Return to the Stars

The Antarian turned around, his eyes just a trifle vague. 'Safe? Why, I suppose...'

Gordon felt suddenly very nervous. If Shorr Kan, that tough and seasoned veteran, was worried about their velocity, it was something to worry about.

'Hull,' he said, 'why don't you slow down?' And that, he thought, must be an all-time first; back-seat driving in a starship.

'Mm,' said Hull, and scowled down at the child-sized controls. 'I can't read these blasted things.' His voice went up a notch. 'How am I going to set a course out of the galaxy and all the way to the Magellanic Clouds,' he demanded, 'when I can't read the instruments?'

'Set a course 'where'?' said Gordon, astonished, 'What are you talking about?'

Hull shook his head. 'The Magellanic Clouds. Where the H'Harn come from. Weren't we going there to reconnoiter them?'

'This little ship reconnoiter a sub-galaxy?' exclaimed Gordon. He rose and went to Hull, looking at him anxiously. 'Hull, are you dreaming?'

Shorr Kan joined them, stooping slightly under the ceiling. 'That,' he said, 'is the most idiotic suggestion I ever heard.'

Hull turned on him furiously, his eyes quite normal now. 'Idiotic, is it? You were the one who proposed it! You said we'd go out to the Clouds and learn what the H'Harn are planning against the Empire!'

Shorr Kan's body suddenly stiffened, as though with shock. 'That's ridiculous. But... but I did say that.'

There were times when his dark face could get as hard and cold and keen as a sword blade. This was one of those times.

'Tell me, Hull,' he said swiftly. 'Why did you choose this H'Harn ship for our escape?'

Gordon said, 'You chose it, Shorr Kan. You said it was faster.'

'Ah,' said Shorr Kan. 'I did, didn't I? But how have you been able to fly the thing, Hull?'

Hull looked puzzled. 'Why, I just guessed at the controls...'

'Guessed?' mocked Shorr Kan. 'You took off like an expert, in a ship whose design is completely alien to you.'

His black eyes flashed from Hull to Gordon. He dropped his voice.

'There's only one answer to the things we've been doing. We've been under alien influence. H'Harn influence.'

A feeling of terrible cold swept though Gordon. 'But you said the H'Harn couldn't use their mental power at any great distance!'

'And that's true,' said Shorr Kan. He turned, his gaze going to a closed bulkhead door that was the way to the after part of the ship. 'We haven't been back there yet, have we?' I

The implication hit Gordon squarely in the center of his being. There are different sorts of fear, and many degrees of fearing, but what he felt for the H'Harn was the ultimate in sheer sickening terror. He found difficulty in pronouncing his words.

'You think there was a H'Harn in this ship? That there is one in it now?'

He stared at the door, seeing the creature in his mind's eye... the small, oddly distorted, oddly boneless thing with its limber bobbing gait, a faceless, softly-hissing enigma veiled in gray, hiding a dreadful power...

'I think so,' muttered Shorr Kan. 'Lord knows how many of the little monsters are loose in our galaxy, although four was the number I heard. But I heard it from Cyn Cryver, and Cyn Cryver is a liar, because he told me there was only one at Aar.'

Hull Burrel and Gordon looked at each other. It was still fresh in them, the horror they had felt when the H'Harn named Susurr had come toward them. Gordon said flatly, 'Good God.'

Then he turned to Shorr Kan to ask what they should do. And he was almost too late.

'If there's a H'Harn on this ship,' Shorr Kan said, 'there's only one thing to do. Find it and kill it.'

With a decisive gesture, he drew the stunner from his belt.

Gordon lunged.

He brought Shorr Kan to the floor in a crashing tackle and grabbed the hand that held the stunner. He clung to it while Shorr Kan fought him like a tiger, and all the time Shorr Kan's face was blank as something carved from wood and his eyes were fixed and glazed and unseeing.

Gordon yelled, 'Hull, help me!'

Hull was already leaping forward. 'Then he is a traitor? I always knew we couldn't trust him...'

'Not that,' said Gordon, panting for breath. 'Look at his face. I've seen that before... he's under H'Harn control. Get that stunner out of his hand!'

Hull carefully peeled back Shorr Kan's fingers until he let go of the weapon, and as soon as it passed into the Antarian's hands Shorr Kan sagged and went limp. Like someone coming out of a faint he looked up at them and mumbled, 'What happened? I felt...'

But Gordon had forgotten about him. He wrenched the stunner away from the startled Hull and disarmed it feverishly by withdrawing its charge-chamber. Then, just as quickly, he tossed the useless stunner back to Hull.

'You keep it. I'll keep the charge-chamber, and that way neither one of us can use it if the H'Harn takes control of...'

He never finished the sentence. A bolt as of black lightning, the cold paralyzing force that he had felt before at Teyn, exploded with terrifying silence in his brain. There was no shield against it, no possibility of struggle. It was like death. And simply, he died.

Just as simply and suddenly, he lived again. He was on the deck and his hands were around Shorr Kan's neck, throttling him, and Hull Burrel was pulling him away with such force that he could hear the sinews cracking in the Antarian's back and shoulders.

'Let go,' Hull was snarling. 'Let go or I'll have to knock you out...'

He let go. Shorr Kan rolled over and slid away, his mouth wide and his chest heaving. 'All... all right, now,' Gordon stammered. Feeling sick and shaken, he started to get up. But instead of releasing him, Hull's grip abruptly tightened. His knee slammed into Gordon's back and Gordon fell hard forward and his skull rang on the steel deck.

The H'Harn had shifted its attention once more. Glassy-eyed and blank as a statue, the Antarian left Gordon and flung himself on Shorr Kan and tried earnestly to kill him. Shorr Kan managed to fight him off until Gordon could collect his wits and help. Together they got Hull down and held him, and then between breaths he went flaccid and lay looking at them, his eyes wild but quite sane.

'Me, too?' he said, and Gordon nodded. Hull sat up and put his head in his hands. 'Why doesn't it just kill us and get it over with?'

'It can't kill us,' said Shorr Kan. 'Not with mental force. It could destroy our minds, one by one, but I don't think it wants to be flying through the Marches with three mindless maniacs. It seems to be trying to get two of us to eliminate each other so it'll only have one left to control. I expect it needs someone to help it fly the ship.'

He stared at the closed door aft. 'If we try to get back at it we'll never make it...'

Gordon glanced up at the view-screen, where the thronging stars and shoals of drift crept with such deceptive slowness. This was one of the most crowded regions of the Marches, and Shorr Kan had worried about their velocity. Perhaps...

With desperate inspiration, so desperate that he did not pause a second to think about it, Gordon sprang to the control-board. He began at random to hit the enigmatic controls, punching, twisting, turning them this way and that.

The little ship went crazy. It flashed toward a great belt of drift, then veered wildly off toward a blue sun and its planets, then zoomed zenithward toward a double-double whose four suns yawned before them like great portals of flame. Hull Burrel and Shorr Kan were tumbled against the bulkheads, crying out their surprise.

The H'Harn hidden aft must have been startled, too startled for the moment to stop him.

Hull scrambled toward him. 'You'll wreck us!' he cried. 'Are you daft? Get your hand off those controls, for God's sake!'

Gordon shoved him aside. 'It's our only chance to deal with that creature. Get it scared. Both of you, keep hitting the controls at random. If we all three do that, it can't stop all of us.'