Planet of Dread Page 10

Burleigh reluctantly, "that we can only offer himhis choice of being marooned or going out the airlock. I cannot think ofany other alternative."

  "I can," said Moran. "I'm going to kill him."

  Burleigh blinked. Harper looked up sharply.

  "We fight," said Moran grimly. "Armed exactly alike. He can try to killme. I'll give him the same chance I have. But I'll kill him. They usedto call it a duel, and they came to consider it a very immoral business.But that's beside the point. I won't agree to marooning him here. That'smurder. I won't agree to throwing him out the airlock. That's murder,too. But I have the right to kill him if it's in fair fight. That'sjustice! You can bring him in and let him decide if he wants to bemarooned or fight me. I think he's just raging enough to want to do allthe damage he can, now that his plans have gone sour."

  Burleigh fidgeted. He looked at Harper. Harper nodded grudgingly. Helooked at Brawn. Brawn nodded moodily.

  Burleigh said fretfully. "Very well ... Harper, you and Brawn bring himhere. We'll see what he says. Be careful!"

  Harper and Brawn went down the passageway. Moran saw them take out theblasters they'd worn since he took over the ship. They were ready. Theyunlocked and opened the inner airlock door.

  There was silence. Harper looked shocked. He went in the airlock whileBrawn stared, for once startled out of moodiness.

  Harper came out.

  "He's gone," he said in a flat voice. "Out the airlock."

  * * * * *

  All the rest went instantly to look. The airlock was empty. By the mostnatural and inevitable of oversights, when Hallet was put in it for atemporary cell, no one had thought of locking the outer door. There wasno point in it. It only led out to the nightmare world. And out thereHallet would be in monstrous danger; he'd have no food. At most his onlyweapon would be the torch Moran had carried to the _Malabar_ and broughtback again. He could have no hope of any kind. He could feel onlydespair unthinkable and horror undiluted.

  There was a buzzing sound in the airlock. A space-suit hung there. Thehelmet-phone was turned on. Hallet's voice came out, flat and metallicand desperate and filled with hate:

  "_What're you going to do now? You'd better think of a bargain to offerme! You can't lift off! I took the fuel-block so Moran couldn't affordto kill me after the rest of you were dead. You can't lift off theground! Now give me a guarantee I can believe in or you stay here withme!_"

  Harper bolted for the engine-room. He came back, his face ashen. "He'sright. It's gone. He took it."

  Moran stirred. Burleigh wrung his hands. Moran reached down thespace-suit from whose helmet the voice came tinnily. He began to put iton. Carol opened her lips to speak, and he covered the microphone withhis palm.

  "I'm going to go out and kill him," said Moran very quietly. "Somebodyelse had better come along just in case. But you can't make a bargainwith him. He can't believe in any promise, because he wouldn't keepany."

  Harper went away again. He came back, struggling into a space-suit.Brawn moved quickly. Burleigh suddenly stirred and went for a suit.

  "We want torches," said Moran evenly, "for our own safety, and blastersbecause they'll drop Hallet. Carol, you monitor what goes on. When weneed to come back, you can use the direction-finder and talk us back tothe yacht."

  "But--but--"

  "_What are you going to do?_" rasped the voice shrilly. "_You've got tomake a bargain! I've got the fuel-block! You can't lift off without thefuel-block! You've got to make a deal._"

  * * * * *

  The other men came back. With the microphone still muffled by his hand,Moran said sharply, "He has to keep talking until we answer, but hewon't know we're on his trail until we do. We keep quiet when we get thehelmets on. Understand?" Then he said evenly to Carol. "Look at thatpaper I showed you if--if anything happens. Don't forget! Ready?"

  Carol's hands were clenched. She was terribly pale. She tried to speak,and could not. Moran, with the microphone still covered by the palm ofhis hand, repeated urgently;

  "Remember, no talking! He'll pick up anything we say. Use gestures.Let's go!"

  He swung out of the airlock. The others followed. The one certain thingabout the direction Hallet would have taken was that it must be awayfrom the wreck. And he'd have been in a panic to get out of sight fromthe yacht.

  Moran saw his starting-point at once. Landing, the _Nadine_ had usedrockets for easing to ground because it is not possible to make delicateadjustments of interplanetary drive. A take-off, yes. But to land evenat a space-port one uses rockets to cushion what otherwise might be asharp impact. The _Nadine's_ rockets had burned away the yeasty soilwhen she came to ground. There was a burnt-away depression down tobed-rock in the stuff all around her. But Hallet had broken thescorched, crusty edge of the hollow as he climbed up to the blanket-likesurface-skin.

  Moran led the way after him. He moved with confidence. Thespringy, sickeningly uncertain stuff underfoot was basicallywhite-that-had-been-soiled. Between the _Nadine's_ landing-spot and thenow-gutted wreck, it happened that only that one color showed. But,scattered at random in other places, there were patches of red mould andblue mould and black dusty rust and greenish surface-fungi. Twenty yardsfrom the depression in which the _Nadine_ lay, Hallet's footprints wereclearly marked in a patch of orange-yellow ground-cover which gave offimpalpable yellow spores when touched. Moran gestured for attention andpointed out the trail. He gestured again for the others to spread out.

  Hallet's voice came again. He'd left the _Nadine's_ lock because hecould make no bargain for his life while in the hands of his companions.He could only bargain for his life if they could not find him or theprecious fuel-block without which the _Nadine_ must remain here forever.But from the beginning he knew such terror that he could not contrive,himself, a bargain that could possibly be made.

  He chattered agitatedly, not yet sure that his escape had beendiscovered. At times he seemed almost hysterical. Moran and the otherscould hear him pant, sometimes, as a fancied movement aroused his panic.Once they heard the noise of his torch as he burned a safety-hole in theground. But he did not use it. He hastened on. He talked desperately.Sometimes he boasted, and sometimes he tried cunningly to be reasonable.But he hadn't been prepared for the absolute failure of what should havebeen the simplest and surest form of multiple murder. Now in a lastditch stand, he hysterically abused them for taking so long to realizethat they had to make a deal.

  * * * * *

  His four pursuers went grimly over the elastic surface of this worldupon his trail. The _Nadine_ faded into the mist. Off to the right aclump of toadstools grew. They were taller than any of the men, andtheir pulpy stalks were more than a foot thick. Hallet's trail in thecolored surface-moulds went on. The giant toadstools were left behind.The trail led straight toward an enormous object the height of athree-storey house. When first glimpsed through the mist, it lookedartificial. But as they drew near they saw that it was a cabbage;gigantic, with leaves impossibly huge and thick. There was a spike inits middle on which grew cruciform faded flowers four feet across.

  Then Hallet screamed. They heard it in their helmet-phones. He screamedagain. Then for a space he was silent, gasping, and then he utteredshrieks of pure horror. But they were cries of horror, not of pain.

  Moran found himself running, which was probably ridiculous. The othershastened after him. And suddenly the mistiness ahead took on a newappearance. The ground fell away. It became evident that the _Nadine_had landed upon a plateau with levels below it and very possiblymountains rising above. But here the slightly rolling plateau fell sheeraway. There was a place where the yeasty soil--but here it was tintedwith a purplish overcast of foleate fungus--where the soil had givenway. Something had fallen, here.

  It would have been Hallet. He'd gone too close to a precipice, movingagitatedly in search of a hiding-place in which to conceal himself untilthe people of the _Nadine_ made a deal he could no longer believe in.<
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  His cries still came over the helmet-phones. Moran went grimly to look.He found himself gazing down into a crossvalley perhaps two hundred feetdeep. At the bottom there was the incredible, green growing things. Butthey were not trees. They were some flabby weed with thick reddishstalks and enormous pinnate leaves. It grew here to the height of oaks.But Hallet had not dropped so far.

  From anchorages on bare rock, great glistening cables reached downwardto other anchorages on the valley floor. The cables crossed each otherwith highly artificial precision at a central point. They formed thefoundation for a web of geometrically accurate design and unthinkablesize. Crosscables of sticky stuff went round and round the center of