All Judgment Fled (11 page)

 

 

But in the deeper recesses of his brain, in the levels of mind which
operated on hunches and guesswork and insufficient data, McCullough
refused to be reassured or even comforted. To the contrary, his fear
mounted steadily with every hour that passed. And when Walter's voice
sounded suddenly in his 'phones he started so violently that he almost
lost his camera.

 

 

"Sir!"
said the pilot.
"Drew reports activity in the corridor
outside his position. Five Type Twos along the corridor in the direction
of your blister. He had the lock chamber lights switched on and saw them
clearly, though they didn't see him."

 

 

"Everybody out!" said the colonel. "Hurry it up! We'll go back the way
we came, avoiding the corridor. I -- I don't think we should attempt a
formal contact just yet . . ."

 

 

"He also says there is something like a Type One in the interhull
space, clinging to the netting."

 

 

"We'll ignore it," said Morrison, "and hope it does the same.
Hollis,
move
!"

 

 

They went through the blister lock and along the net, with Morrison
leading, Hollis and McCullough facing each other on opposite sides of
the netting and Berryman bringing up the rear. They pulled themselves
hand over hand toward Drew and the opened lock chamber while their eyes
searched the dark spaces between the cabinets and masses of plumbing on
all sides of them.

 

 

"Doctor!"

 

 

Morrison's spotlight had picked out a small, bristling alien, something
like a Siamese twin porcupine, which was flip-flopping along the net
away from them. McCullough still could not see what it used for hands.

 

 

"Got it," he said, replacing his camera and hurrying on.

 

 

Drew had taken up a classic defensive position outside the open door,
crouching with one leg hooked into the net to steady himself. The haft
of his ski stick was wedged against the wall plating with the business
end pointing back the way they had come. A little self-consciously,
Morrison took up a similar position on the other side of the opening
and waved the others through.

 

 

McCullough entered first, then Hollis. They turned to assist Berryman
then, and had a hand under each armpit when it happened.

 

 

His radio went into a howl of oscillation as four voices tried to use it
at the same time, and McCullough saw aliens swarming toward them out of
the dark spaces between the supposedly solid masses of equipment. Morrison
and Drew he could not see at all. The colonel had lost his spotlight,
and Berryman was being pulled away from them.

 

 

One of the aliens had anchored itself to the combing with two of
its tentacles while the other two were wrapped around the pilot's feet.
Another e-t had swarmed onto his back, its sting jabbing furiously --
McCullough could hear it clanking against Berryman's air tanks. He knew
that it had only to shift its position by a few inches for the pilot to
be very horribly dead.

 

 

 

 

chapter eleven

 

 

For several seconds McCullough could do nothing except stare in fascination
at the colonel's spotlight as it was sent spinning to and fro by the
struggling, colliding bodies around the entrance. Lit by that wildly
rotating beam, the scene took on the flickering, unreal quality of
an old-time silent film. The spotlight was blinding and confusing the
men as much as the aliens, because it was some time before McCullough
realized that Berryman had freed one foot and was using it to kick at
the tentacle holding the other -- he had been viewing the operation as
a series of disconnected stills.

 

 

Hollis was mouthing at him -- the suit radio still emitted a constant
howl of oscillation because too many people were trying to use it at
the same time -- and pointing at the wall net. The physicist was on his
knees beside the sliding door and had worked his feet and lower legs
between the net and the wall. McCullough got the idea and did the same,
and together they took a firm, two-handed grip on each of Berryman's
arms and pulled hard.

 

 

Berryman came free of the first alien so suddenly that his visor cracked
against the edge of the opening and the force of the pull sent him shooting
past so quickly that they had to grab his feet. The second alien was still
clinging to his back, still stabbing at his air tanks.

 

 

A pair of legs were coming through the opening. McCullough gave one of them
a tug to help whoever it was on their way. There were long tears in the
fabric covering one leg and blood was oozing out of one of them.

 

 

The constant howling made it difficult to think.

 

 

They pulled Berryman down between them, hooked his legs into the netting,
then concentrated their efforts on the alien clinging to his back. Its
tentacles were still wrapped tightly around the pilot's chest, and Hollis
pushed the butt of a ski stick between the alien's underbelly and
Berryman's back and tried to lever it away. The alien jerked violently --
Hollis must have prodded a sensitive area -- but did not let go. Then
McCullough discovered the answer. If they reached under Berryman's
chest and gripped the tentacles by their tips, they could be peeled back
relatively easily.

 

 

There was a muffled clang. McCullough looked round quickly and saw that
everyone was inside. Drew was slotting his weapon into the piping which
ran along both sides of the sliding door and through the ring handle
so as to form a bar. Possibly the aliens could open it, but not without
tearing out a chunk of their hydraulic system.

 

 

The howling in his earphones was beginning to break into fragments of words
and sentences.

 

 

". . . My suit's torn. I'm losing air . . . Get it off me! Get it off . . .
Shut up, all of you, and . . . Stop it wriggling or it will stab . . .
My leg, dammit, where's the doctor? Off your radio and open your visors
. . . Quiet, and open your helmets . . . !"

 

 

McCullough kept quiet as ordered, realizing suddenly that he himself
had been contributing as much as everyone else to the uproar. But he
did not open his visors because his hands were full of alien tentacles.

 

 

For the few minutes it took to pull the twisting, heaving body off
Berryman's back, McCullough had a really close look at the alien. There
was a shallow recess between the roots of its tentacles, set so low as
to be almost on the edge of its underbelly, and in it there was the
soft, wet gleam of something which could only be an eye. The opening
and closing mechanism seemed to be a double-lid arrangement operating
vertically rather than horizontally and the eye was quite definitely
looking at him. The ends of its tentacles quivered as they tried to
pull away, and for some odd reason McCullough was reminded of the big,
stupid, friendly dog he had had once and of the time he had tried to
teach it to shake hands.

 

 

But this creature certainly was not friendly -- at least, not as human
beings understood the word -- and neither was it stupid. Unless . . .

 

 

He was unable to finish the thought because Berryman had wriggled from
beneath the alien and the creature was bouncing up and down between them
as it tried furiously to curl and then uncurl its tentacles. Berryman
snatched a weapon which was floating nearby and slid it under the
being. He pushed it away as Hollis and McCullough let go and the alien
went spinning helplessly into the center of the chamber.

 

 

"But I wanted to put it with its friends in the corridor," said Hollis
when he had his visor open. "In here, outnumbered five to one, it might
panic and injure itself . . ."

 

 

"Are you
sure
this air is breathable?" Berryman broke in, speaking
through his smashed visor. There was a long incised wound across his nose
and one cheek.

 

 

"Doctor," said the colonel. "Have a look at Drew's leg. And my shoulder
. . ."

 

 

"
Hollis!
Behind you!"

 

 

The alien had made contact with the wall net, steadied itself, and then
launched itself furiously toward the physicist. Berryman got his ski stick
up in time and the alien struck it squarely but did not stop. The butt
of the weapon was driven back against the wall, but still the being did
not stop. The metal collar piece holding the plate which kept the tip
of the weapon from penetrating more than half an inch slipped backward
along the shaft. The point, with the alien's considerable velocity and
inertia thrown against it, drove into its body until stopped by the
interior of its carapace.

 

 

It began to slap the shaft of the weapon with its tentacles, violently at
first, then more slowly. Suddenly its tentacles tried to tie themselves
in knots and it became completely still.

 

 

McCullough launched himself toward the alien, knowing that he was in no
danger from it now. He gripped one tentacle where it joined the body and
gently withdrew the ski stick.

 

 

This was much worse than a little property damage or trespass.
Much, much worse.

 

 

For a long time nobody spoke. McCullough looked slowly around at the other
four men, trying desperately not to think. The spacesuits of Morrison,
Drew and Berryman were torn or otherwise rendered useless. The colonel
and Drew were injured, perhaps seriously, and, as an added complication,
their wounds might well become infected with alien microorganisms --
an infection against which their bodies could have no defense. In any
case they should be moved out of this place, and quickly. But there were
only two usable spacesuits, the physicist's and his own. Hollis' would
fit only Hollis. McCullough's might, at a pinch, fit Drew but nobody
else. He was afraid to consider all the implications -- they were too
terrible. But more than anything, he did not want to think about the
contorted, alien shape he was holding and the frightful things which
must surely happen as a result of its death.

 

 

"Doctor," said the colonel in a voice harsh with pain, "you're supposed to
know how to treat human beings. Leave that thing alone, it's dead anyway."

 

 

He was glad to be able to give his undivided attention to the injured,
but somehow the alien cadaver seemed always to be in sight whenever he
looked up from a patient, and it became more and more difficult not to
think about it. The blood of both species was the same color, a fact
which should not have surprised him considering their closely similar
atmospheric requirements, and the droplets filled the compartment like
dark, frozen rain. The absence of gravity, as well as making it difficult
to control bleeding, made it completely impossible to deal quickly with
even a simple wound.

 

 

Even with the patients cooperating by lacing their arms or feet into the
wall netting, and Hollis doing his best to hold McCullough in position
while he treated them, it took a long time.

 

 

Morrison was in bad shape. An alien had tried to fasten itself onto his
head and chest, but the colonel had been able to interpose his elbow
just in time. His forearm was a little longer than the full extension
of the alien's horn, so that while his helmet had been hammered into so
much scrap metal and his shoulder and upper arm were a mass of punctured
and incised wounds, he had escaped with his life. Drew, apparently,
had discarded his ski stick in favor of his feet and one leg had suffered
in consequence, although the injuries were much lighter than the colonel's.
Berryman had a badly lacerated face, caused by running it against the edge
of his broken visor.

 

 

But it was the spacesuits which had suffered worst of all, first from
the attacks of the aliens and now at the hands of McCullough.

 

 

Cutting and extending the tears in the fabric of the suits, pulling back
the plastic and metal foil and the tubing of the air-conditioning systems,
affected him much more deeply at times than probing and cleaning the wounds.
If they were not already fatally infected, the wounds would heal --
the human body was self-repairing to a fantastic degree. But increasing
the damage to a suit which was not repairable was to inflict a wound
of a much more serious nature. In space the suit was much more than a
protective skin -- Walters, who was in a position to know, had insisted
that it was analogous to both womb and placenta, and that losing it
prematurely could give rise to a really drastic form of birth trauma.

 

 

The thought of being without his own suit in this place was enough to
drive McCullough to the edge of panic, and he hated to think of how the
others would feel when the shock of their injuries wore off and they
realized the full extent of what had happened to them.

 

 

His thoughts had taken a Freudian and definitely morbid turn by the time
he had finished with them. He found himself staring at the dead body of
the Two and wondering if any of them would ever see home again.

 

 

The colonel spoke suddenly. His voice sounded very weak and either he
was not using his suit radio or the Two's horn had wrecked it. He said,
"You will have to report our -- our predicament, Doctor. And tell Walters
to send the technical material and photographs at the same time. Hollis
will have to help you with this -- he is the only one of us capable of
understanding what we saw in the blister and passing it on. When all
this has been done, you will maintain continuous radio contact with us
until something has been worked out.