He bent down and lifted the lid of a box that was stamped: FIRST MARS
EXPEDITION--2006. He took out a heavy proton-buster, broke the grip and
examined its load of white pellets.
"It's been two days now," he went on, "and I'm convinced at last that
this one party is all. Scouts, perhaps, from a parent ship off in deep
space. And I've listened to them talk. If they don't return, nobody's
going to come looking for them. They come from that kind of society.
The others will mark Sol off as a bad bet and move on."
He clicked the gun together. "They still think we're the race pictured
in the Martian crypts and temples--and in your translations, Randolph.
Coincidence eh? that the old Martians were humanoid and their
appearance not discrepant with ours."
"We colonize Mars," mused Randolph, "and Beta Centauri colonizes us as
Martians. Ring around the rosy."
Burke stood there, the proton-buster in his hand. "And it was cosmic
coincidence that the Centaurians landed their ship at practically
the same spot we'd set down only three days before. And it's almost
incredible that they came to this village where we had taken up
headquarters and addressed us in English!" He turned to Barnes. "You're
the Psych-man ... let's have it again. Slowly."
Barnes half turned from the wall slit where he had been keeping an eye
out for Centaurians. "They found our ship and took it to be a primitive
shrine of some sort, never dreaming it was a vehicle, a space-craft."
He waved another man to the slit and stretched his legs as he sat
down on a crate. He struck a match and cupped it into his pipe.
"I'm almost certain that they didn't even recognize the mechanisms
as such. Their ship, as you've all seen, is a cube of pure energy,
configurated--they're that alien. Also, I believe they're military men,
soldiers and minor technicians. The top specialists are probably on the
other ship, away from possible danger and biding their talents until
called."
The watcher's hand went up and fluttered for silence, and Barnes paused
while heavy, meaty footsteps scuffled the clay outside. When they had
passed, he spoke again, softly:
"Fortunately, there wasn't room in our ship for a library, or they
might have encountered the Terrestrial mind and caught on. But they
learned our language--English, and a damned neat trick--from Randolph's
written translations of the Martian _inscriptiones sensuales_ he was
working on. And when they came here and addressed us in that language
and we responded, nolens-volens they took us for Martians and judged
us by the context of those translations--foolish, vain and harmless,
but perhaps with some value as workers. They even took our names from
the nameplates on our bunks, something that would have found favor with
the perverse Fourth-Era Martians they presumed us to be." He sucked at
his pipe which had gone out. "Their Psychologists are clever--maybe a
little too clever. They think we have no violence potential."
Randolph seemed almost entranced. "But how could they have worked out
the phonetics?"
Barnes grinned, lifted a shoulder in admiration and envy. "I don't
know.... Ask _them_."
"They couldn't know they were _our_ names," said Randolph.
"No, but they thought they were native names. Thank God, we got the
pitch right off and were able to carry the farce."
"Why didn't they just kill us?"
* * * * *
Barnes frowned and struck another match. "That would've been the really
smart thing to do, Dolph, but they're not brutes and they're not making
war. Their intention is to colonize, and we might as well be insects
for all we could mean to them or do to stand up to them."
"But if we have to be dealt with at all, we're in the way--"
Barnes had the pipe going. He shook his head. "We're not in their way;
we're underfoot, and only a sick mind makes a point of stepping on
ants. Would you kill a talking louse?"