Planet of Dread Page 8
anxiously that a gigantic beetle neared theship and would apparently pass between it and the yacht. At the time,Brawn and Harper were moving from the _Malabar_ toward the _Nadine_, andHallet was about to leave the wreck's lock.
He watched with wide eyes. The beetle was truly a monster, the size of ahippopotamus as pictured in the culture-books about early human history.Its jaws, pronged like antlers, projected two yards before its huge,faceted eyes. It seemed to drag itself effortfully over the elasticsurface of the ground. It passed a place where red, foleated fungus grewin a fantastic absence of pattern on the surface of the ground. It wentthrough a streak of dusty-blue mould, which it stirred into a cloud ofspores as it passed. It crawled on and on. Harper popped down into thenearest bolt-hole, his torch held ready. Brawn stood beside anotherrefuge, sixty feet away.
Carol's voice came to their helmet-phones, anxious and exact. Hallet, inthe lock-door, heard her tell Harper that the beetle would pass veryclose to him and to stay still. It moved on and on. It would be veryclose indeed. Carol gasped in horror.
The monster passed partly over the hole in which Harper crouched. One ofits clawed feet slipped down into the opening. But the beetle went on,unaware of Harper. It crawled toward the encircling mist upon someerrand of its own. It was mindless. It was like a complex and highlydecorated piece of machinery which did what it was wound up to do, andnothing else.
Harper came out of the bolt-hole when Carol, her voice shaky withrelief, told him it was safe. He went doggedly on to the _Nadine_,carrying his bag of purple crystals. Brawn followed, moodily.
* * * * *
Hallet, with a singularly exultant look upon his face, ventured out ofthe airlock and moved across the fungoid world. He carried a king'sransom to be added to the riches already transferred to the yacht.
Moving the bessendium was a tedious task. One plastic box in thecargo-hold held a quantity of crystals that three men took two tripseach to carry. In mid-morning the bag in Hallet's hand seemed to slipjust when Moran completed filling it. It toppled and spilled half itscontents on the cargo-hold floor, which had been a sidewall. He beganpainstakingly to gather up the precious stuff and get it back in thebag. The others went on to the _Nadine_. Hallet turned off hishelmet-phone and gestured to Moran to remove his helmet. Moran, hiseyebrows raised, obeyed the suggestion.
"How anxious," asked Hallet abruptly, gathering up the dropped crystals,"how anxious are you to be left behind here?"
"I'm not anxious at all," said Moran.
"Would you like to make a deal to go along when the _Nadine_lifts?--_If_ there's a way to get past the space-port police?"
"Probably," said Moran. "Certainly! But there's no way to do it."
"There is," said Hallet. "I know it. Is it a deal?"
"What is the deal?"
"You do as I say," said Hallet significantly. "Just as I say! Then ..."
The lock-door opened, some distance away. Hallet stood up and said in acommanding tone;
"Keep your mouth shut. I'll tell you what to do and when."
He put on his helmet and turned on the phone once more. He went towardthe lock-door. Moran heard him exchange words with Harper and Brawn,back with empty bags to fill with crystals worth many times the price ofdiamonds. But diamonds were made in half-ton lots, nowadays.
Moran followed their bags. He was frowning. As Harper was about tofollow Brawn, Moran almost duplicated Hallet's gestures to have himremove his helmet.
"I want Burleigh to come next trip," he told Harper, "and make someexcuse to stay behind a moment and talk to me without the helmet-phonespicking up everything I say to him. Understand?"
Harper nodded. But Burleigh did not come on the next trip. It was notuntil near midday that he came to carry a load of treasure to the yacht.
When he did come, though, he took off his helmet and turned off thephone without the need of a suggestion.
"I've been arranging storage for this stuff," he said. "I've openedplates between the hulls to dump it in. I've told Carol, too, that we'vegot to do a perfect job of cleaning up. There must be no stray crystalson the floor."
"Better search the bunks, too," said Moran drily, "so nobody will putaside a particularly pretty crystal to gloat over. Listen!"
He told Burleigh exactly what Hallet had said and what he'd answered.Burleigh looked acutely unhappy.
"Hallet isn't dedicated like the rest of us were," he said distressedly."We brought him along partly out of fear that if he were captured he'dbreak down and reveal what he knows of the Underground we led, and muchof which we had to leave behind. But I'll be able to finance a realrevolt, now!"
* * * * *
Moran regarded him with irony. Burleigh was a capable man and aconscientious one. It would be very easy to trust him, and it isall-important to an Underground that its leaders be trusted. But it isalso important that they be capable of flint-like hardness on occasion.To Moran, it seemed that Burleigh had not quite the adamantineresolution required for leadership in a conspiracy which was to become asuccessful revolt. He was--and to Moran it seemed regrettable--capableof the virtue of charity.
"I've told you," he said evenly. "Maybe you'll think it's a scheme on mypart to get Hallet dumped and myself elected to take his identity. Butwhat happens from now on is your business. Beginning this moment, I'mtaking care of my own skin. I've gotten reconciled to the idea of dying,but I'd hate for it not to do anybody any good."
"Carol," said Burleigh unhappily, "is much distressed."
"That's very kind," said Moran sarcastically. "Now take your bag ofstuff and get going."
Burleigh obeyed. Moran went back to the business of breaking open thestrong plastic boxes of bessendium so their contents could be carried inforty-pound lots to the _Nadine_.
Thinking of Carol, he did not like the way things seemed to be going.Since the discovery of the bessendium, Hallet had been developing ideas.They did not look as if they meant good fortune for Moran withoutcorresponding bad fortune for the others. Obviously, Moran couldn't behidden on the _Nadine_ during the space-port sterilization of the shipwhich prevented plagues from being carried from world to world. Halletcould have no reason to promise such a thing. Before landing here, he'durged that Moran simply be dumped out the airlock. This proposal to savehis life....
Moran considered the situation grimly while the business of ferryingtreasure to the yacht went on almost monotonously. It had stopped onceduring the forenoon while a giant beetle went by. Later, it stoppedagain because a gigantic flying thing hovered overhead. Carol did notknow what it was, but its bulging abdomen ended in an organ whichappeared to be a sting. It was plainly hunting. There was no point infighting it. Presently it went away, and just before it disappeared inthe circular wall of mist it dived headlong to the ground. A littlelater it rose slowly into the air, carrying something almost as large asitself. It went away into the mist.
Again, once a green-and-yellow caterpillar marched past upon somemysterious enterprise. It was covered with incredibly long fur, and itmoved with an undulating motion of all its segments, one after another.It seemed well over ten yards in length, and its body appearedimpossibly massive. But a large part of the bulk would be thetwo-foot-long or longer hairs which stuck out stiffly in all directions.It, too, went away.
But continually and constantly there was a bedlam of noises. Fromunderneath the yielding skin of the yeast-ground, there came clickings.Sometimes there were quiverings of the surface as if it were alive, butthey would be the activities of ten and twelve-inch beetles who lived insubterranean tunnels in it. There were those preposterous noises likesomeone rattling a stick along a picket fence--only deafening--and therewere baritone chirpings and deep bass boomings from somewhere far away.Moran guessed that the last might be frogs, but if so they were vastlylarger than men.
* * * * *
Shortly after what was probably midday, Moran brushed off his hands. Thebessendium part of the
cargo of the wrecked _Malabar_ had been salvaged.It was hidden between the twin hulls of the yacht. Moran had, quiteprivately, attended to a matter the wreck's long-dead crew should havedone when they left it. Now, in theory, the _Nadine_ should lift off andtake Moran to some hastily scouted spot not too far from the ice-cap. Itshould leave him there with what food could be spared, and the kit ofseeds that might feed him after it was gone, and weapons that might butprobably wouldn't enable him to defend himself, and with a radio-beaconto try to have hope in. Then,--that would be that.
"Calling," said Moran sardonically into his helmet-phone. "Everything'scleaned up here. What next?"
"_You can come along_," said Hallet's voice from the ship. It