Hunt the Space-Witch! Seven Adventures in Time and Space Read online

  “Come on,” Jorn said beckoning with a powerful fist. “Come close where I can reach you.”

  Harkins considered flight, then abandoned the idea. It was getting dark; besides, Jorn could probably outrun him.

  No; he would have to stand and face it.

  Jorn stepped forward, holding his huge hands out invitingly. As he lunged, Harkins sidestepped and clubbed down hard on Jorn’s neck. The big man wavered at the rabbit-punch, but did not fall. Harkins followed up his advantage by pounding three quick and ineffectual blows to Jorn’s sides, and then the big man recovered.

  He seized Harkins by one arm and drew him close. Sorry, Harkins thought unregretfully, and brought up one knee. Jorn let go and doubled up.

  Harkins was on him in an instant—but, to his surprise, he found that Jorn was still in full command of himself despite the kneeing. The big man put his head down and butted. Harkins fell over backward, gasping for air, clawing at the sky. It had been like being hit in the stomach by a battering ram—and for a dizzy second Harkins felt that he was about to drown on dry land.

  Jorn was moving in for the kill now. Once he reached the throat, it would be all over. Harkins watched helplessly as the big hands lowered. Jorn leaned forward.

  Suddenly, Harkins kicked upward, and with what little strength he had left, he pushed. Hard. Jorn, taken unawares, lost his balance, toppled backward—

  And to Harkins’ horror fell against the spine-tree at the edge of the little clearing.

  Jorn screamed just once—as the foot-long spike of bone slipped between his vertebrae. He struggled fitfully for a fraction of an instant, then subsided and stared bitterly and perplexedly at Harkins until his eyes closed. A few drops of blood mingled with the matted hair on Jorn’s chest. The tip of the spike was barely visible, a mere eighth of an inch protruding near Jorn’s left breast.

  It had obviously penetrated his heart.

  Harkins looked uncomprehendingly at the impaled man for a full thirty seconds, not yet realizing that the contest was over and he had won. He had fully expected to lose, fully expected this to be his last hour—and, instead, Jorn lay dead. It had happened too quickly.

  A lurking shadow dropped over the scene. Harkins glanced up. A Star Giant stood about a hundred feet away, hip-deep in low-lying shrubs, staring far out into the distance. Harkins wondered if the huge alien had witnessed the combat.

  The adrenalin was draining out of his system now. Calming, he tried to evaluate the situation as it now stood. With Jorn dead, the next move would be to establish control over the tribe himself. And that—

  “Jorn!” a feminine voice cried. “Jorn, are you in there? We’re waiting to eat.”

  Harkins turned. “Hello, Katha.”

  She stared stonily past him. “Where’s Jorn?” she asked. “What are you doing back here?”

  “Jorn’s over there,” Harkins said cruelly, and stepped aside to let her see.

  The look in her eyes was frightening. She turned from Jorn’s body to Harkins and said, “Did you do this?”

  “He attacked me. He was out of his mind.”

  “You killed him,” she said dully. “You killed Jorn.”

  “Yes,” Harkins said.

  The girl’s jaw tightened, and she spat contemptuously. Without further warning, she sprang.

  It was like the leap of a tigress. Harkins, still exhausted from his encounter with Jorn, was not prepared for the fury of her onslaught, and he was forced to throw his hands up wildly to keep her fingernails from his eyes. She threw him to the ground, locked her thighs around his waist tightly, and punched, bit, and scratched.

  After nearly a minute of this, Harkins managed to grab her wrists. She’s more dangerous than Jorn, he thought, as he bent her arms backward and slowly forced her to release her leglock. He drew her to her feet and held her opposite him. Her jaws were working convulsively.

  “You killed him,” she repeated. “I’ll kill you now.”

  Harkins released her arms and she sprang away, shaking her long hair, flexing her bare legs. Her breasts, covered casually by two strips of cloth, rose and fell rapidly. He watched in astonishment as she went into a savage war-dance, bending and posturing, circling around him. It was a ritual of revenge, he thought. The tigress was avenging her mate against the outsider.

  Suddenly she broke from her dance and ran to the tree on which Jorn lay impaled. She broke loose one of the golden spikes and, holding it knifewise, advanced once again toward Harkins.

  He glanced around, found a fallen log, and brandished it. She moved in, knife held high, while Harkins waited for her to come within reach.

  Her magnificent legs bowed and carried her through the air. Harkins moved intuitively, throwing up his left arm to ward off the blow and bringing his right, holding the club, around in a cross blow. The log crashed into the underside of her wrist; she uttered an involuntary grunt of pain and dropped the spike. Harkins kicked it to one side and grabbed her.

  He hugged her against him, pinioning her arms against her sides. She kicked her legs in frustration until, seeing she could do no harm, she subsided.

  “Now you have me, Lloyd Harkins—until you let go.”

  “Don’t worry, tigress—I’ll hold you here until there’s no fight left in you.”

  “That will be forever!”

  “So be it,” Harkins said. He leaned closer to her ear. “You’re very lovely when you’re blazing mad, you know.”

  “When I came to you, you refused me, coward. Will you now insult me before Jorn’s dead body?”

  “Jorn deserved what he got,” Harkins said. “I offered him an empire—and he refused me. He couldn’t bear the thought of sharing his power with anyone.”

  The girl remained silent for a moment. Finally she said, in an altered voice, “Yes—Jorn was like that.”

  “It was kill or be killed,” Harkins said. “Jorn was a madman. I had to—”

  “Don’t talk about it!” she snapped. Then: “What of this empire?” Greedy curiosity seemed to replace anger.

  “Something the Watcher told me.”

  Katha reacted as Jorn had; fear crossed her face, and she turned her head to one side to avoid Harkins’ eyes. “The Watcher showed me where the secret of power lies,” he said. “I told Jorn—”

  “Where?”

  “Tunnel City,” he said. “If I could go there at the head of an army, I could take control of the robots. With them on our side, we would conquer the world.” If the Watcher was telling the truth, he added silently. And if he could find the way to control the robots.

  “The Star Giants would never let you,” Katha said.

  “I don’t understand.” He relaxed the pressure on the girl’s arms slightly, and she tensed. It was like sitting on a bolt of lightning, he thought.

  “The Star Giants keep us in small groups,” she said. “Whenever there is danger of our forming an army or a city, they break it up. Somehow they always know. So you would never be allowed to conquer the world. They would not permit it.”

  “So this is their laboratory, then?” he said, as a bit more of the picture became clear.

  “What?”

  “I mean—the Star Giants watch—and study you. They keep the social groups down to manageable size—seventy, eighty, no more. They experiment in psychology.”

  An image filtered through his mind—a world in a test tube, held by a wise-faced, deeply curious Star Giant who was unable to regard anything so small as a man as an intelligent being. Men were serving as so many fruitflies for the Star Giants—who, without any evil motives, out of sheer scientific interest, were deliberately preventing human civilization from reforming. A pulse of anger started to beat in him.

  “I don’t follow you,” she said. “They watch us only because they like to?”

  How to explain the concept of lab research to a savage? he wondered. “Yes,” he said. “They watch you.”

  She frowned. “But you can control the robots? Harkins, perhaps the Star
Giants will not be able to stop the robots. Perhaps—”

  He didn’t need a further suggestion. “You’re right! If I can gain control of the robots, I can smash the Star Giants—drive them back to where they came from!”

  Was it true? He didn’t know—but it was worth a try. In sudden excitement he leaped away, freeing the girl.

  She hadn’t forgotten revenge. Instantly she was upon him, knocking him to the ground. He rolled over, but she clung to him. At that moment, a deep shadow swept down over both of them.

  “Look up there,” Harkins said in a hushed voice.

  They stared upward together. A Star Giant was standing above them, his treelike legs straddling them, peering down with an expression of grave concern on his massive, sculpture-like face.

  “He’s watching us,” she said.

  “Now do you understand? He’s observing—trying to learn what kind of creatures these little animals on the forest floor may be.” He wondered briefly if this entire three-cornered scene—Harkins versus Jorn, then Harkins versus Katha—had been arranged merely for the edification of the monstrous creature standing above them. A new image crossed his mind—himself and Katha in a vast laboratory, struggling with each other within the confines of a chemical retort held by a quizzical Star Giant. His flesh felt cold.

  Katha turned from the Star Giant to Harkins. “I hate them,” she said. “We will kill them together.” With the fickleness of a savage, she had forgotten all about her anger.

  “No more fighting?”

  She grinned, flashing bright white teeth, and relaxed her grip on Harkins. “Truce,” she said.

  He pulled her back close to him, and put his mouth to hers wondering if the Star Giant was still watching.

  She giggled childishly and bit deep into Harkins’ lower lip. “That was for Jorn,” she said, her voice a playful purr. “Now the score is even.”

  She pressed tightly against him, and kissed the blood away.

  Chapter Five

  He was greeted by suspicious stares and awkward silences when he returned to the village.

  “Jorn is dead,” Katha announced. “Harkins and Jorn met in combat at the edge of the forest.”

  “And now Jorn is beneath the ground,” cackled the ugly woman named Elsa. “I saw it coming, brothers. You can’t deny that I warned him.”

  “Harkins is our leader now,” Katha said firmly. “And I am his woman.”

  The sleepy-eyed villager who had voted for Harkins’ life once said, “Who has elected him?”

  “I have, Dujar,” Harkins said. He doubled his fists. In a society such as this, you had to back up your chips at all times. “Who objects?”

  Dujar looked helplessly at the witch-woman Elsa. “Is it good?”

  She shrugged. “Yes and no. Choose as you see fit.”

  The sleepy-eyed man frowned worriedly, but said nothing. Harkins glanced from one face to the next. “Is there anyone who objects to my leading this tribe?”

  “We don’t even know who you are!” a thick-faced man said. “How do we know you’re not a spy from the Tunnel City people? Elsa, is he?”

  “I thought so once,” the squat woman said. “I’m not so sure now.”

  Harkins smiled. “We’ll see if I am or not. Tomorrow we march. Prepare for war—against the Tunnel City people.”

  “War? But—”

  “War,” Harkins said. It was a flat statement, a command. “Elsa, can you make maps?”

  Elsa nodded sullenly.

  “Good. Come to my hut now, and I’ll tell you what I need.”

  The witch-woman grinned wickedly. “What say you, Katha—will you trust me with your man alone?”

  “No—I want Katha there too,” Harkins said quickly.

  Disappointment was evident on Elsa’s sallow face; Katha’s eyes had flickered with momentary anger at Elsa’s remark, though she had not replied. Harkins frowned. Another complex relationship seemed to be developing, and a dangerous one. He needed Elsa’s support; she was a potent figure in the tribe. But he didn’t know whether or not he could depend on her for continuing aid.

  He stared down at the map scratched in the smooth dirt floor of his hut. “This is the situation, then?”

  He glanced from Elsa to Katha. Both women nodded.

  Gesturing with his toe, Harkins said, “We are here, and the Tunnel City is two days’ march to the east. Right?”

  “It is as I have said,” Elsa replied.

  “And the Star Giants live somewhere out here,” Harkins said, pointing to a vaguely-bounded area somewhere on the far side of the great forest.

  “Why do you want to know the home of the Star Giants?” Elsa asked. “You struck down Jorn—but that doesn’t grant you a giant’s strength, Harkins.”

  “Quiet, Elsa.” The woman’s needling was starting to irritate him. And Katha was showing signs of jealousy, which disturbed him. She was fiercely possessive, but just as fiercely inclined to hate as to love, and Harkins could easily visualize a situation in which both these women were turned against him. He repressed a shudder and returned his attention to the map.

  “Elsa, tonight you’ll lead the tribe in prayers for the success of our campaign. And tomorrow, the men will leave for Tunnel City.”

  “And which of us accompanies you?” Katha asked coldly.

  “You,” Harkins said. Before Elsa could reply, he added, “Elsa, you’ll be needed here, to cast defensive spells over the village while the warriors are gone.”

  She chuckled hollowly. “A clever assignment, Harkins. Very well. I accept the task.” She looked at him, eyes glinting craftily. “Tell me something, though.”

  “What is it?”

  “Why are you attacking the Tunnel City people just now? What do you stand to gain by a needless war?”

  “I stand to gain a world, Elsa,” Harkins said quietly, and would say no more.

  That night, ritual drums sounded at the edge of the forest, and strange incantations were pronounced. Harkins watched, fascinated at the curious mixture of barbarism and sophistication.

  They left the following morning, twenty-three men led by Harkins and Katha. It represented the entire fighting strength of the tribe, minus a couple of disgruntled oldsters who were left behind on the pretext that the village needed a defensive force.

  The journey to the Tunnel City was a slow and halting one. A tall warrior named Frugo was appointed to guide, at Katha’s suggestion; he kept them skirting the edge of the forest until well into midafternoon, when they were forced to strike off through the jungle.

  Katha marched proudly at Harkins’ side, as if Jorn had never existed. And, perhaps, in this historyless world, he had never existed, now that he was dead.

  The war party sustained itself as it went. Two of the men were experts with the throwing-stick, and brought down an ample supply of birds for the evening meal; another gathered basketsful of a curious golden-green fruit. While the birds were being cleaned and cooked, Harkins picked one up and examined it, opening its jaws to peer at the teeth.

  It was an interesting mutation—a recession to a characteristic lost thousands of years earlier. He studied the fierce-looking bird for a moment or two, then tossed it back on the heap.

  “Never seen a bird before?” Katha asked.

  “Not that kind,” Harkins said. He turned away and walked toward the fire, where three were being roasted over a greenwood fire. A sound of crashing trees was audible far in the distance.

  “Star Giant?” he asked.

  “Robot, probably,” Katha said. “They make more noise. Star Giants look where they’re going. The robots just bull straight ahead.”

  Harkins nodded. “That’s what I hope they’ll do when they’re working for us. Straight on through the Star Giants.”

  A twisted-looking brown wingless bird with a bulging breast came running along the forest path, squawking and flapping its vestigial stumps. It ran straight into the little camp; then, seeing where it was, it turned and tried to run aw
ay. It was too late, though; a grinning warrior caught it by the throat and pulled the protesting bird toward the fire.

  “They keep going straight too,” Katha said. “Straight into the fire.”

  “I think we’ll manage,” Harkins said. He wished he were as sure as he sounded.

  The Tunnel City sprawled over some ten square miles of land, bordered on all sides by the ever-approaching forest. Harkins and his men stood on a cliff looking down at the ruined city.

  The crumbling buildings were old—ancient, even—but from the style of their architecture Harkins saw that they had been built after his time. What might once have been airy needles of chrome and concrete now were blackened hulks slowly vanishing beneath the onslaught of the jungle.

  Harkins turned to Katha. “How many people live here?”

  “About a hundred. They live in the big building down there,” she said, pointing to a truncated spire.

  “And the entrance to the tunnels themselves?”

  She shuddered faintly. “In the center of the city. No one goes there.”

  “I know that,” Harkins said. The situation was somewhat different from expectation. He had visualized the tribe of savages living in close proximity to the tunnel entrance, making it necessary to conquer them before any subterranean exploration could be done. But it seemed it would be possible to sneak right past without the necessity of a battle.

  “What’s on your mind?” Katha asked.

  He explained his plan. She shook her head immediately. “There’ll have to be a war first. The men won’t have it any other way. They’re not interested in going into those tunnels; they just want to fight.”

  “All right,” he said, after some thought. “Fight it is, then. Draw up the ranks and we’ll attack.”

  Katha cupped one hand. “Prepare to attack!”

  The word traveled swiftly. Knives and clubs bristled; the throwing-stick men readied themselves. Harkins narrowly escaped smiling at the sober-minded way this ragged band was preparing to go about waging war with hand weapons and stones. The smile died stillborn as he recalled that these men fought with such crude weapons only because their ancestors had had better ones.

  He squinted toward the tangle of ruined buildings, saw figures moving about in the city. The hated enemy, he thought. The strangers.