The Godmen Read online

  As Yrra led deeper into the dark, monolithic maze, Harlow felt the whole weight of the place on his spirits.

  How long until sunrise?

  Why did Dundonald have to go Vorn-hunting anyway?

  Why—

  "Just ahead,” came Yrra's whisper. “There is a guard. You see him?"

  They were in a stone alley so narrow that Harlow would have called it a hallway if it were not open to the stars. The vague light showed a Ktashan man, tall in his skimpy robe, standing in front of a metal door with a thing in his hand that looked like a metal bar ending in a blade.

  Harlow said, “If we rush him, he'll let out a yell. Yrra, can you circle around and approach him from the other side — get him to turn his back on us?"

  For answer, she slipped away the way they had come. Harlow heard Taggart move uneasily, and then glimpsed a gun in his hand.

  "Oh, no,” he whispered. “No shooting. We could never explain that away to Survey Center, and anyway it would rouse the whole place."

  "All right, but it's going to make it tougher,” said Taggart. “That bar-sword looks like a mean weapon."

  Yrra's voice now came out of the dark from ahead. She was speaking to the guard, and Harlow gathered that she was asking to see her brother.

  The Ktashan man turned toward her as she approached, and grunted, a gruff refusal.

  "Now,” said Harlow.

  He led the way, walking on tiptoes like a child playing a game. Then he jumped on the guard's back.

  He got one hand over the man's mouth to prevent an outcry. But he hadn't bargained that this Ktashan would be as strong as a bull, and he was. The man tore at Harlow's wrist, and reached around with his other hand to get hold of Harlow anywhere he could.

  It was humiliating to realize that while you were reasonably young and strong, you were up against someone a lot stronger. Harlow realized it, and clung frantically, and then there was a thumping sound and the man collapsed. He fell so suddenly that Harlow fell with him, and then he saw that the Ktashan was out cold. He scrambled up.

  Taggart chuckled. “More ways to use a gun than firing it,” he said. He had rapped the guard over the head with the barrel.

  Yrra was already at the metal door, tugging vainly at the catch. She turned and said swiftly, “It's locked."

  "I expected that,” said Harlow. “Stand back a little."

  He put on the heavy gloves he had in one pocket, and drew out from another pocket the compact little cutting-torch he had brought. He touched the stud and drew the thin, crackling tongue of flame around the lock.

  A piece of the door that included the lock fell out. Harlow grabbed it just in time to keep it from clanging on the stone.

  Taggart reached out and pulled the door open by the cut-out notch, and then let go of it and cursed feelingly and blew upon his burned fingers.

  Yrra darted through into the dark beyond the door. They heard her call softly.

  "Brai!"

  Harlow went in after her. Taggart had a pocket-light and flashed it on.

  * * *

  In a bare little stone room without windows and with no furniture but a wooden cot, a young Ktashan man was babbling excitedly. He turned an eager, good-looking golden face toward Harlow and Taggart.

  "I have told him,” Yrra said rapidly. “He will tell you everything he told Dundonald, if we get away."

  "Dundonald was my friend,” Brai said proudly, in imperfect English. “I learned many things from him. I learned your language—"

  "That's fine,” said Harlow hastily, “but the main thing is to get out of this rat-trap quick. We can talk when we get back to the Thetis."

  They went out, and Taggart examined the stunned guard and then hauled him into the cell he had guarded.

  "He'll come to in an hour or less,” said Taggart. “But if we're not back to the ships by then, we'll never be."

  Within fifteen minutes they had slipped back through the dark streets and were hurrying out onto the starlit plain.

  Harlow could not believe it. He had felt a dismal certainty that they would be found and trapped in that labyrinthine monolith, and it still seemed impossible to him that they had gone in and got Brai and got out again without even a challenge. The fact that most of the Ktashans were out on the plain watching the Earth ships was all that had made it possible.

  They went back in their wide circle to avoid the Ktashans on the plain, moving fast and not talking. In less than the hour Taggart had mentioned, they had circled clear around and were approaching the two starships from the side farthest away from the town.

  The lights of Taggart's ship, the Sunfire, which was nearest to them, now shone brightly in the night. As they came toward it, Taggart uttered a low whistle. Next moment a half-dozen men appeared between them and the Sunfire, coming toward them.

  "There was no need to Post men out here,” said Harlow, irritated.

  "Ob, yes, there was,” Taggart said.

  There was a mocking quality in his voice that Harlow had not heard before, and he turned quickly. The light from the Sunfire fell on Taggart's rawboned face, and he was smiling, and the gun in his hand was pointing at Harlow.

  "I don't want to kill you but I don't particularly mind if I have to,” said Taggart. “Stand still."

  Harlow stared, too shocked for the moment to get it. “What the hell kind of a Survey captain are you—” he began, and then he got it. “You're no Star Survey man, and I was stupid enough to fall for it!"

  "That's right,” said Taggart lightly. “But I told you the truth about one thing. The Cartel does have ships out hunting for Dundonald and the Vorn. And the Sunfire, for all that we pasted a Survey emblem on it, is one of those ships."

  The catastrophic implications of it hit Harlow. The Cartel who were after the Vorn and their secret had an efficient agent in Taggart. The man had followed him to ML441 in his hoaxed-up ship, had boldly gone in with him after Brai when he learned that Brai was the key to Dundonald and the Vorn, and now he would—

  "Brai — Yrra — run!” yelled Harlow, and plunged straight at Taggart.

  He was so mad right down to his roots that the gun facing him didn't matter. All that mattered was his raging resolution that Taggart's clever trick was not going to succeed.

  Taggart hadn't quite expected that crazy lunge. He fired, but a moment too late, and the gun roared close beside Harlow's ear as he hit Taggart.

  They went over onto the grass and rolled struggling, and in one of the moments he could see, Harlow glimpsed Yrra running like a deer with men after her, while other men had hold of Brai and were beating him into submission.

  There were distant yells of alarm and Harlow knew the gun must have been heard by some of his own men at the Thetis. He struggled furiously in the grass with Taggart, to keep a second gunshot from tearing through his middle.

  Then the world caved in on him.

  The blow didn't feel like a blow, it felt like the sky falling. No, it was he who was falling, down through infinities of darkness and pain. One of Taggart's men had run up and hit him with something and his nerveless hands could no longer hold onto anything.

  He heard a voice saying hoarsely, “The Survey men are coming!"

  He heard Taggart's voice saying, “We've got to jump fast."

  Then he heard nothing and felt nothing for a time that seemed very long though later he knew he had only blacked out for a few moments. He struggled fiercely back to consciousness. He was lying in the grass and voices somewhere were yelling louder and the Sunfire loomed dark and big and still only a few hundred feet from him.

  As Harlow tried to get up, the slim projecting ion-drive tubes along the keel and stern of the Sunfire shot forth their ghostly spume of light. Under the impetus of the drive, the ship rushed upward and a shock-wave of air hit Harlow and rocked him back off his feet.

  The Sunfire was gone.

  It had happened so fast, from the moment when Taggart's men had come out of the darkness, that Harlow still could no
t quite take it in.

  Then his own men were around him, Kwolek and Garcia and the others, yelling to know what had happened. But Yrra clung to his arm and made herself heard above them.

  "Brai! Where is Brai?"

  Harlow looked around, his head aching and everything still in a fog. He spoke thickly, in her language.

  "Brai's gone? Then they took him with them. They would, of course. He knows where Dundonald went and that's what Taggart is after."

  "What the devil is the Survey coming to anyway?” cried Kwolek, in tones of pure outrage. “One captain knocking out another and shooting and—"

  "Taggart's not Survey, he was a fake and his ship was a fake,” Harlow said. He added bitterly, “And I fell for it, he fooled me one hundred percent."

  He pushed aside Kwolek's steadying hand. “I'm all right. We've got to take off fast. We're going to run down Taggart, and we mustn't let him get out of radar range. Move!"

  They moved, running back to the Thetis, Kwolek bawling orders. But Yrra still clung fiercely to Harlow.

  "I am going with you,” she said. “After Brai."

  He was about to tell her that she couldn't and then he thought better of it. She had helped Brai break out of his cell, and when her people found that out he didn't know what they would do to her.

  "All right, but we've got to take off fast,” he said. “Come on.” He ran, stumbling a little, toward the Thetis. Kwolek came running to meet them, and there was rage on his round red face.

  "No take-off — not for a while,” Kwolek said. “They were clever, blast them. Take a look at this."

  "This” was one of the Thetis' projecting stern ion-tubes. Someone with a cutting-torch had cut halfway through it where it came out of the hull.

  "That tube has to be replaced,” said Kwolek, “or it'll blow high and handsome the minute we turn on the drive."

  Harlow thought that Taggart hadn't overlooked a thing.

  As they stood, stricken into silence, they heard a distant roar of voices. It came from out on the dark plain. Torches, very many of them now, were moving out there, and they were moving fast toward the Thetis. The shouting of the men who carried them swelled louder.

  "My people have found out that Brai escaped,” said Yrra. “They'll think we have Brai here, and—"

  She did not need to finish. The intentions of the infuriated Ktashans were very clear.

  CHAPTER IV

  It was very noisy inside the Thetis. Part of the noise was being made by Kwolek and his crew down in the bowels of the drive-room, but only a small part. Most of it came from outside.

  Harlow felt as though he were standing in the interior of a great iron-sided drum. Yrra, beside him, had her hands over her ears. He could feel her flinch at the loudest and he knew she was frightened — not of the noises, but what they could mean to her.

  The screen in front of them showed the ground around the ship. It swarmed with Ktashans. The sun was high now, and between its heat and their own activities most of the men had thrown off their short robes, leaving only loose drawers that did not hamper their movements. Their golden bodies gleamed, glowing with energy and sweat. They had hammered tirelessly on the Thetis' hull for more than three hours now and they showed no signs of flagging. So far the durametal hull had resisted everything they had from stones to crude drills and wrecking bars. But the stubborn methodical battering was getting on Harlow's nerves.

  He leaned over to the intercom. “How's it going?"

  Kwolek's voice answered him in a rasping snarl. “It won't go at all if you don't quit pestering me. Some fool question every five minutes!

  "Okay,” said Harlow. “Okay."

  He didn't blame Kwolek. The boys were doing the best they could. They could have replaced the damaged tube in half the time from outside, but the Ktashans out there made that impractical. So it was being done under emergency-in-space procedure, from inside, only one difference, which would help some. They didn't have to wear vac-suits.

  "It won't be long now,” he said to Yrra, having to shout to make himself heard but trying to make it a comforting shout. He knew what she was thinking. He was thinking the same thing himself. If the Ktashans ever managed to break their way inside, their chances for living long were poor. They didn't have Brai now, but they had committed their sin against custom and tabu when they got Brai out of his prison. And what had happened afterward would probably only make N'Kann more determined than ever to punish them for having set loose no one knew what menaces connected with the Vorn.

  He took Yrra by the shoulders and turned her away from the screen. He said, “I want to know about the Vorn — everything that your brother told Dundonald."

  She was scared, but after a moment she answered him.

  "He told Dundonald all that he knew, all that my people know. It is all legend, for it was two generations ago.” She thought a moment, then went on. “The Vorn came to this world—"

  Harlow interrupted. “How did they come? What did they look like?"

  Yrra stared. “It was not known how they came. They had no ship like this one — no ship at all. They suddenly were just here."

  And that, Harlow thought, was the same story that the Survey had heard on several worlds about the Vorn. They did not use ships, they just appeared. Some method of instantaneous transmission of matter seemed the only answer to that riddle. It was small wonder that the Cartel back on Earth was grabbing for such a secret.

  "As to how they looked,” Yrra was continuing, “the stories are strange. It is said that they were human, but not human like us — that they were of force and flame, not of flesh. Is such a thing possible?"

  That, too, was the cryptic description that other worlds had given the Survey. It could mean anything, or nothing.

  "I don't know,” said Harlow. “Go on."

  "It is said,” Yrra told him, “that the Vorn spoke to our people in some way. Our people were very afraid. But the Vorn said they had not come to harm them, that they were star-rovers who visited many worlds and were merely visiting this one. They said they would go back to their own world, but might come here again some day."

  "Where did the Vorn say their home-world was?” asked Harlow.

  It was the crucial question and he waited tensely for the answer.

  "In the Great Blackness,” said Yrra, using the name given by the Ktashans to the Horsehead that was such a big feature of their night sky. “The Vorn said that beyond two blue stars that burn at the edge of the Blackness there is a bay that runs deep into it, and that a green star far in that bay was their native star."

  Harlow's hopes leaped up. He had noted the twin blue stars on the fringe of the Horsehead — and this sounded like a clear clue.

  "Is that what Brai told Dundonald?” he asked, and Yrra nodded.

  "Yes. And that is why my people condemned Brai. For when Dundonald left here he said he would search for the world of the Vorn, and so great is my people's reverence for the Vorn that they thought that sacrilege."

  The banging upon the hull of the Thetis suddenly stopped. In the abrupt silence, Harlow thought hard. He said, “Whether or not the Vorn are really there, that's where Dundonald went so we have to go there. And that's where Taggart will have headed, as soon as he got this information out of Brai."

  "Brai would never tell a treacherous enemy like that anything — not even under torture,” Yrra declared proudly.

  Harlow looked at her a little a little pityingly. “You don't know Earthmen. They're too clever to use torture any more. They use a process led narco-synthesis, and other things. Brai will tell all he knows."

  Yrra did not answer. She had turned to look at the screen and now her eyes were wide and bright with a new terror.

  Harlow followed her gaze, and his own nerves tightened with a shock. He saw now why the Ktashans had stopped hammering on the Thetis' hull.

  The golden men were all running out onto the plain to meet something that was coming slowly from the city. It trundled ponderously o
n wooden wheels, pushed by a gang of sweating men. It was a massive ram made of a colossal tree-trunk tipped with stone.

  Harlow jumped to the intercom. “Kwolek, we've got maybe ten minutes! They're coming with a nutcracker that'll spring our plates for sure."

  "Ten minutes? We need an hour more!” answered Kwolek's voice. “We've unshipped the damaged tube but it'll take that long to install a new one."

  Harlow thought a moment, then made his decision. There was only one thing to be done.

  "Suspend work,” he said. “Seal the tube-mounting and come up here. We'll take off as is."

  "Are you crazy?” Kwolek howled, but Harlow snapped off the intercom.

  Kwolek and Garcia came into the bridge a minute later. Kwolek's red face was smeared with dirt and he was badly upset.

  "You ought to know that a takeoff on unbalanced tubes will sunfish the Thetis all over,” he said. Then he saw the screen and the sweating, triumphant Ktashan men on the plain, all pushing their massive ram faster and faster toward the ship. He said, “Oh.” He bent over the intercom and spoke into it loud urgent words, ending up with a profane order to get it done fast. Harlow took Yrra by the arm and pulled her away from the screen, where she was still watching with fascinated horror the ponderous approach of the ram.

  "This is going to be rough,” he told her. “You'll probably be scared to death, but it won't last long."

  Either way, he thought, it won't last long. If we make it, or if we don't.

  He strapped her into his own bunk, making her as secure and comfortable as possible, and when he got through she looked so small and patient and scared and too proud to show it that he kissed her. Then he ran back to the control room.

  Kwolek and Garcia were already strapped in, Kwolek with his ear glued to the intercom and both of them watching the screen. The ram was much closer now. Its massive head of red stone looked and was heavy enough to batter down the stone walls of a city.

  Kwolek said, “Another couple of minutes. We don't want to take any chances of the seal blowing out when we hit vacuum."