13 TRAPPED ON HAGGIS

It was a moment of ghastly paralysis for this intrepid space explorer, who, at this instant, was beginning to regret very much the whole idea of space exploration. What to do? Suicide seemed about the only answer, and he let the unconscious Chuck slip heavily to the ground while he considered possible means of terminating a life that was just about as good as terminated anyway. The moment passed, and he abandoned thoughts of suicide for the moment, mainly because he could not see any easy way of doing it, short of drowning himself in the mashed mangelwurzels which didn't sound attractive at all. Above him the Hagg-Loos fighting ships raced and cavorted and occasionally banged off their guns at suspicious objects on the ground below, but other than the cooked lumps of slain Haggisians and an occasional slave corpse or two, the landscape was empty.

Or was it? What was that strange sort of rattling, slithering sound that came from behind the heaped-up rocks? Reflexively, Jerry withdrew into the tunnel mouth, pulling Chuck after him. The scraping grew louder and louder until, with horrifying abruptness, the great pallid form of a Hagg-Loos appeared. Its poison barb twitched, its faceted, evil eyes stared at the tunnel – and then it attacked! Fast as it was, Jerry was just as fast. With Chuck in tow he sprinted into the mine and dived for the grinding machine.

"Enter at your own peril!" he shouted, raising a handful of the deadly coal dust, coal dust to him, but drugaddicting DnDrf to the Hagg-Loos who now clattered into the cave after him.

"You heard me," Jerry cried, backing away. "I mean it. One step more and I let fly and you are an addict for life until your chitin rots away!"

But the Hagg-Loos warrior ignored him and still came forward. Good as his word, Jerry let fly unerringly with the coal dust, which shmeared itself on the enemy's white chitin. And still it came. Jerry abandoned the coal-dust ploy and seized up one of the clubs, not much of a weapon against the yard-long nippers of the enemy, but if fight he must, why, then he would die fighting.

"To me, Chuck, to me!" he called out. "I may have to die fighting, and a little help would be appreciated." But the help was not coming. Chuck had regained consciousness and was back at the mangel-wurzel trough, noshing away with bestial slurping sounds. The enemy advanced until its great form hovered over Jerry, and he drew back his club for one last blow when a trapdoor opened in its abdomen and a mop of tentacles popped out.

"I know those familiar tentacles," Jerry exulted, hurling the club aside. "That is you, isn't it, Slug-Togath?"

"None other," came the gloomy answer. "Left behind by force despite strong reservations as to wisdom of abandonment, to aid in effecting your escape."

"Damn good idea on someone's part. Am I allowed to ask just what you are doing inside one of the enemy?"

"Not enemy, giant robot machine constructed after you were sold to the slavers. It seems that the Hagg-lnder albino spy on this planet was interrupted during a secret message, and they have not been able to contact him yet. So this robot was built, and I agreed to take it into the enemy city to see about the spy, but under controlled conditions and etc., not just dumped at the North Pole like this." His tentacles wriggled with self-pity as he gave his TS card a good verbal punching.

"Cheer up, old Medusa head," Jerry chirruped, patting him on the back, inadvertently giving him a black eye at the same time since, of course, he had eyes on his back as well. "You've got help on this mission now, one and oneeighth good men to help you. Chuck being the one-eighth, about all he is good for since they crunched his brain." Chuck happily slurped an answer.

"Look, tell me about it later, will you?" Slug-Togath said nervously, peering in all directions, which of course was easy for him to do. "Climb into this damn thing so I can seal the hatch before any of them spots us."

And this they did, only getting Chuck away from the mangel-wurzels with some difficulty and by promising him an Ormoloo-burger if he was a good boy and climbed into the Haggis machine and sat quietly. This was done and the hatch slammed, and Jerry looked around approvingly at the well-organized, though cramped, quarters. A control seat in the head with vision screens to operate the machine, with special controls for the poison sting in the tail which also housed a supersonic crumbler beam. Tool and food compartments were on both sides, a compact galley, recruiting posters and VD warnings on the walls, a folding cot, a color TV next to the bar, and a chemical toilet tucked discreetly in the rear behind a curtain. "Not bad, not bad at all," Jerry approved as he sizzled up a burger for the salivating Chuck, who was strapped into a chair. It smelled so good he made one himself and was munching away under the disapproving eyes of Slug-Togath.

"I know your Earthling axiom about Nero fiddling while Rome burned," he disapproved, "and we have the equivalent in our axiom about how only a crogis nardles while his friend's mother cakarakas."

"Sounds sort of dirty," Jerry mumbled around a mouthful, "so don't bother to translate. While eating I have been thinking, and I have a plan of escape, but first I've got a couple of questions. Like do you have a mind shield for Chuck, since the enemy might think something was wrong if they caught his brutish thoughts emanating from the neighborhood of this thing's big intestine?"

"Not to worry. The entire device is mind-shielded. They will catch no stray thoughts."

"That's a good beginning. But what about if they should try to contact what they think is their buddy here and get no thoughts in return?"

"I assure you, all this was taken into consideration when the device was constructed. There is a programmed brainwave transmitter hooked to the antenna. This is the board that controls it By selecting the correct button, it will broadcast thoughts of immense concentration, including the message 'buzz off and don't bug me now,' the random thoughts of deep sleep, and so forth."

"What is this button labeled 'section 8'?"

"Well, as I am sure you know, all the Hagg-Loos are insane to a greater or lesser degree, usually greater, driven that way by the maddening hard radiation of their sun, the great star Spica. Many of the creatures have periods of frothing insanity at which time the others leave them completely alone. That is the frothing insanity button.

"Then that is all I need to know!" Jerry shouted and did a little victory dance. "My plan is now complete. Prepare to escape."

As soon as the plan had been explained to him, the dubious Slug-Togath became an enthusiast as well and joined in the preparations. Using the great front claws, they dug into the powdered coal dust and hurled it all over the white body of the machine. Then, with all claws full of more coal dust, they raced for the entrance, and before they emerged, Jerry pressed the section 8 button.

Oh, what a hideous sight it was to the Hagg-Loos warriors who were emerging from the fighting ships. For, in their institutional madness, they fear nothing in the universe other than the dread DnDrf which would bring on addiction, rotted chitin, you know the drill. So they took one glimpse at what appeared to be one of their number just coated with the deadly substance, stoned out of his mind obviously and radiating nuttiness on every wavelength, and coming in their direction.

They split. Those still in their ships blasted off instantly. Those near their ships dived into them, in many cases slamming the doors in their comrades' faces. These, and the others too far from the ships, instantly fled at top speed into the frigid 110 degree Artic wastes.

It worked like a charm. Slug-Togath labored at the controls, his tentacles a blur of motion as he spun the machine about and headed for the grounded spaceships, their owners fleeing before him. Still mentally broadcasting crazy like crazy, he clambered the machine into the first one with an open port, slamming and sealing the port behind. The control cabin was in the nose, and in a matter of seconds he and Jerry examined and figured out how they worked, and whammo! the ship blasted free from the ground and rose erratically inte the air. Moments later they were alone, arcing up into space in a high parabola.

"What's next?" Jerry asked pouring himself a large martini cocktail and draining it almost instantly.

"Food for Chuckee," that pathetic voice entreated, so Jerry went and fried up another batch of Ormolooburgers.

"They'll try to intercept us and blast us out of space, so we are getting out of space before they can report and locate us. This orbit will bring us down a few miles outside Haggis City, where we will abandon the ship and proceed to the rendezvous with the Hagg-Inder spy, or at least to the place where he is supposed to be, to determine the nature of the trouble."

Night arrived suddenly as they caught up with the planet's rotation, and darkness concealed their fall.

"Controls are set," Slug-Togath reported. "When this ship lands, we have just four seconds to get out of it before it takes off on a random course that I have programmed into the computer. I am sure that they will disintegrate the ship so that all the DnDrf in it will be destroyed. As long as we are not seen emerging we will be safe."

With these words barely out of his mouth, Slug-Togath dived the ship behind a screening row of hills and into a shallow valley. The instant they touched the door sprang open, and the machine, under his deft control, sprang through it – and just in time, for the closing portal actually brushed the poison sting of the immense form. Whooshing and roaring, the ship took off and, no more than a few seconds later, a flight of fighting rockets rushed by overhead, following it. the first light of dawn painting their white forms a bright blue.

"There is one thing you have to do before we leave here," Jerry said. filling a plastic bucket with water at the sink. "Take this and a scrubbing brush and get out there and remove every particle of coal dust so this thing is pristine and clean again."

"Whaddaya mean I have to do?" protested Slug-Togath.

"I'm a prime minister at home and rm not used to that kind of menial labor."

"Agreed, but you also have a hide so tough it bounces off bullets, which is more than I can say for my all too tender flesh. This machine is air-conditioned, but the thermometer tells me that it is a cozy two hundred and fifty degrees outside, which would fry me instantly. On your way, old Medusa, consider yourself a volunteer!"

Grumbling, the Garnishee slipped through the door, admitting a wave of roasting heat, and began a clean scrubdown fore and aft. Jerry had another belt at the gin and then closed his eyes for a quick and well-deserved nap. Chuck, stomach full at last, dozed as well, and it was real neat until another blast of heat announced Slug-Togath's return.

"Pfffft," he said, and dust came out of his mouth when he spoke. His hide was wrinkled, and he was only about half as thick as he had been when he went out. Jerry looked on with interest as the Garnishee hooked a plastic hose to the faucet on the sink, then stuck it into one of the orifices in his body and turned the water on. He began to swell slowly and to lose the desiccated look.

"Little hot out there?" Jerry asked innocently, and smiled at the glare shot back at him from about a dozen bloodshot eyes. "As soon as you fill your tank, we'll get on with the job. Did you say what was the name of the secret agent we had to contact?"

"I didn't say," Slug-Togath burbled with hydratory relief. "It is a secret."

"Well not from me, for chrissake," Jerry said petulantly. "Give."

"Operator X-9," Slug-Togath whispered. "Better to commit suicide than to give that name away."

"I'll remember, I'll remember. What next?"

"We go to Haggis City. As we were landing, I noticed a monorail line not too far from here. Perhaps we can obtain transportation that way and not drain the batteries on this machine."

"Sounds good – lead the way."

Bluey-fingered dawn had brightened the landscape as they climbed out of the rift and looked down at the plain. Sure enough the towers of a monorail line cut close by, and they could see a station not too far distant. They hurried the machine in that direction and only slowed when they saw other Hagg-Loos ahead. More and more appeared, crawling out from under rocks where they lived, waving good-bye to their mates, giving their young cheerful nips on the chitin with their claws as they departed.

"It looks like we hit the rush hour," Jerry mused. "All the commuters going to work in the morning. Do you have a broadcast mental program for this?"

"I should think so . . . here, how about this one. 'Memories of an Orgy', a program designed to be eavesdropped on but not interrupted."

"Say, I'd like to hear that one myself! Though on second thought maybe I wouldn't. All those claws, crackling chitin, waving antennae. No, let them enjoy it."

Strolling casually, they joined the Hagg-Loos, who were moving along the rock pathways and converging on the station. More than one antenna dipped and trembled in their direction – that recording must have been a doozy! but they were not bothered. Clambering up the stairs, they had only a short wait before the shining cars of the monorail train whooshed into the station. There was a rush for seats, and of course the experienced commuters got there first and snapped open the metallic sheets of their morning newsfax and hid behind them. The ride was not a long one, and before they knew it, the train had stopped at the immense Padng-tun station in Haggis City and the commuters rushed for the exits. Slug-Togath made sure that they went slower than the others, then pointed out why.

"See – as each one approaches the exit, it produces a pass of some kind which it shows to the officer stationed there."

"We have no pass?" Jerry queried.

"You took the words right out of my speaking hole."

"Then let's try in the opposite direction, back along the track. There will be freight exits, workers' entrances, something. And they will be a little more deserted if there is any trouble."

Clattering along casually on its twenty claw-tipped feet, the hulking form of the Hagg-Loos robot trotted away from the rushing workers. The platform ended in a metal gate with an unreadable inscription, and after a quick look around, Jerry cut the gate in half with a quick snick of the claws. There was a ramp beyond that plunged into the bowels of the station, so into the bowels they plunged.

"Don't you think we should change the porno broadcast to something more suitable for the occasion?" Jerry asked.

"Sound idea. There is a program here of the mental retardation of a longtime DnDrf sniffer whose chitin is about to go soft."

"No, I think not, not in a railroad station."

"Then how about this. A low-type mind working on computations for betting on the daily jeddak races."

"That's more like it, sort of person who would work here, I imagine. Plug it in."

They entered an area of wide corridors and great stacks of boxes. Occasionally a flatbed cargo carrier would appear, driven by a Hagg-Loos, but they were so noisy that they announced their arrival, and there was always time to hide. Soon after this they found one of the cargo carriers standing idle, and after a swift look at the controls, they climbed their machine aboard. With a twist of the handles they were off, moving much faster now, part of the busy workings and ignored by all the other workers they passed. Jerry was whistling happily when they spotted a high arched exit ahead with a patch of blue sky shining through.

"This looks like it," he told Slug-Togath. "Press the button, and let's get out of here."

They rumbled forward and were almost free of the station when the ugly form of a Hagg-Loos popped out of an opening in the waIl. A very official-looking monster with cop written all over it, from the golden shield nailed to its chitin in front to the ugly-looking weapon it clutched, and even to the fiat claws on its feet. As the thing trundled in their direction, Jerry flipped a switch that allowed thoughts to enter but not leave.

"You jeddak racing fan moron," the thought arrived,

"what do you think you are doing driving out of the station with that load of bombs? Can't you read? Now let me see your ID, and get away from those controls before I let you have it."

It was disaster.