Andre Norton - Sargasso of Space

The big man swerved, but not far or fast enough, and went down into a clawing, gouging scramble on the floor. But the other outlaw remained where he was, sounds which bore small likeness to words still bubbling between his lips.

Ali slipped through the door and started around the room, edging with the wall as a support to his weaving legs. He turned his face up to Dane.

“Which is it?” he cried. “That switch—”

“Just ahead—the black one with the device set in the handle,” Dane called back. And now the eyes of the man by the keyboard found the two on the top of the wall. Why the sight of them restored his sense they could never know, but his hand went to the weapon at his belt. And at that same instant blaster fire cut so close to him that he must have felt the sear of the beam.

“Your hands—up with your hands—at once!” Mura gave the order with the same snap as Jellico might have used.

The man obeyed, leaning over to plant his outspread fingers on the screen he had watched for so long. But now he was intent upon Ali’s tottering advance and on his face there was a growing horror. When Kamil’s hand fell on the switch at last he gave another cry.

“Don’t!”

But Ali disregarded the warning and pulled the lever down with all his strength. The outlaw at the keyboard screamed for the second time. And there came another answer. The hum which had filled the walls, beat within their bodies for so long, was gone.

The Rigellian wrenched himself free from Kosti’s grip and gathered his feet under him to launch himself at the switch. But Ali had flung his whole weight upon the lever, dragging it down until the metal shaft broke off in his hand, determined that it would not be opened again. And at the sight of that the man at the keyboard went mad, flinging himself at Kamil in spite of the menace of Mura’s blaster.

Dane had been caught napping, his attention had been on the Rigellian who, he thought, was the more dangerous of the two. But the steward burned the lunatic down as his tearing hands reached for Ali’s throat. The man’s shriek was choked in mid cry and he writhed to the floor, on his face. Dane was glad he could not see those blackened features.

The Rigellian got to his feet, his unblinking reptilian eyes fastened on Dane and Mura, very much aware of the two blasters now centred upon him. He pulled his clothing into order and ignored Kosti.

“You have just condemned us all, you know—” his voice speaking the Trade Lingo was flat, unaccented, he might have been exchanging the formal compliments used among his kind.

Kosti moved on him. “Suppose you get your hands up, and don’t try the trick your partner pulled—”

The Rigellian shrugged. “There’s is no need for tricks now. We are all caught in the same trap—”

Ali caught at the chair and lowered himself into it it. Behind him the screen was blank—dead.

“And this trap?” asked Mura.

“When you threw that switch and wrecked it—you wrecked all the controls,” the Rigellian leaned back against the wall at his ease, no emotion to be read on his scaled face. “We’ll never get out of here—in the dark!”

For the first time Dane was aware of a change. The grey radiance which had glowed from the walls of the Forerunners’ domain was fading, as the glow might fade from the dying embers of a fire.

“We are locked in,” the remorseless voice of their prisoner continued. “And since you’ve smashed the lock, no one can get us out.”

Kosti laughed. “You setting up for a Whisperer?” he asked roughly. And produced his torch, snapping on the beam.

A ray of light answered. The Rigellian showed no interest.

“We don’t know all the secrets of this place,” he told them. “Wait and see how good your lights will be in here shortly.”

Dane turned to the steward. “If we start now—before the light is all gone from the walls—”

The other agreed with a nod and called down to the Rigellian: “Can you open the door?”

His answer came in a detached shake of the alien’s head. And Kosti promptly went into action. Using his blaster he burnt holds on the wall. Dane fairly danced in his impatience for them to be out and trying for the entrance, he hated to spare the time for those holds to cool.

But at last they were up and over the wall and all in the road to the outside. In the corridor Kosti pulled the hands of the Rigellian behind him and tied them with the man’s own belt before ordering him ahead. Their progress was necessarily slow as even with an aiding hand Ali could not keep a fast pace. And now they were in virtual darkness—the light only a ghostly reflection of the former glow.

Mura snapped on his torch. “We’ll use these one at a time. Save the charges for when we need them most.”

Dane wondered about that. Torch charges were not easily exhausted, they were made to be in use for months. But the ring of light which guided them now was oddly pallid, greyish, instead of yellow-bright as they expected.

“Why not turn it up?” Ali asked after a moment.

There was a snicker out of the gloom from the direction of the Rigellian. Then Mura answered:

“It is up—top strength—”

No one commented, but Dane knew that he was not the only one to watch that faint circle anxiously. And when it faded to a misty light extending hardly a foot beyond, somehow he was not surprised. Kosti, alone, asked a question:

“What’s the matter? Wait—!” The beam of his own torch struck out into the thick darkness. For perhaps two minutes it was clear, uncut, and then it, too, began to diminish as if something in the atmosphere sapped it.

“All energy within this space,” the Rigellian’s voice expounded, “is affected now. There is much of the installation we do not understand. Light goes, and later the air, also—”

Dane drew a long, testing breath. To his mind the chilly atmosphere was the same as it had always been. Perhaps that last embellishment was merely a flight of imagination on the part of their prisoner. But their pace quickened.

The pallid circle of the torch did not fade totally away for some time and they were able to follow the pattern which Rich had betrayed—the one which should guide them out of the labyrinth. There was a vast and brooding silence now that the great machine had stopped and in it the ring of their boots awoke strange echoes. At length Kosti’s torch was sucked dry and Dane’s pressed into use. They threaded on, from one room to another, down this short corridor to that, trying to make the best possible use of the dying light. But there was no way of gauging how close they were to the outer door.

When the last flicker of Dane’s light was in turn swallowed up, Mura gave a new order.

“Now we link ourselves together—”

Dane’s right hand clipped into Mura’s belt, his left closed about Ali’s wrist, providing one link in the chain. And they went on so, a soft murmur of sound telling the cargo-apprentice that the steward in the lead was counting off paces, seeming to have worked out some method of his own for getting them from one unseen point to the next.

But the dark pressed in upon them, thick, tangible, with that odd sensation that darkness on this planet always possessed. It was like pushing through a sluggish fluid and one lost any belief in ground gained, rather there was the feeling of being thrust back for a loss.

Dane followed Mura mechanically, he could only trust that the steward knew what he was doing and that sooner or later he would bring them to the portal of the maze. He himself was panting, as if they had been running, and yet the pace was the unhurried, ground-covering stride of the Pool parade ground which they had fallen into insensibly as they advanced in line.