Return to the Stars cotsk-2

by Edmond Hamilton

  "Run!" said Shorr Kan.

  They ran, toward the two men. But the Qhallas had started running also, toward the strangers, their wings half-spread. They brandished weapons and their toothed beaks uttered barking noises of anger.

  Shorr Kan triggered his stunner. The foremost Qhallas fell and rolled. The others held back for a moment.

  The two men were staring in amazement. Now, by the torchlight, Gordon could make out their faces. One of them, who wore the emblem of the Mace, was a compact, stocky man with a dark, tight face. The other was younger, taller, and much less sure of himself.

  Shorr Kan shouted at them. "Hold off your pets! I'm an ally of Cyn Cryver, bringing in prisoners."

  Rather doubtfully, the older man turned and barked something at the Qhallas in their own harsh tongue. They began to gabble between themselves, confused and a little disconcerted by the stunner. The three went past them and pulled up, Gordon and Hull panting, in front of Cyn Cryver's men.

  To the proud and haughty one, the man apparently in command, Shorr Kan demanded, "What is your name?"

  "I am the Count Obd Doll," answered the stocky man, and stared at Shorr Kan as though he could not believe what he saw. "You... you are Shorr Kan. You disappeared from Aar with the Empire captives..."

  "These same two," said Shorr Kan, "and not from choice, I assure you. They took me as a hostage. Fortunately, they crashed their ship not far from here and in the confusion I was able to turn the tables on them."

  "Why didn't you kill them?" asked Obd Doll. "Why bring them here?"

  "Because Cyn Cryver wants them alive. Especially alive and able to talk. Where is he?"

  Hesitantly, Obd Doll answered, "At Teyn."

  Shorr Kan nodded. "Of course. The gathering place of the horde. Take us there at once."

  "But," said Obd Doll, "I am on orders here." He went on with other objections, and Gordon sweated in an agony of impatience. The count appeared to be not too bright, and consequently unable to adjust to, or evaluate, a set of unexpected circumstances.

  "Besides," said the count, sticking his jaw out farther in a show of strength, "how am I to know... ?"

  Shorr Kan's face darkened and his voice sank to a kind of tigerish purring.

  "Little man," he said, "these two captives may hold the key to the whole campaign. Cyn Cryver is waiting for them. Just how long do you think it wise to keep him waiting?"

  Obd Doll looked shaken. "Well," he said. "Well, in that case, yes, of course. May I suggest, sir... call the Count Cyn Cryver from our cruiser..."

  So far, so good, thought Gordon... but it was just a little late. The Qhallas had got over their first shock and settled their confusion. They wanted the prisoners to play with, and they were closing in.

  Shorr Kan had made a good try. But it was not much of an epitaph for them.

  Only it seemed that Obd Doll had also made up his mind. He roared at the Qhallas, obviously ordering them to stop. Apparently they had some rudiments of discipline, for they fell back a little, and Obd Doll said hurriedly, "We had better go to the cruiser at once. These Qhallas... savage... unreliable... hate all humans except Narath Teyn..."

  It came to Gordon that the man was worried about his own skin. He didn't blame him. Narath Teyn might have calmed the Qhallas' bloodlust, but not these two men of the Marches. In fact, the younger one practically invited attack, staring with unconcealed loathing at the bird-things, and he reeked so of fear that even Gordon could smell it.

  They began to move toward the cruiser. The Qhallas pressed after them, hopping, shuffling, flapping, edging a little closer with every step. They squawked among themselves, their unlovely voices edged with mounting anger. Their eyes were bright with brainless fury, watching their prey move closer to sanctuary. They had a simple desire to tear these man-creatures into small pieces and peck at them like robins at chunks of suet. Gordon thought that their shaky discipline was not going to hold out another ten paces. And now the reek of his own fear was acrid in his nostrils.

  The younger of the two men had frankly given way to panic. He drew a small gray egg out of his pocket and said in a high voice, "I'd better use the numb-gas."

  "No!" said Obd Doll. "Put that thing away, you idiot. We could numb a few but the others would be on us in a minute. Just move on, we're almost there."

  The men staggered, buffeted by stubby wings, grabbed at by wicked hands. Obd Doll kept up a barrage of orders and Gordon guessed that he was reminding them of their allegiance to Narath Teyn and their duty to obey, disperse, and load themselves into the transports. Whatever he said, it stopped their making up their minds to take the prisoners, at least until the men had reached the cruiser. The air lock door slammed shut on the horde outside, and Obd Doll mopped his brow with his hand, which was visibly shaking.

  "A difficult lot to handle," he said. "Without Narath Teyn around, it's not a job I care for."

  "You did well," said Shorr Kan. "Now call Teyn at once, and inform the Count Cyn Cryver that I have recovered the captives and will bring them to him there at once."

  The ring of authority in his voice was such that Obd Doll all but saluted, "At once." Then he looked at Gordon and Hull Burrel, oppressed by a fresh doubt. "What'll we do with them? We have no brig... this is a dispatch and command cruiser..."

  "Put them in one of the air locks," said Shorr Kan. "Take all the spacesuits out of the lock first. Then if they want to break out into space, they're welcome."

  He laughed. Obd Doll laughed. The younger man laughed. Gordon did not laugh, and neither did Hull Burrel. They looked at Shorr Kan, but Shorr Kan's back was turned and he was already on his way, a man with important matters to attend to, a man in a hurry with no time to spare for two dupes he had deceived for his own purposes. Maybe.

  Hull started to curse, but smothered it. They were shoved along by Obd Doll's men. toward an air lock on the other side of the cruiser. They were kept waiting until the helmets and suits were taken out of the lock, and then were thrust into the small coffinlike chamber. The inner door closed hermetically upon them, with a soft hissing sound that was very like mocking laughter.

  Hull Burrel looked heavily at the immovable door. "Neat," he said. "They've got us nicely cooped up, and any time they decide to execute us, all they have to do is use the remote control to open the outer door of this lock." There was a manual control as well, almost suicidally handy. They carefully avoided leaning on it.

  Gordon shook his head. "They won't do that. You heard Shorr Kan tell them that Cyn Cryver wants us alive."

  "Yes, I heard him," said Hull. "I also know we're the only living beings who can tell the truth about how he got away from Aar. Of course, if he's really on our side, that's not important. But if he isn't... I don't think he'd want Cyn Cryver to hear it. Because of course the H'Harn would move in and examine him. I think he'd just blow us out into space and say we did it ourselves, two loyal Empire men choosing death before dishonor." Hull's face was set and very hard. "Do you honestly believe Shorr Kan is on your side, John Gordon?"

  "Yes. Not out of nobility, but because we're his own best chance."

  Hull remained standing for a time, frowning at Gordon. Then he sat down on the floor and leaned wearily against the bulkhead. "I wish," he said, "I had your simple faith."

  17

  The cruiser throbbed and hummed, flying through the Marches at highest speed. To Gordon, prisoned with the Antarian in the lock, it seemed to have been flying thus for interminable period. Several times the inner door had been opened and a scant ration of food and water thrust in to them by armed and careful men. But nothing else had happened, and they had not seen Shorr Kan again.

  Gordon began increasingly to share Hull Burrel's skepticism about the reliability of Shorr Kan as an ally. So much so, that each time he heard the sound of a lock door opening he looked quickly at the outer one to see if this was not the moment that Hull had predicted, when they two would be catapulted on a blast of decompressed air into space and eternal sil
ence. So far, it had always been the inner door that opened.

  So far.

  Agonized worry about Lianna and his own gnawing sense of guilt added to Gordon's personal torment.

  "Gordon, I understand, but will you please shut up?" flared Hull Burrel finally. "There's not a damn thing we can do about it now, and you're getting on my nerves."

  Gordon's own temper flared, but he refrained from uttering the words that came to his tongue. Instead he shut his jaw hard and went and sat with his back against the wall of the lock chamber... a posture that had now become practically permanent... and thought what the hell of a man of action he had turned out to be.

  A thin, almost undetectable odor roused him from his brooding. It was pungent, unfamiliar, and it had to be coming into the lock from the air-vent connected with the main life-support system of the ship.

  Gordon jumped up and approached the vent and sniffed. And that was the last thing he remembered before he fell on his face on the hard deck and never even felt the impact.

  He awoke vaguely to a thin hissing noise and the sensation of being shaken. Somebody was calling his name.

  "Gordon! Gordon, wake up!"

  The somebody sounded urgent. There was a tickling in Gordon's nostrils. He shook his head and coughed, trying to get away from it, and the effort caused him to open his eyes.

  Shorr Kan was bending over him, holding a small tube that hissed and tickled as it released gas into Gordon's mouth and nose.

  "Oxygen," said Shorr Kan. "It should clear the cobwebs. You've got to come out of it, Gordon. I need you."

  Gordon still felt remarkably stupid, but his mind was beginning to function again.

  "Gas... from the air duct," he mumbled. "Knocked me out..."

  Shorr Kan nodded. "Yes. Numb-gas. I managed to slip some canisters of it out of the ship's armory and drop them into the main air-supply of the life-support system."

  Gordon stumbled up to his feet, hanging on to Shorr Kan for support. "The officers... the crew... ?"

  "Out like lights," said Shorr Kan, grinning. "Of course, I thoughtfully put on a spacesuit beforehand, and then vented and replaced the air supply before I took it off. Feeling better?"

  "I'm all right."

  "Good The officers and crew are sleeping like babies, but they won't sleep much longer. I need your help to secure them, and I need Hull to pilot the ship while we're doing it. I've got the cruiser on automatic now, but the Marches are a risky place for that."

  He went over to Hull, who was still sprawled unconscious on the deck, and held the oxygen tube under his nose. Then he looked up at Gordon and showed his teeth in a smile.

  "Didn't I tell you I'd get you free?"

  "You did." Gordon shook his head, which ached blindingly. "And you have. I congratulate you. The only trouble is, my head is going to fall off from being saved."

  When Hull Burrel opened his eyes and saw Shorr Kan bending over him, his reaction was almost comically instinctive. He blinked once, and then put up his big hands and closed them around Shorr Kan's throat. But he was still weak as a kitten. Shorr Kan slapped his hands away and stood up.

  "A grateful pair you two are," he said.

  Gordon helped the Antarian to his feet, speaking urgently as he did so, explaining. He wasn't sure how much Hull understood until he said, "The ship's on autopilot, and you're needed in the bridge."

  First and last a spaceman, Hull pulled himself together by main force, forgetting everything else.

  "On auto-pilot? Here in the Marches?" he thrust Gordon aside and went with violent, if unsteady, haste out of the lock and down the companionway to the bridge.

  Shorr Kan took a roll of tough wire from stores, and then he and Gordon set to work securing the officers and men.

  Obd Doll, who lay in his own small cabin, was the last of them, and when they had him bound Shorr Kan looked thoughtfully down at him.

  "I think I'll bring him round now with oxygen," he said. "He'd know the schedule that Cyn Cryver and Narath Teyn have set up for the attack on Fomalhaut, and that's something we've got to know."

  "What," said Gordon, "if he won't talk?"

  Shorr Kan smiled. "I think I can persuade him. You go on up to the bridge. You're the high-minded type and you'd only get in my way."

  Gordon hesitated. It sounded like torture to him. But he thought of Lianna and what could be going to happen to her, and hardened his heart. He turned and went out of the cabin.

  When he entered the bridge, Hull Burrel spoke without turning from the controls.

  "I've laid as direct a course as possible for Fomalhaut. It'll take us too close to Teyn for comfort."

  Gordon peered at the viewplate. The little cruiser was edging along the coast of a gigantic cloud of glowing dust, whose minute particles were so excited by the radiation of the stars drowned in it that it looked like a great mass of flame.

  To Gordon, it seemed that the ship was merely crawling. He tried to contain his impatience. He also tried not to think of what Shorr Kan was doing.

  After a while Shorr Kan came into the bridge. He took one look at Gordon's face and said seriously, "Could you hear the cries all the way up here?"

  Gordon started for the door. "What did you do to him?"

  Shorr Kan caught his arm. "I wouldn't go down there, Gordon. Not unless you..."

  "Not unless I what?"

  Shorr Kan's brows went up and his eyes laughed at Gordon. "Unless you want to be frightfully disappointed. Obd Doll has nothing worse the matter with him than a severe case of fright."

  "You mean," said Gordon skeptically, "that he talked just because you threatened him?"

  Shorr Kan nodded. "He did. You see the value of a reputation of ruthlessness. He believed I'd do exactly what I said I would, and so he told me all he knew without my having to do it. We'd soon find out if he lied, so I think he told the truth."

  "When does the fleet leave Teyn?" Gordon asked.

  "Obd Doll couldn't narrow that down too definitely. He said it would depend on when the last contingents of nonhumans came in... and they've been coming in, from all over the Marches, in answer to Narath Teyn's summons."

  The words evoked in Gordon's mind a swift, ominous vision... of those alien hordes from worlds that had no human tradition at all, the scaled ones, the winged ones, the hairy ones, streaming through the Marches to foregather for an assault on a great star-kingdom. Yes, they would come at the call of Narath Teyn. Narath was mad. Gordon was sure of that. But there was some quality in him that had made him a leader of not-men such as the galaxy had never seen before.

  "But from what Obd Doll told me of the forces that have already gathered," Shorr Kan was saying, "I'd hazard a guess that they'll leave Teyn very soon, probably in the next few days, on their way to Fomalhaut."

  "What about the H'Harn," asked Hull Burrel. "Where do they come into this?"

  Shorr Kan shook his head. "Obd Doll swears he doesn't know. The H'Harn have no fleet in this galaxy. He says that only Cyn Cryver and one or two others know what part, if any, the H'Harn will play."

  Gordon, desperate and tense, tried to clear his mind of emotion and think calmly.

  "Hull, will the communication equipment of this ship reach as far as Fomalhaut?" he asked.

  Hull Burrel went into the little communications room behind the bridge. After a few minutes he came out again.

  "It'll reach, but the power is so limited it would have to be audio only, not telestereo."

  Shorr Kan said sharply, "You're planning to warn Fomalhaut by communicator?"

  "Of course," said Gordon. "You must see it yourself... the time element, and the very strong possibility that we won't make it to Fomalhaut."

  "Before you leap to the transmitter, think of this. Teyn and the Count's fleet are between us and Fomalhaut. They will be bound to pick up our transmission. They'll have fast cruisers after us at once..."

  Gordon made a brusque gesture. "We'll just have to take our chances. Fomalhaut has got to be warned
."

  "You didn't let me finish," said Shorr Kan. "The counts are liable to hit Fomalhaut right away, before any strong defenses can be organized. In their position, that is what I would do."

  Gordon had not thought of that possibility. He was racked by doubt.

  Hull said, "I'm with Gordon. Warn them, and gamble. The counts, praise be, have neither your guts nor your gall."

  "I am touched," said Shorr Kan softly. "But what about us?"

  "Take your chances, as Gordon said."

  "What chances? They'll have us cut off within minutes after they pick up our transmission."

  "I have an idea about that," said Hull.

  He touched a control. On the big chartplate a sectional chart of the whole region of the Marches slid into view.

  "All right," said Shorr Kan. "Look here."

  Even Gordon, unused to reading the charts, could see when Shorr Kan pointed out their relative position that they could hardly hope to get past the fleet at Teyn once it was alerted. Not even by a miracle.

  But Hull put his finger on a massive swarm of red flecks-a great reef, as it were, marked in the color of danger. The reef lay equally between them and Fomalhaut, one curving wing of it reaching out almost to Teyn.

  "We could take a short-cut," Hull said, "through here."

  Shorr Kan stared at him astonished. "Through the Broken Stars?" Then he uttered a short laugh. "I revise my opinion of you, Hull."

  "What," asked Gordon, "are the Broken Stars?"

  Hull said, "Did you ever stop to think why the Marches of Outer Space are such a mess of debris?"

  "I haven't had very much time to consider cosmic origins."

  "The scientists tell us," said the Antarian, "that long ago two fairly large star-clusters were on a collision course. When they met, of course the looser parts of the swarms simply went through each other with only a minimum of actual hits. But even those few were enough to strew debris all along the Marches.

  "However, in each cluster there was a much tighter, denser core of stars, and those high-density cores collided. The result was terrific. Stars tore each other up in such a high incidence of collisions that they formed a spinning mess of half-stars, bits of stars, shattered planets, whole planets... you name it. Scarcely anyone ever risks going into that jungle, but at least two scientific survey ships have in the past crossed through it. If they had a chance, so do we." As a sort of afterthought he added, "I don't have to tell you how thin it is."