Spacehounds of IPC

E >> Edward Elmer Smith >> Spacehounds of IPC

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But the hexans were really intelligent, as has been said. They had had
time to prepare for what they knew awaited them, and they were rendered
utterly desperate by the knowledge that, no matter what might happen,
their course was run. Their power was gone, and even if the present
enemy should be driven off, they would float idly in space until they
died of cold; or, more probably, hurtling toward Jupiter as they were,
they would plunge to certain death upon its surface as soon as they came
within its powerful gravitational field. Therefore some fifty of the
creatures, who had had space experience in their spherical vessels,
had spent the preceding days in manufacturing space equipment. Let the
weight-fiends plan upon detonating magazines of explosives, upon laying
mines calculated to destroy the invaders, even the vessel itself and
all within it. Let them plan upon any other such idle schemes, which
were certain to be foreseen and guarded against by the space-hardened
veterans who undoubtedly moaned that all-powerful and vengeful football
of scarred gray metal. Space-fighters were they, and as space-fighters
would they die; taking with them to their own inevitable death a full
quota of the enemy.

* * * * *

Thus it came about that the head of the column of police had scarcely
passed a certain door, when in the room behind it there began to
assemble the half-hundred spacehounds of the hexans. When the vanguard
had approached that room, Crowninshield had inspected it thoroughly with
his infra-red beams. He had found it punctured and airless, devoid of
life or of lethal devices, and had passed on. But now the space-suited
warriors of the horde, guided in their hiding by their own visirays,
were massing there. When the center of the I-P column reached that door,
it burst open. There boiled out into the corridor, into the very midst
of the police, fifty demoniacal hexans, fighting with Berserk fury,
ruled by but one impulse--to kill.

Hand-weapons flashed viciously, tearing at steel armor and at bulging
space-suits. Space-hooks bit and tore. Pikes and lances were driven with
the full power of brawny arms. Here and there could be seen trooper and
hexan, locked together in fierce embrace far from any hand-line--six
limbs against four, all ten plied with abandon in mortal, hand-to-hand,
foot-to-foot combat.

"Give way!" yelled Crowninshield into the ears of his men. "Epstein,
back! LeFevre, advance! Get out of block ten--give us a chance to use
a beam!"

As the police fell back out of the designated section of the corridor,
Brandon's beam tore through it, filling it from floor to ceiling with
a volume of intolerable energy. In that energy walls, doorway, and
space-lines, as well as most of the hexans, vanished utterly. But the
beam could not be used again. Every surviving enemy had hurled himself
frantically into the thickest ranks of the police and the battle raged
fiercer than ever. It did not last long. The ends of the column had
already closed in. The police filled the corridor and overflowed into
the yawning chasm cut by the annihilating ray. Outnumbered, surrounded
upon all sides, above, and below by the Terrestrials, the hexans fought
with mad desperation to the last man--and to the last man died. And even
though in lieu of their own highly efficient space-armor they had fought
in weak, crude, and hastily improvised space-suits, which were pitifully
inferior to the ray resistant, heavy steel armor of the I-P forces,
nevertheless the enormous strength and utter savagery of the hexans had
taken toll; and when the advance was resumed, it was with extra lookouts
scanning the entire neighborhood of the line of march.

Since the troops had entered the fortress as close to their goal as
possible, it was not long until the leading platoon reached the door
behind which Kromodeor lay. Tools and cylinders of air were brought up,
and the engineers quickly fitted pressure bulkheads across the corridor.
There was a screaming hiss from the valves, the atmosphere in that
walled-off space became dense, and mechanics attacked with their power
drills the door of the projector room. It opened, and four husky
orderlies rapidly but gently encased the long body of the Vorkul in the
space-suit built especially to receive it. As that monstrous form in
its weirdly bulging envelope was guided through the air-locks into the
_Sirius_, Crowninshield barked orders into his transmitter and the
police reformed. They would now systematically scour the fortress, to
wipe out any hexans that might still be in hiding; to discover and
destroy any possible traps or infernal machines which the enemy might
have planted for their undoing.

Assured that the real danger to the _Sirius_ was over and that his
presence was no longer necessary, Brandon turned his controls over to an
assistant and went up to the Venerian rooms, where von Steiffel and his
staff were to operate upon the Vorkul. There, in the dense, hot air, but
little different now from the atmosphere of Jupiter, Kromodeor lay;
bolted down to the solid steel of the floor by means of padded steel
straps. So heavy were the bands that he could not possibly break even
one of them; so closely were they spaced that he could scarcely have
moved a muscle had he tried. But he did not try--so near death was he
that his mighty muscles did not even quiver at the trenchant bite of the
surgeon's tools. Von Steiffel and his aides, meticulously covered with
sterile gowns, hoods, and gloves, worked in most rigidly aseptic style;
deftly and rapidly closing the ghastly wounds inflicted by the weapons
of the hexans.

"Hi, Brandon," the surgeon grunted as he straightened up, the work
completed. "I did not use much antiseptic on him. Because of possible
differences in blood chemistry and in ignorance of his native bacteria,
I depended almost wholly upon asepsis and his natural resistance. It is
a good thing that we did not have to use an anaesthetic. He is in bad
shape, but if we can feed him successfully, he may pull through."

"Feed him? I never thought of that. What d'you suppose he eats?"

"I have an idea that it is something highly concentrated, from his
anatomy. I shall try giving him sugar, milk chocolate, something of
the kind. First I shall try maple syrup. Being a liquid, it is easily
administered, and its penetrating odor also may be a help."

* * * * *

A can of the liquid was brought in and to the amazement of the
Terrestrials, the long, delicate antennae of the Vorkul began to twitch
as soon as the can was opened. Motioning hastily for silence, von
Steiffel filled a bowl and placed it upon the floor beneath Kromodeor's
grotesque nose. The twitching increased, until finally one dull, glazed
eye brightened somewhat and curled slowly out upon its slender pedicle,
toward the dish. His mouth opened sluggishly and a long, red tongue
reached out, but as his perceptions quickened, he became conscious of
the strangers near him. The mouth snapped shut, the eye retracted, and
heaving, rippling surges traversed that powerful body as he struggled
madly against the unbreakable shackles of steel binding him to the floor.

"_Ach, kindlein_!" The surgeon bent anxiously over that grotesque but
frightened head; soothing, polysyllabic German crooning from his bearded
lips.

"Here, let's try this--I'm good on it," Stevens suggested, bringing up
the Callistonian thought exchanger. All three men donned headsets, and
sent wave after wave of friendly and soothing thoughts toward that
frantic and terrified brain.

"He's got his brain shut up like a clam!" Brandon snorted. "Open up,
guy--we aren't going to hurt you! We're the best friends you've got,
if you only knew it!"

"Himmel, und he iss himself killing!" moaned von Steiffel.

"One more chance that might work," and Brandon stepped over to the
communicator, demanding that Verna Pickering be brought at once. She
came in as soon as the air-locks would permit, and the physicist
welcomed her eagerly.

"This fellow's fighting so he's tearing himself to pieces. We can't make
him receive a thought, and von Steiffel's afraid to use an anaesthetic.
Now it's barely possible that he may understand hexan. I thought you
wasted time learning any of it, but maybe you didn't--see if you can
make him understand that we're friends."

The girl flinched and shrank back involuntarily, but forced herself to
approach that awful head. Bending over, she repeated over and over one
harsh, barking syllable. The effect of that word was magical. Instantly
Kromodeor ceased struggling, an eye curled out, and that long, supple
tongue flashed down and into the syrup. Not until the last sticky trace
had been licked from the bowl did his attention wander from the food.
Then the eye, sparkling brightly now, was raised toward the girl.
Simultaneously four other eyes arose, one directed at each of the men
and the other surveying his bonds and the room in which he was. Then the
Vorkul spoke, but his whistling, hissing manner of speech so garbled
the barking sounds of the hexan words he was attempting to utter, that
Verna's slight knowledge of the language was of no use. She therefore
put on one of the headsets, motioning the men to do the same, and
approached Kromodeor with the other, repeating the hexan word of
friendly import. This time the Vorkul's brain was not sealed against
the visitors and thoughts began to flow.

"You've used those things a lot," Brandon turned to Stevens in a quick
aside. "Can you hide your thoughts?"

"Sure--why?"

"All I can think of is that power system of theirs, and he'd know what
we were going to do, sure. And I'd better be getting at it anyway. So
you can wipe that off your mind with a clear conscience--the rest of us
will get everything they've got there. Your job's to get everything you
can out of this bird's brain. All x?"

"All x."

"Why, you didn't put yours on!" Verna exclaimed.

"No, I don't think I'll have time. If I get started talking to him now,
I'd be here from now on, and I've got a lot of work to do. Steve can
talk to him for me--see you later," and Brandon was gone.

He went directly to the Vorkulian fortress, bare now of hexan life and
devoid of hexan snares and traps. There he and his fellows labored day
after day learning every secret of every item of armament and equipment
aboard the heptagon.

"Did you finish up today, Norm?" asked Stevens one evening. "Kromodeor's
coming to life fast. He's able to wiggle around a little now, and is
insisting that we take off the one chain we keep on him and let him use
a plate, to call his people."

"All washed up. Guess I'll go in and talk to him--you all say he's such
an egg. With this stuff off my mind I can hide it well enough. By the
way, what does he eat?" And the two friends set out for the Venerian
rooms.

"Anything that's sweet, apparently, with just enough milk to furnish a
little protein. Won't eat meat or vegetables at all--von Steiffel says
they haven't got much of a digestive tract, and I know that they haven't
got any teeth. He's already eaten most all the syrup we had on board,
all of the milk chocolate, and a lot of the sugar. But none of us can
get any kind of a raise out of him at all--not even Nadia, when she fed
him a whole box of chocolates."

"No, I mean what does he eat when he's home?"

"It seems to be a sort of syrup, made from the juices of jungle plants,
which they drag in on automatic conveyors and process on automatic
machinery. But he's a funny mutt--hard to get. Some of his thoughts are
lucid enough, but others we can't make out at all--they are so foreign
to all human nature that they simply do not register as thoughts at all.
One funny thing, he isn't the least bit curious about anything. He
doesn't want to examine anything, doesn't ask us any questions, and
won't tell us anything about anything, so that all we know about him we
found out purely by accident. For instance, they like games and sports,
and seem to have families. They also have love, liking, and respect for
others of their own race--but they seem to have no emotions whatever for
outsiders. They're utterly inhuman--I can't describe it--you'll have to
get it for yourself."

"Did you find out about the Callistonians who went to see them?"

"Negatively, yes. They never arrived. They probably couldn't see in the
fog and must have missed the city. If they tried to land in that jungle,
it was just too bad!"

"That would account for everything. So they're strictly neutral, eh?
Well, I'll tell him 'hi,' anyway." Now in the sickroom, Brandon picked
up the headset and sent out a wave of cheery greeting.

To his amazement, the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive
to his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor
friendly--simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible to
any human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear and
coldly emotionless.

"I do not want to talk to you. Tell the hairy doctor that I am now
strong enough to be allowed to go to the communicator screen. That is
all." The Vorkul's mind again became an oblivious maze of unintelligible
thoughts. Not deliberately were Kromodeor's thoughts hidden; he was
constitutionally unable to interest himself in the thoughts or things of
any alien intelligence.

"Well, that for that." A puzzled, thoughtful look came over Brandon's
face as he called von Steiffel. "A queer duck, if there ever was one.
However, their ship will never bother us, that's one good thing; and
I think we've got about everything of theirs that we want, anyway."

The surgeon, after a careful examination of his patient, unlocked the
heavy collar with which he had been restraining the over-anxious Vorkul,
and supported him lightly at the communicator panel. As surely as though
he had used those controls for years Kromodeor shot the visiray beam out
into space. One hand upon each of the several dials and one eye upon
each meter, it was a matter only of seconds for him to get in touch with
Vorkulia. To the Terrestrials the screen was a gray and foggy blank; but
the manifest excitement shrieking and whistling from the speaker in
response to Kromodeor's signals made it plain that his message was being
received with enthusiasm.

"They are coming," the Vorkul thought, and lay back, exhausted.

"Just as well that they're comin' out here, at that," Brandon commented.
"We couldn't begin to handle that structure anywhere near Jupiter--in
fact, we wouldn't want to get very close ourselves, with passengers
aboard."

Such was the power of the Vorkulian vessels that in less than twenty
hours another heptagon slowed to a halt beside the _Sirius_ and two of
its crew were wafted aboard.

They were ushered into the Venerian room, where they talked briefly with
their wounded fellow before they dressed him in a space-suit, which
they filled with air to their own pressure. Then all three were lifted
lightly into the air, and without a word or a sign were borne through
the air-locks of the vessel, and into an opening in the wall of the
rescuing heptagon. A green tractor beam reached out, seizing the
derelict, and both structures darted away at such a pace that in a few
minutes they had disappeared in the black depths of space.

"Well--that, as I may have remarked before, is indisputably and
conclusively that." Brandon broke the surprised, almost stunned, silence
that followed the unceremonious departure of the visitors. "I don't know
whether to feel relieved at the knowledge that they won't bother us, or
whether to get mad because they won't have anything to do with us."

He sent the "All x" signal to the pilot and the _Sirius_, once more at
the acceleration of Terrestrial gravity, again bored on through space.

CHAPTER XIII

Spacehounds Triumphant

Now that the hexan threat that had so long oppressed the humanity of the
_Sirius_ was lifted, that dull gray football of armor steel was filled
with relief and rejoicing as the pilot laid his course for Europa.
Lounges and saloons resounded with noise as police, passengers, and such
of the crew as were at liberty made merry. The control room, in which
were grouped the leaders of the expedition and the scientists, was
orderly enough, but a noticeable undertone of gladness had replaced the
tense air it had known so long.

"Hi, men!" Nadia Stevens and Verna Pickering, arms around each other's
waists, entered the room and saluted the group gaily before they became
a part of it.

"'Smatter, girls--tired of dancing already?" asked Brandon.

"Oh, no--we could dance from now on," Verna assured him. "But you see,
Nadia hadn't seen that husband of hers for fifteen minutes, and was
getting lonesome. Being afraid of all you men, she wanted me to come
along for moral support. The real reason I came, though," and she
narrowed her expressive eyes and lowered her voice mysteriously, "is
that you two physicists are here. I want to study my chosen victims a
little longer before I decide over which of you to cast the spell of
my fatal charm."

"But you can't do that," he objected, vigorously. "Quince and I are
going to settle that ourselves some day--by shooting dice, or maybe each
other, or...." he broke off, listening to an animated conversation going
on behind them.

"... just simply outrageous!" Nadia was exclaiming. "Here we saved his
life, and I fed him a lot of my candy, and we went to all the trouble of
bringing their ship back here almost to Jupiter for them, and then they
simply dashed off without a word of thanks or anything! And he always
acted as though he never wanted to see or hear of any of us again, ever!
Why, they don't _think_ straight--as Norman would say it, they're _full_
of little red _ants_! Why, they aren't even _human_!"

"Sure not." Brandon turned to the flushed speaker. "They couldn't be,
hardly, with their make-up. But is it absolutely necessary that all
intelligent beings should possess such an emotion as gratitude? Such a
being without it does seem funny to us, but I can't see that its lack
necessarily implies anything particularly important. Keep still a
minute," he went on, as Nadia tried to interrupt him, "and listen to
some real wisdom. Quince, _you_ tell 'em."

"They are, of course, very highly developed and extremely intelligent;
but it should not be surprising that intelligence should manifest
itself in ways quite baffling to us human beings, whose minds work so
differently. They are, however ... well, peculiar."

"I _won't_ keep still!" Nadia burst out, at the first opportunity.
"I don't want to talk about those hideous things any more, anyway.
Come on, Steve, let's go up and dance!"

Crowninshield turned to Verna, with the obvious intention of leading
her away, but Brandon interposed.

"Sorry, Crown, but this lady is conducting a highly important
psychological research, so your purely social claims will have to wait
until after the scientific work is done."

"Why narrow the field of investigation?" laughed the girl. "I'd rather
widen it, myself--I might prefer a general, even to a physicist!"

They went up to the main saloon and joined the melee there, and after
one dance with Verna--all he could claim in that crowd of
men--Crowninshield turned to Brandon.

"You two seem to know Miss Pickering extraordinarily well. Would I be
stepping on your toes if I give her a play?"

"Clear ether as far as we're concerned." Brandon shrugged his shoulders.
"She's been kicking around under foot ever since she was knee high to a
duck--we gave her her first lessons on a slide rule."

"Don't be dumb, Norman. That woman's a knock-out--a riot--a regular
tri-planet call-out!"

"Oh, she's all x, as far as that goes. She's a good little scout,
too--not half as dumb as she acts--and she's one of the squarest little
aces that ever waved a plume; but as for _playing_ her--too much like
our kid sister."

"Good--me for her!" and they made their way back down to the control
room.

Stevens, after his one dance with Nadia, had already returned. Brandon
and Crowninshield found him seated at the calculating machine,
continuing a problem which already filled several pages of his notebook.

"'Smatter, Steve? So glad to see a calculator and some paper that you
can't let them alone?"

"Not exactly--just had a thought a day or so ago. Been computing the
orbit of the wreckage of the _Arcturus_ around Jupiter. Think we should
salvage it--the upper half, at least. It was left intact, you know."

"H ... m ... m. That would be nice, all right. Dope enough?"

"Got the direction solid, from my own observations; the velocity's a
pretty rough approximation though. But after allowing for my probable
error, it figures an ellipse of low eccentricity, between the orbits of
Io and Europa. Its period is short--about two days."

"Isn't it wonderful to have a brain?" Brandon addressed the room at
large. "The kid's clever. Nobody else would have thought of it, except
maybe Westfall. Let's see your figures. Um ... m ... m. According to
that, we're within an hour of it, right now." He turned to the pilot and
sketched rapidly.

"Get on this line here, please, and decelerate, so that the stuff'll
catch up with us, and pass the word to the lookouts. Stevens and I will
take the bow plates.

"That's a good idea," he went on to Stevens, as they took their places
at main and auxiliary ultra-banks. "Lot of plunder in that ship.
Instruments, boats, and equipment worth millions, besides most of the
junk of the passengers--clothes, trunks, trinkets, and what-not. You're
there, bucko!"

"Thanks, Chief," ... and they fell silent, watching the instruments
carefully, and from time to time making computations from the readings
of the acceleration and flight meters.

"There she is!" An alarm bell had finally sounded, the ultra-lights had
flared out into space, and upon both screens there shone out images of
the closely clustered wreckage of the _Arcturus_. But both men were more
interested just then in the mathematics of the recovery than in the
vessel itself.

"Missed it eight minutes of time and eleven divisions on the scale,"
reported Stevens. "Not so good."

"Not so bad either--I've seen worse computation." Thus lightly was
dismissed a mathematical feat which, a few years earlier, before the
days of I-P computers, would have been deemed worthy of publication in
"The Philosophical Magazine."

* * * * *

Director Newton was called in, and it was decided that the many small
fragments of the vessel were not worth saving; that its upper half
was all that they should attempt to tow the enormous distance back to
Tellus. The pace of the _Sirius_ was adjusted to that of the floating
masses, and tractor beams were clamped upon the undamaged portion of the
derelict, and upon the two slices from the nose of the craft. A couple
of the larger fragments of wreckage were also taken, to furnish metal
for the repairs which would be necessary. Acceleration was brought
slowly up to normal, and the battle-scarred cruiser of the void, with
her heavy burden of inert metal, resumed her interrupted voyage toward
Europa; the satellite upon which the passengers and crew of the
ill-fated _Arcturus_ had been so long immured. On she bored through the
ether, detector screens full out and greenly scintillant Vorkulian
wall-screens outlining her football shape in weird and ghastly light;
unafraid now of any possible surviving space-craft of the hexans.

But if the hexans detected her, they made no sign. Perhaps their fleet
had been destroyed utterly; perhaps it had been impressed upon even
their fierce minds that those sparkling green screens were not to be
molested with impunity! The satellite was reached without event and down
into the crater landing shaft the two enormous masses of metal dropped.

Callisto's foremost citizens were on hand to welcome the Terrestrial
rescuers, and revelry reigned supreme in that deeply buried Europan
community. All humanity celebrated. The Callistonians rejoiced because
they were now freed from the age-old oppression of the hexan hordes;
because they could once more extend their civilization over the Jovian
satellites and live again their normal lives upon the surface of those
small worlds.

The Terrestrials were almost equally enthusiastic in the reunion that
marked the end of the long imprisonment of the refugees.

As soon as the hull of the _Arcturus_ had been warmed sufficiently to
permit inspection, its original passengers were allowed to visit it
briefly, to examine and to reclaim their belongings. Of course, some
damage had been done by the cold of interplanetary space, but in general
everything was as they had left it. Stevens and Nadia were among the
first permitted aboard. They went first to the control room, where
Stevens found his bag still lying behind Breckenridge's desk, where he
had thrown it when he first boarded the vessel. Then they made their
way up to Nadia's stateroom, which they found in meticulous order and
spotless in its cleanliness--there is neither dust nor dirt in space.
Nadia glanced about the formal little room and laughed up at her
husband.

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