"See here, Kartr." Jaksan turned away from the window. "Isn't it about time that you looked straight at some hard facts? We're going to be here for the rest of our lives. We are seven men against almost two hundred — and they have a well-organized community going — "
"Seven men?" queried Kartr. "We number nine if you count the Commander."
"Men." Jaksan stressed the word.
There it was — out in the open. Kartr had feared to hear it for a long time now.
"There are four qualified Patrol rangers and five of you," he returned stubbornly. "And the rangers stick together."
"Don't be a fool!"
"Why shouldn't I have that privilege?" Kartr's rage was ice cold now. "All the rest of you seem to enjoy it."
"You're a human being! You belong with your kind. These aliens — they — "
"Jaksan" — Kartr repudiated once and for all the leadership of the arms officer — "I know all those threadbare, stock arguments. There is no need to run through them again. I have had them dinned into me by your kind ever since I joined the Service and asked for ranger detail — "
"You young idiot! Since you joined the Service, eh? And how long ago was that? Eight years? Ten? You're no more than a cub now. Since you joined the Service! You don't know anything at all about it — this Bemmy problem. Only a barbarian — "
"We'll admit that I'm a barbarian and that I have odd tastes in friends, shall we? Admit it and leave it out of this conversation!" Kartr was gaining control of his temper.
It was plain that Jaksan was attempting to justify some stand he had taken or been forced into agreement with, not only to Kartr but to himself.
"Suppose you allow me to go to perdition my own way. Is this `All humans stand together' a rule of Cummi's?"
Jaksan refused to meet the sergeant's demanding gaze. "He is very prejudiced. Don't forget he is an Ageratan. They had an internal problem in that system when they had to deal with a race of alien non-humans — "
"And they solved that problem neatly and expediently by the cold-blooded massacre of the aliens!"
"I forgot — your feeling against Ageratans — "
"My feeling for Ageratans, which, I might say, is different from the one you deem it to be, has nothing to do with this case. I simply refuse now or ever to hold any such views against any stranger, human or Bemmy. If the Vice-Sector Lord wants the rangers to do his hunting — all right. But we shall stick together as a unit. And if to continue to do so means trouble — then we might oblige in that direction also!"
"Look here." Jaksan kicked moodily at the bedroll which lay on the floor. "Don't stop thinking about it, Kartr. We'll have to live the rest of our lives here. We're really lucky beyond our dreams — Cummi believes that this city can be almost entirely restored. We can start all over. I know that you don't care for Cummi, but he is able enough to organize a shipload of hysterical passengers into a going settlement. Seven men can't fight him. All I ask of you for the present is don't repeat to Cummi what you just said to me. Think it over first."
"I shall. In the meantime the rangers will take quarters together."
"Oh, all right." Jaksan shrugged. "Do it — wherever you please."
"Maybe he should have said where Cummi pleases," thought Kartr as he left the room.
He found the rangers waiting for him and gave his own orders.
"Rolth, you and Fylh get up to that tower. If anyone tries to stop you pull Patrol rank on him. It may still carry some weight with the underlings here. Zinga, where did you leave our packs?"
Five minutes later Kartr and the Zacathan gathered the four pioneer packs. "Slip an anti-gravity disc under them," said Kartr, "and come on."
With the packs floating just off the floor and easy to tow, they made their way toward the rear of the building. But, as they approached the narrow flight of stairs Zinga said led to the roof, they were met by Fortus Kan. He edged back against the wall to let them pass, since Kartr did not halt. But he asked as they went by:
"Where are you going?"
"Settling in ranger quarters," the sergeant returned briefly.
"That one is still watching us," Zinga whispered as they mounted. "He is none too stout of heart. A good loud shout of wrath aimed at him would sent him scuttling — "
"But don't try it," Kartr returned. "There is enough trouble before us now without stirring up any more."
"Ho! So you learned that, did you? Well, a short life and a merry one, as my egg brother often said while we were still shipmates. I wonder where Ziff is now — rolling in silk and eating brofids three times a day if I know that black-hearted despoiler! Not that it wouldn't be good to see his ugly face awaiting us above when we have finished this climb. His infighting is excellent, a very handy man with a force blade. Zippp — and there's an enemy down with half his insides gone — "
They could do, thought Kartr bitterly, with about fifty good infighters right now — or even with only ten.
"Welcome home, travelers!" That was Rolth, his goggled eyes lending his face an insect-like outline as he looked down at them. "For once the old pepper bird has found us a real perch. Come in and relax, my brave boys!"
"Flame bats and octopods!" Even Zinga seemed truly amazed as he stared about the room they entered.
The walls were a murky translucent green. And behind them came and went shapes of vivid color, water creatures swimming! Then Kartr saw that it was an illusion born of light and some sort of automatic picture projection. Zinga sat down on the packs, bearing them under his weight to the floor.
"Luscious! Luscious! Enough to tempt the most fastidious palate. The being who planned this room was a gourmand. I would be proud to shake his hand, fin or tentacle. Magnificent! That red one — does it not resemble almost to the last scale the succulent brofid? What a wonderful, wonderful room!"
"What about rations?" Kartr inquired of Rolth over Zinga's head.
The Faltharian's eyebrows raised until they could be seen over the rim of his goggles. "Are you contemplating our sitting out a siege? We have a few basic supply tins still unopened — about five days of full meals — twice that if we have to draw in our belts."
"Do you mean to tell me," Zinga broke out, "that you have brought me into this place of culinary promise and now propose to feed me extract of nourishing — bah — what a word, nourishing! As if nourishment and food are ever the same — to feed me extract of fungus and the rest of that unexciting goo we have to absorb when we are climbing over bare rock with no chance of hunting! This is a torture which cannot be refined upon. I insist upon my rights as a freeborn citizen — "
"A freeborn citizen?" queried Fylh. "Second class — third class twice removed, would be much more apt. And you have no rights at all — "
But Rolth had been watching Kartr's expression and now he broke in.
"Is that the way of it — honestly?"
"Just about, I'm afraid." Kartr sat down on the room's single piece of furniture — an opaline bench. "I went to Jaksan. He said Cummi had orders for me — "
"Orders?" Again the Faltharian's eyebrows betrayed his surprise. "A civilian giving orders to the Patrol? We may be rangers, but we are also still Patrol!"
"Are we?" Fylh wondered. "A Patrolman has ships, force to back him up. We're just survivors now, and we can't ring in the fleet if we get in a tight place — "
"Jaksan agrees with that. I gathered that he has more or less abdicated in Cummi's favor. The idea is that the Vice-Sector Lord has a running concern here — "
"And that we are more or less lucky to be included in?" demanded Rolth. "Yes, I can see that argument being advanced. But Jaksan — he's veteran Patrol to the core. Somehow his standing aside this way — it doesn't fit!"
Fylh made a gesture of brushing aside nonessentials. "Jaksan's psychological response need not concern us as much as something else. Do I gather that here Bemmys are second class citizens?"