Spacehounds of IPC by E. E. Smith (e books for reading .TXT) 📖

and his aides, meticulously covered with sterile gowns, hoods, and gloves, worked in most rigidly aseptic style; deftly and rapidly closing the ghastly wounds inflicted by the weapons of the hexans.

"Hi, Brandon," the surgeon grunted as he straightened up, the work completed. "I did not use much antiseptic on him. Because of possible differences in blood chemistry and in ignorance of his native bacteria, I depended almost wholly upon asepsis and his natural resistance. It is a good thing that we did not have to use an anaesthetic. He is in bad shape, but if we can feed him successfully, he may pull through."

"Feed him? I never thought of that. What d'you suppose he eats?"

"I have an idea that it is something highly concentrated, from his anatomy. I shall try giving him sugar, milk chocolate, something of the kind. First I shall try maple syrup. Being a liquid, it is easily administered, and its penetrating odor also may be a help."

A can of the liquid was brought in and to the amazement of the Terrestrials, the long, delicate antennae of the Vorkul began to twitch as soon as the can was opened. Motioning hastily for silence, von Steiffel filled a bowl and placed it upon the floor beneath Kromodeor's grotesque nose. The twitching increased, until finally one dull, glazed eye brightened somewhat and curled slowly out upon its slender pedicle, toward the dish. His mouth opened sluggishly and a long, red tongue reached out, but as his perceptions quickened, he became conscious of the strangers near him. The mouth snapped shut, the eye retracted, and heaving, rippling surges traversed that powerful body as he struggled madly against the unbreakable shackles of steel binding him to the floor.

"Ach, kindlein!" The surgeon bent anxiously over that grotesque but frightened head; soothing, polysyllabic German crooning from his bearded lips.

"Here, let's try this—I'm good on it," Stevens suggested, bringing up the Callistonian thought exchanger. All three men donned headsets, and sent wave after wave of friendly and soothing thoughts toward that frantic and terrified brain.

"He's got his brain shut up like a clam!" Brandon snorted. "Open up, guy—we aren't going to hurt you! We're the best friends you've got, if you only knew it!"

"Himmel, und he iss himself killing!" moaned von Steiffel.

"One more chance that might work," and Brandon stepped over to the communicator, demanding that Verna Pickering be brought at once. She came in as soon as the air-locks would permit, and the physicist welcomed her eagerly.

"This fellow's fighting so he's tearing himself to pieces. We can't make him receive a thought, and von Steiffel's afraid to use an anaesthetic. Now it's barely possible that he may understand hexan. I thought you wasted time learning any of it, but maybe you didn't—see if you can make him understand that we're friends."

The girl flinched and shrank back involuntarily, but forced herself to approach that awful head. Bending over, she repeated over and over one harsh, barking syllable. The effect of that word was magical. Instantly Kromodeor ceased struggling, an eye curled out, and that long, supple tongue flashed down and into the syrup. Not until the last sticky trace had been licked from the bowl did his attention wander from the food. Then the eye, sparkling brightly now, was raised toward the girl. Simultaneously four other eyes arose, one directed at each of the men and the other surveying his bonds and the room in which he was. Then the Vorkul spoke, but his whistling, hissing manner of speech so garbled the barking sounds of the hexan words he was attempting to utter, that Verna's slight knowledge of the language was of no use. She therefore put on one of the headsets, motioning the men to do the same, and approached Kromodeor with the other, repeating the hexan word of friendly import. This time the Vorkul's brain was not sealed against the visitors and thoughts began to flow.

"You've used those things a lot," Brandon turned to Stevens in a quick aside. "Can you hide your thoughts?"

"Sure—why?"

"All I can think of is that power system of theirs, and he'd know what we were going to do, sure. And I'd better be getting at it anyway. So you can wipe that off your mind with a clear conscience—the rest of us will get everything they've got there. Your job's to get everything you can out of this bird's brain. All x?"

"All x."

"Why, you didn't put yours on!" Verna exclaimed.

"No, I don't think I'll have time. If I get started talking to him now, I'd be here from now on, and I've got a lot of work to do. Steve can talk to him for me—see you later," and Brandon was gone.

He went directly to the Vorkulian fortress, bare now of hexan life and devoid of hexan snares and traps. There he and his fellows labored day after day learning every secret of every item of armament and equipment aboard the heptagon.

"Did you finish up today, Norm?" asked Stevens one evening. "Kromodeor's coming to life fast. He's able to wiggle around a little now, and is insisting that we take off the one chain we keep on him and let him use a plate, to call his people."

"All washed up. Guess I'll go in and talk to him—you all say he's such an egg. With this stuff off my mind I can hide it well enough. By the way, what does he eat?" And the two friends set out for the Venerian rooms.

"Anything that's sweet, apparently, with just enough milk to furnish a little protein. Won't eat meat or vegetables at all—von Steiffel says they haven't got much of a digestive tract, and I know that they haven't got any teeth. He's already eaten most all the syrup we had on board, all of the milk chocolate, and a lot of the sugar. But none of us can get any kind of a raise out of him at all—not even Nadia, when she fed him a whole box of chocolates."

"No, I mean what does he eat when he's home?"

"It seems to be a sort of syrup, made from the juices of jungle plants, which they drag in on automatic conveyors and process on automatic machinery. But he's a funny mutt—hard to get. Some of his thoughts are lucid enough, but others we can't make out at all—they are so foreign to all human nature that they simply do not register as thoughts at all. One funny thing, he isn't the least bit curious about anything. He doesn't want to examine anything, doesn't ask us any questions, and won't tell us anything about anything, so that all we know about him we found out purely by accident. For instance, they like games and sports, and seem to have families. They also have love, liking, and respect for others of their own race—but they seem to have no emotions whatever for outsiders. They're utterly inhuman—I can't describe it—you'll have to get it for yourself."

"Did you find out about the Callistonians who went to see them?"

"Negatively, yes. They never arrived. They probably couldn't see in the fog and must have missed the city. If they tried to land in that jungle, it was just too bad!"

"That would account for everything. So they're strictly neutral, eh? Well, I'll tell him 'hi,' anyway." Now in the sickroom, Brandon picked up the headset and sent out a wave of cheery greeting.

To his amazement, the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive to his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor friendly—simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible to any human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear and coldly emotionless.

"I do not want to talk to you. Tell the hairy doctor that I am now strong enough to be allowed to go to the communicator screen. That is all." The Vorkul's mind again became an oblivious maze of unintelligible thoughts. Not deliberately were Kromodeor's thoughts hidden; he was constitutionally unable to interest himself in the thoughts or things of any alien intelligence.

"Well, that for that." A puzzled, thoughtful look came over Brandon's face as he called von Steiffel. "A queer duck, if there ever was one. However, their ship will never bother us, that's one good thing; and I think we've got about everything of theirs that we want, anyway."

The surgeon, after a careful examination of his patient, unlocked the heavy collar with which he had been restraining the over-anxious Vorkul, and supported him lightly at the communicator panel. As surely as though he had used those controls for years Kromodeor shot the visiray beam out into space. One hand upon each of the several dials and one eye upon each meter, it was a matter only of seconds for him to get in touch with Vorkulia. To the Terrestrials the screen was a gray and foggy blank; but the manifest excitement shrieking and whistling from the speaker in response to Kromodeor's signals made it plain that his message was being received with enthusiasm.

"They are coming," the Vorkul thought, and lay back, exhausted.

"Just as well that they're comin' out here, at that," Brandon commented. "We couldn't begin to handle that structure anywhere near Jupiter—in fact, we wouldn't want to get very close ourselves, with passengers aboard."

Such was the power of the Vorkulian vessels that in less than twenty hours another heptagon slowed to a halt beside the Sirius and two of its crew were wafted aboard.

They were ushered into the Venerian room, where they talked briefly with their wounded fellow before they dressed him in a space-suit, which they filled with air to their own pressure. Then all three were lifted lightly into the air, and without a word or a sign were borne through the air-locks of the vessel, and into an opening in the wall of the rescuing heptagon. A green tractor beam reached out, seizing the derelict, and both structures darted away at such a pace that in a few minutes they had disappeared in the black depths of space.

"Well—that, as I may have remarked before, is indisputably and conclusively that." Brandon broke the surprised, almost stunned, silence that followed the unceremonious departure of the visitors. "I don't know whether to feel relieved at the knowledge that they won't bother us, or whether to get mad because they won't have anything to do with us."

He sent the "All x" signal to the pilot and the Sirius, once more at the acceleration of Terrestrial gravity, again bored on through space.