The Star Mill Page 3

  At some nadir stage, when the necessity for relief from the totality of his agony put him on the lip of some bottomless brink, that name rang out across eternity like a great resounding chord of trained thunder.

  Ukko.

  Ukko.

  It connoted thunder-power, too. Power to help him and all who knew what it meant and how to employ it. Still, mocked a second voice—a hag's cackle—this was all part and parcel of his inexhaustible agony. The torture of hope.

  He flailed his body and his brains for more. Something more than this wafted scent of beneficence across the aching void of time and space. There wasn't any more. He lay there in the dark, begging, but nothing happened.

  When hunger and thirst demanded it, he crawled off the steel bunk and cracked open the door. Before now when Brooks had brought him his food he gave the hatch a light tap. There had been none in some time; and now there was no tray.

  Brooks was dead. That was it. Ilmar saw young McGinn lying there with his cells oozing away into nothing, and now it had happened to Brooks. How about Captain Grant? Maybe the automatics were moving the starship mindlessly on the way to Terra?

  Weak from lack of food, he crumpled. He lay there for a long time, gathering up strength and reason crumbs from out of the dearth. He climbed the steel wall with shuddering fingers, hunting for the light switch. He found it; it snapped on just for one good look before it went out again.

  His cracked lips let out a yell at what he saw. The room! The walls! While he had been lying there in the dark a stealthy paced horror had been at work. The metal walls were eaten away in great ragged holes; in other places were angry pits like metallic acne scars, a touch and the bleached steel would crumble away in fine powder. While he had lain there all that time, helplessly reproaching his existence, this had happened. The horror in him was relentlessly taking over the ship, as it had taken human flesh.

  " He clawed up on his feet and backed out into the corridor. Here the walls were pitted but wholesale destruction had not yet begun. He staggered down the compan-ionway on unsteady feet. He reached the up-ladder to the metal balcony and the master cabin. His fingers closed on the railing.

  "Stay where you are, Jonah!"

  Grant's voice was a feral snarl. Ilmar stayed where he was; he blinked up. He cracked an admiring grin at what the Captain had done. Besides shielding Ilmar's central cubicle to protect the vitals of his ship, Captain Grant had improvised a lead barricade at the top of the balcony. He had removed sections of inner wall from his master's cabin and lined them irregularly along the top railing, in case Ilmar took a notion to try to get up there. Ilmar couldn't see him, but he could see the blaster's barrel poking through a small hole at the very center of (lie stairs' summit.

  "Bully for you, Captainl" Ilmar rasped out. "I've got something to tell you. I—"

  "Don't say anything, Jonah. Don't say you're sorry McGinn and Brooks are dead or III cut you to hell!"

  "I know how you must feel."

  "Do you? Do you? You—" The epithets he employed were choice gleanings of his three decades in the Fleet and they reached far back into Ilmar's ancestry. "You Jonah bastard! God, you don't know how bad I want to kill you! That scar on your slimy face is the tip-off. You're a horror-weapon some supernatural race of witches dreamed up to destroy Terra. I don't give a damn what Brooks said—Goddamn it, I—"

  Ilmar moved fast, missing the first death-spit down at liim. He crouched behind the ladder, too near the fore-wall for Grant to be able to see him without revealing himself more than he dared. He choked down a groan. Captain Grant raved on in sobbed-out hysteria. All these weeks he had worked to get his ship back home while down in the bowels of it was this horror—gnawing away, killing Brooks, killing the ship....

  "When you're out in space as much as I've been," (.rant shout-babbled, "you have plenty of time to read. I like to read Terran history. Ancient history. Did you ever hear of Finns, Jonah? The Finns were an ancient north country race. Supposed to be wizards. They controlled (lie natural elements. They had power to change things. Terran sailors wouldn't let a Finn on board because he could sing up a storm and kill them all. He could send one of those old sailing ships onto an iceberg anytime he wanted to. That's you, Jonahl Only now it's the great wide ocean of space. You're a Jonah, Ilmar. You're a Finn-jonah!"

  It came like heat lightning. It hurt his brain, the sudden piercing thrust of urgent knowledge. For one fraction of time he knew everything!

  "Captain!" he yelled out. "I know! I know now!" He moved out of hiding eagerly. "Listen to me, while it's i still there! I know that what you said is true!"

  Captain Grant's howl was a cave-primitive's shriek at sight of some hideous demon. The flame from the barrel of his blaster was a convulsive expression of his maniac fear. For Ilmar, time stretched out like a rubber band. He saw the white streak of sunhot death lick the air as if it moved slowly, very slowly.

  He wrenched back in slow motion; he had time to half-turn before he fell into the plumbless black hole.

  It was curious to be alive. Knowledge was gone, pluckr ed back again into limbo. But he was alive and aware. After the machine-things had finished prodding him and buzzing around they left him alone. A voice spoke out of the sterile white wall.

  "How are you feeling, Ilmar?"

  He sat up, wincing. How did he feel? While remembrance of the ship washed over his forebrain he grimaced and plucked at the wires of his red beard. How did he feel? What a question! The invisible voice seemed to understand.

  "We fed you and bathed you, and you have had time to rest up a bit. What I'm asking is, are you physically up to providing the Terran Council with some information?"

  "Where am I?" Ilmar countered.

  The voice was gently patient with him. "In a secret place on Terra which we reserve for classified matters we wish to keep from the general public. My name is Ronsin Caim. My field is alien psychology. The Council gave me permission to keep an eye on you, which I have done. I am glad to see that you are better."

  "Thanks," Ilmar said, standing and flexing his long muscles. "What happens now?"

  "We have kept you in complete isolation, as you can infer. Robots have tended to your needs and studied you as best they could. I, and your appointed medics, have observed and directed them by video."

  "What about—Captain Grant? Is he—"

  "Dead? Not yet. But the Council is waiting. They want to see and hear you before any decision is made. In a moment a carrier robot will fetch you down to the vid room. There you will face the High Council and make your statement. After that it will be decided what we must do with you...."

  Ilmar gasped when one wall of the video room dissolved; the sudden brightness burned kaleidoscopic colors on his optical nerves; after a few minutes he could see again. He was blinking out on a tiered assemblage of humans, each wearing white tunics like togas, each wearing also an august aura of knowledge and dignified impersonal omniscience.

  They stared at him, frankly curious to see this monster who carried destruction within his cells. Ilmar gulped; he moved a set of fingers to touch the flaming scar on his cheek. It burned. Somehow he wanted to hide it from them. It was a demon's brand. It would disfavor their decision. Reveal...

  The Chairman was old, with a somber beagle's face and an attitude of impatient displeasure with his task.

  All of them appeared anxious to sift out truth from a uni-verseful of enigmas. Ilmar wondered which one of them was Psychologist Caim.

  The Chairman buzzed for silence and pointed. Across from Ilmar, he now noticed, was a second video trans-receiver, like his. It glowed for a moment, dazzling II-mar's eyes; then he saw Captain Grant. The sight of his waxy, haggard face and those blades of eyes tore bis nerve ends.

  Captain Grant stood up, although Ilmar saw that it cost him great effort to stay on his feet. He was still military, trim, and he wore his best uniform with all the gold ribbons on it. His face was bone-thin although the eyes leaped with resolve. He had fought dea
th to a stalemate; he was still fighting. When he flashed one quick look at Ilmar, Ilmar read the accusation in his eyes like a reflection from the guilt in his own soul.

  "Captain Grant, we have some of your statements on tape. Thank you for seeing us in person. We wish to confirm—"

  "My ship!" Grant rasped. "What about my ship!"

  The Chairman's dewlaps quivered when he shook his gray head. "Sorry, Captain Grant. Your ship had to be destroyed while it was still in lunar isolation. Our radars detected the erractic nature of your approach out of time-skip soon enough to become alarmed, especially when you didn't answer our signal. The ships sent out to accompany you to Luna Port were horrified to see a twisted, pitted mass of metal that could barely make it out of the time-fog. By the use of shields and laser net they managed to tug you to Luna. After you and the subject-defendant had been removed, by robot, everything involved in the misadventure was carefully destroyed."

  Grant's half-mad eyes wrenched from the Chairman to

  Ilmar. For a moment it looked as if sanity was completely gone again. Love for his ship did that. A sparse figure with a wisp of white hair left, stood up. The beagle-Chairman listened to him for a moment, nodded. Ilmar watched the paperthin figure, addressed as Scientist Caim, walk closer to the video image of Captain Grant. There was a long moment of unheard conversation between them, after which Scientist Cairn turned to the Council.

  "What specific information do you require? Please be brief."

  "Mostly we want to be sure that Captain Grant's ship did not brush the destructive fringe of the nebular Storm area. We must be very certain that—"

  Grant blazed out.

  "I am responsible for all that happenedl I take full blamel I allowed my two crew members to influence me, play on my sympathies about the derelict! But I did not touch the fringe area of the Storm! I swear it!"

  "Then we must assume the incredible," the Chairman sighed. "The derelict did cause the disaster. And he himself is immune!"

  Ilmar watched Grant's hand flail out and point at him; the sharp eyes blazed out like a maniac's. "Look at him! Sure he is immune! He's a space-jonahl"

  "Jonah?"

  "I know scientists laugh at space legends, just as they did centuries back on Terra itself. But you—all of you— you go out there. Listen to the alien winds howl through that black nothing for thirty years. After a while you'll find yourselves wondering just what is real and what isn't, the way I did. . . ." He choked off, bent almost double in retching physical pain, then his voice lashed out again. "They're superhumanly clever—Jonahs! The old sailors on Terran oceans knew. Those Finns could call up storms, destroy the ships. They knew they couldn't die. See that brand on his face? See? They've all got a mark, a red mark, on them. He's got it. He was put on that rock to destroy—to destroy—"

  The slim uniformed figure shook like a willow; the muscles sheathing his bones fought to hold on; pain writhed his face. Then he fell and after a while there was only the black uniform and the ribbons.

  Ilmar was immune to horror by now, as he was immune to the Black Storm. He looked into the video window with an appearance of indifference. Could a man live under the weight of all this guilt? he wondered numbly. Was he an unnatural alien monster planted on that rock to kill Terra, the central core of the human race?

  Something very like a sigh of relief shivered over the assemblage when Captain Grant fell and the video light went dark. Ilmar understood. The "misadventure," as Chairman Moore termed it, was a closely guarded secret; this triple-ring of men bore the brunt of a prodigious burden. Alive, Captain Grant was capable of spreading the Storm's contagion, as much as Ilmar was. Now he was dead. Everything concerning the "misadventure" was destroyed. Everything except Ilmar.

  Scientist Cairn's voice was curt and caustic.

  "Ilmar, who are you?"

  Ilmar stared at them all, his caved face pale as ashes under the jaunty fringe. He looked calm enough, but the storm raging in his skull belied the placidity.

  "I don't know."

  "Are you an alien?"

  "No, I am not an alien."

  Chairman Moore's voice shredded the audio. "Of course you're an alien. We've checked all the records. Terra and all of the colonies. Nobody claims you."

  "He speaks space-idiom. His test reactions indicated human intelligence."

  "Then let him tell us who he is and why he alone is immune."

  Ilmar was space-cold, then sun-hot. "Damn you, I keep telling you I can't remember!"

  "Can you think of any reason why we shouldn't rid ourselves of you without further delay?"

  Cairn said, "I can."

  "Well?"

  "We've been superlatively careful with him. Only robotics have been allowed close to him and they, in turn, are kept in isolation after washing. The public is unaware of his existence, to prevent panic. We all know that the nebular menace called the Black Storm is snowballing and moving our way. We have never run across anything, human or alien, that was able to resist it so far. This man is unique. We must find out whyl"

  The nods were grudging and slow to come. Cairn turned back to Ilmar. "Captain Grant made reference to an ancient ethnic group, the Finns—one of the North European cultures. Like all of the others, the Finns have long since been assimilated into our total Terran culture, and rightly so. Grant spoke about the legend of the 'Jonah.' I believe the concept originated in the old Judeo-Christian mythos, garbled out of a legend about a man swallowed by a 'great fish' and living inside of it. I've heard mention of the 'jonah' myth in Space, one among many many others." He shrugged. "Be that as it may, listen carefully, Ilmar. Does any of this—"

  Chairman Moore swept him aside.

  "We haven't time for superstition, Caim. It's easy to see where the reference came from—Captain Grant's traumafic experience, all those horrible weeks alone at the controls of his doomed ship. Not to mention mental deterioration of an organic nature."

  "One momentl" Cairn pleaded. "Something Grant babbled on his early tapes—"

  "No. Sorry."

  The membership agreed with Moore. There was no time for goblins and gremlins. They had a decision to make; it must not be prolonged. Moore signaled to unseen attendants and Ilmar's view of the council chamber vanished.

  He sank down on a metal bench with a convulsive shudder. He longed for the comfort of madness. He didn't care what happened to him any more. Kill him! Get done with it!

  When the light came on again, he rose stiffly and faced them. Chairman Moore consulted the triple row of red-and-green lights in front of him, as if to make assurance doubly sure. The lights corresponded to the council seats; they had all voted and all of the lights except one were red. Caim had resumed his seat and Ilmar caught a flash of stormy sympathy in his look.

  Moore stood up with official dignity.

  "Our decision has not been easy but we dare not wait. We have no recourse but to abide by our own precedence. Alien Ilmar: you will be removed to your isolation cubicle, and tomorrow morning you will be placed in a rocketship under automatic control. The ship will be set on an unalterable trajectory for our sun. Since there is grave question that our usual methods of destructing undesirables would not work in your case, we are taking this unprecedented way of burning away the contamination within your cells, forever."

  V

  Ilmab wailed when he first saw open sky. It lashed his his soul with a land of acrophobic terror and the hideous memory of spacial horrors, after weeks entombed. It was the darkest hour, the one just before a bleak autumnal dawn. Thunder clouds bagged the far-off lonely horizons and gray-purple rain-rags scudded overhead like fleeing ghosts.

  When the carrier robot opened and told him to get out, he clawed the box walls, fighting his panic.

  Outside of the carrier box was a wide black-topped field, a perfectly ordinary solar flight field but on some rock-island far away from the Cities. And this field was manned entirely by robots. Looming some hundred yards from the wheeled robot that had brought
him here was the ship.

  It was small: a small black spear pointing up into the cloud-fraught dark. It didn't have to be big to accommodate just him. And no use wasting materials. This was going to be a one-way trip.

  After a third prodding by the controlled robot, he stepped down. The sky saw him and spoke with stentorian thunder.

  "Ukkol" he called up.

  Again the sonorous rolling of thunder. Lighting gashed the distant hills. Infinite power told his cellular being: I am here, Ilmar. I am with you.

  The macrocosmic-microcosmic voice of power brought him strength. Striding briskly toward the ladder and the gaping oval hatchway, Ilmar smiled.

  Robot guards moved along with him, at a distance. Walking the matte black wetness with a land of swagger, Ilmar became aware of ships buzzing and hovering over the field in cautious circles. These would be manned. These would be taking careful account of his death-march and the ship's takeoff, so that the Council would know that its decision had been carried out and the alien menace was gone forever.

  Ukko's thunder vibrated through the smallest parts of his cells and told him that what was about to happen was not of the least importance. At the top of the oval hatch was a green light winking on and off. When Ilmar had climbed up that brief ladder and through that hatch, it would go out; the ship would know it was time to leave, and when one of the controlled robots pushed a button, off it would go on its rendezvous with Sol and eternity.

  He quickened his stride.

  "Ilmar!"

  The voice came from behind, to his left. It was a feminine voice, sharply urgent, and it came mingled together with a faint chopping whirr as of wings. He turned. Nothing. He shrugged and moved on. One stride only.

  "Ilmar! Come to me! Hurry!"