by James White
Cynically, McCullough went on, "Instead of being heroes it seems we are to become scapegoats -- at least, that is the way it looks to me. But this means that we will have to be allowed some freedom of action, otherwise they would not be able to blame us for everything that is happening . . ."
"In other words," said Drew grimly, "if we can't please anyone we can at least try to please ourselves."
Hollis said doubtfully, "He wasn't at all sympathetic about our troubles, and it is only three days since the colonel died and he didn't mention him at all. But suggesting that we will be held responsible for everything is going too far, don't you think?"
"Perhaps," said McCullough. "But you agree that if we are too close to the problem, they are much too far away?"
The three men nodded in turn and suddenly Berryman laughed. He said, "This must be the first mutiny in history where the captain is the ringleader . . ."
He broke off as the quality of the whisper coming from the phones altered, and at McCullough's nod he turned up the volume again.
". . . And he has no real appreciation of the harm his anger and hostility toward you can cause," said a low, sympathetic, female voice. It went on, "In terms of physical distance alone you must feel cut off, separated, even rejected by your friends and perhaps even your race. In a very real sense you have withdrawn from reality, you have lost touch with the world and life as it should be lived. The psychic disturbances, the emotional dislocations, the constant and cumulative frustration of even the simplest natural urges -- even the act of eating and drinking is artificial and unnatural where you are concerned -- is more than enough without adding the terrible responsibility of First Contact.
"I don't mean to suggest that any of you have reached the point of major instability," she went on warmly, "or that you are not quite sane. I do suggest, however, that your judgment and reactions are seriously affected by your present situation and may no longer be entirely trustworthy. This is what is bothering the general, too, because he is being held responsible for everything that you people think or do, and every minority group in the world is trying to pressure him into taking fifty mutually exclusive courses of action! We all admit he's a genius where astronautics hardware and logistics are concerned, but let's face it, fellows, he is no psychologist . . ."
McCullough switched off the radio feeling angry and a little frightened. What idiot had been responsible for turning a woman psychologist loose on the Prometheus Control transmitter? Previously there had been no mention whatsoever of the mental effects of separation in time and space from the world of normal existence. When such effects had become manifest, they had been ignored -- the P-ship personnel had been treated as if they were on an extended EVA and their distance was five hundred miles from home rather than fifty million.
Emotionally they had been made to feel very close to home. Continuous radio contact plus the knowledge that practically everyone in the world was sharing their experiences and feeling concern for them were just two of the factors aimed at achieving this, and there were probably others which only the space medics knew about. But whoever had allowed a psychologist ignorant of these factors, especially such a disturbingly female one as this, to talk to them and cause them to question their own sanity was either stupid or criminally irresponsible.
"Walters is listening," said McCullough. "He can tell us if she says anything really important. Right now I'd like you to listen to this tape again. I have another theory."
For several minutes the sounds of their dash from the Twos' enclosure to the generator blister filled the lock chamber. McCullough asked them to pay particular attention to the two alien voices. When the playback was complete he said, "In my opinion the first voice is a recording transmitted in conjunction with the warning chimes -- each group of word-sounds is identical in tone, volume and length of transmission. The second voice is none of these things. Its overall tone is different, volume and inflection vary enormously and the message transmitted by the first voice is repeated, after a fashion, by the second. Perhaps I should say that the message is not so much repeated as parodied by the second voice.
"I feel that certain words are repeated too often for it to be an intelligent communication. It is as if one word in a sentence was repeated twenty times and sung in different keys. Many of the sounds seem to be sheer organic noise and sense-free -- you have heard them.
"My new theory," McCullough went on, looking at the three men in turn, "is supported by all the facts. Briefly it is that the alien crew have no effective control of their vessel, that its operation is almost entirely automatic and that the experimental animals have overrun the ship. The second alien voice belongs to one of the crew, or perhaps a descendant of the original crew, and it is an intelligent being. However, it is not at present a rational being, or even sane . . ."
While he had been talking, McCullough found that his finger had instinctively gone to the suit radio switch. There was some vague idea in his mind of putting in a full report to Control and shifting responsibility by calling Earth for a Second Opinion. But Brady's opinions would not be helpful, McCullough knew from short and bitter experience, and he himself had insisted many times that the people on the Ship were better informed on all aspects of the situation and should therefore make their own decisions. He could have Walters send a full report, or even a slightly edited report, later.
Firmly McCullough took his hand and mind off the radio.
chapter seventeen
Joined by their command module airlocks, the two P-ships were positioned a few yards above the generator blister so that Walters would be able to detect any attempt to repair the human-inflicted damage. The arrival of an alien repair crew was not considered likely, but the presence of Walters on watch meant that everyone else could be gainfully employed inside the Ship on what McCullough referred to as wide-angle cultural contact and Drew, with more honesty, called an offensive patrol.
Their real purpose, no matter what they chose to call it or how much double-thinking they did around it, was to kill Twos. They would also hunt down and exterminate any other alien life-form which might prove dangerous to the intelligent extraterrestrials on the Ship or themselves.
"Thanks to the Doctor we know all their vital spots," Drew said as they were preparing to leave their hull lock chamber, "and provided we keep cool and pause for the necessary instant to take proper aim, killing the beasts will be relatively easy. But we should not take on more than one of them at a time unless we have the advantage of a solid defensive position. This isn't very sporting since there are four of us, but we cannot afford casualties."
McCullough was listening to Drew but thinking about Walters. One did not have to be a psychologist to know that the pilot was close to the breaking point. Even though he was in the least physical danger of all, Walters was in one respect absorbing more punishment than any of them. Prometheus Control, General Brady and assorted space medical people were continually hammering at him, he being the only member of the expedition they could talk to with any chance of getting an immediate reply. And because he was the only one available, Brady was being much tougher on Walters than the situation really warranted. The general was trying to get through to McCullough and the others, but all the anger and recriminations and outright threats sounded as if they were being directed at Walters alone.
McCullough no longer communicated direct with the general -- he was usually too busy in the Ship and Walters was in a position to pass on any new or constructive suggestions if there were any. This was, he knew, very unfair to the pilot since he frequently had to wait days for the chance to do so, days during which he could never be sure whether the other men in the ship were alive or dead. When, at the conclusion of a particularly bad session with Brady, one of the cosmonauts on the circum-Venus station which was now relaying all transmissions added a few words wishing him luck, Walters' reaction was both revealing and quite unexpected in a grown man.
The pilot needed company. McCullough or Hollis, t
he only two who had operational spacesuits, should have visited him more often. But somehow there was never time. Something was always happening in the Ship . . .
The doctor became aware suddenly that the lock entrance was open and Drew was beside it, saying, ". . . And remember, this is not a game. If anyone feels like treating it as one they should remind themselves that the nearest hospital is sixty million miles away and the ambulance service is bad . . ."
On the way to the animal enclosure, they encountered -- singly -- three of the tentacled aliens and killed them. Since it was now generally accepted that the Twos were nonintelligent lab animals, the job had been performed with efficiency and, McCullough noted, quite a lot of enthusiasm. Drew had noticed it, too, and he kept repeating his warnings about thinking of the operation as a game until they reached the cages, and would probably have continued if McCullough had not cut him short.
"I agree with Drew," he said firmly. "We must be entirely cold-blooded about this. But before we put our plan into effect I would like to gain a better idea of their physical capabilities. To begin with, how did they break out?"
It was between mealtimes for the e-t's so they had a chance to search the area thoroughly.
The animals' quarters occupied a cylindrical volume of space roughly eighty yards in length and twenty in diameter. It was divided into pens of various sizes by heavy wire mesh stretched between a framework of tubing, so that the caged animals were always in sight of anyone in the four personnel corridors which ran fore and aft along the sides of the enclosure. The food and water dispensers also differed in size and complexity, and were fitted to the common wall between two cages so as to serve both. Some of the cages were still occupied, by drifting, dessicated carcasses whose edible parts were missing.
From the condition of the bodies, the damage to large areas of the restraining mesh and the condition of the food dispensers, they were able to obtain a fairly good idea of what had happened.
One or more of the dispensers had failed. Whether the failure was due to a design fault or the rough eating habits of the animals concerned was impossible to say. But the result was an attack on the wire mesh, a successful attack in most cases, which had forced an opening into the operating dispensers in adjacent cages or into enclosures containing smaller edible life-forms. The transfer of animals between cages had so increased the demand on the remaining dispensers that they, too, had broken down until only a few machines were still operating. An attempt had been made to control the mass breakout by electrification of sections of the wire mesh, but this had been a hasty, jury-rigged installation which had also broken down in several places.
Judging by the condition of the bodies, the majority of the other animals had been unable to defend themselves against the terrible horn and tentacles of the Twos, although a small number must have escaped through gaps torn in the mesh, otherwise there would have been only one species infesting the Ship. But there was one large, caterpillar-like animal who had never had a chance. All McCullough could tell from its remains was that it had no skeleton to speak of, its body being surrounded by great bands of muscle, and its head section, which was heavily boned, contained four manipulators or feelers of some kind in addition to the usual sensory equipment. Its hide was pale gray and very smooth, like that of a walrus.
In a nearby enclosure, however, the Twos had met something which even they could not stand against. For a long time McCullough and the others stared at the drifting Two carcasses, stripped of all edible tissue so that little more than the bony carapace remained, and at the cluster of tiny holes punched through the half-inch-thick shell.
It was Berryman who spoke first.
"And now," he said gravely, "we are looking for an emotionally disturbed alien with a machine gun . . ."
But they all had far too much to do before the Twos began arriving for lunch to give this new development the discussion it deserved.
The first step was to disconnect the wiring from the electrified sections of mesh -- it would not be a good thing to be accidentally electrocuted while doing battle with the Twos. Then from the small or more damaged food dispensers they stripped lengths of cable and metal piping and threaded these into the torn sections of mesh, repairing and reinforcing their cage's sides and barring its severely warped doors. They did not make any provision for evacuation if their plan went wrong, although it was obvious that they were all thinking about it while they worked and talked loudly about the probable effects of shutting off the Ship's animals from what must be the only source of food and water.
All the other dispensers had been wrecked, accidentally by the Twos or deliberately by the men.
"Poisoning them would be safer," said Berryman when their cage had been made as secure as possible, "if we knew what was toxic to them and if we had some of it . . ."
"Too slow," said McCullough.
"Six inches of cold aluminum alloy," said Drew, "is toxic to everything."
"Company," said Hollis.
Three of the tentacled e-t's and a pair of the white-furred flying carpets had arrived and were heading toward their cage. It became a civil war almost at once.
As soon as the furry Type Three came within striking distance, a Two lashed out with its tentacle, the bony tip ripping a six-inch gash in the white fur. While the Three flapped helplessly in the center of the corridor, the Two steadied itself against the mesh and launched a second and more deadly attack, this time crisscrossing the pelt with deep and visibly widening channels which oozed bright red. The Three began to undulate rapidly until it was fluttering like a thick, bloody flag in a high wind. Then suddenly it was just a tattered, lifeless rag and its attacker, a very messy eater, began to feed.
Meanwhile the second Two was not having things all its own way. Somehow the furry animal had managed both to evade its attacker's tentacles and to attach itself to the Two's unprotected back where those four deadly weapons could not be brought to bear. At first McCullough thought he was seeing the e-t version of the old adage about holding a tiger by the tail, but then he saw that the furry body of the Three was squeezing down and between the roots of the threshing tentacles where the Two's eyes were situated, blinding it, and then extending further onto and across the underbelly until it blocked the breathing apertures.
When the Two was dead, the furry animal did not try to eat it, but instead undulated over to the mesh. Possibly it was a vegetarian.
During the fight, the unoccupied Two had attacked the mesh, probing and worrying and slapping at it with horn and tentacles, then bouncing back to the corridor wall net to hurl itself carapace first like a living cannonball against the wire. McCullough had wondered how the animals had been able to break out of their cages in the first place, since the security arrangements had seemed adequate for such a relatively small life-form, but as the mesh twanged and bulged inward under the onslaught of this single, angry specimen, he was no longer puzzled. Finally the Two, tired of beating its head against the mesh, insinuated a couple of feet of one of its tentacles in an attempt to pull the wire apart.
Immediately Drew gripped the tentacle, planted both feet firmly against the mesh and pulled the Two hard against the wire while the spear in his other hand drove forward in a single, twisting, lethal stab. The beast's tentacles threshed briefly and were still, then there was another Two charging the mesh, and another.
The dispenser began making soft, chuffing sounds. It emitted a slow, untidy jet of water and a series of gray round objects of the size and shape of a large orange from a spigot which had had its teat chewed off. The round objects had the consistency of porridge, Berryman reported when one of them hit the side of his head, and added that the smell and taste -- it had splattered forward onto his nose and lips -- were not entirely unpleasant.
They became too busy to talk shortly after that; the job of killing Twos was not as easy as Drew had made it appear.
They were badly hampered by weightlessness, which forced them either to hold onto a Two or to twist their
feet through the mesh to use their spears effectively. But very often the Twos presented far too many tentacles, and anchoring themselves by twisting a foot into the mesh was asking to have it smashed by the hard tip of a tentacle or impaled on a horn. Without some form of support, their aim suffered and most of the force behind their thrusts was expended on getting through the mesh, so that what little remained was enough only to push the Twos away and inflict superficial injuries if any. The reaction from such a lunge sent the men spinning helplessly so that they were in as much danger from the spears of their friends as the horns of the Twos.