Miles stared at him.
“You mean,” said Miles at last, “he’s stronger than he looks, because of that—”
“Stronger? Some, of course.” Eff shrugged goodhumoredly. “But that’s not the point. He’s much faster, because of the gravity conditions he’s grown up with.”
“Faster?” echoed Miles.
Eff laughed.
“You don’t understand, Miles?” said the stocky alien. “Stop and think then. The stronger the gravity, the faster an object falls, say from your hand to the ground. Correct?”
“Yes,” said Miles slowly.
“Also, the faster you fall to the ground, if you get offbalance,” said Eff. “Correct?”
“Ah,” said Miles, suddenly understanding.
“I see you follow me now,” said Eff. “Standing, walking, running—almost everything we bipeds do requires maintaining our balance. And the quicker we fall when our balance is lost, the faster our reflexes have to be to take muscular action to stop us from falling. Luhon is like that—his reflexes are simply that much faster than mine… or yours. So I tell you—there’s no hope. You will never beat him!”
Miles shook his head. He did not believe that some key could not be found to defeat the slender, quick-moving, gray-skinned alien who continued—out of all those aboard the Fighting Rowboat— to ignore him.
In fact, Luhon was isolated now in the old pattern of behavior, for all the rest aboard had begun to associate with and talk to one another, regardless of rank. They did it seldom, and they did it warily, but they were doing it. Miles’ friendship with Chak’ha had first broken the ice of the pecking order. Now, slowly but undeniably, a general thaw was setting in.
The exception was Luhon. But if it bothered him to be set aside, separate within the old pattern of behavior aboard the ship, he did not show it. He spent his waking hours working with the ship’s controls, and he continued to ignore everyone aboard, Miles included. Nor could Miles notice any increase in the minimal signs that betrayed Luhon’s awareness of Miles whenever Miles got within jumping distance of the gray-skinned alien. Moreover, at the end of two weeks of study, with all the help that Eff and Chak’ha could give him, Miles had yet to find any sure counter for that inhuman swiftness of physical reflex Luhon possessed.
The best Miles could do was to plan an attack that would at least give him the advantage of choosing the time and place of battle. He could hope to get in one quick blow—and that would be all. It would need to be a crippling or knockout blow if Miles were to win at all. The best place for it to be landed, Miles thought, was the narrow and apparently soft midsection of Luhon, just above the waist. He planned his blow and rehearsed it in the privacy of the cabin he shared with Chak’ha until it was reflexive, until it was essentially automatic.
Then he stationed himself one day just within the open doorway of his cabin. Eff and Chak’ha took up their posts in the lounge.
Miles waited. It was a long wait, and he ended up sitting rather than standing, until a preliminary signal, which was Chak’ha’s own peculiar bark of laughter, alerted him to the fact that Luhon had commenced to move through the lounge headed aft. Miles got swiftly to his feet.
He stepped noiselessly to within half a step of the open doorway and listened, with ears tuned to unnatural acuteness by the tension within him. He heard the footsteps of Luhon approaching down the corridor outside the cabin. A coldness enfolded his forehead, and he knew that he had begun to sweat with anticipation. His heart beat faster. He tensed, poised—
The laugh of Chak’ha rang out again from the lounge.
Miles launched himself forward. He had a glimpse of a gray body before him, swiftly twisting away. His fist grazed a gray side. He felt the shock of a sudden heavy blow at the side of his neck. He caught himself, bounced off a corridor wall, and before he could even try to strike again, another blow somewhere on his head sent him sliding down and away into unconsciousness…
When he opened his eyes, he found he was lying on his bunk. His neck ached with an ache that seemed to penetrate across his chest and down the opposite side of his body. The faces of Eff and Chak’ha floated above him. He opened his mouth to speak, but to his surprise what came out was barely more than a whisper—and even that hurt his neck.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“What I told you would happen,” replied the voice of Eff. “He was too fast for you.”
The feeling of disillusionment and defeat closed around Miles like quicksand. He slipped back into unconsciousness.
But when he opened his eyes next, it was from sleep, and it was as if his mind had come to its own conclusion and made itself up while he slumbered. Chak’ha was not in the room, but Eff was. Miles struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed. His neck ached, and his head was dizzy. But he made it. Eff looked at him with a tolerant humor.
“Help me up,” husked Miles, even those few words sending pain up through his neck and into his head where it spread into a skullcap of headache.
Eff came forward and pulled Miles to his feet.
“There,” said Eff. “Now you’re up. But what’s the use in that? You’re just going to have to lie down again.”
“No,” whispered Miles. In him was something cold and hard as a nugget of meteoric iron flung through light-years of empty space to its destination, death at last in the fires of a sun. “Help me… walk.”
He headed toward the doorway of the room, with Eff holding one arm and guiding him. As he went, he seemed to draw strength from the very movement. He turned left down the corridor.
“Where’s Luhon?” he whispered hoarsely to Eff.
“Where he almost always is,” replied Eff, watching him curiously. “Up front by himself, in the control room.”
“Good,” husked Miles. He continued to totter on down the corridor, with Eff helping to balance him. But his strength was coming back rapidly with that near-magic return of health that was part of the Center Alien science built into the ship. By the time he was halfway across the lounge he was able to shake himself free of Eff’s sustaining grip and walk alone.
When he entered the forward corridor leading to the control room, he was striding a little in advance of Eff. The pain was still in his neck and head, but he could bear it. And the action of his muscles was coming more easily to him—which was important.
Eff caught up with him.
“What’re you going to do?” asked Eff.
“Wait and see,” answered Miles.
He went on, Eff beside him, until he reached the entrance to the control room. There, as usual, sat Luhon at the controls. But for once his fingers were not playing with them. Instead, his gaze was lifted above them to the control room’s main vision screen, which was set now on a view of intergalactic space—looking in that direction from which Miles’ implanted inner knowledge told him the Silver Horde was expected to come.
There was something lonely about the way the still, slim, gray-skinned figure sat, with its gaze fixed unmovingly on empty intergalactic space. But Miles had no time for empathy now.
Putting out a hand to stop Eff from following him beyond the open doorway, he walked forward without pausing and, when he was within range, launched himself without any attempt at trickery at the back of Luhon’s neck.
This time, when he awoke, he remembered nothing beyond that single jump forward. His neck, surprisingly, was not so painful now. But his head was one single, solid ache, as if Luhon’s retaliation this time had been all in that area. He lay awhile, waiting and hoping for the ache to diminish. But if it did so, it did so only slightly.