Part 2

He released the drapes and turned aside with a cry in his heart. Only now did he fully realize the fatalistic spirit which drove Del Andres: the devil-may-care fearlessness, the sheer recklessness, the constant hoping, perhaps, for death.

Small wonder that Hunter Frederix left that shrine and quested inward, saddened immeasurably by what he had seen and what he had so suddenly realized. For he had seen, in that moment, into the hidden recesses of a great man's soul.

The dining salle opened before him, seemingly converted into a species of _chambre-des-horreurs_ since robot parts were strewn all over the place: limbs, wires, sockets, photocells, small atomic motors. Robot control was a hobby of Andres--a robot of his making had, at Kackijakaala, entered and opened the gates of the fortress at which the Legion had hammered futilely for months on end in conquering the Dwares of Centauri and bringing peace and prosperity to the system's many races--prosperity and _the ultimate hope of cosmic conquest_!

He crossed the sill, started hurriedly towards a radio cabinet in the far corner. Simultaneously a door nearby fell silently open and what he saw caused, at first, a smile to flash across his bearded face.

Into the room came a tiny form, probably three feet tall, hairy and chubby like a Ganymedean monkey, its face a delicate pink, its large eyes an innocent baby-blue, dominating a pudgy simian face. A robot, no less--the robot about which Del had talked--whose comical aspect was not at all in keeping with the grim menace of a paralysis-pellet gun in one manual extremity and a disrupter in the other! Its thick lips parted and a reproduction of Andres' voice said:

"Don't move or I shall be forced to shoot. You will kindly remain as you are until Del Andres returns!" Whereupon the litany continued rapidly in Lalandean and Centaurian and abated.

Frederix stood frozen in his tracks, his smile gone now. He'd heard of automatic robots before, guarding bleak, desolate outposts in the still watches of extra-terrestrial nights whose weapons would be automatically discharged should anything change the visual pattern on their photocells during or after the warning.

The suspense was maddening. A radio transmitter and receiver stood scant feet away, and he dared not move to reach them--the means of calling Kaa, of sending angry ships swarming at Calidao, for perhaps (a _perhaps_ that was maddening in its import)--perhaps Onupari had not swept into the void with his cargo of death.

Andres had spoken of some intelligence manifest in the robot's actions. Might it then understand if he spoke to it?

"I am Hunter Frederix, Del Andres' friend," he said softly, scarcely moving his lips. The robot remained motionless, irresponsive. Was it merely the sparking of relays or had he described a gleam of something else in those mechanical eyes?

He talked on, explaining the entire situation. Abruptly, amazingly, the automaton sheathed its weapons.

Frederix turned towards the radio, astounded by what he had seen, striving to give the exhibition of understanding some explanation which did not admit of a created mentality; then, without, he heard the jetting of a landing gyrotomic.

* * * * *

A warm, excited cry cut the silence of the old mansion:

"Hunt! I thought you'd come here! Oh, I knew Dave was wrong!"

Del Andres rushed into the room, his dark face agleam, his strong arms outstretched in welcome greeting.

Frederix caught his hands, crushed them and said nothing.

"We captured a Vron, learned that they have sent an Armada--"

"I know," Frederix said simply.

"Oh, I knew they'd come!" Andres raced on. "I warned the Legion years ago; but they knew more than I who lived with the Vrons at Centauri, who--well, it doesn't matter! What matters is that I know them for what they are: cruel, domineering, the greatest actors in the universe; and when they want something--power or love or gold, it doesn't matter which for their fancies change in a moment--nothing will stop their mad rush towards that goal--" Suddenly he was staring into the shadowed room whence he had come and there was bitterness in his dark eyes--the bitterness of cruel and undimmed memories.

"But they must be stopped!" Frederix cried.

"We'll stop them!" whispered Andres, his strong, white teeth bared almost wolfishly. "The Legion can't get back in time; but we've worlds to defend, Hunt, and the courage to defend them. But why did Dave Cravens name you traitor?"

He could talk now. He could empty his bursting heart. Swiftly he recounted everything from those dangerous moments in Certagarni to the present.

"We'll win through!" Andres cried, his great hands strong and encouraging on Frederix's shoulders. "We'll get the Kaa ships to Calidao; we'll wireless Earth; we'll curb it now while it's not too late! Their armada is years away; much can be done ere it comes!

"Why, we've already downed the Certagarni squadron and reestablished control there and in Botrodus!"

That supreme confidence banished the hopeless resignation in Frederix's heart, buoyed him up and gave him newborn hope.

Andres was smiling, reaching into the young engineer's open helmet to grasp his golden beard in iron fingers, to tug at it playfully.

"Getting gray, fella! Must've happened when I shot you down!"

That broke the strain. They grinned boyishly at each other; then Del spun on his heel, walked to the radio cabinet, and simultaneously a carbon copy of his own voice cried in mockery:

"Don't move a muscle or I shall be forced to shoot."

He started to turn; the robot's unsheathed pellet gun coughed and Del toppled over against the transmitter, smashing the bared, delicate condensers into nothingness as he dropped into paralysis.

Frederix stood stunned. "No ... no ..." he murmured; and then he was leaping forward, tears of rage and futility in his eyes, to lift Del to a nearby couch, to call to him incoherently.

He looked then to the robot standing silently nearby. The curses on his lips were never uttered, for flooding into his mind came a strong feeling of sorrow, regret, and the automaton was extending the weapons to him grip foremost, as though their surrender might repair the damage done!

He tried to fight off the thoughts which thronged the threshold of his mind then. He tried to think of Del and of Onupari and his death cargo, of hellish death rushing across the light years towards Sol; but instead he could think only of the things Del had told him of creating this robot, powering it with a full gram of radium, releasing intelligence.

That there was intelligence here, he did no longer question. A reasoning intellect which had forbade slaying him and now had done this inexplicable thing. Or did it have complete control of the robot's form? Had it acted of its own accord or had the robot's relays automatically caused this dilemma? That final thought brought a counter-thought, a clear and sorrowing affirmation!

But how could he credit anything existing independent of a flesh and blood body as having intelligence? Must not every life form remain an insoluble psychophysical being?

And yet--is not the basis of all things electrical? Life and all that pertains to it and the universe? Why not, then, a pure, radioactive intelligence? Could it not have arisen by evolving degrees from the complexity of atomic fluctuations finding genesis in the pitted core of Pallas--where Andres, prospecting to pass empty days away, had found it--a sentient consciousness born in cosmic loneliness out of the very fabric of the universe? Had not One Other thus found genesis?

The weird new wonder of it strong within him, Frederix looked down at Andres, silent, immovable on the couch. A strange little smile played on sensitive, parted lips beneath the thin black mustache. Frederix wondered if he dreamed--

Spinning around to the radio, he discovered that to repair it would take hours. Yet he must call Kaa, summon the Service men, and depart in Del's ship for Calidao, on the slim chance that Onupari might still be there and that he might stay the take-off.

Atomics moaning above. He rushed to the window. Five ships V-ed into the south, magnificent against a dust-darkened sky, flashing swiftly out of sight under full power. Service ships, so near and yet so far!

Of course, the ship! Del's ship would have radio equipment. He rushed out on the impulse, his breath coming fast within his helmet.

Snapping on the transmitter, he called quickly into the microphone:

"Frederix calling KBM, Kaa. Calling KBM...."

QRM snapped through his receiver, born of those lowering skies over Botrodus, one of those rare but violent sandstorms come to disrupt radio communication.

Now a calm official voice answered, badly distorted by atmospheric disturbance:

"KBM to Frederix. What (brrrrrt) ... message?"

"Andres is paralyzed at the Rendezvous. Send a doctor. Send all available ships to Calidao--"

"Andres paralyzed.... Rendezvous.... Repeat ... mess ... can't...."

Frederix repeated grimly, persistently, but Kaa kept calling:

"KBM ... do not get ... repeat ... K ... rrrrrrrr...."

And then QRM blotted even that out.

* * * * *

Disgustedly he turned towards the port and the grim old mansion looming large in the cold, storm-born dusk, and hesitated. The message had gotten through. They at least knew Andres' condition and position; they would doubtless come plunging to the Rendezvous. He must leave a message!

Moments later he returned to the ship, a disrupter and a freshly-charged paralysis-pellet gun buckled at his waist. Before him scurried the automaton, its tragi-comic simian face turned back to him as if exhorting him to greater speed.

Gently, awesomely, almost reverently (for is not reverence born in recognition of the mighty and the mystic unknown which man cannot quite understand?), he handed the monkey-like thing into the cabin and followed.

Blasting off, he set a Mercator course, with all due corrections, for Calidao. Soon he outflew the fringes of the storm and then night fell like a finely-stitched widow's veil, the stars danced crazily as the air cooled, and he was alone in the darkness, roaring at full speed towards Calidao. Alone, aye, save for the weird little robot standing by his side, whatever life it possessed recording his every movement.

Gloom and hope held thrall in his soul. Things had seemed soluble with Andres smiling and pledging his support. Now he had weapons and a ship and a strong feeling that Onupari was still in Calidao, but--he was alone! Del was not here to help him. Still, he did have weapons. He might--

Aye, gloom was fighting a losing battle. A transcendental confidence was stirring his breast--and yet he wondered if it were not telepathic hypnosis finding genesis in the mind of the alien life which was close beside him? What were the limits of its intellect? What aid might it give? He did not dare to even wonder.

IV

Who could say what thoughts, emotions, surged through the robot's mind? Intelligence there was and an undeniable strength inspiring confidence.... And something greater--some indefinable prowess beyond, perhaps, the ken of man--

Calidao, city of mystic intrigue, cosmopolitan city where Solarian, Centaurian and Lalandean hold daily intercourse, bartering in lives and souls, and in treasures and alien lore whose origin and significance shall remain forever hidden in the womb of time--

Thither flashed Frederix in the dead of night, riding the radio beam in from the direction of Kaa. Starshine alone and what light the almost indetectable moons gave illumined the semi-somnolent cosmopolis. Along the main artery, famed Space Boulevard, the varicolored lights of night clubs blazed up through the glassite vaults; the spaceport, a mile and more out of town, shone in a wavering splendour of swirling beacons, pointing white, stabbing fingers into the dark, and the whole was flooded intermittently with brightest green as the great concentration of spacelamps flashed a mighty, guiding column upward and outward to whatever craft might move across the firmament.

Frederix drove down low over the port, searching for sight of a large black freighter marked with Onupari's famous (and infamous) boxed-star insignia. Just as he was rewarded by a glimpse of it lying in the ways, just as exultation swept in a warm tide over him, a blindingly-crimson blast seared up from beneath, cutting a great gap in the left wing, waving futilely after him as he careened into the night, his tortured sight seeping slowly back, trying desperately to keep the crippled ship awing.

He realized that the Calidaoan Vrons and sympathizers bought with golden coins, promises of greatness, and freedom from the "Anarchy of Earth," had indeed taken dictatorial possession of Calidao and were guarding well the ship of Onupari which would bring death to the Double World.

Opening the purring atomics wide, he swept in a wide arc far out over the wastes and back to the farther side of the city, and, cutting in the infra-red viewplates, glided to a swift albeit unsteady landing on the verge of the encircling desert.

He hesitated, but the robot, dropping to the ground, led him unerringly to a small lock opening on one of the back streets. Pausing in the darkness, Frederix peered through the glassite wall.

A young Martian policeman stood smoking thoughtfully beneath a carbon arc, handsome and proudly erect in his bright, apparently-new uniform, quite alone in this narrow thoroughfare.

Frederix's hand dropped to the disrupter, shifted to the needle-gun, and, opening the lock slowly, he aimed and pressed the trigger. Leaping within, he caught the paralyzed youth, lowering him into the shadows of a nearby doorway.

A surge of commendation beat in his brain--praise for his choice of weapons. For why should one so young and handsome die? Why should any of Sol's disillusioned billions die because of a few greedy men who had rushed into a band which would damn the entire system unless someone revealed their duplicity, which had already precipitated all manner of internal strife? Violence would avail naught; they must be shown the plain truth of it so that they might live and be free!

The robot hurried away now, turned swiftly in a high-arched tunnel which intersected the street, and led Frederix to the fantastically carven front of a large mansion whose portal had been but recently blasted asunder. Over that shattered door was the crest of Jethe the munitions baron, and _within the room_--

Nausea seized Frederix's stomach. Hoary-haired Jethe, dealer in power for peace or war, was sprawled across a paper-strewn table in terrible death, his wizened face and body ribboned into one horrible mess of blood and gore, sliced by a disrupter, signature no doubt of Meevo or Onupari--

Dizzy with the sheer bestiality of the scene but driven by some manner of apprehension, Frederix threaded his way through the debris to an all-wave radio clinging on the farther wall, snapped the switch and dialed to the Kaa frequency.

A message was coming through, clear now, proof that the sandstorm had subsided and skies were clear. Frederix recognized the cold emotionless voice of Blake, the Kaa chief operator.

"... the message you've found may ring true, but in the light of Cravens' message from Certagarni, proving Frederix to be in league with anti-service factions, we find that we cannot send ships to a possible trap in Calidao until you've learned from Andres what's really behind all this. Please inform us of any developments. Off!"

Oh, the blind fools! They had found Andres and the message but would do nothing until the paralytic spell had worn away! And Onupari must have been in this room hours before; his ship, prepared for flight, must have long been loaded! He left the place of death at a run.

The tiny monkey-thing led the way toward Space Boulevard, and into the engineer's mind an encouraging thought came. _Onupari has not left!_ And Frederix raged inwardly against the callousness, the bloodlust of that fat, swarthy renegade whom he had seen so many times glossing over crimes charged to him by the Embassy.

The freighter had not taken off yet; the thunder of its atomics would have been easily heard. He might yet--_what_? If the Service men--_If_--

As if they, trying to resuscitate an unconscious man almost an hour's flight away, could come in time!

V

Dwells there a thing in all of space Without a smile to light its face? Intellect: Puck's dwelling place? "What fools we mortals be!"

Ahead he saw an enormous Geissler tube sign flashing alternately with neon's bright red and argon's blue:

THE SPACASINO Dine & Dance--Floorshow Tonite Joy Rikki & Martian Madcaps

and simultaneously, he heard voices and the double tread of footsteps down a cross street. The robot slipped intelligently into the shadow of an ornate doorway and he followed.

Coarse voices--the voices of space-hardened men:

"We gotta git Manuel out to the ship. 'S been loaded since sundown. What'll the Envoy think? Cripes, we're behind schedule now--'most a day!"

"You git 'im out! Ain't I tried? Y'know 'ow 'e is when 'e gits drunk! Give the blighter a bevy of chorines to dance in front of 'im and some vod-vil stuff and the blinkin' fool will set there all the bloomin' night 'e will, if 'e's anywheres near tight, an 'ell itself won't move 'im!"

... The voices became inaudible--

Inspiration came to Hunter Frederix then. It was a futile, vain hope. It was a desperate gamble and Death held the odds; but an hour's delay might mean success. Andres would soon be conscious; the rockets would flash out of Botrodus.

A wild plan flashed across his brain, and then a pure thought which held in it understanding and acknowledgment--understanding of one man's weakness and acknowledgment of another's genius.

He looked down at the robot, saw the photocellular eyes turned upwards to his face. Despite the seriousness of it all, he smiled crookedly as he caught the automaton up in his arms and hurried across to a doorway marked plainly "Stage Door--No Loiterers!"

The door opened as he crossed the photo-electric eye on the threshold, and he came upon a hectic scene: a sweating, cigar-chewing manager upbraiding a group of voluptuous chorines.

"Listen, girls, please can't you think up a new routine? This fellow's a madman when he's drunk and he might take it in his cranium to tear the joint apart. How's about that Starshine Sequence?"

Frederix shouldered his way brusquely through the surprised throng, ignoring the angry remarks which came as his metal suit brushed bare arms and backs. No time for pardons now; seconds meant life or death--

"Hey, Mac!" he said by way of introduction. "Could you use an act?"

The irate manager surveyed the big, purposeful man inside the oxysuit, grinned and said:

"Listen, Goldilocks, whatcha think this is--a bearded man's convention?"

"Never mind about the customers!" the engineer burst in repartee, smiling though his heart was grim. "I've a trained, talking Ganymedean ape here. I'll give you an act that'll knock 'em wild if you'll announce me now and give me a dressing room for about ten minutes. Oke?"

A system was hanging on the balance in the weighing of a few, short, seemingly lightly-spoken words--the future of many kindred races sprung from a common sun who labored now under greatest stress--And the grinning manager must have sensed the aura of seriousness and power about the unshaven man and his strange companion, for his face grew sober.

"What's the act like, pal?"

"Ever hear the '_Saga-of-Sal_'?"

"I've heard _of_ it!"

"Tonight you'll hear _it_!"

Frederix's heart was beating with the power surges of a liquid-rocket's blast as he hurried into the dressing room, completely removed his helmet, splashed on fiery pseudo-pirate make-up, darkened his golden beard, and then turned his attention to the stoic robot.

Time flew with the beating of his heart. Removing the robot's system of speech, he set the disks awhirl, loosening the bolts which held the 144 common units of enunciation in a fixed order. Transcribing his reedy falsetto onto the disks, remembering some of the great poem, extemporizing with his natural flair for poetry, he recited some of the choicest lines; then locked the enunciator unit and lay the robot aside with an air of confidence and satisfaction.

Carefully he obliterated with make-up any distinguishing signs on the government suit; then hurried out into the wings, the monkey-thing scurrying before--

(The rockets are coming from Kaa, from Kaa, Out of Kaa flashing flames in the night.)

* * * * *

All spacemen have heard the "Saga-of-Sal," repeated from expedition quarters on Pluto into the English colony in Mercury's twilight zone, Sal, the throaty torch-singer from dear old Boston at the very sound of whose magic voice the maharajahs of Mars went into ecstasy and who spurned them all to marry a blue midget from Callisto.

Conceived by some long-dead bard with the virile, full style of a Kipling, it had been handed from mouth to mouth, every minstrel singing it differently; but none of them ever had cause to sing it quite like Hunter Frederix and his futuristic concept of a vaudeville stooge did that wild night in the Spacasino while he waited, his life hanging on a thread, anticipating momentary recognition, praying for the sound of rockets out of Kaa.

The automaton scampered out in advance and a howl of laughter shook the terra cotta walls. Frederix glimpsed Manuel Onupari rising from a drink-laden table beyond the arc-lamps, a reluctant scowl on his black-jowled, evil face as he argued vehemently with a Vron who was plainly encouraging the renegade's men to take their leader to the waiting ship.

But at the sound of applause, Onupari shook himself free and sank back into his seat, exploding in drunken laughter, calling for more wine.

(Out of Kaa flashing flames in the night--)

A sigh of relief on his lips, Frederix looked down at that pink, bewhiskered face, unspeakably comical, unspeakably innocent as they swung into the Saga, holding its cues while the crowd roared, giving them full punch under the sensitive direction of the electrical life which seemed to know so much of all things.

"I will take my atomic and sweep through the stars And chase all the girlies from Pluto to Mars; I'm a knight with a steed which belches out flame; I'm a whooper, by golly, Vamose is my name!

"Monk is my partner--he rides on my knee! He flirts with them girlies, what a grand sight to see! From Callisto to Luna, from mountain to shore We still are a-whoopin'; may the rockets roar!"

Whereupon they swung into an animated recital of how they, privateers ranging the void, had heard Sal broadcasting from a Martian station, and, unutterably fascinated by her siren's call, landed only to be turned over to the Service since she was a Service dame, and to sit in a jail cell and watch her say I do to that Callistan blue midget in a magnificent jail house wedding for dear old publicity's sake! What a wild, uproarious yarn that was; what shouting, whistling, stomping arose in that semi-barbaric place!

And the minutes were fleeing--and the miles behind the ships plunging onward--

* * * * *

Mad thunder of applause broken by an equally mad roar. Meevo, pale, wild-eyed, bursting into the club, crying out:

"Onupari! Planes riding the beam in from Kaa--two hundred miles away! Come on, you drunken fool!" And Meevo jerked the drunken commander to his unsteady feet, slapped his face with an insane violence, threw him into the arms of some less-drunken men and rushed them and his fellow Vron out into the night.