Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  He twisted the direction dials on the vision screen, swinging it slowly once more about the darkened hangar. Then he unlocked and shifted the exit switch, and the irregularly carved section of rock above him moved on its lifting rods out of the hangar floor.

  Troy swung up and out behind it, got to his feet and started over to the drone.

  There was a thin, burring noise close to his ear.

  Troy stopped in mid-stride, his face tight and wary. The noise meant that his room communicator was being called. Probably some minor technical emergency on the station, but . . . He counted off twenty seconds, then turned on the relay mike under his coat collar. Trying to make his voice thick with drowsiness, he said, “Gordon speaking. Who’s it?”

  “Reese,” a carefully uninflected voice told him from the speaker. “Dr. Clingman wants you to come up to his office immediately, Gordon.”

  Troy felt a sudden sharp prickling of fear.

  “At this time of night?” he demanded petulantly. “It’s the middle of my sleep period! What’s gone wrong now?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Reese said. “Our senior scientist”—he made the two words sound like a worn, habitual curse—“didn’t go into details.”

  * * *

  Dr. Victor Clingman was a large, untidy man inclined to plumpness, with stringy blond hair and protuberant pale eyes. His office adjoined that of the Tareeg station commandant—a Low Dsala, in Hammerhead terms—and it was permeated from there with a slightly salty, vaguely perfumed moistness. Rank had its privileges; only the Low Dsala enjoyed the luxury of keeping his station work quarters damp enough to make the wearing of a suit unnecessary. The other Hammerheads waddled about the cold, dry halls completely covered, breathing through humidifiers, and were only occasionally permitted, and then after much ceremony, to enter an area in their section called the Water Room and linger there for several hours.

  Troy came into Clingman’s office with his tool kit through the double doors designed to prevent moisture from escaping, shivering slightly as the sudden clamminess touched his skin. Clingman, engaged as usual in pecking out something on a writer, shirt sleeves rolled up on his plump arms, ranked piles of notes on the table beside him, turned a pale, unhealthy-looking face towards the door.

  “Mister Gordon,” he said mildly, dragging the “mister” out a little as was his habit. He nodded at the wall to Troy’s left. “Our recording mechanisms became inoperative again . . . and just as I was in the process of noting down some very interesting fresh clues as to the probable origin of the Tareeg coup system. Will you try to attend to it?”

  “Right away,” Troy said, his vague fears dispelled. Clingman’s recorders were a standard problem; the repair parts for such items were on the Atlas which had not come down into atmosphere for almost a year. There probably had been no reason to feel apprehensive about a night call to the office. It had happened on such occasions before.

  HE went to work, glancing over from time to time at the senior scientist who was frowning down pensively at the writer. Before the Hammerheads executed his predecessors, Dr. Victor Clingman had been head of the Biology Department on the Cassa Expedition, and his interest in the subject had not changed, though it was now centered exclusively on the life habits of their captors. The Tareegs did not seem to object to his preoccupation with them. Possibly it amused them; though Clingman had told Troy once, rather complacently, that his research already had proved to be of some usefulness to the Tareegs in answering certain questions they had had about themselves. That might also be true. On several occasions, at any rate, Troy had found either the Low Dsala or another Hammerhead officer in Clingman’s office, answering the scientist’s questions in high-pitched, reedy voices which always had the suggestion of a whistle in them. All of them apparently had been taught human speech, though they rarely chose to use it.

  Clingman cleared his throat, asked without turning his head, “Did I tell you, Gordon, that the Tareegs’ known history goes back to considerably less than a thousand years, by human time reckoning?”

  “Yes, you did, doctor,” Troy said. It had become almost impossible for him to do work for Clingman—and Clingman invariably called on him personally when he had some mechanical chore on hand—without listening to a lengthy, rambling discourse on the scientist’s latest discoveries about the Tareegs. It was an indication, he thought, that Clingman had grown increasingly hungry for human companionship of any kind. He could hardly fail to know that the majority of the station’s human component was aware he had originated the suggestion made by the leading scientific group to the Hammerheads concerning the possibility of turning Cassa One into a Tareeg water world, and that he was generally despised for it. Troy’s noncommittal attitude might have led him to believe that Troy either had not been informed of the fact or happened to be a man who saw nothing very objectionable in such an act.

  Troy was, as it happened, less certain than some of the others that Clingman and the men like Dr. Chris Dexter, who had been directing the ice-hauling operations of the Atlas, had come to a deliberate, cold-blooded agreement among themselves to save their own skins by offering to help the Hammerheads against mankind. It was perhaps more likely that they had acted in unthinking panic, following the gruesome executions the Hammerheads had forced them to witness. That would be more forgivable, if only slightly so. It was difficult to be sure about Clingman in any way. He might be unpardonably guilty in his own mind and still no less frightened than before—for who knew, after all, what the Tareegs ultimately intended with their prisoners? On the other hand, he might actually have buried all such considerations beneath the absorbed, objective interest he appeared to take in them.

  TROY had paid no more attention than he could help at first to Clingman’s scholarly monologues on his favorite theme. His own thoughts avoided the Hammerheads as far as possible. But as his personal plans began to develop and the chance that he might reach Earth grew into something more than a wildly improbable hope, he realized that the more he learned about the new enemy, the more valuable an eventual report would be. Thereafter he listened carefully, memorizing all of Clingman’s speculations, and gradually developed some degree of detached interest of his own in the creatures. They had a curious history, short though it was, a history of merciless strife on twin water worlds of the same system in which any records of a common background had been long lost or destroyed. Then had come the shock of mutual discovery and renewed battling, now on an interplanetary scale, which ended in a truce of carefully guarded equality between the rival worlds.

  “That situation, it seems possible,” Clingman had said once, “may have led to the legend of the lost home-world of the Tareegs.” It was a cautious reference to the obvious fact that neither Tareeg planet would have been willing to admit that it might be no more than an ancient colony of its twin. A remote and glorious ancestral world which had brought both colonies forth as equals was a much more acceptable theory. “And yet,” Clingman went on, “the legend might well be based in fact. And it may be that we, with our skills, will enable the Tareegs to rediscover that world . . .”

  It sounded, Troy had thought, with something like amused disgust, as if the scientific brass had prudently worked out a new scheme to preserve itself after the Cassa One operation closed out.

  “There also, of course,” Clingman continued, blinking his pale eyes reflectively at Troy, “we have the origin of the parallel legend of the Terrible Enemy. What except the conquest of the home-world by a monstrous foe could have caused it to forget its colonies? In that light, it becomes a little easier to understand the . . . ah, well . . . the . . . cautious distrust the Tareegs have shown towards the first intelligent species they encountered in interstellar space.”

  And that sounded like an attempted apology—not so much for the Tareegs and their manner of expressing cautious distrust as for Dr. Victor Clingman’s collaboration with them. But Troy said nothing. By then he was very eager to hear more.

  He did. Almost
week by week, something new was added to the Hammerhead data filed away in his mind. Much of it might be unimportant detail, but Earth’s strategists could decide that for themselves. The Tareeg coup system Clingman was mulling over again tonight had been of significance at least to the prisoners; for it probably was the reason the majority of them were still alive. The two High Dsalas who, each representing one of the twin worlds, were in joint command of the Tareeg forces here would have gained great honor merely by returning to their system at once with the captured Earth expedition. But to have stayed instead, silently to have assumed personal responsibility for the creation of a new world fit for Tareeg use—that assured them honor and power beyond belief when the giant task was over and the announcement went out . . .

  THE awareness that Clingman was speaking again broke into Troy’s thoughts.

  “Almost everything they do,” the scientist observed musingly, “is filled with profound ceremonial meaning. It was a long while before we really understood that. You’ve heard, I suppose, that cloud formations have appeared on this side of the planet?” Troy was about to answer, then checked himself, frowning down at the cleanly severed end of the lead he had been tracing. Severed? What . . .”

  “Gordon?”

  “Uh . . . why, yes, I’ve seen them myself, doctor.” Troy’s mind began to race. The lead had been deliberately cut, no question of that. But why? He might have spent another hour checking over the recording equipment before discovering it—

  “It means, of course,” he heard Clingman saying, “that the dry sea basins of Cassa One gradually are filling with water. Now, we know the vital importance to the Tareegs of being able to immerse themselves in the—to them—sacred fluid, and how severely they have been rationed in that respect here. One might have thought that, from the High Dsalas down, all of them would have plunged eagerly into the first bodies of water to appear on the planet. But, no . . . so great a thing must not be approached in that manner! A day was set, months in advance, when it could be calculated that the water level would reach a certain point. At that hour, every Tareeg who can be spared from essential duty will be standing at the shore of the new sea. And together . . .”

  Abruptly, the meaning of Clingman’s words faded out of Troy’s mind.

  The sudden nighttime summons to Clingman’s office—had it been no accident after all? Had he done something in the past few hours to arouse suspicion, and was he being detained here now while his rooms were searched? Troy felt sweat start out on his face. Should he say anything? He hesitated, then reached quietly into the tool kit.

  “. . . and only then”—Clingman’s voice returned suddenly to his consciousness—“will the word be prepared to go back, and the messenger ships filled with the sacred water so that it can be blended at the same moment with the twin worlds’ oceans, to show that Cassa One has become jointly a part of each . . .”

  Messenger ships—the interstellar drones, of course. And the big troop of Hammerheads which had been taken from the station in the personnel carrier less than an hour ago . . . His hands trembling a little, Troy quickly closed the recorder, picked up the toolkit.

  Clingman checked himself. “Oh . . . you’ve finished, Gordon?” He sounded startled.

  Troy managed to work a grin on his face. “Yes, doctor. Just a broken lead. And now, if you’ll excuse me . . . He started to turn away.

  “Ah, one moment!” Clingman said sharply. “There was . . . I . . . now where. . .” He gazed about the table, pushing fretfully at the piles of notes. “Oh, yes! Dr. Rojas . . . Room 72. You were on your way up here when he attempted to reach you. Something that needed . . . well, I forget now what he said. Would you mind going over there immediately?”

  “Not at all.” Troy’s heart was pounding. If there had been any doubt he was being deliberately delayed, it would have vanished now. Dr. Rojas, of course, would, have something waiting that “needed” Troy’s attention before he got to Room 72. A call from Clingman would arrange for it.

  But if they were suspicious of him, why hadn’t he been placed under arrest? They don’t want to scare me off, Troy thought. They’re not sure, and if I’m up to something they don’t want to scare me off before they know just what it is . . .

  HE’D swung around to the hall, mind reaching ahead through the next few minutes, outlining quickly the immediate steps he would have to take—and so he was almost past the Hammerhead before he saw it. The door to the Low Dsala’s offices had opened quietly, and the Low Dsala stood there five feet away, the horizontally stalked eyes fixed on Troy.

  Troy started involuntarily. He might be very close to death now. To approach a Hammerhead . . . let alone the station’s ranking officer . . . unbidden within a dozen steps was a dangerous thing for a prisoner to do. The Dsala’s left hand hung beside the ornament-encrusted bolt-gun all the officers carried—and those broad torturers’ hands could move with flashing speed. But the creature remained immobile.

  Troy averted his eyes from it, keeping his face expressionless, walked on with carefully unhurried steps, conscious of the Dsala’s stare following him.

  It was one of the comparatively few times he had seen a Hammerhead without its suit. If one knew nothing about them, they would have looked almost comical—there was a decided resemblance to the penguins, the clown-birds of Earth, in the rotund, muscular bodies and the double set of swimming dippers. The odd head with its thick protruding eyelobes and the small, constantly moving crimson triangle of the mouth were less funny, as were the dark, human-shaped hands. Troy felt a chill on his back when he heard the Dsala break into sudden speech behind him: a high, quick gabble in its own language. Was it expressing anger? Drawing the door quietly shut, he heard Clingman begin to reply in the same tongue.

  * * *

  REESE looked briefly up from the intercom desk as Troy stopped before it. “Finished with Clingman?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Troy said. “Any other little jobs waiting before I can get back to sleep?”

  “Not so far,” Reese told him sourly. “Pleasant dreams.” He returned his attention to the panels before him.

  So Dr. Rojas, as had seemed almost certain, had put in no call for him. But if he didn’t show up at Room 72, how long before they began to wonder where he was? Perhaps four or five minutes . . .

  Troy stepped out of the elevator on the maintenance level forty seconds after leaving Reese, went quickly on into the engine room. One Hammerhead guard stood watching him from the far end. As a rule, three of them were stationed here. They were accustomed to Troy’s appearances, and he had been careful to establish as irregular a pattern as was practicable in attending to routine chores, so that in an emergency his motions would draw a minimum of attention. Ignoring the guard now, he carried out a desultory inspection of a set of wall controls, paused four times to remove four minor sections of machinery and drop them into his tool kit, and was leaving the big room again a minute and a half later.

  Out in the passage, he reopened the kit, quickly snapped three of the small steel parts together. The carrying of firearms naturally was not a privilege the Tareegs extended to human beings; but the newly assembled device was a quite functional gun. Troy thumbed three dozen hand-made shells out of the fourth piece removed from the control equipment, loaded the gun and shoved it into his pocket.

  The door to his quarters was locked, and there were no immediate signs inside that an inspection might have been carried out during his absence. Troy moved over to the rarely used intercom view-screen, changed some settings behind it, and switched it on. The hidden back room appeared in the screen, and—in spite of his near-certainty about Clingman’s purpose in detaining him—Troy felt his face whiten slowly with shock.

  Jerry Newland was no longer lying on his bunk, was nowhere in the room. A gaping opening in the wall behind the bunk showed where the emergency tank Troy had brought in from the crashed courier ship had been installed. So they not only had the pilot in their hands—they already were aware of his
identity and of the condition he was in.

  Troy felt a surge of physical sickness. Left to himself, Newland would have died in the desert without regaining consciousness as the tank’s independent power source began to fail. Troy had saved him from that; but very probably it was the Tareeg death the pilot faced now. Troy switched off the screen, started back to the door, fighting down his nausea. Self-blame was a luxury for which he had no time. He couldn’t help Newland, and there was not an instant to lose. Within a few hours, he could still be in space and take his chances alone at getting the warning to Earth.

  But first the search for him must be directed away from the Tareeg hangar. And that, very fortunately, was an action for which he had long been thoroughly prepared . . .

  THE Hammerhead guard at the station’s ground-level exit also had been reduced to one soldier. And here the appearance of the maintenance engineer’s groundcar on its way to one of the automatic installations out in the desert was as familiar an occurrence as Troy’s irregular inspection visits in the engine room. The guard watched him roll past without moving and without indication of interest. Troy glanced at his watch as the exit closed behind him. Not quite six minutes since he’d left Clingman’s office . . . they should already have begun to check on his whereabouts, and the fact that he alone of all the humans at the station had access to a groundcar would then be one of the first things to come to their minds.

  He slowed the car near a tiny inspection door in the outer wall of the station, cut its lights, jumped out and watched it roll on, picking up speed as it swerved away to the east and rushed down into the dark desert. Months before he had installed the automatic guidance devices which would keep the car hurrying steadily eastwards now, changing direction only to avoid impassable obstacles. It might be that, at a time of such importance to the Tareegs, they would not attempt to follow the car. If a flier did discover it from the air, the vehicle would be destroyed . . . and it was rigged to disintegrate with sufficient-violence then to conceal the fact that it had lacked a driver.