In the end, he concentrated his study on Eff’s waist and the lower part of his trunk. As far as he could discover, the bearlike alien had a humanlike chest, ribs, and diaphragm. There was just a chance in that fact, if Miles could catch Eff at the right spot in the ship.
He had to wait several days before that chance came. During those days he stayed close to Eff, who only by the merest flicker of an eyelid or twitch of a furry ear acknowledged the fact he was being followed. But Eff’s vigilance did not relax. In spite of this, the time came when Miles, following closely behind him, saw Eff less than two arm’s lengths away from him, turning from the corridor around a little angle into the lounge.
Miles leaped upon him from behind.
Eff had been on guard against any attack, and he was turning to face Miles even as Miles hit him. But Miles had waited for just this place to start the fight. The momentum of his charge drove the bearlike alien into the angle where two walls met, so that in falling, Eff was crowded into the corner. He went down on his side, with Miles’ leg closing about the thick waist and one furry arm. As they landed on the floor, Miles caught Eff’s remaining free arm in both hands and twisted it up behind the stocky body.
Even with his two arms against Eff’s one, he found it almost impossible to keep that other arm imprisoned. The arm caught by Miles’ legs, however, was held. Eff’s shoulder was wedged in the corner, his arm and waist imprisoned by the muscles of Miles’ interlocked legs in a scissors grip which Miles proceeded now to tighten around Eff’s waist, his left knee driving hard up into the alien’s diaphragm area just below the rib cage.
Eff struggled—but they were locked together. Miles could do no more than hold Eff’s left arm twisted up behind him while their combined weights and the scissors hold kept the other arm pinned. To the watching crew members that soon gathered in a semicircle around them, it seemed as if nothing were happening. But a great deal was happening of which only Eff and Miles were conscious.
But Miles’ left knee was continuing a steady pressure, pushing, grinding in and up against the bottom of Eff’s lungs, driving air out of them.
They lay there together in the angle of the wall, seeming barely to move. But the struggle continued—for an intolerably long time, it seemed to Miles. He could feel that the pressure of his legs was gradually shortening the breath available to Eff,but Eff did not seem weakened. Every so often he surged mightily, if without success, against the hold with which Miles was keeping him pinned.
But now Miles felt his own strength leaking away. He had only so much muscle power in his arms and legs, and that power was gradually being exhausted in keeping the heavier and stronger alien beneath him tied up. He felt himself beginning to weaken—and overdrive was not coming to his aid. He almost gave up—and then the old, familiar determination rose in him. Through the bones of his head, he heard his teeth grinding together. He would crush this enemy of his. Crush… crush…
But suddenly the gray, tranquilizing mist was rising about him. He felt his grip slackening, he felt his combat fury ebbing away from him. For a second he was dumbfounded, disbelieving. He had not yet lost. Why was the invisible protective device of the ship stopping the battle? It was not fair…
The gray mist rose inexorably around him.
9
For one wild moment he tried to fight mist and Eff at once.
Then, with the last flicker of conscious thought left to him before the tranquilizing effect stole all feeling from him, understanding woke in him. He realized suddenly that it must be the other way around—that he must have brought Eff to the point of suffocation and unconsciousness, where the tranquilizing effect needed to exert itself to save the rotund alien’s life. Miles had won.
This time the tranquilizing effect lifted swiftly. It pulled away from both him and his opponent while they were still lying on the floor of the lounge. Miles pushed away the hands that were trying to lift him and got to his feet unaided. Opposite him, he saw Eff also getting to his feet. The bearlike alien’s face opened in a grimace that would never have been recognizable as a smile if the outwash of emotion from the other had not confirmed that a smile was intended. The furry chest was heaving for air, and Eff’s words came out in short gasps; but there was a cheerfulness to them that Miles had not yet encountered in any of the aliens aboard whom he had conquered.
“Better… than I am,” panted Eff. “Now what? I’ve been wanting to know what you’ve been after… ever since you started fighting your way up to my position on the ship.”
Still gasping for air himself, Miles stared at Eff. With the exception of Chak’ha, he had found no crew member desirous or capable enough of friendship to meet him on a level basis after he had conquered him. Invariably the other had assumed the subordinate position.
But apparently, with Eff, being conquered physically did not mean that his soul had been dominated. This was a good sign for the success of the plan in the back of Miles’ mind.
“I’ll tell you what I’m after,” Miles replied, “after I’ve beaten Luhon.”
Around them the other crew members who had been spectators were drifting off. Only Chak’ha remained. Eff glanced at the tiger-faced alien for a second, then back to Miles.
“You’ll never beat Luhon,” Eff said.
“Yes, I will,” said Miles. “I have to. So I’ll manage it somehow.”
Eff shook his head again, if amiably. His breathing was slowing to a normal rate.
“You’ll never beat Luhon,” he repeated, not didactically or stubbornly, but in the calm tone of somebody who patiently states to a child or someone of simple intelligence.
“Believe what you like,” said Miles. He hesitated, then took a long chance—a chance he had taken with no one so far except Chak’ha. “How about helping me?”
Eff looked him frankly in the face.
“I won’t help you fight him,” answered Eff. “But outside of that, I’ll help you with anything reasonable.”
“That’s all I ask,” said Miles.
Eff grinned more widely. Chak’ha moved in until he stood close to both of them, and the aura of emotion that Miles sensed around all three of them seemed to flow together into one unit of mutual understanding.
From that point on began Miles’ first days of anything like comradeship aboard the small vessel.
At first Miles had half expected Chak’ha to resent the sudden inclusion of Eff into what had been a two-way partnership. But he had forgotten that Eff had been high in the pecking order, while Chak’ha had been at the bottom. Chak’ha made no attempt to compete with Eff for Miles’ friendship. In fact, as Miles discovered, it would have been hard for anyone to resent Eff.
Once he had opened up to the two of them, the bearlike alien turned out to own a warmth of character closer to human warmth than Miles had found otherwise aboard the ship. Eff was an extrovert. He was frank and—except for his belief that Luhon was unconquerable—apparently daunted by nothing, even including the Center Aliens. Amused by Miles’ determination to attempt the apparently hopeless task of fighting Luhon but fascinated by it, he joined happily in helping Miles study Luhon.
“I tell you,” Miles kept insisting to him stubbornly, “Luhon has to have a weak spot! Any organism, by its very nature, has to have drawbacks as well as advantages.”
“To be sure, he has to have weak spots,” replied Eff shrewdly. “But are they weak spots that you have strong spots to correspond with? Luhon’s simply too fast for you. He’s too fast for any of us aboard here. He’s from a heavy world—one where the gravity is much more than any of us is used to.”