Ellen called and called. Her voice grew weary and her shoulders dropped
hopelessly as hours passed without reply.
Borden found where Sattell had crossed the wires so that if the ship
took off and went out into space, the control board would show all air
vents as safely sealed. But there would remain a small, steady drain of
leakage of the ship's air stores.
He also found a small alteration of the water-recovery system. They
would have run out of water on the way home. He found a cunning circuit
arranged so that if the ship rose on interplanetary drive and set out
on even a hopeless search for home, the instant it went into overdrive
its power tanks would fuse and short, and it would be left driveless
and powerless, to crash or drift helplessly until its occupants died
or went mad of despair.
Borden came back to the control room with his face set in savage lines.
"We didn't watch him," he said bitterly, "so he took advantage. Right
now he's gloating, sure we have to accept any terms he demands, for the
use of the log and maps to get home. And he's gloating because he'll
have his revenge if we refuse, and if we do make a bargain he'll tell
us how many ways we'd have died if we had not made it. We've got to
check every device and every piece of equipment in the ship before we
can lift off this planet--even after we've got fuel!"
He looked out a port. The shadows were long and slanting. It was
twilight. Night was near.
Ellen said drearily into the talkie:
"Jerry, Sattell has vanished. Please come in!... Jerry, Sattell has
vanished. Please come in!"
Far away, a tiny figure appeared in the half light. It came hastening
toward the _Danaë_. It was one of the furry bipeds, probably one of
those that had accompanied Jerry. It came through the dusk at an
agitated lope, using its long, furry arms to balance itself. It made
an agitated leap at sight of the space-ship and rushed onward more
frantically than before.
"Look!" cried Borden. "That looks like a messenger!"
He went out the air-lock door, his hand on the weapon in his holster.
The biped bounced at sight of him. Its fur flattened, but it came on
at a tearing rush. It leaped and slid and came to rest before him, its
trunk waving wildly. He bent to scratch it, according to the custom
that had become established in the past four days. But it did not wait.
It stood up, making excited chirping noises and gesturing wildly. It
made grimaces, in the falling night.
Then Borden noticed blood on its fur....
* * * * *
An hour later an almost unbearable bright light appeared in the
distance, moving toward the _Danaë_. Jerry had carried a handflash,
of course, but nothing equal to this. Judging by the wavering of the
light, it was mounted on a vehicle of some sort.
Ellen's voice said wearily for the thousandth time:
"Jerry, Sattell's vanished. Come in, please."
"You can stop that, Ellen," Borden told her. "The call's answered. It
looks as if the real natives of this planet are coming to call."
He shrugged and turned to the furry creature which now was inside the
ship. He'd bandaged its wound--a clean deep puncture in the flesh of
its arm. He led it to the air-lock.
"Get going," he said curtly. "Your masters are coming. They won't like
it that you've made friends with us. Scat!"
But the creature only blinked at the approaching light while its fur
flattened. It went bouncing out and toward the swaying, lurching
approaching light, racing joyfully to meet it.
Borden stared. Then he saw that other figures were about the
approaching light beam--other furry, dancing, leaping creatures. They
ran and gesticulated happily about the advancing vehicle.
It didn't make sense. But nothing did make sense on this planet!
Borden waited in the air-lock with Ellen behind him and a blaster
in his hand. In the darkness the vehicle came lurching onward with
surprising quiet. Its light swayed, and it had moved as if to turn,
when Borden threw on the outside lights.
A semicircle of the sparse green vegetation sprang into brilliance.
Borden and his wife were relatively in shadow. They could see the
vehicle clearly.
It was nearly thirty feet long and rolled on two curious devices
which were not caterpillar treads, but not exactly wheels, either. A
loping, wildly excited horde of bipeds--including the one Borden had
bandaged--surrounded it, making way for it but escorting it in wild
enthusiasm.
The thing was caked with dirt. It was not merely dusty. It was packed
with dried clay, as if it had been buried and only recently exhumed.
A round blister at the front which might be plastic had been partly
cleared of dirt, but there were still areas in which clay clung and
made it opaque.
It curved about and swung parallel to the ship. It stopped within
twenty feet of the air-lock. Then an oval window--which looked as if
somebody had scratched caked clay off it with a stick--turned endwise,
quite impossibly, and became a door. The door slid aside. The interior
of the vehicle was dark.
Borden held his blaster ready. He wouldn't shoot first, but there _had_
been a heat-ray flung at the _Danaë_!...
* * * * *
And Jerry got out of the incredible vehicle and stood blinking
embarrassedly in the light from the outer-lock glare lamps.