He turned his head and saw Chak’ha and Eff watching him. Painfully, once more he struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed. Neither of the others came forward to help him.
Rage suddenly flooded through him—not rage at Luhon, but rage at the two who stood watching.
“Come here!” he croaked hoarsely. “Help me!”
It was not a request he was making of them. It was an order. And there was enough of the old pecking order pattern left in them that both came to him and helped him to his feet. For a moment his head reeled, and the room seemed to spin and sway around him. Then his gaze and sense of balance settled.
He turned toward the doorway of the room.
“To Luhon,” he said hoarsely. There was a moment’s hesitation on the part of the other two aliens. Then, silently, they each took an elbow and guided him out into the corridor and once more toward the front of the vessel.
This time, as he walked through the lounge—which now was filled with silent, watching crewmen in all their various alien shapes and expressions of feature—recovery was slow in coming to him. But come it did. By the time he was halfway down the corridor toward the control room he was once more walking without assistance.
He made it to the entrance of the control room and there paused. Because this time, evidently alerted by the sound of footsteps approaching, Luhon had turned about in his chair and was facing the doorway. His eyes met the eyes of Miles plainly this time, and for the first time without any pretense of avoidance.
Luhon’s face, insofar as six weeks had taught Miles to interpret the gray-skinned alien’s features, wore a look of puzzlement. He stared searchingly at Miles in the doorway.
Miles launched himself forward in a tottering rush, his hands outstretched to grab the throat of the other.
But before his hands closed around the gray throat, Luhon was no longer before him. Miles found himself seized and swung about. He was pinned, with his back against the slanting face of one of the control consoles. With ease, Luhon held him helpless there, and the gray-skinned face looked down into Miles’ from a distance of a few inches.
“What do you want?” asked Luhon.
It was the first time that Miles had heard the voice of the other. It was a soft, low-pitched voice, a strange voice to belong to someone who had outfought everyone else aboard this vessel. And it, together with the emotions that Miles felt emanating from Luhon, was deep-stained with puzzlement.
“I want”—Miles’ voice was almost too husky to be understandable—“to fight the Silver Horde.”
For a long moment Luhon’s gray features continued to look down into Miles’ face. Then Miles felt the grip that was holding him pinioned against the console released. Luhon stood back from him, a slight, slim figure—not only in contrast with Miles, but also with Eff and Chak’ha, who now filled the control room doorway behind the ship’s champion.
“You want to fight the Silver Horde?” echoed Luhon in his soft voice. His eyes traveled up and down Miles. “So do I. But, a great deal better than you, I know how impossible a hope that is.”
10
Miles slowly straightened up. He rubbed his aching head with a forefinger and tried to clear the hoarse vocal cords of his painful throat.
“You’re wrong,” he answered Luhon.
“No,” said Luhon evenly.
“Yes,” said Miles. His weary legs began to tremble, and he sat down in the control seat Luhon had just vacated. “Do you know what I did the first day I was here? I looked around the ship, and then I looked around the platform. And then I took that small courier ship from its cradle on the platform and went in it up the line toward the big ships where the Center Aliens are.”
Luhon’s pointed ears suddenly pricked and turned forward toward Miles.
“You went in and saw the Center Aliens?” he asked.
“I didn’t get as far as I’d planned to go,” said Miles. “All of a sudden I found one of them sitting beside me, and he turned the ship around and brought it back. But he answered my questions. He told me why this ship is never intended to fight the Silver Horde. He told me he only wants us for feedback purposes on the total weapons of the total battle line, if it comes to fighting. He told me that one of them is worth more than all twenty-three of us in this ship put together.”
Miles stopped talking. Luhon stared at him for a long moment.
“You took that little boat,” said Luhon, almost wonderingly. “And you went in—you tried to get in up to where the Center Aliens are. You did that?”
“None of you ever did anything like that, is that it?” he demanded suddenly of Luhon.
Luhon made the negative gesture of his race. It was only a slight twisting of his upper body, but the aura of emotion around him carried the meaning behind it clearly to Miles’ emotional sensitivity.
“But you asked him,” said Luhon, staring brilliantly at Miles. “And he gave you the answers.”
“Yes,” said Miles. He struggled to his feet. “Only, I don’t believe him. I don’t agree with him. I think we can fight the Silver Horde—in this ship, the twenty-three of us, working her alongside all the other ships that go out to fight the Horde when the time comes.”
Once more Luhon looked at him for what seemed a long time. Then he made a negative twist of his body again; only this time there was something like a shrug in it.
“So you believe that?” demanded the gray-skinned alien. “And that’s why you fought your way up to just below me? You wanted to take over this ship to make it into something that could fight the Silver Horde?”
“That’s right,” said Miles. He added, brutally. “None of the rest of you seemed to have the guts for it.”
He tensed, bracing himself for a sudden attack by Luhon.
But the gray-skinned alien only stared at him for a moment longer, then turned half around so that he had both Eff and Chak’ha in the doorway within his field of vision as well as Miles. Then he took a step backward.
“I didn’t believe we could fight the Silver Horde,” he said. His eyes fastened brilliantly on Miles. “I still don’t. Also, I know that you could never beat me, no matter how many times you try. Do you understand that?”
Miles shook his head.
“No,” he said. “You can’t kill me. So in the end I’ll beat you. No matter how long it takes or how many times I have to try.”
Once more, Luhon made that body-twisting movement of negation. But this time it was nearly all shrug.
“You can’t beat me, but you’ll keep on trying,” he said, almost to himself. “You’ll keep attacking me until you win, you say. And we all know you can’t make this ship into a fighting vessel which the Center Aliens will let go against the Silver Horde when it comes. But you say you’ll keep trying until you do.”
He took another step back. He looked at Miles, and once more Miles braced himself for a lightning attack. But no attack came.
“All right, then, in that case,” said Luhon, “I am defeated.”
Miles stared at him. It seemed too sudden, too easy a victory. What had been, dimly but certainly, in the back of his mind was that he would keep on attacking Luhon until he exhausted the other. He had hoped only to be able to bother the gray-skinned alien until Luhon would buy peace at the price of stepping down from the number one position. This sudden admission of defeat made Miles cautious.
“Just like that?” he said, narrowly watching Luhon. “Why?
“Because,” answered Luhon softly, “I did not take the little boat and try to talk to the Center Aliens. Because I did not plan to fight my way up to the top in this ship for any purpose other than to be on top. Because I, even now, don’t believe you can make this ship into something that will go out to fight the Silver Horde. But most of all, because I want to fight the Silver Horde as much as you do.”