"We play baseball run down play," argued Moahlo. "Play together. You
throw ball me. I throw ball you. Yippee. Man out."
"Same team. Old pals. Want sing team song?"
"Want play team with thrag."
Adlaa considered the matter in this new light. "Like ball game," he
said at last in amazement.
"Sure. You, me be us together. Make thrag look like busher."
They both took hold of the thrag. Unable to resist their combined
strengths, the beast submitted docilely. They began to work.
* * * * *
Glancing out from his labor in the headquarters pneuma-hut, Bill saw
the incident in happy surprise. Perhaps, after all, his stay here might
produce something to help the culture that Montgomery would introduce
upon his return. He had no doubt of Montgomery's success.
Neither, for that matter, had Montgomery. At the main camp, things were
going swimmingly.
The camp lay on the very fringe of the Quxa territory, but, by an
arduous hunt, Ratakka had captured eight wandering Quxas to whom he
immediately set about teaching the duties of subjects. His method
was simple--the Quxa followed his orders, which he obtained from
Montgomery, or the Quxa was knocked down. If he still refused, he was
knocked down again. Within three weeks, Ratakka had them doing things
no Quxas ever had done before. They performed them reluctantly and
sullenly, but they did them.
Seeing the result, but not the means, Candy was enthusiastic.
"They're working together!" she cried. "Oh, Monty, what will the Quxas
do to reward you?"
"Oh, they'll probably make a culture god of me," said Montgomery,
managing to look modest. "Like the Greeks did to that Martian, Proma Ss
Thaa, who taught them the use of fire."
As time went on, though, the girl began to have doubts.
"But they're doing everything for Ratakka," she protested. "As far as
they're concerned themselves, they're more wretched than before."
"That's the way feudal cultures are built, my dear," Montgomery assured
her. "The king gives them law and a fighting leader. In return, the
subjects take care of his bodily comfort."
"But they look so unhappy!"
"In saving an inferior race, we cannot be concerned too much about the
happiness of a few miserable members. Perhaps in three hundred years or
so, they can afford happiness."
And finally an incident happened to complete her disillusionment.
One of Ratakka's morose subjects managed to slip the shackles with
which he was bound at night and make a bolt for freedom. The king
pursued him relentlessly, brought him back and then beat him, coldly
and cruelly, slugging and gouging and kicking.
Ashen-faced, Candy moved to interfere; Montgomery restrained her.
"We're saving a race," he said. "You can't make an omelet without
breaking a few eggs."
Candy turned and ran sobbing to her quarters, unable to dispel the
memory of the writhing body on the ground.
* * * * *
The next day was the day to move equipment. It was a policy of the
expeditions to leave their wornout machines for the most friendly of
the native races, who could dismantle them and use the parts. The
equipment not worth toting back to Earth was to be taken to the advance
camp, where the Quxa center was. Montgomery also planned that day to
take Ratakka to his kingdom.
A few minutes ahead of the motorcade, Candy slipped out, got into
a battered half-track and started driving the eighty miles to the
advance camp. For the first twenty-five miles, she told herself that
her eagerness was because it was a nice day and she wanted to get out
of camp.
For the next twenty-five miles, she called herself a liar.
For the third twenty-five miles she gave herself up unashamedly to
thinking about Bill Bradley: his smile, his gentleness, the awkward
grace of his lean body. Not a man to set a planet on fire--but how
pleasant and restful to have around!
She wondered if he would forgive the way she had acted. Somehow she was
sure he would.
The narrow vehicular trail ran through a grove of fernlike trees. It's
just over the rise, Candy thought, just over the rise and down into the
saucer, where Bill is waiting....
The half-track struck a rock, lurched, threw a tread and went off the
road, out of control.
That did not matter especially, for the Quxas could use the material
very well where it was. Candy went forward briskly afoot. A fallen
branch brushed her ankle. Unheedingly, she kicked it away. She began
to reconstruct Bill, feature by feature: the way his hair swirled
on his forehead; his eyebrows, arched and regular; his eyes, wide,
deep-seated, with inner pools of merriment; his nose, straight and
rather ...
Another branch caught her. She lifted her foot to free it. It did not
come free. Another tentacle moved around her, pinioning her right arm
to her side. She whirled in terror and found herself in the grip of the
horals.
* * * * *
There were a dozen of the horrors, their antenna ears erect, mandibles
open. They exuded an acid odor, a sign of hunger. Candy screamed. She
fought to reach her pistol, strapped to her right hip. More tentacles
stopped her. She screamed and screamed again, throwing her body to
shake off the grip, trying to kick with her feet.
There was a movement in the road at the top of the rise. For a moment,
elation surged in Candy, almost stifling her. Perhaps some expedition
member had heard her, was hurrying to her rescue. Then she saw that
the newcomers were Quxas. Hope vanished, leaving her limp and hollow.
To be killed by these horrors was bad enough, but to be killed in the
presence of a group of piebald morons, who would stand and watch and
moan, but not lift a hand ...
In her agitation, she did not notice that the Quxas were nine in number
and wore baseball caps. They drew short clubs, shaped like bats.
"Kill the umpire!" they shouted, hatred born of diamond conflicts in
their cry. "Kill the umpire!" they yelled and charged.
* * * * *
In military formation, they clubbed their way through their enemies,
battering and smashing until Candy was free, with a dozen dying horals
on the ground, their tentacles contracting and writhing. The Quxa
leader made his bobbing bow to her.
"How do," he said politely. "We dip them in calcimine vat, you bet. We
hang them out like wash. Now we give team yell."
The Quxas put their arms around each other's shoulders. In unison, they
chanted:
"Hoe tomata; hoe potata
Half past alligata,
Bum, bum, bulligata,
Chickala dah!
Pussycats! Pussycats!
Rah! Rah! Rah!"
"Pussycats," the leader explained to Candy, "are honored animal on
planet where Billbrad is head cheese."
"I'll bet you play baseball nicely," Candy said.
Woe broke forth on nine broad faces.
"Misfortunately not," confessed the captain. "Thirty-three teams in
Quxa town. Pussycats in thirty-third place." He brightened. "Go ivory
hunt now. Catch nine new Quxas. Teach 'em baseball. Then maybe we beat
'em and not be in cellar any more."
Together, the team bobbed politely to Candy and trotted down the road.
Happily, Candy went up the rise, then stopped in astonishment, looking
at Quxa town.
Gone was the straggling, haphazard settlement, with the flimsy huts
and untended starvation patches where individual Quxas tried to raise
their own food. Instead, building sites were laid out in straight,
broad rows, and Quxas were working, three and four in a group, raising
substantial homes of timber. Others were surrounding the settlement
with a wall of brambles, impenetrable to horals. Teams of men, two to a
thrag, were plowing, preparing large fields for tillage. And down the
side of the settlement, affectionately tended, ran a line of baseball
fields.
Just off the road, a Quxa squatted, baseball cap on his head, watching
a crude sun dial.
"Nice day for game," he greeted Candy.
* * * * *
Speechless with surprise, the girl made a dazed questioning gesture
toward the improvements.
"Billbrad do it," the Quxa informed her. "He tell us how. Work one
by one, he say, work all time to fill belly, maybe fill horal belly
instead. Work all by all, do more quick. Have time in afternoon. Batter
up! Sock it, boy! Wing it home, he sliding!"
The sun's shadow touched a peg.
"Five minute!" bawled the Quxa.
The laborers quit work, put away their tools. The farmers herded their
thrags into a strongly constructed corral. The natives gathered in
knots at the settlement edge and looked longingly at the baseball
fields.
"Yestday I fool Billbrad," confided the Quxa. "I hide ball, catch him
off second. Billbrad get all red face and say--"
"Never mind what Bill said," Candy interjected hastily.
The shadow touched another peg.
"Play ball!" the Quxa yelled. "Play ball! Play ball! Play ball!"
He sprang up, produced a baseball glove and spat into it reverently.
"I go play now. You come see. Get scorecard, know players."
He looked at Candy hopefully.
"'Specially me," he added.
Out of the moil of Quxas came the lank form of Bill Bradley. He spied
the girl, whooped and came running to her. For a few moments they
talked at once, in an incoherent and ecstatic jumble. Then Candy,
catching control of herself, cited in admiration the change in the Quxa
village.
"And you've done all this!" she concluded.
"I didn't do anything!" Bill protested. "They like to play baseball
and this sort of happened. We're getting representative government
into action now. Each team elects a captain and the captains are the
town council. Tonight they're going to vote on naming the settlement
Brooklyn."
"You know," said Candy, "I'll bet they'll make you a culture god."
* * * * *
The tanned face of Bill Bradley took on the rose hue of a blush.
"Well, Moahlo carved a statue and they've put it in front of league
headquarters--that's their city hall," he admitted uncomfortably. "It
doesn't look much like me. I've got six arms because they wanted me
batting, pitching and catching a ball all at the same time."
Candy slipped a hand into his.
"Is there a place around here," she asked in a small tone, "where a
culture god can take a girl and--well, talk to her?"
"Is there!" said Bill. "You just come with me ..."
A heavy object bumped into him. He whirled at the touch.
"Oh! Hi, Ratakka," Bill said in a flat voice.
Montgomery's king had returned to his subjects. He was alone--his
captives having escaped off the ride over--and he was in vile temper.
Glaring evilly, he motioned at the baseball players. He was recalling
an advice of Montgomery: "Whatever your subjects like to do most, do it
better than they can. In that way, you will get their respect and find
it easier to take over."
"What that fool doings-on?" snarled Ratakka. "Ratakka do, too."
Bill's already sagging spirits sank again. With Ratakka's strength and
reflexes, the great brute undoubtedly would become the star of stars,
gathering admirers to himself and destroying all the pleasant prospects
now so happily started. Still, it was Bill's duty to give him every
chance ...
"I'll see what team has an opening, Ratakka. Perhaps you'd better bat
seventh for a few days. Then you can move to the clean-up spot."
The giant stopped him. "Ratakka not ordinary Quxa; Ratakka a king.
Ratakka not play like those serfs. Want special job."
A wild thought struck Bill. On the playing fields were more than two
hundred Quxas, most of them with a justified and carefully nurtured
dislike for the surly slab of muscle before him. In the old days, they
could do nothing individually against him.
But the Quxas had learned to fight as a team. If he could only give
them the shadow of an excuse, trap Ratakka into rousing their joint
anger, take advantage of the prejudices of their new-found love for
baseball, then Ratakka would get the reckoning that he deserved, the
days of his supremacy would be over, the threat of his tyranny would be
removed from a happy race.
* * * * *
Bill grinned broadly. "Sure thing, old pal," he said.
He took off his own baseball cap and put it backward on Ratakka's head.
He signaled for someone to bring over a mask and chest protector.
"There's only one of these at each playing field," Bill explained. "In
a way, he's boss of the game. Are you sure you want to do it? Sometimes
the players argue with you."
"Anyone argue with Ratakka," the giant said, raising a huge fist,
"Ratakka knock 'em down. Ratakka a king, boss of game."
"Okay, boy, you asked for it," Bill said.
He thrust a whiskbroom into Ratakka's hand.
"You can be umpire," said Bill Bradley.