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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b70400 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64198 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64198) diff --git a/old/64198-0.txt b/old/64198-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 535dd26..0000000 --- a/old/64198-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2036 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Captives of the Thieve-Star, by James H. -Schmitz - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Captives of the Thieve-Star - -Author: James H. Schmitz - -Release Date: January 02, 2021 [eBook #64198] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTIVES OF THE THIEVE-STAR *** - - - - - CAPTIVES of the THIEVE-STAR - - _A Novelet by_ JAMES H. SCHMITZ - - _When Peer and Channok grappled the derelict - Ra-Twelve, they hooked a death-prize--haunted - by the Yomm, stalked by the Mysterious Nine!_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories May 1951. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -The celebration of the wedding of Peer and Channok had to be cut a -little short, because a flock of police-boats from Irrek showed up at -detector-range about midway. But it was carried off with a flourish -nevertheless. - -The oxygen-bubble in the small moon crater was filled with colorful -solidographs, creating the impression of an outdoor banquet hall. The -best bands playing in the Empire that night unwittingly contributed -their efforts, and food and drink were beyond reproach. - -Though somewhat dazed throughout, Channok was startled to discover -at one point that the thick carpets on which he stood were a genuine -priceless Gaifornaab weave--and no solidographs either! The eighty-four -small ships of the space-rat tribe--or voyageurs, as they distinctly -preferred to be called--lined up along the outer edges of the banquet -hall looked eerily out of place to him; but Peer didn't seem to mind. -Her people rarely did go far away from their ships, and the lawless, -precarious life they led made that an advisable practice. - -It would be up to him now, Channok reflected, beaming down on Peer, -to educate her into customs and attitudes more fitting for the wife -of a regular citizen of the Empire and probable future member of the -Imperial Secret Service-- - -And then, suddenly, the whole ceremony seemed to be over! A bit -puzzled by the abruptness with which everybody had begun to pack up -and leave, Channok was standing beside the ramp of his own ship, the -_Asteroid_--an honest, licensed trader--when Santis strolled over to -talk to him. Santis was Peer's father and the pint-sized chieftain of -the tribe. - -"Didn't tell you before, son," he remarked, "because you were already -nervous enough. But as soon as they finish collapsing the bubble, -you'll have about six minutes to get your _Asteroid_ aloft and off this -moon before the cops from Irrek arrive!" - -"I heard you, Pop, and everything's packed!" Peer called down from the -open lock of the _Asteroid_. "Come up and kiss me good-by and we'll -seal her up!" - -Frowning suspiciously, Channok followed Santis up the ramp. "Why should -I worry about cops?" he inquired, looking down at the two little people -while they briefly embraced. Peer came about up to his shoulder, though -perfectly formed, and Santis was an inch or two shorter. The tribe -didn't run to bulk. "Nobody's hunting for me!" - -"Not yet, son," Santis conceded. He twirled his fierce brown -mustache-tips thoughtfully and glanced at Peer. - -"If you're passing anywhere near Old Nameless, you might cache that -special cargo you're carrying for me there," he told her. "Around the -foot of the Mound. Too bulky for the ships I've got here! Put a dowser -plate in with it, and I'll come pick it up with a transport sometime in -the next four months." - -"Yes, Pop," said Peer. - -"The Fourth Voyageur Fleet will rendezvous at New Gyrnovaan next -Terra-spring. If you can talk this big lug into it, try to make it -there, daughter!" - -"We'll be there," promised Peer. - -Channok cleared his throat impatiently. Not if he could help it, they -wouldn't! - -"Those cops are looking for the missing Crown Jewels of Irrek," Santis -resumed, looking at him. "After they've opened you up from stem to -stern to make sure you're not hiding them, they might apologize. And -again they might not." - -"Holy Satellites!" Channok said, stunned. "Did you actually--" - -"Not I, son. I just master-mind these things. Some of the boys did the -job. There goes the oxygen-bubble! Now will you get going?" - -They got going, Channok speechless for once. - - * * * * * - -Some two months later, he stood in the _Asteroid's_ control room, -watching a pale blur creep up along the starboard screen. - -"That's not just one ship--that's at least a hundred!" he announced -presently, somewhat startled. "Looks like they've turned out the entire -Dardrean war-fleet! Wonder what's up?" - -Peer laid the cargo list she was checking down on the desk and came -over to look at the screen. - -"Hm!" she said. - -"It couldn't possibly have anything to do with us, could it?" he -inquired, on a sudden alarming hunch. Being unfamiliar with the dialect -used on Dardrea, he had left most of the bargaining there to her. - -Peer shrugged. She showed the bland, innocent look of a ten-year-old -child, but that was habitual with her. On one occasion she'd been -mistaken for his daughter, and at times he even had to remind himself -that she'd been eighteen and a student at the Imperial Institute of -Technology when he first met her there--and then unwittingly became -Santis' tool in the abstraction of a small but important section of the -IIT's top-secret experimental files! He'd been trying to counteract -that little brigand's influence on Peer ever since, but he wasn't too -sure of his degree of success so far. - -"We took the Merchants Guild for plenty on our auction!" she admitted. - -"Well," Channok frowned, "they'd hardly send a fleet after us for that." - -"And, of course," added Peer, "we got the Duke of Dardrea's fabulous -Coronet. Forgot to mention that. Perfectly legal, though! Some local -crook swiped it and we took it in trade." - -Channok winced. As a matter of fact, fencing _was_ a perfectly -legitimate business on Dardrea. But a man who planned to enter the -Imperial Secret Service, as soon as he could save up the money to pay -his way through the Academy, couldn't afford any stains on his past! -Throughout the Empire, the Service was renowned in song and story as -the one body of men who stood above the suspicion of reproach. - -"The Duke won't know it's gone for another week," Peer consoled him. -"Anyway, it looks to me as if those ships are beginning to pull off our -course!" - -There followed some seconds of tense observation. - -"So they are," Channok acknowledged then. He mopped his forehead. "But -I wish you wouldn't be quite so technical in your interpretation of -local laws, Peer! Those babies are really traveling. Wonder who or what -they're chasing?" - -Three days later, as the _Asteroid_ approached the area of the red -giant sun of Old Nameless, where they were going to cache Santis' cargo -for him--hot cargo, probably; and it would be a load off Channok's mind -to get rid of it--they picked up the trail of the foundering spaceship -_Ra-Twelve_ and found part of the answer on board. - - - II - -"It seemed to me," Channok remarked, watching the _Ra-Twelve_ in the -viewscreen before them, "as if her drives had cut off completely just -then! But they're on again now. What do you think, crew-member Peer?" - -"Let's just follow her a bit," Peer suggested. "I've seen ships act -like that that were just running out of juice. But this one won't even -answer signals!" - -"It could be," Channok said hopefully, "a case of fair salvage! You -might keep working the communicators, though...." - -However, the _Ra-Twelve_ continued to ignore them while she plodded -on towards the distant red glare of the Nameless System like a blind, -thirsty beast following its nose to a water-hole. Presently, she -began a series of quavering zigzag motions, wandered aimlessly off -her course, returned to it again on a few final puffs of invisible -energy and at last went drifting off through space with her drives now -obviously dead. - -The _Asteroid_ continued to follow at a discreet distance like a chunky -vulture, watching. If there was anyone on board the _Ra-Twelve_, it -almost had to be a ghost. Her rear lock was wide open, and the hull -showed deep scars and marks of some recent space-action. - -"But she wasn't really badly hurt," Channok pointed out. "What do you -suppose could have happened to her crew?" - -Peer gave him a nervous grin. "Maybe a space-ghost came on board!" - -"You don't really believe those spooky voyageur stories, do you?" he -said tolerantly. - -"Sure I do--and so will you some day!" Peer promised him. "I'll tell -you a few true ones just before your next sleep-period!" - -"No, you won't," Channok said firmly. "Aside from space-ghosts, though, -that crate has a downright creepy look to her. But I suppose I'd better -go over and check, as soon as she slows down enough so we can latch on. -And you're going to stay on the _Asteroid_, Peer." - -"In a pig's eye, I am!" Peer said indignantly. And though Channok -wished to know if she had forgotten that he was the _Asteroid's_ -skipper, it turned out that this was one time he'd have to yield. - -"Because, Channy dear," Peer said, her big dark eyes welling slow -tears, "I'd just die if something happened to you over there and I was -left all alone in space!" - -"All you'd have to do," Channok said uncomfortably, "is to head the -_Asteroid_ for New Gyrnovaan, and you know it. Well--you've got to -promise to stay right behind me, anyway!" - -"Of course," promised Peer, the tears vanishing miraculously. "Santis -says a wife should always stick with her husband in space, because he -might lead her into a jam, all right, but nothing like the !!****!; -!**!! jams she's likely to run into if she strays around by herself." - -"Whereas Ship's Regulation 66-B says," said Channok with grim -satisfaction, "that crew-member Peer gets her mouth washed out with -soap just before the next sleep-period because of another uncontrolled -lapse into vituperous profanity--and what was that comment?" - -"That one was under my breath," said Peer, crestfallen, "so it doesn't -count!" - - * * * * * - -Without making any particular remarks about it, both of them had -fastened a brace of guns to their jet-harnesses. At close range--held -thirty feet away against the _Asteroid's_ ring-bumpers by a set of dock -grapnels--the _Ra-Twelve's_ yawning lock looked more than ever like the -black mouth of a cavern in which something was lurking for them. - -Channok went over first, propelled by a single squirt of his jets, -and landed a little heavier than he had intended to. Peer, following -instructions to keep right behind him, came down an instant later in -the middle of his back. They got untangled hurriedly, stood up and -started swiveling their helmet beams about the _Ra-Twelve's_ storage -lock. - -It was practically empty. So was the big rack that had held the ship's -single big lifeboat. There were some tools scattered around. They -kicked at them thoughtfully, looked at each other and started forward -through an open door up a dark passageway, switching their lights -ahead and from side to side. - -There was a locked door which probably led into the _Ra-Twelve's_ -engine section, and then four cabins, each of which had been used by -two men. The cabins were in considerable disorder, but from what one -could tell in a brief look-around, each of the occupants had found time -to pack up about what you would expect a man to take along when he was -planning on a lifeboat trip. So whatever had happened probably hadn't -been entirely unexpected. - -The mess-room, all tidied up, was next; two locked doors were at -the back of it, and also an open entrance to the kitchen and food -storage. They glanced around at everything, briefly, and went on to the -control room. - -It was considerably bigger than the one on the _Asteroid_ and -luxuriously equipped. The pilot's section was in a transparently walled -little office by itself. The instruments showed both Dardrean and -Empire markings and instructions. Channok switched the dead drives off -first and then reached out, quite automatically, for the spot above the -control desk where a light button ought to be-- - -Light instantly flooded the interior of the _Ra-Twelve_. - -The intruders jumped a foot. It was as if the ship had suddenly come -alive around them! Then they looked at each other and grinned. - -"Automatic," Channok sighed. - -"Might as well do it the easy way!" Peer admitted. She slid the Ophto -Needle she'd half-drawn back into its holster. - - * * * * * - -The _Ra-Twelve_ had eighteen fully charged drive batteries still -untouched. With some system of automatic power transfer working, she -could have gone cruising along on her course for months to come. -However, she hadn't been cruising, Channok discovered next; the speed -controls were set to "Full Emergency".... An empty ship, racing through -space till the battery she was operating on went dead-- - -He shook his head. And then Peer was tapping his arm. - -"Look what I found! I think it's her log!" - -It was a flat steel box with an illuminated tape at its front end, -on which a date was printed. A line of spidery Dardrean script was -engraved on a plate on the top of the box. - -"_Ra-Twelve_," Peer translated. "That's her name." - -"So it's a Dardrean ship! But they're using the Empire calendar," -Channok pointed out, "which would make it an Empire crew.... How do you -work this thing? If it is her log, it might give us an idea of what's -happened." - -"Afterwards, Channy! I just found another door leading off the other -end of the control room--" - -The door opened into a second passage, parallel to the one by which -they had come forward, but only half as long and very dimly lit. Filled -with uneasy speculations, Channok forgot his own instructions and let -Peer take the lead. - -"More cabins!" her voice said, just as he became aware of the wrecked -door-frame out of which the light was spilling ahead of her. - -A woman had been using that cabin. A woman who had liked beautiful and -expensive things, judging by what was strewn about. It looked, Channok -thought, as if she hadn't had time to finish her packing. - -"Her spacesuit's gone, though," Peer's voice announced from the -interior of a disordered closet. - -Channok was inspecting the door. This was the first indication that -there had been any violence connected with whatever had happened on the -_Ra-Twelve_. The door had been locked from without and literally ripped -open from within by a stream of incandescence played on it by a gun -held probably not much more than a foot away. That woman had wanted out -in an awful hurry! - -Peer came over to watch him. He couldn't quite read her expression, but -he had a notion she wanted to bawl. - -"Let's take a quick look at the rest of it and get back to the -_Asteroid_," he suggested, somewhat disturbed himself. "We ought to -talk this over." - -The one remaining cabin lay just beyond the point where the passage -angled back into the ship. There was light in that one, too, and the -door was half open. Channok got there first and pushed it open a little -farther. Then he stood frozen in the door-frame for a moment. - -"What's stopping you?" Peer inquired impatiently, poking his ribs from -behind. - -He stepped back into the passage, pulled the door shut all the way, -scooped her up and heaved her to his shoulder. His space-boots felt -like iron anchors as he clunk-clunked hastily back through the passages -to the derelict's lock. There was nothing definite to run from any -more; but he knew now what had happened on the _Ra-Twelve_, and he felt -nightmare pacing after him all the way. - -He crossed to the _Asteroid's_ control room lock in a jump, without -bothering with his jets. - - * * * * * - -"Close the outer lock!" he told Peer hoarsely, reaching up for the -switch marked "Decontaminant" above him. - -A fourfold spray of yellowish Killall was misting the trapped air in -the lock about them an instant later. - -"What was it?" Peer's voice came out of the fog. - -"Antibiotic," Channok said, his scalp still crawling. "What you--what -voyageurs call a lich, I think. I don't know that kind. But it got the -guy in that last cabin." - -The occupant of the last cabin had looked as if somebody had used a -particularly vicious sort of acid gun on him, which somehow had missed -damaging his clothing. To the grisly class of life-forms that produced -that effect, an ordinary spacesuit offered exactly no resistance. - -"A lich can't last more than an hour or so in space, Channy," Peer's -voice came shakily after a pause. "It's a pretty awful way to get it, -but that stuff over there must have been dead for a long time now." - -"I know," said Channok. He hesitated, and then cut off the Killall -spray and started the blowers to clear the lock. "I guess I just -panicked for a moment. But I'm going to go over that ship with -decontaminant before we do any more investigating! And meanwhile you'd -better get in a few hours of sleep!" - -"Wouldn't hurt any," Peer agreed. "How do you suppose the lich got on -board?" - -He could tell her that. He'd seen a heavy, steel-framed glassite -container in a corner of the cabin, opened. They must have been -transporting some virulent form of antibiotic; and there might have -been an accident-- - -Five hours later, they had come to the conclusion that it had been -no accident. Four hours of that time, Channok had been engaged in -disinfecting the _Ra-Twelve_, even her engine sections. He'd given the -one man left on board space-burial in one of the _Asteroid's_ steel -cargo crates. The crate hadn't been launched very far and presently -hung suspended some eighty yards above the two ships, visible as a -black oblong that obscured the stars behind it. - -It and its contents were one of the reasons Channok was anxious to get -done with the job of salvaging the _Ra-Twelve_. She was a stream-lined, -beautiful ship; but after what had happened, he knew he would never be -able to work up any liking for her. She seemed to be waiting sullenly -and silently for a chance to deal with the two humans who had dared -come on board her again. - -He sealed her up presently, filled her with a fresh airmix and, having -once more checked everything he could think of, let Peer come over -again for a final briefing on their run to Old Nameless. - -Peer wandered promptly into the cabin where the dead man had been and -there discovered the wall-safe. - - - III - -She called him. He couldn't imagine how he had overlooked it. Perhaps -because it was so obviously _there_! It was an ordinary enough safe, -from what they could see of the front of it; and there was a tiny key -in its lock. - -They looked at it thoughtfully. - -"You didn't try to open it, did you?" Channok inquired. - -"No," said Peer; "because--" - -"That's what I was thinking," Channok admitted. - -There had been, they had decided, at least two groups working against -each other in the ship. The dead man had been in charge of the -antibiotic. Perhaps the woman had been on his side, perhaps not. But -the eight other men had acted together and had controlled the ship. -What action or threat of theirs had caused the dead man to release his -terrible weapon would be hard to discover now. But he had done it, and -the eight men had abandoned the _Ra-Twelve_ promptly, leaving the woman -locked in her cabin.... - -It looked pretty much as if she had been the one who had switched the -drives to full speed--before jumping out into space. A pretty tough, -desperate lot all around, in Channok's opinion. The _Ra-Twelve's_ log -offered the information that they had left Dardrea three calendric -days earlier, but had been of no further help in identifying crew or -passengers. That most of them were professional criminals, however, -seemed a pretty safe bet--as Peer had pointed out, in voyageur terms, -amateurs didn't play around with taboo-weapons like a bottled lich! - -Also, amateurs--Peer and Channok, for example--could have sense enough -not to blunder into a booby-trap.... - -"He'd know, of course," Channok said reflectively, "that everybody -would be wondering what's hidden in that safe! And it could be anything -up to and including full instructions on how to set up an artificial -culture of antibiotics. Plenty of governments would pay twenty times -what the _Ra-Twelve_ is worth as salvage for that kind of information. -But it's nothing _we_ need to know." - -"Not that bad," Peer agreed. - -"And the guy who opens that wall-safe had better be an armaments -expert! Which we're not. But now, crew-member Peer, if we want to get -Santis' cargo cached on Old Nameless before I fall asleep, we ought -to get started. Idle curiosity is something we can satisfy some other -time." - -"Two hours past your sleep-period right now!" said Peer, glancing at -her wrist-watch. "Tsk, tsk! That always makes you so grouchy." - -Half an hour later, they were on their way--Channok in the _Ra-Twelve_, -Peer in the _Asteroid_, keeping as close to each other as two ships -in flight could safely get. With the red glare of the Old Nameless -sun a trifle off-center before him, Channok settled down in the most -comfortable pilot-seat he'd ever found on any ship and decided he could -relax a trifle. Peer was obviously having a wonderful time doing her -first solo-piloting job on a ship of the _Asteroid's_ size; and since -she'd run and landed the _Asteroid_ any number of times under his -supervision, he wasn't worried about her ability to handle it. However, -he continued to check in on her over the communicators every five -minutes or so, and grinned at the brisk, spacemanlike replies he got in -return. Crew-member Peer was on her best behavior right now! - -By and by, then--he couldn't have said just when it started--Channok -began to realize that some very odd things were happening around him-- - - * * * * * - -It appeared that the Thing he had put out for burial in a space-crate -hadn't liked the idea of being left alone. So it was following him. - -Channok decided uneasily that it might be best to ignore it. But it -kept coming closer and closer until, finally, the crate was floating -just outside the _Ra-Twelve's_ control room port, spinning slowly like -a running-down top. - -The crate stayed shut, but he knew the Thing inside it was watching him. - -"That's my ship," the Thing remarked presently. - -Channok ignored it. - -"And you're all alone," said the Thing. - -"No, I'm not!" said Channok. "Peer's with me." - -"Peer's gone back to Santis," said the Thing. "You're all alone! -Except," it added, "for me." - -"Well, good-by!" Channok said firmly. There was no point in getting too -chummy with it. He punched the _Ra-Twelve's_ drives down as far as they -would go, and the crate vanished. - -How that ship could travel! Nothing could hope to keep up with him -now--except, perhaps, that round, red glare of light just behind the -_Ra-Twelve_. - -That was actually overtaking him, and fast. It was coming up like -a cosmic police-ship, with a huge, hollow noise rushing before it. -Channok listened apprehensively. Suddenly, there were words: - -"WHOO-WHOOO!" it howled. "_This is the Space Ghost!_" - -He shot up out of his chair like a jabbed cat, knocking it over, and -glared around. - -The _Ra-Twelve's_ control room lay brightly lit and silent behind him. - -"Ha-ha!" Peer's chuckle came from the communicator. "That woke you up, -I bet! Was that you that fell over?" - -"Aw-awk!" breathed Channok. Articulation came back to him. "All right, -crew-member Peer! Just wait till we get to Old Nameless! I'll fix you -good!" - -"Shall I tell you the story now about the Horror Ship from Mizar?" Peer -inquired intrepidly. - -"Go right ahead," Channok challenged, righting his chair and settling -back into it. "You can't scare me with that sort of stuff!" He began -checking their position. - -He must have been asleep for quite a while! The Nameless System was -less than two hours ahead now. He switched on the front screen; and the -sun swam up like a big, glowing coal before him. He began checking for -the seventh planet. - -"Well," he reminded the communicator grimly, "you were going to tell me -a story." - -The communicator remained silent a moment. - -"I don't think I will, anyway," Peer said then, rather quietly. - -"Why not?" Channok inquired, getting his screen-viewer disentangled -from a meteor-belt in the Nameless System. - -"I made that Space Ghost too good!" whispered Peer. "I'm getting scared -myself now." - -"Aha!" said Channok. "See what behaving like that will get you?" He got -Old Nameless VII into the viewer. - -The communicator remained still. He looked over at it. - -"Of course, there's really nothing to be scared of!" he added -reassuringly. - -"How do you know?" quavered Peer. "I'm all alone." - -"Nonsense!" Channok said heartily. "I can see the _Asteroid_ right over -there on the screen! You can see me, can't you?" - -"Sure," said Peer. "That's a long way off, though. You couldn't do -anything!" - -"It's not safe for two ships to travel much closer together," Channok -reminded her. "We're only two hours from Old Nameless right now--I'm -already focussed on it." - -"I've been focussed on it for an hour," said Peer. "While you were -snoring," she added. "Two hours is an awful long time!" - -"Tell you what," suggested Channok. "I'll race you to it. The -_Ra-Twelve's_ a mighty fast boat--" He checked himself. He'd only -dreamed that, after all. - -"Let's go!" Peer said briefly. - - * * * * * - -He let Peer stay just ahead of him all the way in, though the -stream-lined derelict probably could have flown rings around the -_Asteroid_, at that. Just an hour later, they went around Old Nameless -VII twice, braking down, and then coasted into its atmosphere on their -secondary drives. - -"That's the place," Peer's voice said suddenly. "I can see the old -Mound in the plain! In the evening strip, Channy--that straight-up -cliff!" - -He set the _Ra-Twelve_ down first, at the base of a mountain that -reared up almost vertically for eighteen thousand feet or so out of a -flat, dimly-lit stretch of rocky desert land. - -The _Asteroid_ came down in a very neat landing, two hundred yards -away. He got there on the run, just as the front lock opened. Peer -came tumbling out of it into his arms and hung on fiercely, while her -skipper hugged her. - -"Let that scare be a lesson to you!" he remarked when he set her down. - -"It certainly will," said Peer, still clutching his arm as they started -over to the _Ra-Twelve_. "That old Space Ghost had me going!" - -"Me, too," he confessed; "just for a moment, anyway! Well, let's get -busy." - -They went over the _Ra-Twelve_ again from bow to stern, to make sure -there was nothing they would want to take along immediately, and found -there wasn't. They gave the unopened wall-safe a last calculating -regard, and decided once more that they'd better not. Then they shut -off everything, closed the front lock behind them and safetied it with -the dock bolts. - -The plain was darkening when they came out, but the top of the mountain -still glowed with red light. They climbed into the _Asteroid_, and -Channok closed the lock. He started for the control desk then; but -Peer beat him to it and anchored herself into the seat of command -with hands, knees and feet. It became apparent almost at once that he -couldn't get her out of it without running the risk of pulling off her -head. - -"Now look here, crew-member Peer," he said persuasively, "you know good -and well that if these top-heavy cargo crates have one weakness, it's -the take-off!" - -"It could be the pilot, too," Peer said meaningly. "I've been studying -the manual, and I've watched you do it. It's my turn now." - -He considered her thoughtfully. - -"Suppose you die of old age, all of a sudden?" argued Peer. "Wouldn't -want me to sit here alone without knowing even how to take her off, -would you?" - -That did it. - -"Go ahead," said Channok with dignity, taking a position back of the -chair. "Go right ahead! This decrepit old man of twenty-eight is going -to stand right here and laugh himself sick!" - -"You'll be sick, all right," promised Peer. "But it won't be from -laughing! I'll read that chapter out of the manual to you sometime." - -She _had_ studied it, too, he decided. She sat perched forward on the -edge of the chair, alert and cocky, and went through the starting -operations without hitch or hesitation. The _Asteroid_ rumbled beneath -them, briefly building up power.... - -Channok braced himself-- - - - IV - -For the next few seconds, the question seemed to be whether they'd -pile into the plain or the mountain first; and, for another improbable -moment, they were distinctly skidding along upside down. Then Peer got -them straightened out, and they soared up rapidly into the night sky -above Old Nameless. - -Channok's hair settled slowly back into place. - -Peer looked around at him, puzzled and rather pale. - -"That's not the way it said in the manual!" she stated. - -Channok whooped. Then he sat down on the floor, bent over and yelled. - -When he got around to wiping the tears from his eyes, Peer was looking -down at him disgustedly from the control chair. - -"It wasn't the way it said in the manual!" she repeated firmly. "We're -going to have to have this old crate overhauled before she'll be safe -to fly--and if you weren't my husband, I'd really let you have it now!" - -He stood up, muttering some sort of apology. - -"I've done some just as bad!" he assured her. - -"Hum!" said Peer coldly, studying Old Nameless in the screen below -them. It seemed safe to pat her on the head then, but he kept his hand -well out of biting range. - -"We'd better get back to that mountain and bury the _Ra-Twelve_ before -it gets too dark to find the spot," he suggested. - -"It's still just in sight," said Peer. "You get the guns ready, and -I'll run us past it slowly." - -Spaceships being what they were, there wasn't much ceremony about -caching the _Ra-Twelve_. Channok got the bow-turret out; and as Peer -ran the _Asteroid_ slowly along the mountainside a few hundred feet -above the _Ra-Twelve_, he cut a jagged line into the rock with the -gun's twin beams. A few dozen tons of rock came thundering down on the -_Ra-Twelve_. - -They came back from the other side, a little higher up, and he loosened -it some more. This time, it looked as if a sizable section of the -mountain were descending; and when the dust had settled the _Ra-Twelve_ -was fifty feet under a sloping pile of very natural-looking debris. -To get her out again, they'd only have to cut a path down to her lock -and start her drives. She'd come out of the stuff then, like a trout -breaking water.... - -Satisfied, they went off and got the _Asteroid_ on an orbit around -Old Nameless, not too far out. Peer had assured Channok that Santis' -investigations had proved the planet safe for human beings, so it -probably was. But he knew he'd feel more comfortable if they put in -their sleep-periods outside its atmosphere. Bathed in the dismal light -of its giant sun, Old Nameless looked like a desolate backyard of Hell. -It was rocky, sandy, apparently waterless and lifeless and splotched -with pale stretches of dry salt seas. Incongruously delicate auroras -went crawling about its poles, like lopsided haloes circling a squat, -brooding demon. It wasn't, Channok decided, the kind of planet he would -have stopped at of his own accord, for any purpose. - - * * * * * - -The cliff against which they had buried the _Ra-Twelve_ was the -loftiest section of an almost unbroken chain of mountains, surrounding -the roughly circular hundred-mile plain, which was littered with -beds of boulders and sand-hills, like a moon crater. What Peer had -referred to as the "Mound" lay approximately at the center of the -plain. It turned out, next morning, to be a heavily weathered, -dome-shaped structure half a mile high and five miles across, which -gave the impression that all but the top tenth of a giant's skull -had been buried in the sand, dented here and there with massive -hammers, and sprinkled thickly with rock dust. It was obviously an -artifact--constructed with hundred-foot bricks! As the _Asteroid_ -drifted down closer to it, Channok became interested. - -"Who built it?" he asked. - -Peer shrugged. She didn't know. "Santis spent a few hours jetting -around the edges of it once," she said. "But he wouldn't tell us much; -and, afterwards, he wouldn't let us get nearer than a mile to it. He -didn't go back himself, either--said it was dangerous to get too close!" - -It didn't look dangerous. But fifty thousand years ago, it might have -been a fortress of some sort. - -"You oughtn't to be flying so low over it, even!" Peer said warningly. -"Right in the middle on top is where it's the most dangerous, Santis -said!" - -Channok didn't argue the matter--they had to get Santis' special cargo -cached and off their hands first, anyway. He lifted the _Asteroid_ -a mile or so and then brought her down a couple of miles beyond the -Mound, at the point Peer had designated. - -They got out of the ship and gazed about the broken, rocky plain. The -red light of the Nameless Sun was spilling across it in what passed for -morning on this world. In it, the black mountain chains rearing about -the horizon and the craggy waves of flat land had the general effect -of a bomb-shattered and slowly burning city. Far off to their left, he -could see the upper half of the towering precipice which marked the -_Ra-Twelve's_ resting-place. - -"How long a time did you say you spent here?" he asked. - -Peer reflected. "About two Terra-months, I guess. I'm not sure, though. -That was a long time ago. My youngest brother Dobby wasn't born yet." - -He shook his head. "What a spot for a nice family picnic!" - -"It wasn't a picnic," Peer said. "But my kid brother Wilf and I had a -lot of fun anyway, just running around and teasing the ghouls. I guess -you don't notice so much what a place looks like when you're little." - -"Teasing the what?" - -"Ghouls," said Peer carelessly. - -He looked at her suspiciously; but she seemed to be studying the nearby -terrain for a good spot to start digging. - -"And what were Santis and your mother doing?" he inquired. - -"They were looking for some sort of mineral deposit on Old Nameless; I -forget just what. How about that spot--just under that little overhang? -It looks like good, solid top-rock." - - * * * * * - -Channok agreed it was just the place. He'd got a drilling attachment -mounted to the _Asteroid's_ small all-purpose tractor; and now he -went back and ran the machine down the ramp from the storage lock. -He ordered Peer, who wanted to help, up a rock about twenty feet -overhead, where she perched looking like an indignant elf, out of -reach of any stray puffs of the drill-blast. Then he started running a -slanting, narrow tunnel down under the overhang. - -Half an hour later, when he backed the tractor out of the tunnel, -pushing a pile of cooking slag behind him, he saw her standing up on -the rock with a small stun-gun in her hand. She beckoned to him. - -Channok pulled off his breather-mask, shut off the tractor, and jumped -from the saddle. - -"What is it?" he called anxiously, trotting towards her, while the -machine's clacking and roaring subsided. - -"Some of those ghouls!" Peer called back. "Climb up here and I'll show -you." She didn't seem worried. - -"They've ducked behind those rocks now," she said as he clambered up -beside her; "but they won't stay there long. They're curious, and I -think some of them remember the time we were here before." - -"Are they dangerous?" he inquired, patting his holstered set of -heavy-duty Reaper guns. - -"No," said Peer. "They look sort of awful, but you mustn't shoot them! -If they get inside of thirty feet I'll hit them in the stomach with a -stunner. They grunt then and run. Santis said that was the right way to -teach them not to get too nosey." - -They waited a moment in silence, scanning the rocks. - -Then Channok started violently. - -"Holy !!**?** Satellites!" he swore, his hair bristling. - -A big, dead-white shape had popped up springily on a rock about -fifty feet away, stared at him for an instant out of eyes like grey -glass-platters, and popped down out of sight again. Awful was right! - -"Aha!" crew-member Peer gloated, grinning. "You shouldn't have said -that! Tonight you've got to let me soap out your mouth!" - -A light dawned gradually. - -"You did it on purpose!" he accused her. "You knew I'd say something -like that the first time I saw one!" - -Peer didn't deny it. - -"It's the soap for you, just the same!" she shrugged. "People ought to -have some self-control--that's what you said! Look, there's another one -now--no, two!" - - - V - -When he came up for lunch, he found about fifty ghouls collected -around the area. By that time he had dug the cache, steel-lined it, -disinfected it and installed preservatives, a humidifier and a dowser -plate. Loading it up would take most of the rest of the day. - -He avoided looking at the local population as much as he could while -he ate. However, the occasional glimpses he got suggested that the -Nameless System had made a half-hearted and badly botched attempt at -developing its own type of humanoid inhabitant. They had extremely -capable looking jaws, at any rate, and their wide, lipless mouths were -wreathed in perpetual idiot grins. The most completely disagreeable -parts of them, Channok decided, were the enormous, red-nailed hands and -feet. Like fat, white gargoyles, they sat perched around the tops of -the rocks in a wide circle and just stared. - -"Sloppy-looking things," he remarked, noticing Peer's observant eyes on -him. "But at least they're not trying to strike up a conversation!" - -"They never say anything until you hit them in the stomach with a -stunner," she informed him. "Then they just grunt and run." - -"Sure they mightn't get mean about that? The smallest of this lot looks -plenty big enough to take us both apart." - -Peer laughed. "All of them together wouldn't try it! They're real -yellow. Wilf got mad at a couple of 'em once and ran 'em halfway over -to the Mound before mother caught up with him and stopped him. Wilf had -his blood up, that time!" - -"Maybe the ghouls built the Mound," Channok suggested. "Their -great-great-ancestors, anyway." - -"They won't go near it now," Peer said, following-his gaze. "They're -scared of that, too!" - -They studied the rugged, ungainly slopes of the huge artifact for a -moment. There was something fascinating about it, Channok thought. -Perhaps just its size. - -"Santis said the plain was the bottom of a sea a while ago," Peer -offered. "So it could have been some sort of sea-things that built it." - -"Any entrances into it?" he asked casually. - -"Just one, right at the top." - -"You know," he said, "I think I'd like to go over and have a look at -that thing before we leave." - -"No!" said Peer, alarmed. "You'd better not. Santis said it was -dangerous--and there is something there! We saw a light one night." - -"What kind of a light?" - -"Like someone walking around the top of it, near that entrance, with -a big lamp in his hand," Peer remembered. "Like he might have been -looking for something." - -"Sounds a bit like your old friend, the Space Ghost," Channok murmured -suspiciously. - -"No," Peer grinned. "This was a _real_ light--and we took off the next -evening. Santis said it might be as well if we moved somewhere else for -a while." - -Channok considered a moment. "Look," he said finally, "we can do it -like this. I'll jet myself over there and stroll around it a bit -in daylight; and if you're worried, you could hang overhead in the -_Asteroid_ with a couple of turrets out. Just in case someone gets -tough." - -"I could, maybe," said Peer, in a tight voice, "but I'm not going to. -If you're going to go walking around there, after all Santis said, I'm -going to be walking right behind you!" - -"Oh, no, you're not," Channok said. - -"Oh, yes, I am!" said Peer. "You can't make me stay here!" - -He looked at her in surprise. Her eyes were angry, but her lower lip -quivered. - -"Hey," he said, startled. "Maybe I'm being a pig!" - -"You sure are!" Peer said, relieved. The lip stopped quivering. "You're -not going over there, then?" - -"Not if you feel that way about it," Channok said. He paused. "I -guess," he admitted awkwardly, "I just didn't like the idea of Santis -flitting around space, Holy Aynstyn knows where, and still putting in -his two millicredits worth every so often, through crew-member Peer!" - -Peer blew her nose and considered in turn. "Just the same," she -concluded, "when Santis says something like that, it's a lot better if -people do it. Is 'Holy Aynstyn knows where' a swear-word?" - -"No," said Channok. "Not exactly." - - * * * * * - -He'd finished his lunch and was just going to suggest they run the -tractor out of the cache and back the few hundred yards to the -_Asteroid_ for the first load of Santis' cargo, when he noticed that -all the ghouls had vanished. - -He called Peer's attention to the fact. - -"Uh-huh," she said in an absent-minded tone. "They do that -sometimes...." - -Channok looked at her. She was staring at a high boulder a short -distance away, with a queer, intent expression, as if she were deep in -thought about something. He hoped she wasn't still brooding about their -little argument-- - -Then she glanced at him, gave him a sudden grin, swung herself around -and slid nimbly off the rock. - -"Come on down quick!" she said. "I want to show you something before -you get back to work. A ghoul-burrow!" - -"A ghoul-burrow?" Channok repeated unenthusiastically. - -"Yes, sure!" said Peer impatiently. "They're cute! They're all lined -with glass or something." She spread her arms wide. "Jump, and I'll -catch you!" - -Channok laughed, flopped over on his stomach with his legs over -the edge of the rock, and slid down in a fair imitation of Peer's -nonchalant style of descent, spraining his ankle only a little. -Well, he hadn't grown up skipping from craggy moon to asteroid to -heavy-planet to whatnot like she had.... - -They threaded their way about the rocks to the spot she had been -studying. She explained that he'd have to climb into the burrow to get -a good idea of what it was like. - -"Well, look now, Peer!" Channok protested, staring into the big, round -hole that slanted downwards under a big boulder--it did seem to be -lined with black glass or some similar stuff. "That cave's got 'No -Trespassing' written all over it. Supposing I slide down a half a mile -and land in a mess of ghouls!" - -"No, you won't," Peer said hurriedly. "It goes level right away, and -they're never more than thirty feet long. And the ghoul's out--there's -never more than one to a burrow; and I saw this one pop out and run off -just before we started here! You're not scared, are you? Wilf and I -crawled in and out of hundreds of them!" - -"Well, just for a moment then," said Channok resignedly. - - * * * * * - -He got down on hands and knees and crept into the tunnel. After about -six feet, he stopped and found he could turn around without too much -trouble. "Peer?" he called back. - -"Yes?" said Peer. - -"How can I see anything here," Channok demanded peevishly, "when it's -all dark?" - -"Well, you're in far enough now," said Peer, who had sat down before -the entrance of the tunnel and was looking in after him. "And now I've -got to ask you to do something! You know how I always promptly carry -out any orders you give me, like getting in my full sleep-period and -all?" she added anxiously. - -"No, you do not!" Channok stated flatly, resting on his elbows. "Half -the time I practically have to drag you to the cabin. Anyway, what's -that got to do with--" - -"It's like this," Peer said desperately. She glanced up for a moment, -as if she had caught sight of something in the dim red sky overhead. -"You've got to stay in there a while, Channy!" - -"Eh?" said Channok. - -"When those ghouls pop out of sight in daytime like that, it's because -there's a ship or something coming." - -"Peer, are you crazy? A ship! Who--I'm coming right out!" - -"Stay there, Channy! It's hanging over the _Asteroid_ right now. A big -lifeboat with its guns out--it must be those men from the _Ra-Twelve_! -They must have had a tracer of some sort on her!" - -"Then get in here quick, Peer!" Channok choked, hauling out one of the -Reapers. "You know good and well that bunch would kill a woman as soon -as a man!" - -"They've already seen me--I wanted them to," Peer informed him. She was -talking out of the side of her mouth, looking straight ahead of her, -away from the cave. "I'm not going to be a woman. I'm going to be a -dumb little girl, ordinary size. I can pull that one off any time!" - -"But--" - -"They'll want to ask questions. I think I can get them to send that -lifeboat away. We can't fight that, Channy; it's a regular armed -launch! Santis says you can always get the other side to split its -forces, if you're smart about it." - -"But how--" - -"And then, when I yell 'Here we go!' then you pop out. That'll be the -right moment--" She stood up suddenly. "We can't talk any more! They're -getting close--" She vanished with that from before the mouth of the -burrow. - -"Hold on there!" a voice yelled in the distance a few seconds later, -as Channok came crawling clumsily up the glassy floor of the tunnel, -hampered by the Reaper he still clutched in one hand. It seemed to come -from up in the air, and it was using the Empire's universal dialect. - -Peer's footsteps stopped abruptly. - -"Who you people?" her voice screeched in shrill alarm. "You cops? I -ain't done nothing!" - - - VI - -"And just look at those guns she's carrying!" the deeper of the two -strange voices commented. "The real stuff, too--a stunner and an Ophto -Needle! Better get them from her. If it isn't a baby Flauval!" - -"I didn't shoot nobody lately!" Peer said, trembly-voiced. - -"No, and you ain't going to shoot nobody either!" the other strange -voice mimicked her. That one was high-pitched and thin, with a -pronounced nasal twang to it. "Chief, if there're kids with them, it's -just a bunch of space-rats that happened along. It couldn't be Flauval!" - -"I'd say 'it couldn't be Flauval', if we'd found her dead in her -cabin," the deep voice said irritably. "But that door was burned out -from inside--and _somebody_ ditched the _Ra-Twelve_ on this clod!" It -sounded as if the discovery of Peer had interrupted an argument between -them. - -"I still can't see how she got out," Nasal-voice Ezeff said sullenly. -"She must have been sleeping in her spacesuit. We were out of the ship -thirty seconds after I slap-welded that lock across her door! She must -have felt the boat leaving and started burning her way out the same -instant--" - -"It doesn't matter how she did it," said the deep voice. Apparently, it -belonged to someone with authority. "If Flauval could think and move -fast enough to switch the drives to Full Emergency and still get alive -out of a ship full of the Yomm, she could cheat space, too! She always -did have the luck of the devil. If we'd had just that minute to spare -before leaving, to make sure--" - -It paused a moment and resumed gloomily: "That stubborn old maniac of a -Koyle--'I'm the Duke's man, sir!' Committing suicide--like _that_--so -no one else would get control of the Yomm! If we hadn't managed to -start the launch's locators in time.... Well, I hope I'll never have -to sweat out another four days like the last. And now we still have to -find whoever got Koyle's records!" - -"Flauval ain't here," Peer offered at that point, brightly. - -There was a pause. It seemed that the two newcomers must have almost -forgotten their prisoner for a moment. - - * * * * * - -"What was that you said, kid?" Nasal-voice inquired carefully. - -"Those space-rats are all half crazy," the deep voice said -contemptuously. "She doesn't know what we're talking about." - -"Sure I know!" Peer said indignantly. "You was talking about Flauval. -It's Wilf that's the crazy one--I ain't! And she ain't here. Flauval." - -"She ain't, eh?" Nasal-voice said, with speculative alertness. - -"No, sir," Peer said, timid again. "She's went with the rest of'm." - -Both voices swore together in startled shock. - -"Where are they?" the deep voice demanded. "Hiding on the ship?" - -"No, sir," quavered Peer. "It's just me on the ship, till they come -back." - -"You mean," the deep voice said, with strained patience, "you're -supposed to be on the ship?" - -"Yes, sir," said Peer. She added in a guilty mutter, "Sleepin'...." - -"Where did the others go?" Nasal-voice inquired sharply. - -"But I ain't tired," said Peer. "Well, with the boxes and stuff! What -Flauval wants buried." - -There was another duet of exclamations which Channok, at almost any -other time, would have considered highly unsuitable for Peer's ears. -Right now, it escaped his attention. - -"She's got Koyle's records!" stated the deep voice then. - -"What's in those boxes?" Nasal-voice snapped. - -"D-d-don't shake me!" wept Peer. "Papers and stuff--I don't know. They -don't never tell me nothing," she wailed, "because I'm just a little -girl!" - -"Yes, you're just a little girl," said Nasal-voice, exasperated. -"You're not going to get much bigger either." - -"Cut that," said the deep voice. "No sense scaring the kid." - -"Well, you're not figuring on taking them back, are you?" Nasal-voice -inquired. - -"No. Just Flauval. The colonel will be glad to chat with Flauval a bit, -now that she's turned up alive again. Koyle may have told her plenty -before we soured him on her. But there's no point in making the rest of -them desperate. It's easier when they surrender." - -There was a short pause. Then the deep voice addressed Peer with a sort -of amiable gruffness: - -"So they all went off to bury the boxes, but you don't know where they -went--is that it, little girl?" - -"Oh, sure!" Peer said, anxious to please. "Yes, sir! I know that!" - -"WHERE?" said both voices together, chorusing for the third time. - -"It's that big Mound over there," Peer said; and Channok started -nervously. "It's got a big door on top. No," she added, "I guess you -can't see from down here--and you can't see from the ship. That's why I -came out. To watch for'm. But you can see it plain from the top of the -rocks." - -"That would be the old reservoir or whatever it was we passed back -there," said the deep voice. - -"That's right," said Peer. "That's just what Flauval called it at -lunch! The word you said. There was water there oncet, she said. They -flew the boxes over with jets, but they'll be back before it's dark, -they said." - -There was a brief silence. - -"Scares me when it's dark, it does!" grumbled the idiot-child. - -"Well, that ties it up!" the deep voice said, satisfied. "It's the -exact kind of stunt Flauval would try. But she's outsmarted herself, -this time!" - - * * * * * - -"How do you figure on handling it?" Nasal-voice inquired. - -"Get up on one of those rocks with the kid where you can watch -both that 'mound' and the lock of their ship. Yes, I know it's -more trouble that way--but don't, ah, do anything conclusive about -the--uh--aforementioned, before we've corralled the rest! Much more -useful while capable of inhaling. Hostage possibilities. Inducement to -surrender!" - -"Uh-huh," Nasal-voice said comprehendingly. - -"Yes, sir!" added Peer. - -There was another short pause. - -"Might as well skip the circumlocutions," the deep voice continued. -"Barely human! I'll send a couple of men through the ship and, if it's -empty, I'll leave one of them in the forward lock where you can see -him. That's just in case anyone slips past us and comes back. The rest -of us will go over to the reservoir in the launch. If the entrance is -where she says it is, we've got them bottled. If it looks right, we'll -go in." - -"That'll be only four of you," said Nasal-voice. "No; three--you're -keeping one at the launch-guns, aren't you?" - -"Yes, of course. Hey, little girl--how many are with Flauval?" - -"Of us, you mean?" Peer asked. - -"Of what else?" snarled Nasal-voice. - -"Now don't get her so scared she can't talk!" the deep voice reproved. -"That's right, little girl--how many of you?" - -"Well, there's me," sniffled Peer, "and my old man, and my big brother -Dobby. And then there's Wilf--that's all. But I don't like Wilf!" - -"I don't like Wilf either!" agreed Nasal-voice. "Four against three, -chief! It might be safer to bring over the two from the _Ra-Twelve_ -first--no point in searching her anyway, now that we know where the -records are!" - -"No," said the deep voice. "Flauval could just happen to decide to -come out in the few minutes we're gone. It's sewed up too neatly right -now. We'll have the heavy guns from the launch and we'll give them a -chance to surrender. Flauval's too intelligent to pass that up--she -never stops hoping! The chances are there won't be any shooting, till -afterwards." - -"Any friends of hers are likely to be tough," Nasal-voice warned. - -"Very tough," said his chief. "Like the kid there! You worry at the -wrong times, my boy. A parcel of space-rats that happened along." -He swore again. "That woman's unbelievable luck! Well, take care of -yourself, Ezeff. I'm off. Keep your eyes open both ways! Just in case--" - - - VII - -There was silence for a moment. Then footsteps came crunching over the -rocks towards the ghoul-burrow, and Channok got set. But the footsteps -halted a few yards away. - -"That's the one I was sitting on," Peer volunteered. "Nice, easy one to -climb!" - -"Yeah, I never saw a nicer looking rock," Nasal-voice said sourly. -"We've got to climb it, too! I'm not trying any point-landings with -jets. Get on up there then, before I boot you up!" - -There were sounds of scrambling. - -"Don't you move now!" Peer said suddenly. - -"What are you talking about?" demanded Nasal-voice. - -"Durn rock come loose!" muttered Peer. "Near flung me off!" - -But Channok, meanwhile, had got the idea and settled back. It was not -yet the Right Moment.... - -There were more scrambling sounds and some breathless swearing -from Ezeff, who obviously had not spent his formative years in -asteroid-hopping either. But at last all become quiet. - -"And here we are!" Peer's voice floated down clearly. A small chunk -of rock dropped right in front of the burrow's entrance, like a -punctuation mark. - -"Sit still, blast you!" said Nasal-voice, badly out of breath. - -A large, dim shadow swept silently over the ground before the ghoul's -burrow just then. That would be the launch, going towards the Mound. A -prolonged silence overhead confirmed the impression. - -"They want to give Flauval a surprise?" Peer inquired meekly at last. - -Rather startlingly, Nasal-voice laughed. - -"They sure do!" he agreed. "That's a good one! Yes, sir, they sure do!" - -"Flauval's nice, don't you think?" continued Peer conversationally, -picking up courage. - -"Depends a lot on how you look at it," Nasal-voice said dreamily. -"She's a real pretty thing anyhow, that Flauval! Luck of the devil -she's had, too. But it's got to run out sometime." - -There was another silence. Then Peer remarked: - -"Boy, he set that launch down nice! Right quick spang on top of -the--what the big guy said it was. On the Mound." - -"We've got a good pilot," Nasal-voice agreed. "Flauval's going to get -her surprise in just a minute now!" - -"And there they come out of the launch," continued Peer. "One, two, -three, four. All four of them. Marching right down into the Mound!" - -"You've got sharp eyes," Nasal-voice acknowledged. "But that's funny!" -he continued worriedly. "One of them was to stay with the guns." - -"And now look at the launch!" cried Peer in a high, bright voice. -"Getting _pulled_ right into the Mound!" - -Nasal-voice was making loud, choking sounds. - -"What _was_ that?" he screamed then. "What's happened? What's that over -there?" - -"Let go my arm!" cried Peer. "Don't pull it--you're pushing me off! -_Here we go!_" - - * * * * * - -A small avalanche of weathered rock came down before the burrow's -mouth as Channok shot out through it into the open. He looked up. In -what looked like an inextricable tangle of arms and legs, Peer and -Nasal-voice were sliding and scuffling down the steep side of the rock -together. Nasal-voice was trying to hang on to the rock, but Peer was -hanging on to him and jerking like a hooked fish whenever he got a -momentary hold. - -She looked down and saw Channok, put her boots into the small of -Nasal-voice's back, pushed off and landed two yards from Channok on -hands and feet. He flattened himself back against the boulder, while -Nasal-voice skidded down the rest of the way unaided, wisely refraining -from triggering his jets. In the position he was in, they simply would -have accelerated his descent to a fatal degree. - -He arrived more or less on his feet. Peer bounced up and down before -him, her finger pointed, like a small lunatic. - -"Surprise!" she screamed. "Surprise! Like Flauval got! When you locked -her in her cabin and ran off with the launch, so she'd have to jump out -into space!" - -"That's right, kid," Nasal-voice panted softly, fumbling for his gun -without taking his eyes off her. He looked somewhat like a white-faced -lunatic himself just then. "Don't get scared, kid! Don't run off! I -won't shoot." - -He pulled the gun out suddenly. - -But Channok had taken two soft steps forward by then, and he had only -to swing. The Reaper was clubbed in his right hand, and he brought the -butt end down on the top of Nasal-voice Ezeff's skull-tight flying cap -as if he were trying to ram a stake through the surface rock of Old -Nameless. - - * * * * * - -"What happened over there on the Mound?" he inquired in a voice that -kept wanting to quaver. He was hurriedly pulling on Nasal-voice's -flight suit. - -"Here's his goggles," said Peer, also shakily. "Tell you tonight about -the Mound. But Santis was right!" - -"That's what it sounded like," Channok admitted. He slipped on the -goggles. "Do I look like this Ezeff now?" - -"Not very much," Peer said doubtfully. "You still got that nose and -that jaw. Better hold me close up to your face! I'll put on a good act." - -"All right. As soon as I set you down in the lock, jump past the guard -and yell, or something. If he looks after you, we mightn't have to -kill this one." He held out his arms. "Hop up! We'd better get started -before those last two on the _Ra-Twelve_ decide to come over." - -Peer hopped up. Channok wrapped his right arm carefully around her. -They looked at each other thoughtfully for a moment. - -"All set?" he asked. - -"Sure," said crew-member Peer. She smiled faintly. - -He triggered the jets with his left hand, and they shot upwards. Peer -drew a deep breath. - -"Quit bossing me around all the time, you big lug!" she yelled -suddenly. She reached up for that nose and gave it a good yank. - -"All right," Channok muttered, startled. "You don't have to be so -realistic! He can't even see us yet!" - -"Just because you're bigger'n me!" shrieked Peer as they soared over -the top of the rocks into view of the _Asteroid's_ lock. She hooked a -smart right to Channok's left ear. - -"Cut that out now, Peer!" he ordered futilely. - -He was lightly battered all around by the time they reached the -_Asteroid's_ lock, though the act did get them in safely. But -then--whether it was the nose or the jaw--the instant he dropped Peer -to her feet, the guard stopped laughing and brought a gun out and up -faster than Channok ever had seen a man produce one before. However, -the Reaper had been ready in his hand all the time; so, with a safe -fraction of a second to spare, it talked first-- - -[Illustration: With a fraction of a second to spare, the Reaper talked -first....] - -The glare of the discharge seemed about fifty times brighter than -normal. - -"Hit the floor, Channy!" he heard Peer's shout. - -He hit it without thought, dropping over the dead guard's legs.... - -Sound rammed at him enormously, roared on and began banging itself -about and away among distant mountains. The _Asteroid's_ floor had -surged up ponderously, settled back, quivered a bit and become stable -again. - -"An earthquake," Channok muttered, sitting up dazedly, "was exactly all -we needed right now!" - -"That wasn't any earthquake!" said Peer, standing pale-faced above him. -"Get up and look!" - - * * * * * - -Long veils of stuff, presumably solid chunks of mountain, were drifting -down the distant, towering face of the cliff at the foot of which they -had buried the _Ra-Twelve_. Rising to meet them, its source concealed -beyond the horizon of the plain, was the slow, grey cloud of some -super-explosion. - -"I guess," he said slowly, "one of those two must have got curious -about Koyle's wall-safe!" - -"We were pretty smart about that," nodded Peer. - -"We were, for once!" Channok agreed. He was looking around for -something to sit down on quietly when he caught sight of the dead guard -again. He started violently. - -"Almost forgot about him! I guess now I'll have to bury him, and that -Ezeff, the first thing. Maybe this one is carrying something that will -show who they were." - -He found something almost instantly--and he was glad then that Peer was -still watching the oily writhings of the cloud across the plain. It was -in a flat steel case he took out of one of the dead man's pockets: the -identification disk of a member of the Imperial Secret Service-- - -_The_ Service! - -And they would have murdered us, he thought, shocked. They were going -to do it! - -He turned the guard over on his back. A big muscular young man with a -look of sudden purpose and confidence still fixed on his face. It was -the same face as the one on the disk. - -Channok put the disk back in its case and shoved the case into the dead -man's pocket. He stood up, feeling rather sick. Peer turned around from -the lock and regarded him reflectively for a moment. - -"You know, Channy," she stated carefully, "if you can't help it, it -doesn't count." - -He looked back at her. "I guess not," he said--and suddenly, for a -moment, he could see four men marching one after the other down into -the Mound. "Of course, it doesn't count!" he told her firmly. - - - VIII - -They worked hard at shifting the cargo into the cache, but the -Nameless Sun was beginning to slide down behind the mountains before -they were finished. And by the time Channok had rammed the tunnel -full of rocks with the tractor and cemented them into a glassy plug -with the drill-blast, and scattered a camouflaging mess of boulders -over everything, only a foggy red glow over the mountain crests, -half obscured by the lingering upper drifts of the explosion of the -_Ra-Twelve_, remained of the day. - -There was no moon, but the sky had come full of stars big and little -over the opposite section of the plain; and so there was light enough -to make out the dark hump of the Mound in the distance. Every time -Channok looked in that direction, the low, sinister pile seemed to have -edged a little closer; and he looked as often as his work gave him a -chance to do it. Santis might have been right in stating that the Mound -wasn't dangerous if you didn't get too close to it--but the instant he -suspected there might be something going on over there, Channok was -going to hop off the tractor, grab up Peer and get off Old Nameless at -the best speed he and the _Asteroid_ could produce. - -However, the Mound remained quiet. With everything done, he gave Peer -a last ride back to the _Asteroid_ on the tractor, ran it up the ramp -into the storage section and closed the rear lock. Then they discovered -they'd left their lunch containers lying among the rocks. - -If he'd been alone, Channok would have left them there. But Peer looked -so matter-of-fact about it that he detached the tractor's headlight and -started back with her on foot. It was only a couple of hundred yards, -and they found the containers without any difficulty. The Mound seemed -to have moved a little closer again, but not too much. He gave it only -a casual glance this time. - -"Where are your friends, the ghouls?" he inquired, shining the light -around the rocks as they started back. The grisly creatures had put -in a few cautious appearances during the afternoon, but their nerves -seemed to have suffered even more than his own from all that had -happened. - -"The ghouls always hit their burrows at sundown," Peer explained. -"They're not like the story ones." - -"What do they find to eat around here?" Channok inquired. - -"Some sorts of rocks. They've got no real teeth but their mouth is like -a grinder inside. Most of the rest of their insides, too, Santis said. -I had a tame one I used to pitch stones at and he'd snap 'em up. But -all that weren't blue he'd spit out. The blue ones went right down--you -could hear them crunching for about a foot." - -"What a diet!" Channok commented. Then he stopped short. "Say, Peer! If -they bite like that, they could chew right into our cache!" - -"They won't," said Peer. "Come on." - -"How do you know?" Channok asked, following her. - -"They can't bite through a good grade of steel-alloy. And they don't -like its taste anyhow. Santis said so." - - * * * * * - -Well, it had been Santis this and Santis that for quite a while now! -Peer's father seemed to be on record with a definite opinion on just -about everything. And what made him think he knew what a ghoul liked to -chew on? - -Perhaps Channok couldn't be blamed too much. He was dog-tired and dirty -and hungry. He'd killed his first two men that day, and not in fair -fight either but with an assassin's sneak thrusts, from behind and by -trickery; and he'd buried them, too. He'd seen the shining ISS disclose -itself in action as something very tarnished and ugly, and a salvaged -ship worth a fortune go up in a cloud of writhing grey smoke.... - -There had been a number of other things--close shaves that had felt too -close, mostly. - -At any rate, Channok stated, in flat unequivocal terms, that he didn't -wish to hear anything else that Santis had said. Not ever! - -"You're taking the wrong attitude," Peer informed him, frowning. -"Santis is a very smart man. He could teach you a lot!" - -"What makes you think I want to learn anything from a space-rat?" -Channok inquired, exasperated. - -Peer stopped short. "That was a dirty thing to say!" she said in a low, -furious voice. "I'm not talking to you any more." - -She drew away till there was a space of about six feet between them and -marched on briskly towards the _Asteroid_, looking straight ahead. - -Channok had to hurry to keep abreast of her. He watched her in the -starlight for a few moments from the corners of his eyes. He probably -shouldn't have used that term--the half-pint did look good and mad! - -"Tsk! Tsk!" he said, disturbed. - -Peer said nothing. She walked a bit faster. Channok lengthened his -stride again. - -"Who's my nice little girl friend?" he inquired wheedlingly. - -"Shuddup!" growled Peer. - -She climbed into the _Asteroid_ ahead of him and disappeared while he -sealed the locks. The control room was dark, but he felt she was around -somewhere. He switched on the power and the instruments. Familiar -dim pools of green and pink gleamings sprang up in quick sequence -like witchfire quivering over the control desk. Perhaps it wasn't an -exceptionally beautiful sight, but it looked home-like to Channok. Like -fires lighting up on a hearth. - -"Well, let's see you handle this take-off!" he invited the shadows -around him briskly. This time there weren't any mountains nearby to -worry about. - -"You handle it," Peer said from behind his shoulder. "It's my turn to -laugh." - -She did, too, a few minutes later--loud and long! After he'd got -over the first shock of narrowly missing the Mound, Channok gave a -convincing imitation of a chagrined pilot and indignantly blamed the -_Asteroid_.... - - * * * * * - -He'd guided them halfway out of the Nameless System when she -came behind the control chair in the dark, wrapped her arms in a -stranglehold around his neck, and fondly bit his ear. - -"Cut it out," Channok choked. - -"Just the same," stated Peer, loosening her grip a trifle, "you're -_not_ so smart, like Santis is!" - -"I'm not, eh?" - -"No," said Peer. "But Santis said you would be some time. 'That -Channok's going to make a real spacer!' he said. 'Just give him a -chance to catch on.'" - -"Well," Channok muttered, secretly flattered, "we'll hope he was right." - -"And, anyway," said Peer, "I _LOVE_ you just as much!" - -"Well, that's something, too!" Channok admitted. He was beginning to -feel very much better. - -"And guess what I've got here," Peer said tenderly. - -"What?" - -"A nice, soapy cloth. For what you said when you saw the first ghoul. -So just open that big trap right up now, Channy!" - -He couldn't tell in the dark; but it tasted like she'd taken the -trouble to mix something extra foul into the soap lather, too. - -"And after you've stopped spitting bubbles," said crew-member Peer, who -was switching on all lights to observe that part of the business, "I'll -tell you what I saw on the Mound." - -Channok shuddered. - -"If you don't mind, Peer," he suggested soapily, "let's wait with that -till we're a lightyear or two farther out!" - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTIVES OF THE THIEVE-STAR *** - -***** This file should be named 64198-0.txt or 64198-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/9/64198/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Schmitz</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Captives of the Thieve-Star</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: James H. Schmitz</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 02, 2021 [eBook #64198]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTIVES OF THE THIEVE-STAR ***</div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>CAPTIVES of the THIEVE-STAR</h1> - -<h2><i>A Novelet by</i> JAMES H. SCHMITZ</h2> - -<p><i>When Peer and Channok grappled the derelict<br /> -Ra-Twelve, they hooked a death-prize—haunted<br /> -by the Yomm, stalked by the Mysterious Nine!</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories May 1951.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The celebration of the wedding of Peer and Channok had to be cut a -little short, because a flock of police-boats from Irrek showed up at -detector-range about midway. But it was carried off with a flourish -nevertheless.</p> - -<p>The oxygen-bubble in the small moon crater was filled with colorful -solidographs, creating the impression of an outdoor banquet hall. The -best bands playing in the Empire that night unwittingly contributed -their efforts, and food and drink were beyond reproach.</p> - -<p>Though somewhat dazed throughout, Channok was startled to discover -at one point that the thick carpets on which he stood were a genuine -priceless Gaifornaab weave—and no solidographs either! The eighty-four -small ships of the space-rat tribe—or voyageurs, as they distinctly -preferred to be called—lined up along the outer edges of the banquet -hall looked eerily out of place to him; but Peer didn't seem to mind. -Her people rarely did go far away from their ships, and the lawless, -precarious life they led made that an advisable practice.</p> - -<p>It would be up to him now, Channok reflected, beaming down on Peer, -to educate her into customs and attitudes more fitting for the wife -of a regular citizen of the Empire and probable future member of the -Imperial Secret Service—</p> - -<p>And then, suddenly, the whole ceremony seemed to be over! A bit -puzzled by the abruptness with which everybody had begun to pack up -and leave, Channok was standing beside the ramp of his own ship, the -<i>Asteroid</i>—an honest, licensed trader—when Santis strolled over to -talk to him. Santis was Peer's father and the pint-sized chieftain of -the tribe.</p> - -<p>"Didn't tell you before, son," he remarked, "because you were already -nervous enough. But as soon as they finish collapsing the bubble, -you'll have about six minutes to get your <i>Asteroid</i> aloft and off this -moon before the cops from Irrek arrive!"</p> - -<p>"I heard you, Pop, and everything's packed!" Peer called down from the -open lock of the <i>Asteroid</i>. "Come up and kiss me good-by and we'll -seal her up!"</p> - -<p>Frowning suspiciously, Channok followed Santis up the ramp. "Why should -I worry about cops?" he inquired, looking down at the two little people -while they briefly embraced. Peer came about up to his shoulder, though -perfectly formed, and Santis was an inch or two shorter. The tribe -didn't run to bulk. "Nobody's hunting for me!"</p> - -<p>"Not yet, son," Santis conceded. He twirled his fierce brown -mustache-tips thoughtfully and glanced at Peer.</p> - -<p>"If you're passing anywhere near Old Nameless, you might cache that -special cargo you're carrying for me there," he told her. "Around the -foot of the Mound. Too bulky for the ships I've got here! Put a dowser -plate in with it, and I'll come pick it up with a transport sometime in -the next four months."</p> - -<p>"Yes, Pop," said Peer.</p> - -<p>"The Fourth Voyageur Fleet will rendezvous at New Gyrnovaan next -Terra-spring. If you can talk this big lug into it, try to make it -there, daughter!"</p> - -<p>"We'll be there," promised Peer.</p> - -<p>Channok cleared his throat impatiently. Not if he could help it, they -wouldn't!</p> - -<p>"Those cops are looking for the missing Crown Jewels of Irrek," Santis -resumed, looking at him. "After they've opened you up from stem to -stern to make sure you're not hiding them, they might apologize. And -again they might not."</p> - -<p>"Holy Satellites!" Channok said, stunned. "Did you actually—"</p> - -<p>"Not I, son. I just master-mind these things. Some of the boys did the -job. There goes the oxygen-bubble! Now will you get going?"</p> - -<p>They got going, Channok speechless for once.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Some two months later, he stood in the <i>Asteroid's</i> control room, -watching a pale blur creep up along the starboard screen.</p> - -<p>"That's not just one ship—that's at least a hundred!" he announced -presently, somewhat startled. "Looks like they've turned out the entire -Dardrean war-fleet! Wonder what's up?"</p> - -<p>Peer laid the cargo list she was checking down on the desk and came -over to look at the screen.</p> - -<p>"Hm!" she said.</p> - -<p>"It couldn't possibly have anything to do with us, could it?" he -inquired, on a sudden alarming hunch. Being unfamiliar with the dialect -used on Dardrea, he had left most of the bargaining there to her.</p> - -<p>Peer shrugged. She showed the bland, innocent look of a ten-year-old -child, but that was habitual with her. On one occasion she'd been -mistaken for his daughter, and at times he even had to remind himself -that she'd been eighteen and a student at the Imperial Institute of -Technology when he first met her there—and then unwittingly became -Santis' tool in the abstraction of a small but important section of the -IIT's top-secret experimental files! He'd been trying to counteract -that little brigand's influence on Peer ever since, but he wasn't too -sure of his degree of success so far.</p> - -<p>"We took the Merchants Guild for plenty on our auction!" she admitted.</p> - -<p>"Well," Channok frowned, "they'd hardly send a fleet after us for that."</p> - -<p>"And, of course," added Peer, "we got the Duke of Dardrea's fabulous -Coronet. Forgot to mention that. Perfectly legal, though! Some local -crook swiped it and we took it in trade."</p> - -<p>Channok winced. As a matter of fact, fencing <i>was</i> a perfectly -legitimate business on Dardrea. But a man who planned to enter the -Imperial Secret Service, as soon as he could save up the money to pay -his way through the Academy, couldn't afford any stains on his past! -Throughout the Empire, the Service was renowned in song and story as -the one body of men who stood above the suspicion of reproach.</p> - -<p>"The Duke won't know it's gone for another week," Peer consoled him. -"Anyway, it looks to me as if those ships are beginning to pull off our -course!"</p> - -<p>There followed some seconds of tense observation.</p> - -<p>"So they are," Channok acknowledged then. He mopped his forehead. "But -I wish you wouldn't be quite so technical in your interpretation of -local laws, Peer! Those babies are really traveling. Wonder who or what -they're chasing?"</p> - -<p>Three days later, as the <i>Asteroid</i> approached the area of the red -giant sun of Old Nameless, where they were going to cache Santis' cargo -for him—hot cargo, probably; and it would be a load off Channok's mind -to get rid of it—they picked up the trail of the foundering spaceship -<i>Ra-Twelve</i> and found part of the answer on board.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>"It seemed to me," Channok remarked, watching the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> in the -viewscreen before them, "as if her drives had cut off completely just -then! But they're on again now. What do you think, crew-member Peer?"</p> - -<p>"Let's just follow her a bit," Peer suggested. "I've seen ships act -like that that were just running out of juice. But this one won't even -answer signals!"</p> - -<p>"It could be," Channok said hopefully, "a case of fair salvage! You -might keep working the communicators, though...."</p> - -<p>However, the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> continued to ignore them while she plodded -on towards the distant red glare of the Nameless System like a blind, -thirsty beast following its nose to a water-hole. Presently, she -began a series of quavering zigzag motions, wandered aimlessly off -her course, returned to it again on a few final puffs of invisible -energy and at last went drifting off through space with her drives now -obviously dead.</p> - -<p>The <i>Asteroid</i> continued to follow at a discreet distance like a chunky -vulture, watching. If there was anyone on board the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>, it -almost had to be a ghost. Her rear lock was wide open, and the hull -showed deep scars and marks of some recent space-action.</p> - -<p>"But she wasn't really badly hurt," Channok pointed out. "What do you -suppose could have happened to her crew?"</p> - -<p>Peer gave him a nervous grin. "Maybe a space-ghost came on board!"</p> - -<p>"You don't really believe those spooky voyageur stories, do you?" he -said tolerantly.</p> - -<p>"Sure I do—and so will you some day!" Peer promised him. "I'll tell -you a few true ones just before your next sleep-period!"</p> - -<p>"No, you won't," Channok said firmly. "Aside from space-ghosts, though, -that crate has a downright creepy look to her. But I suppose I'd better -go over and check, as soon as she slows down enough so we can latch on. -And you're going to stay on the <i>Asteroid</i>, Peer."</p> - -<p>"In a pig's eye, I am!" Peer said indignantly. And though Channok -wished to know if she had forgotten that he was the <i>Asteroid's</i> -skipper, it turned out that this was one time he'd have to yield.</p> - -<p>"Because, Channy dear," Peer said, her big dark eyes welling slow -tears, "I'd just die if something happened to you over there and I was -left all alone in space!"</p> - -<p>"All you'd have to do," Channok said uncomfortably, "is to head the -<i>Asteroid</i> for New Gyrnovaan, and you know it. Well—you've got to -promise to stay right behind me, anyway!"</p> - -<p>"Of course," promised Peer, the tears vanishing miraculously. "Santis -says a wife should always stick with her husband in space, because he -might lead her into a jam, all right, but nothing like the !!****!; -!**!! jams she's likely to run into if she strays around by herself."</p> - -<p>"Whereas Ship's Regulation 66-B says," said Channok with grim -satisfaction, "that crew-member Peer gets her mouth washed out with -soap just before the next sleep-period because of another uncontrolled -lapse into vituperous profanity—and what was that comment?"</p> - -<p>"That one was under my breath," said Peer, crestfallen, "so it doesn't -count!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Without making any particular remarks about it, both of them had -fastened a brace of guns to their jet-harnesses. At close range—held -thirty feet away against the <i>Asteroid's</i> ring-bumpers by a set of dock -grapnels—the <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> yawning lock looked more than ever like the -black mouth of a cavern in which something was lurking for them.</p> - -<p>Channok went over first, propelled by a single squirt of his jets, -and landed a little heavier than he had intended to. Peer, following -instructions to keep right behind him, came down an instant later in -the middle of his back. They got untangled hurriedly, stood up and -started swiveling their helmet beams about the <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> storage -lock.</p> - -<p>It was practically empty. So was the big rack that had held the ship's -single big lifeboat. There were some tools scattered around. They -kicked at them thoughtfully, looked at each other and started forward -through an open door up a dark passageway, switching their lights -ahead and from side to side.</p> - -<p>There was a locked door which probably led into the <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> -engine section, and then four cabins, each of which had been used by -two men. The cabins were in considerable disorder, but from what one -could tell in a brief look-around, each of the occupants had found time -to pack up about what you would expect a man to take along when he was -planning on a lifeboat trip. So whatever had happened probably hadn't -been entirely unexpected.</p> - -<p>The mess-room, all tidied up, was next; two locked doors were at -the back of it, and also an open entrance to the kitchen and food -storage. They glanced around at everything, briefly, and went on to the -control room.</p> - -<p>It was considerably bigger than the one on the <i>Asteroid</i> and -luxuriously equipped. The pilot's section was in a transparently walled -little office by itself. The instruments showed both Dardrean and -Empire markings and instructions. Channok switched the dead drives off -first and then reached out, quite automatically, for the spot above the -control desk where a light button ought to be—</p> - -<p>Light instantly flooded the interior of the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>.</p> - -<p>The intruders jumped a foot. It was as if the ship had suddenly come -alive around them! Then they looked at each other and grinned.</p> - -<p>"Automatic," Channok sighed.</p> - -<p>"Might as well do it the easy way!" Peer admitted. She slid the Ophto -Needle she'd half-drawn back into its holster.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The <i>Ra-Twelve</i> had eighteen fully charged drive batteries still -untouched. With some system of automatic power transfer working, she -could have gone cruising along on her course for months to come. -However, she hadn't been cruising, Channok discovered next; the speed -controls were set to "Full Emergency".... An empty ship, racing through -space till the battery she was operating on went dead—</p> - -<p>He shook his head. And then Peer was tapping his arm.</p> - -<p>"Look what I found! I think it's her log!"</p> - -<p>It was a flat steel box with an illuminated tape at its front end, -on which a date was printed. A line of spidery Dardrean script was -engraved on a plate on the top of the box.</p> - -<p>"<i>Ra-Twelve</i>," Peer translated. "That's her name."</p> - -<p>"So it's a Dardrean ship! But they're using the Empire calendar," -Channok pointed out, "which would make it an Empire crew.... How do you -work this thing? If it is her log, it might give us an idea of what's -happened."</p> - -<p>"Afterwards, Channy! I just found another door leading off the other -end of the control room—"</p> - -<p>The door opened into a second passage, parallel to the one by which -they had come forward, but only half as long and very dimly lit. Filled -with uneasy speculations, Channok forgot his own instructions and let -Peer take the lead.</p> - -<p>"More cabins!" her voice said, just as he became aware of the wrecked -door-frame out of which the light was spilling ahead of her.</p> - -<p>A woman had been using that cabin. A woman who had liked beautiful and -expensive things, judging by what was strewn about. It looked, Channok -thought, as if she hadn't had time to finish her packing.</p> - -<p>"Her spacesuit's gone, though," Peer's voice announced from the -interior of a disordered closet.</p> - -<p>Channok was inspecting the door. This was the first indication that -there had been any violence connected with whatever had happened on the -<i>Ra-Twelve</i>. The door had been locked from without and literally ripped -open from within by a stream of incandescence played on it by a gun -held probably not much more than a foot away. That woman had wanted out -in an awful hurry!</p> - -<p>Peer came over to watch him. He couldn't quite read her expression, but -he had a notion she wanted to bawl.</p> - -<p>"Let's take a quick look at the rest of it and get back to the -<i>Asteroid</i>," he suggested, somewhat disturbed himself. "We ought to -talk this over."</p> - -<p>The one remaining cabin lay just beyond the point where the passage -angled back into the ship. There was light in that one, too, and the -door was half open. Channok got there first and pushed it open a little -farther. Then he stood frozen in the door-frame for a moment.</p> - -<p>"What's stopping you?" Peer inquired impatiently, poking his ribs from -behind.</p> - -<p>He stepped back into the passage, pulled the door shut all the way, -scooped her up and heaved her to his shoulder. His space-boots felt -like iron anchors as he clunk-clunked hastily back through the passages -to the derelict's lock. There was nothing definite to run from any -more; but he knew now what had happened on the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>, and he felt -nightmare pacing after him all the way.</p> - -<p>He crossed to the <i>Asteroid's</i> control room lock in a jump, without -bothering with his jets.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Close the outer lock!" he told Peer hoarsely, reaching up for the -switch marked "Decontaminant" above him.</p> - -<p>A fourfold spray of yellowish Killall was misting the trapped air in -the lock about them an instant later.</p> - -<p>"What was it?" Peer's voice came out of the fog.</p> - -<p>"Antibiotic," Channok said, his scalp still crawling. "What you—what -voyageurs call a lich, I think. I don't know that kind. But it got the -guy in that last cabin."</p> - -<p>The occupant of the last cabin had looked as if somebody had used a -particularly vicious sort of acid gun on him, which somehow had missed -damaging his clothing. To the grisly class of life-forms that produced -that effect, an ordinary spacesuit offered exactly no resistance.</p> - -<p>"A lich can't last more than an hour or so in space, Channy," Peer's -voice came shakily after a pause. "It's a pretty awful way to get it, -but that stuff over there must have been dead for a long time now."</p> - -<p>"I know," said Channok. He hesitated, and then cut off the Killall -spray and started the blowers to clear the lock. "I guess I just -panicked for a moment. But I'm going to go over that ship with -decontaminant before we do any more investigating! And meanwhile you'd -better get in a few hours of sleep!"</p> - -<p>"Wouldn't hurt any," Peer agreed. "How do you suppose the lich got on -board?"</p> - -<p>He could tell her that. He'd seen a heavy, steel-framed glassite -container in a corner of the cabin, opened. They must have been -transporting some virulent form of antibiotic; and there might have -been an accident—</p> - -<p>Five hours later, they had come to the conclusion that it had been -no accident. Four hours of that time, Channok had been engaged in -disinfecting the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>, even her engine sections. He'd given the -one man left on board space-burial in one of the <i>Asteroid's</i> steel -cargo crates. The crate hadn't been launched very far and presently -hung suspended some eighty yards above the two ships, visible as a -black oblong that obscured the stars behind it.</p> - -<p>It and its contents were one of the reasons Channok was anxious to get -done with the job of salvaging the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>. She was a stream-lined, -beautiful ship; but after what had happened, he knew he would never be -able to work up any liking for her. She seemed to be waiting sullenly -and silently for a chance to deal with the two humans who had dared -come on board her again.</p> - -<p>He sealed her up presently, filled her with a fresh airmix and, having -once more checked everything he could think of, let Peer come over -again for a final briefing on their run to Old Nameless.</p> - -<p>Peer wandered promptly into the cabin where the dead man had been and -there discovered the wall-safe.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p>She called him. He couldn't imagine how he had overlooked it. Perhaps -because it was so obviously <i>there</i>! It was an ordinary enough safe, -from what they could see of the front of it; and there was a tiny key -in its lock.</p> - -<p>They looked at it thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>"You didn't try to open it, did you?" Channok inquired.</p> - -<p>"No," said Peer; "because—"</p> - -<p>"That's what I was thinking," Channok admitted.</p> - -<p>There had been, they had decided, at least two groups working against -each other in the ship. The dead man had been in charge of the -antibiotic. Perhaps the woman had been on his side, perhaps not. But -the eight other men had acted together and had controlled the ship. -What action or threat of theirs had caused the dead man to release his -terrible weapon would be hard to discover now. But he had done it, and -the eight men had abandoned the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> promptly, leaving the woman -locked in her cabin....</p> - -<p>It looked pretty much as if she had been the one who had switched the -drives to full speed—before jumping out into space. A pretty tough, -desperate lot all around, in Channok's opinion. The <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> log -offered the information that they had left Dardrea three calendric -days earlier, but had been of no further help in identifying crew or -passengers. That most of them were professional criminals, however, -seemed a pretty safe bet—as Peer had pointed out, in voyageur terms, -amateurs didn't play around with taboo-weapons like a bottled lich!</p> - -<p>Also, amateurs—Peer and Channok, for example—could have sense enough -not to blunder into a booby-trap....</p> - -<p>"He'd know, of course," Channok said reflectively, "that everybody -would be wondering what's hidden in that safe! And it could be anything -up to and including full instructions on how to set up an artificial -culture of antibiotics. Plenty of governments would pay twenty times -what the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> is worth as salvage for that kind of information. -But it's nothing <i>we</i> need to know."</p> - -<p>"Not that bad," Peer agreed.</p> - -<p>"And the guy who opens that wall-safe had better be an armaments -expert! Which we're not. But now, crew-member Peer, if we want to get -Santis' cargo cached on Old Nameless before I fall asleep, we ought -to get started. Idle curiosity is something we can satisfy some other -time."</p> - -<p>"Two hours past your sleep-period right now!" said Peer, glancing at -her wrist-watch. "Tsk, tsk! That always makes you so grouchy."</p> - -<p>Half an hour later, they were on their way—Channok in the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>, -Peer in the <i>Asteroid</i>, keeping as close to each other as two ships -in flight could safely get. With the red glare of the Old Nameless -sun a trifle off-center before him, Channok settled down in the most -comfortable pilot-seat he'd ever found on any ship and decided he could -relax a trifle. Peer was obviously having a wonderful time doing her -first solo-piloting job on a ship of the <i>Asteroid's</i> size; and since -she'd run and landed the <i>Asteroid</i> any number of times under his -supervision, he wasn't worried about her ability to handle it. However, -he continued to check in on her over the communicators every five -minutes or so, and grinned at the brisk, spacemanlike replies he got in -return. Crew-member Peer was on her best behavior right now!</p> - -<p>By and by, then—he couldn't have said just when it started—Channok -began to realize that some very odd things were happening around him—</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It appeared that the Thing he had put out for burial in a space-crate -hadn't liked the idea of being left alone. So it was following him.</p> - -<p>Channok decided uneasily that it might be best to ignore it. But it -kept coming closer and closer until, finally, the crate was floating -just outside the <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> control room port, spinning slowly like -a running-down top.</p> - -<p>The crate stayed shut, but he knew the Thing inside it was watching him.</p> - -<p>"That's my ship," the Thing remarked presently.</p> - -<p>Channok ignored it.</p> - -<p>"And you're all alone," said the Thing.</p> - -<p>"No, I'm not!" said Channok. "Peer's with me."</p> - -<p>"Peer's gone back to Santis," said the Thing. "You're all alone! -Except," it added, "for me."</p> - -<p>"Well, good-by!" Channok said firmly. There was no point in getting too -chummy with it. He punched the <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> drives down as far as they -would go, and the crate vanished.</p> - -<p>How that ship could travel! Nothing could hope to keep up with him -now—except, perhaps, that round, red glare of light just behind the -<i>Ra-Twelve</i>.</p> - -<p>That was actually overtaking him, and fast. It was coming up like -a cosmic police-ship, with a huge, hollow noise rushing before it. -Channok listened apprehensively. Suddenly, there were words:</p> - -<p>"WHOO-WHOOO!" it howled. "<i>This is the Space Ghost!</i>"</p> - -<p>He shot up out of his chair like a jabbed cat, knocking it over, and -glared around.</p> - -<p>The <i>Ra-Twelve's</i> control room lay brightly lit and silent behind him.</p> - -<p>"Ha-ha!" Peer's chuckle came from the communicator. "That woke you up, -I bet! Was that you that fell over?"</p> - -<p>"Aw-awk!" breathed Channok. Articulation came back to him. "All right, -crew-member Peer! Just wait till we get to Old Nameless! I'll fix you -good!"</p> - -<p>"Shall I tell you the story now about the Horror Ship from Mizar?" Peer -inquired intrepidly.</p> - -<p>"Go right ahead," Channok challenged, righting his chair and settling -back into it. "You can't scare me with that sort of stuff!" He began -checking their position.</p> - -<p>He must have been asleep for quite a while! The Nameless System was -less than two hours ahead now. He switched on the front screen; and the -sun swam up like a big, glowing coal before him. He began checking for -the seventh planet.</p> - -<p>"Well," he reminded the communicator grimly, "you were going to tell me -a story."</p> - -<p>The communicator remained silent a moment.</p> - -<p>"I don't think I will, anyway," Peer said then, rather quietly.</p> - -<p>"Why not?" Channok inquired, getting his screen-viewer disentangled -from a meteor-belt in the Nameless System.</p> - -<p>"I made that Space Ghost too good!" whispered Peer. "I'm getting scared -myself now."</p> - -<p>"Aha!" said Channok. "See what behaving like that will get you?" He got -Old Nameless VII into the viewer.</p> - -<p>The communicator remained still. He looked over at it.</p> - -<p>"Of course, there's really nothing to be scared of!" he added -reassuringly.</p> - -<p>"How do you know?" quavered Peer. "I'm all alone."</p> - -<p>"Nonsense!" Channok said heartily. "I can see the <i>Asteroid</i> right over -there on the screen! You can see me, can't you?"</p> - -<p>"Sure," said Peer. "That's a long way off, though. You couldn't do -anything!"</p> - -<p>"It's not safe for two ships to travel much closer together," Channok -reminded her. "We're only two hours from Old Nameless right now—I'm -already focussed on it."</p> - -<p>"I've been focussed on it for an hour," said Peer. "While you were -snoring," she added. "Two hours is an awful long time!"</p> - -<p>"Tell you what," suggested Channok. "I'll race you to it. The -<i>Ra-Twelve's</i> a mighty fast boat—" He checked himself. He'd only -dreamed that, after all.</p> - -<p>"Let's go!" Peer said briefly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He let Peer stay just ahead of him all the way in, though the -stream-lined derelict probably could have flown rings around the -<i>Asteroid</i>, at that. Just an hour later, they went around Old Nameless -VII twice, braking down, and then coasted into its atmosphere on their -secondary drives.</p> - -<p>"That's the place," Peer's voice said suddenly. "I can see the old -Mound in the plain! In the evening strip, Channy—that straight-up -cliff!"</p> - -<p>He set the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> down first, at the base of a mountain that -reared up almost vertically for eighteen thousand feet or so out of a -flat, dimly-lit stretch of rocky desert land.</p> - -<p>The <i>Asteroid</i> came down in a very neat landing, two hundred yards -away. He got there on the run, just as the front lock opened. Peer -came tumbling out of it into his arms and hung on fiercely, while her -skipper hugged her.</p> - -<p>"Let that scare be a lesson to you!" he remarked when he set her down.</p> - -<p>"It certainly will," said Peer, still clutching his arm as they started -over to the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>. "That old Space Ghost had me going!"</p> - -<p>"Me, too," he confessed; "just for a moment, anyway! Well, let's get -busy."</p> - -<p>They went over the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> again from bow to stern, to make sure -there was nothing they would want to take along immediately, and found -there wasn't. They gave the unopened wall-safe a last calculating -regard, and decided once more that they'd better not. Then they shut -off everything, closed the front lock behind them and safetied it with -the dock bolts.</p> - -<p>The plain was darkening when they came out, but the top of the mountain -still glowed with red light. They climbed into the <i>Asteroid</i>, and -Channok closed the lock. He started for the control desk then; but -Peer beat him to it and anchored herself into the seat of command -with hands, knees and feet. It became apparent almost at once that he -couldn't get her out of it without running the risk of pulling off her -head.</p> - -<p>"Now look here, crew-member Peer," he said persuasively, "you know good -and well that if these top-heavy cargo crates have one weakness, it's -the take-off!"</p> - -<p>"It could be the pilot, too," Peer said meaningly. "I've been studying -the manual, and I've watched you do it. It's my turn now."</p> - -<p>He considered her thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>"Suppose you die of old age, all of a sudden?" argued Peer. "Wouldn't -want me to sit here alone without knowing even how to take her off, -would you?"</p> - -<p>That did it.</p> - -<p>"Go ahead," said Channok with dignity, taking a position back of the -chair. "Go right ahead! This decrepit old man of twenty-eight is going -to stand right here and laugh himself sick!"</p> - -<p>"You'll be sick, all right," promised Peer. "But it won't be from -laughing! I'll read that chapter out of the manual to you sometime."</p> - -<p>She <i>had</i> studied it, too, he decided. She sat perched forward on the -edge of the chair, alert and cocky, and went through the starting -operations without hitch or hesitation. The <i>Asteroid</i> rumbled beneath -them, briefly building up power....</p> - -<p>Channok braced himself—</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - -<p>For the next few seconds, the question seemed to be whether they'd -pile into the plain or the mountain first; and, for another improbable -moment, they were distinctly skidding along upside down. Then Peer got -them straightened out, and they soared up rapidly into the night sky -above Old Nameless.</p> - -<p>Channok's hair settled slowly back into place.</p> - -<p>Peer looked around at him, puzzled and rather pale.</p> - -<p>"That's not the way it said in the manual!" she stated.</p> - -<p>Channok whooped. Then he sat down on the floor, bent over and yelled.</p> - -<p>When he got around to wiping the tears from his eyes, Peer was looking -down at him disgustedly from the control chair.</p> - -<p>"It wasn't the way it said in the manual!" she repeated firmly. "We're -going to have to have this old crate overhauled before she'll be safe -to fly—and if you weren't my husband, I'd really let you have it now!"</p> - -<p>He stood up, muttering some sort of apology.</p> - -<p>"I've done some just as bad!" he assured her.</p> - -<p>"Hum!" said Peer coldly, studying Old Nameless in the screen below -them. It seemed safe to pat her on the head then, but he kept his hand -well out of biting range.</p> - -<p>"We'd better get back to that mountain and bury the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> before -it gets too dark to find the spot," he suggested.</p> - -<p>"It's still just in sight," said Peer. "You get the guns ready, and -I'll run us past it slowly."</p> - -<p>Spaceships being what they were, there wasn't much ceremony about -caching the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>. Channok got the bow-turret out; and as Peer -ran the <i>Asteroid</i> slowly along the mountainside a few hundred feet -above the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>, he cut a jagged line into the rock with the -gun's twin beams. A few dozen tons of rock came thundering down on the -<i>Ra-Twelve</i>.</p> - -<p>They came back from the other side, a little higher up, and he loosened -it some more. This time, it looked as if a sizable section of the -mountain were descending; and when the dust had settled the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> -was fifty feet under a sloping pile of very natural-looking debris. -To get her out again, they'd only have to cut a path down to her lock -and start her drives. She'd come out of the stuff then, like a trout -breaking water....</p> - -<p>Satisfied, they went off and got the <i>Asteroid</i> on an orbit around -Old Nameless, not too far out. Peer had assured Channok that Santis' -investigations had proved the planet safe for human beings, so it -probably was. But he knew he'd feel more comfortable if they put in -their sleep-periods outside its atmosphere. Bathed in the dismal light -of its giant sun, Old Nameless looked like a desolate backyard of Hell. -It was rocky, sandy, apparently waterless and lifeless and splotched -with pale stretches of dry salt seas. Incongruously delicate auroras -went crawling about its poles, like lopsided haloes circling a squat, -brooding demon. It wasn't, Channok decided, the kind of planet he would -have stopped at of his own accord, for any purpose.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The cliff against which they had buried the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> was the -loftiest section of an almost unbroken chain of mountains, surrounding -the roughly circular hundred-mile plain, which was littered with -beds of boulders and sand-hills, like a moon crater. What Peer had -referred to as the "Mound" lay approximately at the center of the -plain. It turned out, next morning, to be a heavily weathered, -dome-shaped structure half a mile high and five miles across, which -gave the impression that all but the top tenth of a giant's skull -had been buried in the sand, dented here and there with massive -hammers, and sprinkled thickly with rock dust. It was obviously an -artifact—constructed with hundred-foot bricks! As the <i>Asteroid</i> -drifted down closer to it, Channok became interested.</p> - -<p>"Who built it?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Peer shrugged. She didn't know. "Santis spent a few hours jetting -around the edges of it once," she said. "But he wouldn't tell us much; -and, afterwards, he wouldn't let us get nearer than a mile to it. He -didn't go back himself, either—said it was dangerous to get too close!"</p> - -<p>It didn't look dangerous. But fifty thousand years ago, it might have -been a fortress of some sort.</p> - -<p>"You oughtn't to be flying so low over it, even!" Peer said warningly. -"Right in the middle on top is where it's the most dangerous, Santis -said!"</p> - -<p>Channok didn't argue the matter—they had to get Santis' special cargo -cached and off their hands first, anyway. He lifted the <i>Asteroid</i> -a mile or so and then brought her down a couple of miles beyond the -Mound, at the point Peer had designated.</p> - -<p>They got out of the ship and gazed about the broken, rocky plain. The -red light of the Nameless Sun was spilling across it in what passed for -morning on this world. In it, the black mountain chains rearing about -the horizon and the craggy waves of flat land had the general effect -of a bomb-shattered and slowly burning city. Far off to their left, he -could see the upper half of the towering precipice which marked the -<i>Ra-Twelve's</i> resting-place.</p> - -<p>"How long a time did you say you spent here?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Peer reflected. "About two Terra-months, I guess. I'm not sure, though. -That was a long time ago. My youngest brother Dobby wasn't born yet."</p> - -<p>He shook his head. "What a spot for a nice family picnic!"</p> - -<p>"It wasn't a picnic," Peer said. "But my kid brother Wilf and I had a -lot of fun anyway, just running around and teasing the ghouls. I guess -you don't notice so much what a place looks like when you're little."</p> - -<p>"Teasing the what?"</p> - -<p>"Ghouls," said Peer carelessly.</p> - -<p>He looked at her suspiciously; but she seemed to be studying the nearby -terrain for a good spot to start digging.</p> - -<p>"And what were Santis and your mother doing?" he inquired.</p> - -<p>"They were looking for some sort of mineral deposit on Old Nameless; I -forget just what. How about that spot—just under that little overhang? -It looks like good, solid top-rock."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Channok agreed it was just the place. He'd got a drilling attachment -mounted to the <i>Asteroid's</i> small all-purpose tractor; and now he -went back and ran the machine down the ramp from the storage lock. -He ordered Peer, who wanted to help, up a rock about twenty feet -overhead, where she perched looking like an indignant elf, out of -reach of any stray puffs of the drill-blast. Then he started running a -slanting, narrow tunnel down under the overhang.</p> - -<p>Half an hour later, when he backed the tractor out of the tunnel, -pushing a pile of cooking slag behind him, he saw her standing up on -the rock with a small stun-gun in her hand. She beckoned to him.</p> - -<p>Channok pulled off his breather-mask, shut off the tractor, and jumped -from the saddle.</p> - -<p>"What is it?" he called anxiously, trotting towards her, while the -machine's clacking and roaring subsided.</p> - -<p>"Some of those ghouls!" Peer called back. "Climb up here and I'll show -you." She didn't seem worried.</p> - -<p>"They've ducked behind those rocks now," she said as he clambered up -beside her; "but they won't stay there long. They're curious, and I -think some of them remember the time we were here before."</p> - -<p>"Are they dangerous?" he inquired, patting his holstered set of -heavy-duty Reaper guns.</p> - -<p>"No," said Peer. "They look sort of awful, but you mustn't shoot them! -If they get inside of thirty feet I'll hit them in the stomach with a -stunner. They grunt then and run. Santis said that was the right way to -teach them not to get too nosey."</p> - -<p>They waited a moment in silence, scanning the rocks.</p> - -<p>Then Channok started violently.</p> - -<p>"Holy !!**?** Satellites!" he swore, his hair bristling.</p> - -<p>A big, dead-white shape had popped up springily on a rock about -fifty feet away, stared at him for an instant out of eyes like grey -glass-platters, and popped down out of sight again. Awful was right!</p> - -<p>"Aha!" crew-member Peer gloated, grinning. "You shouldn't have said -that! Tonight you've got to let me soap out your mouth!"</p> - -<p>A light dawned gradually.</p> - -<p>"You did it on purpose!" he accused her. "You knew I'd say something -like that the first time I saw one!"</p> - -<p>Peer didn't deny it.</p> - -<p>"It's the soap for you, just the same!" she shrugged. "People ought to -have some self-control—that's what you said! Look, there's another one -now—no, two!"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - -<p>When he came up for lunch, he found about fifty ghouls collected -around the area. By that time he had dug the cache, steel-lined it, -disinfected it and installed preservatives, a humidifier and a dowser -plate. Loading it up would take most of the rest of the day.</p> - -<p>He avoided looking at the local population as much as he could while -he ate. However, the occasional glimpses he got suggested that the -Nameless System had made a half-hearted and badly botched attempt at -developing its own type of humanoid inhabitant. They had extremely -capable looking jaws, at any rate, and their wide, lipless mouths were -wreathed in perpetual idiot grins. The most completely disagreeable -parts of them, Channok decided, were the enormous, red-nailed hands and -feet. Like fat, white gargoyles, they sat perched around the tops of -the rocks in a wide circle and just stared.</p> - -<p>"Sloppy-looking things," he remarked, noticing Peer's observant eyes on -him. "But at least they're not trying to strike up a conversation!"</p> - -<p>"They never say anything until you hit them in the stomach with a -stunner," she informed him. "Then they just grunt and run."</p> - -<p>"Sure they mightn't get mean about that? The smallest of this lot looks -plenty big enough to take us both apart."</p> - -<p>Peer laughed. "All of them together wouldn't try it! They're real -yellow. Wilf got mad at a couple of 'em once and ran 'em halfway over -to the Mound before mother caught up with him and stopped him. Wilf had -his blood up, that time!"</p> - -<p>"Maybe the ghouls built the Mound," Channok suggested. "Their -great-great-ancestors, anyway."</p> - -<p>"They won't go near it now," Peer said, following-his gaze. "They're -scared of that, too!"</p> - -<p>They studied the rugged, ungainly slopes of the huge artifact for a -moment. There was something fascinating about it, Channok thought. -Perhaps just its size.</p> - -<p>"Santis said the plain was the bottom of a sea a while ago," Peer -offered. "So it could have been some sort of sea-things that built it."</p> - -<p>"Any entrances into it?" he asked casually.</p> - -<p>"Just one, right at the top."</p> - -<p>"You know," he said, "I think I'd like to go over and have a look at -that thing before we leave."</p> - -<p>"No!" said Peer, alarmed. "You'd better not. Santis said it was -dangerous—and there is something there! We saw a light one night."</p> - -<p>"What kind of a light?"</p> - -<p>"Like someone walking around the top of it, near that entrance, with -a big lamp in his hand," Peer remembered. "Like he might have been -looking for something."</p> - -<p>"Sounds a bit like your old friend, the Space Ghost," Channok murmured -suspiciously.</p> - -<p>"No," Peer grinned. "This was a <i>real</i> light—and we took off the next -evening. Santis said it might be as well if we moved somewhere else for -a while."</p> - -<p>Channok considered a moment. "Look," he said finally, "we can do it -like this. I'll jet myself over there and stroll around it a bit -in daylight; and if you're worried, you could hang overhead in the -<i>Asteroid</i> with a couple of turrets out. Just in case someone gets -tough."</p> - -<p>"I could, maybe," said Peer, in a tight voice, "but I'm not going to. -If you're going to go walking around there, after all Santis said, I'm -going to be walking right behind you!"</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, you're not," Channok said.</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes, I am!" said Peer. "You can't make me stay here!"</p> - -<p>He looked at her in surprise. Her eyes were angry, but her lower lip -quivered.</p> - -<p>"Hey," he said, startled. "Maybe I'm being a pig!"</p> - -<p>"You sure are!" Peer said, relieved. The lip stopped quivering. "You're -not going over there, then?"</p> - -<p>"Not if you feel that way about it," Channok said. He paused. "I -guess," he admitted awkwardly, "I just didn't like the idea of Santis -flitting around space, Holy Aynstyn knows where, and still putting in -his two millicredits worth every so often, through crew-member Peer!"</p> - -<p>Peer blew her nose and considered in turn. "Just the same," she -concluded, "when Santis says something like that, it's a lot better if -people do it. Is 'Holy Aynstyn knows where' a swear-word?"</p> - -<p>"No," said Channok. "Not exactly."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He'd finished his lunch and was just going to suggest they run the -tractor out of the cache and back the few hundred yards to the -<i>Asteroid</i> for the first load of Santis' cargo, when he noticed that -all the ghouls had vanished.</p> - -<p>He called Peer's attention to the fact.</p> - -<p>"Uh-huh," she said in an absent-minded tone. "They do that -sometimes...."</p> - -<p>Channok looked at her. She was staring at a high boulder a short -distance away, with a queer, intent expression, as if she were deep in -thought about something. He hoped she wasn't still brooding about their -little argument—</p> - -<p>Then she glanced at him, gave him a sudden grin, swung herself around -and slid nimbly off the rock.</p> - -<p>"Come on down quick!" she said. "I want to show you something before -you get back to work. A ghoul-burrow!"</p> - -<p>"A ghoul-burrow?" Channok repeated unenthusiastically.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sure!" said Peer impatiently. "They're cute! They're all lined -with glass or something." She spread her arms wide. "Jump, and I'll -catch you!"</p> - -<p>Channok laughed, flopped over on his stomach with his legs over -the edge of the rock, and slid down in a fair imitation of Peer's -nonchalant style of descent, spraining his ankle only a little. -Well, he hadn't grown up skipping from craggy moon to asteroid to -heavy-planet to whatnot like she had....</p> - -<p>They threaded their way about the rocks to the spot she had been -studying. She explained that he'd have to climb into the burrow to get -a good idea of what it was like.</p> - -<p>"Well, look now, Peer!" Channok protested, staring into the big, round -hole that slanted downwards under a big boulder—it did seem to be -lined with black glass or some similar stuff. "That cave's got 'No -Trespassing' written all over it. Supposing I slide down a half a mile -and land in a mess of ghouls!"</p> - -<p>"No, you won't," Peer said hurriedly. "It goes level right away, and -they're never more than thirty feet long. And the ghoul's out—there's -never more than one to a burrow; and I saw this one pop out and run off -just before we started here! You're not scared, are you? Wilf and I -crawled in and out of hundreds of them!"</p> - -<p>"Well, just for a moment then," said Channok resignedly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He got down on hands and knees and crept into the tunnel. After about -six feet, he stopped and found he could turn around without too much -trouble. "Peer?" he called back.</p> - -<p>"Yes?" said Peer.</p> - -<p>"How can I see anything here," Channok demanded peevishly, "when it's -all dark?"</p> - -<p>"Well, you're in far enough now," said Peer, who had sat down before -the entrance of the tunnel and was looking in after him. "And now I've -got to ask you to do something! You know how I always promptly carry -out any orders you give me, like getting in my full sleep-period and -all?" she added anxiously.</p> - -<p>"No, you do not!" Channok stated flatly, resting on his elbows. "Half -the time I practically have to drag you to the cabin. Anyway, what's -that got to do with—"</p> - -<p>"It's like this," Peer said desperately. She glanced up for a moment, -as if she had caught sight of something in the dim red sky overhead. -"You've got to stay in there a while, Channy!"</p> - -<p>"Eh?" said Channok.</p> - -<p>"When those ghouls pop out of sight in daytime like that, it's because -there's a ship or something coming."</p> - -<p>"Peer, are you crazy? A ship! Who—I'm coming right out!"</p> - -<p>"Stay there, Channy! It's hanging over the <i>Asteroid</i> right now. A big -lifeboat with its guns out—it must be those men from the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>! -They must have had a tracer of some sort on her!"</p> - -<p>"Then get in here quick, Peer!" Channok choked, hauling out one of the -Reapers. "You know good and well that bunch would kill a woman as soon -as a man!"</p> - -<p>"They've already seen me—I wanted them to," Peer informed him. She was -talking out of the side of her mouth, looking straight ahead of her, -away from the cave. "I'm not going to be a woman. I'm going to be a -dumb little girl, ordinary size. I can pull that one off any time!"</p> - -<p>"But—"</p> - -<p>"They'll want to ask questions. I think I can get them to send that -lifeboat away. We can't fight that, Channy; it's a regular armed -launch! Santis says you can always get the other side to split its -forces, if you're smart about it."</p> - -<p>"But how—"</p> - -<p>"And then, when I yell 'Here we go!' then you pop out. That'll be the -right moment—" She stood up suddenly. "We can't talk any more! They're -getting close—" She vanished with that from before the mouth of the -burrow.</p> - -<p>"Hold on there!" a voice yelled in the distance a few seconds later, -as Channok came crawling clumsily up the glassy floor of the tunnel, -hampered by the Reaper he still clutched in one hand. It seemed to come -from up in the air, and it was using the Empire's universal dialect.</p> - -<p>Peer's footsteps stopped abruptly.</p> - -<p>"Who you people?" her voice screeched in shrill alarm. "You cops? I -ain't done nothing!"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VI</p> - -<p>"And just look at those guns she's carrying!" the deeper of the two -strange voices commented. "The real stuff, too—a stunner and an Ophto -Needle! Better get them from her. If it isn't a baby Flauval!"</p> - -<p>"I didn't shoot nobody lately!" Peer said, trembly-voiced.</p> - -<p>"No, and you ain't going to shoot nobody either!" the other strange -voice mimicked her. That one was high-pitched and thin, with a -pronounced nasal twang to it. "Chief, if there're kids with them, it's -just a bunch of space-rats that happened along. It couldn't be Flauval!"</p> - -<p>"I'd say 'it couldn't be Flauval', if we'd found her dead in her -cabin," the deep voice said irritably. "But that door was burned out -from inside—and <i>somebody</i> ditched the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> on this clod!" It -sounded as if the discovery of Peer had interrupted an argument between -them.</p> - -<p>"I still can't see how she got out," Nasal-voice Ezeff said sullenly. -"She must have been sleeping in her spacesuit. We were out of the ship -thirty seconds after I slap-welded that lock across her door! She must -have felt the boat leaving and started burning her way out the same -instant—"</p> - -<p>"It doesn't matter how she did it," said the deep voice. Apparently, it -belonged to someone with authority. "If Flauval could think and move -fast enough to switch the drives to Full Emergency and still get alive -out of a ship full of the Yomm, she could cheat space, too! She always -did have the luck of the devil. If we'd had just that minute to spare -before leaving, to make sure—"</p> - -<p>It paused a moment and resumed gloomily: "That stubborn old maniac of a -Koyle—'I'm the Duke's man, sir!' Committing suicide—like <i>that</i>—so -no one else would get control of the Yomm! If we hadn't managed to -start the launch's locators in time.... Well, I hope I'll never have -to sweat out another four days like the last. And now we still have to -find whoever got Koyle's records!"</p> - -<p>"Flauval ain't here," Peer offered at that point, brightly.</p> - -<p>There was a pause. It seemed that the two newcomers must have almost -forgotten their prisoner for a moment.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"What was that you said, kid?" Nasal-voice inquired carefully.</p> - -<p>"Those space-rats are all half crazy," the deep voice said -contemptuously. "She doesn't know what we're talking about."</p> - -<p>"Sure I know!" Peer said indignantly. "You was talking about Flauval. -It's Wilf that's the crazy one—I ain't! And she ain't here. Flauval."</p> - -<p>"She ain't, eh?" Nasal-voice said, with speculative alertness.</p> - -<p>"No, sir," Peer said, timid again. "She's went with the rest of'm."</p> - -<p>Both voices swore together in startled shock.</p> - -<p>"Where are they?" the deep voice demanded. "Hiding on the ship?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir," quavered Peer. "It's just me on the ship, till they come -back."</p> - -<p>"You mean," the deep voice said, with strained patience, "you're -supposed to be on the ship?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," said Peer. She added in a guilty mutter, "Sleepin'...."</p> - -<p>"Where did the others go?" Nasal-voice inquired sharply.</p> - -<p>"But I ain't tired," said Peer. "Well, with the boxes and stuff! What -Flauval wants buried."</p> - -<p>There was another duet of exclamations which Channok, at almost any -other time, would have considered highly unsuitable for Peer's ears. -Right now, it escaped his attention.</p> - -<p>"She's got Koyle's records!" stated the deep voice then.</p> - -<p>"What's in those boxes?" Nasal-voice snapped.</p> - -<p>"D-d-don't shake me!" wept Peer. "Papers and stuff—I don't know. They -don't never tell me nothing," she wailed, "because I'm just a little -girl!"</p> - -<p>"Yes, you're just a little girl," said Nasal-voice, exasperated. -"You're not going to get much bigger either."</p> - -<p>"Cut that," said the deep voice. "No sense scaring the kid."</p> - -<p>"Well, you're not figuring on taking them back, are you?" Nasal-voice -inquired.</p> - -<p>"No. Just Flauval. The colonel will be glad to chat with Flauval a bit, -now that she's turned up alive again. Koyle may have told her plenty -before we soured him on her. But there's no point in making the rest of -them desperate. It's easier when they surrender."</p> - -<p>There was a short pause. Then the deep voice addressed Peer with a sort -of amiable gruffness:</p> - -<p>"So they all went off to bury the boxes, but you don't know where they -went—is that it, little girl?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, sure!" Peer said, anxious to please. "Yes, sir! I know that!"</p> - -<p>"WHERE?" said both voices together, chorusing for the third time.</p> - -<p>"It's that big Mound over there," Peer said; and Channok started -nervously. "It's got a big door on top. No," she added, "I guess you -can't see from down here—and you can't see from the ship. That's why I -came out. To watch for'm. But you can see it plain from the top of the -rocks."</p> - -<p>"That would be the old reservoir or whatever it was we passed back -there," said the deep voice.</p> - -<p>"That's right," said Peer. "That's just what Flauval called it at -lunch! The word you said. There was water there oncet, she said. They -flew the boxes over with jets, but they'll be back before it's dark, -they said."</p> - -<p>There was a brief silence.</p> - -<p>"Scares me when it's dark, it does!" grumbled the idiot-child.</p> - -<p>"Well, that ties it up!" the deep voice said, satisfied. "It's the -exact kind of stunt Flauval would try. But she's outsmarted herself, -this time!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"How do you figure on handling it?" Nasal-voice inquired.</p> - -<p>"Get up on one of those rocks with the kid where you can watch -both that 'mound' and the lock of their ship. Yes, I know it's -more trouble that way—but don't, ah, do anything conclusive about -the—uh—aforementioned, before we've corralled the rest! Much more -useful while capable of inhaling. Hostage possibilities. Inducement to -surrender!"</p> - -<p>"Uh-huh," Nasal-voice said comprehendingly.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir!" added Peer.</p> - -<p>There was another short pause.</p> - -<p>"Might as well skip the circumlocutions," the deep voice continued. -"Barely human! I'll send a couple of men through the ship and, if it's -empty, I'll leave one of them in the forward lock where you can see -him. That's just in case anyone slips past us and comes back. The rest -of us will go over to the reservoir in the launch. If the entrance is -where she says it is, we've got them bottled. If it looks right, we'll -go in."</p> - -<p>"That'll be only four of you," said Nasal-voice. "No; three—you're -keeping one at the launch-guns, aren't you?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, of course. Hey, little girl—how many are with Flauval?"</p> - -<p>"Of us, you mean?" Peer asked.</p> - -<p>"Of what else?" snarled Nasal-voice.</p> - -<p>"Now don't get her so scared she can't talk!" the deep voice reproved. -"That's right, little girl—how many of you?"</p> - -<p>"Well, there's me," sniffled Peer, "and my old man, and my big brother -Dobby. And then there's Wilf—that's all. But I don't like Wilf!"</p> - -<p>"I don't like Wilf either!" agreed Nasal-voice. "Four against three, -chief! It might be safer to bring over the two from the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> -first—no point in searching her anyway, now that we know where the -records are!"</p> - -<p>"No," said the deep voice. "Flauval could just happen to decide to -come out in the few minutes we're gone. It's sewed up too neatly right -now. We'll have the heavy guns from the launch and we'll give them a -chance to surrender. Flauval's too intelligent to pass that up—she -never stops hoping! The chances are there won't be any shooting, till -afterwards."</p> - -<p>"Any friends of hers are likely to be tough," Nasal-voice warned.</p> - -<p>"Very tough," said his chief. "Like the kid there! You worry at the -wrong times, my boy. A parcel of space-rats that happened along." -He swore again. "That woman's unbelievable luck! Well, take care of -yourself, Ezeff. I'm off. Keep your eyes open both ways! Just in case—"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VII</p> - -<p>There was silence for a moment. Then footsteps came crunching over the -rocks towards the ghoul-burrow, and Channok got set. But the footsteps -halted a few yards away.</p> - -<p>"That's the one I was sitting on," Peer volunteered. "Nice, easy one to -climb!"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, I never saw a nicer looking rock," Nasal-voice said sourly. -"We've got to climb it, too! I'm not trying any point-landings with -jets. Get on up there then, before I boot you up!"</p> - -<p>There were sounds of scrambling.</p> - -<p>"Don't you move now!" Peer said suddenly.</p> - -<p>"What are you talking about?" demanded Nasal-voice.</p> - -<p>"Durn rock come loose!" muttered Peer. "Near flung me off!"</p> - -<p>But Channok, meanwhile, had got the idea and settled back. It was not -yet the Right Moment....</p> - -<p>There were more scrambling sounds and some breathless swearing -from Ezeff, who obviously had not spent his formative years in -asteroid-hopping either. But at last all become quiet.</p> - -<p>"And here we are!" Peer's voice floated down clearly. A small chunk -of rock dropped right in front of the burrow's entrance, like a -punctuation mark.</p> - -<p>"Sit still, blast you!" said Nasal-voice, badly out of breath.</p> - -<p>A large, dim shadow swept silently over the ground before the ghoul's -burrow just then. That would be the launch, going towards the Mound. A -prolonged silence overhead confirmed the impression.</p> - -<p>"They want to give Flauval a surprise?" Peer inquired meekly at last.</p> - -<p>Rather startlingly, Nasal-voice laughed.</p> - -<p>"They sure do!" he agreed. "That's a good one! Yes, sir, they sure do!"</p> - -<p>"Flauval's nice, don't you think?" continued Peer conversationally, -picking up courage.</p> - -<p>"Depends a lot on how you look at it," Nasal-voice said dreamily. -"She's a real pretty thing anyhow, that Flauval! Luck of the devil -she's had, too. But it's got to run out sometime."</p> - -<p>There was another silence. Then Peer remarked:</p> - -<p>"Boy, he set that launch down nice! Right quick spang on top of -the—what the big guy said it was. On the Mound."</p> - -<p>"We've got a good pilot," Nasal-voice agreed. "Flauval's going to get -her surprise in just a minute now!"</p> - -<p>"And there they come out of the launch," continued Peer. "One, two, -three, four. All four of them. Marching right down into the Mound!"</p> - -<p>"You've got sharp eyes," Nasal-voice acknowledged. "But that's funny!" -he continued worriedly. "One of them was to stay with the guns."</p> - -<p>"And now look at the launch!" cried Peer in a high, bright voice. -"Getting <i>pulled</i> right into the Mound!"</p> - -<p>Nasal-voice was making loud, choking sounds.</p> - -<p>"What <i>was</i> that?" he screamed then. "What's happened? What's that over -there?"</p> - -<p>"Let go my arm!" cried Peer. "Don't pull it—you're pushing me off! -<i>Here we go!</i>"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A small avalanche of weathered rock came down before the burrow's -mouth as Channok shot out through it into the open. He looked up. In -what looked like an inextricable tangle of arms and legs, Peer and -Nasal-voice were sliding and scuffling down the steep side of the rock -together. Nasal-voice was trying to hang on to the rock, but Peer was -hanging on to him and jerking like a hooked fish whenever he got a -momentary hold.</p> - -<p>She looked down and saw Channok, put her boots into the small of -Nasal-voice's back, pushed off and landed two yards from Channok on -hands and feet. He flattened himself back against the boulder, while -Nasal-voice skidded down the rest of the way unaided, wisely refraining -from triggering his jets. In the position he was in, they simply would -have accelerated his descent to a fatal degree.</p> - -<p>He arrived more or less on his feet. Peer bounced up and down before -him, her finger pointed, like a small lunatic.</p> - -<p>"Surprise!" she screamed. "Surprise! Like Flauval got! When you locked -her in her cabin and ran off with the launch, so she'd have to jump out -into space!"</p> - -<p>"That's right, kid," Nasal-voice panted softly, fumbling for his gun -without taking his eyes off her. He looked somewhat like a white-faced -lunatic himself just then. "Don't get scared, kid! Don't run off! I -won't shoot."</p> - -<p>He pulled the gun out suddenly.</p> - -<p>But Channok had taken two soft steps forward by then, and he had only -to swing. The Reaper was clubbed in his right hand, and he brought the -butt end down on the top of Nasal-voice Ezeff's skull-tight flying cap -as if he were trying to ram a stake through the surface rock of Old -Nameless.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"What happened over there on the Mound?" he inquired in a voice that -kept wanting to quaver. He was hurriedly pulling on Nasal-voice's -flight suit.</p> - -<p>"Here's his goggles," said Peer, also shakily. "Tell you tonight about -the Mound. But Santis was right!"</p> - -<p>"That's what it sounded like," Channok admitted. He slipped on the -goggles. "Do I look like this Ezeff now?"</p> - -<p>"Not very much," Peer said doubtfully. "You still got that nose and -that jaw. Better hold me close up to your face! I'll put on a good act."</p> - -<p>"All right. As soon as I set you down in the lock, jump past the guard -and yell, or something. If he looks after you, we mightn't have to -kill this one." He held out his arms. "Hop up! We'd better get started -before those last two on the <i>Ra-Twelve</i> decide to come over."</p> - -<p>Peer hopped up. Channok wrapped his right arm carefully around her. -They looked at each other thoughtfully for a moment.</p> - -<p>"All set?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Sure," said crew-member Peer. She smiled faintly.</p> - -<p>He triggered the jets with his left hand, and they shot upwards. Peer -drew a deep breath.</p> - -<p>"Quit bossing me around all the time, you big lug!" she yelled -suddenly. She reached up for that nose and gave it a good yank.</p> - -<p>"All right," Channok muttered, startled. "You don't have to be so -realistic! He can't even see us yet!"</p> - -<p>"Just because you're bigger'n me!" shrieked Peer as they soared over -the top of the rocks into view of the <i>Asteroid's</i> lock. She hooked a -smart right to Channok's left ear.</p> - -<p>"Cut that out now, Peer!" he ordered futilely.</p> - -<p>He was lightly battered all around by the time they reached the -<i>Asteroid's</i> lock, though the act did get them in safely. But -then—whether it was the nose or the jaw—the instant he dropped Peer -to her feet, the guard stopped laughing and brought a gun out and up -faster than Channok ever had seen a man produce one before. However, -the Reaper had been ready in his hand all the time; so, with a safe -fraction of a second to spare, it talked first—</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p>With a fraction of a second to spare, the Reaper talked first....</p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The glare of the discharge seemed about fifty times brighter than -normal.</p> - -<p>"Hit the floor, Channy!" he heard Peer's shout.</p> - -<p>He hit it without thought, dropping over the dead guard's legs....</p> - -<p>Sound rammed at him enormously, roared on and began banging itself -about and away among distant mountains. The <i>Asteroid's</i> floor had -surged up ponderously, settled back, quivered a bit and become stable -again.</p> - -<p>"An earthquake," Channok muttered, sitting up dazedly, "was exactly all -we needed right now!"</p> - -<p>"That wasn't any earthquake!" said Peer, standing pale-faced above him. -"Get up and look!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Long veils of stuff, presumably solid chunks of mountain, were drifting -down the distant, towering face of the cliff at the foot of which they -had buried the <i>Ra-Twelve</i>. Rising to meet them, its source concealed -beyond the horizon of the plain, was the slow, grey cloud of some -super-explosion.</p> - -<p>"I guess," he said slowly, "one of those two must have got curious -about Koyle's wall-safe!"</p> - -<p>"We were pretty smart about that," nodded Peer.</p> - -<p>"We were, for once!" Channok agreed. He was looking around for -something to sit down on quietly when he caught sight of the dead guard -again. He started violently.</p> - -<p>"Almost forgot about him! I guess now I'll have to bury him, and that -Ezeff, the first thing. Maybe this one is carrying something that will -show who they were."</p> - -<p>He found something almost instantly—and he was glad then that Peer was -still watching the oily writhings of the cloud across the plain. It was -in a flat steel case he took out of one of the dead man's pockets: the -identification disk of a member of the Imperial Secret Service—</p> - -<p><i>The</i> Service!</p> - -<p>And they would have murdered us, he thought, shocked. They were going -to do it!</p> - -<p>He turned the guard over on his back. A big muscular young man with a -look of sudden purpose and confidence still fixed on his face. It was -the same face as the one on the disk.</p> - -<p>Channok put the disk back in its case and shoved the case into the dead -man's pocket. He stood up, feeling rather sick. Peer turned around from -the lock and regarded him reflectively for a moment.</p> - -<p>"You know, Channy," she stated carefully, "if you can't help it, it -doesn't count."</p> - -<p>He looked back at her. "I guess not," he said—and suddenly, for a -moment, he could see four men marching one after the other down into -the Mound. "Of course, it doesn't count!" he told her firmly.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VIII</p> - -<p>They worked hard at shifting the cargo into the cache, but the -Nameless Sun was beginning to slide down behind the mountains before -they were finished. And by the time Channok had rammed the tunnel -full of rocks with the tractor and cemented them into a glassy plug -with the drill-blast, and scattered a camouflaging mess of boulders -over everything, only a foggy red glow over the mountain crests, -half obscured by the lingering upper drifts of the explosion of the -<i>Ra-Twelve</i>, remained of the day.</p> - -<p>There was no moon, but the sky had come full of stars big and little -over the opposite section of the plain; and so there was light enough -to make out the dark hump of the Mound in the distance. Every time -Channok looked in that direction, the low, sinister pile seemed to have -edged a little closer; and he looked as often as his work gave him a -chance to do it. Santis might have been right in stating that the Mound -wasn't dangerous if you didn't get too close to it—but the instant he -suspected there might be something going on over there, Channok was -going to hop off the tractor, grab up Peer and get off Old Nameless at -the best speed he and the <i>Asteroid</i> could produce.</p> - -<p>However, the Mound remained quiet. With everything done, he gave Peer -a last ride back to the <i>Asteroid</i> on the tractor, ran it up the ramp -into the storage section and closed the rear lock. Then they discovered -they'd left their lunch containers lying among the rocks.</p> - -<p>If he'd been alone, Channok would have left them there. But Peer looked -so matter-of-fact about it that he detached the tractor's headlight and -started back with her on foot. It was only a couple of hundred yards, -and they found the containers without any difficulty. The Mound seemed -to have moved a little closer again, but not too much. He gave it only -a casual glance this time.</p> - -<p>"Where are your friends, the ghouls?" he inquired, shining the light -around the rocks as they started back. The grisly creatures had put -in a few cautious appearances during the afternoon, but their nerves -seemed to have suffered even more than his own from all that had -happened.</p> - -<p>"The ghouls always hit their burrows at sundown," Peer explained. -"They're not like the story ones."</p> - -<p>"What do they find to eat around here?" Channok inquired.</p> - -<p>"Some sorts of rocks. They've got no real teeth but their mouth is like -a grinder inside. Most of the rest of their insides, too, Santis said. -I had a tame one I used to pitch stones at and he'd snap 'em up. But -all that weren't blue he'd spit out. The blue ones went right down—you -could hear them crunching for about a foot."</p> - -<p>"What a diet!" Channok commented. Then he stopped short. "Say, Peer! If -they bite like that, they could chew right into our cache!"</p> - -<p>"They won't," said Peer. "Come on."</p> - -<p>"How do you know?" Channok asked, following her.</p> - -<p>"They can't bite through a good grade of steel-alloy. And they don't -like its taste anyhow. Santis said so."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Well, it had been Santis this and Santis that for quite a while now! -Peer's father seemed to be on record with a definite opinion on just -about everything. And what made him think he knew what a ghoul liked to -chew on?</p> - -<p>Perhaps Channok couldn't be blamed too much. He was dog-tired and dirty -and hungry. He'd killed his first two men that day, and not in fair -fight either but with an assassin's sneak thrusts, from behind and by -trickery; and he'd buried them, too. He'd seen the shining ISS disclose -itself in action as something very tarnished and ugly, and a salvaged -ship worth a fortune go up in a cloud of writhing grey smoke....</p> - -<p>There had been a number of other things—close shaves that had felt too -close, mostly.</p> - -<p>At any rate, Channok stated, in flat unequivocal terms, that he didn't -wish to hear anything else that Santis had said. Not ever!</p> - -<p>"You're taking the wrong attitude," Peer informed him, frowning. -"Santis is a very smart man. He could teach you a lot!"</p> - -<p>"What makes you think I want to learn anything from a space-rat?" -Channok inquired, exasperated.</p> - -<p>Peer stopped short. "That was a dirty thing to say!" she said in a low, -furious voice. "I'm not talking to you any more."</p> - -<p>She drew away till there was a space of about six feet between them and -marched on briskly towards the <i>Asteroid</i>, looking straight ahead.</p> - -<p>Channok had to hurry to keep abreast of her. He watched her in the -starlight for a few moments from the corners of his eyes. He probably -shouldn't have used that term—the half-pint did look good and mad!</p> - -<p>"Tsk! Tsk!" he said, disturbed.</p> - -<p>Peer said nothing. She walked a bit faster. Channok lengthened his -stride again.</p> - -<p>"Who's my nice little girl friend?" he inquired wheedlingly.</p> - -<p>"Shuddup!" growled Peer.</p> - -<p>She climbed into the <i>Asteroid</i> ahead of him and disappeared while he -sealed the locks. The control room was dark, but he felt she was around -somewhere. He switched on the power and the instruments. Familiar -dim pools of green and pink gleamings sprang up in quick sequence -like witchfire quivering over the control desk. Perhaps it wasn't an -exceptionally beautiful sight, but it looked home-like to Channok. Like -fires lighting up on a hearth.</p> - -<p>"Well, let's see you handle this take-off!" he invited the shadows -around him briskly. This time there weren't any mountains nearby to -worry about.</p> - -<p>"You handle it," Peer said from behind his shoulder. "It's my turn to -laugh."</p> - -<p>She did, too, a few minutes later—loud and long! After he'd got -over the first shock of narrowly missing the Mound, Channok gave a -convincing imitation of a chagrined pilot and indignantly blamed the -<i>Asteroid</i>....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He'd guided them halfway out of the Nameless System when she -came behind the control chair in the dark, wrapped her arms in a -stranglehold around his neck, and fondly bit his ear.</p> - -<p>"Cut it out," Channok choked.</p> - -<p>"Just the same," stated Peer, loosening her grip a trifle, "you're -<i>not</i> so smart, like Santis is!"</p> - -<p>"I'm not, eh?"</p> - -<p>"No," said Peer. "But Santis said you would be some time. 'That -Channok's going to make a real spacer!' he said. 'Just give him a -chance to catch on.'"</p> - -<p>"Well," Channok muttered, secretly flattered, "we'll hope he was right."</p> - -<p>"And, anyway," said Peer, "I <i>LOVE</i> you just as much!"</p> - -<p>"Well, that's something, too!" Channok admitted. He was beginning to -feel very much better.</p> - -<p>"And guess what I've got here," Peer said tenderly.</p> - -<p>"What?"</p> - -<p>"A nice, soapy cloth. For what you said when you saw the first ghoul. -So just open that big trap right up now, Channy!"</p> - -<p>He couldn't tell in the dark; but it tasted like she'd taken the -trouble to mix something extra foul into the soap lather, too.</p> - -<p>"And after you've stopped spitting bubbles," said crew-member Peer, who -was switching on all lights to observe that part of the business, "I'll -tell you what I saw on the Mound."</p> - -<p>Channok shuddered.</p> - -<p>"If you don't mind, Peer," he suggested soapily, "let's wait with that -till we're a lightyear or two farther out!"</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTIVES OF THE THIEVE-STAR ***</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>This file should be named 64198-h.htm or 64198-h.zip</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/9/64198/</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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