Thereafter he, left the turret and made his way to the forward manlock. It was rather high off the ground; the access ladder had automatically extruded, plunging down into the foliage that fluttered shadowy’arotind the base of the hull. Torn placed Shimself in the chamber, visible from the sky, hardly noticeable from beneath, and studied his fish more closely.
Fish: yes, indeed. In two senses.
The pilot was that youthful squadron leader with “whom he had spoken before. Tom tuned his helmet radio in on the frantic talk that went between the downed man, his companions and Karol Weyer in Sea Gate. He gathered they had no prehensile force-beams on Nike, and only vaguely inferred the existence of such things from their experience with “friends.”
Friends?-The raiders from space? Toni scowled.
But he couldn’t stoplo think beyond this moment, His notion had been, to take a man and an aircraft—the latter probably the, more highly valuea—as hostages. They’d not nuke him now. But as for what followed, he must play his cards as he drew them. At worst, he’d gotten the girls free. Perhaps he could strike some kind of bargain, though it was hard to tell why any Nikean should feel bound to keep a promise made to an outworlder. At best…
Hoy!
The canopy slid back. Tom got a look at the plane’s interior. There was room for two in the cockpit, if one scrooched and aft of the seat was a rack of—something or other, he couldn’t see what, but it didn’t seem welded in place. His pulse leaped.
The pilot emerged, in a dive flattening himself at once behinds a fallen tree. Weyer had said ther,several fruitless attempts lo get a reply from Tom: “You in the ship! You killed one of ours. Another, and your whole ship goes…Do you seize me?” (That must mean “understand?”) Next, to the flyboy: “Fish Aran, use own discretion.”
So the young man, deciding he couldn’t sit where he was.forever, was trying to reach the woods. That took nerve. Tom laid his telescope to his good—eye—his faceplate was open—and searched out details. Fiber helmet, as already noted; green tunic with cloth insignia, no metal; green trousers tucked into leather boots; a sidearm, but no indication of a portable communicator or, for that matter, a watch. Tom made sure his transmitter was off, trod a little further out in the lock chamber, and bawled from lungs that had often shouted against a gale at sea:
“Halt where you are! Or I’ll chop the legs from under you!”
The pilot had been about to scuttle from his place. He froze. Slowly, he raised his gaze. Tom’s armored shape was apparent to him, standing in the open lock, but not discernible by his mates. Likewise the blaster Tom aimed. The pilot’s hand hovered at the butt of his own weapon.
“Slack off, son,” the captain advised. “You wouldn’t come near me with that pipgun—I said ‘pip,’ not even ‘pop’—before I sizzled you. And I don’t want to. C’mon and let’s talk. That’s right; on your fept; stroll over here and use this nice ladder.”
The pilot obeyed, though his scramble across the log jam was hardly a stroll. As he started up, Tom said: “They’ll see in a minute what you’re doin’, I s’pose, when you come above the foliage… Belay, there, I can see you quite well already… I want you to draw your gun, as if you’d decided to come aboard and reconnoiter ‘stead o’ heaciin’ for the nearest beer hall. Better not try shootin’ at me, though. My friends’d cut you down.”
The Hannoan paused a moment, rigid with outrage, before he yielded. His face, approaching, showed pale and wet in the first light. He swung himself into the lock chamber. For an instant, he and Tom stood with guns almost in each other’s bellies. The spaceman’s gauntleted left hand struck like a viper, edge on, and the Nikean weapon clattered to the deck.
“You—you broke my wrist!” The pilot lurched back, clutching his arm and wheezing.
“I think not. I gauge these things pretty good if I do say so myself. And I do. March on ahead o’ me, please.” Tom conducted his prisoner into the passageway, gathering the fallen pistol en route. It was a slug-thrower, ingeniously ‘constructed with a minimum of steel. Tom found the magazine release and pressed it one-handed. The clip held ten high-caliber bullets. But what the hoo-hah! The cartridge cases were wood, the slugs appeared to be some heavy ceramic, with a mere skirt of soft metal for the rifling in the barrel to get a grip on!
“No wonder you came along meek-like,” Tom said. “You never could’ve dented me.”
The prisoner looked behind him. Footfalls echoed emptily around his words. “I think you are alone,” he said.
“Aye-ya. I told you my chums could wiff you… if they were present. In here.” Tom indicated the fire control turret “Sit yourself. Now I’m goin’ t’other side o’ this room and shuck my armor, which is too hot and heavy for informal wear. Don’t get ideas about plungin’ across the deck at me. I can snatch my blaster and take aim quicker’n that.”
The young man crouched in a chair and shuddered. His eyes moved like a trapped animal’s, around and around the crowding machines. “What do you mean to do?” he rattled. “You can’t get free. You’re alone. Soon the Engineer’s soldiers come, with ‘tillery, and ring you.”
“I know. We should be gone by then, however. Look here, uh, what’s your name?”
An aristocrat’s pride firmed the voice. “Yanos Aran, third son of Rober Aran, who’s chief computerman to Engineer Weyer’s self. I am a fish in the air force of Hanno—and you are a dirty friend!”
“Maybe so. Maybe not.” Tom stripped fast, letting the pieces lie where they fell. He hated to abandon his suit, but it was too bulky and perhaps too detectable for his latest scheme.
“Why not? Didn’t you business Evin Sato?”
“You mean that plane I gunned?”
“Yes. Evin Sato was my camarado.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that, but wasn’t he fixin’ to shoot two o’ my people? We came down frien—intendin’ no harm, and you set on us like hungry eels. I don’t want to hurt you, Yanos, lad. In fact, I hope betwixt us we can maybe settle this whole affair. But—” Tom’s features assumed their grimmest look which had terrified stronger men than Aran—“you try any fumblydiddles and you’ll find out things about friendship that your mother never told you.”
The boy seemed to crumple. “I… yes, I slave me to you,” he whispered.
He wouldn’t stay crumpled long, Tom knew. He must be the scion of a typical knightly class. Let him recover from the dismay of the past half hour and the unbalancing effect of being surrounded by unknown power and he’d prove a dangerous pet. It was necessary to use him while he remained useable.
Wherefore Tom, having peeled down to coveralls, gave him his orders in a few words. A slight demurral fetched a brutal cuff on the cheek. “And if I shoot you with this blaster, short range low intensity,” Tom added, “you won’t have a neat hole drilled through your heart. You’ll be cooked alive, medium rare, so you’ll be some days about dying. Seize me?”
He didn’t know if he’d really carry out his threat, come worst to worst. Probably not.
Having switched off the tractor beam, he brought Aran far down into the ship, to an emergency lock near the base. It was well hidden by leaves. The vague dawn-light aided concealment. They crept forth, and thence to the captured aircraft.