The Voyage of the Space Beagle Read online

  Even as the determination struck deeper, the gaping mouth of the cage closed over him. The metal door snapped noiselessly shut behind him. Ixtl reached for the nearest bar, caught it, and held on grimly. He clung there, dizzy from reaction. For he was safe! His mind expanded with the force of that reality. There was a physical as well as a mental effect. Free electrons discharged in swarms from the chaos of spinning atom systems inside his body, and frantically sought union with other systems. He was safe after quadrillions of years of despair. Safe on a material body. No matter what else happened, control of the energy source of this power-driven cage forever freed him from his past inability to direct his movements. He would never again be subject to the pull and equally feeble counter-pull of remote galaxies. Henceforth, he could travel in any direction he desired. And that much he had gained from the cage alone.

  As he clung to the bars, his prison started to move toward the surface of the ship. The protective screen parted as they came to it, and closed behind them. Close up, the men looked puny. Their need of space suits proved their inability to adapt themselves to environments radically different from their own, which meant that they were physically on a low plane of evolution. It would be unwise, however, to under-estimate their scientific achievements. Here were keen brains, capable of creating and using mighty machines. And they had now brought up a number of these machines, evidently with the purpose of studying him. That would reveal his purpose, identify the precious objects concealed within his breast, and expose at least a few of his life processes. He could not allow such an examination to be made.

  He saw that several of the beings carried not one but two weapons. The instruments were attached to holsters, which were fitted in with the hand-arm mechanisms of each space suit. One of the weapons was the atomic-missile type with which he had already been threatened. The other had a sparkling, translucent handle. He analysed it as a vibration gun. The men on the cage were also armed with the latter type of weapon.

  As the cage settled into the hastily arranged laboratory, a camera was pushed towards the narrow opening between two of the bars. That was Ixtl’s cue. With effortless ease, he jerked himself to the ceiling of the cage. His vision intensified, and became sensitive to very short frequencies. Instantly, he could see the power source of the vibrator as a bright spot well within his reach.

  One arm, with its eight wirelike fingers, lashed out with indescribable swiftness at the metal, through it; and then he had the vibrator from the holster of one of the men on the cage.

  He did not attempt to readjust its atomic structure as he had adjusted his arm. It was important that they should not be able to guess who had fired the weapon. Straining to maintain his awkward position, he aimed the weapon at the camera and at the group of men behind it. He pressed the trigger.

  In one continuous movement, Ixtl released the vibrator, withdrew his hand, and, by the act, pushed himself to the floor. His immediate fear was gone. The purely molecular energy had resonated through the camera and had affected to some extent most of the equipment in the makeshift laboratory. The sensitive film would be useless; meters would have to be reset, gauges examined, and each machine tested. Possibly the entire lot of paraphernalia would have to be replaced. And best of all, by its very nature, what had happened would have to be regarded as an accident.

  Grosvenor heard curses in his communicator, and he guessed, with relief, that the others were fighting, as he was, the stinging vibration that had been only partly stopped by the material of their space suits. His eyes adjusted slowly. Presently, he could see again the curved metal on which he stood, and beyond that the brief, barren crest of the ship, and the limitless miles of space — dark, fathomless, unthinkable gulfs. He saw, too, a blur among the shadows, the metal cage.

  “I’m sorry, Director,” one of the men on the cage apologized. “The vibrator must have fallen out of my belt and discharged.”

  Grosvenor said quickly, “Director, that explanation is unlikely in view of the virtual absence of gravity.”

  Morton said, “That’s a good point, Grosvenor. Did anybody see anything significant?”

  “Maybe I knocked against it, sir, without noticing,” volunteered the man whose weapon had caused the turmoil.

  There was a spluttering from Smith. The biologist muttered something that sounded like “The erysipelatous, strabismic, steatopygean…” Grosvenor didn’t catch the rest, but he guessed that it was a biologist’s private curse. Slowly, Smith straightened. “Just a minute,” he mumbled, “and I’ll try to remember what I saw. I was right here in the line of fire — ah, there, my body has stopped throbbing.” His voice became sharp as he went on. “I can’t swear to this, but just before that vibrator shocked me, the creature moved. I have an idea he jumped to the ceiling. I admit it was too black to see more than a blur, but….” He left the sentence unfinished.

  Morton said, “Crane, turn the cage light on, and let’s see what we’ve got here.

  With the others, Grosvenor faced about as a blaze of light showered down upon Ixtl crouching at the bottom of the cage. And then he stood silent, shocked in spite of himself. The almost red metallic sheen of the creature’s cylindrical body, the eyes like coals of fire, the wirelike fingers and toes, and the over-all scarlet hideousness of it startled him.

  Through the communicator, Siedel said breathlessly, “He’s probably very handsome — to himself!”

  The halfhearted attempt at humour broke the spell of horror. A man said stiffly, “If life is evolution, and nothing evolves except for use, how can a creature living in space have highly developed legs and arms? Its insides should be interesting. But now — the camera’s useless. That vibration would have the effect of distorting the lens, and of course the film has been ruined. Shall I have another sent up?”

  “No-o-o!” Morton sounded doubtful, but he continued in a firmer tone, “We’ve been wasting a lot of time; and after all, we can recreate vacuum of space conditions inside the ship’s laboratories, and be travelling at top acceleration while we’re doing it.”

  “Am I to understand that you are going to ignore my suggestion?” It was von Grossen, the physicist. He went on. “You will recall that I recommended at least a week’s study of this creature before any decision is made about taking him aboard.”

  Morton hesitated, then said, “Any other objections?” He sounded concerned.

  Grosvenor said, “I don’t think we should jump from the extreme of precaution to no precaution at all.”

  Morton said quietly, “Anybody else?” When no one replied, he added, “Smith?”

  Smith said, “Obviously, we’re going to take him aboard sooner or later. We mustn’t forget that a creature existing in space is the most extraordinary thing we’ve run across. Even pussy, who was equally at home with oxygen and chlorine, needed warmth of a kind, and would have found the cold and lack of pressure in space deadly. If, as we suspect, this creature’s natural habitat is not space, then we must find out why and how he came to be where he is.”

  Morton was frowning. “I can see we’ll have to vote on this. We could enclose the cage in metal that will take an outer screen. Would that satisfy you, von Grossen?”

  Von Grossen said, “Now we are talking sensibly. But we shall have more arguments before the energy screen is taken down.”

  Morton laughed. “Once we’re on our way again, you and the others can discuss the pro and con of that from now till the end of the voyage.” He broke off. “Any other objections? Grosvenor?”

  Grosvenor shook his head. “The screen sounds effective to me, sir.”

  Morton said, “All those against, speak up.” When no one spoke, he directed a command to the men on the cage. “Move that thing over here, so we can start preparing it for energization.”

  Ixtl felt the faint throb in the metal as the motors started. He saw the bars move. Then he grew conscious of a sharp, pleasant tingling sensation. It was a physical activity inside his body, and while it was in progress it hamp
ered the working of his mind. When he could think again, the cage floor was rising above him — and he was lying on the hard surface of the space ship’s outer shell.

  With a snarl, he scrambled to his feet as he realized the truth. He had forgotten to readjust the atoms in his body after firing the vibrator. And now he had passed through the metal floor of the cage.

  “Good heavens!” Morton’s bass exclamation almost deafened Grosvenor.

  A scarlet streak of elongated body, Ixtl darted across the shadowy reach of the impenetrable metal of the ship’s outer wall to the air lock. He jerked himself down into its dazzling depths. His adjusted body dissolved through the two inner doors. And then he was at one end of a long, gleaming corridor, safe — for the moment. And one fact stood out.

  In the imminent struggle for control of the ship, he would have one important advantage, aside from his individual superiority. His opponents did not yet know the deadliness of his purpose.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was twenty minutes later. Grosvenor sat in one of the auditorium seats in the control room and watched Morton and Captain Leeth consulting together in low tones on one of the tiers leading up to the main section of the instrument board.

  The room was packed with men. With the exception of guards left in key centres, everybody had been ordered to attend. The military crew and its officers, the heads of science departments and their staffs, the administrative branches, and the various technical men who had no departments — all were either in the room or congregated in the adjoining corridors.

  A bell clanged. The babble of conversation began to fade. The bell clanged again. All conversation ceased. Captain Leeth came forward.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “These problems keep arising, do they not? I am beginning to feel that we military men have not properly appreciated scientists in the past, I thought they lived out their lives in laboratories, far from danger. But it’s beginning to dawn on me that scientists can find trouble where it never existed before.”

  He hesitated briefly, then went on in the same dryly humorous tone. “Director Morton and I have agreed that this is not a problem for military forces alone. So long as the creature is at large, every man must be his own policeman. Go armed, go, in pairs or groups — the more the better.”

  Once more he surveyed his audience, and his manner was grimmer when he continued. “It would be foolish for you to believe that this situation will not involve danger or death for some among us. It may be me. It may be you. Nerve yourself for it. Accept the possibility. But if it is your destiny to make contact with this immensely dangerous creature, defend yourself to the death. Try to take him with you. Do not suffer, or die, in vain.

  “And now” — he turned to Morton — “the Director will guide a discussion regarding the utilization against our enemy of the very considerable scientific knowledge which is aboard this ship. Mr. Morton.”

  Morton walked slowly forward. His large and powerful body was dwarfed by the gigantic instrument board behind him, but nevertheless he looked imposing. The Director’s grey eyes flicked questioningly along the line of faces, pausing at none, apparently simply assessing the collective mood of the men. He began by praising Captain Leeth’s attitude, and then he said, “I have examined my own recollections of what happened, and I think I can say honestly that no one — not even myself — is to blame for the creature’s being aboard. It had been decided, you may remember, to bring him aboard in the confines of a force field. That precaution satisfied our most precise critics, and it was unfortunate that it was not taken in time. The being actually came into the ship under his own power by a method which could not be foreseen.” He stopped. His keen gaze once more swept the room. “Or did anybody have something stronger than a premonition? Please hold up your hand if you did.”

  Grosvenor craned his neck, but no hands were raised. He settled back in his seat, and was a little startled to see that Morton’s grey eyes were fixed on him. “Mr. Grosvenor,” said Morton, “did the science of Nexialism enable you to predict that this creature could dissolve his body through a wall?”

  In a clear voice, Grosvenor said, “It did not.”

  “Thank you,” said Morton.

  He seemed satisfied, for he did not ask anyone else. Grosvenor had already guessed that the Director was trying to justify his own position. It was a sad commentary on the ship’s politics that he should have felt it necessary. But what particularly interested Grosvenor was that he had appealed to Nexialism as a sort of final authority.

  Morton was speaking again. “Siedel,” he said, “give us a psychologically sound picture of what has happened.”

  The chief psychologist said, “In setting about to capture this creature, we must first of all straighten our minds about him. He has arms and legs, yet floats in space and remains alive. He allows himself to be caught in a cage, but knows all the time that the cage cannot hold him. Then he slips through the bottom of the cage, which is very silly of him if he does not want us to know that he can do it. There is a reason why intelligent beings make mistakes, a fundamental reason that should make it easy for us to do some shrewd guessing as to where he came from, and, of course, to analyse why he is here. Smith, dissect his biological make-up!”

  Smith stood up, lank and grim. “We’ve already discussed the obvious planetary origin of his hands and feet. The ability to live in space, if evolutionary at all, is certainly a remarkable attribute. I suggest that here is a member of a race that has solved the final secrets of biology; and if I knew how we should even begin to start looking for a creature that can escape from us through the nearest wall, my advice would be: Hunt him down, and kill him on sight.”

  “Ah…” Kellie, the sociologist, said. He was a bald-headed man, fortyish, with large, intelligent eyes. “Ah — any being who could fit himself to live in a vacuum would be lord of the universe. His kind would dwell on every planet, clutter up every galaxy. Swarms of him would be floating in space. Yet we know for a fact that his race does not infest our galactic area. A paradox that is worthy of investigation.”

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

  “Simply — ah — that a race which has solved the ultimate secrets of biology must be ages in advance of man. It would be highly sympodial, that is, capable of adaptation to any environment. According to the law of vital dynamics, it would expand to the farthest frontier of the universe just as man is trying to do.”

  “It is a contradiction,” acknowledged Morton, “and would seem to prove that the creature is not a superior being. Korita, what is this thing’s history?”

  The Japanese scientist shrugged, but he stood up and said, “I’m afraid I can be of only slight assistance on present evidence. You know the prevailing theory: that life proceeds upward — whatever we mean by upward — by a series of cycles. Each cycle begins with the peasant, who is rooted to his bit of soil. The peasant comes to market; and slowly the market place transforms into a town, with ever less ‘inward’ connection to the earth. Then we have cities and nations, finally the soulless world cities and a devastating struggle for power, a series of frightful wars which sweep men to fellahdom, and so to primitiveness, and on to a new peasanthood. The question is: Is this creature in the peasant part of his particular cycle, or in the big-city, megalopolitan era? Or where?”

  He stopped: It seemed to Grosvenor that some very sharp pictures had been presented. Civilizations did appear to operate in cycles. Each period of the cycle must in a very rough fashion have its own psychological background. There were many possible explanations for the phenomenon, of which the old Spenglerian notion of cycles was only one. It was even possible that Korita could foresee the alien’s actions on the basis of the cyclic theory. He had proved in the past that the system was workable and had considerable predictability. At the moment, it had the advantages that it was the only historical approach with techniques that could be applied to a given situation.

  Morton’s voice bro
ke the silence. “Korita, in view of our limited knowledge of this creature, what basic traits should we look for, supposing him to be in the big-city stage of his culture?”

  “He would be a virtually invincible intellect, formidable to the ultimate possible degree. At his own game, he would make no errors of any kind, and he would be defeatable only through circumstances beyond his control The best example” — Korita was suave — “is the highly trained human being of our own era.”

  “But he has already made an error!” von Grossen said in a silken tone. “He very foolishly fell through the bottom of the cage. Is that the kind of thing a peasant would do?”

  Morton asked, “Suppose he was in the peasant stage?”

  “Then,” Korita replied, “his basic impulses would be much simpler. There would first of all be the desire to reproduce, to have a son, to know that his blood was being carried on. Assuming great fundamental intelligence, this impulse might, in a superior being, take the form of a fanatic drive toward race survival.”

  He finished quietly, “And that’s all I will say, on available evidence.” He sat down.

  Morton stood stiffly on the tier of the instrument board and looked over his audience of experts. His gaze paused at Grosvenor. He said, “Recently, I have personally come to feel that the science of Nexialism may have a new approach to offer to the solution of problems. Since it is the whole-istic approach of life, carried to the nth degree, it may help us to a quick decision at a time when a quick decision is important. Grosvenor, please give us your views on this alien being.”

  Grosvenor stood up briskly. He said, “I can give you a conclusion based on my observations. I could go into a little theory of my own as to how we made contact with this creature — the way the pile was drained of energy, with the result that we had to repair the outer wall of the engine room — and there were a number of significant time intervals — but rather than develop on such backgrounds I’d like to tell you in the next few minutes how we should kill—”