“Do you hear me, Commander?” the executive officer was insisting. “What is your order?”
Jay Kalam slowly closed his eyes, and opened them again. His lean hand made a slow salute.
Low and forced, his voice said: “Fire at once with the vortex gun. Destroy the vessel ahead.”
Samdu’s battleship, the long Bellatrix
, was slipping in beside the mighty flagship when the first vortex was fired. Watching through the ports of an air lock, the Admiral-General saw the great blinding knot of atomic disruption spinning out ahead, flaming wider as its expanding fields of instability consumed all the matter in its reach.
“Well, Mr. Derron,” the gigantic spaceman muttered with a grim satisfaction, “or Mr.
Basilisk—now let’s see you get away!”
Hard-driven geodynes were pushing the two colossal ships through space—or, more accurately, around it—at effective speeds far beyond the velocity of light. But they came together so gently that their crews could feel no shock. Air valves were joined and sealed. And Hal Samdu stalked impatiently aboard the great flagship.
“Quick!” he boomed to the officers who received him. “Take me to Commander Kalam at once.”
But, when swift elevators and moving cat-walks had brought them to the hidden door behind the chartroom, the Commander of the Legion failed to answer their signal.
The alarmed executive officer came to unlock the armored door. Hal Samdu stalked ahead into the soft-lit luxurious apartments of Jay Kalam. Silence met him, and emptiness. The Commander of the Legion was gone.
“Poor old Jay,” rumbled Hal Samdu. “The hundredth man!”
He turned abruptly upon the officers about him.
“Derron’s ship is still in range? Then fire again with the vortex gun. Keep firing till you get it.”
14
Man and Android
Facing Giles Habibula in the narrow space within the valve of the Phantom Atom , Chan Derron caught his breath. Still he was weaponless—and the black tiny hole in the tip of the old man’s level cane looked at him like a deadly eye.
“Habibula?” his startled voice echoed. “Not the great Giles Habibula?”
Chan was weaponless—but the heavy little pack of the geopellor was still strapped to his shoulders, its control spindle still gripped in his hand. It could make a living projectile of his body. His hand began to close.
“Wait, lad!”
The old man lowered the menacing cane. His fishy eyes rolled fearfully and his wheezing voice was hoarse with a desperate appeal.
“For life’s sake, lad, forget your mortal tricks. There’s no need for you to crush old Giles Habibula to a bloody pulp with your blessed geopellor. For he’s no enemy, lad.
Ah, no! He comes to you as a precious friend!”
Chan Derron studied the old man with a grim suspicion. And then he saw, behind Giles Habibula, the money stacked on the deck. Thick packets of new Green Hall certificates, bound into great bales and piled high against the bulkheads. The wrapper on every packet was printed with a yellow crescent. Here was the treasure of Caspar Hannas, taken from the New Moon’s vaults!
His hand jerked tense on the little black spindle.
“You aren’t—” he gasped hoarsely. “You aren’t the Basilisk?”
Giles Habibula quivered. The seamed moon of his face turned slightly green. He caught a croaking, asthmatic breath.
“No, lad!” he gulped. “In life’s name—no! I’m just a poor old soldier. Ah, but a hunted fugitive, lad. A friendless deserter from the Legion.”
“Deserter, eh?” The dark-stained eyes of Chan Derron narrowed. “If you really are the famous Giles Habibula, why should you desert? And what are you doing here?”
Giles Habibula blinked his colorless eyes.
“Thank you, lad,” his thin voice quavered. “Ah, so, lad, from the bottom of my failing old heart, I thank you for calling me famous. For the Legion has forgotten me, lad.”
He wiped his eyes with the back of a fat hand.
“Once old Giles Habibula was the hero of the Legion,” he sighed. “Aye, of the whole precious System. For his noble courage, lad, and his blazing genius, have twice saved the very life of mankind—once from the hateful Medusae, and again from the frightful Cometeers. And what reward has he got, lad?”
He choked and sobbed and gasped for breath.
“A beggar’s reward, lad. Old Giles is forgotten. His precious medals tarnish hi a box.
The few miserable dollars they gave him are all drunk up. A lonely, hopeless old soldier, dying on the ungrateful charity of those who had been friends—ah, lad, but life was mortal black—until he heard of your exploits!”
A brighter look came over his yellow face.
“Ah, so, lad!” he cried. “You’re the sort that old Giles was, in the days when he was young. A bold man, aye! Reckless and dashing. Not caring whether he drove to sunward of the law, or to spaceward. Taking his wine and his gold and his love wherever he found them! Ah, lad, old Giles has come to you, to beg you to help him find his own lost youth.”
The hand of Chan Derron tightened again on the spindle.
“Don’t lad!” gasped Giles Habibula. “Don’t—for life’s sake. It’s known to all the Legion that you’re the Basilisk. Ah, so, and that’s a thing of which you should be precious proud—to stand alone against the law of all the planets, and mock the Legion of Space.”
Chan Derron shook his head, protestingly.
“But I’m not the Basilisk,” his voice broke hoarsely. “I’m just his victim. He has planted a hundred bits of evidence, to pin suspicion on me. Look at this money taken from the vaults of Hannas.”
Giles Habibula nodded, and his yellow face broke into a happy smile.
“Ah, so lad!” he wheezed. “Look at it—millions and millions of dollars. Enough to keep a man in wine and women and luxury for a whole lifetime. Or two men, when the life of one is already run to the end. Shall we take off with our loot? Ah, it will be like the old days, lad—living in flight from the Legion?”
The eyes of Chan Derron narrowed to an accusing stare.
“You admit you were an outlaw hi the old days,” he muttered. “You’re famous for your way with locks. And you have learned all the scientific tricks of the Medusae and the Cometeers. I believe you are the Basilisk, Giles Habibula.”
“Life, no lad!” The old man turned pale. “Don’t think that—”
“If you aren’t,” rapped Chan Derron, “tell me one thing: how did you find the Phantom Atom , when all the Legion failed?”
“Easy, lad,” wheezed Giles Habibula. “Among the keys I lifted from Dr. Charles Derrel in the Diamond Room, was one stamped: Controlhouse 17-B-285
. One question told me that the mirror that motor turns was out of order. That’s how I knew where to meet you. But surely, lad, you don’t think—”
Soberly, Chan Derron shook his head.
“I believe you’re hunting the Basilisk,” he said. “So am I. And I’ve a clue—which is more than I believe the Legion has—besides those the Basilisk has planted to pin his crimes on me. You may come with me, if you like.”
The small leaden eyes bunked at him, blankly.
“I told you, lad, that I came to seek the Basilisk,” Habibula wheezed at last. “If you are not the monster—and if you can take me to him—then I’ll go with you.”
Chan gestured briefly toward the compact living apartments aft.
“Make yourself at home,” he said. “I am going forward. We have got to slip out of the sign, and elude the fleet, and get to an object I have discovered near Thuban, in Draco. We’ve cathode plates enough to reach it, but not to return. I shall expect you to stand a watch, later.”
“Ah, so, lad. You can depend on Giles Habibula.”
Chan Derron went up into the pilot bay, and Giles Habibula waddled back into the galley.
There, preparing an extravagant meal out of the slender stock of supplies he found, he made an imm
ense deliberate clatter of pots and pans.
Presently his deft pudgy fingers tuned the visiwave relay hidden under his cloak.
Keeping up the noise to cover his voice, he put the communicator disk to his lips and dispatched his first brief message to Commander Kalam: “Aboard Derron’s ship. Bound for mysterious object near Thuban in Draco. For life’s sake, follow!”
He finished getting the meal, tasting copiously from every dish, and carried a loaded tray forward to the pilot bay. Chan Derron was towering in that tiny space, concentrated on instruments and controls. His great hand motioned Giles Habibula impatiently back.
“What’s the trouble, lad?” the old man demanded.
“We’ve a race on.” Chan Derron’s intent eyes didn’t look away from the controls.
“Samdu’s fleet picked us up. We’d outrun them if we had enough margin of fuel. As it is—I don’t know. But leave me alone.”
Giles Habibula shrugged philosophically, and carried the tray back to the galley.
Deliberately, he demolished its contents, belched and yawned, and looked hopefully about the shelves.
“A mortal pity,” he sighed, “that the Basilisk didn’t use his fearful magic to pick us up a few bottles of wine. If he’ll let me join him—I know a few good, well-guarded cellars—aye, vintages five centuries old—that his instrument might reach.”
He pried himself upright again with the cane, labored aft, and tumbled into one of the tiny staterooms. Soon a series of softer sounds rose against the keen hum of the hard-driven geodynes: whistle and flutter and sob and moan, whistle and flutter and sob and moan—the snore of Giles Habibula.
When the regularity of those new sounds had become well established, another person slipped out of the rearmost of the four tiny cabins. A woman. The quick grace of her tall slim body spoke of unusual strength. Platinum-colored hair framed a face of surpassing loveliness. Alertly watchful, her clear eyes were violet.
Moving with no sound audible above the hastening song of the geodynes and the snoring of Giles Habibula, she went swiftly for-ward. One slender hand clung near a singular jewel, like a great white snow-crystal, that hung from her throat. And the other, with the practiced and familiar grip, held a proton blaster of the newest Legion design.
She came to the little opening in the bulkhead behind the pilot bay, and stood watching Chan Derron, with the ready weapon leveled at his heart. His broad back was toward her, his whole big body was tense. He seemed absorbed in his task. His great hands moved deftly over the controls as he fought to drag from power cells and geodynes the last possible quantum of energy.
For a long time she watched him.
Once a telltale flashed suddenly. Chan Derron started. His big hands moved convulsively, and the steady musical note of the geodynes rose higher in the scale.
“In tomorrow’s name!” she heard him mutter. “For one more ton of cathode plates—An unwilling little glisten had come into her eyes. Her blond head flung angrily. She caught her breath, and lifted the blaster. He would never even know.
But the Basilisk ought to know. All his crimes had earned a long, long taste of the bitterness of death. She let the blaster sink again and watched. Telltales and detectors told her that the fleet was in pursuit. Set up on the keyboard of the calculator, she could read the destination of the Phantom Atom —a point in Draco, ten billion miles from the sun. And every taut movement of Chan Derron reminded her that this was a desperate race.
What was located at the point? And why the haste to reach it? Her pressure on the blaster’s release would destroy all hope of answering those questions. That was the only reason, the girl told herself, that she must wait. But she turned suddenly, and went swiftly and soundlessly back down the corridor, toward the cabin where she had been concealed.
The whistle and flutter and sob and moan of Giles Habibula’s snoring had never faltered. But, the instant after the girl had passed his cabin door, it ceased abruptly, and a wheezing voice softly advised: “Stop, lass, right where you stand.”
The girl spun very swiftly, the proton gun leaping up in her hands.
She found Giles Habibula standing out in the corridor. His thick cane was leveled at her body, and her own weapon dropped from the look in his slate-colored eyes.
“Ah, thank you, lass,” he sighed. “It would be a shameful pity to destroy a thing as lovely as you are. And I beg you not to force my hand. For I know you, lass. Old Giles could never forget the mortal beauty of Luroa.”
Something swift and cold and deadly flashed in the violet eyes. The blaster jerked again in the girl’s strong hand. But it was met by an instant motion of the cane. Her reply was a smile—so lovely that the old man blinked and gasped.
“And I know you,” her smooth voice said. “You are Giles Habibula. I don’t think any other man could have caught me as you did.”
The yellow face beamed at her.
“Ah, so, I am Giles Habibula. Aye, and forty years ago you would have heard my name—or a dozen of my names—in the underworlds of every planet. For Giles Habibula, in the old days, was as great an operator—as bold and clever and successful—as you have been in yours, Luroa.”
The girl still smiled her dazzling and inscrutable smile.
“But now it seems that the two of us,” wheezed Giles Habibula, “are after another outlaw as great as we have been—greater, aye, unless we prove otherwise by catching him.”
His flat leaden eyes blinked at her.
“Shall we join forces, lass?” he asked. “Until we have destroyed the Basilisk.” His round yellow head jerked aft, toward Chan Derron in the pilot bay. “With my own precious genius,” he said, “and with the deadly cunning and the fearful strength and the mortal beauty that Eldo Arrynu gave to you—ah, no lass, with all of them we cannot fail.”
He peered at her, anxiously.
“If you will join me, lass—man and android, against the Basilisk!”
For an instant the girl’s white loveliness had seemed frozen, so that the wonder of her smile seemed a hollow, painted thing. But then her face abruptly softened. She slipped the blaster into a holster that her furs concealed, and held out a strong slender hand to Giles Habibula.
“I’m with you, Giles,” she said, “until the Basilisk is dead.” And the old Legionnaire wondered at a difference in her voice. Somehow it seemed naive, bewildered, troubled—somehow like a child’s. “Come, Giles,” she said, and beckoned toward the cabin where she had hidden. “There’s something I must tell you.”
15
The Dreadful Rock
The rock, black and naked, broke a lonely sea. The sea had a muddy, green-black color, cut with long strips of floating yellow-red weed. Its surface had an oily, glistening smoothness. The sky above it was a smoky, greenish blue. And the luminary that rose very slowly in it, baking the rock under merciless rays, seemed larger than the sun. It presented an enormous crimson disk, pocked with spots of darkness. The infra-red predominated in its radiation, so that its dull light brought a sweltering heat.
Upon the summit of the rock, an uneven granite bench not fifty yards in length, were crowded one hundred men and women. Their bodies were slowly cooking under the unendurable rays of that slowly rising sun. They were parched with thirst, for the ocean about them was an undrinkable brine. And they all were coughing, strangling, weeping, gasping with respiratory distress, for the green in the air was free chlorine.
They were the hundred the Basilisk had taken.
The last arrival, Jay Kalam, remembered hearing a sudden, queerly penetrating purr, as he stood in his chamber aboard the Inflexible . A resistless force dragged him into a frightful chasm of airless cold. But even before the breath could go out of him, light came back—the dull sinister radiation of this dying star. The feral purr receded, and he found himself sprawling on this barren rock.
Chlorine burned his lungs. A savage gravitation dragged at his body. Heat struck him with a driving, blistering force. And he was sick with an utter hope
lessness of despair.
“Commander Kalam!” choked a voice. “You?”
It was Lars Eccard, the abducted chairman of the Green Hall Council, red-eyed and gasping, who aided him to his feet. He peered with smarting eyes about the bare summit of the rock, and saw many that he knew—even bent as they were with continual coughing and masked inadequately against the toxic gas with scraps of dampened rags tied over their nostrils.
He saw Bob Star and a few other Legionnaires who had been taken, standing guard with their blasters on the highest points of the rock. And beyond them, wheeling and soaring and diving in the poison yellow-green haze that hung upon the poison sea, he glimpsed a dozen living originals of the monstrous robot that had appeared in the Diamond Room of the New Moon.
“They have attacked many times, Commander,” rasped Lars Eccard, beside him.
“Thus far we have always beaten them off, but all the weapons are nearly dead.”
“I have my own blaster.”
Jay Kalam touched his weapon, but the lean old statesman shook his head.
“It will help, Commander.” He paused to cough and sob for breath. “But not for long.
For the tide is rising. Already, since dawn, it has come up a hundred feet. Another hundred will cover the rock. And there are things in the water more deadly than those in the sky.”
Jay Kalam climbed a little higher on the rock, with Lars Eccard stumbling behind him. All the haggard, white-masked faces he saw were familiar to him, for these were the hundred foremost citizens of the System.
A woman lay on a little shelf of stone. Improvised bandages covered her arms and shoulders. A small golden-haired girl knelt beside her, sobbing. Her bandaged hand patted the child’s head.
“That is Robert Star’s wife,” said Lars Eccard. “One of the winged monsters snatched her up.
She was almost beyond the cliffs, before Bob killed it. It dropped her, and fell into the sea. The things that dragged it under the water were terrible indeed.”
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