Part 3

Curt tossed restlessly in his bunk. It wasn't the steady hum of the ionization screen outside that kept him awake. He had a preternatural awareness of something impending. He sat up, and saw that someone was moving about.

Curt swung himself silently to the floor, just as silently crossed the room. It was Lorine. Curt saw the outer door open and close behind her.

Quickly he followed. The jungle clearing was free of fog now. Lorine was hurrying toward the spaceship. Curt followed her inside, then forward to the control-room. He watched her manipulating the V-Panel. Bits of outer space swept into view, together with pin-point gleams that were stars. At last she centered on one. A tiny disc of bright blue. It was Earth.

She leaned forward, gazing at the screen. Curt was startled at the clear-cut radiance of her face. He saw the glint of tears in her eyes, and the lengthening glimmer of one that rolled down her check. He came forward softly.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?"

"I miss Earth," she said simply, looking up.

"All of us feel that, out here. A yearning to get back. But you--"

"I've never been back. Not since I started searching for father, two years ago." She turned her face to the screen, was silent for a moment. "It must have been terrible for you, Curt Emmons. How long were you at the Prison?"

Curt started. It dawned on him that she still regarded him as one of the regulation prisoners. But Jeffers knew better! There must be a reason why he hadn't told her!

"A long time," he answered her question. "Suppose we do find your father," he said slowly. "His life is forfeit anywhere in the Federation. I guess he and Jeffers will start their reign of outlawry again--"

Her face was troubled. "I suppose so, but I've got to find him, Curt! He's in desperate trouble here, and he's still alive. I feel it!"

Curt nodded. Then he was suddenly alert, as a sound reached his ears. It came as a faint hum far above the jungle roof. The propulsion beam of a spacer! It came louder and nearer. Curt raced for the outer lock, stared up into a far-away patch of fog. For the merest instant the fog eddied furiously, as a great bulk that seemed a silvery ghost flashed through. Then it was gone, the deafening drone diminished.

Curt whirled upon Lorine. Her face had gone white.

"The other times you were here! Did you ever see a spacer?"

"Never! I can't believe--"

"Come on." He hurried back to the control-room, clicked off the V-Panel, then began ripping away the wires leading to the directional-finder.

"Man, are you mad? What are you doing?"

"That spacer was coming in for a landing, don't you understand? Here in the Swamp! I'm going to find out where! Quick, bring me a tool-kit."

She hurried to comply. In a few minutes Curt had the directional-finder uncovered. Twin coils of thin, sensitized metal tape were revealed. He unrolled one, stretched it across the room, attached it to the terminals of the starboard magni-plates imbedded in the hull.

"A little trick I once learned. The magni-plates act as a sounding-board, the vibration is carried across this tape to the finder, and recorded. If that ship hasn't landed yet we ought to get an approximate position!"

He clicked on the magni-plate feed. Powerful coils hummed, the tape stretching across the room began to undulate gently.

"We're getting something!" Curt hurried to the finder, turned it on. The second metal tape began unwinding to a rear spool. A beryllium needle scratched a continuous, wavering line along the sensitized surface.

"The spacer's still in flight," Lorine murmured.

"It was heading due south. It's going to berth somewhere in the Swamp!" For five minutes they watched the lengthening line, as the tape slowly unrolled. Ten minutes. Then it stopped abruptly.

"There we have it." Curt spun the tape carefully back into place. "We can follow the route now!" He stared at her. "That ship must have come down at least fifty miles from here! And we were going to fight our way through this jungle?"

"Jeffers and I flew over the Swamp dozens of times," she explained. "We've criss-crossed it from one end to the other, without spotting a single place to land! Except here." She examined the route on the tape, excitement showing in her eyes. "But we'll try it again now. This will save us days!"

It was still a few hours until dawn, but there was no sleep for Curt now. He'd had but the briefest glimpse of the mysterious spacer, but one thing he was sure of. The sound. It hadn't been the sound of a rocket-propelled ship!

His mind went back to Carver of Perlac, found murdered in space, the Frequency Tuner stolen. Curt was certain the silvery spacer he'd just seen was powered by a Frequency Tuner!

VI

"Never saw this done before, Emmons. It's a mighty cute trick!" Jeffers examined the route on the finder-tape. "But how does this guide us?"

"You'll see. We set up a circuit and run this directly to the rocket-feeds! We can't go astray."

At last all was ready. With Lorine again at the controls, the spacer rose into the heavy shrouding clouds. It was ticklish business, and Curt admired the way she upped gravs.

Here there was no dawn. Morning had come as a mere paling of the mists, but hot rain blanketed them as the little spacer drove forward.

Tor Ekkov began an endless, nervous pacing, but Curt and the others huddled over the tape, watching its undeviating movement. In a matter of minutes, Curt realized, they'd reach the place where the unknown spacer had berthed. Perhaps it were best if they didn't set down too near--

Within ten minutes their guiding tape had nearly run its course. Curt hurried to Lorine, spoke something, and she nodded. They began the descent, broke through an under-strata of clouds and were speeding over a limitless expanse of vegetation.

Curt began to understand what Lorine meant. Nowhere could he see a break in the corrupted fungi-growth and giant, spiked ferns that reached above the blanketing steam. Some of those ferns were large enough to impale a spacer!

But luck was with them. As they began a criss-crossing route Curt spied a thinning area through the haze. A narrow, slate-dark opening appeared in the jungle roof, deep and straight as though made by the slice of a giant hand.

Steadying in its course, the ship nosed toward it. There was little room to spare. A yellowish-green gloom engulfed them as they levelled off with a thrust of underhull rockets. Mud and matted vegetation sprayed high about the ports. They sloughed to a stop.

"Nice landing," Curt commented.

"Any landing here is a nice one," Lorine said wryly. She glanced at the totally dark ports. "I wonder if we're below the Swamp! Jeffers, turn off those rocket-feeds!"

Once more they donned the protective suits and helmets. Lorine opened a locker, handed each of them an electro pistol.

"I'll feel better with this," Jeffers said grimly, lifting a long duralloy cylinder with a lens-covered bore. "Radiant-gun," he explained. "Transforms matter into radiant energy, by an instantaneous stripping of electrons. Landreth used to have these at Io Base, but I worked out this smaller model myself."

* * * * *

They stepped down into soft, glutinous muck. Vision stopped five yards away. Curt expected the gloom to come alive with motion and sound and unseen terrors, but there was none of that here. A terrible quiet enfolded them.

The matted-walled chasm seemed to extend interminably. They proceeded along it, finding their vision gradually improved. Curt hurried forward, stayed close beside the girl.

"You mentioned something about a region where these--these Phibians wouldn't go. Did you ever find out why?"

Lorine nodded. "They claimed that far in the Swamp was a god that spoke to them! They were afraid of it."

"Spoke to them?"

"Yes. With the voice that has no sound. Warning them back."

Curt was startled. "The voice that has no sound. Telepathy! But it's strange we've felt nothing!"

There was no sight or sound of a living thing, but hot blasts of wind from above brought a miasmic swamp odor. It became almost an opiate to their senses.

Curt noticed the tangled walls on either side were beginning to widen away. And there was something else, as he felt his mind preternaturally alert despite the cloying odors. He imagined he felt the faintest thought-impression impinging on him, subtle and eerie, almost a feeling of being under surveillance. He glanced about at the others. They were feeling it too.

Suddenly the loom of jungle broke. They emerged into a downward sloping place that seemed all swamp; a vast circular area black and quiescent, with jungle rising on all sides. Descending toward it, they noticed a vague glistening shape protruding just above the area of muck.

"The spacer!" Tor Ekkov exclaimed. "Must be the one you saw, Emmons--it crashed here!"

Curt peered closer, then shook his head. He pointed out greenish swamp tendrils entwining over and about the hull, mute evidence of time.

"It's a spacer all right," Jeffers was taut with excitement. "It's the one Landreth boarded near Io, three years ago! By all that's holy, we've found it!" They could only make out the stern, but the very size of it indicated that the rest of the hull must be gigantic, far beneath the primordial ooze.

Lorine clutched at Curt's arm, pointing. The Swamp moved. The black surface was surging up in a horrible turgid mass. In one place and then another, dark tentacles broke the surface. A central body began to emerge, huge and bulbous beyond belief! It was octopoid--ghastly and gelatinous, the body itself some fifty feet across, with tentacles sprawling the entire diameter of the swamp. It pulled its greenish-gray shape toward the protruding stern of the spacer. Like an ominous guardian it draped itself entirely around and over the polished hull. There it lay, pulsing gently, lord of all it surveyed.

And it surveyed them well! Curt found himself staring into orange-tinted eyes a yard in diameter. Clammy uneasiness took hold of him. Those eyes were bright and alert with meaning!

Curt felt overtones across his mind, saw Rikert's hand flash to his electro. But never reached it. A huge tentacle lashed out. Curt fell prone as it slashed over his head, Rikert ducked away too--but the tentacle seized Jeffers, tightened, lifted him in a sweeping arc.

The others hurried out of danger as more tentacles lashed out. Curt rolled from beneath one of them, threw up an arm against another, and felt his arm go numb from the impact. He stumbled over the radiant cylinder which Jeffers had let fall. Curt seized it, took careful aim.

Radiant energy, Jeffers had said. The beam that lashed from the lens-covered bore was radiant indeed, and it saved Jeffers' life! Curt slashed it squarely across the octopoid bulk and across the eyes. They blanked out in a flash of disorganized electrons. Jeffers came plummeting down, scrambled to safety as Curt swept the radiant beam with devastating effect. In a matter of minutes the haughty guardian of the swamp ceased to move ... then a strange thing happened.

From the tangle of disrupted flesh and shredded integument, a tiny globule of light rose lazily up. Electric-blue, sentient, scarcely a few inches in diameter, it hung poised and gently pulsing.

Rikert took careful aim. Curt whirled, knocked his hand aside. "Don't fire! I want to see where it goes!"

Seeming to lose interest in them, the light drifted, still pulsing, toward the far edge of the swamp. There seemed to be a clearing of some sort. Suddenly the strange light dipped toward the ground and disappeared.

"Should've let me take a shot at that thing," Rikert growled.

"That was an intelligent entity! It may lead us to something."

* * * * *

They circled the swamp area in the direction the light had taken. There was still an eeriness about the place, a brooding overtone they couldn't shake off. At last they reached the opposite side, saw a smooth aisle extending into the jungle. But that's not what brought them up short, staring.

A hundred yards beyond was a milky-white mistiness reaching from wall to jungle wall. And this was not Venusian fog! It remained quiescent. An unearthly blue radiance seemed to shine beyond, giving an impression of vast distance.

Curt said brusquely, "Wait here. Keep out of sight!"

He hurried forward, keeping to the tangled jungle wall wherever possible. As he neared the barrier, it tended toward a semi-translucence. The bluish light beyond seemed to have no source, and Curt had the impression of a vast grotto that reached interminably above, curving away into the fog.

Now he could see vague outlines beyond, towering and bulky. Other shapes moved about, appearing to Curt as shadows seen through faintly frosted glass.

"Buildings--and people!" Undoubtedly, the silver spacer had come here; there was probably an overhead entrance. Curt moved closer, and heard the faintest murmur of sound beyond, as of men and machines at work.

Excitement caught at his brain. Now he knew, with sharp certainty, that he'd found the thing that DeHarries and other planetary leaders were seeking! Only for some inimical purpose would men, whoever they were, band together in so secret and inaccessible spot as K'Yarthan Swamp! Curt examined the barrier. It was some sort of power screen; he felt a dangerous radiation that decided him against trying his electro on it. He hurried back to the others.

"Can't tell how far it extends," he told them. "It's an Electronic Curtain, that's for sure! And there are men and buildings behind it."

"We've got to find an entrance somewhere." A terrible grimness took hold of Lorine, as she thought of her father. But Curt shook his head doubtfully.

"If we tried our electros on it--" This came from Tor Ekkov, and Curt laughed mirthlessly.

"Sure, you try that, if you're tired of your present identity. It would turn you into a billion disorganized electrons!"

"I have an idea." Lorine turned back to the swamp edge. She stood pondering, staring at the stern of the alien spacer. "How far would you say that goes beneath the surface?"

They saw her meaning, as she pointed out the angle of the stern. The spacer was gigantic, and the other end should almost certainly reach somewhere beneath the Electronic Curtain!

They set to work at once. By strewing thick foliage across the mud they formed a path that bore their weight. With electros at pencil-thin sharpness, they began on the spacer hull.

The metal was strange and tough, uncorrosive. Its atomic structure resisted. But after a long while it began to soften, then to melt away in radiant froth. A circular section gave way, fell slowly inward. Flash-beams revealed a long empty corridor sloping gently down.

A kind of grill-work along the floor gave them foothold as they passed slowly along the central corridor. Gradually it widened out. They saw row upon row of arched cross-corridors, with walls curving far overhead into interlacing spans and beams. Ceiling globes of green radiance cast a macabre glow along their route.

If George Landreth had boarded this spacer, there was no evidence of it now! They walked on, staring around at the widening walls that sent back solemn echoes of their footsteps. The ship was a colossus! Curt was estimating that they'd come a good quarter of a mile already, when they reached a bulwark directly across the corridor.

The wall was massive, coppery, engraven with thousands of inter-twining figures. Rikert raised his electro to burn a way through, but Lorine stopped him.

"We'd best save our weapons! They're already weak."

Good advice, Curt thought grimly. They were rushing headlong into trouble. It was Tor Ekkov at last who found the mechanism, a row of tiny hidden studs. There came a faint droning sound as he fumbled at them. Then slowly, ponderously, the entire wall slid upward.

Weapons held in readiness, they waited. But no motion or sound came from beyond. They stepped through, found themselves in a vast circular room so startling in its content that they were held taut in amazement.

* * * * *

Here were machines, of every sort and description, every size and purpose. Bewildering units which somehow, seemed to form a definite pattern. Rows of them stood against the circular wall. Tier upon tier of switchboards, coils, banks of tubes, reached to the ceiling.

Here, Curt knew, was the spacer's central control! But close examination showed that much of this equipment was smashed irreparably. The forward wall itself was crumpled and twisted. Then Curt noticed many bank niches about the wall, indicating that some of the machines had been removed. He frowned at that.

Tor caught Curt's eye. The Martian was standing before a towering instrument. It was alien too, but there was something familiar in the arrangement of the huge power-tubes and the coils leading up to a faceted screen.

"Tele-Magnum!" Tor whispered fiercely. "Or something mighty similar! Seems to work on the same etheric principle that we--"

Curt cut him short. Despite everything, Tor had but one thought in mind--getting his voice through to Mars!

"There's another door over here!" Rikert called.

The only mechanism on this door was a two-inch disc that swung back to reveal a small opening, interlaced with silver wires. Then, in a rack near by, Jeffers spied a tiny metal tube. He lifted it out gingerly.

"Take a chance," Lorine nodded. "This may be the exit we're looking for."

Jeffers aimed the tube into the opening. A beam of red light lanced through the wires. They heard a faint ripple of music, then a soft whirr as the door swung back.

It was no exit, however. They stared into a room where hundreds of crystalline coffins reposed, row upon row. They were cube-like, perhaps two feet in dimension. Within each cubicle was a drift of almost colorless substance which might have been either fluid or gaseous.

But what held their gaze were the things deep within the substance!

They were globules, gelatinous, tear-dropped in shape with the tapering ends down. They gently swayed and pulsed, and deep within them could be seen a central core of _electric-blue_ with an interlacing of tiny filaments.

"They're in some sort of suspended animation!" Curt took a step into the room. A feeling of incredible age was about the place. Curt walked between row after row of the cubicles, making closer examination of the strange life-forms. Beyond all doubt, these were identical to the pulsing globe of light which had emerged from the body of the octopoid creature!

"Emmons, come back," Lorine called from the door. "I--I don't think this place is safe!"

Curt didn't think so either. They returned to the room of machines, closing the door carefully. Lorine stared around, perplexed.

"There must be an exit somewhere!"

"Quite right, young lady. And now that you are here, I'll be glad to show you."

It was a strange, mocking voice that came from behind them. They whirled about, peering into the shadows.

* * * * *

From a little alcove beneath a tier of machines stepped an Earthman. He was tall, young, blond. Four electros swung instantly up to cover him.

Only Curt didn't hold an electro, and now he snapped, "Put those guns away!" He peered again. "I know this man!"

The stranger's smile vanished. Puzzlement came across his face as he turned gray eyes upon Curt. He seemed searching his mind, trying to recall something deeply imbedded in the matrix of the past.

"Robert Frane," Curt said. "Good lord, man, don't you recognize me? Curt Emmons! You knew me at Government Spacer School--"

"Robert Frane ... yes. That is my name." It seemed an effort for him to recall it. It was apparent he didn't recognize Curt. Curt gave it up for the moment, studying him, wondering at the strange, puzzled look of the man. Frane spoke in clipped phrases.

"You killed our guardian. Of course. That's how we became aware of your presence. But how could you have known of this place? How did you come here?"

"We'll ask the questions, Earthman!" A strength seemed to rise in Lorine as she came a step forward, eyes blazing, electro held high. "Is George Landreth here? Answer me that!"

"George ... Landreth." Again that strangeness about Frane, a shadow across the eyes. "I believe that such a one is here."

"Then you will take us to him. At once!"

"Presently," the man contradicted. "Just now I will take your weapons, please. All of them." It was not so much a command as a statement, seeming so ridiculous that a loud guffaw come from Rikert. Lorine came forward, not smiling, and thrust the electro hard against Frane's side.

"Enough of this talk. Your choice! Take us at once to George Landreth or I'll blast you here and now!"

The man seemed unconcerned. "That you will never do. Look about you."

From beneath the machines a dozen men had silently entered the room. They were unarmed, except for the nets they carried--nets that flowed as if woven of fire.

"Magna-webs!" gasped Lorine. "Back, _back_ Curt!"

But she was too late. Before Curt and the others could react to her panicked words, the strange men flung the nets at them. They only lifted their arms and released the magna-webs, which floated through the air with deceptive swiftness.

Curt grabbed Lorine to hurl her back. And then the glowing nets settled over their shoulders, the fiery strands sending numbing tingles deep into their flesh. Curt tried to reach his electro, but his hand was nerveless. Scalpels of fire sliced through his brain. He felt a vast tiredness in the instant before a rushing darkness came.

* * * * *

It could only have been minutes. Curt found himself struggling up, fighting against a numbness that clung to his limbs. He saw Lorine and the others stagger erect. Frane's men were confiscating the weapons.

"I hope you will not make this necessary again," Frane said without emotion. "Believe me, it could be fatal."

Curt believed him. He set his lips grimly. Without further ado, the newcomers were hurried through one of the secret exits. Tor Ekkov gave a last, longing look at the Tele-Magnum device.

They passed through a long, illuminated corridor with walls of shining substance, leading directly away from the prow of the alien spaceship. Curt forced his way ahead to walk beside Frane.

"You're Robert Frane, all right," Curt glanced at the man's face. "Sure you don't remember me, Frane?"

The man turned colorless eyes upon Curt. A shrug was in his voice. "I may have known you once."

Curt gave it up. He turned his mind to that terrible combined potential which had struck them down. These men were possessed of a power that was more than telepathic. The octopoid creature had been telepathic too. Curt recalled the strange life-form rising from the mangled body of the octopoid, and the hundreds of similar life-forms inside the spacer. A truth was dawning that left Curt numb with horror.

He let his hand brush the bare forearm of the man walking next to him. He felt a faint tingling through his fingertips that was something more than electrical.

A car awaited them, its dark blue hull gleaming and translucent. They crowded in. A propulsion beam hummed, and they rose straight up with sickening speed.

Again Curt spoke to Frane, "Where are you taking us?"

"To our Leader! The Zemmd!" Emotion came into Frane's voice, a tone of such awe that Curt was startled.

"The Zemmd," Curt repeated, not liking the sound of it. The car came to a halt. The door slid smoothly back.