Harry Harrison - Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"I see," Jerry mused. "But it's a long chance."

"It's the only chance," John said. The silence stretched as the two men looked each other in the eye; then it stretched some more.

"Well, I'll go if you won't," Sally said, springing to her feet. "Can you get me a map, Prrsi?"

"Ahh, you are indeed a stout brick, little Earthling chum. But, hope you won't mind my saying it, it will take a far sturdier mind than yours to stand up to that of the hermit. It will need a mind of at least seven hundred and forty-three IQ, a genius, a person of great moral fiber and strength, a natural-born leader, one healthily oversexed."

"That's me," John and Jerry said, with one voice, standing at attention, volunteering, not realizing how well they had been conned by the cool brain of the red-hot alien. Before they really realized what they had become involved in, they were in heatproof suits, stuffing the protesting Chuck into one as well, waving good-bye to Sally and rushing out of the city in a great tractor-treaded vehicle with Lord Prrsi at the wheel.

"We didn't bring much in the way of supplies," Jerry grumbled.

"Either way, this trip won't take long," Lord Prrsi said breezily.

"Gee, thanks," John muttered, and they settled down to a day and a night of uncomfortable boredom. The powerful machine tore across the desert, the untiring Prrsi at the controls, sending up an immense cloud of dust from its treads. When night fell, glaring headlights of piercing actinic light speared through the darkness and their pace never slowed. At noon, on the second day, they raced toward a range of mountains that had been growing steadily before them, and Lord Prrsi braked to a squealing stop at the mouth of a narrow canyon.

"I don't imagine you chaps can feel them, with your rudimentary powers, but I have been fighting mental waves of great intensity for the last couple of hours, attempting to turn me away. Instead, I have followed them to their source, this canyon. I am afraid I must let you out here, for I dare not go on. Take your hopelessly incapacitated friend and proceed. I wish you the best of luck."

"An atomic pistol would be a lot more help," Jerry said ingratiatingly.

"Weapons are forbidden in the valley. To possess them means instant death, I will wait for you here. Farewell,"

Step by hesitant step, the brave Earthmen climbed up through the crumbling scree, leading the Chuck-thing at the end of a leash, It was hard going, and they had to stop to rest many times and suck at the nipples of the water tanks inside their helmets. They neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary, though both were possessed by a feeling of immense dread. A wave of depression against which they had to push physically. But they pushed because they were that kind of men, now having to carry the screeching, brainless Chuck forcefully. Finally, before a sharp turn in the narrow valley, there came a mental blast that almost seared out their synapses, a mental command that said but one thing.

"STOP!"

They stopped, frozen, unable to move, even Chuck paralyzed by the intensity of the command. Then a voice spoke to them, or rather a mental voice spoke within their own minds, and they heard it louder than they had ever heard any sound with their ears.

"LEAVE HERE WHILE YOU ARE STILL ALIVE!"

"We have come this far, we will not turn back," Jerry said staunchly. "And would you mind turning the volume down?" When the voice spoke to them again, it was still loud, but bearable.

"You know that there is no return from this valley of death unless the Test is passed? And few pass it,"

"We know that, but we have come for our friend's sake. If we pass the test, we sort of hoped-"

"No bargains! I will decide what is to be done. Come forward."

Their feet almost did not obey them as they shuffled forward against the mounting wave of mental dread that filled the valley. Around the turn they staggered and stopped, without willing it, below a shelf that lay just in front of the black opening of a cave. They knew it was in that cave, even if the skulls and skeletons scattered on the ground before it were not a dead giveaway.

"I am called Baksheesh, and all who have come here have feared me!"

"Well, here are three more, Mr. Baksheesh," Jerry gasped, knees trembling despite everything he did, chilled and shivering despite the 240-degree temperature outside their suits.

"Are you prepared for the question?"

"We are." John shivered in response.

"Then you are first. You have ten seconds to answer the following. . . ."

"Hey, you didn't mention any time limit before this."

A cold chuckle was his only answer. "Prepare now. We play this game by my rules since it is my game. Ready. What is black and deadly and sits in a tree?"

John tightened his forehead in concentration as the seconds ticked away, gleefully counted off by the murderous Baksheesh. Jerry leaned over and tried to whisper, but a blast of mental energy blew up a boulder next to him.

"None of that or the mind blast blasts right now."

"Sorry, I didn't know coaching was against the rules."

"It is now. Seven . . . eight . . . nine. . . ."

"I have it! A crow with a machine gun."

A wave of miffed mental radiation swept over them and was instantly gone. "Think you're so smart!" the mental voice muttered. "So let's see how well your buddy does on the next one. Five seconds on this one. And miss one question and you all die."

Jerry steeled himself, tightening his muscles and thinking healthy thoughts to clean his brain. "Ready when you are, Baksheesh," he said. And back came the mental blast with the question.

"What looks like a box, smells like a lox – and flies? Five. . . four. . . ." It was counting faster now. "Three . . . two. . ."

"A flying lox box!" Jerry shouted defiantly, and the muttering wave of mental anger in reply told him that he was right.

"That's two out of three, but it's anyone's ball game yet. I'm going to ask your drooling friend there the next question. . . ."

"But you can't! He's not human. His mind has been chopped up by the vile Lortonoi."

"Hmmm, yes, so it has. And a sloppy job too, just like them. Here, I'll lift this mental block, erase that pattern, pour another in here, tap this subconscious memory and drain it into the right lobe. There, he's as good as new, maybe better. Now my question. . . ."

"Hold on," John called out. "We don't know if you have really fixed his brain; you may just be saying that. We'll have to talk to him first." His words were cut off by a bone-chilling cackle of shrill laughter.

"My rules, remember? Now, Chuck-thing, you have one second to answer the following question. Ready now, think. What is the square of the product of 456.78 times 923.45 divided by 65.23 plus 92565.286? The answer?"

"99031.75 is the product to two decimal places, and the square of that number is, dropping the decimal places for the moment, 980713896. Do you want it with the decimal places too?"

A mentally muttered morbid curse was his only answer, and Chuck smiled warmly as his two friends came forward to beat him on the back and welcome him back to sanity.

"I was going to ask you what we were doing here. The last I remember is some torture or other and things getting dim; then, bango, I'm in this valley and somebody asked me that question, and by reflex of course, I put the old brain box to work and dug up the answer. I was startled so it was a good thing it was a simple question."

"That's about enough of the old self-laudatory praise," the voice spoke coldly in their minds. Not only in their minds, but they realized suddenly that they were hearing it with their ears. They looked up at the ledge whence the voice had spoken and recoiled together. For there was Baksheesh.

He was an ancient, gnarled, scratched and generally beat-up native of the planet Haggis, that was obvious. But he was old. Generations of spiders had built webs between his claws until he was almost wrapped in a cocoon. Yet for all his age, the light of a great intelligence burned in his crystalline eyes. Nor was that all. His color. . . .