I glanced over at Karen, who was strapped securely in her acceleration cradle at my side. She was smiling.
“We’ll be there soon,” I said.
“Good. This suspense is starting to get me. I’d like to get down there and get it over with—whatever it is we’re going to do.”
“I’ve got bad news for you, if you’re in a hurry,” I said. “We may need months before we get through.”
“Why? What will happen?”
“We’re going to tell the universe about Lanargon,” I said. “Where it is, where it may be going, how to come get it. We’re in a pretty empty part of space, though. Even by subradio, it may take weeks before we get within range of some other world.”
“You mean we’re going to stay on Lanargon until you make radio contact with some other planet?”
I nodded. “We’re going to turn ourselves into living signal buoys. We’re going to ride on Lanargon like fleas on a gorilla’s back for a while. I hope they don’t notice us, and just keep on moving until they come close enough to some inhabited planet for us to get out an SOS.”
“And then?”
“Then we get out of here as fast as we can, and wait for the Multiworld Fleet to home in on the coordinates we’ve given and blast Lanargon to the fate it so thoroughly deserves,” I said. “The only problem is staying unfound long enough to give the message. At the moment, we’re well out of range of anyone who could pick it up.”
I leaned back and moistened my dry lips. “Hold tight, kid. We’re almost there.”
Within the hour, we had approached Lanargon’s surface and were hovering no more than a hundred miles above, moving into the final stage of our landing. Minutes later, our ship dropped gently down and touched ground.
I was the first one up, and was half into my spacesuit before Karen had climbed out of her acceleration cradle. She followed me into the airlock when she was ready, and together we stepped outside.
It was a dead world. Perhaps it once had had a sun and an atmosphere and the warmth of life, but now it was but the corpse of a planet—inhabited, who know where, by the merciless aliens who had terrorized the universe.
“It’s—it’s the most horrible place I’ve ever seen,” Karen said, as we stood together at the base of the ship, looking around at the planet that would be our hone until we made contact with some inhabited world.
“That’s the only word for it,” I agreed. I almost shivered, though I was fully protected from the cold by my spacesuit. We could see—dimly, by the faint glow of the sprinkling of stars above—a few miles of the planet’s surface, and it was hardly a cheering sight. Lanargon was a slagheap, a vast desert of twisted lava forced into tortured convolutions, of ageless rocks and jutting mountains, stony and bleak.
“I hope it’s over quickly,” Karen said.
“I hope so too. Let’s go back in and send out the SOS—suppose we beam it five times a day until we get response—and then start exploring a little. I’d like to know just where the aliens are.”
“Underground, maybe,” Karen suggested. “Or in a domed city hidden somewhere in those awful mountains.”
“That’s probably it,” I said, nodding.
We returned to the ship and started the message on its way, announcing that we had discovered Lanargon accidentally, had landed, and would remain here acting as a signal-beacon until contacted by a member of the Multiworld Federation.
I snapped off the transmitter when we were through. “That should do it,” I said. “Now we’ll just have to wait, and keep sending it, and wait some more. One of these days we’ll get a reply, and we’ll tell them exactly how to go about getting to Lanargon and blasting it out of the skies. Then our job’s done.”
Karen frowned. “What if the aliens discover what we’re doing, and set out to find us?”
“No use thinking about it, honey. We’ll just have to sit here quietly and hope we’re not noticed by the wrong people. It won’t be fun, but what else can we do?”
“It’s like sitting on the rim of a live volcano,” Karen said. “And taking bets on when the top will blow off.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go outside and do some exploring. For all we know, we’ve landed right next door to an alien city.”
I stood up and led the way. I knew some exercise would loosen her tight-stretched nerves a little.
I stared for a moment at the dreary stretch of slag and needle-edged rocks. “You go to the left,” I said. “I’ll go the other way, and we’ll see what this place looks like.”
“Sounds good enough,” Karen said. She started to move off toward the towering mountain that looked down at the ship from the left, while I made my way over the heaps of rock to the cliff at the right.
I kept up a running conversation with her over the suitphones as we went.
“How’s it look from there?” I asked.
“Pretty much the same,” she said. “There’s a long plain, and then this mountain. Twenty-five, thirty thousand feet high, I’d say. I can’t see the top of it.”
“Nice,” I said. “Things are dull here. The cliff looks down on a valley, and there’s a sign of something that might have been a river once, before Lanargon tore loose from its sun. But there’s no sign of life anywhere.”
“Do you think this might be the wrong place? Some other dark planet that no one knows about?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, as I scaled up a jagged precipice and heaved myself onto a small plateau. “They’re probably all on the other side of this planet. It’s a big place, you know. I’m sure that—”
I stopped, chilled, and whirled at the sound of the terrible scream that ripped through my suitphones at that moment. I paused, not knowing in which direction I should run, and then, as Karen’s scream burst forth again, I began to race wildly through the twisting outcrops toward her.
“Mike! Mike! They’re here!”
“I’m coming,” I told her, and kept on running. A moment later, the ship came into sight, and I passed it and headed in the direction Karen had taken. It led through a dropping path into the plain that approached the mountain, and I dashed out toward her.
I saw her a moment later. She was standing on the top of a rock outcrop about ten feet high, kicking savagely at ten or twelve space-suited figures who were attempting to climb up and reach her. We had found the planet—but its inhabitants had gotten to us first.
I leaped forward and shouted my encouragement as I came. The next minute, I was at the base of the plateau, piling into the gang of aliens. They were husky, sturdy creatures, humanoid in shape, clad in dark spacesuits that made them almost invisible in the faint starlight.
I dragged one of them away from the path leading to the top of the plateau and crashed my gloved fist into his stomach. He bounded back without showing that the blow had hurt him, and made a signal to the others.
Immediately they split into two groups, working with calm, cold efficiency. Five or six of them continued to try to reach Karen, and the rest turned on me. I found myself surrounded by half a dozen aliens.
I struck out at the first one and saw him go reeling into the arms of one of his comrades, but then another hit me a stunning blow from behind. I staggered forward, felt another fist drive into my stomach. The flexible material of my suit yielded, and I gasped for breath.
Pulling away, I caught one alien by the arm and swung him down, but two more hit me at once. A gloved hand bashed into the yielding plastic of my face mask, and I went flying down on my back. I felt someone pommeling me viciously for a few moments, and then I stopped feeling anything.
When I awoke, Karen and the ship and the aliens were gone, and I was alone on the plain, sprawled out with my arms wrapped fondly around a small boulder that I had been using as a pillow.
The aliens had seen us, had come, had taken Karen, and had left for—where? What had they done with Karen? I hurled the questions at myself, angry for having allowed us to separate even for the moment.
; I picked myself up, and took a few unsteady trial steps. I ached all over from my beating, but I managed to shake off the dizziness and keep on going. I had to find Karen, wherever she was, get her back to Earth somehow. I didn’t know how I was going to do it.
Lanargon was a big planet. There was no light to guide me. And the ship was gone.
Evidently they had left me for dead and taken Karen and the ship back to wherever it was they had come from. I started walking, not knowing and not caring which direction I might be heading in, simply putting one foot after another in the blind energy of complete despair. I headed down the long sweeping plain, walking nowhere on this world of perpetual nightfall, a dull pain throbbing all over my body.
I don’t have any idea how long I walked before the light appeared. All I know is I had been marching mechanically without so much as noticing where I was going, moving up one outcrop and down the next—and then, I became conscious of a glimmer of light in the distance. It was faint, but impossible to mistake against the inky Lanargon bleakness.
Suddenly I returned to life. I started to trot animatedly toward the source of light, hoping wildly it might be a signal beam of some sort sent up by Karen. As I drew near, though, I discovered what it was.
It was a small party of aliens, gathered together at the edge of a sprawling range of low-lying hills. There were about five of them, and in their midst was a portable generator which threw off just enough light to illuminate their camp. I guessed that they were another party out searching for us who were not aware that the other group had already achieved its mission.
I approached them in a wide semi-circle, swinging around from the left so I would be above them on the foothills. I could see now that they had a small vehicle of some sort, and that they were dismantling their camp and loading the equipment they had with them into the vehicle. I revised my earlier guess; this was a search-party who knew that the quarry had been snared, and which was preparing to return to home base.
I drew closer to them, close enough now to see that they were nearing the end of their task. I would have to move quickly.
I made my way down the side of the hill, deciding which one of the aliens was to be my victim. By the time I was on the plain, I had my man. He was busy about a hundred feet away, dismantling a wireless transmitter of some sort. The groundcar cut him off from the other four neatly. But I had to get him the first time; any struggle and I’d find myself fighting off all five of them within an instant.
I picked up a jagged triangular rock and squeezed it lovingly as I edged across the plain. The alien was bending over, doing something to the base of the transmitter.
After glancing around to make sure I was unobserved, I raised my hand high and brought the rock down against the back of the alien’s head. He fell forward without a sound and sprawled out grotesquely on the transmitter.
“Sleep tight,” I murmured, as I dragged him further into the shadows. Working quickly, I peeled his spacesuit from him, tossed the body to one side—what it looked like, in the airless void that was Lanargon’s cloak, was stomach-turning—and stepped smoothly into the suit, pulling it on over my own. The aliens were big men; I was able to fit, suit and all, into the alien suit without trouble.
I returned to the transmitter and pulled it free of the ground. Another of the aliens appeared and waved to me, as if signaling that I should hurry up. I waved back, picked up the transmitter, and walked over to join the group.
They were about to get into their vehicle as I drew near. I kept my head down, didn’t say anything, and climbed aboard, dragging the transmitter up with me. I stood in the corner of the car as it sped over the ground, holding my breath and hoping against hope that none of them would say anything to me.
None of them did. And, some twenty minutes later, the crystal dome of a huge city appeared in view. It arched high above the plain, and within I could see the busyness of a great city—the home of the marauders.
The car sped through the airlock and into the domed city. My breath left me as I contemplated the magnitude of the alien city, by far the largest dome in the universe. It must have contained a population of millions or of tens of millions.
As we moved rapidly deeper into the city, I heard my companions behind me slipping out of their spacesuits. In a moment, they stood revealed—tall, muscular humanoids whose chief alien distinction was the network of fine blue veins criss-crossing the golden skin of their hard, cold faces, and the two sinewy tentacles which sprouted from their sides just below their arms.
I began to sweat. No doubt they would wonder shortly why I was remaining in my suit now that we were inside the city. I couldn’t very well explain that if I removed the suit, my own spacesuit would be revealed beneath.
I felt a rough hand on my shoulder—and then, immensely more horrible, something which was not a hand spun me around. I faced one of the aliens, looked straight into the cold eyes of one of the creatures of Lanargon.
He snapped something at me, two short sentences in a harsh-sounding, unfamiliar language. I glared blankly at him, and he repeated his question.
Again I made no reply, and he peered closely, staring into the misty faceglass of my spacesuit. He must have seen what he was looking for, because a moment later he had called two of his companions over to see me. I heard them discussing the situation excitedly.
Apparently they didn’t know what to make of my presence. A live Earthman somehow smuggled into their car? It bewildered them, just for a split second.
A split second was just enough. I smashed a fist into the nearest alien just as he had made up his mind to grab me, and sent him pirouetting back against his two friends. They wobbled around in the speedily-moving truck for a couple of seconds, and I lifted the transmitter I had brought in and hurled it at them.
They bounced back against the wall. A fourth alien appeared and I felt the cold grip of his tentacle for a moment. I slashed out with the side of my hand and knocked the tentacle away. Then I had opened the door of the car, and, without looking at the ground below, leaped out.
I hit the ground as it came up to meet me. My spaceboots absorbed most of the shock, but it still rippled through me like a junior-grade lightning bolt as I hit. I sank to my knees for a second, then elbowed up and started to run.
I was free and at large—in the domed city of the Lanargon marauders. Somewhere in this sprawling citadel was Karen. I began to run down a side street, as an alarm sounded somewhere behind me.
It was a completely alien city. I crouched in a pit of shadows beneath a building of dizzying height and looked around, struck by the utter strangeness of the sunless city.
The dome reached high into the airless sky, and outside it I could see the blank wall of space. The buildings were delicate, airy things, with networks of web hanging from one to the next. I saw aliens crawling over these webs spider-fashion to get from one building to another.
The air seemed warm—at least, the aliens I saw moving through the streets were dressed skimpily—and the many spiky trees with blue leaves glittering in the brightness of the air were thriving as if it were a tropical climate.
The buildings were arranged in concentric circles, I saw; apparently they radiated outward from the atomic pile that would undoubtedly be the heart of such a dome. It was a giant, incredible, artificial city, probably built with the slave labor of the millions of prisoners taken during the years of Lanargon raids.
I was safe so long as I remained crouching where I was. But I knew I would never rescue Karen that way, though.
The first step was to find a weapon. I noticed that the aliens of both sexes went about armed, and that seemed my easiest chance. I edged out of my hiding place and moved toward the street, waiting for a pedestrian to come by alone.
It took three nerve-wracking minutes—and when one came, it was a female. She was over six feet tall, with a magnificent body only nominally covered by her brief clothing, and strapped to her hip was a gem-studded blaster. I stepped out behind he
r as she went past.
“I hate to do this to a lady,” I said apologetically, as I clubbed down on the back of her neck and grabbed the blaster from its holster in the same motion. She started to crumple before I had the gun out.
I hauled her back into the shadows and left her lying there. I still had no idea where to go, but now I was armed. The blaster was an efficient and murderous-looking weapon, and I wouldn’t have to rely on my fists alone any longer.
I strapped on the blaster and glanced warily around. No one in sight. I knew I’d look tremendously conspicuous in this spacesuit, but I would have to chance it. I’d look even more conspicuous walking around without it.
Karen was here someplace, I told myself—but I realized I had only a fool’s chance of finding her. I was ready to give her up for lost, if I could carry out a bigger project: that of getting to the atomic reactor that was the core of this city and destroying it. I felt completely nerveless. I had a job, and I was going to do it. Life without Karen wouldn’t mean much any more—but I could redeem it if I could take all of Lanargon with us.
I walked inward, toward the center of the city.
People stared curiously at me, wondering why I was wearing a spacesuit, no doubt, but no one said anything. I continued trudging along the yielding permoplast streets, and after a block or two I found what I was looking for—a Lanargon slave.
He was obviously an Earthman, in his early thirties, which meant he had been grabbed in the raid of 3175. He was wearing only a loincloth, no blaster, and so his slave status was apparent.
I followed him for about thirty paces, until we reached the corner. Then I edged in behind him and said quietly, “Turn left at this corner, will you?”
He glanced back, saw what must have been an imposing space-suited figure, and obeyed without questioning. “Who are you?” he asked when we had rounded the corner.