Part 3

His guide and two others whisked him off his feet and soared upward through the mists. Once aloft, his low-gravity weight seemed no burden to them. In flight, their awkwardness vanished quickly, and they swam about with ease and grace. The approach to their temple may have been ritual; it was certainly not direct.

Wilding's senses spun. He felt nauseated and alarmed.

The Pit Man trio swooped down and deposited Wilding solidly on a platform built into the cage.

On the platform, paddling about mysterious ceremonies, was a very old, very gray, and very dusty Pit Man. He looked more like an owl than anything else. He goggled and waddled ponderously. He made a bobbing obeisance to a gigantic image, and to Wilding the ritual posturing was both solemn and impressive.

So was the idol. It was towering, of some burnished red metal, and represented a being completely non-anthropomorphic, like those strange and morbid Pzintar images Wilding had seen on Mars. Ancient Mars had worshipped beings neither birds nor serpents, but mending qualities and appearances of both. This idol was like those, though not an exact duplication. It represented something utterly alien to man, infinitely wise, infinitely benevolent, infinitely sad. There was no suggestion of good or evil; there was only calm acceptance and understanding of things as they are, and a serene certainty in things as they should be....

Wilding stared upward at the gigantic symbol, and felt a stir of religious awe.

The owl-like priest spoke then. He spoke in good, cultured Martian, though his vocal apparatus massacred word sounds.

"Even the gods die," he said in whistling accents. "Or they grow bored and tired and go away. The gods are beyond understanding, and sometimes we are beyond their understanding as well."

Wilding shivered as if a blast from icy eternities blew over him.

"My time is short," he said quickly. "I came to ask help from you, but a man's bones and flesh can stand only brief exposure to this radiation. If I stay here too long, I will die."

"Perhaps you will be reborn as a Pit Man," suggested the old priest philosophically.

The possibility was no consolation to Wilding.

He talked quickly, outlining his project, stating his needs, and the possible gain to the Pit Men in co-operating with him.

"I plan to escape with the bulk of the prisoners," he said. "If you will help, you can have your asteroid to yourselves again."

"How could we help you?"

"The Pit Folk are immune to radiation that is deadly to us. We have no shielding, so we cannot handle or process the radioactive ores. We can provide equipment, if you will supply the labor. All we want is enough to power heavy machines for two weeks, and sufficient purified atomic fuel to power the space-lighter on a short voyage. It will not require much knowledge or labor for that."

The gray priest was thoughtful. "If you escape in that small lighter, not many of the prisoners can go with you."

"Not many," agreed Wilding. "Not in the lighter. I intend to seize the supply ship and take along all who wish to go."

"There will still not be space enough for all," said the priest gravely. "What of those who will remain behind?"

* * * * *

Wilding grunted. "That is not my problem. Perhaps the guards will send out and pick them up. Certainly there will be an investigation and no more prisoners will be sent here. I will leave you the means to dispose of the remaining prisoners. If they try to harm you, I leave the decision in your hands. You can destroy all of them."

"You are a more ruthless people than my race," commented the old Pit Man.

"Circumstances sometimes require me to be ruthless," Wilding replied, without apology. "It is like surgery, needed to remove cancerous tissue. Will you help?"

"I do not know," said the priest. He moved to the edge of the platform, and suddenly was surrounded by swarming hordes of the Pit Men. There was no audible consultation, no words, no waving of the flipper limbs. Music died away into silence.

Finally the gathering broke up and the Pit Men swooped away in all directions.

"What was that--a council talk?" asked Wilding.

The gray old priest goggled at him. "Not in words. Not talk in the sense you mean. My people are a symbiotic group, all parts of one personality. Each colony is group-brain, a group nervous system, the individuals are its limbs and organs. We have no speech, and communicate with each other by what you would call telepathy--though it is not that. We are not individuals at all, but parts of a great organism. Vocal sound with us is not communication, but an expression of mood-music."

Wilding looked upward at the gigantic image. "If you are still undecided, why not ask your gods?" he inquired cynically.

The priest whistled words in an eery tone. "One does not disturb the gods with questions unless he wants disturbing answers. We have already reached our decision. We will help you escape."

Wilding gave swift instructions and the priest agreed upon terms and methods of carrying them out.

Without visible or audible summons, Wilding's Pit Man guide reappeared suddenly, swooping down from the brilliance near the roof of the cavern. He settled with a flutter of membranes and a flurry of flippers.

"This one will return you to your own kind," said the priest. "You will not come here again, for this cavern is sacred to us. And there must be no more seizing and eating of Pit Men."

"There will be none," Wilding promised savagely. "Not after I warn the convicts that if any incidents occur, I will turn the human offenders over to you for punishment."

The priest shook his head. "No, we don't want that."

"I don't understand," protested Wilding.

"You must take responsibility for your own kind. That is our law. In your dealings with us, it must be yours."

Wilding shrugged, then agreed soberly. It seemed that his authority carried accumulating responsibility with it.

Return to the prison colonies of the outer caverns was without incident. Though surprised to see him alive, his fellow convicts received his news boisterously. Wilding cut short their enthusiasm and rapidly assigned tasks.

Time was short, and there was much to be done. For reasons concerned with the relative proximity to a new-type spaceship that he had previously cached in the asteroid belt, everything must be accomplished before the next scheduled arrival of the supply ship, or even sooner if an unscheduled prisoner delivery should occur. With atomic power, anything was possible. Prisoners turned to with a will as soon as radioactive ores, already processed, began to pour into the caverns, proving the Pit Men as good as their word. Grouth and Wilding oversaw the tooling of weapons and stockpiling of vital supplies. Concor supervised technical jobs.

Work went on. In any subsurface world, time is arbitrary, an artificial thing of clockwork and labor expended. It passed rapidly.

IV

A full day before the two weeks were up, Wilding was rushing conversion of the lighter to completion. Everything else was in readiness. Food, weapons and a store of ammunition were stacked on the landing stages for loading. Some would go into the lighter, the rest would be at hand awaiting the capture of the supply ship.

Aboard the lighter, technicians made final adjustments and tests. Among them, making herself both useful and ornamental, was Amyth.

Tiny had parked herself at Wilding's elbow. She reeked of poisonous mushroom beer. She was drunk and talking.

"Your eyes follow her," Tiny observed shrewdly.

"They do," Wilding admitted. "I'm curious about her. What could she have done to be sent here?"

"Amyth was born here. She's never had a chance to do anything. Can you imagine what such a life means to a girl like that?"

Wilding shuddered. "I don't have to imagine."

"She's tough," went on Tiny. "Only the tough ones survive. The authorities don't recognize their existence. They send men and women here, with all the fences down, then close their eyes. Maybe nobody told them about the birds and bees. Amyth is my sister's child. She grew up here, knows nothing but this prison life."

"She grew up all over," commented Wilding.

Tiny's eyes bubbled, like sunlight dancing in a glass of beer. "She's vicious as a blaster discharge, but as clean. Don't get any wrong ideas. I taught her to take care of herself. But she's still woman enough to think and feel. She likes you, made that dress specially for you to see her in it."

Wilding grunted unhappily. Even in Hell--complications.

"I can still see most of her in it. What's she trying to sell? I don't need a seamstress or dress designer, or a wife."

"You need something," rumbled Tiny. "Give her a break, man. Amyth's a flower growing in a trash heap. She deserves something better than this. Maybe you don't want her, and maybe you never will. But if you break out of here, take her along."

Wilding nodded. "If she wants to go along, I'll take her. I can't promise any more than that. Can I trust you, Tiny?"

The Amazon smiled grimly. "You can--now. Some of us can't go, I know that. Even if your plans work out, there won't be room for all. For me it doesn't matter too much. Sure, I'd like to get drunk once more on good stuff. I'd like to walk crowded streets and push people off the sidewalks. But that doesn't count, really."

Wilding smiled, then sobered. "None of us are going back to that kind of life, Tiny. Sure, we could mix for a while and get away with it. Some might disappear for good. But we haven't changed. We're the same people, and under the same conditions, we'd just go wrong again and end in the same pot. I want something else. I want conditions so different that we can't go on being the same warped and misfit people. We're heading out, away from the solar system. I want a brand new, uninhabited planet to colonize. A world so new and different that we'll all have to change to survive. My plan is to give all of us a fresh start."

"You have more faith in people than I do. They won't change."

"They'll have to ... or die."

Tiny whistled and swallowed hard. "It sounds wonderful and a little crazy, too. Where do you expect to find such a planet?"

Wilding answered slowly. "I don't know. It's a calculated risk. I was a successful criminal, Tiny. I made a lot of money in plunder, and most of it I used to buy and equip a spaceship. It's the biggest and best ever made, and it has a new kind of drive not released yet. That ship can reach the nearer stars in weeks, rather than years. The ship is hidden among the asteroids. That's the reason I'm in such a nightmare hurry. Right now, the asteroids are within cruising range; later on, the supply ship would never reach that orbit."

"Do you know that the nearer stars have such planets? Even if they have planets at all?"

"Nobody knows. But I'm gambling on it. I needed a tough crew, and women used to hardships for colonists. There's a big gamble to start, then the rest is savage battle for survival--even if we're lucky. I knew I'd be caught and sent here eventually, so I gambled on that, too. Now I'll have my crew, and--"

"Counting me, there are twenty-nine women. All but Amyth and five others like her who were born here are pretty hard cases. I'm too old for childbearing, Wilding, so you can say twenty-eight. If you're restricting your colonists to useful citizens...."

"There'll be other needs, Tiny. You're a nurse. If you'll go, there'll be a place for you."

"I'll go," growled Tiny. "And so will any of us. But you'd better not tell anyone else where we'll be headed. Not till you're on your way. They might get other ideas...."

"Would that be fair?"

"Fair or not--don't tell them. You took over the authority here. Don't start trying to squirm out of the responsibility now. Voting and fancy principles are fine for soft people in a safe and comfortably idyllic civilization. You're dealing with scared and desperate rats. They need help and strong leadership. You can give it to them, but if you show the least weakness or indecision, they'll tear you to pieces."

"You may be right, Tiny. But I still don't agree with you. This is too big a decision for one man. And I don't want any along who come unwillingly. I'll think about it, but I'm sure I'll give them a choice when the time comes."

"What kind of choice?"

"Come with me to the stars, or stay in some prison and rot. Hobson's choice."

"Think and be damned, then," said Tiny. The Amazon started to maneuver a drink to her mouth, then thoughtfully and deliberately broke the last flask of her mushroom beer on a rock.

The lighter was ready.

* * * * *

Wilding led his picked crew of twenty cut-throats aboard. He was not especially surprised to find the control cabin occupied.

Tichron sat easily in the pilot's chair, his blaster gun aimed steadily at Amyth who curled up like a sullen cat in the navigator's seat.

"I go, or the girl doesn't," said Tichron.

Wilding laughed at him. "You're a little previous. This is just a dry run. We're seizing the supply ship and coming back for the rest."

"So I've heard. Well, I'm going with you to make sure that you do come back."

"Amyth is not going this trip. None of the women. So you might hold your gun on me and let the girl get outside. We're wasting time, and I want to be sure of intercepting the supply ship long before it sights the beacon."

Tichron obliged by shifting his aim to Wilding. Amyth slipped silently through the airlock and dropped to the ground.

"Shall I take him now?" Grouth asked, edging toward Tichron who seemed unembarrassed by two possible targets instead of one.

"Don't move," ordered Wilding. To Tichron he said, "You can put the gun down now, or go on holding it. But your arm will be pretty numb by the time we hit the supply ship."

"Do I go with you?" demanded Tichron.

"You're wasting melodrama, big boy. I wouldn't think of leaving you behind. Ask Concor, we were wondering what had happened to you."

"Concor could lie, and so could you," growled Tichron. But he carefully reclipped the gun to his belt. "Perhaps you'll be killed trying to take the supply ship."

"Perhaps you will...."

Wilding barked orders. The lighter was closed up and sealed. Atom-converters purred with steady vibrations. With a grunt and heave, the lighter moved into the airlock shaft. Lights dimmed and the jarring increased in tempo. Movement steadied into a smooth glide. Automatic door-flaps opened ahead and closed behind. Blast-off ritual began.

Suddenly the tiny ship shot from the surface like a cork from a bottle. Acceleration pangs became nagging nausea.

Wilding licked his lips. "Perhaps we'll all be killed. It will save a lot of trouble...."

From the shadow-cone of the planetoid, the lighter moved out to anticipate the orbit of the expected supply ship....

In space, frontal attack is impossible. Ships approach and pass each other at terrific relative velocities. Limited human senses cannot function rapidly enough, and even the automatic mechanisms which control a ship in spaceflight can react only according to the impulses built into them.

Surprise is almost equally impossible, since combat requires that both ships be moving at approximately equal speeds on courses nearly parallel.

Though Wilding had planned carefully, he knew that there is a vast difference between plans and execution. Anything, or any number of things, could go wrong. For one thing, if it came to an actual running fight, his craft was practically unarmed. Aboard the supply ship would be robot brains for mass detection, target-course computation, and the automatic aiming and firing of atomic warhead torpedoes. There had been neither time nor material to build such complicated machines. Even the control of the lighter was accomplished manually.

Moving out from the asteroid, the lighter described a wide curve. It came upon the supply ship from behind, striking a speed only slightly greater than that of its quarry. Rapidly overhauling the larger spacecraft, it sent no recognition signal and was prepared to answer none.

Already the supply ship had begun tedious deceleration preparatory to sighting the flare beacon and dumping the stores for the prisoners on Asteroid 297. It was a dull, routine maneuver. In the control cabin, pilot-captain and astrogator crouched over chart-screens and fed order tapes into the electronic devices which ran the ship. Men may be careless and overconfident. Machines are not--

* * * * *

Alarms whined and clamored. Red lights blinked on the control panels, reporting intrusion. Instruments went into automatic action to determine the sector and nature of possible menace. Data tapes spewed from the battery of electronic brains. Electric typewriters clattered like machine-guns.

The strange object was man-made, too regular in form to be of meteoric origin. Metallic, but not a meteor. Its mirror-polished skin was analyzed spectroscopically and classified as an industrial alloy. Details of structure were noted and filed. By its speed and the phantom glow in its wake, the stranger was obviously powered by some secondary use of atomics.

But the officers of the supply ship had scant time to digest this array of facts. With a burst of speed, the strange craft angled suddenly toward them. Distance closed rapidly, and collision seemed imminent.

Alarms screamed in mechanical panic. Robot piloting devices operated instantaneously, attempted ticklish maneuvering to avoid contact. It was too late.

The pilot-captain's brain was working almost as rapidly as the relays of his cybernetic helpers. But not as surely. For a desperate moment, he considered the possibility of piracy, but he rejected the thought at once. All known desperadoes had been hunted from the spaceways. And if communications were to be trusted, no other spaceship could be within many days run of his present position. Mentally, the officer reviewed Procedure Regulations, and wondered what space novelty he was encountering this time.

He had little time to wonder, and less for indecision. If he had acted at once, the ponderous meteor repellor tubes could have been shifted from the nose of the ship. Even the token armament of robot-aimed torpedo tubes could have been ordered into action.

In the confusion of the moment, he took no action at all.

There was shock. Although the strange ship had barely nudged the hull plates, brains writhed and circulatory systems labored to readjust to an abrupt change in direction of movement. Then the stranger was firmly alongside, secured by magnetic grapples, and the airlock doors were opening automatically as pressure on both sides equalized.

Men poured through the airlock. They were a desperate, savage crew from the prison lighter. Their weapons were crude but effective. The battle was brief, a momentary huddled violence, then officers and crew of the supply ship were overwhelmed. Oddly enough, casualties were few on either side.

It is easier to unleash wolves than to restrain them once they have tasted blood. Wilding hated senseless slaughter, and he held back the vindictive impulses of his ugly horde with the hand of a master.

"Did any message get through?" he asked Concor.

The Martian shook his head unhappily. "Part of one. We tried to blanket their transmitter, but--"

"That shortens our time. Don't harm our prisoners. We may need them for hostages."

Convicts went through the ship and routed out everyone in hiding. The captives were lined up and Wilding went down the line inspecting his catch. The crewmen were both angry and frightened. The officers blustered.

One of the last captives, turned out of hiding in the crew's quarters, was a girl. She limped into the straggled line-up and faced the new masters of the ship.

Wilding stared at her in astonishment. "Elshar!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"

The girl did not answer at once. She shrugged, smiling curiously. Racial strangeness was in the angles of her face-structure. Large, luminous eyes, of deep blue, rode high on tilted cheekbones. She looked very young, with her face still pale from shock. In her dark hair and fair skin were the curious blendings of mixed blood, which often produces rare beauty. But for the twisted leg, she was perfect as one of those incredibly delicate and minute figurines carved of Martian ivory, but more human. All too human.

"I bought my freedom with the money you left for me," she explained slowly. "There was enough left to bribe the guards of the supply ship."

Caught between confusion and anger, Wilding stormed at her.

"You must have lost your mind. What could you want--"

The girl stopped him with a gesture. "Perhaps. And perhaps more than my mind. I convinced them that all I wanted was to see the place you had been taken. I did not try to convince myself. All the time I hoped something would happen. Some miracle. I ask nothing from you. Just let me stay near you--"

Tichron's laugh was a knife-thrust in the heavy stillness of the ship.

"Friend," he said enviously. "You have one woman too many."

"One is sometimes too many," Wilding said irritably. He told Elshar, "I'll decide later what to do with you. Now I'm too busy."

* * * * *

The girl studied him gravely. "Don't think about me. I'll be no trouble to you."

Wilding nodded and turned his attention to Concor, who already bent over the calculators.

"With a little trimming, this present orbit will take us fairly close to the asteroid," was the Martian's verdict.

"That's your department. Get us there, and don't waste any time you can help. The patrols will be converging if any message at all went through. Our margin is small enough at best."

Tichron's broad face showed astonishment. "You mean you're actually going back for the others?"

"I never had any other intention. I'll need all who want to go with me ... where I'm going."

Tichron's eyes narrowed. "Where _are_ you going?"

"You'll find out when I tell the others. In time to make up your mind about going."

Alcatraz Asteroid showed suddenly against the dark backdrop of space, reflected sunlight waxing as the planes of its surface turned toward the Sun.

Airlock valves set into the savage exterior opened to let the lighter and captive supply ship into a tube leading downward to the inhabited caverns. Barely had the ship settled into cradles when Wilding went through the double doors and stared about the vaulted dockroom.

Something was wrong. By now, the convicts would know that the venture was well started, that the conquerors had returned with a prize. Curious and excited crowds should be milling about, swarming around the captured ship, greeting the venturers.

But no one was in sight.

Signalling the others to remain aboard, Wilding moved away from the ship to begin exploration. Cautiously, gun in hand, he poked through the main cavern with its stockpiled supplies, then on, investigating the nearer passages. Already out of sight of his cohorts aboard the supply ship, he halted suddenly at a hint of furtive movement among the jagged rocks.

Three men sprang up and faced him. All three were armed and ready. It was not difficult to recognize Credus and his two chief supporters.

"I'm taking over," said Credus.

"Not so easily," Wilding warned. "It's still a deadlock. I have a gun on you."

Credus shook his head slowly. "You're too good a gambler to play against such odds. You wouldn't dare shoot."

Wilding was aware of a faint sound behind him. For a moment he hoped that Grouth or Concor had disobeyed his orders and followed him. He even risked a quick glance over his shoulder to see.

Two yards behind him stood Tichron, aimed blaster in hand. On Tichron's face was an expression of unholy glee, his lips curled up to expose wolfish fangs. Tichron held the balance, and knew it.

"Start bargaining," he suggested.