The Killer Thing

Ten

The grade was twenty degrees, and he fell flat out with his face pressed against the hot dry rocky earth. He hadn’t remembered it as being so far through the passage of the chimney, or so steep and treacherous. The roar of compressed air filled his ears, and he turned off the audio control in his helmet, immediately turning the world into a silent place where even the sound of his heart-beat was missing. It was worse than the wind had been. He turned it on again.

He had to keep going. Minute by minute the wind was increasing its speed, the size of the flying rocks growing. He had to turn around, go down feet first in order to protect his head. The chimney was two and a half feet wide here, narrowing at the top of the cleft to a scant foot; the light coming in through the top was dirty, grey-yellow. He brought his feet up under him, presenting a larger target for the hurled rocks. One caught him on the thigh and he cried out. Hurrying, he turned, getting his feet out before him, keeping his face down against the earth, one hand over his head, the other extending out behind him as he went down the passage, pushing, helping to lift his weight, easing it over the next few inches. Slowly, he approached the end of the chimney; the rocks that were blowing about were larger, not going straight through at this end, but skipping about in a circular motion, banging thunderously against the sides of the cut. At the end he tried to see his dinghy and could not find it in the swirling debris. The valley echoed with the repeated crashes of boulders against valley walls, and the wind’s roar here was deafening.

The dinghy had to be to his left, about twenty-five feet away from the cliff wall; he would be going directly into the wind. Suddenly everything was swept away in a blaze of pain and when it passed he could not move his left arm at all. There was the feel of sticky warmth on his shoulder, but no pain then. He knew the pain would come again. He had to get to the dinghy before one of the rocks caught him in the head, or broke a leg…

He closed his eyes hard, visualising the dinghy and the rounded boulder, fighting back the hysteria that was overcoming him at the thought of leaving the inadequate shelter of the cut into the mountain. The boulder had been trailed by a whole string of lesser rocks… He should have realised what they meant when he first saw them… If he could make it to the rocks and use them for protection…

There was nothing else he could do. His left arm dangled uselessly, numbed, as if it were not even a part of him. He stood for another moment, pressing himself hard against the side of the cleft, and then he ran out, hunched as low as he could get, and he tripped and fell over one of the series of rocks. He threw himself down full length, gasping; he felt as if he had been caught in an avalanche; his whole body was bruised and hurting. But he was still alive. He heard his own laugh and choked it off. Creeping along the ground, pressing against the rocks that would take him back to the easter egg boulder and his own craft, he was hit again and again by pebbles, rocks, sand, and then he had reached the big one. He could see nothing now, the air completely filled with the driving sand. His hands found the smooth side of the dinghy, and somehow he wrenched the hatch open, fell inside and pulled it closed again. The wind probably was seventy miles an hour, gusts of ninety, and tornadoes whose wind velocity could only be estimated. It would not reach its peak for another half-hour at least. He drew in gasping, sobbing breaths, closed his eyes when the dinghy seemed to be tilting crazily, and waited for the dizziness to pass. He wasn’t finished yet. He still had to move the dinghy to safety.

It seemed to take him months, or years, to reach the controls of the dinghy. He watched his right hand reach for the switch and before it touched, he slept and wakened, forgot about the wind, and remembered once more. Then his hand was on the switch and his mind was the thing apart as reflexes took over guiding his hand, seeing that the craft was turned in the right direction, that it hovered enough off the ground to clear the jutting rocks, and then controlled it in a fast dart into the cut in the cliff, taking it back as far as it would go, turning it so that it presented the smallest possible area to the bombardment. When the switch was turned off again, the man slumped down in the seat-bed unconscious.

Hey, Trace, wake up! A whisper in his ear that grew more insistent. Come on, Trace! You ought to see… What’s the matter?

He floated away from his hammock, coming down to earth as lightly as a feather. He looked down at himself, tasting the strangeness of his own body. He was very young, fifteen or sixteen… Where was he? It was all new and unfamiliar, a forest of tents, small geodesic patterns in a bright moonlight scene. A far sound of singing, a nearer sound of pacing feet ― the sentry. He remembered, they were on Tarbo for their first actual encounter with an enemy. Trace felt frightened, yet excited at the thought of joining in combat with the older, experienced men. They were so matter of fact about it, so disdainful of death.

The other boy was plucking at his sleeve.

Come on, Trace, this way. Dream-like, they drifted along the lower branches of the trees that surrounded the camp, eluding the sentry with no trouble, until they had come to a clearing, a slope that went down to the edge of a large lake, a silvery reflection that rippled now and again with its own secret life. Trace and the other boy—who had he been?—drifted to the top of a mammoth conifer and perched there, almost a hundred feet over the ground below. They could see far across the lake valley, a meadow in the distance where a long line of figures was moving. There were some lights, enough so that the boys could make out what was happening. Fleet men were shepherding natives in a straggly line, placing them among the trees at the edge of the lake, stationing some of them in a cave that was a black hole at the foot of a hill, putting others at the edge of the clearing, making them lie flat. A handful of the natives broke into a run and a laser cut them down, silently vaporising them. There were no more attempts to escape. Mystified, Trace watched until the soldiers were finished and took up guard positions.

One of them screamed, the other boy said. I got up and wandered out this way to see what was going on. What are they doing?

Haven’t you figured it out? Come on, we’ve got to get back before someone misses us. Use your head, Trace. You figure it out.

Time telescoped; dawn, and the general giving final orders.

It’s serious, men. They learned of our presence and massed thousands of warriors overnight, armed men, the elite of their fighting corps. Breznev will take the first battalion in…

Trace would be in the fourth wave. His hand trembled when he received the laser gun; it would be virtually hand-to-hand combat, man against man, soldier against soldier…

Gene! That was his name, Gene Connors. His eyes met Trace’s, and his face was ghastly, stark white with a pale green tinge around his mouth. Trace turned away from him.

Brunce, take a detachment around to the left, pincers movement…

Trace fell in behind Brunce, the laser hot in his hand, the trembling all on the inside now. In there, men, a detachment, take what cover you can; fire at anything that moves… Go! Three trainees to each officer. Moving behind Brunce…

The laser held in both hands, touching with fire, the smell of burning brush, flesh, stones… the smell and sound of bullets from ancient guns, the natives’ weapons… And once more there was Gene, staring open-mouthed at Trace, his own laser hanging unused from his hand:

You’re fishing in stocked waters!

The sound of a bullet and Gene falling, running past his body, the laser a deadly light guiding him on, pulling him after it… One brief flashing glimpse of Brunce, a revolver in his hand…

Celebration, drinking, the drugs that brought a fantasy world into reality, medals for meritorious action in the face of danger… His mother on his return to Venus:

You’ve been to Tarbo; you’re a man now. You should marry and conceive a son… Corrine… You’ve been to Tarbo… She knew. Corrine knew. Gene had known… You’ve been to Tarbo…

“Tarbo!” Trace sat upright, and moaned in pain. Tarbo? He repeated it aloud, “Tarbo?” It meant nothing to him. He had dreamed of his mother saying to him, “You’ve been to Tarbo,” but it meant nothing to him then. There was nothing that went with it, only the meaningless words, you’ve been to Tarbo. He listened. The wind was gone, the night completely still. He moved and groaned again. He hadn’t reclined the seat, and he was stiff; his shoulder was agonising. How much had it bled? With stiff fingers he peeled off the suit and he clenched his teeth when the material pulled away from the scraped place on his shoulder. Tears ran down his cheeks and he was unaware of them until the salt touched a scrape on his hollow cheek.

He found a cleanser in the first aid supplies and as thoroughly as he could he cleaned off the skinned area on his shoulder; it was four inches long, two inches wide. Blood oozed from it and he quickly put an adhering bandage over it. Bruises covered most of his body, and there was another cut on his upper leg; he had not been aware of it until he saw it. He cleaned it and bandaged it also. He was reeling with fatigue and fever when he finished, and he took more of the anti-fever capsules and another swallow of water and fell again to the seat. Sand ground into his body; wearily he arose and brushed off the seat, but he couldn’t tell if he had got it clean or not, and finally he fell into the other seat, Duncan’s seat.

Sorry, Duncan, he thought, but you’ll just have to stand, or squat, or take my seat. Dirty seat, blood and sand… no urine, too dry for that… should drink more water. What, Duncan? Yeah, it hurts when I move. Like you said.

S’funny, Trace. Can’t feel anything, but I know it hurts like hell, something knows, like it’s sending the same message again and again and never getting through, not in my head. But I know how much it hurts, God, I know how much it hurts…

Yeah, Duncan, I know. Take it easy, okay? Get some sleep. We have to plan what we’re going to do. It’s here with us, Duncan, and it knows we are alive…

Not me, Trace. Not me. This part of me that is free feels so sorry for the rest… Know what I mean, Trace?

Sure, I know. But it’s going to be all right. They’ll be here soon and get a medic for you. It’ll be all right.

Ever see a kid tear a doll apart, the head goes on smiling and smiling and the arms are off and the feet, and the stuffing is ripped out, but the head goes on smiling…

He should have taken some of the drug himself, Trace thought, jerking wide awake, racked by pain that was like an orchestra straining for a crashing crescendo, growing, building, swelling. He should have taken one of the pain-killing capsules. He didn’t dare! He might sleep twenty-four hours, more even, and then he would be lost. He didn’t have the time. He concentrated on easing the pain in his shoulder, using auto-hypnotic methods, and gradually it lessened and he drifted again.

There was so much to do, so little time. He had to map the area so that he wouldn’t get lost again. He hadn’t realised how easy it would be to lose the valley, sunken down in the mountains. The valley was the perfect hiding place; perhaps the robot never would find him in it. He had to ration his water, use more of it now while he was feverish and hurt, even if it meant doing without later on. He would spend the mornings searching for the dinghy, and the afternoons fortifying the valley. He would build a fortress that would be impenetrable to the robot. They would put a shield over the top, and build up the walls so that it couldn’t scale them, or see over them. Then they would bomb the monster, using hydrogen fusion bombs, reduce it down to its original atoms and scatter them. They could bomb it from ten, twenty miles up, far out of reach of its laser, and it would be helpless against them, a shiny target that they couldn’t miss, going up in a mushrooming cloud, carried away by the insane wind, to be hurled endlessly against the rocks.

He would be rewarded. He would collect Lar and they would find a place where they could live together and swim every day, and her body would be bare and smooth to his hands, with water drops like jewels gleaming on her. They would want him to stay with the Fleet, and he would say no, he wanted to retire and live with his wife. He was eligible for training duty in two years; he could retire to Venus and take over the education of the boys. He flinched back from the idea, and with the drawing away he muttered, ‘Tarbo’. He didn’t want to be a trainer; he didn’t want to think about the training the boys received.

When the morning winds started he stirred, drank more water, and fell back to the seat again, not caring if the wind smashed the dinghy or not. A welter of dreams passed before his closed eyes, places where cool breezes fanned his cheeks, where water ran freely, places where they had dressed for snow and cold. Places, always places, never people now.

You don’t think of them as people, they aren’t people. Each planet has a purpose in itself: abundant minerals, drugs, strategic location… Each one has something that makes it necessary for us to have it. Understand?

Yes, sir, Captain Tracy.

You can’t hate a land, a planet, and that’s all we want. We don’t want the people there, the natives. They are incidental to our purposes. We try to get them to cooperate with us. When we achieve this cooperation, there is no trouble. Some of them refuse to cooperate. They are like animals that have to be taught, and sometimes the lessons are hard, for us as well as for them. But we don’t hate the animals that we train; we are good to them once the training period is over. You only hate your equals! Never inferiors. Understand?

Yes, sir, Captain Tracy.

The Outsiders’ ships had come in waves like the ocean waves on an endless beach. The skies had been filled with the great golden ships. You could hate the Outsiders, You could hate their lovely ships that were larger, more beautiful than the WG ships. You could hate them for their tall upright bodies and their golden hair and shining blue and green eyes, for the red hair and brown eyes, for the beauty that was in all of them, down to the darkest of the brunettes. You could hate them for being what you might have become in enough time.

Trace heard a groan escape his lips and he stirred again. The dinghy was sweltering; he had forgotten to set the air conditioner when he moved the night before. He was thinking of the Outsiders when he moved from the seat for water. They had conquered everything that plagued man; they had no disease, no death, no unnameable desires. It was as if they had climbed continuous stairs and were nearing the top while man was only then beginning to suspect that the evolutionary ladder continued upward far beyond the point that Earthmen already had reached. Yet the Outsiders were willing to risk all that they had gained, willing to risk warfare with the powerful WG forces, not for anything material for themselves, so far as Trace had been able to learn, but merely because they had promised to come to the aid of the peoples of Mellic if such aid ever should be requested.

He didn’t believe it. They would gain something for themselves; no one risked anything at all without the thought of some gain to make the risk worth taking. He wondered what had happened at the conferences since he had left Mellic in pursuit of the robot. He hoped war had not been declared yet, not until he was back and able to get Lar away from Mellic. That would be the first place the Fleet would hit, he knew, and they would hit it with all the fire power they had ― fusion bombs, lasers, probably even the ultimate weapon yet to be devised by man, Inacred, the infinite atmospheric chain reaction device. This had been used only once, as a test and a demonstration, and it had worked beautifully. The WG government would not hesitate to use it, however, against a planet that had called in powers as great as, or greater than, its own. Mellic would die.

But the conference would take years, decades even before that happened. The WG government knew how to prolong conferences that went badly. Trace measured out the water and touched it to his lips and tongue, and then with shaking hands tilted the plastic cup and finished it. He had to have more; his tongue was thick, his lips cracking deeper and deeper. The anti-fever capsules were helping, but he was dehydrating anyway. He took another measure of the water and sat down on the floor with it, this time deliberating over it, making each mouthful last a long time before he swallowed it. He should eat, and knew he couldn’t, not yet. He had never ached so much in his life as he did then, each muscle on fire, his skin sore, flayed by sand, raw; his eyes burned and felt gritty and his whole body was crusted over with grime, sweat, and sand.

He had to get up and go out, he had to find the dinghy, had to fortify the valley. He could not move then. He finished the water and licked the drops from the inside of the plastic. He would rest a little while and then go out. He had to rest first. Painfully he leaned back against the storage unit, the metal feeling cool to his hot face, and he let his eyes close again.