"Why?"
"Well, they probably thought it was too dangerous, and silly too, like
most government rules. Or maybe one of the kids...."
* * * * *
It was then that Dylan told him about the wire on Lupus V. Rossel was
silent. Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky, then he said shakily,
"Maybe an animal?"
Dylan shook his head. "No animal did that. Wouldn't have buried it, or
found it in the first place. Heck of a coincidence, don't you think?
The wire at Lupus was cut just before an alien attack, and now this one
is cut too--newly cut."
The colonist put one hand to his mouth, his eyes wide and white.
"So something," said Dylan, "knew enough about this camp to know that
a bomb was buried here and also to know why it was here. And that
something didn't want the camp destroyed and so came right into the
center of the camp, traced the wire, dug it up and cut it. And then
walked right out again."
"Listen," said Rossel, "I'd better go ask."
He started away but Dylan caught his arm.
"Tell them to arm," he said, "and try not to scare hell out of them.
I'll be with you as soon as I've spliced this wire."
Rossel nodded and went off, running. Dylan knelt with the metal in his
hands.
He began to feel that, by God, he was getting cold. He realized that
he'd better go inside soon, but the wire had to be spliced. That was
perhaps the most important thing he could do now, splice the wire.
All right, he asked himself for the thousandth time, who cut it? How?
Telepathy? Could they somehow control one of us?
No. If they controlled one, then they could control all, and then there
would be no need for an attack. But you don't know, you don't really
know.
Were they small? Little animals?
Unlikely. Biology said that really intelligent life required a sizable
brain and you would have to expect an alien to be at least as large
as a dog. And every form of life on this planet had been screened long
before a colony had been allowed in. If any new animals had suddenly
shown up, Rossel would certainly know about it.
He would ask Rossel. He would damn sure have to ask Rossel.
He finished splicing the wire and tucked it into the ground. Then he
straightened up and, before he went into the radio shack, he pulled out
his pistol. He checked it, primed it, and tried to remember the last
time he had fired it. He never had--he never had fired a gun.
* * * * *
The snow began falling near noon. There was nothing anybody could do
but stand in the silence and watch it come down in a white rushing
wall, and watch the trees and the hills drown in the whiteness, until
there was nothing on the planet but the buildings and a few warm lights
and the snow.
By one o'clock the visibility was down to zero and Dylan decided to
try to contact Bossio again and tell him to hurry. But Bossio still
didn't answer. Dylan stared long and thoughtfully out the window
through the snow at the gray shrouded shapes of bushes and trees which
were beginning to become horrifying. It must be that Bossio was still
drunk--maybe sleeping it off before making planetfall on Three. Dylan
held no grudge. Bossio was a kid and alone. It took a special kind
of guts to take a ship out into space alone, when Things could be
waiting....
A young girl, pink and lovely in a thick fur jacket, came into the
shack and told him breathlessly that her father, Mr. Rush, would like
to know if he wanted sentries posted. Dylan hadn't thought about it but
he said yes right away, beginning to feel both pleased and irritated at
the same time, because now they were coming to him.
He pushed out into the cold and went to find Rossel. With the snow it
was bad enough, but if they were still here when the sun went down they
wouldn't have a chance. Most of the men were out stripping down their
ship and that would take a while. He wondered why Rossel hadn't yet put
a call through to Three, asking about room on the ship there. The only
answer he could find was that Rossel knew that there was no room, and
he wanted to put off the answer as long as possible. And, in a way, you
could not blame him.
Rossel was in his cabin with the big, gloomy man--who turned out to
be Rush, the one who had asked about sentries. Rush was methodically
cleaning an old hunting rifle. Rossel was surprisingly full of hope.
"Listen, there's a mail ship due in, been due since yesterday. We might
get the rest of the folks out on that."