The second fortress fell exactly as the first had fallen. The pilot landed the cruiser in the middle of the shallow lakelet. Cloud saw that the Dhilians, overwhelmingly superior in numbers now, had cleared the air of Nhalian craft.
“Can you fellows and your ships keep them off of my flitter while I take my readings?”
“We can,” the natives radiated happily.
Four of the armored boneheads were wearing the semiportables. They had them perched lightly atop their feeding heads, held immovably in place by two arms apiece. One hand sufficed to operate the controls, leaving two hands free to do whatever else might prove in order.
“Let us out!”
The lock opened, the Dhilian warriors sprang out and splashed away to meet the enemy, who were already dashing into the lagoon.
Cloud watched pure carnage. He hoped—yes, there they were! The loyalists, seeing that their cause was not lost, after all, had armed themselves and were smashing into the fray.
The Blaster broke out his flitter then, set it down near the vortex, and made his observations. Everything was normal. He selected three bombs from his vast stock, loaded them into the tubes, and lofted. He set his screens, adjusted his goggles, and waited; while far above him and wide around him his guardian Dhilian war-vessels toured watchfully, their drumming blasts a reassuring thunder.
He waited, eyeing the sigma curve as it flowed backward from the recording pen, until he got a ten-second prediction. He shot the flitter forward, solving instantaneously the problems of velocity and trajectory. At exactly the correct instant he released a bomb. He cut his drive and went free.
The bomb sped truly, striking the vortex dead center. It penetrated deeply enough. The carefully-weighed charge of duodec exploded; its energy and that of the vortex combining in a detonation whose like no inhabitant of that solar system had ever even dimly imagined.
The noxious gases and the pall of smoke and pulverized debris blew aside; the frightful waves of lava quieted down. The vortex was out and would remain out. The Blaster drove back to the cruiser and put his flitter away.
“Oh—you did it! Thanks! I didn’t believe that you—that anybody—really could!” Luda was almost hysterical in her joyous relief.
“Nothing to it,” Cloud deprecated. “How are you doing on the mopping up?”
“Practically clean,” Luda answered, grimly. “We now know who is who. Those who fought against us or who did not fight for us are, or very soon will be, dead. But the Nhalian fleet comes. Does yours? Ours takes off in moments.”
“Wait a minute!” Cloud sat down at his plate, made observations and measurements, calculated mentally. He turned on his communicator and conferred briefly.
“The Nhalian fleet will be here in seven hours and eighteen minutes. If your people go out to meet them it will mean a war that not even the Patrol can stop without destroying most of the ships and men both of you have in space. The Patrol task force will arrive in seven hours and thirty one minutes. Therefore, I suggest that you hold your fleet here, in formation but quiescent, under instructions not to move until you order them to, while you and I go out and see if we can’t stop the Nhalians.”
“Stop them!” Luda’s thought was not at all ladylike. “What with, pray?”
“I don’t know,” Cloud confessed, “but it wouldn’t do any harm to try, would it?”
“Probably not. We’ll try.”
All the way out Cloud pondered ways and means. As they neared the onrushing fleet he thought at Luda:
“Darjeeb is undoubtedly with that fleet. He knows that this is the only inertialess ship in this part of space. He wants it more than anything else in the universe. Now if we could only make him listen to reason…if we could make him see…”
He broke off. No soap. You couldn’t explain “green” to a man born blind. These folks didn’t know and wouldn’t believe what real fire-power was. The weakest vessel in this oncoming task-force could blast both of these boneheads’ fleets into a radiant gas in fifteen seconds flat—and the superdreadnoughts’ primaries would be starkly incredible to both Luda and Darjeeb. They simply had to be seen in action to be believed; and then it would be too late.
These people didn’t stand the chance of a bug under a sledge-hammer, but they’d have to be killed before they’d believe it. A damned shame, too. The joy, the satisfaction, the real advancement possible only through cooperation with each other and with the millions of races of Galactic Civilization—if there were only some means of making them believe…
“We—and they—do believe.” Luda broke into his somber musings.
“Huh? What? You do? You were listening?”
“Certainly. At your first thought I put myself en rapport with Darjeeb, and he and our peoples listened to your thoughts.”
“But…you really believe me?”
“We all believe. Some will cooperate, however, only as far as it will serve their own ends to do so. Your Lensmen will undoubtedly have to kill that insect Darjeeb and others of his kind in the interest of lasting peace.”
The insulted Nhalian drove in a protesting thought, but Luda ignored it and went on:
“You think, then, Tellurian, that your Lensmen can cope with even such as Darjeeb of Nhal?”
“I’ll say they can!”
“It is well, then. Come aboard, Darjeeb—unarmed and unarmored, as I am—and we will together go to confer with these visiting Lensmen of Galactic Civilization. It is understood that there will be no warfare until our return.”
“Holy Klono!” Cloud gasped. “He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Certainly.” Luda was surprised at the question. “Although he is an insect, and morally and ethically beneath contempt he is, after all, a reasoning being.”
“QX.” Cloud was dumbfounded, but tried manfully not to show it.
Darjeeb came aboard. He was heavily bandaged and most of his hands were useless, but he seemed to bear no ill-will. Cloud gave orders; the ship flashed away to meet the Patrolmen.
The conference was held. The boneheads, after being taken through a superdreadnought and through a library by Lensmen as telepathic as themselves, capitulated to Civilization immediately and whole-heartedly.
“You won’t need me any more, will you, admiral?” Cloud asked then.
“I don’t think so—no. Nice job, Cloud.”
“Thanks. I’ll be on my way, then; the people I picked up must be off my ship by this time. Clear ether.
Chapter VII
THE BLASTER ACQUIRES A CREW
CLOUD, RETURNING to his cruiser, found that most of his shipwrecked passengers had departed. Five of them, however—the two Chickladorians, the Manarkan, the squatty, and the Vegian—were still on board. Thlaskin, now back to normal, came to attention and saluted crisply; the women bowed or nodded and looked at him with varying degrees of interrogation.
“How come, Thlaskin? I thought all the passengers were going back with the task-force.”
“They are, boss. They’ve gone. We followed your orders, boss—chivied ’em off. I checked with the flagship about more crew besides us, and he says QX. Just tell me now many you want of what, and I’ll get ’em.”
“I don’t want anybody!” Cloud snapped. “Not even you. Not any of you.”
“Jet back, boss!” Spaceal was a simple language, and inherently slangy and profane, but there was no doubt as to the intensity of the pilot’s feelings. “I don’t know why you were running this heap alone, or how long, but I got a couple questions to ask. Do you know just how many million ways these goddam automatics can go haywire in? Do you know what to do about half of ’em when they do? Or are you just simply completely nuts?”
“No. Not too much. I don’t think so. As he answered the three questions in order Cloud’s mind flashed back to what Phil Strong and several other men had tried so heatedly to impress upon him—the stupidity, the lunacy, the sheer, stark idiocy of a man of his training trying to go it solo in deep space. How did one say “
You have a point there, but before I make such a momentous decision we should explore the various possibilities of what is a completely unexpected development” in spaceal? One didn’t! Instead:
“Maybe QX, maybe not. We’ll talk it over. Tell the Manarkan to try to work me direct—maybe I can receive her now, after working the boneheads.”
She could. Communication was not, perhaps, as clear as between two Manarkans or two Lensmen, but it was clear enough.
“You wish to know why I have included myself in your crew,” the white-swathed girl began, as soon as communication was established. “It is the law. This vessel, the Vortex Blaster I, of Earth registry, belonging to the Galactic Patrol, is of a tonnage which obligates it to carry a medical doctor; or, in and for the duration of an emergency only, a registered graduate nurse. I am both R.N. and M.D. If you prefer to employ some other nursing doctor or doctor and nurse that is of course your right; but I can not and will not leave this ship until I am replaced by competent personnel. If I did such a thing I would be disgraced for life.”
“But I haven’t got a payroll—I never have had one!” Cloud protested.
“Don’t quibble, please. It is also the law that any master or acting master of any ship of this tonnage is authorized to employ for his owner—in this case the Galactic Patrol—whatever personnel is necessary, whenever necessary, at his discretion. With or without pay, however. I stay on until replaced.”
“But I don’t need a doctor—or a nurse, either!”
“Personally, now, no,” she conceded, equably enough. “I checked into that. As the chief of your great laboratory quoted to you, ‘This too, shall pass.’ It is passing. But you must have a crew; and any member of it, or you yourself, may require medical or surgical attention at any time. The only question, then, is whether or not you wish to replace me, Would you like to examine my credentials?”
“No. Having been en rapport with your mind, it is not necessary. But are you, after your position aboard the ship which was lost, interested in such a small job as this?”
“I would like it very much. I’m sure.”
“Very well. If any of them stay, you can—at the same pay you were getting.
“Now, Thlaskin, the Vegian. No, hold it! We’ve got to have something better than spaceal, and a lot of Vegians go in for languages in a big way. She may know English or Spanish, since Vegia is one of Tellus’ next-door neighbors. I’ll try her myself.”
Then, to the girl, “Do you speak English, miss?”
“No, eggzept in glimzzez only,” came the startling reply. “Two Galactic Zdandard yearzz be pazz—come? Go?—’ere I mazzter zhe, zo perverze mood and tenze. Zhe izz zo difficult and abzdruze.”
Switching to Galactic Spanish, which language was threatening to become the common tongue of Galactic Civilization, she went on:
“But I heard you say ‘Zbanidge.’ I know Galactic Spanish very well. I speak it well, too, except for the sounds of ‘ezz’ and ‘zeta,’ which all we Vegians must make much too hard—z-z-z-, zo. One hears that nearly all educated Tellurians have the Spanish, and you are educated, of a certainty. You speak it, no?”
“Practically as well as I do English.” Cloud made relieved reply. “You have very little accent, and that little is charming. My name is Neal Cloud. May I ask yours?”
“Neelcloud? I greet you. Mine is Vezzptkn…but no, you couldn’t pronounce it. ‘Vezzta,’ it would have to be in your tongue.”
“QX. We have a name very close to that—Vesta.”
“That’s exactly what I said—Vezz-ta.”
“Oh—excuse me, please. You were talking to this lady—Tomingan, she said? What language were you using?”
“Fourth-continent Tomingan, Middle Plateau dialect. Hers. She was an engineer in a big power plant on Manarka, is how she came to learn their sign language. Tomingans don’t go in for linguistics much.”
“And you very evidently do. How many languages do you know, young lady?”
“Only fifty so far—plus their dialects, of course. I’m only half-way to my Master of Languages degree. Fifty more to learn yet, including your cursed Englidge. P-f-zt-k!” Vesta wrinkled her nose, bared her teeth, and emitted a noise very similar to that made by an alley cat upon meeting a strange dog. “I don’t know whether spaceal will count for credit or not, but I’m going to learn it anyway.”
“Nice going, Vesta. Now, why did you appoint yourself a member of this party?”
“I wanted to go, and since I can’t pay fare…”
“You wouldn’t have had to!” Cloud interrupted. “If you lost your money aboard that ship, the Patrol would take you anywhere…”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that.” She dipped into her belt-bag and held out for the man’s inspection a book of Travelers’ Cheques good for fifty thousand G-P credits! “I wanted to continue with you, and I knew this wasn’t a passenger ship. I can be useful—who do you think lined up that translation relay?—and besides, I can work. I can cook—keep house—and I can learn any other job fast. You believe me?”
Cloud looked at her. She was as tall as he was, and heavier; stronger and faster. “Yes, you can work, if you want to, and I think you would. But you haven’t said why you want to go along.”
“Mostly because it’s the best chance I’ll ever have to learn English. I went to Tellus once before to learn it—but there are too many Vegians there. Young Vegians, like me, like to play too much. You know?”
“I’ve heard so. But teachers, courses…?”
“I need neither teachers nor courses. What I need is what you have in your library—solid English.”
“QX. I’ll reserve judgment on you, too. Now let’s hear what the Tomingan has to say. What’s her name?”
“You’d be surprised!” Vesta giggled in glee. “Literally translated, it’s ‘Little flower of spring, dwelling bashfully by the brook’s damply sweet brink.’ And that’s an exact transliteration, so help me—believe it or not!”
“I’ll take your word for it. What shall we call her?”
“Um…m…‘Tommie’ would be as good as anything, I guess.”
“QX. Tommie of Tominga, Ask her why she thinks she has to be a member of our crew.”
“Who else do you have who can repair one of your big atomic engines if it lets go?” came the answering question, in Vesta’s flawlessly idiomatic Galactic Spanish.
Cloud was amazed at Tommie’s changed appearance. She was powdered, perfumed, and painted: made up to the gills. Her heavy blonde hair was elaborately waved. If it wasn’t for her diesel-truck build, Cloud thought—and for the long black Venerian cigar she was smoking with such evident relish—she’d be a knock-out on anybody’s tri-di screen!
“I can.” The profoundly deep, but pleasantly and musically resonant voice went on; the fluent translation continued. “What I don’t know about atomic engines hasn’t been found out yet. I don’t know much about Bergenholms and a couple of other things pertaining solely to flight, and I don’t know anything about communicators or detectors, which aren’t engineers’ business. I’ve laid in a complete supply of atomic service manuals for class S-C ships, and I tell you this—if anything with a motor or an engine in it aboard this vessel ever has run, I can take it apart and put it back together so it’ll run again. And by the way, you didn’t have half enough spare parts aboard, but you have now. Besides, you might need somebody to really swing that axe of yours, some day.”
Cloud studied the Tomingan narrowly. She wasn’t bragging, he decided finally. She was simply voicing what to her were simple truths.
“Your arguments have weight. Why do you want the job?”
“Several reasons. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it’ll be fun. Main reason, though, is that I think I’ll be able to talk you into doing a job on Tominga that has needed doing for a long time. I was a passenger, not an officer, on my way to talk to a party about ways of getting it done. You changed my mind. You and I, with some others who’ll be glad to hel
p, will be able to do it better.”
Tommie volunteered no more information, and Cloud asked no more questions. Explanation would probably take more time than could be spared.
“Now you, Thlaskin,” the Blaster said in spaceal. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
“You’ve got me on a hell of a spot, boss,” the pilot admitted, ruefully. “You’ve got to have a pilot, no question about that. You already know I’m one. I know automatics, and communicators, and detectors—the works. Ordinarily I’d say you’d have to have me. But this ain’t a regular case. I wasn’t a pilot on the heap that got knocked out of the ether, but a passenger. Maluleme—she’s my…say, ain’t there no word for…”
He broke off and spoke rapidly to his wife, who relayed it to Vesta.
“They’re newlyweds,” the Vegian translated. “He was off duty and they were on their honeymoon…”
Vesta’s wonderfully expressive face softened, saddened. She appeared about to cry. “I wish I were old enough to be a newlywed,” she said, plaintively.
“Huh? Aren’t you?” the Blaster demanded. “You look old enough to me.”
“Oh, I’m as big as I ever will be, and I won’t change outside.
It’s inside. About half a year yet. But she’s saying—
“We know that pilots on duty, in regular service, can’t have their wives aboard. But this isn’t a regular run, I know, so couldn’t you—just this once—keep Thlaskin on as pilot and let me come too? Please, Mr. Neelcloud—she didn’t know your name, but asked me to put it in—I can work my way. I’ll do any of the jobs nobody else wants to do—I’ll do anything, Mr. Neelcloud!”
The pink girl jumped up and took Cloud’s left hand in both her own. Simultaneously Vesta took his right hand in her left, brought it up to her face, and laid the incredibly downy softness of her cheek against the five-hour bristles of his; sounding the while a soft, low-pitched but unmistakable purr!
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