Chapter V

Murdoch set up a quick flight program, waited a minute to get farther from Ganymede and the aliens, then turned on a radar search and set the alarm. He unzipped his left shoe, got it off and stood staring at it for a moment, almost afraid to turn it over.

Then he turned it slowly. There was a sticky spot on the sole.

The muscles around his middle got so taut they ached. He hurried to the ship's med cabinet, chose a certain package of bandages and tore it open with unsteady fingers. There was a small vial hidden there. He unstoppered it and poured the contents onto the shoe sole.

He let it soak while he checked the pilot panel, then hurried back. With a probe, he mulled the liquid around on the shoe sole and waited a minute longer. Then he scraped all he could back into the vial and looked at it. There were a few bits of shoe sole in it, but none big enough to worry him. He got out a hypodermic and drew some of the fluid into it. The needle plugged. He swore, ejected a little to clear it and drew in some more.

When he had his left sleeve pushed up, he looked at the vein in the bend of his elbow for a little while, then he took a deep breath and plunged the needle in. He hit it the first time. He was very careful not to get any air into the vein.

He sighed, put the rest of the fluid back in the vial and stoppered it, and cleaned out the needle. Then he put a small bandage on his arm and went back to the pilot's seat. He felt tired now that it was done.

The scan showed nothing dangerous. Waverill hadn't moved. Murdoch opened his mouth to speak to him, then decided not to. He flexed his arm and found it barely sore, then went over his flight program again. He made a small adjustment. The acceleration was just over one G, and it made him a little dizzy. He wondered if he could risk a drink. It hadn't hurt Waverill. He went to the small sink and cabinet that served as a galley, poured out a stiff shot into a glass, and mixed it with condensed milk. He took it back to the pilot's seat, not bothering with the free-fall cap, and drank it slowly.

It was nearly time to unload Waverill.

He checked course again, then thumbed the mike. "All right, Waverill. Get going. You should be picked up within nine or ten hours."

Waverill didn't answer, but the panel lights showed the outer hatch activated. Through the spy cell Murdoch could see the stars as the hatch slowly opened. Waverill jumped off without hesitating. Murdoch liked the tough old man's guts, and hoped he'd make it all right.

* * * * *

He closed the hatch and fed new data into the autopilot. He sagged into the seat as the ship strained into a new course, then it eased off to a steady forward acceleration. He was ready to loop around another of Jupiter's moons, then around the giant planet itself, on a course that should defy pursuit unless it were previously known.

He flexed his arm. It was a little sorer now. He wondered when the drowsiness would hit him. He didn't want to trust the autopilot until he was safely past Jupiter; if a meteor or a derelict got in the way, it might take human wits to set up a new course safely.

He had all the radar units on now. The conic sweep forward showed the great bulge of Jupiter at one side; no blips in space. The three Plan Position screens, revolving through cross-sections of the sphere of space around him, winked and faded with blips but none near the center. He thought, I've made it. I've gotten away with it, and I ought to feel excited. Instead, he was only tired. He thought, I'll get up and fill a thermos with coffee, then I can sit here.

He unstrapped and began to rise. Then his eyes returned to one of the scopes.

This particular one was seldom used in space; it was for planet landings. It scanned ahead in a narrow horizontal band, like a sea vessel's surface sweep. He'd planned only to use it as he transited Jupiter, to cut his course in near to the atmosphere, and it was only habit that had made him glance at it. The bright green line showed no peaks, but at the middle, and for a little way to each side, it was very slightly uneven.

He thought, It's just something in the system, out of adjustment. He looked at the forward sweep. There were no blips dead ahead. He moved the adjustments of the horizontal sweep, blurred the line, then brought it back to sharpness. Except in the middle. The blurriness there remained.

He opened a panel and punched automatic cross-checks, got a report that the instrument was in perfect order. He looked at the scope again. The blurred length had grown to either side. Clammy sweat began to form on his skin. He punched at the computers, set up a program that would curve the ship off its path, punched for safety verification, and activated the autopilot. He heard the drive's whine move higher, but felt no answering lateral acceleration. He punched for three G deceleration, working frantically to get strapped in. The drive shrieked but there was no tug at his body.

The blurred part of the green line was spreading.

He realized he was pressing against the side of his seat. That meant the ship was finally swerving. But he'd erased that program. And now, abruptly, deceleration hit him. He sagged forward against his straps, gasping for air. He heard a new whine as his seat automatically began to turn, pulling in the straps on one side, as it maneuvered to face him away from the deceleration. He was crushed sideways for a while, then the seat locked and he pressed hard against the back of it. This he could take, though he judged it was five or six G's. He labored for breath.

The deceleration cut off and he was in free fall. His screens and scopes were dark. The drive no longer whined. He thought, Something's got me. Something that can hide from radar, and control a ship from a distance like a fish on the end of a spear.

He tore at the straps, got free and leaped for the suit locker. He dressed in frantic haste, cycled the air lock ... and found himself on the surface of a planet.

He had been returned to Ganymede.

Panicked, he fled; then abruptly, where nothing had been, there was something solid in his path. He turned his face to avoid the impact and tried to get his arms in front of him. He crashed into something that did not yield. His arms slid around something, and without opening his eyes he knew the robot had him. He tried to fight, but his strength was pitiful. He relaxed and tried to think.

In his suit helmet radio the voice of the robot said, "We will put you to sleep now."

He fought frantically to break loose. His mind screamed, No! If you go to sleep now you'll never....

* * * * *

He was wrong.

His first waking sensation was delicious comfort. He felt good all over. He came a little more awake and his spaceman's mind began to reason: There's light gravity, and I'm supported by the armpits. No acceleration. I'm breathing something heavier than air, but it feels good in my lungs, and tastes good.

His eyelids unlocked themselves, and the shock of seeing was like a knife in his middle.

He was buried in the ice, looking out at the place where he and Waverill had stayed. He was far into the ice and could only see distortedly. Between him and the open were various things; rocks, eroded artifacts. At the edge of his vision on the right was a vaguely animal shape.

Terror made him struggle to turn his head. He couldn't; he was encased in something just tight enough to hold him. His nose and mouth were free, and a draft of the cloying atmosphere moved past them so that he could breath. There was enough space before his eyes for him to see the stuff swirling like a heavy fog. He thought, I'm being fed by what I breathe. I don't feel hungry. In horror, he forced the stuff out of his lungs. It was hard to exhale. He resisted taking any back in, but eventually he had to give up and then he fought to get it in. He tried to cry out, but the sound was a muffled nothing.

He yielded to panic and struggled for a while without accomplishing anything, except that he found that his casing did yield, very slowly, if he applied pressure long enough. That brought a little sanity, and he relaxed again until the exhaustion wore off.

There was movement in the vague shape at his right, and he felt a compulsion to see it more plainly. Even after it was in his vision, horrified fascination kept him straining until his head was turned toward it.

It was alive; obscenely alive, a caricature of parts of a man. There was no proper skin, but an ugly translucent membrane covered it. The whole was encased as Murdoch himself must be, and from the casing several pipes stretched back into the dark ice. The legs were entirely gone, and only stubs of arms remained, sufficient for the thing to hang from in its casing. Bloated lungs pulsed slowly, breathing in and out a misty something like what Murdoch breathed. The stomach was shrunken to a small repugnant sack, hanging at the bottom with what might be things evolved from liver and kidneys. Blood moved from the lungs through the loathsome mess, pumped by an overgrown heart that protruded from between the lungs. A little blood circulated up to what had once been the head. The skull was gone. The nose and mouth were one round hole where the nutrient vapor puffed in and out. The brain showed horrible and shrunk through the membrane. A pair of lidless idiot eyes stared unmovingly in Murdoch's direction. The whole jawless head was the size of Murdoch's two fists doubled up, if he could judge the size through the distortion of the ice.

* * * * *

Sick but unable to vomit, Murdoch forced his eyes away from the thing. Now the aliens spoke to him, from somewhere. "Pretty isn't he Murdoch. He makes a good bank for the virus. You were right you know it does offer great longevity but it has its own ideas of what a host should be."

Murdoch produced a garbled sound and the aliens spoke again. "Your words are indistinct but perhaps you are asking how long it took him to become this way. He was one of our first visitors the very first who tried to steal from us. His plan was not as clever as your own which we found diverting though of course you had no chance against our science which is beyond your understanding." And, in answer to his moan, they said, "Do not be unphilosophical Murdoch you will find many thoughts to occupy your time."

I'll go mad, he thought. That's the way out!

But he doubted that even the escape of madness would be allowed.

END

[Transcriber's Note: Original text had two sections labeled "III". Sections after first III have been renumbered.]