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  Marshall had fairly well described where the town was situated. There was nothing to hold them here and so they took off on the spot.

  • • •

  The robots didn't have the slightest intention of accommodating Marshall. Long before they reached the few houses at the end of the street the robot ahead of them made a turn and opened the door of a house which looked just as dirty and shabby as the rest of them in the neighborhood. He motioned his prisoners to enter the dark hall behind the door.

  Marshall didn't think twice. He didn't know what fate awaited them in the house. It could very well be a trap from which they might have great trouble extricating themselves.

  Better to risk a tumult in the town!

  "Look out!" he warned in English with an expressionless face.

  The door was low. Marshall acted as if he had to take the impulse-beamer off his shoulder to be able to pass through the door. The weapon smoothly slid down under his arm and he already had his finger on the trigger when he suddenly whirled around.

  Tama and Yokida had caught on. They kept out of the line of fire and Marshall played the hissing white beam on the first robot, mowing him down before he knew what happened. Steaming metal flowed onto the ground, spreading an unbearable heat, and solidified in a grey puddle.

  The two Japanese withdrew farther to the side and Marshall wiped out two more of the robots, who apparently lacked orders to go into action. The last one, probably responding to an emergency signal, reacted lust at the moment that Tama and Kitai figured that the small guns they carried in their pockets could be used as well against the machine. The two needle-thin energy beams penetrated the head enclosure and set the robot swaying.

  Marshall took care of the rest. Meanwhile it had become so hot that their hair was singed and their clothes began to smoke.

  "Let's get out of here!" Marshall gasped. "To the right!"

  Right was where they had come from. Marshall reacted instinctively. Although he didn't know the sympathies of the population, he felt it would be safest to hide in a crowd, the bigger the better. He had no doubt—after he heard Pucky's story—that the Springers learned about the demolition of their robots at the same moment they were obliterated.

  The street was empty. As Marshall ran down it he could see here and there a frightened face. A panic was rampant among the inhabitants of Vintina. It probably was the first time anyone had dared defend himself against the robots.

  Marshall calculated the question in his mind as to how long it would take the Springers to take countermeasures after the extermination of their four robots. Would they have enough time to reach the harbor and find refuge aboard one of the ships?

  At the pace they were running it was 10 minutes at the most to the harbor. To find a ship and to persuade the captain by hypnosis to refrain from objections to boarding his ship under suspicious circumstances would require another 10 minutes, perhaps as many as 15.

  If the Springers delayed their retaliatory actions for the destroyed police machines by half an hour, their margin would be acceptable.

  But otherwise?

  • • •

  Tako and Pucky landed near the outskirts of the town. They watched the fleet of auxiliary ships, air transports and other smaller vessels of the pursuers descend and spread out over the city. Scores of ships set down in the cramped lanes and spewed out their crews. Tako intercepted one of the low flying transports with his disintegrator, threw it into a spin and made it crack up on the ground. A part of the fighting force cruising over the town was ordered back and resumed the hunt for the gunners lying in ambush at the outskirts.

  The same game which had taken place during the last few hours up in the mountains was repeated again. Tako and Pucky fired and leaped away, fired and leaped away. In this manner they succeeded in drawing away three-fourths of the armada while the rest concentrated its search on the area of the town. If Marshall managed to elude the pursuers for a little while longer, the Springers would sooner or later gain the impression that the assassins of the robots had already slipped away and were identical with the people harassing and annihilating their forces outside the town with virtually no fear of retribution.

  Pucky advised Marshall of his strategy. Marshall received the impulse and consented.

  • • •

  It took the Springers no more than 15 minutes to take the first steps in their counteroffensive. Marshall heard a whirring in the air, glanced up while running and noticed a round auxiliary ship crossing the street over the rooftops. The street along which they were sprinting led straight to the port. At the end of the street they discerned the hull of a ship—almost close enough to touch.

  Just as Marshall was wondering if it wouldn't be smarter to duck into some hide-out till it became clearer what the Springers were up to, three of the small auxiliary ships appeared from the harbor and touched down in the street. Their hatches opened up and some heavily armed Springers debarked. They were still too far away to arouse the suspicion of the three figures. But they advanced along the street and came so close that it was bound to draw their attention if Marshall and his pals suddenly turned around and fled in the opposite direction.

  "Caution!" Marshall whispered. "Duck into the nearest house!"

  It was at this moment that Marshall received Pucky's message. Marshall acknowledged it and added hastily: "We're going in hiding right now!"

  Tama tried to open the door of a nearby house. The door was barred. Tama wanted to open the door by applying his telekinesis but he needed some time for concentration. Marshall grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him to the next house. "It'll take too long!" he grunted.

  Three of the Springers had approached within 300 feet. If the next house door was also locked it was time to start shooting. Kitai would be unable to force the three men to obey his will quickly enough. Tama jiggled the odd triangular doorknob, pulled and pushed with all his strength and shook the door, making the old wood groan. To no avail.

  "Get behind me!" Marshall ordered. "Let's put up a good fight!"

  Tama and Kitai complied and put down the microcom. Kitai began to concentrate so he could assist Marshall at the critical moment. The distance between them and the detachment was still too great for effective suggestive influence. Marshall slowly raised the barrel of his thermo-beamer from the cover of the doorway.

  Then and there the door behind them opened slowly, a small crack at first. A hand slipped through the crack, seized Tama's arm and pulled him inside as the opening widened. Kitai followed willingly after alerting Marshall and picking up the microcom. Finally Marshall retreated to the safety of the dark hallway and the door was shut.

  "Down to the cellar!" a strange voice commanded. Something squeaked. Tama, who had preceded them in the corridor, remarked: "There's a door and steps behind it."

  "It's no use," Marshall answered. "The Springers have seen us withdraw into this house. They'll..."

  Outside the feet of the Springers were pounding the cobblestone pavement and came to a stop in front of the door. Marshall heard the twisting of the doorknob but apparently it had been bolted again as before. "Open up!" a hoarse voice shouted.

  "Whoever you are," Marshall said to the unknown man in the darkness, "you better open the door or they'll burn your house down! We'll be able to take care of ourselves."

  The man retreated down the corridor with shuffling feet, passed Marshall and reached the door. "Tama, down the stairs!" Marshall ordered. "Kitai, see what you can do with them. If necessary I'll handle them myself."

  Kitai gave no reply. He was already at work. The cautious patter of Tama's feet could be heard moving down the stairs. A cold draught of air came from somewhere. The housedoor swung open and the light outlined the small skinny figure of the stranger against the dark. He bowed low. "Oh, what an undeserved honor..." he began to murmur. But one of the Springers interrupted him brusquely. "You're hiding three strangers in your house. Unhand the fugitives of the law!"

  The thin man
straightened up again. "How could I? You're saying this in jest to the lowest of your servants, Lord!"

  "Stop your blabbering! I'll..." Another Springer put his hand on the speaker's shoulder and whispered something in his ear as he turned his head. "You really think so?" he asked with furrowed brow. A moment later he also became convinced of the same idea which Kitai had already suggested to his two companions, namely that there had never been any strangers in the street and therefore they were never seen by them. "What are you gaping at?" he barked at the little man. "Shut the door and get back to your work!"

  The scrawny figure bowed a second time and obeyed.

  Marshall took a deep breath as the steps outside faded away.

  The man shuffled back. "You treat the Gods with most uncanny might!" he chuckled. "It pleases me to have helped such worthy people."

  "What caused you to help us?" Marshall inquired. "You've killed four machines of the Gods," the other replied. "This is the best reason to be grateful to you and assist you any way I can. All my people feel the same way as I do but they've got more to lose and are therefore afraid to aid you. Don't you want to go down the stairs?"

  "No, not any more," Marshall answered. "We must go to the harbor. Perhaps we'll be lucky this time and get through."

  "Perhaps," the man chuckled. "But if you go down the cellar you're sure to be lucky." Marshall had a fleeting feeling of suspicion but the plastic metal of the impulse-beamer in his arm reassured him. What could the little man do against him? "Well, then," Marshall decided, "let's go down!"

  Kitai carried the microcom and groped in the dark for the top of the staircase. Then he descended, followed by Marshall. The native was last. Tama called from below. "I wish it weren't so dark in here. I can feel some cold air coming in." The little man giggled again. Marshall stepped on smooth ground and then heard a crackling and a weak light flickered behind him. Their host had kindled a torch.

  They were in a cellar room which wasn't very big. It had one unusual feature: a circular opening in one of the walls about three feet high. The little old man with dirty disheveled hair in ragged clothes pointed to the hole. "Through there," he said with a titter. "The hole ends at the pier, the width of a hand above water. If the tide comes in, the passage is half full. It's inclined toward the harbor." Marshall read his thoughts. His information was correct. "We thank you," he said earnestly. "We'll remember you, Wosetell, at another time."

  The old man gave no sign of surprise that Marshall knew his name. He answered gravely: "You've shown how powerful you are. I believe that some day you'll be able to mete out the same fate to all these evil gods as you've done with their four machines. But don't lose any time, each second counts!"

  Tama crawled into the opening. Kitai handed him the microcom and followed. Marshall nodded to the old man and entered the hole after Kitai's shoes were no longer visible. Wosetell kept chuckling behind them. Marshall seemed to be in luck. After one hour the Springers had come to the conclusion that none of the escaped men still tarried in the town's district and they concentrated their efforts on those locations where well-aimed shots continued to flash, decimating their patrols slowly but surely.

  Tako and Pucky teleported themselves a few hundred yards farther north with each jump. The Springers were completely vexed. They either faced the same enemy with whom they slugged it out in the mountains—then it was impossible to understand how they had so quickly arrived on the scene without visible means of transportation—or they were dealing with another foe, then it was implausible that they would expect to get near the spaceport under the watchful eyes of the defenders as the first group of intruders had attempted.

  Tako surmised that the Springers were wrestling with these problems and wondered how long it would take Etztak to realize that he was not confronted by crew-members of theLEV XIV but by his most implacable enemies.

  The weird battle continued shifting farther to the north. The Springers persuaded themselves more and more that their quarry must have left Vintina. They knew that four men of Levtan's crew had escaped. The detachment that harassed their armada so unmercifully certainly consisted of no less than four men.

  Marshall reported that he and his two men had boarded a ship and that they had brought the whole crew including the captain under subconscious control. Pucky sent his answer. "O.K. We'll join you as soon as we've drawn the Springers far enough away from town."

  • • •

  Taking over the Orahondo had not been very difficult. The ship was anchored only a few feet from the exit of Wosetell's secret passage to the pier. They left the microcom and the impulse-beamer in the passage, swam to the ship and climbed aboard using a rope. The crew of the ship belonged to an ingenuous class of Goszuls. Kitai had little trouble molding their thoughts in such a way that they accepted everything very obligingly that best served the safety of the three men and their absent friends.

  Kitai paid special attention to the captain with the result that he housed them in three comfortable cabins and promised to prepare two more cabins for the two friends whom they expected to arrive a little later. As soon as they were alone in the privacy of their cabins Tama Yokida telekinetically hauled the impulse-beamer and the microcom aboard.

  Marshall reported the success of their operation to Pucky and at this moment he and Pucky were startled as they received an intense impulse of unknown origin: "Who in the world is talking there?"

  Pucky recovered from his surprise quicker than Marshall. "What was that?"

  "It was I!" came the mysterious answer.

  "And who are you?" Pucky continued his query.

  "I'm a servant of the Gods!"

  "It's a telepathic Goszul, Pucky!" Marshall interjected a warning. "He could be dangerous!"

  "I know," Pucky replied. "Wait a minute!" Pucky's next impulse was directed to the Goszul: "Will you do us a favor, my friend?"

  "That all depends."

  "I'll explain it to you. We're involved in some important business and if you keep interrupting us you'll ruin our transactions. If you agree to keep silent until we've concluded our business we're willing to offer you a share of our gains." The reply was tinged with sarcasm. "You can't conceal your thoughts from me, stranger, no matter how hard you try. You're an enemy of the Gods, aren't you?"

  Pucky perceived that the unknown Goszul was really able to fathom his innermost thoughts to a dismaying degree. Since deception was impossible, he answered truthfully. "That's right," he admitted.

  "Then I'll keep silent," replied the Goszul. "Any enemy of the Gods is a friend of mine!" Marshall probed the impulse intently. It was, without doubt, genuine. The Goszul meant what he expressed mentally.

  There seemed to be more enemies of the Gods biding their time in this land than appeared on the surface. Pucky sighed with relief... if a lisping sigh can be imagined.

  • • •

  Two hours later Pucky and Tako had reached the harbor of Vintina and there boarded theOrahondo in one mighty leap from the southern border of the spaceport.

  The captain and crew of the ship had been mentally prepared for the peculiar visitor which was Pucky. There would be no complications, no cause for concern, no reason for any of the sailors to pass on the information to the Springers, for Kitai had done his job exceedingly well and the hypnotic prohibitions he had installed were more restrictive than steel barriers.

  Marshall recapped the events of the past few days, then sent a highly condensed version to Perry Rhodan via microcom.

  Rhodan's answer came promptly: "The Springers' Northern Continent base must be razed in the shortest time by guerrilla warfare and without assistance from our ships."

  Marshall read the microcom's tape-printed message with unbelieving eyes. "We're supposed to wipe out their base?" he choked incredulously. "How—with our bare hands?"

  Pucky bared his incisor as he twisted his face into a familiar grin. "You forget the stuff I'm holding in reserve in the river. It's enough to blow up half the Galaxy..."
r />   "Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Kitai snickered.

  "Well, enough to annihilate this ridiculous base, anyway!" Pucky revised his estimate slightly downward.

  Marshall sighed. "And I thought all we had to do was hang around for a few days till Rhodan came to get us. Now the whole rigmarole starts all over again!"

  Pucky, for once grave, observed seriously: "It's not that bad. We're getting a rest for the time being. The Springers haven't the slightest notion we're still in Vintina and aboard the Orahondo. They're busy ruining their eyes looking for us in the mountains around the spaceport. Now that we've attracted their attention away from us the time is most opportune to launch our offensive."

  Tako Kakuta remarked thoughtfully, "Maybe we ought to devote some time to the local inhabitants—the 'servants of the Gods' and the primitives. I've got a feeling that a clandestine organization of resistance is already in existence. If this is true we won't have to start entirely from scratch."

  Marshall smiled wanly. "OK—here we go again! But there's one thing I'd like to know: when is an officer of the New Power old enough to retire?"

  "Why, did you have somebody specific in mind?" chirped Pucky. Then, with a mischievous glint in his eye: "Perhaps you're wondering if you're eligible? You do seem pretty old for such important work."

  "Huh? Who! Me, old? Retire and miss all the fun? I thought you could read minds, Pucky. You sure you aren't getting senile?"

  "Senile!" Pucky snapped back. He was so rattled that his tongue got in the way of his eyeteeth and he couldn't see what he was saying till he had blurted it out and everybody was dying with laughter:

  "Me! Senile! I'm too old for that? "

  PLANET OF THE GODS

  Copyright © Ace Books 1973