The Project Gutenberg eBook of Planet of Doom, by C. H. Thames
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Title: Planet of Doom
Author: C. H. Thames
Release Date: November 14, 2021 [eBook #66731]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLANET OF DOOM ***
As a galactic reporter Jane Crowley knew
she had hold of the biggest story of the year;
thousands of people were soon to die on this--
Planet Of Doom
By C. H. Thames
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Less than an hour after the last spaceship made touchdown on Mandmoora,
Jane Crowley stood before a scowling, head shaking public Information
Officer.
"My company sent me fifty light years from its nearest base in the
Denebian system, Colonel," Jane said. "I'm sorry, but it's impossible
for me to return to Deneb without my story."
"This office has issued press releases, my dear Miss Crowley, which--"
"Press releases!" The way Jane uttered those two words made the
Colonel wince. "I didn't come fifty light years for press releases.
I came...." She watched the Colonel's face and let her voice trail
off. This approach was having absolutely no effect. But Jane Crowley
was a woman, young and quite pretty and it was likely, she thought,
that where the straightforward, man-to-man approach might fail, the
ways of a woman might succeed. "But Colonel," she pouted, then let her
composed face fall apart as if she were going to cry. "But Colonel, my
job depends on this story. My ... my whole career ... you see ..." she
sniffled.
"There now, Miss Crowley," the Colonel said, looking very
uncomfortable. "There now, miss. Please."
"Then you'll let me go out there among the Mandmoora?"
"I'm sorry, miss. Out of the question. Definitely out. We've evacuated
all the Mandmoora who want to go. What remains is a hard core of
Mandmooranian fanatics who refuse to leave their native planet under
any circumstances. They've got an island just off shore here, you see.
They're sun-worshippers. Ironical, isn't it? Sun-worshippers. Their sun
about to go nova on them, boiling all the oceans of this waterworld and
killing every speck of life on Mandmoora, and they're sun-worshippers.
They just won't go. They want to stay. They say we can't make them go
and they're right, we can't. Poor devils. They'll be boiled and broiled
alive, all three thousands of 'em. But this headquarters can't send
men out to their island after them. They'd resist and it would mean
bloodshed, on both sides. We won't have it."
The Colonel's haggard face brightened, and he went on: "There's your
story, Miss Crowley. Three thousand die-hard sun-worshippers, facing
certain death at the altar of the very deity they adore. File _that_
story from Deneb, Miss Crowley."
"It's been filed a hundred times already," Jane said, shaking her head.
"You know it has."
The Colonel shrugged. "I refuse to authorize your going out to
Mandmoora Island. Be reasonable, miss, can't you? We have evacuated a
hundred million Mandmoorans in history's greatest mass exodus. Three
thousand fanatics don't want out. Three thousand fanatics will broil
with their world, then. That's all."
"But if they could be led to understand."
"I thought you wanted a story. A human interest story, wasn't it?"
"I was only thinking out loud."
"I've given you the only story you'll get here. Why should your video
service expect more than the others?"
"No reason, I guess," Jane knew now that the answer was definitely no.
She was hardly listening to the Colonel as he went on. There had to be
another way, somewhere, somehow. It was the story of the century--and
there wasn't another newsman on Mandmoora with a chance to scoop her.
Which also meant that if Jane didn't get the story, the rest of the
civilized galaxy wouldn't, either, except for watered-down public
information releases.
"... otherwise," the Colonel was saying. "The press people have said
we were more than fair, miss. We let them set up a headquarters beyond
the Mandmooranian sun's eighth planet: our experts said the nova won't
explode that far, you know. Headquarters will be safe there. We've
even agreed to let the last ship out stop at press headquarters for an
interview before it goes subspace for the dash to Deneb. What could be
fairer?"
"Nothing, I guess," Jane said. "Well, thank you for your time, Colonel."
"Not at all, young lady." The Colonel touched something on his desk
and a door at the other end of the office opened, irising with a
faint hissing sound. Through it Jane could hear the sounds of office
machinery, think-writers and duplics and a subspace ticker coming in
with the news from the rest of the galaxy.
A woman, thought Jane. Maybe if I was a man it would have been
different, but they wanted a woman's viewpoint because it's a
heartstring-plucking story. She recalled the Colonel's first
incredulous outburst. "But I can't send a _woman_ out there, Miss
Crowley. A woman!"
* * * * *
As she reached the door, impulse became idea and idea came to the
surface for execution. "Thank you very much, Colonel," she said in a
clear, loud voice. "Interstellar News Alliance knew it could count on
you."
"What's that?" demanded the Colonel in a voice barely audible across
the large room. He was busy now with a mountain of last minute
paperwork and was listening only with one ear, the rest of him already
hard at work.
"Thanks again, Colonel," Jane said, and stepped through the irised
shutter of a door. She turned to show her best smile to the
sergeant-major at the desk immediately outside the door. "There,
sergeant," she said, smiling. "You see? I told you the Colonel would
give me an unlimited pass."
"I never would of believed it," the sergeant said, looking at the smile
and daring a glance at the rest of Jane Crowley, which was every bit as
delightful as the pretty way she showed her teeth.
"An unlimited pass, sergeant. Make one out for me, please."
The sergeant-major nodded and took a book of forms from a drawer in his
desk. He wrote for a while, then said, "That's C-r-o-w-l-e-y, ma'am?"
"Right."
"Any time limit on the pass?"
"None at all," Jane said, still amazed that her ruse, her show of
elation had actually worked.
The sergeant-major applied the finishing touches to the pass with an
ink-stamp duplicate of the Colonel's signature and handed the stiff
plastic rectangle to Jane. "There you are, ma'am," he said. "But watch
your step, Miz Crowley. The last ship's blasting off in twenty hours,
with or without the Mandmoorans. Twenty hours, ma'am. So please don't
get lost."
Jane thanked him, smiled again, and got out of there.
Five minutes later, the Colonel buzzed for his sergeant-major. "Yes,
sir?" the sergeant asked, poking his head in through the irising door.
"Well, I see the lady reporter didn't give much trouble after I made it
clear the answer was no. Now, about that Sbogan file. Sbogan, that is
the name?"
"Yeah, Sbogan. Fomalhautian name. What did you ... did you say, sir?"
"The Sbogan file should--"
"No. About the reporter. You told her no? Your answer was no, sir?"
"Naturally. We couldn't let her put her pretty head in the lion's
mouth."
"Oh, Lord, sir," the sergeant-major said. "I gave her an unlimited
pass."
"Sergeant!"
"She said you had ... sir...."
"An unlimited pass--sergeant! Send out an alarm for that girl. We're
all right as long as she doesn't leave the mainland. But if she goes to
the Mandmooran Island, where those hold-out sun-worshippers are...."
"She'll make tracks for there, all right," the sergeant-major predicted.
"Stop her. Stop her before she gets that far! Because once she crosses
to the island, there isn't a thing we can do about it. You can't tell a
nova to wait, sergeant!"
"I'll try to stop her, sir."
"Make it a general alarm, sergeant. You've _got_ to stop her."
Moments later, Jane Crowley's description was being radio'd to every
martial checkpoint in the city of Northport.
* * * * *
It was very hot and sultry on the tarry streets of Northport. It had
been an exotic city, really exotic, Jane thought. You could tell by
the out-of-this world architecture, but oddly--with nothing but the
uniformed figures of the interstellar rescue organization to be seen
on the streets--Northport lost most of its charm. For the charm of any
alien place, of any exotic world, lies in its people. Jane had once
made a broadcast to that effect, and it had been very well received.
It would be nothing though, absolutely nothing, compared to what Jane
almost had in her grasp now. A final interview with the die-hards, with
the Mandmoorans who refused to leave their planet because they had
faith in the sun which would soon, in hardly more than hours, destroy
them.
The docks were crowded, littered with the worldly belongings of a
few score Mandmoorans who had changed their mind and had paddled
over from the island. A squad of soldiers was busy processing them
and the Mandmoorans, big muscular purple-skinned men with shocks of
stiff lemon-yellow hair and smaller women, brittle-looking women with
strange, wasp-waisted figures, glanced up frequently at the sky. Their
sun, a faintly bluish white star, seemed somehow swollen. It actually
seemed larger to Jane than it had been when she had landed several
hours ago. Probably, she told herself, that's imagination. On the other
hand, the Mandmoorans would certainly have been able to see a change
in solar size by this time. For the Mandmooranian sun had doubled its
apparent size in the past ten days, Jane had been told at the P.I.
office.
The only result so far was the sweltering heat on Mandmoora. The heat,
though, was not lethal. There had been hot summers before, the die-hard
sun-worshippers had said. So they had told Jane at the P.I.O. The
natives said nothing, could be made to say nothing, about the swollen
appearance of the sun they worshipped.
In twenty hours their last chance for rescue would be gone. In thirty
hours, Mandmoora's sun would go nova, bursting to a million times its
former luminosity in micro-seconds, sending out a shell of intensely
hot gases which, when it reached Mandmoora, would instantly destroy all
life on the planet. Including three thousand sun-worshippers waiting
devoutly for their deity to prove the interstellar interlopers wrong....
"Hey, Miss!" someone cried suddenly. It was an Army corporal running
toward her, bulling his way through a knot of Mandmooran refugees.
"You're Jane Crowley, ain't you?" He was only a dozen strides away now,
and shouting. "Because I got orders to...."
Jane didn't hear the rest of it. She turned and ran down the length
of the deserted quay adjacent to the one strewn with Mandmooran
belongings. She reached the end of the quay and whirled. The corporal
was trotting confidently toward her, in no great hurry now. For she
had trapped herself on the quay. She was very angry with herself. A
fine newshen you are, she thought. First chance you have, you let
yourself get caught. A fine....
Something gave her a raucous razzing, something out over the water.
She whirled and faced it. A runabout whizzed in across the blue water
toward her. Someone was waving.
She waved back frantically, suddenly recognizing him. It was Sid
Masters. She had met Sid on the ship which had taken both of them
to Mandmoora. Sid was with the electronics outfit setting up camera
equipment on Mandmoora, equipment which would transmit through subspace
the pictures of a sun going nova seen from the surface of its only
inhabited planet. She had struck up a quick friendship with Sid on the
space-liner.
Making up her mind suddenly, Jane didn't wait for the running corporal
to reach her. Instead, she turned and jumped off the quay.
She came up sputtering. The water was tepid, was typical harbor-water,
fouled with gasoline and debris. Masters' gas-turbine driven boat
was very close now. The sound of its motor almost drowned out the
corporal's shouts as Jane treaded water.
"Going to the island," Masters shouted. "You?"
"They don't want me to, Sid!"
He smiled. She couldn't hear all of what he said, but she got the last
part of it. "... want me to, either. Hop in, beautiful."
There was a splash behind her. Jane turned and saw the corporal break
surface, yelling and waving his arms. She stroked for Sid Masters'
runabout. The electronics technician shouted his encouragement, but
as she got one hand on the gunwale of the idling runabout, Jane felt
something grab and tug at her leg.
She lashed out with her free leg, churning water. But the corporal
clung grimly to her ankle. Then an old, half-rotted oar appeared
alongside Jane's heel, and with it--guiding it--Sid Masters' arms. The
oar went out over the water and probed and a moment later the corporal
shouted and Jane felt the pressure leave her ankle.
"Hop aboard and be quick about it," Masters yelled.
Jane needed no urging. She scrambled ungracefully over the gunwale.
She was dripping wet and thought she looked a mess. But Masters merely
said, "Pleasure to have you aboard, beautiful," and the runabout
roared and headed out across the harbor to the island, to the last
redoubt of the three thousand sun-worshipping Mandmoorans who waited
for a miracle which would not come to save them.
* * * * *
"Simple," Sid Masters said in answer to Jane's question half an hour
later. "I thought it would be a good idea to set up camera equipment
on the island itself, to show the galaxy the last sun-worshipping
rites of the Mandmoorans--before their god killed them. Maybe it's
heartless, but it's good journalism. Besides, it isn't up to me to get
the Mandmoorans off their island. I'd gladly film their exodus instead,
and first-hand, not with automatic equipment. Anyhow, Colonel, what's
his name at P.I.O. said no."
"And you didn't take no for an answer?"
"I didn't take no for an answer. Hell, all I have to do is set up the
equipment so the Mandmoorans don't see it and get off the island. It
shouldn't be hard."
"I want to get a final impression of the Mandmooran sun-worshippers as
they wait for the end," Jane said. "As you said, Sid, it isn't pretty
but it's good journalism. Sure, I'd rather not get my story and see
them saved--"
"But if they're going to die you want the story. Right?"
"Yes," Jane said. Then: "I want to thank you, Sid--"
He grinned. "You looked so helpless there on the end of the quay. You
were wringing your hands, did you know it?"
"What a sight that must have been. Sid!" Jane cried abruptly. "Sid!
We're being followed. That boat--"
"Of course we're being followed. But this runabout's got good speed.
They won't catch us before we reach the island. And once we reach
it, they probably have orders not to land under any circumstances.
They--hey wait a minute! Look behind them."
At first Jane didn't get it. She looked ahead and saw the green smear
of the sun-worshippers' island, expanding out from the horizon toward
them. They'd be beaching the light-weight, lithium-alloy runabout in a
matter of minutes, she thought. Then, after that....
"No Jane. I said behind them. Behind the boat following us."
At first she saw nothing but the dazzling suntrack across the water
back there. Then, dancing on the suntrack as if belonging to it, scores
of silver midges. But a while ago, the single boat pursuing them had
looked like a silver midge.
"Boats," Jane said.
"Boats. A whole fleet of them."
"What can it mean, Sid?"
"Beats me. I can guess, though. Jane, maybe we're going to be in on the
kind of ending we'd rather see."
"I don't understand."
"It's a fleet of evacuation craft, probably. Making a last attempt to
get the Mandmoorans off their island. Maybe they had some word from the
sun-worshipping chief out there, I don't know."
"Should we wait until they land?"
"Not on your life," Sid said. "We've broken a law, Jane. They'd take us
into custody until the whole operation was over. We'll beach this boat
like we planned, and then my equipment--"
"And my pad and pencil," Jane said.
"--go to work."
Moments later they could see a throng of the Mandmoorans waiting on
the beach for them, the brilliant purple of their bodies gleaming
metallically against the dead white sands.
* * * * *
The Mandmooran chief was a big fellow six and a half feet tall. He was
old: the shock of stiff yellow hair had faded to a corn-silk color, the
purple skin was wrinkle-creased and had lost some of its sheen. But he
carried himself straight and tall and he looked every inch a chieftain.
"We stay here," he told Sid in English. "Lord Sun no kills worship
people. You tell soldiers?"
"They're coming," Sid said. "See? We have nothing to do with that."
"You not with them?"
"Not us," Sid said.
"What then you want?"
Sid looked at Jane, who shrugged. Words and phrases were already
forming in her mind. The sad proud look on the old chief's face. The
gleaming, healthy, royal purple Mandmoorans. The dried, withered
vegetation all around them, scorched by the swollen sun. The angry,
resentful look on some of the Mandmooran faces behind the chief. The
distant wailing chant of the sun-worshipping priests.
"... cameras," Sid was saying. "As for the lady, she only wants to
talk with you and look around some. All right?"
"Twice," the chief said slowly, "your soldiers try to trick us. Third
time now."
Sid shrugged. "We're not soldiers."
"You have nothing to do with them?"
"We have nothing to do with them."
"Third trick make people angry."
"If there's a third trick, we're no part of it."
The chief nodded solemnly and turned to face the water. Ahead of
the flotilla, a single runabout was quite close to land now. Jane
recognized the corporal who had chased her out on the quay. With him
were two other soldiers.
"Halloa!" the corporal shouted. "Hallo, Miz Crowley. Won't do you no
good to try and hide. We got orders to take you back. Mr. Masters with
you, ma'am. You'll come peacefully?"
"We won't come any way at all," Sid said defiantly. "Not until we're
good and ready."
The chief suddenly strode forward, to the edge of the water and then
ankle deep in the surf. "Wait," he said, lifting both hands solemnly.
"You and these two--you know one another?"
"They're Miz Crowley and Mr. Masters," the corporal shouted back.
"And you know they come here?"
"Heck, yes," said the corporal. "It's why we came. Following them."
"Otherwise you no have come?"
"That's right."
"Then you go," the chief said in a strong, solemn voice. "Tell others.
Go! You come close, we hurt these two people. You try to land, take us
off--we kill them. We stay here. Our right is to stay. Our Lord Sun
no hurt Mandmoorans. Lord Sun for life and growing of crops, not for
death. You go."
"You can't keep them for hostages," the corporal shouted across the
water. "You can't do that."
* * * * *
The chief let his right hand fall. A line of spearmen trotted up behind
him and let fly with a fusillade of long-shafted spears. The spears
fell around the military runabout, but none of them touched it.
"They stay," the chief said, "You take hundred million Mandmoorans off
Mandmoora, we keep two earth people here to see nothing happens to
Lord Sun. Now go!"
"Sid," Jane said. "Sid, did you hear him? They--they're going to keep
us here, and--Sid, is there any chance the sun won't go nova?"
Sid shook his head. His face looked suddenly bleak. "No chance at all,
kid. I guess we should have listened."
"Sid, I'm scared."
There was a roaring sound as the runabout, instead of retreating, came
bucketing toward the beach. "Come on down to the water!" the corporal
bawled at the top of his voice. "We'll get you!"
The Chief raised his hand. Another line of spearmen came trotting
forward. "Go back," Sid shouted. "They'll kill you!"
But the runabout came toward them on the heaving surf. Before the chief
could raise his hand a second time, the corporal stood up in the prow
of the runabout and fired a blaster toward the beach. He had fired it
high and he waited for it to disperse the spearmen. When it did not,
he fired again, lower. The chief lifted his hand and brought it down.
A volley of spears leaped from muscular arms, arching in the sunlight,
dropping toward the runabout....
The corporal fired again and a figure near the chief slumped to the
sand. Then the runabout, riddled by fifty spears at the water-line,
began to sink.
"Take them," the chief said.
A score of Mandmoorans swarmed out through the surf toward the sinking
boat. Jane watched as they surrounded it and brought the three soldiers
back with them quickly. By then the runabout had gone under, but the
flotilla of rescue craft was now only a few hundred yards offshore and
coming fast.
"Five hostages," the chief said. "Tell them go."
Voices shouted back and forth across the water, but Jane saw that the
chief wasn't listening. Instead, he went to the man who had fallen
before the corporal's blaster. He knelt and took the yellow shocked
head on his knee and murmured to it. The young Mandmoora's right arm
had been all but blasted off at the elbow. Blood was gushing and
pumping from severed arteries. The chief raised his head and wailed:
"Grower, healer, Lord Sun! Save the Princeling of your people. Grower,
healer, Lord Sun!" he chanted, repeating it. "Grower...."
"Princeling?" Sid said. "The old boy's son, you think?"
"If they just keep chanting and leave him like that, the poor boy'll
bleed to death. Can't we do something?"
Just then an amplified voice came across the water toward them,
metallic and somehow unreal. "Masters! Miss Crowley. We'll stay here.
We won't budge until--until it's too late. Until we have to leave.
But we can't come after you. The Mandmoorans would fight. There would
be death on both sides and--I'm sorry, Masters, Miss Crowley. We are
positively forbidden to use force of arms here. You understand?"
It was a rhetorical question. It did not matter if they understood or
not. The flotilla would wait--hopelessly. The flotilla would leave when
it had to. And the corporal and his companions, along with Sid Masters
and Jane, would be left with the Sun-trusting Mandmoorans.
* * * * *
The Mandmooran prince's face was ashen with pain and loss of blood. The
chief cradled his head, and mumbled, and chanted. And the blood pumped
from the severed arteries.
A ring of Mandmooran guards surrounded Jane, Sid Masters and the three
soldiers, but when Jane walked through the ring, quite close to two
of the spearmen, they did not try to stop her. It was because of the
Mandmooran women, she decided: the Mandmooran women were so small and
fragile-looking that their men would never take the guarding of a woman
seriously.
Jane went over to where the chief was kneeling by his stricken son.
"Unless you stop the bleeding," she said quietly, "he's going to die.
Don't you know that?"
"Healer sun stop bleeding. Lord Sun."
Jane shook her head. "The sun is a slow healer. The sun can't perform
medical miracles. I have no argument with your religion, chief--but we
can save your boy's life if you let us."
At first Jane thought she had failed. The Chief continued chanting
over his son, not looking at the Earthgirl. Then, slowly, he looked
up. Not at Jane, not immediately at Jane: he let his gaze come to
rest on the Mandmooran sun, faintly bluish and clearly swollen now,
egg-shaped almost as its internal forces gathered themselves for the
final cataclysmic explosion which, in hours, would all but tear the
star apart. Even a fanatic sun-worshipper would know now that something
was wrong with their deity. On the other hand, a fanatic sun-worshipper
might regard the change, Jane realized, as a manifestation of
displeasure. Hadn't all but an infinitesimal fraction of the
Mandmoorans deserted their god? Wasn't that reason enough for the wrath
of the Lord Sun?
But then the chief looked at Jane. His eyes were sad and old and
suddenly and unexpectedly very wise. He said, "You can help? You can
save his life?"
"You're not trying," Jane said. "I can try."
Carefully the chief stood up, making a mound of sand and letting his
son's head rest there. "Then save him," he said finally. "Save him and
you can return to your people."
A very old Mandmooran, far older than the chief, a skin-puckered,
limping, hunch-backed, rheumy-eyed, gray-skinned Mandmooran, approached
the chief and jabbered excitedly in their own language. The chief
jabbered back at him and the old man raised his voice. The chief
shouted him down. Shrugging but smiling, the old man wandered off to a
hillock of sand, threw his arms up at the Lord Sun, and began a weird,
wailing chant.
"Shaman say," the chief told Jane, "yours is bad medicine."
Jane didn't answer. She went down on one knee near the injured prince.
It almost made her ill to stare at his torn, mangled arm. She was no
nurse. She knew first aid, but that was all. Still, anything was better
than the fatalistic Mandmooran attitude.
"Shaman say," the chief went on, "we offer sacrifice to wrath of Lord
Sun. For long time our people no offer sacrifice in human form. Human
sacrifice now, at moment of trial, work. So say shaman."
Turning, the chief shouted something. Three spearmen stalked within the
circle around the Earthmen and came out with the uniformed figure of
the corporal. The ancient shaman jabbered excitedly, but the chief did
not look happy.
* * * * *
Sid Masters came brawling through the ring of spearmen, fighting clear
with flailing arms and legs. "Wait a minute, chief!" he cried. "Who's
running the show round here, you or that magician?"
The shaman jabbered, but the chief silenced him with a gesture. "I am
chief of the Mandmoora," he said slowly.
"The girl is trying to save your son's life. Is that the thanks we
get--what you're going to do with the corporal?"
The chief was silent for a few moments, meditating. Then: "Let him go.
Until the girl has succeeded--or failed."
The shaman jabbered again. He didn't like it but he returned,
grumbling, to his hillock. Jane was already going to work on the
stricken prince. First she tore a strip from her jumper and used it
to bind the prince's upper arm. The bleeding was first. She had to
stop the bleeding. Twisting a pencil in the knotted tourniquet, she
tightened it until the blood had stopped flowing. She felt anything but
calm. She actually felt queasy. But somehow her fingers worked quickly
and surely and before long a few score of the Mandmoorans came to watch.
"He's lost an awful lot of blood," Jane told Sid Masters. "I've stopped
the bleeding now, but he needs a transfusion if he's going to have a
real chance. And look at the wound, will you? It's dirty. He needs
antibiotics and he needs them fast."
"On the flotilla out there?" Sid asked. "They ought to have
antibiotics."
"Get them then," Jane said, and turned to the chief. "My companion
needs strong medicine from the boats which wait."
"Stay. All stay."
"Then your son dies."
The chief looked at her. He was very quiet. The shaman wailed louder
now. "Go," said the chief, and Sid Masters went splashing out into the
water.
Five minutes later, swimming hard, he returned to the beach. He
produced a water-proof packet of antibiotic powders and Jane opened
it and let the powders sift down on the prince's wound. "Listen,"
Sid whispered. "We're in trouble, all right. They can't be sure when
the sun is going to nova, you see? They figure it ought to be about
seventeen hours, but nobody's going to make book with his life. They're
giving us fifteen minutes. Then they're pulling out. They're sorry,
but they're pulling out. You can't blame them, Jane, especially since
interstellar law won't permit them the use of force."
"But you came back, Sid," Jane said.
"We're trying to help the boy. Besides, I couldn't leave you holding
the bag like this--alone with those soldiers and three thousand
fanatic Mandmoorans."
Jane smiled at him. There was nothing else she could offer him
now. Their deaths seemed almost a certainty. They would be--had to
be--deserted. They would be left to the Mandmoora--and the novaing sun.
"Is the boy going to live?" Sid asked.
"For a while. I've done all that first aid can do. The bleeding's
stopped. The antibiotics will take care of any possibility of
infection. But he's lost blood. If he doesn't get a transfusion soon,
I'm afraid he won't pull through."
"Then tell the chief."
Jane nodded, and found the chief near the shaman's hillock, gazing on
his medicine man with a troubled expression as if he couldn't decide
between the old way and the new. "Your boy," Jane said.
"The boy lives?"
"For now he lives. He needs the kind of medical care I can't give him.
The kind of care he can get aboard the exodus ships. Let him go, chief.
Let us take him back. We can save his life."
* * * * *
The shaman leaped from the hillock and--for all his bag-of-bones
appearance--alighted athletically beside them. "I heard!" he cackled,
showing a toothless black hole of a mouth. "I heard! A trick to leave
our island. A trick to leave our planet! A trick...."
"Just the boy then," Jane said. "If you want him to live. But you'll
never know about it. Because if you stay here you'll all be killed."
"You see, a trick!" protested the shaman.
The chief shook his head slowly. "Life blood flow from boy. Boy would
have died. She save boy. If she wish, let the boy go with them."
"But they stay here!" the shaman shrieked. "They must stay. Sacrifice
all to Lord Sun, Lord Sun shrink again. Otherwise--" He showed the
palms of his hands in a hopeless gesture.
"Bring small boat," the chief said, making up his mind. "The girl goes,
with princeling, to her people."
But Jane shook her head. "Not alone, I don't. I go with this man here
and with the three soldiers, or I don't go at all. And neither does
your son. We can save his life, chief--but we don't intend to if you--"
"Tricks! Deceit!" screamed the shaman, jumping up and down. "Kill them!
Kill them all!"
An uncertain line of spearmen appeared, but the chief lifted his hand
and they remained perfectly still as if with the small motion of his
arm he had somehow frozen them in their tracks. The spearmen seemed
content: they had come forward at the shaman's summons without great
resolution.
All at once the shaman leaped at Jane. He came so suddenly that she
had time only for a quick look. Still, she had not missed the gleam
of something in his hand and she threw herself sideways as the hand
came down. She heard the chief shout, heard Sid Masters' startled oath
as she fell to the sand with the old medicine man. Something burned
against her shoulder and she knew it was his knife, knew it had pierced
her flesh there. She felt a wave of giddiness, but after that the pain
wasn't so bad. She could see Sid lifting the shaman bodily and flinging
him away across the sand like an empty sack, could see Sid's face,
grave with concern, swim close to her through the suddenly shimmering
range of vision before her eyes.
"Bleeding pretty bad," Sid said. "Ought to be able to control it with
the pressure point in your neck. Hurt much?"
Jane shook her head.
"Here goes then."
"Wait." Jane pushed his hand away. She could feel the warm wetness of
her blood streaming down across her breast from the shoulder wound. She
turned to the chief:
"I stopped your son's bleeding," she said calmly. "I saved his life.
Stop my bleeding, chief. Save my life in return."
The chief looked at her without answering. Then he looked at the
shaman, who had climbed to hands and knees but made no move to get up.
"Don't do it!" Sid pleaded. "He can't save you and you know it. You'll
bleed to death."
Jane asked the chief, "You want to help me?"
"Girl saved princeling's life. I want to help."
"Then stop the bleeding. I've lost a lot of blood, chief. I'm growing
weak. You have to stop ... the bleeding...."
* * * * *
The chief seemed confused. He looked first at the medicine man, then
at Jane, then at the flotilla of exodus ships which even while Jane
spoke was turning and heading out to sea, back to the mainland just
beyond the horizon. He looked at Jane again. He opened his mouth to
speak, but no sound came. Then, finally, in a soft voice he said:
"Your people save my people. Millions of them. Take to new home,
because old home, old world, die. Some stay. Some--us. You come. Final
chance for Mandmoora. Boy hurt and you save him. Man go to ships for
good medicine. Could stay, but come back to help boy. You save boy.
Princeling. I have no faith in your medicine, but he live. He live.
Then you hurt. You bleed. Life blood run out. You bleed. You have
faith, faith in chief of Mandmoora, to heal you. You have much faith."
He raised his voice suddenly, shouting:
"I can no heal! You die if you do not heal yourself. I can no
heal! Faith? Your faith in me kill you. Faith? If Sun-Lord fail us.
Faith ..." he wailed, a broken man.
Sid Masters said, "Keep your faith, chief. There are other symbols,
other suns. Your mistake was placing all your faith in one physical
symbol--"
"Enough," the chief said. "The girl is right. I should save her as she
save princeling. I no can heal! The girl is right. All your people's
threats, all offers, all bribes, all speech and science explains, all,
all fail. The girl alone win. Faith alone no good. Faith and deeds.
Girl show deeds. But I no can heal! I no can heal! Stop bleeding,
Earthman. Heal her."
Sid looked at Jane. She smiled up at him weakly. She had almost lost
consciousness. She had lost much blood and, like the prince of the
Mandmoora, would need a transfusion when they returned to the mainland
and the final ship of the exodus space-fleet. But they had won, because
the chief said:
"Girl teach us. Earthgirl. We all go."
The soldiers gave a wild whoop of joy as Sid rushed down to the surf,
hailed the flotilla. Jane was barely aware of the fleet turning around
to come back for the Mandmoora's final three thousand holdouts. The
whole planet would be evacuated after all, she thought. It was hard to
hold the thought. She was almost delirious with weakness, with lack of
blood. She felt Sid's hand applying pressure to the pulse in the curve
of her neck.
She heard his words: "Bleeding's stopped...."
Then, for a long time, there was a gentle rocking moment and a vision,
half-remembered, of the three thousand holdouts splashing out across
the surf toward the rescue flotilla, then, after that, a slow drifting
off toward sleep.
She knew they would make it, knew not a human being, Earthman or
Mandmooran, would be on Mandmoora when the sun's blowup occurred. She
knew she would not see the blowup from deep-space: she would be aboard
the spaceship in a hospital room.
She regretted that. It was a once-in-a-lifetime story, the kind of
story a reporter didn't want to miss. But she had seen another story, a
far greater story, the story of the final Mandmooran exodus, the story
of life triumphant in the face of superstition and death.
She knew that was a far better story. And, besides, she had lived it.
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