The Killer Thing Read online

  When he landed again, he had covered only fifteen miles in a straight line from the old camp, but maybe it would follow him out on the sands this time. When he could, he moved only minutes before the winds made moving impossible, always hoping the effects of the moving sand under the tornado-like wind would erase his trail. The last ten or fifteen miles he always hugged the bones of the mountains, hoping to damp his trail, hoping their mass would absorb his heat and noise, and whatever else it was that brought the robot to his new camp each day.

  He chose his site carefully despite the wind gusts of fifty miles an hour, and the darkness that was enveloping the landscape. His craft was under a three-hundred-foot-high shelf that was being eaten out from below, leaving an overhang of forty feet.

  Ain’t exactly Joyland, is it, Trace?

  Lousy luck, that’s all. Just that one ridge we saw, that and sand…

  Yeah. Well, six hundred miles of bare bones to play around for the next couple of weeks. We might get in some prospecting…

  Watch out, Duncan! Object seven o’clock!

  Very carefully Trace turned off the controls, forcing the voices away, refusing to go through it again. With the immediate need of action gone, he felt drained, and his exhaustion from the heat and the strenuous walk flooded him. He touched the stud that levelled out the seat into a bed, and he stretched out, his hands behind his head, eyes closed. It’s the end of this particular trail, he thought, drifting. From out on the desert he had seen that the mountains ended only a few miles beyond his camp. At this point the range was less than twenty miles wide, too narrow to hide in, certainly. He shouldn’t have tried that last manoeuvre. But perhaps this one time it would do something wrong…

  A wry smile twisted his lips, although his eyes remained closed. It can do no wrong, unless wrong has been programmed into it. It’s a logic box. Nothing but a logic box. It can only do what it’s been programmed to do, and that’s it. If right and wrong are related in any way to logic and illogic, then it can do no wrong. It has been given a finite number of facts, and a finite number of propositions expressing relationships between those facts. It cannot question the validity of what it has been given, it can only act on those facts and relationships. And heaven help me, because I can question and doubt and make judgement mistakes…

  The wind howled and tornadoes formed and lifted rocks, sand, boulders, sent them flying and crashing into the mountains. Immense slabs of granite were raised, ground together, and finally deposited as coarse sand that would be rubbed down finer and finer until it was like polishing powder.

  How did it manage to dodge them? Did it keep to the lea side of the mountains always? Did it walk among shadows where the wind whistled past, but did not enter? Trace drifted; one muscle at a time, it seemed, jerked and relaxed, and then his hands slid out from under his head, one of them resting on his chest, the other dangling from the reclining seat, not quite touching the floor.

  The bony, black fingers reaching for the sky curled in on themselves and crept along the ground, joining where they met other fingers, forming a black wall that was impenetrable. From the black forward line of the wall, new fingers probed tentatively, feeling their way around rocks, over boulders, dragging the wall after them, and the wall was getting closer and closer to him. He could not move as it formed, but suddenly was freed, and then he darted about crazily, looking for an opening in the wall, being forced backwards, step by step, until he knew there was nothing behind him but a chasm, and he could back up no farther. Again he froze, his eyes compelled to watch the progress of the wall.

  It was there in the shadows. He could feel it as a horror too great to bear alone. If only someone would come along and open the wall for him. They would say nothing was there, nothing but the shadows; only he knew better. He knew it was there. It existed although he could not see it; when it moved he felt a tug; when he moved, he could feel it changing direction, an answering tug. It was in the shadows, and it was growing larger, filling in the shadows, spreading to fill every bend and curve and crack. His eyes deceived him, but his mind knew it was there. He could even understand its method now, its purpose. With the helpful fingers of the shadows to reach out and touch him, hold him until the thing got nearer, the thing would get him. He couldn’t back up into the chasm. He could only wait. The fingers crept from the darkness, twisting, feeling their blind way along the ground, and they grew nearer and nearer to where he crouched. He watched them, unable even to breathe, and felt the thing behind them.

  He was too tired to run again, the chasm was too deep for him to jump over. He wanted to weep and couldn’t. The wall moved and one of the fingers was only inches away from his leg. He shivered. If only he knew what was in the chasm behind him it wouldn’t be so bad. Or if he knew where the other edge of the crevice was, perhaps he could still jump across it. He was too tired to make the effort it would take to turn and look. All his life he had been running from it and now it was there, inches away from his legs. Always running away, never able to stop and look at it, no name, no shape, no reason for being, but it was there, coming closer and closer. And he was afraid. His shivering increased and he couldn’t stop that either. The shadow touched his leg suddenly and he shrieked. “Duncan! Help me!”

  His voice awakened him. The nightmare was gone, leaving nothing but the memory of the fear that had knotted his stomach. He was shivering. He got up and checked his dinghy then; it had come through the wind storm without damage, and now the wind was gone, the night completely still. The dinghy was fifteen feet long, tapering from nine feet at its widest point to a blunt tail. The two seat-beds were over the engines and the front was filled with controls. There were circular windows of quartz over the seats, two more, smaller, over the storage units behind the seats. The hatch was an oval, five feet high, three feet wide, but the entire rear section of the little boat could be opened, in order to take on a stretcher, or a man in full in-space pressure suit.

  The robot must have entered its own dinghy that way, it must have ripped out the seats to get to the controls…

  He stepped outside, listening, feeling the cold night air on his skin, unwilling to return to sleep right away, despite the fact that he felt as tired as he had when he first lay down. He had slept four hours at the most, not enough to make up for the unaccustomed exercise of the day before, or the unending tension…

  It was very dark on the planet, with only the pale indifferent starlight above. The mountain peaks were merely darker blobs against a dark star-pricked sky. The stars shone steadily, looking very far away and unreachable. He felt alone in the Universe as he stared up at the unfamiliar sky.

  There are worlds out there, he told himself, not knowing if he thought the words or said them. Worlds where ships are making regular trade runs, where fleets are manoeuvring, buildings going up, wars going on, worlds where men are finding new things for the first time. Any of them might look and feel alone. It isn’t just me. Somewhere in warp sector a fleet ship is flashing near the speed of light, coming for me. I’m not really alone, not for long.

  Damn him! Why hadn’t Duncan stayed alive? Why hadn’t they sent two ships after the metal monster? He went back inside, thoroughly chilled, still unwilling to face again the dream that had wakened him. He pulled out his space charts, wondering how far along the relief ship was by then. It should be in orbit in seven or eight days, ten at the most.

  He looked at the familiar worlds: Earth, Venus, Mars—the original World Group, won through hard fighting. First had come the feeble colonies on Mars, and in another fifteen years, those on Venus. Then came a hiatus of nearly one hundred years, during which time the colonies grew, became powerful, waged war with Earth, and finally formed the World Group Government. Only then had come the nearer stars and their planets, taken one by one, painfully, with losses on both sides that none cared to think about any more. Seven Class A planets had been found so far, seven major planets with highly developed civilisations, with “common stock” human beings, and the
seven had fought off the armies of the World Group. But they had taken and held them, all of them, and finally the seven had surrendered; now they were practically equal partners.

  Trace didn’t even know how many minor planets had been found, although it was one of the first lessons taught in astro-politics. The numbers changed from week to week almost. Like an amoeba the powers had grown—the Earth splintering off a human segment to make the Mars Colony, to settle Venus, then the three rejoining, bigger, stronger than ever. After that the growth had been faster and faster, until now when a pseudopod reached out and claimed a new world for the parent body, there was little excitement. The organism had grown very large, and was reaching out in every direction, hungry for new worlds, impregnable, invulnerable now, seizing what it touched, incorporating all that fell before it.

  This world would be added to the total, he knew, another minor planet, and he would receive a bonus. A team would be sent here to investigate its possibilities; if it had anything of value on it, the proper office of the government would be informed. In due time the proper group of people would be dispatched to take the new wealth back to the government. Mining camps might spring up on a world such as this one. Water would be made from the materials of the planet itself, the atmosphere doctored until it was more amenable for humans, who would clean it of everything needed, or wanted, on the other worlds.

  If a planet was inhabited when found, the pattern changed but little. Sometimes the natives resisted the efforts to take from their world the spoils of exploration, but their resistance never lasted long. Sometimes they were eager for trade with extraterrestrials. It mattered little in the end. Minor planet, major planet, it mattered little.

  As Trace stared at the tiny worlds depicted on the charts, they started to spin before his face, as if whirling in orbit, and he pushed the charts back into their rack. He felt lightheaded with fatigue when he crept back into his seat-bed. It would have helped if this world had a better atmosphere, he thought. It was like trying to live on a mountain peak after being used to the thick heady air of the valleys.

  He heard the sand then, its shifting like whispers, too faint to make out the words, but a steady rising and falling sound of distant voices speaking with hushed tones. He listened harder. He knew it was the sand, settling now after the wind finished with it. The wind piled the sands high against rocks, against the dinghy, and after the winds left, the sand rested a while and then started shifting, seeking a comfortable balance with gravity once more. Some of it was running from the top of the little lifeboat, growing louder at a point just over his left shoulder, then fading again, voices rising and falling in conversations…

  We saw the thing, Trace, don’t you remember? After the space fight in Section 13, near Ramses…

  Yeah. We both got passes—three days on Ramses.

  The screen was nicked a little, needed fixing. Wasn’t that it? Anyway, we went to the mine, remember where Doctor what’s-his-name was fooling around with the mining robots. You said you were going to report the thing. Did you, Trace? I never did ask you if you did.

  I reported it, Duncan.

  He remembered, in his dream, seeing the thing in Dr. Vianti’s laboratory. It had stood over eight feet tall, on treads, with a domelike top that could swivel. The others were good only for mining, but this one, the one the doctor was working with, it could do almost anything.

  It’s almost as if you’re the proud father, Trace. That nutty doctor wouldn’t have told anyone about it. He’d still be back there changing it, talking to it like a baby, or a pet dog, or something, everything as innocent as nursery school. You’re its father, Trace. How about that?

  Ramses. He remembered Ramses.

  Three

  “Welcome to Ramses, land of little people, big drinks; and open mines! The women are small, but brother, watch out, they do know what they are doing!” Lo Ti chanted, glancing through a guide-booklet he had picked up at the space port. “Any of you ever been to Ramses before?” He was a second lieutenant of Korean descent.

  Trace and Duncan shook their heads with the others. Trace stretched out full length in a reclining seat in the railed carrier that had been sent to transport the fleet from the space port to the nearest city. It was a pleasant feeling, being back on ground again after six months in space, four of them in battle.

  “For your edification, gentlemen, may I enlighten you?” Lo Ti grinned, not looking to see the suffering expressions the other men assumed at his words. Someone moaned, “Cork him!” Another muttered, “Let’s toss him out!” Lo Ti ignored them.

  “Ramses, admitted to the World Group Government as a protectorate in 2158. Population of one billion, seventeen million; principal exports: platinum, magnesium, peridots, and related minerals. Humanoids, sub-class C, averaging five feet two inches for the males, four feet six inches for the females of the species. State of technology comparable to Earth in year 1975, sans space travel…”

  From the other end of the carrier a chant began that gradually picked up voices, finally drowning out the grinning second lieutenant, whose lips continued to move as he read from the guide-book.

  Oh, we’ve seen girls

  Didn’t look like girls,

  Had to ask before you’d know ’em,

  They don’t make girls

  Like they make the girls

  Back where we call ho-em!

  There was much laughter, and someone started another of the Fleet songs:

  With a roar and a flame

  I’m well in the game

  With a pain that scrambles my brain,

  A ton on my chest,

  I’m part of the best

  Goddamned race to ever hit space!

  They bow when we come;

  They know where we’re from.

  On their knees they’re trying to please.

  When the air is okay,

  And the girls built that way,

  In the end we’ll make only a friend.

  The song went on for six more verses, each verse less inhibited than the last, and Duncan and Trace bellowed out the words with the others. Trace was grinning broadly when the bawdy song ended, and the carrier slowed down to follow winding city streets. He turned to look about.

  The carrier was on tracks that were six feet above ground level, rising to cross roads and buildings now and then, falling to skim over the surface by inches of clearance, and then rising again. The buildings were of translucent green stone for the most part, with dark polished trim, and jade-green inlays in geometric patterns. The roofs were white, very clean and sparkling. The same shades of green ranging from pale grey-green, through emerald, to black-green were everywhere; in the streets, sidewalks, buildings, contrasted with the dazzling white, and with brilliant complementary colours in unexpected places. There were orange and red umbrellas over canary-yellow tables along the sidewalk, awnings with red swirls on white, rows and rows of deep purple flowers in white planters, trees with grey and white leaves.

  People were everywhere. They looked like children masquerading as adults. The women were petite, graceful, with long flowing hair and tiny hands and feet. They were from four feet to not quite five feet in height, and were dressed in pastel tunics that were fastened at the shoulders with jade and peridot clasps. Their hair was agleam with the green ornaments; pendant earrings swung as they walked. The men wore longer tunics that were as simple as the women’s, but were white and black, or grey. They wore hip pouches held in place by wide metallic belts. Their heads as well as their faces were clean shaven.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Duncan said, at Trace’s side.

  He was as tall as Trace, and at twenty-three, three years younger. Both were second lieutenants. His black eyes were shining with the excitement of leave after four months’ running battle with the fleet dispatched by Mellic. “You have any plans for the duration?” he asked.

  They had come to a larger shopping area, where stores were open to the warm air and sunshine, and goods were sprea
d out to be seen and handled. “No,” Trace said. “You?”

  “Shopping first, for my sisters. I promised them something from each world I get to see, you know. They’re dopes, think all I have to do is shop for gewgaws for them.” He looked pleased at the thought. Trace grinned at him.

  “Okay, we shop, and sightsee. How about taking a look at the mines?”

  “Yeah, that’s great.”

  They roamed the streets, laughing at the musical tones of incomprehension voiced by the natives when they tried to explain what they wanted. They lunched in a sidewalk cafe where they ate food they couldn’t identify, and drank a pale green, milky liqueur that made their heads swim pleasantly. Somewhere along the way they picked up two girls, each of them under four and a half feet, looking more like dolls than like women. The one who linked her arm through Trace’s arm said her name was Fez. She spoke in broken English; her eyes were like immense green lakes, flecked with golden brown dots. Later that night the girls took them to a hotel where the furnishings were golden and white silks and soft candlewood, and the four of them bathed and swam in their own pool with a centre fountain of translucent olivine rock.

  Fez was very beautiful; her body had soft down all over it; her pubic hair was gold. There was more of the milky-green liqueurs, and music before the lights dimmed and went out. When Trace awakened in the morning, his tongue was thick and dry, and his head ached. His money was gone, as was Duncan’s. They swore, but in resignation. They had expected it. After collecting more from the Field Commander’s office in the official government building, they continued their tour. There was more shopping, more strange food, more girls, more liqueurs, and the next morning the same thick tongue and the same swearing over the inevitable robbery.