by Earl
“You are under arrest,” he said harshly to Veloa. “You are a member of the Legion of Freedom. We’ve been trailing your activities for a long time. Come with me.”
He pulled the girl to her feet roughly. She gave a half-sob of terror. A human sob. Kaine leaped to his feet. Anger fired his veins.
“Let her alone,” he raged. “Get your dirty hands off her!”
“Who are you?” barked the Tharkyan agent. “Are you one of the Legion—no, you’re an Earthman. Recent colony, untainted. Be on your way.”
He shoved Kaine bade and pulled the girl away. Kaine leaped to follow, but MacLean held him back. “Easy, lad! Don’t dig for trouble. She’s not human, in the first place.”
The excitement over, the tour went on. But Kaine was no longer interested. He shifted a stud on his voice-machine, so that only Earth language issued, unintelligible to anyone around.
“Not human?” he blazed. “She’s as human as you are, you baboon!”
“Naw,” MacLean drawled back, his eyes on Kaine narrowly. “I doubt she even feels pain, like we do. Different nervous system and everything. She probably won’t feel the torture.”
“Torture!”
“Sure, the Tharkyan Inquisition. They’ll put her through that. Make her talk. Or else mess her till her own mother wouldn’t know her. Drive her insane, too.” Kaine groaned. He had heard whispers, too, of the dread Tharkyan Inquisition. They were ruthless in pursuance of their one goal—remaining masters of the Galaxy.
“Good God,” Kaine moaned. “A young, delicate girl being made to suffer!”
“But she isn’t human,” MacLean reiterated indifferently. “No business of ours, anyway.”
“No?” Kaine’s voice was deadly calm. In one upheaval, all the picture changed. He went on, the words coming from his tongue almost by themselves. “Maybe not. But we’re going to try to rescue her!”
MacLean stared—estimatingly.
“But that would make us culprits against Tharkya!” he protested. “Helpers of the Legion of Freedom!”
“Exactly,” Kaine spat out. “I’ve had enough of Tharkyan methods. From now on, Tharkya and I part!”
MacLean heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes.
“Stars be praised! At last your eyes are opened, lad. It took a woman to do it—a woman of another race!” He lowered his voice, though there was no danger of their Earth words being understood. “Welcome, Terry! Welcome to the Legion of Freedom!”
Kaine stared, breathing hard. “You mean—”
“A year ago,” MacLean nodded. “Agent S-14. I couldn’t tell you before. You were too Tharkyan-minded. Might even expose us. But I’ve been working to get you. The Legion, has wanted you for a long time. Good men are scarce.”
“I’ll be damned,” Kaine grunted. He was suddenly aware of the invisible rumblings of revolution. A volcano seethed, out among the stars. When it burst, it might shatter a universe.
His thoughts narrowed to the present. “Rescue Veloa! I suggested it myself—but how?”
MacLean smiled strangely. “ZlkZee will help.”
Kaine looked up, and started to see the spider-man in the seat ahead. The beady eyes were on him silently, warningly, not to say a word.
ZlkZee, then, was a Legionnaire, too!
Terry Kaine felt bewildered. He had suddenly been caught up in events that might be far-reaching. For ten years he had been sheltered, and trained by the Tharkyans in their space-nautic school. Thork, governor of Earth, undoubtedly had a high place in mind for him. Perhaps Rear Commander of the Space Patrol in Earth’s sector.
Now, suddenly, he was a Legionnaire. A rebel against the ruthless machine of Tharkyan rule. Why?
Why! His own mind thundered the question at him, and answered it. Because his father had died under a Tharkyan dis-ray! Because his mother had gone broken to an early grave! Because Earth was robbed of its riches and produce! Because a million and thirteen other races were robbed of those, and of energon, rightfully theirs!
And one more reason lanced through his grinding thoughts.
Because a soft, lovely girl was even now being churned under the wheels of Tharkyan overlordship! Anger burned at white-heat in Kaine. That alone would be reason enough to challenge the masters of the Galaxy.
THE tour was over in another hour.
The tired tour party was allowed to disperse to its ships. Twelve hours were allowed for rest and preparation. Then they must be off to their home worlds.
ZlkZee scrabbled within their ship. Kaine met him with hurried words.
“We have twelve hours left. How can we rescue Veloa?”
“One moment,” the spider-man clacked. “Do you pledge yourself to the Legion of Freedom?”
“Ay, he does,” MacLean put in. “I’ll vouch for him. Terry was a revolutionary all the time, without knowing it. It just took something like this to wake him up.”
Kaine raised his hand, soberly. “I pledge myself to the downfall of Tharkya!”
“Good enough,” ZlkZee said. “Shake!” Kaine gripped the extended spider-paw. He didn’t feel the chitonous knobs, or see the hirsute, nightmarish form before him. He saw ZlkZee now as only another mind like his, angered by the same outrages, devoted to the same ideals. But he was surprised at the human-like gesture of hand-shaking.
“We adopted it from Dymoor,” the spider-man explained. “It has come to be our Legionnaire salute. Dymoor is one of the key worlds in our movement. Many of our secret Legion leaders are Dymoorans. Veloa’s father is the president of the future Galactic Congress, if we win. Veloa knows many secrets of our activities. They must not be tortured out of her by the Inquisition.”
“Then let’s get going!” Kaine demanded.
“Easy, lad, easy,” MacLean said. “This is Tharkya, the enemy stronghold. It is not simple.”
“No,” agreed ZlkZee gravely. “Fortunately, I’ve been on Tharkya before. I know much about it. The Inquisition chambers are in a tall tower, easily entered with the proper agent—energon.”
“Energon!” Kaine’s heart sank. “The one thing we don’t have.”
“Ah, but we have,” ZlkZee contradicted. He fumbled in his spider-silk garments and withdrew a small vial. Within rattled a single crystal of energon. “The Legion has secretly extracted energon, a bit here and there on various worlds. All agents carry a crystal, for emergency. It will melt any lock, as a dis-ray. I have the hand-projector, too. It will kill guards, and cover our retreat—”
Kaine stared. “That makes it ridiculously simple!”
“—cover our retreat as far as space,” the spider-man finished. “There’s where the danger lies. The Tharkyan Space Patrol will immediately hound us. Being born in a strong gravity, they have ironlike bones. They can stand accelerations that knock out any other race.”
He waved a hand uncertainly. “I can rescue Veloa. But the escape through space—it seems a hopeless obstacle.” There was silence for a moment. No ship, in the history of the Galaxy, had outrun the Tharkyan Patrol.
MacLean growled finally. “Bunch of old women, we are. It has to be tried. Let’s go!”
ZlkZee looked somber, but determined. “We’ll almost certainly lose our lives. But let’s go!”
“Yes, let’s go,” Kaine nodded grimly.
THE Tharkyan night was abysmally dark. No star shone in its skies, through the Dark Nebula that veiled it from the Galaxy at large. It had no moon. The street level, however, was a blaze of artificial light, from energon-lamps. Only the tallest spires and towers reared into the shadows of night.
No one opposed them as their ship rose silently, on low power, into the air and soared for the Tower of Inquisition. Tharkya feared no attack. There were just a few suspended traffic stations here and there, attended by lax operators who watched for speeders. MacLean drove slowly, like any Tharkyan out for a night spin, or visiting relatives.
The Tower of Inquisition was a mile high, shrouded in gloom. A landing platform circled the topmost section. MacLea
n set the ship down with barely a creak of the hull-plates. They stepped out. No guard was in sight.
“Follow me,” ZlkZee whispered. Half-way around the landing, he stopped. A doorway was visible, indented from the smooth metal wall. The door was locked rigidly. The chambers within were impregnable to any means short of violence. Or energon.
Silently, the spider-man trained his hand-gun. A low hiss sounded and a violet beam sprang against the lock. Metal sagged, thinned, and whiffed to atom-dust. Kaine gasped. It was the first time he had seen the dis-ray in action.
ZlkZee ate around the lock. Finally it clinked loose. Kaine shoved, and the ponderous metal door swung inward on well-oiled hinges. A dim hall stretched ahead. A Tharkyan guard leaned against the wall, with his back to them, idly smoking a chlorine-gas cheroot.
“Sorry,” the spider-man breathed, sending a pencil-beam straight into the back of the brain. The Tharkyan folded to the floor, dead, without a cry. They stepped over the corpse. It was a grim game they were playing, with death at any turn.
Beyond, another door barred the way. ZlkZee put his helmet against the metal, for sound contact. His keen spider ears would detect sounds inaudible to human ears.
He turned fierce, angered eyes. “I hear moans—Veloa’s! They’ve begun torturing her. I think, from their breathing, that there are five Tharkyans within.”
Kaine snatched the dis-gun from the spider-man’s paw. It had a trigger. It was no different, in principle, than a pistol. Kaine was a crack-shot with a pistol. The door wasn’t locked. He flung it open.
The scene burned itself into his brain.
Veloa’s nude form lay spread-eagled on a flat table. Five Tharkyans hovered over her. One of them held a glowing, radioactive needle. Suddenly he jabbed it down, into soft flesh, where the burning rays would touch every sensitive nerve with excruciating agony.
“Talk!” he thundered. “Tell us where the Legion headquarters are!”
“No!” Veloa screamed, through the voice-box of the breathing helmet she wore. “Never! Oh, stars above, how can I endure this!”
VI
SMOKING rage brought an animal roar to Kaine’s lips. At the same time, he shot twice. Two of the Tharkyans slumped to the floor, riddled through the head. The other three leaped back. Kaine picked off two with snap accuracy, but the third jerked out a dis-gun.
His shot came before Kaine’s, dissolving half the gun in his hand.
“Away from the door!” barked the Tharkyan, waving his gun. “So! Two Legionnaires come to rescue this girl! I’ll kill one of you and torture the other for information.”
Two Legionnaires! The Tharkyan hadn’t seen the spider-man scuttling low along the wall, in shadow. The gun aimed for MacLean. “Hurry, ZlkZee!” Kaine shrieked silently.
The spider-man reared and knocked the gun down just as it spat. With a curse, the Tharkyan kicked ZlkZee in the thorax, sending him thudding against the wall. Deceptively small and gnome-like in appearance, the Tharkyans were solid muscle and bone, evolved by nature to withstand tremendous gravity.
The gun now lay between Kaine and the blue-skinned alien. They both dived for it, met with a crash. Kaine kicked it aside just as the Tharkyan clutched for it. The Tharkyan cracked his four fists against Kaine’s chest, in rapid order.
Kaine felt as though solid cannon-balls had bounced off, caving in his ribs. He wobbled dazedly on his feet while the alien turned for the gun. Kaine tripped him. The Tharkyan was up in a second and whirled with a snarl. Kaine was waiting. He lashed out with his fist. Behind it was all the power of his young, strong body.
The crack of gauntleted fist against chin was followed by the thud of the Tharkyan’s falling body. He was knocked cold. Kaine stood over him, breathing hard, still half reeling from the blows he had received. Blows that might have killed most men.
ZlkZee limped close. “Impossible!” he murmured. “How could you do it? You weren’t born in the heavy gravity he was.”
“Jupiter-trained muscles,” Kaine said shortly. “Two-and-a-half times normal Earth gravity. The Tharkyans trained me to run at top-speed there, for years.” He laughed. “Trained me for this, without knowing it.”
The laugh died on his lips, as his eyes went to Veloa’s moaning form. A cry of sheer horror tore from his throat.
“Easy, lad,” MacLean said pityingly. “They got in their dirty work before we came, after all.”
Seen close, Veloa’s body was unrecognizable. Great radium-burns criss-crossed the white, tender flesh. The strained angles of the arms and legs showed that every bone had been broken—in dozens of places. Only the face behind the visor was unharmed—a lovely, oval face over a body that would be horribly deformed, if it miraculously lived.
“Good God!” Kaine moaned over and over.
“We have to get out of here,” ZlkZee snapped.
MacLean picked up the Tharkyan’s dis-gun, held it over the girl’s heart. “Put her out of her misery,” he grated, with a glance at Kaine. Kaine nodded haggardly.
“No!” The spider-man knocked the gun aside. “Take her along with us. If we escape, she’ll heal.”
“But how?” Kaine hissed. “In what shape? She’ll go mad, seeing herself. Better for her to die.”
“I tell you no!” ZlkZee shrieked. “I can’t explain. Guards are coming—I hear them. Hurry, grab her up!”
Kaine knew what the spider-man meant. Perhaps her life could be saved. It didn’t matter if her body was horribly deformed, no more than ZlkZee’s, deformed by nature. Mind alone counted—in ZlkZee’s estimation.
Kaine unloosed the straps and picked up the limp form. Veloa had slipped into unconsciousness. He clamped his teeth together at the feel of broken bones. How could she even live for more than a few tormented, delirious hours? Half her skin was burned away.
They raced out of the chamber of Inquisition and gained the ship just as guards burst in from below. Kaine savagely picked off three before he banged the hatch shut.
MacLean sent the ship up at a leaping pace. Up and up it bored, Tharkya’s thick atmosphere whistling past the hull. The whistling died, as they plunged into free space. Then another whistling arose—that of the tenuous cosmic-dust as the ship rapidly piled on trans-light speeds.
“So far so good,” ZlkZee said matter-of-factly. “But now we have the Space Patrol to contend with. They’ll be around soon, like vultures.”
THEY were, within an hour. Out of the nebular dark they gleamed, one first, then dozens, converging from back and sides. MacLean desperately flung the ship into higher acceleration, till backpressure strained every muscle to a dull ache.
The Patrol inexorably loped nearer, with ease. The foremost ship fired its dis-cannon. The livid bolt crackled past the nose with only inches to spare. The second shot missed the stern. The third and fourth skimmed above and below. They were narrowing down the range quickly.
“I guess it’s curtains for us,” MacLean muttered.
“But the Legion of Freedom goes on,” ZlkZee said.
Kaine left Veloa’s side, shoving MacLean from the controls.
“Let me try some zig-zagging,” he said rapidly.
“You’re daft, lad,” MacLean declared. “The slightest swing at this pace will throw us all unconscious. The ship would keep swinging, then, till our senseless bodies would starve to death—”
His voice choked off as Kaine swung the ship slightly. It was no more than a tiny angle from their course, but the pressure-impact was like a giant’s blow. ZlkZee went out instantly, born in a light gravity. MacLean gradually faded, sending Kaine a mute farewell with his eyes.
Kaine shook himself like a dog, fighting off the haze in his brain. A dis-bolt sizzled by, but missed completely. The swing maneuver had thrown off their aim. The Patrol ships swung with him now, and three shots successively burst nearer.
Kaine swung again, on a slightly sharper off-arc. Bombs seemed to burst in his brain, but he grimly refused to let go his senses. Again and again he arced, gradually
increasing the sharpness of the swing. Could he never shake those relentless pursuers?
After the tenth swing, his brain was on fire. His muscles quivered as though mountains had dropped, one by one. Mountains of pressure. Every cell in his body screamed in agony.
Again he swung. And again. Zigzagging through space. If the enemy made one little slip, failing to follow each swing, they would shoot off and lose him forever.
But how could he stand it? How much longer would his wracked body and dimming brain hold up? The Tharkyans, damn them, were born to these frightful pressures. He sat at the controls grimly, eyes bloodshot, nose bleeding, eardrums bursting.
He was still sitting there an hour later, when MacLean came to. MacLean’s amazed eyes looked back into space, forward, at all sides.
“Terry!” he cried. “They’re gone—gone! We escaped!”
“I know,” Kaine mumbled, through blood-dried lips. “The last swing did it. They shot off at the side, so fast that it would take them a week to retrace. We’re safe.”
“How did you do it?” ZlkZee’s clacking voice came, as he stirred and came to his legs. “It’s an incredible feat!”
“My Jupiter-training,” Kaine said. “They trained me to race over Jupiter’s surface at ten-normal acceleration. Didn’t know I’d some day use it against them, instead of for them!”
He staggered to his feet, pointing at Veloa’s recumbent form.
“But what good is it all?” he croaked. “She’s dead! You see, I love her. I don’t know why, but I love her. And she’s dead!”
The spider-man shook his head. “No, merely in a deep trance. As we left Tharkya, I put her in a hypnotic state. We of Klak have that power. She will not die before we arrive at Dymoor. Doctors will save her, then.”
Kaine gulped in relief. Then his eyes pained. She would live, but never again to look in a mirror without shuddering at her crooked limbs and malformed body.
“And look—stars around us!” MacLean yelped. “We’re out of the Dark Nebula. One good octant reading and we know the secret Tharkya has kept for ages—its exact position in space!”