A few minutes after the outer airlock was opened, the airlock of
the alien ship folded back also. Rubberized devices rolled out and
contacted the Earth lifeboat, sealing off both entrances from the
vacuum of space.
Air hissed into the interlocking passageway between the two craft. In
the alien craft's lock, an inner door opened.
Again Lesbee held his breath.
There was a movement in the passageway. A creature ambled into view.
The being came forward with complete assurance, and pounded with
something he held at the end of one of his four leathery arms on the
hull.
The creature had four legs and four arms, and a long thin body held
straight up. It had almost no neck, yet the many skin folds between the
head and the body indicated great flexibility was possible.
Even as Lesbee noted the details of its appearance, the being turned
his head slightly, and its two large expressionless eyes gazed straight
at the hidden wall receptor that was photographing the scene, and
therefore straight into Lesbee's eyes.
Lesbee blinked at the creature, then tore his gaze away, swallowed
hard, and nodded at Tellier. "Open up!" he commanded.
The moment the inner door of the Earth lifeboat opened, six more of the
four-legged beings appeared one after another in the passageway, and
walked forward in the same confident way as had the first.
All seven creatures entered the open door of the lifeboat.
As they entered their thoughts came instantly into Lesbee's mind....
* * * * *
As Dzing and his boarding party trotted from the small Karn ship
through the connecting airlock, his chief officer thought a message to
him.
"Air pressure and oxygen content are within a tiny percentage of what
exists at ground level on Karn. They can certainly live on our planet."
Dzing moved forward into the Earth ship, and realized that he was in
the craft's control chamber. There, for the first time, he saw the men.
He and his crew ceased their forward motion; and the two groups of
beings--the humans and the Karn--gazed at each other.
The appearance of the two-legged beings did not surprise Dzing. Pulse
viewers had, earlier, penetrated the metal walls of the lifeboat and
had accurately photographed the shape and dimension of those aboard.
His first instruction to his crew was designed to test if the strangers
were, in fact, surrendering. He commanded: "Convey to the prisoners
that we require them as a precaution to remove their clothing."
... Until that direction was given, Lesbee was still uncertain as to
whether or not these beings could receive human thoughts as he was
receiving theirs. From the first moment, the aliens had conducted
their mental conversations _as if_ they were unaware of the thoughts
of the human beings. Now he watched the Karn come forward. One tugged
suggestively at his clothing. And there was no doubt.
The mental telepathy was a one-way flow only--from the Karn to the
humans.
He was already savoring the implications of that as he hastily
undressed.... It was absolutely vital that Browne do not find it out.
Lesbee removed all his clothes; then, before laying them down, took out
his notebook and pen. Standing there naked he wrote hurriedly:
"Don't let on that we can read the minds of these beings."
He handed the notebook around, and he felt a lot better as each of the
men read it, and nodded at him silently.
Dzing communicated telepathically with someone on the ground. "These
strangers," he reported, "clearly acted under command to surrender. The
problem is, how can we now let them overcome us without arousing their
suspicion that this is what we want them to do?"
Lesbee did not receive the answer directly. But he picked it up from
Dzing's mind: "Start tearing the lifeboat apart. See if that brings a
reaction."
* * * * *
The members of the Karn boarding party went to work at once. Off came
the control panels; floor plates were melted and ripped up. Soon
instruments, wiring, controls were exposed for examination. Most
interesting of all to the aliens were the numerous computers and their
accessories.
Browne must have watched the destruction; for now, before the Karn
could start wrecking the automatic machinery, his voice interjected:
"Watch out, you men! I'm going to shut your airlock and cause your boat
to make a sharp right turn in exactly twenty seconds."
For Lesbee and Tellier that simply meant sitting down in their chairs,
and turning them so that the acceleration pressure would press them
against the backs. The other men sank to the ripped-up floor, and
braced themselves.
Underneath Dzing, the ship swerved. The turn began slowly, but it
propelled him and his fellows over to one wall of the control room.
There he grabbed with his numerous hands at some handholds that had
suddenly moved out from the smooth metal. By the time the turn grew
sharper, he had his four short legs braced, and he took the rest of the
wide swing around with every part of his long, sleek body taut. His
companions did the same.
Presently, the awful pressure eased up, and he was able to estimate
that their new direction was almost at right angles to what it had been.
He had reported what was happening while it was going on. Now, the
answer came: "Keep on destroying. See what they do, and be prepared to
succumb to anything that looks like a lethal attack."
Lesbee wrote quickly in his notebook: "Our method of capturing them
doesn't have to be subtle. They'll make it easy for us--so we can't
lose."
Lesbee waited tensely as the notebook was passed around. It was still
hard for him to believe that no one else had noticed what he had about
this boarding party.
Tellier added a note of his own: "It's obvious now that these beings
were also instructed to consider themselves expendable."
And that settled it for Lesbee. The others hadn't noticed what he had.
He sighed with relief at the false analysis, for it gave him that
most perfect of all advantages: that which derived from his special
education.
Apparently, he alone knew enough to have analyzed what these creatures
were.
The proof was in the immense clarity of their thoughts. Long ago, on
earth, it had been established that man had a faltering telepathic
ability, which could be utilized consistently only by electronic
amplification _outside_ his brain. The amount of energy needed for
the step-up process was enough to burn out brain nerves, if applied
directly.
Since the Karn were utilizing it directly, they couldn't be living
beings.
Therefore, Dzing and his fellows were an advanced robot type.
The true inhabitants of Alta III were not risking their own skins at
all.
Far more important to Lesbee, he could see how he might use these
marvellous mechanisms to defeat Browne, take over the _Hope of Man_,
and start the long journey back to Earth.