Sjambak Read online

pictures per second, athousand to the inch.

  The sjambaks led Murphy two hundred yards to a metal door. They openedit, pushed Murphy inside, banged it shut. Murphy felt the vibrationthrough his shoes, heard a gradually waxing hum. His gauge showed anoutside pressure of 5, 10, 12, 14, 14.5. An inner door opened. Handspulled Murphy in, unclamped his dome.

  "Just what's going on here?" demanded Murphy angrily.

  Prince Ali-Tomas pointed to a table. Murphy saw a flashlight battery,aluminum foil, wire, a transistor kit, metal tubing, tools, a few otherodds and ends.

  "There it is," said Prince Ali-Tomas. "Get to work. Let's see one ofthese paralysis weapons you boast of."

  "Just like that, eh?"

  "Just like that."

  "What do you want 'em for?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "I'd like to know." Murphy was conscious of his camera, recording sight,sound, odor.

  "I lead an army," said Ali-Tomas, "but they march without weapons. Giveme weapons! I will carry the word to Hadra, to New Batavia, to Sundaman,to Boeng-Bohot!"

  "How? Why?"

  "It is enough that I will it. Again, I beg of you ..." He indicated thetable.

  Murphy laughed. "I've got myself in a fine mess. Suppose I don't makethis weapon for you?"

  "You'll remain until you do, under increasingly difficult conditions."

  "I'll be here a long time."

  "If such is the case," said Ali-Tomas, "we must make our arrangementsfor your care on a long-term basis."

  Ali made a gesture. Hands seized Murphy's shoulders. A respirator washeld to his nostrils. He thought of his camera, and he could havelaughed. Mystery! Excitement! Thrills! Dramatic sequence for _Know YourUniverse!_ Staff-man murdered by fanatics! The crime recorded on his owncamera! See the blood, hear his death-rattle, smell the poison!

  The vapor choked him. _What a break! What a sequence!_

  * * * * *

  "Sirgamesk," said Howard Frayberg, "bigger and brighter every minute."

  "It must've been just about in here," said Catlin, "that Wilbur'shorseback rider appeared."

  "That's right! Steward!"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "We're about twenty thousand miles out, aren't we?"

  "About fifteen thousand, sir."

  "Sidereal Cavalry! What an idea! I wonder how Wilbur's making out on hissuperstition angle?"

  Sam Catlin, watching out the window, said in a tight voice, "Why not askhim yourself?"

  "Eh?"

  "Ask him for yourself! There he is--outside, riding some kind ofcritter...."

  "It's a ghost," whispered Frayberg. "A man without a space-suit....There's no such thing!"

  "He sees us.... Look...."

  Murphy was staring at them, and his surprise seemed equal to their own.He waved his hand. Catlin gingerly waved back.

  Said Frayberg, "That's not a horse he's riding. It's a combinationram-jet and kiddie car with stirrups!"

  "He's coming aboard the ship," said Catlin. "That's the entrance portdown there...."

  * * * * *

  Wilbur Murphy sat in the captain's stateroom, taking careful breaths ofair.

  "How are you now?" asked Frayberg.

  "Fine. A little sore in the lungs."

  "I shouldn't wonder," the ship's doctor growled. "I never saw anythinglike it."

  "How does it feel out there, Wilbur?" Catlin asked.

  "It feels awful lonesome and empty. And the breath seeping up out ofyour lungs, never going in--that's a funny feeling. And you miss the airblowing on your skin. I never realized it before. Air feels like--likesilk, like whipped cream--it's got texture...."

  "But aren't you cold? Space is supposed to be absolute zero!"

  "Space is nothing. It's not hot and it's not cold. When you're in thesunlight you get warm. It's better in the shade. You don't lose any heatby air convection, but radiation and sweat evaporation keep youcomfortably cool."

  "I still can't understand it," said Frayberg. "This Prince Ali, he's akind of a rebel, eh?"

  "I don't blame him in a way. A normal man living under those domes hasto let off steam somehow. Prince Ali decided to go out crusading. Ithink he would have made it too--at least on Cirgamesc."

  "Certainly there are many more men inside the domes...."

  "When it comes to fighting," said Murphy, "a sjambak can lick twenty menin space-suits. A little nick doesn't hurt him, but a little nick burstsopen a space-suit, and the man inside comes apart."

  "Well," said the Captain. "I imagine the Peace Office will send out ateam to put things in order now."

  Catlin asked, "What happened when you woke up from the chloroform?"

  "Well, nothing very much. I felt this attachment on my chest, but didn'tthink much about it. Still kinda woozy. I was halfway throughdecompression. They keep a man there eight hours, drop pressure on himtwo pounds an hour, nice and slow so he don't get the bends."

  "Was this the same place they took you, when you met Ali?"

  "Yeah, that was their decompression chamber. They had to make a sjambakout of me; there wasn't anywhere else they could keep me. Well, prettysoon my head cleared, and I saw this apparatus stuck to my chest." Hepoked at the mechanism on the table. "I saw the oxygen tank, I saw theblood running through the plastic pipes--blue from me to that carburetorarrangement, red on the way back in--and I figured out the wholearrangement. Carbon dioxide still exhales up through your lungs, but thevein back to the left auricle is routed through the carburetor andsupercharged with oxygen. A man doesn't need to breathe. The carburetorflushes his blood with oxygen, the decompression tank adjusts him to thelack of air-pressure. There's only one thing to look out for; that's notto touch anything with your naked flesh. If it's in the sunshine it'sblazing hot; if it's in the shade it's cold enough to cut. Otherwiseyou're free as a bird."

  "But--how did you get away?"

  "I saw those little rocket-bikes, and began figuring. I couldn't go backto Singhalut; I'd be lynched on sight as a sjambak. I couldn't fly toanother planet--the bikes don't carry enough fuel.

  "I knew when the ship would be coming in, so I figured I'd fly up tomeet it. I told the guard I was going outside a minute, and I got on oneof the rocket-bikes. There was nothing much to it."

  "Well," said Frayberg, "it's a great feature, Wilbur--a great film!Maybe we can stretch it into two hours."

  "There's one thing bothering me," said Catlin. "Who did the steward seeup here the first time?"

  Murphy shrugged. "It might have been somebody up here skylarking. Alittle too much oxygen and you start cutting all kinds of capers. Or itmight have been someone who decided he had enough crusading.

  "There's a sjambak in a cage, right in the middle of Singhalut. PrinceAli walks past; they look at each other eye to eye. Ali smiles a littleand walks on. Suppose this sjambak tried to escape to the ship. He'staken aboard, turned over to the Sultan and the Sultan makes an exampleof him...."

  "What'll the Sultan do to Ali?"

  Murphy shook his head. "If I were Ali I'd disappear."

  A loudspeaker turned on. "Attention all passengers. We have just passedthrough quarantine. Passengers may now disembark. Important: no weaponsor explosives allowed on Singhalut!"

  "This is where I came in," said Murphy.

  THE END