The three of them stood looking up at the robosurgeons. Sam shivered at the sight of them: men-talented but not men. He hated every machine he came in contact with, though he was not sure why.
"Someone could have machined the cases for these," the poet said. "But there are only a few companies that have the facilities to produce the delicate interiors. No one could make his own robosurgeon from sc.r.a.p without billions in equipment and hundreds of trained minds. Whoever put this together would have had to purchase the factory-made workings."
Sam flicked the control k.n.o.b that lowered the machines out of the ceiling. Ponderously, they came. When the underslung arms had spread to the sides and the machines were almost to the top of the table, he stopped them. Then he caused the main component to revolve so that the access plate faced them.
Gnossos rubbed his palms together: sand on stone. "Now we"ll find a few clues." He threw back the latches that held the plate on, dropped the cover to the floor. "Every company carries a list of purchases and customers. With one little serial number, we can find the buyer and, consequently, the constructor of this tub." He bent over and peered into the dark interior of the globe. He looked puzzled.
"Awful dark in there," Hurkos said.
Gnossos put a hand inside, reached in* and in, in, in up to his elbow.
"There"s nothing in it!" Sam said.
"Oh yes there is!" Gnossos shouted painfully. "And it has hold of my hand!"
V.
Gnossos tore his hand out of the machine, rubbed it against his chest. It was red and raw and bleeding in a few spots.
"What the h.e.l.l is in there?" Hurkos asked, leaning away from the open machine.
Sam stifled some low-keyed scream he felt twisting up toward his lips.
As if in answer to Hurkos" question, a jelly-ma.s.s began dripping onto the table from the open access plate. It collected there, amber spotted with areas of bright orange. It trembled there, quivered. Piercing, low-scale hummings bathed its convulsing form. There was something like a skin forming over it, the amber and orange changing to a pinkish-tan hue that made it look amazingly like human skin-too much like human skin. The skin expanded, contracted, and there were pseudopods pulling the ma.s.s across the table toward the warmth of their bodies.
They had backed nearly to the door. "There were no no mechanical insides!" Gnossos said, rubbing his hand. mechanical insides!" Gnossos said, rubbing his hand.
"But it moved," Sam argued. "It operated like a machine. How could it do that without moving parts?"
The jelly-ma.s.s burst in places as bubbles of something reached its surface, flopped open and left pocks. But the pocks were healed rapidly, and the skin was returned to normal.
"That-that thing was its insides, its working parts," Gnossos said. "The jelly-ma.s.s operated the sh.e.l.l like a machine."
The last of the mess dropped from the bowl of the main component. There was more than could have been contained in the main sphere; apparently all the sections had been filled and were now drained empty. The jelly-ma.s.s, shapeless, plunged over the end of the table, struck the floor with a sickening sloshing noise, and moved toward them, arms of simulated flesh lashing out for purchase on the cold floor.
"The armory!" Sam shouted, turning into the hall and flinging the door to the other room wide. Perhaps it had been the hypnotic training with the weapons that had made him think of guns so quickly. He knew how to kill; he could stop the amoeba, the super-cell. He stepped back into the hall with a rifle in his hands, brought it up, sighted. "Move away!"
Gnossos and Hurkos stepped behind him, moving toward the control cabin. Aiming for the center of the ma.s.s, Sam pulled the trigger. Blue lightning flashed outward, sparkling, and illuminated the pa.s.sageway like a small sun going nova. Despite the light, there was no heat. In fact, the flame seemed to radiate coolness. It struck the jelly, sank into it. There was something like a scream from the writhing slop, though the sounds were most certainly not a voice. It was as if the very molecules of the ma.s.s had closed gaps and were rubbing one another. The jelly stopped.
Sam, trembling, released the trigger, started to let air out of his lungs.
And the jelly leaped!
He fired, caught it in mid-jump, sent it crashing backward, blue fire coursing through it like contained lightning flashing in a crystal paperweight. He aimed again, depressed the firing stud.
Nothing.
Nothing!
No blue, shimmering flame. No cool but deadly flame. Not even a lousy click! He raised the weapon to look at it, to see if some latch or bolt had not been thrown properly by the automatic mechanism. Then he saw the amber goo beginning to pulse out of the tip of the barrel. Suddenly his hand was burning furiously and there was amoeba slopping out of the powerpack casing inside the handle. He threw the gun down, wiped his hand on the wall, sc.r.a.ping his skin loose in the mad attempt to rid himself of every drop of the jelly.
"Explosives!" Gnossos shouted.
Sam turned, dashed into the armory once more. When he came out, he had three grenades. He ran to Gnossos and Hurkos, panting heavily, his eyes wide, his heart furious as a drum.
The jelly-ma.s.s was recovering and had slopped into the hall where it joined up with the smaller clump of stuff that had been the insides of the gun. The two touched each other, glowed purple where their surfaces met, then easily flowed together and became one.
"I think I see why the radio didn"t work," Gnossos said. "It didn"t want want to work!" to work!"
"The entire ship is alive," Sam agreed.
Hurkos rapped a hand on the wall, listened to the solid sound of it. "It"s steel. I"ll be d.a.m.ned if it is anything but steel!"
"Inside," Sam said, keeping an eye on the pulsating jelly-ma.s.s at the end of the pa.s.sageway. "Deep inside the plating, there"s more goo."
"But the hyperdrive-"
"There mustn"t really be a hyperdrive mechanism," Sam said. "The jelly can build up a hypers.p.a.ce field somehow. There are no machines aboard, I"d wager. Only jelly-cored sh.e.l.ls."
"Your fear of machines-" Hurkos began.
"Was gained from whoever-or whatever-built this* this ship-thing."
The lump had begun to move again, pseudopods slapping wetly against the deck. It was six feet high, a good three hundred pounds.
"You two get into the suits," Gnossos said, taking the grenades. He still had his own suit on, and his helmet lay within easy reach. "We"ll have to go across to my ship. This one won"t let us live long now that we know part of its secret."
Sam and Hurkos struggled into their suits, fitted their helmets to the shoulder threads, attached their air tanks. Every little act, though performed at top speed, seemed to take hours. When they were dressed, Gnossos pulled the hatch shut, sealing the main cabin from the hallway where the thing was advancing warily. "Let"s see it get through that!" the poet said, putting on his helmet. "Now let"s get out of here."
"I"m afraid there isn"t much hope of that," Sam said from his position next to the control console. "I"ve pressed all b.u.t.tons to depressurize the cabin and open the exit chamber, but I can"t seem to get any response from the ship."
Hurkos, eyes wide, jumped to the console, flipped the comline to the computer open. "Let us out!"
But the computer was not a computer. There was a deafening roar from the wire and plastic voice plate. There were screams, thunders, explosions. A thousand rats burning alive. A million sparrows madly attacking one another in a battle to the death.
"Shut it off!" Gnossos shouted.
Hurkos slammed the switch shut. The noises continued. At first, it swept out in irregular waves, shredded them and put them back together. Then there was not even a pattern of waves, merely a constant din of overwhelming magnitude. And there was jelly spewing out of the speaker grid*
Jelly spewing out of the jack-holes*
Abruptly, the speaker grid was gone, thrust away by the surging pressure of the thing behind it. Parts of the console began to sag as the supportive jelly that had filled it was drained away, spat out.
Still the noise. "It"s the same sound," Sam shouted into his suit phone, "that I heard when I was obeying the hypnotic orders-only it isn"t ordering anything."
"The grenades!" Hurkos called above the roar as the jelly began to collect on the floor, changing from amber to pink-tan, rising in a pulsating ma.s.s. The other glob pressed against the hatch from the hallway. There was the screeching sound of metal being strained to its limits. Soon the hatch would give, and they would be trapped between two shapeless monsters. The jelly would cover them and do* whatever it did to flesh and blood and bone.
Gnossos flipped the cap that dissolved the anti-shock packing in the outer sh.e.l.l of the grenade. He tossed it. Nothing.
"The grenades are jelly too!" Hurkos shouted.
Sam s.n.a.t.c.hed one of the remaining bulbs from the poet. "No. They aren"t machines, so there is no reason for the jelly to replace them with part of itself. It"s just a natural chemical that explodes without mechanical prompting. It just needs a jar. Gnossos didn"t throw it hard enough." He wailed the second grenade against the viewplate.
All the world was a sun. A lightbulb. Then the filament began to die and the light went out completely. The force of the explosion had gone, mostly, outward. What had pressed in their direction had been caught by the second ma.s.s of jelly that rose to s.n.a.t.c.h at the grenade-unsuccessfully. Miraculously, they were tumbling through the shattered front of the ship, moving into the darkness and emptiness of s.p.a.ce toward The Ship of the Soul, The Ship of the Soul, the poet"s boat that lay silently a short mile away. the poet"s boat that lay silently a short mile away.
Behind them, the jelly came, boiling away in the vacuum, tumbling and sputtering. Steaming, it lashed out with non-arms as it realized its chances for success were diminishing. The thunder of its non-voice was definitely not sound but thought. It bombarded their minds, unable to order them so quickly, unable to control them in their panic.
Hurkos was out ahead, his shoulder jets pushing him swiftly toward the ship"s portal. Then came the poet. Finally, Sam. A hand of false-flesh streaked around the latter, curled in front of him, attempting to cut him off from the others. Cut him off. Cut him off and devour him. He choked, maneuvered under the whip before it could sweep around and capture him in an acidic embrace.
And still it came. It grew smaller, boiled and bubbled itself away. But there seemed always to be a new central ma.s.s moving out from the hull, leaping the blackness and replenishing the withering pseudopods before they could snap, separate, and dissolve. Finally, however, there was nothing left except a speck of pinkish-tan. It turned amber-orange, then it too puffed out of existence. With it, went the noise.
Inside The Ship of the Soul, The Ship of the Soul, they stripped, collapsed into soft chairs without animate padding. This was a ship of comfort, not one of destruction. This was a ship built for six people, not for one man, one tool of an insane, unnamable ent.i.ty without a face or a time. For a while, then, they were silent, composing themselves for what must be said. The moment the composing ended and the discussion began was signaled by a quiet suggestion from Gnossos that they get some wine to help loosen their tongues. they stripped, collapsed into soft chairs without animate padding. This was a ship of comfort, not one of destruction. This was a ship built for six people, not for one man, one tool of an insane, unnamable ent.i.ty without a face or a time. For a while, then, they were silent, composing themselves for what must be said. The moment the composing ended and the discussion began was signaled by a quiet suggestion from Gnossos that they get some wine to help loosen their tongues.
The wine was warm and green, a special bottle opened for a special occasion.
"It was the same sound I heard under the hypnotic trance."
"That means," Hurkos said, staring into his wine as he talked, "that it was the ship itself that was ordering you around. That jelly was the plotter behind the scheme."
Gnossos downed one gla.s.s of wine, poured a second from the decanter. "I don"t agree. If the ship were responsible for Sam"s actions, there would be no reason for hypnotic controls-and really no reason for Sam. If the ship were intelligent itself, it could do everything Sam could do-and possibly better. And when he shot it, it should have been able to order him to throw down the gun. No, the ship was just a cancerous ma.s.s of goo that was to convey Sam to Hope. Nothing more."
"But what kind of man could make a thing like the jelly-ma.s.s?"
"I think," Gnossos said, "that there is a chance you are the dupe of an extra-galactic intelligence."
"That"s absurd! We"ve never found another intelligent race in the last thousand years. That"s-"
"That"s frighteningly possible," Hurkos reflected. "There are thousands and millions of galaxies out there. How do you know a bunch of jelly-ma.s.ses didn"t kidnap you, take you away, and decide to train you to overthrow the galaxy?"
Sam finished his wine in a gulp. Heat flooded through his flesh, outward from his stomach. Still, it could not ward off the sharp chill in him. "Because," he answered in even tones, "that would be one h.e.l.luva backward way of invading the empire. If these extra-galactics have all this skill, can use something like the jelly for hypers.p.a.ce travel and making food and operating robosurgeons, they could overturn the galaxy in a month. A week! h.e.l.l, that blob even talked to me in a computer voice. Probably forms some crude set of vocal cords when it needs them. And it operated a radar set; it-"
"It"s a living machine," Gnossos said, almost to himself.
"That"s another thing," Hurkos added. "Your fear of machines. You got it, obviously, because whoever-or whatever-hypnotized you fears machines also. Because he, it, or they do not use machines. They have blobs instead. We have nothing like this. It almost proves they"re extra-galactic!"
"One couldn"t live in the empire without the aid of machines," Gnossos agreed. "One would have to be from* Outside."
"No." Sam set his gla.s.s on the floor. "If there were aliens with this sort of thing, they wouldn"t need me. This is something smaller than an entire extra-galactic race. This is someone who needs help, who needs an automaton to do his dirty work."
"Agreed also," the poet said. "Looks like there is a stalemate in this conversation and this line of thought." He heaved his bulk to a more comfortable position. "Well, I for one, am sticking with you until this mystery is solved. I couldn"t bear to quit with the whole thing raveled up. This could be the most important, most dangerous event of the last thousand years. And one thing that there is just too little of these days is danger. Warring man might have been crude, but he sure as the devil had his fill of danger in a lifetime. Today we travel on, living hundreds of years, and everything is so safe and perfect that we hardly ever experience danger. I"m long overdue for some excitement!"
"Me too, I guess," Hurkos said. Sam had the feeling the Mue was not terribly comfortable since the jelly-ma.s.s had attacked them. But he would not-could not-back down in front of the poet.
"So what next?"
Gnossos rubbed a huge paw across his chin, wrinkled his nose for a moment. "We set this tub on a course for Hope. When we get there, we wait for your next command. We"re going to find out the answers to this."
"But," Sam said uneasily, "suppose I am out to overturn the galaxy?"
"Hurkos and I will be right behind you to stop you before you have a chance."
"I hope so," he said.
Later, after more wine and much conjecture, as The Ship of the Soul The Ship of the Soul plunged through the thick river of the void, they retired, leaning back in their chairs, belting themselves in, and shutting their mouths so that they could neither consume nor converse. And eventually they fell into sleep* plunged through the thick river of the void, they retired, leaning back in their chairs, belting themselves in, and shutting their mouths so that they could neither consume nor converse. And eventually they fell into sleep*
There was deep and awful darkness, save for the scattered pinpoints of the stars dotting the roof of the night. Then, as the breeze shifted, dawn came crawling over the horizon, tinting the blackness with yellow* then orange* then orange* And there was still a hill with a cross upon it. There was a man on the cross. His hands were dripping blood. And there was still a hill with a cross upon it. There was a man on the cross. His hands were dripping blood.
And his feet were dripping blood*
The wounds were festered and black demon mouths.
The man on the cross raised his head, looked to the dawn. He seemed very weary, as if he were ready to give up more than the body, the spirit also. There were dumps of matting at the corners of his eyes that interfered with his vision. His teeth were yellow from long neglect.
"Dammit, let me down!" he shrieked.
The words rebounded from the low sky.
"Please," he said, groveling.
The sun was a flaming eye. When it was at its zenith, there came angels, beings of light and awesome majesty. They floated about the man, administering to his needs. Some carried water which they poured between his cracked and crusted lips. And some brought oil with which they anointed him. And still others sponged away the oil and fed him. Then they were vanished into air.
The sun was setting. It seemed only minutes since it had risen.
"Please," the man wept. The angels had missed some of the oil in his beard. It glistened there-and tickled.
With darkness came the demons. Crawling from under brown stones, slithering out of crevices in the earth, they came. There were dwarfs, slavering, eyeless yet seeing. There were wolves with sabers for teeth. There were things with tails and horns, things with heads that were nothing more than huge mouths. They screamed and cawed, muttered, shrieked, and moaned. They came at the cross, crawling over one another. But they could not reach the man. They clawed the wood of his prison but could not claw him. One by one, they began to die*
They withered and became smoke ghosts that the cool wind bore away. They collapsed into dust. They dribbled into blood pools.
Then there were stars for a short time.
And again came the dawn*
And the angels*
And the night and the demons and the stars and the dawn and the awesome, awesome angels and the night* It continued at a maddening pace. Days became weeks; weeks turned to months. For years, he hung there. For centuries, he remained. Finally, all time was lost as the sun spun madly across the sky and night with its devils was barely a blink of an eye. It continued at a maddening pace. Days became weeks; weeks turned to months. For years, he hung there. For centuries, he remained. Finally, all time was lost as the sun spun madly across the sky and night with its devils was barely a blink of an eye.