Land and Overland Omnibus

CHAPTER 9



During the last fifty miles of the ascent Toller and Steenameert had turned the ship on its side at frequent intervals. The purpose had been to get an early view of the small line of wooden stations and spaceships so that they could steer directly towards them by countering lateral drift. Even in good viewing conditions the artifacts would have been hard to find, but with a sea of crystal spanning the sky and diffusing the sunlight into a uniform white brilliance Toller had expected his task to be doubly difficult. He had therefore been surprised when, at a range of some thirty miles, he had begun discerning a mote of solid darkness at the centre of the translucent disk. As the ship crept closer to it, binoculars revealed that the object—although irregular in its general outline—was bounded by straight lines and square corners. Its silhouette resembled the plan of a very large building to which numerous extensions had been added in quite a haphazard manner.

For a time Toller was able to reject the implication—there simply was no room for it in his scheme of reality—but eventually the painful mental shift took place…

"Whatever that thing is," he said to Steenameert, "I cannot visualize it growing there by itself like a crystal of ice. It has to be a midpoint station of some kind, but…"

"Not built by the likes of us," Steenameert supplied.

"You speak truly. The size… We could be looking at a palace in the sky."

"Or a fortress." Steenameert's voice was low, almost furtive, in spite of the fact that he and Toller were alone on the ship in the vast reaches of the weightless zone. "Could it be that the Farlanders have at last decided on conquest?"

"They are going about it in an odd way, if they have," Toller replied, frowning, instinctively rejecting the idea of a military invasion from the third planet. Bartan Drumme was one of the two men still alive who had been on the single epic voyage to Farland many years ago, and Toller had often heard him declare that its inhabitants were insular in their outlook, totally lacking in the colonial urge. Besides, the enigmatic sea of living crystal and the gigantic midpoint station were obviously connected in some respect, and what military commander—no matter how alien his mind—would set about an invasion in such a pointless manner?

"No, this is something new to us," Toller went on. "We know there are many other worlds circling distant stars, and we also know that on some of those worlds there are civilizations much further advanced than ours. Perhaps, my friend Baten, what we see above us is … is … but one of many far-flung palaces belonging to some unimaginable king of kings. Perhaps those reaches of ice are his hunting grounds … his deerparks…" Toller paused, lost for the moment in the exotic grandeur of his vision, but was recalled when Steenameert posed a crucial question.

"Sir, do we go on?"

"Of course!" Toller pulled his scarf down from over his nose and mouth so that his words could be heard with perfect clarity. "1 continue to assume that the Countess and her crew have taken refuge in one of our stations, but if we fail to find them there… Why, we now have one other place to look!"

"Yes, sir."

Steenameert's eyes, peering from the horizontal slit between his scarf and the edge of his hood, gave no indication that anything out of the ordinary was happening, but Toller was suddenly struck by the fantastic import of his own words. His hand dropped of its own accord to the hilt of his sword as he realized that his entire being was awash with dread.

Even as he was first hearing of Vantara's disappearance there had been born in him the sickening fear that she was dead. He had refused to acknowledge that fear, driving it out of his mind with manufactured optimism and the demanding activities of the hurriedly-mounted rescue expedition. But new elements had been added to the situation—bizarre, monstrous and inexplicable new elements—and it was impossible to see how they could bode anything but ill.

The six wooden structures were known collectively as the Inner Defence Group—a name which had clung to them since the days of the interplanetary war although it had long since lost all relevance.

Toller and Steenameert had located the group on the Overland side of the ice barrier and about two miles out from the alien station. Taking his ship in a wide curve, Toller had approached the wooden cylinders very cautiously from an outer direction, keeping them between him and the mysterious angular outline. He had chosen the course with a tenuous hope of avoiding detection by alien eyes, although it was purely an assumption that the metallic construct housed living beings. It appeared to be embedded in the crystalline barrier, and when viewed through his powerful glasses had something of the look of a vast and lifeless machine—an incomprehensible engine which had been placed in the weightless zone to carry out some incomprehensible task on behalf of equally incomprehensible builders.

And now, as his ship nudged to within a furlong of the cylinders, Toller was developing the conviction that they were empty. They were nestling against the underside of the frozen sea, apparently held in place by slim girdles of crystal which had grown around them. Four of the cylinders were habitats and stores, and two longer versions were functional copies of the spaceship which had once flown to Farland, but they all had one thing in common—the appearance of lifelessness.

If Vantara and her crew had been waiting within any of the wooden shells they would surely have been maintaining a watch and by this time would have signalled to the approaching skyship. But there was no sign of activity. All the portholes remained uniformly dark, and the hulls obstinately remained what they had been since Toller first saw them—inert relics of years long gone.

"Are we going to go inside?" Steenameert said.

Toller nodded. "We have to—it is expected of us—but…" His throat closed up painfully, forcing him to pause for a moment. "You can see for yourself that nobody is there."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Thanks." Toller glanced at the strange alien edifice which projected from the icecap far to his left. "If that had been an aerial palace—as I so foolishly surmised—or even a fortress, I could have clung to some shred of hope that they had taken refuge in it. I would even have preferred to imagine them as the captives of invaders from another star—but the thing looks like nothing more than a great block of iron … an engine … Vantara could have seen no prospect of a haven there."

"Except…"

"Go on, Baten."

"Except in a case of the utmost desperation." Steenameert had begun to speak quickly, as though fearful of having his ideas dismissed. "We don't know how wide the ice barrier was when the Countess reached it, but if she did so in the hours of darkness—and there was a collision which disabled her ship—she would have been on the Land side of the barrier. The wrong side, sir. It would have been impossible to locate or reach our own vessels, and under those circumstances the … engine could have seemed a likely place to shelter. After all, sir, it is certainly large enough, and there may be hatches or doors leading to its interior, and—"

"That's good!" Toller cut in as the darkness in his mind suddenly began to abate. "And I'll tell you something else! I have been treating this whole affair as though the Countess were an ordinary woman, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have been talking about an accidental collision, but there may not have been one. If Vantara had chanced to see the alien engine from afar she would have taken it upon herself to investigate it!

"She and her crew could be watching us through some vent at this very minute. Or … they might have spent some days exploring the machine and then have decided to return to Land. They could have passed us unseen as we were ascending with the commissioner—such things can easily happen. Don't you agree that such things can easily happen?"

The tentative way in which Steenameert nodded in assent told Toller something he already knew—that he was allowing the pendulum of his emotions to swing too far—but the black despair he had begun to feel had to be staved off as long as possible, and by any means available. In the unexpected upsurge of hope it mattered little to him that his reactions were immature, that the real Toller Maraquine would have acted differently—he had been restored to the universe of light and was determined to remain in it as long as possible.

Now keyed up to a state in which he had to undertake some physical action, his system thrumming with emotional energy. Toller grinned fiercely at Steenameert. "Don't just sit there fiddling with the controls—we have work to do!"

They fully inverted the ship and shut down the jet, letting the vessel coast to a gentle halt only fifty yards from the nearest of the wooden cylinders. The gondola's landing legs actually came in contact with the barrier's glowing surface, which at close range proved to be highly uneven—a haphazard mass of man-sized crystals. Most of them appeared to be hexagonal in cross-section, but others were circular or square, and many displayed feathery interior patterns of pale violet. The overall effect was visually stunning—a seemingly endless vista of unearthly beauty and brilliance.

Toller and Steenameert strapped on their personal propulsion units and made an inspection tour of the six cylinders. As expected, they were empty except for the provisions which had been stored against an emergency which had never come. The shells, with their varnished timbers and reinforcement bands of black iron, were colder and more silent than tombs. Toller was glad he had satisfied himself in advance that Vantara and her crew were elsewhere, otherwise the opening and investigating of each darkly brooding hull would have been an unbearable experience.

Towards the end of the tour he was struck by the fact that, although the crystals of the barrier had indeed extended themselves downwards to encompass the cylinders, they had done so in a very sparing fashion. Instead of completely engulfing the wooden hulls, as would have seemed natural to Toller, they had encircled each with only a narrow and spiky growth. It was something he might have puzzled over had his thoughts not been fully occupied with what lay ahead.

When the formal search had been completed, he and Steenameert—riding on plumes of white condensation—returned to their ship and collected from it seven parachutes and seven fallbags, which they stored in the nearest of the habitats. Toller had insisted on bringing the survival equipment in case something catastrophic should happen to the skyship's balloon while manoeuvring close to the crystalline spikes of the barrier.

With the bags and parachutes at hand he and Steenameert, and any others they might rescue, were rendered independent of their skyship as far as descending to Overland was concerned. Protected from slipstream's deadly chill by the fleecy wombs of the fallbags, they could drop for more than a day and a night towards the planetary surface, only deploying the parachutes for the last few thousand feet of the descent. Daunting though the prospect might seem to die uninitiated, in all the years it had been in use the system had resulted in only one death—that of an experienced messenger who, it was thought, had fallen so deeply asleep that he had not roused himself in time to emerge from the fallbag and open his parachute.

Leaving their ship hanging in the inverted position, Toller and Steenameert began the strange two-mile flight to the huge alien artifact. Their jet units carried them at walking pace below a fantastic, glittering ceiling of giant crystals which appeared to have grown at random, except that at widely spaced intervals there were flatter areas in which the crystals were packed in what looked like orderly ranks, and in which the faint violet patterns within were more evident.

As the structure ahead expanded to fill more of his vision Toller began to revise his opinion that it was merely a lifeless engine. Here and there on the metallic surface he could see what seemed to be portholes, and there were hatches which had the size and proportions of doorways. The thought that Vantara might be at one of the portholes and watching his approach added to the heady excitement which suffused his system. At last, after a lifetime of waiting, he was taking part in an adventure which could stand comparison with the exploits which had studded his grandfather's career.

On reaching the nearest edge of the artifact he saw that it was rimmed with a single metal rail supported by slim posts which could easily have been made in a foundry on Overland. The sea of crystals abutted the perimeter of the artifact with no discernible gap. Toller shut down his jet and brought himself to a halt by gripping the rail. Steenameert arrived at his side a moment later.

"This is obviously a handrail," Toller said. "I fancy we are about to meet travellers from another star."

Steenameert's face was all but hidden by his scarf, but his eyes were wide with wonder. "I hope they bear no ill will towards trespassers. Anybody who can loft a redoubt like this into the sky…"

Toller nodded thoughtfully as he surveyed the structure and saw that it was at least half a mile across. He and Steenameert were perched at the edge of a flat area the size of a large parade ground, beyond which a central tower-like extrusion projected a hundred feet or more into the chilled air. As Toller studied it his senses made an adjustment and suddenly he was no longer "beneath" a fantastic landscape. In his new orientation he was looking across a plain towards a strange castle, and the great disk of Overland was directly overhead. Far off to his right was a cluster of curved, tapering poles—like giant reeds sculpted in steel—and as he watched a cold green fire began to flicker around their tips. The phenomenon served as a reminder that he was venturing far beyond the limits of his people's understanding.

"We have nothing to gain by waiting here," he said briskly, fending off an unwelcome surge of doubt and timidity. "Are you ready to…?"

He broke off, shocked into silence, as from behind him came a sudden and unexpected sound. It was a hissing noise and a continuous crackling noise merged into one, like dried leaves and twigs being consumed in a fierce blaze. Toller tried to spin around, but panic and the absence of gravity combined to thwart his intention. He only succeeded in thrashing helplessly for a few seconds, and by the time he had used the handrail to steady himself it was too late—the trap had been sprung.

A sparkling globe composed of fist-sized crystals had grown up around him and his companion with breath-stopping speed, enclosing them in a spherical prison some six paces in diameter.

It had extruded itself from the greater crystals of the frozen sea and part of its lower edge was moulded and attached to the metal of the alien station. The glittering material of it encompassed a section of the handrail to which the two men were clinging. Toller and Steenameert gaped at each other for a moment, faces contorted with shock, then Toller pulled off one of his gloves and touched the inner surface of the sphere. It was as cold as ice, and yet remained dry under his fingertips.

"Glass!" He pointed at the pistol slung on Steenameert's equipment belt. "Blow a few holes in it and we'll soon be out of here."

"Yes, yes…" Steenameert unclipped the weapon and at the same time removed a pressure sphere from his carrier net. He was feverishly screwing it to the pistol's underside when a silent voice—cool, all-knowing and totally convincing—reverberated inside Toller's head.

I advise you not to fire the weapon. The material with which you are surrounded is protected by a reciprocal energy layer. The layer's prime function is to deflect meteors away from the parent construction, but it is effective against any kind of projectile. If the weapon is fired the bullet will ricochet around the interior of the sphere with undiminished velocity until its energy is absorbed by one of your bodies. If the weapon is discharged the sphere will not be weakened in any way, but one of you may be killed.

Toller knew at once, without being able to explain why, that both he and Steenameert had been party to the same communication. The non-voice, modulations of silence, had addressed itself directly to their inner selves … mind had spoken to mind … which meant that…

He glanced to his left and flinched as he saw that there was a figure just outside the sphere. The glass honeycomb surface of the sphere was distorting and fragmenting the outline, but the figure was man-sized, human in its general appearance, and was holding itself in place by gripping the handrail as any man would have done. Toller had no doubt that it was the source of the mentally-heard voice, but he was unable to understand how the alien newcomer had crossed the metallic plain so quickly and without being seen.

He also felt afraid. His fear was unlike anything he had experienced before—a compound of xenophobia, shock and simple concern for his own safety which rendered him speechless and almost unable to move. He saw that Steenameert was equally stricken, equally immobilized, and had stopped attaching the pressure sphere to his pistol. The voiceless communication had not merely been a statement—it had passed on pure knowledge and now both men understood that a bullet striking the inside of the sphere would be repelled by a force whose magnitude was directly influenced by its speed.

There is no reason for you to be alarmed. The non-voice conveyed assurance and something which might have been mistaken for kindliness but for its underlying condescension and lack of warmth.

We are not afraid … of… Toller's unspoken challenge was lost in the chaos of his mind as he began to wonder if he could communicate with his captor.

Speaking in your normal way will organize your thoughts sufficiently for us to exchange ideas, the alien told him. But do not waste time on untruths, empty boasts or threats. You were about to assert that you are not afraid of me, and that is manifestly untrue. What you must do now is compose yourselves and avoid the mistake of trying to offer me any form of resistance.

The utter confidence with which the alien spoke, the sheer smugness of the assumption of superiority, triggered in Toller a response—inherited from his grandfather—which he had never been able to control. A surge of red-clouded anger erupted through his system, freeing him from the stasis which had affected his mind and body.

"You are the one in danger of making a mistake," he cried out. "I don't know what your design is, but I will resist it to the death—and the death I have in mind is yours!"

This is quite interesting. The alien's thought was tinged with amusement. One of your females reacted with exactly the same kind of irrational belligerence, Toller Maraquine—and I am almost certain she was the one to which you are emotionally bonded.

The reply jolted Toller into a wider frame of awareness. "Have you taken our women?" he bellowed, suddenly forgetful of his own situation. "Where are they? If they have come to any harm…"

They have not been harmed in any way. I have simply transported them to a place of safety far from here—as I am about to do with you. I shall now inject a sedative gas into the confine. Do not be alarmed by it. The gas will cause you to enter a deep sleep, and when you recover consciousness you will be in comfortable surroundings. And although it will be necessary to detain you there indefinitely, you will be adequately provisioned.

"We are not animals to be penned and provisioned," Toller snapped, his anger further fuelled. "We will go with you to the place to where the women are imprisoned, but of our own free will and with our eyes wide open. Those are my terms, and if you consent to them I give you my word that neither of us will cause you any injury."

Your arrogance is quite astonishing—and equalled only by your ignorance, came the reply, calm and amused. Beings at your primitive stage of development could never injure me, but I will sedate you, nevertheless, to prevent your causing any minor inconvenience while you are being transported.

The figure beyond the crystal wall made a slight movement—which was translated into flowing colour transformations of icy facets—and then a particular darkening of one of the hexagonals showed that something was being placed against its outer surface. Steenameert completed his arming of the pistol, raised it and aimed at the focus of activity.

Suicide, Baten Steenameert? The non-voice held something of the detached pity of a naturalist watching a delicate fly drift closer to a spider's web. Surely not!

Steenameert glanced at Toller, his eyes unfathomable in the narrow space between scarf and cowl, and lowered the pistol. Toller nodded to him in evident approval of his prudence and—with a deliberate abandonment of conscious intention—drew his sword and in a single swift movement drove the point of it into the crystal wall. He had clamped his left forearm around the handrail, turning his body into a closed system of forces, and the tip of the steel blade buried itself in the shining cells with a power which sent vitreous fragments spinning outwards from the point of impact.

The crystal sphere screamed.

The scream was noiseless, but had no other resemblance to the type of precisely shaped and controlled mental communication employed by the alien. Toller knew, without understanding how, that it was emanating from the walls of the sphere and also from the frozen lake beyond—a multiplied shriek of agony in which chance harmonics and discordant echoes clashed again and again until they hid away and a strange, whimpering non-voice made itself heard…

I have been hurt, Beloved Creator! You did not tell me that the Primitives would be able to damage my body.

Toller, obeying warrior's instinct, did not allow the unexpected voice to inhibit him or blunt his attack. He had hurt an enemy and that was the signal to press forward with renewed vigour, to go for a kill. His sword seemed to be meeting a peculiar resistance, as though passing through a layer of invisible sponge, but his repeated thrusts were retaining enough force to damage and dislodge glassy cells. In only a few seconds he had shattered an adjacent pair and created a small hole in the sphere.

Changing the style of attack, he used the haft of his sword to strike the damaged area, and in spite of the unseen resistance he succeeded in dislodging the two cells entirely, sending them tumbling away into the outer void. Feverishly inspired, he transferred the sword to his other hand and punched the same area of wall with his gauntleted fist. This time there was no magical barrier to soften the blow and several more of the hexagonal cells, their structural unity weakened, went spinning out of sight, greatly enlarging the hole in the sphere.

The silent, inhuman screaming began again.

Steenameert followed Toller's example and—bracing himself against the handrail—began raining blows on the irregular edge of the hole, adding to the destructive effect.

In the roaring furnace of Toller's mind virtually no time passed until the way ahead of him had been cleared and he was outside the sphere and, in weightless flight, closing on a silver-suited figure which was turning to flee. His left arm clamped around the alien's neck in the instant of collision, and he whipped the sword—which seemed to have returned to his right hand of its own accord—into position for a thrust into the alien's side.

How did you achieve this? The alien's words were tinged with revulsion because of the physical contact, but Toller was unable to feel any fear.

You had fully coordinated control of all your muscles, the voice went on, but there was no coherent mental activity that I could detect. It was impossible for me to anticipate your actions. How was it done?

"Be silent," Toller snarled, hooking a leg around the handrail to prevent himself and his captive drifting free of the metal surface of the station. "Where are the women?"

All you need to know, the alien said imperturbably, b that they are in a place of safety. Again, and to Toller's bafflement, the mental contact revealed no shadings of alarm.

"Listen to me!" Toller gripped the alien by the shoulder and thrust him to arm's length, a movement which brought them face to face for the first time. In one searching, wondering, dismayed moment Toller took in every detail of a face which was surprisingly human in the disposition of its features. The principal differences were that the skin was grey; the eyes, lacking pupils, were white orbs drilled with black holes; and the small upturned nose had no central division. Toller could see far back into the nasal cavity, where red-veined orange membranes fluttered back and forth or clung together in tune with the alien's breathing.

"You haven't been listening." Toller, repressing an urge to push himself away from the hideous caricature of a human being, leaned harder on his sword and forced it deep into the reflective material of the other's suit. "You will tell me what I need to know—immediately—or I will kill you."

The alien's charcoal lips slackened into what could have been a smile. At this range? So close? While we are in actual physical contact? No member of a humanoid species could possibly…

Toller's head filled with crimson thunder. His mind blurred, became a montage of smeared visions of Vantara and death-hued alien predators; and the rage, a special rage—beguiling and repugnant, shameful and joyous—took hold of his being. He pulled the alien towards him, at the same time going in hard with the sword, and it was only a startled cry from Steenameert which returned him to sanity.

You hurt me! The alien's silent words were shaded with astonishment and the beginnings of fearful comprehension. You could have done it! You were prepared to kill me!

"That's what I have been telling you, greyface," Toller ground out.

My name is Divivvidiv.

"You resemble a corpse to begin with, greyface," Toller went on, "and it would occasion me not the slightest qualm of conscience were I forced to reconcile appearance with reality. I repeat, if you do not tell me—"

He broke off, disconcerted, as the alien's face rippled with muscular convulsions, and the frail shoulder gripped in his left hand began to vibrate in tune with internal tremors. The black-rimmed mouth underwent asymmetrical changes, flowing in one direction and then another like a sea anemone pulled by conflicting currents, sending threads of discharged saliva snaking weightlessly through the air. Blurred mental echoes picked up by Toller told him that his captive had never been directly threatened with death before. At first it had been impossible for Divivvidiv even to believe that his life was in danger, and now he was undergoing an extremely violent emotional reaction.

Toiler, receiving his first insight into a culture totally dissimilar to his own, responded by renewing the pressure of his sword point. "The women, greyface … the women! Where are they?"

They have been transported to my home world. Divivvidiv was regaining some physical control, but his words reeked with fear, revulsion and barely contained hysteria. They are in a secure place—millions of miles from here—in the capital city of the most advanced civilization in this galaxy. I can assure you that it is far beyond the abilities of a Primitive like you to alter those circumstances in any way, therefore the logical thing for you to do is—

"Your logic is not my logic," Toller cut in, hardening his voice in the hope of concealing the dismay which was washing through him. "If the women are not brought back unharmed, I will send you to another world—one from which no man has ever returned. I trust my meaning is clear…"