War Against the Rull (12 page)

The next sense impression to reach his consciousness was the thick, rancid odor of rotting vegetation, at once familiar and strange. He stayed as he was, eyes closed, body very still, forcing his breath into the slow, deep pattern of a sleeper. He was lying on something that felt like a canvas cot. It sagged in the middle but was reasonably comfortable. His thoughts became analytical. Was he a victim of ... Rulls? Or was this personal? As chief scientist for the Interstellar Military Commission, he had in his time offended many bold and dangerous individuals, on Earth and other planets. Ira Clugy? He wondered. He was certainly the latest of the offended individuals. But would Clugy kidnap a government official for the sole purpose of clinching an argument? It seemed impossible. Jamieson's mind leaped back to the bizarre pattern of lines that had snatched his attention. A new form of mind control? Even as he had the thought, he realized that further speculation would solve nothing.

Jamieson opened his eyes. He was staring up through dense foliage at a blue-green, glowing sky. He grew abruptly aware that he was perspiring copiously, and that it was almost unbearably hot, and that the place was alive with machine sounds. He sat up, swung his legs off the cot, and slowly climbed to his feet. He then noticed that he was dressed in a fine-mesh suit that encased him from head to foot. It was the kind of hunting outfit used on primitive planets that swarmed with hostile life of every description. He saw that his cot was at the edge of a clearing that was in process of being created. Graders, bulldozers and a score of other road-building monsters were at work. Plastic huts were going up to his right. Some were already erected.

If this were Mira 23, then Clugy's office would already be in operation.

It was Clugy—he now accepted that. There could be no other explanation. And, by God, Clugy had better be prepared to explain.

As he started toward the line of huts, Jamieson noticed that the green tint of the sky was the result of an energy screen. He detected the screen by the slight blurring of the outline of the treetops beyond it. The observation ended any confusion that remained, for the greenish effect was due to the screen's absorption of the lower visible frequencies from the oversized red giant sun, which now blazed so whitely at the zenith of the screen. Mira the red, the wonderful!

Twice, as Jamieson walked, discing machines harumphed past him sowing their insect poison, and he had to step gingerly over the loose earth. In its early stages the poison was as unfriendly to human beings as it was to anything else. The upturned soil glittered with long, black shiny worms writhing feebly, with the famous red Mira bugs, that shocked their victims with electric currents, and with other
things
that he did not recognize. He reached the area of the huts, walked on, and came presently to a sign which read:

MERIDAN SALVAGE CO.

IRA CLUGY

CHIEF ENGINEER

Jamieson strode into the hut. A youth of perhaps twenty sat at a desk inside, looking annoyingly cool and alert to the perspiring Jamieson.

"Where's Ira Clugy?" demanded Jamieson without preliminaries.

The lad looked him over without any particular surprise. "Who are you? I don't remember seeing you around here before."

"My name is Trevor Jamieson. That mean anything to you?"

The youth didn't bat an eye. "The name does. That's the wheel assigned to this project by the Military Commission. You couldn't be Jamieson. He's not a field man."

Jamieson ignored the objection. "You must be Peter Clugy."

"How did you know that?" The boy looked steadily at Jamieson, then added, "Knowing my name doesn't prove you're Trevor Jamieson. How
did
you get here anyhow? There hasn't been a ship for five days."

"Five days?" echoed Jamieson, shocked.

The young man nodded.

Five days, thought Jamieson. And the trip from Earth would have taken seven or eight. Could Ira Clugy have kept him unconscious and concealed all that time without the nephew's knowing it?

"Where," demanded Jamieson simply, "is your uncle?"

Peter Clugy shook his head. "I don't think I ought to tell you that, without knowing who you are or how you got here., But I'll call him." He picked up the phone from the desk and pressed a button on an adjacent panel. After a moment came the faint sound of a voice on the line. It became exclamatory as Peter Clugy imparted the message. Then Jamieson was startled to hear the lad describing him personally.'

"Above average height, somewhat bushy sandy hair, with a pronounced widow's peak, very dark eyes, wide forehead, prominent features—" Peter Clugy paused as the voice on the line spoke briefly, then said, "Okay, but you'd better bring a couple of men with you, just in case." He hung up and turned to Jamieson. "My uncle says you
could
be Jamieson, from the description.
Or
a Rull posing as Jamieson."

Jamieson smiled and stood up. He stepped forward, extending his hand. "Here—I'll prove I'm not a Rull, at least. Shake hands."

Peter Clugy's hand was palm down on the desk. He moved it just enough to reveal a small but deadly blaster beneath it. "Keep your distance," he said evenly. "Time enough for tests when my uncle gets here."

Jamieson stared at him a moment, then shrugged. He turned his back and sauntered to the doorway.

"Come away from there," said young Clugy sharply. "Better sit down where I can watch you."

Jamieson ignored him and stood looking out at the rather remarkable panorama beyond. In coming to this hut he had been too intent on his personal problem to notice the sweeping view from the campsite. This must be the compromise location Clugy had suggested during their bitter discussion back on Earth. This hill rose a thousand feet above the floor of the jungle, but not too sharply. Now that most of the growth was cleared from its crest it afforded a magnificent view of the vast, shining forest below, whose green splendor reached all the way to the dimly seen mountains based below the horizon.

He saw the glint of rivers, the sparkling colors of strange trees; and, as he looked, the old, perennial thrill stirred within him, a feeling of exaltation in contemplating this universe of
fabulous planets and of wondrous stars, like the famed Mira sun above him.

The sight of three armed men crossing the clearing toward him reminded him abruptly of the urgency of the moment. The wiry figure in front would be that of Ira Clugy. As he came close enough for recognition, his deeply tanned face took on what Jamieson would have sworn was a look of honest bewilderment.

Ira Clugy said nothing until, at his gesture, the others had "frisked" Jamieson and established his humanness beyond question. Then: "Just one more thing, Mr. Jamieson. I wouldn't insist on it if you hadn't shown up here in such a mysterious fashion." The engineer took a pen from the desk and held it out. "Please sign your name on this pad so I can compare it with some papers in our files which bear your signature."

When that was established, Clugy said, "All right, then, Mr. Jamieson, I'd like to ask you one question: How did you get here?"

Jamieson smiled grimly. "Believe it or not, I came to this office to ask
you
that same question." There was, he decided suddenly, nothing to be gained by withholding anything.

He told Clugy all of the story that he knew, from the time he had left his office in Solar City until his arrival on this planet. He withheld nothing—not even his suspicions of Clugy.

At this, Ira Clugy was ironically amused. "You don't know me very well," he said. "I could have cheerfully punched you in the nose when I talked to you in your office. But kidnapping's not my style." Clugy went on to outline the events following his angry parting from Jamieson. He had gone directly to the Spaceman's Club and radioed his crew on Mira 23 to pack up and come home. He was submersing his choler at the club bar when he was approached by a government agent who explained the reason for the difficult session with Jamieson. Mollified, Clugy countermanded the order to his crew. Next morning he signed the contract and began loading additional men and equipment aboard one of his salvage ships. Two days later he departed for Mira 23. Clugy finished, "You can radio Earth to verify what I've told you."

"I must radio Earth anyway," he told Clugy, "and I'll check your story as a matter of course, though I really believe you. But far more important is to get a big ship here as fast as we can. What happened to me was no accident and we're not through with it."

The radio shack was not far away and readily identifiable by the cone-shaped configuration of rings above it which formed
the subspace antenna. The radio operator peered out from behind the control panel as they entered. There was a worried look on his face.

"Mr. Clugy! I was just going to call you. It's the McLaurin condenser again. It's burned out."

Clugy looked at the man with a grim expression. "I'm afraid, Landers, I'm going to have to put you under arrest."

The remark seemed to stun the young man. Jamieson was also surprised, and said so.

Clugy said, "Doctor, this is the third and last condenser. It'll be six days before another ship arrives, and they of course will have a stock of spares. Meanwhile, we are out of radio communication."

The appalling significance of that instantly justified the arrest. In a flash, Jamieson sized up the situation. There were four of them here in the room: the two Clugys, the radio operator and himself. Outside, the roar of machinery nullified the possibility of any human-made sound being heard.

Young Peter Clugy interrupted
his
train of thought, placed a blaster on the table beside him. "Here, sir; you cover him while I give him the test."

Jamieson snatched the gun, relieved to have a weapon again. He stepped back and waved the younger Clugy forward. Beside him, Ira Clugy also pulled his blaster. They stood watchful, as the radio operator extended his hand.

After the handshake, Clugy's nephew seemed relieved as he turned to Jamieson and said, "He's human, sir."

The atmosphere in the shack grew less tense. "Where," Jamieson asked, "is the nearest available transmitter?"

"At the uranium mining camp, nine hundred miles south," Clugy replied, and added, "You can have one of our aerocars and leave right away. In fact, I'll take you myself."

Young Peter Clugy immediately started off toward a group of small ships standing in a row across the clearing. "I'll bring you one," he called over his shoulder.

Minutes later they were in the air, the dense, waxen-green forest sliding rapidly northward a thousand feet below. Peter Clugy had elected to pilot the ship for them; at the moment, he was expertly setting the automatic controls for the prescribed course.

Ira Clugy sat staring silently out the window, apparently in no mood to talk. Jamieson didn't blame him—it was time to straighten out his own thoughts on a few matters.

The purpose of the Rulls, he told himself, is to delay or block altogether the procurement of lymph fluid. That premise should
be the key to the whole situation. But why would they arrange to trap him by their bizarre, mind-seizing line patterns and bring him here, apparently on one of their own ships? He shuddered at the thought of being in their alien custody during the long trip through space.

And why did they let me live? There was only one reasonable explanation. It would not be sufficiently damaging to the project merely to kill the administrator, who could be replaced in due course. There must be a deeper plan, one involving Ira Clugy undoubtedly, which would be calculated to hold up the entire operation for some time.

Apparently, the plan required that Jamieson's presence be established here. That was simple enough. All they had to do was to set him down in the camp, probably before dawn, and he had taken care of the rest of it himself, quite naturally.

Jamieson felt a sudden uneasiness. Everything else he had done had been quite natural also,
and quite predictable.
What was more natural than that he—and Ira Clugy, too, for that matter—would be here in this small craft on their way across nine hundred miles of desolation toward the nearest subspace radio station, now that the one in the camp had failed. Yes, quite predictable, from the viewpoint of some agent who had cleverly sabotaged the subspace radio but who didn't know about the patrol ship above the atmosphere.

Jamieson got to his feet. The mining camp must be contacted immediately, before it was too late!

It was then, glancing quickly around the horizon, that he saw another ship approaching. Although he had more than half expected it, the sight sent a thrill of alarm along his nerves. It was larger and faster than their own ship, and probably armed. At that angle and speed it would overtake them in two or three minutes!

Jamieson turned hastily toward the radio panel—and stopped. Peter Clugy stood before it, his face expressionless, but holding in his hand the same small blaster he had displayed earlier. It was aimed at Jamieson's stomach.

There was a gasp from Ira Clugy. "Peter, you young fool! Have you lost your mind?" He got out of his seat and stepped forward as the menacing blaster swung around toward him. "Here, give me that thing!"

Jamieson put out a restraining arm in front of the older man, "I only hope your nephew hasn't lost his life," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "This is not Peter Clugy—nor any other human being."