Nine Rarities Page 7

  He made his way carefully toward that phenomenon. Soon the sides of the rocky cave were sprinkled with little flat creatures about the size of a silver dollar. They were miniature beacons, exuding light through their tenuous, transparent surfaces! Yet it wasn't phosphorescence Skeel stopped to examine one of them. It was more like actual sunlight, but there was no heat. He touched one of them gingerly, the light immediately went out and it became the same gray color of the stone to which it clung.

  Skeel plunged on. Soon the walls became thick with the blazing things. But as he ran by, the vibration of his leaden shoes seemed to frighten them. They blinked off, huge patches of them, remaining gray and quiescent 'til he had passed. Then they came on again. As a result he was running in a constant little patch of darkness, with light ahead and light behind, but always darkness where the reverberation of his pounding feet frightened the button-lichen things.

  The tunnel turned and twisted, and several other large ones branched from it. There was no further sight of his quarry. Skeel moved more slowly now. He clicked on his helmet radio but heard no sound of receding feet. Nevertheless he knew his quarry had passed this way not many minutes before, because a few of the light-creatures ahead of him were blinking on again laggardly. Grim-lipped now, a weapon in hand, Skeel pressed on a little more slowly and watched and listened.

  He stopped in a dim little grotto where three tunnel mouths gaped. He hesitated, then chose the tunnel to the left and proceeded along it with infinite caution. Still there was no sign his quarry had come this way. Skeel suddenly realized he had acted with foolhardy recklessness. This might be a trap! He started to turn back. "Stand right where you are!"

  * * *

  The words rasped through his helmet phones and echoed in his ears. Something jabbed into his ribs with a viciousness that made him grunt.

  Skeel slowly raised his arms but the voice rasped again:

  "Don't raise your hands! Drop them to your side. Slowly! That's it. Now drop your gun."

  Skeel did so. The figure behind him swooped and picked it up.

  "Now you can turn around."

  Skeel did that too, then expressed himself in three thunderous words. "Blazes! A female!"

  "Sure. But don't let it give you ideas." She stepped back a pace keeping the two pistols carefully centered on him.

  "A trick!" bellowed Skeel. "This is Anders' work, I might have known it!"

  "No. It's my work." Her voice was soft in the phones and her smile beneath the helmet was hardly a smile; it showed teeth, but they were no more gleaming than the ice-hard gleam in her blue eyes. "My work," she repeated. "And now that you know I'm not the Lonely One, I shall tell you who I really am. The name's Nadia Miller."

  She saw the dawn of realization in his eyes.

  "Miller," she said again slowly, savoring the word. "My brother was Arnold Miller — the man you killed."

  "Look here, Miss Miller, I'm afraid you've got this figured out wrong. I knew your brother, sure. I was after him. But I didn't kill him, he fell off—"

  "He fell off a cliff. I don't doubt it, after you got through with him." She gestured imperatively with the gun in her right hand. "All right, walk ahead of me. Move!"

  Skeel shrugged and obeyed, watching the clusters of light-creatures blink off at the reverberation of their steps. For five minutes they continued in silence, in their continuous little patch of darkness. They made several turns as the tunnel angled sharply.

  Finally Skeel said: "Where are you taking me?"

  "Out to your Patrol cruiser. There you'll sign a written confession or I'll kill you. I almost hope you'll refuse to sign it."

  "We won't get out of here at this rate! I'm afraid you made a wrong turn to the left back there."

  "I don't think so. Just keep moving, because if I bump into you one of these pistols might go off."

  * * *

  Skeel cursed but kept moving, because she sounded as though she meant it.

  "That was a neat trick of yours," he said, "coming clear through that rogue group of asteroids."

  "I thought so. Of course, I hoped you'd follow me and never come out of there."

  "Kind of a risky chance to take, wasn't it?"

  "It was worth it — even if it didn't work out."

  "I don't think this'll work out either. We're going in the wrong direction, back into the cliff instead of out."

  "Just keep moving."

  They walked on.

  She called a stop at the next intersection, where a much narrower passage came into theirs at a sharp angle. She hesitated, looking around.

  "I told you," Skeel chuckled.

  "You're lost. You made two wrong turns, but luckily for us I noticed them. Want me to go back and show you?"

  "No! Keep moving straight ahead." She didn't sound very confident.

  This time Skeel didn't move. "Listen," he said grimly. "Do you realize it'll soon be night out there? Maybe it's come already!"

  "Well?"

  "Well!" he repeated in amazement, whirling to face her in the dim light. "Do you mean to say you aren't familiar with a night on an asteroid? Especially a lone one this big?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that when night comes on these big rocks, strange things come out to greet it; creatures that stir and scramble out of the crevices, tentacular things that hate the sunlight but come out in the dark and are plenty dangerous! Usually the dark side of an asteroid is thick with 'em. This is one such asteroid. I've been here before."

  "You can't frighten me." But her little gasp belied the words. "Anyway, I've made up my mind. We'll wait until morning."

  Now he laughed. "Morning? That'll be ten hours from now. This planet has a very slow axial rotation. Know how much oxygen we have left in these tanks? About four hours' worth. We haven't time to stand here talking. I'm going to try to make it back out to the cruiser. You can do as you please."

  Ignoring the weapons in her hands, Skeel strode past her. She hesitated a split second, then followed. She knew he was right about the oxygen, but wondered how much of the rest he was making up, trying to trick her. Anyway, so long as she still had the weapons….

  * * *

  Skeel had been right. He made several turns and the route led gradually upward. She felt foolish for not having thought of that herself. Presently Skeel called:

  "There we are!"

  Peering past him, she glimpsed a little circle of light that was the cave entrance. Skeel raced forward. She quickly followed. The entrance loomed before them, but they stopped abruptly. Between them and the outside surface was a dark stretch of tunnel. Beyond it they could plainly see the wide rocky terrain, and the bluish-silver glint of the Patrol cruiser resting in pale sunlight. But night had already come. The ebon shadow of the cliff was creeping slowly out, swallowing up everything. It had almost reached the cruiser.

  "It's too late," Skeel groaned. "We're stuck here now!"

  She suddenly knew there was no trickery in this. "There's still time! Run for it!"

  "No!… Mechanically Skeel's hand darted out to stop her. But already she was past him, hurrying down the last part of the tunnel.

  Skeel followed slowly, knowing she wouldn't go far. His sharp eyes had glimpsed something she had not yet seen; shapeless, writhing masses surging toward them in the darkness. Ho was right behind her when she screamed. Several tenacular things had reared up to claw blindly at her face-plate. She screamed, staggered backward into Skeel and half raised her hand holding an electro-pistol. But before she could fire, her legs seemed turned into rubber and she fainted in a heap at Skeel's feet.

  "Thought so," Skeel grunted. "You can only go so far on raw nerve, then it lets you down." He dragged her back several yards into the artificial light. Her hands still held tightly to the pistols. Skeel smiled grimly, reached slowly down and took both weapons.

  * * *

  She swam up out of a sea of darkness.

  A blaze of light hurt her eyes. Sitting up, she saw she was
still in the cave, at a place where the button-light creatures were thickest.

  A short distance away at the edge of the darkness Skeel was crouched, peering. Presently he came back to her.

  "Hello, Miller. I was just taking a survey of our little pets out there. The place is lousy with 'em but don't worry, they won't come too near this light." She got to her feet hurriedly and eyed the two weapons in his belt. "I might have known you'd take advantage—"

  "What do you expect? I can't afford to be running around on an asteroid with an armed woman at my heels."

  She looked past him into the darkness. "Doesn't look as if we're going to do any more running."

  "That's right, lady, it doesn't. We're in a pretty bad spot." He drew one of the pistols. "So you may as well have this." He tossed it to her and she caught it deftly.

  "Thanks," she said dryly. "Now how do you know I won't kill you with it? That's what I came out here to do, you know."

  "Uh-huh, but you won't. Know why? The vibration of that beam would turn out every light in this cave, and the night things would come rushing in."

  She nodded, knowing he was perfectly right. "Stalemate, is it? Okay, Jim Skeel. But if we never get out of here I shall kill you at the very last moment. I'll never let those night beasts deprive me of the pleasure."

  Skeel grinned. She was getting her nerve back again! The more he saw of this girl the more he liked her. He liked the determined curve of her orchid-pale chin, the tight slash of her lips and the courage that gleamed behind a false hardness in her eyes. He shrugged. "Four more hours of oxygen. I suggest you regulate the flow to two-thirds and breathe shallowly. That'll give you a few hours more," he spoke quietly.

  "No. If I can't find a way out of here in four hours— Well, I won't sit here and wait for the end. I'm going to explore. Coming?"

  "I guess so," Skeel agreed. "Not that I think we'll find another exit, for we won't. But walking helps me to think, and I know there must be a way out of this!"

  CHAPTER IV

  They walked side by side in silence, entered joining tunnels and adjacent caves but were careful to remember the way back. Everywhere the walls were lighted by the button-creatures but nowhere was there an entrance to the outside. Not that it would do them any good. They both realized that now. The night horrors would be out there everywhere, waiting for new victims.

  "You said walking helped you to think,' 'she said dully. "Are you thinking?"

  "Yes."

  "What about?"

  He stopped, turned suddenly to face her. She was startled by a new perplexed look on his face.

  "I've been thinking things over from the beginning," Skeel said gruffly "You say you came out here to kill me. You've had plenty of chance."

  "But I didn't, and you can't understand it. There is a code, after all. I understand now what Commander Anders meant." She spoke softly, almost to herself. They walked in silence for a minute then she added as an afterthought:

  "You had your chance, too. Back there when I fainted—"

  "Do you think," Skeel almost snarled, "I'd fire an electro-beam here in the caves, where these light-creatures mean our very lives?"

  "There are other ways" She looked steadily at him. "You might have opened all my oxygen tanks."

  "Didn't think of it." He turned his face away abruptly. "Quit bothering me, I'm still trying to think."

  "You can think later," she was insistent. "Tell me one thing, Skeel. What made you turn killer? You once had the best record in the Patrol!"

  "I'm still the best man in the Patrol!"

  "No you're not, Skeel."

  "Damn you, I—" He stopped.

  Then in a voice scarcely audible: "I have a reason. I've never told my story to anyone."

  "You almost told Anders. I was in his office that day."

  "Anders is a fool!"

  "I'd like you to tell me." There was a way she said it, a certain tone in her voice that hinted of feeling. Perhaps even, of understanding.

  * * *

  He was suddenly speaking, pouring out his story in a fierce rush, of words as if he wanted to finish before that awful throbbing pain came again.

  "It was in the early days when the Mars mines were opening. Lawless, bloody days. The Patrol received news that a freighter was being looted just a few hours from Earth. We got out there fast — too fast. Sixteen of us. The pirates hadn't yet left the drifting hulk. We walked into an ambush and there was nothing to do but give up without a struggle. They removed our weapons, then without warning began burning us down with electros. I dropped and played dead, while all about me my friends were really dying! It was all over in seconds, but I can still hear their dying screams and the hiss of the electros.

  "I think something snapped inside of me. I was in a mental hospital for days. When I came out I swore a terrible oath. I swore to avenge my fifteen friends, to the last man! Any criminal would serve the purpose. There was a bitter hatred in me for all of them. I guess you know the rest. Since then I've always worked alone, and I've never given any criminal quarter. I've killed, yes. Fourteen times. I've almost reached my goal!"

  He stopped, and her eyes were steadily upon him. "But will that be the end, Jim Skeel?"

  He didn't answer.

  "I remember something Anders said that day—"

  "I remember it too!" he whispered. "God knows I remember, and it's haunted me ever since. He said any normal man would squirm at the thing I'd done! Your brother, Miss Miller— he was innocent — but God help me, I feel no remorse! For the very first time, this thing frightens me!"

  He expected her to answer — to say something, anything — but she was silent. For a long time Skeel sat motionless on the floor of the cave, fists pressed hard against his temples.

  Nadia glanced up at the little dial above her eyes, inside the oxygen helmet. "Less than three hours now," she announced.

  Skeel rose to his feet. "Come on," he said calmly. "I know the way out now."

  "Out of these caves, do you mean?" Again her eyes were upon him steadily, those blue eyes that held something less than a crystal hardness now.

  Skeel looked away. "Yes," he said. "Yes, that's what I mean."

  * * *

  They walked back to the cave entrance where the darkness surged in. But Skeel stopped just short of it. Approaching the cave wall, he touched one of the button-creatures. Instantly its light went out. Slowly, gingerly he detached it from the wall. It was rather gelatinous, he noticed, but was equipped with tiny, barely discernible sucker-cups.

  Holding the grayish thing in his hand, Skeel approached Nadia and reached out toward her space-suited figure. She shrank back with a little shudder of loathing.

  "Hold still!" Skeel demanded. "It's not going to hurt you, and it may save your life!"

  He placed it on her shoulder where it remained quiescent for about ten seconds. Then it changed into a little disk of light again, like a miniature beacon.

  "You see, it works! I should have thought of this before. Walk around! Your natural stride."

  Nadia walked. At her second step the thing blinked off. She waited until it came on again, then carefully tip-toed around the cave. This time the creature's light stayed on.

  Skeel nodded. "This isn't going to be fun, but it's the only way! We've got to plaster each other with those things until we become walking pillars of light! Then we'll tip-toe out through the darkness, through those slinking nightmare things until we reach my cruiser. It'll be an ordeal, agony. Think you can do it, Miller?"

  She nodded, suppressing a shudder at the thought of those gelatinous blobs covering her body.

  "All right," Skeel said. "You go to work on me first. Place them on my arms, shoulders and torso. But cover every inch! The more light we have, the easier we'll get through those beasts out there."

  She went to work, biting her lip every time she touched one of the light-creatures; but before she was through, she had overcome her repugnance. Skeel was soon bathed in a brilliant white halo from
the waist up.

  "I think I know the secret of these things," Skeel said as he busied himself decorating her. They must come out onto the surface when the sun is there. They store up enough light energy to last them through the dark period. Somehow they assimilate the heat energy. This is cold light." As a finishing touch he placed some of the things in a little crown of light around her helmet.

  "Now for the real test," he pronounced grimly. "We'll walk side by side. Don't get nervous, Miller, and above all walk slowly, on tip-toe. If these things go out, it's our finish!"

  Like figures in a slow-motion film they moved across the cave toward the outer darkness.

  * * *

  Immediately they knew it was going to be a nightmare of agony. The wall of night seemed to flutter before them and then recede. Receding with the darkness, too, were half-seen grayish shapes close to the ground. But behind and all around them the darkness closed in again. The night creatures closed in too, staying just beyond the little circle of light.

  Their tentacles were long and sensitive and reached in close to the ground where the light hardly shone. One of them whipped against Skeel's ankles, and he felt the strength of it. He heard Nadia gasp and knew the same thing had happened to her. But they didn't stop in their slow, tip-toeing stride.

  "Steady!" he warned. "Once we get outside maybe they won't be so thick."

  In a few minutes that seemed like hours, they were outside and could see the glint of stars against a cobalt sky. They paused to rest. Their eyes were becoming used to the dark and they could see hordes of the grayish night things surging in toward them.

  "Afraid I was wrong," Skeel murmured. "They're worse out here."

  "Just so they keep their distance," Nadia shuddered. "If they come any closer, I–I might get panicky and run for it."

  "You'd never make it," he warned. They moved on, careful step by step, pushing the darkness back. They made nearly half the distance before their tired muscles forced them to rest again. The surging shapes seemed to be getting bolder. Skeel could feel them all around his feet now. He had to fight the impulse to run, to kick out at them, anything to keep them away. Instead, he bent slowly, reaching out with his blazing arms. The shapes retreated momentarily.