Looters Of Tharn

Chapter 6

Blade hurled himself through the grass in great leaping bounds. Once grass tangled around his ankles and he staggered and nearly went sprawling on his face. Several times thorny branches raked his calves, leaving oozing scratches. His heart pounded with the exertion, but even more it pounded with the tension of waiting. Would the turret swing in time, and if it did, would the purple ray lance out at him?

He was barely halfway to the machine when he saw that the turret was turning faster than he had expected. The tube would be bearing on him in seconds. His throat went dry at the thought, but his legs went on churning and his mind went right on working. If death was only moments away, he would die on his feet, fighting and thinking to the last.

Clank-clank-clank-screeeeeech. The tube was rising into firing position. Thirty yards to go. Twenty-five. Twenty. The tube was bearing directly on him now. More lights flashed on, and the purple lens at the end of the tube glowed like a neon sign.

Nothing happened.

In a moment of wild joy Blade realized that he had guessed right. The machine would not, could not fire at something that did not register as a possible enemy.

If he had been able to spare the breath, he would have let out a sigh of relief. But he didn't have the breath, or time to stop and catch it. He lengthened his stride, arms and legs pumping furiously. The machine might not fire at him, but it might still fly or walk away.

Fifteen yards.

Ten yards.

Five yards.

The machine's legs flexed, and it let out an ear-torturing howl like a dozen fire sirens all going at once. But before the machine could move, Blade reached the platform in the rear. He grasped the railing and vaulted over, landing on hands and knees with a clang and a thump. It vibrated and quivered under the impact of Blade's two hundred and ten pounds.

The turret continued to turn until the ray-tube was pointing directly backward, over the platform and only a foot or so above Blade's head. Blade flattened himself against the hatch as the tube sank down. With an audible click it reached the bottom of its slot and stopped. The siren died away. Apparently something in the machine had concluded that the danger was past or that the ray would be no good against it. Blade hoped it was the first and raised his head to look about him.

The smoke was rising from nearly a dozen places in the city now. The individual clouds merged into a vast sullen gray black pall that was spreading ahead of the wind. The hissing noises were louder now and almost continuous. So was the crashing and rumbling of great weights falling. Something powerful and destructive was at work in the city.

It certainly wasn't the other two war machines. They still stood motionless where they had been, their turrets turning slowly. They seemed to be paying no attention to anything that was going on in the city. They also seemed to be ignoring what had just climbed aboard their companion.

Blade turned toward the hatch. It would not be a bad idea to get away from here for a while. Something much more powerful and destructive than the purple ray was at work in the city. Blade couldn't help feeling that it would be wise to be ready to leave in a hurry if the something turned his way. The best and fastest way to leave would be aboard this machine. If he could learn to run it, he could put a good many miles between himself and whatever was tearing the ruins apart, then study the machine at his leisure.

Step one get inside the bloody thing! Blade examined the hatch. It offered no obvious knobs, dials, latches, handles, wheels, or any other way of opening it. It was simply a slightly recessed circle of metal about three feet in diameter, set in the rear slope of the machine's hull. Blade thumped the center with his clenched fist. The metal resounded with a faint hollow boom, but that was all.

There were no visible hinges, and it wouldn't have helped Blade much even if there had been. Without tools he would have been hard put to dismantle them. He went to work with both fists, systematically and carefully tapping the whole surface of the hatch.

A metallic rattling from the front end of the machine interrupted Blade. He broke off his examination of the hatch and craned his neck to peer around the curve of the machine's hull.

Four long flexible metal tentacles were creeping out of the ports in the front of the machine. They seemed to be composed of hundreds of circular segments, like giant earthworms. At its base each tentacle was a good six inches in diameter. Three of them tapered to whip-fine tips. The fourth ended in a flared section, crowned with a circular knob. All four crept slowly out of their ports until they reached out a good thirty feet or more. Then they began to rise, bending backward as they did so, over the turret, toward Blade.

Blade stopped his work on the hatch and froze, his eyes fixed on the tentacles as they arched toward him. His mouth was dry again, but his mind was still racing furiously. The tentacles could only be a back-up defense for the machine, to handle anything that got through the other defenses.

Or help it? The idea flashed into Blade's mind. The machine was almost certainly unmanned now. But if it ever had a live crew, there might be times when a wounded or helpless crewman needed help to get inside.

How to imitate a wounded man? The tentacles were already reaching down toward him. The one with the flared end and knob was the farthest away. Blade suspected it held some sort of lens or other sensing device, to study any doubtful specimens and pass on the word to the machine's computers.

If it passed on the wrong word, the other three tentacles would grip Blade and tear him apart like a rag doll in the hands of an angry child. He knew that as clearly as if he had seen it done. A vivid picture of it happening flashed through his mind for a moment as he got ready.

He made his breathing as slow and shallow as he could without blacking out. If he could have done it, he would have slowed his heartbeat as well. He let himself go limp and slid down the hull to sprawl on the platform, arms and legs outflung. He let his head sag to one side like a drunken man's. But behind half-closed lids he kept his eyes fixed on the hatch. With luck the tentacles would show him the way into the machine. Without luck-

The first tentacle touched him. Its touch was chill, hard, with a nightmarish fumbling quality about it. It tapped at his shinbone, curled around his ankle, tugged gently. Blade forced himself not to tense his leg, but instead to let it rise as the tentacle pulled. It rose only a few inches, then the tentacle uncurled. Blade let his leg drop back to the platform with a thud. Pain flared as his shinbone smashed into the metal, but he clamped his teeth down hard on a gasp of pain.

Now another tentacle was curling around his waist, roaming up and down the area between his navel and his groin. Blade felt the tentacle grip his testicles, and had a harder fight than before not to freeze or yell out loud. A third tentacle crept into his hair and explored there. Its chill metallic touch was a grisly parody of the caress of a woman's fingers.

Meanwhile the fourth tentacle was hovering in the air over Blade's head. The knob at the end was turning slowly, with audible clicks and beelike dronings. Blade continued to force himself to stay limp, quiet, and calm. The struggle was getting harder by the minute. He had no idea what conclusions the machine was reaching. Would it conclude he was somebody who had a right to be where he was, perhaps even a right to be helped? Or would it conclude that he was an enemy who had slipped through the other defenses and order the tentacles to-

The knob-ended tentacle reared up until its full length swayed in the air. It looked uncannily like a giant cobra. The siren sounded again-three ear-splitting boots. The tentacle exploring Blade's hair moved over to the hatch. So did the one at his feet. The third one remained wrapped loosely around his waist.

The two at the hatch hovered for a moment in the air. Then both plunged their tips into the narrow crack around the edge of the circular hatch. Metal scraped against metal as they wedged themselves deep into the crack. Ripples ran up and down the tentacles as they explored it. The one around Blade's waist tightened its grip.

Then the tentacles found what they were looking for. Two sharp clicks sounded. Silently, without the faintest whine or hiss or clanking, the hatch swung outward. Blade saw darkness in which a few humped metal shapes gleamed dully.

The tentacle around his waist tightened its grip still more. Blade held his breath. The other two tentacles arched downward again. One crept under his head, to cradle head, neck, and shoulders in its coils. The other supported him from knees to feet. Then all three tentacles lifted. They lifted him in through the hatch as easily as a housewife lifting a loaf of bread from the grocery shelf. They laid him down as gently on a smooth but warm and yielding surface. Then they withdrew, and in the same silence the hatch swung closed. Two clicks sounded again in the darkness as the latches snapped into place.