"Of course."
I looked down the street toward the landing field. I felt tired,
suddenly. Gone in the knees and weak, and sick to vomiting with fear.
"Here comes Gow," I said. "He's got seven or eight guys with guns. Just
keep the critters off us until we get through with the _cansins_, and
try not to kill any more than you can help."
Good old Jig, thinking about money even then. Gow came up. We talked a
minute, just the things that had to be said, and then I asked,
"Anybody have an idea where Quern might be?"
"Yeah," said Gow slowly. "He was in the ginmill next to the one we was
in. Drunk. I heard him singin' when I went by. I think the big apes
wrecked it."
* * * * *
We started off up the muddy street, more as though we'd been wound up
to go somewhere and couldn't stop than like men with a purpose. The
_cansins_ were close. Awful close. You could hear them sucking and
slopping in the muck. The rain fell straight down, almost solid, and
the air was thick and hot.
We did a lot of shouting. Some men came out of the shacks to join us,
but nobody had seen Quern since the trouble started. We had trouble
with the animals in the streets. The vapor snakes got one man, and an
Ionian _hru_ poisoned one guy so bad he died the next day. We had to
kill a couple of big babies that wouldn't scare off.
And we found the ginmill. Gow was right. It was wrecked, and there were
things scattered around amongst the splinters. I was glad it was dark.
"Well," I said, "that's that. We'll just have to do what we can
with the blasters." It wouldn't be much. We didn't carry any heavy
artillery, and a _cansin_ is awfully hard to stop.
"Any you guys wanta scram, do it now. The rest of you come on."
I took a step. Something squirmed under my foot, squeaked, and began to
curse in a voice like a katydid's.
"My God," I said. "It's Quern."
I picked him up. His rubbery little body was slick with mud. He spat
and hiccoughed, and snarled,
"Of course it's Quern. Fine thing, leaving me in the mud like that. I
might ha' drowned." He started cursing again in Low Martian, which is
his native tongue. He's a Diran from the sea-bottom pits of Shun.
Somebody laughed. It sounded hysterical. "The little lush! He don't
even know what's happened!"
And he didn't. The _cansins_ hadn't even seen him. He'd just been
tromped into the mud and left there, unharmed.
Gow caught his breath suddenly, and somebody whimpered. I looked up. I
couldn't see much, in the rain and the indigo dark, but I didn't have
to see. I knew what was coming.
A little vicious splotch of living green against the darkness, and
underneath it four huge shadows, trampling knee-deep in mud, making
toward a plastic hut filled with human beings.
I said softly, "Quern, I never thought you were such a hell of a
wonderful hypnotist."
He twinged in my hands. His anger almost burned me. He started to
speak, but I stopped him.
"Here's your chance to prove it, chum. See that little green light
floating there? Well, go to it, Quern. And it had better be good, or
it's curtains--for Nahru and all of us."