"It's taking a desperate chance," said Dougald Joan. She was young yet,
hardly out of girlhood, but her voice had an indomitable ring. The true
warriors among the five Earthling families were all Dougald thought
Janazik. "Suppose Ellen doesn't come out of hiding? Suppose she's dead
or--or captured already, in spite of what we think."
"We'll just have to try and destroy the rocket then," said Alonzo.
"Certainly we can't let Volakech get to the Star Ship." He sighed,
heavily. "And the labor of another generation will be gone."
"It wouldn't take us long to build another boat," said his wife. "We
know how, now, and we have the industry to do it."
"There are only a few who really know how to handle and build the
Terrestrial machines, and most of them are in the enemy's hands,"
reminded old Chiang. "I'm sure I couldn't tell you much about atomic
engines, even though I was on the Star Ship herself once. If those
few are killed, we may never be able to duplicate our efforts. What
Terrestrials survive will sink back into barbarism, become simply
another part of Khazaki culture."
"I don't know--" said Nora.
"I know, because I've seen it happen," insisted Chiang. "In the fifty
years since we were marooned here, two generations have been born on
Khazak. They've grown up among Khazaki, played with native children,
worked and fought with Khazaki natives, adopted the dress and speech
and whole outlook of Krakenau. Only a few in this third generation have
consciously tried to remain--Terrestrial. I must admit that Masefield
Carson is one such. Ellen is another. But few others."
"Would you have us wall ourselves out from the world?" asked Anse with
a bridling anger.
"No. I don't see how the situation could be helped. We are a minority
in an alien culture with which we've had to cooperate. It's only
natural that we'd be more assimilated than assimilating. Even at that,
we've wrought immense changes."
* * * * *
Janazik nodded. The stranded Terrestrials had found themselves in an
early Iron Age civilization of city-states, among a race naturally
violent and predatory. For their own survival, they had had to league
forces with the state in which they found themselves--Krakenau, as it
happened. Before they could build the industry they needed, they had
to have some security--which meant that they must teach the Krakenaui
military principles and means of making new weapons which would make
them superior to their neighbors. After that--well, it took an immense
technology to build even a small spaceship. The superalloys which could
stand the combustion of rocket fuel required unheard-of elements such
as manganese and chromium, which required means of mining and refining
them, which required a considerable chemical plant, which required--How
far down do you have to start? And there were a hundred or a thousand
other requirements of equal importance and difficulty.
Besides, the Terrestrials had had to learn much from scratch
themselves. None of them had ever built a rocketship, had ever seen one
in action even. It was centuries obsolete in Galactic civilization. But
gravity drives were out of the question. So--they'd had to design the
ship from the ground up. Which meant years of painstaking research ...
and only a few interested humans and Khazaki to do it. The rest were
too busy with their own affairs in the brawling barbaric culture.
Ten years ago, the first spaceboat had blasted off toward the Star
Ship--and exploded in mid-acceleration. More designing, more testing,
more slow building--and now the second one lay ready. Perhaps it could
reach the Star Ship.
The Star Ship--faster than light, weightless when it chose to be for
all its enormous mass, armed with atomic guns that could blast a
city to superheated vapor. Whoever controlled that ship could get to
Galactic stars in a matter of weeks. Or could rule all Khazaki if he
chose.
No wonder Carson and Volakech had struck now, before the rocket boat
was launched. When _they_ had the ship--
But only Ellen knew the figures of its orbit and the complicated
calculations by which the boat would plot a course to get there. A bold
warrior might make a try at reaching the ship by seat-of-the-pants
piloting, but he wouldn't have much chance of making it. So Ellen, and
the rocket boat, were the fulcrum of the future.
"Strange," mused Chiang. "Strange that we should have had that
accident...."
They had heard the story a hundred times before, but they gathered
around to listen; there was nothing else to do while the slow hours
dragged on.
"We were ten, all told, five men and their wives. Exploratory
expeditions are often out for years at a time, so the Service makes it
a policy to man the ships with married couples. It's hard for a Khazaki
to appreciate the absolute equality between the sexes which human
civilization has achieved. It's due to the advanced technology, of
course, and we're losing it as we go back to barbarism--"
Anse felt a small hand laid on his arm. He looked down into the dark
eyes of DuFrere Marie. She was a pretty girl, a little younger than he,
and until he'd really noticed Ellen he'd been paying her some attention.
"I don't care about equality," she whispered. "A woman shouldn't try to
be a man. I'd want only to cook and keep house for my man, and bear his
children."
It was, Anse realized, a typical Khazaki attitude. But--he remembered
with a sudden pity that Carson had been courting Marie. "This is pretty
tough on you," he muttered. "I'll try to see that Carse is saved.... If
we win," he added wryly.
"Him? I don't care about that Masefield. Let them hang him. But
Anse--be careful--"
* * * * *
He looked away, his face hot in the gloom, realizing suddenly why
Masefield Carson hated him. Briefly, he wished he hadn't had such
consistent luck with women. But the accident that there was a
preponderance of females in the second and third generations of Khazaki
humans had made it more or less inevitable, and he--well, he was only
human. There'd been Earthling girls; and not a few Khazaki women had
been intrigued by the big Terrestrial. _Yes, I was lucky_, he thought
bitterly. _Lucky in all except the one that mattered._
"--we'd been a few weeks out of Avandar--it was an obscure outpost
then, though I imagine it's grown since--when we detected this Sol-type
sun. Seeing that there was an Earth-like planet, we decided to
investigate. And since we were all tired of being cooped in the ship,
and telescopes showed that any natives which might exist would be too
primitive to endanger us, we all went down in the lifeboat.
"And the one-in-a-billion chance happened ... the atomic converters
went out of control and we barely escaped from the boat before it was
utterly consumed. We were stranded on an alien planet, with nothing but
our clothes and a few hand weapons--and with our ship that would go
faster than light circling in its orbit not ten thousand kilometers
above us!
"No chance of rescue. There are just too many suns for the Galactic
Coordinators to hope to find a ship that doesn't come back. Expansion
into this region of space wasn't scheduled for another two centuries.
So there we were, and until we could build a boat which would take us
back to our ship--there we stayed!
"And it's taken us fifty years so far...."
Pragakech came in with the rain glistening on his fur and running in
small puddles about his padding feet. "We're ready," he said. "Every
warrior whose hiding place we knew has been contacted."
"Then we might as well go." Janazik got up and stretched luxuriously.
His eyes were like molten gold in the murky light.
"So soon?" Marie held Anse back with anxious hands. "This same night?"
"The sooner the better," Anse said grimly. "Every day that goes by,
more of our friends will be found out and killed, more places will be
searched for Ellen, Volakech's grip on the city will grow stronger." He
put the spiked helmet back on his head, and buckled the sword about his
mailed waist. "Come on, Janazik. The rest stay here and wait for word.
If we're utterly defeated, such of us as survive will manage to get
back and lead you out of Krakenau--somehow."
Marie started to say something, then shook her head as if the words
hurt her throat and drew Anse's face down to hers. "Goodbye, then," she
whispered. "Goodbye, and the gods be with you."
He kissed her more awkwardly than was his wont, feeling himself a
thorough scoundrel. Then he followed Pragakech and Janazik out the
trapdoor.