by Ryder Stacy
Rock threw the gun down and dived toward something he saw jammed into the sand a few feet away—a substitute weapon? He prayed that it was. He grabbed the handle. It was a heavy, picklike thing. Surely it might do some damage to this monster confronting him. Primitive, but Chen’s star-knife had worked.
Rock hefted the big pick in his hand. Mu-Temm just stood there, waiting. Rock wondered if Mu-Temm might be slow. Maybe. In that case, he could just run around it—no use fighting, if he could just dodge the damned monster.
Mu-Temm moved toward the Doomsday Warrior through a swirling blur of sand that started to pile up around them. Rockson hefted the pick. He braced it against his forearm, knowing that to do any real damage to his enemy he would have to strike quick, hard, and often.
“Give up, Rockson,” the grating-gravely voice came from Mu-Temm’s lips. “You cannot beat me. No human can. Do you not understand?” His slit mouth rose and fell, a poor facsimile of real lips. The eyes blinked, all in unison.
With all his might Rockson swung the pick at the monster’s chest, hoping he’d picked the right moment.
Despite the fury with which it was delivered, the blow did little damage to the monster. He swung again. The best Rockson was able to do was keep the thing off balance.
Every time Mu-Temm reached for Rockson, the Doomsday Warrior dodged back a step and then pushed in again, slamming the business end of the pick up against the shieldlike, hard-skinned chest, managing only to scratch the surface and knock his opponent back a step or two.
“You waste your time, human. Come to me, come and die, Rockson.” To show his ability to inflict that death, the Killov-thing ground his left heel against a stone protruding from the ground. It crumbled to dust. He moved forward more rapidly. “I will squeeze you into pulp,” he intoned maniacally, reaching forward.
Rockson dodged the wildly grasping clawed arms and thudded the business end of the pick against Mu-Temm’s shoulder. But Killov braced, and the weight of the attack did not move him.
Mu-Temm reached forward with incredible speed and caught Rockson’s left shoulder. Digging in, he forced the Doomsday Warrior into screaming agony. The metallic fingers pressed bones, muscles, and nerves together, bugging Rockson’s eyes with pain. The pick slipped from his fingers, bouncing twice and stopping with a thump in the sand several feet away. Rockson did not care. The pain tearing through his shoulder was too immediate, too real, to allow him to worry about anything else. He was caught, which meant he was dead.
Mu-Temm maintained an even pressure, his fingers never tiring. He did not break the skin, not yet. It would be too soon. He wanted to tear the puny human’s shoulder, crush the clavicle and its surrounding deltoid muscles. But that, too, would all be too easy—there would be no fun in that for Colonel Killov.
Rockson’s mind swam through the pain clogging his system, looking for a way out of his situation. Automatically his jerking body thrashed out at Mu-Temm. His right fist struck again and again at the hard skin, and became numb. His feet kicked repeatedly. He knew none of this could help him. Rock tried to see a real way out. His breath came in wild gasps; the cool air tore at his throat as he sucked each lungful in and out, his brain fought against the agony lancing his body. Finally he saw his only chance to break the hold his enemy had on him and put himself back in the ballgame as a player, and not just a memory.
“Shall I kill you now, Rockson?” The KGB leader sounded amused.
“Maybe,” choked Rockson through the pain, “and maybe not just fuckin’ yet, Creep-o.” He put his plan into action.
He hooked his left foot behind the Killov-thing’s right and jerked with all his remaining strength, pulling the monster-man’s foot across the sands, causing him to lose his balance. The pair teetered for a second, then went crashing down, slipping across the landscape. The hold on Rockson’s shoulder loosened. The metallic fingers closed only on torn fabric.
The instant Mu-Temm fell, Rock pulled away, rolling away across the ground. The pain throbbing throughout his body lashed at him, trying to force him to give up. And before he had even stopped rolling, Mu-Temm was on his feet, circling around to finish Rockson off.
Rock dived across the sands, sliding to the ancient pick, and grabbed it with his right hand. Rockson made to stand, but without thinking began to push up with his left hand. The pain shot through him again, dropping him on his stomach. He bit his tongue as his head hit the gritty ground. Through a veil of wildly dancing lights, Rockson could see Mu-Temm coming again for him.
“Get up, Rockson. Get up so I can tear your fingers off and feed them to you, one bloody little human lump at a time.”
Rock scrambled to his feet. “I doubt it, Scuzzball,” he said with bravado. Rock tried the pneumo-pick against Mu-Temm’s joints. Maybe he could disable Mu-Temm even if he couldn’t kill him. Maybe he could break his joints, if not his body. Rockson swung his pick and drove it into Mu-Temm’s right knee joint with all the force he had. Sparks flew from the knee joint; the monster took several involuntary steps back and then fell to his knees.
“Gotcha, you KGB bastard,” Rock yelled, encouraged for the first time. “It’s time for the monster mash.”
Pressing his advantage, Rockson drove the pick forward again and again. Rockson varied his attack this time, tried every joint he could find, swinging at the waist, the knees, the flap plating over the ribs—but nothing gave. By now Mu-Temm’s fleshy armor was in shreds, only flapping tatters remained. The pick had torn half a dozen of the monster’s joints. But though damaged, Mu-Temm stood up. No joint had broken, unfortunately.
Rock backed off, then dodged around a dune. Mu-Temm stopped short, trying to guess at the man’s plan; hesitation set in. Rockson might be trying to sneak off around the other side of the dune so that he could get to Killov from behind. Mu-Temm’s yellow eyes searched the area. Negative . . . Rockson was still behind the dune. The thing began circling the other way. It was at the instant that Mu-Temm turned his back that Rockson made his move. Coming back the same way he had begun circling the dune, Rockson drove the pick into the back of Mu-Temm’s left knee. Mu-Temm fell on his chest, shaking the sands, blood flying from damaged veins where Rockson’s weapon had impacted. He screamed out a curse.
Rock struck again at the rear of his other knee. Mu-Temm crawled forward at tremendous speed on his hands and knees, dragging himself out of the pick’s range to keep Rockson from hitting again. Rockson was winning, but the damage had been less than the spectacular bleeding indicated. Rockson followed.
Mu-Temm suddenly kicked back, catching Rockson in the legs. Mu-Temm regained his feet before the Doomsday Warrior actually hit the ground. Spinning quickly, he moved to finish Rockson off.
Rockson rolled over, bringing the pick up in front of him to ward off the thing. Mu-Temm rushed past where the Doomsday Warrior had just been and Rockson thrust the pick upward, catching the Killov-thing in a chink of the armored-skin plating, right over the thing’s left elbow joint. As Mu-Temm made to pull back, Rockson jammed the pick deeper, then twisted to the left, rolling away from the thing, jamming the cutting edge of the tool into Killov’s elbow joint. More blood. The Killov-face of the thing grimaced. The two separated and regained their feet. Rockson held onto the pick, gasping for air. His shoulder was throbbing, his vision blurred. Mu-Temm held up his arm for inspection. The fingers and wrist would not respond, their tendons snapped. From the elbow down, the arm had been rendered useless. He had been hurt. Mu-Temm could be hurt. Killov had thought he was invincible!
“Very good, Rockson. You have damaged me. I never thought to see that.” The harsh voice drifted slightly, as if Mu-Temm was having trouble believing his injury had actually happened.
“Look at this,” said the Killov-thing, swinging his ruined arm freely in the wind. “It does not hurt. I cannot be hurt. I will yet destroy you. No more fun. Now I’m serious. No more Mister Nice Guy, Rockson!”
Mu-Temm moved forward solidly, swiftly, his one good arm reaching, search
ing under those cold, yellow triple eyes.
Rockson stepped back but could not dodge the running onslaught of the monster. He tried again to bring the pick to bear on his foe, but it was torn from his hands. Mu-Temm fingered it in his good hand, twirling the heavy tool as if it were a baton.
“This was your only hope.” The thing snapped it, threw the pick to the ground.
“Now you have no hope, Rockson.”
But Rockson refused to believe it. He leapt at Mu-Temm in a feet-forward drop-kick, throwing all his weight against the monster-man. Mu-Temm took a step backward on impact. Rockson fell off to one side. Mu-Temm picked him up by the collar like a rag doll and hurled Rock one-handed into the sands. Rockson’s feet slipped on the grit beneath him as he made to stand. Blood filled his mouth, flowing from the spot where he had again bitten his tongue on impact. Dazed, Rock stumbled, looking for anything he might use against Killov. He wouldn’t give up, he wouldn’t sink into oblivion without one more try. But Mu-Temm was already there.
Reaching out, Mu-Temm caught hold of Rockson’s previously injured shoulder and again squeezed. Rockson screamed aloud, bleating against the merciless pressure. He slammed his hands and feet against Killov’s superbody as it lifted him into the air, to no avail. The monster-man allowed it, welcomed the blows . . . now that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was victor. He enjoyed Rockson’s feeble attempts to do him damage. Killov’s voice, almost lost in the wind, stated: “Yes, I kill you now, Rockson. You die in an alien world.”
Rockson could fight no longer. The pain overtook him; he screamed in mindless fury. Forgetting Mu-Temm, he screamed an animal wail of rage, cursing his pain with sound and bellowing, unable to form words or even think. Then he sobbed, by choice. The thing dropped him at its feet. “So you cry out like a baby? I like that. Such a pitiful human thing,” Killov added. “You lay in the dirt screaming, with your eyes filled with tears, and now I stomp you like a bug.”
Rock inched to the side. He had spotted a cable just a few feet away sticking up from the sand. Maybe it could be used as a whip or something. Mu-Temm seemed to have some unexpected difficulty lifting his foot. One of the knee joints Rock attacked had balked. There was a chance.
Rockson suddenly felt that strange “mutant’s luck” feeling in his gut—the same one that had guided him in many crises. With his last energy he wildly rolled to the side. Mu-Temm’s metallic foot stomped the ground where Rock’s head had been. Rock’s searching hand found the cable. He gripped the cable in both hands and, ignoring the pain, got into a crouch and pulled, freeing it from the sand, to find a heavy metal ball dangling at the end of it. Grinning, Rockson staggered to his feet, starting to swing the cable-with-ball over his head.
“Okay. Now for one more round.”
Killov was an indestructible killing machine, and Rockson was mere flesh and blood, but still he had not been able to stop Rockson. Killov had always underestimated the American hero.
Rockson was running through the sand, doing something with his hands, waving them over his head—spinning something. He was attacking Mu-Temm with a new weapon. Somehow, primitive weapons were not in Killov’s ability to “think away,” though he tried. Killov couldn’t believe that Rockson was still alive, let alone still fighting. Killov was fearful now, and that showed on his face.
Rockson rapidly closed the distance between himself and his enemy. He still had a shot at doing some damage. Counting on his mutant-luck, Rock spun the heavy metal ball hard, until it made a whooshing noise. He closed on Mu-Temm, bouncing the spinning, heavy ball off the creature’s good arm. The KGB-man-thing twisted from the impact. Rockson struck again, crashing the bludgeon against the three shining yellow eyes turning toward him. The ball sent blood flying into the air from Killov’s right eye only to be pulled away and then used again for the same duty. The cable-and-ball attack was swifter than the one he could mount with the pick, it seemed.
Rockson attacked over and over, raining weighted blows on the creature’s face, trying to get the eyes protected by Mu-Temm’s good hand. The pain in his shoulder was pure agony, but he ignored it. Rockson kept Killov at bay with the cable-and-ball, and the three eyes started bleeding, then pus shot from them. But the thing reached out and caught the end of the cable with his good hand. Rockson was instantly jerked from his feet. Ripping the cable out of the human’s hands, Mu-Temm snipped the ball loose with his slicing claws and then threw it at Rock, missing Rock’s head by less than a hair. Rockson dived to save his life.
Rockson was halfway to his feet when the thing advanced like a boxer and swung, bringing his fist into Rockson’s side. Cracking noises—sharp pain.
Rock fell, coughing up phlegm and blood. The blow had been too quick. The pain knifing through his side was unbearable. Mu-Temm stalked him carefully, his clawed feet digging into the sand for support of his huge mass.
“Rockson!” he shouted. “Rockson.” His head turned from side to side. He was partially blind, Rock realized.
Rock lay still, panting, not able to move. He had escaped the thing’s grasp only to find he could do little more than crawl. He waited for the moment when Mu-Temm would end his life. Perhaps the monster-man would kick him to death, or crush his head in his clawed hand. This was it.
But Killov walked right by him. He couldn’t see Rock. He’d severely damaged his eyes, Rockson realized.
Rockson got to his feet silently, keeping his eyes on Mu-Temm. The man-thing turned, inadvertently showing his foe what had happened: the ball had crushed the shield bones over Mu-Temm’s eyes. Although he was able to guide himself slightly with his blurred sight, he could not distinguish one immobile object from another. As the thing rushed from one dune or stone to another, stomping them with his feet, Rockson laughed silently to himself.
Rockson touched his ribs; the slight pressure made him gasp. Mu-Temm turned at the sound. Crossing half the twenty-foot distance between himself and Rockson, he listened intently for any more sounds Rockson might make, wiping at his spoiled eyes.
Rockson began inching left. The thing followed, probably having heard his footsteps. There was a small hillock, and at its top Rockson found a boulder. With his last strength, he kicked it, sending it rolling at Mu-Temm. The monster-man tried to stop it with his good “hand,” but slipped on the sand, as he couldn’t see below his feet, and was knocked down on his back. The boulder rolled past. Standing up quickly, he scanned again for sounds.
Rockson carefully moved away, hoping the movement wouldn’t be caught. But it was the wrong move. The thing’s head tilted up when Rock dislodged something. It started climbing, sure-footed, swiftly. Rock was some thirty feet above the monster man. He looked in vain for some weapon the benevolent sands might yield up to him, as before.
The only thing he had left to throw at Mu-Temm was his own body. Where should he aim his steel-heeled boots? Then he had it, in a flash: Mu-Temm had human arrogance, human cruelty—he had a human brain. And a brain is connected to a body by a spine—at the back of the neck! Did alien monsters have spines?
Well, why not? It was worth a shot.
Bracing himself, Rockson tried to judge the distance between himself and Killov, then hurtled downward at his foe, feet first.
Mu-Temm picked up the movement above him, but dodged too late. Rockson’s steel-heeled boots struck the monster at the junction of neck and spine, snapping the joints that held the armor-bone in place.
Something happened; Killov’s mouth opened but made no sound. He jerked, his good arm thrashed around, uncontrolled. Mu-Temm even hit himself with it. Rockson fell heavily to the ground, rolling with the blow to protect his shattered ribs. He looked back at the teetering giant, expecting him to turn and finish him finally. But a gush of red shot from the back of Mu-Temm’s head onto the pink sand. Killov jerked wildly and slowly toppled to the ground. At first he flopped wildly, but finally Mu-Temm settled down into a pose so twisted that Rockson knew the man had been wrong: he could feel pain.
; Mu-Temm could be defeated, and probably even killed.
He looked dead, but was he?
Rock went to get the discarded pick, intending to smash the monster’s head in for good measure.
He returned in just an instant, but Killov was gone without a trace.
Twenty-Three
Killov had wished he was away from Rockson, and it had happened, just like that. But where was he? Killov sat smack in the lap of the giant statue.
There were tendrils like thin glistening snakes, hundreds of them, coming from the stomach of the statue. The snaking tendrils moved as if they were seeking something. With ultimate terror Killov realized they were seeking him.
The KGBer shook and whimpered in terror, paralyzed by the touch of one of the leading tendrils. A feeling of rushing into vast space overwhelmed him.
The other tendrils attached, one by one, twisting into him like hot needles. They pierced his scalp, jammed up his nose, crawled along the veins in his temples. They were wiring him to the great machine.
The living machine’s tendrils tore through his neck and rapidly slid up his veins into his cortex. He should have died, and yet he lived. Lived, and more than that: Killov’s mind had suddenly expanded. And more than expanded—it was integrated into a vast whole, a mind-machine symbiotic interface that defied explanation. Frightened, yet curious, Killov “moved” his mind into the vaster energy field of ultimate thought-knowledge. He adjusted his hands on his lap like an obedient student. Then the mind of Killov alternated between a clashing, jarring, loud willing of power to soft, mellow passages of thought-movement.
The force of his mind hitting the “psychic keys” caused his whole body to jerk. While his body swayed in the statue’s lap, it seemed as if the “melody of madness” he was fighting for survival against would win. It was a mighty foe, this melody. But the counterpoint to it was delicate, and sometimes almost lost. Yet there was one passage and one mind-passage alone where the music of mind—the “high notes”—seemed to come from out of the psychic air! So light were they, and so overpowering. Killov could “see himself” playing these mind rhythms, but it seemed hardly possible that these mind notes could have come from the inside of his brain, especially after the thunderous noise of the Neuro-dancer’s own thoughts. The human mind, he realized, was but one of many energy systems. He tried to understand and to control and use. The machine briefly fought him. The last effort of his will succeeded. The huge mind-movements seemed to break up into tiny mind-movements, each separate, each with a clear ending in mind. Each thought became clearer and caused him to anticipate the result would be true to his desire. He was assuming a new power-wholeness.