War Against the Rull

by A. E. van Vogt

  The ezwal trotted easily down to the ground, turned and looked up at Jamieson—who remained in an outjut of platform from the lower surface of the ship.

  Jamieson began: "Have you changed your mind in any way?"

  The ezwal replied, a curt thought, "Get off our planet and take all human beings with you!"

  Jamieson said, "Will you tell your fellow ezwals that we will do this if they will develop a machine civilization that can defend the planet from the Rulls?"

  "Ezwals will never agree to be slaves to machines." There was so much determination in the thought that Jamieson nodded his acceptance of the other's reality. Adult ezwals were emotionally set in a pattern that was probably millions of years in the making.

  The trap they were in was one from which they could not escape without assistance.

  He said mildly, "Still, you're an individual. You want life for yourself as an entity. We proved that on Eristan II."

  The ezwal seemed irritated and puzzled. "I gather from your mind that there are races which have a collective existence. The ezwals are separate beings who share a common goal. I sense, without clearly understanding your thought, that you regard this separateness as a weakness."

  "Not weakness," said Jamieson. "Just a point of attack. If you were a collective group, our approach would be different. For instance, you don't have a name, do you?"

  The ezwal's thought showed disgust. "Telepaths recognize each other without needing such an elementary means of identification, and I warn you—" anger came into the thought—"if you think you will make conformists of ezwals by the idea I detect in your mind, you are hopelessly mistaken." Again the tenor of thought changed. The anger yielded to contempt. "But of course your problem is not what will you do with us but how will you convince your fellow human beings that ezwals are intelligent. I leave you with this problem, Trevor Jamieson."

  The ezwal turned and trotted away across the grass. Jamieson called after it. "Thanks for saving my life, and thank you for proving again the value of co-operation against a common danger."

  "I cannot," came the answer, "honestly offer thanks to a human being, for any reason whatsoever. Goodbye, and don't bother me any more."

  "Goodbye," said Jamieson softly. He had a keen sense of regret and failure as the platform on which he stood began to roll back into the interior of the ship. As it clicked into position, he felt the antigravity effect as the great ship began to lift. Within seconds, it was accelerating.

  Before leaving Carson's Planet, Jamieson spoke to the ruling military council. His suggestions received a formidably cold reception. As soon as his purpose was clear, the governor of the council interrupted him. "Mr. Jamieson, there is not a human being in this room or on this planet who has not suffered the death of a family member, murdered by these monstrous ezwals."

  Since the remark was scientifically and militarily irrelevant, Jamieson waited. The governor continued. "If we were to believe that these creatures are intelligent, our impulse would be to exterminate them. For once, sir, man should have no mercy for another race, and don't expect any mercy for ezwals from the inhabitants of this planet."

  There was an angry murmur of approval from the other members of the council. Jamieson glanced around that circle of hostile faces and realized that Carson's Planet was indeed a precariously held base. Only a few times in history had man found an alien race so completely antipathetic as was the ezwal. What made the problem deadly was that Carson's Planet was one of the three bases on which human beings based their defense of the galaxy. Under no circumstances could there be a withdrawal. And if necessary, an extermination policy could be justified to the convention of Alien races allied to Man.

  But even the key to extermination was his knowledge, and his alone—that ezwals communicated by telepathy. As beasts, ezwals had foiled all attempts to destroy them, by one simple reality. Few people had ever seen an ezwal, and the reason was now obvious—they always had advance warning.

  If he told these hate-filled people that ezwals were telepaths, human scientists on Carson's Planet would quickly devise methods of destruction. These methods, based on mechanically created mind waves, would be designed to confuse the ezwal race, the members of which were actually quite naive and vulnerable.

  Standing there, Jamieson realized that this was not the time to tell about his experiences on Eristan II. Let them believe that he merely had a theory. Because of his position, most of them would believe his facts if he presented them. But they could all reject a mere theory on the grounds that they were on the scene, had tried everything, and he was merely passing by. And yet, he would have to make it clear that their rigid attitude was not acceptable.

  "Gentlemen," said Jamieson, "and ladies—" he bowed to the three women members—"I cannot adequately express the sympathy and good will which motivated the Galactic Convention to send me here originally, in the hope that I might somehow help the people of Carson's Planet to resolve the ezwal problem. But I should tell you that I plan to recommend to the Convention that a plebiscite be held, the purpose of this plebiscite: to determine if the human race here will permit a rational solution to the ezwal problem."

  The governor said coldly, "I think we are entitled to regard what you have just said as an insult."

  Jamieson replied, "It was not intended as such. But my feeling is that the members of this council are so burdened with grief that we have no recourse but to go to the people. Thank you for listening to me."

  Jamieson sat down. The State dinner that followed was eaten in almost complete silence.

  After the dinner the vice-president of the council came over to Jamieson accompanied by a young woman. She seemed to be in her early thirties and she had blue eyes and a good-looking face and figure, but there was an unfeminine firmness in her expression that detracted from what would otherwise have been great beauty.

  The man was barely polite as he said, "Mrs. Whitman has asked me to introduce her to you, Dr. Jamieson."

  He performed the introduction quickly and walked off, as if the brief contact was all he could tolerate. Jamieson studied the woman thoughtfully. He recalled now that he had noticed her in serious conversation with first one, then the other of her two table companions—one of whom had been the man who had made the introduction.

  She said now, "You're a doctor of science, aren't you?"

  He nodded. "My Ph.D. is in physics, but it includes celestial mechanics and interstellar exploration—a highly specialized subject."

  "I'm sure it is," she said. "I'm a widow with one child. My husband was a chemical engineer. I always marveled at the range of his knowledge." She added, as if it were an afterthought, "He was killed by an ezwal."

  Jamieson guessed that the man must have been a top-ranking chemical engineer for his wife to be moving in Council circles. But all he said was "I'm sorry for you and the child."

  She stiffened at his sympathy, then relented. "The reason I asked to be introduced to you is that most of the basic decisions about Carson's Planet were made two generations ago. I'd like you to stay over for a few days and I personally would like to show you what might be an alternative solution to the terrible problem we have here. We have a habitable moon—did you know that?"

  Jamieson had noticed the moon as his ship came in. He said slowly, "You're implying it should be the base?"

  "You could look at it," she said. "No one has for fifty years."

  It was a point, he had to admit. In this vast galactic society, the attention span of individuals and even great organizations tended to be small. Basic data was often filed away and forgotten. There were always too many current problems waiting for an authority to give his attention to them. Every problem required a sustained look, and once that look was taken, and the decision made, the decision maker was reluctant to re-examine the data.

  He doubted that she actually had a solution. But the immense antagonism of everyone had oppressed him, and so he warmed to her for actually communicating with him instead of hat
ing him.

  "Please come," she urged.

  Jamieson mentally calculated his time situation. It would be some weeks yet before the "slow" freighter with the ezwal mother and her cub completed the thousands of light-years journey to Earth. He could easily take a few days and still reach Earth before the freighter.

  "All right," he said, "I'll do it." He added, "Did I understand that you will be my guide?"

  She laughed, showing her gleaming white teeth. "You don't think anyone else will even talk to you, do you?"

  Ruefully, Jamieson saw her point.

  6

  His eyes ached. He kept blinking them as he flew, striving to keep in sight the glitter of hurtling metal that was the power-driven spacesuit of his guide.

  Already he regretted keenly making the trip to this strange moon of Carson's Planet. En route from the planet to the Moon, in a great battleship he had commandeered, he had studied the Interstellar Encyclopedia, and there were stark facts. There were enormous temperature changes from day to night. Such planetary bodies simply could not be used to support the millions of people needed to back up a major military base.

  The woman was desperately hard to see against the blazing brilliance of the sun, rising higher and higher from the fantastic horizon of Carson's Satellite. It was almost, Jamieson told himself, as if his guide were deliberately holding herself into the glare of the morning sun to distract his wearying mind and dull his strength.

  More than a mile below, a scatter of forest spread unevenly over a grim, forbidding land. Pock-marked rock, tortured gravel and occasionally a sparse, reluctant growth of grass that showed as brown and uninviting as the bare straggle of forest—and was gone into distance as they sped far above, two shining things of metal, darting along with the speed of shooting stars.

  Several times he saw herds of the tall, dapple-gray grasseaters below; and once, far to the left, he caught the sheeny glint of a scale-armored, bloodsucker gryb.

  It was hard to see his speedometer, which was built into the transparent headpiece of his flying space armor—hard because he had on a second headpiece underneath, attached to his electrically heated clothes; and the light from the sun split dazzling through the two barriers. But now that his suspicions were aroused, he strained his eyes against that glare until they watered and blurred. What he saw tightened his jaw into a thin, hard line. He snapped into his communicators; his voice was as cold and hard as his thoughts. "Hello, Mrs. Whitman."

  "Yes, Doctor Jamieson!" The woman's voice sounded in his communicators; and it seemed to Jamieson's alert hearing that the accent on the "Doctor" held the faintest suggestion of a sneer and a definite hostility. "What is it, Doctor?"

  "You told me this trip would be five hundred and twenty-one miles or—"

  "Or thereabouts!" The reply was swift, but the hostility more apparent, more intentional.

  Jamieson's eyes narrowed to steely gray slits. "You said five hundred and twenty-one miles. The figure is odd enough to be presumed exact, and there is no possibility that you would not know the exact distance from the Five Cities to the platinum mines. We have now traveled six hundred and twenty-nine miles—more every minute—since leaving the Five Cities over two hours ago, and—"

  "So we have!" interrupted the young woman with unmistakable insolence. "Now isn't that too bad, Doctor Trevor Jamieson."

  He was silent, examining the situation for its potential menace. His first indignant impulse was to pursue the unexpected arrogance of the other, but his brain, suddenly crystal-clear, throttled the desire and leaped ahead in a blaze of speculation.

  There was murderous intent here. His mind ticked coldly, with a sense of something repeated, for the threat of death he had faced before, during all the tremendous years when he had roamed the farthest planets. It was icily comforting to remember that he had conquered in the past. In murder, as in everything else, experience counted.

  Jamieson began to decelerate against the fury of built-up velocity. It would take time—but perhaps there still was time, though the other's attitude suggested the crisis was dangerously near. There was no more he could do till he had slowed considerably.

  Jamieson quieted his leaping pulses and said gently, "Tell me, is the whole Council in on this murder? Or is it a scheme of your own?"

  "There's no harm in telling you now," the woman retorted. "We decided you're not going to make any such recommendation about ezwals to the Galactic Convention. Of course we knew this moon would never be accepted as a substitute base."

  Jamieson laughed, a hard, humorless but understanding laugh that hid the slow caution with which he slanted toward the ground. The strain of the curving dive racked his body, tore at his lungs, but he held to it grimly. He was alone in the sky now; the shining spacesuit of his guide had vanished into the dim distance. Evidently she had not turned her head or noticed the deviation on her finder. Anxious for the discovery to be as long delayed as possible, Jamieson said, "And how are you going to kill me?"

  "In about ten seconds," she began tautly, "your engine—" She broke off. "Oh, you're not behind me any more. So you're trying to land. Well, it won't do you any good. I'll be right back that way—"

  Jamieson was only fifty feet from the bleak rock when there was a sudden grinding in the hitherto silent mechanism of his motor. The deadly swiftness of what happened then left no time for more than instinctive action. He felt a pain against his legs, a sharp, tearing pain, a dizzy, burning sensation that staggered his reason. Then he struck the ground, and with a wild, automatic motion jerked off the power that was being so horribly short-circuited, that was burning him alive. Darkness closed over his brain like an engulfing blanket.

  The blurred world of rock swaying and swirling about him— that was Jamieson's awakening! He forced himself to consciousness and realized after a moment of mental blankness that he was no longer in his spacesuit. And when he opened his eyes he could see without a sense of dazzle, now that.he had only the one helmet—the one attached to his electrically heated clothes. He grew aware of something—an edge of rock—pressing painfully into his back. Dizzily, but with sane eyes, he looked up at the determined young woman who was kneeling beside him. She returned his gaze with unsmiling hostility and said curtly, "You're lucky to be alive. Obviously you shut off the motor just in time. It was being shorted by lead grit and burned your legs a little. I've put some salve on, so you won't feel any pain; and you'll be able to walk."

  She stopped and climbed to her feet. Jamieson shook his head to clear away the black spots and then gazed up at her questioningly, but he said nothing. She seemed to realize what was on his mind. "I didn't think I'd be squeamish with so much at stake," she confessed almost angrily, "but I am. I came back to kill you, but I wouldn't kill even a dog without giving him a chance. Well, you've got your chance, if it's worth anything."

  Jamieson sat up. His eyes narrowed on her face inside her helmet. He had met hard women before but never anyone who seemed more sincere and honest about her intentions, now that she was out in the open.

  Frowning with thought, Jamieson looked around; and his eyes, trained for detail, saw a lack in the picture.

  "Where's your spacesuit?"

  The woman nodded her head skyward. Her voice held no quality of friendliness as she said, "If your eyes are good, you'll see a dark spot, almost invisible now, to the right of the son. I chained your suit to mine, then gave mine power. They'll be falling into the sun about three hundred hours from now."

  He pondered that matter-of-factly. "You'll pardon me if I don't quite believe that you've decided to stay and die with me. I know that people will die for what they believe to be right. But I can't quite follow the logic of why you should die. No doubt you have made arrangements to be rescued."

  The woman flushed, her face growing dark with the turgid wave of angry color. "There'll be no rescue," she said. "I'm going to prove to you that, in this matter, no individual in our community thinks of himself or herself. I'm going to die here with yo
u because, naturally, we'll never reach the Five Cities on foot, and as for the platinum mines, they're even farther away."

  "Pure bravado!" Jamieson said. "In the first place your staying with me proves nothing but that you're a fool; in the second, I am incapable of admiring such an action. However, I'm glad you're here with me, and I appreciate the salve on those burns."

  Jamieson climbed gingerly to his feet, testing his legs, first the right, then the left, and felt a little sickening surge of dizziness that he fought back with an effort. "Hm-m-m," he commented aloud in the same matter-of-fact manner as before. "No pain, but weak. That salve ought to have healed the burns by dark."

  "You take it very calmly," said Barbara Whitman acridly.

  He nodded. "I'm always glad to realize I'm alive and I feel that I can convince you that the course which I plan to recommend for Carson's Planet is a wise solution."

  She laughed harshly. "You don't seem to realize our predicament. We're at least twelve days from civilization—that's figuring sixty miles a day, which is hardly possible. Tonight the temperature will fall to a hundred below freezing, at least, though it varies down to as low as a hundred and seventy-five below, depending on the shifting of the satellite core, which is very hot, you know, and very close to the surface at times. That's why human beings—and other life—can exist on this moon at all. The core is jockeyed around by the Sun and Carson's Planet, with the Sun dominating, so that it's always fairly warm in the daytime and why also, when the pull is on the other side of the planet, it's so devilish cold at night. I'm explaining this to you so you'll have an idea of what it's all about"

  "Go on," Jamieson said without comment. "Well, if the cold doesn't kill us, we're bound to run into at least one bloodsucker gryb every few days. They can smell human blood at an astounding distance, and blood, for some chemical reason, drives them mad with hunger. Once they corner a human being it's all up. They tear down the largest trees or dig into caves through solid rock. The only protection is an atomic blaster, and ours went up with our suits. We've got only my hunting knife. Besides all that, our only possible food is the giant grasseater, which runs like a deer at the first sight of anything living and which, besides, could kill a dozen unarmed men if it were cornered. You'll be surprised how hungry it is possible to get within a short time. Something in the air—and, of course, we're breathing filtered air—speeds up normal digestion. We'll be starving to death in a couple of hours."