The catman's steps faltered. This alien, that had come from some
distant star, was definitely primate in evolution. He knew
primates--they had primates on Sscantoo, here--and primates were nasty
animals. They were filled with curiosity--mass curiosity--that had been
the basis for a platitude on Sscantoo: "Curiosity saved a mansee." When
you killed or wounded a primate, the woods would fill up with curious,
chattering hordes of his fellow-primates. It made life rather dangerous
unless you were prepared to fight your way out.
And this curious fellow was none the less a primate in spite of the
fact that his face bore the stamp of civilization and he wore clothing.
He was curious--even more curious than one of the Sscantovian apes. He
walked forward boldly in spite of the fact that he was a prisoner and
must know that fact. The catman wondered how bold the primate would
have been if his ship had landed of its own free will--or had landed
despite the objections of his six ships.
If he were bold now, a prisoner, he would be downright arrogant as a
victorious captor.
Linzete, the catman, stopped. He didn't like primates, and the idea of
confronting a primate armed with intelligence as well as the natural
instincts of the apeman bothered him.
* * * * *
At Linzete's commandatory motion, Cliff Lane stopped. But not until
he'd taken a full step beyond the catman's command just to show him.
Twenty paces apart they stood, eying one another.
Cliff smiled.
Linzete's eyes glittered.
Cliff shrugged. This was getting nowhere.
Linzete took a step forward, and Cliff stepped forward two steps.
Linzete seemed pleased. This primate, he thought, is no larger nor does
he seem stronger than I. I do not believe that he is as quick.
"_A move out of you_," thought Lane, "_and I'll clip you!_"
Linzete stooped and picked up a pebble from the ground. He put it on
top of another pebble, and then stepped back and to one side by fifty
paces. He waved Cliff a waiting motion, and then with a lightning
motion Linzete drew his side arm and fired.
The sharp crack of electrical discharge split the air. A dazzling
pencil of energy spat forth and the pebble disappeared in a blinding
coruscation.
Lane laughed.
Linzete scowled. That sound was very much like the chanting and
cachinnation that went on among the primates when they were amused.
Cliff Lane stooped, picked up a pebble and threw it high above
Linzete's head. The modine came from Cliff's holster, poised for an
instant while it spat energy, and then was thrust back home again.
The motion was a flowing swift thing of muscle and timing, and the
end-result was the explosion of the pebble in midair.
The flash and the explosive report of tortured air and matter caused
Linzete to blink. When his eyes opened again, the primate's weapon was
holstered.
Linzete's breath came out in a sharp hiss.
Lane shrugged and remembered the hiss of an annoyed cat.
* * * * *
Sound in the air caused both of them to look up. A small ship was
circling the open spot, and it landed not far from Cliff. Clad in
spotless white--spotless and seamless white--from toe to fingertip, and
an inverted bowl of clear glass or plastic, the catman emerged from his
open craft and came forward. On his back was a small tank and valves
for air, obviously.
Cliff puzzled for only a moment. The white-clad one lifted a square
case from the plane and, coming forward boldly, snapped down a portable
set of legs and opened the door in front of Cliff.
From the cabinet he took slides of glass. He took Cliff's hand between
his gloved fingers and pressed the human's fingers to the slide. He
caught the human's breath on another slide. He made a convulsive motion
with his face, and Cliff smiled and coughed on another slide. From the
cabinet he took a scalpel and with a deft motion--and before Cliff
could act--the doctor took a neat slice out of the small finger of
Cliff's left hand. He doused the cut immediately; the substance removed
the pain, at any rate.
He took a sample of Cliff's blood, scraped the skin of Cliff's forearm,
and clipped off eight or nine of Cliff's crisp black hairs.
Then he closed the cabinet and sealed it. From the plane he took a
large spray, and setting it up aground, the doctor proceeded to stand,
turn, and generally bathe in the atomizer output. He sprayed the
outside of the cabinet with it, and then proceeded to work the ground
and air over, spraying in all directions, including the other catman,
Linzete. The doctor finished his proceedings by spraying Cliff Lane's
ship on the outside, and turning the spray into the spacelock and
liberally drenching the runway and entrance of the Solarian vessel.
Cliff nodded understandingly. He didn't even object to being sprayed
himself, for the stuff was aromatic though a bit sticky when it started
to dry.
The doctor took off.
"Wonder what he'll find," mused Cliff. And then a large white craft
landed. It was completely inclosed, and the driver's compartment was
set off from the rest.
"The paddy-wagon," grinned Cliff. Clad as the doctor had been, four
catmen came from the craft bearing sprays. One of them approached Cliff
and motioned for him to follow. Cliff nodded, but turned and called
back:
"Let 'em sterilize to their heart's content, fellows. After all, we
want their co-operation!"
He entered the large ship as the other three catmen entered the
spacelock of Lane's ship and went to work.
Within fifteen minutes, Cliff Lane was residing in a sterile,
spotlessly white room. The windows were sealed and the door was
air-tight. A portable atmosphere-cleaner purred in one corner,
freshening the air and cooling it. From a speaker in the wall there
came music--of a sort--and through a double window in the wall Lane and
the catmen indulged in mutual inspection.
A large block of paper hung on an easel, and a heavy black crayon lay
in the tray. Cliff nodded. Heavy black crayon so that his sketchings
could be seen from the distance. He smiled, scowled at the music, and
then started to sketch.
The Little People had not been able to convey the reasons for their
desires to the humans, but human and catmen were not possessed of any
form of telepathy to augment their communications. Cliff was a fair
cartoonist, and he progressed well.
The catmen began to understand.
* * * * *
The days sped past, marked only by the clock and the chiming of
watch-change bells. Dymodines returned from their mountings on the
living rock of the innermost planet, they entered the ships of the
combined commands, and were converted, one by one. The machine shops in
the bellies of the ships hummed and racketed, and the stockroom stores
went down. The scrap pile outside on the airless face of One grew as
the dymodines were converted; parts of no use were tossed out.
The catmen did not molest them. Not once during the twenty days of
labor was there any report, or any sight of the catmen. If the catmen
were using scanners on them, the catman scanner used frequencies never
tried by humans, for the detectors gave the spectrum a clear ticket.
Yet the strain was there, and the men worked furiously to convert
the dymodines to snatchers, because they knew that until they were
finished, they were a group of sitting ducks. Dymodines had been
blocked by the catmen--and that left them unarmed.
Then on the twentieth day, Stellor Downing gave the order to lift and
head for the fourth planet.
In a close formation, the sixty-three ships arrowed into the sky, hit
superdrive, and headed away from the sun.
They arrived above Four and began to look for trouble. They circled
the planet twice, took a few tentative stabs at the ground with their
improved snatchers, and generally let it be known that they were there
and seeking either their fellow or knowledge of his whereabouts.
The recognition detectors flashed Lane's trace, and they put
direction-finding equipment into gear. They circled above the field
upon which lay Cliff Lane's craft.
There was no sign of human life there. The spacelock was closed, and it
could not be known whether from the inside or from the outside. Signals
gained no answering flash, but the complete confidence with which they
circled this field did get them an answer of sorts.
Beams flashed up, and spattered against the barriers of the flight. A
pair of extra heavy battlecraft leaped out of underground slides and
drove up into Downing's flight. The heavy beams lashed about, and four
of Downing's ships folded over their torn midsections. Then Downing's
ship answered fire.
It was not spectacular. The sphere of energy was not visible, nor was
it heterodyned. It closed upon the midsection of the heavy battlecraft.
It cut, quietly and with lightning swift precision. It moved, swinging
on a force beam and taking with it a sphere of the battlecraft's
middle--a perfect sphere, mirror-finished on the plates, girders, and
equipment that met the surface.
The energy ceased and the perfect sphere dropped toward the planet.
Smoke poured from the gaping hole, and the battlecraft buckled,
folded, and exploded like a bomb. Bits of broken ship spread far and
wide, and the main mass fell back upon the spaceport.
It lay there, inert, smoke trickling from its shapelessness.
It was a blackened monument to two hundred thousand years of
civilization.
The other battlecraft sped on through the flight unscathed. It looped
high in the space above Downing's flight and crossed around, looped
away and came back on the level against Thompson's group. It drove in
through the flight, lashing sidewise at Thompson's ships.
And four of them reached out and sliced four large spheres from the
battlecraft. Shredded, the ship died in the air. It disintegrated,
and it rained metal parts for fifty square miles--a rain of smoking,
shapeless masses of deadly steel.
"More?" snapped Stellor Downing.
Blatantly, the flight landed on the field, covered the other ships, and
then waited for a move. As Downing said, "It's their move this time!"
* * * * *
The white ship landed in their midst. From it came Lane and his crew.
The crew entered their ship, but Lane remained, waiting for Downing.
In the crook of his arm he held a small, white-furred creature, and he
stroked it gently with his free hand.
"Just lucky," grunted Downing.
"You talk big," retorted Lane. "But stay back, Downing. You're
contaminated."
"Meaning?"
"You're alive with deadly bugs."
"Nuts. So are you."
"No I'm not. I've been sterilized within an inch of my life. Look," he
said, holding up the Sscantovian equivalent of a guinea pig.
"Cute--but so what?"
"I've got the catmen scared of all Solarians--and from here on in, I'd
hate to be any race that bucks us. Take hold of this animal, just for a
moment."
Stellor Downing put his hand on the creature's back. He held it for a
moment and then let go. Lane put the little animal on the ground and
stood back.
"Well?"
"Wait a minute, will you? Even potassium cyanide takes time to kill--"
The little creature was running around, sniffing the ground and
obviously looking for food. For three minutes it searched quietly, and
then with a plaintive mew, it sat on its haunches and scratched its
back. The plaintive cry became louder--and tufts of hair came from the
back where the hind paw was scratching.
The creature scratched furiously--and succeeded in de-hairing its back,
_in the shape of Stellor Downing's hand_!
"What in--?"
"Wait."
Downing looked at his hand in a sort of horror.
The scratching increased, and bits of skin followed the pattern of the
bare patch. The plaintive cry became strident in a tiny voice. The
little animal stopped scratching, turned over on its back and wriggled
in the dirt of the spaceport. It wrenched itself back and forth
sharply, and with squeals of pain. Its four feet opened and closed
against its stomach, and the whites of its eyes gleamed.
A black patch appeared on the pink of the abdomen, and the paws
scratched at the spot. It grew, and the pig cried continuously.
Cliff Lane took out his modine and blasted the suffering pig with a
shake of his head.
Both he and Downing were a little sick.
"What--?"
"Fungus. As I gather it, the Solar sector of the Galaxy is alive with a
violent evolution of fungus. We live in it, we breathe it, and we--eat
it. They cringed in horror at what they found on the microscope slides,
and this is the fourth pig I've killed. But I'm completely fungicided
now, and I can handle 'em. But you see, Downing, you are alive with
fungus spores looking for a place to live. They can't live on you, but
what few that do escape the bactericidal action of the skin find it
quite easy to go to work on an animal that has never been required to
strive for life against fungi."
"Are the whole race like this?"
"No. Not entirely. But they haven't our strength against such--not
by a jugful. They're right on the edge of the Solar sector, as I get
it. They have some fungi, but it's nothing like the stuff we have on
Terra. I think that Sol may be the center--the evolution may well have
started there, mutated there, and anything that grows elsewhere may be
spore-born on the Arrhenius Theory to the rest of the Galaxy. Brother,
we're tough!"
"Well, what have we accomplished besides killing guinea pigs,
discovering a set of new weapons, and blasting the guts out of a couple
of their best craft?"
Lane smiled. "I've succeeded in carrying over to them the problem of
why we're here. They do not understand any more than we do, but they're
willing to let us seek out the machine."
"What about blasting their ships?"
"Won't bother them too much. They'll rather enjoy the development of
the slicing cut--after all their human appearance, they're still cats.
They like to fight silently, and slash quietly, and then to slink away
in the night. They're strictly predators, and their evaluation of life
is rather low."
"So?"
"You may have to prove your prowess with a bit of fighting, Downing.
Personal, I mean."
"Well--"
"And you may not. You've always accused me of being brash, bold, and
impulsive. All three of 'em got me across to this gang. I've always
accused you of being quiet, shy, and coldly-calculating. They'll like
those features, too."
* * * * *
Three white-clad doctors surrounded Downing with their sprays.
"That stuff they have is better than the glook they sprayed me with,"
remarked Lane. "But it doesn't smell as good and it is inclined to
sting a bit. They developed it after making me live in a glass-inclosed
laboratory for about two weeks."
Downing submitted to the spray with scratching and shrugging. "Tell
me," he clipped, "how're the women?"
"Cats," grinned Lane.