"We may be on the road longer than we think," he answered. "We can't
afford to waste anything; we aren't likely to find another food cache."
Tchassen glanced at Briggan suspiciously. It was possible that he could
force himself to stomach the meat, if he were starving, but how was
he able to eat it now? An Earthman could do it; yet if Briggan were
a native, wasn't he too clever to give himself away with anything so
trivial?
"Tell me, Captain," Briggan asked, "what chance do we have of getting
through this alive?"
"We're armed; we have transportation; we--"
"And the natives will risk everything to stop us. They have to. This
attack on the Nevada station was the beginning of the revolution. If
they plan the rest of it as carefully, they stand a good chance of
throwing us off the Earth."
"No!" Tynia cried. "Now that they know the civilized galaxy exists,
they'll build space ships and come after us. With our weapons--"
"Plus their fanaticism," Tchassen put in, "the galaxy doesn't stand a
chance."
"But we invaded the Earth to prevent that; we came here to teach them
to live civilized lives."
"How much teaching have we actually done in the compounds?" the
Sergeant demanded. "How many Earth people have listened to us?"
"They're human beings; they have brains like ours. Surely when we have
explained our ways to them logically and sanely--"
"The trouble is," Tchassen said thoughtfully, "it's our logic, not
theirs. If you look at this from the point of view of an Earthman, you
see us as savage invaders of their world."
"Our purpose makes it different."
"We say that, but the Earth people wouldn't understand us."
"It's very strange," Sergeant Briggan said quietly, "that you
understand the Earthman's point of view so well, Captain Tchassen.
Let's see. You've been here--how many days?"
"Five."
"But you set yourself up as an authority on these people."
"Come now, Sergeant. I didn't say that. I'm simply trying to understand
them reasonably."
"To think like an Earthman: that's rather difficult for us to do,
Captain." Briggan paused briefly before he snapped out a rapid
question, "Where were you stationed before you came here, Captain?"
"At security headquarters."
"Assigned to what staff?"
"Well, I was--" Tchassen glanced at Tynia. It would do no good, now,
to explain why he had been assigned to the Nevada post. All that was
finished because the station staff died in the explosion. "I wasn't on
any staff," he said. "I was working on my own."
"That's a pity, sir. You wouldn't remember the name of your commanding
officer, then; I could have checked up on that."
Tynia gasped; only then did Tchassen realize what Briggan's questions
implied. He said coldly, "You're way off the track, Briggan. I'm
the only one of you who couldn't be an Earthman; I haven't become
acclimated yet--that's obvious, isn't it?"
"Of course you're right, sir. It wouldn't be the sort of thing you
could put over by playing a part, would it? Besides, Drein was the
Earthman and you killed him. We've no reason to be suspicious of each
other now, have we?"
There was no way Tchassen could reply. He gritted his teeth and
said nothing. From the expression on Tynia's face, he realized that
Briggan's insinuation had been rather effective. And suppose Briggan
actually believed it himself. Didn't that rule out the Sergeant as an
Earthman?
And it left only Tynia. Tchassen eyed the dark-haired woman on the
seat beside him. What did he really know about her?--only that she
had been married to a station commander; and had flirted outrageously
with other post officers. She may have done it simply because she was
bored; on the other hand, it could have been a deliberate attempt to
create friction--exactly the sort of thing an Earth woman might try
to do. Perhaps she was a native. When Tchassen was given the security
assignment, he hadn't checked into her background; it didn't seem
necessary. He realized suddenly that Tynia was the only witness against
Drein. Because of what she had said, Tchassen had killed the Corporal.
Tynia's hysteria had set the stage for murder.
* * * * *
As the sedan climbed higher into the pass, it moved more slowly. The
motor coughed and wheezed; once or twice it seemed ready to stop
altogether. When they reached the summit, the tenuous crescent of a new
moon emerged above the pines. In the pale glow of light, Tchassen saw
that the highway was covered with a treacherous sheet of ice.
The metal rims found no traction. When the machine began to skid, the
Captain found he could neither control it nor stop it. In spite of the
cold, his body was covered with sweat.
At a point four or five miles beyond the summit, they came to a place
where thick trees on both sides of the highway shaded the road so the
sun never reached it. The ice was continuous for a hundred feet or
more, and it was covered with three inches of unmelted snow. The sedan
skidded out of control. Tynia screamed and hid her face in her hands.
Tchassen fought the wheel futilely. The car spun toward the shoulder,
banged against a tree, and slid across the road into a clearing in
front of an abandoned building.
In the sudden silence Tchassen heard nothing but the whisper of icy
wind in the trees. He opened the door and looked at the deserted
building. The roofs of the smaller structures nearby had collapsed
under the pressure of winter snows, but the main building, sheltered by
tall pines, was in good repair.
"We'd be warmer inside," Tchassen suggested. "In the morning after the
sun comes out--"
"Captain!" Briggan broke in. "We must reach the coast!"
"--after the sun comes out, the ice on the road should begin to melt;
the driving will be much easier."
"Don't you realize, sir--these mountains are enemy territory?"
"We're still well-armed, Sergeant."
"We had the rays in Reno, too, but Drein's dead."
"I tell you we'll be safe here. I remember a trick I saw demonstrated
at the school of tactics."
"You security men have the advantage. I'm just an enlisted non-com. I
never went to the military schools and learned any fancy tricks, but I
know I have a duty to reach the coast and report what's happened."
Tynia took Briggan's arm. "The sedan won't run, Sergeant. Surely you
aren't saying we have to walk--"
"It's interesting, isn't it, that the car stopped right here--in front
of a place where it would be so convenient for us to spend the night?"
"What do you mean, Briggan?"
"I wasn't doing the driving, Tynia."
A hard knot of anger exploded in Tchassen's mind, but he held his
temper. It was easier to ignore Briggan than to answer his suspicion.
In a tone that concealed his feelings, the Captain said, "Let me show
you what I saw them do in the demonstration, Sergeant." He slid out of
the sedan. With numb fingers, he opened the firing box of the portable
heat ray and took out one of the two thermal coils. Breaking the seal,
he began to unwind the thin thread of wire.
"We have our own alarm system right here," he explained, trying to
convey more enthusiasm than he really felt. "Nearly a quarter mile of
wire. We'll string it in a circle around this clearing, six inches
above the ground. The natives will never notice it. If they attack
us, they'll snap the wire and set off the thermal reaction. We'll be
surrounded for a second or two in a blazing ring of fire."
"Maybe it'll work, Captain."
* * * * *
The two men strung the wire while Tynia lugged the weapons and the
canned goods into the abandoned building. When the Sergeant and
Tchassen went inside, they found that she had started a fire in a
pot-bellied stove. The Captain stood holding his hands over the flames
and gradually he began to feel warm again. He knew that the pillar of
smoke rising from the chimney might invite an attack by the natives,
but there was also a good chance that the smoke would disperse before
it could be spotted.
The warmth of the fire acted like an opiate, but Tchassen realized
he didn't dare risk falling asleep. Tynia or Briggan might be Earth
people, waiting for the chance to finish the job they had begun when
the Nevada station was destroyed. After a brief hesitation, the Captain
took another shock capsule from his belt pouch and choked it down.
The drug would keep him awake, although it was dangerous to take a
second capsule so soon after the first; there were sometimes emotional
side-affects which were unpleasant.
"One of us should stay on guard," Briggan said. "We could take turns at
it, Captain--two hour stints until dawn."
"Good idea, Briggan. I'll stand the first watch."
"I was going to volunteer--"
"No; you're tired; you and Tynia need your sleep."
"You're too considerate of us, Captain." The overtone in Briggan's
voice suggested far more than he actually said. He lay back on his
blankets, but he did not shut his eyes, and he put his dispersal ray
across his belly with his hand on the firing stud. Tchassen stood up,
sliding a weapon over each shoulder.
He went through a connecting hall into a narrow room. A few scattered
dishes, overlooked by the looters, and built-in cooking machines
indicated that this had been a restaurant. The room gave him an
excellent vantage point, for the windows, still unbroken, provided a
broad view of the highway and the clearing in front of the building.
The restaurant was bitterly cold. Tchassen pulled the rough, fibrous
clothing tight around his shoulders, but it felt irritating rather than
warm. He looked out on the ice and the snow and the pines, and he was
acutely conscious of the savage alienness of Earth.
Snow he knew as a scientific curiosity; he had seen it created in
laboratory experiments. Nowhere in the civilized galaxy did it exist
as a natural phenomenon. The teeming billions of people crowding
every world could not survive unless every square inch of soil was
occupied and exploited. Science regimented the temperatures in the
same way that it controlled rainfall. For more than twenty centuries
neither deserts nor Arctic wastes had existed. All animal species had
disappeared. Trees survived only as ornamental growths in city parks.
The Earth was a relic of the past, a barbaric museum piece. The strong,
individualistic genius of its people had evolved in no other society;
and that genius had created a technology which mushroomed far beyond
the capacity to control it. It gave this savage world atomic power
before it had planetary unity.
For that reason, the civilized galaxy had invaded the Earth. They
could do nothing else. The decision had been made long before Tchassen
was born. The galactic council of scientists studied the Earth and
argued the meaning of their observations for a quarter of a century
before they ordered the invasion. War, to the civilized galaxy, was
unthinkable; yet the government had no alternative. For, with even
their primitive form of atomic power, the Earth people could blow their
world to dust. The planet had to be occupied to save the natives from
the consequences of their own folly.
But what does it matter, Tchassen thought bitterly, if our intentions
were noble and unselfish? It's what Earth thinks we meant to do that
counts. And by that standard we've failed. We have no right to be here.
Alone in the cold darkness of the abandoned restaurant, Tchassen
faced the fear gnawing at his soul. The drug he had taken warped his
depression into a crushing weight of melancholy. The occupation of
the Earth had gone wrong--or so it seemed to him--because the council
of scientists misjudged the native mentality. True, these people had
created a brilliant technology, but it didn't follow that they would
comprehend the social forces at work in the civilized galaxy. Their
emotional reactions were at best on an adolescent level; intelligence
alone would not lift them up to maturity. The prisoners in the
compounds learned nothing but hatred; they lived for nothing but
revenge. Vividly Tchassen saw the nightmare of the future: the time
when the savages on the Earth had weapons to match the dispersal ray;
the time when they would be able to build ships that could invade the
civilized galaxy.
* * * * *
The Captain paced the dusty floor in front of the serving counter.
Briggan did not come in two hours to take over the watch; and he made
no attempt to call the Sergeant. It was long after midnight, perhaps
less than an hour before dawn, when something outside triggered the
thermal-wire alarm. Simultaneously, as the blaze of white glared
against the restaurant windows, Tynia screamed. Tchassen heard the
explosive blast of a dispersal ray slashing into wood. A split-second
later Tynia burst through the connecting hall and flung herself into
Tchassen's arms.
"They're attacking!" she screamed.
"You saw them? Where?"
"Briggan. At the window. I--I shot him."
His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her arm. "Take it easy, Tynia.
Tell me how it happened."
"I saw him when the alarm went off. He was lifting his dispersal ray,
as if he meant to shoot you. I remembered how he had eaten meat last
night, and I--I thought--" She shuddered. "I knew he was an Earthman.
He was the one who blew up the supply robot; now he wants to kill us."
"You were sure Drein was an Earthman, too."
"What do you mean by that?"
"It's obvious, isn't it?"
"Obvious?" She shrank back against the counter.
He ignored her but kept her within the range of his peripheral vision
while he glanced through the window, trying to locate what had set off
the alarm. The circle of heat had melted all the snow and ice in the
clearing; the trunks of the pines were smoldering and a corner of the
building was beginning to burn.
Tchassen saw a chunk of flesh lying on the road--an animal of some
sort which had blundered into the alarm wire. Then they had not been
attacked by natives. The dead animal made it very clear that wild
beasts still survived on the Earth. No wonder the natives were meat
eaters! And, since they were, that meant they could live indefinitely
in the remote mountain areas. They did not depend upon hidden caches of
food; starvation would never drive them back to the prison compounds.
The occupation policy was based upon a false assumption; more than ever
it was vitally imperative for Tchassen to reach the coast and report
the truth to his superiors.
Tchassen shifted his weapon so that his fingers lay on the firing stud.
Tynia stared at him, her eyes wide with terror. In a tight whisper, she
said,
"Then you--you're the Earthman, Captain!"
He grinned, admiring her skillful use of emotion. If he hadn't known
better, he would have taken her fear for the real thing. Maybe it was;
he couldn't be sure, but the facts seemed to add up to only one answer.
Tynia laid the groundwork for the killing of Corporal Drein; she
herself shot Briggan. And who had been in a better position to tamper
with the landing beam for the supply rocket? Who else had a better
opportunity to destroy the transmitter in the emergency pillbox? Yet,
even in the face of so much evidence, Tchassen gave her the benefit of
the doubt! His reasoning might have been colored by the drug he had
taken.
With the mouth of his weapon, he nudged her toward the hall. "Go back
and pick up the food, Tynia. We're leaving here now."
She clenched her fist over her mouth. "Don't turn me over to them,
Captain. Let me go. I've never done you Earth people any harm."
Magnificent acting! No wonder they had sent her to the Nevada station.
"We're heading for the coast," he explained.
"The sedan wouldn't go last night; it won't now, either."
"We'll push the car back to the highway. The downgrade is steep enough
to make the machine run without power. If that doesn't work, we can
always walk."
"It'll be warmer if we wait until daylight."
"And the natives would be here by that time, too, wouldn't they? The
glare of the thermal explosion was visible for miles."
"I didn't sleep at all last night, Captain. I don't have the energy
to--"
With the dispersal ray, he pushed her along the hall toward the room
where she and Briggan had slept in front of the pot-bellied stove.
Naturally she would try to keep him there, he thought; he didn't need
much more proof of her disloyalty.
Flames from the burning wall lit the room. As they entered, Tynia
screamed and fell back against Tchassen.
"The Sergeant's gone!" she gasped.
"Along with the weapons you left in here."
"Then he--he's the Earthman, Captain; you aren't!"
"You said you'd shot him."
"I fired at him. I saw him fall. I thought he was dead."
Tchassen wanted to believe her, but the husky, deep-throated appeal in
her voice couldn't quite destroy the hard core of his doubt. This could
be an alibi which she could have contrived for herself. She might have
hidden the weapons as well as Briggan's body. If Tchassen believed her,
if he let himself trust her, it would be easier later on for her to
dispose of him.
"Pack up the food, Tynia; I'm going to see if I can start the car."
* * * * *
When he went outside, the dawn was brightening the eastern sky. The
snow and ice, melted by the thermal fire, made a slushy sheet of water
in the clearing; it ate at the drifts, sluggishly washing the snow into
the highway.
Tchassen waded through the water toward the sedan. His boots kept him
dry, but the cold penetrated and made his feet numb. Hidden by the
water were tiny, unmelted puddles of ice which made very treacherous
footing. Twice the Captain slipped and nearly went down.
He was twenty feet from the car when he heard the door of the building
bang open behind him. He glanced back, calling Tynia a warning to be
careful of the hidden ice. At the same time she screamed. Tchassen
swung aside instinctively. He slipped and fell. From the back of the
sedan a thread of energy snaked toward him. Tchassen felt the momentary
pain stab at his shoulder; then nothing. He lay flat in the icy water,
fighting the red haze that hung over his mind. If the dispersal ray had
come half an inch closer to his heart, it would have cut the artery and
killed him.
Sergeant Briggan opened the door of the sedan and stood leaning against
it, holding a dispersal ray in his left hand. The Sergeant was badly
wounded. His right arm was an unrecognizable, bleeding pulp; he was too
weak to stand alone. So Tynia had told the truth, Tchassen thought; she
actually had shot him. The Captain felt a surge of relief and hope.
Perhaps he could rely on Tynia, after all. But now it was too late!
The blast from the Sergeant's weapon had paralyzed Tchassen's motor
control; he was helpless.
The Sergeant, obviously, assumed that Tchassen was dead. Ignoring him,
he ordered Tynia to pile the canned food in the back of the sedan. She
moved toward him slowly.
"You're the Earthman," she said dully. "And I thought Captain
Tchassen--"
"The farce is over, Tynia. You and Tchassen made a fine game of it
for a while, but I've been in the service long enough to spot a fake
security officer."
"The Captain and I?" she repeated.
"Do I have to draw you a blueprint? You two are in this together.
You're both natives."
For a moment she seemed to recover her self-assurance. "So that's how
you're going to play it, Sergeant. Just who do you think you'll take in
with such nonsense?"
"I'm through batting words around with you, Tynia. Put the food in the
car. Help me push the machine out to the road."
"Why bother, Sergeant? If you stay right here, the natives will be
along soon enough."
"I'm glad you admit that, Tynia." Briggan laughed sourly. "But it's my
duty to get through to the base--just as it's your duty, I suppose, to
try to stop me."
"Why do you still want to make me believe that, Sergeant? What
difference does it make now?"
Tchassen, paralyzed and unable to speak, suddenly realized the truth.
Each of them feared the other. All four survivors had assumed that one
of the others had to be an Earthman. We put our faith in machines, he
thought; we were too certain that the robot ship couldn't crash simply
because something had gone wrong with the beam. Our real trouble is
we have no faith in ourselves. None of us was an Earthman; the Earth
people had nothing to do with the destruction of the Nevada station.
He wanted desperately to shout that out. After a supreme effort, he was
able to make his lips move a fraction of an inch; and that was all.
Tynia put the canned food in the sedan. Briggan waved her to the back
of the car with his weapon. He held the beam leveled at her while she
pushed the sedan toward the road. The clearing was built on a slight
slant and she had no trouble moving the heavy vehicle. As the wheels
began to turn, Tynia pretended to slip and fall into the slushy water.
Briggan was distracted by the motion of the sedan. Tynia rolled toward
Tchassen and snatched up his dispersal ray. The Sergeant realized what
she intended to do and lifted his weapon awkwardly in his left hand.
No! Stop! Don't be fools! The words sang through Tchassen's mind, but
he could not speak. Briggan and Tynia fired simultaneously. The beam
caught the Sergeant squarely in the face. He died in a blaze of energy.
The sedan rolled into the road and Tynia fell unconscious beside
Tchassen.
He wanted to help her, but he was still not able to move. In another
half hour the paralysis would be gone, but by that time it would be too
late to do anything for Tynia. Furiously he drove his body to respond
and he managed to turn on his side.
The exertion was too much for him. The haze swam in painful waves
across his mind. Just before unconsciousness came, he saw a band of
natives on the edge of the clearing.
* * * * *
The swaying motion of the stretcher shook him awake. The Earthmen were
carrying him along a narrow mountain trail, past deep drifts of snow.
His wound, where Briggan's beam had hit him, was neatly bandaged; he
could smell the odor of a disinfectant. It surprised him that the Earth
people knew so much about medicine; but it surprised him more that they
had tried to save his life.
He listened to his captors when they talked. He was able to understand
a few phrases of the native dialect which every man assigned to
the occupation had to learn, but what he had been taught was sadly
inadequate. When one of his stretcher bearers saw that the Captain was
conscious, he spoke to him in the cultured language of the civilized
galaxy. The syntax was awkwardly handled, yet Tchassen was amazed that
the Earthman used it so well.
"Be no fear," the native said. "You get living again."
"Tynia. The girl with me--"
"Wound bad; she dead before we come. We follow from prison and try help
all four you. You fight each other. You have evil weapons. We can save
only you."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"Make you well; send you back."
The answer came as a shock to Tchassen; it was what a civilized people
would have said. But the Earth natives were savages--brilliant,
inventive individualists, but nonetheless social barbarians. It would
have seemed much more logical if the native had said he was keeping
Tchassen for a religious ceremonial sacrifice.
"As soon as my wounds are healed," Tchassen repeated, "you'll let me
go?"
The native ran his hand over the Captain's bandages. "This wound is a
little thing, of no importance." He touched Tchassen's head. "Here is
your real sickness, in the brain. We teach you how to think like a man;
then you go home."
"You're going to teach me? Me? Do you realize, I come from the
civilized galaxy?" Tchassen began to laugh; he wondered if he had been
taken prisoner by a band of madmen.
"We show you how to be human," the native answered blandly. "Not fight
and kill each other, the way you and the others did when the post blow
up. We know meaning for civilization; you have none. It is easy secret.
We learn after the invasion, when our world destroyed. Real civilized
people get along; live in peace; give help to each other. Your people
and ours: we can be brothers here on the Earth, and on your other
worlds, too."
Tchassen's laughter was touched with hysteria. Have we failed? He knew
the answer now: for the captives, the dispossessed men of the Earth,
would become the teachers of the conquerors--and teach them what the
conquerors had come to build on the Earth. No, we have not failed; we
have simply misunderstood the strange genius of the quixotic Earth. The
defeated would one day rise up and conquer the galaxy. Tchassen saw
that clearly, but no longer in fear. He wanted to make their stamina,
their grit, their ability to survive a part of himself. He wanted to
make himself over--as an Earthman.