The Alien by Raymond F. Jones (best summer reads of all time TXT) 📖

where the scientists had held out against the Disciples. He tried to picture what the past months had been for them, but he could never know the hundreds of desperate escapes and skirmishes with guards and officers, and swift murders in the depths below the city.

Beside the clustered buildings the great laboratory spaceship, Lavoisier, lay on the experimental grounds, shining in the early dawn. Sudden bright spurts of light showed on the field. Illia saw it first. "Gunfire!" she cried.

"They're being attacked!" Terry exclaimed. "We've got to get down there or they may have to leave without us. Get out that pair of heavy burners under your seat, Del. We'll have to go in shooting."

Underwood hauled out the weapons as the flier darted swiftly toward the field. A concentrated knot of offense was being offered from the building entrance nearest the ship, but other officers were surrounding the ship behind the screen of the distant shrubbery.

"I'll fly over them," said Terry. "Give them a good blast with both guns."

Underwood opened the port against the wind and pointed the noses of the deadly weapons outward. He clicked the trigger and an unending stream of fire hurled toward the earth, sweeping through the lines of attackers as they crouched behind the shrubs and fences. Then, swiftly, Terry spun the ship to avoid the building and they zoomed upward. At that instant a crippling beam came from below.

"We're hit!" Terry exclaimed. "It killed the motor. Hang on for a crash landing. I'll try to make the port of the ship."

Underwood returned his attention to the guns as if nothing had occurred. As the nose dipped, he fired into the building from which the disabling shot had come. He thought he heard a scream of pain, though it might have been only the sound of the wind against the shell of the little flier.

They were falling fast now, heading for the open port of the large spaceship. They could see some of the crew members and scientists emerging, weapons ready to protect their landing. They sped down below the level of the top of the hull and the vast sheets of plate seemed to flow past the port of the flier like a river of steel.

It stopped flowing. They hit hard, and Terry yanked open the door. They tumbled out in the midst of their defenders, while spurts of flame showed in the sunlight all about them.

"Get in!" one of the men shouted. "We almost had to leave without you. They'll be bringing reinforcements." It was Mason, the physicist.

Underwood nodded. "We're ready. Is everyone else aboard who is going?"

"Yes."

There was a sudden cry beside Underwood and one of the crewmen dropped his gun and clutched an arm in pain. Mason and Terry clutched him in supporting arms and dragged him into the vessel. Underwood clasped Illia's hand and hurried through the port. Behind them the last of the men slammed the door and dogged it tight.

"Phyfe's waiting for you in the control room," Mason said. "We'll take care of Peters, here. Terry had better stay for treatment also."

Underwood nodded and raced along the corridor with Illia. They passed other men intent upon their own tasks. Some of them he knew; others he had never seen before. He hoped that Phyfe and Terry had chosen carefully. The remembrance of the biologist, Craven, came to his mind. They came to the entrance to the control room. Captain Dawson was in technical command, waiting for instructions to take off. Apparently Mason was assuming charge of the takeoff, for his voice came through the audio system as Underwood entered. Phyfe nodded assent to Captain Dawson. "Take it up!"

Almost instantly, the ship soared aloft.

"Wait!" Underwood exclaimed, as he entered the control room.

Phyfe and Dawson looked toward the door. "There can be no waiting," said Phyfe. "We had almost given up you and Terry and Illia. The police have been searching for us for weeks, and now that we're out in the open they'll spare no force to take us."

"We can't go without the Stroid records," said Underwood. "Terry tells me I've been elected to head this outfit. If that's so, then my first order is to pick up every scrap of Stroid record and artifact that has ever been found before we take off."

Dreyer came in and looked interestedly as Underwood spoke, but he said nothing.

"Why?" said Phyfe. "I don't understand."

"There was a weapon," said Underwood, "a weapon that the Sirenians were afraid of, which apparently was responsible for the power of the Dragbora over them. If any trace of that weapon remains in the Universe, our goal is to find it. It may be our one hope of defeating Demarzule."

The others looked at him as if doubting his sanity, yet hoping he was on the trail of a solution.

"But that was five hundred thousand years ago!" said Phyfe. "How could we hope to find such a weapon that disappeared that long ago? We have no clues—"

"We have the Stroid records. That's why I want them."

"But the Sirenians seemed to know nothing about the nature of the weapon."

"We're not so sure of that. But even if that's so, there was the great civilization of the Dragbora. We don't know that it is extinct, and we know nothing of its location—but the weapon may be there. And the clue to its location may be in the Stroid records."

Dreyer nodded and gave a violent puff of smoke. "He's right, Phyfe. We hadn't thought of it, but that may be our one chance. At least it gives us an objective instead of just plunging into purposeless flight."

"I suppose so," Phyfe said doubtfully. "But I don't see how—"

"I'll take care of that. Show us where the records are. We'll get the repository first, however; I want the whole thing brought aboard."

Underwood turned swiftly to Dawson and ordered the ship lowered beside the temporary structure housing the repository near the Stroid museum building. Then he stepped to the ship's interphone and explained their maneuver. He called for twenty volunteers to man scooters and weapons to cover those who were to transfer the records.

Below them, on the ground, the police forces who watched their prey escape stood puzzledly as the Lavoisier turned and moved slowly across the group of buildings and began dropping again. Three deadly police fliers hovered in the air about the great spaceship.

It was the fliers that Underwood watched with intent study. The twenty men he had selected out of the volunteers gathered around the viewing plates with him.

"The first objective will be to down those fliers," said Underwood. "Then you will provide constant cover for those of us who leave the ship to bring the records back. Go to your assigned airlocks. I'll signal when the fliers are in the best position for one group of you to attack it."

Byers, the engineer mechanic appointed captain of the group, nodded.

"They won't know what hit 'em," he promised.

"I hope so," said Underwood. "All right, take your stations and signal when you're ready."

The men filed out of the room while the big ship slowly settled toward the Earth. The three police fliers continued to move about with deadly inquisitiveness. Then the sudden signal from Byers indicated the men were positioned and ready.

Underwood watched the fliers. One was out of sight of the other two near the nose of the Lavoisier. Underwood called sharply: "Number three, attack!"

Almost instantly, a lock opened behind the unsuspecting police flier and three scooters darted out, their riders firing a deadly stream which came to a focus on the tail of the flier. A sudden blossom of flame sent up a plume of black smoke and the flier nosed Earthward without its occupants knowing what had struck.

But now the second flier was rounding the hull and the three scooters were spotted. The police fired and one scooter plummeted out of sight.

"Number seven!" Underwood ordered.

A lock near the top of the hull opened and a second trio of scooters darted out. The flier was beneath them, and its pilots had time to look up and see the blasting fire that poured through the transparent bubble over them. But they had no time to retaliate.

Fire began rising from the ground forces now and the scooter riders were forced to dodge and twist to avoid being hit. At the same time they dived close to the ground and sprayed the attackers.

From above, however, the third flier joined with devastating fury. Two more scooters dropped. Underwood ordered the remaining scooters to the attack. Simultaneously, they poured from the ship, swept over the remaining flier in a wave of destruction and dropped it onto the ground forces.

The latter spread out now and hunted for cover before the mounting destruction of the scooter riders.

"Align cargo hatch number one by the repository shelter," Underwood instructed the Captain. "We'll load that first."

The ship settled to the surface without a jar. The immediate area around the shelter was cleared. Mason, taking charge of the loading, ordered the hatch swung open. Portable cargo units were passed out and strapped to the periphery of the huge, faceted artifact, whose bulk almost filled the hatchway.

Sporadic fire continued from the hidden police, but the scooter riders were holding it below an effective level without losing any more of their own number.

Mason turned the current into the cargo units, and slowly the huge mass rose from the spot where it rested. Then a G-line attached to it began reeling in, drawing the repository toward the ship.

As the hatch clanged shut over it, Underwood exhaled heavily. "That's the main part of our job! Another half hour to scoop up the records in the building and we'll be through."

Illia gave a sudden shrill cry. "Del! The building—it's on fire!"

The men stared. From the museum where the Stroid records lay, there rose billows of smoke and licking flames.

"They must have known what we were after," said Phyfe, "and they fired the building. There's no chance now of getting any of them."

"Yes, there is! Most of the records are metallic." Underwood stepped to the interphone. "Every man but the takeoff crew in spacesuits. Carry sidearms and be ready to enter the museum at once."

"What are you going to do?" Illia cried.

Already he was at the nearest locker, struggling into the ungainly spacesuit. "These will be enough protection from the fire to enable each man to bring out one load, perhaps."

The old building, as if symbolic of the times, was submitting willingly to the flames. Its ancient, only partly fireproofed construction was giving way, and the fire protection system had failed completely.

Rapidly, Underwood went over the plan Phyfe had given him locating the bulk of the records, then raced toward the cargo hold where the others were nearly ready. He ordered each pair of men to tow a cargo carrier.

It was a weird procession of unworldly figures that made their way clumsily from the ship and up the steps of the burning building.

Underwood and Mason were together, towing their carrier, which rested a foot off the floor. Almost blinded by the smoke, they led the way through the halls and into the stacks where the half-million-year-old records lay on shelves.

"Load up! This is it," Underwood called. Like creatures in some fantastic hell, he saw the others file into the large room behind him. They began emptying over the shelves, filling the carriers with whatever came to hand.

The wooden beams supporting the high, archaic roof structure were dry and roaring with flames. Somewhere out of their line of sight, a beam gave way and a shower of plaster and masonry filled the air.

"There won't be time for any more," Mason said. "Our carrier's full. Let's go."

Underwood shoved the carrier toward the doorway through which they had come. Its inertia was its only opposition.

"You drag the carrier," said Underwood. "I'll get another armful."

While Mason vanished out through the pall of smoke, Underwood scooped up another armful of materials. Then, almost blindly, he sought the exit.

Nearly all the others were loaded and dragging their carriers now. Underwood glanced back. What secrets might yet lie here among the records they must leave behind! He hoped the gods of chance had been merciful enough to guide their hands toward some record that would direct the scientists to the ancient enemy of the Sirenian Empire, the Dragbora, whose dreadful weapon had been so feared by the Sirenian hordes.

Back in the ship, Underwood glanced back longingly at the flame-ravaged building. It was useless to attempt another trip.

The police had apparently hoped the fire would defeat the purposes of the scientists, but after the successful rescue of tons of records and artifacts, they resumed their attack with increasing fury.

Underwood called to Byers and the scooter riders to come in. Slowly, the protective forces withdrew to the