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Read Ebook: The Little Pets of Arkkhan by Garson Bill Vestal Herman B Illustrator
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Ebook has 165 lines and 11247 words, and 4 pages
He was remembering....
He'd known it for a long time, ever since the night when the big, flame-thatched space captain had swerved gracefully over to their table and said,
"So this is your Faith, Kent. You're right, she's magnificent. No wonder you're the best damn spacer in the system. With a Faith like that, you couldn't help it." He knew it when she leaned almost unconsciously toward him, as if she feared Bob Mallory's mocking green eyes, his lean, almost hawk-like face.
And as the weeks wore on, the memory stayed with her for she would ask this and that about Mallory. And he would answer.
He knew for sure the second time the two met. They fought--not in just words, but with their eyes, with movements of their bodies. And he knew that he could not fight that lightning with the slow-burning flame that was his love.
So he said, and with the memory came the pain again, "You love him quite a bit, don't you." Her blue eyes had looked startled at first, then almost soft, then harried, "I guess I do, Kent. I'm sorry."
"No need to be sorry," he said. "This sort of thing happens all the time. I don't love you so much that life would stop without you. Besides, I like Bob, he's a good joe." I kissed her, he thought, and I knew I was a damn liar, or why did I go out and try to drink the distilleries dry? Sure, it was a hurt pride--but I still kind of like Mary Jo.
The last words he said came back. "This is it, then, Mary Jo. Good-night, good luck, goodbye."
"I will give her to you, Kent Knight," the Thing said. "Your love will be the lightning. You can hold her in your arms, feel the warmth and excitement of her, knowing that she is yours. Nothing can take her from you."
For a moment, Kent Knight was tempted to let that little bit of mind that still was his be swallowed up by the Thing. But he remembered in time.
"Like Captain Hansen's fountain of youth?" his mind asked, and he laughed.
Like a magnified echo to his laugh came the excited clamor of the alarm bells. The signal board in the mess began to pulse redly. Approaching mass! Asteroid, wandering star, spaceship? Knight waited.
The look-out's voice came excitedly over the intercom. "SP ship! SP ship! And her nose is red!"
And her nose is red! Cut rockets or we'll blow you out of the universe. This was no routine SP check--that would have called for a yellow signal at the Space Patrol ship's bow.
The muted thunder of the rockets to which his mind and ears had accustomed themselves suddenly cut out as Captain Hansen switched off the cycs. Then there was a long moment of almost hurting silence, then the bow rockets began to fire and slow the ship.
The bow rockets ceased too, finally, and the silence came again. But all the while, Kent Knight's Thing was trying to find an answer.
Sammy came plowing into the mess, a sloshing bottle in one hand, his bald head glistening, his big nose twitching.
He said to Kent, "I knew it was too good to be true. I was just sitting in my cubicle looking out and I saw the Moon. I conjectured that perhaps our exile had come to a premature end. But then that damn SP ship showed up."
Knight couldn't stop his mind quick enough. The Thing caught it in mid-flight, and stopped scrabbling. "So that is why. This is a prison ship and can come only so close to Earth. For a moment, I believed you Earthmen were stronger mentally than you are."
And you set forth on your Odyssey of punishment. You can go anywhere you please. You can settle anywhere--on any planet. You can do anything you damn please so long as you stay half a million miles from Earth for the period of your sentence.
If you come closer than that, the SP ships will blow you into eternity if you do not heed them when their noses are red.
Like now.
Kent Knight strode to the viewplate and clicked it on.
"Will they take our eyes, Kent?" Sammy asked anxiously, "and tow us to some godforsaken spot and leave us?"
Kent Knight looked at the viewplate. A spacelock had opened, spewed forth five space-suited figures.
Kent Knight strode out of the messhall, heading for the main airlock, Sammy and his bottle tagging along behind. All around him, Knight felt the excited whisper of the Things.
"I don't know what to tell them, Kent," Captain Hansen said anxiously. "I forgot all about the line. But something kept telling me, 'We're going home. We're going home ...' and I just set the course. It seemed so natural, Kent."
"I know, Ike," Knight said softly. Then, as the turning levers on the inner lock moved, he added, "Here they come."
The five figures, bulky in their lead and rubberoid suits, their transparent helmets almost opaque as the lights within the ship reflected from them, closed the lock behind them. Four moved silently aside, two to stand on either side of the lock, while the commander strode toward Knight and Captain Hansen.
With a sudden movement, Kent Knight's body grew taut. His left arm came up in a quick salute, and the SP commander suddenly stiffened, his four aides whipped atomic pistols out, held them at ready.
The SP commander left on his glassite helmet, turned on the little speaker.
"Damn my eyes," the rich vibrant voice which issued from the speaker exclaimed, "Kent Knight! Of all the exiles who should know better than to cross the line, it's you. But damn it, Kent, it's swell to see you." Gauntleted fingers reached to the SP commander's throat, twisted twice, and then pushed the glassite helmet back from a shock of flaming hair.
Even before the red hair was exposed, Knight had recognized the voice. Bob Mallory, the lightning which had struck Mary Jo's love from him.
Mallory strode forward, his face smiling, one hand outstretched.
The pain stopped. But it was too late for Mallory.
The mocking green eyes slitted. The firm handclasp loosened. Then Bob was writhing on the deck, his handsome face grimacing, his body twisting and convulsing within the space suit.
His mind suddenly began to signal frantically. Knight's glance flashed to the four space guards at the portal, saw them recovering from their momentary paralysis at the sight of their commander writhing on the floor. The atomic pistols which had dropped unconsciously from the ready were coming up. The pinhole muzzles were centering on him.
"Wait!" Kent Knight's voice snapped authoritatively. "I warned him there was danger. Will you destroy me before I can explain?"
The four guardsmen hesitated. Knight said urgently, "Don't touch any living thing on this ship. Shoot anything down if it approaches you. Anything. We harbor terrible Thought Things which steal our minds. One has just seized your commander and--"
Knight's voice halted in mid-sentence.
Knight spun around swiftly, seeking Sammy. Sammy has the answer, his mind had said. Now to find it.
Sammy lay in one corner of the airlock entrance, one hand clutching his ever-present bottle. But for the first time in a week, Sammy had succumbed finally to the prodigious quantities of liquor he had consumed. He was sleeping like a child, the bottle held against his breast.
Kent turned slowly, and the heart died within him. Bob Mallory, green eyes haunted, stared at him over the bore of an atomic pistol.
"I don't know what awful power you have, Knight," his lips twisted painfully, "but it sure played hell with me. I was going to give you a break, but now...." Mallory pushed at the white stud, bringing the atomic gun to full power.
"I feel nothing, Knight, except that you should be exterminated. Somewhere you have picked up the power to inflict agony by the touch of your hand. I can't let you take it to Earth as I know you're planning to do."
"Mary Jo," Knight said sharply. "Mary Jo." For a moment, the haunting look was gone from the green eyes, and Mallory's lips twisted in a smile. The tense fingers on the atomic gun relaxed.
The sound of his own sobs still was echoing in his ears when he awakened. His whole body ached, but his mind was numb and only partially felt the signals. He opened his eyes, and there was Sammy.
"Hello," Sammy said matter-of-factly. "I do hope you had a pleasant sleep while I battled over your body."
"It wasn't a pleasant sleep, Sammy. But what do you mean, battled over my body?"
"Exactly that, my good man," Sammy reported. "They moved us all to the SP ship, taking us to Earth for observation. Earth! Just imagine it, Kent. For the first time in three years, we'll be seeing home." He upended his bottle, his adam's apple bobbing.
"And I can obtain some honest-to-gosh Earth whiskey. No more of this stuff I've been distilling myself. Oh joy, oh rapture."
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