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.
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.