Sean shrugged as Mike moved closer to Marcia.
"Oh, Marcia," Mike said softly. "You found the way." His arms reached
out as if to clasp her, but she ducked under them, put her arm around
Sean's waist.
Sean's fingers pushed her arm loose, but Mike was a fury before him.
"So," Mike growled. "I must think of Jane. I must forget Marcia." He
sniffed loudly. "Well, friend, how about Maureen? I suppose she'll
greet Marcia with open arms?" He paused a moment.
"'I'll come back, Maureen,'" Mike mimicked Sean's last words to his
black-haired Maureen when the Earthlings had first been driven aboard
the Krak ship many weeks before.
Then Mike's big fist lashed out. Sean's strong hands reached out,
caught the arm, pushed it to Mike's side as he said quietly:
"Easy, Mike, easy." He added: "There are more important things to
consider now than jealousy." A movement from Marcia turned Sean's head
quickly. Then he smiled that slanted grin.
"Look, Mike, she's just a feather, blown about by what takes her
fancy." Sean jerked his flame head at Marcia. She was smiling up at
a tall, slim blond--a stranger to Sean who had been hovering in the
background.
Mike looked, and the fire in his dark eyes died a little. Muscles
worked in the sides of his jaw. His barrel chest lifted in a deep
breath. Then he grinned a little shamefacedly.
His voice was abrupt then.
"How did the Krak die, Sean?"
Sean said enigmatically: "By an Earthling's cruelest weapon. A weapon
which has been lost to most humans since the Kraks came. A sort of
prodigal weapon. I used it once on Klash, and didn't know it. I
couldn't see it then. But Marcia's killing Shel Lur gave me the answer."
Sean McKenna took Mike's arm, led him to the door.
They moved outside where two Krak guardsmen stood.
They paced out into the black paved street.
"Watch them," Sean said softly, triumph in his voice.
* * * * *
Sean McKenna began to laugh, the deep waves of it pouring up out of his
chest, filling the sullen air with its joy. There it was, he thought
humbly, the weapon. _Laughter!_
The two Kraks stood impassive. Their dark eyes were quiet. They were
unperturbed.
Sean stopped laughing. His bright green eyes were dull as he turned to
Mike O'Hara.
"It doesn't work," he said. They were just words. There was no emotion
in them. He might have been talking about the weather. "I was sure this
was it. Laughter. David's sling against Goliath."
Then Sean McKenna shrugged. His voice was flippant now. His green eyes
stared at Mike's dark ones unblinkingly. He wondered: Are my eyes as
blank and dull as Mike's? He said:
"I could think of the worse places for mankind to die--" he swept his
left arm encompassing the red sky and black city--"but not many." He
laughed again. This time his voice was high-pitched, almost with a note
of hysteria in it.
"You were right, Mike, we didn't have much chance against the Universe
Champion."
"Wait!" Mike said urgently. "Look!"
The two Krak guardsmen were staggering drunkenly toward them. This Sean
saw as he turned. Their faces were twisted, working convulsively.
"Stop it," the foremost one muttered hoarsely. "It hurts the ears."
His figure towered over Sean, clutching fingers reaching. Sean darted
aside. The second Krak had fallen, huge spatulate fingers scrabbling at
the black-paved blocks. The first one turned hesitantly as if he could
no longer control his feet, stumbled after Sean.
He lunged at Sean, succeeded only in tearing that metal contrivance
from his back. A great weight suddenly pulled Sean to the pavement,
seemed to triple the weight of his own body. It was pain to move his
head, but Sean's red-thatch twisted so his green eyes could see.
The pursuing Krak toppled against the black bricks beside Sean, his
bald head making a dull sound. The usually impassive eyes were staring
at Sean's green orbs. There was pain and--was it defeat?--in them.
Every sinewy muscle in Sean's body strained as he tried to get to his
feet. So that was what the metal pack was for, he decided irrelevantly,
an anti-gravity device. He threw his body toward it.
Before he reached it, however, Mike had picked it up, was strapping it
haphazardly on his back. The tremendous weight lifted and he crawled to
his feet.
"You were right after all," Mike said, and there was a caress in it.
"Laughter."
Sean stood a long moment, looking at the fallen Kraks.
Sean began to chuckle, the chuckle drifted into laughter. It was true!
Humanity had forgotten its greatest weapon.
"God," said Mike softly. "Laughter did it. Laughter." His dark eyes
were staring at Sean. Then he, too, was laughing, joining his bass with
Sean's baritone.
* * * * *
Earthlings moved out of the laundry, their eyes wide. They, too, fired
by the infectious roarings began to laugh. On the wings of the wind,
the laughter spread, working its way building by building, street by
street, block by block through the city, as other humans picked it up,
flung it on joyfully.
And as the Earthly laughter bubbled and rolled through the sullen city
of Karrar, Kraks died--only a few at first, but more and more as the
bursts of laughter swelled and swelled until even the black and red
stone echoed with it.
Mike O'Hara placed his big hand on Sean McKenna's arm.
"You found the chink, Sean," he said. "Was it the sound of the
laughter? That doesn't sound right." He chuckled a little at the
unexpected pun.
Sean grinned. "I know what you're driving at, Mike. Laughter is scaled
so low on the vibration scale that the Kraks must have encountered
other vibrations of the same intensity at many times in the past. That
it?"
Mike nodded.
Sean grinned impishly. "Laugh once, Mike, and listen to your laughter."
Mike laughed, his brow furrowed.
"No idea bloomed," he said when he stopped laughing.
"Burlesque it," Sean said. "Do it in slow motion." He demonstrated.
"Like this. Ha--ha--ha--ha."
"Got it!" Mike exclaimed. "It's not a single sound. It's a series of
them. It's the old story of the soldiers crossing the bridge. It's not
each individual soldier; it's the cadence. Not ha, but ha--ha--ha."
"Like kicking at the lock of a door instead of pushing on it steadily
to get it open; like chipping at a rock instead of trying to smash it
with one blow--there's a slough of analogies if we wanted to go on with
it."
"That one Krak muttered something about his ears," Mike put in.
Sean nodded. "That, I think, marks the spot of their Achilles heel.
They're like us in many ways--but one difference apparently lies in
their ears. I'll get old Doc Perkins to dissect some of them.
"My own idea is that their balance canals are constituted differently
somehow than ours. Those two Kraks gave all the appearance of being
unable to maintain their balance. In us, those ear canals are
gyroscopes. That's why even blind persons are aware when they begin to
deviate from an upright position.
"Both our canals of balance and those of the Kraks probably function
the same way, but the extra gravity of this planet may have wrought the
chink which we found. With study and experimentation we should find out
for sure just what happens." Sean stopped talking, gazed at the people
around him who were laughing.
He felt his chest swelling with pride. Man was on the road back--back
to Earth with its rolling green hills, its blue skies, its brown
mountains, its myriad sounds and smells and sights. Man was going home
with a weapon to cast out the invader.
He stood for a long time, Mike's hand on his arm, watching these happy
humans. Even the black and red of Karrar was softened by the joyous
light in their clear unfilmed eyes.
Finally, Sean McKenna said,
"We have a new task, Mike. We've got to take them home."
The sullen red sun dipped behind the black hills. The black mist of
night flowed over the lowering sky dimming it, finally enveloping it.
The black mist thickened, formed silently into the night sky with its
countless planets, its myriad suns.
Somewhere in that star-scattered vastness is Earth, Sean McKenna
thought.
Earth. And Maureen with the soft black hair and eyes that are blue
flames.
_Earth!_