"Tomorrow," Hawthorne went on, "is a holiday. Nobody works except us.
That's as a token of interstellar good will. We work and the Centaurs
rest--except our good friend Morguma, who will be along to keep an eye
on us. Morguma deserves a little fun, too."
O'Dea crawled out of his bunk and advanced with hard fists. He was
promptly shoved back by the grinning Hawthorne.
"Don't you see?" Hawthorne demanded. "We get Morguma so pie-eyed he
won't know what's going on. Then--"
He drew a stubby forefinger across his throat and made a croaking
noise. O'Dea pried his puffed eyelids apart and beamed in pleased
understanding. His lips parted slowly in a grin that would have done
credit to a Centaur.
"Oh, I am ecstatic!" he said.
* * * * *
Morguma was ecstatic when he received his present. Tears of happiness
gushed down his cheeks as O'Dea presented the vacuum bottle with a
flowery oration. He seemed to have forgotten the incident of the
previous night, and took no notice of O'Dea's bruised features.
The happy creature crushed O'Dea to his bosom with several bear-like
arms.
"Oh my dear bosom friends! My heart would swell with song if I were
able to sing! Oh you fortunate humans, to be able to sing!"
O'Dea broke loose from the embrace and rubbed his ribs. He looked
cheerfully at Hawthorne.
"As soon as he's _non compos mentis_," he whispered, "we'll slug the
lug, and--"
"Shut up," Hawthorne growled softly. "You'll queer everything."
The pilot took his place at the control board and they pushed out
to the asteroid belt. Morguma settled himself in his usual chair at
the rear of the control room and tantalized himself by smelling the
_quintol_.
"Oh how wonderful!" he enthused. "Aged in the bottle, too! How I love
humans!"
O'Dea glanced impatiently from the corner of his eye. The Centaur
was in no hurry to consume the _quintol_. They were approaching the
asteroid belt before he had put much inside him.
The two men stalled by chasing down worthless rocks until half the
liquor was inside the Centaur. Morguma's six eyes gradually became
glassier and glassier. He started to sway a little in his chair.
"Gonna get the mosh wonnerful piesh of d'lightful oshy--oshygen
you ever shaw!" he announced. "There'sh shtupendous piesh. Oh I am
rap--rapshurous!"
"It's only a piece of pumice!" O'Dea insisted.
"Itsh oshygen! Lovely beaut'ful delecbub--delect'ble oshygen!" Morguma
staggered toward them. "Put sheizure beam on lovely oshygen!"
The seizures clamped on the stone as O'Dea shrugged and threw out the
beams. Morguma took another long nip and let his eyes swim into focus
on the dials. He looked hurt.
"Not oshygen? Not lovely oshygen? Oh I am eshcruchiated!"
The creature sobbed and took another drink. He staggered back and fell
into his chair, where he fell into a weeping spree, his head buried in
his hands.
O'Dea glanced swiftly. His elbow dug into Hawthorne's ribs.
Hawthorne nodded. They quietly picked up the wrenches they had kept
nearby; started toward Morguma.
One on each side, they moved cautiously. Silently they moved forward
until they came within striking distance.
Hawthorne waved O'Dea back, gesturing to his own powerful right arm.
O'Dea nodded, poised his weapon for the follow up swing. Hawthorne
raised the wrench.
And then Morguma's whip flicked out.
* * * * *
Hawthorne's eyes remained fastened to his empty hand as the wrench
clattered into a corner. Again the snap of Centaur leather, and O'Dea's
weapon joined the other. The two men stood foolishly, like a pair of
boys caught stealing apples. Morguma spoke:
"Oh you bad bad people! Go back to control board; let poor Morguma
alone. Oh I am deshicated to think you would do thish to poor old
frien' Morguma!"
They slunk back to their posts. O'Dea raised his helpless eyes to the
portrait above the controls.
"What can I do, Mercedes?" he whispered. "The guy is stiffer than King
Tut and still you can't beat him!"
They avoided each other's eyes. Each knew what the other was thinking.
Defeat meant that the Centaur had won. There would be no warning to
Earth.
Avignon would become a planet of slave humans, blindly following the
skillful teachings of the Centaurs. They would infiltrate Earth, tear
down from within.... Generations would be required, but the Centaurs
had time. They thought in long term strategy.
Hawthorne was staring unbelievingly through the telescope. His
trembling fingers closed on O'Dea's arm.
"Let go, you ape--"
O'Dea stopped, impelled by the smoldering hope in the eyes that warned
him to silence. He glanced swiftly to be sure that Morguma was still
hunched stupidly in his chair, then followed Hawthorne's gaze. He
gasped at what they saw.
In their line of vision was a mass that looked like twisted wire,
coiled up in a planless tangle. O'Dea leaned forward, stared without
belief.
"Our fuel," he breathed. "If we can get hold of that--"
Hawthorne waved him frantically, silently, to the seizure beams. O'Dea
tiptoed to the levers, waited with one eye on Morguma while Hawthorne
crept up on the precious fuel.
O'Dea eyed the dials, hands shaking on the control bars. There was no
mistake! It was indeed their fuel, forced out of the hole in their
tanks by internal pressure. Pressed out into space in a priceless
ribbon, it had frozen into this amorphous mass!
O'Dea's heart was heavy in his ears. His suddenly feverish eyes darted
to the apparently-sleeping Morguma, then to the smiling portrait of
Mercedes.
Hawthorne nodded imperatively. The ship jolted slightly as the seizure
beams went on. The fuel was clamped rigid before them. Morguma stirred
and studied them with glazed eyes. His thick voice croaked:
"Whazzhat? Oshygen? Lovely precious oshygen?"
"That's right, Morguma. Oshygen--I mean oxygen." O'Dea brought the
chunk closer, trying hard to look natural. "It looks so lovely I'd
like to take a chunk on board and sniff it right now!"
"Oh whassa lovely ideas!" Morguma, still clutching his whip and his
bottle, navigated by dead-drunk reckoning to the vision plate in the
control room's belly. He peered stupidly at the coiled fuel. O'Dea
feared that the sound of his breathing would sober the Centaur. He held
the breath in his pounding lungs.
"'s funny oshygen!" Morguma mumbled. "Mosh funniesh oshygen I ever
seen!" He brightened. "Mush be a rare ishotype! Oh mush be lov'liesh
oshygen in whole galaxy!"
He closed all but one eye and tried to read the dials. Furtively, O'Dea
turned the telescope into the asteroid belt, and the instruments swayed
as badly as Morguma himself. The Centaur shuddered and turned away.
"Broken! All the metersh mush be drunk! Can't eshamine lovely oshygen!"
He started sobbing.
"Oh, come now, old man," said O'Dea, sympathetically. "We can bring a
piece of it inside the ship and look at it first hand--"
"Wunnerful ideas! Wunnerful!"
Morguma slapped O'Dea's back affectionately. O'Dea picked himself off
the floor and staggered in a great circle to the control board.
A thin seizure beam stabbed at a corner of the fuel, broke off a
generous chunk. Under O'Dea's trained fingers, it moved toward the
ship, through the belly lock.
Then it was in the cabin.