Planet of the Damned Page 4

  IV

  "I've never seen anyone quite as angry as that doctor," Brion said.

  "Can't blame him." Ihjel shifted his immense weight and grunted fromthe console, where he was having a coded conversation with theship's brain. He hit the keys quickly, and read the answer from thescreen. "You took away his medical moment of glory. How many timesin his life will he have a chance to nurse back to rugged smilinghealth the triumphantly exhausted Winner of the Twenties?"

  "Not many, I imagine. The wonder of it is how you managed toconvince him that you and the ship here could take care of meas well as his hospital could."

  "I could never convince him of that," Ihjel said. "But I and theCultural Relationships Foundation have some powerful friends onAnvhar. I'm forced to admit I brought a little pressure to bear."He leaned back and read the course tape as it streamed out of theprinter. "We have a little time to spare, but I would rather spendit waiting at the other end. We'll blast as soon as I have you tieddown in a stasis field."

  The completeness of the stasis field leaves no impressions on thebody or mind. In it there is no weight, no pressure, no pain--nosensation of any kind. Except for a stasis of very long duration,there is no sensation of time. To Brion's consciousness, Ihjelflipped the switch off with a continuation of the same motion thathad turned it on. The ship was unchanged, only outside of the portwas the red-shot blankness of jump-space.

  "How do you feel?" Ihjel asked.

  Apparently the ship was wondering the same thing. Its detector unit,hovering impatiently just outside of Brion's stasis field, darteddown and settled on his bare forearm. The doctor back on Anvhar hadgiven the medical section of the ship's brain a complete briefing.A quick check of a dozen factors of Brion's metabolism was comparedto the expected norm. Apparently everything was going well, becausethe only reaction was the expected injection of vitamins and glucose.

  "I can't say I'm feeling wonderful yet," Brion answered, leveringhimself higher on the pillows. "But every day it's a bitbetter--steady progress."

  "I hope so, because we have about two weeks before we get to Dis.Do you think you'll be back in shape by that time?"

  "No promises," Brion said, giving a tentative squeeze to one bicep."It should be enough time, though. Tomorrow I start mild exerciseand that will tighten me up again. Now--tell me more about Dis andwhat you have to do there."

  "I'm not going to do it twice, so just save your curiosity awhile.We're heading for a rendezvous point now to pick up anotheroperator. This is going to be a three-man team, you, me and anexobiologist. As soon as he is aboard I'll do a complete briefingfor you both at the same time. What you can do now is get your headinto the language box and start working on your Disan. You'll wantto speak it perfectly by the time we touchdown."

  With an autohypno for complete recall, Brion had no difficulty inmastering the grammar and vocabulary of Disan. Pronunciation wasa different matter altogether. Almost all the word endings wereswallowed, muffled or gargled. The language was rich in glottalstops, clicks and guttural strangling sounds. Ihjel stayed in adifferent part of the ship when Brion used the voice mirror andanalysis scope, claiming that the awful noises interfered withhis digestion.

  Their ship angled through jump-space along its calculated course. Itkept its fragile human cargo warm, fed them and supplied breathableair. It had orders to worry about Brion's health, so it did,checking constantly against its recorded instructions and notinghis steady progress. Another part of the ship's brain countedmicroseconds with moronic fixation, finally closing a relay whena predetermined number had expired in its heart. A light flashedand a buzzer hummed gently but insistently.

  Ihjel yawned, put away the report he had been reading, and startedfor the control room. He shuddered when he passed the room whereBrion was listening to a playback of his Disan efforts.

  "Turn off that dying brontosaurus and get strapped in," he calledthrough the thin door. "We're coming to the point of optimumpossibility and we'll be dropping back into normal space soon."

  The human mind can ponder the incredible distances between thestars, but cannot possibly contain within itself a realunderstanding of them. Marked out on a man's hand an inch is a largeunit of measure. In interstellar space a cubical area with sidesa hundred thousand miles long is a microscopically fine division.Light crosses this distance in a fraction of a second. To a shipmoving with a relative speed far greater than that of light, thismeasuring unit is even smaller. Theoretically, it appears impossibleto find a particular area of this size. Technologically, it was arepeatable miracle that occurred too often to even be interesting.

  Brion and Ihjel were strapped in when the jump-drive cut offabruptly, lurching them back into normal space and time. They didn'tunstrap, but just sat and looked at the dimly distant pattern ofstars. A single sun, apparently of fifth magnitude, was their onlyneighbor in this lost corner of the universe. They waited while thecomputer took enough star sights to triangulate a position in threedimensions, muttering to itself electronically while it did thecountless calculations to find their position. A warning bell chimedand the drive cut on and off so quickly that the two acts seemedsimultaneous. This happened again, twice, before the brain wassatisfied it had made as good a fix as possible and flashed aNAVIGATION POWER OFF light. Ihjel unstrapped, stretched, and madethem a meal.

  Ihjel had computed their passage time with precise allowances. Lessthan ten hours after they arrived a powerful signal blasted intotheir waiting receiver. They strapped in again as the NAVIGATIONPOWER ON signal blinked insistently.

  A ship had paused in flight somewhere relatively near in the vastvolume of space. It had entered normal space just long enough toemit a signal of radio query on an assigned wave length. Ihjel'sship had detected this and instantly responded with a verifyingsignal. The passenger spacer had accepted this assurance andgracefully laid a ten-foot metal egg in space. As soon as this hadcleared its jump field the parent ship vanished towards itsdestination, light years away.

  Ihjel's ship climbed up the signal it had received. This signal hadbeen recorded and examined minutely. Angle, strength and Dopplermovement were computed to find course and distance. A few minutes offlight were enough to get within range of the far weaker transmitterin the drop-capsule. Homing on this signal was so simple, a humanpilot could have done it himself. The shining sphere loomed up, thenvanished out of sight of the viewports as the ship rotated to bringthe spacelock into line. Magnetic clamps cut in when they madecontact.

  "Go down and let the bug-doctor in," Ihjel said. "I'll stay andmonitor the board in case of trouble."

  "What do I have to do?"

  "Get into a suit and open the outer lock. Most of the drop sphere ismade of inflatable metallic foil, so don't bother to look for theentrance. Just cut a hole in it with the oversize can-opener you'llfind in the tool box. After Dr. Morees gets aboard jettison thething. Only get the radio and locator unit out first--it gets usedagain."

  The tool did look like a giant can-opener. Brion carefully felt theresilient metal skin that covered the lock entrance, until he wassure there was nothing on the other side. Then he jabbed the pointthrough and cut a ragged hole in the thin foil. Dr. Morees boiledout of the sphere, knocking Brion aside.

  "What's the matter?" Brion asked.

  There was no radio on the other's suit; he couldn't answer. But hedid shake his fist angrily. The helmet ports were opaque, so therewas no way to tell what expressions went with the gesture. Brionshrugged and turned back to salvaging the equipment pack, pushingthe punctured balloon free and sealing the lock. When pressure waspumped back to ship-normal, he cracked his helmet and motioned theother to do the same.

  "You're a pack of dirty lying dogs!" Dr. Morees said when the helmetcame off. Brion was completely baffled. Dr. Lea Morees had long darkhair, large eyes, and a delicately shaped mouth now taut with anger.Dr. Morees was a woman.

  "Are you the filthy swine responsible for this atrocity?" Dr. Moreesasked menacingly.

  "In the control roo
m," Brion said quickly, knowing when cowardicewas preferable to valor. "A man named Ihjel. There's a lot of himto hate, you can have a good time doing it. I just joined upmyself...." He was talking to her back as she stormed from the room.Brion hurried after her, not wanting to miss the first human sparkof interest in the trip to date.

  "Kidnapped! Lied to, and forced against my will! There is no courtin the galaxy that won't give you the maximum sentence, and I'llscream with pleasure as they roll your fat body into solitary--"

  "They shouldn't have sent a woman," Ihjel said, completely ignoringher words. "I asked for a highly qualified exobiologist for adifficult assignment. Someone young and tough enough to do fieldwork under severe conditions. So the recruiting office sends me thesmallest female they can find, one who'll melt in the first rain."

  "I will not!" Lea shouted. "Female resiliency is a well-known fact,and I'm in far better condition than the average woman. Which hasnothing to do with what I'm telling you. I was hired for a job inthe university on Moller's World and signed a contract to thateffect. Then this bully of an agent tells me the contract has beenchanged--read subparagraph 189-C or some such nonsense--and I'll betranshipping. He stuffed me into that suffocating basketball withouta by-your-leave and they threw me overboard. If that is not aviolation of personal privacy--"

  "Cut a new course, Brion," Ihjel broke in. "Find the nearest settledplanet and head us there. We have to drop this woman and find a manfor this job. We are going to what is undoubtedly the mostinteresting planet an exobiologist ever conceived of, but we needa man who can take orders and not faint when it gets too hot."

  Brion was lost. Ihjel had done all the navigating and Brion had noidea how to begin a search like this.

  "Oh, no you don't," Lea said. "You don't get rid of me that easily.I placed first in my class, and most of the five hundred otherstudents were male. This is only a man's universe because the mensay so. What is the name of this garden planet where we are going?"

  "Dis. I'll give you a briefing as soon as I get this ship oncourse." He turned to the controls and Lea slipped out of her suitand went into the lavatory to comb her hair. Brion closed his mouth,aware suddenly it had been open for a long time. "Is that what youcall applied psychology?" he asked.

  "Not really. She was going to go along with the job in theend--since she did sign the contract even if she didn't read thefine print--but not until she had exhausted her feelings. I justshortened the process by switching her onto the male-superiorityhate. Most women who succeed in normally masculine fields have areflexive antipathy there; they have been hit on the head with itso much."

  He fed the course tape into the console and scowled. "But there wasa good chunk of truth in what I said. I wanted a young, fit andhighly qualified biologist from recruiting. I never thought theywould find a female one--and it's too late to send her back now.Dis is no place for a woman."

  "Why?" Brion asked, as Lea appeared in the doorway.

  "Come inside, and I'll show you both," Ihjel said.