Subway to the Stars Page 5

  Harry started to move from the table. The door burst open with sudden fury, and the same technician who'd escorted him here almost fell into the room. He was panting heavily and white-faced. "Dr. Ames -- " he gasped. "Dr. Ames has been looking at the batch of IR pictures Mr. Wiseman took. He's seen the missile and launcher."

  Steve stood up. He and James looked at each other. "It's got to be now," said James. "We can't risk a delay."

  Steve nodded faintly in agreement. They moved to the door. Then he turned back to Harry. "You're remembering real hard."

  Harry nodded. "I'm remembering real hard."

  VII

  Harry glanced at the clock. Dr. Ames would be in the Operations Center by now. Harry didn't know what Steve might do to the Director if they met at this moment. But if they didn't meet, Steve would be off to whatever rendezvous he had to keep to order the firing of the missile. And Ames had to be helped --

  But if the missile were off course -- Harry swore to himself. The damned, damned fools!

  Ames must be out there by now, but he stopped by the phone and dialed a number.

  "Nancy? Harry. I'm at the Operations Center. Can you drop whatever you're doing and come right over? There's something important -- "

  She begged off, and Harry insisted, as much as he dared with their somewhat fragile relationship. At last she agreed in a puzzled voice.

  "Right now!" said Harry. "I'll be waiting."

  It would be the safest place. He could send her down to one of the lower levels on some pretext. But he had to find Ames now.

  The Director was at the central control panel with six engineers. Harry was acquainted with two of them, Kripps and Sanderson.

  "We thought you weren't coming," Ames said. "We've got to hurry. Take panel Two and follow Ed's commands exactly. He will give you the sequence of steps when we reach that point."

  Harry nodded. The controls were complex and unfamiliar. He didn't see how he was going to follow any kind of critical sequence the first time through. The engineer Ed began filling him in quickly, explaining what was to be done.

  Before he was well started, the voice of Dr. Ames called out the beginning of the control sequence in strong, defiant tones. "Jam!"

  A sequence of controls was operated by the engineers. Harry followed their glances as they watched the indicators. Some of those consisted of small poles with changing hues of colors. Others were little balls that moved through a tell-tale maze in response to the commands of the controllers.

  After minutes, Ames called out the second command. "Trade!" His eyes followed anxiously the movements of his engineers as they wiped out his dream and the dream of his father and all those who had spent their lives at the station.

  "Switch!"

  "Float!"

  One by one, the obscure signals were called. Ames's face glistened with a sheet of sweat as he watched the responses of his crew. Then his hands reached for a control -- it was halfway there. His lips shaped to give the command. The engineers held their readiness for the next step.

  The actions were never finished. Sudden light flamed over the station. It flowed into every corner of the control room and burned eyes that shut in sudden agony against it.

  Then shock. It hurled the scientists to the floor. Walls shattered, and wild cries of pain told of those pinned beneath the debris.

  And sound. It roared and blasted and tore. Its dying away was a huge vacuum into which the senses fell.

  Harry groped helplessly from his prone position. His mouth was filled with dust and blood. The scene was lit by flames from the grid area.

  "Dr. Ames -- Nancy -- !" he called out.

  "They struck the grid," Dr. Ames cried in anguish. "They hit the grid before we completed the shunt."

  Harry struggled to his knees and crawled toward the scientist. "Dr. Ames -- are you all right?"

  "All right," Ames gasped. He twisted painfully to a sitting position. "Look to the others. We have got to get out of here. And the Train -- it will materialize on the receiving grid!"

  But Harry was thinking of Nancy Harris, whom he'd so stupidly asked to come to Operations to be safe in case of attack. He limped back toward the entrance while Ames called out to him in dismay, "Wiseman -- the grid!"

  He found her by the door. She had just entered when the blast came and had been thrown to the floor. She stirred dazedly now and looked up at him. "Harry -- Harry -- what's happened?"

  He reached down and lifted her gently. "The Addabas blasted the grid. Control is knocked out. The Train is materializing."

  "Oh, no -- ! Oh, no, Harry -- " She cried a moment in his arms.

  She had shared the dream of Ames and the others. It didn't matter now that it was a phony dream, Harry thought. It had been Nancy's dream, too.

  Now the roaring rose and became like that of a thousand jets far beyond the horizon. It approached and increased at the speed of jets, but did not pass. From the center of the South Grid the sound crashed against the jungle, the station buildings, and the people who staggered and groaned against it in terror and amazement.

  Harry pushed through the sound as if it were a physical barrier, supporting Nancy with an arm around her waist. Dr. Ames and Kripps and Sanderson got to their feet and moved to the empty windows overlooking the Grid.

  There was mass out there, a strange mountain of mass that grew as they watched. As if from some internal heat, it glowed. Through blood-red, crimson, to white brilliance even in the African noon-day sun, the light rose and flamed. The mass moved as if in pain, and out of the midst of it came new alien sounds like the cries of beings from another world.

  "Materializing -- " Ames groaned.

  "But it's out of synch!" Kripps exclaimed. "It's a conglomerate mass!"

  "Freight -- goods -- people from dozens of alien worlds," Nancy murmured. "Like a crashed ship. Dr. Ames, we've got to help them!"

  Ames seemed dazed by the disaster. "Yes -- yes," he agreed. "We've got to help them. Please notify the medical staff, Nancy. Tell them I order them here at once to do what they can."

  "Our own people need help, too," said Harry. The cries of injured continued to come from other parts of the building. He turned back to the room. Some figures lay still upon the floor in concerted shapes. Others were standing, like himself, gazing numbly at the desolation.

  Nancy tried the phone and found it dead. "I'll get Dr. Bintz and Dr. Walker," she said. "I'll go back to the barracks and get everyone to bring supplies and help."

  "You're sure you're all right?" said Harry.

  "I'm fine."

  "Kripps -- Sanderson!" Harry called. "Check our people in the building, will you? Find out who needs help. The medics will be here in a few minutes."

  The engineers nodded in dazed agreement. Harry moved toward the window where he'd last seen Ames, but the scientist was no longer there.

  Harry called his name. Kripps said, "I think Dr. Ames went down toward the Grid."

  Harry saw him then. The proud figure was shambling painfully toward the mountain of rubble that was growing, a half mile away. Harry crawled over the debris of the fallen wall and raced toward him. The roar of crashing materials was a physical force. A gale wind of displaced air speared at him. Amid the maelstrom, a quieter sound of seething, hissing substances was like a counterpoint.

  "Dr. Ames! You can't go out there! It's too dangerous!"

  Ames turned, his face reflecting his inner agony. "There are people out there. People of other galaxies. They're alive in that burning mound. We've got to help!"

  "There's nothing you can do. We'll get a fire truck and the medics and do anything that's possible, but it's too dangerous for you to get near the pile while it's growing."

  "If they aren't crushed in that mountain of junk, our alien atmosphere will kill them."

  Ames paused, and Harry stood by him, and for the first time absorbed the magnitude of the catastrophe. The inferno of materializing objects was growing as if, literally, a cosmic train were piling into an im
movable obstacle. There were flames rising from scattered points on the mound, but the crimson glow was caused more by the release of radiant energy as the flowing beam reconverted to tangible atoms.

  The walls seemed almost vertical, as if the mass were growing from within. Like a moving lava front, the upper edges curled and toppled and were borne under the slowly expanding wall.

  "We always wondered what would happen -- " said Ames almost inaudibly. "Some of us thought the Train would materialize in good order. But others thought that synchronization would be lost and only a conglomerate mass would appear. They were the ones who were right."

  Harry wondered if Ames had any idea that Steve Martin was responsible for the disaster. Surely he must have suspected what Steve was thinking.

  And then they saw him. The desperate figure of the Operations Manager was leaping from a Jeep and racing toward the mound from the direction of the barracks buildings. He seemed to have no intention of stopping. His ant-like figure was almost at the base of the expanding mound.

  "Martin!" Harry shouted vainly through the chaos.

  Steve Martin was at the very edge of the mound, retreating as it spilled toward him. Harry surged through the blast of air and heat and sound. The expanding wall of debris was nearly vertical as he reached Steve Martin. The top curled outward and fell with avalanche fury.

  "Martin!" Harry grasped the Manager's arm and pulled him back from the edge of the inferno.

  Steve Martin fought loose, oblivious to danger as the mass tumbled at his feet.

  "Come back, Martin!" Harry shouted. "That stuff will bury you!"

  "No, it's all right. We're safe here. Look, Wiseman -- we missed getting what we wanted because synchronization didn't hold. But you can make out the shapes of stuff, and it's still good. We can still find out what it's made of and how it works. Look, now -- what is that? Household goods -- machinery -- scientific equipment? From where? This stuff has come from Andromeda Alpha Centauri -- worlds a hundred million light-years away. This is what they've been holding back -- the Emissary and his chiseling crowd. They thought they could use us like some foreign natives. And Ames, old mother Ames -- he thought by being nice to the Emissary they would turn loose some of this stuff in time. When the human race is worthy, he used to say. Did he give you that line, Wiseman?

  "If we knew the sciences, the technologies behind this stuff -- even this scrap -- But we'll find it, Wiseman. And you'll help us, won't you? You're remembering real good, aren't you, Wiseman? Remembering real good -- "

  "Look out!"

  Harry glanced up at the mass that burned and curled outward above them. He gripped Steve Martin's arm and dragged fiercely.

  Martin tore loose from his grasp and moved even closer to the moving, surging mound, as if to embrace it wildly. Then the curling mass plunged down. Harry heard faintly the cry of pain and terror.

  IX

  Dr. Ames limped painfully to Harry's side. "I saw it. That was an awful way to go, but a man like Martin doesn't deserve much better."

  "You knew?"

  Ames nodded. "I knew he wanted to materialize the Train. I didn't think he'd go this far, but when I saw your pictures of the missile launcher, I knew there was no time left. We had no other course but to abandon the project."

  Harry looked back at the surging, growing mass that seethed and hissed and represented the science and technology of worlds more fabulous than all man's dreams. "There could have been a better way," he said. "It didn't have to end like this. We could have made a deal with them. You can always make a deal with anybody if you just try hard enough -- if they've got something you want, and you've got something they want. All it takes is a little decent horse trading -- "

  A movement far down at the edge of the pile caught Harry's eye. Dr. Ames saw it, too, and he gasped as he saw a figure -- a creature -- and then another.

  Ames gripped Harry's arm. "Harry -- people. Passengers from the Train -- they're still alive!"

  A grotesque shape struggled up from the ground, groping with two arms. In despair, it tumbled on its side, shuddered and lay still. It was a furry, unfamiliar shape, but Harry could see it was burned and torn with lethal injuries.

  Beyond it, another alien, a biped, struggled up, staggered and took a step forward. It had giant eyes, like a lemur's, that shone even in the sunlight. Short, fluffy hair covered its body -- a barrel-like torso with pipestem limbs.

  Ames sucked in his breath. "The Emissary! But it can't be -- it's one of the same race. They're air breathers. They can survive in our atmosphere. Most of these others can't."

  The creature stumbled, then steadied itself. Finally it bent down and picked something from the ground.

  "A child!" Ames exclaimed. "One of their children."

  "On its way to grandmother's house on the other side of the galaxy," murmured Harry. He felt it was silly, but it could well be true.

  As they watched, Nancy drove up in a Jeep and saw what was taking place. She jumped out and ran to them.

  "We've just got to help those people!" The fiery wind buffeted her as she raced toward the two creatures.

  She approached the alien and held out her arms for the infant. The adult whirled and slashed out with one arm. The blow struck nancy on the side of the head and knocked her to the ground.

  Harry and Dr. Ames rushed to ward off further attack.

  "Don't!" cried Nancy. "It didn't understand. It thought I meant harm to the baby. They must be half crazy with shock, anyway."

  They faced the alien in a moment of doubtful hostility. Then, slowly the alien slumped. The spidery arms grew lax, and the huge eyes softened with infinite imploring.

  "Catch the baby!" Nancy cried.

  Harry stepped forward and caught the young one as the adult collapsed. Words of a sibilant, uncomprehended tongue slipped from the furry lips, and then the strange body was still.

  "I'll take the infant to the dispensary," said Nancy. "We've got to help as many as we can."

  "We don't understand their metabolism or their anatomy," said Dr. Ames. "We couldn't even safely apply an antiseptic to their wounds -- or give an anesthetic for an operation we wouldn't know how to perform. There's almost nothing we can do for them."

  "We've really got to try."

  "What about our own people?" said Harry.

  "Everything is under control. The doctors are at the Operations Center now. They have plenty of help. But six of our own people are dead."

  Dr. Ames looked at the spot where Steve Martin had disappeared. "Seven," he said. "But maybe you're right. We shouldn't count him as one of our people."

  Nancy laid the small furry alien in the back of the Jeep and drove to the dispensary in the barracks area. Harry and Dr. Ames walked back to the Operations Center. It was swarming now with station personnel under the direction of the doctors. Stretcher patients were being ferried to the dispensary for treatment of wounds and operations on internal injuries.

  "The end of a dream," said Dr. Ames. "Maybe you were right, Wiseman. We were idiots to dream. Man is an idiot to dream in a world where dreams can't come true."

  "I didn't say that," said Harry. "There's nothing wrong with dreaming. You just have to go about it in the right way."