Invaders of Space

CHAPTER TEN

HE came back to consciousness in a dreamy state. His mind awoke before the nerves that brought messages to it could begin to operate. But his mind knew that there was something wrong. Something desperately intolerable was going on, and he could not pinpoint what it was. He fought to get back to what he'd known before this strange and dreamy state intervened. Presently he heard a voice saying, "You'd better wake up." It was muted. He heard it as if through many layers of thick felt.

He debated with himself why he should need to wake up. Then another voice came. It sounded desperate. It was Ginny.

"But you can't do that to them! You can't -"

The first voice laughed, a highly unpleasant sound. And suddenly remembrance swept over Horn like a flood. He knew that Ginny was here, and Larsen. He did not try to move. He knew that he had been shot with a stun pistol, and that he should remain motionless if he were to gain anything at all from recovering. His first movement should come after he'd regained control of all his body. Then, perhaps, a sudden, all-out attack. He heard poundings, and knew what they were. He'd been pounding like that on the air lock when Ginny and the rest were forced into the ship and he was locked out of it. Now there were others locked out of the Theban - her crew. They'd gone out to fight the grey-green horrors that seized the first two to go after Horn. Horn himself had slammed the door on them, locking them out so he could do battle with Larsen alone.

The crewmen were still outside. Larsen wasn't admitting them. Larsen was here, with Ginny, waiting for Horn to recover from the stun pistol beam. And the crewmen battered vainly on the air lock door.

Horn felt life returning to his legs. There was something strange about them, but he raced his brain and controlled his breathing lest the fury trying to rise up in him should reveal itself.

"But - but -" Ginny said desperately, "maybe he can't do what you want. Maybe it's impossible. And if it is, you - you can't hurt - not the children, surely."

"It's not impossible," rumbled Larsen. "Not for him!"

Horn stirred. It was very, very quiet inside the Theban. There were those muted, nearly hysterical bangings on the air lock door, but there was not even the whispering of the air freshener or any other noise.

"It's laid in my lap," rumbled Larsen in what was almost a genial tone. "I've got the money from the Danae. I've got rid of my crew so I don't have to split with anybody, and I've got an engineer who can run this scrap heap anywhere in the galaxy."

"But -"

"Everything's breakin' my way! All of it! All I have to do is show Horn where he stands. He'll see you here, with me. You'll tell him what's what. You'll beg him to do whatever I want him to."

"I'll tell him to destroy the ship."

"Yeah?" Larsen's tone went suddenly flat. "I don't haveto hurt you to make him mad enough for that! There are the others. If he tries anything, I'll take one of the Danae crowd out of the hold where I got them locked, and I'll show him what I can do to that one - just to show what I can do to you. You'll beg him to do what I tell him."

Horn risked the faintest possible flutter of his eyelids. He saw where he was - on the floor beside the engines of the Theban - and where Ginny was - white and desperate against a wall - and Larsen at ease in the chair Horn had used when standing watch beside these engines.

"But you wouldn't!" protested Ginny. Terror filled her. "Not - not the children!"

Larsen made amused noises. Then he growled, "Don't tell me what I won't do, or I'll show you!"

He stood up, stretched, turned partly away. And in one swift, savage movement Horn rolled over and launched himself in a headlong leap.

He didn't make it. In midair, he felt a sharp, agonizing pain in his ankle. Something seemed to snap. In mid-leap he checked and came crashing to the floor. He'd been chained by the leg to the Theban's engines. Larsen turned and laughed at him.

Horn picked himself up. Only one leg would serve him. He said icily, "Well, I tried!"

"Sure!" said Larsen. "Sure! But things are breakin' my way. You figure what you can do to me. Not much. Then figure what I can do to her, an' the others. But I'll save her for last. Now, what's the matter with the engines?"

Horn said evenly, "They're worn out. I told you so before."

"What do they need to run good again?"

"You won't believe the answer."

"Tell me anyhow," rumbled Larsen. "Maybe I can check."

"When engines of this kind were new," said Horn with vast composure, "the Riccardo coils balanced. With use, they aged, and they aged differently. The changes could be compensated for up to a certain point. But these coils are past being compensated. You need new ones. But new ones aren't made any longer. So long as you use these they'll vibrate, vibration makes troubles, and sooner or later they'll blow."

Larsen rumbled to himself. "Yeah," he said presently. 'The last engineer said that. But they got to run. You got to make 'em." He grinned, as if anticipatively. "If you don't make 'em run I take one of the Danae's crowd an' show you what she'll get if you don't get 'em runnin'. And she'll get it!"

Horn bit his lips. Then he said fiercely, "There's a trick. It sounds crazy. Maybe you'll think I'm trying to put something over."

"I do," said Larsen. "But you tell me about it. I'm not as dumb as I look. Tell me!"

Horn swallowed. He began to speak with infinite care. There were times when what he said did not convince Larsen, and he scowled. Horn went over it, rephrasing it until what he'd said became lucid. It was, in effect, a beautifully clear lecture on the principles of the Riccardo drive. At the end, it seemed obvious that the Theban's drive was irreparably gone past any justifiable use. It could blow at any instant.

Larsen rumbled again. Then he said amusedly, "Too bad! I'll go get one of the Danae crowd -"

Horn said desperately, "There's a chance. Not a good one, but if it works we can be sure. But it's not a good chance."

Sweating, he traced diagrams in the air with his fingers. Every ship carried in its holds certain balance coils - actually miniature drives - which adjusted the centre of gravity of ship and cargo together so they drove straight, in the absence of a space rudder and without side drift or crabwise motion. Horn explained the trick. If a generator of a pressor beam - a miniature drive - were fixed so its powerful thrust tended to deform a Riccardo coil in the opposite direction to the effect of aging, it ought to make the engine rumble for a certain limited further time.

"It's a tricky job," said Horn fiercely, "but if it works there'll be no engine noises. I'm not sure I can do it. I don't promise how long it will work. If I can do it at all, I can nurse it along. But that's every damned thing I can do."

Larsen seemed to reflect. Horn watched his face. Presently the Theban's skipper gave a short bark of a laugh. "Everything's goin' my way," he said expansively. "Not everybody'd find a guy who knew that trick! Yeah, everything's goin' my way! I'll get one of those coils. You'll make it work. If you don't -"

He rose and went to the companion ladder. There he paused.

"She hasn't got anything to kill me with," he said humorously. "Don't figure on tryin' anything. Things are goin' my way!"

He went down the ladder. Ginny wrung her hands. She said drearily, "Your leg - is it bad?"

"It's the ankle," said Horn evenly. "I think it's broken. It doesn't matter."

There came more hangings from below - gunbutts banging on the air lock door. The crewmen of the Theban wanted to be let in.

Larsen came back, grinning. He carried a pressor-beam generator coil. Broken wires showed, that he'd simply wrenched it loose from the socket in which it fitted.

"The guys outside are getting impatient," he said humorously. "They want in. But they had their fun with the money. Now they can think about it, but I've got it. Everything!" He rolled the coil to Horn, not handing it to him. He said blandly, "Handle this easy! It'll be too bad if I figure you might throw it. It's heavy. I'm watchin'!"

He sat down, a drawn weapon in his hand. He grinned.

Horn, tight-lipped, stood on one leg to work out the exact position for the small coil which could thrust as a ship's drive engines do, against nothing at all, but can also thrust against any material thing on which it plays. He adjusted the small item painstakingly.

"Now," he said harshly, "we'll see if it works."

He threw a switch.

There was a crashing sound on the other side of the room. A pocket blaster hit the wall and stuck there. There was a more cushioned impact. A chair and Larsen, together, hit the side wall with violence. They stayed pressed against it. There were small, feeble movements of Larsen's head and body. They ceased.

"Stay where you are Ginny!" commanded Horn.

He waited, patiently. Nothing happened. The chair and Larsen remained as if welded to the wall. Larsen's cheeks ballooned, one inward, the other outwards, to flatten against the wall.

"I think," said Horn, "that he's out. We'll see."

He threw back the switch. The weapon against the wall dropped to the floor. He snapped for Ginny to retrieve it. She did. He threw the current back on. Larsen had seemed to slump in the chair when the pressor-beam cut off. Now he sagged again, but against the wall.

Ginny gave Horn the hand weapon when he gestured for it. It was a blaster. He burned through the chain around his ankle, then half-limped and half hopped to Larsen and bound him carefully. He took keys from Larsen's pockets.

"You might let the Danae's people out of the hold," he said evenly. "Make sure none of them opens the air lock."

When Ginny came back, followed by the shaken, incredulous, unbelieving passengers and crew of the Danae, Horn was sitting in the chair Larsen had occupied. He nodded at Larsen's figure on the floor, holding Larsen's weapon handy.

"I want," he said briefly to the Danae's captain, "to have Larsen let gently down by a rope from the control-room air lock. Then close the air lock, and we'll take measures to go where we belong."

Ginny shakenly asked questions.

"I don't want to touch him again," said Horn. "It's too much of a temptation. He'd have done you harm, Ginny. I want to kill him."

Ginny said uneasily that she didn't know what had happened, but -

"I got him to bring me a balance coil," said Horn, tonelessly. "He knew it balanced a ship by shifting its centre of gravity. He didn't realize that it pushed, like artificial gravity. So I put a beam of twenty-gravity thrust against him, and it pushed him against a side wall. Nobody can stay conscious more than minutes in eight-gee thrust. I. gave him twenty."

There was a dismal banging on the tail fin air lock door. Horn sat still. He quietly gave orders that nobody should answer those knocks. They were made with blast rifle butts. He listened interestedly when told that when Larsen was lowered from the control-room air lock, his dangling body had been received by the crewmen of the Theban.

"This is very satisfactory," he said sedately to the Danae's captain. "Will you take over this ship and astrogate us to Formalhaut? I seem to have a broken ankle. I want to get it set. And I've other - ah - business to attend to."

The Danae's captain looked uneasily at the gigantic engines of the Theban. They were ancient and massive and he didn't trust them.

"They're all right," Horn assured him. "They were Riccardo drive engines. I more or less rebuilt them on the way here. They're simplified Riccardos now. In fact they're exactly like the engines of the Danae, except that a lot of useless parts are still in place."

He continued to sit placidly in place when the "engines wanted" sign lighted up in the engineroom. He was unconcerned when the ship lifted off. Ginny came and sat down beside him. She asked questions. She agreed that it had been best to leave the Theban's crew marooned for somebody else to take care of.

"Yes," said Horn. "I'm going to be curious what the crewmen say about Larsen when they're picked up."

Ginny looked at him uneasily. "You don't - you don't mean you think -"

"Oh, no!" said Horn wryly. "Why would they be angry with him? I don't think anything of the sort."

But he did. He explained carefully to the Danae's captain that the foot-deep currency should be counted. It turned out that much money which ought to have been lost had been hidden on the Theban. It was recovered.

Horn also explained firmly that the Theban would not go into orbit around Hermas and try to pick out the position of the grounded Danae, because there was no way to get her out to space again except with another pair of emergency rockets, which the Theban didn't carry. He explained other things. Ginny regarded him with a certain surprised respect.

"But I don't see," she told him, two days out of Carola and heading for Formalhaut, "why you bother to decide all these things. Don't you want to be a passenger, considering your ankle?"

"Presently," said Horn. "Right now I want to get to Formalhaut in a hurry."

"But why?" insisted Ginny. "What's the rush?'

"We were going to be married, remember?" asked Horn. "Something more than ten days ago? We've been cheated out of ten days of living happily ever after. I don't want to lose any more than I can help. So I'm insisting on a nonstop trip to Formalhaut. Do you blame me?"

Ginny smiled at him. Then she looked carefully about. There was nobody in sight in this part of the Theban. She kissed him quickly and then looked very proper and unromantic. And they grinned at each other.