SHIP OF DEATH
This prison room was like the inside of a great, glowing, metal sphere. Light seemed to radiate from its very walls—strange scarlet light that washed over us in pulsing waves.
Yet weird as it was, I hardly gave it a second glance, nor my companions either. Too many other things kept preying on my mind—things like the gnawing guilt that was mine for violating Kruze's orders ... the unanswered question of why I, among all men, should seethe with such headstrong hate against the Kel ... the horror of Rizal's defenses infiltrated, shattered.
Above all, my jumble of mixed feelings as to Celeste.
Only that was a dead end, and I knew it.
Yet still her cool blonde loveliness kept slipping through the shadows of my brain. No sooner did I block the image out on one front than it came cajoling, laughing, mocking on another.
I cursed aloud, and squeezed my eyes tight shut, and gripped my throbbing head between my hands.
But then thick fingers gouged into my shoulder. Their pressure dragged me back from the blackened wastes of my self-recrimination; forced me once again to face the reality of this pulsing scarlet prison sphere.
Wearily, blearily, I opened my eyes and looked up.
Controller Alfred Kruze towered above me, his heavy body grotesque in the crimson radiance.
He said, "Traynor, you know as well as I do that we'll never make it out of here alive. So I want you to know now I'm sorry I wouldn't listen to you. After your insubordination—well, try not to blame me too much; I simply didn't understand."
For a moment I stared at him. My eyes blurred. I choked on my own pent-up emotions. "Controller—if I just hadn't forced Gaylord to put out that action order—"
"I know. But it's not your fault; not really. I shouldn't have let those fools in Psychogen interfere with your conditioning." Kruze's heavy jowls quivered. "Besides, what does it matter now? We're all of us as good as dead."
He turned as he finished; moved off in a restless, plodding circle around our dungeon's canted floor.
A knot drew tight beneath my breastbone. Sick at heart, I looked from one of my companions to another.
Six men; six FedGov Security workers gone astray. From Chief Controller Alfred Kruze straight down to the lowly Sigman Third the Kel had trapped in Communications.
And in between those two extremes, in the middle, stood Special Agent Mark Traynor.
Always, always in the middle. Even here, even now, aboard this Kel globeship.
A sudden clank of metal cut through my introspections. A hatch swung open high overhead.
Taut silence fell over our little group. Fearfully, we stared up at the aperture.
Now a slim rod thrust down through the opening, drill-like. In two seconds it reached and anchored tight against the floor, like an axis for the tiny world that was this room.
Another second, and a bulbous shape slid down the rod. In the radiance, it was as colorless and formless as a red-washed lump of putty. A giant lump, as a hogshead.
Then, as it reached the floor, a change took place. Swiftly, surely, it reshaped itself, drawing taller and thinner and taking on new contours. A man came into being—a tall gawky man, twin of the Sigman Third.
"Here, fellow!" Grinning mirthlessly, he stepped towards the sigman. "Come along, now. Don't be shy!"
Panic flared in the sigman's eyes. Gangling and clumsy, he backed away.
But the quarters here were too cramped for maneuvering. In a rush, the man's Kel duplicate closed in. "Now, wait a minute, fellow—"
The sigman tripped over his own feet and started to fall. Like lightning, the Kel had an arm about him. "Here, now, fellow—"
But in the rush, the arm turned out to be a tentacle instead.
The sigman let out a wild yell. Promptly, his doppelganger's head turned into a tentacle also and, whipping round its victim, pinned arms to sides.
Flailing, screaming, struggling. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the sigman was dragged back to the rod, while we other humans all stood there frozen—paralyzed; unable to speak, unable to move.
Only then, suddenly, I couldn't stand it any more. With a yell of my own, and a curse and a snarl, I lunged into the fray. Tearing, clawing, I fought to free the sigman.
For a moment, it almost seemed I'd turned the tide.
But then, with a sudden shift, the Kel whirled on me. The sigman fell forgotten and it was I, not he, who was beset. Spongy, yielding pseudo-flesh pressed in upon me. Thin tendrils of it touched and clutched me, leech-like. Long tentacles encircled and constricted. I found myself battling for my very breath.
Mercilessly, the creature dragged me to the rod, the axis of the crimson room. Pulpy protrusions wrapped around the metal. I felt the shaft begin to vibrate. With a high, whining sound, it let go of the floor and lifted Kel and me alike into the air. The sphere's dome, the ceiling arc, rushed in upon me. As from afar, I glimpsed the strain-straut, uptilted faces of the other prisoners below.
And now, abruptly, a strange reaction came upon me. It was as if in throwing myself upon the alien foe I'd somehow cast aside my panic. Like the old story of the boy who'd found the nettles didn't prick if only he had the courage to seize them firmly.
We passed through the hatch. A seamless sheen of metal cut off the last sight of my comrades.
Coolly, I gazed about at a room even more weird in conception than the dungeon sphere.
Again, the arc seemed to be the basic motif. But in this place it was a chopped-up, intersected arc, as if function here had held sway over symmetry.
Everywhere, too, there were shifting shapes, strange bodies—bodies long and bodies short, bodies thick and bodies thin. Some resembled life-forms that I knew. Others bore no resemblance to anything I'd ever seen before.
Yet headless or multi-headed, with visible sense organs or without, drab or vivid in coloration, every one of them appeared to have some work to do. Insectile, pulsing, they swarmed over every arc and angle of the room. Here they pulled at mobile strips of metal. There they maneuvered gem-bright crystal buds through maze-like tracks. Cone-things and cube-things, niches, projections—synchronously or erratically, they turned and twitched and throbbed and twisted.
It dawned on me, then: This chamber was the globe's control room. These unfamiliar forms were instruments, equipment.
The kind of equipment, unfortunately, that no human mind, uninstructed could fathom.
Letting go of the rod, my captor carried me across a parabolic wall, then down to a spot where misshapen curves and angles came together in such a pattern as to remind me of the warehouse room with the living statues on Rizal. I was released; allowed to sit.
Minutes dragged by. Then, suddenly, close at hand, another hatch opened. One of the Kel oozed through it, carrying Celeste.
In a flash, all my tensions were back. My palms began to sweat. I had trouble with my breathing.
Gracefully, the girl came close; sat down beside me. "Mark...."
I hesitated, trying not to let the ambivalence I felt show in my eyes. "Yes?"
"Mark, please...." Her hand rested lightly on my arm. "Look at me, Mark."
It was a lovely face. Kel or not, it was lovely.
"My hair, Mark. Look at my hair. Feel of it."
She lifted my hand as she spoke, and brushed it against softly silken strands.
Involuntarily, I stiffened.
"That's right, Mark. It's real. Not even the most sensitive of the Kel can match it."
I looked at her, then. Full at her, straight into her eyes.
Cool, clear, grey eyes.
Her words came in a rush: "Mark I know what you thought. But it wasn't true, not any of it. I didn't have any more idea than you of why the Kel let us go, there in the warehouse. I'm still not sure, unless they wanted to follow you to Kruze.
"As soon as we separated, four of them seized me. One—became like me. And after that...."
I nodded slowly.
"Mark...."
"Don't worry. I'm listening."
"Please, Mark—"
"Let me guess." I laughed abruptly. "They've brought you here to pry some more, get out more information."
A little of the color left Celeste's lovely face. She didn't speak.
"It's true, isn't it?" I jabbed at her. "That's your job here—fronting for the Kel when they have to deal with humans on anything that's more than skin deep."
More of Celeste's color drained. With an unsteady movement, she started to turn away.
I caught her arm and jerked her back so that she faced me. "Answer me, rack you! Isn't it true? Aren't you here to probe me for them?"
"Mark, you're hurting!" A nerve twitched, just below her cheekbone. "It—it isn't anything, Mark. They just—can't understand you. Why you act like you do. Where you find the courage to keep on fighting."
"And you've told them, of course? You've let them know how much I hate them?"
"They—don't understand hate—" She broke off, hesitating; then suddenly swung about to face me. "Besides, it's not true! It's not them you hate! How can you? You don't even know them!"
"Don't say that, rack you!" A red haze swirled across my vision. I let go the girl's arm and struck out at her, slapping.
But she was already twisting, already moving. The slap barely ticked her shoulder. Before I could seize her again, she rolled wide and darted off across the steeply sloping floor-curve.
Surging up, I leaped after her.
But now, off to one side, a Kel swirled swiftly. Like a muddy wave, part of his shapelessness took on form, shoving at a knob-like bulge of metal.
The knob moved. A cone of greenish radiance lanced from an adjoining crystal. Like a searchlight, it swept across the distorted room, pursuing Celeste.
Her eyes came up as, flickering, the beam struck the metal wall beside her. Face stiffening, she cried out in swift panic; flung herself down bodily behind an angling ridge.
The beam whipped back, still reaching for her. Everywhere, the Kel had stopped their shuttling and shifting. I stood alone, apparently forgotten.
And there, not a dozen feet away, was the beam's control-knob.
I made for it in one mad rush, not even stopping to think lest some Kel telepathic sense should doom me.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then, out of nowhere, a shrill keening sound hammered at my eardrums. The alien directing the cone of radiance changed shape and darkened to a splotchy purple as he came round, trying to meet me.
Feet first, I plowed into him.
Like lightning, tentacles whipped up to ensnare me. Tissue slapped across my face in a smothering plaster.
But this time I too had my strategy. Wasting no time or energy on the monster's embrace, I hurled myself sidewise.
The Kel tore loose from his anchorage on the metal wall. For an instant he swung in mid-air, unsupported save by his contact with my body.
Violently, I flipped him round, whirling so that sheer centrifugal force carried his body closer and closer to the greenish cone of light that still shone from the crystal.
Again, somewhere, the keening sound rose shrilly.
Instantly, the alien clinging to me gave a convulsive shift, so violent it almost turned me over.
But I was whirling too fast to be stopped by anything short of complete upset. Lurching, staggering, I stumbled still closer to the cone of radiance.
One more step, one only—
The beam spilled across the Kel's extended body. Once—twice—three times the alien whirled into the radiance.
And each time, something hissed, like steam escaping. Tentacles jerked at me in a frantic spasm.
Then, of a sudden, the pseudopods released their grip. The viscous body lost all semblance of tone and tension ... flew away from me in a short, sodden arc, to land with a splatting sound against the wall nearby.
How much time had elapsed? One second? Two?
I couldn't tell. I only knew that now, from all sides, Kel were swarming at me in a rush.
I dived for the metal knob that controlled the green beam. With one sweep of my hand, I set it spinning.
The crystal swiveled in swift coordination. The cone of light flashed in a great, swooping arc.
And everywhere its radiance touched the Kel, there was the sound, the sudden hissing. Bulbous bodies went limp. Pseudopodal tissue oozed away like oil on pavement.
Grimly, I spun the knob the other way—hunting down my foes, driving them to cover.
Then—quite suddenly, it seemed—no more Kel were visible. I stood in complete command of the control room of an alien globeship.
I smiled a little at that time, I think—a slow, contemplative smile, with nothing that could be spoken of as humor in it.
After that, tight-lipped, I called, "Celeste! Get up here!"
Hollow-eyed, tousle-headed, she came out from behind the ridge where she'd been hiding.
Not giving her a chance to speak, I said, "These things, the Kel—how do they tell you what they want?"
"How?"—She moved uncertainly "It's—well, one of them—becomes like me. We talk. Then—"
"That's enough," I grunted. "Look around. Start hunting for one who's hiding like you were behind the ridges."
"I—I don't understand...."
"You will." With slow deliberation, I fanned the walls with my cone of greenish light. I had no illusions that my grin was pleasant. "You see, Miss Stelpa, somewhere aboard this ship there's a Kel who doesn't want this beam to burn him. He doesn't want it so bad he'll even betray the rest of his kind in order to prevent it.
"Starting right now, we're going to find that traitor!"