War Against the Rull

by A. E. van Vogt

  How soon they would discover the sprung trap and whether they would connect it with him were moot questions. But there could be little doubt that this was no longer safe territory.

  Toward dawn he found himself a place to rest under an overhanging rock. And he slept there most of the day. As the afternoon waned, he emerged cautiously onto the stream bed and, finding where the ice was thinnest over swift water, used a heavy rock to break through. Presently, he had caught some fish.

  All that night, too, he moved along the stream bed. And the next.

  On the third day he awoke from a deep sleep to the familiar sound of hissing jets. The ezwal watched tensely from his shelter as a small aircraft moved along a few dozen feet above the stream bed, heading in his direction.

  As he drew back out of sight, a clear thought, seemingly directed straight at him, touched his mind.

  "Leave this stream immediately. Your footprints have been seen, and the search has begun. My name is Jamieson and I am trying to get authorization to save your life. But it may arrive too late. Leave this stream immediately. Your footprints have been seen...."

  The airship cruised on downstream, out of sight, and out of his thought-perception range. The young ezwal crouched where he was a moment longer, thinking tensely, "Was this a trap designed to get him out into the open while daylight still remained?"

  He decided not. Here was one of the men who had guessed the ezwal secret. Actually, his friendship—while real in a limited sense—was more dangerous to the ezwal race than the death of his mother or himself.

  The young ezwal felt a great reluctance to die without a struggle. Like a runner beginning a race, he darted from his concealment, heading upstream, the direction from which he had come. Early that morning he had gone by a deep indentation that made a jagged rocky valley stretching away from the stream in either direction; it was not far away.

  He reached it, and his foot began to ache again. Ignoring the pain, he bounded along what seemed to be the more impassable of the two routes. The rocky pathless terrain led higher and higher, and presently he was on a crest several hundred feet above the stream.

  Still there was no aircraft in sight, and no sign of the pursuers. Relieved, the ezwal headed for the higher pass that he could see in the distance ahead.

  Night was falling as he ran over a land that seemed an endless wintry desolation. A gibbous moon came up behind him, and the sky to his right came alive with the strange lights which he had come to recognize as a peculiarity of the planet itself.

  Interminably later, the first streaks of sunlight found him tired and with a foot that throbbed without letup. Much more disturbing, the brightening world ahead revealed a seacoast with a scattering of human habitations and, as far as the eye could see, a gray ocean.

  The ezwal paused uncertainly and looked about. In a way, this was the sort of place he had been looking for; here were many human beings on which to begin wreaking his vengeance. But not while the hunt was still relatively close, and not while his lame foot hampered his every move.

  He would have to skirt this settlement to the right or left, turn inland again and lie low until— Suddenly, from over a nearby group of trees, a low-flying aircraft appeared and was above his head in an instant. The ezwal was off like a flash, but not before he recognized the same ship he had seen the day before at the creek. Now it followed him easily, matching his every twist and turn, and from it, the same clear mind which had addressed him the day before now projected a series of sharp, rapid thoughts.

  "I will not harm you! If I wanted to, you would be dead. Stop running or you will be seen! You have already been seen by others hereabouts, and your presence reported. Knowing what direction you came from, I was able to find you first. But this entire area has been alerted, and the other ships are searching it Stop running or you will be seen!"

  The ezwal felt helpless—torn between this strong appeal to his sense of caution and a burning frustration at being unable to shake off his immediate pursuer. But less than a minute later the question was settled for him. He saw a scattered group of houses ahead, reversed his direction, and saw one of the dreaded lifeboats moving slowly along less than a mile off. He dived into a clump of bushes and cowered there, quivering.

  Promptly, the small ship dropped like a stone and eased to a neat landing fifty feet away. The ezwal gave a start as a sliding after-hatch flew open, but no one emerged. Instead came urgent thoughts.

  "Yesterday I tried to direct you toward open country, but now that you have come into this settled part, there is only one way I can save your life. You must get into the aft compartment and let me take you to where you will be safe. No, I cannot set you free again, but I believe I can guarantee that you will not be harmed. The other ship is coming closer! The men on it do not believe that you are an intelligent creature or anything but a menace to human lives, and there is no time to convince them of the truth. They will kill you unless you act quickly! Do you understand?"

  The lifeboat was now only a few hundred yards away, hovering over a patch of underbrush much like the one the ezwal was hiding in. They were evidently searching it closely.

  The ezwal waited tensely. His tracks, he was sure, were indistinguishable in the slushy, trampled snow, and there was a chance the lifeboat would turn elsewhere. But then, as he watched, it rose and drifted straight toward him.

  "Quickly!" came the urgent plea from the smaller ship. "It will be much better if they do not see you enter."

  Still the ezwal hesitated, bitterly reluctant to give up his hard-won freedom, even to save his own life. Then, at the last possible moment, it was not the consideration of his personal safety that decided him; it was the recollection of something his would-be protector had said: "The men on it do not believe that you are an intelligent creature ..." It could mean the man in the waiting ship was the only one who did. And if that man could be killed, that knowledge might die with him.

  12

  Keeping his body low to the ground and taking advantage of intervening bushes, the ezwal glided rapidly toward the ship and leaped through the hatchway. The door clicked shut behind him, enclosing him in blackness, but not before he had seen that the inside of the compartment was featureless except for two small ventilator openings. As the deck rose abruptly under him, he settled wearily to his haunches and remained there.

  Strangely, the realization that there would be no immediate opportunity to kill the possessor of the vital secret brought no particular feeling of chagrin but only a dull acceptance of the fact that matters must now take their course regardless of anything he might do.

  And now, from somewhere outside the ship, came thoughts which registered simultaneously on the mind of the man sitting in the next compartment and also made sounds, faintly audible through the metal bulkhead. "Dr. Jamieson. Always beating us to the spot, it seems. Haven't seen anything of that poor, misjudged little monster, have you?" This was the same forceful mind which had given orders at the wreck, many days before, and it now held an ill-concealed animosity.

  There was a pause, then a carefully ironical reply. "I'm quite sure he has left the area, Commander McLennan."

  "Indeed? Well, we'll soon know. There are six dogs on the trail, with the other lifeboat following them. Nice, fresh scent, too, judging from their speed. This time we won't stop till we catch up with it, wherever it is. Too bad you weren't able to persuade the commissioner that the beast was harmless enough to attempt capturing it alive—but maybe they'll let you have it stuffed."

  While the commander spoke, his direct thoughts grew fainter, and the ezwal could feel Jamieson's small ship picking up horizontal speed. The next instant, Jamieson showed concerned awareness that the lifeboat was circling back rapidly.

  "Jamieson!" It was Commander McLennan's voice and thought, both of which had furious overtones. "You will land your ship immediately, or we will be forced to blast you out of the air!"

  The ezwal read dismay and bafflement in the mind of the man in the next c
ompartment. There was also indecision, a mental debate whether to operate the controls in such a way as to bring the ship down to a landing or in another way which would send the ship dodging at full speed among the mountains and low-hanging clouds. But none of this uncertainty was apparent in Jamieson's indignant reply.

  "What is the meaning of this, Commander?"

  "Bluffing won't do you any good, Jamieson! One of the local residents saw the whole thing from his house on a hillside back there. Saw your ship maneuvering around, got his binoculars, and watched you land. Saw the beast enter your ship. What did you do—tempt it with a morsel of food from its own planet? I warn you, Jamieson, our guns are locked on your ship. If you have not started down by the count of three I shall give the order to fire! One ... two ..."

  The ezwal felt the deck under him start to sink away. But just before that, he had been aware of a flashing series of thoughts in Jamieson's mind—a picturization of the ship being shot down, of Jamieson himself being killed by the crash, of the ezwal surviving long enough to be killed by the merciless weapons of those in the other ship. And along with the pictures, there was a sense of frustration and of keen regret at the failure of a vitally important plan.

  It was very strange. This man's mind seemed quite different from that of the man who had slain the ezwal's mother. In this mind there was no will to destroy those in the other ship, even though they had threatened his life. Also, there was little if any personal fear.

  And now there came a hurried stream of thoughts from the next compartment, aimed at him. "There is no time to explain to you at length, but you must understand one vitally important thing. You know, of course, why ezwals have chosen to conceal their intelligence: they fear a stiffening of opposition if human beings discover it. That would be quite true—if neither side had any more right to Carson's Planet than the other. As mere animals, which you ezwals pretend to be, you can have no such right under Interstellar Law. But as intelligent beings and original inhabitants you would have the clearest possible title.

  "Ezwals can never drive human beings from Carson's Planet by brute force; but as one scientifically developed race to another, you can ask us to leave, as soon as you can defend your planet, and we shall be obliged to do so.

  "I have staked my professional reputation—and my personal safety—on bringing you before the authorities of my government in the hope of proving to them that you and your kind are intelligent creatures and that we must stop killing and start bargaining with you. Naturally, I cannot do this without your full co-operation."

  Even as the man finished speaking, a slight jar indicated the ship had touched ground. He had tested the walls of the compartment by pressing against them with all his strength, but there was no apparent weakness anywhere. The two groups of drilled holes which formed the ventilator openings showed the surrounding steel panels to be nearly as thick as the length of his claws.

  Jamieson was speaking again, rather hastily. "The men in the other ship, as you probably know, are military men, assigned to track you down and capture you, dead or alive. When I arrived on Earth a few days ago and learned of this situation, I asked to be placed in charge, since Commander McLennan had been unsuccessful in locating you. But my request was refused because I emphasized the importance of taking you alive, and you were considered too great a menace. I am here against the wish of McLennan. He feels the military are better equipped to handle this kind of situation."

  The ezwal was receiving Jamieson's account with only part of his mind; another part was increasingly aware of the pressure of thoughts from outside. They were mixed thoughts, some of them hostile—and some of that hostility seemed to be directed toward Jamieson. There seemed to be a feeling that the man had played the game unfairly. But here and there was a tinge of admiration for the way in which Jamieson had accomplished what they would have considered impossible.

  The medley of thoughts had increased steadily in strength during the last few minutes, and now it remained constant. The other ship had evidently landed close by.

  Jamieson finished urgently. "The situation is now out of my hands. But you can help us both by letting me know what McLennan has in mind—what his plans are—as soon as they become apparent to you. Or are you already aware of them?"

  The ezwal sat back disdainfully on his haunches. He had not yet actually admitted to anything. And he would certainly not be trapped into an admission by such a shallow ruse, even though there was no evidence that the man had intended it that way.

  13

  And now the pictures from Jamieson's mind showed that he had opened the control-room door and was stepping out to face several men whose guns were trained on him.

  The voice of McLennan, who was still in the other ship, came from the loud-speaker. "Doctor, I'm too astonished right now at your illegal act to decide what I'll do about it. Step aside."

  Jamieson made no reply but moved away from the ship as directed, McLennan said gruffly, "All right, Carling, you may proceed."

  One of the men, who was carrying a small metal cylinder, went to the control compartment just vacated by Jamieson and stepped inside. There followed a series of metallic sounds; then Jamieson spoke sharply. "I warn you, Commander, if you harm that ezwal as a helpless prisoner you will have a hard time justifying yourself."

  "Have no fear, Dr. Jamieson—your playmate will not be harmed. I merely consider it necessary to inspect the compartment to see whether it is adequate to transport such a dangerous beast into civilization. The gas will merely render the animal unconscious for a period of a few hours."

  "It won't affect this one," said Jamieson, "because he has had advance warning."

  "Ah, yes," said the commander ironically. "Your pet theory. Well, we'll see if he's clever enough to stop breathing for several minutes. Carling, are you hooked up yet? If so, open the valve."

  "Yes, sir."

  The ezwal was taking his third deep breath as the hissing sound began, and he held it He had no exact idea how long several minutes might be, so he lay there inertly, resolved to hold his breath into unconsciousness if necessary.

  Meanwhile, outside the ship, Jamieson said, "I tell you, Commander, you will be making a dangerous mistake if you rely on the gas to immobilize that creature."

  "You are asking us to believe," said McLennan, "that the beast knows we are gassing it merely because we have been talking about it—in short, that it understands our speech?"

  "It reads minds."

  The statement seemed to stop McLennan. The ezwal caught the change in the man's thought, the sudden partial acceptance of what Jamieson was saying.

  McLennan spoke slowly. "Are you serious, sir?"

  "Never been more serious in my life. Ezwals are perfect telepaths, the only telepaths in the universe that we know of who can both receive from and send to non-telepaths."

  McLennan said speculatively, "It would be an ideal situation if we could have such a telepath aboard every ship."

  "It would indeed," said Jamieson, "and that is only one of the many possibilities."

  McLennan's hesitation ended. He was a man of a decisive turn of mind, and he said now, with finality, "That still leaves us the problem of making sure he remains a prisoner and does no more damage. Carling, give him another five minutes of that gas. Then open the door."

  Five minutes, thirty . . . sixty minutes—it would have made no difference. Ezwals were amphibians, and an hour and a half would have been more like the time needed to make certain that an ezwal was properly anesthetized.

  For the ezwal, the half acceptance by McLennan of Jamieson's theory crystallized the decision it had to make. It was now or never. Jamieson must die—in such a way that McLennan's momentary belief in the intelligence of ezwals would be shattered forever in a bestial display.

  He moved, so that he could act instantly; then he let his body go limp. He became aware that Jamieson was stepping up to the machine, unnoticed. The scientist must have looked in because Jamieson spoke sharply. "Comman
der, I demand that you end the use of this gas. No one knows the effect of such a gas on an ezwal."

  "It's what you used when you captured them."

  "We were lucky."

  McLennan said, "All right, Carling. Open that door. Stand back, everybody."

  "What do you intend to do?" That was Jamieson.

  "If he's unconscious we'll just hoist him over into the big machine here."

  Jamieson seemed resigned. "Let me put the harness over him."

  The ezwal had a mental picture of Jamieson as he stepped toward the opening door of the compartment, and that changed his mind completely. He had intended to remain dormant for the time being and merely hope that some indefinite chance would bring Jamieson within his reach. Now, here was the man in an easy position for the kill. The ezwal gathered his legs under him and sprang across the widening path of light to the doorway.

  The door opened all the way. The ezwal and the man stood face to face. Three-in-line steel-bright eyes were on a level with the steady, unwavering pair of brown ones.

  From beyond, from the wintry outside, there was a nervous bustle, a tensing of several minds. The ezwal was aware, and then he put the awareness into the background of his thought.

  An astonishing thing was happening. In spite of his desperate purpose, he was hesitating. Dimly, he understood why. Earlier— days before—he had killed the men without mercy because to them he was a beast, and to him they were enemies of his race.

  This was different. This man was a friend, unmistakably, unalterably. And there was more to it. They were two intelligent beings facing each other; and though the ezwal realized it only vaguely, he felt the kinship that exists between all intelligence once it is in communication.

  He understood in a remote part of his mind the kind of antagonism that can exist between intelligent life forms. But his emotional development had not reached that point. And so, only the feeling of communication and kinship was ascendant.