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“Are they royal jelly?” Julie asked. “Can we be absolutely sure of that?”
Stan replied, “There really seems no doubt. What else would they be filled with? Cloverleaf honey? The harvester is packed with the stuff. They must have been just about ready to take off back to Lancet.”
“Good thing we got here when we did.” Julie laughed. “They’ve done our work for us, Stan. We’re rich!”
Stan grinned. “We’d better not start trying to spend it just yet. Norbert, have you completed your assessment of the damage yet?”
“Yes, Dr. Myakovsky.”
“Any problems?”
“I’m afraid that in the fight this unit here was destroyed.” Norbert indicated the interior suppressor gear, which was strewn around the cabin, most of it broken into fragments of crystal and plastic.
“Ah well,” Stan said, “Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, as some famous man once remarked. Do you know who said that, Gill?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Gill said.
“And here I thought you knew everything. Well, well…” Unexpectedly he began to giggle.
“Stan,” Julie said, “what’s the matter?”
Stan pulled himself together. “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. I don’t suppose you know who said that, either. Well, never mind. Of all the stuff you could have destroyed, Norbert, I’m afraid you picked the worst I think that’s the interior equipment for the ultrasonic suppressor.”
“Are you certain?” Julie asked. “How can we know for sure?”
“There ought to be a serial number here somewhere.” Stan examined the bits of twisted metal. “Yes, as I thought. Now we need to go to the next step.”
“Is that difficult?” Julie asked.
“Easy enough … Norbert, give me a picture through one of the portholes.”
Outside, Stan could see a yellowish-brown haze with dark shapes moving through it. Half the aliens were up, the others were reviving swiftly. They moved sluggishly at first, then with increasing vigor, toward the harvester.
“Clear up the focus,” Stan snapped.
“Sorry, Doctor …” With the focus cleared, Stan could see the distinct dark alien shapes milling around outside the ship.
“Okay,” Stan said. “The suppressor is kaput and the aliens are awake. That’s okay. Basically, our job is over. We’ve got the harvester. It was a little messy, but we got it. We need only pilot it up to the Dolomite and get out of here. Norbert, check the controls.”
The robot alien moved to the control panel. After a moment he said, “I’m afraid we’ve got trouble, Doctor.”
Stan could see for himself through Norbert’s visual receptors. The battle inside the harvester had wrecked some of the controls.
“Oh, Stan,” Julie said, “can Norbert fly that thing out of there?”
“Sure, if conditions were right,” Stan said. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be as easy as that The controls are all screwed up.”
“Can’t he fix them?”
Stan shook his head. “Sure, given time, but we don’t have much of that. First we’re going to have to get into communication with the Dolomite again. Gill, have you had any luck in raising Captain Hoban?”
“I haven’t gotten him yet, sir,” Gill said. “Something serious seems to have happened to the Dolomite.”
“That’s just great,” Stan said. “I wish he’d call.”
“He will,” Gill affirmed. “I know Captain Hoban. He would make contacting us his first priority.”
“Well, it gives us a little time. A chance to do something I’ve long wanted to do.”
Julie looked at him. “Stan, what are you talking about?”
“I want to take a look inside that hive.” He looked hard at Gill, as if daring him to challenge him. Gill felt momentarily uncomfortable and glanced at Julie, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Gill reminded himself that it was difficult to assess the situation and impossible to pass judgment on humans.
“Just as you say, sir,” Gill said at last.
“Norbert, are you standing by?” Stan demanded. “I am, Dr. Myakovsky.”
“Okay. I take it all your systems are functioning properly?”
“All my readings are in the green,” Norbert reported.
“Is your suppressor working properly?”
Norbert checked. “It is, sir.”
“And Mac’s ?”
Norbert bent over the dog. “It is functioning correctly.”
“Then turn it off and open the harvester port.”
“Sir?”
“Norbert, are you having synapse failure? Didn’t you hear me?”
“It is such an unusual order, Doctor, that I wanted to be certain I understood it correctly. When I turn off Mac’s collar, that will render him visible to the aliens.”
“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” Stan said. “We’re going to make the aliens a little present of Mac.”
“Give him to the aliens?”
“That’s right. You aren’t going soft on me, are you, Norbert?”
“No, sir. But is it necessary?”
“Of course it is. They’ll probably take Mac directly to the queen. They give the queen all the best stuff first, don’t they?”
“I think so, sir. So it is reported in the literature.”
“That’s right,” Stan said, with a laugh. “For a moment I forgot you weren’t one yourself.”
Gill and Julie looked at each other. Gill frowned slightly and looked away. Julie pursed her lips. She didn’t much like what was happening. But what the hell, it was no business of hers.
Stan explained. “Mac will represent food to them. A tasty little morsel fit for a king. Only in this case it’s a queen. That’s who they’ll take Mac to. And you, my dear robotic friend, will follow them. Protected by your own suppressor, they won’t even see you. Without suspecting a thing, they’ll lead you through the labyrinth to the royal birthing chamber. Through your eyes I’ll get the first pictures ever taken of the queen of this hive. I’ll be doing a unique service to science. That’s worth any number of little dogs like Mac. He’s just a common mutt. But you, Norbert, are unique.”
Stan turned to face Julie and Gill. Light glinted off his glasses. His face was drawn. His voice, high and strained, rose as he asked, “Does anyone here have any objections?”
Gill looked away and didn’t answer. Julie looked faintly annoyed as she said, “Give them Mac or a kennelful of mutts, it makes no difference to me. But would you mind telling me, just to satisfy my own curiosity, why are you doing this?”
“It’s the only way I can’be sure of getting Norbert into the hive quickly without him having to spend God knows how long looking for a way in. The outside of the nest is sealed against the weather, as you might have noticed. Did you check that out? The aliens must have a whole system of tunnels for getting in or out There must be a hundred miles of tunnel in something that big. This way I’ll have Norbert lay down an electronic path.”
Gill said, “What purpose will that serve, Doctor?”
“Two at least,” Stan said. “First, with Norbert videotaping as he goes, we’ll provide science with an invaluable record of life inside an alien hive. And second, we can come back here whenever we like to collect more jelly.”
“Now you’re talking, Stan,” Julie said. “I knew you weren’t just antidog.”
“Of course not. As a matter of fact, I’ll have Norbert try to rescue Mac when they’ve reached the queen’s chamber.”
“That might not be possible,” Gill said.
Stan shrugged. “Let’s get going. Norbert, do it!”
50
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52
53
54
Stan replied, “There really seems no doubt. What else would they be filled with? Cloverleaf honey? The harvester is packed with the stuff. They must have been just about ready to take off back to Lancet.”
“Good thing we got here when we did.” Julie laughed. “They’ve done our work for us, Stan. We’re rich!”
Stan grinned. “We’d better not start trying to spend it just yet. Norbert, have you completed your assessment of the damage yet?”
“Yes, Dr. Myakovsky.”
“Any problems?”
“I’m afraid that in the fight this unit here was destroyed.” Norbert indicated the interior suppressor gear, which was strewn around the cabin, most of it broken into fragments of crystal and plastic.
“Ah well,” Stan said, “Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, as some famous man once remarked. Do you know who said that, Gill?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Gill said.
“And here I thought you knew everything. Well, well…” Unexpectedly he began to giggle.
“Stan,” Julie said, “what’s the matter?”
Stan pulled himself together. “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. I don’t suppose you know who said that, either. Well, never mind. Of all the stuff you could have destroyed, Norbert, I’m afraid you picked the worst I think that’s the interior equipment for the ultrasonic suppressor.”
“Are you certain?” Julie asked. “How can we know for sure?”
“There ought to be a serial number here somewhere.” Stan examined the bits of twisted metal. “Yes, as I thought. Now we need to go to the next step.”
“Is that difficult?” Julie asked.
“Easy enough … Norbert, give me a picture through one of the portholes.”
Outside, Stan could see a yellowish-brown haze with dark shapes moving through it. Half the aliens were up, the others were reviving swiftly. They moved sluggishly at first, then with increasing vigor, toward the harvester.
“Clear up the focus,” Stan snapped.
“Sorry, Doctor …” With the focus cleared, Stan could see the distinct dark alien shapes milling around outside the ship.
“Okay,” Stan said. “The suppressor is kaput and the aliens are awake. That’s okay. Basically, our job is over. We’ve got the harvester. It was a little messy, but we got it. We need only pilot it up to the Dolomite and get out of here. Norbert, check the controls.”
The robot alien moved to the control panel. After a moment he said, “I’m afraid we’ve got trouble, Doctor.”
Stan could see for himself through Norbert’s visual receptors. The battle inside the harvester had wrecked some of the controls.
“Oh, Stan,” Julie said, “can Norbert fly that thing out of there?”
“Sure, if conditions were right,” Stan said. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be as easy as that The controls are all screwed up.”
“Can’t he fix them?”
Stan shook his head. “Sure, given time, but we don’t have much of that. First we’re going to have to get into communication with the Dolomite again. Gill, have you had any luck in raising Captain Hoban?”
“I haven’t gotten him yet, sir,” Gill said. “Something serious seems to have happened to the Dolomite.”
“That’s just great,” Stan said. “I wish he’d call.”
“He will,” Gill affirmed. “I know Captain Hoban. He would make contacting us his first priority.”
“Well, it gives us a little time. A chance to do something I’ve long wanted to do.”
Julie looked at him. “Stan, what are you talking about?”
“I want to take a look inside that hive.” He looked hard at Gill, as if daring him to challenge him. Gill felt momentarily uncomfortable and glanced at Julie, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Gill reminded himself that it was difficult to assess the situation and impossible to pass judgment on humans.
“Just as you say, sir,” Gill said at last.
“Norbert, are you standing by?” Stan demanded. “I am, Dr. Myakovsky.”
“Okay. I take it all your systems are functioning properly?”
“All my readings are in the green,” Norbert reported.
“Is your suppressor working properly?”
Norbert checked. “It is, sir.”
“And Mac’s ?”
Norbert bent over the dog. “It is functioning correctly.”
“Then turn it off and open the harvester port.”
“Sir?”
“Norbert, are you having synapse failure? Didn’t you hear me?”
“It is such an unusual order, Doctor, that I wanted to be certain I understood it correctly. When I turn off Mac’s collar, that will render him visible to the aliens.”
“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” Stan said. “We’re going to make the aliens a little present of Mac.”
“Give him to the aliens?”
“That’s right. You aren’t going soft on me, are you, Norbert?”
“No, sir. But is it necessary?”
“Of course it is. They’ll probably take Mac directly to the queen. They give the queen all the best stuff first, don’t they?”
“I think so, sir. So it is reported in the literature.”
“That’s right,” Stan said, with a laugh. “For a moment I forgot you weren’t one yourself.”
Gill and Julie looked at each other. Gill frowned slightly and looked away. Julie pursed her lips. She didn’t much like what was happening. But what the hell, it was no business of hers.
Stan explained. “Mac will represent food to them. A tasty little morsel fit for a king. Only in this case it’s a queen. That’s who they’ll take Mac to. And you, my dear robotic friend, will follow them. Protected by your own suppressor, they won’t even see you. Without suspecting a thing, they’ll lead you through the labyrinth to the royal birthing chamber. Through your eyes I’ll get the first pictures ever taken of the queen of this hive. I’ll be doing a unique service to science. That’s worth any number of little dogs like Mac. He’s just a common mutt. But you, Norbert, are unique.”
Stan turned to face Julie and Gill. Light glinted off his glasses. His face was drawn. His voice, high and strained, rose as he asked, “Does anyone here have any objections?”
Gill looked away and didn’t answer. Julie looked faintly annoyed as she said, “Give them Mac or a kennelful of mutts, it makes no difference to me. But would you mind telling me, just to satisfy my own curiosity, why are you doing this?”
“It’s the only way I can’be sure of getting Norbert into the hive quickly without him having to spend God knows how long looking for a way in. The outside of the nest is sealed against the weather, as you might have noticed. Did you check that out? The aliens must have a whole system of tunnels for getting in or out There must be a hundred miles of tunnel in something that big. This way I’ll have Norbert lay down an electronic path.”
Gill said, “What purpose will that serve, Doctor?”
“Two at least,” Stan said. “First, with Norbert videotaping as he goes, we’ll provide science with an invaluable record of life inside an alien hive. And second, we can come back here whenever we like to collect more jelly.”
“Now you’re talking, Stan,” Julie said. “I knew you weren’t just antidog.”
“Of course not. As a matter of fact, I’ll have Norbert try to rescue Mac when they’ve reached the queen’s chamber.”
“That might not be possible,” Gill said.
Stan shrugged. “Let’s get going. Norbert, do it!”
50
“Nope,” Morrison said. “I can’t get a reading.”
“Let me try,” said Larrimer. He fiddled with the controls. But it showed no trace of the first pod, the one with Norbert and Mac aboard.
Almost as soon as the five volunteers from the crew had entered the second pod, they lost visual contact with the first, and found themselves flying blind into a whirling sandstorm. Overhead, purple-black ranks of clouds had formed, and soon their visibility was further cut by heavy, driving rain. After the rain let up, the ground below steamed, and a thick mist arose from the land.
Definitely not flying weather. But the pod was equipped with autopilot and a landing program. Their direction finder was slaved to the first pod’s beacon. All they had to do was sit tight and the pod would take them to Norbert.
In theory.
In practice, the autopilot was unable to compensate for the driving wind, a wind that roared loudly enough to be heard inside the pod. The autopilot’s little computer had all it could do to keep them from piling up on the ground below. It brought them down safely, then the comedy of errors began.
First Larrimer, who had been entrusted with the radio, found out that it would not transmit or receive. Not enough power, maybe, or maybe interference from the electrical storm overhead. Maybe it had even taken one bang too many during their hectic descent.
“Well,” Morrison said, “they can probably find us even if we can’t find them.”
“Are you sure of that?” Skysky rubbed his bald head nervously.
“Sure I’m sure.” Morrison spoke with a confidence he didn’t feel. They’d want to retrieve the pod, anyhow. Those things cost money.”
Eka Nu looked up. “No,” he said. “Pods are considered expendable. So are crew, sometimes.”
Not a cheering thought.
“Anyhow,” Morrison said, “all we have to do is find Norbert. The professor is not about to abandon his favorite toy.”
That cheered them up a little. Morrison brought out an electron detector and tried to tune it to the trail Norbert was supposed to leave. The little machine buzzed steadily, but showed no sign of a direction. Morrison turned it in every direction. It still didn’t indicate anything.
“Maybe the hull shielding is stopping the signal,” Morrison said. “We’ve got to go outside anyway, so maybe it’ll be better there.”
“Go outside in this?” Larrimer asked, jerking his thumb at the mist that rolled in a slow wave across the plain.
“We can’t stay here,” Morrison said. “If they did try to find us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Our only hope is to find Norbert and await pickup with him and the dog.”
“Great,” Styson exclaimed. “What about if we run into aliens?”
“We’ve got our weapons,” Morrison said, “and we have suppressors. What more could you ask for?”
The others grumbled, but it was obvious that they had to make a move. First Morrison told them to check their weapons, and there was a clatter of metal on metal as they shoved magazines into their carbines and set the plasma burners on standby.
“Ready?” Morrison asked. “Okay, here we go.”
He cracked the hatch. It opened smoothly, and they stepped out one by one onto the plain.
The first thing they discovered was that they couldn’t see worth shit. It wasn’t quite as bad as that, actually. About three feet visibility, Styson estimated.
Cautiously they stepped out of the pod and tested out the land. It was solid underfoot. Moving only a few feet away from the pod, they formed a circle around the electron detector and tried to get a reading. The thing buzzed, and the needle swooped erratically, but there was no definite and unambiguous signal. At last Morrison decided to follow the biggest needle deflection and hope for the best.
“It’s this way,” he stated. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew they had to go somewhere. He was beginning to think this volunteering hadn’t been such a good idea. The bonus had sounded good, but you don’t get to spend it if you’re dead.
In single file, staying close to each other, the volunteers moved across the plain. All five men had weapons at the alert. The mist billowed around them like white waves in a sea of clouds, sometimes covering them completely, which was like walking through a sort of impalpable white cotton candy. Sometimes the mist would begin to dissipate, and then the men could see each other’s heads and shoulders, rising ghostlike out of the whiteness, with wisps of mist clinging to them. But then the mist rose again and buried them. Morrison, in the lead, was following a compass course he had set after taking his best guess as to what the electron detector was indicating. It didn’t occur to him that it might not mean anything at all. That would be too unfair.
Styson, bringing up the rear, kept on turning around and trying to look behind him. He was sure something big and terrible was going to materialize out of the mist and snap him up. It was a crazy, kid’s sort of thinking—he knew that—but he couldn’t control his fear. His hands tightened on his carbine. He wished he was holding his harmonica. That always gave him confidence. But it was in his pocket, because he needed both hands to hold his carbine. Now his fingers tightened on .the weapon, and he checked to make sure all safeties were off. He missed his harmonica, but he knew it was a lot more important to hold on to the weapon. Stood to reason …
And then the mists closed down again and the men lost all visibility— Styson staggered along, carbine held out in front of him like a blindman’s cane, trying to peer into the numbingly white world in which he found himself. What a rotten job this had turned into!
And then he bumped into something.
Styson stumbled, then regained his balance. Larrimer had been next in line. He called out, “Larrimer, is that you?”
There was no answer. Whoever was ahead of him was just becoming visible, a dark shadow in the pale glimmer of the surrounding mist.
“Whoever it is, try to keep the pace up,” Styson said. “We need to get out of here… Who is that, anyway?”
He reached out and poked what he thought was Larrimer on what he thought was Larrimer’s shoulder. There was a movement, and the shape ahead of him turned. The mists started to dissipate, and Styson saw something too tall to be Larrimer or any other man, something so tall that he had to crane his neck back to see it.
No mistaking what it was now. It was an alien, and there was something about its quick, questing movements that decided Styson that this was not Norbert. This was the real thing.
He tried to get his carbine up, but the sling had somehow gotten tangled around his left arm. And the massive creature was too close to him, anyhow. He closed his eyes and made a quick, fervent prayer.
Moments later he opened his eyes. The alien had walked right past him, brushing against him as it did so. It continued to move away, still looking around as if seeking something.
“Hey, fellas!” Styson called out. “We got company!”
The men ahead of him were aware of this. They had spotted aliens before Styson did, but had kept quiet in order not to alert the creatures. Aliens were primarily visual hunters, but no one knew to what extent they could also use their hearing. This didn’t seem the time to find out. Now, as Styson caught up with them, they shushed him into silence.
Morrison continued to lead. The mist thinned, and soon they could see black shapes moving through white cotton. Aliens, moving in the same general direction the men were going, walking singly or in small groups. They passed the men and paid no apparent attention to them. One went by within a foot of Morrison and never turned its head. Morrison was starting to feel a modest confidence… And then it happened.
The mist closed down again. The men fumbled their way forward, fighting to keep their balance, and then there was a loud gurgling sound followed by silence.
“What was that?” Morrison asked. “Damned if I know,” Larrimer replied.
“Is anyone missing? Call out your names, but not too loud.”
Three men responded to Morrison’s request, but the fourth, Skysky, did not answer.
Morrison risked shouting. “Skysky? Are you there, Skysky?”
Nothing.
“Watch yourselves, boys,” Morrison said. “I think we got trouble.”
It made no sense, Morrison thought, but it seemed like an alien must have grabbed Skysky, broken his neck before he could do any more than gurgle, and taken his body away.
The suppressors were supposed to hide them from the aliens.
But Skysky was definitely gone.
So, one of two things. Either Skysky’s suppressor had failed, or he had walked right into an alien, and that close, it had been able to figure out what Skysky was.
A six-foot breeding organism.
Don’t think about that.
“You gotta really watch hard,” Morrison said, as if the men needed to be told. “Skysky must have gotten careless. The mist is lifting again. Maybe we can find someplace to hide.”
The mist dissipated swiftly. The men could see about fifty yards on all sides of them. The visibility continued to improve, and Morrison told them to fan out. The men complied and, following Morrison’s lead, continued to move steadily toward something that looked like a brown breast on the horizon.
They were passing groups of aliens, but now were able to keep a better distance. The aliens continued to ignore them.
Until one alien stopped ignoring them.
It stopped in midstride, swiveled, turning its huge head slowly, and then locked in on something. It turned toward it and began to run.
When Styson looked to his left, he saw an alien coming straight for him—not for anyone else in the group, but him. He threw up his rifle and fired. The caseless round broke through the alien’s shoulder, almost severing the arm at the shoulder joint. It just seemed to make the creature angrier than it already was. Aliens start out angry and build from there.
Ignoring the arm dangling from its side, it grabbed Styson around the waist with its good arm. Styson screamed and tried to get the carbine into line. The alien opened its jaws. The secondary jaws looked out for a moment, then rammed into Styson’s face.
Styson had tried to duck at the last instant, so the secondary jaw caught him in the left eye rather than the mouth. The tooth-lined mouth punched through to Styson’s brain, and when it withdrew, it took a fair amount of gray matter along with it. And then the alien turned away from Styson and revolved its head again.
The other four men had frozen into position, not daring to move while the alien was prowling around Styson, unable to shoot without hitting their comrade.
It turned out that shooting wasn’t necessary. Not at that moment, anyhow. The alien turned and loped away, rejoining the group it had left earlier.
Morrison got the men moving again.
“Let me try,” said Larrimer. He fiddled with the controls. But it showed no trace of the first pod, the one with Norbert and Mac aboard.
Almost as soon as the five volunteers from the crew had entered the second pod, they lost visual contact with the first, and found themselves flying blind into a whirling sandstorm. Overhead, purple-black ranks of clouds had formed, and soon their visibility was further cut by heavy, driving rain. After the rain let up, the ground below steamed, and a thick mist arose from the land.
Definitely not flying weather. But the pod was equipped with autopilot and a landing program. Their direction finder was slaved to the first pod’s beacon. All they had to do was sit tight and the pod would take them to Norbert.
In theory.
In practice, the autopilot was unable to compensate for the driving wind, a wind that roared loudly enough to be heard inside the pod. The autopilot’s little computer had all it could do to keep them from piling up on the ground below. It brought them down safely, then the comedy of errors began.
First Larrimer, who had been entrusted with the radio, found out that it would not transmit or receive. Not enough power, maybe, or maybe interference from the electrical storm overhead. Maybe it had even taken one bang too many during their hectic descent.
“Well,” Morrison said, “they can probably find us even if we can’t find them.”
“Are you sure of that?” Skysky rubbed his bald head nervously.
“Sure I’m sure.” Morrison spoke with a confidence he didn’t feel. They’d want to retrieve the pod, anyhow. Those things cost money.”
Eka Nu looked up. “No,” he said. “Pods are considered expendable. So are crew, sometimes.”
Not a cheering thought.
“Anyhow,” Morrison said, “all we have to do is find Norbert. The professor is not about to abandon his favorite toy.”
That cheered them up a little. Morrison brought out an electron detector and tried to tune it to the trail Norbert was supposed to leave. The little machine buzzed steadily, but showed no sign of a direction. Morrison turned it in every direction. It still didn’t indicate anything.
“Maybe the hull shielding is stopping the signal,” Morrison said. “We’ve got to go outside anyway, so maybe it’ll be better there.”
“Go outside in this?” Larrimer asked, jerking his thumb at the mist that rolled in a slow wave across the plain.
“We can’t stay here,” Morrison said. “If they did try to find us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Our only hope is to find Norbert and await pickup with him and the dog.”
“Great,” Styson exclaimed. “What about if we run into aliens?”
“We’ve got our weapons,” Morrison said, “and we have suppressors. What more could you ask for?”
The others grumbled, but it was obvious that they had to make a move. First Morrison told them to check their weapons, and there was a clatter of metal on metal as they shoved magazines into their carbines and set the plasma burners on standby.
“Ready?” Morrison asked. “Okay, here we go.”
He cracked the hatch. It opened smoothly, and they stepped out one by one onto the plain.
The first thing they discovered was that they couldn’t see worth shit. It wasn’t quite as bad as that, actually. About three feet visibility, Styson estimated.
Cautiously they stepped out of the pod and tested out the land. It was solid underfoot. Moving only a few feet away from the pod, they formed a circle around the electron detector and tried to get a reading. The thing buzzed, and the needle swooped erratically, but there was no definite and unambiguous signal. At last Morrison decided to follow the biggest needle deflection and hope for the best.
“It’s this way,” he stated. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew they had to go somewhere. He was beginning to think this volunteering hadn’t been such a good idea. The bonus had sounded good, but you don’t get to spend it if you’re dead.
In single file, staying close to each other, the volunteers moved across the plain. All five men had weapons at the alert. The mist billowed around them like white waves in a sea of clouds, sometimes covering them completely, which was like walking through a sort of impalpable white cotton candy. Sometimes the mist would begin to dissipate, and then the men could see each other’s heads and shoulders, rising ghostlike out of the whiteness, with wisps of mist clinging to them. But then the mist rose again and buried them. Morrison, in the lead, was following a compass course he had set after taking his best guess as to what the electron detector was indicating. It didn’t occur to him that it might not mean anything at all. That would be too unfair.
Styson, bringing up the rear, kept on turning around and trying to look behind him. He was sure something big and terrible was going to materialize out of the mist and snap him up. It was a crazy, kid’s sort of thinking—he knew that—but he couldn’t control his fear. His hands tightened on his carbine. He wished he was holding his harmonica. That always gave him confidence. But it was in his pocket, because he needed both hands to hold his carbine. Now his fingers tightened on .the weapon, and he checked to make sure all safeties were off. He missed his harmonica, but he knew it was a lot more important to hold on to the weapon. Stood to reason …
And then the mists closed down again and the men lost all visibility— Styson staggered along, carbine held out in front of him like a blindman’s cane, trying to peer into the numbingly white world in which he found himself. What a rotten job this had turned into!
And then he bumped into something.
Styson stumbled, then regained his balance. Larrimer had been next in line. He called out, “Larrimer, is that you?”
There was no answer. Whoever was ahead of him was just becoming visible, a dark shadow in the pale glimmer of the surrounding mist.
“Whoever it is, try to keep the pace up,” Styson said. “We need to get out of here… Who is that, anyway?”
He reached out and poked what he thought was Larrimer on what he thought was Larrimer’s shoulder. There was a movement, and the shape ahead of him turned. The mists started to dissipate, and Styson saw something too tall to be Larrimer or any other man, something so tall that he had to crane his neck back to see it.
No mistaking what it was now. It was an alien, and there was something about its quick, questing movements that decided Styson that this was not Norbert. This was the real thing.
He tried to get his carbine up, but the sling had somehow gotten tangled around his left arm. And the massive creature was too close to him, anyhow. He closed his eyes and made a quick, fervent prayer.
Moments later he opened his eyes. The alien had walked right past him, brushing against him as it did so. It continued to move away, still looking around as if seeking something.
“Hey, fellas!” Styson called out. “We got company!”
The men ahead of him were aware of this. They had spotted aliens before Styson did, but had kept quiet in order not to alert the creatures. Aliens were primarily visual hunters, but no one knew to what extent they could also use their hearing. This didn’t seem the time to find out. Now, as Styson caught up with them, they shushed him into silence.
Morrison continued to lead. The mist thinned, and soon they could see black shapes moving through white cotton. Aliens, moving in the same general direction the men were going, walking singly or in small groups. They passed the men and paid no apparent attention to them. One went by within a foot of Morrison and never turned its head. Morrison was starting to feel a modest confidence… And then it happened.
The mist closed down again. The men fumbled their way forward, fighting to keep their balance, and then there was a loud gurgling sound followed by silence.
“What was that?” Morrison asked. “Damned if I know,” Larrimer replied.
“Is anyone missing? Call out your names, but not too loud.”
Three men responded to Morrison’s request, but the fourth, Skysky, did not answer.
Morrison risked shouting. “Skysky? Are you there, Skysky?”
Nothing.
“Watch yourselves, boys,” Morrison said. “I think we got trouble.”
It made no sense, Morrison thought, but it seemed like an alien must have grabbed Skysky, broken his neck before he could do any more than gurgle, and taken his body away.
The suppressors were supposed to hide them from the aliens.
But Skysky was definitely gone.
So, one of two things. Either Skysky’s suppressor had failed, or he had walked right into an alien, and that close, it had been able to figure out what Skysky was.
A six-foot breeding organism.
Don’t think about that.
“You gotta really watch hard,” Morrison said, as if the men needed to be told. “Skysky must have gotten careless. The mist is lifting again. Maybe we can find someplace to hide.”
The mist dissipated swiftly. The men could see about fifty yards on all sides of them. The visibility continued to improve, and Morrison told them to fan out. The men complied and, following Morrison’s lead, continued to move steadily toward something that looked like a brown breast on the horizon.
They were passing groups of aliens, but now were able to keep a better distance. The aliens continued to ignore them.
Until one alien stopped ignoring them.
It stopped in midstride, swiveled, turning its huge head slowly, and then locked in on something. It turned toward it and began to run.
When Styson looked to his left, he saw an alien coming straight for him—not for anyone else in the group, but him. He threw up his rifle and fired. The caseless round broke through the alien’s shoulder, almost severing the arm at the shoulder joint. It just seemed to make the creature angrier than it already was. Aliens start out angry and build from there.
Ignoring the arm dangling from its side, it grabbed Styson around the waist with its good arm. Styson screamed and tried to get the carbine into line. The alien opened its jaws. The secondary jaws looked out for a moment, then rammed into Styson’s face.
Styson had tried to duck at the last instant, so the secondary jaw caught him in the left eye rather than the mouth. The tooth-lined mouth punched through to Styson’s brain, and when it withdrew, it took a fair amount of gray matter along with it. And then the alien turned away from Styson and revolved its head again.
The other four men had frozen into position, not daring to move while the alien was prowling around Styson, unable to shoot without hitting their comrade.
It turned out that shooting wasn’t necessary. Not at that moment, anyhow. The alien turned and loped away, rejoining the group it had left earlier.
Morrison got the men moving again.
51
Their breathing space was short. Aliens continued to stream past the three crewmen. But now, some of those closest to the humans were slowing down, turning their heads this way and that. Morrison prayed that they had stiff necks or something. But no such luck. Two of the aliens turned away from the stream and started toward the group. After a moment a third one joined them.
“Shit!” Morrison said. There was no doubt where that bunch were going. Straight at him. He started firing when they were still thirty yards off, then pushed the selector and fired a grenade. In fact, he fired off all his grenades, something he hadn’t meant to do, but he wasn’t used to these weapons, which were military style. The grenades went lobbing in the air, and most of them came down behind the aliens. Morrison’s last one hit an alien in the chest and, a moment later, exploded in its face. The alien was thrown backward by the force of the explosion. He picked himself up, but his face, such as it was, was ruined. His mouth was gaping open, and through his jaws protruded the smaller secondary jaws. They hung limp at the end of their muscular tube. The tube appeared to have been bitten through. The alien was not out of it yet, though. Shaking its head, it moved again toward Morrison, limping but still deadly.
Morrison didn’t have time for that one yet. The two closer ones were coming up fast. He took the one to his left, blasting caseless projectiles into its chest. He could hear firing near him. It was Eka Nu, who had moved up to join him. Farther away, Larrimer tried to join them, but a long black arm came out of nowhere and caught him in midstride. He jerked around like a trout on a hook as the alien brought him close to his face. Then it released the facehugger, and Larrimer fell to the ground, moaning and twitching. The alien hoisted him to his shoulder. Larrimer knew he was going to have the worst death he could have imagined, hanging just barely alive from a wall in the hive while a newborn grew within him, getting ready to eat its way out.
Morrison and Eka Nu had their hands full with the two aliens, who were coming at them at a full charge. Morrison saw his projectiles slam into the alien, and still it kept coming. He fired until the magazine was empty. He fired the last rounds with his eyes closed. When he opened them, the alien was dead at his feet Eka Nu hadn’t been so lucky, however. The alien on his side had kept on coming on all fours, had grabbed Eka Nu around the shoulders, hugged the crewman to him, then turned him. The two stared face-to-face for a moment, then the facehugger hit and Eka Nu knew no more.
Morrison found himself alone. He was panting, exhausted, trembling. The guys were all gone He looked around. He didn’t see any aliens. Maybe they had left Maybe he could still find …
Then something moved on the ground. It was the alien he had winged. He was still coming, crawling. And behind him, half a dozen others were starting over.
Yes, Morrison thought, I guess you could say the suppressors had failed. No other explanation.
I did the best I could, he thought as he turned the carbine so its muzzle faced him. He preferred a slug in the mouth to a facehugger.
The harvester’s entry lock gave way under repeated blows from the outside. The door flew open. Big-bodied, ghastly, and weird, three aliens crowded into it, their eager, evil faces turning at all angles on short powerful necks, checking out the place, alert for danger. They ignored Norbert, protected by his suppressor. The dead crewmen from the harvester required no attention.
Stan, watching from the lander, said, “All right, Norbert. Do it now.”
Norbert lifted Mac, removed his collar into which a suppressor was built, and handed him to one of the aliens. The alien showed no surprise, quietly accepted Mac from Norbert’s arms.
Handling the dog carefully, the alien turned, left the ship, and joined the others outside. Then, as if in response to an inaudible signal, they all started marching across the plain. Stan, Gill, and Julie watched on their screen as Norbert fell into line behind the group of aliens carrying Mac. Watching from the lander through Norbert’s vision sensors was uncannily like being within the robot alien himself, feeling his body sway and move as it negotiated the uneven ground. Stan had to adjust the audio because the wind out there on AR-32’s plain had risen swiftly after the mist dissipated and now was shrieking like a banshee, pushing and pulling against the line of aliens, slowing but not stopping them as sand was alternately pushed into mounds in front of them and then suddenly scoured away.
They were moving toward the hive, which was now and then revealed as Norbert changed the angle of his vision from the ground immediately in front of him to the hazy horizon line. The hive was still quite a long way away, perhaps a hundred yards, when the aliens stopped and began looking around.
Stan leaned close to the screen and stared but he couldn’t tell what they were looking for a specially coded pheromone signal, perhaps, because they fanned out and continued searching, their heads turning back and forth like hounds following a scent.
At last one of them found something. A silent signal seemed to pass between him and the others, and they all moved together to a piece of ground that looked no different to Stan’s eyes than any other. Rooting in the soil, the leading alien dislodged a large flat piece of stone, revealing a shallow tunnel leading into the earth.
The tunnel sloped downward for perhaps twenty feet, then leveled out. It had been made with some care. The light, friable soil was held in by flat rocks, some of which were highly phosphorescent.
“Look at how the roof is shored up,” Stan remarked to Gill.
That’s more technical skill than we ever gave the aliens credit for.”
“It is possible, sir,” said Gill, “that their tunnel-building abilities are genetic, as is the case with the ants you have studied.
“Yes,” Stan said. “Can you see what they’re doing, Ari?” He lifted the cybernetic ant on his fingertip and moved his hand toward the screen. “These are like big cousins of yours, aren’t they?”
Ari raised his head, but it was impossible to tell whether or not he was thinking anything.
Down in the tunnel, Norbert was reporting that the passageway was widening as they moved closer to the hive. Soon other branchings appeared as the aliens moved; as if by instinct, making their way through the increasingly complex maze without hesitation.
“Norbert, you’ve been laying down an electronic trail, haven’t you?” Stan asked.
“Yes, Doctor. Ever since we were on the outside of this tunnel. But I’m not completely sure the job is getting done.”
“I hope it is. It could come in handy. Don’t you think so, Julie?”
“Sure, Stan,” Julie concurred. “But I don’t understand why you’re sending Norbert in there. We’ve already got what we came for.”
“You mean the harvester full of royal jelly? Yes, that was the purpose of our mission, and we have accomplished it. But we still have some time on our hands until Captain Hoban gets back into communication. So why not choose this moment for the advancement of science? It will profit all of mankind to know what the inside of a hive really looks like.”
“That’s true enough, Stan,” Julie said. “I didn’t know you cared that much about science, though.”
“Julie, there’s a lot I care for that I don’t put into words. You ought to know that.”
“I guess I do, Stan. You’re not really interested in getting rich from this mission, are you?”
“Not as interested as you, my dear. But that is be-cause I may not have much tiempo para gastarlo, as the Spanish say. But doing this is better than staying home trying to argue the doctors into giving me a better prognosis. At least here I can be with you, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
Stan coughed, self-conscious for a moment, then glanced again at the screen. “Norbert is getting deeper into the hive and we still haven’t heard from Captain Hoban. I think this might be a good moment for me to take a brief nap.” Without further ado, he got up and went to the cot in the lander’s rearmost living area.
Julie and Gill watched for a while in silence as Norbert, on the screen, continued to penetrate deeper into the hive. At last Julie said, “What did it mean, that thing he said in Spanish?”
“Tiempo para gastarlo,” said Gill. “It means time to enjoy it.’”
Julie shook her head. “Stan’s got a lot of knowledge.”
“Yes,” Gill said. “But perhaps not much time.”
There were four crew members with Red Badger as he set up his next plan. Walter Glint was there, of course, and Connie Mindanao, limping from a beamer scorch in the side, and Andy Groggins and Min Dwin, both unwounded. That was a pretty good force to match against the five or six loyal men Captain Hoban probably had available.
That was the good news. On the bad side, they had been forced back to a rear area of the ship. It would be difficult to mount an attack through the corridors, with Hoban and his officers now armed and ready for them. And probably the rest of the crew would come in on Hoban’s side, now that the first attempt at a takeover had failed. Things might have been different if Hoban hadn’t responded so quickly. Badger, who had thought the captain to be a burned-out case, had to reevaluate the situation now.
Red was annoyed that his first plan hadn’t succeeded. His people hadn’t moved fast enough, and Hoban had been unexpectedly decisive. Now the best move was to get off the Dolomite and plan to contact Potter on the Lancet. Trouble was, getting off the ship wasn’t going to be quite as simple as he’d like it to be.
There was just one lander left, the backup, now that Myakovsky and his people had gone to the surface of AR-32. It was sure to be guarded. Captain Hoban would have radioed the crew guarding the rear facilities, putting them on the alert. How many were there? Two or three, including the sergeant of the guards? Badger knew they’d have to get around or through them somehow.
“When we reach the storage bay, no firing until I say so,” Badger told the others. “I’ve got a little plan that just might work.”
“Whatever you say, Red,” said Glint.
Badger led them down the gleaming aluminum corridor, over deep-piled carpeting that seemed to soak up sound, past flickering lighting fixtures. The everpresent hum of the ship’s machinery sounded in the walls like somnolent wasps. The only thing that told of the recent action was a faint smell of propellant and burned insulation in the otherwise antiseptic air, that and the labored sound of Connie Mindanao’s breathing as she waited for the antipain shot to take effect.
At last they reached the transverse corridor that led to the pod bay. A faint hum warned Badger that all was not well here. He looked carefully and noted the violet-edged nimbus that extended from the walls.
“They’ve turned on the beam restraints,” Badger said.
Glint came up from the rear and examined the situation.
“They sure did, Red, but they don’t have them on full.”
Badger looked again. “You’re right, Walt. They must not be running full power through the ship’s net. Probably because of the damage we caused in the control room. Those beams should be visible to a distance of six inches from the side of the wall.”
Min Dwin looked the situation over and reported, “Their circle of interdiction will extend beyond their visible range.”
“Sure it will,” Badger said. “But there’ll still be a hole we can get through.”
The entrance to the corridor was like a tall O. The violet flame burned on all sides of it, surrounding it entirely, but leaving the middle of the hole open.
“Well have to dive through,” Glint said. “Make sure not to touch the sides or the bottom.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Badger said.
“Maybe not for you,” Connie Mindanao said. “But I’ve been wounded. How am I going to take a good jump through?”
A cruel little light glittered in Red Badger’s eyes. “Well take care of it for you, won’t we, Glint? Grab her other arm.”
Although she protested, the two big crewmen grabbed Connie. They swung her back and forth and, on the command from Badger, threw her headfirst through the corridor. Connie gave a shriek of protest as her foot trailed in the violet glow, but landed safe on the far side.
“Now the rest of us,” Badger said. “The lander is just around the next bend. We’re almost there!”
“Shit!” Morrison said. There was no doubt where that bunch were going. Straight at him. He started firing when they were still thirty yards off, then pushed the selector and fired a grenade. In fact, he fired off all his grenades, something he hadn’t meant to do, but he wasn’t used to these weapons, which were military style. The grenades went lobbing in the air, and most of them came down behind the aliens. Morrison’s last one hit an alien in the chest and, a moment later, exploded in its face. The alien was thrown backward by the force of the explosion. He picked himself up, but his face, such as it was, was ruined. His mouth was gaping open, and through his jaws protruded the smaller secondary jaws. They hung limp at the end of their muscular tube. The tube appeared to have been bitten through. The alien was not out of it yet, though. Shaking its head, it moved again toward Morrison, limping but still deadly.
Morrison didn’t have time for that one yet. The two closer ones were coming up fast. He took the one to his left, blasting caseless projectiles into its chest. He could hear firing near him. It was Eka Nu, who had moved up to join him. Farther away, Larrimer tried to join them, but a long black arm came out of nowhere and caught him in midstride. He jerked around like a trout on a hook as the alien brought him close to his face. Then it released the facehugger, and Larrimer fell to the ground, moaning and twitching. The alien hoisted him to his shoulder. Larrimer knew he was going to have the worst death he could have imagined, hanging just barely alive from a wall in the hive while a newborn grew within him, getting ready to eat its way out.
Morrison and Eka Nu had their hands full with the two aliens, who were coming at them at a full charge. Morrison saw his projectiles slam into the alien, and still it kept coming. He fired until the magazine was empty. He fired the last rounds with his eyes closed. When he opened them, the alien was dead at his feet Eka Nu hadn’t been so lucky, however. The alien on his side had kept on coming on all fours, had grabbed Eka Nu around the shoulders, hugged the crewman to him, then turned him. The two stared face-to-face for a moment, then the facehugger hit and Eka Nu knew no more.
Morrison found himself alone. He was panting, exhausted, trembling. The guys were all gone He looked around. He didn’t see any aliens. Maybe they had left Maybe he could still find …
Then something moved on the ground. It was the alien he had winged. He was still coming, crawling. And behind him, half a dozen others were starting over.
Yes, Morrison thought, I guess you could say the suppressors had failed. No other explanation.
I did the best I could, he thought as he turned the carbine so its muzzle faced him. He preferred a slug in the mouth to a facehugger.
The harvester’s entry lock gave way under repeated blows from the outside. The door flew open. Big-bodied, ghastly, and weird, three aliens crowded into it, their eager, evil faces turning at all angles on short powerful necks, checking out the place, alert for danger. They ignored Norbert, protected by his suppressor. The dead crewmen from the harvester required no attention.
Stan, watching from the lander, said, “All right, Norbert. Do it now.”
Norbert lifted Mac, removed his collar into which a suppressor was built, and handed him to one of the aliens. The alien showed no surprise, quietly accepted Mac from Norbert’s arms.
Handling the dog carefully, the alien turned, left the ship, and joined the others outside. Then, as if in response to an inaudible signal, they all started marching across the plain. Stan, Gill, and Julie watched on their screen as Norbert fell into line behind the group of aliens carrying Mac. Watching from the lander through Norbert’s vision sensors was uncannily like being within the robot alien himself, feeling his body sway and move as it negotiated the uneven ground. Stan had to adjust the audio because the wind out there on AR-32’s plain had risen swiftly after the mist dissipated and now was shrieking like a banshee, pushing and pulling against the line of aliens, slowing but not stopping them as sand was alternately pushed into mounds in front of them and then suddenly scoured away.
They were moving toward the hive, which was now and then revealed as Norbert changed the angle of his vision from the ground immediately in front of him to the hazy horizon line. The hive was still quite a long way away, perhaps a hundred yards, when the aliens stopped and began looking around.
Stan leaned close to the screen and stared but he couldn’t tell what they were looking for a specially coded pheromone signal, perhaps, because they fanned out and continued searching, their heads turning back and forth like hounds following a scent.
At last one of them found something. A silent signal seemed to pass between him and the others, and they all moved together to a piece of ground that looked no different to Stan’s eyes than any other. Rooting in the soil, the leading alien dislodged a large flat piece of stone, revealing a shallow tunnel leading into the earth.
The tunnel sloped downward for perhaps twenty feet, then leveled out. It had been made with some care. The light, friable soil was held in by flat rocks, some of which were highly phosphorescent.
“Look at how the roof is shored up,” Stan remarked to Gill.
That’s more technical skill than we ever gave the aliens credit for.”
“It is possible, sir,” said Gill, “that their tunnel-building abilities are genetic, as is the case with the ants you have studied.
“Yes,” Stan said. “Can you see what they’re doing, Ari?” He lifted the cybernetic ant on his fingertip and moved his hand toward the screen. “These are like big cousins of yours, aren’t they?”
Ari raised his head, but it was impossible to tell whether or not he was thinking anything.
Down in the tunnel, Norbert was reporting that the passageway was widening as they moved closer to the hive. Soon other branchings appeared as the aliens moved; as if by instinct, making their way through the increasingly complex maze without hesitation.
“Norbert, you’ve been laying down an electronic trail, haven’t you?” Stan asked.
“Yes, Doctor. Ever since we were on the outside of this tunnel. But I’m not completely sure the job is getting done.”
“I hope it is. It could come in handy. Don’t you think so, Julie?”
“Sure, Stan,” Julie concurred. “But I don’t understand why you’re sending Norbert in there. We’ve already got what we came for.”
“You mean the harvester full of royal jelly? Yes, that was the purpose of our mission, and we have accomplished it. But we still have some time on our hands until Captain Hoban gets back into communication. So why not choose this moment for the advancement of science? It will profit all of mankind to know what the inside of a hive really looks like.”
“That’s true enough, Stan,” Julie said. “I didn’t know you cared that much about science, though.”
“Julie, there’s a lot I care for that I don’t put into words. You ought to know that.”
“I guess I do, Stan. You’re not really interested in getting rich from this mission, are you?”
“Not as interested as you, my dear. But that is be-cause I may not have much tiempo para gastarlo, as the Spanish say. But doing this is better than staying home trying to argue the doctors into giving me a better prognosis. At least here I can be with you, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
Stan coughed, self-conscious for a moment, then glanced again at the screen. “Norbert is getting deeper into the hive and we still haven’t heard from Captain Hoban. I think this might be a good moment for me to take a brief nap.” Without further ado, he got up and went to the cot in the lander’s rearmost living area.
Julie and Gill watched for a while in silence as Norbert, on the screen, continued to penetrate deeper into the hive. At last Julie said, “What did it mean, that thing he said in Spanish?”
“Tiempo para gastarlo,” said Gill. “It means time to enjoy it.’”
Julie shook her head. “Stan’s got a lot of knowledge.”
“Yes,” Gill said. “But perhaps not much time.”
There were four crew members with Red Badger as he set up his next plan. Walter Glint was there, of course, and Connie Mindanao, limping from a beamer scorch in the side, and Andy Groggins and Min Dwin, both unwounded. That was a pretty good force to match against the five or six loyal men Captain Hoban probably had available.
That was the good news. On the bad side, they had been forced back to a rear area of the ship. It would be difficult to mount an attack through the corridors, with Hoban and his officers now armed and ready for them. And probably the rest of the crew would come in on Hoban’s side, now that the first attempt at a takeover had failed. Things might have been different if Hoban hadn’t responded so quickly. Badger, who had thought the captain to be a burned-out case, had to reevaluate the situation now.
Red was annoyed that his first plan hadn’t succeeded. His people hadn’t moved fast enough, and Hoban had been unexpectedly decisive. Now the best move was to get off the Dolomite and plan to contact Potter on the Lancet. Trouble was, getting off the ship wasn’t going to be quite as simple as he’d like it to be.
There was just one lander left, the backup, now that Myakovsky and his people had gone to the surface of AR-32. It was sure to be guarded. Captain Hoban would have radioed the crew guarding the rear facilities, putting them on the alert. How many were there? Two or three, including the sergeant of the guards? Badger knew they’d have to get around or through them somehow.
“When we reach the storage bay, no firing until I say so,” Badger told the others. “I’ve got a little plan that just might work.”
“Whatever you say, Red,” said Glint.
Badger led them down the gleaming aluminum corridor, over deep-piled carpeting that seemed to soak up sound, past flickering lighting fixtures. The everpresent hum of the ship’s machinery sounded in the walls like somnolent wasps. The only thing that told of the recent action was a faint smell of propellant and burned insulation in the otherwise antiseptic air, that and the labored sound of Connie Mindanao’s breathing as she waited for the antipain shot to take effect.
At last they reached the transverse corridor that led to the pod bay. A faint hum warned Badger that all was not well here. He looked carefully and noted the violet-edged nimbus that extended from the walls.
“They’ve turned on the beam restraints,” Badger said.
Glint came up from the rear and examined the situation.
“They sure did, Red, but they don’t have them on full.”
Badger looked again. “You’re right, Walt. They must not be running full power through the ship’s net. Probably because of the damage we caused in the control room. Those beams should be visible to a distance of six inches from the side of the wall.”
Min Dwin looked the situation over and reported, “Their circle of interdiction will extend beyond their visible range.”
“Sure it will,” Badger said. “But there’ll still be a hole we can get through.”
The entrance to the corridor was like a tall O. The violet flame burned on all sides of it, surrounding it entirely, but leaving the middle of the hole open.
“Well have to dive through,” Glint said. “Make sure not to touch the sides or the bottom.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Badger said.
“Maybe not for you,” Connie Mindanao said. “But I’ve been wounded. How am I going to take a good jump through?”
A cruel little light glittered in Red Badger’s eyes. “Well take care of it for you, won’t we, Glint? Grab her other arm.”
Although she protested, the two big crewmen grabbed Connie. They swung her back and forth and, on the command from Badger, threw her headfirst through the corridor. Connie gave a shriek of protest as her foot trailed in the violet glow, but landed safe on the far side.
“Now the rest of us,” Badger said. “The lander is just around the next bend. We’re almost there!”
52
“Do you ever get sick of us so-called real people?” Julie asked suddenly.
Gill looked up, startled. He had been intent on the screen, watching as Norbert followed the group of aliens through the tunnels. Gill wanted to be ready to report to Dr. Myakovsky when the doctor awoke from his nap. But Julie’s question seemed worthy of serious thought and he gave it, though not taking his eyes off the screen that showed Norbert’s progress.
“I’m afraid,” Gill said at last, “that I do not understand the question. It implies a precondition: that there is something in human behavior that I might get sick of. To what are you referring, Julie?”
“Wow!” Julie laughed. “I didn’t expect to get that much out of you. But it isn’t an answer.”
“I am asking you to define your question, Miss Lish.”
“You know very well what I mean,” Julie said.
Gill found himself caught up and bewildered by the complexities of human thinking. It seemed to him that Julie was saying one thing and meaning another. The technical semanticists who had programmed his response bank had not given sufficient attention to the problem of ambiguity. Perhaps they couldn’t solve it. Gill and Julie looked at each other for a few moments in silence. Then Gill spoke. “You are referring, perhaps, to the fact that human actions are not always logical in terms of advantage? That they sometimes appear to be downright self-defeating?”
“Okay, that’s one way of saying it,” Julie said. “What do you think of that?”
Again Gill paused before answering. “I can only believe that illogic is essential to being human, since it is the one thing we synthetics are not capable of.”
“You can’t go against logic and programming, is that it?”
“It is, Miss Lish.”
Julie didn’t answer at once. Presently she reached out and took Gill’s hand. Startled, the synthetic man let it go limp. Julie held it like she had never seen a hand before. She studied it, turning it slowly this way and that.
“What an amazing piece of construction this is.” She marveled. “How perfectly the skin has been rendered and textured. It’s hard to believe that anything as cunning as this could belong to someone not human.”
“Yet so it is,” Gill said.
“Is it? Or are you just being modest? A very human trait, I assure you.”
“I don’t know,” Gill muttered. “One thing I do know is, Dr. Myakovsky loves you very much.”
“Yes,” Julie said, “I think he does. It’s why he’s here, isn’t it?”
“I believe it is, Miss Lish.”
“But why then am I here?”
“I do not know,” Gill said. He hesitated. “It is a difficult way to get rich.”
“Do you know of any easy ways?” Julie asked. “Do you know any better ways to pass your time on Earth than doing what I’m doing now?”
Gill shook his head. “I know nothing about these things.”
Julie frowned and let his hand drop. “I like you, Gill, though you’re very naive about some things. Look, Norbert seems to have reached the queen’s chamber.”
“You’re right,” Gill said. “I’ll go wake up Dr. Myakovsky.”
“I appear to be in an anteroom deep in the middle of the hive,” Norbert reported. “I can see the queen’s chamber just beyond. These surfaces and angles resemble nothing in my memory bank, Doctor. They seem to have been constructed according to a completely alien system. But that would stand to reason, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re doing fine,” Stan said over the radio. “I just woke up and I’m pleased to see your progress. None of the aliens has sensed yet that you’re not one of them?”
“No, Doctor. Though their examinations grow more stringent the deeper we go into the hive.”
“I think we have them foxed,” Stan said, sounding very pleased with himself. “This anteroom you’re in appears to be an interesting place. Can you fix the focus? I can’t make out what’s on the walls.”
“They are large containers,” Norbert said. “They appear to be made from a waxy substance similar in molecular makeup to royal jelly. They appear to be filling those containers with jelly.”
“Might they be storing water?” Stan asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Norbert said. “The containers seem to be holding liquids of slightly different colors and densities. The aliens grow quite excited when they go near these containers. They have to be urged by what I take to be the guards to move on. I think that these containers hold royal jelly deposited by certain especially potent queens or queen types. These may be more efficacious than the common run of the jelly, and be prized by the queen accordingly.” “With your equipment,” Stan asked, “can you ascertain which is the purest?” “There’s no difficulty in that, Doctor.”
“Then draw me off a sample. This sounds like the pure royal jelly I need.”
After a moment Norbert said, “It is done.”
“Good,” Stan returned. “We’ll meet up soon. Bring the sample with you. What are they doing with Mac?”
“The alien holding him has brought him into the queen’s chamber. He is offering him to the queen.”
“That is the queen ahead? The image is not distinct.”
“There is a diffracting vapor in this room, Doctor. It is difficult to make out anything clearly. Take it easy, Mac!”
Stan said, “Why did you speak to the dog?”
“To get him to be quiet, sir. We don’t want to mar matters as he is presented to the queen. She is receiving him now. Although I am not expert in alien physiognomy, I’d say she finds pleasure in the gift She’s holding him up to her olfactory receptors—”
“You should have killed him first,” Julie interrupted.
“I was not instructed to do so,” Norbert said. “No matter. He is beyond pain now. Doctor, one of the guards is coming over to me. It is to be another inspection.”
“Well, you’ve passed them before.”
“Yes, sir. But there are three guards interested in me this time. It must be because I came so close to the queen. Or maybe it was when I took the sample. I am stepping up my production of pheromones.”
“Good idea,” said Stan. “Is it helping any?”
“It doesn’t seem to be doing much good. They are making odd head movements. I do not know what it means.”
“What the hell has gone wrong?” Stan asked urgently. “What are they doing now?”
“They seem suspicious. They have seized me. What do you want me to do, Doctor?”
“Damn it,” Stan spat. “I should have gotten you out of there before this! Norbert! Break free and get out!”
“Yes, sir,” Norbert said. The big robot whirled, tearing himself free from the aliens’ hooked claws. Then, dropping to all fours, he began scuttling down the corridor.
A reverse sensor in the back of Norbert’s head clicked on and showed the view: the long winding tunnel curving behind, the three aliens scurrying on all fours after him.
Norbert was running full out. Stan had never seen him go so fast before. A thrill of pride went through him as he witnessed his creation in action. With speed like that, surely …
Stan could tell from the jarring movement of his sensor lens when the alien guard landed on Norbert’s back. Stan winced as though the blow had landed on him. How could the guard be that fast? he wondered.
To Norbert he said, “Fight him off! Get out of there!”
“I’m trying, Dr. Myakovsky. But there are three of them—”
Abruptly the screen went blank.
Stan cried, “Norbert! Can you hear me? Come in!”
“Nothing,” Gill said. He touched a dial, shook his head. “He’s off the air.”
“He’s dead!” Julie cried.
“I didn’t want this to happen,” Stan screamed. “Not Norbert! Not Norbert!”
Julie said urgently, “Stan, get a hold of yourself.”
Stan shuddered and let out a deep breath. He seemed calmer. “Can you get Captain Hoban?” he asked.
“Not yet, sir,” Gill said.
Julie had stepped out of the control area for a moment. Now she was back, and her hair was flowing around her head like a network of electrical sparks had gotten into it.
“Stan,” she said. “I just checked the short-range weather forecaster in the rear cabin. It’s going haywire!” “Just what we need,” Stan groaned.
Gill looked up, startled. He had been intent on the screen, watching as Norbert followed the group of aliens through the tunnels. Gill wanted to be ready to report to Dr. Myakovsky when the doctor awoke from his nap. But Julie’s question seemed worthy of serious thought and he gave it, though not taking his eyes off the screen that showed Norbert’s progress.
“I’m afraid,” Gill said at last, “that I do not understand the question. It implies a precondition: that there is something in human behavior that I might get sick of. To what are you referring, Julie?”
“Wow!” Julie laughed. “I didn’t expect to get that much out of you. But it isn’t an answer.”
“I am asking you to define your question, Miss Lish.”
“You know very well what I mean,” Julie said.
Gill found himself caught up and bewildered by the complexities of human thinking. It seemed to him that Julie was saying one thing and meaning another. The technical semanticists who had programmed his response bank had not given sufficient attention to the problem of ambiguity. Perhaps they couldn’t solve it. Gill and Julie looked at each other for a few moments in silence. Then Gill spoke. “You are referring, perhaps, to the fact that human actions are not always logical in terms of advantage? That they sometimes appear to be downright self-defeating?”
“Okay, that’s one way of saying it,” Julie said. “What do you think of that?”
Again Gill paused before answering. “I can only believe that illogic is essential to being human, since it is the one thing we synthetics are not capable of.”
“You can’t go against logic and programming, is that it?”
“It is, Miss Lish.”
Julie didn’t answer at once. Presently she reached out and took Gill’s hand. Startled, the synthetic man let it go limp. Julie held it like she had never seen a hand before. She studied it, turning it slowly this way and that.
“What an amazing piece of construction this is.” She marveled. “How perfectly the skin has been rendered and textured. It’s hard to believe that anything as cunning as this could belong to someone not human.”
“Yet so it is,” Gill said.
“Is it? Or are you just being modest? A very human trait, I assure you.”
“I don’t know,” Gill muttered. “One thing I do know is, Dr. Myakovsky loves you very much.”
“Yes,” Julie said, “I think he does. It’s why he’s here, isn’t it?”
“I believe it is, Miss Lish.”
“But why then am I here?”
“I do not know,” Gill said. He hesitated. “It is a difficult way to get rich.”
“Do you know of any easy ways?” Julie asked. “Do you know any better ways to pass your time on Earth than doing what I’m doing now?”
Gill shook his head. “I know nothing about these things.”
Julie frowned and let his hand drop. “I like you, Gill, though you’re very naive about some things. Look, Norbert seems to have reached the queen’s chamber.”
“You’re right,” Gill said. “I’ll go wake up Dr. Myakovsky.”
“I appear to be in an anteroom deep in the middle of the hive,” Norbert reported. “I can see the queen’s chamber just beyond. These surfaces and angles resemble nothing in my memory bank, Doctor. They seem to have been constructed according to a completely alien system. But that would stand to reason, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re doing fine,” Stan said over the radio. “I just woke up and I’m pleased to see your progress. None of the aliens has sensed yet that you’re not one of them?”
“No, Doctor. Though their examinations grow more stringent the deeper we go into the hive.”
“I think we have them foxed,” Stan said, sounding very pleased with himself. “This anteroom you’re in appears to be an interesting place. Can you fix the focus? I can’t make out what’s on the walls.”
“They are large containers,” Norbert said. “They appear to be made from a waxy substance similar in molecular makeup to royal jelly. They appear to be filling those containers with jelly.”
“Might they be storing water?” Stan asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Norbert said. “The containers seem to be holding liquids of slightly different colors and densities. The aliens grow quite excited when they go near these containers. They have to be urged by what I take to be the guards to move on. I think that these containers hold royal jelly deposited by certain especially potent queens or queen types. These may be more efficacious than the common run of the jelly, and be prized by the queen accordingly.” “With your equipment,” Stan asked, “can you ascertain which is the purest?” “There’s no difficulty in that, Doctor.”
“Then draw me off a sample. This sounds like the pure royal jelly I need.”
After a moment Norbert said, “It is done.”
“Good,” Stan returned. “We’ll meet up soon. Bring the sample with you. What are they doing with Mac?”
“The alien holding him has brought him into the queen’s chamber. He is offering him to the queen.”
“That is the queen ahead? The image is not distinct.”
“There is a diffracting vapor in this room, Doctor. It is difficult to make out anything clearly. Take it easy, Mac!”
Stan said, “Why did you speak to the dog?”
“To get him to be quiet, sir. We don’t want to mar matters as he is presented to the queen. She is receiving him now. Although I am not expert in alien physiognomy, I’d say she finds pleasure in the gift She’s holding him up to her olfactory receptors—”
“You should have killed him first,” Julie interrupted.
“I was not instructed to do so,” Norbert said. “No matter. He is beyond pain now. Doctor, one of the guards is coming over to me. It is to be another inspection.”
“Well, you’ve passed them before.”
“Yes, sir. But there are three guards interested in me this time. It must be because I came so close to the queen. Or maybe it was when I took the sample. I am stepping up my production of pheromones.”
“Good idea,” said Stan. “Is it helping any?”
“It doesn’t seem to be doing much good. They are making odd head movements. I do not know what it means.”
“What the hell has gone wrong?” Stan asked urgently. “What are they doing now?”
“They seem suspicious. They have seized me. What do you want me to do, Doctor?”
“Damn it,” Stan spat. “I should have gotten you out of there before this! Norbert! Break free and get out!”
“Yes, sir,” Norbert said. The big robot whirled, tearing himself free from the aliens’ hooked claws. Then, dropping to all fours, he began scuttling down the corridor.
A reverse sensor in the back of Norbert’s head clicked on and showed the view: the long winding tunnel curving behind, the three aliens scurrying on all fours after him.
Norbert was running full out. Stan had never seen him go so fast before. A thrill of pride went through him as he witnessed his creation in action. With speed like that, surely …
Stan could tell from the jarring movement of his sensor lens when the alien guard landed on Norbert’s back. Stan winced as though the blow had landed on him. How could the guard be that fast? he wondered.
To Norbert he said, “Fight him off! Get out of there!”
“I’m trying, Dr. Myakovsky. But there are three of them—”
Abruptly the screen went blank.
Stan cried, “Norbert! Can you hear me? Come in!”
“Nothing,” Gill said. He touched a dial, shook his head. “He’s off the air.”
“He’s dead!” Julie cried.
“I didn’t want this to happen,” Stan screamed. “Not Norbert! Not Norbert!”
Julie said urgently, “Stan, get a hold of yourself.”
Stan shuddered and let out a deep breath. He seemed calmer. “Can you get Captain Hoban?” he asked.
“Not yet, sir,” Gill said.
Julie had stepped out of the control area for a moment. Now she was back, and her hair was flowing around her head like a network of electrical sparks had gotten into it.
“Stan,” she said. “I just checked the short-range weather forecaster in the rear cabin. It’s going haywire!” “Just what we need,” Stan groaned.
53
“There’s the Bay port, just ahead,” Andy Groggins said. He had run ahead of Badger and the rest of the party. He had a slug-thrower with telescopic wire stuck under his arm. Strapped to his waist was a Geiss needle. He’d tied a bit of cloth around his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes.
“We’ll just ease our way in it,” Red Badger said. His synthide shirt was torn, revealing his hairy freckled chest and prominent paunch. His small eyes gleamed as he pressed forward. He had a Krag beamer under his arm, its selector pointing to rapid intermittent.
The corridor widened at this point. There were separate passageways leading to “stores” in one direction and to “power” in the other.
As they came out into the wide opened area between corridors, a voice called out, “Freeze, you!”
Badger stood motionless. The others, coming along behind him, managed to slink into the shadows. But Red Badger felt very exposed. He didn’t let his apprehension show, however.
He took two casual steps forward and said, “It’s all right, the captain sent us.” “He didn’t tell me nothin’ about that,” the voice said.
Badger had it located now. It was coming from a paint locker on the far side of the corridor. The guard who was stationed here must have taken refuge when the trouble began elsewhere in the ship. But where was his partner?
“I don’t blame you for being cautious,” Badger said. “But I’m telling you it’s all right. We’re here to relieve you.”
As he talked he peered ahead, trying to figure out how long it would take him to blast through the paint locker and kill the man inside. Too long, he decided. The guard could get him in a single well-placed burst first.
“Stop right there and drop your weapons,” the guard called out.
“You’re making a mistake,” Badger said, and kept on coming. “Captain Hoban told us to secure this area as quickly as possible. Damn it, man, this is serious!”
“Stop right now, or—”
At that moment there was a double burst of slugthrower fire as Glint and Connie opened up almost simultaneously from opposite sides of the corridor. They held down their fire while the paint locker rattled up and down and bounced against the corridor wall, finally letting up only after blowing the door off the hinges and seeing the single guard inside fall out onto the deck.
“Let’s go,” Badger said, leading the way to the pod. “We’re getting out of here.”
“We’ll just ease our way in it,” Red Badger said. His synthide shirt was torn, revealing his hairy freckled chest and prominent paunch. His small eyes gleamed as he pressed forward. He had a Krag beamer under his arm, its selector pointing to rapid intermittent.
The corridor widened at this point. There were separate passageways leading to “stores” in one direction and to “power” in the other.
As they came out into the wide opened area between corridors, a voice called out, “Freeze, you!”
Badger stood motionless. The others, coming along behind him, managed to slink into the shadows. But Red Badger felt very exposed. He didn’t let his apprehension show, however.
He took two casual steps forward and said, “It’s all right, the captain sent us.” “He didn’t tell me nothin’ about that,” the voice said.
Badger had it located now. It was coming from a paint locker on the far side of the corridor. The guard who was stationed here must have taken refuge when the trouble began elsewhere in the ship. But where was his partner?
“I don’t blame you for being cautious,” Badger said. “But I’m telling you it’s all right. We’re here to relieve you.”
As he talked he peered ahead, trying to figure out how long it would take him to blast through the paint locker and kill the man inside. Too long, he decided. The guard could get him in a single well-placed burst first.
“Stop right there and drop your weapons,” the guard called out.
“You’re making a mistake,” Badger said, and kept on coming. “Captain Hoban told us to secure this area as quickly as possible. Damn it, man, this is serious!”
“Stop right now, or—”
At that moment there was a double burst of slugthrower fire as Glint and Connie opened up almost simultaneously from opposite sides of the corridor. They held down their fire while the paint locker rattled up and down and bounced against the corridor wall, finally letting up only after blowing the door off the hinges and seeing the single guard inside fall out onto the deck.
“Let’s go,” Badger said, leading the way to the pod. “We’re getting out of here.”
54
“It’s Badger and his men,” one of the engineers remarked, reading the terse information that flowed to the TV screen from all parts of the ship. “He’s killed the guard.”
“Damn it!” Captain Hoban said. “Can you see what they’re doing now?”
“They’ve just entered the pod.”
“Seal the ports!” Hoban ordered.
“Too late. They’ve already opened them.”
“Close them again!”
The engineer punched buttons then shook his head. “They’ve locked them into place. They’re blasting off.”
Hoban watched on the screen as a schematic came up, showing the Dolomite’s landing pod lifting out of its bay and maneuvering away from the ship’s side.
“I can still pull them back with the short-range tractors,” the engineer said, his fingers poised on the controls.
Captain Hoban hesitated. At this range, he knew that the tractors would pull the pod apart. Badger and the others wouldn’t stand a chance. He didn’t want to go that far. There would be a court of inquiry over this. He needed to keep his record clean.
“Book their departure in the ship’s log,” he ordered.
“I don’t know that they’ll make it,” the engineering officer said. “The weather’s really bad out there.”
Hoban looked and saw that an entire weather front had moved in while they were dealing with Badger. Long ragged clouds covered the planet’s surface, clouds that were whipped and torn apart by the wind’s violent action. Lightning flashed, huge jagged blue-violet bolts, several miles long, lancing out of the black-bellied clouds into the naked land below. Although the Dolomite was well above it, Hoban gave an involuntary shudder at the size of the storm.
“Damn it!” Captain Hoban said. “Can you see what they’re doing now?”
“They’ve just entered the pod.”
“Seal the ports!” Hoban ordered.
“Too late. They’ve already opened them.”
“Close them again!”
The engineer punched buttons then shook his head. “They’ve locked them into place. They’re blasting off.”
Hoban watched on the screen as a schematic came up, showing the Dolomite’s landing pod lifting out of its bay and maneuvering away from the ship’s side.
“I can still pull them back with the short-range tractors,” the engineer said, his fingers poised on the controls.
Captain Hoban hesitated. At this range, he knew that the tractors would pull the pod apart. Badger and the others wouldn’t stand a chance. He didn’t want to go that far. There would be a court of inquiry over this. He needed to keep his record clean.
“Book their departure in the ship’s log,” he ordered.
“I don’t know that they’ll make it,” the engineering officer said. “The weather’s really bad out there.”
Hoban looked and saw that an entire weather front had moved in while they were dealing with Badger. Long ragged clouds covered the planet’s surface, clouds that were whipped and torn apart by the wind’s violent action. Lightning flashed, huge jagged blue-violet bolts, several miles long, lancing out of the black-bellied clouds into the naked land below. Although the Dolomite was well above it, Hoban gave an involuntary shudder at the size of the storm.