Chapter XIII

OFF THE MAP

Across the lock of the panel was the seal set in place by Van Rycke

before the spacer had lifted from Sargol. Under Dane's inspection it

showed no crack. To all evidence the hatch had not been opened since they

left the perfumed planet. And yet the hunting Hoobat was sure that the

invading pests were within.

It took only a second for Dane to commit an act which, if he could not

defend it later, would blacklist him out of space. He twisted off the

official seal which should remain there while the freighter was space

borne.

With Ali's help he shouldered aside the heavy sliding panel and they

looked into the cargo space, now filled with the red wood from Sargol.

The redwood! When he saw it Dane was struck with their stupidity. Aside

from the Koros stones in the stone box, only the wood had come from the

Salariki world. What if the pests had not been planted by I-S agents, but

were natives of Sargol being brought in with the wood?

The men remained at the hatch to allow the Hoobat freedom in its hunt.

And Sinbad crouched behind them, snarling and giving voice to a rumbling

growl which was his negative opinion of the proceedings.

They were conscious of an odor--the sharp, unidentifiable scent Dane had

noticed during the loading of the wood. It was not unpleasant--merely

different. And it--or something--had an electrifying effect upon Queex.

The blue hunter climbed with the aid of its claws to the top of the

nearest pile of wood and there settled down. For a space it was

apparently contemplating the area about it.

Then it raised its claws and began the scraping fiddle which once before

had drawn its prey out of hiding. Oddly enough that dry rasp of sound had

a quieting effect upon Sinbad and Dane felt the drag of the harness

lessen as the cat moved, not toward escape, but to the scene of action,

humping himself at last in the open panel, his round eyes fixed upon the

Hoobat with a fascinated stare.

Scrape-scrape--the monotonous noise bit into the ears of the men, gnawed

at their nerves.

"Ahhh--" Ali kept his voice to a whisper, but his hand jerked to draw

their attention to the right at deck level. Dane saw that flicker along a

log. The stowaway pest was now the same brilliant color as the wood,

indistinguishable until it moved, which probably explained how it had

come on board.

But that was only the first arrival. A second flash of movement and a

third followed. Then the hunted remained stationary, able to resist for a

period the insidious summoning of Queex. The Hoobat maintained an

attitude of indifference, of being so wrapped in its music that nothing

else existed. Rip whispered to Weeks:

"There's one to the left--on the very end of that log. Can you net it?"

The small oiler slipped the coiled mesh through his calloused hands. He

edged around Ali, keeping his eyes on the protruding bump of red upon red

which was his quarry.

"--two--three--four--five--" Ali was counting under his breath but Dane

could not see that many. He was sure of only four, and those because he

had seen them move.

The things were ringing in the pile of wood where the Hoobat fiddled, and

two had ascended the first logs toward their doom. Weeks went down on one

knee, ready to cast his net, when Dane had his first inspiration. He drew

his sleep rod, easing it out of its holster, set the lever on "spray" and

beamed it at three of those humps.

Rip seeing what he was doing, dropped a hand on Weeks' shoulder, holding

the oiler in check. A hump moved, slid down the rounded side of the log

into the narrow aisle of deck between two piles of wood. It lay quiet, a

bright scarlet blot against the gray.

Then Weeks did move, throwing his net over it and jerking the draw string

tight, at the same time pulling the captive toward him over the deck.

But, even as it came, the scarlet of the thing's body was fast fading to

an ashy pink and at last taking on a gray as dull as the metal on which

it lay--the complete camouflage. Had they not had it enmeshed they might

have lost it altogether, so well did it now blend with the surface.

The other two in the path of the ray had not lost their grip upon the

logs, and the men could not advance to scoop them up. Not while there

were others not affected, free to flee back into hiding. Weeks bound the

net about the captive and looked to Rip for orders.

"Deep freeze," the acting-commander of the Queen said succinctly. "Let me

see it get out of that!"

Surely the cold of the deep freeze, united to the sleep ray, would keep

the creature under control until they had a chance to study it. But, as

Weeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him,

that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarling

and spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level. It was

very evident that the ship's cat was having none of this pest.

They might have been invisible and their actions non-existent as far as

Queex was concerned. For the Hoobat continued its siren concert. The

lured became more reckless, mounting the logs to Queex's post in sudden

darts. Dane wondered how the Hoobat proposed handling four of the

creatures at once. For, although the other two which had been in the path

of the ray had not moved, he now counted four climbing.

"Stand by to ray--" that was Rip.

But it would have been interesting to see how Queex was prepared to

handle the four. And, though Rip had given the order to stand by, he had

not ordered the ray to be used. Was he, too, interested in that?

The first red projection was within a foot of the Hoobat now and its

fellows had frozen as if to allow it the honor of battle with the

feathered enemy. To all appearances Queex did not see it, but when it

sprang with a whir of speed which would baffle a human, the Hoobat was

ready and its claws, halting their rasp, met around the wasp-thin waist

of the pest, speedily cutting it in two. Only this time the Hoobat made

no move to unjoint and consume the victim. Instead it squatted in utter

silence, as motionless as a tri-dee print.

The heavy lower half of the creature rolled down the pile of logs to the

deck and there paled to the gray of its background. None of its kind

appeared to be interested in its fate. The two which had been in the path

of the ray, continued to be humps on the wood, the others faced the

Hoobat.

But Rip was ready to waste no more time. "Ray them!" he snapped.

All three of their sleep rods sprayed the pile, catching in passing the

Hoobat. Queex's pop eyes closed, but it showed no other sign of falling

under the spell of the beam.

Certain that all the creatures in sight were now relatively harmless, the

three approached the logs. But it was necessary to get into touching

distance before they could even make out the outlines of the nightmare

things, so well did their protective coloring conceal them. Wearing

gloves Ali detached the little monsters from their holds on the wood and

put them for temporary safekeeping--during a transfer to the deep

freeze--into the Hoobat's cage. Queex, they decided to leave where it was

for a space, to awaken and trap any survivor which had been too wary to

emerge at the first siren song. As far as they could tell the Hoobat was

their only possible protection against the pest and to leave it in the

center of infection was the wisest course.

Having dumped the now metal colored catch into the freeze, they held a

conference.

"No plague--" Weeks breathed a sigh of relief.

"No proof of that yet," Ali caught him up short. "We have to prove it

past any reasonable doubt."

"And how are we going to do--?" Dane began when he saw what the other had

brought in from Tau's stores. A lancet and the upper half of the creature

Queex had killed in the cargo hold.

The needle pointed front feet of the thing were curled up in its death

throes and it was now a dirty white shade as if the ability to change

color had been lost before it matched the cotton on which it lay. With

the lancet Ali forced a claw away from the body. It was oozing the watery

liquid which they had seen on the one in the hydro.

"I have an idea," he said slowly, his eyes on the mangled creature rather

than on his shipmates, "that we might have escaped being attacked because

they sheered off from us. But if we were clawed we might take it too.

Remember those marks on the throats and backs of the rest? That might be

the entry point of this poison--if poison it is--"

Dane could see the end of that line of reasoning. Rip and Ali--they

couldn't be spared. The knowledge they had would bring the Queen to

earth. But a Cargo-master was excess baggage when there was no reason for

trade. It was his place to try out the truth of Ali's surmise.

But while he thought another acted. Weeks leaned over and twitched the

lancet out of Ali's fingers. Then, before any of them could move, he

thrust its contaminated point into the back of his hand.

"Don't!"

Both Dane's cry and Rip's hand came too late. It had been done. And Weeks

sat there, looking alone and frightened, studying the drop of blood which

marked the dig of the surgeon's keen knife. But when he spoke his voice

sounded perfectly natural.

"Headache first, isn't it?"

Only Ali was outwardly unaffected by what the little man had just done.

"Just be sure you have a real one," he warned with what Dane privately

considered real callousness.

Weeks nodded. "Don't let my imagination work," he answered shrewdly. "I

know. It has to be real. How long do you suppose?"

"We don't know," Rip sounded tired, beaten. "Meanwhile," he got to his

feet, "we'd better set a course home--"

"Home," Weeks repeated. To him Terra was not his own home--he had been

born in the polar swamps of Venus. But to All Solarians--no matter which

planet had nurtured them--Terra was home.

"You," Rip's big hand fell gently on the little oiler's shoulder, "stay

here with Thorson--"

"No," Weeks shook his head. "Unless I black out, I'm riding station in

the engine room. Maybe the bug won't work on me anyway."

And because he had done what he had done they could not deny him the

right to ride his station as long as he could during the grueling hours

to come.

Dane visited the cargo hold once more. To be greeted by an irate scream

which assured him that Queex was again awake and on guard. Although the

Hoobat was ready enough to give tongue, it still squatted in its chosen

position on top of the log stack and he did not try to dislodge it.

Perhaps with Queex planted in the enemies' territory they would have

nothing to fear from any pests not now confined in the deep freeze.

Rip set his course for Terra--for that plague spot on their native world

where they might hide out the Queen until they could prove their

point--that the spacer was not a disease ridden ship to be feared. He

kept to the control cabin, shifting only between the Astrogator's and the

pilot's station. Upon him alone rested the responsibility of bringing in

the ship along a vector which crossed no well traveled space lane where

the Patrol might challenge them. Dane rode out the orbiting in the

Com-tech's seat, listening in for the first warning of danger--that they

had been detected.

The mechanical repetition of their list of crimes was now stale news and

largely off-ether. And from all traces he could pick up, they were lost

as far as the authorities were concerned. On the other hand, the Patrol

might indeed be as far knowing as its propaganda stated and the Queen was

running headlong into a trap. Only they had no choice in the matter.

It was the ship's inter-com bringing Ali's voice from the engine room

which broke the concentration in the control cabin.

"Weeks' down!"

Rip barked into the mike. "How bad?"

"He hasn't blacked out yet. The pains in his head are pretty bad and his

hand is swelling--"

"He's given us our proof. Tell him to report off--"

But the disembodied voice which answered that was Weeks'.

"I haven't got it as bad as the others. I'll ride this out."

Rip shook his head. But short-handed as they were he could not argue

Weeks away from his post if the man insisted upon staying. He had other,

and for the time being, more important matters before him.

How long they sweated out that descent upon their native world Dane could

never afterwards have testified. He only knew that hours must have

passed, until he thought groggily that he could not remember a time he

was not glued in the seat which had been Tang's, the earphones pressing

against his sweating skull, his fatigue-drugged mind being held with

difficulty to the duty at hand.

Sometime during that haze they made their landing. He had a dim memory of

Rip sprawled across the pilot's control board and then utter exhaustion

claimed him also and the darkness closed in. When he roused it was to

look about a cabin tilted to one side. Rip was still slumped in a muscle

cramping posture, breathing heavily. Dane bit out a forceful word born of

twinges of his own, and then snapped on the visa-plate.

For a long moment he was sure that he was not yet awake. And then, as his

dazed mind supplied names for what he saw, he knew that Rip had failed.

Far from being in the center--or at least well within the perimeter of

the dread Big Burn--they must have landed in some civic park or national

forest. For the massed green outside, the bright flowers, the bird he

sighted as a brilliant flash of wind coasting color--those were not to

be found in the twisted horror left by man's last attempt to impress his

will upon his resisting kind.

Well, it had been a good try, but there was no use expecting luck to ride

their fins all the way, and they had had more than their share in the

E-Stat affair. How long would it be before the Law arrived to collect

them? Would they have time to state their case?

The faint hope that they might aroused him. He reached for the com key

and a second later tore the headphones from his appalled ears. The

crackle of static he knew--and the numerous strange noises which broke in

upon the lanes of communication in space--but this solid, paralyzing roar

was something totally new--new, and frightening.

And because it was new and he could not account for it, he turned back to

regard the scene on the viewer with a more critical eye. The foliage

which grew in riotous profusion was green right enough, and Terra green

into the bargain--there was no mistaking that. But--Dane caught at the

edge of Com-unit for support. But--What was that liver-red blossom which

had just reached out to engulf a small flying thing?

Feverishly he tried to remember the little natural history he knew. Sure

that what he had just witnessed was unnatural--un-Terran--and to be

suspect!

He started the spy lens on its slow revolution in the Queen's nose, to

get a full picture of their immediate surroundings. It was tilted at an

angle--apparently they had not made a fin-point landing this time--and

sometimes it merely reflected slices of sky. But when it swept earthward

he saw enough to make him believe that wherever the spacer had set down

it was not on the Terra he knew.

Subconsciously he had expected the Big Burn to be barren land--curdled

rock with rivers of frozen quartz, substances boiled up through the crust

of the planet by the action of the atomic explosives. That was the way it

had been on Limbo--on the other "burned-off" worlds they had discovered

where those who had preceded mankind into the Galaxy--the mysterious,

long vanished "Forerunners"--had fought their grim and totally

annihilating wars.

But it would seem that the Big Burn was altogether different--at least

here it was. There was no rock sterile of life outside--in fact there

would appear to be too much life. What Dane could sight on his limited

field of vision was a teeming jungle. And the thrill of that discovery

almost made him forget their present circumstances. He was still staring

bemused at the screen when Rip muttered, turned his head on his folded

arms and opened his sunken eyes:

"Did we make it?" he asked dully.

Dane, not taking his eyes from that fascinating scene without, answered:

"You brought us down. But I don't know where--"

"Unless our instruments were 'way off, we're near to the heart of the

Burn."

"Some heart!"

"What does it look like?" Rip sounded too tired to cross the cabin and

see for himself. "Barren as Limbo?"

"Hardly! Rip, did you ever see a tomato as big as a melon--At least it

looks like a tomato," Dane halted the spy lens as it focused upon this

new phenomena.

"A what?" There was a note of concern in Shannon's voice. "What's the

matter with you, Dane?"

"Come and see," Dane willingly yielded his place to Rip but he did not

step out of range of the screen. Surely that did have the likeness to a

good, old fashioned earth-side tomato--but it was melon size and it hung

from a bush which was close to a ten foot tree!

Rip stumbled across to drop into the Com-tech's place. But his expression

of worry changed to one of simple astonishment as he saw that picture.

"Where are we?"

"You name it," Dane had had longer to adjust, the excitement of an

explorer sighting virgin territory worked in his veins, banishing

fatigue. "It must be the Big Burn!"

"But," Rip shook his head slowly as if with that gesture to deny the

evidence before his eyes, "that country's all bare rock. I've seen

pictures--"

"Of the outer rim," Dane corrected, having already solved that problem

for himself. "This must be farther in than any survey ship ever came.

Great Spirit of Outer Space, what has happened here?"

Rip had enough technical training to know how to get part of the answer.

He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever with

the very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with a

clicking so loud as to make an almost continuous drone of sound.

Dane knew that danger signal, he didn't need Rip's words to underline it

for him.

"That's what's happened. This country is pile 'hot' out there!"