Whirlpool Of Stars

  Hook: Whirlpool of Stars

  TULLY ZETFORD

  NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY TIMES MIRROR

  Scanned and proofed by Scamp July 2003 v1.0

  A series of 4 books, these being:

  1. Whirlpool of stars

  2. The Boosted Man

  3. Star City

  4. Virility Gene

  Tully Zetford is a pseudonym of Kenneth Bulmer

  Conditions of sale: This book is sold subject to the condition, that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  NEL Books are published by The New English Library Limited from Barnard’s Inn, Holborn, London E.C.1. Made and printed in Great Britain by C. Nicholls & Company Ltd.

  450018385

  An NEL Original C Tully Zetford, 1974

  FIRST NEL PAPERBACK EDITION MAY 1974

  CHAPTER ONE

  HOOK had never been more aware of the intolerance of the galaxy whirling and glittering away outside than in this very instant as the starship’s engines ripped themselves to shreds. A fracture the size of a micro-dot split the shielding. From that moleculewide gap a beam of lethally-hard radiation spurted lengthwise through the ship. It lasted for a tenth of a second. In that time it destroyed the ship utterly.

  A big beefy man smoking a cigar spoke to Hook as the engines blew. The next instant as the radiation beam sliced zig-zag through the man, he collapsed to the decking. His body had been cut into a dozen separate pieces.

  Hook stepped aside, cursing the engine-room crew. They were a bunch of good-for-nothing slobs. The catastrophic failure of the engines proved the crew inefficient; and inefficiency in any form upset Ryder Hook. This time some regurgitated womb-fugitive’s slackness was like to get Ryder Hook killed.

  The annunciator system said: “All passengers to C Deck. All passen =” And stopped. It never enunciated again.

  The ship’s artificial gravity which normally kept a comfortable eighth of a g throughout the vessel went mad. Hook’s feet left the floor and he floated clear in free-fall. With a slamming shock that jarred his teeth he smashed back to the deck. He judged the artificial gravity to have climbed to six gees. People were falling and screaming everywhere.

  They were pasted to the deck. Hook started to run for the exit onto C Deck and the life she.,- racked there.

  The gravity peaked and surged and passengers ran and collapsed. No single man could ever help them all out before the ship opened onto space. Sections of the deckhead crumpled as the gravities piled on. A jagged edge broke free and bonged against the deck. Hook vaulted it and a second huge chunk split with screech and hammered down on him.

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  He skidded flat on his back, the metal ironing him out, felt the bulkhead come up and sledge him across the back of the head. He lay there for a moment, cursing all the stupid no-good fumble-fingered drive engineers in Creation. If he didn’t reach the life shells within minutes he needn’t bother about anything else any more.

  A little woman from Cailiang, her facial fur dyed orange and indigo, her slit-eyes green with fear, screamed. Her legs were trapped beneath the adjoining sheet. Hook leaned across and said: “Hold your breath, sweetheart,” and pulled. He dragged her out, ignoring her shrieks. The last six centimetres of her tail snapped off, snagged by the jagged metal edge.

  “Better a chunk of your tail than all of you,” said Ryder Hook, and gave her a savage push towards the exit onto C Deck. He put both hands onto the metal edge pinning his thighs.

  At that instant the artificial gravity kicked in a last dying surge and the needle shot right off the scale. Hook judged with that steady undeviating portion of his brain that gravity had peaked past twelve gees. A thick construction member in the overhead broke free under that intolerable force. The solid bar of metal drove downwards.

  It struck across both his legs with force enough to have smashed clear through armour-steel.

  It bounced.

  Ryder Hook grunted and heaved the sheet away. The artifical gravity died with that last fenzied surge and the sheet sailed off down the corridor. Hook got his feet under him. He could feel the pain of that solid beam of metal slogging into his legs; but he ignored it. He sprang in a long low dive that took him like a bird towards the exit.

  He hoicked the little furred woman from Cailiang with him as he went.

  He’d never visited her planet in this wide galaxy; but he’d heard they brewed a sweet-mist there that curled your toes with pleasure. The ship lurched. Most of the primary and secondary lighting circuits had blown and the tertiary emergencies came on with a sickly yellow-green radiance that, in an image as old as Old Earth herself and still as true, turned all their faces corpsegrey,

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  Pandemonium raged up on C Deck. Above the yells and shrieks the senseless siren-wail of the alarm signal continued to belabour ears. That, Hook knew only too well, merely reinforced panic. Into the ship’s air the penetrating stink of burning insulation filtered like old boots burning on a woodfire. Many passengers had reached the life shells and already banks two and three had jetted free of the ship’s flank.

  She was - or had been - H.G.L. Starship Iquique, for ancient names were remembered on Old Earth as elsewhere in the galaxy. Now she was done for. Before she finally broke up and drifted in an idle spray of wreckage those who struggled for life

  must leave her. Only the dead would remain.

  Four more shells departed. Men and women recoiled from the closing panels of alloy-steel that sealed off the launching bays of two more shells. Hook cast a swift and practised look along the ceiling-mounted telltales. There were precious few shells left. Air sighed past his cheeks.

  He swung about as the airlock valves clamped immediately to his rear.

  They sealed off the life shell banks from the rest of the ship. Now no one else would be joining the passengers here. Two more shells jetted.

  He picked a shell whose light remained green, indicating it was not filled to capacity yet, and took off.

  The furry woman ran shrieking after him, bouncing and gyrating in free-fall as her pumping legs tossed her high against the overhead. Hook had no reason to care for her welfare. She was a complete stranger. But he had pulled her from under the metal pinning her to the deck, and he had carried her here. With a precise calculation he knew that there was time. He owed her, for saving her life already. Ryder Hook had had to leave tasks unfinished in his life; he had never done so voluntarily and he resented not being able to complete a task to which he had set his hand.

  The five seconds it took to jump towards her, grab her, quieten her down and tuck her under his arm, consumed all his reserves of time. He thrust with his booted feet and shot straight for the life shell’s door. He was the last. A group of people - human beings, humanoids, extra-terrestrials, aliens - mixed up in a panic stricken bunch managed to squirt themselves into the shell. One

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  large and powerfully-muscled Krifman bellowed and charged for the door, head down. Hook knew the Krifmans of old. They were a race who prided themselves on their toughness, their Spartan attitudes to life, their integrity in the galaxy. A good Krifman was a good friend; a bad Krifman was bad news anywhere. This Krifman wore plate-fabric clothes cut tightly to his body, red and green, and his cap’s visor was down. That meant trouble.

  The girl he pushed aside yelled and tried to claw her way back to the life shell doorway. Hook gave her a single glance, took in the short dark hair, the ripped glitter-dress, the slim naked legs, and then focussed on the Krifman.

/>   “Get out of my way, you Earth trollop! ” shouted the Krifman. He punched the girl in the stomach and she doubled up and fell away, retching. The big man ducked his head to enter the door.

  Hook’s feet hit the deck. A new alarm screamed into the metal compartment. Air pressure had sunk to danger level; the ship was evacuating and soon her hulk would be one with space.

  Hook took the Krifman’s shoulder in his right hand and pulled.

  He had the leverage with his feet on the floor; the other was in free-fall. The Krifman span back. Hook hurled the Cailiang woman headfirst into the shell. Her lopped tail flip-flopped as she somersaulted, her baggy pantaloons billowing.

  It was difficult to breathe.

  The Krifman hit the deck and, instantly, was on his feet and charging for Hook.

  “Earth curd! Out of my way! ” “You,” said Hook to the Earth girl.

  “Inside. Hurry.”

  She started to say something. Hook reached out, grabbed her short hair, jerked.

  With a scream the girl flew past him into the shell.

  As he straightened up Hook extended his boot. The toe caught the Krifman where in an Earthman it would do the most damage. Krifmans were built like that, too.

  Hook backed to the life shell door.

  The Krifman’s yells thinned and attenuated. His face showed an anger and a spite that fear as yet could not touch. He flexed

  8

  his hand. Hook waited for no more. He caught a single glimpse of the little handgun flicking from the Krifman’s sleeve. The life shell door slid to with a comfortingly loud thump. Watching it, Hook saw an apple-sized dome abruptly appear on the inside of the metal. An instant later and that blast would have pushed his backbone out past his ribcage.

  With a jolting discharge that rocked everyone inside, the life shell blasted free of Iquique,,

  Hook looked down past the rows of functional seating towards the control section. He caught a glimpse past the screen of an officer’s cap. At least the shell was in hands capable of piloting it,

  The Earth girl was trying to pull up her ripped shoulderstrap. Her eyes, wide and blue, stared at Hook, and her fingers ceased their fumbling. Her face showed streaked lines of cosmetic powder; but for all that her skin was far whiter than most people’s, whose golden tans revealed the many-tangled lines of heritage.

  “Thank you,” she said. Her voice strengthened as she spoke. “That brute - I’m sorry he died; but -”

  Hook jerked a thumb at the tally entry at the port. Every red dot was alight.

  “We’re loaded. He was one extra.” “Oh.”

  They sat side by side in the last pair of seats. The furry female crouched in the next seat, sobbing, exhausted. A woman two seats along was complaining in a loud and hectoring tone.

  “All my things! My luggage, my furs, my jewels - all gone ! “

  Hook saw that she wore a quintuple-string of fire-pearls around her neck, below her three chins. Those three chins came from over-eating, they were not alien, for she was of human parentage. Her highly-coloured face and elaborate coiffure told of her wealth. “My collection of butterfly-jade - all gone! It’s disgraceful! I’ll complain to H.G.L. the moment we dock!

  The girl at Hook’s side laughed.

  Of the hundred and twenty five people in the life shell’s cabin, Hook surmised, no one had less right to laugh than did he. He felt his thin lips strain. He’d been on the go and on the run without a let-up recently. There were no Boosted Men aboard the

  9

  shell. He could have done with a Boosted Man nearby during those last hectic moments aboard Iquique - then he chilled. Hell! If a Boosted Man knew that Ryder Hook was aboard - exit Ryder Hook.

  The girl’s laughter faded and she fumbled again with the broken strap of her glitter-dress. Her blue eyes regarded Hook with a look of calculation. The life shell hummed with power circuitry and electronics and the air systems. The conversations of the passengers rose and fell, counter-pointing the noises of the shell.

  “What happens next, then, taynor?” Her full lips trembled in the yellow lighting.

  “We find a planet and we home in, tayniss,” said Hook.

  She was clearly of Terrestrial stock, even though she might have been born in any of a hundred thousand solar systems, and Hook fancied that, without disguise, he, too, was clearly of Earthly stock. Yet she had not used mister. She had addressed him with the usual honorific employed out of politeness when talking to any intelligent creature in this segment of the galaxy, and he had replied in kind.

  “You’ve been - that is -” she gestured around the life shell interior. “I just hope we make planetfall safely.”

  “We’ll do that all right,” said Hook easily enough. He did not add that their problems would then begin anew.

  He’d been spacewrecked before. They might come down on a planet that tolerated human life only a single division above the minimum in the bio-scale. They might face jungles, deserts, icecaps, hostile aliens, terrors almost inconceivable to the human brain. The equipment coupled onto the shell’s computer would sniff out a planet suitable to support human life; it would give no indication of social and environmental conditions upon that planet.

  “I’m Pera Sotherton,” she said. She shivered. “We will come out of this all right, taynor?”

  “The galaxy is a big place,” said Hook, and because of that he added: “I’m Ryder Hook. I expect we’ll make a good planetfall.”

  He’d not previously encountered her among the passengers travelling aboard H.G.L. Starship Iquique. That was not sur prising viewed in terms of the numbers carried, three thousand

  10

  or so this passage; it was remarkable given her beauty and Hook’s eye for a pretty girl.

  “I was going to Albeira,” she said. Hook saw she wanted to talk. “My boss was called there in a frightful hurry and I’m following him - I was following him.”

  Hook seldom ever ventured information about himself. Name: - Ryder Hook. Profession: - you name it, he could probably do it himself or find the contact to have it done. Friends: - None - none - none - except, possibly, Shaeel. Shaeel came from Pertan Major, one of the Hermaphrodite planets, and it was just as well ve hadn’t been aboard Iquique when she blew. Shaeel, like Hook, was a Galactic loner. Home: - where he laid his head. Family: - ah, yes, that was a poser! Aliases: many and varied of which probably the most notorious was Jack Kinch, Galactic Assassin extraordinary. Purpose: - First and foremost to stay alive and keep out of the hands of the Boosted Men, after that, to achieve what he could out of life in this man’s galaxy.

  An insignificant, a petty, a contemptible set of specifications for a man of the hundred and first century - Old Earth Dating - and yet a set that had kept him alive and operating for as long as this. As the shell picked up a bio-acceptable planet and aligned its limited-life Togossen engines, Hook reflected that he might have been a happier man if he’d simply allowed life to wash over him and bring death as a solution to all his troubles. But Ryder Hook wasn’t built in that way. Just so long as a tremor of life flickered in him then just so long would he go on fighting the blind insanity of death and forgetfulness. The whole damned galaxy would have to give in first before he would surrender.

  “I was on my way to Coldharbour.” he said. The information was now meaningless. “They were keeping a position as electronics consultant open for me.”

  “I am sorry, Taynor Hook. I hope they don’t fill the position before we are rescued.” She pronounced taynor with a fullness that showed she had not in her mind used the familiar abridged form of tr. Hook felt she merited tayniss, rather than ts.

  The shell buffetted them with gravitic surges from the Togossen engines and Hook heard the off-phase thump of number

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  three. His intolerant hatred of sloppiness and inefficiency must have flared on his face, for Pera Sotherton flinched back.

  “What ?”

  “The engines,” said Hook. “Those tangl
e-pants of H.G.L, engineers need a bit of smartness knocked into them.”

  “You’d do the knocking?”

  “No need to. I’m a peaceful man, Tayniss Sotherton. I’d just speak to ‘em.”

  “Sooner them than me.”

  Looking at this stranger by her side, Pera Sotherton knew that she spoke a sober truth. She would give a very great deal not to be in this man’s way when he started in on telling somebody a home truth or two.

  She appraised him, her blue eyes wide.

  For all that they were so formally addressing each other as tr. and ts. he was an Earthman as she was an Earthwoman, and for an Earthman he was not overtall, being around two metres in height, He was broad across the shoulders, though, and thick through the chest, and slim around the middle. Pera was not young and silly enough to begin imagining herself being crushed by those thick arms against that massive chest; but the idea undeniably held attractions. This man’s eyes and hair were brown. His face bore unmistakably the marks of a rough and tough life, the lips thin, the nose beaked, the chin arrogant. He would be a bad enemy. She wondered if he had found anyone he called friend, and felt that that person, whoever they might be, would be unduly fortunate. Like any other female predator, she had summed him up as a fascinating acquaintance but a dangerous friend and, in all probability, a disastrous partner.