Discord in Scarlet Page 7
He knew his doom with a certainty that found hope only in the blackness of space. Through deserted corridors he fled, slavering hate, a scarlet monster from ancient, ancient Glor. The gleaming walls seemed to mock him. The whole world of the great ship, which had promised so much, was now only the place where a hell of energy would break loose at any moment. With relief, he saw an air lock ahead. He flashed through the first section, the second, the third - and then he was out in space. He anticipated that the men would be watching for him to appear, so he set up a violent repulsion between his body and the ship. He had a sensation of increasing lightness as his body darted from the side of the ship out into that black night.
Behind him, the porthole lights were snuffed out and were replaced by an unearthly blue glow. The blue fire flashed out from every square inch of the ship’s immense outer skin. The blue glow faded slowly, almost reluctantly. Long before it died away completely, the potent energy screen came on, blocking him forever from access to the ship. Some of the porthole lights came on again, flickered weakly and then slowly began to brighten. As mighty engines recovered from that devastating flare of energy, the lights already shining grew stronger. Others began to flash on.
IXTL, who had withdrawn several miles, drove himself nearer. He was careful.
Now that he was out in space, they could use atomic cannon on him and destroy him without danger to themselves. He approached to within half a mile of the screen, and there, uneasy, stopped. He saw the first of the lifeboats dart out of the darkness inside the screen into an opening that yawned in the side of the big vessel. Other dark craft followed, whipping down in swift arcs, their shapes blurred against the background of space. They were vaguely visible in the light that glowed steadily again from the lighted portholes. The opening shut, and without warning the ship vanished. One instant it was there, a vast sphere of dark metal.
The next, he was staring through the space where it had been at a spiral - shaped, bright splotch, a galaxy that floated beyond a gulf of a million light-years.
Time dragged drearily towards eternity. IXTL sprawled unmoving and hopeless in the boundless night. He couldn’t help thinking of the young IXTLs, who now would never be born, and of the universe that was lost because of his mistakes.
Grosvenor watched the skillful fingers of the surgeon as the electrified knife cut into the fourth man’s stomach. The last egg was deposited in the bottom of the tall resistance - metal vat. The eggs were round, grayish objects, one of them slightly cracked.
Several men stood by with drawn heat blasters as the crack widened. An ugly, round, scarlet head with tiny, beady eyes and a tiny slit of a mouth poked out.
The head twisted on its short neck and the eyes glittered up at them with hard ferocity.
With a swiftness that almost took them by surprise, the creature reared up and tried to climb out of the vat. The smooth walls defeated it. It slid back and dissolved in the flame that was poured down upon it.
Smith, licking his lips, said, “Suppose he’d got away and dissolved into the nearest wall!”
No one answered that. Grosvenor saw that the men were staring into the vat. The eggs melted reluctantly under the heat from the blasters, but finally burned with a golden light.
“Ah,” said Dr. Eggert; and attention turned to him and to the body of von Grossen, over which he was bending. “His muscles are beginning to relax, and his eyes are open and alive. I imagine he knows what’s going on. It was a form of paralysis induced by the egg, and fading now that the egg is no longer present. Nothing
fundamentally wrong. They’ll be all right shortly. What about the monster?”
Captain Leeth replied, “The men in two lifeboats claim to have seen a flash of red emerge from the main lock just as we swept the ship with uncontrolled energization. It must have been our deadly friend, because we haven’t found his body. However,
Pennons is going around with the camera staff taking pictures with fluoritecameras, and we’ll know for certain in a few hours. Here he is now. Well, Mr. Pennons?”
The engineer strode in briskly and placed a misshapen thing of metal on one of the tables. “Nothing definite to report yet - but I found this in the main physics laboratory. What do you make of it?”
Grosvenor was pushed forward by department heads who drew in around the table for a closer look. He frowned down at the fragile-looking object with its intricate network of wires. There were three distinct tubes that might have been muzzles running into and through three small, round balls that shone with a queer, silvery
light. The light penetrated the table, making it as transparent as glassite. And, strangest of all, the balls absorbed heat like a thermal sponge. Grosvenor reached out toward the nearest ball, and felt his hands stiffen as the heat was drawn from them.
He drew back quickly.
Beside him, Captain Leeth said, “I think we’d better leave this for the physics department to examine. Von Grossen ought to be up and around soon. You say you found it in the laboratory?”
Pennons nodded. And Smith carried on the thought. “It would appear that the creature was working on it when he suspected that something was amiss. He must have realized the truth, for he left the ship. That seems to discount your theory, Korita. You said that, as a true peasant, he couldn’t even imagine what we were going to do.”
The Japanese archeologist smiled faintly through the fatigue that paled his face.
“Mr. Smith,” he said politely, “there is no question but that this one did imagine it. The probable answer is that the peasant category amounted to an analogy.
The red monster was, by all odds, the most superior peasant we have yet encountered.”
Pennons groaned. “I wish we had a few peasant limitations. Do you know that it will take us thee months at least to get this ship properly repaired after those three minutes of uncontrolled energization? For a time I was afraid that …”
His voice trailed off doubtfully.
Captain Leeth said with a grim smile, “I’ll finish that sentence for you, Mr. Pennons. You were afraid the ship would be completely destroyed. I think that most of us realized the risk we were taking when we adopted Mr. Grosvenor’s final plan. We knew that our lifeboats could be given only partial anti-acceleration. So we’d have been stranded here a quarter of a million light-years from home.”
A man said, “I wonder whether, if the scarlet beast had actually taken over this ship, it would have gotten away with its obvious intent to take over the galaxy. After all, man is pretty well established in it - and pretty stubborn, too.”
Smith shook his head. “It dominated once, and it could dominate again. You assume far too readily that man is a paragon of justice, forgetting, apparently, that he has a long and savage history. He has killed other animals not only for meat but for pleasure; he has enslaved his neighbors, murdered his opponents, and obtained the most unholy sadistical joy from the agony of others. It is not impossible that we shall, in the course of our travels, meet other intelligent creatures far more worthy than man to rule the universe.”
“By heaven!” said a man, “no dangerous-looking creature should ever be allowed aboard this ship again. My nerves are all shot; and I’m not so good a man as I was when I first came aboard the Beagle.”
“You speak for us all!” came the voice of Acting Director Kent over the communicator.