The Sinners of Erspia

The panel obeyed. A hitherto blank extra viewplate displayed an ebony background against which glowed a number of locations connected by lines on which distances were printed.

There were in fact twelve Erspias, not ten as Garo had thought. But which was which? Though he had privately numbered those he had visited One to Five, he didn't know if there was an actual numbering.

The locations on the screen had neither numbers nor names.

He spoke again.

“Return the Ormazd projector to its original position."

At once he heard the whine of the main drive starting up. The station swayed and lifted into the air. In hardly more than seconds they were again in the blackness of space, hurtling through the cluster of worldlets.

Two plans of action had occurred to Laedo. One was to park his cargo ship on the projector station, pick-a-back, as before, return the projector station to its proper place, and switch the Ormazd beam back on, thus restoring the status quo ante. He could then set about trying to make a transductor, and if successful, go home.

But he wasn't satisfied with the status quo ante

. He wanted to free the Erspians from mind control altogether. So he had decided on his second plan, which called for something more drastic. It would also endanger the cargo ship, which was why he had taken the dreadful risk of leaving it behind.

In little more than half an hour a glowing Erspian world swam into view. The station took up its fixed non-orbiting position diametrically opposite the Ahrimanic projector and automatically pointed the projector tube at the planetoid's surface. Nothing issued from it, of course. The beam was still switched off.

Laedo took over the manual controls. He moved the station again, steering it to the other side of the worldlet. Gleaming in the light of the tiny sun, the Ahrimanic globe was wickedly on station.

“See that, Histrina? That's Ahriman's mouth. That's where all your evil thoughts come from. Do you remember my showing it to you before?"

“It's all vague,” she murmured, standing behind him. “What are you going to do?"

He waved to her. “Strap yourself into that couch. The inertial field should protect us, but it might get a little bumpy."

He took the station further out and positioned it behind the Ahrimanic globe, which he could see hovering against the beautiful, slowly turning spectacle of Erspia-1. The projector stations did not need to orbit or maintain themselves against Erspia-1's gravity—that petered out some miles below them. Laedo reasoned that the adjusting mechanism which rectified drift would therefore be low-powered. He was gambling that a sudden displacement would be too much for that mechanism to handle.

At a velocity of fifty miles per hour he steered the Ormazdian globe directly at its Ahrimanic twin. It was frightening to see the other projector station expand swiftly on the viewscreen until its striated surface hurtled close and still loomed larger. Histrina screamed, her hand to her mouth. Collision came with a shattering, clanging noise which rang throughout the station, but there was little effect on the two humans otherwise—the inertial field ensured that. Instead of being smashed against the forward wall, they felt no more than a shudder. Laedo heard a hiss of escaping air, but he didn't worry about it very much. The inertial field would also be capable of compensating for breaches in hull integrity; if that failed bulkheads would close, sealing off the damaged area.

Ahriman moved, pushed off position. Where the two globes came in contact they seemed stuck together, but this was only because Laedo was keeping up the pressure, accelerating Ahriman down towards the surface of Erspia-1.

As soon as they hit the atmosphere he disengaged. Ahriman kept on falling, well within the gravity well by now. If the station staff, demented as they would be by a century and a half of living in the backwash of the evil beam, still had the presence of mind to activate the star drive, then his gamble would be lost.

He had been careful not to take Histrina and himself through the Ahrimanic beam. He continued to stay well clear of it as he followed the station down, aware that the structure might start to tumble. It did not appear to recover, but plummeted towards the ground, hurtling through the thin cloud layer.

At the very end the staff seemed to make some attempt to regain control. The station faltered in its trajectory. But it was too late. The globe struck the ground and crumpled, then went rolling much as the Ormazdian station had on Erspia-2, though with far more destructive results. When it came to rest, it was all but shattered. As for the cylindrical tube of the beam projector, that was gone altogether, the place where it had been gaping up at the sky.

Very likely the staff had survived. The inertial field should have held through all or most of the landing, which would have saved them.