Part 13 (1/2)
They are fighting only for life!”
Overhead still wheeled the circle of guarding disks, manned, I knew, by the inexperienced priest-like insect men. I took a careful aim at the glowing transparent bulge in the center of the nearest, hoping the alien plastic was as soft as the earth plastics. But there was no way to tell if it had pierced the sh.e.l.l of plastic, or if it had done any harm.
Fumbling in my pockets, I pulled out a loaded clip, lay there pondering with the clip in front of my nose. Absently I noted the black band around the nose of the bullets, indicating it was a high-velocity, armor-piercing cartridge, manufactured by the U.S. Army for exactly such emergencies as I faced. I did not know if it would prove too big a powder-charge for my rifle, I did not know then even how I came to have the cartridges. Polter had bought some Army ammunition and these must have been among his things. I may have been firing them steadily and not known the difference.
I inserted the clip, and lay there with my fore-sight following the disk s.h.i.+p in its steady circling flight. Just where would an armor-piercing steel bullet do the most harm? I shot the clip out at the great round body of the thing, trying to guess where a hit might damage machinery or pierce fuel tanks. There was no visible result, and I gave the flying disks up as a bad job. How did I know they were built to resist meteors in ultra high-speed s.p.a.ce flight? It didn't even occur to me.
”Where're your buddies?” I asked Holaf. He lay beside me peering down into the street below.
”Gone to join the s.h.i.+nro. They are storming the doors of the palace now.” He gestured toward the street.
I leaned over the parapet. Below in the street the hideous, mutilated bodies of the s.h.i.+nro moved in a ma.s.s. They had brought up a huge beam, and were pounding it against the great palace doors. Others climbed toward the tall barred windows, some of them slipped through. But of the white-robed Jivros there was now no visible sign.
I was about to send a few shots through those same windows, when a waving white cloth from a window near the top of the huge structure drew my eyes. A sudden fear struck my heart. Could that be my Zoorph, left there--could that be Carna? I felt sure it was, and something warm and pitiful seemed to flutter in my chest as I thought of her alone among those hopping Jivros. I got to my feet, started across the roof.
”Where are you going, earthman?” asked Holaf, placing a hand on my shoulder.
”I am going into that place, but there is no need you accompanying me. I think I saw Carna at her window, a prisoner! I would like to free her.”
Holaf gave a cry of unbelief.
”No, you cannot do that! The Croen means to destroy that place down to the ground. Carna will have to perish with it. It is too bad, but you cannot enter there. I know what is going to happen.”
Even as he spoke, a great white blossom of flame spurted suddenly over our heads, spread and spread across the sky above the circling s.h.i.+ps.
Looking up, my eyes were struck blind. I dropped to the roof surface with agony. Then came the terrific, stunning concussion. The prince was letting off the fireworks at last! I exulted, even as I despaired.
Somehow I only now realized that this waiting, strange Zoorph in her prison, who faced death because forgotten by her friends--_must not die!_ In my heart some warm thing she had waked there with her magic breathed, moved, sprang into complete life. I could not see her die! I must get into that place that I saw was doomed, even as I now saw two of the great s.h.i.+ps above falter in flight, turn and slide downward at increasing speed. The concussion had broken them, perhaps destroyed the life within them. I realized that in a short time the same thing was going to happen to the headquarters of the Jivros.
Below, the booming of the great ram against the palace door ceased, there came wild shouts, cheers, running feet, terrible screams of agony.
I ran down the ramps up which we had ascended to the roof. Heedless of danger, I raced along the dark street, across the wide-open s.p.a.ce surrounding the palace.
About the palace door the dead were sprawled in mangled heaps. Among the dead were several white robes, now stained with the pale blood of the Jivros. I surmised the frightened creatures had opened the door, intending to kill the men wielding the ram--and had been unable to do a complete job. The doors gaped open. I stumbled over the reeking heap of slain. A dying man raised one horrible crab claw to me, called out my name! It was Jake, his ugly face now a horror. I had not even known he had received the reviving shot of the Croen medicine.
I bent to hear his words, but he only looked at me for a second, his lips formed one word: ”Gold!” He laughed bitterly, repeated it: ”Gold, h.e.l.l!” and then his head dropped lifeless.
I raced on into the place, and at my heels came Holaf. In his hands he held the vibro gun, and on his face was a wild triumph. He kept crying aloud:
”Death to the Jivros! An end to tyranny!”
I had no time for the political angles which so inspired Holaf. I raced upward along the same paths by which Prince Genner had led me to my own detention quarters. I did not know how to reach Carna's room except that it lay directly above my own. I raced into the open door of the prince's quarters, and to that window by which Carna had entered. I leaned out, shouted at the top of my voice.
”Zoorph, are you there?”
Her voice came to me with a message of relief, yet it justified my worse fears. She was here, and the place was about to be blasted by some t.i.tanic explosive of the Croen science creation! Her words were indistinct, but the tone was almost mocking, and I thought I heard her laugh.
”Can you come down, Carna, or do I have to come after you?”
Seconds later the knotted drape she had used before swayed down into sight, I grasped it to steady it. Her bare legs followed, and now her voice came to me with a sweet mockery:
”Never let it be said that Carna required a lover to climb to her window! Rather let it be said that pa.s.sion made Carna risk....”