CHAPTER NINE

The vast, incredible vista before us began to blur. The banded walls on the far side of the pit became less distinct and finally invisible in a haze. The haze itself began to resolve and take shape, at first as a misty column in the direct center of our vision. The column then, too, misted and was obscured as angular mechanical shapes took form about it.

"The tube is becoming visible," Lourdes said.

The result was mesmerizing. The P-657 mining tube was bursting into view from the center out. We stood enthralled as one unfolding cross-section after another appeared to materialize. And from our vantage point we would see it all, layer by layer: the bulkheads and walkways, cooling tubes, engine houses and mile-long transmission boxes. There were forests of cables and relays and storage rooms filled with supplies and vast drums loaded with ore. It was hard to believe that there was time in the universe to rivet together such a huge structure.

"Just once I'd like to see the whole ship come into view like this." Lourdes said.

There was a moment of shock when the closer parts of the machine began to appear. It gave the terrifying illusion of a million tons of machinery rushing directly toward us. The effect was so convincing that the Helioxans broke and ran once more. The force field stopped them from getting anywhere.

The onrushing walls and machines seemed so unstoppable that I was fairly rattled myself. But I wasn't going to miss the last of this. I stood directly where I was, my nose only a few inches from the tube itself.

The vision came to a silent halt, but it was impossible not to flinch as the final beams of the support structure and layers of insulation rushed in my face. Of course, nothing hit me. The final wall of the tube merely appeared and a layer of gray primer spread across it. A split second later, a final coat of thick black paint snapped into view.

More than just a wall had appeared. And I realized now why the tube was made visible: Seek knew that we had to be able to see the door before us before we could be coaxed to enter it.

"Paid to keep my mouth shut," Hardiman growled. "I know what you've been planning. I'll tell you right now that I want nothing to do with sticking the feds. That's no locally-made contraption up there -- it's a goddamned P-657!"

The others groaned. They still couldn't see the ship. The top of the column was lost in the swirling cirrus clouds above us. The tube itself, however, was too big to be a part of anything else. That much was obvious even to the Helioxans.

The door in the wall of the tube was open and the interior glowed with a stark electric brilliance. It was not inviting. "Let's see what he wants," I told Lourdes. She nodded unhappily and the two of us stepped inside.

"It isn't a 'he,'" Biffer hollered after us. "It's a 'them,' -- the feds. And they use torture."

I stuck my head out. "I'll tell you about the feds," I told him. "They've outlawed torture. When they kill you, they make it quick; I've seen 'em. Does that make you feel better?"

"No."

"Well, get in here!"

"I'll wait for you here," Biffer said. "See you later. Bye."

Hardiman added: "I, too, will stand guard here and -- akk!"

We were all inside now. The force field had quickly contracted around the men and thrown them inside. The door slammed, and that was that.

"Change your minds?" I asked, grinning.

"Shut up!" Hardiman roared.

***************************************

A series of rungs led upward to a metal staircase. We took turns clambering up it. The stairs themselves were wide enough to scale as a group. After only a few flights, we came to another door. It opened into what was clearly a freight elevator. "Are we going to argue about going in there?" I asked the men.

Hardiman shrugged, somewhat indifferently, an action which seemed to sum up the attitude of the others as well. They had given up the idea of resisting.

We all filed into the elevator.

ENTER! came a terrific booming voice. ENTER! AND BE SPARED THE WRATH OF THE BENEVOLENT ONE!

I looked at Lourdes and she nodded. "It's him. I recognize the pomposity as well as the voice."

We all glanced around for the speakers but saw none.

The door slammed violently and the elevator lurched upward.

"My god, he is going to torture us." Lourdes said.

"Name one that doesn't make bubbles when he talks," I replied to myself gloomily.

Evidently I was overheard and the elevator lurched once again, this time viciously. It was a nine-G take-off. Straight up.

"It's all that damned elucidation that makes science so frustratingly difficult," I grumbled. My head was pressed to the floor and already cracking like a coconut. But after my remark, Seek added a little boost in acceleration that made me feel like my brains were oozing out my ears.

"Why don't you keep your mouth shut just once, Jenkins?" Lourdes gritted in cold fury.

I shut up, but by that time I really had no choice. I was redding out.

My next awareness came with abrupt and surprising clear-headedness. The ascent was suddenly arrested and the twelve of us saulted halfway to the roof before landing in a heap. The door slid open with a swish and I crawled for the opening, feeling the pain of what I hoped were nothing more than simple bruises. The atmosphere within the tube was probably a simple one not designed for a ten-second rocket ride up its height. Seek might have forgotten in his anger that one need not be underwater to get the bends. I half imagined a nitrogen bubble pressing against my spine.

In the hallway outside was no sign of activity. All was quiet except for the normal faint hum of shipboard airconditioning. I rose to my feet and motioned to the others to follow me.

We walked. The hallway was long and wide. Regularly spaced doors lined the passage. They were windowless and, we soon found, locked. After a moment, the large door to a barracks broke the pattern. We stopped, and Lourdes pushed gently against it. The door swung open soundlessly.

I dug into my pack and pulled out the automatic. "Let me look first," I said.

Lourdes nodded. The others stood unashamedly behind. They had heard stories of the troops aboard P-657's.

Such soldiers were infamous for sheer brutality -- brutality that was perhaps to be expected from the type of man chosen for such duty. The job was for life, and the man who was so conscripted was destined to serve as one of the most luckless pyrhias of history -- perhaps a fitting role for one whose personality qualified him for the post.

They were also exceptionally trained. No one could be expected to believe that the simple projectile weapon I held would prove effective against such a soldier -- much less a whole room full of them.

But I had to look.

Nothing stirred inside. The room was large and lined with the expected large number of bunks, each neatly draped with white linen. There was something else: a cloying smell that seemed oddly alarming. I stepped further inside and noticed a sharp drop in temperature. It was near zero degrees within the barracks. I felt a twinge of fear. The bunks ahead loomed strangely. I took only a step more before I started in horror. I understood: formaldyhyde. That was the smell. But there was more than that. The linen in each bed was a shroud. And visible within each from shoulders up was a soldier whose peaceful repose might have been mistaken for slumber if not for the fixed, sallow mask of death upon the face.

The others caught me outside the door where I had literally run into them. Biffer was twisting my wrist to free the pistol still gripped tightly in my hand. Lourdes had me by the backpack. Nils clutched my hair.

I felt suddenly drained. I slumped to the floor. The automatic clattered across the hall.

"What was it?" Lourdes gasped reluctantly. She didn't seem really to want to know.

"Tell us!" Hardiman cried.

I looked up at them. "Bad case of necromania."

"He killed them?" Lourdes whispered.

"In a word: yes. They're dead."

"How many?" asked Hardiman.

"I don't know," I answered.

Lourdes said: "Each P-657 carries one hundred and fifty thousand armored troops."

THE SPIRIT DOES NOT DIE. came Seek's voice. THESE MEN WILL AWAKE AND WALK AGAIN. I MYSELF HAVE DONE SO.

"But why?" I managed to ask.

He meant me, and he was not making a request.

CHAPTER TEN

Seek did not wait for me to oblige. A field behind me propelled me down the corridor and around the place where it curved into an adjacent hallway.

There, another open elevator waited. I was pushed inside whereupon the doors crashed immediately shut and the compartment shot upwards. It was a very short ride. The elevator screeched to a halt and another jolt from behind slammed me into the doors before they had completely opened. Eager to see me, Seek? I thought.

I fell into the hallway, staggered to my feet, and was promptly bulldozed before one more open doorway. The force field then departed, and left me standing on my own, seemingly free to go forward or flee.

Seek was playing games. I knew very well that if I went anywhere but directly through that door, I could expect to be shoved again from behind. But I waited a few moments and caught my breath before I went inside.

The room was well-lighted and furnished like an expensive suite. The walls were wood-paneled and decorated with original pieces of art. The floor was carpeted.

George Seek sat stiffly behind an executive desk. He was a monstrously fat man, a fact which somehow surprised me. His face was porcine and his eyes bulged slightly. He was dressed not in a military style, but in the simple fashion of the common man: his shirt was white and unpressed, its buttonless collar flat against the shoulders. On the desktop his large, doughy hands were clasped as if he were making a prayer.

"Welcome to my temple," he said in a low voice. "It is also your temple, and I sit before you humbly to explain and console you, help you see the light."

My fear of him ebbed and vanished, yet it was replaced with a kind of dread. The words. They were somehow not entirely his. Oh, he composed them all right; I'd read enough of his hackwork to recognize the author. But I knew somehow this single fat man was not in control here.

"It's a tomb," I said.

"What?"

"A tomb," I repeated. "Your temple. That's what it really is."

There was a pause and then Seek moved in his chair.

"Should the chosen be so blessed to rise from a crypt, so that crypt becomes a temple," he said slowly.

"Is that written somewhere?"

"No," answered Seek. "But do you doubt it?"

"Yes."

Seek grinned. Involuntarily I moved backward. That smile was not one of Seek's inventions. Another had composed it. The grin was the whites-showing kind, histrionic and so poorly acted that anyone could see that it had been designed to appeal to a primitive fear of the supernatural. Yet, this theater was so bad that I knew that Seek was not a part of it. I did not fear the bad acting; I feared whoever was directing it.

Seek rose from his seat slowly, and with that motion the air in the room stirred and brought to me once again the faint scent of formaldehyde. His pudgy hands reached for his waist, clutched the tucked-in shirt, and tugged. The shirt came free. His immense belly rolled outward.

The hands now held more than the shirt. Seek now also grasped a heavy white mound of abdominal flesh, which when raised revealed itself as the wedged flap of a huge and wicked V-shaped incision. From the cavity underneath wafted, as if gasped outward, the deathly odor of formaldehyde. Within that opening could be seen the pink of his insides. Except there were no insides.

Seek had been disemboweled.

I simply stared. The man was dead and I did not fear him.

For a moment the exaggerated grin clung fast to Seek's face. In a moment, the slightest vestige of a pained grimace began to overlay it. Seek stiffened once, as if struggling against some internal antagonist, and the grin disappeared to be replaced by his own intimate and aloof expression of false piety. Then, he collapsed backward, toppling the chair as he fell.

Explosions sounded from within the ship. I left the room and made my way to the elevator. Inside, I could hear the cracking blast of Z-pistols and the muffled pop of small arms.

The elevator controls gleamed to life. I ignored the numbers and pressed the control marked "Former Floor." In a moment I was in the hallway branching from the one where I had left Lourdes and the others.

The corridor was alive with noise. Guns roared in the adjoining rooms and hallways and armed men shouted orders as they ran past. They ignored me utterly.

Hardiman, Kroin, and Biffer were sprinting towards me from well down the hall.

They weren't stopping.

"Where's Lourdes?" I shouted.

"Aliens! Aliens!" They all screamed, and, indeed, behind them I could see white, semi-humanoid forms flying at the level of the ceiling.

The flying beings moved at great speed which they might well have been expected to do, for they were not attacking the Helioxans but fleeing the pursuit a dozen armored soldiers.

Hardiman had just reached me when the first of the flyers overtook him. A gunshot cracked once loudly behind him, and the being smashed against a wall and tumbled fluttering down the hallway.

The Helioxans fell to the floor as bullets and Z-rays tore into the aliens overhead. One of them landed hard on the floor in front of me. It was half the size of a man and equipped with a pair of undersized feathered wings on the ends of which protruded grasping, bat-like hands. From one hand grew a long, curving nail, razor sharp along its length and serrated at the tip. An ugly piece of work.

The face, however, was entirely different. It was startlingly human-like -- too human. My God, I thought. It was a child's face. A sweet face, the face of a cherub.

As I observed it, the wounded creature made a vicious slash at me with its knife-like talon, missed, and was blown to pieces by a soldier's Z-ray.

Another soldier in a powered suit stood a few feet from me. He held the tiny transmitter to his mouth and said, "Group one. We got all ours."

I looked and saw the crumpled forms of the aliens lying scattered along the length of the corridor. One thing was clear. Those tiny wings didn't do the flying.

The soldier stepped over to me. "Get up," he said gruffly. He was a huge man made to look larger still by the heavy armor.

I rose, and he pulled off his helmet and face mask.

"Zallaham!" I exclaimed.

The warlord's thick black hair was still shoulder length, but he had shaved the sides of his head about an inch above each ear. I could also see that he wore the insignia of a field commander. Pretty good for a third-world barbarian -- but he was not just any barbarian.

Zallaham chuckled. "I thought I would find you alive," he said. "Cardip has told me that you think I am under your command. I laugh. He has also told me to inform you that your wife is safe."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Zallaham gave a couple of coded orders over the radio and added: "The aliens were good fighters. It was not easy to beat them. Your wife killed three."

"What? How?"

"Noisemaker. Projectile weapon." He reached into a pocket and pulled out the automatic.

"Where did you get that?"

"I liked it. She gave it to me," said Zallaham. "Wait! -- " Zallaham touched his ear. He was getting something on the radio.

"Put it on PA," I told him.

Zallaham frowned and flipped a switch on his suit.

"Is that Harry Cardip talking from Central?" I asked.

Zallaham nodded.

The aliens got away.