Space Beagle- the Complete Adventures Page 12

  Another voice sounded. The tone was deeper and more relaxed. Grosvenor recognized it as belonging to Hal Morton, Director of the expedition. Morton said, “That’s one of the reasons why you’re on this trip, Kent—because you leave very little to chance.”

  It was a friendly comment. It ignored the fact that Kent had already set himself up as Morton’s opponent for the directorship. Of course, it could have been designed as a bit of incidental political virtuosity to put over to the more naive listeners the notion that Morton felt no ill will towards his rival. Grosvenor did not doubt that the Director was capable of such subtlety. He had sized up Morton as a shrewd, reasonably honest, and very intelligent man, who handled most situations with automatic skill.

  Grosvenor saw that Morton was moving forward, placing himself a little in advance of the others. His strong body bulked the transparent metalite suit. From that position, the Director watched the catlike beast approach them across the black rock plain. The comments of other departmental heads pattered through the communicator into Grosvenor’s ears.

  “I’d hate to meet that baby on a dark night in an alley.”

  “Don’t be silly. This is obviously an intelligent creature. Probably a member of the ruling race.”

  “Its physical developments,” said a voice, which Grosvenor recognized as that of Siedel, the psychologist, “suggest an animal-like adaptation to its environment. On the other hand, its coming to us like this is not the act of an animal but of an intelligent being who is aware of our intelligence. You will notice how stiff its movements are. That denotes caution, and consciousness of our weapons. I’d like to get a good look at the end of those shoulder tentacles. If they taper into handlike appendages or suction cups, we could start assuming that it’s a descendant of the inhabitants of this city.” He paused, then finished, “It would be a great help if we could establish communication with it. Off-hand, though, I’d say that it has degenerated into a primitive state.”

  Coeurl stopped when he was still ten feet from the nearest beings. The need for id threatened to overwhelm him. His brain drifted to that ferocious edge of chaos, where it cost him a terrible effort to hold back. He felt as if his body were bathed in molten liquid. His vision kept blurring.

  Most of the men walked closer to him. Coeurl saw that they were frankly and curiously examining him. Their lips moved inside the transparent helmets they wore. Their form of intercommunication—he assumed that was what he sensed—came to him on a frequency that was well within his ability to receive. The messages were meaningless. In an effort to appear friendly, he broadcast his name from his ear tendrils, at the same time pointing at himself with one curving tentacle.

  A voice Grosvenor didn’t recognize drawled, “I got a sort of static in my radio when he wiggled those hairs, Morton. Do you think—”

  Morton’s use of the man’s name identified the other. Gourlay, chief of communications. Grosvenor, who was recording the conversation, was pleased. The coming of the beast might enable him to obtain recordings of the voices of all the rest of the important men aboard the ship. He had tried to do that from the beginning.

  “Ah,” said Siedel, the psychologist, “the tentacles end in suction cups. Provided the nervous system is complex enough, he could with training operate any machine.”

  Director Morton said, “I think we’d better go inside and have lunch. Afterwards, we’ll have to get busy. I’d like a study made of the scientific development of this race, and particularly I want to know what wrecked it. On Earth, in the early days before there was a galactic civilization, one culture after another reached its peak and then crumbled. A new one always sprang up in its dust. Why didn’t that happen here? Each department will be assigned its special field of investigation.”

  “What about pussy?” somebody said. “I think he wants to come in with us.”

  Morton chuckled, then said seriously, “I wish there were some way we could take it in with us, without forcibly capturing it. Kent, what do you think?”

  The little chemist shook his head decisively. “This atmosphere has a higher chlorine than oxygen content, though actually not much of either. Our oxygen would be dynamite to his lungs.”

  It was clear to Grosvenor that the catlike being had not considered that danger. He watched the monster follow the first men up the escalator and through the great door.

  The men glanced back towards Morton, who waved a hand at them and said, “Open the second lock and let him get a whiff of the oxygen. That’ll cure him.”

  A moment later the Director’s amazed voice was loud on the communicator. ‘Well, I’ll be damned! He doesn’t notice the difference! That means he hasn’t any lungs, or else the chlorine is not what his lungs use, You bet he can go in! Smith, here’s a treasure house for a biologist—harmless enough if we’re careful. What a metabolism!”

  Smith was a tall, thin bony man with a long, mournful face. His voice, unusually forceful for his appearance sounded in Grosvenor’s communicator. “In the various exploring trips I’ve been on, I’ve seen only two higher forms of life. Those dependent on chlorine, and those who need oxygen—the two elements that support combustion. I’ve heard vague reports of a fluorine-breathing life form, but I’ve yet to see an example. I’d almost stake my reputation that no complicated organism could ever adapt itself to the actual utilization of both gases. Morton, we mustn’t let this creature get away if we can help it.”

  Director Morton laughed, then said soberly, “He seems anxious enough to stay.”

  He had been riding up the escalator on one side of the gangplank. Now he moved into the air lock with Coeurl and the two men. Grosvenor hurried forward, but he was only one of a dozen men who also entered the large space. The great door swung shut, and air began to hiss in. Everybody stood well clear of the catlike monster. Grosvenor watched the beast with a growing sense of uneasiness. Several thoughts occurred to him. He wished he could communicate them to Morton. He should have been able to. The rule aboard these expeditionary ships was that all heads of departments should have easy access to the director. As head of the Nexial department—though he was the only one in it—that should have applied to him also. The communicator of his space suit should have been fitted so that he could talk to Morton as did the heads of the other departments. But all he had was a general receiver. That gave him the privilege of listening in to the great men when they were doing field work. If he wanted to talk to anyone, or if he were in danger, he could throw a switch that would open a channel to a central operator.

  Grosvenor did not question the general value of the system. There were just under one thousand men aboard, and it was obvious that all of them could not talk to Morton whenever they pleased.

  The inner door of the lock was opening. Grosvenor pushed his way out with the others. In a few minutes they were all standing at the bottom of a series of elevators that led up to the living quarters. There was a brief discussion between Morton and Smith. Finally, Morton said, “We’ll send him up alone if he’ll go.”

  Coeurl offered no objection until he heard the door of the elevator clang shut behind him, and the closed cage shot upward. He whirled with a snarl. Instantly, his reason twisted into chaos. He pounced at the door. The metal bent under his plunge, and the desperate pain maddened him. Now he was all trapped animal. He smashed at the metal with his paws. He tore the tough welded panels loose with his thick tentacles. The machinery screeched in protest. There were jerks as the magnetic power pulled the cage along in spite of projecting pieces of metal scraping against the outside walls. Finally, the elevator reached its destination and stopped. Coeurl snatched off the rest of the door and hurtled into the corridor. He waited there until the men came up with drawn weapons.

  Morton said, “We’re fools. We should have shown him how it works. He thought we’d double-crossed him, or something.” He motioned to the monster. Grosvenor saw the savage glow fade from the beast’s coal-black eyes as Morton opened and closed the door of a nearby elevator
several times. It was Coeurl who ended the lesson. He trotted into a large room that led off from the corridor.

  He lay down on the carpeted floor and fought down the electric tautness of his nerves and muscles. He was furious at the fright he had shown. It seemed to him that he had lost the advantage of appearing a mild and placid individual. His strength must have startled and dismayed them.

  It meant greater danger in the task he must accomplish: to seize this ship. On the planet from which these beings had come, there would be unlimited id.

  CHAPTER TWO

  With unwinking eyes, Coeurl watched two men clear away loose rubble from the metal doorway of a huge, old building. The human beings had eaten lunch, had again donned their space units, and now he could see them, singly and in groups, wherever he looked. Coeurl assumed that they were still investigating the dead city.

  His own interest was entirely in food. His body ached with the hunger of his cells for id. The craving put a quiver in his muscles, and his mind burned with the desire to be off after the men who had gone deeper into the city. One of them had gone alone.

  During the lunch period, the human beings offered him a variety of their own food, all valueless to him. They apparently did not realize that he must eat living creatures. Id was not merely a substance but a configuration of a substance, and it could be obtained only from tissues that still palpitated with the flow of life.

  The minutes went by. And still Coeurl restrained himself. Still he lay there watching, aware that the men knew he watched. They floated a metal machine from the ship to the rock mass that blocked the great door of the building. His fierce state noted all their movements. Even as he shivered with the intensity of his hunger, he saw how they operated the machinery, and how simple it was.

  He knew what to expect finally when the flame ate incandescently at the hard rock. In spite of his pre-knowledge, he deliberately jumped and snarled as if in fear.

  From a small patrol ship, Grosvenor observed the action. It was a role he had assigned himself, watching Coeurl. He had nothing else to do. No one seemed to feel the need of assistance from the one Nexialist aboard the Space Beagle.

  As he watched, the door below Coeurl was cleared. Director Morton and another man came over together. They went inside, and disappeared from view. Presently their voices came through Grosvenor’s communicator. The man with Morton spoke first.

  “It’s a shambles. There must have been a war. You can catch the drift of this machinery. It’s secondary stuff. What I’d like to know is, how was it controlled and applied?”

  Morton said, “I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

  “Simple,” said the other. “So far, I’ve seen nothing but tools. Almost every machine, whether it’s a tool or a weapon, is equipped with a transformer for receiving energy, altering its form, and applying it. Where are the power plants? I hope their libraries will give us a clue. What could have happened to make a civilization crash like this?”

  Another voice broke through the communicators. “This is Siedel. I heard your question, Mr Pennons. There are at least two reasons why a territory becomes uninhabited. One is lack of food. The other is war.”

  Grosvenor was glad that Siedel had used the other’s name. It was another voice identified for his collection. Pennons was chief ship’s engineer.

  Pennons said, “Look, my psychological friend, their science should have enabled them to solve their food problems, for a small population at least. And failing that, why didn’t they develop space travel and go elsewhere for their food?”

  “Ask Gunlie Lester.” It was Director Morton. “I heard him expounding a theory before we landed.”

  The astronomer answered the first call. “I’ve still got to verify all the facts. But one of them, you’ll agree, is significant by itself. This desolate world is the only planet revolving around that miserable sun. There’s nothing else. No moon. Not even a planetoid. And the nearest star system is nine hundred light-years away. So tremendous would have been the problem of the ruling race of this world that in one jump they would have had to solve not only interplanetary but interstellar-space flight. Consider for comparison how slow our own development was. First, we reached the moon. The planets followed. Each success led to the next, and after many years the first long journey was made to a near-by star. Last of all, man invented the anti-accelerator drive which permitted galactic travel. With all this in mind, I maintain it would be impossible for any race to create an interstellar drive without previous experience.”

  Other comments were made, but Grosvenor did not listen. He had glanced towards where he had last seen the big cat. It was not in sight. He cursed under his breath for having let himself be distracted. Grosvenor swung his small craft over the whole area in a hasty search. But there was too much confusion, too much rubble, too many buildings. Everywhere he looked there were obstacles to his vision. He landed and questioned several hard-working technicians. Most recalled having seen the cat “about twenty minutes ago.” Dissatisfied, Grosvenor climbed back into his lifeboat and flew out over the city.

  A short while before, Coeurl had moved swiftly, seeking concealment wherever he found it. From group to group he sped, a nervous dynamo of energy, jumpy and sick from his hunger. A little car rolled up, stopped in front of him, and a formidable camera whirred as it took a picture of him. Over on a mound of rock, a gigantic drilling machine was just going into operation. Coeurl’s mind became a blur of images of things he watched with half-attention His body ached to be off after the man who had gone alone into the city.

  Suddenly he could stand it no longer. A green foam misted his mouth. For a moment, it seemed, no one was looking at him. He darted behind a rocky embankment and began to run in earnest. He floated along with great, gliding leaps. Everything but his purpose was forgotten, as if his brain had been wiped clean by some magic, memory-erasing brush. He followed deserted streets, taking short cuts through gaping holes in time-weakened walls and through long corridors of mouldering buildings. Then he slowed to a crouching lope as his ear tendrils caught the id vibrations.

  Finally, he stopped and peered from a scatter of fallen rock. A two-legged being was standing at what must once have been a window, directing the beams of his flashlight into the gloomy interior. The flashlight clicked off. The man, a heavy-set, powerful individual, walked off swiftly, turning his head alertly this way and that. Coeurl didn’t like that alertness. It meant lightning reaction to danger. It presaged trouble.

  Coeurl waited until the human being had disappeared around a corner, then he padded into the open, faster than a man could walk. His plan was clearly made. Like a wraith he slipped down a side street and past a long block of buildings. He turned the first corner at great speed, leaped across an open space, and then, with dragging belly, crept into the half-darkness between the building and a huge chunk of debris. The street ahead was a channel between two unbroken hills of loose rubble. It ended in a narrow bottleneck, which had its outlet just below Coeurl.

  In the final moment he must have been too eager. As the human being started to pass by below, Coeurl was startled by a tiny shower of rocks that streamed down from where he crouched. The man looked up with a jerk of his head. His face changed, twisted, distorted. He snatched at his weapon.

  Coeurl reached out and struck a single crushing blow at the shimmering, transparent headpiece of the space suit. There was a sound of tearing metal and a gushing of blood. The man doubled up as if part of him had been telescoped. For a moment his bones and legs and muscles combined almost miraculously to keep him standing. Then he crumpled with a metallic jangling of his space armor.

  In a convulsive movement, Coeurl leaped down upon his victim. He was already generating a field that prevented the id from being released into the blood. Swiftly, he smashed the metal and the body within it. Bones cracked. Flesh spattered. He plunged his mouth into the warm body and let the lacework of tiny suction cups strain the id out of the cells. He had been at this ecstatic
task about three minutes when a shadow flicked across his eye. He looked up with a start, and saw that a small ship was approaching from the direction of the lowering sun. For one instant, Coeurl froze, then he glided into the shelter of a great pile of debris.

  When he looked again, the small vessel was floating lazily off to the left. But it was already circling, and he saw that it might come back toward him. Almost maddened by the interruption of his feeding, Coeurl nevertheless deserted his kill and headed back towards the space ship. He ran like an animal fleeing danger, and slowed only when he saw the first group of workers. Cautiously, he approached them. They were all busy, and so he was able to slip up near them.

  In his search for Coeurl, Grosvenor grew progressively dissatisfied. The city was too large. There were more ruins, more places of concealment than he had first thought. He headed back finally to the big ship. And was considerably relieved when he found the beast comfortably sprawled on a rock sunning himself. Carefully, Grosvenor stopped his ship at a vantage height behind the animal. He was still there twenty minutes later when the chilling announcement came over the communicator that a group of men who were exploring the city had stumbled over the smashed body of Dr. Jarvey of the chemistry department.

  Grosvenor took down the direction given, and then headed for the scene of the death. Almost immediately he discovered that Morton was not coming to look at the body. He heard the Director’s solemn voice on the communicator. “Bring the remains to the ship.”

  Jarvey’s friends were present, looking sober and tense in their space suits. Grosvenor stared down at the horror of tattered flesh and blood-sprayed metal and felt a tightening in his throat. He heard Kent say, “He would go alone, damn him!”

  The chief chemist’s voice was husky. Grosvenor recalled having heard that Kent and his principal assistant, Jarvey, were very good friends. Somebody else must have spoken on the private band of the chemistry department, for Kent said, “Yes, we’ll have to have an autopsy.” The words reminded Grosvenor that he would miss most of what was going on unless he could tune in. Hastily, he touched the man nearest him and said, “Mind if I listen in to the chemistry band through you?”