The Star Virus

III

Rodrone pointedly ignored the divided opinion that he knew had arisen both within his own ship and the Revealer coasting on a parallel course some dozen miles distant. Loyalty, obedience and faith in his judgment were qualities that he never attempted to cultivate in any under his command. He led by pure nerve. He did not believe in permanent coercion, either physical or psychological.

Paradoxically, it was the best method of creating a dependable following, though not always conducive to the interests of safety. The fool, the madman, the crank, obstinately oblivious to dangers frighteningly obvious to anyone else, often took up the lead at the point where the nerve of the more cautious faltered.

At any rate, Rodrone was adamant in his resolve and the misgivings of a few crew members soon ceased to reach his ears, as he had known they would. And in one companion at least, he had every possible support: Clave delighted in the prospect of an escapade that would enrage both the house of Jal-Dee and the awesome Streall in one blow.

He knew little, of course, of the heady, crazed moment of feeling that had prompted Rodrone’s decision. It had felt like pulling out the rock that would bring an avalanche down on his own head; but once he had formed it, he refused to reverse his intention. Anything over which the inhuman Streall took such trouble must possess unusual properties. Probably it was a Streall artifact, which itself was sufficient to arouse Rodrone’s interest.

Much of the voyage Rodrone spent lying on a couch, watching the stars through an observation window. The Hub was a sight familiar to him all his life, yet nevertheless it could still keep him spellbound for hours. The stars piled up in clouds, snowdrifts, glowing globular clusters and shapeless masses; suffused through the generally white light were delicate colors, pinks, faint blues and yellows. And throughout the endless continent of drifting stars the species Homo sapiens was spreading relentlessly, haphazardly; no one knew quite how far, still less where the limit lay. It was an endless universe of worlds, of opportunities, of possibilities.

In view of that, it was a jarring fact, to Rodrone’s mind, that in the whole of the known hub there was only one race to maintain an interstellar presence, and it was even more strange that in such a plethora of worlds the Streall should so coldly resent man’s entry on to the scene. But then the Streall did not have minds like men’s minds. They did nothing that was not part of a centuries-old plan, and their vision of the universe was authoritarian and strict.

At first there had been much conflict. The Streall had seemed to be bewildered by man’s debut and coldly resentful of his lack of a central authority which could enforce agreements. But their disdain soon led them to shun even military contact, and their depradations fell short of all-out war. To this day they occasionally moved into systems to stall potential human colonists, and sometimes they claimed ownership of already settled planets and enforced massive eviction, but their attitude generally was characterized by an icy, distant enmity.

Rodrone had already gained some personal experience of them. He had briefly been their prisoner during one of their aggressive campaigns, and had gained an incomplete but chilling insight into their way of thinking. They viewed themselves as created by nature to be the dominant life-form in the galaxy, and man as a disrupter of cosmic order.

It puzzled Rodrone that there should be only two races at large in the galaxy, and that they should be so different in nature. Streall philosophy frightened him. It had a relentless, mathematical logic, and furthermore, the Streall were a truthful race not given to prevarication or opinion-forming. The hard-fact nature of their thought gave their assertions a threatening credibility.

Nevertheless their philosophy was utterly repugnant to Rodrone. He subscribed to no belief in a supreme deity, in an overall cosmic plan or even in immutable physical laws. If he could be said to harbor any religious feelings at all, then his was a religion of unrestrained action, of spontaneous enterprise and disregard for any authority, whether biological or divine. In short, he believed in a universe with the safety valve taken off.

And so Rodrone lay staring at the stars, while in his turmoil of a soul lay the seeds of unimagined deeds, waiting any opportunity to burst bizarrely into flower.

The only flaw in the plan was that the Streall might already have overhauled the merchant ship. Certainly they would not be long in coming, and for that reason Rodrone had already contacted Brüde to arrange a rendezvous, to which they could retire with better chances if it came to a running fight.

Because of their perfect knowledge of their prey’s whereabouts, they fished into its vicinity with all the advantage of surprise, coming within striking range before its radar could give effective warning. The Stond and the Revealer took up positions on either side of the Jal-Dee vessel. Electric beams prodded threateningly, cracklingly, on its hull.

Rodrone quickly established a television link. He wore a space helmet to obscure his face—an elementary though ineffective safeguard against the inevitable check that would be made later in Jal-Dee’s records. When the captain of the other ship appeared on his screen he wasted no time in argument.

“Open your personnel ports. We are coming aboard.”

The merchant captain’s face was a mask of fury. “You’ve made a mistake this time, my man—”

“That’s my affair. Open the ports or we’ll blast a way through. If you attempt to accelerate, we will open fire.”

Abruptly he cut the connection, then motioned to Clave. Together they lumbered off, clumsy in their suits, to join the party that had already gathered in the space-raft.

Wordlessly they took their seats in the open raft, gripping a bar to keep them in their places. With only a faint vibration, the raft jetted across the void to the other ship. Minutes later a smooth hull loomed over them as they approached the port.

At first Rodrone thought the captain was going to disobey his order. But at the last minute the circular port slid open. Following a long established procedure, the pilot of the raft landed it squarely against the hull and fixed it there with adhesive clamps; they had abandoned the use of magnetic clamps when an enterprising defender had expelled their attack raft by applying a reverse magnetic field, leaving the boarders stranded in a hostile ship. A dozen men clambered out of the raft and drifted cautiously to the opening.

Rodrone was half expecting a trap. The captains of most house-owned ships did not have the stomach for a fight, but the present one would be in a state of fright because of his expected encounter with the Streall. But the chamber within was empty. Using their gas jets they moved to the inner port and operated the lock. The outer port closed, and in the next instant the inner one opened.

Facing them was a broad-shouldered man in a gaudy uniform. His insignia announced him as the second officer.

“You can put those away,” he said, waving nonchalantly at their weapons. “You’re in luck; the captain has decided to do business with you. If the rest will remain here, your leader may accompany me to the control room.”

Rodrone pointed to Clave and stepped forward, accompanied by his sidekick. The second officer frowned. “I did say one . . . but… well, all right then.”

Before leaving, Rodrone turned to the others. “If anything seems fishy, do something. The initiative’s yours.”

With a dignified, hurt silence the officer conducted them along corridors of plastic metal. Once he invited them to break the seals on their space helmets, but they declined. It was bad tactics to rely on an air supply which could easily be contaminated by the other party.

The control room was already occupied by three men, the captain and two crew members. Rodrone knew from their shifty looks that they were armed, though the weapons were not visible.

“All right,” the captain began in clipped tones. He looked as if he was under great strain. “I suppose you want my cargo. Well, it’s a good haul. We’re carrying Daimler silks and quinqualine, mainly. Very costly materials. So make me an offer. I don’t expect to get a fair price from you scoundrels, but let me tell you that I’ll fight rather than let it go for a ruinous one…”

He trailed off. Something in Rodrone’s ominous silence unnerved him.

“Well dammit, get on with it!” he cried in exasperation. “You robbers are absolutely intolerable. You board my ship at gunpoint, you jam my communicators—an even worse breach of principle—and then you stand there like robots without even the courtesy of uncovering your faces!”

Rodrone broke his silence, his voice sounding through the speaker on his chest.

“Item 401.”

The captain’s face paled. He seemed unable to believe that the very worst was happening. “What do you mean?”

“Your silks and quinqualines are safe this time. We only want one small item. No. 401 on your list of lading.”

“Impossible.” The captain had to lean on a panel of the capacious control boards, as if in danger of falling. “I don’t know where you heard about it or why you want it, but in any case it’s—it’s—”

“It’s wanted by the Streall,” Clave finished for him. His dry voice chuckled eerily from his suit speaker. “Don’t worry, honor’s satisfied. You can’t do a thing against our firepower.”

As Clave spoke, Rodrone moved against the two crew-men, his suited body bulking frighteningly over them. They made no move under the threat of his battle beamer and he quickly disarmed them. Then he moved ponderously about the control room, hurling open cupboards, pulling open drawers and flinging stacks of papers to the floor.

At the same time he switched off his suit speaker and put himself in contact with the men by the entrance port. “Proceed to the stowage area,” he instructed. “You are looking for cargo item 401.”

“What do you want; what are you doing?” shouted the captain, his fear drowning in fury.

“Your stowage listing!” Rodrone boomed at him. “We could spend hours rummaging in that hold of yours!” He wanted to move fast, to offset the chance that the crew might be well-informed enough to prepare a fake cargo item.

“We don’t have stowage listings. Everything’s sorted out at the unloading.”

Rodrone didn’t believe him. In the interests of rapid delivery there was nearly always a pattern to the stowage dispositions.

He continued to search. But a scant ten minutes later his communicator beeped.

“We’ve found it, chief. We managed to persuade one of the staff to be our guide.”

“Is it portable?”

“Yeah, if you’ve got two or three pairs of spare hands.”

“Good, then it will go through the personnel port. Move it to the raft and we’ll join you there.”

“Are we taking anything else? They’ve got some good stuff.”

“I’d like to but… we’ll have trouble on our hands if we don’t put a bit of distance between ourselves and here.” He had not bothered to deaden his suit speaker for the last exchange and the captain evidently took great exception to his attitude. “You don’t care how much trouble you leave in my hands,” he objected in an aggrieved tone.

Clave lifted his gloved hand in a mock salute. “Some people are just born with the cards stacked against them,” he said. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Would you like to have to explain that to the Streall?” The captain’s fear of the aliens was exaggerated and superstitious. Rodrone did not bother to explain that their cold logic would attach no blame to him, once they were persuaded that he was telling the truth.

Leaving the control room they made their way quickly to the personnel port. The others were coming up the corridor, pushing a big crate on a set of castors. Rodrone operated the port lock.

The inner lid should have swung open. But nothing happened.

Rodrone cursed. It was clear what was taking place. The captain had decided upon a last desperate attempt to foil the bandits, even if only for the sake of the record, now that the danger to himself personally was remote. By means of the central controls he had locked the ports fast, and now would be dispatching armed men to attempt to recover Rodrone’s prize.

“Cover the corridor,” he snapped. He had barely spoken when figures appeared around the corner and let loose a few zipping pencil-beams from handguns. No harm was done, and the assailants soon took cover when Rodrone’s men returned the fire. Like most bondsmen, they did not have the stomach for a really determined fight.

Consequently only an occasional energy pencil flashed at random down the corridor. Rodrone motioned to a man who held a heavy-duty beam tube, silently indicating the inner door of the port. The man directed the broad beam on to the edge of the door, blasting a head-sized hole. Savagely Rodrone kicked the panel with the heel of his boot, then yanked at the emergency manual handle. Reluctantly the door slid back, its clamping field broken.

From then on their exit went without difficulty. Roughly they manhandled the crate through the door. Once free of the ship’s artificial gravity, it floated in the globular cavity, drifting and rotating with inertia. Rodrone beckoned his men into the interport chamber, while the outer door received the same treatment as the first. As the panel was punctured, an automatic bulkhead slammed down behind them, cutting them off from immediate attack. A second or two later a woosh of air pushed them all out into space.

Then, clumsily because they had only their gas jets for leverage, they maneuvered the crate to the raft. Even while it was being lashed down the pilot took off, vibrating away towards the Stond that nestled gleamingly against the brilliant background of stars.

Behind them the Jal-Dee ship dwindled, leaving a crew who were pathetically wishing they were a thousand light-years away.

Rodrone had scarcely unsuited himself before the approach detector watch was sounding the alarm.

“Something coming up fast, roughly zenith-zero-zero-west. Estimated time of contact, twenty minutes from now.”

“Looks like we only just beat them to it,” Rodrone grunted. “And in five minutes time they’ll know what’s happened. All right, you know what to do.”

Signals flashed between the Revealer and the Stond. They hurtled away, accelerating rapidly on divergent courses. With luck, the oncoming Streall would lose track of them before fully appreciating the situation.

But for once luck was not with them, or at least not all the way. They were lucky in that the Streall had sent only one ship, but it immediately tracked and pursued, and the ploy of separate courses failed in that it followed the Stond. Able to change direction with greater facility, it quickly began to close the distance.

When it came close enough for the detectors to form an outline, Rodrone realized he had problems. He had expected that the Streall, if they sent a warship at all, would send their equivalent of a light cruiser, somewhat comparable to the Stond in firepower and in keeping with the importance he imagined they attached to the mission. But the vessel now menacingly near was one of their rare capital ships, easily capable of taking on a dozen Stonds.

He calculated he had one advantage. The Streall would not want to risk destroying the article in the crate that now rested on the floor of his control room. With this in mind, he decided to attack on the instant and then try to slip out of sight.

The elongated, turreted shape swelled in the vision screens. Rodrone moved to the weapons desk console, rapping orders to the missile and gun crews.

“Masking volley away.”

Two waves of missiles sped away from the Stond in rapid succession. Each missile in the forward wave masked from the enemy’s defense scanners a partner in the rear echelon, so that in the split second after the former was destroyed the latter could slip through unopposed. It was a use of misdirection that Rodrone himself had devised.

There were two ways of meeting a missile attack: with anti-missiles or deflector fields. Either method was a matter of precise focusing and tended to leave the defender wide open for a few microseconds after application. The Streall ship, however, clearly had very quick responses. Rodrone’s battle display plate showed the first wave meet total destruction, then most of the second wave immediately afterwards by a fresh defense volley. Even so, a few flashed onwards to blossom satisfyingly among the assemblages of turrets and casings.

Momentarily the Streall ship disengaged itself into three parts, assessing damage and considering procedure. All big Streall ships seemed to be capable of fractioning themselves indefinitely, as if held together by willpower.

Against such a ship, an opening masking volley had been the biggest gun in Rodrone’s armory. Its comparative ineffectiveness made escape even more imperative. He issued crisp orders to Braxon, the man in the pilot’s seat. Despite the fact that the interior of the ship was normally proof against inertial changes, they all felt a sudden surge as the Stond slipped into overdrive.

Moodily Rodrone slipped from the weapons desk, prowling around the control room with a worried scowl on his face. He tried to remind himself that their lives need not seriously be in danger. If overhauled and trapped by the Streall, it would be easy to get away scot-free once they got what they were after. The Streall were not vindictive in a personal sense. But it was as if a fever had gripped him. The thing in the crate, whatever it was, had acquired an exaggerated, ludicrous value in his eyes.

In the first few seconds the Streall almost lost them. Interstellar travel is of necessity faster than light; and while the Streall ship could pace them easily, escape maneuvers depended on the fact that if the velocity difference between two ships was itself in excess of c, they found it hard to locate each other. Each time they knew the Streall had a fix on them, they changed direction, slipping once again into a murky half-invisibility until the pursuers, somehow, guessed their quadrant and once again moved into the same velocity bracket.

“They’re getting closer.” It was Clave speaking. As usual he tried to sound unconcerned, but there was a tension in his dry voice.

“Hurry it up, dammit!” Rodrone growled at the pair who were meantime busy on the other side of the control room. They were scanning star maps of the district, at the same time trying to build up a local picture by taking space-strain readings. Such a project would normally take hours to do properly; Rodrone, unreasonably, was expecting them to come up with results within minutes by using their intuitive instincts. The possibility that there were no results to come up with he refused to admit to himself.

Savagely he kicked the crate that was the focus of all the trouble, trying to catharsize his frustration.

“Stellar comet!” one of the map readers announced. They had found what they were looking for.

“Is it big enough?”

“Maybe. Anyway there isn’t another near enough.”

They typed on keys, conveying coordinates to the pilot board. Almost immediately the ship changed direction again.

“Here we go,” Braxon said tightly. “Keep your fingers crossed!”

Dead silence suddenly permeated the whole ship. Most of them had never experienced this tactic before, and those who had did not wish to do so again. Stellar comets, swift, ceaseless travelers that swung in blazing parabolas around one slow-moving star after another, occurred by the million all over the galaxy, even in the outer parts of the lens. But the comets that were commonly found in the outlying regions were midgets; here in the Hub they were simply enormous, streaming islands of gas and rubble extending for light-years.

Although incredibly tenuous, the interior of such a comet was dense by the standards of interstellar space. To plunge into one at super-light speeds was little short of suicidal. There was no possibility of avoiding collisions with the scattered chunks of rock, and the gas that made up the bulk of the comet could build up an intolerable friction at high velocity despite being constituted of only a few atoms per cubic foot.

But actually they were safer at super-light velocities than they would have been at just below the speed of light. Some collisions would be inevitable; but it was a feature of travel faster than light that solid bodies could pass straight through one another without disturbance, provided their velocity relative to one another was well in excess of the speed of light and that the transit time was short. If contact lasted for longer than a scant few microseconds, then the result was that of a normal collision at very high speeds. The danger to the Stond was that they might encounter two or more rock clusters in rapid succession, aggregating a lethal time period.

Rodrone was muttering a figure to himself. “Sixty-seven… sixty-seven…” This was the probability percentage that the worst would happen. The figure was known to him because he had worked it out long ago for obvious reasons. Twice before he had entered a comet similar to this one in order to evade pursuit. With each repeat performance, he knew, his personal probability of disaster rose. But he still clung to the previous figure, like an incantation. Fleeting pictures of Egyptian gods flitted through his mind, as if he were praying to them.

A comet provided an escape route for two reasons. The danger to the pursuer was equally as great as to the pursued, and the former was rarely seized with the same nerve born of desperation. Secondly, detection became extremely difficult. The quarry stood a good chance of leaving the comet in a random direction without being spotted. If, that is, he had not perished first.

Vision screens turned milky as they penetrated the comet. Vague lumps coalesced momentarily out of the murk, fading just as quickly. Every man’s stomach knotted in reaction to the awareness of jagged rock passing through metal and air and flesh, too fast for the electromagnetic fields surrounding their respective atoms to interact.

Only the rear vision screen showed a sharp image. The Streall ship unhesitatingly followed them into the danger area, splitting itself into five sections as it did so. Then the picture abruptly vanished. Braxon was making random course changes to send the Stond bouncing about the interior of the comet like a flitting ghost.

“Release the mass torpedoes,” Rodrone ordered. If their luck held, the Streall would be unlikely to find them now. This was the second part of the strategy. Eight torpedoes, able by means of their specially adjusted drover engines to increase their inertial mass. Long-range detector techniques would find them indistinguishable from a large vessel like the Strond.

As soon as the torpedoes had been launched to follow their own random patterns through the murky inside of the comet, they thankfully turned the nose of the Stond to the nearest point of exit from this perilous mass of gas, dust and rock. But shortly before they broke into free space, someone pointed to one of the long-range screens with a gasp.

The remains of what had until recently been one section of the Streall ship was drifting unpowered. It was a mangled, junked pile. One half had vanished completely in some cataclysmic explosion. The other exuded a stream of bodies, objects, fragments, gases and liquids.

Five times sixty-seven, Rodrone thought. That made three hundred and thirty-five per cent. Dead certainty.