On a cloud-covered planet there would not be much ultraviolet and under such a forest there would be none at all. But lights could substitute. The colony could survive and feed itself. But it was very small. There were no more than two hundred individuals remaining of a race that had dotted a planet with cities.
When the humans emerged from the ship they could feel the overwhelming relief from tension the welcoming-party's report had brought Rod was led at once to the colony's head. And—holding hands absurdly—they plunged into the business before them.
For the rest the establishment of friendship and understanding was the most urgent of needs. Kit took half a dozen of the little round women into the Stellaris. She held hands and talked and they readily understood her.
They exclaimed politely over the Stellaris, but it was clear that they considered its incompletion uncivilized. Only after Kit explained the accidental and unpremeditated beginning of the voyage were they quite convinced. Then they expressed engaging sympathy.
But when they saw the loot taken from the pyramid-ship—the lustrous fabrics, and the delicately prismatic plastic-ware, and the flowers and seeming people on the other art-objects—they were fascinated.
They could not understand how people who made such things could be murderers. Then Kit explained that it was apparently loot from still another murdered race and she fairly felt the burning hatred the small people knew.
When Rod came back to the ship she was full of news.
"Rod, they're adorable!" she told him enthusiastically. "They are civilized! They are charming! I've found out about telepathy, Rod. They say that telepathy's never quite satisfactory because no two people see things exactly the same way.
"A square or a circle doesn't look quite the same to me as it does to you, Rod. So there's normally a fogginess in anything like thought-transference because you're trying to see through somebody else's eyes."
Rod nodded.
"But words do help to get thoughts into a pattern that can be transmitted," Kit went on breathlessly. "And with contact real communication is possible. When they talk and hold hands they get each other's meanings much more accurately than we do.
"Outside of that they can only pick up emotions, not thoughts. They know how you feel but not what you think. And they knew that their race was dead when they couldn't pick up any feeling of the race's emotions.
"They were able to tell when the looters were on the planet because their emotions were alien and contemptuous. But when they picked up our emotions of horror and sympathy and anger at what we saw they knew we'd come and weren't the murderers!"
"I know," said Rod tiredly. "The whole colony held hands and all of them tried to warn us about the looters but all they could do was make me jumpy. Before the battle they were trying again."
"They could only make us interested in the inner planets. After I went to sleep they were able to make me dream but they can't do more than that without physical contact and it took all of them working together to do so much."
"It's wonderful that they're able to do that much," said Kit.
"Very wonderful," said Rod in some bitterness. "They brought us here with it. But do you think we can take all of them on the Stellaris? Will our air-purifier keep them from suffocating with us if they stay on board indefinitely?"
Kit looked blank. "I don't suppose so. It's kept the air good for us."
"Fifteen people! Add two hundred more. What then?" "But they're all right here, aren't they?" "For how long?" demanded Rod. "We had one brief contact with a space-ship just out of Earth. All our other contacts have been here in this solar system. The pyramid-people murdered this race because they made a space-ship and it was only luck that this colony'd been started before they learned of it. We figured that if we stayed here those fiends would think we were survivors and not guess we came from Earth. Now there are survivors! So what happens?"
Kit shook her head. He said savagely, "Those rats hunt for us—as a colony. They find these people—a colony. They wipe them out for what we've done! I've been talking to the colony head. There's no evading it. That's in the cards."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Boarders
SHRILL twitterings down below. The voice of Joe the electrician, just coming in the air-lock. "Okay, fellas! If you can make anything outa it you're welcome! Anyhow, it's plenty hot if you can use the power."
His voice died away and the twitterings with it He was taking a group of the small round men into the engine-room, doubtless to show them the condenser-device from the pyramid-ship the Stellaris' crew had looted.
"If we hadn't turned up," said Rod, "those fiends would never have suspected that there were survivors. The colony could have gone on for centuries, building up a new civilization maybe and knowing about space-murderers and working out ways of fighting them when they dared take to space again. But we turned up. We've spoiled that idea!"
He spread out his hands. "Those rats will look for us. They'll find them. If we go away and leave these people here they'll be murdered like the rest of their race. Because of us! And we can't allow that!"
"N-naturally," said Kit distressedly. "Of course we can't. But what can we do?"
"That's what's got to be worked out," Rod told her grimly. "We can depend on the pyramid-ships coming back. And with an answer to our last trick, too!"
He felt something close to despair. There are obligations that cannot be evaded. If the Stellaris had made the race of murderers suspect the existence of a colony, where there was none, that was warfare. But to cause those murderers to search for a colony which did exist was something else. Human beings can't do that sort of thing and go off untroubled.
Joe came in, beaming. "Those little guys are pretty smart" he said contentedly. "They take that condenser that's a power-picker-up an' chirp at each other an' tell me they think they know somethin' that they can figure out that gizmo from. They say they got a hunch it's even the answer to faster-than-light travel. So they go off, cartin' it precious, to see what they see. Okay?"
Rod nodded. He sat scowling at the mass of unfilled spaces which should have been the Stellaris' instrument-board.
"Listen, Joe," he said heavily. "Those pyramid-rats have taken a licking. From us. But they can't leave it at that. They can't stay licked. They've committed so many crimes they can't stop. If any other race gets space travel and they can't wipe that race out the pyramid-people get wiped out. They know it. They can't make friends now. It's too late!"
Joe said amiably, "Those little guys won't make friends, that's sure! Maybe they got squeaky high voices but they know what hate is! They were asking me questions about the cities yonder an' the way I could tell they felt made my hair curl!"
Rod said impatiently, "What do you think the pyramid-ships will come back with? I doubt they're too smart. They made some discoveries and used them for weapons and apparently were satisfied to stop at that. Their ships are no more civilized than a pirate ship in the old days. But they've got to work out some way to handle us. What'll it be?"
Joe sat on the corner of what was intended for a navigator's table, if a navigator should ever acquire star-maps and navigating instruments. He swung one foot.
"What I'd do? Hm—we come out of other-space right in the middle of their fleet an' knock 'em off by dozens before they can slap a beam on us, an' we're gone, still fightin', before they come to—them that's left. If I had to cook up somethin' it'd be to handle a ship that turned up in my lap."