Pell smiled, leveled the blaster and depressed the stud.
Pell smiled, leveled the blaster and depressed the stud.
Pell smiled, leveled the blaster and depressed the stud.
In an instant the steel door turned a dazzling white and began to run into slag. The vicious, expanding cone of blue flame played on it an instant more and suddenly it exploded into vapor. The knot of mercenaries around the door disintegrated into exploding cinders. Some of them on the outer edges even had time to scream.
VI
A tremendous feeling of power surged in Pell. He strode into the corridor and stood in the midst of the havoc he had created, letting the hungry, hellish blaster play across a few fleeing figures trying to make the elevators. He was unconscious of the overpowering stench in the hot, searing, almost unbreathable air. He didn't notice that the soles of his heavy insulated boots were burning as he stood in the corridor. He realized now only that he held in his hands the instrument that would enable him to carry out ruthless vengeance against Gutridge and his DIC mercenaries.
The dead-end corridor off which the armory was located opened onto the larger main corridor which led to the elevators. Pell padded silently to the junction and walked boldly toward the automatic elevators which would take him to the surface. He paused just once to let the blaster play over the mouth of the dead-end corridor which led to the blasters. The roof slowly collapsed in a shower of scorched cement, leaving the lacy interwork of the reinforcing girders bare and skeleton-like. The mass of hot rubble effectively sealed off the entrance to the armory—for the time being, at any rate.
With that action, Pell realized that he was a god. Although not an immortal god, certainly a god armed with a terrible destructive force which was not immediately available to the others who might aspire to be gods.
Pell looked at the devastation he had created and became uncertain as to what to do next. Little thought tendrils of unreason whispered at him, telling him to create a reign of terror throughout the multi-leveled warren which was the foundation of the mighty blaster tower. But he closed his mind to their pleasing prospects and his jaw hardened at the thought of the job before him. He must go to the surface and destroy the mercenaries' defense of the fortress. He must help Dallard crack their resistance as soon as possible so that the precious U-235 might be retrieved from its burying place and turned over to the Insurgents.
Pell's eyes narrowed as he turned again to the auto-droppers. There were so many things he would like to do with his weapon, but first things first. Bleak-eyed Gret Helmuth who could become all woman in an instant—she would have to wait. So would Gutridge. But not for long, he promised himself.
He pressed the button which should send one of the cages hurtling to his level, then take him back to the surface. The first time he pressed the button, there was no response. Nor was there the second time. A third time his hand moved impatiently toward the red stud, only to freeze in the act as a familiar, hated voice began to crackle from some hidden speaker in the walls. It was Gutridge!
"Pell! Pell! Can you hear me?" came the mocking voice. "You're trapped, Pell. The droppers don't seem to respond, do they?"
The deep, penetrating voice chuckled, then went on. "Pretty soon your head will become heavy and your eye-lids will want to drop. You will want to sleep, Pell, because the gas is very powerful. Do you feel it yet? Its nice stuff, Pell. You will want to sleep so much ... so much."
The heavy voice began to chuckle and its reverberations thundered evilly in the deserted corridors. Pell found the source of the laugh and blasted it furiously from its concealment high in the wall. But from somewhere far down the corridor the powerful laugh echoed ominously.
Fear began to crawl at his throat, constricting it. He must find a stair-way. Surely there must be one! But would he have time? Frantically he ran down the empty corridors blasting open doors as he came to them. At last he found what he sought behind the gaping maw of a blasted panel. Through the coalescing haze of the vaporized door he saw stairs spiralling upward.
He was about to enter when he saw the first tendrils of smoky whiteness reaching for him and plucking at him. Instantly he realized that the heavy stuff was being forced down the stairwell. Holding his breath, he retreated back down the corridor and let loose a blast from the weapon cradled in his arms in an effort to seal up the shattered door. As he retraced his steps back to the elevators, he realized that his head was getting heavy. Vaguely he noticed the milky smoke issuing from the corridor vents and he began to run.
But with each step his body became heavier and heavier and only the greatest effort of will kept him from collapsing on his face. He knew he was trapped. Desperately he goaded his tired mind to discover a means to escape. Reeling, he reached the elevators, dimly conscious of Gutridge's mocking laugh far down the corridor. The white haze was thick and nauseating and it caressed his nostrils with cloying sweetness.
Suddenly Pell saw a group of masked figures approach in the sound-deadening haze. In what seemed an eternity he brought the blaster up with tired hands and pressed the stud. As if in some horrible nightmare, the figures seemed to shimmer and explode.
Desperately Pell strived to keep his legs under him, but they wobbled in spite of his control and he fell. His arms and legs were mere dead weight; he could no longer force them to do his bidding, not even to the extent of releasing the stud on the blaster. A wave of heat struck him mightily on the face, as if he had been thrust bodily into an atomic furnace. Then from somewhere a draught of cool, pure air played about him, washing the fumes of the nerve gas from his system.
Astounded, Pell gasped in deep lungfuls of the precious air and painfully stumbled to his feet. Slowly the incredible truth dawned upon him. Accidentally he had blasted open the sliding steel door of the elevator shaft and the cool breath of its untainted air had revived him. Hastily he looked around him, trying to spot more of the enemy creeping through the dense fog toward him. There were none; apparently they had decided to let the gas do its work. They were in for a surprise, Pell reflected.
An idea had occurred to him. He might just possibly escape the trap by climbing up the inside of the elevator shaft. He strained his eyes into the dimness of the shaft and found what he was looking for; a frail-looking steel ladder which extended in both directions up and down the shaft. Looking up, he tried to pierce its puddled blackness but could see nothing. If a dropper should hurtle down out of that blackness, he would be smashed to a bloody pulp. Grimly he thrust the thought out of his mind, slung the blaster over his shoulder, and leaped for the ladder on the far wall of the shaft.
It trembled dangerously as his writhing body struck it and swiftly he began his long climb into the darkness above. For what seemed an eon of agonizing effort, Pell hauled his weary body up the length of the steel ladder. It stretched up and away into an infinity of blackness that housed a sudden and terrible death. As he climbed, Pell strained his senses in the all-enveloping darkness but could perceive nothing.
Suddenly his hand, groping for another rung, met nothing but emptiness and for one terrifying moment Pell tottered off balance on the ladder. Cautiously he felt about above himself and his hand collided with the underside of a dropper which was suspended just over his head. Had he reached the top? It was impossible to tell in the blackness. He had no choice but to chance it.
Saying a silent prayer, Pell unlimbered the blaster and wrapped himself about the tiny steel ladder as tightly as possible. Then he loosed its devastating radiance at the wall opposite him. The brilliance of its destructive flash blinded him momentarily as he clung tenaciously to the frail ladder which whipped treacherously.
Blessed, precious light filtered in through the shattered door opposite him. Clinging tightly to his blaster, Pell leaped for the opening in spite of the fact that his eyes had not yet adjusted to the sudden light. Pain jagged his eyeballs as his pupils strove to contract but Pell ignored it as he took in his new surroundings with rapid glances.
The corridors of this wide, well-lit level were deserted and the air was free of the deadly gas that had trapped him lower in the labyrinth. Haste was the keynote now. From this point on, regardless of what he did, he must do it quickly and decisively. He realized that he had not yet reached the surface, although he knew he was very close.
His eyes narrowed as he considered the situation. He couldn't use the stairs since they were flooded with gas. And at any minute he might see the deadly, white tendrils of the gas issuing from the vents. There was only one thing to do.
Sighing, Pell aimed the blaster at the ceiling and depressed the stud. The innocuous-looking blue finger took huge bites from the heavily reinforced cement and it cascaded down to the floor of the corridor before him.
Ignoring its burning heat, Pell leaped for a drooping girder and hauled himself painfully through the ragged hole to the corridor above.
Frozen with surprise, several DIC mercenaries watched a haggard, blackened figure materialize suddenly from the midst of a gaping hole in the floor. One or two fired wildly at Pell, but the majority fled with terror up a low ramp nearby and through an exit at the top. Pell ran after them, noting with relief that the soldiers wore no gas masks.
The ramp continued its sharp upward rise on the other side of the exit. As he panted up its steep ascent, Pell felt the breath of cool air touch his face; with it the sound of firing increased. Evidently Dallard was attempting to storm the fortress. Breathlessly he hammered up the slope on the heels of the fleeing men and ducked instinctively as several shots were fired at him. He was out on open ground. Swiftly he ran for the cover of a dump of bushes and dived into their concealment.
Centaura's lone satellite shed a strong light over the surrounding ground and Pell was able to make out the dim figures of men around the blaster tower. To his right the tower itself rose sharply into the sky, the vicious helix of the blaster being etched by the moonlight into a clearly defined blackness in the midst of the lesser blackness of the star-studded sky.
To Pell's left the sound of firing was intense, the sharp, hacking bark of machine-guns dominating the chorus. But ragged firing seemed to be present everywhere, apparently indicating that Dallard's Insurgents had attacked the fortress from all sides. The mercenaries seemed to be firmly entrenched, but not so firmly that a little diversion from the rear could not root them out, Pell thought, smiling mirthlessly. Gripping the blaster tightly, Pell peered into the darkness to locate a juicy target.
Beyond the clump of trees in which he was concealed there was a rise in the rocky ground and silhouetted against the sky was a group of men crouching around a machine-gun and firing it down the path up which Heintz, Gret and himself had been brought. He had no doubts that discovery would be only a matter of moments—no doubt word was already being circulated about the madman with a blaster.
Grimly he brought the blaster to his shoulder and depressed the firing stud. Instantly great gouts of dirt began a short-lived trip into the night sky, including the machine-gun and its crew. The effect of his sudden attack was instantaneous and confusing. The startled cries of the mercenaries was like music to Pell's ears. But a more ominous music was the faint, chopping whisper of bullets as they spattered through his clump of trees. Ignoring them, Pell leveled the blaster at every likely place in which the mercenaries might be entrenched.
Hell, in the form of violently reacting stones and rocks erupted into the sky, showering the DIC soldiers with molten, lava-like droplets. Seeking protection from the super-heated rain of molten particles, some of the mercenaries panicked and fled to the blast tower that reared bulkily behind them. Their action was like a trigger for others and presently a whole mass of men were fleeing for the protection of the tower. Heartlessly Pell let his ravening blaster play among the fleeing men. And on their heels came a shouting, triumphant horde of ragged Insurgents bearing antiquated weapons.
Some of them dropped, but most streamed after the terrified mercenaries into the fortress. Although they did not know whom to credit for the unexpected aid, they knew it was from a friend. Pell, infected with the wild excitement of the Insurgents, threw caution to the winds and left his hiding place to storm the warrens with them.
Somewhere in that mass of cement and steel were Raul Gutridge and Gret Helmuth. For the Insurgents it was complete and utter triumph, but for Pell it was a hollow victory unless he could find Gret alive and Gutridge dead. His jaw was out-thrust with determination as he entered the fortress with the Insurgents. The DIC had beaten him before, crushing him out of business. But this time he was fighting with their methods and he was determined to win.
As he shoved through the press of Insurgents down the ramp up which he had come a short time before, the revolutionaries looked at him askance and fingered their weapons uneasily. They muttered among themselves and one of them turned to Pell.
"Who are you and where did you get that thing?" the man asked, indicating Pell's blaster.
"I'm with you," replied Pell to the first question. "Where's Dallard?" he asked, ignoring the second.
"Right behind you," replied a new voice from his rear.
Pell turned, startled. Behind him stood a slight man with the bearing of an officer. But his cold blue eyes and the large ancient revolver he pointed at Pell hardly betokened friendship.
"Who are you?" Dallard asked.
Briefly Pell explained, indicating his desire to find Gret and Gutridge. When he had finished, Dallard whistled softly and looked at Pell with new respect.
"We'll give you all the help we can, Pell—and in case we run into some tough opposition, we'd like you to reciprocate—with that thing." Dallard grinned and as he walked away with his men, called over his shoulder, "Luck!"
Pell nodded absently and turned away, considering the almost hopeless hunt that confronted him. Certainly they were no longer in the blaster tower; obviously Gutridge had taken the girl into the depths of the fortress when the Insurgents had attacked. Then the unpleasant possibility that Gutridge might be holding the girl as a hostage occurred to him. It added new drive to his purpose.
Pell's actions that night, had they occurred in another age, would have been the fiber of a legend. He never remembered exactly what he did himself and the accounts of the Insurgents who saw only a part of his exploits were disjointed and inconsistent.
Suffice it to say that a haggard, smoke-blackened, wild man almost single-handedly destroyed the last remnants of the DIC mercenary army on Centauri VI that night. In the face of Pell's blaster they surrendered faster than they could be captured. Points of resistance, when they were touched by the deadly blue finger of the blaster, vanished in violently reacting clouds.
Perhaps the toughest struggle of all was with a group of fanatical mercenaries on the sixth level who were scrabbling desperately in the rubble of the entrance to the dead-end corridor which led to the atomic armory. Fearing that its violent energies would explode the U-235 in the armory, Pell was unable to use the blaster against them. Desperately the Insurgents stormed the level, only to be cut down sickeningly by the trapped mercenaries. In the end, however, there could only be one result and the weary DIC soldiers had no choice but to surrender.
Pell's search was ended on the thirty-seventh level. Because of its tremendous depth, this level was ventilated only with great difficulty. The air, what there was of it, was close and sticky. The rumbling whine of the ventilator turbine could be heard plainly as it labored to force air into the dimly-lit, narrow passage-ways. The walls and pillars were huge chunks of almost solid, heavily reinforced cement since they had to support the ponderous weight of three dozen levels and the mighty blaster tower itself.
Uneasily the Insurgents crept into the depths behind Pell and Major Dallard. Pell himself was worried. The entire warren above had been combed unsuccessfully for Gutridge and Gret Helmuth. The gnawing fear that had tormented Pell burst out more powerfully. Suppose Gutridge had taken Gret into these depths and was holding her as a hostage? Pell shrugged grimly to himself and strained his eyes to pierce the gloom.
Suddenly the heavy silence that shrouded the place was broken by the crackling of static and the sound of a well-known voice originating from a speaker almost above Pell's head. It was Gutridge!
"I see you've discovered my hiding place, Pell," boomed Gutridge, his voice reverberating in the tomb-like passages.
"I'm entertaining a guest," Gutridge continued. "I believe she is a friend of yours. You wouldn't want anything to happen to her, would you, Pell?" His laughter made the passage vibrate.
"Pell!" thundered the speaker, "I want a guarantee of freedom. In return, I will deliver the girl unharmed. This is a two-way speaker, so you may reply into it."
"How do I know she is alive?" Pell stalled desperately.
"You may speak to her," Gutridge answered. "Say a few words to the gentleman, my dear."
"Pell!" Gret screamed over the speaker, "this whole place is mined. Get out before he kills you all!"
Pell heard distinctly the sound of a meaty fist colliding with flesh and bone, followed by Gutridge's muttering voice, "You talk too much, my dear."
Rage—blind, helpless, unreasoning rage washed over Pell in prickly waves. Then Gutridge spoke again.
"There you have it. I will give you two minutes to decide," the speaker echoed. Its crackling subsided and only the hum of its open circuit could be heard.
Then Pell felt a tapping on his shoulder. He turned and saw Dallard in the dimness.
"Guarantee his freedom, Pell. Offer him a space ship," Dallard whispered. "It's either that or he blows us all up. Personally, I am not particularly in favor of dying—especially with him."
Pell grunted inaudibly and turned to the speaker. "Okay, Gutridge, you win. Send the girl out first, then follow. You will be escorted to the surface and given a ship."
Gutridge chuckled. "If it were anyone but the honorable Fletcher Pell who made that promise, I'd balk. All right, she's coming out."
Straining his eyes in the darkness, Pell presently saw the slight figure of Gret Helmuth approach. When she saw him, she broke into a limping run and threw herself into his arms.
"Oh, Pell, I never thought I'd see you again," she cried, burying her face in his shoulder.
Pell swore and looked up to see Gutridge loom out of the dark. The big man had a small box in his hand which he waved debonairly at Pell.
"You know, just in case. This little gadget can transmit a radio wave that will touch off the explosives," Gutridge chuckled. "That woman of yours is bad medicine—she scratches like a wild cat."
Pell stifled his rage with difficulty, noting with small satisfaction that his face, too, had sustained no small damage.
"Where's that space ship?" Gutridge asked, now all business.
Pell didn't reply, but gestured for the big man to follow and the party made its way to the surface in an elevator that still functioned.
A beautiful dawn was breaking, but it affected Pell not at all. Morosely he stared through the plastine window of his cramped quarters in the blaster tower.
Through the window he could make out the busy activities of the Insurgents. Gingerly they had cleared away the rubble of the demolished entrance to the armory and were now engaged in carrying the vaults of U-235 out of the fortress.
As he watched them absently, the door opened behind him and Gret entered, her brown gold hair gleaming intoxicatingly in the early light. Even her rough jumper couldn't hide the fresh young curves of her body.
"What's the matter, Grouchy?" she teased. "Still worrying about Gutridge escaping?"
"Yeah," Pell growled. "As long as he's alive, the game isn't finished. But—" he smiled "—I've got you. That ought to be enough for any perfectionist."
He was about to kiss her when the door opened again and Dallard entered.
He looked from Pell to Gret and raised his eyebrows. "I trust I wasn't interrupting anything," he drawled slyly.
"Oh, come in, Dallard," Pell said, although not very enthusiastically. "How are your men coming along with the uranium?"
"Fine. Fine. But, I say, you're hardly the bright and cheery fellow one would expect to meet this morning."
"He's worried about Gutridge escaping," Gret explained.
Dallard laughed. "Pell, haven't you heard about his ... ah ... little accident? It seems someone forgot to inform the planet-mounteds that our friend would be departing, so I'm afraid he's little more than a cinder now. Frightful mistake, eh?"
He clucked innocently and, twirling his sandy mustache airily, walked jauntily from the room.
Pell looked after him amazed, a small shudder running the length of his spine. "You colonials are forgetful people, aren't you?" he observed.
"Perhaps," Gret replied, wrinkling her nose at him, "but sometimes it pays."
"Well, in the future," Pell said, "don't forget I like my ham and eggs in bed."