Still driving at max, he went to the rack and pulled down a chart. He had never been in on a space emergency before, but he knew the routine. No use to investigate the wreckage; the brilliance of the flare was evidence enough ‘that the vessel and everything near it had ceased to exist. It was lifeboats he was after. They were supposed to stick around to be rescued, but out here they wouldn’t. They’d have to head for the nearest planet, to be sure of air. Air was far more important than either food or water; and lifeboats, by the very nature of things, could not carry enough air.
Thus he steered more toward the nearest T-T (Tellus-Type) planet than towards the scene of disaster. He put his communicators, both sending and receiving, on automatic, then sat down at the detector panel. There might not be anything on the visuals or the audio. There had been many cases of boats, jammed with women and children, being launched into space with no one aboard able to operate even a communicator. If any lifeboats had gotten away from the catastrophe, his detectors would find them.
There was one; one only. It was close to the planet, almost into atmosphere. Cloud aimed a solid communicator beam. Still no answer. Either the boat’s communicator was smashed or nobody aboard could run it. He’d have to follow them down to the ground.
But what was that? Another boat on the plate? Not a lifeboat—too big—but not big enough to be a ship. Coming out from the planet, apparently … to rescue? No—what the hell? The lug was beaming the lifeboat!
‘Let’s go, you sheet-iron lummox!’ the Blaster yelled aloud, kicking in his every remaining dyne of drive. Then, very shortly, his plate came suddenly to life. To semi-life, rather, for the video was blurred and blotchy; the audio full of breaks and noise. The lifeboat’s pilot was a Chickladorian; characteristically pink except for red-matted hair and red-streamed face. He was in bad shape.
‘Whoever it is that’s been trying to raise me, snap it up!’ the pink man said in ‘SpaceaP, the lingua franca of deep space. ‘I couldn’t answer until I faked up this jury rig. The ape’s
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aboard and he means business. I’m going to black out, I think, but I’ve undogged the locks. Take over, pal!’
The picture blurred, vanished. The voice stopped. Cloud swore, viciously.
The planet Dhil and its enormous satellite lune are almost twin worlds, revolving around their common center of gravity and traversing as one the second orbit of their sun. In the third orbit revolves Nhal, a planet strikingly similar to Dhil in every respect of gravity, atmosphere, and climate. Thus Dhilians and Nhalians are, to all intents and purposes, identical.*
The two races had been at war with each other, most of the time, for centuries; and practically all of that warfare had been waged upon luckless Lune. Each race was well advanced in science. Each had atomic power, offensive beams, and defensive screens. Neither had any degree of inertialessness. Neither had ever heard of Civilization or of Boskonia.
At this particular time peace existed, but only on the surface. Any discovery or development giving either side an advantage would rekindle the conflagration without hesitation or warning.
Such was the condition obtaining when Darjeeb of Nhal blasted his little space-ship upward from Lune. He was glowing with pride of accomplishment, suffused with self-esteem. Not only had he touched off an inextinguishable atomic flame exactly where it would do most good, but also, as a crowning achievement, he had captured Luda of Dhil. Luda herself; the coldest, hardest, most efficient Minister of War that Dhil had ever had!
As soon as they could extract certain data from Luda’s mind, they could take Lune in short order. With Lune solidly theirs, they could bomb Dhil into submission in two years. The goal of many generations would have been reached. He, Darjeeb of Nhal, would have wealth, fame, and—best of all—power!
Gazing gloatingly at his captive with every eye he could bring to bear, Darjeeb strolled over to inspect again her chains and manacles. Let her radiate! No mentality in existence could break his blocks. Physically, however, she had to be watched.
* For the explanation of these somewhat peculiar facts, which is too long to go into here, the student is referred to Transactions of the Planetographical Society; Vol. 283, No. 11, P. 2745. E.E.S.
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The irons were strong; but so was Luda. If she could break free he’d probably have to shoot her, which would be a very bad thing indeed. She hadn’t caved in yet, but she would. When he got her to Nhal, where proper measures could be taken, she’d give up every scrap of knowledge she had ever had!
The chains were holding, all eight of them, and Darjeeb kept on gloating as he backed towards his control station. To him Luda’s shape was normal enough, since his own was the same, but in the sight of any Tellurian she would have been more than a little queer.
The lower part of her body was somewhat like that of a small elephant; one weighing perhaps four hundred pounds. The skin, however, was clear and fine and delicately tanned; there were no ears or tusks; the neck was longer. The trunk was shorter, divided at the tip to form a highly capable hand; and between the somewhat protuberant eyes of this ‘feeding’ head there thrust out a boldly Roman, startlingly human nose. The brain in this head was very small, being concerned only with matters of food.
Above this not-too-unbelievable body, however, there was nothing familiar to us of Tellus. Instead of a back there were two pairs of mighty shoulders, from which sprang four tremendous arms, each like the trunk except longer and much stronger. Surmounting those massive shoulders there was an armored, slightly retractile neck which bore the heavily-armored ‘thinking’ head. In this head there were no mouths, no nostrils. The four equally-spaced pairs of eyes were protected by heavy ridges and plates; the entire head, except for its junction with the neck, was solidly sheathed with bare, hard, thick, tough bone.
Darjeeb’s amazing head shone a clean-scrubbed white. But Luda’s—the eternal feminine!—was really something to look at. It had been sanded, buffed, and polished. It had been inlaid with bars and strips and scrolls of variously-colored metals; then decorated tastefully in red and green and blue and black enamel; then, to cap the climax, lacquered!
But that was old stuff to Darjeeb; all he cared about was the tightness of the chains immobilizing Luda’s hands and feet. Seeing that they were all tight, he returned his attention to his visiplates; for he was not yet in the clear. Enemies might be blasting off after him any minute.
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A light flashed upon his detector panel. Behind him everything was clear. Nothing was coming from Dhil. Ah, there it was, coming in from open space. But nothing could move that fast! A space-ship of some kind … Gods of the Ancients, how it was coming!
As a matter of fact the lifeboat was coming in at less than one light; the merest crawl, as space-speeds go. That velocity, however, was so utterly beyond anything known to his system that the usually phlegmatic Nhalian stood spellbound for a fraction of a second. Then he drove a hand toward a control. Too late— before the hand had covered half the distance the incomprehensibly fast ship struck his own without impact, jar, or shock.
Both vessels should have been blasted to atoms; but there the stranger was poised motionless beside him. Then, under the urge of a ridiculously tiny jet of flame, she leaped away; covering miles in an instant. Then something equally fantastic happened. She drifted heavily backward, against the full force of her driving blasts!
Only one explanation was possible—inertialessness! What a weapon! With that and Luda—even without Luda—the solar system would be his. No longer was it a question of Nhal conquering Dhil. He himself would become the dictator, not only of Nhal and Dhil and Lune, but also of all other worlds within reach. That vessel and its secrets must be his!
He blasted, then, to match the inert velocity of the smaller craft, and as his ship approached the other he reached out both telepathically—he could neither speak nor hear—and with a spyray to determine the most feasible method of taking over this Godsend.
Bipeds! Peculiar little beasts—repulsive. Only two arms and eyes—only one head. Weak, no weapons—good! Couldn’t any of them communicate? Ah yes, there was one—an unusually thin, reed-like creature, bundled up in layer upon layer of fabric….
‘I see that you are survivors of a catastrophe in outer space,’ Darjeeb began. He correlated instantly, if not sympathetically, the smashed panel and the pilot’s bleeding head. If the creature had had a head worthy of the name, it could have wrecked a dozen such frailties with it, and without taking hurt. ‘Tell your pilot to let me in, so that I may guide you to safety. Hurry!