"Strap in! Am taking evasion measures," Jerry said into the intercom. "Here we go!"
They darted away at right angles and hovered expectantly, every screen focused on the oncoming danger. Was it a space battleship on their tail? Or perhaps a missile? Time would tell. And it did.
"A piece of wreckage," Chuck said. "Looks like a big chunk torn out of one of the spacers that blew up."
"I'll match velocities," Jerry announced, fingers busy at the controls. "This may answer some questions, if there is still anyone alive in that hunk of junk. Mind shields on, everyone, just in case there are Lortonoi aboard or in mental control. And, Chuck, be a good fellow and slip down and put Sally's on her, just for a change, and for God's sake, tie it into place this time."
Nearer and nearer the chunk of spatial debris came, until they could see that it was a slice cut out of a battle ship by ravening rays, sort of like a Tum pulled out of the package, a disk, you know. All the compartments they could see were filled with incomprehensible machinery, now gutted and burned out and empty.
"Looks pretty bad," Jerry mused. "I'll try the radio, just in case." He flicked swiches rapidly and spoke into the microphone. "Hello, hunk of space debris formerly part of a great battleship. Do you read me? We are close by and offer help. Over."
The speaker fried and burbled with the static of distant stars, but otherwise all was silent.
"Try 176.45 kilocycles," John suggested. "That is the emergency band a lot of spaceships use. These people may know it too."
Jerry repeated his message on this frequency, and this time, when he threw the switches, a distant hissing could be heard and a weak voice.
"Can read you. Oxygen almost gone. Open space lock so I can board. Sole survivor."
"Jump to it, guys!" John ordered and the smoothworking team functioned as if it were running on oiled ball bearings. The magnet ray operators drew the clumsy piece of junk close while the cargo operator opened the outer hatch. A moment later there was a thump and a bump as something entered the lock, and the outer hatch closed. Mighty pumps throbbed as they pushed air back into the lock chamber, and when the pressure had been equalized, the inner door opened automatically, and every eye was upon it. What would the alien possessor of the weak voice look like?
He looked a lot different from anything their wildest speculations could have imagined. Bending, to get through the opening, came an individual who stood at least eight feet tall from the top of his head crest to the bottom of his clawed feet. And he was impressive! Just as mankind enjoys a sort of simian ancestry, primates and all that, and the Bachtrians emerged from the swamps in froggy form, so did this strange individual obviously have a certain animal phylum or species in his background. Birds! And what a bird he was! His immense yellow beak would tear open a boiler plate as easily as an aluminum beer can. His eyes were piercing and hooded, like a great hawk or eagle. He wore no clothes, nor did he need any, for his magnificent plumage was clothing enough. His large wings were folded on his back, and the claws on his three immense toes tore gaping rents in the carpet as he walked. Unlike most birds, however, he had two well-built arms, as well as wings, and he hooked his well-built thumbs into his wide gunbelt as he strode into their midst and stopped.
"Who is master here?" he asked with the air of one who commands.
"I am Galaxy Ranger Number One," John said, striding over fearlessly to stand before the giant figure. "Men call me John."
"Greetings, John. I am Troceps of the Fligigleh and am called that only by my friends. You have saved my life, therefore, I owe you a life. Whom shall I kill?" His fingers twitched at his gun butt.
"Hold on, Troceps, old chicken, we don't hold with that sort of thing. Thanks will do, and the slate is wiped clean."
"I say thanks and your slate is wiped clean, John old ape, but mine is not. If I can kill no one for you, why, then I must kill myself."
His gun leaped from the holster, and he poked it against one staring eye while John leaned forward to restrain him.
"No need for that sort of thing here. Get feathers and blood all over the place. Wait a bit and we'll get you a prisoner or a spy to knock off. . . ."
"Spy, now that is a good idea." He glared around the room with hawklike stare, and all there swayed away from that merciless glance. "Ah, yes, there is always one, count on that. A weak creature, ex-slave, who has sold out to his decadent master on his miserable home planet who reports directly to the loathsome Lortonoi. He is filled with fear now, but he is not sure it is he I am talking about. I laugh in his beak, I mean teeth! He knows not the penetrating power of my thoughts, thought power that is even stronger than the Lortonoi. Therefore, I give him a clue so he will know I know he knows I know. The clue is this – your mother's maiden name is Ixstaiclj!"
The krung-field operator jumped up from his station and whipped out his gun, but fast as he was, Troceps was the faster. A single bolt of energy sped from his blaster, and the hapless spy was instant charcoal.
"The debt is paid, and we are even," Troceps proclaimed, blowing into the muzzle of his blaster, then coughing at the smoke that eddied out around his head.
"Well done," John said. "Now, with ceremonies out of the way, could you tell us who you are, what your outfit is, what is going on out there in that space battle, where you come from, that sort of thing? Just so we can get to know you better. And what was that name you mentioned, sounded like Lortonoi? Who are they – friends of yours?"
He smiled cheerfully as he talked and casually loosened his gun in his holster while a whispering sound slithered through the cabin as everyone else loosened their guns in their holsters. There was tension in the air, while all eyes were on the newcomer. Troceps shook his great wings, and a feather came loose. He caught it before it touched the floor and used it to pick his beak with. The silence and tension stretched – and broke suddenly as Troceps put his head back and roared with laughter.
"I should not laugh," he said, laughing and wiping the tears from his eyes with a touch of the feather. "But you are all so transparent. After my demonstration you must realize that I can penetrate the simple mind shield you wear and know your every thought. So you will know mine too, I invite you, the hot one over there with his head sticking out of the floor, to enter my brain and read my innermost thoughts. I see you have great powers of mental strength. Enter – my mind is an open book!"
"Happy to oblige," Lord Prrsi said and clacked his claws in concentration. It took only a matter of moments for him to get in and get out, and his claws clacked the louder. "I say, chaps," he enthused. "This blighter is one of us. His people have been fighting the Lortonoi for simply ages!"
19
LOATHSOME LORTONOI UNVEILED!
Enthusiastic shouts of joy echoed from the cabin walls at the realization that there were new recruits to the banner of the anti-Lortonoi forces. And what recruits! Fighting men like Troceps here, as well as incredible space battleships such as the ones they had seen locked in combat.
"Locked in combat," John thought. "Just a second, Troceps, old parrot. Glad to have you on our side and all that, but who were the guys you were fighting out there? Not to run down your space armada or anything, but you seemed to be pretty well matched with the nasties. Would you care to fill us in?"
"Happy to. But first – do you have a bowl of water?"
"We have a bowl of anything you want, including hundred-year-old brandy."
"The water will do fine. It is not for me; we Fligigleh have rugged constitutions and can fight for weeks on a handful of birdseed. The water is for my little pet, Pishky."
As he said this, he held up his blaster and unscrewed the base of the butt which proved to be hollow, and from its interior there dropped a little green turtle that scrabbled about in the palm of his hand.
"Looks just like a little green turtle from Earth," Jerry said, speaking for all of them.
"Very possibly. But as I see in your minds, you Earthlings keep birds for pets, and that is just the way we
Fligigleh keep turtles. They are considered good luck charms, and whenever I go into battle, little Pishky rides along happy in my gun butt-"
"Look, not to interrupt," John interrupted, "but can't we do the turtle thing later? We would rather hear about that other fleet and stuff."
"But of course, I will explain." But he didn't until the water appeared, and little Pishky was paddling about with turtle eyes staring up stupidly at the happy face of its aquiline master. Troceps stroked its shell with his forefinger before turning his attention back to his hosts. "It is a story that goes back a long way, but the entire story must be told for you to grasp any single part of it. My race is an ancient one, so ancient that by any of your standards of measurement you cannot measure the amount of time we have been around. Since earliest time we were bothered with production problems and population problems. There are two things we really like to do, and they are build bigger and better machines and lay plenty of eggs. Ahh, the sight of those eggs! But I digress. Any male Fligigleh considers himself a failure and blows his brains out if he doesn't have at least twenty chicks and a personal car at least thirty meters long. Well, I see that you begin to get the problem. We invented a space drive, moved on and occupied all the nearest worlds and so forth, but we aren't really the space-conquering types. All we want to do is stay home and lay eggs and drive around in our fortymeter-long cars. So some unsung genius cooked up this idea of mashing together all the planets in a star system until they melted, then stretching them out into a belt and sending the whole thing spinning around. This was done, and we left all our occupied worlds and settled on this new world, which is named Cotorra after the inventor of the technique, so maybe he is not so unsung either. Ahh, look at little Pishky scratch his weensie claws against the glass, scrabbling with wide-eyed stupidity!"
"Nice turtle, sure," Chuck said, smiling falsely. "But could you sort of tell us what happened next after you all settled down on Cotorra?"
"Be patient, I said it would be long in the telling. We settled down and enjoyed our way of life. Uncontrolled breeding and car building, and there was no end in sight for millions of years. More space was available for nests and roads as we expanded out from the original site of settlement. And this did go on for millions of years, pure bliss I assure you, a period in our history we always refer to as the Golden Egg Years, but it was to come to an end. The Lortonoi arrived!"
Troceps squawked the name out with great irritation, lashing out his foot unconsciously at the same time so that his great claws ripped a seat to pieces and tore gaping rents in the carpet and the dural floor beneath.
"Oh, those evil Lortonoi! Although we have excellent powers of the mind, some genealogical change had occurred in our race as it spread in both directions out from the original site. By this time we had occupied almost three-quarters of the hoop that is our world, and in a few million more years the expanding frontiers would have met and we would have to think about maybe making another world like this or perhaps patching in an extra piece or something. But this was fated never to occur. The Lortonoi discovered that a crunched gene or something had so weakened the mental strength of the Fligigleh at the left end of the expansion that their minds could be entered and controlled by the Lortonoi. We on the right still maintained our traditional mental health and expelled their slimy thoughts the second they touched our pristine brains. I am sure that you see the setup now. The leftists began arming, and we armed too in self-defense. At first a ground war occupied the opposing forces and the space between the expanding population fronts became a noman's-land. However, as weapons became more powerful, this proved impractical since our hoop isn't that thick and it could have been blown right through, which wouldn't help anybody. So air war began, then space war as both sides sought to protect their populations, and the whole thing expanded farther and farther into space along this front. So, for millennia now, we have been locked in this endless war, which serves to keep our population down and our factories humming. We both draw supplies and soldiers from our rear and build bigger and better war machines until the result, as you would have seen if you watched the battle during which my ship was destroyed, is space war on a scale never considered before. I must add, in closing, that the recent engagement was only the most minor clash between very weak scout ship patrols and of no importance. You should see what happens when the really big battleships mix it up."
A shudder ran through the room at this news, and John had to swallow heavily before he could speak.
"Well, I guess it is good for you that we are here to throw our armed might into the conflict on your side, tip the balance that will win the war for liberty."
"I don't mean to scoff," Troceps said in a very superior manner. "But I have examined the size of your fleet through your memories and, not meaning to be insulting, old primate, your forces wouldn't stand the chance of a snowball in hell up against the enemy. Zap! They would be cinders in microseconds."
"Well, I'm not sure of that," John said defensively.
"And it is not only the fleet which is so great, but we have the cheddite projector which can whisk their battleships into the sun before they get close enough to fire." He picked up the cheddite projector, which still looked like a five-cell flashlight, and waved it proudly as all the others cheered.
"Oh, that," Troceps said, and of course his beak showed no expression, but if it could have showed expression, it certainly would have shown a sneer. "We know all about that already. It seems the Lortonoi appeared with one of those things awhile back, and they did manage to pick off a battleship or two before our scientists developed a kappa radiation screen that completely stops the radiation from the thing, and that is that. But it is nice of you to offer, and we do appreciate it, but my suggestion is that you all split before you get squashed by the big boys. Maybe we can't lick the Lortonoi, but we sure have them stopped – and have had them stopped for a long time. The only thing we have not been able to do is crack the mind screen that covers their headquarters, so we have no idea of what they look like. Other than that we have things under control and will hold the forefront of this battle against the common enemy. You can go home."
"No we can't," Jerry pouted, sulking for all of them.
"The Galaxy Rangers were organized to wipe out the Lortonoi, and we cannot stop until that is done. Nothing else is possible."
"One thing is," Jerry said, in a strange voice. "The Galaxy Rangers could be wiped out instead."
"Bite your tongue!" Chuck shouted. "What's got into you that you should be talking like that?" Jerry chuckled evilly, and his tongue flashed in and out like a serpent's, and his voice dripped venom when he spoke. "That's just about the size of it. What's got into me. . . ."
"He is possessed by a Lortonoi!" Lord Prrsi shouted. "I can detect the alien presence stronger than I have ever detected it before."
"Yes, the Lortonoi are here, and it is the end of the ballgame for you libertarian, religious swine. We are taking over. We have won!"
"What do you mean?" Chuck gasped, inadvertently stepping back from his occupied friend.
"I mean that this is the moment we set the stage for. We wanted all the forces opposed to us to be gathered together at the same time so we could destroy them. They are here now and will be destroyed by the Fligigleh forces we command."
"You forget about the Fligigleh forces you don't command," crowed Troceps, striding forward. "I hope you people won't mind, but I am afraid I will have to open up your friend like a sausage with one blow of my clawed heel. This Lortonoi must go."
"Stop!" Lortonoi-Jerry commanded, and very much to his own surprise, Troceps stopped. "Now, at last, the truth can be revealed. We can control any Fligigieh mind. We just said we couldn't in order to get this great big war going. We arranged that both sides would be so evenly matched that they couldn't destroy each other so that they would have to build bigger and better fleets. They have done this and put together these two fleets. Supplied by the unlimited resources of Cotorra, they are
unstoppable and unbeatable. And now the fleets will be combined. Everything has been planned from the beginning. There was one little hitch there when the Earthling appeared with the cheddite projector, but we took care of that as you see. We stole a projector and used it in battle so that the Fligigleh scientist could come up with a defense. We've done it, we've got it made, the galaxy is ours, we cannot be stopped and . . . STOP!"
He bellowed this last at John who had taken the golden sphere out of his shirt pocket and was about to press the button.
"I was waiting for that," Jerry-Lortonoi sneered. "This was the one weapon we were afraid of. Krakar. Now we know all about it, ha-ha. So, go ahead and press the button!"
But, strain as he might, John could not. His finger was only a fraction of an inch above the 'press me' button – but it would not descend. His body shook with the effort as he strained with every fiber of his being to push that finger down – but it would not! The Lortonoi brain was the stronger, and that evil creature was just toying with him, for it had absolute control. Struggle was useless. Chuck jumped to help him, but long before that help could arrive John watched, horrified, as his hand opened and the golden sphere dropped to the floor.
Where the heel of his boot slowly ground it into gleaming fragments.
Grinding all their hopes along with it.
"I said it was our ball game!" Jerry sneered victoriously. "So, at last, in this moment of supreme triumph, we can at last reveal our presence and our real identity. I am here, among you, the Lortonoi you have been seeking. Do you not see me?"
There was a shuffle throughout the ship as Ranger drew back from Ranger, eyeing each other with suspicion, fingering their weapons. Lord Prrsi eyed along with the others, and he used his immense mental powers as well.
"It is here," he muttered. "I can sense that, but my mind is clouded by its presence, for the Lortonoi mental powers are beyond all others. Yet I swear I cannot find the enemy although I have scanned the minds of all here."
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers Page 17