The Star Hyacinths Read online

trees. Otherwise the slopes were quiet. The skywas covered with cloud layers through which the Mooncat driftedinvisibly. In the infrared glasses Dasinger had slipped on when hestarted, the rocky hillside showed clear for two hundred yards, tintedgreen as though bathed by a strange moonlight; beyond was murkydarkness.

  "Still all right?" Duomart's voice inquired from the wrist communicator.

  "Uh-huh!" Dasinger said. "A little nervous, but I'd be feeling that wayin any case, under the circumstances."

  "I'm not so sure," she said. "You've gone past the two and a half mileline from the generator. From what that Graylock monster said, youshould have started to pick up its effects. Why not take your shot, andplay safe?"

  "No," Dasinger said. "If I wait until I feel something that can bedefinitely attributed to the machine, I can keep the kwil dose down towhat I need. I don't want to load myself up with the drug any more thanI have to."

  A stand of tall trees with furry trunks moved presently into range ofthe glasses, thick undergrowth beneath. Dasinger picked his way throughthe thickets with some caution. The indications so far had been thatlocal animals had as much good reason to avoid the vicinity of Hovig'smachine as human beings, but if there was any poisonous vermin in thearea this would be a good place for it to be lurking. Which seemed afairly reasonable apprehension. Other, equally definite, apprehensionslooked less reasonable when considered objectively. If he stumbled on astone, it produced a surge of sharp alarm which lingered for seconds;and his breathing had quickened much more than could be accounted for bythe exertions of the downhill climb.

  * * * * *

  Five minutes beyond the wood Dasinger emerged from the mouth of a narrowgorge, and stopped short with a startled exclamation. His hand dughurriedly into his pocket for the case of kwil needles.

  "What's the matter?" Duomart inquired sharply.

  Dasinger produced a somewhat breathless laugh. "I've decided to take thekwil. At once!"

  "You're feeling ... things?" Her voice was also shaky.

  "I'll say! Not just a matter of feeling it, either. For example, acouple of old friends are walking towards me at the moment. Dead ones,as it happens."

  "Ugh!" she said faintly. "Hurry up!"

  Dasinger shoved the needle's plunger a quarter of the way down on thekwil solution, pulled the needle out of his arm. He stood still for someseconds, filled his lungs with the cool night air, let it out in a longsigh.

  "That did it!" he announced, his voice steadying again. "The stuff worksfast. A quarter shot...."

  "Why did you wait so long?"

  "It wasn't too bad till just now. Then suddenly ... that generator can'tbe putting out evenly! Anyway, it hit me like a rock. I doubt you'd beinterested in details."

  "I wouldn't," Duomart agreed. "I'm crawly enough as it is up here. Iwish we were through with this!"

  "With just a little luck we should be off the planet in an hour."

  By the time he could hear the lapping of the lake water on the wind, hewas aware of the growing pulse of Hovig's generator ahead of him, aliveand malignant in the night. Then the Fleet scout came into the glasses,a squat, dark ship, its base concealed in the growth that had sprung uparound it after it piled up on the slope. Dasinger moved past the scout,pushing through bushy aromatic shrubbery which thickened as he nearedthe water. He felt physically sick and sluggish now, was aware, too, ofan increasing reluctance to go on. He would need more of the drugbefore attempting to enter the Antares.

  To the west, the sky was partly clear, and presently he saw the wreck ofthe Dosey Asteroids raider loom up over the edge of the lake arm,blotting out a section of stars. Still beyond the field of the glasses,it looked like an armored water animal about to crawl up on the slopes.Dasinger approached slowly, in foggy unwillingness, emerged from thebushes into open ground, and saw a broad ramp furred with a thick coatof moldlike growth rise steeply towards an open lock in the upper partof the Antares. The pulse of the generator might have been the beatingof the maimed ship's heart, angry and threatening. It seemed to begrowing stronger. And had something moved in the lock? Dasinger stood,senses swimming sickly, dreaming that something huge rose slowly,towered over him like a giant wave, leaned forwards....

  * * * * *

  "Still all right?" Duomart inquired.

  The wave broke.

  "_Dasinger! What's happened?_"

  "Nothing," Dasinger said, his voice raw. He pulled the empty needle outof his arm, dropped it. "But something nearly did! The kwil I tookwasn't enough. I was standing here waiting to let that damned machineswamp me when you spoke."

  "You should have heard what you sounded like over the communicator! Ithought you were ..." her voice stopped for an instant, began again."Anyway," she said briskly, "you're loaded with kwil now, I hope?"

  "More than I should be, probably." Dasinger rubbed both hands slowlydown along his face. "Well, it couldn't be helped. That was prettyclose, I guess! I don't even remember getting the hypo out of the case."

  He looked back up at the looming bow of the Antares, unbeautiful enoughbut prosaically devoid of menace and mystery now, though the pulsingbeat still came from there. A mechanical obstacle and nothing else. "I'mgoing on in now."

  From the darkness within the lock came the smell of stagnant water, ofold decay. The mold that proliferated over the ramp did not extend intothe wreck. But other things grew inside, pale and oily tendrilsfestooning the walls. Dasinger removed his night glasses, brought out apencil light, let the beam fan out, and moved through the lock.

  The crash which had crumpled the ship's lower shell had thrust up theflooring of the lock compartment, turned it into what was nearly levelfooting now. On the right, a twenty-foot black gap showed between theragged edge of the deck and the far bulkhead from which it had beentorn. The oily plant life spread over the edges of the flooring and ondown into the flooded lower sections of the Antares. The pulse ofHovig's generator came from above and the left where a passage slantedsteeply up into the ship's nose. Dasinger turned towards the passage,began clambering up.

  * * * * *

  There was no guesswork involved in determining which of the doors alongthe passage hid the machine in what, if Graylock's story was correct,had been Hovig's personal stateroom. As Dasinger approached that point,it was like climbing into silent thunder. The door was locked, andthough the walls beside it were warped and cracked, the cracks were toonarrow to permit entry. Dasinger dug out a tool which had once been theprized property of one of Orado's more eminent safecrackers, and went towork on the lock. A minute or two later he forced the door partly backin its tilted frame, scrambled through into the cabin.

  Not enough was left of Hovig after this span of time to be particularlyoffensive. The generator lay in a lower corner, half buried under othermolded and unrecognizable debris. Dasinger uncovered it, feeling as ifhe were drowning in the invisible torrent pouring out from it, kneltdown and placed the light against the wall beside him.

  The machine matched Graylock's description. A pancake-shaped heavyplastic casing eighteen inches across, two thick studs set into itsedge, one stud depressed and flush with the surface, the other extended.Dasinger thumbed experimentally at the extended stud, found itapparently immovable, took out his gun.

  "How is it going, Dasinger?" Miss Mines asked.

  "All right," Dasinger said. He realized he was speaking with difficulty."I've found the thing! Trying to get it shut off now. Tell you in aminute...."

  He tapped the extended stud twice with the butt of the gun, then slashedheavily down. The stud flattened back into the machine. Its counterpartdidn't move. The drowning sensations continued.

  Dasinger licked his lips, dropped the gun into his pocket, brought outthe lock opener. He had the generator's cover plate pried partway backwhen it shattered. With that, the thunder that wasn't sound ebbedswiftly from the cabin. Dasinger reached into the generator, wrenchedout a power battery, snapping
half a dozen leads.

  He sat back on his heels, momentarily dizzy with relief, then climbed tohis feet with the smashed components of Hovig's machine, and turned tothe door. Something in the debris along the wall flashed dazzlingly inthe beam of his light.

  Dasinger stared at the star hyacinth for an instant, then picked it up.It was slightly larger than the one Graylock had carried out of theAntares with him, perfectly cut. He found four others of similar qualitywithin the next minute, started back down to the lock compartment withwhat might amount to two million credits in honest money, around halfthat in the Hub's underworld gem trade, in one of his pockets.

  "Yes?"

  "Got the thing's teeth pulled now."

  "Thank God! Coming right down...."

  The Mooncat was sliding in from the south as Dasinger stepped out on thehead of the ramp. "Lock's open," Duomart's voice informed him. "I'llcome aft and help."

  * * * * *

  It took four trips with the gravity crane to transfer the salvageequipment into the Antares's lock compartment. Then Miss Mines sealedthe Mooncat and went back upstairs. Dasinger climbed into one of thethree salvage suits, hung the wrist communicator inside the helmet,snapped on the suit's lights and went over to the edge of thecompartment deck. Black water reflected the lights thirty feet below. Hechecked the assortment of tools attached to his belt, nudged the suit'sgravity cutoff to the right, energized magnetic pads on knees, boot tipsand wrists, then fly-walked rapidly down a bulkhead and dropped into thewater.

  "No go, Duomart!" he informed the girl ten minutes later, his voiceheavy with disappointment. "It's an ungodly twisted mess down here ...worse than I thought it might be! Looks as if we'll have to cut all theway through to that vault. Give Egavine the signal to start herding theboys down."

  Approximately an hour afterwards, Miss Mines reported urgently throughthe communicator, "They'll reach the lock in less than four minutes now,Dasinger! Better drop it and come up!"

  "I'm on my way." Dasinger reluctantly switched off the beam-saw he wasworking with, fastened it to the belt of the salvage suit, turned in themurky water and started back towards the upper sections of the wreck.The job of getting through the tangled jungle of metal and plastic tothe gem vault appeared no more than half completed, and the prospect ofbeing delayed over it until the Spy discovered them here began to looklike a disagreeably definite possibility. He clambered and floatedhurriedly up through the almost vertical passage he'd cleared, founddaylight flooding the lock compartment, the system's yellow sun wellabove the horizon. Peeling off the salvage suit, he restored thecommunicator to his wrist and went over to the head of the ramp.

  * * * * *

  The five men came filing down the last slopes in the morning light,Taunus and Calat in the lead, Graylock behind them, the winged animalriding his shoulder and lifting occasionally into the air to flutterabout the group. Quist and Egavine brought up the rear. Dasinger tookthe gun from his pocket.

  "I'll clip my gun to the suit belt when I go back down in the water withthe boys," he told the communicator. "If the doctor's turning any tricksover in his mind, that should give him food for thought. I'll relieveQuist of his weapon as he comes in."

  "What about the guns in Graylock's hut?" Duomart asked.

  "No charge left in them. If I'm reasonably careful, I really don't seewhat Dr. Egavine can do. He knows he loses his half-interest in thesalvage the moment he pulls any illegal stunts."

  A minute or two later, he called out, "Hold it there, doctor?"

  The group shuffled to a stop near the foot of the ramp, staring up athim.

  "Yes, Dasinger?" Dr. Egavine called back, sounding a trifle winded.

  "Have Quist come up first and alone, please." Dasinger disarmed thelittle man at the entrance to the lock, motioned him on to the center ofthe compartment. The others arrived then in a line, filed past Dasingerand joined Quist.

  "You've explained the situation to everybody?" Dasinger asked Egavine.There was an air of tenseness about the little group he didn't like,though tension might be understandable enough under the circumstances.

  "Yes," Dr. Egavine said. "They feel entirely willing to assist us, ofcourse." He smiled significantly.

  "Fine." Dasinger nodded. "Line them up and let's get going! Taunusfirst. Get ..."

  There was a momentary stirring of the air back of his head. He turnedsharply, jerking up the gun, felt twin needles drive into either side ofhis neck.

  His body instantly went insensate. The lock appeared to circle abouthim, then he was on his back and Graylock's pet was alighting with aflutter of wings on his chest. It craned its head forward to peer intohis face, the tip of its mouth tube open, showing a ring of tiny teeth.Vision and awareness left Dasinger together.

  The other men hadn't moved. Now Dr. Egavine, his face a little pale,came over to Dasinger, the birdlike creature bounding back to the edgeof the lock as he approached. Egavine knelt down, said quietly, hismouth near the wrist communicator, "Duomart Mines, you will obey me."

  There was silence for a second or two. Then the communicator whispered,"Yes."

  Dr. Egavine drew in a long, slow breath.

  "You feel no question, no concern, no doubt about this situation," hewent on. "You will bring the ship down now and land it safely beside theAntares. Then come up into the lock of the Antares for furtherinstructions." Egavine stood up, his eyes bright with triumph.

  * * * * *

  In the Mooncat three miles overhead, Duomart switched off her wristcommunicator, sat white-faced, staring at the image of the Antares inthe ground-view plate.

  "Sweet Jana!" she whispered. "How did he ... now what do I ..."

  She hesitated an instant, then opened a console drawer, took out thekwil needle Dasinger had left with her and slipped it into a pocket,clipped the holstered shocker back to her belt, and reached for thecontrols. A vast whistling shriek smote the Antares and the ears ofthose within as the Mooncat ripped down through atmosphere at anunatmospheric speed, leveled out smoothly and floated to the groundbeside the wreck.

  There was no one in sight in the lock of the Antares as Duomart came outand sealed the Mooncat's entry behind her. She went quickly up thebroad, mold-covered ramp. The lock remained empty. From beyond it camethe sound of some metallic object being pulled about, a murmur ofvoices. Twelve steps from the top, she took out the little gun, ran upto the lock and into it, bringing the gun up. She had a glimpse of Dr.Egavine and Quist standing near a rusty bench in the compartment, ofGraylock half into a salvage suit, Dasinger on the floor ... then aflick of motion to right and left.

  The tips of two space lines lashed about her simultaneously, one pinningher arms to her sides, the other clamping about her ankles and twitchingher legs out from beneath her. She fired twice blindly to the left asthe lines snapped her face down to the floor of the compartment. Thegun was clamped beneath her stretched-out body and useless.

  * * * * *

  "What made that animal attack me anyway?" Dasinger asked wearily. He hadjust regained consciousness and been ordered by Calat to join the otherson a rusted metal bench in the center of the lock compartment; Duomartto his left, Egavine on his right, Quist on the other side of Egavine.Calat stood watching them fifteen feet away, holding Dasinger's gun inone hand while he jiggled a few of Hovig's star hyacinths gently aboutin the other.

  Calat's expression was cheerful, which made him the exception here. LiuTaunus and Graylock were down in the hold of the ship, working sturdilywith cutter beams and power hoists to get to the sealed vault and blowit open. How long they'd been at it, Dasinger didn't know.

  "You can thank your double-crossing partner for what happened!" Duomartinformed him. She looked pretty thoroughly mussed up though stillunsubdued. "Graylock's been using the bird-thing to hunt with," shesaid. "It's a bloodsucker ... nicks some animal with its claws and theanimal stays knocked out while the little be
ast fills its tummy. So theintellectual over there had Graylock point you out to his pet, and itwaited until your back was turned...." She hesitated, went on lessvehemently, "Sorry about not carrying out orders, Dasinger. I assumedEgavine really was in control here, and I could have handled _him_. Iwalked into a trap." She fished the shards of a smashed kwil needle outof her pocket, looked at them, and dropped them on the floor before her."I got slammed around a little," she explained.

  Calat laughed, said something in the Fleet tongue, grinning at her. Sheignored him.

  Egavine said, "My effects were secretly inspected while we were at theFleet station, Dasinger, and the Fleetmen have been taking drugs toimmunize themselves against my hypnotic agents. They disclosed this whenMiss Mines brought the speedboat down. There was nothing I could do. Iregret to say that they intend to murder us. They are waiting only toassure themselves that the star hyacinths actually are in the indicatedcompartment."

  "Great!" Dasinger groaned. He put his hands back in a groping gesture tosupport himself on the bench.

  "Still pretty feeble, I suppose?" Miss Mines inquired, gentle sympathyin her voice.

  "I'm poisoned," he muttered brokenly. "The thing's left meparalyzed...." He sagged sideways a little, his hand moving