He was glad. In the silence of the ruined ship he lay buried beneath the debris, gratefully watching the growing bulk. It was a beautiful sight. He had wanted to see it for a long time. There it was, coming closer each moment. In a day or two the ship would plunge into the fiery mass and be consumed. But he could enjoy this interval; there was nothing to disturb his happiness -- He thought about Sally, sound asleep under the radiant-lens. Would Sally have liked Proxima? Probably not. Probably she would have wanted to go back home as soon as possible. This was something he had to enjoy alone. This was for him only. A vast peace descended over him. He could lie here without stirring, and the flaming magnificence would come nearer and nearer...
A sound. From the heaps of fused wreckage something was rising. A twisted, dented shape dimly visible in the flickering glare of the viewscreen. Morris managed to turn his head.
The fasrad staggered to a standing position. Most of its trunk was gone, smashed and broken away. It tottered, then pitched forward on its face with a grinding crash. Slowly it inched its way toward him, then settled to a dismal halt a few feet off. Gears whirred creakily. Relays popped open and shut. Vague, aimless life animated its devastated hulk.
"Good evening," its shrill, metallic voice grated.
Morris screamed. He tried to move his body but the ruined beams held him tight. He shrieked and shouted and tried to crawl away from it. He spat and wailed and wept.
"I would like to show you a fasrad," the metallic voice continued. "Would you call your wife, please? I would like to show her a fasrad, too."
"Get away!" Morris screamed. "Get away from me!"
"Good evening," the fasrad continued, like a broken tape. "Good evening. Please be seated. I am happy to meet you. What is your name? Thank you. You are the first persons in your neighborhood to see the fasrad. Where are you employed?"
Its dead eye-lenses gaped at him empty and vacant.
"Please be seated," it said again. "This will take only a second. Only a second. This demonstration will take only a --"
Shell Game
A sound awoke O'Keefe instantly. He threw back his covers, slid from the cot, grabbed his B-pistol from the wall and, with his foot, smashed the alarm box. High frequency waves tripped emergency bells throughout the camp. As O'Keefe burst from his house, lights already flickered on every side.
"Where?" Fisher demanded shrilly. He appeared beside O'Keefe, still in his pajamas, grubby-faced with sleep.
"Over to the right." O'Keefe leaped aside for a massive cannon being rolled from its underground storage-chambers. Soldiers were appearing among the night-clad figures. To the right lay the black bog of mists and obese foliage, ferns and pulpy onions, sunk in the half-liquid ooze that made up the surface of Betelgeuse II. Nocturnal phosphorescence danced and flitted over the bog, ghostly yellow lights snapped in the thick darkness.
"I figure," Horstokowski said, "they came in close to the road, but not actually on it. There's a shoulder fifty feet on each side, where the bog has piled up. That's why our radar's silent."
An immense mechanical fusing "bug" was eating its way into the mud and shifting water of the bog, leaving behind a trail of hard, smoked surface. The vegetation and the rotting roots and dead leaves were sucked up and efficiently cleared away.
"What did you see?" Portbane asked O'Keefe.
"I didn't see anything. I was sound asleep. But I heard them."
"Doing what?'
"They were getting ready to pump nerve gas into my house. I heard them unreeling the hose from portable drums and uncapping the pressure tanks. But, by God, I was out of the house before they could get the joints leak-tight!"
Daniels hurried up. "You say it's a gas attack?" He fumbled for the gas mask at his belt. "Don't stand there -- get your masks on!"
"They didn't get their equipment going," Silberman said. "O'Keefe gave the alarm in time. They retreated back to the bog."
"You're sure?" Daniels demanded.
"You don't smell anything, do you?"
"No," Daniels admitted. "But the odorless type is the most deadly. And you don't know you've been gassed till it's too late." He put on his gas mask, just to be sure.
A few women appeared by the rows of houses -- slim, large-eyed shapes in the flickering glare of the emergency searchlights. Some children crept cautiously after them.
Silberman and Horstokowski moved over in the shadows by the heavy cannon.
"Interesting," Horstokowski said. "Third gas attack this month. Plus two tries to wire bomb terminals within the camp site. They're stepping it up."
"You have it all figured out, don't you?"
"I don't have to wait for the composite to see we're getting it heavier all the time." Horstokowski peered warily around, then pulled Silberman close. "Maybe there's a reason why the radar screen didn't react. It's supposed to get everything, even knocker-bats."
"But if they came in along the shoulder, like you said --"
"I just said that as a plant. There's somebody waving them in, setting up interference for the radar."
"You mean one of us?"
Horstokowski was intently watching Fisher through the moist night gloom. Fisher had moved carefully to the edge of the road, where the hard surface ended and the slimy, scorched bog began. He was squatting down and rooting in the ooze.
"What's he doing?" Horstokowski demanded.
"Picking up something," Silberman said indifferently. "Why not? He's supposed to be looking around, isn't he?"
"Watch," Horstokowski warned. "When he comes back, he's going to pretend nothing happened."
Presently, Fisher returned, walking rapidly and rubbing the muck from his hands.
Horstokowski intercepted him. "What'd you find?"
"Me?" Fisher blinked. "I didn't find anything."
"Don't kid me! You were down on your hands and knees, grubbing in the bog."
"I -- thought I saw something metal, that's all."
A vast inner excitement radiated through Horstokowski. He had been right.
"Come on!" he shouted. "What'd you find?"
"I thought it was a gas pipe," Fisher muttered. "But it was only a root. A big, wet root."
There was a tense silence.
"Search him," Portbane ordered.
Two soldiers grabbed Fisher. Silberman and Daniels quickly searched him.
They spilled out his belt pistol, knife, emergency whistle, automatic relay checker, Geiger counter, pulse tab, medical kit and identification papers. There was nothing else.
The soldiers let him go, disappointed, and Fisher sullenly collected his things.
"No, he didn't find anything," Portbane stated. "Sorry, Fisher. We have to be careful. We have to watch all the time, as long as they're out there, plotting and conspiring against us."
Silberman and Horstokowski exchanged glances, then moved quietly away.
"I think I get it," Silberman said softly.
"Sure," Horstokowski answered. "He hid something. We'll dig up that section of bog he was poking around in. I think maybe well find something interesting." He hunched his shoulders combatively. "I knew somebody was working for them, here in the camp. A spy for Terra."
Silberman started. "Terra? Is that who's attacking us?"
"Of course that's who."
There was a puzzled look on Silberman's face.
"Seemed to me we're fighting somebody else."
Horstokowski was outraged.