The Escape Orbit
James White
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
THE HORN
He had almost scrambled free when something smashed against his legs, dragging him backwards. He was yanked upside down into the air by powerful tentacles, and then the red pit of the Battler’s mouth and the deadly triangle of its horn seemed to rush at him.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the horn. Pitted with decay and stained with the dried blood of previous victims, it twisted and jerked within a foot of his stomach. His hands were sweating as the tentacles around his legs and chest coiled tighter and tighter …
-*-
THE ESCAPE ORBIT
James White
cover by Jack Gaughan
Ace Science Fiction Books
New York
Copyright 1965, by James White
All Rights Reserved
To
WALTER WILLIS
For all the reasons usually mentioned in a Dedication
And more
Printed in the U.S.A.
F-317
40 cents
Ebookman v2.0
Chapter Links
Chapter I
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter I
When Warren had been taken as a prisoner of war along with the other survivors of the erroneously named Victorious, he had thought that he knew what to expect—his expectations being based on the knowledge of how enemy prisoners were handled by his own side.
With the other officers he had been moved to an enemy heavy cruiser and confined in one of its storage compartments, into which had been pumped what the enemy thought was an Earth-like atmosphere and where there was introduced at regular intervals substances which were the enemy’s idea of what human beings ate. The air had had to be breathed but the food would only be eaten after the processes of starvation were well advanced. Then had come the expected series of transfers between supply ships returning from the battle area until eventually they found themselves being herded aboard a vessel of tremendous size which was in orbit around a planet. Within a few hours they were moved again, this time to a ship which was obviously a ferry, and now they were landing.
But on the final approach Warren was able to see that the planetary surface was green and heavily forested and that its night side showed no trace of artificial illumination—two facts which, considering the enemy’s marked preference for dry worlds and harsh, blue-white lighting, came as a surprise to him. He was still wondering about it when the ship landed in a clearing and they were directed to the airlock and down a ladder which had not been made for human feet, onto grass still smouldering from the effects of the tail-blast. Nobody followed them out of the ship and neither did they appear to be under any form of restraint, which surprised Warren even more.
But all he could think about at that moment was the sheer joy of breathing air that was clean and fresh and tainted only by the not unpleasant smell of burnt grass, so that these odd happenings did not worry him unduly. Then above him the ship emitted a low, humming sound. The ladder retracted suddenly and the outer seal of the lock began to swing closed.
“Run!” said somebody harshly.
Seconds later the ship took off with a sound like a continuous crack of doom and a blast of heat which, because their reactions were fast, was horribly uncomfortable instead of being instantly lethal. And even though the dwindling thunder from above told them they were safe, they didn’t stop running until they reached the trees.
Long before they had their breaths back they were all trying to talk, and some of the language was not lady-like even though it was one of the ladies present who was using it. Warren looked slowly around the tragically small group which had survived the destruction of one of the mightiest battleships ever built—twenty-six officers in green battle-dress uniforms, devoid of all insignia or decorations, whose anonymity had been a ruse originally intended to confuse the enemy as to the relative importance of prisoners but which were now simply a matter of tradition. Just as it was traditional for the female half of a ship marriage to retain her own name so as to avoid the confusion of having two officers with the same name aboard ship. But there were no conventions to guide them in their present situation. Warren thought, as he listened to them vocalizing some of the thoughts which were going through his own mind at that moment. He did not say anything himself because there was nothing constructive he could say, and he could not have gotten a word in edgewise anyway.
“Why the thinking lousy Bugs …!”
“This isn’t a prison camp! They’ve marooned us here, with food … or anything …!”
“They tried to kill us with their tail-flare!”
“I’m not so sure about that,” a quieter voice amid the uproar. “The Bugs have never been deliberately cruel. There has to be a reason for all this …!”
“The reason being,” another voice put in, “that after sixty years of war they’ve grown to dislike us?”
“Very funny. But I still say …”
“Why they didn’t isn’t very important at the moment,” said the quiet, competent-sounding voice of Major Fielding. “If we have been marooned, the first problem is to ensure our immediate survival …”
Ruth Fielding as a small, dark-haired girl who had been the medical officer and psychologist aboard Victorious. She was the type who could fly into a tizzy at some trifling upset and yet remain completely and utterly calm when everything and everybody around her was going to hell on horseback. Warren had never been able to make up his mind on whether this odd but very valuable aspect of her character was due to courage or sheer contrariness.
“… We must build shelters,” she continued quietly, “and arrange protection against the weather and possibly dangerous animals. We must find water, search for edible plants and animals, fashion weapons …”
While she was speaking, everyone began looking at the surrounding greenery—tight, almost spherical clumps of bushes whose shadows might conceal anything and tall, proud trees with yellow-veined bark and leaves like big green seashells. From some of the branches brown, hairy fruit hung, or possibly they were parasitic growths or nocturnal creatures asleep for the day. The insects were too small to be seen, but as the thunder of the departing ship died away they could be heard droning to themselves.
And when they had finished looking around them the crew began glancing furtively at Warren, plainly wondering if his vast fund of tactical experience equipped him to handle this sort of problem. They were all intelligent and highly-trained people who would not be thrown into a panic by the immediate problems of survival which Fielding was mentioning. Many of them would already be considering the longer-range, Warren knew, already thinking in terms of the second and third generation while she
was still making her final point.
“… Because our observations on the way down,” she concluded in a voice which seemed loud only because everybody else was holding his breath, “make it pretty certain that we have this planet all to ourselves.”
Nobody spoke for a long time. No slightest breath of wind stirred the alien leaves and even the insects seemed to join momentarily in making the silence complete. Then the stillness was shattered by the sudden rattle of drums from the forest around them, the measured though erratic beat making it plain that intelligence of some kind was being transmitted. To the drum-beats was added the sound of whistles blowing and distant shouts, and an unmistakably human figure was running through the trees towards them.
“Oh well,” said Fielding in a highly embarrassed voice, “Maybe we don’t have the planet all to ourselves.”
The running figure slowed as it approached, from a sprint to something which was not so much a fast walk as a ceremonial quick march. After one glance around the group he marched unhesitatingly towards Warren and dame to a halt before him. There he tore off one of the tightest, smartest salutes that Warren had ever seen.
“I am Lieutenant Kelso,” he said crisply. “Are you the senior officer of this party, sir?”
Before replying, Warren looked the lieutenant slowly up and down. He noted the details of the kilt which the other wore, the calf-length boots and the sundry other items of harness all of which must have been worked by hand out of animal hides. He noted also the color contrast between the leather of the kilt and boots and that of the pouches and harness, realizing as he did so that he was seeing not just a collection of animal skins tacked together for protection or utility, but a uniform, with all that a uniform implied.
Kelso himself was tall and thin, topping Warren’s five-eleven by at least three inches, but well-muscled. He looked to be in his early thirties and his face and chin were raw as if from constant with a very blunt instrument. His hair, which looked as if it had been cut with a knife, was short and plastered flat against his scalp with something which smelled to high heaven.
Punctiliously, but without the bone-wrenching precision which had gone into the one he had just received, Warren returned the other’s salute and said, “That is correct, Lieutenant.”
Kelso nodded, then said quickly, “I have to escort your group to the nearest committee post as fast as possible, sir. I know that you’ll have questions to ask, hundreds of them probably, and my job is to answer them. But first we have to get moving—“
“What the blazes is this place?” somebody behind Kelso burst out harshly. “We expected a prison dome, with Bug guards and … and …”
“What about those drums …?
“Committee! What committee …?
Warren cleared his throat irritably and all at once there was silence—except for the drums and distant shouting. He said, “Go on, Lieutenant.”
Looking suddenly impressed by Warren where before he had been merely respectful, Kelso resumed. “I will answer all your questions, sir, but first I must get you to the nearest committee post as quickly as possible. There are others out searching for you, too, and it is imperative that we avoid them—I’ll explain about that, as well. So if you don’t mind, sir, I’d like us to walk as we talk …”
The Lieutenant was still standing rigidly at attention, but he kept swaying forward onto the balls of his feet in his urgency to get moving. Warren decided to have pity on him before he fell flat on his face.
“I have yet to meet a Lieutenant who did not know all the answers,” he said drily. “Very well, Kelso. Lead on.”
With the Lieutenant at his side and the other survivors from Victorious crowding their hells in an attempt to stay within earshot they moved off. The pace Kelso set was a fast walk, but each time a drum started on a new message or there was a fresh burst of shouting in the forest he increased it. When a few minutes had gone by without him saying anything, Major Fielding decided that she couldn’t wait.
“Why are there others searching for us, Lieutenant?” she said breathlessly. “Who are they and why must we avoid them?”
Kelso looked quickly towards her, then looked again. The regulation battledress uniform, tight-fitting and designed so that with the addition of a fish-bowl became a short-duration spacesuit, did nothing for an ageing officer like Warren with his thickening waistline and tendency towards bowlegs, while for officers like Ruth Fielding it did quite a lot. When he replied Kelso was smiling and he spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“To answer that I’ll first have to fill in some background details,” he said. “As you know, during the sixty-odd years we’ve been fighting the Bugs one of the biggest problems on our side was looking after the prisoners of war …”
Chapter 2
Almost a century earlier, at a time when the culture of Earth had spread to fifty inhabited systems and her colonization program was still expanding, mankind had made contact with another intelligent race. The name which this race had for itself was a short, clicking sound which could be reproduced only by a few of Earth’s top linguists, the difficulties of communication being extreme on both sides. But even so it quickly became evident that the only thing which the aliens had in common with the human race was intelligence.
To the ordinary being of both species their physical aspect was mutually loathsome, their thought processed mutually incomprehensible, and perhaps the correct course would have been to ignore each other’s existence. But there were also some extraordinary beings on both sides—beings possessed of high intelligence and an overpowering scientific curiosity who were excited by the possibility of exchanging ideas with another race despite all the difficulties of communication. Beings, in short, who were objective enough to see past an alien and utterly repulsive exterior to the mind within. They could not understand the more subtle workings of each other’s minds as yet, but they wanted desperately to go on trying. So instead of being broken off, contact between the two cultures began gradually to widen.
But there was a vast number of people on Earth and on its colony worlds who were not top-flight linguists, nor possessed of the driving scientific curiosity coupled with the fine objectivity of the men who wanted contact—even though these people were themselves kindly and intelligent and as civilized as the next man. It was just that when they saw something which was soft and pallid and crawled wetly on six legs they wanted to stamp on it, and sometimes did before they could stop themselves. The reaction was instinctive, something they couldn’t help, and the fact that the thing they wanted to stamp on was nearly as big as themselves only made their reaction that much more violent.
The number of violent incidents grew until, some thirty years after first contact had been made, they reached the proportions of an open war. The people on both sides who had been pleading for greater objectivity when dealing with the aliens were powerless to stop it, but they did retain some influence. Before diplomatic relations were severed completely they reached agreement on certain rules of conduct for the coming war.
It was not to be a total war. Both sides hoped that it would not go on forever, so there was to be no unnecessary slaughter of combatant who were no longer able to defend themselves, or cruelty towards such beings when they were taken prisoner.
In the first two decades of the war the number of major engagements found increased steadily to a point which would have been considered utterly impossible at the beginning of hostilities, because the sides were evenly matched technologically and neither had been capable of realizing the tremendous war potential inherent in a confederation of fifty inhabited systems. And because it was not a war of senseless heroics—the space personnel were much too stable and intelligent for their heroism to be anything other than the cool, calculated sort—there were prisoners taken. During the first five years of the war the number of Bug prisoners taken passed the million mark, and the flood of prisoners kept pace with the accelerating tempo of the war. And, plus or minus a few hundred thous
ands, the Bugs took as many as they lost.
One of the chief reasons for the prisoners-of-war agreement in the first place was the fact that space personnel were extremely valuable people. They represented the cream of the younger technical and scientific brains of their respective cultures and they were people which neither side wanted to lose. But the war showed no indication of ending and the few attempts at arranging an exchange of prisoners failed because of already difficult communications problems rendered insuperable by the mounting tensions of war. So the number of prisoners held by each side grew. And grew.
Millions of men and vast quantities of war material were tied up merely in providing for Bug prisoners. The facilities for taking care of them—their food and air required special processing and their housing had to be seen to be believed—became increasingly strained. It quickly reached the point where the whole war effort was being affected by this hampering burden of prisoners, and seemingly there was no solution to the problem.
“… But twenty-three years ago the Bugs found the solution,” Kelso went on quickly. “It is a nice, economical and very humane solution. Looked at objectively, its only drawback is that we didn’t think of it ourselves …”
Above the sound of the Lieutenant’s voice and the considerable noise made by his listeners as they blundered through the undergrowth in his wake, Warren could hear the whistles and drums of the other searchers growing louder by the minute. He felt angry and afraid and very short of breath, and he wished fervently that Kelso would get to the point of at least letting him know what it was that he was afraid of. But seemingly the Lieutenant intended telling everything in his own way and in proper sequence, and any interjections would serve only to delay the process.
“… What they did was pick one of the worlds in their own sector which was suitable for human colonization,” the Lieutenant rushed on, “then they dumped fifty thousand or so prisoners onto it with enough supplies, shelters and simple agricultural machinery to enable them to continue as a self-sustaining colony. Other prisoners arrive from time to time, but for the past ten years these new arrivals haven’t been accompanied by tools or supplies—they don’t want us to have any more metal than the bare minimum already supplied by them to begin with, you see. And just in case we did succeed in throwing together a spaceship out of our surplus plough-shares they have a guardship in orbit to keep an eye on things …”
