Miles had begun to plan. He could do nothing until he was in control of the others aboard this ship. That meant winning his way to the top of the pecking order. Vouhroi was the first step he must mount. He had studied Vouhroi, therefore, not merely with the desire of someone wanting to improve his rank among his fellows for his own satisfaction, but with the same combination of hunger, fury, and creative desire with which he had attacked his paintings, back on Earth. It was a method of attack that would not consider any result short of success.
Physically, Miles told himself, each of the others aboard must have some point or points at which he was vulnerable. Weak spots. What were the weak spots of Vouhroi?
The one he studied was a lean but powerful-looking, catlike alien. Not heavily catlike as was the tigerish Chak'ha, but with the long-legged, high-haunched feline grace of a Canadian lynx. Vouhroi's chair in the lounge was almost directly opposite that of Miles, and while he had never overtly acknowledged Miles' existence, Miles had come to be expert at reading the small signs in the other aliens that warned him that they were aware of his presence and braced against any sudden unexpected attack by him.
Clearly, of all the others, Vouhroi, who was next in line above Miles, was not about to be taken by surprise by any unexpected attack by Miles. His back was always to the wall, and his eyes—though apparently focused generally on the room—always included Miles within their range of vision. Though apparently relaxed, when Miles was present the lynxlike alien was always in a position from which he could get to his feet in an instant.
Nor was this treatment just for Miles. Everyone in the pecking order, Miles noticed, watched the individual just below him in the same way.
A surprise attack, the jumping of your opponent from behind or in a second of disadvantage, was only one more tactic in the ruleless battles that were fought between members of the crew. No advantage was unfair if it led to winning. Cold-bloodedly Miles made plans to make use of the unfair advantages at his disposal. He gave Chak'ha instructions.
The end result of those instructions was the conversation that they were having now as they sat in the lounge looking across at Vouhroi. The timbre of Miles' voice and that of Chak'ha's were very close—close enough so that practice could make them almost identical. For more than a week now, Miles had been secretly practicing with Chak'ha to imitate the pronunciation Chak'ha gave to Vouhroi's name.
Now he repeated the name after Chak'ha. The tigerfaced alien nodded.
"Right," he said at last. "It sounds right the way you say it now."
"Good," answered Miles. He glanced across at Vouhroi, apparently dozing, with half-closed eyelids, across the lounge. "I'll go forward now. You wait a few minutes and then stroll aft."
Miles got up from his chair in the lounge and wandered toward the front end of the lounge and from there into the corridor leading to the control room in front. He went halfway up the corridor, turned, put his shoulders against the wall, and waited.
With his mind he measured the slow seconds as they flowed by. Ever since the Center Aliens had changed him physically, he had been aware of differences in mind and mental skills as well. One of these was this ability to keep time in his head as well as any watch. So he waited while the minutes passed, and after perhaps three and a half minutes Eff came down the corridor from the control room, gave him the barest glance, and passed on without pausing, his rotund figure disappearing into the lounge. Miles waited another minute and a half. Then, quietly, he walked down the corridor until he was just out of sight of the lounge and the position of Vouhroi's chair in the lounge.
From where he stood flattened against the inside wall of the corridor, he could just see the entrance to the farther corridor leading back to the crew quarters and could see against the inner wall there the blocky outline of Chak'ha waiting.
Then he shouted, in the closest imitation of Chak'ha's voice and accent he could manage.
"Vouhroi!"
"Vouhroi!" It was a shout in Chak'ha's voice from the other corridor. Chak'ha was now running into the lounge, continuing to shout as he came. "Vouhroi! Vouhroi! Vouhroi . . ."
Miles launched himself toward the lounge, running at top speed and as noiselessly as he could. He had a moment's glimpse of Chak'ha rushing in from the opposite direction—of Vouhroi with his back turned, staring at Chak'ha. Then Miles hit the lynxlike alien with a hard tackle at waist level.
He slammed the unprepared Vouhroi down against the deck of the lounge—hard enough, Miles would have thought, to knock out a human being. But even as he was thrown to the deck, Vouhroi was attempting to twist around in Miles' grasp, and though his head slammed hard on the uncarpeted surface beneath them, he did not appear to be stunned.
Miles already had Vouhroi in the same full nelson which had worked so well with Chak'ha. At the same time that Miles began to exert pressure against the other's neck, he clamped his own human legs around the legs of Vouhroi and tried to hold them as Vouhroi attempted to kick and scramble loose. But the alien's legs were too powerful. They broke free, and Miles shifted his leg grip to a scissors hold around Vouhroi's narrow waist.
Vouhroi surged about and for one furious moment succeeded in rising to his feet, with Miles riding on his back. Then Miles' weight overbalanced him and he fell backward. Lying underneath the alien, Miles continued to apply pressure to Vouhroi's neck. He half expected the overdrive strength to come to his aid, as it had with Chak'ha. But it did not come, and it was not needed.
Already Vouhroi's neck was starting to give. It did not, indeed, have as much inner stiffness and strength as had Chak'ha's. Miles felt it bend—and almost at once the tranquilizing gray fog, the feeling of weakness and indifference, closed in about him and his opponent, and he drifted dimly off into unconcern, the battle fires of emotion within him damped and extinguished.
When he woke on his bunk after this second battle, however, there was a face looming close above him. It was the face of Chak'ha, and coming from Chak'ha, Miles sensed clearly a strange emotion—something between glee and triumph.
"Awake, Miles?" asked Chak'ha.
"Awake," replied Miles a little thickly.
The face of Chak'ha came closer. He lowered his voice to what, for him, was the equivalent of a whisper.
"We did it, Miles! Didn't we do it?"
"I did it," said Miles. "With your help."
"That's what I mean," whispered Chak'ha savagely. "With my help. You did it with my help. The two of us together."
Chak'ha's eyes half-closed. Once more there came from him, to Miles' emotion-sensing capability, a feeling of great relief and joy and friendship.
For the first time, Miles realized that Chak'ha had expected to be disowned by Miles once Miles had moved one more step up the ladder. There was something deeply touching about the emotion that flowed from the tiger-faced individual bent closely above his bunk. Miles reached out to grasp one of the thick, stubby, clawed hands of Chak'ha in his own. Chak'ha looked down at the joined extremities in surprise.
"This is how we do it among my people," said Miles and shook Chak'ha's hand, then let it go. Chak'ha looked for a moment wonderingly at his own released hand, then stared back at Miles, and the feeling of happiness from him increased.
Miles drifted back off into slumber, carrying that feeling of happiness and friendship with him.
In the next few weeks that followed, he fought his way up through the pecking order. In each case, after winning, he tried to make friends with the alien he had just conquered. One or two of those he had beaten became friendly. But none of them became as close to him as Chak'ha, who now followed him about continually. In time, there were left only two crew members aboard who did not acknowledge Miles' presence or answer when he spoke to them. These were Eff and Luhon, the one whom nobody else could beat.
The opposition had grown progressively more difficult as Miles had mounted the ladder of the pecking order. His last fight, with a dark-skinned humanoid named Henaoa, had taken all of Miles' stre
ngth and skill to win. Logically, therefore, he could not expect to conquer the two remaining crew members. Even if he did somehow manage to conquer Eff, certainly he would not be able to conquer Luhon.
The secrets of their individual strengths were now quite clear to him. In Eff's case, the rotund body was all muscle—he was not plump, he was a chunk of heavy-bodied power. In Luhon's case, his secret was that speed which Miles had already observed. Certainly there must be strength connected with it. But in any case, Luhon's reflexes were such that it would be necessary for Miles to conquer the gray-skinned alien with his first blow—because the chances were that he would not have a chance to land a second.
But Luhon was in the future. Eff was in the present, and Miles was aware that Eff had been subtly on guard ever since Miles' last victory—for all that the rotund alien appeared to ignore everyone but Luhon.
For a full week, Miles studied Eff. At first it seemed that there was no point of weakness about him. The joints of his body were solid and deeply set in muscle and flesh. His neck was so short as to be almost nonexistent. The full nelson that Miles had used to advantage several times now would not work this time—let alone the fact that Eff had undoubtedly noted its use and was on guard. Miles raked over the dead coals of his younger memories before polio had stricken and made useless his arm. There must have been other wrestling holds or tricks that he must have known or read about or heard about, once upon a time. He needed something unexpected to use against Eff.
In the end, he concentrated his study on Eff's waist and the lower part of his trunk. As far as he could discover, the bearlike alien had a humanlike chest, ribs, and diaphragm. There was just a chance in that fact, if Miles could catch Eff at the right spot in the ship.
He had to wait several days before that chance came. During those days he stayed close to Eff, who only by the merest flicker of an eyelid or twitch of a furry ear acknowledged the fact he was being followed. But Eff's vigilance did not relax. In spite of this, the time came when Miles, following closely behind him, saw Eff less than two arm's lengths away from him, turning from the corridor around a little angle into the lounge.
Miles leaped upon him from behind.
Eff had been on guard against any attack, and he was turning to face Miles even as Miles hit him. But Miles had waited for just this place to start the fight. The momentum of his charge drove the bearlike alien into the angle where two walls met, so that in falling, Eff was crowded into the corner. He went down on his side, with Miles' leg closing about the thick waist and one furry arm. As they landed on the floor, Miles caught Eff's remaining free arm in both hands and twisted it up behind the stocky body.
Even with his two arms against Eff's one, he found it almost impossible to keep that other arm imprisoned. The arm caught by Miles' legs, however, was held. Eff's shoulder was wedged in the corner, his arm and waist imprisoned by the muscles of Miles' interlocked legs in a scissors grip which Miles proceeded now to tighten around Eff's waist, his left knee driving hard up into the alien's diaphragm area just below the rib cage.
Eff struggled—but they were locked together. Miles could do no more than hold Eff's left arm twisted up behind him while their combined weights and the scissors hold kept the other arm pinned. To the watching crew members that soon gathered in a semicircle around them, it seemed as if nothing were happening. But a great deal was happening of which only Eff and Miles were conscious.
But Miles' left knee was continuing a steady pressure, pushing, grinding in and up against the bottom of Eff's lungs, driving air out of them.
They lay there together in the angle of the wall, seeming barely to move. But the struggle continued—for an intolerably long time, it seemed to Miles. He could feel that the pressure of his legs was gradually shortening the breath available to Eff, but Eff did not seem weakened. Every so often he surged mightily, if without success, against the hold with which Miles was keeping him pinned.
But now Miles felt his own strength leaking away. He had only so much muscle power in his arms and legs, and that power was gradually being exhausted in keeping the heavier and stronger alien beneath him tied up. He felt himself beginning to weaken—and overdrive was not coming to his aid. He almost gave up—and then the old, familiar determination rose in him. Through the bones of his head, he heard his teeth grinding together. He would crush this enemy of his. Crush . . . crush. . . .
But suddenly the gray, tranquilizing mist was rising about him. He felt his grip slackening, he felt his combat fury ebbing away from him. For a second he was dumbfounded, disbelieving. He had not yet lost. Why was the invisible protective device of the ship stopping the battle? It was not fair. . . .
The gray mist rose inexorably around him.
9
For one wild moment he tried to fight mist and Eff at once.
Then, with the last flicker of conscious thought left to him before the tranquilizing effect stole all feeling from him, understanding woke in him. He realized suddenly that it must be the other way around—that he must have brought Eff to the point of suffocation and unconsciousness, where the tranquilizing effect needed to exert itself to save the rotund alien's life. Miles had won.
This time the tranquilizing effect lifted swiftly. It pulled away from both him and his opponent while they were still lying on the floor of the lounge. Miles pushed away the hands that were trying to lift him and got to his feet unaided. Opposite him, he saw Eff also getting to his feet. The bearlike alien's face opened in a grimace that would never have been recognizable as a smile if the outwash of emotion from the other had not confirmed that a smile was intended. The furry chest was heaving for air, and Eff's words came out in short gasps; but there was a cheerfulness to them that Miles had not yet encountered in any of the aliens aboard whom he had conquered.
"Better . . . than I am," panted Eff. "Now what? I've been wanting to know what you've been after . . . ever since you started fighting your way up to my position on the ship."
Still gasping for air himself, Miles stared at Eff. With the exception of Chak'ha, he had found no crew member desirous or capable enough of friendship to meet him on a level basis after he had conquered him. Invariably the other had assumed the subordinate position.
But apparently, with Eff, being conquered physically did not mean that his soul had been dominated. This was a good sign for the success of the plan in the back of Miles' mind.
"I'll tell you what I'm after," Miles replied, "after I've beaten Luhon."
Around them the other crew members who had been spectators were drifting off. Only Chak'ha remained. Eff glanced at the tiger-faced alien for a second, then back to Miles.
"You'll never beat Luhon," Eff said.
"Yes, I will," said Miles. "I have to. So I'll manage it somehow."
Eff shook his head again, if amiably. His breathing was slowing to a normal rate.
"You'll never beat Luhon," he repeated, not didactically or stubbornly, but in the calm tone of somebody who patiently states to a child or someone of simple intelligence.
"Believe what you like," said Miles. He hesitated, then took a long chance—a chance he had taken with no one so far except Chak'ha. "How about helping me?"
Eff looked him frankly in the face.
"I won't help you fight him," answered Eff. "But outside of that, I'll help you with anything reasonable."
"That's all I ask," said Miles.
Eff grinned more widely. Chak'ha moved in until he stood close to both of them, and the aura of emotion that Miles sensed around all three of them seemed to flow together into one unit of mutual understanding.
From that point on began Miles' first days of anything like comradeship aboard the small vessel.
At first Miles had half expected Chak'ha to resent the sudden inclusion of Eff into what had been a two-way partnership. But he had forgotten that Eff had been high in the pecking order, while Chak'ha had been at the bottom. Chak'ha made no attempt to compete with Eff for Miles' friendship. In fact, as Mil
es discovered, it would have been hard for anyone to resent Eff.
Once he had opened up to the two of them, the bearlike alien turned out to own a warmth of character closer to human warmth than Miles had found otherwise aboard the ship. Eff was an extrovert. He was frank and—except for his belief that Luhon was unconquerable—apparently daunted by nothing, even including the Center Aliens. Amused by Miles' determination to attempt the apparently hopeless task of fighting Luhon but fascinated by it, he joined happily in helping Miles study Luhon.
"I tell you," Miles kept insisting to him stubbornly, "Luhon has to have a weak spot! Any organism, by its very nature, has to have drawbacks as well as advantages."
"To be sure, he has to have weak spots," replied Eff shrewdly. "But are they weak spots that you have strong spots to correspond with? Luhon's simply too fast for you. He's too fast for any of us aboard here. He's from a heavy world—one where the gravity is much more than any of us is used to."
Miles stared at him.
"You mean," said Miles at last, "he's stronger than he looks, because of that—"
"Stronger? Some, of course." Eff shrugged goodhumoredly. "But that's not the point. He's much faster, because of the gravity conditions he's grown up with."
"Faster?" echoed Miles.
Eff laughed.
"You don't understand, Miles?" said the stocky alien. "Stop and think then. The stronger the gravity, the faster an object falls, say from your hand to the ground. Correct?"
"Yes," said Miles slowly.
"Also, the faster you fall to the ground, if you get offbalance," said Eff. "Correct?"
"Ah," said Miles, suddenly understanding.
"I see you follow me now," said Eff. "Standing, walking, running—almost everything we bipeds do requires maintaining our balance. And the quicker we fall when our balance is lost, the faster our reflexes have to be to take muscular action to stop us from falling. Luhon is like that—his reflexes are simply that much faster than mine . . . or yours. So I tell you—there's no hope. You will never beat him!"
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