Exiles of the Stars Part 14

The pilot wasted no time in waiting for congratulations on his skill. He had already aimed at the next robo and stopped that one dead also.

"So you can knock them out," Lidj observed. "What do we do now-" Then he paused and caught at Borton's arm. "Is there a chance of resetting them?"

"We can hope so."

The robos I knew and had always used were control ones. Free Traders visited only the more backward worlds where machines were simple if used at all. I had no idea how one went about reprogramming complex robos. But the knowledge of a Free Trader was not that of a Patrolman. Plainly Borton and Harkon hoped the machines could be made to work in some manner for us.

Which is what they proceeded to find out. When the six robos were halted we came down from the balcony. The antigrav transports still moved at a slow and even pace, though those now edging away were only partly loaded. Foss and the other Patrolman went into action, turning their lasers with less precision but as great effect on the motive section of those. The carriers crashed to the floor with heavy jars which shook even this rock-walled chamber.

The Patrolmen gathered about the nearest robo. Harkon was already at work on the protective casing over its "brain." But I was more interested in the transports. Basically these were nothing more than ovals of metal, with low side walls to hold their loads in place. The motive force of each lay in a box at the rear. The principle of their construction was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

"Something coming!" At that warning from Griss we all went to ground. But what loomed into view out of the opening was an empty transport back for another load. Foss had raised his laser to short it when Lidj jerked at his arm to spoil his aim.

"We can use that!" He made a running jump, caught" the edge of the carrier's wall, and swung up on it. It did not halt its forward movement, proceeding steadily down a row of boxes until it came to a stop beside a motionless robo, still holding a crate aloft between clawed appendages.

Lidj was squatting before the controls, trying to make sense of them, when we clambered on board to join him. Unloaded as it was, the carrier bucked a little under our movements and shifting weight, so we had to take care.

"Could be set either of two ways," he said, "ready to go either when there is a certain amount of weight on board-or after a predetermined time. If it is the latter it's more risky. We'll have to either knock it out or let it go. But if it is a matter of weight-"

Foss nodded. "Then we can use it."

I could guess what they planned. Build a row of boxes around the edge of the carrier, then take our places inside that and have transportation out without fear of getting lost. We would, of course, be heading toward the enemy. But we would have the element of surprise on our side.

"Time it," Foss continued.

I looked around. A second empty carrier was now coming in, heading, not to where we waited,.but to the loading site, where the Patrolmen now had the upper casing of the robo free.

"Look out!"

Those workmen scattered as the carrier swung in, just missing the upraised load arm of the robo. Then the platform halted, waiting to be loaded. The men arose to tug at the squat robo, pulling it out of the way to where they could get at it without any danger of being knocked out by a transport.

Lidj still knelt by the motive box. He had stopped trying to find any lever or control b.u.t.ton. Foss had said to time it, and we were all counting furiously during long minutes as we stood tensely alert for the first sign that the carrier was preparing to move. But it hung there, still waiting. I heard the captain's sigh of relief.

"One hundred," he repeated aloud. "If it doesn't start up by five, now-"

His lips shaped the numbers visibly. The carrier did not stir.

"So far, so good. Weight must be what triggers it."

While we had conducted our crude test a third carrier had come nosing back. Counting the three which had been immobilized, there were now six. How many could there be in all? And how soon would someone come looking if they did not return?

Foss and Lidj went to one of the loaded ones which had been halted. Part of a cargomaster's duty is the judging of cargo loads, an ability to estimate, by eye, bulk and weight for stowage. Lidj was an expert. I was not so experienced, but I had had enough general training under his stiff tutelage to be able to come close to guessing the weight load on the downed platform.

Once we knew that, we moved along the still-racked boxes to pick out those which would give us protective bulk without too much weight-weight which our bodies must partly supply.

Having made our choices, we began to load by hand, a wearying process which was foreign to usual ship work. But in times of stress one can do many things he might earlier have thought impossible. We stacked our chosen boxes and containers as a bulwark running along the edges of the platform, leaving an open s.p.a.ce between. Borton came to inspect our labors and nodded approval.

"Just let us get one of those boys going"-he nodded to the robos-"and we'll move out."

What he intended the reprogrammed cargo handler to do, I could not guess. Nor did we take time from our own labor to watch their struggles. There came a whir of sound. The robo brought down its upright arm, dropped the box it held. It turned on its treads to face the wide doorway.

"Now-" Harkon was moving to a second robo as if he planned to use that also. Then his hands went to his head.

"Time's just run out." His voice lacked the jubilation of seconds earlier. "If we make a move-it must be now!"

Chapter Seventeen.

KRIP VORLUND.

No other carrier had returned for some time now. But Griss, Lidj, and Harkon all faced the doorway as if they heard some call.

"They are uneasy, those who wear our bodies," Harkon said to Borton. "We shall have to move fast if we would keep any advantage."

Borton triggered the robo and it moved out, heading for the door. With it as a fore guard, the rest of us took to the carriers. And as those edged away from the loading sites, picking up speed as they went, I could have shouted aloud in my relief. Our calculations had been proved right so far. Weight sent the carriers on their way.

Once airborne, I longed for the speed of a flitter. But there was no hurrying the deliberate pace, any more than we could urge on the robo rumbling ahead. Perhaps it was just as well we did not approach too near that. For as it went it came alive. It had been using two long, jointed arms, ending in clawed attachments. And it was also equipped with flexible tentacles, two above and two below those arms. Now all six of the appendages flailed the air vigorously, whipping out and around.

Though men have depended upon the services of machines for such countless ages that perhaps only the Zacathans can now reckon the number of those dusty years, yet I think deep inside us all there lingers a small spark of fear that some day, under some circ.u.mstances, those machines will turn on us, to wreak a mindless vengeance of their own. Long ago it was discovered that robos given too human a look were not salable. Even faint resemblances triggered such age-old distaste.

Now as I lay beside Foss and Lidj on the carrier and watched the wildly working arms of the robo, which seemed to have gone mad, I was glad that ours was not the first transport riding directly in its wake, but the second. Let the Patrol enjoy-if one might term it that-the honor of the lead. The farther I was from that metal monster seemingly intent on smashing the world, the better.

"They are not too far ahead now." Lidj's words reached me through the clank-clank clank-clank of the robo. of the robo.

"How many?" Foss wanted to know.

"My powers are not that selective; sorry." There was the ghost of Lidj's old dry humor in that answer. "I just know that my body is somewhere ahead. My body! Tell me, Krip"-he looked to me then-"did you ever stand off and watch yourself, back there on Yiktor?"

I remembered-though then the transition had been so great, my own adaptation to an animal's body had put such a strain on me, that I had been far more concerned with my own feelings at the moment than with what was happening to the body I had discarded.

"Yes, but not for long. Those men of Osokun's took me-it-away. And at the time I was, well, I was learning what it meant to be a barsk."

"At least we did not have that factor. It is hard enough to adapt to this covering," Lidj commented. "In fact, I must admit it has a few advantages over my own. Several aches and pains have been eliminated. Not that I care to remain in my present tenancy any longer than I have to. I fear I am conservative in such matters."

I marveled at what seemed my superior's almost complacent acceptance of a situation which might have unseated the reason of a less self-controlled man.

"I hope," he continued, "that the one wearing me me has no heroic tendencies. Getting my body smashed up before I can retrieve it would be a disappointment -to say the least!" has no heroic tendencies. Getting my body smashed up before I can retrieve it would be a disappointment -to say the least!"

With that he resurrected my own worries. Maelen -her present body could not continue to live, not long, if we roused her from freeze. And could it last, even in that state, long enough to get her back to Yiktor? How- I tried to think of ways that journey could be accomplished safely, only to reject each idea, knowing all were such wild plans as could be dreamed by graz chewers, and as likely to be realized.

The light ahead was brighter. Now the robo clanked on into the source of that, the first of our carriers closely behind him, ours drawn after without our guidance. We had our weapons and the protection of the bulwarks we had built about the edges of the platforms. Though those now seemed very thin sh.e.l.ls indeed.

Here were piles of goods out of the storage place.

And moving among them were the common controlled robos, sorting and transporting to a cargo hoist which dangled from the hatch of a ship. A single glance told me that we were in that landing valley and that this was the same ship Maelen and I had seen when we fled the burrows. How long ago had that been? We had eaten E rations, gulped down sustain pills until I was no longer sure of time. A man can exist long on such boosters without even being aware that he must rest.

Our carriers kept on at the same even pace, but the robo was not so orderly. Its path was straight ahead, and it did not try to avoid anything in its path. The whiplash of its tentacles, the battery of its arms crashed into the cargo awaiting stowage, sweeping away battered and broken boxes, some to be crushed beneath its own ma.s.sive treads.

The surprise was complete. I heard shouting-saw the lightning fire of lasers, bringing down more of the cargo, melting some of it. And the shock of those energy waves did their work. Men toppled, to lie clawing feebly at the ground, their minds knocked out for a s.p.a.ce by the back fire of such force. We tumbled from our transports, took to cover among the cargo.

Producing tanglers, the Patrolmen moved in toward those feebly moving jacks while we slipped ahead, searching for more humans among the working robos. The reprogrammed one smashed on and on until it came up with a crash against one of the ship's fins. There it continued to whir sullenly, not backing away, unable to move on. An arm caught in the dangling chains of the hoist. Having so connected, it tightened hold with a vicious snap. Before whoever was running the crane could shut it off, the robo had been lifted a little. Then the strain of its weight told, broke the hoist chain. That small shift of position had been enough to pull the robo away from the fin. Dropped to the ground again, it still moved-though its a.s.sault on the fin had damaged it, and it proceeded with an ear-punishing grating noise. One of its arms hung limply down, jangling back and forth against its outer casing; the other clutched and tore with as much vigor as ever as it rumbled on the new course.

I saw Lidj as I rounded a stack of boxes. He was heading, not toward the scene of action, but away from it, crouching low as if he expected blaster fire. And there was that in his att.i.tude which drew me after him. A moment later Harkon closed in from the left, his black suit conspicuous here in the open. Then came another dark figure-Griss. They were running, dodging, their empty hands held a little before them in an odd fashion, with the fingers arched, resembling the claws of the robo still engaged in senseless destruction near the ship. And they did not look right or left, but directly before them, as if their goal was in plain sight.

Watching them, I knew a rise of old fear. It could be that they were again under the command of those aliens who had taken over their bodies. And it might be better now for all of us were I to use the side wash of my laser to knock them out.

I was beginning to aim when Griss shot forward in a spring, launching himself into the mouth of the cavern where the jack camp was. By that leap he barely avoided a burst of greenish light. Another of those bursts flowered where Harkon had half-crouched as he ran-but the pilot was no longer there. His reactions were quicker than human. It was almost as if he sensed danger and his fear brought about instant teleportation. Yet I saw him only a little beyond where that green bubble had burst.

That the aliens must be in there was plain. I did not have the same agility which the three ahead of me possessed; yet I followed. What a meeting between the three and their alien enemies would bring about, no one could tell. It might well be that confronting them would reduce our men to puppets. If that were so-well, I held a laser and knew what to do.

But, try my best, I could not keep up with the three. I did see them by the plasta-bubble. The piles of loot had been much reduced since I had last seen them-there was not enough left to provide much cover. But the three were not trying for any concealment now. Instead they had drawn together, Harkon in the center, my two shipmates flanking him. Were they under control? I could not tell and, until I was certain, I must not venture too close. I lurked in the shadows by the entrance, berating myself for my own indecision.

Those whom the three sought were there, back in the greater gloom under the overhang of the balcony where I had once been trapped by him who wore Griss's body. Lidj, Harkon, Griss-yet they were not the men I knew. Those Those were the three apparent aliens advancing toward them. There were others there also, those with whom I had begun that scouting patrol, the men from the were the three apparent aliens advancing toward them. There were others there also, those with whom I had begun that scouting patrol, the men from the Lydis Lydis and the Patrol. and the Patrol.

They were ranged against the wall, standing very still, staring straight ahead, no sign of emotion On their set faces. There was a robo-like quality to their waiting. Nor were they alone. Other men, jacks probably, were drawn up flanking them. All were armed, blasters ready in their hands, as if their alien leaders had nothing to fear from any revolt on their part.

Yet they did not aim at the three advancing. Slowly that advance faltered. The black-clad alien bodies came to a stop. Wearing the protect cap, I received only a faint backwash of the struggle in progress. But that the aliens were striving for control over their bodies was plain.

Of the three, Griss was the first to turn about and face outward, his expression now as blank as those of the men under alien domination. Then Harkon-and Lidj. With the same uniformity with which they had entered the cavern, they began to march out, and behind them the rest of the controlled company followed.

Perhaps the aliens thought to use them as a screen, a way of reaching us. But if they did so, they were not of the type who lead their own armies, for they themselves did not stir away from the wall.

Had I waited too long? Could I use the laser with the necessary accuracy the Patrolmen had shown? In any case even death, I believed, would be more welcome to those I saw under control than the life to which these others had condemned them.

I sighted over the heads of the three at the fore and fired.

The crackle of the released energy was twice as spectacular here. Or else I had not judged well and set the discharge too high. But those over whose heads it pa.s.sed cried out, loosed their weapons, staggered, and went down. The three at the van marched on a step or two, and I thought I must have failed to knock them out, save that their strength did not hold for long and they wilted, going to their knees, then lying p.r.o.ne. Yet their outstretched hands scrabbled on the floor as if they still sought to drag their bodies on.

At the same time that backwash of compulsion I had felt, even when wearing the cap, strengthened. The enemy did not have to seek me out! They knew where I was as well as if I stood in the open shouting for their attention. But it was by my will alone that I came out of cover, walking through the p.r.o.ne ranks of their stricken attack force to face them.

Their arrogance, their supreme confidence in themselves and their powers, was not betrayed in any expression on the three faces which I knew well but which now wore a veil of strangeness, as if the Terran features formed a mask for the unknown. No, their belief in themselves and their powers was an almost tangible aura about them.

Still I did not surrender as they willed me to. Or perhaps they were striving to launch me, as they had those others, as a weapon for the undoing of my own kind. Instead I walked steadily ahead.

They had depended so much on nonphysical power that they were late in raising material weapons. I fired first, another blast of that shocking energy, aiming above their heads, though I longed to center it on them. But I thought that must only be done as a last resort; those bodies must not be destroyed.

The energy crackled, died. I realized uneasily that I had now exhausted the laser charge. They was another cartridge in my supply belt, but whether I would have time to recharge- I had never believed my reaction or my senses more acute than those of most other men. But, almost without thinking, I made a swift leap to the left. Yet I did not wholly escape the menace which had crept on me from behind. An arm flung out half-tripped me. I staggered, keeping my balance only by happy chance. And I saw that Griss had crawled on hands and knees to attack. But whatever small spark of strength had supported him now failed. He collapsed again, face down-though the length of his alien body twitched and shuddered, as if muscles fought will, will flesh and bone in return.

So I edged backward at an angle to give me vision of both the three by the wall and those they possessed. There was a writhing among the latter, as if they fought to get to their feet yet could not summon strength enough. As far as I could see, those who believed themselves masters had not changed position, save that they no longer raised their hands with the round objects I suspected were weapons. Instead those arms hung limply by their sides.

Then he who wore Lidj's body toppled forward, crashing to the hard stone of the floor, making not the least attempt to save himself. And the other two followed. As they did so, that tortured movement among their slaves was stilled. I could have been standing among dead.

"Vorlund!" Foss and Borton both shouted my name so that it sounded as a single word.

I looked around to see them at the cavern entrance. And I believe they, too, thought I had fought a fatal battle. For Borton hurried forward, went down on one knee beside the inert form of Harkon, then, having laid hand on the shoulder beneath that black covering, looked to the three by the far wall.

"What did you do?"

"Used laser shock." I holstered the weapon I still held.

Foss was beside Lidj. "Dead?" he asked, but he did not look at me.

"No."

They went on to the three by the wall, stopped to turn those over so they lay on their backs. Their eyes were open, but there was no hint of consciousness. It was as if the essence of the alien personalities had withdrawn-or else- I had gone to look at them, too. Now I wondered. Could that shock have brought about a switchover? If so-or in any case-we should have both sets of men under guard before they returned to consciousness. I said so.

"He's right." Borton, rather than Foss, backed my suggestion. He produced a tangler, used it with efficiency. First he bound the three by the wall, then he attended to those in the alien bodies, putting all the others of that band under restraint as well for good measure. In addition the three aliens were given stiff injections to keep them unconscious-or so we hoped.

We were masters now of the jack headquarters, though we put out sentries and did not accept our victory as total. There was too good a chance of others' still occupying the ship or the burrows. And the whole nature of this site was such as to make a man very wary of his surroundings, only too ready to hear strange noises, start at shadows, and the like.

We made use of the bubble in the cavern as a prison, stowing there our blacked-out prisoners. Borton used the jacks' com to summon the rest of his men from the outer valley. The energy which sustain pills, and E rations had given us was ebbing. This time we did not try to bolster it. Rather we took turns sleeping, eating rations we found in the camp.

There was evidence that the jacks had been here for some time. Signs, too, by deep flare burns left on the valley floor, that there had been more than one ship landing and take-off over a period of perhaps a year, or longer, planet time. But after sleep-gas globes had made the ship ours, we discovered very little more of the setup which had been made to market the loot or otherwise do business off-world-there were only faint clues for the Patrol to follow up!

Our prisoners did not revive quickly and Thanel was loath to use medical means to induce consciousness. Too little was known of the stresses to which they had recently been subjected. In all there were some twenty jacks, and the men of our own party which had been taken-including Hunold. And our only safe control on the alien three was to make sure they could not use their esper powers.

Thanel ordered these three, plus their alien bodies, to be put in a separate division of the tent. There he spent most of his waking time keeping them under observation. They still breathed, all six of them. And the detect showed a life signal whenever he used it on them. Yet the vital processes were very slow, akin to the state of one in sta.s.s-freeze. And how this state could be broken, he admitted he did not know. After a certain time had pa.s.sed he even experimented by taking off his protect cap (having first stationed a guard to watch him and move in at the first hint he might be taken over) and trying to reach them via esper means-with no result.

I had fallen asleep. And I did not know how long it was before I was shaken awake again. Foss was the one who had so abruptly roused me.

"Thanel wants you," he said tersely.

I crawled out of the pheno-bag I had found in the camp. Foss was already heading into the open where the darkness of night had largely concealed the standing ship.

But it was not the chill of the night wind probing now and then into the cavern which set me shivering as I watched him go. I have known loneliness in my life. Perhaps the worst was when I realized on Yiktor that I might never return to my human body, that it was possible I might be entrapped for years in animal form. Then I had literally gone mad, striking out into the wilderness, allowing the remnant of beast in me to take over from the human which had been transplanted. I had run, I had killed, I had skulked, I had- Today I cannot remember all that happened to me, nor do I wish to. That was loneliness.

And this-this was loneliness of another type. For in that moment when Captain Foss walked away I saw the wall which was between us. Had the building of that wall been of my doing? Perhaps, though looking back, I could not deny that given the same choices I would have done no differently. Yes, I was no longer of the Lydis Lydis. I could ship out on her, do my duty well, maybe better than I had a year ago. But for me she was no longer the sole home a Free Trader must have.

What had happened? I was as lost as I had been when running four-footed across the fields of Yiktor. If I was not Krip Vorlund, Free Trader born, who wanted nothing more than a berth on the Lydis Lydis, then who was was I? Not Maquad-I felt no closer kinship with the Tha.s.sa than I did with the crew; even less. I? Not Maquad-I felt no closer kinship with the Tha.s.sa than I did with the crew; even less.

I was alone! And I shuddered away from that realization, getting to my feet, hurrying to obey Thanel's summons, hoping to find forgetfulness in this task, if only for a short time.

The medic was waiting for me as I came into that inner section where the six bodies still lay on the floor, looking just as they had when I had helped to bring them in. But Thanel had the appearance of a man who had not had any rest. And to my surprise he was not alone.

Lukas, whom I had last seen lying in tangle cords, stood beside him. It was he who spoke first.

"Krip, you are the only one of us who has been through body switch. The Tha.s.sa do it regularly, do they not?"

"I don't know about doing it regularly. Anyone who wishes to train as a Moon Singer does it. But there are only a limited number of Moon Singers. And so it may not be well known to the others. They have their failures, too." My own present body was witness to that, if one was needed.

"The question is, how do they do it?" Thanel came directly to the point. "You have been through it and witnessed it done for that maelen of yours. Do they use some machine, drug, type of hypnotism-what?"