Plague Ship Page 13

  Chapter XIII

  OFF THE MAP

  Across the lock of the panel was the seal set in place by Van Ryckebefore the spacer had lifted from Sargol. Under Dane's inspection itshowed no crack. To all evidence the hatch had not been opened since theyleft the perfumed planet. And yet the hunting Hoobat was sure that theinvading pests were within.

  It took only a second for Dane to commit an act which, if he could notdefend it later, would blacklist him out of space. He twisted off theofficial seal which should remain there while the freighter was spaceborne.

  With Ali's help he shouldered aside the heavy sliding panel and theylooked into the cargo space, now filled with the red wood from Sargol.The redwood! When he saw it Dane was struck with their stupidity. Asidefrom the Koros stones in the stone box, only the wood had come from theSalariki world. What if the pests had not been planted by I-S agents, butwere natives of Sargol being brought in with the wood?

  The men remained at the hatch to allow the Hoobat freedom in its hunt.And Sinbad crouched behind them, snarling and giving voice to a rumblinggrowl which was his negative opinion of the proceedings.

  They were conscious of an odor--the sharp, unidentifiable scent Dane hadnoticed during the loading of the wood. It was not unpleasant--merelydifferent. And it--or something--had an electrifying effect upon Queex.The blue hunter climbed with the aid of its claws to the top of thenearest pile of wood and there settled down. For a space it wasapparently contemplating the area about it.

  Then it raised its claws and began the scraping fiddle which once beforehad drawn its prey out of hiding. Oddly enough that dry rasp of sound hada quieting effect upon Sinbad and Dane felt the drag of the harnesslessen as the cat moved, not toward escape, but to the scene of action,humping himself at last in the open panel, his round eyes fixed upon theHoobat with a fascinated stare.

  Scrape-scrape--the monotonous noise bit into the ears of the men, gnawedat their nerves.

  "Ahhh--" Ali kept his voice to a whisper, but his hand jerked to drawtheir attention to the right at deck level. Dane saw that flicker along alog. The stowaway pest was now the same brilliant color as the wood,indistinguishable until it moved, which probably explained how it hadcome on board.

  But that was only the first arrival. A second flash of movement and athird followed. Then the hunted remained stationary, able to resist for aperiod the insidious summoning of Queex. The Hoobat maintained anattitude of indifference, of being so wrapped in its music that nothingelse existed. Rip whispered to Weeks:

  "There's one to the left--on the very end of that log. Can you net it?"

  The small oiler slipped the coiled mesh through his calloused hands. Heedged around Ali, keeping his eyes on the protuding protruding bump ofred upon red which was his quarry.

  "--two--three--four--five--" Ali was counting under his breath but Danecould not see that many. He was sure of only four, and those because hehad seen them move.

  The things were ringing in the pile of wood where the Hoobat fiddled, andtwo had ascended the first logs toward their doom. Weeks went down on oneknee, ready to cast his net, when Dane had his first inspiration. He drewhis sleep rod, easing it out of its holster, set the lever on "spray" andbeamed it at three of those humps.

  Rip seeing what he was doing, dropped a hand on Weeks' shoulder, holdingthe oiler in check. A hump moved, slid down the rounded side of the loginto the narrow aisle of deck between two piles of wood. It lay quiet, abright scarlet blot against the gray.

  Then Weeks did move, throwing his net over it and jerking the draw stringtight, at the same time pulling the captive toward him over the deck.But, even as it came, the scarlet of the thing's body was fast fading toan ashy pink and at last taking on a gray as dull as the metal on whichit lay--the complete camouflage. Had they not had it enmeshed they mighthave lost it altogether, so well did it now blend with the surface.

  The other two in the path of the ray had not lost their grip upon thelogs, and the men could not advance to scoop them up. Not while therewere others not affected, free to flee back into hiding. Weeks bound thenet about the captive and looked to Rip for orders.

  "Deep freeze," the acting-commander of the Queen said succinctly. "Let mesee it get out of that!"

  Surely the cold of the deep freeze, united to the sleep ray, would keepthe creature under control until they had a chance to study it. But, asWeeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him,that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarlingand spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level. It wasvery evident that the ship's cat was having none of this pest.

  They might have been invisible and their actions non-existent as far asQueex was concerned. For the Hoobat continued its siren concert. Thelured became more reckless, mounting the logs to Queex's post in suddendarts. Dane wondered how the Hoobat proposed handling four of thecreatures at once. For, although the other two which had been in the pathof the ray had not moved, he now counted four climbing.

  "Stand by to ray--" that was Rip.

  But it would have been interesting to see how Queex was prepared tohandle the four. And, though Rip had given the order to stand by, he hadnot ordered the ray to be used. Was he, too, interested in that?

  The first red projection was within a foot of the Hoobat now and itsfellows had frozen as if to allow it the honor of battle with thefeathered enemy. To all appearances Queex did not see it, but when itsprang with a whir of speed which would baffle a human, the Hoobat wasready and its claws, halting their rasp, met around the wasp-thin waistof the pest, speedily cutting it in two. Only this time the Hoobat madeno move to unjoint and consume the victim. Instead it squatted in uttersilence, as motionless as a tri-dee print.

  The heavy lower half of the creature rolled down the pile of logs to thedeck and there paled to the gray of its background. None of its kindappeared to be interested in its fate. The two which had been in the pathof the ray, continued to be humps on the wood, the others faced theHoobat.

  But Rip was ready to waste no more time. "Ray them!" he snapped.

  All three of their sleep rods sprayed the pile, catching in passing theHoobat. Queex's pop eyes closed, but it showed no other sign of fallingunder the spell of the beam.

  Certain that all the creatures in sight were now relatively harmless, thethree approached the logs. But it was necessary to get into touchingdistance before they could even make out the outlines of the nightmarethings, so well did their protective coloring conceal them. Wearinggloves Ali detached the little monsters from their holds on the wood andput them for temporary safekeeping--during a transfer to the deepfreeze--into the Hoobat's cage. Queex, they decided to leave where it wasfor a space, to awaken and trap any survivor which had been too wary toemerge at the first siren song. As far as they could tell the Hoobat wastheir only possible protection against the pest and to leave it in thecenter of infection was the wisest course.

  Having dumped the now metal colored catch into the freeze, they held aconference.

  "No plague--" Weeks breathed a sigh of relief.

  "No proof of that yet," Ali caught him up short. "We have to prove itpast any reasonable doubt."

  "And how are we going to do--?" Dane began when he saw what the other hadbrought in from Tau's stores. A lancet and the upper half of the creatureQueex had killed in the cargo hold.

  The needle pointed front feet of the thing were curled up in its deaththroes and it was now a dirty white shade as if the ability to changecolor had been lost before it matched the cotton on which it lay. Withthe lancet Ali forced a claw away from the body. It was oozing the wateryliquid which they had seen on the one in the hydro.

  "I have an idea," he said slowly, his eyes on the mangled creature ratherthan on his shipmates, "that we might have escaped being attacked becausethey sheered off from us. But if we were clawed we might take it too.Remember those marks on the throats and backs of the rest? That might bethe entry point of this poison--if poison it is--"

 
Dane could see the end of that line of reasoning. Rip and Ali--theycouldn't be spared. The knowledge they had would bring the Queen toearth. But a Cargo-master was excess baggage when there was no reason fortrade. It was his place to try out the truth of Ali's surmise.

  But while he thought another acted. Weeks leaned over and twitched thelancet out of Ali's fingers. Then, before any of them could move, hethrust its contaminated point into the back of his hand.

  "Don't!"

  Both Dane's cry and Rip's hand came too late. It had been done. And Weekssat there, looking alone and frightened, studying the drop of blood whichmarked the dig of the surgeon's keen knife. But when he spoke his voicesounded perfectly natural.

  "Headache first, isn't it?"

  Only Ali was outwardly unaffected by what the little man had just done."Just be sure you have a real one," he warned with what Dane privatelyconsidered real callousness.

  Weeks nodded. "Don't let my imagination work," he answered shrewdly. "Iknow. It has to be real. How long do you suppose?"

  "We don't know," Rip sounded tired, beaten. "Meanwhile," he got to hisfeet, "we'd better set a course home--"

  "Home," Weeks repeated. To him Terra was not his own home--he had beenborn in the polar swamps of Venus. But to All Solarians--no matter whichplanet had nurtured them--Terra was home.

  "You," Rip's big hand fell gently on the little oiler's shoulder, "stayhere with Thorson--"

  "No," Weeks shook his head. "Unless I black out, I'm riding station inthe engine room. Maybe the bug won't work on me anyway."

  And because he had done what he had done they could not deny him theright to ride his station as long as he could during the grueling hoursto come.

  Dane visited the cargo hold once more. To be greeted by an irate screamwhich assured him that Queex was again awake and on guard. Although theHoobat was ready enough to give tongue, it still squatted in its chosenposition on top of the log stack and he did not try to dislodge it.Perhaps with Queex planted in the enemies' territory they would havenothing to fear from any pests not now confined in the deep freeze.

  Rip set his course for Terra--for that plague spot on their native worldwhere they might hide out the Queen until they could prove theirpoint--that the spacer was not a disease ridden ship to be feared. Hekept to the control cabin, shifting only between the Astrogator's and thepilot's station. Upon him alone rested the responsibility of bringing inthe ship along a vector which crossed no well traveled space lane wherethe Patrol might challenge them. Dane rode out the orbiting in theCom-tech's seat, listening in for the first warning of danger--that theyhad been detected.

  The mechanical repetition of their list of crimes was now stale news andlargely off-ether. And from all traces he could pick up, they were lostas far as the authorities were concerned. On the other hand, the Patrolmight indeed be as far knowing as its propaganda stated and the Queen wasrunning headlong into a trap. Only they had no choice in the matter.

  It was the ship's inter-com bringing Ali's voice from the engine roomwhich broke the concentration in the control cabin.

  "Weeks' down!"

  Rip barked into the mike. "How bad?"

  "He hasn't blacked out yet. The pains in his head are pretty bad and hishand is swelling--"

  "He's given us our proof. Tell him to report off--"

  But the disembodied voice which answered that was Weeks'.

  "I haven't got it as bad as the others. I'll ride this out."

  Rip shook his head. But short-handed as they were he could not argueWeeks away from his post if the man insisted upon staying. He had other,and for the time being, more important matters before him.

  How long they sweated out that descent upon their native world Dane couldnever afterwards have testified. He only knew that hours must havepassed, until he thought groggily that he could not remember a time hewas not glued in the seat which had been Tang's, the earphones pressingagainst his sweating skull, his fatigue-drugged mind being held withdifficulty to the duty at hand.

  Sometime during that haze they made their landing. He had a dim memory ofRip sprawled across the pilot's control board and then utter exhaustionclaimed him also and the darkness closed in. When he roused it was tolook about a cabin tilted to one side. Rip was still slumped in a musclecramping posture, breathing heavily. Dane bit out a forceful word born oftwinges of his own, and then snapped on the visa-plate.

  For a long moment he was sure that he was not yet awake. And then, as hisdazed mind supplied names for what he saw, he knew that Rip had failed.Far from being in the center--or at least well within the perimeter ofthe dread Big Burn--they must have landed in some civic park or nationalforest. For the massed green outside, the bright flowers, the bird hesighted as a brilliant flash of wind coasting color--those were not tobe found in the twisted horror left by man's last attempt to impress hiswill upon his resisting kind.

  Well, it had been a good try, but there was no use expecting luck to ridetheir fins all the way, and they had had more than their share in theE-Stat affair. How long would it be before the Law arrived to collectthem? Would they have time to state their case?

  The faint hope that they might aroused him. He reached for the com keyand a second later tore the headphones from his appalled ears. Thecrackle of static he knew--and the numerous strange noises which broke inupon the lanes of communication in space--but this solid, paralyzing roarwas something totally new--new, and frightening.

  And because it was new and he could not account for it, he turned back toregard the scene on the viewer with a more critical eye. The foliagewhich grew in riotous profusion was green right enough, and Terra greeninto the bargain--there was no mistaking that. But--Dane caught at theedge of Com-unit for support. But--What was that liver-red blossom whichhad just reached out to engulf a small flying thing?

  Feverishly he tried to remember the little natural history he knew. Surethat what he had just witnessed was unnatural--un-Terran--and to besuspect!

  He started the spy lens on its slow revolution in the Queen's nose, toget a full picture of their immediate surroundings. It was tilted at anangle--apparently they had not made a fin-point landing this time--andsometimes it merely reflected slices of sky. But when it swept earthwardhe saw enough to make him believe that wherever the spacer had set downit was not on the Terra he knew.

  Subconsciously he had expected the Big Burn to be barren land--curdledrock with rivers of frozen quartz, substances boiled up through the crustof the planet by the action of the atomic explosives. That was the way ithad been on Limbo--on the other "burned-off" worlds they had discoveredwhere those who had preceded mankind into the Galaxy--the mysterious,long vanished "Forerunners"--had fought their grim and totallyannihilating wars.

  But it would seem that the Big Burn was altogether different--at leasthere it was. There was no rock sterile of life outside--in fact therewould appear to be too much life. What Dane could sight on his limitedfield of vision was a teeming jungle. And the thrill of that discoveryalmost made him forget their present circumstances. He was still staringbemused at the screen when Rip muttered, turned his head on his foldedarms and opened his sunken eyes:

  "Did we make it?" he asked dully.

  Dane, not taking his eyes from that fascinating scene without, answered:"You brought us down. But I don't know where--"

  "Unless our instruments were 'way off, we're near to the heart of theBurn."

  "Some heart!"

  "What does it look like?" Rip sounded too tired to cross the cabin andsee for himself. "Barren as Limbo?"

  "Hardly! Rip, did you ever see a tomato as big as a melon--At least itlooks like a tomato," Dane halted the spy lens as it focused upon thisnew phenomena.

  "A what?" There was a note of concern in Shannon's voice. "What's thematter with you, Dane?"

  "Come and see," Dane willingly yielded his place to Rip but he did notstep out of range of the screen. Surely that did have the likeness to agood, old fashioned earth-side tomato--but it was melon size and it hung
from a bush which was close to a ten foot tree!

  Rip stumbled across to drop into the Com-tech's place. But his expressionof worry changed to one of simple astonishment as he saw that picture.

  "Where are we?"

  "You name it," Dane had had longer to adjust, the excitement of anexplorer sighting virgin territory worked in his veins, banishingfatigue. "It must be the Big Burn!"

  "But," Rip shook his head slowly as if with that gesture to deny theevidence before his eyes, "that country's all bare rock. I've seenpictures--"

  "Of the outer rim," Dane corrected, having already solved that problemfor himself. "This must be farther in than any survey ship ever came.Great Spirit of Outer Space, what has happened here?"

  Rip had enough technical training to know how to get part of the answer.He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever withthe very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with aclicking so loud as to make an almost continuous drone of sound.

  Dane knew that danger signal, he didn't need Rip's words to underline itfor him.

  "That's what's happened. This country is pile 'hot' out there!"