Part 17 (1/2)

Nea went back to the lab. Odin and Ato continued their study of the maps.

Gunnar was putting a fine edge to his broadsword.

Then the warning buzzer sounded its alarm. Odin dived for the screen and turned on the controls.

A long procession of mauve shadows was approaching. Already inside the barrier, they came single-file and slowly circled The Nebula.

Even in the pale weird light, they certainly seemed to be men.

Ato ordered ”Battle-Stations” and sirens sounded all over the s.h.i.+p.

But the circling host made no offer to attack. Odin turned the receiver up to its highest point, and speaking brokenly in the language of the Brons a voice came through.

”Men of the strange s.h.i.+p. Men of the strange s.h.i.+p--”

”Yes,” Odin answered.

”Good. You hear me. We are those who have been driven out of the city. We would visit you in peace. We are called Lorens.”

Within a few minutes, a dozen of the strangers had been brought aboard The Nebula. Ato summoned Nea and the rest of the captains.

The leader of the visitors was a man by the name of Val. He was a tall, lean man with a Norman nose and his dark skin was drawn so tightly about his face that he looked a bit like a mummy. Val was over sixty, Odin judged, and though his wrists were skinny the tendons and muscles on his arms stood out like taut lengths of cable. He and his men were dressed alike--a sleeveless s.h.i.+rt of walnut-brown plastic, dark peg-bottomed trousers of corduroy, and footgear that looked like engineer's boots with rippled soles. The tops of the boots were tight-fitting and the peg-bottomed trousers were drawn snugly over them. Odin learned later that what had appeared to be green moss out there on the weathered plain was a kind of thistle with cat-claw thorns.

Each man wore a heavy black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a gla.s.sy looking tube fitted to a pistol-b.u.t.t, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an over-sized toadstool.

In addition to this odd a.s.sortment of gear, each man carried something in his hand which greatly resembled the frame of an old-fas.h.i.+oned umbrella--except that half a dozen vari-colored b.u.t.tons were set into the handles.

”It was nearly thirty years ago,” Val was explaining, ”that the voice of Grim Hagen began to interfere with our broadcasting system. Some said it was a G.o.d. Some said it was a devil. It came from s.p.a.ce. It came from almost anywhere. We have been an intelligent race, but we were sore beset.

Our sun was dying. All that we had was our sun and a huge dust-cloud in the distance. In times past, our astronomers had seen the glow of millions of suns, millions upon millions of miles away. But we were never able to perfect a telescope that could bring a single sun into view.

”Nor did we ever have a chance to do this. The dust-cloud surged out toward us every twenty years, and our scientists were able to use a gravitational beam to deflect a part of it toward our sun. In this way we kept it alive and might have been able to do so for ages. But now the dust-cloud is gone.”

Val paused to sigh, and then resumed his story. ”The voice--I mean the voice of Grim Hagen--promised my people that if they would accept him he would take them forth into the stars. They would plunder thousands of worlds and they would live for centuries while generations died. Also, he said, he was on the brink of discovering eternal life--”

”He was playing at being the eternal Loki--the old mischief-maker--” Gunnar interrupted and went on edging his sword.

”Well,” Val continued, ”I cannot blame my people too much for believing this story. Our plight was desperate. But there were those of us who did not believe him. He seemed to know too much, when according to our philosophy the only wise man is the one who admits that he knows nothing--”

”I am not a philosopher,” Gunnar interrupted again. ”I only know that once you have thrust a foot of steel into a man he does not bother you again.”

”Please, Gunnar,” Ato begged. ”Let Val go on with his story.”

”The rest of the story I do not understand at all,” Val said with a shake of his grizzled head. ”This Grim Hagen said that he did not age until he stopped to conquer a planet and replenish his s.h.i.+p's energy. It was thirty years ago when he first spoke to us. He looks like a man of forty-five now. Could he have been an upstart of fifteen when he first spoke into our receivers?”

”I will try to explain that later,” Ato answered.

”Well, there were those of us who could not agree with the general idea.

There are even some of the Lorens in the Violet Dome who think he is a G.o.d.