“You skinned your nose a little,” observed Stieg. “And you seem to have lost your helmet. Here it is. Otherwise, sir, it was a most graceful dive. Most graceful.”
“Thank you,” grinned Hardin. “For the helmet, that is, not for criticism of my performance.” Hardin put the helmet on his square blond head and flexed his big arms again. The two men stood together, gazing out over the rolling prairie. The flare had dimmed out and save for three dwindling smudges on the horizon, the plain was as it had been before the brief encounter.
“Well, that’s that,” murmured Stiegesen. “Not exactly as we thought it would be, eh?”
“That’s that for the time being,” replied Hardin. He took a long look through the binoculars, then handed them to his junior. “Here, take a look . . . over to what we would call the northeast.”
“Mmm . . . a hell of a big cloud of dust . . . I can just distinguish a few of them. Too far off to tell them apart, but I’d guess there are thousands in that dust. Trouble?”
“Could be. You said we didn’t anticipate this, Stieg. Perhaps the scientific brass didn’t, but I assure you I didn’t leave it out of my calculations. Not that anybody looks at my figures.” Stiegesen followed as Hardin turned and started back toward the gun pit. “Let’s get organized,” Hardin went on. “Sound the emergency recall!”
The lieutenant spoke into his chest phone and almost immediately the scout’s honker started braying mournfully.
The two men walked past the gun pit toward the ship’s port and
Hardin went on, “You keep an eye on everything, Stieg, but stay closest to the gun. Remember, I don’t want any shooting unless I give the word.” He stared hard at his subordinate. “Yes, Captain. I understand.”
“Good man. Who’s in charge of the flame-thrower aft?”
“Sub-Lieutenant Teligny. A steady youngster.”
“Right. Give him his orders. Make sure he’s got some compression grenades and paral-bombs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That leaves you O.D. outside the ship until relieved.” His voice relaxed. “Take it easy, Stieg. Don’t shoot—” a tag of history learned in his plebe year came to mind—“don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!”
“If they have any, Captain. Whites to their eyes, I mean.”
Hardin laughed. “If they don’t, maybe their six-legged horses do.” He sobered. “Well, here comes the research party. Watch me catch hell for not having a camera set up!”
“Hah! We had lots of time for that!”
The leaders of the preliminary survey of Wolf 359 IV were squeezed around a table in the tiny messhall of the scout-arid-survey ship. Each had one of the short arrows that had so narrowly missed Hardin and was studying it very closely. Finally, Dr. Giovanni Tresco, Deputy-Administrator of the Expedition and synthesist of the first landing, lifted his head, chewed on a cigar whose fatness matched his own and said, “But what are they, Captain? I’m vaguely familiar with the mechanics of archery but these arrows are much shorter than normal, aren’t they?”
“They’re crossbow bolts, sir.”
“Crossbow?”
“A weapon coexistent with the earliest firearms and the long bow. And, in many ways, better than either. It had greater accuracy than the musket, much greater striking power than the clothyard arrow.” He described briefly the mechanics of the arbalest. “So you see, gentlemen,” he concluded, “its great weakness was its slow rate of fire. Cranking up a crossbow was an even slower process than the reloading of the flintlock musket.”
“But I thought you reported that these—ah, beings, shot at you several times within a very short space of time.” That was Struthers-Stote, the socio-psychologist and cultural relations expert.
“If these natives are acquainted with the gear principle they could easily have developed a rapid-cranking arbalest.”
Struthers-Stote’s eyes glittered behind his contact lenses. He thrust his narrow head forward at Hardin and said, “Dash it all, Captain, I do wish you’d had a camera set up. We’d have better evidence of their cultural development than these crude . . . weapons.” His tone made the word weapons an obscenity.
“My first duty was to attend to the defenses of the ship, Doctor,” Hardin said stiffly.
“Of course,” soothed Tresco. He rubbed a plump jowl with pudgy fingers. “You were quite right, Captain. And I should imagine we will have plenty of chances for pictures. Their main body should be along any minute, now.”
“Good heavens, gentlemen!” cried Gearhardt, the archeologist. “Look—these bolts are tipped with metal!”
“So?” queried Struthers-Stote. Gearhardt whipped a magnifier from his tunic and studied the bolt very closely. As he peered he said, “The shaft is of wood, but the tip is of metal . . . reworded metal.” He dropped the magnifier on the table and beamed at them. “An interesting hypothesis emerges,” he murmured. “You will remember that today’s preliminary exploration of the ruined city showed the presence of no metal whatsoever—other than a few useless scraps scattered about. While the stone buildings were intact, there was irrefutable evidence that their metal—ah, equipment had been forcibly removed. Remember the building we decided had been a factory?”
“Lord!” exclaimed Hardin. “No metal, eh? And you think—”
“Gentlemen, please!” Tresco lifted a fat hand. “Forgive me for interrupting you, but we must discuss these curiosa later. I must make my preliminary report to the Messenger. He glanced down at the notepad in front of him. “I have all the pertinent data, I think—”
“One moment please, Doctor,” Struthers-Stote lifted a long forefinger.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to repeat—and enlarge upon—one question to Captain Hardin.”
He swung in his chair and faced the soldier, pointing the long finger as he opened his mouth.
But Hardin beat him to it.
“I know the question, Doctor,” he said wearily. “I can assure you that I committed no action, however innocent-seeming to me—or any other Terran—that the natives of this planet might have interpreted as a hostile move.”
Struthers-Stote’s narrow jaw dropped. “How’d you know I was going to ask you that?” he blurted. Hardin heard Gearhardt chuckle very softly.
“Because,” Hardin said, “they teach us a bit of psychology at the War College. And I know also, Doctor, that you simply won’t admit that I—or any other military man—am as devoted to peace as you are.”
“Now, see here—”
“Gentlemen!” Tresco’s voice was sharp. “Captain Hardin, I will agree that Doctor Struthers-Stote is overly suspicious of the military. But his question is a good one, really. We must be sure . . .”
“Please report to the Messenger that the three natives were fully aware that I had no weapons in my hands, that my attitude was not hostile, and that they fired on me from a distance of at least 100 meters without making any effort whatsoever to investigate me.”
“Very good. Thank you, Captain.” Tresco hauled himself out of his chair.
Gearhardt leaned over to Hardin and said quietly, “Tell me what you think, Captain Hardin.” He fingered the bolt. “An aboriginal weapon, using worked metal—”
“The arbalest was not an aboriginal weapon, sir. It was produced by a very complex culture.”
“Eh? My apologies . . . I bow to your knowledge of history and wish I shared it. But is it not a cultural clash—this metal tip and this wooden shaft?”
“The metal tip is more crudely worked than the shaft.”
“Because it is reworked?”
“Lord,” breathed Hardin.
Just as Dr. Tresco reached the door of the control room it was yanked open and a crewman rushed out and cried, “Lieutenant Stiegesen on the ground radio, Captain! Says it’s urgent!”
“Turn up the speaker,” Tresco ordered. “We’ll all listen.”
The rest of them left the table and crowded around the open door as Stiegesen’s v
oice crackled through the speaker.
“Several thousand mounted beings coming at us,” he reported matter-of-factly. “About 600 to 800 meters away, advancing slowly in a long line. Their right flank’s anchored along on the bank of that river to the west of us; their left, if it gets here, will just hit those hills where the city’s ruins break off. Looks like they’re not friendly, but the light’s so had I can’t be sure. Standing by for orders.”
Hardin shouldered his way into the control room. “On with all landing lights! Full power!” he barked. A crewman pulled switches. Hardin picked up the mike and said, “You have your lights, Lieutenant. Stand by, I’m coming out!”
Struthers-Stote manfully forced himself to stand aside so that Dr. Tresco could puff his way first down the ramp, then clattered headlong after him. Gearhardt followed Hardin close enough to say, “Young man, when we have the leisure, I’d like to discuss those ah, bolts, and their makers too, a little more.”
“So should I, sir,” panted Hardin. And added grimly, “If we get that leisure.”
The range of the landing lights was a thousand meters plus and the host of natives was clearly illuminated. Hardin strode over to where Stiegesen stood by the gun, cast an approving eye over the alert crew, then gazed out over the brightly lit plain. The sun had set and twilight crouched just beyond the range of the Terran lamps, seeming to Hardin ready to spring forward in company with the hesitating wave of the mounted beings.
“They stopped when the lights went on,” muttered Stiegesen. “But not for long, I bet.”
“Noisy, aren’t they?”
Indeed, the wave of riders, a wave at its crest and bursting for release, was not a quiet thing. The six-legged mounts whistled as they pawed the ground; their riders yelled hoarse guttural cries that sounded to Hardin’s untrained ear mere wordless shouts, furious, frenzied mouthings. The blazing light showed most of them crouched in their high saddles, reins in their mouths, crossbows at the ready. But here and there one sat upright, holding a bannered staff in one hand, a long cutting weapon in the other.
“Humanoids,” breathed Tresco. “Humanoids . . .”
“But fur-covered,” muttered Struthers-Stote. “No . . . fur clothes.”
“Very possibly the latter,” nodded Gearhardt.
Somewhere along the ragged line, or just behind it, a drum began to heat. The staccato rapping swelled in volume, punctuated here and there by the wailing notes of some kind of horn.
“I believe they’re going to attack,” Hardin said quietly. “Perhaps you gentlemen had better get back in the ship.”
“Attack!” sneered Struthers-Stote. “Is that the only word you can think of!” He gathered his long body together and jumped over the gun pit.
“Get back!” cried Hardin.
“No! This is the decisive moment! We must establish contact before it’s too late!” And the psychologist trotted toward the yelling mass.
“Dr. Struthers-Stote!” bellowed Tresco. “I command you—”
“Be quite all right,” the psychologist flung over his shoulder. “Needs a bit of a firm hand, that’s all.”
“But you have no equipment,” groaned Tresco, then was silent as they all watched the skinny figure half-walk, half-run across the plain. He held both hands high. Hardin discovered that he was holding his breath; as he let it go with a deep sigh he discovered something else . . . he was afraid. Not for himself, but for the pompous ass who was so incredibly unaware of the risk he was running.
“Damn poor discipline we keep,” Stiegesen muttered cynically.
Hardin grunted wordlessly and looked over at Tresco and Gearhardt. The old man was pale; he, at least, had some comprehension of the danger potential, but Tresco’s eyes were shining and his big cigar a mangled stub. He watched Struthers-Stote like a researcher observing the ultimate stage of an experiment. Hardin shook his head. It was all a pretty problem to Tresco, he thought, and would be until—he shook his head and put the rest of the thought from him.
The Terran had reached the beings of another star system. Two riders leaned toward the Terran and his fellows could see him gesture. Then the front line, Struthers-Stote passed through, the line closed up and Dr. Struthers-Stote could no longer be seen.
Tresco expelled a great sigh. “He’s done it!” he cried. Gearhardt nodded.
“At least they seem willing to communicate,” he said.
“I envy him,” muttered Tresco. Then he added generously, “Even more, I envy his courage.”
Hardin looked at his lieutenant. Stiegesen shrugged.
“Well,” cried Tresco, “Doctor Gearhardt, what are we waiting for? Let us join him!”
“Just a moment, Doctor Tresco!” Hardin’s voice was coldly authoritative, but the excited Tresco missed its tone completely for he said gaily, “Yes, Captain? Do you wish to come with us?”
“I do not!”
“Ah, yes,” Tresco tried to sound kind. “Your first duty is to the ship, of course—”
“And to the ship’s personnel, sir!” He ranged himself between the two scientists and the gun pit and stood there, legs spread apart, hand on his holster. Tresco gaped at him, wordless.
“I quite realize,” Hardin said calmly, “that my position in this expedition is one of small importance. That’s quite proper. But I do have one duty, delegated to me by the Minister-President of the
United Solar Nations himself. And that is: whenever I judge this expedition, or any part of it, to be in physical danger, I am to take supreme command and adopt whatever measures I deem necessary for the general safety.”
“But man, that’s absurd—you saw that they—”
“I have seen nothing to convince me that this part of our mission is not in extreme danger. Therefore, I order you to stay right where you are, in the immediate vicinity of the ship. If you attempt to disobey my orders, Lieutenant Stiegesen will place you in confinement.”
Tresco, his jowls quivering, spluttered but Gearhardt placed a hand on his shoulder and said calmly, “The Captain is well within his rights, Doctor. And I must admit I prefer the conservative approach to this situation.”
“Very well,” grunted Tresco. “But you will agree, Captain, that nothing very alarming happened to Doctor Struthers-Stote?”
“I don’t know what is happening to him.”
“Let us wait,” soothed Gearhardt. “And wonder what strange report our cultural relations expert will bring back to us.”
They waited for nearly a Terran hour. Gearhardt went back into the ship, came out with his crossbow bolt and paced up and down, studying it. Tresco walked about for a bit, then sat down on the ground with his back against the side of the ramp. He lit one of his fat cigars and sat smoking with nervous puffs.
Hardin watched.
At the end of the hour the drums suddenly exploded into a hideous cacaphony. The horns joined in and then a long, rolling yell went up from the native encampment. A few front line riders made short, frenzied dashes toward the ship, waved weapons or banners, wheeled and galloped back into their ranks.
As suddenly as it had arose, the sound ceased and quiet hung over the night.
Then the Terrans heard a thin scream.
“Jesus!” blurted one of the gun crew.
Hardin felt his stomach turn over. Tresco gulped, almost swallowing his cigar, and stumbled to his feet.
The scream came again, higher . . . almost above the sonic limit of the human voice.
“That—that is awful!” Gearhardt cried brokenly.
The screaming voice formed a single word. “Help!” it yelled. That was followed by a string of meaningless syllables and then the Terrans thought they heard the word “please!” horribly drawn out.
“What the devil are they doing to him,” Stiegesen muttered to Hardin.
“He’s terrified,” Hardin said stolidly.
“Of what—”
“Of death, what else?”
Hardin took no heed of the two scientists behind him, nor
did he seem to concern himself with his subordinate beside him. Hardin just stood quietly, peering at the horde, his big, burly figure taut and eager. He had not long to wait.
The drums sounded and even their roaring rattle was drowned out by the shrieks of the horde that had suddenly gone maniac.
Then there was a ripple in the forward line and a lone rider trotted forth toward the ship. Hardin saw that it was one of those who carried a banner. It (or he) carried something else . . . a bundle of something hanging over his (or its) saddlebow.
Tautness left Hardin and he jumped from the pit and started toward the oncoming rider.
“What is it?” someone cried.
“A messenger, I think. Keep me covered.”
“Damn it!” cried Tresco. “I’m coming too!”
The rider came very close to the Terran group, swerved his mount, dumped the thing he carried, yelled mockingly and dashed off.
Hardin and the two scientists ran forward.
Close inspection showed that what seemed to be a heap of bloody clothes was really the body of Struthers-Stote. And only the body. Its head was missing.
Dr. Tresco vomited. Dr. Gearhardt swayed, but Hardin grabbed the old man’s arm and said quietly, “Steady on, sir.”
Tresco straightened and mumbled, “Sorry . . . where’s the—”
“In their camp, of course. A trophy.” Hardin stepped close to the pale man and said, “Dr. Tresco, if you want this mission to be a success, let me fire on them. Now!” Tresco pulled his sagging body together.
“Are you mad, Captain? Even now, we must have no reprisals!”
“Dear God, sir! It’s not a question of reprisal! It’s—”
“No. We don’t know what Struthers-Stote did wrong—poor fellow. We’ll find out later . . .”
“Come back, Captain!” called Stiegesen. “They’re going to attack!”
“Get going you two!” snapped Hardin.
“But the—the body,” panted Gearhardt.
“I’ll bring it. Get going!”
Hardin forced himself to pick up the ghastly ruin and carry it back and lay it, as decently as he could, under the ship, out of sight behind the ramp. Tresco and Gearhardt watched, shivering.
Complete Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 13