"You can't torture it out of me," said the pilot between gritted teeth.
"Maybe I can scare it out of you," said Dave. He stood up and lifted
the pilot by hooking his left hand under the windings of tape. He
dragged the man along the ground to the helicopter and slung him into
the passenger's seat. Then Dave went around and climbed into the pilot
seat and wound up the motor. He snapped off the radio and inspected the
dashboard carefully to be sure that all radiating equipment was dead;
he did not wish to be followed by any direction-finding equipment.
Then he drove the helicopter for two solid hours north until he came to
a piney forest. He dropped the ship slantwise through the forest for
a mile and came to earth in a little glade. The wheels of the 'copter
rested on the half-world surface a few inches below the apparent ground.
* * * * *
"Now, my friend, I'm going to show you a few things that may prove to
you that we're not as stupid as you think. For one thing, I, an unarmed
man in a strange world, have succeeded in killing one of your buddies,
wounding you, and making off with your helicopter. I've succeeded in
escaping to a place where it may be difficult--if possible at all--to
find us. Third, I've established the fact that you are not carrying any
means of communicating to the real world on this 'copter."
"Oh, brilliant," said the pilot.
"It was," nodded Dave. "You see, we're a bunch of mechanical geniuses,
which you've always admitted. So I postulate some sort of mechanical
linkage through these devil's crystals of yours. A pencil, perhaps,
with the barrel in one world and the magazine in the other world,
coupled between them with a bushing made of a crystal. Maybe a radio
set with bushings in the dials, and a crystal between the this-world
diaphragm and the real-world electrical element. But if we were
carrying anything of that nature I'd have felt resistance as we passed
down through this forest. So--?"
"Why don't you kill me and forget it all?" asked the pilot.
"I am compassionate, sympathetic. A lover of mine enemy. When smitten
upon one cheek, I turn the other cheek for a second wallop. Since
you've had only one wallop, I'm keeping you alive so you can get that
busted wing back in shape for the second smiting. But you see," added
Dave as he saw a wave of pain pass over the pilot, "the book doesn't
fill in the gap between the smiting of the first cheek and the offering
of the second. Elsewhere in the same book--and a long way in front of
that--you find references to the taking of an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth. You and your gang of hotshots have been responsible
for the deaths of a lot of fine men, killed with no warning.
"So," finished Dave, hard-voiced, "maybe you'd like to learn what goes
on when a mild-mannered gent like myself gets mad?"
Dave reached across the pilot's body, grasped the wounded arm and
joggled it sharply. The pilot cried out in pain and beads of sweat
popped out on his face.
"Talk, damn you!" Dave twisted the arm again.
"Where are you running this game from?"
No answer--and another twist of the arm.
"How do you blow up the crystals?"
The pilot's eyes closed and he breathed heavily.
"Possum!" said Dave, slapping the pilot across the face. There was no
response, so he fumbled under the seat and found a water flask. He
threw a small handful into the pilot's face. "There isn't much of this
here," he said, "and I doubt that there's any water we can drink on
this half-world. Wounded men get thirsty, don't they, chum?"