"You know that, too?"
"You have one of their rifles," said Orne.
"Your race is no match for us, Orne ... in cunning, in strength, in the prowess of the mind. Your ship landed to repair its tubes. Very inferior ceramics in those tubes."
Orne turned, looked at Tanub in the dim glow of the cab light. "Have you heard about the I-A, Tanub?"
"I-A? What is that?" There was a wary tenseness in the Gienahn"s figure. His mouth opened to reveal the long canines.
"You took the Delphinus by treachery?" asked Orne.
"They were simple fools," said Tanub. "We are smaller, thus they thought us weaker." The Mark XX"s muzzle came around to center on Orne"s stomach. "You have not answered my question. What is the I-A?"
"I am of the I-A," said Orne. "Where"ve you hidden the Delphinus?"
"In the place that suits us best," said Tanub. "In all our history there has never been a better place."
"What do you plan to do with it?" asked Orne.
"Within a year we will have a copy with our own improvements. After that--"
"You intend to start a war?" asked Orne.
"In the jungle the strong slay the weak until only the strong remain," said Tanub.
"And then the strong prey upon each other?" asked Orne.
"That is a quibble for women," said Tanub.
"It"s too bad you feel that way," said Orne. "When two cultures meet like this they tend to help each other. What have you done with the crew of the Delphinus?"
"They are slaves," said Tanub. "Those who still live. Some resisted. Others objected to teaching us what we want to know." He waved the gun muzzle. "You will not be that foolish, will you, Orne?"
"No need to be," said Orne. "I"ve another little lesson to teach you: I already know where you"ve hidden the Delphinus."
"Go, boy!" hissed Stetson. "Where is it?"
"Impossible!" barked Tanub.
"It"s on your moon," said Orne. "Darkside. It"s on a mountain on the darkside of your moon."
Tanub"s eyes dilated, contracted. "You read minds?"
"The I-A has no need to read minds," said Orne. "We rely on superior mental prowess."
"The marines are on their way," hissed Stetson. "We"re coming in to get you. I"m going to want to know how you guessed that one."
"You are a weak fool like the others," gritted Tanub.
"It"s too bad you formed your opinion of us by observing only the low grades of the R&R," said Orne.
"Easy, boy," hissed Stetson. "Don"t pick a fight with him now. Remember, his race is arboreal. He"s probably as strong as an ape."
"I could kill you where you sit!" grated Tanub.
"You write finish for your entire planet if you do," said Orne. "I"m not alone. There are others listening to every word we say. There"s a ship overhead that could split open your planet with one bomb--wash it with molten rock. It"d run like the gla.s.s you use for your buildings."
"You are lying!"
"We"ll make you an offer," said Orne. "We don"t really want to exterminate you. We"ll give you limited membership in the Galactic Federation until you prove you"re no menace to us."
"Keep talking," hissed Stetson. "Keep him interested."
"You dare insult me!" growled Tanub.
"You had better believe me," said Orne. "We--"
Stetson"s voice interrupted him: "Got it, Orne! They caught the Delphinus on the ground right where you said it"d be! Blew the tubes off it. Marines now mopping up."
"It"s like this," said Orne. "We already have recaptured the Delphinus." Tanub"s eyes went instinctively skyward. "Except for the captured armament you still hold, you obviously don"t have the weapons to meet us," continued Orne. "Otherwise, you wouldn"t be carrying that rifle off the Delphinus."
"If you speak the truth, then we shall die bravely," said Tanub.
"No need for you to die," said Orne.
"Better to die than be slaves," said Tanub.
"We don"t need slaves," said Orne. "We--"
"I cannot take the chance that you are lying," said Tanub. "I must kill you now."
Orne"s foot rested on the air sled control pedal. He depressed it. Instantly, the sled shot skyward, heavy G"s pressing them down into the seats. The gun in Tanub"s hands was slammed into his lap. He struggled to raise it. To Orne, the weight was still only about twice that of his home planet of Chargon. He reached over, took the rifle, found safety belts, bound Tanub with them. Then he eased off the acceleration.
"We don"t need slaves," said Orne. "We have machines to do our work. We"ll send experts in here, teach you people how to exploit your planet, how to build good transportation facilities, show you how to mine your minerals, how to--"
"And what do we do in return?" whispered Tanub.
"You could start by teaching us how you make superior gla.s.s," said Orne. "I certainly hope you see things our way. We really don"t want to have to come down there and clean you out. It"d be a shame to have to blast that city into little pieces."
Tanub wilted. Presently, he said: "Send me back. I will discuss this with ... our council." He stared at Orne. "You I-A"s are too strong. We did not know."
In the wardroom of Stetson"s scout cruiser, the lights were low, the leather chairs comfortable, the green beige table set with a decanter of Hochar brandy and two gla.s.ses.
Orne lifted his gla.s.s, sipped the liquor, smacked his lips. "For a while there, I thought I"d never be tasting anything like this again."
Stetson took his own gla.s.s. "ComGO heard the whole thing over the general monitor net," he said. "D"you know you"ve been breveted to senior field man?"
"Ah, they"ve already recognized my sterling worth," said Orne.
The wolfish grin took over Stetson"s big features. "Senior field men last about half as long as the juniors," he said. "Mortality"s terrific?"
"I might"ve known," said Orne. He took another sip of the brandy.
Stetson flicked on the switch of a recorder beside him. "O.K. You can go ahead any time."
"Where do you want me to start?"
"First, how"d you spot right away where they"d hidden the Delphinus?"
"Easy. Tanub"s word for his people was Grazzi. Most races call themselves something meaning The People. But in his tongue that"s Ocheero. Grazzi wasn"t on the translated list. I started working on it. The most likely answer was that it had been adopted from another language, and meant enemy."
"And that told you where the Delphinus was?"
"No. But it fitted my hunch about these Gienahns. I"d kind of felt from the first minute of meeting them that they had a culture like the Indians of ancient Terra."
"Why?"
"They came in like a primitive raiding party. The leader dropped right onto the hood of my sled. An act of bravery, no less. Counting coup, you see?"
"I guess so."
"Then he said he was High Path Chief. That wasn"t on the language list, either. But it was easy: Raider Chief. There"s a word in almost every language in history that means raider and derives from a word for road, path or highway."
"Highwaymen," said Stetson.
"Raid itself," said Orne. "An ancient Terran language corruption of road."
"Yeah, yeah. But where"d all this translation griff put--"
"Don"t be impatient. Gla.s.s-blowing culture meant they were just out of the primitive stage. That, we could control. Next, he said their moon was Chiranachuruso, translated as The Limb of Victory. After that it just fell into place."
"How?"
"The vertical-slit pupils of their eyes. Doesn"t that mean anything to you?"
"Maybe. What"s it mean to you?"
"Night-hunting predator accustomed to dropping upon its victims from above. No other type of creature ever has had the vertical slit. And Tanub said himself that the Delphinus was hidden in the best place in all of their history. History? That"d be a high place. Dark, likewise. Ergo: a high place on the darkside of their moon."
"I"m a pie-eyed greepus," whispered Stetson.
Orne grinned, said: "You probably are ... sir."
THE END.
Contents
NEXT LOGICAL STEP.
by Ben Bova
Ordinarily the military least wants to have the others know the final details of their war plans. But, logically, there would be times--
"I don"t really see where this problem has anything to do with me," the CIA man said. "And, frankly, there are a lot of more important things I could be doing."
Ford, the physicist, glanced at General LeRoy. The general had that quizzical expression on his face, the look that meant he was about to do something decisive.
"Would you like to see the problem first-hand?" the general asked, innocently.
The CIA man took a quick look at his wrist.w.a.tch. "O.K., if it doesn"t take too long. It"s late enough already."
"It won"t take very long, will it, Ford?" the general said, getting out of his chair.
"Not very long," Ford agreed. "Only a lifetime."
The CIA man grunted as they went to the doorway and left the general"s office. Going down the dark, deserted hallway, their footsteps echoed hollowly.
"I can"t overemphasize the seriousness of the problem," General LeRoy said to the CIA man. "Eight ranking members of the General Staff have either resigned their commissions or gone straight to the violent ward after just one session with the computer."
The CIA man scowled. "Is this area Secure?"
General LeRoy"s face turned red. "This entire building is as Secure as any edifice in the Free World, mister. And it"s empty. We"re the only living people inside here at this hour. I"m not taking any chances."
"Just want to be sure."
"Perhaps if I explain the computer a little more," Ford said, changing the subject, "you"ll know what to expect."
"Good idea," said the man from CIA.