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Those will come at any moment who will destroy us all without warning or palaver.’
‘I am trying, sir, but I cannot get through to him direct. It will take a few moments.’ The strange telepathist began to make motions with her peculiar arms, hands, and fingers. Others of the outlanders brandished various repulsive members and gesticulated with ridiculous mouths. Finally:
‘He says he would rather not,’ the interpreter reported. ‘He asks you to go ahead. He will follow you down.”
‘Impossible. We cannot land upon this world or its primary, Dhil,’ Darjeeb argued, reasonably. ‘These people are enemies
—savages—I have just escaped from them. It is death to attempt to land anywhere in this system except on my own world Nhal
—that bluish one over there.’
‘Very well, we’ll see you there. We’re just about out of air, but we can travel that far.’
But that wouldn’t do, either, of course. Argument took too much time. He’d have to use force, and he’d better call for help. He hurled mental orders to a henchman, threw out his magnetic grapples, and turned on a broad low-powered beam.
‘Open up or die,’ he ordered. ‘I do not want to blast you open, but time presses and I will if I must.’
Pure heat is hard to take. The portal opened and Darjeeb, after donning armor and checking his ray-guns, picked Luda up and swung nonchalantly out into space. Luda was tough—a little vacuum wouldn’t hurt her much. Inside the lifeboat, he tossed his captive into a corner and strode toward the pilot.
‘I want to know right now what it is that makes this ship to be without inertia!’ Darjeeb radiated, harshly. He had been probing vainly at the pink thing’s mind-block. ‘Tell your pilot to tell me or I will squeeze it out of his brain.’
As the order was being translated he slipped an arm out of his suit and clamped a huge hand around the pilot’s head. But just as he made contact, before he put on any pressure at all, the weakling fainted.
Also, two of his senses registered disquieting tidings. He received, as plainly as though it was intended for him, a welcome which the swaddled-up biped was radiating in delight to an unexpected visitor rushing into the compartment. He saw that that visitor, while it was also a biped, was not at all like the frightened and harmless creatures already cluttering the room.
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It was armed and armored, in complete readiness for strife even with Darjeeb of Nhal.
The bonehead swung his ready weapon—with his build there was no need, ever to turn—and pressed a stud. A searing lance of flame stabbed out. Passengers screamed and fled into whatever places of security were available.
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6: Driving Jets are Weapons
Cloud’s swearing wasted no time; he could swear and act simultaneously. He flashed his vessel up near the lifeboat, went inert, and began to match its intrinsic velocity.
He’d have to board, no other way. Even if he had anything to blast it with, and he didn’t—his vessel wasn’t armed—he couldn’t, without killing innocent people. What did he have?
He had two suits of armor; a G-P regulation and his vortex special, which was even stronger. He had his DeLameters. He had four semi-portables and two needle-beams, for excavating. He had thousands of duodec bombs, not one of which could be detonated by anything less violent than the furious heart of a loose atomic vortex.
What else? Well, there was his sampler. He grinned as he looked at it. About the size of a carpenter’s hand-axe, with a savage beak on one side and a wickedly-curved, razor-sharp blade on the other. It had a double-grip handle, three feet long. A deceptive little thing, truly, for it was solid dureum. It weighed fifteen pounds, and its ultra-hard, ultra-tough blade could shear through neocarballoy as cleanly as a steel knife slices cheese. Considering what terrific damage a Valerian could do with a space-axe, he should be able to do quite a bit with this—it ought to qualify at least as a space-hatchet.
He put on his armor, set his DeLameters to maximum intensity at minimum aperture, and hung the sampler on a belt-hook. He eased off his blasts. There, the velocities matched. A minute’s work with needle-beam, tractors, and pressor sufficed to cut the two smaller ships apart and to dispose of the Nhalian’s magnets and cables. Another minute of careful manipulation and his scout was in place. He swung out, locked the port behind him, and entered the lifeboat.
He was met by a high-intensity beam. He had not expected instantaneous, undeclared war, but he was ready for it. Every screen he had was full out, his left hand held poised at hip a screened DeLameter. His return blast was, therefore, a reflection of Darjeeb’s bolt, and it did vastly more damage. The hand in which Darjeeb held the projector was the one that had been manhandling the pilot, and it was not quite back inside the
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Nhalian’s screens. In the fury of Cloud’s riposte, then, gun and hand disappeared, as did also a square foot of panel behind them. But Darjeeb had other hands and other guns and for seconds blinding beams raved against unyielding screens.
Neither screen went down. The Tellurian bolstered his weapons. It wouldn’t take much of this stuff to kill the passengers remaining in the saloon. He’d go in with his sampler.
He lugged it up and leaped straight at the flaming projector, with all of his mass and strength going into the swing of his ‘space-hatchet.’ The monster did not dodge, but merely threw up a hand to flick the toy aside with his gun-barrel. Cloud grinned fleetingly as he realized what the other must be thinking—that the man must be puny indeed to be making such ado about wielding such a trifle—for to anyone not familiar with dureum it is sheerly unbelievable that so much mass and momentum can possibly reside in a bulk so small.
Thus when fiercely-driven cutting edge met opposing ray-gun it did not waver or deflect. It scarcely even slowed. Through the metal of the gun that vicious blade sliced resistlessly, shearing flesh as it sped. On down, urged by everything Cloud’s straining muscles could deliver. Through armor it slashed, through the bony plating covering that tremendous double shoulder, deep into the flesh and bone of the shoulder itself; being stopped only by the impact of the hatchet’s haft against the armor.
Then, planting one steel boot on the helmet’s dome, he got a momentary stance with the other between barrel body and flailing arm, bent his back, and heaved. The deeply embedded blade tore out through bone and flesh and metal, and as it did so the two rear cabled arms dropped useless. That mighty rear shoulder and its appurtenances were out of action. The monster still had one good hand, however, and he was still full of fight.
That hand flashed out, to seize the weapon and to wield it against its owner. It came fast, too, but the man, strongly braced, yanked backward. Needle point and keen edge tore through flesh and snicked off fingers. Cloud swung his axe aloft and poised, making it limpidly clear that the next blow would be straight down into the top t>f the head.
That was enough. Darjeeb backed away, every eye glaring, and Cloud stepped warily over to Luda. A couple of strokes of
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his blade gave him a length of chain. Then, working carefully to keep his foe threatened at every instant, he worked the chain into a tight loop around the monster’s front neck, pulled it unmercifully taut around a stanchion, and welded it there with his DeLameter. He did not trust the other monster unreservedly, either, bound as she was. In fact, he did not trust her at all. In spite of family rows, like sticks to like in emergencies and they’d gang up on him if they could. Since she wasn’t wearing armor, however, she didn’t stand a chance with a DeLameter, so he could take time now to look around
The pilot, lying flat upon the floor, was beginning to come to. Not quite flat, either, for a shapely Chickladorian girl, wearing the forty one square inches of covering which were de rigueur in her eyes, had his bandaged head in her lap—or, rather, cushioned on one bare leg—and was sobbing gibberish over him. That wouldn’t help. Cloud started for the first-aid locker, but stopped; a white-wrapped figure was already bending over the injured man with a black bottle in her hand. He knew what it was. Kedeselin. That was what he was after, himself; but he wouldn’t have dared give a hippopotamus the terrific jolt she was pouring into him. She must be a nurse, or maybe a doctor; but Cloud shivered in sympathy, nevertheless.
The pilot stiffened convulsively, then relaxed. His eyes rolled; he gasped and shuddered; but he came to life and sat up groggily.