The gun muzzle remained unwaveringly on Orne's middle. The native's mouth opened, revealing long canines. "Do we not look strange to you?"
"I take it there's been a heavy mutational variation in the humanoid norm on this planet," said Orne. "What is it? Hard radiation?"
No answer.
"It doesn't really make any difference, of course," said Orne. "I'm here to help you."
"I am Tanub, High Path Chief of the Grazzi," said the native. "I decide who is to help."
Orne swallowed.
"Where do you go?" demanded Tanub.
"I was hoping to go to your city. Is it permitted?"
A long pause while the vertical-slit pupils of Tanub's eyes expanded and contracted. "It is permitted."
Stetson's voice came through the hidden speaker: "All bets off. We're coming in after you. That Mark XX is the final straw. It means they have the Delphinus for sure!"
Orne touched his throat. "No! Give me a little more time!"
"Why?"
"I have a hunch about these creatures."
"What is it?"
"No time now. Trust me."
Another long pause in which Orne and Tanub continued to study each other. Presently, Stetson said: "O.K. Go ahead as planned. But find out where the Delphinus is! If we get that back we pull their teeth."
"Why do you keep touching your throat?" demanded Tanub.
"I'm nervous," said Orne. "Guns always make me nervous."
The muzzle lowered slightly.
"Shall we continue on to your city?" asked Orne. He wet his lips with his tongue. The cab light on Tanub's face was giving the Gienahn an eerie sinister look.
"We can go soon," said Tanub.
"Will you join me inside here?" asked Orne. "There's a passenger seat right behind me."
Tanub's eyes moved catlike: right, left. "Yes." He turned, barked an order into the jungle gloom, then climbed in behind Orne.
"When do we go?" asked Orne.
"The great sun will be down soon," said Tanub. "We can continue as soon as Chiranachuruso rises."
"Chiranachuruso?"
"Our satellite ... our moon," said Tanub.
"It's a beautiful word," said Orne. "Chiranachuruso."
"In our tongue it means: The Limb of Victory," said Tanub. "By its light we will continue."
Orne turned, looked back at Tanub. "Do you mean to tell me that you can see by what light gets down here through those trees?"
"Can you not see?" asked Tanub.
"Not without the headlights."
"Our eyes differ," said Tanub. He bent toward Orne, peered. The vertical slit pupils of his eyes expanded, contracted. "You are the same as the ... others."
"Oh, on the Delphinus?"
Pause. "Yes."
Presently, a greater gloom came over the jungle, bringing a sudden stillness to the wild life. There was a chittering commotion from the natives in the trees around the sled. Tanub shifted behind Orne.
"We may go now," he said. "Slowly ... to stay behind my ... scouts."
"Right." Orne eased the sled forward around an obstructing root.
* * * * *
Silence while they crawled ahead. Around them shapes flung themselves from vine to vine.
"I admired your city from the air," said Orne. "It is very beautiful."
"Yes," said Tanub. "Why did you land so far from it?"
"We didn't want to come down where we might destroy anything."
"There is nothing to destroy in the jungle," said Tanub.
"Why do you have such a big city?" asked Orne.
Silence.
"I said: Why do you--"
"You are ignorant of our ways," said Tanub. "Therefore, I forgive you. The city is for our race. We must breed and be born in sunlight. Once--long ago--we used crude platforms on the tops of the trees. Now ... only the ... wild ones do this."
Stetson's voice hissed in Orne's ears: "Easy on the sex line, boy. That's always touchy. These creatures are oviparous. Sex glands are apparently hidden in that long fur behind where their chins ought to be."
"Who controls the breeding sites controls our world," said Tanub. "Once there was another city. We destroyed it."
"Are there many ... wild ones?" asked Orne.
"Fewer each year," said Tanub.
"There's how they get their slaves," hissed Stetson.
"You speak excellent Galactese," said Orne.
"The High Path Chief commanded the best teacher," said Tanub. "Do you, too, know many things, Orne?"
"That's why I was sent here," said Orne.
"Are there many planets to teach?" asked Tanub.
"Very many," said Orne. "Your city--I saw very tall buildings. Of what do you build them?"
"In your tongue--glass," said Tanub. "The engineers of the Delphinus said it was impossible. As you saw--they are wrong."
"A glass-blowing culture," hissed Stetson. "That'd explain a lot of things."
Slowly, the disguised sled crept through the jungle. Once, a scout swooped down into the headlights, waved. Orne stopped on Tanub's order, and they waited almost ten minutes before proceeding.
"Wild ones?" asked Orne.
"Perhaps," said Tanub.
A glowing of many lights grew visible through the giant tree trunks. It grew brighter as the sled crept through the last of the jungle, emerged in cleared land at the edge of the city.
Orne stared upward in awe. The city fluted and spiraled into the moonlit sky. It was a fragile appearing lacery of bridges, winking dots of light. The bridges wove back and forth from building to building until the entire visible network appeared one gigantic dew-glittering web.
"All that with glass," murmured Orne.
"What's happening?" hissed Stetson.
Orne touched his throat contact. "We're just into the city clearing, proceeding toward the nearest building."
"This is far enough," said Tanub.
* * * * *
Orne stopped the sled. In the moonlight, he could see armed Gienahns all around. The buttressed pedestal of one of the buildings loomed directly ahead. It looked taller than had the scout cruiser in its jungle landing circle.
Tanub leaned close to Orne's shoulder. "We have not deceived you, have we, Orne?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You have recognized that we are not mutated members of your race."
Orne swallowed. Into his ears came Stetson's voice: "Better admit it."
"That's true," said Orne.
"I like you, Orne," said Tanub. "You shall be one of my slaves. You will teach me many things."
"How did you capture the Delphinus?" asked Orne.
"You know that, too?"
"You have one of their rifles," said Orne.
"Your race is no match for us, Orne ... in cunning, in strength, in the prowess of the mind. Your ship landed to repair its tubes. Very inferior ceramics in those tubes."
Orne turned, looked at Tanub in the dim glow of the cab light. "Have you heard about the I-A, Tanub?"
"I-A? What is that?" There was a wary tenseness in the Gienahn's figure. His mouth opened to reveal the long canines.
"You took the Delphinus by treachery?" asked Orne.
"They were simple fools," said Tanub. "We are smaller, thus they thought us weaker." The Mark XX's muzzle came around to center on Orne's stomach. "You have not answered my question. What is the I-A?"
"I am of the I-A," said Orne. "Where've you hidden the Delphinus?"
"In the place that suits us best," said Tanub. "In all our history there has never been a better place."
"What do you plan to do with it?" asked Orne.
"Within a year we will have a copy with our own improvements. After that--"
"You intend to start a war?" asked Orne.
"In the jungle the strong slay the weak until only the strong remain," said Tanub.
"And then the strong prey upon each other?" asked Orne.
"That is a quibble for women," said Tanub.
"They are slaves," said Tanub. "Those who still live. Some resisted. Others objected to teaching us what we want to know." He waved the gun muzzle. "You will not be that foolish, will you, Orne?"
"No need to be," said Orne. "I've another little lesson to teach you: I already know where you've hidden the Delphinus."
"Go, boy!" hissed Stetson. "Where is it?"
"Impossible!" barked Tanub.
"It's on your moon," said Orne. "Darkside. It's on a mountain on the darkside of your moon."
Tanub's eyes dilated, contracted. "You read minds?"
"The I-A has no need to read minds," said Orne. "We rely on superior mental prowess."
"The marines are on their way," hissed Stetson. "We're coming in to get you. I'm going to want to know how you guessed that one."
"You are a weak fool like the others," gritted Tanub.
"It's too bad you formed your opinion of us by observing only the low grades of the R&R," said Orne.
"Easy, boy," hissed Stetson. "Don't pick a fight with him now. Remember, his race is arboreal. He's probably as strong as an ape."
"I could kill you where you sit!" grated Tanub.
"You write finish for your entire planet if you do," said Orne. "I'm not alone. There are others listening to every word we say. There's a ship overhead that could split open your planet with one bomb--wash it with molten rock. It'd run like the glass you use for your buildings."
"You are lying!"
"We'll make you an offer," said Orne. "We don't really want to exterminate you. We'll give you limited membership in the Galactic Federation until you prove you're no menace to us."
"Keep talking," hissed Stetson. "Keep him interested."
"You dare insult me!" growled Tanub.
"You had better believe me," said Orne. "We--"
Stetson's voice interrupted him: "Got it, Orne! They caught the Delphinus on the ground right where you said it'd be! Blew the tubes off it. Marines now mopping up."
"It's like this," said Orne. "We already have recaptured the Delphinus." Tanub's eyes went instinctively skyward. "Except for the captured armament you still hold, you obviously don't have the weapons to meet us," continued Orne. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be carrying that rifle off the Delphinus."
"If you speak the truth, then we shall die bravely," said Tanub.
"No need for you to die," said Orne.
"Better to die than be slaves," said Tanub.
"We don't need slaves," said Orne. "We--"
"I cannot take the chance that you are lying," said Tanub. "I must kill you now."
* * * * *
Orne's foot rested on the air sled control pedal. He depressed it. Instantly, the sled shot skyward, heavy G's pressing them down into the seats. The gun in Tanub's hands was slammed into his lap. He struggled to raise it. To Orne, the weight was still only about twice that of his home planet of Chargon. He reached over, took the rifle, found safety belts, bound Tanub with them. Then he eased off the acceleration.
"We don't need slaves," said Orne. "We have machines to do our work. We'll send experts in here, teach you people how to exploit your planet, how to build good transportation facilities, show you how to mine your minerals, how to--"
"And what do we do in return?" whispered Tanub.
"You could start by teaching us how you make superior glass," said Orne. "I certainly hope you see things our way. We really don't want to have to come down there and clean you out. It'd be a shame to have to blast that city into little pieces."
Tanub wilted. Presently, he said: "Send me back. I will discuss this with ... our council." He stared at Orne. "You I-A's are too strong. We did not know."
* * * * *
In the wardroom of Stetson's scout cruiser, the lights were low, the leather chairs comfortable, the green beige table set with a decanter of Hochar brandy and two glasses.
Orne lifted his glass, sipped the liquor, smacked his lips. "For a while there, I thought I'd never be tasting anything like this again."
Stetson took his own glass. "ComGO heard the whole thing over the general monitor net," he said. "D'you know you've been breveted to senior field man?"
"Ah, they've already recognized my sterling worth," said Orne.
The wolfish grin took over Stetson's big features. "Senior field men last about half as long as the juniors," he said. "Mortality's terrific?"
"I might've known," said Orne. He took another sip of the brandy.
Stetson flicked on the switch of a recorder beside him. "O.K. You can go ahead any time."
"Where do you want me to start?"
"First, how'd you spot right away where they'd hidden the Delphinus?"
"Easy. Tanub's word for his people was Grazzi. Most races call themselves something meaning The People. But in his tongue that's Ocheero. Grazzi wasn't on the translated list. I started working on it. The most likely answer was that it had been adopted from another language, and meant enemy."
"And that told you where the Delphinus was?"
"No. But it fitted my hunch about these Gienahns. I'd kind of felt from the first minute of meeting them that they had a culture like the Indians of ancient Terra."
"Why?"
"They came in like a primitive raiding party. The leader dropped right onto the hood of my sled. An act of bravery, no less. Counting coup, you see?"
"I guess so."
"Then he said he was High Path Chief. That wasn't on the language list, either. But it was easy: Raider Chief. There's a word in almost every language in history that means raider and derives from a word for road, path or highway."
"Highwaymen," said Stetson.
"Raid itself," said Orne. "An ancient Terran language corruption of road."
"Yeah, yeah. But where'd all this translation griff put--"
"Don't be impatient. Glass-blowing culture meant they were just out of the primitive stage. That, we could control. Next, he said their moon was Chiranachuruso, translated as The Limb of Victory. After that it just fell into place."
"How?"
"The vertical-slit pupils of their eyes. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Maybe. What's it mean to you?"
"Night-hunting predator accustomed to dropping upon its victims from above. No other type of creature ever has had the vertical slit. And Tanub said himself that the Delphinus was hidden in the best place in all of their history. History? That'd be a high place. Dark, likewise. Ergo: a high place on the darkside of their moon."
"I'm a pie-eyed greepus," whispered Stetson.
Orne grinned, said: "You probably are ... sir."
THE END
Operation Haystack, by Frank Herbert
It's hard to ferret out a gang of fanatics; it would, obviously, be even harder to spot a genetic line of dedicated men. But the problem Orne had was one step tougher than that!
When the Investigation & Adjustment scout cruiser landed on Marak it carried a man the doctors had no hope of saving. He was alive only because he was in a womblike creche pod that had taken over most of his vital functions.
The man's name was Lewis Orne. He had been a blocky, heavy-muscled redhead with slightly off-center features and the hard flesh of a heavy planet native. Even in the placid repose of near death there was something clownish about his appearance. His burned, ungent-covered face looked made up for some bizarre show.
Marak is the League capital, and the I-A medical center there is probably the best in the galaxy, but it accepted the creche pod and Orne more as a curiosity than anything else. The man had lost one eye, three fingers of his left hand and part of his hair, suffered a broken jaw and various internal injuries. He had been in terminal shock for more than ninety hours.
Umbo Stetson, Orne's section chief, went back into his cruiser's "office" after a hospital flitter took pod and patient. There was an ad
ded droop to Stetson's shoulders that accentuated his usual slouching stance. His overlarge features were drawn into ridges of sorrow. A general straggling, trampish look about him was not helped by patched blue fatigues.
The doctor's words still rang in Stetson's ears: "This patient's vital tone is too low to permit operative replacement of damaged organs. He'll live for a while because of the pod, but--" And the doctor had shrugged.
Stetson slumped into his desk chair, looked out the open port beside him. Some four hundred meters below, the scurrying beetlelike activity of the I-A's main field sent up discordant roaring and clattering. Two rows of other scout cruisers were parked in line with Stetson's port--gleaming red and black needles. He stared at them without really seeing them.
It always happens on some "routine" assignment, he thought. Nothing but a slight suspicion about Heleb: the fact that only women held high office. One simple, unexplained fact ... and I lose my best agent!
He sighed, turned to his desk, began composing the report:
"The militant core on the Planet Heleb has been eliminated. Occupation force on the ground. No further danger to Galactic peace expected from this source. Reason for operation: Rediscovery & Re-education--after two years on the planet--failed to detect signs of militancy. The major indications were: 1) a ruling caste restricted to women, and 2) disparity between numbers of males and females far beyond the Lutig norm! Senior Field Agent Lewis Orne found that the ruling caste was controlling the sex of offspring at conception (see attached details), and had raised a male slave army to maintain its rule. The R&R agent had been drained of information, then killed. Arms constructed on the basis of that information caused critical injuries to Senior Field Agent Orne. He is not expected to live. I am hereby urging that he receive the Galaxy Medal, and that his name be added to the Roll of Honor."
Stetson pushed the page aside. That was enough for ComGO, who never read anything but the first page anyway. Details were for his aides to chew and digest. They could wait. Stetson punched his desk callbox for Orne's service record, set himself to the task he most detested: notifying next of kin. He read, pursing his lips:
"Home Planet: Chargon. Notify in case of accident or death: Mrs. Victoria Orne, mother."
He leafed through the pages, reluctant to send the hated message. Orne had enlisted in the Marak Marines at age seventeen--a runaway from home--and his mother had given post-enlistment consent. Two years later: scholarship transfer to Uni-Galacta, the R&R school here on Marak. Five years of school and one R&R field assignment under his belt, and he had been drafted into the I-A for brilliant detection of militancy on Hammel. And two years later--kaput!
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