They talked pure romantic nonsense, which was doubly foolish because there were things urgently needing to be done. But none of the things that needed to be done were really possible; therefore it would have been quadruply foolish to put aside their sudden and urgent rejoicing in each other’s existence. It would last, it seemed, for only a very short time, but that was all the more reason to rejoice while it was still possible.
The siren wailed again. Its monstrous quaverings went up and down the scale, and flying things launched themselves from jungle treetops and dashed crazily about, and doubtless there were small walking or crawling things that crouched down in their holes and listened to it fearfully, But Howell and Karen hardly noticed it.
They were looking at each other as if they’d never seen each other quite completely before, when Ketch shouted from a little distance away. Then Karen smiled ruefully and drew away from Howell as he released her, and they greeted Ketch and Karen’s father as they came to the port of the yacht.
“We found a rubble-heap,” said Ketch, with a look of shrewdness on his face. “And something else.”
Breen puffed up into the yacht.
“Bad luck!” he grunted. “Very bad luck! There were holes there! Somebody or something dug those holes! Lately!”
Howell nodded unemotionally. Ketch and Breen were agitated by some discovery they’d made. He had now to make them resolute and ready to face what the revelation of a slug-ship’s approach meant. It was, in substance, that they were almost certainly about to be killed. If they reacted as he believed they should—And if they didn’t—He said, “I’ve something to tell you—”
“They were humans,” said Ketch. “They—”
“No doubt about it!” puffed Breen. “No doubt at all! They dug holes down to deposits of metal in the rubble. There was rust left behind. They’d found machinery, maybe. Rusted past recognition, but they can smelt it down, no doubt. Their ships—”
“We found where their ships had grounded,” interposed Ketch. “Brushwood crushed flat. They’d landed, and they’d stayed a while, digging in the rubble-heaps.”
“Must’ve had metal detectors,” said Breen, still partly out of breath. “To tell where the metal was. That’d make them—human. They couldn’t be anything else!”
“They could,” said Howell coldly. “They could be slug-ship beings like those in the one that’s orbiting now, to come down next time around.”
“But they have to be humans! They’re gone now, but—” Then Breen stopped short. “What’s that you say?”
“There’s a slug-ship in orbit,” said Howell. “Karen heard its whine. Considering the booby trap and the Marintha plainly visible from the sky, where do you think they’ll turn up?”
There was silence. Then Ketch said almost with zest, “We’ve got to get away fast! Take what we can carry and hide until we can make contact with the humans here. They’re bound to go away again!”
“After studying the Marintha,” said Howell savagely, “and learning that there’s another human race than the one they know and set traps for! After possibly guessing that this other human race was wiped out and now has built up again from survivors of the rubble-heap cities after they were smashed thousands of years ago!”
“What—” Ketch’s mouth dropped open.
“And after very probably learning,” continued Howell, still savagely, “that they can do another massacre now, because they’ll have traditions if they haven’t records of smashing the civilization of the rubble-heap men! And they’ll know where to find it. Surely! Do we have to go and hide so they can do that all over again?”
Breen asked querulously, “What else can we do?”
Then Howell told them what else they could do. Their response was almost unbelievable. They were civilized men, citified men, generations removed from any real danger of sudden death. But they were not generations removed from drama-tapes, in which they’d experienced vicariously all sorts of thrills and splendid adventures. Watching them, they developed a fine confidence that they’d survive unharmed all the dangers and dramatic twists of the plot. Now they found themselves cast in roles of a highly dramatic type. Howell’s instructions sounded like stage directions. Breen obediently took one of Ketch’s sporting rifles. Ketch hesitated. He spoke to Karen—but Karen had received Howell’s orders as if there could be no possible other course of action. She, herself, picked out a light rifle with which she’d made good scores at targets. The Marintha’s company, save for Howell, prepared for an essentially hopeless battle as if for amateur theatricals.
Only Howell’s grimness was real. He’d handled the three small skeletons which appeared to be those of children. He did not look upon coming events as adventures in which nothing lethal or final could happen to the human participants. He could envision Karen killed: Karen the victim of such a blaster-bolt as had disabled the Marintha; Karen wounded, injured, dying. He didn’t envision himself as killed; nobody can really do that. But even generations of total safety hadn’t erased the instinct of man to face lions or slug-ships in defence of a girl he cares for.
So Howell was the one member of the Marintha’s crew who knew bloodthirstiness in anticipation of the slug-ship’s landing. He couldn’t imagine what sort of beings manned—or creatured—a slug-ship, but already he hated them with a violence that harked back to the ancient days when men carried stone hammers and spears to kill with.
Breen and Ketch had only enthusiasm to urge them on, but with an infinite amount of luck it might not matter. It could be that long-buried instincts would reappear when the fighting began. Target-shooting was a standard sport and on most worlds a man was expected to make a good score at the flip-targets as in much older days a man was expected to play a good hand of bridge. Living targets might help.
“How about the radar?” asked Ketch briskly. “We want to be warned when they come.”
“No!” said Howell angrily. “This is to be an ambush! The Marintha has to seem dead to make it one. They could pick up a radar-pulse!”
“An ambush! ” Breen said zestfully. “Yes! I’ve seen them on drama-tapes. And we’re to lie in ambush!”
Howell pointed out one of the Marintha’s view-ports. If the slug-ship landed on this side, here was a good bit of cover. That spot would have a good field of fire. This other would be good concealment from which to shoot.
“Try not to spoil the skins! ” said Ketch.
Howell didn’t protest the confusion of a hunter’s thinking with that of a man fighting for considerably more than his own life.
“Now, over on this side—”
There was a whining noise from the control room. The all-wave receiver had picked up the drive of a slug-ship. Howell’s jaws clamped tightly. He was assuming that the slug-ship creatures thought like men, though they might have very different motives.
But intelligence that arrived at space-drives like those of men, and booby traps such as men have been known to set for each other, and weapons like those of men—the huge blaster-bolt that had hit the Marintha was simply an oversized ball-lightning missile—if the slug-creatures paralleled human achievements, they must think like humans, though they need not feel like them at all.
The whine of the distant space-drive stopped. It cut in again. Off once more. Howell could tell what the unseen space-vessel was doing. It was decelerating, of course, to come down and view the Marintha from nearby for its destruction, or whatever alternative the slug-creatures had in mind. If the eyes of the slug-creatures were no better than men’s, or their telescopes not more useful, it would want to arrive over the Marintha moderately low down. If it suspected powerful weapons of human ships, it would tend to stay high. In any case it would not land before it had in some fashion tested out those supposed weapons. If the four dummies in the dead space were seen and accepted as corpses, the testing might not be elaborate. But the Marintha had to lie perfectly still as if all its crew were dead or destroyed. And it might be destroyed anyhow.