Victor stared at the ship, his big lips parted in wonder. He sighed noisily.
“We could sure use a ship like that, huh, Captain?” Barnett’s sudden smile was like a crack appearing in granite. “Victor,” he said, “in your simplicity, you have gone to the heart of the matter. We could use a ship like that. Let’s go down and talk with its skipper.” Before strapping in, Victor made sure the freeze-blasters were on full charge.
ON the ground, they sent up an orange and green parley flare, but there was no answer from the alien ship. The planet’s atmosphere tested breathable, with a temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit. After waiting a few minutes, they marched out, freeze-blasters ready under their jumpers.
All three men wore studiously pleasant smiles as they walked the fifty yards between ships.
Up close, the ship was magnificent. Its glistening silver-gray hide had hardly been touched by meteor strikes. The airlock was open and a low hum told them that the generators were recharging.
“Anyone home?” Victor shouted into the airlock. His voice echoed hollowly through the ship. There was no answer—only the soft hum of the generators and the rustle of grass on the plain.
“Where do you suppose they went?” Agee asked.
“For a breath of air, probably,” Barnett said. “I don’t suppose they’d expect any visitors.”
Victor placidly sat down on the ground. Barnett and Agee prowled around the base of the ship, admiring its great drive ports.
“Think you can handle it?” Barnett asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Agee said. “For one thing, it’s conventional drive. The servos don’t matter—oxygen-breathers use similar drive-control systems. It’s just a matter of time until I figure it out.”
“Someone coming,” Victor called.
They hurried back to the airlock. Three hundred yards from the ship was a ragged forest. A figure had just emerged from among the trees, and was walking toward them.
Agee and Victor drew their blasters simultaneously.
Barnett’s binoculars resolved the tiny figure into a rectangular shape, about two feet high by a foot wide. The alien was less than two inches thick and had no head.
Barnett frowned. He had never seen a rectangle floating above tall grass. Adjusting the binoculars, he saw that the alien was roughly humanoid. That is, it had four limbs. Two, almost hidden by the grass, were being used for walking, and the other two jutted stiffly into the air. In its middle, Barnett could just make out two tiny eyes and a mouth. The creature was not wearing any sort of suit or helmet.
“Queer-looking,” Agee muttered, adjusting the aperture of his blaster.
“Suppose he’s all there is?” . “Hope so,” Barnett said, drawing his own blaster.
“Range about two hundred yards.” Agee leveled his weapon, then looked up. “Did you want to talk to him first, Captain?”
“What’s there to say?” Barnett asked, smiling lazily. “Let him get a little closer, though. We don’t want to miss.”
Agee nodded and kept the alien steadily in his sights.
KALEN had stopped at this deserted little world hoping to blast out a few tons of erol, a mineral highly prized by the Mabogian people. He had had no luck. The unused thetnite bomb was still lodged in his body pouch, next to a stray Icerla nut. He would have to return to Mabog with ballast instead of cargo. Well, he thought, emerging from the forest, better luck next—
He was shocked to see a thin, strangely tapered spaceship near his own. He had never expected to find anyone else on this deadly little world. And the inhabitants were waiting in front of his own airlock! Kalen saw at once they were roughly Mabogian in form. There was a race much like them in the Mabogian Union, but their spaceships were completely different. Intuition suggested that these aliens might well be representative of that great civilization rumored to be on the periphery of the Galaxy. He advanced eagerly to meet them.
Strange, the aliens were not moving. Why didn’t they come forward to meet him?
He knew that they saw him, because all three were pointing at him. He walked faster, realizing that he knew nothing of their customs. He only hoped that they didn’t run to long drawn-out ceremonies. Even an hour on this inimical world had tired him. He was hungry, badly in need of a shower . . . Something intensely cold jarred him backward. He looked around apprehensively. Was this some unknown property of the planet?
He moved forward again. Another bolt lanced into him, frosting the outer layer of his hide.
This was serious. Mabogians were among the toughest life-forms in the Galaxy, but they had their limits. Kalen looked around for the source of the trouble.
THE aliens were shooting at him!
For a moment, his thinking centers refused to accept the evidence of his senses. Kalen knew what murder was. He had observed this perversity with stunned horror among certain debased animal forms. And, of course, there were the abnormal psychology books, which documented every case of premeditated murder that had occurred in the history of Mabog.
But to have such a thing actually happen to him! Kalen was unable to believe it.
Another bolt lanced into him. Kalen stood still, trying to convince himself that this was really happening. He couldn’t understand how creatures with sufficient sense of cooperation to run a spaceship could be capable of murder. Besides’, they didn’t even know him!
Almost too late, Kalen whirled and ran toward the forest. All three aliens were firing now and the grass around him was crackling white with frost. His skin surface was completely frosted over. Cold was something the Mabogian constitution was not designed for and the chill was creeping into his internal organs.
But he could still hardly believe it.
Kalen reached the forest and a double blast caught him as he slid behind a tree. He could feel his internal system laboring desperately to restore warmth to his body and, with profound regret, he allowed the darkness to take him.
“STUPID kind of alien,” Agee observed, holstering his blaster.
“Stupid and strong,” Barnett said. “But no oxygen-breather can take much of that.” He grinned proudly and slapped the silver-gray side of the ship. “We’ll christen her Endeavor II.”
“Three cheers for the captain!” Victor cried enthusiastically.
“Save your breath,” Barnett said. “You’ll need it.” He glanced overhead.
“We’ve got about four hours of light left. Victor, transfer the food, oxygen and tools from Endeavor I and disarm her piles. We’ll come back and salvage the old girl some day. But I want to blast off by sundown.” Victor hurried off. Barnett and Agee entered the ship.
The rear half of Endeavor II was filled with generators, engines, converters, servos, fuel and air tanks. Past that was an enormous cargo hold, occupying almost another half of the ship. It was filled with nuts of all shapes and colors, ranging in size from two inches in diameter to some twice the size of a man’s head. That left only two compartments in the bow of the ship. The first should have been a crew room, since it was the only available living space. But it was completely bare. There were no deceleration cots, no tables or chairs—nothing but polished metal floor. In the walls and ceiling were several small openings, but their purpose was not readily apparent. Connected to this room was the pilot’s compartment. It was very small, barely large enough for one man, and the panel under the observation blister was packed solidly with instruments.
“It’s all yours,” Barnett said. “Let’s see what you can do.” Agee nodded, looked for a chair, then squatted in front of the panel. He began to study the layout.
In several hours, Victor had transferred all their stores to Endeavor II. Agee still had not touched anything. He was trying to figure out what controlled what, from the size, color, shape and location of the instruments. It wasn’t easy, even accepting similar nervous systems and patterns of thought. Did the auxiliary step-up system run from left to right? If not, he would have to unlearn his previous flight coordination. Did re
d signify danger to the designers of this ship? If it did, that big switch could be for dumping fuel. But red could also mean hot fuel, in which case the switch might control coarse energy flow.
For all he knew, its purpose was to overload the piles in case of enemy attack.
Agee kept all this in mind as he studied the controls. He wasn’t too worried. For one thing, spaceships were tough beasts, practically indestructible from the inside. For another, he believed he had caught onto the pattern.
BARNETT stuck his head in the doorway, with Victor close behind him. “You ready?”
Agee looked over the panel. “Guess so.” He touched a dial lightly. “This should control the airlocks.”
He turned it. Victor and Barnett waited, perspiring, in the chilly room. They heard the smooth flow of lubricated metal. The air-locks had closed. Agee grinned and blew on his fingertips for luck. “Here’s the air-control system.” He closed a switch.
Out of the ceiling, a yellow smoke began to trickle.
“Impurities in the system,” Agee muttered, adjusting a dial. Victor began to cough.
“Turn it off,” Barnett said.
The smoke poured out in thick streams, filling the two rooms almost instantly.
“Turn it off!”
“I can’t see it!” Agee thrust at the switch, missed and struck a button under it. Immediately the generators began to whine angrily. Blue sparks danced along the panel and jumped to the wall.
Agee staggered back from the panel and collapsed. Victor was already at the door to the cargo hold, trying to hammer it down with his fists. Barnett covered his mouth with one hand and rushed to the panel. He fumbled blindly for the switch, feeling the ship revolve giddily around him. Victor fell to the deck, still beating feebly at the door. Barnett jabbed blindly at the panel.
Instantly the generators stopped. Then Barnett felt a cold breeze on his face. He wiped his streaming eyes and looked up.
A lucky stab had closed the ceiling vents, cutting off the yellow gas. He had accidentally opened the locks, and the gas in the ship was being replaced by the cold night air of the planet. Soon the atmosphere was breathable. Victor climbed shakily to his feet, but Agee didn’t move. Barnett gave the old pilot artificial respiration, cursing softly as he did. Agee’s eyelids finally fluttered and his chest began to rise and fall. A few minutes later, he sat up and shook his head.
“What was that stuff?” Victor asked.
“I’m afraid,” Barnett said, “that our alien friend considered it a breathable atmosphere.”
AGEE shook his head. “Can’t be, Captain. He was here on an oxygen world, walking around with no helmet—”
“Air requirements vary tremendously,” Barnett pointed out. “Let’s face it—our friend’s physical makeup was quite different from ours.”
“That’s not so good,” Agee said.
The three men looked at each other. In the silence that followed, they heard a faint, ominous sound.
“What was that?” Victor yelped, yanking out his blaster.
“Shut up!” Barnett shouted.
They listened. Barnett could feel the hairs lift on the back of his neck as he tried to identify the sound.
It came from a distance. It sounded like metal striking a hard non-metallic object.
The three men looked out the port. In the last glow of sunset, they could see the main port of Endeavor I was open. The sound was coming from the ship.
“It’s impossible,” Agee said. “The freeze-blasters—”
“Didn’t kill him,” Barnett finished.
“That’s bad,” Agee grunted. “That’s very bad.” Victor was still holding his blaster. “Captain, suppose I wander over that way—”
Barnett shook his head. “He wouldn’t let you within ten feet of the lock. No, let me think. Was there anything on board he could use? The piles?”
“I’ve got the links, Captain,” Victor said.
“Good. Then there’s nothing that—”
“The acid,” Agee interrupted. “It’s powerful stuff. But I don’t suppose he can do much with that stuff.”
“Not a thing,” Barnett said. “We’re in this ship and we’re staying here. But get it off the ground now.”
Agee looked at the instrument panel. Half an hour ago, he had almost understood it. Now it was a cunningly rigged death trap—a booby trap, with invisible wires leading to destruction.
The trap was unintentional. But a spaceship was necessarily a machine for living as well as traveling. The controls would try to reproduce the alien’s living conditions, supply his needs.
That might be fatal to them.
“I wish I knew what kind of planet he came from,” Agee said unhappily. If they knew the alien’s environment, they could anticipate what his ship would do. All they knew was that he breathed a poisonous yellow gas.
“We’re doing all right,” Barnett said, without much confidence. “Just dope out the drive mechanism and we’ll leave everything else alone.” Agee turned back to the controls.
Barnett wished he knew what the alien was up to. He stared at the bulk of his old ship in the twilight and listened to the incomprehensible sound of metal striking non-metal.
KALEN was surprised to find that he was still alive. But there was a saying among his people—“Either a Mabogian is killed fast or he isn’t killed at all.”
It was not at all—so far.
Groggily, he sat up and leaned against a tree. The single red sun of the planet was low on the horizon and breezes of poisonous oxygen swirled around him. He tested at once and found that his lungs were still securely sealed. His life-giving yellow air, although vitiated from long use, was still sustaining him.
But he couldn’t seem to get oriented. A few hundred yards away, his ship was resting peacefully. The fading red light glistened from its hull and, for a moment, Kalen was convinced that there were no aliens. He had imagined the whole thing and now he would return to his ship . . .
He saw one of the aliens loaded down with goods, enter his vessel. In a little while, the airlocks closed.
It was true, all of it. He wrenched his mind back to grim realities. He needed food and air badly. His outer skin was dry and cracked, and in need of nutritional cleaning. But food, air and cleansers were on his lost ship. All he had was a single red kerla nut and the thetnite bomb in his body pouch. If he could open and eat the nut, he could regain a little strength. But how could he open it?
It was shocking, how complete his dependence on machinery had been! Now he would have to find some way of doing the most simple, ordinary, everyday things—the sort of things his ship had done automatically, without the operator even thinking about them.
Kalen noticed that the aliens had apparently abandoned their own ship. Why? It didn’t matter. Out on the plain, he would die before morning. His only chance for survival lay inside their ship.
He slid slowly through the grass, stopping only when a wave of dizziness swept over him. He tried to keep watch on his ship. If the aliens came after him now, all would be lost. But nothing happened. After an eternity of crawling, he reached the ship and slipped inside.
It was twilight. In the dimness, he could see that the vessel was old. The walls, too thin in the first place, had been patched and repatched. Everything spoke of long, hard use. He could understand why they wanted his ship. Another wave of dizziness swept over him. It was his body’s way of demanding immediate attention.
Food seemed to be the first problem. He slipped the kerla nut out of his pouch. It was round, almost four inches in diameter, and its hide was two inches thick. Nuts of this sort were the main ingredient of a Mabogian spaceman’s diet. They were energy-packed and would last almost forever, sealed.
He propped the nut against a wall, found a steel bar and smashed down on it. The bar, striking the nut, emitted a hollow, drum-like sound. The nut was undamaged.
Kalen wondered if the sound could be heard by the aliens. He would have to chance it. Setting hims
elf firmly, he flailed away. In fifteen minutes, he was exhausted and the bar was bent almost in half.
The nut was undamaged.
HE was unable to open the nut without a Cracker, a standard device on every Mabogian ship. No one ever thought of opening a nut in any other way. It was terrifying evidence of his helplessness. He lifted the bar for another whack and found that his limbs were stiffening. He dropped the bar and took stock.
His chilled outer hide was hampering his motions. The skin was hardening slowly into impervious horn. Once the hardening was completed, he would be immobilized. Frozen in position, he would sit or stand until he died of suffocation.
Kalen fought back a wave of despair and tried to think. He had to treat his skin without delay. That was more important than food. On board his own ship, he would wash and bathe it, soften it and eventually cure it. But it was doubtful whether the aliens carried the proper cleansers. The only other course was to rip off his outer hide. The second layer would be tender for a few days, but at least he would be mobile.
He searched on stiffening limbs for a Changer. Then he realized that the aliens wouldn’t have even this piece of basic apparatus. He was still on his own.
He took the steel bar, bent it into a hook and inserted the point under a fold of skin. He yanked upward with all his strength.
His skin refused to yield.
Next, he wedged himself between a generator and the wall and inserted the hook in a different way. But his arms weren’t long enough to gain leverage, and the tough hide held stubbornly.
He tried a dozen different positions, unsuccessfully. Without mechanical assistance, he couldn’t hold himself rigidly enough.
Wearily, he dropped the bar. He could do nothing, nothing at all. Then he remembered the thetnite bomb in his pouch.
A primitive part of his mind which he had not previously known existed said that there was an easy way out of all this. He could slip the bomb under the hull of his ship, while the aliens weren’t looking. The light charge would do no more than throw the ship twenty or thirty feet into the air, but would not really damage it.
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