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. 5 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, 6 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 tell-tales. 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 7 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 scr...
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