‘What the hell goes on here?’ Cloud demanded urgently, in spaceal.
‘I don’t know,’ the pink man replied. ‘All the ape said, as near as I could get it, was that I had to give him our free drive.’ He then spoke rapidly to the girl—his wife, Cloud guessed; if she wasn’t, she ought to be—who was still holding him fervently.
The pink girl nodded. Then, catching Cloud’s eye, she pointed at the two monstrosities, then at the nurse standing calmly near by. Startlingly slim, swathed to the eyes in billows of glamorette, she looked as fragile as a wisp of straw; but Cloud knew Manarkans. She, too, nodded at the Tellurian, then ‘talked’ rapidly with her hands to a short, thick-set, tremendously muscled woman of some race entirely strange to the Blaster. She was used to going naked; that was very evident. She had been wearing a light ‘robe of convention,’ but it had been pretty well demolished in the melee and she did not realize that what was left of it was hanging in tatters down her broad
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back. The ‘squatty’ eyed the gesticulating Manarkan and spoke, in a beautifully modulated deep bass voice, to a supple, lithe, pantherish girl with vertically-slitted yellow eyes, pointed ears, and a long and sinuous, meticulously-groomed tail. The Vegian —by no means the first of her race Cloud had seen—spoke to the Chickladorian eyeful, who in turn passed the message along to her husband.
‘The bonehead you had the argument with says to hell with you,’ the pilot translated to Cloud in spaceal. ‘He says his mob will be out here after him directly, and if you don’t cut him loose and give him the dope he wants they’ll burn us all to cinders.’
Luda was, meanwhile, trying to attract attention. She was bouncing up and down, rattling her chains, rolling her eyes, and in general demanding notice. More communication ensued, culminating in:
‘The one with fancy-worked skull—she’s a frail, but not the other bonehead’s frail, I guess—says pay no attention to the ape. He’s a murderer, a pirate, a bum, a louse, and so forth, she says. Says to take your axe—it’s some cleaver, she says, and I check her to ten decimals on that—cut his goddam head clean off, chuck his stinking carcass out the port, and get the hell out of here as fast as you can blast.’
That sounded to Cloud like good advice, but he didn’t want to take such drastic action without more comprehensive data.
‘Why?’he asked.
But this was too much for the communications relays to handle. Cloud did not know spaceal any too well, since he had not been out in deep space very long. Also, spaceal is a very simple language, not well adapted to the accurate expression of subtle nuances of thought; and all those intermediate translations were garbling things up terrifically. Hence Cloud was not surprised that nothing much was coming through, even though the prettied-up monster was, by this time, just about throwing a fit.
‘She’s quit trying to spin her yarn,’ the pilot said finally. ‘She says she’s been trying to talk to you direct, but she can’t get through. Says to unseal your ports—cut your screens—let down your guard—something like that, anyway. Don’t know what she does mean, exactly. None of us does except maybe the Manarkan, and if she does she can’t get it across on her fingers.’
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‘Perhaps my thought-screen?’ Cloud cut it.
‘More yet,” the Chickladorian went on, shortly. ‘She says there’s another one, just as bad or worse. On your head, she says … No, on your head-bone—what the hell! Skull? No, inside your skull, she says now … Hell’s bells! I don’t know what she is trying to say!’
‘Maybe I do—keep still a minute, all of you.’ A telepath undoubtedly, like the Manarkans—that was why she had to talk to her first. He’d never been around telepaths much—never tried it. He walked a few steps and stared directly into one pair of Luda’s eyes—large, expressive eyes, now soft and gentle.
‘That’s it, chief! Now blast away … baffle your jets … relax, I guess she means. Open your locks and let her in.’
Cloud did relax, but gingerly. He didn’t like this mind-to-mind stuff at all, particularly when the other mind belonged to such a monster. He lowered his mental barriers skittishly, ready to revolt at any instant; but as soon as he began to understand the meaning of her thoughts he forgot completely that he was not talking man to man. And at that moment—such was the power of Luda’s mind and the precision of her telepathy—every nuance of thought became sharp and clear.
‘I demand Darjeeb’s life!’ Luda stormed. ‘Not because he is the enemy of all my race—that would not weigh with you— but because he has done what no one else, however base, has ever been so lost to shame as to do. In our city upon Lune he kindled an atomic flame which is killing us in multitudes. In case you do not know, such flames can never be extinguished.’
‘I know. We call them loose atomic vortices; but they can be extinguished. In fact, putting them out is my business.’
‘Oh—incredible but glorious news …’ Luda’s thought seethed, became incomprehensible for a space. Then: ‘To win your help for my race I perceive that I must be completely frank. Observe my mind closely, please—see for yourself that I withhold nothing. Darjeeb wants at any cost the secret of your vessel’s speed. With it, his race would destroy mine utterly. I want it too, of course—with it we would wipe out the Nhalians. However, since you are so much stronger than would be believed possible—since you defeated Darjeeb in single combat—I realize my helplessness. I tell you, therefore, that both Darjeeb and I have long since summoned help. Warships of both sides are approaching, to capture one or both of these vessels. The
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Nhalians are the nearer, and these secrets must not, under any conditions, go to Nhal. Dash out into space with both of these ships, so that we can plan at leisure. First, however, kill that unspeakable murderer—you have scarcely injured him the way it is—or give me that so deceptive little axe and I’ll be only too glad to do it myself.’
A chain snapped ringingly; metal clanged against metal. Only two of Darjeeb’s major arms had been incapacitated; his two others had lost only a few fingers apiece from their hands. His immense bodily strength was almost unimpaired. He could have broken free at any time, but he had waited; hoping to take Cloud by surprise or that some opportunity would arise for him to regain control of the lifeboat. But now, feeling sure that Luda’s eminently sensible advice would be taken, he decided to let inertialessness go, for the moment, in the interest of saving his life.
‘Kill him!’ Luda shrieked the thought and Cloud swung his weapon aloft, but Darjeeb was not attacking. Instead, he was rushing into the airlock—escaping!
‘Go free, pilot!’ Cloud commanded, and leaped; but the inner valve swung shut before he could reach it.
As soon as he could operate the lock Cloud went through it. He knew that Darjeeb could not have boarded the scout, since her ports were locked. He hurried to his control room and scanned space. There the Nhalian was, falling like a plummet. There also were a dozen or so space-ships, too close for comfort, blasting upward.
Cloud cut in his Bergenholm, kicked on his driving blasts, cut off, and went back into the lifeboat.
‘Safe enough now,’ he thought. ‘They’ll never got out here inert. I’m surprised he jumped—didn’t figure him as a suicidal type.’
‘He isn’t. He didn’t,’ Luda thought, dryly.
‘Huh? He must have. That was a mightly long flit he took off on, and his suit wouldn’t hold air.’
‘He would stuff something into the holes. If necessary he could have made it without air—or armor, either. He’s tough. He still lives, curse him! But it is of no use for me to bewail that fact now. Let us make plans. You must put out the flame, and the leaders of our people will convince you …’
‘Just a second—some other things come first.’ He fell silent.
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First of all, he had to report to the Patrol, so they could get some Lensmen and a task force out here to straighten up this mess. With ordinary communicators, that would take some doing—but wait, he had a double-ended tight beam to the laboratory. He could get through on that, probably, even from here. He’d have to mark the lifeboat as a derelict and get these people aboard his cruiser. No space-tube. The women could wear suits, but this Luda …
‘Don’t worry about me!’ that entity cut in. ‘You saw how I came aboard. I don’t enjoy breathing vacuum, but I’m as tough as Darjeeb is. So hurry! During every moment you delay, more of my people are dying!’