Andre Norton - Sargasso of Space

Rich took a small box from his pocket, poured some of its contents into the palm of his hand and licked it up. “It is pleasant to know that something is going right,” he observed with a chill in his voice which made Dane’s skin prickle.

“We don’t know much about this,” the man thumbed the edge of the keyboard. “None of us has been trained to use it right. And it was alien made to begin with—”

“Let me know when and if you can get it back on full power again,” was all the answer Rich made.

Two hours before they could turn on the full power, Dane thought. Now if in those two hours he and Mura—and maybe Kosti and Ali—could move—that lever the Rigellian had reached for—it must control something important. And if they could take over this room and the men in it, they would learn even more about its operation. Suppose the Patrol ship could make a safe landing on the tail of the outlaw they were pursuing—! What should be his next move?

Rich decided it for him. His jaws moving in a rhythmical chewing, the outlaw leader walked towards the hidden door. “You say two hours,” he spoke over his shoulder as he went. “It’ll be much better all around if you halve that, understand? I’ll be back in an hour—be ready to cut in the full beam then.” He nodded curtly to the Rigellian and stepped through the opening in the wall.

And this time Dane was ready to follow. He allowed Rich a good start and trailed the other through the winding ways which the outlaw threaded with the ease of much practice. Before they had drawn level with the small beacon provided by Mura’s torch, a beacon Rich could not sight from the floor, Dane had the secret of the maze. Two right turns, then one left, and then three right once more, skip the next passage opening and repeat. Rich had made the same pattern four times and Dane was sure that it would continue to carry him to the outer door of the puzzle. But, having learned that, the Trader waited on the wall for the other to work his way five corridors ahead before he crossed to the room where he had left Mura and Ali.

He found Kamil up and walking about now, restored by the steward’s first aid. And as Dane climbed down their crude ladder they closed in on him.

“—That’s it,” he ended his report. “The Patrol’s riding in on this bird’s jet stream. As long as they both stay out of the atmosphere they’re safe. But once the pull is working full power again—” he snapped his fingers.

“Our move!” Kamil got out the words between his swollen lips. “We’ve got to cut that power off—totally!”

“Yes,” Mura crossed to the holds on the wall. “But first we collect Kosti—”

“How can you get him here? He said he can’t walk the walls—”

“A man can do anything if he is forced to it,” Mura replied. “You will stay here—I shall bring Kosti. But first show me the route which takes one to this ‘heart’—”

Dane reclimbed the wall behind the steward, led the way across the three intervening spaces to that corridor he had seen Rich traversing. And there he repeated the pattern the outlaw had followed. Mura smiled his placid smile.

“It is very simple, is it not? Now, you wait with Kamil—and do nothing foolish until I return. This is most interesting—”

Dane obediently went back to the room where they had left the engineer-apprentice. Kamil sat on the floor, his back against one of the walls, his battered face turned to the torch light. As Dane’s boots hit the pavement he turned his head.

“Welcome aboard,” he mouthed. “Now tell me about that installation—” he went on into a series of questions about what Dane had seen, which sometimes left the cargo-apprentice floundering. Of the machines he had seen little because of their casings. And he could not describe the control panel very well, having been at the time more intent on the actions of the men by it. He admitted this with some of his old feeling of inadequacy. A Trader kept his eyes open, a Trader had to use both his eyes and his brain at one and the same time. Here he had had another opportunity which he had apparently muffed. And a little of the old antagonism sparked to life inside him.

“What is their source of power?” Ali demanded of the room about them. “We’ve nothing like it—nothing at all! There must be things here which will put us years ahead—generations—”

“Providing of course,” Dane broke in a little sourly, “that we get to use them. We aren’t the winners yet.”

“Neither are we licked,” Ali retorted.

It was as if their roles had been reversed. Now it was Kamil who was building castles, Dane who did the under-mining.

“If Stotz and I could have a couple of hours in that place! By the Black Hole, we did pick a winner when we bid on Limbo—”

Ali seemed able to ignore the fact that Rich was still very much in command of the situation, that the Queen was pegged down, and that the enemy had a force which could render their headquarters impenetrable. The more Kamil enlarged on the future to come, the more flaws Dane could see in their actions in the immediate present. But they were both lifted out of their thoughts by a soft hail from above.

“Mura!” Dane jumped to his feet. The steward had been successful in his mission, a second man stood on the wall above, one hand resting on the steward’s shoulder.

“Yes,” was hissed down at them. “Now it is for you to climb. Up quickly, both of you, time runs out !”

Ali went first, and once or twice he bit off an exclamation as his exertions wrung his sore body. Dane caught up the beacon torch, snapped it off, and went after.

“Now this is what we shall do,” Mura was clearly in command, as he had been all the time since they had entered the mountain. “Kosti and Ali shall go by the regular path to the room of the installation. While you and I, Thorson, will take the route along the wall top. They are expecting Rich to return there. Your entrance in his place should surprise them long enough for us to go into action. We must get at that switch and immobilize it. And do whatever else we can to make this devil thing incapable of action in the future. So—now we move—”

They made their way back to the path Rich had used, Kosti walking slowly with his hand on the steward’s shoulder, visible shudders shaking his big body. There once more they used the linked belts and lowered the jetman and Ali to the floor of the maze.

The brighter glow of the installation section was their guide now and they reached the oval wall easily. Mura gestured at Kosti and the jetman raised his voice in the same call the messenger had given earlier. The other three stood tense, ready to move if it worked.

“Salzar!”

Dane’s attention was fixed on the Rigellian. The Alien’s head went up, his round eyes sought the hidden doorway. It was going to work because that blue hand went to the proper button among the controls. And outside the barrier Kosti stood waiting, his blaster drawn and ready to fire, the unarmed Ali behind him.

As the door slid back into the wall and Kosti leaped through, Mura raised his voice:

“You are covered! Stand where you are!”

The man at the keyboard started, looking over his shoulder at Kosti, his face a mask of wild surprise. But the Rigellian moved with the superhuman speed of his race, his blue hand whipping towards another point on the control board.

It was Dane who fired and struck, not living flesh but that bank of controls. The man at the keyboard screamed, a thin, inhuman cry to echo though the maze. And the Rigellian dropped to the floor. But he was not yet beaten. He threw himself at Kosti, moving with a speed no Terran muscles could equal.