They were coasting along at half the speed of light, under the
superdrive. On all sides were running cameras. One coast across the
system with the moving picture cameras covering the sky would bring
any planets into ken; the parallax of planetary bodies would show
against the fairly constant sky. There was also visual observation for
interest's sake.
At the far side, the ship came to a stop with respect to Procyon, and
while the films were developing, Jerry Brandt swapped ends and ran the
ship nearer the center of the system. Procyon, from one side port,
looked about as large as Sol from Terra and it seemed about as bright
and warm.
It was here that they met the alien ship. It came from nowhere and
passed them slantwise at a terrific velocity. As it passed, a stabbing
beam darted once, and the beam-end burst into a coruscation of sheer
energy.
"That," blubbered Barden, "was close!"
Jerry Brandt swore thoroughly, and whipped the ship around slightly,
cramming on the superdrive but keeping the drivers below the speed of
light. He set his switches carefully, and seconds later the alien ship
appeared for one brief instant and then was gone. While it was there,
eye-visible in the sky, one of the ship's own cutting planes sheared
out and sliced the driving tubes from the bottom of the ship.
Then it was gone and Brandt fought the switches, stopping the ship.
"What--was that?"
"We've got a nice way of retaliating," said Barden harshly. "We use the
intermittent generator of the superdrive but we stay below the velocity
of light. Jerry has calibrated the intermittence and the rep-rate to a
nice precision. We appear in true space, slash out, and disappear again
to reappear God knows how many miles farther on. Now we'll go back and
see whether that bird wants more." He spoke to Jerry: "Take care!"
"Easy she goes," replied Brandt. "Did you see that joker? He tried to
ruin us!"
* * * * *
They came up as the inert alien came into view. It stabbed again with
that beam but missed. Jerry Brandt swore again and cut the ship from
end to end with his cutting plane. This time there was no response save
a swirl of smoke from the cleft sides of the ship.
"We've used these to cut asteroids into stove lengths," he told Barden
sharply. "I wonder how many of them have been used likewise on some
hapless enemy."
"I don't have any way of knowing," said Barden. "And I don't care
whether it is a proper weapon to use or not. It worked."
"What are you going to do?" asked Dr. Ward.
He smiled at her. "He didn't like us--apparently for no reason than we
were alien. If he'd come in peaceable, we'd have made talky-talk. As it
is, he fired first but not too well. Now we'll just grab his ship and
see what he's got, who he is, where he's from--and possibly why."
It was a small ship outside, in space. But getting it into the vast
cargo-hold of Barden's ship required some more trimming. The alien ship
finally lay in eight sections, stacked. The cargo-hold was now jammed
with alien ship and much of the spare equipment and supplies were
jettisoned.
Then they went in warily to examine the alien. They found the alien
crew--four of them. They were spacesuited but unconscious.
"Hope they breathe air at twenty-per cent oxygen," growled Barden. They
opened the suits and laid the unconscious aliens on tables in one of
the operations rooms.
They were squat and wide, almost humanoid save for large eyeballs
under the closed double lids. Their noses were almost nonexistent, and
each hand splayed wide with seven stubby fingers. These hands were
symmetrical, but despite a thumb on either side, the Terrans doubted
that they were more dextrous than Terrans because of their shorter
fingers.
Their shoulders were very wide, but also quite thin, indicating a long,
unfavorable leverage with less muscle.
"Ugly looking--" started Jerry Brandt, who shut himself off as he
remembered Edith Ward.
She looked up at him and flushed. "They are," she said with a slight
smile. Brandt blushed with embarrassment and spluttered incoherently
for a moment. The pilot might have spluttered for some time had not the
foremost alien stirred, causing a diversion.
They crowded him as he awoke and looked about him. His expression was
undecipherable, though there was quite a change in facial composure as
he saw the kind of white-faced animals that surrounded him. He looked,
and then he clutched rapidly at a device on his belt. Barden swung a
fist and caught the creature on the forearm, causing him to drop the
half-drawn weapon. Brandt stooped over and picked it up, and the rest
of the crew proceeded to disarm the other three.
Edith found a length of wire and made a loop of it. She held it in
front of the alien.
He relaxed, splaying his hands and holding them wide from his body. Her
action had been understood and the creature did not want his hands tied.
"Jerry," said Barden. "Set the controls for superspeed towards
anywhere in the universe, and get us away from here."
"Solward?"
"No. He should get as little information as possible."
Jerry left, and the ship soon turned slightly and started off. Barden
waved the creature to the port and pointed out Procyon, which was
diminishing swiftly. The alien grew excited, and made wondering motions.
"That ... thing ... knows what the score is, partly," observed Edith.
"That ... thing ... had better behave," said Barden flatly. "And while
we're wondering about him, I hate to think of him being called a
Procyonian."
"Call 'em _Pokeys_," said Tim Evans.
"O.K. Now let's show him his ship."
The alien's excitement changed to dismay as he viewed the wreckage. He
looked at it, and then as if wiping it off as finished, he turned away.
There was but one cargo lock in Barden's ship. And though the alien
craft had been trimmed, and considerable of it trimmed away and left,
it was still packed in with most of the remaining spares. These
included the four superdrive motors, mounted on their girders with the
atomic units. The alien saw these and went over to inspect them, and
Barden let him go.
What possibly could have been familiar they did not know. The chances
of an alien gasoline engine being instantly recognizable as such by a
Terran is problematical. A simple electric motor might be--especially
if connected to a storage battery, or even by a wire cable to a
wall outlet. Doubtless, the electron tube would be recognized by a
spider-man from the other end of the galaxy, for the handling of
electrons must be similar no matter where they are used. There will
be cathodes and grids and anodes and connecting prongs, wires, or
terminals.
The unprotected superdrive motor was not incased. It had been a job
intended for test-stand operation and, therefore, it could be inspected
fairly well. Something about it was familiar, and one spot of
familiarity was sufficient for the alien to reconstruct the rest.
He nearly exploded with frantic gestures. He ran to Barden--his run was
a swift waddle due to the wide leg-base--and clutched Tom's arm. He
pointed to the cut-apart spaceship and indicated that he wanted to go
up into that pile to find something. Barden shrugged and nodded, and
then followed the alien.
* * * * *
It was difficult for Barden, for the alien was sure-footed in his climb
up the jagged edges to one section near the middle of the pile. He
disappeared inside and found a piece of equipment, which he brought
out. He set this upon the floor and returned with other equipment which
he added to the original piece. Then taking the whole bunch in his
arms, he led them up to the operations room.
Here he put it on a table. Then he opened the main piece and drew out
a two-pronged plug which he waved in Barden's face, made plugging
gestures into the blank wall, and then made searching motions.
Barden pointed to the nearest convenience outlet, and the creature
waddled to it with the rest of his equipment.
He probed into the openings with test-leads and read the results on
meters of his own. He showed Barden exactly what the meters should read.
Barden nodded and they set to work matching their line-current to the
alien's specifications. It turned out to be one hundred ninety-three
volts at seventy cycles. Meanwhile, one of Barden's men replaced the
alien's plug with a Terran-type and they inserted it gingerly. The
alien put a temple-set over his head and handed one to Barden.
"This," came the thought, "is an instrument used to extract information
from enemies. It will serve as a means of communication."
"Why did you fire on us?" thought Barden.
"You are alien. We are at war; in fact have been at war with the devils
from that star--" and here came a mixed-impression of a distorted
constellation that was not familiar to Barden, who was not too familiar
with astronomy anyway, and so he passed it over. He stopped the alien
momentarily, to send one of the men to tell Jerry Brandt to return to
within a light-year or so of Procyon.
"But," continued the alien, "you are not using--that?"
"Not exactly," said Barden.
"No, for that means death."
"We were going to try it out," was Barden's calm thought.
"On--NO!" came the terrified reply.
"Well," returned Barden, "we're never pleased with red-hots who shoot
at us!"
"But an entire system?" came the pleading exclamation.
"Filled with people of the same ilk," returned Barden, unimpressed.
"But even warfare must not be annihilation," objected the alien. "For
of what value is a dead enemy?"
"They are no longer any bother." Barden grunted. "We dislike being
bothered, and our will happens to be that we want to go wherever we
choose at any time we please. A favorable attitude upon the part of
any other culture is one that permits us our will. A dead culture will
never obstruct us, for one thing. It will never revert to its original
attitude of belligerency, for the second thing. And for the third
thing, alien, with the interstellar drive we have, we can find those
cultures in the galaxy which see exactly as we do, therefore it is to
our advantage to eliminate any malcontents right now."
"But what do you intend to do?" demanded the creature.
"My system has been the tool of some other culture. The purpose is not
clear, though the outcome might have been quite disastrous. I intend to
find both that culture and their reasons and extract full payment!"
"But how--?"
Barden smiled in a hard manner. "I intend to plant one of these
unprotected space motors on one of your planets," he said. "That is for
my own protection. Then we'll collect one of the enemy, and do likewise
with his system. Then you and he will have your little talk--and you'll
first call off this war or you'll both be enjoying novas in your own
backyards. It's about time that people learned how to get along with
one another!"
"But I have little authority."
"_I_ have," smiled Barden in a completely self-satisfied manner.
"I have all the authority necessary to demand that your superiors
and your scientists meet their contemporaries of your enemy--and
peacefully."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"Do you know both languages?"
"No," answered the alien. "That's why we use the menta-phone."
"What do you know of the space motor?"
"Very little. It is, as you know, dangerous. We are forbidden to
experiment on it."
"You know it is dangerous?" asked Barden.
"We have excellent reason to believe so. Our studies have been purely
theoretical. But tell me, how do you hope to accomplish this mission of
yours?"
"One of you four will be permitted to land and carry our message. One
of the enemy race will do likewise."
The alien disagreed. "You can never land," he said. "You can not even
approach."
"No?" said Barden harshly. "Well, we'll plant our motors first. And
you'll use whatever you have to communicate with them and you'll tell
'em all. Then, my squat friend, there had better be a ten-thousand
piece brass brand playing the Solar Anthem as we land! _Or else!_"
* * * * *
Tom Barden sat in an easy-chair, relaxing. He was watching the others,
who were glaring at one another and trying to conceal their thoughts.
Lanthar--he of Procyon--and Grenis of Sirius both knew that the Terran
who sat there so easily was not fooling.
"Now," said Barden, "what's the story? I've told you what happened and
why I'm angry. This warfare must stop, and Sol, too, must be protected.
Only by complete agreement can all three of us occupy the sky in
safety. Otherwise, there may be but two of us--and perhaps only one.
You--Lanthar--what do you know of the space motor?"
"I'll tell," said the one from Procyon. "I've been in disagreement
with the plan but outvoted. We discovered it and its danger. We'd have
worked upon it, but we could not permit it to be used in space because
of attack. We could not try it on a planet because of the danger.
Remember, we were at war and could afford to take no chances. There
was a large faction who outvoted me--and then they permitted its theft
from a false laboratory. It is amusing, Terran, to go into the full
details of how this laboratory was set up, run, and finally thefted. We
actually treated it as though it held one of our high secrets, but we
were lax only in the total number of guards we used. They--succeeded.
"The purpose of this was to permit them to try it out. That would mean
their destruction. I've insisted that a dead enemy is of no value--"
"We follow your reasoning, all of us," said Barden. "And go further. We
state that an enemy is a total loss _per se_ and we avoid the expense.
Now, Grenis, you stole the plans?"
"We did," said the Sirian. "But there was something wrong. Not only
did we steal the plans, but we inspected their plant. While they were
setting up their laboratory they forgot to include some means of
accepting and dissipating enough transmitted power to make the work
look real. There was a quite large discrepancy between the power used
and the power we calculated would be needed to carry on such a program.
So we became suspicious--which started when we were able to penetrate
the place in the first place.
"What we found was interesting," said the Sirian. "But we were
suspicious. We studied it carefully, and it seemed perfect. But,
Terran, came again the suspicion. For if this were so perfect, why
weren't they using it?
"Because it might be a trap," he went on. "And like he and his, we
dared not establish a space-laboratory because of the fear of attack.
So we were completely stopped."
Lanthar grunted. "So he and his bunch went to work on a method of
contacting other people at a great distance," he said. "It took them a
long time and they were without success at all until they succeeded in
contacting you."
"That is correct," said Grenis, making an apology. "We have detectors
capable of working on the gravitic effects. A nova would disrupt
both the magnetic and the gravitic levels sufficiently to warn us
immediately. And we knew that any race who was not suspicious of an
enemy would try it--"
"I see," said Barden angrily. "Then we have you to thank? And you," he
said to Lanthar, "knowing that this was done, tried to protect us?"
"Not basically," apologized the man from Procyon. "You see, we did
not know you--nor even where you were in the galaxy. You meant
nothing to us at all then, except as a consulting service for our
enemy--completely hidden and quite safe. We did not want you to go into
nova because that would have warned them. We knew that after a period
of time, with no sign of failure, they'd try it!"
"A fine pair of stinkers," sneered Barden. "Well," he said with a
laugh. "Now you'll co-operate with us all, or else! But Lanthar, how
can you be certain that nova will occur?"
Lanthar of Procyon stood up and smiled tolerantly. "Me--?" he said. "I
know only what I've been told about it. Strangely enough, it came to me
in a dream, too!"
* * * * *
Somewhere in the galaxy, two scientists consulted their
time-predictions. They agreed silently that sufficient time had been
permitted, and that their detectors had shown no warping of the
magneto-gravitic continuum. Despite the questionable value of negative
evidence, they felt safe.
"I doubt all new arts," said one of them, thrusting the switch home,
"especially when I know not the source."