"Anyone home?" Victor shouted into the airlock. His voice echoed hollowly through the ship. There was no answer — only the soft hum of the generators and the rustle of grass on the plain.
"Where do you suppose they went?" Agee asked.
"For a breath of air, probably," Barnett said. "I don't suppose they'd expect any visitors."
Victor placidly sat down on the ground. Barnett and Agee prowled around the base of the ship, admiring its great drive ports.
"Think you can handle it?" Barnett asked.
"I don't see why not," Agee said. "For one thing, it's conventional drive. The servos don't matter — oxygen-breathers use similar drive-control systems. It's just a matter of time until I figure it out."
"Someone coming," Victor called.
They hurried back to the airlock. Three hundred yards from the ship was a ragged forest. A figure had just emerged from among the trees, and was walking toward them.
Agee and Victor drew their blasters simultaneously.
Barnett's binoculars resolved the tiny figure into a rectangular shape, about two feet high by a foot wide. The alien was less than two inches thick and had no head.
Barnett frowned. He had never seen a rectangle floating above tall grass.
Adjusting the binoculars, he saw that the alien was roughly humanoid. That is, it had four limbs. Two, almost hidden by the grass, were being used for walking, and the other two jutted stiffly into the air. In its middle, Barnett could just make out two tiny eyes and a mouth. The creature was not wearing any sort of suit or helmet.
"Queer-looking," Agee muttered, adjusting the aperture of his blaster. "Suppose he's all there is?"
"Hope so," Barnett said, drawing his own blaster.
"Range about two hundred yards." Agee leveled his weapon, then looked up. "Did you want to talk to him first, Captain?"
"What's there to say?" Barnett asked, smiling lazily. "Let him get a little closer, though. We don't want to miss."
Agee nodded and kept the alien steadily in his sights.
Kalen had stopped at this deserted little world hoping to blast out a few tons of erol, a mineral highly prized by the Mabogian people. He had had no luck. The unused thetnite bomb was still lodged in his body pouch, next to a stray Icerla nut. He would have to return to Mabog with ballast instead of cargo.
Well, he thought, emerging from the forest, better luck next —
He was shocked to see a thin, strangely tapered spaceship near his own. He had never expected to find anyone else on this deadly little world.
And the inhabitants were waiting in front of his own airlock! Kalen saw at once they were roughly Mabogian in form. There was a race much like them in the Mabogian Union, but their spaceships were completely different. Intuition suggested that these aliens might well be representative of that great civilization rumored to be on the periphery of the Galaxy.
He advanced eagerly to meet them.
Strange, the aliens were not moving. Why didn't they come forward to meet him? He knew that they saw him, because all three were pointing at him.
He walked faster, realizing that he knew nothing of their customs. He only hoped that they didn't run to long-drawn-out ceremonies. Even an hour on this inimical world had tired him. He was hungry, badly in need of a shower.
Something intensely cold jarred him backward. He looked around apprehensively. Was this some unknown property of the planet?
He moved forward again. Another bolt lanced into him, frosting the outer layer of his hide.
This was serious. Mabogians were among the toughest life-forms in the Galaxy, but they had their limits. Kalen looked around for the source of the trouble.
The aliens were shooting at him!
For a moment, his thinking centers refused to accept the evidence of his senses. Kalen knew what murder was. He had observed this perversity with stunned horror among certain debased animal forms. And, of course, there were the abnormal psychology books, which documented every case of premeditated murder that had occurred in the history of Mabog.
But to have such a thing actually happen to him! Kalen was unable to believe it.
Another bolt lanced into him. Kalen stood still, trying to convince himself that this was really happening. He couldn't understand how creatures with sufficient sense of cooperation to run a spaceship could be capable of murder.
Besides, they didn't even know him!
Almost too late, Kalen whirled and ran toward the forest. All three aliens were firing now and the grass around him was crackling white with frost. His skin surface was completely frosted over. Cold was something the Mabogian constitution was not designed for and the chill was creeping into his internal organs.
But he could still hardly believe it.
Kalen reached the forest and a double blast caught him as he slid behind a tree. He could feel his internal system laboring desperately to restore warmth to his body and, with profound regret, he allowed the darkness to take him.
"Stupid kind of alien," Agee observed, holstering his blaster.
"Stupid and strong," Barnett said. "But no oxygen-breather can take much of that." He grinned proudly and slapped the silver-gray side of the ship. "We'll christen her Endeavor II."
"Three cheers for the captain!" Victor cried enthusiastically.
"Save your breath," Barnett said. "You'll need it." He glanced overhead. "We've got about four hours of light left. Victor, transfer the food, oxygen and tools from Endeavor I and disarm her piles. We'll come back and salvage the old girl some day. But I want to blast off by sundown."
Victor hurried off. Barnett and Agee entered the ship.
The rear half of Endeavor II was filled with generators, engines, converters, servos, fuel and air tanks. Past that was an enormous cargo hold, occupying almost another half of the ship. It was filled with nuts of all shapes and colors, ranging in size from two inches in diameter to some twice the size of a man's head. That left only two compartments in the bow of the ship.
The first should have been a crew room, since it was the only available living space. But it was completely bare. There were no deceleration cots, no tables or chairs — nothing but polished metal floor. In the walls and ceiling were several small openings, but their purpose was not readily apparent.
Connected to this room was the pilot's compartment. It was very small, barely large enough for one man, and the panel under the observation blister was packed solidly with instruments.
"It's all yours," Barnett said. "Let's see what you can do."
Agee nodded, looked for a chair, then squatted in front of the panel. He began to study the layout.
In several hours, Victor had transferred all their stores to Endeavor II. Agee still had not touched anything. He was trying to figure out what controlled what, from the size, color, shape and location of the instruments. It wasn't easy, even accepting similar nervous systems and patterns of thought. Did the auxiliary step-up system run from left to right? If not, he would have to unlearn his previous flight coordination. Did red signify danger to the designers of this ship? If it did, that big switch could be for dumping fuel. But red could also mean hot fuel, in which case the switch might control coarse energy flow.
For all he knew, its purpose was to overload the piles in case of enemy attack.
Agee kept all this in mind as he studied the controls. He wasn't too worried. For one thing, spaceships were tough beasts, practically indestructible from the inside. For another, he believed he had caught onto the pattern.
Barnett stuck his head in the doorway, with Victor close behind him. "You ready?"