As quietly and carefully as a cat stalking a bird, he sneaked the short distance to the forest’s rim, gained it a couple of hundred yards from where he’d expected to view the crater. Walking farther along the edge of the trees, he stopped and stared at the graveyard of his ship, his attention concentrated upon it to the exclusion of all else. Many distorted hunks of metal still lay around and it was impossible to tell whether any of the junk had been removed.
Swinging his gaze to take in the total blast area, he was dumbfounded to discover three helicopters parked in line close to the trees: They were a quarter mile away, apparently unoccupied and with nobody hanging around That meant their crews must be somewhere nearby. At once he started to back into the forest, his hairs tickling with alarm. He had taken only two steps when fallen leaves crunched behind him, something hard slammed into the middle of his back and a voice spoke in harsh guttural tones.
“Smooge!” it said.
Bitterness at his own folly surged through Leeming’s soul as he turned around to face the speaker He found himself confronted by a humanoid six inches shorter than himself but almost twice as broad; a squat, Powerful creature wearing dun-coloured uniform, a metal helmet and grasping a lethal instrument recognisable as some kind of gun. This character had a scaly, lizardlike skin, horn-covered eyes and no eyelids He watched Leeming with the cold, unwinking stare of a rattlesnake.
“Smooge!” he repeated, giving a prod with the gun.
Raising his hands, Leeming offered a deceitful smile and said in fluent Cosmoglotta, “There is no need for this. I am a friend, an ally.”
It was a waste of breath. Either the other did not understand Cosmoglotta or he could recognise a thundering lie when it was offered. His reptilian face showed not the slightest change of expression, his eyes retained their blank stare as he emitted a shrill whistle. Leeming noticed that his captor performed this feat without pursing his lips, the sound apparently coming straight from the throat.
Twenty more of the enemy responded by emerging from the forest at a point near where the helicopters were stationed. Their feet made distinct thuds as they ran with the stubby, clumping gait of very heavy men Surrounding Leeming, they examined him with the same expressionless stare that lacked surprise, curiosity or any other human trait. Next they gabbled together in a language slightly reminiscent of the crazy talk he had interrupted in space.
“Let me elucidate the goose.”
“Dry up—the bostaniks all have six feet.”
“I am a friend, an ally;” informed Leeming, with suitable dignity.
This statement caused them to shut up with one accord. They gave him a mutual snake-look and then the biggest of them asked, “Snapnose?”
“I’m a Combine scout from far, far away,” asserted Leeming, swearing it upon an invisible Bible. “As such I demand to be released,”
It meant nothing whatever. Nobody smiled, nobody kissed him and it was obvious that none knew a word of Cosmoglotta. They were ill-educated types with not an officer among the lot.
“Now look here,” he began, lowering his arms.
“Smooge!” shouted his captor, making a menacing gesture with the gun.
Leeming raised his arms again and glowered at them. Now they held a brief conversation containing frequent mention of cheese and spark-plugs. It ended to their common satisfaction after which they searched him. This was done by the simple method of confiscation, taking everything in his possession including his braces.
That done, they chivvied him toward the helicopters. Perforce, he went, trudging surlily along while holding up his pants with his hands. The pants were supposed to be self-supporting, the braces having been worn out of sheer pessimism, but he had lost a good deal of weight during his space trip, his middle was somewhat reduced in circumference and he had no desire to exhibit his posterior to alien eyes.
At command he climbed into a helicopter, turned quickly to slam the door in the hope that he might be able to lock them out long enough to take to the air without getting shot. They did not give him a chance. One was following close upon his heels and was halfway through the door even as he turned. Four more piled in. The pilot took his seat, started the motor. Overhead vanes jerked, rotated slowly, speeded up.
The ’copter bounced a couple of times, left the ground, soared into the purplish sky. It did not travel far. Crossing the wide expanse of moorland and the woods beyond, it descended upon the large village that Leeming had roared over only a few days ago. Gently it landed upon a concrete square at the back of a grim-looking building that, to Leeming’s mind, resembled a military barracks or an asylum for the insane.
Here, they entered the building, hustled him along a corridor and into a stone-walled cell. They slammed and locked the heavy door in which was a small barred grille. A moment later one of them peered between the bars. “We shall bend Murgatroyd’s socks,” announced the face reassuringly.
“Thanks,” said Leeming. “Damned decent of you.”
The face went away. Leeming walked ten times around the cell before sitting on a bare wooden plank that presumably was intended to serve as both seat and bed. There was no window through which to look upon the outside world, no opening other than the door. Resting his elbows on his knees, he held his face in his hands.
God, what a chump he’d been. If only he had remained content to take from the cache all the food he could carry and get away fast. If only he had accepted the good fortune of finding the food-dump intact and been satisfied to grab and run. But no, he had to be nosey and walk right into a trap. Perhaps the nervous strain of his long journey or something peculiar about the atmosphere of this planet had made him weak-minded. Whatever the reason, he was caught and ready for the chop.
As for his future prospects; he did not care to guess at them. It was known that the Combine had taken several hundreds of prisoners, mostly settlers on outpost worlds who’d been attacked without warning. Their fate was a mystery. Rumour insisted that the various lifeforms belonging to the Combine had widely different notions of how to handle the prisoner-of-war problem and that some were less humane than others. Since nothing whatever was known about the lifeform inhabiting this particular world the tactics they favoured were a matter for speculation or, in his own case, grim experience.
It was said—with what truth nobody knew—that the Lathians, for instance, treated as bona fide prisoners-of-war only those who happened to be captured unarmed and that anyone taken while bearing a weapon was slaughtered out of hand. Also that possession of a knife was regarded as justification for immediate murder providing that the said knife came within their definition of a weapon by having a blade longer than its owner’s middle finger. This story might be ten miles wide of the facts. The space service always had been a happy hunting ground for incurable crap-mongers.
How long he sat there he did not know. They had deprived him of his watch, he could not observe the progress of the sun and had no means of estimating the time. But after a long while a guard opened the door, made an unmistakable gesture that he was to come out. He exited, found a second guard waiting in the corridor. With one in the lead and the other following, he was conducted through the building and into a large office.
The sole occupant was an autocratic specimen seated behind a desk on which was arrayed the contents of the prisoner’s pockets. Leering came to a halt before the desk, still holding up his pants. The guards positioned themselves either side of the door and manag to assume expressions of blank servility.