Mr. Meek—Musketeer - (2)

They looked pained, rose reluctantly.
    "I suppose we shouldn't have expected that you would," said the Reverend Brown bitingly.
    *       *       *       *       *
    The Silver Moon was quiet. The bartender was languidly wiping the top of the bar. A Venusian boy was as languidly sweeping out. The dancing girls were gone, the music was silent.
    Stiffy and Oliver Meek were among the few customers.
    Stiffy gulped a drink and blew fiercely through his whiskers.
    "Oliver," he said, "you sure are a ring-tailed bearcat with them guns of yours. I wonder, would you tell me how you do it?"
    "Look here, Mr. Grant," said Meek. "I wish you'd quit talking about what I did. It was just an accident, anyhow. What I'm mainly interested in is this Asteroid Prowler you were telling me about. Is there any chance I might find him if I went out and looked?"
    Stiffy choked, almost purple with astonishment.
    "Good gravy," he said, "now you want to go out and tangle with the Prowler!"
    "Not tangle with him," Meek declared. "Just look at him."
    "Mister," Stiffy warned, "the best way to look at that thing is with a telescope. A good, powerful telescope."
    The swinging doors swung open and a man walked in.
    The newcomer walked directly toward the table occupied by Stiffy and Meek. He halted beside it, black beard jutting fearsomely, eyes bleakly cold.
    "I'm Blacky Hoffman," he said. "I suppose you're Meek." He disregarded Stiffy.
    Meek stood up and held out his hand.
    "Glad to know you, Mr. Hoffman," he said.
    Blacky took the proffered hand in some surprise.
    "Seems I should know you, Meek, but I don't. Should have heard of you at some time or other. A man like you would get talked about."
    Meek shook his head. "I don't think you ever have. I never did anything to get talked about."
    "Sit down," said Hoffman and it sounded like a command.
    "I got to be going," Stiffy piped, already halfway to the door.
    Hoffman poured out a drink and shoved the bottle at Meek. Meek gritted his teeth and poured a short one.
    "No use beating around the bush," said Blacky. "We may as well get down to cases. I guess we understand one another."
    Oliver Meek didn't know what the other meant, but he had to say something.
    "I guess we do," he agreed.
    "All right, then," said Hoffman. "I've built up a sweet little racket here and I don't like fellows butting in."
    Meek essayed to down his liquor, succeeded, gasped for breath.
    "But I could use a man like you," said Hoffman. "Luke tells me you are handy with the blasters."
    "I practice sometimes," Meek admitted.
    A smile twitched Hoffman's bearded lips. "We have the town just where we want it. The officials can't do a thing. Scared to. Marshals always eat rock or skip town. Maybe you would like to throw in with us. Not much to do, easy pickings."
    "I'm sorry," said Meek, "but I can't do that."
    "Listen, Meek," warned Hoffman, "you're either with us or you aren't. We don't like chiselers here. We know what to do with guys who try to muscle in. I don't know who you are or where you come from, but I'm telling you this ... straight. If you don't come in, all right ... but if you stick around after tonight I can't promise you protection."
    Meek was silent, mulling the threat.
    "You mean," he finally asked, "that you're ordering me out if I don't join your gang?"
    Hoffman nodded. "That, big boy, is just exactly what I mean."
    Slow anger and resentment ate at Meek. Who was this Hoffman to order him out of Asteroid City? This was a free Solar System, wasn't it? No wonder the Rev. Brown was jittery. No wonder the decent people wanted a clean-up.
    Meek's anger mounted, a cold deadly anger that shook him like a frigid hand. An anger that almost frightened him, for very seldom in his life had he been really angry.
    He rose slowly from the table, hitched his gun belt to a comfortable position.
    "The town's been without a marshal for a long time, hasn't it?" he asked.
    Hoffman's laugh boomed out. "You bet it has. And it's going to stay that way. The last one took it on the lam. The one before that got killed. The one before that sort of disappeared...."
    Meek spoke slowly, weak eyes burning.
    "Horrible condition," he said. "Something's got to be done about it."
    *       *       *       *       *
    The streets were deserted, quiet, a deadly quiet that lurked and hovered, waiting for something to happen.
    Oliver Meek polished his marshal's star with his coat sleeve, glanced up at the dome. Stars glittered, their light distorted by the heavy quartz. Stars in a dead black sky.
    Bathed in the weak starlight, the mighty walls of the canyon reared above the dome. A canyon, the only sort of place where a city could rise on one of the planetoids. For the walls protected the dome against the deadly barrage of whizzing debris that continually shrieked down from space. Those mighty cragged mountains and dizzy cliffs were pocked with the blows dealt, through long eons, by that hail of armor-piercing projectiles.
    Meek returned his gaze to the street, saw the lights of the Silver Moon. Nervously he felt of the papers in his inside pocket. Warrants for the arrest of John Hoffman for murder, Luke Blaine for murder, Jim Smithers for reckless shooting, Jake Loomis for assault and battery, Robert Blake for robbery.
    And suddenly, Oliver Meek was afraid. For death waited him, he knew, inside the swinging doors of the Silver Moon. A death preluded by this quiet street.
    Almost as if he were awaking from a dream, he found questions filling his brain. What was he doing here? Why had he gotten himself into a jam like this? What difference did it make to him what happened to Asteroid City?
    It had been anger that had made him do it ... that unaccountable anger which had flared when Hoffman told him to get out.
    After all, what difference would a few days make? He was going to leave anyhow. He'd seen about all there was to see in Asteroid City. He wanted to see the Prowler and the stones with the strange inscriptions on them, but they were sights he could get along without.
    If he turned around and walked the other way he could reach his space ship in just a few minutes. There was fuel enough to take him to Ganymede. No one would know until he was already gone. And after he was gone, what would he care what anybody thought?
    He stood irresolutely, arguing with himself. Then he shook his head, resumed his march toward the Silver Moon.
    A figure stepped from a dark doorway. Meek saw the threatening gleam of steel. His hands streaked toward his gun-butts, but something prodded him in the back and he froze, fingers touching metal.
    "All right, marshal," said a mocking voice. "You just turn around and walk the other way."
    He felt his guns lifted from their holsters and he turned around and walked. Footsteps crunched beside him and behind him, but otherwise he walked in silence.
    "Where are you taking me?" he asked, his voice just a trifle shaky.
    One of the men laughed.
    "Just on a little trip, marshal. Out to take a look at Juno. It's a right pretty sight at night."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Juno wasn't pretty. For the most part, there was little of it one could see. The stars shed little light and the depressions were in shadow, while the cragged mountain tops seemed like shimmering mirages in the ghostly starlight.
    The ship lay on a plateau between a needle-like range and a deep, shadowed valley.
    "Now, marshal," said one of the men, "you stay right here. You'll see the Sun come up over that mountain back there. Interesting. Dawn on Juno is something to remember."
    Meek started forward, but the other waved him back with his pistol.
    "You're leaving me here?" shrieked Meek.
    "Why sure," the man said. "You wanted to see the Solar System, didn't you?"
    They backed away from him, guns in hand. Frozen in terror, he watched them enter the ship, saw the port close. An instant later the ship roared away, the backwash of its tubes buffeting Meek to the ground.
    He struggled to his feet, watching the blasting tubes until they were out of sight. Clumsily he stepped forward and then stopped. There was no place to go ... nothing to do.
    Loneliness and fear swept over him in terrible waves of anguish. Fear that dwarfed any emotion he had ever felt. Fear of the ghostly shimmer of the peaks, fear of the shadow-blackened valley, fear of space and the mad, cold intensity of unwinking stars.
    He fought for a grip on himself. It was fear such as this that drove men mad in space. He'd read about that, heard about it. Fear of the loneliness and the terrible depths of space ... fear of the indifference of endless miles of void, fear of the unknown that always lurked just at elbow distance.
    "Meek," he told himself, "you should have stayed at home."
    Dawn came shortly, but no such dawn as one would see on Earth. Just a gradual dimming of the stars, a gradual lifting of the blacker darkness as a larger star, the Sun, swung above the peaks.
    The stars still shone, but a gray light filtered over the landscape, made the mountains solid things instead of ghostly shapes.
    Jagged peaks loomed on one side of the plateau, fearsome depths on the other. A meteor thudded somewhere to his right and Meek shuddered. There was no sound of the impact but he could feel the vibrations of the blow as the whizzing mass struck the cliffs.
    But it was foolish to be afraid of meteors, he told himself. He had greater and more immediate worries.
    There were less than eight hours of air left in the tanks of his space suit. He had no idea where he was, although he knew that many miles of rugged, fearsome country stretched between him and Asteroid City.
    The space suit carried no food and no water, but that was of minor moment, he realized, for his air would give out long before he felt the pangs of thirst or hunger.
    He sat down on a massive boulder and tried to think. There wasn't much to think about. Everywhere his thoughts met black walls. The situation, he told himself, was hopeless.
    If only he hadn't come to Asteroid City in the first place! Or having come, if he had only minded his business, this never would have happened. If he hadn't been so anxious to show off what he knew about card dealing tricks. If only he hadn't agreed to be sworn in as marshal. If he'd swallowed his pride and left when Hoffman told him to.
    He brushed away such thoughts as futile, took stock of his surroundings.
    The cliff on the right hand side was undercut, overhanging several hundred feet of level ground.
    Ponderously, he heaved himself off the boulder, wandered aimlessly up the wider tongue of plateau. The undercut, he saw, grew deeper, forming a deep cleft, as if someone had furrowed out the mountain side. Heavy shadows clung within it.
    Suddenly he stopped, riveted to the ground, scarcely daring to breathe.
    Something was moving in the deep shadow of the undercut. Something that seemed to glint faintly with reflected light.
    The thing lurched forward and, in the fleeting instant before he turned and ran, Oliver Meek had an impression of a barrel-like body, a long neck, a cruel mouth, monstrous eyes that glowed with hidden fires.
    There was no speculation in Oliver Meek's mind. From the description given him by Stiffy, from the very terror of the thing, he knew the being shambling toward him was the Asteroid Prowler.
    With a shriek of pure fear, Meek turned and fled and behind him came the Prowler, its head swaying on the end of its whip-like neck.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Meek's legs worked like pistons, his breath gasping in his throat, his body soaring through space as he covered long distances at each leap under the influence of lesser gravity.
    Thunderous blasts hammered at the earphones in his helmet and as he ran he craned his head skyward.
    Shooting down toward the plateau, forward rockets braking, was a small spaceship!
    Hope rose within him and he glanced back over his shoulder. Hope died instantly. The Prowler was gaining on him, gaining fast.
    Suddenly his legs gave out. Simply folded up, worn out with the punishment they had taken. He threw up his arms to shield his helmet plate and sobbed in panic.
    The Asteroid Prowler would get him now. Sure as shooting. Just at the minute rescue came, the Prowler would get him.
    But the Prowler didn't get him. Nothing happened at all. Surprised, he sat up and spun around, crouching.
    The ship had landed, almost at the edge of the plateau and a man was tumbling out of the port. The Prowler had changed his course, was galloping toward the ship.
    The man from the ship ran in leaping bounds, a pistol in one gloved hand, and his yelp of terror rang in Meek's earphones.
    "Run, dang you. Run! That dad-blamed Prowler will be after us any minute now."
    "Stiffy," yelled Meek. "Stiffy, you came out to get me."
    Stiffy landed beside him, hauled him to his feet.
    "Dang right I came to get you," he panted. "I thought them hoodlums would be up to some dirty tricks, so I stuck around and watched."
    He jerked at Meek's arm.
    "Come on, Oliver, we got to get along."
    But Meek jerked his arm away.
    "Look what he's doin!" he shouted. "Just look at him!"
    The Prowler seemed to be bent on systematic destruction of the space ship. His jaws were ripping at the steel plating.... Ripping at it and tearing it away, peeling it off the frame as one might peel an orange.
    "Hey," howled Stiffy. "You can't do that. Get out of there, you danged...."
    The Prowler turned to look at them, a heavy power cable in its mouth.
    "You'll be electrocuted," yelped Stiffy. "Danged if it won't serve you right."
    But, far from being electrocuted, the Prowler seemed to be enjoying himself. He sucked at the power cable and his eyes eyes glowed blissfully.
    Stiffy flourished his pistol.
    "Get away," he yelled. "Get away or I'll blister your danged hide."
    Almost playfully the Prowler minced away from the ship, feet dancing.
    "He did it!" said Meek.
    "Did what?" Stiffy scowled bewilderedly.
    "Got away from that ship, just like you told him to."
    Stiffy snorted. "Don't ever kid yourself he did it because I told him to. He couldn't even hear me, probably. Living out here like this, he wouldn't have anything to hear with. Probably he's just trying to decide which one of us he'll catch first. Better be ready to kick you up some dust."
    The Prowler trotted toward them, head bobbing up and down.
    "Get going," Stiffy yelled at Meek and brought up his pistol. A blue shaft of light whipped out, smacked the Prowler in the head, but the Prowler didn't even falter in his stride. The energy charge seemed to have no power at all. It didn't even spatter ... it looked as if the blue pencil of raging death was boring straight into the spread of forehead between the monstrous eyes.
    "Run, you danged fool," Stiffy screeched at Meek. "I can't hold him off."
    But Meek didn't run ... instead he sprang straight into the Prowler's path, arm upraised.
    "Stop!" he yelled.
    III
    The Prowler skidded to a stop, his metal hooves leaving scratches on the solid rock.
    For a moment the three of them stood stock still, Stiffy's jaw hanging in astonishment.
    Meek reached out a hand and patted the Prowler's massive shoulder.
    "Good boy," he said. "Good boy."
    "Come away from there!" Stiffy yelled in sudden terror. "Just one good gulp and that guy would have you."
    "Ah, shucks," said Meek, "he won't hurt anybody. He's only hungry, that's all."
    "That," declared Stiffy, "is just what I'm afraid of."
    "You don't understand," insisted Meek. "He isn't hungry for us. He's starved for energy. Give him another shot from the gun."
    Stiffy stared at the gun hanging in his hand.
    "You're sure it wouldn't make him sore?" he asked.
    "Gosh, no," said Meek. "That's what he wants. He soaks it up. Didn't you notice how the beam went right into him, without spattering or anything. And the way he sucked that power cable. He drained your ship of every drop of energy it had."
    "He did what?" yelped Stiffy.
    "He drained the ship of energy. That's what he lives on. That's why he chased you. He wanted you to keep on shooting."
    Stiffy clapped a hand to his forehead.
    "We're sunk for certain, now," he declared. "There might have been a chance to get back with just a few plates ripped off the ship. But with all the energy gone...."
    "Hey, Stiffy," yelled Meek, "take a look at this."
    Stiffy moved nearer, cautiously.
    "What you got now?" he demanded irritably.
    "These marks on his shoulder," said Meek. His gloved finger shook excitedly as he pointed. "They're the same kind of marks as were on those stones I read about in the book. Marks no one could read. Fellow who wrote the book figured they were made by some other race that had visited Juno. Maybe a race from outside the Solar System, even."
    "Good gravy," said Stiffy, in awe, "you don't think...."
    "Sure, I do," Meek declared with the air of a man who is sure of his knowledge. "A race came here one time and they had the Prowler along. For some reason they left him. Maybe he was just a robot and they didn't have room for him, or maybe something happened to them...."
    "Say," said Stiffy, "I bet you that's just what he is. A robot. Attuned to thought waves. That's why he minds you."
    "That's what I figured," Meek agreed. "Thought waves would be the same, no matter who thought them ... human being or a ... well ... or something else."
    A sudden thought struck Stiffy. "Maybe them guys found the Lost Mine! By cracky, that would be something, wouldn't it? Maybe this critter could lead us to it."
    "Maybe?" Meek said doubtfully.
    Meek patted the Prowler's rocky shoulder gently, filled with wonder. In some unguessed time, in some unknown sector of space, the Prowler had been fashioned by an alien people. For some reason they had made him, for some reason they had left him here. Abandonment or purpose?
    Meek shook his head. That would be something to puzzle over later, something to roll around in his brain on some monotonous flight into the maw of space.
    Space! Startled at the thought clanging on his brain he jerked a quick glance upward, saw the bleak stars staring at him. Eyes that seemed to be laughing at him, cruel, ironic laughter.
    "Stiffy," he whispered. "Stiffy, I just thought of something."
    "Yeah, what is it?"
    Stark terror walked in Meek's words. "My oxygen tank is better than half gone. And the ship is wrecked...."
    "Cripes," said Stiffy, "I guess we just forgot. We sure are behind the eight ball. Somehow we got to get back to Asteroid City. And we got to get there quick."
    Meek's eyes brightened. "Stiffy, maybe.... Maybe we could ride the Prowler."