One of the eyes was now cocked squarely at Windham, who quivered uncomfortably under the glance, but insisted, “You have no right to hold us prisoner. We are noncombatants.”
The Kloro’s voice, sounding thoroughly artificial, came from a small attachment of chromium mesh on what served as its chest. The voice box was manipulated by compressed air under the control of one or two of the many delicate, forked tendrils that radiated from two circles about its upper body and were, mercifully enough, hidden by the suit.
The voice said, “Are you serious, Earthman? Surely you have heard of war and rules of war and prisoners of war.”
It looked about, shifting eyes with quick jerks of its head, staring at a particular object first with one, then with another. It was Stuart’s understanding that each eye transferred a separate message to the abdominal brain, which had to coordinate the two to obtain full information.
Windham had nothing to say. No one had. The Kloro, its four main limbs, roughly arms and legs in pairs, had a vaguely human appearance under the masking of the suit, if you looked no higher than its chest, but there was no way of telling what it felt.
They watched it turn and leave.
Porter coughed and said in a strangled voice, “God, smell that chlorine. If they don’t do something, we’ll all die of rotted lungs.”
Stuart said, “Shut up. There isn’t enough chlorine in the air to make a mosquito sneeze, and what there is will be swept out in two minutes. Besides, a little chlorine is good for you. It may kill your cold virus.”
Windham coughed and said, “Stuart, I feel that you might have said something to your Kloro friend about releasing us. You are scarcely as bold in their presence, dash it, as you are once they are gone.”
“You heard what the creature said, Colonel. We’re prisoners of war, and prisoner exchanges are negotiated by diplomats. We’ll just have to wait.”
Leblanc, who had turned pasty white at the entrance of the Kloro, rose and hurried into the privy. There was the sound of retching.
An uncomfortable silence fell while Stuart tried to think of something to say to cover the unpleasant sound. Mullen filled in. He had rummaged through a little box he had taken from under his pillow.
He said, “Perhaps Mr. Leblanc had better take a sedative before retiring. I have a few. I’d be glad to give him one.” He explained his generosity immediately, “Otherwise he may keep the rest of us awake, you see.”
“Very logical,” said Stuart, dryly. “You’d better save one for Sir Launcelot here; save half a dozen.” He walked to where Polyorketes still sprawled and knelt at his side. “Comfortable, baby?”
Windham said, “Deuced poor taste speaking like that, Stuart.”
“Well, if you’re so concerned about him, why don’t you and Porter hoist him onto his cot?”
He helped them do so. Polyorketes’ arms were trembling erratically now. From what Stuart knew of the Kloro’s nerve weapons, the man should be in an agony of pins and needles about now.
Stuart said, “And don’t be too gentle with him, either. The damned fool might have gotten us all killed. And for what?”
He pushed Polyorketes’ stiff carcass to one side and sat at the edge of the cot. He said, “Can you hear me, Polyorketes?”
Polyorketes’ eyes gleamed. An arm lifted abortively and fell back.
“Okay then, listen. Don’t try anything like that again. The next time it may be the finish for all of us. If you had been a Kloro and he had been an Earthman, we’d be dead now. So just get one thing through your skull. We’re sorry about your brother and it’s a rotten shame, but it was his own fault.”
Polyorketes tried to heave and Stuart pushed him back.
“No, you keep on listening,” he said. “Maybe this is the only time I’ll get to talk to you when you have to listen. Your brother had no right leaving passenger’s quarters. There was no place for him to go. He just got in the way of our own men. We don’t even know for certain that it was a Kloro gun that killed him. It might have been one of our own.”
“Oh, I say, Stuart,” objected Windham.
Stuart whirled at him. “Do you have proof it wasn’t? Did you see the shot? Could you tell from what was left of the body whether it was Kloro energy or Earth energy?”
Polyorketes found his voice, driving his unwilling tongue into a fuzzy verbal snarl. “Damned stinking greenie bastard.”
“Me?” said Stuart. “I know what’s going on in your mind, Polyorketes. You think that1 when the paralysis wears off, you’ll ease your feelings by slamming me around. Well, if you do, it will probably be curtains for all of us.”
He rose, put his back against the wall. For the moment, he was fighting all of them. “None of you know the Kloros the way I do. The physical differences you see are not important. The differences in their temperament are. They don’t understand our views on sex, for instance. To them, it’s just a biological reflex like breathing. They attach no importance to it. But they do attach importance to social groupings. Remember, their evolutionary ancestors had lots in common with our insects. They always assume that any group of Earthmen they find together makes up a social unit.
“That means just about everything to them. I don’t understand exactly what it means. No Earthman can. But the result is that they never break up a group, just as we don’t separate a mother and her children if we can help it. One of the reasons they may be treating us with kid gloves right now is that they imagine we’re all broken up over the fact that they killed one of us, and they feel guilt about it.
“But this is what you’ll have to remember. We’re going to be interned together and kept together for duration. I don’t like the thought. I wouldn’t have picked any of you for co-internees and I’m pretty sure none of you would have picked me. But there it is. The Kloros could never understand that our being together on the ship is only accidental.
“That means we’ve got to get along somehow. That’s not just goodie-goodie talk about birds in their little nest agreeing. What do you think would have happened if the Kloros had come in earlier and found Polyorketes and myself trying to kill each other? You don’t know? Well, what do you suppose you would think of a mother you caught trying to kill her children?
“That’s it, then. They would have killed every one of us as a bunch of Kloro-type perverts and monsters. Got that? How about you, Polyorketes? Have you got it? So let’s call names if we have to, but let’s keep our hands to ourselves. And now, if none of you mind, I’ll massage my hands back into shape-these synthetic hands that I got from the Kloros and that one of my own kind tried to mangle again.”
For Claude Leblanc, the worst was over. He had been sick enough; sick with many things; but sick most of all over having ever left Earth. It had been a great thing to go to college off Earth. It had been an adventure and had taken him away from his mother. Somehow, he had been sneakingly glad to make that escape after the first month of frightened adjustment.
And then on the summer holidays, he had been no longer Claude, the shy-spoken scholar, but Leblanc, space traveler. He had swaggered the fact for all it was worth. It made him feel such a man to talk of stars and Jumps and the customs and environments of other worlds; it had given him corkage with Margaret. She had loved him for the dangers he had undergone-