Latest / Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories / 🟡 Aliens (Full Audiobook) | Murray Leinster

Transcript

🟡 Aliens (Full Audiobook) | Murray Leinster · Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part one of the Aliens by Murray Leinster. This is
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer peace, visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Recording by Tabithat the Aliens by Murray Leinster, Part one.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: At zero four hours ten minute ship time, the Niccola
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: was well inside the Theta Gesol solar system. She had
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: previously secured excellent evidence that this was not the home
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of the Plumy civilization. There was no tuned radiation, there
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: was no evidence of interplanetary travel. Rockets would be more
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: than obvious, and a magnetronic drive had a highly characteristic
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: radiation pattern. Though the real purpose of the Nicola's voyage
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: would not be accomplished here, she wouldn't find out where
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: plums came from. There might, though, be one of those
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: singular conical hollow topped cairns sheltering silicon bronze plates which
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: constituted the evidence that Plumeys existed. The Niccola went someward
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: toward the inner planets to see such sch cairns had
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: been found on conspicuous landmarks on oxygen type planets over
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a range of some twelve hundred light years by the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: vegetation about them. Some were a century old on the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: same evidence. Others had been erected only months or weeks
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: or even days before a human space survey ship arrived
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to discover them, and the situation was unpromising. It wasn't
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: likely that the galaxy was big enough to hold two
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: races of rational beings capable of space travel. Back on
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: ancient Earth, the planet had been too small to hold
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: two races with tools and fire. Historically, that problem was
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: settled when Homo sapiens exterminated hormoneandertalis. It appeared that the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: same situation had arisen in space. There were humans and
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: there were plumies. Both had interstellar ships to humans. The
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: fact was alarming. The need for knowledge and the danger
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that plumies might no more first and thereby be able
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to exterminate humanity was appalling. Therefore, the Niccola she drove
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: on sunward she had left one from and out of planet.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Far behind, she had crossed the orbits of three others.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The last of these was a gas giant with innumerable
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: moonlights revolving about it. It was now some thirty millions
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of miles back and twenty to one side. The sun
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: ahead flared and flamed in emptiness against that expanse of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: tinted stars. John Batt worked steadily in the Nicholas radar room.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: He was one of those who hoped that the Plumies
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: would not prove to be the natural enemies of mankind.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Now it looked like this ship wouldn't find out in
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this solar system. There were plenty of other ships on
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the hunt. From here on it looked like routine to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the next unvisited family of planets. But meanwhile he worked
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: opposite him, Diane Holt worked as steadily, her dark head
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: bent intently over a radar graph in formation. The immediate
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: job was the completion of a map of the Metea
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: swarms following cometary orbits about this sun. They interlaced emptiness
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: with hazards to navigation, and nobody would try to drive
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: through a solar system with us such a map. Elsewhere
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: in the ship, everything was normal. The engine room was
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a place of stillness and peace, save for the almost
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: inaudible hum of the drive running at half a million
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: gas flux density. The skipper did whatever skippers do when
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: they are invisible to their subordinates, the weapons officer tained
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: thought appropriate thoughts. In the navigation room, the second officer
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: conscientiously glanced at each separate instrument at least once in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: each five minutes, and then carefully surveyed all the screens
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: showing space outside the ship. The stewards disposed of the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: debris of the last meal and began to get ready
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: for the next. In the crew's quarters, those off duty
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: read or worked at scrimshaw, or simply and contentedly loafed.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Diane handed over the transparent radar graph to be fitted
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: into the three dimensional map in the making. There's a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: lump of stuff here, she said, interestedly. It could be
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the comet that once followed this orbit, now so old
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: has lost all its gases, and isn't a comet any longer.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: At this intant, which was zero four hours twenty five
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: minute ship time, the alarm bell rang. It clang stridently
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: over Baird's head. Repeater gong sounded all through the ship,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and there was a scurrying and a closing of doors.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: The alarm gong could mean only one thing. It made
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: one's breath come faster or one's hair stand on end.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: According to temperament the skipper's face appeared on the direct
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: line screen from the navigation room. Plumies, He demanded harshly,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: mister Baird, Plumy's. Baird's hands were already flipping switches and
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: plugging the radar room apparatus into a new set up
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: as a contact, Sir, he said curtly, No, there was
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a contact. It's broken. Now something detected us. We picked
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: up a radar pulse one. The word one meant much.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: A radar system that could get adequate information from a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: single pulse was not the work of amateurs. It was
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the product of a very highly developed technology. Setting all
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: equipment to full globular scanning, Baird felt a certain crawling
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: sensation at the back of his li. He'd been mapping
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: within a narrow range above and below the line of
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: this system's ecliptic. A lot could have happened outside the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: area he'd had under long distance scanning, but seconds passed
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: they seemed like ears. The all globe scanning covered every
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: direction out from the Nicoler. Nothing appeared which had not
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: been reported before. The gas giant planet far behind, and
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the only in a one on this side of the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Sun would return their pulses only after minutes. Meanwhile, the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: radars reported very faithfully, but they only repeated previous reports.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: No new object within half a million miles, said Bed,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: after a suitable interval. Presently, he added, nothing new within
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: three quarter million miles. Then nothing new within a million miles,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the skipper said, bitingly. Then you'd better check on objects
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: that are not new. He turned aside, and his voice
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: came more faintly as he spoke into another microphone. Mister Taine,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: arm all rockets and have your tube crew stand by
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in combat readiness. Engine room prepared dry for emergency maneuvers,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: damage control parties, put on pressure suits and take combat
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: posts with equipment. His voice rose again in volume. Mister Baird,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: how about observed objects, Diane murmured. Baird said, briefly, only
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: one suspicious object, sir, and that shouldn't be suspicious. We
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: are sending an information beam at something we'd classed as
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a burnt out comet. Pulse going out now, sir. Diane
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: had the distant information transmitter aimed at what she had
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: said might be a dead comet. Baird pressed the button.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: An extraordinary complex of information seeking frequencies and forms sprang
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: into being, and leaped across emptiness. There were microwaves of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: strictly standard amplitude for measurement standards, there were frequencies of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: other values which would be selectively absorbed by this material,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and that there were laterally and circularly polarized beams. When
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: they bounced back, they would bring a surprising amount of
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: information they returned. They did bring back news. The thing
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: that had registered as a larger lump in a meteaswarm
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: was not a meteor at all. It returned four different
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: frequencies with a relative intensity pattern which said that they'd
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: been reflected by bronze, probably silicon bronze. The polarized beams
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: came back depolarized, of course, but with phase changes which
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: said the reflector had a rounded regular form. There was
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: a smooth hull of silicon bronze out yonder there was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: other data. It will be a plumy ship, Sir said,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: bed very steadily. At a guess, they picked up our
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: mapping beam and shot a single pulsatus to find out
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: who and what we were for another guess. By now
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: they've picked up and analyzed our information beam and know
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: what we've found out about them. The skipper scowled, how
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: many of them? He demanded, Have we run into a fleet,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I'll check, sir, said bad. We picked up no tuned
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: radiation from out a space sir. But it could be
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that they picked us up when we came out of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: overdrive and stopped all their transmissions until they had us
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: in a trap. Find out how many there are? Barked
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the skipper, make it quick, report additional data. Instantly his
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: screen clicked off. Diane, more than a little pale, worked
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: swiftly to plug the radar room equipment into a highly
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: specialized pattern. The Niccola was very well equipped radar wise.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: She had been a Type G eight survey ship, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: on her last stay in Port, she had been rebuilt
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: specially to hunt for and make contact with plumies since
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the discovery of their existence. That was the most urgent
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: business of the space survey. It might well be the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: most important business of the human race, on which its
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: survival or destruction would depend. Other remodeled ships had gone
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: up before the Niccola, and others would follow until the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: problem was solved. Meanwhile, the Nicolas twenty four rocket tubes
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and stepped up drive and computer type radar system equipped
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: her for Plumy hunting as well as any human ship
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: could be still if she had been lured deep into
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the home system of the Plumies, the prospects were not good.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: The new set up began its operation instantly the last
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: contact closed. The three dimensional map served as a matrix
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to control it. The information beam projector swung and flung
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: out its bundle of oscillations. It swung and flashed, and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: swung and flashed. It had to examine every relatively nearby
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: object for a constitution of silicon bronze and a rounded shape.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: The nearest objects had to be examined first. Speed was essential,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: but three dimensional scanning takes time, even at some hundreds
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of pulses per minute. Nevertheless, the information came in. No
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: other silicon bronze object within a quarter million miles, within
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: half a million, a million, a million and a half
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: two million bed called a navigation room, looks like a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: single Plumy ship, sir, he reported, at least as one
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: ship which is nearest by a very long way. HA
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: grunted the skipper. Then we'll pay him a visit. Keep
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: an open line, mister bad His voice changed, mister Taine,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: report here at once to land tactics. Bhaer shook his
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: head to himself. The Nicolas orders were to make contact
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: without discovery. If such a thing were possible. The ideal
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: would be a Plumy ship or the Plumy civilization itself
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: located and subject to complete and overwhelming envelopment by human
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: ships before the Plumies knew they'd been discovered, and this
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: would be the human ideal. Because humans have always had
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to consider that a stranger might be hostile until it
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: proven otherwise, such a viewpoint would not be optimism but caution.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Yet caution was necessary. It was because the survey brass
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: felt the need to prepare for every unfavorable eventuality that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Tain had been chosen as weapons officer of the Niccola.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: His choice had been deliberate because he was a xenophobe.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: He had been a problem personality all his life. He
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: had a seemingly congenital fear and hatred of strangers, which
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: in mild cases is common enough, but Tain could not
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be cured without a complete breakdown of personality. He could
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: not serve on a ship with the multiracial crew because
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: he was invincibly suspicious of and hostile too all but
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: his own small breed, yet he seemed ideal for weapons
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: officer on the Niccola, provided he never commanded the ship,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: because if the Plumies were hostile, a well adjusted normal
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: man would never think as much like them as attain
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: he was capable of the kind of thinking Plums might
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: practice if they were xenophobes themselves. But to bed so
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: extreme a precaution as an own psychopathic condition in an
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: officer was less than wholly justified. It was by no
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: means certain that the Plumies would instinctively be hostile. Suspicious, yes, cautious, certainly,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: But the only fact known about the Plumy civilization came
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: from the cairns and silicon bronze inscribed tablets they'd left
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: on oxygen type worlds over a twelve hundred light year
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: range in space, And the only thing to be deduced
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: about the Plumies themselves came from the decorative formalized symbols
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: like feathery plumes, which were found on all their bronze tablets.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: The name Plumies came from that symbol. Now, though Taine
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: was called to the navigation room to confer on tactics,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the Nicola swerved and drove toward the object Bird identified
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: as a plumy ship. This was at zero five hours
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: ten minute ship time. The human ship had a definite velocity.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Some would, of course, the plumy ship had been concealed
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: by the medious form of a totally unknown comet. It
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: was an excellent way to avoid observation. On the other hand,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the Niccola had been mapping, which was bound to attract attention.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Now each ship knew of the other's existence. Since the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Niccola had been detected, she had to carry out orders
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and attempt to contact to gather information. Baird verified that
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the Niccola's course was exact for interception at her full
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: drive speed. He said, in a flat voice, I wonder
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: how the Plumies will interpret this change. Of course, they
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: know we're aware they're not a meteorite, but charging at
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: them without even trying to communicate could look ominous. We
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: could be stupid or too arrogant to think of anything
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: but a fight. He pressed the skipper's call and said evenly, Sir,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I request permission to attempt to communicate with the plumy ship.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Were ordered to try to make friends if we know
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: we've been spotted. Tane had evidently just reached the navigation room.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: His voice snapped from the speaker. I advise against that, sir.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: No use letting them guess our level of technology, Baird
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: said coldly. I've got a good idea already. We've beam
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: them for data. There was silence, with only the faint
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: humming sound, which was natural in the ship in motion.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: It would be deadly to the nerves if there were
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: absolute silence. The skipper grumbled requests and advice. Damn it,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: mister Baird. You might wait for orders, but I was
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: about to ask you to try to make contact through signals.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Do so. His speaker clicked off. Baird said, it's in
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: our lapse, Diane, and yet we have to follow orders.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Send the first roll. Diane had a tape threaded into
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a transmitter. It gan to unroll through a pick up head.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: She put on headphones. The tape began to transmit toward
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the plumy Back at base. It had been reasoned that
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a pattern of clickings, plainly artificial and plainly stating facts
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: known to both races, would be the most reasonable way
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to attempt to open contact. The tape sent a series
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: of cardinal numbers one to five, then an addition table
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: from one plus one to five plus five, then a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: multiplication table up to five times five. It was not
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: startlingly intellectual information to be sent out in tiny clicks
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: ranging up and down the radio spectrum, but it was orders.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Baird sat with compressed lips. Diane listened for a repetition
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of any of the transmitted signals sent back by the Plumy.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: The speakers about the radar room murmured the orders given
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: through all the ship. Radar had to be informed of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: all orders and activity so it could check their results
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: outside the ship. So Baird heard the orders for the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: engine room to be sealed up and the duty force
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to get into pressure suits in case the next a
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: fort and was huled. Damage control parties reported themselves on
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: posts in suits with equipment ready. Then Tane's voice snapped
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: rocket crew's arm even numbered rockets with chemical explosive warheads
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: leave odd numbered rockets armed with atomic's report back. Diane
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: strained her ears for possible retransmission of the Nicholas signals,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: which would indicate the Plumy's willingness to try conversation, but
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: she suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the radio
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: graph instrument. It repeated the positioning of dots, which were
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: stray meteoric matter in the space between worlds. In this system,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: what had been a spot the Plumy ship was now
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: a line of dots. Baird pressed the button radar reporting.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: He said curtly, the plumy ship is heading for us.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I'll have relative velocity in ten seconds. He heard the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: skippers swear. Ten seconds later, the Doppler measurement became possible.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: It said the Plumy plunged toward the Niccoler at miles
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: per second. In half a minute, it was tens of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: miles per second. There was no retransmission of signals. The
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Plumy ship had found itself discovered. Apparently, it considered itself attact.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: It flung itself into a headlong dash for the Nicola.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Time passed interminable time. The sun flared and flamed and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: rised in emptiness. The great gas giant planet rolled through
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: space in splendid state, its moonlit, spinning gracefully about its bulk.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: The oxygen atmosphere. Planet to sunward was visible only as
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a crescent, but the mottlings on its lighted part changed
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: as it revolved. Seas and islands and continents, receiving the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: sunlight as it turned Metea swarms, so dense an appearance
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: on a radar screen, yet so tenuous in reality, floated
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in their appointed orbits with a seeming vast leisure. The
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: feel of slowness was actually the result of distance. Men
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: have always acted upon things close by. Battles have always
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: been fought within I range, anyhow, But it was actually
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: zero six hours thirty five minutes ship time before the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: two spacecrafts sighted each other, more than two hours after
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: they plunged towards the rendezvous. The Plumy ship was a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: bright golden dot. At first it decelerated swiftly. In minutes
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: it was a rounded end on disk. Then it swerved
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: lightly and presented an elliptical broadside to the Nekela. The
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Nicoler was in full deceleration too. By then. The two
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: ships came very nearly to a stop with relation to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: each other, when they were hardly twenty miles apart, which
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: meant great daring on both sides. Bed heard the skipper grumbling.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Damped Cocky, He roared suddenly, mister Bed, have you made
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: out in communicating with them? Not at all, sir, said
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Baird grimly. They don't reply. He knew from Diane's expression
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that there was no sound in the headphones except the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: frying noise or main sequence stars give out, and the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: infrequent thumping noises that come from gas giants planet's lower atmospheres,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and the Jansky radiation hits which comes from everywhere. The
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: skipper swore. The plumy ship lay broadside two, less than
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a score of miles away. It shone in the sunlight.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It acted with extraordinary confidence. It was as if it
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: dared the nickeler to open fire. End of Part one,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Part two of The Aliens. This LibriVox recording is in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the public domain. The Aliens by Murray Leinster, Part two.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Tane's voice came out of a speaker, harsh and angry,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: even numbered tubes prepared to fire on command. Nothing happened.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: The two ships floated sunward together, neither approaching nor retreating,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: but with every second the need for action of some
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: sort increased. Mister Baird barked the skipper, this is ridiculous.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: There must be some way to communicate. We can't sit
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: here glaring at each other forever. Raise them, get some
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: sort of acknowledgment. I'm trying, said Baird bitterly, according to orders,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: but he disagreed with those orders. It was official theory
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: that arithmetic values repeated in proper order would be the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: way to open conversation. The assumption was that any rational
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: creature would grasp the idea that orderly signals were rational
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: attempts to open communication. But it had occurred to bear
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that a Plumy might not see this point. Perception of
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: order is not necessarily perception of information. In fact, quite
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the contrary. A message is a disturbance of order. A
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: microphone does not transmit a message when it sends an
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: unvarying tone. A message has to be unpredictable, or it
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: conveys no message. Orderly clicks, even if overheard, might seem
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to Plumy, is the result of methodically operating machinery. A
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: race capable of interstellar flight was not likely to be
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: interested or thrilled by exercises a human child goes through
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: in kindergarten. They simply wouldn't seem meaningful at all. But
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: before he could ask permission to attempt to make talk
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: in a more sophisticated fashion, voices exclaimed all over the ship.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: They came blurringly to the loud speakers. Look at that,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: what's he do? Spinning like from every place where there
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: was a vision plate on the nicola. Men watched the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: plumy ship and babbled. This was at zero six hours
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: fifty minutes ship time. The elliptical golden object darted into
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: swift and eccentric motion. Lacking an object of known size
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: for comparison, there was no scale. The golden ship might
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: have been the size of an autumn leaf, and in
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: fact its maneuvers suggested the heedless tumblings and scurrying of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: falling foliage. It fluttered in swift turns and somersaults and spinnings.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: There were weavings, like the purposeful feints of boxes not
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: yet come to battle. There were indescribably graceful swoops and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: loops and curving dashes, like some preposterous dance in emptiness.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Tane's voice crashed out of a speaker. All even numbered rockets.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: He barked fire. The skipper roared a countermand but too late,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the crunching, grunting sound of rockets leaving their launching tubes
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: came before his first syllable was complete. Then there was
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: silence while the skipper gathered breath from a masterpiece of profanity.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: But tain snapped that dance was a sneak up. The
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Plumy came four miles nearer while we watched. Bed jerked
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: his eyes from watching the Plumy. He looked at the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: master radar. It was faintly blurred with the fading lines
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of past gyrations. But the golden ship was much nearer
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the Niccola than it had been radar reporting, said Baird, seekishly,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: mister Taine is correct. The Plumy ship did approach us
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: while it danced. Taine's voice snarled, reload even numbers with
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: chemical explosive warheads, then remove atomics from odd numbers and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: replace with chemicals. The range is too short for atomics.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Baird felt curiously divided in his own mind. He disliked
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Taine very much. Taine was arrogant and suspicious and intolerant,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: even on the Niccoler. But tain had been right twice.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Now the Plumy ship had crept closer by pure trickery,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and it was right to remove atomic warheads from the rockets.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: They had a pure blast radius of ten miles to
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: destroy the Plumy ship within twice that would endanger the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Nicola and leave nothing of the Plumy to examine afterward.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: The Plumy ship must have seen the rocket flares, but
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it continued to dance, coming nearer and ever nearer in
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: seemingly heedless and purposeless plungings and spinnings in star speckled space.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: But suddenly there were racing, rushing trails of swirling vapor.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Half the Nickeola's port broadside plunged toward the Golden Ship.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: The fraction of a second later, the starboard half dozen
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: chemical explosive rockets swung furiously around the ship's hull and
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: streaked after their brothers. They moved in utterly silent, straight lined,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: ravening ferocity toward their target, bare thought irrelevantly of the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: vapor trails of an atmosphere liner in the planet's supper air.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: The ruled line straightness of the first six rockets course
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: abruptly broke. One of them veered crazily out of control.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It shifted to an almost right angled course. A second
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: swung wildly to the left, A third, and fourth, and
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: fifth the sixth of the first line of rockets made
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a great sweeping turn and came hurtling back toward the Niccola.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: It was like a nightmare. Lunatic, erratic lines of sunlit
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: vapor eeled before the background of all the stars in creation.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Then the second half dozen rockets broke ranks, as insanely
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and near irremediably as the first tane's voice screamed out
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of a speaker, hysterical with fury. Detonate Detonate They've taken
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: over the rockets, and a throwing em back at us.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Detonate all rockets. The heavens seemed streaked and laced with
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: lines of expanding smoke, But now one plunging line erupted
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: at its tip, A swelling globe of smoke marked its end.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Another blew up, and another. The Nicolas rockets faithfully blew
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: themselves to bits on command from the Niccola's own weapons control.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: There was nothing else to be done with them. They'd
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: been taken over in flight, they'd been turned and headed
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: back toward their source. They'd have blasted the Nicola to bits,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: but for their premature explosions. There was a peculiar, stunned
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: hush all through the Niccola. The only sound that came
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: out of any speaker in the radar room. Was Tane's voice,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: high pitched and raging, mouthing unspeakable hatred of the Plumies,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: whom no human being had yet seen. Baird sat tense
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: in the frustrated and desperate composure of the man who
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: can only be of use while he is sitting still
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and keeping his head. The vision screen was now a
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: blur of writhing mist, lighted by the sun and torn
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: at by emptiness. There was luminosity where the ships had
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: encountered each other. It was sunshine upon thin smoke. It
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: was like the insanely enlarging head of a newborn comet,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: whose tail would be formed presently by light pressure. The
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Plumy ship was almost invisible behind the insubstantial stuff, but
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Baird regarded his radar screens. Microwaves penetrated the mist of
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: rapidly ironizing gases radart and navigation. He said, sharply, the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: plumy ship is still approaching, dancing as before. The skipper said,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: with enormous calm, any other plumy ships, mister Baird, Diane interposed,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: no sign anywhere I've been watching. This seems to be
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the only ship within radar range. We've time to settle
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: with it, then said the skipper, mister Taine. The Plumy
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: ship is still approaching. Bird found himself hating the Plumies.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It was not only that human kind was showing up
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: rather badly at the moment. It was that the Plumy
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: ship had refused contact and forced to fight. It was
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that if the Niccoller were destroyed, the Plumy would carry
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: news of the existence of humanity and of the tactics
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: which work to defeat them. The Plumies could prepare an
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: irresistible fleet. Humanity could be doomed. But he overheard himself
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: saying bitterly, I wish I'd known this was coming, Diane,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have resolved to be strictly official only till
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: we got back to base. Her eyes widened. She looked startled,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: then she softened. If if you mean that, I wish
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: so too. It looks like they've got us, he admitted, unhappily.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: If they can take our rockets away from us. Then
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: his voice stopped. He said, hold everything and pressed the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: navigation room button. He snapped read out a navigation it
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: appears to take the Plumies several seconds. To take over
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: a rocket, they have to aim something a presser or
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: tractor beam most likely, and pick off each rocket separately.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Nearly forty seconds was consumed in taking over all twelve
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of our rockets at short arrange. With theirs time available,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a rocket might get through the skipper, swore briefly. Then,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: mister Taine, when the plumies are near enough, our rockets
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: may strike before they can be taken over. You follow.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Baird heard tain shrill voiced acknowledgment in the form of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: practically chattered orders to his rocket tube crews. Bair had listened,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: checking the orders against what the situation was as the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: radars saw it. Taine's voice was almost inhuman, so filled
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: with frantic rage that it cracked as he spoke. But
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the problem at hand was the fulfillment of all his
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: psychopathic urges. He commanded the starboard side rocket battery to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: await special orders. Meanwhile, the port side battery would fire
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: two rockets on widely divergent courses, curving to join at
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the plumy ship. They'd be seized. They were to be detonated,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and another port side rocket fired instantly, followed by a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: second hidden in the rocket trail the first would leave behind,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: then the starboard side. I'm afraid Tain's are only chance,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: said Baird reluctantly. If he wins, we'll have time to
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: talk as people do who like each other. If it
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't work, Diane said quietly, anyhow, I'm glad you wanted
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: me to know. I wanted you to know too. She
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: smiled at him yearningly. There was the crump crump of
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: two rockets going out together. Then the radar told what happened.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: The Plumy ship was no more than six miles away,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: dancing somehow deftly in the light of a yellow sun,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: with all the cosmos spread out as shining pin points
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: of colored light behind it. The radar reported the dash
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and the death of the two rockets. After their struggle
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: with invisible things that gripped them. They died when they
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: headed reluctantly back to the Niccola and detonated two miles
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: from their parent ship. The skipper's voice came, mister Taine,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: after your nex salvo, I shall head for the Plumy
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: at full drive to cut down the distance in the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: time they have to work in be ready. The rocket
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: tubes went crump, crump again. With the fifth of a
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: second interval, the radar showed two tiny specks speeding through
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: space toward the weaving, shifting speck, which was the Plumy
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Outside in emptiness, there was a filmy haze. It was
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the rocket fumes in explosive gases, spreading with incredible speed.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: It was thin as gossama. The Plumy ship undoubtedly spotted
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the rockets, but it did not try to turn them.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Some house seized them and deflected them and darted past
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: them toward the Niccoler. They see the trick, said Diane,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: dry throated. If they can get in close enough, they
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: can turn it against us. There were noises inside the Niccoler.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Now taine fairly howled in order. There were yells of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: defiance and excitement. There were more of those inadequate noises
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: as rockets went out. Every tube on the starboard side
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: emptied itself in a series of savage grunts, and the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Nicola's magnetronic drive roared at full flux density. The two
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: ships were less than a mile apart when the Niccoler
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: let go her full double broadside of missiles, and then
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it seemed that the Plumy ship was doomed. There were
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: simply too many rockets to be seized and handled before
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: at least one struck. But there was a new condition.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: The Plumy ship weaved and dodged its way through them.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: The new condition was that the rockets were just beginning
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: their run. They had not achieved the terrific velocity they
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: would accumulate in ten miles of no gravity. They were
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: new launched logi clumsy, not the st seeking flashing death
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and destruction they would become with thirty more seconds of acceleration.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So the Plumy Ship dodged them with a skill and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: daring past belief, with an incredible agility, It got inside them,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: nearer to the nickeler than they, and then it hurled
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: itself at the human ship, as if bent upon a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: suicidal crash which would destroy both ships together. But bed
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: in the radar room, and the skippery navigation knew that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it would plunge brilliantly past at the last instant, And
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: then they knew that it would not, because very suddenly,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and very abruptly, there was something the matter with the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Plumy ship. The life went out of it. It ceased
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to accelerate or decelerate, it ceased to steer. It began
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to turn slowly on an axis somewhere amid ships. Its
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: nose swung to one side, with no change in the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: direction of its motion. It floated onward. It was broadside
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to its line of travel. It continued to turn. It
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: hurtled stern first toward the Niccoler. It did not swerve,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It did not dance. It was a lifeless hulk, a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: derelict in space, and it would hit the Nickeler amidships
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: with no possible result but destruction for both vessels. The
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Nicolas skipper bellowed orders, as if shouting would somehow give
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the more effect. The magnetronic drive roared. He demanded a
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: miracle of it, and he almost got one. The drive
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: strained its thrust members, it hopelessly overloaded its coils. The
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Nicola's cobalt steel hull became more than saturated with the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: dry field, and it leapt madly upon an evasion course,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and it very nearly got away. It was swinging clear
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: when the plumy ship drifted within fathoms. It was turning
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: aside when the plumy ship was within yards, and it
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was almost safe when the golden hull of the plumy,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: shadowed now by the Niccola itself barely scraped a side keel.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: There was a touch, seemingly deliberate and gentle, but the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Niccola shuddered horribly. Then the vision screens flared from such
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: a light as might herald the crack of doom. There
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: was a brightness greater than the brilliance of the s
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and then there was a wrenching, heaving shock. Then there
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: was blackness. Bed was flung across the radar room and
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Diane cried out, and he careened against a wall and
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: hurt glass shatter. He called Diane. He clutched crazily at anything,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and called her name again. The Nicholas internal gravity was
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: cut off, and his head spun, and he heard collision
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: doors closing everywhere. But before they closed completely he heard the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: rasping sound of giant arks sleeping in the engine room.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Then there was silence. Diane cried bed fiercely. Diane, I'm here,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: she panted. I'm I'm de sye, but I think I'm
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: all right. The battery powered emergency light came on. It
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: was faint, but he saw her clinging to a bank
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: of instruments where she had been thrown by the collision.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: He moved to go to her and found himself floating
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: in mid air. But he drifted to a side wall
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: and worked his way to her. She clung to him, shivering.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I I think she said, unsteadily, that we're going to die,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: aren't we. We'll see, he told her. Hold on to me.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Guided by the emergency light, he scrambled to the bank
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: of communicator buttons. What had been the floor was now
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a side wall. He climbed it and thumbed the navigation
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: room switch. Radar room reporting, he said curtly, power out,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: gravity off, no reports from outside from power failure, no
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: great physical damage. He began to hear other voices. There
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: had never been an actual space collision in the memory
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of man. But reports came crisply, and the cut in
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: speakers in the radar room repeated them. Ship gravity was
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: out all over the ship. Emergency lights were functioning, and
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: were all the lights there were. There was a slight
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: unexplained gravity drift towards what had been the ship's port side,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: but damage control reported no loss of pressure in the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: nicolas in a hull, though four areas between inner and
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: outer hulls had lost air pressure to space. Mister Bair
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: rasped the skipper where blind, forget everything else, and givers
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: eyes to see with We'll try battery power to the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: vision plates. Bared told Diane no full resolution, but better
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: than nothing. They worked together feverishly. They were dizzy. Something
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: close to nausea came upon them from pure giddiness. What
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: had been the floor was now a wall, and they
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: had to climb to reach the instruments that had been
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: on a wall and now were on the ceiling. But
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: their weight was answers only. Baird said abruptly, I know
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: what's the matter. We're spinning. The whole ship's spinning. That's
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: why we're gidey, and why we have even a trace
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: of weight, some trifugal force ready for the current. There
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: was a tiny click and the battery light dimmed, but
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a vision screen lighted faintly. The stars it showed were
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: moving specks of light. The sun passed deliberately across the screen.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Baird switched to other outside scanners. There was power for
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: only one's screen at a time, but he saw the
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: starkly impossible. He pressed the navigation room button. Rad Our
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Room reporting he said urgently. The Plumy ship is fast
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: to us, in contact with our huwl. Both ships are
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: spinning together. He was trying yet other scanners as he spoke,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and now he said, got it. There are no lines
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: connecting us to the Plumy. But it looks yes that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: flash when the ships came together with a flash over
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: of high potential, we're welded to them along twenty feet
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: of our hull. The skipper, damn nation, any sign of
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: intention to board us? Not yet, Sir Taine burst in
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: his voice, high pitched and thick with hatred. Damage control parties, attention,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Arm yourselves and assemble at starboard airlock. Rocket crews, get
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: into suits and prepare to board this Plumy. Guant Demmand
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: bellowed the skipper from the speaker beside Bar's ear. Those
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: orders are canceled. Damn it. If we were successfully boarded,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: we'd blow ourselves to bits. Those are our orders. Do
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: you think the Plumies will let their ship be taken?
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: And wouldn't we blow up with them? Mister Taine, you
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: will take no offensive action without specific orders. Defensive action
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: is another matter, mister Baird. I consider this welding business
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: pure accident, no one would be mad enough to plant
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you watch the plumies and keep me informed. His voice ceased,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and Bird had again the frustrating duty of remaining still
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: and keeping his head while other men engaged in physical activity.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: He helped Diane to a chair which was fastened to
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: the floor, which was now a wall, and she wedged
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: herself fast and began a review of what each of
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the outside scanners reported. Baird called for more batteries. Power
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: for the radar and visions was more important than anything else.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Just then if there were more plumy ships. Electricians half floated,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: half dragged extra batteries to the radar room. Baird hooked
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: them in the universe outside the ship again appeared filled
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: with the brilliantly colored dots of light, which were the stars.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: More satisfying, the globe scanners again reported no new objects anywhere,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: nothing new within a quarter million miles. A half million later,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Bed reported, radars report no strange objects within a million
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: miles of the Nicola, sir, except the ship where welded to.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: But you're doing very well. However, microphones say there is
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: movement inside the plumy. Diane beckoned for Bed's attention to
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: a screen which Bed had examined before. Now he stiffened
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and motioned for her to report. We've a scanner, Sir,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: said Diane, which faces what looks like a port on
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the Plumy ship. There's a figure at the port. I
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: can't make out details, but it's making motions facing us.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Give me the picture, snapped the skipper. Diane obeyed. It
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: was the merest flip of a switch. Then her eyes
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: went back to the spherical sweep scanners, which reported the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: bearing and distance of every solid object within their range.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: She set up two instruments which would measure the angle,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: bearing and distance of the two planets now on the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: side of the Sun, the gas Giant and the oxygen
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: world to sunward. Their orbital speeds and distances were known.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: The position, coarse and speed of the Niccola could be
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: computed from any two observations on them. End of Part two,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Part three of The Aliens. This LibriVox recording is in
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: the public domain. The Aliens by Murray Leinster. Part three.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Diane had returned to the utterly necessary routine of the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: radar room, which was the nerve center of the ship,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: gathering all information needed for navigation in space. The fact
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: that there had been a collision, that the Nicolas engines
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: were melted to unlovely scrap, that the Plumy ship was
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: now welded irremovably to a side keel, and that a
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Plumy was signaling to humans while both ships went spinning
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: through space towards an unknown destination. These things did not
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: affect the obligations of the radar room. Baird got other
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: images of the Plumy ship into sharp focus, so near
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the scanners required adjustment for precision. Take a look at this,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: he said wryly. She looked. The view was of the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Plumy as welded fast to the Nickela. The welding was
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: itself an extraordinary result of the Plumiest battle tactics. Tractor
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: and presser beams were known to me and of course,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: but human beings used them ony under very special conditions.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Their operation involved the building up of terrific static charges.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Unless a tractor beam generator could be grounded to the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: object it was to pull, it tended to emit lightning
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: bolts at unpredictable intervals and in entirely random directions, so
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: men didn't use them obviously, the Plumy std They'd handled
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the Nicolas rockets with beams which charged the Golden ship
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: to billions of vaults, and when the silicon bronze Plumy
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Ship touched the cobalt steel Niccola, why that charge had
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: to be shared? It must have been the most spectacular
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of all artificial electric flames. Part of the Nicola's hull
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: was vaporized, and undoubtedly part of the Plumy, but the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: unvaporized surfaces were molten and in contact, and they stuck
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: for a good twenty feet. The two ships were united
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: by the most perfect of vacuum welds. The wholly dissimilar
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: hulls formed a space catamaran with a sort of valley
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: between their bulks, spinning deliberately as the united ships did.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the sun shone brightly into that valley, and sometimes
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: it was filled with the blackness of the pit. While
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Diane looked, a round door revolved in the side of
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the Plumy ship. As Diane caught her breath, bed reported crisply.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: At his first words, Taine burst into raging commands for
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: men to follow him through the Niccola's air lock and fight.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: A boarding party of plums in empty space. The skipper
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: very savagely ordered him to be quiet. Only one figure
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: has come out, reported Baird. The skipper watched on a
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: vision plate, but bed reported so that all the Nicholas
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: company would know. It's small, less than five feet. I'll
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: see better in a moment. Sunlight smote down the valley
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: between the ships. It's wearing a pressure suit. It seems
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to be the same mysterial as the ship. It walks
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: on two legs, as we do. It has two arms
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: or something very similar. The helmet of the suit is
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: very high. It looks like the armor Knights used to
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: fight in. It's making its way to our air lock.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: It doesn't use magnetic soled shoes. It's holding on to
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: lines threaded along the other ship's hull. The skipper said curtly,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: mister Baird, I hadn't noticed the absence of magnetic shoes.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: You seem to have an eye for important items. Report
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: to the airlock in person. Leave Lieutenant Halt to keep
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: an eye on outside objects. Quickly, mister bird Bad laid
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: his hand on Diane's shoulder. She smiled at him. I'll watch,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: she promised. He went out of the radar room walking
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: on what had been a side walk. The giddiness and
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: dizziness of continued rotation was growing less now. He was
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: getting used to it, but the nicolas seemed strange, indeed,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: with the standard up and down and earth gravity replaced
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: by a vertical which was all askew, and a weight
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: of ounces instead of a hundred and seventy pounds. He
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: reached the airlock just as the skipper arrived. There were
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: others there, armed and in pressure suits. The skipper glared
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: about him. I'm in command here, he said, very grimly. Indeed,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: mister Taine has a special funk, but I am in command.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: We in. The creatures on the plumy ship are in
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: a very serious fix. One of them apparently means to
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: come on board. There will be no hostility, no sneering,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: no threatening gestures. This is a parley. You'll be careful,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: but you will not be trigger happy. He glared around again.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Just as a metallic wrapping came upon the nickeler's airlock door.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: The skipper nodded let him in the lock. Mister baird
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Bird obeyed. The humming of the unlocking system sounded. There
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: were clankings the outer air lock closed. There was a
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: faint whistling as air went in. The skipper nodded again,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: bird opened the inner door. It was zero eight hours
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: ten minutes ship time. The Plumy stepped confidently out into
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the topsy turvy corridors of the Nickeler. He was about
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the size of a ten year old human boy, and
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: features which were definitely not grotesque showed through the clear
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: plastic of his helmet. His pressure suit was engineering wise
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: a very clean job. His whole appearance was pre possessing.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: When he spoke, very clear and quite high sounds soprano
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: sounds came from a small speaker unit to his shoulder.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: For us to talk, said the skipper, heavily his pure nonsense.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: But I take it you've something to say. The Plumy
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: gazed about with an air of lively curiosity. Then he
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: drew out a flat pad with a white surface and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: sketched swiftly. He offered it to the Nicolas skipper. We
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: want this on record, he growled, staring about. Diane's voice
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: said capably from a speaker somewhere near by, Sir, there's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a scan of for inspection of objects brought aboard. Hold
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: the plate flat and I'll have a photograph, right, the
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: skipper said curtly to the plumy, you've drawn our two
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: ships linked as they are. What have you to say
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: about it? He handed back the plate. The plumy pressed
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: a stud and it was blank again. He sketched and
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: offered it once more, um said the skipper. You can't
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: use your drive while we're glued together. Eh. Well, the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: plume reached up and added lines to the drawing, so
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: rumbled the skipper, inspecting the additions. You say it's up
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to us to use our drive for both ships, he
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: growled approvingly. You consider there's a truce you must because
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: we're both in the same fix, and not a nice
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: one either. True enough, we can't fight each other without
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: committing suicide now, but we haven't any drive left. We're
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: a derelict. How am I going to say that? If
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I decide to bed could see the lines on the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: plate from the angle at which the skipper held it.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: He said, Sir, we've been mapping up in the radar room.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Those last lines are map co ordinates a separate sketch. Sir,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I think he's saying that the two ships together are
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: on a falling course. Toward the sun. That we have
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to do something or both vessels will fall into it.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: We should be able to check this, Sir, Ha growled
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: the skipper. That's all we need, absolutely all we need
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: to come here to get into a crazy fight, have
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: our drive melt to scrap, get crazily welded to a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: plumy ship, and then for both of us to fry together.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: We don't need anything more than that. Dion's voice came
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: on the speaker. Sir, the last radar fixes on the
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: planets in range. Give us a course directly toward the sun.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I'll repeat the observations, the skipper growled. Taine thrust himself forward.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: He snarled, why doesn't this plumy take off its helmet?
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: It lands on oxygen planets? Does it think it's too
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: good to breathe our air? Baird caught the Plumy's eye.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: He made a gesture suggesting the removal of the space helmet.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: The Plumy gestured in return to a tiny vent in
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the suit. He opened something and gas whistled out. He
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: cut it off. The question of why he didn't open
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: or remove his helmet was answered the atmosphere he breathed
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: would not do men any good, nor would theirs do
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: him any good either. Taine said, suspiciously, how do we
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: know he's breathing the stuff he let out? Then this
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: creature isn't human. It's got no right to attack humans.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Now it's trying to trick us. Voice changed to a snarl.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: We'd better wring its neck teach its kind a lesson,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: the skipper roared at him. Be quiet. Our ship is
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a wreck. We have to consider the facts. We and
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: these plumies are in a fix together, and we have
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: to get out of it before we start to teach
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: anybody anything. He glared at Taine. Then he said heavily,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: mister Baird, you seem to notice things. Take this plumy
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: over the ship. Show him our drive melted down, so
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: he'll realize we can't possibly tow his ship into an orbit.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: He knows that we're armed and that we can't handle
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: our war heads at this range, so we can't fool
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: each other. We might as well be frank, but you
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: will take full note of his reactions, mister Baird. Baird advanced,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: and the skipper made a gesture. The plumy regarded Bed
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: with interested eyes, and Baird led the way for a
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: tour of the Niccoler. It was confusing even to him,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: with right hand converted to up and left handed down
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: and sideways now almost vertical. On the way, the Plumy
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: made more clear flute like suns and more gestures. Baird answered,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: our gravity pull was that way, he explained, and things
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: fell so fast. He grasped a hand rail and demonstrated
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: the speed with which things fell in normal ship gravity.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: He used a pocket communicator for the falling weight. It
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: was singularly easy to say some things, even highly technical ones,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: because they'd be what the Plumy would want to know,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But quite commonplace things would be very difficult to convey.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Dian's voice came out of the communicator. There are no
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: novelties outside, she said quietly. It looks like this is
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the only Plumy ship anywhere around. It could have been
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: exploring like us. Maybe it was looking for the people
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: who put up space survey markers, maybe, agreed Baird, using
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the communicator. Is that stuff about falling into the sun? Correct?
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: It seems so, said Diane composedly. I'm checking again. So
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: far the best course I can get means we grazed
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the Sun's photosphere in fourteen days six hours, allowing for
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: acceleration by the Sun's gravity. And you and I, said
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Baird ryly have been acting as professional associates only when
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: don't say it, said Diane shakily. It's terrible. He put
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the communicator back in his pocket. The plumy had watched him.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: He had a peculiarly gallant air, this small figure in
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: golden space armor with its high crested helmet. They reached
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the engine room and there was the giant drive shaft
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: of the Nicoler, once wrapped with yard thick coils, which
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: could induce an incredible density of magnetic flux in the metal.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Even the return magnetic field through the ship's cobalt steel
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: hull was many times higher than saturation. Now the coils
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: were sagging, mostly melted. There were places where re solidified
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: metals smoked noisomely against non metallic floor or wall covering.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Engineers labored doggedly in the trivial gravity to clean up
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the mess. It's past repair, said Baird to the ship's
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: first engineer. It's junk, said that individual duly give us
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: six months and a place to set up a wire
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: drawing mill. And an insulator synthesizer, and we could rebuild it,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: but nothing less will be any good. The Plumy stared
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: at the drive. He examined the shaft from every angle.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: He inspected them melted and partly melted and merely burned
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: out sections of the drive coils. He was plainly unable
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: to understand in any fashion the principle of the magnetronic drive.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Bed was tempted to try to explain, because there was
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: surely no secret about a ship drive. But he could
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: imagine no diagrams or gestures which would convey the theory
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of what happened in COBALT's steel when it was magnetized
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: beyond one hundred thousand gas flux density, and without that
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: theory one simply couldn't explain a magnetronic drive. They left
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: the engine room. They visited the rocket batteries. The generator
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: room was burned out, like the drive by the inconceivable
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: lightning bolt which had passed between the ships on contact.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: The Plumy was again puzzled. Bed made it clear that
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the generator room supplied electric current for the ship's normal
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: lighting system and services. The Plumy could grasp that idea.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: They examined the crew's quarters and the mess room, and
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: the plumy walked confidently among the members of the human crew,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: who a little while since had tried so painstakingly to
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: destroy his vessel. He made a good impression those little guys,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: said a crewman to Bed, admiringly. They got something they
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: can handle, a ship. I bet they could almost make
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: that ship of theirs play checkers close to it, agreed Baird.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: He realized something. He pulled the communicator from his pocket. Diane,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: contact the skipper. He wanted observations. Here's one. This plumy
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: acts like soldiers used to act in ancient days when
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: they wore armor, and we have the same reaction. They
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: will fight like the devil, but during a truce they'll
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: be friendly, admiring each other as scrappers, but ready to
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: fight as hard as ever when the truce is over,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: we have the same reaction. Tell the skipper, I've an
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: idea that it's a part of their civilization. Maybe it's
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: a necessary part of any civilization. Tell him, I guess
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: that there may be necessarily parallel evolution of attitudes among
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: rational races, as there are parallel evolutions of eyes and
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: legs and wings and fins among all animals everywhere. If
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I'm right, somebody from this ship will be invited to
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: tour the plumy. It's only a guess, but tell him immediately,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: said Diane. The plumy followed gallantly as Bird made a
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: steep climb up what once was the floor of a corridor.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Then Taine stepped out before them, his eyes burned, giving
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: him a clear picture. Eh, he rasped, letting him spy
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: out everything. Baird pressed to communicate a call for the
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: radar room and said coldly, I'm obeying orders. Look, Taine,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: you were picked for your job because you were a xenophobe.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: It helps in your proper functioning. But this plumy is
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: here under a flag of truce. Flag of truce, snarled Tane.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: It's vermin, it's not human. I'll if you move one
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: inch nearer him, said Bird gently, Just one inch. The
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: skipper's voice bellowed through the general call speakers all over
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the ship. Mister Taine, you will go to your quarters
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: under arrest. Mister bed burn him down if he hesitates.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Then there was a rushing and scrambling. Figures appeared and
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: were all about They were members of the Nicholas crew
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: sent by the Skipper. They regarded the Plumy with detachment,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: but Taine with a wary expectancy. Tayne turned purple with fury.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: He shouted, he raged, He called Bed and the others
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Plumy lovers and vermin worshippers. He shouted foulnesses at them,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: but he did not attack. When still shouting, he went away,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Baird said apologetically to the Plumy, he is a xenophobe.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: He has a pathological hatred of strangers, even of strangeness.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: We have him on board, because then he stopped. The
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Plumy wouldn't understand, of course, but his eyes took on
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: a curious look. It was almost as if looking at
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Bar they twinkled. Bed took him back to the skipper.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: He's got the picture, sir heed. The Plumy pulled out
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: his sketch plate. He drew on it. He offered it.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: The skipper said, heavily. You guess strite, mister Baird. He
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: suggests that some one from the ship go on board
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: the Plumy vessel. He's drawn two pressure suited figures going
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: in their air lock, ones larger than the other will
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: you go naturally, said Baird. Then he added thoughtfully, but
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: I'd better carry a portable scanner, sir. It should work
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: perfectly well through a bronze hole. Sir. The skipper nodded
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: and began to sketch a diagram which would amark to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: an acceptance of the Plumy's invitation. This was at zero
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: seven hours forty minute ship time. Outside the sedately rotating
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: metal hulls, the one a polished blue silver and the
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: other a glittering golden bronze, the cosmos continued to be
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: as all ways. The haze from explosive fumes and rocket
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: fuel was perhaps a little thinner. The brighter star shone
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: through it. The gas giant planet outward from the Sun
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: was a perceptible disk instead of a diffuse glow, the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: oxygen planet to some, which showed again as a light
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: at crescent presently bed in a human spacesuit accompanied the
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Plumy into the niccola's air lock and out into emptiness.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: His magnetic soled shoes clung to the nicola's cobalt steel
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: skin fastened to his shoulder. There was a tiny scanner
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: and microphone which would relay everything he saw and heard
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: back to the radar room and to Diane. She watched
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: tensely as he went inside the Plumy ship. Other screens
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: relaid the image in his voice to other places on
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the nicola. He was gone a long time from the beginning.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Of course, there were surprises. When the Plumy escort removed
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: his helmet on his own ship. The reason for the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: helmet's high crest was apparent. He had a high crest
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: of what looked remarkably like feathers, and it was not artificial.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: It grew there. The reason for conventionalized plumes on bronze
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: survey plates was clear. It was exactly like the reason
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: for human features or figures as decorative additions to the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: inscriptions on space survey marker plates. Even the plumy his
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: hands had odd crestlets which stood out when he bent
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: his fingers. The other plumies were no less graceful and
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: no less colorful. They had equally clear soprano voices. They
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: were equally miniature, and so devoid of apparent menace. But
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: there were also technical surprises. Bed was taken immediately to
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the Plumy ship's engine room, and Iron heard the sharp
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: intake of breath with which he appeared to recognize its
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: working principle. There were Plumy engineers working feverishly at it,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: attempting to discover something to repair, but they found nothing.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: The Plumy drive simply would not work. They took bair
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: through the ship's entire fabric, and their purpose, when it
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: became clear, was startling. The Plumy ship had no rocket tubes.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: It had no beam projectors except small sized objects which
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: were which must be their projectors of tractor and pressor beams.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: They were elaborately grounded as the ship's substance, but they
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: were not originally designed for ultra heavy service. They hadn't
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: and could not have the enormous capacity Bed it expected.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: He was astounded. When he returned to the Nicoler. He
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: went instantly to the radar room to make sure that
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: pictures taken through his scanner had turned out well, and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: there was dian But the skipper's voice boomed at him
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: from the wall. Mister Bed, what have you to add
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: to the information you sent back? Three items, sir, said Bed.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: He drew a deep breath for the first, Sir, the
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Plumy ship is unarmed. They've tractor and presser beams for
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: handling material. They probably used them to build their cairns,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: but they weren't meant for weapons. The Plumies, Sir, hadn't
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: a thing to fight with When they drove for us
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: after we detected them, the skipper blinked hard. You sure
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of that, mister, Bed, Yes, Sir, said bed uncomfortably. The
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: plumy ship is an exploring ship, a survey ship, Sir.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: You saw their mapping equipment, but when they spotted us
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: and we spotted them, they bluffed. When we fired rockets
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: at them, they turned them back with tractor and presser beams.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: They drove for a Sir, to try to destroy us
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: with our own bombs because they didn't have any of
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: their own. The skipper's mouth opened and closed another item,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Sir said bad, more uncomfortably. Still, they don't use iron
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: or steel. Every metal object I saw was either a
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: bronze or a light metal. I suspect some of their
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: equipments made of potassium, and I'm fairly sure they use
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: sodium in the place of aluminium. Their atmosphere is quite
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: different from ours. Obviously, they'd use bronze for their ship's
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: hull because they can venture into an oxygen atmosphere in
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: a bronze ship. A sodium hulled ship would be lighter,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: but it would burn in oxygen where there was moisture.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: The skipper blinked. But they couldn't drive in a non
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: magnetic hull, he protested. A ship has to be magnetic
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: to drive, Sir, said Baird, his voice still shaken. They
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: don't use a magnetronic drive. I once saw a picture
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: of the drive they use in a stereo on the
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: history of space travel. The principles very old. We've practically
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: forgotten it. It's a direct push. It dry, sir, among
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: us humans. It came right after rockets. The planets of
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Sol were first reached by ships using direct pushes. But
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: he paused, they won't operate in a magnetic field above
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: seventy GAUSS, Sir. It's a static charge reaction, sir, and
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: in a magnetic field it simply stops working. The skipper
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: regarded bad unwinkingly for a long time. I think you're
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: telling me. He said at long last, that the plumies
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: drive would work if they were cut free of the niccolo. Yes, sir,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: said Baird. Their engineers were opening up the drive elements
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and checking them, and then closing them up again. They
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: couldn't seem to find anything wrong. I don't think they
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: know what the trouble is. It's the Niccola's magnetic field.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I think it was our field that caused the collision,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: by stopping their drive and killing all their controls when
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: they came close enough. Did you tell them, demanded the skipper.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: There was no easy way to tell them by diagram.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Sir Tane's voice cut in. It was feverish, it was strident,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: it was triumphant, Sir. The Nickeler is effectively a w
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: reckon irreparable, but the Plumy Ship is operable if cut loose.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: As weapons officer, I intend to take the Plumy ship,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: let out its air, fill its tanks with our air,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: start up its drive, and turn it over to you
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: for navigation back to base. Baird raged, but he said coldly.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: We're a long way from home, mister Taine, and the
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Dirac pusher drive is slow. If we headed back to
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: base in the Plumy ship with its Dirac pusher, we'd
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: all be dead of old age before we'd gone half way.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: But unless we take it, raged Taine, we hit this
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: sun in fourteen days. We don't have to die now,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: we can land on the oxygen planet up ahead. We've
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: only to kill these vermin and take their ship, and
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: we'll live. Diane's voice said dispassionately. Report a Plumy in
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: a pressure suit just came out of their air lock.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: It's carrying a parcel toward our air lock. Taine snarled instantly.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: They'll sneak something in their nickel at a blast it
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and then cut free and go away. The skipper said,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: very grimly, mister Taine, credit me with minimum brains. There
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: is no way the Plumies can take this ship without
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: an atomic bomb exploding to destroy both ships. You should
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: know it. Then he snapped airlock area, listen for a
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: knock and let in the Plumy or the parcel he leaves.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: There was silence. Baird said very quietly. I doubt they
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: think it possible to cut the ships apart. A torch
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: is no good on thick silicon bronze. It conducts heat
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: too well, and they don't use steel. They probably haven't
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: a cutting torch at all. From the radar room, he
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: watched the Plumey place an object in the airlock and withdraw.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: He watched from a scanner inside the ship as some
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: one brought in what the plumy had left. An electronics
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: man bustled forward. He looked it over quickly. It was complex,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: but his examination suddenly seemed satisfying to him. But a
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: grayish vapor developed, and he sniffed and wrinkled his nose.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: He picked up a communicator. Sir. They've sent it a
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: power generator. Some of its parts are going bad in
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: our atmosphere, sir, but this looks to me like a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: hell of a good idea for a generator. I never
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: saw anything like it, but it's good. You can set
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: it for any voltage and it'll turn out plenty juice.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Put it in helium, snapped the skipper. It won't break
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: down in that. Then see how it serves in the
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: radar room. Bad drew a deep breath. He went carefully
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: to each of the screens and every radar. Diane saw
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: what he was about and checked with him. They met
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: at the middle of the radar room. Everything's checked out,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: said Bed gravely. There's nothing else around. There's nothing we
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: can be called on to do before something happens, so
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: we can act like people Diane smiled very faintly. Not
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: like people just like us, she said wistfully. Don't you
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: want to tell me something, something you intended to tell
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: me only after we got back to base. He did.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: He told it to her. And there was also something
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: she had not intended to tell him at all unless
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: he told her first. She said it now. They felt
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: that such sayings were were of the greatest possible importance.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: They clung together, saying them again, and it seemed wholly
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: monstrous that two people who cared so desperately had wasted
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: so much time acting like professional associates explorer ship officers
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: when things like this were to be said. As they
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: talked incoherently or were even more eloquently silent, the ship's
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: ordinary lights came on, the battery lamp went on. We've
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: got to switch back to ship's circuits, said Baird reluctantly.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: They separated and restored the operating circuits to normal. We've
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: got fourteen days, he added, and so much time to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: be on duty, and we've lost life time to live
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: in fourteen days, Diane, She flushed vividly, so Baird said
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: very politely into the microphone to the navigation room Sir,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Holt and myself would like to speak directly to
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: you in the navigation room, may we? Why not, growled
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: the skipper. You've noticed that the plumy generator is giving
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: the whole ship lights and services. Yes, sir said, bad
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: will be there right away. End of Part three, Part
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: four of The Aliens. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: public domain. The Aliens by Murray Leinster, Part four. They
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: heard the skipper's grunt as they hurried through the door.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: A moment later, the ship's normal gravity returned also through
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the Plumy generator. Up was up again, and down was down,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and the corridors and cabins of the Niccolo were brightly illuminated.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Had the ship been other than an engineless wreck falling
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: through a hundred and fifty million miles of emptiness into
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: the flaming photosphere of his son, everything would have seemed
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: quite normal, including the errand bed and Diane were upon,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and the fact that they held hands self consciously as
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: they went about it. They skirted the bulkhead of the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: main air tank. They headed along the broader corridor, which
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: went past the indented inner door of the air lock.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: They had reached that indentation. When Bed saw that the
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: inner air lock door was closing his I saw a
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: human pressure sute past its edge. He saw the corner
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: of some object that had been put down on the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: air lock floor. Bear shouted and rushed toward the lock.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: He seized the inner handle and tried to force open
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: the door again so that no one inside it could
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: emerge into the emptiness without He failed. He wrenched frantically
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: at the control of the outer door. It suddenly swung freely.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: The outer door had been put on manual it could be,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: and was being opened from inside. Tell the skipper, raged Bed,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Taine's taking something out. He tore open a precious route
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: cupboard in the wall beside the locked door. He'll make
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: the plumy sink. It's a return gift for the generator.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: He eeled into the pressures route and zipped it up
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: to his neck. The man's crazy. He thinks we can
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: take their ship and stay alive for a while. Damn it,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: our heir would ruin half their equipment. Tell the skipper
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: to send help. He wrenched at the door again, jamming
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: down his helmet with one hand, and this time the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: control worked. Taine most probably had forgotten that the inner
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: control was disengaged only when the manual was actively in use.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Diane raced away, panting beards, swore bitterly at the slowness
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: of the outer doors closing. He was tearing at the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: inner door long before it could be opened. He flung
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: himself in and dragged it shut, and struck the emergency
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: air release, which bled the airlock into space for speed
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: of operation. He thrust out the outer door and plunged through.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: His momentum carried him almost too far. He fell, and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: only the magnetic soles of his shoes enabled him to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: check himself. He was in that singular valley between the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: two ships, where their hulls were impregnably welded fast round
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: hulled plumy ship and ganoid shaped nicola. They stuck immovably together,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: as if they had been that way since time began.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Where the sky appeared above Bed's head, the stars moved
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: in stately procession along the valley roof. He heard a
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: metallic wrapping through the fabric of his face armor. Then
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: sunlight glittered, and the valley filled with a fierce glare,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and a man in a human space suitsood on the
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: nicolas plating opposite the plumy air lock. He held a
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: bulky object under his arm with his other countlet he
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: wrapped again. You fool, shouted Baird. Stop that we couldn't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: use their ship anyhow. His space phone had turned on
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: with the air supply. Taine's voice snarled, we'll try you
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: keep back. They're not human, but Baird ran toward him.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: The sensation of running upon magnetic soled shoes was unearthly.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: It was like trying to run on fly paper or
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: bird lime. But in addition, there was no gravity here
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and no sense of balance, and there was the feeling
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: of perpetual fall. There could be no science nor any
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: skill in an encounter under such conditions. Baird partly ran
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: and partly staggered, and partly skated to where Tane faced him. Snarling.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: He threw himself at the other man, and then the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: sun vanished behind the bronze ship's hull, and only stars
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: moved visibly in all the universe. But the sound of
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: his impact was loud in Baird's ears. Inside the suit.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: There was a slightly different sound when his armor struck
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: tains and when it struck the heavier metal of the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: two ships he fought, but the suits were intended to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: be defense against greater stresses than human blows could offer.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: In the darkness, it was like two blind folded men
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: fighting each other while encased in pillows. Then the sun returned,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: floating sedately above the valley, and Baird could see his enemy.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: He saw too, that the Plumy airlock was now open,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and that a small, erect and somehow jaunty figure in
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: golden space armor stood in the opening and watched gravely
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: as the two men fought. Taine cursed, panting with hysterical hate.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: He flung himself at bed, and Beard toppled because he
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: put one foot past the welded boundary between the Nicholas
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: cobalt steel and the Plumy ship's bronze. One foot held
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: to nothing. And that was a ghastly sensation, because if
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Taine only rugged his other foot free and heaved, why
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: then Bard would go floating away from the rotating now
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: twin ships, floating further and further away forever. But darkness
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: fell and he scrambled back to the Nicholas huwl as
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: a disorderly parade of stars went by above him. He
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: pantingly waited fresh attack. He felt something, and it was
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: the object tain had meant to offer as a return
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: present of the Plumies. It was unquestionably explosive, either booby
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: trapped or time to explode inside the plumy ship. Now
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: it rocked gently, gripped by the magnetism of the steel.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: The sun appeared again, and Taine was yards away, crawling
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and fumbling for Beard. Then he saw him and rose
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: and rushed, and the clankings of his shoe soles were loud.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Baird flung himself at Taine in a savage tackle. He
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: struck Tane's legs a glancing blow, and the cobalt steel
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: held his armor fast. But Taine careened and bounced against
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the round bronze wall of the plumy, and bounced again.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Then he screamed because he went floating slowly out to emptiness,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: his arms and legs jerking spasmodically while he shrieked. The
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Plumy in the airlock stepped out. He trailed a chord
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: behind him. He leapt briskly towards nothingness. There came quick
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: darkness once more, and Baird struggled erect despite the adhesiveness
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: of the Nicholer's hull. When he was fully upright, sick
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: with horror at what had come about. There was sunlight
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: yet again, and men were coming out of the Nicoler's
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: air lock, and the Plumy whod leapt for space, was
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: pulling himself back to his own ship again. He had
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: a loop of the cord twisted around Taine's leg, but
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Taine screamed and screamed inside his space suit. It was
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: odd that one could recognize the skipper even inside space armor,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: but Baird felt sick. He saw Taine received still screaming,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: and carried into the lock. The skipper growled and infuriated
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: demand for details. His spacefhone had come on too. When
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: the air supply began, Baird explained, his teeth chattering, Ha
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: grunted the skipper Taine was a mistake. He shouldn't ever
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: have left ground when a man's potty in one fashion
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: nowbe cracks in him all over? What's this? The plumy
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: in the golden armor very soberly offered the skipper the
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: object tain had meant to introduce into the Plumy ship.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Baird said desperately that he'd fought against it, because he
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: believed it a booby trap to kill the Plumies, so
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: men could take their ship and fill it with air
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: and cut it free and then make a landing somewhere damp. Foolishness,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: rumbled the skipper. Their ship had begin to crumble with
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: our air in it. If it held to a landing,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: then he considered the object it accepted from the plumy.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: It could have been a rocket warhead enclosed in some
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: container that would detonate it if opened, or there might
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: be a timing device. The skipper grunted. He heaved its skyward.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: The misshapen object, when floating away toward emptiness, sunlight smote
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: harshly upon it. Don't want it back in the nicoler,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: growled the skipper, But just to make sure, he fumbled
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: a hand weapon out of his belt. He raised it,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: and its spurted flame. Very tiny blue white sparks, each
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: one indicating a pellet of metal flung away at high velocity.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: One of them struck the shining retreating container. It exploded
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: with a monstrous soundless violence. It had been a rocket's warhead,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: there could have been only one reason for it to
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: be introduced into a plumy ship Baird ceased to be shaky. Instead,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: he was ashamed. The skipper growled inarticulately. He looked at
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: the Plumy again, standing in the golden ship's airlock. We'll
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: go back, mister bad What you've done won't save our
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: lives and nobody will ever know you did it, but
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: I think well of you. Come along. This was at
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: eleven hours, five minutes ship time. A good half hour later,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: the skipper's voice bellowed from the speakers all over the Nickeler.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: His heavy jowled features stared doggedly out of screens where
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: over men were our duty or at ease? Hear this?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: He said forbiddingly. We have checked our course and speed.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: We have verified that there is no possible jury rig
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: for our engines. It could get us into any sort
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: of but let alone land us on the only planet
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: in the system with air we could breathe. It is
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: officially certain that in thirteen days nine hours from now,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: the Niccola will be so close to the Sun that
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: her hull will melt down, which will be no loss
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: to us, because we'll be dead then still going on
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: into the Sun to be vaporized with the ship. There's
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: nothing to be done about it. We can do nothing
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: to save our own lives. He glared out of each
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: and every one of the screens wherever there were men
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: to see him. But he rumbled. The Plumies can get
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: away if we help them. They have no cutting torches
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: we have. We can cut their ship free. They can
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: repair their drive, but it's most likely it'll operate perfectly
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: when they're a mile from the Nicolas magnetic field. They
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: can't help us, but we can help them, and sooner
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: or later, some Plumy ship is going to encounter some
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: other human ship. If we cut these Plumies loose, they'll
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: report what we did when they meet other men. They'll
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: be cagey because they're remember tane, but they'll know they
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: can make friends because we did them when we'd nothing
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: to gain by it. I can offer no reward, but
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: I ask for volunteers to go outside and cut the
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Plumy ship loose, so the Plumies can go home in
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: safety instead of on into the sun with us. He
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: glared and cut off the image. Dian held tightly to
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Baird's hand in the radar room. He said, evenly, they'll
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: be volunteers. The plumies are pretty sporting characters putting up
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: a fight with an unarmed ship, and so on. Either
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: aren't enough other volunteers, The Skipper and I will cut
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: them free by ourselves, Diane said, dry throated. I'll help
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: so I can be with you. We've got so little time.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: I'll ask the skipper as soon as the plumy ship's free, Yes,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: said Dian, and she pressed her face against his shoulder
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: and wept. This was at zero one hour's twenty minute
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: ship time. At zero three hours even there was peculiar
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: activity in the valley between the worlded ships. There were
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: men in space armor working cutting torches where for twenty
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: feet two ships were solidly attached. Blue white flames bored
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: savagely into solid metal and melted copper gave off strangely
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: colored clouds of vapor, which emptiness whisked away to nothing,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: and molten iron and cobalt made equally lurid clouds of
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: other colors. There were plumies in the airlock watching. At
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: zero three hours forty minute ship time, all the men
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: but one drew back. They went inside the nicola. Only
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: one man remained cutting. At the last liver of metal
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: that held the two ships together. It parted. The Plumy
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: ships swept swiftly away, moved by the cent fickle force
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: of the rotary motion the joined vessels had possessed. It
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: dwindled and dwindled. It was half a mile away. A
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: mile The last man on the outside of the Nicolas
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: hull thriftily brought his torch to the airlock and came in. Suddenly,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the distant golden hull came to life. It steadied, it
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: ceased to spin, however slowly. It darted ahead, it checked,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: It swung to the right and left, and up and down.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: It was alive again. In the radar room, Dion walked
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: into Bed's arms and said, shakily, now we we have
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: almost fourteen days. Wait, he commanded. When the Plumies understood
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: what we were doing and why they drew diagrams, they
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: hadn't thought of cutting free out in space without the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: spinning saws they used to cut bronze with. But they
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: asked for a scanner and a screen. They checked on
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: its use. I want to see. He flipped on the screen,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: and there was instantly a Plumy looking eagerly out of it.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: For some sign of communication established. There were sopranos sounds,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: and he waved a hand for attention. Then he zestfully
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: held up one diagram after another. Bed drew a deep breath,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: a very deep breath. He pressed the navigation room call.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: The skipper looked duly at him. Well, said the skipper, forbiddingly, sir,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: said Bed, very quietly. Indeed, the Plumies are talking by
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: diagram over the communicator set. We gave them their drive works.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: They're as well off as they ever were, and they've
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: been modifying their tractor beams, stepping them up to higher power.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: What of it, demanded the skipper, rumbling. They believe, said Bair,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: that they can handle the Niccola with their beefed up
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: tractor beams. He wetted his lips. They're going to tow
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: us to the oxygen planet ahead, sir. They're going to
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: set us down on it. They'll help us find the
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: metals we need to build the tools to repair the Nicola. Sir.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: You see the reasoning, sir. We turned them loose to
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: improve the chance of friendly contact when another human ship
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: runs into them. They want us to carry back to
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: be proof that Plumies and men can be friends. It
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: seems that they like us, sir. He stopped for a moment,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: then he went on reasonably, And besides that, it'll be
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: one hell of a fine business proposition. We never bother
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: with hydrogen methane planets. They've minerals and chemicals we haven't got.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: But even the stones of a methane hydrogen planet are
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: ready to combine with the oxen we need to breathe.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: We can't carry or keep enough oxygen for real work.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: The same thing's true with them on an oxygen planet.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: We can't work on each other's planets, but we can
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: do fine business in each other's minerals and chemicals from
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: those planets. I've got a feeling, sir, that the plumy
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: cairns a location notices markers set up over all deposits
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: they can find, but can't hope to work. Yet they
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: claim against the day when their scientists find a way
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: to make them worth owning. I'll be willing to bet, sir,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: that if we explored hydrogen planets as thoroughly as oxygen ones,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: we'd find cans on their type planets that they haven't
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: colonized yet. The skipper stared his mouth dropped open, and
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I think, sir said bad that until they detected us,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: they thought they were the only intelligent race in the galaxy.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: They were upset to discover suddenly that they were not.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: And at first they'd no idea what we'd be like.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: But I'm guessing now, sir, that they're figuring on what
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: chemicals and ows to start swappings. Then he added, when
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: you think of it, sir, probably the first metal they
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: ever used was aluminium, where our ancestors used copper, and
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: they had a beryllium age next instead of iron. And
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: right now, sir, it's probably as expensive for them to
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: refine iron as it is for us to handle titanium
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: and beryllium and osmium, which had duck soup for them.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: Our two cultures ought to thrive as long as we're friends, sir.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: They know it already, and we'll find it out in
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: a hurry. The skipper's mouth moved it closed and then
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: dropped open again. The search for the plumies had been
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: made because it looked like they had to be fought,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: but Bed had just pointed out some extremely common sense
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: items which changed the situation entirely, and there was evidence
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: that the Plumy saw the situation the new way. The
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: skipper felt such enormous relief that his manner changed. He
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: displayed what was almost effusive cordiality for the skipper. He
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: cleared his throat. Hum ha. Very good, mister Bear, he said, formidably.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: And of course, with time and air and metals, we
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: can rebuild our drive. For that matter, we could rebuild
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the Nicola. I'll notify the ship's company, mister Bird. Very good.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: He moved to use another microphone. Then he checked himself.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: Your expression is odd, mister Bed. Did you wish to
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: say something more? Ee? Yes, Sir said bad. He held
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: Diane's hand fast. It'll be months before we get back
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: to port, sir, and it's normally against regulations. But under
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: the circumstances, would you mind a skipper marrying Lieutenant Halt
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: and me? The skipper snorted, Then he said, almost almost amiably.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: N you've both done very well, mister Baird. Yes, come
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: to the navigation room and we'll get it over with, say,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: ten minutes from now. Bed grinned at Diane. Her eyes
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: shone a little. This was at zero four hours ten
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: minutes ship time. It was exactly twelve hours since here
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: alarm bell rang end of Part four. This is also
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: the end of the Aliens by Murray Leinster.