Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

by Harry Harrison

  "I know your Earthling axiom about Nero fiddling while Rome burned," he disapproved, "and we have the equivalent in our axiom about how only a crogis nardles while his friend's mother cakarakas."

  "Sounds sort of dirty," Jerry mumbled around a mouthful, "so don't bother to translate. While eating I have been thinking, and I have a plan of escape, but first I've got a couple of questions. Like do you have a mind shield for Chuck, since the enemy might think something was wrong if they caught his brutish thoughts emanating from the neighborhood of this thing's big intestine?"

  "Not to worry. The entire device is mind-shielded. They will catch no stray thoughts."

  "That's a good beginning. But what about if they should try to contact what they think is their buddy here and get no thoughts in return?"

  "I assure you, all this was taken into consideration when the device was constructed. There is a programmed brainwave transmitter hooked to the antenna. This is the board that controls it By selecting the correct button, it will broadcast thoughts of immense concentration, including the message 'buzz off and don't bug me now,' the random thoughts of deep sleep, and so forth."

  "What is this button labeled 'section 8'?"

  "Well, as I am sure you know, all the Hagg-Loos are insane to a greater or lesser degree, usually greater, driven that way by the maddening hard radiation of their sun, the great star Spica. Many of the creatures have periods of frothing insanity at which time the others leave them completely alone. That is the frothing insanity button.

  "Then that is all I need to know!" Jerry shouted and did a little victory dance. "My plan is now complete. Prepare to escape."

  As soon as the plan had been explained to him, the dubious Slug-Togath became an enthusiast as well and joined in the preparations. Using the great front claws, they dug into the powdered coal dust and hurled it all over the white body of the machine. Then, with all claws full of more coal dust, they raced for the entrance, and before they emerged, Jerry pressed the section 8 button.

  Oh, what a hideous sight it was to the Hagg-Loos warriors who were emerging from the fighting ships. For, in their institutional madness, they fear nothing in the universe other than the dread DnDrf which would bring on addiction, rotted chitin, you know the drill. So they took one glimpse at what appeared to be one of their number just coated with the deadly substance, stoned out of his mind obviously and radiating nuttiness on every wavelength, and coming in their direction.

  They split. Those still in their ships blasted off instantly. Those near their ships dived into them, in many cases slamming the doors in their comrades' faces. These, and the others too far from the ships, instantly fled at top speed into the frigid 110 degree Artic wastes.

  It worked like a charm. Slug-Togath labored at the controls, his tentacles a blur of motion as he spun the machine about and headed for the grounded spaceships, their owners fleeing before him. Still mentally broadcasting crazy like crazy, he clambered the machine into the first one with an open port, slamming and sealing the port behind. The control cabin was in the nose, and in a matter of seconds he and Jerry examined and figured out how they worked, and whammo! the ship blasted free from the ground and rose erratically inte the air. Moments later they were alone, arcing up into space in a high parabola.

  "What's next?" Jerry asked pouring himself a large martini cocktail and draining it almost instantly.

  "Food for Chuckee," that pathetic voice entreated, so Jerry went and fried up another batch of Ormolooburgers.

  "They'll try to intercept us and blast us out of space, so we are getting out of space before they can report and locate us. This orbit will bring us down a few miles outside Haggis City, where we will abandon the ship and proceed to the rendezvous with the Hagg-Inder spy, or at least to the place where he is supposed to be, to determine the nature of the trouble."

  Night arrived suddenly as they caught up with the planet's rotation, and darkness concealed their fall.

  "Controls are set," Slug-Togath reported. "When this ship lands, we have just four seconds to get out of it before it takes off on a random course that I have programmed into the computer. I am sure that they will disintegrate the ship so that all the DnDrf in it will be destroyed. As long as we are not seen emerging we will be safe."

  With these words barely out of his mouth, Slug-Togath dived the ship behind a screening row of hills and into a shallow valley. The instant they touched the door sprang open, and the machine, under his deft control, sprang through it – and just in time, for the closing portal actually brushed the poison sting of the immense form. Whooshing and roaring, the ship took off and, no more than a few seconds later, a flight of fighting rockets rushed by overhead, following it. the first light of dawn painting their white forms a bright blue.

  "There is one thing you have to do before we leave here," Jerry said. filling a plastic bucket with water at the sink. "Take this and a scrubbing brush and get out there and remove every particle of coal dust so this thing is pristine and clean again."

  "Whaddaya mean I have to do?" protested Slug-Togath.

  "I'm a prime minister at home and rm not used to that kind of menial labor."

  "Agreed, but you also have a hide so tough it bounces off bullets, which is more than I can say for my all too tender flesh. This machine is air-conditioned, but the thermometer tells me that it is a cozy two hundred and fifty degrees outside, which would fry me instantly. On your way, old Medusa, consider yourself a volunteer!"

  Grumbling, the Garnishee slipped through the door, admitting a wave of roasting heat, and began a clean scrubdown fore and aft. Jerry had another belt at the gin and then closed his eyes for a quick and well-deserved nap. Chuck, stomach full at last, dozed as well, and it was real neat until another blast of heat announced Slug-Togath's return.

  "Pfffft," he said, and dust came out of his mouth when he spoke. His hide was wrinkled, and he was only about half as thick as he had been when he went out. Jerry looked on with interest as the Garnishee hooked a plastic hose to the faucet on the sink, then stuck it into one of the orifices in his body and turned the water on. He began to swell slowly and to lose the desiccated look.

  "Little hot out there?" Jerry asked innocently, and smiled at the glare shot back at him from about a dozen bloodshot eyes. "As soon as you fill your tank, we'll get on with the job. Did you say what was the name of the secret agent we had to contact?"

  "I didn't say," Slug-Togath burbled with hydratory relief. "It is a secret."

  "Well not from me, for chrissake," Jerry said petulantly. "Give."

  "Operator X-9," Slug-Togath whispered. "Better to commit suicide than to give that name away."

  "I'll remember, I'll remember. What next?"

  "We go to Haggis City. As we were landing, I noticed a monorail line not too far from here. Perhaps we can obtain transportation that way and not drain the batteries on this machine."

  "Sounds good – lead the way."

  Bluey-fingered dawn had brightened the landscape as they climbed out of the rift and looked down at the plain. Sure enough the towers of a monorail line cut close by, and they could see a station not too far distant. They hurried the machine in that direction and only slowed when they saw other Hagg-Loos ahead. More and more appeared, crawling out from under rocks where they lived, waving good-bye to their mates, giving their young cheerful nips on the chitin with their claws as they departed.

  "It looks like we hit the rush hour," Jerry mused. "All the commuters going to work in the morning. Do you have a broadcast mental program for this?"

  "I should think so . . . here, how about this one. 'Memories of an Orgy', a program designed to be eavesdropped on but not interrupted."

  "Say, I'd like to hear that one myself! Though on second thought maybe I wouldn't. All those claws, crackling chitin, waving antennae. No, let them enjoy it."

  Strolling casually, they joined the Hagg-Loos, who were moving along the rock pathways and converging on the station. More than one antenna dipped and tr
embled in their direction – that recording must have been a doozy! but they were not bothered. Clambering up the stairs, they had only a short wait before the shining cars of the monorail train whooshed into the station. There was a rush for seats, and of course the experienced commuters got there first and snapped open the metallic sheets of their morning newsfax and hid behind them. The ride was not a long one, and before they knew it, the train had stopped at the immense Padng-tun station in Haggis City and the commuters rushed for the exits. Slug-Togath made sure that they went slower than the others, then pointed out why.

  "See – as each one approaches the exit, it produces a pass of some kind which it shows to the officer stationed there."

  "We have no pass?" Jerry queried.

  "You took the words right out of my speaking hole."

  "Then let's try in the opposite direction, back along the track. There will be freight exits, workers' entrances, something. And they will be a little more deserted if there is any trouble."

  Clattering along casually on its twenty claw-tipped feet, the hulking form of the Hagg-Loos robot trotted away from the rushing workers. The platform ended in a metal gate with an unreadable inscription, and after a quick look around, Jerry cut the gate in half with a quick snick of the claws. There was a ramp beyond that plunged into the bowels of the station, so into the bowels they plunged.

  "Don't you think we should change the porno broadcast to something more suitable for the occasion?" Jerry asked.

  "Sound idea. There is a program here of the mental retardation of a longtime DnDrf sniffer whose chitin is about to go soft."

  "No, I think not, not in a railroad station."

  "Then how about this. A low-type mind working on computations for betting on the daily jeddak races."

  "That's more like it, sort of person who would work here, I imagine. Plug it in."

  They entered an area of wide corridors and great stacks of boxes. Occasionally a flatbed cargo carrier would appear, driven by a Hagg-Loos, but they were so noisy that they announced their arrival, and there was always time to hide. Soon after this they found one of the cargo carriers standing idle, and after a swift look at the controls, they climbed their machine aboard. With a twist of the handles they were off, moving much faster now, part of the busy workings and ignored by all the other workers they passed. Jerry was whistling happily when they spotted a high arched exit ahead with a patch of blue sky shining through.

  "This looks like it," he told Slug-Togath. "Press the button, and let's get out of here."

  They rumbled forward and were almost free of the station when the ugly form of a Hagg-Loos popped out of an opening in the waIl. A very official-looking monster with cop written all over it, from the golden shield nailed to its chitin in front to the ugly-looking weapon it clutched, and even to the fiat claws on its feet. As the thing trundled in their direction, Jerry flipped a switch that allowed thoughts to enter but not leave.

  "You jeddak racing fan moron," the thought arrived,

  "what do you think you are doing driving out of the station with that load of bombs? Can't you read? Now let me see your ID, and get away from those controls before I let you have it."

  It was disaster.

  14

  BIRTH OF THE GALAXY RANGERS!

  Really a disaster for the cop. Jerry was ready at the gun controls, and he swiveled the tail about and pressed the right button, and from the poison sting the supersonic crumbler beam lashed out. The hapless minion of the law instantly crumbled into a heap of white chitin dust, and the cargo carrier rumbled on.

  But the alarm was out! Sirens warbled and alarms clanged while the guards converged from all directions.

  "We had better leave the cargo carrier here," SlugTogath shouted, busy at the controls.

  "Not just leave it – make them a real present of it!" Jerry yodeled, spinning the wheel that sent the clumsy machine crashing into the doorway.

  Great motors hummed in the legs of their robot Hagg-Loos machine as it jumped clear just in time. At full power they sprinted away from the station and the growing excitement at the jammed exit, and just before they turned the corner, Jerry sighted carefully and put a quick zap of the heat ray into the load of bombs.

  They blew up nicely indeed, shaking the ground with a mighty thunder and bringing down half the station behind them. Chortling, they fled, strolled rather, so they would not be noticed. Inside the strolling machine Slug-Togath unfolded a map of Haggis City that the spy had sent them and guided them swiftly toward the secret lair of the spy, X-9.

  "Careful now," Jerry cozened, "we are getting close."

  "I can read a map just as well as you can," Slug-Togath grumbled.

  "That's nice," Jerry mused. "Say, do you notice that that manhole lid – the one over there about twelve feet in diameter – is sort of lifted up, and I think I can see two glowing eyes watching us from under it."

  "The police!" Slug-Togath wailed, and his tentacles stumbled over the controls so that their robot danced a little two-step on the pavement.

  "Easy does it there, old squid-head," Jerry consoled.

  "Don't get carried away until we find out what it is. Might just be the sewer men at work, you know." From a loudspeaker on the wall came an impatient hissing.

  "The manhole is also hissing," Jerry observed. "And it may just be hissing for attention. Let's sidle over in that direction."

  Attempting to look innocent, the twenty-foot-long machine disguised as a great white scorpion foxtrotted sideways until it was close to the manhole. The glowing eyes followed them, and when they were close a hoarse voice whispered, "One, two, three, four, five. . . ."

  "The password!" Slug-Togath shouted, then switched on an external loudspeaker. "Six, seven, eight, nine, ten," he said into it.

  "What kind of cockamamie password is that?" Jerry asked, aggrieved. "A five-year-old could figure that one out."

  "It's what they call native psychology." The manhole lifted higher, and a white claw beckoned them forward. After a quick look around to make sure they weren't being watched, the machine shot forward and down the giant manhole. "The Hagg-Loos have such short tempers that they can't count past four without getting so irritated they stop. In this manner do we know that the great beast lurking here is none other than the Hagg-Inder spy who goes by the name of X-9."

  "Hiya, X-9," Jerry said into the microphone.

  "You took your own sweet time about getting here," X-9 grumbled. "I been lurking in this damn sewer so long that I'm covered with fungus."

  "Hazard of the game," Jerry said offhandedly, ignoring the other's bitter tongue. "We came as soon as we could after you stopped answering the radio on the secret wavelength. What happened?"

  "They caught me cracking into the secret laboratory and became suspicious. I talked them out of it for a while; after all, I am head of intelligence on this filthy planet. But I couldn't convince the Lortonoi of my innocence, they were too shrewd for that, and when they wanted to subject me to their infamous mind-vacuum technique, I fled and have been hiding out here ever since waiting for you."

  "But you know the location of the secret laboratory!" Slug-Togath exulted.

  "That I do."

  "Would someone let me in onto what's going on?" Jerry muttered petulantly.

  "Chuckee hungry," a new voice said as Chuck woke up with a wide yawn.

  "Here is what has happened since you were sold into slavery," Slug-Togath explained, counting off the different points on his tentacle tips. "First, experiments showed that the new cheddite was far stronger than the original piece, perhaps owing to the presence of certain gastric acids of your female companion. More experiments are planned to determine validity of this, although female companion presents great resistance to sample takers. Suffice for the moment that not only has the cheddite projector been aligned to project the Pleasantville Eagle, within which it is installed, to a precise and distant spot, but it can take with the Eagle at least one hundred other ships."

&nb
sp; "Chuckee thirstee," the almost brainless hulk muttered and struggled against the strap that held it to the chair. Jerry gave it a couple of inches of straight rye in a glass which soothed it somewhat.

  "So the massive attack is planned and ready," SlugTogath continued, "but could not begin until the precise location of secret laboratory was known. Since the first attack must blast straight to the lab and stop any attempt to escape with the cheddite projector there, nothing could be done until that information was obtained. Which, if you will pardon my saying so, X-9, is the purpose of our presence here and if you have the coordinates for the secret laboratory they would be greatly appreciated."

  "83556.98 by 23976.23," the master spy instantly replied.

  Slug-Togath wasted no time. He flipped the switches that hurled power into the ultlra-radio with the secret wavelength and, with a certain smugness in his voice said,

  "Slug-Togath reporting from Hagg-Loos. The coordinates of the secret laboratory are 83556.98 by 2396.23. Do you read me?"

  They read him all right, for the results of his message were dramatic to say the least. The instant he had stopped speaking the sky above became black with Hagg-Inder battle cruisers, one hundred of them, instantly transported there across the gulf of space by the power of the cheddite projector. As soon as they had appeared, they roared into action, each hurtling toward an assigned target so that a moment later great explosions rocked the ground as ravening death hurled down from the wide-open projectors and guns of the fleet. Crackling bolts of electrical destruction tore at the national armory, the spaceport, the liquid lead works, the factories, the sewage plant, everything for they showed no mercy. The very air crackled with the discharge of the mighty energies, and the solid earth beneath their claws trembled at its magnitude. Cautiously they lifted the manhole cover and peered out at the rain of destruction. But as they did so, some force grabbed onto X-9 and the robot Hagg-Loos and plucked them up into the air. Jerry and Slug-Togath both rushed to the weapons, but even as they touched the triggers, they saw the source of this strange force and relinquished their grips on the weapons. For they were being pulled straight up to the Pleasantville Eagle, which circled and swooped above. At the last moment, before they were crushed against the dural, the force lessened and drew them on, softly as a falling rising feather, to rest against the underside of the wing. They could see John waving from the pilot's compartment as his voice crackled on the radio.