"Our war lasted over ten thousand," Slug-Togath said offhandedly.
"How very nice for you," Lord Prrsi intoned cuttingly.
"Not to interrupt, but I was saying that right bang in the middle of this war the loathsome Lortonoi arrived and were received by the Hagg-Loos with open claws. They really are made for each other, vying for bottom in a loathsomeness contest one might say. They are the only race that has ever willingly joined forces with these interstellar brain leaches. The war intensified then and has been going on at a great rate ever since, and that is about all there is to tell. We trade information with other intelligent, moral, class-ridden societies like our own who fight the Lortonoi, and we can just about hold our own with the new weapons and all that sort of thing. But I talk too much and must be boring you! Please tell me what brings you to our neck of the galaxy, but first, excuse my beastly manners in not mentioning it earlier, but please accept my heartiest thanks for pulling me out of that fix. I bear important messages for our king which I know he will appreciate having."
"Our pleasure," Jerry said. "Our history, in ways, is much like yours. We do come from that yellow sun you mentioned, which we call Sun, and our friends here are from Proxima Centauri back there a ways. We have joined together to do what we can to wipe out the degenerate Lortonoi-"
"Hear! Hear!"
"-and to rescue our friend, Chuck van Chider, who has been captured by them."
"Oh, I say, hard cheese. Captives don't last long with that lot. Even if they mean to hold onto them for a bit, they forget, temptation for a bit of torture creeps up on them until bingo! chap's got no skin or an earful of molten lead, you know the sort of thing. And even if prisoners live for a bit, they turn them over to the Hagg-Loos to work in the incredible DnDrf mines at the North Pole, from out of which no one ever emerges alive."
Sally screamed and fainted.
"We will go after Chuck and rescue him no matter where he is," Jerry said with grim certitude, and all the others nodded agreement, except Sally, who was still unconscious on the floor.
"Well spoken, chaps. Why don't we go back and meet the king and that sort of thing, and perhaps you can tell him about the new weapon, dashed effective I must say, and we'll see what we can find out about your friend?"
Lord Prrsi left then, in somewhat of a hurry since he was beginning to feel the chill, which the others didn't mind since they all were beginning to sweat profusely. The long black ship led the way and signaled ahead so they would not be shot down, and soon they were dropping down toward an immense fortress in the midst of a shellpocked plane. It was a giant, brooding metal construction that bristled with great gun turrets and detection equipment which tracked their descent. Only at the very last moment did a giant hatch snap open so they could fly in. They did this quickly, as they had been instructed, and the multitonned portal closed on the instant – and just in time – as torpedoes lashed down from space and exploded harmlessly against its invulnerable surface. Lord Prrsi was waiting at the foot of the gangway to meet them when they emerged.
"Welcome to our planet," he said. "I have issued orders that the passageways you will use, as well as the throne room, be lowered in temperature for your convenience. I hope you won't think us rude if we wear these heaters, such as the one hanging from my poison barbed tail."
"Yes, thanks," Jerry said while perspiration burst from his every pore. If this was the "lowered" temperature, he hesitated to think what the heat was normally like in here. Stumbling and sweating, they followed their guide to a great room adorned with stained glass windows and trophies, desiccated white poison barbs undoubtedly from the enemy Hagg-Loos, as well as a dais with a wide golden throne upon it. Upon the throne, wearing a golden crown and a golden space heater on his tail, lay an impressive Hagg-Inder who must be the king.
"May I introduce the king," Lord Prrsi intoned, and they all joined him in bowing low before the majesty upon the throne.
"Oh, I say, do rise, enough of that protocol and poppycock. Welcome to our fair planet, and what is this I hear about an invincible weapon you have?" He leaned forward and rubbed two great claws together with a rasping sound.
"It's not exactly a weapon," Jerry explained in detail.
"It's really a spaceship drive that can be used as a weapon, like I did with those Hagg-Loos ships. I used the space drive to transport them to the surface of your sun."
"Utterly charming, do go on."
"That's about all there is to it. Except we only have the one cheddite projector, and there is a second one, but the Lortonoi stole it and escaped here, and that is why we followed them to try and get it back, and our friend Chuck as well, whom they kidnapped at the same time."
"The Lortonoi have this weapon!" the king gasped and, at the same time, inadvertently closed his claw and snipped in half a six-inch steel bar with which he had been toying. "That could be messy. Lord Prrsi, you know our spy, what's-his-name, charming fellow but of course too pale. Get him on the secret wavelength and find out if he knows anything about all this." Lord Prrsi clacked his claws in salute and scuttled out.
"This spy is a most amusing person," the king said bemusedly as he snipped the steel rod into tiny chunks.
"Born an albino, freak of nature and all that, dreadfully hard on his family. But he went to a good school and learned to fight quite well with all the sneers about color and such. Then someone had the delightful idea of surgically implanting an eternium metal case around his brain to shield it from radiation and shipping him off to Haggis as a spy. Worked like a charm. The sodding Hagg-Loos are so insane that anyone with a spark of talent can rise to the top. Our fellow, from a good family and all that, soon rose in the ranks, and now, I do believe, he is the head of their intelligence department or security or something like that. Ahh, my dear Prrsi, that was quick. And your report?"
"Some good news and some bad news, your Highness. First the good. The Lortonoi are in the secret underground laboratory on Haggis and are very annoyed because the Hagg-Loos scientists, mad as hatters all of them, have not yet licked the problem of how to control the cheddite projector. So we won't have to worry about their turning the thing on us for a while. And now the bad news. Your companion, Chuck was the name I believe, would not aid them in their work, and after the usual physical and mental torture they shipped him off to the DnDrf mines, from which there is no return."
"We will save him!" cried Jerry.
"Abandon all hope, it cannot be done."
"I will do it!"
"Well – it might be done, but there is only one way. Someone must volunteer to be sold into slavery and be sent to the mine to lead the prisoners in revolt to coincide with an attack from the outside. Any of you chaps want to volunteer for slavery and probably certain death?" There was a quick shuffling backward by everyone in the room. Slow seconds passed, and guilty looks flashed from under lowered lids. In the end there was one hesitant shuffling footstep after another as Jerry dragged himself reluctantly forward.
"Call up the slavers!" he said, chin up and arms folded staunchly before him. "I volunteer."
A spontaneous cheer ran around the room, and Sally grabbed and kissed him moistly.
12
DISASTER AT THE MINE
"If I'm going through with this scheme I've got to have a lot more info than I have now," Jerry sweated, wiping his forehead with a sweep of his hand. "What is this DnDrf stuff they are mining?"
"Terrible!" Lord Prrsi said, shivering at the thought, and all the other Hagg-Inder quivered as well and, let me tell you, until you have seen a room full of red-hot, quivering, twenty-foot-iong black scorpions, you have seen nothing. "It is a drug one sniff of which will render the sniffer an addict for life. And an addict will do anything to keep the supply coming until, after a few years, the chitin turns to powder and the suffering creature is finally released from the terrible bondage."
"What if you don't have chitin?" John asked, interested.
"What's chitin?" Sally whispered. "I thoug
ht it was something you ate."
"That's chitlin," John whispered back. "Chitin is the hard outer covering of most insects and aliens like the Haggis here."
"Any time you are through whispering I'll be happy to answer your question," Lord Prrsi said, and twitched his great poison sting with annoyance. "The answer is if you don't have chitin, then you are immune to the drug effects of DnDrf. Which is why the cold, soft-fleshed races like yours are sent to the mines. The interstellar slave traders always drop by here knowing they can get a good price for their cargo. And by jingo! there's the answer to your problem of how to get into the mine! Grab the next slave trader that comes along and get sold to him. I would ask for one hundred credits but don't settle for a penny less than eighty-five."
"I do believe a slave trader will be calling in here," the king broke in. "A wonderful idea. And if you could stop the DnDrf trade, we would be ever so grateful."
"If there is a slave trader here," SaIly said, putting her pretty little mind to work, "then that means – gasp! – you keep slaves!"
"Well, not too many," the king said with a certain amount of guilt oozing out between his words. "We treat them well and that sort of thing, and it does keep the working classes quiet since they miss the worst jobs." SaIly turned her back, folded her arms, sniffed loudly, and said no more. Lord Prrsi was leafing through a sheaf of thin metal sheets marked with strange calligraphy.
"Yes, by Jove!" he elated. "Here's one of the bods just took off this morning. Slow tubs, you know, you can catch him up easily in your ship and flog Jerry to him for a decent price. They'll buy him, then sell him to the HaggLoos who will instantly pop him through the one-way door of the DnDrf mine and that is that.Ї
"How will we get out?" Jerry asked.
"That is a bit of a problem. Any plans you make with the others will be heard instantly by the mind-reading villains. Of course you could take in a batch of miniaturized mind shields; we have some nice ones."
They were indeed nice, no bigger than the head of a pin. Yet when one of them was breathed up a nostril and lodged in a sinus cavity it would go instantly to work, activated by the moisture and the warmth, and provide as good a mind shield as the bulky caps supplied by the Garnishee. A supply was provided and woven into Jerry's jockstrap, the theory being that if they took away his clothes and shoes, they would at least leave him that. The Hagg-Loos may have been insane monsters, but they wouldn't go that far. Then Jerry's clothes were torn and whip marks painted on his skin, and they all returned to the delicious cool of the Pleasantville Eagle and shot off after the slavers.
It was only a matter of minutes before they caught up with them in their parabola course that took their ship well outside the battle zone. John pulled up alongside the rusty, streaked, stained, filthy vessel and called them on the radio.
"Hello, slave ship, do you read me?"
"We prefer to be called Employment Counselors," came the whining answer in reply.
"We have an employee here maybe we can bring to you for counseling."
"A slave for sale?" came the slobbering answer. "State the specifications."
"Male, strong, stupid, loves obeying orders, lowtemperature life form suitable for the DnDrf mines. I want a hundred credits for it."
"You'll take eighty-five or you'll take nothing."
"Eighty-five it is. Match airlocks and we'll pass him over. See that the money is passed back in its place."
"We are honest businessmen performing a vital function in society and would never consider cheating on a legitimate transaction of this kind. Besides, we see your gun turrets."
Shoulders back, back straight, Jerry walked into the airlock and heard the heavy inner door close behind him like the sealing of a vault. The outer door opened into the slaver's airlock, where an ugly creature at least seven feet tall was waiting for him. It was humanoid but repulsive and carried a whip, which it instantly put to work driving Jerry before it, tossing a sack of credits back over its shoulder as it left. Jerry moved along quickly enough under this impetus and soon after found himself chained to a bar in the metal wall between two other slaves. They looked at him apathetically as is the slave's wont, but he took a greater interest in them.
"How do you do," he said to the slave on his right, a creature who was very humanoid, though bright red even to the eyeballs, and who had what might be called a normal left hand – if seven fingers are normal – but instead of a right hand the arm had a bony sword from the elbow down. This sword looked hard and efficient and rather sharp so that when the creature only answered with a guttural snarl and a jab at Jerry with the sword, he adroitly dodged aside and caught the red jaw of the other cleanly with his fist and laid him out for the count.
"Very neatly done," a deep voice resounded from beside him. "One should never waste time talking with the red swordsmen of Vindaloo. They have tiny minds and only know fighting, whereas my people of Bachtria are civilized and intelligent. May I introduce myself – I am called Pipa Pipa, but you may call me Pipa if that pleases you."
The individual who spoke was chained to Jerry's left. A fat, green, dampish sort of alien with a great white belly. His eyes protruded from his head, and his mouth slashed across the entire width of his great head. He must have come from a water world because his knobby fingers were connected by webs.
"My pleasure," Jerry said. "My name is Jerry Courteney."
"Then I may call you Courteney?"
"Jerry would be better."
"I understand," Pipa croaked. "Hist, the overseer comes, we must not be seen talking or it means the lash." He sighed deeply. "Not that it matters. Everything means the lash."
He sighed again as the whip fell across his back, and the overseer went down the line lashing right and left.
"On your feet, you scum of the universe," he bawled hoarsely with rough glee. "We have arrived at your new home. You'll love it here. The DnDrf mines of Haggis!" A sound, something between a moan and a groan, emanated from the filthy ranks, for this was known as the end of the road for slaves, from which none ever returned. With reluctance they rattled their chains as they were unlocked and driven toward the door.
"This is the end!" Pipa groaned. "I shall never see my home pond again."
Jerry wanted to give him some measure of cheer, but he dared not, not yet. The mind shield in his sinus prevented his brain being read like an open book, but he knew that all the others could have their thoughts tapped at any time. He must keep his secret safe! The time would come. . . .
Whips cracking like lightning, the slavers drove the hapless slaves down the gangway and into the frigid Artic wastes of Haggis. Of course, they were frigid by Haggisian standards, which meant the temperature was around 100 degrees by Fahrenheit standards, which is bearable, though not very comfortable. As each slave emerged, the slavers stripped him and – or her of all their clothing so they could survive in the dry heat. Jerry's Hush Puppies were cut from his feet with the slash of a blade, and his sundered tie-died Levi's followed them. All that remained was his jockstrap, and he was ready to fight to the death to keep this – and not only for the mini-mind shields – but because it was bright purple, the slavers thought it was part of his body (which shows you how slavers think) and they pushed him on with the others. Ahead were the mines.
It was a scene of utter desolation. All about lay a sulfur desert, cooking and shimmering in the heated air. Above hung the great blue sun of Sirius, frying brains in their brain-pans and shooting out hard radiation to batter genes and start the mutations mutating. Ahead lay a mountain range, and set into the nearest mountain was a solid collapsium* door just six feet high. Above this door was engraved in letters carved out of the solid rock "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" or something like that.
[* Collapsium is an artificial material made of atoms with their binding energy reduced so they sort of collapse in upon themselves and are dense and heavy and that kind of thing.]
Jerry could not be sure because he could not read Haggisian, b
ut it seemed a reasonable guess. The whips cracked even more fiercely as they drove the reluctant slaves toward this grim portal.
"Now hear this," the master slaver bellowed through a loudhailer from a position on a rock where he could survey the gathered, trembling, fear-infested slaves, who were quickly whip-cracked into silence.
"I'm only gonna tell this to you just once, so cock your ears and bend your antenna or whatever. This here is the mine I been telling you about. That door there is the first of seventeen just like it. The drill is that it opens, one of you slobs goes in, then it closes before the next door opens. You go through that etc. etc. until you are in the mine. It is my poisonal suggestion that you step lively because three seconds after a door opens a fifty-sixthousand-volt current is sent through the compartment you will be standing in. So in you go, crying and weeping, but in you go. Once inside, you will find more slaves working away at mining the DnDrf. The Hagg-Loos don't bother about how the stuff is mined, and they don't care neither. Grinding machines inside grind it to a fine powder, and it is pumped out through a one-inch pipe. One ton of it a day. As long as that ton comes out every day, food and water are pumped in through other pipes. No workee, no eatee, as the expression goes. So do your best, work for your chow, resign yourself to a last look at the sun for eternity, and off you go into endless darkness."
The whips cracked again as the outer door opened, and the first slave was booted into position. One by one the others followed until it was Jerry's turn, and he took a last despairing look at the burning plain, the slaver ship, the insulated buildings where the Hagg-Loos were; then in he went. With an unoiled screeching the portal closed behind him, and darkness descended.
"I'm doing it for you, Chuck," he said staunchly, then sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. When the next door opened, he skittered through quickly as he heard the onrushing 56,000 volts zinging through the cables toward him.
It was a nightmare voyage with an even more nightmarish ending. As Jerry stepped through the last door, a great, hairy, ugly, brutal monster of a slave caught him in the back of the neck with a club (that looked suspiciously like a human femur), sending him sprawling. But surprised as he had been by the sudden and unprovoked attack, Jerry's reflexes were still superb, and he rolled with the blow so it did not stun him, fell and twisted and caught the brute's shin with a solid kick that knocked him to the ground.
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers Page 10