The Best Of A. E. Van Vogt: Volume 2 Part 20

The old man, sitting in the control room of the meteorite, sighed. From his viewpoint, he could on one viewplate see the girl, Hanardy's unconscious body and Sween-Madro; on another he observed gloomily that the Dreegh ship had arrived and had attached to an airlock. As he watched that second viewplate, three men and five women came out of the ship and into a corridor of the meteorite. It was obvious that killing Sween-Madro was no longer of value.

The girl's voice cut across his awareness. "He must have used the super-speed again without my noticing and hidden his weapon. Did you see what he did with it?"

What Professor Ungarn was seeing was that the newly arrived Dreeghs, though in no hurry, were heading directly toward Madro and Pat.

Watching them, the professor thought, Pat was right. Sween-Madro had been vulnerable. He could have been killed. But it was too late.

Sick with self-recrimination he abandoned the control room and hurried to join his daughter.

By the time he arrived, Sween-Madro was back in the bed, and Hanardy had been lifted onto a powered dolly which had been wheeled alongside a machine that had evidently been brought from the Dreegh ship.

The machine was a simple device with a pair of bulbous, transparent cups and a suction system. A needle was inserted into a blood vessel on Hanardy's right arm. Swiftly, a turgid bluish-red liquid rose in one of the bulbous cups; about a quart, Professor Ungarn estimated to his daughter in a whisper.

One by one, wordlessly, the Dreeghs went to the machine. Another needle was used. And into each a tiny drain of blood siphoned from the red stuff in the bulbous cup. It seemed as if about half of it was taken.

Still without anyone speaking, the needle was inserted into Sween-Madro's arm; and the rest of the blood from the cup flowed into him.

Pat stared at the dreadful beings with avid curiosity. All her life she had heard of, and been warned against, these creatures; and here they were from all those distances of years and miles. Four men and five women.

Three of the five women were brunette, one was a blonde; the fifth was a redhead.

The women were, every one, tall and willowy. The men were uniformly six feet four or five and gaunt of build. Was height a part of the Dreegh illness? Pat wondered, seeing them together like this. Did Dreegh bones grow as a result of their disease? She could only wonder.

The figure on the bed moved. Sween-Madro opened his eyes and sat up.

He seemed shaky and unsure. Again, there was silent action. The Dreegh men did not move, but the women one by one went over and lightly kissed Sween-Madro on the lips.

At each touch of lips there was a faint bluish light, a flash of brightness, like a spark. Invariably, the blue spark leaped from the woman to the man.

And with each flash he grew more alive. His body became visibly larger. His eyes grew bright.

Pat, who had been watching with total fascination, suddenly felt two pairs of hands grab her. She had time to let out a shriek as two Dreegh men carried her over to Sween and held her above him, her face over his.

At the final moment, she ceased her futile struggle and froze.

She was aware of Sween's sardonic eyes gazing up at her. Then, with a deliberate movement he raised his head and brushed her lips with his.

She expected to die.

Deep inside the back of her head, a fire started. The heat of it seemed instantly unbearable; instantly there was a flash of blue flame from her lips to his.

Then she was back on the floor, dizzy, but--as she realized presently--recovering. And still alive.

Sween-Madro swung his feet over the edge of the bed and said, "The existence of such brother-and-sister energy flows, Pat--which you have now experienced--and the Dreegh ability to use them make it likely that we could become the most powerful beings in the galaxy on a continuing basis. If we can defeat Hanardy. We only took about ten percent from you. We don't want you damaged--yet."

He stood up, walked over and looked down at the unconscious s.p.a.ceman. Presently he beckoned Pat and Professor Ungarn; father and daughter came at once.

The Dreegh said, "I'm still not well. Can you detect any change in him?" He did not wait for a reply, but said in relief, "I guess nothing happened. He looks as low-grade a human as you could ever not want to meet or deal with in any way, and that's the way he was before--don't you agree?"

Pat said quickly, "I don't understand. What did you expect?"

"Hopefully, nothing," was the reply. "But that remark about how near our ship was the first unprogrammed use of his ability. A spatial relationship action like that comes in the Great Galactic intelligence curve at about I.Q. 1200."

"But what did you fear?" Pat persisted.

That it would feed back through his nervous system!"

"What would that do?"

The Dreegh merely stared at her, sardonically. It was Professor Ungarn's voice that finally broke the silence. "My dear, the Dreeghs are actually acting as if their only enemy is a programmed Hanardy."

"Then you believe their a.n.a.lysis of the nature of the Great Galactics?"

"They believe it; so I believe it."

"Then there's no hope?"

The old man pointed at Hanardy. "There's Steve."

"But he's just a b.u.m. That's why we selected him to be our drayhorse, remember?" She spoke accusingly. "Because he was the dumbest, most honest jerk in the solar system--remember?"

The old man nodded, suddenly looking gloomy. Pat became aware that the Dreeghs were watching them, as if they were listening.

It was one of the dark-haired women who spoke. "My name is Rilke," she said. She went on, in a low, husky voice, "What you've just described--a man as unimportant as this one--is one of the reasons why we want to go to Europa. We must find out what did the Great Galactic see in this strange little man. We should know because for our blood storage tanks and energy pool we need the blood and life force of a million people from this otherwise undefended planetary system. And we dare not kill a single one of those million until the riddle of Hanardy is resolved."

9.

Take a sentient being-- Everyone aboard the Dreegh super-ship that flew to the moon Europa in thirty hours (instead of many weeks) fitted that description: the Dreeghs, Pat, Professor Ungarn, and the sleeping Hanardy.

They had brought along Hanardy's freighter to be their landing craft. They came down without incident into Hanardy's permanent s.p.a.ceship berth in s.p.a.ceport, the large moon's princ.i.p.al city.

Consider any sentient person-- That includes a man asleep ... like Hanardy.

There he lies, helpless. In that fourth sleep stage that Hanardy was in--the deep delta-wave stage--push at him, hit him, roll him over. It is enormously difficult to awaken him. Yet it is in this state that a person can act out a sleepwalker's strange goal.

Force this sentient individual to interact with a grossly vast universe-- "We're taking no chances," said the Dreegh brunette woman, Rilke. "We're going to bring him into motion on the somnambulistic level."

It was Sween who directed a bright light at Hanardy's face; after mere seconds, he shut it off.

There was a measurable pa.s.sage of time. Then the body on the bed stirred.

A second woman--the blonde--without glancing up from the instrument she was monitoring, made a gesture and said hurriedly, "The somnambulistic purpose is in the delta-wave band C-10-13B."

It was a private nomenclature that meant nothing to Pat. But the words caused an unexpected flutter of excitement among the Dreeghs.

Sween-Madro turned to Pat. "Have you any idea why Hanardy should want to visit with, and have a feeling of affection for, thirteen people in s.p.a.ceport?"

Pat shrugged. "He a.s.sociates with certain s.p.a.ce b.u.ms around town," she said contemptuously. "Typical hangers-on of the kind you find out in s.p.a.ce. I wouldn't waste a minute on them."

Sween said coldly, "We take no chances, Pat. The ideal solution would be to kill all thirteen. But if we do, Hanardy might have punitive dreams about us as he awakens--which awakening will happen very soon now, one way or another. So"--the long gaunt face cracked into a grimace of a smile--"we'll render them useless to him."

"Ssssh!" said the blonde woman. She motioned toward the figure on the bed.

The somnambulistic Hanardy had opened his eyes.

Pat was aware, then, of the Dreeghs watching alertly. Involuntarily, briefly, she held her breath and waited.

Hanardy did not glance at her or at the Dreeghs, showed no awareness of anyone else being in the room.

Without a word, he got out of bed and removed his pajamas. Then he went into his bathroom and shaved and combed his hak. He came out again into the bedroom and began to dress, putting on his dirty pants, a shirt, and a pair of boots.

As Hanardy walked out of the room, Rilke shoved at Pat. "Remain near the sleepwalker," she commanded.

Pat was aware that Rilke and Sween-Madro stayed close behind her. The others had slipped somewhere out of sight.

The somnambulistic Hanardy opened the airlock and headed down the gangplank.

Sween-Madro gestured with his head for Pat to follow.

The girl had hesitated at the top of the spidery "plank". And now she stood for a moment gazing out at the city of s.p.a.ceport.

The airlock of Hanardy's freighter was located about fifty feet above the heavy lower scaffolding that held the vessel. There was a s.p.a.ce of about five feet between the opening and the upper scaffolding which actually const.i.tuted a part of the dock.

Almost straight ahead of her Pat could see the first building of the city. It was hard for her to realize that the entire populace of the port, with all their available equipment, had no chance against the Dreeghs. There was no protection here for her, or Hanardy, or anyone.

Awe came. The decisive factor was the intelligence of the Dreeghs.

She thought: and what's in Steve's memory of intelligence is all that stands between these vampires and their victims.

Minutes later she found herself walking beside Hanardy. She stole a glance at his blank face, so stolid and unintellectual. He seemed like a small hope, indeed.

The Dreeghs and she followed Hanardy along a street, into a hotel, up an elevator and along a corridor to a door numbered 517. Hanardy pressed a little b.u.t.ton, and after a little the door opened. A middle-aged woman shuffled into view. She was dumpy and bleary-eyed, but her face brightened into a welcoming smirk as she saw Hanardy.

"Hi, there, Han!" she yelled.

Having spoken, she must have realized that the Dreeghs and Pat were with the s.p.a.ceman. If she had any defensive thought, it was too late. Sween made her helpless with his mechanical light-flash hypnotism, about which he commented casually after they were inside and the door shut, "Nothing more complex is needed for human beings, or--" he shrugged--"Kluggs. Sorry, Pat," he apologized to the girl, "but the fact is that, like the people of this system, you also have a vague idea that hypnotism and other non-conscious phenomena were invented by hypnotists and similar unscrupulous people."

He added ruefully, "You'll never surprise a Lennel, or a Medder, or a Hulak with any control method short of--He broke off. "Never mind!"

He turned to the woman. Presently, under his guidance she was speaking enforced truths about her real relationship with Hanardy.

From the time they had met, Hanardy had given her money.

"What does he really get for it?" asked Rilke.

"Nothing."

Since their method evoked only truth, Rilke frowned at Sween, "It couldn't be altruism. Not on his low level?"

It was visibly an unexpected development. Pat said scathingly, "If altruism is an I.Q. factor, you Dreeghs probably come in below idiot."

The man did not reply. The next instant his preternaturally long body was bending over the bloated female whom they had so briefly interrogated. There was a flash of blue as his lips touched hers. Half a dozen times he repeated that caricature of a kiss. Each time, the woman grew visibly smaller, like a sick person fading away on a hospital bed.

Finally, a bright light was flashed into the tired eyes, excising all memory of her degradation. But when they departed, the shriveled being on the bed was still alive.

The next person that the somnambulistic Hanardy led them to was a man. And this time it was Rilke who took the glancing kiss, and it was into her nervous system that the blue fire was drawn.

They drained all thirteen of Hanardy's friends in the same way; and then they decided to kill Hanardy.

Grinning, Sween explained. "If we blow him up with you, the woman for whom he feels a dumb devotion, standing beside him in his home port--the only home he knows--he'll be busy protecting those he loves. And then we, who will be out in s.p.a.ce while this is going on, will probably survive the few instants that it will take for him to awaken."

As she heard those words, Pat felt a hardening of her own resolve, a conviction that she had nothing to lose.

They had started up the metal gangplank that led to the airlock of Hanardy's ship. Hanardy walked blankly in front, behind him was the girl, then Rilke, and, bringing up the rear, Sween. And they reached the final few feet, Pat braced herself and spoke aloud.

"It seems wrong,--" she said.

And leaped forward. She put her hands against Hanardy and shoved him over the side of the plank.

As she expected, the Dreeghs were quick. Hanardy was still teetering over the fifty-foot drop from the narrow walk when both the man and woman were beside him. As one person, they reached over the low handrail, reached out, reached down. That swiftly they had him.

In pushing at Hanardy, Pat found herself automatically propelled by the effort of her thrust away from Hanardy and over the other edge of the plank.

As she fell, she completed in her mind the sentence she had begun: "It seems wrong ... not to put that dumb love to the uttermost test!"

10.

s.p.a.ceport, on Europa, like other similar communities in the solar system, was not at all like an ordinary little town of four thousand human beings. If anything, it resembled an old-style naval refueling station in the South Pacific, with its military establishment and garrison. Except that the "garrison" of s.p.a.ceport consisted of technical experts who worked in complex mechanical systems for the repair and servicing of s.p.a.ceships. In addition, s.p.a.ceport was a mining post, where small craft brought their meteorite ore, gigantic plants separated the precious from the debris, and the resultant refined materials were trans-shipped to Earth.

The similarity to a South Pacific port was borne out in one other respect. Exactly as each little island post of Earth's Pacific Ocean gradually acc.u.mulated a saturation of human flotsam and jetsam, so on s.p.a.ceport there had gathered a strange tribe of s.p.a.ce b.u.ms. The tribe consisted of men and women in almost equal numbers, the size of the group being variable. Currently, it consisted of thirteen persons. They were not exactly honest people, but they were not criminals. That was impossible. In s.p.a.ce, a person convicted of one of the basic crimes was automatically sent back to Earth and not allowed out again. However, there was a great tolerance among enforcement officials as to what const.i.tuted a crime. Not drunkenness, certainly, and not dope addiction, for either men or women. Any degree of normal s.e.x, paid for or not, was never the subject of investigation.

There was a reason for this lat.i.tude. The majority of the persons involved--men and women--were technically trained. They were b.u.ms because they couldn't hold a steady job, but during rush periods, a personnel officer of the pressured company could often be found down in the bars on Front Street looking for a particular individual, or group. The b.u.ms thus located might then earn good money for a week or two, or perhaps even three.

It was exactly such a personnel officer looking for exactly such lost souls who discovered all thirteen of the people he wanted--four women and nine men--were sick in their hotel rooms.

Naturally, he called the port authorities. After an examination, the M.D. who was brought in stated that all thirteen showed extreme weakness. They seemed to be, as he so succinctly put it, "only marginally alive".