Astounding Stories, July, 1931 Part 28

For the first time since the girl started talking, Clee spoke. His voice was low and grave, and there was a tinge of suspicion in it.

"Just how does it happen," he asked, "that you know so much about things here?"

The girl's voice broke as she gave her answer.

"I'm ashamed to tell you," she said. "Xantra--he--he admires me as a healthy animal; one close, in species, to himself. He thinks by being nice to me that he might be able to make me a willing companion to share his trip!" For a moment the girl was silent; and when she spoke again there was a hard note in her voice.

"I let him have hopes," she said, "--deliberately. I planned to make him trust me, and give me the run of the ship, so I could find out all I could. So far--before you came--I saw no slightest hope of ever escaping back to Earth; but I had at least to look for a quick, sure way to death, in case--in case--"

"You--and us too!" exclaimed Clee impulsively. "No Earth-man--no American, at least--is ever going to submit to slavery. If the worst comes to the worst, we'll at least die together, Vivian!"

Jim added soberly: "And perhaps, if we do, no one from Xantra's planet will ever again come to Earth looking for 'docile' slaves...."

For a moment everyone was silent, affected by the thought behind what they had said. Then the girl's voice suggested, with a touch of Earth formality that was almost ludicrous under the circ.u.mstances: "But you two men have not yet introduced yourselves!"

Both Clee and Jim smiled, and told her their names, and in the slight pause that followed Clee said awkwardly, almost shyly: "Miss Gray, we don't know what's in store for us here, and it--it's possible that we may never know each other any better: so would you--I mean, I wonder would you mind if I reached out and touched you. In spite of all we have said. I--I can hardly realize that you are there, somewhere, before me."

Out of the nothingness came an impulsive soft hand that closed over his. There was both a smile and something deeper in Vivian's voice as she said, "Here," and raised his hand until it touched her brow and the thick smooth hair of her head. Then she placed it a little lower, over her face; and gently Clee's fingers told him what his eyes could not read.

"In case you never see me--why, I--I'd like you to know that I'm really, not bad looking," she said; and Clee knew she was blushing as he smiled at the eternal feminine in her.

But the smile suddenly left his face. His hand had felt her give a distinct start. Then--

"He's calling!" she gasped faintly. "Xantra's calling for me to come to him!" Her voice, as she spoke, moved, and Clee knew she was going towards the door.

"No!" he cried impulsively. "Don't risk it! Stay here, and we'll begin our fight against him right now!"

"I will be safe," came Vivian's rea.s.suring voice from the door. "I can manage him a while yet." Her further words came with a rush. "But I wanted to tell you--I had a faint plan. If I could get hold of the anaesthetic--the vial of stuff that smells like cloves--"

The door was closing now, and the two men knew she was moving down the corridor. They listened in vain for her to complete what she had been saying. Just before the door clicked shut, Jim jammed his foot in it, preventing it from closing.

"Gee, that girl has courage!" Clee murmured.

For a moment the two men looked at each other. Jim was thinking about the opened door, and the chance they had to get out. But Clee's mind was on something else.

"Well, Jim," he said, "you and I have a nasty job ahead."

Jim looked at Clee wonderingly as he took out his pipe and stuck it in the crack of the door, allowing him to remove his foot. Clee explained to him what Xantra had told him with the thought-sending helmets; reminded him of what they had learned from Vivian about the lumps on their necks. After he had finished he said quietly but decisively:

"Now, we're going to try and remove whatever is under these lumps.

Have you got anything sharp? Your knife? Something with an edge on it?"

It would mean escape from the domination of Xantra's will!--from his terrible stabbing punishment!--if they could remove them! Jim breathed a little quicker in his excitement.

"But once we do it--if we _can_ do it--it'll mean that we'll have to make our break to escape right away," he reminded Clee. "We'll be caught if Xantra wills us to come to him and we don't appear!"

"You know what will happen to Vivian if we delay the attempt." Clee reminded him levelly: and Jim knew that Clee was right--that their break for freedom must start right then and there....

He looked through his pockets and produced some cigarettes, matches, a pipe, a nailfile and some utterly useless odds and ends. Clee's hands came out of his pockets empty. "I've got nothing at all," he said--and picked up the nailfile and looked at it questioningly. "We'll have to use this, I guess.... Well, I'm first."

He lay face down on the floor and loosened his collar. Quietly, he made several suggestions. "Light a match and heat the tip in the flame," he said. "The point's pretty dull, but cut as deep and quick and clean as you can. If I yell, pay no attention; I'll try to hold still. Unless it bleeds very much, best not make a bandage; we've nothing clean enough."

That was all he said; and Jim, his heart beating like mad, and a lump in his throat, could find no words at all. He sterilized the tip of the file as directed, studied the lump a moment, then, after a rough, affectionate shake of his friend's shoulder, he knelt close to his task. One quick hard cut; a sharp gasp from Clee; a repet.i.tion; then two more times crossways--and a firm, spongelike metallic disc lay revealed. Then the worst--raising it a little, and breaking the several fine wires that led from it through the flesh within....

Clee lay panting, the sweat running down the deep wrinkles of pain on his face. Dark blood oozed from the jagged wound. But he smiled a little, and some of the pain-wrinkles in his face smoothed away, when Jim showed him the disk....

For a short time Clee rested, quieting his nerves, while Jim staunched the flow of blood.

And then it was Jim's turn; and he bore the sharp agony as stoically as Clee....

It was perhaps a strange thing; but at this great moment in the lives of the two men they felt no need to talk. For the few minutes they rested after they had done, no word was spoken; but in that time a bond of friendship was formed that only death could ever break....

They did not rest long. Every moment brought them nearer to the inevitable discovery of what they had done. Their muscles were still quivering, the wounds on their necks still slowly bleeding, when Clee rose and aroused Jim. The most dangerous, desperate part of their wild revolt lay just ahead.

They were able to make but the vaguest of plans, not knowing what to antic.i.p.ate outside. They only knew that they would first have to strike boldly for possession of the control alcove--which, without doubt meant they would have, somehow, to kill Xantra--to find and kill a man they could not see, yet who could see them. An enormous task.

And only the first of several.

For a moment, realizing this, they hesitated at the door. But the die had been cast; there was nothing for them to do but go forward--and quickly; so, giving Jim a final warning that they must stick together, Clee opened wide the door and stepped out into the corridor.

What he saw there halted, him in his tracks.

"The slaves!" gasped Jim, and involuntarily both Earth-men backed into the room again. The creatures they had seen at once followed them inside.

There were four of them. As tall as men, they were, and the general cast of their bodies was identical. But they were different in shocking little details. Their heads were much larger, and in the shape of inverted pears, like those of hydrocephalics; their eyes, popped and dull. The thin lips beneath their stubs of noses were ever writhing and twisting in horrible grimaces. And, worst, their skins were sickly-white, and were absolutely bald of hair. The only clothes they wore were loin-cloths and very large sandals, which exposed to full view their chunky, muscular bodies.

All this the two men took in at a glance. They knew they could never hope to cope, unarmed, with four such creatures as these, so they stood with their backs to the wall, alertly awaiting their first move.

"Easy," warned Clee. "They're probably only coming to take us in hand, as Vivian said."

The nearest of the slaves stepped a little closer to the two men, and by the twitching of its eyelids and the increased mouthings of its lips it was apparent that the creature was highly excited. A high, variable moaning sound came from its throat. Curiously, boldly, it looked Clee all over--and then it did an amazing thing. Seeing the blood on the back of his neck, it swung him around, put its writhing lips to the still-bleeding wound and dog-like licked it clean.

The gesture was altogether a friendly one.

Another of the slaves of Xantra went up and did the same to Jim, and the two men looked at each other with relief. This meant that the removal of the disks had not been understood by the creatures!

It was with growing hope that they allowed themselves to be conducted from their cell, through the sloping corridor into a doorway they had pa.s.sed coming in, and down a curving flight of steps into a large room below. They were in the s.p.a.ce at the very bottom of the ship, for, through the redly-glowing transparent walls that curved on each side and below, they could see the infinite deeps of star-filled s.p.a.ce.

Three other slaves were there, waiting for them. At the far side of the room their guide pointed to two small stalls, with a part.i.tion between, which they understood were to be their beds. They were across from a long row of similar ones.