The Cometeers, page 12
part #2 of Legion Series
There was to Bob Star something grotesquely incongruous in the scholarly calm of Jay Kalam’s voice, speaking quietly to Giles Habibula.
“Obviously,” he was saying, “the Cometeers are able to generate and control some force analogous to gravitation. We have an inkling of the possibilities, from the geodyne and our own gravity cells, but their tubular fields of that unknown force have infinitely more range and power.”
Giles Habibula was nodding automatically, his face lifted toward the onrushing comet and ghastly in its dreadful light.
“They must have an engineering science a million years ahead of ours,” Jay Kalam’s even voice went on. “When you think of the tremendous power required to pluck a planet out of its orbit, or to drive the comet itself like a ship – ”
His voice fell away into a chasm of breathless silence.
With appalling speed, now, the green edges of the comet were rushing outward. They were like green curtains dropping toward every horizon. Bob Star had to swallow, to find his voice. It sounded harsh and rasping in the dreadful silence. He asked Jay Kalam:
“Shall we go aboard?”
“If you wish,” the commander answered quietly. “The ship is helpless; I don’t know that it offers any sort of safety. I don’t know what the danger is. You may do what you wish. For myself I’m going to stay out here on the field, so that I can watch until – whatever happens.”
Bob Star caught Kay Nymidee’s arm, and drew her a little toward the air-lock. But she shook her head, and looked up again at the expanding sea of the comet. Waiting beside her Bob Star had a sudden unpleasant sensation that the asteroid was falling, with their bodies beneath – falling into a tremendous green abyss. The pale, sharp edges of it rushed down to the horizon, and the whole sky was a dome of flaming green.
He heard Jay Kalam whisper: “We’re about to strike that green barrier.”
A thin wail quavered from the lips of Giles Habibula.
“A frightful time!” he sobbed. “What use is genius now?”
Bob Star put his arms around Kay Nymidee, and moved her a little into the shelter of the shining ship. What would happen when they struck? Would they ever know?
He waited, breathless. He could feel the quick beat of the girl’s heart, against his side. There was an odd little flicker in the green vault of the sky. But nothing happened. Waiting became unendurable. Shakily, he whispered:
“When, Jay? When – ”
He heard Jay Kalam draw a deep, even breath.
“We’ve passed the green barrier,” the commander said. “We’re already inside the comet. Just look at the sky!”
Bob Star walked unsteadily beside Kay Nymidee, away from the hull of the Halcyon Bird. His bewildered eyes swept the sky. It still was green, an inverted bowl of pale, weird-hued flame. But it was swarming, now, with strange heavenly bodies.
His startled glance swept them. They were mottled disks like dark moons, strung across the green. They were of many sizes, colored with a thousand merging shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown, all splashed with an eerie green. They were clustered planets, crowd-ing the green sky. The patches were continental outlines. The vast areas of green, he thought, must be seas, reflecting the sky.
“A sun!” Jay Kalam was gasping. “A captive sun!”
And following his gravely pointing arm, Bob Star saw a great ball of purple flame. Its hot color was fantastically strange, against the green. It was huge – it looked three times the size of the System’s sun, as seen from his home on Phobos.
Kay Nymidee had stepped quickly a little away from him. Her slender white arm, trembling, was pointing at one of the swarming dark planets, which was not mottled like the rest, but a smooth disk of indigo. Between that planet and the captive sun, Bob Star saw three glowing, purple lines.
“Bob, Jay! Hal, Giles!” The girl was calling them all by their names, softly accented. And still she was pointing at that featureless disk of violet-blue. “Aythrin!” she cried urgently. “Staven Or-rco!”
She ran to touch the green-glinting hull of the Halcyon Bird, and then gestured as if it had risen toward the indigo world.
“Staven Or-rco!” she repeated, and ground her small hands together, as if obliterating something.
“See!” Bob Star whispered. “She wants us to go to that blue planet. Stephen Orco is there, with the Cometeers – she calls them aythrin. She wants us to go there, and kill him.”
The girl had watched him as he spoke, brown eyes shining. Now she seized his arm, speaking at him furiously in her own language. She nodded, shook her head, shrugged, made faces, gesticulated. Bob Star put his hands on her shoulders, to try to calm her.
“It’s no use,” he told her. “We can’t understand. And we can’t fly the Halcyon Bird, if that’s what you want – ”
“She has something more to tell us,” said the commander. “I wonder if she couldn’t draw it?”
He found writing materials in his pockets, and thrust them into her hands. Eagerly, she drew a circle, and pointed at the great indigo disk. Then she made some marking within the circle, and held out the paper, talking rapidly again.
“The circle means the planet,” Bob Star said. “But the marking inside – ”
He had to shake his head, as the other did. And tears of frustration came suddenly into her eyes. She flung the paper down, with an angry, bewildered gesture, and burst into stormy tears.
“It’s too bad.” Jay Kalam shook his dark head, regretfully. “I’m willing to grant, now, Bob, that she’s a native of the comet – although her humanity seems contrary to orthodox science. It’s likely enough that she came to bring us information of some sort about the Cometeers and Stephen Orco.
“But nothing she knows is going to help us. Without any common background of languages or culture, or even of thought-forms, it would take her months or years, brilliant as she evidently is, to learn enough English to convey any complex or abstract ideas.”
He turned abruptly, and squinted at the purple sun.
“We must go aboard, Bob,” he said, “and take what observations we can. We must discover as much as we can about the comet – and what is happening to us.” Something mushed his voice. “I think,” he added “that we won’t have much time for observations.”
“Why?”
“I believe the asteroid is falling into that captive sun.”
For a time, on the bridge, they worked silently. Bob Star was speechless with the ever-renewed impact of the comet’s wonder. It was Jay Kalam, still gravely collected, who began to put their discoveries into words.
“This object we’ve called a comet,” he began quietly, “is a swarm of planets. We’ve counted one hundred and forty-three. Since we entered on the forward side of the asteroid, we must have seen them nearly all. We knew already, from its gravitational effect on the System, that the comet’s mass is nearly a thousand times that of Earth. The captive sun accounts for rather less than half of it. The average mass of the planets, then, must be over three times that of Earth. They’ve been built into a ship. The green barrier is the hull – an armor of repulsive force. The planets are arranged inside of it, spaced about a great ellipsoid – ”
“What I don’t see is how such a system could be stable.” Bob Star looked up uncomfortably. “Such great masses, so closely crowded – what keeps them from collision?”
“They must be held in place with those same tubular fields – beams of force, set to balance gravity. The frame, so to speak, of the ship.” The commander spoke deliberately, half-absently, as if to set his own ideas in order. “The captive sun is at one focus of the ellipsoid. The planet which disturbs Kay so much is at the other – ”
“And look at it!” Bob Star was peering at the screen of a tele-periscope. “The surface of it seems absolutely smooth, but look at those machines! A little bit like our proton needles – but they must be enormous, to be visible at this distance! One of them stands under each one of those three purple beams, between the planet and the captive sun – ”
“I believe I get it!” Jay Kalam’s low voice quivered with restrained excitement. “The captive sun can’t be any ordinary star – not with that purple color. I believe it’s artificial – an atomic power plant.
“That triple beam is probably the transmission system that taps its power. And, if that’s true, the blue planet must be the control room of the ship. Those smaller machines around the three large ones probably distribute the energy, to operate it.
“It must take enormous power, to hold and propel all these planets and protect them with that barrier of repulsion. Atomic fission wouldn’t be enough. That plant must annihilate matter – ”
His breath caught, and his lean face tightened.
“I couldn’t find Pluto, among all those planets,” he whispered hoarsely. “I think that’s the reason why.”
Bob Star peered at him blankly.
“I think the Cometeers wanted it for fuel,” he said. “I think they have already stripped it of whatever they wanted to preserve, and flung what was left into that atomic furnace.”
He was silent for a little time. His face looked haggard and rigid as a mask of death.
“That seems to complete our picture of the Cometeers.” His voice remained oddly calm. “They are universal marauders. They rove space from sun to sun. They pillage planets, and feed upon the life they find. They seize the planets themselves, to build into the swarm, or to burn for fuel – ”
“And that’s what they want with this asteroid?” Bob Star shivered.
“I think so.” Jay Kalam nodded, curiously quiet. “The Cometeers have already once raided the asteroid. Probably they have no further interest in it, except as a speck of fuel.” Absently, he was stroking his lean jaw. He asked presently, very softly, “How long have we, Bob?”
Bob Star remained standing for a moment in a dark reverie; he started nervously, and turned to busy himself hastily with tele-periscope, calculator, and chronometer. He straightened at last, and wiped cold sweat from his forehead.
“Three hours – ” he whispered, huskily. “Just three hours – ”
Chapter 14
Orco’s Voice
Jay Kalam closed the door of the bridge room with a weary finality. For a moment he leaned heavily against it. Then, with dragging feet, he followed Bob Star across the deck, and out through the open airlock.
Kay Nymidee and Hal Samdu and Giles Habibula were still outside, on the gravel of the rocket field, beside that deserted mansion. They looked ghost-like in the pale green radiance that shone from all the sky.
Hal Samdu stood bolt upright. His great, gnarled hands were clenching and opening again, convulsively. His shaggy head was flung back, and his blue eyes were fixed upon the indigo disk of the master planet. His rugged face was grimly savage.
“If Stephen Orco is there,” he was rumbling, harshly, “we must go after him – and kill him. For Aladoree – ”
Giles Habibula and Kay Nymidee sat side by side on the gravel. The girl was marking little diagrams with her finger, on the ground, and talking urgently at the old man. He was patiently listening, wearily shaking his head.
“Old Giles is sorry, lass,” he said gently. “But it’s no use – ”
They all looked up, when Jay Kalam and Bob Star came down from the valve.
“Well, Jay?” boomed Hal Samdu. “Now we are within the comet, with Stephen Orco. How shall we move to kill him?”
Jay Kalam stepped back a little, wearily, to lean against the green-washed hull of the Halcyon Bird. His dark eyes closed for a moment, and his long face, in that unearthly light, became a stiff mask of pain.
“Still, Hal,” he said slowly, “there’s nothing we can do.”
He looked at Giles Habibula and the girl, with weary pity.
“In three hours,” he said, “the asteroid will fall into that atomic furnace. We still have no means to leave it.”
Hal Samdu’s massive face twitched to a spasm of pain. Brokenly, he gasped. “Aladoree – ”
Giles Habibula surged apprehensively to his feet. His bald head rolled back, his small eyes peering fearfully at that growing ball of purple fire.
“Just three hours?” he gasped convulsively. “For life’s sake, Jay, can’t you give us more than that?” His eyes rested for a moment on the commander’s stiff face, and he shook his head. “Poor old Giles!” he sobbed. “What a reward for all his genius, and his life of faithful service to the Legion and the System – to be burned for fuel, within the bowels of a monstrous comet!”
He blinked his eyes and blew his nose.
“Wine,” he whispered. “There’s wine in the house. Precious, potent, ancient wine – chosen and aged by that other genius who used to own this rock. Fine old wine, too rare to burn for fuel – ”
A vague smile smoothed the apprehension from his face, and he lumbered heavily away toward the great white mansion. Listening, Bob Star caught the faintly whistled notes of a sad but lively ballad of the Legion, The Sparrow of the Moon.
Hal Samdu was still standing rigid, watching the indigo planet. The muscles of his angular, weather-beaten face were working; he was muttering inaudibly. The commander’s tall body sagged against the hull of the Halcyon Bird, as if the life had gone out of it. Bob Star swung to Kay Nymidee, who was looking from him to the purple sun, with apprehensive bewilderment.
“Come on, Kay,” he said huskily. “Let’s walk.”
She smiled. “Se,” she said softly. “Ahndah.”
They crossed the level of the rocket field, and climbed up into a welter of rocks beyond. The incrusting lichens had changed color strangely under that green sky, so that the wild peaks were fantastic as the spires of a fairy city.
Bob Star made her sit beside him on a mossy ledge. His arms closed around her. He could feel her trembling. Staring away into the green sky, her eyes great pools of somber dread. They were lost, bewildered, helplessly riding a dead world to doom. Yet he drew her close to him, and tried to think only of her white beauty –
Giles Habibula was beneath them among the rocks, panting with excitement
“Come, lad!” he puffed. “The dalliance of love is the food and drink of youth, I know. But it must await a time less torn with mortal urgency. Come!”
“What’s wrong now?” Bob Star made no move to rise, for nothing mattered, now.
“Jay bids you come and aid us to load the Halcyon Bird with rocket fuel.”
“Rocket fuel!” exclaimed Bob Star, dazedly. “There’s none.”
“But there is!”
Bob Star helped the girl down from the ledge, and they followed Giles Habibula.
“Where – ” he whispered breathlessly. “Where did Jay find rocket fuel?”
“Ah, lad!” The old man shook the bald dome of his head, which shone greenish in the light of the comet. “Ever the same is the fate of genius: it stumbles unknown into an unmarked grave. It wasn’t Jay that found the precious fuel. It was poor old Giles Habibula.”
“How did you find it?”
“Poor old Giles had started to seek wine with which to pull the fearful fangs of death. But, beneath this mortal green sky, his aged spirit, weak and feeble as it is, rebelled against extinction. Ah, so! His precious genius awoke to the shocking touch of peril, and refused to be destroyed. It recalled Jay’s theory that the owners of the asteroid must have hidden their fuel away against space pirates. It recalled the nature of that other genius who built this place.
“Ah, and it set his old finger on the hidden fuel!”
They were crossing the rocket field. The old man’s fat arm pointed toward the switch-box, built in the wall of the white house, which controlled the flood-lights.
“I simply walked to that box, lad, and opened it. There is a deftness that lingers in my old hands, lad. I found the secret of the box, that would have evaded any other. And there’s the fuel!”
They came around the green-bathed hull of the Halcyon Bird. Beyond, not a dozen yards from her air-lock, a little cylindrical metal house had risen through the gravel. Hal Samdu was rolling black drums of rocket fuel from the door of it.
Bob Star ran to aid him. No more than two hours later, Bob Star, with the commander and Kay Nymidee, climbed to the bridge of the Halcyon Bird. Urgently, the girl pointed through an observation port, at the indigo disk of the master planet.
“Aythrin!” her soft voice cried eagerly. “Staven Or-rco! We go?”
The commander turned to Bob Star. “Can we make it?”
“We can try.”
His fingers touched the firing keys. Blue jets washed the gravel field, and roared against the white columns of the deserted mansion. The Halcyon Bird was alive again, and away into the green chasm of the comet. The asteroid fell behind them, to dwindle and vanish against the ominous face of the purple sun.
Bob Star felt a pang of regret, at its destruction. For it was in the cradle of its haunting, exotic beauty that he had come to know Kay Nymidee. His love for her had spread, somehow, to its laughing groves and the wild splendor of its lichen-painted rocks and the peace of the long white house above the smiling lake.
He thought unhappily that now its mystery could never be solved. After days of effort, Jay Kalam had confessed that he had failed to decipher the book that seemed to be a diary. The anonymity of its unknown writer was now forever secure. The purpose of that hidden laboratory, the meaning of the looped cross of life above the crossed bones of death, the possible connection between the asteroid and Stephen Orco – those riddles were beyond answer now.
“Have we fuel enough,” the commander was asking, “to reach the master planet?”
“The tanks aren’t half full, but we had time to load no more.” Bob Star was silent for a time, frowning as he read the calibrated screens and tapped out his calculations. “I believe we can do it – ”
His voice caught, as the telltales flashed and the gongs began to ring. Startled, he swung back to the instruments.
