The Edmond Hamilton Megapack: 16 Classic Science Fiction Tales (92 page)

Evers shook his head. “Lindeman didn’t keep his drive a secret. It was formally patented. Besides, what good is it when GC forbids extra-galactic flight?”

Her green eyes became interested and intent. “I hadn’t thought of that. Why
do
they want you so badly, then?”

“Because of something we found at Andromeda,” he said.

“Something that Schuyler Metals wants?”

“No,” he said. “Not that at all. Something we found there that they don’t want anyone to know about.”

Her brows drew together. “I don’t understand that. What did you find there?”

Evers looked up at her somberly. The question took him back to that unforgettable moment, when their little ship had come out of overdrive, the long nightmare traverse through hyper-space ended, and they three had looked out wild and eager at the vast burning cloud of Andromeda’s alien suns, blazing across the whole firmament.

“What will we find here?” Straw had cried. “What?”

And remembering that moment of eager anticipation, and the ironic and appalling sequel to it, Evers’ voice was heavy as he answered,

“We found out something there. Something so dangerous that we’re going to be killed by Schuyler just because we know it.”

Sharr stared at him, and then suddenly got to her feet. “Oh, no,” she said with sudden passion. “You’re not going to appeal to my sympathies. I don’t have any—for Earthmen.”

HER GREEN EYES blazed. “So I am a thief, and the daughter of thieves. I’m also a Valloan. And what have Earthmen brought Valloa but new ways that we do not want, and teaching that is given with contempt!”

“So you don’t like Earthmen,” Evers said. “You like your own skin, don’t you? And you’re in danger, as well as I.”

She stared at him unbelievingly. He went on rapidly, making his pitch for all it was worth.

“There’s something going on at Andromeda that Schuyler can’t allow to be known. He’ll put us out of the way, to silence us. And just in case, he’ll also put out of the way anyone we could have told that secret to, since we returned. That means you, Sharr.”

She came over and looked down at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re clever. Earthman. But you can’t trick me.”

“Can’t I?” he said. “Think it over, Sharr. If Schuyler dares to grab three men right out of the hands of GC to shut them up, do you think he’ll take any risks that a Valloan baggage might be able to talk?”

She thought it over, walking back and forth in the crystal room. She turned and shot a sudden look at him.

“I still don’t believe it. But Earthmen are capable of anything. I’m turning you over for the money—but I’ll take no chances.”

She went to a little wooden cupboard and took out of it an energy-gun—Evers’ own gun. She stood with it in her hand, looking down doubtfully at herself.

The skin-tight silken white pants and the band she wore across her breasts were a fine costume for showing off her bold, leggy beauty. But they had their drawbacks.

“I don’t see where you’re going to hide the gun,” he gibed.

Sharr ignored him. She went back to the chair she had been sitting in, and slipped the gun under the straw cushion there.

She suddenly straightened, and Evers rolled half over and listened intently. From outside, faint above the last tinkling of the crystal chimes, came a rushing scream of sirens.

Hope flared for a moment in Evers. Better the GC patrols than what was facing him! But the sirens got even fainter, and then died away, and there was only the dying echoes of the Valloan bells.

Sharr, at a little window peering, said with satisfaction, “They went across town. They’re on a wrong trail.”

“Yes,” said a man’s flat voice from behind them. “We know. We set up the decoy to get them out of this district.”

Sharr flung around to face the door, and Evers rolled over fast. He knew when he saw the two men that his pitch had failed, that it was too late now for tricks.

They were Earthmen, and they were not young. They had tough-guy written all over them in a quiet, unobtrusive way. The stocky one with the flat, brick-like face kept his hands in his pockets, and the tall, dark smiling one came forward and looked down at Evers.

“It’s him,” he said. “Evers. One of them.”

The stocky man came forward too. He said to Evers, “Where are Lindeman and Straw?”

Evers shrugged. “At Andromeda. I came back alone.”

The tall man smilingly drew back his foot for a kick, but Flat-face shook his head. “Not that way. Makes no difference anyway. They’re out in the jungle somewhere, and we can soon find them. We’d better get going.”

Sharr came forward and demanded, “What about my fifty thousand credits?”

“You’ll get it,” said Flat-face.

“I want it now!”

“Listen,” said Flat-face patiently, “we do things in a certain way. The money will be paid when we have all three men. You’re to come along with us, and the boss will give you your money then.”

The tall smiler was hauling Evers to his feet. Evers shot Sharr a glance that had a harsh meaning in it. The Valloan girl’s face became tight and quiet, and she went and sat down in the chair and said,

“I found your man for you and I’m not going anywhere till I get paid.”

“Oh, yes, you are,” said Flat-face. He started toward her. “Now listen—”

Her hand slipped down beside the cushion. Evers suddenly uttered a loud yell. It startled Flat-face and he turned irritably.

“Will you shut him up?” he snapped to his comrade. “He can’t be heard in here, but once we get outside—”

The diversion of Evers’ yell had given Sharr her chance, as he had intended. She came up out of the chair like a hunting leopard, with the gun in her hand.

“I am not going anywhere and neither are you till I get my credits,” she said to Flat-face as he turned back toward her.

Flat-face hesitated, for the Valloan girl looked dangerous now.

But the tall man holding Evers let go of him and grabbed inside his jacket.

Evers’ hands were bound behind him but there was one thing he could do. He lowered his head and butted the tall man in the stomach. The tall man cried out in pain and staggered away, bumping into Flat-face. Flat-face instantly seized the opportunity to snatch for his own gun.

Evers, trying to keep his balance, yelled, “Shoot!”

Sharr did so. The nasty little beam from her gun, notched to stunner strength, hit Flat-face and his pal as they did a sort of clumsy staggering waltz together. They both dropped like sacks.

Evers went over to the girl, who was looking blankly down at the two senseless men. He said grimly,

“You might as well cut me loose. You’re in as much trouble now as I am.”

CHAPTER III

Sharr stared at him, suddenly no longer a self-assured adventuress, but a worried girl.

“You were right,” she said. “They would have made me go with them. They wouldn’t have paid me.”

“The money means nothing to Schuyler,” Evers said. “But there’s a secret that means a great deal to him, and you might have learned it. I think if he catches you you’ll be as dead as I’ll be
if
he catches me.”

He added, “You know you can’t sell me out now.”

Sharr made no move. She asked, “Where will you go if I release you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because,” she said, “I’m not safe here now. There’ll be others come to see what happened to these two. They’ll search everywhere. I’ve got to have some place to go.”

Evers gave her a sour smile. “You think fast, don’t you? Chase with the hounds or run with the hare. All right, I see your point. You free me and I’ll promise to take you with me.”

“Where?”

“To the
Phoenix
, our ship. It’s out in the jungle and my friends are waiting there. We’ll have to get away from Valloa fast and try some other world.”

Sharr went to the cupboard and came back with a crystal knife and slashed the hide thongs around his wrists. Evers rubbed his wrists painfully.

His heart sank at the thought of going back to Lindeman and Straw and reporting his failure.

But there was nothing else for it. They’d be lucky if they got away from Valloa, now. And the news that they’d returned from outer space would set a hue and cry for them wherever they went.

He took the gun out of the senseless Flat-face’s pocket, stuck it in his own pocket, and went out with the girl hurrying silently after him.

The street was darker now, the River of Stars low in the black sky. And it seemed very silent, for now the nightly calling of the bells had ceased.

As he stood in the narrow, empty street between the glimmering crystal houses, trying to figure the direction, Evers heard the silence suddenly broken. A far-off keening and wailing came sweeping through the town toward him.

“That tears it!” he said. “The GC men—they found out it was a false lead, and are back to comb the town some more!”

He felt desperate. Long before they could get to the edge of town, to the jungle, the fast cars would have overtaken them. In these empty streets, he and Sharr would be spotted instantly.

But what if the streets were crowded? Evers had an idea which he would have rejected in a less desperate situation. He snatched the gun back out of his pocket.

“You people think a lot of those bells, I’ve heard?” he said.

Sharr flashed him a worried, wondering look. “Yes—the bells go from father to son, for generations. But why—”

He didn’t answer. On a roof a little back along the street shimmered a great row of the conical crystal bells, deserted now that the night-music time was over. Evers notched his gun to the highest power and fired up at the row of bells.

Sharr uttered a gasp of horror and clutched at his arm. “No, do not—”

Her voice was instantly drowned in the terrific, ringing crash as his beam shattered the bells. Agonizing to the ears, like the falling of millions of crystal goblets on a stone floor, the big chimes seemed to utter a ringing, throbbing death-cry across the dark town.

Almost at once, even before the ringing dissonances had ebbed away, voices cried out and people began to run into the streets. Yells of rage came from the next block, Valloan voices rising in a tumult, all the crystal houses disgorging their occupants to mill in the streets and point up at the shattered bells.

Evers already had Sharr by the wrist and was pulling her along with him, down the dark street away from the gathering uproar.

“That’ll keep the GC men busy for a little while,” he said. “Hurry!”

“It was sacrilege!” she cried. “The bells are older than your Earth—”

“I’ll pay for them sometime if I live long enough—which is doubtful,” he grunted. “Come on.”

They ran on through the dark streets with the River of Stars in their faces, a magnificent cataract of light belting the sky just above the dark jungle.

When Evers hit the fields at the edge of town he skirted along them, trying to find the road of the crystal-miners by which he had entered the Valloan town. The uproar was still going on behind them, though dimmed by distance. He guessed that GC was having its hands full with the outraged Valloans.

He found the road—hardly more than a wide trail. The dark jungle took them in.

He was near exhaustion. He had had too much, for too long a time, and the last few hours had about used him up. He slowed to a walk, and the Valloan girl slowed down too.

Evers, his breath pumping harshly, uttered a little laugh that had no mirth in it.

“And we thought when we started, that when we came back we’d get a heroes’ welcome. Even though we broke regulations, we thought we’d be heroes—the men who went to Andromeda!”

It seemed now to him such a long and weary time ago, that takeoff into the outer gulf. They had felt like Columbus, not dreaming of the appalling knowledge that was waiting for them out there across the abyss, the knowledge that had doomed them to a fateful homecoming…

The dark jungle got darker as the blazing River of Stars sank lower toward the horizon. The smells and sounds of this Valloan forest were alien to Evers, but he was too numb with fatigue to be sensitive to them now. He stumbled a little as he went along the trail, and he would have passed the broken limb he’d left to mark his turn-off, if Sharr had not caught his arm.

“Is this it?”

“Yes, this is it. The
Phoenix
is this way.”

He forced his way through the brush, reeds smashing under his feet, with Sharr behind him. No need to worry about leaving a trail now!

He came into the little clearing, and there loomed the dark bulk of the
Phoenix
. It seemed a small ship, to have gone so far. It seemed a tired ship, its flanks crusted with the dust of undreamably far worlds.

A lethal beam flashed from the ship, ripping and scorching the brush beside them.

“Eric, for God’s sake, it’s me!” yelled Evers.