"We will be arriving in eleven minutes, Mr. Penuel," the hostess said, smiling white-white teeth and sparkling blue eyes. "We drop from hypers.p.a.ce in three minutes."
"Thank you," Sam managed to say between yawns.
She smiled, turned and walked up the aisle, trim legs flashing tan and smooth in the dim light of the pa.s.senger cabin.
Penuel* Penuel* It had been ten months now since Hurkos had destroyed the pink grub in Breadloaf"s office. Ten months since the empty tank beyond the wall had poured forth cold air like the maw of a frozen reptile giant. Still, he was not used to his name. Often, he never thought to answer to "Mr. Penuel." It had been Breadloaf"s suggestion. Penuel was Hebrew for "the face of G.o.d," and Alex was fascinated by the pun.
Penuel* Without Alex, he would still be just plain Sam-and just plain lost. He was still lost, surely, but a little less than he had been that night ten months ago. It had been Alex Breadloaf"s encouragement and camaraderie that had saved him in his direst moment. It had been Alex Breadloaf"s concern and influence that had gotten him the position as Congressman Horner"s aide, a position that swamped him with work and forced him to forget about all the problems plaguing him. He had answers now. Temporary answers, but answers good enough to let him live comfortably with himself as long as he didn"t get morbid or melancholy and start recalling his previous funk.
There was a subtle whining and a stiff, prolonged b.u.mping as the giant liner slipped from hypers.p.a.ce into the real thing.
Sam flipped the switch on the viewer in front of him and stared at the picture embedded in the back of the other seat. Blackness of s.p.a.ce, everywhere* then, slowly, the ship"s cameras tilted down and to the left, catching the green haze-covered sphere that was Chaplin I, an Earth-type, advanced colony. It looked normal from this alt.i.tude, but there had been no radio report from either of Chaplin I"s cities. Three and a quarter million people were either sleeping, in dire distress and dispossessed of their broadcasting stations, or dead. The government on Hope wanted to rule out the last thing. Common sense ruled out the first. That left only the middle, and this ship had been rushed to the rescue.
What sort of rescue, no one knew.
It was generally believed that some new sort of Beast had mutated on Chaplin I, since it had been a nuclear target during the last war a thousand and more years ago. With this ugly possibility in mind, one of the top bounty hunting teams had been brought along, complete with a huge, armored, multi-weaponed floater provided by the government. Sam had not seen the bounty hunters, for they had been busy the entire trip checking out their equipment and making trial tests with the functioning of the floater instruments. Aside from them, the only other pa.s.sengers were two reporters who, when they had discovered that he was merely a representative of Horner there only on a political mission in a political year, lost interest in him rather quickly. And, of course, there were thousands of tons of food, water, medicines, and fifty-five robodocs complete with hypodermic hands and two giant mother-system disease a.n.a.lyzers.
The cloud-shrouded planet spun below, holding menace.
"Unable to raise response," the pilot said, his voice booming along the aisle.
Sam was just about ready to turn the screen off when a thin silver needle detached itself from the clouds below and spun up at them, lazily. It was much too thin for a s.p.a.ceship. A moment"s observation told him it was an ancient, deadly, and accurate missile*
II.
Raceship, ponderous, vast, worldship by any other name, vibrated and was alive with activity. Its corridors were its veins, throbbing wildly with the blood that was its crew, its charge, its slavemen. Slug-forms moved rapidly down the winding hallways, their yellow-white bodies stretching at their segments as if their insides wanted to move faster than their skins could manage. All this for the tune of the Racesong. Slug-forms foamed in and out of portals in the honeycomb structure of the great metal walls as they were called to various points to take another duty, perform yet another task. Seek on the tune of the Racesong. Crews of disposal workers pushed down the snaking corridors, regularly clearing the deck of those slugs who had been pushed to their ultimate point of tolerance and had folded over when their double hearts had burst under the strain of the push-push-push of their existence. The disposal crew heaped bodies-mangled by the tramp of other slugs who had not stopped or gone around the warm obstacle of their dead comrade-on magnetic powered carts that floated silently behind them, unloading the carts later at disposal chutes, dumping the stacks of slugs into the grinning mouth of the fire-bellied dragon furnace that would take care of them quite rapidly. All the while, slugs hurried by, slugs dropped and died. Even members of the disposal crew, to keep with their task, were pushed to great extremes and collapsed to become fodder for the dragon furnace themselves. All of this madness, all of this costly rush was a burden they gladly bore in chaos. They gained a strange solace in the fact that, though they might die, generations upon generations lay in the nests, constantly hatching-hatching faster, in fact, than the tremendous death rate could deplete their numbers. And when a surplus built up, ponderous, vast, worldship by any other name, vibrated and was alive with activity. Its corridors were its veins, throbbing wildly with the blood that was its crew, its charge, its slavemen. Slug-forms moved rapidly down the winding hallways, their yellow-white bodies stretching at their segments as if their insides wanted to move faster than their skins could manage. All this for the tune of the Racesong. Slug-forms foamed in and out of portals in the honeycomb structure of the great metal walls as they were called to various points to take another duty, perform yet another task. Seek on the tune of the Racesong. Crews of disposal workers pushed down the snaking corridors, regularly clearing the deck of those slugs who had been pushed to their ultimate point of tolerance and had folded over when their double hearts had burst under the strain of the push-push-push of their existence. The disposal crew heaped bodies-mangled by the tramp of other slugs who had not stopped or gone around the warm obstacle of their dead comrade-on magnetic powered carts that floated silently behind them, unloading the carts later at disposal chutes, dumping the stacks of slugs into the grinning mouth of the fire-bellied dragon furnace that would take care of them quite rapidly. All the while, slugs hurried by, slugs dropped and died. Even members of the disposal crew, to keep with their task, were pushed to great extremes and collapsed to become fodder for the dragon furnace themselves. All of this madness, all of this costly rush was a burden they gladly bore in chaos. They gained a strange solace in the fact that, though they might die, generations upon generations lay in the nests, constantly hatching-hatching faster, in fact, than the tremendous death rate could deplete their numbers. And when a surplus built up, Raceship Raceship would send off a Spoorship under its direction, and the empire would grow and be greater. There was joy in knowing each death contributed to the goal. This made them wildly happy, this feeling of a united goal to strive and die for. would send off a Spoorship under its direction, and the empire would grow and be greater. There was joy in knowing each death contributed to the goal. This made them wildly happy, this feeling of a united goal to strive and die for.
And this maddening devotion was carefully structured and fostered by the Being in Ship"s Core.
III.
The rocket had been non-apocalyptic, but it had had torn a hole in the bottom of the ship that spelled certain death to everyone inside. Had it been a meteor, the ship could have evaded or destroyed it; but modern vessels were not equipped to defend themselves against seeker missiles, just as they were not equipped to fight in a peaceful world. They would crash now, spiraling downard to smash onto Chaplin I. Unless* torn a hole in the bottom of the ship that spelled certain death to everyone inside. Had it been a meteor, the ship could have evaded or destroyed it; but modern vessels were not equipped to defend themselves against seeker missiles, just as they were not equipped to fight in a peaceful world. They would crash now, spiraling downard to smash onto Chaplin I. Unless*
Unless, as Sam realized, they could reach the floater in the cargo hold, back where the bounty hunters were. If they could get into that and get it out of the ship before it crashed, they would save themselves. The floater could operate separately and bring them down safely.
A crackling, unclear and unintelligible, snapped through the shipcom as the pilot tried to say something the instruments would not let him say.
The ship spun faster and faster-down.
The ship screamed in expectation of the end.
Sam unbelted himself, gripped the seat in front, and pulled upward with a great deal of difficulty. He gained his feet and turned into the aisle when the ship took a more violent slant and almost knocked him down again. The hull moaned like a thousand banshees. The terrific stress of the multi-mile fall would start popping rivets shortly.
It was going to be an uphill fight-literally and figuratively. He had to grapple up the incline and reach the cargo-room hatch. Even there, it was not a certainty that he could open it under the vast pressures working against him. But he couldn"t just give up and die as the witless, shrieking reporters seemed to have done behind him. Panting, red-faced, with sweat streaming over his face and burning in his eyes, he fought his way, struggling over an ever-increasing inclination.
Something boomed, sc.r.a.ped loudly the length of the hill. The radar module had been torn loose and dragged along the ship.
Sam moved.
At the hatch, he braced his back against the seat to the right and tried turning the wheel that would open the portal. It wasn"t easy. He was fighting the pressure of their rapid descent and the heavy wheel. Now and again, the engines kicked in, trying to avert the fast approaching doom, and their jolting did nothing to help him. He felt like a moth trying to lift the candle and take it home. His heart pounded, and his eyes filled with tears. When he thought his chest was ready to break open like a nutsh.e.l.l and expel the meat of his heart, he felt the thump of complete revolution, and tugged on the door. He had just enough sense to pull his hands back as the great circular doorway swung violently backward, drawn by the forces of the plunging ship, and crashed into the wall. Beyond lay the storage chamber and the floater. The ramp into the round ball-like vehicle was open. They had seen him coming and understood his purpose and were delaying their escape.
Behind, the two reporters were fighting each other to be first to the floater after Sam. As a result, neither would make it in time.
Sam was halfway across the room when the deck buckled and tossed him face-first onto the metal plating, cutting his chin. He tasted blood, felt himself slipping backward toward the hatch, losing ground. He grabbed a cargo-fastening ring in the floor, held on. Forcing his vision to clear, he saw that the entry ramp was ten yards away, beyond a slight wrinkle in the deck. Surveying the rest of the floor, he found that he could work his way to the ramp by grabbing the cargo fastening rings and dragging himself over the last thirty feet. But his muscles were so terribly sore!
There was a booming in the front of the ship, and the door between the pilot"s cabin and the pa.s.senger area sealed itself with a loud sirening. The viewplate had smashed out of-or rather into-the pilot"s chamber, probably skewering the crew with thousands of slivers of plastigla.s.s-including the blue-eyed hostess with the trim, tan legs. Soon, similar things would be happening to the hull and the rest of the ship. If they didn"t crash first. Which was a distinct possibility.
Reaching for the next ring, he began crawling up the deck. In a surprisingly short time, speed increased with the imminent presence of death, he had reached the runneled gangplank. Hands latched onto him, dragged him into the floater. He looked up to say thanks, saw that his rescuer was a man with the legs of a horse, and slipped willingly into blackness.
IV.
Nests budded.
Nests bloomed rapidly, one after another like roses in a speeded stop-action film.
A new generation came forth, the uncountable generation of an uncountable cycle of generations. The new-hatched slugs worked their jaws rapidly, smashing their gums together, looking for some manner of nourishment. Web hangings flushed about them and guarded them against sc.r.a.ping harshly against deck plating or over raised bolts and seams in the skin of Raceship. Raceship. Almost as one organism, the thousands of pink, young slugs, rising up and standing on only half their segments, mewed piteously-asking, asking, asking. The mists of shock-absorbent webs swayed with their crawling quest, shredded and came down around them. And the mists parted as the sacrifice slugs came forth from their places of waiting, glorying that their time was finally near, finally at hand, finally and gloriously to be consummated. They drew back and threw themselves at the young slugs, opening the pores of their first segments so that appet.i.te-arousing juices could flow out and permeate the air with a delicious, dank heaviness. The baby slugs responded, whining insanely, gnawing their h.o.r.n.y gums into the pulpy body of the elder sacrifice slugs, gnawing and tearing at the flesh, swallowing it in great shreds, foaming over the smell of blood. And still the sacrifice slugs came joyfully, to be fulfilled in purpose. Almost as one organism, the thousands of pink, young slugs, rising up and standing on only half their segments, mewed piteously-asking, asking, asking. The mists of shock-absorbent webs swayed with their crawling quest, shredded and came down around them. And the mists parted as the sacrifice slugs came forth from their places of waiting, glorying that their time was finally near, finally at hand, finally and gloriously to be consummated. They drew back and threw themselves at the young slugs, opening the pores of their first segments so that appet.i.te-arousing juices could flow out and permeate the air with a delicious, dank heaviness. The baby slugs responded, whining insanely, gnawing their h.o.r.n.y gums into the pulpy body of the elder sacrifice slugs, gnawing and tearing at the flesh, swallowing it in great shreds, foaming over the smell of blood. And still the sacrifice slugs came joyfully, to be fulfilled in purpose.
In the Ship"s Core, the Central Being turned to the other matters bothering It: The slugs in the navigation and tracking quarters had come upon the form of another ship moving out and away from the vessel they had shot down shortly before. If this smaller thing should escape, Raceship Raceship might be in danger of discovery by the minions of mankind that swarmed in the galaxy ahead. There was great fury among the navigators and radar crews as they worked over the instruments, their pseudopodia grasping at the controls. The smaller ship, the chief tracker discovered, was a ball of some sort. Hollow. Yes, definitely hollow. At first, they feared it might be a bomb. But it moved away from might be in danger of discovery by the minions of mankind that swarmed in the galaxy ahead. There was great fury among the navigators and radar crews as they worked over the instruments, their pseudopodia grasping at the controls. The smaller ship, the chief tracker discovered, was a ball of some sort. Hollow. Yes, definitely hollow. At first, they feared it might be a bomb. But it moved away from Raceship, Raceship, not toward it. Still, they must get it. It had greater speed, at this low alt.i.tude, than not toward it. Still, they must get it. It had greater speed, at this low alt.i.tude, than Raceship Raceship had, but the slug-form crew lifted the mountainous ship and set out in pursuit, coasting over the surface of Chaplin I, seeking to kill* had, but the slug-form crew lifted the mountainous ship and set out in pursuit, coasting over the surface of Chaplin I, seeking to kill*
V.
"Are you all right?" a small, china-tone voice whisper-spoke to him as he swam upward through the inkiness that seemed endless, thick, and sticky. But, after all, there was light, and he homed in on the words as if they were a small beacon that would lead him out of his fuzziness into clarity-a very pleasant, gentle beacon.
"He just pa.s.sed out is all," another, gruffer, voice said.
"You have no sympathy," china-tone snapped.
Sam opened his eyes completely and found he was looking at a tiny, elfin face. Elfin! Pointed ears* small and delicate features* tiny but well-formed body* Wings! A pair of velvet-like wings fluffed gently behind her like sheets on a line, then drew shut. Their color matched the toga that fell to an end above her round and lovely knees. He remembered Hurkos and calmed himself. This was a mutant of some sort-whether a product of Nature or of the Artificial Wombs. A delightful mutation, to be sure. She was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.
"Are you okay?" she asked again, tiny lips parting slightly to let the little words out.
Sam groaned, tried to sit up.
"Don"t strain yourself," she said, grasping his shoulders in her fine, sh.e.l.l hands in an effort to restrain him, her sculptured fingers pressing him back.
"I"m* okay," he said, fighting off a headache that he knew could not successfully be fought off.
"I told you," the gruff voice said.
Sam turned to the right, looked into the wide, handsome face of the man with the gruff voice. There was a wild mane of hair framing his head, partially covering his two large ears. Memories of being dragged into the floater by a man-horse came back to him. "I guess I should thank you for saving-"
"Wasn"t anything to it," the man-horse said, flushing slightly and grinning.
"It was my life, though*"
"Don"t praise Crazy too much," a third voice said. It was Andrew Coro, the man he had met briefly on Horner"s Earth ranch when a Beast hunt had been initiated some months ago. Coro stepped between the girl and the man-horse. "Things like that go to his head, and he gets impossible to live with."
"Hmmph!" Crazy snorted.
"I haven"t met your* your colleagues, Mr. Coro."
"Of course not," Coro said. "I"m sorry. This is Lotus, our nursemaid, comforter, and spoiled friend. She"s also a famous botanist, but she"ll have you seeing plants in your sleep if you get her talking about it. Fair warning. This is Crazy Horse," he continued, pointing to the other mutant before the elfin girl-woman could respond. "Crazy is our muscle, as you might have guessed-and a bit, I imagine, of our brains also. And me you know, Mr. Penuel."
"Sam. And I"m pleased to meet you two. You did a fine job for Congressman Horner. Do you have anything for a headache?"
"It"s as makeshift as anything could be," Andy said.
"It"ll do," Crazy grunted, crossing his arms over his ma.s.sive chest and shuffling his hooves on the metal deck.
"Sam? After all, you"ll be sitting there."
Sam dropped into the homemade chair, fastened the seat belt. Crazy had taken a wall cot and bent it into the rugged form of a chair. Together, he and Coro had bolted it to the deck while Lotus had sewn a spare belt to it. He was reminded of the flexoplast chair in the jelly-ma.s.s ship. Suddenly things seemed to be revolving on a wheel, the playing of old events all over with just a few different characters. "I think it will do just fine."
"Okay," Coro said, turning and dropping into his own seat. "Now let"s find out what happened to those two colony-cities."
Coro plotted the position of the larger of the two silent cities, Chaplin-Alpha, set the floater on a high speed, automatic course for the place. As they bobbled along at what seemed like a leisurely pace but was really a wild, lightning-fast streaking, Sam learned to know the trio by their personalities and not just by their physical appearances. Lotus was tender, greatly affectionate, and very proud of her two men. She was also a lever to maintain humility and tranquillity within the group. She did these last two things with humor, not with nagging, and Sam came to appreciate this very much in only minutes. Crazy was quick-witted, quick-temered, and extremely friendly. He seemed the type who would lend you everything he owned-then kick your head in if you proved no more than a thief. He had a bit of the boyish wonder at the marvelous everyday things in life, a quality which most men lose early and never manage to regain. And Coro* Coro was different altogether. He was friendly, to be sure, and there was nothing but kindness in his manner. But he was not as candid as Crazy and Lotus, not as easy to know. He was withdrawn, and a touch of melancholy tinted his dark eyes, giving him a perpetual look of hurt.
They were talking, despite Coro"s warnings, about botany, when he began reducing the floater"s speed and shifting from plotogram to manual control. "We"re almost there," he said, interrupting Lotus as she related her adventures with a Porcupine Rose.
All four faced front. The conversation had been a diversion, a way to keep their minds off the missile that had torn up their ship, and to stop any questions about who might possibly have fired it in a world of pacifism. Suddenly the screens popped to life under Coro"s hands. The city of Chaplin-Alpha swam into clarity before them.
Rather, what had had been Chaplin-Alpha* been Chaplin-Alpha*
Once a thriving metropolis. Now ashes. How blithely this peaceful society tripped into disaster! Never expecting anything like this because things like this just didn"t happen. In the old world, police and rescue teams would have come by the droves. But there had been no police for centuries, and no one had foreseen that the fifty-five robodocs would be shot down before they could land.
Ashes. A gray-white film like the thinnest veneer of snow lay obfuscating all. Rubble lay in mounds like camel humps. Here and there the girders of a building stood like broken, singed bones, some of their stone and mortar flesh still clinging to them. Some places, the rubble stretched in long rows where the buildings had fallen directly sideways to crumble and decay like the body of a huge animal.
Plants. Lotus knew what kinds. They grew snakily from the burned edges, searching through the rubble, seeking sustenance from the two million bodies that, certainly, lay smashed beneath. Some others, dark and with slender leaves like knives, were carbon-eaters, relishing the richness of their coveted food.
"The people-" Lotus began.
"Dead," Coro finished.
"But how-"
"Killed."
Everyone sat silent a moment.
"But men don"t kill," Crazy insisted. "Not like this. And since the Breadloaf Shield and the death of G.o.d-"
Sam was slightly surprised to hear the casualness with which the man-horse mentioned the death of G.o.d. But then, the news media had splashed the story in depth and everywhere. Breadloaf had been interviewed to the point of exhaustion. Hurkos had become a minor celebrity on the variety-talk shows. Gnossos" book On G.o.d"s Demise, On G.o.d"s Demise, was a runaway best seller on any world you could name. Breadloaf"s scientists had been badgered, bothered, pumped for opinions and facts. Only Sam had managed, with a great deal of difficulty, to keep his privacy intact. With this bounty of media coverage, the fact of divine expiration was a common piece of knowledge, unquestioned and-ten months after the act-generally unthought of. But what Crazy was saying was correct. Men should be less able to kill than ever. The perpetrator of aggression was gone. Man was saner than ever. This sort of atrocity should be impossible. Men should not have the ability to* and of course, Sam thought, men didn"t do it! was a runaway best seller on any world you could name. Breadloaf"s scientists had been badgered, bothered, pumped for opinions and facts. Only Sam had managed, with a great deal of difficulty, to keep his privacy intact. With this bounty of media coverage, the fact of divine expiration was a common piece of knowledge, unquestioned and-ten months after the act-generally unthought of. But what Crazy was saying was correct. Men should be less able to kill than ever. The perpetrator of aggression was gone. Man was saner than ever. This sort of atrocity should be impossible. Men should not have the ability to* and of course, Sam thought, men didn"t do it!
"Not men," he said aloud.
"What?" they all said, almost together.
"I"ll wager that it wasn"t men. Not men as we know them."
"Talk sense," Coro said. "You"re worse than Crazy."
Sam strained at his seat belt. "These* killers are from another galaxy, not this one. They might not be men at all." His mind ran backward to the time in the ship when he still had only a first name and Gnossos had proposed the idea that he was being controlled by extra-galactic forces. Gnossos had been wrong then. But now the theory seemed to fit. He could think of no contradiction with what evidence they now had. Was he just as wrong as Gnossos? "It sounds crazy," he said, trying to say it all aloud and give it more validity than it now had in the tenuous thought-concepts of his mind. "But think about it. First of all, we do not have men in this galaxy who could perpetrate such violence. Secondly, there is absolutely no way, even if an army of these men existed, that they could secure the weapons to level a city to ashes. They have to be from Outside."
The others regarded him, trying to find some c.h.i.n.k in the reasoning. Crazy spoke first: "But wouldn"t the G.o.d who gave us aggression give it to all intelligent species in the universe? I was under the impression that men were actually basically good and sensible and that their bad qualities came from G.o.d"s schizoid personality. Now wouldn"t this G.o.d from the higher universe control this entire universe?"
Sam started to answer, closed his mouth when he couldn"t think of anything to say. His reasoning seemed sound. When Hurkos had killed the pink grub, the holy worm, then all intelligent species in this universe should have benefited from it. Perhaps G.o.d had controlled only part of the universe and* But, no. He had been the entire higher dimension. There had been no other G.o.ds with him. That was a fact. Breadloaf"s scientists said it was a fact, and they were hard boys to find fault with. Accordingly, these extra-galactics should not be able to kill, void of blood l.u.s.t.
But below, a city lay in ruin, concealing two million bodies.
"It must have been fast," Coro said. "There don"t seem to be any survivors."
"Let"s take a look at Chaplin-Beta," Lotus suggested.
"It"ll be the same." Coro began bringing the floater around in a one hundred and eighty degree turn.
Lotus folded her wings around her pert b.r.e.a.s.t.s, hiding her arms and shoulders in a sh.e.l.l of velvet membrane. "Let"s look anyway."
Coro completed the turn, and all four of them gasped at once when they saw it: a mountain in flight. Rather, a plateau. It was a flat slab of a ship, miles across. The floater was a small pebble beside it, an infinitesimal grain of sand.
"What-" Coro started.
The vast ship was over three thousand feet high, and that was but a fraction of its length and equal to its breadth. It seemed to be a solid piece with no seams and no windows to break its perfect sheen. It appeared to be powered by some magnetic system, as the ground beneath it reverberated in answer to the silent call of its star-shattering engines. The only scars on the great bulk were three rows of tiny holes (tiny from where they sat, but very likely feet across when viewed closely), five hundred holes per row. From the center of the middle row of holes there was a puff of white, and a silver missile like the one that had downed their last ship came spinning lazily toward them.
"Dive!" Sam shouted.
Coro hit the controls, pushing the floater down under the missile.