by W. J. Stuart
Until one of the men, right beside the gangway, stopped firing.
It was young Grey. I don’t know how I heard him over all that hell-racket, but I did.
“The footprints!” he yelled. “Look at the footprints!”
I saw them while he was still screaming. They were like the others. Only this time we were watching them being made. By something we couldn’t see. The first one was just inside the fence. The sand puckered and then the hole came and the sand poured down into it.
The second footprint came—about twenty feet nearer.
Jerry Farman must have seen it. I heard him shout, and then I saw him. He was running like a bat out of hell, straight at the thing. Or at where it ought to be. He had one of the techs’ nuclear welders in his hands, holding it like an old-style flame-thrower. It was jetting out a streak of blue flame twenty feet ahead of him. He must have figured that if blasters wouldn’t touch the thing maybe a burst of what they used to call hydro-fire might do it.
I yelled at him, but he didn’t stop. I took a running jump off the gangway and tried to start after him.
But I wasn’t in time. About ten feet in front of the last footprint, he seemed to stop. It was the damndest thing. The welder fell out of his hands. His body bent back and his feet came off the ground. He went up. And up. He was kicking and throwing his arms around.
Then his body began to dodge and swing in the air. Twenty feet over our heads. He looked like a limp doll being shaken.
I remembered Morbius saying, “Like rag dolls . . .” and then something about a crazy child.
I guess it didn’t last more than a second.
He was raised up higher, his head and his legs and his arms all jerking. And he was hurled—right at the side of the ship. Right above the center of the line of men there.
He—he smashed against it. I could feel the impact make a tremor in the gangplank under my feet.
What was left of his body thudded down on the sand like a half-empty sack.
The men scattered. There was only one thing to do. I yelled at them to get back in the ship. The firing had died down and most of them heard me. Those that didn’t saw me waving them up the gangway.
They began to run for it. I went forward to try and cover them. I still hung onto the Colt-Vickers. I even fired a burst, though what good it would be I didn’t know.
All the men made it except a couple of stragglers racing up. They must have panicked and gone too far when Jerry Farman’s body hit the ship. One of them was Grey. He shot past me, and almost had a foot on the gangway when it happened.
Another of the footprints came, closer to the ship. Between me and the ship. Grey screamed and fell, face in the sand. And a huge invisible weight slammed down on his back. Then the boy’s body was pushed—stamped—down into the sand. The sand covered him. Except for one leg sticking up like a dead branch.
The other straggler got to the gangway. He was halfway up it when he was caught.
And then he screamed. It was a worse sound than Grey’s. He was lifted up. Higher than Farman had been. He dangled in the air.
I’ll never get it out of my mind. Never. Twenty, thirty feet up in the air, he was—he was pulled apart . . .
Then he was thrown away. Dropped.
Rag dolls . . .
They were shouting at me from the ship. The Bosun came out at the top of the gangway and started firing.
I found myself backing up. Until I was against the side of the ship. There was nothing else to do. Except run. And where would that have got me?
There was another footprint. And another. The thing was backing away from the gangway. It was turning. Toward me. I suddenly heard the breathing again.
The Bosun came farther down the gangway. I shouted at him to go back. But he stayed there, firing burst after burst. All useless. I fired again. Useless.
Then something happened to my eyes. The searchlight beam was pouring down between me and the gangway. And where the edge of it faded into the dark, I saw something. Or thought I did.
A shape. Flickering and misty. I didn’t know how much I was seeing; how much my imagination was filling in.
It was there, almost over me. So big it was everything. Everything except me.
I couldn’t move. I don’t know whether I was afraid or whether I’d gone past being afraid. But I couldn’t move.
Then my eyes cleared. That’s what it felt like anyway. Now I could only see the searchlight. There wasn’t anything between me and the beam. Nothing.
Not even anything invisible.
And there weren’t any more of the footprints.
But I knew the thing that made them had gone. I don’t know how I knew. But I knew. There wasn’t any doubt.
I suppose I felt it go. Doc could have described it.
But the men knew too. The Bosun came down the gangway and up to me. I was leaning against the side of the ship. My legs felt weak.
Some of the other men started down. But I made the Bosun order them back. I pushed myself upright and started for the gangway. I was a bit unsteady, and the Bosun tried to help me.
I shoved him away. I pulled myself together and made it under my own power . . .
VI
I don’t know how long it took to get the whole crew back to normal. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. With the gangway pulled in and the ship sealed tight, they all felt better. But they let go. The hands with more experience were in better shape than the greenwings. But that wasn’t saying much.
I dished out double shots of liquor ration to the steadier ones and had Doc’s man, who was in pretty good shape, examine the bad cases and dope ‘em up with pills or a shot. I got Cookie pulled together and started him brewing coffee by the vatful.
As soon as I could I got off to my cabin. I shut myself in and switched on the audi-vid and buzzed Doc.
I got no answer.
I buzzed for ten minutes more. With the same result.
Had they been attacked out there? When I thought of Altaira I nearly went out of my mind.
It didn’t change what I was going to do. It made it a thousand times more urgent.
I got hold of myself and went up to Control and found the Bosun. He already had Nevski and two more techs down in the upper drive chamber working on the core. I told him to collect everybody else, right here.
There was only twelve, counting him.
I gave them a quick brief. I told them we had two objectives: Get the ship flyable and fetch Major Ostrow and the Bellerophon people.
I said, “We’re four short now, and all of you have essential jobs. So I’m leaving the ship under the Bosun’s command and taking the tractor out to get Major Ostrow and the Bellerophon people myself.”
I’d worked it out. It was the only way. I knew the route, I knew Morbius. And I had the rank and authority to deal with him—if there was anything left to deal with. If I didn’t go myself, I’d have to send more than one man. Which might delay everything.
I said, “That’s all. Remember you’re better off in here than outside. And don’t forget the quicker the ship’s flyable, the quicker we’ll get away.”
I let it sink in a minute and then asked if there were any comments.
There weren’t. There wasn’t a murmur. I checked my equipment over, and took the Bosun to the entry port to let me out. I said, “The ship ought to be ready in a couple of hours. If I’m longer than that without buzzing, you buzz me. If there’s another attack before the core’s seated—” I shrugged—“stick in the ship and use your own judgment. If there’s one after you can lift, take off. Get up as high as you like, and cruise and try to contact me. Use Cadet Starza as Pilot, Levin for Astrogator.
“If everything goes wrong and you’re stuck for the trip back without me, use those two. All the time. They’re good. And Nevski as Chief Dev.” I thought a minute. “I guess that’s it.”
He said, “Aye aye, sir,” old style. He slid the big bar back from the entry port and swung it out and looked all around
.
I pushed him aside and ducked through.
He said, “Good luck, sir,” and I ran down the gangway and over to the tractor . . .
EIGHT
Commander J. J. Adams
(Concluded)
I drove the tractor flat out the whole way. The moons were up now and I didn’t need lights.
The faster I went and the nearer I got, the worse I felt. I couldn’t get rid of the notion that if I’d buzzed Doc sooner he might have been able to get back to the ship with Altaira—maybe even with Morbius—by using the Robot and that sled thing.
But then I figured they might have been running into danger instead of out . . .
I shot by the chasm and across to that wall of rock and through the break in it. I went down into the valley so fast the tractor seemed to be leaving the ground. .
I had to brake when I hit the curve into the grove. But I took it too fast anyway and tilted the whole job in spite of the gyros. For a second I thought I was over but then they took hold and we came back onto all eight wheels. The jolt snapped my neck and I slowed up. I was so near the house the sick feeling in my stomach almost got me.
I came out of the grove and around the end of the rock. There were lights behind the windows. They shone out over the patio.
I stopped so fast the wheels screamed on the dirt. I vaulted over the side and ran across the patio to the door. There wasn’t a sound except my boots on the tiles.
I was pushing at the door when it opened.
And there was Altaira.
She was all right.
I couldn’t talk. I reached out and put my arms around her and held her.
She felt wonderful. She was wonderful.
She didn’t understand what was the matter with me. She knew I’d been scared about her. But she didn’t know why.
I couldn’t tell her. There wasn’t any time. I pushed her inside and pulled the door shut behind me. And started firing questions at her. “Where’s Doc? Where’s your father? How is he? Has anything happened?” Now that I knew she was all right, everything else was crowding me.
She didn’t get rattled. She said, “Father’s all right. He’s much better. He was asleep for about two hours, and then he waked. He’s in his room.”
“And Doc?” I said.
She frowned. She looked worried. She said, “I—I think he’s in the—the laboratory. He’s been in there several times. Father would be terribly angry if he knew—”
I had to ask her another question. Nothing to do with the present troubles. But I had to ask. I said, “Altaira, how much do you know about that lab? And what goes on there?”
“I only know what father’s told me.” She looked more worried than she had before. “That it was the Krells’—and that now he works in there. Trying to find out about them, about their civilization.” She shivered. “I don’t like it. I don’t like anyone going in there.”
I put my arm around her. I said, “Neither do I . . . Let’s go get Doc out of it.”
We went through the living-room to the study. The door in the rock was open.
I said to Altaira, “Wait, darling,” and started for the arch. She said, “Let me come with you,” in a funny little voice.
Then I heard somebody walking through the tunnel. I remembered the way our footsteps had echoed. Just like this.
I looked through the arch—and it was Doc.
I stood back. He ducked his head and came out. I started to say something, and then swallowed it as I saw him in the light.
He looked terrible. Stooped and shaky and ten years older. And there were dark stains on the skin around his temples. Purple-black, like bruises. Or burns.
He gave me a smile. But it wasn’t right. It wasn’t him.
He said, “Hi, John—I knew you were coming—” His voice sounded the way he looked.
He came out into the room. And his legs gave. He was falling when I caught him.
He felt—light. I picked him up and carried him over to a couch against the wall. Altaira ran out to the living room and came back with a cushion. I said, “Christ, Doc! I told you to watch it—” I was looking at the marks on his temples. They were just where the electrodes on that goddamn Krell machine would have been.
He didn’t say anything until we’d got him lying down.
Then he said, “Sorry, John . . .” His voice still didn’t sound right. It was too old. Too tired. But he made a better try at a smile than the first one.
He said, “It’s funny—you were right all the time—” and then stopped. He seemed to be looking at Altaira.
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I was worried sick about him. I asked Altaira to get him something. Wine—anything.
She was off in a flash. I sat on the edge of the couch and he took hold of my arm. He said, “Quick—before she comes back. What I meant—you were right about Morbius—But—but—he doesn’t know it—” He’d been trying to sit up but now his head dropped back on the cushion.
His eyes were closed, and his face was a sort of dirty-grey. His breath was coming quick and light. He said, “Not much time . . .” His voice was so weak I had to bend my head to hear him. “I took too long this time . . . I knew I was, but I couldn’t help it . . .”
He tried to sit up again but I pushed him back. He said, “John—I know all of it—all those answers—I wrote it down—in case—Even just now—”
His eyes closed again. His face was like wax and the marks on the temples looked black.
Altaira came back. She knelt by the couch and slid her arm under his head. She had a glass in her other hand. I stood up, out of her way.
She tried to lift his head up. She said, “Try and drink this. Please!”
His eyes opened. He smiled at her. It was a real Doc smile. He said, “—isn’t time, dear—” The smile went and he moved his eyes to look at me.
I went nearer and bent down. He said, “John—John—on the table by—by—”
His voice went away. His lips were moving. But no sound was coming. His eyes closed again and he drew a big breath. It had a rattling sound in it.
I heard myself say, “Doc—Doc—!” The words came out without my knowing.
His face twisted, with the eyes still closed. He made one last tremendous effort.
He said, “By the gate—the Krell gate—”
The rattle in his breathing came again. And his whole body twitched. I thought he was gone.
But then his eyes opened. They weren’t looking at Altaira. They weren’t looking at me. They were looking at something—somebody—we couldn’t see.
He smiled. It was the damndest thing, but while he was smiling he looked young.
“Caroline!” he said.
His voice was loud. It sounded young too.
He twitched again, and his head dropped back.
This time he was gone. I felt for a heartbeat but knew I wouldn’t find any.
I straightened. Slowly. I took Altaira by the elbows and lifted her up. There were tears in her eyes.
I’ve seen a lot of men die. A lot of them were friends. I’d lost two others who were almost friends that day.
But I never felt the way I felt about Doc. Maybe I never will again.
It was quite a while before I could say anything. But then I said, “Cover him up. Get something and cover him up.” I was surprised when I heard myself saying it.
Altaira didn’t speak. But she put her hands on each side of my face and kissed me.
And then went out.
I couldn’t look at Doc any more. I walked over to the other side of the room. And tried to pull myself together. What was that he’d been saying about a gate?
The Krell gate was what he’d said. He’d been trying to tell me about something he’d written . . . All the answers, he’d said . . .
It suddenly hit me. I could hear Morbius’ voice in my head—“. . . symbols . . . Krell writings . . .”
I whipped around and went to the door in the roc
k. I ducked under the arch and took the corridor on the run.
I came out into the big space of the lab. I cut over to the center and stopped by the chair Morbius had sat in while he was showing us the damn machine.
The chair was swiveled to face out. The way Doc must have left it.
I didn’t like the feel of the damn place. All around me the lights were blinking on and off in the relay boxes. And the thing Morbius had called ‘the library’ stood there like a goddamned box organ. And the chair that way—staring at me.
The headpiece of the ‘Gateway’ thing was hanging on its hooks behind the rail. The arms were bent, and the electrodes made me think of the marks on Doc’s temples. My audi-vid belt was hanging over the rail. And there was something on the seat next to Doc’s. A square box, with what looked like a book on top of it.
I picked it up. It was Doc’s Service notebook, with “C. X. Ostrow” stamped in the leather.
I opened it. Half the pages had been torn out to get to the unused part. The top one of what was left was covered with Doc’s neat writing. It began—“For Commander J. J. Adams.” And under that it said, “Dear John,” like a letter.
There were more pages of the writing. I slipped the book into my pocket. I wanted to get out of here to read it.
I was starting away when I remembered the box. I went back and picked it up. It was dark plastic about six inches square and eight deep. It must have been in Doc’s med kit. It was heavy.
I opened it. There was a stack of what looked like thin plates of the Krell metal inside. A lot of them. On top was a slip of paper with more of Doc’s writing.
It read: “John—If anything happens to me, KEEP THESE! I think they’re recordings. On some incredible cerebro-micro-wave system. DON’T LOSE THEM.”
I took the box. And got out of the place quicker than I’d come in. The echos of my feet sounded too loud. Louder than when I’d come in.
I ducked under the arch and was back in the study. It felt good.
Altaira was by the couch. She was unfolding something that looked like a blanket. But it was smooth and soft. And the material sort of glowed.
She looked at me and I dragged the notebook out of my pocket and held it up.