The day came when Danton found himself thinking favorably of Martian women, something no Terran had succeeded in doing before. Then he knew that something drastic had to be done.
But what? He had no way of signaling for help, no way of getting off New Tahiti. He was gloomily contemplating this when a black speck appeared in the sky to seaward.
He watched as it slowly grew larger, barely able to breathe for fear it would turn out to be a bird or huge insect. But the speck continued to increase in size and soon he could see pale jets, flaring and ebbing.
A spaceship had come! He was alone no longer!
The ship took a long, slow, cautious time landing. Danton changed into his best pareu, a South Seas garment he had found peculiarly well adapted to the climate of New Tahiti. He washed, combed his hair carefully, and watched the ship descend.
It was one of the ancient Mikkelsen Drive ships. Danton had thought that all of them were long retired from active service. But this ship, it was apparent, had been traveling for a long while. The hull was dented and scored, hopelessly archaic, yet with a certain indomitable look about it. Its name, proudly lettered on the bow, was The Hutter People.
When people come in from deep space, they are usually starved for fresh food. Danton gathered a great pile of fruit for the ship’s passengers and had it tastefully arranged by the time The Hutter People had landed ponderously on the beach.
A narrow hatch opened and two men stepped out. They were armed with rifles and dressed in black from head to toe. Warily they looked around them.
Danton sprinted over. “Hey, welcome to New Tahiti! Boy, am I glad to see you folks! What’s the latest news from—”
“Stand back!” shouted one of the men. He was in his fifties, tall and impossibly gaunt, his face seamed and hard. His icy blue eyes seemed to pierce Danton like an arrow, his rifle was leveled at Danton’s chest. His partner was younger, barrel-chested, broad-faced, short, and very powerfully built.
“Something wrong?” Danton asked, stopping.
“What’s your name?”
“Edward Danton.”
“I’m Simeon Smith,” the gaunt man said, “military commander of the Hutter people. This is Jedekiah Franker, second-in-command. How come you speak English?”
“I’ve always spoken English,” said Danton. “Look, I—”
“Where are the others? Where are they hiding?”
“There aren’t any others. Just me.” Danton looked at the ship and saw the faces of men and women at every port. “I gathered this stuff for you folks.” He waved his hand at the mound of fruit. “Thought you might want some fresh goods after being so long in space.”
A pretty girl with short, tousled blonde hair appeared in the hatchway. “Can’t we come out now, Father?”
“No!” Simeon said. “It’s not safe. Get inside, Anita.”
“I’ll watch from here, then,” she said, staring at Danton with frankly curious eyes.
Danton stared back and a faint and unfamiliar tremor ran through him.
Simeon said, “We accept your offering. We will not, however, eat it.”
“Why not?” Danton reasonably wanted to know.
“Because,” said Jedekiah, “we don’t know what poisons you people might try to feed us.”
“Poisons? Look, let’s sit down and talk this over.”
“What do you think?” Jedekiah asked Simeon.
“Just what I expected,” the military leader said. “Ingratiating, fawning, undoubtedly treacherous. His people won’t show themselves. Waiting in ambush, I’ll bet. I think an object lesson would be in order.”
“Right,” said Jedekiah, grinning. “Put the fear of civilization into them.” He aimed his rifle at Danton’s chest.
“Hey!” Danton yelped, backing away.
“But, Father,” said Anita, “he hasn’t done anything yet.”
“That’s the whole point. Shoot him and he won’t do anything. The only good native is a dead native.”
“This way,” Jedekiah put in, “the rest will know we mean business.”
“It isn’t right!” Anita cried indignantly. “The Council—”
“—isn’t in command now. An alien landfall constitutes an emergency. During such times, the military is in charge. We’ll do what we think best. Remember Lan II!”
“Hold on now,” Danton said. “You’ve got this all wrong. There’s just me, no others, no reason to—”
A bullet kicked sand near his left foot. He sprinted for the protection of the jungle. Another bullet whined close and a third cut a twig near his head as he plunged into the underbrush.
“There!” he heard Simeon roar. “That ought to teach them a lesson!”
Danton kept on running until he had put half a mile of jungle between himself and the pioneer ship.
He ate a light supper of the local variety of bananas and breadfruit, and tried to figure out what was wrong with the Hutters. Were they insane? They had seen that he was an Earthman, alone and unarmed, obviously friendly. Yet they had fired at him—as an object lesson. A lesson for whom? For the dirty natives, whom they wanted to teach a lesson....
That was it! Danton nodded emphatically to himself. The Hutters must have thought he was a native, an aboriginal, and that his tribe was lurking in the bush, waiting for a chance to massacre the new arrivals! It wasn’t too rash an assumption, really. Here he was on a distant planet, without a spaceship, wearing only a loincloth and tanned a medium bronze. He was probably just what they thought a native should look like on a wilderness planet like this!
“But where,” Danton asked himself, “do they think I learned English?”
The whole thing was ridiculous. He started walking back to the ship, sure he could clear up the misunderstanding in a few minutes. But after a couple yards, he stopped.
Evening was approaching. Behind him, the sky was banked in white and gray clouds. To seaward, a deep blue haze advanced steadily on the land. The jungle was filled with ominous noises, which Danton had long ago found to be harmless. But the new arrivals might not think so.
These people were trigger-happy, he reminded himself. No sense barging in on them too fast and inviting a bullet.
So he moved cautiously through the tangled jungle growth, a silent, tawny shape blending into the jungle browns and greens. When he reached the vicinity of the ship, he crawled through the dense undergrowth until he could peer down on the sloping beach.
The pioneers had finally come out of their ship. There were several dozen men and women and a few children. All were dressed in heavy black cloth and perspiring in the heat. They had ignored his gift of local fruit. Instead, an aluminum table had been spread with the spaceship’s monotonous provisions.
On the periphery of the crowd, Danton saw several men with rifles and ammunition belts. They were evidently on guard, keeping close watch on the jungle and glancing apprehensively overhead at the darkening sky.
Simeon raised his hands. There was immediate silence.
“Friends,” the military leader orated, “we have come at last to our long-awaited home! Behold, here is a land of milk and honey, a place of bounty and abundance. Was it not worth the long voyage, the constant danger, the endless search?”
“Yes, brother!” the people responded.
Simeon held up his hands again for silence. “No civilized man has settled upon this planet. We are the first and therefore the place is ours. But there are perils, my friends! Who knows what strange monsters the jungle hides?”
“Nothing larger than a chipmunk,” Danton muttered to himself. “Why don’t they ask me? I’d tell them.”
“Who knows what leviathan swims in the deep?” Simeon continued. “We do know one thing: There is an aboriginal people here, naked and savage, undoubtedly cunning, ruthless and amoral, as aboriginals always are. Of course we must beware. We will live in peace with them, if they will let us. We will bring to them the fruits of civilization and the flowers of culture. They may profess friendship, but always remember this, friends: No one can tell what goes on in a savage heart. Their standards are not ours; their morals are not ours. We cannot trust them; we must be forever on guard. And if in doubt, we must shoot first! Remember Lan II!”