“I should, should I?” said Cal.
“Yes. Because you’ve seen both sides of it. You’re not like these half-baked glory-preachers that think we’re going to have Heaven next Tuesday. I tell you, Cal, I’ve got more use for a Prog like Wantaki, than I have for these Societics-Contacts choirboys.”
“It’s mutual, no doubt,” said Cal. “You’re both generals.” Harmon frowned at him.
“Something in particular seems to be eating on you,” he said.
“Major Blye’s dead—you know, Zone Eleven. I brought his body back with me.”
“I didn’t know. That’s too bad,” said Harmon. “There’s a man who was a soldier clear through. I’ll bet he died like one.”
“He sure did,” said Cal.
“I want to hear how it happened. But the point right now is something different: You, not Major Blye, good man though he was. I’m fighting for your soul, Cal. Do you believe I’m an honest man? Tell me.” '
“Yes,” said Cal. “I believe you’re honest. I believe you believe every word you say.”
“Then believe me when I say nobody wants peace more than I. That I agree with Scoby one hundred per cent about these Paumons being the nearest thing to human we’ve ever run across, with brains and soul and pain-reactions to match. He’s told you that? I see he has. But from that point he gets idealistic, and I get practical. He thinks this qualifies them to be great friends. I know it qualifies them to be great enemies. It’s one thing to make a pet out of a dog; but don’t try to make one out of a wolf.”
“Or a cheetah?” said Cal.
Harmon stopped talking. The whites of his eyes showed a little.
“I’m talking seriously,” he said.
“So am I,” said Cal. “Don’t you know why that cheetah does things for Scoby?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Harmon. “I’m concerned with the future of two races, not with a brainless animal.I’m concerned with making you see that just because these Paumons are what they are—because they’re so much like us—that we can’t ever trust them. We’ve started something and we can’t stop now. Now we’ve got to break them; teach them with a bloodbath that they’ll remember to the ultimate generations, that the human is master. We can’t stop now.”
“Why’d we start in the first place?”
“History,” said Harmon, “forced our hand. We’re an expanding people.” He stood up. “Cal,” he said, “can’t you see that what I’ve arranged for isn’t only the right thing, it’s the most humanitarian thing? We treated the Paumons humanly in the original conquest. Because of that they took the enough rope we gave them and now they’re going to hang themselves. They, themselves, are insisting on being taught a lesson. And, like a good surgeon, I save lives by cutting now instead of later, when a more extensive operation would be necessary. I save human lives. You might say, I even save Paumons lives. Because, if they grew to a real threat to us, we might have to exterminate them completely.”
“Yeah,” said Cal.
“You understand, then,” said Harmon. “Believe me, Cal. You were one of the ones I had hoped could understand.”
“No,” said Cal. “Put me down with Scoby. No, put me down a notch below Scoby, because I’m still ready to fight and kill if have to, in spite of this shoulder patch. I just don’t have to pretend there’s anything right or noble about it.”
Harmon sighed. He shook his head slowly.
“I’m sorry, Cal,” he said.
“So am I,” said Cal. “I just finished talking to Wantaki. I told him he could come in here with sufficient force to protect himself. Then he could talk over this Paumons situation—not as Conquered talking to conquerer, but as a couple of equals meeting face to face, with the object of avoiding any more fighting. I gave him my promise.”
“That was foolish,” said Harmon. “It was even a little ridiculous.”
“No,” said Cal. “Because as Contacts Service Head on this planet, I’m interdicting any military action by the Expedition during the time of the talk.”
“I see,” said Harmon. He stood for a moment, then turned to the desk behind him and pressed a button. Holding it down,he spoke to the desk. “Will you send in a couple of Military Police?” he said. He let up the button and turned back to Cal. “As I say,” he said. “I’m sorry. I would rather have made an ally of you than arrested you.”
“Yes,” said Cal.
He hit Harmon suddenly in the stomach, and, as the other man fell toward him, hit him again behind the ear with the side of his hand. Harmon fell to the floor and lay there quietly. Cal went out through the back door of the office, down a flight of stairs and into another office banked with the metal cases of microfiles.
“Sit still, sit still,” he said to the startled workers there. “Just taking the short way to my car.”
He went out a further door onto the street. The car Annie had been driving was parked across from him. He sprinted for it. Ashe dived inside behind the control stick, he heard someone shout from the door he had just come through.
He floored the throttle and the car jumped away from the Headquarters Building. He shot down the street, out onto the road to the Expedition Landing field and pulled up at the base of the towering flagship. Thirty feet up the service ramp, the rear port was open to the ventilation of the warming day. He was through the hatch and throwing over the hand control to close and lock the port when he heard somebody breathing hard behind him.
He turned. It was Annie.
“You crazy fool!” he said.
The port slammed shut and locked with a clang. A second later the inner door closed also.
Chapter Sixteen
“You’ve got to get out of here,” said Cal. “You don’t know what you’re in to.”
“I won’t,” said Annie. “I know very well. And I won’t. You can’t put me out bodily, either, without leaving the controls here. And you can’t risk that.”
“I’ll manage it.”
“No,” said Annie. She was quite pale. “I won’t let you. I can fight that hard."
They were up in the observation room, where the standby controls of the ship were. The duty caretaker was locked in the projection room behind the wall chart. Cal had the standby power on. It did not take an engineer to do that much; and the housekeeping energy flow it gave him was all he needed. Outside,above the entry ports at three levels, the red lights were glowing to warn anyone back beyond a hundred-yard circle. From the outside screen Cal could see the field below, and the other ships like models, the little buildings of the field, and Headquarters, the hospital, and beyond those buildings the limits of Manaha. Beyond this he could see the green and open hills, with here and there the darker green of trees.
The ground phone buzzed. Cal answered, and the screen lit up with the face of Colonel Alt.
“Truant,” he said. “Come out of that ship before I send in MP’s to haul you out.”
“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” said Cal. “I’m prepared to blow this ship and half the plateau if I have to.”
Alt hesitated. He looked aside for a moment, then back into the screen.
“You’d do better to cooperate,” he said. “I’d be justified in having you shot on sight. You killed General Harmon when you hit him.”
“Don’t lie to me, Colonel,” said Cal. “I know when I kill a man. Tell the General I want to talk to him as soon as he’s up to it.”
He cut the connection. He sat down in the operator’s chair by the little desk below the screens. His head swam; his body felt several gravities heavy. He put his head down for a second on his arms and immediately felt Annie shaking him.
“Lie down,” she was saying. “There’s an off-watch cot in the Communications Room. Here...” She was tugging him to his feet. “You’ve got to rest. When did you sleep last?”
“No—” he said. And all the time, he felt his will-less, stupid body being steered by Annie toward the cot. “Harmon’ll call back. . .”
/>
“Let him call. I’ll answer.”
“No. You get out...” The words were thick on his tongue. The edge of the cot struck under his knees, and he fell into it. The world made a sort of half-turn around him, as if he were very drunk. And then it suddenly winked out.
His head hurt. It was the amber light from the barber poles, street lights of the Lehaunan town, that was dazzling his eyes and giving him a headache. And he had never been so tired. He wandered through the town with his fire rifle in his hands, letting his feet take him among the dome-shaped buildings. Now and then he shot perfunctorily at what might be Lehaunans. He was so tired that he could not think exactly what he was doing there.Something had not worked out, and he had decided to do something else. But just at the moment he could not remember what that was. He was tired and looking for a place to sit down.
He came at last to a little open space between the buildings,and there was one of the small protuberances like a half-barrel sticking up out of the pavement. He sat down on it and rested his fire rifle across his knees.
There was a building a little to his right and another a little farther off, up ahead of him and to his left. Almost directly ahead, about thirty yards away, was a third building. A barber pole by the building to his right spread its crackling light impartially over the scene.
He sat, not thinking of anything, and after a little while, a Lehaunan ran across the open space before him, saw him, hesitated, and then ran on. A little later, he saw another one run between two houses farther off that could be seen dimly beyond the building to his left.
He did not move. He felt a sort of numb oneness with his surroundings, as if he had grown to be part of the object he was sitting on. The thought that was in his head, like a title on a movie screen frozen in position, was that if he rested for a little while he would remember what he was to do next. He sat still.
Some little time later, a family of three came out of the building directly before him, out of its triangular-shaped entrance.They were evidently an adult male, a female adult a little smaller, and a small young one. He sat so still that they were only about a dozen feet from him when they saw him, and stopped short. They were carrying some small packages.
He and they remained motionless, staring at each other.
It’s quite all right, he said inside his head, in normal human speech, go ahead. I won't bother you. It was too much effort to say the words aloud. So, having said them mentally, he merely continued to sit there.
The female adult made a small noise and pushed slightly at the young one. The youngster hesitated; she pushed again. Reluctantly the young one ran off, past Cal and out of sight. The two adults stayed facing him.
That’s all right, he said in his head. You go, too. You’re obviously civilians. Besides, I have taken your town. I’ve got no need to shoot you.
They did not move for a moment. Then, as if they had heard his thoughts, they began to back cautiously away from him.
There, you see? he thought. You’re quite safe. I’m not going to do anything. They were like ants, he thought; afraid of being stepped on. He watched them back away. They were quite handsome in their black fur. He must look like a monster to them.An incomprehensible monster that killed or did not kill for no sane reason.
Still holding their packages, they were backing away from him, back toward the house from which they had come. Sudden pity flooded him.
Go in peace, he thought. Go in safety.
They were almost halfway across the open space between him and the house, now. The male turned and, turning the female,urged her in front of him. They broke suddenly into a run fort heir own doorway.
They’re getting away, thought Cal suddenly.
He raised his rifle and shot the male, who fell immediately. The female dropped her packages and put on speed. His second shot dropped her just inside the doorway. He could see her lying there.
The packages lay scattered about in the open. He wondered,idly, what sort of valuables might be in them. They should be saved, he thought, so the young one could claim them at some future date...
Annie was shaking him. It was a terribly hard thing to wake up. He struggled into a sitting position on the side of the cot,but he had come to with only half his mind. The other half was still back in the circumstances he had been reliving in the dream.
“. . . General Harmon,” Annie was saying. “He wants to talk to you. I didn’t want to wake you, but you’ve been sleeping there almost nine hours.”
“Nine hours!” He staggered to his feet and lurched into the observation room. Annie made to help him to the ground phone,but he shook his head. “He can wait.” He laid sleep-numbed hands on the controls of the outside screen. It was late afternoon now and on the far hills, the light of Bellatrix had turned the covering moss to chartreuse color, and the clumped trees to a deeper green. He ran the magnification up to the limits of the scale and saw, as from a dozen or so yards away, armed Paumons soldiers standing under the trees.
“Wantaki,” he said. “He made it.”
“What?” said Annie.
He did not answer, swinging across the room to the ground phone. He punched the receive button, and the image of General Harmon sprang to life on the screen. He was standing half-turned away from Cal. The call buzzer at the other end must have sounded then, for Harmon turned back and approached the screen. He looked as calm and unharmed as ever.
“Colonel Truant,” he said quietly, “I’m ordering you to come out of that ship.”
“No,” said Cal. His legs were still weak from sleep. He sat down in front of the screen. “I’m staying here until you commit yourself to a meeting with Wantaki, by letting him into the Headquarters area with enough men to match your Headquarters forces.”
“I’m not the kind of man you can blackmail, Colonel,” said Harmon.
“I’m not blackmailing you,” said Cal. “I’m holding you up with a loaded gun at your head. If I blow this ship, you, Wantaki and everything goes. If it goes, there’s nothing left of the Expedition on this world but a lot of small scattered garrisons.
They wouldn’t last twenty-four hours with the real power of the outfit destroyed here.”
“Rather a strange way to go about saving lives, isn’t it?” said Harmon gently, “Have you counted the people that’ll die—the Paumons, as well—if you blow up that ship and its armaments?”
“You don’t understand me,” said Cal. “I told you I wasn’t up on General Scoby’s level. I know what I am, if I blow this ship. But if I have to blow it the Paumons’ll come out of it better than if I hadn’t. The only way I can get you to meet with them properly is to threaten to blow it. And I can’t threaten it without meaning it. And I mean it, General!” Cal looked into the imaged eyes of Harmon, but what he saw was a small black-furred figure tugging and murmuring at a larger, black-furred figure fallen still in a triangular doorway. “You better believe I mean it.”
“I’ll give you thirty minutes,” said Harmon. “If you haven’t started to come out thirty minutes from now, I’ll order the other ships on the field here to open fire on you.”
“You know,” said Cal, “you can’t destroy this ship before I can blow it. And you’re just as liable to blow it yourself trying to destroy it. I’ll give you until sunset, about two hours. If Wantaki and his men aren’t entering the Headquarters area by sunset, I’ll blow the ship.”
“Thirty minutes,” said Harmon.
“Good-by,” said Cal. He cut the connection. He stood up, turned, and saw Annie standing a little across the room from him.
“Annie,” he said, “there’s an escape pod in the nose of this ship that’ll kick itself fifty miles up and six hundred miles out. You get in it and get out of here.”
“No,” said Annie. “I told you I wouldn’t.”
“I am too dead to argue with you. Don’t you understand? Two hours from now, I’m going to press the arming connection and destroy every living thing for five hundred miles. Can’t you get tha
t through your head? I’m going to have to do it!”
“The General will give in.”
“No,"he won’t,” said Cal. He looked grimly at the blank screen of the ground phone. “He can’t. Not while there’s a chance I might not press the button. And by the time he knows for sure there’s no chance, it’ll be too late."
“I’ll wait till the last minute,” said Annie. “But I won’t go a second before.”
Cal felt suddenly weak all over. He realized suddenly he had been standing with every muscle tensed to the limit, as if he had crossed his fingers with all the strength in his body, against the possibility that she would refuse to go and he could not get her out before the end.
He let out his breath suddenly and sat down in the chair. “Good,” he said. “Good.”
She came quickly over to him.
“Cal,” she said, “are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said. “Fine.” She had her arms around him. He grinned a little shakily and reached up and patted one of the arms that held him. “It’s just that I love you.” The words came out quite easily. He had never been able to say them before. He said them again. “I love you.”
She held on to him. They did not say much. After a little while she excused herself and was gone for a few moments. And then she came back and they sat together, watching the sun moving toward the horizon.
When it touched the tops of the hills, he felt a strange, cold,feeling thrill suddenly all the way through him. He turned to her.
“It’s time,” he said.
She did not move.
“You’ve got to go now,” he said.
“I lied to you,” she said. “I never planned to go. When I went out just now, I went up to the pod and smashed the control board. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to.”
He could only stare at her.
“Don’t you see?” she said, almost composedly, “I want to stay with you.”
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