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Aliens-Murray Leinster · 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert

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  Speaker 1: Part one of the Aliens by Murray Leinster. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer peace, visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Tabithat the Aliens by Murray Leinster, Part one.
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  Speaker 1: At zero four hours ten minute ship time, the Niccola
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  Speaker 1: was well inside the Theta Gesol solar system. She had
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  Speaker 1: previously secured excellent evidence that this was not the home
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  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
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  Speaker 1: than obvious, and a magnetronic drive had a highly characteristic
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  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
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  Speaker 1: Plums came from. There might, though, be one of those singular, conical,
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  Speaker 1: hollow topped cairns sheltering silicon bronze plates which constituted the
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  Speaker 1: evidence that Plumys existed. The Niccola went sward toward the
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  Speaker 1: inner planets to see such cairns had been found on
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  Speaker 1: conspicuous landmarks on oxygen type planets over a range of
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  Speaker 1: some twelve hundred light years by the vegetation about them.
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  Speaker 1: Some were a century old on the same evidence. Others
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  Speaker 1: had been erected only months or weeks or even days
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  Speaker 1: before a human space survey ship arrived to discover them,
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  Speaker 1: and the situation was unpromising. It wasn't likely that the
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  Speaker 1: galaxy was big enough to hold two races of rational
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  Speaker 1: beings capable of space travel. Back on ancient Earth, the
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  Speaker 1: planet had been too small to hold two races with
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  Speaker 1: tools and fire. Historically, that problem was settled when Homo
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  Speaker 1: sapiens exterminated hormoneandertalis. It appeared that the same situation had
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  Speaker 1: arisen in space. There were humans and there were plumies.
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  Speaker 1: Both had interstellar ships to humans. The fact was alarming.
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  Speaker 1: The need for knowledge and the danger that plumies might
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  Speaker 1: no more first and thereby be able to exterminate humanity
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  Speaker 1: was appalling. Therefore, the Niccola she drove on sunward. She
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  Speaker 1: had left one fro and out of planet. Far behind,
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  Speaker 1: she had crossed the orbits of three others. The last
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  Speaker 1: of these was a gas giant with innumerable moonlights revolving
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  Speaker 1: about it. It was now some thirty millions of miles
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  Speaker 1: back and twenty to one side. The sun ahead flared
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  Speaker 1: and flamed in emptiness against that expanse of tinted stars.
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  Speaker 1: John Baird worked steadily in the Nicholas radar room. He
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  Speaker 1: was one of those who hoped that the Plumies would
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  Speaker 1: not prove to be the natural enemies of mankind. Now
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  Speaker 1: it looked like this ship wouldn't find out in this
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  Speaker 1: solar system. There were plenty of other ships on the hunt.
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  Speaker 1: From here on it looked like routine to the next
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  Speaker 1: unvisited family of planets. But meanwhile he worked opposite him,
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  Speaker 1: Diane Holt worked as steadily, her dark head bent intently
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  Speaker 1: over a radar graph in formation. The immediate job was
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  Speaker 1: the completion of a map of the Metea swarms following
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  Speaker 1: cometary orbits about this sun. They interlaced emptiness with hazards
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  Speaker 1: to navigation, and nobody would try to drive through a
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  Speaker 1: solar system without such a map. Elsewhere in the ship,
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  Speaker 1: everything was normal. The engine room was a place of
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  Speaker 1: stillness and peace, save for the almost inaudible hum of
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  Speaker 1: the drive running at half a million gas flux density.
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  Speaker 1: The skipper did whatever skippers do when they are invisible
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  Speaker 1: to their subordinates. The weapons officer tained thought appropriate thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: In the navigation room, the second officer conscientiously glanced at
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  Speaker 1: each separate instrument at least once in each five minutes,
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  Speaker 1: and then carefully surveyed all the screens showing space outside
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  Speaker 1: the ship. The stewards disposed of the debris of the
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  Speaker 1: last meal and began to get ready for the next.
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  Speaker 1: In the crew's quarters, those off duty read or worked
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  Speaker 1: at scrimshaw, or simply and contentedly loafed. Diane handed over
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  Speaker 1: the transparent radar graph to be fitted into the three
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  Speaker 1: dimensional map in the making. There's a lump of stuff here,
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  Speaker 1: she said, interestedly. It could be the comet that once
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  Speaker 1: followed this orbit now so olds lost all its gases,
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  Speaker 1: and isn't a comet any longer. At this instant, which
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: was zero four hours twenty five minute ship time, the
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  Speaker 1: alarm bell rang. It clang stridently over Baird's head. Repeater
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  Speaker 1: gong sounded all through the ship, and there was a
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  Speaker 1: scurrying and a closing of doors. The alarm gong could
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  Speaker 1: mean only one thing. It made one's breath come faster,
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  Speaker 1: or one's hair stand on end according to temperament. The
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  Speaker 1: skipper's face appeared on the direct line screen from the
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  Speaker 1: navigation room. Plumies, He demanded harshly, mister bad Plumy's. Baird's
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  Speaker 1: hands were already flipping switches and plugging the radar room
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  Speaker 1: apparatus into a new set up as a contact, Sir,
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  Speaker 1: he said curtly, No, there was a contact. It's broken. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Something detected us. We picked up a radar pulse one.
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  Speaker 1: The word one meant much. A radar system that could
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  Speaker 1: get adequate information from a single pulse was not the
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  Speaker 1: work of amateurs. It was the product of a very
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  Speaker 1: highly developed technology. Setting all equipment to full globular scanning,
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  Speaker 1: Baird felt a certain crawling sensation at the back of
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  Speaker 1: his He'd been mapping within a narrow range above and
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  Speaker 1: below the line of this system's ecliptic. A lot could
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  Speaker 1: have happened outside the area he'd had under long distance scanning,
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  Speaker 1: but seconds passed they seemed like ears. The all globe
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  Speaker 1: scanning covered every direction out from the Nicoler. Nothing appeared
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  Speaker 1: which had not been reported before. The gas giant planet
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  Speaker 1: far behind and only in a one on this side
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  Speaker 1: of the Sun, would return their pulses only after minutes. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: the radars reported very faithfully, but they only repeated previous reports.
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  Speaker 1: No new object within half a million miles, said Beard,
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  Speaker 1: after a suitable interval. Presently, he added, nothing new within
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  Speaker 1: three quarter million miles. Then nothing new within a million miles,
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  Speaker 1: the skipper said, bitingly. Then you'd better check on objects
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  Speaker 1: that are not new. He turned aside, and his voice
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  Speaker 1: came more faintly as he spoke into another microphone. Mister Taine,
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  Speaker 1: arm all rockets and have your tube crew stand by
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  Speaker 1: in combat readiness. Engine room prepared dry for emergency maneuvers,
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  Speaker 1: damage control parties, put on pressure suits and take combat
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  Speaker 1: posts with equipment. His voice rose again in volume. Mister Baird,
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  Speaker 1: how about observed objects, Diane murmured. Baird said, briefly, only
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  Speaker 1: one suspicious object, sir, and that shouldn't be suspicious. We
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  Speaker 1: are sending an information beam at something we'd classed as
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  Speaker 1: a burnt out comet. Pulse going out now, sir. Diane
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  Speaker 1: had the distant information transmitter aimed at what she'd said
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  Speaker 1: might be a dead comet. Baird pressed the button. An
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary complex of information seeking frequencies and forms sprang into
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  Speaker 1: being and leaped across emptiness. There were microwaves of strictly
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  Speaker 1: standard amplitude for measurement standards, there were frequencies of other
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  Speaker 1: values which would be selectively absorbed by this material, and
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  Speaker 1: that there were laterally and circularly polarized beams. When they
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  Speaker 1: bounced back, they would bring a surprising amount of information
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  Speaker 1: they returned. They did bring back news. The thing that
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  Speaker 1: had registered as a larger lump in a meteaswarm was
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  Speaker 1: not a meteor at all. It returned four different frequencies
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  Speaker 1: with a relative intensity pattern which said that they'd been
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  Speaker 1: reflected by bronze, probably silicon bronze. The polarized beams came
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  Speaker 1: back depolarized, of course, but with phase changes which said
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  Speaker 1: the reflector had a rounded regular form. There was a
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  Speaker 1: smooth hull of silicon bronze out yonder there was other data.
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  Speaker 1: It will be a plumy ship, Sir said, bed very
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  Speaker 1: steadily at a guess, they picked up our mapping beam
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  Speaker 1: and shot a single pulsatus to find out who and
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  Speaker 1: what we were for another guess, By now they've picked
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  Speaker 1: up and analyzed our information beam and know what we've
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  Speaker 1: found out about them. The skipper scowled. How many of them?
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  Speaker 1: He demanded have we run into a fleet, I'll check, sir,
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  Speaker 1: said bad. We picked up no tuned radiation from out
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  Speaker 1: a space sir. But it could be that they picked
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  Speaker 1: us up when we came out of overdrive and stopped
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  Speaker 1: all their transmissions until they had us in a trap.
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  Speaker 1: Find out how many there are? Barked the skipper, make
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  Speaker 1: it quick, report additional data Instantly his screen clicked off. Diane,
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  Speaker 1: more than a little pale, worked swiftly to plug the
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  Speaker 1: radar room equipment into a highly specialized pattern. The Niccola
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  Speaker 1: was very well equipped radar wise. She had been a
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  Speaker 1: Type G eight survey ship, and on her last stay
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  Speaker 1: in Port, she had been rebuilt specially to hunt for
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  Speaker 1: and make contact with plumies since the discovery of their existence.
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  Speaker 1: That was the most urgent business of the space survey.
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  Speaker 1: It might well be the most important business of the
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  Speaker 1: human race, on which its survival or destruction would depend.
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  Speaker 1: Other remodeled ships had gone up before the Niccola, and
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  Speaker 1: others would follow until the problem was solved. Meanwhile, the
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  Speaker 1: Nicolas twenty four rocket tubes and stepped up drive and
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  Speaker 1: computer type radar system equipped her for plumy hunting as
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  Speaker 1: well as any human ship could be still if she
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  Speaker 1: had been lured deep into the home system of the Plumies.
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  Speaker 1: The prospects were not good. The new set up began
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  Speaker 1: its operation instantly the last contact closed. The three dimensional
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  Speaker 1: map served as a matrix to control it. The information
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  Speaker 1: beam projector swung and flung out its bundle of oscillations.
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  Speaker 1: It swung and flashed, and swung and flashed. It had
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  Speaker 1: to examine every relatively nearby object for a constitution of
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  Speaker 1: silicon bronze and a rounded shape. The nearest objects had
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  Speaker 1: to be examined first. Speed was essential, but three dimensional
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  Speaker 1: scanning takes time, even at some hundreds of pulses per minute. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: the information came in. No other silicon bronze object within
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  Speaker 1: a quarter million miles, within half a million, a million,
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  Speaker 1: a million and a half two million bed called a
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  Speaker 1: navigation room looks like a single Plumy ship, sir, he reported,
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  Speaker 1: at least as one ship which is nearest by a
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  Speaker 1: very long way. Ha grunted the skipper. Then we'll pay
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  Speaker 1: him a visit. Keep an open line, mister bad His
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  Speaker 1: voice changed, mister Taine, report here at once to tactics.
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  Speaker 1: Baer shook his head to himself. The Niccola's orders were
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  Speaker 1: to make contact without discovery. If such a thing were possible.
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  Speaker 1: The ideal would be a Plumy ship or the Plumy
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  Speaker 1: civilization itself located and subject to complete and overwhelming envelopment
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  Speaker 1: by human ships before the Plumies knew they'd been discovered,
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  Speaker 1: and this would be the human ideal. Because humans have
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  Speaker 1: always had to consider that a stranger might be hostile
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  Speaker 1: until it proven otherwise, such a viewpoint would not be
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  Speaker 1: optimism but caution. Yet caution was necessary. It was because
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  Speaker 1: the survey brass felt the need to prepare for every
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  Speaker 1: unfavorable eventuality that Tain had been chosen as weapons officer
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  Speaker 1: of the Nicola. His choice had been deliberate because he
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  Speaker 1: was a xenophobe. He had been a problem personality all
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  Speaker 1: his life. He had a seemingly congenital fear and hatred
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  Speaker 1: of strangers, which in mild cases is common enough, but
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  Speaker 1: Tain could not be cured without a complete breakdown of personality.
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  Speaker 1: He could not serve on a ship with a multiracial
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  Speaker 1: crew because he was invincibly suspicious of and hostile too,
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  Speaker 1: all but his own small breed. Yet he seemed ideal
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  Speaker 1: for weapons officer on the Nicola, provided he never commanded
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  Speaker 1: the ship, because if the Plumies were hostile, a well
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  Speaker 1: adjusted normal man would never think as much like them
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  Speaker 1: as attain he was capable of the kind of thinking
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  Speaker 1: Plumies might practice if they were xenophobes themselves. But to
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  Speaker 1: bed so extreme a precaution as an own psychopathic condition
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  Speaker 1: in an officer was less than wholly justified. It was
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  Speaker 1: by no means certain that the Plumies would instinctively be hostile. Suspicious, yes,
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  Speaker 1: cautious certainly, But the only fact known about the Plumy
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  Speaker 1: civilization came from the cairns and silicon bronze inscribed tablets
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  Speaker 1: they'd left on oxygen type worlds over a twelve hundred
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  Speaker 1: light year range in space, And the only thing to
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  Speaker 1: be deduced about the Plumies themselves came from the decorative
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  Speaker 1: formalized symbols like feathery plumes, which were found on all
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  Speaker 1: their bronze tablets. The name Plumies came from that symbol. Now,
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  Speaker 1: though Taine was called to the navigation room to confer
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  Speaker 1: on tactics, the Nicolas swerved and drove toward the object
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  Speaker 1: Baird identified as a Plumy ship. This was at zero
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  Speaker 1: five hours ten minute ship time. The human ship had
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  Speaker 1: a definite velocity. Some would, of course, the Plumy ship
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  Speaker 1: had been concealed by the meteoswarm of a totally unknown comet.
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  Speaker 1: It was an excellent way to avoid observation. On the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, the Niccola had been mapping, which was bound
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  Speaker 1: to attract attention. Now each ship knew of the other's existence.
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  Speaker 1: Since the Niccola had been detected, she had to carry
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  Speaker 1: out orders and attempt to contact to gather information. Baird
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  Speaker 1: verified that the Niccola's course was exact for interception at
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  Speaker 1: her full drive speed. He said, in a flat voice,
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  Speaker 1: I wonder how the Plumies will interpret this change. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: they know we're aware they are not a meteorite, but
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  Speaker 1: charging at them without even trying to communicate could look ominous.
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  Speaker 1: We could be stupid or too arrogant to think of
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  Speaker 1: anything but a fight. He pressed the skipper's call and
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  Speaker 1: said evenly, Sir, I request permission to attempt to communicate
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  Speaker 1: with the Plumy ship. Were ordered to try to make
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  Speaker 1: friends if we know we've been spotted. Tane had evidently
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  Speaker 1: just reached the navigation room. His voice snapped from the speaker.
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  Speaker 1: I advise against that, sir. No use letting them guess
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  Speaker 1: our level of technology, Baird said coldly. I've got a
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  Speaker 1: good idea already. We've beam them for data. There was silence,
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  Speaker 1: with only the faint humming sound, which was natural in
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  Speaker 1: the ship in motion. It would be deadly to the
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  Speaker 1: nerves if there were absolute silence. The skipper grumbled requests
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  Speaker 1: and advice. Damn it, mister Baird. You might wait for orders,
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  Speaker 1: but I was about to ask you to try to
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  Speaker 1: make contact through signals. Do so. His speaker clicked off.
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  Speaker 1: Baird said, it's in our lapse, Diane, and yet we
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  Speaker 1: have to follow orders. Send the first roll. Diane had
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  Speaker 1: a tape threaded into a transmitter. It gan to unroll
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  Speaker 1: through a pick up head. She put on headphones. The
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  Speaker 1: tape began to transmit toward the plumy Back at base.
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  Speaker 1: It had been reasoned that a pattern of clickings, plainly
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: artificial and plainly stating facts known to both races would
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  Speaker 1: be the most reasonable way to attempt to open contact.
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  Speaker 1: The tape sent a series of cardinal numbers one to five,
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  Speaker 1: then an addition table from one plus one to five
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  Speaker 1: plus five, then a multiplication table up to five times five.
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  Speaker 1: It was not startlingly intellectual information to be sent out
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: in tiny clicks ranging up and down the radio spectrum,
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  Speaker 1: but it was orders. Baird sat with compressed lips. Diane
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: listened for a repetition of any of the transmitted signals
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: sent back by the Plumy. The speakers about the radar
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  Speaker 1: room murmured the orders given through all the ship. Radar
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: had to be informed of all orders and activity so
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: it could check their results outside the ship. So Baird
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: heard the orders for the engine room to be sealed
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: up and the duty force to get into pressure suits
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  Speaker 1: in case the next cull a fort and was hulled.
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  Speaker 1: Damage control parties reported themselves on posts in suits with
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: equipment ready. Then Taine's voice snapped rocket crew's arm even
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  Speaker 1: numbered rockets with chemical explosive warheads leave odd numbered rockets
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  Speaker 1: armed with atomic's report back. Diane strained her ears for
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: possible retransmission of the Nicholas signals, which would indicate the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Plumy's willingness to try conversation, but she suddenly raised her
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: hand and pointed to the radar graph instrument. It repeated
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the positioning of dots, which were stray meteoric matter in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the space between worlds. In this system, what had been
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: a spot the Plumy ship was now a line of dots.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Baird pressed the button radar reporting. He said curtly, the
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  Speaker 1: Plumy ship is heading for us. I'll have relative velocity
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  Speaker 1: in ten seconds. He heard the skipper swear. Ten seconds later,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the Doppler measurement became possible. It said. The Plumy plunged
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: toward the Nicoler at miles per second. In half a minute,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it was tens of miles per second. There was no
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  Speaker 1: retransmission of signals. The Plumy ship had found itself discovered. Apparently,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it considered itself attact. It flung itself into a headlong
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: dash for the Nicoler. Time passed interminable time. The sun
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: flared and flamed and rised in emptiness. The great gas
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: giant planet rolled through space in splendid state, its moonlit,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: spinning gracefully about its bulk. The oxygen atmosphere. Planet to
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: sunward was visible only as a crescent, but the mottlings
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: on its lighted part changed as it revolved, Seas and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: islands and continents, receiving the sunlight as it turned. Metea swarms,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: so dense an appearance on a radar screen, yet so
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: tenuous in reality, floated in their appointed orbits with a
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: seeming vast leisure. The feel of slowness was actually the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: result of distance. Men have always acted upon things close by.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Battles have always been fought within I range, anyhow, But
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  Speaker 1: it was actually zero six hours thirty five minutes ship
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: time before the two spacecrafts sighted each other, more than
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: two hours after they plunged towards the rendezvous. The Plumy
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  Speaker 1: ship was a bright golden dot. At first it decelerated swiftly.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: In minutes it was a rounded end on disk. Then
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  Speaker 1: it swerved lightly and presented an elliptical broadside to the Necola.
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  Speaker 1: The Niccoler was in full deceleration too. By then. The
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  Speaker 1: two ships came very nearly to a stop with relation
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  Speaker 1: to each other, when they were hardly twenty miles apart,
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  Speaker 1: which meant great daring on both sides. Bed heard the
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  Speaker 1: skipper grumbling. Damned cocky, he roared suddenly, mister Bed, have
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: you made out in communicating with them? Not at all, sir,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: said Baird, grimly. They don't reply. He knew from Dian's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: expression that there was no sound in the headphones except
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the frying noise or main sequence stars give out, and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the infrequent thumping noises that come from gas giants, planets,
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  Speaker 1: lower atmospheres, and the Jansky radiation hits which arms from everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: The skipper swore the plumy ship lay broadside two, less
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: than a score of miles away. It shone in the sunlight.
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  Speaker 1: It acted with extraordinary confidence. It was as if it
• 18:12
  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
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  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.
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  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
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: orders that he disagreed with those orders. It was official
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: theory that arithmetic values repeated in proper order would be
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the way to open conversation. The assumption was that any
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: rational creature would grasp the idea that orderly signals were
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: rational attempts to open communication. But it had occurred to
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: bear that a Plumy might not see this point. Perception
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of order is not necessarily perception of information. In fact,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: quite the contrary. A message is a disturbance of order.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: A microphone does not transmit a message when it sends
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: an unvarying tone. A message has to be unpredictable, or
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it conveys no message. Orderly cliques, even if overheard, might
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: seem to Plumy, is the result of methodically operating machinery.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: A race capable of interstellar flight was not likely to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: be interested or thrilled by exercises a human child goes
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: through in kindergarten. They simply wouldn't seem meaningful at all.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: But before he could ask permission to attempt to make
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: talk in a more sophisticated fashion, voices exclaimed all over
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the ship. They came blurringly to the loud speakers. Look
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: at that, what's he do? Spinning like from every place
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: where there was a vision plate on the nicola. Men
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: watched the plumy ship and babbled. This was at zero
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: six hours fifty minutes ship time. The elliptical golden object
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: darted into swift and eccentric motion. Lacking an object of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: known size for comparison, there was no scale. The golden
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: ship might have been the size of an autumn leaf,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: and in fact its maneuvers suggested the heedless tumblings and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: scurrying of falling foliage. It fluttered in swift turns and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: somersaults and spinnings. There were weavings, like the purposeful feints
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of boxes not yet come to battle. There were indescribably
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: graceful swoops and loops and curving dashes, like some preposterous
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: dance in emptiness. Tane's voice crashed out of a speaker,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: all even numbered rockets. He barked fire. The skipper roared
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a countermand but too late, the crunchy, grunting sound of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: rockets leaving their launching tubes came before his first syllable
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was complete. Then there was silence while the skipper gathered
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: breath from a masterpiece of profanity. But tain snapped that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: dance was a sneak up. The Plumy came four miles
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: nearer while we watched. Bir jerked his eyes from watching
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the Plumy. He looked at the master radar. It was
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: faintly blurred with the fading lines of past gyrations. But
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the Golden ship was much nearer than Nicola than it
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: had been radar reporting, said Baird, seekishly, Mister Taine is correct.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: The Plumy ship did approach us while it danced. Taine's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: voice snarled, reload even numbers with chemical explosive warheads, then
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: remove atomics from odd numbers and replace with chemicals. The
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: range is too short for atomics. Baird felt curiously divided
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: in his own mind. He disliked Tayne very much. Taine
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was arrogant and suspicious and intolerant, even on the Niccoler.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: But tain had been right twice. Now the Plumy ship
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: had crept closer by pure trickery, and it was right
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to remove atomic warheads from the rockets. They had a
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: pure blast radius of ten miles to destroy the Plumy
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: ship within twice that would endanger the Nicola and leave
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: nothing of the Plumy to examine afterward. The Plumy ship
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: must have seen the rocket flares, but it continued to dance,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: coming nearer and ever nearer, in seemingly heedless and purposeless
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: plungings and spinnings in star speckled space. But suddenly there
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: were racing, rushing trails of swirling vapor. Half the nicolas
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: poort broadside plunged toward the Golden Ship. The fraction of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: a second later, the starboard half dozen chemical explosive rockets
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: swung furiously around the ship's hull and streaked after their brothers.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: They moved in utterly silent, straight lined, ravening ferocity toward
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: their target. Beare thought irrelevantly of the vapor trails of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: an atmosphere liner in the planet's supper air. The ruled
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: line straightness of the first six rockets course abruptly broke.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: One of them veered crazily out of control. It shifted
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: to an almost right angled course. A second swung wildly
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to the left, a third, and fourth, and fifth the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: sixth of the first line of rockets made a great
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: sweeping turn and came hurtling back toward the Niccola. It
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: was like a nightmare. Lunatic, erratic lines of sunlit vapor
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: 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 irremediably as the first Tane's voice screamed out of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a speaker, hysterical with fury detonate, detonate they've taken over
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the rockets, and a throwing em backatus detonate all rockets.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: The heavens seemed streaked and laced with lines of expanding smoke,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: But now one plunging line erupted at its tip, A
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: swelling globe of smoke marked its end. Another blew up,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and another The nicolas rockets faithfully blew themselves to bits
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: on command from the Nicola's own weapons control. There was
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: nothing else to be done with them. They'd been taken
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: over in flight, they'd been turned and headed back toward
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: their source. They'd have blasted the Niccola to bits, but
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: for their premature explosions. There was a peculiar, stunned hush
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: all through the Niccola. The only sound that came out
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: 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 navagae. 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 humankind was showing up rather
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: badly at the moment. It was that the Plumy ship
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: had refused contact and forced to fight. It was that
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: if the Niccoller were destroyed, the Plumy would carry news
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of the existence of humanity and of the tactics which
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: work to defeat them. The Plumies could prepare an irresistible fleet.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Humanity could be doomed. But he overheard himself saying bitterly,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I wish I'd known this was coming, Diane, I wouldn't
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: have resolved to be strictly official only till we got
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: back to base. Her eyes widened, she looked startled, then
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: she softened. If if you mean that, I wish so too.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: It looks like they've got us, he admitted, unhappily, if
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: they can take our rockets away from us. Then his
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: voice stopped. He said, hold everything and pressed the navigation
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: room button. He snapped read out a navigation It appears
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: to take the Plumies several seconds to take over a rocket.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: They have to aim something a presser or tractor beam
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: most likely, and pick off each rocket separately. Nearly forty
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: seconds was consumed in taking over all twelve of our
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: rockets at yourt arrange. With less time available, a rocket
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: might get through the skipper, swore briefly, then, mister Taine,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: when the plumies are near enough, our rockets may strike
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: before they can be taken over. You follow. Baird heard
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Tain's shrill, voiced acknowledgment in the form of practically chattered
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: orders to his rocket tube crews. Bair had listened, checking
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the orders against what the situation was as the radars
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: saw it. Taine's voice was almost inhuman, so filled with
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: frantic rage that it cracked as he spoke. But the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: problem at hand was the fulfillment of all his psychopathic urges.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: He commanded the starboard side rocket battery to await special orders. Meanwhile,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the port side battery would fire two rockets on widely
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: divergent courses, curving to join at the plumy ship. They'd
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: be seized, they were to be detonated, and another port
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: side rocket fired instantly, followed by a second hidden in
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the rocket trail. The first would leave behind, then the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: starboard side. I'm afraid Tain's are only chance, said Baird reluctantly.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: If he wins, we'll have time to talk as people
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: do who like each other. If it doesn't work, Diane
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: said quietly, anyhow, I'm glad you wanted me to know.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I wanted you to know too. She smiled at him yearningly.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: There was the crump crump of two rockets going out together.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Then the radar told what happened. The Plumy ship was
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: no more than six miles away, dancing somehow deftly in
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the light of a yellow sun, with all the cosmos
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: spread out as shining pin points of colored light behind it.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: The radar reported the dash and the death of the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: two rockets after their struggle with invisible things that gripped them.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: They died when they headed reluctantly back to the Nicola
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and detonated two miles from their parent ship. The skipper's
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: voice came, mister Taine, after your next salvo, I shall
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: head for the Plumy at full drive to cut down
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the distance in the time they have to work in
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: be ready. The rocket tubes went crump crump again, with
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the fifth of a second interval, the radar showed two
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: tiny specks speeding through space toward the weaving, shifting speck,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: which was the Plumy. Outside in emptiness, there was a
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: filmy haze. It was the rocket fumes in explosive gases,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: spreading with incredible speed. It was thin as gossama. The
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Plumy ship undoubtedly spotted the rockets, but it did not
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: try to turn them. Somehow seized them and deflected them
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and darted past them toward the Niccoler. They see the trick,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: said Diane, dry throated. If they can get in close enough,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: they can turn it against us. There were noises inside
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the Niccola now taine fairly howled in order. There were
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: yells of defiance and excitement. There were more of those
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: inadequate noises as rockets went out. Every tube on the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: starboard side emptied itself in a series of savage grunts,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and the Nicola's magnetronic drive roared at full flux density.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: The two ships were less than a mile apart when
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the Niccola let go her full double broadside of missiles,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and then it seemed that the Plumy ship was doomed.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: There were simply too many rockets to be seized and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: handled before at least one struck. But there was a
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: new condition. The Plumy ship weaved and dodged its way
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: through them. The new condition was that the rockets were
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: just beginning their run. They had not achieved the terrific
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: velocity they would accumulate in ten miles of no gravity.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: They were new launched logi clumsy, not the streaking, flashing,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: death and destruction they would become with thirty more seconds
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of acceleration. So the Plumy Ship dodged them with a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: skill and daring past belief, with an incredible agility, It
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: got inside them, nearer to the nickeler than they, and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: then it hurled itself at the human ship, as if
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: bent upon a suicidal crash which would destroy both ships together,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: But bed in the radar room, and the skippery navigation
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: knew that it would plunge brilliantly past at the last instant,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And then they knew that it would not, because very suddenly,
• 30:32
  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 Niccola. It did not swerve,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It did not dance. It was a life wafeless hulk,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: a derelict in space, and it would hit the Nickeler
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: amidships with no possible result but destruction for both vessels.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: The nicolas skipper bellowed orders, as if shouting would somehow
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: give the more effect. The magnetronic drive roared. He demanded
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: a miracle of it, and he almost got one. The
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: drive strained its thrust members, it hopelessly overloaded its coils.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: The Nicola's cobalt steel hull became more than saturated with
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the 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: Nicola 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 and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: then there was a wrenching, heaving shock. Then there was blackness.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Bed was flung across the radar room, and Diane cried out,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and he careened against a wall and hurt glass shatter.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: He called Diane. He clutched crazily at anything, and called
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: her name again. The nicholas internal gravity was cut off,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: and his head spun, and he heard collision doors closing everywhere.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But before they closed completely he heard the rasping sound
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: of giant arcs sleeping in the engine room. Then there
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: was silence. Diane cried bed fiercely. Diane, I'm here, she panted.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm dessy, but I think I'm all right. The
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: battery powered emergency light came on. It was faint, but
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: he saw her clinging to a bank of instruments where
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: she had been thrown by the collision. He moved to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: go to her and found himself floating in mid air,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: but he drifted to a side wall and worked his
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: way to her. She clung to him, shivering. I I think,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: she said, unsteadily. But we're going to die, aren't we.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: We'll see, he told her. Hold on to me. Guided
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: by the emergency light, he scrambled to the bank of
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: communicator buttons. What had been the floor was now a
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: side wall. He climbed it and thumbed the navigation room switch.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Radar room reporting, he said, curtly, power out, gravity off,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: no reports from outside from power failure, no great physical damage.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: He began to hear other voices. There had never been
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: an actual space collision in the memory of man. But
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: reports came crisply, and the cut in speakers in the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: radar room repeated them. Ship gravity was out all over
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the ship. Emergency lights were functioning, and were all the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: lights there were. There was a slight, unexplained gravity drift
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: towards what had been the ship's port's side, but damage
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: control reported no loss of pressure in the nicolas in
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: a hull, though four areas between inner and outer hulls
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: had lost air pressure to space. Mister Bair rasped, the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: skipper where blind. Forget everything else and give us eyes
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: to see with. We'll try battery powers to the vision plates.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Bared told Diane no full resolution, but better than nothing.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: They worked together feverishly. They were dizzy. Something close to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: nausea came upon them from pure giddiness. What had been
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the floor was now a wall, and they had to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: climb to reach the instruments that had been on a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: wall and now were on the ceiling. But their weight
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: was answers only. Baird said abruptly, I know what's the matter.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: We're spinning. The whole ship's spinning. That's why we're giddy,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and why we have even a trace of weight. Centrifugal
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: force ready for the current. There was a tiny click
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and the battery light dimmed, but a vision screen lighted faintly.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: The stars it showed were moving specks of light. The
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: sun passed deliberately across the screen. Baird switched to other
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: outside scanners. There was power for only one's screen at
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a time, but he saw the starkly impossible. He pressed
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the navigation room button rad Our room reporting. He said urgently,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the Plumy ship is fast to us, in contact with
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: our hull. Both ships are spinning together. He was trying
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: yet other scanners as he spoke, and now he said,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: got it. There are no lines connecting us to the Plumy.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: But it looks yes that flash when the ships came
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: together with a flash over of high potential, we're welded
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: to them along twenty feet of our hull. The skipper,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: damn nation, any sign of intention to board us? Not yet,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Sir Taine burst in his voice, high pitched and thick
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: with hatred. Damage control parties, attention, Arm yourselves and assemble
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: at starboard airlock. Rocket crews get into suits and prepare
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to board this plumy. Gaunt demand, bellowed the skipper from
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the speaker beside bar's ear. Those orders are canceled. Damn it.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: If we were successfully boarded, we'd blow ourselves to bits.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Those are our orders. Do you think the Plumies will
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: let their ship be taken? And wouldn't we blow up
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: with them? Mister Taine, you will take no offensive action
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: without specific orders. Defensive action is another matter, mister Baird.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I consider this welding business pure accident. No one would
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: be mad enough to plant you watch the plumies and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: keep me informed. His voice ceased, and Bird had again
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the frustrating duty of remaining still and keeping his head
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: while other men engaged in physical activity. He helped Diane
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: to a chair which was fastened to the floor which
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: was now a wall, and she wedged herself fast and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: began a review of what each of the outside scanners reported.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Baird called for more batteries. Power for the radar and
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: visions was more important than anything else. Just then if
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: there were more plumy ships. Electricians half floated, half dragged
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: extra batteries to the radar room. Baird hooked them in
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the universe outside the ship again appeared filled with the
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: brilliantly colored dots of light, which were the stars. More satisfying,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the globe scanners again reported no new objects anywhere, nothing
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: new within a quarter million miles. A half million later,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Bird reported, radars report no strange objects within a million
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: miles of the Nicola, Sir, except the ship were welded to.
• 36:59
  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
• 37:11
  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. Dian 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 Nicoler 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 Nicola's 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: Plumi as welded fast to the Nickela. The welding was
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: itself an extraordinary result of the Plumi's battle tactics. Tractor
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: and presser beams were known to men, of course, but
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: human beings used them Onny under very special conditions. Their
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: operation involved the building up of terrific static charges. Unless
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: a tractor beam generator could be grounded to the object
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: it was to pull, it tended to emit lightning bolts
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: at unpredictable intervals and in entirely random directions, So men
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: didn't use them. Obviously, the Plumy s did. 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
• 39:49
  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 deliberate as the united ships did.
• 40:02
  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
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: the Plumy ship. As Diane caught her breath, bed reported crisply.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: At his first words, Tane burst into raging commands for
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: men to follow him through the Nicola's air lock and
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: fight a boarding party of Plumies in empty space. The
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: skipper very savagely ordered him to be quiet. Only one
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: figure has come out, reported Bad. The skipper watched on
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: a vision plate, but bed reported so that all the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Nicholas company would know. It's small, less than five feet.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I'll see better in a moment. Sunlight smote down the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: valley between the ships. It's wearing a pressure suit. It
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: seems to be the same mysterial as the ship. It
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: walks on two legs, as we do. It has two
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: arms or something very similar. The helmet of the suit
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: is very high. It looks like the armor Knights used
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: to fight in. It's making its way to our airlock.
• 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 Holt to keep
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: an eye on outside objects. Quickly, mister Baird 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
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: on what had been a side wall. 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
• 41:41
  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 air lock just as the skipper arrived. There
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: were others there, armed and in pressure suits. The skipper
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: glared about him. I'm in command here, he said, very grimly. Indeed,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: mister Taine has a special function, but I am in command.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: We in. The creatures on the plumy ship are in
• 42:04
  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 niccoler'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 Nicoler. He was about
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the size of a ten year old human boy, and
• 42:50
  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 possessing. When
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: he spoke, very clear and quite high sounds soprano sounds
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: came from a small speaker unit as his shoulder. For
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: 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
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: a scaner for inspection of objects brought aboard. Hold the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: plate flat and I'll have a photograph right The skipper
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: said curtly to the plumy, you've drawn our two ships
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: linked as they are. What have you to say about it?
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: He handed back the plate. The Plumy pressed a stud
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: and it was blank again. He sketched and offered it
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: once more, um said the skipper. You can't use your
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: drive while we're glued together. Eh. Well, the Plumey reached
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: up and added lines to the drawing, so rumbled the skipper,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: inspecting the additions. You say it's up to us to
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: use our drive for both ships, he growled approvingly. You
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: consider there's a truce you must because we're both in
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the same fix, and not a nice one either. True enough,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: we can't fight each other without committing suicide now, but
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: we haven't any drive left. We're a derelict. How am
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I going to say that? If I decide to bed
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: could see the lines on the plate from the angle
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: at which the skipper held it. He said, Sir, we've
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: been mapping up in the radar room. Those last lines
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: are map co ordinates a separate sketch. Sir, I think
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: he's saying that the two ships together are on a
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: falling course toward the sun, that we have to do
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: something or both vessels will fall into it. We should
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: be able to check this, sir, ha growled the skipper.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: That's all we need, absolutely all we need to come
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: here to get into a crazy fight, have our drive
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: melt to scrap, get crazily welded to a plumy ship,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: and then for both of us to fry together. We
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: don't need anything more than that. Dion's voice came on
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: the speaker. Sir, the last ratear fixes on the planets
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 45:32
  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
• 45:55
  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. His voice changed to
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: a snarl. We'd better wring its neck teach its kind
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: a lesson, The skipper roared at him. Be quiet. Our
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: ship is a wreck. We have to consider the facts.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: We and these plumies are in a fix together, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: we have to get out of it before we start
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: to teach anybody anything. He glared at Taine. Then he
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: said heavily, mister Bird, you seem to notice things. Take
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: this plumy over the ship. Show him our drive melted down,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: so he'll realize we can't possibly tow his ship into
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: an orbit. He knows that we're armed and that we
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: can't handle our war heads at this range, so we
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: can't fool each other. We might as well be frank,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: but you will take full note of his reactions, mister Baird.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Bird advanced and the skipper made a gesture. The plumy
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: regarded Bed with interested eyes, and Baird led the way
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: for a tour of the nicoler. It was confusing even
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: to him. With right hand converted to up and left
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: handed down and sideways now almost vertical on the way,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the Plumy made more clear flute like sun and more gestures.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Baird answered, our gravity pool was that way, he explained,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: And things fell so fast. He grasped a hand rail
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and demonstrated the speed with which things fell in normal
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: ship gravity. He used a pocket communicator for the falling weight.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: It was singularly easy to say some things, even highly
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: technical ones, because they'd be what the Plumy would want
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: to know, But quite commonplace things would be very difficult
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: to convey. Dian's voice came out of the communicator. There
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: are no novelties outside, she said quietly. It looks like
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: this is the only Plumy ship anywhere around. It could
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: have been exploring like us. Maybe it was looking for
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the people who put up space survey markers, maybe, agreed Baird,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: using 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 graph. 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
• 48:50
  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 duily give us
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: six months and a place to set up a wire
• 49:01
  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
• 49:15
  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
• 49:26
  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 a lect trick current for the
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: ship's normal lighting system and services. The Plumy could grasp
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: that idea. They examined the crew's quarters and the mess room,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and the plumy walked confidently among the members of the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: human crew, who a little while since had tried so
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: painstakingly to destroy his vessel. He made a good impression,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: those little guys, said a crewman to bed, admiringly. They've
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: got something they can handle, a ship. I bet they
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: could almost make that ship of theirs play checkers toast
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: to it. Agreed bad he realized something. He pulled the
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: communicator from his pocket. Diane, contact the skipper. He wanted observations.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Here's one. This plumy acts like soldiers used to act
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: in ancient days when they wore armor, and we have
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the same reaction. They will fight like the devil, but
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: during a truce they'll be friendly, admiring each other as scrappers,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: but ready to fight as hard as ever when the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: truce is over, we have the same reaction. Tell the skipper,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I've an idea that it's a part of their civilization.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a necessary part of any civilization. Tell him,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I guess that there may be necessarily parallel evolution of
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: attitudes among rational races, as there are parallel evolutions of
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: eyes and legs and wings and fins. Among all animals everywhere.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: If I'm right, somebody from this ship will be invited
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to tour the plumy. It's only a guess, but tell
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: him immediately, said Diane. The plumy followed gallantly as bird
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: made a steep climb up what once was the floor
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of a corridor. Then Taine stepped out before them, his
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: eyes burned, giving him a clear picture. Eh, he rasped,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: letting him spy out everything. Baird pressed to communicate a
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: call for the 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, narled 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 Baird 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. Taine 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: Bird 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 bear.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: They twinkled. Bed took him back to the skipper. He's
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: got the picture, sir reported. The Plumy pulled out his
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: sketch plate. He drew on it. He offered it. The
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: skipper said, heavily you guess, drite, mister Baird. He suggests
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: that some one from the ship go on board the
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Plumy vessel. He's drawn two pressure suited figures going in
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: their air lock, ones larger than the other. Will you go, naturally,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: said baird. Then he added thoughtfully, but I'd better carry
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: a portable scanner, sir. It should work perfectly well through
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: a bronze hole, Sir. The skipper nodded and began to
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: sketch a diagram which would amark to an acceptance of
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the Plumy's invitation. This was at zero seven hours forty
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: minute ship time. Outside the sedately rotating metal hulls, the
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: one a polished blue silver and the other a glittering
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: golden bronze, the cosmos continued to be as all ways.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: The haze from explosive fumes and rocket fuel was perhaps
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: a little thinner. The brighter star shone through it. The
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: gas giant planet outward from the Sun was a perceptible
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: disk instead of a diffuse glow. The oxygen plant to
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: sunwards showed again as a light at Crescent presently bed
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: in a human space suit accompanied the Plumy into the
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Nicola's air lock and out into emptiness. His magnetic soled
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: shoes clung to the Nicola's cobalt steel skin fastened to
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: his shoulder. There was a tiny scanner and microphone which
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: would relay everything he saw and heard back to the
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: radar room. And to Diane. She watched tensely as he
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: went inside the Plumy ship. Other screens relaid the image
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: in his voice to other places on the Niccola. He
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: was gone a long time. From the beginning, Of course,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: there were surprises. When the Plumy escort removed his helmet
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: on his own ship. The reason for the helmet's high
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: crest was apparent. He had a high crest of what
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: looked remarkably like feathers, and it was not artificial. It
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: grew there. The reason for conventionalized plumes on bronze survey
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: plates was clear. It was exactly like the reason for
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: human features or figures as decorative additions to the inscriptions
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: on space survey marker plates. Even the plu Omey's hands
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: had odd crestlets which stood out when he bent his fingers.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: The other Plumies were no less graceful and no less colorful.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: They had equally clear soprano voices. They were equally miniature,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: and so devoid of apparent menace. But there were also
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: technical surprises. Bed was taken immediately to the Plumy ship's
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: engine room, and Iron heard the sharp intake of breath
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: with which he appeared to recognize its working principle. There
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: were Plumy engineers working feverishly at it, attempting to discover
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: something to repair, but they found nothing. The Plumy drive
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: simply would not work. They took bad through the ship's
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: entire fabric, and their purpose, when it became clear, was startling.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: The Plumy ship had no rocket tubes. It had no
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: beam projectors except small sized objects which were which must
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: be their projectors of tractor and presser beams. They were
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: elaborately grounded as the ship's substance, but they were not
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: originally designed for ultra heavy service. They hadn't and wouldn't
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: have the enormous capacity Bed it expected. He was astounded.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: When he returned to the Niccoler. He went instantly to
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: the radar room to make sure that pictures taken through
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: his scanner had turned out well, and there was dian
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: But the skipper's voice boomed at him from the wall.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Mister Bed, what have you to add to the information
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you sent back? Three items, sir, said Bed. He drew
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: a deep breath for the first, Sir, the Plumy ship
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: is unarmed. They've tractor and presser beams for handling material.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: They probably used them to build their cairs, but they
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: weren't meant for weapons. The Plumies, Sir, hadn't a thing
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: to fight with. When they drove for us after we
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: detected them, the skipper blinked hard. You sure of that, mister, Bed, Yes, Sir,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: said bed uncomfortably. The plumy ship is an exploring ship,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: a survey ship, Sir. You saw their mapping equipment, But
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: when they spotted us and we spotted them, they bluffed.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: When we fired rockets at them, they turned them back
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: with tractor and presser beams. They drove for, Sir, to
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: try to destroy us with our own bombs because they
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: didn't have any of their own. The skipper's mouth opened
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: and closed another item, Sir said bad more uncomfortably. Still,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: they don't use iron or steel. Every metal object I
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: saw was either a bronze or a light metal. I
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: suspect some of their equipments made of potassium, and I'm
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: fairly sure they use sodium in the place of aluminium.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Their atmosphere is quite different from ours. Obviously, they'd use
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: bronze for their ship's hull because they can venture into
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: an oxygen atmosphere. In a bronze ship. A sodium hulled
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: ship would be lighter, but it would burn in oxygen
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: where there was moisture. The skipper blinked. But they couldn't
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: drive in a non magnetic hull, he protested. A ship
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: has to be magnetic to drive, Sir, said Baird, his
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: voice still shaken. They don't use a magnetronic drive. I
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: once saw a picture of the drive they use in
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: a stereo on the history of space trouble. The principles
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: very old. We've practically forgotten it. It's a direct push, it, sir,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: among us humans. It came right after rockets. The planets
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: of Sol were first reached by ships using direct pushes.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: But he paused, they won't operate in a magnetic field
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: above seventy gauss, Sir. It's a static charge reaction, sir,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and in a magnetic field it simply stops working. The
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: skipper regarded Baird unwinkingly. For a long time. I think
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: you're telling me. He said at long last, that the
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Plumies drive would work if they were cut free of
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: the nicoler. Yes, sir, said Baird. Their engineers were opening
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: up the drive elements and checking them and then closing
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: them up again. They couldn't seem to find anything wrong.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think they know what the trouble is. It's
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the Nicola's magnetic field. I think it was our field
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: that caused the collision by stopping their drive and killing
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: all their controls when they came close enough. Did you
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: tell them, demanded the skipper. There was no easy way
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to tell them by diagrams, Sir Tane's voice cut in.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: It was feverish, it was strident, It was try emphant, Sir.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: The Nickeler is effectively a reckon irreparable, but the Plumy
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Ship is operable if cut loose. As weapons officer, I
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: intend to take the Plumy ship, let out its air,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: fill its tanks with our air, start up its drive,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: and turn it over to you for navigation back to base.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Baird raged, but he said coldly. We're a long way
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: from home, mister Taine, and the Dirac pusher drive is slow.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: If we headed back to base in the Plumy ship
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: with its Dirac pusher, we'd all be dead of old
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: age before we'd gone half way. But unless we take it,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: raged Taine, we hit this sun in fourteen days. We
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: don't have to die now. We can land on the
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: oxygen planet up ahead. We've only to kill these vermin
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and take their ship, and we'll live. Diane's voice said dispassionately.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Report a Plumy in a pressure suit just came out
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: of their air lock. It's carrying a parcel toward our
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: air lock. Taine snarled instantly. They'll sneak something in the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: nickel at to blast it and then cut free and
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: go away. The skipper said, very grimly, mister Taine, credit
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: me with minimum brains. There is no way the Plumies
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: can take this ship without an atomic bomb exploding to
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: destroy both ships. You should know it. Then he snapped
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: airlock area. Listen for a knock and let in the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: plumy or the parcel he leaves. There was silence. Bad said,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: very quietly. I doubt they think it possible to cut
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: the ships apart. A torch is no good on thick
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: silicon bronze. It conducts heat too well, and they don't
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: use steel. They probably haven't a cutting torch at all.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: From the radar room, he watched the Plumey place an
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: object in the airlock and withdraw. He watched from a
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: scanner inside the ship. As some one brought in what
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: the plumy had left, an electronics man bustled forward. He
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: looked it over quickly. It was complex, but his examination
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: suddenly seemed satisfying to him. But a grayish vapor developed,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: and he sniffed and wrinkled his nose. He picked up
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: a communicator. Sir. They've sent it a power generator. Some
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: of its parts are going bad in our atmosphere, sir,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: but this looks to me like a hell of a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: good idea for a generator. I never saw anything like it,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: but it's good. You can set it for any voltage
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and it'll turn out plenty juice. Put it in helium,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: snapped the skipper. It won't break down in that. Then
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: see how it serves in the radar room. Baird drew
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: a deep breath. He went carefully to each of the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: screens and every radar. Diane saw what he was about
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and checked with him. They met at the middle of
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the radar room. Everything's checked out, said Bed gravely. There's
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: nothing else around. There's nothing we can be called on
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: to do before something happens, so we can act like people.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Diane smiled very faintly, not like people just like us,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: she said, wistfully. Don't you want to tell me something
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: something you intended to tell me only after we got
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: back to base. He did. He told it to her.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: And there was also something she had not intended to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: tell him at all unless he told her first. She
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: said it now. They felt that such saying were of
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the greatest possible importance. They clung together, saying them again,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: and it seemed wholly monstrous that two people who cared
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: so desperately had wasted so much time acting like professional
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: associates Explorer ship officers when things like this were to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: be said. As they talked incoherently, were even more eloquently silent.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: The ship's ordinary lights came on, the battery lamp went on.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: We've 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
• 1:02:54
  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
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: four of The Aliens. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: public domain. The Aliens by Murray Leinster, Part four. They
• 1:03:17
  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,
• 1:03:27
  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 a 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
• 1:03:46
  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
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: inner air lock door was closing. He saw a human
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: pressure sute past its edge. He saw the corner of
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: some object that had been put down on the air
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: lock floor. Bear shouted and rushed toward the lock. He
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: seized the inner handle and tried to force open the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: door again so that no one inside it could emerge
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: into the emptiness without He failed. He wrenched frantically at
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: 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 sipped it up
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: to his neck. The man's crazy. He thinks we can
• 1:04:44
  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
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: control worked. Taine most probably had forgotten that the inner
• 1:05:00
  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
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: of operation. He thrust out the outer door and plunged through.
• 1:05:24
  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
• 1:05:30
  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 niccola. 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 space armor. Then
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: sunlight glittered and the valley filled with a fierce glare,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and a man in a human spacesuit stood on the
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Nicholas plating opposite the plumy air lock. He held a
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: bulky object under his arm. With his other gauntlet, 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
• 1:06:35
  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. In sight the suit,
• 1:07:01
  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.
• 1:07:13
  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.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: He saw too, that the Plumy airlock was now open,
• 1:07:27
  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
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: as the two men fought. Taine cursed, panting with hysterical hate.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: He flung himself at Beard, and Beard toppled because he
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: put one foot past the worlded boundary between the Nicolas
• 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
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Taane only rugged his other foot free and heaved, why
• 1:07:55
  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 hul as
• 1:08:06
  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
• 1:08:16
  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.
• 1:08:39
  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
• 1:08:46
  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 cord
• 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
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: yet again, and men were coming out of the Niccola's
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: air lock, and the Plumy, who had leapt for space,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: was pulling himself back to his own ship again. He
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: had a loop of the cord twisted around Taine's leg,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: but Taine screamed and screamed inside his spacesuit. 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 space ferone had come on too.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: When the air supply began, Baird explained, his teeth chattering,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Ha grunted the skipper Taine was a mistake. He shouldn't
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: ever have left ground. When a man's potty in one fash,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: there'll be cracks in him all over. What's this? The
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Plumy in the golden armor very soberly offered the skipper
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: the object tain had meant to introduce into the Plumy's ship.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Bed 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.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: Damned foolishness, rumbled the skipper. Their ship had begin to
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: crumble with our air in it if it held to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: a landing. Then he considered the object he'd accepted from
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: the Plumy. It could have been a rocket warhead enclosed
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: in some container that would detonate it if opened, or
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: there might be a timing device. The skipper grunted. He
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: heaved its skyward. The misshapen object, when floating away toward emptiness,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: sunlight smote harshly upon it. Don't want it back in
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: the niccoler, growled the skipper, But just to make sure,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: he fumbled a hand weapon out of his belt. He
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: raised it, and its spurted flame. Very tiny blue white sparks,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: each one indicating a pellet of metal, flung away at
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: high velocity. One of them struck the shining retreating container.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: It exploded with a monstrous soundless violence. It had been
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: a rocket's warhead, there could have been only one reason
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: for it to be introduced into a Plumy ship. Baird
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: ceased to be shaky. Instead, he was ashamed. The skipper
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: growled inarticulately. He looked at the plumy again, standing in
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the golden ship's airlock. We'll go back, mister bad. What
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: you've done won't save our lives, and nobody will ever
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: know you did it. But I think well of you.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Come along. This was at eleven hours, five minutes ship time.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: A good half hour later, the skipper's voice bellowed from
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: the speakers all over the Nickeler. His heavy jowled features
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: stared doggedly out of screens where over men were on
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: duty or at ease hear this, He said, forbiddingly. We
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: have checked our course and speed. We have verified that
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: there is no possible jury rig for our engines. It
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: could get us into any saw of all, but let
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: alone land us on the only planet in the system
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: with air we could breathe. It is officially certain that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: in thirteen days, nine hours from now, the Niccola will
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: be so close to the Sun that her hull will
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: melt down, which will be no loss to us, because
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: we'll be dead then still going on into the sun
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: to be vaporized with the ship. There's nothing to be
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: done about it. We can do nothing to save our
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: own lives. He glared out of each and every one
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: of the screens wherever there were men to see him.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: But he rumbled, The Plumies can get away if we
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: help them. They have no cutting torches we have. We
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: can cut their ship free. They can repair their drive,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: but it's most likely it'll operate perfectly when they're a
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: mile from the Nicolas magnetic field. They can't help us,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: but we can help them, and sooner or later, some
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: plumy ship is going to encounter some other human ship.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: If we cut these Plumies loose, they'll report what we did.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: When they meet other men, they'll be cagy because they're
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: remember tane, but they'll know they can make friends because
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: we did them a favor when we'd nothing to gain
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: by it. I can offer no reward, but I ask
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: for volunteers to go outside and cut the plumy ship loose,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: so the Plumies can go home in safety instead of
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: on into the sun with us. He glared and cut
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: off the image Diane held tightly to Baird's hand in
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: the radar room. He said evenly, they'll be volunteers. The
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: plumies are pretty sporting characters, putting up a fight with
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: an unarmed ship, and so on. If there aren't enough
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: other volunteers, the Skipper and I will cut them free
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: by ourselves, Diane said, dry throated. I'll help so I
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: can be with you. We've got so little time. I'll
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: 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
• 1:13:46
  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 welded ships. There were
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: men in space armor working cutting torches, where for twenty
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: feet the two ships were solidly attached. Blue white flames
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: bored savagely into solid metal and melted copper gave off
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: strangely 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
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: other colors. There were plumies in the airlock watching. At
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: zero three hours forty minutes ship time, all the men
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: but one drew back. They went inside the niccola. Only
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: one man remained cutting. At the last liver of metal
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: that held the two ships together. It parted. The Plumy
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: ships wept swiftly away, moved by the centri figal 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 Nicola's hull, thriftily,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: 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,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: It swung to the right, 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
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: almost fourteen days. Wait, he commanded. When the Plumies understood
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: what we were doing and why they drew diagrams, they
• 1:15:17
  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. Bad 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. Sat. We gave them their drive works.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: They're as well off as they ever were, and they've
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: been modifying their tractor beams, stepping them up to higher power.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: What of it, demanded the skipper, rumbling. They believe, said Bad,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: that they can handle the Niccola with their beefed up
• 1:16:16
  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 Niccola. 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,
• 1:16:45
  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
• 1:16:52
  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
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: ready to combine with the oxygen we need to breathe.
• 1:17:02
  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,
• 1:17:31
  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 Baird, 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 swept with us. Then he added,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: when you think of it, sir, probably the first metal
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: they ever used was aluminium, where our ancestors used copper,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: and they had a beryllium age next instead of iron.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: And right now, sir, it's probably as expensive for them
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: to refine iron as it is for us to handle
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: titanium 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
• 1:18:28
  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
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: made because it looked like they had to be fought,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: but Baird 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
• 1:18:49
  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 Ah, very good, miss to Bed,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: he said, formidably. And of course, with time and air
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: and metals, we can rebuild our drive. For that matter,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: we could rebuild the Nicola. I'll notify the ship's company,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: mister Bed. Very good. He moved to use another microphone.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Then he checked himself. Your expression is odd, mister Bed.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: Did you wish to say something more? Ee? Yes, sir,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: said bad. He held Diane's hand fast. It'll be months
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: before we get back to port, sir, and it's normally
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: against regulations. But under the circumstances, would you mind a
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: skipper marrying Lieutenant Halt and me? The skipper snorted, Then
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: he said, almost almost amiably. N you've both done very well,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: mister Baird. Yes, come to the navigation room and we'll
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: get it over with, say, ten minutes from now. Bed
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: grinned at Diane. Her eyes shone a little. This was
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: at zero four hours ten minutes ship time. It was
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: exactly twelve hours since the alarm bell rang end of
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: Part four. This is also the end of the Aliens
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: by Murray Leinster