The Alien Dies At Dawn

There was a scream of tortured air over the Mojave Spaceport as a two-man starship dropped on its hot jets toward the wide cementalloy landing field. It slowed and settled gently to the ground. Before the faint wisps of smoke had time to dissipate, the airlock door opened, and a big, broad-shouldered man got out. He dropped lithely to the ground and started off across the field at a quick trot.

He nearly bowled over a field attendant who had been coming toward him. "Hey!" the surprised attendant said. "Don't you want your ship checked?"

"Don't have time," Kendall Stone called back, as he continued running toward the Customs Office. He glanced at his watch. 1800. Twelve hours till dawn. Twelve hours!

Kendall Stone gritted his teeth and doubled his pace. He was in a super-plus top-level hurry. He'd practically burned a hole in the vacuum between Earth and Mars trying to get to Mojave on time. Twelve hours! At dawn, Galth of Rastol would die in the execution chamber for the crime of murder. And it was up to Kendall Stone to stop it.

He opened the door to the Main Lounge of the spaceport building and pushed his way through the thick, jostling crowd, moving slowly toward the Customs Office. He hardly noticed the people he shoved aside. There was only one thought in his mind: I've only got twelve hours .

Personally, Stone didn't give an octangle damn about Galth; he didn't even know the Rastolian personally—had never heard of him until a short time ago. But if Galth of Rastol died, so would a thousand others. The human colony on Rastol III would be wiped out in reprisal.

Including, Stone thought bitterly, the wife and two sons he had left behind to go on this purchasing trip.

The Customs Office was in sight now. He threaded his way through the mob. Just before he reached the door, he was almost pushed off balance by a squat, chubby little man who steadied him, apologized profusely, and went on his way.

Scowling angrily, Stone stepped inside the Customs Office. A hard-faced man in uniform sat behind the broad desk, looking up at him boredly.

"Yes?"

"I have a cargo of Martian valdone aboard my ship, and I want to report it," Stone said.

The official nodded. "Do you have the import permission papers?"

Kendall shook his head. "I don't intend to import the stuff to Earth; I'm just stopping over here until I can get some very important business cleared up. But valdone is a dangerous drug, and I simply wanted to report the fact that I have a hundred kilograms of it aboard my ship."

"I see," said the official, making a note on a minipad. "We'll have to put a seal on the ship until you are ready to take off again."

"That's perfectly all right," Kendall agreed. Anything would have been all right, as long as it didn't take much of the precious time remaining before dawn.

The official extended his hand. "Your papers, please."

Kendall reached inside his jacket pocket for the small booklet of identification papers. An icy shiver ran down his back.

The booklet was gone.

"What's the matter?" the official asked.

"My ID booklet is gone! I put it in my jacket just before I left the ship; I must have lost it on my way over here."

"If that's the case, someone will return it," the Customs official said. "It's of no use to anyone else. We'll send out a call for it. Meanwhile, I'm afraid you'll have to remain inside the spaceport."

Kendall scowled. Of all the lousy time-wasting pieces of red-tape, he thought. He felt trapped by bureaucracy. He didn't have time to waste hanging around the spaceport tonight.

"We'll also ask for confirmation over the subradio," said the official. "What is your home planet?"

"Rastol III, near Deneb."

"Very well. Even if we don't find your ID booklet, we can give you a temporary pass if you are identified from Rastol by subradio."

Stone felt a cold trickle of perspiration forming on his forehead. "That's going to take nearly twenty-four hours," he objected. "Isn't there a faster way?"

The official shook his head and shrugged, the timeless gesture of all bureaucrats. "I'm afraid not. Not unless we find your ID booklet."

Like a caged tiger, Kendall Stone paced the administration area of the spaceport for an hour, hoping doggedly that the ID booklet would turn up somewhere out on the field. But an hour later, there was still no sign of the booklet, and Stone felt himself growing desperate. The glowing ball of Sol had already set behind the western horizon. Night had fallen—the night whose end would bring the death of Galth of Rastol and of a thousand innocent, unsuspecting colonists.

Stone stared at the polychrome hues of the sunset for a long minute, clenched his fists, and made his decision; there was only one thing to do.

He strolled quietly around the spaceport, looking for a way out. There were none which were unguarded; Earth didn't like unwanted or unauthorized colonists sneaking in on them.

Finally, he chose one of the smaller gates at random and walked up to the guard. The sign over the gate said: OFFICIAL PERSONNEL ONLY.

Kendall walked straight up to the guard as though he had every right in the galaxy to go through the gate. The man looked up at him unsuspiciously, as though waiting for Stone to produce his ID booklet.

Kendall kept walking toward him, putting his hand inside his jacket and fumbling around as though searching for the booklet. "Must be here someplace," he murmured, as he came within earshot.

When he was within three feet of the unsuspecting guard, Stone withdrew his hand and swung his fist in a hard, short arc which landed crunchingly on the point of the guard's chin. The man staggered and groped groggily for his gun.

"No you don't!" Stone said quietly. He sent another driving fist into the guard's solar plexus, and the man folded up like an empty potato sack.

Stone caught him before he hit the ground. "Sorry, pal," he whispered, "but I've got work to do." He lowered the guard gently to the ground.

The sudden shrill blast of a whistle broke the twilight silence somewhere to his left. Someone had seen the attack. Kendall didn't wait for further discussion. He ran at top speed through the gate and into the gathering darkness beyond.

Fifteen minutes later he was in Mojave City.

The city, which had grown up around the spaceport, was a sprawling, busy place. Stone headed straight into the heart of town.

He stopped in at the first store he met, and before the shopkeeper could say anything, he burst out with, "I'm in a hurry, friend. Can you tell me how to get to the Governor?"

The merchant, a small, pale man wearing a greasy apron, smiled and said, "You won't be able to get to him easily, my good sir. You'll have to see his Secretary. It's the way it's done."

"All right, where's his Secretary to be found?" Stone barked. He received full directions on how to reach the Secretary's residence, and snapped a "Thanks" and left.

It was a short trip by bus, but Stone decided to walk. Walking would work off some of the nervous energy that was accumulating in him, making him tense and keyed-up.

He reviewed the situation bitterly as he strode through the brightly-lit streets.

The Rastolians were a peculiar race. They looked something like reptiles walking on their hind feet, but they had warm blood and were mammalian in several respects. The Government of Earth knew that much about them.

What the Government didn't seem to know much about was the Rastolian moral code. The Rastolians did not believe that any government had a right to kill one of its citizens. Even murder could be punished only by life imprisonment. Usually, though, a Rastolian convicted of murder was simply given a gun with one shot in it and left alone in his cell. Regardless of how despicable his crime may have been, no Rastolian was so completely without honor that he would refuse to take the proper steps to punish himself.

Galth of Rastol had been convicted and condemned. He had, the jury found, murdered an Earthman in cold blood over a gambling dispute. But if Earth sent him to the execution chamber, his fellow beings, outraged over the injury and the insult to their way of life, would take steps to avenge him. And that would be the end of the small colony of humans on Rastol III.

Stone thought of his wife—who looked much too young to be the mother of two children, who looked as fresh and desirable as she had the day Stone had married her. She would perish with them. His sons; his home. He shook his head bitterly. The tragedy could be averted if he could reach the Governor's Secretary, if he could convince the Secretary that there must be a stay of execution. The Government had to allow Galth of Rastol the chance to kill himself in accordance with his people's customs.

He glanced up at the street-sign. This was the street. It was a quiet, residential block, lacking the fluorescent streetlamps of the business district. He saw the house, and headed for it.

As he started up the long walk toward the house, two figures stepped out of the shadows.

"Put up your hands, Mr. Stone," said the taller of the two. "The Secretary wants to see you."

Stone frowned puzzledly, but made no resistance. He didn't care to argue with a naked gun, and they were taking him where he was heading anyway. He raised his hands and folded them behind his head, and let them march him up the concrete pathway.

The Secretary was a heavy-set, heavy-jowled man with a smile on his lips and a calculating look in his eyes. He sat comfortably in an overinflated pneumochair, smoking a cigar.

"Well, Mr. Stone," he said, eyeing Kendall coldly, "may I ask you why you broke away from the spaceport? That is a serious offense, you know."

Stone moistened dry lips. "I know, Mr. Secretary, but it was an emergency. I lost my ID booklet, and I had to get to see you before it was too late."

The Secretary ignored that. "What is your business, Mr. Stone?" he asked, narrowing his eyes penetratingly. "Why have you come from Rastol III?"

"I came to pick up a hundred pounds of Martian valdone ," Stone explained. "We use it on Rastol III to make antivirotic drugs in combination with extracts from Apler's Weed. The weed only grows on two planets, Rastol III and Vescalor IX."

The Secretary grinned complacently, but did not say anything. Stone began to sweat.

"While I was on Mars, I heard that the Rastolian native, Galth, was to be executed, so I came here to ask the Governor to stay the execution." He went on to explain in detail what would happen if Galth were to be executed.

When he finished, he stared at the Secretary, searching the man's face for some sign of interest. "Would you phone the Governor and tell him what I've just told you?" he asked hoarsely.

"I'm afraid we can't do anything like that on the word of an unidentified man, Mr. Stone," the Secretary said calmly. "As soon as your identification comes through—"

"But that will be too late! Can't you see that this may mean the death of thousands of innocent people?"

The Secretary held up his hand, palm out, for silence. "I'm sorry, Mr. Stone. I can't take the unsubstantiated word of every crackpot that comes in here." He reached over and turned on the visiphone. "I'm going to have to call the police," he said. He looked over at the shorter of the two men who had brought Stone in. "Miller, take Mr. Stone into the other room and hold him until the police arrive."

The squat man took his gun out. "Let's go."

Kendall turned toward the man named Miller, and for the first time saw his face clearly. In the darkness outside, he hadn't had a really good look at the man, and since he'd been in the Secretary's study, he hadn't paid any attention to the men who stood behind him. But as he faced the pudgy little man, he realized that the face was definitely familiar. He struggled to recall where he had seen the man before.

"In here, fellow," the squat man said, jostling Stone into what was probably the library. Keeping the gun trained on him with one hand, Miller lit a cigarette with the other, and a cloud of bluish smoke curled upward.

Stone watched him. Suddenly, he remembered the face. The little man was the same one who had bumped into him in the spaceport terminal, just outside the Customs Room! He knew now what had happened to his ID booklet. The fat little man was a pickpocket.

And if he was working for the Secretary—

Stone sucked in his breath sharply. This involved more than mere ignorance about Rastolian customs; this was a conspiracy to wipe out the colony of Earthmen up there!

He glanced at the clock on the wall. Not much time left. Overhead, he heard the gentle whirring of a police helicopter. They weren't wasting a moment in getting him clamped away where he couldn't do any harm.

He glanced up at the noise, and Miller automatically glanced up too. Kendall's hand shot out, enclosing the squat man's gun hand in a vice-like grip. Miller started to yell, but his antagonist's fist smashed into his mouth before he could say anything. Miller dropped to the floor.

Kendall picked up the gun, shoved it into his pocket, and threw the little man easily over his shoulder. Then he headed for the French windows that opened onto the balcony.

The police copter was landing on the roof as Kendall dropped from the balcony and sprinted silently across the lawn. He ran to the garage, opened the door to one of the Secretary's cars, and dumped Miller in the back seat. It was but the work of a moment to short through the starting switch. The hum of the turboelectric engine was completely drowned out by the whirring of the copter blades above.

Without turning on the headlights, Kendall rolled the car out into the street and drove toward an aircab stand. He was several blocks from the Secretary's house before he turned on the headlights.

He parked the Secretary's car in a darkened alley a block away from the aircab office. As he drew back the handbrake, he heard Miller groan faintly in the back.

"Quiet, friend," he said soothingly, and tapped him lightly on the head with the butt of the gun. Rapidly he went through the fat little man's pockets, tossing out cards of all different sorts before finding what he was looking for. Sure enough, there was his ID booklet.

The picture was starting to take shape now, with everything falling into place except the answer to the big question: Why?

Why was the Secretary so anxious to see Stone out of the way? What was the whole business about? He didn't know.

He pocketed the ID booklet. It wouldn't help him now, not with the police after him for breaking away from the spaceport, and maybe a kidnapping charge on top of that.

Glancing at Miller to make sure he'd be out for a while to come, Stone got out of the car and walked the block to the aircab office. It was easy to rent one of them. All he had to do was show the bored clerk his ID booklet, and sign for the cab.

"Remember," the clerk cautioned, "you can't take off inside the city limits. You'll have to drive outside Mojave first."

"I know," Kendall said as he shoved the bills across the counter. "Thanks."

He drove the aircar back to where he had left Miller in the Secretary's car, and transferred the unconscious man to the rear seat of the aircab. He looked around; no one in sight. Good , he thought. Then, in direct violation of the law, he lifted the aircar and headed into the night sky. The moon was bright overhead; the time was running short.

The Governor's palace was over a hundred and fifty miles away. Stone figured he'd make it with very little time to spare. He set the autopilot, and reached back with one big hand to pick up Miller by his lapels.

"Wake up, Miller!"

The fat man shook his head groggily and opened one eye. He groaned.

Stone slapped him across the face, just hard enough to sting. "Come on, damn you, wake up!"

"Lemme alone," Miller murmured. A sharp blow with an open hand brought him to some attention. "Leggo."

Stone shook him until his head wobbled. "Get up and look alive. I want to talk to you."

"I ain't sayin' nothin'," Miller said sullenly. "I don't know nothin', and I can't tell you a thing."

A few seconds' quick persuasion and he had changed his mind. "All right!" he yelled. "All right! I ain't got anything to lose, anyhow, unless you want to get me for pickin' your pocket."

"I won't prosecute you if you talk," Kendall promised.

"Okay," Miller grunted. "You won't live to use the information anyway." He sat up and rubbed his jaw. "The Secretary owns a lot of stock in the colony that's making antivirotic drugs on Vescalor IX. He wanted to put Rastol III out of commission so that the drugs would have to be bought from Vescalor IX. So he framed this alien Galth and had him sentenced to the execution chamber. He knew what would happen if the Government executed a Rastolian."

Stone pounded his fist against the seat. "Don't the lives of a thousand innocent people mean anything to him?"

"I never asked him, mister."

Stone started to lash out angrily at Miller, then pulled back the fist. "Then Galth didn't kill the Earthman?"

"Nope. Penowski did. The tall guy who was with me in the Secretary's place."

Kendall reached out one hand and clamped it tightly on the small man's shoulder. Miller winced. "You're going to tell the Governor your story," Stone said. "Every word."

Miller shook his head. "Oh, no. You can slap me around all you want, but I ain't gonna get myself in hot water that way. No, sir, brother. If the—LOOK OUT!"

Stone whirled and saw an aircar approaching, dropping down on his tail. A white-hot beam flashed from it, blistering the paint on Stone's ship.

Luckily, it was difficult for the other man to aim. The aircars were flying at close to three hundred miles an hour.

He snapped off the switch of the autopilot and sent the little aircar into a high, screaming climb. Another beam flashed by.

Kendall spun the ship into a back loop and barrel-rolled, bringing him in on the tail of the other aircar. But the other driver was cagey; he went into a hard right turn and tried to come up under Stone's vehicle.

Stone could see that the other aircraft definitely was not a police craft. An official car would have externally-mounted, automatically-controlled guns that would have shot Stone out of the skies with the first blast. No; this was a highly unofficial, extra-legal affair.

Another beam sizzled by so close that it gouged a spot out of the side of the ship. Stone reached down, groping for the gun he'd taken from Miller. It had been lying on the seat beside him, but it was gone now. Stone cursed. It must have slid to the floor when he spun the ship around.

"Never mind, Stone," Miller said coldly. "I got the gun now."

Kendall said nothing. He didn't even have time to curse. He was too busy trying to avoid the white-hot blasts from the other aircar. He sent the ship into a power dive and shoved in on the throttle. He didn't know if the little car would take what he was going to give it, but it was his only chance. If he survived—well, that was fine. If he didn't, the last hope of the little colony was dead.

"You'll kill us!" yelled Miller. He put the gun against Kendall's neck. "Stop it! You'll kill us!"

"Shut up and put that gun away, Miller," Stone snapped without moving his head. "If you shoot me, we'll both die. This is the only way we can keep your pals from murdering both of us."

Miller said nothing, but the cold pressure of the muzzle left Stone's neck.

Suddenly, Kendall heaved back on the control wheel, pulling the aircar out of its dive. He hung on grimly as the centrifugal force of the pullout dragged the blood from his brain. Then he blacked out.

When consciousness returned, the sturdy little aircar was climbing skyward. Stone glanced around. Miller was still unconscious, lying slumped in a rotund heap down at the floor of the aircab. Stone hauled him up, applied a hard punch to the jaw to make sure he'd stay that way, and let him sag back down. Then he grabbed the gun from the unconscious man's lap.

The other aircar was about half a mile away, heading toward him. Evidently the other pilot had blacked out, too. Overhead the moon glittered brightly. The night was wearing along. And when the sun's rays trickled over the horizon—

Holding on to the wheel with his right hand, Kendall opened the window a tiny bit and stuck his left hand out. The blast of air that tore past almost ripped the gun from his hand.

He gripped it harder, until the knuckles whitened, and turned the ship to face his assailant. A chill wind blew through the cabin. Sighting the pistol by instinct alone, he squeezed the trigger.

The blue-white beam speared out, burning off part of the control surfaces of the other car. It shuddered and spun, and then began to spiral downward.

Kendall Stone closed the window, grasped the controls, and pointed the aircar toward the Governor's palace.

The Governor yawned sleepily as Kendall Stone finished his story. He glanced at Miller, who was pinioned securely between two burly Security Guards.

"Well?"

"It's true," the fat man said.

"Oh?" Stone asked. "Why the sudden nobility, Miller?"

"It's not nobility," Miller said. "They came after your ship knowing I was in it—and that didn't keep them from shooting me down. Why shouldn't I turn them in, if it'll save my own skin?"

"You should have known," Kendall said, "that people like those two wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice you. They'd already planned to kill a whole colony, you know."

The Governor, who had watched the whole interchange of conversation rather impatiently, smiled grimly. "Mr. Stone, I think we all owe you an apology. This has been a gross miscarriage of justice." He was wide awake now. He turned to one of the guards.

"Fallon, get the Warden on the phone right away. Tell him the sentence of death on Galth of Rastol has been commuted. Tell him that the real murderer will be punished."

The guard returned a moment later.

"Well?" the Governor demanded.

"They were just leading him into the death cell when the message arrived," the guard said. "They've returned him to confinement pending the written pardon."

Kendall Stone sank down limply on a chair.

He glanced at his watch. 0545.

Outside the window, the first rays of dawn were breaking through the murky night. He thought of his family awakening light years away. The sun would be coming up too on Rastol....