Dirk shuddered looking at them. There was something horribly unclean about them that was nauseating.
At the top of their thin bodies were heads about the size of oranges. No hair relieved the hideous appearance of their leprous-white skulls. There were only two opening? in their faces and these seemed to be eyes, large and solid-colored.
In the middle of their bodies were scabbards which held long slender rods. As he watched one of the creatures lifted his arm and the waving tentacles lifted up, curled about the thin rod and lifted it from the scabbard.
JAN slid the rock back in place. His face was white with fear.
“They come,” he hissed to Dirk. “There is nothing we can do.”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” Dirk said, thinking swiftly. “Didn’t you say that these caves extend a great deal farther than the space you’re actually using now?”
Jan nodded. “Yes, but—”
“Are there any other ways out?” Dirk broke in.
“Yes,” Jan said, “there are three more openings. But we don’t use them any more.”
“Our only chance,” Dirk spoke rapidly, “is to surprise them from behind. We’ll use one of the other exits, have someone attract their attention from here while we slip up on them. It’s our only chance. We’ve got to get them before they get us.”
There was a puzzled frown on Jan’s square honest face, but the fear left his eyes.
“But,” he said hesitantly, “we have never fought them.”
“Then it’s about time we start,” Dirk said grimly.
They descended the steps and Jan told the huddled group of humans what they had decided to do. Dirk, looking around at the white, frightened faces, felt his heart sinking. Most of the women and children had scattered off to the far dark corners of the cave. There were a dozen men at the base of the steps, most of them strong and rugged, but there was a spiritless, defeated quality in their shifting eyes.
One of them, a tall, blond young man objected frantically to Dirk’s suggestion. He, Dirk knew, was Karl, the one who, along with Jan, had rescued him.
“It is not good,” Karl cried fearfully. “We can gain nothing by fighting. They will send many more ships and kill us all. If we hide now only a few of us may be killed.”
There was a murmur of agreement from the other men. Several of them edged away, anxious to scurry to dark depths of the caves to hide. Dirk felt a wave of anger sweeping over him.
“Listen to me!” he shouted. His eyes flashed from face to face raking the small circle with a scornful look of contempt. “What kind of men do you call yourselves? Do you think you’re ever going to win your liberty and freedom by hiding in dark corners like scared cockroaches? You’ve got to fight for it. If you can’t live like men you can at least die like men. Now I want a man to act as a decoy, to attract the attention of those creatures from this side while Jan and I attack them from the rear. If there’s a man among you, let him step forward.”
THERE was a dead silence as Dirk’s eyes flashed from one face to another. The eyes of the men fell when they met his hot gaze. A minute slipped away and Dirk was forced to realize the bitter fact that he had failed. Failed to stir one latent chord of pride and courage in these poor whipped creatures.
His shoulders slumped despairingly. Then, as he started to turn away, an old man with a seamed, withered face and dirty white hair stepped forward and touched his arm timidly.
“My father talk the same as you do,” he said, in a thin cracked voice. “He is dead a long time, but I think now he was right. We must fight. I do what you want.”
Dirk seized the old man by the shoulders joyfully.
“You’re damned right we’re going to fight,” he said fiercely. He felt suddenly uplifted, strengthened anew by this one example of indomitable spirit. If one would fight the tribe would fight.
As rapidly as he could he explained to the old man what he wanted him to do. Then with Jan leading the way through the dark labyrinthine passages, he hurried to another set of stone steps, long unused, that led to the open. Jan gave him a crude blunt axe and equipped himself with another before they ascended the steps and, with infinite care, moved aside the cleverly-balanced rock that concealed the opening.
Dirk peered through the narrow slit and his breath caught involuntarily in his throat.
The two wraith-like, ivory colored creatures were less than eight feet away, facing him. Their eyes were solid red blobs of motionless color. Against the unclean dead-white of their skins they stood out hideously clear.
Dirk had frozen into immobility, but as seconds passed and neither of the creatures advanced, he realized that they hadn’t seen or heard him. The only sign of life displayed by the thin weird creatures was the restless waving of the long tendrils that hung from the solid roots at their shoulders. But these thin, writhing tentacles seemed agitated and wary, as if they sensed or felt the alien presence of Dirk and Jan.
Dirk tensed as the waving arms of one creature groped questingly forward in their direction, writhing and twisting like the feelers of a bug.
Jan’s face was white and strained, but not a whimper came from his tightly locked lips. He was hardly breathing and his body was motionlessly rigid as a carven statue.
Dirk suddenly realized that these nauseating creatures knew of their presence. That, somehow, the waving tendrils had detected their nearness and were determining by groping exploratory motions their exact hiding place.
A bead of sweat ringed his forehead. There was something horribly menacing in these silent creatures. Somehow he knew that when they discovered their position it would be all over for them. If the old man failed . . .
That thought had no more than brushed his consciousness, when a wavering, challenging cry started his heart hammering with hope.
Peering through the crack Dirk saw that the old man hadn’t failed them. A hundred yards away and behind the ivory colored creatures, the old man had suddenly appeared—his weak voice announcing his presence with a torrent of derisive insults. Dancing like a dervish from one foot to the other, screaming his abuse, he was one of the most wonderful sights Dirk had ever witnessed.
Everything depended on the alien creatures’ reactions. For an instant they remained motionless, their groping feelers seemingly hesitant and uncertain. Then slowly they turned their backs to Dirk, their feelers drawing forth the silvery rods from the scabbards at their waists.
DIRK gripped Jan’s shoulder. This was their chance. The chance for which the old man had been willing to sacrifice his life. Jan’s eyes were suddenly blazing hotly, the indecisive passiveness was gone from his face—forever. His thick gnarled hand curled around the shaft of his axe and a faint growl rumbled deep in his throat.
Dirk saw the look in Jan’s eyes and gripped his shoulder tightly. Then he rose in a half crouch, tightened his grip on the thick haft of the axe and rolled the stone aside with one heavy shove.
With Jan at his heels he sprang from the opening. In two strides he covered the eight feet that separated him from the two dreadful creatures. His right arm swung in a vicious looping arc that buried the heavy axe three inches into the skull of one of the inhuman monsters.
A creamy white fluid gushed out in a burbling stream. The tendril growths of the almost decapitated creature flailed wildly about, groping desperately in the air like the arms of a tortured octopus. Obeying a cautious instinct Dirk leaped away from the threshing feelers as they waved desperately toward him.
The creature was in its death throes. The frantic tendrils began to shrivel, their movement slowed to a convulsive twitching as the thin body slumped forward without a sound except the scratchy rustle of its body on the rocky ground.
A strangled scream jerked Dirk around. Jan was in the grip of the other creature!
His axe was lying on the ground and a white glue-like fluid was dripping from one limp arm of his horrible antagonist. But the other mass of tendrils was twined about Jan’s arms and throat like powerful cables, slowly
crushing the life from him.
The hoarse scream he had given was almost his last. His face was flushed red and a trickle of blood was running from his nose. His bulging frantic eyes met Dirk’s with a terrible look of entreaty.
Dirk sprang for the axe on the ground. His first wild swing missed, as the wraith-like creature flitted to one side dragging Jan helplessly with him.
The red motionless eyes of the weird being glared balefully at Dirk as he charged in again. Dirk aimed for those eyes, chopping downward with the axe in a powerful stroke that had all the weight of his body behind it.
The creature attempted to dodge the terrible blow. The red eyes glittered with a silent baffled anger as it realized escape was impossible. The next instant those solid red eyes disappeared forever as Dirk’s axe crashed into the creature’s face, transforming it to a formless pulp.
Sickened, Dirk watched the creature slump to the ground in silence, the tentacles of its one good arm relaxing their death grip on Jan’s throat. For several seconds the rope-like tendrils twitched. Then they were still.
CHAPTER VII
A Flight to Tibet
FOR perhaps half a minute Dirk stood over the slain body of one of the horrors from space, breathing heavily. Then he hurried to Jan’s side and ripped the creature’s tentacles from his neck and body.
Before he was through Jan’s eyelids fluttered.
“You saved my life,” he whispered weakly. His hand moved to his raw, swollen throat and touched it tenderly. Strength flowed rapidly back to his sturdy body, and in a few minutes he was able to rise to his feet.
Dirk felt a savage sense of elation. In their first encounter with these dread beings they had come off victorious.
Looking about they found the two silvery bars which the alien beings had carried. They were obviously weapons of some sort and Dirk shoved them into his belt.
When they started for the entrance to the cave they saw that several of the tribe had emerged and were huddled around a body sprawled on the ground. Quickening their pace Jan and Dirk hurried to the spot. Dirk elbowed his way through the silent band of men and dropped to his knees beside the crumpled form of the old man whose courage had made it possible for Jan and him to attack the invaders from the rear.
His seamed face was peaceful in death. Glancing at his body Dirk saw that it was pierced by a dozen small black holes that looked as if they had been burned through him.
For a long moment Dirk knelt beside the frail old body, his jaw hardening. The old man had been killed in the brief instant that Jan and he were leaping for the unclean creatures. Probably by the hellish silvery rods which he carried now. He felt a black hatred welling in him against the whole horde of space men who had invaded Earth to ravish it, kill off its population and hunt down the few remaining humans like dogs.
When he rose to his feet Karl stepped up to him, his face flushed.
“This is your doing,” he cried. “If we had not fought he would not be dead now. We should not have listened to you. You have killed him.”
Dirk looked the tall, blond young man in the eyes and there was an infinite contempt in his gaze.
“He died as a brave man should,” he said harshly. “Facing his enemy instead of hiding from him in dark corners.”
TURNING to the rest of the silent men Dirk spoke hotly.
“You have seen what we can do when we fight. If we all fight together a time will come when we can come forth from the caves into the light and live like men were made to live.”
The eyes of the men changed under the emphatic words. Some of them were seeing a vision of the future, others were looking back at the legendary glory of the past, but all were affected.
That is, all but Karl. With a low mutter he turned and descended into the cave. Dirk paid no attention to his leaving. Karl was a problem he would have to meet later, he knew.
Motioning Jan to follow him he crossed the rocky ground to the huge blue ship in which the creatures had come. The one opening in the side of the ship was a scant ten inches wide and he was forced to turn sideways to edge into its interior. Then he had to pull Jan through.
Inside Dirk was not surprised to find that almost half the ship was given over to the mechanical equipment necessary to propel it. From the middle of the ship back to its tapering tail were rows of gleaming engines that fed their power to long exhausts. These exhaust pipes were almost a foot in diameter, much too large to serve only as a means of disposing of waste fumes.
In the front of the ship was a narrow cockpit which he squeezed into with difficulty. Directly in front of an intricate board studded with meaningless dials and indicators was a huge porous screen.
Its purpose was apparent at a glance for on it was recorded the rocky barren terrain which the ship was facing. It was some sort of a visibility screen.
DIRK eyed it speculatively. An instrument like that would make the task of piloting the ship a comparatively simple one.
His eyes moved over the other controls. All of them were shaped in long bars or metal loops. There were no solid round rheostats or dials. He realized that the bars and loops were probably designed to accommodate the filament fingers of the beings from space.
As his eyes roved over the controls his mind worked subconsciously, guessing their uses, determining their pattern of operation. The symbols under the instruments were meaningless to him, but he was able to make several deductions. The long bar, for instance, which swung in a circle to touch a half-dozen contact points was obviously an accelerator of sorts. And the loop below it might be something like an ignition switch.
It could move to but one position in its groove, so it obviously had but one operation to perform. In the same manner his keen eyes traveled over the maze of instruments, locating, by guess, altimeters, barometers, heat and cold indicators, fuel gauges and compasses. A number of controls were absolutely unintelligible to him, until he remembered that this ship was capable of traveling through the void between planets and that the meaningless controls might govern navigation in space. He wasn’t interested in them.
Jan was waiting impatiently outside the control room, but it wasn’t for another hour before Dirk turned from the instruments and looked at him.
“Jan,” he said slowly. “I think we’re going on a trip.”
“Go way?” Jan deciphered bewilderedly. “Where?”
“Tibet,” Dirk answered.
IT took Dirk three exasperating hours to establish radio contact again with the soft, patient voice from Tibet. When he did, he explained in terse sentences the fight with the invading creatures and their possession of the blue ship.
When the conversation was concluded fifteen minutes later the die had been cast. He had the location of the Tibetan monastery in his mind and he was determined to make the attempt to reach it.
There was no other course. Nothing could be gained or accomplished hiding here in caves. He had to take the chance of reaching Tibet. There, with the aid of the ancient wisdom of the Lama’s, something might be done.
Two days later, with Jan as his sole companion, he left.
There had been much muttered discussion at the cave about the trip. It had been deemed an unwise move, but since the two men were risking their own necks, no one made an attempt to dissuade them. None of them understood the motive of the trip.
Dirk sighted the snow-blanketed reaches of the Tibetan plateau nine hours after their take-off. The trip had been a hellish nightmare. With an unfamiliar ship, no definite instruments of navigation, it was luck alone that saw them through. Dirk had traveled most of the trip at a distance of more than twenty miles over the earth, to eliminate the risk of a sudden, unpremeditated dive plunging them to their death.
The incredible speed of the ship made that precaution a useless one. If they had flashed into a dive at their speed nothing could have saved them.
He crossed Europe in two hours and circled wide to avoid the Himalayas in landing on the plateau. Following the Lama’s directions he
slowed his speed and settled cautiously, watching the visibility screen anxiously.
It was almost impossible to notice landmarks in the vast white scene that spread before him, but suddenly the screen showed the two huge black pillars which the Lama had mentioned. Their huge long forms stretched into the air like entreating arms, imploring the heavens for mercy.
They were unmistakable. He swung the accelerator bar completely around, but that was a mistake. The nose of the ship dropped in a dive as the blasting engines in the rear of the ship faded into silence. The earth rushed up at them with incredible speed.
Desperately, he spun the accelerator again. The blasting engines thrummed into life and the ship responded with a surging leap forward that slammed Dirk against the back wall of the control room.
They were only six feet above the snow covered plateau when he cut the accelerator again. This time the ship hit the ground, but the snow cushioned the fall and, miraculously, the friction slowed the ship in another thousand yards to a stop.
It was the climax of their phenomenal luck. Dirk knew he couldn’t have duplicated the feat in a thousand years. But, thank God, he wouldn’t have to.
He turned shakily from the control board and saw Jan standing in the doorway grinning at him. Jan had lost his look of suppressed fear completely.
“Pretty good trip,” he said.
DIRK wiped the sweat from his forehead with a hand that trembled in spite of him. The hero-worship in Jan’s eyes was a little embarrassing.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 101