Collected Short Fiction, page 646
“What happened?” Crawford asked.
Bartlett looked pale and nervous. He said, “I don’t know. Something sprang at him from the tree up there, and he fell over. I couldn’t see what it was. Look, why don’t you and Chung run back to the ship and tell the others? I’ll watch the body.”
“Wait a minute,” Crawford said. “Wait a minute!”
He pointed to Lazenby’s body. The “corpse” was trying to sit up! Lazenby moved his legs, then his arms. He succeeded in turning himself over. He stared at Crawford with eyes that were becoming glassy.
There was a deep, bloody knife wound in Lazenby’s chest.
“Bartlett’s lying!” Lazenby whispered hoarsely. “It wasn’t any animal that got me. It was Bartlett. He knifed me . . . the way he did the other one . . . because I was going to tell you . . .”
“Tell me what?” Crawford asked eagerly.
But it was too late. Lazenby slumped over. He clutched at the wounded place. His face was filled with agony. The effort of speaking had been too much for him. Lazenby fell forward.
“He’s dead,” Crawford said. He balled his hands into fists. His closest friend in the expedition was dead—and Bartlett had murdered him!
Bartlett moved his foot. Now Crawford saw the knife that Bartlett had been hiding beneath his boot all this time. It was a long, wicked, blood-smeared knife. It was the knife that had killed Lazenby.
Crawford had seen a knife like that before. It looked just like the knife that the Vellirani had been killed with! The knife that had been found in his own hand!
Quickly Bartlett bent down and grabbed the knife. He gripped it tightly. Chung started to back away into the jungle, frightened. Bartlett beckoned to him.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “Stay right where you are, Chung!”
Crawford said, “What is all this, Bartlett? You killed Lazenby, didn’t you?”
“Sure I did. And you had to be right nearby, of course. You had to get here before he died. Before I had a chance to dump his body in that pool of acid. You had to hear everything. Well, now I’ll just have to kill you too. And Chung.”
He moved forward with the knife.
Crawford didn’t dare go for his gun. Bartlett was too close to him. One false move, and that knife would be deep in his ribs. As for Chung, he was frozen with fear. He couldn’t move at all.
Bartlett lifted the knife toward Crawford’s chest.
“Wait a second,” Crawford said. “Before you murder me—at least let me die knowing what this is all about. Why did you kill Lazenby?”
“Because he knew too much,” Bartlett snapped. “And he was going to tell you.”
“About the murder on Velliran?”
“Yes.”
“You killed that Vellirani, didn’t you?” Crawford asked.
Bartlett nodded. “Sure I killed the blueback. And I pinned the rap on you.”
“Why? Who’d you have to kill?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Bartlett said. “I never meant to. It was all a mixup. I was trying to do some research, while I was on Velliran. I picked out a native and questioned him. Asked him a few questions that he didn’t like. He got excited. We had an argument. I—hit him a few times. He said he’d get me arrested. He’d report me. I knew he could get me in all kinds of trouble.”
“So you killed him?” Crawford asked.
“I told you, I didn’t mean to. But he got so excited. He ran out into the street. I followed him. And I stabbed him.”
Crawford shook his head, puzzled. “How come I got arrested, then?”
Bartlett laughed. “I was thinking fast. You know all the strange drugs the Vellirani have?”
“Yes,” Crawford said. His friend Jeff Hallam was studying them.
“Well, one of them is a kind of instant knockout drug. It blanks you out for a minute or so. You don’t fall down, or anything. You just don’t know what’s happening to you. Lazenby got a few samples of that drug while we were on Velliran. He was studying it. He told some of us about it, and I went out and got some too. I happened to have it on me when I killed the blueback.”
Crawford nodded. “So you gave me the drug and stuck the murder knife in my hand?”
“That’s right.”
“But what about the witnesses? Five Vellirani, standing right there! They must have seen—”
“I gave them the drug too,” said Bartlett. “All you have to do is hold the container under somebody’s nose and give him a quick sniff. I drugged all five of them. They didn’t know what was going on. When they woke up again a minute later, they were so confused they couldn’t say what happened.”
So Lazenby was right. The killer had been on this ship. Bartlett was the murderer! Bartlett had framed him! And he had come all the way to this fantastic planet to find it out!
He said, “Why me? Who’d you give me the knife?”
“You happened to be there,” Bartlett said. “Right on the spot. It didn’t have to be you. It just happened that you were the one who came along. I never figured I’d see you again. And then of course you showed up at the ship, claiming to be Paul Markham! I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw you. But I figured, as long as you didn’t know what had happened to you, it didn’t matter.”
Lazenby had finally found out who the real killer was. Lazenby had been going to tell him the truth.
But Lazenby was dead.
“Now you know the story,” Bartlett said. “And now you’re going to die, you and Chung. I’ll feed you two and Lazenby to the acid pit. There won’t be anything left of you. And then I’ll go back and tell the sad story to the others of how you fell in the pit by accident and were killed.”
Bartlett gripped the knife tightly. And then he leaped.
The knife was heading straight for Crawford’s chest.
Crawford had the quick hands of a man who has lived with danger all his life. As the knife drew near, he slapped Bartlett’s wrist. That knocked the deadly blade away from Crawford’s body.
A moment later Crawford grabbed Bartlett’s arm and twisted the wrist. Bartlett yelped. The knife dropped to the ground. Crawford kicked it out of sight into the underbrush.
“Get help, Chung!” he yelled. “He’s gone crazy!” Chung broke out of his freeze. He turned and rushed away toward the ship.
Bartlett no longer had his knife, but he was still dangerous. He was almost as tall as Crawford, and just as strong. His fist slammed into Crawford’s middle. Crawford grunted in pain. He went stumbling back against a tree. Bartlett rushed forward. There was no room for Crawford to draw a gun.
Bartlett hit Crawford again and again. Crawford was dizzy and had to work hard to keep from going down. But he kept his balance. He got his hands up and gave Bartlett a hard push. Bartlett stepped back a foot. Crawford blocked Bartlett’s punches and brought his own fist across in a solid blow to Bartlett’s chin. Bartlett was stunned for a moment. Crawford hit him again, hard, in the belly.
Bartlett went staggering back. Crawford hit him again. He wanted to knock Bartlett out and bring him back to the ship. He wanted to take Bartlett back to Velliran and make him confess his crime.
In that way, Crawford could clear his own name.
But Bartlett was not going to go back to Velliran.
He was off balance as Crawford hit him. He started to fall. Crawford hit him in the chin again. To keep from falling, Bartlett stepped backward, his arms whirling through the air. He took three clumsy steps.
And the ground gave way underneath him.
What looked like solid ground opened. It was just a pit covered with branches and leaves. Bartlett fell until only his shoulders and head could be seen.
Crawford stared into the pit. He saw something yellow and slimy in there. Fifty shiny thin transparent arms reached up to twine around Bartlett. They were pulling him down. Within seconds he was below the surface of the yellow slime. A few bubbles appeared.
Then all was still.
Crawford felt sick. He saw how the trap worked. The yellow liquid was sticky and tough on top. Leaves and branches falling from the trees stuck to it. They turned the top of the pit into an innocent-looking patch of ground. But when anything heavy stepped on that patch of ground, the thing in the pit got a meal.
Even now a few leaves were landing on the sticky stuff. In another hour the trap would be as good as new.
Crawford took one last look and turned away. Bartlett was gone. Crawford didn’t exactly feel sorry about that. He was still sure he could clear his name, even without Bartlett’s confession. Now that he knew what had happened, he could hunt up some real witnesses on Velliran—such as the man who had sold the drug to Bartlett.
He picked up Lazenby’s body. A couple of small scavengers had already started to feed on it. Crawford chased them away. Sadly he headed back to the ship to announce that World Seven had claimed two more human beings.
As he neared the ship, Crawford heard the high whining sound of a blast-gun. He moved faster. When he stepped into the clearing, he saw Chung lying dead near the edge of the jungle. His chest had been burned open by the blast-gun.
A little closer to the ship was another dead body—Dorwin. He had been shot with a blast-gun too.
Crawford heard shouts and the sound of fighting coming from the ship.
What was going on? Had the take-over begun? Was Captain Hendrin shooting at the men who were trying to take away his power?
Suddenly Crawford heard Fernandez’ deep voice coming from within the ship: “Markham! Bartlett! Hurry up!”
So the take-over had started!
Crawford put Lazenby’s body down and ran toward the ship. He counted up the score as he ran. Bartlett, Lazenby, Chung, Dorwin, and Grover were dead—five men. He was the sixth. That left four: Captain Hendrin in the ship, holding off Fernandez, Evans, and Murray.
The hatch was open. Crawford leaped into the ship. Just within the airlock he saw the dead body of Murray. A little deeper in the ship was Fernandez—alive.
“Markham!” Fernandez called. “Where’s Bartlett?”
“He’s dead. So is Lazenby. What’s going on?”
“We sprang the uprising on Hendrin. He’s holed up in his cabin, armed with a blaster. Just me and Evans left here. You have a gun.”
“Yes.”
“Come on up here. But be careful.”
Crawford climbed up the catwalk of the ship, gun in hand. By the time he had reached the place where Fernandez was, the doctor was no longer there. Crawford stared ahead into the darkness. He heard the sounds of blast-gun shots.
Then Evans came staggering down the corridor. He had been shot in the middle. He died practically at Crawford’s feet. Seven corpses for World Seven now, Crawford thought.
“Fernandez?” he called. “Where are you?”
No answer. Crawford made his way toward Captain Hendrin’s cabin. When he got there, he found the door had been blasted open. Hendrin had dropped his gun. Perhaps it was out of ammunition. Fernandez was wrestling with him. The two men were down on the floor of the cabin, slugging it out with bare fists.
“Help me, Markham!” Fernandez shouted. “He isn’t armed. Let’s get him tied up.”
The Captain looked like a wild man. Crawford entered the cabin and crept around behind Hendrin. He wrapped his arm around the Captain’s throat.
“Hold still and you won’t get hurt, Captain,” Crawford said. “I’ve got a blast-gun here.”
Hendrin didn’t move. But suddenly, before Crawford knew what was happening, Fernandez grabbed the gun from his hand and fired it at the Captain. Hendrin was killed instantly. Crawford let go of him, jumped forward, and clamped Fernandez’s wrist before he could shoot again.
But Fernandez didn’t plan to shoot again. He let the gun drop. He looked dazed and bewildered.
Crawford picked the weapon up. “Why did you kill him? He was under control.”
Fernandez was shaking all over. He started to sob. “I don’t know why,” he said. “I—must have gone crazy for a moment. But it’s all over now.” He sat down, burying his head in his hands.
“They’re all dead,” said Crawford. “Every last one but you and me.”
Fernandez didn’t look up. “I’m supposed to be a healer, a man who cures. And I killed him. There was no reason. I just took the gun and killed him.”
“You couldn’t help it,” said Crawford. He had seen how men could panic suddenly. He had seen it happen to himself. “There was killing in the air, Fernandez. This world could drive anyone crazy.”
It was ten minutes before Fernandez was calm enough to think straight. He got up finally and looked around. The place looked like a battlefield.
They spent the next four hours digging graves.
The exploration trip was finished, Crawford knew. Tonight they would head back to Velliran. He would begin the job of clearing his name. And then he’d get back to the nice, peaceful business of hunting yangs.
He had been a violent man himself, once. He had a short temper and ready fists. But all that was over. He had seen enough violence to last him a lifetime and a half. He wanted nothing but a quiet life from now on.
When the last grave was filled, Fernandez looked up at Crawford. “Well, it’s done with now. They’re all buried. And we know all we need to know about World Seven of Star System Z-16.”
“Amen to that,” Crawford said.
“We’ll leave right away. I can handle the ship, if you help me. But there’s just one thing to do before we leave.”
“What’s that?”
Fernandez said, “The rules say that an Exploration Corps team is supposed to give a planet a name before it leaves. We haven’t done that.”
Crawford looked at the jungle, with its deadly trees and its hungry monsters. Then he looked at the graves of the dead men.
“That’s easy,” he said. “We’ll call it the Planet of Death.”
THE END
Hawksbill Station
They were unwanted men, the criminals, hurled back in time two billion years to rot and die!
Barrett was the uncrowned King of Hawksbill Station. He had been there the longest; he had suffered the most; he had the deepest inner resources of strength. Before his accident, he had been able to whip any man in the place. Now he was a cripple, but he still had that aura of power that gave him command. When there were problems at the Station, they were brought to Barrett. That was axiomatic. He was the king.
He ruled over quite a kingdom, too. In effect it was the whole world, pole to pole, meridian to meridian. For what it was worth. It wasn’t worth very much.
Now it was raining again. Barrett shrugged himself to his feet in the quick, easy gesture that cost him an infinite amount of carefully concealed agony, and shuffled to the door of his hut. Rain made him impatient:. the pounding of those great greasy drops against the corrugated tin roof was enough even to drive a Jim Barrett loony. He nudged the door open. Standing in the doorway, Barrett looked out over his kingdom.
Barren rock, nearly to the horizon. A shield of raw dolomite going on and on. Raindrops danced and bounced on that continental slab of rock. No trees. No grass. Behind Barrett’s hut lay the sea, gray and vast. The sky was gray too, even when it wasn’t raining.
He hobbled out into the rain. Manipulating his crutch was getting to be a simple matter for him now. He leaned comfortably, letting his crushed left foot dangle. A rockslide had pinned him last year during a trip to the edge of the Inland Sea. Back home, Barrett would have been fitted with prosthetics and that would have been the end of it: a new ankle, a new instep, refurbished ligaments and tendons. But home was a billion years away, and home there’s no returning.
The rain hit him hard. Barrett was a big man, six and a half feet tall, with hooded dark eyes, a jutting nose, a chin that was a monarch among chins. He had weighed two hundred fifty pounds in his prime, in the good old agitating days when he had carried banners and pounded out manifestos. But now he was past sixty and beginning to shrink a little, the skin getting loose around the places where the mighty muscles used to be. It was hard to keep your weight in Hawksbill Station. The food was nutritious, but it lacked intensity. A man got to miss steak. Eating brachiopod stew and trilobite hash wasn’t the same thing at all. Barrett was past all bitterness, though. That was another reason why the men regarded him as the leader. He didn’t scowl. He didn’t rant. He was resigned to his fate, tolerant of eternal exile, and so he could help the others get over that difficult, heart-clawing period of transition.
A figure arrived, jogging through the rain: Norton. The doctrinaire Khrushchevist with the Trotskyite leanings. A small, excitable man who frequently appointed himself messenger whenever there was news at the Station. He sprinted toward Barrett’s hut, slipping and sliding over the naked rocks.
Barrett held up a meaty hand.
“Whoa, Charley. Take it easy or you’ll break your neck!”
Norton halted in front of the hut. The rain had pasted the widely spaced strands of his brown hair to his skull. His eyes had the fixed, glossy look of fanaticism—or perhaps just astigmatism. He gasped for breath and staggered into the hut, shaking himself like a wet puppy. He obviously had run all the way from the main building of the Station, three hundred yards away—a long dash over rock that slippery.
“Why are you standing around in the rain?” Norton asked.
“To get wet,” said Barrett, following him inside. “What’s the news?”
“The Hammer’s glowing. We’re getting company.”
“How do you know it’s a live shipment?”
“It’s been glowing for half an hour. That means they’re taking precautions. They’re sending a new prisoner. Anyway, no supplies shipment is due.”
Barrett nodded. “Okay. I’ll come over. If it’s a new man, we’ll bunk him in with Latimer.”
Norton managed a rasping laugh. “Maybe he’s a materialist. Latimer will drive him crazy with all that mystic nonsense. We could put him with Altman instead.”
“And he’ll be raped in half an hour.”
“Altman’s off that kick now,” said Norton. “He’s trying to create a real woman, not looking for second-rate substitutes.”
