Despot in Space

by Donald S. Rowland

  ‘You know I haven’t.’ He looked around the office as if expecting to see Condor materializing from a corner. ‘You know where he is. I’m convinced of that. While I’m not looking around here then Condor is safe. You’ve done something behind these locked doors. Condor is the kind of man who would have made preparations against disaster. So something had been arranged here for just such an eventuality as came up yesterday, and he’s disappeared somehow from this very place.’

  ‘You’ve searched everywhere, and no doubt you’ve left your sensors active in the whole area, so how could he be hiding here?’ Ethne demanded wearily. She passed a hand across her face, and felt her nerves begin to tighten in protest at his presence. She had always been a little scared of him, but the long hours of strain had taken a heavy toll of her resistance and fortitude. She knew she would crack if he applied any pressure at all.

  ‘I’ve searched,’ he said tightly. ‘And because I have found no trace of him anywhere I’ve come to the conclusion that he must be here.’

  ‘You’re at liberty to search,’ she said instantly, waving a hand.

  ‘If I don’t have any fresh information by noon tomorrow then I shall die,’ he said roughly. ‘I’ve been over this whole business step by step. I’ve executed a dozen of the guards who were on duty at the time Condor returned here just ahead of the police. He left his car outside this building, and disappeared. He couldn’t have got out of the Complex without being seen, and after executing some of the guards I’m convinced that none of them were implicated in this resistance Group. My conclusions bring me back to you, Miss Stound, and neither you nor I are leaving here until I get some facts straight.’

  She sighed heavily and shook her head. ‘I’ve told you all I know! There’s nothing more.’

  He reached out his big hands and took hold of her, dragging her up from the desk, and he struck her heavily in the face, letting her fall to the floor under the impetus of the blow. Ethne sprawled dazed on the white tiles, and her senses swam. The pain from the blow was dull in her mind, and she thought remotely that this was where the interrogation really started. But Ozen would get nothing from her!

  ‘Get up!’ Ozen’s voice was harsh and trembling with anticipation, and when she didn’t move quickly enough he grasped her again and dragged her bodily to her feet. He slapped her several times, using his full weight, and Ethne sagged in his grip and almost lost her senses. ‘You will tell me everything you know,’ he went on, and his teeth were clenched. His face shimmered before her, and she tried desperately to cling to her fading senses. ‘You hold my life in your hands, and I’ll make you talk if I have to kill you!’

  ‘I’ll tell you everything you want to know, if it is within my power to tell you,’ she gasped.

  He dragged her into the Lab and paused on the threshold. For a moment there was silence, and Ethne tried to recover from the softening up tactics he had used. She knew she would rather die than reveal anything about Rez Condor, but she wouldn’t admit that to Ozen. He would have to find it out the hard way, and if she managed to maintain a silence until noon next day then the World Master would remove Ozen from the scene.

  ‘I’m convinced the secret of Condor’s escape is in here,’ he said harshly, ‘and you’re going to tell me all about it by the time I get through with you. Make no mistake about that. I shall get it out of you, and if you’ve got any sense at all you’ll start talking. If you don’t it’s going to be a long and painful night! ’

  He chuckled harshly, and Ethne closed her eyes for a moment. There seemed to be no way out of this, and they both knew it. But she wouldn’t betray Condor. She loved him more than life itself, and she didn’t even have to weigh up the situation, knowing instinctively where the balance lay.

  Ozen struck her again, driving her to the floor with a sweep of his massive hand, and Ethne simulated unconsciousness, knowing that she had to make time for herself, but not even time could help her now!

  Chapter Six

  Condor lay on the floor of the corridor and watched the clay men advancing upon him. He was filled with despair, although he had escaped the lightning flashes that had sizzled along the corridor from the hands of these strange robots. They were not shooting at him now, and he remained motionless until the foremost of the clay men reached him. He wondered how they could see him! Their eyes did not appear to have animation. But they halted, and the nearest spoke in thin, metallic tones.

  ‘You will get to your feet and come with me. If you try to escape again you will be killed. There is no escape from us.’

  ‘How is it you can speak English?’ Condor demanded, getting slowly to his feet.

  ‘Do not ask questions. You will be told all that you need to know by the Masters!’

  Condor stifled a sigh. He was getting tired of being told about Masters. He had one on Earth to contend with, and his blue eyes narrowed as he let part of his mind go off at a tangent and think about Earth. What was Ethne doing now? She would have tried to get him back with the Celertron by now, and she would have imagined the worst when he failed to reappear before her. He turned cold when he thought that she might give up the attempt to contact him after his first non-appearance, and she was his only link with Earth. He was stranded here if she failed him.

  He began to think of other possibilities. Supposing she had been arrested and executed? He shook his head as he began to follow the clay man, and the other clay men stood back to let them pass. When he glanced over his shoulder he saw them forming a grim escort behind, and he sighed heavily as he tried to stem his feelings of panic.

  He made himself steady by telling himself that he might never be able to get back to that patch of grass where he had landed after his excursion through the Celertron. So all panic caused by fearing the worst had happened to Ethne was irrelevant. He stiffened himself for what was to come, and presently the clay man paused and faced the wall. A moment later an oval door hissed upwards and they entered a wide chamber.

  Condor looked around quickly. This was an office of some sort, he guessed. It was sparsely furnished with a desk and some chairs and little else.

  ‘Sit down,’ the clay man said mechanically.

  Condor sat down because he felt it would be unwise to disobey. He had to get out of here, and if he could not escape then he had to try and prove to these strange people that he was a friend. He could do that only by acting as a friend would, so he sat down and tried to relax. He was soothed by slowly changing colours of light that seemed to have no definite source. The whole room was filled with diffused light. There were no windows! He wondered at the power needed to light this seemingly endless warren of corridors, and he looked around with interest, his scientific brain eager to get to grips with the problems that would be raised by this encounter with a community that seemed evolved far above the standard already achieved on Earth.

  ‘How can you speak my language?’ he demanded of the clay man, who was standing motionless across the room.

  There was no reply. The clay man looked as if he were a puppet without strings, and there was a strange impression in Condor’s mind that this thing was animated by some all-knowing computer. Unless he was very wrong, these clay men had no will of their own. They worked under remote control.

  Getting slowly to his feet, Condor walked steadily towards the clay man, half expecting to be warned to sit down. But nothing happened and he stood in front of the robot and stared hard at it.

  There was little to see from the robot’s exterior. It was covered completely with hard clay, and there were no fittings that might have given Condor some clue to its mechanical motivation. He moved around it, looking closely, and when he prodded it he hurt his fingers. It was like hitting a steel wall. But the clay man gave no indication of his examination, and he guessed it had been switched off.

  A door opened behind him, and he whirled around when he heard the hissing sound that it made. He expected to see at least one more clay man, but to his surprise two of the pigmies entered the
room, their large, transparent skulls shimmering in the soft light.

  ‘You were told to sit down,’ one of them rapped in a reedy voice, and Condor turned immediately and went back to his seat.

  The two pigmies crossed to the desk. They were dressed in tunic-like jackets of pale green silk material, with dark trousers. Narrow black belts encircled their small waists, and they carried weapons on the belts. They sat down with the desk between them and their prisoner, and Condor, glancing at the clay man, saw it moving slightly again, a sure sign that it was once more activated.

  ‘You speak my language,’ Condor said. ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘You were unconscious for many hours when you were first brought in and we tapped your mind and computerized the impressions we received. We now have a fairly comprehensive knowledge of your language, as much of it as you know. We are able to assimilate knowledge at the flick of a switch, and we can now speak your language as well as you.’

  ‘Is there anything about me that you haven’t learned?’ Condor demanded.

  ‘We know nothing about you. Your subconscious mind refuses to give us information. We can pick up general knowledge that you have amassed, but we are unable to read your mind.’

  ‘That’s something!’ Condor blinked as he considered. ‘Why am I treated as a criminal?’

  ‘You are an alien! That much we have discovered.’ The pigmy doing all the talking was sharp faced, with large features and a long nose. His eyes were wide apart and very large, like those of a nocturnal creature, and the face seemed incapable of emotional expression. Condor looked straight into those large eyes, and kept his features bland.

  ‘I am from the planet Earth,’ he volunteered. ‘I arrived here by chance, and I hope to leave almost immediately. If you would take me to that slope where I was found I’ll depart and you’ll be rid of me.’

  ‘You will not be permitted to leave until we have sated our desire for knowledge about you. Your arrival coincided with the destruction of one of our aircraft and the death of a number of our people. If you were responsible for those deaths then you will be made to pay the penalty.’

  ‘You have the form and the physical make-up of the Nethers,’ the other pigmy said. His voice was sharper, higher pitched, but there seemed to be a trace of anger in it. ‘You were in the company of a Nether female when you were captured, and you were prepared to resist. Are you a Nether?’

  ‘One of those savages I met on landing?’ Condor demanded. He shook his head. ‘You can see that I am not of their race. We are similar physically, but there all resemblance ends.’

  ‘Where is your space craft?’ the first pigmy demanded.

  ‘I did not travel in a craft,’ Condor said.

  The two diminutive men exchanged wondering glances, and then one of them shook his transparent skull. Condor, watching the skull closely, saw the brain within writhing and moving convulsively as thoughts were born and speech was made.

  ‘Until we have reports of our air disaster we cannot accept your statement. It is believed that your aircraft collided with ours. You are to be treated as hostile. Your behaviour so far has been unfriendly.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Condor said edgily. ‘How do you expect me to act? I landed on your planet and was immediately attacked by those savages. Then one of your aircraft showed up and its occupants started shooting down those savages without provocation. It was cold blooded murder!’

  ‘The Nethers are there to be hunted down without compunction! There has always been war between our two races. We have struggled to maintain our supremacy over them. You were mistaken for a Nether in the first instance, and even now we cannot be sure that your sympathies are not with them.’

  ‘And what is your race called?’ Condor demanded. ‘I am a scientist on my planet. I am interested in this situation. You have no cause to fear me. I will depart in peace when my time comes. We can be friends. You might be able to learn something from me, and I should certainly welcome the opportunity of learning about your civilization and your culture.’

  ‘You are to be held in captivity until we have investigated you. But we will not be unfriendly towards you until we have completed our investigations into the circumstances of the air disaster and can pinpoint the cause of the crash and ascertain where the responsibility for it lies.’

  That sounded ominous to Condor, but he made no comment. He glanced at the clay man, standing motionless but obviously alert, and he wanted to learn more about these strange people and their way of life.

  ‘My name is Rez Condor,’ he volunteered.

  ‘I am called Vinlopah,’ came the immediate reply. ‘I shall be responsible for you here. Please do not try to outwit me or attempt to escape. It is impossible to do so and any attempt will be regarded as a hostile act. The Humics have been instructed to kill the next time you are violent towards them.’

  ‘The Humics?’ Condor questioned. ‘You mean the clay men, I presume.’

  ‘That is a good description of them. They are formed out of clay. They are our slaves. They obey every order without question. That is good. They hunt down the Nethers, and cannot be harmed by those savages.’

  Condor could well imagine that as he looked at the fearsome figure of the nearby Humic.

  ‘And what is your race called?’ he asked.

  ‘We are Cranums, and this is the planet Crana. We alone are native to Crana.’

  ‘And where do the Nethers come from?’

  ‘In the first place they were brought to Crana as slaves. They were turned on to reservations where they multiplied. They come from a more primitive world, and have become a pest since we evolved the Humics.’ Condor nodded his understanding. ‘Shall I get the opportunity to look at your world?’ he demanded. Such was his interest that he was willing to postpone his return to Earth. But he guessed he would not be treated as an honoured guest, and when he saw the two Cranums exchange glances he realized that he would be treated as a prisoner.

  ‘There is much about you that we wish to discover,’ came the ready reply. ‘You are too similar to the Nethers for us to be able to trust you. The Nethers are little more than animals, with an innate cunning we find disconcerting. We believe that you are of a like kind, and will cause much trouble on Crana. We must wait for the reports on the air disaster, and if you were responsible for the death of some of our people you will pay the penalty.’ Condor took a deep breath and got to his feet. Both Cranums immediately reached for the weapons at their belts, and the Humic strode forward to where Condor stood. Condor spread his hands in helpless fashion.

  ‘I can help you understand me and my kind in a friendly way,’ he said. ‘We can exchange information about our respective worlds.’

  ‘That will not be necessary! We can easily gain the information we need when you are unconscious. You will be taken back to the detention area and confined until we have the findings of the incident.’

  Condor saw it would be useless to argue, and he nodded slowly. The two Cranums got to their feet and moved across to the wall, where an oval door slid upwards for them. Condor wondered how the doors were operated, and he stood motionless as the door descended behind the two. Neither Cranum seemed to do anything to activate the mechanism.

  ‘Come with me,’ the Humic said, turning towards the opposite wall.

  Condor watched the door slide upwards, and the Humic started through the doorway instantly. Condor sprang forward, activated by a sudden impulse. He seized the Humic from behind and exerted his weight and strength, hurling the robot sideways, endeavouring to crash its head against the doorpost. The robot met the metal wall with a dull plopping sound and collapsed instantly, silently. The door began to descend, and Condor regained his balance desperately and hurled himself out into the corridor. He turned and stared at the motionless robot and the descending door, and when the door ceased to move as it reached the robot’s clay body, Condor began to understand that there was some kind of built-in activator in the robot.

  He glan
ced around. The corridor was deserted, and it stretched away endlessly in either direction. He started running along it, knowing there had to be an end somewhere, and as he ran he cast around in his mind for knowledge that might avail him in this situation.

  It was obvious that he would be treated as a more advanced type of Nether! If the Cranums managed to discover that he had been responsible for the crash of the aircraft then he would die. They had made that fact more than clear. He knew he had nothing to lose by attempting to escape. To remain passive meant waiting patiently for death.

  Condor found the light in the corridor deceptive. The metal walls reflected the light and fooled his sight by destroying his ability to judge distance. At the same time the corridor was completely featureless, so he had no focal points to use as a guide to judgement.

  After some minutes he was too breathless to maintain his flight, and he slowed to a walk. He seemed to have made no progress, and had the uncanny feeling that despite his movements he was still at the same spot. But behind him the legs of the motionless Humic were showing in the half-open doorway, and they were a considerable distance away.

  He tried walking close to the wall in order to test a theory that his presence might activate the hidden doors, but nothing happened. He kept moving, worried that at any instant a door might open to admit a Cranum or a Humic. He had hardly become aware of the thought when he saw a door opening some twenty yards ahead, and the ominous figure of a Humic appeared. Without pausing to think, Condor flung himself flat on his stomach against the right hand wall, and lay motionless as the Humic came striding ponderously in his direction.

  The Humic came along the centre of the corridor, which was about twelve feet wide, and halted ten feet in front of Condor. Fearing that he had been discovered, Condor tensed and prepared to make a fight of it, but the Humic turned to face the wall, and the next instant another door was opening.

  With a feeling of desperation stabbing through him, Condor pushed himself to his feet and leaped forward to attack. He grappled with the Humic and sent it down with its head against the doorpost. He appeared to have perfected a certain way of destroying Humics, because the robot cracked its head and then lay still. The door was beginning to close, and Condor grasped the Humic and dragged it into a sitting position, stopping the movement of the door at about four feet from the ground.