“So?”
“So,” Fannia went on, “maybe fighting is just as taboo here. Maybe they’ll offer us fuel, if we’ll just stop.”
Donnaught looked dubious, but Fannia felt it was worth a try.
* * * *
They pushed their way through the crowded city, to the entrance of the cache. The chief was waiting for them, beaming on his people like a jovial war god.
“Are you ready to do battle?” he asked. “Or to surrender?”
“Sure,” Fannia said. “Now, Donnaught!”
He swung, and his mailed fist caught Donnaught in the ribs. Donnaught blinked.
“Come on, you idiot, hit me back.”
Donnaught swung, and Fannia staggered from the force of the blow. In a second they were at it like a pair of blacksmiths, mailed blows ringing from their armored hides.
“A little lighter,” Fannia gasped, picking himself up from the ground. “You’re denting my ribs.” He belted Donnaught viciously on the helmet.
“Stop it!” the chief cried. “This is disgusting!”
“It’s working,” Fannia panted. “Now let me strangle you. I think that might do it.”
Donnaught obliged by falling to the ground. Fannia clamped both hands around Donnaught’s armored neck, and squeezed.
“Make believe you’re in agony, idiot,” he said.
Donnaught groaned and moaned as convincingly as he could.
“You must stop!” the chief screamed. “It is terrible to kill another!”
“Then let me get some fuel,” Fannia said, tightening his grip on Donnaught’s throat.
The chief thought it over for a little while. Then he shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“You are aliens. If you want to do this disgraceful thing, do it. But you shall not profane our religious relics.”
* * * *
Donnaught and Fannia staggered to their feet. Fannia was exhausted from fighting in the heavy space armor; he barely made it up.
“Now,” the chief said, “surrender at once. Take off your armor or do battle with us.”
The thousands of warriors—possibly millions, because more were arriving every second—shouted their blood-wrath. The cry was taken up on the outskirts and echoed to the hills, where more fighting men were pouring down into the crowded plain.
Fannia’s face contorted. He couldn’t give himself and Donnaught up to the Cascellans. They might be cooked at the next church supper. For a moment he considered going after the fuel and letting the damned fools suicide all they pleased.
His mind an angry blank, Fannia staggered forward and hit the chief in the face with a mailed glove.
The chief went down, and the natives backed away in horror. Quickly, the chief snapped out a knife and brought it up to his throat. Fannia’s hands closed on the chief’s wrists.
“Listen to me,” Fannia croaked. “We’re going to take that fuel. If any man makes a move—if anyone kills himself—I’ll kill your chief.”
The natives milled around uncertainly. The chief was struggling wildly in Fannia’s hands, trying to get a knife to his throat, so he could die honorably.
“Get it,” Fannia told Donnaught, “and hurry it up.”
The natives were uncertain just what to do. They had their knives poised at their throats, ready to plunge if battle was joined.
“Don’t do it,” Fannia warned. “I’ll kill the chief and then he’ll never die a warrior’s death.”
The chief was still trying to kill himself. Desperately, Fannia held on, knowing he had to keep him from suicide in order to hold the threat of death over him.
“Listen, Chief,” Fannia said, eying the uncertain crowd. “I must have your promise there’ll be no more war between us. Either I get it or I kill you.”
“Warriors!” the chief roared. “Choose a new ruler. Forget me and do battle!”
The Cascellans were still uncertain, but knives started to lift.
“If you do it,” Fannia shouted in despair, “I’ll kill your chief. I’ll kill all of you!”
That stopped them.
“I have powerful magic in my ship. I can kill every last man, and then you won’t be able to die a warrior’s death. Or get to heaven!”
The chief tried to free himself with a mighty surge that almost tore one of his arms free, but Fannia held on, pinning both arms behind his back.
“Very well,” the chief said, tears springing into his eyes. “A warrior must die by his own hand. You have won, alien.”
The crowd shouted curses as the Earthmen carried the chief and the cans of fuel back to the ship. They waved their knives and danced up and down in a frenzy of hate.
“Let’s make it fast,” Fannia said, after Donnaught had fueled the ship.
He gave the chief a push and leaped in. In a second they were in the air, heading for Thetis and the nearest bar at top speed.
The natives were hot for blood—their own. Every man of them pledged his life to wiping out the insult to their leader and god, and to their shrine.
But the aliens were gone. There was nobody to fight.
THE HOUR OF BATTLE
“That hand didn’t move, did it?” Edwardson asked, standing at the port, looking at the stars.
“No,” Morse said. He had been staring fixedly at the Attison Detector for over an hour. Now he blinked three times rapidly, and looked again. “Not a millimeter.”
“I don’t think it moved either,” Cassel added, from behind the gunfire panel. And that was that. The slender black hand of the indicator rested unwaveringly on zero. The ship’s guns were ready, their black mouths open to the stars. A steady hum filled the room. It came from the Attison Detector, and the sound was reassuring. It reinforced the fact that the Detector was attached to all the other Detectors, forming a gigantic network around Earth.
“Why in hell don’t they come?” Edwardson asked, still looking at the stars. “Why don’t they hit?”
“Aah, shut up,” Morse said. He had a tired, glum look. High on his right temple was an old radiation burn, a sunburst of pink scar tissue. From a distance it looked like a decoration.
“I just wish they’d come,” Edwardson said. He returned from the port to his chair, bending to clear the low metal ceiling. “Don’t you wish they’d come?” Edwardson had the narrow, timid face of a mouse; but a highly intelligent mouse. One that cats did well to avoid.
“Don’t you?” he repeated.
The other men didn’t answer. They had settled back to their dreams, staring hypnotically at the Detector face.
“They’ve had enough time,” Edwardson said, half to himself.
Cassel yawned and licked his lips. “Anyone want to play some gin?” he asked, stroking his beard. The beard was a memento of his undergraduate days. Cassel maintained he could store almost fifteen minutes’ worth of oxygen in its follicles. He had never stepped into space unhelmeted to prove it.
Morse looked away, and Edwardson automatically watched the indicator. This routine had been drilled into them, branded into their subconscious. They would as soon have cut their throats as leave the indicator unguarded.
“Do you think they’ll come soon?” Edwardson asked, his brown rodent’s eyes on the indicator. The men didn’t answer him. After two months together in space their conversational powers were exhausted. They weren’t interested in Cassel’s undergraduate days, or in Morse’s conquests.
They were bored to death even with their own thoughts and dreams, bored with the attack they expected momentarily.
“Just one thing I’d like to know,” Edwardson said, slipping with ease into an old conversational gambit. “How far can they do it?”
They had talked for weeks about the enemy’s telepathic range, but they always returned to it.
As professional soldiers, they couldn’t help but speculate on the enemy and his weapons. It was their shop talk.
“Well,” Morse said wearily, “Our Detector network covers the system out beyond Mars’ orbit.”