The Creator and Other Stories Page 13

  'Maybe we can help you out,' suggested Gramp. 'Maybe we could square things for you.'

  'Maybe we could,' squeaked the Martian.

  'Listen, boys,' said the senator, 'if I were to go out in a ship for a tour of the surface and if the ship broke down and I couldn't get back in time to make my speech, nobody would blame me for that, would they?'

  'You're dang right they wouldn't,' said Gramp.

  'How about the eye?' asked Jurg Tec.

  'Shucks,' said Gramp, 'we could say he run into somethin'.'

  'Would you boys like to come along with me?' asked the senator.

  'Bet your life,' said Gramp.

  Jurg Tec nodded.

  'There's some old battle hulls out there I'd like to see,' he said. 'Ships that were shot down during the battle and just left there. Shot up too bad to salvage. The pilot probably would land and let us look at one or two of them.'

  'Better take along your camera,' suggested Gramp. 'You'd ought to get some crackin' good pictures on one of 'em old tubs.'

  IV

  The navigator tore open the door of the control room, slammed it behind him and leaned against it. His coat was ripped and blood dripped from an ugly gash across his forehead.

  The pilot started from his controls.

  'The robots!' screamed the navigator. 'The robots are loose!'

  The pilot blanched. 'Loose!' he screamed back.

  The navigator nodded, panting.

  In the little silence they could hear the scraping and clashing of steel claws throughout the ship.

  'They got the crew,' the navigator panted. 'Tore them apart, back in the engine room.'

  The pilot looked through the glass. The surface of Ganymede was just below. He had been leveling off with short, expert rocket blasts, for an easy coast into Satellite City.

  'Get a gun!' he shouted. 'Hold them off! Maybe we can make it.'

  The navigator leaped for the rack where the heavy flame rifles hung. But he was too late.

  The door buckled beneath a crushing weight. Savage steel claws caught it and ripped it asunder.

  The pilot, glancing over his shoulder, saw a nightmare of mad monsters clawing into the control room. Monsters manufactured at the Robots. Inc., plant on Mars, enroute to Satellite City for the show at the Ganymede Battle reunion.

  The flame rifle flared, fusing the hideous head of one monster, but the tentacles of another whipped out, snared the pilot with uncanny ease. The pilot screamed, once — a scream chopped short by choking bands of steel.

  Then the ship spun crazily, out of control, toward the surface.

  'An old cruiser hull is right over that ridge,' the pilot told the senator. 'It's in pretty good condition, but the nose was driven into the ground by the impact of its fall, wedged tight into the rock, so that all hell and high water couldn't move it.'

  'Earthian or Marshy?' asked Gramp.

  The pilot shook his head. Tm not sure,' he said. 'Earth, I think.'

  The senator was struggling into his space suit.

  'You remember the deal we made?' he asked the pilot. 'You're to say your ship broke down. You'll know how to explain it. So you couldn't get me back in time to make the speech.'

  The pilot grinned. 'Sure do, senator,' he said.

  Gramp paused with his helmet poised above his head. 'Senator!' he shouted.

  He looked at the senator.

  'Just who in tarnation are you?' he asked.

  'I'm Senator Sherman Brown,' the senator told him. 'Supposed to dedicate the battle monument.'

  'Well, I'll be a freckled frog!' said Gramp.

  Jurg Tec chuckled.

  Gramp whirled on him. 'No wisecracks, Marshy,' he warned.

  'Here, here,' shouted the senator. 'You fellows quiet down. No more fighting.'

  Space-armored, the four of them left the ship and tramped up the hill toward the ridge top.

  Faintly in his helmet-phones, Gramp heard the crunch of carbon dioxide snow beneath their feet, its hiss against the space suits.

  Jupiter was setting, a huge red and orange ball with a massive scallop gnawed from its top half. Against this darkened, unseen segment of the primary rode the quarter moon of tiny To, while just above, against the black of space, hung the shining sickle of Europa. The sun had set many hours before.

  'Pretty as a Christmas tree,' Gramp said.

  'Them tourists go nutty over it,' the pilot declared. That taxi of mine has been worked to death ever since the season started. There's something about old Jupiter that gets them.'

  'I remember,' Jurg Tec said, 'that it was just like this before the battle. My pal and I walked out of camp to look at it.'

  'I didn't know you Marshies ever got to be pals,' said Gramp. 'Figured you were too danged mean.'

  'My pal,' said Jurg Tec, 'was killed the next day.'

  'Oh,' said Gramp.

  They walked in silence for a moment.

  'I'm right sorry about your pal,' Gramp told the Martian then.

  They topped the ridge.

  There she is,' said the pilot, pointing.

  Below them lay the dark shape of a huge space ship, resting crazily on the surface, with the stern tilted at a grotesque angle, the nose buried in the rock-hard soil.

  'Earth, all right,' said Gramp.

  They walked down the hillside toward the ship.

  In the derelict's side was a great hole, blasted by a shot of long ago, a shot that echoed in dim memory of that battle forty years before.

  'Let's go in,' said the senator. 'I want to take some pictures. Brought some night equipment along. Take pictures in pitch black.'

  Something moved inside the ship, something that glinted and shone redly in the light of setting Jupiter.

  Astonished, the four fell back a step.

  A space-armored man stood just inside the ship, half in shadow, half in light. He held two flame pistols in his hands and they were leveled at Gramp and the other three.

  'All right,' said the man, and his voice was savage, vicious, with just a touch of madness in it, T got you covered. Just hoist out your guns and let them drop.'

  They did not move, astounded, scarcely believing what they saw.

  'Didn't you hear me!' bellowed the man. 'Drop your guns onto the ground.'

  The pilot went for his flame pistol, in a swift blur of motion that almost tricked the eye.

  But the gun was only half out of its holster when one of the guns in the hands of the man inside the ship blasted with a lurid jet of flame. The charge struck the pilot's space suit, split it open with the fury of its energy. The pilot crumpled and rolled, with arms flapping weirdly, down the hill, to come to rest against the old space derelict. His suit glowed cherry-red.

  'Maybe now you know I ain't fooling,' said the man.

  Gramp, with one finger, carefully lifted his pistol from its holster and let it drop to the ground. Jurg Tec and the senator did likewise. There was no use being foolish. Not when a killer had you covered with two guns.

  The man stepped carefully out of the ship and waved them back. He bolstered one of his guns, stooped and scooped up the three weapons on the ground.

  'What's the meaning of this?' demanded the senator.

  The man chuckled.

  'I'm Spike Cardy,' he said. 'Maybe you heard of me. Only man to escape from Ganymede prison. Said nobody could break that crib. But Spike Cardy did.'

  'What are you going to do with us?' asked the senator.

  'Leave you here,' said Spike. 'I'm going to take your ship and leave you here.'

  'But that's murder,' shouted the senator. 'We'll die. We only have about four hours' air.'

  Spike chuckled again. 'Now,' he said, 'ain't that just too damn bad.'

  Jurg Tec spoke.

  'But you lived here somehow. It's been three weeks since you escaped. You haven't been in a space suit all that time. You haven't had enough air tanks to hold out that long.'

  'What are you getting at?' asked Spike.

  'Why,' sa
id Jurg Tec, 'just this. Why don't you give us a chance to live? Why don't you tell us how you did it? We might be able to do the same, keep alive until somebody found us. After all, you are taking our ship. It won't serve any purpose to kill us. We haven't done anything against you.'

  'Now,' said Spike, 'there's some reason to that. And I'll tell you. Friends of mine fixed up a part of this old ship, walled it off and installed a lock and a small atmosphere generator. Atmosphere condenser, rather. 'Cause there's air enough here, only it ain't thick enough. When I made my getaway I came out here and waited for a ship that was supposed to pick me up. But the ship didn't come. Something went wrong and it didn't come. So I'm taking yours.'

  'That's sporting of you.' said the senator. 'Would you mind telling us whereabouts in the ship you've got this hideaway?'

  'Why, no,' said Spike. 'Glad to. Anything to help you out.'

  But there was something about the way he said it, the ugly twist to his mouth, the mockery in his words, that Gramp didn't like.

  'Just go down into the nose of the ship,' said Spike. 'You can't miss it.',

  An evil smile tugged at Spike's mouth.

  'Only,' he said, 'it won't do you a damn bit of good. Because the condenser broke down about half an hour ago. It can't be fixed. I tried. I was getting ready to try to make it back to Satellite City and take my chances there when you showed up.'

  'It can't be fixed?' asked the senator.

  Spike shook his head inside his space suit.

  'Nope,' he said, cheerfully, 'there's a couple of parts broke. I tried to weld them with my flame gun, but it didn't work. I ruined them entirely.'

  V

  Spike backed away, toward the top of the ridge.

  'Stay back,' he warned, with his gun still leveled. 'Don't try to follow. I'll let you have it if you do.'

  'But,' shrieked the senator, 'you don't mean to leave us here, do you? We'll die!'

  The bandit waved his pistol toward the southeast.

  'Satellite City is over that way. You can make it on four hours of air. I did.'

  His laugh boomed in their helmets.

  'But you won't. Not creaking old scarecrows like you.'

  Then he was gone over the ridge.

  Gramp, suddenly galvanized into action, leaped toward the lifeless body of the pilot. He tugged the space-suited figure over and his hand reached out and jerked the flame pistol free.

  One swift glance told him it was undamaged.

  'You can't do that!' Jurg Tec yelled at him.

  'Get outta my way, Marshy,' yelped Gramp. 'I'm goin' after him.'

  Gramp started up the hill.

  Topping the ridge, he saw Spike halfway to the ship.

  'Come back and fight,' Gramp howled, waving his gun. 'Come back and fight, you ornery excuse for a polecat.'

  Spike swung about, snapped a wild burst of flame along his backtrail and then fled, in ludicrous hops, toward the space ship.

  Gramp halted, aimed the flame pistol carefully and fired. Spike turned a somersault in mid-air and sprawled on the ground. Gramp saw the guns Spike had taken from them flash redly in the Jupiter-light as the flame struck home.

  'He dropped the guns!' Gramp yelled.

  But Spike was up again and running, although his left arm hung limply from the shoulder, swinging freely as he hopped over the surface.

  Too far away,' grunted Jurg Tec, overtaking Gramp.

  'I had 'im dead center,' Gramped yelled, 'but it was a mite long range.'

  Spike reached the ship and leaped into the port.

  Cursing, Gramp laid down a blast of flame against the ship as the bandit swung in the outer lock.

  'Dang it,' shrieked Gramp, 'he got away.'

  Dejectedly the two old veterans stood and stared at the ship.

  'I guess this ends it for us,' said Jurg Tec.

  'Not by a dang sight,' declared Gramp. 'We'll make it back to Satellite City easy.'

  But he didn't believe it. He knew they wouldn't.

  He heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hill and turned. The senator was hurrying toward them.

  'What happened to you?' demanded Jurg Tec.

  'I fell and twisted my ankle,' the senator explained.

  'Sure,' said Gramp, 'it's plumb easy for a feller to sprain his ankle. Especially at a time like this.'

  The ground shuddered under their feet as the ship leaped out into space with rockets blasting.

  Gramp plodded doggedly along. He heard the hissing of the snow against his space suit. Heard it crunching underfoot. Heard the stumbling footsteps of the other two behind him.

  Jupiter was lower in the sky. lo had moved away from its position against the darkened segment of the primary, was swinging free in space.

  Before him Gramp saw the bitter hills, covered with drift snow, tinted a ghastly red by the flood of Jupiter-light.

  One foot forward and now another. That was the way to do it. Keep plugging away.

  But he knew it wasn't any use. He knew that he would die on Ganymede.

  'Forty years ago I fit here and came through without a scratch,' he told himself. 'And now I come back to die here.'

  He remembered that day of forty years before. Remembered how the sky was laced with fiery flame-ribbons and stabbing ray-beams. How ships, their guns silenced, rammed enemy craft and took them with them to the surface.

  'We'll never make it,' moaned the senator.

  Gramp swung on him savagely; a steel-sheathed fist lifted menacingly.

  'You stop your bawlin',' he shouted. 'You sound like a sick calf. I'll smack you down if I hear one more peep out of you.'

  'But what's the use of fooling ourselves?' the senator cried. 'Our air is nearly gone. We don't even know if we're going in the right direction.'

  Gramp roared at him.

  'Buck up, you spineless jackass. You're a big man. A senator. Remember that. You gotta get back. Who'd they get to make all 'em speeches if you didn't get back?'

  Jurg Tec's voice hissed in Gramp's helmet. 'Listen!'

  Gramp stood still and listened.

  But there was nothing to hear. Just the hiss of the snow against his suit.

  'I don't hear nothin',' Gramp said.

  And then he heard it — a weird thunder that seemed to carry with it an indefinable threat of danger. A thunder like the stamping of many feet, like the measured march of hoofs.

  'Ever hear anything like that, Earthy?' asked the Martian.

  'It isn't anything,' shrieked the senator. 'Nothing at all. We just imagine it. We all are going cra/y.'

  The thunder sounded nearer and nearer — clearer and clearer.

  'There ain't supposed to be a livin' thing on Ganymede,' said Gramp. 'But there's somethin' out there. Somethin' alive.'

  He felt prickles of fear run up his spine and ruffle the hair at the base of his skull.

  A long line of things moved out of the horizon haze and into indistinct vision — a nightmare line of things that shone and glittered in the rays of Jupiter.

  'My Lord,' said Gramp, 'what are they?'

  He glanced around.

  To their left was a deep cut-bank, where erosion of long past ages had scooped out a deep, but narrow depression in the hillside.

  'This way,' Gramp yelled and leaped away, heading for the cut bank.

  The line of charging horrors was nearer when they reached the natural fortress.

  Gramp looked at Jurg Tec.

  'Marshy,' he croaked, 'if you never fit before, get ready for it now.'

  Jurg Tec nodded grimly, his flame pistol in his fist.

  The senator whimpered.

  Gramp swung on him, drew back his fist and let drive a blow that caught the senator in the center of his breast-plate and sent him sprawling.

  Gramp snarled at him.

  'Get out your gun, dang you,' he shrieked, 'and pretend you are a man.'

  The bunched monsters were closing in — a leaping, frightful mass of beasts that gleamed weirdly in the moon-
and primary light. Massive jaws and cruel, taloned claw and whipping tentacles.

  Gramp leveled his flame gun.

  'Now,' he shouted, 'let 'em have it.'

  From the jaws of the cut-bank leaped a blast of withering fire that swept the monsters as they charged and seemed to melt them down. But those behind climbed over and charged through the ones the flame had stopped and came on, straight toward the men who crouched in the shadow of the hill.

  Gramp's gun was getting hot. He knew that in a moment it would be a warped and useless thing. That it might even explode in his hand and kill all three of them. For the flame gun is not built to stand continuous fire.

  And still the things came on.

  Before the cut-bank lay a pile of bodies that glowed metal-red where the pistol flames had raked them.

  Gramp dropped his gun and backed away toward the wall of the cut bank.

  Jurg Tec still crouched and worked his pistol with short, sharp, raking jabs, trying to keep it from over-heating.

  In a smaller recess crouched the whimpering senator, his gun still in its holster.

  Cursing him, Gramp leaped at him, hauled out the flame gun and shoved the senator to one side.

  'Let your gun cool, Marshy,' Gramp yelled.

  He aimed the new weapon at a shambling thing that crawled over the barricade of bodies. Calmly he blasted it straight between the eyes.

  'We'll need your gun later,' Gramp yelled at Jurg Tec.

  A shadowy something, with spines around its face and with a cruel beak just below its eyes, charged over the barricade and Gramp blasted it with one short burst.

  The attack was thinning out.

  Gramp held his pistol ready and waited for more. But no more came.

  'What are 'em dog-gone things?' asked Gramp, jerking his pistol toward the pile of bodies.

  'Don't know,' said the Martian. There aren't supposed to be any beasts on Ganymede.'

  They acted dog-gone funny,' Gramp declared. 'Not exactly like animals. Like something you would up and put down on the floor. Like toys. Like the toy animals I got my grandson for Christmas year or two ago. You wound 'em up and the little rascals run around in circles.'