It had been just another form of arrogance… a belief that he could bypass the normal, human way of recovering from grief, the cycle of pain and transcendency by which the billions of his fellow human beings coped when each suffered a loss. That and the comfort of closeness to other people.
And now he was trapped. The meaning of the pennant on the battlements was clear now. In his sickness he’d thought to expiate part of his guilt by demonstrations of loyalty to the person he’d failed. Not overt loyalty, but loyalty deep within… a sick loyalty based on witholding himself from everybody… all the while convinced that he was all right since he’d had lovers!
No wonder Hyde hated Helene! No wonder he wanted Jacob Demwa dead as well!
Tania would never have approved of you, he told it. But it wasn’t listening. It had its own logic and had no use for his.
Hell, she’d have loved Helene!
It didn’t do any good. The barrier was firm. He opened his eyes.
The red of the chromosphere had deepened. They were in the filament now. A flash of color, seen even through his goggles, sent him glancing to the left.
It was a toroid. They were back amidst the herd.
As he watched, several more drifted past, their rims festooned with bright designs. They spun like mad doughnuts, oblivious to the peril of the Sunship.
“Jacob, you have shaid nothing,” Culla’s droning, lisping voice had become background. At the mention of his name Jacob paid attention.
“Shurely you have shome opinion on my motivesh. Cannot you shee that de greater good will come of dish… not only for my shpecies but for yoursh and your Clientsh ash well?”
Jacob shook his head vigorously to clear it. The Hyde-induced drowsiness was something he had to fight! The only silver lining was that his hand no longer hurt.
“Culla, I must think about this for a little while. Can we retire a ways and confer? I can pick up some food for you and maybe we can work something out.”
There was a pause. Then Culla spoke slowly.
“You are very tricky, Jacob. I am tempted but now I shee dat it will be better if you and your friend stay shtill. In fact. I will make certain. If either of you movesh I will ‘shee’ him.”
Numbly, Jacob wondered what was so “tricky” about offering the alien food. Why had that idea popped into his head?
They were falling faster now. Overhead the herd of toruses stretched” toward the ominous wall of the photosphere. The nearest shone in blues and greens as they swept past. The colors faded with distance. The farthest beasts looked like tiny dim wedding rings, each poised on a tiny flicker of green light.
There was movement among the nearest magne-tovores. As the ship fell, one after another moved aside and “downward” from Jacob’s upside-down perspective. Once a flash of green filled the Sunship as a tail-laser swept over them. The fact that they weren’t destroyed meant that the automatic screens were still working.
Outside, a fluttering shape shot past Jacob, from over his head out, past the deck at his feet. Then another rippling apparition appeared, lingering for a moment outside the shell near him, its body slick with iridescent colors. Then it sped upward, out of sight.
The Sun Ghosts were gathering. Perhaps the Sun-ship’s headlong fall had finally piqued their curiosity.
They had passed the largest part of the herd by now. There was a cluster of large magnetovores just overhead, in their line of descent. Tiny bright herdsmen danced around the group. Jacob hoped they’d get out of the way. No sense in taking anyone else with them. The incandescent trail of the ship’s Refrigerator Laser cut dangerously close.
Jacob gathered himself together. There was nothing else to do. He and Hughes would have to try a frontal assault on Culla. He whistled a code, two short and two long. There was a pause and then there was an answer. The other man was ready.
He’d wait until the first sound. They’d agreed that, when they were close enough, any attack with any chance of success would have to come the instant any noise was made, before Culla could be alerted. Since Hughes had farther to go, presumably, he’d move first.
He tensed into a crouch and forced himself to concentrate only on the attack. The stunner rested in the sweaty palm of his left hand. He ignored the distracting tremors that erupted from an isolated part of his own mind.
A sound, like someone falling, came from somewhere to the right. Jacob stepped out from behind the machine, pressing the firing stud of the stunner at the same instant.
No bolt of light greeted him. Culla wasn’t there. One of the precious stunner charges was gone.
He ran forward as fast as he could. If he could catch the alien with his back turned to deal with Hughes…
The lighting was changing. As he ran just a few steps the red brightness of the photosphere overhead was swiftly replaced by a blue-green shine from above. Jacob spared the briefest of glances overhead as he dashed forward. The light came from toruses. The huge Solarian beasts were coming up fast from below the Sunship on a collision course.
Alarms rang, and Helene deSilva’s voice came on, loudly, with a warning. As the blueness grew brighter, Jacob dove over a trace made by the P-laser beam in the dusty air, and landed just two meters away from Culla.
Just beyond the Pring, the crewman Hughes knelt on the ground, holding up bloody hands, his knives scattered on the ground. He stared up at Culla dully, expecting the coup de grace.
Jacob raised the stunner as Culla swiveled, warned by the sound of his arrival. For the briefest of instants Jacob thought he’d made it as he pressed down on the firing stud.
Then his entire left hand erupted in agony. A spasm flung it up and the gun flew away. For a moment the deck seemed to sway, then his vision cleared and Culla was standing before him, eyes dull. The Pring’s mashies were now fully exposed, waving at the ends of the tentacular “lips.”
“I am shorry, Jacob.” The alien slurred so badly Jacob could barely make out the words. “It musht be thish way.”
The Eatee planned to finish him off with his cleavers! Jacob stumbled back in fear and disgust. Culla followed, the mashies clacking together slowly, powerfully with the rhythm of his footsteps.
A great sense of resignation washed over Jacob, a feeling of defeat and imminent death. It took the distance out of his backward steps. The throbbing in his hand meant nothing next to the closeness of extinction.
“No!” he shouted hoarsely. He launched himself forward, head down, toward Culla.
At that instant Helene’s voice came on again and the blueness overhead took over everything. There was a distant humming and then a powerful force lifted them off the floor, into the air above the violently heaving deck.
PART IX
There was once a lad so virtuous that the gods gave him a wish. His choice was to be, for a day, the charioteer of the Sun. Apollo was overruled when he predicted dire consequences, but subsequent events proved him right. The Sahara is said to be the track of desolation laid when the inexperienced driver let his carriage pass too close to Earth. Since then, the gods have tried to operate a closed shop.
26. TUNNELING
Jacob landed on the opposite side of the computer-console, falling hard on his back to save his blistered, bleeding hands. Fortunately, the springy material of the deck cushioned some of the impact.
He tasted blood and his head rang as he rolled over onto his elbows. The deck still bounced as the magnetovores overhead jostled against the underbelly of the Sunship, filling the interior of flip-side with brilliant blue light. They touched the ship, three of them, at about forty-five degrees “above” the deck, leaving a large gap directly overhead. That left room for the Refrigerator Laser to pour its deadly beam of stored solar heat between them, downward toward the photosphere.