The Planet Killers: Three Novels of the Spaceways (Planet Stories (Paizo Publishing) Book 32)

by Silverberg, Robert

  Here the vision ended. Here the dream shattered, and Storm, his eyes dazzled with the light of distant suns, blinked in confusion as the story halted.

  Chapter Twelve

  Storm said, “What do they plan to do with you?”

  Kill me, I suppose .

  “But why?”

  I am a threat to them, they think. First they will torture me, to get from me the secrets of my instruments. And then they will kill me .

  “What do they know about your instruments?” Storm asked.

  Very little, really , the alien responded. But they are shrewd beings. They have guessed that there is power in them—the power to rule the solar system .

  “Only if you show them how to use them!”

  They have their ways of extracting knowledge , the alien said gently.

  Storm stared at the distant figures of Ellins and his workers. His mind went back over the things the star-being had just said, and over the miraculous voyage that still glowed in his memory.

  Yes, Storm thought. There was great power in those gleaming banks of machinery. He could only guess at the nature of the instruments. The power to carve tunnels out of solid rock? Yes, certainly. Anti-gravity machines? Probably. Atmosphere-manufacturers? Food-manufacturers? Power-sources that would draw energy from the structural bones of the universe itself?

  It was a cave of miracles, no doubt of it.

  Storm thought of such things falling into the hands of UMC, and was sickened. It was unlawful, it was blasphemous, that such power should be concentrated in the possession of one group of men.

  It cannot be prevented , the alien said. Unless you help me defeat them .

  “Won’t you tell me how I can help?”

  Later , the alien said. There was a note of sadness in the star-creature’s voice. We must both find the strength to do it, you and I. Never in all our history has a member of my race knowingly taken an intelligent life. But there are certain emergencies that transcend even the most ancient of codes. This is one of them .

  Storm did not answer. He was chilled by this new vision the alien had presented, the vision of the tools of the star-creatures in the hands of the controllers of UMC.

  It was not a vision of evil. The Universal Mining Cartel was an impersonal entity, beyond evil and beyond good as well. Individual members of the cartel might be evil, as they chose, but not the cartel itself.

  What Storm saw was a vision, not of evil, but of concentrated power. Armed with the technology of an ancient super-race, UMC could put itself beyond the control of any political organization. It would become, even more than it was already, a super-state, a government in its own right. It would automatically become the richest, most invulnerable state that had ever existed.

  Could UMC’s technicians solve the secrets of the alien’s cave?

  Storm did not doubt that they could. Oh, it would take time, a generation or two of tinkering, but eventually the gleaming instruments would yield up their mysteries, and a billion years of evolution would be vaulted in a single leap, to the greater glory of UMC.

  And if UMC could make the alien cooperate, could torture him into revealing those secrets, it would happen so much the faster.

  Would the alien be able to resist?

  Storm doubted it. The star-being had great mental powers, obviously. But physically he was weak, weak as a baby. His was not a strong race to begin with, and this was a crippled, accident-broken individual, his strength sapped by a loneliness of millions of years, a loneliness beyond all human comprehension. And these gentle creatures were not trained in self-defense. They were incapable of violence. The castaway might find himself helpless before UMC’s greed.

  “We’ve got to stop them,” Storm muttered.

  Yes. That is why I risked making contact with you. I sensed you were different. I gambled that you would help me against them .

  “I’ll do whatever I can,” Storm declared. “But I don’t see how—”

  Be patient. You will understand all, in time .

  Storm wondered what they could do to keep the treasures of the cavern from falling into UMC’s hands. The alien was without physical strength; and while he, Storm, was strong, he was weaponless and outnumbered and strapped with baling wire too. How could they fight back?

  It looked hopeless.

  It was abundantly clear, now, why the cartel had gone to such extraordinary lengths to get the asteroid away from him. Not for the cesium and lithium and gallium it contained, certainly. UMC did not play dirty for such small stakes. If the UMC prospectors had landed here, and found that a rival claim was already in effect, they would almost certainly have abided by that claim and made no attempt to jump it.

  But the presence of the alien, and the things stored in the alien’s cave, altered all the ground rules.

  The asteroid now was worth billions to UMC, worth any sort of skulduggery to get. What did it matter if they compromised their corporate image in obtaining it, with such wonders as the prize?

  The alien said, We will defeat them .

  “How? How?”

  Patience. Build your strength. Our time will come .

  The alien said no more. Storm was still aware of the contact in his mind, but he heard no further words from the star-rover. He knew the alien was there, though. He could feel the imperceptible changes taking place within him. He felt stronger, not physically but in some indefinable sense. For all his depression and pessimism, there was yet a sensation of tremendous well-being. His body throbbed with new vigor and fresh vitality. He felt younger, like a boy of eighteen, rippling with the first strengths of new manhood.

  But still his wrists were trussed, still his ankles were bound. He was no closer to being free than he had been two hours before. And, he knew, he was a great deal closer to death.

  Some time afterward, Ellins and his work crew re-entered the dome, their labors finished for the time being. Several “days” and “nights” had passed on the asteroid, which spun on its axis every few hours, presenting now this face, now that to the distant, pale sun. Storm had had nothing to eat for more hours than he cared to think about, and he felt a trifle lightheaded. But, oddly, not really hungry. Some magic of the star-creature was responsible for that, he decided.

  Ellins stripped off his space-suit and strode over to the corner of the dome where Storm lay. He glanced down, his eyes unfriendlier than ever.

  “Still thinking it over?” Ellins asked.

  “You aren’t going to give me a rush act, are you?” Storm retorted.

  “Who’s rushing? I just want to know how you’re coming along.”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Comfortable?”

  “It could be worse,” Storm said.

  “It could be a lot worse,” Ellins agreed. “And it’s going to be, very soon now. You know, I’m getting tired of having you around, Storm.”

  “Just say the word and I’ll get into my ship and clear off, Ellins.”

  “Funny man. There’s only one way you’ll get into that ship of yours, and that’s as a corpse.”

  “You don’t sound friendly.”

  Storm’s calmness seemed to bother the UMC man. He hunkered down in an awkward squat, so that his face was on a level with Storm’s, and said in a low, angry voice, “Come on, now! Stop fooling around. For the last time, will you take the five million and renounce your claim?”

  “No.”

  “I said, for the last time.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Not me, Storm. You. Right now. If you’re a praying man, you better do some praying.”

  Storm managed a mirthless smile. “You ought to know one thing, Ellins. If I don’t get back to Mars on schedule, there’s a bank vault that’s going to be opened. And in that vault is the whole story of what happened to my claim, including the name of the man who bribed the record-keeper. And that’s you, Ellins.”

  A muscle flicked momentarily in Ellins’ cheek. But he did not look at all demolished by Storm�
��s revelation. Storm had played his trump, and it did not seem to be taking any tricks.

  Ellins said easily, “I figured you’d do a thing like that. Well, it’s all right with me. UMC will protect me against any inquiry.”

  “You sound awfully confident.”

  “I am. What I found on this asteroid will make the UMC brass very warmly inclined toward me, Storm.”

  “You mean the alien?”

  “I mean what I mean,” Ellins said. “We’ll ride out any fuss that your little bank vault document might stir up. We’ll squash it the way we cut you out of the computer records You aren’t fooling around with small fry, Storm.”

  “You aren’t going to get away with it.”

  Ellins laughed and straightened up. “I think we will, okay? Now—and this really is the last time—will you sign a waiver or do we shove you out the airlock? Yes or no, Storm. Yes or no.”

  Storm considered.

  He had run out of bluffs. He couldn’t stall any longer. The alien had promised in some nebulous way to strike out at the UMC men, but could he take that promise seriously? Where was the alien now? Storm wasn’t even sure he felt the contact any more. He hadn’t heard a word from the star being in a half hour or more.

  If he signed that waiver, he was finished. Ellins would transmit it to Mars instantly, and no matter what the alien planned to do, it wouldn’t affect the fact that Storm had conveyed title to the asteroid to UMC.

  But if they threw him out of the airlock, he was finished in a much more permanent way.

  Ellins was offering wealth, not staggering wealth, but more than he stood to earn in all his life. Taking the wealth, though, meant selling the asteroid, selling not only a billion dollars’ worth of rare ores, but selling the alien too. Storm hesitated at doing that.

  Where was the alien, though? Why was he silent?

  “Speak up, Storm,” Ellins prodded.

  One final time, Storm weighed the alternatives. He couldn’t sign the waiver. He couldn’t. The instant it was done, his recourse was gone.

  The only thing to do, he decided, was to choose the other alternative, and hope that the alien could work whatever miracle he promised.

  In a wavering voice Storm said, “I’m not going to sell you anything, Ellins.”

  “You know what that means.”

  “I know.”

  Ellins shrugged in relief. “Okay. That settles that. Get the wire off him, boys. When he walks the plank he’ll do it on his own two feet.”

  They snipped the wire away. Ellins watched closely, warning them not to leave any snip-marks in Storm’s spacesuit. “This has to look like an accident,” Ellins said.

  Storm watched, his face rigid, as Ellins picked up Storm’s space helmet and studied the face-plate for a moment. He found the servo controls, pondered them, made a tiny adjustment. The face-plate swung open and stayed there.

  “How unfortunate,” Ellins said with a cold smile. “The mechanism seems to have sprung. I understand that can be a real catastrophe, when your face-plate pops open and there’s nothing but high vacuum around you.” Ellins laughed. “Hold him tight, will you? He’s a big ox. I’d hate to have him get loose.”

  Two of them held him, while a third kept a gun jammed into his kidneys. Ellins approached, holding the helmet. Storm didn’t try to break free. At best, he could land a solid kick in Ellins’ midsection, but a moment later there would be a hole eight inches wide running through his body, and that didn’t strike him as very appealing.

  Storm allowed Ellins to put the helmet back on. The face-plate dangled open.

  “Okay. Let go of him,” Ellins said. “Just keep the gun in his back. Storm, you can start walking toward the airlock. If you decide you’d rather sign the waiver, all you have to do is say so. Some time in the next sixty seconds, that is. After that I’m afraid it won’t do you much good to change your mind.”

  Stoney-faced, wordless, Storm began to cross the dome toward the lock. It wasn’t going to be a pleasant death, he knew, although it would be a fairly quick one. He could picture it clearly enough. The permoplast wall of the air lock would slide shut behind him, and the wall in front would open, and he would step from the protection of the dome into the nothingness of the asteroid outside.

  Such air as there was in his spacesuit would go whooshing out into the void in an instant. The air in his body would try to escape too, pressing outward at fifteen pounds per square inch, and there would be no countervailing suit-pressure to press inward.

  He tried not to think of what would happen. He wondered how many seconds he would have to endure the pain before death came, and his shattered body could be loaded into a crawler and taken across the asteroid to his ship. Both body and ship would be sent orbiting toward the sun, and there would be no evidence of the crime once that furnace devoured it.

  The lock was only a few steps away. Storm thought of Liz, back on Earth so many millions of miles away. He thought of that split-level in Patagonia. He thought of how comfortable he could be with five million dollars in the bank.

  Then he thought of what the future of mankind would be like if UMC grabbed the alien’s treasures for its own profit.

  “Where are you?” he asked softly, hoping the alien was listening.

  No reply came.

  The airlock’s inner door slid open. “Get inside,” Ellins ordered.

  Where are you? Storm thought frantically.

  He started to enter the lock.

  Suddenly the silence broke, and Storm felt the contact re-establish itself, and heard the welcome silent voice saying, I am almost ready. Another few seconds — can you delay them? Just another moment. That is all I need!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Storm halted at the brink of the airlock and turned to look into Ellins’ gleaming, expectant eyes.

  “Go on in,” Ellins snapped.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Storm told him. “I’ll sign your paper. I’ll take the money.”

  Ellins laughed harshly. “I knew you would. No man’s fool enough to turn down a deal like that.” Ellins barked orders over one shoulder. “Whitey, get me that paper! Gus, set up radio contact with Mars!”

  Storm waited near the airlock panel.

  Are you ready? he asked the alien.

  Just one more moment —

  Ellins was holding a slip of paper in his hand, reading it over carefully and nodding. “Yes, that should do it,” he murmured. “In consideration for five million dollars paid in hand—”

  Storm heard the alien say, My people are conditioned against taking intelligent life. It violates our every precept. But you have no such qualms .

  “Especially not in self defense,” Storm said quietly, out loud.

  Ellins looked up. “You say something, Storm?”

  “You must be hearing things,” Storm laughed.

  The alien went on, What we will try now is very dangerous. It may kill both of us. Are you willing to risk it?

  “Yes,” Storm whispered, thinking of the gleaming machines of the cave.

  The alien said, We must join our minds. I will use you as a mental focus, and through you I will attempt to strike down these men. I will use your strength. The death-blow will be from your mind, and not from mine. Only in that way can I function .

  Ellins said, “All right, Storm. Here. Sign this and I’ll beam it to Mars to be recorded. We’ll have a certified check for you right away. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Then you can get the hell out of here and go count your money without bothering us, okay?”

  “Let’s see what I’m supposed to sign,” Storm said.

  “Read it carefully,” Ellins said with a cynical grin. “I wouldn’t want you to think you were being swindled, or anything. Once you sign, brother, that’s it.”

  Storm scanned the paper. It was simple enough: a conveyance of title, crudely worded but comprehensive enough. It would probably stand up in court, he thought.

  The alien said, I am ready now. You must let me ent
er your mind to the deepest, now. It will be more painful than before, but it cannot be helped. I need your full cooperation. I cannot enter unless you throw your mind willingly open to me now .

  “Does it read okay to you?” Ellins asked.

  “What?”

  “I said, does it read okay?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Then sign it, and stop wasting time.”

  “All right,” Storm said vaguely. “Just a minute, will you? I’m trying to think of something.”

  “Do your thinking some other time,” Ellins said. “I want to get this finished up.”

  “He’s stalling, chief,” one of the other UMC men said. “Why don’t he sign?”

  “Just a second, will you?” Storm said. “Another second won’t matter!”

  He could feel the alien probing at his mind again, the same feathery touch as before. How did you go about opening your mind? Storm wondered. What did you do? What barriers did you drop? If you had no control over your own thought processes, how could you admit another mind voluntarily?

  The alien’s probing grew more urgent.

  What if he doesn’t make contact? Storm asked himself.

  Please , came the silent voice. You are not concentrating. Clear your mind. Make it a blank. Admit me!

  Storm replied, I’m trying. You’re part way in now anyway, aren’t you? Can’t you manage it the rest of the way?

  The alien did not respond verbally. But Storm felt the pressure intensify. He was glad, now, for the extra strength that the star-creature had endowed him with. He knew he could not have withstood such a probe earlier.

  Storm was dimly aware that Ellins was saying something to him, but he did not pay attention. His mind was riveted on the problem of attaining union with the alien. Another probe came, and another, and yet another, more intense than any that had gone before.

  Yes , Storm thought! Yes! Yes! I’m open! I’m waiting!