Return to the Stars

Hull stared at the view-screen and the dizzying whirl of suns and worlds and deadly drift. 'But we'll crash. It's suicide!'

Shorr Kan had seen Gordon's point. 'He's right, Hull. It's risking a crash, but it's the only way.' He pushed Hull toward the control-board. 'Do it!'

Dazed and only half-understanding, Hull obeyed. The three of them pushed and pulled at things like madmen. The ship corkscrewed, stood on its tail. The protective grav-stasis operating inside the ship shielded them from the worst accelerative effects, but the sheer insanity of flying in this mad fashion was terrifying.

'All right back there!' Gordon yelled. 'You can read my mind, you know what I'm saying! If we crash and die, you die with us! Try to take control of any of us again and we will crash!'

He waited for the icy mental bolt to hit him, but it did not. And after a minute there came into his mind a telepathic feeler that was cold, alien, and... fearful.

'Stop!' thought the hidden H'Harn. 'We cannot survive if you continue this. Stop it!'

14

Sweat stood out on Gordon's forehead. He saw in the view-screen that the ship was now heading with all its tremendous speed toward the irregular sprawl of a filamentary nebula. That nebula would be rotten with drift.

He took his hands off the controls. 'Let be,' he told the others. 'But be ready to hit them again any moment.'

An anxious thought came from the H'Harn. It could see quite clearly, Gordon knew, what was ahead of them, using his eyes as a viewer. 'You must change course or we will perish.'

'Change course to where?' said Gordon harshly. 'To the Magellanic sub-galaxy? That's where you were taking us with your hypnotic suggestions.'

'It is necessary for me to return there,' came the sullen thought. 'But we can make a bargain.'

'What kind of bargain?'

'This,' thought the hidden H'Harn. 'Set a course toward an uninhabited world I know of that is not too distant, and land there. You may then leave the ship.'

Gordon looked at the others, Hull's coppery face sweating and haggard, Shorr Kan's a mask of grim doubt.

'I got the thought.' Shorr Kan nodded. 'You too, Hull? Anyway, I don't think much of it for a bargain. The thing will try to trick us somehow.'

'No!' came the sharp thought.

Gordon paused, undecided. He could see no other arrangement that might even possibly work. The situation was fantastic. The three of them in the racing ship, each of them vulnerable to the colossal mental power of the creature back there, but only one at a time.

A thought crossed his mind but he instantly suppressed it. It was nothing he wanted to think about even for one moment. He look at the other two and said, 'I think we've got to risk it.'

'Very well,' came the quick, eager thought of the H'Harn. A little too quick, a little too eager. 'I will direct your companion how to fly the ship to that world.'

'As you did before?' jeered Gordon. 'Oh, no. You're not putting Hull under again and then using him in some underhanded fashion.'

'But how then... ?'

Gordon said, 'You will explain to Hull the controls of the ship, by direct telepathic statements. He will repeat aloud to us each of your explanations. If at any moment Hull shows the slightest sign of being under your mental dominance, we'll hit the controls and keep on hitting them until we crash.'

There was a long pause before any answer came. Hull was looking agonizedly at the screen, and Gordon saw in it that the filamentary nebula was terribly close, winding across space like a gigantic ragged serpent. The serpent was diamonded with points of light that came and went, bigger fragments of drift that caught the light of distant suns and then lost it.

He thought grimly that if the H'Harn did not make up its mind soon, there was not going to be any escape for any of them.

That thought pressured the H'Harn into hasty decision, as Gordon had hoped it would.

'Very well, it is agreed. But your companion must take over at once.'

Hull Burrel seated himself at the controls. Gordon and Shorr Kan leaned on either side of him, watching his face for any sign of change, watching the controls, and watching each other.

'It says this is the main lateral-thrust lever,' said Hull, putting his hand on a little burnished lever. 'Fifty degrees east... seven of these little vernier marks to the left.'

The gigantic snake of the nebula slid out of their view in the screen.

'Zenith and nadir thrust control,' muttered Hull, touching still another of the small levers.

The star-fields changed in the screen. The ship, still running at a velocity far higher than that of any craft ever known in the galaxy, moved again with apparent sanity through the jungle of suns on a course parallel with the rim of the galaxy, arrowing slightly zenithward in the starry swarm.

Gordon felt a tension that was now unbearable. He knew that the H'Harn did not mean to let them escape, that the thing had something up its sleeve, some trap that would close directly they landed...

Don't think of that, he told himself. Keep your mind on Hull and what he's saying about the controls.

After what seemed an endless time, a yellow sun very like Sol lay dead ahead, and its disc grew as the ship flew on. Presently they could see the planet that swung around it.

'Is this the world?' Gordon demanded.

'Yes,' came the H'Harn's answering thought.

The creature then gave Hull further telepathic instructions, and Hull said, 'Deceleration control... two notches,' and touched another lever.

Gordon watched Hull closely. If the H'Harn meant suddenly to seize their pilot, it was likely to be fairly soon. So far, Hull's face remained normal. But he knew how swiftly the change could come, to that inhuman stiffness. And if that happened... Don't think about it. Don't think!

The planet rushed toward them, a green-and-gray globe, its surface hidden here and there by belts of cloud. Gordon caught the glint of a sea, far around its curve.

'Deceleration... two more notches, to reach stationary orbit,' repeated Hull, voicing the instructions of the H'Harn.

And after a few minutes, 'Needle centered on third dial... orbit stationary. Trim lever, four notches...'

He touched the trim lever and the ship rotated, then began descending tail first toward the surface of the planet. Hull Burrel said, 'Descent control... three notches.' They went down through streaming clouds, and a little muted bell rang somewhere.

'Friction alarm,' said Hull. 'Reduce descent velocity by two notches.' He moved the lever under his hand.

They looked downward, through the aft view-screen, and saw the planet rising toward them. There was a green landscape, with forests and plains, and the silver ribbon of a river. Gordon heard the quick breathing of Shorr Kan and thought, He's as keyed up as I am... think about Shorr Kan... think whether you can trust him...

'One-half notch less,' said Hull, and moved the lever again.

They were a thousand feet above the forest when Gordon struck. He did it with the abrupt ferocity of a man who will not have a second chance and knows it. Hull Burrel's hand still held the lever. Gordon hit it and smashed it downward. The lever went wide open and there was a shrieking roar of air.

Hull shouted something and the next moment the tail of the ship hit the ground. Gordon went flying, with the sound of the ship's collapsing fabric loud in his ears. He caromed into the control panel and the breath went out of him. There was a long falling cadence of grindings and crackings and metallic screamings. Gradually they ceased. By the time Gordon got his head cleared and his breath back, the ship was quite still, canted drunkenly over on one side.