Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury
8. The Enemy in the Mines
Bigman's blaster was ready. He might have shot unerringly, but a blaster would not have left much behind. Dead men tell no tales and dead enemies explain no mysteries.
He pursued with catlike patience, cutting down the distance between them, following the light, trying to estimate the nature of the enemy.
His blaster always ready, Bigman moved to make first contact. First, radio! His fingers set the controls quickly for general local transmission. The enemy might have no equipment to receive that on the wave lengths Bigman could deliver. Unlikely, but possible! Very unlikely and barely possible!
Yet it didn't matter. There was always the alternative of a light blaster bolt against the wall. It would make his point clearly enough. A blaster carried authority and had a plain way of speaking that was understood in any language anywhere.
He said, his tenor voice carrying all the force it could muster, "Stop, you! Stop where you are and don't turn around! There's a blaster beaded in on you!"
Bigman flashed on his suit-light, and in its glare the enemy froze. Nor did he make any effort to turn around, which was proof enough for Bigman that he had received the message.
Bigman said, "Now turn around. Slowly!"
The figure turned. Bigman kept his right hand in the path of his suit-light. Its metal sheath was clamped tightly about the large-caliber blaster. In the glow of the light, its outline was comfortingly clear.
Bigman said, "This blaster is fully charged. I've killed men with it before, and I'm a dead shot."
The enemy obviously had radio. He was obviously receiving, for he glanced at the blaster and made a motion as though to raise a hand to block off the blaster's force.
Bigman studied what he could see of the enemy's suit. It looked quite conventional (did the Sirians use such familiar models?).
Bigman said curtly, "Are you keyed in for radio transmission?"
There was sudden sound in his ears and he jumped. The voice was a familiar one, even under the disguising distortion of the radio; it said, "It's Peewee, isn't it?"
Never in his life had Bigman needed greater self-control to keep from using his blaster.
As it was, the weapon leaped convulsively in his hand and the figure facing him leaned quickly to one side.
"Urteil!" yelled Bigman.
His surprise turned to disappointment. No Sirian! Only Urteil!
Then the sharp thought: What was Urteil doing here?
Urteil said, "It's Urteil all right. So put away the bean-shooter."
"That gets put away when I feel like it," said Big-man. "What are you doing here?"
"The mines of Mercury are not your private property, I think."
"While I have the blaster they are, you fat-faced cobber." Bigman was thinking hard and, to a certain extent, futilely. What was there to do with this poisonous skunk? To take him back to the Dome would reveal the fact that Lucky was no longer in the mines. Bigman could tell them that Lucky had lingered behind, but then they would become either suspicious or concerned when Lucky failed to report. And of what crime could he accuse Urteil? The mines were free to all, at that.
On the other hand, he could not remain indefinitely pointing a blaster at the man.
If Lucky were here, he would know-
And as though a telephathic spark had crossed the vacuum between the two men, Urteil suddenly said, "And where's Starr, anyway?"
"That," said Bigman, "is nothing you have to worry about." Then, with sudden conviction, "You were following us, weren't you?" and he shoved his blaster forward a little as though encouraging the other to talk.
In the glare of Bigman's suit-light, the other's glassite-hidden face turned downward slightly as though to follow the blaster. He said, "What if I were?"
Again there was the impasse.
Bigman said, "You were going along a side passage. You were going to swing in behind us."
"I said... What if I were?" Urteil's voice had almost a lazy quality about it, as though its owner were thoroughly relaxed, as though he enjoyed having a blaster pointed at him.
Urteil went on. "But where's your friend? Near here?"
"I know where he is. No need for you to worry."
"I insist on worrying. Call him. Your radio is on local transmission or I wouldn't hear you so well... Do you mind if I turn on my fluid jet? I'm thirsty." His hand moved slowly.
"Careful," said Bigman.
"Just a drink."
Bigman watched tensely. He did not expect a weapon to be activated by chest control, but the suitlight could be suddenly raised to blinding intensity, or-or... Well, anything.
But Urteil's fingers finished their motion while Bigman stood irresolute, and there was only the sound of swallowing.
"Scare you?" asked Urteil calmly.
Bigman could find nothing to say.
Urteil's voice grew sharp. "Well, call the man. Call Starr!"
Under the impact of the order, Bigman's hand began a movement and stopped.
Urteil laughed. "You almost adjusted radio controls, didn't you? You needed distance tranmission. He's nowhere near here, is he?"
"No such thing," cried Bigman hotly. He was burning with mortification. The large and poisonous Urteil was clever. There he stood, the target of a blaster, yet winning the battle, proving himself master of the situation, while with every passing second Bigman's own position, in which he could neither shoot nor lower his blaster, leave nor stay, grew more untenable.
Wildly the thought gnawed at him: Why not shoot?
But he knew he could not. He would be able to advance no reason. And even if he could, the violent death of Senator Swenson's man would make tremendous trouble for the Council of Science. And for Lucky!
If only Lucky were here...
Partly because he wished that so ardently, his heart leaped as Urteil's light lifted slightly and focused beyond him, and he heard Urteil say, "No, I'm wrong after all and you're right. Here he comes."
Bigman whirled. "Lucky... "
In his right mind, Bigman would have waited calmly enough for Lucky to reach them, for Lucky's arm to be on his shoulder, but Bigman was not quite in his right mind. His position was impossible, his deske for a way out overwhelming.
He had time only for that one cry of "Lucky" before going down under the impact of a body fully twice as massive as his own.
For a few moments he retained the grip on his blaster, but another arm was tearing at his hand, strong fingers were wrenching and twisting his. Bigman's breath was knocked out of him, his brain was whirling with the suddenness of the attack, and his blaster went flying.
The weight lifted from him, and when he turned to struggle to his feet Urteil was towering over him and Bigman was staring into the muzzle of his own blaster.
"I have one of my own," said Urteil, grimly, "but I think I'd rather use yours. Don't move. Stay that way. On hands and knees. That's right."
Never in his life had Bigman so hated himself. To be tricked and hoodwinked this way. He almost deserved death. He would almost rather die than ever have to face Lucky and say, "He looked behind me and said you were coming so I turned... "
He said in a strangled voice, "Shoot, if you have the nerve for it. Shoot, and Lucky will track you down and see to it that you spend the rest of your life chained to the smallest, coldest asteroid ever used as a prison."
"Lucky will do that? Where is he?"
"Find him."
"I will because you'll tell me where he is. And tell me, too, why he came down to the mines in the first place. What's he doing here?"
"To find Sirians. You heard him."
"To find comet gas," growled Urteil. "That senile fool, Peverale, may talk Sirians, but your friend never believed any of it. Not even if he only has the brains you do. He came down for another reason. You tell me."
"Why should I?"
"To save your miserable life."
"That's not enough reason for me," said Bigman, and he rose to his feet and took a step forward.
Urteil moved backward till he was leaning against the wall of the tunnel. "One more motion and I'll blast you with pleasure. I don't need your information very badly. It will save time, but not much. If I spend more than five minutes with you, it's a waste.
"Now let me tell you exactly what I think. Maybe it will teach you that you and your tin hero, Starr, are fooling nobody. Neither one of you is good for anything more than tricks with force-knives against an unarmed man."
Bigman thought gloomily: That's what's griping the cobber. I made him look like a jackass in front of the boys, and he's waiting for me to crawl.
"If you're going to do all that talking," he said, squeezing as much contempt into his voice as he could manage, "you might as well shoot. I'd rather be blasted than talked to death."
"Don't race for it, little fellow, don't race for it. In the first place, Senator Swenson is breaking the Council of Science. You're just an item, a tiny one. Your friend Starr is just another item, and not a much bigger one. I'm the one who's going to do the breaking. We've got the Council where we want it. The people of Earth know it's riddled with corruption, that its officers waste the taxpayers' money and line their own pockets- "
"That's a filthy lie," broke in Bigman.
"We'll let the people decide that. Once we puncture the phony propaganda the Council puts out, we'll see what the people think."
"You try that. Go ahead and try!"
"We intend to. We'll succeed too. And this will be exhibit number one: you two in the mines. I know why you're here. The Sirians! Huh! Starr either put Peverale up to telling the story, or he just took advantage of it. I'll tell you what you two are doing down here. You're faking the Sirians. You're setting up a Sirian camp to show people.
" 'I chased them off singlehanded,' Starr will say. 'I, Lucky Starr, big hero.' The sub-etherics make a big deal out of it and the Council calls off its Project Light on the sly. They've milked it for all it's worth, and they're getting out with their skins__ Except that they won't be because I'll catch Starr in the act and he'll be so much mud under shoe and so will the Council."
Bigman was sick with fury. He longed to tear at the other with his bare hands, but somehow he managed to hold himself in leash. He knew why Urteil was talking as he was. It was because he man didn't know as much as he pretended. He was trying to get more out of Bigman by making him blind-mad.
In a low voice, Bigman tried to turn the tables. "You know, you putrid cobber, if anyone ever punctured you and let out the comet gas, your peanut-sized soul would show itself clear. Once they let the rot out of you, you'd collapse to nothing but a loose sack of dirty skin."
Urteil shouted, "That's enough... "
But Bigman shouted over him, his high-pitched voice ringing. "Shoot, you yellow pirate. You showed yellow at the dinner table. Stand up to me, man to man, with bare fists and you'll show yellow again, bloated as you are."
Bigman was tense now. Let Urteil act in rash haste now. Let Urteil aim on impulse and Bigman would jump. Death was probable, but there would be a chance...
But Urteil seemed only to stiffen and grow colder.
"If you don't talk, I'll kill you. And nothing will happen to me. I'll claim self-defense and make it stick."
"Not with Lucky, you won't."
"He'll have his own troubles. When I'm through with him, his opinions won't mean a thing." The blaster in Urteil's hand was steady. "Are you going to try to run for it?"
"From you?" Bigman said.
"It's up to you," said Urteil coldly.
Bigman waited, waited without saying a word while Urteil's arm grew stiff and Urteil's headpiece dropped slightly as though he were taking aim, though at point-blank range he could not miss.
Bigman counted the moments, trying to choose the one in which to make his desperate jump for life as Lucky had when Mindes had similarity aimed at him. But here there was no second party to tackle Urteil as Bigman had tackled Mindes on that occasion. And Urteil was no panicky, mind-sick Mindes. He would laugh and aim again.
Bigman's muscles tensed for that final jump. He did not expect to live for more than five more seconds, perhaps.
He pursued with catlike patience, cutting down the distance between them, following the light, trying to estimate the nature of the enemy.
His blaster always ready, Bigman moved to make first contact. First, radio! His fingers set the controls quickly for general local transmission. The enemy might have no equipment to receive that on the wave lengths Bigman could deliver. Unlikely, but possible! Very unlikely and barely possible!
Yet it didn't matter. There was always the alternative of a light blaster bolt against the wall. It would make his point clearly enough. A blaster carried authority and had a plain way of speaking that was understood in any language anywhere.
He said, his tenor voice carrying all the force it could muster, "Stop, you! Stop where you are and don't turn around! There's a blaster beaded in on you!"
Bigman flashed on his suit-light, and in its glare the enemy froze. Nor did he make any effort to turn around, which was proof enough for Bigman that he had received the message.
Bigman said, "Now turn around. Slowly!"
The figure turned. Bigman kept his right hand in the path of his suit-light. Its metal sheath was clamped tightly about the large-caliber blaster. In the glow of the light, its outline was comfortingly clear.
Bigman said, "This blaster is fully charged. I've killed men with it before, and I'm a dead shot."
The enemy obviously had radio. He was obviously receiving, for he glanced at the blaster and made a motion as though to raise a hand to block off the blaster's force.
Bigman studied what he could see of the enemy's suit. It looked quite conventional (did the Sirians use such familiar models?).
Bigman said curtly, "Are you keyed in for radio transmission?"
There was sudden sound in his ears and he jumped. The voice was a familiar one, even under the disguising distortion of the radio; it said, "It's Peewee, isn't it?"
Never in his life had Bigman needed greater self-control to keep from using his blaster.
As it was, the weapon leaped convulsively in his hand and the figure facing him leaned quickly to one side.
"Urteil!" yelled Bigman.
His surprise turned to disappointment. No Sirian! Only Urteil!
Then the sharp thought: What was Urteil doing here?
Urteil said, "It's Urteil all right. So put away the bean-shooter."
"That gets put away when I feel like it," said Big-man. "What are you doing here?"
"The mines of Mercury are not your private property, I think."
"While I have the blaster they are, you fat-faced cobber." Bigman was thinking hard and, to a certain extent, futilely. What was there to do with this poisonous skunk? To take him back to the Dome would reveal the fact that Lucky was no longer in the mines. Bigman could tell them that Lucky had lingered behind, but then they would become either suspicious or concerned when Lucky failed to report. And of what crime could he accuse Urteil? The mines were free to all, at that.
On the other hand, he could not remain indefinitely pointing a blaster at the man.
If Lucky were here, he would know-
And as though a telephathic spark had crossed the vacuum between the two men, Urteil suddenly said, "And where's Starr, anyway?"
"That," said Bigman, "is nothing you have to worry about." Then, with sudden conviction, "You were following us, weren't you?" and he shoved his blaster forward a little as though encouraging the other to talk.
In the glare of Bigman's suit-light, the other's glassite-hidden face turned downward slightly as though to follow the blaster. He said, "What if I were?"
Again there was the impasse.
Bigman said, "You were going along a side passage. You were going to swing in behind us."
"I said... What if I were?" Urteil's voice had almost a lazy quality about it, as though its owner were thoroughly relaxed, as though he enjoyed having a blaster pointed at him.
Urteil went on. "But where's your friend? Near here?"
"I know where he is. No need for you to worry."
"I insist on worrying. Call him. Your radio is on local transmission or I wouldn't hear you so well... Do you mind if I turn on my fluid jet? I'm thirsty." His hand moved slowly.
"Careful," said Bigman.
"Just a drink."
Bigman watched tensely. He did not expect a weapon to be activated by chest control, but the suitlight could be suddenly raised to blinding intensity, or-or... Well, anything.
But Urteil's fingers finished their motion while Bigman stood irresolute, and there was only the sound of swallowing.
"Scare you?" asked Urteil calmly.
Bigman could find nothing to say.
Urteil's voice grew sharp. "Well, call the man. Call Starr!"
Under the impact of the order, Bigman's hand began a movement and stopped.
Urteil laughed. "You almost adjusted radio controls, didn't you? You needed distance tranmission. He's nowhere near here, is he?"
"No such thing," cried Bigman hotly. He was burning with mortification. The large and poisonous Urteil was clever. There he stood, the target of a blaster, yet winning the battle, proving himself master of the situation, while with every passing second Bigman's own position, in which he could neither shoot nor lower his blaster, leave nor stay, grew more untenable.
Wildly the thought gnawed at him: Why not shoot?
But he knew he could not. He would be able to advance no reason. And even if he could, the violent death of Senator Swenson's man would make tremendous trouble for the Council of Science. And for Lucky!
If only Lucky were here...
Partly because he wished that so ardently, his heart leaped as Urteil's light lifted slightly and focused beyond him, and he heard Urteil say, "No, I'm wrong after all and you're right. Here he comes."
Bigman whirled. "Lucky... "
In his right mind, Bigman would have waited calmly enough for Lucky to reach them, for Lucky's arm to be on his shoulder, but Bigman was not quite in his right mind. His position was impossible, his deske for a way out overwhelming.
He had time only for that one cry of "Lucky" before going down under the impact of a body fully twice as massive as his own.
For a few moments he retained the grip on his blaster, but another arm was tearing at his hand, strong fingers were wrenching and twisting his. Bigman's breath was knocked out of him, his brain was whirling with the suddenness of the attack, and his blaster went flying.
The weight lifted from him, and when he turned to struggle to his feet Urteil was towering over him and Bigman was staring into the muzzle of his own blaster.
"I have one of my own," said Urteil, grimly, "but I think I'd rather use yours. Don't move. Stay that way. On hands and knees. That's right."
Never in his life had Bigman so hated himself. To be tricked and hoodwinked this way. He almost deserved death. He would almost rather die than ever have to face Lucky and say, "He looked behind me and said you were coming so I turned... "
He said in a strangled voice, "Shoot, if you have the nerve for it. Shoot, and Lucky will track you down and see to it that you spend the rest of your life chained to the smallest, coldest asteroid ever used as a prison."
"Lucky will do that? Where is he?"
"Find him."
"I will because you'll tell me where he is. And tell me, too, why he came down to the mines in the first place. What's he doing here?"
"To find Sirians. You heard him."
"To find comet gas," growled Urteil. "That senile fool, Peverale, may talk Sirians, but your friend never believed any of it. Not even if he only has the brains you do. He came down for another reason. You tell me."
"Why should I?"
"To save your miserable life."
"That's not enough reason for me," said Bigman, and he rose to his feet and took a step forward.
Urteil moved backward till he was leaning against the wall of the tunnel. "One more motion and I'll blast you with pleasure. I don't need your information very badly. It will save time, but not much. If I spend more than five minutes with you, it's a waste.
"Now let me tell you exactly what I think. Maybe it will teach you that you and your tin hero, Starr, are fooling nobody. Neither one of you is good for anything more than tricks with force-knives against an unarmed man."
Bigman thought gloomily: That's what's griping the cobber. I made him look like a jackass in front of the boys, and he's waiting for me to crawl.
"If you're going to do all that talking," he said, squeezing as much contempt into his voice as he could manage, "you might as well shoot. I'd rather be blasted than talked to death."
"Don't race for it, little fellow, don't race for it. In the first place, Senator Swenson is breaking the Council of Science. You're just an item, a tiny one. Your friend Starr is just another item, and not a much bigger one. I'm the one who's going to do the breaking. We've got the Council where we want it. The people of Earth know it's riddled with corruption, that its officers waste the taxpayers' money and line their own pockets- "
"That's a filthy lie," broke in Bigman.
"We'll let the people decide that. Once we puncture the phony propaganda the Council puts out, we'll see what the people think."
"You try that. Go ahead and try!"
"We intend to. We'll succeed too. And this will be exhibit number one: you two in the mines. I know why you're here. The Sirians! Huh! Starr either put Peverale up to telling the story, or he just took advantage of it. I'll tell you what you two are doing down here. You're faking the Sirians. You're setting up a Sirian camp to show people.
" 'I chased them off singlehanded,' Starr will say. 'I, Lucky Starr, big hero.' The sub-etherics make a big deal out of it and the Council calls off its Project Light on the sly. They've milked it for all it's worth, and they're getting out with their skins__ Except that they won't be because I'll catch Starr in the act and he'll be so much mud under shoe and so will the Council."
Bigman was sick with fury. He longed to tear at the other with his bare hands, but somehow he managed to hold himself in leash. He knew why Urteil was talking as he was. It was because he man didn't know as much as he pretended. He was trying to get more out of Bigman by making him blind-mad.
In a low voice, Bigman tried to turn the tables. "You know, you putrid cobber, if anyone ever punctured you and let out the comet gas, your peanut-sized soul would show itself clear. Once they let the rot out of you, you'd collapse to nothing but a loose sack of dirty skin."
Urteil shouted, "That's enough... "
But Bigman shouted over him, his high-pitched voice ringing. "Shoot, you yellow pirate. You showed yellow at the dinner table. Stand up to me, man to man, with bare fists and you'll show yellow again, bloated as you are."
Bigman was tense now. Let Urteil act in rash haste now. Let Urteil aim on impulse and Bigman would jump. Death was probable, but there would be a chance...
But Urteil seemed only to stiffen and grow colder.
"If you don't talk, I'll kill you. And nothing will happen to me. I'll claim self-defense and make it stick."
"Not with Lucky, you won't."
"He'll have his own troubles. When I'm through with him, his opinions won't mean a thing." The blaster in Urteil's hand was steady. "Are you going to try to run for it?"
"From you?" Bigman said.
"It's up to you," said Urteil coldly.
Bigman waited, waited without saying a word while Urteil's arm grew stiff and Urteil's headpiece dropped slightly as though he were taking aim, though at point-blank range he could not miss.
Bigman counted the moments, trying to choose the one in which to make his desperate jump for life as Lucky had when Mindes had similarity aimed at him. But here there was no second party to tackle Urteil as Bigman had tackled Mindes on that occasion. And Urteil was no panicky, mind-sick Mindes. He would laugh and aim again.
Bigman's muscles tensed for that final jump. He did not expect to live for more than five more seconds, perhaps.
