The traction-scooter was where he had left it, hanging upside down on
the underside of the concave slope. It had stopped automatically when
his weight had left the seat. He reached up, toggled the OVERRIDE switch
and put it manually into reverse.
Once straightened out, he was on his way back to the base.
I feel good, he thought. I feel like I could lick my weight in
spacemen.
Only then did he realize why he felt so good.
What had happened had been so strange for him, he couldn't realize what
it had been until now.
While he had been knocked out, he had been asleep.
Asleep.
For the first time in years.
Sleep. He felt wonderful. He felt like he could lick all of his
problems....
Ekstrohm roared back into the base. The motor was silent on the
traction-scooter, of course, but the air he kicked up made its own
racket.
Ryan and Nogol came out to greet him sullenly.
"Listen," he told them, "I've got the answer to all of this."
"So have we," Ryan said ugly. "The first answer was the right one. We've
been scaring pigs to death and watching them, scaring and watching. We
learned nothing. You knew we wouldn't. You set us up for this. It's like
you said. You fed all of these beasts your stuff in advance, something
that acts when they get excited...."
It didn't make sense, but then it never had. You couldn't argue with
prejudice. He was "different." He didn't act like they did. He didn't
believe the same things. He was the outsider, therefore suspect. The
alien on an alien world.
Ekstrohm sighed. Man would always be the final alien, the creature man
would never understand, sympathize with or even tolerate.
There was no point in trying to argue further, Ekstrohm realized.
"You'll never understand, Ryan. You could have seen all the things I saw
if you'd bothered to look, but you were too anxious to blame me. But if
I can't make you understand, I can at least beat you into acceptance."
"Huh?" Ryan ventured.
"I said," Ekstrohm repeated, "that I'm going to beat some sense into
your thick skull."
Ryan grinned, rippled his massive shoulders and charged.
* * * * *
Ekstrohm remembered the lesson Shortie had taught him with Big Boy. He
didn't meet the captain's charge head on. He sidestepped and caught Ryan
behind the ear with his fist. The big man halted, puzzled. Ekstrohm sank
his fist into the thick, solid belly.
Slowly, Ryan's knees gave way and he sank towards the ground.
When his chin was at the right level of convenience, Ekstrohm put his
weight behind his right.
Ryan swayed dreamily backward.
But he threw himself forward and one ham of a fist connected high on
Ekstrohm's cheek. He was shaken to his toes, and the several hours' old
pain in the back of his head throbbed sickeningly. One more like that
would do for him.
Ekstrohm stood and drove in a lot of short punches to Ryan's body,
punches without much power behind them because he didn't have it. But he
knew better than to try a massive attack on a massive target.
When he couldn't lift his arms any more, Ekstrohm stopped punching. He
realized Ryan had fallen on his face a few seconds before.
Then he remembered, and whirled. He had left his back exposed to Nogol.