She felt like running; she was as embarrassed as he was. Instead she said, and tried to mean it, “It doesn't matter. So you think the people in the other ship might want to, uh, make war?”
He nodded.
“Did you have history-of-Earth courses?”
He smiled ruefully. “No, I couldn't qualify. Sometimes I wonder how many people do.”
“About one in twelve.”
“That's not many.”
“People in general have trouble assimilating the facts of life about their ancestors. You probably know that there used to be wars before hmmm — three hundred years ago, but do you know what war is? Can you visualize one? Can you see a fusion electric point deliberately built to explode in the middle of the city? Do you know what a concentration camp is? A limited action? You probably think murder ended with war. Well, it didn't. The last murder occurred in twenty-one something, just a hundred and sixty years ago.
“Anyone who says human nature can't be changed is out of his head. To make it stick, he's got to define human nature — and he can't. Three things gave us our present peaceful civilization, and each one was a technological change.” Sue's voice had taken on a dry, remote lecture-hall tone, like the voice on a teacher tape. “One was the development of psychistry beyond the alchemist stage. Another was the full development of land for food production. The third was the Fertility Restriction Laws and the annual contraceptive shots. They gave us room to breathe. Maybe Belt mining and the stellar colonies had something to do with it, too; they gave us an inanimate enemy. Even the historians argue about that one.
“Here's the delicate point I'm trying to nail down.” Sue rapped on the window. “Look at that spacecraft. It has enough power to move it around like a mail missile and enough fuel to move it up to our point eight light — right?”
“Right.”
“—with plenty of power left for maneuvering. It's a better ship than ours. If they've had time to learn how to build a ship like that, they've had time to build up their own versions of psychistry, modern food production, contraception, economic theory, everything they need to abolish war. See?”
Steve had to smile at her earnestness. “Sure, Sue, it makes sense. But that guy in the bar came from our culture, and he was hostile enough. If we can't understand how he thinks, how can we guess about the mind of something whose very chemical makeup we can't guess at yet?”
“It's sentient. It builds tools.”
“Right.”
“And if Jim hears you talking like this, you'll be in psychistry treatment.”
“That's the best argument you've given me,” Steve grinned, and stroked her under the ear with two fingertips. He felt her go suddenly stiff, saw the pain in her face; and at the same time his own pain struck, a real tiger of a headache, as if his brain were trying to swell beyond his skull.
“I've got them, sir,” the Telepath said blurrily. “Ask me anything.”
The Captain hurried, knowing that the Telepath couldn't stand this for long. “How do they power their ship?”
“It's a light-pressure drive powered by incomplete hydrogen fusion. They use an electromagnetic ramscoop to get their own hydrogen from space.”
“Clever… Can they get away from us?”
“No. Their drive is on idle, ready to go, but it won't help them. It's pitifully weak.”
“What kind of weapons do they have?”
The Telepath remained silent for a long time. The others waited patiently for his answer. There was sound in the control dome, but it was the kind of sound one learns not to hear: the whine of heavy current, the muted purr of voices from below, the strange sound like continuously ripping cloth which came from the gravity motors.
“None at all, sir.” The Kzin's voice became clearer; his hypnotic relaxation was broken by muscle twitches. He twisted as if in a nightmare. “Nothing aboard ship, not even a knife or a club. Wait, they've got cooking knives. But that's all they use them for. They don't fight.”
“They don't fight?”
“No, sir. They don't expect us to fight, either. The idea has occurred to three of them, and each has dismissed it from his mind.”
“But why?” the Captain asked, knowing the question was irrelevant, unable to hold it back.
“I don't know, sir. It's a science they use, or a religion. I don't understand,” the Telepath whimpered. “I don't understand at all.”
Which must be tough on him, the Captain thought. Completely alien thoughts. “What are they doing now?”
“Waiting for us to talk to them. They tried to talk to us, and they think we must be trying just as hard.”
“But why? — never mind, it's not important. Can they be killed by heat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Break contact.”
The Telepath shook his head violently. He looked like he'd been in a washing machine. The Captain touched a sensitized surface and bellowed, “Weapons Officer!”
“Here.”
“Use the inductors on the enemy ship.”
“But, sir they're so slow! What if the alien attacks?”
“Don't argue with me, you—” Snarling, the Captain delivered an impassioned monologue on the virtues of unquestioning obedience. When he switched off, the Alien Technologies Officer was back at the viewer and the Telepath had gone to sleep.
The Captain purred happily, wishing that they were all this easy.
When the occupants had been killed by heat he would take the ship. He could tell everything he needed to know about their planet by examining their life-support system. He could locate it by tracing the ship's trajectory. Probably they hadn't even taken evasive action!
If they came from a Kzin-like world it would become a Kzin world. And he, as Conquest Leader, would command one percent of its wealth for the rest of his life! Truly, the future looked rich. No longer would he be called by his profession. He would bear a name…
“Incidental information,” said the A-T Officer. “The ship was generating one and twelve sixty-fourth gee before it stopped rotating.”
“Little heavy,” the Captain mused. “Might be too much air, but it should be easy to Kzinform it. A-T, we find the strangest life forms. Remember the Chunquen?”
“Both sexes were sentient. They fought constantly.”
“And that funny religion on Altair One. They thought they could travel in time.”
“Yes, sir. When we landed the infantry they were all gone.”
“They must have all committed suicide with disintegrators. But why? They knew we only wanted slaves. And I'm still trying to figure out how they got rid of the disintegrators afterward.”
“Some beings,” said the A-T Officer, “will do anything to keep their beliefs.”
Eleven years beyond Pluto, eight years from her destination, the fourth colony ship to We Made It fell between the stars. Before her the stars were green-white and blue-white, blazing points against nascent black. Behind they were sparse, dying red embers. To the sides the constellations were strangely flattened. The universe was shorter than it had been.
For awhile Jim Davis was very busy. Everyone, including himself, had a throbbing blinding headache. To each patient, Dr. Davis handed a tiny pink pill from the dispenser slot of the huge autodoc which covered the back wall of the infirmary. They milled outside the door waiting for the pills to take effect, looking like a full-fledged mob in the narrow corridor; and then someone thought it would be a good idea to go to the lounge, and everyone followed him. It was an unusually silent mob. Nobody felt like talking while the pain was with them. Even the sound of magnetic sandals was lost in the plastic pile rug.
Steve saw Jim Davis behind him. “Hey, Doc,” he called softly. “How long before the pain stops?”
“Mine's gone away. You got your pills a little after I did, right?”