Питер Филлипс - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Dr. Hishkan remarked carefully, “If it should turn out that we are unable to destroy or control this creature, it is possible we can get rid of it simply by reassembling the device it’s looking for and placing it outside the defense screen. If it picks it up, we can open the barrier lock as an indication of our willingness to let it depart in peace with its property.”

Volcheme looked at him. “Doctor,” he said, “don’t panic just because you’ve heard the thing talk to you! What this does seem to prove is that the specimen you’re selling through us is at least as valuable as it appeared to be—and I for one don’t intend to be cheated out of my profit.”

“Nor I,” Dr. Hishkan said hastily. “But the creature’s ability to utilize shortcode to address us indicates a dangerous level of intelligence. Do you have any thoughts on how it might be handled now?”

Galester interrupted, indicating the screen. “I believe it’s beginning to move. . . . ”

There was silence again as they watched the fire body in the square. Its purple luminescence deepened and paled in slowly pulsing waves; then the tip swung about, swift as a flicking tongue, first toward the building, then away from it; and the thing flowed in a darting curve across the square and into a side street.

“Going to nose around for its treasure somewhere else!” Volcheme said after it had vanished. “So, while it may suspect it’s here, it isn’t sure. I’m less impressed by its apparent intelligence than you are, Doctor. A stupid man can learn to use a complicated instrument, if somebody shows him how to do it. This may be a stupid alien . . . a soldier type sent here from the Pit to carry out a specific, limited mission.”

Galester nodded. “Possibly a robot.”

“Possibly a robot,” Volcheme agreed. “And, to answer your question of a moment ago, Doctor—yes, I have thought of a way to get it off our necks.”

“What’s that?” Dr. Hishkan inquired eagerly.

“No need to discuss it here!” Volcheme gave Danestar a glance of mingled malevolence and triumph. She underðstood its meaning well enough. If Wergard could be located, Volcheme could now rid himself of the Kyth operators with impunity. There were plenty of witnesses to testify that the monstrous creature which had invaded the Depot had destroyed over a dozen men. She and Wergard would be put down as two more of its victims.

“We won’t use the shuttle at present,” Volcheme went on. “But we want the portable guns, and we’ll get ourselves into antiradiation suits immediately. Decrain, watch the lady until we get back—use any methods necessary to make sure she stays where she is and behaves herself. We’ll bring a suit back up for you. The rest of you come along. Hurry!”

Decrain started to say something, then stood silent and scowling as the others filed quickly out of the office and started down the hall to the right. The big man looked uneasy. With a gigantic fiery alien around, he might not appreciate being left alone to guard the prisoner while his companions climbed into the security of antiradiation suits. As the last of the group disappeared, he sighed heavily, shifted his attention back to Danestar.

His eyes went huge with shocked surprise. The chair in which she had been sitting was empty. Decrain’s hand flashed to his gun holster, stopped as it touched it. He stood perfectly still.

Something hard was pushing against the center of his back below his shoulder blades.

“Yes, I’ve got it,” Danestar whispered behind him. “Not a sound, Decrain! If you even breathe louder than I like, I’ll split your spine!”

They waited in silence. Decrain breathed cautiously while the voices and footsteps in the hall grew fainter, became inaudible. Then the gun muzzle stopped pressing against his back.

“All right,” Danestar said softly—she’d moved off but was still close behind him—“just stand there now!”

Decrain moistened his lips.

“Miss Gems,” he said, speaking with some difficulty, “I was, you remember, a gentleman!”

“So you were, buster,” her voice agreed. “And a very fortunate thing that is for you at the moment. But—”

Decrain dropped forward, turning in the air, lashing out savagely with both feet in the direction of the voice. It was a trick that worked about half the time. A blurred glimpse of Danestar flashing a white smile above him and of her arm swinging down told him it hadn’t worked here. The butt of the gun caught the side of his head a solid wallop, and Decrain closed his eyes and drifted far, far away.

She bent over him an instant, half-minded to give him a second rap for insurance, decided it wasn’t necessary, shoved the gun into a pocket of her coveralls and went quickly to the big table in the center of the office. Her control belt was there among the jumble of things they’d brought over from her room. Danestar fastened it about her waist, slipped on the white jacket lying beside it, rummaged hurriedly among the rest, storing the shortcode transmitter and half a dozen other items into various pockets before she picked up her emptied instrument valise and moved to the opposite end of the table where Galester had arranged the mechanisms he’d removed for examination from the false asteroid.

She’d had her eye on one of those devices since she’d been brought to the office. It was enclosed in some brassy pseudometal, about the size of a goose egg and shaped like one. Galester hadn’t known what to make of it in his brief investigation, and Dr. Hishkan had offered only vague conjectures; but she had studied it and its relationship to a number of other instruments very carefully on the night she’d been in Dr. Hishkan’s vault, and knew exactly what to make of it. She placed it inside her valise, went back to the collection of her own instruments, turned on the spy-screen and fingered a switch on the control belt. The spy-screen made a staccato chirping noise.

“I’m alone here,” she told it quickly. “Decrain’s out cold. Now, how do I get out of this building and to some rendezvous point—fastest? Volcheme’s gone berserk, as you heard. I don’t want to be anywhere near them when they start playing games with that animated slice of sheet lightning!”

“Turn left when you leave the office,” Wergard’s voice said from the blank screen. “Take the first elevator two levels down and get out.”

“And then?”

“I’ll be waiting for you there.”

“How long have you been in the building?” she asked, startled.

“About five minutes. Came over to pick up a couple of those antiradiation suits for us, which I have. The way things were going then, I thought I’d better hang around and wait for a chance to get you away from our friends.”

“I was about to start upstairs when Volcheme and the others left. Then I heard a little commotion in the office and decided you were doing something about Decrain. So I waited.”

“Bless you, boy!” Danestar said gratefully. “Be with you in a minute!”

She switched off the spy-screen, went out of the office, skirting Decrain’s harshly snoring form on the carpet, and turned left down the quiet hall.

The hideaway from which Corvin Wergard had been keeping an observer’s eye on events in the Depot was one of a number he’d set up for emergency use shortly after their arrival. He’d selected it for operations today because it was only a few steps from an exit door in the building, and less than a hundred and twenty yards from both the control section and the outer barrier lock—potential critical points in whatever action would develop. Guiding Danestar back to it took minutes longer than either of them liked, but the route Wergard had worked out led almost entirely through structures shielded from the alien visitor by section defense screens.