He turned to his furry companions. Flushing a little, he pulled
something out of his pocket and hung it onto his chin. It was a
sock--one of his socks--partly filled with clay.
Borden was still unable to find any two things happening on this planet
which added together to make sense. The sight of Jerry fastening a
clay-filled sock to his chin seemed slightly more insane than anything
else that had happened.
"I've found out how they talk, sir," Jerry said shyly. "It's a sort
of sign language with their hands and trunk, and they make noises for
inflections and tenses, sir. And emotional overtones. I'm not too good
yet, but--"
The scene before the lock door was unique. The clay-caked, thirty-foot
vehicle looked more like a land yacht than a ground car. It was made of
a golden metal. Two dozen or more of the furry bipeds were regarding
Jerry as he made gestures and every so often stopped to adjust the
position of his artificial trunk. When he made sounds at them, their
fur flattened. When he adjusted his sock trunk, although it far
from resembled their own, they seemed entranced. When he finished,
the creature with the bandaged arm made elaborate gesticulations
accompanied by chirping sounds. Even Borden, now that he had the key,
gathered a dim idea of what the biped was trying to say.
"He says, sir," reported Jerry, sweating, "that a stick came through
the air and stuck in his arm. He pulled it out and ran away. He kept on
running. Then he saw this ship, ran to it, and you bandaged his arm for
him."
Borden snapped, "An arrow! Sattell's made a bow and arrow. He sabotaged
your talkie so you couldn't be warned about him, and he probably hoped
to trail you and kill you with an arrow, so he could take your blaster
and come back and kill us! Maybe he was just practicing when he hit
this poor creature. Anyhow, he seems to be trying everything all at
once, to destroy us." He added sharply, "But weapons! Jerry, from what
you say there'll be more weapons in those other wagons! If he finds
them, and he probably will, since he was trailing you--"
Jerry said, "I worried about that, sir. So I got the creatures to dig
down to the doors of all the wagons in sight. I thought we'd better
have the weapons safe before--er--Sattell tried to help us find out
about the vehicles. I've got all the weapons right here. But there
weren't weapons in all the wagons. In most of them there were just
skeletons."
Borden was again reminded of the great number of things which did not
fit together into any coherent picture. He said impatiently:
"Then Sattell won't get the weapons. But what's this you keep on saying
about skeletons? Did you bring any of them?"
Jerry said, "I left those in here undisturbed. If you'll take the
weapons as I hand them out, you can look them over. They're just as I
first saw them."
[Illustration: The bipeds looked on as Borden and Ellen carried the
stubby, golden-metal weapons.]
He reached inside the vehicle, passed out objects midway between rifles
and blasters in size. They were surprisingly light. They could have
been aluminum, except that they were the color of gold or copper. There
were three armsful of them.
Ellen took them inside and came back.
"Now I'll look at those skeletons," said Borden.
He took Jerry's hand flash and climbed inside. Jerry said
apologetically to Ellen:
"I got so excited about what I found that I forgot all about eating. Do
you think I could fix something?"
"I'll do it for you, Jerry," said Ellen.
V
She took him inside. Sattell had carried away about most of the food
in the current-use freezer, and the storage lockers were nearly empty,
but she prepared an ample meal for him. She couldn't even guess at the
significance of what he'd found, but she knew there was meaning to it
if only it could be found.
Jerry was eating contentedly and telling Ellen about his journey with
the furry bipeds when Borden came in. He went to a tool locker, got out
a small torch, and went out again.
Considerably later the outer lock door clanked. Then Borden came back
into the cabin where Jerry was still talking with his mouth full.
"I'm beginning to get an idea of what's happened on this planet,"
Borden said grimly. "Jerry, was there any sign of a highway where you
found this bunch of wagons?"
Jerry considered: "The front part of this one," he offered finally,
"was buried deeper than the back. It went into a sort of hill. And
under the wheels there was flat stone. It could have been a highway,
buried under the mud that partly covered up what you call the wagons,
sir."
Borden nodded. "I've brazed the steering tiller of that wagon so it
can't be steered," he observed. "And I've replaced the lock fastener so
Sattell can't break into the ship. We can sleep tonight. Tomorrow we'll
go over to those wagons and disable them all. And then, in this wagon
you brought, we'll hunt Sattell down. I have an idea he'd better not
have a wagon of his own. It might not be good for us."
Jerry asked rather breathlessly, "What did you think of the skeletons,
sir? I left them exactly as they were." He hesitated. "I thought they
were a lot like human skeletons. Is that right?"
"Quite right," agreed Borden. "There is an extra rib on each side, and
three fewer vertebrae, and their joints were a little different, but
they were people, as I interpret the word. Were there skeletons in all
the wagons you entered?"
"Yes, sir."