How do you know? Have you been… Who?

Who? How do I know who? Your men take what they want from the planets they conquer. Mellic has women.

No! Not you! There was a sickness in him then. He looked at her lovely body that he had thought so clean and untouched. A vision of her with someone else flashed before his inner eye and he turned towards the river.

Yes, me! Don’t turn away from me, Captain Tracy. Let me tell you about it! Did you know some of them beat the women afterwards? Did you know some of them aren’t satisfied unless there is an audience or a group all mingling together? I know all your World Group perversions, Captain Tracy. It amuses your little uniformed gods to teach us and then make us perform for them… Her low, soft voice had hardened, sounded strange to him.

Stop it!

It is too late to stop now, Captain Tracy! I tried to stop it and do you know what he said, one of the little gods in his shiny uniform? He said animals had nothing to say about how they are used. He said if the oxen refuses to pull the plough, it is whipped; if the mare refuses the rider, she is beaten; if a Mellic woman refuses to serve the new gods, her family is whipped and beaten, and deprived of their food rations. He said all Fleet men were wonderful animal trainers, Captain Tracy!

Why are you doing this to me? I didn’t know about you. I would have tried to protect you. You should have told me. Lar, I love you.

And how many others have you loved? Did you protect all of them? How many seeds of yours have been well planted on other worlds? You know what happens, don’t you, Captain Tracy? If the women don’t die in convulsion of rejection they bring forth monstrously deformed fruit, and that is the result of the union of the World Group fleet and the women they conquer ― deformity and ugliness…

Why are you doing this?

You should be able to see the expression on your face, Captain Tracy. Disgust, loathing, anger… You spoke of love to me and there was hatred in your eyes. You soil us and then hate us for being dirty. When I speak the truth about myself, you flinch away as if I were contaminated and contagious. Even now, could you bring yourself to touch me right now? Before you have a chance to go away and rationalise all of this? You will do just that, you know, and when you return you will have convinced yourself that I am here for you to take, that it doesn’t make very much difference how you take me. You will have reminded yourself that we are animals to be used and thrown aside, that already I have been much used, that once more won’t matter one way or the other. I can see these thoughts forming already, the way you shake your head so violently at them! You would hit me if you could bring yourself to touch me now. Later you will hit me, won’t you? You will relieve your fury by striking me. Your fury for thinking I was a virgin when I am actually so much less. You have a lovely phrase to describe it, Captain Tracy: the spoils of war! She turned and started to run from him then.

Somehow he broke and ran after her, caught her and spun her around. They stood facing one another, his hands gripping her shoulders hard, her hands hanging limp at her sides. He pulled her to him slowly, closing his eyes at the last moment, crushing her to him, and she was sobbing against his chest.

Hey, Trace! Where are you?

He tilted her head and looked into her black eyes awash with tears. He did not kiss her, But touched the tear streak on her cheek with his finger-tip. Very gently he put her aside.

Wait. I’ll be back in a moment.

Trace! You down there by the river?

It was Duncan, clambering down the slope to the river-bank. Trace met him half-way.

Emergency alert, Trace. Volunteers only. That robot that slaughtered the trainees back on Venus a couple of years ago, just mopped up Tau Ceti IV. Tau Ceti III’s sending a recon ship to keep it on scope until one of ours gets there. If we leave within the next half-hour or so, we’ll still be able to get a fix before it can get into warp sector. You with it, Trace?

You bet! The others near by?

All but Mao; Hess is on hand to sub…

Be right with you, Dunc. Round them up.

She was waiting, her tears gone now. You are leaving!

Emergency. I have to go.

I heard him say volunteers…

You don’t understand. I have to. You will be here when I get back?

The Outsiders may not allow you to come back.

To hell with them. I’ll come back for you.

He should have kissed her before. Now it was too late. He looked at her still face, the black hair, black eyes; abruptly he turned and left her.

They caught up in time to get a relative position lock before the other Fleet ship went into warp, and shortly afterwards they also warped. When they came out, there it was, a dot on the screen, still locked in position with them. Again it warped, and they followed. For three months they followed, tied together by the invisible string, entering warp where change was not possible, coming out to manoeuvre, the robot trying to break that string, only to enter warp again, still tied.

It must know that we are closing in, Trace.

It will slow down eventually; it will have to, or be blown to bits as soon as we are in range.

The dot on the screen held steady, and then it was slowing, going into orbit around a planet not even listed in the catalogue.

Screen in place! Fire!

The fusion shells streaked away, to be deflected from the other ship, to explode in space. More shells, timed to hit simultaneously, and a crack in the shield, then the damaging strike. An answering hit on their ship.

The shell hit us, Trace…

“Not now!” Trace said quietly, out loud. The dinghy felt alive with voices, with the presence of Duncan. He looked out of the port and saw that the shadows were marching across the valley. It was time to go out and start the search for the dinghy hidden behind the screen of invisibility. He took a sip of water first, adjusted his suit with the face mask in place and then left the dinghy. The mask was protection against the sun and sand.

The valley had changed again, would change with each shift of the sun, he thought, standing by the dinghy and studying the land. The floor of the valley was almost clear of sand, but was strewn with rocks that were rounded, blasted, polished. The rocks ranged from gem size to the massive egg-like boulder that sheltered the dinghy. Trace turned, examining the valley, puzzled and unable to decide exactly why. Finally he started to circle the bottom of it, staying close to the sheer rise of the cliff that had been smoothed by rocks and sand until it was like an artifact. The first opening that he found was narrow, eighteen inches at the top, opening to twelve feet at the bottom. While he could manoeuvre in and out of it, he knew it would be safe from an attack by the robot. The chimney ran two hundred feet back, climbing in an ever steeper ascent until it opened to the summit of the cliffs overlooking the valley. He turned and looked back down the way he had climbed out; the valley was completely invisible from where he was standing. The opening was a narrow slit barely four feet high here; a wide curve made it appear that the opening was nothing more than a cut into the cliff itself that dead-ended after twenty-five feet. He felt pleased about this opening. The cliffs continued to rise another four hundred feet around it. If the robot did approach from this direction he would be entirely safe from discovery. He hoped the other exits from the valley to the pinnacles above it were as well placed.

He knew he could walk no farther than three miles in an hour, probably less than that, and he had only about three hours until the winds would make it unsafe to be outside at all, so he planned that first day to go no farther from his base than two miles; he would increase the distance in the days to follow. What he sought was the cliff of basalt where he had stood that first day, when he had realised that the robot was not dead. He would find the cliff, climb it, and re-locate the spot where the robot had been. After that it would be simple, a matter of getting close enough to the invisibility shield to let his radiation detector find the hidden dinghy.

He walked away from the sun, his shadow distorted ahead of him, flowing over rocks, merging with other blacker shadows, emerging again, more elongated and inhuman. He wondered if the robot would cast a shadow, and thought of the stories the boys in the bunks had exchanged after lights out so long ago. Stories of ancient horrors: living-dead things that cast no shadows, had no mirror reflections. He had been frightened by the stories, and sometimes he couldn’t sleep as he lay with the cover over his head, afraid to remove it, for fear of what he might see standing over his bed.

The land at the end of the mountain chain was more harshly used; there were fewer cliffs to absorb the shock of the continuous blows, and those rock masses that were there had been cut into stark, unrelieved peaks with razor-like edges. Jumbles of tumbled, split, broken rocks lay in unnatural piles, deposited there by the wind. Only occasionally did he see a rounded boulder, such as one would expect to see where the sand was the lapidarist. Here giant rocks had done the rough hewing, smashing against the sides of the cliffs. The sand was not trapped here, but blew on through the rocks, out the other side to become part of the ever-growing desert. There was an occasional natural bridge or arch where soft material had yielded to the wind.

The silent cliffs rose, reflecting the sun in his eyes, flashing brilliant colours that would vanish when the sun was at another angle, or when he shifted his position to examine one closely. Streaks of quartz in the granite flashed like diamonds; feldspar became rubies, a faceted face of quartzite shone like emeralds. Mica specks were like small mirrors signalling in response to the white sky. Basalt cuts appeared to be oiled and wet; they were hot when he touched them. The flashing, glaring rocks hurt his eyes, even though they were protected by the face mask. Somewhere along the way he turned slightly, and didn’t notice it until he caught himself wondering where the swaying, unfamiliar shadow had gone.

Fear came then; he whirled about and stared behind him. Would he recognise the right cliff this time? The one that meant the dinghy and safety? How long had he been walking with his shadow off to the right of him? He didn’t know. He had been walking for one hour and ten minutes when he turned back. The sun dipped behind a peak that abruptly turned midnight black against the white spotlight, and everywhere the shadows deepened and some of them looked like bottomless pits that suddenly yawned on all sides of him. This time he walked with the shadow following slightly to his left, and he looked back at it again and again. Once when he failed to see it among the deeper shadows of a peak, he almost cried out, but then it was there, moving with him. When to turn so that it was directly behind him, pointing him in the right direction? He didn’t know.

The cliffs rose all about him, two hundred feet, five hundred feet, but none of them was the basalt cliff on which he had stood that first day; none of them was the one that so cunningly concealed the slit of a chimney, the passage to the safety of his dinghy.

He looked behind him again, and now the shadows had grown so that the strips of white now were the narrow, strange shapes that defied recognition. Motionless, silent when he gazed at them, they grew in quiet leaps when his eyes were averted. The white was turning grey, its edges no longer sharply defined. The sky above his head was violet; away to the east it was deep purple; to the west it was yellow still. Wherever he fastened his gaze the land and sky were unmoving, changeless, but everywhere else the changes were hastening without sound. He walked faster. He had walked an hour from the time he had turned back, and still he had not found the slit, nor even the right cliffs. As though from a great distance he could hear a howling sound; he thought of the distant wolves that appeared with regularity in some of the stories the boys had told when he had been twelve or so. This time it wasn’t wolves. The wind was starting.

Another ten minutes. The face of the cliffs changed with each new alignment of the sun and the peaks, changed with each new configuration of shadow and light. With every step, every turn of his head the scene before him shifted, became less and less familiar. The valley had to be to his left, somewhere in the granite cliffs that towered high over him with a weight and massiveness that was terrifying. If only there were birds, or insects, or anything on this world. Something to break the silence and the motionlessness. Nothing moved except the wind. It started to swirl sand in small funnels, no more than five feet high, as yet swirling, then dropping, then starting again, rising higher each time, higher and denser. They were like nightmare figures, the threatening black shapes coming up from the earth, whirling about, and then collapsing while the wind sang a maniacal song.

He groped along the cliff wall searching for the slit, and found nothing. The first tornado formed, howling like a rocket motor. The wind was lifting rocks now, no larger as yet than eggs; tornadoes whipped them around faster and faster, suddenly letting go, and they hit the walls of the skeleton mountains with explosive force, sounding like a steady barrage of small arms.

Then the size of the rocks increased, and one that weighed at least ten pounds was hurled past Trace’s head, missing him by three feet. The noise was deafening now. He fell to the ground and lay there panting. He had to have shelter. Cautiously, creeping low against the ground, he made his way around a column of rocks where only sand blew, striking him with force, but not penetrating his suit. He could see only a few feet before him now; the wind was increasing minute by minute. It was coming from behind him, but suddenly he was hit in the face by a strong current of airborne sand. He staggered backwards, bewildered. Then, sobbing with relief, he realised that he had found the chimney, that the wind was whistling through it from the valley side of the cliffs.

He groped for it with his hands. It would be rough going back through it with the wind in his face, driving sand and stones against him, but either that or stay outside to be pulverised…

He got to his knees and started to crawl, keeping his head low, not even looking up when he heard the crash of a large rock near his right shoulder. He realised then why he had felt uneasy about the smooth walled valley where he had left his dinghy. The valley was shaped like a giant mixer, and nothing in it had not been rounded and smoothed by the twice-daily assault of the vicious wind. Ahead of him in the darkness he could hear the din of continuous thunder as tornadoes roared in the valley.