The Godmen

CHAPTER IV

It was very noisy inside the Thetis. Part of the noise was being made by Kwolek and his crew down in the bowels of the drive-room, but only a small part. Most of it came from outside.

Harlow felt as though he were standing in the interior of a great iron-sided drum. Yrra, beside him, had her hands over her ears. He could feel her flinch at the loudest and he knew she was frightened — not of the noises, but what they could mean to her.

The screen in front of them showed the ground around the ship. It swarmed with Ktashans. The sun was high now, and between its heat and their own activities most of the men had thrown off their short robes, leaving only loose drawers that did not hamper their movements. Their golden bodies gleamed, glowing with energy and sweat. They had hammered tirelessly on the Thetis' hull for more than three hours now and they showed no signs of flagging. So far the durametal hull had resisted everything they had from stones to crude drills and wrecking bars. But the stubborn methodical battering was getting on Harlow's nerves.

He leaned over to the intercom. “How's it going?'

Kwolek's voice answered him in a rasping snarl. “It won't go at all if you don't quit pestering me. Some fool question every five minutes!

'Okay,” said Harlow. “Okay.'

He didn't blame Kwolek. The boys were doing the best they could. They could have replaced the damaged tube in half the time from outside, but the Ktashans out there made that impractical. So it was being done under emergency-in-space procedure, from inside, only one difference, which would help some. They didn't have to wear vac-suits.

'It won't be long now,” he said to Yrra, having to shout to make himself heard but trying to make it a comforting shout. He knew what she was thinking. He was thinking the same thing himself. If the Ktashans ever managed to break their way inside, their chances for living long were poor. They didn't have Brai now, but they had committed their sin against custom and tabu when they got Brai out of his prison. And what had happened afterward would probably only make N'Kann more determined than ever to punish them for having set loose no one knew what menaces connected with the Vorn.

He took Yrra by the shoulders and turned her away from the screen. He said, “I want to know about the Vorn — everything that your brother told Dundonald.'

She was scared, but after a moment she answered him.

'He told Dundonald all that he knew, all that my people know. It is all legend, for it was two generations ago.” She thought a moment, then went on. “The Vorn came to this world—'

Harlow interrupted. “How did they come? What did they look like?'

Yrra stared. “It was not known how they came. They had no ship like this one — no ship at all. They suddenly were just here.'

And that, Harlow thought, was the same story that the Survey had heard on several worlds about the Vorn. They did not use ships, they just appeared. Some method of instantaneous transmission of matter seemed the only answer to that riddle. It was small wonder that the Cartel back on Earth was grabbing for such a secret.

'As to how they looked,” Yrra was continuing, “the stories are strange. It is said that they were human, but not human like us — that they were of force and flame, not of flesh. Is such a thing possible?'

That, too, was the cryptic description that other worlds had given the Survey. It could mean anything, or nothing.

'I don't know,” said Harlow. “Go on.'

'It is said,” Yrra told him, “that the Vorn spoke to our people in some way. Our people were very afraid. But the Vorn said they had not come to harm them, that they were star-rovers who visited many worlds and were merely visiting this one. They said they would go back to their own world, but might come here again some day.'

'Where did the Vorn say their home-world was?” asked Harlow.

It was the crucial question and he waited tensely for the answer.

'In the Great Blackness,” said Yrra, using the name given by the Ktashans to the Horsehead that was such a big feature of their night sky. “The Vorn said that beyond two blue stars that burn at the edge of the Blackness there is a bay that runs deep into it, and that a green star far in that bay was their native star.'

Harlow's hopes leaped up. He had noted the twin blue stars on the fringe of the Horsehead — and this sounded like a clear clue.

'Is that what Brai told Dundonald?” he asked, and Yrra nodded.

'Yes. And that is why my people condemned Brai. For when Dundonald left here he said he would search for the world of the Vorn, and so great is my people's reverence for the Vorn that they thought that sacrilege.'

The banging upon the hull of the Thetis suddenly stopped. In the abrupt silence, Harlow thought hard. He said, “Whether or not the Vorn are really there, that's where Dundonald went so we have to go there. And that's where Taggart will have headed, as soon as he got this information out of Brai.'

'Brai would never tell a treacherous enemy like that anything — not even under torture,” Yrra declared proudly.

Harlow looked at her a little a little pityingly. “You don't know Earthmen. They're too clever to use torture any more. They use a process led narco-synthesis, and other things. Brai will tell all he knows.'

Yrra did not answer. She had turned to look at the screen and now her eyes were wide and bright with a new terror.

Harlow followed her gaze, and his own nerves tightened with a shock. He saw now why the Ktashans had stopped hammering on the Thetis' hull.

The golden men were all running out onto the plain to meet something that was coming slowly from the city. It trundled ponderously on wooden wheels, pushed by a gang of sweating men. It was a massive ram made of a colossal tree-trunk tipped with stone.

Harlow jumped to the intercom. “Kwolek, we've got maybe ten minutes! They're coming with a nutcracker that'll spring our plates for sure.'

'Ten minutes? We need an hour more!” answered Kwolek's voice. “We've unshipped the damaged tube but it'll take that long to install a new one.'

Harlow thought a moment, then made his decision. There was only one thing to be done.

'Suspend work,” he said. “Seal the tube-mounting and come up here. We'll take off as is.'

'Are you crazy?” Kwolek howled, but Harlow snapped off the intercom.

Kwolek and Garcia came into the bridge a minute later. Kwolek's red face was smeared with dirt and he was badly upset.

'You ought to know that a takeoff on unbalanced tubes will sunfish the Thetis all over,” he said. Then he saw the screen and the sweating, triumphant Ktashan men on the plain, all pushing their massive ram faster and faster toward the ship. He said, “Oh.” He bent over the intercom and spoke into it loud urgent words, ending up with a profane order to get it done fast. Harlow took Yrra by the arm and pulled her away from the screen, where she was still watching with fascinated horror the ponderous approach of the ram.

'This is going to be rough,” he told her. “You'll probably be scared to death, but it won't last long.'

Either way, he thought, it won't last long. If we make it, or if we don't.

He strapped her into his own bunk, making her as secure and comfortable as possible, and when he got through she looked so small and patient and scared and too proud to show it that he kissed her. Then he ran back to the control room.

Kwolek and Garcia were already strapped in, Kwolek with his ear glued to the intercom and both of them watching the screen. The ram was much closer now. Its massive head of red stone looked and was heavy enough to batter down the stone walls of a city.

Kwolek said, “Another couple of minutes. We don't want to take any chances of the seal blowing out when we hit vacuum.'

He was sweating visibly. So was Garcia, but more neatly, refraining somehow from staining his tunic collar. Harlow said, “Give me the outside speaker. Fast.'