Read Ebook: Remember me Kama! by Kubilius Walter Giunta John Illustrator

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Ebook has 109 lines and 6131 words, and 3 pages

Illustrator: John Giunta

Remember Me, Kama!

Old Cobber's hand trembled slightly as he turned his tankbox so that his guns would point at the crew working outside.

Wilson, atop the white hill, watching the men clear away the ammonia snow drifts from the jets of the rocket, was the first to notice the challenging position of Cobber in his tankbox.

"Are you getting in or out of the airlock?" he radioed to Cobber. "Make up your mind."

The old man's lips were dry and his voice was hoarse as he spoke into the mouthpiece.

"I am going to blow up the ship," he said.

Instantly the work of clearing the field stopped. Through the haze of poison air that surrounded the planet, Cobber could see them wheel into a semi-circle not more than thirty yards away from him and the airlock that he held.

Wilson's tank rumbled a few feet forward from the semi-circle.

"You don't dare shoot, Cobber," he said quietly. "You're outnumbered thirty to one."

"Stand back! All of you!" Cobber shouted into the mike. "I'll blow up the first one that moves!"

"Don't be a fool, Cobber," Wilson said. "There's enough catalytic rock stored in the ship for all of us. I can make you a rich man. Put down those guns and we'll forget what has happened. Put down those guns."

"This ship is not going back to Earth," Cobber said.

"Put down those guns, Cobber!" Wilson shouted. "You can't win!"

Cobber turned the knob and shut off Wilson's loud voice. He then opened one of the dinatro bombs that lay beside him, unscrewed the cap and tossed it into the back of the car with the other neatly stacked-up explosives.

"Ten seconds!" he yelled.

The men were stunned for a moment by the suddenness of his decision to blow up the ship. They stood dumfounded, not knowing what to do, until one of them screamed "Dinatro!" Panic-stricken, they dashed their tanks for the meager protection of the nearby cliffs.

Wilson's tank stood still, not moving.

"You're bluffing, Cobber," he called out. "You want to scare the men away so you can seize the ship and get back to Earth. All right, Cobber, you win. Only you and I will share the cargo. I'm coming in."

One second.

Two.

Three.

"There's more than a cargo at stake," Cobber said.

Four seconds.

Five.

Six.

"Remember me, Kama!" Cobber said softly to himself.

Seven.

Eight....

The silent bulbous mass that was the Great Kama extended an undulating growing finger and pointed. When Cobber saw the charred bodies of the Kamae he knew what it meant to have one's people ravaged and killed. In that moment he forget the rosy glow of ammonia snow on the mountain tops and the purple clouds that battled majestically over the planet.

Here and there the anhydrous bodies of the Kamae lay stone still. The small village, tucked away by the shores of the russet sea, was wiped out. Many of the bodies were ripped apart, torn to shreds as if by some monster from the depths of the methane sea.

He had seen death before and he had seen brother kill brother on a hundred different planets in as many solar systems. Each time its horror and tragedy cut him deep. Cobber felt sick at heart.

"I did not know ..." he began despairingly.

His words were cut short by the overwhelming emotion of pain and hurt anger that forced itself out of the organ-less body of the Great Kama, through the poison atmosphere of the planet, through the walls of the tank-car and into Cobber's consciousness. It was held back, its power could overwhelm him, but Cobber could sense the enormity of the tragedy that racked the bubbly form of his Kama friend.

He looked through the window of his small car and watched his strange comrade leave him, gliding like a living liquid over the knolls and hills. Other men of Earth could feel only revulsion and disgust when their eyes fell on one of the Kamae. But Cobber was not like other men.

He had seen, in the years of his wanderings, enough of creation's mysteries to realize that the surface manifestations and expression of life were meaningless. Where men like Wilson would reach for a gun to blast it, Cobber would reach out to it with understanding and friendship.

Be it a crystal that grew into pulsating life with every sun ray, or the flesh and blood of Earth, or the singing strings of Orion--it did not matter. Life alone made them brothers. It was this realization that enabled him to be a friend to Kama. It was this knowledge that made him feel the immensity of the tragic despair which engulfed his strange other-world companion.

Gingerly he adjusted the controls of the tank-car so that it would walk carefully through the village. Years ago the crude spacesuits with which planetary explorers were encumbered were found to be too clumsy and dangerous for use. In their place were developed the tank-cars.

They were miniature houses on wheels and legs, faintly reminiscent of ancient battle-tanks, equipped for travel on sand, rock, hill, water and a thousand other fields. Tentacles, mechanical arms and legs were finally developed, making the tank-cars a thousand times superior to clumsy, inefficient spacesuits.

The metallic legs of the car, immune to the gaseous atmosphere, carefully stepped over the bodies. On the hilltop, through the mist that clouded the vision plates of the car, he could see the other villages being destroyed, as this one was.

Cobber shuddered. The planet of Kama was like death itself without the ghastly war that had descended upon it.

Seeing the crimson thunderhead clouds rear high into the stratosphere and knowing the approach of another storm, he hastened the speed of his car towards the huge mother-ship.

In an hour's time he found it, half buried among the great ammonia snow drifts. He folded the legs of his car, let it descend into a riding position and, metallic treads rumbling, rode into the airlock that opened to meet him. As it rolled in, the wall in back descended, imprisoning the car.

He waited patiently as the poison air was extracted from the lock. When the indicators registered the absence of carbon disulphide vapor he opened the top of his car and crawled out. The door leading into the airlock opened. Jina's face greeted him as Cobber walked through.

"Welcome home, Cobber!" he said. "We were beginning to worry about you."

Cobber tapped his feet experimentally on the floor of the ship. "It feels good to stretch out again after fourteen days in the tank. Air would have run low soon."

As was the ship's rule, Jina replaced the empty food drawers, stored up the fuel tanks, replenished the air supply and turned to the stacks of dinatro bombs in the back of the car.

"Shall I clear these out?" Jina asked.

"No. Let them stay," Cobber said. Before he could leave the dressing room the other officers and members of the crew came into the room.

"What did you hear?" they asked. Anxiety was written over their faces. Evidently they had already seen the effects of war. They waited, intent upon him.

"The peace is ended among the Kamae," he told them.

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