Edmond Hamilton - Starwolf Omnibus

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STARWOLF
Edmond Hamilton
Book I — The Weapon From Beyond (1967)
Book II — The Closed Worlds (1968)
Book III — World of the Starwolves (1968)
THE WEAPON FROM BEYOND
I
The stars watched him, and it seemed to him that they whispered to
him.
Die, Starwolf. Your course is run.
He lay across the pilot-chair, and the dark veils were close around his
brain, and the wound in his side throbbed and burned. He was not
unconscious, he knew that his little ship had come out of overdrive, and
that there were things that he should do. But it was no use, no use at all.
Let it go, Starwolf. Die.
In a corner of his mind, Morgan Chane knew that it was not the stars
that were talking to him. It was some part of himself that still wanted to
survive and that was haunting him, prodding him, trying to get him onto
his feet. But it was easier to ignore it, and lie here.
Easier, yes. And how happy his death would make his dear friends and
loving comrades. Chane's fogged mind held onto that thought. And finally
it brought a dull anger, and a resolve. He would not make them happy. He
would live, and some day he would make those who were now hunting him
very unhappy indeed.
The savage determination seemed to clear the blur of darkness a little
from his brain. He opened his eyes and then, slowly and painfully, he
hauled himself erect in the seat. The action pulled at his wound
sickeningly, and for a few minutes he fought against nausea. Then he
reached out a shaky hand toward a switch. He must first find out exactly
where he was, where the last desperately hasty course he had set as he fled
had brought him.
Like little red eyes, figures glowed on the board as the computer silently
answered his question. He read the figures but his brain was not clear
enough to translate them. Shaking his head drunkenly, he peered at the
viewplate.
A mass of blazing stars walled the firmament in front of him.
High-piled suns, smoky-red, pure white, pale green and gold and peacock
blue, glared at him. Great canyons of darkness rifted the star-mass, rivers
of cosmic dust out of which gleamed the pale witch-fires of drowned suns.
He was just outside a cluster, and now Chane's blurred mind remembered
that in the last desperate moment of flight, when he threw his stolen ship
into overdrive before blacking out, he had jabbed the coordinates of
Corvus Cluster.
Blackness, nothingness, the eternal solemn silence of the void, and the
suns of the cluster pouring their mighty radiance upon the tiny needle
that was his ship. His memory quickened, and he knew now why he had
come here. There was a world that he knew about in this gigantic hive of
stars. He could lie up there and hide, and he sorely needed such a refuge,
for he had no healamp and his wound would take time to heal naturally.
He thought he would be safe on that world, if he could reach it.
Unsteadily, Chane set a course, and the little ship hurtled toward the
edge of the cluster at the top speed of its normal drive.
The darkness began to dim his brain again and he thought,
No, I have to stay awake, for tomorrow we raid the Hyades.
But that could not be right, they had hit the Hyades months ago. What
was the matter with his memory? Things seemed jumbled and without
sense or sequence.
Sweeping out from Varna in their swift little squadron, running down
the Sagittarius Passage and crosscutting Owl Nebula to come down in a
surprise swoop on the fat little planet with the fat little people who
squealed and panicked when he and his comrades hit their rich towns....
But that had been a long time ago. Their last raid, the one where he had
got this wound, had been to Shandor Five. He remembered how on their
way there they had been spotted and chased by a squadron of heavies, and
had escaped them by slamming right through a star-system at full speed
in normal drive. He could remember Ssander laughing and saying, "They
won't take the chances we Varnans take and that's why they never catch
us."
But Ssander is dead, and I killed him, and that is why I'm flying for
my life!
It flashed across Chane's mind: he remembered the quarrel over loot on
Shandor Five and how Ssander had got furious and tried to kill him and
how he had killed Ssander instead. And how, wounded, he had fled from
the avengers. ...
The dark veils had cleared away and he was here in his little ship, still
fleeing, hurtling toward the cluster. He stared at it, sweat on his dark face,
his black eyes wild.
He thought that he had better stop blacking out or he would not have
long to live. The hunters were after him, and there was no one in the
galaxy who would give aid to a wounded Starwolf.
Chane had aimed to enter the cluster at a point where one of the dark
dust-rivers divided it, and he was already passing the outpost sentinel
suns. Soon he could hear the tick and whisper of dust against the hull. He
was keeping out of the denser drift, and the particles were not much
bigger than atoms. If, at these speeds, he met particles much bigger, they
would hole the ship.
Chane got into his suit and helmet. It was a prolonged effort, and the
pain of it was such that he had to set his teeth to keep from groaning. It
seemed to him that the wound was more agonizing than it had been, but
there was no time to look at it; the heal-patch he had put over it would
have to do for now.
Up the great, dark, dusty river between the cluster stars went the little
ship, and often Chane's head sagged against the board. But he kept his
course. The dust might prove death for him. But it could be life, for those
who would come hunting could not probe far in it.
The viewplate was blurred and vague now. It looked like a window, but
it was a complex mechanism functioning through probe-rays far faster
than light, and his probes had little range here. Chane had to keep all his
attention on the dimness ahead, and that was hard with the wound
throbbing in his side and the dark fingers always reaching for his brain.
Stars loomed up in the dust, burning like muffled torches, angry red
and yellow suns that the tiny ship slowly passed. A deeper spot of brooding
blackness, a dead sun, lay far ahead to zenith and became a somber
star-mark that he seemed to approach with unnatural slowness....
The dim river in the stars twisted a little, and Chane changed course.
The hours went on and on, and he was well inside the cluster. But it was a
long way yet....
Chane dreamed.
The good days, the morning days, that now had so suddenly ended. The
going forth from Varna of the little ships that were everywhere so dreaded.
The slamming out of overdrive and the swoop upon a city of a startled
world, and the warning cry across the suns— The Starwolves are out!
And the mirthful laughter of himself and his comrades as they went in,
mocking the slow sluggishness of those who resisted: Go in fast and take
the plunder and beat down those who tried to stop you, fast, fast, and
away to the ships again, and finally back to Varna with loot and wounds
and high-hearted triumph. The good days ... could they really be ended for
him?
Chane thought of that, and fed the fires of his sullen anger. They had
turned against him, tried to kill him, hunted him. But no matter what
they said he was one of them, as strong, as swift, as cunning as any of
them, and a time would come when he would prove it. But for now he
must hide, lie concealed until his wound bettered, and soon he would
reach the world where he could do that.
Again there was a turning of the dark river, the dust rifting deeper into
the cluster. More of the baleful witch-stars went by, and the dust
whispered louder on the hull. Far ahead, a glazed, dim eye of bloody
orange watched his ship approach. And presently Chane could make out
the planet that moved lonesome around the lonely dying star, and he knew
it for the planet of his refuge.
He almost made it.
II
His luck started running out when the blip of a ship approaching in
normal drive showed up on the probe-screen. It was outside the dust,
coming along the edge of the river in the stars. It would surely come close
enough for its probes to spot him, even in the dust.
There were no alternatives. If the ship was one of the Varnan hunters,
they would destroy him. If it was from anyplace but Varna, they would be
his enemies the moment they identified his Starwolf craft. And they would
identify it as such at first glance, for no world anywhere had ships like the
hated Varnan ships.
He had to go deeper into hiding and there was only one place for that,
and that was the denser drift. He took his little ship deeper into the
dust-stream.
The whispering and ticking on the hull became louder. The larger
particles outside so blurred his probe-rays that he lost track of the ship
outside the dust. Similarly, they would lose track of him. Chane cut his
drive and sat motionless. There was pothing to do but wait.
He did not have to wait long.
When it came, it was no more than a slight quiver that he could hardly
feel. But all his instruments went out.
Chane turned. One look was enough. A bit of drift no bigger than a
marble had holed the hull and had wrecked his drive-unit and converter.
He was in a dead ship, and nothing he could do would make it live again.
He could not even broadcast a call.
He looked at the now-blank screen, and though he could not now see the
images of the stars he seemed again to hear their mocking whisper.
Let it go, Starwolf. ...
Chane's shoulders sagged. Maybe it was as well this way. What future
would there be for him anyway, in a galaxy where every man would be his
enemy?
Sitting slumped there, in a kind of numb daze, he thought how strange
it was that he should end up this way. He had always thought that it
would come in a sudden blaze of battle, in some swift swooping raid
across the stars. That was the end most Starwolves came to, if they went
out too many times from Varna.
He had never dreamed that he would die in this slow, dull, leaden
fashion, just sitting and waiting, waiting in a dead ship until his oxygen
ran out.
A feeling of revulsion grew slowly in Chane's weary mind. There must be
some better end for him than this, some last effort he could make, no
matter how hopeless.
He tried to think it out. The only possible source of help was the ship
just outside the dust-river. If he could signal them and they came to his
aid, one of two things would happen: they could be the Varnans hunting
him, and they would kill him; or they could be men of some other world
and as soon as they saw his Starwolf ship, they would be his deadly
enemies.
But what if his ship was not here? Then, they would accept him as an
Earthman, for that was what he was by pure descent even though he had
never seen Earth.
Chane looked back at the wrecked drive-unit and converter. They were
dead, but the power-chamber that supplied energy to the converter was
intact. He thought he saw a way....
It was a gamble, and he hated to bet his life on it. Yet it was better than
just sitting here and dying. But he knew that he had to make his bet
quickly, or he would not even have this gambling chance.
He began, slowly and clumsily, to take apart some of the instruments on
the board. It was difficult work, with gloved hands, and it was even more
difficult to reassemble some of the parts into the mechanism he needed.
When he finished, he had a small timing-device that he hoped would
work.
Chane went back to the power-chamber and began to hook his
timing-device to it. He had to work fast, and his task involved bending and
crouching in a very confined space, and he felt the wound in his side
tearing at him like a vulture. Tears of pain blurred his vision.
Cry, he told himself. How they'd love to know that you died crying!
The blur went away and he forced his nerveless fingers, ignoring the
pain.
When he had finished his task, he cracked the lock open and took all
four of the impellers from the spacesuit rack. He went back then to the
power-chamber and turned on his crude timing-device.
Then Chane went out of the ship like a scared cat, two impellers in each
hand driving him out amid the stars.
He hurtled away from the little craft, with the stars doing a crazy dance
around him. He had gone into a spin but there was no time to right that.
There was only one thing important and that was to get as far away as
possible before his timing-gadget shorted the energy chamber and
destroyed the ship. Chane counted seconds in his mind as the glittering
starry hosts went round and round him.
The stars paled for a moment as a white nova seemed to flare in his
eyes. It went out and he was in blind darkness. But he was living. He had
got far enough before the power-chamber let go and destroyed his ship.
He turned off his impellers and drifted. The men in the ship outside the
dust-river should have seen that flare. They might or might not come into
the dust to investigate. And if they did, they might or might not be the
Varnans who wanted his life.
He swam alone in the infinite, with stars above him and below him and
all around him.
He wondered if anyone had ever been so alone. His parents had been
dead for years, killed by the heavy gravitation of Varna. His friends on
Varna were friends no longer but hunters eager to kill him. He had always
thought of himself as Varnan and now he knew that he had been wrong.
No family, no friends, no country, no world ... and not even a ship. Just
a suit and a few hours of oxygen and a hostile universe around him.
But he was still a Starwolf, and if he had to die he would die like one....
The grand and glittering backdrop of the cluster stars revolved slowly
around him. To check his rotation might take power from the impellers
that he would later need. And this way he could scan all the starfields as
he turned.
But nothing moved in them, nothing at all.
Time went by. The lordly suns had been here for a long while and they
were in no hurry to see the man die.
On what seemed to him his ten-millionth rotation, his eye caught
something. A star winked.
He looked again, but the star was serene and steady. Were his eyes
betraying him? Chane thought it likely, but he would push his bet all the
way. He used his impellers to urge him in the direction of that star.
Within minutes, he knew that his eyes had not erred. For another star
winked briefly as something occluded it. He strained his eyes, but it was
hard to see, for the dark veils were closing around him again. The wound
in his side, strained by his exertions, had opened again and he felt that his
life was running out of it.
His vision cleared and he saw a black blot growing against the
starfields, a blot that grew to the outline of a ship. It was not Varnan; the
ships of Varna were small and needle-like. This ship had the silhouette of a
Class Sixteen or Twenty and had the odd eyebrow bridge that was
characteristic of the ships of old Earth. It was barely moving, coming his
way.
Chane tried to formulate in his mind what story to tell to keep them
from suspecting the truth about him. The darkness closed in on him but
he fought it off, and flashed his impellers on and off as a signal.
He never knew how much later it was that he found the ship beside him
and its airlock opening like a black mouth. He made a final effort and
moved clumsily into it, and then he gave up fighting and the blackness
took him.
He awoke later feeling surprisingly good. He discovered why when he
found that he lay in a ship-bunk with a healamp glowing against his side.
Already the wound looked dry and half-healed.
Chane looked around. The bunk-room was small. A bulb glowed in the
metal ceiling, and he felt the drone and vibration of a ship in normal
drive. Then he saw that a man was sitting on the edge of the opposite
bunk, watching him.
The man got up and came over to him. He was older than Chane, a good
bit older, and he had an oddly unfinished look about his hands and face
and figure, as though he had been roughly carved out of rock by an
unskilled sculptor. His short hair was graying a little and he had a long,
horse-like face with eyes of no particular color.
"You cut it pretty fine," he said. "I did," said Chane.
"Will you tell me what the devil a wounded Earth-man is doing floating
around in Corvus Cluster?" asked the other. He added, as an afterthought,
"I'm John Dilullo."
Chane's eyes strayed to the stun-gun the Earthman wore belted around
his coverall. "You're mercenaries, aren't you?"
Dilullo nodded. "We are. But you haven't answered my question."
Chane's mind raced. He would have to be careful. The Mercs were
known all over the galaxy as a tough lot. A very high proportion of them
were Earthmen, and there was a reason for this.
Earth, long ago, had pioneered the interstellar drive that opened up the
galaxy. Yet, for all that, Earth was a poor planet. It was poor because all
the other planets of its system were uninhabitable, with ferociously hostile
conditions and only a few scant mineral resources. Compared to the great
star-systems with many rich, peopled worlds, Earth was a poverty-stricken
planet.
So Earth's chief export was men. Skilled spacemen, technicians, and
fighters streamed out from old Earth to many parts of the galaxy. And the
mercenaries from Earth were among the toughest.
"My name's Morgan Chane," he said. "Meteor-prospector, operating out
of Alto Two. I went too deep into the damned drift and my ship was holed.
One fragment caught me in the side, and others hit my drive. I saw my
power-chamber was going to blow, and I just managed to get into my suit
and get out of there in time."
He added, "I needn't say that I'm glad you saw the flare and came
along."
Dilullo nodded. "Well, I've only one more question for now. ..." He was
turning away as he spoke. Then he suddenly whirled back around, his
hand grabbing out the weapon at his belt.
Chane came out of the bunk like a flying shadow. His tigerish leap took
him across the wide space between them at preternatural speed, and with
his left hand he wrested away the weapon while his right hand cracked
Dilullo's face. Dilullo went sprawling to the deck.
Chane aimed at him. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this on
you?"
Dilullo fingered his bleeding lip and looked up and said, "No particular
reason, except that there's no charge in it."
Chane smiled grimly. Then, as his fingers tightened on the butt of the
weapon, his smile faded. There was no charge-magazine in it.
"That was a test," said Dilullo, getting stiffly to his feet. "When you were
unconscious, and I fixed that healamp on you, I felt your musculature. I'd
already heard that Varnan ships were raiding toward this cluster. I knew
you weren't a Varnan ... you could shave off the fine fur and all that but
you couldn't change the shape of your head. But all the same, you had the
muscles of a Starwolf.
"Then," Dilullo said, "I remembered rumors I'd heard from the
out-worlds, about an Earthman who raided with the Varnans and was one
of them. I hadn't believed them, no one believed them, for the Varnans,
from a heavy planet, have such strength and speed no Earthman could
keep up with them. But you could, and right now you proved it. You're a
Starwolf."
Chane said nothing. His eyes looked past the other man to the closed
door.
"Do me the credit," said Dilullo, "of believing that I wouldn't come down
here without first making sure you couldn't do what you're thinking of
doing."
Chane looked into the colorless eyes, and believed.
"All right," he said. "So now?"
"I'm curious," said Dilullo, sitting down in a bunk. "About many things.
About you, in particular." He waited.
Chane tossed him the useless weapon, and sat down. He thought for a
moment, and Dilullo suggested mildly, "Just the truth."
"I thought I knew the truth, until now," Chane said. "I thought I was a
Varnan. I was born on Varna ... my parents were missionaries from Earth
who were going to reform the wicked Varnan ways. Of course the heavy
gravitation soon killed them, and it nearly killed me, but it didn't, quite,
and I grew up with the Varnans and thought I was one of them."
He could not keep the bitterness out of his voice. Dilullo, watching him
narrowly, said nothing.
"Then the Varnans hit Shandor Five, and I was one of them when they
did it. But there was a quarrel there about the loot, and when I struck
Ssander he tried to kill me. I killed him instead, and the others turned on
me. I barely got away alive."
He added, after a moment, "I can't go back to Varna now. 'Damned
Earthpawn!' Ssander called me. Me, as Varnan as he was in everything but
blood. But I can't go back." He sat silent, brooding.
Dilullo said, "You've plundered and robbed and you've doubtlessly
killed, along with those you ran with. But do you have any remorse about
that? No. The only thing you're sorry about is that they threw you out of
the pack. By God, you're a true Starwolf!"
Chane made no answer to that. After a moment, Dilullo went on,
"We—my men and I—have come here to Corvus Cluster because we've
been hired to do a job. A rather dangerous job."
"So?"
Dilullo's eyes measured him. "As you say, you're a Varnan in everything
but blood. You know every Starwolf trick there is, and that's a lot. I could
use you on this job."
Chane smiled. "The offer is flattering.... No."
"Better think about it," said Dilullo. "And think of this—my men would
kill you instantly if I told them you're a Starwolf."
Chane said, "And you'll tell them, unless I sign up with you?"
It was Dilullo's turn to smile. "Other people besides Varnans can be
ruthless." He added, "Anyway, you haven't got anyplace to go, have you?"
"No," said Chane, and his face darkened. "No."
After a moment he asked, "What makes you think you could trust me?"
Dilullo stood up. "Trust a Starwolf? Do you think I'm crazy? I trust only
the fact that you know you'll die if I tell about you."
摘要：

STARWOLFEdmondHamiltonBookI—TheWeaponFromBeyond(1967)BookII—TheClosedWorlds(1968)BookIII—WorldoftheStarwolves(1968)THEWEAPONFROMBEYONDIThestarswatchedhim,anditseemedtohimthattheywhisperedtohim.Die,Starwolf.Yourcourseisrun.Helayacrossthepilot-chair,andthedarkveilswereclosearoundhisbrain,andthewoundin...

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