Vengeance From the Past

by Robert W. Krepps

In the first room I found five Neanderthals, all hastily buckling straps across themselves and whining fearfully. I had no more time for mercy, no more inclination for it than had these beasts themselves. Standing in the center of the chamber, I rotated slowly and put a bullet into each ugly face. Then I pounced on the next door.

Here there were four, and I suddenly realized I had no more than one bullet left in the revolver. I saw a tommygun beside a bunk. I went for it, knelt, and as my fingers touched it a hand came down on the back of my neck and clutched ferociously.

"What you doing?" snarled the Old Companion, lifting me and breathing into my face.

Seconds count, seconds.... I knew that after a minute or two of nothing but slow vibration and hurricane breeze, Skagarach or somebody would realize that we were still anchored to Terra. The machine gun was in my hand now. I brought up its muzzle like a lance jerked underhand; the sight tore the beast's chin and lip, turned up his nose and the blood gushed. He recoiled, and I had the weapon in my hands and was stepping back and the chattering began. I made a massacre and went on.

There was a scientist among the Old Companions in the next section of the wheel. My illusion must have been good—he had strapped himself down too! I sprayed the bunks with leaden death and then roared at him: "Come on! Get a couple of guns and come on! We are taking over this moon!"

There were three small chambers next with perhaps a dozen Old Companions shivering in them, and I left those chambers a gore-spattered, reeking ruin. The trembling of the station had slowed now, but the great wind that swept every corner still held the terrified brutes to their straps and beds. I picked up another of the scientists and was joined by the first one. Three of us marched through gleaming steel and chrome, soft white light and antiseptic cleanliness, marched at triple time and dealt death from heated barrels and rattling magazines.

We met Nessa and Howard. By now my arms were trembling and the sweat of fury and work was half blinding me. I grinned at them and took time to rub a sleeve across my eyes. "We're winning," I said. Nessa said ohh in a tiny sound of heartfelt thanksgiving. Howard said, "I managed to knock out that broad homely chap," which for some reason struck me as funny, and I passed them, laughing aloud. They followed me.

The fake was wearing thin. Now we found Neanderthals on their feet, puzzled and still frightened, but beginning to wonder why they were able to stand at all if we were in flight. Now we found enemies who, if given the chance, shot back. Now it was no pogrom, but a war.

Yet gradually we worked our way through the wheel, and although two of our scientists dropped, we had surprise and luck with us.

I came to a door that I could not open. Tucking the gun under my arm—I had long ago run out of ammo for the first, and found myself another in the grasp of an Old Companion with a scarlet smear for a face—I hurled my shoulder against the thick steel of the panel. It opened grudgingly. What had held it was the corpse of a Neanderthal. I had come full circle, not even noticing that I had passed through the control room and the chamber where Cuff and Skagarach should have been lying. The Old Companions were dead or dying, those of this muster at least, but the two most dangerous had vanished.