Chapter XII

STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF A HOOBAT

"All right, so we think we know a little more," Ali added a moment later.

"Just what are we going to do? We can't stay in space forever--there're

the small items of fuel and supplies and--"

Rip had come to a decision. "We're not going to remain space borne," he

stated with the confidence of one who now saw an open road before him.

"Luna--" Weeks was plainly doubtful.

"No. Not after that warn-off. Terra!"

For a second or two the other three stared at Rip agape. The audacity and

danger of what he suggested was a little stunning. Since men had taken

regularly to space no ship had made a direct landing on their home

planet--all had passed through the quarantine on Luna. It was not only

risky--it was so unheard of that for some minutes they did not understand

him.

"We try to set down at Terraport," Dane found his tongue first, "and they

flame us out--"

Rip was smiling. "The trouble with you," he addressed them all, "is that

you think of earth only in terms of Terraport--"

"Well, there _is_ the Patrol field at Stella," Weeks agreed doubtfully.

"But we'd be right in the middle of trouble there--"

"Did we have a regular port on Sargol--on Limbo--on fifty others I can

name out of our log?" Rip wanted to know.

Ali voiced a new objection. "So--we have the luck of Jones and we set

down somewhere out of sight. Then what do we do?"

"We seal ship until we find the pest--then we bring in a Medic and get to

the bottom of the whole thing," Rip's confidence was contagious. Dane

almost believed that it _could_ be done that way.

"Did you ever think," Ali cut in, "what would happen if we were wrong--if

the Queen really is a plague carrier?"

"I said--we seal the ship--tight," countered Shannon. "And when we earth

it'll be where we won't have visitors to infect--"

"And that is where?" Ali, who knew the deserts of Mars better than he did

the greener planet from which his stock had sprung, pursued the question.

"Right in the middle of the Big Burn!"

Dane, Terra born and bred, realized first what Rip was planning and what

it meant. Sealed off was right--the Queen would be amply protected from

investigation. Whether her crew would survive was another matter--whether

she could even make a landing there was also to be considered.

The Big Burn was the horrible scar left by the last of the Atomic Wars--a

section of radiation poisoned land comprising hundreds of square

miles--land which generations had never dared to penetrate. Originally

the survivors of that war had shunned the whole continent which it

disfigured. It had been close to two centuries before men had gone into

the still wholesome land laying to the far west and the south. And

through the years, the avoidance of the Big Burn had become part of their

racial instinct as they shrank from it. It was a symbol of something no

Terran wanted to remember.

But Ali now had only one question to ask. "Can we do it?"

"We'll never know until we try," was Rip's reply.

"The Patrol'll be watching--" that was Weeks. With his Venusian

background he had less respect for the dangers of the Big Burn than he

did for the forces of Law and order which ranged the star lanes.

"They'll be watching the route lanes," Rip pointed out. "They won't

expect a ship to come in on that vector, steering away from the ports.

Why should they? As far as I know it's never been tried since Terraport

was laid out. It'll be tricky--" And he himself would have to bear most

of the responsibility for it. "But I believe that it can be done. And we

can't just roam around out here. With I-S out for our blood and a Patrol

warn-off it won't do us any good to head for Luna--"

None of his listeners could argue with that. And, Dane's spirits began to

rise, after all they knew so little about the Big Burn--it might afford

them just the temporary sanctuary they needed. In the end they agreed to

try it, mainly because none of them could see any alternative, except the

too dangerous one of trying to contact the authorities and being

summarily treated as a plague ship before they could defend themselves.

And their decision was ably endorsed not long afterwards by a sardonic

warning on the com--a warning which Ali who had been tending the machine

passed along to them.

"Greetings, pirates--"

"What do you mean?" Dane was heating broth to feed to Captain Jellico.

"The word has gone out--our raid on the E-Stat is now a matter of history

and Patrol record--we've been Posted!"

Dane felt a cold finger drawn along his backbone. Now they were fair game

for the whole system. Any Patrol ship that wanted could shoot them down

with no questions asked. Of course that had always been a possibility

from the first after their raid on the E-Stat. But to realize that it was

now true was a different matter altogether. This was one occasion when

realization was worse than anticipation. He tried to keep his voice level

as he answered:

"Let us hope we can pull off Rip's plan--"

"We'd better. What about the Big Burn anyway, Thorson? Is it as tough as

the stories say?"

"We don't know what it's like. It's never been explored--or at least

those who tried to explore its interior never reported in afterwards. As

far as I know it's left strictly alone."

"Is it still all 'hot'?"

"Parts of it must be. But all--we don't know."

With the bottle of soup in his hand Dane climbed to Jellico's cabin. And

he was so occupied with the problem at hand that at first he did not see

what was happening in the small room. He had braced the Captain up into a

half-sitting position and was patiently ladling the liquid into his

mouth a spoonful at a time when a thin squeak drew his attention to the

top of Jellico's desk.

From the half open lid of a microtape compartment something long and dark

projected, beating the air feebly. Dane, easing the Captain back on the

bunk, was going to investigate when the Hoobat broke its unnatural quiet

of the past few days with an ear-splitting screech of fury. Dane struck

at the bottom of its cage--the move its master always used to silence

it--But this time the results were spectacular.

The cage bounced up and down on the spring which secured it to the

ceiling of the cabin and the blue feathered horror slammed against the

wires. Either its clawing had weakened them, or some fault had developed,

for they parted and the Hoobat came through them to land with a sullen

plop on the desk. Its screams stopped as suddenly as they had begun and

it scuttled on its spider-toad legs to the microtape compartment, acting

with purposeful dispatch and paying no attention to Dane.

Its claws shot out and with ease it extracted from the compartment a

creature as weird as itself--one which came fighting and of which Dane

could not get a very clear idea. Struggling they battled across the

surface of the desk and flopped to the floor. There the hunted broke

loose from the hunter and fled with fantastic speed into the corridor.

And before Dane could move the Hoobat was after it.

He gained the passage just in time to see Queex disappear down the

ladder, clinging with the aid of its pincher claws, apparently grimly

determined to catch up with the thing it pursued. And Dane went after

them.

There was no sign of the creature who fled on the next level. But Dane

made no move to recapture the blue hunter who squatted at the foot of the

ladder staring unblinkingly into space. Dane waited, afraid to disturb

the Hoobat. He had not had a good look at the thing which had run from

Queex--but he knew it was something which had no business aboard the

Queen. And it might be the disturbing factor they were searching for. If

the Hoobat would only lead him to it--

The Hoobat moved, rearing up on the tips of its six legs, its neckless

head slowly revolving on its puffy shoulders. Along the ridge of its

backbone its blue feathers were rising into a crest much as Sinbad's fur

rose when the cat was afraid or angry. Then, without any sign of haste,

it crawled over and began descending the ladder once more, heading toward

the lower section which housed the Hydro.

Dane remained where he was until it had almost reached the deck of the

next level and then he followed, one step at a time. He was sure that the

Hoobat's peculiar construction of body prevented it from looking

up--unless it turned upon its back--but he did not want to do anything

which would alarm it or deter Queex from what he was sure was a

methodical chase.

Queex stopped again at the foot of the second descent and sat in its toad

stance, apparently brooding, a round blue blot. Dane clung to the ladder

and prayed that no one would happen along to frighten it. Then, just as

he was beginning to wonder if it had lost contact with its prey, once

more it arose and with the same speed it had displayed in the Captain's

cabin it shot along the corridor to the hydro.

To Dane's knowledge the door of the garden was not only shut but sealed.

And how either the stranger or Queex could get through it he did not see.

"What the--?" Ali clattered down the ladder to halt abruptly as Dane waved

at him.

"Queex," the Cargo-apprentice kept his voice to a half whisper, "it got

loose and chased something out of the Old Man's cabin down here."

"Queex--!" Ali began and then shut his mouth, moving noiselessly up to

join Dane.

The short corridor ended at the hydro entrance. And Dane had been right,

there they found the Hoobat, crouched at the closed panel, its claws

clicking against the metal as it picked away useless at the portal which

would not admit it.

"Whatever it's after must be in there," Dane said softly.

And the hydro, stripped of its luxuriance of plant life, occupied now by

the tanks of green scum, would not afford too many hiding places. They

had only to let Queex in and keep watch.

As they came up the Hoobat flattened to the floor and shrilled its war

cry, spitting at their boots and then flashing claws against the stout

metal enforced hide. However, though it was prepared to fight them, it

showed no signs of wishing to retreat, and for that Dane was thankful. He

quickly pressed the release and tugged open the panel.

At the first crack of its opening Queex turned with one of those bursts

of astounding speed and clawed for admittance, its protest against the

men forgotten. And it squeezed through a space Dane would have thought

too narrow to accommodate its bloated body. Both men slipped around the

door behind it and closed the panel tight.

The air was not as fresh as it had been when the plants were there. And

the vats which had taken the places of the banked greenery were certainly

nothing to look at. Queex humped itself into a clod of blue, immovable,

halfway down the aisle.

Dane tried to subdue his breathing, to listen. The Hoobat's actions

certainly argued that the alien thing had taken refuge here, though how

it had gotten through--? But if it were in the hydro it was well hidden.

He had just begun to wonder how long they must wait when Queex again went

into action. Its clawed front legs upraised, it brought the pinchers

deliberately together and sawed one across the other, producing a rasping

sound which was almost a vibration in the air. Back and forth, back and

forth, moved the claws. Watching them produced almost a hypnotic effect,

and the reason for such a maneuver was totally beyond the human watchers.

But Queex knew what it was doing all right, Ali's fingers closed on

Dane's arm in a pincher grip as painful as if he had been equipped with

the horny armament of the Hoobat.

Something, a flitting shadow, had rounded one vat and was that much

closer to the industrious fiddler on the floor. By some weird magic of

its own the Hoobat was calling its prey to it.

Scrape, scrape--the unmusical performance continued with monotonous

regularity. Again the shadow flashed--one vat closer. The Hoobat now

presented the appearance of one charmed by its own art--sunk in a

lethargy of weird music making.

At last the enchanted came into full view, though lingering at the round

side of a container, very apparently longing to flee again, but under

some compulsion to approach its enchanter. Dane blinked, not quite sure

that his eyes were not playing tricks on him. He had seen the almost

transparent globe "bogies" of Limbo, had been fascinated by the weird and

ugly pictures in Captain Jellico's collection of tri-dee prints. But this

creature was as impossible in its way as the horrific blue thing dragging

it out of concealment.

It walked erect on two threads of legs, with four knobby joints easily

detected. A bulging abdomen sheathed in the horny substance of a beetle's

shell ended in a sharp point. Two pairs of small legs, folded close to

the much smaller upper portion of its body, were equipped with thorn

shack terminations. The head, which constantly turned back and forth on

the armor plated shoulders, was long and narrow and split for half its

length by a mouth above which were deep pits which must harbor eyes,

though actual organs were not visible to the watching men. It was a

palish gray in color--which surprised Dane a little. His memory of the

few seconds he had seen it on the Captain's desk had suggested that it

was much darker. And erect as it was, it stood about eighteen inches

high.

With head turning rapidly, it still hesitated by the side of the vat, so

nearly the color of the metal that unless it moved it was difficult to

distinguish. As far as Dane could see the Hoobat was paying it no

attention. Queex might be lost in a happy dream, the result of its own

fiddling. Nor did the rhythm of that scraping vary.

The nightmare thing made the last foot in a rush of speed which reduced

it to a blur, coming to a halt before the Hoobat. Its front legs whipped

out to strike at its enemy. But Queex was no longer dreaming. This was

the moment the Hoobat had been awaiting. One of the sawing claws opened

and closed, separating the head of the lurker from its body. And before

either of the men could interfere Queex had dismembered the prey with

dispatch.

"Look there!" Dane pointed.

The Hoobat held close the body of the stranger and where the ashy corpse

came into contact with Queex's blue feathered skin it was slowly changing

hue--as if some of the color of its hunter had rubbed off it.

"Chameleon!" Ali went down on one knee the better to view the grisly

feast now in progress. "Watch out!" he added sharply as Dane came to join

him.

One of the thin upper limbs lay where Queex had discarded it. And from

the needle tip was oozing some colorless drops of fluid. Poison?

Dane looked around for something which he could use to pick up the still

jerking appendage. But before he could find anything Queex had

appropriated it. And in the end they had to allow the Hoobat its victim

in its entirety. But once Queex had consumed its prey it lapsed into its

usual hunched immobility. Dane went for the cage and working gingerly he

and Ali got the creature back in captivity. But all the evidence now left

were some smears on the floor of the hydro, smears which Ali blotted up

for future research in the lab.

An hour later the four who now comprised the crew of the Queen gathered

in the mess for a conference. Queex was in its cage on the table before

them, asleep after all its untoward activity.

"There must be more than just one," Weeks said. "But how are we going to

hunt them down? With Sinbad?"

Dane shook his head. Once the Hoobat had been caged and the more

prominent evidence of the battle scraped from the floor, he had brought

the cat into the hydro and forced him to sniff at the site of the

engagement. The result was that Sinbad had gone raving mad and Dane's

hands were now covered with claw tears which ran viciously deep. It was

plain that the ship's cat was having none of the intruders, alive or

dead. He had fled to Dane's cabin where he had taken refuge on the bunk

and snarled wild eyed when anyone looked in from the corridor.

"Queex has to do it," Rip said. "But will it hunt unless it is hungry?"

He surveyed the now comatose creature skeptically. They had never seen

the Captain's pet eat anything except some pellets which Jellico kept in

his desk, and they were aware that the intervals between such feedings

were quite lengthy. If they had to wait the usual time for Queex to feel

hunger pangs once more, they might have to wait a long time.

"We should catch one alive," Ali remarked thoughtfully. "If we could get

Queex to fiddle it out to where we could net it--"

Weeks nodded eagerly. "A small net like those the Salariki use. Drop it

over the thing--"

While Queex still drowsed in its cage, Weeks went to work with fine cord.

Holding the color changing abilities of the enemy in mind they could not

tell how many of the creatures might be roaming the ship. It could only

be proved where they weren't by where Sinbad would consent to stay. So

they made plans which included both the cat and the Hoobat.

Sinbad, much against his will, was buckled into an improvised harness by

which he could be controlled without the handler losing too much valuable

skin.

And then the hunt started at the top of the ship, proceeding downward

section by section. Sinbad raised no protest in the control cabin, nor in

the private cabins of the officers' thereabouts. If they could interpret

his reactions the center section was free of the invaders. So with Dane

in control of the cat and Ali carrying the caged Hoobat, they descended

once more to the level which housed the hydro galley, steward's quarters

and ship's sick bay.

Sinbad proceeded on his own four feet into the galley and the mess. He

was not uneasy in the sick bay, nor in Mura's cabin, and this time he

even paced the hydro without being dragged--much to their surprise as

they had thought that the headquarters of the stowaways.

"Could there only have been one?" Weeks wanted to know as he stood by

ready with the net in his hands.

"Either that--or else we're wrong about the hydro being their main

hideout. If they're afraid of Queex now they may have withdrawn to the

place they feel the safest," Rip said.

It was when they were on the ladder leading to the cargo level that

Sinbad balked. He planted himself firmly and yowled against further

progress until Dane, with the harness, pulled him along.

"Look at Queex!"

They followed Weeks' order. The Hoobat was no longer lethargic. It was

raising itself, leaning forward to clasp the bars of its cage, and now it

uttered one of its screams of rage. And as Ali went on down the ladder it

rattled the bars in a determined effort for freedom. Sinbad, spitting and

yowling refused to walk. Rip nodded to Ali.

"Let it out."

Tipped out of its cage the Hoobat scuttled forward, straight for the

panel which opened on the large cargo space and there waited, as if for

them to open the portal and admit the hunter to its hunting territory.