“Here I go-” With the blaster in one hand the steward swung over, his other fist twisted in the rope of linked belts. Dane held on grimly in spite of the tearing wrench in his shoulders.
He blinked and ducked his head at a sudden flash of burning fire. The fumes of blaster fire assaulted his throat and nose and he understood at last what Mura was attempting. The steward was burning out hand and foot holds in the smooth surface of the wall as he descended, cutting a ladder to reach Ali.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE HEART OF LIMBO
ALL AT ONCE Mura’s weight was gone, the strain on his shoulders no longer pulled him apart. Dane looked over the edge of the wall. A series of holes, black near him, still glowing red farther down, were clear to see in the gloom. His aching fingers released hold on the belts and they clattered to the floor.
When the red faded from the last of the holes the blaster had cut, Dane pulled on the gloves, clipped to his tunic cuffs against the cold of Limbo, and swung over to test the ladder. Though it ended well above the floor, he dropped the last few feet without difficulty.
Mura had out his aid kit and was working on Ali’s beaten face as Dane came up.
“The torch,” the steward ordered impatiently, “give me some light here !”
So Dane provided the light needed for the job of temporary patchwork. When the steward was done, Ali was able to see a little and had been supplied with a vita-cube and a limited drink of emergency stimulant. He could not twist his battered features with a smile, but some of the old light tone was back in his voice as he spoke:
“How did you get here-by flitter?”
Mura got to his feet and gazed up into the vast dome which arched above the maze.
“No. But one could be of use here, yes-”
“Yes is right!” Torn and swollen lips kept Kamil’s words a mumble, but the engineer-apprentice was determined to talk. “I thought I was coasting with dead jets all right until you showed up. When that Rich shut me in here he said there was a way out if I were just clever enough to find it. But I didn’t think it meant you had to have wings!”
”What is this anyway?” Dane asked. “Their prison?”
“Partly that, partly something else. You know what’s going on here?” Ali’s voice was shrill with excitement. “They’ve found an installation left by the Forerunners-and the thing still runs! It brings down any ship within a certain range-smashes ’em up here. Then this gang of Patrol Posteds goes out and loots the wrecks!”
“They’ve got the Queen pinned down,” Dane told him. “If she tries to lift she’ll crash-”
“So that’s it! They have had to run the machine at a more steady pace than usual and there was some talk-before they threw me in here-about how long it will go without a rest. Seems that before it switched on and off mechanically after some impulse pattern they don’t understand. Anyway, the key to the whole set up is somewhere here in this blasted puzzle house!”
“The installation in here?” Mura eyed the walls about them as if he were ready to pull the secret out of their very substance.
“Either that, or something important concerning it. There is a way through here-if you know the trail. Twice since I’ve been wandering around I heard people talking, once just on the other side of a wall. Only I never could get through to the right halls-” Ali sighed. “I had about reached the end of my orbit when you came jetting out of the ether.”
Dane buckled his belt around him and now he drew his blaster. With it on the lowest pressure he began to use it, methodically burning a series of holds up to meet those Mura had left at a higher level.
“We can go and see,” he said as he worked.
“You will go,” Mura told him. “And you will do it with secrecy-avoiding as much as possible any trouble. Ali cannot walk the walls, not now. But see if from above you can find this trail he talks of. Then with your guidance we can move-”
That was sensible enough. Dane waited for the pocks to cool, listening to Mura explain all that had happened since Ali had disappeared, hearing in turn Kamil’s account of his own adventures.
“There were two of them waiting in ambush and they jumped me,” he said with open disgust at his own lack of caution. “They had individual flyers!” There was awe in his tone. “Something else they found here. Great Space, this place is a storehouse of Forerunner material! Rich is using things he doesn’t know the meaning of-or why they work-or anything! These mountains are a regular warehouse. Well, with those flyers on they nipped me up and out-knocked me out. And when I came to I was tied up on one of those worm crawlers of theirs. Then I had a little question session with Rich and a couple of his burn-off boys-” Ali’s voice sounded grim and he did not go into details, his face gave evidence enough of that period. “Afterwards they made a few bright remarks and shoved me in here and I’ve probably been going around in circles ever since. But-do you realize-this place, it’s what everyone had been hunting for for years! Forerunner material-good as the day it was made. If we can get out of here-”
“Yes, first the getting out,” Mura cut in. “Also the matter of the installation-”
Dane glanced at the top of the wall. “How am I going to find you here again?”
“You will take bearings, Also,” Mura brought out his torch, set it up on end and snapped the low power button. “When you are aloft, see what kind of guide this makes-”
Once more Dane made use of the holds and scrambled up on the wall. He looked back. Yes, the beam from the torch cut straight up in the gloom. In a very inferior way it was not unlike the beacon on the Queen. He waved his hand to the two below and started out, heading for the centre of the maze where Ali believed the secret of the installation lay.
Walls angled, curved, took him right or left, so he had to retrace time and again. And nowhere did he see any hall below which led through the puzzle without interruption. If there was such a one, its doorways might be controlled by sonics and so hidden to the casual search.
But through his body coursed the heavy beat of the hidden machine. He must be nearing the source. Then he was conscious of a heightened glow in the greyness ahead. It had none of the sharp quality of a torch ray-rather it was as if the spectral radiance of the walls had been stepped to a more concentrated degree in that section. He slowed his pace to a shuffle as he neared that centre, afraid that the click of his metallic boot plates might betray him.
What he came to first was a double wall forming an oval area, a space of three feet between the two smooth surfaces. Determined to see what lay within, he made a risky jump from one to the next and then crouched on his hands and knees, creeping up to peer down into a room which was in stark contrast to the territory about it.
There were machines here-huge towering things-each sealed into a box coating. And a good third of the encircling wall was a bank of controls and dials, centred by a wide plate of smooth metal which bore a likeness to the visaplates he knew.
But that screen mirrored no scene from the outer world on its surface. Instead it was uniformly black and across it moved sparks of light.
Watching this were three men. And, by the brighter light, Dane was able to recognize Salzar Rich as well as the Rigellian who had come in on the Queen. The third man, in a seat just before the screen, his hands resting on a wide keyboard, was one he had never seen before.
This was it! This was the rotten heart of Limbo which rendered the blasted planet a menace to her particular corner of space! And as long as that heart beat, as it was doing now in waves which he could feel through his whole body, the Queen was tied to danger and her crew were helpless-
But were they? Dane felt a tiny thrill of excitement. Rich was making use of machines he did not really understand. And under other hands the whole set-up could be rendered harmless. Perhaps by watching now he himself could discover how to control the broadcast which kept the Queen a prisoner.