A. E. Van Vogt - Voyage of the Space Beagle.pdf - A. E. Van Vogt - borsukomiks

hundred days.

He stopped finally, chilled by the reality. His great forelegs

twitched with a shuddering movement that arched every razor-

sharp claw. The thick tentacles that grew from his shoulders un-

dulated tautly. He twisted his great cat head from side to side, while

the hairlike tendrils that formed each ear vibrated frantically, test-

ing every vagrant breeze, every throb in the ether.

There was no response. He felt no swift tingling along his intri-

cate nervous system. There was no suggestion anywhere of the

presence of the id creatures, his only source of food on this desolate

planet. Hopelessly, Coeurl crouched, an enormous catlike figure

silhouetted against the dim, reddish sky line, like a distorted etch-

ing of a black tiger in a shadow world. What dismayed him was the

fact that he had lost touch. He possessed sensory equipment that

could normally detect organic id miles away. He recognized that he

was no longer normal. His overnight failure to maintain contact

indicated a physical breakdown. This was the deadly sickness he

had heard about. Seven times in the past century he had found

coeurls, too weak to move, their otherwise immortal bodies emaci-

ated and doomed for lack of food. Eagerly, then, he had smashed

their unresisting bodies, and taken what little id was still keeping

them alive.

Coeurl shivered with excitement, remembering those meals.

Then he snarled audibly, a defiant sound that quavered on the air,

echoed and re-echoed among the rocks, and shuddered back along

his nerves. It was an instinctive expression of his will to live.

And then, abruptly, he stiffened.

High above the distant horizon he saw a tiny glowing spot. It

came nearer. It grew rapidly, enormously, into a metal ball. It be-

came a vast, round ship. The great globe, shining like polished sil-

ver, hissed by above Coeurl, slowing visibly. It receded over a black

of the deserted, crumbling city. Yet about the ship was a leashed

aliveness, a dynamic quiescence that, after a moment, made it

stand out, dominating the foreground. It rested in a cradle made by

its own weight in the rocky, resisting plain which began abruptly at

the outskirts of the dead metropolis.

Coeurl gazed at the two-legged beings who had come from inside

the ship. They stood in little groups near the bottom of an escalator

that had been lowered from a brilliantly lighted opening a hundred

feet above the ground. His throat thickened with the immediacy of

his need. His brain grew dark with the impulse to charge out and

smash these flimsy-looking creatures whose bodies emitted the id

vibrations.

Mists of memory stopped that impulse when it was still only

electricity surging through his muscles. It was a memory of the

distant past of his own race, of machines that could destroy, of en-

ergies potent beyond all the powers of his own body. The remem-

brance poisoned the reservoirs of his strength. He had time to see

that the beings wore something over their real bodies, a shimmering

transparent material that glittered and flashed in the rays of the

sun.

Cunning came, understanding of the presence of these creatures.

This, Coeurl reasoned for the first time, was a scientific expedition

from another star. Scientists would investigate, and not destroy.

Scientists would refrain from killing him if he did not attack. Scien-

tists in their way were fools.

Bold with his hunger, he emerged into the open. He saw the

creatures become aware of him. They turned and stared. The three

nearest him moved slowly back toward larger groups. One individ-

ual, the smallest of his group, detached a dull metal rod from a

sheath at his side, and held it casually in one hand.

Coeurl was alarmed by the action, but he loped on. It was too

late to turn back.

As the other spoke, Grosvenor recognized the voice of Gregory

Kent, head of the chemistry department A small man physically,

Kent had a big personality. He had numerous friends and support-

ers aboard the ship, and had already announced his candidacy for

the directorship of the expedition in the forthcoming election. Of all

the men facing the approaching monster, Kent was the only one

who had drawn a weapon. He stood now, fingering the spindly

metalite instrument.

Another voice sounded. The tone was deeper and more relaxed.

Grosvenor recognized it as belonging to Hal Morton, Director of the

expedition. Morton said, "That's one of the reasons why you're on

this trip, Kent-because you leave very little to chance."

It was a friendly comment. It ignored the fact that Kent had al-

ready set himself up as Morton's opponent for the directorship. Of

course, it could have been designed as a bit of incidental political

virtuosity to put over to the more naïve listeners the notion that

Morton felt no ill will towards his rival. Grosvenor did not doubt

that the Director was capable of such subtlety. He had sized up

Morton as a shrewd, reasonably honest, and very intelligent man,

who handled most situations with automatic skill.

Grosvenor saw that Morton was moving forward, placing himself

a little in advance of the others. His strong body bulked the trans-

parent metalite suit. From that position, the Director watched the

catlike beast approach them across the black rock plain. The com-

ments of other departmental heads pattered through the communi-

cator into Grosvenor's ears.

"I'd hate to meet that baby on a dark night in an alley."

"Don't be silly. This is obviously an intelligent creature. Probably

a member of the ruling race."

"Its physical development," said a voice, which Grosvenor recog-

nized as that of Siedel, the psychologist, "suggests an animal-like

adaptation to its environment. On the other hand, its coming to us

to that ferocious edge of chaos, where it cost him a terrible effort to

hold back. He felt as if his body were bathed in molten liquid. His

vision kept blurring.

Most of the men walked closer to him. Coeurl saw that they were

frankly and curiously examining him. Their lips moved inside the

transparent helmets they wore. Their form of intercommunication -

he assumed that was what he sensed - came to him on a frequency

that was well within his ability to receive. The messages were

meaningless. In an effort to appear friendly, he broadcast his name

from his ear tendrils, at the same time pointing at himself with one

curving tentacle.

A voice Grosvenor didn't recognize drawled, "I got a sort of static

in my radio when he wiggled those hairs, Morton. Do you think-"

"It's possible," the leader answered the unfinished question.

"That means a job for you, Gourlay. If it speaks by means of radio

waves, we might be able to create some sort of language code for

him."

Morton's use of the man's name identified the other. Gourlay,

chief of communications. Grosvenor, who was recording the conver-

sation, was pleased. The coming of the beast might enable him to

obtain recordings of the voices of all the rest of the important men

aboard the ship. He had been trying to do that from the beginning.

"Ah," said Siedel, the psychologist, "the tentacles end in suction

cups. Provided the nervous system is complex enough, he could

with training operate any machine."

Director Morton said, "I think we'd better go inside and have

lunch. Afterwards, we'll have to get busy. I'd like a study made of

the scientific development of this race, and particularly I want to

know what wrecked it. On Earth, in the early days before there was

a galactic civilization, one culture after another reached its peak

and then crumbled. A new one always sprang up in its dust. Why

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