by John Norman
My heart leaped!
Ground fire!
I could imagine Misk hastening to his tools and the vast assemblage of instrumentation in his shop, or perhaps sending an outraged Priest-King to some secret arsenal where lay a forbidden weapon, on to which Misk would never have had recourse were it not for the hideous precedent of Sarm!
Almost immediately the remaining five ships fell into a line and raced down toward one of the tunnel exits that led from the complex.
The first ship to near the exit seemed to burst into a cloud of powder but the next four ships, and myself, who had fallen into line with them, pierced the veil of powder and found ourselves coursing through the tunnel back toward Sarm’s domain.
There were now four ships ahead of me in the tunnel fleeing.
With satisfaction I noted the width of the tunnel did not permit them to turn.
With grim decision I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube and there was a shattering burst of fire and I heard and felt branches of steel and tubing flying against my armoured transportation disk.
Some of the materials flew with such force that gashes were cut in the obdurate cage plastic and the ship was buffeted and jostled but it cut its way through this jungle of flying parts and found itself again streaming down the tunnel.
Now the three ships were far ahead and I thrust open the speed valve on the armoured transportation disk to overtake them.
Just as the three ships burst into the open of another huge complex I caught up with them and opened fire on the third ship but my fire seemed less effective this time and though I gave it a full burst the charging of the tube seemed at last almost exhausted. The third ship moved erratically, one side black and wrinkled with the scar of my attack. Then it seemed to come under control and turned like a cornered rat to face me. In an instant I would be within the firing radius of the disruptor cone. I took my ship up over the craft and tried another burst, which was even weaker than the last. I tried to keep above the ship, staying away from the disruptor cone on its bow. I was dimly aware of the other two ships now turning to bring me within range.
At the moment I saw the hatch on the injured but threatening ship fly up and the head of a Priest-King emerge. I suppose that some of the scanning instrumentation had been damaged in the ship. His antennae swept the area and focussed on me at the same time that I pressed the firing switch, and it seemed the golden head and antennae blew away in ashes and the golden body slumped downward in the hatch. The silver tube might be draining its power but it was still a fearsome weapon against an exposed enemy. Like an angry hornet I flew to the open hatch of the injured ship and blasted away into the hatch, filling the insides with fire. It tumbled away like a balloon and exploded in the air as I dropped my ship almost to the ground. I was quick but not quick enough because the plastic dome of my ship above me seemed to fly away in the wind leaving a trail of particles behind. Now, in the shattered rim of the plastic dome, scarcely protected against the rushing wind, I fought to regain control of the craft. The silver tube still lay intact in the firing port but its power was so considerably reduced that it was no longer a menace to the ships of Sarm. A few yards from the flooring of the plaza I brought the craft again into order and, throwing open the speed valve, darted into the midst of a complex of building, where I stopped, hovering a few feet above the street passing between them.
The ship of Sarm passed overhead like a hawk and then began to circle. I would have had a clean burst at the ship but the tube was, for all practical purposes, no longer and effective weapon.
A building on my left seemed to leap into the air and vanish.
I realised there was little I could do so I took the ship up and under the attacker.
He turned and twisted but I kept with him, close, too close for him to use his disruptor cone.
The wind whistled past and I was almost pulled from the control of the ship.
Then I saw what I would not have expected.
The other ship of Sarm was turning slowly, deliberately, on its fellow.
I could not believe what I saw but there was no mistaking the elevation of the disruptor cone, the calm, almost unhurried manner in which the other ship was drawing a bead on its fellow.
The ship above me seemed to tremble and tried to turn and flee and then sensing the futility of this it turned again and tried to train its own disruptor cone on its fellow.
I flashed my ship to the ground only an instant before the entire ship above me seemed to explode silently in a storm of metallic dust glinting in the light of the energy bulbs above.
In the cover of the drifting remains of the ship shattered above me I darted among the streets of the complex and rose behind the last ship. This time my own craft seemed sluggish, and it was only too clear that it was not responding properly to the controls. To my dismay I saw the last ship turning slowly toward me and I saw the disruptor cone rise and focus on me. It seemed I hung helpless in the air, floating, waiting to be destroyed. I knew I could not evade the wide-angle scope of the disruptor beam. I savagely hurled my weight against the controls but they remained unresponsive. I floated above the enemy craft but it tipped, keeping me in the focus of its beam. Then without warning it seemed the stern of my craft vanished and I felt the deck suddenly give way and as half of the craft vanished in powder and the other half crumbled to the buildings below I seized the silver tube from the firing port and leaped downward to the back of the enemy ship.
I crawled to the hatch and tugged at the hatch ring.
It was locked!
The ship began to bank. Probably the pilots had heard wreckage hit their ship and were banking to drop it into the streets below, or perhaps they were actually aware that I had boarded them.
I thrust the silver tube to the hinges on the hatch and pressed the firing switch.
The ship banked more steeply.
The tube was almost drained of power but the point-blank range and the intensity of even the diminished beam melted the hinges from the hatch.
I wrenched the hatch open and it swung wildly out from its locked side and suddenly I hung there, one hand on the rim, one hand on the silver tube, as the ship lay on its side in the air. Then before the ship could roll I tossed the tube inside and squirmed in after it. The ship was now on its back and I was standing inside on its ceiling and then the ship righted itself and I found the silver tube again. The inside of the ship was dark for its only intended occupants were Priest-Kings, but the open hatch permitted some light.
A forward door opened and a Priest-King stepped into view, puzzled, startled at the sensing of the open hatch.
I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube and it gave forth with a short, abortive scorching blast and was cold, but the golden body of the Priest-King stepped into view, puzzled, startled at the sensing of the open hatch.
I pressed the firing switch of the silver tube and it gave forth with a short, abortive scorching blast and was cold, but the golden body of the Priest-King blackened and half sliced through, reeled against the wall and fell at my feet.
Another Priest-King followed the first and I pressed the firing switch again but there was no response.
IN the half darkness I could see his antennae curl.
I threw the useless tube at him and it bounded from his thorax.
The massive jaws opened and closed once.
The hornlike projections on the grasping appendages snapped into view.
I seized the sword which I had never ceased to wear and uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba rushed forward but as I did so I suddenly threw myself to the ground beneath those extended projections and slashed away at the Priest-Kings posterior appendages.
There was a sudden fearful scream of odour from the signal glands of the Priest-King and he tipped to one side reaching for me with his grasping appendages.
His abdomen now dragged on the ground but he pushed himself toward me, jaws snapping, by means of the two forward appendages and the remains of his p
osterior appendages.
I leaped between the bladed projections and cut halfway through its skull with my sword.
It began to shiver.
I stepped back.
So this was how a Priest-King might be slain, I thought, somehow here one must sever the ganglionic net in mortal fashion. And then it seemed to me not improbably that this might be the case, for the major sensory apparatus, the antennae, lie in this area.
Then, as though I were a pet Mul, the Priest-King extended his antennae toward me. There was something piteous in the gesture. Did it wish me to comb the antennae? Was it conscious? Was it mad with pain?
I stood not understanding and then the Priest-King did what he wished: with a toss of his great golden head he hurled his antennae against my blade, cutting them from his head, and then after a moment, having closed himself in the world of his own pain, abandoning the external world in which he was no long master, he slipped down to the steel flooring of the ship, dead.
The ship, as I discovered, had been manned by only two Priest-Kings, probably one at the controls, the others at the weapon. Now that it was not being controlled it hovered where the second Priest-King, probably its pilot, had left it, when he had come to investigate the fate of his companion.
It was dark in the ship except in the vicinity of the opened hatch.
But, groping my way, I went forward to the controls.
There, to my pleasure, I found tow silver tubes, fully charged.
Feeling what seemed to be a blank area of the ceiling of the control area I fired a blast upward, using the simple expedient of the tube to open a hole in the craft through which light might enter.
In the light which now entered the control area I examined the controls.
There were numerous scent-needles and switches and buttons and dials, none of which made much sense to me. The controls on my own craft had been designed for a primarily visually oriented creature. Nonetheless, reasoning analogously from my own controls, I managed to locate the guidance sphere, by means of which one selects any one of the theoretically infinite number of direction from a given point and the dials for the height and speed control. Once I bumped the craft rather severely into the wall of the complex and I could see the explosion of an energy bulb outside through my makeshift port, but I soon managed to bring the ship down safely. Since there was, from my point of view, no way of seeing just where I was going, since I could not use the sensory instrumentation of Priest-Kings, without cutting more holes in the ship and perhaps starting a fire or causing an explosion of some sort, I decided to abandon the ship. I was particularly worried about guiding it back through the tunnel. Moreover, if I could bring it to the first Nest complex, Misk would probably destroy it on sight with his own disruptor. Accordingly, it seemed safest to leave the ship and find some ventilator shaft and make my way back to Misk’s area by means of it.
I crawled out of the ship through the hatch and slid over the side to the ground.
The buildings in the complex were deserted.
I looked about myself, at the empty streets, the empty windows, the silence of the once bustling complex.
I thought I heard a noise and listened for some time, but there was nothing more.
It was hard to rid my mind of the feeling that I was followed.
Suddenly I heard a voice, a mechanically transmitted voice. “You are my prisoner, Tarl Cabot,” it said.
I spun the silver tube ready.
A strange odour came to my nostrils before I could press the firing switch. Standing nearby I saw Sarm, and behind him the creature Parp, he whos eyes had been like disks of fiery copper.
Though my finger was on the firing switch it lacked the strength to depress it.
“He has been suitably anaesthetised,” said the voice of Parp.
I fell at their feet.
Chapter Thirty
SARM’S PLAN
“YOU HAVE BEEN IMPLANTED.”
I heard the words from somewhere, vague, distant, and I tried to move but could not.
I opened my eyes to find myself looking into the twin fiery disks of the sinister-appearing, rotund Parp. Behind him I saw a battery of energy bulbs that seemed to burn into my eyes. To one side I saw a brownish Priest-King, very thin and angular, wearing the appearances of age but yet his antennae seemed as alert as those of any one of the golden creatures.
My arms and legs were bound with bands of steel to a flat, narrow, wheeled platform; my throat and waist were similarly locked in place.
“May I introduce the Priest-King Kusk,” said Parp, gesturing to the tall, angular figure who loomed to one side.
So it was he, I said to myself, who formed Al-Ka and Ba-Ta, he the biologist who was among the first in the Nest.
I looked about the room, turning my head painfully, and saw that the room was some sort of operating chamber, filled with instrumentation, with racks of delicate tongs and knives. In one corner there was a large drumlike machine with a pressurised door which might have been a steriliser.
“I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba,” I said weakly, as though to assure myself of my own identity.
“No longer,” smiled Parp. “You are now honoured to be as I, a creature of Priest-Kings.”
“You have been implanted,” came from the translator of the tall, brownish figure beside Parp.
I felt suddenly sick and helpless.
Though I felt no pain nor any of the discomfort I would have expected I now understood that these creatures had infused into the very tissues of my brain one of the golden control webs that could be operated from the Scanning Chamber of the Priest-Kings. I recalled the man from Ar, met on the lonely road to Ko-ro-ba long ago, who like a robot had been forced to obey the signals of Priest-Kings until at last he had tried to throw over the net, and its overload had burned away the insides of his skull, giving him at last the freedom of his own mortal dust.
I was horrified at what had been done and I wondered what the sensations would be or even if I would be aware of what I was doing when under the control of Priest-Kings. But most I feared how I might now be used to injure Misk and my friends. I might be sent back among them to spy, to foil their plans, perhaps even to destroy, perhaps even to slay Misk, Al-Ka and Ba-Ta and other leaders, my friends all. My frame shook with the horror of what I had become and seeing this Parp chuckled. I wanted to get my hands on his fat throat.
“Who has done this?” I asked.
“I,” said Parp. “The operation is not as difficult as you might expect and I have performed it many times.”
“He is a member of the Caste of Physicians,” said Kusk, “and his manual dexterity is superior even to that of Priest-Kings.”
“Of what city?” I asked.
Parp looked at me closely. “Treve,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
It seemed to me that under the circumstances, while I was still my own master, I should perhaps slay myself. Otherwise I would be used as a weapon by Sarm, used to injure and destroy my friends. The thought of suicide has always horrified me, for life seems precious, and the mortal moments that one has, so brief a glimpse of the vistas of reality, it seems to me should be cherished, even though they might be lived in pain or sorrow. But under the circumstances — it seemed that I should perhaps surrender the gift of life, for there are some things more precious than life, and were it not so I think that life itself would not be as precious as it is.
Kusk, who was a wise Priest-King and perhaps aware of the psychology of humans, turned to Parp.
“It must not be permitted to end its own life before the control web is activate,” he said.
“Of course not,” said Parp.
My heart sank.
Parp wheeled the platform on which I lay from the room.
“You are a man,” I said to him, “slay me.”
He only laughed.
Out of the room he took a small leather box from his pouch, removed a tiny sharp blade from it and scratched my arm.
/> It seemed the ceiling began to rotate.
“Sleen,” I cursed him.
And was unconscious.
***
My prison was a rubber disk, perhaps a foot thick and ten feet in diameter. In the center of this disk, recessed so I could not dash my head against it, was an iron ring. Running from this ring was a heavy chain attached to a thick metal collar fastened about my throat. Further, my ankles wore manacles and my wrists were fastened behind my back with steel cuffs.
The disk itself lay in Sarm’s command headquarter and I think that he was pleased to have it so. He would occasionally loom above me, gloating, informing me of the success of his battle plans and strategies.
I noted that the appendage which I had severed with my sword in the Chamber of the Mother had now regrown.
Sarm brandished the appendage, more golden and fresh then the rest of his body. “It is another superiority of Priest-Kings over humans,” he said, his antennae curling.
I conceded the point in silence, amazed at the restorative powers of the Priest-Kings, those redoubtable golden foes against which mere men had dared to pit themselves.
How much of what Sarm told me in those days was true I could not be sure but I was confident of a few things, and others I learned inadvertently from the reports of Priest-Kings and the few Implanted Muls who served him. There was normally a translator on in the headquarters and it was not difficult to follow what was said. The translator was for the benefit of creatures such as Parp, who spent a good deal of time in the headquarters.
For days in impotent fury I knelt or lay chained on the disk while the battles raged outside.
Still, for some reason, Sarm had not activated the control net and sent me to do his bidding.
The creature Parp spent a great deal of time in the vicinity, puffing on that small pipe, keeping it lit interminably with the tiny silver lighter which I had once mistaken for a weapon.
In the War gravitational disruption was now no longer used. It turned out that Misk, not trusting Sarm from the very beginning, had prepared a disruption device which he would not have used had it not been for Sarm’s employment of that devastating weapon. But now that Misk’s forces possessed a similar weapon. Sarm, in fear, set his own similar devices aside.