The Women-Stealers of Thrayx Read online

theground, thrust it into a tattered tool-pocket of her uniform.

  Past the quiescent, sweat reeking bodies of the bull-muscled guards,into the dimly lit chamber beyond, Bruhlla half walking, halfshambling before her.

  She watched him as he switched the device into life; waited until itsdull orange glow assured that it was ready for use. So much like thecommunications room of an ordinary ship of Earth, she thought. So likethe familiar things of her life, yet so alien.

  He had barely slipped the mentacom's headpiece on his skull andadjusted a simply calibrated control dial when she struck him at thebase of his thick neck with the stone, all the force of her suppleyoung body behind it.

  Blood spurted as its ragged edges tore through flesh, bone and nerves,and slowly, Bruhlla crumpled from the rude chair that held his dyingbulk.

  Thought images as well as words, Kriijorl had explained during theirflight so long ago in the helio. Language would be no barrier. Overthe head, like this ... and this switch--

  She twirled the large dial from its setting, watched a slender threadof light within a transparent sphere above it fluctuate in breadth asthe dial twisted. And when it was at its widest, she gambled that itindicated the broadest transmitting beam of which the mentacom wascapable.

  And then she marshalled her thoughts, carefully chose the simplestwords.

  _Warning, Ihelos! There is an Earthman among you at work as a spy forThrayx! I am a captive._

  Over and over, the same words, the same thought images which theyformed; of Cain, of this hell-planetoid itself.

  The orange glow pulsated as though itself alive with the desperationof her signal. And she heard the guard barely in time.

  A howl of rage bellowed from him as she turned, twisted franticallyjust outside his grasp, darted headlong through the door.

  And she was quicker than those outside; she was beyond them, running,the breath sobbing in her throat.

  Away from the blood-soaked thing she'd left crumpled in death behindher, and toward the jungle's edge. Toward some new horror, perhaps,and toward a freedom that would be short-lived at best. For she hadkilled Bruhlla, and she knew they would not stop now until she hadbeen run to earth.

  * * * * *

  The three men watched as the six ships landed in the jungle clearing;emptied of the selected Thrayxite women who would in little more thana day's time re-enter them, the breeders' seed within their bodies,for the journey back to the mother planet.

  It had been the same the day before, and the day before that, and inthe distance, they had watched similar craft descend toward other ofthe many colonies with which the lush planetoid was dotted.

  "Nuts!" Cain said. He turned to Mason. "What the hell else is there todo? Sit here and rot? They won't kill us. They'll just let Nature takeits course--"

  "There's more to be done than simply make a run for it to one of theirships," Mason snapped. "The mentacoms on them, Kriijorl's said a dozentimes, haven't the necessary range."

  "So what's your plan? Or don't I get to hear any of the details?"

  Mason studied the big man's face. Captured in his attempt to rescuethe Earthwomen, he had said. His explanation had been that simple.New-UN hadn't believed Judith, but she had convinced him, and so he'dtried on his own responsibility, and simply hadn't made it. And thenthey'd brought him here, scarcely hours after Mason and Kriijorl hadthemselves been delivered to the teeming colony.

  Logical enough, yes. Cain was the kind who would try such a crazystunt, alone, with such supreme overconfidence in his own musclepower. Yet--

  "We must not be impatient," Kriijorl interrupted his thought. He stoodup, his blond head nearly touching the top of the plastifabric tent."We must be certain and wait for the best time, Mister Cain. For if wefail in our first attempt, there will not be a second. And it has onlybeen three days. As yet, we have been left quite to ourselves; even mylife has not been threatened."

  Mason noticed the puzzled frown that was across the Ihelian'sforehead. "Do you think--"

  "I cannot even guess the reason for that," Kriijorl murmured, asthough more to himself than in answer to Mason's question. "By all therules of our conflict, I should be stretched naked for the junglebeasts by now."

  "Forget it!" Cain broke in quickly. "You're alive now, and if we canhave a little action around here maybe you'll stay that way. We'vewatched long enough. They don't guard those ships at all. Thesebreeders they keep drugged to the eyes, so why should they? I say wejust grab one and blast off! Unless somebody's got a better plan, andI still haven't heard one--"

  "Awfully anxious, aren't you, Mister Cain?" Mason asked.

  "I'm not afraid of 'em if that's what you mean!"

  Lance turned to Kriijorl. "Maybe he's right. We've watched for threedays. What do you think?"

  The Ihelian looked out across the colony of low, square-shapedenclosures and to its far side where the twisted jungle began; to thespot where the mentacom was housed in a squat, guarded dome ofcrudely-shaped steel. Then he turned back to the Earthman, and Masonsaw the uncertainty in his eyes.

  "We have gained far less than I had hoped by watching," he saidslowly. "We have learned the number of their guards, and the period oftheir change, but perhaps that is all we shall learn. If you thinkthat as soon as there is darkness--"

  "About time!" Cain said sourly. "And it'll be straight for the--"

  "To the mentacom first," Mason said quietly. "And after that, to theships if we can, Mister Cain." He felt strangely calm as his eyes metCain's squarely. Somewhere within him, there was something changing."Take it from an ex-has-been, big man! That's how it's going to be!"

  * * * * *

  The camp was dark and silent as the three men left the tent. Theywalked as if from boredom, changing direction often as though atrandom; yet they moved with a deceiving swiftness, and each stepbrought them closer to the crude dome. The sound of their movementswas as a whisper that lost itself with the quiet murmur of the nightwind through the web of the jungle, and when they were close enough,they halted, to wait; to watch.

  There was the soft clink of metal on metal and the mutter ofdead-toned voices as the guard changed. Four hulking shapes walked atlast in a tired shamble from the structure housing the mentacom. Fourothers prepared to take their posts.

  And there was little to disturb the silence after that.

  A muffled grunt, a choked off curse lost in a brief rustle ofundergrowth as though a sudden breeze had momentarily ruffled itslanguid calm. And that was all.

  Four breeders lay dead outside the dome.

  Mason felt the warm stickiness of blood on his face, and the sting ofa deep cut somewhere upon it. He saw that Cain was straightening overa mangled form; that Kriijorl had overcome odds of two to one. Thebreeder at his own feet had died swiftly of a deftly broken neck, areddened dirk still clutched in his stiffening fingers.

  Then they were inside the dome, and Kriijorl was placing the head-unitof the mentacom over his matted yellow hair.

  Mason watched in the half-light of the pulsing orange glow, listenedto the heaviness of Cain's breathing.

  And he saw Kriijorl's face stiffen suddenly. With a swift movement theIhelian had handed him the head-unit, and with slippery fingers hefumbled the device into place over his own head.

  Before he could think he had given Cain all the warning that he hadneeded.

  "My God, it's Judith! Somehow she's--"

  Kriijorl lunged too late. The man whom Judith's mentacom message hadbranded as a spy was already through the dome's door, running.

  Mason moved more quickly than the Ihelian then. Ahead in the junglethere was a crashing sound, and Mason tripped suddenly himself as heran, fell. Kriijorl leapt past him in the darkness, as though he couldsomehow see through it, and then Mason had regained his feet and wasfollowing blindly.

  And suddenly he thought of the empty ships behind them, and Cain'sabrupt uselessness to his Thrayxite employers. Then--

  But
the gamble was too great. Cain might not double back, but insteadplunge headlong further and further into the concealing morass beforehim. No, Cain would not double back. Not now. For in Kriijorl he hadmet an even match, and now he was afraid!

  Fully an hour had passed when, his tunic torn and the exposed fleshbleeding, Mason caught up with Kriijorl.

  "He was nearly within my hands for a moment--" the giant whisperedhoarsely. He breathed with difficulty, and there were long slashesgleaming redly in the darkness across his great muscles.

  Mason stood silently for moments, toying with a thought that naggedinsistently at the edge of his brain. He knew Cain. He knew the man.

  Then suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the muffled sound of arocket blast, and within moments there