“Talking seemed to give her courage. A little color came back into her face and her voice broke out of a whisper into low, speaking tones.“The door at the end down there was open a little, sot hey came in. But they don’t seem to understand our locks. They didn’t try to open the door to your office. So when they went, we locked the end door again and no more came in.”
“Good. Stay put,” said Ben. He went hastily on down the line of the Sections, shaking his head at those who wanted to ask him what had happened and was happening outside their three enclosed Sections. At the end door, he put his ear to the panel, but heard nothing. He cautiously cracked the door and looked. The corridor and the Lounge were empty. He stepped through the door, closing it behind him.
The thought of Lee Ruiz erupted so suddenly in his mind that for a second he was ready to believe he had heard Lee’s name spoken aloud. He looked around sharply but saw no one. It was possible—very possible—that all of the Golden People who had entered the phase ship had now left it Ben swore at himself silently now for not having had the presence of mind to keep his head and count those who entered. But there was no help for that now—and the lack of sound from both the lower and the upper decks, from the whole ship, agreed with the evidence of his eyes that the aliens had left. He must find Lee quickly.
Lee had not been among those in the airlock who had been herded outside and put under guard. So far, Ben had not seen him inside the ship. —What had Tessie said? That the aliens had not seemed to understand fully the concept of doors and had not tried to open any that were locked.
He turned to his right and went swiftly down the corridor on the men’s side of the ship to the door of Lee’s stateroom. He put his hand on the handle, found it unlocked, and shoved the door open.
Lee was inside on the bed, huddled as far back into a corner as he could go. His face was gaunt and savage and he held a long, thin screwdriver in one hand blade-end-upward like an experienced knife fighter. For a second, Ben was reminded of the twig he himself had held as a child, facing the grizzly. Lee’s eyes stared at him for a moment without recognition.
“Lee!” said Ben. “It’s me—the aliens’ve gone!”
For a second longer, Lee’s eyes continued to stare. Then his face loosened all at once, as if the tension holding it together had evaporated, and his hand that held the screwdriver began to tremble so badly that he put the, tool down on the bed.
“Gone—” he said, chokingly.
“Yes.” One stride across the tiny room brought Ben to the side of the bed. “But they’ve got one of them still holding more than half the crew outside the ship. I need your help. Here’s what you’ve got to do—”
He broke off, for Lee’s head was wobbling on its lean neck as Lee shook it
“I can’t, Ben,” said Lee, “I can’t help you. I can’t take any more—”
“You were ready to try to stick that screwdriver into the first golden face that poked itself through the door, just now,” said Ben, brutally. “I’m not asking you to do any more than that —Listen! Are you listening?”
“I’m . . .” Lee made a great effort and managed to straighten himself up so that he no longer huddled in the corner, “listening.”
“All right” said Ben. “Walt, Coop, and nearly every one off-duty are outside the ship under guard. I want you to take command of whoever’s still aboard here. There’s a full crew in the Sections. Have them compute a shift off-surface, anywhere, but not out of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, you see what can be done to get that inner airlock door to make an airtight seal—”
Lee’s head wobbled on his neck again.
“Do you think the Golden People’ll let us take off—” he was beginning. Ben cut him short.
“Never mind!” Ben snarled. “Never mind anything. Just do what I tell you. Do it! Have you got that?”
Lee nodded. His head was steady again.
“If you can get a seal with the inner airlock door, and I’m not back in—” Ben paused to glance at his wrist-watch, “two hours at the outside, make one large shift off-planet—try it anyway. If you get away, head for Earth. Don’t stop to worry about me or anyone outside the ship. If you can’t get a seal, at the end of two hours try to make a shift to somewhere else still in the atmosphere of this world, but off-surface and away from here. Understood?”
Lee nodded.
“All right.” Ben turned once more toward the door of the stateroom. As he opened it, he looked back. Lee had not moved. “What’re you waiting for?” snarled Ben. “You’re in command, here now!”
Lee started up off the bed like someone coming out of a dream. Ben stood aside to let him out and saw him go down the corridor and in the door opposite the Lounge, into the Sections. The door closed behind Lee, and for a second Ben, himself, leaned wearily against the corridor wall. It was wonderful to let down for a second—just for a second.
Then he became suddenly conscious that he did not want to start up again. The temptation to give up was as crushingly powerful as the thought of sleep to a man three days without it. The fear he had pushed back earlier rose within him. He remembered that to do what he had decided to do meant that he would have to go outside the ship again—out where the Golden People were. For a few, unchained seconds his imagination ran riot. He saw a javelin lancing its silver fire at him, he saw himself sprawling in the dust with a broken back, while one of the aliens squatted above him to beat him to death.
For a moment his spirit failed him. He could not do it—not when without effort he could turn back from the airlock, claim that there was no chance of his getting out without being seen and killed, and help Lee get away with those who still remained aboard ship. No one would ever know. Even if they knew they could not blame him—one man against a city of aliens with weapons gods might have made and put in their hands.
He sagged like a terrified child against the wall—and then, through all the horrors of his imaginings, he became slowly conscious of a small, rhythmical sound that he realized now he had been hearing for some time. He lifted his head. It was coming from down the corridor on, the women’s side of the ship.
He pushed himself away from the wall and went slowly, wonderingly toward it. Halfway down the corridor, he found its cause. It was Polly Neigh, crouched in the little wall indentation of the drinking fountain there, her artificial leg tucked clumsily under her out of the corridor, crying above the body of Sprocket in her lap.
Ben looked down at her dark head, bowed above the body of the cat. Sprocket was as unlovely in death as he had been in life. He had been half-crushed by a blow across the chest area of his body—Ben could imagine what had dealt the blow. Sprocket’s mouth was caught open in a snarl, showing his needle-sharp teeth. Perhaps he had had the hardihood to scratch or bite one of the Golden People, thought Ben, and at that thought he found anew kindness toward the cat.
But Polly had become aware of Ben’s presence. She lifted her face, puffed and wet with crying. She did not seem surprised to see it was Ben, rather than one of the aliens, standing over her.
“He didn’t purr—” she choked. “He never really did purr. I made it up.” She began to sob again and bent her head once more over the dead animal, her tears falling on the grizzled fur as she stroked it blindly. “—It wasn’t his fault,” she wept, rocking back and forth. “He wanted to purr, but no one understood what happened to him. He never knew how to purr—and nobody gave him a chance—”
Suddenly Ben understood. Her agony and her loss came clear and real to him. Her figure became indistinct before his eyes and his throat seemed to contract in the cruel grip of a dry and hurtful fist. The dark shape of her artificial lower leg and the dark shape of the cat blurred and seemed to flow together so that they were one and the same thing.
An iciness of fury began to form at die back of his neck, and as it spread his vision cleared once more. He stood looking down at Polly and the cat who had never learned how to purr and the coldness spread, across his shoulders and down h
is back like an armor-coat of ice forming around him. The dead cat swam in his mind together with the mental pictures remembered of Burt with his head unrecognizable, and John Edlung dead, and Kirk struggling to get up from the ground.
"The ice armor spread out all over him. He reached out his hand to lift Polly to her feet, and then changed his mind. He turned on his heel and strode down the hall and back into his office. He crossed the office, unlocked the safe, and ripped down from its rack one of the hunting rifles. He filled his pockets with clips of shells locked the safe, and went swiftly back out into the corridor. He stepped into the sick bay, opened a drawer, and took out a dissecting knife. He wrapped its keen blade in a towel, put it in his pocket, and went out.
When he got to the airlock, he fed a clip into the rifle, jacked the first shell into position, and looked cautiously out from the shadow within one side of the opening.
The crew members under guard outside the ship had been moved off a distance of about thirty feet. They were all sitting on the ground now—whether of their own volition or because the guard had made them do so. They sat with their backs to the ship. The guard squatted over them, facing directly toward the airlock, but so screened by their bodies that Ben’s half-raised rifle sagged in his hands again. A shot at the guard that did not kill immediately would be worse than none at all.
And now another of the Golden aliens, wearing a brown blanket from one of the ship’s beds around his neck like a scarf, came out from between the buildings and squatted down next to the guard. For a moment they were looking at each other and the guard’s attention was withdrawn from the prisoners and the ship. Ben ducked quickly and silently out of the airlock and started around the back curve of the ship to put its bulk between him and the eyes of the two aliens.
At that moment, the guard looked back. Ben froze in midstride, half-crouching against the body of the ship. The guard’s eyes stared over the heads of the seated prisoners and directly at Ben. The other alien stared as well. Ben stayed crouched, motionless but in plain view. The two golden heads seemed to be pondering whether he was actually there before their eyes or not. Perhaps their vision was not good at over a few yards of distance—or maybe they were having some debate the human ear could not hear over which one should have the pleasure of using a javelin bolt on him.
Their two heads swung back to face each other. Their eyes were off the ship. Ben jerked into movement again and bolted around the end of the ship. With the dark steel alloy of its side curving up to hide him from the eyes on the other side of it, he paused to catch his breath. His eyes ranged the open space and the bases of the buildings beyond. There was no living thing in sight.
The murderous iciness that had come over him as he watched Polly weeping over the dead Sprocket still held him in a grip like iron. He felt a moment’s vague wonder at where his fear had gone, but it had evaporated. Where it had been, there was now the cold determination to rescue the human prisoners and kill any of the Golden People who had stood in the way of his doing it. Also—there was a grim suspicion in the back of his mind that must be investigated if he could manage to kill one of the aliens and examine both it and its javelin weapon.
But first came the matter of releasing the human prisoners. To do that, he would have to dispose of their guards,and, for that, he must be able to get in a position giving him a sure-and-certain killing first shot at the aliens.
He would have to go into the buildings and, using them for a screen, work his way around behind the two Golden People now squatted, facing Walt and the others.
He went at a run for the nearest buildings. It was not until he was safely behind the curving side of its rose-colored wall that he paused again to catch his breath. He crouched low, next to the ground, the rifle with safety off and ready to use, himself ready to freeze instantly into immobility if an alien should spot him.
But there were no aliens in sight—only a streetless area of weed-covered earth and the curving sides of the slender, tower-like buildings in various solid colors. In here, among them, even the breeze was cut off. The sun shone hot and he could feel his chest shaken by the steady pounding of his heart.
After a bit, he went on, sidling around the curves of buildings, dashing across open space, trying to get no deeper than the immediate ring of buildings around the cleared space where the phase ship lay, so as not to lose his way.
Finally, he came around the bulge of a light gray tower and caught a glimpse of golden skins before him. He drew back instantly, looked around behind him to see still only silence and emptiness, and began cautiously once more to peer around the building.
Inching forward, he caught sight of the prisoners and both aliens with their backs to him, squatting in silent conversation. Beyond these two were the faces of the seated humans; but, although they were looking in Ben’s direction, so far they had not seen him. That was all to the good. Their staring at him might make the aliens turnaround to look also.
With one more glance around him to make sure no other alien was approaching, Ben dropped on the ground and into a prone position with his rifle. The range to the two guards was almost ridiculously small—less than fifty feet. But to balance this was the fact he was not sure where in the golden bodies a single shell should be put to kill instantly. Any failure to do so could raise a hunt for him and leave the prisoners without hope of rescue. After a moment’s debate, Ben decided on head shots. Those skulls should house the alien brains, large as they were—bigger even than human skulls, although the alien’s height and long necks made their heads seem small for their bodies.
But before he could fire, the original guard rose suddenly to his feet Carrying his javelin, he turned and stalked off—not in the direction of Ben, but between two buildings beyond the green tower at Ben’s right. The rifle wavered in Ben’s grasp. He wanted that guard. He wanted him very badly. Compared to the alien just leaving, the one left behind with the brown blanket around his neck was almost unimportant.
There was no time to lose. He cramped the sun-warmed butt of the rifle hastily to his cheek, looked down the blue steel barrel at the back of a golden head, and fired. The blanket-scarfed alien pitched forward on his face and lay still. Without waiting to see the reaction of the prisoners, now freed, Ben scrambled to his feet and ran after the other alien.
The other was not in sight among the buildings—and then Ben caught sight of him, moving away rapidly in the direction in which Ben had seen him disappear. Ben ran after him. The walking stride of the alien moved him at a good eight miles an hour and Ben was hard put to follow. There was no stretch among the buildings open enough for him to stop, take aim, and shoot before the other had disappeared behind some further curving wall.
Ben had assumed the alien was heading for some place only a short distance away. But the other kept traveling. Ben began to get winded. Months aboard the ship, even with a daily routine of exercise, had not put him in training to make a long-distance run. Eventually, the alien turned around a corner and came to a building with one of its walls half fallen away. He passed through the gap into the ruined building and approached, a wall in which were a number of oval recesses. He stopped, reached into an apparently empty recess, and pulled out a large cube of grayish material, which he began to chew.
Ben, checking his pace, stole up behind the tall, golden back. For a moment it looked as if Ben would be able to come right up to him—but in the last few feet the Golden alien seemed to have heard something, for he turned about, still holding the stuff he had been eating. His oval, olive eyes looked down into Ben’s.
For a second the eyes stared. Then the javelin came up like a club and the alien threw himself at Ben. The rifle in Ben’s hands exploded, as if it had a mind of its own, and the grayish lump of edible material went bouncing and rolling aside as the alien sprawled at Ben’s feet, the top of the golden skull blown off.
Ben reached out gingerly with the barrel of his rifle and attempted to lever the body over on its back. It turned more easily tha
n Ben expected, as if it could not weigh much more than Ben, himself, for all its size. Possibly the long bones of its tall frame were hollow like a bird’s bones—but that could be investigated later if there was a chance. Right now, Ben snatched up the javelin weapon the other had dropped.
He examined it feverishly. It had a color and sheen like dark metal. There was the javelin-like point at the front end, a raised ridge like a ring about halfway back from the point, where the big golden hand had held it. It was heavy and hard, in spite of its slimness, but somehow not with the hardness of metal. Ben fumbled in his pocket, got out the dissecting knife, and unwrapped it. He took the knife and made an attempt to cut into the ring-area of the rod. The surface resisted for a moment, then the blade bit in and a part of the ring as well as about six inches of the rod peeled up like a splinter from a piece of wood.
Ben looked at the cross-section of the ring, where the knife had cut into it. He could see plainly that it was simply a raised part of the material of which the rod was made and that the rod itself had been stained to give it the color it appeared to have on the surface. Little dark threads of the stain made ragged the lower edge of penetration of the coloring into the color of the rod’s pale substance.
Ben glanced around him. Here in this half-ruined building he was shielded from view by the walls that still stood. He dropped on one knee by the dead body, looking even larger than in life, stretched out flat on the bluish surface that had been used for the building’s flooring, and took the knife to the ruined skull. But before he could begin the rough dissection he had in mind, his hand was arrested by the distant sounds of gunshots.
He snatched up the cloth, rewrapped the knife, and picked up the rifle along with the javelin. He headed out of the ruined building at a run in the direction from which the sound of shooting came. It was the short, rapid bark of the half-guns he heard—there had been half a dozen more of those besides the ones he and Walt had taken from the open gun rack in his office.
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