Attitude
by Hal Clement
Their captors had a very curious system, a very
curious motivation. The captives were allowed
to--even encouraged to--build devices to bring
about their escape. Only at the last moment,
mysteriously, the captors always stopped them--
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Science-Fiction September 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Dr. Little woke up abruptly, with a distinct sensation of having just
stepped over a precipice. His eyes flew open and were greeted by the
sight of a copper-colored metal ceiling a few feet above; it took
him several seconds to realize that it was keeping its distance, and
that he was not falling either toward or away from it. When he did, a
grimace of disgust flickered across his face; he had lived and slept
through enough days and nights in interstellar space to be accustomed
to weightlessness. He had no business waking up like a cadet on his
first flight, grasping for the nearest support--he had no business
waking up at all, in these surroundings! He shook his head; his mind
seemed to be working on slow time, and his pulse, as he suddenly
realized as the pounding in his temples forced itself on his awareness,
must be well over a hundred.
This was not his room. The metal of the walls was different, the light
was different--an orange glow streaming from slender tubes running
along the junction of wall and ceiling. He turned his head to take in
the rest of the place, and an agonizing barrage of pins and needles
shot the length of his body. An attempt to move his arms and legs
met with the same result; but he managed to bend his neck enough to
discover that he was enveloped to the shoulders in a sacklike affair
bearing all the ear-marks of a regulation sleeping bag. The number
stenciled on the canvas was not his own, however.
In a few minutes he found himself able to turn his head freely and
proceeded to take advantage of the fact by examining his surroundings.
He found himself in a small chamber, walled completely with the coppery
alloy. It was six-sided, like the cells in a bee-hive; the only opening
was a circular hatchway in what Little considered the ceiling--though,
in a second-order flight, it might as well have been a floor or wall.
There was no furniture of any description. The walls were smooth,
lacking even the rings normally present to accommodate the anchoring
snaps of a sleeping bag. There was light shining through the grille
which covered the hatchway, but from where he was Little could make out
no details through the bars.
He began to wriggle his toes and fingers, ignoring as best he could the
resulting sensations; and in a few minutes he found himself able to
move with little effort. He lay still a few minutes longer, and then
unsnapped the top fasteners of the bag. The grille interested him, and
he was becoming more and more puzzled as to his whereabouts. He had
no recollection of any unusual events; he had been checking over the
medical stores, he was sure, but he couldn't recall retiring to his
room afterward. What had put him to sleep? And where had he awakened?
He grasped the top of the bag and peeled it off, being careful to keep
hold of it. He started to roll it up and paused in astonishment. A
cloud of dust, fine as smoke, was oozing from the fibers of the cloth
with each motion, and hanging about the bag like an atmosphere. He
sniffed at it cautiously and started coughing; the stuff was dry, and
tickled his throat unpleasantly. There could be only one explanation;
the bag had been drifting in open space for a length of time sufficient
to evaporate every trace of moisture from its fibers. He unrolled it
again and looked at the stenciled number--GOA-III-NA12-422. The first
three groups confirmed his original belief that the bag had belonged to
the _Gomeisa_; the last was a personal number indicating the identity
of the former owner, but Little could not remember whose number it was.
The fact that it had been exposed to the void was not reassuring.
Dismissing that phase of the problem for the moment, the doctor rolled
the bag into a tight bundle. He was drifting weightless midway between
ceiling and floor, almost in the center of the room; the hatchway was
in one of the six corners of the ceiling. Little hurled the bundle in
the opposite direction. It struck the far corner and rebounded without
much energy; air friction brought it to a halt a few feet from the
wall. The doctor drifted more slowly in the direction of the grating.
His throw had been accurate enough to send him within reach of it; he
caught hold of one of the bars and drew himself as close as possible.
Any lingering doubt that might have remained in his still befuddled
brain as to whether or not he were still on board the _Gomeisa_ was
driven away as he caught his first glimpse through the grille. It
opened--or would have opened had it been unlocked--onto a corridor
which extended in two directions as far as the doctor's limited view
could reach. The hallway was about thirty feet square, but there
its orthodox characteristics terminated. It had been built with a
sublime disregard for any possible preferred "up" or "down" direction.
Hatches opened into all four sides; those opposite Little's station
were circular, like his own, while those in the "side" walls were
rectangular. From a point beside each opening, a solidly braced metal
ladder extended to the center of the corridor, where it joined a heavy
central pillar plentifully supplied with grips for climbing. Everything
was made of the copperlike material, and the only light came from the
orange-glow tubes set in the corners of the corridor.
* * * * *
Dr. Little maintained his position for several minutes, looking and
listening; but no sound reached his ears, and he could perceive nothing
through the gratings which covered the other hatchways. He also gave a
few moments' attention to the lock on his own grating, which evidently
was operated from either side; but it was designed to be opened by a
complicated key, and the doctor had no instruments for examining its
interior. With a sigh he hooked one arm about a bar of the grating and
relaxed, trying to reason out the chain of events which had led up to
these peculiar circumstances.
The _Gomeisa_ had been a heavy cruiser, quite capable of putting up a
stiff defense to any conceivable attack. Certainly no assault could
have been so sudden and complete that the enemy would be in a position
to use hand weapons on the crew before an alarm was raised--the idea
was absurd; and fixed mount projectors of any type would have left
more of a mark on the doctor than he could find at this moment.
Furthermore, the ship had been, at the last time of which Little had
clear recollection, crossing the relatively empty gulf between the
Galaxy proper and the Greater Magellanic Cloud--a most unpropitious
place for a surprise attack. The star density in that region is of the
order of one per eight thousand cubic parsecs, leaving a practically
clear field for detector operations. No, an attack did not seem
possible; and yet Little had been deprived of consciousness without
warning, had been removed from the _Gomeisa_ in that state, and had
awakened within a sleeping bag which showed too plainly the fact that
part, at least, of the cruiser had been open to space for some time.
Was he in a base on some planet of one of those few stars of the
"desert," or in some ship of unheard-of design? His weightlessness
disposed of the first idea before it was formulated; and the doctor
glanced at his belt. Through the glass window in its case, he could see
the filament of his personal equalizer glowing faintly; he was in a
ship, in second-order flight, and the little device had automatically
taken on the task of balancing the drive forces which would, without
it, act unequally on each element in his body. As a further check,
he felt in his pocket and drew out two coins, one of copper and one
of silver. He held them nearly together some distance from his body,
released them carefully so as not to give them velocities of their own,
and withdrew his hand. Deprived of the equalizer field, they began to
drift slowly in a direction parallel to the corridor, the copper bit
moving at a barely perceptible crawl, the silver rapidly gaining. The
corridor, then, was parallel to the ship's line of flight; and the
coins had fallen forward, since the silver was more susceptible to the
driving field action.
* * * * *
Little pushed off from the ceiling and retrieved the coins, restoring
them to his otherwise empty pocket. He had not been carrying
instruments or weapons, and had no means of telling whether or not he
had been searched while unconscious. Nothing was missing, but he had
possessed nothing worth taking. The fact that he was locked in might be
taken to indicate that he was a prisoner, and prisoners are customarily
relieved of any possessions which prove helpful in an escape. Only
beings who had had contact with humanity would logically be expected
to identify which of the numerous gadgets carried by the average man
are weapons; but the design of this craft bore no resemblance to that
of any race with which Little was acquainted. He still possessed his
wrist watch and mechanical pencil, so the doctor found himself unable
to decide even the nature of his captors, far less their intentions.
Possibly he would find out something when--and if--he was fed. He
realized suddenly that he was both hungry and thirsty. He had been
unconscious long enough for his watch to run down.
Little's pulse had dropped to somewhere near normal, he noticed, as he
drifted beside the hatch. He wondered again what had knocked him out
without leaving any mark or causing some sensation; then gave up this
line of speculation in favor of the more immediate one advocated by his
empty stomach. He fell asleep again before he reached any solution. He
dreamed that someone had moved Rigel to the other side of the Galaxy,
and the navigator couldn't find his way home. Very silly, he thought,
and went on dreaming it.
A gonglike note, as penetrating as though his own skull had been used
as the bell, woke him the second time. He was alert at once, and
instantly perceived the green, translucent sphere suspended a few feet
away. For a moment he thought it might be one of his captors; then his
nose told him differently. It was ordinary lime juice, as carried by
practically every Earth cruiser. A moment's search served to locate,
beside the hatchway, the fine nozzle through which the liquid had
been impelled. The doctor had no drinking tube, but he had long since
mastered the trick of using his tongue in such circumstances without
allowing any other part of his face to touch the liquid. It was a
standard joke to confront recruits, on their first free flight, with
the same problem. If nose or cheek touched the sphere, surface tension
did the rest.
* * * * *
Little returned to the door and took up what he intended to be a
permanent station there. He was waiting partly for some sign of human
beings, partly for evidence of his captors, and, more and more as time
wore on, for some trace of solid food. He waited in vain for all three.
At intervals, a pint or so of lime juice came through the jet and
formed a globe in the air beside it; nothing else. Little had always
liked the stuff, but his opinion was slowly changing as more and more
of it was forced on him. It was all there was to drink, and the air
seemed to be rather dry; at any rate, he got frightfully thirsty at
what seemed unusually short intervals.
He wound his watch and discovered that the "feedings" came at
intervals of a little over four hours. He had plenty of chance to make
observations, and nothing else to observe; it was not long before he
was able to predict within a few seconds the arrival of another drink.
Later, he wished he hadn't figured it out; the last five or ten minutes
of each wait were characterized by an almost agonizing thirst, none the
less painful for being purely mental. Sometimes he slept, but he was
always awake at the zero minute.
With nothing to occupy his mind but fruitless speculation, it is not
surprising that he lost all track of the number of feedings. He knew
only that he had slept a large number of times, had become deathly
sick of lime juice, and was beginning to suffer severely from the lack
of other food, when a faint suggestion of weight manifested itself.
He looked at his equalizer the instant he noticed the situation and
found it dark. The ship had cut its second-order converters, and was
applying a very slight first-order acceleration in its original line of
flight--the barely perceptible weight was directed toward what Little
had found to be the stern. Its direction changed by a few degrees
on several occasions, but was restored each time in a few seconds.
The intensity remained constant, as nearly as Little could tell, for
several hours.
Then it increased, smoothly but swiftly, to a value only slightly below
that of Earthly gravity. The alterations in direction became more
frequent, but never sudden or violent enough to throw Little off his
feet--he was now standing on the rear wall, which had become the floor.
Evidently the ship's pilot, organic or mechanical, well deserved the
name. For nearly half an hour by the watch, conditions remained thus;
then the drive was eased through an arc of ninety degrees, the wall
containing the hatchway once more became the ceiling, and within a few
minutes the faintest of tremors was perceptible through the immense
hull and the direction of gravity became constant. If this indicated a
landing, Little mentally took off his hat to the entity at the controls.
The doctor found himself badly placed for observation. The hatch was
about four feet above the highest point he could reach, and even
jumping was not quite sufficient to give him a hold on the bars. He
estimated that he had nearly all of his normal hundred and ninety
pounds Earth weight, and lack of proper food for the last several
days had markedly impaired his physical powers. It was worse than
tantalizing; for suddenly, for the first time since he had regained
consciousness in this strange spot, he heard sounds from outside. They
were distorted by echoes, sounding and reverberating along the corridor
outside, and evidently originated at a considerable distance, but they
were definitely and unmistakably the voices of human beings.
For minutes the doctor waited. The voices came no nearer, but on
the other hand they did not go any farther away. He called out, but
apparently the group was too large and making too much noise of its
own to hear him. The chatter went on. No words were distinguishable,
but there was a prevailing overtone of excitement that not even the
metallic echoes of the great hull could cover. Little listened, and
kept his eyes fixed on the hatchway.
He heard nothing approach, but suddenly there was a faint click as the
lock opened. The grille swung sharply inward until it was perpendicular
to the wall in which it was set; then the side bars of its frame
telescoped outward until they clicked against the floor. The crossbars
separated simultaneously, still maintaining equal distances from each
other, and a moment after the hatch had opened a metal ladder extended
from it to the floor of the room. It took close examination to see
the telescopic joints just below each rung. The metal tubing must be
paper-thin, Little thought, to permit such construction.
* * * * *
The doctor set foot on the ladder without hesitation. Presumably, his
captors were above, and wanted him to leave the room in which he was
imprisoned. In this wish he concurred heartily; he was too hungry
to object affectively, anyway. He made his way up the ladder to the
corridor, forcing his shoulders through the narrow opening. The human
voices were still audible, but they faded into the background of his
attention as he examined the beings grouped around the hatch.
There were five of them. They bore some resemblance to the nonhumans
of Tau Ceti's first planet, having evidently evolved from a radially
symmetric, star-fishlike form to a somewhat more specialized type
with differentiated locomotive and prehensile appendages. They were
five-limbed and headless, with a spread of about eight feet. The
bodies were nearly spherical; and if the arms had been only a little
thicker at the base it would have been impossible to tell where body
left off and arm began. The tube feet of the Terrestrial starfish were
represented by a cluster of pencil-thick tendrils near the tip of each
arm and leg--the distinction between these evidently lying in the fact
that three of the appendages were slightly thicker and much blunter at
the tips than the two which served as arms. The tendrils on the "legs"
were shorter and stubbier, as well. The bodies, and the appendages
nearly to their tips, were covered with a mat of spines, each several
inches in length, lying for the most part nearly flat against the skin.
These either grew naturally, or had been combed away from the central
mouth and the five double-pupiled eyes situated between the limb
junctions.
The beings wore metal mesh belts twined into the spines on their legs,
and these supported cases for what were probably tools and weapons.
Their "hands" were empty; evidently they did not fear an attempted
escape or attack on the doctor's part. They made no sound except for
the dry rustle of their spiny armor as they moved. In silence they
closed in around Little, while one waved his flexible arms toward one
end of the passageway. A gentle shove from behind, as the doctor faced
in the indicated direction, transmitted the necessary command, and
the group marched toward the bow. Two of the silent things stalked in
front, two brought up the rear; and at the first opportunity, the other
swarmed up one of the radial ladders and continued his journey directly
over Little's head, swinging along by the handholds on the central beam.
As they advanced, the voices from ahead grew slowly louder. Occasional
words were now distinguishable. The speakers, however, were much
farther away than the sound of their voices suggested, since the
metal-walled corridor carried the sounds well if not faithfully. Nearly
three hundred yards from Little's cell, a vertical shaft of the same
dimensions as the corridor interrupted the latter. The voices were
coming from below. Without hesitation, the escort swung over the lip
of the shaft and started down the ladder which took up is full width;
Little followed. On the way, he got some idea of the size of the
ship he was in. Looking up, he saw the mouths of two other corridors
entering the shaft above the one he had traversed; at the level of
the second, another hallway joined it from the side. Evidently he was
not near the center line of the craft; there were at least two, and
possibly three, tiers of longitudinal corridors. He had already seen
along one of those corridors; the ship must be over fifteen hundred
feet in length. Four vessels the size of the _Gomeisa_ could have used
the immense hull for a hangar, and left plenty of elbow room for the
servicing crews.
Below him, the shaft debouched into a chamber whose walls were not
visible from Little's position. His eyes, however, which had become
exceedingly tired of the endless orange radiance which formed the
ship's only illumination, were gladdened at the sight of what was
unquestionably daylight leaking up from the room. As he descended, two
of the walls became visible--the shaft opened near one corner--and
in one of them he finally saw an air lock, with both valves open. He
went hastily down the remaining few feet and stopped as he touched the
floor. His gaze took in on the instant the twenty-yard square chamber,
which seemed to occupy a slight outcrop of the hull, and stopped at
the corner farthest from the air lock. Penned in that corner by a
line of the starfish were thirty-eight beings; and Little needed no
second glance to identify the crew of the _Gomeisa_. They recognized
him simultaneously; the chatter stopped, to be replaced by a moment's
silence and then a shout of "Doc!" from nearly two score throats.
Little stared, then strode forward and through the line of guards,
which opened for him. A moment later he was undergoing a process of
handshaking and back-slapping that made him wonder. He didn't think he
had been _that_ popular.
* * * * *
Young Captain Albee was the first to speak coherently.
"It's good to see you again, sir. Everyone but you was accounted for,
and we'd begun to think they must have filed you away in formaldehyde
for future reference. Where were you?"
"You mean I was the only one favored with solitary confinement?" asked
Little. "I woke up in a cell upstairs, about two thirds of the way
back, with less company than Jonah. I could see several other sets of
bars from my stateroom door, but there was nothing behind any of them.
I haven't seen or heard any living creature but myself since then. I
can't even remember leaving, or being removed from the _Gomeisa_. Does
anyone know what happened?"
"How is it that you don't?" asked Albee. "We were attacked; we had a
fight, of a sort. Did you sleep through it? That doesn't seem possible."
"I did, apparently. Give me the story."
"There's not much to give. I was about to go off watch when the
detectors picked up a lump that seemed highly magnetic, and something
over eighty million tons mass. We hove to, and came alongside it while
Tine look a couple of pictures of the Galaxy and the Cloud so that
we could find it again. I sent out four men to take samples, and the
instant the outer door was opened these things"--he jerked his head
toward the silent guards--"froze it that way with a jet of water on the
hinge and jamb. They were too close to use the heavy projectors, and we
still had no idea there was a ship inside the meteoric stuff. They were
in spacesuits, and got into the lock before we could do anything. By
the time we had our armor on they had burned down the inner lock door
and were all through the ship. The hand-to-hand fighting was shameful;
I thought I knew all the football tricks going, and I'd taught most of
them to the boys, but they had every last one of us pinned down before
things could get under way. I never saw anything like it.
"I still can't understand what knocked you out. They used no
weapons--that annoyed me--and if you didn't put a suit on yourself I
don't see how you lived when they opened up your room. The air was gone
before they started going over the ship."
"I think I get it," said Little slowly. "Geletane. Four cylinders of
it. Did you broadcast a general landing warning when you cut the
second-order to examine that phony Bonanza? You didn't, of course,
since we weren't in a gravity field of any strength. And the 'meteor'
was magnetic, which made no difference to our berylium hull, but made
plenty to the steel geletane cylinders, one of which I had unclamped
for a pressure test and had left in the tester. I went on about my
business, and the field yanked the cylinder out of the tester and
against the wall. It didn't make enough noise to attract my attention,
because I was in the next room. With the door open. And the valve
cracked just a trifle--just enough. I didn't need a suit when these
starfish opened my room; I must have been as stiff as a frame member. I
had all the symptoms of recovery from suspended animation when I woke
up, too, but I never thought of interpreting them that way. The next
ship I'm in, see if I don't get them to rig up an automatic alarm to
tell what the second-order fields are doing--"
"You might also put your geletane cylinders back in the clamps when,
and if, this happy state of affairs eventuates," remarked Goldthwaite,
the gloomy technical sergeant. "May I ask what happens now, captain?"
"I'm afraid it isn't up to me, Goldy," returned Albee. "But I don't
suppose they plan to keep us in this corner indefinitely."
* * * * *
Probably they didn't, but Albee was beginning to doubt his own
statement before anything else happened. The sun had risen so that it
was no longer shining directly into the port, and the great chamber had
grown darker as the shadow of the vast interstellar flier crept down
and away from its outer wall, when a new party came through the air
lock from outside. Two of the pentapods came first, and came to a halt
on either side of the inner door; after them crept painfully the long,
many-legged, gorgeously furred body of a Vegan. Its antennae were laid
along its back, blending with the black and yellow stripes: the tiny,
heavily lidded eyes opened wide in the effort to see in what, to the
native of the blue star, was nearly total darkness. The line of guards
penning in the Earthmen opened and formed a double-walled lane between
humans and Vegan.
Albee stepped forward, and at the same moment the interior lights of
the chamber flashed on. The Vegan relaxed for a moment as its eyes
readjusted themselves; then its antennae snapped erect and began to
sway slowly in the simple patterns of the sign language of its race.
"I assume that some of you, at least, understand me," it said. "Our
captors, having learned a little of my language in the months I
have spent here, hope to save themselves trouble by using me as an
interpreter. Do you wish to acknowledge acquaintance with my speech, or
do you think it better to act as though our races had never encountered
each other? I was not captured near my home planet, so you might get
away with such an act."
Most of the Earthmen had some knowledge of Vegan speech--the two
systems are near neighbors, and enjoy lively commercial relations--and
all looked to Albee for a decision. He wasted little time in thought;
it was evident that they would be better off in communication with
their captors than otherwise.
"We might as well talk," he answered, forming the signs as well as he
could with his arms. "We should like to find out all you can tell us
about these creatures, and it is unlikely that we would be given the
chance to communicate secretly with you. Do you know where we are, and
can you tell us anything about this planet and its people?"
"I know very little," was the answer. "I believe this world is
somewhere in the Cloud, because the only time one of us was ever
outside the fort at night he could see the Galaxy. Neither I
nor my companions can tell you anything about the planet's own
characteristics, for we have been kept inside the base which these
creatures have established here ever since our capture. We move too
slowly in this gravity to escape from them, and, anyway, the sun has
not sufficient ultraviolet light to keep us alive. Our captors, we are
sure, are not natives of the planet; they seldom venture outside the
walls themselves, and always return before nightfall. Furthermore, they
live on provisions brought by their interstellar ships, rather than
native food.
"They have not told us the reason for our capture. They allow us to
prepare everything we need for existence and comfort, but every time we
try to divert supplies to the production of weapons, they seem to know
it. They let us nearly finish, and then take it away from us. They
never get angry at our attempts, either. We don't understand them."
"If they are so careful of your well being, why do they try to drive us
crazy on a steady diet of lime juice?" interrupted Little.
"I could not say; but I will ask, if you wish," returned the Vegan.
He swung his fusiform body laboriously around until he was facing
one of the creatures who had accompanied him to the ship, and began
semaphoring the question. The men watched silently; those who had not
understood the preceding conversation were given the gist of it in
brief whispers by their fellows. Little had not had a chance to ask
if the others had been fed as he had been; their silent but intense
interest in the answer to his question indicated that they had. The
chronic slowness of Vegan communication rendered them all the more
impatient to know the reason, as the black and yellow creature solemnly
waved at the motionless pentapod.
There was a brief pause before the latter began to answer. When it
did, the Earthman understood why an interpreter was necessary, even
though both sides knew the same language. The arms of the creature
were flexible enough in front-to-rear motion, as are human fingers;
but their relatively great width hampered them in side-to-side waves,
and put them at a severe disadvantage in using the Vegan language. The
Vegan himself must have had difficulty in comprehending; the Earthman
could not make out a single gesture.
* * * * *
Finally the interpreter turned back to the human listeners and reported
the result of his questioning:
"The green liquid is all that our captors found in the canteens of your
space armor. Since there was a large supply of it on your ship, they
assumed it was the principal constituent of your diet. They have,
however, salvaged practically all of the contents of your vessel,
and you will be allowed shortly to obtain your foodstuffs, cooking
equipment, and personal belongings, with the natural exception of
weapons. I might add, from my own experience, that their unfamiliarity
with your weapons will not help you much if you attempt to smuggle any
from the stores. We never could get away with it."
"What surprises me," remarked Albee in English, "is that we are allowed
at the supplies at all. These creatures must be extremely confident in
their own abilities to take a chance."
"From what you told me of the hand-to-hand fighting, such confidence
may be justified," remarked Little with a grin. "Didn't you say that
they more or less wiped up the floor with the boys?"
"True," admitted the captain, "but there's no need to rub it in. Why
are they so stuck up about it?"
"Stuck up? I was getting a strong impression that, as a race, they must
be unusually modest." Albee stared at the doctor, but could not get
him to amplify the remark. The Vegan interrupted further conversation,
attracting their attention with a flourish of its long antennae.
"I am told that your supplies have been unloaded through another port,
and are lying on the ground outside the fort. You are to accompany me
and the guards to the pile, and take all the food you wish--you may
make several trips, if necessary, to get it all to your quarters in the
fort."
"Where is this fort, in relation to the ship?" asked Albee. "What sort
of land is around it?"
"The ship is lying parallel to the near wall of the fort, about two
hundred yards from it. This air lock is near the nose of the ship, and
almost opposite the main valves of the fort. In front of the ship the
ground is level for about a quarter of a mile, then dips down into
what seems to be a heavily forested river valley. I don't know what
lies beyond, in that direction; this sunlight is too dim for me to
make out the details of objects more than a mile or two distant. I do
get the impression of hills or mountains--you will be able to see for
yourselves, outside. Your eyes are adapted to this light.
"In the other direction, toward the stern, the level plain extends as
far as I can see, without any cover. Anyway, you'd be between the ship
and the fort for the first five hundred yards, if you went that way,
and could easily be cornered. I warn you again that these creatures
will outguess you, but--good luck. I've told you all I know."
"I guess we might as well go along and get our stuff, then," remarked
Albee to his crew. "Don't do anything rash without orders. We'll wait
until we see how the supplies are arranged. _Maybe_ we'll have to move
some apparatus to get at the food."
* * * * *
The black bodies of the guards had ringed them, almost statuesque in
their motionlessness, during the conversation. As the Vegan concluded
his speech, he had turned toward the lock; Albee had spoken as the men
began to follow. The air of the planet was evidently similar to that
of Earth, Vega Five, and the home planet of the pentapods, since both
valves of the air lock were open. It had the fresh-air smell which the
filtered atmosphere of a spaceship always seems to lack, and the men
almost unconsciously squared their shoulders and expanded their chests
as they passed down the ramp in the wake of the heavily moving Vegan.
The scene before them caught all eyes; the interpreter's description
had been correct, but inadequate.
The hull of the interstellar cruiser curved high above their heads.
The lock chamber occupied a relatively tiny gondola that projected
far enough, from its location well to one side of the keel, to touch
the ground. The outside of the vessel gleamed with a brilliant
silvery luster, in contrast to the coppery glow of the interior. The
fort, directly in front of them, was an imposing structure of stone
composition half a mile in length and two hundred feet high on the side
facing them. The walls were smoothly polished, and completely lacking
in windows.
To the left, beyond the nose of the craft, the level meadow continued
for several hundred yards, and then dipped abruptly downward. As
the Vegan had intimated, the background was filled by a range of
rugged-looking mountains, the nearest several miles away. The sun was
now nearly overhead, thereby robbing the landscape of the shadows that
would have given the Earthman a better idea of its relief. Albee wasted
little time looking for what he wouldn't be able to see; he strode on
toward the great gate of the fort. In front of the portals were several
large heaps of articles, and even at this distance some of them could
be recognized as pieces of equipment from the unfortunate _Gomeisa_.
The guards closed around the group of human beings and proceeded at the
pace set by the captain, leaving the Vegan prisoner to follow at his
own speed.
It was evident that a thorough job of looting had been done on the
Terrestrial warship. Food and medical supplies, bunks, kitchen
equipment, blankets and miscellaneous items of field apparatus were
included in the half dozen heaps laid out beneath the glistening black
walls. Mixed in with the rest were hand tools and weapons, and Albee,
in spite of the Vegan's warning, began promptly to make plans. At his
orders, each of the men dragged a shoulder pack out of one of the piles
and began filling it with containers of food and drink. The pile of
lime-juice bottles was pointedly ignored until Albee, glancing at it,
noticed that one case of bottles was not green in color. He went over
for a closer look, then extracted one of the plastic containers, opened
it and sniffed. His voice, as he turned to the watching men, was just
a little louder than usual:
"Would anyone know where they found this stuff?" His eyes wandered
over the faces of the crew. It was Sergeant Goldthwaite who finally
answered, hesitantly.
"They _might_ have looked between the bulkheads at the cap end of the
storage room, cap'n. It was pretty cool there, and seemed like a good
place--"
"Not too easy to visit often, in flight," remarked the captain
quizzically.
"I never visited it, sir--you can see it hasn't been touched. But you
said we would probably touch at Ardome, and I was thinking it might be
possible to get rid of it there."
"It probably would. But they have good customs inspectors, and war
vessels aren't immune to search. I shudder to think of what would have
happened to our reputation if we had made Ardome. Consider yourself
responsible for this stuff."
* * * * *
The sergeant gulped. The case of liquor weighed eighty pounds, and
could not possibly be crammed into a shoulder pack. He realized
gloomily that the captain had inflicted about the only possible
punishment, under the circumstances. He put five of the bottles into
his pack and began a series of experiments to find out which way his
arms went most easily around the case. A small group of pentapods
regarded the struggle with interest, their spines waving slowly like a
field of wheat in a breeze.
Albee watched, too, for a moment; then he went on, without altering the
tone of his words:
"Most of you should have a decent supply of food by now. This planet
probably has good water, since the vegetation and clouds appear
normal. We should be able to live here without the aid of our generous
captors, but we may have some difficulty in avoiding their well-meant
ministrations. The Vegan said his people had never been able to fool
these pincushions into letting them make or steal a weapon. Remembering
that, use every caution in carrying out the orders I am about to give.
"When I have stopped talking, each of you count thirty, slowly,
meanwhile working your way toward the handiest tool or weapon in the
neighborhood. When you reach thirty, dive for the object of your
choice and do your best to get to that forest. You have all, except
the doctor, had some experience of the rough-and-tumble tactics of
these creatures; the problem, I should say, is to get past them without
a fight and into the open. I think we can outrun, on the level, any
invertebrate alive. If someone is caught, don't stay to help him; right
now, I want to get at least a small crew away from here, where we can
work out at our leisure rescue plans for the unlucky ones. Don't all
try to get guns; we'll find cutting tools just as useful in the woods.
You may start counting."
Without haste, Albee counted over the contents of his pack, swung it to
his shoulders. The guards, spines twitching slowly, watched. Reiser,
the senior navigator, was helping one of Goldthwaite's engineers drag
the ship's electric stove from a pile which chanced also to contain
several ion pistols. Little picked up and tested briefly a hand flash,
conscious of the fact that guards were watching him closely. The action
had some purpose; the flash was almost exactly similar to the pistols.
He tightened the straps of his own pack--and someone reached the count
of thirty. Albee had chosen that number to give the men time enough to
prepare, but not enough to get very far out of pace in the counting.
Almost as one, the human beings turned and sprinted for the bow of
the warship. Almost simultaneously, the guards went into action, each
singling out a man and going to work. Little, who had not experienced
the tactics of the creatures, managed to avoid them for perhaps
five yards; then one of them twined its tendrils about his wrist and
literally climbed up onto his back. A moment later, the doctor was face
down on the grass, arms and legs held motionless in the grip of the
clumsy-looking, stubby limbs. The spines of his captor were not stiff
enough to penetrate clothing or skin, but their pressure on the back of
his neck was unpleasant. He managed to turn his head sufficiently to
see what was going on.
* * * * *
Four men, who had been at the pile nearest the forest, had moved fast
enough to avoid contact with their guards. They were now running
rapidly toward the declivity; none of the creatures was in pursuit.
Albee and a dozen others were practically clear, but one of these was
pulled down as Little watched. One man found himself in a relatively
clear space and made a dash. Guards closed in from either side, but
realized apparently that they were not fast enough to corner the
fellow. They turned back to other prey, and the runner was allowed to
escape.
Goldthwaite had been in a bad position, with almost the whole group to
fight through on his way to the woods. Apparently he never thought of
disobeying orders, and going the other way. He dropped the case he had
been trying to lift, seized a bottle from it with each hand and headed
into the mêlée. Curiously enough, he was the only one using weapons;
the guards, festooned with implements snapped to their leg belts,
fought with their bare "hands," and the men all ignored their guns and
knives in the effort to run. Most of the pentapods at the sergeant's
end of the group were engaged, and he got nearly halfway through the
group before he was forced to use his clubs.
Then a guard saw him and closed in. Goldthwaite was handicapped by the
creature's lack of a head, but he swung anyway. The blow landed between
the two upper limbs, just above one eye. It didn't seem to bother the
pentapod, whose flexible legs absorbed most of the shock, and the
tough plastic of the bottle remained unbroken; but the stopper, urged
by interior pressure and probably not closed tightly enough--it may
have been the bottle investigated by the captain--blew out, soaking
the sergeant's sleeve and jacket with liquor. This particular fluid
had some of the characteristics of Earthly champagne, and had been
considerably shaken up.
Another of its qualities was odor. This, like the taste of Roquefort,
required a period of conditioning before one could become fond of it;
and this may have been the reason that the guard fell back for a moment
as the liquid foamed out. It is more likely, however, that he was
merely startled to find an object his people had decided was harmless
suddenly exhibit the characteristics of a projectile weapon. Whatever
the reason, he hesitated a split second before pressing the attack; and
in that moment the sergeant was past.
Ahead of him, three or four more guards--all who remained
unoccupied--converged to meet him. Without waiting for them to charge,
Goldthwaite swung the other bottle a few times and hurled it into their
midst. He was a man quick to profit by experience. Unfortunately,
so were the guards. They saw the liquid which had soaked into the
sergeant's clothes, and needed no further assurance that it was
harmless. They paid no attention to the flying bottle until it landed.
This flask was stoppered more tightly and did not blow out. The
pentapods, who had either seen the behavior of the first bottle or
had been told of it, decided that the latest arrival was a different
sort of weapon and prudently changed course, avoiding the spot where
it lay, and the sergeant, with no such scruples, passed over it like
a racehorse. It was several seconds before the guards overcame their
nervousness over this new form of delayed-action bomb, and before they
could circle around it, Goldthwaite was well out of reach across the
plateau. By that time the action was over.
* * * * *
Albee had gotten away with about a dozen men. One of these had escaped
through the co-operation of the Vegan, who, unable to run himself, had
tripped up with an antenna the only guard in position to catch the man.
Some twenty-five human beings lay about on the field, each held down
by a single pentapod. Two swarms of the creatures were coming rapidly
toward them, one from the ship and one from the fort. These formed a
ring about the area, and Little found himself once more free to get to
his feet. He did so, the others gathering round him.
All guns had disappeared, it seemed. One of the men had tried to use
his when he had been intercepted, but his opponent had relieved him of
the weapon before any damage had been done. Evidently the information
had been broadcast, for all the other ion pistols had been confiscated,
though the very similar flash tubes had not been touched. Injuries were
confined to bruises.
Little was beginning to get ideas about his captors--he had, indeed,
begun to get them some time since, as his cryptic remark to Albee had
indicated. Every action they performed gave evidence of most peculiar
motivation and thought processes, evidence which was slowly sifting
its way through Little's mind. He continued to let it sift as the men,
still ringed by pentapods, began to march toward the fort.
The great outer gate opened into a chamber large enough to hold the
entire group with room to spare. It was about fifteen feet high, metal
walled, and possessed but two doors--the outer valve and another,
smaller, in the opposite wall, giving access to the interior of the
structure. As though the room were an air lock, the inner portal was
not opened until the outer had shut. Then the group passed into a
brilliantly lit corridor, stretching on ahead of them far into the
bowels of the fort. Hallways branched from this at intervals of a few
yards, some brightly lighted like the main passage, others in nearly
total darkness. They had gone only a short distance when the men were
stopped by their escort in front of a small doorway in the left-hand
wall.
One of the guards activated a small control in the wall beside the
door, causing the latter to slide open. The small chamber disclosed was
evidently an elevator car into which five of the pentapods beckoned
an equal number of the men. The door slid to behind them, and several
minutes of uneasy silence ensued. Little asked the Vegan if it knew
where they were being taken.
"Our quarters are in a superstructure on the roof," gestured the
creature. "They may put you there, or on the roof itself. You can
live in the open under this sunlight; we need supplementary lighting,
both visual and ultraviolet. They have told me nothing. I do not even
know whether we will be allowed to communicate any further--though I
hope so. My companions and I have long wanted to have someone besides
ourselves to talk to."
"I suspect we shall be allowed as much contact as we wish--they may
even quarter us in adjoining rooms," remarked Little hesitantly. The
Vegan eyed him closely for a moment.
"Ah, you have found a way into their minds, Earthman?" it asked.
"I congratulate you. We have never been able to understand their
motivation or actions in the slightest degree. It may, of course, be
that they think more after your fashion than ours--but that seems
unlikely, when your minds and ours are sufficiently alike to agree even
on matters of philosophy."
"I am not at all sure I have penetrated their minds," answered Little.
"I am still observing, but what I see has so far strengthened the
impression I obtained almost at the first. If anything constructive
results from my ideas, I will tell, but otherwise I should prefer to
wait until I am much more certain of my conclusions."
* * * * *
The return of the elevator interrupted the laborious exchange of ideas.
It had been gone many minutes, but the Vegan sign language is much
slower than verbal speech, and the two allies had had time for only a
few sentences. They watched silently as five more men and their guards
entered the car and disappeared. There was little talk in the ensuing
wait; most of the beings present were too fully occupied in thinking.
One or two of the men exchanged low-voiced comments, but the majority
kept their ideas to themselves. The Vegan, of course, was voiceless;
and the guards stood about patiently, silent as ever, rock-still except
for the slow, almost unceasing, wave of the black, blunt spines. They
did not seem even to breathe.
The silence continued while the elevator returned and departed twice
more. Its only interruption consisted of occasional faint metallic
sounds of indeterminable origin, echoing and re-echoing along the
corridors of the vast pile. To Little, they were interesting for the
evidence they provided of activity through the place, and therefore
of the presence of a very considerable garrison. Nothing was seen to
substantiate this surmise, however, although it was possible to view
objects at a considerable distance along the well-lighted passage.
The elevator returned for the last time. Little, the few remaining
men, and the Vegan entered, accompanied this time by only two of the
pentapods, and the upward journey began. The car was lifted by an
extremely quiet--or extremely distant--motor; the continuous silence of
the place, indeed, was beginning to jar on human nerves. The elevator
rose smoothly; there was no sense of motion during the five or six
minutes of the journey. Little wondered whether the creatures had some
ulterior motive, or were simply economizing on power--if the fort were
only two hundred feet high, an elevator journey from ground to roof
should take seconds, not minutes. He never discovered the answer.
The car door slid open to reveal another corridor, narrower than the
one below. To the right it came to an end twenty yards away where a
large circular window allowed the sunlight to enter. Little decided
that they must be above the level of the outer wall, since no openings
had been visible in it. The wall at this level must be set back some
distance, so as to be invisible from a point on the ground near the
building.