“The little birds tried to sing here,” said Jonnie. They didn't have a code. They surely needed one. But he was making do. “All okay now. But our friend Ivan in his new hole must have a ceiling. Got it?”
Robert the Fox got it. He knew Jonnie meant him to get air cover to the Russian base and he would right away.
“Have our own band play Swenson's Lament,” said Jonnie. There was no such Scot piper lament. Planetary radio silence, if you please. If the visitors had known he would be here, they were monitoring unguarded speech. “I may play a note or two but otherwise Swenson's Lament.”
He turned off. The situation was more dangerous than he had thought. For all the people on this planet.
Only he had been “deaf.” Only he had been able to act. Therefore that bell-mouthed barrel had been emitting a sound wave of high intensity that produced a total paralysis. So that's how the Tolneps did their slave trade.
Chapter 4
The escort pilot who had just landed didn't understand what had happened either, and he was trying to explain it to the Coordinator who didn't speak German. Jonnie asked the German whether he had recorded the action and the pilot said he had. Jonnie explained it to them both, in English to the Coordinator and in Psychlo to the pilot, that it was a device on the nose of that hidden patrol ship over there.
And they had better gather this crowd up and take them into a room of one of these ruins and explain and play the discs for them so they wouldn't think the place was full of devils. Soothe them down. They could have a reception later.
The crowd was trailing after the Coordinator into a nearby interior. Jonnie walked over to the Tolnep.
The creature was conscious now. His eyes without his faceplate looked blind. They saw in some different light band and needed correction filters. Jonnie looked around and found the half-shattered plate and, keeping well away from the creature's teeth, dropped it over his eyes. It tried to snap at him.
Jonnie hunkered down and said, “We will now begin your narrative, the long sad story of your youth, how circumstances drove you to crime, and how that fateful trail led you to this pitiful ending.”
“You're mocking me!” snarled the Tolnep.
“Ah,” said Jonnie. “We speak Psychlo. Very good. Continue your story.”
“I will tell you nothing!”
Jonnie looked around. It was quite a drop from the top of that huge palace down to the valley. He carefully selected the spot and pointed it out. “We're going to carry you up there and drop you. See the place just at the end of the long gable?”
The Tolnep laughed. “Wouldn't even dent me!”
Jonnie was thoughtful for a while. “Well, we're not really enemies of yours, so I am going to reconnect the wiring on your ship, put a little remote control I have in it, and send you back up to the Vulcor-class war vessel.”
The Tolnep was silent. Rather alertly silent.
“So I just better get to work on the remote control-” and Jonnie got up as though to go to his plane.
“Wait,” said the Tolnep. “You really wouldn't do that, would you? Return me to my ship?”
“Of course. It 's the civilized thing to do!”
The Tolnep screamed, “You rotten foul Psychlos! You would do anything! Anything! There is no limit to your filthy sadism!”
“Why, what would they do to you?”
“They'd shoot me down and you know it! And I’d sizzle and burn in the air friction!”
“But why wouldn't they want you?” said Jonnie.
“Don't play around with me!” raved the Tolnep. “You think I’m stupid? You think they're stupid? I notice you don't mention sprinkling virus powder all over me to infect the crew. You are a fiend! Coughing my lungs out all the way there, writhing in agony as I fall, burning slowly mile after mile with the build-up of air friction heat! You just plain go to hell!”
Jonnie shrugged. “It’s the civilized thing to do,” he said and started toward the ship again.
“Wait! Wait, I tell you! What do you want to know?”
So Jonnie heard about the travails of this Double-Ensign Slitheter Pliss and his Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl, and how stupid it was not to let a superior officer win at gambling. He heard a lot of other things, not really relevant, and then the double-ensign said, “Of course Snowl hasn't told the crew, because he'll take the whole prize himself, but it's rumored that there's a hundred-million-credit reward for finding the one.”
“What one.' said Jonnie.
But Double-Ensign Slitheter Pliss didn't have anything more on it than that. He explained they were waiting to make sure, but either way the combined force would eventually attack en masse. The commanders of the ships were gambling via viewscreen for shares of the loot, and Rogodeter Snowl had already won the planet's people, he thought, though Snowl often lied and one didn't really know. But for certain they would need transport and maybe have to go home for it. Home? Did he ever notice a bright star– really a double star? Must be very bright from here. Constellation above it looked like a square box from this angle. Well, that was home. Ninth planet in the rings. The Tolneps only had one planet. They were raiders of other planets. Slaves.
That seemed to be all just now, so Jonnie told him he wouldn't send him back to his ship. Not yet, anyway.
Jonnie had read that once a Tolnep bit, it took six days to develop more poison. So he got a mine sample bottle and a rag out of the plane and told the Tolnep to bite the rag a few times and the Tolnep resignedly did so. Jonnie put the rag in the bottle and put the lid on tightly. MacKendrick knew about snakebite serums. Maybe he could make one for Tolnep bites.
Another escort plane had landed. It had a copilot. There was a minesite down the mountain, smashed now, but it would have an ore carrier and they had spare fuel, so Jonnie sent them down to check one out and fly it up here. He was taking this Tolnep and the patrolcraft back. He also told them to see what the minesite could supply in the way of passenger carriers.
Jonnie looked up in the afternoon sky. He couldn't see anything in orbit but four hundred miles and daylight would make it invisible. An uneasy day.
The Coordinator and the German pilot had shown the pictures and had taken the crowd over to see the ship and explain the gun to them. The throng was leaving it now. Coming back toward Jonnie, who was standing by the plane, they were within talking distance.
Abruptly, as though on signal, they all dropped down to their knees and began bowing their heads to the ground. And then they stayed down.
Jonnie had seen quite enough people falling down today. “Now what's the matter?” he said to the Coordinator.
“They are deeply ashamed. They planned a great welcome for you and it all went splat. But more than that,” said the Coordinator, “they have developed a lot of respect for you. They had it before, but now-'
“Well, tell them to get up,” said Jonnie a bit impatiently. Adulation was not any pay he was after.
“You just saved their lives or maybe more,” said the Coordinator.
“Nonsense,” said Jonnie. “I was just lucky to be wearing a helmet with ear pads. Now tell them to get up!”
The German pilot was near at hand. It seemed that this was the day for embarrassment. He was explaining to Jonnie again that he had dared not fire: a Mark 32's guns might have blown half that palace right down on the crowd and Jonnie. It was an enclosed bowl here and the blow-back of the blast– Jonnie shook his head and waved him away.