Miles shook his head. He did not believe that some key could not be found to defeat the slender, quick-moving, gray-skinned alien who continued—out of all those aboard the Fighting Rowboat—to ignore him.
In fact, Luhon was isolated now in the old pattern of behavior, for all the rest aboard had begun to associate with and talk to one another, regardless of rank. They did it seldom, and they did it warily, but they were doing it. Miles' friendship with Chak'ha had first broken the ice of the pecking order. Now, slowly but undeniably, a general thaw was setting in.
The exception was Luhon. But if it bothered him to be set aside, separate within the old pattern of behavior aboard the ship, he did not show it. He spent his waking hours working with the ship's controls, and he continued to ignore everyone aboard, Miles included. Nor could Miles notice any increase in the minimal signs that betrayed Luhon's awareness of Miles whenever Miles got within jumping distance of the gray-skinned alien. Moreover, at the end of two weeks of study, with all the help that Eff and Chak'ha could give him, Miles had yet to find any sure counter for that inhuman swiftness of physical reflex Luhon possessed.
The best Miles could do was to plan an attack that would at least give him the advantage of choosing the time and place of battle. He could hope to get in one quick blow—and that would be all. It would need to be a crippling or knockout blow if Miles were to win at all. The best place for it to be landed, Miles thought, was the narrow and apparently soft midsection of Luhon, just above the waist. He planned his blow and rehearsed it in the privacy of the cabin he shared with Chak'ha until it was reflexive, until it was essentially automatic.
Then he stationed himself one day just within the open doorway of his cabin. Eff and Chak'ha took up their posts in the lounge.
Miles waited. It was a long wait, and he ended up sitting rather than standing, until a preliminary signal, which was Chak'ha's own peculiar bark of laughter, alerted him to the fact that Luhon had commenced to move through the lounge headed aft. Miles got swiftly to his feet.
He stepped noiselessly to within half a step of the open doorway and listened, with ears tuned to unnatural acuteness by the tension within him. He heard the footsteps of Luhon approaching down the corridor outside the cabin. A coldness enfolded his forehead, and he knew that he had begun to sweat with anticipation. His heart beat faster. He tensed, poised—
The laugh of Chak'ha rang out again from the lounge.
Miles launched himself forward. He had a glimpse of a gray body before him, swiftly twisting away. His fist grazed a gray side. He felt the shock of a sudden heavy blow at the side of his neck. He caught himself, bounced off a corridor wall, and before he could even try to strike again, another blow somewhere on his head sent him sliding down and away into unconsciousness. . . .
When he opened his eyes, he found he was lying on his bunk. His neck ached with an ache that seemed to penetrate across his chest and down the opposite side of his body. The faces of Eff and Chak'ha floated above him. He opened his mouth to speak, but to his surprise what came out was barely more than a whisper—and even that hurt his neck.
"What happened?" he whispered.
"What I told you would happen," replied the voice of Eff. "He was too fast for you."
The feeling of disillusionment and defeat closed around Miles like quicksand. He slipped back into unconsciousness.
But when he opened his eyes next, it was from sleep, and it was as if his mind had come to its own conclusion and made itself up while he slumbered. Chak'ha was not in the room, but Eff was. Miles struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed. His neck ached, and his head was dizzy. But he made it. Eff looked at him with a tolerant humor.
"Help me up," husked Miles, even those few words sending pain up through his neck and into his head where it spread into a skullcap of headache.
Eff came forward and pulled Miles to his feet.
"There," said Eff. "Now you're up. But what's the use in that? You're just going to have to lie down again."
"No," whispered Miles. In him was something cold and hard as a nugget of meteoric iron flung through light-years of empty space to its destination, death at last in the fires of a sun. "Help me . . . walk."
He headed toward the doorway of the room, with Eff holding one arm and guiding him. As he went, he seemed to draw strength from the very movement. He turned left down the corridor.
"Where's Luhon?" he whispered hoarsely to Eff.
"Where he almost always is," replied Eff, watching him curiously. "Up front by himself, in the control room."
"Good," husked Miles. He continued to totter on down the corridor, with Eff helping to balance him. But his strength was coming back rapidly with that near-magic return of health that was part of the Center Alien science built into the ship. By the time he was halfway across the lounge he was able to shake himself free of Eff's sustaining grip and walk alone.
When he entered the forward corridor leading to the control room, he was striding a little in advance of Eff. The pain was still in his neck and head, but he could bear it. And the action of his muscles was coming more easily to him—which was important.
Eff caught up with him.
"What're you going to do?" asked Eff.
"Wait and see," answered Miles.
He went on, Eff beside him, until he reached the entrance to the control room. There, as usual, sat Luhon at the controls. But for once his fingers were not playing with them. Instead, his gaze was lifted above them to the control room's main vision screen, which was set now on a view of intergalactic space—looking in that direction from which Miles' implanted inner knowledge told him the Silver Horde was expected to come.
There was something lonely about the way the still, slim, gray-skinned figure sat, with its gaze fixed unmovingly on empty intergalactic space. But Miles had no time for empathy now.
Putting out a hand to stop Eff from following him beyond the open doorway, he walked forward without pausing and, when he was within range, launched himself without any attempt at trickery at the back of Luhon's neck.
This time, when he awoke, he remembered nothing beyond that single jump forward. His neck, surprisingly, was not so painful now. But his head was one single, solid ache, as if Luhon's retaliation this time had been all in that area. He lay awhile, waiting and hoping for the ache to diminish. But if it did so, it did so only slightly.
He turned his head and saw Chak'ha and Eff watching him. Painfully, once more he struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed. Neither of the others came forward to help him.
Rage suddenly flooded through him—not rage at Luhon, but rage at the two who stood watching.
"Come here!" he croaked hoarsely. "Help me!"
It was not a request he was making of them. It was an order. And there was enough of the old pecking order pattern left in them that both came to him and helped him to his feet. For a moment his head reeled, and the room seemed to spin and sway around him. Then his gaze and sense of balance settled.
He turned toward the doorway of the room.
"To Luhon," he said hoarsely. There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the other two aliens. Then, silently, they each took an elbow and guided him out into the corridor and once more toward the front of the vessel.
This time, as he walked through the lounge—which now was filled with silent, watching crewmen in all their various alien shapes and expressions of feature—recovery was slow in coming to him. But come it did. By the time he was halfway down the corridor toward the control room he was once more walking without assistance.
He made it to the entrance of the control room and there paused. Because this time, evidently alerted by the sound of footsteps approaching, Luhon had turned about in his chair and was facing the doorway. His eyes met the eyes of Miles plainly this time, and for the first time without any pretense of avoidance.
Luhon's face, insofar as six weeks had taught Miles to interpret the gray-skinned alien's features, wore a look of puzzlement. He stared sear
chingly at Miles in the doorway.
Miles launched himself forward in a tottering rush, his hands outstretched to grab the throat of the other.
But before his hands closed around the gray throat, Luhon was no longer before him. Miles found himself seized and swung about. He was pinned, with his back against the slanting face of one of the control consoles. With ease, Luhon held him helpless there, and the gray-skinned face looked down into Miles' from a distance of a few inches.
"What do you want?" asked Luhon.
It was the first time that Miles had heard the voice of the other. It was a soft, low-pitched voice, a strange voice to belong to someone who had outfought everyone else aboard this vessel. And it, together with the emotions that Miles felt emanating from Luhon, was deep-stained with puzzlement
"I want"—Miles' voice was almost too husky to be understandable—"to fight the Silver Horde."
For a long moment Luhon's gray features continued to look down into Miles' face. Then Miles felt the grip that was holding him pinioned against the console released. Luhon stood back from him, a slight, slim figure—not only in contrast with Miles, but also with Eff and Chak'ha, who now filled the control room doorway behind the ship's champion.
"You want to fight the Silver Horde?" echoed Luhon in his soft voice. His eyes traveled up and down Miles. "So do I. But, a great deal better than you, I know how impossible a hope that is."
10
Miles slowly straightened up. He rubbed his aching head with a forefinger and tried to clear the hoarse vocal cords of his painful throat.
"You're wrong," he answered Luhon.
"No," said Luhon evenly.
"Yes," said Miles. His weary legs began to tremble, and he sat down in the control seat Luhon had just vacated. "Do you know what I did the first day I was here? I looked around the ship, and then I looked around the platform. And then I took that small courier ship from its cradle on the platform and went in it up the line toward the big ships where the Center Aliens are."
Luhon's pointed ears suddenly pricked and turned forward toward Miles.
"You went in and saw the Center Aliens?" he asked.
"I didn't get as far as I'd planned to go," said Miles. "All of a sudden I found one of them sitting beside me, and he turned the ship around and brought it back. But he answered my questions. He told me why this ship is never intended to fight the Silver Horde. He told me he only wants us for feedback purposes on the total weapons of the total battle line, if it comes to fighting. He told me that one of them is worth more than all twenty-three of us in this ship put together."
Miles stopped talking. Luhon stared at him for a long moment.
"You took that little boat," said Luhon, almost wonderingly. "And you went in—you tried to get in up to where the Center Aliens are. You did that?"
"None of you ever did anything like that, is that it?" he demanded suddenly of Luhon.
Luhon made the negative gesture of his race. It was only a slight twisting of his upper body, but the aura of emotion around him carried the meaning behind it clearly to Miles' emotional sensitivity.
"But you asked him," said Luhon, staring brilliantly at Miles. "And he gave you the answers."
"Yes," said Miles. He struggled to his feet. "Only, I don't believe him. I don't agree with him. I think we can fight the Silver Horde—in this ship, the twenty-three of us, working her alongside all the other ships that go out to fight the Horde when the time comes."
Once more Luhon looked at him for what seemed a long time. Then he made a negative twist of his body again; only this time there was something like a shrug in it.
"So you believe that?" demanded the gray-skinned alien. "And that's why you fought your way up to just below me? You wanted to take over this ship to make it into something that could fight the Silver Horde?"
"That's right," said Miles. He added, brutally. "None of the rest of you seemed to have the guts for it."
He tensed, bracing himself for a sudden attack by Luhon.
But the gray-skinned alien only stared at him for a moment longer, then turned half around so that he had both Eff and Chak'ha in the doorway within his field of vision as well as Miles. Then he took a step backward.
"I didn't believe we could fight the Silver Horde," he said. His eyes fastened brilliantly on Miles. "I still don't. Also, I know that you could never beat me, no matter how many times you try. Do you understand that?"
Miles shook his head.
"No," he said. "You can't kill me. So in the end I'll beat you. No matter how long it takes or how many times I have to try."
Once more, Luhon made that body-twisting movement of negation. But this time it was nearly all shrug.
"You can't beat me, but you'll keep on trying," he said, almost to himself. "You'll keep attacking me until you win, you say. And we all know you can't make this ship into a fighting vessel which the Center Aliens will let go against the Silver Horde when it comes. But you say you'll keep trying until you do."
He took another step back. He looked at Miles, and once more Miles braced himself for a lightning attack. But no attack came.
"All right, then, in that case," said Luhon, "I am defeated."
Miles stared at him. It seemed too sudden, too easy a victory. What had been, dimly but certainly, in the back of his mind was that he would keep on attacking Luhon until he exhausted the other. He had hoped only to be able to bother the gray-skinned alien until Luhon would buy peace at the price of stepping down from the number one position. This sudden admission of defeat made Miles cautious.
"Just like that?" he said, narrowly watching Luhon. "Why?
"Because," answered Luhon softly, "I did not take the little boat and try to talk to the Center Aliens. Because I did not plan to fight my way up to the top in this ship for any purpose other than to be on top. Because I, even now, don't believe you can make this ship into something that will go out to fight the Silver Horde. But most of all, because I want to fight the Silver Horde as much as you do."
He turned his brilliant gaze toward Eff and Chak'ha.
"All of us aboard here," he said slowly, "have dreamed about fighting when the time comes. Isn't that so, friends?"
For a moment, Eff and Chak'ha stared back at Luhon as if in astonishment at finding themselves directly addressed by him. Then together they made the individual body movements that were the equivalent of a human nod.
"Yes," said Eff. The rough frankness of his usual voice was slowed and more solemn now. "For me—yes. And Chak'ha, here, says yes. If we four feel that way, I'd think the others would feel that way, too."
"They will, I think," said Luhon. "We're a great deal alike, all of us on this ship—more alike than we like to think, considering the differences of body and mind among us. But at least we're alike in being different from those Center Aliens. They don't have feelings, as we do." He turned to Miles. "Isn't that true, friend Miles?"
"They don't feel the way we do, that's certain," said Miles grimly.
"Then it's settled," said Luhon. "I abdicate in favor of you, Miles. For the rest, I think they'll all be glad to join us. If not"—he did not smile (perhaps he could not with the muscles in his gray face), but a touch of humor sped from him like a ripple over the surface of a pond to break against Miles' emotional perceptions—"we'll make them. If there's anything I can do to make it more sure that my people at home survive the Horde, I won't stop at knocking a few heads together here."
"I don't believe it'll be necessary," said Miles. "But let's see."
It was just beginning to sink into him now that Luhon had actually given way, had stepped down and allowed him, Miles, to take top position aboard the Fighting Rowboat. The reaction had begun a warm glow that seemed to spread out from the center of his body, soothing all his hurts and aches and clearing his head amazingly. "Let's get them all together in the lounge now and talk to them."
"Yes," said Luhon, "let's go to the lounge."
They went. As they entered the lounge,
with Eff and Chak'ha abreast, followed by Luhon beside Miles, and moved to stand together in one corner from which they could survey the rest of the room, the eyes of everyone else there turned to them.
"Get everyone here," said Luhon, raking the room with his eyes. His gaze fastened on Vouhroi, who was closest to the corridor leading back to the crew quarters. "You, Vouhroi, go back and bring everybody else up here."
Vouhroi went. The silence in the lounge continued unbroken. The eyes of those there remained fixed on the four standing in the corner. For the first time a small doubt crawled through the lower level of Miles' mind. They were four combined now—three who were the top three in physical abilities aboard the ship plus Chak'ha, who was least. But with the breakdown of the old pecking order anything was possible. What if, seeing this combination of four, the others of the nineteen remaining moved to combine themselves in an opposing group? Suddenly, he was glad of Luhon's willingness to fight for their plans if necessary.
Five other crew members, followed by Vouhroi, filed into the lounge and filled up the empty chairs, with the exception of those chairs belonging to Miles and his three companions. They sat still, looking at Luhon.
"Miles just conquered me," said Luhon. "So he's on top now aboard this ship. He believes, and we with him here agree, that from now on things are going to be different." He glanced aside at Miles. "Tell them, Miles."
"There isn't going to be any more fighting among ourselves," said Miles, looking around at the different alien faces. "From now on we're going to work together, and we're going to make the Fighting Rowboat into a ship that can actually go into battle against the Silver Horde when it comes."
A small sound came murmuring from the rest of the crew members, like the sound of wind through the swaying branches of a grove of trees. It was a combination of sounds, in many verbal ways, of astonishment and disbelief.
"I know!" said Miles swiftly. "The Center Aliens don't think we can do it. But I think we can. Have any of you gotten close to those weapons and felt what they're like with the sensing part of your minds? They're cold! We'd have to work with them to warm them up. But who knows what they'd be like if they were warmed up?"
Hour of the Gremlins Page 22