Fear That Man

Beyond the safety fence was the vast expanse of concrete that was Chaplin-Alpha’s spaceport, and the tall, phallic starships, mute dragons making silent testimony to the greatness of the race that had built the city of Chaplin- Alpha.

The city that was now in ashes, Sam reminded himself. The city behind the rolling green hills. The rolling green hills that belied the horror the other-dimensional God and its slug-forms had wrought.

The aliens had left the starships untouched. In fact, some of the ships sported crews of slug-forms clinging like fleas on a dog’s back. There were four slugs to each crew, and they seemed to be painting the hulls black to match the Raceship. These vessels would not be large enough to serve as Spoorships, but they would do the slugs well for survey craft — and possibly as battleships against the race that had made them.

Coro settled the floater behind the fence, into the shadows and the grass, cut all power and unstrapped himself. “We just have to go get one.”

“How?” Lotus asked.

“We have dart guns. If we have just a little bit of luck besides, we’ll have it made.”

“Without the luck?” Crazy asked.

“It’s been a pleasant association,” Coro said, smiling another of his non-smiles.

Minutes later they stood before the fence, each carrying a rifle armed with a clip of forty drug darts. The darkness would only shield them for half a dozen feet beyond the fence. Then, once onto the concrete runway, they would be held in the glare of the triple polyarcs, small, clear targets on the sea of smooth, featureless grayness that offered no place for concealment.

“Now comes an unpleasant choice,” Coro said, hunkering down and staring through the chainlink.

“What?” Sam asked, getting down next to him.

“Do we take the nearest ship — which has a four-slug crew working on it? Or do we go to the next ship — which has no crew, but which is three times as far from us?”

“I don’t like the slugs,” Crazy grumbled, shaking his massive head, hair twirling madly for a moment.

“Neither do I,” Sam said. “But we risk three times as much by going to the more distant ship. I opt for the closest vessel and the use of the drug darts.”

“Agreed,” Coro said. Then: “Agreed?”

It was, and swiftly. With a hand-laser torch like the one they had used to cut through the hull of the Raceship, they began work on the links of the safety fence. Within minutes they were through, hugging the shadows on the other side where they were thin and shallow. Ahead lay the runway, too bright for comfort. If there were only some cover, some little thing between here and the ship, some stopping point to catch breath. But there wasn’t.

“Together,” Coro said. “Run as fast as you can to the bottom of the ship, then stay with it like it was a lover, ‘cause it offers at least a little bit of shade. From there, we can pick off the painting crew on the mobile scaffolding and use it to get to the portal. Ready? Move!”

Sam’s lungs pounded as he raced across the concrete, gray swimming about him almost as if the deck were liquid, night air biting his cheeks and making them red. He wished he could move as fast as Lotus, but then she seemed to be just skimming the ground, flying more than she was running. He felt so small and so easily seen, naked on an endless plain of nightmare lights. But he couldn’t let himself think about that — or about one of the aliens’ beams picking him out and charring him into a smoldering, writhing mass of human flesh, spouting blood from ears and nose, eyes red with burst vessels. Those were not scenes to be imagined. Only run. Run, run, run until your chest is bursting and your legs are throbbing like footless stumps. Run, run…

But by expecting the worst, he felt spiritually exulted when they arrived at the bottom of the starship unharmed and apparently unnoticed. They stood, still together, with their backs pressed against the cold, cold metal of the hull, sweat on their backs seeming to turn to ice. Breaths pounded in and out of four sets of lungs. Four hearts thumped too fast.

“Carefully again,” Coro said between labored suckings of air.

Quietly, gently they moved along the base of the ship, sliding next to the scaffold wheels. The lace-work steel shot up eighty feet. At the top, spray guns blasted black paint onto the gleaming metal.

“Drop back and fire,” Coro said.

And they did. Darts spurted out of four guns, and the slugs slumped quickly under the hail of needles, dropping spray machines onto the platform beside them. But even the loud clunkings from this didn’t seem to draw any unwanted attention.

“Up,” Coro said curtly, boarding the ramp of the scaffold and climbing quickly through the shadows of the metal piping.

At the top, they stepped over the slugs and reached the controls of the mobile scaffold. Coro experimented, found the proper operational procedure, and began moving them toward the main portal to the control cabin of the vessel. The machine hummed softly as it moved, a hum reminiscent of Racesong. They were almost to the portal when the beams burst bluely against the hull, announcing their loss of secrecy.

“Cover me!” Coro shouted, holding onto the controls.

The machine suddenly seemed to be moving so damnably slow! Moving slowly toward a port that was abruptly so distant as to seem an impossible quest. The other three turned, kneeling on the platform. There was no cover for them up here, nothing to intercept the beams that flushed outward from the weapons of a block of guards racing across the port deck.

“Can’t you move this thing any faster?” Lotus called.

“It’s at top speed already,” Coro shouted. “They didn’t design it for racing!” A beam smashed inches above his head, pitting the thick metal of the starship.

“Dammit!” Lotus snapped, angry at the machine, herself, all of them for not being able to move faster.

Sam fired a few darts, saw that the slugs were still too far away. The darts dropped lazily, snapping against the concrete thirty yards short. He stopped and watched the advancing guards. There appeared to be an even dozen of them, rolling like snakes, their black and yellow uniform cloaks fluttering idiotically behind them. Costumed worms, he thought. On their way to some ludicrous Halloween ball. Their anterior segments gripped the concrete and thrust them on. Their pseudopods gripped the sleek, powerful-looking rifles that spat the blue beams.

“Just another minute!” Coro called.

There was a blue explosion next to Sam. He fell flat against the platform, hugging it as if he could melt into it by virtue of the heat of his fear. They’re trying to kill me, he thought. They are purposefully trying to blow off my head. He clutched the dart gun, wanted to retch. The others fell flat and began shooting. The guards were close enough now, and they dropped almost as one as the first wave hit them. Seven fell with the initial round. The other five turned, abruptly anxious to seek cover, went down as the trio fanned them with darts.

Sirens wailed from the polyarcs. More slugs appeared between the ships that dotted the port deck. They rolled about, buzzing in confusion, then came to grips with the situation, armed themselves, and moved toward the starship with cold purpose.

Clunk! The scaffold jerked to a stop. “Someone help me with this portal!” Coro shouted.

Sam jumped and ran to the circular hatch. Together, they gripped the large primary handle, twisted it in the direction of a series of red arrows. When it clicked and could be moved no further, they turned to the second wheel and twisted it counterclockwise. The noise on the port deck below was much louder and much closer. A spatter of beams boiled over the plating, leaving shallow pits in the ship’s thick hide.

“Not much more,” Coro groaned between breaths.

Sam began to croak an answer, was flung from his feet and tossed against the hull, smashed back to the deck of the scaffold. A beam had caught his arm, leaving a four-inch wound. The gouge was an inch deep along his biceps. Blood gurgled out, matted in his shirt. Pain throbbed through every nerve and erupted nova-like into his brain. “I’m all right,” he managed to hiss to Coro. “Go on. Hurry!”

Coro turned back to the portal, strained at the wheel to move it the last few crucial inches.

Lotus and Crazy had used all the darts in their own guns just as the door swung open with a sigh. Slugs were clambering up the ramp while others stood on the deck below firing a murderous barrage that pitted metal