Mary had walked west on the highway with the downy young naval officer while I was examining the corpse. The notion of a slug, possibly still alive, being around caused me to hurry to her. "Get back into the car," I said.
She continued to look west along the road. "I thought I might get in a shot or two," she answered, her eyes bright.
"She's safe here," the youngster assured me. "We're holding them, well down the road."
I ignored him. "Listen, you bloodthirsty little hellion," I snapped, "get back in that car before I break every bone in your body!"
"Yes, Sam." She turned and did so.
I looked back at the young salt. "What are you staring at?" I demanded, feeling edgy and needing someone to take it out on. The place smelled of slugs and the wait was making me nervous.
"Nothing much," he said, looking me over. "In my part of the country we don't speak to ladies that way."
"Then why in the hell don't you go back where you come from?" I answered and stalked away. The Old Man was missing, too; I did not like it.
An ambulance, coming back from the west, ground to a halt beside me. "Has the road to Pascagoula been opened?" the driver called out.
The Pascagoula River, thirty miles or so east of where the saucer had landed, was roughly "Zone Amber" for that area; the town of that name was east of the river's mouth and, nominally at least, in Zone Green-while sixty or seventy miles west of us on the same road was New Orleans, the heaviest concentration of titans south of St. Louis. Our opposition came from New Orleans while our nearest base was in Mobile.
"I haven't heard," I told the driver.
He chewed a knuckle. "Well . . . I made it through once; maybe I'll make it back all right." His turbines whined and he was away. I continued to look for the Old Man.
Although the ground fighting had moved away from the site, the air fighting was all around and above us. I was watching the vapor trails and trying to figure out who was what and how they could tell, when a big transport streaked into the area, put on the brakes with a burst of rato units, and spilled a platoon of sky boys. Again I wondered; it was too far away to tell whether they wore slugs or not. At least it came in from the east, but that did not necessarily prove anything.
I spotted the Old Man, talking with the commander of the landing force. I went up and interrupted. "We ought to get out of here, boss. This place is due to be atom-bombed about ten minutes ago."
The commander answered me. "Relax," he said blandly, "the concentration does not merit A-bombing, not even a pony bomb."
I was just about to ask him sharply how he knew that the slugs would figure it that way, when the Old Man interrupted. "He's right, son." He took me by the arm and walked me back toward the car. "He's perfectly right, but for the wrong reasons."
"Huh?"
"Why haven't we bombed the cities they hold? They won't bomb this area, not while that ship is intact. They don't want to damage it; they want it back. Now go on back to Mary. Dogs and strange men-remember?"
I shut up, unconvinced. I expected us all to be clicks in a Geiger counter any second. Slugs, fighting as individuals, fought with gamecock recklessness-perhaps because they were really not individuals. Why should they be any more cautious about one of their own ships? They might be more anxious to keep it out of our hands than to save it.
We had just reached the car and spoken to Mary when the still-damp little snottie came trotting up. He halted, caught his breath, and saluted the Old Man. "The commander says that you are to have anything you want, sir-anything at all!"
From his manner I gathered that the answering dispatch had probably been spelled out in asterisks, accompanied by ruffles and flourishes. "Thank you, sir," the Old Man said mildly. "We merely want to inspect the captured ship."
"Yes, sir. Come with me, sir." He came with us instead, having difficulty making up his mind whether to escort the Old Man or Mary. Mary won. I came along behind, keeping my mind on watching out and ignoring the presence of the youngster. The country on that coast, unless gardened constantly, is practically jungle; the saucer lapped over into a brake of that sort and the Old Man took a shortcut through it. The kid said to him. "Watch out, sir. Mind where you step."
I said, "Slugs?"
He shook his head. "Coral snakes."
At that point a poisonous snake would have seemed as pleasant as a honey bee, but I must have been paying some attention to his warning for I was looking down when the next thing happened.
I first heard a shout. Then so help me, a Bengal tiger was charging us.
Probably Mary got in the first shot. I know that mine was not behind that of the young officer; it might even have been ahead. I'm sure it was-fairly sure, anyhow. It was the Old Man who shot last.
Among the four of us we cut that beast so many ways that it would never be worth anything as a rug. And yet the slug on it was untouched; I fried it with my second bolt. The young fellow looked at it without surprise. "Well," he said, "I thought we had cleaned up that load."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"One of the first transport tanks they sent out. Regular Noah's Ark. We were shooting everything from gorillas to polar bears. Say, did you ever have a water buffalo come at you?"
"No and I don't want to."
"Not near as bad as the dogs, really. If you ask me, those things don't have much sense." He looked at the slug, quite unmoved, while I was ready as usual to throw up.
We got up out of there fast and onto the titan ship-which did not make me less nervous, but more. Not that there was anything frightening in the ship itself, not in its appearance.
But its appearance wasn't right. While it was obviously artificial, one knew without being told that it was not made by men. Why? I don't know. The surface of it was dull mirror, not a mark on it-not any sort of a mark; there was no way to tell how it had been put together. It was as smooth as a Jo block.
I could not tell of what it was made. Metal? Of course, it had to be metal. But was it? You would expect it to be either bitterly cold-or possibly intensely hot from its landing. I touched it and it was not anything at all, neither cold nor hot. Don't tell me it just happened to be exactly ninety-eight and six-tenths. I noticed another thing presently; a ship that size, landing at high speed, should have blasted a couple of acres. There was no blast area at all; the brake around it was green and rank.
We went up to the parasol business, the air lock, if that is what it was. The edge was jammed down tight on the little mud turtle; the armor of the tank was crushed in, as one might crush a pasteboard box with the hand. Those mud turtles are built to launch five hundred feet deep in water; they are strong.
Well, I suppose this one was strong. The parasol arrangement had damaged it, but the air lock had not closed. On the other hand the metal, or whatever the spaceship's door was made of, was unmarked by the exchange.
The Old Man turned to me. "Wait here with Mary."
"You're not going in there by yourself?"
"Yes. There may be very little time."
The kid spoke up. "I'm to stay with you, sir. That's what the commander said."
"Very well, sir," the Old Man agreed. "Come along." He peered over the edge, then knelt and lowered himself by his hands. The kid followed him. I felt burned up-but had no desire to argue the arrangements.
They disappeared into the hole. Mary turned to me and said, "Sam-I don't like this. I'm afraid."
She startled me. I was afraid myself-but I had not expected her to be. "I'll take care of you."