"Five minutes to the Seal Ship bell," he blustered. "You can leave that hunk of rock right here and get aboard . . . !"
Jumbo put a foot on the wide gangway, started up. A loudspeaker was chanting checklist orders. Gom Bulj appeared above, looking out from the cavernous hold.
"Here, here, what's this?" he bellowed. He waved his arms, staring around as if outraged. Iron Robert's vast inert weight dragged in the dust like a broken monument, reached the end of the gangplank—and jammed. Jumbo heaved, the harness taut across his chest. A rivet popped from it and clattered against the hull. Roan ran to the fallen giant, caught up a long pole, levered at the stony shoulder. Jumbo rocked twice, then heaved again—and Iron Robert bumped up on the gangway, grinding along the incline with a noise like a wrecked ship being hauled off a launch pad. Then they were in the hold and Gom Bulj was rippling his walking tentacles, muttering loudly, and the others were staring and then walking away, bored quickly with Terry foolishness. Stellaraire's lavender powder was caked with sweat and two of her gold-painted, so-carefully tended fingernails were broken off, but Roan looked at her and found her beautiful, with dust in her ocher eyes and streaks down her face, and her gold tights plastered against her body. The port clanged shut, and the ship's lights came on, and they stood and looked down at the great body they had salvaged.
"Well, there went your chance to run away from the 'zoo," Stellaraire sighed. "What are you going to do now? Just leave him here?"
"We'll get the vet to look at him; he'll know how to fix him. You and I will bring him food and scrape him. After a while he'll be all right again." The girl looked into Roan's face curiously. "Why?" she asked. "He was nothing special to you—you hardly knew him . . . "
"Nobody should be left alone to die just because they're hurt," Roan said shortly.
"You crazy, funny, Terry," Stellaraire said, and then she was crying, and he held her, wondering if it was because she was a mule and not a real Terran that she was so hard to understand at times.
For two months Iron Robert lay in the canvas-hung compartment Roan and Stellaraire had arranged for him in the cargo hold, with his lower body encased in massive concrete casts to remind him not to try to move. Every day Roan or the girl went over him with a scraper, and assured him he was as handsome as ever. Now and then Gom Bulj came down to stare at the huge invalid, rap his nine knuckles against the casts, and mutter about expense.
When the day came that the vet said the casts could come off, Nugg came down and helped Roan work carefully with a jack hammer, freeing him. When they finished, Iron Robert sat up, then got to his feet and stood, whole again.
"Terry customs strange," he rumbled, looking down at Roan. "Not call you Terry now. Call you Roan. Iron Robert your friend, Roan. Not understand Terry ways, but maybe good ways. Maybe better ways than Iron Robert ever know before."
Gom Bulj appeared, puffing two cigars. He looked Iron Robert over, shaking his head.
"A remarkable thing, young Terry. It appears you were right. A valuable property, and good as new—I hope. I'm a fair being, young Terry, and I have decided to reward you. Henceforth, you may consider the mule, Stellaraire, as your personal concubine, for your exclusive use—except when I have important Terry-type guests, of course—"
"She's not yours to give away," Roan said sharply.
"Eh? What's that, not mine?" Gom Bulj blinked at Roan. "Why I paid—"
"No one owns Stellaraire."
"See here, my lad, you'd best remember who it is you're addressing! Are you forgetting I could have you trussed up in leathers and flogged for a week?"
"No," Iron Robert rumbled. "No one lay hand on Roan, Gom Bulj. Iron Robert kill any being that try—even you."
"Here . . . !" Gom Bulj backpedaled, staring around wildly. "What's the cosmos coming to? Am I to be threatened by my own property?"
"Iron Robert not property," the giant rumbled. "Iron Robert of royal ferrous strain, and belong to no being. And Roan my friend. Tell all crew, Roan friend to Iron Robert."
"And since you can't give me away," Stellaraire put in, "Roan still has a reward coming. I think it's time you gave him full Freak status and started paying him. And he should be freed from all duties except his high-wire act. And he should eat in the Owner's Mess, with the other stars."
"Why, why . . . " Gom Bulj stuttered. But in the end he agreed and hurried away, still muttering to himself.
There had been a party celebrating Iron Robert's successful defense of his title against a Fire-saber from Deeb, and Roan had drunk too much and not left Stellaraire until almost ship-dawn, and now he struggled out of a dream in which he fought against iron arms that closed on him, hearing the beloved voice that called by the arena gate. His eyes were open now, and he could hear his own breath rasping in his throat, and the voice was the wailing of a siren, but the crushing weight still held him, flat on his back with the edge of the bunk cutting into his arm, and a wrinkle in the blanket under him like a sword on edge. Far away, bells clanged, and a tiny glow grew behind the black glass disk above the cabin door, swelling into a baleful red that flashed on, off, on . . .
Roan moved, dragged an arm like an ironwood log across his body, turned under the massive pressure and fell with stunning violence to the floor from the bunk.
Lying on his face, he felt the deep vibration through the deck plates. The engines were running—here in deep space, four parsecs from the nearest system! He rose to his feet, his bones creaking under the massive acceleration—three gravities at least. Far away, over the bellow of the engines, the clang of bells, the whine of the siren, he thought he heard the sound of Jumbo's trumpeting . . .
He made his way across the room, into the corridor, dragging feet like anchors, while the noise swelled, crimson lights screamed red alarm, faraway voices called. At the end of the corridor the lift door waited, open. Inside, he reached to the control panel, pressed the button for the menagerie deck. For a moment, magically, the weight went away and he drew a breath—then massive blackness clamped down while tiny red lights whirled . . .
He was lying on the floor of the car, smelling the salty sea smell of blood. Through the open door under the blue-white glare of the ceiling, he saw the long white corridor, the barred doors. Crawling again, he made his way along the passage, feeling the slickness underfoot, seeing how the pattern spread from under the doors, blackish red and harsh green mingling in a glistening film that trembled in a geometric resonance pattern. All around him, over the mind-filling Niagara of the engines, there were bellows, groans, grunts of final agony. Roan went on, not looking into the cages as he passed them one by one, seeing the film of blood dance spreading.
The high, barred door of Jumbo's stall was bulged outward, one two-inch steel rod sprung from its socket. Behind it, the elephant lay, blinded, ribs broken, one tusk snapped off short. Blood flowed from the open mouth, from under the closed eyelids. Roan could see the animal's massive side rise in a tortured heave as it struggled to breathe.
"Jumbo!" he choked.
The heavy trunk groped toward him. The great legs stirred; a moan rumbled from the crushed chest.
Roan looked at the power rifle clamped in a bracket beside the stall door. He pulled it free, checked the charge, raised it against the relentless pull, aimed between the closed and bloody eyes, and pressed the firing stud . . . Alarms jangled monotonously in the carpeted corridor outside the quarters of Gom Bulj. Roan dragged leaden feet past the fallen body of an Ythcan, lying with one three-fingered hand outstretched toward the door of the patron's apartment.
Inside, Gom Bulj lay sprawled, his body crushed against the floor, his eyes bulging from the pressure. He moved feebly as Roan came to him and went heavily down to hands and knees.
"Why are you . . . killing us all . . . Gom Bulj?" Roan asked, then stopped to breathe.
"No . . ." the entrepreneur's voice was a breathless wheeze. "Not me . . . at
. . . all . . . young Terry." He drew a hoarse breath. "Old battle . . . reflex . .
. circuits . . . triggered . . . somehow. Maximum acceleration . . . three . . . standard . . . G . . ."
"Why. . . ?"
"Ah, why indeed . . . young Terry . . ."
"What . . . can we do?"
"It's . . . too bad . . . too bad, young Terry. No help for us. The time has come . . . to terminate . . . the biological processes . . ."
"You mean . . . die . . .?"
"When the . . . environment becomes . . . hostile . . . a quick demise . . . is greatly . . . to be desired . . ."
"I want to live. Tell . . . me what to do . . ."
Gom Bulj's massive head seemed to sink even deeper into the compressed bulk of his body. "Self-preservation . . . an interesting . . . concept. A pity .
. . we won't have . . . the opportunity . . . to discuss . . . it . . ."
"What can I do, Gom Bulj?" Roan reached to the bulbous body, gripped a thick arm. "I have . . . to try . . ."
"I suggest . . . you suspend . . . respiration. Five minutes . . . should do the trick . . . As for me . . . I may thrash a bit . . . but pay . . . no attention
. . ."
"I'll turn off the engines," Roan choked. "How . . .?"
"No use . . . young Terry. Too far . . . Even now . . . blood runs . . . from your nostrils . . ."
"Tell me what to do . . ."
"On the war deck . . ." Gom Bulj gasped. "Command . . . control panel. A lever—painted white . . . But . . . you can't . . ."
"I'll try," Roan said.
It was an interminable time later, and Roan's hands and knees left red marks against the gray decking as he pulled himself across the raised threshold of the door above which the red glare panel warned: BATTLE
CONTROL—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Across the dusty room, the dead gray of the great screens had changed to vivid green-white on panels alive now with dancing jewel lights. A dark shape moved on the master screen; below, mass and proximity gauges trembled; numbers appeared and faded on the ground-glass dials. Roan pulled himself to the padded Fire Controller's seat, spelled out the symbols flashing in blue: IFF NEGATIVE.
A yellow light blinked suddenly in the center of the panel. Red letters appeared on the screen, spelling out words in archaic Universal:
The words faded, changed:
MAIN BATTERIES FIRE, TEN SECONDS ALERT. . .
The auxiliary panels blinked from yellow to red to white.
FIRE ALL, the panel spelled out. Through the seat, Roan felt a tremor run through the ship, briefly rattling a loose bolt in the panel. Before him, the banked controls sparkled row on row, telltale lights blinking insistently, gauges producing readings, relays closing, clicking, as the robot panel monitored the action. Roan's eyes blinked back haze, searching for the white-painted switch. . .
It was there, just to the right of the baleful crimson dial lettered MAIN
RADAR—TRACKING. He reached out, forcing his heavy hand up, grasped the smooth lever, threw it from AUTO to MANUAL.
The war lights blinked off. He searched the instruments before him, found a notched handle lettered EMERGENCY ACCELERATION, threw it to ZERO. A thousand noises growled down to silence. Roan seemed to float upward from the chair as the pressure dropped to the ship-normal half-G. In the stillness, metal popped and groaned, readjusting to the reduced stresses. Distantly, someone screamed, again and again.
Roan thought suddenly of Stellaraire, alone in her cabin. . . He ran, leaping down the companionways, along to her door. It stood ajar. He pushed it wide—
With a sound like the clap of gigantic hands, the room exploded in his face. He was a dust mote, floating in a brassy sky. Somewhere thunder rolled, remote and ominous. Somewhere, a voice called to him, and he would have answered, but his lungs were choked with smoke as thick as syrup. He fought to clear them, and then his eyes were open and he saw broken metal, the fragments of a flower dish and of a yellow blossom, and a white hand, limp, the fingers curled.
He was on his feet, choking in an acrid reek of burned metal, throwing aside a shattered chair, heaving at a fallen fragment of paneling, coughing as dust boiled up from the rubble of insulation, charred cloth, smashed glass and wood and plastic.
She lay on her back, her eyes closed, her face unmarked, her platinum hair swirled across her forehead.
"Stellaraire. . .!" He knelt, feeing scorching heat against his face, brushing away dust, splinters, paper—
The duralloy beam lay across her pelvis, pinning her tight. Roan felt his throat close as he gripped the cold metal, strained at it, felt its massive inertia. On his knees, he wrapped his arms around the metal section, heaved back until the room swam red. The odor of smoke was stronger now. Roan stood, hearing the ringing in his head, seeing the pale yellow flames that licked at scattered paper and torn cloth. Twisted wires and broken conduits sagged from the broken wall. Water trickled from a ruptured pipe, and beside it a stream of sharp-odored liquid poured down. The little colored fish from the tank lay stiff on the floor. Too late, Roan whirled, threw a quilt over the burning paper. With a whoosh! the coolant fluid ignited, and now red fire boiled black smoke, and a wave of heat struck Roan's face like a whip. He seized a blanket, thrust it against the broken waterline, then threw the wet cloth over Stellaraire's body. It hissed when it touched the floor beside her. He threw himself down, not noticing the searing pain against his back, braced his feet, set his shoulders against the beam, and pushed. It was like pushing at a granite cliff. The air he breathed burned in his throat.
There was a fallen length of duralloy channel under his hand. He thrust it under the beam, levering until the shirt split across his back. The channel buckled. When he tossed it aside, there were yellowish-white burns on his palms.
Stellaraire's hair was burning, the platinum-gold strands blackening and curling. Roan stumbled to the door, out into a smoke-blinded corridor. He would find Iron Robert, and together they would free Stellaraire. . .