The Voyage of the Space Beagle

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He stood there, forbidding spectre from a scarlet hell. His eyes were bright and alert, though he was no longer alarmed. He had sized up these human beings, and he knew, contemptuously, that he could plunge into the nearest wall before any of them could loose a vibrator on him.

He had come for his first guul. By snatching that guul from the centre of the group, he would to some extent demoralize everybody aboard. Grosvenor felt a wave of unreality sweep over him as he watched the scene. Only a few of the men were within the field of the plate. Von Grossen and two technicians stood nearest Ixtl. Morton was just behind von Grossen, and part of the head and body of Smith could be seen near one of the technicians. As a group, they looked like insignificant opponents of the tall, thick, cylindrical monstrosity that towered above them.

It was Morton who broke the silence. Deliberately, he held his hand away from the translucent handle of his vibrator, and said in a steady voice, “Don’t try to draw on him. He can move like a flash. And he wouldn’t be here if he thought we could blast him. Besides, we can’t risk failure. This may be our only chance.”

He continued swiftly, in an urgent tone. “All emergency crews listening in on this get above and below and around this corridor. Bring up the heaviest portables, even some of the semi-portables, and burn the walls down. Cut a clear path around this area, and have your beams sweep that space at narrow focus. Move!”

“Good idea, Director!” Captain Leeth’s face appeared for a moment on Grosvenor’s communicator, superseding the image of Ixtl and the others. “We’ll be there if you can hold that hellhound three minutes.” His face withdrew as swiftly as it had come.

Grosvenor deserted his own viewing plate. He had been acutely aware that he was too far from the scene for the kind of precise observation on which a Nexialist was supposed to base his actions. He was not part of any emergency crew, and so his purpose was to join Morton and the other men in the danger area.

As he ran, he passed other communicators, and realized that Korita was giving advice from a distance. “Morton, take this chance, but do not count on success. Notice that he has appeared once again before we have been able to prepare against him. It doesn’t matter whether he is pressing us intentionally or accidentally. The result, whatever his motivation, is that we are on the run, scurrying this way and that, futilely. So far, we have not clarified our thoughts.”

Grosvenor had been in an elevator, going down. Now he flung open the door and raced out. “I am convinced,” Korita’s voice continued from the next corridor communicator, “that the vast resources of this ship can defeat any creature — I mean, of course, any single creature—that has ever existed….” If Korita said anything after that Grosvenor didn’t hear it. He had rounded the corner. And there, ahead, were the men and beyond them Ixtl. He saw that von Grossen had finished sketching something in his notebook. As Grosvenor watched with misgivings, von Grossen stepped forward and held the sheet out to Ixtl. The creature hesitated, then accepted it. He took one glance at it, and stepped back with a snarl that split his face.

Morton yelled, “What the devil have you done?”

Von Grossen was grinning tensely. “I’ve just shown him how we can defeat him,” he said softly. “I—”

His words were cut off. Grosvenor, still in the rear, saw the entire incident merely as a spectator. All the others in the group were involved in the crisis.

Morton must have realized what was about to happen. He stepped forward, as if instinctively trying to interpose his big body in front of von Grossen. A hand with long, wirelike fingers knocked the Director against the men behind him. He fell, unbalancing those nearest him. He recovered himself, clawed for his vibrator, and then froze with it in his hand.

As through a distorted glass, Grosvenor saw that the thing was holding von Grossen in two fire-coloured arms. The two-hundred-and-twenty-pound physicist squirmed and twisted, vainly. The thin, hard muscles held him as if they were so many manacles. What prevented Grosvenor from discharging his own vibrator was the impossibility of hitting the creature without also hitting von Grossen. Since the vibrator could not kill a human being but could render him unconscious, the conflict inside him was: Should he activate the weapon, or try in a desperate bid to get information from von Grossen? He chose the latter.

He called to the physicist in an urgent voice, “Von Grossen, what did you show him? How can we defeat him?”

Von Grossen heard, because he turned his head. That was all he had time for. At that moment, a mad thing happened. The creature took a running dive and vanished into the wall, still holding the physicist. For an instant, it seemed to Grosvenor that his vision had played a trick on him. But there were only the hard smooth, gleaming wall and eleven staring, perspiring men, seven of them with drawn weapons, which they fingered helplessly.

“We’re lost!” a man whispered. “If he can adjust our atomic structures and take us with him through solid matter, we can’t fight him.”

Grosvenor saw that Morton was irritated by the remark. It was the irritation of a man who is trying to maintain his balance under trying circumstances. The Director said angrily, “While we’re living, we can fight him!” He strode to the nearest communicator, and asked, “Captain Leeth, what’s the situation?”

There was a delay, then the commander’s head and shoulders came into focus on the plate. “Nothing,” he said succinctly. “Lieutenant Clay thinks he saw a flash of scarlet disappearing through a floor, going down. We can, for the time being, narrow our search down to the lower half of the ship. As for the rest, we were just lining up our units when it happened. You didn’t give us enough time.”

Morton said grimly: “We didn’t have anything to say about it.”

It seemed to the listening Grosvenor that the statement was not strictly true. Von Grossen had hastened his own capture by showing the creature a diagram of how he could be defeated. It was a typically egotistical human action, with little survival value. More than that, it pointed up his own argument against the specialist who acted unilaterally and was incapable of cooperating intelligently with other scientists. Behind what von Grossen had done was an attitude centuries old. That attitude had been good enough during the early days of scientific research. But it had a limited value now that every development required knowledge and co-ordination of many sciences.

Standing there, Grosvenor questioned that von Grossen had actually evolved a technique for defeating Ixtl. He questioned that a successful technique would be limited to the field of a single specialist. Any picture von Grossen had drawn for the creature would probably have been limited to what a physicist would know.

His private thought ended as Morton said, “What I’d like is some theory as to what was drawn on the sheet of paper von Grossen showed the creature.”

Grosvenor waited for someone else to reply. When no one did he said, “I think I have one, Director.”

Morton hesitated the barest moment, then said, “Go ahead.”

Grosvenor began, “The only way one could gain the attention of an alien would be to show him a universally recognized symbol. Since von Grossen is a physicist, the symbol he would have used suggests itself.”

He paused deliberately and looked around him. He felt as if he were being melodramatic, but it was unavoidable. In spite of Morton’s friendliness, and the Riim incident, he was not recognized as an authority aboard this ship, and so it would be better if the answer would occur spontaneously at this point to several people.

Morton broke the silence. “Come, come, young man. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“An atom,” said Grosvenor.

The faces around him looked blank. “But that doesn’t mean anything,” said Smith. “Why should he show him an atom?”

Grosvenor said, “Not just any atom, of course. I’ll wager that von Grossen drew for the creature a structural representation of the eccentric atom of the metal that makes up the outer shell of the Beagle.”

Morton said, “You’ve got it!”

“Just a minute.” Captain Leeth spoke from the communicator plate. “I confess I’m no physicist, but I’d like to know just what it is that he’s got.”

Morton explained. “Grosvenor means that only two parts of the ship are composed of that incredibly tough material, the outer shell and the engine room. If you had been with us when we first captured the creature, you would have noticed that when it slipped through the floor of the cage it was stopped short by the hard metal of the outer shell of the ship. It seems clear that it cannot pass through such metal. The fact that it had to run for the air lock in order to get inside is further proof. The wonder is that we didn’t all of us think of that right away.”

Captain Leeth said, “If Mr. von Grossen was showing the creature the nature of our defences, couldn’t it be that he depicted the energy screens we put up in the walls? Isn’t that just as possible as the atom theory?”

Morton turned and glanced questioningly at Grosvenor. The Nexialist said, “The creature had already experienced the energy screen at that time and had survived it. Von Grossen clearly believed he had something new. Besides the only way you can show a field of force on paper is with an equation involving arbitrary symbols.”

Captain Leeth said, “This is very welcoming reasoning. We have at least one place aboard where we are safe — the engine room — and possibly somewhat lesser protection from the wall screens of our sleeping quarters. I can see why Mr. von Grossen would feel that gave us an advantage. All personnel on this ship will hereafter concentrate only in those areas, except by special permission or command.” He turned to the nearest communicator, repeated the order, and then said, “Heads of departments be prepared to answer questions relating to their specialities. Necessary duties will probably be assigned to suitably trained individuals. Mr. Grosvenor, consider yourself in this latter category. Dr. Eggert, issue anti-sleep pills where required. No one can go to bed until this beast is dead.”

“Good work, Captain!” Morton said warmly.

Captain Leeth nodded, and disappeared from the communicator plate.

In the corridor, a technician said hesitantly, “What about von Grossen?”

Morton said harshly, “The only way we can help von Grossen is by destroying his captor!”