World of the masterminds, p.1
World of The Masterminds, page 1
SUPERMAN HUNT ON THE RIM OF THE STARS
A greedy, ruthless tyrant, Cyrus Holm was on the march to conquer the entire universe. With his gigantic armada, he figured on turning the whole solar system into one vast personal empire.
And Burke Hartford was the only man alive who had any idea of how to stop him. To save the universe, he would have to gamble that the legendary Race X really existed. Because if they did—and if he could find them— their secret power would be the one perfect weapon in the fight against Holm.
It was an almost impossible task, searching throughout the galaxy for an unknown race that might not even -exist. But in spite of the odds, Hartford knew he had to give it a try. Because the alternative was too overwhelming; universal annihilation!
CAST OF CHARACTERS
BURKE HARTFORD
He would sacrifice anything to save the Universe-even his life!
CYRUS HOLM
A tyrannical ruler, he was threatened by his own ruthless power.
EINER
In his youthful body dwelt the wisdom of the ages.
MICKI ADCOCK
Working for Holm, she discovered, was like playing with fire.
ED TELLER
He wasn’t sure who he was, but he knew what he wanted.
RUCK KEGLAR
A lowly servant, he aspired to be king.
World of the Masterminds
by
ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
World of the Masterminds
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
To The End of Time and Other Stories
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U. S. A.
1
“No human’s here,” the native said.- He drew his knife.
The face of the native who was trying to bar Burke Hartford’s entry into the Zylon, the place of peace, was green. The color told Hartford enough. The knife confirmed the color. Hartford hit the green face just under the jaw, a jolting blow that knocked the native backward and across the big room before he could use the knife he had already drawn.
Hartford waited for whatever was to happen next. Behind him, Ed Teller made frightened noises deep in his throat. Hartford ignored them.
A black line drawn on the floor ran down the middle of the big room. To the left of his line were the blue men, a hundred or more of them, around Korder, their chief. To the right of the line were the green men, also at least a hundred strong, around Thethal, their war chief. This was the Zylon, the place of peace. Although these two bitterly warring tribes had been ordered to assemble here and make peace, there was no peace in this place as yet. A hundred throwing knives might spin through the air from the green side of the room.
Hartford dropped his hand to the gun holstered at his hip but did not draw it. Instead, he waited. He saw no guns in sight. Space traders had not yet found it profitable to make the long hop to this planet to sell modem weapons to these tribesmen. But the natives knew what guns were and respected them, Hartford hoped.
A roar of laughter went up from the blue side of the room as the green man sprawled on the floor. The blue men enjoyed seeing one of their hated enemies get his comeuppance. Also this human was their friend, their ally. Because he had knocked a green man sprawling, because he was their ally, they felt stronger.
The green man got to his feet. Screaming, he started toward Hartford. Thethal, the war chief of the green men, pulled a knife from his belt and threw it with deadly accuracy. It sank up to the hilt into the back of the green man. His screams of rage turned to fear. Trying to twist his body to pull the knife from his back, he fell lifeless to the floor. Two green men picked up his body and carried it to the back door, where they flung it like so much carrion out into the night.
Hartford took his hand off the gun at his hip.
“They knifed their own man!” Teller gasped.
“They sure did.”
“But why?”
“Because he made them lose face, because he tried to bluff me and failed,” Hartford answered. “The only law they know is that of survival of the fittest. If you start a fight and lose it, your own land will eliminate you on this planet.”
“R—rough on losers,” Teller commented, in a voice that had developed into a squeak.
“It’s their world, let them run it the way they please,” Hartford answered. “Where food is short and life is hard, races often eliminate their weaklings, sometimes leaving sickly infants to the wolves. We had this custom on Earth long, long ago. In one sense, we still have it. The big space companies are as ruthless as these natives. They don’t care who dies, as long as they show a profit.” Bitterness that came of a knowledge of the space companies, and a sickness with their ways, crept into his voice. Glancing around the room, his gaze fell on Korder, the war chief of the blue men. He nodded to Korder. The war chief nodded in reply. With Teller following close behind him, Hartford crossed the line that ran down the middle of the floor of the big room.
In this place of peace, you were either blue or green. There was no middle ground. A buzz of smothered anger went up from the green side of the line. Hartford stopped and turned to face the green men. The buzz went into quick silence. Perhaps it was the gun at his hip that made the green men try to hide their feelings, perhaps it was the sight of the lithe six feet of height, with an Earth weight that was close to 180 pounds of muscle and bone with no fat anywhere in sight, that sent the buzz of anger into silence. Perhaps it was the expression on his face that made them think twice. It was not a grim expression, but it showed that the big man was wary, alert, and ready for anything. Hartford turned back to the blue side of the room.
Burke Hartford and Ed Teller had been here almost six months. During this time they had learned to like the blue men. Perhaps Hartford liked them most of all because they were almost hopelessly outnumbered here in this Great Depression of Pluto, the only place on the Outermost Planet where enough air lingered to make life of a sort possible. If it was not a good life, it was still the best these people knew. The outnumbered blue race would not continue to have even this very much longer, unless they were helped. They were definitely the underdogs. Because of this, Burke Hartford liked them.. He and Teller had learned their language. Though their business here on Pluto did not concern either race, they had adopted the blue people.
As the buzz of anger went into silence and Hartford turned away from the green men, a sort of grateful sigh went up from the blue side of the room. Perhaps the blue people saw in these two humans the answer to their prayers for help.
Korder’s battered, scarred face broke into a grin. Hartford bowed to the blue war chief, not the deep bow that an inferior makes to a superior, but the short bow that is fitting between equals. Korder bowed in return. The blue chief outweighed the human at least forty pounds. In his hands he held a huge war club, the end of which rested on the floor. His belt was studded with throwing knives. A round shield made of metal, which Hartford had given him, rested on his left shoulder.
“It is good that you showed the green devils where you stand,” Korder said, hr the blue language. “They will not be so eager to come upon our homes in our absence, and carry away our women and children, now that they know we have powerful friends.”
“It is good to be with the blue people,” Hartford answered politely. “Has the—ah—peacemaker arrived yet?”
“The Great One has not as yet honored us with his presence.”
“How long will you wait for him?”
Korder showed surprise at this question. “Until he arrives,” he answered.
Hartford tried to imagine the state of mind that would produce patient waiting for days, weeks, or months if need be. He failed in the effort. Humans had little of such patience.
“Who is this Great One?”
“He said his name was Einer.”
“How do you know he is coming?”
“He appeared before one of our young men, with a great war club that glowed with many colors, and said that the war was over and for us to come to the Zylon and make peace,” Korder patiently explained.
“Young men are sometimes given to visions,” Hartford said, doubt in his voice.
Korder nodded toward the green men. “They are here,” he said, as if this settled the matter.
“But why did he come to a young man? Why didn’t he come to you, the war chief, and tell you to make peace? You are the leader of your people.”
“The Great Ones go to whom they please,” Korder answered. “They care no more for a war chief than they do for a child in its mother’s arms—sometimes less, it has always seemed to me.”
“Did you see this Great One, this Einer?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see a peacemaker?”
“Yes, twice. The first, when I was too young yet to lift a war club, one came to stop the fighting. I caught a glimpse of him. He was red in color, and tall and thin, like the pictures of the ones from the Red Planet that you showed me in a book.”
“Was he a Martian?” Hartford questioned. Behind him, he knew that Ed Teller was listening very eagerly.
“Perhaps. I have never seen a Martian, unless he was one. Again—this was the second Great One that I saw—I was a young man and had just won my right to the great war club. The green devils attacked us. A Great One came and stopped the fighting. He looked much like a frog.”
“A Venusian?” Hartford said, trying hard to keep doubt out of his voice.
“Perhaps,” Korder answered. He had little interest in this talk and was only answering out of politeness. His main interest was in the open doorway, where he obviously expected the coming peacemaker to appear.
Behind him, Hartford heard Ed Teller sigh and move to the wall where he squatted down and opened a small instrument which he took from the pack at his back. A native offered him peynar from a bubbling cauldron but Teller waved the strong drink away. Teller was disappointed again, Hartford knew. In a lifetime of searching for the Great Ones Teller had suffered so many disappointments that one more ought not to matter much. But it did, Hartford knew. Ed Teller was an old man, how old only space knew. There would come a time when one more disappointment would finally break his heart “How do Martians and Venusians get here? Do they come in a ship?”
“We have not seen such ships,” Korder replied. “Long, long before the humans’ came in ships, the Great Ones were coming, our legends say. Some say they ride the light beams, others say they are gods and come out of nothing when they wish.”
“Urn,” Hartford said. It was his turn to be disappointed. Always when he and Teller seemed to have a good clue to the mysterious people that Teller insisted existed, the trail faded away into superstitious talk of gods that rode light planes. The natives had legends of these people, the jungle traders on Venus had heard of them, the desert traders on Mars told stories about them, even the single trader here in the Great Depression of Pluto was willing to admit that the green men had heard of them. If given enough peynar, this trader would have talked about the mysterious people at great length, but Hartford and Teller had not stayed long with him. He was on the green side.
Yet the trail that they had followed led here, to the Outermost Planet. Race X, Hartford thought. I wonder—He let his thoughts trail off into nothingness. Wondering was not much good when you did not have some solid facts to back it up.
“Would you care for a drink of peynarP” Hartford asked Korder.
The war chief bowed and refused. “At some other tune, my friend. Now I wait for him who come?.” Resting his weight on the huge war club, Korder watched the doorway as he waited patiently for someone he was sure was coming. Somewhere inside him, Hartford was aware of a tremendous eagerness. Perhaps someone was coming! Perhaps the trail that Ed Teller had followed all of his life, and that Burke Hartford had followed too since he had met Teller two years before, finally reached its end in something tangible here in the Zylon, the place of peace, in the Great Depression of the Outermost Planet! Teller pulled at Hartford’s arm. “There’s a big ship!” Teller spoke terse, clipped English as he gestured toward his detector.
“Bringing the peacemaker here?” Hartford gasped. Perhaps the trail really did end here!
Teller’s lined face fell. “I don’t think so. I think it is a ship of one of the great space companies. It has arrived since I checked last, within the past hour, and has gone into orbit around the planet. But he will come, Burke. He will come. You will see. He will come.” Teller’s face lightened with eagerness and hope as he spoke. “There is something here on Pluto. You will see that I speak true.”
“What would a space company ship be doing here?” Hartford’s voice was suddenly sharp. He knew the great space companies. They were robber-barons, they were thieves, they were plunderers of the worlds and of the peoples of space. They infested Mars and Venus and fought wars among themselves over trading rights. So far, Pluto had been relatively free of them, except for scouting expeditions, but this was only because the planet was too far out and too poor in people and in mineral wealth to make stealing profitable.
“My instruments cannot answer that question,” Teller said. “The ship in orbit is big, a floating palace. It has already sent out a small ship which is almost ready to make a landing.” Teller pointed to a wavering line on the tiny screen of his instrument. “Perhaps they come to trade.”
“Traders don’t come in a liner so big it cannot land safely but has to go into orbit. I don’t like this, Ed.” Hartford broke off speaking as he became aware of the far-off drum of jets that were rapidly coming closer, which had just become audible. Everyone present in the Zylon heard the sound. The natives looked toward the roof. The faces of the blue men showed no happiness at the sound. With the blue men few in numbers and ready for destruction, the arrival of a peacemaker was not an event they sought.
The sound of the Jets dropped a notch in volume, then picked up again, then roared overhead, then went into complete silence. Landing bursts roared, then were silent.
“It’s a landing party and somebody signalled it down,” Hartford said. “I wonder if that trader living with the green people—“He shook his head. So far as they knew, the trader living with the green men was the only other human on Pluto.
Ed Teller’s gnome-like face suddenly had additional wrinkles on it. “There have been many times when I have stayed alive by staying out of sight,” Teller said. “I’m not saying we should run, but I don’t like this big ship in orbit, and I like this landing party even less. Why should one of the space companies send a big ship here now?”
“I don’t know,” Hartford said. “If you want to wait outside—”
Teller shook his head. “I’ll wait with you.” The old man’s voice had a sudden touch of asperity in it. “Sometimes you stay alive by running. Sometimes you do the same thing by staying and fighting. I’ve come too far to run now, especially when I don’t know what is coming.”
With the natives, they watched the open doorway. Perhaps half an hour passed before heavy boots clumped outside. From the way they hit the ground, the boots held important feet. Through the opening came two men in the uniforms of the police of Earth, Inc. They had drawn guns. Like the weapons which Hartford had at his hip, and which he had in good supply in his own ship hidden in the country of the blue people, these were gas powered guns that threw either an explosive cartridge with tremendous muzzle velocity and penetrating power, or a sliver of drug-coated steel. Relatively silent in operation, the weapons were none the less deadly because of their lack of sound. The weapons concerned Burke Hartford far less than did the uniforms. The police of Earth, Inc., the greatest of the space companies! Although they were called police, and had legal status according to the laws of Earth—laws that Earth, Inc., had gotten passed for its own benefit—they were actually a private army that was used to persuade traders on the various planets to sell goods provided by Earth, Inc.; to shake down settlers; or, if the major companies themselves quarrelled with each other, to fight bitter, no-quarter wars in space and on the planets themselves.
Their commanding general was Cyrus Holm, president of Earth, Inc. Holm, however, rarely got his fat fingers dirty by personally directing his private army. This task he left to Ruck Keglar, who relished it. In all of space there was hardly a single spaceman who would not have relished booting Ruck Keglar through a port, preferably when the ship was several thousand miles above the surface of a planet, for the long drop on which Keglar and Holm had sent many men.
Behind the first two men who came through the entrance to the Zylon came Ruck Keglar himself. Hartford had not seen Keglar before, but he had seen his picture and recognized him instantly. He took one look at Keglar’s bulk and felt an urge to slug him where the fat of the neck became the fat of the jaw. Following Keglar were four other men. Two of them wore the stars of the company police, the third was the trader who lived with the green men. The fourth did not wear a star. With the exception of the trader, who had lived here long enough to become accustomed to the thin air, all wore oxygen tanks and packs at their backs, with small plastic tubes extending over their shoulders so they could get a quick whiff of life-giving oxygen if this became necessary. All were armed. At the sight of the trader, Hartford knew who had brought Ruck Keglar here.
The person who did not wear a star caught Hartford’s attention. He looked a second time to make sure. In spite of the tight fitting one-piece suit, the tight helmet, and the gun at the hip, this person was a woman. Hartford knew Holm used women for many purposes but not as members of a landing group bent on a pillage. He saw that she was staring at him as if she was seeing a ghost.
