Pentizel drew her body into a low crouch, and stealthily raised her head another fraction of an inch. And was caught ever so slightly off guard!
The barrel-chested man on the far side of the hood of the automobile stood so still that Pentizel found herself facing the mouth of his big-bellied pistol at the exact moment she became aware of his position. “If you move, you’re dead,” the man said, almost conversationally.
Pentizel froze. Quickly she assayed the situation. She could try a swift rush up the river bank—but she knew the potency of Earth guns. She had used them herself. She would have no slightest chance of reaching him before she died.
As Pentizel sought for another avenue of escape, or attack, a new realization came to her. Something in the man’s manner, but mostly in the recalled inflections of his voice, told her that he did not intend to kill her. She puzzled that in her mind for an instant. Perhaps he thought he could capture her alive. If he thought that he was a fool—and it increased her chances of escape tremendously.
Knowing his intentions—at least to the extent that she was in no immediate danger—Pentizel allowed herself to relax slightly. If he were only foolhardy enough to allow her to come closer.
Almost as though he were co-operating with her secret thoughts, the man said, “Come up here.” He paused. “Be very careful.”
Pentizel began to move slowly, lithely, up the river bank. The big man directed her cautiously with his voice as she came. “Stay on the other side of the car from me… No, over this way… Careful… Don’t make any sudden moves… Walk slower… Stop… Stand still until the police arrive… Remember, if you try to run I’ll have to kill you.”
Pentizel stood across the automobile hood from her hunter. If the automobile were not between them, she reflected, he would already be dead. If she thought of nothing better, she would still chance a leap across at him. He might be underestimating her speed and reflexes. She would probably still be able to kill him, even though he wounded her.
Two cautions in Pentizel’s mind stopped that desperate rush: In her present circumstances, to be wounded would be as fatal as to be killed; and she would not take that last chance—until she was satisfied that she could find no better way.
The seconds crawled by. Pentizel studied the big man, the lack of fear in his eyes, the way he held his body, the steady grip of his hand on the butt of the big-bellied pistol. A bright sweep of exultation rushed through Pentizel! His hand on the pistol butt!
She had found the one small error she had been looking for.
He was holding the pistol aimed steadily at her, but—his finger was not on the trigger. Whether it was carelessness, or overconfidence, Pentizel did not know. It made no difference. Her body blurred into action.
She did not quite reach the big man, and her body was sprawled across the car hood—but she had allowed for that. She had reached the pistol. And she clutched it in her hand now!
She twisted on her side and squeezed the trigger!
The final scene was still showing on the video screen when the major glanced across at Nelson. The manner in which he raised his eyebrows was better than the most effuse congratulations.
They both turned their attention back to the screen as they watched the last tense minute of the Special Feature’s finale. The exploding pistol had blown a great patch from the side of Pentizel’s head. She lay struck in tension for a long moment, her bloody hand still outstretched, then the starch went out of her body and she rolled off the hood of the automobile to the concrete pavement.
In the background the commentator’s voice murmured softly.
“And so we end our story…”
Panic Button
Eric Frank Russell
* * *
“The law of chance,” said Lagasta ponderously, “lays it down that one cannot remain dead out of luck for everlasting.” He had the fat oiliness typical of many Antareans; his voice was equally fat and oily. “Sooner or later the time must come when one finds a jewel in one’s hair instead of a bug.”
“Speak for yourself,” invited Kaznitz, not caring for the analogy.
“That time has arrived,” Lagasta went on. “Let us rejoice.”
“I am rejoicing,” Kaznitz responded with no visible enthusiasm.
“You look it,” said Lagasta. He plucked a stalk of grass and chewed it without caring what alien bacteria might be lurking thereon. “We have found a new and empty world suitable for settlement. Such worlds are plenty hard to discover in spite of somebody’s estimate that there must be at least a hundred million of them. The vastness of space.” He ate a bit more grass, finished, “But we have found one. It becomes the property of our species by right of first discovery. That makes us heroes worthy of rich reward. Yet I fail to see delirious happiness on what purports to be your face.”
“I take nothing for granted,” said Kaznitz.
“You mean you sit right here on an enormous lump of real estate and don’t believe it?”
“We have yet to make sure that nobody has prior title.”
“You know quite well that we subjected this planet to most careful examination as we approached. Intelligent life cannot help betraying its presence with unmistakable signs for which we sought thoroughly. What did we see? Nothing! Not a city, not a village, not a road, not a bridge, not one cultivated field. Absolutely nothing!”
“It was a long-range survey of the illuminated side only,” Kaznitz pointed out. “We need to take a much closer look—and at both sides.”
Havarre lumbered over and sat beside them. “I have ordered the crew to get out the scout boats after they have finished their meal.”
“Good!” said Lagasta. “That should soothe Kaznitz. He refuses to believe that the planet is devoid of intelligent life.”
“It is not a matter of belief or disbelief,” Kaznitz gave back. “It is a matter of making sure.”
“We are soon to do that,” Havarre told him. “But I am not worried. The place looks completely uninhabited.”
“You can’t weigh up a world with one incoming stare no matter how long and hard you make it.” Kaznitz asserted. “The absence of people spread widely and in large numbers doesn’t necessarily mean no concentration of them in small number.”
“You mean Terrans?” queried Havarre, twitching his horsy ears.
“Yes.”
“He’s been obsessed with Terrans ever since Plaksted found them encamped on B417,” remarked Lagasta.
“And why shouldn’t I be? Plaksted had gone a long, long way merely to suffer a disappointment. The Terrans had got there first. We’ve been told that they’re running around doing the same as we’re doing, grabbing planets as fast as they can find them. We’ve been warned that in no circumstances must we clash with them. We’ve strict orders to recognize the principle of first come first served.”
“That makes sense,” opined Havarre. “In spite of years of haphazard contact we and the Terrans don’t really know what makes the other tick. Each side has carefully refrained from telling the other anything more than is necessary. They don’t know what we’ve got—but we don’t know what they’ve got. That situation is inevitable. It takes intelligence to conquer space and an intelligent species does not weaken itself by revealing its true strength. Neither does it start a fight with someone of unmeasured and immeasurable size, power and resources. What d’you think we ought to do with Terrans—knock off their heads?”
“Certainly not!” said Kaznitz. “But I shall feel far happier when I know for certain that a task force of one thousand Terrans is not snoring its collective head off somewhere on the dark side of this planet. Until then I don’t assume that the world is ours.”
“Always the pessimist,” jibed Lagasta.
“He who hopes for nothing will never be disappointed,” Kaznitz retorted.
“What a way to go through life,” Lagasta said. “Reveling in gloom.”
“I fail to see anything gloomy about recognizing the fact that someone
must get here first.”
“How right you are. And this time it’s us. I am looking forward to seeing the glum faces of the Terrans when they arrive tomorrow or next month or next year and find us already here. What do you say, Havarre?”
“I don’t think the subject worthy of argument,” answered Havarre, refusing to take sides. “The scout boats will settle the issue before long.” He got to his feet, ambled toward the ship. “I’ll chase the crew into action.”
Lagasta frowned after him. “The company I keep. One has no opinions. The other wallows in defeat.”
“And you wag your tail while the door is still shut,” Kaznitz riposted.
Ignoring that, Lagasta gnawed more grass. They sat in silence until the first scout boat came out, watched it take off with a loud boom and a rising whine. A bit later a second boat bulleted into the sky. Then more of them at regular intervals until all ten had gone.
“Waste of time, patience and fuel,” declared Lagasta. “There’s nobody here but us first-comers.”
Kaznitz refused to take the bait. He gazed at the ragged horizon toward which a red sun sank slowly. “The dark side will become the light side pretty soon. Those boats won’t get back much before dawn. Think I’ll go and enjoy my bunk. A good sleep is long overdue.”
“It’s a wonder you can enjoy anything with all the worries you’ve got,” observed Lagasta with sarcasm.
“I shall slumber with the peace of the fatalistic. I shall not sit up all night eating weeds while tormented with the desire to be proved right and the fear of being proved wrong.”
So saying, he went to the ship conscious of the other scowling after him. Like all of the crew he was sufficiently weary to fall asleep quickly. Soon after dark he was awakened by the switching on of the radio beacon and the faint but hearable sound of the subsequent bip-bip-yidder-bip. Much later he was disturbed by Havarre going to bed and, later still, by Lagasta.
By dawn they were so deep in their dreams that none heard the return of the scout boats despite the outside uproar ten times repeated. They grunted and snuffled in unconscious unison while nine pilots emerged from their vessels looking exhausted and bored. The tenth came out kicking the grass and jerking his ears with temper.
One of the nine stared curiously at the tenth and asked, “What’s nibbling your offal, Yaksid?”
“Terrans,” spat Yaksid. “The snitgobbers!”
Which was a very vulgar word indeed.
“Now,” said Lagasta, displaying his bile, “tell us exactly what you saw.”
“He saw Terrans,” put in Kaznitz. “Isn’t that enough?”
“I want no interference from you,” Lagasta shouted. “Go squat in a thorny tree.” He switched attention back to Yaksid and repeated, “Tell us exactly what you saw.”
“I spotted a building in a valley, swept down and circled it several times. It was a very small house, square in shape, neatly built of rock slabs and cement. A Terran came out of the door, presumably attracted by the noise of my boat. He stood watching me zoom round and round and as I shot past the front he waved to me.”
“Whereupon you waved back,” suggested Lagasta in his most unpleasant manner.
“I made muck-face at him,” said Yaksid indignantly, “but I don’t think he saw me. I was going too fast.”
“There was only this one house in the valley?”
“Yes.”
“A very small house?”
“Yes.”
“How small?”
“It could be described as little better than a stone hut.”
“And only one Terran came out?”
“That’s right. If any more were inside, they didn’t bother to show themselves.”
“There couldn’t have been many within if the dump was almost a hut,” Lagasta suggested.
“Correct. Six at the most.”
“Did you see a ship or a scout boat lying nearby?”
“No, not a sign of one. There was just this house and nothing more,” said Yaksid. “What did you do next?”
“I decided that this lonely building must be an outpost belonging to a Terran encampment somewhere in the vicinity. So I made a close search of the district. I circled wider and wider until I’d examined an area covering twenty horizons. I found nothing.”
“You’re quite certain of that?”
“I’m positive. I went plenty low enough to detect a camp half-buried or well camouflaged; I couldn’t find even the smell of a Terran.”
Lagasta stared at him in silence a while and then said, “There is something wrong about this. A Terran garrison could not cram itself into one hut.”
“That’s what I think,” Yaksid agreed.
“And since it cannot be within the building it must be some place else.”
“Correct. But there was no sign of it anywhere within the area I covered. Perhaps one of the other scout boats passed over it and failed to see it.”
“If it did, the pilot must have been stone-blind or asleep at his controls.” Kaznitz interjected, “That wouldn’t surprise me. We landed short of sleep and the pilots haven’t been given a chance to catch up. You can’t expect them to be in full possession of their wits when they’re mentally whirly.”
“It was necessary to make a check with the minimum of delay,” said Lagasta defensively.
“That’s news to me.”
“What d’you mean?”
“You gave me clearly to understand that the check was a waste of time, patience and fuel.”
“I said nothing of the sort.”
Havarre chipped in with, “What was said or not said is entirely beside the point. The point is that we have to deal with the situation as it exists. We have landed in expectation of claiming a planet. Yaksid has since found Terrans. Therefore the Terrans were here first. What are we going to do about it?”
“There is no problem to be solved,” said Kaznitz before Lagasta had time to answer. “We have been given orders simple enough for a fool to understand. If we arrive first, we claim the planet, sit tight and invite any later Terrans to take a high dive onto solid rock. If the Terrans arrive first, we admit their claim without argument, shoot back into space and waste no time beating them to the next planet.”
“Where is the next one?” inquired Lagasta with mock pleasantness. “And how long is it going to take us to find it? Inhabitable worlds don’t cluster like ripe fruit, do they?”
“Certainly not. But what alternative do you suggest?”
“I think we’d do well to discover this missing garrison and estimate its strength.”
“That would make sense if we were at war or permitted to start a war,” said Kaznitz. “We are not permitted. We are under strict instructions to avoid a clash.”
“I should think so, too,” contributed Havarre. “Before we enter a war we must know exactly what we’re fighting.”
“There is nothing to stop us gathering useful information,” Lagasta insisted. “It’s impossible for us to collect military data worth the effort of writing it down,” Kaznitz gave back. “For the obvious reason that it will be years out of date by the time we get back home.”
“So you think we should surrender a hard-earned world for the sake of one crummy Terran in a vermin-infested hut?”
“You know quite well there must be more of them somewhere around.”
“I don’t know it. I know only what I’ve been told. And I’ve been told that Yaksid has found one Terran in a hut. Nobody has seen a trace of any others. We should make further and closer search for others and satisfy ourselves that they really are here.”
“Why?”
“It’s possible that these others don’t exist.”
“Possible but highly improbable,” Kaznitz opined. “I can’t see Terran explorers contenting themselves with placing one man on a world.”
“Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps he placed himself. The lone survivor of a space disaster who managed to get here in a lifeboat. What would be the worth of a Terr
an claim in those circumstances? We could easily remove every trace of the man and the hut and deny all knowledge of either. It couldn’t be called a clash. One Terran just wouldn’t get the chance to clash with a crew six hundred strong.”
“That may be, but—”
“If we make more systematic search and find other Terrans in garrison strength, that will settle the matter and we’ll take off. But if it proves that there are no others—” He let his voice tail off to add significance, finished, “All that stands between us and a world is one hunk of alien meat.”
Kaznitz thought it over. “I dislike giving up a new planet fully as much as you do. But I’d dislike it even more if we were saddled with the blame for starting something that can’t be finished. I think we’d like death and love it rather than endure the prolonged pain.”
“Blame cannot be laid without someone to do the blaming,” said Lagasta, “and a dead Terran positively refuses to talk. You worry too much. If you had nothing else with which to occupy your mind you’d grieve over the shape of your feet.” He turned to Havarre. “You’ve had little enough to say. Have you no opinion about this?”
Immediately leery, Havarre replied, “If we stay put while we look around, I think we should be careful.”
“Have you any reason to suppose that I intend to be rash?”
“No, no, not at all.”
“Then why the advice?”
“You asked my opinion and I gave it. I don’t trust these Terrans.”
“Who does?” said Lagasta. He made a gesture indicative of ending the subject. “All right. We 11 allow the pilots a good, long sleep. After their brains have been thoroughly rested we’ll send them out again. Our next step will depend upon whether more Terrans have been found and, if so, whether they have been discovered in strength.”
“What do you mean by strength?” Kaznitz asked.
Seven Come Infinity Page 9