the fur on the upper lip of a week-old kitten, except more so—did not
conceal the determined set of her lovely jaw; the tight shorts and the
even tighter, purely conventional breastband did not conceal the
tigerish strength and agility of her lovely body. It’d be better, the
Blaster decided, not to argue the point.
A dozen armed Dhilians came aboard, as pre-arranged, and the cruiser
blasted off. Then, while Thlaskin was maneuvering inert, to familiarize
himself with the controls and to calibrate the blast, Cloud brought out
the four semi-portable projectors. They were frightful weapons, designed
for tripod mounting; so heavy that it took a very strong man to lift one
on Earth. They carried no batteries or accumulators, but were powered by
tight beams from the mother ship.
Luda was right; such weapons were unknown in that solar system. They had
no beam transmission of power. The Dhilians radiated glee as they
studied the things. They had stronger stuff, but it was fixed-mount and
far too heavy to move. This was wonderful—these were magnificent
weapons indeed!
High above the stratosphere, inert, the pilot found his spot and flipped
the cruiser around, cross-hairs centering the objective. Then, using his
forward, braking jets as drivers, he blasted her straight downward.
She struck atmosphere almost with a thud. Only her fiercely-driven
meteorite-screens and wall-shields held her together.
“I hope to Klono you know what you’re doing, chum,” the Chickladorian
remarked conversationally as the fortress below leaped upward with
appalling speed. “I’ve made hot landings before, but I always had a hair
or two of leeway. If you don’t hit this to a couple of hundredths we’ll
splash when we strike. We won’t bounce, brother.”
“I can compute it to a thousandth and I can set the clicker to within
five, but it’s _you_ that’ll have to do the real hitting.” Cloud grinned
back at the iron-nerved pilot. “Sure a four-second call is enough to get
your rhythm, allow for reaction time and lag, and blast right on the
click?”
“Absolutely. If I can’t get it in four I can’t get it at all. Got your
stuff ready?”
“Uh-huh.” Cloud, staring into the radarscope, began to sway his
shoulders. He knew the exact point in space and the exact instant of
time at which the calculated deceleration must begin; by the aid of his
millisecond timer—two full revolutions of the dial every second—he was
about to set the clicker to announce that instant. His hand swayed back
and forth—a finger snapped down—the sharp-toned instrument began to
give out its crisp, precisely-spaced clicks.
“Got it!” Cloud snapped. “Right on the middle of the click! Get ready,
Thlaskin—seconds! Four! Three! Two! One! Click!”
Exactly with the click the vessel’s brakes cut off and her terrific
driving blasts smashed on. There was a cruelly wrenching shock as
everything aboard acquired suddenly a more-than-three-times-Earthly
weight.
Luda and her fellows merely twitched. The Tomingan, standing behind the
pilot, supporting and steadying his wounded head in its rest, settled
almost imperceptibly, but her firmly gentle hands did not yield a
millimeter. The Manarkan sank deeply into the cushioned bench upon which
she was lying; her quick, bright eyes remaining fixed upon her patient.
The Chickladorian girl, in her hammock, fainted quietly.
The Vegian, who had flashed one hand up to an overhead bar at the
pilot’s first move, stood up—although she seemed to shorten a good two
inches and her tight upper garment parted with a snap as back- and
shoulder-muscles swelled to take the strain. _That_ wouldn’t worry her.
Cloud knew—what _was_ she stewing about? Oh—her tail! It was too heavy
for its own strength, great as it was, to lift! Her left hand came down,
around, and back; with its help the tail came up. To the bar above her
head, around it, tip pointing stiffly straight upward. Then, smiling
gleefully at both Thlaskin and the Blaster, she shouted something that
neither could understand, but which was the war-cry of her race:
“Tails high, brothers!”
Downward the big ship hurtled, toward the now glowing screens of the
fortress. Driving jets are not orthodox weapons, but properly applied,
they can be deadly ones indeed: and these were being applied with
micromatric exactitude.
Down! DOWN!! The threatened fortress and its neighbors hurled their
every beam; Nhalian ships dived frantically at the invader and did their
useless best to blast her down.
Down she drove, the fortress’ screens flaming ever brighter under the
terrific blast.
Closer! Hotter! Still closer! Hotter still! Nor did the furious flame
waver—the Chickladorian was indeed a master pilot.
“Set up a plus ten, Thlaskin,” Cloud directed. “Air density and
temperature are changing. Their beams, too, you know.”
“Check. Plus ten, sir—set up.”
“Give it to her on the fourth click from . . . this.”
“On, sir.” The vessel seemed to pause momentarily, to stumble; but the
added weight was almost imperceptible.
A bare hundred yards now, and the ship of space was still plunging
downward at terrific speed. The screens were furiously incandescent, but
were still holding.
A hundred feet, velocity appallingly high, the enemy’s screens still up.
Something _had_ to give now! If that screen stood up the ship would
vanish as she struck it, but Thlaskin the Chickladorian made no move and
spoke no word. If the skipper was willing to bet his own life on his
computations, who was he to squawk? But . . . he must have
miscalculated!
No! While the vessel’s driving projectors were still a few yards away
the defending screens exploded into blackness; the awful streams of
energy raved directly into the structures beneath. Metal and stone
glared white, then flowed—sluggishly at first, but ever faster and more
mobile—then boiled coruscantly into vapor.
The cruiser slowed—stopped—seemed to hang for an instant poised. Then
she darted upward, her dreadful exhausts continuing and completing the
utter devastation.
“That’s computin’, mister,” the pilot breathed as he cut the fierce
acceleration to a heavenly one thousand. “To figure a dive like that to
three decimals and have the guts to hold to it cold—skipper, that’s
com-pu-_tation_!”
“All yours, pilot,” Cloud demurred. “All I did was give you the dope.
You’re the guy that made it good. Hurt, anybody?”
Nobody was. “QX. We’ll repeat, then, on the other side of the lagoon.”
As the ship began to descend on the new course the vengeful Dhilian
fleet arrived. Looping, diving, beaming, oftentimes crashing in suicidal
collision, the two factions went maniacally to war. There were no
attacks, however, against the plunging Tellurian ship. The Nhalians had
learned that they could do nothing about that vessel.
The second fortress fell exactly as the first had fallen. The pilot
landed the cruiser in the middle of the shallow lakelet. Cloud saw that
the Dhilians, overwhelmingly superior in numbers now, had cleared the
air of Nhalian craft.
“Can you fellows and your ships keep them off of my flitter while I take
my readings?”
“We can,” the natives radiated happily.
Four of the armored boneheads were _wearing_ the semi-portable. They had
them perched lightly atop their feeding heads, held immovably in place
by two arms apiece. One hand sufficed to operate the controls, leaving
two hands free to do whatever else might prove in order.
“Let us out!”
The lock opened, the Dhilian warriors sprang out and splashed away to
meet the enemy, who were already dashing into the lagoon.
Cloud watched pure carnage. He hoped—yes, there they were! The
loyalists, seeing that their cause was not lost, after all, had armed
themselves and were smashing into the fray.
The Blaster broke out his flitter then, set it down near the vortex, and
made his observations. Everything was normal. He selected three bombs
from his vast stock, loaded them into the tubes, and lofted. He set his
screens, adjusted his goggles, and waited; while far above him and wide
around him his guardian Dhilian war-vessels toured watchfully, their
drumming blasts a reassuring thunder.
He waited, eyeing the sigma curve as it flowed backward from the
recording pen, until he got a ten-second prediction. He shot the flitter
forward, solving instantaneously the problems of velocity and
trajectory. At exactly the correct instant he released a bomb. He cut
his drive and went free.
The bomb sped truly, striking the vortex dead center. It penetrated
deeply enough. The carefully-weighed charge of duodec exploded; its
energy and that of the vortex combining in a detonation whose like no
inhabitant of that solar system had ever even dimly imagined.
The noxious gases and the pall of smoke and pulverized debris blew
aside; the frightful waves of lava quieted down. The vortex was out and
would remain out. The Blaster drove back to the cruiser and put his
flitter away.
“Oh—you did it! Thanks! I didn’t believe that you—that anybody—really
could!” Luda was almost hysterical in her joyous relief.
“Nothing to it,” Cloud deprecated. “How are you doing on the mopping
up?”
“Practically clean,” Luda answered, grimly. “We now know who is who.
Those who fought against us or who did not fight for us are, or very
soon will be, dead. But the Nhalian fleet comes. Does yours? Ours takes
off in moments.”
“Wait a minute!” Cloud sat down at his plate, made observations and
measurements, calculated mentally. He turned on his communicator and
conferred briefly.
“The Nhalian fleet will be here in seven hours and eighteen minutes. If
your people go out to meet them it will mean a war that not even the
Patrol can stop without destroying most of the ships and men both of you
have in space. The Patrol task force will arrive in seven hours and
thirty one minutes. Therefore, I suggest that you hold your fleet here,
in formation but quiescent, under instructions not to move until you
order them to, while you and I go out and see if we can’t stop the
Nhalians.”
“_Stop_ them!” Luda’s thought was not at all ladylike. “What with,
pray?”
“I don’t know,” Cloud confessed, “but it wouldn’t do any harm to try,
would it?”
“Probably not. We’ll try.”
All the way out Cloud pondered ways and means. As they neared the
onrushing fleet he thought at Luda:
“Darjeeb is undoubtedly with that fleet. He knows that this is the only
inertialess ship in this part of space. He wants it more than anything
else in the universe. Now if we could only make him listen to reason
. . . if we could make him see. . . .”
He broke off. No soap. You couldn’t explain “green” to a man born blind.
These folks didn’t know and wouldn’t believe what real firepower was.
The weakest vessel in this oncoming task force could blast both of these
boneheads’ fleets into a radiant gas in fifteen seconds flat—and the
superdreadnoughts’ primaries would be starkly incredible to both Luda
and Darjeeb. They simply _had_ to be seen in action to be believed; and
then it would be too late.
These people didn’t stand the chance of a bug under a sledgehammer, but
they’d have to be killed before they’d believe it. A damned shame, too.
The joy, the satisfaction, the real advancement possible only through
cooperation with each other and with the millions of races of Galactic
Civilization—if there were only some means of _making_ them
believe. . . .
“We—and they—_do_ believe.” Luda broke into his somber musings.
“Huh? What? You do? You were listening?”
“Certainly. At your first thought I put myself en rapport with Darjeeb,
and he and our peoples listened to your thoughts.”
“But . . . you really believe me?”
“We all believe. Some will cooperate, however, only as far as it will
serve their own ends to do so. Your Lensmen will undoubtedly have to
kill that insect Darjeeb and others of his kind in the interest of
lasting peace.”
The insulted Nhalian drove in a protesting thought, but Luda ignored it
and went on:
“You think, then, Tellurian, that your Lensmen can cope with even such
as Darjeeb of Nhal?”
“I’ll say they can!”
“It is well, then. Come aboard, Darjeeb—unarmed and unarmored, as I
am—and we will together go to confer with these visiting Lensmen of
Galactic Civilization. It is understood that there will be no warfare
until our return.”
“Holy Klono!” Cloud gasped. “He wouldn’t do _that_, would he?”
“Certainly.” Luda was surprised at the question. “Although he is an
insect, and morally and ethically beneath contempt, he is, after all, a
reasoning being.”
“QX.” Cloud was dumbfounded, but tried manfully not to show it.
Darjeeb came aboard. He was heavily bandaged and most of his hands were
useless, but he seemed to bear no ill-will. Cloud gave orders; the ship
flashed away to meet the Patrolmen.
The conference was held. The boneheads, after being taken through a
superdreadnought and through a library by Lensmen as telepathic as
themselves, capitulated to Civilization immediately and whole-heartedly.
“You won’t need me any more, will you, admiral?” Cloud asked then.
“I don’t think so—no. Nice job, Cloud.”
“Thanks. I’ll be on my way, then; the people I picked up must be off my
ship by this time. Clear ether.”
_Chapter 7_
▂▂▂▂▂▂THE BLASTER ACQUIRES A CREW
CLOUD, RETURNING to his cruiser, found that most of his shipwrecked
passengers had departed. Five of them, however—the two Chickladorians,
the Manarkan, the squatty, and the Vegian—were still on board.
Thlaskin, now back to normal, came to attention and saluted crisply; the
women bowed or nodded and looked at him with varying degrees of
interrogation.
“How come, Thlaskin? I thought all the passengers were going back with
the task force.”
“They are, boss. They’ve gone. We followed your orders, boss—chivied
’em off. I checked with the flagship about more crew besides us, and he
says QX. Just tell me how many you want of what, and I’ll get ’em.”
“I don’t want anybody!” Cloud snapped. “Not even you. Not _any_ of you.”
“Jet back, boss!” Spaceal was a simple language, and inherently slangy
and profane, but there was no doubt as to the intensity of the pilot’s
feelings. “I don’t know why you were running this heap alone, or how
long, but I got a couple questions to ask. Do you know just how many
million ways these goddam automatics can go haywire in? Do you know what
to do about half of ’em when they do? Or are you just simply completely
nuts?”
“No. Not too much. I don’t think so.” As he answered the three questions
in order Cloud’s mind flashed back to what Phil Strong and several other
men had tried so heatedly to impress upon him—the stupidity, the
lunacy, the sheer, stark idiocy of a man of _his_ training trying to go
it solo in deep space. How did one say “You have a point there, but
before I make such a momentous decision we should explore the various
possibilities of what is a completely unexpected development” in
spaceal? One didn’t! Instead:
“Maybe QX, maybe not. We’ll talk it over. Tell the Manarkan to try to
work me direct—maybe I can receive her now, after working the
boneheads.”
She could. Communication was not, perhaps, as clear as between two
Manarkans or two Lensmen, but it was clear enough.
“You wish to know why I have included myself in your crew,” the
white-swathed girl began, as soon as communication was established. “It
is the law. This vessel, the _Vortex Blaster I_, of Earth registry,
belonging to the Galactic Patrol, is of a tonnage which obligates it to
carry a medical doctor; or, in and for the duration of an emergency
only, a registered graduate nurse. I am both R.N. and M.D. If you prefer
to employ some other nursing doctor or doctor and nurse that is of
course your right; but I can not and will not leave this ship until I am
replaced by competent personnel. If I did such a thing I would be
disgraced for life.”
“But I haven’t got a payroll—I never have had one!” Cloud protested.
“Don’t quibble, please. It is also the law that any master or acting
master of any ship of this tonnage is authorized to employ for his
owner—in this case the Galactic Patrol—whatever personnel is
necessary, whenever necessary, at his discretion. With or without pay,
however, I stay on until replaced.”
“But I don’t _need_ a doctor—or a nurse, either!”
“Personally, now, no,” she conceded, equably enough. “I checked into
that. As the chief of your great laboratory quoted to you, ‘This too,
shall pass.’ It is passing. But you _must_ have a crew; and any member
of it, or you yourself, may require medical or surgical attention at any
time. The only question, then, is whether or not you wish to replace me.
Would you like to examine my credentials?”
“No. Having been en rapport with your mind, it is not necessary. But are
you, after your position aboard the ship which was lost, interested in
such a small job as this?”
“I would like it very much, I’m sure.”
“Very well. If any of them stay, you can—at the same pay you were
getting.”
“Now, Thlaskin, the Vegian. No, hold it! We’ve got to have something
better than spaceal, and a lot of Vegians go in for languages in a big
way. She may know English or Spanish, since Vegia is one of Tellus’
next-door neighbors. I’ll try her myself.”
Then, to the girl, “Do you speak English, miss?”
“No, eggzept in glimzzez only,” came the startling reply. “Two Galactic
Zdandard yearzz be pazz—come? Go?—’ere I mazzter zhe, zo perverze mood
and tenze. Zhe izz zo difficult and abzdruze.”
Switching to Galactic Spanish, which language was threatening to become
the common tongue of Galactic Civilization, she went on:
“But I heard you say ‘Zbanidge.’ I know Galactic Spanish very well. I
speak it well, too, except for the sounds of ‘ezz’ and ‘zeta,’ which all
we Vegians must make much too hard—z-z-z-, zo. One hears that nearly
all educated Tellurians have the Spanish, and you are educated, of a
certainty. You speak it, no?”
“Practically as well as I do English,” Cloud made relieved reply. “You
have very little accent, and that little is charming. My name is Neal
Cloud. May I ask yours?”
“Neelcloud? I greet you. Mine is Vezzptkn . . . but no, you couldn’t
pronounce it. ‘Vezzta,’ it would have to be in your tongue.”
“QX. We have a name very close to that—Vesta.”
“That’s exactly what I said—Vezz-ta.”
“Oh—excuse me, please. You were talking to this lady—Tomingan, she
said? What language were you using?”
“Fourth-continent Tomingan, Middle Plateau dialect. Hers. She was an
engineer in a big power plant on Manarka, is how she came to learn their
sign language. Tomingans don’t go in for linguistics much.”
“And you very evidently do. How many languages do you know, young lady?”
“Only fifty so far—plus their dialects, of course. I’m only half-way to
my Master of Languages degree. Fifty more to learn yet, including your
cursed _Englidge_. P-f-zt-k!” Vesta wrinkled her nose, bared her teeth,
and emitted a noise very similar to that made by an alley cat upon
meeting a strange dog. “I don’t know whether spaceal will count for
credit or not, but I’m going to learn it anyway.”
“Nice going, Vesta. Now, why did _you_ appoint yourself a member of this
party?”
“I wanted to go, and since I can’t pay fare. . . .”
“You wouldn’t have had to!” Cloud interrupted. “If you lost your money
aboard that ship, the Patrol would take you anywhere. . . .”
“Oh, I didn’t mean _that_.” She dipped into her belt-bag and held out
for the man’s inspection a book of Travelers’ Cheques good for fifty
thousand G-P credits! “I wanted to continue with you, and I knew this
wasn’t a passenger ship. I can be useful—who do you think lined up that
translation relay?—and besides, I can work. I can cook—keep house—and
I can learn any other job fast. You believe me?”
Cloud looked at her. She was as tall as he was, and heavier; stronger
and faster. “Yes, you can work, if you want to, and I think you would.
But you haven’t said why you want to go along.”
“Mostly because it’s the best chance I’ll ever have to learn English. I
went to Tellus once before to learn it—but there are too many Vegians
there. Young Vegians, like me, like to play too much. You know?”
“I’ve heard so. But teachers, courses. . . ?”
“I need neither teachers nor courses. What I need is what you have in
your library—solid English.”
“QX. I’ll reserve judgment on you, too. Now let’s hear what the Tomingan
has to say. What’s _her_ name?”
“You’d be surprised!” Vesta giggled in glee. “Literally translated, it’s
‘Little flower of spring, dwelling bashfully by the brook’s damply sweet
brink.’ And that’s an _exact_ transliteration, so help me—believe it or
not!”
“I’ll take your word for it. What shall we call her?”
“Um . . . m . . . ‘Tommie’ would be as good as anything, I guess.”
“QX. Tommie of Tominga. Ask her why she thinks she has to be a member of
our crew.”
“Who else do you have who can repair one of your big atomic engines if
it lets go?” came the answering question, in Vesta’s flawlessly
idiomatic Galactic Spanish.
Cloud was amazed at Tommie’s changed appearance. She was powdered,
perfumed, and painted: made up to the gills. Her heavy blonde hair was
elaborately waved. If it wasn’t for her diesel-truck build, Cloud
thought—and for the long black Venerian cigar she was smoking with such
evident relish—she’d be a knockout on anybody’s tri-di screen!
“I can.” The profoundly deep, but pleasantly and musically resonant
voice went on; the fluent translation continued. “What I don’t know
about atomic engines hasn’t been found out yet. I don’t know much about
Bergenholms and a couple of other things pertaining solely to flight,
and I don’t know _anything_ about communicators or detectors, which
aren’t engineers’ business. I’ve laid in a complete supply of atomic
service manuals for class S-C ships, and I tell you this—if anything
with a motor or an engine in it aboard this vessel ever has run, I can
take it apart and put it back together so it’ll run again. And by the
way, you didn’t have half enough spare parts aboard, but you have now.
Besides, you might need somebody to really swing that axe of yours, some
day.”
Cloud studied the Tomingan narrowly. She _wasn’t_ bragging, he decided
finally. She was simply voicing what to her were simple truths.
“Your arguments have weight. Why do you want the job?”
“Several reasons. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it’ll
be fun. Main reason, though, is that I think I’ll be able to talk you
into doing a job on Tominga that has needed doing for a long time. I was
a passenger, not an officer, on my way to talk to a party about ways of
getting it done. You changed my mind. You and I, with some others who’ll
be glad to help, will be able to do it better.”
Tommie volunteered no more information, and Cloud asked no more
questions. Explanation would probably take more time than could be
spared.
“Now you, Thlaskin,” the Blaster said in spaceal. “What have you got to
say for yourself?”
“You’ve got me on a hell of a spot, boss,” the pilot admitted, ruefully.
“You’ve _got_ to have a pilot, no question about that. You already know
I’m one. I know automatics, and communicators, and detectors—the works.
Ordinarily I’d say you’d _have_ to have _me_. But this ain’t a regular
case. I wasn’t a pilot on the heap that got knocked out of the ether,
but a passenger. Maluleme—she’s my . . . say, ain’t there no word
for. . . .”
He broke off and spoke rapidly to his wife, who relayed it to Vesta.
“They’re newlyweds,” the Vegian translated. “He was off duty and they
were on their honeymoon. . . .”
Vesta’s wonderfully expressive face softened, saddened. She appeared
about to cry. “I wish _I_ were old enough to be a newlywed,” she said,
plaintively.
“Huh? Aren’t you?” the Blaster demanded. “You look old enough to me.”
“Oh, I’m as big as I ever will be, and I won’t change outside. It’s
inside. About half a year yet. But she’s saying—
“We know that pilots on duty, in regular service, can’t have their wives
aboard. But this isn’t a regular run, I know, so couldn’t you—just this
once—keep Thlaskin on as pilot and let me come too? _Please_, Mr.
Neelcloud—she didn’t know your name, but asked me to put it in—I can
work my way. I’ll do any of the jobs nobody else wants to do—I’ll do
_anything_, Mr. Neelcloud!”