“What is ‘World War One’?” Mekkis asked. Slithering to a long low polished wood table, Marshal Koli said, “These are of a rare twentieth century plastic, injection productions which reproduced details so minutely as to be beyond compare.” As he bade an attendant to pick up a model he said, “Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to manufacture this plastic has died out. Allow me to trace the development of fighter aircraft during the First World War.” He flicked his tongue at the first model, held up to Mekkis for inspection by the assistant. “This was first true fighter, the Fokker Eindekker. One wing, you see?” He showed the wing, with its supporting struts.
“Hmm,” Mekkis said, in a neutral tone; he had been trying for a telepathic scan of the Marshal but a scramble pattern blocked the view. Nothing could be made out except a vague jumble of airplane images. Maybe, Mekkis thought, it’s not a scramble pattern; maybe that’s how he really thinks.
“The Allies had nothing to match the Fokker Eindekker I, II or III until December of 1915.”
“How,” Mekkis asked, “do they arrive at dates here?”
“It is based on the birth of Jesus Christ, the Sole Begotten Son of God.”
“The way you talk,” Mekkis said dryly, “one would think you’d gone native. Do you believe in this God business?”
Marshal Koli drew himself up to half-height, wove back and forth with dignity and said, “Sir, for the last two years living here on Terra I have been an Anglo-Catholic. I take communion once a month.” Mekkis quickly turned the conversation back to the relatively safe topic of model airplanes. New converts to these native mystery cults could sometimes wax quite fanatical. “What’s this plane here?” he asked, closing his jaws over the tail-section of a biplane.
Marshal Koli shut his eyes and said, “Would you allow my trained assistant to handle the items of this rare, even unique, collection, sir? By wousling them you cause me great mental anguish.”
“My pardons, of course.” Mekkis set the biplane down carefully, and there was not a toothmark on it.
The Marshal launched out on the subject of World War One aircraft once again, and half an hour passed before Mekkis managed to break into the flow long enough to reintroduce the topic of transfer of authority.
“Enough Marshal; I would like to take command of this bale—”
“Wait,” Koli touched a wall-stud and a section of the wall rolled aside—revealing further rows of scale model planes. “This section of my collection is devoted to the famous planes between the First and Second War. Let us intially consider the Ford Trimotor.”
The attendant, as he showed the Ford Tri-motor to Mekkis, said reverently, “He also has a complete collection of World War Two planes.”
“I—am overwhelmed,” Mekkis managed to say. Matter-of-factly, Koli continued, “I cannot of
course transfer these incredibly valuable models to Ganymede; they would be smashed beyond repair—you know the slipshod way in which our homeostatic unmanned cargo carries land.” He eyed Mekkis. “I am therefore leaving my collection, all of it, even that of the World War One fighters, to you.’’ “But,” Mekkis protested, “suppose I break one of the planes?”
“You will not,” the Marshal said quietly. And that, evidently, was that. There the subject ended.
Telepathically, Mekkis all at once detected some sort of confusion outside. “The creeches have captured someone,” he said. “Better have them bring him in.”
Koli grew pale. The beautiful pelt was now so near, yet still out of reach. “Surely it would be better to wait until—”
“If this is how you habitually act I’ll take authority as of now. Officially I have been in charge here since my arrival.” He sensed that Koli did not wish him to know of the disturbance outside. And for that reason he insisted on knowing.
“Very well,” Koli muttered.
Mekkis had lifted out a model of a 1911 pusher- type biplane when Marshal Koli returned from his errand, breathing erratically. With him appeared a Terran, a dark one, almost black. A Neeg.
“Administrator,” Koli said sharply, “in an operation put into motion by myself before you arrived to relieve me of my desk as supreme authority in the bale of Tennessee I achieved this final, all-out coup, an ensnarement bordering on the divine. Do you know who this Terran is?”
Mekkis made an attempt to tear himself awav from the scale models of antique aircraft. He found himself unable to. One—not strictly a model but a 2-D photograph, non-color—showed a flimsy, ancient plane landing on the deck of a ship; he read the Terran words beneath it and learned that this, on January 18, 1911, constituted the first landing—
Going to the far side of the office in a furious slithering of almost hoop-like rolling, Marshal Koli touched stud after stud in the cabinets there, cabinets which Mekkis had not even noticed, let alone investigated. “Ancient automobiles,” Koli said savagely. “From the 1898 Peugeot on. Hours, days; and once you finished with these there’s my scale model steam locomotive collection in office 4-A.” He turned, slithered ragingly back; Mekkis had rarely seen a fellow worm so in the grip of his thalamus. “I insist that you make official note of my capture of the leader of the Neeg-parts, Percy X, and that you certify that I am therefore the sole and unqualified owner of this quatropodia Terran entity, to do with as I want!”
Mekkis caught a thought that smacked of treason flashing through Koli’s otherwise carefully scrambled mind; Koli had wondered who, in the case of a showdown, the troops would obey, Mekkis or himself. He said aloud, “You may take full credit, Marshal. It’s clear to me that you are what is known as a collector a definite sub-variety of individual typology. Even your adoption of this obscure Terran religion could be regarded as a manifestation of the collector instinct. Let me guess, sir. You want the pelt of Percy X. For a wall-hanging. He would indeed make an attractive decoration, teeth and all—right,
Marshal? There is, on many highly masculine, fully- ripened, sexually-endowed Terran males, a vestigial covering of fur, especially on the chest region and—in other areas.”
Everyone in the room stared at him and then, in the silence, Percy X laughed. A hot, rich laugh, devoid of the slighest trace of sardonic or malicious overtones. And at the same time he grinned directly at Mekkis, and it was a personal, shockingly intimate grin; it was a creature-to-creature grin.
For the life of him Mekkis could not imagine what so delighted the captured partisan leader; he felt mystified and at the same time fascinated at an ethnic response both so unexpected and so arcane. He tried to read the human’s mind and found a perfect scramble pattern waiting for him. That could only mean that Percy X was one of those very rare types, a Terran telepath.
“Can I have him?” Koli said tensely.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Mekkis said, “I have other plans for this biped, Marshal. Plans that I’m sure you would oppose if you knew about them.” Addressing the guards he continued, “Place this captured Terran in comfortable surroundings where proper interrogation can take place. Tomorrow, when I am rested, I have various matters to talk over with him.”
As Percy X was led out the creech who had made the capture said, “Mr. Administrator, we found another Terran with him at the time of capture. A female, of the white strain—that is, of the strain ordinarily hostile to the Neeg-parts. Dermal dye-
codes and other identification make it clear that she is the well-known television personality—”
“Later.” Mekkis said, and felt weary.
“Shoot her,” Marshal Koli rasped.
“No,” Mekkis countermanded. “Place her in the custody of ” He could not remember the name of the counter-intelligence agency operating here on this colony world. “Of the customary bureaus involved,” he finished lamely.
“She’s a traitor,” Koli said. “She must be shot.”
“Koli,” Mekkis said, “contain yourself. There is an old saying here on Earth, I understand. ‘A worm which turns once can turn again,’ or something like that. The artful use of traitors is the secret of bloodless conquest, and I am not fond of violence.” He had begun thinking back to his briefing on Terran psychology. A place existed on this planet, if he recalled correctly, which the occupation forces fancifully called the “School for Wiks,” run by a Terran psychologist named Balkani. The girl could be sent there right away, and as for Percy—he would talk to him first, scan him, test him out.