Space Trap Page 11

  She got up and ran to him, seizing the translator. Her dress of living material instantly grew a necklace to support the device once more. Thayenta slipped it onto the glittering thong and said, “Briv has stopped the death-bringer … for a while. He will confuse their minds, for a while.”

  “Doesn’t he realize what we’re up against?” Ken said hoarsely. “It can’t be for just ‘a while’. It has to be permanently. The minute Briv lets go, Eads will return to the same madness. He’s determined to kill ah the M’Nae.”

  Troubled, her large eyes moist, Thayenta said, “For a while Briv is watching. You must … make the death-bringers leave.”

  “We can’t! Their ship’s wrecked, just like ours. Humans can’t teleport from one planet to another.”

  “Ken,” R.C. said heavily. “You’re right, but we haven’t the time.”

  “Okay!” Ken looked at Thayenta, trying to read a response to his explanation.

  “Can … can not,” she said, slumping. “For a while.” She hesitated. Possibly the telepathic message she had received was too depressing to repeat. Finally Thayenta blurted, “We must help ourselves. Briv will watch, send mist to confuse the death-bringers —”

  “But only for a while,” Ken finished, repeating the key phrase in Briv’s strategy. “Thayenta, have him teleport you out of here. You can get away. R.C. and I will manage on our own.”

  Tears brimmed on Thayenta’s black eyelashes. She looked frightened. “I do not … know how. I am a … student.”

  “Dammit, Briv can teleport you out of here!” Ken gazed around angrily, addressing the air, the invisible presence of the M’Nae leader. “You can’t be that cold-blooded. We aren’t going to betray you. She doesn’t need to watch us like a hawk and risk getting killed. Get her out of here. Please!”

  There was no reply. Thayenta bit her lip, snuffling back tears. Briv was not going to remove Thayenta from the line of fire.

  Briv certainly was no fool. He had seen Eads in motion. And if the alien could not see that the colonists’ leader was insane, he still must understand that these were his enemies, potential attackers. Briv was using Thayenta as a spy, readying for that attack.

  Did he intend to pit ten M’Nae against dozens of colonists armed with needlers?

  “Noland,” R.C. said mournfully, “what have you done? What the hell have you done? An interstellar war. You’re totally out of your league. Your philosophy’s no good. You’re going to get yourself and all these colonists killed.”

  “He can’t hear you,” Ken said. Ordinarily R.C. would have seen that, but pain was muddling his mind. “No! Don’t, R.C.!” The pilot had reached out to touch Eads’ arm. At Ken’s shout, Zachary aborted the gesture, recognizing the danger.

  Ken studied Eads’ blank face a few seconds more, then lowered his needler. So long as Briv held the man in that telepathic trance, the weapon was unnecessary.

  One of the guards mumbled, waking up. Ken applied one last jab to the man’s jaw. “We’d better get out of here,” he suggested.

  “Yes!” Thayenta agreed, urgently tugging at Ken’s remaining sleeve. “Now!”

  Ken hurried to R.C., slung the captain’s arm over his shoulder. “Come on. You can’t reach Eads. Give it up.”

  “All right.” He leaned heavily on Ken as they lurched toward the door. Ken paused on the threshold, assessing the situation outside.

  *

  Clouds of purplish mist wafted through the little village and across the plowed fields.

  If they used it well, it could serve as a smoke screen for Thayenta and the Surveymen. There were some colonists a short way down the village main street. They were waving their arms with great agitation, arguing about the strange mist.

  Grateful for the delay, Ken asked, “Thayenta, how much time before Briv takes back his purple fog?”

  “Two … two valia,” she said, then made a small noise Ken interpreted as self-disgust, annoyed with herself for her inability to convert M’Nae to human terms.

  “Long time?” Ken pleaded. “Or short?”

  She held her hands half a meter apart, and struggled to find a word. “In … middle,” Thayenta said, looking apologetic. She pointed northeast, toward the water wheel and the trail leading to the stream. “We go back to M’Nae.”

  “We’d never make it,” R.C. warned. He sagged, and Ken took a firmer purchase on the man’s arm.

  Forced to agree, Ken said, “No, not likely. We’ll never get through unless Briv has incapacitated every single guard along the way, Thayenta.”

  She caught his meaning and imitated a human’s negative head shake. “No. They are confused. Only Wild-Eyes, the chief death-bringer, is held without thought.”

  “Eads,” Ken guessed. “Briv’s put him in some kind of trance — for a while. We’re on our own as far as the rest of the colonists go.”

  R.C. was silent, breathing hard, and functioning on courage alone. Most of his weight was now carried by Ken. Suddenly Ken exclaimed, “The ship! Guards will be watching for us to make a break toward the trail — not in the other direction. There must be plenty of hiding places in a Class-D cargo carrier. Can you make it that far, Captain?”

  Sweat dotted R.C.’s brow. Somewhere he found the strength to say, “If I can’t, leave me. You and the girl get away. I’ll take my chances arguing Noland into a truce —”

  “Maybe.” Ken wouldn’t put any bets on that. But there was no time to debate the matter. “Thayenta, see that lane going between these two buildings? You go down there and keep out of sight. Hurry.”

  She answered him with a sweetly encouraging smile. The bruise on her cheek only added to her piquant beauty, making her look more vulnerable. She ran to the alley between the community center and an adjoining stone and log structure. In the drifting fog, she seemed to melt into nothing. Camouflaged by Briv’s smoke screen, Thayenta clung close to walls, as inconspicuous as a wraith.

  As the two men struggled to the narrow dirt lane, R.C. breathed-through his teeth. Ken half dragged the pilot into the shadowy alley Thayenta had taken. The woman had reached the rear of the building and was on the lookout for guards or wandering colonists.

  Briv’s mist floated eerily, folding and unfolding itself like a living thing. For all Ken knew, it was. There was so much Ken and Thayenta could exchange, discovering each other’s culture and peoples. They were disparate species, but held much in common.

  If only Briv would teleport the three of them safely out of the colonists’ village back to the room with the prism. Ken laughed bitterly at his own wish. When he was imprisoned in the M’Nae stronghold, he had longed for freedom. Now he wanted to return to that foggy haven.

  “How’s it going?” he asked R.C. gently. The pilot muttered that he was doing fine. He wasn’t, but they were both trying to keep up their courage. “Hang on. It’s not too far.”

  That was not precisely a lie. But every step of the way would seem a kilometer to the injured man. Ken hesitated, wanting to give R.C. as much rest as he could. Plainly Zachary was steeling himself for the ordeal ahead.

  Briv had to sense, telepathically, that R.C. was in agony, but that cold-blooded bastard was indifferent. He studied and watched them like bugs impaled on pins. It was an excellent way for Briv to learn about humans without becoming too involved, but it was tough on his guinea pigs!

  “Thayenta, the big ship, over that way,” Ken instructed. “And remember to hide in the mist as we go along. Okay?”

  Thayenta nodded and skipped into the mist, heading in the general direction of the wrecked Class-D. In her wake, Ken and R.C. moved awkwardly. A three-legged race bereft of all humor, theirs was a grim struggle to survive. R.C. wheezed heavily from his heroic efforts, and several times he almost slipped out of Ken’s grasp, half-fainting. But each time he rallied, bravely hopping along, his bloody leg dragging.

  On the grassy slope, the going became tougher. Ken waded through it on a zigzag course, seeking bare ground and keeping Thayenta in sight in t
he purple mist.

  A pile of crumpled metal blocked Ken’s path, and he laboriously detoured around it. Then there was another pile, and another from debris strewn in the wake of the Class-D’s death slide into the valley. The colonists were collecting the junk, sorting it into piles to be salvaged later. They had already built the waterwheel from such scrap. They were fanatics, but also hardworking and resourceful. If only the colonists and the M’Nae could bury their differences.

  “Must … be getting close,” R.C. panted.

  “Soon,” Ken replied. In this fog, he couldn’t gauge the distance accurately. The ground was rising slowly, gradually angling up toward the valley’s back wall.

  Yes, there it was! Ahead now, through a gap in the purple mist, Ken saw the immense bulk of the wrecked cargo ship.

  More debris and storage dumps blocked their way — little pyramids of metal and plastic, much of it charred and fused into fantastic shapes by the terrible stresses of the crash.

  Had the cargo ship suffered the same mysterious fire that destroyed the survey ship? How badly was she wrecked inside? Where would be the best place to hide themselves and avoid pursuit?

  Ken searched his memories for a design diagram of a Class-D. He wished he had paid closer attention during those ship identification lectures back at the Academy. It was a hell of a time to need a refresher course! Then it hadn’t seemed important, but it was essential now. Where were the hatches, corridors, all the nooks and crannies that could hide a wounded pilot, his apprentice, and an alien woman?

  Although there was some distance yet to go before they’d reach her, the ship loomed above them. The forekeel was buried meters deep in the valley wall, which meant there was no chance to use the forward hatches. She was enmeshed in earth and grass and rocks up to the third-level. That would leave port and starboard and rear accesses.

  R.C. grunted and gasped with each step as Ken helped the pilot along, taking it as slowly as he dared. Pursuers? He hadn’t heard any … yet. The mist seemed to muffle sound as well as cloud vision.

  Hunting a likely entryway, Ken studied the gigantic bulk of the Class-D. It could not be too far up the side. R.C. was unable to climb with his leg wound. And it could not be too obvious — nothing that would attract the attention of Eads and his people.

  Thayenta scampered back to the two men, and the purple mist swirled about the three of them. He heard faint shouts from their left. The words were garbled and unintelligible, but the tone was angry and excited.

  Maybe somebody had discovered the direction of their escape.

  Thayenta pawed through her meager Terran vocabulary a moment, then gave up and made use of her translator. “Where do we go, Ken?”

  Ken glanced at R.C. The captain’s gaze was dimeyed and unfocussed, his lips lax as breath whistled past a dry throat. What was keeping the man conscious?

  The ship was over a kilometer in length. The nearest access to Ken was an undamaged rear cargo door which would swing open onto the ship’s glide tracks. The colonists must have used it to unload the cargo and people who had survived the crash.

  He vetoed that. The entry was too wide, too open, too easy to spot.

  The distant chase veered westward for a few chilling seconds. As Ken stood silently, listening to the shouts, he wished the three of them were invisible, not merely shrouded in purple mist.

  “Starrett, you see ’em head for the trail?”

  “Had to be that way.”

  “Aw, he couldn’t see ’em if they fell on him!”

  “Try the bridge!”

  These were the shouts of men bent on vengeance, of colonists fanatically loyal to Noland Eads. It was a lynch mob.

  “Jude, check the south fence …”

  The cries faded, drifting off in several directions, away from Ken and R.C. and Thayenta. They had at least a temporary reprieve.

  “That was close,” Ken whispered. “Come on.”

  He had to make up his mind quickly. R.C. was too weak to stand a lengthy trek around to the ship’s starboard side. Ken settled on a small hatch, low on the port hull section, that was partially opened but battered into a lump. Between the hull and the remainder of the seal fittings a narrow gap was visible. Above the hatch a mangled sheet of plating drooped over the broken lock forming a metallic curtain that nearly concealed the little entryway. In stark sunlight or evening shadows — such as now — the sheeting hid the door from all but the closest scrutiny. Ken could see it at only one angle and hoped that held true for any pursuers as well.

  R.C. groaned softly, nearly unconscious. “Hang on,” Ken repeated, fighting down his rage at Eads.

  The metal around the small hatch was razor sharp, reshaped into jagged teeth by the crash. Ken signalled Thayenta to enter first. She slid past the pointed metal, easily bending her slender form away from sharp projections.

  Ken risked some noise, kicking at the bent door. It was built to take the stresses of deep space travel, but sliding across the planet had ruptured the ship’s integrity. The hatch gave a few centimeters.

  Wary of those cutting edges, Ken edged gingerly into the opening, dragging R.C. along with him. Metal plucked at Ken’s fatigues and snagged the fabric on R.C.’s chest, but both men escaped laceration. Another second, and they were both inside.

  The hatch led to a tiny storage compartment inside a lifeboat auxiliary area. Thayenta was standing in the center of the little room, staring around curiously. Her head was cocked, alert. Was she guarding against pursuers, or listening to telepathic orders from Briv?

  Ken knelt and slid R.C.’s arm off his shoulder. He stretched the pilot full length on a table. The wound was as bad as Ken had feared; the needler had bored through R.C.’s calf muscles, and blood drenched his pant leg and covered the boot.

  Ken ripped the cloth back from the wound as gently and carefully as possible. Even so, R.C. moaned. Ken started to tear a rag off his ruined sleeve to use as a tourniquet. But Thayenta stopped him.

  Smiling at the injured pilot, she plucked her fingers at the hem of her pink garment. There was no ripping sound, no indication of damage to her clothes, but she suddenly had a neat roll of fluffy fabric in her hands. Thayenta bent over R.C.’s leg, using part of the material to wipe blood gently away from the wound.

  “You’ve got some tricks no nurse ever had,” Ken said admiringly. He winged a ten-second first aid course to her, telepathically. Thayenta offered him a strong strip of the pink material.

  As a test, he snapped it, fascinated. Like Thayenta’s clothing, the material left … alive. And yet it was fabric, as soft and pliable as an old-fashioned piece of gauze.

  “Not … ” Thayenta imitated the act of spraying bandage. She remembered the medi-kit! And Ken recalled that sensation of someone invisible sitting beside him, pawing through the medi-kit’s contents with him.

  “No, it’s not modern medical issue, but it will do,” he smiled. Ken stripped off R.C.’s belt, made the man as comfortable as possible, then set to the painful work of applying a tourniquet.

  As he tightened the pink fabric Thayenta had supplied, R.C. grabbed Ken’s wrist. Despite his loss of blood, the pilot’s grip was strong. Putting Zachary in a supine position had lessened shock but heightened his awareness and pain. His eyes were very bright, and sweat ran down his face. “Never mind about the leg, Ken. You’ve got to —”

  “In a minute,” Ken said. “We have to slow down the bleeding.” Thayenta pillowed R.C.’s head on her lap, stroking his brow, her fingertips playing gently at his temples. Waves of concern and sympathy washed over Ken, and some of the tightness melted out of R.C. The woman must be blunting his pain, telepathically.

  Ken finished the tourniquet and examined the results. To his relief the flow of blood abated. He used the pink fluff to cover the wound itself. There was no way to tell if the bone was broken.

  Thayenta shook her head, again using a Terran gesture. “Not … bone. O — kay.”

  He grinned back at her. “You have X-ray tel
epathy too? The Terran medical people would love to hire you!” His own comment startled him. Yes, that was true. M’Nae medical abilities could heal human patients.

  R.C. had not let go of Ken’s wrist throughout the first aid, hampering his work. Now the pilot’s fingers tightened, demanding Ken’s attention. “You’ve got to get up top.”

  Ken said, “Communications? You think —”

  “Noland … good spaceman. The best,” Zachary said weakly. “He’d have carried full gear, even for this crazy scheme, just in case he needed a Mayday.”

  That made sense. “Got it, Captain. Sit tight.”

  “Watch for guards,” R.C. whispered.

  Ken pried the pilot’s hand off his wrist gently, then showed him the two confiscated needlers. “Equalizers, Captain. Here,” and he pressed one close to Zachary’s right hand. “I can handle it. After all, I’ve had the top pilot in Survey to learn from.”

  “Not the top,” R.C. sighed, letting Thayenta soothe him. “That’s Noland.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ken said, meaning it. “He had a Class-D coming into NE 592. A lot more power, a lot of cushion. He didn’t have to crashland a small two-man Survey ship safely.”

  R.C. didn’t hear him, lulled into semi-consciousness. Ken propped a mashed storage locker under the pilot’s feet, elevating his lower limbs to counter shock. He wished he had some sort of blanket to keep Zachary warm.

  Immediately, Thayenta plucked at her clothes, stripping away more of the pink-leaved fabric. The remainder flowed out tenuously to cover her body. She was reduced to a wisp of nothing, and the results were distracting. Ken took her offering and tucked it around the injured pilot carefully.

  “You’re handy to have around,” and he leaned across Zachary’s limp form and kissed her lightly. Thayenta seemed puzzled, but intrigued by the gesture. “Stay with R.C. I’m going up higher in the ship to try to contact my people. My home world. Do you understand? Does Briv understand?”