Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

by Harry Harrison

  But the holding action had succeeded in gaining this disgusting creature needed time, and just as they were onto the thing, it darted down a gaping trench in the ground. Without a thought, other than to save Sally, the three companions instantly followed it into the unknown. This was raw courage, the spirit that built the frontier and put men on the Moon. Unhesitatingly they went to whatever fate faced them ahead.

  As it twisted. the trench deepened and then plunged into a black cave mouth. This cave was dimly illuminated by some sort of natural growth on the waIls, apparently a plant or vegetable of some kind that gave off a ghastly greenish glow just as do some forms of plankton in the seas of Earth. There was just enough light ro make out the fleeing figure of the kidnapper, and they went after it at full speed. It darted into a side tunnel before they could catch up with it, and then into another, always just outside their reach as though toying with them, leading them on. Give them credit, they did not consider their own peril for an instant but instead plunged on. They were just upon the fleeing Titanian when it emerged into a larger cave and scuttled slitheringly across its rough floor. After it they went, and they were just about to seize and render it when a burst of illumination flooded down upon them. By reflex they shielded their eyes, and when they could look up, they saw the source of this unexpected light.

  From floor to rough ceiling high above the great chamber in the rock was covered with the light-emitting plants. Ledges ran about the walls, and on the ledges stood numberless Titanians with whips, and upon a given signal they had begun to whip the simple vegetable life. Apparently this abuse stirred the hapless plants to unusual activity, and they burned with cold light, rippling in agony beneath the merciless assault. But the Titanians had no pity, even if they had had the capacity for pity, and lashed on. With their eyes now accustomed to the light the Earthmen saw a sight that made their blood run cold.

  Against the far wall, on a dais or throne of crudely carved stone, sat a Titanian at least twice as big as all the others, twice as ugly too, outdoing them in loathsomeness. A rough crown of some shining metal sat on its head, and there was a tremendous but crudely cut diamond set into the front of it. But these facts they were scarcely aware of, for what froze their gaze and raised their hearts into the throats was the sight of Sally held in the thing's tentacles while other of its tentacles caressed her ivory limbs revealed through the rents in her thin summer frock that was partially torn away from her fair body. Yet, under this repulsive embrace, Sally was strangely unmoving. In fact her ivory limb was looking a lot more like ivory all the time since, on second glance it could be seen that it was frozen solid.

  "She's frozen solid," Jerry gasped.

  "She was the best," Chuck gulped and took off his helmet and held it before his chest.

  "Don't give up hope yet," John whispered. "If we can get her out of this, we can. . . ."

  "Eef you attempt too reesist, you vill all die!" the creature on the throne hissed, laying off caressing his prisoner long enough to signal with a tentacle. Instantly all of the entrances to the cave were filled with Titanians carrying long, curved daggers, shaped very much like Arab scimitars except for a lack of a guard of any kind. Bubbling laughter came from the king as he saw their looks of astonishment.

  "You are surprised, no? Beefore thees you faced only my oxygen workers driven mad by your hot oxygen. Now you see my finest troops."

  "But – you speak our language?" Jerry said.

  "Naturally. We have crystal detector radios of immense power, and we listen to your radio broadcasts and have learned your tongue. Always we wait for the rockets to land, the first explorers to arrive. Our plans are made. We kill, capture the ship and leave this barren world, where we are trapped with an ever-diminishing supply of oxygen. At last we have done this! You will be held prisoner and tortured to tell us everything you know about how to operate your flying ship and then you will die horribly. Seize them!"

  At this command the minions surged forward and the light plants writhed under increased whipping. But their prey was not that easy to capture! With a single voice the Earthmen shouted 'Geronimo!' and attacked the king in unison. It seized four immense blades from behind its throne, but before it could wield them, a single well-placed bullet found its target between its third and fourth eye, and it slumped in death, and Sally slid from its nowloosened embrace.

  "Grab Sally before she hits the ground!" Jerry shouted.

  "She might break!"

  This was a real danger, frozen solid as she was, and the two men forgot everything to save the woman they loved and leaped and caught her and raised her gently in their arms while John stood behind them, his gun on full automatic, spraying screaming death to the howling hordes.

  Yet still they came on, daggers raised for vengeance, and John flashed a brief look over his shoulder to see that Sally was safe. As soon as he saw this, he raised his gun and in a burst of bullets shot the whippers from their balconies. Their agonized cries ended in splats upon the floor, and with the whipping stopped, the cavern was once again plunged into stygian gloom.

  "Ich mochte ein Einzelzimmer mit Bad im ersten Stock!"

  ["I spotted a door behind the throne, so grab onto me and we can escape that way."]

  Jerry shouted this gutturally in German, knowing that the other two would understand this language, also knowing that the Titanians spoke English and would understand anything spoken in this language. And it worked! He threw Sally, frozen possibly for eternity in a position of stark fear, over one shoulder and felt Chuck seize her ankles and knew, despite the darkness, that John had his hand on Chuck's shoulder. Soundlessly he led them to the door and pushed it open, stepping into the black unknown beyond, fearlessly, preferring that to the certain death awaiting them in the throne room, from which there now emerged a great clashing and screaming.

  "Well done," John whispered. "They're killing each other back there, thinking that we are still in their midst. I've closed the door and sealed it – so let's have some light."

  Jerry lit the welding torch, and they saw that they were in a roughly hewn tunnel that vanished into the darkness ahead.

  "I'll take Sally now," Chuck said, his deed as good as word, relieving Jerry of his precious frozen burden. "Lead on and make tracks because my oxygen is almost gone." And tracks they did make at a steady ground-eating jog of over seven mph, the only sound the thud of their feet and their hoarse breathing eating away at the diminishing oxygen supply. Suddenly, far ahead, they saw a light patch of darkness in which swam distant points of light.

  "The end of the tunnel," Jerry said, switching off the torch. "And those look like stars or I'll eat my hat. Be alert because we have no idea what, or what thing, may be waiting out there."

  Silently and grimly they advanced, weapons ready, to burst suddenly out upon the icy plain. They were alone, close beside a cliff and not too distant from the 747, which rested solidly, windows glowing a warm welcome.

  "Look," Jerry pointed, drawing their attention to a white band of material in the cliff and to the chunks of the same white substance on the ground. "I'll be darned if that's not oxygen – and old kingy had a private tunnel for a constant supply. . ."

  "No" – gasp – "oxygen!" John gasped, and they hurried quickly to the plane.

  With new tanks snapped into place and a fresh supply of the life-giving substance filling their lungs, they were ready for anything, and it was Jerry who spoke, detailing a carefully worked-out plan.

  "All the Titanians out there are dead – but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that there will be plenty of live ones along mighty soon. So we had better get ready and get out of here before they put a crimp in our plans – after all, we can't kill all of them."

  "Wish we could," John growled, and the others growled instant agreement before Jerry went on.

  "So here is what we do. We dig out the frozen oxygen and fill the forward hold with it, that's the job for you two. While you're doing that, I'll hook up feedpipes from this hold to all t
he engines and also rig an electric heater in the hold. When the hold is full, we seal it, turn on the heater, the solid oxygen sublimates to a gas, is piped to the engines, we turn on the fuel flow-"

  "-and away we go!" Chuck enthused. "Foolproof. But what about Sally?"

  At his words their happy expressions faded, and they looked at the hapless girl, still frozen in an attitude of horror, who was leaning against the corner of the wall by the bar. It was John who cracked that frozen moment of gloom, clappng his chums upon the shoulder.

  "Don't worry, I told you she would be all right, but no time to explain now. Let's put her in one of the johns with a hunk of frozen oxygen, and she'll keep OK."

  They went to work with a will. Working like maniacs, they dug and tore at the seam of oxygen, dragging the frozen chunks back on a sled improvised from a stretcher used by the football team. Nor was Jerry just sitting on his duff, for with the energy and skill of a mechanical genius, which he was, he had replumbed fuel lines and air ducts, rigged an electric heater from torn-out galley stoves and generally fixed the great engines to operate in an oxygenfree atmosphere. The hold was almost full, and they were trundling up the last load of oxygen when a shrill and alien wailing could be heard across the frozen plain.

  "Here they come," John said grimly. "Load the oxy aboard and I'll hold them off until we're ready to go." And this stalwart American, so long misled but now returned to his homeland, was as good as his word. He ran forward shouting a battle cry, whether it was "Remember Pearl Harbor!" or "Remember the Maine!" or whatever is not important; what is important is that one man faced that ravening alien horde with a smile upon his lips. Shot after well-placed shot rang out, each one bringing down at least three of the screeching, dagger-waving Titanians, and the attack was slowed. But their numbers pressed on, and by sheer weight they forced him back, step by reluctant step, until he was almost under the wing of the Pleasantville Eagle.

  "This is my last clip," he shouted back over his shoulder, pulling the trigger on the instant and exploding to green shreds the head of an importune enemy.

  "There!" a welcome voice called out in reply, and three dark cylinders flew over his head. "Put a bullet through each of those and get inside. We're ready to go!"

  And he had just three bullets left. Only a superb marksman could have hit those small targets under the tricky light of Saturn, exhausted and faced by an attacking horde of monsters. But he did it, almost casually, a smile playing about his lips all the time. Three shots rang out, almost as one, and each container burst into coruscating flame. Wails of pain and anger broke out from the Titanians, who were forced back by the only thing they really feared. Heat! Taking advantage of the moment's respite, John dived for the doorway and slammed it shut behind him.

  "Oxygen pressure up to two atmospheres and still rising," Chuck called out, bent over a pressure gauge that had been rigged in the floor leading to the hold below.

  "Then hold onto your hats because here we go!" Jerry called out jubilantly from the pilot's seat as he jammed the throttle home and fired up the outboard starboard engine. They held their breaths, unknowingly, as the engine whined over slowly, protesting at these strange conditions. Over and over it turned while the Titanians pressed close for the attack, whining and grumbling and not catching at all, slower and slower.

  "The batteries are almost dead," Jerry cried. "Turn out all the lights, everything that draws electricity, even the monomatic toilets, so I can try again."

  Darkness fell instantly inside the plane as the switches were thrown, and they waited in hushed silence as Jerry threw the starting switch again.

  "What were those bombs?" John asked. "I didn't know we had any explosive aboard."

  "Just something I rigged out of used oxygen cylinders in case you needed some help. Filled with jet fuel and chunks of frozen oxygen. The fuel melted the oxygen, which pressurized the cylinders, which blew up when you shot them, and the inflammable mixture was ignited by your hot bullets."

  His words were interrupted by a sudden popping explosion from the engine, and they held their breaths while a cloud of smoke and flame was ejected from the exhaust. The popping slowed, almost stopped, picked up again; then the engine burst into the full-throated roar of full power, drowning out forever the screams of the incinerated Titanians who were blown away by the exhaust. His two companions pounded the pilot on the back as the other engines caught one after another until the great ship was vibrating with barely restrained power. Chuck slid into the copilot's seat and readied himself at the controls.

  "I just had a thought," he said as he reached to release the wheel brakes. "Did you align the cheddite projector?"

  "I thought you would never ask." Jerry laughed. "It was the first thing I did while the oxygen was warming up. She's now lined up to fourteen decimal points and A-OK and ready to go. And I've done all the settings and locked the controls. All we have to do is take this barge up to thirty thousand feet, aim the nose directly at Polaris, also called the North Star, point the starboard wing at the outermost point of Saturn's ring – and press the firing button! We'll appear at twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty feet over central Kansas, give or take a few feet."

  "Great! So here we go!"

  The Pleasantville Eagle turned ponderously about and started back down the ice in the very tracks it had made on landing, crushing and incinerating the surviving Titanians as it went. Faster and faster until it was yearning to leap from the ground. Then, throttles full back, it hurled itself into the air, free of the jagged crags below, and pointed its nose towards mighty Saturn.

  "What a moment!" Chuck enthused.

  "Yes," Jerry said, and the smile was suddenly erased from his face. "Everything is fine – except for poor Sally." At these words Chuck's smile went the way of the other's, and only John still smiled across the cabin.

  "I told you not to worry," he said, and instantly four worried eyes, two burning black, two icy blue, were fixed upon him.

  "What do you mean?" Jerry choked out for them both.

  "Here is what we are going to do."

  6

  LOATHSOME GARNISHEE AND A MINDLESS HUSK

  "Before I realized I was an American, you will remember that I was a secret Soviet agent. Some strange things happened then, let me tell you, but that is another story altogether. But I did a lot of training in Siberia, and on one secret mission there I took an advanced degree in brain surgery, which had to do with something else, but while I was working at the underground hospital in Novaya Zemlya, I got to chatting with the other doctors, you know, sort of talking shop, and they showed me some things they were working on. One thing I remember was deep freezing, always a kind of problem in Siberia, as you can imagine, and they had worked out a secret technique for reviving people who were caught out in blizzards and things and were frozen solid just like Sally back there in the john."

  "And you know. . . ?" Jerry choked over the words.

  "Sure, I took it all in and could do it standing on my head. All we need is the services of a well-equipped hospital with hypothermia equipment and a few odds and ends. Just turn me loose, and in a couple of hours you'll have your Sally again just as good as new."

  "Yippee!" Jerry shouted and pulled the plane up in an immense curve toward Saturn. "Pleasantville General Hospital and Rest Home here we come!"

  Upward they climbed and on course, and the altimeter needle slowly unwound. Chuck was at the controls of the cheddite projector and testing the circuits when he called out, "Jerry – we're getting unwanted resonance in the beta kappa circuit."

  "Must be instability in the woofer. I'll take care of it." He waved John toward the pilot's seat. "Take over and keep her on course. Align the nose with Polaris, the wingtip with Saturn's rings and sing out when the needle on the sensitive radar altimeter touches thirty thousand feet."

  "Roger," John said firmly and took the controls. Higher and higher the great wings of the Pleasantville Eagle soared with John resolutely at the controls,
Jerry and Chuck laboring over the vital circuitry of the cheddite projector.

  "Coming up on point zero," John called back. "How are you doing there?"

  "In the green – ready whenever you are."

  "Okay, watch it now. Ship aligned perfectly, altimeter unwinding. Ready. . . five . . . four. . . three . . . two . . . one. . . HACK!"

  And a firm thumb was thrust home on the activator button.

  Once again that strange sensation plucked at the very fiber of their beings as the kappa radiation hurled them headlong into the lambda dimension to emerge once again in normal space. And the engines stopped.

  "I think we're a leetle high," Jerry laughed, looked at the green globe of the planet far below them. "But gravity will bring us down quick enough." Chuck was squinting out of the window, a quizzical expression pulling at his features. "Funny," he muttered,

  "but I don't see the Moon."

  "Not only that," John answered, a look of concentration marked on his face, "but the constellations just aren't right."

  They nodded silent agreement, and when Jerry spoke, he spoke for them all.

  "I hate to say it, guys, but I'm afraid that isn't Earth down there. Not only that, but I'm afraid it isn't even any planet in our solar system. Perhaps something has gone wrong with the cheddite projector. I'll check it out."

  "No," John said huskily. He was staring at the sensitive radar altimeter like a bird petrified by a snake, sweat suddenly bursting out on his brow. "I'm afraid I goofed. All those years behind the iron curtain didn't really do me any good. Jerry, you told me to sound off when the altlmeter hit thirty thousand feet, right?"

  "Bang on."

  "Well, and I hate to say this gang, all the planes I have ever flown have always had altlmeters that read in meters, so I converted feet to meters and let you know when we hit that spot."