Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 (11 page)

 
          
He
sat down on the sofa. Criddle found a seat near the door.

 
          
"That's
a point that mystifies me," said Darragh. "How does it happen I
didn't get killed outside? The Cold Creatures in the ship tried hard
enough."

 
          
"I've
been trying to figure that one out," offered Criddle.

           
"They must have thought you
were one of us, one of this
town
, that had somehow
escaped. They herded you back here, and pushed you in through the valve—the
logical thing to do."

 
          
"The
more fools
they
," Darragh said, in a voice that
sounded rough in his own ears. "I came here to find a way to overthrow
them."

 
          
"You're
in an awkward place to start that," said Lyle.

           
"Am I?" Darragh flung
back. "What better place to start than here? And I can bring you all with
me."

 
          
"How?"
Criddle almost squealed in sudden
eagerness.

           
"If we could get them to come
down the shaft with one of their ships ..." began Darragh.

 
          
"You
want to be violent," Lyle said accusingly.

           
"If violence is indicated,
yes," said Darragh, and was aware of Brenda Thompson's eyes, shining more
brightly than before.

 
          
Lyle
chuckled softly, and his close-set eyes turned toward Criddle. "I'm
afraid, Sam, that this man is dangerous. Give him half a chance and
hell sabotage
all our plans of escape."

 
          
"I'm
not trying to do anything of the kind," insisted Darragh; "I'm
simply offering a suggestion."

 
          
"Keep
your suggestions until they're asked for," Lyle said.

           
"Hold on now, Orrin,"
pleaded Criddle. "We did come to ask him what he proposed to do."

 
          
Darragh
was fighting to remain cool. Again he glanced out the window, and there he saw
the others of the town, closely grouped and murmuring together.

 
          
"I
wonder," he said, "if my suggestions aren't being asked for outside
as well as in here."

 
          
Lyle
got up. "You're here among us, and you'll act like one of us," he
said coldly. "You'll listen to orders
.. ."

 
          
Darragh,
too, rose, swifdy and smoothly. He towered over Lyle. "I don't take orders
when I don't recognize authority. I'm here from another community—another
government, you might say. You act as if you're afraid I'm trying to shoulder
you out."

 
          
Lyle
Orrin shook his head. "I believe your story, Darragh. I believe your
friends are like you—brave, ingenious, intelligent, and straightforward. Those
are all virtues—but they aren't always enough. You've scouted around a bit, but
we've been studying the Owners while they were studying us. We know a lot more
about them than you do. Enough to know that courage alone won't do." He
shrugged. "The Light Brigade was courageous and they attacked head on.
They were wiped out—without ever having a chance of achieving their objective."

 
          
Darragh
looked at him for a moment. "Maybe you believe that, but that's only half
the story. I've known others like you, Orrin: I know how you tick.

 
          
"However
you may try to rationalize it, you've jumped to the conclusion that I'm trying
to steal your thunder," went on Darragh. "You think I'm some sort of
a rival. I don't want to be anything of the sort. I don't want to push you
around; but don't get the idea you can push me around, either."

 
          
"For
heaven's sakel" cried Brenda. "Can't we keep this conversation on a
quiet, friendly basis?"

 
          
"Take
it easy, Orrin," added Criddle. "I don't think Mr. Darragh wants to
be offensive."

 
          
"Doesn't
he?"
Lyle half-crooned.
"Well, he is."
He swung around and looked at Criddle. "You aren't very cooperative, Sam."

 
          
"I
just suggested..."

           
"I don't have to listen to your
suggestions, at least," interrupted Lyle. "Why don't you just go
away Sam?"

 
          
"Why
. . ." began the older man.

           
"That's an order, Sam.
From the chairman.''

           
Criddle got up, frowned, twisted his
lips, and walked out.

           
"This is my house, Orrin,"
said Brenda, also on her feet. I don't see why you have to be unpleasant in
it."

 
          
"Unpleasant,"
he said after her, and let his eyes creep around to Darragh. "This man
from nowhere is more pleasant I take it." He made an airy gesture.
"Maybe I ought to go, too, and leave the pair of you to whatever you find
so pleasant about each other."

 
          
He
stepped to the table and picked up Darragh's knife.

           
"That's mine," said
Darragh.

           
"It
was
yours," Lyle told him, in a tone of mocking correction.
"I'm confiscating it. All weapons stay in a central depository."

 
          
He
started for the door, but Darragh made two long strides and barred his way.
"I said
,
that's
my
knife, Lyle."

 
          
"You
insist on that point?" Lyle shifted the knife in his hand, holding it
daggerwise. "I've confiscated it, I told you."

 
          
Darragh's
long arm shot out and seized the chair in which Criddle had been sitting. He
swung it above his head like a
club.                                                       
.

 
          
"That's
my knife," he said for the third time. "Put it back."

           
Lyle's eyes seemed to spring out of
his head, and his face turned livid white with fury. Then he relaxed, grinned
nastily, and tossed the knife back on the table. "We'll discuss the point
later," he said. "May I go now?"

 
          
"You
certainly may go," Brenda said, before Darragh could speak.

 
          
Lyle
walked jauntily past Darragh and opened the door. He paused on the threshold.
"I'll have to confer with another colleague of mine," he said.
"Then I'll come back, Darragh. I may have another rebuttal to your
argument."

 
          
He
was gone.

           
Darragh set down the chair and looked
apologetically at Brenda. "I'm sorry," he said honestly. "I
don't know what I said or did to make him act like that. I haven't even gone
into any notion of how we might get out of here."

 
          
"Orrin
just likes to have his own way," she said. "He's always like that.
Now I've offended him, too."

 
          
"You
and he are friends?"

           
"He wants to marry me,"
she told him.

           
Darragh stared at her,
then
suddenly burst out laughing.

           
"Marry you?" he cried.
"That ruffled-up little parrot wants to marry you?"

 
          
She
looked at him wide-eyed.

           
"You seem to think the idea of
marrying me is ridiculous," she said angrily.

 
          
He
stopped laughing, and slowly shook his head. "No—the idea of marrying you
is by no means ridiculous."

 
          
He
made another of his long strides, put both his arms around Brenda Thompson, and
kissed her thoroughly on her red mouth.

 
          
Brenda Thompson was
shocked, he knew as
he held her close. His arms clamped a body as rigid and motionless as a statue.
Then she strove with frantic strength to free herself.

 
          
"What's
going on here?" she gasped against his cheek.

           
"You know what's going on
here," he replied, and kissed her again.

 
          
"Now,
stop." She had worked her hands up against his robe-wrapped chest, and she
shoved strainingly against him, throwing her head far back to keep it free.

 
          
"After
all. . ." she stammered
. "
I... nobody
ever .
.”

           
"Nobody ever grabbed you and
kissed you before?" he finished for her. "Well, it's high time."

 
          
"Let
go!"

           
"Not a chance, Brenda. If Orrin
Lyle wants to marry you, that's just one more way I'm going to frustrate
him."

 
          
He
pulled her against him, and suddenly he did not have to hold her there. She was
close to him, her whole body and face, and her arms were up around his neck.

 
          
He
kissed her, and this time she kissed him back, as strongly as he, for a long
heart-scrambling moment.

 
          
"Oh,
this is crazy," she found time to mumble.

           
"It's sane," he protested,
and let go of her at last.

           
She still stood against him, and she
was smiling up at him, her face so close to his that it looked out of focus.

 
          
"After
all," she said again. "You . . ."

           
He was reaching for her, but
suddenly moved away, his eyes toward that panel in the rear wall.

 
          
"Mark!"
Her quick hand caught the sleeve of his robe. "Is anything wrong?"

 
          
"Something's
very wrong, Brenda. Look yonder.
One of those snooping Cold
Creatures.
I wish I could get close enough to make it hot for him."

 
          
She,
too, looked and saw. She laughed.

           
"They don't count, Mark; they
don
't
understand what we're
doing." She made as though to put her arms around him, then paused. After
a moment she, too, drew back.

 
          
"You
know what I mean about hating to be watched," he guessed. "I
know," she agreed. Her eyes shone with quick fierceness as she gazed at
the gross lounger beyond the pane. "What shall we do?”

 
          
"Sit
down."

           
They did so, side by side on the sofa.

           
"Mark," she said
pleadingly, "
are
you really going to get us out
of here?
Me—and the others?"

 
          
"Yes,
I am. I'll even get Orrin Lyle out, if he's in a mood
to
let me. Since we're being
gawked
at by
the visitor at the zoo, let's just talk. You mentioned those ray-weapons, said
you knew something about them. All right, tell me what you know."

 
          
She
clasped her hands in her lap. "Ill do my best, Mark. There are two
rays." "Yes.
White and green."

           
"The white one's explosive, and
the green one's a power ray. They're both some sort of electrical achievement.
You know about electricity, you said."

 
          
"Electricity?
But
I
didn't tingle or feel shocked when they rayed me with the green one,"
remembered Darragh.

 
          
"No, because it didn't vibrate you.
It..."

           
"It shoved me."

           
"That's right," she
nodded. "You see, that green ray controls any material body it involves.
Anything from dust particles in the air up to—well, up to the heavy roof of
this shelter dome."

 
          
Darragh
glanced upward. "A ray holds up this heavy roof!"

 
          
"It's
true. Do you think that even the Cold Creatures could find or make a material
in quantity and strength to build a solid structure as high as this city or
theirs? It's impossible, even for their science."

 
          
He
smiled at her, and rumpled his black hair. She laughed. "You look like a
boy having trouble with his lessons."

 
          
"That's
what
I
am, in a way. New ideas are
always hard to take aboard.
With me, anyway."

 
          
"With
everybody," said Brenda. "Now, here's what we've rationalized about
this structure, and probably those others you say are everywhere. The lower
curves and tiers of the dome are supported by concrete and metal braces. But
that's good for only a certain height, or the total weight would crush everything.
Where we are now—in the center, with the tube rising up, up there maybe two
miles above us—the upper weights are held in place by a special formation or
pattern of green rays."

 
          
"Pointing
upward," supplied Darragh.

           
"They act as girders, shining
up frtim a ring of generators set around this shaft where our cottages and we
are penned up.”

 
          
"I've
been out there," said Darragh. "I saw something else. There was a
sort of moat of water, that didn't freeze. Some sort of -liquid, at least,
colorless and transparent like water, flowing along although the temperature
must have been away down below zero."

 
          
"I’ll
tell you about that liquid later. I'll finish now about the green ray. You
understand the basic principle, Mark?"

 
          
"Only
that you say it controls any physical substance that it involves or
encounters."

 
          
"All right.
The operator of the ray can manipulate its
various powers. It can push a body away, great or small, or hold it locked in
space, or drag it down to the very source of the green light."

 
          
"And
I've had experience of all three aspects of the power," said Darragh.

 
          
She
smiled up at him, and put her hand on his. He closed his own big hand around
her fingers, and squeezed.

 
          
"Now,
be careful," she whispered, "or I’ll forget what
I
was going to say."

 
          
"I
was just remembering to say that I loved you."

           
"After something like forty or
fifty minutes of acquaintance," she mocked him.

 
          
"Wonders
can be done in that time. You said I was the first stranger you'd ever met, but
I'm not a stranger any more.
Ami?"

 
          
She
shook her head happily. "Mark. Tell me something-am I the prettiest girl
you ever knew?"

 
          
He
looked at her closely, and slowly shook his head. "I doubt it. Down yonder
on the Orinoco, there are girls so pretty that they just loaf around, knowing
what a favor they do the men by letting themselves be looked at. You—hell,
you're pretty, but you're not that kind of pretty."

 
          
"Beautiful, maybe?"

           
"Let's call you delicious. You
taste good, look good,
sound
good. .."

 
          
"What
were we talking about?" she broke in. "The green ray. I think it can
even go around a comer. Some sort of mirror arrangement can reflect it at an
angle."

 
          
"That's
understandable," said Darragh. "But can't the ray be blocked off some
way? A screen or curtain pushed across it to darken it? If we could do that, we
could bring down the roof of this dome like a shower of cocoanuts on what the
Cold People have for heads."

 
          
"Oh,
you savage from down in the tropics!" she almost cried out. "You want
to wreck their happy home."

 
          
"That's
just what I want to do.
Why not?"

           
"For one thing, I don't see how
it can be done. I know of no way to cut across the ray's path, once the power
is on. It would be like trying to cut through a steel rod with a dull
knife."

 
          
"That
green ray must have been what I've heard about, in the stories of the first
invasion," suggested Darragh. "They made curtains of it, and bounced
back bullets and bombs and shells. Well, all right; but something could throw
the source or the reflector out of order.
A grenade or bomb,
for instance."

 
          
"Yes,"
she said, falling in with the humor. "A bomb of a considerable explosive
force, set off in the middle of our court, might smash the walls of the shaft
and jam all the fixtures."

 
          
"Now,"
Darragh told her, "you're talking like us savages from the tropics."

 
          
"You've
infected me," she teased. "However, there aren't any such bombs to be
had. We don't have chemicals to make explosives."

 
          
"We
savages do." He squeezed her hand again. "Tell me more things about
the green rays."

 
          
"They're
used in all sorts of mechanisms. The Cold People use them to fly their ships, I
understand, and to run motors and work levers and apply pressures and props.
They operate their food-synthesizers with the rays."

 
          
"How
do they make their food?"

           
"Oh, from the ordinary
elements, to judge from the items we get.
Carbon, nitrogen,
hydrogen, oxygen."

 
          
"Which
means they come from a planet like ours," amplified Darragh. "What
planet, Brenda?
Mars?
Jupiter?
One of Jupiter's moons?"

 
          
"Our
committee doubts that. Mars would be too warm, and Jupiter and Jupiter's moons
would be too cold. But about making the food—the active principle of
synthesizing seems to be distilled from a vegetable substance they've brought
from their own home world."

 
          
"They
ship it in?"

           
"No, apparently they grow it
here.
In bitter cold, of course.
Big
crops of it, in the polar regions."

 
          
"Just
how do you people find out these things?"

           
"From Orrin Lyle," she
said. "He can understand the Cold People, and make them understand him, by
signs made back and forth at one of those view panels."

 
          
"And
he gives himself airs because he can do that?" Dar-ragh's smile was wry
this time. "Well, I won't belittle him. I wish I knew what the Cold People
were saying. You don't suppose they can understand us?"

 
          
"I
don't think so, because Orrin always interprets for us when there's anything to
ask.
Now, about the explosive ray."

 
          
"Yes,"
said Darragh eagerly, "how do they manage that thing? It must be
unthinkably hot, beyond anything they can stand. What is the temperature range
for them? I mean, what temperature they can endure."

 
          
"Orrin's
father and grandfather made studies and estimates on that," Brenda told
him. "They came to the conclusion that comfort point for the Cold
Creatures is about sixty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. That would be like
seventy degrees above for us."